Book 2 - Chapter 5. A Flash Of Memory

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_ BOOK II CHAPTER V. A FLASH OF MEMORY

I found my spirits attuned to the clear sunshine of the new day, and congratulated myself that convalescence promised to be so speedy. Again I had the sense that it was my body only that was weak and exhausted by disease, for my mind seemed singularly elastic, and I felt as if the weight of years and toil had dropped away, and I was entering on a new and higher plane of existence. An unwonted hopefulness, too, gave buoyancy to my waking thoughts.

My first conscious act was to look for my flowers. They had been removed to a distant table, and in their place was a larger bouquet, that, for some reason, suggested Adah. "It's very pretty," I thought, "but it lacks the dainty, refined quality of the other. There's too much of it. One is a bouquet; the other suggests the bushes on which the buds grew, and their garden home."

From the sounds I heard, I knew the family was at breakfast, and before very long a musical laugh that thrilled every nerve with delight rang up the stairway, and I laughed in sympathy without knowing why.

"Happy will the home be in which that laugh makes music," I murmured. "Heaven grant it may be mine. Can it be presumption to hope this, when she showed so much solicitude at my illness? She was crying when my recovery was doubtful, and she entreated me to live. Reuben's words suggested that she was depressed while I was in danger, and buoyant after the crisis had passed. That she feels as I do I cannot yet hope. But what the mischief do she and Adah mean by saying that they owe me so much? It's I who owe them everything for their care during my illness. How long _have_ I been ill? There seems to be something that I can't recall; and now I think of it, Mrs. Yocomb's account last night was very indefinite."

My further musings were interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Yocomb with a steaming bowl that smelt very savory.

"Mrs. Yocomb," I cried, "you're always welcome; and that bowl is, too, for I'm hungry as a cub."

"Glad to hear it," said Mr. Yocomb's hearty voice from the doorway. "I'll kill for you a young gobbler that Emily Warren thinks is like the apple of my eye, if you will promise to eat him."

"No, indeed," I answered, reaching out my hand. "He is already devoted to Miss Warren's Thanksgiving dinner. May he continue to gobble until that auspicious day."

"What! do you remember that?" and Mr. Yocomb cast a quick look of surprise at his wife.

"Yes, I remember everything up to a certain point, and then all comes to a full stop. I wish you would bridge over the gap for me."

"Richard," interposed Mrs. Yocomb, quickly, "it wouldn't do thee any good to have father tell thee what thee said when out of thy mind from fever. I can tell thee, however, that thee said nothing of which thee need be ashamed."

"Well, I can't account for it. I must have been taken very suddenly. One thing is clear: you are the kindest people I ever heard of. You ought to be put in a museum."

"Why, Friend Morton, is it queer that we didn't turn thee out of doors or give thee in charge of the poormaster?"

"I certainly am the most fortunate man in the world," I said, laughing. "I had broken myself down and was about to become very ill, and I started off in the dark and never stopped till I reached the shelter of Mrs. Yocomb's wing. If I should tell my experience in New York there'd be an exodus to the country among newspaper men."

"Thee mustn't do it," protested Mr. Yocomb, assuming a look of dismay. "Thee knows I'm down on editors: I make thee an exception."

"I should think you had; but they would not expect to be treated one hundredth part so well as you have treated me."

"Well, bring thy friends, editors or otherwise. Thy friends will be welcome."

"I fear I'll be selfish; I feel as if I had made too rich a discovery to show it to others."

"Now, father, thee's had thy turn, and must go right out and let Richard take his breakfast and his medicine. I'm bent on making Dr. Bates say I'm the best nurse in town, and between such a lively patient and such a lively family I have a hard time of it."

"Well, thee knows I always mind, mother," said the old gentleman, putting on a rueful look. "I do it, thee knows, to set the children an example. Good-by now; mother will make thee as hearty as I am if thee'll mind her."

"Oh, I'm well enough to see _everybody_ to-day," I said with emphasis, and I imagine that Mrs. Yocomb gave as definite a meaning to my indefinite term as I did.

"No one can stay long yet, but if thee continues to improve so nicely, we can move thee downstairs part of the day before very long."

"At that prospect I'll mind as well as Mr. Yocomb himself," I cried gladly. "Mr. Yocomb, they are spoiling me. I feel like a great petted boy, and behave like one, I fear; but having never been ill, I don't know how to behave."

"Thee's doing very well for a beginner. Keep on--keep on," and his genial visage vanished from the doorway.

After I had my breakfast, Zillah flitted in and out with her mother two or three times.

"Mother says I can look at thee, but I mustn't talk;" and she wouldn't.

Then Adah, with her wide-brimmed hat hanging on her arm, brought me a dainty little basket of wild strawberries.

"I promised to gather them for thee," she said, placing them on my table.

"You did? I had forgotten that," I replied. "I fear my memory is playing me sad tricks. You have just gathered them, I think?"

"What makes thee think so?"

"Because their color has got into your cheeks."

"I hope thee'll like them--the strawberries, I mean."

I laughed heartily as I answered, "I like both. I don't see how either could be improved upon."

"I think thee likes a city pallor best," she replied, shaking her head.

I imagine that a faint tinge of the strawberry came into my face, for she gave me a quick glance and turned away.

"Adah," said Mrs. Yocomb, entering, "thee can take thy sewing and sit here by the door for a while. Call me if Richard wants anything. The doctor will be here soon."

"Would thee like to have me stay?" she asked timidly.

"Indeed I would. Mrs. Yocomb, can I eat these strawberries? I've devoured them with my eyes already."

"Yes, if the doctor says so, and thee'll promise not to talk much."

I made no promise, for I was bent on talking, as convalescents usually are, I believe, and Adah forgot her sewing, and her blue eyes rested on me with an intentness that at last grew a little embarrassing. She said comparatively little, and her words had much of their old directness and simplicity; but the former flippancy and coloring of small vanity was absent. Her simple morning costume was scrupulously neat, and quite as becoming as the Sunday muslin which I had so admired, and she had fastened at her breastpin a rose that reminded me of the one I had given her on that wretched Sunday afternoon when she unconsciously and speedily dispelled the bright dream that I had woven around her.

"For some reason she has changed very much," I thought, "and I'm glad it's for the better."

Zillah came in, and leaned on her lap as she asked her a question or two. "Surely the little girl would not have done that the first day I met her," I mused, then added aloud:

"You are greatly changed, Miss Adah. What has happened to you?"

She blushed vividly at my abrupt question, and did not answer for a moment. Then she began hesitatingly:

"From what mother says, it's time I changed a little."

"I think Zillah likes you now as she does Miss Warren."

"No, she likes Emily Warren best--so does every one."

"You are mistaken. Zillah could not have looked at Miss Warren differently from the way in which she just looked at you. You have no idea what a pretty picture you two then made."

"I did not think about it."

"I imagine you don't think about yourself as much as you did. Perhaps that's the change I'm conscious of."

"I don't think about myself at all any more," and she bent low over her work.

Dr. Bates now entered with Mrs. Yocomb, and Adah slipped quietly away.

After strong professions of satisfaction at my rapid convalescence, and giving a medicine that speedily produced drowsiness, he too departed.

I roused up slightly from time to time as the day declined, and finding Reuben quietly busy at his carving, dozed again in a delicious, dreamy restfulness. In one of these half-waking moments I heard a low voice ask:

"Reuben, may I come in?"

Sleep departed instantly, and I felt that I must be stone dead before I could be unmoved by those tones, now as familiar as if heard all my life.

"Yes, please come," I exclaimed; "and you have been long in coming."

Reuben sprang up with alacrity as he said, "I'm glad thee's come, Emily. Would thee mind staying with Richard for a little while? I want to take Dapple out before night. If I don't, he gets fractious."

"I will take your place for a time, and will call Mrs. Yocomb if Mr. Morton needs anything."

"I assure you I won't need anything as long as you'll stay," I began, as soon as we were alone. "I want to thank you for the rosebuds. They were taken away this morning; but I had them brought back and placed here where I could touch them. They seemed to bring back that June evening in the old garden so vividly that I've lived the scene over and over again."

She looked perplexed, and colored slightly, but said smilingly, "Mrs. Yocomb will think I'm a poor nurse if I let you talk too much."

"Then talk to me. I promise to listen as long as you will talk."

"Well, mention an agreeable subject."

"Yourself. What have you been doing in the ages that have elapsed since I came to life. It seems as if I had been dead, and I can't recall a thing that happened in that nether world. I only hope I didn't make a fool of myself."

"I'm sorry to say you were too ill to do anything very bad. Mr. Morton, you can't realize how glad we all are that you are getting well so fast."

"I hope I can't realize how glad YOU are, and yet I would like to think that you are very glad. Do you know what has done me the most good to-day?"

"How should I know?" she asked, looking away, with something like trouble in her face.

"I heard your laugh this morning while you were at breakfast, and it filled all the old house with music. It seemed to become a part of the sunshine that was shimmering on the elm-leaves that swayed to and fro before my window, and then the robins took it up in the garden. By the way, have you seen the robin's nest that Zillah showed us?"

"Yes," she replied, "but it's empty, and the queer little things that Zillah said were all 'mouth and swallow' are now pert young robins, rollicking around the garden all day long. They remind me of Reuben and Dapple. I love such fresh young life, unshadowed by care or experience."

"I believe you; and your sympathy with such life will always keep you young at heart. I can't imagine you growing old; indeed, truth is never old and feeble."

"You are very fanciful, Mr. Morton," she said, with a trace of perplexity again on her face.

"I have heard that that was a characteristic of sick people," I laughed.

"Yes; we have to humor them like children," she added, smoothing her brow as if this were an excuse for letting me express more admiration than she relished.

"Well," I admitted, "I've never been ill and made much of before, since I was a little fellow, and my mother spoiled me, and I've no idea how to behave. Even if I did, it would seem impossible to be conventional in this house. Am I not the most singularly fortunate man that ever existed? Like a fool I had broken myself down, and was destined to be ill. I started off as aimlessly as an arrow shot into the air, and here I am, enjoying your society and Mrs. Yocomb's care."

"It is indeed strange," she replied musingly, as if half speaking to herself; "so strange that I cannot understand it. Life is a queer tangle at best. That is, it seems so to us sometimes."

"I assure you I am glad to have it tangled for me in this style," I said, laughing. "My only dread is getting out of the snarl. Indeed, I'm sorely tempted to play sick indefinitely."

"In that case we shall all leave you here to yourself."

"I think _you_ have done that already."

"What would your paper do without you?" she asked, with her brow slightly knitted and the color deepening in her cheeks.

"Recalling what you said, I'm tempted to think it is doing better without me."

"You imagine I said a great deal more than I did."

"No, I remember everything that happened until I was taken ill. It's strange I was taken so suddenly. I can see you playing Chopin's nocturne as distinctly as I see you now. Do you know that I had the fancy that the cluster of roses you sent me was that nocturne embodied, and that the shades of color were the variations in the melody?"

"You are indeed very fanciful. I hope you will grow more rational as you get well."

"I remember you thought me slightly insane in the garden."

"Yes; and you promised that you would see things just as they are after leaving it."

"I can't help seeing things just as they seem to me. Perhaps I do see them just as they are."

"Oh, no! To a matter-of-fact person like myself, you are clearly very fanciful. If you don't improve in this respect, you'll have to take a course in mathematics before returning to your work or you will mislead your readers."

"No, I'm going to take a course of weeding in the garden, and you were to invite me into the arbor as soon as I had done enough to earn my salt."

"I fear you will pull up the vegetables."

"You can at least show me which are the potatoes."

In spite of a restraint that she tried to disguise, she broke out into a low laugh at this reminiscence, and said: "After that revelation of ignorance you will never trust me again."

"I will trust you in regard to everything except kitchen vegetables," I replied, more in earnest than in jest. "A most important exception," she responded, her old troubled look coming back. "But you are talking far too much. Your face is slightly flushed. I fear you are growing feverish. I will call Mrs. Yocomb now."

"Please do not. I never felt better in my life. You are doing me good every moment, and it's so desperately stupid lying helplessly here."

"Well, I suppose I must humor you a few moments longer," she laughed. "People, when ill, are so arbitrary. By the way, your editorial friends must think a great deal of you, or else you are valuable to them, for your chief writes to Mr. Yocomb every day about you; so do some others; and they've sent enough fruit and delicacies to be the death of an ostrich."

"I'm glad to hear that; it rather increases one's faith in human nature. I didn't know whether they or any one would care much if I died."

"Mr. Morton!" she said reproachfully.

"Oh, I remember my promise to you. If, like a cat, I had lost my ninth life, I would live after your words. Indeed I imagine that you were the only reason I did live. It was your will that saved me, for I hadn't enough sense or spirit left to do more than flicker out."

"Do you think so?" she asked eagerly, and a rich glow of pleasure overspread her face.

"I do indeed. You have had a subtle power over me from the first, which I cannot resist, and don't wish to."

"I must go now," she said hastily.

"Please wait," I entreated. "I've a message for Mrs. Yocomb."

She stood irresolutely near the door.

"I wish you to tell her--why is it getting dark so suddenly?"

"I fear we're going to have a shower," and she glanced apprehensively toward the window.

"When have I seen that look on your face before?" I asked quickly.

"You had a message for Mrs. Yocomb?"

"Yes. I wish you would make her realize a little of my unbounded gratitude, which every day increases. In fact, I can't understand the kindness of this family, it is so hearty, so genuine. Why, I was an entire stranger the other day. Then Adah and--pardon me--you also used expressions which puzzle me very much. I can't understand how I became ill so suddenly. I was feeling superbly that Sunday evening, and then everything became a blank. Mrs. Yocomb, from a fear of disquieting me, won't say much about it. The impression that a storm or something occurred that I can't recall, haunts me. You are one that couldn't deceive if you tried."

"You needn't think I've anything to tell when Mrs. Yocomb hasn't," she answered, with a gay laugh.

"Miss Warren," I said gravely, "that laugh isn't natural. I never heard you laugh so before. Something _did_ happen."

A flash of lightning gleamed across the window, and the girl gave an involuntary and apprehensive start.

Almost as instantaneously the events I had forgotten passed through my mind. In strong and momentary excitement I rose on my elbow, and looked for their confirmation in her troubled face.

"Oh, forget--forget it all!" she exclaimed, in a low, distressed voice, and she came and stood before me with clasped hands.

"Would to God I had died!" I said, despairingly, and I sank back faint and crushed. "I had no right to speak--to think of you as I did. Good- by."

"Mr. Morton--"

"Please leave me now. I'm too weak to be a man, and I would not lose your esteem."

"But you will get well--you promised me that."

"Well!" I said, in a low, bitter tone. "When can I ever be well? Good- by."

"Mr. Morton, would you blight my life?" she asked, almost indignantly. "Am I to blame for this?"

"Nor am I to blame. It was inevitable. Curses on a world in which one can err so fatally."

"Can you not be a brave, generous man? If this should go against you-- if you will not get well--you promised me to live."

"I will exist; but can one whose heart is stone, and hope dead, _live?_ I'll do my best. No, yon are not to blame--not in the least. Take the whole comfort of that truth. Nor was I either. That Sunday _was_ the day of my fate, since for me to see you was to love you by every instinct and law of my being. But I trust, as you said, you will find me too honorable to seek that which belongs to another."

"Mr. Morton," she said, in tones of deep distress, "you saved this home; you saved Mrs. Yocomb's life; you--you saved mine. Will you embitter it?"

"Would to God I had died!" I groaned. "All would then have been well. I had fulfilled my mission."

She wrung her hands as she stood beside me. "I can't--oh, I can't endure this!" she murmured, and there was anguish in her voice.

I rallied sufficiently to take her hand as I said: "Emily Warren, I understand your crystal truth too well not to know that there is no hope for me. I'll bear my hard fate as well as I can; but you must not expect too much. And remember this: I shall be like a planet hereafter. The little happiness I have will be but a pale reflection of yours. If you are unhappy, I shall be so inevitably. Not a shadow of blame rests on you--the first fair woman was not truer than you. I'll do my best--I'll get up again--soon, I trust, now. If you ever need a friend--but you would not so wrong me as to go to another--I won't be weak and lackadaisical. Don't make any change; let this episode in your life be between ourselves only. Good-by."

"Oh, you look so ill--so changed--what can I say--?"

Helpless tears rushed into her eyes. "You saved my life," she breathed softly; but as she turned hastily to depart she met our hostess.

"Oh, Mrs. Yocomb," she sobbed, "he knows all."

"Thee surely could not have told him--"

"Indeed I did not--it came to him like a flash."

"Mrs. Yocomb, by all that's sacred, Miss Warren is not to blame for anything--only myself. Please keep my secret; it shall not trouble any one;" and I turned my face to the wall.

"Richard Morton."

"Dear Mrs. Yocomb, give me time. I'm too sorely wounded to speak to any one."

"A man should try to do what is right under all circumstances," she said, firmly, "and it is your first and sacred duty to get well. It is time for your medicine."

I turned and said desperately, "Give me stimulants--give me anything that will make me strong, so that I may keep my word; for if ever a man was mortally weak in body and soul, I am."

"I'll do my best for thee," she said, gently, "for I feel for thee and with thee, as if thee were my own son. But I wish thee to remember now and always that the only true strength comes from Heaven." _

Read next: Book 2: Chapter 6. Weakness

Read previous: Book 2: Chapter 4. In The Dark

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