The Tides of Barnegat Part 15

"Do they pay you for it?" she continued, in an incisive tone.

"No, I don't think they will, nor can. It's not, that kind of a hospital," answered the doctor gravely.

"And you will look after these people just as you do after Fogarty and the Brans...o...b.., and everybody else up and down the sh.o.r.e, and never take a penny in pay!" she retorted with some indignation.

"I am afraid I will, mother. A disappointing son, am I not? But there's no one to blame but yourself, old lady," and with a laugh he rose from his seat, Jane's letter in his hand, and kissed his mother on the cheek.

"But, John, dear," she exclaimed in a pleading petulance as she looked into his face, still holding on to the sleeve of his coat to detain him the longer, "just think of this letter of Pencoyd's; nothing has ever been offered you better than this. He has the very best people in Philadelphia on his list, and you would get--"

The doctor slipped his hand under his mother's chin, as he would have done to a child, and said with a twinkle in his eye--he was very happy this morning:

"That's precisely my case--I've got the very best people in three counties on my list. That's much better than the old doctor."

"Who are they, pray?" She was softening under her son's caress.

"Well, let me think. There's the distinguished Mr. Tatham, who attends to the transportation of the cities of Warehold and Barnegat; and the Right Honorable Mr. Tipple, and Mrs. and Miss Gossaway, renowned for their toilets--"

Mrs. Cavendish bit her lip. When her son was in one of these moods it was all she could do to keep her temper.

"And the wonderful Mrs. Malmsley, and--"

Mrs. Cavendish looked up. The name had an aristocratic sound, but it was unknown to her.

"Who is she?"

"Why, don't you know the wonderful Mrs. Malmsley?" inquired the doctor, with a quizzical smile.

"No, I never heard of her."

"Well, she's just moved into Warehold. Poor woman, she hasn't been out of bed for years! She's the wife of the new butcher, and--"

"The butcher's wife?"

"The butcher's wife, my dear mother, a most delightful old person, who has brought up three sons, and each one a credit to her."

Mrs. Cavendish let go her hold on the doctor's sleeve and settled back in her chair.

"And you won't even write to Dr. Pencoyd?" she asked in a disheartened way, as if she knew he would refuse.

"Oh, with pleasure, and thank him most kindly, but I couldn't leave Barnegat; not now. Not at any time, so far as I can see."

"And I suppose when Jane Cobden comes home in a year or so she will work with you in the hospital. She wanted to turn nurse the last time I talked to her." This special arrow in her maternal quiver, poisoned with her jealousy, was always ready.

"I hope so," he replied, with a smile that lighted up his whole face; "only it will not be a year. Miss Jane will be here on the next steamer."

Mrs. Cavendish put down her tea-cup and looked at her son in astonishment. The doctor still kept his eyes on her face.

"Be here by the next steamer! How do you know?"

The doctor held up the letter.

"Lucy will remain," he added. "She is going to Germany to continue her studies."

"And Jane is coming home alone?"

"No, she brings a little child with her, the son of a friend, she writes. She asks that I arrange to have Martha meet them at the dock."

"Somebody, I suppose, she has picked up out of the streets. She is always doing these wild, unpractical things. Whose child is it?"

"She doesn't say, but I quite agree with you that it was helpless, or she wouldn't have protected it."

"Why don't Lucy come with her?"

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"And I suppose you will go to the s.h.i.+p to meet her?"

The doctor drew himself up, clicked his heels together with the air of an officer saluting his superior--really to hide his joy--and said with mock gravity, his hand on his heart:

"I shall, most honorable mother, be the first to take her ladys.h.i.+p's hand as she walks down the gangplank." Then he added, with a tone of mild reproof in his voice: "What a funny, queer old mother you are!

Always worrying yourself over the unimportant and the impossible," and stooping down, he kissed her again on the cheek and pa.s.sed out of the room on the way to his office.

"That woman always comes up at the wrong moment," Mrs. Cavendish said to herself in a bitter tone. "I knew he had received some word from her, I saw it in his face. He would have gone to Philadelphia but for Jane Cobden."

CHAPTER IX

THE SPREAD OF FIRE

The doctor kept his word. His hand was the first that touched Jane's when she came down the gangplank, Martha beside him, holding out her arms for the child, cuddling it to her bosom, wrapping her shawl about it as if to protect it from the gaze of the inquisitive.

"O doctor! it was so good of you!" were Jane's first words. It hurt her to call him thus, but she wanted to establish the new relation clearly.

She had shouldered her cross and must bear its weight alone and in her own way. "You don't know what it is to see a face from home! I am so glad to get here. But you should not have left your people; I wrote Martha and told her so. All I wanted you to do was to have her meet me here. Thank you, dear friend, for coming."

She had not let go his hand, clinging to him as a timid woman in crossing a narrow bridge spanning an abyss clings to the strong arm of a man.

He helped her to the dock as tenderly as if she had been a child; asking her if the voyage had been a rough one, whether she had been ill in her berth, and whether she had taken care of the baby herself, and why she had brought no nurse with her. She saw his meaning, but she did not explain her weakness or offer any explanation of the cause of her appearance or of the absence of a nurse. In a moment she changed the subject, asking after his mother and his own work, and seemed interested in what he told her about the neighbors.

When the joy of hearing her voice and of looking into her dear face once more had pa.s.sed, his skilled eyes probed the deeper. He noted with a sinking at the heart the dark circles under the drooping lids, the drawn, pallid skin and telltale furrows that had cut their way deep into her cheeks. Her eyes, too, had lost their l.u.s.tre, and her step lacked the spring and vigor of her old self. The diagnosis alarmed him.

Even the mould of her face, so distinguished, and to him so beautiful, had undergone a change; whether through illness, or because of some mental anguish, he could not decide.

When he pressed his inquiries about Lucy she answered with a half-stifled sigh that Lucy had decided to remain abroad for a year longer; adding that it had been a great relief to her, and that at first she had thought of remaining with her, but that their affairs, as he knew, had become so involved at home that she feared their means of living might be jeopardized if she did not return at once. The child, however, would be a comfort to both Martha and herself until Lucy came.

Then she added in a constrained voice:

"Its mother would not, or could not care for it, and so I brought it with me."