Part 83 (1/2)
”He is the best man I ever saw, except papa,” cried Charlotte then, with a great gulp of blissful confession, and the two women wept in each other's arms. ”I will try and make him a good wife,” Charlotte whispered, softly.
”Of course you will, you precious child.”
But suddenly Charlotte raised herself a little and looked at Mrs.
Anderson with a troubled face. ”But I can't leave papa all alone,”
she said, ”and your son would not want to leave you.”
”Of course my son could not leave me,” Mrs. Anderson said, quickly.
”I could not leave papa all alone.”
”Well, we won't worry about that now, dear,” Mrs. Anderson replied, although her forehead was slightly knitted. ”Your mother and aunt will be back; some way will be opened. We will not worry about that now.”
Charlotte blushed painfully at the thought that she had been hasty about making preparations for the marriage, and had shocked Mrs.
Anderson. ”You don't think papa is very badly hurt?” she said.
”Why, of course not, dear. Didn't you hear what Randolph said? He probably was stunned. It is so easy to get stunned from a fall on the ice. My husband got a bad fall once, one icy Sunday as we were coming home from the church. They had to carry him into Mr. John Bemis's house, and he did not come to for several hours. I thought he was killed. I never was so frightened except once when Randolph had the croup. But he got all over it. His head was a little sore, but that was all. I presume it was black and blue under his hair. Randolph's father had beautiful thick hair just like his. I dare say he was not hurt so badly, because of that. Your father has thick hair, hasn't he?”
”Yes.”
”Well, I dare say he struck on his head, just as my husband did, and was stunned. I dare say that was just what happened. Of course he did not break any bones, or he would not be coming home on the noon train. I don't believe they would let him out from the hospital so soon as that, even if he had only broken his arm.”
”Oh, do you think they carried him to a hospital?”
”They took him somewhere where he was taken care of, or he would not be coming home on the noon train,” said Mrs. Anderson. ”It is almost time for you to get up, and I want you to drink another cup of coffee. You came here without any hat, didn't you, poor child?”
”Yes.”
”Well, I haven't got any hat, and you can't wear one of my bonnets, but I have a pretty white head-tie that you can wear; and n.o.body will see you in the closed carriage, anyway.”
”I am making so much trouble,” said Charlotte.
”You precious child!” said Mrs. Anderson; ”when I think of you all alone in that house!”
”It was dreadful,” Charlotte said, with a shudder. ”I suppose there was nothing at all to be afraid of, but I imagined all kinds of things.”
”The things people imagine are more to be afraid of than the things they see, sometimes,” Mrs. Anderson said, wisely. ”Now, I think perhaps you had better get up, dear, and you must drink another cup of coffee. I think there will be just about time enough for you to drink it and get dressed before the carriage comes.”
Mrs. Anderson took the pride in a.s.sisting the girl to dress that she had done in dressing her son when he was a child. She even noticed, with the tenderest commiseration instead of condemnation, that the lace on her undergarments was torn, and that there were b.u.t.tons missing.
”Poor dear child, she never had any decent training,” she said to herself. She antic.i.p.ated teaching Charlotte to take care of her clothes, as she might have done if she had been her own girl baby. ”I guess her clothes won't look like this when I have had her awhile,”
she said to herself, eying furtively some torn lace on the girl's slender white shoulder.
When they were at last driving through the streets of Banbridge, she felt unspeakably proud, and also a little defiant.
”I suppose there are plenty of people who will say Randolph is a fool to marry a girl whose father has done the way hers has,” she told herself, ”but I don't care. There isn't a girl in Banbridge to compare with her. I don't care; they can say what they want to.” She was so excited that she had put on her bonnet, which had a little jet aigrette on top, awry. After a while Charlotte timidly ventured to speak of it and straighten it, and the tenderest thrill of delight came over the older woman at the daughterly attention.
She told Randolph that noon, after she had got home, that she was really surprised to see how well the poor child, with no training at all, had kept the house, and she said it, remembering quite distinctly a white shade of dust in full view on the parlor-table.
”Her dinner was all dried up, of course,” she said, ”but I thought it looked as if it might have been quite nice when it was first cooked.”