The Man Thou Gavest Part 18

"It is not merely a place in which to eat," explained Lynda; "a dining room should be the heart of the home, as the library is the soul."

"Think of living up to that!"--Brace gave a laugh--"and not having it interfere with your appet.i.te!" They were all trying to keep cheerful until such time as they dared recall the recent past without restraint.

Such an hour came when they gathered once more in the library. Brace seized his pipe in the antic.i.p.ation of play upon his emotions. By tacit consent the low chair was left vacant and by a touch of imagination it almost seemed as if the absent master were waiting to be justified.

"And now," Truedale said, huskily, "tell me all, Lynda."

"He and I were sitting here just as we all are sitting now, that last night. He had forgiven me for--for staying away" (Lynda's voice shook), "and we were very happy and confidential. I told him some things--quite intimate things, and he, well, he came out of his reserve and gruffness, Con--he let me see the real man he was! I suppose while he had been alone--for I had neglected him--he had had time to think, to regret his mistakes; he was very just--even with himself. Con"--and here Lynda had to pause and get control of herself--"he--he once loved my mother! He bought this house hoping she would come and, as its mistress, make it beautiful. When my mother married my father, nothing mattered--nothing about the house, I mean. Before my mother died she told me--to be kind to Uncle William. She, in a sacred way, left him to me; me to him. That was one of the things I told him that last night. I wish I had told him long ago!" The words were pa.s.sionate and remorseful. "Oh, it might have eased his pain and loneliness. When shall we ever learn to say the right thing when it is most needed? Well, after I had told him he--he grew very still. It was a long time before he spoke--the joy was sinking in, I saw that, and it carried the bitterness away. When he did speak he made me understand that he could not trust himself further on that subject, but he tried to--to explain about you, Con. Poor man! He realized that he had made a failure as a guide; but in his own way he had endeavoured to be a guardian. You know his disease developed just before you came into his life. Con, he lived all through the years just for you--just to stand by!"

From out the shadow where he sat, Brace spoke unevenly:

"Too bad you don't--smoke, old man!" It was the only suggestion he had to offer in the tense silence that gripped them all.

"It's all right!" Truedale said heavily. "Go on when you can, Lynda."

"Do you--remember your father, Con?"

"Yes."

"Well, your uncle feared that too much ease and money might--"

"I--I begin to understand."

"So he went to the other extreme. Every step of your well-fought way was joy to him--the only joy he knew. From his detachment and loneliness he planned--almost plotted--for you, but he did not tell you. It would all have been so different--oh! so different if we had all known. Then he told me a little--about his will."

No one saw the sudden crimson that dyed Lynda's white face and throat.

"He was very fantastic about that. He made certain arrangements that were to take effect at once. He has left you three thousand a year, Con, without any restrictions whatever. He told me that. He left his servants and employees generous annuities. He left me this house--for my mother's sake. He insisted that it should be a home at last. A large sum is provided for its furnis.h.i.+ng and upkeep--I'm a trustee! The most beautiful thing, perhaps, was the thought expressed in these words of his, 'I want you to do your mother's work and mine, while still following your own rightful desires. Make this house a place of welcome, peace, and friendliness!' I mean to do my best, Con."

"And he's left me"--Brace found relief in the one touch of humour that presented itself--"he's left me a thousand dollars as a token of his appreciation of my loyalty to you, when you most needed it."

But Truedale hardly heeded. His eyes were fixed upon the empty chair and, since he had not understood in the past, he could not express himself now. He was suffering the torture that all feel when, too late, revealment makes clear what never should have been hidden.

"And then"--Lynda's low, even voice went on--"he sent me away and Thomas put him to bed. He asked for some medicine that it seems he always had in case of need; he took too much--and--"

"So it was suicide!" Truedale broke in desperately. "I feared that. Good G.o.d!" The tragedy and loneliness clutched his imagination--he seemed to see it all, it was unbearable!

"Con!" Lynda laid her firm hand upon his arm, "I have learned to call it something else. It has helped me; perhaps it will help you. He had waited wearily on this side of the door of release; he--he told me that he was going on a long journey he had often contemplated--I did not understand then! I fancy the--the journey was very short. There was no suffering. I wish you could have seen the peace and majesty of his face!

He could wait no longer. Nothing mattered here, and all that he yearned for called loudly to him. He simply opened the door himself--and went out!"

Truedale clasped the hand upon his arm. "Thank you, Lynda. I did not realize how kind you could be," was all he said.

The logs fell apart and filled the room with a rich glow. Brace shook the ashes from his pipe upon the hearth--he felt now that he could trust himself.

"For the future," Lynda's calm voice almost startled the two men by its practicability and purpose, "this is home--in the truest, biggest sense.

No one shall even enter here and feel--friendless. This is my trust; it shall be as _he_ wished it, and I mean to have my own life, too! Why, the house is big enough for us all to live our lives and not interfere with each other. I mean to bring my private business here in the rooms over the extension. I'll keep the uptown office for interviews. And you, Con?"

Truedale almost sprang to his feet, then, hands plunged in pockets, he said:

"There does not seem to be anything for me to do; at least not until the will is read. I think I shall go back--I left things at loose ends; there will be time to consider--later."

"But, Con, there is something for you to do. You will understand after you see the lawyers in the morning. There is a great deal of business: many interests of your uncle's that he expected you to represent in his name--to see that they were made secure. Dr. McPherson has told me something about the will--enough to help me to begin."

Truedale looked blankly at Lynda. "Very well, after that--I will go back," he spoke almost harshly. "I will arrange affairs somehow. I'm no business man, but I daresay Uncle William chose wise a.s.sistants."

"What's the matter with you, Con?" Brace eyed his friend critically; "you look fit as a fellow can. This has demanded a good deal of self-denial and faith from us all, but somehow this duty was the biggest thing in sight; we rather owe him that, I fancy. You know you cannot run to cover just now, old man. This has been a jog, but by morning you'll reconsider and play your part." There was a new note in Kendall's voice.

It was a call to something he hoped was in his friend, but which he had never tested. There was a sudden fear, too, of the change that had come to Truedale. It was not all physical. There was a baffling suggestion of unreality about him that made him almost a stranger.

"I dare say you are right, Ken." Truedale walked the length of the room and back. "I own to being cut up over this. I never did my part--I see that now--and of course I'll endeavour to do what I should. My body's all right but my nerves still jangle at a shock. To-morrow the whole thing will settle into shape. You and Lynda have been--well--I cannot express what I feel." He paused. The hour was late, and for the first time he seemed to realize that the old home was not his in the sense it once had been. Lynda understood the moment's hesitation and smiled slightly.

"Con, there's one other thing in the house that remains as it was. Under the eaves the small room that was yours is yours still. I saw to it myself that not a book or picture was displaced. There are other rooms at your disposal--to share with us--but that room is yours, always."

Truedale stood before Lynda and put out his hands in quite the old way.

His eyes were dim and he said hoa.r.s.ely: "That's about the greatest thing you've done yet, Lyn. Thank you. Good-night."

At the door he hesitated--he felt he must speak, but to bring his own affairs into the tense and new conditions surrounding him seemed impossible. To-morrow he would explain everything. It was this slowness in reaching a decision that most defeated Truedale's best interest.

While he deplored it--he seemed incapable of overcoming it.

Alone in the little room, later, he let himself go. Burying his tired head upon his folded arms he gave himself up to waves of recollection that threatened to engulf him. Everything was as it always had been--a glance proved that. When he had parted from his uncle he had taken only such articles as pertained to his maturer years. The pictures on the walls--the few shabby books that had drifted into his lonely and misunderstood childhood--remained. There was the locked box containing, Conning knew full well, the pitiful but sacred attempts at self-expression. The key was gone, but he recollected every sc.r.a.p of paper which lay hidden in the old, dented tin box. Presently he went to the dormer window and opened it wide. Leaning out he tried to find his way back to Pine Cone--to the future that was to be free of all these cramping memories and hurting restrictions--but the trail was too cluttered; he was lost utterly!

"It is because they do not know," he thought. "After to-morrow it will be all right."

Then he reflected that the three thousand dollars Lynda had mentioned would clear every obstacle from his path and Nella-Rose's. He no longer need struggle--he could give his time and care to her and his work. He did not consider the rest of his uncle's estate, it did not matter.

Lynda was provided for and so was he. And then, for the first time in many days, Truedale speculated upon bringing Nella-Rose away from her hills. He found himself rather insisting upon it, until he brought himself to terms by remembering her as he had seen her last--clinging to her own, vehemently, pa.s.sionately.

"No, I've made my choice," he finally exclaimed; "the coming back unsettled me for the moment but her people shall be my people."

Below stairs Lynda was humming softly an old tune--"The Song of To-morrow," it was called. It caught and held Truedale's imagination. He tried to recall the lines, but only the theme was clear. It was the everlasting Song of To-morrow, always the one tune set to changing ideals.

It was the same idea as the philosophy about each man's "interpretation"

of the story already written, which Conning had reflected upon so often.

At this time Truedale believed he firmly accepted the principle of foreordination, or whatever one chose to call it. One followed the path upon which one's feet had been set. One might linger and wander, within certain limits, but always each must return to his destined trail!

A distant church clock struck one; the house was still at last--deathly still. Two sounded, but Truedale thought on.

He finally succeeded in eliminating the entangling circ.u.mstances that seemed to lie like a twisted skein in the years stretching between his going forth from his uncle's house to this night of return. He tried to understand himself, to estimate the man he was. In no egotistical sense did he do this, but sternly, deliberately, because he felt that the future demanded it. He must account to others, but first he must account to himself.

He recalled his boyhood days when his uncle's distrust and apparent dislike of him had driven him upon himself, almost taking self-respect with it. He re-lived the barren years when, longing for love and companions.h.i.+p, he found solace in a cold pride that carried him along through school and into college, with a reputation for hard, unyielding work, and unsocial habits.

How desperately lonely he had been--how cruelly underestimated--but he had made no outcry. He had lived his years uncomplainingly--not even voicing his successes and achievements. Through long practise in self-restraint, his strength lay in deliberate calculation--not indifferent action. He hid, from all but the Kendalls, his private ambitions and hopes. He studied in order that he might shake himself free from his uncle's hold upon him. He meant to pay every cent he had borrowed--to secure, by some position that would supply the bare necessities of life, time and opportunity for developing the talent he secretly believed was his. He was prepared, once loose from obligation to old William Truedale, to starve and prove his faith. And then--his breakdown had come!

Cast adrift by loss of health, among surroundings that appealed to all that was most dangerous in his nature--believing that his former ambitions were defeated--old longings for love, understanding and self-revealment arose and conquered the weak creature he was. But they had appealed to the best in him--not the evillest--thank G.o.d! And now?

Truedale raised his head and looked about in the dim room, as if to find the boy he once had been and rea.s.sure him.

"There is no longer any excuse for hesitation and the d.a.m.nable weakness of considering the next step," thought Truedale. "I have chosen my own course--chosen the simple and best things life has to offer. No man in G.o.d's world has a right to question my deeds. If they cannot understand, more's the pity."

And in that hour and conclusion, the indifference and false pride that had upheld Truedale in the past fell from him as he faced the demands of the morrow. He was never again to succ.u.mb to the lack of confidence his desolate youth had developed; physically and spiritually he roused to action now that exactions were made upon him.