Part 57 (1/2)

Esther murmured something indistinguishable and Miss Annabel departed much pleased with her own perspicacity. And she did help. She let it be known at the Ladies' Aid that she quite understood Esther and approved of her. After all, it was senseless to run away from trouble since trouble can run so much faster. And it was natural and right of Esther to feel that nowhere could she find so much sympathy and consideration as in her own town. Travelling was fatiguing anyway.

As for the school, that was easily arranged. A little discreet wire pulling and Esther was once more established as school mistress of District Number Fifteen. People shook their heads, but by the time of the first snowstorm they had ceased to prophesy nervous prostration, and by the time sleighing was fairly established they were ready to admit that the girl had acted sensibly after all.

No one guessed that there was another reason for Esther's refusal to go away. It was a simple reason and had to do with the fact that in Coombe the mails were sure and regular. Travellers miss letters and strange addresses are uncertain at best, but in Coombe there was small chance of any untoward accident befalling a certain weekly letter in the handwriting of Professor Willits. Esther lived upon these letters. Brief and dry though they were, they formed the motive power of her life and indeed it was from one of them that she had received the impetus which roused her from her first trance of grief and horror.

”My dear young lady (Willits had written).

”I believe that there are times when the truth is a good thing. It might be tactful to pretend that I do not know the real reason of Calendar's collapse but it would also be foolish. I think he is going to pull through. Now the question is--how about you? Are you going to be able to do your part?

”Let me be more explicit. It may be a long time before our friend is thoroughly re-established in health but it is quite probable that he will be well enough, and determined enough, to face some of his problems in the spring. He will turn to you. Are you going to be able to help him? When he comes to you will he find a silly, nervous girl, all horrors and regrets and useless might-have-beens or will he find you strong and sane, healthily poised, ready to face the future and let the dead past go? For the past is dead--believe me!

”You have seemed to me to be an excellently normal young person, but no doubt the shock and trouble of late events have done much to disturb your normality. Can you get it back? On the answer to that, depends Callandar's future. I shall keep you informed, weekly, of his progress.”

Esther had thought deeply over this letter. Its brief, stern truth was exactly the tonic she needed. Like a strong hand it reached down into her direful pit of morbid musings, and, clinging to it, she struggled back into the sunlight. Above all and in spite of everything, she must not fail the man she loved!

At first she had to fight with terrors. She feared she knew not what.

The vision of Mary upon the bed, still and ghastly in the golden light of morning, came back to shake her heart. The memory of Callandar's face, of the frantic struggle to drag the dead woman back to life, made many a night hideous. The endless questioning, Could it have been prevented? Could I have done more? tortured her, but by and by, as she faced them bravely, these terrors lost their baleful power. Her youth and common-sense triumphed.

The school helped. One cannot continue very morbid with a roomful of happy, noisy children to teach and keep in order. Jane's need of her helped, for she, dared not give way to brooding when the child was near. Aunt Amy helped--perhaps most of all. She was a constant wonder to the girl, so cheerful was she, so thoughtful of others, so forgetful of herself. Her little fancies seemed to have ceased to fret her, there was a new peace in her faded eyes. Sometimes as she went about the house she would sing a little, in a high thready voice, bits from songs that were popular in her youth. ”The Blue Alsatian Mountains” or ”When You and I Were Young, Maggie” or ”Darling Nellie Grey.” She told Esther that it was because she felt ”safe.” ”The blackness hardly ever comes now,”

she said. ”I don't think 'They' will bother me any more.”

”Why?” asked Esther, curious.

But Aunt Amy did not seem to know why--or if she knew she never told.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

A robin hopped upon the window sill of School-house Number Fifteen and peered cautiously into the room. He had no business there during lesson hours and the arrival of Mary's little lamb could not have been more disturbing. The children whispered, fidgeted, shuffled their feet and banged their slates.

”Perhaps they do not know it is spring,” thought the robin and ruffling his red breast and swelling his throat he began to tell them.

”It is spring! It is spring! It is spring!”

The effect was electrical. Even the tall young teacher turned from her rows of figures on the blackboard.

”Come out! come out! come out!” sang the robin.

The teacher tapped sharply for order and the robin flew away. But the mischief was done. It was useless to tell them, ”Only ten minutes more.”

Ten minutes--as well say ten years. The little fat boy in the front seat began to cry. A long sigh pa.s.sed over the room. Ten minutes? The teacher consulted her watch, hesitated, and was lost.

”Close books,” she ordered. ”Attention. Ready--March.” The jostling lines scrambled in some kind of order to the door and then broke into joyous riot. It was spring--and school was out!

Their teacher followed more slowly, pausing on the steps to breathe long and deeply the sweet spring air. In a corner by the steps there was still a tiny heap of shrinking snow, but in the open, the gra.s.s was green as emerald, violets and wind flowers pushed through the tangle of last year's leaves. The trees seemed shrouded in a fairy mist of green.