WHY?
JUST at midnight--that is, just at the dawning of the "to-morrow"
for which so much had been planned--Claire was awakened by a quick,
decisive knock at her door, followed by a voice which expressed haste
and terror:
"Miss Claire, your mother wants you to come right away, and bring Miss
Dora. Your father is sick."
And Claire was alert in an instant, wakening, soothing and helping the
frightened Dora. She herself was not greatly alarmed. It is true, her
father was not subject to sudden illnesses; but then, men were often
sick, and very sick, too, while the attack lasted. She called to mind
the story Nettie Stuart had told her that afternoon, how "papa was
so ill the night before that they really thought he would die, and
everybody in the house was up waiting on him." Yet "papa" had been at
the bank that next day, looking nearly as well as usual. Had it been
her frail mother who was ill, Claire felt that her pulses would have
quickened more than they did now. Mamma did not seem strong enough to
bear much pain, but papa was a man of iron frame, everybody said.
She told over some of these encouraging thoughts to Dora, while she
helped her to dress:
"Don't tremble so, darling; there is nothing to be frightened about.
Papa has one of his dreadful headaches, I presume, and mamma needs us
to help care for him. You know she is not feeling so well as usual.
She promised to call me the next time papa needed nursing. Men are so
unused to suffering, that a pain is something terrible to them while it
lasts."
They sped down the stairs together, Claire having slackened none of her
speed because she believed there was no cause for alarm. Her hand was
on her mother's doorknob, when the door swung open, and the mother's
white face made her start back in affright.
"Where are they?" she said, in a strange, agonized voice, groping about
with her hand as though she did not see distinctly, though the hall
was brightly lighted. "O, children, children, you are too late! Oh,
why"--and she fell senseless at their feet; and Claire was bending over
her, lifting her in trembling arms, trying to speak soothing words, all
the time wondering in a terror-stricken way what all this could mean!
Too late for what?
They had to settle down to inevitable facts, as so many poor souls
before, and since, have had to do. Of course, the first wildness of
grief passed, and they realized but too well that the father who had
kissed them and bade them look out for a bright to-morrow, had gone
away, and taken all the brightness of the to-morrow with him. At first
they could not believe it possible. Father dead! Why, his robust frame
and splendid physique had been the remark of guests ever since they
could remember! He had been fond of boasting that a physician had not
been called for him in twenty years.
Well, the physician arrived too late on this particular night, when
he had been called; another call had been louder, and the father went
to answer to it. Well for him that he had long before made ready for
this journey, and that there was nothing in the summons that would have
alarmed him, had he been given time to have realized it.
The poor widow went over, again and again, the details of that awful
hour:
"We had a little talk together, just as usual. Much of it was about
you; that was natural, too; he talked a great deal about you, children;
and on that evening, he said, after you left the room, that you both
needed developing in different ways, and sometimes it troubled him
to know how it was to be done. I did not understand him, and I asked
what he meant. He said some things that I will try to tell you when my
head is clearer. He was very earnest about it, and asked me to kneel
down with him, and he prayed again for you, dear girls, and for me, a
wonderful prayer. It wasn't like any that I ever heard before. Oh, I
might have known then that it was to prepare me; but I didn't think of
such a thing. I asked him if he felt well, and he said, oh, yes, only
more tired than usual; it had been a hard day, and there were business
matters that were not so smooth as he could wish. But he told me there
was nothing to worry about; only affairs that would require careful
handling, such as he meant to give them. Then he dropped to sleep, and
I lay awake a little, thinking over what he had said about you two, and
wondering if he was right in his conclusions. At last I slept, too, and
I knew nothing more until his heavy breathing awakened me.
"I made all possible haste for lights, and sent for the doctor and for
you just as soon as I could get an answer to the bell; and Thomas was
quick, too, but it seemed an age. The moment I had a glimpse of your
father's face, I knew something dreadful was the matter; but I did not
think, even then, that he was going to leave me."
At this point the desolate wife would break into a storm of tears,
and the daughters would give themselves to soothing words and tender
kisses, and put aside as best they could the consuming desire to know
what that dear father's last thoughts had been for them.
Well, the days passed. Isn't it curious how time moves along steadily,
after the object for which we think time was made has slipped away?
This sudden death, however, had made an unusual break in the usual
order of things. Mr. Benedict's name was too closely identified with
all the business interests of the city, as well as with its moral and
religious interests, not to have his departure from their midst make
great differences, and be widely felt.
The few days following his death were days of general and spontaneous
public demonstration. On the afternoon of the funeral, great
warehouses were closed, because his name was identified with them;
stores were closed, because crape waved from the doors of his, the
largest in the line. The First National Bank was closed, for he was one
of the Directors. The public schools were closed, because he had been
prominent among their Board of Directors; and it was so that on every
street some token of the power of the great man gone was shown.
As for the church, and the Sabbath-school, and the prayer-room, they
were draped in mourning; but that feebly expressed the sense of loss.
"We cannot close our doors to show our sorrow," said Doctor Ellis, his
lips tremulous; "we have need to throw them more widely open, and rally
with renewed effort, for one of the mighty is fallen."
To the widow and her girls, there was, as the hours passed, a sort of
sad pleasure in noting this universal mourning; in listening to the
tearful words expressing a sense of personal loss, which came right
from the hearts of so many men and women and children. They began
to see that they had not half realized his power in the community,
as young men in plain, sometimes rough dress, men whose names they
had never heard, and whose faces they had never seen, came and stood
over the coffin, and dropped great tears as they told in the brief
and subdued language of the heart, of some lift, or word, or touch of
kindness, that this man had given them, just when they needed it most.
Born of these tender and grateful tributes from all classes, was a
drop of bitterness that seemed to spread as Claire turned it over in
her troubled heart. It could all be suggested to those familiar with
the intricacies of the human heart, by that one little word, Why?
It sometimes becomes an awful word, with power to torture the torn
heart almost to madness. "Why was father, a man so good, so true, so
grand, so sadly needed in this wicked world, snatched from it just
in the prime of his power?" She brooded over this in silence and in
secret--not wishing to burden her mother's heart by the query, not
liking to add a suggestion of bitterness to Dora's sorrowful cup. Only
once, when a fresh exhibition of his care for others, and the fruit it
bore, was unexpectedly made to them, she was betrayed into exclaiming:
"I cannot understand why it was!"
Whether the mother understood her or not, she did not know. She hoped
not; she was sorry she had spoken. But presently the mother roused
herself to say gently:
"You girls were on your father's heart in a strange way. That last talk
about you I must try to tell you of, when I can. The substance of it
I have told you. He thought you both needed developing. Dora dear, he
said you needed more self-reliance; that you had too many props, and
depended on them. He might have said the same of me; I depended on him
more than I knew. He said you needed to be thrust out a little, and
learn to stand alone, and brave winds and storms. And Claire, I don't
think I fully understood what he wanted for you, only he said that you
needed to trust less to your own self, and lean on Christ."
After this word from her father, Claire sat in startled silence for a
few minutes, then took it to her room.
Did you ever notice that the storms of life seem almost never to come
in detached waves, but follow each other in rapid succession?
When the Benedict family parted for the night, less than a week after
the father had been laid in the grave, Dora said listlessly to her
sister:
"There is one little alleviation, I think, to a heavy blow--for a
while, at least, nothing else seems heavy. Things that troubled me last
week seem so utterly foolish to-day. I don't this evening seem to care
for anything that could happen to us now; to us three, I mean."
Before noon of the next day she thought of that sentence again with a
sort of dull surprise at her own folly.
How do such things occur? I can not tell. Yet how many times in your
life have you personally known of them--families who are millionnaires
to-day, and beggars to-morrow? It was just that sort of blow which
came to the Benedicts. Came, indeed, because of the other one, and
followed hard after it. Business men tried to explain matters to the
widow. A peculiar complication of circumstances existed, which called
for her husband's clear brain and wise handling. Had he lived, all
would have been well; there was scarcely a doubt of it. Had he been
able to give one week more to business, he would have shaped everything
to his mind; but the call came just at the moment when he could least
be spared, and financial ruin had followed.
Mrs. Benedict, in her widow's cap, with her plaintive white face, her
delicate, trembling hands working nervously in her lap, from which the
crimson fancy work was gone, tried to understand the bewilderments
which, one after another, were presented to her, and grew less and
less able to take in the meaning of the great words, and at last
raised herself from her easy chair, looked round pitifully for Claire,
and sank back among the cushions--her face, if possible, whiter than
before.
The elder daughter came swiftly forward from her obscurity in the back
parlor, and stood beside her mother.
"I beg pardon, gentlemen, but mamma does not understand business terms;
my father never burdened her with them. Will you let me ask you a few
plain questions? Is my father's money all gone?"
The gentlemen looked from one to another, and hesitated. At last the
lawyer among them said he feared--that is, it was believed--it seemed
to be almost certain that when all the business was settled, there
would be a mere pittance left.
The next question caused two red spots to glow on Claire's cheeks, but
she held her head erect, and her voice was steady:
"And do they--does anybody think that my father did wrong in any way?"
"Mamma," with a tender, apologetic glance at her, "people say such
things sometimes, you know, when they do not understand."
But the gentlemen could be voluble now:
"Oh, no! no, indeed! not a breath of suspicion attached to his name.
His intentions were as clear as the sunlight, and the fact was, he had
periled his own fortune in a dangerous time, to help others who were in
straits, and he had been called to leave it at a dangerous time, and
disaster has followed."
One question more:
"Will others be sufferers through this disaster?"
The answer was not so ready. The gentlemen seemed to find it necessary
to look again at one another. They, however, finally admitted, to each
other, that there was property enough to cover everybody's loss, if
that were the wish of the family; this, without any doubt, but there
would be almost nothing left.
"Very well," Claire said, "then we can bear it. We thank you,
gentlemen, and you may be sure of this one thing--that no person shall
lose a penny through our father's loss, if we can help it. Now, may
I ask you to leave further particulars until another time? Mamma has
borne as much as she can to-day."
And the gentlemen, as they went down the steps of the great brownstone
front, said to each other that Benedict had left a splendid girl, with
self-reliance enough to manage for herself and take care of the family.
Yet I suppose there had never been a time when Claire Benedict felt
more as though all the powers which had hitherto sustained her,
were about to desert, and leave her helpless, than she did when she
controlled her own dismay, and helped her mother to bed, and sat beside
her, and bathed her head, and steadily refused to talk, or to hear her
mother talk, about this new calamity, but literally hushed her into
quiet and to sleep.
Then, indeed, she took time to cry, as few girls cry; as Claire
Benedict had never cried before in her life.
Her self-reliance seemed gone. As the passion of her voiceless grief
swayed and fairly frightened her, there stole suddenly into her heart
the memory of the last message: "Claire needs to trust less to herself,
and lean on Christ."