The Fate of Felix Brand Part 4

She walked to the window and stood there silently, her thoughts hovering around this unknown personality, and became conscious of the upspringing in her breast of a feeling of disapproval and even of enmity toward the man because of the trouble he seemed to be giving to the employer she admired so much and for whose appreciation and unvarying kindness she felt so much grat.i.tude.

Then there surged over her a wave of discontent, against whose threatened onslaught she had half consciously been doing battle ever since she had talked with Felix Brand in the morning. Now it was upon her. How monotonous seemed her life, how dest.i.tute of the pleasures that most girls had as their right! If she could only use for her own enjoyment some of that money she worked so hard to earn! But that everlasting mortgage on their home which had to be paid off--how the thought of it irked and galled when she longed to travel, buy beautiful clothes, go to the theatre and the opera, have young friends and ride and drive and play golf and dance and sing with them. It was the playtime of life and she was having to spend it in work, work, work!

"Oh, there isn't anybody who would enjoy all those things as I should," she thought, "and I want them so!"

She turned impatiently from the window and her glance fell upon her mother, smiling gently and happily as she lay back in her easy chair, and remorse entered her heart.

"What an ungrateful little beast I am," she stormed at herself, "to feel like that when I ought to be thankful I can earn money enough to keep mother in comfort! Was it because Mr. Brand was here that I felt that way? Harry Marne, be ashamed of yourself! Aren't you old enough to be responsible for your own thoughts?"

She sat down beside her mother and taking her hand pressed it tenderly against her cheek.

CHAPTER V

MRS. BRAND'S DREAM SON

It was half a week after that spring-like Sunday when Felix Brand motored to his secretary's home on Staten Island, and a feathery pall, white as forgiven sins, was sifting down from the heavens upon all the eastern seaboard. In a town within the suburban radius of Philadelphia its mantle of purity lay almost undisturbed upon lawns and streets and vacant lots. Two women were looking out upon the snow-covered earth and snow-filled sky from the side window of a cottage near the edge of the town. One, small and gray-haired, perhaps looked older than she was because of the pathetic droop of her shoulders and the worn, patient expression of her face. But lined and sad though her countenance was, it told of a sweet and gentle soul and it was lighted now with a look of pleasure.

"Just look at it, Penelope!" she exclaimed, a little thrill of enthusiasm in her voice. "I never saw it snow harder, or look prettier! Isn't it beautiful!"

She turned a pair of soft brown eyes upon a younger woman sitting beside her in a wheel chair, who put down the book she had been reading, and sighed as she answered: "Yes, it is beautiful, mother, very beautiful. But when I look at it I can't help thinking how long it will be until spring comes again and I can be out in the yard under the trees."

The mother put out her hand, small and once of the shape that chirognomists call "the artistic hand," but now wrinkled, bony and toil-hardened, and rested it gently for a moment upon the ma.s.s of dark, waving hair, already well-threaded with gray, that crowned the other's head. Her face filled with sympathy but her voice broke cheerfully upon the silence:

"Oh, it won't be long now, Penelope, and not a bit longer because of this beautiful storm!"

The figure in the wheel chair bent forward again and looked out upon the pearly whiteness of the earth. It was a sad travesty of the human form, undersized, humped and crooked. But it bore a n.o.ble head with a broad, full brow and a strong, intellectual face that had in it something of the elder woman's sweetness of expression. But in her brown eyes the other's softness and wistfulness gave place to a keener, more flas.h.i.+ng look that told of a high and soaring spirit. And in the lines of her face was a hint of possible storminess, though it was softened by an expression of self-mastery, eloquent of many an inner battle waged and won.

The window from which they looked commanded one side of their own wide yard, a vacant block, and beyond that a cross-street. The snow was feathering down so fast that it gave to the air a milky translucence through which bulked dimly an occasional traveler on the other thoroughfare. Penelope's eyes fixed themselves upon one of these vague shapes.

"Look, mother!" she exclaimed. "Do you see that man just turning the corner to come this way? It looks like Felix!"

"So it does!" the other cried.

They were both silent for a moment as they gazed intently at the dim figure, gaining definiteness now with each step toward them.

"It doesn't walk like him," Penelope commented, her face already showing that she knew it was not he. But the mother hung a little longer to her hope. "No, it isn't Felix," she presently acquiesced, disappointment evident in her gentle tones. "I so hoped it was, at first."

With a firm, rapid stride the young man was coming eagerly up the street, his eyes upon their house. "He doesn't walk at all like Felix," Penelope repeated thoughtfully as his figure became more plainly visible through the veiling snow, "but it's curious how much like him he looks, after all."

"See, Penelope!" the mother exclaimed, reaching out to grasp her daughter's hand in sudden enthusiasm. "See how he comes out of the snow mist! Isn't it just like a figure in a dream getting plainer and clearer, and more like life!"

Penelope pressed her mother's hand and smiled up at her fondly. "Just like you, mother, to make something pretty out of a disappointment!"

They gazed at the advancing figure with renewed interest and saw that the man, with slightly slackened pace, seemed to be closely observing their house and yard. What he saw was a one-story red cottage, needing paint, its green window shutters looking old and somewhat dilapidated, its yard, of ample size and dotted with trees and shrubbery, surrounded by a wooden fence in whose palings were occasional breaks and patches. It was a commonplace object in an ordinary winter scene, but he seemed to feel in it the deepest interest. There was even a frown on his brow as his alert glance rested on a broken pane in the kitchen window.

"It has been a long time since Felix was here--six months, hasn't it, mother?" said Penelope, leaning back wearily again as the stranger pa.s.sed from her range of vision.

"Hardly so long as that, dear. It was last fall. But, of course, he is very busy. He hasn't the time to travel around now and go visiting, even over here to see us, that he used to have, before he had begun to be so successful. We mustn't expect too much." As she spoke, her gentle tones as full of indulgence and excuse as her words, she moved to the front window and sought the figure of the stranger, now striding along the snow-covered sidewalk in front of her own yard.

"Penelope! He's coming here!" she exclaimed, starting back and dropping the muslin curtain she had pushed aside. "He's turning in at our gate! He does look like Felix--a little. Who can it be!"

Penelope bent forward to peer through the curtains and saw the man mounting the steps to their little veranda and stamping the snow from his feet. Instantly she wheeled her chair about and sped it into the adjoining room as her mother opened the door to their visitor.

"You are Mrs. Brand, I think? Felix Brand's mother?" he said. "I am a friend of his--my name is Hugh Gordon--and as I was coming to Philadelphia I promised him I would run out here and see you."

As they entered the living room his keen, dark eyes swept it alertly, as they had the exterior of the house. A shade of disappointment crossed his face.

"Your daughter?" he asked abruptly. "May I not see her, too?"

Mrs. Brand hesitated. The shyness of her girlhood years still lingered in her manner when in the presence of strangers, and she glanced at her visitor, then at the floor, and her hands fluttered about her lap. Gordon's face and eyes softened as he looked at her. There was something very sweet and appealing in the gentle diffidence of this little, plain, elderly woman.

"Penelope doesn't often see people--anyone, and she is very unwilling to meet strangers. Perhaps Felix told you--you know----"

"Yes, I know. I understand how she feels, but I want very much to see her. I know Felix well, and I know a good deal about her, enough to make me honor and admire her very much. Won't you tell her, please, that I came out here particularly to see you and her, and that I shall be much disappointed if I have to go back without meeting both of you?"

Penelope soon returned with her mother and both had many questions to ask concerning Felix. Was he well? Was he working harder than he ought? Was his new apartment very beautiful? Had Mr. Gordon seen the plans for the new monument with which he had won in the national compet.i.tion?

He used to send them photographs, Penelope said, but lately they knew little about his work unless they saw pictures of it in the newspapers.

But, indeed, they didn't expect so much attention from him now, her mother quickly added, for as his work increased and became of so much importance they understood how necessary it was for him to give it all his time and thought.

"It would really be selfish," she went on, "as I sometimes tell Penelope, to want him to spend time on us, writing long letters, or coming over here, when we know that his success depends upon his devoting all his energies to his work."

Penelope, silent and gazing out of the window, was conscious of Gordon's quick glance at her, and was conscious too of the appeal in her mother's wistful brown eyes, which she felt were turned upon her.

So many years these two had pa.s.sed in intimate companions.h.i.+p and in loving ministration on one side and utter dependence on the other, that spoken word was scarcely needed between them to make known the mood of each to the other.

In immediate response she turned, with a smile that lighted up her controlled, intellectual face, and said:

"Of course, we quite understand how occupied Felix is all the time, but that doesn't keep us from liking to know about him. So your visit, Mr. Gordon, is quite a G.o.dsend, and you mustn't be surprised that we ask you so many questions about Felix and want to know all about him and what he is doing."

Her voice was low, with rich notes in it, and her manner quite without self-consciousness. Notwithstanding her deformity and her secluded life, she betrayed neither shyness nor embarra.s.sment. In both manner and speech was the poise that is usually the result of much a.s.sociation with the world.

"Yes," Gordon was a.s.senting, "Felix has many irons in the fire, and he is planning to have more. But he thinks of you both, and you would be surprised to learn how much I know of you--through him." He rose and as he moved across the room to Penelope's chair he continued: "You, I know, Miss Brand, love the suns.h.i.+ne and the out-of-doors." He hesitated a moment and then went on, pouring out his words with a sort of abrupt eagerness:

"But I don't want to call you 'Miss Brand!' It doesn't seem as if I were talking to you. I feel as if I had known you so long that I want to call you 'Penelope,' as Felix does. Will you let me? You won't mind if I do? Oh, thank you! You are very kind to me, for I realize what a stranger I must seem to you, although I feel as if I had known you both such a long time. Well, then, Penelope," and he smiled and nodded at her, as he crossed the room to the front window and drew back the curtain, "how would you like to have one end of this porch enclosed with gla.s.s, so that you could sit out there with your wraps on, all winter, even on days like this, and feel almost as if you were out of doors? It wouldn't seem quite so shut in as the house, would it?"

She leaned back with a sigh and then smiled. "Yes, it would be pleasant. But it is now some years since I quit wis.h.i.+ng for the things I can't have."

"Ah, but you're going to have this," he exclaimed, his face beaming.

"Felix is preparing a little surprise for you, but he gave me permission to tell you about it."

The expression upon the faces of both women and their little exclamations told Gordon, as he glanced from one to the other, that their surprise was as great as their pleasure.

"Felix is going to have it done for you," he went on, "as soon as he returns. I forgot to tell you, and perhaps, as he went away rather unexpectedly, he didn't write you, that he was called out of the city a few days ago on pressing business. I saw him when he was leaving and I know you may expect to hear from him about the porch as soon as he returns. I'll tell him how pleased you are about it."

They gave him messages of grat.i.tude and love and the three of them discussed the little improvement with the intimacy of old friends.