Lexie had washed her own cup and plate and written a list of a few things she ought to get at the grocery when she heard the children waking up. She hurried upstairs and endeavored to greet them and enthuse them with the game-spirit that had worked so well the night before, but they were cross and utterly alien again. So with a mere bright word for them to get quickly dressed and come down to breakfast, she hurried back to the kitchen and prepared a generous dish of cereal and another of scrambled eggs, got out the bottle of milk she had saved for morning, squeezed orange juice enough for four glasses, finished the tray for Elaine, and took it upstairs, setting it beside Elaine’s bed. She seemed to still be sleeping; so she summoned the half-dressed children in a whisper, and they all went down to breakfast.
While they were eating she talked to them.
“Your mother is sick,” she said gently.
“Naw, she ain’t sick,” announced Gerald. “She’s just kidding you. She gets up and walks around whenever you go downstairs.”
“I wouldn’t say that, Gerry. She’s probably trying to help all she can. Now listen. There is a great deal to do today. I wonder if you three couldn’t help a bit? Will you try?”
“What are we to do?” inquired Angelica coldly.
“Well, first, trying to be as quiet about everything as possible so you won’t make your mother worse. She doesn’t feel at all well, you know.”
“Will there be a prize?” asked the little girl.
“Well, there might be,” said Lexie thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of that. I felt you would like to do this for your mother’s sake.”
“Why?” asked the child with a hard look in her eyes.
Lexie was startled. Did any children feel such an utter lack of care for their mother that the thought of doing anything for her sake made no appeal? What should she say? But Angelica was waiting with hard impish eyes for an answer.
“Why, just because she’s your mother, you know.”
“Oh! That!” said the Angel-child. “That’s no reason at all.” But suddenly the conversation was interrupted by a sharp call from Elaine.
“Here are some apples and pears you can have when you finish your scrambled eggs and toast,” said Lexie. “Now, sit quietly while I’m gone, and we’ll see what will come next. I’ve got to go to your mother.”
She hurried upstairs.
“Have you sent for a nurse, Lexie? Or have you changed your mind and called my lawyer? I want to get him before he goes out. And you better give an order to have a phone put in right way, then we won’t have to bother you to go downtown every time we turn around.”
For answer, Lexie quietly closed the door and sat down.
“Elaine, there are a few things we have got to talk about before I do anything more.”
“Oh indeed! Well, make it snappy! I’ve got my mind on important matters.”
“This is important. It’s about money, Elaine. Have you got any? You know we can’t do anything without money. Not even telephone. I told you last night how much money I had, and I spent nearly all of it to get those things for supper and breakfast. Now I think we ought to have an understanding. How much money have you got?”
Elaine stared at her disagreeably.
“That’s none of your business!” she said angrily. “We’ll have money enough when you fork over what your mother salted down. And until then you can charge things.”
“I’m afraid not,” said Lexie. “People are not giving charge accounts much anywhere, not new ones anyway, and if you have had them a long time you have to pay your bills every month on time or the government steps in and closes your account for you.”
“Oh really? I doubt it. I think we can get by!” said Elaine in a superior tone. “You just charge whatever I ask you to get, and I’ll take the consequences.”
“Does that mean you haven’t any money, Elaine? Because I really haven’t. My ticket is bought back to college. I got a round-trip. And my board is paid at college. That is, I have a job working so many hours in the dining room that covers my board and room till commencement is over. And I have a job, a good one, as I told you, after I graduate, but it is dependent upon my graduation. So, you see, it is important that I get back to college as soon as possible. That is why I am asking about money. Have you enough to take care of yourself and the children and look out for your nurse and everything if go back right away? I could of course wait till I could get somebody to stay with you and act as nurse.”
Elaine looked at her in amazed disgust.
“Do you mean that you would actually desert your poor sick sister and her poor little orphaned children and go running back to your old school, just so you can graduate? I never heard of such an unnatural girl as you have developed into!”
“Elaine, how would you think I would live if I don’t go? And how could I help you any? I have not been able to save anything, but I knew I had this good job coming if I finished my course.”
“That’s ridiculous! You could get a job here.”
“I’m afraid not, Elaine, at least not as good as the one I have. You see, I was especially recommended by the college for the one I have, and the government sets the scale of wages, so it is really worthwhile. And of course I couldn’t be of much help to you, even for a little while, without some money. What would we live on?”
“Oh, how absurd!” said Elaine. “There are always jobs to be had. As if there were any better ones out where your college is! And certainly my father’s daughter could easily be recommended anywhere. No mere college would have to do it. And what’s three months more of college, and a mere trifle of a diploma? You’ll never need a diploma anyway. You’ll likely be my housekeeper all your life, and I don’t care whether you have three months more education or not. Now just put all such notions out of your head and get ready to go on my errands. I’ve written out a list of them and given you a few telephone numbers I happened to have. You better take the two younger children with you. Angelica can amuse herself with some books out of the bookcase, and run errands for me if I need her, and I can rest better with the younger ones out of the way.”
Lexie looked at her sister astonished. Then she shook her head.
“No, I couldn’t take the children. It’s a long walk I have to go, and they would get very tired. It would take me too long with the children. You see, I have some errands of my own, too. Let me see your list.”
“Well, I must say, you are not very accommodating. I supposed when I came home I would have the care that the word home generally implies, but it seems not. What do you suppose I’ll do alone with the children? I’m not able to get up and look after them.”
Lexie’s eyes and voice were very grave.
“I don’t know, Elaine. But they are your children, and you ought to have enough authority over them to keep them in order for the short time I shall be gone.”
“It won’t be such a short time, my dear sister, after you have done all the things I want you to do. Just cast your eye over that list.”
Lexie looked at the list, and her expression grew firm.
“You will notice the order in which I have written my wishes,” said Elaine. “I had a distinct purpose in that, and I want you to observe it carefully. First, call my lawyer. I’ve given you his phone number. Tell him to come at once! He must, to get here before you do, and it is for that reason I want you to take the children. I don’t want to be bothered with them while I am talking to him. Then of course you must order the telephone put in. And next, I want you to contact the nurse. I’ve given you several addresses where you’ll be likely to find one. Of course the best hospitals will know of one. And Lexie, make it plain that I won’t take her at all if she can’t come right away! I need her at once. Tell her I’ll talk with her about her wages when she gets here. Tell her to take a taxi and that I’m rather helpless and need her at once! And next I want you to stop at Arnold’s and get me a box of those lovely caramels he used to sell. Be sure you get the same kind. You know what they are.
And bring them with you if you can’t get him to send them. If he would send them at once I would have something to offer the lawyer. Or you might get a couple of packs of cigarettes. I’m practically out of them. Any good brand. I don’t suppose this dinky town has every kind. And then I wish you would call up Carroll Dayton and ask her the address of that dressmaker she wrote me about, and if she thinks I could get her to alter some dresses for me at once. I’ve been too ill to look after my wardrobe, and I need some things at once. And next—”
Suddenly Lexie handed back the list to her sister.
“I’m sorry, Elaine, but I’ll not have time for all that. I’ll try to get someone to stay with you, but I can’t do all those other things now. And anyway, unless you have a lot of money, those things will have to wait indefinitely, I’m afraid. I certainly haven’t the money. Now, I’m going, and you’ll have to take over with the children. I’ll send them to you. I ought to get through and get the noon train if possible, but failing in that I must get the night train, if I can find you a nurse. You see I’m already twenty-four hours late, and you must remember that I have a job and obligations. But of course I’ll find somebody first to be with you. I won’t leave you alone. Good-bye, I’ll get back as soon as I can.”
Lexie flashed a nervous, chilly little smile at her sister and, turning, ran out the door with Elaine calling wildly after her: “Lexie, Lexie! You can’t leave me that way! You can’t! You can’t!”
But Lexie went on down the stairs uncompromisingly. She sent the three children back to their mother with a smile and a promise that she would bring them each something nice if they were good and did what their mother told them all the time she was gone. Then catching up her hat and coat from the chair where she had deposited them five minutes before, she hurried out of the house, resolved not to listen to Elaine’s frantic calling. It was the only way! She was sure she was right. They could not go on without money, and the only way she could make sure of that was to keep this job that she had been so happy over only yesterday. Maybe it did seem heartless to her sister, but if Elaine had no money, somebody must provide it, and she knew by experience that there was little hope of her getting a job in this vicinity.
And Elaine, convinced at last that it was useless to scream for her sister, rose from her bed of illness, dressed her hair in the most approved style, made up her face with just enough blue shadows under her eyes to look like an interesting invalid, put on a ravishing negligee from her suitcase and a pair of charming slippers, manicured her nails carefully, and went downstairs. She placed herself becomingly on the old couch in the living room that had seen so many years of hard service in the family. Then she called Angelica to her and instructed her to go across the street to Mrs. Wilson’s house and ask if she would kindly call up the number written on the slip of paper she carried when she went to do her marketing and ask Mr. Thomas if he would come out and see her at once about important business. Elaine was not one who ever allowed the grass to grown under her feet, and would not be stopped in her endeavors by a mere illness, no matter how dramatically it had been built up.
Angelica was like her mother. She entered into the importance of being trusted with such a message and went on the errand with avidity. But she soon returned with the news that Mrs. Wilson wasn’t at home. The neighbors had said she had taken a defense job, so Miss Angelica had tried other neighbors, who each in turn examined the bit of paper with its unknown numbers, and asked several curious questions. Just one finally volunteered to send the message, but came back to the child after she had done so in high dudgeon.
“Say, little girl, was that lawyer you wanted me to phone Bettinger Thomas, do you happen to know?”
“Why yes,” said Angelica importantly. “I guess it was. I heard my aunt and my mother talking about him and they called him ‘Bett’ Thomas. They said they used to go to school with him.” Angelica always enjoyed repeating important information.
“Well,” said the helpful neighbor, “if I had known that I wouldn’t have stirred a step to send that message. You can go back to your mother, little girl, and tell her that man isn’t fit for her to speak to. Tell her her mother wouldn’t have allowed her to send for him if she had been alive. Mrs. Kendall was a good woman, and she would be horrified to have that man allowed to come to her house. Your mother has been away so long she probably doesn’t remember how her mother felt about him. Or maybe she never knew how her mother felt.”
“She wasn’t her mother,” said the Angel pertly, “she was only her stepmother, and stepmothers don’t count!” said the child, tossing her dark curls saucily and flouncing away from the neighbor. She hotfooted it back to her mother to report.
“You mean they had the impertinence to say that to you?” asked Elaine furiously. “My word! What are we coming to when the neighbors around here would dare to send me a message like that! Well, you can just go straight back and tell those old busybodies that they don’t know what they are talking about. You can tell them that I’ve known Bettinger Thomas for years, and I trust him thoroughly, and they better look out saying things like that about him. He is a smart lawyer, and when he hears that he’ll certainly get it back on them in some way that they won’t like. Being a lawyer, of course, he knows how.”
So being a smart child and obedient when it suited her purposes, Angelica went on her way with her retort, and gave it forth with embellishments according to her own sharp little tongue. As the hour of Lexie’s absence lengthened into two, there drew up at the little white house a costly car, shining in chromium, polished to the last degree, and the hovering neighbors, from furtive hiding places, identified the fat, pompous man who got out as none other than Bettinger Thomas himself. They shook their heads and murmured sorrowful comments to one another on what “poor, dear Mrs. Kendall” would say if she could only know.
“And it’s a mercy they can’t know such things in heaven,” exclaimed the neighbor who knew the least about it, “because she certainly couldn’t be happy knowing it. She was such a good woman!”
Lexie, on her way, would have hurried even faster than she did if she had known what was going on back in the little white house. For though she had known her sister well for years, it never entered her head that Elaine would go to the length of getting up from her sickbed and taking things in her own hands to get that reprobate of a lawyer. Trouble, trouble, there seemed to be trouble on every side, and somehow she must go through it and work out a sane and wise solution to all these difficulties. If only God was here to tell her what to do!
Then it came to her suddenly that of course God was here, and He knew all about her troubles. He would know the wise way to work it out. He would know whether she ought to insist on going back to college to finish her course and get her good job, or whether she ought to stay here and look after this unreasonable, unpleasant sister and her three naughty children.
Oh, God, won’t You please show me what to do? her discouraged young heart cried out as she walked down the pleasant street and wondered that it could seem so pleasant when she was having so much trouble. “God, please help me!”
Her mother had taught her to believe in God. She did, of course, but she had never really done much about it—only said her prayers religiously every night, and gone to church when it was convenient. But she knew in her heart that that wasn’t really being even just polite to God. If He were a neighbor, or a mere acquaintance, she would feel that she had to have more of a pleasant contact than just that in order to be really polite. These thoughts condemned her as she walked along. Please, God, forgive me! I didn’t realize that I was being rude and indifferent to You. But now, I’ve nobody else to go to. Won’t You forgive, and help me, please? Should I give up everything and let my selfish sister manage my life? Oh, but I can’t do that! We wouldn’t have any money if I have no job. I’m almost sure Elaine hasn’t any money. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to live on her money. Not even if I worked for her. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t, dear God! And what shall I
do about a nurse? They cost a great deal of money, I’m sure. And it isn’t likely Elaine has enough money for that. Even if she gets a little from her husband’s pay in the army, she wouldn’t have enough for that, and to run the house. If she had had enough money for all her needs, I’m sure she never would have come to me, back to the little house that she always despised. Oh, dear God, what shall I do?
Softly this prayer was going over and over in her heart with a longing and a kind of wonder that had never come to her before when she was trying to pray. This was just something that breathed from her inner being, from a newborn trust that had come from her great need—a kind of a desperate feeling that she was appealing to the only possible source of help. And if He wouldn’t help her, she was done.
These thoughts filled her mind as she went swiftly on her way. She was not thinking of the immediate mission before her, for in the hard watches of the night she had settled definitely, step by step, just what that would be.
First, although she felt it was useless on account of expense, she must call up the hospitals and nurses’ agencies, and make careful inquiry about what could be done. That had to be done for Elaine’s satisfaction. For she would never give up the idea of having a really important nurse from some established hospital unless she found it was impossible for her to pay such a nurse. So this was the first matter to be got out of the way.
Lexie went to the telephone and called up the various places she had on her list. And of course it turned out to be not only out of the question for financial reasons to get such a nurse, but she found that any nurse was almost impossible to get. So many had gone into war work that the hospitals themselves were hopelessly understaffed, and they could not suggest any agency or nurse that would be at all a possibility in the immediate future. They added that conditions were getting more and more strenuous, and nurses were almost impossible to get anywhere.
Lexie tried all the possibilities that Elaine had suggested, and got nowhere so far as a nurse to come out to the little house was concerned. But she carefully wrote down opposite each name on her list every bit of information she had gleaned.