From the Housetops Part 24

"Simmy's on the lookout," said George. "He'll let us know."

"Be patient, my dear," said Mrs. Tresslyn, wiping a fine moisture from her upper lip, where it had appeared with Anne's astounding observation. "You will not have to wait much longer. Be-"

Anne faced her, an unmistakable sneer on her lips. "I'm used to waiting,"

she said huskily.

"She has waited a year and more," said George aggressively, glowering at his mother. It was a significant but singularly unhappy remark.

For the first time in their lives, they saw their mother in tears. It was so incomprehensible that at first both Anne and her brother laughed, not in mirth, but because they were so stupefied that they did not know what they were doing, and laughter was the simplest means of expressing an acute sense of embarra.s.sment. Then they stood aloof and watched the amazing exposition, fascinated, unbelieving. It did not occur to either of them to go to the side of this sobbing woman whose eyes had always been dry and cold, this mother who had wiped away their tears a hundred times and more with dainty lace handkerchiefs not unlike the one she now pressed so tightly to her own wet cheeks. They could not understand this thing happening to her. They could not believe that after all their mother possessed the power to shed tears, to sob as other women do, to choke and snivel softly, to blubber inelegantly; they had always looked upon her as proof against emotion. Their mother was crying! Her back was toward them, evidence of a new weakness in her armour. It shook with the effort she made to control the cowardly spasmodic sobs. And why was she in tears?

What had brought this amazing thing to pa.s.s? What right had she to cry?

They watched her stupidly as she walked away from them toward the window.

They were not unfeeling; they simply did not know how to act in the face of this marvel. They looked at each other in bewilderment. What had happened? Only the moment before she had been as cold and as magnificently composed as ever she had been, and now! Now she was like other people. She had come down to the level of the utterly commonplace. She was just a plain, ordinary woman. It was unbelievable.

They did not feel sorry for her. A second time, no doubt, would find them humanly sympathetic, troubled, distressed, but this first time they could only wonder, they could only doubt their senses. It would have been most offensive in them to have let her see they noticed anything unusual in her behaviour. At least that is the way they felt about it in their failure to understand.

For five minutes Mrs. Tresslyn stood with her back to them. Gradually the illy-stifled sobs subsided and, as they still looked on curiously, the convulsive heaving of her shoulders grew less perceptible, finally ceasing altogether. Her tall figure straightened to its full, regal height; her chin went up to its normal position; her wet handkerchief was stuffed, with dignified deliberateness, into the gold mesh bag. A minute more to prove that she had completely mastered her emotions, and then she faced her children. It was as if nothing had happened. She was the calm and imperious mother they had always known. Involuntarily, Anne uttered a deep sigh of relief. George blinked his eyes and also fell to wondering if they had served him honestly, or if, on the other hand, he too had merely imagined something incredible.

They did not question her. The incident was closed. They were never to ask her why she had wept in their presence. They were never to know what had moved her to tears. Instinctively and quite naturally they shrank from the closer intimacy that such a course would involve. Their mother was herself once more. She was no longer like other women. They could not be in touch with her. And so they were never to know why she had cried. They only knew that for a brief s.p.a.ce she had been as silly as any ordinary mortal could be, and they were rather glad to have caught her at it.

Years afterward, however, George was to say to Anne: "Queer thing, wasn't it, that time she cried? Do you remember?" And Anne was to reply: "I've never forgotten it. It _was_ queer."

Nor did Mrs. Tresslyn offer the slightest explanation for her conduct. She did not even smile shamefacedly, as any one else certainly would have done in apology. She was, however, vaguely pleased with her children. They had behaved splendidly. They were made of the right stuff, after all! She had not been humbled.

Apathy was restored. George slumped down in his chair and set his jaws hard. Mrs. Tresslyn glanced idly through the pages of a magazine, while Anne, taking up her position once more at the window, allowed her thoughts to slip back into the inevitable groove. They were not centred upon Templeton Thorpe as an object of pity but as a subject for speculation: she was thinking of the thing that Braden was doing, and of his part in this life and death affair. She was trying to picture him up there in that glaring little room cutting the life out of a fellow creature under the very eyes of the world.

The door was opened swiftly but softly. Simmy Dodge, white as a sheet, came into the room.... Mrs. Tresslyn went over to the window, where Anne was sitting, white and dry-eyed.

"It is no more than we expected, dear," said she quietly. "He had no chance. You were prepared. It is all over. You ought to be thankful that his sufferings are over. He-"

Anne was not listening. She broke in with a question to Simmy.

"What was it that you said happened while you were in the room? Before the ether, I mean. Tell me again,-and slowly."

Simmy cleared his throat. It was very tight and dry. He was now afraid of death.

"It was awfully affecting," he said, wiping the moisture from his brow.

"Awfully. That young interne fellow told me about it. Just before they gave the ether, Mr. Thorpe shook hands with Brady. He was smiling. They all heard him say 'Good-bye, my boy,-and thank you.' And Brady leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. The chap couldn't quite hear, but says he thinks he whispered, 'Good-bye, granddaddy.' Awfully affecting scene-"

"'Good-bye, granddaddy,'" Anne repeated, dully. Then she covered her eyes with her hands.

Simmy fidgeted. He wanted to help, but felt oddly that he was very much out of place. George's big hand gripped his arm. At any other time he would have winced with pain, but now he had no thought for himself.

Moreover, there was something wonderfully sustaining in the powerful hand that had been laid upon his.

"She ought not to take it so hard, George," he began.

"They told you he never came out of the anaesthetic," said George, in a half-whisper. "Just died-like that?"

"That's what he said. Little chap with blond hair and nose-gla.s.ses. You remember seeing him-Yes, he told me. He was in there. Saw it all. Gosh, I don't see how they can do it. This fellow seemed to be very much upset, at that. He looked scared. I say, George, do you know what the pylorus is?"

"Pylorus? No."

"I wish I knew. This fellow seemed to think that Brady made some sort of a mistake. He wouldn't say much, however. Some sort of a slip, I gathered.

Something to do with the pylorus, I know. It must be a vital spot."

CHAPTER XV

The day after the funeral, George Tresslyn called to see his sister. He found that it required a new sort of courage on his part to enter the house, even after his hesitation about pressing the door-bell. He was not afraid of any living man, and yet he was oppressed by the uncanny fear that Templeton Thorpe was still alive and waiting somewhere in the dark old house, ready to impose further demands upon his cupidity. The young man was none too steady beforehand, and now he was actually shaking. When Murray opened the door, he was confronted by an extremely pallid visitor who shot a furtive look over his head and down the hall before inquiring whether Mrs. Thorpe was at home.

"She is, Mr. George," said Murray. "You telephoned half an hour ago, sir."

"So I did," said George nervously. He was not offended by Murray's obvious comment upon his unstable condition, for he knew-even though Murray did not-that no drop of liquor had pa.s.sed his lips in four days.

"Mrs. Thorpe is expecting you."

"Is she alone, Murray?"

"Yes, sir. Would you mind stepping inside, sir? It's a raw wind that is blowing. I think I must have taken a bit of a cold yesterday during-ahem!

Thank you, sir. I will tell Mrs. Thorpe that you are here." Murray was rather testy. He had been imbibing.

George s.h.i.+vered. "I say, Murray, would you mind giving me a drop of something to warm me up? I-"

The butler regarded him fixedly, even severely. "You have had quite enough already, sir," he said firmly, but politely.

"Oh, come now! I haven't had a drink in G.o.d knows how long. I-but never mind! If that's the way you feel about it, I withdraw my request. Keep your darned old brandy. But let me tell you one thing, Murray; I don't like your impertinence. Just remember that, will you?"

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Murray, unoffended. He was seeing with a clearer vision. "You are ill. I mistook it for-"

"No, I'm not ill. And I'll forgive you, too, Murray," he added impulsively. "I daresay you were justified. My fame has preceded me. Tell Mrs. Thorpe I'm here, will you? Run along; the decanter is quite safe."

A few minutes later he was ushered into Anne's sitting-room upstairs. He stopped short just inside the door, struck by the pallor, the haggardness of his sister's face.

"Oh, I say, Anne!" he exclaimed. "You're not taking it so hard as all this, I hope. My Lord, girlie, you look-you look-why, you can't possibly feel like this about him. What the deuce are-"

"Close the door, George," she commanded. Her voice sounded hollow, lifeless to him. She was sitting bolt upright on the huge, comfortable couch in front of the grate fire. He had dreaded seeing her in black. She had worn it the day before. He remembered that she had worn more of it than seemed necessary to him. It had made her appear clumsy and over-fed.

He was immensely relieved to find that she now wore a rose-coloured pignoir, and that it was wrapped very closely about her slim, long figure, as if she were afflicted by the cold and was futilely trying to protect her s.h.i.+vering flesh. He shuffled across the room and sat down beside her.

"I'm glad you came. It is-oh, it is horribly lonely here in this dreadful house. You-"

"Hasn't mother been down to see you?" he demanded. "She ought to be here.

You need her. Confound it, Anne, what sort of a woman is-"

"Hus.h.!.+ She telephoned. I said that I preferred to be alone. But I'm glad you came, George." She laid her hand on his. "You are able to feel sorry for me. Mother isn't."

"You're looking awfully seedy, Anne. I still say she ought to be here to look after you. It's her place."