Part 22 (1/2)
”Yes,” said Grace, ”I remember it all. There is the post-office, and Doremus' store, and the little inn, the church with the white spire, the school-house, and the Manse. Drive faster, please, Mildred. I want to see my mother. Just around that fir grove should be the old home of Wis.h.i.+ng-Brae.”
Tears filled Grace's eyes. Her heart beat fast.
The Wainwrights' house stood at the end of a long willow-bordered lane.
As the manse carryall turned into this from the road a shout was heard from the house. Presently a rush of children tearing toward the carriage, and a chorus of ”Hurrah, here is Grace!” announced the delight of the younger ones at meeting their sister. Mildred drew up at the doorstep, Lawrence helped Grace out, and a fair-haired older sister kissed her and led her to the mother sitting by the window in a great wheeled chair.
The Raeburns hurried away. As they turned out of the lane they met Mr.
Burden with his cart piled high with Grace's trunks.
”Where shall my boxes be carried, sister?” said Grace, a few minutes later. She was sitting softly stroking her mother's thin white hand, the mother gazing with pride and joy into the beautiful blooming face of her stranger girl, who had left her a child.
”My middle girl, my precious middle daughter,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. ”Miriam, Grace, and Eva, now I have you all about me, my three girls. I am a happy woman, Gracie.”
”Hallo!” came up the stairs; ”Burden's waiting to be paid. He says it's a dollar and a quarter. Who's got the money? There never is any money in this house.”
”Hush, Robbie!” cried Miriam, looking over the railing. ”The trunks will have to be brought right up here, of course. Set them into our room, and after they are unpacked we'll put them into the garret. Mother, is there any change in your pocketbook?”
”Don't trouble mamma,” said Grace, waking up to the fact that there was embarra.s.sment in meeting this trifling charge. ”I have money;” and she opened her dainty purse for the purpose--a silvery alligator thing with golden clasps and her monogram on it in jewels, and took out the money needed. Her sisters and brother had a glimpse of bills and silver in that well-filled purse.
”Jiminy!” said Robbie to James. ”Did you see the money she's got? Why, father never had as much as that at once.”
Which was very true. How should a hard-working country doctor have money to carry about when his bills were hard to collect, when anyway he never kept books, and when his family, what with feeding and clothing and schooling expenses, cost more every year than he could possibly earn?
Poor Doctor Wainwright! He was growing old and bent under the load of care and expense he had to carry. While he couldn't collect his own bills, because it is unprofessional for a doctor to dun, people did not hesitate to dun him. All this day, as he drove from house to house, over the weary miles, up hill and down, there was a song in his heart. He was a sanguine man. A little bit of hope went a long way in encouraging this good doctor, and he felt sure that better days would dawn for him now that Grace had come home. A less hopeful temperament would have been apt to see rocks in the way, the girl having been so differently educated from the others, and accustomed to luxuries which they had never known.
Not so her father. He saw everything in rose-color.
As Doctor Wainwright toward evening turned his horse's head homeward he was rudely stopped on a street corner by a red-faced, red-bearded man, who presented him with a bill. The man grumbled out sullenly, with a scowl on his face:
”Doctor Wainwright, I'm sorry to bother you, but this bill has been standing a long time. It will accommodate me very much if you can let me have something on account next Monday. I've got engagements to meet--pressing engagements, sir.”
”I'll do my best, Potter,” said the doctor. Where he was to get any money by Monday he did not know, but, as Potter said, the money was due.
He thrust the bill into his coat pocket and drove on, half his pleasure in again seeing his child clouded by this encounter. Pulling his gray mustache, the world growing dark as the sun went down, the father's spirits sank to zero. He had peeped at the bill. It was larger than he had supposed, as bills are apt to be. Two hundred dollars! And he couldn't borrow, and there was nothing more to mortgage. And Grace's coming back had led him to sanction the purchase of a new piano, to be paid for by instalments. The piano had been seen going home a few days before, and every creditor the doctor had, seeing its progress, had been quick to put in his claim, reasoning very naturally that if Doctor Wainwright could afford to buy a new piano, he could equally afford to settle his old debts, and must be urged to do so.
The old mare quickened her pace as she saw her stable door ahead of her. The lines hung limp and loose in her master's hands. Under the pressure of distress about this dreadful two hundred dollars he had forgotten to be glad that Grace was again with them.
Doctor Wainwright was an easy-going as well as a hopeful sort of man, but he was an honest person, and he knew that creditors have a right to be insistent. It distressed him to drag around a load of debt. For days together the poor doctor had driven a long way round rather than to pa.s.s Potter's store on the main street, the dread of some such encounter and the shame of his position weighing heavily on his soul. It was the harder for him that he had made it a rule never to appear anxious before his wife. Mrs. Wainwright had enough to bear in being ill and in pain.
The doctor braced himself and threw back his shoulders as if casting off a load, as the mare, of her own accord, stopped at the door.
The house was full of light. Merry voices overflowed in rippling speech and laughter. Out swarmed the children to meet papa, and one sweet girl kissed him over and over. ”Here I am,” she said, ”your middle daughter, dearest. Here I am.”
CHAPTER III.
GRACE TAKES A HAND.
”Mother, darling, may I have a good long talk with you to-day, a confidential talk, we two by ourselves?”