The Shield of Silence Part 55

"That next winter I might--sing!"

"Bully! But you sing now--like several kinds of seraphs. Warble while I make ready for dinner, Joan."

So Joan sang as she flitted from kitchen to dining room.

"I'll take the high road and you take the low road And I'll get to Scotland before you----"

she rippled, and Patricia joined in:

"I'll get to Scotland before you!"

Then she said, from the bedroom beyond:

"I know what it is in your singing that gets us, Joan. It's the whole lot more than words can express."

"Of course! That's high art, Pat! Come on, dearie-thing, you must carve."

"Now, Scotland"--Patricia issued forth in a lovely gown and Joan dropped her long ap.r.o.n and appeared a happy reflection of Patricia's magnificence--"Scotland stands for everything your soul wants when you sing. Not a place--but--everything."

"Yes. That's what I feel," Joan replied, quite seriously.

Patricia did not eat much that evening, but she gave the impression that she was doing so.

The girls always disposed of the dishes, after dinner, in a wizard-like manner. They disappeared until morning--and no questions were asked!

Then, when the meal was over this night, Patricia flung herself on the couch, clasped Cuff in her arms, and asked Joan to sing her to sleep.

"You _are_ tired, Pat. Was it a hard day?"

Joan came wistfully to the couch.

"No, not hard, only bracing. They're going to raise me in the summer, Joan. We'll be fat and lazy next winter--and just think: the summer in The Gap lies between!" For that was what Joan's deferred visit had resolved itself into.

"Pat, your cheeks are--red!"

"Joan, don't be silly. I touched them up. I never could see the difference between rouge and dyes and powder and false teeth! They're all aimed at the same thing--and it isn't mastication, either. It's how you handle the aids to beauty."

"Dear, funny, pretty old Pat!"

"Joan, go and sing!"

That night Cuff was dreaming the old haunting dream about waking up in the gutter when something startled him. It was a very soft call.

"Come up here, Cuff, I want you--close!"

Cuff needed no second invitation! But the closer he got the more nervous he became.

"Cuff, look at me!"

Cuff looked.

"Cuff--once--you wouldn't have looked!"

Cuff denied this by a vigorous whack of his stumpy tail.

There were a few minutes more during which Patricia said some very remarkable things about being glad that children and dogs could look at her; and that Joan felt happy with her, and that love had something to say for itself if you didn't wrong it, and then Cuff voluntarily jumped from the bed and scampered into Joan's room. Joan was sleeping and Cuff had to tug rather savagely at her sleeve before he attracted her attention. But when Joan was awake every sense was alert.

"What's the matter?" she asked, but while she was speaking she was on her way to Patricia's room.

Patricia was tossing about and laughing gently; she was insisting that she was going up the Climbing Way and that the travelling was hard and the weather hot! For a moment Joan stood still. All her strength deserted her, but in that instant she knew the worst, as people do at times--when the end is near!

It was only three days for Patricia and she never realized the truth for herself. A nurse, a weary but faithful doctor, and Joan kept her company on the Climbing Way which got easier toward the top.

"You take the high road and I'll take the low road But I'll get to Scotland before you----"

It was Patricia who sang, not Joan, and then she laughed gaily.

"I bet I will beat you out, Joan--but it wasn't--Scotland, you know it--was--home!"

Just before the top was reached Patricia grew quiet and grave. She clung to Joan with one hand and patted Cuff with the other.

"I think," she whispered, "that when dogs and little children can look you in the eye, G.o.d can!"

She did not speak much after that--but she sang in fragments, hummed when very tired, and murmured--"Nice little old Joan and Cuff," just before she reached--home!

It was all so crushingly sudden that Joan was dazed and could not feel at all. Fortunately, the nurse arranged to stay with her for a week, and the doctor acted, through all his burdened days, as if an extra load was really a comfort to him. He asked Joan what steps he should take about Patricia, and Joan stared at him.

"You see, Pat just belonged to me," she explained; "and--and well! must I decide anything just now?"

"I think we must--about the body--you know!" The doctor felt his heart beat quicker as he gazed into the wide, tearless eyes.

"The--the body? Oh! I see what you mean. I--I was going to take Pat home next summer; this summer--but----"

"Perhaps we can arrange to have the body remain here in Chicago until you make plans."

"Oh! if you only could." Joan looked her grat.i.tude.

And so Patricia Leigh was laid to rest in the vault of strangers until the girl who had loved her could realize the thing that had overtaken her.

In the lonely rooms the empty stillness acted like a drug upon Joan. She mechanically performed the small services she used to perform so gladly for Patricia. She held Cuff in her arms as she repeated:

"It cannot be, Cuff, dear, it cannot! Such a terrible thing couldn't happen--not without warning. She _will_ come back; she will, Cuff--please don't look so sad!"

It was three weeks after Patricia went that Cuff met Joan as she entered the room--with Patricia's slippers which he had found where Joan had hidden them! The sight of the pathetic little figure touched something in Joan and it sprang to hurting, suffering life.

For hours the girl wept in the dark rooms. She begged for death; anything to dull forever the pain that she could not understand. But the grief saved her and she began to think for herself, since no one was there to think for her. The city was full of sickness and death. Those who could, must do for themselves. Joan had not written home; she wondered what she had done in all the ages since Pat went.

All Patricia's small affairs were in order. Her money and Joan's were banked under both names, and the dreary little home was but an empty sh.e.l.l.