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.”
“Well, that’s not old, of course, but still—What I can’t make out,
sister, is why she should be afflicted in this way. Mrs. Harper had
known her, like you, ever since she was a little girl, and she has had
so many troubles; all her people died soon after she was married, and
her husband was not—nice, and he lost all her money before he died, and
she has always been so good and lovely and patient and uncomplaining, so
earnestly striving to do right, so that Mrs. Harper says she has been an
example to everyone. Why should _she_ have this terrible, terrible blow
fall upon her? Why should her sweet, darling little child be taken away?
What has she _done_ that she should be punished so? It seems
wrong—wrong! I don’t understand it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, either,” said Helen very low. She put her hand on
her heart for a minute and looked up, smiling a little wistfully. Her
own trouble was so old that people had forgotten it.
“We nearly got crying,” pursued Kathleen, “all the girls, I mean. Harvey
Spencer tried to make us laugh; he told jokes—horrid ones. Oh, how silly
he was! I hate society men. But it seemed as if we couldn’t get off the
subject; first one thing brought it up, and then another. Everybody
wants to do something for Mrs. Rhodes. What I was going to tell you was
that Mary Barbour said she believed that sweet little Silvy was taken
because his mother made an idol of him; that you shouldn’t love anybody
so much—that it was wrong. I don’t believe it, sister! I don’t _believe_
it; you can’t love anyone too much! People forget what love means, and
it seems unnatural to them when we love as much as we can. Oh, you may
look at me! I think of a great, great many things I never tell. You and
my brother Orrin, who have done everything and had everything, you think
me silly and romantic, but I am wiser than you. It’s because you’ve
forgotten. Why, there’s nothing but love that makes life worth living!”
said young Kathleen, her voice thrilling through the room. “I shall
never try to love only a little, no matter what happens, but as much, as
much, _as much_, always, as God will let me, if I die for it myself!”
She went over to Helen and flung herself down on the floor beside her,
and laid her head in Helen’s lap.
“He will let you,” said Helen with an unsteady voice. Something in her
tone made the girl raise her head suddenly—their eyes met in a long
look, and a deep rose overspread Kathleen’s face before she hid it
again. To the elder woman had come quite unbidden a picture of a man
carrying tenderly in his strong arms the white, still body of a little
dead child. She would like to have told Kathleen if shyness had not held
her tongue. After all, he did not seem quite unworthy. If Orrin thought—
He made a grimace when she told him in the brief half hour they had
together before she left the house.
“It is only the conclusion I had been coming to,” he said. “There is
nothing personally against the man; I almost wish there were. I knew
Kathleen would be too much for us—Kathleen and love. But how she can
want him, I cannot see.”
“Ah, but, Orrin, _we_ don’t either of us have to marry him,” said his
wife. “I have just found out that it’s Kathleen’s happiness, not ours,
that is at stake. What are you looking at?”
He had walked over to her dressing table, where there stood the faded
photograph of a little child, with a vase of flowers near it. He gazed
steadily at it without speaking.
“I always thought this better than the large portrait,” he said at last
huskily. “You have not had it out in some time.”
“No,” she replied, “the frame wanted repairing, and the picture had
grown so dim I—I couldn’t bear to see it, someway. But to-day—oh, Orrin,
I have been so longing to have someone remember—”
“I have never forgotten,” he said; “did you think that? It is only that
I am so busy, there are so many things that crowd upon me that I don’t
get a chance to tell you. I gave a thousand dollars to the Children’s
Hospital to-day for little Silvy’s sake—and our child’s. Why, Helen,
Helen, _Helen_! Poor girl, poor girl, I’ll have to look after you more,
I shall not allow you to go again to-night.”
“But it has done me more good than anything else in this world,” said
his wife. “I’ve been one of the dead souls in prison. It’s not for
sorrow that I’m crying, Orrin, not for sorrow alone—oh, for so much
else, dear! And now I must go, and I think my man is downstairs for some
work from you, and I’ll say good-by until to-morrow.”
When Helen reached her friend’s house she found the clergyman just
descending the steps. It was beginning to snow again in the dusk, and he
buttoned his overcoat tightly around his spare figure as he came forward
to assist her from the sleigh.
“Mrs. Rhodes told me that she was expecting you,” he said.
“Then have you seen her?”
“Yes, for a few minutes.” He sighed and stood meditatively looking up
the street. “Judge Shillaber has just been here. I was surprised to see
him, he so seldom goes out, and never seemed to take any interest in his
neighbors. But perhaps I should not say that,” he added hastily.
“Everyone must feel the blow that has fallen here; the circumstances are
so peculiarly sad. The ways of the Lord are very mysterious.” As he
spoke he raised his face, which was thin and careworn because the
sorrows of his people weighed very heavily upon him. “The ways of the
Lord are very mysterious. We must have faith, Mrs. Armstrong, more
faith.”
“Yes, indeed,” cried Helen, “I feel that.”
“I would like to speak to you about—But I must not keep you out here.
There is Mrs. Rawls. Another time!” He hurried off down the street,
while Helen found herself drawn inside the door by Mrs. Rawls and into
the little dining-room, where the blinds were open somewhat, now that
the evening dusk had settled down. The room was warm and quiet, with a
heavy perfume of flowers loading the air.