"My dear Peter," he said gravely, "I am VERY sorry to see you here--very sorry indeed."
I admit that this exasperated me. Besides, no man on earth, not even my own family doctor, has any right to "My dear Peter" me!
"There is no loud call for sorrow, doctor," I said loftily. "If a woman, forty-eight years of age, a member of the Presbyterian church in good and regular standing, cannot call upon one of her Sunday School scholars without wrecking all the proprieties, how old must she be before she can?"
The doctor did not answer my question. Instead, he looked reproachfully at Alexander Abraham.
"Is this how you keep your word, Mr. Bennett?" he said. "I thought that you promised me that you would not let anyone into the house."
"I didn"t let her in," growled Mr. Bennett. "Good heavens, man, she climbed in at an upstairs window, despite the presence on my grounds of a policeman and a dog! What is to be done with a woman like that?"
"I do not understand what all this means," I said addressing myself to the doctor and ignoring Alexander Abraham entirely, "but if my presence here is so extremely inconvenient to all concerned, you can soon be relieved of it. I am going at once."
"I am very sorry, my dear Peter," said the doctor impressively, "but that is just what I cannot allow you to do. This house is under quarantine for smallpox. You will have to stay here."
Smallpox! For the first and last time in my life, I openly lost my temper with a man. I wheeled furiously upon Alexander Abraham.
"Why didn"t you tell me?" I cried.
"Tell you!" he said, glaring at me. "When I first saw you it was too late to tell you. I thought the kindest thing I could do was to hold my tongue and let you get away in happy ignorance. This will teach you to take a man"s house by storm, madam!"
"Now, now, don"t quarrel, my good people," interposed the doctor seriously--but I saw a twinkle in his eye. "You"ll have to spend some time together under the same roof and you won"t improve the situation by disagreeing. You see, Peter, it was this way. Mr. Bennett was in town yesterday--where, as you are aware, there is a bad outbreak of smallpox--and took dinner in a boarding-house where one of the maids was ill. Last night she developed unmistakable symptoms of smallpox. The Board of Health at once got after all the people who were in the house yesterday, so far as they could locate them, and put them under quarantine. I came down here this morning and explained the matter to Mr. Bennett. I brought Jeremiah Jeffries to guard the front of the house and Mr. Bennett gave me his word of honour that he would not let anyone in by the back way while I went to get another policeman and make all the necessary arrangements. I have brought Thomas Wright and have secured the services of another man to attend to Mr. Bennett"s barn work and bring provisions to the house. Jacob Green and Cleophas Lee will watch at night. I don"t think there is much danger of Mr. Bennett"s taking the smallpox, but until we are sure you must remain here, Peter."
While listening to the doctor I had been thinking. It was the most distressing predicament I had ever got into in my life, but there was no sense in making it worse.
"Very well, doctor," I said calmly. "Yes, I was vaccinated a month ago, when the news of the smallpox first came. When you go back through Avonlea kindly go to Sarah Pye and ask her to live in my house during my absence and look after things, especially the cats. Tell her to give them new milk twice a day and a square inch of b.u.t.ter apiece once a week. Get her to put my two dark print wrappers, some ap.r.o.ns, and some changes of underclothing in my third best valise and have it sent down to me. My pony is tied out there to the fence. Please take him home.
That is all, I think."
"No, it isn"t all," said Alexander Abraham grumpily. "Send that cat home, too. I won"t have a cat around the place--I"d rather have smallpox."
I looked Alexander Abraham over gradually, in a way I have, beginning at his feet and traveling up to his head. I took my time over it; and then I said, very quietly.
"You may have both. Anyway, you"ll have to have William Adolphus. He is under quarantine as well as you and I. Do you suppose I am going to have my cat ranging at large through Avonlea, scattering smallpox germs among innocent people? I"ll have to put up with that dog of yours. You will have to endure William Adolphus."
Alexander Abraham groaned, but I could see that the way I had looked him over had chastened him considerably.
The doctor drove away, and I went into the house, not choosing to linger outside and be grinned at by Thomas Wright. I hung my coat up in the hall and laid my bonnet carefully on the sitting-room table, having first dusted a clean place for it with my handkerchief. I longed to fall upon that house at once and clean it up, but I had to wait until the doctor came back with my wrapper. I could not clean house in my new suit and a silk shirtwaist.
Alexander Abraham was sitting on a chair looking at me. Presently he said,
"I am NOT curious--but will you kindly tell me why the doctor called you Peter?"
"Because that is my name, I suppose," I answered, shaking up a cushion for William Adolphus and thereby disturbing the dust of years.
Alexander Abraham coughed gently.
"Isn"t that--ahem!--rather a peculiar name for a woman?"
"It is," I said, wondering how much soap, if any, there was in the house.
"I am NOT curious," said Alexander Abraham, "but would you mind telling me how you came to be called Peter?"
"If I had been a boy my parents intended to call me Peter in honour of a rich uncle. When I--fortunately--turned out to be a girl my mother insisted that I should be called Angelina. They gave me both names and called me Angelina, but as soon as I grew old enough I decided to be called Peter. It was bad enough, but not so bad as Angelina."
"I should say it was more appropriate," said Alexander Abraham, intending, as I perceived, to be disagreeable.
"Precisely," I agreed calmly. "My last name is MacPherson, and I live in Avonlea. As you are NOT curious, that will be all the information you will need about me."
"Oh!" Alexander Abraham looked as if a light had broken in on him. "I"ve heard of you. You--ah--pretend to dislike men."
Pretend! Goodness only knows what would have happened to Alexander Abraham just then if a diversion had not taken place. But the door opened and a dog came in--THE dog. I suppose he had got tired waiting under the cherry tree for William Adolphus and me to come down. He was even uglier indoors than out.
"Oh, Mr. Riley, Mr. Riley, see what you have let me in for," said Alexander Abraham reproachfully.
But Mr. Riley--since that was the brute"s name--paid no attention to Alexander Abraham. He had caught sight of William Adolphus curled up on the cushion, and he started across the room to investigate him. William Adolphus sat up and began to take notice.
"Call off that dog," I said warningly to Alexander Abraham.
"Call him off yourself," he retorted. "Since you"ve brought that cat here you can protect him."
"Oh, it wasn"t for William Adolphus" sake I spoke," I said pleasantly.
"William Adolphus can protect himself."
William Adolphus could and did. He humped his back, flattened his ears, swore once, and then made a flying leap for Mr. Riley. William Adolphus landed squarely on Mr. Riley"s brindled back and promptly took fast hold, spitting and clawing and caterwauling.
You never saw a more astonished dog than Mr. Riley. With a yell of terror he bolted out to the kitchen, out of the kitchen into the hall, through the hall into the room, and so into the kitchen and round again.
With each circuit he went faster and faster, until he looked like a brindled streak with a dash of black and white on top. Such a racket and commotion I never heard, and I laughed until the tears came into my eyes. Mr. Riley flew around and around, and William Adolphus held on grimly and clawed. Alexander Abraham turned purple with rage.
"Woman, call off that infernal cat before he kills my dog," he shouted above the din of yelps and yowls.
"Oh, he won"t kill him," I said rea.s.suringly, "and he"s going too fast to hear me if I did call him. If you can stop the dog, Mr. Bennett, I"ll guarantee to make William Adolphus listen to reason, but there"s no use trying to argue with a lightning flash."
Alexander Abraham made a frantic lunge at the brindled streak as it whirled past him, with the result that he overbalanced himself and went sprawling on the floor with a crash. I ran to help him up, which only seemed to enrage him further.
"Woman," he spluttered viciously, "I wish you and your fiend of a cat were in--in--"
"In Avonlea," I finished quickly, to save Alexander Abraham from committing profanity. "So do I, Mr. Bennett, with all my heart. But since we are not, let us make the best of it like sensible people. And in future you will kindly remember that my name is Miss MacPherson, NOT Woman!"
With this the end came and I was thankful, for the noise those two animals made was so terrific that I expected the policeman would be rushing in, smallpox or no smallpox, to see if Alexander Abraham and I were trying to murder each other. Mr. Riley suddenly veered in his mad career and bolted into a dark corner between the stove and the wood-box, William Adolphus let go just in time.
There never was any more trouble with Mr. Riley after that. A meeker, more thoroughly chastened dog you could not find. William Adolphus had the best of it and he kept it.
Seeing that things had calmed down and that it was five o"clock I decided to get tea. I told Alexander Abraham that I would prepare it, if he would show me where the eatables were.
"You needn"t mind," said Alexander Abraham. "I"ve been in the habit of getting my own tea for twenty years."
"I daresay. But you haven"t been in the habit of getting mine," I said firmly. "I wouldn"t eat anything you cooked if I starved to death. If you want some occupation, you"d better get some salve and anoint the scratches on that poor dog"s back."