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The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York, a novel by Edward Eggleston |
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Chapter 40. The Restoration |
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_ CHAPTER XL. THE RESTORATION How many scores of devices for securing a conversation with Phillida, Millard hit upon during the night that followed Gouverneur's visit, he could not have told. He planned letters to her in a dozen different veins, and rejected them all. He thought of appealing to Mrs. Callender once more, but could not conceive of Mrs. Callender's overruling Phillida. His mind perpetually reverted to Agatha. If only he might gain her co-operation! And yet this notion of securing the assistance of a younger sister had an air of intrigue that he did not like. About nine o'clock the next morning there was handed to Mrs. Callender a note from Millard inclosing an unsealed note which Mr. Millard desired Mrs. Callender if she saw fit to hand to Miss Agatha. Mrs. Callender gave it to Agatha without opening it. AGATHA: I wrote to your mother the other day begging permission to call on your sister, and received a reply expressing Miss Callender's desire to avoid an interview. That ought to have put an end to my hope of securing your sister's forgiveness, and for a while it did. But on reflection I am led to believe that her decision was based, not on a lack of affection for me, but on a wrong notion of my feeling toward her. She probably believes that I am actuated by gratitude for her attention to my relatives, or by pity for her sufferings as an invalid. She holds certain other erroneous notions on the subject, I think. I give you the assurance with all the solemnity possible that my devotion to her is greater to-day than ever. Her affection is absolutely indispensable to my happiness. I will undertake to convince her of this if I am once permitted to speak to her. Now if you think that she would be the better for a renewal of our old relations will you not contrive in some way that I may see her this afternoon at three o'clock, at which hour I shall present myself at your door? I hope your mother will pardon my writing to you; persuasion exerted by a sister has less the air of authority than that of a parent. I leave you to show this letter or not at your own discretion, and I put into your hands my whole future welfare, and what is of a thousand times greater importance in your eyes and in mine, Phillida's happiness. Whatever may be your feelings toward me I know that Phillida can count on your entire devotion to her interests. CHARLEY. The only thing that seemed to Millard a little insincere about this rather stiff note was the reason assigned for writing to Agatha. Her persuasions, as Millard well knew, did not have less of authority about them than her mother's. But this polite insincerity on a minor point he had not seen how to avoid in a letter that ought to be shown to Mrs. Callender. Agatha gave her mother the note to read, telling her, however, in advance that she proposed to manage the case herself. Mrs. Callender was full of all manner of anxieties at having so difficult a matter left to one so impetuous as Agatha. For herself she could not see just what was to be done, and two or three times she endeavored to persuade Agatha to let her consult Phillida about it. A consultation with Phillida had been her resort in difficulties ever since the death of her husband. But Agatha reminded her that Mr. Millard had intrusted the matter to her own keeping, and expressed her determination not to have any more of Phillida's nonsense. Phillida observed that Agatha was not giving as much attention to preparations for the journey as she expected her to. Nor could Phillida understand why the parlor must be swept again before their departure, seeing it would be snowed under with dust when they got back. But Agatha put everything in perfect order, and then insisted on dressing her sister with a little more pains than usual. "I wouldn't wonder if Mrs. Hilbrough calls this afternoon," said the young hypocrite. "Besides I think it is good for an invalid to be dressed up a little--just a little fixed up. It makes a person think of getting well and that does good, you know." Agatha refrained from an allusion to faith-cure that rose to her lips, and finding that Phillida was growing curious she turned to a new subject. "Did mama tell you what Miss Bowyer says about your case, Philly?" "No." "Mrs. Beswick told mama that she had it from Mr. Martin. Miss Bowyer told Mr. Martin the other day that she knew you would get well because she had been giving you absent treatment without your knowledge or consent. Didn't you feel her pulling you into harmony with the odylic emanations of the universe?" Phillida smiled a little and Agatha insisted on helping her to creep into the parlor. She said she could not pack the trunk with Philly looking on. But when she got her sister into the parlor she did not seem to care to go back to the trunks. The door-bell rang at three and Agatha met Charley in the hall. "She doesn't know a word of your coming," said Agatha in a low voice. "I will go and tell her, to break the shock, and then bring you right in." She left Millard standing by the hat table while she went in. "Phillida, who do you think has come to see you? It's Charley Millard. I took the liberty of telling him you'd see him for a short time." Then she added in a whisper: "Poor fellow, he seems to feel so bad." Saying this she set a chair for him, and without giving Phillida time to recover from a confused rush of thought and feeling she returned to the hall saying, "Come right in, Charley." To take off the edge, as she afterward expressed it, she sat for three minutes with them, talking chaff with Millard, and when she had set the conversation going about indifferent things, she remembered something that had to be done in the kitchen, and was instantly gone down-stairs. The conversation ran by its own momentum for a while after Agatha's departure, and then it flagged. "You're going away," said Millard after a pause. "Yes." "I know it is rude for me to call without permission, but I couldn't bear that you should leave until I had asked your forgiveness for things that I can never forgive myself for." Phillida looked down a moment in agitation and then said, "I have nothing to forgive. The fault was all on my side. I have been very foolish." "I wouldn't quarrel with you for the world," said Millard, "but the fault was mine. What is an error of judgment in a person of your noble unselfishness! Fool that I was, not to be glad to bear a little reproach for such a person as you are!" To Phillida the world suddenly changed color while Charley was uttering these words. His affection was better manifested by what he had just said than if he had formally declared it. But the fixed notion that he was moved only by pity could not be vanquished in an instant. "Charley," she said, "it is very good of you to speak such kind words to me. I am very weak, and you are very good-hearted to wish to comfort me." "You are quite mistaken, Phillida. You fancy that I am disinterested. I tell you now that I am utterly in love with you. Without you I don't care for life. I have not had heart for any pursuit since that evening on which we parted on account of my folly. But if you tell me that you have ceased to care for me, there is nothing for me but to go and make the best of things." Phillida was no longer heroic. Her sufferings, her mistakes, her physical weakness, and the yearning of her heart for Millard's affection were fast getting the better of all the reasons she had believed so conclusive against the restoration of their engagement. Nevertheless, she found strength to say: "I am quite unfit to be your wife. You are a man that everybody likes and you enjoy society, as you have a right to." Then after a pause and an evident struggle to control herself she proceeded: "Do you think I would weight you down with a wife that will always be remembered for the follies of her youth?" Phillida did not see how Charley could answer this, but she was so profoundly touched by his presence that she hoped he might be able to put matters in a different light. When she had finished speaking he contracted his brows into a frown for a moment. Then he leaned forward with his left hand open on one knee and his right hand clinched and resting on the other. "I know I gave you reason to think I was cowardly," he said; "but I hope I am a braver man than you imagine. Now if anybody should ever condemn you for a little chaff in a great granary of wheat it would give me pain only if it gave you pain. Otherwise it would give me real pleasure, because I would like to bear it in such a way that you'd say to yourself, 'Charley is a braver man than I ever thought him.'" Millard had risen and was standing before her as he finished speaking. There was a pause during which Phillida looked down at her own hands lying in her lap. "Now, Phillida," he said, "I want to ask one thing--" "Don't ask me anything just now, Charley," she said in a broken voice full of entreaty, at the same time raising her eyes to his. Then she reached her two hands up toward him and he came and knelt at her side while she put her arms about his neck and drew him to her, and whispered, "I never understood you before, Charley. I never understood you." _ |
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