a better frame of mind, her troubles remedied in their recital. "I
wonder what would become of poor Elvira if Mrs. Winslow hadn't the
little grey house as a safety-valve?" thought Mrs. Grey, but what she
said aloud was what she always said under these circumstances: "After
all, Elvira is a good, devoted creature, Azraella."
"Yes; I suppose I can't do better in Fayre than to keep her," said Aunt
Azraella, responding in the set form to this liturgical remark. "I must
go back, or she will have a chicken broiled for my supper. I told her I
didn't want it, but she always does something of that sort when I have
been annoyed. Send Prue up for some blackberries to-morrow, Mary. I
have enough to let you have some for jam--possibly for cordial, too."
"Thank you; good-by, Azraella," said Mrs. Grey, and Rob arose to say
good-by a trifle grimly, as Wythie escorted their relative to the door.
"Oh, dear," said Wythie, coming back and sitting flat on the floor
beside the chair, now nearly done, in an attitude eloquent of
exhaustion, if not despair. "I really think, Mardy, if we could
emigrate, we ought to; it's enough to turn a saint into a tiger to have
such visits so often."
"They used to turn saints into tigers in the Colosseum very frequently
in the early Christian era," said Rob, whose spirits always rose a few
points when Wythie's went down.
"I think I'll leave the gimp till another day," said Mrs. Grey,
straightening herself with difficulty, and drawing a long breath as she
put her hand to her aching back. "As to emigrating, Wythie, you will
have to emigrate to heaven to escape annoyances. We have often agreed,
you know, that Aunt Azraella is not wholly a trial; we shall enjoy
her blackberries, for instance. I wish Rob could remember that she is
utterly devoid of a sense of humor, and that people of that unfortunate
sort usually resent nonsense as a personal affront. Mercy! What's that?"
A crash of crockery and a scream echoed through the quiet house,
bringing its master to his door to inquire what was wrong, and sending
Rob upstairs in a rush, ejaculating but the one word: "Prue!"
Mrs. Grey and Wythie followed as fast as they could, and a mournful
sight met their eyes. In the middle of Wythie and Rob's room stood
Prue, dripping, and on the floor, in an absolutely unmendable wreck,
lay the water-pitcher, with an ugly scar on the front of the
wash-stand to mark the course of its fall, while the matting was soaked
in water.
"Quick! It will go through to the dining-room ceiling," cried Rob,
snatching a towel and dropping on her knees to mop as though her life
depended upon it, an example Wythie instantly followed.
"What were you doing, Prudence?" asked her mother.
Prue's tears were fast adding themselves to the general dampness. "Kiku
was so black I thought I'd wash him," she sighed. "He struggled, and I
really don't know what happened, but I knocked the pitcher off with my
elbow, and--well, you see!"
"Rather!" said Rob, from her humble attitude. "Feel, too. My dress is
getting as wet as the towel. There's one comfort: between them the
dining-room ceiling will be safe; but oh, I did love that toilet-set!"
"And so did I," said Mrs. Grey, sadly, as she picked up one of the
largest fragments and regarded it mournfully. "I bought it when I was
married. I remember how proud I was of my new dignity when I made the
purchase. Ah, well, Prue; accidents must befall; but I can't help
wishing that you had left Kiku to his dusty little self."
"So do I, Mardy," said Prue.
"And now Wythie and I have no pitcher," observed Rob, too tired and
warm to find forgiveness easy.
"You needn't complain if Mardy doesn't," said Prue, sharply.
"Go change your dress, Prue; no one has complained nor blamed you,"
said her mother.
Prue retreated with bad grace, but in a moment called pleasantly from
her room: "Here comes Mr. Flinders, Mardy. He looks glummer than usual."
"Go down, one of you girls; I'm really too tired to encounter him now,"
said Mrs. Grey, wearily. She had had many sore experiences of the
farmer who carried on their garden on shares, and who was always ready
to cut down their share to the minimum.
Rob arose with a sigh. There was a tacit understanding that in any
matter of business it should be she, and not Wythie, who came to the
front.
"Something has failed," she said, laconically, speaking from past
experience and the pessimism of a humid, tiresome day.
"Good day, Roberta," said Mr. Flinders, when Rob appeared at the door.
"I'm afraid I've got to say what you won't want to hear."
"Very likely, Mr. Flinders," said Rob, drearily. "I am so tired
to-night there are few things I should want to hear."
"Well, the pertaters is doing bad--your pertaters," said Mr. Flinders.
"I thought mebbe you'd want to know in time to engage some."
"Are they spoiled?" asked Roberta, aghast, for the failure of that
particular crop meant serious misfortune for the winter.
"Well, what with dry-rot and bugs, I guess you're not goin' to git
many," said Mr. Flinders. "I thought mebbe you'd want to know," he
ended, breaking down under the sternness of Roberta's dark eyes.
"Did the bugs and dry-rot attack only our potatoes?" she demanded.
"It's kinder diffused, so to say," admitted the farmer, "but I guess
it's fair to subtract the loss from yours mostly, because I've got to
be made good for my trouble."
This was Farmer Flinders's invariable response, and Rob flashed fire.
"Mr. Flinders," she said, "you can't share only profits--you've got to
share losses, too. We're getting tired of it. We'll send for someone
to look over the garden, and decide the question of the proportion of
loss on the spoiled crop, and we will settle exactly on the basis of
one-third loss for us and two-thirds for you, just as we share profits."
"I wasn't aware, Roberta, you was runnin' the place. If you're
managin', I'd like to be notified," said Farmer Flinders, rigid with
offence.
"I'm the business one of the family," said poor Rob, with sudden
inspiration, "and it will be as I say. I represent the Greys. We
shall not accept less than our third of the good vegetables, and that
notification will be all you need, Mr. Flinders."
She had never encountered the old fellow before, and she felt that
he recognized and objected to the fact that here was youthful fire
and determination to deal with, unlike her mother's gentleness or her
father's easy methods.
"I'll see your father later," said the farmer, turning away ill at
ease. "Good-day, Roberta."
"Good-day," said Rob, briefly, and retraced her steps heavily upstairs.
She found Wythie lying across the foot of their bed, and threw herself
on her face beside her.
"What luck?" asked Oswyth, sleepily.
Rob punched and poked a pillow into shape, and looked morosely out of
the window at the thunder-clouds piling up in the west, the result of
the hot, sultry day.
"Oh, I barked at him. I think I shall have to see him in future; I
believe I have more effect than mild Mardy and patient Patergrey,"
Rob said. "But, oh, I'm tired--tired of being vivacious and snappy
and go-ahead. I'm tired, dead tired, of fighting, Oswyth. I'd like to
lie down and be taken care of, like a little ewe lamb. There are two
Robs in me; one is sneakingly cowardly, and wants only to curl up in
a hole and hide; and the other says: 'S't, boy! sic 'em, Rob!' And
I'm up and at it again--at fate, and hard times, and Aunt Azraella,
and house-work, and Mr. Flinders, and all those horrors. And then
the tired, meek Rob tears around obediently, and no one dreams it's
all like thumb-screws and rack to her. I'm tired of my rôle of
snapping-turtle, Wythie."
"Poor Rob!" said Oswyth, gently running her fingers in and out of Rob's
beautiful, gleaming rings of hair, and stroking the mobile face, now
twisting hard in its effort to laugh when the tears were very near
falling.
"Don't mind me," said Rob, succeeding in forcing a feeble laugh. "I'm
tired, and it's been a fearfully humid, trying, tiresome, crooked day.
Besides, we're going to have a thunder-storm, and electricity always
makes me sick. Don't mind me."
CHAPTER SEVEN
ITS MENACE
Miss Charlotte Grey was spending the day with her cousins. Two of
August's weeks had slipped away, and the air was fresh and pleasant. It
seemed to the Grey girls as if it were always refreshing weather when
"Cousin Peace" came.
All unpleasant tasks were laid aside; the blinds in the cosey upstairs
sitting-room were closed, with the slats turned to admit the breeze
and the droning sound of the bees humming in the old garden. This
old garden was left to its own sweet will, and by August it was
a thoroughly sweet will; its varied-shaped beds were lush with a
profusion of honey-laden blossoms, whose fragrance permeated everywhere.
Every taint of annoyance seemed banished from the little grey house
when Cousin Peace came to spend the day. Mrs. Grey was hemming
delicately cool linen to be divided into family collars, and
feather-stitched. Wythie was putting new sleeves into Prue's cherished
white gown, Roberta was making fresh, clean-looking, green-and-white
gingham into an apron, and Prue was shelling peas, the juicy sweetness
of their pods adding to the pleasant summer smells around them. Miss
Charlotte was knitting--she was usually knitting--little fleecy white
things to wrap babies in, and bright mittens for little hands.
"I have a new magazine here which Mrs. Silsby sent down yesterday by
Frances, Charlotte," said Mrs. Grey, "but I thought we would keep it
for those lazy hours after dinner, then one of the girls must read to
us."
"That sounds attractive," said Cousin Peace. "Will Sylvester join us?"
"Oh, Charlotte, no," cried Mrs. Grey. "Sylvester is absolutely
swallowed up in his invention; he has no eyes, nor ears, nor thoughts
to spare from it. Rob is the only one who sees him lately, and that
is because she helps him. He expects to finish the machine in a few
months, but in the meantime he is so concentrated on it, and seems so
excited that I can only long for its completion, and his relief from
this strain, whatever the result of the work may be."
"I thought the last time I saw him that he was not looking well," said
Miss Charlotte.
The girls were accustomed to her speaking as though she saw the people
and things around her; to her delicately keen perceptions there was
really little difference between blindness and sight.
"I am anxious," said Mrs. Grey. "Dear Charlotte, only suppose he were
to be really ill!"
"We won't suppose it," said Cousin Peace, cheerily.
Mrs. Grey shook her head. "Come to the commissary department, Adjutant
Wythie," she said, with a pathetic smile. "We mustn't forget that
Cousin Peace, as well as more turbulent people, must be fed." Wythie
followed her mother, and Prue, hastily emptying her last pods, ran
after them, the peas dancing up to the edge of the pan as she ran.
"Cousin Peace, I'm glad to get you to myself for a few minutes; you
know everything, you have ideas in your finger-tips," said Rob, laying
her bright head on Miss Charlotte's knee. "What shall I do to earn
money? I'm only sixteen, and untrained. I've read--thank goodness,
Patergrey and Mardy took care to give me the best books and a liking
for them, and I really do know lots of things other girls don't know,
but they know lots of things I don't--schoolbook things, you see. Now,
what is there that sort of a young person could do to make her fortune
and her family's?"
Miss Charlotte shook her head. "You ought to have special training in
something, and, above all, you ought to be older before you begin,
Rob dear," she said. "Is there any new reason for haste, any fresh
pressure?"
"There may be. Mardy heard that some of her investments might pay less
this winter, and you know how she has to struggle at best to keep us
warmed and clad and fed," said Rob. "I must help her. If I don't find a
way some day to make up to that brave, dear, blessed soul for all her
hard times, then I'm not the girl I hope I am. It makes me just wild to
be useless! I'll get luxury for her old age if I have to go about with
a hand-organ and a monkey! And if I can't grind the organ, I'll be the
monkey," added Rob, turning her face up to laugh in Miss Charlotte's
face, with one of her sudden flashes of fun.
Miss Charlotte bent to kiss Rob, her favorite--if she had one--among
the three young cousins of whom she was very fond.
"You might not get her positive luxury by that desperate measure,
dearie," she said. "But you are far from useless. I can no more
imagine the little grey house without you than without its foundations.
Don't be anxious nor impatient, Robin; you'll find your place when the
time comes, and, in the meantime, you don't realize what a sunny bit of
courage you are, nor how these Grey people lean on you. I have a strong
foreboding, Roberta, that you are going to have your young hands filled
very soon, and your work cut out for you--it may be a work that will
demand all your strength."
Roberta sat erect, startled. Wythie and she had always felt that Cousin
Peace had a gift of foreknowledge almost like second sight; she was so
keenly alive to her atmosphere that she felt its changes to a degree
that had to blunter folk the effect of prophecy. Something kept Rob now
from asking her cousin's meaning. She straightened her young shoulders,
and said, instead: "I hope when the time comes I shall not fail them."
And Miss Charlotte, understanding that by "them" she meant her family,
said, with entire conviction: "I am certain, my dear, that you never
will."
After dinner "Battalion B" came whistling down the road, and stepped,
one after the other, over the gate of the little grey house. They
had come to get the girls to go rowing with them, but finding Miss
Charlotte there they gave up the plan very willingly, for the tall
Rutherford boys had long since succumbed to the charm of the sweet
blind woman.
"Prue, run up and get the magazine I left in the sitting-room," said
Mrs. Grey.
"We'll make Basil and Bruce read aloud," cried Rob. "They're too big to
be idle, and far too big to be generally useful."
Prue, obediently, left the room. As she reached the hall she heard a
groan from her father's room, and heard him gasp: "Mary, Rob--oh, come!"
She rushed back to the dining-room, where Cousin Peace sat serenely in
the breezy window, while Wythie and Rob put away the dinner dishes,
and the Rutherfords were tormenting them. How beautiful it looked, how
peaceful, to the frightened girl standing speechless in the doorway,
with that hoarse moan of pain echoing in her ears, unheard by the
others! Wythie looked up and saw Prue's face. The saucer she held fell
to the floor in fragments. "Prue--what?" she gasped.
Everyone sprang up, and Mrs. Grey seized Prue's arm, in mute appeal.
"Papa's sick or hurt; he's groaning and trying to call," Prue managed
to say.
Miss Charlotte, Wythie, Rob, and the boys pushed Prue aside, starting
for the room across the hall, but Mrs. Grey's love outstripped them.
She it was who first reached her husband's side, and knelt in terror
beside his arm-chair, where he half sat, half lay, his face ashen,
his breath short. His right hand pressed his chest, the left arm hung
at his side, the pulse in the wrist hardly perceptible to his wife's
fingers.
"What is it, dear? Can you tell me?" asked Mrs. Grey. Wythie and Miss
Charlotte were bathing his temples, while Rob, on her knees at the
other side of his chair, had loosened his collar.
For answer Mr. Grey pressed his hand closer to his breast, moving it
slightly, but his lips barely moved.
"Bartlemy, run, run for the doctor!" cried Mrs. Grey. "Stay, Basil and
Bruce--I may need you."
"Is it death, Mardy?" whispered Rob, feeling the cold of her father's
body through his clothing.
"I don't know, Rob," Mrs. Grey's white lips answered, with an effort;
in her heart she thought it was.
"If there were only something to do!" moaned Oswyth, feeling her
helplessness unbearable.
It seemed to them all that an eternity had passed since they had
entered that room--in reality it was scarcely two minutes. Suddenly Mr.
Grey's limbs relaxed, he moved, closed his eyes, and as his wife held
to his lips the water Prue handed her, said: "The pain has gone; I can
breathe."
"Here's the doctor," cried Prue, and a long sigh of relief went around
the tense room. "He has driven over without a hat, and brought Bart
with him."
Dr. Fairbairn entered, bringing with him the feeling that now all must
be right, which always attended that great man. A great man he was,
since he easily footed up his seventy-four inches of height, huge in
proportion, and with a heart and brain big out of proportion even to
his immense bulk. He was one of those men without worldly ambition, yet
afire with zeal, who are sometimes found ennobling the profession in
small communities. Past sixty, Dr. Fairbairn had seen Sylvester Grey
born, and still regarded the girls as his babies. Now he entered the
troubled group, kindly, sympathetic, business-like, strong to comfort
and to save.
"What are you up to, now, Sylvester man?" he said, walking straight to
his patient with a brief nod for the others.
"I don't know, doctor; it's all over now, anyway; I'm sorry they
bothered you," said Mr. Grey.
"Don't be foolish, boy," said Dr. Fairbairn. "How were you taken?"
"Fearful pain just over the heart, in the chest, and all down the left
arm. Then I felt suffocating, and the agony got unbearable; I really
thought I was dying." And Mr. Grey gave a little apologetic laugh.
"Yes. Been working hard, thinking hard?" asked the doctor.
"The machine is almost done, doc. I have to work hard, and it takes all
my thought. You can't realize--it means comfort, luxury maybe, for Mary
and the children," said Mr. Grey, speaking rapidly and pulling himself
erect.
"I didn't ask you all that. I see: concentration, nervous excitement,
close application," muttered Dr. Fairbairn. "Go over there and lie down
and let me hear your heart through this thing." The doctor led Mr. Grey
to his lounge, and placed his stethoscope to his chest.
In a few moments he wound the tubes together and pocketed it again.
"Now, look here, Sylvester Grey, is there any use in my giving you
orders, or are you going to do precisely as you please anyway?" he said.
"I'll mind you if I can, doctor, but you know my health is nothing in
comparison to what I have in hand. After a few months I'll take as good
care of myself as you like," said poor Mr. Grey.
"That shows the uselessness of injunctions," said the doctor. "But
now is the time to take care, not later. Avoid over-exertion and
excitement; work moderately, don't over-do, and work calmly, then you
may stave off similar attacks."
"And if I don't do this?" suggested his patient.
"You are certain to suffer this way again," said Dr. Fairbairn.
"Is there danger?" asked Mr. Grey.
"There is grave danger; it is your duty to avoid it," said the doctor.
Mr. Grey turned his face to the wall. "It is my duty to finish the
machine and provide for my family," he murmured. "My life would be well
spent if it purchased them peace."
"There is little peace to be had in the loss of the one we love best,
Sylvester," said Miss Charlotte, who alone had caught his words,
seating herself on the couch and beginning to stroke the weary head of
him who had been her favorite playmate.
Mrs. Grey and her daughters, who had stood silently, breathlessly,
listening to this conversation, now followed the doctor to the door.
"Tell me, Dr. Fairbairn," said Mrs. Grey.
"Angina pectoris, Mary, my dear, if that sheds any light on your
darkness," said the big man, smiling down upon her, and, as she shook
her head, he added: "It is an affection of the heart often found where
there is no organic disease. It is dangerous in repeated attacks, and
is not infrequently quickly fatal." Dr. Fairbairn did not approve of
professional deception unless it was necessary.
"And so Sylvester is in danger?" Mrs. Grey almost whispered.
"Yes, Mary; over-work, over-excitement increases his danger," replied
the doctor. "But no one can tell more than that. We are all in danger;
we know of his--that's the main difference. Try to make him go more
slowly."
"Thank you, Dr. Fairbairn," said Mrs. Grey.
"Now, don't begin bearing a sorrow that has not come," said the doctor.
"That was never your way. I'll send you the remedies you must use
another time. Be of good courage, Mary; but there's no need of telling
you that, you plucky little heroine." And with a tight clasp of the
hand Mrs. Grey mutely held out to him, and a pat on each girl's white
cheek, the big doctor was gone.
Mrs. Grey closed the door behind him and held out her arms. Her
three children sprang into them, and the mother held them close in a
convulsive embrace.
"We'll take care of him, Mardy," whispered Rob, with something
clutching her throat.
Mrs. Grey pushed open the dining-room door and drew the girls after
her into the room where the Rutherford boys had retreated to await the
verdict. Mrs. Grey sank into the chair nearest her and laid her head on
her arms above the table with a girlish movement of abandonment. Basil,
grave and kindly, bent over her and put his arm across her shoulder as
if to ward off grief. Bruce stroked the fine brown hair of the bowed
head with awkward gentleness, and Bartlemy hovered helplessly in the
background, making no secret of the tears on his brown cheeks.
The girls knelt beside her, Prue's head in her mother's lap. "Don't,
Mardy darling," said Wythie at last; it seemed so horribly unnatural
for their brave mother to break down.
"See, Bruce, what you must do if you become a doctor," said Mrs. Grey,
raising her head and trying to speak cheerfully. "You will have to
tell people alarming truths, and go away knowing you have left behind
you stricken hearts, for which you have just changed the whole face of
creation."
"I would rather remember the comfort I may be able to bring," said
Bruce. "Is it so bad?"
"Unless Mr. Grey will give himself the care which we are sure he will
not feel that he can afford to give, he is in mortal danger; he is
almost certain to have more of these attacks--angina pectoris, it
is--and they are--are likely--Oh, my dears, just be patient with me a
few moments! I will be brave later, but I must be a coward for a few
moments, please dears!" And once more the head bent under its burden
upon the folded arms.
Miss Charlotte came into the room, calm and smiling, and went directly
to Mrs. Grey. Taking her hand in one of hers, and running the fingers
of her other hand through Prue's golden hair, she said, brightly:
"Mary, dear, Sylvester is sleeping beautifully; he will waken
refreshed. I know precisely what the doctor told you; I have seen
angina pectoris before, and I recognized it. But we are not going to be
cast down--only very careful. Dearest children, you are so frightened,
aren't you? Remember, you must cheer your mother. Wythie and Rob, go
make us your very best coffee. And Prudy-girl, dry your eyes, and cut
us bread very thin, and butter it. And perhaps 'Battalion B' won't
mind helping the girls with the fire--I'm sure it's nearly out. Now,
Mary," she added, as the young people disappeared, and Mrs. Grey rose
and threw herself on her cousin's breast, "courage, dear! Only your old
courage re-enforced. There is danger, but we are going to be confident
of escape. Go bathe your dear face, and then come back for your coffee,
and when Sylvester wakens he will find the cheery Mary Winslow, who has
tided him over so many hard spots. I think I hear Kiku mewing; perhaps
we shut him in the sitting-room. Will you see when you go up?"
"Charlotte, Charlotte," cried Mrs. Grey, holding the blind woman fast
for a moment before she obeyed. "In all the world there never was
another such a comforting, sustaining, heaven-sent creature as you
are!"
Miss Charlotte listened to her cousin's footfall on the stairs with a
tender smile of satisfaction; she well knew the value of homely tasks
in a dark hour, and that their resumption made tragedy seem impossible.