CHAPTER XVII
The Well-Conned Lesson
Giles took a new place in Plymouth after his embassy to theNarragansetts. No longer a boy among his fellow pilgrims, he fulfilledwell and busily the offices that were his as one of the younger, yetmature men.
He was given the discipline of the squadron, that, pursuant to CaptainStandish's plan for guarding the settlement, was the largest andcontrolled the most important gate of the stockade which was rapidly putup around the boundary of Plymouth after the defiance of theNarragansetts. Though that had come to naught, it had warned thecolonists that danger might arise at an unforeseen moment.
There was scarcity of provisions for the winter, the thirty-fivedestitute persons left the colony by the _Fortune_ being a heavyadditional drain upon its supplies. Everyone was put upon half rations,and it devolved upon Giles and John Alden to apportion each family'sshare. It was hard to subsist through the bitter weather upon half ofwhat would, at best, have been a slender nourishment, yet the Plymouthpeople faced the outlook patiently, uncomplainingly, and Giles,naturally hot-headed, impatient, got more benefit than he gave when hehanded out the rations and saw the quiet heroism of their acceptance.
He grew to be a silent Giles, falling into the habit of thoughtfulness,with scant talk, that was the prevailing manner of the Plymouth men.Between his father and himself there was friendliness, the formeropposition between them, mutual annoyance, and irritation, were gone.Yet there they halted, not resuming the intimacy of Giles's childhooddays. It was as if there were a reserve, rather of embarrassment than oflack of love; as if something were needed to jostle them into closerintercourse.
Constance saw this, and waited, convinced that it would come, glad inthe perfect confidence that she felt existed between them.
She was a busy Constance in these days. The warmth of September heldthrough that November, brooding, slumberous, quiet in the sunshine thatwarmed like wine.
Constance and her stepmother cut and strung the few vegetables whichthey had, and hung them in the sunny corner of the empty attic room.
They spread out corn and pumpkins upon the floor, instructing thewilling Lady Fair to see to it that mice did not steal them.
Dame Eliza, also, had grown comparatively silent. Her long tirades werewanting; she showed no softening toward Constance, yet she let heralone. Constance thought that something was on her stepmother's mind,but she did not try to discover what--glad of the new sparing of hersharp tongue, having no expectation of anything better than this fromher.
Damaris had been sent with the other children to be instructed in themorning by Mrs. Brewster in sampler working and knitting; by her husbandin the Westminster catechism, and the hornbook.
In the afternoon Damaris was allowed to play quietly at keeping house,with Love Brewster, who was a quiet child and liked better to play atbeing a pilgrim, and making a house with Damaris, than to share in theboys' games.
"Where do you go, lambkin?" Constance asked her. "For we must know whereto find you, nor must it be far from the house."
"It is just down by that little patch, Connie; it's as nice as it canbe, and it is the safest place in Plymouth, I'm sure," Damaris assuredher earnestly. "You see there is a woods, and a hollow, and a big, big,great tree, and its roots go all out, every way, and we live in them,because they are rooms already; don't you see? And it's nice anddamp--but you don't get your feet wet!" Damaris anticipated theobjection which she saw in Constance's eye. "It's only--only--soft,gentle damp; not wetness, and moss grows there, as green as green canbe, and feathery! And on the tree are nice little yellow plates, withbrown edges! Growing on it! And we play they are our best plates that wedon't use every day, because they are soft-like, and we didn't care totouch them when we did it. But they make the prettiest best plates inthe cupboard, for they grow, in rows, with their edges over the nextone, just the way you set up our plates in the corner cupboard. Soplease don't think it isn't a nice place, Constance, because it is, andI'd feel terribly afflicted, and cast down, and as nothing, if Icouldn't go there with Love."
Constance smiled at the child's quoting of the phrases which she hadheard in the long sermons that Elder Brewster read, or delivered to themtwice on Sunday, there being no minister yet come to Plymouth.
"You little echo!" Constance cried. "It surely would be a matter to moveone's pity if you suffered so deeply as that in the loss of yourplayground! Well, dear, till the warmth breaks up I suppose you may keepyour house with Love, but promise to leave it if you feel chilly there.We must trust you so far. Art going there now?"
"Yes, dear Constance. You have a heart of compassion and I love you withall of mine," said Damaris, expressing herself again like a littlePuritan, but hugging her sister with the natural heartiness of a lovingchild.
Then she ran away, and Constance, taking her capacious darning bag onher arm, went to bear Priscilla Alden company at her mending, as sheoften did when no work about the house detained her.
Giles came running down the road when the afternoon had half gone, hisface white. "Con, come home!" he cried, bursting open the door. "Hasten!Damaris is strangely ill."
Constance sprang up, throwing her work in all directions, and Priscillasprang up with her. Without stopping to pick up a thread, the two girlswent with Giles.
"I don't know what it is," Giles said, in reply to Constance'squestions. "Love Brewster came running to Dame Hopkins, crying thatDamaris was sick and strange. She followed him to the children'splayground, and carried the child home. She is like to die; convulsionsand every sign of poison she has, but what it is, what to do, no oneknows. The women are there, but Doctor Fuller, as you know, is gone to asquaw who is suffering sore, and we could not bring him, even if we knewwhere he was, till it was too late. They have done all that they canrecall for such seizures, but the child grows worse."
"Oh, Giles!" groaned Constance. "She hath eaten poison. What has DoctorFuller told me of these things? If only I can remember! All I can thinkof is that he hath said different poisons require different treatment.Oh, Giles, Giles!"
"Steady, Sister; it may be that you can help," said Giles. "It had notoccurred to any one how much the doctor had told you of his methods.Perhaps Love will know what Damaris touched."
"There is Love, sitting crouched in the corner of the garden plot, hishead on his knees, poor little Love!"
Constance broke into a run and knelt beside the little boy, who did notlook up as she put her arms around him.
"Love, Love, dear child, if you can tell me what Damaris ate perhaps Godwill help me cure her," she said. "Look up, and be brave and help me.Did you see Damaris eat anything that you did not eat with her?"
"Little things that grow around the big tree where it is wetter, wepicked for our furniture," Love said at once. "Damaris said you cookedthem and they were good. So then she said we would play some of them wasfurniture, and some of them was our dinner. And I didn't eat them, forthey were like thin leather, only soft, and I felt of them, and couldn'teat them. But Damaris did eat them."
"Toadstools!" cried Constance with a gasp. "Toadstools, Love! Did theylook like little tables? And did Damaris call them mushrooms?"
"Yes, like little tables," Love nodded his head hard. "All fullunderneath with soft crimped----"
But Constance waited for no more. With a cry she was on her feet andrunning like the wind, calling back over her shoulder to Giles:
"I'll come quick! I know! I know! Tell Father I know!"
"She hath gone to Doctor Fuller's house," said Priscilla, watchingConstance's flying figure, her hair unbound and streaming like aburnished banner behind her as she ran to get her weapon to fight withDeath. "No girl ever ran as she can. Come, Giles; obey her. Tell yourfather and Mistress Hopkins that mayhap Constance can save the child."
They turned toward the house, and Constance sped on.
"Nightshade! The belladonna!" she was saying to herself as she ran. "Iknow the phial; I know its place. O, God, give me time, and give me wit,and d
o Thou the rest!" Past power to explain, she swept aside with avehement arm the woman who found needed shelter for herself in DoctorFuller's house, and kept it for him till his wife should come toPlymouth.
Into the crude laboratory and pharmacy--in which the doctor had allowedher to work with him, of the contents of which he had taught her so muchfor an emergency that she had little dreamed would so closely affectherself when it came--Constance flew, and turned to the shelf wherestood, in their dark phials, the few poisons which the doctor kept readyto do beneficent work for him.
"Belladonna, belladonna, the beautiful lady," Constance murmured, in thecurious way that minds have of seizing words and dwelling on them withsurface insistence, while the actual mind is intensely working on avital matter.
She took down the wrong phial first, and set it back impatiently.
"There should be none other like belladonna," she said aloud, and tookdown the phial she sought. To be sure that she was right, though it waslabelled in the doctor's almost illegible small writing, she withdrewthe cork. She knew the sickening odour of the nightshade which she hadhelped distil, an odour that dimly recalled a tobacco that had come toher father in England in her childhood from some Spanish colony, as shehad been told, and also a wine that her stepmother made from wildberries.
Constance shuddered as she replaced the cork.
"It sickens me, but if only it will restore little Damaris!" shethought.
Holding the phial tight Constance hastened away, and, her breath stillcoming painfully, she broke into her swift race homeward, diminishingnothing of her speed in coming, her great purpose conquering the painthat oppressed her labouring breast.
When she reached her home her father was watching for her in thedoorway. He took her hands in both of his without a word, covering thephial which she clasped, and looking at her questioningly.
"I hope so; oh, I hope so, Father!" she said. "The doctor told me."
Stephen Hopkins led her into the house; Dame Eliza met her within.
"Constance? Connie?" Thus Mistress Hopkins implored her to do her best,and to allow her to hope.
"Yes, yes, Mother," Constance replied to the prayer, and neither notedthat they spoke to each other by names that they had never used before.
The first glimpse that Constance had of Damaris on the bed sent all theblood back against her heart with a pang that made her feel faint. Itdid not seem possible that she was in time, even should her knowledge becorrect.
The child lay rigid as Constance's eyes fell on her; her lips and cheekswere ghastly, her long hair heightening the awful effect of her deathlycolour. Frequent convulsions shook her body, her struggling breathingalone broke the stillness of the room.
"She is quieter, but it is not that she is better," whispered DameEliza.
Priscilla Alden stood ready with a spoon and glass in one hand, water ina small ewer in the other, always the efficient, sensible girl whenneeded.
Constance accepted the glass, took from it the spoon, gave the glassback to Priscilla and poured from the dark phial into the spoon the doseof belladonna that Doctor Fuller had explained to her would be proper touse in an extreme case of danger.
"How wonderful that he should have told me particularly about toadstoolpoisoning, yet it is because of the children," Constance's dual mind wassaying to her, even while she poured the remedy and prayed with all hermight for its efficacy.
"Open her mouth," she said to her father, and he obeyed her. Constancepoured the belladonna down Damaris's throat.
Even after the first dose the child's rigor relaxed before a long timehad passed. The dose was repeated; the early dusk of the grayest monthclosed down upon the watchers in that room. The neighbours slipped awayto their own homes and duties; night fell, and Stephen Hopkins, hiswife, Giles, and Constance stood around that bed, feeling no want offood, watching, watching the gradual cessation of the wrackingconvulsions, the relaxation of the stiffened little limbs, the fall ofthe strained eyelids, the quieter breathing, the changing tint of theskin as the poison loosed its grip upon the poor little heart and theblood began to course languidly, but duly, through the congested veins.
"Constance, she is safe!" Stephen Hopkins ventured at last to say asDamaris turned on her side with a long, refreshing breath.
Giles went quickly from the room, and Constance turned to her fatherwith sudden weakness that made her faint.
Constance swayed as she stood and her father caught her in his arms,tenderly drawing her head down on his shoulder, as great rending sobsshook her from relief and the accumulated exhaustion of hunger, physicalweariness, anxiety, and grief.
"Brave little lass!" Stephen Hopkins whispered, kissing her again andagain. "Brave, quick-witted, loving, wise little lass o' mine!"
Dame Eliza spoke never a word, but on her knees, with her head buried inthe bright patch bedspread, one of Damaris's cold little hands laidacross her lips, she wept as Constance had never dreamed that herstepmother could weep.
"Better look after her, Father," Constance whispered, alarmed. "She willdo herself a mischief, poor soul! Mother, oh--she loves me not! Father,comfort her; I will rest, and then I shall be my old self."
"You did not notice that Priscilla had come back," her father said. "Sheis in the kitchen, and the kettle is singing on the hob. Go, dear one,and Priscilla will give you food and warm drink. Let me help you there.My Constance, Damaris would be far beyond our love by now had you notsaved her. You have saved her life, Constance! What do we not all owe toyou?"
"It was Doctor Fuller. He taught me. He is wise, and knew that childrenmight take harm from toadstools, playing in the woods as ours do. It wasnot due to me that Damaris was saved," Constance said.
She was not conscious of how heavily she leaned on her father's arm,which lovingly enfolded her, leading her to the big chair in theinglenook. The fire leaped and crackled; the steam from the singingkettle on the crane showed rosy red in the firelight; Hecate, Puck, andLady Fair basked in the warmth, and Priscilla Alden knelt on the hearthstirring something savoury in the saucepan that sat among the raked-offashes, while John Alden, who had brought Priscilla back to be useful tothe worn-out household, sat on the settle, leaning forward, elbows onknees, the bellows between his hands, ready to pump up wind under aflame that might show a sign of flagging.
"Dear me, how cosy it looks!" exclaimed Constance, involuntarily, herdrooping muscles tautening to welcome the brightness waiting for her."It does not seem as though there ever could come a sorrow to threaten ahearthstone so shut in, so well tended as this one!"
"It did not come, my dear; it only looked in at the window, and when itsaw the tended hearth, and how well-armed you were to grapple with it,off it went!" cried Priscilla, drawing Constance into the high-backedchair. "Feet on this stool, my pretty, and this napery over your knees!That's right! Now this bowl and spoon, and then your Pris will pour herhot posset into your bowl, and you must shift it into your sweet mouth,and we'll be as right as a trivet, instanter!"
Priscilla acted as she chattered, and Constance gladly submitted tobeing taken care of, lying back smiling in weary, happy acquiescence.
Priscilla's posset was a heartening thing, and Constance after it,munched blissfully on a biscuit and sipped the wine that had been madeof elder too brief a time before, yet which was friendly to her,nevertheless.
Constance's lids drooped in the warmth, her head nodded, her fingersrelaxed. Priscilla caught her glass just in time as it was falling, andConstance slept beside the fire while John and Priscilla crept away, andGiles came to take their place, to keep up the blaze in case a kettle ofhot water might be needed when Damaris wakened from her first restoringsleep.
At dawn Doctor Fuller came in and Constance aroused to welcome him.
"Child, what an experience you have borne!" the good man said, bendingwith a moved face to greet Constance. "To think that I should have beenabsent! Your practice was more successful than mine; the squaw is dead.And you remembered my teaching, and saved the child
with the nightshadewe gathered and distilled that fair day, more than two months ago! 'Twasa lesson well conned!"
"'Twas a lesson well taught," Constance amended. "Sit here, DoctorFuller, and let me call my father. You will see Damaris? And her motheris in need of a quieting draught, I think. The poor soul was utterlyspent when last I saw her, though I've selfishly slept, nor known aughtof what any one else might be bearing."
Constance slipped softly through the door as she spoke, into the bedroomwhere Damaris lay. The little girl was sleeping, but her mother layacross her feet, her gloomy eyes staring at the wall, her face white andmournful.
"Doctor Fuller is come, Stepmother," whispered Constance. "Shall he notsee Damaris? And you, have you not slept?"
"Not a wink," said Dame Eliza, rising heavily. "To me it is as ifDamaris had died, and that that child there was another. I bore theagony of parting from her, and now must abide by it, meseems, for Icannot believe that she is here and safe. Constance, it is to you----."She stopped and began again. "I was ever fond of calling you yourfather's daughter, making plain that I had no part in you. It was true;none have I, nor ever can have. But in my child you have the right ofsister, and the restorer of her life. Damaris's mother, and Damaris isyour father's other daughter, is heavily in your debt. I do notknow----." She paused. She had spoken slowly, with difficulty, as if shecould not find the words, nor use them as she wished to when she hadfound them. Young as she was, Constance saw that her stepmother waslabouring under the stress of profound emotion, that tore her almostlike a physical agony.
"Now, now, prithee, Mistress Hopkins!" cried Constance, purposely usingher customary title for her stepmother, to avoid the effect of therebeing anything out of the ordinary between them. "Bethink thee that Ihave loved Damaris dearly all her short life, and that her loss wouldhave wounded me hardly less than it would have you. What debt can therebe where there is love? Would I not have sacrificed anything to keep thechild, even for myself? And what have I done but remember what thedoctor taught me, and give her drops? Do not, I pray thee, make of myselfishness and natural affection a matter of merit! And now the doctoris waiting. Will you not go to him and let him treat you, too?--forindeed you need it. And he will tell you how best to bring Damaris backto her strength. I am going out into the morning air, for my long sleepby the hot fire hath made me heavy. I will be back in a short time tohelp with breakfast, Stepmother!"
Constance snatched her cloak and ran out by the other door to escapeseeing the doctor again and hearing her stepmother dilate to him uponthe night's events.
The sun was rising, resplendent, but the air was cold.
"And no wonder!" Constance thought, startled by her discovery. "Winteris upon us; to-day is December! Our warmth must leave us, and then willdanger of poisoning be past, even in sheltered spots, such as that inwhich our little lass near found her death!"
She spread her arms out to the sun rays, and let the crisp, sea windcool her face.
"What a world! What a world! How fair, how glad, how sweet! Oh, thankGod that it is so to us all this morning! Never will I repine athardships in kind Plymouth colony, nor at the cost of coming on thispilgrimage, for of all the world in Merry England there is none to-dayhappier or more grateful than is this pilgrim maid!"
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