第9章

The next morning Grace was sitting beside her patient, with whom she had spent the night. It was possibly Mrs. Maynard's spiritual toughness which availed her, for she did not seem much the worse for her adventure: she had a little fever, and she was slightly hoarser; but she had died none of the deaths that she projected during the watches of the night, and for which she had chastened the spirit of her physician by the repeated assurance that she forgave her everything, and George Maynard everything, and hoped that they would be good to her poor little Bella.

She had the child brought from its crib to her own bed, and moaned over it; but with the return of day and the duties of life she appeared to feel that she had carried her forgiveness far enough, and was again remembering her injuries against Grace, as she lay in her morning gown on the lounge which had been brought in for her from the parlor.

"Yes, Grace, I shall always say if I had died and I may die yet--that I did not wish to go out with Mr. Libby, and that I went purely to please you. You forced me to go. I can't understand why you did it; for I don't suppose you wanted to kill us, whatever you did."

Grace could not lift her head. She bowed it over the little girl whom she had on her knee, and who was playing with the pin at her throat, in apparent unconsciousness of all that was said. But she had really followed it, with glimpses of intelligence, as children do, and now at this negative accusal she lifted her hand, and suddenly struck Grace a stinging blow on the cheek.

Mrs. Maynard sprang from her lounge. "Why, Bella! you worthless little wretch!" She caught her from Grace's knee, and shook her violently.

Then, casting the culprit from her at random, she flung herself down again in a fit of coughing, while the child fled to Grace for consolation, and, wildly sobbing, buried her face in the lap of her injured friend.

"I don't know what I shall do about that child!" cried Mrs. Maynard.

"She has George Maynard's temper right over again. I feel dreadfully, Grace!"

"Oh, never mind it," said Grace, fondling the child, and half addressing it. "I suppose Bella thought I had been unkind to her mother."

"That's just it!" exclaimed Louise. "When you've been kindness itself!

Don't I owe everything to you? I should n't be alive at this moment if it were not for your treatment. Oh, Grace!" She began to cough again; the paroxysm increased in vehemence. She caught her handkerchief from her lips; it was spotted with blood. She sprang to her feet, and regarded it with impersonal sternness. "Now," she said, "I am sick, and I want a doctor!"

"A doctor," Grace meekly echoed.

"Yes. I can't be trifled with any longer. I want a man doctor!"

Grace had looked at the handkerchief. "Very well," she said, with coldness. "I shall not stand in your way of calling another physician.

But if it will console you, I can tell you that the blood on your handkerchief means nothing worth speaking of. Whom shall I send for?" she asked, turning to go out of the roam. "I wish to be your friend still, and I will do anything I can to help you."

"Oh, Grace Breen! Is that the way you talk to me?" whimpered Mrs.

Maynard. "You know that I don't mean to give you up. I'm not a stone; I have some feeling. I did n't intend to dismiss you, but I thought perhaps you would like to have a consultation about it. I should think it was time to have a consultation, should n't you? Of course, I'm not alarmed, but I know it's getting serious, and I'm afraid that your medicine is n't active enough. That's it; it's perfectly good medicine, but it is n't active. They've all been saying that I ought to have something active. Why not try the whiskey with the white-pine chips in it? I'm sure it's indicated." In her long course of medication she had picked up certain professional phrases, which she used with amusing seriousness. "It would be active, at any rate."

Grace did not reply. As she stood smoothing the head of the little girl, who had followed her to the door, and now leaned against her, hiding her tearful face in Grace's dress, she said, "I don't know of any homoeopathic physician in this neighborhood. I don't believe there's one nearer than Boston, and I should make myself ridiculous in calling one so far for a consultation. But I'm quite willing you should call one, and I will send for you at once."

"And wouldn't you consult with him, after he came?"

"Certainly not. It would be absurd."

"I shouldn't like to have a doctor come all the way from Boston," mused Mrs. Maynard, sinking on the lounge again. "There must be a doctor in the neighborhood. It can't be so healthy as that!"

"There's an allopathic physician at Corbitant," said Grace passively.

"A very good one, I believe," she added.

"Oh, well, then!" cried Mrs. Maynard, with immense relief. "Consult with him!"

"I've told you, Louise, that I would not consult with anybody. And I certainly wouldn't consult with a physician whose ideas and principles I knew nothing about."

"Why but, Grace," Mrs. Maynard expostulated. "Is n't that rather prejudiced?" She began to take an impartial interest in Grace's position, and fell into an argumentative tone. "If two heads are better than one,--and everybody says they are,--I don't see how you can consistently refuse to talk with another physician."

"I can't explain to you, Louise," said Grace. "But you can call Dr.

Mulbridge, if you wish. That will be the right way for you to do, if you have lost confidence in me."