Sister Sue/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
"LAST THINGS"
They were not easy—those days that followed; they were not easy for any of the Gilmore family, least of all for Sister Sue, the answerer of every question, the buffer for every complaint, the final arbiter of every dispute.
They were the easiest, perhaps, for the suddenly-grown-old man in the master's chamber upstairs. John Gilmore was up and dressed, and about his room now. The doctor said he was much better; that he would probably continue to gain until he was physically able to do most of the things that any fairly healthy man sixty-five years old could do. There was nothing to be done, therefore, but to keep him in the best health possible—until the inevitable final breakdown came, perhaps in one year, perhaps in two years, perhaps not for five, or even ten years. He had the mentality at present of a child. That might improve, and it might not. He should be kept happy and contented—and it would take very little to do that, usually. Though there might be times— The doctor did not finish his sentence; and Sister Sue, to whom he had been speaking, did not press the matter, after a glance at his face, and at her father's.
John Gilmore recognized his children, realized where he was, and understood that he had been sick and was getting better. He even knew that he was going to his old home in Gilmoreville before long; and he was anticipating the trip very much, he said. He liked Gilmoreville, and it would be good to see the old home again. He asked his daughter Sue if his mother was going to be there. And his daughter, with only a little catch of the breath to betray the fact that she knew his mother had been dead twenty-five years, told him quietly no, she would not be there.
There was little that John Gilmore could do to occupy his time. He could read, but reading seemed to tire him. He liked better to cut out the advertising pictures from the papers; and his daughter Sue, seeing this, brought in some children's bright-colored picture books one day, which pleased him greatly. He never spoke of business. He never mentioned the firm of Gilmore and Glode. And those who talked with him were only too glad that he should keep silence on the subject. They were very thankful that Memory, however sadly she had served him, had at least done him this one good turn.
Not that there were many who talked with him or who saw him. The doctor, of course, came, but only twice a week now. Mr. Loring had come once; but, though Mr. Gilmore called him by name, and asked politely for his health, yet his presence seemed to fill the invalid with a vague unrest, evidenced by uneasy, searching glances into the visitor's face, and a nervous tapping of the fingers on the arms of the chair. So Mr. Loring did not come again.
Martin Kent had called once; but he, too, had not come again, though John Gilmore had greeted him cordially, and had seemed to enjoy showing him the new pictures he had been cutting out.
Gordon and May never came into the room now. Urged by Sister Sue they had come a few times at first, for a very few moments. But almost at once they had fled, shuddering, with their hands to their ears and a horror-stricken "Oh, Sister Sue, Sister Sue, how can you bear to see him like that?"
Even Mary did not come into the room now to make the bed and "tidy up." After the third burst of tears and the third shriek on her part in answer to her master's query as to whether or not she liked to cut out the pretty pictures, Sister Sue excused her from further duties in the room, thenceforth taking upon herself the task of keeping the chamber in order, except for the weekly cleaning when Mary came in, and John Gilmore walked through his bathroom to his "den" beyond—a room in which he had never cared to stay and which he now seemed to dislike more than ever.
The nurse at first engaged had been discharged. He did not need a nurse, the doctor said, and her presence seemed to fret and distress him. It had simmered down then to the doctor and Sister Sue as being his only visitors, day in and day out. As yet he had not appeared to care to go downstairs, nor had his daughter tried to have him go. His meals she brought in herself on the tray left by Mary three times a day just outside his door.
Truth to tell, as matters were, Sister Sue was quite content to have her father stay where he was. Beyond the fact of his deplorable condition, she did not worry about him then, for she knew where he was. Moreover, if he were downstairs, it would be impossible to keep some of the confusion and horror from penetrating even his befogged brain. As it was, upstairs he was content; and in a way his room made a sort of refuge to fly to when conditions downstairs became particularly unbearable. Sad and heart-breaking though it was to see him in that condition, yet in his placid presence his sorely tried daughter could find at least a few minutes' respite from problems that threatened to be too great for her to solve.
Beset and besieged and importuned on all sides, Sister Sue did surely need some refuge. She wondered sometimes if she were going to have sufficient strength to go through it. If it had not been for her piano, she thought she could not, indeed, have endured it. But she could still find each day in her beloved keyboard the means to vent her weariness, worry, and utter dejection. And never yet thus far had there failed to creep into the music, before she rose from the piano, a triumphant strain that told that the player had found somewhere a new hope and a new courage to take up the next day's burdens.
Sometimes for a few minutes during the day, and nearly always in the evening, Sister Sue found time to snatch these few precious moments at the piano. The members of her household and Martin Kent, knowing her so well, were not surprised at this seeming waste of time when so many important matters awaited her attention. But Daniel Loring, finding her at the piano, and noticing particularly the tripping melodies and sonorous chords, and not recognizing them as the evidence of a hard-won victory, wondered within him sometimes: "How in the dickens can she do it?"
Daniel Loring came nearly every day now. He had been appointed conservator of the estate by the Probate Court. There was much to be done; there were many matters to be settled.
It had been ten weeks since the failure and the house was already sold. Many of the expensive furnishings had gone also at private sales. There was to be an auction later for the few things remaining. Even the master of the house upstairs was sorting out his pictures on a solid mahogany table which was already the property of his neighbor down the Avenue, whose generous consideration for his old friend was leaving it where it was—until such time as its former owner should take his scissors and picture books to Gilmoreville, Vermont.
The beautiful limousine and the high-power touring car had been among the first of their possessions to go, though May freely expressed her opinion of the short-sightedness of not leaving these till the last when she and Sister Sue particularly needed them for all their good-bye calls and parties. (To have been strictly accurate, May should have spoken for herself alone; Sister Sue was not making good-bye calls or attending good-bye parties. But May was not always strictly accurate in her assertions.) The chauffeur, of course, had gone, and Mary was to go when the month was out. Katy was still there and would go with them to Gilmoreville.
Martin Kent called occasionally. Toward his fiancée he was all sympathy, all love, all tenderness. He smoothed her hair and caressed her hands, and said what a wretched shame it was that his dear little sweetheart should have to go through this awful thing! He sent her flowers and candy; but when she begged him to advise her as to what price to set on the library furniture, and as to the advisability of certain sales recommended by Mr. Loring, he threw his hands in the air and shook his head vehemently, declaring that he had a miserable head for business and that he had n't the faintest idea what to tell her to do. So he was not much assistance to her in that way.
She had told him at the very first, after Cousin Abby's letter came, that of course all idea of going on with her music must be abandoned now, as it was out of the question for her to leave her father at present. He had sympathized very tenderly with her at the time, and had bemoaned the cruel fate that tied her bright spirit to sordid affairs of everyday living. He had said, too, how thankful he was that at least he had been man enough at the last to urge her to develop her divine gift, and that whatever happened, he would have the blissful consciousness of knowing that it was not through his selfishness that she was being kept from realizing her ambitions. He spoke beautifully of her noble self-sacrifice, and assured her that Heaven's richest reward would be hers.
Not until after he had gone that evening, however, did it occur to his fiancée that he had not said anything about her renewing her pledge to marry him in July, now that the possibility of a career of her own must be abandoned.
Alone, in the dark, she flushed hotly, as she thought of it.
"Of course, I could marry him, I suppose," she admitted to herself. "He was coming home to live with us, anyway. But—well, probably he did n't want to trouble me now with talking about it. He thought I had enough to think of, as it is," she assured herself with a resoluteness that hinted at the necessity of placating a little hurt something that still questioned within her.
As the days passed, Martin Kent still apparently thought best not to "bother" his fiancée with pleadings for an early marriage. At all events, he said nothing about her former promise to marry him in July, though he was yet very devoted and lover-like in his behavior. If the girl herself noticed this, she gave no sign. Her attention, apparently, was entirely taken up with other matters.
And Heaven knew there were plenty of such!
Sister Sue had hoped, at the first, to keep her piano. But it was a fine instrument and in excellent condition; and she knew that it must go, even before Mr. Loring appeared one day with a purchaser who offered a price quite too large to refuse. Like the furniture in the master's bedroom, however, the piano was to stay until the family themselves were ready to go. So Sister Sue was still enabled to seek its comfort and inspiration. But even after the big fat man with the diamond stick-pin in his tie had drawn the check that made the instrument his, sensitive ears might have detected in the notes that fell from Sister Sue's fingers a tragic undertone of longing and renunciation in even the most triumphant of the chords and melodies.
April passed and May came. They were to go early in June immediately upon the closing of the exclusive private schools which May and Gordon attended. Downstairs the house was already nearly empty. Mary had gone, and only Katy, red-eyed and gloomy, full of prophecies of evil, remained in the kitchen. Gordon, spending every spare minute out of school off with "the boys," was admittedly trying to get in all the pleasure he could before he "buried himself for life." May, almost habitually now in tears except when away from home, was saying her farewells in one grand whirl of gayety, willingly chaperoned by Mrs. Henderson. John Gilmore, greatly improved in health, but not in mind, was getting restless in his somewhat restricted quarters, and was importuning his daughter Sue as to when he could go downstairs. He told her he had been sick quite as long as he wanted to be; and he declared that he should never get his strength back until he got out of doors.
Sister Sue, nearly distracted with them all, was doing "last things" too. But her last things did not consist of uproarious frolics off with the boys, nor of tearful, violet-scented kisses at pink teas. They consisted of hurried directions as to packing certain trunks and boxes for shipment to Gilmoreville, and of stoically calm last looks at household treasures being borne down the steps on the shoulders of stalwart men to the great vans which would take them to the homes of those who would, in days to come, never cease to boast of the bargains they got "when Gilmore and Glode failed, don't you know."
True, Sister Sue did make one farewell call. Two days before they started for Gilmoreville, she went to see Signer Bartoni. She thanked him for all he had done for her, and for the kind encouragement he had given her, which meant to her, oh, so much more than she could ever express in words. Then, with very red cheeks and very bright eyes, she told him that she had been obliged, of course, to give up all idea of training herself for a concert pianist for the present; but that she still had hopes that some day—
She did not finish her sentence; and Signer Bartoni, reading aright the little choke that broke the sentence off short, made haste to assure her that yes, yes, he was very sure she would go back to her music with renewed vigor and strength; that it would be a "pi-tee" and a "cr-rime" not to.
Sister Sue went home then. Her cheeks were still red and her eyes were still bright until she had boarded the crowded trolley car at the corner of the street. There, clinging to the strap, and swaying with the motion of the car, she relaxed suddenly, as if somewhere had snapped a taut cord. The red fled from her cheeks and the sparkle from her eyes. She was white-faced and shaking when she reached home, and her hands and feet were cold and numb.
In her own room, ten minutes later, she was putting away in her trunk a photograph and several clippings cut from magazines and newspapers. The photograph was the likeness of America's greatest woman pianist—a being whom Sister Sue had always worshiped (as at a shrine), ever since hearing her play two years before. The clippings were every scrap and bit of information that she had been able to gather concerning the object of her adoration. The picture had occupied an honored position upon her dressing-table and the clippings had been within easy reach of her hand for frequent perusal. She put them all now in the very bottom of her trunk.
Martin Kent called that evening. On a trunk and a packing-box they sat before the fire in the library. As usual they were alone.
"More farewells, I suppose—your sister and Gordon," smiled the man, asking with a gesture if he might smoke.
"Yes. Mrs. Henderson called for May in the car. It's a theater and supper to-night, I believe." Sister Sue looked a little sober. "Mrs. Henderson has been very kind, and it's wonderful that May has had this chance. Of course I have been good for nothing as a chaperon for weeks past. The only trouble is, I'm afraid it's going to be all the harder—when the end comes."
"You mean Gilmoreville?"
"Yes."
The man blew a smoke-ring, then clasped his knee with both arms.
"You've never told me. What's it like—Gilmoreville?" he asked then.
"Oh, yes, I have. Don't you remember? I told you it would be a lovely place to get copy; that is—" She stopped abruptly, a bright color flaming to the roots of her hair as she threw a swift sideways glance into the man's face.
But Martin Kent did not seem to be noticing.
"It's just a little country town, then," he commented indifferently, his eyes on another smoke-ring.
"Yes."
"That will be hard for people who like the gay white way and pink teas—Gordon and your sister May, for instance. And—how about you, dear?" He turned now, and looked into her face.
"Oh, I shall survive, I fancy." Her eyes were carefully averted. "I shall be—busy"—her voice was not quite steady—"and there's nothing like work to take up one's mind, you know."
"By George, it's a beastly shame!" stormed the man vehemently. "To bury you like that in a measly little country town! How big is the place, anyway?"
"Oh, three or four thousand, I suppose."
"You've been there before, you said, I believe."
"Oh, yes, many times, especially when we were children. We rather liked it then, for a little while in the summer. We have n't been so often of late years, nor stayed so long. But Father always liked it. I'm glad of that. He'll be more contented there, I hope. He's getting terribly restless here. Oh, Martin, you don't know how I dread it to-morrow, taking him down through the halls. You see, he's just been in his little suite upstairs, and he does n't know a thing of what's been done—outside."
"What does the doctor say?"
"Why, he says we've got to take him, and, anyway, he thinks he'll be all right. But he and Mr. Loring are going to be in the library within call, so if I should need them, but they think it's better to keep out of sight unless I do. The doctor says Father may question a little, and look worried and confused; but—oh, Martin, Martin, seems as if I—I just could n't have it! Father—Father—like that!" Her voice choked into a sob and she put both hands to her eyes.
"Darling, don't!" With a jerk the man tossed his cigar into the fire and crowded himself on to the packing-case at her side. Then, with all his skill and magic of words, he soothed and comforted her until he had her laughing through her tears. Then, as if to divert her mind from her father, he went back to his questions concerning Gilmoreville.
"How about the house? Is that comfortable?"
"Yes, oh, yes, in away. Of course it's just a great big old-fashioned country house with stoves and fireplaces, though."
"It's all furnished?"
"Oh, yes, after a fashion. We're not taking any furniture from here. We did n't really need to. Besides, Mr. Loring said we'd better not. Everything here had to be sold—to help out, you know."
"Even the piano! That was the toughest thing of all, dear. But there's one up there, of course. You would n't have left yourself without anything!"
She gave a faint smile.
"Oh, yes, there's one there," she admitted, "after a fashion, like the rest of the things. It's an old square one with octagon legs. It sounds a good deal like a tinkling cymbal, if you know what that is. I don't. But it sounds as if it sounded like that! Still, it'll be better than nothing, I suppose."
"Is the house open? Will there be any one there to—to meet you?"
"Oh, yes, the Prestons. They're the people who have lived there all these years and kept it in good order. They have three rooms for their own, and we'll let them stay, I imagine. They had their rent for looking after the place a little. Of course, when we were there, or when they did extra things for us, Father paid them for it. But we can't pay them anything now, of course. It'll be just what little odd jobs they do for their rent."
"But you'll keep them there?"
"Mercy, yes! Why, they've always been there, Martin. I should as soon think of trying to move one of the big trees in the lawn," smiled the girl. "Besides, I don't want to. Mrs. Preston is a dear. We children always adored her. She's quite a character, too. You may get—" For some unapparent reason the girl stopped short, a sudden color flooding her face. Then at once she hurried on with a haste that was almost precipitate. "You may get—get quite an idea of what she is when I tell you that Granny Preston is quite a personage in Gilmoreville. She knows everything that—"
With an impatient gesture Martin Kent turned upon her almost savagely.
"A personage, indeed!" he interrupted. "And you have to endure that! A Granny Preston, who knows everything! Sue, is there any one in that infernal town—er—fit to be—your associate?"
The girl laughed merrily; but almost instantly her face sobered and she looked very grave, with a tinge of anger and resentment in her eyes. But there was still another change the next moment when she spoke. Her eyes were twinkling now.
"Oh, yes; yes, indeed, Martin. We live right next to the Kendalls; and the Kendalls have two motor cars and use finger bowls every day—real common, you know. And there are the Grays—he's worth at least ten thousand dollars; and the Whipples keep a maid, and have a real show place with a porte-cochère that everybody who comes to Gilmoreville is always taken to see. And the Sargents—they have a man come two days a week to mow the lawn, and—"
"Sue!"
The girl laughed roguishly. Then again her face grew sober, but there was no anger or resentment in her eyes now.
"Yes, I know I was making fun that time; but I was only giving you a few of the choicest morsels in some of Mrs. Preston's quarterly letters to Father. Seriously, dear, there are some very charming people in Gilmoreville, and some otherwise, of course. Like any town of its size, it has its would-be smart set, which I imagine will have very little to do with us—now. But there are clubs and churches, and a few families of real culture and education, besides many of genuine worth with kind hearts and level heads, even if their grammar and their manners are not above reproach."
"How about those people next door?—what did you call them?"
"With the finger bowls?" smiled Sister Sue. "The Kendalls. He's the richest man in town, I suppose. He makes shoes. She's a good woman, a bit spoiled, perhaps, by her money—they have n't always had it. They have a son who is getting really famous, I hear, as a violinist."
"Not Donald Kendall?"
"Yes."
"Do you know him?"
"I did once. We used to play together as children a little. But he was older than we were, and, if I remember rightly, rather domineering and disagreeable. We never got on very well together. I have n't seen him for years—eight or nine, I guess. He has not been there when we have lately—and we have not been there a great deal."
"Hm-m," commented the man. "I heard him once. Great player! "
"So I understand, and—oh, he's not the only celebrity that hails from Gilmoreville, let me tell you! There's Kate Farnum, the novelist, and Viola Sanderson, the singer, and Cy Bellows, and—"
"Not the real Cy, the ball-player?"
"Surely! I see you are impressed now!" Her eyes were merry again. "But you must n't be too impressed. Please remember that these celebrated personages are not there now. They won't be dropping in to breakfast every day. They just were there, once—born there. There's just Granny Preston there now. She did n't go away, you know," finished Sister Sue, with an emphasis that was as merry as it was unmistakable.
With a shrug of his shoulders Martin Kent got abruptly to his feet.
"I'm glad your courage is so good," he observed dryly, a curious irritation in voice and manner.
Five minutes later he was gone; and though his kiss at parting had been tender, and his words very loving, there was still underneath it all that same curious irritation.