tap came back from winchester, but he came alone. doctor clavenger had been called to berryville to do a critical operation which the local doctor dared not undertake. mrs. clavenger, his wife, sent a letter to mrs. colbert, promising that as soon as her husband got home he would mount a fresh horse and start for back creek. she thought, indeed she felt sure, that he would be there by midday tomorrow. to the miller and fairhead, who were awaiting him at mrs. blake’s, tomorrow seemed a long way off.
it was heart-breaking to see the children suffer, and to hear them beg for water. their grandfather could not bear it. he went home, and digging down into the sawdust of the icehouse under his mill, he found some lumps of last year’s ice. it was going soft, maybe a little wormy, but he brought it over and let the girls hold bits of it in their mouths. he was not afraid of doctor brush, and he had authority as the head of his family. the ice helped them through the long afternoon.
fairhead insisted on sitting up with the patients that night. mrs. blake would relieve him at four o’clock in the morning. the two had an early supper together in the kitchen. as mrs. blake went up the back stairs, she called down: “i’ve made a chicken broth for you, david, and left it there on the table to cool. put some hickory sticks in the stove to hold the fire, and you can warm it up any time in the night you feel the need of it.”
fairhead went out into the yard to get the cool air into his lungs. sick-rooms were kept tightly closed in those days. the blue evening was dying into dusk, and silvery stars were coming out faintly over the pines on the hill. fairhead was deeply discouraged. he believed doctor clavenger would know just what to do; but tomorrow might be too late.
clavenger was everything that poor old brush was not: intelligent, devoted to his profession — and a gentleman. he had come to practise in frederick county by accident. while he was on the staff of a hospital in baltimore, he fell in love with a winchester girl who was visiting in the city. after he found that she would never consent to live anywhere but in her native town, he gave up the promise of a fine city practice and settled in winchester. a foolish thing to do, but clavenger was like that.
while fairhead was walking up and down the yard, he kept an eye on the windows of mrs. blake’s upstairs bedroom. as soon as the candlelight shone there, it would be time for him to go to his patients. he circled the house, picked up some sticks from the wood-pile, and was about to go into the kitchen when he saw through the window something which startled him. a white figure emerged from the stairway and drifted across the indoor duskiness of the room. it was mary, barefoot, in her nightgown, as if she were walking in her sleep. she reached the table, sank down on a wooden chair, and lifted the bowl of broth in her two hands. (she must have smelled the hot soup up in her bedroom; the stair door had been left open.) she drank slowly, resting her elbows on the table. streaks of firelight from the stove flickered over her and over the whitewashed walls and ceiling. fairhead knew he ought to go in and take the soup from her. but he was unable to move or to make a sound. there was something solemn in what he saw through the window, like a communion service.
after the girl had vanished up the stairway, he still stood outside, looking into the empty room, wondering at himself. he remembered how sometimes in dreams a trivial thing took on a mysterious significance one could not explain. he might have thought he had been dreaming now, except that, when at last he went inside, he found his soup bowl empty.
fairhead climbed the stairs slowly and went to betty’s room. after he had washed out her throat with a clumsy thing called a swab, he got the last morsel of ice (wrapped in sacking on the window sill) and put it in her mouth. she looked up at him gratefully and tried to smile. he whispered that he would soon come back to her, took the candle, and crossed the hall to mary’s room. he did not know what he might find there. he listened at the crack of the door; dead silence. shading the light with his hand, he went in softly and approached the bed. mary was lying on her side, fast asleep. last night she had not slept at all, but tossed and begged for water. her mother, who had sat up with her, said she was delirious and had to be held down in bed. fairhead leaned over her; yes, the evil smell was on her breath, but anyhow he was not going to waken her to wash her throat. he went back to betty, who liked to have him turn her pillow and sit near her.
mary slept all night. when mrs. blake came in at four in the morning and held her candle before the girl’s face, she knew that she was better.
doctor clavenger rode up to the hitch-block about noon. he had dismounted and tied his horse before fairhead could cross the yard to greet him. the doctor looked as fresh as if he had not been without sleep for more than thirty hours. he said the ride out had rested him, adding: “it’s beautiful country.” there was even a flush of colour in his swarthy cheeks, and as he shook hands he gave david a warm, friendly look from his hazel eyes, which in some lights were frankly green.
“i am glad to find you here, david. you will be a great help to me, as you were when doctor sellers had pleurisy. now, in the first place, can you get word to the mill and ask mr. colbert to send over a fresh horse for me? i am hoping he can take my mare to his stable and rest her overnight. i will ride her back to town tomorrow.”
“yes, sir. till is in the kitchen. she will carry the message.”
“good.” he took the young man’s arm and walked slowly toward the house. at the front door he stopped, turned round, and stood looking back at the blue slopes of the north mountain. “how much better the line of the mountain is from here than from mrs. colbert’s yard!” he traced the long backbone of the ridge in the air with his finger. after taking a deep breath, he went inside.
when he greeted mrs. blake in the hallway, he asked very courteously for a pitcher of fresh water and two glasses; his ride, he said, had made him thirsty. david dropped the saddle-bags he was carrying and ran out to the springhouse for cold water. doctor clavenger thanked him and drank with evident gratification. then he delicately waved mrs. blake to the stairway and followed her, carrying the pitcher and the two glasses, which she supposed were to be used for medicines. but the first thing he did was to lift mary on his arm and hold a glass one-third full to her lips. she swallowed it eagerly and easily. he laid her down, crossed the hall, and did the same for betty. when she choked and gurgled, he said soothingly: “that’s very good. some of it went down; enough for this time.”
mrs. blake and fairhead both stood by while he examined his patients, but he asked few questions of them. he was deliberate and at ease. he looked at the children, even at their throats, very much as he had looked at the mountain — sympathetically, almost admiringly, david thought. if mrs. blake spoke up to give him information about the course of their illness, he raised his hand in gentle rebuke. he talked to the children, however, while he was working over them, talked soothingly, as if he had come to make things pleasant for them. even when they saw the swabs coming, they felt no dread. his swabs were very different from dr. brush’s, and he did not use sulphur and molasses. he stayed with them nearly two hours, and as he left he blew a kiss to each with: “be good girls for me, until i come tomorrow.”
when he went downstairs, he gave mrs. blake and fairhead clear and positive instructions, saying in conclusion:
“leave the windows open as i put them, mrs. blake. this is a fine day at last, — let the air and sunlight into their rooms. they will not take cold, but if you are afraid of that, put more blankets over them. and tell your father he must try to find more bits of ice in that cave of his, for the little girls.”
fairhead went with the doctor to the hitch-post, where the miller’s horse stood in readiness. “doctor clavenger, could you spare me a moment? there’s something i think i ought to tell you.”
the doctor sat down on the lower step of the hitch-block, leaned back against the second step, and relaxed into a position of ease, as if he meant to spend the afternoon there looking at the mountain. when david began to tell him what he had seen in the kitchen last night, he listened attentively, with his peculiar expression of thinking directly behind his eyes. he did not once interrupt, but when david ended with: “and i can’t believe she is any the worse for it,” the doctor gave him a quizzical smile.
“we’d best keep this a secret between ourselves, here on back creek. the child was hungry. your warm broth satisfied that craving, and she went to sleep. her system began to take up what it needed. that’s very simple. what surprises me is that you were struck dumb outside the window and did not go blundering in and take the child’s chance away from her.” the doctor stepped up on the block (he was a short man) and swung his leg over the saddle.
late the next afternoon mrs. colbert was sitting by the parlour fire, her chair turned so that she could look out of the north windows. since midsummer she had, without comment, changed her habit of life. now she did not leave her bed until tea-time. she was watching the meadow path, anxiously awaiting her husband’s return. he had been over at rachel’s since morning, and doctor clavenger, she knew, had come out soon after midday. she could not understand why some word of how he found the children had not been sent her.
at last she saw the miller coming across the meadow. she shook her head and sighed. his slow gait, the slackness of his shoulders, told her that he brought no good news. as he came through the yard he did not look up or glance toward the windows. she heard him open and close the front door, but he did not come in to her at once. when he came he did not speak, but stood by her chair, stooping down to warm his hands at the fire.
“poor rachel,” he brought out at last, “little betty has gone.”
“oh, henry! couldn’t clavenger do anything?”
“i reckon not. it was so sudden. it happened while he was there. i was in mary’s room, and all at once he came to the door and lifted his finger, looking at me sharp. i went back with him, and in a minute she was gone; just slipped away without a struggle, like she was dropping asleep. at first we couldn’t believe it.”
“and mary?”
“she is better. clavenger says she will get well. we must be thankful. but betty was my little dear.”
mrs. colbert reached out and caught his hand. “i know, henry. i know. but these things are beyond us. one shall be left and the other taken. it’s beyond us.” she was silent for a moment. suddenly she gripped his cold fingers and broke out with something of her old masterfulness: “and, henry, mary will get so much more out of life!”
“more for herself, maybe,” the miller sighed. “but i doubt if she will be as much comfort to others. the gentle spirit has left us.”
“sit down, dear. get my old hassock yonder and sit low, close to the fire. your hands are like ice. this is a time when we must both think.” she reached under the tea-table for the red flask and poured the rum into her empty teacup. he drank it obediently. she knew he was too tired to talk, so they sat in silence. when washington came in for the tray, she put her finger to her lips and pointed to the hot-water jug. he understood that meant fresh tea for the master. in a few moments he brought it, and left without making a sound. supper was ready, but he saw this was no time to speak of it.
all this while the mistress was thinking, turning things over in her mind. she had not seen rachel since nancy’s disappearance, months ago. she was wondering how far she could count upon herself. at last, when she had quite made up her mind, she put her hand on her husband’s drooping shoulder.
“henry, it will be hard for rachel and mary over in that house now. everything will remind them. why not ask them to come here and spend the winter with us? i would like to have them, on my own account. i’m not as able as i was last year. rachel is very proud, but i expect if you told her i have failed, and we ought to have someone here, she would come. mary would be nice company for me. i miss the child when i don’t see her. and if anything was to happen to me, the place wouldn’t run down and be so lonesome like for you. till is a good housekeeper, but the other darkies wouldn’t mind her one week if there wasn’t a woman of the family to stand behind her. you’d soon have bedlam here. rachel and till together would keep things up as they ought to be.”
colbert felt a chill run through him. sapphira had never before spoken to him of the possibility that something might happen to her this winter. though now she mentioned this very casually, it struck terror to his heart. he seemed in a moment to feel sharply so many things he had grown used to and taken for granted: her long illness, with all its discomforts, and the intrepid courage with which she had faced the inevitable. he reached out for her two hands and buried his face in her palms. she felt his tears wet on her skin. for a long while he crouched thus, leaning against her chair, his head on her knee.
he had never understood his wife very well, but he had always been proud of her. when she was young, she was fearless and independent, she held her head high and made this mill house a place where town folks liked to come. after she was old and ill, she never lowered her flag; not even now, when she knew the end was not far off. he had seen strong men quail and whimper at the approach of death. he, himself, dreaded it. but as he leaned against her chair with his face hidden, he knew how it would be with her; she would make her death easy for everyone, because she would meet it with that composure which he had sometimes called heartlessness, but which now seemed to him strength. as long as she was conscious, she would be mistress of the situation and of herself.
after this long silence, in which he seemed to know that she followed his thoughts, he lifted his head, still holding fast to her hands, and spoke falteringly. “yes, dear wife, do let us have rachel here. you are a kind woman to think of it. you are good to a great many folks, sapphy.”
“not so good as rachel, with her basket!” she turned it off lightly, tweaking his ear.
“there are different ways of being good to folks,” the miller held out stubbornly, as if this idea had just come to him and he was not to be teased into letting go of it. “sometimes keeping people in their place is being good to them.”
“perhaps. we would all do better if we had our lives to live over again.” she was silent for a moment, then added thoughtfully: “take it all in all, though, we have had many happy years here, and we both love the place. neither of us would be easy anywhere else.”