CHAPTER XXXI.
AT LAST
Mary, cooking supper, uttered a soft exclamation of pleasure and relief as she heard John’s step under the alley window and then at the door. She turned, with an iron spoon in one hand and a candlestick in the other, from the little old stove with two pot-holes, where she had been stirring some mess in a tin pan.
“Why, you’re” – she reached for a kiss – “real late!”
“I could not come any sooner.” He dropped into a chair at the table.
“Busy?”
“No; no work to-day.”
Mary lifted the pan from the stove, whisked it to the table, and blew her fingers.
“Same subject continued,” she said laughingly, pointing with her spoon to the warmed-over food.
Richling smiled and nodded, and then flattened his elbows out on the table and hid his face in them.
This was the first time he had ever lingered away from his wife when he need not have done so. It was the Doctor’s proposition that had kept him back. All day long it had filled his thoughts. He felt its wisdom. Its sheer practical value had pierced remorselessly into the deepest convictions of his mind. But his heart could not receive it.
“Well,” said Mary, brightly, as she sat down at the table, “maybe you’ll have better luck to-morrow. Don’t you think you may?”
“I don’t know,” said John, straightening up and tossing back his hair. He pushed a plate up to the pan, supplied and passed it. Then he helped himself and fell to eating.
“Have you seen Dr. Sevier to-day?” asked Mary, cautiously, seeing her husband pause and fall into distraction.
He pushed his plate away and rose. She met him in the middle of the room. He extended both hands, took hers, and gazed upon her. How could he tell? Would she cry and lament, and spurn the proposition, and fall upon him with a hundred kisses? Ah, if she would! But he saw that Doctor Sevier, at least, was confident she would not; that she would have, instead, what the wife so often has in such cases, the strongest love, it may be, but also the strongest wisdom for that particular sort of issue. Which would she do? Would she go, or would she not?
He tried to withdraw his hands, but she looked beseechingly into his eyes and knit her fingers into his. The question stuck upon his lips and would not be uttered. And why should it be? Was it not cowardice to leave the decision to her? Should not he decide? Oh! if she would only rebel! But would she? Would not her utmost be to give good reasons in her gentle, inquiring way why he should not require her to leave him? And were there any such? No! no! He had racked his brain to find so much as one, all day long.
“John,” said Mary, “Dr. Sevier’s been talking to you?”
“Yes.”
“And he wants you to send me back home for a while?”
“How do you know?” asked John, with a start.
“I can read it in your face.” She loosed one hand and laid it upon his brow.
“What – what do you think about it, Mary?”
Mary, looking into his eyes with the face of one who pleads for mercy, whispered, “He’s right,” then buried her face in his bosom and wept like a babe.
“I felt it six months ago,” she said later, sitting on her husband’s knee and holding his folded hands tightly in hers.
“Why didn’t you say so?” asked John.
“I was too selfish,” was her reply.
When, on the second day afterward, they entered the Doctor’s office Richling was bright with that new hope which always rises up beside a new experiment, and Mary looked well and happy. The Doctor wrote them a letter of introduction to the steam-boat agent.
“You’re taking a very sensible course,” he said, smoothing the blotting-paper heavily over the letter. “Of course, you think it’s hard. It is hard. But distance needn’t separate you.”
“It can’t,” said Richling.
“Time,” continued the Doctor, – “maybe a few months, – will bring you together again, prepared for a long life of secure union; and then, when you look back upon this, you’ll be proud of your courage and good sense. And you’ll be” – He enclosed the note, directed the envelope, and, pausing with it still in his hand, turned toward the pair. They rose up. His rare, sick-room smile hovered about his mouth, and he said: —
“You’ll be all the happier – all three of you.”
The husband smiled. Mary colored down to the throat and looked up on the wall, where Harvey was explaining to his king the circulation of the blood. There was quite a pause, neither side caring to utter the first adieu.
“If a physician could call any hour his own,” presently said the Doctor, “I should say I would come down to the boat and see you off. But I might fail in that. Good-by!”
“Good-by, Doctor!” – a little tremor in the voice, – “take care of John.”
The tall man looked down into the upturned blue eyes.
“Good-by!” He stooped toward her forehead, but she lifted her lips and he kissed them. So they parted.
The farewell with Mrs. Riley was mainly characterized by a generous and sincere exchange of compliments and promises of remembrance. Some tears rose up; a few ran over.
At the steam-boat wharf there were only the pair themselves to cling one moment to each other and then wave that mute farewell that looks through watery eyes and sticks in the choking throat. Who ever knows what good-by means?
“Doctor,” said Richling, when he came to accept those terms in the Doctor’s proposition which applied more exclusively to himself, – “no, Doctor, not that way, please.” He put aside the money proffered him. “This is what I want to do: I will come to your house every morning and get enough to eat to sustain me through the day, and will continue to do so till I find work.”
“Very well,” said the Doctor.
The arrangement went into effect. They never met at dinner; but almost every morning the Doctor, going into the breakfast-room, met Richling just risen from his earlier and hastier meal.
“Well? Anything yet?”
“Nothing yet.”
And, unless there was some word from Mary, nothing more would be said. So went the month of November.
But at length, one day toward the close of the Doctor’s office hours, he noticed the sound of an agile foot springing up his stairs three steps at a stride, and Richling entered, panting and radiant.
“Doctor, at last! At last!”
“At last, what?”
“I’ve found employment! I have, indeed! One line from you, and the place is mine! A good place, Doctor, and one that I can fill. The very thing for me! Adapted to my abilities!” He laughed so that he coughed, was still, and laughed again. “Just a line, if you please, Doctor.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
A RISING STAR
It had been many a day since Dr. Sevier had felt such pleasure as thrilled him when Richling, half beside himself with delight, ran in upon him with the news that he had found employment. Narcisse, too, was glad. He slipped down from his stool and came near enough to contribute his congratulatory smiles, though he did not venture to speak. Richling nodded him a happy how-d’ye-do, and the Creole replied by a wave of the hand.
In the Doctor’s manner, on the other hand, there was a decided lack of response that made Richling check his spirits and resume more slowly, —
“Do you know a man named Reisen?”
“No,” said the Doctor.
“Why, he says he knows you.”
“That may be.”
“He says you treated his wife one night when she was very ill” —
“What name?”
“Reisen.”
The Doctor reflected a moment.
“I believe I recollect him. Is he away up on Benjamin street, close to the river, among the cotton-presses?”
“Yes. Thalia street they call it now. He says” —
“Does he keep a large bakery?” interrupted the Doctor.
“The ‘Star Bakery,’” said Richling, brightening again. “He says he knows you, and that, if you will give me just one line of recommendation, he will put me in charge of his accounts and give me a trial. And a trial’s all I want, Doctor. I’m not the least fearful of the result.”
“Richling,” said Dr. Sevier, slowly picking up his paper-folder and shaking it argumentatively, “where are the letters I advised you to send for?”
Richling sat perfectly still, taking a long, slow breath through his nostrils, his eyes fixed emptily on his questioner. He was thinking, away down at the bottom of his heart, – and the Doctor knew it, – that this was the unkindest question, and the most cold-blooded, that he had ever heard. The Doctor shook his paper-folder again.
“You see, now, as to the bare fact, I don’t know you.”
Richling’s jaw dropped with astonishment. His eye lighted up resentfully. But the speaker went on: —
“I esteem you highly. I believe in you. I would trust you, Richling,” – his listener remembered how the speaker had trusted him, and was melted, – “but as to recommending you, why, that is like going upon the witness-stand, as it were, and I cannot say that I know anything.”
Richling’s face suddenly flashed full of light. He touched the Doctor’s hand.
“That’s it! That’s the very thing, sir! Write that!”
The Doctor hesitated. Richling sat gazing at him, afraid to move an eye lest he should lose an advantage. The Doctor turned to his desk and wrote.
On the next morning Richling did not come for his breakfast; and, not many days after, Dr. Sevier received through the mail the following letter: —
New Orleans, December 2, 1857.
Dear Doctor, – I’ve got the place. I’m Reisen’s book-keeper. I’m earning my living. And I like the work. Bread, the word bread, that has so long been terrible to me, is now the sweetest word in the language. For eighteen months it was a prayer; now it’s a proclamation.
I’ve not only got the place, but I’m going to keep it. I find I have new powers; and the first and best of them is the power to throw myself into my work and make it me. It’s not a task; it’s a mission. Its being bread, I suppose, makes it easier to seem so; but it should be so if it was pork and garlic, or rags and raw-hides.
My maxim a year ago, though I didn’t know it then, was to do what I liked. Now it’s to like what I do. I understand it now. And I understand now, too, that a man who expects to retain employment must yield a profit. He must be worth more than he costs. I thank God for the discipline of the last year and a half. I thank him that I did not fall where, in my cowardice, I so often prayed to fall, into the hands of foolish benefactors. You wouldn’t believe this of me, I know; but it’s true. I have been taught what life is; I never would have learned it any other way.
And still another thing: I have been taught to know what the poor suffer. I know their feelings, their temptations, their hardships, their sad mistakes, and the frightful mistakes and oversights the rich make concerning them, and the ways to give them true and helpful help. And now, if God ever gives me competency, whether he gives me abundance or not, I know what he intends me to do. I was once, in fact and in sentiment, a brother to the rich; but I know that now he has trained me to be a brother to the poor. Don’t think I am going to be foolish. I remember that I’m brother to the rich too; but I’ll be the other as well. How wisely has God – what am I saying? Poor fools that we humans are! We can hardly venture to praise God’s wisdom to-day when we think we see it, lest it turn out to be only our own folly to-morrow.
But I find I’m only writing to myself, Doctor, not to you; so I stop. Mary is well, and sends you much love.
Yours faithfully,John Richling.
“Very little about Mary,” murmured Dr. Sevier. Yet he was rather pleased than otherwise with the letter. He thrust it into his breast-pocket. In the evening, at his fireside, he drew it out again and re-read it.
“Talks as if he had got into an impregnable castle,” thought the Doctor, as he gazed into the fire. “Book-keeper to a baker,” he muttered, slowly folding the sheet again. It somehow vexed him to see Richling so happy in so low a station. But – “It’s the joy of what he has escaped from, not to,” he presently remembered.
A fortnight or more elapsed. A distant relative of Dr. Sevier, a man of his own years and profession, was his guest for two nights and a day as he passed through the city, eastward, from an all-summer’s study of fevers in Mexico. They were sitting at evening on opposite sides of the library fire, conversing in the leisurely ease of those to whom life is not a novelty.
“And so you think of having Laura and Bess come out from Charleston, and keep house for you this winter? Their mother wrote me to that effect.”
“Yes,” said Dr. Sevier. “Society here will be a great delight to them. They will shine. And time will be less monotonous for me. It may suit me, or it may not.”
“I dare say it may,” responded the kinsman, whereas in truth he was very doubtful about it.
He added something, a moment later, about retiring for the night, and his host had just said, “Eh?” when a slave, in a five-year-old dress-coat, brought in the card of a person whose name was as well known in New Orleans in those days as St. Patrick’s steeple or the statue of Jackson in the old Place d’Armes. Dr. Sevier turned it over and looked for a moment ponderingly upon the domestic.
The relative rose.
“You needn’t go,” said Dr. Sevier; but he said “he had intended,” etc., and went to his chamber.
The visitor entered. He was a dark, slender, iron gray man, of finely cut, regular features, and seeming to be much more deeply wrinkled than on scrutiny he proved to be. One quickly saw that he was full of reposing energy. He gave the feeling of your being very near some weapon, of dreadful efficiency, ready for instant use whenever needed. His clothing fitted him neatly; his long, gray mustache was the only thing that hung loosely about him; his boots were fine. If he had told a child that all his muscles and sinews were wrapped with fine steel wire the child would have believed him, and continued to sit on his knee all the same. It is said, by those who still survive him, that in dreadful places and moments the flash of his fist was as quick, as irresistible, and as all-sufficient, as lightning, yet that years would sometimes pass without its ever being lifted.
Dr. Sevier lifted his slender length out of his easy-chair, and bowed with severe gravity.
“Good-evening, sir,” he said, and silently thought, “Now, what can Smith Izard possibly want with me?”
It may have been perfectly natural that this man’s presence shed off all idea of medical consultation; but why should it instantly bring to the Doctor’s mind, as an answer to his question, another man as different from this one as water from fire?
The detective returned the Doctor’s salutation, and they became seated. Then the visitor craved permission to ask a confidential question or two for information which he was seeking in his official capacity. His manners were a little old-fashioned, but perfect of their kind. The Doctor consented. The man put his hand into his breast-pocket, and drew out a daguerreotype case, touched its spring, and as it opened in his palm extended it to the Doctor. The Doctor took it with evident reluctance. It contained the picture of a youth who was just reaching manhood. The detective spoke: —
“They say he ought to look older than that now.”
“He does,” said Dr. Sevier.
“Do you know his name?” inquired the detective.
“No.”
“What name do you know him by?”
“John Richling.”
“Wasn’t he sent down by Recorder Munroe, last summer, for assault, etc.?”
“Yes. I got him out the next day. He never should have been put in.”
To the Doctor’s surprise the detective rose to go.
“I’m much obliged to you, Doctor.”
“Is that all you wanted to ask me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Izard, who is this young man? What has he done?”
“I don’t know, sir. I have a letter from a lawyer in Kentucky who says he represents this young man’s two sisters living there, – half-sisters, rather, – stating that his father and mother are both dead, – died within three days of each other.”
“What name?”
“He didn’t give the name. He sent this daguerreotype, with instructions to trace up the young man, if possible. He said there was reason to believe he was in New Orleans. He said, if I found him, just to see him privately, tell him the news, and invite him to come back home. But he said if the young fellow had got into any kind of trouble that might somehow reflect on the family, you know, like getting arrested for something or other, you know, or some such thing, then I was just to drop the thing quietly, and say nothing about it to him or anybody else.”
“And doesn’t that seem a strange way to manage a matter like that, – to put it into the hands of a detective?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Izard. “We’re used to strange things, and this isn’t so very strange. No, it’s very common. I suppose he knew that if he gave it to me it would be attended to in a quiet and innocent sort o’ way. Some people hate mighty bad to get talked about. Nobody’s seen that picture but you and one ’aid,’ and just as soon as he saw it he said, ‘Why, that’s the chap that Dr. Sevier took out of the Parish Prison last September.’ And there won’t anybody else see it.”
“Don’t you intend to see Richling?” asked the Doctor, following the detective toward the door.
“I don’t see as it would be any use,” said the detective, “seeing he’s been sent down, and so on. I’ll write to the lawyer and state the facts, and wait for orders.”
“But do you know how slight the blame was that got him into trouble here?”
“Yes. The ’aid’ who saw the picture told me all about that. It was a shame. I’ll say so. I’ll give all the particulars. But I tell you, I just guess – they’ll drop him.”
“I dare say,” said Dr. Sevier.
“Well, Doctor,” said Mr. Izard, “hope I haven’t annoyed you.”
“No,” replied the Doctor.
But he had; and the annoyance had not ceased to be felt when, a few mornings afterward, Narcisse suddenly doubled – trebled it by saying: —
“Doctah Seveeah,” – it was a cold day and the young Creole stood a moment with his back to the office fire, to which he had just given an energetic and prolonged poking, – “a man was yeh, to see you, name’ Bison. ’F want’ to see you about Mistoo Itchlin.”
The Doctor looked up with a start, and Narcisse continued: —
“Mistoo Itchlin is wuckin’ in ’is employment. I think ’e’s please’ with ’im.”
“Then why does he come to see me about him?” asked the Doctor, so sharply that Narcisse shrugged as he replied: —
“Reely, I cann’ tell you; but thass one thing, Doctah, I dunno if you ’ave notiz: the worl’ halways take a gweat deal of welfa’e in a man w’en ’e’s ’ising. I do that myseff. Some’ow I cann’ ’e’p it.” This bold speech was too much for him. He looked down at his symmetrical legs and went back to his desk.
The Doctor was far from reassured. After a silence he called out: —
“Did he say he would come back?” A knock at the door arrested the answer, and a huge, wide, broad-faced German entered diffidently. The Doctor recognized Reisen. The visitor took off his flour-dusted hat and bowed with great deference.
“Toc-tor,” he softly drawled, “I yoost taught I trop in on you to say a verte to you apowt teh chung yentleman vot you hef rickomendet to me.”
“I didn’t recommend him to you, sir. I wrote you distinctly that I did not feel at liberty to recommend him.”
“Tat iss teh troot, Toctor Tseweer; tat iss teh ectsectly troot. Shtill I taught I’ll yoost trop in on you to say a verte to you, – Toctor, – apowt Mister” – He hung his large head at one side to remember.
“Richling,” said the Doctor, impatiently.
“Yes, sir. Apowt Mister Richlun. I heff a tifficuldy to rigolict naymps. I yoost taught I voot trop in und trop a verte to you apowt Mr. Richlun, vot maypy you titn’t herr udt before, yet.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, with ill-concealed contempt. “Well, speak it out, Mr. Reisen; time is precious.”
The German smiled and made a silly gesture of assent.
“Yes, udt is brecious. Shtill I taught I voot take enough time to yoost trop in undt say to you tat I heffent het Mr. Richlun in my etsteplitchmendt a veek undtil I finte owdt someting apowt him, tot, uf you het a-knowdt ud, voot hef mate your letter maypy a little tifferendt written, yet.”
Now, at length, Dr. Sevier’s annoyance was turned to dismay. He waited in silence for Reisen to unfold his enigma, but already his resentment against Richling was gathering itself for a spring. To the baker, however, he betrayed only a cold hostility.
“I kept a copy of my letter to you, Mr. Reisen, and there isn’t a word in it which need have misled you, sir.”
The baker waved his hand amicably.
“Sure, Tocter Tseweer, I toandt hef nutting to gomblain akinst teh vertes of tat letter. You voss mighty puttickly. Ovver, shtill, I hef sumpting to tell you vot ef you het a-knowdt udt pefore you writed tose vertes, alreatty, t’ey voot a little tifferendt pin.”
“Well, sir, why don’t you tell it?”
Reisen smiled. “Tat iss teh ectsectly vot I am coing to too. I yoost taught I’ll trop in undt tell you, Toctor, tat I heffent het Mr. Richlun in my etsteplitchmendt a veek undtil I findte owdt tat he’s a – berfect – tressure.”
Doctor Sevier started half up from his chair, dropped into it again, wheeled half away, and back again with the blood surging into his face and exclaimed: —
“Why, what do you mean by such drivelling nonsense, sir? You’ve given me a positive fright!” He frowned the blacker as the baker smiled from ear to ear.
“Vy, Toctor, I hope you ugscooce me! I yoost taught you voot like to herr udt. Undt Missis Reisen sayce, ‘Reisen, you yoost co undt tell um.’ I taught udt voot pe blessant to you to know tatt you hett sendt me teh fynust pissness mayn I effer het apowdt me. Undt uff he iss onnust he iss a berfect tressure, undt uff he aint a berfect tressure,” – he smiled anew and tendered his capacious hat to his listener, – “you yoost kin take tiss, Toctor, undt kip udt undt vare udt! Toctor, I vish you a merrah Chris’mus!”