The Tides of Barnegat Part 10

"No; I don't fancy Miss Collins, and I am afraid she has too strong an influence over Lucy. Her personality grates on me; she is so boisterous, and she laughs so loud; and the views she holds are unaccountable to me in so young a girl. She seems to have had no home training whatever. Why Lucy likes her, and why she should have selected her as an intimate friend, has always puzzled me." She spoke with her usual frankness and with that directness which always characterized her in matters of this kind. "I had no one else to talk to and am very miserable about it all. You don't mind my sending for you, do you?"

"Mind! Why do you ask such a question? I am never so happy as when I am serving you."

That she should send for him at all was happiness. Not sickness this time, nor some question of investment, nor the repair of the barn or gate or out-buildings--but Lucy, who lay nearest her heart! That was even better than he had expected.

"Tell me all about it, so I can get it right," he continued in a straightforward tone--the tone of the physician, not the lover. She had relied on him, and he intended to give her the best counsel of which he was capable. The lover could wait.

"Well, she received a letter a week ago from Miss Collins, saying she had come to Trenton for the winter and had taken some rooms in a house belonging to her aunt, who would live with her. She wants to be within reach of the same music-teacher who taught the girls at Miss Parkham's school. She says if Lucy will come it will reduce the expenses and they can both have the benefit of the tuition. At first Lucy did not want to go at all, now she insists, and, strange to say, Martha encourages her."

"Martha wants her to leave?" he asked in surprise.

"She says so."

The doctor's face a.s.sumed a puzzled expression. He could account for Lucy's wanting the freedom and novelty of the change, but that Martha should be willing to part with her bairn for the winter mystified him.

He knew nothing of the flirtation, of course, and its effect on the old nurse, and could not, therefore, understand Martha's delight in Lucy's and Bart's separation.

"You will be very lonely," he said, and a certain tender tone developed in his voice.

"Yes, dreadfully so, but I would not mind if I thought it was for her good. But I don't think so. I may be wrong, and in the uncertainty I wanted to talk it over with you. I get so desolate sometimes. I never seemed to miss my father so much as now. Perhaps it is because Lucy's babyhood and childhood are over and she is entering upon womanhood with all the dangers it brings. And she frightens me so sometimes," she continued after a slight pause. "She is different; more self-willed, more self-centred. Besides, her touch has altered. She doesn't seem to love me as she did--not in the same way."

"But she could never do anything else but love you," he interrupted quickly, speaking for himself as well as Lucy, his voice vibrating under his emotions. It was all he could do to keep his hands from her own; her sending for him alone restrained him.

"I know that, but it is not in the old way. It used to be 'Sister, darling, don't tire yourself,' or 'Sister, dear, let me go upstairs for you,' or 'Cuddle close here, and let us talk it all out together.'

There is no more of that. She goes her own way, and when I chide her laughs and leaves me alone until I make some new advance. Help me, please, and with all the wisdom you can give me; I have no one else in whom I can trust, no one who is big enough to know what should be done.

I might have talked to Mr. Dellenbaugh about it, but he is away."

"No; talk it all out to me," he said simply. "I so want to help you"--his whole heart was going out to her in her distress.

"I know you feel sorry for me." She withdrew her hand gently so as not to hurt him; she too did not want to be misunderstood--having sent for him. "I know how sincere your friendship is for me, but put all that aside. Don't let your sympathy for me cloud your judgment. What shall I do with Lucy? Answer me as if you were her father and mine," and she looked straight into his eyes.

The doctor tightened the muscles of his throat, closed his teeth, and summoned all his resolution. If he could only tell her what was in his heart how much easier it would all be! For some moments he sat perfectly still, then he answered slowly--as her man of business would have done:

"I should let her go."

"Why do you say so?"

"Because she will find out in that way sooner than in any other how to appreciate you and her home. Living in two rooms and studying music will not suit Lucy. When the novelty wears off she will long for her home, and when she comes back it will be with a better appreciation of its comforts. Let her go, and make her going as happy as you can."

And so Jane gave her consent--it is doubtful whether Lucy would have waited for it once her mind was made up--and in a week she was off, Doctor John taking her himself as far as the Junction, and seeing her safe on the road to Trenton. Martha was evidently delighted at the change, for the old nurse's face was wreathed in smiles that last morning as they all stood out by the gate while Billy Tatham loaded Lucy's trunks and boxes. Only once did a frown cross her face, and that was when Lucy leaned over and whispering something in Bart's ear, slipped a small sc.r.a.p of paper between his fingers. Bart crunched it tight and slid his hand carelessly into his pocket, but the gesture did not deceive the nurse: it haunted her for days thereafter.

As the weeks flew by and the letters from Trenton told of the happenings in Maria's home, it became more and more evident to Jane that the doctor's advice had been the wisest and best. Lucy would often devote a page or more of her letters to recalling the comforts of her own room at Yardley, so different from what she was enduring at Trenton, and longing for them to come again. Parts of these letters Jane read to the doctor, and all of them to Martha, who received them with varying comment. It became evident, too, that neither the excitement of Bart's letters, nor the visits of the occasional school friends who called upon them both, nor the pursuit of her new accomplishment, had satisfied the girl.

Jane was not surprised, therefore, remembering the doctor's almost prophetic words, to learn of the arrival of a letter from Lucy begging Martha to come to her at once for a day or two. The letter was enclosed in one to Bart and was handed to the nurse by that young man in person.

As he did so he remarked meaningly that Miss Lucy wanted Martha's visit to be kept a secret from everybody but Miss Jane, "just as a surprise,"

but Martha answered in a positive tone that she had no secrets from those who had a right to know them, and that he could write Lucy she was coming next day, and that Jane and everybody else who might inquire would know of it before she started.

She rather liked Bart's receiving the letter. As long as that young man kept away from Trenton and confined himself to Warehold, where she could keep her eyes on him, she was content.

To Jane Martha said: "Oh, bless the darlin'! She can't do a day longer without her Martha. I'll go in the mornin'. It's a little pettin' she wants--that's all."

So the old nurse bade Meg good-by, pinned her big gray shawl about her, tied on her bonnet, took a little basket with some delicacies and a pot of jelly, and like a true Mother Hubbard, started off, while Jane, having persuaded herself that perhaps "the surprise" was meant for her, and that she might be welcoming two exiles instead of one the following night, began to put Lucy's room in order and to lay out the many pretty things she loved, especially the new dressing-gown she had made for her, lined with blue silk--her favorite color.

All that day and evening, and far into the next afternoon, Jane went about the house with the refrain of an old song welling up into her heart--one that had been stifled for months. The thought of the round-about way in which Lucy had sent for Martha did not dull its melody. That ruse, she knew, came from the foolish pride of youth, the pride that could not meet defeat. Underneath it she detected, with a thrill, the love of home; this, after all, was what her sister could not do without. It was not Bart this time. That affair, as she had predicted and had repeatedly told Martha, had worn itself out and had been replaced by her love of music. She had simply come to herself once more and would again be her old-time sister and her child. Then, too--and this sent another wave of delight tingling through her--it had all been the doctor's doing! But for his advice she would never have let Lucy go.

Half a dozen times, although the November afternoon was raw and chilly, with the wind fresh from the sea and the sky dull, she was out on the front porch without shawl or hat, looking down the path, covered now with dead leaves, and scanning closely every team that pa.s.sed the gate, only to return again to her place by the fire, more impatient than ever.

Meg's quick ear first caught the grating of the wheels. Jane followed him with a cry of joyous expectation, and flew to the door to meet the stage, which for some reason--why, she could not tell--had stopped for a moment outside the gate, dropping only one pa.s.senger, and that one the nurse.

"And Lucy did not come, Martha!" Jane exclaimed, with almost a sob in her voice. She had reached her side now, followed by Meg, who was springing straight at the nurse in the joy of his welcome.

The old woman glanced back at the stage, as if afraid of being overheard, and muttered under her breath:

"No, she couldn't come."

"Oh, I am so disappointed! Why not?"

Martha did not answer. She seemed to have lost her breath. Jane put her arm about her and led her up the path. Once she stumbled, her step was so unsteady, and she would have fallen but for Jane's a.s.sistance.

The two had now reached the hand-railing of the porch. Here Martha's trembling foot began to feel about for the step. Jane caught her in her arms.

"You're ill, Martha!" she cried in alarm. "Give me the bag. What's the matter?"

Again Martha did not answer.

"Tell me what it is."

"Upstairs! Upstairs!" Martha gasped in reply. "Quick!"

"What has happened?"

"Not here; upstairs."

They climbed the staircase together, Jane half carrying the fainting woman, her mind in a whirl.

"Where were you taken ill? Why did you try to come home? Why didn't Lucy come with you?"

They had reached the door of Jane's bedroom now, Martha clinging to her arm.

Once inside, the nurse leaned panting against the door, put her bands to her face as if she would shut out some dreadful spectre, and sank slowly to the floor.

"It is not me," she moaned, wringing her hands, "not me--not--"

"Who?"

"Oh, I can't say it!"

"Lucy?"

"Yes"