It became quickly known in Coombe that, owing to Mrs. Coombe's delicate
health, the wedding would take place much sooner than had been expected.
A sea voyage, it was conceded, was the necessary thing and as Dr.
Callandar would not allow his fiancée to go away alone it seemed only
fair that he should make haste to go with her. Comment on all these
points was much more restrained than usual because, just at this time,
Coombe withstood the shock of finding out that Dr. Callandar was no less
than Dr. Henry Chedridge Callandar of Montreal. No, not his brother, nor
his cousin, but the man himself!
Of course Coombe had suspected this all along. Never for a moment had it
been really deceived. Over and over again it had said: "My dear, that
young man is not a mere local practitioner, mark my words!" From the
first, Coombe had observed the marks of true distinction in him. He was
so odd! He seemed to care nothing at all for appearances, and, as
everybody knows, this comfortable attitude of mind is the privilege of
the famous few. Besides, there was the matter of the marriage. Coombe
had been right in thinking that Mary Coombe had not gone into the matter
blindfold. She had known very well upon which side her bread was
buttered, and as to her giving way to his whims in the absurd way she
did--that, too, was understandable under the circumstances.
What puzzled Coombe, now, was how she had managed it. She was not
pretty, at least not very pretty. She was not young, at least only
comparatively young. And goodness knows, she was not clever! Hardly a
mother in Coombe but had at least one daughter prettier, younger and
cleverer; a daughter, in fact, who could give Mary Coombe aces and kings
and still win out. Why had the doctor not been attached to one of these?
It was incomprehensible. Even if, through a misplaced devotion to his
profession, he had determined to marry into a doctor's family--there was
Esther! Esther Coombe was a fine girl and quite nice looking before she
had begun to "go off." Even as it was she had more to recommend her than
her step-mother. There seemed to be a general impression that all men
are fools.
"If they would only let some woman with sense choose their wives for
them," declared the eldest Miss Sinclair in a burst of confidence, "they
might get along fairly well. But if ever a man gets married to the right
woman, it happens by accident."
Nevertheless, at a special meeting of the Ladies' Aid, called for the
purpose, it was decided to give the bride a present. They had not
intended to do it for fear of establishing a precedent. But when it came
out who Dr. Callandar was, it hardly seemed right to let one of their
best known members go from them to a more exalted sphere in a city
(which many of them might, from time to time, feel inclined to visit)
without showing her by some small token how very highly she was held in
their regard. Every one could see the sense of this and the vote was
unanimous. In regard to the nature of the gift there was more diversity
of opinion, but it was finally decided that, as the value of this kind
of thing lies not in the gift but in the spirit of the giving, a brown
jar with the word "Biscuits" in silver lettering would do very well.
Carving knives were thought of but as Mrs. Atkins very fitly said,
"Everybody is sure to give carving knives"--a phenomenon which all the
ladies accepted as a commonplace.
Of the prospective bride herself, Coombe saw little. She remained very
much at home. She had lost much of her spasmodic energy, was inclined to
be moody and even rude. Her state of health accounted naturally for this
and also for the arrival of a new inmate at the Elms, a cool and capable
looking person who was discovered, after much amazed enquiry, to be a
trained nurse. Not a hospital nurse exactly but a kind of special nurse
whose duties included massage, and the giving of certain baths and
things which the doctor thought strengthening. Her name was Miss Philps.
Coombe never got behind that. No one could ever boast that she knew more
of Miss Philps than her name. She was, and remains to this day,
a mystery.
There are people like that, although this was Coombe's first experience
of one. Miss Philps was not a recluse. Everywhere Mrs. Coombe went, Miss
Philps went too. Even Esther was not more assiduous in her attentions.
She was not a silent person either, far from it. She bubbled over with
precise and cheerful comment, she appeared to talk even more than was
absolutely necessary and it was only upon her departure that her
entertainers noticed that she had said nothing at all. A very baffling
person to deal with. Coombe could not manage to "take to" her at all and
great sympathy was felt for Mrs. Coombe when she was reported to have
said to Miss Milligan that going out with Miss Philps felt exactly like
a jail delivery--whatever that might be!
But if Miss Philps was not appreciated at large it was different in her
own immediate circle. She had not been at the Elms a day before Esther
recognised the doctor's wisdom in getting her. She was discreet,
capable, kindly. The burden upon the girl's shoulders grew momentarily
lighter. Miss Philps, with her matter of fact cheeriness, her strength
and her experience, was exactly what that house of overstrained
nerves needed.
"Dear me," she said, "you're all as fidgety as corn in a popper. And no
need for it. I've nursed dozens worse than your mother, Miss Esther, and
had them right as a trivet before I got through. As long as we can keep
her hands off the stuff--and that's what I'm here for. So don't worry!"
Esther drew a deep breath. It was certainly good to feel the strain
lifting, to have time for dreams again. The time was so pitifully short
now. Two more weeks and she would leave Coombe behind her. The old life
would be definitely over and done with. Looking back, she could see that
it had been a happy life, and the future looked so dark. In youth, all
life's happenings seem so terribly final. Every parting feels like a
parting forever. Esther felt quite sure that she would never return
to Coombe.
In the week before the wedding, freed from her continual attendance upon
her mother, she unobtrusively paid farewell to all her old haunts and
favourite places. It was a sweet sadness. She did not taste the sweet,
but it was there. As one grows older, one does not linger over sad
moments. It is because the sweet has vanished, only the bitter remains.
But in untried youth sadness has a touch of beauty, a glamour of
romance which shrouds its deepest pain. It is as if something within us,
infinitely wise, were smiling, knowing well that for the young there is
always to-morrow.
The maple by the schoolhouse turned early that year. When Esther, in her
pilgrimage, came to say good-bye it welcomed her with all the glory of
autumn. Against its greener brothers it stood out, naming, defiant.
Beside it, the red pump seemed no longer red. Red and yellow, its
falling leaves tossed themselves into the girl's lap as she sat upon the
porch steps. It is almost certain that, as Esther gathered them, she
compared her sad heart to a leaf which had fluttered from the tree of
happy life. There seemed no outlook for her. She could not see through
winter into spring.
The school children with their new teacher (whom Esther could not help
but feel was sadly incompetent) had all gone home and it was very quiet
on the porch steps. She closed her eyes and dreamed and clearly through
her dream she heard, as she had heard that first morning in early
summer, a determinedly cheerful, yet husky, voice singing. Some one was
coming down the hill.
"From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles;
From Wombleton to Wimbleton is fifteen miles;
From Wimbleton to Wombleton, from Wombleton to Wimbleton,
From Wimbleton to Wombleton,--"
The song trailed off into silence as it had done before. The girl's
closed eyes smarted with tears--"Oh, it is a very long way!" she
murmured, and burying her face in fallen leaves she felt that at last
she knew the meaning of despair.
But though his voice had echoed through Esther's dream, Callandar was
not on the long hill nor anywhere near it. Unlike Esther, he paid no
farewells during these last days. He avoided the hill particularly and
drove past the schoolhouse seldom and always at top speed. If the sight
of the turning maples moved him at all it was not because he compared
his lost happiness to a fallen leaf. Callandar was long past such gentle
sadnesses as these. Every day he filled as full of work as possible. He
walked far and hard in hope of tiring himself into dreamless sleep at
night. And every day his face grew older, greyer, more sternly set.
At the very last, and as if inspired by some special imp of the
perverse, Mary declared that she must have a church wedding. Opposition
was useless. With all the distorted force of her drug-ridden brain, she
desired this one thing. She wept, she coaxed, she raved. Every woman,
she stormed, had a right to a proper wedding. She had always been
cheated, she had been a pawn shoved about at the bidding of others, her
own wishes never consulted. Was there any reason, any reason at all, why
she should not be properly married in the church?
He ventured quietly to remind her that there were peculiar circumstances
in the case. But she burst out at that. He was ashamed of her. Ashamed
of his own wife. If there were peculiar circumstances whose fault were
they? Not hers, surely? Would she be where she was now if he had not
neglected her all those years? Anyway, peculiar circumstances or not,
she would be married decently or she would not be married at all.
With set lips, the doctor gave in. Opposition maddened her, and, after
all, one farce more or less could not matter much.
"Very well," he said, "make your own arrangements."
Immediately, Mary became amiable. She was quite polite to Miss Philps,
almost pleasant to Esther. Into the preparations for the wedding she
entered with some of her old spasmodic energy. The occasion, she
determined, should be a talked of one in Coombe. She made plans, a fresh
one every day, and talked of them continually.
Only--there was one plan of which she did not speak. There was one
unsaid thing which matured quietly, covered by the noise of much
talking. Yet this plan more than any other would have to do with the
success of her last appearance in Coombe. It would be foolish indeed,
she decided, to let any promise, however well-meant, stand in the way of
this success. She could not, and would not, face a crowded church
feeling as she felt now. That was absurd! She would need some little
stimulant to help her carry it off. A very slightly increased dose would
do it. Only sufficient to banish that horrible craving, to give her a
long, satisfying sleep and then just a touch more, very little, to brace
her in the morning. Enough to send warm tingling thrills of well being
through her tired body, to brighten her eyes, to clear her brain and
steady her shaking nerves--to make her young again, young and a bride.
Only this once! Never again.
Of what use to continue the sophistries which justified her treachery to
herself! Perhaps of the three it was she who suffered most during that
last week. She lived in an agony of anticipation, a hell of desire for
which a sane pen has no description. Yet no one must suspect that she
anticipated or desired anything--not the cool-eyed Miss Philps, not
Esther, not the doctor, not even Jane. The mask must not slip for one
single moment. So far, they suspected nothing; but they were always on
their guard, always. A careless look, an unconsidered movement might
betray her, and then--! She raved in her room sometimes when she thought
of a possible balking of her purpose.
She was very clever. She still had self-control when it was necessary to
have it in the furtherance of the one devouring passion. Only when she
was quite alone did she ever give way. The doctor thought her
wonderfully docile and took heart of hope. A month or two alone with her
in Prance and all would be well. In the meantime, patience! Naturally
she was full of childish whims. He smiled at her indulgently when she
asked him to request Miss Philps to stay outside of the fitting room at
Miss Milligan's. "For you know," she said, "it is bad luck, very bad
luck, for any person to see one, in one's wedding gown before the proper
time. And anyway," the grey eyes filled with easy tears, "I'm sure it
isn't good for me never to be trusted, not even with silly Miss
Milligan."
The plea seemed genuine. It was like Mary to be concerned about the
wedding-dress superstition. And what possible danger could there be?
Miss Milligan in all probability had never heard the fatal names of
opium and cocaine save as unpleasant things associated with Chinese and
tooth-drawing. It was absurd to imagine Mary coming to harm there.
From this you will see that, upon the occasion of the last discovery,
Mary had lied desperately and well. The "cache" in the bird-house had
been found, but Miss Milligan's name had never been connected in the
most remote way with that relapse. Mary had sworn that the new supply
had not been new at all but had formed part of an old cache which she
had hidden, in a place which even she had forgotten, all quite
accidentally. And although many supplementary enquiries were made, the
real truth had remained undiscovered.
So in the simplest way in the world, Mary secured several uninterrupted
"fittings" with Miss Milligan while the excellent Miss Philps sat
without and waited.
"This is positively the last time I shall have to trouble you, dear Miss
Milligan," said her customer sweetly. "Of course, as soon as we are
married, I am going to tell Dr. Callandar all about it and when he sees
how very much better my medicine has made me, he will be quite ready to
withdraw his objections. In the meantime I am sure you feel, as I do,
that our little ruse has been quite justifiable!"
Miss Milligan did. She felt quite proud of her part in it. It is
something to help a fellow woman and still more to get the better of a
fellow man. Especially such a celebrated man as Dr. Callandar! She would
order the fresh supply at once, that very afternoon, by the first mail.
And as soon as the packet came she would see that Mrs. Coombe had it in
person. "There is certain to be a few last touches necessary to the
dress after it has been sent home," she remarked with a smile of truly
Machiavellian subtlety.
"Yes!" said Mary. "That night--after the dress comes home!" She spoke
sharply, unnaturally. Her face turned a dull, pasty white. She shook so
that Miss Milligan was thoroughly frightened. But presently she
controlled herself and forced a pathetic smile.
"You see, dear Miss Milligan, how much I need it."
"Indeed a blind bat could see that!" said the dressmaker pityingly.
"Shall I call the nurse?"
But Mrs. Coombe would not hear of Miss Milligan calling the nurse!