Three Little Women's Success Part 11

"I know you can, dear, and you are, Jean; even if in many ways you are younger than most girls of your age. I don't think any of us have grown up quite so fast as the girls around us. Mother says we have not, and she does not wish us to, because there are so many more years in which we must be old than in which we can be young; but I reckon we can rise to a situation when occasion demands, and, somehow, I feel that we will both be needed to-night. Dear old Charles, he is pretty sick, I know, or mother would not look so anxious, and _such_ a night as this is. Why, Jean, we could not get a message to Dr. Black however badly we might need him. We must depend entirely upon ourselves."

"I wonder Champion did not come over."

"He 'phoned mother this morning, but before she got all his message the connection broke, and, I dare say, the roads have been almost impa.s.sable."

"Impa.s.sable roads would never keep him from coming," cried the "Champion's" champion. "There must have been something worse than the roads. I don't know what, but I know it was something," insisted Jean.

"Yes, I am sure there must have been, he is always so thoughtful for us," replied Constance, a soft light springing into her eyes as she recalled Hadyn's unvarying kindness from the first moment she knew him.

"Now, good-night, honey. I hope you won't need me at all, but I know you will be on the lookout if you do."

A moment later Constance was struggling back to the house through the blinding storm and snowdrifts. As she entered the back door the front one opened to admit a snow-covered, panting figure, and Hadyn confronted her.

"Great Scott! Where have you come from?" he demanded.

"I might ask the same question," panted Constance, divesting herself of her cloak, and shaking it to free it from the snow which covered it.

"Get out of your coat, quick, and give it to Lilly to hang in the kitchen until it is dry. What under the sun possessed you to try to come here to-night, you madman?"

"Under the sun? Nay, lady, neither sun nor moon. I fear you are wandering. Is it a case of blizzard-madness?" answered Hadyn, as he slipped off his big ulster and cap and gave them to the maid.

"Now, come along in here and tell me all the little mother couldn't tell me. Where is she, and where is my little sister?"

"Lilly, please bring some more logs for the library fire. Come in here, Hadyn, and I'll tell you all about it. Mother and Jean are over With Charles and Mammy, and I'm here to mount guard over the house and maids, who, luckily, are storm-bound."

"But why on earth aren't you all here? The little mother and Jean have no business to be anywhere else on such a villainous night. Let me go right over after them," and Hadyn turned toward the door.

"Stop! Wait! Listen to me!"

"Oh, of course, Mademoiselle la General," laughed Hadyn, as Constance laid a detaining hand upon his arm. "I'm listening."

"Then sit down to do it and hear the whole story. When you really know all about it you can help me; but you might as well whistle to the wind out yonder as to hope to get mother back here to-night. Yes, Lilly, put the logs in the basket, and you and Rose please stay in the kitchen until eleven. I will be out to speak to you when Mr. Stuyvesant goes."

"When he _does_," said Hadyn, under his breath, then louder: "It must be rather satisfying to have such a flower-garden right indoors when it is whooping things up so outside," and he nodded toward the maid just leaving the room. "If you could only have a 'Violet' and a 'Pansy,' and one or two other blossoms, you'd have a whole greenhouse."

Constance laughed outright as she answered:

"We've had wood nymphs, and some of the months-May and June, for instance-and several jewels, to say nothing of a few royalties, so nothing will surprise us now; but Mammy seems equal to all of them put together. And apropos of Mammy, let me tell you all about her and Charles."

They sat down before the blazing logs while Constance told of the experiences of the past twenty-four hours. Hadyn listened with a troubled face.

"I'd no idea it was so serious," he said, when she finished, "but I am mighty glad I came over to-night. And now you are to heed what _I_ say: you may sit here with me until eleven if you will. I'll be right glad of your company. _Then_ you are going upstairs to bed-_yes_, you are, too.

Now, it is no use 'argifyin',' to quote Mammy. I'll stay here in the library snug, warm, and as comfortable as any man could wish to be. I shall see Jean's light if she signals, and I'll be good-yes, honest I will. You doubt it, I know, and you think I will sneak over yonder and be more bother than I am worth; but I give you my word I won't. I'll do exactly as you would do if you were here alone."

Constance raised her eyes to his, and little guessed how hard it was for the man who looked into their pure, trustful depths to refrain from holding out his arms to the girl who had grown so dear to him during the past three and a half years.

"I'll take you at your word," she answered.

"Good. Now sit down and toast your toes before this blaze. By Jove, is there anything like blazing logs and soft lamplight? They spell _h-o-m-e_, don't they?" and Hadyn glanced around the cosy room as though to him, at least, it held the sweetest elements of home a man could ask for.

Softly the little clock ticked the moments and hours away as they sat there together, talking over a hundred little happenings of the past years, now and then glancing over to the Bee-hive. But all was quiet. A dim light shone in Mammy's bedroom, and in the Bee-hive Jean's shaded electric light cast a faint halo upon the snow which continued to whirl by the window, although the wind had died down a little and the storm seemed less violent. Shortly after ten Constance went out to the kitchen to see that the storm-bound maids were comfortable. Cots had been placed in the laundry for them, and they were probably far better off than they would have been in their own home.

"Now, are you sure _you_ will be comfortable?" she asked Hadyn when she returned to the library. He glanced about the room, at the cheerful fire and the divan, with its numberless pillows, and smiled significantly.

"Only trouble is, I may be _too_ comfortable," he said. "But you need not worry," as a slight shade of doubt crossed Constance's face. "I won't go to the Land o' Nod. But _you_ must, so good-night, little girl.

Go on upstairs and sleep well. I know just what that room looks like; I shall never forget the night you gave it up to me. If I had known it a little sooner, I should not have let you do so, although the memory of it has been one of the sweetest ones of my life. Good-night."

"Good-night, Hadyn, and-thank you a thousand times."

If Haydn held the slender fingers an extra moment, and looked earnestly into the beautiful eyes raised to his, he was hardly to be blamed.

Turning to the book shelves, he selected a book and went back to his chair before the fire. Eleven and twelve were struck by the clock on the mantle shelf, but all was quiet in the little cottage at the foot of the garden. Then came three single strokes in succession; twelve-thirty, one, one-thirty. Hadyn remembered no more. His wild struggle through the storm earlier in the evening, the silent house, the warmth, the luxurious depth of the Morris chair had all conspired against his resolutions, and three o'clock was striking when he started wide awake with a sense of calamity at hand and the deepest contrition in his heart-an hour and a half blotted out as though they had never been!

CHAPTER XII

OF THE SHADOW.

As the night wore on, Mrs. Carruth and Mammy grew more and more anxious for their patient. The severe weather told upon him in spite of the even temperature of the cottage, and he suffered as a man upon the rack. With the intense pain came higher temperature, and by one o'clock Mrs.

Carruth began to see that further medical advice was imperative; something more than they could do must be done for Charles, for he could not endure such torture for many more hours. Furthermore, his breathing had become very labored, and Mrs. Carruth feared the worst from that symptom. Without saying anything to Mammy she slipped noiselessly into the Bee-hive, meaning to 'phone to Dr. Black. In that little sanctum all was snug and quiet. Noiselessly removing the receiver, she tried to call up central. There was no response, and a shadow fell across her face.

Then she tried her own home, but without result; the storm had completely disorganized the entire service. She was sorely troubled and about to slip back to Charles, when Jean's face appeared at the top of the stairway, and she called softly:

"Mother, is Charles worse?"

"Why, dearie! What are you doing out of your bed at this hour?"

"Don't scold me, Mumsey, I haven't been in it, only lying on the outside, 'cause I thought you might need me; do you?"

"No, honey, certainly not. You must undress at once and get into bed."

"But, mother, _is_ Charles worse? If he isn't please let me go and sit with Mammy while you come in here and go to bed; you have been up all night. If he isn't worse you can be spared, and I'll be all the help Mammy needs. If he is worse you need me, anyway. I've had a long rest, and been asleep, too, though I tried hard not to."

As she talked, Jean tiptoed down the stairs, and, coming close to her mother, slipped her arms about her waist and nestled her head against her shoulder. The past three months had made a great change in Jean. For a long time it seemed as though she never meant to grow another inch, for at thirteen she was no taller than a child of eleven, although plump and strong beyond the average child. Then she suddenly took a start and shot up, up, up, until now she was fully as tall as Constance, but slight and pliable as a willow wand.

Mrs. Carruth laid her arms caressingly about her shoulders, and rested her cheek against the wonderful hair: hair of the deepest, richest bronze, and soft and wavy to a degree.

"My little woman," she said, very tenderly.

"If I truly am, then let me do a little woman's part. You are tired and terribly worried about Charles. Let me come in and help."

"There is so little we can do, Jean. We have done practically all we know how to do, and Dr. Black asked me to 'phone if there seemed to be any p.r.o.nounced change. I haven't said anything to Mammy, because I do not want to alarm her more than I must; but I would give anything to communicate with him, and the wires are down."

"Yes, I know they are; Connie told me so before she went home, and that was one reason she wanted me to stay here: she was afraid you would need help during the night and be unable to get it."

Mrs. Carruth was about to reply, when Mammy's frightened face appeared in the doorway.

"Yes, Mammy! What is it?"

Poor old Mammy! One of the child-race, she was pitifully at a loss in the face of such a situation as the present crisis. Had it been any of her white folks she would have been efficient to the last degree, carrying out the precepts of "ole Miss," who "raised" her, remembering with marvellous accuracy each detail of that ante-bellum training, and performing each with a patience and tenderness incomprehensible to those who have never known the heart-service rendered by those old-time servitors. But, strange anomaly, though a characteristic so very marked in her race, Mammy was utterly helpless when it came to taking the initiative for Charles or herself in sickness. Then she turned to her "white folks," and if her Miss Jinny had bidden her drink strychnine, or give it to Charles, she would have obeyed her unquestionably. Strange people that they are!