"_Married!_" Like a flash he turned and stopped short, staring at me.
"Why, yes," I explained; "for if she _did_ get married, she wouldn"t be divorced any longer, would she?"
But he wouldn"t answer. With a queer little noise in his throat he turned again and began to walk up and down, up and down, until I thought for a minute he"d forgotten I was there. But he hadn"t. For after a while he stopped again right in front of me.
"So your mother is thinking of getting married," he said in a voice so queer it sounded as if it had come from away off somewhere.
But I shook my head and said no, of course; and that I was very sure she wouldn"t till her year was up, and even then I didn"t know which she"d take, so I couldn"t tell for sure anything about it. But I hoped she"d take one of them, so she wouldn"t be divorced any longer.
"But you don"t know _which_ she"ll take," grunted Father again. He turned then, and began to walk up and down again, with his hands in his pockets; and I didn"t know whether to go away or to stay, and I suppose I"d have been there now if Aunt Jane hadn"t suddenly appeared in the library doorway.
"Charles, if Mary is going to school at all to-day it is high time she was starting," she said. But Father didn"t seem to hear. He was still tramping up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.
"Charles!" Aunt Jane raised her voice and spoke again. "I said if Mary is going to school at all to-day it is high time she was starting."
"Eh? What?" If you"ll believe it, that man looked as dazed as if he"d never even _heard_ of my going to school. Then suddenly his face changed. "Oh, yes, to be sure. Well, er--Mary is not going to school to-day," he said. Then he looked at his watch, and without another word strode into the hall, got his hat, and left the house, leaving Aunt Jane and me staring into each other"s faces.
But I didn"t stay much longer than Father did. I strode into the hall, too, by Aunt Jane. But I didn"t leave the house. I came up here to my own room; and ever since I"ve been writing it all down in my book.
Of course, I don"t know now what"s going to happen next. But I _wish_ you could have seen Aunt Jane"s face when Father said I wasn"t going to school to-day! I don"t believe she"s sure yet that she heard aright--though she didn"t try to stop me, or even speak when I left and came upstairs. But I just know she"s keeping up a powerful thinking.
For that matter, so am I. What _is_ going to happen next? Have I got to go to school to-morrow? But then, of course, I shan"t do that.
Besides, I don"t believe Father"ll ask me to, after what I said about Mother. _He_ didn"t like that--what those girls said--any better than I did. I"m sure of that. Why, he looked simply furious. But there isn"t any other school here that I can be sent to, and--
But what"s the use? I might surmise and speculate all day and not come anywhere near the truth. I must await--what the night will bring forth, as they say in really truly novels.
_Four days later_.
And what did the night bring forth? Yes, what did it bring! Verily it brought forth one thing I thought nothing ever could have brought forth.
It was like this.
That night at the supper-table Aunt Jane cleared her throat in the I-am-determined-I-will-speak kind of a way that she always uses when she speaks to Father. (Aunt. Jane doesn"t talk to Father much more than Mother used to.)
"Charles," she began.
Father had an astronomy paper beside his plate, and he was so busy reading he didn"t hear, so Aunt Jane had to speak again--a little louder this time.
"Charles, I have something to say to you."
"Eh? What? Oh--er--yes. Well, Jane, what is it?" Father was looking up with his I"ll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me air, and with his forefinger down on his paper to keep his place.
As if anybody could talk to a person who"s simply tolerating you for a minute like that, with his forefinger holding on to what he _wants_ to tend to! Why, I actually found myself being sorry for Aunt Jane.
She cleared her throat again.
"It is understood, of course, that Mary is to go to school to-morrow morning, I suppose," she said.
"Why, of course, of course," began Father impatiently, looking down at his paper. "Of course she"ll go to--" he stopped suddenly. A complete change came to his face. He grew red, then white. His eyes sort of flashed. "School?" he said then, in a hard, decided voice. "Oh, no; Mary is not going to school to-morrow morning." He looked down to his paper and began to read again. For him the subject was very evidently closed. But for Aunt Jane it was _not_ closed.
"You don"t mean, Charles, that she is not to go to school at all, any more," she gasped.
"Exactly." Father read on in his paper without looking up.
"But, Charles, to stop her school like this!"
"Why not? It closes in a week or two, anyway."
Aunt Jane"s lips came together hard.
"That"s not the question at all," she said, cold like ice. "Charles, I"m amazed at you--yielding to that child"s whims like this--that she doesn"t want to go to school! It"s the principle of the thing that I"m objecting to. Do you realize what it will lead to--what it--"
"Jane!" With a jerk Father sat up straight. "I realize some things that perhaps you do not. But that is neither here nor there. I do not wish Mary to go to school any more this spring. That is all; and I think--it is sufficient."
"Certainly." Aunt Jane"s lips came together again grim and hard.
"Perhaps you will be good enough to say what she _shall_ do with her time."
"Time? Do? Why--er--what she always does; read, sew, study--"
"Study?" Aunt Jane asked the question with a hateful little smile that Father would have been blind not to have understood. And he was equal to it--but I "most fell over backward when I found _how_ equal to it he was.
"Certainly," he says, "study. I--I"ll hear her lessons myself--in the library, after I come home in the afternoon. Now let us hear no more about it."
With that he pushed back his plate, stuffed his astronomy paper into his pocket, and left the table, without waiting for dessert. And Aunt Jane and I were left alone.
I didn"t say anything. Victors shouldn"t boast--and I was a victor, of course, about the school. But when I thought of what Father had said about my reciting my lessons to him every day in the library--I wasn"t so sure whether I"d won out or not. Recite lessons to my father? Why, I couldn"t even imagine such a thing!
Aunt Jane didn"t say anything either. I guess she didn"t know what to say. And it was kind of a queer situation, when you came right down to it. Both of us sitting there and knowing I wasn"t going back to school any more, and I knowing why, and knowing Aunt Jane didn"t know why.
(Of course I hadn"t told Aunt Jane about Mother and Mrs. Mayhew.) It would be a funny world, wouldn"t it, if we all knew what each other was thinking all the time? Why, we"d get so we wouldn"t do anything _but_ think--for there wouldn"t any of us _speak_ to each other, I"m afraid, we"d be so angry at what the other was thinking.
Well, Aunt Jane and I didn"t speak that night at the supper-table. We finished in stern silence; then Aunt Jane went upstairs to her room and I went up to mine. (You see what a perfectly wildly exciting life Mary is living! And when I think of how _full_ of good times Mother wanted every minute to be. But that was for Marie, of course.)
The next morning after breakfast Aunt Jane said:
"You will spend your forenoon studying, Mary. See that you learn well your lessons, so as not to annoy your father."
"Yes, Aunt Jane," said Mary, polite and proper, and went upstairs obediently; but even Mary didn"t know exactly how to study those lessons.
Carrie had brought me all my books from school. I had asked her to when I knew that I was not going back. There were the lessons that had been a.s.signed for the next day, of course, and I supposed probably Father would want me to study those. But I couldn"t imagine Father teaching _me_ all alone. And how was I ever going to ask him questions, if there were things I didn"t understand? Besides, I couldn"t imagine myself reciting lessons to Father--_Father_!
But I needn"t have worried. If I could only have known. Little did I think--But, there, this is no way to tell a story. I read in a book, "How to Write a Novel," that you mustn"t "antic.i.p.ate." (_I_ thought folks always antic.i.p.ated novels. I do. I thought you wanted them to.)
Well, to go on.
Father got home at four o"clock. I saw him come up the walk, and I waited till I was sure he"d got settled in the library, then I went down.
_He wasn"t there_.