From the Housetops Part 34

Lutie started. "You-you do not intend to object to my-" she began, and stopped short, her eyes searching Anne's for the answer to the uncompleted question.

"I am not your enemy," said Anne quietly. She hesitated and then lowered the hand that was extended to push the b.u.t.ton beside Simmy's door. "Before we go in, I think we would better understand each other, Lutie." She had never called the girl by her Christian name before. "I have nothing to apologise for. When you And George were married I did not care a pin, one way or the other. You meant nothing to me, and I am afraid that George meant but little more. I resented the fact that my mother had to give you a large sum of money. It was money that I could have used very nicely myself. Now that I look back upon it, I am frank to confess that therein lies the real secret of my animosity toward you. It didn't in the least matter to me whether George married you, or my mother's chambermaid, or the finest lady in the land. You will be surprised to learn that I looked upon myself as the one who was being very badly treated at the time. To put it rather plainly, I thought you were getting from my mother a great deal more than you were worth. Forgive me for speaking so frankly, but it is best that you should understand how I felt in those days so that you may credit me with sincerity now. I shall never admit that you deserved the thirty thousand dollars you took from us, but I now say that you were ent.i.tled to keep the man you loved and married. I don't care how unworthy you may have seemed to us, you should not have been compelled to take money for something you could not sell-the enduring love of that sick boy in there. My mother couldn't buy it, and you couldn't sell it. You have it still and always will have it, Lutie. I am glad that you have come to take care of him. You spoke of him as 'my husband' a moment ago. You were right. He _is_ your husband. I, for one, shall not oppose you in anything you may see fit to do. We do not appear to have been capable of preserving what you gave back to us-for better or for worse, if you please,-so I fancy we'd better turn the job over to you. I hope it isn't too late. I love my brother now. I suppose I have always loved him but I overlooked the fact in concentrating my affection on some one else,-and that some one was myself. You see I do not spare myself, Lutie, but you are not to a.s.sume that I am ashamed of the Anne Tresslyn who was. I petted and coddled her for years and I alone made her what she was, so I shall not turn against her now. There is a great deal of the old Anne in me still and I coddle her as much as ever. But I've found out something new about her that I never suspected before, and it is this new quality that speaks to you now. I ask you to try to forget, Lutie."

Throughout this long speech Lutie's eyes never left those of the tall young woman in black.

"Why do you call me Lutie?" she asked.

"Because it is my brother's name for you," said Anne.

Lutie lowered her eyes for an instant. A sharp struggle was taking place within her. She had failed to see in Anne's eyes the expression that would have made compromise impossible: the look of condescension. Instead, there was an anxious look there that could not be mistaken. She was in earnest.

She could be trusted. The old barrier was coming down. But even as her lips parted to utter the words that Anne wanted to hear, suspicion intervened and Lutie's sore, tried heart cried out:

"You have come here to _claim_ him! You expect me to stand aside and let you take him-"

"No, no! He is yours. I _did_ come to help him, to nurse him, to be a real sister to him, but-that was before I knew that you would come."

"I am sorry I spoke as I did," said Lutie, with a little catch in her voice. "I-I hope that we may become friends, Mrs. Thorpe. If that should come to pa.s.s, I-am sure that I could forget."

"And you will allow me to help-all that I can?"

"Yes." Then quickly, jealously: "But he _belongs_ to me. You must understand that, Mrs. Thorpe."

Anne drew closer and whispered in sudden admiration. "You are really a wonderful person, Lutie Carnahan. How _can_ you be so fine after all that you have endured?"

"I suppose it is because I too happen to love myself," said Lutie drily, and turned to press the b.u.t.ton. "We are all alike." Anne laid a hand upon her arm.

"Wait. You will meet my mother here. She has been notified. She has not forgiven you." There was a note of uneasiness in her voice.

Lutie looked at her in surprise. "And what has that to do with it?" she demanded.

Then they entered the apartment together.

CHAPTER XX

George Tresslyn pulled through.

He was a very sick man, and he wanted to die. That is to say, he wanted to die up to a certain point and then he very much wanted to live. Coming out of his delirium one day he made a most incredible discovery, and at that very instant entered upon a dream that was never to end. He saw Lutie sitting at his bedside and he knew that it must be a dream. As she did not fade away then, nor in all the mysterious days that followed, he came to the conclusion that if he ever did wake up it would be the most horrible thing that could happen to him. It was a most grateful and satisfying dream. It included a wonderful period of convalescence, a delightful and ever-increasing appet.i.te, a painless return voyage over a road that had been full of suffering on the way out, a fantastic experience in the matter of legs that wouldn't work and wobbled fearfully, a constant but properly subdued desire to sing and whistle-oh, it was a glorious dream that George was having!

For six weeks he was the uninvited guest of Simmy Dodge. Three of those weeks were terrifying to poor Simmy, and three abounded with the greatest joy he had ever known, for when George was safely round the corner and on the road to recovery, the hospitality of Simmy Dodge expanded to hitherto untried dimensions. Relieved of the weight that had pressed them down to an inconceivable depth, Simmy's spirits popped upward with an effervescence so violent that there was absolutely no containing them.

They flowed all over the place. All day long and most of the night they were active. He hated to go to bed for fear of missing an opportunity to do something to make everybody happy and comfortable, and he was up so early in the morning that if he hadn't been in his own house some one would have sent him back to bed with a reprimand.

He revelled in the establishment of a large though necessarily disconnected family circle. The nurses, the doctors, the extra servants, Anne's maid, Anne herself, the indomitable Lutie, and, on occasions, the impressive Mrs. Tresslyn,-all of these went to make up Simmy's family.

The nurses were politely domineering: they told him what he could do and what he could not do, and he obeyed them with a cheerfulness that must have shamed them. The doctors put all manner of restrictions upon him; the servants neglected to whisper when discussing their grievances among themselves; his French poodle was banished because canine hospitality was not one of the niceties, and furthermore it was most annoying to recent acquaintances engaged in balancing well-filled cups of broth in transit; his own luxurious bath-room was seized, his bed-chambers invested, his cosy living-room turned into a rest room which every one who happened to be disengaged by day or night felt free to inhabit. He had no privacy except that which was to be found in the little back bedroom into which he was summarily shunted when the occupation began, and he wasn't sure of being entirely at home there. At any time he expected a command to evacuate in favour of an extra nurse or a doctor's a.s.sistant. But through all of it, he shone like a gem of purest ray.

At the outset he realised that his apartment, commodious when reckoned as a bachelor's abode, was entirely inadequate when it came to accommodating a company of persons who were not and never could be bachelors. Lutie refused to leave George; and Anne, after a day or two, came to keep her company. It was then that Simmy began to reveal signs of rare strategical ability. He invaded the small apartment of his neighbour beyond the elevator and struck a bargain with him. The neighbour and his wife rented the apartment to him furnished for an indefinite period and went to Europe on the bonus that Simmy paid. Here Anne and her maid were housed, and here also Mrs. Tresslyn spent a few nights out of each week.

He studied the nurses' charts with an avid interest. He knew all there was to know about temperature, respiration and nourishment; and developing a sudden sort of lordly understanding therefrom, he harangued the engineer about the steam heat, he cautioned the superintendent about noises, and he held many futile arguments with G.o.d about the weather. Something told him a dozen times a day, however, that he was in the way, that he was "a regular Marceline," and that if Brady Thorpe had any sense at all he would order him out of the house!

He began to resent the speed with which George's convalescence was marked.

He was enjoying himself so immensely in his new environment that he hated to think of going back to the old and hitherto perfect order of existence.

When Braden Thorpe and Dr. Bates declared one day that George would be able to go home in a week or ten days, he experienced a surprising and absolutely inexplicable sinking of the heart. He tried to persuade them that it would be a mistake to send the poor fellow out inside of a month or six weeks. That was the trouble with doctors, he said: they haven't any sense. Suppose, he argued, that George were to catch a cold-why, the damp, spring weather would raise the d.i.c.kens-Anne's house was a drafty old barn of a place, improperly heated,-and any fool could see that if George _did_ have a relapse it would go mighty hard with him. Subsequently he sounded the nurses, severally, on the advisability of abandoning the poor, weak young fellow before he was safely out of the woods, and the nurses, who were tired of the case, informed him that the way George was eating he soon would be as robust as a dock hand. An appeal to Mrs. Tresslyn brought a certain degree of hope. That lady declared, quite bitterly, that inasmuch as her son did not seem inclined to return to _her_ home he might do a great deal worse than to remain where he was, and it was some time before Simmy grasped the full significance of the remark.

He remembered hearing Lutie say that she was going to take George home with her as soon as he was able to be moved!

What was he to do with himself after all these people were gone? For the first time in his life he really knew what it meant to have a home, and now it was to be broken up. He saw more of his home in the five or six weeks that George was there than he had seen of it all told in years. He stayed at home instead of going to the club or the theatre or to stupid dinner parties. He hadn't the faintest idea that a place where a fellow did nothing but sleep and eat bacon and eggs could be looked upon as a "home." He had thought of it only as an apartment, or "diggings." Now he loved his home and everything that was in it. How he would miss the stealthy blue linen nurses, and the expressionless doctors, and the odour of broths and soups, and the scent of roses, and the swish of petticoats, and the elevating presence of pretty women, and the fragrance of them, and the sweet chatter of them-Oh my, oh me-oh-my! If George would only get well in a more leisurely fas.h.i.+on!

Certain interesting events, each having considerable bearing upon the lives of the various persons presented in this narrative, are to be chronicled, but as briefly as possible so that we may get on to the results.

Naturally one turns first to the patient himself. He was the magnet that drew the various opposing forces together and, in a way, united them in a common enterprise, and therefore is of first importance. For days his life hung in the balance. Most of the time he was completely out of his head.

It has been remarked that he thought himself to be dreaming when he first beheld Lutie at his bedside, and it now becomes necessary to report an entirely different sensation when he came to realise that he was being attended by Dr. Thorpe. The instant he discovered Lutie he manifested an immense desire to live, and it was this desire that sustained a fearful shock when his fever-free eyes looked up into the face of his doctor.

Terror filled his soul. Almost his first rational words were in the form of a half-whispered question: "For G.o.d's sake, can't I get well? Is-is it hopeless?"

Braden was never to forget the anguish in the sick man's eyes, nor the sagging of his limp body as if all of his remaining strength had given way before the ghastly fear that a.s.sailed him. Thorpe understood. He knew what it was that flashed through George's brain in that first moment of intelligence. His heart sank. Was it always to be like this? Were people to live in dread of him? His voice was husky as he leaned over and laid his hand gently upon the damp brow of the invalid.

"You are going to get well, George. You will be as sound as a rock in no time at all. Trust me, old fellow,-and don't worry."

"But that's what they always say," whispered George, peering straight into the other's eyes. "Doctors always say that. What are you doing here, Brady? Why have you been called in to-"

"Hus.h.!.+ You're all right. Don't get excited. I have been with you from the start. Ask Lutie-or Anne. They will tell you that you are all right."

"I don't want to die," whined George. "I only want a fair chance. Give me a chance, Brady. I'll show you that I-"

"My G.o.d!" fell in agonised tones from Thorpe's lips, and he turned away as one condemned.

When Lutie and Anne came into the room soon afterward, they found George in a state of great distress. He clutched Lutie's hand in his strong fingers and drew her down close to him so that he could whisper furtively in her ear.

"Don't let any one convince you that I haven't a chance to get well, Lutie. Don't let him talk you into anything like that. I won't give my consent, Lutie,-I swear to G.o.d I won't. He can't do it without my consent.

I've just got to get well. I can do it if I get half a chance. I depend on you to stand out against any-"

Lutie managed to quiet him. Thorpe had gone at once to her with the story and she was prepared. For a long time she talked to the frightened boy, and at last he sank back with a weak smile on his lips, confidence partially restored.

Anne stood at the head of the bed, out of his range of vision. Her heart was cold within her. It ached for the other man who suffered and could not cry out. _This_ was but the beginning for him.

In a day or two George's att.i.tude toward Braden underwent a complete change, but all the warmth of his enthusiastic devotion could not drive out the chill that had entered Thorpe's heart on that never-to-be- forgotten morning.

Then there were the frequent and unavoidable meetings of Anne and her former lover. For the better part of three weeks Thorpe occupied a room in Simmy's apartment, to be constantly near his one and only patient. He suffered no pecuniary loss in devoting all of his time and energy to young Tresslyn. Ostensibly he was in full charge of the case, but in reality he deferred to the opinions and advice of Dr. Bates, who came once a day. He had the good sense to appreciate his own lack of experience, and thereby earned the respect and confidence of the old pract.i.tioner.

It was quite natural that he and Anne should come in contact with each other. They met in the sick-room, in the drawing-room, and frequently at table. There were times during the darkest hours in George's illness when they stood side by side in the watches of the night. But not once in all those days was there a word bearing on their own peculiar relations.h.i.+p uttered by either of them. It was plain that she had the greatest confidence in him, and he came, ere long, to regard her as a dependable and inspired help. Unlike the distracted, remorseful Lutie, she was the source of great inspiration to those who worked over the sick man. Thorpe marvelled at first and then fell into the way of resorting to her for support and encouragement. He had discovered that she was not playing a game.

Templeton Thorpe's amazing will was not mentioned by either of them, although each knew that the subject lay uppermost in the mind of the other. The newspapers printed columns about the instrument. Reporters who laid in wait for Braden Thorpe, however, obtained no satisfaction. He had nothing to say. The same reporters fell upon Anne and wanted to know when she expected to start proceedings to have the will set aside. They seemed astonished to hear that there was to be no contest on her part. She could not tell them anything about the plans or intentions of Dr. Thorpe, and she had no opinion as to the ultimate effect of the "Foundation" upon the Const.i.tution of the United States or the laws of G.o.d!

As a matter of fact, she was more eager than any one else to know the stand that Braden intended to take on the all-absorbing question.

Notwithstanding her peculiar position as executrix of the will under which the conditions were created, she could not bring herself to the point of discussing the salient feature of the doc.u.ment with him. And so there the matter stood, unmentioned by either of them, and absolutely unsettled so far as the man most deeply involved was concerned.