Sam looked down at his hands clasped about his knees, and blushed faintly. "Oh, nothing; I was very young when that happened."
"How did it happen?" she asked absently. It was often possible to start Sam talking and then think her own thoughts without interruption.
"Why, I was about twelve, I believe," Sam said, "and Miss Ellen Bailey--she used to teach school here, then she got married and went out West;--she gave me a little gold image of Pasht, at least I thought it was gold. It was one of those things you ladies wear on your watch-chains, you know,"
"Yes?" she said indolently.
"Well, I took a tremendous fancy to it. But it seems it wasn"t gold, it was bra.s.s, and somebody told me so; I think it was Miss Ellen herself. I was so disappointed, I didn"t want to live--queer! I can remember now just how I felt; a sort of sinking, here;" Sam laid his hand on his breast, "So I decided to throw myself out of the window. I did; but unfortunately--"
"You threw yourself out of the window!" she is interrupted horrified.
Sam laughed. "Oh, well, I wasn"t successful: I continued to live.
Unfortunately my trousers caught on the grape trellis under the window, and there I hung! It must have been pretty funny--though I didn"t think so at the time. First place, I tore my wrist on a nail-- that"s the scar; and then father caught me and sent me to bed for being a fool; so I didn"t gain anything." His lip drooped. His feeling for his father was a candid mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and contempt.
"But do you always act on the spur of the moment?" she said astonished.
Sam laughed and said he supposed so. "I am a good deal of a fool," he added simply.
"Well," she said sighing, "it"s dangerous to be like that. I know, because I--I am a good deal of a fool myself." Then again, abruptly, she changed the subject. "What do you think? I"m going to have some company!"
Sam frowned. "Your brother?"
"No, oh no; not--Mr. Pryor." Then she told him that Dr. Lavendar had asked her if she would look after a little boy for him for a few weeks.
Sam was not responsive. Little boys were a great deal of trouble, he said.
"Come now; how long since--"
Sam"s limpid deer"s-eyes reproached her silently.
"How shall I amuse him?" she said.
And Sam eager to serve her promised to find a pair of rabbits for the child. "I used to like rabbits when I was young," he explained.
At last, after his hostess had swallowed many yawns, Sam reluctantly said good night. He went bounding down the hill in the darkness, across the fields, through the woods. In the starlight, the great world lay dim and lovely before him--it belonged to him! He felt the joyous buffet of the night wind upon his face, the brush of boughs against his shoulder, the scent of young ferns, and the give of the spongy earth under his feet; he sprang in long leaps over the gra.s.s, the tears were wet upon his fresh cheeks, he sang aloud. But he did not know what he sang; in his young breast, Love, like some warm living thing, stirred, and lifted glorious wings and drove his voice throbbing and exultant to his lips! As he came down Main Street, the church clock struck eleven. But it might have struck twelve and he would not have been disturbed.
Standing in the doorway of the Wright house in thunderous silence the senior warden, lamp in hand awaited his son. As Sam entered, the silence broke into a flash of crackling and scathing contempt.
"It does not occur to you, sir, I suppose, that a lady may find your society tiresome? It is after eleven!"
Sam smiling to himself hung up his hat. He was reflecting that he must see about those rabbits at once.
"You will understand, sir, if you please, that while you do me the honor to live under my roof you will return to it at night at a respectable hour. I will not sit up for you in this way. You will be in at ten o"clock. Do you hear?"
"Yes, sir," said Sam; and added with sudden awakening of interest, "if you would let me have a key, father, I--"
"I will not let you have a key! I will have no boy entering my house at midnight with a key! Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Sam murmured falling back into his own thoughts.
Mr. Wright, still talking, stood at the foot of the stairs so that his son could not pa.s.s him. Sam yawned, then noticed how in oratorical denunciation his father"s long upper lip curved like the beak of a bird of prey; behind his hand he tried to arch his own lip in the same manner. He really did not hear what was said to him; he only sighed with relief when it was over and he was allowed to go up-stairs and tumble sleepily into bed.
As for his long-suffering hostess, when she was alone Helena Richie rubbed her eyes and began to wake up. "That boy never knows when to go!" she said to herself with amused impatience. Then her mind turned to her own affairs. This little boy, David Allison, would be in Old Chester on Sat.u.r.day; he was to stay with Dr. Lavendar for a while, and then come to her for a week or two. But she was beginning to regret the invitation she had sent through Dr. King. It, would be pleasant to have the little fellow, but "I can"t keep him. so why should I take him even for a week? I might get fond of him! I"m afraid it"s a mistake. I wonder what Lloyd would think? I don"t believe he really loves children. And yet--he cared when the baby died."
She pulled a low chair up to the hearth and sat down, her elbows on her knees, her fingers ruffling the soft locks about her forehead.
"Oh, my baby! my little, little baby!" she said in a broken whisper.
The old pa.s.sion of misery swept over her; she shrank lower in her chair, rocking herself to and fro, her fingers pressed against her eyes. It was thirteen years ago, and yet even now in these placid days in Old Chester, to think of that time brought the breathless smother of agony back again--the dying child, the foolish brute who had done him to death.... If the baby had lived he would be nearly fourteen years old now; a big boy! She wondered whether his hair would still have been curly? She knew in her heart that she never could have had the courage to cut those soft curls off--and yet, boys hated curls, she thought; and smiled proudly. He would have been so manly! If he had lived, how different everything would have been, how incredibly different! For of course, if he had lived she would have been happy in spite of Frederick. And happiness was all she wanted.
She brushed the tears from her flushed cheeks, and propping her chin in her hands stared into the fire, thinking--thinking.... Her childhood had been pa.s.sed with her father"s mother, a silent woman who with bitter expectation of success had set herself to discover in Helena traits of the poor, dead, foolish wife who had broken her son"s heart. "Grandmamma hated me," Helena Richie reflected. "She begrudged me the least little bit of pleasure." Yet her feeling towards the hard old woman now was not resentment; it was only wonder. "_Why_ didn"t she like me to be happy?" she thought. It never occurred to her that her grandmother who had guarded and distrusted her had also loved her. "Of course I never loved her," she reminded herself, "but I wouldn"t have wanted her to be unhappy. She wanted me to be wretched.
Curious!" Yet she realized that at that time she had not desired love; she had only desired happiness. Looking back, she pondered on her astounding immaturity; what a child she had been to imagine that merely to get away from that gray life with her grandmother would be happiness, and so had married Frederick. Frederick.... She was eighteen, and so pretty. She smiled remembering how pretty she was.
And Frederick had made such promises! She was to have every kind of happiness. Of course she had married him. Thinking of it now, she did not in the least blame herself. If the dungeon doors open and the prisoner catches a glimpse of the green world of sunshine, what happens? Of course she had married Frederick! As for love, she never thought of it; it did not enter into the bargain--at least on her part. She married him because he wanted her to, and because he would make her happy. And, oh, how glad her grandmother had been! At the memory of that pa.s.sionate satisfaction, Helena clasped her hands over the two brown braids that folded like a chaplet around her head and laughed aloud, the tears still glittering on her lashes. Her prayers, her grandmother said, had been answered; the girl was safe--an honest wife! "Now lettest Thou Thy servant--" the old woman murmured, with dreadful grat.i.tude in her voice.
Thinking of that grat.i.tude, the tears dried upon Helena"s cheeks, hot with the firelight and with her thoughts. "Suppose she had lived just a little longer?--just three years longer? Where would her grat.i.tude have been then?" Helena"s face overflowed with sudden gay malice, but below the malice was weariness. "You are happy now--aren"t you?" Sam Wright had said.... Why, yes, certainly. Frederick had "repented," as Dr. King expressed it; she had seen to his "_repentance_"! That in itself was something to have lived for--a searing flame of happiness.
Enough one might think to satisfy her--if she could only have forgotten the baby. At first she had believed that she could forget him. Lloyd had told her she would. How young she had been at twenty-one to think that any one could forget! She smiled dryly at her childish hope and at Lloyd"s ignorance; but his tenderness had been so pa.s.sionately convincing,--and how good he had been about the baby! He had let her talk of him all she wanted to. Of course, after a while he got a little tired of the subject, and naturally. It was Frederick"s baby! And Lloyd hated Frederick as much as she did. How they used to talk about him in those first days of his "repentance!"... "Have you heard anything?" "Yes; running down-hill every day." "Is there any news?" "Yes, he"ll drink himself into his grave in six months." Ah, that was happiness indeed!--"his _grave_, in six months!"... She flung herself back in her chair, her hands dropping listlessly into her lap. "Oh--my little, dead baby!"...
It was nearly midnight; the fire had burned quite out; the room had fallen into shadows. Oh, yes, as she told Sam Wright, she was happy.
Her face fell into lines of dull indifference.
She got up, wearily, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, as a child does; then suddenly remembered that she had reached no conclusion about this little boy Dr. Lavendar was interested in. Suppose she should get fond of him and want to keep him--how would Lloyd feel about it? Would he think the child might take her thoughts from him?
But at that she smiled; he could not be so foolish! "I"ll write and ask him, anyhow. Of course, if he objects, I wouldn"t dream of it. I wonder what he will think?"
CHAPTER IV
Mr. Lloyd Pryor thought very deeply after he read Mrs. Richie"s letter. He sat in his office and smoked and reflected. And as he reflected his face brightened. It was a handsome face, with a mouth that smiled easily. His heavy-lidded eyes behind astonishingly thick and curling lashes were blue; when he lifted them the observer felt a slight shock, for they were curiously motionless; generally, however, the heavy lids drooped, lazily good-humored. He read Mrs. Richie"s letter and tapped the edge of his desk with strong, white fingers.
"Nothing could be better," he said.
Then suddenly he decided that he would go to Old Chester and say so in person. "I suppose I ought to go, anyhow; I haven"t been there for six weeks. Yes; this child is just what she needs."
And that was how it came about that when he went home he pulled his daughter Alice"s pretty ear and said he was going away that night. "I shall take the ten-o"clock train," he said.
His girl--a pleasant, flower-like young creature--scolded him affectionately. "I wish you wouldn"t take so many journeys. Promise to be careful; I worry about you when I"m not with you to take care of you," she said, in her sweet, anxious young voice. Her father, smiling, promised prudence, and for the mere joy of watching her let her pack his bag, lecturing him as she did so about his health. "Now that you have undertaken all this extra business of the Pryor-Barr people, you owe it to your stockholders to be careful of your health,"
she told him, refusing to notice his smile when he solemnly agreed with her.
"What would happen to the Company if anything happened to you?" she insisted, rubbing her soft cheek against his.
"Ruin, of course."
But she would not laugh. "And what would happen to _me_?"
"Ah, well, that"s a different matter," he admitted, and kissed her and bade _her_ be careful. "What would happen to me if anything happened to you?" he teased.
She hung about him, brooding over him like a little mother dove with a hundred questions. "Are you going anywhere except to Mercer?"