Lynda Kendall closed her desk and wheeled about in her chair with a
perplexed expression on her strong, handsome face. Generally speaking,
she went her way with courage and conviction, but since Conning
Truedale's breakdown, an element in her had arisen that demanded
recognition and she had yet to learn how to control it and insist upon
its subjection.
Her life had been a simple one on the whole, but one requiring from
early girlhood the constant use of her faculties. Whatever help she had
had was gained from the dependence of others upon her, not hers upon
them. She was so strong and sweet-souled that to give was a joy, it was
a joy too, for them that received. That she was ever tired and longed
for strong arms to uphold her rarely occurred to any one except,
perhaps, William Truedale, the invalid uncle of Conning.
At this juncture of Lynda's career, she shrank from William Truedale as
she never had before. Had Conning died, she knew she would never have
seen the old man again. She believed that his incapacity for
understanding Conning--his rigid, unfeeling dealing with him--had been
the prime factor in the physical breakdown of the younger man. All
along she had hoped and believed that her hold upon old William Truedale
would, in the final reckoning, bring good results; for that reason, and
a secret one that no one suspected, she kept to her course. She paid
regular visits to the old man--made him dependent upon her, though he
never permitted her to suspect this. Always her purpose had centred upon
Con, who had, at first, appealed to her loyalty and justice, but of late
to something much more personal and tender.
The day's work was done and the workshop, in which the girl sat, was
beginning to look shadowy in the far corners where evidences of her
profession cluttered the dim spaces. She was an interior decorator, but
of such an original and unique kind that her brother explained her as a
"Spiritual and Physical Interpreter." She had learned her trade, but she
had embellished it and permitted it to develop as she herself had grown
and expanded.
Lynda looked now at her wrist-watch; it was four-thirty. The last mail
delivery had brought a short but inspiring note from Con--per Dr.
McPherson.
"I've got my grip again, Lynda! The day brings appetite and strength;
the night, sleep! I wonder whether you know what that means? I begin to
believe I am reverting to type, as McPherson would say, and I'm
intensely interested in finding out--what type? Whenever I think of
study, I have an attack of mental indigestion. There is only one fellow
creature to share my desolation but I am never lonely--never lacking
employment. I'm busy to the verge of exhaustion in doing nothing and
getting well!"
Lynda smiled. "So he's not going to die!" she murmured; "there's no use
in punishing Uncle William any longer. I'll go up and have dinner with
him!"
The decision made, and Conning for the moment relegated to second place,
Lynda rose and smiled relievedly. Then her eyes fell upon her mother's
photograph which stood upon her desk.
"I'm going, dear," she confided--they were very close, that dead mother
and the live, vital daughter--"I haven't forgotten."
The past, like the atmosphere of the room, closed in about the girl. She
was strangely cheerful and uplifted; a consciousness of approval soothed
and comforted her and she recalled, as she had not for many a day, the
night of her mother's death--the night when she, a girl of seventeen,
had had the burden of a mother's confession laid upon her young
heart....
"Lynda--are you there, dear?"
It had been a frequent, pathetic question during the month of illness.
Lynda had been summoned from school. Brace was still at his studies.
"Yes, mother, right here!"
"You are always--right here! Lyn, once I thought I could not stand it,
and I was going to run away--going in the night. As I passed your door
you awoke and asked for a drink of water. I gave it, trembling lest you
might notice my hat and coat; but you did not--you only said: 'What
would I do if I woke up some night and didn't have a mother?' Lyn, dear,
I went back and--stayed!"
Lynda had thought her mother's mind wandering so she patted the seeking
hands and murmured gently to her. Then, suddenly:
"Lyn, when I married your father I thought I loved him--but I loved
another! I've done the best I could for you all; I never let any one
know; I dared not give a sign, but I want you--by and by--to go
to--William Truedale! You need not explain--just go; you will be my gift
to him--my last and only gift."
Startled and horrified, Lynda had listened, understood, and grown old
while her mother spoke....
Then came the night when she awoke--and found no mother! She was never
the same. She returned to school but gave up the idea of going to
college. After her graduation she made a home for the father who now--in
the light of her secret knowledge--she comprehended for the first time.
All her life she had wondered about him. Wondered why she and Brace had
not loved and honoured him as they had their mother. His weakness, his
superficiality, had been dominated by the wife who, having accepted her
lot, carried her burden proudly to the end!
Brace went to college and, during his last year there, his father died;
then, confronting a future rich in debts but little else, he and Lynda
consequently turned their education to account and were soon
self-supporting, full of hope and the young joy of life.
Lynda--her mother's secret buried deep in her loyal, tender heart--began
soon after her return from school to cultivate old William Truedale,
much to that crabbed gentleman's surprise and apparent confusion. There
was some excuse for the sudden friendship, for Brace during preparatory
school and college had formed a deep and sincere attachment for Conning
Truedale and at vacation time the two boys and Lynda were much together.
To be sure the visiting was largely one-sided, as the gloomy house of
the elder Truedale offered small inducement for sociability; but Lynda
managed to wedge her way into the loneliness and dreariness and
eventually for reasons best known to herself became the one bright thing
in the old man's existence.
And so the years had drifted on. Besides Lynda's determination to prove
herself as her mother had directed, she soon decided to set matters
straight between the uncle and the nephew. To her ardent young soul,
fired with ambition and desire for justice, it was little less than
criminal that William Truedale, crippled and confined to his chair--for
he had become an invalid soon after Lynda's mother's marriage--should
misunderstand and cruelly misjudge the nephew who, brilliantly, but
under tremendous strain, was winning his way through college on a
pittance that made outside labour necessary in order to get through. She
could not understand everything, but her mother's secret, her growing
fondness for the old man, her intense interest in Conning, all held her
to her purpose. She, single-handed, would right the wrong and save them
all alive!
Then came Conning's breakdown and the possibility of his death or
permanent disability. The shock to all the golden hopes was severe and
it brought bitterness and resentment with it.
Something deep and passionate had entered into Lynda's relations with
Conning Truedale. For him, though no one suspected it, she had broken
her engagement to John Morrell--an engagement into which she had drifted
as so many girls do, at the age when thought has small part in primal
instinct. But Conning had not died; he was getting well, off in his
hidden place, and so, standing in the dim workshop, Lynda kissed her
mother's picture and began humming a glad little tune.
"I'll go and have dinner with Uncle William!" she said--the words
fitting into the tune--"we'll make it up! It will be all right." And so
she set forth.
William Truedale lived on a shabby-genteel side street of a
neighbourhood that had started out to be fashionable but had been
defeated in its ambitions. It had never lost character, but it certainly
had lost lustre. The houses themselves were well built and sternly
correct. William Truedale's was the best in the block and it stood with
a vacant lot on either side of it. The detachment gave it dignity and
seclusion.
There had been a time when Truedale hoped that the woman he loved would
choose and place furniture and hangings to her taste and his, but when
that hope failed and sickness fell upon him, he ordered only such rooms
put in order as were necessary for his restricted life. The library on
the first floor was a storehouse of splendid books and austere luxury;
beyond it were bath and bedroom, both fitted out perfectly. The long,
wide hall leading to these apartments was as empty and bare as when
carpenter and painter left it. Two servants--husband and wife--served
William Truedale, and rarely commented upon anything concerning him or
their relations to him. They probably had rooms for themselves
comfortably furnished, but in all the years Lynda Kendall had never been
anywhere in the house except in the rooms devoted to her old friend's
use. Sometimes she had wondered how Con fared, but nothing was ever
said on the subject and she and Brace had been, in their visiting,
limited to the downstair rooms.
When Lynda was ushered now into the library from the cold, outer hall it
was like finding comfort and luxury in the midst of desolation. The
opening door had not roused the man by the great open fire. He seemed
lost in a gloomy revery and Lynda had time to note, unobserved, the
tragic, pain-racked face and the pitifully thin outlines of the figure
stretched on the invalid chair and covered by a rug of rare silver fox.
There were birds in gilded cages by the large south window--mute little
mites they were; they rarely if ever sang but they were alive! There
were plants, too, luxuriously growing in pots and boxes--but not a
flower on one! They existed, not joyously, but persistently. A Russian
hound, white as snow, lay before the fire; his soft, mournful eyes were
fixed upon Lynda, but he did not stir or announce the intrusion. A cat
and two kittens, also white, were rolled like snowballs on a crimson
cushion near the hearth; Lynda wondered whether they ever played. Alone,
like a dead thing amid the still life, William Truedale, helpless--death
ever creeping nearer and nearer to his bitter heart--passed his weary
days.
As she stood, watching and waiting, Lynda Kendall's eyes filled with
quick tears. The weeks of her absence had emphasized every tragic
detail of the room and the man. He had probably missed her terribly from
his bare life, but he had made no sign, given no call.
"Uncle William!"
Truedale turned his head and fixed his deep-sunk, brilliant eyes upon
her.
"Oh! So you've thought better of it?" was all that he said.
"Yes, I've thought better of it. Will you let me stay to dinner?"
"Take off your wraps. There now! draw up the ottoman; so long as you
have a spine, rely upon it. Never lounge if you can help it."
Lynda drew the low, velvet-covered stool near the couch-chair; the hound
raised his sharp, beautiful head and nestled against her knee. Truedale
watched it--animals never came to him unless commanded--why did they go
to Lynda? Probably for the same reason that he clung to her, watched for
her and feared, with sickening fear, that she might never come again!
"I suppose, since Con's death isn't on my head, you felt that you could
forgive me, eh?"
"Well, something like that, Uncle William."
"What business is it of yours what I do with my money--or my nephew?"
These two never approached each other by conventional lines. Their
absences were periods in which to store vital topics and
questions--their meetings were a series of explosive outbursts.
"None of my business, Uncle William, but if I could not approve, why--"
"Approve! Huh! Who are you that you should judge, approve, or disapprove
your elders?"
There was no answer to this. Lynda wanted to laugh, but feared she might
cry. The hard, indignant words belied the quivering gladness of the
voice that greeted her in every tone with its relief and surrender.
"I've got a good deal to say to you, girl. It is well you came
to-day--you might otherwise have been too late. I'm planning a long
journey."
Lynda started.
"A--long journey?" she said. Through the past years, since the dread
disease had attacked Truedale, his travelling had been confined to
passing to and from bedchamber and library in the wheelchair.
"You--you think I jest?" There was a grim humour in the burning eyes.
"I do not know."
"Well, then, I'll tell you. I am quite serious. While I have been exiled
from your attentions--chained to this rock" (he struck the arms of the
chair like a passionate child), "I have reached a conclusion I have
always contemplated, more or less. Now that I have recognized that the
time will undoubtedly come when you, Con--the lot of you--will clear
out, I have decided to prove to you all that I am not quite the
dependant you think me."
"Why--what can you mean, Uncle William?"
This was a new phase and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put
her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale
saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.
"Oh! a chair that can roll the length of this house can roll the
distance I desire to go. Money can pay for anything--anything! Thank
God, I have money, plenty of it. It means power--even to such a thing as
I am. Power, Lynda, power! It can snarl and unsnarl lives; it can buy
favour and cause terror. Think what I would have been without it all
these years. Think! Why, I have bargained with it; crushed with it;
threatened and beckoned with it--now I am going to play with it! I'm
going to surprise every one and have a gala time myself. I'm going to
set things spinning and then I'm going on a journey. It's queer" (the
sneering voice fell to a murmur), "all my prison-years I've thought of
this and planned it; the doing of it seems quite the simplest part. I
wonder now why I have kept behind the bars when, by a little exertion--a
little indifference to opinion--I might have broadened my horizon. But
good Lord! I haven't wasted time. I've studied every detail; nothing has
escaped me. This" (he touched his head--a fine, almost noble head,
covered by a wealth of white hair), "this has been doing double duty
while these" (he pointed to his useless legs) "have refused to play
their part. While I felt conscientiously responsible, I stuck to my job;
but a man has a right to a little freedom of his own!"
Lynda drew so close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek
upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and
feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached
herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and
imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before
the pitiful display of feeling expressed in every tone and word of
Truedale.
The touch of the warm cheek against his hand stirred the man. His eyes
softened, his face twitched and, because the young eyes were hidden, he
permitted his gaze to rest reverently upon the bowed head. She was the
only thing on earth he loved--the only thing that cut through his crust
of hardness and despair and made him human. Then, from out the
unexpected, he asked:
"Lynda, when did you break your engagement to John Morrell?"
The girl started, but she did not change her position. She never lied or
prevaricated to Truedale--she might keep her own counsel, but when she
spoke it was simple truth.
"About six months ago."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"There was nothing to tell, Uncle William."
"There was the fact, wasn't there?"
"Oh! yes, the fact."
"Why did you do it?"
"That--is--a long story." Lynda looked up, now, and smiled the rare
smile that only the stricken man understood. Appeal, confusion, and
detachment marked it. She longed, helplessly, for sympathy and
understanding.
"Well, long stories are welcome enough here, child; especially after the
dearth of them. Ring the bell; let's have dinner. Pull down the shades
and" (Truedale gave a wide gesture) "put the live stock out! An early
meal, a long evening--what better could we add than a couple of long
stories?"
In the doing of what Truedale commanded, Lynda found a certain relief.
These visits were like grim plays, to be sure, but they were also sacred
duties. This one, after the lapse of time filled with new and strange
emotions, was a bit grimmer than usual, but it had the effect of a tonic
upon the ragged nerves of the two actors.
The round table was set by the fire--it was the manservant who attended
now; silver and glass and linen were perfect, and the simple fare
carefully chosen and prepared.
Truedale was never so much at his ease as when he presided at these
small dinners. He ate little; he chose the rarest bits for his guest; he
talked lightly--sometimes delightfully. At such moments Lynda realized
what he must have been before love and health failed him.
To-night--shut away from all else, the strain of the past weeks ignored,
the long stories deliberately pushed aside--Truedale spoke of the books
he had been reading; Lynda, of her work.
"I have two wonderful houses to do," she said, poising a morsel of food
gracefully. "One is for a couple recently made rich; they do not dare to
move for fear of going wrong. I have that place from garret to cellar.
It's an awful responsibility--but lots of fun!"
"It must be. Spending other people's money and making them as good as
new at the same time, must be rare sport. And the other contract?"
"Oh! that is another matter." Lynda leaned back and laughed. "I'm toning
up an old house. Putting false fronts on, a bit of rouge, filling in
wrinkles; in short, giving a side-tracked old lady something to interest
her. She doesn't know it, but I'm letting her do the work, and she's
very happy. She has a kind of rusty good taste. I'm polishing it without
hurting her. The living room! Why, Uncle William, it is a picture. It is
a tender dream come true."
"And you are charging for that, you pirate?"
"I do not have to. The dear soul is so grateful that I'm forced to
refuse favours."
"Lynda, ring for Thomas." Truedale drew his brows close. "I think
I'll--I'll smoke. It may help me to sleep after the long stories
and--when I am alone." He rarely indulged in this way--tobacco excited
instead of soothed him--but the evening must have all the clear thought
possible!