CHAPTER XXV
NO ONE LAUGHS LAST
Trude read Issy's letter aloud, not noticing in her high pitch ofanxiety that Dugald Allan had lingered.
"--I am going to tell something now concerning which I have given nohint in my former letters. It's something that means so much to me thatI have not dared write about it until it was decided. And now it isdecided. Professor Deering has asked me to stay on with him as hissecretary. And I have accepted. The salary will not be so very bigthough it will seem big to me and I am happy among books and bookishpeople and working right here in the college will give me opportunitiesI never had before.
"But Trude dear, I feel like a deserter! To think that I who used topreach the loudest of our duty to Dad's memory and the tradition of hisgenius should be the first to break from it! I believe now that Sidney,that morning she had her little flare-up and we promised her the Egg,broke down restraints that have been holding us all. Certainly, eversince then, rebellious thoughts have been growing in me. I have come tosee our lives differently and to believe that we've been silly. Wethought we had to go on living the same kind of lives we led when Dadwas with us, that we had to submerge our own personalities to hisbecause his was so great. Maybe the League frightened us into thinkingthat; they bought us or thought they did. But Trude, they _couldn't_!They can buy the house and the atmosphere and Dad's coat and chair andpens and all that but they can't buy Dad's children! Dad wouldn't wantit that way. Why, we are his greatest creation and our lives are hisgift to us and he would want us to make something fine of thosegifts--something that would be our own. Sidney said that she wanted tobe something besides Joseph Romley's daughter and that was simply herreal self crying for escape. I hope the dear child has found it in ahappy summer and has had her fill of the adventure she craved.
"Happy as I am I cannot bear thinking of leaving you with theresponsibilities of Vick and Sidney and the League, except that youhave always carried the responsibility anyway. But it seems too muchfor even shoulders like yours. So I've been making schemes. Vick willbe sure to marry soon, bless her pretty face, and then with my salaryand the royalties we can send Sidney away to school and you can plansomething for yourself just as I have done. It's a wonderful feeling,Trude, I am just beginning to live! I don't mind a bit now thinking ofbeing an old maid--"
Trude folded the letter, suddenly conscious of her listeners. Sidneycaught at it as though to make certain it had actually been written byher sister Isolde.
"Think of it. Trude! A hope-to-die secretary with a salary! I dobelieve it's old Issy who's going to laugh last."
"What do you mean Sidney?" asked Trude; but she did not wait for Sidneyto answer. Her thoughts were elsewhere. "I believe _Issy_ has torn aveil from us all. We _were_ silly. We held to the ties of Dad as a poetand were losing the sweet real ones of him as a father. Of course he'dwant us--the father part of him--to live our own lives, make of themwhat we can--"
"_Would he?_" cried Dugald Allan from his corner. And at the sound ofhis voice Trude started, her face flushing crimson. "Then, TrudeRomley, will you please withdraw that answer you gave me out on thebreakwall? It can't hold good now."
"Oh, _hush_! Don't! Not here--now--"
Sidney, alert to some deeper meaning, took up his question.
"What answer?" she demanded.
Mr. Dugald threw his arm about her shoulder. "Sid, I asked your sisterto marry me. You see I found out that you needed a big brother, someonewith a stern eye and a hard heart and I rather want the job. And that'sthe only way I can think of. And she says she cannot, that she mustkeep the little household together in return for what the League hasdone and cook and sew and sweep and keep accounts. I think there was alot more--"
Sidney threw out an imploring hand to her sister.
"Oh, Trude, _please_! I _do_ need a big brother. And Mr. Dugald'sgrand! And rich. Pola said so. And _dear_. And it'd be such fun havinghim in the family! I'll go away to school and Vick can work and we cangive the old house over to the League. Issy _said_ they couldn't buyus! And--why, there are just loads of women trying to get Mr. Dugald--"
"Sidney Romley, _stop_!" Trude stamped her foot in confusedexasperation. She refused to meet Dugald's yearning eyes.
"No League can mortgage your heart or your happiness!" he pleadedsoftly. "It belongs to you--to give--"
"I object to being courted in this--public--manner," Trude broke in,her hands flying to her face. But Dugald Allan caught the surrender inher eyes. He seized her hand.
"All right. We'll go out in the garden. Excuse us, Sid. When I comeback I think I'll be your big brother."
Sidney's eyes followed them longingly until they disappeared behind ahedge of hollyhocks. She wanted to laugh and to cry all at once she wasso strangely happy; her girl heart stirred with a vicarious thrill tothe look she had seen in Trude's face. Well, Trude would laugh last!Dear old Trude. Trude a bride when everyone had thought that she wouldnever marry, just because she had no beaus like Vick or languishingpoets like Issy.
Sidney stood still in the center of the dusk gray room. She did notknow what she wanted to do next--or even think of. She would like toplan the wedding at once with herself as a beautiful bridesmaid inshimmery white and Mart and Pola and Lavender and Aunt Achsa there tosee, and she would like just to think of Mrs. Milliken's face when sheheard about everything and--
Suddenly her eyes fell upon Vick's forgotten letter. What had Vickwritten? No ordinary letter could come on this momentous day! PerhapsVick had written that she had eloped--she had read that sometimes evennice girls did that, girls oppressed by things like the League. Sheopened the letter without any hesitation and carried it to the doorthat she might read it by the fading light.
It was not neatly margined like Issy's; the big letters raced slantwiseacross the page. Nor was it wordy, rather straight to the point.
"Dear old girls everybody: You'll die. Godmother Jocelyn's a good sort,in spite of her lace and her lap-dog. She's going to take me around theworld! She says that as long as we're this far we might as well go allthe way. It isn't the cherry blossoms and the rickshaws and thesouthern moons alone that thrill me--we're going with the peppiestfamily from Chicago--some people we met on the train. A father, amother, a girl my age--_AND_--a very nice brother! _Nicest yet!_ But amI a pig? Yes. To leave my sisters there under Mrs. Milliken's thumb!But you'll forgive me, won't you? Do you remember how we used to playgoing to China?_ And I'm going!_"
Sidney drew a long breath. She wished she were not alone. She wanted toshout or something. "Well!" she cried softly. "_No_ one laughs loudest!I guess--the whole family of Romley--laughs _together_ long--and--loud!"
THE END
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