LITMIR.BIZ

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could she smile—and said, "Oh, Gabriella found you. Come here, dear," and she put out her hand. I closed the door and then backed up against it. I couldn't go near Miss Brown. I didn't want her tissue-paper sympathy.

      "What's happened to my father, Miss Brown?" I asked. "You can tell me the very worst right off."

      She didn't hedge any more.

      "He is very, very ill," she replied, going straight to the point as I liked to have her.

      "Does that mean," I said, "that he is—is—" I couldn't say it—"is worse than very ill?" I finished.

      "No," she replied. "No, Lucy. Your father is still living. I have just called up your brother by long distance telephone and they want you to come home immediately. It is your father's heart." Then she added, looking at me firmly, as if she were upholding me by the hand: "It is a long trip. You must be prepared for the worst, Lucy." I didn't answer and she turned to her desk, picked up a piece of paper and passed it to me. "Read it," she said. "It is a telegram for you."

      I looked down and these words greeted me like dear, comforting friends:

      "Stand up, Bobbie. Be brave. We need you to be strong. Alec."

      It was just as if my dear brother Alec were suddenly there like a miracle in the room beside me, and now, at last, I would not disappoint him.

      I looked up at Miss Brown.

      "When is there a train?" I asked calmly; but to myself I was saying over and over again, "Stand up. Be brave. They need you to be strong."

      Miss Brown came over to me, and I must say I've always liked her from that day to this. She didn't say anything silly or comforting to me. That would all have been so useless. She just took my hand in a man's sort of way and held it firmly a minute in hers, "Your brother will be proud of you," she said. That was all, but do you think then I would have failed?

      "We will go upstairs and pack," she added immediately, and I followed her, bound now to control myself or die.

      I don't know how I ever got started. I only know there was a confused half-hour of packing, with Miss Brown helping and Gabriella close by me all the time. Gabriella couldn't seem to do enough. I saw her slip her pink kimono into my suit-case; I saw her pin one of her beautiful pearl bars on my red silk waist. She got out my new blue suit and brushed it; my new hat with the red quills; and while I combed my hair, she laced my new tan shoes. I understood that it was her way of telling me how sorry she was, for every once in a while she'd have to stop and cry. Once she said, "Oh, I am so sorry I've been so mean. I hope—oh, I do hope you'll come back, Lucy." But I didn't care now. It was too late. All my thoughts were with my family who needed me. I gathered their dear pictures together in a pile and put them in my suit-case—Father's picture too, but I didn't trust myself to look at it. Dear Father—but I didn't dare let myself think, just at first.

      I felt in the air that all the girls knew my news about as soon as I did. Of course they didn't come near me. Even if I had been popular I don't believe they would have come. Sorrow somehow builds up such a barrier, and the one or two girls I met in the corridors kept close to the other wall and tried to avoid meeting my eyes. Gabriella and Miss Brown and the English teacher, whom I had always hated, saw me off. I begged to take the trip alone and Miss Brown finally allowed it.

      I thought of everything during that journey, and the more I thought the more I trusted myself to think, I don't know what made me so clear-headed and fearless, but I'd run my thoughts right up to any hard truth, and they wouldn't balk; they'd go right over. My mother had died when I was so little that I did not remember it and so this was the first test I had ever had. Perhaps—oh, perhaps—I faced it clearly and squarely—perhaps when I was met at the station they would tell me that I had come too late. I knew now that I wouldn't give way. Some great wonderful strength was in me and I wasn't afraid of myself. My home-coming was very different from the one I had planned, but when we drew near to the familiar old station I just said, "Be strong," and I knew that I should.

      Dr. Maynard was at the station to meet me. The minute he got hold of my hand he said, "It's all right. You're not too late."

      "That's good," I replied, but somehow I couldn't feel any more joy than sorrow. I remember, in the carriage, I asked lots of straight-forward, businesslike questions and Dr. Maynard answered me in the same way. There was no hope. The end might come at any moment. When he stopped before our door and helped me out, he said, "Bobbie, you're a brave girl." But I wasn't. I couldn't have cried. I didn't know how.

      I went into the house while Dr. Maynard stopped to hitch and blanket his horse. I found the twins and Ruth and Aunt Sarah all in the sitting-room. It didn't come to my mind then, but now, as I remember it, it was all very different from the triumphant entry I had planned. No one jumped up to greet me, and my new suit and tan shoes and hat with the quills were all unnoticed even by myself. The twins came forward and kissed me—not embarrassed as they usually are, but scarcely realising it. They didn't say anything, just kissed me and turned away. Ruth lay prostrate on the couch. She didn't stir at sight of me and I went up to her and kissed her on the temple. At that she buried her face deeper into the cushions and began to sob. Aunt Sarah looked as if she had been crying for weeks. She sat quietly rocking by the west window and her big, dyed-out, blue eyes were swimming in tears, brimming over, and running down her wrinkled face. It's something awful to me, to see a grown person cry. It's like an old wreck at sea, and I just couldn't kiss her. Everybody so horrible and silent and dismal, was worse somehow than death, and just for a moment I stood kind of helpless in the middle of the room. Then the door into the library opened and I saw my dear tired, patient Alec, and suddenly his arms were around me tight, holding me close—close to him and I heard him murmur, "Good Bobbie, good, brave Bobbie," and oh, if I can hate people awfully, I can love them too. When he let me go, he said calmly, "Don't you want to come and see Father?" and I followed him upstairs.

      Dr. Maynard led me to the side of Father's bed and I took one of Father's dear, familiar hands in mine. Alec sat down on the other side and for a while we three waited silently until Father should wake up. I wasn't frightened. It all seemed very natural, and none of the heart-breaking thoughts that came to me all during the weeks after he left us came to me then. It really seemed almost beautiful to be waiting there until Father should wake up. When finally he opened his eyes and saw me, he smiled, and pressed my hand a very little. Then he spoke.

      "Lucy!" he said; and after a long pause, "Do you like school?" he asked, just as naturally as if we were having a nice little talk downstairs.

      "Oh, yes, dear Father, I do!" I answered, and he pressed my hand again. It didn't strike me so very deeply then that my last word to my father was a lie, but afterward I used to cry about it for hours and hours. After a moment my father turned to Alec, "Stand by the business, my son," he murmured.

      And without a moment's hesitation my brother promised, "I will, Father."

      I didn't think Father would say anything more, for he closed his eyes again, but after a while he opened them and I saw he was actually noticing my hat and red waist, and the pearl pin Gabriella had given me. He smiled and I heard him murmur, "Pretty!" That was all; and oh, since, I have been so glad that my new clothes did so much more than I had ever hoped. For that was the last word my father said. I felt his hand grow limp in mine, and just then Dr. Maynard touched my shoulder and led me quietly away. He told me to lie down on the bed in the guest-room. I obeyed him and when, a little later, he came to me I understood the message in his eyes. I didn't feel the awfulness of it then nor I didn't have the least inclination to cry. I lay there very quietly for half an hour, then of my own accord I got up and went downstairs.

      I found Aunt Sarah by the window still crying without the grace of covering her tear-stained face. The twins were not there. Ruth jumped up when I came in and clung to me frantically.

      "Aunt Sarah," I asked, annoyed, "why do you sit there and cry?"

      "Unnatural girl," she answered, "have you no heart, no tears? Don't you know your father has died?"

      At those awful words poor little Ruth clung to me still tighter and wailed, "Oh, send her away, make her go off!"

      I

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