The Awakening of Helena Richie Part 49

It was Dr. Lavendar who did the thinking before the sunlight came.

Twice, in his placid, wakeful night, he rose to make sure the child was all right, to pull up an extra blanket about the small shoulders or to arrange the pillow, punched by David's fist to the edge of the bed. In the morning he let the little boy look out of the window while he packed up their various belongings; and when it was time to start, David could hardly tear himself away from that outlook, which makes such a mystical appeal to most of us--huddling roofs and chimneys under a morning sky. But when he did turn to look at Dr. Lavendar, tucking things into his valise and singing to himself, it was to realize again the immutable past. "No," he said slowly, "you can't get back behind, and begin again." Dr. Lavendar, understanding, chuckled.

"Can G.o.d?" said David.

At that Dr. Lavendar's face suddenly shone. "David," he said, "the greatest thing in the world is to know that G.o.d is always beginning again!"

But David had turned to the window to watch a prowling cat upon a roof; and then, alas, it was time to start.

"Well," said Dr. Lavendar, as, hand in hand, they walked to the big, roaring place where the cars were, "Well, David, to-morrow we shall be at home again! You sit down here and take care of my bag while I go and get the tickets."

David slid sidewise on to the slippery wooden settee. He had nothing to say; again he felt that bleak sinking right under his little breast-bone; but it stopped in the excitement of seeing Mrs. Richie's brother coming into the waiting-room! There was a young lady at his side, and he piloted her across the big, bare room, to the very settee upon which David was swinging his small legs.

"I must see about the checks, dear," he said, and hurried off without a glance at the little boy who was guarding Dr. Lavendar's valise.

The sun pouring through the high, dusty window, shone into David's eyes. He wrinkled his nose and squinted up at the young lady from under the visor of his blue cap. She smiled down at him, pleasantly, and then opened a book; upon which David said bravely, "You're nineteen. I'm seven, going on eight."

"What!" said the young lady; she put her book down, and laughed. "How do you know I am nineteen, little boy?"

"Mrs. Richie's brother said so."

She looked at him with amused perplexity. "And who is Mrs. Richie's brother?"

David pointed shyly at the vanis.h.i.+ng figure at the end of the waiting- room.

"Why, no, dear, that's my father."

"_I_ know," said David; "he's Mr. Pryor, Mrs. Richie's brother. He comes and stays at our house."

"Stays at your house? What on earth are you talking about, you funny little boy! Where is your house?"

"O' Chester," said David.

The young lady laughed and gave him a kind glance. "You've made a mistake, I think. My father doesn't know Mrs. Richie."

David had nothing to say, and she opened her book. When Mr. Pryor returned, hurrying to collect the bags and umbrellas, David had turned his back and was looking out of the window.

It was not until they were in the train that Alice remembered to speak of the incident. "Who in the world is Mrs. Richie?" she demanded gayly, "and where is Old Chester?"

The suddenness of it was like a blow. Lloyd Pryor actually gasped; his presence of mind so entirely deserted him, that before he knew it, he had lied--and no one knew better than Lloyd Pryor that it is a mistake to lie hurriedly.

"I--I don't know! Never heard of either of them."

His confusion was so obvious that his daughter gave him a surprised look. "But I'm told you stay at Mrs. Richie's house, in Old Chester,"

she said laughing.

"What are you talking about!"

"Why, father," she said blankly; his irritation was very disconcerting.

"I tell you I never heard of such a person!" he repeated sharply; and then realized what he had done. "d.a.m.n it, what did I lie for?" he said to himself, angrily; and he began to try to get out of it: "Old Chester? Oh, yes; I do remember. It's somewhere near Mercer, I believe. But I never went there in my life." Then he added in his own mind, "Confound it, I've done it again! What the devil has happened?

Who has told her?" Aloud, he asked where she had heard of Old Chester.

She began to tell him about a little boy, who said--"it was too funny!" she interrupted herself, smiling--"who said that _you_ were 'Mrs. Richie's brother,' and you stayed at her house in Old Chester, and--"

"Perfect nonsense!" he broke in. "He mistook me for some one else, I suppose."

"Oh, of course," she agreed, laughing; upon which Mr. Pryor changed the subject by saying that he must look over some papers. "Don't talk now, dear," he said.

Alice subsided into her novel; but after a while she put the book down. No; the little boy had not mistaken him for somebody else; "he's Mr. Pryor," the child had said. But, of course, the rest was all a funny mistake. She took the book up again, but as she read, she began to frown. Old Chester: Where had she heard of Old Chester? Then she remembered. A gentleman who came to call,--King? Yes; that was his name; Dr. King. He said he had come from Old Chester. And he had spoken of somebody--now, who was it? Oh, yes, Richie; Mrs. Richie. And once last spring when her father went to Mercer he said he was going to Old Chester; yet now he said he had never heard of the place.--Why!

it almost seemed as if she had blundered upon a secret! Her uneasy smile faded involuntarily into delicate disgust; not because the nature of the secret occurred to her, but because secrecy in itself was repugnant to her, as it is to all n.o.bler minds. She said to herself, quickly, that her father had forgotten Old Chester, that was all. Of course, he had forgotten it!--or else--She did not allow herself to reach the alternative which his confusion so inevitably suggested:--secrecy, protected by a lie. In the recoil from it she was plunged into remorse for a suspicion which she had not even entertained. Truth was so much to this young creature, that even the shadow of an untruth gave her a sense of uneasiness which she could not banish. She looked furtively at her father, sorting out some papers, his lips compressed, his eyebrows drawn into a heavy frown, and a.s.sured herself that she was a wicked girl to have wondered, even for a minute, whether he was perfectly frank. He! Her ideal of every virtue! And besides, why should he not be frank? It was absurd as well as wicked to have that uneasy feeling. "I am ashamed of myself!" she declared hotly, and took up her novel....

But David had thrown the smooth stone from the brook!

It was a very little stone; the giant did not know for many a day where he had been hit; yet it had struck him in the one vulnerable point in his armor--his daughter's trust in him. How the wound widened does not belong to this story.

When Dr. Lavendar came bustling back with his tickets, David was absorbed in thought. He had very little to say on the long day's journey over the mountains. When they reached Mercer where they were to spend the night, he had nothing whatever to say: his eyes were closing with fatigue, and he was asleep almost before his little yellow head touched the pillow. In the morning he asked a question:

"Is it a Aunt if you don't know it?" "What?" said Dr. Lavendar, winding his clean stock carefully around his neck.

But David relapsed into silence. He asked so few questions that day that crutches for lame ducks were referred to only once.

They took the afternoon stage for Old Chester. It was a blue, delicious October day, David sat on the front seat between Dr.

Lavendar and Jonas, and as Jonas told them all that had happened during their long absence, the child felt a reviving interest in life.

Dr. Lavendar's humming broke out into singing; he sang sc.r.a.ps of songs and hymns, and teased David about being sleepy. "I believe he's lost his tongue, Jonas; he hasn't said boo! since we left Mercer. I suppose he won't have a thing to tell Mrs. Richie, not a thing!"

"Well, now, there!" said Jonas, "her George gimme a letter for you, and I'll be kicked if I ain't forgot it!" He thrust his left leg out, so that his cow-hide boot hung over the dashboard, and fumbled in his pocket; then thrust out the right leg and fumbled in another pocket; then dived into two or three coat pockets; finally a very crumpled note, smelling of the stable, came up from the depths and was handed to Dr. Lavendar.

"Slow down these two-forties on a plank road, Jonas, till I get my gla.s.ses on." said Dr. Lavendar.

After he read the letter he did not sing any more; his face fell into deeply puzzled lines. "I must ask w.i.l.l.y what it's all about," he said to himself. Certainly the note did not explain itself:

"DEAR DR. LAVENDAR: If it will not inconvenience you, will you let David stay at the rectory tonight?--and perhaps for a few days longer.

I am not sure whether I shall be able to keep him. I may have to give him back to you. Will you let him stay with you until I can decide what to do?

"HELENA R."

"I wonder if that brother has interfered?" thought Dr. Lavendar.

"Something has happened; that's evident. Keep him? Well, I guess I will!" He looked down at David, his old eyes beaming with pleasure.

"Mrs. Richie wants you to stay with me tonight; what do you think of that?"

"I wanted to see the rabbits," said David; "but I don't mind staying-- very much."

CHAPTER x.x.xI