Kitabı oku: «Sisters», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XXII.
REVELATIONS AND REGRETS
Susan Warner reached Poindexter Arms at the hour appointed and found her employer in the lily-pond garden. The old woman curtsied. Her heart was filled with pity. How changed was her formerly haughty mistress. There were more lines in the pale, patrician face than there were in the ruddy countenance of the humbler woman who was years the older. Hesitatingly she spoke: “I reckon you’ve been mighty sick, Mis’ Poindexter-Jones. It’s a pity, too, you havin’ so much to make life free of care an’ happy.” But the sad expression in the tired eyes, that were watching her so kindly, seemed to belie the words of the old woman who had been nurse for Baby Harold and housekeeper at Poindexter Arms for many years.
“Be seated, Susan. Miss Dane, my nurse, has gone to town to make a few purchases for me. Some of them books – ” the invalid paused and turned questioningly toward the older woman. “Did your Jenny tell you that I wish to engage her services for an hour or two each morning – reading to me?”
Susan Warner nodded, saying brightly, “She was that pleased, Jenny was! She didn’t tell me just what she was meaning, but she said, happy-like, ‘It will give me a chance to pay a debt.’”
“A debt.” The invalid was perplexed. “Why, Jenny Warner is in no way indebted to me.” Then a cold, almost hard expression crept into her eyes, as she added, “If Gwynette had said that, I might have understood. But she never does. She takes all that I give her, and is rebellious because it is not more.” She had been thinking aloud. Before her amazed listener uttered a comment, if, indeed, she would have done so, which is doubtful, the younger woman said bitterly: “Susan Warner, I have failed, failed miserably as a mother. You have succeeded. That is why I especially wished to talk with you this morning. I want your advice.” Then Mrs. Poindexter-Jones did a very unusual thing for her. She acknowledged her disappointment in her adopted daughter to someone apart from herself.
“The girl’s selfishness is phenomenal,” she continued, not without bitterness. “She is jealous of the least favor I show my own boy and wishes all of our plans to be made with her pleasure as our only consideration.”
The old woman shook her head sympathetically. “Tut! tut! Mis’ Poindexter-Jones, that’s most unfeelin’ of her. Most!” She had been about to say that it was hard to believe that the two girls were really sisters, but, fearing that the comparison might hurt the other woman’s feelings, she said no more.
The invalid, an unusual color burning in her cheeks, sighed deeply. “Susan Warner,” she said, and there was almost a break in her voice, “don’t blame the girl too much. I try not to. If you had brought her up, and I had had Jenny, it might have been different. They – ”
But Susan Warner could not wait, as was her wont for a superior to finish a sentence. She hurriedly interrupted with “Our Jenny wouldn’t have been different from what she is – no matter how she was fetched up. I reckon she just couldn’t be. She’d have been so grateful to you for havin’ given her a chance – she’d have been sweeter’n ever. Jenny would.”
The older woman was not entirely convinced. “I taught Gwynette to be proud,” she said reminiscently. “I wanted her to select her friends from only the best families. I was foolishly proud myself, and now I am being punished for it.”
Susan Warner said timidly, “Maybe she’ll change yet. Maybe ’tisn’t too late.”
“I fear it is far too late.” The invalid again dropped wearily back among her silken pillows. She closed her eyes, but opened them almost at once to turn a keenly inquiring glance at her visitor. “Susan Warner, I wanted to ask you this question: Do you think it might break down Gwynette’s selfish, haughty pride if she were to be told that she is your Jenny’s sister and my adopted daughter?”
The older woman looked startled. “Oh, I reckon I wouldn’t be hasty about tellin’ that, Mis’ Poindexter-Jones. I reckon I wouldn’t!” Then she faced the matter squarely. Perhaps the panic in her heart had been caused by selfish reasons. If the two girls were told that they were sisters, then Jenny would have to know that she was not the real granddaughter of the Warners. Would she, could she love them as dearly after that? The old woman rose, saying quaveringly, “Please, may I talk it over with Silas first. He’s clear thinkin’, Silas is, an’ he’ll see the straight of it.” And to this Mrs. Poindexter-Jones agreed.
On the day following, at the appointed hour, Jenny Warner, again wearing her pale yellow dress, appeared in the garden by the lily pond, and was welcomed by the invalid with a smile that brightened her weary face.
There were half a dozen new books on the small table, and Mrs. Poindexter-Jones, without preface, said: “Choose which one you would like to read, Jeanette.”
She glanced quickly at the girl, rebuking herself for having used the name of long ago, but it evidently had been unnoticed. The truth was that Miss Dearborn, her beloved teacher, had often used that longer name.
“They all look interesting. O, here is one, ‘The Morning Star.’ I do believe that is poetry in prose. How I wish Lenora might hear it also.”
“Lenora?” the woman spoke inquiringly; then “O, I recall now. You did say that you have a visitor who is ill. Is she strong enough to accompany you to my garden for our readings?”
“She would be, I think. The doctor said that by tomorrow I might take her for a drive. I could bring her chair and her cushions.” But the older woman interrupted. “No need to do that Jeanette. I have many pillows and several reclining chairs.” Then she suggested: “Suppose we leave the book until your friend is with us. There is a collection of short stories that will do for today.”
Jenny Warner read well. Miss Dearborn had seen to that, as she considered reading aloud an accomplishment to be cultivated.
The invalid was charmed. The girl’s voice was musical, soft yet clear, and most soothing to the harassed nerves of the woman, broken by the endless round of society’s demands.
When the one story was finished, the woman said: “Close the book, please, Jeanette. I would rather talk. I want to hear all about yourself, what you do, who are your friends, and what are your plans for the future.”
Jenny Warner told first of all about Miss Dearborn. That story was very enlightening to the listener. She had felt that some influence, other than that of the Warners, must have helped in the moulding of the girl who sat before her. “I would like to meet Miss Dearborn,” was her only comment.
Then Jenny told about Lenora Gale and the brother, Charles, who was coming to take her back to Dakota.
“But Lenora will not be strong enough to travel, perhaps not for a month, the doctor thinks. I do not know what her brother will do, but Lenora will remain with me.” Such a glad light was shining in the liquid brown eyes that the older woman was moved to say, “It makes you very happy to have a girl companion.”
Jenny clasped her hands, as she exclaimed: “No one knows how I have always longed to have a sister. I have never had friends – girl friends, I mean – I have been Miss Dearborn’s only pupil, but often and often I have pretended that I had a sister about my own age. I would wake up in the night, the way girls do in books, and confide my secrets to a make-believe sister. Then, when I went on long tramps alone up in the foothills, I pretended that my sister was with me and we made plans together.”
The girl hesitated and glanced at her listener, suddenly abashed, fearing that the older woman would think her prattling foolish. She was amazed at the changed expression. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones was ashen gray and her face was drawn as though she were suffering. “Dear,” she said faintly, “call Miss Dane, please! I would like to go in. It was a great wrong, a very great wrong – and yet, every one meant well.”
Puzzled, indeed, the girl arose and hastened toward the house. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones must have become worse, and suddenly she was even wandering in her mind. Jenny found the nurse not far away lying in a hammock, just resting.
She hurried to her patient. The woman leaned heavily on her companion as she walked toward the house. The girl, fearing that her chattering had overtired Harold’s mother, followed penitently.
At the steps the woman turned and held out a frail hand. There were tears on her cheeks and in her eyes. “Jeanette,” she said, almost feebly, “I am very tired. Do not come again until I send for you. I want to think. I must decide what to do.”
Then, noting the unhappy expression on the sweet face of the girl, she said, ever so tenderly, “You have not tired me, dear, dear Jeanette. Don’t think that. It is something very different.” Puzzled and troubled, Jenny returned to the farm.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MOTHER AND SON
The news from the big house on the day following was that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had had a relapse and was again very weak and ill. The same doctor who visited Lenora was the physician at Poindexter Arms. The son, Harold, had been sent for, and, as his examinations at the military academy were over, he would not return. That, the doctor confided to Susan Warner, was indeed fortunate, as his patient had longed to see her boy. “The most curious thing about it all,” he concluded, “is that she has not sent for her daughter, who is so near that she could reach her mother’s bedside in half an hour.”
“Not yet,” Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had said. “I wish to talk with my son. He will know what is best to do.”
Harold, arrived and went at once to his mother’s room. With infinite tenderness they greeted each other. “My dearest mother,” the lad’s tone expressed deep concern, “I was so happy when your nurse wrote that you were rapidly recovering. What has happened to cause the relapse? Have you been overdoing? Now that I am home, mother, I want you to lean on me in every way. Just rest, dearest, and let whatever burdens there are be on my broad shoulders.” With joy and pride the sick woman gazed at her boy.
“Dear lad,” she said, “you know not what you ask. The cause of my relapse is a mental one. I have done a great wrong to two people, a very great wrong, and it is too late to right it. No, I am not delirious.” She smiled up into his troubled, anxious face and her eyes were clear, even though unusually bright.
Then the nurse glided in to protest that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones would better rest before talking more with her son. But the sick woman was obstinate. “Miss Dane,” she said, “please let me do as I wish in this matter. I will take the responsibility with the doctor. I want to be alone with my boy for fifteen minutes. Then he will go away and you may come.”
The nurse could do nothing but retire, though much against her better judgment. Harold seated himself close to the bed and held one of his mother’s hands in his cool, firm clasp.
“What is it, dearest?” he asked. “What is troubling you?”
Then she told the story, the whole of it, not sparing her own wrong training of the girl, concluding with her disappointment in her adopted daughter. The lad leaned over and kissed his mother tenderly. “You meant so kindly,” he said, “when you took an orphan into your home and gave her every opportunity to make good.”
He hesitated and the woman asked: “Harold, did you know? Did you ever guess? You do not seem surprised.”
“Yes, dearest. Long ago. Not just at first, of course, for I was only five when Gwynette came into our home and she was three, but later, when I was grown, I knew that she was not my own little sister, or she would have come to us as a wee baby.”
“Of course, I might have known that you would reason it out when you were older. I wish now that you had spoken to me about it, then I could have asked your advice sooner.”
“My advice, mother?”
“Yes, dear lad. It is often very helpful to talk a problem over with someone whose point of view naturally would be different. You might have saved me from many mistakes. What I wish to ask now is this: If I can obtain the permission of the Warners (we made an agreement long years ago that the secret was never to be revealed by any of us), but if now they think it might be best, would you advise me to tell Gwynette the truth?”
The lad looked thoughtfully out of the window near. His mother waited eagerly. She had decided to abide by his advice whatever it might be. At last he turned toward her. “Knowing Gwynette’s supreme selfishness, I fear that whatever love she may have for you, mother, would be turned to very bitter hatred. She would feel that you were hurling her from a class, of which she is snobbishly proud, down into one that she considers very little better than serfdom. I hardly know how she would take it. She might do something desperate.” The boy regretted these words as soon as they were spoken. The woman’s eyes were startled and because of her great weakness she began to shiver as though in a chill. The repentant lad knelt and held her close. “Mother, dear, leave it all to me, will you? Forget it and just get well for my sake.” Then with a break in his voice, “I wouldn’t want to live without you, dearest.” A sweet calm stole into the woman’s soul. Nothing else seemed to matter. She rested her cheek against her son’s head as she said softly: “My boy! For your sake I will get well.”
Harold, upon leaving his mother, went at once to his room, and, throwing himself down in his comfortable morris-chair, with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, he sat staring out of a wide picture-window. He did not notice, however, the white-capped waves on the tossing, restless sea. He was remembering all that had happened from his little boyhood, especially all that associated him with the girl he had long realized could not be his own sister.
Had he been to her the companion that he might have been, indeed that he should have been, even though he knew she was not his father’s child? No, he had really never cared for her and he had avoided her companionship whenever it was possible. Many a time he had known that she was hurt at his lack of devotion. Only recently, when he had so much preferred taking Sunday dinner at the farm, and had actually forgotten Gwyn until the haughty girl had reminded him that it was his duty to take her wherever she would like to dine, he had recalled, almost too late, that it would be his mother’s wish, and now, that his father was gone, his mother was the one person whom he loved above all others. His conclusion, after half an hour of relentless self-examination, was that he was very much to blame for Gwynette’s selfishness. If he had long ago sought her confidence, long ago in the formative years, they might have grown up in loving companionship as a sister and brother should. This, surely, would have happened, a thought tried to excuse him to himself, if she had been an own sister. But he looked at it squarely. “If my mother wanted Gwynette enough to adopt her and have her share in all things with her own son, that son should have accepted her as a sister.” Rising, he walked to the window, and, for a few moments, he really saw the wind-swept sea. Then, whirling on his heel, he snapped his fingers as he thought with a new determination. “I shall ask our mother (he purposely said ‘our’) to give me a fortnight to help Gwyn change her point of view, before the revelation is made to her. The fault, I can see now, has not been wholly her own. Mother has shown in a thousand ways that I am the one she really loves. Not that she has neglected Gwyn, but there has been a difference.” He was putting on his topcoat and cap as he made the decision to take a run up to the seminary and see how his sister was getting on.
As he neared his mother’s room, the nurse appeared, closing the door behind her so softly that the lad knew, without asking, that the invalid was asleep. Miss Dane smiled at the comely youth.
“My patient is much better since you came home. I believe you were the tonic, or the narcotic rather, that she needed, for she seems soothed and quieted.”
The lad’s brightening expression told the nurse how great was his love for his mother. She went her way to the kitchen to prepare a strengthening broth for the invalid to be given her when she should awaken, and all the while she was wondering why a son should be so devoted and a daughter seem to care so little. It was evident to the most casual observer that Gwynette cared for no one but herself.
Harold was soon in his little gray speedster and out on the highway. He thought that, first of all, he would dart into town and buy a box of Gwyn’s favorite chocolates. She could not but greet him graciously when he appeared with a gift for her. On the coast highway, near Santa Barbara, there was a roadside inn where motoring parties lunched and where the best of candies could be procured. As he was about to complete his purchase, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with the build of a college athlete, entered carrying a suitcase. He inquired when the next bus would pass that way, and, finding that he would have to wait at least an hour, he next asked how far it was to the farm of Silas Warner. Harold stepped forward, before the clerk could reply, and said, “I am going in that direction. In fact I shall pass the farm. May I give you a lift?”
“Thanks.”
Together they left the shop and were soon speeding along the highway, neither dreaming of all that this meeting was to mean to them.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HAROLD AND CHARLES
Harold was frankly curious. He had not heard of the guest at the Warner’s. Indeed, having arrived but that day he had heard nothing except his mother’s anxiety about Gwynette. Could it be possible that the fine-looking chap at his side was a friend of Jenny’s? He could easily understand that anyone, man or woman, who had once met her would, ever after, wish to be counted as one of her friends.
When they were well out in the country, the lad at the wheel turned and smiled in his frank, friendly way. “Stranger hereabouts?” he inquired.
“Yes and no,” the young man replied. “This is my third visit, though the other two could hardly be called that. I came here when the rainy season began up north to put my sister, who is not strong, in the seminary here. I hoped that your more even climate might help restore her strength. Dakota is our home state. We have a ranch there, but the winters are very severe. Sister, I am sorry to say, was not happy at the seminary, and, when she did take a severe cold, she did not recover, and so I made my second flying trip with the intention of taking her to Arizona if that seemed best, but, when I arrived her nurse told me that she believed a pleasant home atmosphere would do more for my sister than a dry air. This, I was glad to find, had already been offered to Lenora. She had met a girl, Jenny Warner is her name, and the two had become fast friends. On the very day that I arrived Miss Jenny was also going to the seminary with an invitation from her grandmother which was to make my sister a guest in their home until she should be strong enough to travel. That was two weeks ago. This, my third visit, is for the purpose of determining if Lenora is well enough to accompany me to our home in Dakota. My name is Charles Gale, and I have just completed the agricultural course connected with the state college at Berkeley.”
Harold reached out a strong brown hand which was grasped heartily by another equally strong and brown.
“Great! I’d like well to take that course. Harold Jones is my name. Mother and Sis put a Poindexter and a hyphen in the middle. Women like that sort of thing. It was mother’s maiden name. Well, here we are at the long lane that leads up to the farm.”
Charles leaned over to pick up his suitcase. “Don’t turn in. I can hike up to the house.”
“Nothing doing.” Harold swung into the narrow dirt lane. “I was planning to pay a visit to Susan Warner. She took care of me when I was a small kid, you see, and so I claim her as sort of a foster grandmother, and, as for Silas Warner, there’s no finer example of the old school farmer living, or I miss my bet.”
Charles looked interested. “I’d like to meet him. I was here such a short time on my last visit that, although I met Mrs. Warner, I did not see her good spouse.”
Harold, eager to create some sort of a stir, caused his sport siren to announce their arrival with shrill staccato notes. It had the desired effect. First of all dear old Susan Warner bustled out of the kitchen door, then from around the front corner of the house came Jenny with her friend, frail and white, leaning on her arm. Lenora’s face brightened when she saw her brother and she held out both arms to him as he leaped from the low car. Harold chivalrously sprang up on the side porch to shake hands first of all with his one time nurse, then he went to Jenny, and although he did not really frame his thought in words, he was conscious of feeling glad that it was his arrival and not that of Charles Gale which was causing her liquid brown eyes to glow with a welcome which, at least, was most friendly.
“Come in, all of you, do, and have a glass of milk and a cookie.” Grandma Sue thought of them as just big children, and, by the eagerness with which they accepted the invitation, she was evidently not far wrong.
Jenny skipped to the cooling cellar to soon return with a blue crockery pitcher brimming with creamy milk. Susan Warner heaped a plate with cookies. Charles led his sister to Grandpa Si’s comfortable armed chair near the stove. When they were all seated and partaking of the refreshments, the older of the lads said, “Sister, you are not yet strong enough to travel, I fear.”
“O, I think that I am! We could have a drawing room all of the way and I could lie down most of the time.” But even the excitement of her brother’s arrival had tired her.
Jenny went to her friend’s side and, sitting on the broad arm of the chair, she pleaded: “Don’t leave me so soon, Lenora! Aren’t you happy here with us? You’ve been getting stronger every day, and only yesterday Grandma Sue told the doctor that she hoped you would be here another fortnight, and he said, didn’t he, Grandma Sue, that it would be at least that long before you would be able to travel.”
Lenora looked anxiously at her brother. She knew that he was eager to get back to their Dakota ranch home, knowing that their father needed him and was lonely for both of them. But the young man said at once, “I believe the doctor is right. I will wire Dad tonight when I go back to the hotel that we will remain two weeks longer.” Then, turning toward the nodding, smiling old woman, he asked: “Mrs. Warner, you are quite sure that we are not imposing upon you? I could take my sister with me if – ”
Susan Warner’s reply was sincerely given. “Mr. Gale,” she said, her ruddy face beaming, “I reckon there’s three of us in this old farmhouse as wishes your sister Lenora was goin’ to stay all summer. Jenny, here,” how fondly the faded blue eyes turned toward her girl, “has allays had a hankering for an own sister, and since it’s too late now for that, next best is to adopt one, and Lenora is her choice and mine, too, and Si’s as well, I reckon.”
The young man’s relief and appreciation were warmly expressed. Then he said, “Father will want us to stay under the circumstances. I will remain at the hotel – ” Grandma Sue interrupted with, “I do wish we had another bedroom here. It’s a powerful way from the farm to town and Lenora will want to see you every day.”
Harold had been thoughtfully gazing at the floor. He now spoke. “Charles,” then with his half whimsical, wholly friendly smile he digressed, “you won’t mind if I call you that, will you, since we are merely boys of a larger growth,” then continued with, “Don’t decide where you will bunk, please, until I have had an opportunity to talk the matter over with my invalid mother. I’d like bully well to have you for my guest. I have a plan, a keen one if I can carry it out. I’ll not reveal it until I know.” Harold stood up, suddenly recalling that he had a duty to fulfill which was being neglected for his own pleasure. That had always been his way, he feared, when he had to choose between Gwynette and someone who really interested him.
To Mrs. Warner he said, “I’m on my way over to the seminary to see my sister. Poor kid! There are two more days of prison life for her, or so she considers it. Mother requested that she remain at the seminary until the term is over and it’s being hard for her.” Then to the taller lad, “Charles, you want to stay here with your sister until evening anyway, don’t you?”
The girl quickly put out a detaining hand, as she said, “O please do stay. I haven’t asked you a single question yet. It will take you until dark to answer half that I want to know.” The big brown hand closed over the frail one. To Harold he replied, “Yes, I’ll be here if I can get a bus to town in the evening.”
“You won’t need the bus, not if my little gray bug is in working order.” They had all risen except Lenora, and Susan Warner said hospitably, “Harry-lad, if your ma don’t need you over to the big house, come back in time for supper. I’ll make the corn bread you set such a store by.”
“Thanks, I’ll be here with bells,” the lad called as he leaped into his waiting car.
