APRIL SHOWERS
"That Miller girl needs a good rest," said Miss Jinny emphatically.
She had come in from her visit to the Academy, where she had
interviewed the model with a thoroughness that left little of her past
unexplored, and her face was sad and thoughtful as she stood pulling
off her gloves, finger by finger, by the big side window in the studio.
Mrs. Shelly went on with her knitting, but Patricia, who was mending a
long rent in her best blouse, looked up with eager interest.
"Did you have a chance to talk to her much?" she asked, snapping off
her thread in her absorption. "What is she really like? Does she
remember Rockham? And does she know we have the old place?"
Miss Jinny chuckled and then grew grave and thoughtful.
"I guess she wouldn't last much longer at this business," she said,
smoothing the creases out of the glove fingers. "She's got a pinched
look and her cheeks are mighty pink. No, it ain't paint; I asked right
out, and she answered just as nice as could be. She seems tired, poor
girl, and mortally glad to have some one take an interest. She says
the class rooms are so hot, and the change from living in eighty
degrees to sixty-five, like it is in her room, has made her downright
sick part of the time."
"It must be hard on her," acquiesced Patricia. "Why didn't she get
something else to do?"
"Couldn't," said Miss Jinny, briefly. "A girl without friends or money
hasn't much show in a big town. I'm going to take charge of that girl,
Patricia."
Patricia felt a thrill of alarm.
"You aren't going to bring her _here_?" she queried, a faint flush of
shame at the selfishness of her speech creeping into her cheeks.
"Certainly _not_," said Miss Jinny crisply. "I'm merely a guest here.
I'm going to do something more practical, and I want you to help me, if
you can stop being jealous of the poor girl, for----"
Patricia flung the sewing aside and threw her arms about her friend in
a tempest of contrition. "I didn't mean to be horrid," she cried.
"You know I wouldn't really be so selfish--if I thought you wanted it.
But we have been so happy together here, and I wanted it to go onto the
end, just like a beautiful story that ends happily. I'm sorry I seemed
mean."
Miss Jinny gave her a pat and a kiss. "I guess I feel quite as much
that way as you do, Miss Pat," she said with unusual softness. "I
hadn't the wildest notion of bringing Mary Miller here. I'm going to
take her to Rockham with me."
Patricia's heart sank, but she concealed her feelings sufficiently to
reassure Miss Jinny, who went on briskly:
"I'm going to take her out with us day after tomorrow--she's not going
back to the Academy--and I'm going to get work for her. There's where
you can help. She's a good sewer, she says, though she'd rather live
with someone and do housework."
"Shouldn't think she'd be strong enough for housework," said Patricia,
puckering her brow. "Mrs. Hand wants a 'lady houseworker,' but I don't
believe she'd have an ex-model. She's so awfully particular, you know."
Miss Jinny nodded. "She'd work her to death, anyway," she agreed.
"She's mighty inhuman under her soft outside. Her help don't hear much
of her purry ways, I can tell you. That's why they're always leaving.
No, Mrs. Hand won't do." She sighed in perplexity. "I wish we were
well enough off to keep her ourselves. I've taken a liking to her
quiet ways, and I'd enjoy having her about, I'm sure. Most country
girls are so loud and clumping that I've never wanted help before, but
she's mighty different."
Patricia rubbed the end of her nose with the scissors. "There are the
Haldens and the Berkleys and Tattans," she mused. "They're all
supplied. Perhaps someone will leave and then she can get their place.
Maybe Hannah Ann will have her help sometimes,--we can't afford to have
anyone regularly, you know."
Miss Jinny rose abruptly, and putting away her things, began
preparations for tea.
"Well, it's settled that she's going with us," she said comfortably.
"I guess the future will take care of itself. If we do the best we can
and leave the rest to the Lord, we can't go far astray. I feel that
Mary Miller is going to be taken care of some way."
It had been raining all the afternoon, a gentle persistent rain that
gave no sign of clearing, and they decided, after a cozy dinner at
home, that their projected trip to Rockham the next day would have to
be given up; but when Bruce pulled aside the curtain from the studio
window to compare his watch with the illuminated disc of the St.
Francis clock tower, he gave an exclamation of satisfaction.
"It's cleared off, after all," he said. "It's going to be a ripping
fine day tomorrow."
They crowded to the big window, and saw, through the wet flicker of
tiny sprouting leaves, a wind-swept sky with racing clouds and
brilliant stars blazing in the dark, serene spaces between the hurrying
masses of billowy vapor.
Judith clapped her hands. "We'll go, won't we, Bruce, and Elinor, and
Miss Jinny?" she asked, whirling to each authority in turn. "We'll see
dear, delectable Greycroft and have our picnic in the barn?"
"And the pup-pup-pergola, too," added Patricia mischievously.
Miss Jinny meditated for a moment. "I don't believe I'll go," she
said. "I'm going back in another day or so, and mama and I will have
enough of Rockham anyway. I'll stay with her and finish that library
book that Mr. Spicer lent me. It's overdue now, anyway."
So it was arranged that the four of them, Elinor, Patricia, Judith, and
Bruce, should take the early train to Rockham and spend the day in
adjusting matters at Greycroft for their return the following Saturday,
coming back to town in the late afternoon or early evening.
Just as they had finished, to their great satisfaction the studio
knocker sounded the quick double knock that always heralded Griffin,
and Judith flew to welcome her.
"I didn't ring," she explained, standing on the little blue rug by the
umbrella stand, and jabbing her dripping umbrella into the stand. "The
hall door was open and I came right in." She hesitated, and then
rushed on, directing most of her speech to Elinor. "Geraldine Leighton
is dying, they say, and I thought we might each send a little note to
Doris--she's awfully alone, now that Mrs. Leighton is ill, you know.
It mightn't help her much, but it would show her that we----"
"Dying!" cried Patricia, aghast. "Why they said she was better this
morning."
Judith crept near to Mrs. Shelly and caught her hand close in both of
hers. The others put eager questions. Griffin, who was deeply
stirred, answered breathlessly. Suddenly, in the midst of the quiet,
home-like, cozy evening, had come tragedy and the shadow of death.
Patricia had known Geraldine Leighton in a very slight and casual way,
but with the word "dying," she became the heroic center of her hurrying
thoughts. She saw her in the dim room with Doris and the nurse and
doctor, each agonizingly intent on the slow, faltering heart-beats and
the fitful, irregular breathing. As her swift mind galloped on to the
end, and the subdued sounds of grief caught her inner ear, another face
began to print itself rapidly on that quick-moving scene--Doris, white
and haggard, looked into her eyes, and she felt her whole heart go out
to her.
Griffin was just ending the sentence that had hurried the fleeting
pictures through her mind when Patricia slipped away unnoticed into the
hall, where she flung on a cape and soft hat of Judith's and softly let
herself out.
The Leighton house was a big dark pile at the end of the street and the
only light visible was in the back room where Patricia knew the
struggle against death and disease was being fought out. She paused
for a long look and then she ran lightly up the steps and put a
shrinking finger on the bell.
It seemed an eternity till the door was grudgingly opened and a
white-faced, gruff boy asked unrecognizingly what she wanted.
Patricia put her questions tremblingly, for she feared the stern,
strange face of the boy in knickerbockers. She had seen him playing
and shouting in the square on other days, and the change was so great
that she felt death alone could have wrought it. But he answered
evenly that 'Geraldine was just the same,' and was closing the door
when Patricia stopped him. After a hasty parley, on his part, at first
stubborn and then yielding, the door closed and Patricia, with beating
heart, ran down the steps and hurried to the side of the house where
the long windows of the drawing room protruded their iron balconies
over the sidewalk.
Here she waited in the shadow of the fluttering violet arc light, with
her eyes fastened to the silent, insensible windows. Ten minutes that
seemed ten eternities went lagging by. Tears of disappointment rose to
Patricia's eyes and she shivered as the gusts of west wind flung the
drops from the saturated trees in a silver shower across the darkened
panes.
"I'll count ten, and then I'll go," she said to herself.
The windows remained dark, and the only sounds on the quiet side street
were the wind in the wet trees and the sizzle of the arc light above
her head.
"Five, six, sev----"
She sprang forward as the second window slowly moved and a muffled
figure stood on the balcony.
"Oh, Doris!" was all she found to say, as she stretched eager hands
toward her.
Doris shrank back with a low, horrified cry.
"Don't come near me!" she warned in a stifled voice. "Go back as far
as the tree. Don't you know it's scarlet fever? I'll go in at once if
you come nearer."
Patricia retreated to the tree, and Doris stood with one hand clutching
the cloak and the light strong on her face. She looked more beautiful
than ever to Patricia's friendly eyes, and there was a calm strength in
her manner that awed while it comforted her. All consciousness of
herself was gone, and, Patricia felt, gone forever, and in its place a
quiet courage that spoke of conquered pride and vanity and selfishness.
Doris Leighton had found herself.
In the hurried words that they exchanged there was a more solid welding
of their renewed friendship than the telephone could have accomplished
for them in many interviews, and they parted at the end of the allotted
five minutes, each with a growing faith in the mercies of that
Providence which had led them to a nobler comradeship.
Patricia, promising to give Doris' messages to Elinor and the rest,
hurried off, leaving the drawing-room windows once more blank and
impassive. She ran into the studio as Griffin was rising to go, with
her umbrella, reclaimed from the stand, still dripping slow occasional
drops unheeded on the polished floor.
They had not missed her, much to her surprise. She felt she had
undergone so much, and they were still in the very state she had left
them. She blurted out her triumphant account of the new Doris, almost
forgetting Geraldine, and to their excited questionings and comments
she flashed illuminating replies, making them see the very figure in
the muffled cloak with the courageous expression on its lovely face.
There was generous and general rejoicing at her account of the brief
interview, and a strong feeling that under this happier augury
Geraldine must recover. Patricia went to bed feeling that the storm of
the afternoon had been a type of her own day, and that for her the
stars were serenely shining after the tempest of doubt and estrangement.
"Geraldine won't die," she said fervently to Elinor as she put out the
light. "I _know_ she won't die."
And the morning proved her prophecy, for at the first inquiry came the
joyful news that the crisis was past and Geraldine already improving.
"Now we can go on our spree with clear minds," said Judith, as they sat
down to breakfast in the sunny sitting-room. "It's a perfect day and
Rockham will look too sweet for anything."
"What a beautiful description of a spring day in the country by a
budding literary light," commented Patricia merrily. "I'm afraid your
style is rather going off, Ju! You haven't been consulting that
dictionary of yours recently."
Judith merely shrugged and went on with her breakfast, while Bruce and
Elinor, who had been up unusually early and were already equipped,
discussed Elinor's finished wall-decoration which stood at the far end
of the studio, just visible from the breakfast table. Bruce was much
elated over the progress of his pupil, and prophesied great things for
Elinor in time. He even went so far as to promise that the stained
glass window for which she had made a cartoon should be executed and
put in the little Rockham church.
Altogether they were in a happy frame of mind and life seemed very
satisfactory to them. As they left the town behind and the dimpling,
downy, spring-time country rolled out beyond their flying windows, they
became positively hilarious, intoxicated by sunshine and spring. They
found Greycroft, Hannah Ann and Henry all equally admirable. The
pergola was inspected and found well-composed and attractive, and the
site for Patricia's concrete seat was decided on hopefully. The picnic
luncheon in the big barn, which Hannah Ann served with great delight
while Henry hurried back and forth to the house with warm dishes and
reinforcements of delicious food, was a glorious frolic, and even the
big black clouds that swept suddenly over the luminous sky did not
distress them.
"Let's stay here for a minute or two, and then run up to the house
before it comes," suggested Patricia, with her chin on the half door of
the barn, looking out over the tender landscape and down at the flowers
in the unused barnyard far below.
Hannah Ann and Henry had disappeared with the remains of the feast and
the four were alone in the big solid structure, with hay mows on either
side of their banqueting floor and a smell of dry, sweet herbage in the
air.
Bruce scanned the rushing yellow clouds.
"Better shut the windows there, Miss Pat," he said. "I'll close the
doors and then we'll hustle. It's going to be a stunner when it comes."
Patricia had barely clicked the bolts in the glass upper doors and
heard the heavy clash of the wooden contact as Bruce slid the great
leaves of the big door into place, when with a swish and sweep the
storm broke.
"We can't go now," cried Patricia, throwing her voice above the sound
of the wind, but Bruce and Elinor at the other end of the barn were
apparently absorbed in the spectacle, and did not hear her. Judith
cuddled close and Patricia felt her hands go cold, but she could only
clasp them harder to reassure her--no words could reach her ear.
The wind, driving furiously from the west, flung the clouds before
it--great sullen masses of flying gray vapor that now broke into
drenching torrents, shaking the barn and tearing at the casements. In
a moment the place was dark with its roar and the rumble of coming fury
undertoned the shrill screams of the greedy tempest wind.
Patricia held Judith close, with her own heart beating tumultuously to
the rhythm of the storm. Hard rattling drops castinetted at the glass,
beating an accompaniment to the roar of the racing clouds. For a
moment all was black, then, as the whirling cloud masses swept apart,
the pelting drops lulled and a gray twilight full of ominous murmurs
filled the place. Before Patricia could frame the swift thought that
the storm was passing, darkness swept over them again, and the fierce
scream of the relentless wind tore at the corners of the barn. The
rain beat, deluged, engulfed the out-of-doors; it drummed gayly with
diminishing ferocity; then it roared sullenly, flooding the rain spouts
to bursting; it raged again, with the scream of the wind growing
higher, and snapping branches flung themselves past the gray squares of
the windows, flying leaves pasted wet green blurs on the streaming
glass. Judith shuddered.
"Oh, Patricia!" she cried in Patricia's ear, but the words died into
the tempest.
The sound of running water outside their shelter gradually forced its
way into the tumult. The road was a yellow waterway; the brook tore
above the limit of its deep banks into a widening saffron river among
the green meadows, which showed in the ghastly light in crude and ugly
colors.
Then, suddenly as it had come, the storm passed, trailing dark,
yellow-gray, ragged clouds in its wake. The light came back and the
awed girls at the little window saw below them in the emerald meadows,
wide ugly yellow splotches that grew as they looked, meeting other
growing patches of swirling yellow water from the lanes and roads.
Trees showed fresh wounds and masses of broken branches clotted the
discolored waters of the brook. Birds called excitedly and flew
exultantly about in the limpid air. The sun flung gay greens and
golds. The storm was past.
Patricia drew a deep breath.
"Look, look!" cried Judith, her eyes alight and her whole slender
little figure relaxed. "Two trees are down!"
Across the road a huge sycamore blocked the way and on the pike a giant
willow had crashed down.
"Oh, Bruce, the sycamore you painted is gone!" called Patricia, not
turning. "Come and see!"
Elinor came, with the painter following, and as soon as they saw the
work of the storm, Bruce awoke to immediate action.
"You girls tell Henry to come down with the axe and grubbing-hoe," he
commanded briskly. "I'm off." And flinging his coat to Elinor, he
seized a hatchet that was lying in the stairway and started for the
wreckage, while Patricia and Judith flew to fulfill his orders.
The sun shone and the birds sang while the work went on, and far down
the pike they could see other prone trees with busy choppers clearing
limbs and entangling foliage from the highway. A band of men begirt
with axes, cords and other implements passed on their way to the school
house where a big maple blocked the pike.
Patricia was tremendously interested and it was with the greatest
regret that she heard the whistle of the up-train, while the tangle of
the sycamore was still undisturbed in the roadway.
"Oh, do let's stay till it's all done," she urged, but Bruce and Elinor
were adamant.
"What does it matter if we do miss the train?" she insisted. "We can
take the early one in the morning. We'll be home almost as soon."
"I've got to pack tonight, young lady," Bruce reminded her. "I'm not
so fortunate as to be coming to Greycroft, you'll remember. It takes
longer to get to Chicago than to Rockham."
"Oh, that's so," acquiesced Patricia. "I suppose you do have to be
there for that private view of the panels."
"And a fresh suit is advisable, too," added Bruce. "I don't want my
duds to come a week later, as they did in Milwaukee. I'll make sure
this time."
"All right," said Patricia, amiably. "We've had a glorious day anyway,
and we'll soon be back here for keeps. I guess I'm not pig enough to
grumble. Come on, Judy, we've got to go see Hannah Ann's new hat
before we go. I wish she'd left us get it for her. I'm sure it's a
fright."
Judith followed sedately with her head in the air.
"I'm going to ask Elinor if Hannah Ann and Henry can't come in town
Saturday for the 'housebreaking,'" she said to Patricia as they climbed
the stairs. "I think it would be very nice for them to see all our
friends. They're such _urbane dependents_."