The Bent Twig Part 46

The trip home pa.s.sed like a long shuddering bad dream in which one waits eternally, bound hand and foot, for a blow which does not fall.

Somehow, before the first day was over, an unoccupied berth was found for Sylvia, in a tiny corner usually taken by one of the ship's servants. Sylvia accepted this dully. She was but half alive, all her vital forces suspended until the journey should be over. The throbbing of the engines came to seem like the beating of her own heart, and she lay tensely in her berth for hours at a time, feeling that it was partly her energy which was driving the ship through the waters. She only thought of accomplishing the journey, covering the miles which lay before her. From what lay at the end she shrank back, returning again to her hypnotic absorption in the throbbing of the engines. The old woman who had offered to share her berth had disappeared at the first rough water and had been invisible all the trip. Sylvia did not think of her again. That was a recollection which with all its sacred significance was to come back later to Sylvia's maturer mind.

The ship reached New York late in the afternoon, and docked that night. Sylvia stood alone, in her soiled wrinkled suit, shapeless from constant wear, her empty hands clutching at the railing, and was the first pa.s.senger to dart down the second-cla.s.s gang-plank. She ran to see if there were letters or a telegram for her.

"Yes, there is a telegram for you," said the steward, holding out a sealed envelope to her. "It came on with the pilot and ought to have been given you before."

She took the envelope, but was unable to open it. The arc lights flared and winked above her in the high roof of the wharf; the crowds of keen-faced, hard-eyed men and women in costly, neat-fitting clothing were as oblivious of her and as ferociously intent on their own affairs as the shabby, noisy crowd she had left in Naples, brushing by her as though she were a part of the wharf as they bent over their trunks anxiously, and locked them up with determination. It seemed to Sylvia that she could never break the spell of fear which bound her fast. Minute after minute dragged by, and she still stood, very white, very sick.

She was aware that some one stood in front of her, looking into her face, and she recognized one of the ship's officials whom she had noticed from a distance on the ship, an under-officer, somehow connected with the engines, who had sat at table with the second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. He was a burly, red-faced man, with huge strong hands and a bald head.

He looked at her now for a moment with an intent kindness, and taking her arm led her a step to a packing-case on which he made her sit down. At the break in her immobility, a faintness came over Sylvia.

The man bent over her and began to fan her with his cap. A strong smell of stale and cheap tobacco reached Sylvia from all of his obese person, but his vulgar, ugly face expressed a profoundly self-forgetful concern. "There, feelin' better?" he asked, his eyes anxiously on hers. The man looked at the envelope comprehendingly: "Oh--bad news--" he murmured. Sylvia opened her hand and showed him that it had not been opened. "I haven't looked at it yet," she said pitifully.

The man made an inarticulate murmur of pity--put out his thick red fingers, took the message gently from her hand, and opened it. As he read she searched his face with an impa.s.sioned scrutiny.

When he raised his eyes from the paper, she saw in them, in that grossly fleshy countenance, such infinite pity that even her swift intuition of its meaning was not so swift as to reach her heart first.

The blow did not reach her naked and unprotected in the solitude of her egotism, as it had at Naples. Confusedly, half-resentfully, but irresistibly she knew that she did not--could not--stand alone, was not the first thus to be struck down. This knowledge brought the tonic summons to courage. She held out her hand unflinchingly, and stood up as she read the message, "Mother died this morning at dawn." The telegram was dated three days before. She was now two days from home.

She looked up at the man before her and twice tried to speak before she could command her voice. Then she said quite steadily: "I live in the West. Can you tell me anything about trains to Chicago?"

"I'm going with ye, to th' train," he said, taking her arm and moving forward. Two hours later his vulgar, ugly, compa.s.sionate face was the last she saw as the train moved out of the station. He did not seem a stranger to Sylvia. She saw that he was more than middle-aged, he must have lost _his_ mother, there must have been many deaths in his past.

He seemed more familiar to her than her dearest friends had seemed before; but from now on she was to feel closer to every human being than before to her most loved. A great breach had been made in the wall of her life--the wall which had hidden her fellows from her. She saw them face the enigma as uncomprehendingly, as helplessly as she, and she felt the instinct of terror to huddle close to others, even though they feel--_because_ they feel--a terror as unrelieved. It was not that she loved her fellow-beings more from this hour, rather that she felt, to the root of her being, her inevitable fellowship with them.

The journey home was almost as wholly a period of suspended animation for Sylvia as the days on the ocean had been. She had read the telegram at last; now she knew what had happened, but she did not yet know what it meant. She felt that she would not know what it meant until she reached home. How could her mother be dead? What did it mean to have her mother dead?

She said the grim words over and over, handling them with heartsick recklessness as a desperate man might handle the black, ugly objects with smoking fuses which he knows carry death. But for Sylvia no explosion came. No ravaging perception of the meaning of the words reached her strained inner ear. She said them over and over, the sound of them was horrifying to her, but in her heart she did not believe them. Her mother, _her_ mother could not die!

There was no one, of course, at the La Chance station to meet her, and she walked out through the crowd and took the street-car without having seen a familiar face. It was five o'clock in the afternoon then, and six when she walked up the dusty country road and turned in through the gate in the hedge. There was home--intimately a part of her in every detail of its unforgotten appearance. The pines stood up strong in their immortal verdure, the thick golden hush of the summer afternoon lay like an enchantment about the low brown house. And something horrible, unspeakably horrible had happened there. Under the forgotten dust and grime of her long railway journey, she was deadly pale as she stepped up on the porch. Judith came to the door, saw her sister, opened her arms with a n.o.ble gesture, and clasped Sylvia to her in a strong and close embrace. Not a word was spoken. The two clung to each other silently, Sylvia weeping incessantly, holding fast to the dear human body in her arms, feeling herself dissolved in a very anguish of love and pain. Her wet cheek was pressed against Judith's lips, the tears rained down in a torrent. All the rich, untapped strength of her invincible youth was in that healthful flood of tears.

There were none such in the eyes of Professor Marshall as he came down the stairs to greet his daughter. Sylvia was immeasurably shocked by his aspect. He did not look like her father. She sought in vain in that gray countenance for any trace of her father's expression. He came forward with a slow, dragging step, and kissed his daughter, taking her hand--his, she noticed, felt like a sick man's, parched, the skin like a dry husk. He spoke, in a voice which had no resonance, the first words that had been uttered: "You must be very tired, Sylvia. You would better go and lie down. Your sister will go with you." He himself turned away and walked slowly towards the open door.

Sylvia noticed that he shuffled his feet as he walked.

Judith drew Sylvia away up the stairs to her own slant-ceilinged room, and the two sat down on the bed, side by side, with clasped hands.

Judith now told briefly the outline of what had happened. Sylvia listened, straining her swollen eyes to see her sister's face, wiping away the tears which ran incessantly down her pale, grimy cheeks, repressing her sobs to listen, although they broke out in one burst after another. Her mother had gone down very suddenly and they had cabled at once--then she grew better--she had been unspeakably brave--fighting the disease by sheer will-power--she had conquered it--she was gaining--they were sorry they had cabled Sylvia--she had not known she was going to die--none of them had dreamed she was going to die--suddenly as the worst of her disease had spent itself and the lungs were beginning to clear--suddenly her heart had given way, and before the nurse could call her husband and children to her, she was gone. They had been there under the same roof, and had not been with her at the last. The last time they had seen her, she was alive and smiling at them--such a brave, wan shadow of her usual smile--for a few moments they went about their affairs, full of hope--and when they entered the sick-room again--

Sylvia could bear no more, screaming out, motioning Judith imperiously to stop;--she began to understand what had happened to her; the words she had repeated so dully were like thunder in her ears. Her mother was dead.

Judith took her sister again in her arms, holding her close, as though she were the older. Sylvia was weeping again, the furious, healing, inexhaustible tears of youth. To both the sisters it seemed that they were pa.s.sing an hour of supreme bitterness; but their strong young hearts, clinging with unconscious tenacity to their right to joy, were at that moment painfully opening and expanding beyond the narrow bounds of childhood. Henceforth they were to be great enough to harbor joy--a greater joy--and sorrow, side by side.

Moreover, as though their action-loving mother were still watching over them, they found themselves confronted at once with an inexorable demand for their strength and courage.

Judith detached herself, and said in a firm voice: "Sylvia, you mustn't cry any more. We must think what to do."

As Sylvia looked at her blankly, she went on: "Somehow Lawrence must be taken away for a while--until Father's--either you or I must go with him and stay, and the other one be here with Father until he's--he's more like himself."

Sylvia, fresh from the desolation of solitude in sorrow, cried out: "Oh, Judith, how can you! Now's the time for us all to stay together!

Why should we--?"

Judith went to the door and closed it before answering, a precaution so extraordinary in that house of frank openness that Sylvia was struck into silence by it. Standing by the door, Judith said in a low tone, "You didn't notice--anything--about Father?"

"Oh yes, he looks ill. He is so pale--he frightened me!"

Judith looked down at the floor and was silent a moment. Sylvia's heart began to beat fast with a new foreboding. "Why, what _is_ the matter with--" she began.

Judith covered her face with her hands. "I don't know what to _do_!"

she said despairingly.

No phrase coming from Judith could have struck a more piercing alarm into her sister's heart. She ran to Judith, pulled her hands down, and looked into her face anxiously. "What do you mean, Judy--what do you mean?"

"Why--it's five days now since Mother died, three days since the funeral--and Father has hardly eaten a mouthful--and I don't think he's slept at all. I know he hasn't taken his clothes off. And--and--"

she drew Sylvia again to the bed, and sat down beside her, "he says such things ... the night after Mother died Lawrence had cried so I was afraid he would be sick, and I got him to bed and gave him some hot milk,"--the thought flashed from one to the other almost palpably, "That is what Mother would have done"--"and he went to sleep--he was perfectly worn out. I went downstairs to find Father. It was after midnight. He was walking around the house into one room after another and out on the porch and even out in the garden, as fast as he could walk. He looked so--" She shuddered. "I went up to him and said, 'Father, Father, what are you doing?' He never stopped walking an instant, but he said, as though I was a total stranger and we were in a railway station or somewhere like that, 'I am looking for my wife. I expect to come across her any moment, but I can't seem to remember the exact place I was to meet her. She must be somewhere about, and I suppose--' and then, Sylvia, before I could help it, he opened the door to Mother's room quick--and the men were there, and the coffin--"

She stopped short, pressing her hand tightly over her mouth to stop its quivering. Sylvia gazed at her in horrified silence.

After a pause, Judith went on: "He turned around and ran as fast as he could up the stairs to his study and locked the door. He locked me out--the night after Mother died. I called and called to him--he didn't answer. I was afraid to call very loud for fear of waking Lawrence. I've had to think of Lawrence too." She stopped again to draw a long breath. She stopped and suddenly reached out imploring hands to hold fast to Sylvia. "I'm so _glad_ you have come!" she murmured.

This from Judith ran like a galvanic shock through Sylvia's sorrow-sodden heart. She sat up, aroused as she had never been before to a stern impulse to resist her emotion, to fight it down. She clasped Judith's hand hard, and felt the tears dry in her eyes. Judith went on: "If it hadn't been for Lawrence--he's sick as it is. I've kept him in his room--twice when he's been asleep I've managed to get Father to eat something and lie down--there seem to be times when he's so worn out that he doesn't know what he's doing. But it comes back to him. One night I had just persuaded him to lie down, when he sat up again with that dreadful face and said very loud: 'Where is my wife?

Where is Barbara?' That was on the night after the funeral. And the next day he came to me, out in the garden, and said,--he never seems to know who I am: 'I don't mind the separation from my wife, you understand--it's not that--I'm not a child, I can endure that--but I _must_ know where she is. I _must_ know where she is!' He said it over and over, until his voice got so loud he seemed to hear it himself and looked around--and then he went back into the house and began walking all around, opening and shutting all the doors. What I'm afraid of is his meeting Lawrence and saying something like that. Lawrence would go crazy. I thought, as soon as you came, you could take him away to the Helman farm--the Helmans have been so good--and Mrs. Helman offered to take Lawrence--only he oughtn't to be alone--he needs one of us--"

Judith was quiet now, and though very pale, spoke with her usual firmness. Sylvia too felt herself iron under the pressure of her responsibilities. She said: "Yes, I see. All right--I'll go," and the two went together into Lawrence's room. He was lying on the bed, his face in the pillows. At the sound of their steps he turned over and showed a pitiful white face. He got up and moved uncertainly towards Sylvia, sinking into her arms and burying his face on her shoulder.

But a little later when their plan was told him, he turned to Judith with a cry: "No, _you_ go with me, Judy! I want _you_! You 'know'--about it."

Over his head the sisters looked at each other with questioning eyes; and Sylvia nodded her consent. Lawrence had always belonged to Judith.

CHAPTER XLII

"_Strange that we creatures of the petty ways, Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars, Can sometimes think us thoughts with G.o.d ablaze, Touching the "fringes of the outer stars_.""

And so they went away, Lawrence very white, stooping with the weight of his suitcase, his young eyes, blurred and red, turned upon Judith with an infinite confidence in her strength. Judith herself was pale, but her eyes were dry and her lips firm in her grave, steadfast face, so like her mother's, except for the absence of the glint of humor.

Sylvia kissed her good-bye, feeling almost a little fear of her resolute sister; but as she watched them go down the path, and noted the appealing drooping of the boy towards Judith, Sylvia was swept with a great wave of love and admiration--and courage.

She turned to face the difficult days and nights before her and forced herself to speak cheerfully to her father, who sat in a chair on the porch, watching the departing travelers and not seeing them. "How splendid Judith is!" she cried, and went on with a break in the voice she tried to control: "She will take Mother's place for us all!"

Her father frowned slightly, as though she had interrupted him in some effort where concentration was necessary, but otherwise gave no sign that he heard her.

Sylvia watched him anxiously through the window. Presently she saw him relax from his position of strained attention with a great sigh, almost a groan, and lean back in his chair, covering his eyes with his hands. When he took them down, his face had the aged, ravaged expression of exhaustion which had so startled her on her arrival. Now she felt none of her frightened revulsion, but only an aching pity which sent her out to him in a rush, her arms outstretched, crying to him brokenly that he still had his children who loved him more than anything in the world.

For the first time in her life, her father repelled her, shrinking away from her with a brusque, involuntary recoil that shocked her, thrusting her arms roughly to one side, and rising up hastily to retreat into the house. He said in a bitter, recriminating tone, "You don't know what you are talking about," and left her standing there, the tears frozen in her eyes. He went heavily upstairs to his study on the top floor and locked the door. Sylvia heard the key turn. It shut her into an intolerable solitude. She had not thought before that anything could seem worse than the desolation of her mother's absence.

She felt a deathlike sinking of her heart. She was afraid of her father, who no longer seemed her father, created to protect and cherish her, but some maniac stranger. She felt an impulse like that of a terrified child to run away, far away to some one who should stand before her and bear the brunt. She started up from her chair with panic haste, but the familiar room, saturated with recollections of her mother's gallant spirit, stood about her like a wall, shutting her in to the battle with her heart. Who was there to summon whom she could endure as a spectator of her father's condition? Her mother's empty chair stood opposite her, against the wall. She looked at it fixedly; and drawing a long breath sat down quietly.

This act of courage brought a reward in the shape of a relaxation of the clutch on her throat and about her heart. Her mother's wise materialism came to her mind now and she made a heartsick resolve that she would lead as physically normal a life as possible, working out of doors, forcing herself to eat, and that, above all things, she would henceforth deny herself the weakening luxury of tears. And yet but an hour later, as she bent over her mother's flower-beds blazing in the sun, she found the tears again streaming from her eyes.

She tried to wipe them away, but they continued to rain down on her cheeks. Her tongue knew their saltness. She was profoundly alarmed and cowed by this irresistible weakness, and stood helplessly at bay among the languid roses. The sensation of her own utter weakness, prostrate before her dire need for strength, was as bitter as the taste of her tears.