all de same--youse never know wot dey'll do next. Wot you wanter yell
fer?"
"You mind your own business and do as you're told!" said Helena tartly.
"Go in there and stay with the Patriarch."
"Sure," said the Flopper, grinning a little now. "Sure t'ing--but youse
needn't get on yer ear about it. Cheer up, mabbe de Doc'll be out
to-night, an' if he don't hear youse yellin' himself will I tell him
youse are out on de beach t'rowin' a fit?"
"No," Helena answered sharply; "tell him nothing--I'm out." Then, quite
as quickly, changing her mind: "Yes; tell him I'm down there--or come
and get me yourself"--and she walked abruptly into her own room.
"Now wot do youse t'ink of dat?" demanded the Flopper of the universe.
He blinked at the door she had closed in his face. "Say," he asserted,
with sublime inconsistency, "if Mamie Rodgers was like all de rest of
dem, I'd t'row up me dukes before de gong rang." The Flopper went into
the Patriarch's room, and took the chair beside the other that Helena
had vacated. "Swipe me, if I wouldn't!" he added fervently, by way of
confirmation.
Helena, in her own room, opened one of her trunks, lifted out the tray,
worked somewhat impatiently down through several layers of yellow,
paper-covered literature, that would have made the classics on the
Patriarch's bookshelves shrivel up and draw their skirts hurriedly
around them in righteous horror could they but have known or been
capable of such intensely human characteristics, and finally produced a
daintily jewelled little cigarette case and match box. She slammed the
tray back, slammed the cover of the trunk down, snatched up a wrap,
flung it over her head and shoulders--and left the cottage.
She ran down to the beach at top speed, as if she couldn't get there
fast enough.
"And now I'm just going to yell and go crazy as much as ever I like!"
panted Helena to the rollers.
Instead, she sat down with her back to a rock, and opened her cigarette
case. She took out a cigarette, extracted a match from the match box,
lighted the match--and flung both cigarette and match from her.
"I don't want to be crazy--I don't know what I want," said Helena
petulantly. Her chin went into her hands, and she stared wide-eyed at
the breaking surf. "I wonder what it all means?" she murmured, with a
mirthless little laugh.
Her thoughts began to run riot. What _did_ it all mean? What was this
faith? There was, there _must_ be something in it. There was the Holmes
boy--suppose it _was_ only some nervous disorder--well, something had
risen superior to whatever it was and had _cured_ him. There was Naida
Thornton--true, she was ill again--her heart, Mr. Thornton had said--but
she could still walk, a thing she had not been able to do for a long
time until she came to Needley.
Helena laughed again--oh, it was a good game! The Doc had made no
mistake about that--but then, when it came to planting anything the Doc
rarely did make a mistake. Fancy fifty thousand dollars in one haul!
_Fifty thousand in one haul!_ The bank had sent her a passbook with that
amount to her credit. And that was only the beginning--hardly anybody
had come yet, and already there was several hundred dollars more in real
money that she had handed over to Madison from the offering box.
Money! They'd have more money than they'd know what to do with before
they got through--there was nothing the matter with the game--all there
was to do was to play it to a finish. And there wasn't the slightest
risk about it--everything was given voluntarily. Oh, the game was all
right--but somehow she wasn't happy--not nearly so happy as she had
been in New York, even in lean periods when she and the Doc had been
pressed for money. But, anyway, then they had been together, and fought,
and laughed, and loved, and quarrelled through flush times and bad.
Maybe that was it! The Doc! Of course, she loved him--she had loved him
ever since she had known him. There was no secret about that--she loved
him fiercely, passionately, more than she loved anything else in the
world, with all the love she was capable of--more than he loved her--he
seemed to accept her, too often, so casually, so indifferently, so much
as a matter of course. He was so confidently and complacently sure of
her--and she was not at all sure of him. She was only sure that he was
quite right in being sure--she couldn't help loving him if she tried.
She had hardly seen anything of him since that night in the Roost before
he had left for Needley--and he hadn't seemed to care much whether she
did or not. That talk about playing the game and taking no chances was
all bosh--there had been plenty of chances where it wouldn't have hurt
the game any. Perhaps the little jolt she had given him last night,
turning the tables a little, would wake him up a bit. Perhaps, as the
Flopper had said, he would come out to-night, and--
"Helena! Helena!"
Helena sat suddenly upright--the noise of the surf muffled the sound of
the voice, but that was probably Doc now--she could hear footsteps
running from the direction of the cottage. Deliberately, Helena leaned
back again against the rock, took out a cigarette and with no attempt to
shade the flame of the match, rather to use it as a challenging beacon,
held it to the cigarette--but for the second time she flung both match
and cigarette hurriedly away. It wasn't Madison at all--it was only the
Flopper.
"Say!" gasped the Flopper, blowing hard. "Why can't youse answer when
yer called? Wot you tryin' ter do--light a bonfire ter save yer voice?
Say, youse wanter get a wiggle on--beat it--quick! Dey're after you."
"What?" cried Helena sharply, jumping to her feet. "After me? Who? What
do you mean?"
"I dunno," said the Flopper with sudden imperturbability--and evidently
quite pleased with the agitation he had caused. "He talks like his mouth
was full, an' he's got a scare t'rown inter him so's his teeth have got
de jiggles."
Helena caught the Flopper's arm and shook him angrily.
"What are you talking about--what is it?" she demanded fiercely.
"It's de porter from de private car," said the Flopper, wriggling away
from her. "He drove out here. De lady's on de toboggan--sick. She's
askin' fer youse an'--"
Helena waited for no more. She raced to the cottage and around to the
front. A wagon was standing before the porch; the negro porter on the
seat.
"What is it, Sam?" she called anxiously, as she came up. "Is Mrs.
Thornton seriously ill?"
"Yas--yas'um, miss," Sam answered excitedly. "I done feel in mah bones
she's gwine to die. Miss Harvey she done tole me to get a team an' drive
foh you-all like de debbil."
Without waste of words, Helena clambered in beside him.
"Then drive," she said shortly. "Drive as fast as you can."
At first, as they drove along, Helena plied Sam with questions--and then
lapsed into silence. The man did not know very much--only that Mrs.
Thornton had been taken suddenly ill, and that the nurse had sent him on
the errand that had brought him to the cottage. A turmoil of conflicting
emotions filled Helena's mind, obtruding upon her anxiety, for she had
grown to care a great deal for Naida Thornton--this was a complication
that Doc Madison must know about--Thornton had left that morning and was
already far away--the newspaper men, or some of them at least, were
still in the town--and there were so many things else--they all came
crowding upon her, as she clung to her seat in the jolting wagon. But
Doc must know--that rose a paramount consideration. It seemed an age, an
eternity before they stopped finally at the station.
She sprang out and turned to Sam.
"Sam," she directed hurriedly, "you go back to the Congress Hotel and
get Mr. Madison. Mr. Madison is a friend of Mr. Thornton's, you know. Go
about it quietly--you needn't let any one know what you came for. You
can tell Mr. Madison what the trouble is--and tell him that I sent you,
and that I am here. Do you understand?"
"Yas'um, mum," said Sam impressively. "Just you done leab all that to
me, missy."
Across the track on the siding, the private car was dimly lighted, the
window curtains down. Helena crossed the track and mounted the steps. As
she reached the platform, Miss Harvey, who had evidently heard her
coming, opened the door and drew her quietly inside.
A glance at the nurse's face brought a sudden chill to Helena's heart.
Miss Harvey, capable, controlled, grave, smiled at her a little sadly.
"I sent for you, Miss Vail," she said in a low tone, "because Mrs.
Thornton has been asking for you incessantly ever since the attack came
on three-quarters of an hour ago."
"You mean," said Helena, "that--that there is--"
"No hope," the nurse completed. "I am afraid there is none--it is her
heart. The condition has been aggravated by her activity during the last
few days since she has been able to walk--though I have done everything
within my power to keep her quiet." Miss Harvey laid her hand on
Helena's arm. "There is one thing, Miss Vail, I feel that I must say to
you, in justice both to you and to myself, before you see her. Whatever
my personal ideas may be of what has taken place here, my professional
duty as a nurse demanded that I send for a doctor at once, and I want
you to know that is what I did, though I have not been successful in
getting one. There is no doctor here, so I telegraphed; but the doctor
at Barton's Mills is away."
"Yes," said Helena mechanically.
"I just wanted you to understand," said Miss Harvey. "Will you come and
see Mrs. Thornton now?"
"Does she know," whispered Helena, as she followed the nurse down the
corridor of the car, "does she know that--how ill she is?"
"Yes," Miss Harvey answered simply. She stopped before a compartment
door, opened it softly, and, stepping aside, motioned Helena to enter.
A little cry rose to Helena's lips that she choked back somehow, and a
mist for a moment blinded her eyes--then she was kneeling beside the
brass bed, and was holding in both her own the hand that was stretched
out to her.
"Helena--dear--I am so glad you came," said Mrs. Thornton faintly. "I--I
am not going to get better, and there are some things I want to say to
you."
"Oh, but you are," returned Helena quickly, smiling bravely now. "You
mustn't say that."
Mrs. Thornton shook her head.
"Dear," she said, "I know. And I know that what I have to say I must
say quickly." Her voice seemed to grow suddenly stronger with a great
earnestness. "Listen, dear. This must not make any difference to this
wonderful work that has just begun here. I was cured of my hip
disease--perfectly cured--no one can deny that--this is my own fault, I
have overdone it--I would not listen to reason--to do what I have done
in the last few days, when for a year and a half I had never moved a
step, was more than my heart could stand. I should have been more
quiet--but I was so glad, so happy--and I wanted to tell everybody--I
wanted all the world to know, so that others could find the joy that I
had found."
She paused--and Helena sought for words that, somehow, would not come.
The nurse was bending over the bed on the other side, and Mrs. Thornton
turned her head toward Miss Harvey now. She smiled gently, as though to
rob her words of any possible hurt.
"Nurse, I want--to be alone with Miss Vail for just a moment."
Miss Harvey, doubtful, hesitated.
"Only for a moment," pleaded Mrs. Thornton. "You can stay just outside
the door."
Reluctantly, Miss Harvey complied, and left the room.
Mrs. Thornton pressed Helena's hand tightly.
"Listen, dear--this must not make any difference. It--it is the one
thing that will make me happy now--to know that. I--I have written a
little note to Robert about it, to be given to him. Oh, if I could only
have lived to help--I should have tried so hard to be worthy to have a
part in it. Not like you, dear, with your sweetness and nobleness, for
God seems to have singled you out for this--but just to have had a
little part. How wonderful it would have been, bringing peace and health
and gladness where only sorrow and misery was before, and--and--"
Mrs. Thornton's eyes closed, and she lay for a moment quiet.
A blackness seemed to settle upon Helena--and how cold it was! She
shivered. Her dark eyes, wide, tearless now, stared, startled, dazed, at
the white face on the pillow crowned with its mass of golden hair. Her
sweetness! Her nobleness! Helena's lips half parted and her breath came
in quick, fierce, little gasps--it seemed as though she had been struck
a blow that she could not quite understand because somehow it had numbed
her senses--only there was a hurt that curiously, strangely seemed to
mock as it stabbed with pain.
"There is Robert"--Mrs. Thornton spoke again--"I am sure he will do as I
have asked him to do about this, but--you can have a great deal of
influence with him. It--it perhaps may seem a strange thing to say, but
I pray that you two may be brought very close to each other. Robert
needs a good, true woman so much in his life--and I--we--we--my
illness--we have never had a home in its truest sense. Yes, it is
strange for me perhaps to talk like this--but it is in my heart. I would
like to think of you both engaged in this wonderful work together."
Again, through exhaustion, Mrs. Thornton stopped--and Helena, from
gazing at the other's pallid countenance in a sort of involuntary,
frightened fascination, dropped her head suddenly upon the bed-spread
and hid her face.
Mrs. Thornton's hand found Helena's head and rested upon it.
"I would like to see Robert happy," she murmured, after a little
silence. "Riches do not make happiness--they are so sad and empty a
thing when the heart is empty. I know he would be happy with you--he has
spoken so much of you lately--perhaps--perhaps--"
Mrs. Thornton's voice was very faint--the words reached Helena plainly
enough as words, but they seemed to reach her consciousness in an
unreal, unnatural, blunted way, coma-like--pregnant of significance, yet
with the significance itself elusive, evading her.
"A good woman," whispered Mrs. Thornton, "I have tried to be a good
woman--but--but my life, our wealth, our position has made it so
artificial. You have never known these things, dear--and so you are just
as God made you--good woman, so pure, so wonderful in your freshness and
your innocence. Robert's life has been so barren--so barren. I would
like to know that--that it will not always be so. Oh, if it could only
be that you and he should carry on this great, glad work together--and
love should come into his life--and yours--and sunshine--promise me,
dear, that--"
The voice died away. Helena, with head still buried, waited for Mrs.
Thornton to speak again. It seemed she waited for a great length of
time--and yet there was no such thing as time. It seemed as though she
were transported to a place of great and intense blackness where it was
miserably cold and chill, and she stood alone and lost, and strove to
find her way--and there was no way--only blackness everywhere,
immeasurable. She lifted her head suddenly, desperately, to shake the
unreality from her--and her eyes fell upon the gentle face, peaceful,
smiling, calm, and so _still_--and a startled, frightened cry rang from
her lips.
There was the quick, hurried rush of some one coming into the room, and
the nurse brushed by her and bent instantly over the bed--after that,
quite soon after that it seemed, and yet it might have been quite a
little while, she found herself outside in the corridor and the nurse
was speaking to her.
"Sam is still out there," said Miss Harvey gently. "I told him to keep
the team. You cannot help me, and I want you to go home, dear. And will
you ask Sam to go for Mr. Madison at the hotel on the way back--I do not
know who else I can call upon for advice."
"I've sent for him already," said Helena numbly.
"Have you, dear?" Miss Harvey said. "That was very thoughtful of
you--I'm sure he'll be here presently then. And now, dear, it is much
better that you should go."
There were no tears in Helena's eyes as she stepped down from the car
vestibule to the tracks--only a drawn misery in her face. That was Doc
over there, pacing up and down on the platform in the darkness--wasn't
it weird the way his cigar glowed bright and then went out and then
glowed bright again--like a gigantic firefly!
She was across the tracks before he saw her, then, hurrying forward, he
helped her to the platform.
"Well?" he asked quickly.
Helena did not answer.
Madison took the cigar from his lips, leaned forward, and peered into
Helena's face--then drew back with a low whistle.
"Dead?" he said.
Helena nodded.
"Miss Harvey wants to see you," she said.
"Say," said Madison slowly, "first crack out of the box this looks bad,
don't it? If this gets around here without a muffler on it, it might
make the railroad companies hang fire with those circulars for excursion
rates to Needley--what?"
"I--I think I hate you!" Helena cried out suddenly, passionately.
"She's--she's dead--and that's all you think about!"
Madison stared at Helena for a moment calmly.
"Now, look here, Helena," said he quietly, "don't get excited. Of
course I'm sorry--I'm not a brute and I've got feelings--but I can't
afford to lose my head. Something's got to be done, and done quick. We
don't want this headlined in every paper in the United States to-morrow
morning--Thornton wouldn't want it either. You say Miss Harvey wants to
see me? Well, that'll help some--she'll probably do as she's told,
and--"
Madison paused abruptly, gazed abstractedly at the private car across
the tracks on the siding, and pulled at his cigar.
Helena watched him in silence--a little bitterly. That quick, clever,
cunning brain of his was at work again--scheming--scheming--always
scheming--and Naida Thornton was dead.
"I'll tell you," said Madison, speaking again as abruptly as he had
stopped. "It's simple enough. There's a westbound train due in an hour
or so--we'll couple the private car onto that and send it right along to
Chicago. What the authorities don't know won't hurt them. There's no
reason for anybody except Thornton to know what's happened till she gets
there--I'll wire him. The main thing is that the car won't be here in
the morning, and that'll take a little of the intimate touch of Needley
off. It might well have happened on her way home--journey too much for
her--left too soon--see? Thornton'll see it in the right light because
he's got fifty thousand dollars worth of faith in what's going on
here--get that? He won't want to harm the 'cause.' There'll be some
publicity of course, we can't help that--but it won't hurt much--and
Thornton can gag a whole lot of it--he'd want to anyway for his own
sake. Now then, kid, there's Sam over there--you pile into the wagon and
go home, while I get busy--and don't you say a word about this, even to
the Flopper."
And so Helena drove back to the Patriarch's cottage that night, a little
silent figure in the back seat of the wagon--and her hands were locked
tightly together in her lap--and to her, as she drove over the peaceful,
moonlit road, and under the still, arched branches of the trees in the
wood that hid the starlight, came again and again the words of one who
had gone, who perhaps knew better now--"you are as God made you."
--XVI--
A FLY IN THE OINTMENT
The days passed. And with the days, morning, noon and night, they came
by almost every train, the sick and suffering, the lame, the paralytics
and the maimed--a steady influx by twos and threes and fours--from north
over the Canadian boundary line, from the far west, and from the
southernmost tip of the Florida coast. No longer on the company's
schedule was Needley a flag station--it was a regular stop, and its
passenger traffic returns were benign and pleasing things in the
auditor's office. And it was an accustomed sight now, many times a
day--what had once been a strange, rare spectacle--that slow procession
wending its way from the station to the town, some carried, some limping
upon crutches, all snatching at hope of life and health and happiness
again. Needley, perforce, had become a vast boarding house, as it
were--there were few homes indeed that did not harbor their quota of
those who sought the "cure."
But there were others too who came--who were not sick--who had not
faith--who came to laugh and peer and peek. Pleasure yachts dropped
their anchors in the cove around the headland from the Patriarch's
cottage--and their dingeys brought women decked out _de rigeur_ in middy
blouses and sailor collars, and nattily attired gentlemen whose only
claim to seamanship was the clothes, or rather, the costumes that they
wore.
They came laughing, supercilious, tolerant, contemptuous, pitying the
inanity of those they held less strongly-minded than themselves who
should be taken in by so apparent, glaring and monstrous a fake. They
came because it was the rage, the thing to do, quite the thing to do,
quite a necessary part of the summer's itinerary. But that they, should
they have been sick, would ever have dreamed of coming there was too
perfectly ridiculous an idea for words. How strange a thing is the human
animal!
They came in their rather cruel, merciless gaiety--and they left sobered
and impressed; the ladies holding their embroidered parasols at a less
jaunty angle; the men with lightened pockets, their names enrolled in
the contribution book in that quiet, simple room, whose door was open,
whose cash-box was unguarded, where none asked them to either enter or
withdraw. They came and found no air of charlatanism such as they had
looked for--only a peaceful, unostentatious, patient air of sincerity
that left them remorseful and abashed. They came and went, a source of
revenue not counted on or thought of before by Madison; but a source
that swelled the coffers, brimming fuller day by day, to overflowing.
In three weeks from the night of Mrs. Thornton's death, which had had at
least no visible effect on Needley, Needley was metamorphosed--with a
spontaneity, so to speak, that astounded even Madison himself--into
something that approximated very closely in reality the word-picture he
had drawn of it that night in the Roost. Madison looked upon his work
and saw that it was pleasing beyond his dreams. Money was pouring in--no
single breath of suspicion came to disquiet him. Even the cures were
working satisfactorily--even Pale Face Harry, who had become great
friends with the farmer at whose house he boarded, and who now spent
most of his time in the fields, was showing an improvement--Pale Face
Harry coughed less. The Flopper was as happy as a lark--and Mamie
Rodgers blushed now at mention of the name of Coogan. Helena, demure,
adored by all who saw her, went daily about her housework in the
cottage, and waited upon the Patriarch with gentle tenderness; while the
Patriarch, docile, full of supreme trust and confidence in every one,
radiant in Helena's companionship, was as putty in their hands. And so
Madison looked upon his work and saw no flaw--but with the days he grew
ill at ease.
"It's too easy," he told himself. "I guess that's it--it's too easy. The
whole show runs itself. Why, there's nothing to do but count the cash!"
And yet in his heart he knew that wasn't it--it was Helena. Helena was
beginning to trouble him a little. She was playing the game all
right--playing it to the limit--and making a hit at every performance.
Her name was on every tongue, and men and women alike spoke of her
sweetness, her goodness, her loveliness. Well, that was all right,
Helena was a star no matter where you put her--but something was the
matter. Helena wasn't the Helena of a month ago back in little old New
York. He hadn't managed to get a dozen words with her since that night
on the station platform, without taking chances and gaining admission to
the cottage through the Flopper's window after dark--and then she had
held him at arm's length.
"The matter with me?" she had said. "There isn't anything the matter
with me--is there? I'm--I'm playing the game."