Up The Hill And Over Part 57

Esther murmured something indistinguishable and Miss Annabel departed much pleased with her own perspicacity. And she did help. She let it be known at the Ladies' Aid that she quite understood Esther and approved of her. After all, it was senseless to run away from trouble since trouble can run so much faster. And it was natural and right of Esther to feel that nowhere could she find so much sympathy and consideration as in her own town. Travelling was fatiguing anyway.

As for the school, that was easily arranged. A little discreet wire pulling and Esther was once more established as school mistress of District Number Fifteen. People shook their heads, but by the time of the first snowstorm they had ceased to prophesy nervous prostration, and by the time sleighing was fairly established they were ready to admit that the girl had acted sensibly after all.

No one guessed that there was another reason for Esther's refusal to go away. It was a simple reason and had to do with the fact that in Coombe the mails were sure and regular. Travellers miss letters and strange addresses are uncertain at best, but in Coombe there was small chance of any untoward accident befalling a certain weekly letter in the handwriting of Professor Willits. Esther lived upon these letters. Brief and dry though they were, they formed the motive power of her life and indeed it was from one of them that she had received the impetus which roused her from her first trance of grief and horror.

"My dear young lady (Willits had written).

"I believe that there are times when the truth is a good thing. It might be tactful to pretend that I do not know the real reason of Calendar's collapse but it would also be foolish. I think he is going to pull through. Now the question is--how about you? Are you going to be able to do your part?

"Let me be more explicit. It may be a long time before our friend is thoroughly re-established in health but it is quite probable that he will be well enough, and determined enough, to face some of his problems in the spring. He will turn to you. Are you going to be able to help him? When he comes to you will he find a silly, nervous girl, all horrors and regrets and useless might-have-beens or will he find you strong and sane, healthily poised, ready to face the future and let the dead past go? For the past is dead--believe me!

"You have seemed to me to be an excellently normal young person, but no doubt the shock and trouble of late events have done much to disturb your normality. Can you get it back? On the answer to that, depends Callandar's future. I shall keep you informed, weekly, of his progress."

Esther had thought deeply over this letter. Its brief, stern truth was exactly the tonic she needed. Like a strong hand it reached down into her direful pit of morbid musings, and, clinging to it, she struggled back into the sunlight. Above all and in spite of everything, she must not fail the man she loved!

At first she had to fight with terrors. She feared she knew not what.

The vision of Mary upon the bed, still and ghastly in the golden light of morning, came back to shake her heart. The memory of Callandar's face, of the frantic struggle to drag the dead woman back to life, made many a night hideous. The endless questioning, Could it have been prevented? Could I have done more? tortured her, but by and by, as she faced them bravely, these terrors lost their baleful power. Her youth and common-sense triumphed.

The school helped. One cannot continue very morbid with a roomful of happy, noisy children to teach and keep in order. Jane's need of her helped, for she, dared not give way to brooding when the child was near. Aunt Amy helped--perhaps most of all. She was a constant wonder to the girl, so cheerful was she, so thoughtful of others, so forgetful of herself. Her little fancies seemed to have ceased to fret her, there was a new peace in her faded eyes. Sometimes as she went about the house she would sing a little, in a high thready voice, bits from songs that were popular in her youth. "The Blue Alsatian Mountains" or "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" or "Darling Nellie Grey." She told Esther that it was because she felt "safe." "The blackness hardly ever comes now,"

she said. "I don't think 'They' will bother me any more."

"Why?" asked Esther, curious.

But Aunt Amy did not seem to know why--or if she knew she never told.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

A robin hopped upon the window sill of School-house Number Fifteen and peered cautiously into the room. He had no business there during lesson hours and the arrival of Mary's little lamb could not have been more disturbing. The children whispered, fidgeted, shuffled their feet and banged their slates.

"Perhaps they do not know it is spring," thought the robin and ruffling his red breast and swelling his throat he began to tell them.

"It is spring! It is spring! It is spring!"

The effect was electrical. Even the tall young teacher turned from her rows of figures on the blackboard.

"Come out! come out! come out!" sang the robin.

The teacher tapped sharply for order and the robin flew away. But the mischief was done. It was useless to tell them, "Only ten minutes more."

Ten minutes--as well say ten years. The little fat boy in the front seat began to cry. A long sigh pa.s.sed over the room. Ten minutes? The teacher consulted her watch, hesitated, and was lost.

"Close books," she ordered. "Attention. Ready--March." The jostling lines scrambled in some kind of order to the door and then broke into joyous riot. It was spring--and school was out!

Their teacher followed more slowly, pausing on the steps to breathe long and deeply the sweet spring air. In a corner by the steps there was still a tiny heap of shrinking snow, but in the open, the gra.s.s was green as emerald, violets and wind flowers pushed through the tangle of last year's leaves. The trees seemed shrouded in a fairy mist of green.

Robins were everywhere.

The girl upon the steps was herself a vision of spring--the embodiment of youth and beautiful life. Coombe folks admitted that Esther Coombe had "got back her looks." Had they been less cautious they might have said much more, for the subtle change which had come to Esther, the change which marks the birth of womanhood, had left her infinitely more lovely.

From the pocket of the light coat she wore she brought forth a handful of crumbs and scattered them for the saucy robins and then, unwilling to hasten, sat down upon the steps to watch their cheerful wrangling.

Peeling for more crumbs she drew out a letter--a single sheet covered with the crabbed handwriting of Professor Willits. At sight of it a soft flush stole over her face. She forgot the crumbs and the robins for, although her letter was two days old and she knew exactly what it contained, the very sight of the written words was joy to her. Like all Willits' notes it was short and to the point.

"Our friend has gone," she read. "We wanted to keep him for a month yet, but the robins called too loudly. He left no word of his destination, only a strange note saying that at last he was up the hill and over. May he find happiness, dear lady, on the other side."

One thing I notice--this recovery of his is different from his former recovery. If I were not afraid of lapsing into sentiment, I should say that he has achieved a soul cure. The morbid spot which troubled him so long is healed. A psychologist might explain it, but you and I must accept the result and be thankful. It is as if his subconscious self had removed a barrier and signalled 'Line clear--go ahead.' It is more than I had ever dared to hope.

Your friend, E.P. Willits.

"P.S.: Are you ready?"

Esther looked at the postscript and smiled--that slow smile which lifted the corner of her lips so deliciously.

"May we wait for you, Teacher?"

"Not to-day, dears."

The children moved regretfully away. Presently the school yard was deserted. The busy robins had finished quarrelling over their crumbs and were holding a caucus around the red pump. In the quietness could be heard the gurgle of the spring rivulets on the hill.

Was there another sound on the hill, too? A far off whistling mingled with the gurgling water and twittering birds? Esther's hand tightened upon the letter--she leaned forward, listening intently. How loud the birds were! How confusing the sound of water! But now she caught the whistling again--

"_From Wimbleton to Wombleton is fifteen miles_"--

The familiar words formed themselves upon the girl's lips before the message of the tune reached her brain and brought her, breathless, to her feet. He was coming--so soon!

Panic seized her. Her hand flew to her heart--she would hide in the school-room, anywhere! Then she remembered Willits' postscript, the postscript which she had thought so needless. Her hand fell to her side.

The panic died. Next moment, head high and eyes smiling, she walked down to the gate.

He was coming along the road under the budding elms--hatless, carrying a knapsack. His tweeds were splashed with mud from the spring roads, his face was thin, his hair was almost grey. Yet he came on like a conqueror and there was nothing old or tired in the bound wherewith he leaped the gate he would not pause to open.

"Esther!"

She looked up into his eyes and found them shadowless. Her own eyes veiled themselves,

Neither found anything to say.

But overhead a robin burst into heavenly song.