The Old Blood Part 43

"A long treatment, but they will come back," replied Helen.

She led the way into the ward where Phil was in a big chair, a comely figure of youth up to his chin. The rest of him was a ball of white, with a harness of silver woven in with bandages for his lower face, and bandages over his eyes.

"Your father and mother have come," Helen wrote on his arm.

They sat down without any demonstration, one on each side of his chair, and each took one of his hands, receiving a strong answering clasp.

Peter "filled up," as he put up, and went out into the court to pace up and down. When he returned they were in the same position.

This hand in his own left hand Phil knew was his father's, because it was larger and bonier than the one in his right, which was soft and yielding. He was thinking of Longfield; seeing the village street under the old elms, the garden and the porch, and the glory of sunrise and sunset in the Berks.h.i.+res; relieving the joys of sight. In turn, in that silent communion, Dr. and Mrs. Sanford saw him coming up the path to the porch at all ages and on all occasions.

"That wiggle of his right foot," said Helen, "means that he wants to talk. Oh, we've developed a remarkable code and we've not gone in for the blind raised letters because he never will need them."

She brought a pencil, which she slipped between his fingers, and a pad, which she fixed on a slanting table fastened to the chair.

"He's becoming wonderfully good at it," she said, "though at first he was always getting off the track and writing one line over another."

Slowly but quite clearly he wrote his big letters on small pages, which Helen pa.s.sed to the father and mother.

"Some family reunion, this! It is a cinch that I get well--father, pardon the language!"

This was the first sheet. The two looked at each other and smiled.

"It's Phil, all right!" murmured Peter, echoing their thoughts.

"When I get my new countenance, new eyes and ears, and descend on Longfield, even Jane will admit I'm grown up. I am going to show Hanks that he is not the only one who can branch out"--this on the second sheet.

"Peter arranged it so you could come, I hear," came the third. "Tell him he has been so kind that I almost regret I did not go to work for him and ruin his business."

There was something very like a snort from the direction of Peter, who was caught grinning when the others looked around.

"Tell Bill Hurley, who is for the Allies but a pessimist about their chances, that the Allies are going to win the war. And you are coming often, aren't you? Won't they let you? This conversation is getting one-sided." He pulled up his sleeve, which was a signal to Helen.

"Yes," she wrote, at Dr. Sanford's dictation. "Peter has got a little house for us and permission to stay near you."

"This is just simply HAPPINESS"--Phil spelled out the word in capitals.

"Tell Peter he is certainly some arranger. Isn't he going to come and see me, too?"

Peter was swallowing hard--a habit that he had formed since he had arrived at the hospital. He advanced to Phil's side.

"Peter is here," Helen wrote.

Phil's hand went out, searching in the darkness, and Peter's leapt toward it and the two clasped in a firm, prolonged grip.

"Shall I tell him that every cent I have is his, when he expected nothing?" Peter put the question to Helen.

She knew only the vague outline of their story, yet understood the principle involved, and she hesitated. Peter studied her face with his shrewd glance.

"I guess not," he said. "He's fighting for something worth more than three millions and money won't make a fellow of Phil's calibre fight any harder. I guess it would be kind of cheap to do it now. I'll wait till he can see me, or till we know that he is not going to----"

"He will!" put in Helen sharply.

"Say," Peter said admiringly, "they ought to put you in command of an army corps out there! You've got the kind of spirit that would break the line."

"Spirit has nothing to do with it," Helen replied. "It is simply a fact."

"I'd make it the whole army!" said Peter, who belonged to the school which believes that if you make up your mind to do a thing you will do it.

Phil was writing again, his fingers moving more rapidly than usual, his writing less distinct, as if he were under the pressure of strong emotion:

"I should have slipped if it had not been for her. It is a thing one can't talk about--the great thing of all, that makes me bear the pain and make the fight--what Henriette has done for me."

"Henriette!"

Dr. and Mrs. Sanford and Peter uttered the word together and stared involuntarily at Helen, in blank inquiry. She looked away quickly at the floor and murmured:

"Yes, Henriette!"

There was a silence then, while she took the pad and pencil from Phil and removed the little table, which provided her with the relief of movement.

"Not too much at one time, lest we tire him," she said.

She went with them through the court, where the seeing men in their pain watched them pa.s.sing; and on the way her glance hovered into theirs beseechingly and her lips were parted as if about to speak, but she could not find words until they were on the path.

"You would make me any promise, wouldn't you," she asked, "in order to save him?"

Now she told the secret which only she and Henriette knew, how she had been mistaken for her sister.

"You must not undeceive him, or think of it, or speak of it! You will promise?"

Her nostrils were quivering and her eyes had the steady light of command. As they nodded, the father and mother felt a trifle in awe of her, this woman in a warrior's mood who had been a link between them and their son. She gave them a smile of thanks; then, in the flutter of an impulse, kissed Mrs. Sanford on the cheeks and abruptly started back to the ward, where she gave Phil a hand-clasp to signal her return and two clasps to learn if he wanted anything. He asked for his pad:

"It's pretty hard on them. Did I cheer them up?"

"Yes, and they know that you are going to get well."

"Good! Aren't they dears? Shall we take a const.i.tutional? It tired the old head-piece a little, all that excitement."

The const.i.tutionals were promenades up and down the court, with digressions sometimes out onto the paths when he felt particularly venturesome. Her arm through his, wheeling on him as a pivot when they came to the turns, he feeling the touch of her hand upon his wrist, she realising the helplessness of that tall form without some one to guide it, they had paced back and forth so many times now that these promenades had become a part of their existence. His silence she must share. They might think each his own thoughts in the nearness, the interdependence, of that strange companions.h.i.+p. Sometimes he carried on imaginary conversations with her and she with him; and the great things to both were the unspoken things, rather than those written on his arm or on the pad. When the revelation should come that she was not Henriette--but Helen never thought of that. It was the bridge on the other side of the promised land of his recovery.

She was not surprised when she saw Henriette enter the court just as they were turning toward the ward. Henriette came faithfully every day to inquire how he was and reported her visit at dinner with Lady Truckleford's lot. These were practically the only occasions when the sisters met. Henriette's manner was that of affectionate sympathy for Helen and pity for Phil.

"His father and mother have been to see him?"

"Yes. It made him very happy."

"And Peter Smithers was with them?"

"Yes."