David was quite a personage in Old Chester for a few days. Mrs. Richie
was his slave, and hardly left him day or night; Dr. King came to see
him five times in one week; Mrs. Barkley sent him some wine jelly in a
sheaf-of-wheat mould; Dr. Lavendar climbed the hill on two afternoons,
to play dominoes with him, though, as it happened, Mrs. Richie was not
present either day to watch the game. The first time she had just gone
to lie down, Sarah said; the second time she had that moment started
out to walk--"Why, my goodness!" said Sarah, "she must 'a' _just_ gone!
She was here not a minute ago. I should 'a' thought she'd 'a' seen you
tyin' up at the gate?"
"Well, evidently she didn't," Dr. Lavendar said, "or she would have
waited. Tell her I'm sorry to miss her, Sarah." Then, eagerly, he went
on up-stairs to David.
William King, too, was scarcely more fortunate; he only found her at
home once, so at the end of the week he was unable to tell her that
David was improving. It was, of course, necessary that she should be
told this; so that was why he and Jinny continued to come up the hill
for another week. At any rate that was the explanation he gave his
Martha. "I must let her know just when David can go back to school," he
said. And Martha, with a tightening lip remarked that she should have
supposed a woman of Mrs. Richie's years could use her own judgment in
such a matter.
William's explanation to Dr. Lavendar was somewhat fuller: "I make a
point of calling, on the plea of seeing David, but it's really to see
her. She's so high strung, that this little accident of his has
completely upset her. I notice that she sort of keeps out of the way of
people. I'm pretty sure that yesterday she saw me coming and slipped
out into the garden to avoid me--think of that! Nervousness; pure
nervousness. But I have a plan to brighten her up a little--a
surprise-party. What do you say?"
Dr. Lavendar looked doubtful. "William," he said, "isn't life
surprising enough? Now, here's Sam Wright's Sam's performance."
Dr. Lavendar looked care-worn, and with reason. Sam Wright's Sam had
indeed provided a surprise for Old Chester. He had quietly announced
that he was going to leave town.
"Going away!" repeated the senior warden. "What are you talking about?"
Sam said briefly that he wanted to try to get a drama he had written,
published.
"You are out of your senses!" his father said; "I forbid it, sir. Do
you hear me?"
Sam looked out of the window. "I shall go, I think, to-morrow," he said
thoughtfully.
Samuel Wright stared at his wife in dumfounded silence. When he got his
breath, he said in awful tones, "Eliza, he defies me! A child of mine,
and lost to all sense of duty! I cannot understand it;--unless such
things have happened in _your_ family?" he ended with sudden suspicion.
"Never!" protested the poor mother; "but Samuel, my dear--Sammy, my
darling--"
The senior warden raised a majestic hand. "Silence, if you please,
Eliza." Then he thrust his right hand into his bosom, rested his left
fist on the marble-topped centre-table, and advanced one foot. Standing
thus, he began to tell his son what he thought of him, and as he
proceeded his anger mounted, he forgot his periods and his attitudes,
and his voice grew shrill and mean. But, alas, he could not tell the
boy all that he thought; he could not tell him of his high ambitions
for him, of his pitiful desire for his love, of his anguished fear lest
he might be unhappy, or foolish, or bad. These thoughts the senior
warden had never known how to speak. Instead, he detailed his
grievances and his disappointments; he told Sam with ruthless candor
what the world called his conduct: dishonest, idiotic, ungrateful. He
had a terrifying string of adjectives, and through them all the boy
looked out of the window. Once, at a particularly impassioned period,
he glanced at his father with interest; that phrase would be fine in a
play, he reflected. Then he looked out of the window again.
"And now," Mr. Wright ended sonorously, "what reply have you to make,
sir?"
Sam looked confused. "I beg your pardon, father? I did not hear what
you were saying."
Samuel Wright stared at him, speechless.
As for the boy, he said calmly, "Good night, father," and went
up-stairs to his own room where he began his packing. The next morning
he had gone.
"Where?" asked Dr. Lavendar, when the angry father brought him the
news. "I do not know," said the senior warden, "and I do not--"
"Yes, you do," said Dr. Lavendar; "but that's not the point. The point
is that it doesn't really matter, except for our comfort, whether we
know or not. Sam is a man, and our protection is an impertinence. He's
taking a dive on his own account. And as I look at it, he has a right
to. But he'll come up for breath, and then we'll get some information.
And he'll get some sense."
But of course the Wright family was in a most distressed state. The
mother was overwhelmed with anxious grief; the father was consumed with
mortification and blazing with anger.
"He didn't take his second-weight flannels," moaned Mrs. Wright; "he
will catch cold. Oh, where is he? And nobody knows how to cook his
hominy for him but our Betsy. Oh, my boy!"
"Good riddance," said Sam senior between his teeth; "ungrateful puppy!"
Dr. Lavendar had his hands full. To reassure the mother, and tell her
that the weather was so warm that Sam couldn't use the second-weight
flannels if he had them, and that when he came back Betsy's hominy
would seem better than ever--"Old Chester food will taste mighty good,
after a few husks," said Dr. Lavendar, cheerfully--to tell Sam senior
that a grateful puppy would be an abnormal monster, and to refrain from
telling him that whatever a father sows he is pretty sure to reap--took
time and strength. So Dr. Lavendar did not enter very heartily into
William King's plans for a surprise-party. However, he did promise to
come, if the doctor succeeded in getting Old Chester together.
Meantime he and Danny and Goliath went up to The Top to tell Benjamin
Wright about Sam's Sam. The grandfather displayed no surprise.
"I knew he was going to clear out," he said; he was poking about among
his canaries when Dr. Lavendar came in, and he stopped and sat down,
panting. "These fowls wear me out," he complained. "Whiskey? No? Dear
me! Your senior warden's got you to sign the pledge, I suppose? Well, I
will; to drink the cub's health. He'll amount to something yet, if he
doesn't eat his fatted calf too soon. Fatted calf is very bad for the
digestion."
"Wright, I don't suppose you need to be told that you behaved
abominably Sunday night? Do you know where Sam is?"
"I don't; and I don't want to. Behaved abominably? He wouldn't shake
hands with me! Sam told me he was going, and I gave him some
money--well! why do you look at me like that? Gad-a-mercy, ain't he my
grandson? Besides, since our love-feast, ain't it my duty to help his
father along? I've had a change of heart," he said, grinning; "where's
your joy over the one sinner that repenteth? I'm helping young Sam, so
that old Sam may get some sense. Lavendar, the man who has not learned
what a damned fool he is, hasn't learned anything. And if I mistake
not, the boy will teach my very respectable son, who won't smoke and
won't drink, that interesting fact. As for the boy, he will come back a
man, sir. A man! Anyway, I've done my part. I offered him money and
advice--like the two women grinding at the mill, one was taken and the
other was left. Yes; I've done my part. I've evened things up. I gave
him his first tobie, and his first drink, and now I've given him a
chance to see the world--which your senior warden once said was a
necessary experience for a young man. I've evened things up!" He thrust
a trembling hand down into the blue ginger-jar for some orange-skin.
"He said he'd pay the money back; I said, 'Go to thunder!' As if I
cared about the money. I've got him out of Old Chester; that's all I
care about."
"Well," said Dr. Lavendar, "I hope you haven't got him merely out of
the frying-pan."
"So you think there is no fire in Old Chester? She's a pretty creetur,
Lavendar, ain't she? Poor thing!"
Dr. Lavendar did not follow the connection of ideas in the older man's
mind, but he did say to himself, as he and Goliath went away, that it
was queer how possessed Benjamin Wright was that Sam's love-making was
dangerous. Then he sighed, and his face fell into troubled lines. For
all his brave words, he wished he knew where the boy was; and though he
was already late for dinner, he drew up at William King's door to ask
the doctor if he had any new ideas on the subject.
But Willy was not at home. Martha was sitting under the grape-vine
trellis at the back door, topping and tailing gooseberries. From the
kitchen behind her came the pleasant smell of preserving. She had a big
yellow earthenware bowl in her lap, and excused herself for not rising
when Dr. Lavendar came round the corner of the house to find her.
"_I_ am a housekeeper, Dr. Lavendar. William thinks it's pretty not to
understand housekeeping; but I expect if he didn't have preserves for
his supper, he wouldn't think it was so pretty. No; he isn't at home,
sir. He's gone out--with the thermometer at ninety--to see about that
party he is getting up for Mrs., Richie. So long as he has time to
spare from his patients, I should think he would like to take up my
spare-room carpet for me. But, oh dear, no. He has to see about
parties!"
"William is always doing friendly things," said Dr. Lavendar, sitting
down on the door-step and helping himself to a gooseberry from Martha's
bowl. "You are going to make some fool for the supper, of course?" He
took off his hat, and wiped his forehead with his big red handkerchief.
"Oh, of course. I'm very tired, and I have my housekeeping to attend
to; but I can make gooseberry fool. That's what I'm for."
"When is this party?" said Dr. Lavendar. "I declare, I've been so
worried about Sam's Sam, I've forgotten."
"It's next week; Thursday. Yes; she can send that boy to his death,
maybe; but we must have parties to cheer her up."
"Oh, come now," Dr. Lavendar remonstrated; "I don't believe a glimpse
of the world will kill him. And nobody can blame Mrs. Richie for his
foolishness. I suppose we are all going?"
"Everybody," Martha King said scornfully; "even Samuel Wright. He told
his wife that he wouldn't have any nonsense about Sam, and she'd got to
go. I think it's positively cruel; because of course everybody knows
that the boy was in love with this housekeeper that doesn't know how to
make soap!" Martha shook her bowl sharply, and the toppling green
pyramid crumbled. Dr. Lavendar looked at her over his spectacles;
instantly her face reddened, and she tossed her head. "Of course, you
understand that I haven't the slightest personal feeling about it.
That's one thing about me, Dr. Lavendar, I may not be perfect, but
nobody despises anything like--that, more than I do. I merely regret
William's judgment."
"Regret William's judgment! Why, think of the judgment he displayed in
choosing a wife," said Dr. Lavendar. But when he climbed into his old
buggy he had the grace to be ashamed of himself; he admitted as much to
Danny. "For she's a sensible woman, Daniel, and, at bottom, kind."
Danny yawned, and Dr. Lavendar added, "Poor Willy!"
Mrs. Richie's first hint of Dr. King's proposed festivity came a week
later from David, who happened to be at home to dinner, and who saw fit
to mention that Lydia Wright wasn't to be allowed to come up with her
father and mother.
"Come up where?" Mrs. Richie said, idly. She was leaning forward, her
elbows on the table, watching the child eat. When he said, "To your
party to-night," she sat up in astonished dismay.
"My _what?_ David! Tell me--exactly. Who is coming? Oh, dear!" she
ended, tears of distress standing in her eyes.
David continued to eat his rice pudding. "Can I sit up till nine?"
Mrs. Richie pushed her chair back from the table, and caught her lower
lip between her teeth. What should she do? But even as she asked
herself the question, Dr. King stood, smiling, in the French window
that opened on to the lawn.
"May I come in?" he said.
The fact was, a misgiving had risen in William's mind; perhaps a
complete surprise would not be pleasant. Perhaps she would rather have
an idea of what was going to happen. Perhaps she might want to dress
up, or something. And so he dropped in to give a hint: "Half a dozen of
us are coming in tonight to say how-do-you-do," he confessed, ("Whew!
she doesn't need to dress up," he commented inwardly.) The red rose in
her hair and her white cross-barred muslin with elbow sleeves seemed
very elegant to William. He was so lost in admiration of her toilet,
that her start of angry astonishment escaped him.
"Dr. King," said David, scraping up the sugar from his saucer, "is God
good because He likes to be, or because He has to be?"
"David," said William King, "you will be the death of me!"
"Because, if He likes to be," David murmured, "I don't see why He gets
praised; and if He has to be, why--"
"Dr. King," said Helena breathlessly, "I'm afraid--really, I'm not
prepared for company; and--"
"Oh," said William, cheerfully, "don't bother about that. Mrs. King is
going to bring up one or two little things, and I believe Mrs. Barkley
has some ideas on the subject. Well, I must be going along. I hope you
won't be sorry to see us? The fact is, you are too lonely up here with
only David to keep you busy, though I must say, if he fires off
questions like this one, I should think you would be pretty well
occupied!"
When he had gone, Helena Richie sat looking blankly at David. "What on
earth shall I do!" she said aloud.
"Did God make Sarah?" David demanded.
"Yes, dear, yes!"
"Did He make me, and the Queen, and my rabbits?"
"Why, of course. Oh, David, you do ask so many questions!"
"Everything has to be made," he ruminated.
She agreed, absently. David put his spoon down, deeply interested.
"Who made God?--another god, higher up?"
"I think," she said, "that I'll send word I have a headache!"
David sighed, and gave up theological research, "Dr. King didn't look
at my scar, but I made Theophilus Bell pay me a penny to show it to
him. Mrs. Richie, when I am a man, I'm _never_ going to wash behind my
ears. I tell Sarah so every morning, I'm going to see my rabbits, now.
Good-by."
He slipped down from his chair and left her to her perplexity--as if
she had not perplexity enough without this! For the last few days she
had been worried almost to death about Mr. Benjamin Wright. She had not
written to Lloyd yet of that terrible interview in the garden which
would drive her from Old Chester; she had been afraid to. She felt
instinctively that his mood was not hospitable to any plan that would
bring her to live in the East. He would be less hospitable if she came
because she had been found out in Old Chester. But her timidity about
writing to him was a curious alarm to her; it was a confession of
something she would not admit even long enough to deny it.
Nevertheless, she did not write. "I will to-morrow," she assured
herself each day, But now, on top of her worry of indecision and
unacknowledged fear, came this new dismay--a party! How furious Lloyd
would be if he heard of it; well, he must not hear of it. But what
could she do? If she put it off with a flimsy excuse, it would only
defer the descent upon her. How helpless she was! They would come,
these people, they would be friendly; she could not escape them.
"Oh, I must stop this kind of thing," she said to herself, desperately.