Nor would the Doctor let his restless, anxious son do more than make the introduction, but despatched him to the Hospital; whence returning to find himself still excluded, he could endure nothing but pacing up and down the lawn in sight of his father’s head in the window, and seeking as usual Ethel’s sympathy.
There was some truth in what Charles Cheviot had said. Wedlock did enhance the grief and loss, and Tom found the privilege of these months of tendance more heart-wringing than he had anticipated, though of course more precious and inestimable. Moreover, Averil’s depression had been a phase of her illness which had not before revealed itself in such a degree.
‘Generally,’ he said, ‘she has talked as if what she looks to were all such pure hope and joy, that though it broke one’s heart to hear it, one saw it made her happy, and could stand it. Fancy, Ethel, not an hour after we were married, I found her trying the ring on this finger, and saying I should be able to wear it like my father! It seemed as if she would regret nothing but my sorrow, and that my keeping it out of sight was all that was needful to her happiness. But to-day she has been blaming herself for—for grieving to leave all so soon, just as her happiness might have been beginning! Think, Ethel! Reproaching herself for unthankfulness even to tears! It might have been more for her peace to have remained with her where she had no revival of these associations, if they are only pain to her.’
‘Oh no, no, Tom. It only proves the pleasure they do give her. You know, better than I do, that there must be ups and downs, failures of spirits from fatigue when the will is peaceful and resigned.’
‘I know it. I know it with my understanding, Ethel, but as to reasoning about her as if she was anybody else, the thing is mere mockery. What can my father be about?’ he added, for the twentieth time. ‘Talking to her in the morning always knocks her up. If he had only let me warn him; but he hurried me off in his inconsiderate way.’
At last, however, the head disappeared, and Tom rushed indoors.
‘So, Tom, you have made shorter work of twenty-five patients than I of one.’
‘I’ll go again,’ said poor Tom, in the desperation of resolute meekness, ‘only let me see how she is.’
‘Let Ethel go up now. She is very cheery except for a little headache.’
While Ethel obeyed, Dr. May began a minute interrogation of his son, so lengthened that Tom could hardly restrain sharp impatient replies to such apparent trifling with his agony to learn how long his father thought he could keep his treasure, and how much suffering might be spared to her.
At last Dr. May said, ‘I may be wrong. Your science is fresher than mine; but to me there seem indications that the organic disease is in the way of being arrested. Good health of course she cannot have; but if she weathers another winter, I think you may look for as many years of happiness with her as in an ordinary case.’
It was the first accent of hope since the hysteric scream that had been his greeting, and all his reserve and dread of emotion: could not prevent his covering his face with his hands, and sobbing aloud. ‘Father, father,’ he said, ‘you cannot tell what this is to me!’
‘I can in part, my boy,’ said the Doctor, sadly.
‘And,’ he started up and walked about the room, ‘you shall have the whole treatment. I will only follow your measures. No one at New York saw the slightest hope of checking it.’
‘They had your account, and you hardly allowed enough for the hysterical affection. I do not say it is certainty —far less, health.’
‘Any way, any way, if I may only have her to lie and look at me, it is happiness unlooked for! You don’t think I could have treated her otherwise?’
‘No. Under His blessing you saved her yourself. You would have perceived the change if she had been an indifferent person.’
Tom made another turn to the door, and came back still half wild, and laid his face on his arms upon the table. ‘You tell her,’ he said, ‘I shall never be able—’
Knocking at Averil’s door, Dr. May was answered by a call of ‘Tom.’
‘Not this time, my dear. He is coming, but we have been talking you over. Ave, you have a very young doctor, and rather too much interested.’
‘Indeed!’ she said, indignantly; ‘he has made me much better.’
‘Exactly so, my dear; so much better that he agrees with me that he expressed a strong opinion prematurely.’
‘They thought the same at New York,’ she said, still resolved on his defence.
‘My dear, unless you are bent on growing worse in order to justify his first opinion, I think you will prove that which he now holds. And, Ave, it was, under Providence, skill that we may be proud of by which he has subdued the really fatal disorder. You may have much to undergo, and must submit to a sofa life and much nursing, but I think you will not leave him so soon.’
There was a long pause; at last she said, ‘O, Dr. May, I beg your pardon. If I had known, I would never—’
‘Never what, my dear?’
‘Never have consented! It is such a grievous thing for a professional man to have a sick wife.’
‘It is exactly what he wanted, my dear, if you will not fly at me for saying so. Nothing else could teach him that patients are not cases but persons; and here he comes to tell you what he thinks of the trouble of a sick wife.’
‘Well,’ said Dr. May, as he and Ethel walked away together, ‘poor young things, they have a chequered time before them. Pretty well for the doctor who hated sick people, Wards, and Stoneborough; but, after all, I have liked none of our weddings better. I like people to rub one another brighter.’
‘And I am proud when the least unselfish nature has from first to last done the most unselfish things. No one of us has ever given up so much as Tom, and I am sure he will be happy in it.’
More can hardly be said without straying into the realms of prediction; yet such of our readers as are bent on carrying on their knowledge of the Daisies beyond the last sentence, may be told that, to the best of our belief, Leonard’s shoemaking is not his foremost office in the mission, where he finds that fulness of hopeful gladness
