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The Doctor's Dilemma by Hesba Stretton

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"The fever!" she ejaculated, in much the same tone as his. They looked
significantly at each other, and then held a hurried consultation
together outside the door, after which the cure returned alone.

"Madame," he said, "this child is not your own, as I supposed last
night. My sister says you are too young to be her mother. Is she your
sister?"

"No, monsieur," I answered.

"I called you madame because you were travelling alone," he continued,
smiling; "French demoiselles never travel alone before they are married.
You are mademoiselle, no doubt?"

An awkward question, for he paused as if it were a question. I look into
his kind, keen face and honest eyes.

"No, monsieur," I said, frankly, "I am married."

"Where, then, is your husband?" he inquired.

"He is in London," I answered. "Monsieur, it is difficult for me to
explain it; I cannot speak your language well enough. I think in
English, and I cannot find the right French words. I am very unhappy,
but I am not wicked."

"Good," he said, smiling again, "very good, my child; I believe you. You
will learn my language quickly; then you shall tell me all, if you
remain with us. But you said the _mignonne_ is not your sister."

"No; she is not my relative at all," I replied; "we were both in a
school at Noireau, the school of Monsieur Emile Perrier. Perhaps you
know it, monsieur?"

"Certainly, madame," he said.

"He has failed and run away," I continued; "all the pupils are
dispersed. Minima and I were returning through Granville."'

"Bien! I understand, madame," he responded; "but it is villanous, this
affair! Listen, my child. I have much to say to you. Do I speak gently
and slowly enough for you?"

"Yes," I answered; "I understand you perfectly."'

"We have had the fever in Ville-en-bois for some weeks," he went on; "it
is now bad, very bad. Yesterday I went to Noireau to seek a doctor, but
I could only hear of one, who is in Paris at present, and cannot come
immediately. When you prayed me for succor last night, I did not know
what to do. I could not leave you by the way-side, with the night coming
on, and I could not take you to my own house. At present we have made my
house into a hospital for the sick. My people bring their sick to me,
and we do our best, and put our trust in God. I said to myself and to
Jean, 'We cannot receive these children into the presbytery, lest they
should take the fever.' But this little house has been kept free from
all infection, and you would be safe here for one night, so I hoped. The
_mignonne_ must have caught the fever some days ago. There is no blame,
therefore, resting upon me, you understand. Now I must carry her into my
little hospital. But you, madame, what am I to do with you? Do you wish
to go on to Granville, and leave the _mignonne_ with me? We will take
care of her as a little angel of God. What shall I do with you, my
child?"

"Monsieur," I exclaimed, speaking so eagerly that I could scarcely bring
my sentences into any kind of order, "take me into your hospital too.
Let me take care of Minima and your other sick people. I am very strong,
and in good health; I am never ill, never, never. I will do all you say
to me. Let me stay, dear monsieur."

"But your husband, your friends--" he said.

"I have no friends," I interrupted, "and my husband does not love me. If
I have the fever, and die--good! very good! I am not wicked; I am a
Christian, I hope. Only let me stay with Minima, and do all I can in the
hospital."

He stood looking at me scrutinizingly, trying to read, I fancied, if
there were any sign of wickedness in my face. I felt it flush, but I
would not let my eyes sink before his. I think he saw in them, in my
steadfast, tearful eyes, that I might be unfortunate, but that I was not
wicked. A pleasant gleam came across his features.

"Be content, my child," he said, "you shall stay with us."

I felt a sudden sense of contentment take possession of me; for here was
work for me to do, as well as a refuge. Neither should I be compelled to
leave Minima. I wrapped her up warmly in the blankets, and Monsieur
Laurentie lifted her carefully and tenderly from the low bed. He told me
to accompany him, and we crossed the court, and entered the house by the
door I had seen the night before. A staircase of red quarries led up to
the second story, and the first door we came to was a long, low room,
with a quarried floor, which had been turned into a hastily-fitted-up
fever-ward for women and children. There were already nine beds in it, of
different sizes, brought with the patients who now occupied them. But
one of these was empty.

I learned afterward that the girl to whom the bed belonged had died the
day before, during the cure's absence, and was going to be buried that
morning, in a cemetery lying in a field on the side of the valley.
Mademoiselle Therese was making up the bed with homespun linen, scented
with rosemary and lavender, and the cure laid Minima down upon it with
all the skill of a woman. In this home-like ward I took up my work as
nurse.

It was work that seemed to come naturally to me, as if I had a special
gift for it. I remembered how some of the older shepherds on the station
at home used to praise my mother's skill as a nurse. I felt as if I knew
by instinct the wants of my little patients, when they could not put
them into coherent words for themselves. They were mostly children, or
quite young girls; for the older people who were stricken by the fever
generally clung to their own homes, and the cure visited them there with
the regularity of a physician. I liked to find for these suffering
children a more comfortable position when they were weary; or to bathe
their burning heads with some cool lotion; or to give the parched lips
the _titane_ Mademoiselle Therese prepared. Even the delirium of these
little creatures was but a babbling about playthings, and _fetes_, and
games. Minima, whose fever took faster hold of her day after day,
prattled of the same things in English, only with sad alternations of
moaning over our poverty.

It was probably these lamentations of Minima which made me sometimes
look forward with dread to the time when this season of my life should
be ended. I knew it could be only for a little while, an interlude, a
brief, passing term, which must run quickly to its conclusion, and bring
me face to face again with the terrible poverty which the child bemoaned
in words no one could understand but myself. Already my own appearance
was changing, as Mademoiselle Therese supplied the place of my clothing,
which wore out with my constant work, replacing it with the homely
costume of the Norman village. I could not expect to remain here when my
task was done. The presbytery was too poor to offer me a shelter when I
could be nothing but a burden in it. This good cure, who was growing
fonder of me every day, and whom I had learned to love and honor, could
not be a father to me as he was to his own people. Sooner or later there
would come an hour when we must say adieu to one another, and I must go
out once again to confront the uncertain future.

But for the present these fears were very much in the background, and I
only felt that they were lurking there, ready for any moment of
depression. I was kept too busy with the duties of the hour to attend to
them. Some of the children died, and I grieved over them; some recovered
sufficiently to be removed to a farm on the brow of the hill, where the
air was fresher than in the valley. There was plenty to do and to think
of from day to day.




CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

OUTCAST PARISHIONERS.


"Madame." said Monsieur Laurentie; one morning, the eighth that I had
been in the fever-smitten village, "you did not take a promenade
yesterday."

"Not yesterday, monsieur."

"Nor the day before yesterday?" he continued.

"No, monsieur," I answered; "I dare not leave Minima, I fear she is
going to die."

My voice failed me as I spoke to him. I was sitting down for a few
minutes on a low seat, between Minima's bed and one where a little boy
of six years of age lay. Both were delirious. He was the little son of
Jean, our driver, and the sacristan of the church; and his father had
brought him into the ward the evening of the day after Minima had been
taken ill. Jean had besought me with tears to be good to his child. The
two had engrossed nearly all my time and thoughts, and I was losing
heart and hope every hour.

Monsieur Laurentie raised me gently from my low chair, and seated
himself upon it, with a smile, as he looked up at me.

"_Voila_, madame," he said, "I promise not to quit the chamber till you
return. My sister has a little commission for you to do. Confide the
_mignonne_ to me, and make your promenade in peace. It is necessary,
madame; you must obey me."

The commission for mademoiselle was to carry some food and medicine to a
cottage lower down the valley; and Jean's eldest son, Pierre, was
appointed to be my guide. Both the cure and his sister gave me a strict
charge as to what we were to do; neither of us was upon any account to
go near or enter the dwelling; but after the basket was deposited upon a
flat stone, which Pierre was to point out to me, he was to ring a small
hand-bell which he carried with him for that purpose. Then we were to
turn our backs and begin our retreat, before any person came out of the
infected house.

I set out with Pierre, a solemn-looking boy of about twelve years of
age, who cast upon me sidelong glances of silent scrutiny. We passed
down the village street, with its closely-packed houses forming a very
nest for fever, until we reached the road by which I had first entered
Ville-en-bois. Now that I could see it by daylight, the valley was
extremely narrow, and the hills on each side so high that, though the
sun had risen nearly three hours ago, it had but just climbed above the
brow of the eastern slope. There was a luxurious and dank growth of
trees, with a tangle of underwood and boggy soil beneath them. A vapor
was shining in rainbow colors against the brightening sky. In the depth
of the valley, but hidden by the thicket, ran a noisy stream--too noisy
to be any thing else than shallow. There had been no frost since the
sharp and keen wintry weather in December, and the heavy rains which had
fallen since had flooded the stream, and made the lowlands soft and oozy
with undrained moisture. My guide and I trudged along in silence for
almost a kilometre.

"Are you a pagan, madame?" inquired Pierre, at last, with eager
solemnity of face and voice. His blue eyes were fastened upon me
pityingly.

"No, Pierre," I replied.

"But you are a heretic," he pursued.

"I suppose so," I said.

"Pagans and heretics are the same," he rejoined, dogmatically; "you are
a heretic, therefore you are a pagan, madame."

"I am not a pagan," I persisted; "I am a Christian like you."

"Does Monsieur le Cure say you are a Christian?" he inquired.

"You can ask him, Pierre," I replied.

"He will know," he said, in a confident tone; "he knows every thing.
There is no cure like monsieur between Ville-en-bois and Paris. All the
world must acknowledge that. He is our priest, our doctor, our _juge de
paix_, our school-master. Did you ever know a cure like him before,
madame?"

"I never knew any cure before," I replied.

"Never knew any cure!" he repeated slowly; "then, madame, you must be a
pagan. Did you never confess? Were you never prepared for your first
communion? Oh! it is certain, madame, you are a true pagan."

We had not any more time to discuss my religion, for we were drawing
near the end of our expedition. Above the tops of the trees appeared a
tall chimney, and a sudden turn in the by-road we had taken brought us
full in sight of a small cotton-mill, built on the banks of the noisy
stream. It was an ugly, formal building, as all factories are, with
straight rows of window-frames; but both walls and roof were mouldering
into ruin, and looked as though they must before long sink into the
brawling waters that were sapping the foundations. A more
mournfully-dilapidated place I had never seen. A blight seemed to have
fallen upon it; some solemn curse might be brooding over it, and slowly
working out its total destruction.

In the yard adjoining this deserted factory stood a miserable cottage,
with a thatched roof, and eaves projecting some feet from the walls, and
reaching nearly to the ground, except where the door was. The small
casements of the upper story, if there were any, were completely hidden.
A row of _fleur-de-lis_ was springing up, green and glossy, along the
peak of the brown thatch; this and the picturesque eaves forming its
only beauty. The thatch looked old and rotten, and was beginning to
steam in the warm sunshine. The unpaved yard about it was a slough of
mire and mud. There were mould and mildew upon all the wood-work. The
place bore the aspect of a pest-house, shunned by all the inmates of the
neighboring village. Pierre led me to a large flat stone, which had once
been a horse-block, standing at a safe distance from this hovel, and I
laid down my basket upon it. Then he rang his hand-bell noisily, and the
next instant was scampering back along the road.

But I could not run away. The desolate, plague-stricken place had a
dismal fascination for me. I wondered what manner of persons could dwell
in it; and, as I lingered, I saw the low door opened, and a thin,
spectral figure standing in the gloom within, but delaying to cross the
mouldering door-sill as long as I remained in sight. In another minute
Pierre had rushed back for me, and dragged me away with all his boyish
strength and energy.

"Madame," he said, in angry remonstrance, "you are disobeying Monsieur
le Cure. If you catch the fever, and die while you are a pagan, it will
be impossible for you to go to heaven. It would be a hundred times
better for me to die, who have taken my first communion."

"But who lives there?" I asked.

"They are very wicked people," he answered, emphatically; "no one goes
near them, except Monsieur le Cure, and he would go and nurse the devil
himself, if he had the fever in his parish. They became wicked before my
time, and Monsieur le Cure has forbidden us to speak of them with
rancor, so we do not speak of them at all."

I walked back in sadness, wondering at this misery and solitariness by
the side of the healthy, simple society of the lonely village, with its
interwoven family interests. As I passed through the street again, I
heard the click of the hand-looms in most of the dwellings, and saw the
pale-faced weavers, in their white and tasselled caps, here a man and
there a woman, look after me, while they suspended their work for a
moment. Every door was open; the children ran in and out of any house,
playing together as if they were of one family; the women were knitting
in companies under the eaves. Who were these pariahs, whose name even
was banished from every tongue? I must ask the cure himself.

But I had no opportunity that day. When I returned to the sick-ward, I
found Monsieur Laurentie pacing slowly up and down the long room, with
Jean's little son in his arms, to whom he was singing in a low, soft
voice, scarcely louder than a whisper. His eyes, when they met mine,
were glistening with tears, and he shook his head mournfully.

I went on to look at Minima. She was lying quiet, too weak and exhausted
to be violent, but chattering all the time in rapid, childish sentences.
I could do nothing for her, and I went back to the hearth, where the
cure was now standing, looking sadly at the child in his arms. He bade
me sit down on a tabouret that stood there, and laid his little burden
on my lap.

"The child has no mother, madame," he said; "let him die in a woman's
arms."

I had never seen any one die, not even my father, and I shrank from
seeing it. But the small white face rested helplessly against my arm,
and the blue eyes unclosed for a moment, and gazed into mine, almost
with a smile. Monsieur Laurentie called in Jean and Pierre, and they
knelt before us in silence, broken only by sobs. In the room there were
children's voices talking about their toys, and calling to one another
in shrill, feverish accents. How many deaths such as this was I to
witness?

"Monsieur le Cure!" murmured the failing voice of the little child.

"What is it, my little one?" he said, stooping over him.

"Shall I play sometimes with the little child Jesus?"

The words fell one by one from the feeble lips.

"Yes, _mon cheri_, yes. The holy child Jesus knows what little children
need," answered the cure.

"He is always good and wise," whispered the dying child; "so good, so
wise."

How quickly it was over after that!




CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH.

A TACITURN FRENCHWOMAN.


Minima was so much worse that night, that Monsieur Laurentie gave me
permission to sit up with Mademoiselle Therese, to watch beside her.
There was a kindly and unselfish disposition about Monsieur le Cure
which it was impossible to resist, or even gainsay. His own share of the
trouble, anxiety, and grief, was so large, that he seemed to stand above
us all, and be naturally our director and ruler. But to-night, when I
begged to stay with Minima, he conceded the point without a word.

Mademoiselle Therese was the most silent woman I ever met. She could
pass a whole day without uttering a word, and did not seem to suffer any
_ennui_ from her silence. In the house she wore always, like the other
inhabitants of the village, men and women, soundless felt socks, which
slipped readily into the wooden _sabots_ used for walking out-of-doors.
I was beginning to learn to walk in _sabots_ myself, for the time was
drawing rapidly near when otherwise I should be barefoot.

With this taciturn Frenchwoman I entered upon my night-watch by Minima,
whose raving no one could understand but myself. The long, dark hours
seemed interminable. Mademoiselle sat knitting a pair of gray stockings
in the intervals of attendance upon our patients. The subdued glimmer
of the night-lamp, the ticking of the clock, the chimes every quarter of
an hour from the church-tower, all conspired to make me restless and
almost nervous.

"Mademoiselle," I said, at last, "talk to me. I cannot bear this
tranquillity. Tell me something."

"What can I tell you, madame?" she inquired, in a pleasant tone.

"Tell me about those people I saw this morning," I answered.

"It is a long history," she said, her face kindling, as if this were a
topic that excited her; and she rolled up her knitting, as though she
could not trust herself to continue that while she was talking; "all the
world knows it here, and we never talk of it now. Bat you are a
stranger; shall I tell it you?"

I had hit upon the only subject that could unlock her lips. It was the
night-time too. At night one is naturally more communicative than in the
broad light of day.

"Madame," she said, in an agitated voice, "you have observed already
that my brother is not like other cures. He has his own ideas, his own
sentiments. Everybody knows him at this moment as the good Cure of
Ville-en-bois; but when he came here first, thirty years ago, all the
world called him infidel, heretic, atheist. It was because he would make
many changes in the church and parish. The church had been famous for
miracles; but Francis did not believe in them, and he would not
encourage them. There used to be pilgrimages to it from all the country
round; and crowds of pilgrims, who spend much money. There was a great
number of crutches left at the shrine of the Virgin by cripples who had
come here by their help, but walked away without them. He cleared them
all away, and called them rubbish. So every one said he was an
infidel--you understand?"

"I understand it very well," I said.

"Bien! At that time there was one family richer than all the others.
They were the proprietors of the factory down yonder, and everybody
submitted to them. There was a daughter not married, but very devote. I
have been devote, myself. I was coquette till I was thirty-five, then I
became devote. It is easier than being a simple Christian, like my
brother the cure. Mademoiselle Pineau was accustomed to have visions,
ecstasies. Sometimes the angels lifted her from the ground into the air
when she was at her prayers. Francis did not like that. He was young,
and she came very often to the confessional, and told him of these
visions and ecstasies. He discouraged them, and enjoined penances upon
her. Bref! she grew to detest him, and she was quite like a female cure
in the parish. She set everybody against him. At last, when he removed
all the plaster images of the saints, and would have none but wood or
stone, she had him cited to answer for it to his bishop."

"But what did he do that for?" I asked, seeing no difference between
plaster images, and those of wood or stone.

"Madame, these Normans are ignorant and very superstitious," she
replied; "they thought a little powder from one of the saints would cure
any malady. Some of the images were half-worn away with having powder
scraped off them. My brother would not hold with such follies, and his
bishop told him he might fight the battle out, if he could. No one
thought he could; but they did not know Francis. It was a terrible
battle, madame. Nobody would come to the confessional, and every month
or so, he was compelled to have a vicaire from some other parish to
receive the confessions of his people. Mademoiselle Pineau fanned the
flame, and she had the reputation of a saint."

"But how did it end?" I inquired. Mademoiselle's face was all aglow, and
her voice rose and fell in her excitement; yet she lingered over the
story as if reluctant to lose the rare pleasure of telling it.

"In brief, madame," she resumed, "there was a terrible conflagration in
the village. You perceive that all our houses are covered with tiles? In
those days the roofs were of thatch, very old and very dry, and there
was much timber in the walls. How the fire began, the good God alone
knows. It was a sultry day in July; the river was almost dry, and there
was no hope of extinguishing the flames. They ran like lightning from
roof to roof. All that could be done was to save life, and a little
property. My brother threw off his cassock, and worked like Hercules.

"The Pineaux lived then close by the presbytery, in a house half of
wood, which blazed like tinder; there was nothing comparable to it in
all the village. A domestic suddenly cried out that mademoiselle was in
her oratory, probably in a trance. Not a soul dares venture through the
flames to save her, though she is a saint. Monsieur le Cure hears the
rumor of it; he steps in through the doorway through which the smoke is
rolling; walks in as tranquilly as if he were going to make a visit as
pastor; he is lost to their sight; not a man stirs to look after his own
house. Bref! he comes back to the day, his brown hair all singed and his
face black, carrying mademoiselle in his arms. Good: The battle is
finished. All the world adores him."

"Continue, mademoiselle, I pray you," I said, eagerly; "do not leave off
there."

"Bien! Monsieur le Cure and his unworthy sister had a small fortune
which was spent, for the people. He begged for them; he worked with
them; he learned to do many things to help them. He lives for them and
them only. He has refused to leave them for better positions. They are
not ungrateful; they love him, they lean upon him."

"But the Pineaux?" I suggested.

"Bah! I had forgotten them. Their factory was burnt at the same time. It
is more than a kilometre from here; but who can say how far the burning
thatch might be carried on the wind? It was insured for a large sum in a
bureau in Paris. But there were suspicions raised and questions asked.
Our sacristan, Jean, who was then a young boy, affirmed that he had seen
some one carrying a lighted torch around the building, after the
work-people had all fled to see after their own houses. The bureau
refused to pay, except by a process of law; and the Pineaux never began
their process. They worked the factory a few years on borrowed money;
but they became poor, very poor. Mademoiselle ceased to be devote, and
did not come near the church or the confessional again. Now they are
despised and destitute. Not a person goes near them, except my good
brother, whom they hate still. There remain but three of them, the old
monsieur, who is very aged, a son, and mademoiselle, who is as old as
myself. The son has the fever, and Francis visits him almost every day."

"It is a wretched, dreadful place," I said, shuddering at the
remembrance of it.

"They will die there probably," she remarked, in a quiet voice, and with
an expression of some weariness now the tale was told; "my brother
refuses to let me go to see them. Mademoiselle hates me, because in some
part I have taken her place. Francis says there is work enough for me at
home. Madame, I believe the good God sent you here to help us."




CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.

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