On the morrow Bruce did not grow better. If anything, the child grew worse.
But by the next morning the crisis had passed. In the house the tension
relaxed, and Roger suddenly felt so weak that he went to see his own
physician. They had a long and serious talk. Later he went to his office,
but he gave little heed to his work. Sitting there at his desk, he stared
through the window far out over the city. A plan was forming in his mind.
At home that night, at dinner, he kept watching Deborah, who looked tired
and pale and rather relaxed. And as soon as she was out of the house he
telephoned Allan to come at once.
"It's something which can't wait," he urged.
"Very well, I'll come right up."
When Baird arrived a little later, Roger opened the door himself, and they
went back into his study.
"Sit down," he said. "Smoke, Allan?"
"No, thanks." Baird looked doubly tall and lean, his face had a gaunt
appearance; and as he sat down, his lithe supple right hand slowly closed
on the arm of his chair.
"Now then," began Roger, "there are two things we want to get clear on. The
first is about yourself and Deborah. There has been trouble, hasn't there?"
"Yes."
"She has made up her mind not to marry you."
"Yes."
"I guessed as much." And Roger paused. "Do you mind my asking questions?
"No--"
"Are you still in love with her, Allan?"
"I am."
"And she with you?"
"I think so."
"Then it's the same old trouble."
"Yes." And he told a part of what she had said. As he talked in clear,
terse, even tones, Baird's steady eyes had a tortured light, the look of a
man who has almost reached the end of his endurance. Roger smoked in
silence.
"What do you propose to do?"
"Wait," said Allan, "a few days more. Then try again. If I fail I'm
through." Roger shot a quick look at him.
"I don't think you'll fail, my boy--and what's more I think I can help you.
This is a large house, Allan--there's more in it than you know. My second
point concerns myself. I'm going to die within a year."
As Baird turned on him suddenly, Roger grimly smiled and said, "We won't go
into the details, but I've been examined lately and I have quite positive
knowledge of what I've suspected for some time. So far, I have told no one
but you. And I'm telling you only because of the bearing it has on
Deborah." Roger leaned forward heavily. "She's the one of my daughters who
means the most, now that I'm so near the end. When I die next year that may
be all--I may simply end--a blank, a grave--I am not sure. But I've made up
my mind above everything else to see Deborah happy before I go. And I mean
to do it by setting her free--so free I think it will frighten her."
Roger went on to explain his plan, and they talked together for some time.
* * * * *
Another week had soon gone by. Bruce still recovered rapidly, and the other
sick children were up and about. Deborah, in the meantime, had barely been
in the house at all. But late on Saturday evening Roger found her in her
room. She was working. He came behind her.
"What is it, dad?"
"Busy, eh?" He hesitated, and laid his hand on her shoulder with a little
affectionate pressure. "You've kept so busy lately," he said, "I haven't
had time to see anything of you. How's your work going?"
"Much better, thanks--now that the winter is over."
He questioned her about her schools. And then after a brief pause,
"Well, daughter," he said, "it has been a great fight, and I'm proud of you
for it. And if I've got anything to say--" his hand was still on her
shoulder, and he felt her tighten suddenly--"it isn't by way of
criticism--please be sure of that ahead. In this damnable war my faith in
men has been badly shaken up. Humanity seems to me still a child--a child
who needs to go to school. God knows we need men and women like you--and
I'm proud of all you've accomplished, I'd be the last man to hold you back.
I only want to help you go on--by seeing to it that you are free--from
anything which can hinder you." He stopped again for a moment.
"To begin with," he said, "I understand you're not going to marry Allan
Baird." She stirred slightly:
"Did he tell you so?"
"Yes--I asked him," Roger replied. "I had Allan here a few nights ago, and
he told me you had decided to give up your happiness for the sake of all
those children in that big family of yours. You felt you must keep yourself
free for them. Very well, if that is your decision I propose to clear the
way." She looked intently up at his face. "You're not free now," he
continued. "We have Edith and her children here. And I'm growing old--that
has got to be thought of--I don't want to leave them on your hands. So as
soon as the baby is well enough, I'm going to move them up to the
mountains--not only for the summer--they are to stay the whole year
'round. From this time on they're to make it their home."
"Father! But they can't do that! Think of the winters!" Deborah cried.
"It's already settled," he answered. "I've talked to Edith and she has
agreed. She has always loved the farm, and it will be good for her
children. In the meantime I've been talking to George. 'George,' I told
him, 'I'm going to talk to you, man to man, about a man's job I want you to
tackle.'"
"The farm? But, dearie! He's only a boy!"
"He's nearly seventeen," said Roger, "and a young moose for his age. And
old Dave Royce will still be there. It's the work George has been dreaming
about ever since he was a child. You should have seen how he was thrilled
by the scheme. I told him we'd spend the summer together up there laying
all our plans, investing our money carefully to make every dollar count."
"What money?" Deborah sharply asked. But her father was talking steadily
on:
"We already have a fine lot of cattle. We'll add to it and enlarge the barn
and put in some new equipment. In short, we'll put it in fine shape, make
it a first class dairy farm. 'And then, George,' I said to him, 'I'm going
to turn it over to you. I shall give the farm to your mother, and the rest
of the money I have I mean to invest in her name down here, so that she'll
have a small income until you can make your dairy pay.'"
"What money are you speaking of?" Deborah's voice was thick and hard, her
sensitive lips were parted and she was breathing quickly.
"I've sold the house," he told her. Convulsively she gripped his arms:
"Then tell me where _you_ mean to live!"
"I'm not going to live--I'm going to die--very soon--I have definite
knowledge."
Without speaking Deborah rose; her face went white. Her father kept tight
hold of her hands, and he felt them trembling, growing cold.
"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I know this
is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child, just what it is
I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you to make a simple
definite choice--a choice which is going to settle your life one way or the
other. I want to make sure you see what you're doing. Because you mean so
much to me. We're flesh and blood--eh, my daughter?--and in this family of
ours we've been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.
"_You're not going to die_!" she whispered.
"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be so free.
Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a load on your
back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging me up when I was
down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest, what burdens they have
been at times. What sharp worries, heavy sorrows, days and nights you and I
have gone through, when we should have been quietly resting--free--to keep
up our strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them, lived
alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you will know
soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the way--so that if you
throw over Baird to be free you shall get the freedom you feel you need!"
"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a harsh
frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.
"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering like her
own. "I'm bungling it--I'm bungling it--but you must let me stumble along
and try to show you what I mean. You will have your work, your crowded
schools, to which you'll be able to give your life. But I look ahead, I
who know you--and I don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For
you there will be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that
have been in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
all--for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger vision." He shut
his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my family back and back, and I
see how it has been made of many generations. Certain figures stand out in
my mind--they cover over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant
to me. I see that I've been one of them--a link in a long chain of
lives--all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have all been
here--as I shall be in lives to come.
"And this is what I want for you." He held her close a moment. The tears
were rolling down her cheeks. "Until now you have been one of us, too. You
have never once been free. You have been the one in this house to step in
and take hold and try to decide what's best to be done. I'm not putting you
up on a pedestal, I don't say you've made no mistakes--but I say you're the
kind of a woman who craves what's in a family. You're the one of my
daughters who has loved this house the most!"
"Yes," she said, "I've loved this house--"
"But now for you all this will stop--quite suddenly," he told her. "This
house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few months I shall be dead,
and your family will have dropped out of your life."
"Stop! Can't you? Stop! It's brutal! It isn't true about you!" she cried.
"I won't believe it!" Her voice broke.
"Go and see my physician," he said.
"How long have you known it? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think of. But
there's only one thing now, this freedom you are facing."
"Please! Please!" she cried imploringly. "I don't want to talk of myself
but of you! This physician--"
"No," he answered with stern pain, "you'll have to hear me out, my child.
We're talking of you--of you alone when I am gone. How will it be? Are you
quite sure? You will have your work, that vision of yours, and I know how
close it has been to you, vivid and warm, almost like a friend. But so was
my business once like that, when I was as young as you. And the business
grew and it got cold--impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family.
Isn't your work growing too? Are you sure it won't become a machine? And
won't you lose touch with the children then, unless you have a child of
your own? Friends won't be enough, you'll find, they're not bound up into
yourself. The world may reach a stage at last where we shall live on in the
lives of all--we may all be one big family. But that time is still far
off--we hold to our own flesh and blood. And so I'm sure it will be with
you. You see you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh
and new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you've
always had?" He felt the violent clutch of her hand.
"_You won't die_!" she whispered. But he went on relentlessly:
"And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have not even
worked alone. You have had this man who has loved you there. I've seen how
much he has helped you--how you have grown and he has grown since you two
got together. And if you throw him over now, it seems to me you are not
only losing what has done the most for your work, but you're running away
from life as well. You've never won by doing that, you've always won by
meeting life, never evading it, taking it all, living it full, taking
chances! If you marry Baird, I see you both go on together in your work,
while in your home you struggle through the troubles, tangles, joys and
griefs which most of us mortals know so well! I see you in a world of
children, but with children, too, of your own--to keep your spirit always
young! Living on in your children's lives!"
Roger stopped abruptly. He groped for something more to say.
"On the one side, all that," he muttered, "and on the other, a lonely life
which will soon grow old."
There fell a dangerous silence. And sharply without warning, the influence,
deep and invisible, of many generations of stolid folk in New England made
itself felt in each of them. Father and daughter grew awkward, both. The
talk had been too emotional. Each made, as by an instinct, a quick strong
effort at self-control, and felt about for some way to get back upon their
old easy footing. Roger turned to his daughter. Her head was still bent,
her hands clasped tight, but she was frowning down at them now, although
her face was still wet with tears. She drew a deep unsteady breath.
"Well, Deborah," he said simply, "here I've gone stumbling on like a fool.
I don't know what I've said or how you have listened."
"I've listened," she said thickly.
"I have tried," he went on in a steadier tone, "to give you some feeling of
what is ahead--and to speak for your mother as well as myself. And more
than that--much more than that--for the world has changed since she was
here. God knows I've tried to be modern." A humorous glint came into his
eyes, "Downright modern," he declared. "Have I asked you to give up your
career? Not at all, I've asked you to marry Baird, and go right on with him
in your work. And if you can't marry Allan Baird, after what he has done
for you, how in God's name can you modern women ever marry anyone? Now what
do you say? Will you marry him? Don't laugh at me! I'm serious! Talk!"
But Deborah was laughing--although her father felt her hands still cold
and trembling in his. Her gray eyes, bright and luminous, were shining up
into his own.
"What a time you've been having, haven't you, dear!" his daughter cried
unsteadily. "Fairly lying awake at night and racking your brains for
everything modern I've ever said--to turn it and twist it and use it
against me!"
"Well?" he demanded. "How does it twist?"
"It twists hard, thank you," she declared. "You've turned and twisted me
about till I barely see how I can live at all!"
"You can, though! Marry Allan Baird!"
"I'll think it over--later on."
"What is there left to think about? Can you point to one hole in all I've
said?"
"Yes, a good many--and one right off."
"Out with it!"
"You're not dying," Deborah told him calmly, "I feel quite certain you'll
live for years."
"Oh, you do, eh--then see my physician!"
"I will, I'll see him to-morrow. How long did you give yourself? Just a few
months?"
"No, he said it might be more," admitted Roger grudgingly. "If I had no
worries to wear me out--"
"Me, you mean."
"Exactly."
"Well, you've worried quite enough. You're going to leave it to me to
decide."
"Very well," he agreed. He looked at her. "You have listened--hard?" he
gruffly asked.
"Yes, dear." Her hands slowly tightened on his. "But don't speak of this
again. You're to leave it to me. You promise?"
"Yes."
And Roger left her.
He went to bed but he could not sleep. With a sudden sag in his spirits he
felt what a bungler he had been. He was not used to these solemn talks, he
told himself irately. What a fool to try it! And how had Deborah taken it
all? He did not mind her laughter, nor that lighter tone of hers. It was
only her way of ending the talk, an easy way out for both of them. But what
had she thought underneath? Had his points gone home? He tried to remember
them. Pshaw! He had been too excited, and he could recall scarcely
anything. He had not meant to speak of Baird--he had meant to leave him
out! Yes, how he must have bungled it! Doubtless she was smiling still.
Even the news about himself she had not taken seriously.
But as he thought about that news, Roger's mood completely changed. The
talk of the evening grew remote, his family no longer real, mere little
figures, shadowy, receding swiftly far away.... Much quieter now, he lay a
long time listening to the life of the house, the occasional sounds from
the various rooms. From the nursery adjoining came little Bruce's piping
laugh, and Roger could hear the nurse moving about. Afterwards for a long
time he could hear only creaks and breathings. Never had the old house
seemed so like a living creature. For nearly forty years it had held all
that he had loved and known, all he had been sure of. Outside of it was the
strange, the new, the uncertain, the vast unknown, stretching away to
infinity....
Again he heard Bruce's gay little laugh. What did it remind him of? He
puzzled. Then he had it. Edith had been a baby here. Her cradle had been in
this very room, close by the bed. And how she had laughed! What gurgles and
ripples of bursting glee! The first child in his family....