Part 10

Bertha made a movement forward to kiss her, but the infant, who had turned his head for furtive observation, ducked back again with renewed scramblings and kicking at the first indication of her approach.

“I think he will kill me soon,” said his mother resignedly.

“Where is your Herbert Spencer?” Bertha couldn’t help asking; but at that moment the truant nurse arrived; the boy, still in his attitude of clutching, was detached from his mamma’s gown, one hand and foot at a time, as one separates a cat from a cushion. As soon as this was accomplished, he turned and fell upon his nurse in like manner, and the sight of a round little body, entirely headless, with two waving black feet, was Bertha’s last view of the heir of the Bronsons.

The two women clasped hands impulsively and looked at each other; then they both burst into a fit of laughter, deliciously inconsequent.

“It is so perfectly ridiculous!” said Sarah at last.

“What?” asked Bertha.

“Why, that it is I, at all. It’s so absurd to think that that’s my baby! I haven’t the least idea what to do with him.”

They both laughed again, helplessly.

“You are very happy?” asked Bertha, trying to be serious.

“I suppose I am. Sometimes I think everything is topsy-turvy, and I don’t see straight; it’s all so different from the life I used to live, but—it’s nice.”

“Do you keep up your music?” asked Bertha again, after a pause.

“I don’t keep up anything. I play dance music, and read the newspapers. I’ve been traveling nearly all the time since I was married. Will’s business keeps us flying, for one reason or another, there are so many companies that he has to see. I’m always packing or unpacking, or in a Pullman car, and I think always that when I get through traveling I will find myself back at uncle’s once more, and begin to dust everything neatly. You know that we go off again to-night. I’m so sorry you won’t see my husband; he’ll not be back here until train time.”

“I’m sorry, too,” said Bertha.

“I want to thank you for all you did for me in the old days,” pursued her hostess. Their positions were reversed; it was she who led the conversation, while Bertha replied.

“If it hadn’t been for you I should never have been married at all.”

“My dear, I had absolutely nothing to do with the matrimonial cyclone which swept you off,” said Bertha, laughing again.

“Yes, you did, you were so happy, it made me very envious to see you and your husband together. If it hadn’t been for that, I don’t think I’d ever have had the courage to say yes when Will asked me. And you _were_ so kind and good to me, and I know I’m only a stupid thing at best.”

“You’re just a dear,” said Bertha very warmly. Then the two women had a long and exhaustive conversation, before they finally parted.

“She’s very handsome,” said Bertha to her husband that night. He was quite interested and curious about it all. “She’s rich, and she’s happy. Isn’t she the last woman on earth you would have imagined such a romance happening to!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Richard.

“What do you suppose there is in married life to improve a girl so? She’s not in the least uninteresting now.”

“Judge from your own experience,” said Richard. “Association with a superior being cannot fail—”

“You need not say any more,” said Bertha with the scorn expected of her. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “If she had married you, darling, instead of that Bronson man, I could have understood it—no woman could help being nicer for loving _you_!”

Not a Sad Story

Not a Sad Story

THE little Rhodes boy was dead. The two women who slipped out of the back door of Mrs. Rhodes’s house had red eyes, and conversed in low tones as they came down the street facing the bitter wind. One of them wore a long cloak of rich fur, which covered her from throat to ankles, but the other only drew her short gray shawl tightly around her and walked in the snow with feet encased in the carpet slippers which she had worn all night. Although one woman was young, and the other well past middle age, they had a certain likeness in the haggard look which watching and grief bring.

The early morning light shone wanly over the snow, the white houses with their closed blinds, and the range of white hills beyond. The smoke was beginning to rise from the kitchen chimneys at the back of some of the houses, where occasional lights were seen flickering to and fro, and the smell of the burning wood pervaded the frosty air.

“You’re tired,” said the older woman suddenly, as if noticing her companion’s fatigue for the first time.

“So are you, Mrs. Rawls.”

“Oh, I’m used to it. I ain’t been rested since Jimmy was born, and that was—let me see—thirty-five year ago. There ain’t a week passed in all that time that I haven’t planned to rest the _next_ week, but I ain’t never compassed it yet.” She laughed a little as she spoke, and trudged along more vigorously. “I guess you ain’t often been out at this time in the mornin’.”

“Not very often,” said the other. Her voice was low and sweet, with a little tremulous catch in it, as if she were almost exhausted.

“’Tisn’t but a step now to the house,” said Mrs. Rawls encouragingly. “I knew the sleigh wouldn’t be down for you for a couple of hours yet, and it did seem best to leave Mis’ Rhodes for a while, with just Elmira downstairs, after we’d done all we could. There’ll be neighbors in later, and people to inquire, and she won’t get much quiet. She wants just to be alone with _him_ for a little. That dear child—” she stopped and choked for a minute. “There! It don’t seem right to cry, and him so sweet and peaceful. It was mighty good of you to stay these last two nights.”

“Oh, don’t, don’t!” said the other in a pained tone. “As if I could have helped wanting to stay! It was so good of her to let me. All that I could do seemed so little. She was so brave, so patient; I shall never forget it, and that sweet child—” she stopped as Mrs. Rawls had done.

“Why, it was only last week that I was walking along here in the snow, and he ran across the street to me and said: ‘It’s so slippery here now, Mrs. Armstrong, I’m afraid you’ll fall; you had better lean on me.’ He put out his little hand for me to take, as seriously as you please, and I let him help me over the crossing. I can see his blue eyes now, with that merry light in them, gazing at me. It doesn’t seem possible—”

“Hardly a morning passed,” said Mrs. Rawls, “that was fit for him to be out, that he didn’t put his head in at my door and say, ‘How are you, Mis’ Rawls? Can I do anything for you?’ He was just like a bit of sunshine, with his curly golden head. It don’t appear as if it could be right that such as him should be took—him as was just born to be a blessing, and his mother without a soul in the world but the boy, and they all in all to each other. I can’t understand it, nohow.”

“It is very difficult,” said the other with a long-drawn sigh. “My heart just aches for her, she seems so alone. Is this your house, Mrs. Rawls? It is odd, isn’t it, that we’ve both lived here all these years, and yet this is the first time I’ve ever known you to speak to. I always thought you had such a kind face. I’ve often felt that I’d like to speak to you, but I didn’t know how.”

“Why, my _dear_!” said Mrs. Rawls, stopping on the threshold, her countenance fairly illumined with pleased surprise; “you that’s so rich and proud and handsome—why, I never even sensed that you _saw_ me. You afraid to speak to _me_! Well, that does beat all! But you’re just done out now, poor child; come right in here! I’m going to slip off your cloak, so, and lay you right down on the lounge and make you a good hot cup of coffee, and then you’ve got to take a little nap before the sleigh comes for you.”

Almost before she knew Helen Armstrong was lying on the old chintz lounge with Mrs. Rawls’s gray shawl wrapped around her feet. The room was small, low-ceilinged, and homely, filled with evidences of daily occupation; nothing could be further removed from her own luxurious chamber, yet she felt an unwonted sensation of comfort which reached its height after the fragrant coffee had been swallowed, and Mrs. Rawls’s motherly hand had smoothed back the pillows for her. Helen caught the hand and held it tight in her own for a minute, before she turned over on one side and closed her eyes. It was years since she had been taken care of. It was she who planned and gave orders for the comfort of others, but she had no near relatives of her own, and hers had been the personal isolation which state and riches bring.

With her eyes closed, she thought of many things; of her old school friend Anne Rhodes, whom she had always been fond of, yet with whom she had kept up but a spasmodic intercourse since marriage had claimed both lives.

Most of Anne’s unfortunate wedded life had been spent in the far West, and when she came back four years ago in straitened circumstances, with the child, the breadth of riches and a different way of living still divided them. But with the boy it was otherwise. The little fellow, with his blue eyes, his sunny smile, his trusting heart, and his infant manliness, had touched a chord that it half frightened Helen to feel vibrating so strongly. That chord belonged to the far past—another child had made its harmony. A little grave had its depths in Helen’s heart, although she had kept it out of sight for many years; it almost scared her to feel that it was still there, and yet it was sweet, too. When she put her arms around little Silvy Rhodes, he was like an angel of resurrection. When she had taken him home in her carriage out of the wet snow not a week ago, his cheeks rosy red, his tongue chattering sweetly, his eyes looking at her so confidingly, she did not dream that it was for the last time. The mortal illness had stolen upon him in the night, and Helen had gone to inquire, and then stayed to help.

Somehow trouble brought back the old days when Anne had leaned on her for comfort and protection. Helen had always felt a nervous dread of a sick-room, yet she had stayed, and was glad—glad of it! No one would ever know how many necessaries her money had supplied to the dying child and the stricken mother. “John Sylvester Rhodes, aged eight years.” The formal words glanced across her thoughts unbidden, and brought a sudden hot rush of tears.

She wondered whether her husband was surprised that she had stayed away. Perhaps he didn’t even know it, they were together so little these days, and she remembered that he had gone on a journey about that syndicate. There would be nobody at home but Kathleen. Kathleen! Her face reddened. Kathleen would have full scope in her absence. Helen wondered if she had taken advantage of it to see that man. No, the girl would do nothing underhand. It was unimaginable that a girl like Kathleen Armstrong, her husband’s sister, should have fallen in love with James Sandersfield, now the superintendent of the hat factory in which he had been a common “hand” for many years. How unfortunate that she had met him on that visit South! It could never have happened in their own town. Helen had felt deeply with her husband’s disgust, for Kathleen had been immodestly obstinate; what the outcome would be they did not know; Helen grew hot with the thought. She had forgotten where she was till Mrs. Rawls’s voice came to her through the half-open door, crooning an old hymn tune in the kitchen; and the tears came again to her eyes. The dear old soul—she thought, and then once more came the feeling of Silvy’s warm, chubby hand as he helped her over the slippery crossing—and Helen slept.

“You needn’t go in there,” said Mrs. Rawls impressively, as one of her friends appeared an hour later. “Mis’ Armstrong’s asleep on the lounge. She’s clean beat out watchin’. I sent the coachman back to the stable when he came for her just now; I wouldn’t have her woke.”

“It don’t seem possible that little Silvy’s gone,” said the newcomer in an awestricken voice. “I just come up the street now, and I could hardly get here for people stopping me to ask about it. Old Squire Peters himself halted the sleigh and sent Miss Isabel over to inquire. She said if there was anything in the world they could do, to let them know; and she was goin’ home to fix up something that might tempt Mis’ Rhodes to eat, for I told them she hadn’t taken hardly a mouthful for the last two days. And you know them two ladies in black that moved into the big house on the hill last fall? One of them came up afterward and said,

“‘You don’t mean that that dear little boy with the blue eyes and yellow hair, who lived at the foot of the hill, is _dead_!’”

“And when I said yes, ’twas as true as Gospel, though the dear Lord alone knew why it was so, she looked almost as if she were crying, and said, ‘Oh, do you think his mother would mind if I sent her some flowers from our greenhouse? I don’t know her at all, but we have had sorrow ourselves; and the dear little boy brought us some golden-rod just the day we came here—it seemed like a welcome to us.”

“I told her I would tell Mis’ Rhodes ’twas for Silvy’s sake.”

“What beats me,” said another woman, who had joined the other two, “is why the Lord should take Silvy—‘the only son of his mother, and she a widow’—cut off that child before his time, and leave old Gran’pa Slade dodderin’ ’round, who is near ninety and ain’t never been no good to nobody all his days. There’s Amelia Slade with her own mother and sister to care for, an’ him always a trouble. It does seem that the old might be taken before the young, when they just cumber the ground, like gran’pa.”

“Well, I don’t think he’s much care to Amelia, Mis’ Beebe,” said the first visitor, Mehitable Phelps. “She’s always grudged him his keep, as far as I see. Not but what he is tryin’.”

“Mis’ Rawls! Mis’ Beebe! Hitty Phelps!” cried another comer breathlessly. “Do somebody come over to Mis’ Slade’s; gran’pa’s in a dreadful way, cryin’ and moanin’ about little Silvy’s death. He says _he’d_ oughter have been took instead, and that he’s no good to anybody. ‘Melia’s afraid he’ll take his life; she never sensed before that he felt his age so.”

The three women gazed at each other with a scared expression as they rose to the summons. “Well, I presume it ain’t his fault that he’s let to live,” said one.

“I tell you what,” said Mrs. Beebe. “I’ll send Josiah around with the cutter to bring grand’pa over to our house to spend the day and get a good dinner. All he needs is cockerin’ up; I don’t believe he’s had an outing in dear knows when, and a change will hearten him. You coming with us, Mis’ Rawls?”

“I’ll just step along a piece to Emma Taylor’s,” said Mrs. Rawls, getting down her shawl from a hook. “I won’t be gone a minute. I’d clean forgot the baby was sick.”

She glanced into the sitting-room, and then, closing the outer door noiselessly behind her, hurried up the street with her friends.

She was welcomed at the little white cottage where she stopped by a pretty, worn-looking young woman, who came to the door with a baby in her arms and two small children pulling at her skirts.

“Oh, we’re all right,” she said cheerfully, in answer to Mrs. Rawls. “Come in; you’ll be surprised to see John around at this time of day—here he is now. He’s staying home a spell on account of Mrs. Rhodes. The Batchellor boys brought her wood, and Mr. Fellows’s coachman shoveled off the snow, but we thought she might like to feel there was a man waiting near to call upon if she wanted anything.”

“Let me take the baby, Emma,” said her husband, “you’re tired, dear.”

He stretched out his arms and took the child, holding the little white face fondly against his own bearded one.

“Poor little man, he didn’t sleep much last night; kept us both awake; but we didn’t care a mite for that, we were so glad we had him. Do you see his light curls? Emma and I think he has a look of Silvy, Mrs. Rawls.”

“I don’t know but he has,” said Mrs. Rawls as she turned toward the outer world once more.

“Must you go, Mrs. Rawls? It was kind of you to stop in. If you see Mrs. Rhodes you’ll tell her, please, that John’s waiting home so’s she can feel there’s a man near her to call on if she wants for anything.”

“She’s bound to be awake, now,” thought Mrs. Rawls as she hurried home to her guest.

Helen had wakened suddenly in the empty, quiet house. She could not, in a sort of sweet, drowsy contentment, understand at once where she was. She gradually realized that a big wooden clock on the mantel ticked with a loud, aggressive noise, that a teakettle was singing somewhere, and that a large faded red hood hung on the brown-papered wall directly in her line of vision, with a many-flowered pink geranium on a shelf below. She was closing her eyes once more when a loud knock on the outer door startled her instantly into a sitting position. The knock was followed by another, more tentative; then the door opened, and a footstep was heard inside. Helen jumped hastily up and went toward the kitchen.

A tall man stood there, drumming with his fingers absently on the table while he waited. He raised his head quickly as she entered, and she saw that he had a thin, clean-shaven face with firm lips and dark, steady eyes. His dress was the dress of a gentleman. Although Helen had never spoken to him, she knew that this was James Sandersfield.

“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly, “I came for Mrs. Rawls. I was sent for Mrs. Rawls.”

“She must have gone out,” said Mrs. Armstrong, “but I am sure that she will be back soon. The message—”

“Is from Mrs. Rhodes,” said the stranger, taking up his hat, “Mrs. Rhodes would like Mrs. Rawls to come over to her when she can.”

“Is she—” Helen began.

“She is very quiet—very peaceful. I did not expect to see her this morning, but she had sent for me; she knew—” He bit his lip, and stopped as if it were very hard to go on; his steady eyes met hers with a certain piteousness in them. “I—I carried Silvy downstairs; she said I was so strong it was a comfort to her to have me do it.” He stopped again and turned away his head. “I loved the child,” he added after a minute, very simply.

“I am glad you were with her; I know it was a comfort,” said Helen. Her eyes roved over the man’s tall figure thoughtfully. “And I am glad that I was in to take your message, Mr. Sandersfield,” she added a little coldly. “I am Mrs. Armstrong.”

“I know, I know,” he replied with a gesture that was almost rough in its curtness. He stood as if he were about to speak further, then hesitated, and finally turned resolutely away. “Good morning,” he said as he passed out of the door, but Helen did not answer. To her that pause had been strangely voiceful of Kathleen; she tingled to the very finger tips with the strong current of his thoughts. She could not tell whether she resented it or not.

Mrs. Rawls was full of pleasure that her visitor had slept so long. The sleigh was once more waiting for Helen. “Tell Mrs. Rhodes I will be with her later,” she said as she tucked herself comfortably in, and lay back against the red velvet cushions. The glare of the sunshine on the snow dazzled her.

“Ma’am,” said a voice in her ear. The coachman was waiting to let some teams pass. “Ma’am, may I speak to ye?” She turned, startled, to find a large, gaunt, bearded man standing beside her, with his big, hairy hand laid detainingly on the sleigh. His working clothes had all the color worn out of them.

“What is it?” asked Helen, drawing back.

“As I come up I seen white crape and ribbons on the door below, and I just heard ye speak _her_ name, ma’am; it’s not the gay little felly with the light curls that’s dead?”

“Oh, it is,” cried Helen, the tears coming to her eyes.

The man took off his hat and stood bare-headed in the snow, his lips moving, though Helen heard no sound.

“He was one of the Lord’s own,” he said after a minute in a husky voice. “Sure He knows best. Not a day that little felly passed us a-workin’ on the road but he had a word for each man! Sure he was known all over this town. ’Twas no more than a couple of weeks ago that he brought home Mike O’Brien’s little gell that was sitting in a puddle in Dean Street, and she just free of the measles. Ma’am, my heart’s sore for the boy’s mother, and she a widdy. Would ye just tell her that me and me mates would turn our hands to any work for her for the boy’s sake? Sure there’s no other work a-doin’ this weather.”

“If you will come up to Lawndale this afternoon Mr. Armstrong will see about some employment for you,” said Helen hurriedly. “Do you know the place? The big stone house with the pillars? Yes, that is right. And I will tell Mrs. Rhodes. Drive on, Benson.”

The richly-appointed, quiet mansion that she entered was a change, indeed, from the meager little house, sickness-crowded, where she had been watching for two days and nights, or from the homely room she had just left in the nurse’s cottage. The velvet-shod silence seemed almost an alien thing. Not in years had she felt so alive, so warm at the heart with other people’s loves and sorrows brought close to it. Habit should not chill her yet into the indifferent self-centered woman whose cold manner and shy distrust of herself kept her solitary.

She was glad when her maid asked her timidly some question about little Silvy, and answered with a cordiality that surprised herself, although she was always kind, taking note of a cold the girl had, and giving her some simple remedy for it. “What is it, Margaret?” she asked, seeing that the girl lingered as if she wished to speak.

Margaret hesitated. “Mrs. Armstrong, we do all be feelin’ so bad for the sweet child that’s gone. May the saints comfort his mother! And I was thinking, ma’am, to-morrow is my day out, and if it’s not making too bold I could take my clean cap and apron with me and stay at the house to open the door for the people that’ll be troopin’ there—if you think I might, maybe. I know she’s a lady born, and ’twould be no more than she was used, to have things dacent.”

“You are a good girl, Margaret,” said Helen, more moved than she cared to show. “Yes, indeed, you shall go.”

Kathleen came in later. Her cheeks were scarlet from the cold wind, her dark hair was tangled and blown, there was a rushing vigor in her movements as of exuberant young health and bounding impulse. She kissed her quiet sister-in-law impetuously and threw her cap and furs from her before she seated herself by the blazing wood fire. Helen looked at her from a new standpoint—she was trying to fancy that glowing, tumultuous young beauty by the side of James Sandersfield’s rugged strength, trying to fancy his steady eyes gazing into those flashing ones. The feeling of repugnance might be lessened, but it was still there! Why, Kathleen had patrician written in every line of her face, in every curve of her body, in her least gesture.

“I’ve just come from the Country Club,” said the girl, shielding her face with one slim hand from the blaze of the fire.

“What on earth could you do this morning? Play golf in the snow?”

“Oh, we tried to, but it didn’t amount to anything. A lot of us got around the fire in the hall and talked. They said—But sister, aren’t you tired? Weren’t you up all night? Have you been home long?”

“I did sit up all night,” said Helen, “but I am not tired, and I have been home for some time.”

“And she—poor Mrs. Rhodes?”

“I left her very quiet, dear.”

“There!” said Kathleen stormily, “we could talk of nothing else this morning but darling, darling little Silvy, and of _her_. Of course they don’t all know Mrs. Rhodes, but every one had seen _him_, at any rate. It seems so dreadful for her to lose all she had in the world! She isn’t very young, is she?”

“About my age, dear.”