CHAPTER VI
IT was about a week before the Christmas vacation that my last outbreak at boarding-school occurred. It was one noon after lunch when I was passing through the hall on my way upstairs. I had to go by Sarah Platt's room, where the little clique of girls I had once longed to be one of, used often to congregate after luncheon before the two o'clock study-hour. They were gathered there to-day, talking and laughing together in their usual mysterious manner, and I wondered vaguely as I went by, what they were discussing now. I never allowed myself to listen intentionally, but the conversation of those girls, who were still strangers to me, always fascinated me, and I confess I used to overhear all that I could without being dishonourable. As I sauntered by the half-closed door of that room I recognised the voice of Sarah Platt herself, who of all the girls I had aspired to make my best friend. Sarah was a dashing kind of girl and would show off to awfully good advantage before my family if I had invited her to visit me.
"Well," I heard her say, "I think Miss Brown is taking her in on charity."
I knew Sarah must be referring to me and I stopped stock-still.
"Why, she hasn't anything, and this horrid place is probably a palace to her!"
I flushed with rage. Palace nothing!
"I think," said a little Jewess by the name of Elsie Weil, "it's too bad for Gabriella. I'd hate to have such a room-mate forced on me."
"I don't think Miss Brown ought to take such a girl in at all and make us who pay a thousand dollars a year be intimate with a person we never can know socially," drawled Sarah Platt. "It's hard on her too," she finished patronisingly.
"Oh, don't mind about me," I breathed, ready to explode.
"I'm just tired," another girl broke in, "of having all the teachers, and Miss Brown too, talking and lecturing to us about being nice to Lucy, Lucy, Lucy all the time."
"And the spite and scorn that the child puts on lately," added Sarah, "is perfectly absurd. As if she had anything to back it up!"
"I know," went on the little Jewess, "her family can't be much. You can see that. Did you ever notice the row of old-fashioned family pictures on the back of her chiffonier?"
At that I caught my breath. My dear good family! And without waiting to hear another word I flung open the door. There were six or seven girls before me crowded together in a bunch on a couch in the corner. I felt myself grow suddenly calm as I stood there before them not saying a word, and they staring back at me as if I were an apparition.
"I heard every single word you said," I began slowly, "every single word!" Then my thoughts collected themselves and filed by in the order of soldiers on parade. "I don't care a straw for your opinions. I feel above every one of you. It makes me smile to think I would be the least disturbed by common and uneducated westerners," for Sarah lived in Missouri, "or Jews!" I spat at Elsie Weil. "You needn't any of you trouble about being kind to me. I don't want your kindness. I'm perfectly indifferent to every one of you. I am not here on charity; and as for the pictures on my chiffonier, if you don't like them, lump them, or else keep your eyes at home." I knew I was acting unladylike but I was fired up and couldn't help going on. "My family may not have fashionable photographs, my clothes may be as ugly as mud, but if you knew who my older brother is, if you knew who my father is, if you knew! My father is president of the Vars & Company Woollen Mills; my father is a director in the Hilton County Savings Bank; my father is a state senator; my father—oh, I shan't tell you all he is, because you haven't got enough brains to appreciate it. It would be like telling monkies about Abraham Lincoln!" I stopped just a moment, but no one spoke. All those girls huddled together in a bunch just kept on staring as they would at a rearing horse in a parade, meekly from the sidewalk. "You don't know about anything but clothes and theatres. And let me tell you once for all I don't want anything of any of you." Sarah Platt opened her mouth to speak. I cut her off short. "Keep still, Sarah Platt," I said. "Don't you dare address one word to me!" Oh, I wanted to do something insulting, like sticking out my tongue, or making an ugly face. But instead I just said, "And don't one of you in this room ever assume to speak one word to me as long as you live!" And I turned, stalked out of the room, and went straight upstairs.
I don't know how I could have said anything so horrid as all that, and I seventeen years old, but somehow it is always easier for me to roll off spiteful things than anything sweet and kind. I am always less embarrassed about it. Poor Alec would have been awfully disappointed to have heard such an outburst from his sister. Father would have said, "Oh, Lucy!" The arrogant twins wouldn't have wanted to own me. Only my dear old chum Juliet Adams would have been proud. She would have exclaimed, "Bully for you, Bobs!"
When I reached my room on the next floor, I calmly opened the door and went in. Gabriella was standing by her desk. I never shall forget how she looked—perfectly white and staring at me horribly. I wondered what ailed her, for she couldn't have heard my tirade on the floor below.
"What's the matter, Gabriella?" I asked.
"Oh, Lucy," she began, then sank down in a chair by her desk, leaned forward with her head buried in her arms, and began to cry dreadfully.
I went over to her.
"Gabriella," I said, sorry for her somehow, for though she was one of Sarah Platt's clique she had not been talking about me; she was, after all, my room-mate, and at least she let me see her cry. "Please, Gabriella, tell me what it is."
"Miss Brown," she choked, "wants—" she stopped, then wailed, "you!"
"Me?" I groped blindly. Me? Had my awful words been telegraphed to Miss Brown's office? Did she know already? I couldn't follow. Things were happening too rapidly. "Me, Gabriella," I asked. "But what for? Please stop crying and tell me."
I could barely catch a few words amidst her violent sobs.
"My father," she said. (I knew Gabriella's father had died the winter before when she was away at school.) "A telegram," she stumbled on, and I waited, "your father—"
My father!
I went to Gabriella quickly, put my arm about her and leaned my head down close to hers.
"Listen, Gabriella. Be quiet for just one minute and answer me. Did you say my father?" and then in a fresh torrent of sobs I heard her "Yes."
I left her crying there and went down through the long corridors to Miss Brown's office. I passed Sarah Platt's room without knowing it. I even passed some one in the hall but I have no idea who it was. I kept thinking, "This is your first test. Be ready and don't break."
Miss Brown was at her desk. She started a little when she saw me, then smiled—how could she smile—and said, "Oh, Gabriella found you. Come here, dear," and she put out her hand. I closed the door and then backed up against it. I couldn't go near Miss Brown. I didn't want her tissue-paper sympathy.
"What's happened to my father, Miss Brown?" I asked. "You can tell me the very worst right off."
She didn't hedge any more.
"He is very, very ill," she replied, going straight to the point as I liked to have her.
"Does that mean," I said, "that he is—is—" I couldn't say it—"is worse than very ill?" I finished.
"No," she replied. "No, Lucy. Your father is still living. I have just called up your brother by long distance telephone and they want you to come home immediately. It is your father's heart." Then she added, looking at me firmly, as if she were upholding me by the hand: "It is a long trip. You must be prepared for the worst, Lucy." I didn't answer and she turned to her desk, picked up a piece of paper and passed it to me. "Read it," she said. "It is a telegram for you."
I looked down and these words greeted me like dear, comforting friends:
"Stand up, Bobbie. Be brave. We need you to be strong. Alec."
It was just as if my dear brother Alec were suddenly there like a miracle in the room beside me, and now, at last, I would not disappoint him.
I looked up at Miss Brown.
"When is there a train?" I asked calmly; but to myself I was saying over and over again, "Stand up. Be brave. They need you to be strong."
Miss Brown came over to me, and I must say I've always liked her from that day to this. She didn't say anything silly or comforting to me. That would all have been so useless. She just took my hand in a man's sort of way and held it firmly a minute in hers, "Your brother will be proud of you," she said. That was all, but do you think then I would have failed?
"We will go upstairs and pack," she added immediately, and I followed her, bound now to control myself or die.
I don't know how I ever got started. I only know there was a confused half-hour of packing, with Miss Brown helping and Gabriella close by me all the time. Gabriella couldn't seem to do enough. I saw her slip her pink kimono into my suit-case; I saw her pin one of her beautiful pearl bars on my red silk waist. She got out my new blue suit and brushed it; my new hat with the red quills; and while I combed my hair, she laced my new tan shoes. I understood that it was her way of telling me how sorry she was, for every once in a while she'd have to stop and cry. Once she said, "Oh, I am so sorry I've been so mean. I hope—oh, I do hope you'll come back, Lucy." But I didn't care now. It was too late. All my thoughts were with my family who needed me. I gathered their dear pictures together in a pile and put them in my suit-case—Father's picture too, but I didn't trust myself to look at it. Dear Father—but I didn't dare let myself think, just at first.
I felt in the air that all the girls knew my news about as soon as I did. Of course they didn't come near me. Even if I had been popular I don't believe they would have come. Sorrow somehow builds up such a barrier, and the one or two girls I met in the corridors kept close to the other wall and tried to avoid meeting my eyes. Gabriella and Miss Brown and the English teacher, whom I had always hated, saw me off. I begged to take the trip alone and Miss Brown finally allowed it.
I thought of everything during that journey, and the more I thought the more I trusted myself to think, I don't know what made me so clear-headed and fearless, but I'd run my thoughts right up to any hard truth, and they wouldn't balk; they'd go right over. My mother had died when I was so little that I did not remember it and so this was the first test I had ever had. Perhaps—oh, perhaps,—I faced it clearly and squarely—perhaps when I was met at the station they would tell me that I had come too late. I knew now that I wouldn't give way. Some great wonderful strength was in me and I wasn't afraid of myself. My home-coming was very different from the one I had planned, but when we drew near to the familiar old station I just said, "Be strong," and I knew that I should.
Dr. Maynard was at the station to meet me. The minute he got hold of my hand he said, "It's all right. You're not too late."
"That's good," I replied, but somehow I couldn't feel any more joy than sorrow. I remember, in the carriage, I asked lots of straight-forward, businesslike questions and Dr. Maynard answered me in the same way. There was no hope. The end might come at any moment. When he stopped before our door and helped me out, he said, "Bobbie, you're a brave girl." But I wasn't. I couldn't have cried. I didn't know how.
I went into the house while Dr. Maynard stopped to hitch and blanket his horse. I found the twins and Ruth and Aunt Sarah all in the sitting-room. It didn't come to my mind then, but now, as I remember it, it was all very different from the triumphant entry I had planned. No one jumped up to greet me, and my new suit and tan shoes and hat with the quills were all unnoticed even by myself. The twins came forward and kissed me—not embarrassed as they usually are, but scarcely realising it. They didn't say anything, just kissed me and turned away. Ruth lay prostrate on the couch. She didn't stir at sight of me and I went up to her and kissed her on the temple. At that she buried her face deeper into the cushions and began to sob. Aunt Sarah looked as if she had been crying for weeks. She sat quietly rocking by the west window and her big, dyed-out, blue eyes were swimming in tears, brimming over, and running down her wrinkled face. It's something awful to me, to see a grown person cry. It's like an old wreck at sea, and I just couldn't kiss her. Everybody so horrible and silent and dismal, was worse somehow than death, and just for a moment I stood kind of helpless in the middle of the room. Then the door into the library opened and I saw my dear tired, patient Alec, and suddenly his arms were around me tight, holding me close—close to him and I heard him murmur, "Good Bobbie, good, brave Bobbie," and oh, if I can hate people awfully, I can love them too. When he let me go, he said calmly, "Don't you want to come and see Father?" and I followed him upstairs.
Dr. Maynard led me to the side of Father's bed and I took one of Father's dear, familiar hands in mine. Alec sat down on the other side and for a while we three waited silently until Father should wake up. I wasn't frightened. It all seemed very natural, and none of the heart-breaking thoughts that came to me all during the weeks after he left us came to me then. It really seemed almost beautiful to be waiting there until Father should wake up. When finally he opened his eyes and saw me, he smiled, and pressed my hand a very little. Then he spoke.
"Lucy!" he said; and after a long pause, "Do you like school?" he asked, just as naturally as if we were having a nice little talk downstairs.
"Oh, yes, dear Father, I do!" I answered, and he pressed my hand again. It didn't strike me so very deeply then that my last word to my father was a lie, but afterward I used to cry about it for hours and hours. After a moment my father turned to Alec, "Stand by the business, my son," he murmured.
And without a moment's hesitation my brother promised, "I will, Father."
I didn't think Father would say anything more, for he closed his eyes again, but after a while he opened them and I saw he was actually noticing my hat and red waist, and the pearl pin Gabriella had given me. He smiled and I heard him murmur, "Pretty!" That was all; and oh, since, I have been so glad that my new clothes did so much more than I had ever hoped. For that was the last word my father said. I felt his hand grow limp in mine, and just then Dr. Maynard touched my shoulder and led me quietly away. He told me to lie down on the bed in the guest-room. I obeyed him and when, a little later, he came to me I understood the message in his eyes. I didn't feel the awfulness of it then nor I didn't have the least inclination to cry. I lay there very quietly for half an hour, then of my own accord I got up and went downstairs.
I found Aunt Sarah by the window still crying without the grace of covering her tear-stained face. The twins were not there. Ruth jumped up when I came in and clung to me frantically.
"Aunt Sarah," I asked, annoyed, "why do you sit there and cry?"
"Unnatural girl," she answered, "have you no heart, no tears? Don't you know your father has died?"
At those awful words poor little Ruth clung to me still tighter and wailed, "Oh, send her away, make her go off!"
I replied to my aunt, "Aunt Sarah, don't you know you shouldn't speak like that before Ruth? I'm surprised."
A little later Alec came quietly into the room. Poor Ruthie flung herself upon him just as she had upon me, and as he held her and patted her shoulder, he said, looking at me in a way that made me stronger, "Lucy, you will find Oliver in the alcove under the stairs. Go to him and give him something to do."
Poor Oliver was crying as only a boy of sixteen who isn't used to it can, I guess—dreadfully uncontrolled. He was sitting on the leather couch, leaning forward with his face in his hands. I went straight over to him and sinking down beside him, put my arms right around him. Poor Oliver—poor big broken Oliver! All the hate in my heart for that cruel twin rolled right away when I felt his great big body leaning up against me. I loved him just as if he were my son come home. We sat there together a long while—just Oliver and I—and finally when he was a little quieter he managed to say, "Don't—don't tell Alec and Malcolm—that I—I—"
"Of course I won't, Oliver," I assured him, and then I added just as if nothing had happened, "My trunk is still at the station, Oliver. I need it awfully. Here's the check. It's dark out now. Will you go down and see about it?"
He looked away and replied in a voice that tried to sound natural, "Sure, I'll go," and stood up and blew his nose very hard. I saw him glance into the mirror over the fireplace. Then, "Will you get my overcoat and hat?" he asked shamefacedly. When he went out of the house he had the visor of his cap pulled well down over his eyes, and his hands shoved deep into his pockets. We hadn't said a word about Father.
As for myself, I don't know what was the matter. I honestly didn't seem to feel a thing. I was just like a soulless machine. During the three following days I wrote notes, sent telegrams, saw about a black dress for Ruth, Aunt Sarah and myself, planned good nourishing meals for the family, went on errands, and "picked up" every room in the house, for they certainly looked awful. I didn't sleep and I wasn't hungry. I was wound up pretty tight, I guess, for it took me a long while to run down. On the second afternoon Dr. Maynard took me out to drive and then shut me up in my bedroom with the curtains all drawn tight and a little white sleeping-powder to take in fifteen minutes if I didn't go to sleep. I took the powder and stayed awake all night besides. Once during those blind, confused three days Juliet came to see me, to tell me how sorry she was I suppose, but I wasn't glad to have her. I remember I just said, "Hello, Juliet, how's basket-ball and high school?" I wasn't glad to see even Tom and Elise. When Elise held me tight in her arms and whispered, "Poor little Bobbie!" I felt like a hypocrite, and pulled away. Every time the door-bell rang and I knew that it was some one else who had come to try and comfort us, I wanted to lock myself in my room. My head ached and my eyes felt like chunks of lead. But I didn't want sympathy. I didn't need it.
The end came the night after the funeral. It hadn't occurred to me but that I would go back to boarding-school after Christmas. We were all in the sitting-room—all but Aunt Sarah who finally had stopped crying and was recuperating in her bed upstairs. Tom and Alec were discussing all sorts of plans, and I remember that Dr. Maynard, who seemed to be one of the family now, was there too. I wasn't following the conversation very closely, and suddenly I heard Tom say, "Well certainly the sooner Aunt Sarah packs up, the better."
"Why, who then," I asked, "will take her place?"
Alec looked up.
"What do you mean, Bobbie," he asked. "You'll be here, won't you?"
"Why, no. I shall be at boarding-school," I replied.
At that Ruth suddenly flopped over on the couch and began her usual torrent of crying. "I hate Aunt Sarah! I hate Aunt Sarah! I hate Aunt Sarah!" she wailed.
"The whole fall was rotten!" put in Malcolm. "Do you mean to say, Lucy, that you're going back to that school?" he fired.
"I guess your duty is here, Bobbie, old girl," said Tom; and Elise got up and came over to my chair.
"I know how hard it is to give up school," she said sweetly, "but they do need you, don't they, dear? Later, perhaps—"
"Well, I must say," interrupted Oliver, who was master of himself without any doubt now, "if this isn't the greatest! Look here, Alec," he asked, "do you intend to allow Bobbie to neglect us in this fashion?"
And Alec, dear Alec, across the room just smiled and said, looking straight at me, "I am going to let her do as she thinks best," and his eyes were full of kindness.
I got up then. My knees were trembling. I thought at last I was going to break down and cry. They wanted—oh, finally my family wanted me! I didn't know whether to trust my voice or not.
"Well," I said a little wobbly, trying to smile back at Alec, "I'll think it over." And as soon as I could, I sneaked out of the room, on the pretense of getting a drink of water. I went into the little back hall off the kitchen, took an old golf cape that was hanging there, threw it over my shoulders, and went outdoors. It didn't seem as if I could get my breath inside the house. It was dark, the stars had come out, and I went out of the back gate, walking as hard and fast as I could. I knew I must do something, for as wicked as it seems I was almost crazy with happiness, and I was afraid that at any moment, now at the very last, I should give up entirely, lie down at the side of the road and cry and cry. I almost ran as I hurried along, and all the time I kept saying, "Hold on. Be strong. Don't let go." Yet I knew the storm was gathering and I was losing my grip. I didn't plan to go to Juliet's house, but suddenly I saw it looming up in front of me, and it occurred to me to stop and tell Juliet my beautiful good news. So I hurried to the back door and burst into the kitchen. The Adams's cook gave an awful start.
"Good Lord!" she exclaimed.
"Hannah," I asked, and my voice was strange and hoarse, "where's Juliet?"
"Why, at dinner," gasped Hannah, staring at me. "What is it, Miss Lucy?"
"Tell her to come up to her room," I managed to say, and in our usual informal way I dashed up the back stairs to Juliet's room, which I knew so well. I waited impatiently in the dark and in a minute I heard Juliet pounding up the stairs. Then I saw her coming through the hall, her white napkin in her hand. I grabbed her.
"Juliet," I cried, "Juliet, I'm not going back to boarding-school! They want me here! I'm so happy I don't know what to do. It's horrible to be happy but I am, I am!" And then it struck me so funny to be happy on such a day that I laughed! I laughed simply dreadfully. All my pent-up feelings burst forth then, and I laughed till I cried. I could hear myself laugh and that made me laugh more, and then Juliet looked so queer and thunderstruck that that added to it. Pretty soon Mrs. Adams was there and they were putting cold water on my face, which struck me as the hugest joke I ever heard of, for they must have thought I was hysterical. I laughed so hard that actually I hadn't enough will or strength left to stop if I tried—I, who am usually so controlled. I got down on the floor finally, and then I don't remember anything more.
When I woke up it must have been hours later, for I was all undressed lying quietly in Juliet's bed, and there was Mrs. Adams going out of the door, and there—yes—there was Dr. Maynard behind her. There was a low light on the table by the bed and beside it sat my dear stolid Juliet. I thought at first I would burst out laughing again to see her sitting there with her funny little tight pig-tails braided for the night, with me in her bed getting her sheets all hot. Just then she looked up.
"Hello, Bob," she said in her commonplace, natural way. "Want a drink of water?" and she came over and gave me a little sip out of a glass. I didn't remember anything then, only that it was good to have old Juliet around.
"There was no one as nice as you at school, Juliet," I said.
"I guess that's a merry jest," she replied in her usual way. She took the glass away and I heard her go out of the room. I lay there very quietly and watched the dim light flickering. There was a little clock somewhere that was ticking quietly.
Then—oh, then I came back to life, and suddenly the thought of my dear, dear father returned to me. I began to cry softly for the first time, and finally fell asleep.
As I sit here this soft spring day and listen for the noon-whistle on Father's factory to blow, I shall not wait for the sight of Dixie and the phaeton coming up the hill, for Alec will be alone and I hate to be reminded of too many places left empty by Father. Father had so many favourite chairs. In every room in the house it seems as if he had his special place. And his roll-top desk closed and locked, his various pairs of shoes and slippers which he used to keep underneath all put away, makes the dear spot look as if it were for rent. I hate the neat orderly air of the sitting-room. It seems to be reproaching me. Father used to love to fill the room with all kinds and descriptions of papers. Everything, from a folder left at the front door directed to "The Lady of the House" to year-old newspapers, Father wanted preserved. There were three piles of the Scientific Machinist, four feet high, stacked up in one corner. I used to beg Father to let me carry off those Scientific Machinists at least—they collected dust fearfully—but he wouldn't allow me even to suggest such an idea. So on my own responsibility one day, I stealthily took away some of the bottom ones and packed them in the storeroom. I knew he'd never miss them and the pile was growing. Every month I'd clear out the paper case, preferring to annoy the kindest father a girl ever had to having an untidy room. I cry when I think of the kind of daughter I was; I cry and cry in the middle of the night. I wasn't good! I wasn't good! I write it down for every one to see. Of course it's too late now, but I've taken down the muslin curtains from Father's room, and the lace ones from the sitting-room. Father never approved of hangings of any kind. I don't allow the cat in the front of the house. I haven't destroyed a single folder, pamphlet or catalogue. The pile of Scientific Machinists I wouldn't move from the corner for anything in the world.
Oh, Father, if you were only here to be pleased; if you were only here to scatter papers around; if you were only here to ring the gong for dinner, call Ruthie "baby," me "chicken," say "Hello, boys!" to the twins, and then sit down opposite me, clear your throat and ask the blessing; if you were here again I would be a better oldest daughter. I wouldn't tease for a rubber-tired runabout, for new wallpaper, nor for that brass bed for my room.
I don't know where you are, nor where my mother is, but somehow up here in this cupola on a starry night, when I sit on the window-seat, lie flat back with my head out of the open window, and look up into that great dome of a sky, I feel as if you two may be together somewhere, perhaps seeing me.
But I don't know. There are times when I'm dreadfully doubtful; there are times that I don't believe anything. I think I may be an atheist! I have never discussed the subject with anybody, but occasionally it comes to me, just as the fear used to come that I was adopted, that religion is all a lie. I know I'm a member of the church, and it may be horribly wicked of me, but once in a while right in the middle of my prayers at night, I'll stop and think, "Perhaps no one is hearing me at all."
Really, I wonder sometimes if any other girl ever had such awful thoughts.