"That would be a great help," William King said. "Then Dr. Lavendar can have plenty of time to find a home for him. I would have been glad to take him myself, but just at present it happens that it is not--I should say, Mrs. King is very tired, and--"
"It is perfectly convenient for me," Mrs. Richie said, "if you"ll only cure Maggie! You must cure Maggie, so that she can make cookies for him."
"I"ll cure Maggie," the doctor a.s.sured her smiling, and went away much pleased with himself. But when he got into his shabby old buggy he sighed.
"Poor soul!" he said. "Poor soul!"
CHAPTER III
William King reported the result of his call to Dr. Lavendar, and when he told the tragic story of the dead baby the old man blinked and shook his head.
"Do you wonder she doesn"t call herself Mrs. _Frederick_ Richie?"
William demanded. "I don"t!"
"No; that"s natural, that"s natural," Dr. Lavendar admitted.
"I suppose it was a dreadful thing to say," said William, "but I just burst out and said that if ever there was an excuse for divorce, she had it!"
"What did she say?"
"Oh, of course, that she hadn"t been divorced. I was ashamed of myself the next minute for speaking of such a thing."
"Poor child," said Dr. Lavendar, "living up there alone, and with such memories! I guess you"re right; I guess she"d like to have little David, if only for company. But I think I"ll keep him for a week or two myself, and let her get sort of acquainted with him under my eye.
That will give me a chance to get acquainted with her. But to think I haven"t known about that baby until now! It must be my fault that she was not drawn to tell me. But I"m afraid I wasn"t drawn to her just at first."
Yet Dr. Lavendar was not altogether at fault. This newcomer in Old Chester was still a stranger to everybody, except to Sam Wright"s Sam and to William King. To be sure, as soon as she was settled in her house Old Chester had called and asked her to tea, and was confused and annoyed because its invitations were not accepted. Furthermore, she did not return the calls. She went to church, but not very regularly, and she never stopped to gossip in the vestibule or the church-yard. Even with Dr. Lavendar she was remote. The first time he went to see her he asked, with his usual directness, one or two questions: Did Mr. Pryor live in Mercer? No; he had business that brought him there occasionally. Where did he live? In Philadelphia.
Had she any relatives in this part of the world--except her brother?
No, none; none anywhere. Was Mr. Pryor married? Yes. Had he any family? One daughter; his wife was dead. "And you have lost your husband?" Dr. Lavendar said, gently. "This is a lonely life for you here, I am afraid."
But she said oh, no; not at all; she liked the quiet. Then, with faint impatience as if she did not care to talk about her own affairs, she added that she had always lived in the East; "but I find it very pleasant here," she ended vaguely.
Dr. Lavendar had gone away uneasy and puzzled. Why didn"t she live with her brother? Family differences no doubt. Curious how families fall out! "You"d think they"d be glad to hang together," the solitary old man thought; "and they are not necessarily bad folk who quarrel.
Look at Sam and his boy. Both of "em good as gold. But it"s in the blood there," he said to himself sighing.
Sam and his son were not bad folk. The boy had nothing bad about him; nothing worse than an unexpectedness that had provided Old Chester with smiles for many years. "No; he is not bad; I have seen to _that_," his father used to say. "He"s hardly been out of my sight twenty-four hours at a time. And I put my foot down on college with all its temptations. He"s good--if he"s nothing else!" And certainly Samuel Wright was good too. Everybody in Old Chester said so. He said so himself. "I, my dear Eliza, have nothing with which to reproach myself," he used to tell his wife ponderously in moments of conjugal unbending. "I have done my duty. I always do my duty; under all circ.u.mstances. I am doing my duty now by Sam."
This was when he and his son fell out on one point or another, as they had begun to do as soon as young Sam learned to talk; and all because the father insisted upon furnishing the boy with his own most excellent principles and theories, instead of letting the lad manufacture such things for himself. Now when Sam was twenty-three the falling-out had become chronic. No doubt it was in the blood, as Dr.
Lavendar said. Some thirty years before, Sam senior, then a slim and dreamy youth, light-hearted and given to writing verses, had fallen out with his father, old Benjamin Wright; fallen out so finally that in all these years since, the two men, father and son, had not spoken one word to each other. If anybody might have been supposed to know the cause of that thirty-year-old feud it was Dr. Lavendar. He certainly saw the beginning of it....
One stormy March evening Samuel Wright, then twenty-four years old, knocked at the Rectory door; Dr. Lavendar, shielding his lamp from the wind with one hand, opened it himself.
"Why, Sam, my boy," he said and stopped abruptly. He led the way into his study and put the lamp down on the table. "Something is the matter?"
"Yes."
"What is it, Samuel?"
"I can"t tell you, sir."
"Does your father know?"
"My father knows.... I will tell you this, Dr. Lavendar--that so help me G.o.d, I will never speak to my father again."
The young man lifted one hand; his face was dreadful to look upon.
Then trying to speak in a natural voice he asked if he might stay at the Rectory for that night.
Dr. Lavendar took two turns about his study, then he said, "Of course you may, Samuel, but I shall feel it my duty to acquaint your father with the fact."
"Just as you please, sir."
"And Sam--I hope the night will bring wisdom."
Sam was silent.
"I shall see your father in the morning and try to clear this thing up."
"Just as you please, sir. I would like to go to my room now if you have no objection."
And that was all Dr. Lavendar got out of the son.
He lighted a lamp and silently preceded his guest up-stairs; then he went back to his study and wrote a line to the father. He sent it out to the Wright house and sat up until midnight waiting for an answer.
None came. "Well," said Dr. Lavendar at last trudging up to bed, "the boy comes by his obstinacy honestly." The next morning he went early to see Mr. Benjamin Wright. But as far as any straightening out of the trouble went or any enlightenment as to its cause, he might as well have stayed at home.
"Sam send you?"
"No; I came to see what I could do for you both. I take it for granted that Sam is at fault in some way? But he is a good boy, so I am sure he can be made to see his error."
"Did he tell you what was the trouble?"
"No; will you?"
"Let him come back and behave himself!" the older man said.
Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip with a thoughtful frown. "It would expedite things, Wright, if you could tell me a little about the affair?"
Mr. Wright hesitated. He thrust his hand down into a blue ginger-jar for a piece of dried orange-skin and bit at it as if to steady his lips. "Sam can tell you if he wants to. He has perhaps informed you that he wishes to see the world? That he thinks life here very narrow?
No? Well, I sha"n"t quote him. All I shall say, is that I am doing my duty to him. I"ve always done my duty to him. If he sees fit to set up his own Ebenezer, and say he won"t speak to me--I suppose he conveyed that filial sentiment to you?--he can do so. When he gets hungry he can speak. That"s what other puppies do when they are hungry."
And that was all Dr. Lavendar got out of the father....
This was thirty-two years ago. Sain Wright may have been hungry, but he never spoke. Instead, he worked. Old Chester seethed with curiosity for a while--to see Benjamin Wright pa.s.s his son with a contemptuous stare, to see Sam pa.s.s his father without a glance was very exciting.
But excitement ebbs in thirty-two years. For one thing, old Mr. Wright came less often into town--because he could not bear to meet his son, people said; and Samuel never took the hill road out of Old Chester for a corresponding reason. Furthermore, it was hard to connect Samuel with anything so irrational as a quarrel, for every year he grew in solemn common sense. Benjamin Wright"s growth was all in the way of temper; at least so his boy Simmons, a freckled mulatto of sixty years, informed Old Chester.
"He "ain"t got no human feelin"s, "cept for them there canaries,"