CHAPTER XLII.
ALICE.
'Alice!' I cried.
She rose from her knees and turned to meet me. Her face was pale;her eyes were heavy and they were full of tears.
'Alice!'
'I saw you when you came here, a week ago,' she said. 'Oh! Humphrey,I saw you, and I was ashamed to let you know that I was here.'
'Ashamed? My dear, ashamed? But how--why--what dost thou here?'
'How could I meet Robin's eyes after what I had done?'
'It was done for him, and for his mother, and for all of us. Poorchild, there is no reason to be ashamed.'
'And now I meet him, and he is in a fever, and his mind wanders; heknows me not.'
'He is sorely stricken, Alice; I know not how the disease may end;mind and body are sick alike. For the mind I can do nothing; for thebody I can do but little: yet with cleanliness and good food we mayhelp him to mend. But tell me, Child, in the name of Heaven, howcamest thou in this place?'
But before anything she would attend to the sick man. And presentlyshe brought half-a-dozen negresses, who cleaned and swept the place,and sheets were fetched and a linen shirt, in which we dressed ourpatient, with such other things as we could devise for his comfort.Then I bathed his head with cold water, continually changing hisbandages so as to keep him cool; and I took some blood from him, butnot much, because he was greatly reduced by bad food and hard work.
When he was a little easier we talked. But, Heavens! to think ofthe villainy which had worked its will upon this poor child! As ifit was not enough that she should be forced to fly from a man whohad so strangely betrayed her, and as if it was not enough thatshe should be robbed of all her money--but she must also be put onboard, falsely and treacherously, as one, like ourselves, sentencedto ten years' servitude on the Plantations! For, indeed, I knew andwas quite certain that none of the Maids of Taunton were thus sentabroad. It was notorious, before we were sent away, that, with theexception of Susan Blake, who died of jail-fever at Dorchester, allthe Maids were given to the Queen's ladies, and by them suffered togo free on the payment by their parents of thirty or forty poundsapiece. And as for Alice, she was a stranger in the place, and itwas not known that she had joined that unfortunate procession. Sothat, if ever a man was kidnapper and villain, that man was GeorgePenne.
It behoves a physician to keep his mind under all circumstancescalm and composed. He must not suffer himself to be carried away bypassion, by rage, hatred, or even anxiety. Yet, I confess that mymind was clean distracted by the discovery that Alice herself waswith us, a prisoner like ourselves; I was, I say, distracted, norcould I tell what to think of this event and its consequences. For,to begin with, the poor child was near those who would protect her.But what kind of protection could be given by such helpless slaves?Then was she beyond her husband's reach; he would not, it was quitecertain, get possession of her at this vast distance. So far she wassafe. But then the master, who looked to make a profit by her, as helooked to make a profit by us--through the ransom of her friends!She had no friends to ransom her. There was but one, the Rector, andhe was her husband's father. The time would come when the avariceof the master would make him do or threaten something barbaroustowards her. Then she had found favour with Madam, this beautifulmulatto woman, whom Alice innocently supposed to be the master'swife. And there was the young planter, who wished to buy her withthe honourable intention of marrying her. In short, I knew not whatto think or to say, because at one moment it seemed as if it was themost Providential thing in the world that Alice should have beenbrought here, and the next moment it seemed as if her presence onlymagnified our evils.
'Nay,' she said, when I opened my mind to her, 'seeing that theworld is so large, what but a special ruling of Providence couldhave brought us all to this same island, out of the whole multitudeof isles--and then again to this same estate out of so many?Humphrey, your faith was wont to be stronger. I believe--nay, I amquite sure--that it was for the strengthening and help of all alikethat this hath been ordained. First, it enables me to nurse my poorRobin--mine, alas! no longer! Yet must I still love him as long as Ihave a heart to beat.'
'Love him always, Child,' I said. 'This is no sin to love thecompanion of thy childhood, thy sweetheart, from whom thou wast tornby the most wicked treachery'--but could say no more, because thecontemplation of that sweet face, now so mournful, yet so patient,made my voice to choke and my eyes to fill with tears. Said I notthat a physician must still keep his mind free from all emotion?
All that day I conversed with her. We agreed that for the presentshe should neither acknowledge nor conceal the truth from Madam,upon whose good-will we now placed all our hopes. That is to say,if Madam questioned her she was to acknowledge that we were herformer friends; but, if Madam neither suspected anything nor askedher anything, she should keep the matter to herself. She told meduring this day all that had happened unto her since I saw her last,when we marched out of Taunton. Among other things I heard of thewoman called Deb, who was now working in the canefields (she was oneof a company whose duty it was to weed the canes). In the eveningthis woman, when the people returned, came to the sick-house.She was a great strapping woman, stronger than most men. She wasdressed, like all the women on the estate, in a smock and petticoat,with a thick coif to keep off the sun, and a pair of strong shoes.
She came to help her mistress, as she fondly called Alice. Shewanted to sit up and watch the sick man, so that her mistress mightgo to sleep. But Alice refused. Then this faithful creature rolledherself up in her rug and laid herself at the door, so that no oneshould go in or out without stepping over her. And so she fellasleep.
Then we began our night watch, and talked in whispers, sitting bythe bedside of the fevered man. Presently I forgot the wretchednessof our condition, the place where we were, our hopeless, helplesslot, our anxieties and our fears, in the joy and happiness of oncemore conversing with my mistress. She spoke to me after the mannerof the old days, but with more seriousness, about the marvellousworkings of the Lord among His people; and presently we began totalk of the music which we loved to play, and how the sweet concordand harmony of the notes lift up the soul; and of pictures andpainting, and Mr. Boscorel's drawings and my own poor attempts, andmy studies in the schools, and so forth, as if my life was, indeed,but just beginning, and, instead of the Monmouth cap, and the canvasbreeches, and common shirt, I was once more arrayed in velvet, witha physician's wig and a gold-headed cane.
Lastly she prayed, entreating merciful Heaven to bestow health ofmind and enlargement of body to the sick man upon the bed, and herbrother, and her dear friend (meaning myself), and to all poorsufferers for religion; and she asked that, as it had been permittedthat she should be taken from her earthly lover by treachery, so itmight now be granted to her to lay down her life for his, so that hemight go free and she die in his place.
Through the open window I saw the four stars which make theconstellation they call the 'Crucero,' being like a cross fixed inthe heavens. The night was still, and there was no sound save theshrill noise of the cigala, which is here as shrill as in Padua.Slave and master, bondman and free, were all asleep save in thishouse, where Robin rolled his heavy head, and murmured withoutceasing, and Alice communed with her God. Surely, surely, I thought,here was no room for doubt! This my mistress had been brought hereby the hand of God Himself, to be as an angel or messenger of Hisown, for our help and succour--haply for our spiritual help alone,seeing that no longer was there any help from man.
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