CHAPTER VI"There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship. One is Truth; the other is Tenderness."
"There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship. One is Truth; the other is Tenderness."
After Thornton's departure Doris metaphorically, drew a long breath. She felt that he would make no further move at present—how could he? As one faces a possible surgical operation with the hope that Nature may intervene to make it unnecessary, she turned to her blessed duties with renewed vigour.
Of course, there were hours, there always would be hours, when, alone, or when the children played near her, Doris wondered and speculated but always reached the triumphant conclusion that her love, equal and sincere, for both little girls, had been made possible by her unprejudiced relations with them. And that must count for much.
Every time she was diverted from her chosen path she courageously took stock, as it were, of her gains and possible losses.
For instance, when Mrs. Tweksbury had appeared to discern resemblance between Nancy and Meredith, she wondered if, as often is the case, the impartial observer could discover what familiarity had screened?
But try as she did, at that time, she could not find the slightest physical trace of likeness, and she brought old photographs to her aid. While, on the other hand, the mental and temperamental characteristics of both little girls were such as were common to healthy childhood.
Again it was possible for Doris to face any fact that might present itself—she knew that, by her past course, she had not only secured justice for the children but faith in herself.
Her greatest concern now was the menace of Thornton.
"Think of Nancy," she mused, "sweet, sensitive, and fine, under such influence! And Joan so high-strung and reckless! It would be a hopeless condition!"
Looked upon from this viewpoint Doris grew depressed. While her conscience remained clear as to any real wrong she had done in acting as she had, there were anxious hours spent in imagining that time when, as Thornton said, the girls themselves must know.
When must they know?
Doris had not considered that before to any extent.
Thornton might demand at once that they know the truth. He had a right to that.
Here was a new danger, but as the silence continued the immediate fear of this lessened. And the children were mere babies. They could not possibly understand if they were told, now.
Until such time, then, as they must be told, Doris renewed her efforts in building well the small, healthy minds and bodies.
"When they marry"—this brought a smile—"when they marry! Of course, then, they must know." With that conclusion reached, anxiety was once more lulled to rest.
Gradually the old peaceful days merged into new peaceful days. Doris entered, little by little, into her social duties so long neglected; the children romped and lived joyously in the old house—"just children"—until suddenly a small but significant thing occurred when they were nine years of age that startled Doris into a line of thought that brought about a radical change in all their lives.
She was sitting in the library one stormy day, reading. The tall back of the chair hid her from view, the fire and the book were soothing, and the excuse—that the storm gave her the right to do what she wanted to do, rather than what she, otherwise, might feel she should do—added to her enjoyment.
From above she heard the voices of the children and Mary's quiet intervention now and again.
Then Joan laughed, and the sound struck Doris as if she had never heard it before. What a peculiar laugh it was—for a child! Silver clear, musical, but with a note of defiance, recklessness, and yes, almost abandon.
Joan was teasing Nancy about her dolls—Joan detested dolls, she declared that it was their stupid stare that made her dislike them. She only wanted live things: dogs and cats, not even birds—she was sorry for birds. Nancy's dolls were to her "children," and she was pleading now for an especial favourite and Joan was praying—rather mockingly—that God would let it get smashed because of "the proud nose."
"But God makes children's noses!" Nancy was urging.
"Well! He don't make dolls," Joan insisted, and proceeded with her petition until Nancy's wails brought Mary upon the scene.
Doris listened. She could not hear what Mary said, but presently peace reigned above-stairs and the pelting storm and the book resumed their power.
It might have been a half hour later when she heard soft, stealthy footsteps in the hall. She sat quite still, believing that one of the children was hiding and that the other would be on the trail immediately. The small intruder passed through the library and went into the sunken room.
Doris, herself unseen, looked from behind her shelter and saw that it was Joan, and before she could call to her she was held silent by what the child proceeded to do.
Deftly, quickly she disrobed and stood in her pretty, childish nakedness in the warm room.
For a moment she poised and listened, then she stepped over the rim of the fountain, took the exact attitude of one of the figures, and with rapt, upturned face became rigid.
It was wonderfully lovely, but decidedly startling. Still Doris waited.
The water dripped over the small body; Joan's lips were moving in some weird incantation, and then with the light all gone from her pretty face she came out of the basin, pulled her clothing on as best she could, and flung herself tragically in a deep chair.
For a moment Doris thought the child was crying, but she was not. Her limp little body relaxed and the eyes were sad.
Doris rose and went to the steps.
"Why are you here alone, Joan?" she asked.
Quite simple the reply came:
"I was—trying to make it come true, Auntie Dorrie," this with a suspicious break in the voice.
"What, darling?" Doris came down and took the child in her arms.
"Mary says if you believe anything hard enough you can make it come true.Shealways can! I wanted to play with the fountain girls—I know it would be beautiful—but you have to belike them. You have to shut the whole world out—and then you know what they know."
"Why, little girl, do you think the fountain children are happier than you and Nancy?"
With that groping that all mothers feel when they first confront theindividualin the child they believed they knew Doris asked her question.
"I've used Nancy and me all up!" was Joan's astonishing reply.
"All up?" the two meaningless words were the most that Doris could grasp.
"Yes, Aunt Dorrie. Dolls and Mary's silly stories and Nancy's funny games all over and over and over until they make me—sick!"
Joan actually looked sick, so intense was she.
"Nan is happy always, Aunt Dorrie—she's made like that—but I use things up and then I want something else. Mary said that, honest true, things would come if you believed hard enough. Maybe I cannot believe hard enough—or maybe Mary didn't speak truth. She doesn't always, Aunt Dorrie."
Doris gasped and drew the child closer. It was like being dragged, by the little hand, to an unsuspected danger that she, not the child, understood.
Gradually the inner side of the years was turned out by Doris's careful questions and Joan's quiet simplicity. Sherevealed so much now that she found that her view of life had a dramatic interest. It appeared, quite innocently, that Nancy could assume any position in order to win her way.
"She always speaks truth, Auntie Dorrie," Joan loyally defended, "but she can make truth out of such queer things; it justistruth to Nancy, for she doesn't want to hurt people's feelings. Mary likes Nancy best, for I cannot make truth when I want to. Aunt Dorrie—truth is—a—a thing, isn't it?"
"Yes, darling. But we—we see it differently, that is all."
This was comforting to Joan, and she smiled. Then Mary again took the centre of the stage—Mary's interpretations, all coloured with the mystery of her desolate childhood; her old superstitions and power to control by the magic of her imagination. There were certain tales, it seemed, that were held as bribes. Nancy would always succumb to the lures; Joan, only to a few.
"What are they, dear? I love fairy stories, you know."
Doris was keeping her voice cool and calm.
"Why, Mary says there is a Rock on a big mountain that is—bewitched! And everything near it is, too. She says things grow on it and you look at them and they are alive, and you can—can, well, use them! Mary saw a road once and just went up on it—it was a bewitched road, and she got—lost!" Joan's eyes widened. "Mary says she'll have to find her way back somehow, and if Nancy and I are naughty, she'll go and find it at once! Nancy is afraid, but I told Mary I'd follow her!
"And then Mary said that once she just longed and longed for a doll—she had never had one—and she saw The Ship on The Rock and she went up to it—that was before she got lost on the road—and she asked the captain of The Ship for a doll, and he said he would send one to her. And she went home and that very night—thatverynight, Aunt Dorrie, she looked in a room where she heard a funny noise and she saw a live doll! And while she was looking she saw a tall big lady bring in another. You see, when The Rock gets alive, everything is alive and Mary had forgot that—and so the dolls were—werebabies. Nancy believes that, but I—tried it on Nancy's dolls—and it isn't true!"
The rain outside beat wildly against the windows; the wind lashed the vines and roared down the chimney.
"Are—you asleep, Aunt Dorrie?" The silence awed Joan.
"No, dear heart. I am just thinking."
And so Doris was—thinking that she was walking in the dark. Her own small flashlight had seemed enough to guide her, and here she discovered that it had only shown her one path, the one she had chosen, and all the other paths—Mary's, Nancy's, and Joan's—had been disregarded.
Suddenly it seemed as dangerous to have too much faith as too little.
"I want you, Joan, dear, to go up and play, now, with Nancy. See if you cannot take all the old games and make a new one. That would be such a pleasant thing to do."
"Must I, Auntie Dorrie? I'd rather stay here close to you. It's a new game. I like it here."
It was hard to send the small, clinging thing away, but Doris was firm.
Once alone, she closed her eyes and let her hands fall, palms upward, on her lap. She felt tired and perplexed. There had come a parting of the ways. Apparently the ninth year was a dangerous year. What must she do? Was Mary more ignorant than she seemed or—more knowing? What had Mary known at Ridge House?
The dull, quiet girl, as Doris recalled her, seemed merely a part of the machinery of the Sisters' Home; she had never taken her into account—but had she been what she seemed? What was she now?
It was appalling—in the doubt as to what was, or was not—to think that so much had been taken for granted.
The children had seemed babies. The mere physical care had been the main consideration, and while that was going on Joan had grown weary of the old games and Nancy had learned to gain her ends by indirect methods.
Clearly, Doris must have help at this juncture.
"I see," she thought on, heavily, "why fathersandmothers are none too many where children are concerned."
It was then that she thought of David Martin in a strangely new way—a way that brought a faint colour to her cheeks.
All the afternoon she thought of him while she, having set Mary to other tasks, devoted herself to Nancy and Joan. She read to them, scampered through the house with them, did anything and everything they suggested, until she had subdued the nervous strain and could laugh a bit at her bugbears of the morning. Joan, flushed and towzled, Nancy, sweetly radiant, effaced the menacing images her anxiety had created—but she still needed help. And David Martin was the one, the only one among her friends who seemed adequate to her need.
"I've tried to be a mother," she thought, "but I have taken the father out of their lives—I must supply it."
When the children were in bed and the house quiet, Doris went to the sunken room and, taking up the telephone receiver, called her number. She was calm and at peace. She was prepared to lay the whole matter of the past few years before David Martin, and she was conscious, already, of relief.
"I am going to let myself—go!" she thought, her ear waiting for a reply.
It was Martin who answered.
"David, are you quite free for an hour?"
"For the entire evening, Doris. Are the children sick?"
How like Martin that was! What most concerned and interested Doris was first in his thought.
Doris's face twitched.
"It's my friend," she said, slowly, "that I want. Not my physician."
"I'll be there in a half hour."
The soft drip of the rain outside was soothing. So happy did Doris feel that she wondered if her fears would not strike Martin as absurd, and after all, why should she lay her burden of confession upon him in order to ease her perplexity? Along this line she argued with herself while she ordered a tray to be sent up as soon as Doctor Martin arrived.
She gave particular instructions as to the preparation of the dainties Martin enjoyed but which no one but Doris ever set before him.
"I chose the shield of silence," she mused. "Why should I ask another to help me with it now?"
Still, in the end, her honest soul knew that it was not help for herself she was seeking, but guidance for the children whose best interests she must serve.
And then, as one looks back over the path he has travelled while he pauses before going on, Doris Fletcher saw how the love of David Martin had been transformed for her sake into friendship that it might brighten her way. She had never been able to give him what he desired, but so precious was she to him—and full well she knew it—that he had become her friend.
Out of such stuff one of two things is evolved—a resentful man, or the most sacred thing, that can enter a woman's life, a true friend.
Martin had made a success of his profession; his unfulfilled hopes had seemed to broaden his sympathies instead of damming them.
As the clock struck nine Martin appeared at the doorway—a tall, massive figure, the shoulders inclined to droop as though prepared for burdens; the eyes, under shaggy brows, were as tender as a woman's, but the mouth and chin were like iron.
"David, it was good of you to come." Doris met him on the steps and led him to his favourite chair, drawn close to the blazing fire.
"To take any chance leisure of yours is selfish—but I had to!"
Martin took the outstretched hands and still held them as he sat down. After all the silent years the old thrill filled his being.
"This is a great treat," he said in his big, kind voice. "I was just back in the office. I steered two small craft into port this afternoon—I need a vacation."
Doris recalled how this phase of Martin's profession alwaysexhausted him, and she smiled gently into his eyes. Just then the tray she had ordered was sent up. He looked at it and his tired face relaxed; the deep eyes betrayed the boyish delight in the thought that had prompted the act.
"You must need me pretty bad to pay so high!" he said, watching Doris pour the thick cream into his cup of chocolate.
"I do, David, but really I'm not buying; I'm indulging myself. May I chatter while you eat? There are three kinds of sandwiches on the plate. Take them in turn, they are warranted to blend." Then quite suddenly:
"David, it's about the children. They are over nine. What happens, physiologically, when children—girls—are—are nearly ten?"
"Deviltry, often. At nine they are too old to spank, too young to reason with—it's the dangerous age, at least the outer circle of the dangerous age." Martin tested the second sandwich.
"And the prescription? What do you prescribe for the dangerous age?" Doris felt that it was best to edge toward the vital centre by circuitous routes.
"Barrels and bungholes or what stands for barrels and bungholes—a good school where a mixture of discipline with home ideals prevail. I know of several where giddy little flappers are marvellously licked into shape without danger of breaking. I've felt for some time that your kids needed—well, not love and care, surely, but a practical understanding."
"Why didn't you tell me, David?"
"People never appreciate what they do not pay for. Now that you have offered up this tribute to the animal of me, I know you are ready for the other."
"The other, David?"
"Yes, the best of me. That always belongs to you."
This was daring, and it sent Doris to cover while she caught her breath. David calmly ate on. After the sandwiches there was a bit of fruit cake made from the recipe handed down from the days of Grandfather Fletcher.
"David, do you think mothers, I mean real mothers, havedivine intuitions about their children? Intuitions that, well, say, adopted mothers never have?"
"No, I don't. The majority of mothers are vamps. They think they have a strangle hold on their offspring; a right to mould or bully them out of shape. The best school I know is run by a woman who says it takes her a year to shake off the average mother; after that the child becomes an individual and you can get a line on it."
"That's startling, David. It's hard, too, on mothers."
"Oh! I don't know. I often think if mothers could be friends to their children,real friends, I mean, and not claim what no human being has a right to claim from another, they'd reap a finer reward. I'd hate to love a person from duty. The fifth commandment is the only one with a promise. It needs it! What is the stuffing in this third sandwich, Doris? It comes mighty near perfection."
"I never give away the tricks of my trade, David! And let me tell you, you are mighty like a sandwich yourself—light and shade in layers; but I reckon you are right about the friend part in mothers. Then, too, I think an adopted mother has this to her credit—she doesn't dare presume."
"No, often she bullies. She thinks she paid for the right. After all, the best any of us can do for a child is to set it free; point out the channels and keep the lights burning!"
"David, you are wonderful. You should have had children." The tears were in Doris's eyes.
"Oh! I don't know—I'd have to have too many other things tacked on. All children are mine now, in a sense."
David pushed the tray away and leaned luxuriously back in his chair.
"Now," he said, with his peculiar smile that few rarely saw, "let's have it! The skirmish is over."
Then Doris told him—feeling her way as she poured her confession into the ears of one who trusted her so fully and who asked so little. She saw his startled glance when she, beginning with Meredith's death, struck the high note of the real matter. Martin was not resenting her past reticence, but he was taken off his guard, and that rarely happened to him.
Once, having controlled his emotions, he was placid enough. He noted the outstretched hands in Doris's lap and estimated her weariness and her need of him. After all, those were the big things of the moment. In Martin's thought any act of Doris's could easily be explained and righted. He did not interrupt her, he even saw the humour of her account of the scene with Thornton, years before, when she presented both children to his horrified eyes. Martin shook with laughter, and that trivial act did more to strengthen Doris than anything he could have done. It relieved the tension.
"How did you manage to create the impression, among us all, that these children are twins?" Martin, seeing that Doris had finished with the vital matter, turned to details. "I cannot recall that you ever said so—and there seems to be no reason why they should be twins."
"That's it, David, there never was a reason, really, and I did not intend, at first, to give the impression—I simply said nothing. Things like this grow in silence until they are too big to handle. It was the telling of plain half-truths that did the mischief—and letting the conclusions of others pass. Of course I did not hesitate with George Thornton, he mattered; the others did not seem to count—no one but you, David. I have felt I wronged your faith, somehow."
Martin, at this, began to defend Doris.
"Oh, I don't agree to that. It was entirely your own affair. You wrote to me while you were away about Meredith. I realized how cut up you were, and God knows you had reason to be. Until you needed me, I don't see but what you had a right to act as you saw fit about the children."
"David, I always need you. It is because I need you so much that I have decency to keep my hands off!"
Martin's brows drew close, his mouth looked stern, but he was again controlling the old, undying longing to possess the only woman he had ever loved, and shield her from herself!
Then he gave his prescription:
"Doris, get rid of Mary. Find a proper place for her and forget whatever doubts you may have. Remember only her years of service; she gave the best she had. Then send thechildren to Miss Phillips'. Of course, you must write to Thornton. Tell him as much or as little as you choose. He's rightfully in the game. We're all three playing with a dummy." How Doris blessed Martin for that "we three!" He had come into the game and, once in, Martin could be depended upon.
"You've run amuck among accepted codes," he was saying with that curious chuckle of his, "and yet, by heaven! you seem to have established a divinely inspired one for the kids."
"You think that, David? You are not trying to comfort me?"
Martin got up. He seemed suddenly in a hurry to be off. He had given what he could to meet Doris's need—given it briefly, concisely, as was his way.
Doris brought his coat and held it for him—her face lifted to his with that yearning in her eyes that always unnerved him. It was the look of one who must offer an empty cup to another who thirsted. Then she spoke, after all the silent years:
"David, I have always loved you, but I am beginning to understand at last about love. I had not the 'call' in my soul. Merry had it, the mountain mother had it—but it never came to me. Without it, I dared not offer to pay the cost of marriage. That would have been unjust to you. I did realize that, but the deeper truth has only come recently. I wonder if you can understand, dear, if I say now, evennow, that I would be glad for you to marry and be happy—as you should be?"
"Doris, I counted that all up years ago. It did not weigh against you!" Martin's voice was husky.
"Then, David, be my friend and the friend of my little children. For their sakes, I implore your help along the way."
Martin bent and touched his lips to Doris's head which was bowed before him.
"Thank you," he said with infinite tenderness; "you are permitting me to share all that you have, my dear. Good-night."
CHAPTER VII"To do our best is one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequences is the next part, of any sensible virtue."
"To do our best is one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the consequences is the next part, of any sensible virtue."
In much that frame of mind, Doris arose the day following Martin's call.
By some subtle force the débris of the past seemed to have been disposed of; the misunderstanding on her part and David's.
"It is the 'call' that makes everything possible or tragically wretched," she said, "and one cannot be blamed for being born deficient. Thank God I fitted in, though, when others were called away."
With David's understanding and coöperation the present could be confronted and the "hand washing of consequences" undertaken.
"I have done my best," Doris felt sure of this, "mybest, and now I must do a bit of trusting. It has been my one daring adventure. It must not fail."
After many attempts she wrote and dispatched a letter to George Thornton, simply stating that she was about to send the children to school.
While waiting for his reply she turned her attention to Mary, for in any case, she decided, the children must be placed in another's care. What Mary felt when Doris explained things to her no one was ever likely to know. The girl's face became blanker; the lines stiffened.
"It was," Doris confided later to Martin, "as if I were wiping the past out as I spoke."
The fact was that Doris was rekindling the past—the past that lay back of the years of plain duty.
"I have not overlooked, Mary," Doris strove to get underthe crust of reserve and find something with which to deal emotionally, "the years of devotion to us all. You have made no social ties for yourself; have not taken any pleasures outside—what would you like to do now, Mary?"
"Go home."
"Go—home? Why—where is home, Mary?"
The pathos struck Doris—the pathos of those who, having served others, find themselves stranded at last.
"Down to Silver Gap." As she spoke, Mary was hearing already the sound of the river on the rocks and seeing the spring flowers in the crevices of the hills.
"You mean, go back to Ridge House? You could not stay there alone, Mary, with old Jed."
Mary stared blankly—she was further back than Ridge House.
"I've been saving," she went slowly on, "all the years. I reckon I have most enough to buy the cabin where us-all was born." The tone and words took on the mountain touch. Doris was fascinated.
"You mean your father's old cabin?" she asked.
"Yes. It lies 'cross the river from Ridge House, and when I think of it," a suggestion of radiance broke on Mary's face, "I get a rising in my side. I'm aiming to get it back——"
The girl stopped short—something in her threatened to break loose.
The pause gave Doris a moment to consider. She was baffled by Mary, but she saw clearly that the girl had but one desire.
"Mary," she said, presently, "I have always intended, when the children no longer needed you, to give you some proof of my appreciation of all that you have done for us. You seem to have shown me a way. You shall have the old cabin, if it can be obtained, and it shall be made comfortable for you. It is not so far but what you can have a little oversight of Ridge House, too, and that will mean a great deal to me. I am thinking of opening the house sometime."
Doris got no further for, to her astonishment, Mary roseand came stiffly toward her. When she was near enough she reached out her hands and said:
"God hearing me, 'I'll pay you back some day. I will; I will!"
Doris was embarrassed.
"You have paid everything you owe me, Mary," she returned, quietly. "It is my turn now. I will see about the cabin at once."
Finally a letter came from Thornton. A dictated letter.
He was about to leave for South Africa and would be gone perhaps several years.
He left everything in Doris's capable hands!
Again Doris took breath for the next stretch of the long way.
And Joan and Nancy went to Dondale and Miss Phillips.
It was a hard break for them all and was taken characteristically. Joan, tear-stained and quivering, set her face to the change and excitement with unmistakable delight. Nancy was frightened into silent but smiling acquiescence. She expected, she told Joan, that it would kill her, but she would not make Aunt Dorrie feel any worse than she did by showing what she felt! At this Joan tossed her head and sent two large tears rolling down her cheeks.
"None of us will die, Nan. We allfeeldeathly, but this is—life."
At ten Joan had a distinct comprehension of the difference between living and life. To a certain extent you controlled the former; the latter "got you."
"I—I don't want life," wailed Nancy, "I want Aunt Dorrie."
"But life—wants you!"
Somewhere Joan had heard that, or read it—the old library was no hidden place to her—and she brought it forth now with emphasis.
Nancy made no reply. In that mood Joan would show no mercy. It was when she was suffering the most that Joan could harden and frighten Nancy. She was lashing herself to duty when she sent the whip cracking.
Martin accompanied Doris to Dondale. He was "Uncle David" to the children and part of their happy lives.
"Take—take good care of Aunt Dorrie," Nancy pleaded with him at parting, her poor little face distorted by the effort she was making.
"You bet!" Martin bent and kissed the child. He approved of Nancy. Martin could never patiently endure complications, and Nancy was simple and direct. Joan was another matter. At the last she was in high spirits.
"It's going to be great," she whispered to Doris. "All the girls and the new games and the comings home for holidays and—and everything."
It was after they were alone that Nancy called down extra suffering upon herself.
"Aunt Dorrie will think you did not care, Joan, and Uncle David scowled. You make people think queer things about you."
Joan turned and fixed Nancy with flaming eyes.
"I want Aunt Dorrie to think everything is all right—you didn't! You did not cheat her. I did—for her sake."
"Perhaps," Nancy sometimes struck a high note, unsuspectingly, "perhaps Aunt Dorrie would ratherhaveyou care."
Joan regarded her intently and then replied:
"Well, then, you're all right, Nan!"
The tone, more than the words, stung Nancy. It hurt her to have any one misunderstand, but it often occurred to her that it hurt more to be understood!
In the train en route to New York Doris sat very quiet, thinking of the two little faces she was leaving—forever! It amounted to that—as every woman knows.
Nothing but their faces held as the miles were dashed past—faces that portrayed the spiritual essence of the old, dear years—faces that would turn, from now on, to others, and take on new expressions, bear the mark of another's impress.
"Well, thank heaven," Doris presently broke out, "I haven't been a vamp mother, David."
Martin came from behind his newspaper.
"And because of that, Doris," he said, "you will have those girls coming back to you. They will want to come." He was thinking of Nancy.
"Yes. I have a sure feeling about that." Then: "How splendid it was of Joan to act as she did! She'd rather we thought her hard than to let us see her pain."
Martin stared. "You mean Nancy?" he asked.
"No. Nan, bless her, cannotdisguiseherself, but Joan can! Joan will suffer through her strength."
The period, always a dangerous one, the year following school life, became Doris's great concern while the school time progressed in orderly fashion under Miss Phillips's guidance.
"I am keeping my hands off," Doris often confided to Martin. "It is only fair play while the children are at Dondale. You were right—Miss Phillips is a wonderful woman—I have learned to trust her absolutely. She has appreciated what I tried to do for the girls; is building on it; she will return them to me—not different, but—extended! It's the time after, David, that I am planning. That time which is the link between restraint and the finding of one's self."
"I declare," Martin would reply to this, "I wonder that you ever get results, Doris; you harvest while others are sowing."
But deep in us all is the current carrying on and on, and it was hurrying Doris during the years while the girls were at Dondale.
There were the happy vacations, the new interests, the marvel of watching the miracle of evolution from the child to the woman. At times this was breathlessly exciting.
Doris filled her private time with useful and enjoyable hours. She got into closer touch with old friends, saw and heard the best in music and drama, permitted herself the luxury of David Martin's friendship, and shared his confidences about his sister's son in the Far West—a fatherless boy who promised much but often failed in fulfilment.
"Odd, isn't it, Davey," Doris sometimes said, "that you and I, having, somehow, lost what is the commonplace roadfor most men and women, have been called upon to assume many of the joys and sorrows of that broad highway?"
"We none of us go scot free," Martin returned. "I'm grateful for every decent, common job thrown at me."
And so the years passed and Doris had outlined a vague but comprehensive line of action for the immediate months following the girls' graduation from Dondale.
"I am going to take them abroad," she announced to Martin; "take them over the route that Merry and I took—our last journey together. And, David, in that little Italian town they shall know—about Meredith and Thornton!"
David started, but made no remark.
"And when we return," Doris went on, "I am going to bring the girls out—I hate the term, I'd rather say let them out—just as Merry and I were, in this dear, old house. Mrs. Tweksbury and I have planned rather a brilliant campaign."
And then came that bleak March day—Joan and Nancy were to graduate in June—when the hurrying undercurrent in Doris Fletcher's life brought her to a sharp turn in the stream.
She was sitting in the pleasant old room before a freshly made fire; the fountain trickled and splashed, the birds sang, defying the outdoor gloom and chill, and a letter from Miss Phillips lay upon her lap—a letter that had made her smile then frown. She took it up and read it again.
"I am deeply interested in your nieces," so Miss Phillips wrote; "naturally a woman dealing, as I have for years, with youth in the making, is both blunted and sharpened. Young girls fall into types—are comfortably classified and regulated for the most part. Occasionally, however, the rule has its exceptions."
Then Miss Phillips expatiated for a page or so, in her big, forceful handwriting, on Nancy's beauty, sweetness, and charm.
"A fine, feminine creature, my dear Miss Fletcher. A girl I am proud to refer to as one of mine; a girl to carry on the traditions of such a family as yours—a lovely, young American woman!"
This was what brought the smile, but as Doris turned over the sheet the smile departed; a grave expression took its place.
"You and I are progressive women," so the new theme began; "we know the game of life. We know that where we once played straight whist we now play bridge, but we are fully aware that the fundamentals are the same.
"And now I must explain myself. For a young girl with the prospects that Joan has her mental equipment is a handicap rather than an asset. She does everything too well—except the drudgery of the class room, she has managed to endure that, and with credit, but everything else she accomplishes with distinction. She lacks utterly any suggestion of amateurishness!
"I hope you will understand. This would be splendid if she, like Sylvia Reed, for instance, had to look to her wits to solve her life problems; but it will distract her along the path of obvious demands.
"She, I repeat, does everything too well. She dances with inspiration; nothing less. She sings with spirit and originality; she acts almost unbelievably well and she wins, without effort, the admiration and affection of all with whom she comes in contact. I speak thus openly and intimately to you, Miss Fletcher, because, frankly, Joan puzzles me—she always has."
The letter dropped again on Doris's lap. Yes, Doris Fletcher did understand. She saw Joan, not as she was, a tall young creature radiantly facing life, but as a tired little child in this very room stepping' defeated from the fountain, because she could not make her desires come true! She was listening to the old plaint: "I have used the old games—I want something new!"
Yes, Doris understood, and sitting alone, she vowed that Joan should not be defrauded of her own, by misdirected love, prejudice, or luxury.
"She shall have her chance!"
Then it was that something happened. Things—stopped!
For a moment Doris was conscious of making an effort toset them going again. She glanced at the clock—that had stopped! The fountain no longer played; nor did the birds sing!
A black silence presently engulfed the whole world. At last Doris opened her eyes—or had they been open during the eternity when nothing had occurred? She glanced at the clock, a trivial thing against the carving of the wall, but upon whose face Truth sat faithfully. Two hours had passed since she had noticed the clock before!
"But—I have been thinking a long time, planning for the children; reading the letter——" Doris sought to establish a normal state of affairs—she saw the letter lying at her feet, but did not bend to pick it up.
"Only a faint. But I have never fainted before!" she thought on.
She was not frightened, not even excited. She felt as if she had simply come upon something that she had always known was on the road ahead awaiting her. She had come upon it sooner than she had expected to, that was all. She did not want to pass into the silence again if she could help it, so she lay back in the chair quietly, guardedly, and waited.
Then she heard steps. Outside the family only one person came unannounced to the sunken room and gladly, thankfully, Doris turned her eyes and met David Martin's as he paused at the doorway above.
Martin had himself in control before Doris noticed the fear in his eyes. He came slowly to her, sat down beside her and, while simply taking her hand in greeting, let his trained touch fall upon her pulse. It told him the dread secret, but it did not shatter his calm—he even smiled into the pale face and said lightly:
"Well, what have you been trying to do?"
Doris told him, without emotion, what had occurred. She did not remove her hand from his—his touch comforted her; held her to the things she knew and loved and trusted.
"And now, David," she said at last, "I think we have both known that some day this would occur. We are too goodfriends to be anything but frank—I am not afraid, and it is essential that I should know the truth. The family ogre has caught me—but it has not conquered me yet!"
"Well, Doris—it is the first call!" The man's words hurt like a knife turned upon himself.
"I feared so—and I am forty-nine."
"A mere child, my dear, if we deal honestly with the fact. Your father was fifty-five and might have lived to be seventy if he had stopped in time. Your grandfather——"
"Never mind, David, let's keep to me. How much longer—have I?"
"No man on earth could tell you that, my dear, but I hope—always granting that you will be wise—that you may count on, say, twenty years."
They both smiled. After all, what did it matter?
"And—what do you suggest I should do—as a beginning of the—twenty years?"
"Close this house, Doris, and start another kind of existence—somewhere else."
"Why, David—I must bring the girls out, you know. They must not be told—of this."
"They need be told only what you choose to have them know, but as to the bringing-out farce—that's rot! Those girls will get out by one door or another, never fear.Youare to be kept in—that's the important thing at present."
"Dear old David!" Doris's eyes dimmed as she looked at the kind face bending over the hands lying limp, now, on her lap. She noticed that there was white on the temple where the dark hair had turned; the heavy shoulders were bent permanently. She longed to do something more for David during the next—twenty years!
"You must not give way, Doris. A change is good for us all." Martin noted the tears in the eyes holding his own, but he did not understand their source.
"I am afraid the girls will be so disappointed," was what Doris said.
"Pampered creatures! It will do them good. But Nancy will love it and Joan can kick the traces if she wantsto—that will do her good." Martin leaned back and crossed his legs in the old boyish way.
"What will Nancy love, David?"
"Why, the out-of-door country life. She's that kind. Flowers and animals and quiet."
"Country life?" Doris sat up. "But, David, I could not stand country life, myself. I love to look at the country, listen to it, play with it—but I am a citizen to the core. It is simply impossible. One has to be born with the country in his blood to be part of it."
It was like pleading with the stern expression on Martin's face.
He was not apparently listening, and when he spoke he carried on his own thought:
"Queer how things dovetail. We drop a stitch and then go back and pick it up—now there is that place of yours, down South, Ridge House!"
Doris's face twitched and then, because she was in that state closely bordering upon the unknown, that state open to impressions and suggestions from sources outside the explainable, Silver Gap seemed to open alluringly to her imagination. Itwaslike a dropped stitch to be taken up and woven into the pattern!
She suddenly felt that she had always known she must go back. It was like the heart trouble—a thing on her road! Doris smiled and David patted her hands.
"That's the way it strikes me," he said, quite as if he were gaining his inspiration whence hers came. "After you told me about the—the children, you know, Doris, years ago, I went down there and gave the place a look-over. The South always affects me like a—well, a lotus flower—sleeping but filled with wonderful dreams. It gets me! Why, after seeing Ridge House I even went so far as to buy a piece of land known as Blowing Rock Clearing. I've planned, if that scamp of a nephew of mine ever develops into a sawbones, to leave him in charge here and go down South myself and put up a shack on my clearing." Martin was watching Doris now from under his brows; he was talking againstthe silence that might engulf her again; seeking to hold her to a future that he had been vaguely considering in the past. He thankfully saw her interest growing.
"You did that, David—how like you!"
The tears still came easily to Doris's eyes.
"Oh, well, I have a thrifty streak, and I hated to see a property like Ridge House lie fallow. It's great. The buying of Blowing Rock was pure Yankee sense of a bargain. But you see how it all works out. You'll have the time of your life developing your holdings and, at odd moments, I can start my shack. Look upon the change as an adventure—nothing permanent. In a year or so you may be able to spend most of the time on pavements—though why in God's name you want to is hard to imagine."
Doris was smiling.
"But the girls!" she faltered.
"Forget them. Give them a chance to think of you. Take them abroad—that will be good for you all, but in the autumn, Doris, go South! You must escape next winter."