_Dead._
How long he had been about dying. Thirteen years ago Lloyd had said, "He"ll drink himself to death in six months; and then--!" Well; at least part of the programme was carried out: he drank. But he did not die. No; he went on living, living, living! That first year they were constantly asking each other for news of him: "Have you heard anything?" "Yes; an awful debauch. Oh, he can"t stand it. He"ll be in his grave before Christmas." But Christmas came, and Frederick was still living. Then it was "before spring"--"before fall"--"before Christmas" again. And yet he went on living. And she had gone on living, too. At first, joyously, except when she brooded over the baby"s death; then impatiently--for Frederick would not die! Then, gradually, gradually, with weary acceptance of the situation. Only in the last two or three years had she begun to live anxiously, as she realized how easily Lloyd was accepting Frederick"s lease of life.
Less and less often he inquired whether Mr. Raynor had mentioned Frederick"s health in the letter that came with her quarterly statement. By and by, it was she, not Lloyd, who asked, "Have you heard anything of Frederick?"
The house was quite silent now, except when Sarah trudged up the back stairs with the clanking silver-basket on her arm. The lamp on the corner of her bureau flickered, and a spark wavered up the chimney; the oil was gone and the wick charring. She got up and blew the smouldering flame out; then sat down again in the darkness.... Yes; Lloyd was no longer vitally interested in Frederick"s health. She must make up her mind to that. But after all, what difference did that make? He loved her just the same, only men are not like women, they don"t keep on saying so,--for that matter, she herself did not say so as often as in those first days. But of course she loved him just as much. She had grown a little dull, she supposed. No; she would not distrust him. She was sure he loved her. Yet behind her most emphatic a.s.sertions cowered that dumb apprehension which had struck its cold talons into her heart the day that David had hurt his hand: ...
_Suppose Frederick"s death should be an embarra.s.sment to Lloyd!_
In the darkness, with the brush of the locust branches against the closed shutters of the east window, her face blazed with angry color, and she threw her head up with a surge of pride. "If he doesn"t want me, I don"t want him!" she said aloud. She pulled the lace bertha from her shoulders, and began to take out her hairpins, "I sha"n"t be the one to say "Let us be married.""
When she lay down in the darkness, her eyes wide open, her arms straight at her sides, it flashed into her mind that Frederick was lying still and straight, too. His face must be white, now; sunken, perhaps; the leer of his pale eyes changed into the sly smile of the dead. _Dead._ Oh, at last, at last!--and her mind rushed back to its own affairs....That horrible old Mr. Wright and his insinuations; how she had worried over them and over the difficulty of getting away from Old Chester, only that afternoon. Ah, well, she need never think of such things again, for never again could any one have an insulting thought about her; and as for her fear that Lloyd would not want her to leave Old Chester--why, he would take her away himself! And once outside of Old Chester, she would have a place in the world like other women. She was conscious of a sudden and pa.s.sionate elation: _Like other women._ The very words were triumphant! Yes; like that dreadful Mrs. King; oh, how intolerably stupid the woman was, how she disliked her; but when Lloyd came and they went away together, she would be like Mrs. King! She drew an exultant breath and smiled proudly in the darkness. For the moment the cowering fear was forgotten....How soon could he come? He ought to have the telegram by ten the next morning--too late to catch the express for Mercer. He would take the night train, and arrive at noon on Sat.u.r.day. A day and a half to wait. And at that she realized with sudden astonishment that it was still Thursday. It seemed hours and hours since she had read that telegram. Yet it was scarcely an hour ago that she had been dancing the Virginia reel with those terrible people! A little later she had noticed William King lingering behind the departing guests; how annoyed she had been at his slowness. Then he had taken that envelope out of his pocket--she gasped again, remembering the shock of its contents.
In this tumult of broken and incoherent thought, the night pa.s.sed. It was not until dawn that her mind cleared enough for consecutive thinking, and when it did she was so fatigued that she fell asleep and slept heavily till awakened by an anxious knock at her door. Had Mrs.
Richie one of her headaches? Should Sarah bring her some coffee?
"Why, what time is it? Has David gone to school? What! ten o"clock!"
She was broad awake at that--he must have got the despatch. Allowing for delays, his answer ought to reach her by noon.
She sprang up with the instinct to do something to get ready! She began to plan her packing, the thrill of action tingling through her.
She dressed hurriedly, looking incessantly at the clock, and then laughing to herself. What difference did it make how late it was? By no possibility could Lloyd appear on the morning stage; unless, yes, it _was_ possible; Mr. Raynor might have telegraphed him. No; Mr.
Raynor had never recognized the situation. Lloyd could not reach her until noon on Sat.u.r.day; he could only telegraph. She sighed and resigned herself to facts, drinking the coffee Sarah brought her, and asking whether David was all right. "Poor darling, having his breakfast all alone," she said. Then she looked at the clock; Lloyd"s despatch could hardly arrive for another hour.
The still, hot morning stretched interminably before her. A dozen times it was on her lips to order the trunks brought down from the garret. A dozen times some undefined sense of fitness held her back.
When his answer came, when he actually said the word--then; but not till then.... What time was it? After eleven! She would go into the garden, where she could look down the road and have the first glimpse of Eddy Minns climbing the hill. With her thoughts in galloping confusion, she put on her flat hat with its twist of white lace about the crown, and went out into the heat. From the bench under the big poplar she looked across at the girdling hills, blue and hot in the still flood of noon; below her was the valley, now a sea of treetops islanded with Old Chester roofs and chimneys; there was no gleam of the river through the midsummer foliage. She took her watch out of the little watch-pocket at her waist--nearly twelve! If he had got the despatch at nine, it was surely time for an answer. Still, so many things might have happened to delay it. He might have been late in getting to his office; or, for that matter, Eddy Minns might be slow about coming up the hill. Everybody was slow in Old Chester!
The empty road ran down to the foot of the hill, no trudging messenger climbed its hot slope. Twelve.
"I"ll not look at the road for five minutes," she told herself, resolutely, and sat staring at the watch open in her hand. Five minutes later she snapped the lid shut, and looked. Blazing, unbroken sunshine. "It ought to have been here by this time," she thought with a tightening of her lips. Perhaps he was away? Her heart sank at that; but how absurd! Suppose he was. What did a few hours" waiting amount to? She had waited thirteen years.
For another hour she watched in the heat and silence of the garden; then started to hear Sarah, at her elbow, saying that dinner was on the table.
"Very well," she answered impatiently. "I"ll wait another five minutes," she said to herself. But she waited ten. When she sat down in the dining-room, she ate almost nothing. Once she asked Sarah if she knew how long it took for a despatch to come from Philadelphia to Old Chester. Sarah gaped at the question, and said she didn"t know as she"d ever heard.
In the afternoon, with covert glances out of the window, she kept indoors and tried to put her mind on practical things: the arrangements with her landlord for cancelling the lease; the packing and shipping of furniture. At last, on a sudden impulse, she said to herself that she would go and meet David as he came home from school-- and call at the telegraph-office.
In the post-office, where the telegraph bound Old Chester to the outer world, Mrs. Minns, looking up from her knitting, saw the tense face at the delivery window.
"No letters for you, Mrs. Richie," she said; then she remembered the telegram that had by this time interested all Old Chester, and got up and came forward, sympathetically curious. "Well"m; I suppose there"s a good deal of dyin" this time of year?"
"Have you a despatch for me?" Mrs. Richie said curtly.
"No"m;" said Mrs. Minns.
"Did Dr. King send a telegram for me this morning?" she asked in a sudden panic of alarm.
"Yes"m," the postmistress said, "he sent it."
Mrs. Richie turned away, and began to walk about the office; up and down, up and down. Once she stopped and read the names on the pigeonholes of the letter-rack; once the telegraph instrument clicked, and she held her breath: "Is that mine?"
"It ain"t," Mrs. Minns said laconically.
Helena went to the open doorway, and gazed blankly out into Main Street. She might as well go home; he wasn"t going to telegraph. She told herself that he was out of town, and had not received her despatch. But her explanation was not convincing; if he was away, the despatch would have been forwarded to him. It must be that as he was coming on Sat.u.r.day, he had not thought it worth while to telegraph.
She wandered aimlessly out into the hot street--there was no use waiting any longer; and as for meeting David, he had gone home long ago.
As she went up the street, Dr. Lavendar stopped her. He had been told that the news of the night before did not mean affliction, but Dr.
Lavendar knew that there are worse things than affliction, so he stood ready to offer comfort if it was needed. But apparently it was not wanted, and after a minute"s pause, he began to speak of his own affairs: "I"ve been wondering if you would trust David to me for two or three days in October."
"David?" she repeated, blankly; her mind was very far away from David.
"I have to go to Philadelphia then;" Dr. Lavendar was really eager; "and if you will let me take him along--I guess Rose Knight will let him off--we would have a fine time!"
"Certainly, Dr. Lavendar," she said, courteously. But she thought quickly, that she and David would not be in Old Chester in October.
However, she could not explain that to Dr. Lavendar. It was easier to say yes, and be done with it. "Good evening," she added impatiently, for the old gentleman would have kept her indefinitely, talking about David.
But as she climbed the hill her mind went out to the child with the relief of one who in darkness opens a door towards the light. She found him in the parlor, curled up in a big chair by the window, looking at a picture-book. He climbed down immediately, and came and took her hand in his, a demonstration of affection so unusual that she caught him in her arms and might have cuddled him with the undesired "forty kisses," if he had not gently moved his head aside. But her eyes were so blurred with tears of fatigue and Fright she did not notice the rebuff.
The next twenty-four hours were tense with expectation and fear.
Helena"s mind veered almost with every breath: He had not telegraphed because he had not received her despatch; because he was away from home; because he was coming on Sat.u.r.day;--_because he was sorry Frederick was dead..._
Sat.u.r.day morning she and David watched the hill road from nine o"clock until stage-time. From the green bench under the poplar, the tavern porch on Main Street could just be seen; and at a little before twelve Jonas"s lean, shambling nags drew up before it. Mrs. Richie was very pale. David, fretting at the dullness of the morning, asked her some question, but She did not hear him, and he pulled at her skirt. "Does everything grow?"
"Yes, dear, yes; I suppose so."
"How big is everything when it begins to grow?"
"Oh, dear little boy, don"t ask so many questions!"
"When you began to grow, how big were you? Were you an inch big?"
"If he has come," she said breathlessly, "the stage will get up here in fifteen minutes!"
David sighed.
"Oh, why don"t they start?" she panted; "what _is_ the matter!"
"It"s starting," David said.
"Come, David, hurry!" she cried. "We must be at the gate!" She took his hand, and ran down the path to the gate in the hedge. As she stood there, panting, she pressed her fingers hard on her lips; they must not quiver before the child. She kept her watch in her hand. "It isn"t time yet to see them; it will take Jonas ten minutes to get around to the foot of the hill."
Overhead the flicker of locust leaves cast checkering lights and shadows on her white dress and across the strained anxiety of her face. She kept her eyes on her watch, and the ten minutes pa.s.sed in silence. Then she went out into the road and looked down its length of noon-tide sunshine; the stage was not in sight. "Perhaps," she thought, "it would take twenty minutes to get to the foot of the hill?
I"ll not look down the road for ten minutes more." After a while she said faintly, "Is it--coming?"
"No"m," David a.s.sured her, "Mrs. Richie, what does G.o.d eat?"
There was no answer.
"Does he eat us?"
"No, of course not."