"He isn't. Oh, Guy--I heard you had a new girl."
"New girl nothing. Don't care for girls."
"Yes, you do. At least I think you do. Her name's--Margaret."
The play ceased abruptly. Guy's face changed. "Perhaps I do," he
murmured, while his sister watched him in the candle-light.
"She won't answer yet?" she asked very gently.
"Not a word."
"You've cared a good while, haven't you, dear?"
"Seems like ages. Suppose it isn't."
"No--only two years, really caring hard. Plenty of time left."
He moved his head impatiently. "Yes, if I didn't mind seeing her smile
on Tommy Gower--de'il take him--just as sweetly as she smiles on me.
If she ever held out the tip of her finger to me, I'd seize it and
hold on to it for fair. But she doesn't. She won't. And she's going
South next week for the rest of the winter, and there's a fellow down
there in South Carolina where she goes--oh, he--he's red-headed after
her, like the rest of us. And, well--I'm up against it good and hard,
Nan, and that's the truth."
"Poor boy. And you gave up going to see her on Christmas Day, and came
down here into the country just to--"
"Just to get even with myself for the way I've neglected 'em these two
years while my head's been so full of--her. It isn't fair. After last
year I'd have come home to-day if it had meant I had to
lose--well--Margaret knows I'm here. I don't know what she thinks."
"I don't believe, Guy, boy, she thinks the less of you. Yes--I must
go. It will all come right in the end, dear--I'm sure of it. No, I
don't know how Margaret feels--Good night--good night!"
* * * * *
Christmas morning, breaking upon a wintry world--the Star in the East
long set. Outside the house a great silence of drift-wrapped hill and
plain;--inside, a crackling fire upon a wide hearth, and a pair of
elderly people waking to a lonely holiday.
[Illustration: "'THE CHILDREN!' SHE WAS SAYING.
'THEY--THEY--JOHN--THEY MUST BE HERE!'"]
Mrs. Fernald crept to the door of her room--the injured knee always
made walking difficult after a night's quiet. She meant to sit down by
the fire which she had lately heard Marietta stirring and feeding into
activity, and warm herself at its flame. She remembered with a sad
little smile that she and John had hung their stockings there, and
looked to see what miracle had been wrought in the night.
"_Father_!"--Her voice caught in her throat.... What was all this?...
By some mysterious influence her husband learned that she was calling
him, though he had not really heard. He came to the door and looked at
her, then at the chimneypiece where the stockings hung--a long row of
them, as they had not hung since the children grew up--stockings of
quality: one of brown silk, Nan's; a fine gray sock with scarlet
clocks, Ralph's,--all stuffed to the top, with bundles overflowing
upon the chimneypiece and even to the floor below.
"What's this--what's this?" John Fernald's voice was puzzled. "Whose
are these?" He limped closer. He put on his spectacles and stared hard
at a parcel protruding from the sock with the scarlet clocks.
"'_Merry Christmas to Ralph from Nan_,'" he read. "'To Ralph from
Nan,'" he repeated vaguely. His gaze turned to his wife. His eyes were
wide like a child's. But she was getting to her feet, from the chair
into which she had dropped.
"The children!" she was saying. "They--they--John--they must be
_here_!"
He followed her through the chilly hall to the front staircase, seldom
used now, and up--as rapidly as those slow, stiff joints would allow.
Trembling, Mrs. Fernald pushed open the first door at the top.
A rumpled brown head raised itself from among the pillows, a pair of
sleepy but affectionate brown eyes smiled back at the two faces
peering in, and a voice brimful of mirth cried softly: "Merry
Christmas, mammy and daddy!" They stared at her, their eyes growing
misty. _It was their little daughter Nan, not yet grown up!_
They could not believe it. Even when they had been to every room;--had
seen their big son Ralph, still sleeping, his yet youthful face, full
of healthy colour, pillowed on his brawny arm, and his mother had
gently kissed him awake to be half-strangled in his hug;--when they
had met Edson's hearty laugh as he fired a pillow at them--carefully,
so that his father could catch it;--when they had seen plump pretty
Carol pulling on her stockings as she sat on the floor smiling up at
them;--Oliver, advancing to meet them in his bath-robe and
slippers;--Guy, holding out both arms from above his blankets, and
shouting "Merry Christmas!--and how do you like your children?"--even
then it was difficult to realise that not one was missing--and that no
one else was there. Unconsciously Mrs. Fernald found herself looking
about for the sons' wives and daughters' husbands and children. She
loved them all;--yet--to have her own, and no others, just for this
one day--it was happiness indeed.
When they were all downstairs, about the fire, there was great
rejoicing. They had Marietta in; indeed, she had been hovering
continuously in the background, to the apparently frightful jeopardy
of the breakfast in preparation, upon which, nevertheless, she had
managed to keep a practised eye.
"And you were in it, Marietta?" Mr. Fernald said to her in
astonishment, when he first saw her. "How in the world did you get all
these people into the house and to bed without waking us?"
"It was pretty consid'able of a resk," Marietta replied, with modest
pride, "'seein' as how they was inclined to be middlin' lively. But I
kep' a-hushin' 'em up, and I filled 'em up so full of victuals they
couldn't talk. I didn't know's there'd be any eatables left for
to-day," she added--which last remark, since she had been slyly baking
for a week, Guy thought might be considered pure bluff.
At the breakfast table, while the eight heads were bent, this
thanksgiving arose, as the master of the house, in a voice not quite
steady, offered it to One Unseen:
_Thou who camest to us on that first Christmas Day, we bless Thee for
this good and perfect gift Thou sendest us to-day, that Thou
forgettest us not in these later years, but givest us the greatest joy
of our lives in these our loyal children._
Nan's hand clutched Guy's under the table. "Doesn't that make it worth
it?" his grasp said to her, and hers replied with a frantic pressure,
"Indeed it does, but we don't deserve it."
... It was late in the afternoon, a tremendous Christmas dinner well
over, and the group scattered, when Guy and his mother sat alone by
the fire. The "boys" had gone out to the great stock barn with their
father to talk over with him every detail of the prosperous business
he, with the help of an invaluable assistant, was yet able to manage.
Carolyn and Nan had ostensibly gone with them, but in reality the
former was calling upon an old friend of her childhood, and the latter
had begged a horse and sleigh and driven merrily away alone upon an
errand she would tell no one but her mother.
[Illustration: "'MERRY CHRISTMAS, MAMMY AND DADDY!'"]
Mrs. Fernald sat in her low chair at the side of the hearth, her son
upon a cushion at her feet, his head resting against her knee. Her
slender fingers were gently threading the thick locks of his hair, as
she listened while he talked to her of everything in his life, and, at
last, of the one thing he cared most about.
"Sometimes I get desperate and think I may as well give her up for
good and all," he was saying. "She's so--so--_elusive_--I don't know
any other word for it. I never can tell how I stand with her. She's
going South next week. I've asked her to answer me before she goes.
Somehow I've clung to the hope that I'd get my answer to-day. You'll
laugh, but I left word with my office-boy to wire me if a note or
anything from her came. It's four o'clock, and I haven't heard.
She--you see, I can't help thinking it's because she's going to--turn
me down--and--hates to do it--Christmas Day!"
He turned suddenly and buried his face in his mother's lap; his
shoulders heaved a little in spite of himself. His mother's hand
caressed his head more tenderly than ever, but, if he could have seen,
her eyes were very bright.
They were silent for a long time. Then suddenly a jingle of sleigh
bells approached through the falling winter twilight, drew near, and
stopped at the door. Guy's mother laid her hands upon his shoulders.
"Son," she said, "there's some one stopping now. Perhaps it's the boy
with a message from the station."
He was on his feet in an instant. Her eyes followed him as he rushed
away through the hall. Then she rose and quietly closed the
sitting-room door behind him.
As Guy flung open the front door, a tall and slender figure in gray
furs and a wide gray hat was coming up the walk. Eyes whose glance had
long been his dearest torture met Guy Fernald's and fell. Lips like
which there were no others in the world smiled tremulously in response
to his eager exclamation. And over the piquant young face rose an
exquisite colour which was not altogether born of the wintry air. The
girl who for two years had been only "elusive" had taken the
significant step of coming to North Estabrook in response to an
eloquent telephone message sent that morning by Nan.
Holding both her hands fast, Guy led her up into the house--and found
himself alone with her in the shadowy hall. With one gay shout Nan had
driven away toward the barn. The inner doors were all closed. Blessing
the wondrous sagacity of his womankind, Guy took advantage of his
moment.
"Nan brought you--I see that. I know you're very fond of her, but--you
didn't come wholly to please her, did you--Margaret?"
"Not wholly."
"I've been looking all day for my answer. I--oh--I wonder if--" he was
gathering courage from her aspect, which for the first time in his
experience failed to keep him at a distance--"_dare_ I think
you--_bring it_?"
She slowly lifted her face. "I thought it was so--so dear of you," she
murmured, "to come home to your people instead of--staying with me. I
thought you deserved--what you say--you want--"
"_Margaret_--you--"
"I haven't given you any Christmas present. Will--I--do?"
"Will _you_ do!... _Oh_!"--It was a great explosive sigh of relief
and joy, and as he gave vent to it he caught her close.
"Will--_you_--do!... Good Lord!... I rather _think you will_!"
* * * * *
_"Emeline--"_
_"Yes, John dear?"_
_"You're not--crying?"_
_"Oh, no--no, no, John!" What a blessing deafness is sometimes! The
ear cannot detect the delicate tremolo which might tell the story too
plainly. And in the darkness of night, the eye cannot see._
_"It's been a pretty nice day, hasn't it?"_
_"A beautiful day!"_
_"I guess there's no doubt but the children care a good deal for the
old folks yet."_
_"No doubt at all, dear."_
_"It's good to think they're all asleep under the roof once more,
isn't it?--And one extra one. We like her, don't we?"_
_"Oh, very, very much!"_
_"Yes, Guy's done well. I always thought he'd get her, if he hung on.
The Fernalds always hang on, but Guy's got a mite of a temper--I
didn't know but he might let go a little too soon. Well--it's great to
think they all plan to spend every Christmas Day with us, isn't it,
Emeline?"_
_"Yes, dear--it's--great."_
_"Well--I must let you go to sleep. It's been a big day, and I guess
you're tired. Emeline, we've not only got each other--we've got the
children too. That's a pretty happy thing at our age, isn't it, now?"_
_"Yes--yes."_
_"Good night--Christmas Night, Emeline."_
_"Good night, dear."_
* * * * *