CHAPTER VII

BAD NEWS FOR JIM

“My word, I do believe they have forgotten us completely,” said Reggie, plaintively, as he placed his monocle in his eye and stared at the absorbed young couple. “Perhaps we had better be making ourselves scarce, Jim, old chap.”

“Nothing doing,” retorted Jim, moving a chair up toward Joe and Mabel and placing himself in it as though he intended remaining there indefinitely. “I don’t stir a step from this place until Mabel tells me all the news from home.”

“He means all the news about Clara,” laughed Joe, as Mabel obediently sat down beside him and turned her attention to Jim.

“Oh, Clara is all right,” said Mabel, but in spite of her cheerful words, the others saw that a cloud had darkened her face. “It is Mother Matson I am worrying about,” she added slowly.

Mrs. Matson, Joe’s mother, had lately been in poor health. Because of this fact, Mabel had stayed with her mother-in-law for a time after her marriage to Joe. But recently she had yielded to the urging of her own family to visit them in Goldsboro, North Carolina, her old home. Although Mabel had been busy renewing old friendships there, she had kept in almost daily touch with Mrs. Matson and Clara through the mails. As a matter of fact, Jim had more than once complained that Mabel heard a great deal more from his fiancée than he did himself. Owing to the constantly changing address of the team, Jim’s mail, as well as Joe’s, was often delayed.

Because of Mrs. Matson’s illness, Clara had postponed her marriage with Jim, hoping for her mother’s restoration to health. Until that happy time came, nothing remained to Jim but to possess his soul in patience, which was often very hard to do.

Now, at Mabel’s mention of his mother, Joe started forward, fixing his anxious gaze upon his wife.

“What has happened to mother?” he demanded. “Is she--nothing serious, is it?”

“Oh, no, no!” said Mabel, patting his hand soothingly. “There is nothing fatally wrong. She is--oh, I might as well tell you at once, Joe dear, for you would only worry the more if I tried to keep things from you. It is feared that Mother Matson must undergo an operation, a rather serious operation, I am afraid.”

“What for?” asked Joe, quietly, although his face had become suddenly white.

“Clara didn’t say in her letter,” returned Mabel, soberly. “Your family doctor, Doctor Reeves, is calling a consultation. Clara will undoubtedly write more fully after that is over.”

“A consultation!” cried Joe, leaping to his feet, only to slump down again in his chair at the pain in his injured leg. “Why, this is horrible, girl! Do you know when they expect to--do it?”

“They certainly won’t operate right away, Clara says,” Mabel returned. “They think her heart is too weak to stand the ordeal just now. Dr. Reeves is going to put her through a special course of treatment, and he thinks that in a month or two she will be ready.”

“My poor mother!” groaned Joe. “How can I go on playing ball with that thing in prospect? I got a letter from mother a day or two ago,” he added, feeling in the pocket of his coat for the note from home. “She didn’t say anything about any trouble then.”

“Of course she wouldn’t, you old silly,” said Mabel, gently. “Don’t you know that mothers always worry about everybody else but themselves? Mother Matson never would take her illness seriously, you know, and if she had she would have been the very last one to worry you with it. It was Clara, not your mother, who decided you ought to be told now and asked me to do it.”

“That sure is tough luck, Joe,” said Jim, gravely. “I had no idea your mother was as sick as that.”

“But, I say, don’t pull such a long face over it, old chap,” urged Reggie, trying to strike a cheerful note in the general gloom of the place. “People are operated on, you know, some of them again and again, and come up smilin’ in the end. It’s a bally shame and all that, but no need giving up hope altogether, you know. Hope on, hope ever, as the poet sings. Now, I knew of a person once who had a complication of diseases--most distressin’--and the doctors insisted that there must be an operation. But when the day came for the operation, old chap, they found----”

“Spare me the details, will you, Reggie?” urged Joe. “I can’t go them just now.”

“Certainly, old chap, certainly,” agreed Reggie, with swift compunction. “I might have known the subject would be, well, distasteful to you. To change the topic of conversation, just cast your eye for a moment in the direction of our old friend, Jim. He is dyin’ to learn more about Clara, you know, and can’t for the life of him decide how to tell you about it. How about it, old chap? Am I right?” Saying this, he tapped Jim playfully with his monocle, and the latter reluctantly smiled.

“You sure are a mind reader, old boy,” he said. “I must confess that a little first-hand news of Clara would be welcome, and Mabel’s seen her since I have.”

Joe, looking at Mabel at that moment, was again surprised to find her eyes shadowed and anxious. The expression passed in a moment, however, and she smiled upon Jim reassuringly.

“Clara was dreadfully disappointed at not being able to be here with Reggie and me, and of course she is worried to death about Mother Matson, but aside from that she’s all right.”

“No news of any kind?” urged Jim, regarding Mabel closely. It seemed to Joe that Jim also had noticed the faint hesitation that had crept into Mabel’s manner at mention of Clara’s name. “Even the smallest scrap of news, first hand, would be mighty welcome, you know.”

Mabel seemed to hesitate, then got to her feet and walked over to the window. The boys watched her uneasily, but when she turned back to them her face was bright and untroubled.

“I wish I had some news, Jim,” she said, in her normal tone. “But you must remember that I have been in Goldsboro for some time, and the only news I get of Clara is through the mails. But now I think I’ve been answering questions enough,” she added lightly, a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “I think I will start asking a few in my turn. First of all, I want to know just how you happened to get hurt, Joe.”

Despite the fact that, just then, he wished to talk about nothing so little as about himself, Joe recounted as quickly as he could the details of his accident. From that the conversation turned to the condition of the team and the discouraging slump it had taken.

“We sure seem to be headed straight for the bottom,” remarked Jim, adding, as he looked ruefully at Joe: “And now with our champion twirler laid up for an indefinite period, things look pretty tough for the Giants. If only Jackwell and Bowen would quit looking over their shoulders and watch the ball, we might have a chance to rattle the jinx that’s after us.”

Both Mabel and Reggie--the latter was an ardent baseball fan and fairly “ate up” anything that concerned the game--demanded to know more about Jackwell and Bowen, and there ensued an animated discussion as to the meaning of the peculiar actions of the two men.

It was Reggie who finally repeated his suggestion that he and Jim “toddle on” in order to leave Joe and Mabel a few minutes of private conversation before joining them again for dinner.

Joe did not protest very hard, for he was aching to have Mabel to himself. He was very anxious about his mother, and more than a little curious to know what, if anything, was amiss with Clara.

Mabel came to him herself as soon as the door was closed behind Jim and Reggie. She held out her hands to him and Joe took them gently.

“What is it, little girl?” he asked. “You were holding back something about mother and Clara. Now suppose you tell me.”

“Oh, Joe, I am so worried. I’ve told you everything about poor mother. But Clara--well, I think she ought to be soundly scolded!”

For the first time since he had heard of his mother’s illness, Joe’s grave face relaxed in a smile.

“Who’s going to do it--you?” he chaffed. “You never scolded me but once, and then I liked it.”

“But you don’t take me seriously, and this really is serious, Joe,” said Mabel, her pretty forehead marred by an anxious frown. “If you could see this fellow with his handsome eyes and his beautiful clothes----”

“What fellow?” interrupted Joe, becoming suddenly interested. “You don’t mean----”

“Yes I do, just that!” returned Mabel, shaking her head solemnly. “This Adonis I’m talking about is pestering Clara with his attentions.”

“Give me his name,” cried Joe. “I’ll soon show this little cupid where he gets off----”

“He isn’t little, Joe. He’s broad-shouldered and six feet tall and he has a million dollars--maybe ten million for all I know----”

“What’s his name?” roared Joe again, with undiminished ire. “What do I care if he’s twenty feet tall and has a billion dollars? Hang around my sister, will he?”

“Oh, hush, Joe, hush!” cautioned Mabel, putting a finger to his lips and looking apprehensively toward the door. “Some one will be coming in to see where the fire is.”

Joe took her hand gently away and looked at her intently.

“What is there behind all this?” he asked quietly. “Clara doesn’t encourage this fellow, does she? She wouldn’t do that?”

Mabel looked troubled.

“I hope not, Joe. Oh, I hope not!” she said, and for a moment there was silence while the two studied the pattern of the rug upon the floor, busy with troubled thoughts. It was Joe who again broke the silence.

“You haven’t told me his name yet,” he reminded Mabel, quietly.

“His name is Tom Pepperil. He used to live near Riverside, but he went away for a long time and made a fortune. Now he has come back, and, according to Clara’s letters, is making desperate love to her.”

“But she has no right to listen to him! She’s Jim’s!”

Mabel glanced up at him swiftly and then down at the pattern of the rug again.

“No,” she said. Then, after a long minute, she came close to Joe and put her hand over his again.

“Wouldn’t it be dreadful,” she said, “if the worst we fear should happen, and she should give up good old Jim for that fellow, whose chief recommendation is his money?”

“I couldn’t bear to think of it,” groaned Joe. “I’d rather lose every cent I have in the world than have it happen. Tell me that you don’t think it will ever come to that!”

“I don’t know, Joe,” said Mabel, sadly. “She’s so tantalizingly vague. Perhaps it’s the strain she’s under on account of mother that makes her so different from her usual self. I can’t understand Clara any more.”

There was a long silence, and then Joe roused himself to ask dully:

“Do you think we ought to tell Jim?”