Part 34 (1/2)
The money was never mentioned. In good and safe investments it lay, awaiting a day, so Truedale told McPherson, when it could be got rid of without dishonour or disgrace.
”But, good heavens! haven't you any personal ambitions--you and Lynda?”
McPherson had learned to admire Conning, and Lynda had always been one of his private inspirations.
”None that Lynda and I cannot supply ourselves,” Truedale replied. ”To have our work, and the necessity for our work, taken from us would be no advantage.”
”But haven't you a duty to the money?”
”Yes, we have, and I'm trying to find out just what it is.”
And living this strange, abnormal life--often wondering why, and fearing much--three, then four years, pa.s.sed them by.
It is one thing for two proud, sensitive natures to enter upon a deliberate course, and quite another for them to abandon it when the supposed need is past. There was now no doubt in Truedale's heart concerning Lynda's motive for marrying him; nor did Lynda for one moment question Truedale's deep affection for her. Yet they waited--quite subconsciously at first, then with tragic stubbornness--for something to sweep obstacles aside without either surrendering his position.
”He must want me so that nothing can sway him again,” thought Lynda.
”She must know that my love for her can endure anything--even this!”
argued Conning, and his stand was better taken than hers as she was to find out one day.
It seemed enough, in the beginning, to live their lives close and confidentially--to feel the tie of dependence that held them; but the knot cut in deep at times and they suffered in foolish but proud silence.
Many things occurred during those years that widened the horizon for them all. Betty's first child came and went, almost taking the life of the young mother with it. Before the possible calamity Brace stood appalled, and both Conning and Lynda realized how true a note the girl was in their lives. She seemed to belong to them in a sense stronger than blood could have made her. They could not imagine life without her sunny companions.h.i.+p. Never were they to forget the grim dreariness of the once cheerful apartment during those days and nights when Death hovered near, weighing the chances. But Betty recovered and came back with a yearning look in her eyes that had never been there before.
”You see,” she confided to Lynda, ”there will always be moments when I must listen to hear if my baby is calling. At times, Lyn, it seems as if he were just on ahead--keeping me from forgetting. It doesn't make me sad, dear, it's really beautiful that he didn't quite escape me.”
”And do you go to The Refuge to think and look and listen?” Lynda asked.
For they all worried now when Betty betook herself to the little house.
”Not much!” And here Betty twinkled. ”I go there to meet Betty Arnold face to face, and ask her if she would rather trade back. And then I come trotting home, almost out of breath, to precious old Brace; I'm so afraid he won't know he's still the one big thing in the world for me.”
This little child of Betty's and Brace's had made a deep impression upon them all. It had lived only three days and while it stayed the black shadow hanging over the mother had made the baby seem of less account; but later, they all recalled the pretty, soft mite with the strange, old look in its wide eyes. He had been beautiful as babies who are not going to stay often are. There were to be no years for him to change and grow and so loveliness came with him.
”I reckon the little chap thought we didn't want him,” Brace choked as he spoke over the small, cold body of his first-born, ”so he turned back home before he forgot the way.”
”Don't, brother!” Lynda pleaded as she stood with Truedale beside him.
”You know the way home might have been longer and harder, by and by.”
”I wish Betty and I might have helped to make it easier; for a time, anyway.” The eternal revolt against seemingly useless suffering rang in the words.
And that night Truedale had kissed Lynda lingeringly.
”Such things,” he said, referring to the day's sad duties, ”such things do drag people together.”
After that something new throbbed in their lives--something that had not held sway before. If Betty looked and listened for the little creature who had gone on ahead, Lynda listened and looked into what had been a void in her life before.
She had always loved children in a kindly, detached way, but she had never appropriated them. But now she could not forget the feeling of that small, downy head that for a day or so nestled on her breast while the young mother's feet all but slipped over the brink. She remembered the strange look in the child's deep eyes the night it died. The lonely, aged look that, in pa.s.sing, seemed trying to fix one familiar object. And when the dim light went out in the little face and only a dead baby lay in her arms, maternity had been called forth from its slumber and in following Betty's child, became vitalized and definite.
”I--I think I shall adopt a child.” So she had thought while the cold little head yet lay in the hollow of her arm. She never let go this thought and only hesitated before voicing it to Truedale because she feared he could not understand and might cruelly misunderstand. Life was hard enough and difficult enough for them both just then, and often, coming into the quiet home at the day's end, Lynda would say, to cheer her faint heart:
”Oh, well, it's really like coming to a hearth upon which the fire is not yet kindled. But, thank heaven! it is a clean hearth, not cluttered with ashes--it is ready for the fire.”