Under the Country Sky
Page 20
CHAPTER XX
FIVE MINUTES
It was not many hours before Doctor Craig himself led Georgiana andJames Stuart together into the room where Jeannette lay. She had askedto see them together, he said, and they might remain for precisely fiveminutes. He immediately left the room again and took the nurse with him.
The five minutes were spent by Stuart with Jeannette's hand in both hisown, as he knelt beside the the bed where she lay, no pillow under herhead, her face very white but her eyes glowing.
Jeannette's look met Georgiana's. "Is it all right?" she said very low.
"Of course it's all right, dear; and I'm perfectly happy over it,"whispered Georgiana.
Jeannette smiled. "I couldn't be happy till I was sure," she breathed."I thought--I might die, even yet--and I wanted it like this--first."
An inarticulate murmur from Stuart answered this, but Georgiana assuredher very gently: "You're going to be happy with Jimps for years andyears, Jean darling."
They were silent then, as they had been bidden, but the silence waseloquent. Doctor Craig, coming in to put an end to the little interview,saw the unmistakable tableau. As Stuart, catching sight of him, roseslowly to his feet, the surgeon's fingers closed upon his patient'spulse. He nodded.
"As a heart stimulant you have done very well, Mr. Stuart," he said."But small doses, frequently repeated, are better than large ones."
Jeannette's hand weakly caught his. "Isn't it queer, Georgiana," shemurmured, "that it should be your Mr. Jefferson who has saved my life?"
In spite of herself, Georgiana could not prevent the rich wave of colourwhich swept over her face. She knew, without venturing to look at him,that Doctor Craig's eyes flashed toward her with a smile in them. Shestooped over Jeannette with a gay reply:
"And he began his acquaintance with you by snowballing you till youalmost had need of his surgery on the spot!"
Then she and Stuart were out in the wide, bare hospital corridor, andStuart was saying with a shiver: "Does she look all right to you,George--sure?"
"Of course she does, Jimps. You never saw her before with her hair downin braids; and any face looks pale against a white bed."
He shook his head. "I shall not stir out of this town till she lookslike herself to me."
"Of course you won't. I wish I needn't, but I must go back to fatherto-night."
They all tried to dissuade her from this course, but she was firm. Sheknew well enough that all Jeannette had wanted of her was to assureherself that she possessed a clear right and title to Stuart's love.Evidently Jeannette had guessed more at Stuart's past relations withGeorgiana than either of them had imagined, and she would not allowherself to be happy without the knowledge that she was not making hercousin miserable.
One brief conversation with Doctor Craig was all that was vouchsafedGeorgiana before she left the city, and that took place in the presenceof others, in Aunt Olivia's apartment. It was clear enough how busy aman he was in this his own world, for when he came into the room heexplained to Mrs. Crofton that it had been his only chance since theyarrived to make a brief social call upon the family of his patient. Itwas but an hour before Georgiana's departure, and when he learned this,Jefferson Craig came over to her, where she sat upon a divan at one endof the long private drawing-room of the suite. Seeing this, the othersof the party began conversations of their own, after the manner of thehighly intelligent, and for those five minutes Georgiana lived in aplace apart from the rest of the world.
"Please tell me all about your father," he began, and the tones of hisvoice, low as are habitually those of his profession, could hardly havebeen heard by one across the room.
Georgiana told him, unconsciously letting him see that the fear of herprobable loss was ever before her, though she could not put it intowords. She knew as she spoke that his eyes did not leave her face. Shehad no possible idea how alluring was that face as the light from thesconces nearby fell upon it. She was conscious, womanlike, that thesmall hat she wore was made over from one of Jeannette's, and she didnot think it becoming. Though it was November, she still wore her summersuit, for the reason that since her return from abroad Jeannette had notfound time to pack and send off the usual "Semi-Annual," and previousboxes had not included winter suits at at all. Altogether, withmany-times-mended gloves upon her hands, and shoes which to her seemeddisgraceful, though preserved with all the care of which she wasmistress, Georgiana felt somehow more than ordinarily shabby.
Doctor Craig asked her several questions. He spoke of the rug-making,watching her closely as she answered. He asked how often she went towalk and how far. He asked what she and her father were reading. Hewould have asked other questions, but she interrupted him.
"It's not fair," she said. "Please tell me about the book. Does it geton?"
"Do you care to know?"
"Very much. I'm wondering if your copyist makes those German referencesany clearer for the printer than I did."
"Nobody has copied a word. I have not written a word. The book is at acomplete standstill. I see no hope for it until I can take anothervacation--under the name of E. C. Jefferson."
"And that you will never take," she said positively.
"I never shall--in the same way. There are reasons against it. The bookwill have to be written as the others were--on trains, on shipboard, inmy own room late at night."
"Is it right to try to put two lifetimes into one?" she asked, and nowshe lifted her eyes to his.
Before, she had managed to avoid a direct meeting by those many andengaging little makeshifts girls have, of glancing at a man's shoulder,his ear, his mouth--and off at the floor, the window--anywhere not tolet him see clearly what she may be afraid he will see. And Georgianawas intensely afraid that if Dr. Jefferson Craig got one straight lookwith those keen eyes of his he would recognize that her whole aching,throbbing heart was betraying itself from between those lifted lashes.But now, somehow, with her question she ventured to give him this onelook. The interview might end at any moment; she must have one straightsurvey of his face, bent so near hers.
He gave it back, and until her glance dropped he did not speak. Then,very low, but very clearly, he said deliberately:
"When may I come?"
The room whirled. The lights from the sconces danced together andblurred. The floor lifted and sank away again. And Chester Crofton chosethis moment--as if he were not after all really of that highlyintelligent class which knows when to pursue its own conversations andwhen to break into those of others--to call across the room:
"Oh, I beg pardon, Doctor Craig, but when did you say Jean might havesomething real to eat? Rosy says it's to-morrow and I say it's not yetat all."
Doctor Craig turned and answered, and turned back again. He was not ofthe composition of those who are balked of answers to their questions byill-timed interruptions. But the little diversion gave Georgiana aninstant's chance to make herself ready to answer like a woman and notlike a startled schoolgirl. So that when he repeated, his voice againdropped:
"When, Georgiana?"
She was able to reply as quietly as she could have wished: "Do you wantto come, Doctor Craig?"
"I want to come. I have never wanted anything so much."
"Then--please do."
"Very soon? As soon as I can get away for a few hours? Perhaps nextweek? It is always difficult, but if I plan ahead sometimes I can manageto make almost the train I hope for."
She nodded. "Any train--anytime."
There was an instant's silence. It seemed to her that she could hear oneor two deep-drawn breaths from him. Then:
"Would you mind looking up just once more? I must go in a minute; Ican't even take you to your train."
But she answered, with an odd little trembling of the lips: "Pleasedon't ask me to. I'm--afraid!"
A low laugh replied to that. "So am I!" said Jefferson Craig.
He rose, and she rose with him. The others came around and he took leaveof them. His handclasp was all that Georgian
a had for farewell, for whenshe lifted her eyes she let them rest on his finely moulded chin. Butshe knew that in spite of his expressed fear it was not her round littlechin he looked at, but the gleam of her dark eyes through theirsheltering lashes, and that his hand gave hers a pressure which carriedwith it much meaning. It told her that which as yet she hardly daredbelieve.
Since the journey home was made up of changes of trains, no sleeper waspossible, and Georgiana sat staring out of her car window while thoseabout her slumbered. There was too much to think of for sleep, if shehad wanted to sleep. She did not want to sleep, she wanted to live overand over again those five minutes with their incredible revelation. Andas the wheels turned, the rhythm of their turning was set to one simplephrase, the one which had sent her world whirling upside down and madethe stars leap out of their courses:
"When may I come?"