Chapter XXXII Convalescence
One day when I was well on my way toward recovery, I was made happy by a visit from Mrs. Singleton. I could plainly hear her inquiries as she mounted the stairs, and so was in a measure prepared to receive the dear lady and respond to her loving embrace and multiplied questions when she finally entered the room.
“You are feeling better, I know, for your looks show it!” she exclaimed, holding my hand and putting an arm about Constance.
“Yes, thank you; I’m a good deal better,” I answered, grateful for what she said. For there are no more disagreeable people than those who tell you just how you look when you are ailing. Because of this I have always maintained that if you have nothing agreeable to say about one’s looks, you should be silent. Or if you must babble about such matters, should say something that will not depress those you address too much.
“I have been kept away from you, my child, by the vexations of housekeeping,” Mrs. Singleton went on, “but have known every day how you were getting on.”
“I expect you find it very hard to get started in your new home,” I answered.
“Yes; the worry is enough to drive one mad, and it is made worse by the trouble of getting or keeping a servant.”
“Do you like Appletop as well as you expected?” I asked at a venture.
“Oh, yes, and so does Mr. Singleton, who has a fine business; but my girls! they drive me wild.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I answered, not sympathizing with her very much, for she was the very picture of health and comfort of life.
“Yes; they say we left slavery in Mississippi to make slaves of them here, and indeed it is like it in many ways. For they have to be taught to wash and iron and cook, just as they were taught music when little things; and not knowing how, their hands are skinned by the washboard and burned by hot irons until they are a sight to see.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yes; but they are getting on better now, though they manage in one way and another to put most of the work on poor Betty.”
“How does Miss Betty like that?” I asked, glad of the reference because of my fondness for her.
“She says she doesn’t care, and that in time she will be the best cook in the state.”
“There’s always one worker in every family, they say,” I answered.
“Oh, the others like to work, though not to cook; but it is said, you know, that the acorn that doesn’t sprout the pigs eat, and so what one of the dear things lacks, the others make up for,” she answered, with a good deal of pride.
“That’s true, I’m sure; but haven’t you any wish to go back to Mississippi?” I asked, to encourage her to talk.
“No, not if we could. The girls like it here too, I am sure, if their thoughts were known, the air and the freedom are so fine. They all send their love, and will come and see you when the doctor and Constance will permit,” she answered, kissing the sweet girl by her side.
“I’m sure I shall be glad to see them,” I answered, remembering their pleasant ways and many kindnesses to me.
“Here is something Betty sends you, and it is her own make,” Mrs. Singleton replied, removing the cover from a dish of jelly that looked like amber in the morning sunlight.
“Tell Miss Betty I’m much obliged to her,” I answered, asking for a spoon that I might try it at once. For I was now hungry all the time, and my thoughts dwelt more on delicacies like this than anything else.
“That will please her, the dear child, for she is never so happy as when doing things of this kind.”
“It’s good of her to remember me and she may send me more another day, if she has a mind,” I answered, as if in banter and yet meaning it, for such things were hard to get in Appletop.
“That she will, my dear, and bring it herself, if she may,” Mrs. Singleton answered, turning to Constance.
“I hope she will, for it will do Gilbert good to see his friends now,” Constance spoke up, pleased with the kindness shown me; for Mrs. Singleton and her daughters were loved by every one in Appletop, because of their kind hearts and unaffected ways.
When the dear lady had taken her departure, I said to Constance, remembering why the Singletons left Mississippi:
“Have the girls any beaus?”
“Yes, and Miss Betty more especially.”
“She is the worker, too.”
“It’s not on that account, though perhaps it is a recommendation; but her being a worker doesn’t prevent your Uncle Job going there very often.”
“Uncle Job, is he paying her attention?” I asked, not much surprised, remembering what I had seen at the steamboat landing.
“Yes, he is desperately in love with her; and she is worthy of it, too,” Constance answered.
“I’m sure she is; and does she care for him?” I asked.
“I think so, but she is so full of her pretty ways and love of everybody that I can’t tell. Sometimes I think she favors him very much, and then I don’t know.”
“Is there any one else who pays her attention?” I asked, interested at once in Uncle Job’s suit.
“Yes, his partner, Mr. Rathe, is madly in love with her, they say, though she doesn’t give him any encouragement,” she answered.
“I didn’t know Uncle Job had a partner,” I responded, surprised, I know not why, but more that there should be rivalry between them in such a matter; “what has he got a partner for, anyway?”
“Papa asked him that, and he said because his business called him away so much.”
“Who is Rathe?” I inquired, feeling somehow a growing enmity toward him.
“I don’t know—no one does, I think; but that is nothing here where most people are strangers to each other, except as they are thrown together and so get acquainted,” she answered, simply.
“What do you think of him?” I asked, feeling that if she liked him he must be all right. For every true woman has that strange knowledge of men that cannot go wrong, and so makes them a safe guide in such matters. Constance not answering, I added: “Or maybe you don’t know him very well?”
“I have hardly seen him, and so ought not to judge,” she answered, as if evading my inquiry.
Thinking of what she said, I braced myself to ask a question that had been on my lips since she told me I was in Appletop, but somehow, when I would have spoken, the words stuck in my throat, as medicine sometimes will. Now, because of Uncle Job’s troubles, I determined to speak out, and so asked:
“Has Moth been here?”
“Yes; they had scarcely led your horse to the stable when he rode up to make inquiries; but papa, pretending to fly into a rage, cried out that if he ever spoke to him again or crossed his door he would have him ducked in the river for harassing you so”; and her face lighted at the recollection as if the remembrance pleased her greatly.
“What did Moth do then?”
“Oh, he took it in good part, saying he did not expect help, and that what he wanted was for your good, however others might view it. After lingering about the town for a few days he went away, believing, we think, that you had not come to Appletop; for no one except those we trust know you are here.”
“That’s good, and I hope it is the end of him,” I answered, feeling much relieved.
“We think it is, for unless he has left some one to spy about, how will he ever find out you are here?” she added, as if to clinch the matter.
This mention filled me with new apprehension, for I thought it just like Moth’s cunning to leave a spy behind. I said nothing to Constance, however, for it would do no good, and rather than disturb her I would have faced a hundred Moths, such was the tenderness I felt for her. One day not long afterward, when we sat looking across into the park, she suddenly turned to me, saying:
“You have never asked about your friend Fox, Gilbert?”
“Fox!” I answered, startled out of myself; for how could she know anything about that strange man, half robber, half priest. “Who told you about him?”
“He came here to ask about you.”
“About me?’
“Yes; late one night a man rode up to the door and called for your Uncle Job, and when he went out, Fox was there. He told how you and he escaped from the jail, adding that he had greatly blamed himself for letting you go off alone that night.”
“That was kind of him,” I answered, glad to have been remembered, though Fox was an outlaw and cast-off, and thought to be altogether bad.
“Yes; and when your uncle told him of your illness, he was greatly distressed, and afterward kept coming to make inquiries till the doctor said you were out of danger. At last, when he went away, he asked your uncle to tell you that though he had taken Moth’s horse, he had returned it to the owner, adding, as if to make light of what he had done, that the horse was a poor thing, anyway, and not worth keeping.”
“That was fine of him, and to send word, too. He is no more a robber, though, than I am, only he has got into a loose way of living and there is no chance for him to quit, I am afraid. I only wish he lived in Appletop,” I added.
“Why?”
“Oh, he’d be a good friend, and one who would help find out who is plotting against Uncle Job, if what Burke said was true,” I answered. At this, and strangely enough, I thought of Rathe, but why I do not know, unless because of his efforts to gain the favor of Miss Betty, and so was an enemy of Uncle Job’s. “I don’t suppose Uncle Job and Rathe are very good friends, since they have become rivals?” I asked, determined to learn all I could.
“I have never heard your uncle say anything unkind of him. He would be too proud, though, to do that; but Setti says Rathe’s face is anything but friendly when your uncle’s name is mentioned.”
“Does Rathe live at the Dragon?”
“He did until the last few days; but he is away most of the time; indeed, your uncle and he are hardly ever in town together.”
“Does he know I am here?”
“I don’t know; we have never told him.”
“I hope he doesn’t,” I answered, feeling somehow as if it would be better if he did not, and with that the subject was dropped.
In this way, and little by little, I regained my strength, and not at the last with any pleasure. For with it I should be parted from Constance, whom I grew every day more to love, not feeling then any more than in after years that such a thing was beyond me and not likely to lead to anything I could wish. For those who are mature in thought and pure of heart ever thus love, years being as naught to them. She was mine and I was hers, and alone in our lives we loved and were in everything as one.