VIII
JUNE 28.
MOTHER writes me that Dr.Cabot is out of danger, Dr.Elliott having thrown new light on his case, and performed some sort of an operation that relieved him at once.I am going home.Nothing would tempt me to encounter those black eyes again.Besides, the weather is growing warm, and Aunty is getting ready to go out of town with the children.
JUNE 29.-Aunty insisted on knowing why I was hurrying home so suddenly, and at last got it out of me inch by inch.On the whole it was a relief to have some one to speak to.
"Well!" she said, and leaned back in her chair in a fit of musing.
"Is that all you are going to say, Aunty?" I ventured to ask at last.
"No, I have one more remark to add," she said, "and it is this: Idon't know which of you has behaved most ridiculously.It would relieve me to give you each a good shaking.""I think Dr.Elliot has behaved ridiculously," I said, "and he has made me most unhappy.""Unhappy!" she repeated."I don't wonder you are unhappy.You have pained and wounded one of the noblest men that walks the earth.""It is not my fault.I never tried to make him like me.""Yes, you did.You were perfectly bewitching whenever he came here.
No mortal man could help being fascinated."
I knew this was not true, and bitterly resented Aunty's injustice.
"If I wanted to 'fascinate' or 'bewitch' a man," I cried, "I should not choose one old enough to be my father, nor one who was as uninteresting, awkward and stiff as Dr.Elliott.Besides, how should I know he was not married? If I thought anything about it at all, Icertainly thought of him as a middle-aged man, settled down with a wife, long ago.
"In the first place he is not old, or even middle aged.He is not more than twenty-seven or eight.As to his being uninteresting, perhaps he is to you, who don't know him.And if he were a married man, what business had he to come here to see as he has done?""I did not know he came to see me; he never spoke to me.And I always said I would never marry a doctor.""We all say scores of things we live to repent," she replied."But Imust own that the doctor acted quite out of character when he expected you to take a fancy to him on such short notice, you romantic little thing.Of course knowing him as little as you do, and only seeing him in sick-rooms, you could not have done otherwise than as you did.""Thank you, Aunty," I said, running and throwing my arms around her;"thank you with all my heart.And now won't you take back what you said about my trying to fascinate him?""I suppose I must, you dear child," she said."I was not half in earnest.The truth is I am so fond of you both that the idea of your misunderstanding each other annoys me extremely.Why, you were made for each other.He would tone you down and keep you straight, and you would stimulate him and keep him awake.""I don't want to be toned down or kept straight," I remonstrated."Ihate prigs who keep their wives in leading-strings.I do not mean to marry any one, but if I should be left to such a piece of folly, it must be to one who will take me for better for worse; just as I am, and not as a wild plant for him to prune till he has got it into a shape to suit him.now, Aunty, promise me one thing.Never mention Dr.Elliott's name to me again.""I shall make no such promise," she replied, laughing."I like him, and I like to talk about him and the more you hate and despise him the more I shall love and admire him.I only wish my Lucy were old enough to be his wife, and that he could fancy her; but he never could!""On the contrary I should think that little model of propriety would just suit him," I exclaimed.
"Don't make fun of Lucy," Aunty said, shaking her head."She is a dear good child, after all.""After all" means this (for what with my own observation, and what Aunty has told me, Lucy's portrait is easy to paint) The child is the daughter of a man who died from a lingering illness caused by an accident.She entered the family at a most inauspicious moment, two days after this accident.From the outset she comprehended the situation and took the ground that a character of irreproachable dignity and propriety became an infant coming at such a time.She never cried, never put improper objects into her mouth, never bumped her head, or scratched herself.Once put to bed at night, you knew nothing more of her till such time next day as you found it convenient to attend to her.If you forgot her existence, as was not seldom the case under the circumstances, she vegetated on, unmoved.
It is possible that pangs of hunger sometimes assailed her, and it is a fact that she teethed, had the measles and the whooping-cough.But these minute ripples on her infant life only showed the more clearly what a waveless, placid little sea it was.She got her teeth in the order laid down in "Dewees on Children"; her measles came out on the appointed day like well-behaved measles as they were and retired decently and in order, as measles should.Her whooping-cough had a well-bred, methodical air, and left her conqueror of the field.As the child passed out of her babyhood, she remained still her mother's appendage and glory; a monument of pure white marble, displaying to the human race one instance at least of perfect parental training.
Those smooth, round hands were always magically clean; the dress immaculate and uncrumpled; the hair dutifully shining and tidy.She was a model child, as she had been a model baby.No slamming of doors, no litter of carpets, no pattering of noisy feet on the stairs, no headless dolls, no soiled or torn books indicated her presence.Her dolls were subject to a methodical training, not unlike her own.They rose, they were dressed, they took the air, they retired for the night, with clock-like regularity.At the advanced age of eight, she ceased occupying herself with such trifles, and began a course of instructive reading.Her lessons were received in mute submission, like medicine; so many doses, so many times a day.
