CHAPTER VII

JANE PUTS A QUESTION

On her way home from a trip to a not far-distant fruit-shop, Nancy Bell caught sight of her friend, Shirley Townsend, waving an eagerly summoning hand from the gateway in the hedge.

It was a hot morning in early July, and Nancy, after running into the house to report her return to her mother, joined Shirley in a shady corner under the shrubbery, which had become a favourite trysting-place of the two children.

Half an hour afterward Nancy, her eyes wide with excitement, sought out her mother and Jane upon the small back porch, where each was busy with the morning's work--at this moment the looking-over of raspberries and the shelling of peas.

"O mother--O Jane!" the child began, "the dreadfullest thing has happened over at the big house! Forrest Townsend 's run away, and they don't know where he is!"

"Why, Nan!" Jane's busy fingers, red with raspberry stains, stopped their work, as she stared at her sister in dismay. "That can't be so!"

"Yes, it can--it is! Shirley told me. He's been gone three days, but they thought he must be off on a visit till they got a letter this morning. And they don't even know where the letter was mailed from. Mrs. Townsend 's sick in bed about it, and Shirley says her father won't say a word--just looks white and angry and queer."

"The poor father and mother!" murmured Mrs. Bell, her eyes full of sympathy.

"But he can't have gone away to stay," said Jane, staring at Nancy, still incredulous. "He's an impulsive fellow--quick tempered, hot-headed--and he and his father don't get on well together. But to run away----"

"But he has," persisted Nancy. "The letter said it was no use looking for him; he'd come back some time when he 'd shown he could look after his own--oh, I don't remember just what he said--Shirley was n't sure what it meant. But she said her mother just cried and cried, and told her father she'd always known his harsh ways----"

"Don't, dear--don't tell us!" Mrs. Bell interrupted, quickly. "Shirley should n't have told you anything that was said; we have no right to know. When people are hurt and sad, they say bitter things they are very sorry for afterward. The only thing for us to know is that this trouble has come to our neighbours. We must think how we can help them. I would go over at once if I thought I could be of use to poor Mrs. Townsend--and were sure she was willing I should know."

They discussed the situation, Mrs. Bell and Jane, as they went on with their work; and Jane told her mother all she knew of Forrest's differences with his father. "It bothers me so," she ended, sorrowfully, "that I did n't realise he was in earnest about taking things into his own hands, and do something to let the others know. Do you suppose that foolish threat about enlisting in the army could really have been what he meant to do? Do you suppose he has done it?"

"It is a possible clue. I think they ought to know it, if they have nothing else to guide them. When your father comes home I will talk with him about it, and he may think it best to go to Mr. Townsend himself, tell him what we know, and offer to help."

But it proved not necessary to wait until the evening to consult about offering sympathy and counsel to the troubled family in Worthington Square. Early in the afternoon, while Mrs. Bell lay resting in her room, and Nancy and Jane sat in the shadow of one of the big maples at the end of the garden--their special retreat on hot days--the tap of Murray's cane was heard on the walk outside.

"Run into the house, dear, please!" Jane whispered, quickly. "It 's Murray, and I believe he's come to talk with me about Forrest."

Her surmise proved correct, as she knew from her first glance at the pale face and grave eyes of her friend. He was her friend--that she had come to know very clearly in the last few weeks--her friend in quite a different way from that in which Forrest had shown her friendship. There had developed a genuine congeniality of interests between the quiet, book-loving youth and the girl who had not gone to college, but who was persistently giving herself the higher education she longed for. Books he was lending her, lessons in French and German he had been lately begging to be allowed to give her, and many inspiring talks he had with her on the subjects both loved, whenever a chance offered or he could make one.

So now, as Murray came toward her, his eyes fixed upon her as if he were sure that here he would find something he sorely needed, Jane felt an added longing to show her power to be of use in time of trouble; and dropping her book--one that belonged to Murray--she came forward to meet him with outstretched hand, and a look which showed him that she already understood.

"You 've heard?" he asked, in surprise. "I don't know how, but I 'm glad, for I dreaded to tell it."

"Shirley told Nancy--just the bare facts--and of course my little sister told my mother and me. We 've been thinking of you all ever since, wishing we could help you."

"You can; we need you. Even mother feels it. Olive says when she asked her if she wanted a nurse, she refused to have one except her maid, but said, 'I wish I dared to ask that kind-faced Mrs. Bell. I feel as if she could tell me what to do.'"

"Mother will be so glad. She will go over by and by. She loves to help people, and always knows how better than anybody else in the world."

"I can believe it. She makes a fellow feel as if he belonged to her, somehow, and she was interested in him."

"She is--that's why she makes you feel so.--Come over here in the shade, please, and tell me what I can do."

Murray dropped upon the grass beside Jane's low chair with a sigh of weariness, and ran his hand through the thick locks of his hair, pushing them away from his forehead with an impatient gesture, as if he would like thus easily to clear away the clouds which bothered him.

"You see," he began slowly, "I feel more or less responsible myself for this outbreak. I can't help thinking that if things had been between us as they ought to be between brothers Forrest would have brought his notions and troubles to me."

"But you--but he----" Jane paused, surprised at the tone he took. "You have n't been able to be with Forrest much, because--because he has been so active and lived such a different life----"

"You are kind to excuse me, but I don't see how that makes it any better. I could have shown interest and sympathy enough with his tastes and plans to have made him come naturally to me. I 'm the elder brother, and I have n't been a brother, only a querulous, fault-finding, elderly relative, as if he were fourteen and I forty. He did come to you with his grievances against father, did n't he?"

Jane coloured a little as his eyes keenly questioned her.

"Yes, though I did n't want him to tell me, and would n't listen to very much of it. I felt guilty to let him talk at all, but he was so----"

"I 'm glad you did. If anybody could have given him advice that he would take it would have been you. I was pretty sure he had been to you, by the way I saw him fling over here just after he 'd had a bout with father."

"He said something that day I feel as if your father ought to know, and I 've been wondering how I could let him know," and with this introduction, Jane told Murray all she had learned of Forrest's inclination toward the army and its varied experiences, ending as gently as she could with the boyish threat of enlisting if he could not bring about his own appointment to West Point. Murray listened to her very soberly.

"Father would veto the West Point proposition from the first word," he said, "merely because he has no notion of the sort of fascination the idea would have for a restless chap like my brother. So if Forrest asked him to let him go, I 've no doubt he refused him, and then--well, I can easily imagine Forrest carrying out his threat out of pure bravado. It gives us something to go by, anyhow. We can soon find out if he 's had the folly to enlist. He may have the dash and bravery to do a gallant deed, to fight stoutly enough at a time of need, but the patience and endurance for the every-day army life----" He shook his head. "He's only a boy, you know. You could n't expect it of him."

Just here Peter opened the little garden gate and came swinging in. "Hello!" he called, at sight of the pair under the maple-tree. "You two look cool and restful out there. May I join the picnic party when I 've freshened up a bit? A breakdown in the power at the factory sent fifty or sixty of us in our department home for a quarter-holiday."

"That 's luck for us, too!" called back Murray, cordially.

Jane bent forward eagerly. "Do you mind Peter's knowing?" she asked. "Pete's so big and strong and--ingenious; he 's like mother at knowing what to do."

"I want Peter to know," Murray replied, without hesitation. "We 're going to try to keep this thing out of the papers, of course, and away from our acquaintances as long as we can, but your family must all know. I feel, somehow, as if having the Bell family stand by us would be worth a lot."

When Peter came out, in fresh clothes, his brown hair damp from the splashing shower he had just taken, and joined the two others under the maple, he was told the whole story. He listened in clear-eyed gravity, with once or twice a short exclamation of regret. As Murray ended with Jane's suggestion about the runaway's possible enlistment in the army, Peter drew a long breath.

"I believe I can understand how he felt about it," he said, throwing his head back and staring up at the sky for a moment. Then, coming back to earth with a squaring of his broad shoulders, he added, with a rueful smile at Jane, "And that's not because my home is n't the happiest one on earth. It 's just the feeling a fellow gets once in a while that he 'd like to jump over something and make a dash for the horizon line--to see what's beyond it! And I can see how he----" Then he broke off suddenly, looking at Murray. "That does n't mean I don't appreciate what this is to all his family. And if there's anything I can do to help, I 'm your man."

"You 'd be a good one to send after him," Murray answered, with a slight smile. "You 'd know better than to pounce on him like an officer of the law. You 'd treat him like a brother--a better brother than I 've been,"--and the smile faded.

"Look here, don't take it that way. There are few brothers I know who stand shoulder to shoulder as they ought to do. It's odd, but it's so, and a pity it is, too. I think our family is different from most--for the reason----" Here Peter stopped abruptly once more, meeting Jane's eyes. He could not say that early training, given by wise parents, had made all the difference in the world with their family life.

"Yes, I fancy I know the reason," said Murray, wistfully, "and I congratulate you on it."

"I 'm a stupid sort of Job's comforter," Peter went on. "But one thing is sure; if you 'd like an extra brother, to stand by in this difficulty, here he is."

He laid his hand on Murray's arm as he spoke, and Murray flushed with pleasure. He turned and held out his own hand, and Peter's closed on it with a grip. Then both began to talk with a will about other things.

When Murray went home he took Mrs. Bell with him. He watched her vanish through the doorway of his mother's room, where that poor lady had been all day in a state of nervous prostration, and felt that he had brought her a friend worth while.

The moment that his father came home Murray went to him with the news he had obtained in Gay Street. The two had a long conference, during which Murray discovered his father to be watching him with a peculiar expression, as if surprised to find this reserved son so ready with suggestions.

Mr. Townsend shook his head over the notion that Forrest could have carried his revolt against authority so far as to have taken the step of enlisting in the army; but when Murray urged that the clue should be followed up, the elder man said slowly:

"I don't know whether it would do any good to hunt him up and bring him home. He's taken things into his own hands. I feel like letting him manage his own affairs for a while. He has n't the force of character to deprive himself of the comforts of life very long. If he has enlisted, he 'd better take the consequences. I 'm not so sure but a term of service in the army would do him good, take the conceit out of him, and show him that he cannot escape discipline anywhere;--life itself means discipline of one sort or another."

"If we should find he had enlisted, then, you wouldn't take the steps to get him off? You could, you know, sir, since he 's under age. Peter says so."

"Peter? Peter who?"

"Peter Bell--in Gay Street."

"Oh, yes. You see a good deal of the Bells, Murray?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't think I should apply to have him released from service," said Mr. Townsend, slowly, grim lines settling about his mouth.

A week went by. At its close a second briefly letter arrived from Forrest, addressed to his mother. It stated that Forrest had enlisted in the army, and had, at his own application, been allowed to join a regiment just leaving for San Francisco, to be sent for a term of three years' service in the Philippines. By the time the letter reached home, Forrest would have sailed.

The letter was written in a spirit of boyish bravado, like the first, but although it upset Mrs. Townsend again and sent her back to her bed, it relieved the tension of the family. It furnished definite news of the young fellow's whereabouts, and made it possible to communicate with him when he should have reached his destination.

Mrs. Townsend spent many days thereafter in urging her husband to apply at headquarters to have her son returned. It could be done, she was sure, because the boy was but nineteen, and having enlisted without his father's permission, must have misrepresented his age at the recruiting-station. But Mr. Townsend remained firm. He said that Forrest, having chosen this course, must abide by it, at least for the term of service for which he had enlisted. He would not have a turncoat for a son, he said sternly, although with a suspicious lowering of the voice; and he was more and more impressed with the conviction that the hard realities of life would make a man out of Forrest if the stuff of which men are made was in him.

"Meanwhile," he said to Murray, with a sadness which the other detected, "it is the father, rather than the son, after all, who has the bitterest dose of medicine to take."

"I 'm sorry, sir," was all Murray could say, wondering if his father meant the fact that his plan for taking Forrest into the business would have to be given up.

He suggested this to Jane Bell, in the little garden one evening, down by the phlox-bed, where she had gone to pick a bunch of flowers for Olive, who sat upon the porch with Ross and Peter. Olive had at last learned the way over to Gay Street, and having found it, had discovered that the knowledge lent interest to a life she had felt to be very dull.

"I suppose he feels badly about it," said Murray, holding the phlox Jane gave him while she picked a cluster of lilies to go with it.

"Indeed, he must."

"It is the thing he has looked forward to for years--ever since he realised he could n't make a business man out of me."

"Yes, and I suppose, even if your brother came back after two or three years, less head-strong than now, he might not be any more willing to settle down to that life."

"No, I doubt if he would. It's all up for father, and it's a tremendous disappointment."

"I am very, very sorry for him," said Jane, gravely, musing over her lilies. There was silence for a moment; then she looked up. "You don't think," she ventured, her hazel eyes scanning his, "that anybody could possibly make it up to him?"

"Anybody? Who?"

"Who, indeed?" Jane was breathing a little quickly.

Murray stared at her in mingled astonishment, questioning and dismay. Then he spoke, abruptly and roughly: "In the name of all absurdity, you can't mean _me_?"

Jane dropped her eyes, flushing deeply. She bit her lips. "It would be very, very hard, would n't it?"

Murray drew a deep, impatient breath. "_Hard!_" he exploded, and turned away. Then he wheeled back. "You're not serious?" he said, hurriedly. "You can't be serious in even suggesting such a thing. I--bookworm, cripple, weakling----"

Jane raised her eyes once more. In the deepening twilight Murray felt as if they were searching his soul.

"And yet," she said, slowly, and almost wistfully, "it would be such a magnificent thing to do. It would take hero stuff, I know--yet," she smiled, "I think--you--could----" Then she stopped short. "Oh, forgive me!" she cried, softly, under her breath. "What am I that I should suggest hero deeds to you? A girl who cries nearly every night of her life because she can't go to college!"