Freight outward bound. A train making up.
Mr. Ledwith turned to his newspaper again.
Ten minutes went by. Kenneth Kincaid got up and went out, like many others. They might be kept there half an hour.
Mr. Ledwith had read all his paper, and began to grow impatient. He put his head out at the window, and looked and listened. Half the pa.s.sengers were outside. Brake-men were walking up and down.
"Has he got a flag out there?" says the conductor to one of these.
"Don"t know. Can"t see. Yes, he has; I heard him whistle brakes."
Just then, their own bell sounded, and men jumped on board. Kenneth Kincaid came back to his seat.
Behind, there was a long New York train coming in.
Mr. Ledwith put his head out again, and looked back. All right; there had been a flag; the train had slackened just beyond a curve.
But why will people do such things? What is the use of asking? Mr.
Ledwith still looked out; he could not have told you why.
A quicker motion; a darkening of the window; a freight car standing upon a siding, close to the switch, as they pa.s.sed by; a sudden, dull blow, half unheard in the rumble of the train. Women, sitting behind, sprang up,--screamed; one dropped, fainting: they had seen a ghastly sight; warm drops of blood flew in upon them; the car was in commotion.
Kenneth Kincaid, with an exclamation of horror, clutched hold of a lifeless body that fell--was thrust--backward beside him; the poor head fractured, shattered, against the fatal window frame.
The eleven o"clock train came out.
People came up the street,--a group of gentlemen, three or four,--toward Mr. Prendible"s house.
Desire sat in a back window behind the blinds, busy. Mrs. Ledwith was lying on the bed.
Steps came in at the house door.
There was an exclamation; a hush. Mr. Prendible"s voice, Kenneth Kincaid"s, Mr. Dimsey"s, the minister"s.
"O! How? "--Mrs. Prendible"s voice, now.
"Take care!"
"Where are they?"
Mrs. Ledwith heard.
"What is the matter?"--springing up, with a sudden instinct of precognition.
Desire had not seen or heard till now. She dropped her work.
"What is it, mother?"
Mrs. Ledwith was up, upon the floor; in the doorway out in the pa.s.sage; trembling; seized all over with a horrible dread and vague knowledge.
"_Tell_ me what it is!" she cried, to those down below.
They were all there upon the staircase; Mrs. Prendible furthest up.
"O, Mrs. Ledwith!" she cried. "_Don"t_ be frightened! _Don"t_ take on! Take it easy,--do!"
Desire rushed down among them; past Mrs. Prendible, past the minister, straight to Kenneth Kincaid.
Kenneth took her right in his arms, and carried her into a little room below.
"There could have been no pain," he said, tenderly. "It was the accident of a moment. Be strong,--be patient, dear!"
There had been tender words natural to his lips lately. It was not strange that in his great pity he used them now.
"My father!" gasped Desire.
"Yes; your father. It was our Father"s will."
"Help me to go to my mother!"
She took his hand, half blind, almost reeling.
And then they all, somehow, found themselves up-stairs.
There were moans of pain; there were words of prayer. We have no right there. It is all told.
"Be strong,--be patient, dear!"
It came back, in the midst of the darkness, the misery; it helped her through those days; it made her strong for her mother. It comforted her, she hardly knew how much; but O, how cruel it seemed afterward!
They went directly down to Boston. Mr. Ledwith was buried from their own house. It was all over; and now, what should they do? Uncle t.i.tus came to see them. Mrs. Ripwinkley came right back from Homesworth. Dorris Kincaid left her summer-time all behind, and came to stay with them a week in Shubarton Place. Mrs. Ledwith craved companionship; her elder daughters were away; there were these five weeks to go by until she could hear from them. She would not read their letters that came now, full of chat and travel.
Poor Laura! her family scattered; her dependence gone; her life all broken down in a moment!
Dorris Kincaid did not speak of Kenneth and Rosamond. How could she bring news of others" gladness into that dim and sorrowful house?
Luclarion Grapp shut up her rooms, left her plants and her birds with Mrs. Gallilee, and came up to Shubarton Place in the beginning.
There were no servants there; everything was adrift; the terrible blows of life take people between the harness, most unprovided, unawares.
It was only for a little while, until they could hear from the girls, and make plans. Grant Ledwith"s income died with him; there was ten thousand dollars, life insurance; that would give them a little more than a sixth part of what his salary had been; and there were the two thousand a year of Uncle t.i.tus; and the house, on which there was a twelve thousand dollar mortgage.
Mrs. Ledwith had spent her life in cutting and turning and planning; after the first shock was over, even her grief was counterpoised and abated, by the absorption of her thoughts into the old channels.
What they should do, how they should live, what they could have; how it should be contrived and arranged. Her mind busied itself with all this, and her trouble was veiled,--softened. She had a dozen different visions and schemes, projected into their details of residence, establishment, dress, ordering,--before the letters came, bringing back the first terribleness in the first reception of and response to it, of her elder children.