Cloudy Jewel Part 30

Julia Cloud, only half rea.s.sured by this unprecedented carefulness for her health on the part of the usually careless Leslie, went down abstractedly to her professor, and wished he would go home. He was well into the midst of a most heartfelt and touching proposal of marriage before she realized what was coming.

His voice was low and pleading; and Leslie, lying breathless above, not deigning to try to listen, yet painfully aware of the change of tones, was in tortures. Then Julia Cloud's pained, gentle tones, firmly replying, and more entreaty, with brief, simple answers. Most unexpectedly, before an hour pa.s.sed Leslie heard the front door open and the professor go out and pa.s.s slowly down the walk. Her heart was in her throat, beating painfully. What had happened? A quick intuition presented a possible solution. Cloudy would not leave them while they were in college, and had bid him wait, or perhaps turned him down altogether! How dear of her! And yet with quick revulsion of spirit she began to pity the poor, lonely man who could not have Cloudy when he loved her.

A moment later Julia Cloud came softly up the stairs and tiptoed into her own room, and, horror of horrors! Leslie could hear her catch her breath like soft sobbing! Did Cloudy care, then, and had she turned down a man she loved in order to stick to them and keep her promise to their guardian?

Quick as a flash she was out of bed and pattering barefoot into Julia Cloud's room.

"Cloudy! Cloudy! You are crying! What is the matter? Quick! Tell me, please!"

Julia Cloud drew the girl down beside her on the bed, and nestled her lovingly and close.

"It's nothing, dear. It's only that I had to hurt a good man. It always makes me sorry to have to hurt any one."

Leslie nestled closer, smoothed her aunt's hair, and tried to think what to say; but nothing came. She felt shy about it. Finally she put her lips up, and touched her aunt's cheek, and whispered, "Don't cry, Cloudy dear!" and just then she heard Allison's key in the lock. She sprang up, drew her bath-robe about her, and ran down to whisper to him on the stairs what had happened.

"Well, it's plain she cares," whispered Allison sadly, gravely, turning his face away from the light. "I say, Les, we ought to do something. We ought to tell her it's all right for her to go ahead."

"I can't, Allison; I'd break down and cry, I know I would. I tried up there just now, but the words wouldn't come."

"Well, then, let's write her a letter! And we'll both sign it."

"All right. You write it," choked Leslie. "I'll sign it."

They slipped over to the desk in the porch room, and Leslie cuddled into a big willow cus.h.i.+oned chair, and s.h.i.+vered and sniffed while Allison scratched away at a sheet of paper for a few minutes. Then he handed it to her to read and sign. This was what he had written:

"DEAR CLOUDY: We see just how it is, and we want you to know that we are willing. Of course it'll be awfully hard to lose you; but it's right, and we wouldn't be happy not to have you be happy; and we want you to go ahead and not think of us. We'll manage all right somehow, and we love you and want to see you happy."

Leslie dropped a great tear on the page when she signed it; but she took the soft, embroidered sleeve of her nightgown, and dabbled it dry, so that it didn't blur the writing; and then together they slipped up-stairs. Leslie went into her aunt's room in the dark, and in a queer little voice said, "Cloudy, dear, here's a note for you."

Laying it in her hand, Leslie hurried into her own room, shut her door softly, and hid in the closet so that Julia Cloud would not hear her sob.

A moment later Julia Cloud came into the hall with a dear, glad ring in her voice, and called: "Children! Where are you? Come here quick, you darlings!" and they flocked into her arms like lost ducklings.

"You blessed darlings!" she said, laughing and crying at the same time. "Did you think I wanted to get married and go away from you forever? Well, you're all wrong. I'll never do that. You may get married and go away from me; but I'll never go away from you till you send me, and I won't ever get married to any one on this earth at any time! Do you understand? I don't want to get married, _ever_!"

They all went into Julia Cloud's room then, and sat down with her on her couch, one on either side of her.

"Do you really mean it, Cloudy Jewel?" asked Leslie happily. "You _don't want_ to get married, not even to that nice Professor Armitage?"

"Look here! Leslie, you said he had a wart!" put in her brother.

"Now keep still, Allison. He was nice all the time; only I didn't like him to want our Cloudy. He didn't seem to be quite nice enough for her. He didn't quite fit her. But if she wanted him----"

"But I don't, Leslie," cried Julia Cloud in distress. "I _never_ did!"

"Are you really true, Cloudy, dear? You're such a dear, unselfish Cloudy. How shall we ever quite be sure she isn't giving him up just for us, Allison?"

"Children, listen!" said Julia Cloud, suddenly putting a quieting hand on each young hand in her lap. "I'll tell you something I never told to a living soul."

There was that in her voice that thrilled them into silence. It was as if she suddenly opened the door of her soul and let them look in on her real self as only G.o.d saw her. Their fingers tightened in sympathy as she went on.

"A long time ago--a great many years ago--perhaps you would laugh and think me foolish if you knew how many----"

"Oh, no, Cloudy, never!" said Leslie softly; and Allison growled a dissenting note.

"Well--there was some one whom I loved--who died. That is all; only--I never could love anybody that way again. Marriage without a love like that is a desecration."

"O Cloudy! We never knew----" murmured Leslie.

"No one ever knew, dear. He was very young. We were both scarcely more than children. I was only fourteen----"

"O Cloudy! How beautiful! And you have kept it all these years! Won't you--tell us just a little about it? I think it is wonderful; don't you, Allison?"

"Yes, wonderful!" said Allison in that deep, full tone of his that revealed a man's soul growing in the boy's heart.

"There is very little to tell, dear. He was a neighbor's son. We went to school together, and sometimes took walks on Sat.u.r.days. He rode me on his sled, and helped me fasten on my skates, and carried my books; and we played together when we had time to play. Then his people moved away out West; and he kissed me good-by, and told me he was coming back for me some day. That was all there was to it except a few little letters. Then they stopped, and one day his grandmother wrote that he had been drowned saving the life of a little child. Can you understand why I want to wait and be ready for him over there where he is gone? I keep feeling G.o.d will let him come for me when my life down here is over."

There was a long silence during which the young hands gripped hers closely, and the young thoughts grew strangely wise with insight into human life and all its joys and sorrows. They were thinking out in detail just what their aunt had missed, the sweet things that every woman hopes for, and thinks about alone with G.o.d; of love, strong care, little children, and a home. She had missed it all; and yet she had its image in her heart, and had been true to her first thought of it all the years. Now, when it was offered her again, she would not give up the old love for a new, would not take what was left of life.

She would wait till the morning broke and her boy met her on the other sh.o.r.e.

Suddenly, as they thought, strong young arms encircled her, and held her close in a dear embrace.

"Then you're ours, Cloudy, all ours, for the rest of down here, aren't you?" half whispered Leslie.

"Yes, dear, as long as you need me--_want_ me," she finished.

"We shall want you always, Cloudy!" said Allison in a clear man's voice of decision. "Put that down forever, Cloudy Jewel. You are our mother from now on and we want you always."

"That is dear," said Julia Cloud; "but"--a resignation in her voice--"some day you will marry, and then you will not need me any more and I shall find something to do somewhere."

Two fierce young things rose up in arms at once.

"Put that right out of your head, Cloudy Jewel!" cried Leslie. "You shan't say it again! If I thought any man could be mean enough not to feel as I do about you, I would never marry him; so there! I would never marry anybody!"

"My wife will love you as much as I do!" said Allison with conviction.

"I shall never love anybody that doesn't. You'll see!"

And so with loving arms about her and tender words of fierce a.s.sertion they convinced her at last, and the bond that held them was only strengthened by the little tension it had sustained.

Professor Armitage came no more to the little pink-and-white house; but Julia Cloud was happy with her children, and they were content together. The happy days moved on.

"I don't see how you get time for that Christian Endeavor Society of yours, Cloud," said one of the professors to Allison. "I hear you're the moving spirit in it; yet you never fall down on your cla.s.s work.

How do you manage it? I'd like to put some of my other students onto your ways of planning."

"Well, there's all of Sunday, you know, professor," answered Allison promptly. "I don't give so very much more time, except a half-hour here and there to a committee meeting, or now and then a social on Friday night, when I'd otherwise be fooling, anyway. My sister and I cut out the dances, and put these social parties in their place."

"But don't you have to study on Sundays?"

_"Never_ do!" was the quick reply. "Made it a rule when I started in here at this college, and haven't broken it once, not even for examinations. I find I'm fresher for my work Monday morning when I make the Sabbath _real._"