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Heriot's Choice

<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> <h3>DR. HERIOT'S MISTAKE</h3> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> 'In the cruel fire of sorrow Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail; Let thy hand be firm and steady, Do not let thy spirit quail: But wait till the trial is over, And take thy heart again; For as gold is tried by fire, So a heart must be tried by pain!' </div> <div class="stanza"> Adelaide Anne Procter. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> Mildred slept soundly that night in spite of her bruises. It was Dr. Heriot who waked. What nightmare of oppression was on him? What light, scorching and illuminating, was shining on him through the gloom? Was he losing his senses?—had he dreamt it? Had he really heard it? 'John, save me, John!' as of a woman in mortal anguish calling on her mate, as Margaret had once—but once—called him, when a glimpse of the dark valley had been vouchsafed her, and she had bidden him, with frenzied eye and tongue, arrest her downward course: 'I cannot die—at least, not like this—you must save me, John!' and that time he had saved her. And now he had heard it again, at the only time when conventionality lays aside its decorous disguise, and the souls of men are bare to their fellows—at the time of awful peril on the brink of a momentarily expected death: so had she called to him, and so, with the sudden waking response of his soul, he had answered her. He could see it all now. Never, to his dying hour, could he forget that scene—the prostrate figure crashing among the rocks, as though to an immediate and terrible death; the agonised struggle in the dark pit, the white face pressed heavily like death to his shoulder, the long unbound hair streaming across his arm; never before had he owned to himself that this woman was fair, until he had put back the blinding hair with his hand, as she clung to him in suffering helplessness. 'I wished to die, but I never knew how terrible death could be,' he had heard her whisper between her quivering lips; and the knowledge that her secret was his had bidden him turn away his eyes from her—his own suffused with tears. 'Fool! blind fool that I was!' he groaned. 'Fool! never to guess how dear she was until I saw death trying to snatch her from me; never to know the reason why her presence inspired me with such comfort and such rest! And I must needs call it friendship. Was it friendship that brought me day after day with such a sore heart to minister to her weakness?—was it only friendship and pity, and a generous wish to succour her distress? 'Oh, fool! miserable fool! for ever fated to destroy my own peace of mind!' But we need not follow the bitter self-communing of that generous spirit through that long night of doubt and pain from which he rose a sadder and a better man. Alas! he had grasped the truth too late. The true woman, the true mate, the very nature akin to his own, had been beside him all these years, and he had not recognised her, blind in his pitiful worship of lesser lights. And as he thought of the innocent girl who had pledged her faith to him, he groaned again within himself. Polly was not less dear to him in the misery that had befallen him, yet he knew, and shuddered at the knowledge, that all unwittingly he had deceived himself and her; he would love his child-wife dearly, he knew, but not as he could love a woman like Mildred. 'If she had been less reserved, less unapproachable in her gentle dignity, it might have been better for both of us,' he said to himself. 'The saint has hidden the woman; one cannot embrace a halo!' and he thought with sharp anguish how well this new phase of weakness had become her. When she had claimed his indulgence for her wayward and nervous fancies, he had felt even then a sort of pride that she should appeal to him in her helplessness. But these were vain thoughts. It might have been better for both of them if she were lying now under the dark waters of Coop Kernan Hole, her angel soul in its native heaven. Yes, it might be far better; he did not know—he had not Mildred's faith; for as long as they must dwell together, and yet apart, in this mortal world, life could only be a bitter thing for him; but not for that should he cease to struggle. 'I have more than myself to consider,' he continued, as he rose and drew back the curtain, and looked out on the rich harvest of the sky-glittering sheaves of stars, countless worlds beyond worlds, stretching out into immensity. 'God do so to me and more also if my unkindness or fickleness cloud the clear mirror of that girlish soul. It is better, far better, for me to suffer—ay, for her too—than to throw off a responsibility at once so sacred and so pure.' How Mildred would have gloried in this generous victory if she had witnessed it! The knowledge that the tardy blessing of his love had been vouchsafed her, though too late and in vain, would have gladdened her desolate heart, and the honour and glory of it would have decked her lonely life, with infinite blossom. But now she could only worship his goodness from afar. None but Mildred had ever rightly read him, or knew the unselfishness that was so deeply ingrained in this man's nature. Loving and impulsive by nature, he had patiently wooed and faithfully held to the woman who had scorned his affection and provoked his forbearance; he had borne his wrecked happiness, the daily spectacle of his degradation, with a resignation that was almost sublime; he had comforted the poor sinner on her deathbed with assurances of forgiveness that had sunk into her soul with strange healing; when at last she had left him, he had buried his dead out of his sight, covering with thick sods, and heaping the earth with pious hands over the memory of her past sins. It was this unselfishness that had first taught him to feel tenderly to the poor orphan; he had schemed out of pure benevolence to make her his wife, until the generous fancy had grown dear to him, and he had believed his own happiness involved in it. And now that it had resulted in a bitter awakening to himself and disappointment to another, no possibility of eluding his fate ever came into his mind. Polly already belonged to him; she was his, made his own by a distinct and plighted troth; he could no more put her away from him than he would have turned away the half-frozen robin that sought refuge from the inclement storm. Mildred had betrayed her love too late; it was his lot to rescue her from death, but not to bid her welcome to a heart that should in all honour belong to another. True, it was a trial most strange and bitter—an ordeal from which flesh and blood might well shrink; but long before this he had looked into the burning fiery furnace of affliction, and he knew, as such men know, that though he might be cast therein bound and helpless, that even there the true heart could discern the form most like unto the Son of God. It was with some such feeling as this that he lingered by Polly's side, as though to gain a minute's strength before he should be ushered into Mildred's presence. 'How tired you look, Heriot,' she said, as he stood beside her; the word had involuntarily slipped from her in her gladness yesterday, and as she timidly used it again his lips touched her brow in token of his thanks. 'We are improving, Heartsease. I suppose you begin to find out that I am not as formidable as I look—that Dr. Heriot had a very chilling sound, it made me feel fifty at least.' 'I think you are getting younger, or I am getting older,' observed Polly, quaintly; 'to be sure you look very pale this morning, and your forehead is dreadfully wrinkled. I am afraid your arm has been troubling you.' 'Well, it has been pretty bad,' he returned, evasively; 'one does not get over a strain so easily. But, now, how is Mildred?' The word escaped from him involuntarily, but he did not recall it. Polly did not notice his slight confusion. 'She is down in the drawing-room. I think she expects you,' she replied. 'Olive said she had a beautiful night, but of course the bruises are very painful; one of her arms is quite blackened, she cannot bear it touched.' 'I will see what can be done,' was his answer. As he crossed the lobby his step was as firm as ever, his manner as gravely kind as he stood by Mildred's side; the delicacy of her aspect smote him with dull pain, but she smiled in her old way as she gave him her left hand. 'The other is so much bruised that I cannot bear the lightest touch,' she said, drawing it out from her white shawl, and showing him the cruel black marks; 'it is just like that to my shoulder.' He looked at it pityingly. 'And yet you slept?' 'As I have not slept for weeks; no terrible dreams haunted me, no grim presentiments of evil fanned my pillow with black wing; you must have exorcised the demon.' 'That is well,' he returned, sitting down beside her, and trying to speak with his old cheerfulness; 'reality has beaten off hypochondriacal fancies. Coop Kernan Hole has proved a stern mentor.' 'I trust I may never forget the lesson it has taught me,' she returned, with a slight shudder at the remembrance, and then they were both silent for a moment. 'Dr. Heriot,' she continued, presently, 'yesterday I wanted to thank you—I ought rather to have craved your forgiveness.' He smiled at that; in spite of himself the old feeling of rest had returned to him with her presence; her sweet looks, her patience, her brave endurance of what he knew would be keen suffering to other women, won the secret tribute of his admiration; he would lay aside his heavy burden for this one hour, and enjoy this brief interval of peace. 'I do not wonder that you refused my thanks,' she went on, earnestly; 'to think that my foolish act of disobedience should have placed your life as well as mine in such deadly peril; indeed, you must assure me of your forgiveness, or I shall never be happy again,' and Mildred's lip trembled. He took the bruised hand in his, but so tenderly that she did not wince at his touch; the blackened fingers lay on his palm as restfully as the little bird he had once warmed in his hands one snowy day. How he loved this woman who was suing to him with such sweet lips for forgiveness;—the latent flame just kindled burned with an intensity that surprised himself. 'Ah!' she said, mistaking his silence, and looking up into his dark face—and it looked strangely worn and harassed in the clear morning light—'you do not answer, you think I am much to blame. I have tried your patience too far—even yours!' 'I was angry with you, certainly, when I saw you down on those rocks jeopardising your precious life,' he replied, slowly. 'Such foolhardiness was unlike you, and I had reserved certain vials of wrath at my disposal—but now——' He finished with his luminous smile. 'You think I have been punished sufficiently?' 'Yes, first stoned and then half submerged. I forgave you directly you called on me for help,' he returned, making believe to jest, but watching her intently all the time. Would she understand his vague allusion? But Mildred, unconscious that she had betrayed herself, only looked relieved. 'Besides, there can be no question of forgiveness between friends, and whatever happens we are friends always,' relinquishing her hand a little abruptly. He rose soon after that. Mildred was uneasy; he was evidently suffering severely from his arm, but he continued to evade her anxious inquiries, assuring her that it was nothing to the pain of her bruises, and that a wakeful night, more or less, mattered little to him. But as he went out of the room, he told himself that these interviews were perilously sweet, and must be avoided at all hazards; either he must wound her with his coldness, or his tenderness would inevitably betray itself in some unguarded look or word. Twice, already, had her name lingered on his tongue, and more than one awkward pause had brought her clear glances questioning to his face. What right had he to hold the poor blackened hand in his for more than a moment? But the sweet soul had taken it all so naturally; her colour had never varied; possibly her great deliverance had swallowed all lesser feelings for the time; the man she loved had become her preserver, and this knowledge was so precious to her that it had lifted her out of her deep despondency. But as he set forth to his work, he owned within himself that such things must not be—it were a stain on his integrity to suffer it; from the first of Mildred's coming their intercourse had been free and unrestrained, but for the future he would time his visits when the other members of the family would be present, or, better still, he would keep Polly by his side, trusting that the presence of his young betrothed would give him the strength he needed. Mildred did not seem to notice the change, it was effected so skilfully; she was always better pleased when Olive or Polly was there—it diverted Dr. Heriot's attention from herself, and caused her less embarrassment; her battered frame was in sore need of rest, but with her usual unselfishness, she resumed some of her old duties as soon as possible, that Olive might not feel overburdened. 'It seems as though I have been idle for such a long time,' she said, in answer to Dr. Heriot's deprecating glance at the mending beside her; 'Olive has no time now, and these things are more troublesome to her than to most people. To-morrow I mean to take to housekeeping again, for Polly feels herself quite unable to manage Nan.' Dr. Heriot shook his head, but he did not directly forbid the experiment. He knew that to a person of Mildred's active habits, anything approaching to indolence was a positive crime; it was better for them both that she should assert that she was well, and that he should be free to relax his vigilance; he could still watch over her, and interfere when it became necessary to do so. Mildred had reason to be thankful that he did not oppose her exertions, for before long fresh work came to her. The very morning after Dr. Heriot had withdrawn his silent protest, a letter in a strange handwriting was laid beside Mildred's breakfast-plate; the postmark was London, and she opened it in some little surprise; but Polly, who was watching her, noticed that she turned pale over the contents. 'Is it about Roy?' she whispered; and Mildred started. 'Yes, he has been ill,' and she looked at her brother doubtfully; but he stretched out his hand for the letter, and read it in silence. Polly watched them anxiously. 'He is not very ill, Aunt Milly?' 'Not now; but I greatly fear he has been so. Mrs. Madison writes that it was a neglected cold, with a sharp attack of inflammation, but that the inflammation has subsided; he is terribly weak, and needs nursing, and the doctor insists that his friends should be informed.' 'But Dad Fabian is with him?' 'No, he is quite alone. The strangest part is that he would not suffer her to write to us. I suppose he dreaded our alarm.' 'It was wrong—very wrong,' groaned Mr. Lambert; 'his brother not with him, and he away from us all that distance; Mildred, my dear, you must go to him without delay.' Mildred smiled faintly; she thought her strength was small for such a long journey, but she did not say so. Anxiety for his son had driven the remembrance of her accident from his mind; a slight attack of rheumatic gout, to which he had been subject of late years, prevented him from undertaking the journey as he wished. 'You will go, my dear, will you not?' he pleaded, anxiously. 'If Aunt Milly goes, I must go to take care of her,' broke in Polly. Her face was pale, her eyes dilated with excitement. Olive looked on wistfully, but said nothing; it was never her way to thrust herself forward on any occasion, and however much she wished to help Mildred in nursing Roy, she did not drop a hint to the effect; but Mildred was not slow to interpret the wistfulness. 'It is Olive's place to nurse her brother,' she said, with a trace of reproof in her voice; but though Polly grew crimson she still persisted. I did not mean that—you know I did not, Aunt Milly!' a little indignantly. 'I only thought I could wait on you, and save you trouble, and then when he was better I could——' but her lip quivered, and when the others looked up, expecting her to finish her sentence, she suddenly and most unexpectedly burst into tears, and left the room. Olive followed Mildred when she rose from the breakfast-table. 'Aunt Milly, do let her go. Poor Polly! she looks so miserable.' 'It is not to be thought of for a moment,' returned Mildred, with unusual decision; 'if no one but Polly can accompany me, I shall go alone.' 'But Polly is so fond of Roy,' pleaded Olive; timid with regard to herself, she could persist with more boldness on another's behalf. 'Roy would not care for me half so much as he would for her; when he had that feverish cold last year, no one seemed to please him but Polly. Do let her go, Aunt Milly,' continued the generous-hearted girl. 'I do not mind being left. If Roy is worse I could come to you,' and Olive spoke with the curious choke in her voice that showed strong emotion. Mildred looked touched, but she remained firm. Little did Olive guess her reasons. 'I could not allow it for one moment, Olive. I think,' hesitating a little, as though sure of inflicting pain, 'that I ought to go alone, unless Roy is very ill. I do not see how your father is to be left; he might have another attack, and Richard is not here.' 'I forgot papa,' in a conscience-stricken tone. 'I am always forgetting something.' 'Yes, and yourself in the bargain,' smiling at her earnest self-depreciation. 'No, please don't laugh, Aunt Milly, it was dreadfully careless of me—what should we all do without you to remind us of things? Of course papa must be my first thought, unless—unless dear Rex is very ill,' and a flush of pain passed over Olive's sallow face. Mildred melted over this fresh instance of Olive's unselfish goodness; she wrapped her arms fondly round the girl. 'Dear Olive, this is so good of you!' 'No, it is only my duty,' but the tears started to her eyes. 'If I did not think it were, I would not have proposed it,' she returned, reluctantly; 'but you know how little care your father takes of himself, and then he will fret so about Roy when Richard is away. I never like to leave him.' 'Do not say any more, Aunt Milly; nothing but real positive danger to Roy would induce me to leave him.' 'No, I knew I could trust you,' drawing a relieved breath; 'but, indeed, I have no such fear for Rex. Mrs. Madison says it was only a slight attack of inflammation, and that it has quite subsided. He will be dreadfully weak, of course, and that is why the doctor has sent for us; he will want weeks of nursing.' 'And you will not take Polly or Chriss. Remember how far from strong you are, and Rex is so exacting when he is ill.' 'Chriss would be no use to me, and Polly's place is here,' was Mildred's quiet answer as she went on with her preparations for the next day's journey; but she little knew of the tenacity with which Polly clave to her purpose. When Dr. Heriot came in that afternoon for his last professional chat with Mildred, he found her looking open-eyed and anxious in the midst of business, reading out a list for Olive, who was writing patiently from her dictation; Polly was crouched up by the fire doing nothing; she had not spoken to any one since the morning; she hardly raised her head when he came in. Mildred explained the reason of their unusual bustle in her clear, succinct way. Roy was ill, how ill she could not say. Mr. Lambert had had a touch of gout last night, and dared not run the risk of a journey just now. Olive must stop with her father, at least for the present; and as Chriss was too young to be of the least possible use, she was going alone. Polly's name was not mentioned. Dr. Heriot looked blank at the tidings. 'Alone, and in your state of health! why, where is Polly? she is a capital nurse; she is worth a score of others; she will keep up your spirits, save you fatigue, and cheer up Roy in his convalescence.' 'You cannot spare her; Polly's place is here,' replied Mildred, nervously; but to her surprise Polly interrupted her. 'That is not the reason, Aunt Milly.' 'My dear Polly!' exclaimed Dr. Heriot, amazed at the contradiction. 'No, it is not, and she knows it,' returned the girl, excitedly; 'ask her, Heriot; look at her; that is not the reason she will not suffer me to go to Roy.' Mildred turned her burning face bravely on the two. 'Whatever reasons I have, Polly knows me well enough to respect them,' she said, with dignity; 'it is far better for Roy that his aunt or his sister should be with him. Polly ought to know that her place is beside you.' 'Aunt Milly, how dare you speak so,' cried the girl, hotly, 'as though Roy were not my own—own brother. Have we not cared for each other ever since I came here a lonely stranger; do you think he will get better if he is fretting, and knows why you have left me behind; when he was ill in the summer, would he have any one to wait on him but me?' 'Oh, Polly,' began Mildred, sorrowfully, for the girl's petulance and obstinacy were new to her; but Dr. Heriot stopped her. 'Let the child speak,' he said, quietly; 'she has never been perverse to you before; she has something on her mind, or she would not talk so.' The kind voice, the unexpected sympathy, touched Polly's sore heart; and as he held out his hand to her, she crept out of her dark corner. He drew her gently to his side. 'Now, Polly, what is it? there is something here that I do not understand—out with it like a brave lassie.' But she hung her head. 'Not now, not here, before the others,' she whispered, and with that he rose from his seat, but he still kept hold of her hand. 'Polly is going to make a clean breast of it; I am to hear her confession,' he said, with a cheerfulness that reassured Mildred. 'There is no time like the present. I mean to bring her back by and by, and then we will make our apologies together.' Mildred sighed as the door closed after them; she would fain have known what passed between them; her heart grew heavy with foreboding as time elapsed and they did not make their appearance. When her business was finished, and Olive had left her, she sat for more than half an hour with her eyes fixed on the door, feeling as though she could bear the suspense no longer. She started painfully when the valves unclosed. 'We have been longer than I expected,' began Dr. Heriot. His face was grave, and Mildred fancied his eyes looked troubled. Polly had been crying. 'It was a rambling confession, and one difficult to understand,' he continued, keeping the girl near him, and Mildred noticed she leant her face caressingly against his coat-sleeve, as she stood there; 'and it goes back to the day of our picnic at Hillbeck.' Mildred moved uneasily; there was something reproachful in his glance directed towards herself; she averted her eyes, and he went on— 'It seems you were all agreed in keeping me in the dark; you had your reasons, of course, but it appears to me as though I ought to have been the first to hear of Roy's visit,' and there was a marked emphasis in his words that made Mildred still more uncomfortable. 'I do not wish to blame you; you acted for the best, of course, and I own the case a difficult one; it is only a pity that my little girl should have considered it her duty to keep anything from me.' 'I told him it was Roy's secret, not mine,' murmured Polly, and he placed his hand kindly on her head. 'I do not see how she could have acted otherwise,' returned Mildred, rather indistinctly. 'No, I am more inclined to blame her advisers than herself,' was the somewhat cool response; 'mysteries are bad things between engaged people. Polly kept a copy of her letter to show me, but she never found courage to do so until to-night, and yet she is quite aware what are Roy's feelings towards her.' Mildred's voice had a sound of dismay in it— 'Oh, Polly! then you have deceived me too.' 'You have no reason to say so,' returned the girl, proudly, but her heart swelled over her words; 'it was that—that letter, and your silence, that told me, Aunt Milly; but I could not—it was not possible to say it either to you or to Dr. Heriot.' 'You see it was hard for her, poor child,' was his indulgent comment; 'but you might have helped her; you might have told me yourself, Miss Lambert.' But Mildred repelled the accusation firmly. 'It was no business of yours, Dr. Heriot, or Polly's either, that Roy loved her. Richard and I were right to guard it; it was his own secret, his own trouble. Polly would never have known but for her own wilfulness.' 'Yes I should, Aunt Milly; I should have found it out from his silence,' returned Polly, with downcast eyes. 'I could not forget his changed looks; they troubled me more than you know. I puzzled myself over them till I was dizzy. I felt heart-broken when I found it out, but I could not have told Heriot.' 'It would have been better for us both if you had,' he replied, calmly; but he uttered no further reproach, only there was a keen troubled look in his eyes, as he gazed at the girl's upturned face, as though he suddenly dreaded the loss of something dear to him. 'Heartsease, it would have been better for you and me.' 'Heriot, what do you mean?' she whispered, vehemently; 'surely you did not misunderstand me; you could not doubt the sincerity of my words, my love?' 'Neither the one nor the other,' was the quiet reply; 'do I not know my Polly? could I not trust that guileless integrity as I would my own? You need not fear my misunderstanding you; I know you but too well.' 'Are you sure that you do?' clinging to him more closely. 'Am I sure that I am alive? No, Polly, I do not doubt you; when you tell me that you love Roy as though he were your own brother, that you are only sorry for him, and long to comfort him, I believe you. I am as sure that you speak the truth as you know it.' 'And you will trust me?' stroking the coat-sleeve as she spoke. 'Have I not told you so?' reproachfully; 'am I a tyrant to keep you in durance vile, when your adopted brother lies dangerously ill, and you assure me of your power to minister to him? Miss Lambert, it is by my own wish that Polly goes with you to London; she thinks Roy will not get well unless he sees her again.' Mildred started. Polly had kept her thoughts so much to herself lately that she had not understood how much was passing in her mind; did she really believe that her influence was so great over Roy, that her persuasion would recall him from the brink of the grave? Could Dr. Heriot credit such a supposition? was not the risk a daring one? He could not be so sure of himself and her; but looking up, as these thoughts passed through her mind, she encountered such a singular glance from Dr. Heriot that her colour involuntarily rose; it told her he understood her scruples, but that his motives were fixed, inscrutable; it forbade questioning, and urged compliance with his wishes, and after that there was nothing more to be said. But in the course of the evening Polly volunteered still further information— 'You know he is going with us himself,' she said, as she followed Mildred into her room to assist in the packing. Mildred very nearly dropped the armful of things she was carrying, a pile of Roy's shirts she had been mending; she faced round on Polly with unusual energy— 'Who is going with us? Not Dr. Heriot?' 'Yes; did he not tell you so? I heard him speaking to Mr. Lambert and saying that you were not fit to undertake such a long journey by yourself; he did not count me, as he knew I should lose my head in the bustle; very rude of him, was it not? and then he told Mr. Lambert that he should see Roy and bring him back a report. Oh, I am so glad he is coming,' speaking more to herself than Mildred; 'how good, how good he is.' Mildred did not answer; but after supper that night, when Dr. Heriot had again joined them, she asked if he had really made up his mind to accompany them. 'You did not tell me of your intention,' she said, a little nettled at his reserve with her. 'No; I was afraid of your raising objections and raising all sorts of useless arguments; regret that I should take so much trouble, and so forth,' trying to turn it off with a jest. 'Are you going on Roy's account?' abruptly. 'Well, not wholly. Of course his medical man's report will be sufficient; but all the same it will be a relief to his father's mind.' 'I suppose you are afraid to trust Polly with me then? but indeed I will take care of her; there is no need for you to undergo such a fatiguing journey,' went on Mildred, pretending to misunderstand him, but anxious if possible to turn him from his purpose. But Dr. Heriot's cool amused survey baffled her. 'A man has a right to his own reasons, I suppose? Perhaps I think one of my patients is hardly able to look after herself just yet.' 'Oh, Dr. Heriot!' hardly able to believe it though from his own lips; 'this is so like you—so like your usual thoughtfulness; but indeed it is not necessary; Polly will take care of me.' 'I daresay she will,' with a glint of humour in his eyes; 'but all the same you must put up with my company.' <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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