"You've done a lot," she said earnestly. "You don't know how you've helped me. It's wonderful to know the boys are safe and there's a chance they may not get the measles. But I'm afraid they'll be an awful nuisance to you."
"Not a bit of it. We're getting along fine. They're great kids, and I like 'em. We're going to have the time of our lives. And now, I've had the telephone put in, and you can call me anytime you like, day or night. I've nothing else to do for the next few days but hang around here, and I'm glad to have such congenial company."
"I can't thank you enough!" said Maris earnestly, and impulsively she put out her hand. He took it in a quick hearty grasp, smiling, and was gone.
Maris started upstairs suddenly comforted. After all, if things went wrong, God would somehow set them right. She couldn't, not even with all the apologies in the universe. Then she remembered several invitations for the near future that ought to be canceled at once, and turning back went again to the telephone. She called up several numbers, telling her friends that her mother had been taken very ill and she would have to cancel all engagements for the present. Some of them were kindly and filled with dismay, and some of them were not at home and she had to leave a message with a servant, but she felt relieved when it was done.
Upstairs in her room at last, she heard Lexie moaning and went to see if she could do anything to help her.
Then the clock downstairs struck six in soft silvery chimes, and almost on the dot Maris heard Tilford's car drive up and stop before the house. Now what? Her heart gave a frightened beat, and then she remembered.
"Oh, God, You're going to take charge!" she breathed as she heard Sally coming to her door.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Maris passed by her mirror, she saw that her hair was all awry; there were dark circles under her eyes in a white, white face. Tilford would tell her about it at once probably, but it didn't matter.
Out in the hall she met the nurse with a hot-water bottle in her hand.
"Your father's feet are so cold," she explained in a whisper. "I'm afraid he's getting a nervous chill. You know he didn't eat anything at lunchtime. I've tried to persuade him to go in another room and lie down, but he won't. I wonder if you could ask the maid to bring him up a cup of coffee. I want to get him warmed up. He oughtn't to be chilly this way."
"I will," said Maris. "Is Mother--all right?"
"Well, she's not all right by any means, but she hasn't had any more of those sinking spells since the doctor was here."
With a heavy heart, Maris went on her way down the back stairs to give the order to Sally and then into the living room where a frowning lover waited.
"You're not ready!" he announced in displeasure as she came in wearily trying to smile at him.
"Why, didn't your mother tell you I couldn't possibly come with you?"
"I haven't seen Mother since I left the house just after lunch. I told her to remind you of our engagement and to say that you must be ready when I came for you. How long will it take you? Is your suitcase packed? I can wait exactly five minutes and no more. A man is calling me on long distance from Chicago and I must be at home when the call comes in."
"Well, you needn't wait, Tilford. I can't possibly come. I have called your sister and explained."
"That is unpardonable!" he said, looking at her with a glitter of scorn in his eyes. "I'm afraid I shall have to insist. I shall have to exercise my authority. This isn't an ordinary dinner engagement. This is my sister's dinner to introduce you to our friends. It is very important. I cannot allow you to disregard it."
"Authority? Allow?" said Maris, lifting puzzled eyes to his stony, offended countenance.
"You are wearing my ring," he said significantly. "I told you this morning what I felt that means. Your mother has lasted all day. She will doubtless last a few hours longer without your help. I cannot allow you to ruin our wedding preparations this way for mere sentiment. I thought you had more strength of character than that!"
Maris stared at him for an instant longer, and then she looked down at her ring as if she had never been acquainted with it before.
Slowly she put up her other hand and took the ring off, holding it out to him.
"You had better take it back, then. I could not wear a ring under those conditions." Her voice was very firm and very sad.
But he did not take the ring.
"You are beside yourself!" he said in tones like icicles. "You do not know what you are doing. I did not know you had such a temper. Put on that ring, and stop acting like a child! You said you were never going to take it off when I put it on, and now look! Put it on quickly or you will drop it on the floor. It is too valuable a stone to be playacting with. Don't, for heaven's sake, try to get your own way by being dramatic. It won't go down with me!"
Maris suddenly reached out and pushed the ring within his clasp and, turning, fairly flew up the stairs. Her face was ghastly white and her head was whirling, but she did not forget to go softly, and to the listening angry man below it seemed almost as if she had melted into mist, so silently she disappeared.
He stood for a minute looking down at the great lovely stone in its perfect setting, catching the evening sunlight that fell through the door, reflecting sharp bright lights in a prism of color. Then his anger rose still hotter. To think she would dare play with as costly a stone as that! To expect she could conquer him, Tilford Thorpe, when he had once given forth his mandate! And he had thought her so gentle! So pliable! So easy to mold!
Almost he started up the stairs after her! Then he thought better of that! That was doubtless what she wanted. She was likely in hysterics now, expecting him to find his way to her and yield to her wishes. Let her see what she had done! Let her go through the night without that wonderful ring! Let her know humiliation and shame and understand what a dreadful thing it was to stand out against him!
So he tucked the ring into his pocket and whirled on his heel, going out the screen door, which would have slammed if Maitland hadn't taken care that very noon to put a tiny pad of cotton in the spot where it would have slammed. He went out to his car and started it with far more noise than he needed. Let her hear that she had sent him away from her! Let her understand how final had been her act! Let her have time to fully realize what an awful, what an irreparable thing she had done in offending the whole mighty Thorpe family! Let her think that it was all over forever between them. It would do her good. He wouldn't be in a hurry to make it up, either. She would have to come crawling after him, and ask forgiveness, too. It wasn't for him to yield. He drove furiously away from her thinking his mad thoughts.
And up in her own room Maris knelt by the window over in the corner where Lexie couldn't see her from the bed, where no one would see her if they opened the door to call her; where only God could see her. And she said quietly in words that only God could hear: "Dear God, were You taking charge? Was that what You wanted me to do?"
And then quite simply she clasped her hands that were empty of her lovely ring and felt entirely naked and helpless, and was suddenly conscious of a great peace. God was taking charge, and it must have been what He willed, for there had been nothing else to do. She could not go away and make merry and leave her dear ones who needed her. And she could not wear Tilford's ring under those conditions!
Then she heard Merrick's hushed footsteps coming to her door, and she arose quite calmly to meet him, stepping out in the hall and talking in low tones. Her brother's eyes searched her face.
"You all right, Maris?" he asked with an unwonted tenderness in his tone.
"All right, brother!"
"Where's Gwyn? I can't find her anywhere."
"I let her go over to Erminie's to stay a few days. You know, they won't let her come back to school if she stays here, even though she has had the measles. Don't you think that was all right? She oughtn't to stay out of school. She'll only be worrying if she stays here."
"Sure that was all right. But what about the boys? They'll get it, I su
ppose."
"Maybe not. Lane Maitland has taken them over to his home to stay awhile. They're charmed. You're to take over a bag of some things for them. I was going to suggest that you stay there, too, but I guess maybe we might need you here if anything happens in the night. Father isn't so well. The nurse said he was having a nervous chill."
"Say, that's awful!" said Merrick. "No, I'll stay here. Maybe I'd better go look at Dad. Where is he?"
"Close by Mother. The nurse said he won't leave her."
They went softly to the door and looked in. It was very quiet in the shadowed room. The nurse was running the water in the bathroom. Their mother lay as quiet as she had been all day, and sometimes it seemed as if she were scarcely breathing. Her eyes were closed. The children's hearts contracted, and Maris could hardly keep from crying out in her agony as she recalled her brother's words that morning: "That doggone fool wedding is at the bottom of it all." Was she the cause of her mother's sudden illness? Oh, she was, she knew she must be! Could she ever, ever forgive herself? If Mother should die, how could they ever go on living?
Merrick went softly over by his father and laid his hand on his head, startled to feel it was hot and feverish. His father looked up and tried to smile sadly.
Merrick stooped and whispered in his ear, "It's all right, Dad. Mr. Matthews says he'll extend the note. You needn't worry!"
A look of relief passed over the drawn, worn features of the father, and he drew a deep breath of a sigh.
Merrick slipped out softly and came back presently with a folding cot, and then again with a soft mattress.
The nurse came in with sheets and pillows.
"Now, Mr. Mayberry, you're going to lie down on this cot, close to your wife, and then you'll be able to hear her if she stirs and wants anything," she whispered to him.
Maris saw Merrick bring their father's bathrobe and help him off with his coat and then make him lie down, with another great sigh of relief. Then she hurried back to her own patient. Poor Father! He had been worrying about something. A note that had to be extended? What was that? Had Father been so hard put to it that he had had to borrow money to pay for her wedding? Oh, how had she been so blind? And she had been so thrilled and involved in all the intriguing activities that Tilford had produced from day to day that she had not noticed! Was it possible that God had to send all these startling anxieties to bring her to her senses?
It was not yet time for Lexie's medicine. She seemed to be still sleeping. Maris dropped down on her bed for a moment and let these enlightening facts roll over her tired soul in a great condemning flood.
Then she began to go back and think it out. What a dear family she had always had! How they had always done everything together, and enjoyed it. Even being poor together! There was the year when Father had thought that he was going to lose the house because he had had to let the interest on the mortgage lapse. How desperately they had all saved and planned and tried to make a bit of money here and there to help. Even the children. She recalled Gwyneth at five years going into the woods with some children and bringing home quantities of spring beauties, which she had tied in funny little bunches and taken out on the street and actually sold, for a penny a bunch! She could see their father's face now when she had brought her entire fortune of eleven cents to him radiantly and told him it was to pay the mortgage off. Such tears and tenderness and love! How their interest had all been one, and how the disasters and troubles had only served to make them love one another more! And now, somehow, she seemed to have drifted away from them all. It was as if she were an alien among them, going her own way, or rather Tilford's way, and having all her interests and pleasures in another world, a world they did not know. Why, she seldom had time to tell any of them anymore what she was doing.
She recalled how she always used to come in no matter how late it was when she had been out for the evening and tell her mother everything she had been doing. And always the whole family took such an interest in her comings and goings. But of late there had seemed to be almost a spirit of resentment whenever she spoke of where she had been or what she'd been doing. Was it always like that when children got married? Did all the rest resent it? Did they lose one another forever and ever? A sudden great sob swelled in her throat and threatened to overwhelm her. Was this what being married to Tilford would mean? That she would no more belong to her precious family? That they would have no right to know of her affairs? Oh, she couldn't stand that! It wasn't right. It surely couldn't be the way God had planned life for a universe, to have those who married suddenly cut off entirely from everything that had always been precious. Why, her parents didn't know right now what she had been going through with the Thorpes. She didn't want them to know. It would hurt them terribly.
Or did they know? Was it possible that Mother and Father with their fine intuitions had sensed it? And could that be part of what had made Mother sick? Dear, sensitive Mother! Oh, what was she going to do about it? And the wedding was only a few days off!
And then as if inanimate objects had become alive, they trooped into her room and formed a procession in the darkness, stopping one after another for her consideration.
First came those wedding invitations, as if they had somehow escaped their wrapping in the attic and slid out of their white boxes and filed down two abreast to stand before her, condemning her. The very date of the wedding stood out in flaming letters across her vision, as if they would say: "We are now a day late! And tomorrow will be another day later! And the Thorpes are going to be horrified! What are you going to do about it? Are you going to let us be disgraced forever? Are we going to be even more disgraced than we are already?"
Well, and what was she going to do? She had no one to ask. Her mother had passed beyond the consideration of any earthly trouble for the present. Her father was too worried and too much on the verge of illness himself to be consulted. If she dared speak to Merrick about it, his wrath would rise to unspeakable heights. There was no one but God to talk to about it. It must be decided tonight. She had to think it through somehow.
She drew a deep breath of protest and waved the invitations aside for the moment. She had to get Lexie settled for the night first before she took that up. But as she turned to meet the next perplexity in the procession, she had the consciousness of those invitations standing just at her right hand. Sternly awaiting her first moment of leisure.
And next there floated softly up her lovely filmy wedding dress that Mother had made, and looked at her with reproachful eyes, sadly, as if it had been set aside. As if it would say, "What are you going to do about me? Those Thorpes will despise me and scorn me if you insist on wearing me! Do you want to subject me to their criticism? You know they won't admit I am lovely. They likely haven't the fineness to appreciate why I am better for your purpose."
And behind in the shadows came a stiff white satin frock rustling arrogantly up beside the other. Though Maris had never seen it, nor even heard its description, she recognized it as the Thorpe dress from the exclusive shop, and it stood there beside her mother's charming creation of loveliness, and claimed precedence.
Just behind the two she sighted a host of dinners and showers and theater parties, and other affairs that she knew were booked for the coming days, and now were standing tiptoe for her attention.
And over it all she seemed to see her mother's troubled eyes looking at her. Oh, what was she to do, and however did she get involved in all this trouble?
And then she heard a tap at the door and rose to answer it, quick apprehension in her breast. Oh, was Mother worse? Oh, Mother mustn't die now, not before she had a chance to tell her how sorry she was that she had been so indifferent and selfish. Oh, not before she had a chance to undo the hurts and get the trouble straightened out.
She opened the door and there stood Merrick, his eyes standing out in his white face startlingly, his lips quivering with angry excitement, and by his side Gwyneth, softly sobbing into the skirt of her little pink dimity that was al
l crumpled and pitiful and showed her short petticoat, making her look such a child.
Merrick was grasping her shoulder furiously, clutching it as if he had a prisoner who must be put in chains at once, a gang leader at least.
"Where do you think I found this kid!" said Merrick excitedly. "Just guess where! This child not yet out of grammar school? Down at the drugstore, sitting at a little round table eating ice cream with one of the worst young bums this town affords!"
He gave Gwyneth's small shoulder another fierce shake, and she began to sob louder.
"Hush!" said Maris quickly. "You'll disturb Mother! You'll wake Lexie. Come down in the living room where no one can hear you. You mustn't make a noise up here! You'll frighten Mother. You might kill her!"
There came an instant's hush in the hostilities as the dire possibilities confronted the brother and sister, and the three of them trooped silently down the stairs to the far end of the living room, where Gwyneth curled herself into the corner of the big sofa with her head in a pillow and sobbed silently.
"Now," said Maris, turning to her brother, "what do you mean, Merrick? Where did you find Gwynnie? I let her go over to Erminie's for the night, you know."
"Well, but she wasn't over at Erminie's. Erminie was there, too, with another boy. They were out with the boys, if you please, as if they'd been grown up! And the worst young bums you can find anywhere. Rance Mosher! What do you think of that? His father had to bail him out of jail last week. He was arrested for running over a woman when he was drunk! Only seventeen, but he's got his name up in connection with several terrible affairs up at the Dark of the Moon roadhouse. And he was treating our sister to ice cream, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her down at the drugstore, trying to kiss her and hold her hand! My little sister, out in the public eye that way! The worst bum in town!"
"He's just Erminie's cousin!" wailed Gwyneth. "And Erminie's mother said we might go with him and Harlan Westcott and get some ice cream! And he wasn't kissing me. He was only kidding!"