Purple Springs - Nellie L. McClung
A puzzled look dimmed the brightness of her eyes just for a moment,
and the doctor stumbled on.
"I am all right, as far as I go--but there's not enough of me--I'm not
big enough for you, Pearl."
Pearl's eyes danced again, as she looked him up and down, and he
laughed in spite of himself.
"For goodness sake, girl," he cried, "don't look at me, you make me
forget what I was saying--I can't think, when you train those eyes of
yours on me."
Pearl obediently turned her head away, but he could still see the
dimple in her cheeks.
"I have had a long fight with myself, Pearl," and now that he was back
to the truth, his voice had its old mellowness that swept her heart
with tenderness--"a long fight--and it is not over yet. I'm selfish
enough to want you---that is about 99.9% of me is selfish, the other
infinitesimal part cries out for me to play the man--and do the square
thing--I am making a bad job of this, but maybe you understand."
He came over and turned her head around until she faced him.
"I have begun at the wrong end of this, dear, I talk as if you had
said--you cared--I have no right to think you do. I should remember
you are only a child--and haven't thought about--things like this!"
"O, haven't I, though," she cried eagerly. "I've been thinking--all
the time--I've never stopped thinking--I've had the loveliest time
thinking."
The doctor went on in a measured tone, as one who must say the words
he hates to utter. All the color had gone from his voice, all the
flexibility. It was as hard as steel now, and as colorless as a dusty
road.
"Pearl, I am going to say what I should say, not what I want to
say.... Supposing I did induce you to marry me now. Suppose I could
... in ten years from now, when you are a woman grown, you might
hate me for taking advantage of your youth, your inexperience, your
childish fancy for me--I am not prepared to take that risk--it would
be a criminal thing to run any chances of spoiling a life like yours."
Her eyes looked straight into his, and there was a little muttered cry
in them that smote his heart with pity. He had seen it in the faces of
little children, his patients, who, though hurt, would not cry.
"And I am selfish enough to hope that in a few years, when you are old
enough to choose, you will think of what I am doing now, and know the
sacrifice I am making, and come to me of your own free will--no, I did
not intend to say that--I do not mean what I said--the world is yours,
Pearl, to choose as you will--I have no claim on you! You start fair."
Pearl's cheeks had lost a little of their rosy glow, and her face
had taken on a cream whiteness. She stood up and looked at him, with
widely opened eyes. A girl of smaller soul might have misunderstood
him, and attributed to him some other motive. Though Pearl did not
agree with him, she believed every word he had said.
"Supposing," she said eagerly, "that I do not want to start
fair--and don't want to be free to choose--supposing I have made my
choice--supposing I understand you better than you do yourself, and
tell you now that you are not a second-hand doctor--that you are a sun
and a shield to this little town and country, just as you have been to
me--you bring health and courage by your presence--the people love and
trust you--suppose I remind you that you are not only a doctor,
but the one that settles their quarrels and puts terror into the
evil-doer. Who was it that put the fear into Bill Plunkett when he
blackened his wife's eyes, and who was it that brought in the two
children from the Settlement, that were abused by their step-father,
and took the old ruffian's guns away from him and marched him in too!
That's a job for a second-rate doctor, isn't it? I hear the people
talking about you, and I have to turn my back for fear they hear my
eyes shouting out, 'That's my man you're praising' and here he is,
telling me he is a second-rate doctor! Is that what you were when the
fever was so bad, and all the Clarke's had it at once, and you nursed
six of them through it? Mrs. Clarke says the only undressing you did
was to loosen your shoe-laces!"
"Don't you see--I know you better than you do yourself. You don't see
how big your work is. Is it a small thing to live six years in a place
and have every one depending on you, praising you--loving you--and
being able to advise them and lead the young fellows anyway you
like--making men of them, instead of street loafers--and their mothers
so thankful they can hardly speak of it."
"You evidently don't know what we think of you, any of us--and here
I am--I don't know when it began with me--the first day I saw you--I
think, when I was twelve--I've been worshipping you and treasuring up
every word you ever said to me. I don't know whether it is love or
not, it's something very sweet. It has made me ambitious to look my
best, do my best and be my best. I want to make you proud of me--I
will make you proud of me--see if I don't--I want to be with you, to
help you, look after you--grow up with you--I don't know whether it is
love or not--it--is something! There is nothing too hard for me to do,
if it is for you--everything--any thing would be sweet to me--if you
were with me. Is that love?"
She was standing before him, holding his hand in both of hers, and her
eyes had the light in them, the tender, glowing light that seemed to
flame blue at the edges, like the coal fire he had watched the night
before.
Impulsively he drew her to him, and for a moment buried his face in
her warm, white neck, kissing the curling strands of her brown hair.
"O Pearl," he cried, drawing away from her, "O Pearl--you're a hard
girl to give up--you make me forget all my good resolutions. I don't
want to do what I ought to do. I just want you."
There was a smothered cry in his voice that smote on Pearl's heart
with a sudden fear. Mothers know the different notes in their
children's cries--and in Pearl, the maternal instinct was strong.
She suddenly understood. He was suffering, there was a bar between
them--for some reason, he could not marry her!
She grew years older, it seemed, in a moment, and the thought that
came into her brain, clamoring to be heard, exultantly, insistently
knocking for admission, was this--her mother's pessimistic way of
looking at life was right--there were things too good to be true--she
had been too sure of her happiness. The thought, like cold steel, lay
against her heart and dulled its beating. But the pain in his eyes
must be comforted. She stood up, and gravely took the hand he held out
to her.
"Doctor," she said steadily, "you are right, quite right, about
this--a girl of eighteen does not know her own mind--it is too serious
a matter--life is too long--I--I think I love you--I mean I thought I
did--I know I like to be with you--and---all that--but I'm too young
to be sure--and I'll get over this all right. You're right in all you
say--and it's a good thing you are so wise about this--we might have
made a bad mistake--that would have brought us unhappiness. But it has
been sweet all the time, and I'm not sorry--we'll just say no more
about it now and don't let it worry you--I can stand anything--if
you're not worried."
He looked at her in amazement--and not being as quick as she, her
words deceived him, and there was not a quiver on her lips, as she
said:
"I'll go now, doctor, and we'll just forget what we were saying--they
were foolish words. I'm thinking of going North to teach--one of the
inspectors wrote me about a school there. I just got his letter today,
and he asked me to wire him--I'll be back at the holidays."
She put the red tam on her brown hair, tucking up the loose strands,
in front of the glass, as she spoke. Manlike, he did not see that her
hands trembled, and her face had gone white. He sat looking at her in
deep admiration.
"What a woman you are, Pearl," broke from his lips.
She could not trust herself to shake hands, or even look at him. Her
one hope was to get away before her mask of unconcern broke into a
thousand pieces by the pounding of her heart, which urged her to throw
her arms around him and beg him to tell her what was really wrong--oh,
why wouldn't he tell her!
"You'll think of this dear," he said, "in a few years when you are, I
hope, happily married to the man of your choice, and you will have a
kindly thought for me, and know I was not a bad sort--you'll remember
every word of this Pearl, and you will understand that what is
strange to you now--and you will perhaps think of me--and if not with
pleasure, it will at least be without pain."
He wanted to give her the roses, which had come just a few moments
before she came in, but somehow he could not frame a casual word of
greeting. He would send them to her.
She was going now.
"Pearl, dearest Pearl," he cried "I cannot let you go like this--and
yet--it's best for both of us."
"Sure it is," she said, smiling tightly, to keep her lips from
quivering. "I'm feeling fine over it all." The pain in his voice made
her play up to her part.
"I can't even kiss you, dear,'" he said. "I don't want you to have one
bitter memory of this. I want you to know I was square--and loved you
too well to take the kiss, which in after life might sting your face
when you thought that I took advantage of your youth. A young girl's
first kiss is too sacred a thing."
Suddenly Pearl's resolution broke down. It was the drawn look in his
face, and its strange pallor.
She reached up and kissed his cheek.
"A little dab of a kiss like that won't leave a sting on any one's
face," she said.
She was gone!
CHAPTER V
WHERE MRS. CROCKS THREW THE SWITCH
When Pearl came out of the doctor's office into the sunshine of the
village street, she had but one thought--one overwhelming desire,
expressed in the way she held her head, and the firm beat of her
low-heeled shoes on the sidewalk--she must get away where she would
not see him or the people she knew. She realized that whatever it was
that had come between them was painful to him, and that he really
cared for her. To see her, would be hard on him, embarrassing to them
both, and she would do her share by going away--and she remembered,
with a fresh pang--that when she had spoken of this, he had made no
objection, thus confirming her decision that for her to go would be
the best way.
The three glorious years, so full of hopes and dreams, were over!
Pearl's house of hopes had fallen! All was over! And it was not his
fault--he was not to blame. Instinctively, Pearl defended him in her
mind against a clamorous sense of injustice which told her that she
had not had a square deal! The pity of it all was what choked her and
threatened to storm her well guarded magazine of self-control! It was
all so sudden, so mysterious and queer, and yet, she instinctively
felt, so inexorable!
Pearl had always been scornful of the tears of lovelorn maidens, and
when in one of her literature lessons at the Normal, the sad journey
of the lily-maid on her barge of black samite, floating down the
river, so dead and beautiful, with the smile on her face and the lily
in her hand, reduced form A to a common denominator of tears, and
made the whole room look like a Chautauqua salute, Pearl had stoutly
declared that if Elaine had played basketball or hockey instead
of sitting humped up on a pile of cushions in her eastern tower,
broidering the sleeve of pearls so many hours a day, she wouldn't have
died so easily nor have found so much pleasure in arranging her own
funeral.
But on this bright March day, the village street seemed strangely dull
and dead to her, with an empty sound like a phone that has lost its
connection. Something had gone from her little world, leaving it
motionless, weary and old! A row of icicles hung from the roof of the
corner store, irregular and stained from the shingles above, like an
ugly set of ill-kept teeth, dripping disconsolately on the sidewalk
below, and making there a bumpy blotch of unsightly ice!
In front of the store stood the delivery sleigh, receiving its load
of parcels, which were thrown in with an air of unconcern by a blocky
young man with bare red hands. The horse stood without being tied, in
an apparently listless and melancholy dream. A red and white cow
came out of the lane and attempted to cross the slippery sidewalk,
sprawling helplessly for a moment, and then with a great effort
recovered herself and went back the way she came, limping painfully,
the blocky young man hastening her movements by throwing at her a
piece of box lid, with the remark that that would "learn her."
The sunshine so brilliant and keen, had a cold and merciless tang in
it, and a busy-body look about it, as if it delighted in shining into
forbidden corners and tearing away the covers that people put on their
sorrows, calling all the world to come and see! Pearl shuddered with
the sudden realization that the sun could shine and the wind could
blow bright and gay as ever, though hearts were writhing in agony!
She hoped she would not see any of the people she knew, for the pain
that lay like a band of ice around her heart might be showing in her
face--and Pearl knew that the one thing she could not stand was a word
of sympathy. That would be fatal. So she hurried on. She would send a
wire of acceptance to her inspector friend, and then go over to the
stable for her horse, and be on her way home.
But there is something whimsical about fate. It takes a hand in our
affairs without apology, and throws a switch at the last moment. If
Pearl had not met Mrs. Crocks at the corner, just before she took the
street to the station, this would have been a different story. But who
knows? We never get a chance to try the other way, and it is best and
wisest and easiest of comprehension to believe that whatever is, is
best!
Mrs. Crocks was easily the best informed person regarding local
happenings, in the small town of Millford. She really knew. Every
community has its unlicensed and unauthorized gossips, who think they
know what their neighbors are thinking and doing, but who more often
than not get their data wrong, and are always careless of detail. Mrs.
Crocks was not one of these.
When Bill Cavers got drunk, and spent in one grand, roaring spree all
the money which he and his wife and Libby Anne had saved for their
trip to Ontario, there were those who said that he went through six
hundred dollars that one night, making a rough guess at the amount.
Mrs. Crocks did not use any such amateur and unsatisfactory way of
arriving at conclusions. She did not need to--there was a way of
finding out! To the elevator she went, and looked at the books under
cover of looking up a wheat ticket which her husband had cashed and
found that Bill Cavers had marketed seventeen hundred and eight
dollars worth of wheat. From this he had paid his store bill, and the
blacksmith's bill, which when deducted, left him eight hundred and
fourteen dollars--she did not bother with the cents. The deductions
were easily verified--both the storekeeper and the blacksmith were
married men!
This was the method she followed in all her research--careful,
laborious and accurate at all costs, with a fine contempt for her less
scientific contemporaries. The really high spots in her life had been
when she was able to cover her competitors with confusion by showing
that their facts were all wrong, which process she referred to as
"showing up these idle gossips."
James Crocks, her husband, had chosen for himself a gentler avocation
than his wife's, and one which brought him greater peace of
mind--proprietor of the big red stable which spread itself over half a
block, he had unconsciously defined himself, as well as his place of
business, by having printed in huge white letters with black edging
across the shingled roof, the words:
"HORSE REPOSITORY" PROP.J. CROCKS.
Here the tired horses could forget the long trail and the heavy loads,
in the comfortable stalls, with their deep bedding of clean straw; and
here also, James Crocks himself was able to find the cheerful company,
who ate their meals in quietude of heart, asking no questions,
imputing no motives, knowing nothing of human intrigue, and above
all, never, never insisting that he tell them what he thought about
anything! Most of his waking hours were spent here, where he found the
gentle sounds of feeding horses, the honest smell of prairie hay and
the blessed absence of human chatter very soothing and restful.
As time went on, and James Crocks grew more and more averse to human
speech--having seen it cause so much trouble one way'n another, Mrs.
Crocks found it was an economy of effort to board one of the stable
boys, and that is how it came about that Mr. Bertie Peters found
himself called from the hay-mow above the stable, to his proprietors'
guest chamber, and all the comforts of a home, including nightly
portions of raisin pie--and best of all, an interested and
appreciative audience who liked to hear him talk. Mrs. Crocks as usual
had made a good choice, for as Bertie talked all the time, he was sure
to say something once in a while. A cynical teacher had once said of
Bertie, that he never had an "unuttered thought."
But even though the livery stable happenings as related by Bertie gave
Mrs. Crocks many avenues of information, all of her prescience could
not be explained through that or any other human agency. The young
doctor declared she had the gift or divination, was a mind reader, and
could see in the dark! Many a time when he had gone quietly to the
stable and taken out his team without as much as causing a dog to
bark, removing his sleigh bells to further cover his movements, and
stealing out of town like an absconding bank-teller, to make a call,
returning the same way, still under cover of night, and flattering
himself that he had fooled her this time, she would be waiting for
him, and timed her call to the exact minute. Just as he got in to his
room after putting his team away, his phone would ring and Mrs. Crocks
would ask him about the patient he had been to see. She did not always
call him, of course, but he felt she knew where he had been. There was
no explanation--it was a gift!
Pearl had been rather a favorite with Mrs. Crocks when the Watsons
family lived in Millford, but since they had gone to the farm and
prosperity had come to them as evidenced by their better clothes,
their enlarged house, their happier faces, and more particularly
Pearl's success in her school work in the city, all of which had
appeared in the local paper, for the editor was enthusiastic for his
own town--Mrs. Crock's friendly attitude had suffered a change. She
could put up with almost anything in her friends, but success!
But when she met Pearl on the street that day, her manner was
friendly.
"Hello stranger," she said, "I hear you have been doing big things
down there in the city, winnin' debates and makin' speeches. Good for
you, Pearl--I always said you were a smart girl, even when your people
were as poor as get-out. I could see it in you--but don't let it spoil
you, Pearl--and don't ever forget you are just a country girl. But I
am certainly glad you did so well--for your mother's sake--many a time
I was dead sorry for her having to work so hard! It's a comfort to her
now to see you doin' so well. Where have been now? I saw you comin'
out of the doctor's office just now--anybody sick? You're not looking
as pert as usual yourself--you haven't been powdering' your face, I
hope! No one sick, eh? Just a friendly call then, was it? See here,
Pearl--when I was young, girls did not do the chasin', we let the men
do that, and I'm here to tell you it's the best way. And look here,
there's enough girls after Doctor Clay without you--there was a man
from the city telling Bertie at the stable that he seen our doctor in
a box at the Opera with the Senator's daughter two weeks ago, and that
she is fair dippy about him, and now that he is thinking of goin'
into politics, it would be a great chance for him. The other side are
determined to make him run for them against old Steadman, and the old
lady is that mad she won't let his name be mentioned in the house. She
says the country owes it to Mr. Steadman to put him in by acclamation!
And the doctor hasn't accepted it yet. The committee went to see
him yesterday and he turned them down but they won't take no for an
answer, and they asked him to think it over--I suppose he told you all
about it--"
For the first time Mrs. Crocks stopped for breath. Her beady eyes were
glistening for excitement. Here was a scoop--if Pearl would only tell
her. She would be able to anticipate the doctor's answer.
"What is he goin' to do, Pearl, I know he would tell you; I have
always said that doctor thinks more of you than he does of any of the
other girls! What did he say about it, will he take it?"
Pearl was quite herself now--composed, on her guard, even smiling.
"I think the doctor would prefer to make his own announcement," she
said, "and he will make it to the committee."
Mrs. Crocks' eyes narrowed darkly, and she breathed heavily in her
excitement. Did Pearl Watson mean to tell her in as many words, to
mind her own business. But in Pearl's face there was no guile, and she
was going on her way.
"Don't be in a hurry, Pearl," said Mrs. Crocks, "can't you wait a
minute and talk to an old friend. I am sure I do not care a pin
whether the doctor runs or not. I never was one to think that women
should concern themselves with politics--that surely belongs to the
men. I have been a home body all my life, as you know, and of course I
should have known that the doctor would not discuss his business with
a little chit like you--but dear, me, he is one terrible flirt, he
cannot pass a pretty face. Of course now he will settle down no doubt,
every one thinks he will anyway, and marry Miss Keith of Hampton--the
Keith's have plenty of money, though I don't believe that counts as
much with the doctor as family, and of course they have the blue
blood too, and her father being the Senator will help. What! must you
go--you're not half as sociable as you used to be when you brought the
milk every morning to the back door--you sure could talk then,
and tell some of the weirdest things. I always knew you would be
something, but if you freeze up like a clam when you meet old
friends--it does not seem as if education has improved you. Can't you
stay and talk a minute?"
"I could stay," said Pearl, "and I can still talk, but I have not been
able to talk to you. You see I do not like to interrupt any one so
much older than myself!"
When Pearl walked away, Mrs. Crocks looked after her with a look of
uncertainty on her face. Pearl's words rang in her ears!
"She's smart, that kid--she's smart--I'll say that for her. There is
not a man in town who dare look me in the eye and take a rise like
that out of me, but she did it without a flicker. So I know I had her
mad or she wouldn't have said it, but wasn't she smooth about it?"
Then her professional pride asserted itself, reminding her that a
slight had been put upon her, and her mood changed.
"Of all the saucy little jades," she said to herself--"with the air of
a duchess, and the fine clothes of her! And to think that her mother
washed for me not so long ago, and that girl came for the clothes and
brought them back again! And now listen to her! You put your foot in
it, Pearl my young lady, when you rubbed Jane Crocks the wrong way,
for people cannot do that and get away with it! And remember I am
telling you."
When Pearl left Mrs. Crocks standing on the street she walked quickly
to the station, but arriving there with the yellow blank in her hand,
she found her intention of accepting a school in the North had grown
weak and pale. She did not want to go to North, or any place. She
suddenly wanted to stay. She would take a school some place near--and
see what was going to happen; and besides--she suddenly thought of
this--she must not decide on anything until she saw Mr. Donald, her
old teacher, and got his advice. It would not be courteous to do
anything until she saw him, and tomorrow was the day he wanted her to
go to the school to speak to the children. Why, of course, she could
not go---and so Pearl reasoned in that well-known human way of backing
herself up in the thing she wanted to do! So she tore off a couple of
blank forms and put them in her purse, and asked the agent if he knew
how the train from the East was, and he gave her the assurance that it
had left the city on time and was whoopin' it along through the hills
at Cardinal when last heard from--and stood a good chance of getting
in before night.
All the way home, Pearl tried to solve the tangle of thoughts that
presented themselves to her, but the unknown quantity, the "X" in this
human equation, had given her so little to work on, that it seemed
as though she must mark it "insufficient data" and let it go! But
unfortunately for Pearl's peace of mind it could not be dismissed in
that way.