Surgeon Paul Faber by George MacDonald (e book free reading txt) 📕

the bedside of the little Amanda. She scarcely needed such close attendance, for she slept soundly, and was hardly at all feverish. Four or five times in the course of the night, he turned down the bed-clothes to examine her body, as if he feared some injury not hitherto apparent. Of such there was no sign.

In his youth he had occupied himself much with comparative anatomy and physiology. His predilection for these studies had greatly sharpened his observation, and he noted many things that escaped the eyes of better than ordinary observers. Amongst other kinds of things to which he kept his eyes open, he was very quick at noting instances of the strange persistency with which Nature perpetuates minute peculiarities, carrying them on from generation to generation. Occupied with Amanda, a certain imperfection in one of the curves of the outer ear attracted his attention. It is as rare to see a perfect ear as to see a perfect form, and the varieties of unfinished curves are many; but this imperfection was very peculiar. At the same time it was so slight, that not even the eye of a lover, none save that of a man of science, alive to minutest indications, would probably have seen it. The sight of it startled Faber not a little; it was the second instance of the peculiarity that had come to his knowledge. It gave him a new idea to go upon, and when the child suddenly opened her eyes, he saw another face looking at him out of hers. The idea then haunted him; and whether it was that it assimilated facts to itself, or that the signs were present, further search afforded what was to him confirmation of the initiatory suspicion.

Notwithstanding the state of feebleness in which he found Mr. Drake the next morning, he pressed him with question upon question, amounting to a thorough cross-examination concerning Amanda's history, undeterred by the fact that, whether itself merely bored, or its nature annoyed him, his patient plainly disrelished his catechising. It was a subject which, as his love to the child increased, had grown less and less agreeable to Mr. Drake: she was to him so entirely his own that he had not the least desire to find out any thing about her, to learn a single fact or hear a single conjecture to remind him that she was not in every sense as well as the best, his own daughter. He was therefore not a little annoyed at the persistency of the doctor's questioning, but, being a courteous man, and under endless obligation to him for the very child's sake as well as his own, he combated disinclination, and with success, acquainting the doctor with every point he knew concerning Amanda. Then first the doctor grew capable of giving his attention to the minister himself; whose son if he had been, he could hardly have shown him greater devotion. A whole week passed before he would allow him to go home. Dorothy waited upon him, and Amanda ran about the house. The doctor and she had been friends from the first, and now, when he was at home, there was never any doubt where Amanda was to be found.

The same day on which the Drakes left him, Faber started by the night-train for London, and was absent three days.

Amanda was now perfectly well, but Mr. Drake continued poorly. Dorothy was anxious to get him away from the river-side, and proposed putting the workmen into the Old House at once. To this he readily consented, but would not listen to her suggestion that in the meantime he should go to some watering-place. He would be quite well in a day or two, and there was no rest for him, he said, until the work so sadly bungled was properly done. He did not believe his plans were defective, and could not help doubting whether they had been faithfully carried out. But the builder, a man of honest repute, protested also that he could not account for the yielding of the wall, except he had had the mishap to build over some deep drain, or old well, which was not likely, so close to the river. He offered to put it up again at his own expense, when perhaps they might discover the cause of the catastrophe.

Sundry opinions and more than one rumor were current among the neighbors. At last they were mostly divided into two parties, the one professing the conviction that the butcher, who was known to have some grudge at the minister, had, under the testudo-shelter of his slaughter-house, undermined the wall; the other indignantly asserting that the absurdity had no foundation except in the evil thoughts of churchmen toward dissenters, being in fact a wicked slander. When the suggestion reached the minister's ears, he, knowing the butcher, and believing the builder, was inclined to institute investigations; but as such a course was not likely to lead the butcher to repentance, he resolved instead to consult with him how his premises might be included in the defense. The butcher chuckled with conscious success, and for some months always chuckled when sharpening his knife; but by and by the coals of fire began to scorch, and went on scorching-the more that Mr. Drake very soon became his landlord, and voluntarily gave him several advantages. But he gave strict orders that there should be no dealings with him. It was one thing, he said, to be good to the sinner, and another to pass by his fault without confession, treating it like a mere personal affair which might be forgotten. Before the butcher died, there was not a man who knew him who did not believe he had undermined the wall. He left a will assigning all his property to trustees, for the building of a new chapel, but when his affairs came to be looked into, there was hardly enough to pay his debts.

The minister was now subject to a sort of ague, to which he paid far too little heed. When Dorothy was not immediately looking after him, he would slip out in any weather to see how things were going on in the Pottery. It was no wonder, therefore, that his health did not improve. But he could not be induced to regard his condition as at all serious.


CHAPTER XLVI.

THE MINISTER'S STUDY.


Helen was in the way of now and then writing music to any song that specially took her fancy-not with foolish hankering after publication, but for the pleasure of brooding in melody upon the words, and singing them to her husband. One day he brought her a few stanzas, by an unknown poet, which, he said, seemed to have in them a slightly new element. They pleased her more than him, and began at once to sing themselves. No sooner was her husband out of the room than she sat down to her piano with them. Before the evening, she had written to them an air with a simple accompaniment. When she now sung the verses to him, he told her, to her immense delight, that he understood and liked them far better. The next morning, having carried out one or two little suggestions he had made, she was singing them by herself in the drawing-room, when Faber, to whom she had sent because one of her servants was ill, entered. He made a sign begging her to continue, and she finished the song.

"Will you let me see the words," he said.

She handed them to him. He read them, laid down the manuscript, and, requesting to be taken to his patient, turned to the door. Perhaps he thought she had laid a music-snare for him.

The verses were these:

A YEAR SONG.

Sighing above,
Rustling below,
Through the woods
The winds go.
Beneath, dead crowds;
Above, life bare;
And the besom winds
Sweep the air.
Heart, leave thy woe;
Let the dead things go.

Through the brown leaves
Gold stars push;
A mist of green
Veils the bush.
Here a twitter,
There a croak!
They are coming-
The spring-folk!
Heart, be not dumb;
Let the live things come.

Through the beach
The winds go,
With a long speech,
Loud and slow.
The grass is fine,
And soft to lie in;
The sun doth shine
The blue sky in.
Heart, be alive;
Let the new things thrive.

Round again!
Here now-
A rimy fruit
On a bare bough!
There the winter
And the snow;
And a sighing ever
To fall and go!
Heart, thy hour shall be;
Thy dead will comfort thee.

Faber was still folded in the atmosphere of the song when, from the curate's door, he arrived at the minister's, resolved to make that morning a certain disclosure-one he would gladly have avoided, but felt bound in honor to make. The minister grew pale as he listened, but held his peace. Not until the point came at which he found himself personally concerned, did he utter a syllable.

I will in my own words give the substance of the doctor's communication, stating the facts a little more fairly to him than his pride would allow him to put them in his narrative.

Paul Faber was a student of St. Bartholomew's, and during some time held there the office of assistant house-surgeon. Soon after his appointment, he being then three and twenty, a young woman was taken into one of the wards, in whom he gradually grew much interested. Her complaint caused her much suffering, but was more tedious than dangerous.

Attracted by her sweet looks, but more by her patience, and the gratitude with which she received the attention shown her, he began to talk to her a little, especially during a slight operation that had to be not unfrequently performed. Then he came to giving her books to read, and was often charmed with the truth and simplicity of the remarks she would make. She had been earning her living as a clerk, had no friends in London, and therefore no place to betake herself to in her illness but the hospital. The day she left it, in the simplicity of her heart, and with much timidity, she gave him a chain she had made for him of her hair. On the ground of supplementary attention, partly desirable, partly a pretext, but unassociated with any evil intent, he visited her after in her lodging. The joy of her face, the light of her eyes when he appeared, was enchanting to him. She pleased every gentle element of his nature; her worship flattered him, her confidence bewitched him. His feelings toward her were such that he never doubted he was