'Doc.' Gordon Read online

  CHAPTER XIII

  About two weeks after the death of Doctor Gordon's wife James went tothe post office before beginning his round of calls. Lately nearly allthe practice had devolved upon him. Gordon seemed sunken in a gloomyapathy, from which he could rouse himself only for the most urgentnecessities. Once aroused he was fully himself, but for the most part hesat in his office smoking or seemingly half-asleep. Once in a while avery sick patient acted upon him as a momentary stimulus, but Alton wasunusually healthy just then. After an open and, for the most part,snowless winter, which had occasioned much sickness, the spring broughtfrost and light falls of snow, which seemed to give new life to peoplein spite of unseasonableness. James had had little difficulty inattending to most of the practice, although he was necessarily away fromhome the greater part of the time. However, he often took Clemency withhim, and she would sit well wrapped up in the buggy reading a book whilehe made calls. Then there were the long drives over solitary roads,which, though rough, causing the wheels to jolt heavily in deep ridgesof frozen soil, or sink into the red mud almost to the hubs, as the casemight be, seemed like roads of Paradise to the young man. Although hehimself grieved for Gordon's wife, and Gordon himself filled him withcovert anxiety, yet he was young and the girl was young, and they wereboth released from a miserable sense of insecurity and mystery, whichhad irritated and saddened them; their thoughts now turned toward theirown springtime, as naturally and innocently as flowers bloom. There wasgrief, and the shadow of trouble, but of past trouble; their eyes lookedupon life and love and joy instead of death, as helplessly as a flowerlooks toward the sun. They were happy, although half-ashamed of theirhappiness; but, after all, perhaps, being happy after bereavement andtrouble means simply that the soul has turned to God for consolation.

  James's face was beaming with his joyful thoughts as he drew up beforethe village store, got out of the buggy, and tied the horse. When heentered he said "good morning!" in a sort of general fashion. There weremany men lounging about. The morning mail had been distributed, andalthough Alton people got very few letters, still there was a wideinterest in the post office, a little boxed-off space in a corner of thestore. The store-keeper, Henry Graves, was the postmaster. He felt theimportance of his position. When he sorted and distributed the mail fromthe limp leather bag, he realized himself as an official of a greatrepublic. He loved to proudly ignore, and not even seem to see, theinterested and gaping faces watching the boxes. Doctor Gordon's box wasan object of especial interest. Indeed, that was the only one to bedepended upon to contain something when the two mails per day arrived.Gordon, moreover, took the only New York paper which reached the littlehamlet. Alton had no paper of its own. The nearest was printed inStanbridge. One man, the Presbyterian minister, subscribed to theStanbridge paper, and paid for it in farm produce. He had a little farm,and tilled the soil when he was not saving souls. The Stanbridge paperhad arrived the night before, and the minister had been good enough toimpart some of its contents to the curious throng in the store. He wasaccustomed to do so. Likewise Gordon, when he was not too hurried,would open his New York paper, and read the most startling "headers" toa wide-eyed audience. This morning the paper was in the box as usual,with a number of letters. The men pressed in a suggestive way aroundJames, as he took the parcel from the postmaster. There were nolock-boxes. James hesitated a moment. He had not much time, but he wasgood-natured, and the eager hunger in the men's eyes appealed to him.There was something pathetic about this outreaching for intelligence oftheir kind, and its progress or otherwise, among these plodding folk,who had so to count their pence that a newspaper was an unheard-ofluxury to them.

  James opened the paper and glanced over the headlines on the first page.Now, had he looked, he might have seen something sinister and maliciousin the curious eyes, but he was so dazed by the very first thing he sawas to be for the moment oblivious to anything else. On the right of thefirst page was the headline: "Strange dual life of a prominent physicianin Alton, New Jersey. Doctor Thomas B. Gordon has lived with his wifefor years, and called her his widowed sister, Mrs. Clara Ewing. Uponher death, a few days since, he revealed the secret. Will give noreasons for this strange conduct, simply states that he was justified,even compelled, by circumstances." Then followed a caricature portraitof Gordon, a photograph of the house, one of the village church, and thecemetery and Gordon's wife's grave, with various surmises and comments,enough to fill the column. James paled as he read. He had not known ofGordon's action in telling that the dead woman was his wife. He lookedaround in a bewildered fashion, and met the hungry eyes. One small, meanface of a small man peered around his shoulder gloatingly. "Some newsthis mornin'?" he observed, with a smack of the lips, as if he tastedsweets.

  Then James arose to the occasion. He faced them all and smiled coolly."Yes," he replied; "you mean about Doctor Gordon?"

  There was a murmur of assent.

  James read the article from beginning to end. "I suppose it is news toyou," he said, when he had finished. He looked at them all with asuperior air. He looked older and more manly than when he had first comein their midst. He _was_ older and more manly, and he was superior. Themen recognized it, not sullenly nor defiantly, but with theunquestioning attitude of the New Jerseyman when he is really below thescale in birth and education. Still their faces all expressed maliciouscunning and cruel curiosity, which they hesitated to put into words.They knew that Elliot was to marry Gordon's niece; they were overawed byboth men, but they were afraid of Gordon.

  Still Jim Goodman found courage of his meanness and smallness and spoke."It seems a strange thing," he said, "that Doctor Gordon should hev cameand went here for years, and all of us thinkin' his wife were his sisterwhen she were not."

  "Well, what of it?" asked James.

  The men stared at one another.

  "What of it?" repeated James. "I don't suppose there is anythingcriminal in a man's calling his wife by his sister's name. Doctor Gordonhas a sister named Ewing."

  Again the men stared at one another, and Jim Goodman was the only onewho had the miserable courage to speak. "S'pose him an' her weremarried," he said, in a thin voice like the squeal of a fox.

  "Which of you wants to be knocked down can make a statement to thecontrary," thundered James. "Is that what you make of it?"

  Goodman shuffled from one foot to the other. Men nudged shoulders,Goodman spoke. "Nobody never knows what is true or ain't true in themnewspapers," he observed, and there was a note of alarm in his voice.

  "I did not read a thing in the whole column which even implied such athing as you intimated," James said hotly. "Don't put it off on thenewspapers!"

  Then another man spoke, a farmer, tall, dry, lank, and impervious. Hewas a man about whom were ill-reports. His wife had died some yearsbefore, and he had a housekeeper, a florid, blonde creature, dressedwith dingy showiness, of whom people spoke with covert laughs. "All wewant to know is why Doctor Gordon has never said that her was his wife,and not his sister," he said in a defiant nasal voice.

  The malignant Jim Goodman saw his chance. He jumped upon it like aspider. "That's so," he said. "Why didn't he say she was hishousekeeper?" There was a shout of coarse laughter. The farmer gave ahateful look at Goodman and puffed at a rank pipe.

  James was furious, but he saw the necessity of a statement of some kind,and his wits leaped to action. "Well," he said, "suppose there was aquestion of money."

  The crowd pressed closer and gaped.

  "Money!" said Goodman.

  "Yes, money," pursued James recklessly. "Did you never hear of peoplebeing opposed to marriages, rich people I mean, and threatening todisinherit a woman if she married the man they did not pick out forher?"

  "Was that it?" asked Goodman.

  "I am not saying that it was or was not. I am not going to discussDoctor Gordon's secrets with you. It's none of your business, and noneof my business. All I am saying is this, suppose there had been a girlyears ago with a very rich bachelor brother. Suppose the brothe
r hadbeen jilted by a girl, and hated the whole lot of women like poison, andhad no idea of getting married himself, and his sister would be his onlyheiress, and he had set his foot down that she should not marry Doc--theman she had set her heart upon. Suppose he went to--well, the South SeaIslands, for the rest of his life, to get out of sight and sound ofwomen like the one who had jilted him, told his sister before he wentthat if she married the man she wanted he would make a will and leavehis money away from her, build an hospital or a library or something,suppose she hit upon the plan of marrying the man she wanted, andkeeping it quiet."

  "Was that it?"

  "Didn't I tell you that I would not say whether it was or not? I onlysay suppose that was the case. Doctor Gordon has a married sister by thename of Ewing living in foreign parts. You can see for yourself how easyit might have been."

  "What about the girl?" asked Goodman in a dry voice.

  James flushed angrily. "That is nobody's business," said he. "She isDoctor Gordon's niece."

  Goodman was unabashed. "How does it happen her name is Ewing?" he asked.

  "Couldn't it possibly have happened that two sisters of Doctor Gordon'smarried two brothers?" James cried. He elbowed his way out. When he wasin the buggy driving home, he began to realize how the fairy tale whichhe had related in the store would not in the least impose upon Clemency,how she would almost inevitably hear of the statements in the papers. Hewondered more and more that Gordon should have divulged a secret whichhe had kept so fiercely for so long.

  When he reached home he went at once into the office, and gave Gordonhis mail and the New York paper. Gordon glanced at it, then at James."Have you seen this?" he asked.

  James nodded.

  "I suppose you think me most inconsistent," said Gordon gloomily, "butthe truth is I kept the secret while Clara was alive, though I found Icould not, oh, God, I could not after she was dead and gone! I had notrealized what that would mean: to never acknowledge her as my wife, deador alive. I found that when it came to the death certificate, and thenotice in the paper, and the erection of a stone to her memory, that Icould not keep up the deception, no matter what the consequence. My God,Elliot, I cannot commit sacrilege against the dead! Dead, she must haveher due. I anticipated this. There was something last night in the_Stanbridge Record_, and yesterday, while you were out three reportersfrom New York came. I told them that I had done what I had for good andsufficient reasons, which were not dishonorable to myself or to others,and beyond that I would say nothing. I suppose the poor fellows had totax their imaginations to fill their columns. I don't know what theresult will be with regard to Clemency, but I could not help it." Therewas something painfully appealing in Gordon's look and manner. He seemedso broken that James was alarmed. He said everything that he was able tosay to soothe him, commended the course which he had taken, and told himwhat he had said at the store, without repeating the insinuations whichhad led him to fabricate such a tale. Gordon smiled bitterly. "All yourfellowmen want of you is food for their animal appetites or theirmental," he said. "They must have meat and drink for their stomachs, aswell as for their curiosity and malice. I have lived here all theseyears, and labored for them for mighty poor recompense, and sometimesfor none at all, and I'll warrant that to-day I am more in their mindsthan I have ever been before, because they have found out my secret,which has been the torture of my life. I wonder if Clemency has heardanything about it."

  "I will go and see," replied James.

  The minute he saw Clemency, who was in the parlor, he knew that sheknew. By her side on the floor was the _Stanbridge Record_. She lookedat James and pointed to it without a word. Her face was white as death.James took up the paper. That merely announced the fact of Mrs. Gordon'sdeath, dwelt upon her many beautiful qualities of mind and body, hergreat suffering, and stated briefly the astonishment with which the newswas received that she was Doctor Gordon's wife, and not his sister, aspeople had been led to suppose. "Little Annie Codman just brought itover," said Clemency. "She said her mother sent it. It is just like hermother. Mr. Codman never would have done such a thing."

  Mr. Codman was the minister.

  James, for a second, did not know what to say. He thought of the absurdstory which he had told, or rather suggested, at the store, and realizedthat such a fabrication would not answer here.

  Immediately Clemency fired a point-blank question at him. "Who am I?"she asked.

  "You are Doctor Gordon's niece, dear."

  "But--she was not my mother."

  "No, dear."

  "Who am I?"

  "You are the daughter of Doctor Gordon's youngest sister, who died whenyou were born."

  Clemency sat reflecting, her forehead knit, a keen look in her blueeyes. "I knew my father was dead," she said after a little. "Uncle Tomhas always told me that he passed away three months before I was born,but--" She raised a puzzled, shocked, grieved face to James. "What is myname?" she asked. "My real name?"

  James hesitated. Then his mind reverted to the tale which he had told atthe store. He could see no other way out of the difficulty. "Did younever hear of two brothers marrying two sisters, dear?" he asked.

  Clemency gazed at him with a puzzled, almost suspicious, look. "I knew Ihad an aunt and cousin in England named Ewing," she said, "but I alwayssupposed that my English aunt was not my real aunt, only my aunt bymarriage, that she had married my father's brother."

  "Your English aunt is your uncle's own sister," said James.

  "I see: my own mother and my aunt were sisters, and they marriedbrothers," Clemency said slowly.

  "That is unusual, but not unprecedented," said James. He had never beeninvolved in such a web of fabrication. He felt his cheeks burning. Hewas sure that he looked guilty, but Clemency did not seem to notice it.She was reflecting, still with that puzzled knitting of her forehead andthat introspective look in her blue eyes. "I wonder if I look in theleast like my own mother?" she said in a curious voice, as of one whofeels her way.

  "Once your uncle said to me that you were your own mother's very image,"replied James eagerly. He was glad to have the chance to say anythingtruthful.

  Clemency's face lightened. She spoke with that fatuous innocence andromance of young girls, and often of older women, to whom romance andsentiment are in the place of reason. "Then I know who that man was,"she announced in a delighted voice. "You and Uncle Tom thought I wouldnever know, but I do know. I have found out my own self."

  "Who was he, dear?"

  "Oh, I don't know who he was really, and I don't know who that womanwas. She does mix up things a good deal, but this much I do know--whyUncle Tom passed off my aunt for my mother, and why we were alwayshiding from that man. He was in love with my mother, and he was in lovewith me, because I am so much like her. Now, tell me honest, dear,didn't Uncle Tom ever tell you that that man was in love with my motherbefore I was born?"

  "Yes, dear," James answered, fairly bewildered over the fashion in whichtruth was lending itself to the need of falsehood.

  Clemency nodded her head triumphantly. "There, I told you I knew," saidshe. "Poor man, it was dreadful of him to pursue me so, and make us allso unhappy, and of course I never could have married him, even if it hadnot been for you. I do think he looked like a wicked man, and of courseI never could have endured the thought of marrying a man who had been inlove with my mother, even if he had been ever so good. But I can't helpbeing sorry for him; he must have loved my mother so much, and he musthave wasted his whole life; and then to die among strangers so suddenly,poor man."

  James felt a sort of pleasure at hearing the girl express, allunknowingly, sympathy for her dead father. The tears actually stood inher eyes. "The queerest thing to me is that woman," she added musingly,after a minute. Then again her face lightened. "Why, I do believe shewas his sister," she cried, "and that was the reason she wanted to getme, and the reason why she was so dreadfully upset when she heard he wasdead, poor thing. Well, of course, I can't help feeling glad that I amnot in danger any more
; but I am sorry for that poor man, even if hewasn't good." A tear rolled visibly down Clemency's cheeks. Then she gotout her handkerchief and sobbed violently. "Oh, I haven't realized," shemoaned, "I haven't realized until this minute, how terrible it is thatshe wasn't my mother."

  "She was as good as a mother to you, dear."

  "Yes, I know, but she wasn't, and it hurts me worse now she is gone thanit would have done when she was alive. I don't seem to have anything."

  "You have me."

  Then Clemency ran to him, and he held her on his knee and comforted her,then tore himself away to make his morning round of calls. Clemencyfollowed him to the door, and kissed her hand to him as he drove away.James had good reason to remember it, for it was the last lovingsalutation from her for many a day.

  When he returned at noon the girl's manner was unaccountably changedtoward him. She only spoke to him directly when addressed, and then inmonosyllables. She never looked at him. She sat at the table at luncheonand poured the chocolate, and there was almost absolute silence. Emmawaited jerkily as usual. James fancied once, when he met her eyes, thatthere was an expression of covert triumph on her face. Emma had neverliked him. He had been conscious of the fact, but it had not disturbedhim. He had no more thought of this middle-aged, harsh-featured NewJersey farmer's daughter than he had of one of the dining-chairs. Gordonsat humped upon himself, as he sat nowadays, a marked stoop of age wasbecoming visible in his broad shoulders, and he ate perfunctorilywithout a word. James, after a number of futile attempts to talk toClemency, subsided himself into bewildered silence, and ate with verylittle appetite. There were chops and potatoes and peas, and apple-pie,for luncheon. When it came to the pie Emma served Clemency and DoctorGordon, and deliberately omitted James. Nobody seemed to notice it,although James felt sure that the omission was intentional. He felthimself inwardly amused at the antagonism which could take such a form,and went without his pie uncomplainingly, while Gordon and Clemency atetheirs. The dog at this juncture came slinking into the room and closeto James, who gave him a lump of sugar from the bowl which happened tostand near him. At once Emma took the bowl and moved it to another partof the table out of his reach. James felt a strong inclination to laugh.

  The dog sat up and begged for more sugar, and James, when they all leftthe table, coolly took a handful of sugar from the bowl and carried itinto the office, the dog leaping at his side. Emma slammed thedining-room door behind him. Clemency, without a look at him,immediately ran upstairs to her own room. Gordon and James sat down inthe office as usual for a smoke until James should start upon hisafternoon rounds. Gordon asked him a few questions about the patientswhom he had seen that morning, but in a listless, abstracted fashion,then he spoke of those whom James would see that afternoon. "You hadbetter take the team," he said.

  "Clemency is going with me," James said.

  Gordon looked at him with faint surprise. "I think you must bemistaken," he said. "Clemency came to me just before luncheon and askedif I had any objections to her spending a few days with Annie Lipton. Itold her we could get on perfectly well without her, and Aaron is goingto drive her over. She will have to take a suit-case. I knew you had togo in another direction, and could not take her. I thought the changewould do her good. Didn't she say anything to you about it?"

  "I think it will do her good. She needs a little change," James repliedevasively. As he spoke Aaron came out of the stable leading the bay mareharnessed to a buggy.

  "She is going right away," said Gordon, looking a little puzzled. He hadhardly finished speaking before Clemency's voice was heard in the hall.It rang rather hard, but quite clearly. "Good-by," she called out.

  "Good-by," responded Gordon and James together. Gordon looked at James,astonished that he did not go out to assist Clemency into the buggy, andbid her good-by. He seemed about to question him, then he took anotherpuff at his pipe, and his face settled into its wonted expression ofgloomy retrospection. Boy's and girl's love affairs seemed as motes in abeam of sunlight to him at this juncture.

  James started to go, the horses were stamping uneasily in the drive, andhe had a long round of calls to make that afternoon.

  Gordon removed his pipe. "I am putting a good deal on you, Elliot," hesaid with a kind of hard sadness.

  "That's all right," James replied cheerfully, "I am strong. I can standit if the patients can. I fancied old Mrs. Steen was rather disgusted tosee me this morning. I heard her say something about sendin' a boy toher daughter, and when I went into the bedroom, she glared at me, andsaid, 'You?'" James laughed.

  "Her case is not at all desperate," Gordon said gloomily. "She is merelyon the downward road of life. Nothing ails her except that. You cansupply the few inadequate crutches of tonics as well as any one. Thereis not one desperately sick patient on the whole list now, that I knowof, although I must confess that that Willoughby girl rather puzzles me.She breaks every diagnosis all to pieces."

  "Hysteria," said James.

  "Oh, yes, I know hysteria is a good way to account for our own lack ofinsight," said Gordon, "and it may be that girls are queer subjects.Sometimes I wonder if they know what they know. Lilian Willoughby doesnot."

  Gordon, to James's intense surprise, flared into a burst of anger. "Yes,she does know," he declared. "Down in her inner consciousness I believeshe does, poor little overstrung, oversensitive girl, half-fed, as toher body, on coarse food which she cannot assimilate, starvedemotionally. If a girl like that has to exist anyway, why cannot she beborn under different circumstances? That girl as daughter of a NewJersey farmer is an anomaly. If she mates at all it must be with anotherNew Jersey farmer, then she dies after bringing a few degenerates intothe world. Providence does things like that, and the doctors aresupposed to right things. That girl has had symptoms of about everyknown disease, and my diagnosis has failed to prove the existence of oneof them. Yet there are the symptoms. Call it hysteria, or what you will.I call it an injustice on the part of the Higher Power. I suppose thatis blasphemy, but I am forced to it. Can that girl help the longingsfor her rights, her longings which are abnormally acute because of herover-fine nervous system? Those longings, situated as she is, can neverbe satisfied in any way except for her own harm. Meantime she eats herown heart, since she has nothing else, and heart-eating produces allkinds of symptoms. I am absolutely powerless in such a case, thoughsometimes I make a diagnosis which I think may be correct, sometimes Ithink there is some organic trouble which I can mitigate. But always Ifall back upon the miserable truth which I am convinced underlies herwhole existence. She is a creature born into a life which does not andnever will afford her the proper food for her physical and spiritualneeds. Oh, the horror in this world, and what am I to set myself toright it? Shut the door."

  "The horses are uneasy," James said.

  "Never mind, shut the door. Clemency is away, and Emma out in thekitchen. I must speak to somebody, or I shall go mad."

  James shut the door and turned to Gordon, who sat rigid in his chair,his hands clutching the arms. "Do you think I did right?" he groaned."You know what I did. Was it right?"

  "If you mean about your wife," James said, "I think you did entirelyright."

  "But you could not," Gordon returned bitterly. "It was too much for youto attempt, and yet she was nothing to you as she was to me, and the sinwould not have been so terrible."

  "I had not the courage," James replied simply.

  "You did not think it right. You did not wish to burden your soul withsuch a responsibility. I was wrong to try to shift it upon you, wrongand cowardly, but she was bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; it wasa double crime for me, murder and suicide. It was not because you hadnot the courage: you have faced surgical operations and dissecting. Youdared not commit what you were not sure was not a crime. There is no usein your hedging, Elliot. I know the truth."

  "Still I think you did right," James said stubbornly. "She had to dieanyway. Death was upon her. You simply hastened it."

  Gordon looked at James, and
his eyes seemed to fairly blaze with somberfire; for a moment the young man thought his reason was unhinged. "Butwhat am I? Who is any man to take whip or spur to the decrees of theAlmighty, to hasten them?"

  "She was suffering--" James began.

  "What of that? Who can say, though she had led the life of a saint onearth, so far as any one could see, what subtle sins of life itself herpains were counteracting? Who can tell but I have deprived her of untoldjoys which would have compensated a thousand times for those pains byshortening them?"

  "Doctor Gordon, you are morbid," James said, looking at him uneasily.

  "How do you know I am morbid? Then that other--Mendon. Who is to saythat I was right even about that? It is probable I saved your life, andpossibly my own, as well as Clemency from misery. But who can say thatdeath would not have been better for both you and me than life, and evenmisery for Clemency had that man lived? God had allowed him life uponthe earth. I may have shortened that life. He was a monster ofwickedness, but who can say that he was not a weapon of God, and that Ihave not done incalculable mischief by depriving him of that weapon?There is only one consolation which I have with regard to him; unless mydiagnosis was entirely at fault, he would have had that attack oferysipelas anyway. I hardly think I deceive myself with regard to that,and there is a very probable chance that the attack would have beenfatal. He had nearly lost his life twice before with the same disease.That I know, and I do not think that unless the poison was already inhis blood, it would have developed so rapidly from that slight bruise.So far as the simple wound from the dog went, he was in no dangerwhatever. I have that consolation in his case, in not being absolutelycertain that I caused his death; I am not even absolutely sure that Ihastened it by any appreciable time. He might have been attacked thatvery night with the disease. Still there is, and always will be, theslight doubt."

  "I don't think you ought to brood over that, Doctor Gordon," James saidsoothingly. He went close to the older man and laid a hand upon hisshoulder. Gordon looked up at him, and his face was convulsed. He spokewith solemn and tragic emphasis. "It is not for mortal man to interferewith the ways of God, and he does so at his own peril," he said.