Helen of the Old House Part 25

The old workman was studying her now with kind but frankly understanding eyes. "John and Mary have gone to see some of the folks that she is looking after in the Flats," he said, slowly. "They'll be back any minute now, I should think."

She did not know what to reply to this. There were so many things she wanted to know--so many things that she felt she must know. But she felt herself forced to answer with the mere commonplace, "You are all well, I suppose, Uncle Pete?"

"Fine, thank you," he answered. "Mary is always busy with her housework and her flowers and the poor sick folks she's always a-looking after--just like her mother, if you remember. Charlie, he's working late to-day--some breakdown or something that's keeping him overtime.

That brother of yours is a fine manager, Miss Helen, and," he added, with a faint note of something in his voice that brought a touch of color to her cheeks, "a finer man."

Again she felt the crowding rush of those questions she wanted to ask, but she only said, with an air of calm indifference, "John has changed so since his return from France--in many ways he seems like a different man."

"As for that," he replied, "the war has changed most people in one way or another. It was bound to. Everybody talks about getting back to normal again, but as I see it there'll be no getting back ever to what used to be normal before the war started."

She looked at him with sudden, intense interest. "How has it so changed every one, Uncle Pete? Why can't people be just as they were before it happened? The change in business conditions and all that, I can understand, but why should it make any difference to--well, to me, for example?"

The old workman answered, slowly, "The people are thinking deeper and feeling deeper. They're more human, as you might say. And I've noticed generally that the way the people think and feel is at the bottom of everything. It's just like the Interpreter says, 'You can't change the minds and hearts of folks without changing what they do.' Everybody ain't changed, of course, but so many of them have that the rest will be bound to take some notice or feel mighty lonesome from now on."

Helen was about to reply when the old workman interrupted her with, "There come John and Mary now."

The two coming along the street walk to the gate did not at first notice those who were watching them with such interest. John was carrying a market basket and talking earnestly to his companion, whose face was upturned to his with eager interest. At the gate they paused a moment while the man, with his hand on the latch, finished whatever it was that he was saying. And Helen, with a little throb of something very much like envy in her heart, saw the light of happiness in the eyes of the young woman who through all the years of their girlhood had been her inseparable playmate and loyal friend.

When John finally opened the gate for her to pa.s.s, Mary was laughing, and the clear ringing gladness in her voice brought a faint smile of sympathy even to the face of the now coolly conventional daughter of Adam Ward.

Mary's laughter was suddenly checked; the happiness fled from her face.

With a little gesture of almost appealing fear she put her hand on her companion's arm.

In the same instant John saw and stood motionless, his face blank with amazement. Then, "Helen! What in the world are you doing here?"

John Ward never realized all that those simple words carried to the three who heard him. Peter Martin's face was grave and thoughtful. Mary blushed in painful embarra.s.sment. His sister, calm and self-possessed, came toward them, smiling graciously.

"I saw your roadster and thought I might ride home with you. Uncle Pete and I have been having a lovely little visit. It is perfectly charming to see you again like this, Mary. Your flowers are beautiful as ever, aren't they?"

"But, Helen, how do you happen to be wandering about in this neighborhood alone and without your car?" demanded the still bewildered John.

"Don't be silly," she laughed. "I was out for a walk--that is all. I do walk sometimes, you know." She turned to Mary. "Really, to hear this brother of mine, one would think me a helpless invalid and this part of Millsburgh a very dangerous community."

Mary forced a smile, but the light in her eyes was not the light of happiness and her cheeks were still a burning red.

"Don't you think we should go now, John?" suggested Helen.

The helpless John looked from Mary to her father appealingly.

"Better sit down awhile," Pete offered, awkwardly.

John looked at his watch. "I suppose we really ought to go." To Mary he added, "Will you please tell Charlie that I will see him to-morrow?"

She bowed gravely.

Then the formal parting words were spoken, and Helen and John were seated in the car. Mary had moved aside from the gate and stood now very still among her flowers.

Before John had s.h.i.+fted the gears of his machine to high, he heard a sound that caused him to look quickly at his sister. Little Maggie's princess lady was sobbing like a child.

"Why, Helen, what in the world--"

She interrupted him. "Please, John--please, don't--don't take me home now. I--I--Let us stop here at the old house for a few minutes. I--I can't go just yet."

Without a word John Ward turned into the curb. Tenderly he helped her to the ground. Reverently he lifted aside the broken-down gate and led her through the tangle of tall gra.s.s and weeds that had almost obliterated the walk to the front porch. Over the rotting steps and across the trembling porch he helped her with gentle care. Very softly he pushed open the sagging door.

CHAPTER XV

AT THE OLD HOUSE

From room to room in the empty old house the brother and sister went silently or with low, half-whispered words. They moved softly, as if fearing to disturb some unseen tenant of those bare and dingy rooms.

Often they paused, and, drawing close to each other, stood as if in the very presence of some spirit that was not of their material world. At last they came to the back porch, which was hidden from the curious eyes of any chance observer in the neighborhood by a rank growth of weeds and bushes and untrimmed trees.

As John Ward looked at his sister now, that expression of wondering amazement with which he had greeted her was gone. In its place there was gentle understanding.

With a little smile, Helen sat down on the top step of the porch and motioned him to a seat beside her. "Won't you tell me about it, John?"

she said, softly.

"Tell you about what, Helen?"

"About everything--your life, your work, your friends." She made a little gesture toward the cottage next door.

They could see the white gable through the screen of tangled boughs.

"What is it that has changed you so?" she went on. "Your interests are so different now. You are so happy and contented--so--so alive--and I"--her voice broke--"I feel as if you were going away off somewhere and leaving me behind. I am so miserable. John, won't you tell me about things?"

"You poor old girl!" exclaimed John with true brotherly affection.

"I've been a blind fool. I ought to have seen. That's nearly always the way, though, I guess," he went on, reflectively. "A fellow gets so darned interested trying to make things go right outside his own home that he forgets to notice how the people that he really loves most of all are getting along. It looks as though I have not been doing so much better than poor old Sam Whaley, after all."

He paused and seemed to be following his thoughts into fields where only he could go. Helen moved a little closer, and he came back to her.

"I never dreamed that you were feeling anything like this, sister. I knew that you were worried about father, of course, as we all are, but aside from that you seemed to be so occupied with your various interests and with McIver--" He paused, then finished, abruptly, "Look here, Helen, what about you and McIver anyway; have you given him his answer yet?"

"Has that anything to do with it?" she answered, doubtfully. "There is nothing that I can tell you about McIver. I don't seem to be able to make up my mind, that is all. But McIver is only a part of the whole trouble, John. Oh, can't you understand! How am I to know whether or not I want to marry him or any one else until--until I have found myself--until I know where I really belong."

He looked at her blankly for a second, then a smile broke over his face. "By George!" he exclaimed "that is exactly what I had to do--find myself and find where I belonged. I never dreamed that my sister might be compelled to go through the same experience."

"Was it your army life that helped you to know?"

His face was serious now. "It was the things I saw and experienced while in France."

"Tell me," she demanded. "I mean, tell me some of the things that you men never talk about--the things you were forced to think and feel and believe--that showed you your own real self--that changed you into what you are to-day."

And because John Ward was able that afternoon to understand his sister's need, he did as she asked. It may have been the influence of the old house that enabled him to lay bare for her those experiences of his innermost self--those soul adventures about which, as she had so truly said, men never talk. Certainly he could never have spoken in their home on the hill as he spoke in that atmosphere from which their father and his material prosperity had so far removed them. And Helen, as she listened, knew that she had found at last the key to all in her brother's life that had so puzzled her.