The Golden House

C >> Charles Dudley Warner >> The Golden House


As he closed, some were kneeling, many were crying; all, profoundly
moved, watched him as, with the benediction and the sign of the cross, he
turned and walked swiftly to the door of the sacristy. It opened, and
then Ruth Leigh heard a cry, "Father Damon! Father Damon!" and there was
a rush into the chancel. Hastening through the throng, which promptly
made way for the doctor, she found Father Damon lying across the
threshold, as he had fallen, colorless and unconscious. She at once took
command of the situation. The body was lifted to the plain couch in the
room, a hasty examination was made of pulse and heart, a vial of brandy
was produced from her satchel, and messengers were despatched for things
needed, and especially for beef-tea.

"Is he dead, Dr. Leigh? Is he any better, doctor? What is the matter,
doctor?"

"Want of nourishment," replied Dr. Leigh, savagely.

The room was cleared of all except a couple of stout lads and a friendly
German woman whom the doctor knew. The news of the father's sudden
illness had spread rapidly, with the report that he had fallen dead while
standing at the altar; and the church was thronged, and the street
rapidly blocked up with a hushed crowd, eager for news and eager to give
aid. So great was the press that the police had to interfere, and push
back the throng from the door. It was useless to attempt to disperse it
with the assurance that Father Damon was better; it patiently waited to
see for itself. The sympathy of the neighborhood was most impressive,
and perhaps the thing that the public best remembers about this incident
is the pathetic solicitude of the people among whom Father Damon labored
at the rumor of his illness, a matter which was greatly elaborated by the
reporters from the city journals and the purveyors of telegraphic news
for the country.

With the application of restoratives the patient revived. When he opened
his eyes he saw figures in the room as in a dream, and his mind struggled
to remember where he was and what had happened; but one thing was not a
dream: Dr. Leigh stood by his bedside, with her left hand on his brow
and the right grasping his own right hand, as if to pull him back to
life. He saw her face, and then he lost it again in sheer weariness at
the effort. After a few moments, in a recurring wave of strength, he
looked up again, still bewildered, and said, faintly:

"Where am I?"

"With friends," said the doctor. "You were a little faint, that is all;
you will be all right presently."

She quickly prepared some nourishment, which was what he most needed, and
fed him from time to time, as he was able to receive it. Gradually he
could feel a little vigor coming into his frame; and regaining control of
himself, he was able to hear what had happened. Very gently the doctor
told him, making light of his temporary weakness.

"The fact is, Father Damon," she said, "you've got a disease common in
this neighborhood--hunger."

The father smiled, but did not reply. It might be so. For the time he
felt his dependence, and he did not argue the point. This dependence
upon a woman--a sort of Sister of Charity, was she not?--was not
altogether unpleasant. When he attempted to rise, but found that he was
too weak, and she said "Not yet," he submitted, with the feeling that to
be commanded with such gentleness was a sort of luxury.

But in an hour's time he declared that he was almost himself again,
and it was decided that he was well enough to be removed to his own
apartments in the neighborhood. A carriage was sent for, and the
transfer was made, and made through a crowd in the streets, which stood
silent and uncovered as his carriage passed through it. Dr. Leigh
remained with him for an hour longer, and then left him in charge
of a young gentleman from the Neighborhood Guild, who gladly volunteered
to watch for the night.

Ruth walked slowly home, weary now that the excitement was over, and
revolving many things in her mind, as is the custom of women. She heard
again that voice, she saw again that inspired face; but the impression
most indelible with her was the prostrate form, the pallid countenance,
the helplessness of this man whose will had before been strong enough to
compel the obedience of his despised body. She had admired his strength;
but it was his weakness that drew upon her woman's heart, and evolved a
tenderness dangerous to her peace of mind. Yet it was the doctor and not
the woman that replied to the inquiries at the dispensary.

"Yes, it was fasting and overwork. Men are so stupid; they think they
can defy all the laws of nature, especially priests." And she determined
to be quite plain with him next day.

And Father Damon, lying weary in his bed, before he fell asleep, saw the
faces in the dim chapel turned to him in strained eagerness the moment
before he lost consciousness; but the most vivid image was that of a
woman bending over him, with eyes of tenderness and pity, and the smile
with which she greeted his awakening. He could feel yet her hand upon
his brow.

When Dr. Leigh called next day, on her morning rounds, she found a
brother of the celibate order, Father Monies, in charge. He was sitting
by the window reading, and when the doctor came up the steps he told her
in a low voice to enter without knocking. Father Damon was better, much
better; but he had advised him not to leave his bed, and the patient had
been dozing all the morning. The doctor asked if he had eaten anything,
and how much. The apartment was small and scantily furnished--a sort of
anchorite cell. Through the drawn doors of the next room the bed was in
sight. As they were talking in low voices there came from this room a
cheerful:

"Good-morning, doctor."

"I hope you ate a good breakfast," she said, as she arose and went to his
bedside.

"I suppose you mean better than usual," he replied, with a faint attempt
at a smile. "No doubt you and Father Monies are satisfied, now you've
got me laid up."

"That depends upon your intentions."

"Oh, I intend to get up tomorrow."

"If you do, without other change in your intentions, I am going to report
you to the Organized Charity as a person who has no visible means of
support."

She had brought a bunch of violets, and as they talked she had filled a
glass with water and put them on a stand by the head of the bed. Then
--oh, quite professionally--she smoothed out his pillows and straightened
the bedclothes, and, talking all the time, and as if quite unconscious of
what she was doing, moved about the room, putting things to rights, and
saying, in answer to his protest, that perhaps she should lose her
reputation as a physician in his eyes by appearing to be a professional
nurse.

There was a timid knock at the door, and a forlorn little figure, clad in
a rumpled calico, with an old shawl over her head, half concealing an
eager and pretty face, stood in the doorway, and hesitatingly came in.

"Meine Mutter sent me to see how Father Damon is," she explained; "she
could not come, because she washes."

She had a bunch of flowers in her hand, and encouraged by the greeting of
the invalid, she came to the bedside and placed them in his outstretched
hand--a faded blossom of scarlet geranium, a bachelor's button, and a
sprig of parsley, probably begged of a street dealer as she came along.
"Some blooms," she said.

"Bless you, my dear," said Father Damon; "they are very pretty."

"Dey smells nice," the child exclaimed, her eyes dancing with pleasure at
the reception of her gift. She stood staring at him, and then, her eye
catching the violets, she added, "Dose is pooty, too."

"If you can stay half an hour or so, I should like to step round to the
chapel," Father Monies said to the doctor in the front room, taking up
his hat.

The doctor could stay. The little girl had moved a chair up to the
bedside, and sat quite silent, her grimy little hand grasped in the
father's. Ruth, saying that she hoped the father wouldn't mind, began to
put in order the front room, which the incidents of the night had
somewhat disturbed. Father Damon, holding fast by that little hand to
the world of poverty to which he had devoted his life, could not refrain
from watching her, as she moved about with the quick, noiseless way that
a woman has when she is putting things to rights. This was indeed a
novel invasion of his life. He was still too weak to reason about it
much. How good she was, how womanly! And what a sense of peace and
repose she brought into his apartment! The presence of Brother Monies
was peaceful also, but hers was somehow different. His eyes had not
cared to follow the brother about the room. He knew that she was
unselfish, but he had not noticed before that her ways were so graceful.
As she turned her face towards him from time to time he thought its
expression beautiful. Ruth Leigh would have smiled grimly if any one had
called her beautiful, but then she did not know how she looked sometimes
when her feelings were touched. It is said that the lamp of love can
illumine into beauty any features of clay through which it shines. As he
gazed, letting himself drift as in a dream, suddenly a thought shot
through his mind that made him close his eyes, and such a severe priestly
look came upon his face that the little girl, who had never taken her
eyes off him, exclaimed:

"It is worse?"

"No, my dear," he replied, with a reassuring smile; "at least, I hope
not."

But when the doctor, finishing her work, drew a chair into the doorway,
and sat by the foot of his bed, the stern look still remained on his pale
face. And the doctor, she also was the doctor again, as matter of fact
as in any professional visit.

"You are very kind," he said.

There was a shade of impatience on her face as she replied, "But you must
be a little kind to yourself."

"It doesn't matter."

"But it does matter. You defeat the very work you want to do. I'm going
to report you to your order." And then she added, more lightly, "Don't
you know it is wrong to commit suicide?"

"You don't understand," he replied. "There is more than one kind of
suicide; you don't believe in the suicide of the soul. Ah, me!" And a
shade of pain passed over his face.

She was quick to see this. "I beg your pardon, Father Damon. It is none
of my business, but we are all so anxious to have you speedily well
again."

Just then Father Monies returned, and the doctor rose to go. She took
the little girl by the hand and said, "Come, I was just going round to
see your father. Good-by. I shall look in again tomorrow."

"Thank you--thank you a thousand times. But you have so much to do that
you must not bother about me."

Whether he said this to quiet his own conscience, secretly hoping that he
might see her again on the morrow, perhaps he himself could not have
decided.

Late the next afternoon, after an unusually weary round of visits, made
in the extreme heat and in a sort of hopeless faithfulness, Dr. Leigh
reached the tenement in which Father Damon lodged: In all the miserable
scenes of the day it had been in her mind, giving to her work a pleasure
that she did not openly acknowledge even to herself, that she should see
him.

The curtains were down, and there was no response to her knock, except
from a door in the passage opposite. A woman opened the door wide enough
to show her head and to make it evident that she was not sufficiently
dressed to come out, and said that Father Damon had gone. He was very
much better, and his friend had taken him up-town. Dr. Leigh thanked
her, and said she was very glad.

She was so glad that, as she walked away, scarcely heeding her steps or
conscious of the chaffing, chattering crowd, all interest in her work and
in that quarter of the city seemed dead.




XIII

It is well that there is pleasure somewhere in the world. It is possible
for those who have a fresh-air fund of their own to steam away in a
yacht, out of the midsummer ennui and the weary gayety of the land.
It is a costly pleasure, and probably all the more enjoyed on that
account, for if everybody had a yacht there would be no more feeling of
distinction in sailing one than in going to any of the second-rate
resorts on the coast. There is, to be sure, some ennui in yachting on a
rainy coast, and it might be dull but for the sensation created by
arrivals at watering-places and the telegraphic reports of these
sensations.

If there was any dullness on the Delancy yacht, means were taken to
dispel it. While still in the Sound a society was formed for the
suppression of total abstinence, and so successful was this that Point
Judith was passed, in a rain and a high and chopping sea, with a kind of
hilarious enjoyment of the commotion, which is one of the things desired
at sea. When the party came round to Newport it declared that it had had
a lovely voyage, and inquiry brought out the great general principle,
applicable to most coast navigation for pleasure, that the enjoyable way
to pass Point Judith is not to know you are passing Point Judith.

Except when you land, and even after you have got your sea-legs on, there
is a certain monotony in yachting, unless the weather is very bad, and
unless there are women aboard. A party of lively women make even the sea
fresh and entertaining. Otherwise, the game of poker is much what it is
on land, and the constant consulting of charts and reckoning of speed
evince the general desire to get somewhere--that is, to arrive at a
harbor. In the recollections of this voyage, even in Jack's
recollections of it after he had paid the bills, it seemed that it had
been simply glorious, free from care, generally a physical setting-up
performance, and a lark of enormous magnitude. And everybody envied the
fortunate sailors.

Mavick actually did enjoy it, for he had that brooding sort of nature,
that self-satisfied attitude, that is able to appropriate to its own uses
whatever comes. And being an unemotional and very tolerable sailor,
he was able to be as cynical at sea as on land, and as much of an oracle,
in his wholly unobtrusive way. The perfect personal poise of Mavick,
which gave him an air of patronizing the ocean, and his lightly held
skeptical view of life, made his company as full of flavor on ship as it
was on shore. He didn't know anything more about the weather than the
Weather Bureau knows, yet the helmsman of the yacht used to consult him
about the appearances of the sky and a change of wind with a confidence
in his opinion that he gave to no one else on board. And Mavick never
forfeited this respect by being too positive. It was so with everything;
he evidently knew a great deal more than he cared to tell. It is
pleasing to notice how much credit such men as Mavick obtain in the world
by circumspect reticence and a knowing manner. Jack, blundering along in
his free-hearted, emotional way, and never concealing his opinion, was
really right twice where Mavick was right once, but he never had the
least credit for wisdom.

It was late in August that the Delancy yacht steamed into the splendid
Bar Harbor, making its way slowly through one of the rare fogs which are
sometimes seen by people who do not own real estate there. Even before
they could see an island those on board felt the combination of mountain
and sea air that makes this favored place at once a tonic and a sedative
to the fashionable world.

The party were expected at Bar Harbor. It had been announced that the
yacht was on its way, and some of the projected gayeties were awaiting
its coming, for the society reenforcement of the half-dozen men on board
was not to be despised. The news went speedily round that Captain
Delancy's flag was flying at the anchorage off the landing.

Among the first to welcome them as they landed and strolled up to the
hotel was Major Fairfax.

"Oh yes," he said; "we are all here--that is, all who know where they
ought to be at the right moment."

To the new-comers the scene was animated. The exotic shops sparkled with
cheap specialties; landaus, pony-phaetons, and elaborate buckboards
dashed through the streets; aquatic and law-tennis costumes abounded.
If there was not much rowing and lawn-tennis, there was a great deal of
becoming morning dressing for these sports, and in all the rather aimless
idleness there was an air of determined enjoyment. Even here it was
evident that there was a surplus of women. These lovers of nature, in
the summer season, who had retired to this wild place to be free from the
importunities of society, betrayed, Mavick thought, the common instinct
of curiosity over the new arrival, and he was glad to take it as an
evidence that they loved not nature less but man more. Jack tripped up
this ungallant speech by remarking that if Mavick was in this mood he did
not know why he came ashore. And Van Dam said that sooner or later all
men went ashore. This thin sort of talk was perhaps pardonable after the
weariness of a sea voyage, but the Major promptly said it wouldn't do.
And the Major seemed to be in charge of the place.

"No epigrams are permitted. We are here to enjoy ourselves. I'm ordered
to bring the whole crew of you to tea at the Tavish cottage."

"Anybody else there?" asked Jack, carelessly.

"Well, it's the most curious coincidence, but Mrs. Henderson arrived last
night; Henderson has gone to Missouri."

"Yes, he wrote me to look out for his wife on this coast," said Mavick.

"You kept mighty still about it," said Jack.

"So did you," retorted Mavick.

"It is very curious," the Major explained, "how fashionable intelligence
runs along this coast, apparently independent of the telegraph; everybody
knows where everybody else is."

The Tavish cottage was a summer palace of the present fashion, but there
was one good thing about it: it had no tower, nor any make-believe
balconies hung on the outside like bird-cages. The rooms were spacious,
and had big fireplaces, and ample piazzas all round, so that the sun
could be courted or the wind be avoided at all hours of the day. It was,
in short, not a house for retirement and privacy, but for entertainment.
It was furnished luxuriously but gayly, and with its rugs and portieres
and divans it reminded Mavick of an Oriental marquee. Miss Tavish called
it her tepee, an evolution of the aboriginal dwelling. She liked to
entertain, and she never appeared to better advantage than when her house
was full, and something was going on continually-lively breakfasts and
dinners, dances, theatricals, or the usual flowing in and out of callers
and guests, chattering groups, and flirtatious couples. It was her idea
of repose from the winter's gayety, and in it she sustained the role of
the non-fatigueable society girl. It is a performance that many
working-girls regard with amazement.

There was quite a flutter in the cottage, as there always is when those
who know each other well meet under new circumstances after a short
separation.

"We are very glad to see you," Miss Tavish said, cordially; "we have been
awfully dull."

"That is complimentary to me," said the Major.

"You can judge the depths we have been in when even the Major couldn't
pull us out," she retorted. "Without him we should have simply died."

"And it would have been the liveliest obsequies I ever attended."

Carmen was not effusive in her greeting; she left that role to Miss
Tavish, taking for herself that of confidential friend. She was almost
retiring in her manner, but she made Jack feel that she had a strong
personal interest in his welfare, and she asked a hundred questions about
the voyage and about town and about Edith.

"I'm going to chaperon you up here," she said, "for Miss Tavish will lead
you into all sorts of wild adventures."

There was that in the manner of the demure little woman when she made
this proposal that convinced Jack that under her care he would be
perfectly safe--from Miss Tavish.

After cigarettes were lighted she contrived to draw Mavick away to the
piazza. She was very anxious to know what Henderson's latest moves were.
Mavick was very communicative, and told her nothing that he knew she did
not already know. And she was clever enough to see, without any apparent
distrust, that whatever she got from him must be in what he did not say.
As to Jack's speculations, she made little more progress. Jack gave
every sign of being prosperous; he entertained royally on his yacht.

Mavick himself was puzzled to know whether Carmen really cared for Jack,
or whether she was only interested as in a game, one of the things that
amused her life to play, to see how far he would go, and to watch his
ascension or his tumble. Mavick would have been surprised if he had
known that as a result of this wholly agreeable and confidential talk,
Carmen wrote that night in a letter to her husband:

"Your friend Mavick is here. What a very clever man he is! If I were
you I would keep an eye on him."

A dozen plans were started at the tea for relieving the tedium of the
daily drives and the regulation teas and receptions. For one thing,
weather permitting, they would all breakfast at twelve on the yacht, and
then sail about the harbor, and come home in the sunset.

The day was indeed charming, so stimulating as to raise the value of real
estate, and incite everybody to go off in search of adventure, in wagons,
in walking parties, in boats. There is no happiness like the
anticipation of pleasure begot by such a morning. Those who live there
said it was regular Bar Harbor weather.

Captain Delancy was on deck to receive his guests, who came out in small
boats, chattering and fluttering and "ship-ahoying," as gay in spirits as
in apparel. Anything but high spirits and nonsense would be unpardonable
on such a morning. Breakfast was served on deck, under an awning, in
sight of the mountains, the green islands, the fringe of breaking sea in
the distant opening, the shimmer and sparkle of the harbor, the white
sails of pleasure-boats, the painted canoes, the schooners and coal-boats
and steamers swinging at anchor just enough to make all the scene alive.
"This is my idea," said the Major, "of going to sea in a yacht; it would
be perfect if we were tied up at the dock."

"I move that we throw the Major overboard," cried Miss Tavish.

"No," Jack exclaimed; "it is against the law to throw anything into the
harbor."

"Oh, I expected Miss Tavish would throw me overboard when Mavick
appeared."

Mavick raised his glass and proposed the health of Miss Tavish.

"With all my heart," the Major said; "my life is passed in returning good
for evil."

"I never knew before," and Miss Tavish bowed her acknowledgments, "the
secret of the Major's attractions."

"Yes," said Carmen, sweetly, "he is all things to all women."

"You don't appear to have a friend here, Major," Mavick suggested.

"No; my friends are all foul-weather friends; come a bright day, they are
all off like butterflies. That comes of being constant."

"That's no distinction," Carmen exclaimed; "all men are that till they
get what they want."

"Alas! that women also in these days here become cynical! It was not so
when I was young. Here's to the ever young," and he bowed to Carmen and
Miss Tavish.

"He's been with Ponce de Leon!" cried Miss Tavish.

"He's the dearest man living, except a few," echoed Carmen. "The Major's
health."

The yellow wine sparkled in the glasses like the sparkling sea, the wind
blew softly from the south, the sails in the bay darkened and flashed,
and the breakfast, it seemed to go along of itself, and erelong the
convives were eating ambrosia and sipping nectar. Van Dam told a shark
story. Mavick demonstrated its innate improbability. The Major sang a
song--a song of the forties, with a touch of sentiment. Jack, whose
cheerful voice was a little of the cider-cellar order, and who never sang
when he was sad, struck up the latest vaudeville ditty, and Carmen and
Miss Tavish joined in the chorus.

"I like the sea," the Major declared. They all liked it. The breakfast
lasted a long time, and when they rose from the table Jack said that
presently they would take a course round the harbor. The Major remarked
that that would suit him. He appeared to be ready to go round the world.

While they were preparing to start, Carmen and Jack strolled away to the
bow, where she perched herself, holding on by the rigging. He thought he
had never seen her look so pretty as at that moment, in her trim nautical
costume, sitting up there, swinging her feet like a girl, and regarding
him with half-mocking, half-admiring eyes.

What were they saying? Heaven only knows. What nonsense do people so
situated usually talk? Perhaps she was warning him against Miss Tavish.
Perhaps she was protesting that Julia Tavish was a very, very old friend.
To an observer this admirable woman seemed to be on the defensive--her
most alluring attitude. It was not, one could hear, exactly sober talk;
there was laughter and raillery and earnestness mingled. It might be
said that they were good comrades. Carmen professed to like good
comradeship and no nonsense. But she liked to be confidential.