Across the Years Part 13

Jane smiled faintly, but her eyes were troubled.

"Thank you; I'm glad you feel--that way. You see, at Fred's--I wouldn't have them know it for the world, they were _so_ good to me--but I thought, lately, that maybe they didn't want--But it wasn't so, of course. It couldn't have been. I--I ought not even to think it."

"Hm-m; no," returned Mrs. Pendergast, with noncommittal briefness.

Not six weeks later Mary, in her beautiful Commonwealth Avenue home, received a call from a little, thin-faced woman, who curtsied to the butler and asked him to please tell her sister that she wished to speak to her.

Mary looked worried and not over-cordial when she rustled into the room.

"Why, Jane, did you find your way here all alone?" she cried.

"Yes--no--well, I asked a man at the last; but, you know, I've been here twice before with the others."

"Yes, I know," said Mary.

There was a pause; then Jane cleared her throat timidly.

"Mary, I--I've been thinking. You see, just as soon as I'm strong enough, I--I'm going to take care of myself, and then I won't be a burden to--to anybody." Jane was talking very fast now. Her words came tremulously between short, broken breaths. "But until I get well enough to earn money, I can't, you see. And I've been thinking;--would you be willing to take me until--until I can? I'm lots better, already, and getting stronger every day. It wouldn't be for--long."

"Why, of course, Jane!" Mary spoke cheerfully, and in a tone a little higher than her ordinary voice. "I should have asked you to come here before, only I feared you wouldn't be happy here--such a different life for you, and so much noise and confusion with Belle's wedding coming on, and all!"

Jane gave her a grateful glance.

"I know, of course,--you'd think that,--and it isn't that I'm finding fault with Julia and Edgar. I couldn't do that--they're so good to me.

But, you see, I put them out so. Now, there's my room, for one thing. 'T was Ella's, and Ella has to keep running in for things she's left, and she says it's the same with the others. You see, I've got Ella's room, and Ella's got Tom's, and Tom's got Bert's. It's a regular 'house that Jack built'--and I'm the 'Jack'!"

"I see," laughed Mary constrainedly. "And you want to come here? Well, you shall. You--you may come a week from Sat.u.r.day," she added, after a pause. "I have a reception and a dinner here the first of the week, and--you'd better stay away until after that."

"Oh, thank you," sighed Jane. "You are so good. I shall tell Julia that I'm invited here, so she won't think I'm dissatisfied. They're so good to me--I wouldn't want to hurt their feelings!"

"Of course not," murmured Mary.

The big, fat tire of the touring-car popped like a pistol shot directly in front of the large white house with the green blinds.

"This is the time we're in luck, Belle," laughed the good-natured young fellow who had been driving the car. "Do you see that big piazza just aching for you to come and sit on it?"

"Are we really stalled, Will?" asked the girl.

"Looks like it--for a while. I'll have to telephone Peters to bring down a tire. Of course, to-day is the day we _didn't_ take it!"

Some minutes later the girl found herself on the cool piazza, in charge of a wonderfully hospitable old lady, while down the road the good-looking young fellow was making long strides toward the next house and a telephone.

"We are staying at the Lindsays', in North Belton," explained the girl, when he was gone, "and we came out for a little spin before dinner.

Isn't this Belton? I have an aunt who used to live here somewhere--Aunt Jane Pendergast".

The old lady sat suddenly erect in her chair.

"My dear," she cried, "you don't mean to say that you're Jane Pendergast's niece! Now, that is queer! Why, this was her very house--we bought it when the old gentleman died last year. But, come, we'll go inside. You'll want to see everything, of course!"

It was some time before the young man came back from telephoning, and it was longer still before Peters came with the new tire, and helped get the touring-car ready for the road. The girl was very quiet when they finally left the house, and there was a troubled look deep in her eyes.

"Why, Belle, what's the matter?" asked the young fellow concernedly, as he slackened speed in the cool twilight of the woods, some minutes later. "What's troubling you, dear?"

"Will"--the girl's voice shook--"Will, that was Aunt Jane's house. That old lady--told me."

"Aunt Jane?"

"Yes, yes--the little gray-haired woman that came to live with us two months ago. You know her."

"Why, y-yes; I think I've--seen her."

The girl winced, as from a blow.

"Will, don't! I can't bear it," she choked. "It only shows how we've treated her--how little we've made of her, when we ought to have done everything--everything to make her happy. Instead of that, we were brutes--all of us!"

"Belle!"--the tone was an indignant protest.

"But we were--listen! She lived in that house all her life till last year. She never went anywhere or did anything. For twenty years she lived with an old man who had lost his mind, and she tended him like a baby--only a baby grows older all the time and more interesting, while he--oh, Will, it was awful! That old lady--told me."

"By Jove!" exclaimed the young fellow, under his breath.

"And there were other things," hurried on the girl, tremulously. "Some way, I never thought of Aunt Jane only as old and timid; but she was young like us, once. She wanted to go away to school--but she couldn't go; and there was some one who--loved her--once--later, and she sent him--away. That was after--after grandfather lost his mind. Mother and Uncle Edgar and Uncle Fred--they all went away and lived their own lives, but she stayed on. Then last year grandfather died."

The girl paused and moistened her lips. The man did not speak. His eyes were on the road ahead of the slow-moving car.

"I heard to-day--how--how proud and happy Aunt Jane was that Uncle Fred had asked her to come and live with him," resumed the girl, after a minute. "That old lady told me how Aunt Jane talked and talked about it before she went away, and how she said that all her life she had taken care of others, and it would be so good to feel that now some one was going to look out for her, though, of course, she should do everything she could to help, and she hoped she could still be of some use."

"Well, she has been, hasn't she?"

The girl shook her head.

"That's the worst of it. We haven't made her think she was. She stayed at Uncle Fred's for a while, and then he sent her to Uncle Edgar's.

Something must have been wrong there, for she asked mother two months ago if she might come to us."

"Well, I'm sure you've been--good to her."

"But we haven't!" cried the girl. "Mother meant all right, I know, but she didn't think. And I've been--horrid. Aunt Jane tried to show her interest in my wedding plans, but I only laughed at her and said she wouldn't understand. We've pushed her aside, always,--we've never made her one of us; and--we've always made her feel her dependence."

"But you'll do differently now, dear,--now that you understand."

Again the girl shook her head.

"We can't," she moaned. "It's too late. I had a letter from mother last night. Aunt Jane's sick--awfully sick. Mother said I might expect to--to hear of the end any day."

"But there's some time left--a little!"--his voice broke and choked into silence. Suddenly he made a quick movement, and the car beneath them leaped forward like a charger that feels the p.r.i.c.k of the spur.

The girl gave a frightened cry, then a tremulous little sob of joy. The man had cried in her ear, in response to her questioning eyes: