"What a funny world it is," thought Susan, smiling at the still, wise face as if she and her aunt might still share in amus.e.m.e.nt. She thought of her own pose, "never gives a thought to her own grief!" everyone said. She thought of Virginia"s pa.s.sionate and dramatic protest, "Ma carried this book when she was married, she shall have it now!" and of Mary Lou"s wail, "Oh, that I should live to see the day!" And she remembered Georgie"s care in placing the lettered ribbon where it must be seen by everyone who came in to look for the last time at the dead.
"Are we all actors? Isn"t anything real?" she wondered.
Yet the grief was real enough, after all. There was no sham in Mary Lou"s faint, after the funeral, and Virginia, drooping about the desolate house, looked shockingly pinched and thin. There was a family council in a day or two, and it was at this time that Susan meant to suggest that the boarding-house be carried on between them all.
Alfred and his wife, and Georgie and the doctor came to the house for this talk; Billy had been staying there, and Mr. Ferd Eastman, in answer to a telegram, had come down for the funeral and was still in the city.
They gathered, a sober, black-dressed group, in the cold and dreary parlor, Ferd Eastman looking almost indecorously cheerful and rosy, in his checked suit and with his big diamond ring glittering on his fat hand. There was no will to read, but Billy had ascertained what none of the sisters knew, the exact figures of the mortgage, the value of the contents of Mrs. Lancaster"s locked tin box, the size and number of various outstanding bills. He spread a great number of papers out before him on a small table; Alfred, who appeared to be sleepy, after the strain of the past week, yawned, started up blinking, attempted to take an intelligent interest in the conversation; Georgie, thinking of her nursing baby, was eager to hurry everything through.
"Now, about you girls," said Billy. "Sue feels that you might make a good thing of it if you stayed on here. What do you think?"
"Well, Billy--well, Ferd---" Everyone turned to look at Mary Lou, who was stammering and blushing in a most peculiar way. Mr. Eastman put his arm about her. Part of the truth flashed on Susan.
"You"re going to be married!" she gasped. But this was the moment for which Ferd had been waiting.
"We are married, good people," he said buoyantly. "This young lady and I gave you all the slip two weeks ago!"
Susan rushed to kiss the bride, but upon Virginia"s bursting into hysterical tears, and Georgie turning faint, Mary Lou very sensibly set about restoring her sisters" composure, and, even on this occasion, took a secondary part.
"Perhaps you had some reason---" said Georgie, faintly, turning reproachful eyes upon the newly wedded pair.
"But, with poor Ma just gone!" Virginia burst into tears again.
"Ma knew," sobbed Mary Lou, quite overcome. "Ferd--Ferd---" she began with difficulty, "didn"t want to wait, and I WOULDN"T,--so soon after poor Grace!" Grace had been the first wife. "And so, just before Ma"s birthday, he took us to lunch--we went to Swains---"
"I remember the day!" said Virginia, in solemn affirmation.
"And we were quietly married afterward," said Ferd, himself, soothingly, his arm about his wife, "and Mary Lou"s dear mother was very happy about it. Don"t cry, dear---"
Susan had disliked the man once, but she could find no fault with his tender solicitude for the long-neglected Mary Lou. And when the first crying and exclaiming were over, there was a very practical satisfaction in the thought of Mary Lou as a prosperous man"s wife, and Virginia provided for, for a time at least. Susan seemed to feel fetters slipping away from her at every second.
Mr. Eastman took them all to lunch, at a modest table d"hote in the neighborhood, tipped the waiter munificently, asked in an aside for a special wine, which was of course not forthcoming. Susan enjoyed the affair with a little of her old spirit, and kept them all talking and friendly. Georgie, perhaps a little dashed by Mary Lou"s recently acquired state, told Susan in a significant aside, as a doctor"s wife, that it was very improbable that Mary Lou, at her age, would have children; "seems such a pity!" said Georgie, shrugging. Virginia, to her new brother-in-law"s cheerful promise to find her a good husband within the year, responded, with a little resentful dignity, "It seems a little soon, to me, to be JOKING, Ferd!"
But on the whole it was a very harmonious meal. The Eastmans were to leave the next day for a belated honeymoon; to Susan and Virginia and Billy would fall the work of closing up the Fulton Street house.
"And what about you, Sue?" asked Billy, as they were walking home that afternoon.
"I"m going to New York, Bill," she answered. And, with a memory of the times she had told him that before, she turned to him a sudden smile.
"--But I mean it this time!" said Susan cheerfully. "I went to see Miss Toland, of the Alexander Toland Settlement House, a few weeks ago, about working there. She told me frankly that they have all they need of untrained help. But she said, "Miss Brown, if you COULD take a year"s course in New York, you"d be a treasure!" And so I"m going to borrow the money from Ferd, Bill. I hate to do it, but I"m going to.
And the first thing you know I"ll be in the Potrero, right near your beloved Iron Works, teaching the infants of that region how to make b.u.t.tonholes and cook chuck steak!"
"How much money do you want?" he asked, after a moment"s silence.
"Three hundred."
"Three hundred! The fare is one hundred!"
"I know it. But I"m going to work my way through the course, Bill, even if I have to go out as a nurse-girl, and study at night."
Billy said nothing for awhile. But before they parted he went back to the subject.
"I"ll let you have the three hundred, Sue, or five hundred, if you like. Borrow it from me, you know me a good deal better than you do Ferd Eastman!"
The next day the work of demolishing the boarding-house began. Susan and Virginia lived with Georgie for these days, but lunched in the confusion of the old home. It seemed strange, and vaguely sad, to see the long-crowded rooms empty and bare, with winter sunlight falling in clear sharp lines across the dusty, un-carpeted floors. A hundred old scars and stains showed on the denuded walls; there were fresher squares on the dark, faded old papers, where the pictures had been hung; Susan recognized the outline of Mary Lord"s mirror, and Mrs.
Parker"s crucifix. The kitchen was cold and desolate, a pool of water on the cold stove, a smooth thin cake of yellow soap in a thick saucer, on the sink, a drift of newspapers on the floor, and old brooms a.s.sembled in a corner.
More than the mortgage, the forced sale of the old house had brought only a few hundreds of dollars. It was to be torn down at once, and Susan felt a curious stirring of sadness as she went through the strange yet familiar rooms for the last time.
"Lord, how familiar it all is!" said Billy, "the block and the bakery!
I can remember the first time I saw it."
The locked house was behind them, they had come down the street steps, and turned for a last look at the blank windows.
"I remember coming here after my father died," Susan said. "You gave me a little cologne bottle filled with water, and one of those spools that one braids worsted through, do you remember?"
"Do you remember Miss Fish,--the old girl whose canary we hit with a ball? And the second-hand type-writer we were always saving up for?"
"And the day we marked up the steps with chalk and Auntie sent us out with wet rags?"
"Lord--Lord!" They were both smiling as they walked away.
"Shall you go to Nevada City with the Eastmans, Sue?"
"No, I don"t think so. I"ll stay with Georgie for a week, and get things straightened out."
"Well, suppose we go off and have dinner somewhere, to-morrow?"
"Oh, I"d love it! It"s terribly gloomy at Georgie"s. But I"m going over to see the Carrolls to-morrow, and they may want to keep me---"
"They won"t!" said Billy grimly.
"WON"T?" Susan echoed, astonished.
"No," Billy said with a sigh. "Mrs. Carroll"s been awfully queer since--since Jo, you know---"
"Why, Bill, she was so wonderful!"
"Just at first, yes. But she"s gone into a sort of melancholia, now, Phil was telling me about it."
"But that doesn"t sound a bit like her," Susan said, worriedly.
"No, does it? But go over and see them anyway, it"ll do them all good.
Well--look your last at the old block, Sue!"
Susan got on the car, leaning back for a long, goodbye look at the shabby block, duller than ever in the grimy winter light, and at the dirt and papers and chaff drifting up against the railings, and at the bakery window, with its pies and bread and Nottingham lace curtains.
Fulton Street was a thing of the past.