CHAPTER X
THE TOY CUPBOARD
THERE could be no doubt that Mr. Reynolds was very ill. A white-uniformed nurse was installed at the cottage, the doctor came daily, looking ever graver and graver, while there were worried wrinkles in Miss Miranda's forehead and she began to look very thin and white. Mrs. Bassett, the farmer's wife, coming over to pay her promised visit and finding her dear friend in such trouble, arranged hastily that some one else should take care of her own household and installed herself in the kitchen so that Miss Miranda should be free to wait upon her father. The old man lay, for the greater part of the time, in a dull stupor, waking only now and again to partial consciousness.
Elizabeth and David gave all the help that they could, but it seemed that there was little to be done. Many nights Betsey spent at the cottage when she guessed that Miss Miranda felt lonely and depressed, although her friend's cheerful spirit would never admit failing courage.
"He will be better to-morrow," she would keep saying when it was found impossible to declare that he was better to-day.
Betsey had another burden on her mind, the close approach of her college examinations. She happened to be of the sort that takes examinations with difficulty, that cannot keep from worry, excitement and misgivings beforehand. David's, of course, were coming also, and were far more formidable than hers. The Scientific School which he was entering had rigid requirements and offered a test of knowledge in which not even the boy's native wit and his hard study could be certain of success. There had been so many ups and downs in his education, he had worked with so little guidance, that there was no denying that the odds were against him. He said little of his worries, however, merely toiled away as the day came ever nearer.
He and Elizabeth were apt to sit on the doorstep of the cottage to do their lessons during these long spring evenings that were beginning to change to summer ones. One reason for their doing so was that Miss Miranda liked to have them near, but it was not to be denied that there was another one. Neither one of them said much of that strange light that they had seen moving about the ruins of the old house, but both had clear remembrance of it and, until they had opportunity to investigate it thoroughly, had no special desire to sit at dusk beside the starry pool.
Miss Miranda came out one evening to talk with them on the stone step and to hear how their work was faring. When questioned about her father she was still able to answer cheerfully, although it was plain that it cost some effort to do so.
"The doctor says that he may be ill a long time," she said at last. "He had been working hard, too hard for any one who is so old, and for the last few months, when he came near to the end of his experiments, he had been under the pressure of great excitement. And I think, though he would never say so, that sometimes the very weariness and suspense made him wonder if the invention was to be a success. I know that he had written to one of his scientific friends, the chief mechanical engineer for a great construction company, to come and inspect the new machine and that he was more disappointed than he could quite hide, that there had been no answer. He used to ask me several times a day about the letters. So when Donald came—"
The mention of letters had brought to Betsey such a sudden recollection that she interrupted.
"There were some letters that night; your cousin brought them, and they were never opened. Perhaps one of them is what your father hoped for. I think they are still lying on the table in his shop."
She sped away to fetch them with great eagerness and came back with the handful of correspondence, much of it evidently mere advertisements, but with one slim envelope that had possibilities. There was no chance that the stricken man upstairs could read it, so that Miss Miranda, without hesitation, tore the envelope open. Betsey and David watched her face intently as she read.
"It is what he wished for," she told them when she had finished. "Mr. Garven, the man to whom he wrote, seems to be much interested and even excited about the new machine, for he says that the gas turbine principle is one over which many people have been working, but no one with any success. He says that he will come to see it at any time that my father appoints." She refolded the letter slowly. "It is rather bitter," she added, with a trifle of a catch in the voice that had been so brave and steady until now, "rather bitter that this should have come by Donald's hand and just too late!"
"But it is not too late," Betsey protested with vehemence. "David can show this man the machine, he has helped your father and knows just how it should run. And I am sure that the news that the invention has been tested and proved a success would help to make Mr. Reynolds well again. Oh, do try it—do try it."
She was bouncing up and down on the doorstep in her enthusiasm over the plan. To her great delight David supported the idea heartily.
"There is no reason why any one who knows about such things should not see in a moment that the machine is a success," he declared. "And it would surely do all of us good to find that your cousin was wrong."
"It might be so," Miss Miranda agreed slowly. Elizabeth and David could actually hear the rising hope in her voice. "We can at least try. Oh, if it could only mean that things could right themselves at last!"
A telegram was dispatched by David that very night and an anxious period of waiting was spent thereafter at the white cottage.
"He is to come on Monday afternoon, that's the day before our examinations begin," Betsey told David when the final message from Mr. Garven had been received. She was so openly excited and impatient that it seemed impossible to endure quietly the slow passing of four days.
"It will help us to forget the examinations are so near," returned David.
He was not often willing to admit his reluctance to see approach that day when he was to try his fate, but it was plain that he could not think of it with much pleasure or confidence. It meant too much to him, and the obstacles to his proper preparation had been too great.
Monday came, Monday morning, seeming to be divided by the space of a year from Monday afternoon. Even Miss Miranda was openly nervous and as for Betsey, she could scarcely contain herself in her agony of suspense. If the scientist who was coming could actually pronounce the invention a success it would mean not only the remedying of present troubles that lay heavy on the household, but it would mark the end of a long period of struggle, self-denial and alternations of hope and discouragement.
David met Mr. Garven at the train, with the two assistants who had come with him, for this examination of a new invention, produced by a man of the reputation and skill of Mr. Reynolds, was no small thing. Betsey scanned them anxiously as they entered the house and observed that Mr. Garven was gray-haired, with a clever, alert face, possibly the same age as Miss Miranda's father, but with more of briskness and vigor. The time seemed endless to her as they sat talking to their hostess in the living room, but in reality it was brief, for it was plainly the wish of every one that the business in hand be reached at once.
Miss Miranda was very quiet, but Elizabeth could see that her hand trembled as she opened the door of the shop.
"David will show you everything," she told them. It was evident that she spoke briefly because she was too nervous to say more. She and Elizabeth lingered by the door while David led the visitors forward.
For the first time Betsey noticed the unusual order of the place. Always before, when Mr. Reynolds and David worked there, the shelves and benches had been covered with tools and drawings and the table piled with papers. She knew that no person had recently put the room to rights, for no one, not even David, dared move anything for fear of misplacing it. Yet now the shop was so bare and tidy that it seemed Mr. Reynolds himself must have set things in final order, meaning truly never to work there again.
Along the walls were ranged the earlier machines from which the great idea had developed, while at the far end of the room stood the final model, the perfected dream of ten years' toil. It was the same one that had run wild and attempted to ruin itself on that day when Betsey and David came to the rescue. The strangers bent over it examining every crank and bolt with silent, intent interest. There was nothing said for a long time. It was one of the assistants who, bursting out at last, broke the silence.
"I always knew Reynolds would have it on the rest of us," he exclaimed delightedly, laughing out loud in sheer pleasure at the greatness of the achievement. "We all said that he had not disappeared from view like this for nothing. And now he has done what every one of us would have given his eyes to accomplish!"
"Yes," assented the older man slowly, "it is the principle that we have all dreamed of, that only a very great and a very patient man could bring to reality at last. Now," to David, "we will see it in motion if you please, sir."
It is probable that all in the room held their breaths as David laid his hand upon the lever. Betsey was certain that she held hers and that she felt all dry and hollow inside, so tense was her anxiety. She listened for the familiar sound of turning wheels, the smooth rising note as they spun into motion. Every one listened—but the machine remained silent.
"There is something wrong, sir," she heard David say huskily.
"Perhaps you have not thrown the proper switch," Garven suggested, but the boy shook his head miserably.
"I have started it a hundred times," he answered; "there was never anything simpler. No, the machine is not as it used to be. There must be some parts missing."
They went over it minutely, inch by inch, all four of them, while Betsey and Miss Miranda still waited by the door.
"Certain parts have been taken out," David declared at last, "the jets are missing and these valves have been unscrewed. The machine can never go without them."
There followed a search in every drawer, on every shelf, in each nook and cranny of the whole room.
"He seems to have put them away in some very safe place," an assistant said. "It is unfortunate that he did not think that some one else might wish to use them without him. Very unfortunate and very strange."
David was standing in the middle of the room, his eye on the table, once such a litter of papers but now quite bare.
"He has burned all his drawings and plans," he observed, "and he must have destroyed those missing parts. Do you remember, Betsey, he said the machine should never run again!"
"But why, why?" demanded Garven. "This is a thing I do not understand at all."
They told him the whole story, there seemed no reason for concealment. The older man heard it through in silence.
"We worked together years ago, Reynolds and I," he said at the conclusion, "and he was the same as now, very ambitious, very tenacious of his purpose, but sometimes overwhelmed with such tempests of discouragement that he would wish to destroy all that he had done. He was worn out, I knew, his letter to me showed that, and he had a hard and a cruel blow. He has brought us to the edge of a very great discovery—and has left us there?"
"Is he so ill, Miss Reynolds, that he cannot be asked where the missing parts are?" questioned one of the other men. "Surely if he knew that his friend was here, he would want to have them produced. Could you not ask him?"
"He is half-conscious at times," Miss Miranda answered doubtfully; "I might try."
"I urge you to do so," Garven said gravely. "What he has here, if it can be proved a success should mean a fortune to him, it should mean fame and, most of all, it should mean a great step forward in men's knowledge. I think nothing should be left untried."
Miss Miranda went out reluctantly; Betsey could hear her hesitating feet upon the stairs, could hear the door open above and the low sound of consultation with the nurse. There was a long pause. One man sat down, openly fidgeting and nervous, the other stood twisting and untwisting a piece of wire between his fingers. Garven was staring silently out through the window. David still stood by the machine, his back to the others, neither moving nor speaking. It was a long, tense wait for them all. It was because Dick had been banished for the afternoon, Betsey thought, that the workshop seemed so unnaturally still without him and without those ever-moving wheels. After what seemed an endless time they heard Miss Miranda coming back.
Every face turned, even David wheeled about, but a single glance showed the result of her errand.
"He roused himself a little," she said; "he seemed to understand that you were here and to be trying to remember. And then he began to wander, he talked vaguely of water and stars and that was all. It is of no use."
They shook hands at last and went away, those three men who had brought such hope with them and could leave so little behind.
"I will be in the neighborhood for a few days," Garven said as he bade Miss Miranda good-by. "If there is anything I can do for you, my dear, be sure to send for me. And if he should remember—"
"No," she returned, shaking her head, "I will not hope any longer. We have tried and failed and the affair must be forgotten. It is all over."
David went away with them to the train and Miss Miranda returned to her father. Betsey stood at the door, watching as long as she could as they went down the hill.
"Oh, dear," she sighed out loud at last, "oh, dear!"
Hope had been so high that morning and now it was quite dead. There came also over her a sudden cold memory of something she had been glad to forget. To-morrow were the examinations!
She wandered disconsolately about the house, finding it very empty. Michael was not in the garden, Mrs. Bassett had gone on some errand, so that even the kitchen was tenantless and quite silent save for the clock ticking on the wall. She sighed again as she glanced up at it.
"Such a long day," she lamented, "and there are hours of it left!"
Very slowly she went upstairs at last. She did not wish to disturb Miss Miranda, but she was too miserable and lonely to stay longer by herself. The sick-room door was open as she stole past, so that she could see within the nurse alone beside the bed. Miss Miranda must be in the sitting room, busy with her knitting or some work that would comfort her a little.
But Miss Miranda was not knitting. She was seated before the old mahogany desk as Betsey entered, she had opened the glass doors wide and was setting the whole contents of the shelves on the flat space before her.
"I was hoping you would soon come upstairs," she said to Elizabeth. "Have I ever shown you this silver ball that came from India or told you the story that was brought with it?"
Betsey was never to forget that afternoon. Treasure after treasure Miss Miranda set before her, tale after tale she told, that carried her listener so far away that trouble, disappointment, misgivings for the morrow, were all forgotten. There were stories of strange foreign lands where sea-faring Reynolds forbears had journeyed to find endless adventures and to bring home tales of the glittering, colorful Orient. There were stories of her own youth, of her brother's absurd mishaps and deeds of daring, stories of the Northern woods where they had camped, of tramping journeys they had taken together over forested hills and marshy valleys, where moose called at twilight and deer broke cover as they came near. The hours sped, the hot sunlight moved across the room, touched the ceiling and was gone, the hard day was over. The nurse came to the door and said that Mr. Reynolds was better, was conscious and was asking for his daughter.
"Miss Miranda," said Betsey as, a little later they were returning the ornaments to the shelves where they belonged, "it was I that should have comforted you to-day, but you helped me instead. I don't understand how you know such wonderful things to tell, or have such strange treasures in your toy-cupboard."
Miss Miranda smiled. She seemed quite brave and cheerful again.
"People all have toy-cupboards," she answered, "hidden away somewhere in their hearts and minds. There are many who keep them always locked, store their memories and treasures there and never look at them again. But I think you should keep the doors open and, when things go wrong, when you are tired and discouraged and your spirit fails, you should take out your treasures and go over the beautiful things of the past and let yourself see again the quaint and curious and happy things that your life has held. If you do that I think you can never be quite unhappy, never can quite lose courage, never really grow old."