Up The Hill And Over Part 7

Thinking it over afterwards, he could never understand why he did not promptly refuse to be coerced, but at the time surrender seemed the only natural thing. Besides, he couldn't stay another day at the Imperial. He had to go somewhere. Perhaps it was his destiny to secure Ann against further feather-beds. Anyway, he accepted it.

"Oh, goody!" cried Ann, clapping her hands.

"Ann! put your hands under those clothes. How often must I tell you that you'll get your death? If you like, Doctor, there's nothing to prevent your moving in to-morrow. I'll need a day to air the feather-tick and make some pie."

The doctor was at last roused to action.

"There are conditions," he said hastily. "If I come here, there is to be no feather-tick and no pie!"

"No feather-bed?" in amazement.

"No pie?" Ann's voice was a sorrowful whisper.

"You see," Callandar explained, "I am here partly for my health. My health cannot lie on feather-beds nor eat pie--well, perhaps," with a glance at Ann, "an occasional pie may do no harm. But I shall send down some springs and a mattress. I have to use a special kind," hastily.

"Oh! it's spinal trouble, is it?" Mrs. Sykes surveyed him commiseratingly. "You look straight enough. But land! You never can tell. Them spinal troubles are most deceiving. Terrible things they are, but they don't shorten life as quickly as some others. Not that that's a blessing! Mostly, folks as has them would be glad to go long before they are took. Still, it gives them some time to be prepared. I remember--"

"I must go now, Mrs. Sykes. Give Ann some of the medicine as soon as it comes. It isn't exactly spinal trouble that is the matter with me, you know, but--er--I'll send down the kind of mattress I like. In fact, I shall probably wish to furnish my rooms myself. You won't mind, I'm sure."

"Land sakes, no, I don't mind! Most doctors are finicky. Don't worry about the medicine. I'll see that Ann takes it."

She watched him go with a glance in which satisfaction and foreboding mingled. "Poor young feller!" she mused. "He didn't like what I said about his spine a mite. Back troubles makes folks terrible touchy."

CHAPTER V

Two days after the installation of what Mrs. Sykes persisted in calling the "spinal mattress," Esther Coombe was late in getting home from school. As was usually the case when this happened, Jane, designated by mournful Mark as "the Pindling One," was sitting on the gatepost gazing disconsolately down the road. There were traces of tears upon her thin little face and the warmth of the hug which returned her sister's greeting was evidence of an unusually disturbed mind.

"Why aren't you playing with the other children, Jane?"

"I don't want to play, Esther. Timothy's dead."

"Yes, I know, dear. But Fred has promised you a new puppy--"

"I don't want a new puppy. I want Timothy."

"But Timothy is so much happier, Jane. He was old, you know. In the Happy Hunting Grounds, he will be able to frisk about just like other dogs. Wouldn't you like an apple?"

Jane considered this a moment and decided favourably. But her tale of woe was not yet complete. "Mother's ill again," she announced gloomily.

"I mustn't play band or nail the slats on the rabbits' hutch. Aunt Amy gave me my dinner on the back porch. I liked that. I wouldn't go in the house, not till you came, Esther."

The straight brows of the elder sister came together in a worried frown.

"You know that is being silly, Jane."

"I don't care."

"You must learn to care. Run now and get the apple and ask Aunt Amy to wash your face."

Jane tripped away obediently, her griefs a.s.suaged by the mere telling of them, and Esther pa.s.sed into the house by way of the veranda. It was a charming veranda, long and low, opening through French windows directly into the living room which, like itself, was long and low, and charming.

There is a charm in rooms which can be felt but not described. It exists apart from the furnishings and even the occupants; it is an essence, haunting, intangible--the soul of the room! only there are many rooms which have no soul.

Through the living room at the Elms vagrant breezes entered, loitered, and drifted out again, leaving behind them scents of sun-warmed flowers.

The light there was soft and green. The comfortable chairs invited rest; the polished rosewood table, the bright piano shining in the brightest corner, the smooth old floor in whose rug the colours had long ceased to trouble, the general air of much used comfort, satisfied and refreshed.

Esther loved the room. Her first childish memory was of the rosewood table shining like a pool in the lamplight and of her own wondering face reflected in it, with her father's laughing eyes behind. In every way it was a.s.sociated with the beginnings of things. The magic of all music began for her in the sweet, thin notes of the old square piano; the key to fairy land lay hidden somewhere in that shelf of well-worn books.

Yet to-night she entered with a hesitating step. It was obvious that she felt no pleasure in the cool greenness. The room was the same room but it was as if the expression on a well-known face had unaccountably changed and become forbidding. The girl sighed as she flung her hat upon a chair.

"Esther," Jane's voice, somewhat obscured by the eating of the promised apple, came through the open window, "are you sure about Timothy being in the Happy Hunting Grounds?"

"Of course, dear."

"But he wasn't what you would call a Christian, Esther?"

"He was a good dog."

"Can Timothy chase chickens there?"

"Probably."

"And cats?"

"Certainly cats."

"Is that what happens to bad cats when they die?"

Esther viewed this logical picture of everlastingly pursued cats with some dismay.

"N-o. I don't suppose it would be real cats."

"But Tim wouldn't chase anything but real cats."

"Jane, I wish you wouldn't talk with your mouth full."

Being thus reduced to giving up the argument or the apple, Jane abandoned the former. It was clear that Esther was not in the mood for argument. The child's quick observation had not failed to note the lagging step, nor the quick sigh. She nodded her head as if in answer to some spoken word.

"Yes, I know. I feel like that, too. That's why I didn't come in before; that's why I'm not really in yet. It catches you by the throat and makes you breathe funny. What is it, Esther?"

"Why--I don't know, Jane. It's loneliness I think--missing Dad."

The child shook her head. But whatever her objection might have been it was beyond her power of expression. She slid off the veranda step and wandered back into the garden. There was another apple in the pocket of her ap.r.o.n, and apples are great comforters.

Left alone, Esther with a resolutely cheerful air took down a blue bowl and proceeded to arrange therein the day's floral offerings. A sweet and crushed mixture they were, pansies, clove-pinks, mignonette, bleeding hearts, bachelors' b.u.t.tons, all short stemmed and minus any saving touch of green, but true love offerings for all that. Wordless gifts most of them, prim little bunches, hot from tight clasping in chubby hands, shyly and swiftly deposited on "Teacher's desk" when the back of that divinity was turned. The blue bowl took kindly to them all, and as the girl's clever fingers settled and arranged the glowing chaos it seemed that with their crushed fragrance something of the lost spirit of the room came back. Just so had she arranged hundreds of times the sweet smelling miscellanies which had been her father's constant tribute from grateful patients.