A Pasteboard Crown Part 6

She was pa.s.sionately portraying their hopeless, friendless state, when he turned restlessly in his chair, and murmured: "Why doesn't Lena light the gas--the house looks so dreary?"

"Why? why?" cried Sybil. "Why, because there is no gas to light. The bill was not paid to-day! Oh! see--see, dear! Something _must_ be done!

And I'm the only one to do it, you know that!"

Faintly a groaned "Oh, G.o.d! Oh, G.o.d!" came to her ear, and she cried: "Don't misunderstand! Oh, dada, don't! There was no reproach in that! I only mean I'm so well and strong I ought to help, at least, myself!"

"It's a hard life," he whispered.

"No harder for me than for other girls," she answered.

"You might fail--you might, you know?"

"Even so," responded Sybil, "it would be more brave, more honorable to try and fail than not to try at all, but be content to cling like a parasitical growth to you and mamma, stealing from your vitality!"

He turned his pale face to her, and said: "There speaks my father, through your lips. The courage, the spirit, that pa.s.sed by me reappears in you, a girl!" Again he turned away, and silence fell. She had reasoned, argued, entreated. Had it all been in vain? she asked herself.

At last she faltered: "Dada, are you going to refuse your consent? Shall you forbid me?"

He turned upon her in a white pa.s.sion of misery: "Refuse you? Forbid you? What right have I to forbid anything? Fathers who bring honor to the family name, who support, shelter, and protect their children, have earned the right to guide them--to forbid them for their good! But what right have I? My father gave me a fortune--I was too weak to hold it!

G.o.d gave me daughters, and I am too weak to protect them!" His head fell upon his breast, he extended his trembling old hands to her, and abjectly murmured: "Pardon me, my daughter! pardon me!"

In an instant his shamed old face was resting above the high-beating young heart of his child. She smoothed back the silvery hair from his lined brow, and said, imperatively: "Dada, answer me this one question, and we will have done. Answer truly! Do you believe there is a father, great, strong, rich, influential, in this city to-night who is more truly, reverently loved than you are? Tell me!"

And the old man answered: "No! no! Though I have lost everything else in the world, my children's love remains to me. That is the one sweet drop left in the bottom of the cup! It is compensation, daughter, it is compensation!"

Sybil rested her cheek upon his head, and crooned over him as though he were a sick child, until the young summer night lifted her mighty silver s.h.i.+eld high above the grewsome black trees, then a peevish voice from above called: "Sybil! John! What are you mooning over down there? Why on earth don't you come in out of the damp? The quinine bottle's more than half empty now! No one ever seems to consider ways and means in this house unless I do! And John, this room's full of all sorts of flopping, flying things! They've put the candle out twice, and you ought to come up here and try and chase 'em away! Besides, I--I don't want you two down there, anyway!"

John answered, obediently, "Yes, Let.i.tia!" But Sybil laughed a short laugh, and said: "The wasp carries his sting in his tail, and the pith of mamma's remarks are generally found at their end. No, she doesn't want us two down here anyway! Papa, I knew mamma was jealous of me when I was only as high as your knee, and----"

But her father put his finger on her lip, saying: "Don't, daughter; it is not a gracious thing to speak of a mother's faults."

And Sybil said, hastily: "I beg your pardon, papa!" Then, as they rose, she put her hands on his shoulders and asked, very prettily: "Papa, will you not in so many words give me your permission to try for a position on the stage? Miss Morrell will not move an inch without it."

"She is a good woman, an honest woman!" he said. Then he put his hand under Sybil's chin and, lifting her face to the moonlight, looked steadily at her a long moment, sighed heavily, and answered: "Since you are so determined, dear, yes, you may tell Miss Morrell you are acting with my permission in seeking to enter her profession." And he put her quickly from him and went slowly into the house, stumbling up the stairs in the darkness.

And Sybil lifted her arms above her head, stretching her hands up toward the moon in a very ecstasy of joy. "Oh," she whispered, "_am_ I to escape from this 'slough of despond'--_am_ I to have my chance in life?

Perhaps I may become successful, happy?"

And right across her smiling, upturned face a hideous creature of the night flew so low, so near, one leathery wing touched her loosened hair.

She flung her hands across her face with a startled cry, then laughed a little tremulously, saying: "B-r-r-r! a bat--ugh! How I loathe them!

I--I think I'll go in" and she entered the house, closing and with some difficulty locking the door in the darkness.

As she reached the top step of the stairs a door opened, and Mrs. Lawton in her undress uniform of mind as well as body, a guttering candle held high above her head, stood enframed in the doorway--Mrs. Lawton in night-dress and knitted bedroom slippers, but without her upper teeth, without her thick switch of hair, without her rosy bloom of rouge vinaigre; and without all these things it was surprising how little there seemed to be left of the every-day familiar Let.i.tia Lawton.

Looking at the small, sleek head; the pallid, sunken face; the flattened figure--Sybil thought, rather wickedly: "This is a sort of skeleton mamma. I wonder if papa would like to put her in the closet?"

But the lady was addressing her querulously: "Oh, you have decided it to be worth while to follow a mother's suggestion, and come into the house at last? In former days I could have called in a doctor for every chill in the family, even for the servants--though, to tell the truth, servants rarely have real hearty chills; indeed, I doubt their ability to contract genuine malaria. It's a mere desire to imitate their employers. But now that your poor father has lost everything--that is, everything except his good name [with a stinging look at Sybil, which, that young person understood perfectly]--I can only defend the health of my family with the quinine bottle, and I do think you and your father might have held your secret consultation inside the house. I'm sure neither Dorothy nor I would have tried to pry!"

"Oh, mamma!" indignantly exclaimed Sybil, "you know what I was asking of papa!"

"I know!" broke in Mrs. Lawton, "that you were twisting him about your little finger, as you usually do. It is not for a father to decide a girl's destiny, without even asking the mother's advice. You two have connived together, I believe, with that Morrell woman, who has not even called upon the mother she would rob! But remember this--the house that is divided against itself goes to the wall, or--er falls, or something; and how you can stand and laugh at the mother that bore you is more than I can understand! Your Grandmother Ba.s.sett never received such treatment from me--I know that! But you and your father may think everything is safely settled, and you as good as on the stage; but let me tell you I am not quite helpless in this matter. There is still one link between me and the life of ease and luxury and beauty I once knew! You seem to forget you have a G.o.d-mother--though how you can forget the only human being who has been able to give you presents for ten long years, I don't know! But you have a G.o.d-mother, and Sybil Van Camp has at least enough of her fortune left to merit our respect! Oh, you need not pout! Down you go to-morrow to Mrs. Van Camp, and if she sees no shame in spreading the name of Lawton all over New York, well and good! She was a power in her day. I nearly fainted from joy and pride when she consented to stand G.o.d-mother to you! You don't like to trouble her--very private matter? I wish it was a private matter. As for trouble, didn't she vow in church to become your surety and see that you renounced things and--ah, well, what's a G.o.d-mother for if she don't take some responsibility? Anyway, you go on to no stage without Mrs. Van Camp's consent, nor without proper social amenities being extended to your mother!

"And Sybil, I simply _can't_ be kept standing here all night in my state of health! Of course, dear, I am interested in all your plans, but it would have been more thoughtful had you waited till morning to talk them over. But that's where you take after your poor father in a certain unpremeditated selfishness--unpremeditated, I admit, for he's a gentleman and you've had the upbringing of a lady--though you are deprived of the surroundings of one, but through no fault of yours or mine! John!"--turning sharply to peer into the darkness behind her--"what are you groaning about, I'd like to know? It's my legs and back that are bearing the fatigue of this interview. I saw you took good care to loll comfortably through your talk with Sybil. So why you should groan now, I don't know, unless you've hit your bunion on the frame of the sewing-machine again, and you generally swear a little when you do that. Sybil, I'm fairly worn out in mind as well as body, and you tore your veil the other day, didn't you? Cheap lace always goes that way.

There was a time when my veils made people turn around to look at them.

I had one with a border of grapes and vines, I remember; I am always an honest woman, and as the border had the effect of cutting off one's chin, I can't pretend it was becoming--but, my dear, it cost thirty dollars, as I'm a living woman! But you can wear my net veil to-morrow, and you will have to take Dorothy with you, for I shall be utterly used up and unable to chaperon you; though once they get you upon the stage, I suppose you'll go prancing about without attendance of any sort. But until that time, you will show some respect to social conventions.

Good-night, Sybil! Take a quinine pill before you go to bed. You have advanced me well upon my way to the grave this day. But I can't forget you are my child, and if you should get a chill, you couldn't go down to Mrs. Van Camp, who will probably put an estoppel upon these theatre plans of yours. Yes, yes! John! I'm coming! It does seem that I might be allowed to speak a few words of advice and caution to my own daughter without interruption every moment or two!"

And profiting by the momentary diversion, Sybil flew past her mother to the room she shared with her sister. Dorothy had placed the candle high on a small bracket that held their shabby little hymnals and prayer-books, and as Sybil entered she saw directly before her the young girl on her knees at the bedside praying. The light fell upon her uplifted, happy face, making a faint aureole in the bright hair that at the back fell in a long queue. A tenderness came into Sybil's eyes, but as they fell upon the upturned soles of Dorrie's feet from beneath the night-dress, rising mischief triumphed. She looked at the pink round heels, at the whiteness of the hollows, and then the pinkness again across the b.a.l.l.s of the little trotters; and, resisting not a moment, stooped and drawing her finger zig-zag across them both, produced a wild lash out, a startled: "Oh! ouch!--for ever and ever--Amen! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Syb!"

And before d.i.c.k could pull his head out from beneath his wing and set it in the right direction, the bed was pillowless; those useful articles serving as ammunition in the battle royal raging gloriously between the dressed and the undressed, while happily neither one guessed they were bidding farewell to childish romps in this, their last great pillow fight.

And across the hall the subdued John bowed in silence, and allowed the conquering Let.i.tia to place her foot a little more firmly upon his neck.

The light had gone out, 'tis true; yet, as the victorious one could talk on perfectly well in the dark, it was nothing short of a merciful dispensation that permitted meek and conquered John, under cover of the darkness, to sleep--sleep quietly, almost attentively, thus escaping actual madness. For as constant dropping weareth away a stone, so constant talking weareth away the listener's brain!

CHAPTER IX

THE ACCIDENT--A FRIEND IN NEED

Early the next morning the girls prepared for their ride cityward, for, though their sharp young eyes saw Mrs. Lawton's follies and her faults; though they writhed under her despairing lamentations and blushed at her outrageous boastings--perhaps because they were guiltily conscious of sitting in judgment upon their mother--they yielded her prompt obedience whenever she gave a command.

Mr. Lawton elected to walk with them to the station, and Lena, on her way upstairs to the "frau mistress," bearing on a tray a breakfast of simple material but of amazing size, nodded and smiled, and with unconscious impertinence commented upon their looks, declaring with hearty admiration that they were "youst lofely right away down to der ground!"

Dorothy laughed and said, "Take good care of mamma, Lena!"

And that handmaiden glanced down at the stack of b.u.t.tered toast and the eggs and young home-raised onions, and made answer with a droll not to say sly look in her light blue eye: "Oh, ja! I make goot care mit her, my Miss Ladies--und ven she eat all dese breakfas', she'll be all right, uf she don't be vorse!" And away she went up the groaning stairs with the odor of coffee trailing behind her.

When the three had reached the little station that like a hen covering her brood nestles low at the very foot of the hill, with the glistening metal rails pa.s.sing on one side and the glittering, dimpling, rippling river flowing by on the other, John Lawton lifted his hat and kissed his daughters good-by with the careful courtesy habitual with him, and holding Sybil's hand a moment he said: "I--I shall walk over to The Beeches to-day, dear----"

"Papa!" exclaimed the girl.

"Yes," he went on; "I shall make my acknowledgments to Miss Morrell. You think she did a fine thing when she sympathized with and promised to help you, but she did a finer thing when she refused to ignore the parents--the old people, who are generally pushed to the wall in such cases. I shall thank her for her consideration, and----" but the roar of the approaching train sent the girls scurrying through the little waiting-room out to the platform and into the car. A pair of kisses were waved, and they had lost sight of the tall, slender, old gentleman.

And Sybil, as she sank into the seat beside Dorothy, exclaimed: "Is he not a dear? Is it not wonderful that this sordid poverty has not made him selfish, narrow-minded, sullen? Poor papa! Do you know, Dorrie, I'm afraid he suffers more than we imagine!"

"Oh!" cried Dorothy, "don't say that! I always thought papa was almost contented with things, except on our birthdays! But now we must love him more than ever, Sybbie!"

And to drive away the anxious look from her sister's eyes, Sybil called attention to the odd appearance of the car, which was almost filled with gentlemen, and remarked, laughingly: "We have taken what mamma calls 'the busy man's train.' They are a sociable lot, are they not--every man-jack of them with his nose in his paper, and a nice little wrinkle between his puckered brows?"

"That's from trying to get and keep the proper focus," laughed Dorrie, who added: "I've a five-cent nickel in my pocketbook, and I'll give it to you, Syb, if you can learn the color of a single pair of eyes in this car--barring mine, of course."

"Well, the nickel must be plugged or you wouldn't have it, so I'm not losing much; but, oh! after all, I may win it--plug and all! One male creature has eyes, for he has lifted them, and they are--are! Pa.s.s over the nickel, Miss, they are gray with black lashes, and--_oh_!"

She stopped in confusion, for the male creature she was watching had lowered his paper a moment, and she recognized the grave young man; and to herself she ruefully remarked: "And the third time's the charm!"

And though Dorothy busied herself in finding the despised nickel, her swiftly deepening color told her sister that she, too, had recognized their fellow-traveller whose calm features showed no trace of the surprised delight he felt at again seeing the face of the "violet-girl," as he termed her in his thoughts. He only gave a severe, scrutinizing glance at the shade of his window, carefully lowered it about an inch, and then returned to his paper, reading over and over and over again how a certain Mr. Somebody had become the benefactor of his race through selling shoes to men for three dollars a pair. Yet, in spite of his steady reading, he kept saying to himself how strange it was that the fair-faced Violet-Girl should cross his path on this the red-letter day of his life--the setting of whose sun would leave him so much better off financially than it had found him in the morning. And he could not help thinking how much sweeter his good fortune would seem if there was someone to share it with him.

If his mother had not left him, what soft, silky, flowery pillows and spreads her couch should have; what rich, dull rugs! But the almost surrept.i.tious care bestowed upon her grave was all that he could give her now. Yet he could imagine how those appealing eyes over there would widen with surprise and dance with pleasure if one she cared for brought a story of endeavor crowned with success. He wondered what her name was.