"NEW white dress, is it?" said Mrs. Costello in bland surprise. "Well,
my, my, my! You'll have Dad and me in the poorhouse!"
She had been knitting a pink and white jacket for somebody's baby, but
now she put it into the silk bag on her knee, dropped it on the floor,
and with one generous sweep of her big arms gathered Alanna into her
lap instead. Alanna was delighted to have at last attracted her
mother's whole attention, after some ten minutes of unregarded
whispering in her ear. She settled her thin little person with the
conscious pleasure of a petted cat.
"What do you know about that, Dad?" said Mrs. Costello, absently, as
she stiffened the big bow over Alanna's temple into a more erect
position. "You and Tess could wear your Christmas procession dresses,"
she suggested to the little girl.
Teresa, apparently absorbed until this instant in what the young
Costellos never called anything but the "library book," although that
volume changed character and title week after week, now shut it
abruptly, came around the reading-table to her mother's side, and said
in a voice full of pained reminder:
"Mother! EVERY ONE will have new white dresses and blue sashes for
Superior's feast!"
"I bet you Superior won't!" said Jim, frivolously, from the
picture-puzzle he and Dan were reconstructing. Alanna laughed joyously,
but Teresa looked shocked.
"Mother, ought he say that about Superior?" she asked.
"Jimmy, don't you be pert about the Sisters," said his mother, mildly.
And suddenly the Mayor's paper was lowered, and he was looking keenly
at his son over his glasses.
"What did you say, Jim?" said he. Jim was instantly smitten scarlet and
dumb, but Mrs. Costello hastily explained that it was but a bit of
boy's nonsense, and dismissed it by introducing the subject of the new
white dresses.
"Well, well, well! There's nothing like having two girls in society!"
said the Mayor, genially, winding one of Teresa's curls about his fat
finger. "What's this for, now? Somebody graduating?"
"It's Mother Superior's Golden Jubilee," explained Teresa, "and there
will be a reunion of 'lumnae, and plays by the girls, you know, and
duets by the big girls, and needlework by the Spanish girls. And our
room and Sister Claudia's is giving a new chapel window, a dollar a
girl, and Sister Ligouri's room is giving the organ bench."
"And our room is giving a spear," said Alanna, uncertainly.
"A spear, darlin'?" wondered her mother. "What would you give that to
Superior for?" Jim and Dan looked up expectantly, the Mayor's mouth
twitched. Alanna buried her face in her mother's neck, where she
whispered an explanation.
"Well, of course!" said Mrs. Costello, presently, to the company at
large. Her eye held a warning that her oldest sons did not miss. "As
she says, 'tis a ball all covered with islands and maps, Dad. A globe,
that's the other name for it!"
"Ah, yes, a spear, to be sure!" assented the Mayor, mildly, and Alanna
returned to view.
"But the best of the whole programme is the grandchildren's part,"
volunteered Teresa. "You know, Mother, the girls whose mothers went to
Notre Dame are called the 'grandchildren.' Alanna and I are, there are
twenty-two of us in all. And we are going to have a special march and a
special song, and present Superior with a bouquet!"
"And maybe Teresa's going to present it and say the salutation!"
exulted Alanna.
"No, Marg'ret Hammond will," Teresa corrected her quickly. "Marg'ret's
three months older than me. First they were going to have me, but
Marg'ret's the oldest. And she does it awfully nicely, doesn't she,
Alanna? Sister Celia says it's really the most important thing of the
day. And we all stand round Marg'ret while she does it. And the best of
it all is, it's a surprise for Superior!"
"Not a surprise like Christmas surprises," amended Alanna,
conscientiously. "Superior sort of knows we are doing something,
because she hears the girls practising, and she sees us going upstairs
to rehearse. But she will p'tend to be surprised."
"And it's new dresses all 'round, eh?" said her father.
"Oh, yes, we must!" said Teresa, anxiously.
"Well, I'll see about it," promised Mrs. Costello.
"Don't you want to afford the expense, mother?" Alanna whispered in her
ear. Mrs. Costello was much touched.
"Don't you worry about that, lovey!" said she. The Mayor had presumably
returned to his paper, but his absent eyes were fixed far beyond the
printed sheet he still held tilted carefully to the light.
"Marg'ret Hammond--whose girl is that, then?" he asked presently.
"She's a girl whose mother died," supplied Alanna, cheerfully. "She's
awfully smart. Sister Helen teaches her piano for nothing,--she's a
great friend of mine. She likes me, doesn't she, Tess?"
"She's three years older'n you are, Alanna," said Teresa, briskly, "and
she's in our room! I don't see how you can say she's a friend of YOURS!
Do you, mother?"
"Well," said Alanna, getting red, "she is. She gave me a rag when I cut
me knee, and one day she lifted the cup down for me when Mary Deane
stuck it up on a high nail, so that none of us could get drinks, and
when Sister Rose said, 'Who is talking?' she said Alanna Costello
wasn't 'cause she's sitting here as quiet as a mouse!'"
"All that sounds very kind and friendly to me," said Mrs. Costello,
soothingly.
"I expect that's Doctor Hammond's girl?" said the Mayor.
"No, sir," said Dan. "These are the Hammonds who live over by the
bridge. There's just two kids, Marg'ret and Joe, and their father. Joe
served the eight o'clock Mass with me one week,--you know, Jim, the
week you were sick."
"Sure," said Jim. "Hammond's a nice feller."
Their father scraped his chin with a fat hand.
"I know them," he said ruminatively. Mrs. Costello looked up.
"That's not the Hammond you had trouble with at the shop, Frank?" she
said.
"Well, I'm thinking maybe it is," her husband admitted. "He's had a
good deal of bad luck one way or another, since he lost his wife." He
turned to Teresa. "You be as nice as you can to little Marg'ret
Hammond, Tess," said he.
"I wonder who the wife was?" said Mrs. Costello. "If this little girl
is a 'grandchild,' I ought to know the mother. Ask her, Tess."
Teresa hesitated.
"I don't play with her much, mother. And she's sort of shy," she began.
"I'll ask her," said Alanna, boldly. "I don't care if she IS going on
twelve. She goes up to the chapel every day, and I'll stop her
to-morrow, and ask her! She's always friendly to me."
Mayor Costello had returned to his paper. But a few hours later, when
all the children except Gertrude were settled for the night, and
Gertrude, in a state of milky beatitude, was looking straight into her
mother's face above her with blue eyes heavy with sleep, he enlightened
his wife further concerning the Hammonds.
"He was with me at the shop," said the Mayor, "and I never was sorrier
to let any man go. But it seemed like his wife's death drove him quite
wild. First it was fighting with the other boys, and then drink, and
then complaints here and there and everywhere, and Kelly wouldn't stand
for it. I wish I'd kept him on a bit longer, myself, what with his
having the two children and all. He's got a fine head on him, and a
very good way with people in trouble. Kelly himself was always sending
him to arrange about flowers and carriages and all. Poor lad! And then
came the night he was tipsy, and got locked in the warehouse--"
"I know," said Mrs. Costello, with a pitying shake of the head, as she
gently adjusted the sleeping Gertrude. "Has he had a job since, Frank?"
"He was with a piano house," said her husband, uneasily, as he went
slowly on with his preparations for the night. "Two children, has he?
And a boy on the altar. 'Tis hard that the children have to pay for it."
"Alanna'll find out who the wife was. She never fails me," said Mrs.
Costello, turning from Gertrude's crib with sudden decision in her
voice. "And I'll do something, never fear!"
Alanna did not fail. She came home the next day brimming with the
importance of her fulfilled mission.
"Her mother's name was Harmonica Moore!" announced Alanna, who could be
depended upon for unfailing inaccuracy in the matter of names. Teresa
and the boys burst into joyous laughter, but the information was close
enough for Mrs. Costello.
"Monica Moore!" she exclaimed. "Well, for pity's sake! Of course I knew
her, and a sweet, dear girl she was, too. Stop laughing at Alanna, all
of you, or I'll send you upstairs until Dad gets after you. Very quiet
and shy she was, but the lovely singing voice! There wasn't a tune in
the world she wouldn't lilt to you if you asked her. Well, the poor
child, I wish I'd never lost sight of her." She pondered a moment. "Is
the boy still serving Mass at St. Mary's, Dan?" she said then.
"Sure," said Jim. For Dan was absorbed in the task of restoring
Alanna's ruffled feelings by inserting a lighted match into his mouth.
"Well, that's good," pursued their mother. "You bring him home to
breakfast after Mass any day this week, Jim. And, Tess, you must bring
the little girl in after school. Tell her I knew her dear mother." Mrs.
Costello's eyes, as she returned placidly to the task of labelling jars
upon shining jars of marmalade, shone with their most radiant
expression.
Marg'ret and Joe Hammond were constant visitors in the big Costello
house after that. Their father was away, looking for work, Mrs.
Costello imagined and feared, and they were living with some vague
"lady across the hall." So the Mayor's wife had free rein, and she used
it. When Marg'ret got one of her shapeless, leaky shoes cut in the
Costello barn, she was promptly presented with shining new ones, "the
way I couldn't let you get a cold and die on your father, Marg'ret,
dear!" said Mrs. Costello. The twins' outgrown suits were found to fit
Joe Hammond to perfection, "and a lucky thing I thought of it, Joe,
before I sent them off to my sister's children in Chicago!" observed
the Mayor's wife. The Mayor himself heaped his little guests' plates
with the choicest of everything on the table, when the Hammonds stayed
to dinner. Marg'ret frequently came home between Teresa and Alanna to
lunch, and when Joe breakfasted after Mass with Danny and Jim, Mrs.
Costello packed his lunch with theirs, exulting in the chance. The
children became fast friends, and indeed it would have been hard to
find better playfellows for the young Costellos, their mother often
thought, than the clever, appreciative little Hammonds.
Meantime, the rehearsals for Mother Superior's Golden Jubilee proceeded
steadily, and Marg'ret, Teresa, and Alanna could talk of nothing else.
The delightful irregularity of lessons, the enchanting confusion of
rehearsals, the costumes, programme, and decorations were food for
endless chatter. Alanna, because Marg'ret was so genuinely fond of her,
lived in the seventh heaven of bliss, trotting about with the bigger
girls, joining in their plans, and running their errands. The
"grandchildren" were to have a play, entitled "By Nero's Command," in
which both Teresa and Marg'ret sustained prominent parts, and even
Alanna was allotted one line to speak. It became an ordinary thing, in
the Costello house, to hear the little girl earnestly repeating this
line to herself at quiet moments, "The lions,--oh, the lions!" Teresa
and Marg'ret, in their turn, frequently rehearsed a heroic dialogue
which began with the stately line, uttered by Marg'ret in the person of
a Roman princess: "My slave, why art thou always so happy at thy menial
work?"
One day Mrs. Costello called the three girls to her sewing-room, where
a brisk young woman was smoothing lengths of snowy lawn on the long
table.
"These are your dresses, girls," said the matron. "Let Miss Curry get
the len'ths and neck measures. And look, here's the embroidery I got.
Won't that make up pretty? The waists will be all insertion, pretty
near."
"Me, too?" said Marg'ret Hammond, catching a rapturous breath.
"You, too," answered Mrs. Costello in her most matter-of-fact tone.
"You see, you three will be the very centre of the group, and it'll
look very nice, your all being dressed the same--why, Marg'ret, dear!"
she broke off suddenly. For Marg'ret, standing beside her chair, had
dropped her head on Mrs. Costello's shoulder and was crying.
"I worried so about my dress," said she, shakily, wiping her eyes on
the soft sleeve of Mrs. Costello's shirt-waist; when a great deal of
patting, and much smothering from the arms of Teresa and Alanna had
almost restored her equilibrium, "and Joe worried too! I couldn't write
and bother my father. And only this morning I was thinking that I might
have to write and tell Sister Rose that I couldn't be in the
exhibition, after all!"
"Well, there, now, you silly girl! You see how much good worrying
does," said Mrs. Costello, but her own eyes were wet.
"The worst of it was," said Marg'ret, red-cheeked, but brave, "that I
didn't want any one to think my father wouldn't give it to me. For you
know"--the generous little explanation tugged at Mrs. Costello's
heart--"you know he would if he COULD!"
"Well, of course he would!" assented that lady, giving the loyal little
daughter a kiss before the delightful business of fitting and measuring
began. The new dresses promised to be the prettiest of their kind, and
harmony and happiness reigned in the sewing-room.
But it was only a day later that Teresa and Alanna returned from school
with faces filled with expressions of utter woe. Indignant, protesting,
tearful, they burst forth the instant they reached their mother's
sympathetic presence with the bitter tale of the day's happenings.
Marg'ret Hammond's father had come home again, it appeared, and he was
awfully, awfully cross with Marg'ret and Joe. They weren't to come to
the Costellos' any more, or he'd whip them. And Marg'ret had been
crying, and THEY had been crying, and Sister didn't know what was the
matter, and they couldn't tell her, and the rehearsal was no FUN!
While their feeling was still at its height, Dan and Jimmy came in,
equally roused by their enforced estrangement from Joe Hammond. Mrs.
Costello was almost as much distressed as the children, and excited and
mutinous argument held the Costello dinner-table that night. The Mayor,
his wife noticed, paid very close attention to the conversation, but he
did not allude to it until they were alone.
"So Hammond'll take no favors from me, Mollie?"
"I suppose that's it, Frank. Perhaps he's been nursing a grudge all
these weeks. But it's cruel hard on the children. From his comin' back
this way, I don't doubt he's out of work, and where Marg'ret'll get her
white dress from now, I don't know!"
"Well, if he don't provide it, Tess'll recite the salutation," said the
Mayor, with a great air of philosophy. But a second later he added,
"You couldn't have it finished up, now, and send it to the child on the
chance?"
His wife shook her head despondently, and for several days went about
with a little worried look in her bright eyes, and a constant dread of
the news that Marg'ret Hammond had dropped out of the exhibition.
Marg'ret was sad, the little girls said, and evidently missing them as
they missed her, but up to the very night of the dress rehearsal she
gave no sign of worry on the subject of a white dress.
Mrs. Costello had offered her immense parlors for the last rehearsal of
the chief performers in the plays and tableaux, realizing that even the
most obligingly blind of Mother Superiors could not appear to ignore
the gathering of some fifty girls in their gala dresses in the convent
hall, for this purpose. Alanna and Teresa were gloriously excited over
the prospect, and flitted about the empty rooms on the evening
appointed, buzzing like eager bees.
Presently a few of the nuns arrived, escorting a score of little girls,
and briskly ready for an evening of serious work. Then some of the
older girls, carrying their musical instruments, came in laughing.
Laughter and talk began to make the big house hum, the nuns ruling the
confusion, gathering girls into groups, suppressing the hilarity that
would break out over and over again, and anxious to clear a corner and
begin the actual work. A tall girl, leaning on the piano, scribbled a
crude programme, murmuring to the alert-faced nun beside her as she
wrote:
"Yes, Sister, and then the mandolins and guitars; yes, Sister, and then
Mary Cudahy's recitation; yes, Sister. Is that too near Loretta's song?
All right, Sister, the French play can go in between, and then Loretta.
Yes, Sister."
"Of course Marg'ret'll come, Tess,--or has she come?" said Mrs.
Costello, who was hastily clearing a table in the family sitting-room
upstairs, because it was needed for the stage setting. Teresa, who had
just joined her mother, was breathless.
"Mother! Something awful has happened!"
Mrs. Costello carefully transferred to the book-case the lamp she had
just lifted, dusted her hands together, and turned eyes full of
sympathetic interest upon her oldest daughter,--Teresa's tragedies were
very apt to be of the spirit, and had not the sensational urgency that
alarms from the boys or Alanna commanded.
"What is it then, darlin'?" said she.
"Oh, it's Marg'ret, mother!" Teresa clasped her hands in an ecstasy of
apprehension. "Oh, mother, can't you MAKE her take that white dress?"
Mrs. Costello sat down heavily, her kind eyes full of regret.
"What more can I do, Tess?" Then, with a grave headshake, "She's told
Sister Rose she has to drop out?"
"Oh, no, mother!" Teresa said distressfully. "It's worse than that!
She's here, and she's rehearsing, and what DO you think she's wearing
for an exhibition dress?"
"Well, how would I know, Tess, with you doing nothing but bemoaning and
bewildering me?" asked her mother, with a sort of resigned despair.
"Don't go round and round it, dovey; what is it at all?"
"It's a white dress," said Teresa, desperately, "and of course it's
pretty, and at first I couldn't think where I'd seen it before, and I
don't believe any of the other girls did. But they will! And I don't
know what Sister will say! She's wearing Joe Hammond's surplice, yes,
but she IS, mother!--it's as long as a dress, you know, and with a blue
sash, and all! It's one of the lace ones, that Mrs. Deane gave all the
altar-boys a year ago, don't you remember? Don't you remember she made
almost all of them too small?"
Mrs. Costello sat in stunned silence.
"I never heard the like!" said she, presently. Teresa's fears awakened
anew.
"Oh, will Sister let her wear it, do you think, mother?"
"Well, I don't know, Tess." Mrs. Costello was plainly at a loss.
"Whatever could have made her think of it,--the poor child! I'm afraid
it'll make talk," she added after a moment's troubled silence, "and I
don't know what to do! I wish," finished she, half to herself, "that I
could get hold of her father for about one minute. I'd--"
"What would you do?" demanded Teresa, eagerly, in utter faith.
"Well, I couldn't do anything!" said her mother, with her wholesome
laugh. "Come, Tess," she added briskly, "we'll go down. Don't worry,
dear; we'll find some way out of it for Marg'ret."
She entered the parlors with her usual genial smile a few minutes
later, and the flow of conversation that never failed her.
"Mary, you'd ought always to wear that Greek-lookin' dress," said Mrs.
Costello, en passant. "Sister, if you don't want me in any of the
dances, I'll take meself out of your way! No, indeed, the Mayor won't
be annoyed by anything, girls, so go ahead with your duets, for he's
taken the boys off to the Orpheum an hour ago, the way they couldn't be
at their tricks upsettin' everything!" And presently she laid her hand
on Marg'ret Hammond's shoulder. "Are they workin' you too hard,
Marg'ret?"
Marg'ret's answer was smiling and ready, but Mrs. Costello read more
truthfully the color on the little face, and the distress in the bright
eyes raised to hers, and sighed as she found a big chair and settled
herself contentedly to watch and listen.
Marg'ret was wearing Joe's surplice, there was no doubt of that. But,
Mrs. Costello wondered, how many of the nuns and girls had noticed it?
She looked shrewdly from one group to another, studying the different
faces, and worried herself with the fancy that certain undertones and
quick glances WERE commenting upon the dress. It was a relief when
Marg'ret slipped out of it, and, with the other girls, assumed the
Greek costume she was to wear in the play. The Mayor's wife,
automatically replacing the drawing string in a cream-colored toga
lavishly trimmed with gold paper-braid, welcomed the little respite
from her close watching.
"By Nero's Command" was presently in full swing, and the room echoed to
stately phrases and glorious sentiments, in the high-pitched clear
voices of the small performers. Several minutes of these made all the
more startling a normal tone, Marg'ret Hammond's everyday voice, saying
sharply in a silence:
"Well, then, why don't you SAY it?"
There was an instant hush. And then another voice, that of a girl named
Beatrice Garvey, answered sullenly and loudly:
"I WILL say it, if you want me to!"
The words were followed by a shocked silence. Every one turned to see
the two small girls in the centre of the improvised stage, the other
performers drawing back instinctively. Mrs. Costello caught her breath,
and half rose from her chair. She had heard, as all the girls knew,
that Beatrice did not like Marg'ret, and resented the prominence that
Marg'ret had been given in the play. She guessed, with a quickening
pulse, what Beatrice had said.
"What is the trouble, girls?" said Sister Rose's clear voice severely.
Marg'ret, crimson-cheeked, breathing hard, faced the room defiantly.
She was a gallant and pathetic little figure in her blue draperies. The
other child was plainly frightened at the result of the quarrel.
"Beatrice--?" said the nun, unyieldingly.
"She said I was a thief!" said Marg'ret, chokingly, as Beatrice did not
answer.
There was a general horrified gasp, the nun's own voice when she spoke
again was angry and quick.
"Beatrice, did you say that to Marg'ret?"
"I said--I said--" Beatrice was frightened, but aggrieved too. "I said
I thought it was wrong to wear a surplice, that was made to wear on the
altar, as an exhibition dress, and Marg'ret said, 'Why?' and I said
because I thought it was--something I wouldn't say, and Marg'ret said,
did I mean stealing, and I said, well, yes, I did, and then Marg'ret
said right out, 'Well, if you think I'm a thief, why don't you say so?'"
Nobody stirred. The case had reached the open court, and no little girl
present could have given a verdict to save her little soul.
"But--but--" the nun was bewildered, "but whoever did wear a surplice
for an exhibition dress? I never heard of such a thing!" Something in
the silence was suddenly significant. She turned her gaze from the
room, where it had been seeking intelligence from the other nuns and
the older girls, and looked back at the stage.
Marg'ret Hammond had dropped her proud little head, and her eyes were
hidden by the tangle of soft dark hair. Had Sister Rose needed further
evidence, the shocked faces all about would have supplied it.
"Marg'ret," she said, "were you going to wear Joe's surplice?"
Marg'ret did not answer.
"I'm sure, Sister, I didn't mean--" stammered Beatrice. Her voice died
out uncomfortably.
"Why were you going to do that, Marg'ret?" pursued the nun, quite at a
loss.
Again Marg'ret did not answer.
But Alanna Costello, who had worked her way from a scandalized crowd of
little girls to Marg'ret's side, and who stood now with her small face
one blaze of indignation, and her small person fairly vibrating with
the violence of her breathing, spoke out suddenly. Her brave little
voice rang through the room.
"Well--well--" stammered Alanna, eagerly, "that's not a bad thing to
do! Me and Marg'ret were both going to do it, weren't we, Marg'ret? We
didn't think it would be bad to wear our own brothers' surplices, did
we, Marg'ret? I was going to ask my mother if we couldn't. Joe's is too
little for him, and Leo's would be just right for me, and they're white
and pretty--" She hesitated a second, her loyal little hand clasping
Marg'ret's tight, her eyes ranging the room bravely. She met her
mother's look, and gained fresh impetus from what she saw there. "And
MOTHER wouldn't have minded, would you, mother?" she finished
triumphantly.
Every one wheeled to face Mrs. Costello, whose look, as she rose, was
all indulgent.
"Well, Sister, I don't see why they shouldn't," began her comfortable
voice. The tension over the room snapped at the sound of it like a cut
string. "After all," she pursued, now joining the heart of the group,
"a surplice is a thing you make in the house like any other dress, and
you know how girls feel about the things their brothers wear,
especially if they love them! Why," said Mrs. Costello, with a
delightful smile that embraced the room, "there never were sisters more
devoted than Marg'ret and my Alanna! However"--and now a business-like
tone crept in--"however, Sister, dear, if you or Mother Superior has
the slightest objection in the world, why, that's enough for us all,
isn't it, girls? We'll leave it to you, Sister. You're the one to
judge." In the look the two women exchanged, they reached a perfect
understanding.
"I think it's very lovely," said Sister Rose, calmly, "to think of a
little girl so devoted to her brother as Margaret is. I could ask
Superior, of course, Mary," she added to Mrs. Costello, "but I know she
would feel that whatever you decide is quite right. So that's settled,
isn't it, girls?"
"Yes, Sister," said a dozen relieved voices, the speakers glad to
chorus assent whether the situation in the least concerned them or not.
Teresa and some of the other girls had gathered about Marg'ret, and a
soothing pur of conversation surrounded them. Mrs. Costello lingered
for a few satisfied moments, and then returned to her chair.
"Come now, girls, hurry!" said Sister Rose. "Take your places, and let
this be a lesson to us not to judge too hastily and uncharitably. Where
were we? Oh, yes, we'll go back to where Grace comes in and says to
Teresa, 'Here, even in the Emperor's very palace, dost dare....' Come,
Grace!"
"I knew, if we all prayed about it, your father'd let you!" exulted
Teresa, the following afternoon, when Marg'ret Hammond was about to run
down the wide steps of the Costello house, in the gathering dusk. The
Mayor came into the entrance hall, his coat pocket bulging with papers,
and his silk hat on the back of his head, to find his wife and
daughters bidding the guest good-by. He was enthusiastically imformed
of the happy change of event.
"Father," said Teresa, before fairly freed from his arms and his kiss,
"Marg'ret's father said she could have her white dress, and Marg'ret
came home with us after rehearsal, and we've been having such fun!"
"And Marg'ret's father sent you a nice message, Frank," said his wife,
significantly.
"Well, that's fine. Your father and I had a good talk to-day,
Marg'ret," said the Mayor, cordially. "I had to be down by the bridge,
and I hunted him up. He'll tell you about it. He's going to lend me a
hand at the shop, the way I won't be so busy. 'Tis an awful thing when
a man loses his wife," he added soberly a moment later, as they watched
the little figure run down the darkening street.
"But now we're all good friends again, aren't we, mother?" said
Alanna's buoyant little voice. Her mother tipped her face up and kissed
her.
"You're a good friend,--that I know, Alanna!" said she.
"S IS FOR SHIFTLESS SUSANNA"
"You look glorious. What's the special programme you've laid out for
this morning, Sue?" said Susanna's husband, coming upon her in her rose
garden early on a certain perfect October morning.
"I FEEL glorious too" young Mrs. Fairfax said, returning his kiss and
dropping basket and scissors to bestow all her attention upon his
buttonhole rose. "There is no special occasion for all this
extravagance," she added, giving a complacent downward glance at the
filmy embroideries of her gown, and her small whiteshod feet. "In fact,
to-day breaks before me a long and delicious blank. I don't know when I
have had such a Saturday. I shall write letters this morning--or
perhaps wash my hair--I don't know. And then I'll take Mrs. Elliot for
a drive this afternoon, or take some fruit to the Burkes, maybe, and
stop for tea at the club. And if you decide to dine in town, I'll have
Emma set my dinner out on the porch and commence my new Locke. And if
you can beat that programme for sheer idle bliss," said Susanna, "let
me hear you do it!"
She finished fastening his rose, stepped back to survey it, and raised
to his eyes her own joyous, honest blue eyes, which still were as
candid as a nice child's. Jim Fairfax, keenly alive to the delight of
it, even after six months of marriage, kissed her again.
"You know, Jim," said Susanna, when they were presently sauntering with
their load of roses toward the house and breakfast, "apropos of this
new dress, I believe I put it on just BECAUSE there was no real reason
for it. It is so delightful sometimes to get into dainty petties, and
silk stockings, and a darling new gown, just as a matter of course! All
my life, you know, I've had just one good outfit at a time, and
sometimes less than that, and all the things I wore every day were so
awfully plain--!"
"I know, my darling," Jim said, a little gravely. For he was always
sorry to remember that there had been long years of poverty and
struggle in Susanna's life before the day when he had found her, an
underpaid librarian in a dark old law library, in a dark old street.
Susanna, buoyant, ambitious, and overworked, had never stopped in her
hard daily round long enough to consider herself pitiful, but she could
look back from her rose garden now to the days before she knew Jim, and
join him in a little shudder of reminiscence.
"I don't believe a long, idle day will ever seem anything but a joyous
holiday to me," she said now. "It seems so curious still, not to be
expected anywhere every morning!"
"Well, you may as well get used to it," Jim told her smilingly. But a
few minutes later, when Susanna was busy with the coffee-pot, he looked
up from a letter to say: "Here's a job for you, after all, to-day, Sue!
This--" and he flattened the crackling sheets beside his plate, "this
is from old Thayer."
"Thayer himself?" Susanna echoed appreciatively. For old Whitman
Thayer, in whose hands lay the giving of contracts far larger than any
that had as yet been handled by Jim or his senior partners in the young
firm of Reid, Polk & Fairfax, Architects, was naturally an enormously
important figure in his and Susanna's world. They spoke of Thayer
nearly every night, Jim reporting to his interested wife that Thayer
had "come in," or "hadn't come in," that Thayer had "seemed pleased,"
that Thayer had "jumped" on this, or had "been tickled to death" with
that; and the Fairfax domestic barometer varied accordingly.
"Go ON, Jim," said Susanna, in suspense.
"Why, it seems that his wife--she's awfully sweet and nice," Jim
proceeded, "is coming into town this afternoon, and she wonders if it
would be too much trouble for Mrs. Fairfax to come in and lunch with
her and help her with some shopping."
"Jim, it doesn't say that!" But Susanna's eyes were kindling with joy
at the thought. "Oh, Jim, what a chance! Doesn't that look as if he
really liked you!"
"Liked YOU, you mean," Jim said, giving her the letter. "Now I call
that a very friendly, decent thing for them to do," young Mr. Fairfax
went on musingly. "If you and she like each other, Sue--"
"Oh, don't worry, we will!" Mrs. Fairfax was always sure of her touch
upon a feminine heart.
"Wonder why he didn't think of Mrs. Reid or Mrs. Polk?" said Jim.
"Oh, Jim, they are sort of--stiff, don't you know?" Susanna returned to
her coffee, seasoning Jim's cup carefully before she added, with a look
of naive pleasure that Jim thought very charming: "You know I rather
THOUGHT that Mr. Thayer liked me just that one day I saw him!"
"Well, you'll like her," Jim prophesied. "She's very sweet and gentle,
not very strong. They live right up the line there somewhere. She
rarely comes into town. Old Thayer is devoted to her, and he always
seems--" Jim hesitated. "I don't know," he went on, "I may be all wrong
about this, Sue, but Thayer always seems to be protecting her, don't
you know? I don't imagine he'd want to run her up against society women
like Jane Reid and Mrs. Polk. You're younger and less affected; you're
approachable. I don't know, but it seems to me that way. Anyway," he
finished with supreme satisfaction, "I wouldn't take anything in the
world for this chance! It shows the old man is really in earnest."
"He says she'll be at the office at eleven," said Susanna. "That means
I must get the ten twenty-two."
"Sure. And take a taxi when you get to town. Got money? Got the right
clothes?"
"Hydrangea hat," Susanna decided aloud. "New pongee, and pongee coat
hung in careless elegance over my arm. As the last chime of eleven
rings I will step into your office--"
"I hope to goodness you will!" said Jim, with an anxious look. "You'll
really get there, won't you, Sue? No slips?"
This might have seemed overemphatic to an unprejudiced outsider. But no
one who really knew Susanna would have blamed her young husband for an
utter disbelief in the likelihood of her getting anywhere at any given
time. Susanna's one glaring fault was a cheerful indifference to the
fixed plans of others. Engagements she forgot, ignored, or cancelled at
the last minute; dinner guests, arriving at her lovely home, never
dreamed how often the consternation of utter surprise was hidden under
the hilarious greetings of hostess and host. Dressmakers and dentists
charged Susanna mercilessly for forgotten appointments; but an adoring
circle of friends had formed a sort of silent conspiracy to save her
from herself, and socially she suffered much less than she deserved.
"But some day you'll get an awful jolt; you'll get the lesson of your
life, Sue," Jim used to say, and Susanna always answered meekly:
"Oh, Jim, I know it!"
"My mother used to have a nursery rhyme about me," she told Jim on one
occasion. "It was one of those 'A is for Amiable Annie' things, you
know; 'K is for Kind little Katie, whose weight is one hundred and
eighty'--you've heard them, of course? Well, 'S was for Shiftless
Susanna.' I know the next line was, 'But such was the charm of her
manner'--but I've forgotten the rest. Whether mother made that up for
my especial benefit or not, I don't know."
"Well, you have the charm all right," Jim was obliged to confess, for
Susanna had an undeniable genius for adjustment and placation. Nobody
was angry long at Susanna, perhaps because so many other people were
always ready to step in gladly and fill any gaps in her programme. She
was too popular to be snubbed. And her excuses were always so
reasonable!
"You know I simply lose my mind at the telephone," she would plead. "I
accept anything then--it never occurs to me that we may have
engagements!" Or, "Well, the Jacksons said Thursday," she would
brilliantly elucidate, "and Mrs. Oliver said the twentieth, and it
never OCCURRED to me that it was the same day!"
And she was always willing--this was the maddening part of Susanna!--to
own herself entirely in the wrong, and always ended any conversation on
the subject with a cheerful: "But anyway, I'm improving, you admit
that, don't you, Jim? I'm not nearly as bad as I used to be!"
She said now very seriously: "Jim, darling, you may depend upon me. I
realize what this means, and I am perfectly delighted to have the
chance. At eleven to-day, 'one if by land, and two if by sea,' I'll be
at your office. Trust me!"
"I do, dearest," Jim said. And he went down the drive a little later,
under the blazing glory of the maples with great content in his heart.
Susanna, going about her pretty house briskly, felt so sure of herself
that the day's good work seemed half accomplished already.
She had adjusted the skirt of the pongee suit, and pinned the hydrangea
hat at a fascinating angle when the telephone rang.
Susanna slipped her bare arms into the stiff sleeves of a Mandarin coat
and crossed the hall to the instrument.
"Hello, Susanna!" said the cheerful voice of young Mrs. Harrington, a
neighbor and friend, at the other end of the telephone. "I just rang up
to know if I could come over early and help you out with anything and
whether--"
"Help me out with anything?" Mrs. Fairfax's voice ranged through
delicate shades of surprise to dawning consternation. "Help me out with
what?"
"Why, you told me yourself that this was the day of the bridge-club
lunch at your house!" Mrs. Harrington said, almost indignantly. But
immediately she became mirthful. "Oh, Susanna, Susanna! You haven't
forgotten--oh, you HAVE! Oh, you poor girl, what will you do! Listen, I
could bring a--"
"Oh, my goodness, Ethel--and I've got to go to town!" Susanna's tone
was hushed with a sort of horror. "And those seven women will be here
at half-past twelve! And not ONE thing in the house--"
"Oh, you could get Ludovici as far as the lunch goes, Sue. But the
girls will think it's odd, perhaps. Couldn't you wait and take the one
o'clock?"
"Yes, I'll get Ludovici," Susanna decided hastily. "No, I couldn't do
that. But I'll tell you what I COULD do. If you'll be an angel, Ethel,
and do the honors until I get here, I could lunch early, get through my
business in town, and get the one-fifty train for home--"
"Well, that'll be all right. I'll explain," said the amiable Mrs.
Harrington.
A few minutes later Mrs. Fairfax left the telephone and went down to
the kitchen to explain to Emma and Veronica, the maids, that there
would be a luncheon for eight ladies served by a caterer, in her home,
that day, and that they must simply assist him. She herself must be in
town unfortunately, but Mrs. Harrington had very kindly offered to come
over and be hostess and play the eighth hand of bridge afterward. Emma
and Veronica, perhaps more hardened to these emergencies than are
ordinary maids, rose to the occasion, and Susanna hurried off to her
train satisfied that as far as the actual luncheon was concerned, all
would go well. But what the seven women would think was another story!
"I don't suppose Mrs. Thayer wants to do so very much shopping," said
Susanna to herself, hurrying along. "If I meet her at eleven and we
lunch at one, say, I don't see why I shouldn't get the one-fifty train
home. I'd get here before the girls had fairly started playing bridge,
and explain--somehow one can always explain things so much better in
person--"
"Or suppose we lunched at half-past twelve," her uneasy thoughts ran
on. "That gives us an hour and a half to shop--that ought to be plenty.
But we mustn't lose a minute getting started! Mrs. Thayer will come up
in her motor--that will save us time. We can start right off the
instant I get to Jim's office."
She stopped at the caterer's for a brief but satisfactory interview.
The caterer was an artist, but his enthusiasms this morning were wasted
upon Susanna.
"Yes, yes--cucumber sandwiches by all means," she assented hastily,
"and the ices--just as you like! Plain, I think--or did you say in
cases? I don't care. Only don't fail me, Mr. Ludovici."
Fail her? Mr. Ludovici's lexicon did not know the word. Susanna
breathed more freely as she crossed the sunny village street to the
train.
The station platform was deserted and bare. Susanna, accustomed to a
breathless late arrival, could saunter with delightful leisure to the
ticket-seller's window.
"You've not forgotten the new time-table?" said the agent, pleasantly,
when they had exchanged greetings.
"Oh, does the change begin to-day?" Susanna looked blank.
"October sixteenth, winter schedule," he reminded her buoyantly. "Going
to be lots of engagements missed to-day!"
"But mine is very important and I cannot miss it," said Susanna,
displeased at his levity. "I MUST be in Mr. Fairfax's office at eleven."
"You won't be more than ten or twelve minutes late," said young Mr.
Green, consolingly. "You tell Mr. Fairfax it's up to the N.Y. and E.W."
Susanna smiled perfunctorily, but took her place in the train with a
sinking heart. She would be late, of course, and Jim would be angry, of
course. Late to-day, when every minute counted and the programme
allowed for not an instant's delay! Her eyes on the flying countryside,
she rehearsed her part, found herself eloquently explaining to a
pacified Jim, capturing a gracious Mrs. Thayer, successfully reaching
home again, and explaining to an entirely amiable bridge club.
It could be done, of course, but it meant a pretty full day! Susanna's
mind reverted uneasily to the consideration that she had already
bungled matters. Oh, well, if she was late, she was late, that was all;
and if Jim was furious, why, Jim would simply have to be furious! And
she began her explanations again--
After all, it was but fifteen minutes past eleven when she walked into
her husband's office. But neither Jim nor Mrs. Thayer was there.
"Mr. Fairfax went out not three minutes ago," said the pretty
stenographer in the outer office. Susanna, brought to a full stop,
stared at her blankly.
"Went out!"
"Yes, with Mrs. Thayer to the dentist. He said to say he was afraid you
had missed your train. There's a note."
The note was forthwith produced. Susanna read it frowningly. It was
rather conspicuously headed "Eleven-twelve!"
DEAREST GIRL: Can't wait any longer. Mrs. T. must see her dentist
(Archibald). I'm taking her up. Thayers and we lunch at the Palace at
one-thirty. Wait for me in my office. J. F.
"Oh, what is the matter with everything to-day!" Susanna burst out in
exasperation. "He's wild, of course. When does he ever sign himself 'J.
F.' to me! When did they go?" she asked Miss Perry, briefly, with an
unreasonable wish that she might somehow hold that irreproachable young
woman responsible.
"Just about three minutes ago," said Miss Perry. "He said that if you
had missed your train, you wouldn't be here for more than an hour, and
it was no use waiting."
"You see, it was a changed time-table, and he forgot it just as I did,"
explained Susanna, pleased to find him fallible, even to that extent.
"But HE was on time," fenced Miss Perry, innocently.
"They don't change the business trains," Susanna said coldly. And she
decided that she disliked this girl. She opened a magazine and sat down
by the open window.
The minutes ticked slowly by. The telephone rang, doors opened and
shut, and men came and went through the office. Susanna, opposed in
every fibre of her being to passive waiting, suddenly rose.
"Dr. Archibald is in the First National Bank Building, isn't he?" she
inquired. "I think I'll join Mrs. Thayer up there. There's no use in my
waiting here."
Miss Perry silently verified Dr. Archibald's address in the telephone
book, and to the First National Bank Building Susanna immediately made
her way. It was growing warmer now and the streets seemed noisy and
crowded, but no matter--"If I can only get to them and SEE Jim!"
thought Susanna.
In the pleasant shadiness of Dr. Archibald's office, rising from a
delightful mahogany arm-chair, Susanna presently asked if Mrs. Thayer
could be told that Mrs. Fairfax was there.
"I think Mrs. Thayer is gone," said the attendant pleasantly. "I'm not
sure, but I'll see."
In a few minutes she returned to inform Mrs. Fairfax that Mrs. Thayer
had just come in to have a bridge replaced, and was gone.
"You don't know where?" Susanna's voice was a trifle husky with
repressed emotion. She realized that she was getting a headache.
No, the attendant didn't know where.
So there was nothing for it but to go back to Jim's office, and back
Susanna accordingly went. She walked as fast as she could, conscious of
every separate hot step, and was nervous and headachy when she entered
Miss Perry's presence again.
Mr. Fairfax and Mrs. Thayer had not come in; no, but Miss Perry
reported that Mr. Fairfax had telephoned not ten minutes ago, and
seemed very anxious to get hold of his wife.
"Oh, dear, dear!" lamented Susanna. "And where is he now?"
Miss Perry couldn't say. "I wrote his message down," she said, with
sympathetic amusement at Susanna's crushed dismay. And, referring to
her notes, she repeated it:
"Mr. Fairfax said that Mrs. Thayer had had an appointment to see a sick
friend in a hospital this afternoon. But she has gone right out there
now instead, so that you and she can go shopping after lunch. You are,
please, to meet Mr. Fairfax and the Thayers at the Palace for luncheon
at half-past one; there'll be a table reserved. Mr. Fairfax has a
little business to attend to just now, but if you don't mind waiting in
the office, he thinks it's the coolest place you could be. He wanted to
know if you had the whole afternoon free--"
"Oh, absolutely!" Susanna assented eagerly. This was not the time to
speak or think of the bridge club.
"And that was all," finished Miss Perry, "except he said perhaps you
would like to look at the plans of the orphanage. Mr. Fairfax got them
out to show to Mr. Thayer this afternoon. I can get them for you."
"Oh, thank you! I do want to see them!" said Susanna, gratefully. And
she established herself comfortably by the open window, the orphanage
plans, a stiff roll of blue paper, in her lap, her idle eyes following
the noonday traffic in the street below.
What a shame to have to sit here doing nothing, to-day of all days, for
nearly two hours! Susanna thought. Why, she could have met her luncheon
guests, seen that the meal was at least under way, apologized in
person, and then started for town. As it was, they might be angry, and
no wonder! And these were her neighbors and very good friends, after
all, the women upon whose good feeling half the joy of her country home
and garden depended. It was too bad!
She glanced at the blue-prints, but one of her sudden inspirations
turned the page blank. What time was it? Ten minutes of twelve. She
referred to her new timetable. Ten minutes of--why, she could just
catch the noon train, rush home, meet her guests, explain, and come
back easily on the one o'clock. But would it be wise? Why not?
Her thoughts in a jumble, Susanna hastily gathered her small
possessions together, moved to a decision by the always imperative
argument that in a few minutes it would be too late to decide.
"Heavens! I'm glad I thought of that!" she ejaculated, seating herself
in the train as the noon whistles shrilled all over the city. A moment
later she was a trifle disconcerted to find the orphanage plans still
in her hand.
"Well, this is surely one of my crazy days!" Susanna strapped the stiff
sheets firmly to her handbag. "I must not forget to take those back,"
she told herself. "Jim will ask for them the very first thing."
Her house; when she reached it, seemed quiet, seemed empty. Susanna
crossed the porch, wondering, and encountered the maid.
"Emma! Nobody come?"
"Sure you had the wrong day of it," said Emma, beaming. "Mrs.
Harrington fomed about an hour ago, and she says 'tis NEXT Saturday
thin!"
"What do you mean?" said Susanna, sharply.
"'Tis not to-day they're comin', Mrs. Fairfax--"
"Nonsense!" Susanna said under her breath. She flew to her desk and
snatched up the scribbled card of engagements. "Why, it's no such
thing!" she said indignantly. "Of course it's to-day! October
sixteenth, as plain as print." And with her eyes still on the card she
reached for her desk telephone.
"Ethel," said Susanna, a moment later. "Listen, Ethel, this is Susanna.
Ethel, what made you say the club luncheon wasn't to-day? This is my
day to have the girls.... Certainly.... Why, I don't care what she
said, I have it written down!... Why, I think that's very funny.... I
have it written.... No, you can laugh all you want to, but I know I'm
right.... No, that's nothing. Jim will eat it all up to-morrow; he says
he never gets enough to eat on Sundays.... But I can't understand, and
I don't believe YET that I... Yes, it's written right here; I've got my
eyes on it now! It's the most extraordinary...."
A little vexed at Mrs. Harrington's unbounded amusement, Susanna
terminated the conversation as soon as was decently possible, and went
kitchenward. In her anxiety not to miss her train back to the city, she
refused Teresa's offer of dainty sandwiches, pastries, and tea, and
merely stopped long enough to brush up her hair and to ascertain by
carefully enumerating them out loud that she had her purse, her gloves,
the orphanage plans, and the new time-table.
"This will seem very funny," said poor Susanna, gallantly to herself,
as she took her seat in the train and tried to ignore a really sharp
headache, "when once I see them! If I can only get hold of Jim, and if
the afternoon goes smoothly, I shan't mind anything!"
Only ten minutes late for her luncheon engagement, Susanna entered the
cool depths of the restaurant and, piloted by an impressed head waiter,
looked confidently for her own party. It was very pleasant here, and
the trays of salads and iced things that were borne continually past
her were very inviting.
But still there was no Mrs. Thayer and no Jim. Susanna waited a few
nervous minutes, sat down, got up again, and finally, at two o'clock,
went out into the blazing, unfriendly streets, and walked the five
short squares that lay between the restaurant and her husband's office.
A hot, dusty wind blew steadily against her; the streets were full of
happy girls and men with suit-cases, bound for the country and a day or
two of fresh air and idleness. Miss Perry was putting the cover on her
typewriter as Susanna entered the office, her own suit-case waiting in
a corner. She looked astonished as Susanna came in.
"My goodness, Mrs. Fairfax!" she ejaculated. "We've been trying and
trying to get you by telephone! Mr. Fairfax was so anxious to get hold
of those orphanage plans. Mr. Thayer wanted--"
"I've been following him about all day," said Susanna, with an
undignified, but uncontrollable gulp. She sat down limply. "WHAT
happened to the luncheon plan?" she asked forlornly. "Where is Mr.
Fairfax?"
Miss Perry, perhaps softened by the sight of Susanna's filling eyes and
tired face, became very sympathetic. "Isn't it TOO bad--I know you
have! But you see Mrs. Thayer couldn't see her friend in the hospital
this morning, so she came right down here and got here not ten minutes
after you left. She said she couldn't wait for you, as she had to be
back at the hospital at two, so she would do a little shopping herself
and let the rest wait."
"Well," said Susanna, after a pause in which her very soul rebelled,
"it can't be helped, I suppose! Did Mr. Fairfax go out with her?"
"He was to take her somewhere for a cup of tea and then he was going
home."
"Going home! But I've just come from there!"
"He thought he'd probably catch you there, I think. He was anxious to
get hold of those plans."
"Oh, I could CRY--" Susanna began despairingly. But indeed Miss Perry
needed no assurance of that. "I could cry!" said Susanna again.
"To-day," she expanded, "has been simply one miserable accident after
another! I hope it'll be a lesson to me! Well--" She broke off short,
for Miss Perry, while kind, was human, and was visibly conscious that
she had promised her brother and sister-in-law to be at their house in
East Auburndale, a populous suburb, long before it was time to put the
baby to bed. "I suppose there's nothing for me to do but go home,"
finished Susanna, discontentedly.
"Accidents will happen!" trilled Miss Perry, blithely, hurrying for her
car.
Susanna went thoughtfully home, reflecting soberly upon the events of
the day. If she could but live this episode down, she told herself; but
meet and win Mrs. Thayer somehow in the near future; but bring Jim to
the point of entirely forgetting and forgiving the whole disgraceful
day, she would really reform. She would "keep lists," she would "make
notes," and she would "think twice." In short, she would do all the
things that those who had her good at heart had been advising for the
past ten years.
Of course, if the Thayers were resentful--refused to be
placated--Susanna made a little wry mouth. But they wouldn't be!
Still deep in stimulating thoughts of a complete reformation, Susanna
reached home again, crossed the deep-tiled porch with its potted olives
and gay awnings, entered the big hall now dim with afternoon shadows.
Now for Jim--!
But where was Jim?
"Mr. Fairfax is home, Emma?"
"Oh, there you are, Mrs. Fairfax! And us trying and trying to telefome
you! No ma'am, he's not home. He left on the three-twenty. He'd only
come out in a rush for some papers, and he had to get back to town to
see some one at once. There's a note--"
Susanna sat down. Her head was splitting, she was hungry and exhausted,
and, at the effort she made to keep the tears out of her eyes, a wave
of acute pain swept across her forehead. She opened the note.
If you can find a reliable messenger [said the note, without preamble],
I wish you would get those orphanage plans to me at Thornton's office
before six. I have to meet him there at four. The matter is really
important, or I would not trouble you. I'll dine with Thayer at the
club. J.F. The pretty hallway and the glaring strip of light beyond
the open garden door swam suddenly before Susanna's eyes. The hand that
held the note trembled.
"I could not be so mean to him!" said Susanna to herself. "But perhaps
he was tired and hot--poor Jim!" And aloud she said with dignity: "I
shall have to take this paper--these plans--in to Mr. Fairfax, Emma.
I'll catch the four-twenty."
"You'll be dead!" said Emma, sympathetically.
"My head aches," Mrs. Fairfax admitted briefly. But when she was
upstairs and alone she found herself suddenly giving way to the long
deferred burst of tears.
After a while she bathed her eyes, brushed her hair, and substituted a
more substantial gown for the pongee. Then she started out once more,
refreshed and more cheerful in spite of herself, and soothed
unconsciously by the quiet close of the lovely autumn afternoon.
Her own gateway was separated by a flight of shallow stone steps from
the road, and Susanna paused there on her way to the train to gather
her skirts safely for the dusty walk. And while she was standing there
she found her gaze suddenly riveted upon a motor-car that, still a
quarter of a mile away, was rapidly descend the slope of the hill, its
two occupants fairly shaken by its violent and rapid approach. The road
here was not wide, and curved on a sharp grade, and Susanna always
found the descent of a large car, like this one, a matter of
half-terrified fascination. But surely with this car there was more
than the ordinary danger, she thought, with a sudden sick thumping at
her heart. Surely here was something all wrong! Surely no sane driver--
"That man is drunk," she said, quite aloud. "He cannot make it! He
can't possibly--ah-h-h!"
Her voice broke on a gasp, and she pressed one hand tight over her
eyes. For with swift and terrible precision the accident had indeed
come to pass. The car skidded, turned, hung for a sickening second on
one wheel, struck the stone of the roadside fence with a horrible
grinding jar and toppled heavily over against the bank.
When Susanna uncovered her eyes again, and before she could move or cry
out in the dumb horror that had taken possession of her, she saw a man
in golfing wear run from the Porters' gate opposite; and another motor,
in which Susanna recognized the figure of a friend and neighbor, Dr.
Whitney, swept up beside the overturned one. When she ran, as she
presently found herself running, to the spot, other men and women had
gathered there, drawn from lawns and porches by this sudden projection
of tragedy into the gayety of their Saturday afternoon.
"Hurt?" gasped Susanna, joining the group.
"The man is--dead, Billy says," said young Mrs. Porter, in lowered
tones, with an agitated clutch of Susanna's arm. "And, poor thing! she
doesn't realize it, and she keeps asking where her chauffeur is and why
he doesn't come to her!"
"Wouldn't you think people would have better sense than to keep a man
like that!" added another neighbor, Dexter Ellis, with a bitterness
born entirely of nervousness. "He was drunk as a lord! Young and I were
just coming out of my side gate--"
Every one talked at once--there was a confusion of excited comment.
Somebody had flung a carriage robe over the silent form of the man as
it lay tumbled in the dust and weeds; Susanna glanced toward it with a
shudder. Somehow she found herself supporting the car's other occupant,
the woman, who was half sitting and half lying on the bank where she
had fallen. The woman had opened her eyes and was looking slowly about
the group; she had pushed away the whiskey the doctor held to her lips,
but she looked sick and seemed in pain.
"I had just put the baby down when I heard Dex shout--" Susanna could
hear Mrs. Ellis saying behind her in low tones. "Oh, it is, it's an
outrage--they should have regarded it years ago," said another voice.
"Merest chance in the world that we took the side gate," Dexter Ellis
was saying, and some man's voice Susanna did not know reiterated over
and over: "Well, I guess he's run his last car, poor fellow; I guess
he's run his last car--"
"You feel better, don't you?" the doctor asked his patient,
encouragingly. "Just open your mouth and swallow this." And Susanna
said gently: "Just try it; you'll feel so much stronger!"
The woman turned upon her a pair of eyes as heavy as a sick animal's,
and moistened her lips. "Arm," she said with difficulty.
"Her arm's broken," said the doctor, in a low tone, "and I think her
leg, too. Kane has gone to wire for the ambulance. We'll get her right
into town."
"You can't take her to town!" Susanna ejaculated, turning so that she
might not be heard by the sufferer. "Take her in to my house."
"The hospital is really the most comfortable place for her, Mrs.
Fairfax," the doctor said guardedly. "I am afraid there is internal
injury. Her mind seems somewhat confused. You can't undertake the
responsibility--"
"Ah, but you can't jolt the poor thing all the way into town--" Susanna
began again. Mrs. Porter, at her shoulder, interrupted her in an
earnest whisper:
"Sue, dear, it's always done. It won't take very long, and nobody
expects you--"
"I know just how Susanna feels," interrupted Mrs. Ellis, "but after
all, you never can tell--we don't know one thing about her--"
"She'll be taken good care of," finished the doctor, soothingly.
"Please--don't let them frighten--my husband--" said the woman herself,
slowly, her distressed eyes moving from one face to another. "If I
could--be moved somewhere before he hears--"
"We won't frighten him," Susanna assured her tenderly. "But will you
tell us your name so we may let him know?"
The injured woman frowned. "I did tell you--didn't I?" she asked
painfully.
"No"--Susanna would use this tone in her nursery some day--"No, dear,
not yet."
"Tell us again," said the doctor, with too obvious an intention to
soothe.
The woman gave him a look full of dignified reproach.
"If I could rest on your porch a little while," she said to Susanna,
ignoring the others rather purposely, "I should be quite myself again.
That will be best. Then I can think--I can't think now. These
people--and my head--"
And she tried to rise, supporting herself with a hand on Susanna's arm.
But with the effort the last vestige of color left her face, and she
slipped, unconscious, back to the grass.
"Dead?" asked Susanna, very white.
"No--no! Only fainted," Dr. Whitney said. "But I don't like it," he
added, his finger at the limp wrist.
"Bring her in, won't you?" Susanna urged with sudden decision. "I
simply can't let her be taken 'way up to town! This way--"
And, relieved to have it settled, she led them swiftly across the
garden and into the house, flung down the snowy covers of the
guest-room bed, and with Emma's sympathetic help established the
stranger therein.
"Trouble," whispered the injured woman apologetically, when she opened
her eyes upon walls and curtains rioting with pink roses, and felt the
delicious softness and freshness of the linen and pillows about her.
"Oh, don't think of that--I love to do it!" Susanna said honestly,
patting her head. "A nurse is coming up from the village to look out
for you, and she and the doctor are going to make you more comfortable."
The woman, fixing her with a dazed yet curiously intent look, formed
with her lips the words, "God bless you," and wearily shut her eyes.
Susanna, slipping out of the room a few minutes later, said over and
over again to herself, "I don't care--I'm glad I did it!"
Still, it was not very reassuring to hear the big hall clock strike
six, and suddenly to notice the orphanage plans lying where they had
been flung on the hall table.
"I wish it was the middle of next year," said Susanna, thoughtfully,
going out to sink wearily into a porch chair, "or even next week! I'd
pretend to be asleep when Jim came home to-night," she went on
gloomily, "if it wasn't my duty to sit up and explain that there are a
perfect stranger and a trained nurse in the house. Of course, being
there as I was, any humane person would have to do what I did, but it
does seem strange, this day of all days, that I had to be there! And I
wish I had thought to send those plans in by messenger--that would have
been one thing the less to worry about, at least!--What is it, Emma?"
For Emma, mildly repeating some question, had come out to the porch.
"Would you like tea, Mrs. Fairfax? I could bring it out here like you
had it last week with your book."
Susanna brightened. After all, she had not eaten for a long while; tea
would be very welcome. And the porch was delightful, and there was the
new Locke.
"Well, that was my original idea, Emma," said she, "and although the
day has not gone quite as I had planned, still there's no reason why
the idea should be changed. Bring a supper-tea, Emma, lots of
sandwiches--I'm combining three meals in one, Miss Smith," she broke
off to explain smilingly, as the nurse, trimly clad in white, came to
the doorway. "I've not eaten since breakfast. You must have some tea
with me. And how is she? Is her mind clearer?"
"Oh, dear me, yes! She's quite comfortable," Miss Smith said
cheerfully. "Doctor thinks there's no question of internal trouble. Her
arm is broken and her ankle badly wrenched, but that's all. And she's
so grateful to you, Mrs. Fairfax. It seems she has a perfect horror of
hospitals, and she feels that you've done such a remarkably kind
thing--taking her in. She asked to see you, and then we're going to try
to make her sleep. Oh, and may I telephone her husband?"
"Oh, she could give you his name then!" cried Susanna, in relief. "Oh,
I am glad! Indeed, you may telephone. Who is she?"
Miss Smith repeated the name and address.
Susanna, stared at her blankly. Then the most radiant of all her ready
smiles lighted her face.
"Well, this is really the most extraordinary day!" she said softly,
after a pause. "I'll come right up, Miss Smith, but perhaps you might
let me telephone for you first. I can get her husband easily. I know
just where he is. He and my own husband are dining together this
evening, as it happens--"