Mary had a bad time of it the next few weeks. More than once her face
seemed turned toward the Valley of the Shadow. But gradually health and
strength returned, although it wasn't until April that she was anything
like herself again.
She liked to sit--sometimes for hours at a time--reading, thinking,
dreaming--and when she was strong enough to go outside she would walk
among the flowers, and look at the birds and the budding trees, and draw
deep breaths as she watched the glory of the sunset appearing and
disappearing in the western sky.
Helen occasionally walked and sat with her--but not often. Helen's time
was being more and more taken up by the younger set at the Country Club.
She came home late, humming snatches of the latest dances and talking of
the conquests she had made, telling Mary of the men who would dance with
no one else, of the compliments they had paid her, of the things they had
told her, of the competition to bring her home. One night, it appears,
they had an old-fashioned country party at the club, and Helen was in
high glee at the number of letters she had received in the game of post
office.
"You mean to say they all kissed you?" asked Mary.
"You bet they did! Good and hard! That's what they were there for!"
Mary thought that over.
"It doesn't sound nice to me, somehow," she said at last. "It sounds--oh,
I don't know--common."
"That's what the girls thought who didn't get called," laughed Helen.
She arranged her hair in front of the mirror, pulling it down over her
forehead till it looked like a golden turban. "Oh, who do you think was
there tonight?" she suddenly interrupted herself.
Mary shook her head.
"Burdon Woodward--as handsome as ever. Yes, handsomer, I think, if he
could be. He asked after you. I told him you were nearly better."
"Then he must be down at the factory every day," thought Mary. But the
thought moved her only a little. Whether or not it was due to her
illness, she seemed to have undergone a reaction in regard to the
factory. Everything was going on well, Judge Cutler sometimes told her.
As the men returned from service, the women were giving up their places.
"Whatever you do," he always concluded, "don't begin worrying about
things down there. If you do, you'll never get well."
"I'm not worrying," she told him, and once she added, "It seems ever so
long ago, somehow--that time we had down there."
As the spring advanced, her thoughts took her further than ever from
their old paths. Instead of thinking of something else (as she used to
do), when Helen was telling of her love affairs, Mary began to listen to
them--and even to sit up till Helen returned from the club. One night, as
Helen was chatting of a young an from Boston who had teased her by
following her around until every one was calling him "Helen's little
lamb," Mary gradually became aware of an elusive scent in the room.
"Cigarettes," she thought, "and--and raspberry jam--!" She waited until
her cousin paused for breath and then, "Did Burdon Woodward ride home
with you tonight?" she asked.
"With Doris and me," nodded Helen, smiling at herself in the mirror. "He
told us he went over with some of the boys, but he wanted to go home
civilized."
Nothing more was said, but a few mornings later, as Helen sat at
breakfast reading her mail, Mary was sure she recognized Burdon's dashing
handwriting. A vague sense of uneasiness passed over her, but this was
soon forgotten when she went to the den to look at her own mail.
On the top of the pile was a letter addressed to her father.
"Rio de Janeiro," breathed Mary, reading the post-mark. "Why, that's
where the cable came from!"
She opened the letter.... It was signed "Paul."
"Dear Sir (it began)
"This isn't begging. I am through with that. When you paid no attention
to my cable, I said, 'Never again!' You might like to know that I buried
my wife and two youngest that time. It hurt then, but I can see now that
they were lucky.
"I have one daughter left--twelve years old. She's just at the age when
she ought to be looked after. This is her picture. She's a pretty girl,
and a good girl, but fond of fun and good times.
"I've done my best, but I'm down and out--tired--through. I guess it's up
to you what sort of a granddaughter you want. There's a school near here
where she could go and be brought up right. It won't cost much. You can
send the money direct--if you want the right sort of a granddaughter.
"If you want the other kind, all you have to do is to forget it. The
crowd I go with aren't good for her.
"Anyway I enclose the card and rates and references of the school. You
see they give the consuls' names.
"If you decide yes, you want your granddaughter to have a chance, write a
letter to the name and address below. That's me. Then write the school,
sending check for one year and say it is for the daughter of the name and
address below. That is the name I am known by here.
"I'm sorry for everything, but of course it's too late now. The truest
thing in the world is this: As you make your bed, so you've got to lie in
it. I made mine wrong, but you couldn't help it. I wouldn't bother you
now except for Rosa's sake.
"Your prodigal son who is eating husks now,
"PAUL."
Mary looked at the photograph--a pretty child with her hair over her
shoulders and a smile in her eyes.
"You poor little thing," she breathed, "and to think you're my niece--and
I'm your aunt ... Aunt Mary," she thoughtfully repeated, and for the
first time she realized that youth is not eternal and that years go
swiftly by.
"Life's the strangest thing," she thought. "It's only a sort of an
accident that I'm not in her place, and she's not in mine.... Perhaps I
sha'n't have any children of my own--ever--" she dreamed, "and if I
don't--it will be nice to think that I did something--for this one--"
For a moment the chill of caution went over her.
"Suppose it isn't really Paul," she thought. "Suppose--it's some sharper.
Perhaps that's why dad never wrote him--"
But an instinct, deeper than anything which the mind can express, told
her that the letter rang true and had no false metal in it.
"Or suppose," she thought, "if he knows dad is dead--suppose he turns up
and makes trouble for everybody--"
Wally's story returned to her memory. "There was an accident out
West--somebody killed. Anyhow he was blamed for it--so he could never
come back or they'd get him--"
"That agrees with his living under this Russian name," nodded Mary.
"Anyhow, I'm sure there's nothing to fear in doing a good action--for a
child like this--"
She propped the picture on her desk and after a great deal of dipping her
pen in the ink, she finally began--
"Dear Sir:
"I have opened your letter to my father, Josiah Spencer. He has been dead
three years. I am his daughter.
"It doesn't seem right that such a nice girl as Rosa shouldn't have every
chance to grow up good and happy. So I am writing the school you
mentioned, and sending them the money as you suggest.
"She will probably need some clothes, as they always look at a girl's
clothes so when she goes to school. I therefore enclose something for
that.
"Trusting that everything will turn out well, I am
"Yours sincerely,
"MARY SPENCER.
"P.S. I would like Rosa to write and tell me how she gets on at school."
She wrote the school next and when that was done she sat back in her
chair and looked out of the window at the birds and the flowers and the
bees that flew among the flowers.
"What a queer thing it is--love, or whatever they call it," she thought.
"The things it has done to people--right in this house! I guess it's like
fire--a good servant but a bad master--"
She thought of what it had done to Josiah--and to Josiah's son. She
thought of what it had done to Ma'm Maynard, what it was doing to Helen,
how it had left Aunt Cordelia and Aunt Patty untouched.
"It's like some sort of a fever," she told herself. "You never know
whether you're going to catch it or not--or when you're going to catch,
it--or what it's going to do to you--"
She walked to the window and rather unsteadily her hand arose to her
breast.
"I wonder if I shall ever catch it...." she thought. "I wonder what it
will do to me...!"