I reckon not, returned her husband, and thats why I came straight here. Ive only got to meet them at the depot and say this thing cant be done and thats the end of it. Theyll go off quiet to the hotel.
I dont like to disappoint the doctor, Seth, said Mrs. Rivers. We might, she added, with a troubled look of inquiry at her husband, we might take that Mr. Hamlin on trial. Like as not he wont stay, anyway, when he sees what were like, Seth. What do you think? It would be only our Christian duty, too.
I was thinkin o that as a professin Christian, Jane, said her husband. But supposin that other Christians dont look at it in that light. Thars Deacon Stubbs and his wife and the parson. Ye remember what he said about no covenant with sin?
The Stubbses have no right to dictate who Ill have in my house, said Mrs. Rivers quickly, with a faint flush in her rather sallow cheeks.
Its your say and nobody elses, assented her husband with grim submissiveness. You do what you like.
Mrs. Rivers mused. Theres only myself and Melinda here, she said with sublime naivete; and the children aint old enough to be corrupted. I am satisfied if you are, Seth, and she again looked at him inquiringly.
Go ahead, then, and get ready for em, said Seth, hurrying away with unaffected relief. If you have everything fixed by nine oclock, thatll do.
Mrs. Rivers had everything fixed by that hour, including herself presumably, for she had put on a gray dress which she usually wore when shopping in the county town, adding a prim collar and cuffs. A pearl-encircled brooch, the wedding gift of Seth, and a solitaire ring next to her wedding ring, with a locket containing her childrens hair, accented her position as a proper wife and mother. At a quarter to nine she had finished tidying the parlor, opening the harmonium so that the light might play upon its polished keyboard, and bringing from the forgotten seclusion of her closet two beautifully bound volumes of Tuppers Poems and Polloks Course of Time, to impart a literary grace to the centre table. She then drew a chair to the table and sat down before it with a religious magazine in her lap. The wind roared over the deep-throated chimney, the clock ticked monotonously, and then there came the sound of wheels and voices.
But Mrs. Rivers was not destined to see her guest that night. Dr. Duchesne, under the safe lee of the door, explained that Mr. Hamlin had been exhausted by the journey, and, assisted by a mild opiate, was asleep in the carriage; that if Mrs. Rivers did not object, they would carry him at once to his room. In the flaring and guttering of candles, the flashing of lanterns, the flapping of coats and shawls, and the bewildering rush of wind, Mrs. Rivers was only vaguely conscious of a slight figure muffled tightly in a cloak carried past her in the arms of a grizzled negro up the staircase, followed by Dr. Duchesne. With the closing of the front door on the tumultuous world without, a silence fell again on the little parlor.
When the doctor made his reappearance it was to say that his patient was being undressed and put to bed by his negro servant, who, however, would return with the doctor to-night, but that the patient would be left with everything that was necessary, and that he would require no attention from the family until the next day. Indeed, it was better that he should remain undisturbed. As the doctor confined his confidences and instructions entirely to the physical condition of their guest, Mrs. Rivers found it awkward to press other inquiries.
Of course, she said at last hesitatingly, but with a certain primness of expression, Mr. Hamlin must expect to find everything here very different from what he is accustomed to at least from what my husband says are his habits.
Nobody knows that better than he, Mrs. Rivers, returned the doctor with an equally marked precision of manner, and you could not have a guest who would be less likely to make you remind him of it.
A little annoyed, yet not exactly knowing why, Mrs. Rivers abandoned the subject, and as the doctor shortly afterwards busied himself in the care of his patient, with whom he remained until the hour of his departure, she had no chance of renewing it. But as he finally shook hands with his host and hostess, it seemed to her that he slightly recurred to it. I have the greatest hope of the curative effect of this wonderful locality on my patient, but even still more of the beneficial effect of the complete change of his habits, his surroundings, and their influences. Then the door closed on the man of science and the grizzled negro servant, the noise of the carriage wheels was shut out with the song of the wind in the pine tops, and the rancho of Windy Hill possessed Mr. Jack Hamlin in peace. Indeed, the wind was now falling, as was its custom at that hour, and the moon presently arose over a hushed and sleeping landscape.
For the rest of the evening the silent presence in the room above affected the household; the half-curious servants and ranch hands spoke in whispers in the passages, and at evening prayers, in the dining room, Seth Rivers, kneeling before and bowed over a rush-bottomed chair whose legs were clutched by his strong hands, included the stranger within our gates in his regular supplications. When the hour for retiring came, Seth, with a candle in his hand, preceded his wife up the staircase, but stopped before the door of their guests room. I reckon, he said interrogatively to Mrs. Rivers, I oughter see ef hes wantin anythin?