The Carter Girls Part 3

"But Dr. Wright is not an idiot and is not ugly and is doing the very best he can do. Do you think he liked giving it to us so? Of course he didn't. I could see he just hated it. He would have let us alone except he sees we haven't a ray of sense among us, except maybe Douglas. She showed almost human intelligence."

"Speak for yourself, Miss Nan. Maybe you haven't any sense, but, thank you, I've got just as much as Douglas or that nasty old Dr. Wright or anybody else, in fact."

"Well, take in your sign then! You certainly are behaving like a nut now."

"And you? You think it shows sense to say that man is not ugly? Why, I could have done a better job on a face with a hatchet. He's got a mug like Stony Man, that big mountain up at Luray that looks like a man."

"That's just what I thought," said Nan, "and that is what I liked about him. He looked kind of like a rocky cliff and his eyes were like blue flowers, growing kind of high up, out of reach, but once he smiled at me and I knew they were not out of reach, really. When he smiled sure enough and showed his beautiful white teeth, it made me think of the sun coming out suddenly on the mountain cliff."

"Well, Nan, if you can get some poetry out of this extremely commonplace young man you are a wonder. I am going down to see about my new hat, so I'll bid you good-by."

"If you are getting another new hat, I intend to have one, too!"

clamored Lucy.

"Helen," said Douglas, coming back into the library. "Of course you are going to countermand the order for the hat that, after all, you do not really need."

"Countermand it! Why, please?"

"You heard what Dr. Wright said, surely. You must have taken in the seriousness of this business."

"Seriousness much! I heard a very b.u.mptious young doctor holding forth on what is no doubt his first case, laying down the law to us as though he were kin to us about what we shall eat and wear!"

"Helen, you astonish me! I thought you thought that you loved Father more than any of us."

"So I do! None of you could love him as much as I do. I love him so much that I do not intend to stand for this nonsense about his going off for months on a dirty old boat without ever even being allowed to hug his girls. I bet he won't let this creature boss him any more than I will.

Daddy said I could have another hat just so I get a blue one. He doesn't think the one I got is becoming, either," and Helen flounced off up to her room.

"Douglas, what do you think is the matter with her? I have never seen Helen act like this before," said Nan anxiously.

"I think she is trying to shut her eyes to Father's condition. Helen never could stand anything being the matter with Father. You know she always did hate and despise doctors, too. Has ever since she was a little girl when they took out her tonsils. She seemed to think it was their fault. She will come to herself soon," and Douglas wiped off another one of the tears that would keep coming no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.

Indeed, Helen was a puzzle to her sisters, and had they met her for the first time as you, my readers have, no doubt they would have formed the same opinion of her as you must have: a selfish, heartless, headstrong girl. Now Helen was in reality none of these terrible things, except headstrong. Thoughtless she was and spoiled, but generous to a fault, with a warm and loving heart. Her love for her father was intense and she simply would not see that he was ill. As Douglas said, she disliked and mistrusted all doctors. If the first and second and third were wrong in their diagnoses, why not the fourth? As for this absurd talk about money--what business was it of this young stranger to put his finger in their financial pie?

She shut her mind up tight and refused to understand what Dr. Wright had endeavored to explain to them, that there was no time to call in consultation their old friends and relatives. Besides, he wanted no excitement for the sick man, no adieux from friends, no bustle or confusion. He just wanted to spirit his patient away and get him out of sight of land as fast as possible.

How could a perfect stranger understand her dear father better than she, his own daughter, did? Nervous prostration, indeed! Why, her father had nerves of steel. You could fire a pistol off right by his ear and he would not bat an eyelas.h.!.+ She worked herself up even to thinking that they were doing a foolish thing to allow this beetle-browed young man to carry off their mother and father, sending them to sea in a leaky boat, no doubt, with some plot for their destruction all hatched up with this s.h.i.+p's surgeon, this one time cla.s.smate.

"To be sure, he was nice to Bobby," she said to herself as she sat in her room, undecided whether to go get the new hat in spite of Douglas or perhaps twist the other one around so it would be more becoming. "That may be part of his deep laid scheme--to get the confidence of the child and maybe kidnap him.

"I'll give in about the hat, but I'll not give in about seeing Daddy before he goes--I'm going to see him right this minute and find out for myself just how sick he is, and if he, too, is hypnotized into thinking this doctor man is any good. He shan't go away if he doesn't want to.

Poor little Mumsy is too easy and confiding."

So Helen settled this matter to her own satisfaction, convincing herself that it was really her duty to go see her father and unearth the machinations of this scheming Dr. Wright, who was so disapproving of her. That really was where the shoe pinched with poor Helen: his disapproval. She was an extremely attractive girl and was accustomed to admiration and approval. Her youngest sister, Lucy, was about the only person of her acquaintance who found any real fault with her. Why, that young man seemed actually to scorn her! What reason had he to come p.u.s.s.y-footing into the library where she and her sisters were holding an intimate conversation, and all unannounced speak to them with his raucous voice so that she nearly jumped out of her skin? Come to think of it, though, his voice was not really raucous, but rather pleasant and deep. Anyhow, he took her at a disadvantage from the beginning and sneered at her and bossed her, and she hated him and did not trust him one inch.

"Daddy, may I come in?"

Without knocking, Helen opened her father's door and ran into his room.

He was lying on the sofa, covered with a heavy rug, although it was a very warm day in May. His eyes were closed and his countenance composed and for a moment the girl's heart stopped beating--could he be dead? He looked so worn and gaunt. Strange she had not noticed it before. She had only thought he was getting a little thin, but she hated fat men, anyhow, and gloried in her father's athletic leanness, as she put it.

Most men of his age, forty-three, had a way of getting wide in the girth, but not her father. Forty-three! Why, this man lying there looked sixty-three! His face was so gray, his mouth so drawn.

Robert Carter opened his eyes and sighed wearily.

"Who is that?" rather querulously. "Oh, Helen! I must have been asleep.

I dreamed I was out far away on the water. Just your mother and I, far, far away! It was rather jolly. Funny I was trying to add up about silk stockings and I made such a ridiculous mistake. You see there are five of you who wear silk stockings, not counting Bobby and me. I wasn't counting in socks. Five persons having two legs apiece makes ten legs--silk stockings cost one dollar apiece, no, a pair--fifty cents apiece--that makes five dollars for ten legs. Everybody has to put on a new pair every day, so that makes three hundred and sixty-five pairs a year, three hundred and sixty-six in leap year, seven hundred and thirty stockings--that makes one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five dollars--thirty, in leap year--just for stockings. Seems preposterous, doesn't it? But here was my mistake, right here--people don't have to put on a new pair every day but just a clean pair, so I have to do my calculating all over. You can help me, honey. How many pairs of silk stockings does it take to run one of you? You just say one, and I can compute the rest."

"Oh, Daddy, I don't know," and Helen burst out crying.

"Well, don't cry about it. It seems funny for stockings to make any one cry. Do you know, I've been crying about them, too? It is so confusing for people to have two legs and for leap year to have one more day, so some years people have to have more--maybe not have more, but change them oftener. I cry out of one eye about stockings, and the other sheds tears about French chops. I feel very much worried about French chops.

It seems they sell them by the piece and not by the pound as they do loin chops--ten cents apiece, so the bills say. We usually get a dozen and a half for a meal--eighteen--that's a dozen and a half. Now there are seven of us and the four servants, that makes eleven, not quite a dozen. What I am worried about is that some of you don't get two chops apiece. I am wondering all the time which ones don't eat enough. There is nothing at all on one little French chop, although I'm blessed if I could make one go down me now. But, honey, promise me if your mother and I do take this trip that this young man, whose name has escaped me, is going to arrange for us, that you will find out who it is among you who eats only one chop and make 'em eat more. I am afraid it is Nan and Bobby. They are more like your mother, and of course fairies don't really eat anything to speak of--but it must be of the best--always of the best. She has never known anything but luxury, and luxury she must have. What difference does it make to me? I love to work--but the days are too short. Take some off of the night then--six hours in bed is enough for any man. Edison says even that is too much. What's that young man's name? Well, whatever it is, I like him. He should have been an architect--I bet his foundations would have gone deep enough and the authorities would never have condemned one of his walls as unsafe.

That's what they did to me, but it wasn't my fault--Shockoe Creek was the trouble--creeping up like a thief in the night and undermining my work."

As Robert Carter rambled on in this weird, disconnected way, the tears were streaming down his face and Helen, crouched on the floor by his side, was sobbing her heart out. Could this be her Daddy? This broken, garrulous man with the gray face and tears, womanish tears, flowing shamelessly from his tired eyes? Dr. Wright was right! Their father was a very ill man and one more ounce of care would be too much for his tired brain. Had she done him harm? Maybe her coming in had upset his reason, but she had not talked, only let him ramble on.

A car stopping at the door! The doctor and Bobby returning with the notary public! What must she do? Here she was in her father's room, disobeying the stern commands of the physician who could see with half his professional eye that she had harmed his patient. She had time to get out before the doctor could get upstairs--but no! not sneak!

"I may be a murderess and am a selfish, headstrong, bad, foolish, vain, extravagant wretch, but I am not a sneak and I will stay right here and take the ragging that I deserve--and no doubt will get," remembering the lash that Dr. Wright had not spared.

The doctor entered the room very quietly, "p.u.s.s.y-footing still," said Helen to herself. He gave her only a casual glance, seeming to feel no surprise at her presence, but went immediately to his patient, who smiled through his tears at this young man in whom he was putting his faith.

"I've been asleep, doctor, and thought I was out on the water. When Helen came in I awoke, but I was very glad for her to come in so she could promise me to look into a little matter of French chops that was worrying me. She and I have been having a little crying party about silk stockings. They seem to make her cry, too. Funny for me to cry. I have never cried in my life that I can remember, even when I got a licking as a boy."

"Crying is not so bad for some one who never has cried or had anything to cry for." Helen had a feeling maybe he meant it for her but he never looked at her. "And now, Mr. Carter, I have a notary public downstairs and I am going to ask you to sign a paper giving to your daughter, Douglas, power of attorney in your absence. You get off to New York this evening and sail to-morrow."

"But, Dr. Whatsyourname, I can't leave until I attend to tickets and things," feebly protested the nervous man.

"Tickets bought; pa.s.sage on steamer to Bermuda and Panama engaged; slow going steamer where you can lie on deck and loaf and loaf!"

"Tickets bought? I have never been anywhere in my life where I have not had to attend to everything myself. It sounds like my own funeral. I reckon kind friends will step in then and attend to the arrangements."

"Well, let's call this a wedding trip instead of a funeral. I will be your best man and you and your bride can spend your honeymoon on this vessel. The best man sometimes does attend to the tickets and in this case even decided where the honeymoon should be spent. I chose a Southern trip because I want you to be warm. Very few persons go to Bermuda in May, but I feel sure you will be able to rest more if you don't have to move around to keep warm."

"Yes, that's fine, and Annette is from the extreme South and delights in warmth and sunlight. I feel sure you have done right and am just lying down like a baby and leaving everything to you," and Robert Carter closed his eyes, smiling feebly.

At a summons from the doctor, Douglas and the notary public entered the room. Helen, who had stayed to get the blowing up that she had expected from Dr. Wright, not having got it, still stayed just because she did not know how to leave. No one noticed her or paid the least attention to her except the notary, who bowed perfunctorily.

"This is the paper. You had better read it to see if it is right. It gives your daughter full power to act in your absence." Dr. Wright spoke slowly and gently and his voice never seemed to startle the sick man.

"Is Miss Carter of age?" asked the notary. "Otherwise she would have some trouble in any legal matter that might arise."

"Of age! No! I am only eighteen."

"I never thought of that," said Mr. Carter.

"Nor I, fool that I am," muttered the young physician.

"Oh, well, let me make you her guardian, or better still, give you power of attorney," suggested Mr. Carter.

"Me, oh, I never bargained for that!" The patient feebly began to weep at this obstacle. You never can tell what is going to upset a nervous prostrate. "Well, all right. I can do it if it is up to me," the doctor muttered. "Put my name in where we have Miss Carter's," he said to the notary. "George Wright is my name."