Wild Youth

Chapter 6

"THINGS MUST HAPPEN"

Between two sunrises Louise Mazarine had seen her old world pass in a

flash of flame and a new world trembling with a new life spread out

before her; had come to know what her old world really was. The eyes with

which she looked upon her new world had in them the glimmer not only of

awakened feeling but of awakened understanding. To this time she had

endured her aged husband as a slave comes to bear the lashes of his

master, with pain which will be renewed and renewed, but pain only, and

not the deeper torture of the soul; for she had never really grasped what

their relations meant. To her it had all been part of the unavoidable

misery of life. But on that sunny afternoon when Orlando Guise's voice

first sounded in her ears, and his eyes looked into hers as, pale and

ill, she gazed at him from the window, a revelation came to her of what

the three years of life with Joel Mazarine had really been. From that

moment until she heard the pioneer's wagon, escorted by her husband,

bringing the unconscious Orlando Guise to her door, she had lived in a

dream which seemed like a year of time to her.

Since the early morning of that very day, when Joel had leaned over her

bed and asked her in his slow, grinding voice how she was, she had lived

more than in all the past nineteen years of her life. The Young Doctor

had come and gone, amazed at first, but presently with a look of

apprehension in his eyes. There was not much trace of yesterday's illness

in the alert, eager girl-wife, who twenty-four hours before had been

really nearer to the end of all things than her aged husband. The Young

Doctor knew all too well what the curious, throbbing light in her eyes

meant. He knew that the gay and splendid Orlando Guise had made the sun

for this prismatic radiance, and that the story of her life, which Louise

had wished to tell him yesterday, would never now be told--for she would

have no desire to tell it. The old vague misery, the ancient veiled

torture, was behind her, and she was presently to suffer a new

torture--but also a joy for which men and women have borne unspeakable

things. No, Louise would never tell him the story of her life, because

now she knew it was a thing which must not be told. Her mind understood

things it had never known before. To be wise is to be secret, and she had

learned some wisdom; and the Young Doctor wondered if the greater wisdom

she must learn would be drunk from the cup of folly. Before he left her

he had said to her with meaning in his voice:

"My dear young madam, your recovery is too rapid. It is not a cure: it is

a miracle; and miracles are not easily understood. We must, therefore,

make them understood; and so you will take regularly three times a day

the powerful tonic I will give you."

She was about to interrupt him, but he waved a hand reprovingly and added

with kindly irony:

"Yes, we both know you don't need a tonic out of a bottle; but it's just

as well other people should think that the tonic bringing back the colour

to your cheeks comes out of a bottle and not out of a health resort,

called Slow Down Ranch, about four miles to the north-west of Tralee."

As he said this, he looked straight into the eyes which seemed, as it

were, to shrink into cover from what he was saying. But when, an instant

afterwards, he took her hand and said good-bye, he knew by the trembling

clasp of her fingers--even more appealing than they had yet been--that

she understood.

So it was a few moments later, outside the house, he had said to Joel

Mazarine that he had given his wife a powerful tonic, and he hoped to see

an almost instant change in her condition; but she must have her room to

herself for a time, according to his instructions of the day before, as

she was nervous and needed solitude, to induce sleep. He was then about

to start for Askatoon when the old man said:

"I suppose you won't have to come again, as she's going on all right."

To this the Young Doctor had replied firmly: "Yes, I'm coming out

to-morrow. She's not fit yet to go to Askatoon, and I must see her once

again."

"Oh, keep coming--that's right, keep coming!" answered the miserly old

man, who still was not so miserly that he did not want his young wife

blooming. "Coming to-morrow, eh!" he added, with something very like a

sneer.

The other had a sudden flash of fury pass through his veins. The old

Celtic quickness to resent insult swept over him. The ire of his

forefathers waked in him. This outrageous old Caliban, to attempt to

sneer at him! For an instant he was Kilkenny let loose, and then the

cool, trained brain reasserted its mastery, and he replied:

"If there should be a turn for the worse, send for me to-night--not

to-morrow!" And he looked the old man in the eyes with a steady, steelly

glance which had nothing to do with the words he had just uttered, but

was the challenge of a conquering spirit.

The Young Doctor had acted with an almost uncanny prescience. It was as

though he had foreseen that Orlando Giuse would be carried upstairs to a

room nearly opposite that of Louise, and laid unconscious on a bed, till

he himself should come again that very night and extract a bullet from

Orlando's side; that he would open Orlando's eyes to consciousness, hear

Orlando say, "Where am I?" and note his startled look when told he was at

Tralee.

Once during this visit, while making Orlando safe and comfortable, with

the help of Li Choo, the c******n, and Rada, the half-breed, he had seen

Louise for a moment. The old man had gone to the stables, and as he came

out of the room where Orlando was, Louise's door opened softly on him.

Dimly, in the half-darkness of her room, in which no light was burning,

he saw her. She beckoned to him. Shutting the door of Orlando's bedroom

behind him, he came quickly to her side and said:

"Go to bed at once, young woman. This will not do."

"I'm not sick now," she urged. "Say, I really am well again."

"You must not be well again so soon," he replied meaningly. "I want you

to understand that you must not," he insisted.

There was a pause, which seemed interminable to the Young Doctor, who was

listening for the heavy footstep of Joel Mazarine outside the house; and

then at last in agitation Louise said to him:

"Will he get well? Rada told me he was shot saving Mr. Mazarine. Will he

get well?"

"Yes, he will get well, and quickly, if--"

He broke off, for there was the thud of a heavy footstep for which he had

been listening. Joel Mazarine was returning.

"Won't they let me help nurse him?" she whispered.

The Young Doctor shook his head in negation. "His mother will be here

to-morrow," he said quickly. "Be wise, my child."

"You understand?" she whispered wistfully.

"I have no understanding. Go to bed," he answered sharply. "Shut the door

at once."

When old Joel Mazarine's footsteps were heard upon the staircase again,

Orlando was lying with half-closed eyes, watching, yet too weak to speak;

and the Young Doctor was giving directions to Rada and Li Choo for the

night-watch in Orlando's room. When Mazarine entered, the Young Doctor

gave him a casual nod and went on with his directions. When he had

finished, Rada said in her broken English, with an accent half-Indian,

half-French:

"His mother you send for--yes? She come queeck. Some one must take care

him when for me get breakfus and Li Choo do chores."

"We'll send for her in the morning," interrupted Joel Mazarine.

"Perhaps Mrs. Mazarine would be well enough to help a little in the

morning," remarked the Young Doctor in a colourless voice. He knew when

to be audacious; or, if he did not know, he had an instinct; and he

noticed that the wounded man's eyelids did not even blink when he threw

out the hint concerning Louise, while the eyes of the old man took on a

sullen flame.

"Mrs. Mazarine has to be molly-coddled herself--that's what you've taught

her," he snarled.

"Well, then, send for Mrs. Guise to-night," commanded the Young Doctor.

He thought Joel Mazarine made unnecessary noise as he stamped down the

staircase to send a farmhand to Slow Down Ranch; and he also thought that

Orlando Guise showed discretion of manner and look in a moment of

delicacy and difficulty. He knew, however, that, as the children say,

"Things must happen."