_ CHAPTER X. GENTLES AND COMMONS
Dr. Sevier sat in the great easy-chair under the drop-light of his library table trying to read a book. But his thought was not on the page. He expired a long breath of annoyance, and lifted his glance backward from the bottom of the page to its top.
Why must his mind keep going back to that little cottage in St. Mary street? What good reason was there? Would they thank him for his solicitude? Indeed! He almost smiled his contempt of the supposition. Why, when on one or two occasions he had betrayed a least little bit of kindly interest,--what? Up had gone their youthful vivacity like an umbrella. Oh, yes!--like all young folks--_their_ affairs were intensely private. Once or twice he had shaken his head at the scantiness of all their provisions for life. Well? They simply and unconsciously stole a hold upon one another's hand or arm, as much as to say, "To love is enough." When, gentlemen of the jury, it isn't enough!
"Pshaw!" The word escaped him audibly. He drew partly up from his half recline, and turned back a leaf of the book to try once more to make out the sense of it.
But there was Mary, and there was her husband. Especially Mary. Her image came distinctly between his eyes and the page. There she was, just as on his last visit,--a superfluous one--no charge,--sitting and plying her needle, unaware of his approach, gently moving her rocking-chair, and softly singing, "Flow on, thou shining river,"--the song his own wife used to sing. "O child, child! do you think it's always going to be 'shining'?" They shouldn't be so contented. Was pride under that cloak? Oh, no, no! But even if the content was genuine, it wasn't good. Why, they oughtn't to be _able_ to be happy so completely out of their true sphere. It showed insensibility. But, there again,--Richling wasn't insensible, much less Mary.
The Doctor let his book sink, face downward, upon his knee.
"They're too big to be playing in the sand." He took up the book again. "'Tisn't my business to tell them so." But before he got the volume fairly before his eyes his professional bell rang, and he tossed the book upon the table.
"Well, why don't you bring him in?" he asked, in a tone of reproof, of a servant who presented a card; and in a moment the visitor entered.
He was a person of some fifty years of age, with a patrician face, in which it was impossible to tell where benevolence ended and pride began. His dress was of fine cloth, a little antique in cut, and fitting rather loosely on a form something above the medium height, of good width, but bent in the shoulders, and with arms that had been stronger. Years, it might be, or possibly some unflinching struggle with troublesome facts, had given many lines of his face a downward slant. He apologized for the hour of his call, and accepted with thanks the chair offered him.
"You are not a resident of the city?" asked Dr. Sevier.
"I am from Kentucky." The voice was rich, and the stranger's general air one of rather conscious social eminence.
"Yes?" said the Doctor, not specially pleased, and looked at him closer. He wore a black satin neck-stock, and dark-blue buttoned gaiters. His hair was dyed brown. A slender frill adorned his shirt-front.
"Mrs."--the visitor began to say, not giving the name, but waving his index-finger toward his card, which Dr. Sevier had laid upon the table, just under the lamp,--"my wife, Doctor, seems to be in a very feeble condition. Her physicians have advised her to try the effects of a change of scene, and I have brought her down to your busy city, sir."
The Doctor assented. The stranger resumed:--
"Its hurry and energy are a great contrast to the plantation life, sir."
"They're very unlike," the physician admitted.
"This chafing of thousands of competitive designs," said the visitor, "this great fretwork of cross purposes, is a decided change from the quiet order of our rural life. Hmm! There everything is under the administration of one undisputed will, and is executed by the unquestioning obedience of our happy and contented slave peasantry. I prefer the country. But I thought this was just the change that would arouse and electrify an invalid who has really no tangible complaint."
"Has the result been unsatisfactory?"
"Entirely so. I am unexpectedly disappointed." The speaker's thought seemed to be that the climate of New Orleans had not responded with that hospitable alacrity which was due so opulent, reasonable, and universally obeyed a guest.
There was a pause here, and Dr. Sevier looked around at the book which lay at his elbow. But the visitor did not resume, and the Doctor presently asked:--
"Do you wish me to see your wife?"
"I called to see you alone first," said the other, "because there might be questions to be asked which were better answered in her absence."
"Then you think you know the secret of her illness, do you?"
"I do. I think, indeed I may say I know, it is--bereavement."
The Doctor compressed his lips and bowed.
The stranger drooped his head somewhat, and, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, laid the tips of his thumbs and fingers softly together.
"The truth is, sir, she cannot recover from the loss of our son."
"An infant?" asked the Doctor. His bell rang again as he put the question.
"No, sir; a young man,--one whom I had thought a person of great promise; just about to enter life."
"When did he die?"
"He has been dead nearly a year. I"-- The speaker ceased as the mulatto waiting-man appeared at the open door, with a large, simple, German face looking easily over his head from behind.
"Toctor," said the owner of this face, lifting an immense open hand, "Toctor, uf you bleace, Toctor, you vill bleace ugscooce me."
The Doctor frowned at the servant for permitting the interruption. But the gentleman beside him said:--
"Let him come in, sir; he seems to be in haste, sir, and I am not,--I am not, at all."
"Come in," said the physician.
The new-comer stepped into the room. He was about six feet three inches in height, three feet six in breadth, and the same in thickness. Two kindly blue eyes shone softly in an expanse of face that had been clean-shaven every Saturday night for many years, and that ended in a retreating chin and a dewlap. The limp, white shirt-collar just below was without a necktie, and the waist of his pantaloons, which seemed intended to supply this deficiency, did not quite, but only almost reached up to the unoccupied blank. He removed from his respectful head a soft gray hat, whitened here and there with flour.
"Yentlemen," he said, slowly, "you vill ugscooce me to interruptet you,--yentlemen."
"Do you wish to see me?" asked Dr. Sevier.
The German made an odd gesture of deferential assent, lifting one open hand a little in front of him to the level of his face, with the wrist bent forward and the fingers pointing down.
"Uf you bleace, Toctor, I toose; undt tat's te fust time I effer _tit_ vanted a toctor. Undt you mus' ugscooce me, Toctor, to callin' on you, ovver I vish you come undt see mine"--
To the surprise of all, tears gushed from his eyes.
"Mine poor vife, Toctor!" He turned to one side, pointed his broad hand toward the floor, and smote his forehead.
"I yoost come in fun mine paykery undt comin' into mine howse, fen--I see someting"--he waved his hand downward again--"someting--layin' on te--floor--face pleck ans a nigger's; undt fen I look to see who udt iss,--_udt is Mississ Reisen_! Toctor, I vish you come right off! I couldn't shtayndt udt you toandt come right avay!"
"I'll come," said the Doctor, without rising; "just write your name and address on that little white slate yonder."
"Toctor," said the German, extending and dipping his hat, "I'm ferra much a-velcome to you, Toctor; undt tat's yoost fot te pottekerra by mine corner sayt you vould too. He sayss, 'Reisen,' he sayss, 'you yoost co to Toctor Tsewier.'" He bent his great body over the farther end of the table and slowly worked out his name, street, and number. "Dtere udt iss, Toctor; I put udt town on teh schlate; ovver, I hope you ugscooce te hayndtwriding."
"Very well. That's right. That's all."
The German lingered. The Doctor gave a bow of dismission.
"That's all, I say. I'll be there in a moment. That's all. Dan, order my carriage!"
"Yentlemen, you vill ugscooce me?"
The German withdrew, returning each gentleman's bow with a faint wave of the hat.
During this interview the more polished stranger had sat with bowed head, motionless and silent, lifting it only once and for a moment at the German's emotional outburst. Then the upward and backward turned face was marked with a commiseration partly artificial, but also partly natural. He now looked up at the Doctor.
"I shall have to leave you," said the Doctor.
"Certainly, sir," replied the other; "by all means!" The willingness was slightly overdone and the benevolence of tone was mixed with complacency. "By all means," he said again; "this is one of those cases where it is only a proper grace in the higher to yield place to the lower." He waited for a response, but the Doctor merely frowned into space and called for his boots. The visitor resumed:--
"I have a good deal of feeling, sir, for the unlettered and the vulgar. They have their station, but they have also--though doubtless in smaller capacity than we--their pleasures and pains."
Seeing the Doctor ready to go, he began to rise.
"I may not be gone long," said the physician, rather coldly; "if you choose to wait"--
"I thank you; n-no-o"--The visitor stopped between a sitting and a rising posture.
"Here are books," said the Doctor, "and the evening papers,--'Picayune,' 'Delta,' 'True Delta.'" It seemed for a moment as though the gentleman might sink into his seat again. "And there's the 'New York Herald.'"
"No, sir!" said the visitor quickly, rising and smoothing himself out; "nothing from that quarter, if you please." Yet he smiled. The Doctor did not notice that, while so smiling, he took his card from the table. There was something familiar in the stranger's face which the Doctor was trying to make out. They left the house together. Outside the street door the physician made apologetic allusion to their interrupted interview.
"Shall I see you at my office to-morrow? I would be happy"--
The stranger had raised his hat. He smiled again, as pleasantly as he could, which was not delightful, and said, after a moment's hesitation:--
"--Possibly." _