“You poor little girl!--But it is over now.”
“Yes, it is over now,” I answered. I thought he referred to the
difficult walk across the room, and to my long illness, now so happily
at an end. He smiled and patted me on the cheek, but made no other
answer.
“I must tell Mother that you are here,” I said presently. I had not
looked behind me or about me. Since the first sight of my father sitting
in the window, I had not observed any other person, and could not have
told who was in the room.
“Not yet,” my father said. “We may not speak to her at present. I think
we had better go.”
I lifted my face to say, “Go where?” but my lips did not form the
question. It was just as it used to be when he came from the study and
held out his hand, and said “Come,” and I went anywhere with him,
neither asking, nor caring, so long as it was with him; and then he used
to play or walk with me, and I forgot the whole world besides. I put my
hand in his without a question, and we moved towards the door.
“I suppose _you_ had better go this way,” he said, with a slight
hesitation, as we passed out and across the hall.
“Any way you like best,” I said joyfully. He smiled, and still keeping
my hand, led me down the stairs. As we went down, I heard the little
Swiss clock, above in my room, strike the half hour after two.
I noticed everything in the hall as we descended; it was as if my
vision, as well as the muscles of motion, grew stronger with each
moment. I saw the stair-carpeting with its faded Brussels pattern, once
rich, and remembered counting the red roses on it the night I went up
with the fever on me; reeling and half delirious, wondering how I could
possibly afford to be sick. I saw the hat-tree with Tom’s coat, and
Alice’s blue Shetland shawl across the old hair-cloth sofa. As we
opened the door, I saw the muffled bell. I stood for a moment upon the
threshold of my old home, not afraid but perplexed.
My father seemed to understand my thoughts perfectly, though I had not
spoken, and he paused for my reluctant mood. I thought of all the years
I had spent there. I thought of my childhood and girlhood; of the
tempestuous periods of life which that quiet roof had hidden; of the
calms upon which it had brooded. I thought of sorrows that I had
forgotten, and those which I had prayed in vain to forget. I thought of
temptations and of mistakes and of sins, from which I had fled back
asking these four walls to shelter me. I thought of the comfort and
blessedness that I had never failed to find in the old house. I shrank
from leaving it. It seemed like leaving my body.
When the door had been opened, the night air rushed in. I could see the
stars, and knew, rather than felt, that it was cold. As we stood
waiting, an icicle dropped from the eaves, and fell, breaking into a
dozen diamond flashes at our feet. Beyond, it was dark.
“It seems to me a great exposure,” I said reluctantly, “to be taken out
into a winter night,--at such an hour, too! I have been so very sick.”
“Are you cold?” asked my father gently. After some thought I said:--
“No, sir.”
For I was not cold. For the first time I wondered why.
“Are you tired?”
No, I was not tired.
“Are you afraid?”
“A little, I think, sir.”
“Would you like to go back, Molly, and rest awhile?”
“If you please, Papa.”
The old baby-word came instinctively in answer to the baby-name. He led
me like a child, and like a child I submitted. It was like him to be so
thoughtful of my weakness. My dear father was always one of those rare
men who think of little things largely, and so bring, especially into
the lives of women, the daily comfort which makes the infinite
preciousness of life.
We went into the parlor and sat down. It was warm there and pleasant.
The furnace was well on, and embers still in the grate. The lamps were
not lighted, yet the room was not dark. I enjoyed being down there again
after all those weeks up-stairs, and was happy in looking at the
familiar things, the afghan on the sofa, and the magazines on the table,
uncut because of my illness; Mother’s work-basket, and Alice’s music
folded away.
“It was always a dear old room,” said Father, seating himself in his own
chair, which we had kept for twenty years in its old place. He put his
head back, and gazed peacefully about.
When I felt rested, and better, I asked him if we should start now.
“Just as you please,” he said quietly. “There is no hurry. We are never
hurried.”
“If we have anything to do,” I said, “I had rather do it now I think.”
“Very well,” said Father, “that is like you.” He rose and held out his
hand again. I took it once more, and once more we went out to the
threshold of our old home. This time I felt more confidence, but when
the night air swept in, I could not help shrinking a little in spite of
myself, and showing the agitation which overtook me.
“Father!” I cried, “Father! _where_ are we going?”
My father turned at this, and looked at me solemnly. His face seemed to
shine and glow. He looked from what I felt was a great height. He
said:--
“Are you really afraid, Mary, to go _any_where with me?”
“No, no!” I protested in a passion of regret and trust, “my dear father!
I would go any where in earth or Heaven with you!”
“Then come,” he said softly.
I clasped both hands, interlocking them through his arm, and we shut the
door and went down the steps together and out into the winter dawn.