Molly Brown of Kentucky Part 8

Even the bravest feels a little squeamish when absolutely alone through the long night. Judy was brave, her father's own daughter, but those nights alone in the studio in Rue Brea had got on her nerves. It was just so much harder because of the gay, jolly winter spent in the place.

"I feel like one who treads alone Some banquet hall, deserted,"

expressed her sentiments exactly. Once she dreamed that Molly Brown was standing over her with a cup of hot coffee, which was one of Molly's ways. She was always spoiling people and often would appear at the bed side with matutinal coffee. The dream came after a particularly lonesome evening. She thought that as Molly stood over her, her hand shook and some of the coffee splashed on her face. She awoke with a start to find her face wet with hot tears.

Here at the Tricots, life was quite different. Mere and Pere Tricot were playing a happy duet through the night with comfortable snores. Marie could be heard cooing to her baby as she nursed it and the baby making inarticulate gurgles of joy at being nourished. The feeling of having human beings near by was most soothing. Judy did not mind the snores, but rejoiced in them. Even when the baby cried, as it did once in the night, she smiled happily.

"I am one of a family!" she exclaimed.

CHAPTER VII.

A MOTHER'S FAITH.

"Edwin, Kent has been gone over two weeks now and not one word from him," announced Molly when Mr. Bud Woodsmall had come and gone, leaving no mail of any great importance. "I can see Mother is very uneasy, although she doesn't say a word."

"What was the name of his steamer?" asked the professor as he opened his newspaper. "I wouldn't worry. Mail is pretty slow and it would take a very fast boat to land him at Havre and have a letter back this soon."

Edwin spoke a little absent-mindedly for the Greens were very busy getting ready for their yearly move to Wellington College and time for newspaper reading was at a premium.

"But he was to cable."

"Oh! And what was the name of the steamer?"

"_L'Hirondelle de Mer_, swallow of the sea. I fancy it must mean flying fish. Paul says it is a small merchantman, carrying a few pa.s.sengers."

"_L'Hirondelle de Mer?_" Edwin's voice sounded so faint that Molly stopped packing books and looked up, startled.

"What is it?"

"It may be a mistake," he faltered.

Molly jumped up from the box of books and read over her husband's shoulder the terrible headlines announcing the sinking of the small merchantman _L'Hirondelle de Mer_ by a German submarine. No warning was given and it was not known how many of the crew or pa.s.sengers had escaped. The news was got from a boat-load of half-drowned seamen picked up by an English fishing smack. The cargo was composed of pork and beef.

Molly read as long as her filling eyes would permit, and then she sank on her knees by her husband's chair and gave way to the grief that overcame her.

"Oh, Molly darling! It may be all right. Kent is not the kind to get lost if there is any way out of it."

"But he would be saving others and forget himself."

"Yes, but see--or let me see for you--it says no women or children on board."

"Thank G.o.d for that!--And now I must go to Mother."

"Yes, and I will go with you--but we must go with the idea of making your mother feel it is all right--that Kent is saved."

"Yes--and I truly believe he is! I couldn't have been as happy for the last few days as I have been if--if--Kent----" She could say no more.

Edwin held her for a moment in his arms and then called to Kizzie to look after little Mildred, who lay peacefully sleeping in her basket, blissfully ignorant of the trouble in the atmosphere.

"Look! There's Mother coming through the garden! She knows! I can tell by the way she holds her head."

"My children! You were coming to me. You know, then?"

"Yes, Mother! But Edwin and I think Kent is too strong and active to--to----"

"I know he is safe," declared the intrepid mother. "I am as sure of it as though he were here in the garden of Chatsworth standing by me. One of my children could not have pa.s.sed away without my being conscious of it." She spoke in an even, clear tone and her countenance was as one inspired.

"Oh, Mother! That is what I felt, too. I could not have been so--so happy if anything awful had happened to Kent."

Edwin Green was very thankful that the women in his family could take this view of the matter, but not feeling himself to be gifted with second sight, he determined to find out for sure as soon as possible what had become of his favorite brother-in-law. He accordingly telegraphed a night letter to Jimmy Lufton in New York to get busy as quickly as possible, sparing no expense, and find out if the Americans on board the vessel were saved.

No doubt my readers will remember that Jimmy Lufton was the young newspaper man whom Edwin Green had feared as a rival, and now that he had won the prize himself, his feeling for that young man was one of kindliness and pity.

Answer came: a stray sailor had reported that he had seen the submarine take on board two of the pa.s.sengers who were battling with the heavy sea. Whether Kent was one of them, he could not tell.

There were days of anxious waiting. Molly and Edwin went on with the preparations for their flitting, but could not leave Mrs. Brown until she had a.s.surance of the safety of her beloved son. That lady continued in the belief that all was well with him, in spite of no news.

Aunt Clay came over to Chatsworth to remonstrate with her younger sister over what she called her obstinacy.

"Why should you persist in the a.s.sertion that you would know if anything had happened to your son? We all know that things happen all the time and persons near to them go on in ignorance of the accidents. For my part, I think it is indecent for you and your daughters to be flaunting colours as you are. You should order your mourning and have services for those lost at sea."

As Mrs. Brown's flaunting of colors consisted of one lavender scarf that Nance Oldham had knitted for her, this was, to say the least, unnecessary of Sister Clay.

Molly, who was present when the above unfeeling remarks were made, trembled with rage and wept with misery; but not so Mrs. Brown.

"I don't agree with you," she said with a calmness that astonished her daughter.

"Well, if Kent is alive, why does he not communicate with you? He is certainly careless of you to leave you in ignorance for all of this time."

Molly noticed with a kind of fierce joy that her mother's head was now held very high and her sensitive nostrils were a-quiver. "Her nose was a-wuckin'," as Aunt Mary put it.

"Careless of _me_! Kent! Sister Sarah, you are simply speaking with neither sense nor feeling. It has been your own fault that you have not obtained the love and affection of my children and so you wish to insinuate that they are careless of me. My son will let me know where he is as soon as he can. I already know he is alive and safe. You ask me how I know it! I can only say I know it." This was said with so much fire that Aunt Clay actually seemed to shrink up. She bullied Mrs. Brown up to a certain point, but when that point reached criticism of one of her children, woe betide Aunt Clay.

Molly, whose certainty of Kent's being alive was beginning to grow weak and dim with the weary days, felt new strength from her mother's brave words. Edwin Green was forced to leave for the opening of Wellington, but Molly closed the bungalow and brought little Mildred over to Chatsworth, there to wait with her mother for some definite news.

Old Aunt Mary was a great comfort to them. She shared in their belief that their dear boy was alive.

"Cose nothin' ain't happened ter that there Kent. Didn't he tell me he was a goin' ter Parus ter bring home that Judy gal? The Dutch ain't a goin' ter do nothin' ter a kind faceded pusson like our Kent. As fer drowndin'! Shoo! I done hear Lewis say that Kent kin outswim de whole er Jeff'son County. He kin swim to Indiany an' back thout ever touchin'

lan', right over yander by the water wucks whar the riber is mo'n a mile. An' waves! Why, Lewis say whin the big stern wheelers is a jes'

churnin' up the riber till it looks like the yawnin' er grabes at Jedgement Day that Kent would jes' laff at them an' plunge right through jes' lak a feesh. An' I do hear tell that the waters er the mighty deep is salty an' that makes me know that Kent ain't goin' ter sink. Don't we tes' the brine fer pickles wif a aig? An' don't the aig float? An' if'n the mighty deep is called the briny deep don't that mean it kin float a aig? What kin float a aig kin float a young man what already knows how ter swim crost an' back on the 'Hier Riber."

Julia Kean's second letter came, also the one from her father in Molly's care. Molly immediately sent it to the American Club in Paris. Judy's letter certainly had nothing in it to rea.s.sure them as to her safety, except the meeting with the old man with whom she had danced at St.

Cloud.

"It means that Judy is able to make friends wherever she goes, and as she says, she can always light on her feet, somehow," sighed Molly. She did not add what was in her mind: "If she had only come home with Kent!"