Joan herself, like other self-reliant people, sometimes made promises
which she was unable to keep. She had made such a one to her father.
Despite her best efforts, the fact and manner of his death did manage to
upset her, disastrously.
The day came not long afterwards when for hours, years, they seemed to
her, Joan was aware of nothing but pain, and of the fact that miserable,
terrified Archie must somehow be got out of the way before she lost
control of herself. She thought that when she could get enough breath to
do it, she would ask him to go down town and bring her some ice-cream or
something; but when she did open her lips they emitted, entirely without
permission, a queer sound that was somewhere between a yelp and a croak.
"Goodness! This is no way for a gentleman to behave," she said to
herself oddly; and must have spoken aloud, for the voice of Ellen Neal
responded.
"There, there, my lamb! Yell all you want. You ain't no gentleman, thank
goodness! but just a poor little girl who's got a right to holler all
she likes. That's _one_ right the men-folks ain't going to deny us and
get away with it--not them!"
Ellen as she spoke glared truculently at the doctor. It was not the
first accouchement at which she had assisted, and at such moments she
became feministic almost to the point of violence. Even Archie found it
safer to remain out of reach of her accusing eye.
But long, very long afterwards, Ellen herself admitted him once more to
the Presence, for the sake of the burden he carried--a subdued, queerly
gentle Ellen, with all the acerbity gone from voice and manner, and in
its place something rather beautiful. It was motherhood that glowed in
her, had any one cared to notice; motherhood come by vicariously, as
Ellen Neal came by all the loveliness in life.
"See, my lamb," she murmured, bending over the bed. "Open them pretty
eyes and look who's here! Come close, Mr. Archie, and show her the
present you've brought her. Quiet, now!--she ain't up to much. It's a
surprise, Joie. Open your eyes and look!"
It was a surprise, indeed. Joan, by great effort, managed to focus her
gaze on Archie's burden. She shut her eyes quickly, and opened them
again. They were still there; not one, but two little wrinkled, fuzzy
heads.
"Can you beat it?" demanded Archie, shakily, "Some little present, eh?"
He held them out to her.
Joan's lips moved, twitching. "From a Friend," was what she said; and
Archie, recognizing a jest on sight, let out such a roar of joy that the
twins awoke with pin-prick wails, and a nurse came running, and he was
thrust once more into outer darkness.
There a message was brought to him. "Your wife says why don't you
telegraph President Roosevelt about it?"
And literal Archie did so....
But this was the last laughter heard in the house of Blair for many a
weary week. Twins require more strength for their bearing and rearing
than Joan, taken so unawares, was able to provide. The Major's final act
of gallantry cost a good deal in the way of human life, which may, or
may not, have been of more value than the life he saved.
Afterwards, when she was able to think again, Joan sometimes wondered
whether his death was not perhaps an even more futile thing than his
life had been; yet she would not have had it otherwise.
His widow had caused to be erected to his memory the finest granite
monolith obtainable for money, bearing the inscription, "Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends";
and Joan, after her first startled distaste for the grandiloquence
passed, was able to appreciate how deeply the memorial must gratify the
proud spirit of a Darcy, if it lingered near enough to know.