Augusta's question was still ringing in Wardwell's ears the next
morning, as they stood near the bow of the "Thomas J. Brennan"
shivering in the driving spray of the East River. He had gone out late
last night to look up a lawyer friend. He had learned that what had
been told Augusta yesterday was practically correct. Short of having
a good deal of money, there was no way in which she could have her
mother's "commitment" set aside except by having a husband and the
surety of a home.
He had not told Augusta what he had learned, and he knew that she was
bringing him over here today in the hope that he, or they combined,
could induce the hospital people to let her mother go home with her.
He knew that it was impossible, that they could do nothing. But he had
come because Augusta would have come anyway, and he could not see her
facing it alone.
At the Island dock "Johnnie the Horse" met them, and prancing up to
Augusta motioned her to get into the little wagon to which he had
himself hitched. Wardwell had heard of this harmless lunatic, had heard
the reporters laughing over his antics. But now when he looked at him
gambolling about, a great horse's tail bobbing from his coat to carry
out the crazy delusion that he was a horse, he suddenly hated him. And
he cringed inwardly, thinking of Augusta having to come and go through
this. Why did they not keep such things out of sight? He pushed roughly
past the big gangling lunatic and hurried Augusta along. But the fellow
pranced grotesquely along beside them, saying:
"You needn't mind me. I'm only Johnnie the Horse. See me! I'm a horse!
Look at me!"
Some one called to him and he turned back. But Wardwell, feeling the
tremor in Augusta's arm, swore that she must not be allowed to go
through this. He did not know what he would do. There seemed to be
nothing that he could do.
They brought the patient out to where Wardwell and Augusta sat. They
had not been able to find clothes to fit the large woman. The sight
of her, untidy, forlorn, the great hopeless wreck of her shapely,
competent self, brought a fresh shudder to Wardwell. He dared not look
at Augusta.
"You know me this morning, don't you, mamma?"
"Oh yes, daughter, of course, of course." The big Woman gently
disengaged herself from Augusta's clinging embrace and turned to where
she had caught a glimpse of Wardwell.
"Oh, Mr. Jimmie, is it you? I thought of you when they didn't come to
find me. But I couldn't think of the place. I got lost, it seems. My
memory's not as good as it was. And every day I was looking for a sight
of my little daughter Augusta coming to look for me. But I wouldn't
like her to see me here."
"Why, mamma darling," the girl broke in, "I'm your Augusta! I'm your
daughter. You called me daughter yesterday. Don't you know me today?"
"Yes, daughter, hush; yes, to be sure."
Rose Wilding drew quietly away, leaving Augusta dazed and heart sick. A
fear more terrible than all--that her mother did not know her at all,
would never know her--fell black upon her. True, her mother had called
her "daughter." But she remembered that Rose Wilding had always had a
habit of calling every girl daughter. Every girl in the neighborhood
had been daughter with her.
The big woman took Wardwell by the hand and led him aside into a corner
of the room.
"They're all like that here," she explained in a cautious whisper.
"Every one of them thinks she's somebody else. I suppose the poor thing
heard me speak of my daughter, and it wandered into her head that she
was the one. And you might as well humor them. It does them no harm.
You never can tell what they'll think of next. God help all that's
afflicted!"
"But, that _is_ your Augusta," said Wardwell.
"Now, Mr. Jimmie, you know you're always at you nonsense!" Rose Wilding
answered, smiling slowly at him.
Now, curiously enough, it was that smile that brought the perspiration
to Wardwell's forehead. It was the sane, deep, slowbreaking smile
of Rose Wilding herself, the smile that had won the heart and the
confidence of every child in every poor family of the parish. They
knew her all, the big woman, the big woman of the smiling eyes, the
mother heart, the never empty hand. There was Rose Wilding herself,
in that smile. And yet, and yet--Wardwell reached at his tightening
collar--there was a something else, a something deeper, farther away,
elusive. And there was poor little stricken Augusta, standing alone in
the middle of the room. He could see the sharp pink tips of her nails
cutting into the palms of her hands as she fought back the bursting
tears.
The blood rushed back into his heart and he felt himself gasping as a
man does when he takes the leap in a desperate, cold dive. He did not
know whether he was a good man or not. He did not know whether he was
kind or cruel. But he knew that he had the answer to Augusta's question
of the night before.
He loved Augusta with a love which had deepened in these weeks from a
boy's harum-scarum affection into the deep, tender, protecting love
of a man. He loved her, and would have given his life to save her the
anguish of having to leave her mother in this place. Yet, he knew
that it was unfair, wrong, unnatural. For her mother's sake, Augusta
would sacrifice herself and marry any man. Wardwell knew it. Being
Augusta, there was no choice for her. It was cruel, an outrage on her
brave girlhood. But--So help him God!--he'd try to see that she never
suffered from it.
Thus Wardwell of the funny sheet.
He nodded quietly to Augusta to leave the room. She went, strangely
obedient to the look in his eyes. Then he turned to Rose Wilding.
"Now, Mrs. Wilding," he said easily, "Augusta and I are going to be
married right away so that you can come home and live with us."
Rose Wilding sat down easily, smiling broadly. She seemed at ease once
Augusta had left the room. "It wouldn't do for you to be in this place
long, Mr. Jimmie," she said, "if it acts that way on you."
She was so like herself in her answer, so sane, so unruffled and ready,
that Wardwell forgot the place where they were, and why they were
there, and began to argue earnestly.
"Sounds funny, doesn't it? But then, it needn't. I don't have to play
the fool always. And if Augusta cared enough for me--"
Rose Wilding sat up with a sharp movement. Wardwell could see the
jealous, protecting mother-light in her eyes, as she questioned sternly:
"Just what has been going on?"
"Nothing," said Jimmie honestly. "I have not spoken a word to Augusta."
"Then it is just one other bit of your nonsense," she said with an air
that dropped the matter altogether.
And Wardwell let it stand so. For a moment he had thought that
he ought to try to make her understand. But he suddenly felt the
hopelessness of it. It would not do any good. If she could understand,
she would never give her consent. And it might do her great harm to let
her be bothered and excited at this time. He and Augusta would have
to face the problem out for themselves. A sudden wave of overpowering
tenderness came breaking over him, so that he never knew what he said
at leaving Rose Wilding.
He found Augusta out in a long, black corridor, looking from a window
down across the dreary face of the water. She was so pathetically
little, so tender, so sensitive, so delicately fashioned for pain! With
a queer mingling of emotions, he found himself praying that she might
be spared; and at the same time almost cursing himself because he was
not a better man, more worthy of her.
On the boat they were practically alone. And as they stood out near the
open prow, watching the cold drift of the spray as it broke over the
bow, they saw the busy slits of streets sliding by, saw men and women
how they hurried about their own business, saw that no one had time
for thought of anything but that which concerned himself in the way of
living.
And I think it came to both these two, at the same moment, how really
alone they were out of all the world. Their doings or their thoughts
were of no account to anyone. And in the weeks a common thought, an
anxiety shared, had drawn them together, had almost made them forget
that there was a world around them.
Suddenly Augusta shivered and cowered against Wardwell's arm.
"I can't," she moaned brokenly. "I can never stand it! I shall go mad
so they'll have to put me in there too! And I know that if they'd only
let me have Mamma she'd get all better and know me. If she was only at
home, she'd remember everything!"
Wardwell put his arm gently around her shoulder.
"I didn't mean to say it this way, dear," he said softly. "But I
think you know what I feel. I probably wouldn't be much good, but I'd
_serve_."
Augusta turned to look gravely up at him. It was a new and strange
Wardwell this, serious and humble. He was so downright and simple, so
clear in his boyish honesty; she had not the slightest question. He
meant just what he said. He wanted her.
She reached up quietly and, taking his big blond face in her little
hands, kissed him deliberately on the lips.
Wardwell was astonished, frightened almost, by the steady, instant
decision of the girl's way. He had expected to plead, to reason, to
argue her into giving way to him--while all the time he would be
doubting whether it was right. But she had taken decision out of her
own wise heart. And Jimmy Wardwell had never again a thought but that
it was the right decision.
They stood a little while clinging to each other, entirely untroubled
by any part of the world that might be looking on or interesting itself.
Then Wardwell began to count the practical things.
"We'll have to see your priest, I suppose that's the first thing."
"Yes, Fr. Davis. But he will know that I am right," she answered
easily. "Maybe he will have to go to the Cardinal's. But he will know
that it's for Mamma. He knows her so well, and how good she's always
been to everybody. He would do anything for her, I know he will."
At the ferry house Wardwell announced that they would ride across town
in a taxicab.
"I'm on my way to be married," he proclaimed to the general world.
"I've got to start right."
The strain of the weeks seemed to have lifted from him. And although he
knew that there were difficulties ahead, he was in the mood to consider
them all met and vanquished. He was, in fact, Wardwell himself again.
Augusta saw the mood, knew that his feeling was largely intended to
make a hard place easy for her, and she was willing to fall in with it,
to a certain extent.
"You musn't spend all of your two dollars, Jimmie. You know you'll have
a lot of expenses."
"Who said two dollars? I've got more than two dollars. I've got
investments, mining stocks, real wealth. I've got friends--I can
borrow, potential wealth. I've got a headful of jokes, and jokes
without heads, or tails; all wealth. And, if all these will not
suffice, I've got--_a dress suit!_" he wound up in a hoarse dramatic
whisper, looking warily around to see that his admission was not caught
by any who might have avaricious designs toward the suit.
"Yes, but you'll need the dress suit."
"Not at all," he contended furiously. "We'll be married early in the
morning, when I couldn't possibly wear the thing. I wouldn't feel
respectable."
"I insist on the dress suit," Augusta said firmly. "So, come,"--she was
leading him towards the cross-town car--, "I'll pay the fares, so you
can save the whole two dollars for some mighty extravagance."
"I suppose you're beginning the tyranny. But I haven't got the will to
resist. This is married life, I suppose," he grumbled as he followed
her to the car.
"I wonder who teaches them to begin right from the beginning? Anyhow,
it's going to be a success," he groaned as he sat down beside her.
"I can feel it right from the start. Already I'm subdued, tamed,
tractable!"
"You are a kind, dear gentleman," said Augusta with a sudden gentle
look up at him. And Wardwell went strangely silent.
At home, they found opposition where they had least looked for it. Ann
set herself vigorously against the whole plan. She denounced Wardwell
as a scheming villain taking advantage of Augusta's youth and ignorance.
"Not one foot further," she asserted stoutly, "will the scheme go. I'll
stop it myself. I'll not stand by and see you profit from the poor
lamb's trouble." She stood in her kitchen, where her will was the law
of the land, and defied Wardwell foot and horse. "I always misdoubted
your right sense, with your skylarking. But now I know you were only
playing the fool to cover your villainy. Any man that would think of
such a thing!"
"But he didn't think of it, Ann," said Augusta quickly, "I--"
"I think we'd better wait to know what the priest says, Ann," Wardwell
cut in quickly. "Surely you won't go against what he says is right."
To this Ann had no answer, except to mutter that no priest in his right
mind would have anything to do with such a thing.
In the sombre old parish house in Sixteenth Street an austere and quiet
man listened with sympathy to Augusta, and studied Wardwell. He knew
Rose Wilding. He knew that there was no other way in which she could
be brought home to the love and care which she would need. But the
responsibility of asking a dispensation for the immediate marriage of
these two children, as they seemed to him, was one that he did not care
to undertake.
In the end, in answer to Augusta's pleading, he said slowly:
"I do not know. I feel that I am not wise enough to advise. But I will
send you to the Chancellor himself. He can give you an instant answer,
which I could not."
"Serves me right," said Wardwell, when they were in the street again.
"If I could have told him that I had a regular job, he'd have listened
to me. The best I could say was that I was trying to write. And he was
too polite to tell me that all the people in the United States that
have ever been in high school, and plenty that haven't, are trying
that--or have tried it."
"You _can_ write, Jimmie," said Augusta sincerely. And then she smiled.
"But you look so cherubically young!"
"I'm twenty-four!" he exploded.
"And look nineteen, and, sometimes--"
"Act fourteen, eh? That's right, let's fight. That'll soon bring the
wrinkles to my alabaster brow. And then you'll be satisfied."
"We wont fight ever, Jimmie," said Augusta gently as she took his arm
and fell into step with him.
The Chancellor received them promptly when he had read the note of
introduction and explanation which they had brought from the priest. He
was an extremely busy man whose work it was, day after day, year after
year, to give quick decisions which he knew must affect the lives and
happiness of individual men and women. But in most of these decisions
he had no discretion. He had but to have the facts, and state the
inflexible law that governed him.
This, however, was a matter in which no law tied his hands. Neither was
there any law to direct his action. He had only his own human judgment
to tell him whether what these two young people wished to do was wise
and right, or whether a sacrifice was not being made by one or both of
them which was not justifiable. They were free, of course; but he was
convinced from Augusta's manner that if the Church would not sanction
the marriage, then Augusta would not be married.
He listened until Augusta had told her full story. He asked Wardwell
a question or two. He sat awhile in thought. Then he arose quickly and
walked into another room.
Wardwell's trained reporter's ears noted that the Chancellor was
telephoning. When they had repeated to him the word Eminence twice or
three times, his mind recorded mechanically that the Chancellor was
talking to the Cardinal. But he was not thinking of it. He was watching
the look in Augusta's eyes. For a little time back, while they had been
talking, he had noticed that she was troubled and perplexed. He felt
that the difficulties and doubts that were being put in their way were
worrying her, perhaps making her less sure than she had been that they
were doing right. And he felt himself wishing that they could have
gone straight to the license clerk, like other couples. But he knew
something of how Augusta felt about the matter, and he would not think
of asking her to do anything that would hurt her.
Now she was sitting leaning forward in that listening, straining
attitude, with that same deep, unconscious yearning in her eyes which
he had seen in the weeks of torturing search. As well as if she had
told him, he knew that she had forgotten him and the place where she
was, to listen to the call of her mother.
When they heard the priest's step coming back into the room, Wardwell
saw the look in her eyes turn suddenly to one of quick, happy
assurance. She looked up at the Chancellor as he came toward them, and
Wardwell could see that there was not the slightest doubt or fear in
her mind but that everything was right for them.
"I have spoken with the Cardinal," the Chancellor said quickly. "He
wishes to see you both. He is the young lady's pastor, the Parish
Priest of New York. It is just a step around to the Avenue. You will
go there, please," he said as they got to their feet. To Wardwell, as
he took his hand at parting, he added:
"Because you are strange to us, young man, you may be thinking
that unusual difficulties are being put in your way. But, you are
intelligent, you know that we are thinking of just one thing, the life
happiness of this young girl and of you."
"I know that," said Wardwell simply, shaking hands.
In a little room, as simple and unadorned as the quiet grace of his
own bearing, the Parish Priest of New York received them and began to
question Augusta.
Wardwell, listening, found himself forgetting somewhat of the business
in hand and absorbed suddenly in his own particular business. He was a
born writer and novelist, in spite of his own jibes. And, just as the
true artist finds himself forever reaching for a brush, he could never
be in the presence of character without trying to grasp at the one
vital element which was the spring of it.
He had seen and studied power in many men, preachers, demagogues,
statesmen, men of the business that is called big. He knew that there
was but one individual in the world who could speak an authorative word
to more people than could this quiet-spoken, ageing man before him. But
a sense of power was not the dominating impression which he got. There
was something fuller, more complete than mere power. There was a sense
of ripeness, of comprehension, of--of _understanding_. He had the word
at last. The Parish Priest of New York--that was it. If this man were
the pastor of a little country place he would know and understand every
man, woman and child in it. Here, he was as near to every soul of the
millions that looked to him as he was to the little girl who now sat
before him telling him why she wanted to be married.
"I think you have realized already, child, that marriage must not be
undertaken for any but the one motive. That you should wish to marry in
order to care for your mother is very good in you, but it is not enough
either for you or for the man whom you would marry."
"Yes, but it is right for me to marry Jimmie, I know it is right, Your
Eminence."
"Could you tell me how you know?" the Cardinal probed gently.
Augusta did not answer. She looked straight towards the Cardinal, but
he realized at once that she did not see him, that her vision went
beyond him to someone or something to which she was evidently appealing
for her answer. He saw her look change from one of pleading, bewildered
question to one of instant, calmed assurance. The great man, watching
the girl's face, was struck with the conviction that some one had
spoken to the girl. He almost caught himself listening, as though the
words might be escaping him.
When she spoke there was a matter-of-fact directness in her strange
words that was so simple as to be startling.
"My mother's spirit," she said quietly, "is not bound by that body, by
that place. She speaks to me. She tells me that it is right. I know."
The Parish Priest of New York looked gravely at the girl for a moment.
Then he turned to look up through the unshaded window into the clear
breadth of sky that showed so high above the city's walls. From bedside
to confessional he had gone his round these many years past. And he had
learned that there is more of the spirit in the teeming streets, in the
crowded tenements, of the city than ever was in the open places, if
one but had the vision and the ear for it. He had seen and heard many
things for which he had not accounted.
Suddenly he turned to Wardwell, saying:
"Why do you wish to marry the young lady?"
"Because I love her," Wardwell answered so promptly and bluntly that
the Cardinal smiled.
"Were you ever baptized in any church?" the latter asked, after a
little pause.
"I do not think so."
"Have you heard, perhaps, that I have personally very strong objection
to my people marrying those who are not Catholics?"
"I have heard you say it. Your Eminence must understand," Wardwell
explained, "that some reporter hears nearly everything that you say in
public."
"I am glad to know that that is your business," the Cardinal said
briefly. "Some of my best friends through long years have been
newspaper men of this town. They are men of wide and sympathetic
understanding. Now," he went on, "has it occurred to you that I have
probably good reasons for opposing such marriages as the one for which
you ask?"
"I do not doubt you have good reasons, your Eminence."
"What might you think to be one of them?"
"I suppose there's enough to fight about," said Wardwell promptly--so
promptly that he saw the Cardinal smiling, and felt himself blushing
furiously under the boyish white skin.
"You seem to have acquired a working knowledge," said the aged man with
his smile, "of--But let us hope that it is not so bad as you have been
led to believe. There are other reasons, several of them," he continued
in a different tone. "You will find them all good. But back of them all
there is a very human, very practical one. It is this. The Catholic
party considers himself bound until death by a divine law. The other
party, in practice, hardly ever considers himself bound by anything but
the law of the land, and a certain vague sense of justice. It is never
fair," he ended gravely. "Never a fair partnership."
Wardwell was silent, thinking of the matter in a light in which it had
not, as a fact, ever occurred to him. He knew well enough that the
average man in his position would not and did not think that he bound
himself to anything beyond that which was the custom of the society in
which he lived.
"I will only ask you to remember and think of this, Mr. Wardwell. To a
man of just mind it is well worth thinking of always. My secretary,"
he went on, as he touched a button, "will prepare the papers. You can
then go to the city clerk and to your priest. If you should need help,"
he added to Augusta in parting, "in the matter of bringing your mother
home, I hope that you will command me."
The secretary, a young priest with the face of a big, solemn eyed boy,
came and conducted them to an outer office.
When they were again in the street, Wardwell faced Augusta and asked:
"Did you ever think of that, what the Cardinal said at the last?"
"No, I did not," she answered. "It wouldn't affect us at all, Jimmie?"
She had spoken so quickly and confidently that Wardwell thought that
she had not understood what the Cardinal had said. But the next moment
he knew that he was entirely mistaken. Augusta understood and accepted
everything with steady, unflinching eyes.
She said:
"I'd never wish to keep even a kitten that wanted to go away from me."
* * * * *
In the evening of the day that they were married, Rose Wilding came
home with them.
Augusta had managed to dress her into the outward semblance of her
old self. And in everything but the subject of Augusta she seemed
reasonable. That subject they did not press upon her. And when she
wondered why her little daughter had not come to bring her, they merely
said that Augusta would be waiting for her at home.
Augusta had made absolutely no changes in the house, trusting that the
presence in its own place of every remembered thing would awaken in
her mother the sense of security and home. And for a little time, as
she watched her mother walking slowly about her own room, touching a
curtain here, a pillow there, as had been always her busy way, the girl
felt sure that it was going to have just that effect.
But she observed that her mother soon became restless. She kept
glancing over her shoulder and sidewise at Augusta who sat in her own
little low chair which from childhood had been her favorite seat, just
below the big red post of her mother's bed. She was remembering now
how it used to be the greatest glory of her day to sit and watch with
adoring eyes the combing out of her mother great waves of wonderful
dark brown hair. It was snow white now, but still abundant and
strangely beautiful.
"Mamma," she said suddenly, "let me take your hair down and run it
through my fingers. Remember, you used to say it always took away a
headache."
Rose Wilding looked suspiciously over her shoulder. What was running
in the poor disordered mind it is hard to say. But when she turned she
spoke kindly and quietly.
"Don't you think it's time you were going back, child? Wont they be
missing you--there?"
Poor Augusta's heart turned sick with failure. She threw herself down
kneeling at her mother's feet, begging and crying:
"Mamma, mamma darling can't you remember! Try to remember. I'm
your Augusta! Your little daughter! Augusta! _Augusta!_" she cried
hysterically, trying in pitiful futility to pierce the cloud of her
mother's mind by sheer loudness.
But Rose Wilding only smiled with a gentle patience, and lifted her up,
petting her.
"There there, daughter, hush now, hush. I'll let you stay here. Though
I wonder that they'd allow it."
Augusta ran out of the room and came down the long hall to the common
sitting room, where she found Wardwell at the table reading. She fell
into a chair at his side and dropped her head upon his arm where it lay
extended on the table.
"Jimmie, Jimmie," she cried miserably, "it's no use! I've failed,
failed!"
"No you haven't either," said Jimmie quickly, as he raised her head
and lifted her face up to him. "Of course there's always a fly in the
icebox, kid. But no one has ever failed when he's done all his part
as you have. And at least you have her here where you can make her
comfortable and can know what's happening to her."
"I know, Jimmie, I'm happy even for that. But I was so sure, so sure
that she'd know me and be better right away."
"She is better," said Jimmie stoutly. "Her mind is at rest, except
about you. She is not able to place you. There is something about you
that she has never seen before. She does not know you."
He stopped short, struck by a sudden thought as he looked down with
quick intensity upon the golden shot circle of Augusta's head and into
the deep, pain clouded eyes.
When he spoke it was in the slow, rising voice of one who struggles
toward a new and amazing conviction.
"She is right," he said in a low voice. "You are not her Augusta."
"Why Jimmie, Jimmie," the girl cried in a trembling voice. "Are
you----? What can you mean?"
Wardwell seeing the quick leap of anguish in her eyes hurried to say
lightly:
"Nothing at all, as per usual. Only, you see, when she went away, you
were a little girl with a little curl. And now--she can't understand
it--the little girl is a--woman."
Augusta put her hand softly into Wardwell's palm and said gently,
soberly:
"Your woman."
Wardwell started as though a hot iron had touched him. The homely
expression, in the way she had put it, and meant it, the gentle dignity
of her complete surrender, went to his heart, and flashed up into his
brain the revelation of the heart holiness that this little girl had
brought today to the ceremony which, after all, had meant so little to
him.
He closed his hand blindly over the little hand that lay in his, and
bowed his head.
A slight rustling noise came from the hall, and Augusta leaping from
her chair ran hastily from the room and down the hall.
She was in time to look through the railing of the stairs and see her
mother disappearing down the stairs. She saw her mother look back in a
frightened, furtive way; saw that she recognized her; and then saw that
she turned to flee from her.
Augusta put her arm out blindly to the wall and leaned against it.
"Go, Jimmie, quick," she moaned. "She'd never come back for me. She'd
only run faster and farther. She's running away--Running away from
_me_."
Wardwell hurried down the stairs, and Augusta leaning over the railing
heard him as he caught up with her mother on the lower landing.
"Surely," she heard him arguing genially, "you're not going out this
kind of a night! It's going to rain cats and dogs in another five
minutes."
"I can't stay here." The girl heard the hurried whisper. "It's that
girl. They've set her here to watch me."
"No such thing!" Wardwell contended. "She's here--" His voice suddenly
dropped to a whisper which Augusta could not understand. She listened
with painful tenseness, but she could distinguish no words. After a
little, however, she knew that Jimmie's talk was more steady--almost
continuous; while her mother's whispers became hesitating and
infrequent. Jimmie was winning. Augusta knew just what he was doing.
He was telling one prodigous and consequential lie after another,
until the poor fumbling mind with which he was contending should be
completely turned around and would give in to his bidding like a
bewildered child. She choked and almost cried aloud, for the pity of
it, though she knew that Jimmie was doing the only thing possible. Then
her mind wandered for a moment to another thought, and for an instant
she trembled in a cold grip of fear. Would Jimmie ever, for any reason,
find it necessary to use his--facility--upon herself.
At last she heard her mother laugh. Jimmie had won!
She ran quickly into her mother's sitting room and into the bedroom,
shutting the door softly behind her. Then she went on into her own
little room, which was fitted into a jutting corner of the building,
and threw herself down on the bed. She did not know what she was going
to do, but ever since Jimmie had said that, about her mother going away
and leaving her a little girl, an idea had been crowding into her mind.
She heard her mother and Wardwell at the hall door and heard her
mother inviting Jimmie into the sitting room for a little chat.
Wardwell had always been a favorite with her mother, and she spoke in
just the friendly, kindly way she would have spoken in the old days.
Then she heard her mother come into the big bedroom, probably to put
down her hat and shawl. When Rose Wilding had gone out and shut the
bedroom door, Augusta thought and acted quickly.
She drew from under her own bed the little old cot on which she had
slept until she was a big girl. Carrying it out into the big room she
carefully set it up at the foot of her mother's bed, where it had stood
until Augusta had come to the dignity of a room of her own. Then,
bringing bedding for it and fixing it in the old way, she undressed
quickly and curled herself into it.
Through the closed door, in the silence of the house, for it was the
time when nearly all the boarders were out, she could hear plainly
nearly every word said in the outer room.
The rain--it had actually begun to rain a little--was on Wardwell's
mind apparently, for he began a fresh story with:
"Do you remember the time of the Flood, Mrs. Wilding?"
"Well--not quite, Mr. Jimmie." And Augusta could almost feel her
mother's amused chuckle through the dark. She had always loved fun. And
although she herself did not talk a great deal she had always liked to
hear the laughter and nonsense of young folks around her.
"Well, you know, that time, McCarty was up a tree. And along comes
Noah, sailing, decks awash, and the rain pouring down in gutters.
"'Are ye takin' anny Irish this trip, Sor?' says McCarty.
"Noah looks at him with a weary eye. Says he, sorrowfully:
"'I am a sea-faring man, by preoccupation. I have on board two
thousand, three hundred eighty one married couples. The name of this
ship is TROUBLE. Irish--' he muttered '--Irish?'
"'Oh, have a heart, Noah,' says McCarty. 'Sure wan more can do little
harm. Take me on.'
"'I wont,' says Noah.
"'You oant?' says McCarty.
"'I wont,' says Noah.
"'Well, ye can go to Blazes--It's only a shower, anyway.'"
Augusta, hysterically stuffing the bed clothes against her mouth, heard
her mother's hearty, pleasant laugh ring out. And for an instant she
thought that her own little play was real; that she was, indeed, the
little girl of other years lying in her cot and listening to the grown
folks in the other room.
Then her own laughter turned, as laughter will, to hot, choking tears
of fear and trepidation that burned her throat.
The talk outside ran on pleasantly, naturally; just such an hour as
Wardwell and one or two others of the boarders had often spent with her
mother. Wardwell loved to tell stories, to run on about himself, about
his lack of money--it was a tradition of the house, founded probably
on his own authority, that he had but three socks, one of which he
washed every night--about the scrapes which he was constantly getting
into and getting out of. He never laughed at the end of one of his own
tales, but always before beginning one he would break out with a short,
provoking laugh to himself, as though he had just heard a good thing.
It was all so natural, so real, that Augusta, her mind unconsciously
relaxing from the strains of the day, caught herself almost falling
asleep. She heard one after another of the boarders come up the stairs
and stop for a moment, at the door of the room where the two chatted,
for a rather timid and curious word or two with the mistress of the
house. But with Rose Wilding there was nothing except the usual and the
ordinary. She was in her own house, her own room, doing as she had done
on any other evening. Her house was making its orderly, routine way to
bed.
Finally Wardwell rose, saying:
"Well, Mrs. Wilding, it's time honest folk were in bed, and all rogues
were turned out. I'm going before I'm turned out."
"Oh, Mr. Jimmie, there's worse than you in the world. But I suppose
it's late. I _am_ tired."
Augusta heard the door close behind Wardwell, and her mother came
straight to the bedroom door and pushed it wide open. The full light
from the door fell straight across the cot where Augusta lay.
She did not stir, pretending to be asleep. She heard her mother's
startled gasp of joy. Then she heard her hurry to the outer door and
call to Wardwell:
"Oh, Mr. Jimmie, Mr. Jimmie, come back! Come back!"
Wardwell came running back, and Rose Wilding in a choking whisper told
him:
"My little darling! My little Pigeon-pie! She's here! She's here, just
where I left her! Oh, Dear Heart of God, how I missed her! Come and
see, she's sleeping," she whispered.
Wardwell came quietly with her to the door and looked in rather
timidly. He did not know quite what to expect.
He saw a little cot, and curled up in it there was what seemed a little
girl sleeping. Her loose, tumbling hair had fallen all about the face,
and one little hand--a hand upon which there was no ring--held a
strand of it, as though the little girl had been playing with her hair
when she fell asleep.
He knew it was his wife. But, remembering his own first startled
impression, he did not wonder that Rose Wilding, her mind straying in
its pain, had gone back through the years to the little Augusta that
had been.
Rose Wilding went gently over to the cot and knelt beside it whispering
softly. Wardwell stole out of the room and closed the outer door
quietly behind him.
Augusta scarcely dared breathe while her mother knelt bending over her.
Her little play had succeeded, so far as to set her mother's heart at
ease for the moment, but she was in mortal terror of what the effect
would be if her mother should realize that she was being deceived.
After what seemed an eternity of anxiety, she heard her mother rise, go
out quietly, lock the hall door, and turn out the light. Then she came
back and moved about quietly in the dark, preparing for bed.
She did not come to the cot again but got quietly into bed, and in a
few minutes Augusta listening to her breathing knew that she had fallen
asleep almost instantly like a tired, contented child.
When she was sure that her mother was sleeping soundly, Augusta rose,
found a dressing robe and slippers, and stole like a thief out into the
hall.
Wardwell was in the common sitting room, alone. He did not hear her
coming. He was reading, and she stood a moment in the doorway looking
at him, before she said:
"Jimmie."
He looked up and said, as though he had the words all ready studied and
framed:
"That was nothing less than inspiration, dear."
"I do not know," said Augusta hesitatingly. "I was very frightened. Is
it--right?"
"Yes," said Wardwell simply. "It's right. However it is in the daytime,
when you're dressed, she'll never leave this house so long as she hopes
to find you there, like that, at night."
"Then--Good night, Jimmie."
"Good night, dear."
She turned away a step or two. Then she turned quickly back to the door
and said:
"Jimmie."
"Yes, dear."
"Sometime, when you need it badly, God is going to be _very_ good to
you."
And she was gone.