At the Crossroads Part 25

"With a woman?"

"Yes."

"One he just met when Mrs. Northrup became a mother?"

"He knew her before, but if Helen Northrup had been all she should have been to him----"

"I begin to see. And then?"

"Well, then he died and proved how n.o.ble he was at heart. When he went off, Helen Northrup wouldn't take a cent. She had a little of her own and she went to work and Brace helped when he grew older--and then when Thomas Northrup died he left almost all his fortune to his wife.

He never considered her anything else. I call his a really great nature." Poor Anna was in a trembling and ecstatic state.

"I call him a--just what he was!" Kathryn was weary of the subject. "I think Brace's mother was a fool to let him off so easy. I would have bled him well rather than to let the other woman put it all over me."

"My dear, that's not a proper way for you to talk!" Aunt Anna became the chaperon. "Come, get dressed now, dearie. There's the luncheon, you know."

"What luncheon?"

"Why, with Mr. Arnold, my dear, and he included me, too! Such a sweet fellow he is, and so wise and thoughtful."

"Oh!"

There had been a time when she and Sandy Arnold met clandestinely--it was such fun! He included Aunt Anna now. Why?

And just then, as if it were a live and demanding thing, her eyes fell on Northrup's last book. She scowled at it. It was a horrible book.

All about dirty, smudgy people that you couldn't forget and who kept springing out on you in the most unexpected places. At dinners and luncheons they often wedged in with their awful eyes fixed on your plate and made you choke. They probably were not true. And those things Brace said! Besides, if they were true, people like that were used to them--they had never known anything else!

And then Brace had said some terrible things about war; that war going on over the sea. Of course, no one expected to have a war, but it was unpatriotic for any one to say what Brace had about those perfectly dear officers at West Point and--what was it he said?--oh, yes--having the blood of the young on one's soul and settling horrid things, like money and land, with lives.

At this Kathryn tossed the book aside and it fell at Anna's feet. She picked it up and handled it as if it were a tender baby that had b.u.mped its nose.

"It must be perfectly wonderful," she said, smoothing the book, "to have an autographed copy of a novel. It's like having a lock of someone's hair. Where _is_ Brace, Kathryn?"

This was unfortunate.

"That is my business and his!" Kathryn spoke slowly. Her eyes slanted and her lips hardened.

"My darling, I beg your pardon!" And once more Anna Morris was shoved into the groove where she belonged.

Later that day, after the luncheon with Sandy--Anna had been eliminated by a master stroke that reduced her to tears and left Sandy a victim to Kathryn's wiles--Kathryn called upon Helen Northrup.

She was told by the smiling little maid to go up into the Workshop.

This room was a pitiful attempt to lure Brace to work at home; in his absence Helen sat there and scribbled. She wrote feeble little verses with a suggestion of the real thing in them. Sometimes they got published because the suggestion caught the attention of a sympathetic publisher, and these small recognitions kept alive a spark that was all but extinguished when Helen Northrup chose, as women of her time did, a profession or--the woman's legitimate sphere!

There had been no regret in Helen's soul for whatever part she played in her own life--her son was her recompense for any disappointment she might have met, and he was, she devoutly believed, her interpreter.

She loved to think in her quiet hours that her longings and aspirations had found expression in her child; she had sought, always, to consider his interests wisely--unselfishly, of course--and leave him as free to live his own life as though she were not the lonely, disillusioned woman that she was.

She had never known how early Brace had understood the conditions in his home--mothers and fathers rarely do. Only once during his boyhood had Brace ventured upon the subject over which he spent many confused and silent hours.

When he was fourteen he remarked, in that strained voice that he believed hid any emotion:

"I say, Mother, a lot of fellows at our school have fathers and mothers who live apart--most of the fellows side with their mothers!"

These words nearly made Helen ill. She could make no reply. She looked dumbly at the boy facing her with a new and awful revealment. She understood that he wanted her to _know_, wanted to comfort her; and she knew, with terrifying certainty, that she could not deceive him--she was at his mercy!

She was wise enough to say nothing. But after that she felt his suddenly acquired strength. It was shown in his tenderness, his cheerfulness, his companionship, and, thank G.o.d! in his silence.

But while Helen gloried in her boy she still was loyal to the traditions of marriage, and her little world never got behind her screen. She had divorced her husband because he desired it--then she went on alone. When her husband died away from home, his body was brought to her. It had been his last request and she paid all respect to it with her boy close beside her. And then she forgot--really, in most cases--the things that she had been remembering. She erected over her dead husband, not a stone, but a living _unreality_. It answered the purpose for which it was designed; it made it possible for her to live rather a full life, be a comrade to her son--a friend indeed--and to share all his joys and many of his confidences, and to impress upon him, so she trusted, that he must not sacrifice anything for her.

Why should he, indeed? Had she not interests enough to occupy her? The sight of a widowed mother draining the life-blood from her children had always been a dreadful thing to Helen Northrup, and so well had she succeeded in her determination to leave Brace free that the subject rarely came into the minds of either.

But Brace's latest move had disturbed Helen not a little. It startled her, made her afraid, as that remark of his in his school days had done. Did he chafe under ties that he loved but found that he must flee from for awhile? Why did he and Kathryn not marry? Were they considering her? Was she blinded?

Helen had been going over all this for days before the visit of Kathryn, and during the night preceding the call she had awakened in great pain; she had had the pain before and it had power to reduce her to cowardice. It seemed to dare her, while she lay and suffered, to confide in a physician!

There was an old memory of one who had suffered and died from----"Find out the truth about me!" each dart of fire in the nerves cried, and when the pain was over Helen Northrup had not dared to meet the challenge and go to Manly or another! At first she tried to reason with herself; then she compromised.

"After all, it is so fleeting. I'll rest, take better care of myself.

I'm not so young as I was--Nature is warning me; it may not be the other."

Well, rest and care helped and the attacks were less frequent. That gave a certain amount of hope.

When Kathryn entered the Workshop she found Helen on the couch instead of at the flat-topped desk. She looked very white and blue-lipped but she was smiling and happily glad to see her visitor. She was extremely fond of Kathryn. Early in life she had prepared herself to accept and love any woman her son might choose--she would never question the gift he offered! But when Kathryn was offered, she was overjoyed. Kathryn was part of the dear, familiar life; the daughter of old friends.

Helen Northrup felt that she was blessed beyond all mothers. The thing, to her, seemed so exactly right. That the marriage did not take place had hardly disturbed her. Kathryn was young, Brace was winning, not only a home for the girl, but honour, and there was always time.

_Time_ is such a splendid heritage of youth and such a rare relic of age.

"Why, my dearie-dear!" exclaimed Kathryn, kneeling beside the couch.

"What _is_ it?"

"Nothing, dear child; nothing more than a vicious touch of neuralgia."

"Have you seen Doctor Manly?" Kathryn patted the pillows and soothed, by her touch, the hot forehead. Kathryn had the gift of healing in her small, smooth hands, but not in her soul.

She had always been jealous of the love between Brace and his mother.

It was so unusual, so binding, so beyond her conception; but she could hide her feelings until by and by.

"Now, dearie-dear, we _must_ send for Doctor Manly. Of course Brace ought to know. He would never forgive us if he did not know. I hate to trouble you but, my dear, you look simply terrifyingly ill." Like a lightning flash Kathryn's nimble wits caught a possibility.

Helen smiled. Then spoke slowly:

"Now, my dear, when Brace comes home, I promise to see Doctor Manly.

These attacks are severe--but they pa.s.s quickly and there are long periods when I am absolutely free from them."

"You mean, you have attacks?" Kathryn looked appalled.

"Oh, yes; off and on. That fact proves how unimportant they are."

Kathryn was again taking stock.