Yet here was I, a helpless creature quite unfit to stir among them, gifted with no sight, no scent of all the changes that move our love, and lead our hearts, from month to month, along the quiet path of life. And what was worse, I had no hope of caring ever for them more.
Presently a little knock sounded through my gloomy room, and supposing it to be the doctor, I tried to rise and make my bow. But to my surprise it was little Ruth, who had never once come to visit me, since I was placed under the doctor’s hands. Ruth was dressed so gaily, with rosettes, and flowers, and whatnot, that I was sorry for her bad manners; and thought she was come to conquer me, now that Lorna was done with.
Ruth ran towards me with sparkling eyes, being rather short of sight; then suddenly she stopped, and I saw entire amazement in her face.
“Can you receive visitors, Cousin Ridd?—why, they never told me of this!” she cried: “I knew that you were weak, dear John; but not that you were dying. Whatever is that basin for?”
“I have no intention of dying, Ruth; and I like not to talk about it. But that basin, if you must know, is for the doctor’s purpose.”
“What, do you mean bleeding you? You poor weak cousin! Is it possible that he does that still?”
“Twice a week for the last six weeks, dear. Nothing else has kept me alive.”
“Nothing else has killed you, nearly. There!” and she set her little boot across the basin, and crushed it. “Not another drop shall they have from you. Is Annie such a fool as that? And Lizzie, like a zany, at her books! And killing her brother, between them!”
I was surprised to see Ruth excited; her character being so calm and quiet. And I tried to soothe her with my feeble hand, as now she knelt before me.
“Dear cousin, the doctor must know best. Annie says so, every day. What has he been brought up for?”
“Brought up for slaying and murdering. Twenty doctors killed King Charles, in spite of all the women. Will you leave it to me, John? I have a little will of my own; and I am not afraid of doctors. Will you leave it to me, dear John? I have saved your Lorna’s life. And now I will save yours; which is a far, far easier business.”
“You have saved my Lorna’s life! What do you mean by talking so?”
“Only what I say, Cousin John. Though perhaps I overprize my work. But at any rate she says so.”
“I do not understand,” I said, falling back with bewilderment; “all women are such liars.”
“Have you ever known me tell a lie?” Ruth in great indignation—more feigned, I doubt, than real—“your mother may tell a story, now and then when she feels it right; and so may both your sisters. But so you cannot do, John Ridd; and no more than you can I do it.”
If ever there was virtuous truth in the eyes of any woman, it was now in Ruth Huckaback’s: and my brain began very slowly to move, the heart being almost torpid from perpetual loss of blood.
“I do not understand,” was all I could say for a very long time.
“Will you understand, if I show you Lorna? I have feared to do it, for the sake of you both. But now Lorna is well enough, if you think that you are, Cousin John. Surely you will understand, when you see your wife.”
Following her, to the very utmost of my mind and heart, I felt that all she said was truth; and yet I could not make it out. And in her last few words there was such a power of sadness rising through the cover of gaiety, that I said to myself, half in a dream, “Ruth is very beautiful.”
Before I had time to listen much for the approach of footsteps, Ruth came back, and behind her Lorna; coy as if of her bridegroom; and hanging back with her beauty. Ruth banged the door, and ran away; and Lorna stood before me.
But she did not stand for an instant, when she saw what I was like. At the risk of all thick bandages, and upsetting a dozen medicine bottles, and scattering leeches right and left, she managed to get into my arms, although they could not hold her. She laid her panting warm young breast on the place where they meant to bleed me, and she set my pale face up; and she would not look at me, having greater faith in kissing.
I felt my life come back, and warm; I felt my trust in women flow; I felt the joys of living now, and the power of doing it. It is not a moment to describe; who feels can never tell of it. But the rush of Lorna’s tears, and the challenge of my bride’s lips, and the throbbing of my wife’s heart (now at last at home on mine), made me feel that the world was good, and not a thing to be weary of.
Little more have I to tell. The doctor was turned out at once; and slowly came back my former strength, with a darling wife, and good victuals. As for Lorna, she never tired of sitting and watching me eat and eat. And such is her heart that she never tires of being with me here and there, among the beautiful places, and talking with her arm around me—so far at least as it can go, though half of mine may go round her—of the many fears and troubles, dangers and discouragements, and worst of all the bitter partings, which we used to have, somehow.
There is no need for my farming harder than becomes a man of weight. Lorna has great stores of money, though we never draw it out, except for some poor neighbour; unless I find her a
