University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII

Either the rain chilled Philippa, or her reception at
home, for she began to feel ill in a few days after her
return. Shading her eyes from the light, she crept listlessly
from room to room, disinclined to speak, eat, or
sleep. Elsa declaring that she was as yellow as saffron,
thought her suffering from one of her old attacks, but
the doctor pronounced her case one of fever, and on the
ninth day she was delirious.

Elsa denied her delirium—said that she was light-headed
for the want of sleep, and confused with the
doctor's nasty drugs; but one night, while sitting by
her bed, she changed her mind.

Philippa raised her little hand with an appealing look
and said, “Don't bring apple-blossoms; pull me some
magnolias, mammy.”

“I'll bring 'em in this minute, Philly, if you will be
quiet,” Elsa answered, her heart in her mouth.

“Where's my rosary, Philip? I have not had it since
yesterday.”

She slipped out of bed, shook the pillows, threw the
contents of her work-box on the floor, while Elsa stood
aghast and unprepared.

“Don't you remember, Philly dear,” she said, desperately,
“that you are not a Roman Catholic now, and
that you don't need your rosary?”

“My rosary,” cried Philippa in a rage, “find it, or I'll

flog you till the blood runs. Gloria Patria—that
ends it.”

And she began to strike on the door with her clinched
hand, crying louder and louder, “My rosary.”

Sarah heard the noise and ran up stairs; Philippa's
countenance changed when she saw her.

“You have hid it,” she said doggedly, “and unless
you produce it I will kill myself.”

“For the Lord's sake, Sarah, get her the beads, if
they are in the land of the living.”

“The rosary, Mrs. Auster, if you please,” said Philippa;
“look in the depths of your conscience for it.”

“I'll go for it,” Sarah replied mildly, and whispered
to Elsa that she had no idea where the thing was; but
it was found, and Philippa consented to go back to bed.

The delirium ended in a stupor. The doctor said that
her hair must be shorn, and Jason was called to assist in
the operation; he caught the tresses as they fell, and
looked upon them as one might look upon a friend for
the last time; tears dropped from his eyes which he
was not aware of, till Sarah told him that if he was going
to be overcome by a handful of hair, he would not
be of much use in the sick-room.

While she lay in stupor, Cuth was seized with a mortal
illness, which compelled Jason to watch over him.
His time had come, Cuth said; he knew it, because tobacco
did not taste good any longer. He begged Jason
to bury him without having any palavering, and to
have his coffin carried out at the back door; in consideration
of having these requests fulfilled, he made a will
in Jason's favor, for he had a thousand dollars in money,
and a thousand dollars in land. If it was all the same

to Mrs. Auster, he would like to be buried in the Parke
lot. Sarah promised him that he should be laid in the
desired spot, and he died, silently and firmly, like a
wolf. The day of his funeral was the day, also, of the
funeral of Gilbert's child; when it was over, Mary, his
wife, came to assist Elsa, and remained in the family
from that time. The day she came Philippa's doom was
pronounced; a few hours more would close the scene,
the doctor informed Jason and Sarah. Jason wrote to
Parke to come home, and then disappeared. Sarah, exhausted,
went to bed, leaving with Philippa Elsa, whose
last office seemed to be to moisten her poor lips. Jason
returned by sundown, and wandered through all the
chambers but the one Philippa was in. The doctor
came again, and went without a word. Towards morning
Philippa's breath was so far gone, that Elsa bent
over her to learn if it had not stopped forever; but she
opened her eyes wide, and said, “Jason!”

Elsa called him. He came in and kneeled by the
bed.

“Good-by, Jason. Thank you. Kiss Parke,” said
Philippa, in a hoarse voice, and again closed her eyes.
He thought her dead; but Elsa sent for the doctor, who
said she had fallen into a natural sleep; that it was possible
she would not die after all; though it would be
curious if she did not, for the consulting physician, Potter,
had said there was no hope, and his death-warrants
had never failed.

“Sarah Auster,” exclaimed Elsa, breaking into her
room an hour or two after, “that poor creature is going
to live after all. Now I can turn the world upside
down with some heart. Come, the table has been

spread three days, and not cleared; nobody has eaten
any thing.”

Sarah rose up in bed, with a clear perception of not
being rejoiced at Elsa's tidings. She must go on with
her task! Yawning, she asked if coffee was made.

“Coffin, did you say?” Elsa retorted, purposely misunderstanding
her.

“Elsa, are you a fool? I said coffee.”

“What do you suppose I have made, motherwort tea?
That is bitter, you know—as bitter as gall and wormwood.”

“Herb-tea and medicine will run in your head for
weeks. I am glad there will be an end to drugs. Jason
has been up all night, I suppose. I'll go up and attend
to Philippa; she must have something to nourish
her immediately.”

Jason left the sick-room to her, sauntered into the
yard, and sat down on the steps of a shed. His
dogs, Ike and Jake, came and laid their noses on his
knee.

“Good-by,” he repeated, pulling their ears. “Thank
you. Kiss Parke.”

The dogs whimpered and beat the ground with their
tails, while he gazed abstractedly into their eyes, which
were limpid with love and hunger. Elsa called him
to breakfast, and they followed him into the dining-room.

“'Tis no matter for once,” she said, more amicably
eying them, as they squatted beside him, than was her
wont. Sarah came in, and Jason involuntarily looked
at her for sympathy. She saw his agitation.

“Well,” she remarked, “the siege is raised. You

have been anxious, Jason. Philippa rivals your dogs—
doesn't she? and they are jealous.”

Elsa wished in her heart that they had Sarah between
their teeth, and shaking the devil out of her. Jason
tossed a mouthful to them and answered: “Hardly,
but I wished her to live.”

“If the pains we have taken can prolong life, she will
outlive us all.”

“You have done your best, Sarah, that I know, and
so has Elsa. As for me, my mission as usual has been
—uselessness.”

“I couldn't help doing my best,” said Elsa.

Parke arrived the next day, with a pair of horses that
he had hired in the town where he found he must wait
for a train to Crest.

“How is she?” he asked; “where is she?”

“In her room,” his mother answered, without deranging
herself. But Elsa took him by the hand, and led
him thither. He was so shocked at the change in Philippa,
that he could not speak. Her languid eyes rested
on his fresh, fair face, and rivers of tears flowed from
them; he was touched, and wept with her, but he felt a
painful physical repugnance at the sight of her.

“There,” said Elsa, with a slight sniff, “if you are
going to act so, you must go right away, Parke; the
time for crying has gone by!”

“I am so glad to see you, Parke,” said Philippa.

“I am so sorry to find you sick. How you must have
suffered! But it is over now.”

“Look at my hair.”

“I don't see any.”

“Your hair will grow out handsomer than ever in no
time,” interrupted Elsa.

“Yes, indeed,” said Parke. “I hope you will be
well immediately, for I do not mean to go next term. I
shall stay here.”

“Oh, Parke, you must go through.”

He shook his head.

“There, there,” Elsa broke in, “colleges or no colleges,
you must go down stairs, Parke.”

“Come up early to-morrow,” Philippa begged, “and
tell me what you mean to do.”

He promised, kissing his hand to her, and smiling
himself outside the door; but as soon as it was shut, he
shuddered.

“So Cuth is dead, Elsa? I thought he was good for
years yet.”

“He was tough; but it is all the same to death—
tough and rough, tender and delicate, when he appears
with his broom, we are brushed off like so much dust
into a dust-pan.”

“Poor Cuth! he belonged to us heart and soul.”

“For good wages. Whether he belongs to the
Parkes in heaven, depends on what they can pay there.
Gilbert can take his place here very well, and we must
hire an additional man.”

“We must, for I mean to have additional horses.
Where's mother? I want her.”

“Now, Parke, don't pray keep us in hot water about
this college business; go back. Are you going to turn
out shiftless, like some of your relatives?”

“Shut your mouth, Elsa; do you suppose that I am
not aware of my intentions, clearly and plainly? I

have stayed from home three years because I liked it, not
because I wanted to be fitted for college, or to go
through college. Old woman, I know when I want a
thing, and how I want it, better than anybody else.”

He spoke so pleasantly, and with such a lively air of interest
in the “thing” he wanted, that she began to feel
personally concerned in his obtaining it. She said no
more. His mother vehemently opposed his remaining
at home; it was not worthy of him to leave a task unfinished;
he would be accused of a distaste for scholarship.
She consulted Jason even, but obtained no satisfaction.
He replied, that he did not believe in education;
he was not surprised at Parke's being weary of
playing at knowledge; he imagined that of the two
sorts of men—those who were taught by systems, and
those who made them—Parke would prefer the latter;
and that he would create one himself and bring it to
perfection—the art of amusement. And why not?

In vain she urged Parke to return. He had made up
his mind, he said, to stay at home, and he hoped that
she would not find him disagreeable.

In his absence, he declared, the dust of antiquity had
gathered over the house; but it was blown away before
he had been there many days. A piano came with his
baggage, cases of books, pictures, and numberless trifles.
All outside of college life, Jason observed to Sarah, and
better established at Crest than elsewhere. Parke was
so occupied that he only found time to visit Philippa a
few moments each day, but he said so much of his plans
that he left food for thought.

Until she was able to leave her room—and her recovery
was slow—Jason was assiduously attentive. Her

ugly, helpless convalescence, removed his coldness and
shyness; but from the day she came down stairs he
subsided so completely into his old self, that the remembrance
of his care and anxiety merged into the dream
her illness grew to be. Her life was absorbed in
Parke's.