The Breaking Point Part 65

"Not at all," d.i.c.k replied, with a new ring in his voice. "You're right.

I've been ten sorts of a fool, but I know now what I'm going to do. Take your paper, old friend, and for my sake go out and clear Jud Clark. Put up a headstone to him, if you like, a good one. I'll buy it."

"And what will you be doing in the meantime?"

d.i.c.k stretched and threw out his arms.

"Me?" he said. "What should I be doing, old man? I'm going home."

XLV

Lucy Crosby was dead. One moment she was of the quick, moving about the house, glancing in at David, having Minnie in the kitchen pin and unpin her veil; and the next she was still and infinitely mysterious, on her white bed. She had fallen outside the door of David's room, and lay there, her arms still full of fresh bath towels, and a fixed and intense look in her eyes, as though, outside the door, she had come face to face with a messenger who bore surprising news. Doctor Reynolds, running up the stairs, found her there dead, and closed the door into David's room.

But David knew before they told him. He waited until they had placed her on her bed, had closed her eyes and drawn a white coverlet over her, and then he went in alone, and sat down beside her, and put a hand over her chilling one.

"If you are still here, Lucy," he said, "and have not yet gone on, I want you to carry this with you. We are all right, here. Everybody is all right. You are not to worry."

After a time he went back to his room and got his prayer-book. He could hear Harrison Miller's voice soothing Minnie in the lower hall, and Reynolds at the telephone. He went back into the quiet chamber, and opening the prayer-book, began to read aloud.

"Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept--"

His voice tightened. He put his head down on the side of the bed.

He was very docile that day. He moved obediently from his room for the awful aftermath of a death, for the sweeping and dusting and clean curtains, and sat in d.i.c.k's room, not reading, not even praying, a lonely yet indomitable old figure. When his friends came, elderly men who creaked in and tried to reduce their robust voices to a decorous whisper, he shook hands with them and made brief, courteous replies.

Then he lapsed into silence. They felt shut off and uncomfortable, and creaked out again.

Only once did he seem shaken. That was when Elizabeth came swiftly in and put her arms around him as he sat. He held her close to him, saying nothing for a long time. Then he drew a deep breath.

"I was feeling mighty lonely, my dear," he said.

He was the better for her visit. He insisted on dressing that evening, and on being helped down the stairs. The town, which had seemed inimical for so long, appeared to him suddenly to be holding out friendly hands.

More than friendly hands. Loving, tender hands, offering service and affection and old-time friends.h.i.+p. It moved about sedately, in dark clothes, and came down the stairs red-eyed and using pocket-hand-kerchiefs, and it surrounded him with love and loving kindness.

When they had all gone Harrison Miller helped him up the stairs to where his tidy bed stood ready, and the nurse had placed his hot milk on a stand. But Harrison did not go at once.

"What about word to d.i.c.k, David?" he inquired awkwardly, "I've called up Ba.s.sett, but he's away. And I don't know that d.i.c.k ought to come back anyhow. If the police are on the job at all they'll be on the lookout now. They'll know he may try to come."

David looked away. Just how much he wanted d.i.c.k, to tide him over these bad hours, only David knew. But he could not have him. He stared at the gla.s.s of hot milk.

"I guess I can fight this out alone, Harrison," he said. "And Lucy will understand."

He did not sleep much that night. Once or twice he got up and tip-toed across the hall into Lucy's room and looked at her. She was as white as her pillow, and quite serene. Her hands, always a little rough and twisted with service, were smooth and rested.

"You know why he can't come, Lucy," he said once. "It doesn't mean that he doesn't care. You have to remember that." His sublime faith that she heard and understood, not the Lucy on the bed but the Lucy who had not yet gone on to the blessed company of heaven, carried him back to his bed, comforted and rea.s.sured.

He was up and about his room early. The odor of baking m.u.f.fins and frying ham came up the stair-well, and the sound of Mike vigorously polis.h.i.+ng the floor in the hall. Mixed with the odor of cooking and of floor wax was the scent of flowers from Lucy's room, and Mrs. Sayre's machine stopped at the door while the chauffeur delivered a great ma.s.s of roses.

David went carefully down the stairs and into his office, and there, at his long deserted desk, commenced a letter to d.i.c.k.

He was sitting there when d.i.c.k came up the street...

The thought that he was going home had upheld d.i.c.k through the days that followed Ba.s.sett's departure for the West. He knew that it would be a fight, that not easily does a man step out of life and into it again, but after his days of inaction he stood ready to fight. For David, for Lucy, and, if it was not too late, for Elizabeth. When Ba.s.sett's wire came from Norada, "All clear," he set out for Haverly, more nearly happy than for months. The very rhythm of the train sang: "Going home; going home."

At the Haverly station the agent stopped, stared at him and then nodded gravely. There was something restrained in his greeting, like the voices in the old house the night before, and d.i.c.k felt a chill of apprehension. He never thought of Lucy, but David... The flowers and ribbon at the door were his first intimation, and still it was David he thought of. He went cold and bitter, standing on the freshly washed pavement, staring at them. It was all too late. David! David!

He went into the house slowly, and the heavy scent of flowers greeted him. The hall was empty, and automatically he pushed open the door to David's office and went in. David was at the desk writing. David was alive. Thank G.o.d and thank G.o.d, David was alive.

"David!" he said brokenly. "Dear old David!" And was suddenly shaken with dry, terrible sobbing.

There was a great deal to do, and d.i.c.k was grateful for it. But first, like David, he went in and sat by Lucy's bed alone and talked to her.

Not aloud, as David did, but still with that same queer conviction that she heard. He told her he was free, and that she need not worry about David, that he was there now to look after him; and he asked her, if she could, to help him with Elizabeth. Then he kissed her and went out.

He met Elizabeth that day. She had come to the house, and after her custom now went up, unwarned, to David's room. She found David there and Harrison Miller, and--it was a moment before she realized it--d.i.c.k by the mantel. He was greatly changed. She saw that. But she had no feeling of pity, nor even of undue surprise. She felt nothing at all. It gave her a curious, almost hard little sense of triumph to see that he had gone pale. She marched up to him and held out her hand, mindful of the eyes on her.

"I'm so very sorry, d.i.c.k," she said. "You have a sad home-coming."

Then she withdrew her hand, still calm, and turned to David.

"Mother sent over some things. I'll give them to Minnie," she said, her voice clear and steady. She went out, and they heard her descending the stairs.

She was puzzled to find out that her knees almost gave way on the staircase, for she felt calm and without any emotion whatever. And she finished her errand, so collected and poised that the two or three women who had come in to help stared after her as she departed.

"Do you suppose she's seen him?"

"She was in David's room. She must have."

Mindful of Mike, they withdrew into Lucy's sitting-room and closed the door, there to surmise and to wonder. Did he know she was engaged to Wallie Sayre? Would she break her engagement now or not? Did d.i.c.k for a moment think that he could do as he had done, go away and jilt a girl, and come back to be received as though nothing had happened? Because, if he did...

To d.i.c.k Elizabeth's greeting had been a distinct shock. He had not known just what he had expected; certainly he had not hoped to pick things up where he had dropped them. But there was a hard friendliness in it that was like a slap in the face. He had meant at least to fight to win back with her, but he saw now that there would not even be a fight. She was not angry or hurt. The barrier was more hopeless than that.

David, watching him, waited until Harrison had gone, and went directly to the subject.

"Have you ever stopped to think what these last months have meant to Elizabeth? Her own worries, and always this infernal town, talking, talking. The child's pride's been hurt, as well as her heart."

"I thought I'd better not go into that until after--until later,"

he explained. "The other thing was wrong. I knew it the moment I saw Beverly and I didn't go back again. What was the use? But--you saw her face, David. I think she doesn't even care enough to hate me."

"She's cared enough to engage herself to Wallace Sayre!"

After one astounded glance d.i.c.k laughed bitterly.

"That looks as though she cared!" he said. He had gone very white. After a time, as David sat silent and thoughtful, he said: "After all, what right had I to expect anything else? When you think that, a few days ago, I was actually shaken at the thought of seeing another woman, you can hardly blame her."

"She waited a long time."

Later d.i.c.k made what was a difficult confession under the circ.u.mstances.