The wandering attention of the mistress of the Blue Dragon roved to these things but twice or thrice, and then for but an instant at a time. It soon deserted them, and even the distant bed with its strange burden, for the young creature immediately before her, who, with her downcast eyes intently fixed upon the fire, sat wrapped in silent meditation.
She was very young; apparently no more than seventeen; timid and shrinking in her manner, and yet with a greater share of self possession and control over her emotions than usually belongs to a far more advanced period of female life. This she had abundantly shown, but now, in her tending of the sick gentleman. She was short in stature; and her figure was slight, as became her years; but all the charms of youth and maidenhood set it off, and clustered on her gentle brow. Her face was very pale, in part no doubt from recent agitation. Her dark brown hair, disordered from the same cause, had fallen negligently from its bonds, and hung upon her neck; for which instance of its waywardness no male observer would have had the heart to blame it.
Her attire was that of a lady, but extremely plain; and in her manner, even when she sat as still as she did then, there was an indefinable something which appeared to be in kindred with her scrupulously unpretending dress. She had sat, at first looking anxiously towards the bed; but seeing that the patient remained quiet, and was busy with his writing, she had softly moved her chair into its present place; partly, as it seemed, from an instinctive consciousness that he desired to avoid observation; and partly that she might, unseen by him, give some vent to the natural feelings she had hitherto suppressed.
Of all this, and much more, the rosy landlady of the Blue Dragon took as accurate note and observation as only woman can take of woman. And at length she said, in a voice too low, she knew, to reach the bed:
“You have seen the gentleman in this way before, miss? Is he used to these attacks?”
“I have seen him very ill before, but not so ill as he has been tonight.”
“What a Providence!” said the landlady of the Dragon, “that you had the prescriptions and the medicines with you, miss!”
“They are intended for such an emergency. We never travel without them.”
“Oh!” thought the hostess, “then we are in the habit of travelling, and of travelling together.”
She was so conscious of expressing this in her face, that meeting the young lady's eyes immediately afterwards, and being a very honest hostess, she was rather confused.
“The gentleman—your grandpapa'—she resumed, after a short pause, “being so bent on having no assistance, must terrify you very much, miss?”
“I have been very much alarmed to-night. He—he is not my grandfather.”
“Father, I should have said,” returned the hostess, sensible of having made an awkward mistake.
“Nor my father” said the young lady. “Nor,” she added, slightly smiling with a quick perception of what the landlady was going to add, “Nor my uncle. We are not related.”
“Oh dear me!” returned the landlady, still more embarrassed than before; “how could I be so very much mistaken; knowing, as anybody in their proper senses might that when a gentleman is ill, he looks so much older than he really is? That I should have called you “Miss,” too, ma'am!” But when she had proceeded thus far, she glanced involuntarily at the third finger of the young lady's left hand, and faltered again; for there was no ring upon it.
“When I told you we were not related,” said the other mildly, but not without confusion on her own part, “I meant not in any way. Not even by marriage. Did you call me, Martin?”
“Call you?” cried the old man, looking quickly up, and hurriedly drawing beneath the coverlet the paper on which he had been writing. “No.”
She had moved a pace or two towards the bed, but stopped immediately, and went no farther.
“No,” he repeated, with a petulant emphasis. “Why do you ask me? If I had called you, what need for such a question?”
“It was the creaking of the sign outside, sir, I dare say,” observed the landlady; a suggestion by the way (as she felt a moment after she had made it), not at all complimentary to the voice of the old gentleman.
“No matter what, ma'am,” he rejoined: “it wasn't I. Why how you stand there, Mary, as if I had the plague! But they're all afraid of me,” he added, leaning helplessly backward on his pillow; “even she! There is a curse upon me. What else have I to look for?”
“Oh dear, no. Oh no, I'm sure,” said the good-tempered landlady, rising, and going towards him. “Be of better cheer, sir. These are only sick fancies.”
“What are only sick fancies?” he retorted. “What do you know about fancies? Who told you about fancies? The old story! Fancies!”
“Only see again there, how you take one up!” said the mistress of the Blue Dragon, with unimpaired good humour. “Dear heart alive, there is no harm in the word, sir, if it is an old one. Folks in good health have their fancies, too, and strange ones, every day.”
Harmless as this speech appeared to be, it acted on the traveller's distrust, like oil on fire. He raised his head up in the bed, and, fixing on her two dark eyes whose brightness was exaggerated by the paleness of his hollow cheeks, as they in turn, together with his straggling locks of long grey hair, were rendered whiter by the tight black velvet skullcap which he wore, he searched her face intently.
“Ah! you begin too soon,” he said, in so low a voice that he seemed to be thinking it, rather than addressing her. “But you lose no time. You do your errand, and you earn your fee. Now, who may be your client?”
The landlady looked in great astonishment at her whom he called Mary, and finding no rejoinder in the drooping face, looked back again at him. At first she had recoiled involuntarily, supposing him disordered in his mind; but the slow composure of his manner, and the settled purpose announced in his strong features, and gathering, most of all, about his puckered mouth, forbade the supposition.
“Come,” he said, “tell me who is it? Being here, it is not very hard for me to guess, you may suppose.”
“Martin,” interposed the young lady, laying her hand upon his arm; “reflect how short a time we have been in this house, and that even your name is unknown here.”
“Unless,” he said, “you—” He was evidently tempted to express a suspicion of her having broken his confidence in favour of the landlady, but either remembering her tender nursing, or being moved in some sort by her face, he checked himself, and changing his uneasy posture in the bed, was silent.
“There!” said Mrs Lupin; for in that name the Blue Dragon was licensed to furnish entertainment, both to man and beast. “Now, you will be well again, sir. You forgot, for the moment, that there were none but friends here.”
“Oh!” cried the old man, moaning impatiently, as he tossed one restless arm upon the coverlet; “why do you talk to me of friends! Can you or anybody teach me to know who are my friends, and who my enemies?”
“At least,” urged Mrs Lupin, gently, “this young lady is your friend, I am sure.”
“She has no temptation to be otherwise,” cried the old man, like one whose hope and confidence were utterly exhausted. “I suppose she is. Heaven knows. There, let me try to sleep. Leave the candle where it is.”
As they retired from the bed, he drew forth the writing which had occupied him so long, and holding it in the flame of the taper burnt it to ashes. That done, he extinguished the light, and turning his face away with a heavy sigh, drew the coverlet about his head, and lay quite still.
This destruction of the paper, both as being strangely inconsistent with the labour he had devoted to it, and as involving considerable danger of fire to the Dragon, occasioned Mrs Lupin not a little consternation. But the young lady evincing no surprise, curiosity, or alarm, whispered her, with many thanks for her solicitude and company, that she would remain there some time longer; and that she begged her not to share her watch, as she was well used to being alone, and would pass the time in reading.