Agapit was alarmed. He had never heard Vesper laugh in health. He had rarely smiled. Possibly he might be calmed by the offer of something to eat, and, picking up a bowl of jelly, he approached the bed.
Vesper made a supreme effort, slightly moved his head from the descending spoon, and uttered the worst expression that he could summon from his limited vocabulary of abuse of former days.
Agapit drew back, and resignedly put the jelly on the table. "He remembers the past," he reflected, with hanging head.
Vesper did not remember the past; he was conscious of no resentment. He was possessed only of a wild desire to be rid of this man, whose presence inflamed him to the verge of madness.
After sorrowfully surveying him, while retreating further and further from his inarticulate expressions of rage, Agapit stepped into the hall.
In a few minutes he returned with Rose, who looked pale and weary, as if she, too, were a watcher by a sick-bed. She glanced quickly at Vesper, suppressed a smile when he made a face at Agapit, and signed to the latter to leave the room.
Vesper became calm. Instead of sitting down beside him, or staring at him, she had gone to the window, and stood with folded hands, looking out into the night. After some time she went to the table, took up a bottle, and, carefully examining it, poured a few drops into a spoon.
Vesper took the liquid from her, with no sense of irritation; then, as she quickly turned away, he felt himself sinking down, down, through his bed, through the floor, through the crust of the earth, into regions of infinite s.p.a.ce, from which he had come back to the world for a time.
The next time he waked up, Agapit was again with him. The former pantomime would have been repeated if Agapit had not at once precipitated himself from the room, and sent Rose to take his place.
This time she smiled at Vesper, and made an effort to retain his attention, even going so far as to leave the room and reenter with a wan effigy of Narcisse in her arms,--a pale and puny thing that stared languidly at him, and attempted to kiss his hand.
Vesper tried to speak to the child, lost himself in the attempt, then roused his slumbering fancy once more and breathed a question to Mrs.
Rose,--"My mother?"
"Your mother is well, and is here," murmured his landlady. "You shall see her soon."
Vesper"s periods of slumber after this were not of so long duration, and one warm and delicious afternoon, when the sunlight was streaming in and flooding his bed, he opened his eyes on a frail, happy figure fluttering about the room. "Ah, mother," he said, calmly, "you are here."
She flew to the bed, she hovered over him, embraced him, turned away, came back to him, and finally, rigidly clasping her hands to ensure self-control, sat down beside him.
At first she would not talk, the doctor would not permit it; but after some days her tongue was allowed to take its course freely and uninterruptedly.
"My dear boy, what a horrible fright you gave me! Your letters came every day for a week, then they stopped. I waited two days, thinking you had gone to some other place, then I telegraphed. You were ill. You can imagine how I hurried here, with Henry to take care of me. And what do you think I found? Such a curious state of affairs. Do you know that these Acadiens hated you at first?"
"Yes, I remember that."
"But when you fell ill, that young man, Agapit, installed himself as your nurse. They spoke of getting a Sister of Charity, but had some scruples, thinking you might not like it, as you are a Protestant. Mrs.
de Foret closed her inn; she would receive no guests, lest they might disturb you. She and her cousin nursed you. They got an English doctor to drive twelve miles every day,--they thought you would prefer him to a French one. Then her little boy fell ill; he said the young man Agapit had hurt you. They thought he would die, for he had brain fever. He called all the time for you, and when he had lucid intervals, they could only convince him you were not dead by bringing him in, and putting him in this cot. Really, it was a most deplorable state of affairs. But the charming part is that they thought you were a pauper. When I arrived, they were thunderstruck. They had not opened your trunk, which you left locked, though they said they would have done so if I had not come, for they feared you might die, and they wanted to get the addresses of your friends, and every morning, my dear boy, for three days after you were taken ill, you started up at nine o"clock, the time that queer, red postman used to come,--and wrote a letter to me."
Mrs. Nimmo paused, hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears. "It almost broke my heart when I heard it,--to think of you rousing yourself every day from your semi-unconsciousness to write to your mother. I cannot forgive myself for letting you go away without me."
"Why did they not write from here to you?" asked Vesper.
"They did not know I was your mother. I don"t think they looked at the address of the letters you had sent. They thought you were poor, and an adventurer."
"Why did they not write to _The Evening News_?"
"My dear boy, they were doing everything possible for you, and they would have written in time."
"You have, of course, told them that they shall suffer no loss by all this?"
"Yes, yes; but they seem almost ashamed to take money from me. That charming landlady says, "If I were rich I would pay all, myself."
Vesper, she is a wonderful woman."
"Is she?" he said, languidly.
"I never saw any one like her. My darling, how do you feel? Mayn"t I give you some wine? I feel as if I had got you back from the grave, I can never be sufficiently thankful. The doctor says you may be carried out-of-doors in a week, if you keep on improving, as you are sure to do.
The air here seems to suit you perfectly. You would never have been ill if you had not been run down when you came. That young man Agapit is making a stretcher to carry you. He is terribly ashamed of his dislike for you, and he fairly worships you now."
"I suppose you went through my trunk," said Vesper, in faint, indulgent tones.
"Well, yes," said Mrs. Nimmo, reluctantly. "I thought, perhaps, there might be something to be attended to."
"And you read my great-grandfather"s letter?"
"Yes,--I will tell you exactly what I did. I found the key the second day I came, and I opened the trunk. When I discovered that old yellow letter, I knew it was something important. I read it, and of course recognized that you had come here in search of the Fiery Frenchman"s children. However, I did not think you would like me to tell these Acadiens that, so I merely said, "How you have misunderstood my son! He came here to do good to some of your people. He is looking for the descendants of a poor unhappy man. My son has money, and would help you.""
Vesper tried to keep back the little crease of amus.e.m.e.nt forming itself about his wasted lips. He had rarely seen his mother so happy and so excited. She prattled on, watching him sharply to see the effect of her words, and hovering over him like a kind little mother-bird. In some way she reminded him curiously enough of Emmanuel de la Rive.
"I simply told them how good you are, and how you hate to have a fuss made over you. The young Acadien man actually writhed, and Mrs. de Foret cried like a baby. Then they said, "Oh, why did he put the name of a paper after his name?" "How cruel in you to say that!" I replied to them. "He does that because it reminds him of his dead father, whom he adored. My husband was editor and proprietor of the paper, and my son owns a part of it." You should have seen the young Acadien. He put his head down on his arms, then he lifted it, and said, "But does your son not write?" "Write!" I exclaimed, indignantly, "he hates writing. To me, his own mother, he only sends half a dozen lines. He never wrote a newspaper article in his life." They would have been utterly overcome if I had not praised them for their disinterestedness in taking care of you in spite of their prejudice against you. Vesper, they will do anything for you now; and that exquisite child,--it is just like a romance that he should have fallen ill because you did."
"Is he better?"
"Almost well. They often bring him in when you are asleep. I daresay it would amuse you to have him sit on your bed for awhile."
Vesper was silent, and, after a time, his mother ran on: "This French district is delightfully unique. I never was in such an out-of-the-world place except in Europe. I feel as if I had been moved back into a former century, when I see those women going about in their black handkerchiefs. I sit at the window and watch them going by,--I should never weary of them."
Vesper said nothing, but he reflected affectionately and acutely that in a fortnight his appreciative but fickle mother would be longing for the rustle of silks, the flutter of laces, and the hum of fashionable conversation on a veranda, which was her idea of an enjoyable summer existence.
CHAPTER IX.
A TALK ON THE WHARF.
"Long have I lingered where the marshlands are, Oft hearing in the murmur of the tide The past, alive again and at my side, With unrelenting power and hateful war."
J. F. H.
"There goes the priest of the parish in his buggy," said Mrs. Nimmo. "He must have a sick call."
She sat on a garden chair, crocheting a white shawl and watching the pa.s.sers-by on the road.
"And there are some Sisters of Charity from one of the convents and an old Indian with a load of baskets is begging from them--Don"t you want to look at these bicyclists, Vesper? One, two, three, four, five, six.
They are from Boston, I know, by the square collars on their jerseys.
The Nova Scotians do not dress in that way."
Vesper gave only a partial though pleased attention to his mother, who had picked up an astonishing amount of neighborhood news, and as he lay on a rug at her feet, with his hat pulled over his brows, his mind soared up to the blue sky above him. During his illness he had always seemed to be sinking down into blackness and desolation. With returning health and decreased nervousness his soul mounted upward, and he would lie for hours at a time bathed in a delicious reverie and dreaming of "a nest among the stars."
"And there is the blacksmith from the corner," continued Mrs. Nimmo, "who comes here so often to borrow things that a blacksmith is commonly supposed to have. Yesterday he wanted a hammer. "Not a hammer," said Celina to me, "but a wife.""