SECOND THOUGHTS AND LAST WORDS.
Dr. and Mrs. Millar could make no objection to Dr. Harry Ironside as a
suitor for their daughter. It was all the other way. They were highly
satisfied with the young man's antecedents and credentials, and yet Dr.
Millar was a good deal taken aback. He had grown to look on nursing as a
career for Annie, and to take pride in her excellence in it, as he would
have done had she been his son and a young doctor. He could not help
feeling as if marriage interfered a little with his views for her. He
had to recall that Ironside was a very fine young fellow, with a
commendable spirit of inquiry in medical matters. He would do credit to
his profession, and Annie, especially if she went with him to a new
colony, might work in his company, and be his right hand.
Mrs. Millar had too much good sense and womanly experience to approve of
long engagements, and she did not like the chance of Annie's going to
Africa--still she would fulfil what Mrs. Millar considered the highest
and happiest destiny for a woman, that of becoming the wife of a worthy
man. As to Africa, the little Doctor, a fixture in his chair, told her,
"My dear Maria, we shall simply be giving hostages to Providence, for
man was told to occupy the earth, and carry civilization and redemption
to its utmost bounds."
To spare Annie's feelings, her relations kept her engagement and their
laughter well in the background, while Dr. Harry Ironside, having probed
the Russian fever to the bottom, and seen nearly the last of it,
returned in triumph to London, to make arrangements for his medical
mission.
As for Annie, in her eagerness to escape from the rallying she had
provoked, she talked incessantly about going back to St. Ebbe's, where,
however, she was not yet due. A longer leave of absence had been granted
to her, in consideration of the fact that her holiday had been mainly
spent in hard work in the impromptu hospital at Redcross. She would not
have accepted the additional grant apart from the circumstance that
Harry Ironside was in London. Annie admitted to herself, in the secret
recesses of her heart, that now it had come to this, she would fain have
passed these last precious weeks near her young lover. But she would not
consent to give occasion to Rose, or any other person--not even to
Harry Ironside himself--to think or say that she, Annie Millar, was
already not able to live without him. Annie's wings might be clipped,
but she would be Annie proud and "plucky" to the last; and her lover,
instinctively knowing her to be true as steel, loved her the better
because of her regard for what she considered his credit as well as her
own. The pride was only skin deep; the pluck was part of the heroic
element in Annie.
Rose had been delayed in her work. She had not found it in her heart to
walk about taking sketches when the good friend who had so much to do
with the commission was little likely to see its completion. But when
Tom Robinson could sit up, walk into the next room, and go back to his
own house, she felt at liberty to set about her delightful business, in
which her father took so keen an interest. She lost no time in starting
every fine day in pursuit of the selected views, to put them on canvas
while their autumnal hues were still but tinges of red, russet, and
gold.
Rose was mostly waited on by May, who took much satisfaction in helping
to carry and set up the artist's apparatus, feeling, as she said, that
she was part of a painter when she did so.
Dora had been with Rose, May, and Tray at a pretty reach of the Dewes.
The elder sister was returning alone, along the path between the elms
by the river, near the place where Tom Robinson had come to Tray's
rescue, when she met him face to face. He was taking what
"constitutional" he was able for, and enjoying the light breeze which
was rippling the river, just as it rippled the ripe corn and fanned the
hot brows of the men who were working the corn machine in the field
beyond.
Dora had seen and spoken to him several times since his illness, but
there had been other people present, and now the old shy dread of a
_tête-à-tête_ again took possession of her. She would have contented
herself with a fluttered inquiry after his health, and a faltering
remark that she ought not to detain him. She would have hurried on,
as if the errand on which she was bound demanded the utmost speed,
supremely wretched while she did so, to notice how pale and worn he
still looked when she saw him in the broad sunshine. She would have
mourned over the circumstance that he wore no wrap, though there was
always some damp by the river, and speculated in despondency whether
it could be right for him, while he still looked so ill, to be walking
thus by himself? What would happen if faintness overtook him, and he
could not accomplish the distance between him and the town?
Tom Robinson, delicate though he looked, quiet as he was, would not let
Dora have her way. He turned and walked back with her, which ought to
have set one of her fears at rest. And his appearance must have belied
him, for he was clearly in excellent spirits, with not the most distant
intention of being overcome by faintness.
"This is very pleasant," he said, with a smile, and his smile was a
peculiarly agreeable one.
Dora could not tell whether he meant the day, or the road, or her
company, or even her summer dress, which was fresher and better cared
for than when he had encountered the family group "place-hunting" in
London. Dora had owned more leisure lately, and, absurd as it might
sound, her heart had been singing with joy, so that she could not
resist making her dress in keeping with the gladness of her spirit.
Her little fingers had been cleverer than they had ever shown
themselves before in the manufacture of a frock and the trimming of a
hat which would not have disgraced the taste and execution of Miss
Franklin. Yet the materials were simple and inexpensive to the last
degree--a brown holland and a shady brown hat, and about the frock and
the hat some old Indian silk which in its mellowed gorgeousness of red
and maize colours softly reflected the hues of Rose's parrot tulips.
Dora did not dare to ask her companion what he thought so pleasant. It
seemed right to take it for granted that it was the weather, so she
answered quickly, Yes, it was a fine day for the harvest, which she
believed was going to be a good one this year.
"Our present encounter is more tranquil than our last, near this very
spot," he went on, still smiling. "Perhaps it is as well that there are
no disturbing elements of collies and terriers on the scene, for though
I am getting on famously, I am not sure that I am up to the mark of
dragging Tray and a giant assailant to the edge of the bank, and
pitching them head-foremost into the water."
"I should think not," said Dora briefly.
"How 'little May' screamed, and you stood, as white as a sheet,
valorously aiming your stone."
"We were great cowards, both of us," admitted Dora, smiling too; "and I
am thankful to say Tray has been much better behaved since he was at the
veterinary surgeon's."
"There was room for improvement," Tom Robinson said, with the gravity of
a judge.
"I left him on in front, begging to May for a bit of chalk."
"It is as well that it was not for a bit of beef," he said. Then he
suddenly changed the subject. "Do you know that I have something of
yours which has come into my hands that I have been wishing to give
back to you ever since I was a responsible being again?"
As he spoke, he unfastened for the second time in their acquaintance the
tiny vinaigrette case from his watch-chain, and handed it to her.
Dora flushed scarlet, and took it without a word.
"I got it one night in the course of that fever, when I was at the
worst, and I know you will like to hear that I am sure it did me good.
The first thing that I recollect after a long blank, which lasted for
days, I believe, was feebly fingering and sniffing at the little box,
with a curious agreeable sense of old association. Then I was able to
look at it, and recognize it as my mother's vinaigrette. She had let me
play with it when I was a child; and when I was a boy, subject to
headache from staying too long in the hot sunshine in the cricket-field,
she used to lend me her vinaigrette for a cure. But I knew that I had
asked you to have it, and that you had done me the favour to accept it.
The fascinating puzzle was, how had it come back to me? At last I
questioned Barbara Franklin. She could not tell any more than myself at
first, and was equally puzzled, until she remembered your sister Annie's
running into the room on the night when you were listening for news of
my death, and asking for a smelling-bottle, and your fumbling for an
instant in your pocket, and giving her something. That made it perfectly
plain."
Too plain, Dora reflected in horror, for what might not Miss Franklin
have suspected and communicated in addition to her cousin?
"I was glad I had it in my pocket," said Dora, stammering. "I took it up
to London with me, and--and found it often refreshing in the middle of
the heat and fatigue. I am thankful to hear it was of use to you, who
have the best right to it."
"No," he said emphatically, "though it was of the greatest use. My
cousin Barbara said also that you were very sorry for me. Dora, was that
so?" Tom himself blushed a little in asking the question, as if he had a
guilty consciousness of having taken rather a mean advantage of Dora
Millar, first by coming so near to death without actually dying, and
then by listening to what his kinswoman had to say of Miss Dora Millar's
state of mind at the crisis.
On Dora's part there was no denying such a manifest truth; she could
only utter a tremulous "yes," and turn her head aside.
"That was good of you, though I do not know that I am repaying the
goodness properly," he said, with another smile, very wistful this time.
"For I must add, that hearing of it tempted me to wonder once again
whether you could ever learn to think of me? If you cannot, just say no,
and I'll cease from this moment to tease you" (as if he had been doing
nothing else save besiege and pester her for the last year and a half!).
Dora could not say "no" any more than she could say "yes" straight out,
though she was certain that to be kept any longer than was absolutely
necessary in a state of acute suspense was very bad for him in his
weakened health. By a great effort she brought herself to say in little
breaks and gasps, "I do not need to learn, Mr. Tom, because I have
thought of you for a long time now--long before you were so good and
generous to all of us--almost ever since you wished--you asked--what I
was so silly and so ungrateful as to refuse."
He drew her hand through his arm and held it tightly; he could not trust
himself to say or do more. He was almost as shy as she was in the
revulsion of his great happiness.
She struggled conscientiously to continue her confession. "I had thought
hardly at all of you before then. Girls are so full of themselves, and I
did not know that you wished me to think of you. I seem to see now that
if you had given me more time, and let me grow familiar with the idea,
even though we were 'donkeys,' as Annie and Rose say, and though we
were choke-full of youthful folly----" She stopped short without
finishing her sentence, or going farther into the nature of what she
seemed to see.
"But I besought you to take time, Dora, love," he remonstrated. "You
forget, I urged you to let me wait for the chance of your answer's being
different." He could not help, even in the hour of the attainment of the
dearest wish of his heart, being just to his old modest, reasonable
self.
"Yes," she said, with the prettiest, faintest, arch smile hovering about
the corners of her mouth. "But men ought to be wiser than to take simple
girls at their first word, which the girls can never, never unsay,
unless the men bid them. Now I'll tell you how malicious people will
view the present situation. They will say that I refused you point blank
when I thought we were well off, then got you to propose again, and
graciously accepted the proposal, when I knew we had not a penny in the
world. I own it looks very like it, and it is partly your fault; you
should not have let me go the first time. But I don't care what people
say, so long as there is not a word of truth in it."
"Nor I," said Tom undauntedly. "They may also say that I was able to
make myself useful to your family, and like a very tradesman, traded on
the usefulness, buying a reluctant bride with it. But what do we care
when we love each other, and God has given us to each other? 'They
say,'--what do they say? Let them say."
There was not the shadow of a cloud the size of a man's hand on Dr. and
Mrs. Millar's pleasure in their daughter Dora's marriage to Tom
Robinson. For instead of going with Annie to Africa, or starting on a
mission of her own to bring May's college fees from Jamaica, Dora
remained at Redcross to be Tom Robinson's dear wife and cherished
darling. Mrs. Millar had long seen, in her turn, that Dora could not do
better. The fine old shop, and the fantastic shade of poor Aunt Penny,
had both become of no account. The single thing which troubled Mrs.
Millar was that the instant Lady Mary Pemberton heard of the wedding in
prospect, she invited herself to come down to it.
Dora's sisters, with the charming inconsistency of young women, were not
only acquiescent in her undignified fate--they were jubilant over it.
It did not arrest, though it subdued the general congratulations, when
it was discovered that the event made Harry Ironside all at once both
envious and aggressive. He could not see why, if Dora Millar were
marrying a rich man, and he himself had a sufficient income not merely
to make a satisfactory settlement on his wife, but to do his part in
helping her relatives, who would also be his from the day he married
her, that his marriage should not take place as soon as Dora and Tom
Robinson's. In place of an indefinite engagement, with thousands of
miles of land and sea, and all the uncertainties of life into the
bargain, between him, Harry Ironside, and Annie Millar, would it not
be much better that he should carry away with him the brightest,
bravest woman who ever asked little from a new colony; who, in place
of asking, would give full measure and running over? For Annie was not
like poor dear little Kate--Annie would be a godsend, even though she
had to go the length of learning to fire a revolver as a defence
against lions and hostile natives. It would be nothing else than
savage pride in Dr. Millar, Harry continued to argue, to decline to
let Tom Robinson defray May's small expenses at St. Ambrose's, whether
she won a scholarship or not. He was a man with an ample fortune, as
well as the nicest fellow in the world, who was going to be not only
May's coach, but her brother-in-law. In like manner it would be
downright churlish and positively unkind to Dora if her parents
refused to occupy the pleasant small house with the large garden
belonging to Tom Robinson, and close to what would be their daughter's
house. It was conveniently vacant, and looked as if it had been made
for a couple of elderly gentle-folks, who were not rich, but were
comfortably provided for. In fact, it had been fitted up by the late
Mr. Charles Robinson for just such a pair, who had in the course of
nature left the house empty.
With regard to Rose, she would have to submit to be more or less Harry
Ironside's charge till she painted and sold such 'stunning' pictures
that she could afford to look down on his paltry aid. What, not allow
him to assist his own sister-in-law, when he was so thankful to think
that she might be like a sister in the meantime for his poor little Kate
to fall back upon? Why, the girls could go on making a home together at
his good friend Mrs. Jennings's, till it was right for Kate, after she
was old enough to choose, to cast in her lot with him and Annie,
supposing the colony prospered. His heart was already in that strange,
far-away region, which, with all its mysteries and wonders--ay, and its
terrors--has such an attraction for the young and high-spirited, the
typical pilgrims to a later New England.
And what did Annie think of this march stolen upon her, this attempt to
extort a yard where she had only granted an inch of favour? Perhaps she
was dazzled by what would have repelled many another woman, in the
primitive, precarious, exciting details of the life of a young colony.
Perhaps her heart and imagination were alike taken by storm when she
thought of the untenanted hospital wards and the patients calling for
her to go over and help them. Perhaps she was simply beginning so to
identify herself with Harry Ironside that what he did seemed her doing.
Anyhow Annie did not say no.
The Miss Dyers remarked oracularly, when the double marriage was
announced in Redcross, that it was just what they had expected. The
observation was somewhat vague, like other oracles' speeches. The
general public of Redcross, including the Careys and Hewetts, were less
indefinite and more cordial in their expression of satisfaction at the
suitable settlement in life of the little Doctor's elder daughters.
Miss Franklin could not be too thankful and pleased that, after all, she
had done no mischief to her cousin Tom by her blunder, and by what had
been her only too personal reproaches and revelations addressed to his
future wife on the night when he was believed to be lying dying. In
fact, if she, Barbara Franklin, had not been conscious of a huge
mistake, with all the deplorable consequences it might have carried in
its train, if she had not thus been kept shamefacedly humble and silent
as to her share in the business, she might have taken credit to herself,
with greater reason than Mrs. Jennings could boast, of having united a
supremely happy couple who were drifting apart. Even if Miss Franklin's
part in it had been played voluntarily and advisedly, she would never
have cause to regret that night's work. For Dora Robinson had no scruple
in being the fast friend and affectionate cousin of her husband's
forewoman. She had no more qualm than she would have felt if Miss
Franklin had never condescended to trade, but had remained within the
bounds of poor gentility by laboriously keeping up her halting classical
music and waning foreign languages, and by continuing a finishing
governess to the day of her death--or rather till she was superannuated,
and had to retire to a too literal garret.
"Oh! Jonathan"--Mrs. Millar could not resist a long-drawn sob on the
great day of the double marriage--"it is all very well to say Annie has
got a good husband--a fine disinterested young man, certain to be
distinguished in his profession, you tell me. I believe that, and am
very thankful for it. How could I bear the parting otherwise? But to let
our eldest, our prettiest, and wittiest, with her warm heart and
untiring energy--'the flower of the flock,' as people used to call her
when the children were young--go out to Africa, it may be to meet
unheard-of trials, like your poor Aunt Penny, it may be never to see our
faces again----" Mrs. Millar could say no more.
"Hush! hush! Maria; you must be reasonable--you must take the bad with
the good," enjoined the little Doctor from his arm-chair. "Why, you are
making as much commotion as you did when Annie said she would be a
nurse. Is an hospital ward at home so preferable to an hospital ward in
the dark continent, which is ceasing to be dark? Its sun is only too
blazingly bright, its river plains too teemingly fertile, its mountains
too grand even in the grander monotony of its deserts. There is gold in
its dust, and its rocks are glittering with diamonds. But, thank God,
that is not all. It is the great country for which Livingstone was
content to spend his life, where the Moffats made the wilderness blossom
like the rose, and Colenso won the wild heart of the Zulu to trust him
as a brother. You will have Dora and Tom next door to you, and Rose and
'little May' will be constantly coming and going. As for Annie and
Harry, how can you tell that their special gifts would not be wasted
here, as I have often thought hers would have been if she had continued
only a pretty, sprightly young lady, and not grown up into an hospital
nurse!"
"Perhaps you are right, Jonathan," answered his wife meekly, coming
round, as she did now more than ever, to his side of the question.
"Do you think Sir John Richardson's daughter, Bishop Selwyn's wife,
missed the highest calling she was capable of when, instead of
presiding over a pleasant country-house or a fine London drawing-room,
she consented with all her heart to be landed on an island in Melanesia,
and left among the native converts to help to prepare the Malay girls
for confirmation? Her husband was away in the meantime in his missionary
yacht on his noble enterprise, ready to take her off the island on his
return, and not fearing to trust her in the interval to their God whose
work she was doing," argued the old man, with a note of something like
exultation in his voice. "Annie and Harry are not going out to Africa,
as my Aunt Penny and poor Beauchamp of Waylands went to Australia in the
days of the earlier squatters, entirely for their own hand, and because
they cannot help themselves, since there is nothing left for them to do
here. Our children are going to render gallant service on which their
talents are well bestowed, of which we shall always be proud to hear.
They are, as I told you before, our hostages in the carrying out of the
great purpose of the Almighty Ruler of the universe, by which light is
to take the place of darkness, and good of evil, from the rivers even to
the ends of the earth."
THE END.