Читать книгу The Man Thou Gavest - Harriet T. Comstock - Страница 7

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Lynda Kendall closed her desk and wheeled about in her chair with a perplexed expression on her strong, handsome face. Generally speaking, she went her way with courage and conviction, but since Conning Truedale’s breakdown, an element in her had arisen that demanded recognition and she had yet to learn how to control it and insist upon its subjection.

Her life had been a simple one on the whole, but one requiring from early girlhood the constant use of her faculties. Whatever help she had had was gained from the dependence of others upon her, not hers upon them. She was so strong and sweet-souled that to give was a joy, it was a joy too, for them that received. That she was ever tired and longed for strong arms to uphold her rarely occurred to any one except, perhaps, William Truedale, the invalid uncle of Conning.

At this juncture of Lynda’s career, she shrank from William Truedale as she never had before. Had Conning died, she knew she would never have seen the old man again. She believed that his incapacity for understanding Conning—his rigid, unfeeling dealing with him—had been the prime factor in the physical breakdown of the younger man. All along she had hoped and believed that her hold upon old William Truedale would, in the final reckoning, bring good results; for that reason, and a secret one that no one suspected, she kept to her course. She paid regular visits to the old man—made him dependent upon her, though he never permitted her to suspect this. Always her purpose had centred upon Con, who had, at first, appealed to her loyalty and justice, but of late to something much more personal and tender.

The day’s work was done and the workshop, in which the girl sat, was beginning to look shadowy in the far corners where evidences of her profession cluttered the dim spaces. She was an interior decorator, but of such an original and unique kind that her brother explained her as a “Spiritual and Physical Interpreter.” She had learned her trade, but she had embellished it and permitted it to develop as she herself had grown and expanded.

Lynda looked now at her wrist-watch; it was four-thirty. The last mail delivery had brought a short but inspiring note from Con—per Dr. McPherson.

“I’ve got my grip again, Lynda! The day brings appetite and strength; the night, sleep! I wonder whether you know what that means? I begin to believe I am reverting to type, as McPherson would say, and I’m intensely interested in finding out—what type? Whenever I think of study, I have an attack of mental indigestion. There is only one fellow creature to share my desolation but I am never lonely—never lacking employment. I’m busy to the verge of exhaustion in doing nothing and getting well!”

Lynda smiled. “So he’s not going to die!” she murmured; “there’s no use in punishing Uncle William any longer. I’ll go up and have dinner with him!”

The decision made, and Conning for the moment relegated to second place, Lynda rose and smiled relievedly. Then her eyes fell upon her mother’s photograph which stood upon her desk.

“I’m going, dear,” she confided—they were very close, that dead mother and the live, vital daughter—“I haven’t forgotten.”

The past, like the atmosphere of the room, closed in about the girl. She was strangely cheerful and uplifted; a consciousness of approval soothed and comforted her and she recalled, as she had not for many a day, the night of her mother’s death—the night when she, a girl of seventeen, had had the burden of a mother’s confession laid upon her young heart. …

“Lynda—are you there, dear?”

It had been a frequent, pathetic question during the month of illness. Lynda had been summoned from school. Brace was still at his studies.

“Yes, mother, right here!”

“You are always—right here! Lyn, once I thought I could not stand it, and I was going to run away—going in the night. As I passed your door you awoke and asked for a drink of water. I gave it, trembling lest you might notice my hat and coat; but you did not—you only said: ‘What would I do if I woke up some night and didn’t have a mother?’ Lyn, dear, I went back and—stayed!”

Lynda had thought her mother’s mind wandering so she patted the seeking hands and murmured gently to her. Then, suddenly:

“Lyn, when I married your father I thought I loved him—but I loved another! I’ve done the best I could for you all; I never let any one know; I dared not give a sign, but I want you—by and by—to go to—William Truedale! You need not explain—just go; you will be my gift to him—my last and only gift.”

Startled and horrified, Lynda had listened, understood, and grown old while her mother spoke. …

Then came the night when she awoke—and found no mother! She was never the same. She returned to school but gave up the idea of going to college. After her graduation she made a home for the father who now—in the light of her secret knowledge—she comprehended for the first time. All her life she had wondered about him. Wondered why she and Brace had not loved and honoured him as they had their mother. His weakness, his superficiality, had been dominated by the wife who, having accepted her lot, carried her burden proudly to the end!

Brace went to college and, during his last year there, his father died; then, confronting a future rich in debts but little else, he and Lynda consequently turned their education to account and were soon self-supporting, full of hope and the young joy of life.

Lynda—her mother’s secret buried deep in her loyal, tender heart—began soon after her return from school to cultivate old William Truedale, much to that crabbed gentleman’s surprise and apparent confusion. There was some excuse for the sudden friendship, for Brace during preparatory school and college had formed a deep and sincere attachment for Conning Truedale and at vacation time the two boys and Lynda were much together. To be sure the visiting was largely one-sided, as the gloomy house of the elder Truedale offered small inducement for sociability; but Lynda managed to wedge her way into the loneliness and dreariness and eventually for reasons best known to herself became the one bright thing in the old man’s existence.

And so the years had drifted on. Besides Lynda’s determination to prove herself as her mother had directed, she soon decided to set matters straight between the uncle and the nephew. To her ardent young soul, fired with ambition and desire for justice, it was little less than criminal that William Truedale, crippled and confined to his chair—for he had become an invalid soon after Lynda’s mother’s marriage—should misunderstand and cruelly misjudge the nephew who, brilliantly, but under tremendous strain, was winning his way through college on a pittance that made outside labour necessary in order to get through. She could not understand everything, but her mother’s secret, her growing fondness for the old man, her intense interest in Conning, all held her to her purpose. She, single-handed, would right the wrong and save them all alive!

Then came Conning’s breakdown and the possibility of his death or permanent disability. The shock to all the golden hopes was severe and it brought bitterness and resentment with it.

Something deep and passionate had entered into Lynda’s relations with Conning Truedale. For him, though no one suspected it, she had broken her engagement to John Morrell—an engagement into which she had drifted as so many girls do, at the age when thought has small part in primal instinct. But Conning had not died; he was getting well, off in his hidden place, and so, standing in the dim workshop, Lynda kissed her mother’s picture and began humming a glad little tune.

“I’ll go and have dinner with Uncle William!” she said—the words fitting into the tune—“we’ll make it up! It will be all right.” And so she set forth.

William Truedale lived on a shabby-genteel side street of a neighbourhood that had started out to be fashionable but had been defeated in its ambitions. It had never lost character, but it certainly had lost lustre. The houses themselves were well built and sternly correct. William Truedale’s was the best in the block and it stood with a vacant lot on either side of it. The detachment gave it dignity and seclusion.

There had been a time when Truedale hoped that the woman he loved would choose and place furniture and hangings to her taste and his, but when that hope failed and sickness fell upon him, he ordered only such rooms put in order as were necessary for his restricted life. The library on the first floor was a storehouse of splendid books and austere luxury; beyond it were bath and bedroom, both fitted out perfectly. The long, wide hall leading to these apartments was as empty and bare as when carpenter and painter left it. Two servants—husband and wife—served William Truedale, and rarely commented upon anything concerning him or their relations to him. They probably had rooms for themselves comfortably furnished, but in all the years Lynda Kendall had never been anywhere in the house except in the rooms devoted to her old friend’s use. Sometimes she had wondered how Con fared, but nothing was ever said on the subject and she and Brace had been, in their visiting, limited to the downstair rooms.

When Lynda was ushered now into the library from the cold, outer hall it was like finding comfort and luxury in the midst of desolation. The opening door had not roused the man by the great open fire. He seemed lost in a gloomy revery and Lynda had time to note, unobserved, the tragic, pain-racked face and the pitifully thin outlines of the figure stretched on the invalid chair and covered by a rug of rare silver fox.

There were birds in gilded cages by the large south window—mute little mites they were; they rarely if ever sang but they were alive! There were plants, too, luxuriously growing in pots and boxes—but not a flower on one! They existed, not joyously, but persistently. A Russian hound, white as snow, lay before the fire; his soft, mournful eyes were fixed upon Lynda, but he did not stir or announce the intrusion. A cat and two kittens, also white, were rolled like snowballs on a crimson cushion near the hearth; Lynda wondered whether they ever played. Alone, like a dead thing amid the still life, William Truedale, helpless—death ever creeping nearer and nearer to his bitter heart—passed his weary days.

As she stood, watching and waiting, Lynda Kendall’s eyes filled with quick tears. The weeks of her absence had emphasized every tragic detail of the room and the man. He had probably missed her terribly from his bare life, but he had made no sign, given no call.

“Uncle William!”

Truedale turned his head and fixed his deep-sunk, brilliant eyes upon her.

“Oh! So you’ve thought better of it?” was all that he said.

“Yes, I’ve thought better of it. Will you let me stay to dinner?”

“Take off your wraps. There now! draw up the ottoman; so long as you have a spine, rely upon it. Never lounge if you can help it.”

Lynda drew the low, velvet-covered stool near the couch-chair; the hound raised his sharp, beautiful head and nestled against her knee. Truedale watched it—animals never came to him unless commanded—why did they go to Lynda? Probably for the same reason that he clung to her, watched for her and feared, with sickening fear, that she might never come again!

“I suppose, since Con’s death isn’t on my head, you felt that you could forgive me, eh?”

“Well, something like that, Uncle William.”

“What business is it of yours what I do with my money—or my nephew?”

These two never approached each other by conventional lines. Their absences were periods in which to store vital topics and questions—their meetings were a series of explosive outbursts.

“None of my business, Uncle William, but if I could not approve, why—”

“Approve! Huh! Who are you that you should judge, approve, or disapprove your elders?”

There was no answer to this. Lynda wanted to laugh, but feared she might cry. The hard, indignant words belied the quivering gladness of the voice that greeted her in every tone with its relief and surrender.

“I’ve got a good deal to say to you, girl. It is well you came to-day—you might otherwise have been too late. I’m planning a long journey.”

Lynda started.

“A—long journey?” she said. Through the past years, since the dread disease had attacked Truedale, his travelling had been confined to passing to and from bedchamber and library in the wheelchair.

“You—you think I jest?” There was a grim humour in the burning eyes.

“I do not know.”

“Well, then, I’ll tell you. I am quite serious. While I have been exiled from your attentions—chained to this rock” (he struck the arms of the chair like a passionate child), “I have reached a conclusion I have always contemplated, more or less. Now that I have recognized that the time will undoubtedly come when you, Con—the lot of you—will clear out, I have decided to prove to you all that I am not quite the dependant you think me.”

“Why—what can you mean, Uncle William?”

This was a new phase and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.

“Oh! a chair that can roll the length of this house can roll the distance I desire to go. Money can pay for anything—anything! Thank God, I have money, plenty of it. It means power—even to such a thing as I am. Power, Lynda, power! It can snarl and unsnarl lives; it can buy favour and cause terror. Think what I would have been without it all these years. Think! Why, I have bargained with it; crushed with it; threatened and beckoned with it—now I am going to play with it! I’m going to surprise every one and have a gala time myself. I’m going to set things spinning and then I’m going on a journey. It’s queer” (the sneering voice fell to a murmur), “all my prison-years I’ve thought of this and planned it; the doing of it seems quite the simplest part. I wonder now why I have kept behind the bars when, by a little exertion—a little indifference to opinion—I might have broadened my horizon. But good Lord! I haven’t wasted time. I’ve studied every detail; nothing has escaped me. This” (he touched his head—a fine, almost noble head, covered by a wealth of white hair), “this has been doing double duty while these” (he pointed to his useless legs) “have refused to play their part. While I felt conscientiously responsible, I stuck to my job; but a man has a right to a little freedom of his own!”

Lynda drew so close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before the pitiful display of feeling expressed in every tone and word of Truedale.

The touch of the warm cheek against his hand stirred the man. His eyes softened, his face twitched and, because the young eyes were hidden, he permitted his gaze to rest reverently upon the bowed head. She was the only thing on earth he loved—the only thing that cut through his crust of hardness and despair and made him human. Then, from out the unexpected, he asked:

“Lynda, when did you break your engagement to John Morrell?”

The girl started, but she did not change her position. She never lied or prevaricated to Truedale—she might keep her own counsel, but when she spoke it was simple truth.

“About six months ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There was nothing to tell, Uncle William.”

“There was the fact, wasn’t there?”

“Oh! yes, the fact.”

“Why did you do it?”

“That—is—a long story.” Lynda looked up, now, and smiled the rare smile that only the stricken man understood. Appeal, confusion, and detachment marked it. She longed, helplessly, for sympathy and understanding.

“Well, long stories are welcome enough here, child; especially after the dearth of them. Ring the bell; let’s have dinner. Pull down the shades and” (Truedale gave a wide gesture) “put the live stock out! An early meal, a long evening—what better could we add than a couple of long stories?”

In the doing of what Truedale commanded, Lynda found a certain relief. These visits were like grim plays, to be sure, but they were also sacred duties. This one, after the lapse of time filled with new and strange emotions, was a bit grimmer than usual, but it had the effect of a tonic upon the ragged nerves of the two actors.

The round table was set by the fire—it was the manservant who attended now; silver and glass and linen were perfect, and the simple fare carefully chosen and prepared.

Truedale was never so much at his ease as when he presided at these small dinners. He ate little; he chose the rarest bits for his guest; he talked lightly—sometimes delightfully. At such moments Lynda realized what he must have been before love and health failed him.

To-night—shut away from all else, the strain of the past weeks ignored, the long stories deliberately pushed aside—Truedale spoke of the books he had been reading; Lynda, of her work.

“I have two wonderful houses to do,” she said, poising a morsel of food gracefully. “One is for a couple recently made rich; they do not dare to move for fear of going wrong. I have that place from garret to cellar. It’s an awful responsibility—but lots of fun!”