Cuthbert
There was a tremendous scurry after this to allow of the four getting
ready in time for dinner. Mabel and Elma regained high spirits after
their confidences, and everybody seemed in a better key.
Mrs. Leighton came in to inquire of Mabel why Cuthbert had not returned.
Cuthbert, by some years the eldest of the family, had attained great
brilliance as a medical student, and now worked at pathology in order to
qualify as a specialist. His studies kept him intermittently at home,
but to-day he had been down early from town and had gone out bicycling
with George Maclean.
"Cuthbert!" exclaimed Mabel. "Why, I can't think--why, where's
Cuthbert?"
"Why, yes, where's Cuthbert?" said Jean.
Their minute differences had engaged their minds so fully, that no one
had really begun to wonder about Cuthbert until that moment.
"He is always in such good time," said Mrs. Leighton in a puzzled way.
"Didn't he say to any one that he would be late?"
No one knew anything about him. They speculated, and collected at the
dinner-table still speculating. Even Cousin Harry knew nothing of him,
but that, of course, was because of the flower show. While the meal was
in progress, Mr. Maclean appeared quietly in the room. He had prepared
a little speech for Mrs. Leighton, but it died on his lips as he saw her
face. It was a curious thing, as they afterwards reflected, that Mr.
Maclean went on speaking to Mrs. Leighton as though she knew of
everything that had happened to Cuthbert.
"He is all right, Mrs. Leighton, but he wouldn't let me bring him in
until I told you that he was all right."
"Bring him in----"
It seemed to the Leightons that Mr. Maclean had been standing all his
life in their dining-room saying that Cuthbert was all right, but
wouldn't be "brought in."
Mr. Leighton put down his table napkin in a methodical manner.
"You'd better come with me and see him, Lucy," he said to his wife.
Nothing could have more alarmed the girls. On no occasion had Mr.
Leighton ever referred to his wife as Lucy.
"Oh, Cuthbert must be dead," cried Betty.
"Nonsense," said Mr. Leighton, with a white face. "Where is Harry?"
Harry had slipped out after a direct glance from Mr. Maclean, and was at
that moment assisting two doctors to lift Cuthbert from a carriage.
"Look here, you kids," sang out Cuthbert, "I've only broken a rib or
two. You needn't look scared. I shall allow you to nurse me. You won't
be dull, I can tell you."
Mrs. Leighton gave a sharp little gasp. Her face looked drawn and only
half its size.
"Oh, Cuthbert," she said.
"I won't move," said Cuthbert, "till you stop being anxious about me.
Maclean, you are a bit of an idiot--look how you've frightened her!"
Elma found Betty in partial hysterics in the dining-room with Jean
hanging over her in a corresponding condition.
"I say, you two," she said in a disgusted manner. "You'll frighten
mother more than ever. Get up, and don't be idiots."
"You're as pale as death yourself," cried Jean hotly.
"Oh--am I," said Elma in almost a pleased voice. She longed to go and
see the effect for herself, but the condition of Betty prevented her.
"Well, it's our first shock," she said in an important manner. "I never
felt _awful_ like this before."
"I'm sure Cuthbert will die," cried Betty.
"Oh, don't." Elma turned on her fiercely. "Why do you say such
dreadful things."
"If you think he will die, Betty, he will die," sobbed Jean.
"Oh, Jean, Jean, do brace up," said Elma. "I don't want to cry, and
every minute I'm getting nearer it. Harry says it's just a knock on the
ribs, and the navy men don't even go to bed for that."
"Liar," sobbed Betty, "Cuthbert isn't a softy."
"Well, of course, if you want him to be bad, I can't help it," said
Elma. "I'm off to see where Mabel is."
Mabel--well, this was just where the magnificence of Mabel asserted
itself. She had done a thing which not one of the people who were
arranging about getting Cuthbert upstairs and into bed had thought of.
At the first sight of his white face and some blankets with which he had
been padded into a carriage, after the accident which had thrown him
from his bicycle and broken three ribs, Mabel turned and went upstairs.
She put everything out of the way for his being carried across the room,
and finally tugged his bed into a convenient place for his being laid
there. She dragged back quilts and procured more pillows, so that when
Cuthbert finally reclined there he was eminently comfortable.
"You'll have to haul out my bed, it's in a corner," he had sung out as
they carried him in, and there was the bed already prepared for him, and
Mabel with an extra pillow in her arms.
"Good old Mabs," said Cuthbert. "I promote you to staff nurse on the
spot."
Mabel was more scared than any one, not knowing yet about the ribs or
Cousin Harry's tale of the navy men who went about with broken ones, and
rather enjoyed the experience. She was so scared that it seemed easy to
stand quiet and be perfectly dignified.
"Come, Mabs dear, and help me to look for bandages. The doctor wants one
good big one," said the recovered voice of Mrs. Leighton.
Mr. Leighton went about stirring up everybody to doing things. He was
very angry with Betty and Jean. "Any one can sit crying in a corner,"
he declared, "and we may be so glad it's no worse."
"It's our first shock," said Betty, who had rather admired the sentiment
of that speech of Elma's.
Mr. Leighton could not help smiling a trifle.
"Well," he exclaimed kindly, "we don't want to get accustomed to them.
I should really much rather you would behave properly this time. You
might take a lesson from Mabel."
Nobody knew till then what a brick Mabel had been. To have their father
commend them like that, the girls would stand on their heads. Lucky
Mabel! There was some merit after all in being the eldest. One knew
evidently what to do in an emergency. The truth was that Mabel's
temperament was so nicely balanced that she could act, as well as think,
with promptitude. She had always admired dignity and what Mr. Leighton
called "efficiency," whereas Jean and Betty believed most in the deep
feelings of people who squealed the loudest.
"Nobody knows the agony this is to me," Jean exclaimed in a tragic
voice. "Feel my heart, it's beating so."
"Go and feel Mabel's," said Elma. "I expect it's thumping as hard as
yours. And she got Cuthbert's bed ready. She really is the leader of
this family. There's something more in it than putting up one's hair."
The doctors came down much more merrily than they went up, and joined in
the dining-room in coffee and dessert while Harry stayed with the
patient.
Mr. Leighton seemed very deeply moved. The thing had hurt him more than
he ventured to say. A remembrance of the white look on his son's face,
the appearance of the huddled figure in the cab, and the anxiety of not
knowing for a few moments how bad the injury might be, had given him a
great shock. His children were so deeply a part of his life, their
welfare of so much more consequence than his own, that it seemed
dreadful to him that his splendid manly young son had been suddenly
hurt--perhaps beyond remedy. Mrs. Leighton used to remark that she had
always been very thankful that none of her children had ever been
dangerously ill, her husband suffered so acutely from even a trifling
illness undergone by one of them. Now she gazed at him rather
anxiously.
Mr. Maclean told them at last how it had happened. Cuthbert had done
something rather heroic. Mr. Maclean recounted it, it seemed to Elma,
in the tone of a man who thought very little of the reckless way in
which Cuthbert had risked his life, until she discovered afterwards that
he as well as Cuthbert had made a dash to the rescue.
It was a case of a runaway bicycle, with no brakes working, and a girl
on it, terror-stricken, trying to evade death on the Long Hill.
Cuthbert had rushed down to her. Cuthbert had gripped the saddle, and
was putting some strength into his brakes, and actually reaching nearly
a full stop, when the girl swayed and fainted. They were both thrown,
but the girl was quite unhurt. Something had hit Cuthbert on the side
and broken three ribs.
Mabel stared straight at Mr. Maclean.
"Where were you?" she asked.
Mr. Maclean looked gravely at her. "I was somewhere about," he said
with unnecessary vagueness.
"Then you tried to save the girl too," said Elma with immediate
conviction. She greatly admired Mr. Maclean, and resented the manner of
Mabel's question. "How beautiful of you both," she exclaimed
enthusiastically.
Mr. Maclean seemed a little annoyed.
"I nearly ran into them," he growled. "Cuthbert was the man who did the
clean neat thing."
Mabel stirred her coffee with a dainty air, and then she looked
provokingly at Mr. Maclean. In some way she made Elma believe that she
did not credit that he could be valorous like Cuthbert.
"I think it was most grand-iloquent of you," Elma said to Mr. Maclean by
way of recompense.
The word saved the situation. Where doctors' assurances had not cleared
anxiety from the brow of Mr. Leighton, nor restored the placidity which
with Mrs. Leighton was habitual, the genuine laugh which followed Elma's
effort accomplished everything.
"I shall go right up and tell Cuthbert," said Jean.
"No, you won't! Cuthbert mustn't laugh," said Mrs. Leighton hurriedly.
"Oh, mummy," said poor Elma.
Nobody laughed later, however, when all four girls were tucked in bed
and not one of them could sleep. Betty in particular was in a nervous
feverish condition which alarmed Elma. She would have gone to her
mother's room to ask advice, except for Mabel's great indication of
courage that afternoon, and the certainty that Mabel and Jean were both
sensibly fast asleep in the next room. She took Betty into her own bed
and petted her like a baby. On windy nights Betty never could sleep,
and had always gone to Elma like a chicken to its mother to hide her
head and shut out the shrieking and whistling which so unnerved her. But
to-night, nothing could shut out the fear which had suddenly assailed
her that everybody died sooner or later, and Cuthbert might have died
that day. She lay and wept on Elma's shoulder.
At last the door moved gently and Mrs. Leighton came in. The moon shone
on her white hair, and made her face seem particularly gentle and
lovely.
"I've been scolding Mabel and Jean for talking in bed," she said, "and
now I hear you two at it."
"Oh, mummy," replied Elma, "I'm so glad you've come. You don't know how
empty and dreadful we feel. We never thought before of Cuthbert's
dying. And Betty says you and papa might die--and none of us could
p--possibly bear to live."
She began to cry gently at last.
"I can't have four girls in one house all crying," said Mrs. Leighton;
"I really can't stand it, you know."
"What--are Mabel and Jean crying?" asked Elma tearfully, yet hopefully.
"Well, that's one comfort anyway."
Mrs. Leighton sat down by their bed. Long years afterwards Elma
remembered the tones of her mother's voice, and the quiet wonderful
peace that entered her own mind at the confident words which Mrs.
Leighton spoke to them then.
"I thought you might be feeling like that," she said; "I did once also,
long ago, when my father turned very ill, until I learned what I'm going
to tell you now. We aren't here just to enjoy ourselves, or that would
be an easy business, would it not? We are here to get what Cuthbert
calls a few kicks now and again, to suffer a little, above all to
remember that our father or our mother isn't the only loving parent we
possess. What is the use of being taught to be devoted to goodness and
truth, if one doesn't believe that goodness and truth are higher than
anything, higher than human trouble? If you lost Cuthbert or me or
papa, there is always that strong presence ready to hold you."
"Oh, mummy," sobbed Betty, "there seems nothing like holding your hand."
Mrs. Leighton stroked Betty's very softly.
"Would you like a little piece of news?" she asked.
"We would," said Elma.
"The only person who is asleep in this household--last asleep,
is--Cuthbert."
"O--oh!"
Elma could not help laughing.
"And another thing," said Mrs. Leighton. "Didn't you notice? Not one
of my girls asked a single question about the girl whom Cuthbert saved."
"How funny!"
Betty's sobs became much dimmer.
"Do you know who she was?" asked Mrs. Leighton.
"No," chimed both.
"Well, I don't know her name," said Mrs. Leighton. She rose and moved
towards the door. "But I know one thing." She opened the door softly.
Elma and Betty sat up dry-eyed in bed.
"Remember what I said to you to-night," Mrs. Leighton said, "and don't
be very ungrateful for all the happiness you've known, and little
cowards when the frightening time comes. Promise me."
They promised.
She prepared to draw the door quietly behind her.
"She is staying with the Story Books," whispered Mrs. Leighton. Then
she closed the door.