MESSAGES
Hope to reach Elmville at seven to-night.--E.C. JEFFERSON.
This was the first of them. When Georgiana received it she had been
waiting eight days for this first word. She had known well enough that
until Jeannette was entirely safe Doctor Craig would not leave her.
Georgiana had not minded that she had had no word. She had not really
expected any. A man who was too busy to come would be too busy to write,
and she wanted no makeshift letters. And she had not minded the delay in
his coming; rather, she had welcomed it. To have time to think, to hug
her half-frightened, wholly joyous knowledge to her heart, to go to
sleep with it warm at her breast, and to wake with it knocking at the
door of her consciousness--this was quite happiness enough for the
immediate present.
Meanwhile, what pleasure to put the house in its most shining order, to
plan daily little special dishes, lest he come upon her unawares; to sit
and sew upon her clothing, shifting and turning her patchwork materials
until she had worked out clever combinations which conveyed small hint
of being make-overs!
For the first time in her life she said nothing to her father of her
expectations. What was there to tell as yet? She could not bring herself
to put into words the memory of that brief interview, in which so much
had been said in so few simple phrases. And if Father Davy read--as it
would have been strange if he had not--the signs of his daughter's
singing lightness of heart, he made no sign himself; he only waited,
praying.
Georgiana received her first telegram at noon. She had flown for two
wonderful hours about her kitchen, making ready, when the despatch was
followed by another:
Unavoidably detained. Will plan to get away Thursday.
This was Tuesday. Georgiana put away her materials, and swept the house
from attic to cellar, though it needed it no more than her glowing face
needed colour. What did it matter? Let him be detained a week, a month,
a year--he would come to her in the end. Now that she was sure of that,
each day but enhanced the glorious hope of a meeting, that meeting the
very thought of which was enough to take away her breath.
On Thursday came the message:
Cannot leave this week. Will advise by wire when possible.
No letter came to explain further these delays. Georgiana felt that she
did not need one, yet admitted to herself that the ordinary course in
such circumstances would be to send a letter, no matter of how few
words. Toward the end of the following week a telegram again set a day
and hour, and as before, another followed on its heels to negative it.
The last one added, "Deep regret," and therefore bore balm.
And then, after several more days, came a message which was all but a
letter:
It seems impossible to arrange for absence at present. Will you not
bring your father and come to my home on Wednesday? Will meet train
arriving seven-fifteen. Journey will not hurt Mr. Warne, and visit
here will interest him. Please do not refuse.
E. C. JEFFERSON.
Well! What girl ever had a suitor of this sort? one too busy to come or
write, yet who, on the strength of a few words spoken in the presence of
others, ventured to send for the lady of his choice to come to him, that
he might speak those other words so necessary to the conclusion of the
matter. Georgiana sat re-reading the slip of yellow paper, while her
heart beat hard and painfully. For with the invitation had come
instantly the bitter realization--they could not afford to go! Her
recent trip on the occasion of Jeannette's illness had taxed their
always slender resources, and until the money should come in for the
last bale of rugs sent away, there was only enough in the family
treasury to keep them supplied with the necessities of life.
The time had come--undoubtedly it had--when she must confide in Father
Davy. Not that he would be able to see any way out, but that she could
not venture to refuse this urgent request without his approval.
Georgiana tucked away in her belt the last long telegram, and went to
her father. He lay upon his couch, the blue veins on his delicate
forehead showing with pitiful distinctness in the ray of November
sunshine which chanced to fall upon him.
Georgiana knelt beside him. "Father Davy," she said, with her face
carefully out of his sight, "I have a little story to tell you--just the
outlines of one, for you to fill in. When I was in New York Mr.
Jefferson--Doctor Craig, you know,"--she had told him this part of the
tale when she had first come home,--"asked me when--when he might come
here."
She paused. Her father turned his head upon the crimson couch pillow,
but he could not see her face.
"Yes, my dear?" he said, with a little smile touching his lips. "Well,
that sounds natural enough. He knows he is always welcome here. When is
he coming?"
"He isn't coming. He can't get away. He has tried three different
times, and cancelled it each time. He seems to be very busy, too busy
even to write."
"That is not strange; he must be a very busy man. Doubtless he will come
when he can make time. I shall be glad to see Mr. Jefferson."
"But--you see--he wants us to come there."
"Us?"
"You and me. Father Davy--you understand, dear; don't make me put it
into words!"
Her father's arm came about her and she buried her face in his thin
shoulder. "Thank God!" he said fervently, under his breath. "Thank the
good God, who knows what we need and gives it to us."
After a minute's silence: "But we can't go, Father Davy."
"Can't we? I could not, of course, but you----"
"I couldn't go without you--to his house. And--we haven't any money."
"No money? Is it so bad as that?"
"And if we had--I'm not sure that I want to take a journey to a man--so
that----"
"Let me see the telegram, my dear," requested Mr. Warne. When he had
read it he regarded his daughter with a curious little smile. She was
sitting upon the floor, close beside his couch, her brilliant eyes now
raised to his face, now veiled by their heavy lashes. "It seems clear
enough," he said. "Concessions must be made to a man who belongs to the
people as he does. I don't think it would be a sacrifice to your
dignity, daughter, if you were to go."
"But, Father, darling, don't you see? I didn't want to tell you, but
there was no other way. We have quite enough to live on--without
extras--till the next rug money comes. But that may not be for a month;
they are always slow. And for us to go to New York--well, we could just
about get there. We couldn't get clear home. Father Davy, I can't
go--penniless--_to him_!"
He lay looking at her down-bent head with its splendid masses of dark
hair, at the beautiful lines of her neck in her low-cut working frock of
blue-and-white print, at the shapely young hands gripping each other
with unconscious tenseness in her lap. His eyes were like a woman's for
understanding, and his lips were very tender. Slowly he raised himself
to his feet.
"Stay just where you are, daughter," he said, "till I come back."
She waited, staring at the old crimson pillow with eyes which saw again
the drawing-room in Aunt Olivia's apartment and the profile of Doctor
Craig's face as he turned from her at Chester Crofton's interrupting
question. That was more than three weeks ago----
Father Davy was gone some little time, but he came back at length at
his slow, limping pace, and sat down upon the couch. He held in his hand
a little bag of dark blue silk, a little bag whose contents seemed all
heavily down in one corner. Georgiana's eyes regarded it with some
wonder. She had thought she knew by heart every one of her father's few
belongings, but this little bag was new to her.
"I think," he said softly, "the time has come for this. It was meant,
perhaps, to be given you a little later in your history, but if your
mother knew--nay, I feel she does know and approve--she would be the
first to say to me: '_Give it to her now, David; she'll never want it
more than now._'"
Georgiana leaned forward, her lips parted. She seemed hardly to breathe
as her father went on, his slender fingers gently caressing the little
blue silk bag:
"From the time you were a baby, a very little baby, she saved this money
for you. It came mostly from wedding fees; I always gave her those to do
with as she would. They were a country minister's fees--two-and-three-dollar
fees mostly--once in a great while some affluent farmer would pay me
five dollars. How your mother's eyes would shine when I could give her a
five! She turned all the bills and silver into gold--a great many of
these pieces are one-dollar gold pieces. There are none of them in
circulation now; it may easily be that they have increased in value,
being almost a curiosity in these days. I think I have heard of
something like that. At any rate, dear, it is all yours. It was to have
been given to you to buy your wedding outfit; but--she would have wanted
you to have it when it could help you most." He held out the little bag.
"She made it of a bit of her wedding dress," he said, and his hand
trembled as it was extended toward his daughter. "It was not only her
wedding dress, it was the best dress she had for many years."
With a low cry that was like that of a mother's for a child, Georgiana
took the little blue silk bag, heavy in its corner with the weight of
many small gold pieces, and crushed it against her lips. Then, with it
held close to her cheek, she laid her head down on her father's knee and
sobbed her heart out for the mother she had missed for ten long years.
In the little bag there proved to be almost a hundred
dollars--ninety-two in all.
"She sorely wanted to get it to a hundred," said Father Davy, when he
and Georgiana, their eyes still wet, had counted the tarnished gold
pieces that had waited so long to be delivered to their owner. "There
seemed a dearth of marriages the year before she went; the sum increased
very slowly."
"She must have gone without--things she needed," Georgiana said with
difficulty.
"I think she did, but she would never own it. She was very clever, as
you are, at making things over and over, and she looked always trim and
fine. She was a beautiful woman--and a happy one, in spite of all she
was deprived of in her life with a poor country minister. 'If my little
daughter can only be as happy as I have been,' she used to say, 'it is
all I ask.' My dear, she would have liked--she would have loved--Mr.
Jefferson. I can't get over calling him that," he added, with his
whimsical smile struggling to shine through the tears which would not
quite be mastered.
"O Father Davy!" was all Georgiana could say. But she lifted a flushed
and lovely face with all manner of womanly qualities written in it, and
kissed her father on brow and cheek and lips, as she would have kissed
her mother at such words as those.
* * * * *
"I wonder," said Mr. Warne, sitting comfortably in the Pullman chair his
daughter had insisted upon, "if I can possibly be awake, not dreaming. I
never thought to take another journey."
"He said it wouldn't hurt you, and it's not. You're not too tired? I
haven't seen you look so well for a long time," declared his daughter.
The eyes of other passengers, across the aisle, were irresistibly drawn
to these two travelers--the frail, intellectual-looking man with his
curly gray hair and his gentle blue eyes, his worn but carefully kept
garments, his way of turning to his daughter at every change of
scene--the daughter herself, with her face of charm under the close hat
with its veil, her clothing the suit of dark summer serge with its lines
of distinction, which was still doing duty as the only presentable
street suit she possessed.
They were a more than commonly interesting pair, these travelers, and
they were furtively watched from behind more than one newspaper.
Georgiana had no eyes for possible observers. With Father Davy she
preferred to sit with her chair turned toward the window, looking out at
the hills and trying to realize the thing which was happening. She was
actually on her way to the home of a man whom a month ago she had
thought gone out of her life forever. And, even now, he had not spoken a
word of love to her, had not asked her to marry him! Yet he was to meet
her at the end of this short journey; she was to look out upon the
platform and see that distinguished figure standing there, waiting for
her--for her, Georgiana Warne, maker of rugs for small sums of money,
wearer of other people's cast-oft clothing, undistinguished by anything
in the world--except by being the daughter of a real saint; and that was
much after all. Fate had not left her without the best beginning in
life, the being brought into it by such a father and mother--bless them!
The hours flew by, the train passed through the outlying towns and came
at last to the monster city. The lights within the car and without were
bright as they drew into the great station. Following the porter who
carried Mr. Warne's worn black bag and his daughter's fine one--given
her by Aunt Olivia that summer--her arm beneath her father's, Georgiana
made her way through the car, into the vestibule, out upon the platform.
No sight of Doctor Craig rewarded the hurried glance she gave about her.
But before she could take alarm a fresh-faced young man in the livery of
a chauffeur came up to her, saying respectfully:
"I beg pardon, is it Miss Warne?" And upon her assent he said rapidly:
"Doctor Craig bid me say he was called to a case he could not refuse,
but he hopes to be home soon. I am to take you up and to see to your
luggage."
"We have no luggage but these bags," Georgiana told him, wondering for a
moment how he had recognized her so readily, then understanding that
though she herself might be a figure indistinguishable by description
from many another, that of Father Davy could not fail of recognition by
one who had been told what to expect.
"I have a chair here for the gentleman," the man said, and he indicated
one of the station chairs attended by a red-capped porter.
Mr. Warne, being wheeled rapidly through the great station, looked
about him with the eager eyes of a boy. It was twenty years--twenty long
and quiet years, since he had been in New York. What had not happened
since then? In spite of the myriad descriptions he had read and pictures
he had studied, the effect upon him of the real city, as, having been
transferred from the chair to a small but luxurious closed car, he was
conveyed along the thronged, astonishingly lighted streets, was
overwhelming. Suddenly he closed his eyes and laid his head back against
the cushioned leather.
Georgiana bent anxiously toward him. "Are you frightfully tired, Father
dear? Are you--faint?"
His eyes opened and his lips smiled reassuringly. "A little tired, my
dear, and very much dazed, but not upset in any way. I shall be glad to
sleep--and glad to wake in this wondrous city."