Part 15 (2/2)
She said little or nothing in answer to the young man's kind, cheerful talk, as they drove along one main thoroughfare after another, conspicuous by the brilliant, prosperous beauty of their well-fed youth and their handsome garb, pointed out by people on the sidewalks, constantly nodding in response to greetings from acquaintances. Lydia flushed deeply at the first of these salutations, a flush which grew deeper and deeper as these features of their processional advance repeated themselves. She put her hand to her throat from time to time as though it ached and when the red rubber-tired wheels turned noiselessly in on the asphalt of her home street, she threw the lap-robe brusquely back from her knees as though for an instant escape.
The young man's pleasant chat stopped. ”Look here, Lydia,” he said in another tone, one that forced her eyes to meet his, ”look here, don't you forget one thing!” His voice was deep with the sincerest sympathy, his eyes full of emotion, ”Don't you forget, little Lydia, that n.o.body's sorrier for you than I am! And I don't want anything that--” he cried out in sudden pa.s.sion--”Good Lord, I'd be cut to bits before I'd even _want_ anything that wasn't best for you!” He looked away and mastered himself again to quiet friendliness, ”You know that, _don't you_, Lydia?
You know that all I want is for you to have the most successful life anyone can?”
He leaned to her imploring in his turn.
She drew a quick breath, and moved her head from side to side restlessly. Then drawn by the steady insistence of his eyes, she said, as if touched by his patient, determined kindness, ”Oh, yes, yes, Paul, I realize how awfully good you're being to me! I wish I could--but--yes, of course I see how good you are to me!”
He laid his hand an instant over hers, withdrawing it before she herself could make the action. ”It makes me happy to have you know I want to be,” he said simply, ”now that's all. You needn't be afraid. I shan't bother you.”
They were in front of the Emery house now. He did not try to detain her longer. He helped her down, only repeating as she gave him her gloved hand an instant, ”That's what I'm for--to be good to you.”
The wagon drove off, the young man refraining from so much as a backward glance.
The girl turned to the house and stood a moment, opening and shutting her hands. When she moved, it was to walk so rapidly as almost to run up the walk, up the steps, into the hall and into her mother's presence, where, still on the crest of the wave of her resolution, she cried, ”Mother, did you really send Paul for me again. Did you _really_?”
”Why, yes, dear,” said Mrs. Emery, surprised, sitting up on the sofa with an obvious effort; ”did somebody say I didn't?”
”I hoped you didn't!” cried Lydia bitterly; ”it was--horrid! I was out with all the girls in front of Hallam's--everybody was so--they all laughed so when--they looked at me so!”
Mrs. Emery spoke with dignity, ”Naturally I couldn't know where he would find you.”
”But, Mother, you _did_ know that every afternoon for two weeks you've--it's been managed so that I've been out with Paul.”
Mrs. Emery ignored this and went on plaintively, ”I didn't see that it was so unreasonable for an invalid to send whoever she could find after her only daughter because she was feeling worse.”
Lydia's frenzy carried her at once straight to the exaggeration which is the sure forerunner of defeat in the sort of a conflict which was engaging her. ”_Are_ you feeling any worse?” she cried in a despairing incredulity which was instantly marked as inhumanly unfilial by the scared revulsion on her face as well as Mrs. Emery's pale glare of horror. ”Oh, I didn't mean that!” she cried, running to her mother; ”I'm sorry, Mother! I'm sorry!”
The tears began running down Mrs. Emery's cheeks, ”I don't know my little Lydia any more,” she said weakly, dropping her head back on the pillow.
”I don't know myself!” cried Lydia, sobbing violently, ”I'm so unhappy!”
Mrs. Emery took her in her arms with a forgiveness which dropped like a noose over Lydia's neck, ”There, there, darling! Mother knows you didn't mean it! But you must remember, Lydia dearest, if you're unhappy these days, so is your poor mother.”
”I'm making you so!” sobbed Lydia, ”I know it! something like this happens every day! It's why you don't get well faster! I'm making you unhappy!”
”It doesn't make any difference about me!” Mrs. Emery heroically a.s.sured her, ”I don't want you to be influenced by thinking about my feelings, Lydia. Above everything in the world, I don't want you to feel the _slightest_ pressure from me--or any one of the family. Oh, darling, all I want--all any of us want, is what is best for our little Lydia!”
CHAPTER XII
A SOP TO THE WOLVES
Six o'clock had struck when Mrs. Sandworth came wearily back from her Christmas shopping. It was only the middle of November, but each year she began her preparations for that day of rejoicing earlier and earlier, in a vain attempt to avoid some of the embittering desolation of confusion and fatigue which for her, as for all her acquaintances, marked the December festival. She let herself down heavily from the trolley-car which had brought her from the business part of Endbury back to what was known as the ”residential section,” a name bestowed on it to the exclusion of several other much larger divisions of town devoted exclusively to the small brick buildings blackened by coal smoke in which ordinary people lived.
As she walked slowly up the street, her arms were full of bundles, her heart full of an ardent prayer that she might find her brother either out or in a peaceable mood. She loved and admired Dr. Melton more than anyone else in the world, but there were moments when the sum total of her conviction about him was an admission that his was not a reposeful personality. For the last fortnight, this peculiarity had been accentuated till Mrs. Sandworth's loyalty had cracked at every seam in order not to find him intolerable to live with. Moreover, her own kind heart and intense partiality for peace in all things had suffered acutely from the same suspense that had wrought the doctor to his wretched fever of anxiety. It had been a time of torment for everybody--everybody was agreed on that; and Mrs. Sandworth had felt that life in the same house with Lydia's G.o.dfather had given her more than her share of misery.
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