VII
Friends
The Doctor’s modest establishment consisted of two rooms over the post-office. Here his shingle swung idly in the Summer breeze or resisted the onslaughts of the Winter storms. The infrequent patient seldom met anyone else in the office, but in case there should be two at once, a dusty chair had been placed in the hall.
Both rooms were kept scrupulously clean by the wife of the postmaster, who lived on the same floor, but the bottles ranged in orderly rows upon the shelves were left severely alone, because the ministering influence lived in hourly dread of poison.
Here the family physician of East Lancaster lived out his monotonous existence. When he had first taken up his abode there, he had set up his household gods upon the hill, in company with his countrymen. He soon found, however, that his practice was confined to the hill, and that, for all he might know to the contrary, East Lancaster was unaware of his existence.
It was the postmaster who first set him right. “If you’re a-layin’ out to heal them as has the money to pay for it,” he had said, “you’ll have to move. This yere brook, what seems so innocent-like, is the chalk mark that partitions the sheep off from the goats. You’ll find it so in every place. Sometimes it’s water, sometimes it’s a car track, and sometimes a deepo, but it’s always there, though more ’n likely there ain’t no real line exceptin’ the one what’s drawn in folks’ fool heads. I reckon, bein’ as you’re a doctor, you’re familiar with that line down the middle of human’s brains. Well, this yere brook is practically the same thing, considerin’ East and West Lancaster for a minute as brains, the which is a high compliment to both.”
So, at the earliest possible moment, the Doctor had cast in his fortunes with the “quality.” East Lancaster affected refined astonishment at first, but when the resident physician, who had long enjoyed the deep respect of the community, had been gathered to his fathers, Doctor Brinkerhoff became the last resort. His skill was universally admitted, but no one went to his office, for fear of meeting undesirable strangers. It was thought to be in better taste to pay the double fee and have the Doctor call, even for such slight ailments as boils and cut fingers.
The man was mentally broad enough to be amused at the eccentricities of East Lancaster, though his keen old eyes did not fail to discern that he was merely tolerated where he had hoped to find friends. Within the narrow confines of his establishment, he cultivated a serene and comfortable philosophy. To suit himself to his environment when that environment was out of his power to change, to seek for the good in everything and resolutely refuse to be affected by the bad, to believe steadfastly in the law of Compensation – this was Doctor Brinkerhoff’s creed.
On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, he was received as an equal by two of the aristocratic families. On Sunday mornings, he never failed to attend church. Before the last notes of the bell died away, he was always in his place. After the service, he hurried away, making courtly acknowledgments on every side to the formal greetings.
Sunday afternoons, precisely at half-past four, he went up the hill to Herr Kaufmann’s and spent the evening. This weekly visit was the leaven of Fräulein Fredrika’s humdrum life. There was a sort of romance about it which glorified the commonplace and she looked forward to it with repressed excitement. Poor Fräulein Fredrika! Perhaps she, too, had her dreams.
In many respects the two men were kindred. Their conversations were frequently perfunctory, but lacked no whit of sustaining grace for that. Talk, after all, is pathetically cheap. Where one cannot understand without words, no amount of explanation will make things clear. Across impassable deeps, like lofty peaks of widely parted ranges, soul greets soul. Separated forever by the limitations of our clay, we live and die absolutely alone. Even Love, the magician, who for dazzling moments gives new sight and boundless revelation, cannot always work his charm. A third of our lives is spent in sleep, and who shall say what proportion of the rest is endured in planetary isolation?
June came through the open windows of the house upon the brink of the cliff and the Master dozed in his chair. The height was glaring, because there were no trees. The spirit of German progress had cut down every one of the lofty pines and maples, save at the edges of the settlement, where primeval woods, sloping down to the valley, still flourished.
Fräulein Fredrika sat with her face resolutely turned to the west. It was Sunday and almost half-past four, but she would not look for the expected guest. She preferred to concentrate her mind upon something else, and when the rusty bell-wire creaked, experience all the emotion of a delightful surprise.
At the appointed hour, he came, and the colour of dead rose petals bloomed on the Fräulein’s withered face. “Herr Doctor,” she said, “it is most kind. Mine brudder will be pleased.”
“Wake up!” cried the Doctor, with a hearty laugh, as he strode into the room. “You can’t sleep all the time!”
“So,” said the Master, with an understanding smile, as he straightened himself and rubbed his eyes, “it is you!”
Fräulein Fredrika sat in the corner and watched the two whom she loved best in all the world. No one was so wise as her Franz, unless it might be the Herr Doctor, to whom all the mysteries of life and death were as an open book.
“To me,” said the Doctor, once, “much has been given to see. My Father has graciously allowed me to help Him. I am first to welcome the soul that arrives from Him, and I am last to say farewell to those He takes back. What wonder if, now and then, I presume to send Him a message of my faith and my belief?”
The Master’s idea of satisfying companionship was not a flow of uninterrupted talk, marred by much levity. He merely asked that his friend should be near at hand, that he might communicate with him when he chose. When he had a thought which seemed worthy of dignified inspection, he would offer it, but not before.
On this particular afternoon, Lynn was exceedingly restless. Like many other men, to whom the thing is impossible, he vaguely feared feminisation. The variety of soft influences continually about him had a subtle, enervating effect.
Iris was reading, his mother was writing letters, and Aunt Peace was endeavouring to entertain him with reminiscences of her early youth. When life lies fair in the distance, with the rosy hues of anticipation transfiguring its rugged steeps and yawning chasms, we are young, though our years may number threescore and ten. On that first day when we look back, either happily or with remorse, to the stony ways over which we have travelled, losing concern for that part of the journey which is yet to come, we have grown old.
“That is very interesting,” said Lynn, when Aunt Peace had finished her description of the first school she attended. “I think I’ll go out for a walk now, if you don’t mind. Will you tell mother, please, when she comes down?”
He went off at a rapid pace and made a long, circling tour of East Lancaster, ending at the bridge, where he, too, leaned over and looked into the sunny depths of the stream. Doctor Brinkerhoff’s sign, waving in the wind, gave him an idea. Accidentally, he had hit upon his need; he hungered for the companionship of his kind.
But Doctor Brinkerhoff was not at home, and the deserted corridors echoed strangely beneath his tread. He walked the length of the long hall a few times, because there seemed nothing else to do, and the Doctor’s cat, locked in the office, mewed piteously.
“Poor pussy!” said Lynn, consolingly, “I wish I could let you out, but I can’t.”
Up the hill he went, his nameless irritation already sensibly decreased. After all, it was good to be alive – to breathe the free air, feel the warm sun upon his cheek and the springy turf beneath his feet.
“Someone is coming,” announced Fräulein Fredrika. “I think it will be the Herr Irving.”
“Herr Irving,” repeated the Master. “Mine pupil? It is not the day for his lesson.”
“Perhaps someone is ill,” suggested the Doctor.
But, as it happened, Lynn had no errand save that of pure friendliness. His buoyant spirits immediately gave a freshness to the time-worn themes of conversation, and they talked until sunset.
“It is good to have friends,” observed the Master. “In one’s wide acquaintance every person has his own place. You lose one friend, perhaps, and you think, ‘Well, I can get along without him,’ but it is not so. We have as many sides as we know people, and each acquaintance sees a different one, which is often only a reflection of himself.
“This afternoon, we have been speaking of Truth, and how it is that things entirely opposite each other can both be true. The Herr Doctor says it is because Truth has many sides, but I say no. Truth is one clear white light and we are sun-glasses with many corners. Prisms, I think you say. If the light strikes a sharp edge, it breaks into many colours. To one of us everything will be purple, to another red, and to yet one more it will be all blue. If we have many edges, we see many colours. It is only the person who is in tune, who lets the light pass with no interruption, who sees all things in one harmony, and Truth as it is.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “that is all very true. When we oppose our personal opinion to the thing as it is, and have our minds set upon what should be, according to our ideas, it makes an edge. I think it is the finest art of living to see things as they are and make the best of them. There is so little that we can change! If the colours break over us, it is the fault of our sharp edges and not of the light.”
“We are getting very serious,” observed Lynn. “For my part, I take each day just as it comes.”
“One day,” repeated the Master. “How many possible things there are in it! What was it the poet said of Herr Columbus? Yes, I have it now. ‘One day with life and hope and heart is time enough to find a world.’”
“That is the beauty of it,” put in the Doctor. “One day is surely enough. An old lady who had fallen and hurt herself badly said to me once: ‘Doctor, how long must I lie here?’ ‘Have patience, my dear madam,’ said I. ‘You have only one day at a time to live. Get all the content you can out of it, and let the rest wait, like a bud, till the sun of to-morrow shows you the rose.’”
“Did she get well?” asked Lynn.
“Of course – why not?”
“His sick ones always get well,” said Fräulein Fredrika, timidly. “Mine brudder’s friend possesses great skill.”
She was laying the table for the simple Sunday night tea, and Lynn said that he must go.
“No, no,” objected the Master, “you must stay.”
“It would be of a niceness,” the Fräulein assured him, very politely.
“We should enjoy it,” said the Doctor.
“You are all very kind,” returned Lynn, “but they will look for me at home, and I must not disappoint them.”
“Then,” continued the Doctor, “may I not hope that you will play for me before you go?”
“Certainly, if I have Herr Kaufmann’s permission, and if I may borrow one of his violins.”
“Of a surety.” The Master clattered down the uncarpeted stairs and returned with an instrument of his own make. Without accompaniment, Lynn played, and the Doctor nodded his enthusiastic approval. Herr Kaufmann looked out of the window and paid not the slightest attention to the performance.
“Very fine,” said the Doctor. “We have enjoyed it.”
“I am glad,” replied Lynn, modestly. Then, flushed with the praise, and his own pleasure in his achievement, he turned to the Master. “How am I getting on?” he asked, anxiously. “Don’t you think I am improving?”
“Yes,” returned the Master, dryly; “by next week you will be one Paganini.”
Stung by the sarcasm, Lynn went home, and after tea the group resolved itself into its original elements. Herr Kaufmann and the Doctor sat in their respective easy-chairs, conversing with each other by means of silences, with here and there a word of comment, and Fräulein Fredrika was in the corner, silent, too, and yet overcome with admiration.
“That boy,” said the Doctor, at length, “he has genius.”
The crescent moon gleamed faintly against the sunset, and a wayworn robin, with slow-beating wings, circled toward his nest in one of the maples on the other side of the valley. The fragrant dusk sheltered the little house, which all day had borne the heat of the sun.
“Possibly,” said the Master, “but no heart, no feeling. He is all technique.”
There was another long pause. “His mother,” observed the Doctor, “do you know her?”
“No. I meet no women but mine sister.”
“She is a lovely lady.”
“So?”
It was evident that the Master had no interest in Margaret Irving, but the Doctor still brooded upon the vision. She was different from anyone else in East Lancaster, and he admired her very much.
“That boy,” said the Doctor, again, “he has her eyes.”
“Whose?”
“His mother’s.”
“So?”
The interval lengthened into an hour, and presently the kitchen clock struck ten. “I shall go now,” remarked the Doctor, rising.
“Not yet,” said the Master. “Come!”
They went downstairs together, into the shop. It had happened before, though rarely, and the Doctor suspected that he was about to receive the greatest possible kindness from his friend’s hands. Herr Kaufmann disappeared into his bedroom and was gone a long time.
The room was dark, and the Doctor did not dare to move for fear of stepping upon some of the wood destined for violins. A cricket in the corner sang cheerily and ceased suddenly in the middle of a chirp when the Master came back with a lighted candle.
“One moment, Herr Doctor.”
He whisked off again and presently returned, holding under his arm something that was wrapped in many pieces of ragged silk. One by one these were removed, and at last the treasure was revealed.
He held it off at arm’s length, where the light might shine upon its beauty, and well out of reach of a random touch. The Doctor said the expected thing, but it fell upon deaf ears. The Master’s fine face was alight with more than earthly joy, and he stroked the brown breasts lovingly.
“Mine Cremona!” he breathed. “Mine – all mine!”
VIII
A Bit of Human Driftwood
“Present company excepted,” remarked Lynn, “this village is full of fossils.”
“At what age does one get to be a ‘fossil,’” asked Aunt Peace, her eyes twinkling. “Seventy-five?”
“That isn’t fair,” Lynn answered, resentfully. “You’re younger than any of us, Aunt Peace, – you’re seventy-five years young.”
“So I am,” she responded, good humouredly. She was upon excellent terms with this tall, straight young fellow who had brought new life into her household. A March wind, suddenly sweeping through her rooms, would have had much the same effect.
“Am I a fossil?” asked Margaret, who had overheard the conversation.
“You’re nothing but a kid, mother. You’ve never grown up. I can do what I please with you.” He picked her up, bodily, and carried her, flushed and protesting, to her favourite chair, and dumped her into it. “Aunt Peace, is there any place in the house where you might care to go?”
“Thank you, no. I’ll stay where I am, if I may. I’m very comfortable.”
Lynn paced back and forth with a heavy tread which resounded upon the polished floor. Iris happened to be passing the door and looked in, anxiously, for signs of damage.
“Iris,” laughed Miss Field, “what a little old maid you are! You remind me of that story we read together.”
“Which story, Aunt Peace?”
“The one in which the over-neat woman married a careless man to reform him. She used to follow him around with a brush and dustpan and sweep up after him.”
“That would make him nice and comfortable,” observed Lynn. “What became of the man?”
“He was sent to the asylum.”
“And the woman?” asked Margaret.
“She died of a broken heart.”
“I think I’d be in the asylum too,” said Lynn. “I do not desire to be swept up after.”
“Nobody desires to sweep up after you,” retorted Iris, “but it has to be done. Otherwise the house would be uninhabitable.”
“East Lancaster,” continued Lynn, irrelevantly, “is the abode of mummies and fossils. The city seal is a broom – at least it should be. I was never in such a clean place in my life. The exhibits themselves look as though they’d been freshly dusted. Dirt is wholesome – didn’t you ever hear that? How the population has lived to its present advanced age, is beyond me.”
“We have never really lived,” returned Iris, with a touch of sarcasm, “until recently. Before you came, we existed. Now East Lancaster lives.”
“Who’s the pious party in brown silk with the irregular dome on her roof?” asked Lynn.
“The minister’s second wife,” answered Aunt Peace, instantly gathering a personality from the brief description.
“So, as Herr Kaufmann says. Might one inquire about the jewel she wears?”
“It’s just a pin,” said Iris.
“It looks more like a glass case. In someway, it reminds me of a museum.”
“It has some of her first husband’s hair in it,” explained Iris.
“Jerusalem!” cried Lynn. “That’s the limit! Fancy the feelings of the happy bridegroom whose wife wears a jewel made out of her first husband’s fur! Not for me! When I take the fatal step, it won’t be a widow.”
“That,” remarked Margaret, calmly, “is as it may be. We have the reputation of being a bad lot.”
Lynn flushed, patted his mother’s hand awkwardly, and hastily beat a retreat. They heard him in the room overhead, walking back and forth, and practising feverishly.
“Margaret,” asked Miss Field, suddenly, “what are you going to make of that boy?”
“A good man first,” she answered. “After that, what God pleases.”
By a swift change, the conversation had become serious, and, always quick at perceiving hidden currents, Iris felt herself in the way. Making an excuse, she left them.
For some time each was occupied with her own thoughts. “Margaret,” said Miss Field, again, then hesitated.
“Yes, Aunt Peace – what is it?”
“My little girl. I have been thinking – after I am gone, you know.”
“Don’t talk so, dear Aunt Peace. We shall have you with us for a long time yet.”
“I hope so,” returned the old lady, brightly, “but I am not endowed with immortality – at least not here, – and I have already lived more than my allotted threescore and ten. My problem is not a new one – I have had it on my mind for years, – and when you came I thought that perhaps you had come to help me solve it.”
“And so I have, if I can.”
“My little girl,” said Aunt Peace, – and the words were a caress, – “she has given to me infinitely more than I have given to her. I have never ceased to bless the day I found her.”
Between these two there were no questions, save the ordinary, meaningless ones which make so large a part of conversation. The deeps were silently passed by; only the shallows were touched.
“You have the right to know,” Miss Field continued. “Iris is twenty now, or possibly twenty-one. She has never known when her birthday came, and so we celebrate it on the anniversary of the day I found her.
“I was driving through the country, fifteen or twenty miles from East Lancaster. I – I was with Doctor Brinkerhoff,” she went on, unwillingly. “He had asked me to go and see a patient of his, in whom, from what he had told me, I had learned to take great interest. Doctor Brinkerhoff,” she said, sturdily, “is a gentleman, though he has no social position.”
“Yes,” replied Margaret, seeing that an answer was expected, “he is a charming gentleman.”
“It was a warm Summer day, and on our way back we came upon a dozen or more ragged children, playing in the road. They refused to let us pass, and we could not run over them. A dilapidated farmhouse stood close by, but no one was in sight.
“‘Please hold the lines,’ said the Doctor. ‘I will get out and lead the horse past this most unnecessary obstruction.’ When he got out, the children began to throw stones at the horse. It was a young animal, and it started so violently that I was almost thrown from my seat. One child, a girl of ten, climbed into the buggy and shrieked to the rest: ‘I’ll hold the lines – get more stones!’
“I was frightened and furiously angry, but I could do nothing, for I had only one hand free. I tried to make the child sit down, and she struck at me. Her torn sleeve fell back, and I saw that her arm was bruised, as if with heavy blows.
“Meanwhile the Doctor had led the horse a little way ahead, and had come back. The whole tribe was behind us, yelling like wild Indians, and we were in the midst of a rain of stones. Doctor Brinkerhoff got in and started the horse at full speed.
“‘We’ll put her down,’ he said, ‘a little farther on. She can walk back.’
“She was quiet, and her head was down, but I had one look from her eyes that haunts me yet. She hated everybody – you could see that, – and yet there was a sort of dumb helplessness about it that made my heart ache.
“She got out, obediently, when we told her to, and stood by the roadside, watching us. ‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘that child is not like the others, and she has been badly used. I want her – I want to take her home with me.’
“‘Bless your kind heart, dear lady,’ he replied, laughing, and we were almost at home before I convinced him that I was in earnest. He would not let me go there again, but the very next day, he went, late in the afternoon, and brought her to me after dark, so that no one might see. East Lancaster has always made the most of every morsel of gossip.
“The poor little soul was hungry, frightened, and oh, so dirty! I gave her a bath, cut off her hair, which was matted close to her head, fed her, and put her into a clean bed. The bruises on her body would have brought tears from a stone. I sat by her until she was asleep, and then went down to interview the Doctor, who was reading in the library.
“He said that the people who had her were more than glad to get rid of her, and hoped that they might never see her again. Nothing had been paid toward her support for a long time, and they considered themselves victimised.
“Of course I put detectives at work upon the case and soon found out all there was to know. She was the daughter of a play-actress, whose stage name was Iris Temple. Her husband deserted her a few months after their marriage, and when the child was born, she was absolutely destitute. Finally, she found work, but she could not take the child with her, and so Iris does not remember her mother at all. For six years she paid these people a small sum for the care of the child, then remittances ceased, and abuse began. We learned that she had died in a hospital, but there was no trace of the father.
“There was no one to dispute my title, so I at once made it legal. Shortly afterward, she had a long, terrible fever, and oh, Margaret, the things that poor child said in her delirium! Doctor Brinkerhoff was here night and day, and his skill saved her, but when she came out of it she was a pitiful little ghost. Mercifully, she had forgotten a great deal, but even now some of the horror comes back to her occasionally. She knows everything, except that her mother was a play-actress. I would not want her to know that.
“For a while,” Aunt Peace went on, “we both had a very hard time. She was actually depraved. But I believed in the good that was hidden in her somewhere – there is good in all of us if we can only find it, – and little by little she learned to love me. Through it all, I had Doctor Brinkerhoff’s sympathetic assistance. He came every week, advised me, counselled with me, helped me, and even faced the gossips. All that East Lancaster knows is the simple fact that I found a child who attracted me, discovered that her parents were dead, and adopted her. There was a great deal of excitement at first, but it died down. Most things die down, my dear, if we give them time.”
“Dear Aunt Peace,” said Margaret, softly, “you found a bit of human driftwood, and with your love and your patience made it into a beautiful woman.”
The old face softened, and the serene eyes grew dim. “Whenever I think that my life has been in vain; when it seems empty, purposeless, and bare, I look at my little girl, remember what she was, and find content. I think that a great deal will be forgiven me, because I have done well with her.”
“I am so glad you told me,” continued Margaret, after a little.
“Her future has sorely troubled me. Of course I can make her comfortable, but money is not everything. I dread to have her go away from East Lancaster, and yet – ”
“She never need go,” interrupted Margaret. “If, as you say, the house comes to me, there is no reason why she should. I would be so glad to have her with me!”
“Thank you, my dear! It was what I wanted, but I did not like to ask. Now my mind will be at rest.”
“It is little enough to do for you, leaving her out of the question. She might be a great deal less lovely than she is, and yet it would be a pleasure to do it for you.”
“She will repay you, I am sure,” said Aunt Peace. “Of course Lynn will marry sometime,” – here the mother’s heart stopped beating for an instant and went on unevenly, – “so you will be left alone. You cannot expect to keep him in a place like East Lancaster. He is – how old?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Then, in a few years more, he will leave you.” Aunt Peace was merely meditating aloud as she looked out of the window, and had no idea that she was hurting her listener. “Perhaps, after all, Iris will be my best bequest to you.”
“Iris may marry,” suggested Mrs. Irving, trying to smile.
“Iris,” repeated Aunt Peace, “no indeed! I have made her an old-fashioned spinster like myself. She has never thought of such things, and never will!”
(At the moment, Miss Temple was reading an anonymous letter, much worn, but, though walls have ears, they are happily blind, and Aunt Peace did not realise that she was nowhere near the mark.)
“Marriage is a negative relation,” continued Miss Field, with an air of knowledge. “People undertake it from an unpardonable individual curiosity. They see it all around them, and yet they rush in, blindly trusting that their own venture will turn out differently from every other. Someone once said that it was like a crowded church – those outside were endeavouring to get in, and those inside were making violent efforts to get out. Perso