All the guests know how you play on the pitchfork out there, and they"ll leave in a body if they hear you"ve quit. Do say you"ll stay, and I"ll reduce your wages one-half on the spot."
Jombateeste waited to hear no more injuries. He said: "You"ll don" got money enough, Mr. Durgin, by gosh! to reduce my wages," and he started down the hill toward Whitwell"s house with as great loftiness as could comport with a down-hill gait and his stature.
"Well, I seem to be getting it all round, Mr. Westover," said Jeff.
"This must make you feel good. I don"t know but I begin to believe there"s a G.o.d in Israel, myself."
He walked away without saying good-night, and Westover went to bed without the chance of setting himself right. In the morning, when he came down to breakfast, and stopped at the desk to engage a conveyance for the station from Frank Whitwell the boy forestalled him with a grave face. "You don"t know about Mrs. Durgin?"
"No; what about her?"
"Well, we can"t tell exactly. Father thinks it"s a shock; Jombateeste gone over to Lovewell for the doctor. Cynthia"s with her. It seemed to come on in the night."
He spoke softly, that no one else might hear; but by noon the fact that Mrs. Durgin had been stricken with paralysis was all over the place. The gloom cast upon the opening season by Jackson"s death was deepened among the guests. Some who had talked of staying through July went away that day. But under Cynthia"s management the housekeeping was really unaffected by Mrs. Durgin"s calamity, and the people who stayed found themselves as comfortable as ever. Jeff came fully into the hotel management, and in their business relation Cynthia and he were continually together; there was no longer a question of the Whitwells leaving him; even Jombateeste persuaded himself to stay, and Westover felt obliged to remain at least till the present danger in Mrs. Durgin"s case was past.
With the first return of physical strength, Mrs. Durgin was impatient to be seen about the house, and to retrieve the season that her affliction had made so largely a loss. The people who had become accustomed to it stayed on, and the house filled up as she grew better, but even the sight of her in a wheeled chair did not bring back the prosperity of other years. She lamented over it with a keen and full perception of the fact, but in a cloudy a.s.sociation of it with the joint future of Jeff and Cynthia.
One day, after Mrs. Durgin had declared that she did not know what they were to do, if things kept on as they were going, Whitwell asked his daughter:
"Do you suppose she thinks you and Jeff have made it up again?"
"I don"t know," said the girl, with a troubled voice, "and I don"t know what to do about it. It don"t seem as if I could tell her, and yet it"s wrong to let her go on."
"Why didn"t he tell her?" demanded her father. ""Ta"n"t fair his leavin"
it to you. But it"s like him."
The sick woman"s hold upon the fact weakened most when she was tired.
When she was better, she knew how it was with them. Commonly it was when Cynthia had got her to bed for the night that she sent for Jeff, and wished to ask him what he was going to do. "You can"t expect Cynthy to stay here another winter helpin" you, with Jackson away. You"ve got to either take her with you, or else come here yourself. Give up your last year in college, why don"t you? I don"t want you should stay, and I don"t know who does. If I was in Cynthia"s place, I"d let you work off your own conditions, now you"ve give up the law. She"ll kill herself, tryin" to keep you along."
Sometimes her speech became so indistinct that no one but Cynthia could make it out; and Jeff, listening with a face as nearly discharged as might be of its laughing irony, had to turn to Cynthia for the word which no one else could catch, and which the stricken woman remained distressfully waiting for her to repeat to him, with her anxious eyes upon the girl"s face. He was dutifully patient with all his mother"s whims. He came whenever she sent for him, and sat quiet under the severities with which she visited all his past unworthiness. "Who you been hectorin" now, I should like to know," she began on him one evening when he came at her summons. "Between you and Fox, I got no peace of my life. Where is the dog?"
"Fox is all right, mother," Jeff responded. "You"re feeling a little better to-night, a"n"t you?"
"I don"t know; I can"t tell," she returned, with a gleam of intelligence in her eye. Then she said: "I don"t see why I"m left to strangers all the time."
"You don"t call Cynthia a stranger, do you, mother?" he asked, coaxingly.
"Oh--Cynthy!" said Mrs. Durgin, with a glance as of surprise at seeing her. "No, Cynthy"s all right. But where"s Jackson and your father? If I"ve told them not to be out in the dew once, I"ve told "em a hundred times. Cynthy"d better look after her housekeepin" if she don"t want the whole place to run behind, and not a soul left in the house. What time o" year is it now?" she suddenly asked, after a little weary pause.
"It"s the last of August, mother."
"Oh," she sighed, "I thought it was the beginnin" of May. Didn"t you come up here in May?"
"Yes."
"Well, then--Or, mebbe that"s one o" them tormentin" dreams; they do pester so! What did you come for?"
Jeff was sitting on one side of her bed and Cynthia on the other: She was looking at the sufferer"s face, and she did not meet the glance of amus.e.m.e.nt which Jeff turned upon her at being so fairly cornered. "Well, I don"t know," he said. "I thought you might like to see me."
"What "d he come for?"--the sick woman turned to Cynthia.
"You"d better tell her," said the girl, coldly, to Jeff. "She won"t be satisfied till you do. She"ll keep coming back to it."
"Well, mother," said Jeff, still with something of his hardy amus.e.m.e.nt, "I hadn"t been acting just right, and I thought I"d better tell Cynthy."
"You better let the child alone. If I ever catch you teasin" them children again, I"ll make Jackson shoot Fox."
"All right, mother," said Jeff.
She moved herself restively in bed. "What"s this," she demanded of her son, "that Whitwell"s tellin" about you and Cynthy breakin" it off?"
"Well, there was talk of that," said Jeff, pa.s.sing his hand over his lips to keep back the smile that was stealing to them.
"Who done it?"
Cynthia kept her eyes on Jeff, who dropped his to his mother"s face.
"Cynthy did it; but I guess I gave her good enough reason."
"About that hussy in Boston? She was full more to blame than what you was. I don"t see what Cynthy wanted to do it for on her account."
"I guess Cynthy was right."
Mrs. Durgin"s speech had been thickening more and more. She now said something that Jeff could not understand. He looked involuntarily at Cynthia.
"She says she thinks I was hasty with you," the girl interpreted.
Jeff kept his eyes on hers, but he answered to his mother: "Not any more than I deserved. I hadn"t any right to expect that she would stand it."
Again the sick woman tried to say something. Jeff made out a few syllables, and, after his mother had repeated her words, he had to look to Cynthia for help.
"She wants to know if it"s all right now."
"What shall I say?" asked Jeff, huskily.
"Tell her the truth."
"What is the truth?"
"That we haven"t made it up."
Jeff hesitated, and then said: "Well, not yet, mother," and he bent an entreating look upon Cynthia which she could not feel was wholly for himself. "I--I guess we can fix it, somehow. I behaved very badly to Cynthia."
"No, not to me!" the girl protested in an indignant burst.
"Not to that little scalawag, then!" cried Jeff. "If the wrong wasn"t to you, there wasn"t any wrong."
"It was to you!" Cynthia retorted.
"Oh, I guess I can stand it," said Jeff, and his smile now came to his lips and eyes.