Hope Mills, Amanda Minnie Douglas [good english books to read TXT] 📗

own battle somewhere, with no day's-man between but God. We get back to the old truth in spite of the new philosophies, and own in our vanquished moments that we cannot _make_ strength, that ours is only a broken reed, and the true upholding force must come from some knowledge higher than our own."

Jack paused, strangely stirred in every fibre. He seldom essayed sentiment: with him the deeds of life had to answer, rather than any eloquence of words. He laid his strong, warm arm over Fred's shoulder, the old boyish caress with which he had often comforted unknowingly.

"I think you have been doing nobly," he went on presently. "I did not look to find you so brave and persevering, so earnest in thinking of others; for, after all, a man's training does throw a great many shackles about him."

Dr. Maverick entered at that moment. He had hurried off his office-patients to come and spend an hour watching this case, which held a fascinating interest for him. Some most unfavorable symptoms had supervened, but he did not despair. The nurse had been regularly trained, he had kept her busy in Yerbury the last year. He could trust her to note the slightest variations.

Just now Miss Lawrence lay in a heavy stupor, so like death that one could not detect it from any motion. Her eyes were half open, her face had a dull purplish tint. The abundant hair had been confined in a thick plait, and brushed straight across her forehead. How distinct and finely clear the brows were pencilled, how haughtily sweet the curve of the pallid, fever-burned lips, how exquisitely round and perfect the chin, the slope of the throat and neck! Jack stole one glance,--they had both gone in with the doctor,--but it seemed almost sacrilegious, now when she was powerless to frown the intruder out of her presence. And he had carried her in his arms!

"O Darcy," Maverick exclaimed presently, "I did not go to Miss Barry's, after all. I have been so desperately busy to-day."

Fred glanced up, and his eye met that of his friend. Both flushed, and both mistook the cause.

It was a curiously auspicious moment. Jack went over to him. "I wonder," he began, with a marked persuasiveness in his tone, "if you would like to have Sylvie Barry come over? She and your sister used to be such friends. And, in times like these, animosities and foolish prejudices ought to die out."

Fred gave him a startled look, and half turned, his lids drooping to veil the secret in his eyes. Jack waited with breath that half strangled him. He had marvelled how these two souls were to be brought into friendly contact again; how Sylvie was to have an opportunity of knowing that Fred was redeeming the manliness of manhood, instead of grounding among its trivial shoals, and, if she ever had cared for him, to understand that he was not utterly unworthy. He had spoken--what if the chance should fail!

Fred very naturally misinterpreted the emotion. Jack offered this out of the boundless tenderness of his heart, so confident was he of Sylvie's regard.

"You think--she would come?"

His own voice, under the great stress, sounded miles away to him, quite as if some other person had spoken.

How often the tense strain of feeling is relieved by a tone or an incident quite out of the magnetic current!

"Some one ought to drop in occasionally, for your mother's sake," said Dr. Maverick. "We shall have her in a fever from sympathy," putting the fact more delicately in words than it was in his thought.

"She would be glad to come, I know. She would feel hurt if-- You empower me to ask her?" with an abrupt transition of tone.

Fred Lawrence bowed his head. He could not trust his voice.

The sick girl started, opened wide her eyes, threw up her arms, and began in weird, passionate tones, as if it were a stage declamation. Oh the lurid thought that seemed to travel from regions of bliss to the nethermost hell; to display a boundless capacity for enjoyment, for pleasure or pain, for tenderness and bitter, brilliant satire, a keen knowledge of the world to the very dregs,--the dust and ashes! She implored her lost idols to come near, and in the next breath she tossed them from her with a mocking laugh. She had no faith in God or man, and before her was a blank wall of despair.

Jack led him away. He took him out in the keen air of the starry winter night, and began to talk of Hope Mills and the new projects. It was too late afterward to call on Sylvie, so he waited until the next morning.

She was inexpressibly shocked. "Of course she would go," she made answer; and she went that very afternoon, with her aunt for companion.

They found Mrs. Lawrence in a dreadfully disturbed and apprehensive state. She was so weary of solitude that she welcomed them gladly, quite forgetting this girl had insulted her by rejecting her son. In a weak, shuffling manner she excused herself for not having accepted their overtures before. She had been so utterly overwhelmed by the death of Mr. Lawrence, that, in her state of nervous prostration, it had been impossible to see any one. And now she was positive she should take the fever. Her health was so delicate, her nerves so susceptible, and to hear the raving of delirium,--the laughs that were quite like a maniac,--would be sure to shatter her beyond any help. If it were not in the dead of winter, she should go to New York at once, and stay with Mrs. Minor until all danger of infection was over. She did not seem to comprehend the gravity of Irene's case, though she wept over her suffering in a soft self-pity.

"If you could be removed to our house," suggested Miss Barry, in her gentle way, "we would take the best of care of you; and it must be extremely wearing for you here."

"Ah, you have no idea! I never slept last night. I have heard of people in these dreadful fevers who have left their beds when the nurse was absent, and committed some horrible crime. I locked my door last night; then I was afraid I might faint away alone, and Fred had to come and stay with me. It was terrible!" and the washed-out eyes dilated with real fear.

Martha was despatched for the doctor, who not only came himself, but brought a close coach, thankful to dispose of one patient so comfortably. Before dusk Mrs. Lawrence was snugly settled in Miss Barry's best room, where a cheerful open-front stove made amends for a grate, and the new surroundings served to take her mind from her late apprehensions. Indeed, she felt so much better for the change, that she insisted upon coming down to tea.

It was beneficial in many ways. They removed Irene again to her own room, and used her mother's for various convenient purposes. Sylvie went back and forth, and shared the day-watching, beside entertaining Mrs. Lawrence. The two dropped insensibly into their olden positions. Sylvie listened patiently to the death, the loss of fortune, the changes, which Mrs. Lawrence dwelt upon with the exaggerating vividness of a nature completely engrossed with its own sorrows.

Dr. Maverick had to come every day. Mrs. Lawrence had arrived at that stage when a woman depends upon the doctor as a sort of bulletin for her own health. Fred, too, must visit his mother frequently; but at first he chose the hours he knew Sylvie would be with Irene.

Dr. Maverick used to watch Sylvie Barry with an interest and admiration that grew upon him. Her tact was something marvellous, born of a certain exquisite harmony and almost divine unselfishness. But of this last she appeared serenely unconscious. I think, indeed, that she was. A higher love and faith had interpenetrated her soul, her very being. Instead of agonizing introspections and lightning flashes to the inward depths of her nature, she seemed to live continually on the outside of herself, radiating warmth and light as the sun. Her patience was of a rare, fine quality, born of health, and spirits not easily wearied.

It would have been quite impossible for any two people to go through such a strain of feeling, and not be drawn together in love and sympathy, or friendship. With Fred and Sylvie it was unconsciously a little of all. If he had gone back with the old love, even exalted and refined, he would surely have blundered again. But now she was another's, sacred in his eyes. And though in his blind pride he had once thought the greatest favor he could do her would be to save her from any such _mesalliance_, he recognized now that Jack Darcy was immeasurably above him in all the qualities that went to make up pure manhood. Even in his work: Jack's ambition was not for himself, but a cause; and his--ah, how poor and paltry it seemed! So he accepted his place with outward bravery, and a great wrench of all a man holds most dear. For now he loved her.

The days passed slowly on. It seemed at the last as if the fever would prove the victor. A consultation was held, and new remedies employed. Irene's beautiful hair was cut off and laid away, the clear skin seemed to grow brown and shrivelled, the hands lost their plump whiteness, and the rosy nails were dull and gray. There came a time when human skill had done all, and they could only wait for that Higher power to whose eternal force death and love alike submit.

There followed upon that awful night of suspense, days when she was but just alive, when a turn of her head on the pillow caused a lapse into unconsciousness. But the spring came on; and she did rally, at first, it appeared, at the entire sacrifice of her regal beauty. Would she care to take life on such terms?

They brought Mrs. Lawrence home. Mrs. Minor came up, and insisted that both mother and sister should be removed to the city at once. She had her horses and carriage, her servants, her luxuries, and she could make them so much more comfortable.

Dr. Maverick interposed a decided negative. The body had not yet resumed its normal state; but the brain was to be ministered to, as only those of experience and study could minister. It was to be brought out of the hell of its own despairing self-torture, and enfranchised, set free from the demons that, standing in the present abeyance of weakness, had lost neither strength nor desire, and were only waiting the auspicious moment to seize their prey again. And he was too much fascinated to relinquish the study.

Sylvie persuaded her aunt to indulge in a pony-carriage. Miss Barry was breaking a little; but she still kept her interest in good works, and found she was much more useful with this aid. Winsome little Sylvie looked more piquant than ever with the reins in her hands, flashing hither and thither through the streets of Yerbury, gathering a harvest of smiles and nods. She fairly compelled Mrs. Lawrence to trust her precious self to what she laughingly declared was superior horsewomanship.

Dr. Maverick used to stop her often, just to catch a delicious ripple of laughter, or a bit of trenchant talk. If it were not for Jack Darcy--did Jack love her? At all events, she loved him: any one could see that by her frank, fearless manner. Oh, sapient Dr. Maverick, with