The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story Part 64

"You must forgive me, Mr. Darton, for my views," I said more gently, "and tell me what I can do."

He pulled himself together at that.

"Con's all gone to pieces, you know--at the old mill house--no money--no one to care for him. We wanted you to come out with us. Perhaps medical care might, even now--We thought maybe," he interrupted himself hastily, "that you could get Lisbeth to help out too--and maybe come herself--"

"Come herself!" I repeated, and my voice must have sounded the sick fear that struck me.

"Money's not the only thing that counts when it comes to one's own blood," he said sententiously.

There were no two ways about it, that was his final stand. So, having a.s.sumed them of my services that afternoon, I went straight to Lisbeth.

I found her bending over the youngest baby, and, when I told her, her body became rigid for an instant, then she stooped lower that I might not see the shadow that had fallen across her face. Finally she left the child and came to me with that old look of misery in her face that I had not seen there for so long, but with far more gentleness.

"Sit down here, Tom," she said, leading me to the window seat, where the strands of sunlight struck against her head, giving fire to her dull-brown hair. She had changed but slightly in appearance, I thought, from the girl that I had known five years before; still there _was_ a change, a certain a.s.surance was there, and a graciousness that came from the knowledge that she was loved.

"I think you know," she began, her eyes looking not at me but straight ahead, "that I've been happy--these five years--though perhaps not how happy. But in spite of it all--there is always that something--that _fear_ here--clutching at me--that it may not all be real--that it can't last."

Again she looked at me and turned away, but not before I had caught a flash of terror in her eyes.

"Even with them all against me, Tom, I've stuck to it--to what I feel is my right. This is my home--and it's Jim's home--and the children's as well as it's mine--and, in a way, it's--inviolate. I've sworn that nothing ugly shall come into it--nothing shall ruin it--the way our lives were ruined out there!"

Her voice trembled, but her eyes, as she turned to me at the last, were steady.

"I'll send something, of course," she said; "you will take it to them.

But I'll--not go."

With her message and her money I sought out Lin Darton and Miss Etta, and together we rambled in their open Ford along those flat, dead Illinois roads that I had not seen for so long.

It is a doctor's profession to save life, and there was a life to be saved, if it were possible. But he was nearer to the end than I had thought. Grega was there in that same barren room of the mill-house, doing things in a stolid, undeft sort of way. The bed had been pulled near the stove and the room was stuffier, more untidy than in the days when Lisbeth had been there. The creaky bed, the unvarnished walls, and the rusty alarm clock, that ticked insistently, all added to the sense of flaccidity. The afternoon was late and already dark; sagging clouds had gathered, shutting out what was left of the daylight. Miss Etta lit a smudgy lamp, sniffling as she did so.

From under the torn quilt the man stared back at me, with much of his old penetration, despite the fever that racked him.

"I--want--Lisbeth," were his first words to me.

I shook my head. "She cannot come just now," I told him, hand on his wrist. "But we are here to do everything for you."

"Tel-e-phone her," he said with his old emphasis on each syllable, "and tell--her that I'm--dy-ing. Don't answer me. You know that--_I--am dy-ing and I--want--her_."

Miss Etta, the tears streaming over her large face, went to do his bidding. I could hear her lumbersome footsteps going down the crazy outside stairway. He gave me a triumphant look as I lifted his arm, then abruptly he drew away from me. He had an ingrained fear of drugs of any sort. There was no gainsaying his fierce refusals, so I made him as comfortable as I could while we waited. The end was very near. His face, thin almost to emaciation, was flushed to a deep, feverish red, but his lips took on a more unbending line than ever and his eyes burned like bits of phosph.o.r.escence in the semidarkness. For an hour he lay there motionless with only the shadow of a smile touching his lips at intervals.

Miss Etta had returned, letting in a gust of damp air, but bringing no definite answer from Lisbeth. Would she come? I remembered her unyielding decision, her unflinching sincerity. The rain broke now suddenly, and came roaring down the hill towards the creek. Outside the branches of elms dragged, with a snapping of twigs, across the brittle roof. A rusty stream of water crawled sizzling down the pipe of the stove. It was hot--hot with the intolerable hotness of steam. The patchwork quilt looked thick and unsmoothed. I reflected that it never could look smoothed. And how their personalities bore down upon one with a swamping sensation! Miss Etta and Grega and Mr. Lin Darton were gathered into a corner of the room and an occasional whispering escaped them. The oppression was terrific. I began to want Lisbeth, to long for her to come, as she would come, like a cool blade cutting through density. And yet--I was not sure. I found myself staring through the black, s.h.i.+ny surface of the window, seeking relief in the obscuring dark. It gave little vision, except its own distorted reflections, but I could distinguish vaguely the outlines of the old mill with the shadowly raft in the high branches and the smudgy round spots that I knew to be the turkeys roosting.

A fiercer current tore at the framework of the mill-house. The water rapped pitilessly against the pane. The brownish stream thickened, as it made its way down the stovepipe and fell in flat puddles on the tin plate beneath it.--_Would she come?_

"If she doesn't come now!" whimpered Miss Etta. "An awful girl--_awful_!"

I began hoping of a sudden that she would not come. Though I craved her presence in that insufferable room, I was afraid for her. A sort of nameless terror had seized me that would not be dismissed. Yet what worse thing than she had already endured could come from that bundle of loose clothes on the bed? The figure moved uneasily under the covers and made an indefinite motion. I could only guess at the words addressed to Miss Etta as she bent over him. She shook her head.

"No," she said audibly, "not yet."

With one brown, fleshless hand, that lay outside the covers, he made a gesture of resignation, but the gray eyes, turning towards me, burned black.

I could make out fragmentary bits of conversation that issued from the corner of the room.

"When it comes to one's own blood--"

The rest was lost in a surge of wind and rain.

"An awful girl--"

"She ought to be--"

A low rumble came down the hill, followed by a more terrific onslaught of rain. Outside the clap of a door came as a relief. There were steps, then, just as I had expected, the door was thrust back and she stood there letting in the fresh air of heaven, a slender sheaf of gray in her long coat and small fur toque.

A satirical gleam of triumph gleamed across the sick man's face and vanished, leaving him a wronged and silently pa.s.sive creature.

"You can shut the door tight, now you've _come_," said Miss Etta. "A draft won't do him any good."

With this greeting she turned her back. There was a moment's silence, while Lisbeth pushed shut the flimsy door, and I, to cover her embarra.s.sment, helped her make it fast. I noticed then that she was carrying a small leather case.

"Thermos bottles," she explained, as an aroma of comfort escaped them.

But the man on the bed shook his head, as she approached.

"Not now," he said plaintively. His look reproached her. Tears stood thickly in Miss Etta's eyes. She pulled Lisbeth aside with a series of jerks at her elbow.

"Too late for that now," I heard her whisper sententiously. And then: "You had your chance."

I saw the hand, that disengaged Miss Etta's clutch, tremble; and for an instant I thought the girl would break down under the benumbing thickness of their emotion. But she merely unfastened her coat, walking towards the window as though seeking composure, as I had, in the cold shadows without, in the blurred outlines of the old mill and the intrepid row of turkeys.

He beckoned to her, but she did not see him. Rapidly failing as he was, I was certain that he was by no means without power of speech. I touched her on the arm. His words came finally in monotonous cadences.

"I am dy-ing," he said. "You will--pray?"

I saw her catch her breath. My own hung in my throat and choked me. He was watching her intently now with overweighted gray eyes, that could not make one entirely forget the long cunning line of the mouth. What courage did she have to withstand this? He was dying--of that there could be little doubt. She had grown white to the roots of her hair.

"I do not pray," she said steadily.

His eyebrows met. "You--_do not pray_? Who--taught--you--_not to p--ray_?"

"You did," she said quietly.

He lay back with a sigh.

"Outrageous!" murmured Miss Etta through her tears. "An awful girl--_awful_!"

The man on the bed smiled. He lifted his hand and let it fall back on the cover.

"It's all right--all right--all--right." The reddish-brown eyelids closed slowly.