I
Frankie was quite desperate with grief and anxiety. She rushed into the
old lady’s room, bare-footed, in her nightdress, and denounced her in a
storm of sobs.
“How _could_ you!” she cried. “How _could_ you! How did you and Minnie
dare to arrange my life for me that way?... You didn’t know.... You
couldn’t know--what plans I had.... How _could_ you! You don’t know what
you’ve done!”
The old lady said that no great harm had been done.
“It has! It has!” Frankie cried. “You don’t know! You’ve spoiled
everything!”
This the old lady didn’t believe; she asked for an explanation, and
Frances would give none.
“But Grandma!” she implored, “Grandma, trust me! Believe me when I say
I’ve got to go back! It’s terribly important. It means my whole life.
Oh, Grandma, please, _please_ write to Minnie and make her come home!”
“My dear child, I can’t. She wouldn’t come. And I must say I think she’s
entitled to a little---- Don’t you think you’re rather selfish,
Frances?”
“Oh, stop!” Frances interrupted, rudely. “You don’t understand. It’s
something ... I _have_ to see about, something important.”
“What can it be?”
The old lady was indulgent; she fancied she scented a sentimental
interest.
“I can’t tell you--just now, anyway.”
Frances dried her eyes and looked at her grandmother with a new look,
hard and clear.
“You’ll have to make out alone for a few hours,” she said, “I’ve got to
go in on that four-eight train. I’ll be back some time to-night.”
She went into her room and, closing the door, flung herself down on the
creaking bed, not to cry, but to think, to plan for him. All morning the
breakfast dishes were unwashed, the beds unmade, nothing touched in the
house. It was noon when a curious sound startled Frankie. She fancied
she heard a step in the passage.
She flung open the door, to see a poor, trembling little figure come out
of her grandmother’s room.
“Grandma!” she shrieked, and flew to catch her and half carry her back
to her bed, reproaching her bitterly, tenderly, while she got her
clothes off. She noticed with intolerable remorse how clumsily the
things were put on and the scanty hair twisted up.
“Grandma,” she cried. “You know you shouldn’t! Suppose you had slipped!
It was dreadful of you!”
She saw to her horror that there were tears in the poor thing’s eyes and
her feeble voice quavered.
“Frances,” she said, “I couldn’t stand it. Both of you going off ...
neither of you wanting to stay with me.... I felt I didn’t care what
happened to me.... And----” she broke into a weak little sob as she came
to her last and worst grief, “one o’clock and the house not touched! I
just couldn’t lie abed any longer!”
“No, Granny dear, I know! I’ll do everything right away. Only lie down
and rest, won’t you? I’ll do everything before I go.”
The old lady patted her hand.
“Won’t you ask Sally Washington to sit in the kitchen while you’re
gone?” she asked. “I’m so nervous about fire.”
Frankie hurried across to the cottage, but Sally couldn’t come; she was
sick in bed and there was no one available but young Norman Washington,
aged nine, who was guaranteed by his mother to be trustworthy.
The old lady, however, rejected him.
“Worse than no one!” she cried. “A boy! He’ll eat up all my preserves.
And goodness knows _what_ he’ll break.”
It also occurred to her that he was quite likely, in his quality as boy,
to set fire to the house; in fact, as she considered it longer, she
declared it _certain_ that he would do so.
She was in a pitifully nervous state. She entreated Frances to dress her
again and help her downstairs, so that she could wait there, where, in
case of fire, she could manage somehow to get out. She couldn’t eat
anything for lunch. She sat propped up in bed, her trembling fingers
moving ceaselessly, her watery eyes staring vacantly, in dim anxiety,
consumed with dread, with the horror of her own helplessness. As she
passed by the door, Frances could see her there, each time more
intolerably pitiful. Until, one time, she saw her press her poor,
clawlike hand against her mouth.... Somehow that decided Frances; she
_couldn’t_ leave her; couldn’t endure the idea of her alone there until
two in the morning, when the last train would have brought her back. No;
she couldn’t go. She went into the room, hard and brusque again.
“I won’t go to the city,” she said. “I’ll just harness up Bess somehow
and go to the village and send a telegram.”
All over--all finished. She knew it. She had no hope, no illusion about
the matter, only the certainty that her terribly brief time of happiness
was done.