The Open Question Part 21

"Yes," said her parent, meekly, feeling the full force of her implied criticism. "But I don't recall the--what is it?"

"The mizz. Mr. Weston says every Sunday in the Commandments: 'The sea and all that in the mizz.'"

The elder Mrs. Gano could have put up with these crude evidences of a share in the family bias, but not with her granddaughter's growing unsubmissiveness, her chronic mutiny against the smallest restraint. The child had been taught early to look upon herself as a very potent factor in the family life. She observed that arrangements that failed to meet with her approval were often altered. Her mother's sternest form of discipline had been to argue with her. More than one servant had been dismissed in obedience to Miss Val's demands. There was the case of the lady house-keeper from Boston, who, in addition to regular duties, undertook also to teach Val--a learned maiden lady with shaky nerves and a pa.s.sion for history. It was supposed she left so suddenly because of illness in her family, until Val admitted that she had threatened the lady with the carving-knife after dinner one day.

"What on earth made you do that?" said the child's father, horrified.

"She talked too much about the British," replied Val, calmly.

"What!"

"I said the Americans were just as brave. I could see she didn't think so, so I got the carvin'-knife and--well, you know, she just caught the three-o'clock train."

The June of that year was intensely hot, but young Mrs. Gano was too ill to be carried out of the stifling city. Val was sent into the country to some cousins "for a change"--for whose change was not insisted upon. She was not brought back till the day after her mother's funeral. It was a strange and terrible time. For once she was pa.s.sive and subdued. If the servants had not already remarked on her hard-heartedness, she would have cried herself ill. But she was full of a dull resentment as well as pain. At the time she was sent away she had gathered, as a quick-witted child does--Heaven knows how!--that her mother was dangerously ill.

During that time in the country she had prayed for her recovery as she never prayed before or after, as none but the pa.s.sionate-hearted ever pray. Night after night, when the light had been put out, and the others had gone to sleep, Val would get out of bed and kneel down at the side beseeching G.o.d to save her mother's life, and making solemn compacts with the Lord of Hosts. She would be so good, and build a church, too, in memory of this answer to prayer; she would be a nun, and serve G.o.d all her days, if He would spare her mother. She pointed out how easy it was for the All-Powerful to do this little thing. She wasn't waiting till it would require a Lazarus miracle, she was asking Him in good time. He had only to let the doctors know what would cure her. But she, Val Gano, would recognize in the recovery a direct answer to prayer, and she would keep her vows. She remembered a sermon she had heard on mountain-moving faith. Hers should be perfect and unfaltering. She knew G.o.d would answer this one prayer; she saw herself already in her nun's black habit, and began to say her last farewell to the world, to the prince that she knew was coming later on, to all her children--she called them by their names, "five brave sons and five beauteous daughters." She turned her back on them all, cut her long hair, and heard the convent gates clang to--all this was an accomplished destiny in her mind, when the telegram came to say her mother was dead. Her father was ill, too, now; there was nothing but sickness and death in the world, and the child was to stay where she was. The telegram was from her grandmother to cousin Nathaniel. Four days later, when she was permitted to go home, the funeral was over, and her grandmother was in charge of her mother's house. It was very awful. What did G.o.d mean by it?

The following week John Gano returned to his post at the bank. As he was leaving the counting-room, that first and last day after the death of his wife, he was seized with a violent hemorrhage, and was carried home, it was thought, to die.

Mrs. Gano nursed her son back to something faintly resembling health, and urged him to come home with her. No; he would stay where he was, till--

"Nonsense! you must rouse yourself for your children's sake. Here is Val, left to servants, and running wild. She must go to school. None better than the New Plymouth Seminary for Young Ladies."

"Oh, time enough for that. I can't let the child go just yet."

"There _isn't_ time. That child is going to wreck and ruin. And you don't suppose I'm going to leave you here alone? You must come and get well and strong."

"It's no use," the invalid said, adding, half under his breath: "I'm done for."

"Hus.h.!.+" she interrupted, frowning. "Anybody is done for who has made up his mind that he is."

John Gano shook his head.

"You know we all go like this. It's not a matter of imagination."

"Nearly everything's a matter of imagination," she said.

The gaunt man put his handkerchief to his lips.

"This is imagination, too, I suppose," he said, as he turned the bright spot in and out of sight--"a case of seeing red."

"That small stain means very little in itself," she retorted, seeming scarcely moved; "its effect on your mind is the only thing to be afraid of."

"You speak as though I hadn't inherited the blessed business."

"Oh, inherited--inherited! I'm sick of that white feather showing all along the line. Look at me!"

He did look at her. She seemed suddenly taller and thinner and grayer and more defiant than any being he had ever beheld.

"Look at me!" she repeated. "I have been given up by the doctors half a dozen times. My mother was told when I was sixteen that I had only a piece of a lung left--that it might last me through the winter. It has served my purpose for half a century since. But I didn't worry about the color of my handkerchiefs, and I didn't admit for a moment that I could possibly be induced to die--that is, of course"--she put on a sudden aspect of resignation that was almost funny--"unless it was the Lord's will."

CHAPTER VIII

Nothing seemed to matter now that her mother was dead. It was plain Val would never be happy again. Leaving her home, to which she was devotedly attached, was hardly a misfortune, any more than going to live with her grandmother. What did anything matter? G.o.d hadn't heard her prayers; He had mocked her faith, and she was motherless. She hadn't enough interest in life even to be "owdacious," as her grandmother called it. She was pa.s.sive, almost "good."

Her father, observing her settled depression on the journey West, gathered her into his arms, and whispered:

"We have each other, you know."

And she lay with her face hidden, and cried a long time, so quietly that her grandmother thought she was asleep.

It was the reunion with her little sister that first roused her out of her unchildlike apathy. Not the genial warmth of family affection, not the diversion of having a playmate, but the tonic of a vigorous antagonism, as unexpected as it seemed unnatural.

"Where is my room?" Val had asked, on the evening of their arrival at the Old Fort.

"You are to sleep with Emmeline," said her grandmother.

"But, grandma, I've never slept with any one."

"Haven't you, my dear?"

"No, and I've always--"

"That will do now. Go up-stairs and wash your face and hands. Emmeline will show you the way."

Val went off quietly enough, but it might have staggered Mrs. Gano could she have known the rage and rebellion that seethed in that small female heart.

It was dusk up in the little girls' room.

"Why haven't they lit the gas?" asked Val.

"We don't have gas here."

"Lamps, then."

"Gamma thinks lamps are too esplosive."

"Do you live in the dark?"

"No; we have candles, but it ain't dark enough yet. I'll show you where everything is."

"I'll find 'em myself."

Val had espied the candles on the bureau. She lit them.