Kitabı oku: «In League with Israel: A Tale of the Chattanooga Conference», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XII.
DR. TRENT

IT was a cold, bleak night in November. There was a blazing wood-fire on the library hearth. Bethany sat in a low chair in front of it, with a large, flat book in her lap, which she was using as a desk for her long-neglected letter-writing. An appetizing smell of pop-corn and boiling molasses found its way in from the cozy kitchen, where the sisters were treating Jack to an old-fashioned candy-pulling. The occasional gusts that rattled the windows made Bethany draw closer to the fire, with a grateful sense of warmth and comfort. She thoroughly appreciated her luxurious surroundings, and was glad she had the long, quiet evening ahead of her.

For half an hour the steady trail of her pen along the paper, and the singing of the kettle on the crane, was all that was audible.

Then Jack came wheeling himself in, with a radiant, sticky face, and a plate of candy.

"O, we're having such lots of fun!" he cried. "We're going to make some chocolate creams now. Do come and help, sister?"

She pointed to the pile of unanswered letters on the table. "I must get these out of the way first," she said. "Then I'll join you."

"I guess you can eat and write at the same time," he answered, holding out the plate.

He waited only long enough for her to taste his wares, and hurried back to the kitchen to report her opinion of their skill as confectioners.

Just as the dining-room door banged behind him, she thought she heard some one coming up on the front porch with slow, uncertain steps. She paused in the act of dipping her pen into the ink, and listened. Some one certainly tried the bell, but it did not ring. Then the outside door opened and shut. She started up slightly alarmed, and half way across the room stopped again to listen. There was a momentary rustling in the hall. She heard something drop on the hat-rack. Then there was a low knock at the library door. She opened it a little way, and saw Dr. Trent standing there.

"O, Uncle Doctor!" she cried, throwing the door wide open. "I never once thought of its being you. I took you for a burglar."

Then she stopped, seeing the worn, haggard look on his face. He seemed to have grown ten years older since the last time she had seen him. Without noticing her proffered hand, he pushed slowly past her, and stood shivering before the fire. He had taken off his overcoat in the hall. He was bent and careworn, as if some unusual weight had been laid upon his patient shoulders, already bowed to the limit of their strength.

Bethany knew from his firmly set lips and stern face that he was in sore need of comfort.

"What is it, Uncle Doctor?" she asked, following him to the fire, and laying her hand lightly on his trembling arm. She felt that something dreadful must have happened to unnerve him so. "What can I do for you?" she asked with a tremble of distress in her voice.

He dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. When he raised his head his eyes were blurred, and he had that helpless, childish look that comes with premature age.

"I have been with Isabel all day," he said, huskily.

Although Bethany had never heard Mrs. Trent's given name before, she knew that he was speaking of his wife.

There was a long pause, which she finally broke by saying, "Don't you see her every day? I thought you were in the habit of going out to her that often."

"O, I have gone there," he answered wearily, "day after day, and day after day, all these long years; but I have never seen Isabel. It has only been a poor, mad creature, who never recognized me. She was always calling for me. The way she used to rave, and pray to be sent back to her husband, would have touched a heart of flint; yet she never knew me when I came. She would grow quiet when I put my arm around her, but she would sit and stare at me in a dumb, confused way that was pitiful. I always hoped that some day she might recognize me. I would sing her old songs to her, and talk about our old home, although the thought of its shattered happiness broke my heart. I tried in every way to bring her to herself. She would listen awhile, and look up at me with a recognition almost dawning in her eyes. Then the tears would begin to roll down her cheeks, and she would beg me to go and find her husband. Yesterday she knew me!" His voice broke. "She came back to me for the first time in eight years, – my own little Isabel! I knew it was only because the frail body was worn out with its terrible struggle, and I could not keep her long. O, such a day as this has been! I have held her in my arms every moment, with her poor, tired head against my heart. She was so glad and happy to find herself with me at last, but the happiness was over so soon."

He buried his face in his hands as before, with a groan. When he spoke again, it was in a dull, mechanical way.

"She died at sundown!"

The tears were running down Bethany's face. She had been standing behind his chair. Now she bent over him, lightly passing her hand over his gray hair, with a comforting caress.

"If I could only do something," she exclaimed, in a voice tremulous with sympathy.

"You can," he answered. "That is why I came. None of her relatives are living. Only my most intimate friends know that she did not die eight years ago, when she was taken away to a sanitarium. I want – " he stopped with a choking in his throat. "The attendants have been very kind, but I want some woman of her own station – some woman who would have been her friend – to put flowers about her – and – smooth her hair, as she would have wanted it done – and – and – see that everything is all fine and beautiful when she is dressed for her last sleep."

He tried to keep his voice steady as he talked; but his face was working pitifully, and the tears were rolling down his face.

"She would have wished it so. She knew Richard Hallam. He was my best friend. I do not know any one I could ask to do this for my little Isabel, but Richard Hallam's daughter."

She leaned over and touched his forehead with her lips.

"Then let her have a daughter's place in helping you bear this," she said. "Let her serve her father's dear, old friend as she would have served that father."

He reached up and mutely took her hand, resting his face against it a moment, as if the touch of its sympathy strengthened him. Then he rose, saying, "I shall send for you in the morning."

"O, are you going home so soon?" she exclaimed. "You have hardly been here long enough to get thoroughly warm."

"No, not home, but back to Isabel. It will be only a few hours longer that I can sit beside her. I have staid away now longer than I intended, but I had to come in town to see that Lee was all right."

"O, does he know?" asked Bethany.

"No, he was only two years old when they were separated. She has always been dead to him. Poor, little fellow! Why should I shadow his life with such a grief?"

Bethany helped him on with his overcoat, turned up the collar, and buttoned it securely. Then she gave him his gloves; but instead of putting them on, he stood snapping the clasps in an absent-minded way.

"I suppose Richard told you about that debt I have been wrestling with so long," he said, finally. "I got that all paid off last week, the last wretched cent. And now that Isabel is gone, I seem to have lost all my old vigor and ambition. If it were not for Lee, it would be so good to stop, and not try to take another step. I should like to lie down and go to sleep, too."

He opened the door. A raw, cold wind, laden with snow, rushed in.

Bethany watched him out of sight, then went shivering back to the fire.

A deep snowstorm kept Jack at home next day, so no one questioned, or no one knew why Bethany was excused from the office during the morning.

She carried out Dr. Trent's wishes faithfully. She stood beside him in the dreary cemetery till the white snow was laid back over the newly-made mound. Then she rode silently back to town with him. He sat with his hands over his eyes all the way, never speaking until the carriage stopped at the office, and the driver opened the door for Bethany to alight.

Next day she saw him drive past on his usual round of professional visits. No one else noticed any difference in him, except that he seemed a little graver, and, if possible, more tender and thoughtful in his ministrations, than he had been before.

To Bethany there was something very pathetic in the sudden aging of this man, who had borne his burden so silently and bravely that few had ever suspected he had one.

He was making a stern effort to keep on in the same old way. His profession had brought him in contact with so much of the world's sorrow and suffering that he would not lay even the shadow of his burden on other lives, if he could help it.

Only Bethany noticed that his hair was fast growing white, that he stooped more, and that he climbed slowly and heavily into the buggy, instead of springing in as he used to, with a quick, elastic step. She ministered to his comfort in all the little ways in her power, but it was not much that any one could do.

It must have been nearly two weeks before he came again to the house. This time it was to examine Jack.

"What would you say, my son," he asked, "if I should tell you I do not want you to go to the office any more after this week?"

Jack's face was a study. The tears came to his eyes. "Why?" he asked.

"Because you will be strong enough then to go through a certain exercise I want you to take many times during the day. If you keep it up faithfully, I believe you will be walking by Christmas."

This was so much sooner than either Jack or Bethany had dared hope, that they hardly knew how to express their joy. Jack gave a loud whoop, and went wheeling out of the room at the top of his speed to tell Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet.

Dr. Trent looked after him with a fatherly tenderness in his face. Then he sighed and turned to Bethany. "I have another trouble to bring to you, my dear. Lee has been getting into so much mischief lately. I never knew till yesterday that he has not been attending school regularly this term. You see every allowance ought to be made for the child – no home but a boarding-house; no one to take an oversight – for I am called out night and day. He is such a bright boy, so full of life and spirit. I am satisfied that his teachers do not understand him. They have not been fair with him. He has been transferred from one ward to another, and finally expelled. He never told me until last night. He said he knew it would grieve me, and that he put it off from day to day, because he did not want to trouble me when I was so worried over several critical cases. That showed a sweet spirit, Bethany. I appreciated it. He has always been such an affectionate little chap. I wanted to go and interview the superintendent; but he insisted it would do no good, because they are all prejudiced against him. I know Lee is a good child. They ought not to expect a growing boy, full of the animal spirits the Creator has endowed him with, to always work like a prim little machine. Maybe I am not acting wisely, but he begged so hard to be allowed to go to work for awhile, instead of being sent to any other school, that I gave my consent. It is little a ten-year old boy can do, but he has a taking way with him, and he got a place himself. He is to be elevator-boy in the same building where your office is. You will see him every day, and I am giving you the true state of affairs, so you will not misjudge the child. I hope you will look out a little for him, Bethany."

"You may be sure I shall do that," she promised. "We are already great friends. He used to often join us on his way to school, and wheel Jack part of the distance."

Jack made as much as possible of the remaining time that he was allowed to go to the office. He studied no lessons but the short Hebrew exercises David still gave him. He called at all the different offices where he had made friends, and spent a great deal of time in the hall, talking to Lee, who was soon installed in the building as elevator-boy.

"My! but Lee has been fooling his father," exclaimed Jack to Bethany after his first interview. "Dr. Trent thinks he is such a little angel, but you ought to hear the things he brags about doing. He's tough, I can tell you. He smokes cigarettes, and swears like a trooper. He showed me an old horse-pistol he won at a game of 'seven up.' He shoots 'craps,' too. He has been playing hooky half his time. One of the hostlers at the livery-stable, where his father keeps his horse, used to write his excuses for him. Lee paid him for it with tobacco he stole out of one of the warehouses down by the river. You just ought to see the book he carries around in his pocket to read when he isn't busy. It's called 'The Pirate's Revenge; or, A Murderer's Romance.' There is the awfulest pictures in it of people being stabbed, and women cutting their throats. I told him he showed mighty poor taste in the stuff he read; and asked him how he would like to be found dead with such a thing in his pocket. He told me to shut up preaching, and said the reason he has gone to work is to save up money so's he could go to Chicago or New York, or some big place, and have a 'howling good time.'"

It made Bethany sick at heart to think of the deception the boy had practiced on his father. Much as she trusted Jack, she could not bear to encourage any intimacy between the boys, and was glad when the time came for him to stay at home from the office. But in every way she could she strengthened her friendship with Lee. She brought him great, rosy apples, and pop-corn balls that Jack had made. No ten-year-old boy could be proof against the long twists of homemade candy she frequently slipped into his pocket. Sometimes when the weather was especially stormy and bleak outside, she stopped to put a bunch of violets or a little red rose in his button-hole. She was so pretty and graceful that she awakened the dormant chivalry within him, and he would not for worlds have had her suspect that he was not all his father believed him to be.

One day she told David enough of his history to enlist his sympathy. After that the young lawyer began to take considerable notice of him, and finally won his complete friendship by the gift of a little brown puppy, that he brought down one morning in his overcoat pocket.

There was no more time to read "The Pirate's Revenge." The helpless, sprawling little pup demanded all his attention. He kept it swung up in a basket in the elevator, when he was busy, but spent every spare moment trying to develop its limited intelligence by teaching it tricks. That was one occupation of which he never wearied, and in which he never lost patience. From the moment he took the soft, warm, little thing in his arms, he loved it dearly.

"I shall call him Taffy," he said, hugging it up to him, "because he's so sweet and brown."

Bethany had intended for Dr. Trent and Lee to dine with them on Thanksgiving day, but the sisters were invited to Mrs. Dameron's, and Mrs. Marion was so urgent for her and Jack to spend the day with them, that she reluctantly gave up her plan.

"I shall certainly have them Christmas," she promised herself, "and a big tree for Lee and Jack. Lois will help me with it."

It was a genuine Thanksgiving-day, with gray skies, and snow, to intensify the indoor cheer.

"Didn't the altar look beautiful this morning with its decorations of fruit and vegetables, and those sheaves of wheat?" remarked Miss Harriet. She had just come home from Mrs. Dameron's, and was holding her big mink muff in front of the fire to dry. She had dropped it in the snow.

"Yes, and wasn't that salad-dressing fine?" chimed in Miss Caroline. "Sally always did have a real talent for such things."

"It couldn't have been any better than we had," insisted Jack. "I don't believe I'll want anything more to eat for a week."

"That's very fortunate," answered Miss Caroline, "for I gave Mena an entire holiday. We'll only have a cup of tea, and I can make that in here."

They sat around the fire in the gloaming, quietly talking over the happy day. One of Bethany's greatest causes for thanksgiving was that these two gentle lives had come in contact with her own. Their simple piety and childlike faith sweetened the atmosphere around them, like the modest, old-fashioned garden-flowers they loved so dearly. Well for Bethany that she had the constant companionship of these loving sisters. Happy for Jack that he found in them the gracious grandmotherly tenderness, without which no home is complete. They were very proud of their boy, as they called him. Between the Junior League and their conscientious instruction, Jack was pretty firmly "rooted and grounded" in the faith of his fathers. Night stole on so gradually, and the firelight filled the room with such a cheerful glow, they did not notice how dark it had grown outside, until a sudden peal of the door-bell startled them.

"I'll go," said Miss Caroline, adjusting the spectacles that had slipped down when the sudden sound made her start nervously up from her chair. She waited to light the gas, and hastily arrange the disordered chairs.

When she opened the door she saw David Herschel patiently awaiting admittance. It was the first time he had ever called. She was all in a flutter of surprise as she ushered him into the library. He declined to take a seat.

"I have just come home from Dr. Trent's," he said. "You know he boards across the street from Rabbi Barthold's, where I have been spending the day. He was called out to see a patient last night, and came home late, with a hard chill. Lee saw me coming out of the gate a little while ago, and came running over to tell me. He had been out skating all morning. After dinner, when he went up-stairs, he found his father delirious, and had telephoned for Dr. Mills. He was very much frightened, and wanted me to stay with him until the doctor came. As soon as Dr. Mills examined him, he called me aside and asked me to get into his buggy and drive out to the Deaconess Home. I have just come from there," he said, "and Miss Carleton has no case on hands. Tell her if ever she was needed in her life, she is needed now. He has pneumonia, and it has been neglected too long, I'm afraid. It may be a matter of only a few hours."

Bethany started up, looking so white and alarmed that David thought she was going to faint. He arose, too.

"I must go over there at once," she said.

"It is quite dark," answered David. "I am at your service, if you want me to wait for you."

"O, I shall not keep you waiting a moment," she answered. "Jack, I'll be back in time to help you to bed."

As she spoke she began putting on her wraps, which were still lying on the chair, where she had thrown them off on coming in, a little while before.

David offered his arm as they went down the icy steps.

"It was so good of you to come at once," she said, as she accepted his assistance. "Is Miss Carleton there now?"

"Yes," he answered, "she was ready almost instantly. She is the same nurse that I met early one morning in that laundry office. She told me on the way back that Dr. Trent has done so much for the Home and for the poor. She says she owes her own life to his skill and care, and that no service she could render him would be great enough to express her gratitude. They all feel that way about him at the Home."

Belle Carleton met them at the bedroom door. "Dr. Trent has just spoken about you," she said in a low tone to Bethany. "He has had several lucid intervals. Take off your hat before you go to him."

Lee sat curled up in a big chair in a dark corner of the room, with Taffy hugged tight in his arms. An undefinable dread had taken possession of him. He looked up at Bethany, with a frightened, tearful expression, as she patted him on the cheek in passing.

Dr. Trent opened his eyes when she sat down beside him, and took his hand. He smiled brightly as he recognized her.

"Richard's little girl!" he said in a hoarse whisper, for he could not speak audibly. "Dear old Dick."

Then he grew delirious again. It was only at intervals he had these gleams of consciousness.

After awhile his eyes closed wearily. He seemed to sink into a heavy stupor. Bethany sat holding his hand, with the tears silently dropping down into her lap as she looked at the worn fingers clasped over hers.

What a world of good that hand had done! How unselfishly it had toiled on for others, to wipe out the brother's disgrace, to surround the little wife with comforts, to provide the boy with the best of everything! Besides all that, it had filled, as far as lay in its power, every other needy hand, stretched out toward its sympathetic clasp.

She sat beside him a long time, but he did not waken from the heavy sleep into which he had fallen, even when she gently withdrew her fingers, and moved away to let Dr. Mills take her place. He had just come in again.

"Will you need me here to-night, Belle?" asked Bethany.

The nurse turned to Dr. Mills inquiringly. He shook his head. "Miss Carleton can do all that is necessary," he said. "I shall come again about midnight, and stay the rest of the night, if I am needed. He will probably have no more rational awakenings while this fever keeps at such a frightful heat. If we can subdue that soon, he has such great vitality he may pull through all right."

"You'd better go back, dear," urged the nurse. "You have your work ahead of you to-morrow, and you look very tired."

"I have an almost unbearable headache," admitted Bethany, "or I would not think of leaving. I would not go even for that, if I thought he would have conscious intervals of any length; but the doctor thinks that is hardly probable to-night. I'll come back early in the morning. Maybe he will know me then."

"Are you going, too?" asked Lee, clinging wistfully to David's hand, as Bethany put on her hat.

"Would you like me to stay?" he asked, kindly.

Lee swallowed hard, and winked fast to keep back the tears.

"Everybody else is strangers," he said, with his lip trembling.

David put his arm around him caressingly. His sympathies went out strongly to the little lad, who might so soon be left fatherless.

"Then I'll come back and stay with you till you go to sleep, after I take Miss Hallam home," he promised.