George MacDonald - Paul Faber, Surgeon

"Please, sir, and tell me," she said, turning and closing the door, "what I be to do. She says she's got no money to pay neither me nor the doctor, so she give me this, and wants me to sell it. I daren't show it! They'd say I stole it! She declares that if I mention to a living soul where I got it, she'll never speak to me again. In course she didn't mean you, sir, seein' as doctors an' clergymen ain't nobody—leastways nobody to speak on—and I'm sure I beg your pardon, sir, but my meanin' is as they ain't them as ain't to be told things. I declare I'm most terrified to set eyes on the thing!"

She handed the doctor a little morocco case. He opened it, and saw a ring, which was plainly of value. It was old-fashioned—a round mass of small diamonds with a good-sized central one.

"You are quite right," he said. "The ring is far too valuable for you to dispose of. Bring it to my house at four o'clock, and I will get rid of it for you."

Mrs. Puckridge was greatly relieved, and ended the interview by leading the way to the back-door. When she opened it, he saw his patient sitting in the little arbor. She rose, and came to meet him.

"You see I am quite well now," she said, holding out her hand.

Her tone was guarded, but surely the ice was melting a little! Was she taking courage at the near approach of her deliverance?

She stooped to pick a double daisy from the border. Prompt as he generally was, he could say nothing: he knew what was coming next. She spoke while still she stooped.

"When you come again," she said, "will you kindly let me know how much I am in your debt?"

As she ended she rose and stood before him, but she looked no higher than his shirt-studs. She was ashamed to speak of her indebtedness as an amount that could be reckoned. The whiteness of her cheek grew warm, which was all her complexion ever revealed of a blush. It showed plainer in the deepened darkness of her eyes, and the tremulous increase of light in them.

"I will," he replied, without the smallest response of confusion, for he had recovered himself. "You will be careful!" he added. "Indeed you must, or you will never be strong."

She answered only with a little sigh, as if weakness was such a weariness! and looked away across the garden-hedge out into the infinite—into more of it at least I think, than Faber recognized.

"And of all things," he went on, "wear shoes—every time you have to step off a carpet—not mere foot-gloves like those."

"Is this a healthy place, Doctor Faber?" she asked, looking haughtier, he thought, but plainly with a little trouble in her eyes.

"Decidedly," he answered. "And when you are able to walk on the heath you will find the air invigorating. Only please mind what I say about your shoes.—May I ask if you intend remaining here any time?"

"I have already remained so much longer than I intended, that I am afraid to say. My plans are now uncertain."

"Excuse me—I know I presume—but in our profession we must venture a little now and then—could you not have some friend with you until you are perfectly strong again? After what you have come through, it may be years before you are quite what you were. I don't want to frighten you—only to make you careful."

"There is no one," she answered in a low voice, which trembled a little.

"No one—?" repeated Faber, as if waiting for the end of the sentence.

But his heart gave a great bound.

"No one to come to me. I am alone in the world. My mother died when I was a child and my father two years ago. He was an officer. I was his only child, and used to go about with him. I have no friends."

Her voice faltered more and more. When it ceased she seemed choking a cry.

"Since then," she resumed, "I have been a governess. My last situation was in Yorkshire, in a cold part of the county, and my health began to fail me. I heard that Glaston was a warm place, and one where I should be likely to get employment. But I was taken ill on my way there, and forced to stop. A lady in the train told me this was such a sweet, quiet little place, and so when we got to the station I came on here."

Again Faber could not speak. The thought of a lady like her traveling about alone looking for work was frightful! "And they talk of a God in the world!" he said to himself—and felt as if he never could forgive Him.

"I have papers to show," she added quietly, as if bethinking herself that he might be taking her for an impostor.

All the time she had never looked him in the face. She had fixed her gaze on the far horizon, but a smile, half pitiful, half proud, flickered about the wonderful curves of her upper lip.

"I am glad you have told me," he said. "I may be of service to you, if you will permit me. I know a great many families about here."

"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and with an expression of dawning hope, which made her seem more beautiful than ever, she raised her eyes and looked him full in the face: it was the first time he had seen her eyes lighted up, except with fever. Then she turned from him, and, apparently lost in relief, walked toward the arbor a few steps distant. He followed her, a little behind, for the path was narrow, his eyes fixed on her exquisite cheek. It was but a moment, yet the very silence seemed to become conscious. All at once she grew paler, shuddered, put her hand to her head, and entering the arbor, sat down. Faber was alarmed. Her hand was quite cold. She would have drawn it away, but he insisted on feeling her pulse.

"You must come in at once," he said.

She rose, visibly trembling. He supported her into the house, made her lie down, got a hot bottle for her feet, and covered her with shawls and blankets.

"You are quite unfit for any exertion yet," he said, and seated himself near her. "You must consent to be an invalid for a while. Do not be anxious. There is no fear of your finding what you want by the time you are able for it. I pledge myself. Keep your mind perfectly easy."

She answered him with a look that dazzled him. Her very eyelids seemed radiant with thankfulness. The beauty that had fixed his regard was now but a mask through which her soul was breaking, assimilating it. His eyes sank before the look, and he felt himself catching his breath like a drowning man. When he raised them again he saw tears streaming down her face. He rose, and saying he would call again in the evening, left the room.

During the rest of his round he did not find it easy to give due attention to his other cases. His custom was to brood upon them as he rode; but now that look and the tears that followed seemed to bewilder him, taking from him all command of his thought.

Ere long the shadow that ever haunts the steps of the angel, Love, the shadow whose name is Beneficence, began to reassume its earlier tyranny. Oh, the bliss of knowing one's self the source of well-being, the stay and protector, the comfort and life, to such a woman! of wrapping her round in days of peace, instead of anxiety and pain and labor! But ever the thought of her looking up to him as the source of her freedom, was present through it all. What a glory to be the object of such looks as he had never in his dearest dreams imagined! It made his head swim, even in the very moment while his great Ruber, astonished at what his master required of him that day, rose to some high thorny hedge, or stiff rail. He was perfectly honest; the consequence he sought was only in his own eyes—and in hers; there was nothing of vulgar patronage in the feeling; not an atom of low purpose for self in it. The whole mental condition was nothing worse than the blossom of the dream of his childhood—the dream of being the benefactor of his race, of being loved and worshiped for his kindness. But the poison of the dream had grown more active in its blossom. Since then the credit of goodness with himself had gathered sway over his spirit; and stoical pride in goodness is a far worse and lower thing than delight in the thanks of our fellows. He was a mere slave to his own ideal, and that ideal was not brother to the angel that beholds the face of the Father. Now he had taken a backward step in time, but a forward step in his real history, for again another than himself had a part in his dream. It would be long yet, however, ere he learned so to love goodness as to forget its beauty. To him who is good, goodness has ceased to be either object or abstraction; it is in him—a thirst to give; a solemn, quiet passion to bless; a delight in beholding well-being. Ah, how we dream and prate of love, until the holy fire of the true divine love, the love that God kindles in a man toward his fellows, burns the shadow of it out!