The Awakening of Helena Richie Part 21

"Got well? She'd have got well if he hadn't gone near her." Martha began to stroke the gathers on a bit of cambric with a precise needle that suddenly trembled. "The woman herself was not to blame it's only just to say that--And there's one thing about me, Dr, Lavendar; I may not be perfect, but I am always just. No, she was not to blame; it was Mrs. Richie who sent for William. She is the most helpless woman I ever saw, for her years;--she is at least forty, though she uses sachet-powders, and wears undersleeves all trimmed with lace, as if she were six teen! I don't want to find fault, Dr, Lavendar, but I must say that _I_ wouldn't have trusted that little boy to her."

"Oh," said Dr, Lavendar, "I trusted _her_ to the little boy! She'll be so busy looking after his sleeves, she'll forget her own."

Mrs. King sniffed, doubtfully. "I'm sure I hope you are right; but in my opinion, she's a very helpless and foolish woman;--if nothing worse. Though according to my ideas, the way she lets Sam Wright's Sam behave is worse!"

Dr. Lavendar was suddenly attentive, "How does she let him behave?"

"Well, he is so daft over--her that he neglects his work at the bank to write verses. Why doesn't she stop it?'"

"Because," said William King, appearing in the doorway, smelling honestly of the barn and picking off a straw here and there from his sleeve; "she knows nothing about it,"

Dr. Lavendar and Martha both looked up, startled at his tone.

"Women," said the doctor, "would gossip about a--a clam!"

"I am not gossiping?" Martha defended herself; but Dr. Lavendar interrupted her, cheerfully,

"Well, I am, I came over to gossip with William on this very subject.--Martha, will you let him put a match to that grate? I declare, the seasons are changing. When I was your age it wasn't cold enough to have a fire in May.--Look here, w.i.l.l.y, what do you mean by saying Mrs. Richie doesn't know Sam's sentiments?"

"I mean that women like Mrs. Richie are so unconscious, they don't see things like that. She's as unconscious as a girl."

"Tck!" said Martha.

"A girl!" said Dr, Lavendar.--"Say a tree, or a boy but don't say a girl. Why, William, everybody sees it. Even Benjamin Wright. Of course she knows it."

"She doesn't; she isn't the kind that thinks of things like that. Of course, some women would have discovered it months ago; one of your strong-minded ladies, perhaps--only Sam wouldn't have been spoony on that kind."

"Well!" said Martha, "I must say, flat--"

But William interrupted her--"To prove what I say: she lets him come in and bore her to death, just out of kindness. Do you suppose she would do that if she knew he was such an idiot as to presume to--to--"

"Well," said Dr. Lavendar, "as there is so much ignorance about, perhaps Sam doesn't know he's lost his heart?"

But at that William laughed, "_He_ knows; Trust a young fellow!

That's just the difference between a man and a woman, sir; the man always knows; the woman, if she's the right kind, doesn't--until she's told."

"Tck!" said Martha,

Dr. Lavendar looked down at the bowl of his pipe then he said meekly, "I was under the impression that Eve ate her apple before Adam had so much as a bite. Still, whether Mrs. Richie knows the state of Sam's affections or not, I do wish she would urge him to put his mind on his work. That's what I came in to speak to you about. His father is all on edge about it, and now his grandfather has taken it into his head to be worried over it, too But you know her better than the rest of us do, and I thought perhaps you'd drop a hint that she would be doing missionary work if she'd influence the boy to be more industrious."

"I'll go and talk it over with her," Martha volunteered. "I am always ready to advise any one."

William King got up and kicked at a lump of coal in the grate. "I am sure you are," he said dryly; "but no talking over is necessary., I shall probably be going up the hill in a few days, and I'll say a word if Dr. Lavendar wants me to. Nothing definite; just enlist her sympathy for his father--and get her to protect herself, too. He must be an awful nuisance."

"That's it!" said Dr. Lavendar. "I'd do it myself, but you know her better than I do. I'm getting acquainted with her through David. David is really a remarkable child! I can't tell you how I miss him." And then he began to relate David's sayings, while Martha sewed fiercely, and William stared at the hearth-rug "The little rascal is no Peter Grievous," Dr Lavendar declared, proudly; and told a story of a badly barked knee, and a very stiff upper-lip; "and the questions he asks!"

said the old man, holding up both hands; "theological questions; the House of Bishops couldn't answer 'em!" He repeated some of the questions, watching the husband and wife with swift glances over his spectacles; when he had wrung a reluctant laugh from the doctor, and Mrs., King was not sewing so fast, he went home, not much rested by his call.

But the result of the call was that at the end of the week Dr. King went up to the Stuffed Animal House.

"We are shipwrecked!" cried Mrs. Richie, as she saw him coming down the garden path towards the barn. Her face was flushed and gay, and her hair, shaken from its shining wreath around her head, hung in two braids down her back. She had had a swing put up under the big b.u.t.tonwood beside the stable, and David, climbing into it, had clung to the rigging to be dashed, side wise, on to the rocks of the carriageway, where Mrs. Richie stood ready to catch him when the vessel should drive near enough to the sh.o.r.e. In an endeavor to save himself from some engulfing sea which his playmate had pointed out to him, David had clutched at her, breaking the top hook of her gown and tearing her collar apart, leaving throat, white and round, open to the hot sun. Before the doctor reached her, she caught her dress together, and twisted her hair into a knot. "You can't keep things smooth in a shipwreck," she excused herself, laughing.

David sighed, and looked into the carriage-house. In that jungle--Mrs.

Richie had called it a jungle--were wild beasts; there were also crackers and apples--or to be exact, breadfruit and citrons--hanging from what George called "harness-racks," though of course, as thoughtful persons know, they were trees; David was to gather these tropical spoils, and then escape from the leopard, the shark, the crocodile! And now there was Dr. King, spoiling everything.

The doctor sat down on a keg and looked at the two, smiling. "Which is the younger of you?" he said. It came over him, in a gust of amus.e.m.e.nt, what Martha would say to such a scene, and he laughed aloud.

"Dr. King," said David, in a small distinct voice, "won't Jinny run away, if you leave her so long at gate?"

"Oh, David!" cried Mrs. Richie, horrified. But the visitor threw back his head with a shout.

"That's what my wife would call speaking 'flatly and frankly'! Well, Mrs. Richie, I never wrote a better prescription in my life. You look like a different woman, already."

And, indeed, the youth in her face was as careless as David's own. But it flagged when he added that he hoped her brother would not think the care of David would be too much for her.

"Oh, no," she said, briefly.

"I feel like saying 'I told you so'! I knew you would like to have a child about."

"I do, but he is a tyrant. Aren't you, David? I have to get up for breakfast!"

"Terrible," said William delightedly.

"Why, but it _is_. I don't know when I've done such a thing! At first I thought I really couldn't. But I couldn't leave him all by himself, down-stairs--could I, David?"

"I'd just as lieves," said David, gently.

"Oh, how like your s.e.x!" Helena cried.

"What do you suppose I've come for?" Dr. King began in the bantering tone one uses to a child. "I've come to get you to exert your influence to improve business. _Business!_" he repeated, delighted at his own absurdity; "a lady who finds it hard to get up in the mornings."

She looked at him ruefully; "I'm lazy, I am afraid." "No, you're not--it's a very sensible thing to do, if you are not strong. Well, I must tell you what we want; Sam Wright is anxious, because young Sam neglects his work at the bank, and--"

"But he doesn't like business," she explained with a surprised look; and William laughed with pleasure.

"So that's a reason for not attending to it? Unfortunately, that's the young man's own point of view. He's a queer youngster," William added in his kind voice.

"I don't think it's queer not to like disagreeable things," Helena said.

"Well, no; but all the same, we've got to stand them. Sam has no patience with anything disagreeable. Why, when he was a little fellow--let me see, he was younger than David; about four, I think--he scratched his finger one day pretty severely; it smarted, I guess, badly. Anyway, he roared! Then he picked up a pair of scissors and ran bawling to his mother; 'Mamma, cut finger off! It hurts Sam--cut finger off!' That's been his principle ever since: 'it hurts--get rid of it.'"

"I don't blame him in the least," Helena protested gayly; "I'm sure I've wanted to 'cut finger off.' And I have done it, too!"

"Well," said the doctor with great pretence of gravity, "I suppose, then, we'll have to tell old Mr. Wright that n.o.body must ever do anything he doesn't want to do? It appears that he's worried, too, because the young gentleman isn't industrious. The fact is, he thinks Sam would rather come up here than work over his ledgers," he teased.

Helena sprung to her feet, nervously. "But I wish he wouldn't come! I don't want him to come. I can't help it; indeed I--I can't help it!"

She spoke with a sort of gasp. Instantly David, who had been lounging in the swing, slipped down and planted himself directly in front of her, his arms stretched out at each side. "I'll take care of you," he said protectingly.

William King caught his breath. No one could have heard the frightened note in her voice without understanding David's impulse. The doctor shared it. Evidently Sam had been making love to her, and her very innocence made her quick to feel herself rebuked! William felt an ardent desire to kick Sam Wright's Sam.