IN DARK PLACES
The House on the Hill was a strange
place to Tony and Ted those November days, stranger
than to the others who had walked day by day with the
sense of the approaching shadow always with them.
Death itself was an awesome and unaccustomed thing
to them. They did not see how the others bore
it so well, took it all so calmly. To make matters
worse, Uncle Phil who never failed any one was stricken
down with a bad case of influenza and was unable to
leave his bed. This of course made Margery also
practically hors de combat. The little
folks spent most of their time across the street in
motherly Mrs. Lambert’s care. Upon Ned Holiday’s
children rested the chief burden of the hour.
Granny was rarely conscious and all
three of her grandchildren coveted the sad privilege
of being near her when these brief moments of lucidity
came though Tony and Ted could not stand long periods
of watching beside the still form as Larry could and
did. It was Larry that she most often recognized.
Sometimes though he was his father to her and she called
him “Ned” in such tones of yearning tenderness
that it nearly broke down his self control. Sometimes
too he was Philip to her and this also was bitterly
hard for Larry missed his uncle’s support woefully
in this dark hour. Ruth, Granny seemed to know,
oftener indeed, than she did Tony to the latter’s
keen grief though she acknowledged the justice of the
stab. For she had gone her selfish way leaving
the stranger to play the loving granddaughter’s
part.
One night when the nurse was resting
and Larry too had flung himself upon the couch in
the living room to snatch a little much needed relaxation,
leaving Ruth in charge of the sickroom, Ted drifted
in and demanded to take his turn at the watch, giving
Ruth a chance to sleep. She demurred at first,
knowing how hard these vigils were for the restless,
unhappy lad. But seeing he was really in earnest
she yielded. As she passed out of the room her
hand rested for a moment on the boy’s bowed head.
She had come to care a great deal for sunny, kind-hearted
Teddy, loved him for himself and because she knew
he loved Larry with deep devotion.
He looked up with a faint smile and
gave her hand a squeeze.
“You are a darling, Ruthie,”
he murmured. “Don’t know what we would
ever do without you.”
And then he was alone with death and
his own somber thoughts. He could not get away
from the memory of Madeline, could not help feeling
with a terrible weight of responsibility that he was
more than a little to blame for her plight. Whether
he liked to think it or not he couldn’t help
knowing that the whole thing had started with that
foolish joy ride with himself. Madeline had never
risked her grandfather’s displeasure till she
risked it for him. She had never gone anywhere
with Hubbard till she went because she was bitterly
angry with himself because he had not kept his promise a
promise which never should have been made in the first
place. And if he had not gone to Holyoke, hadn’t
behaved like an idiot that last night, hadn’t
deserted her like a selfish cad to save his own precious
self if none of these things had happened
would Madeline still have gone to Hubbard? Perhaps.
But in his heart Ted Holiday had a hateful conviction
that she would not, that her wretchedness now was indirectly
if not directly chargeable to his own folly. It
was terrible that such little things should have such
tremendous consequences but there it was.
All his life Ted Holiday had evaded
responsibility and had found self extenuation the
easiest thing in the world. But somehow all at
once he seemed to have lost the power of letting himself
off. He had no plea to offer even to himself
except “guilty.” Was he going to do
as Doctor Hendricks commanded and let Madeline pay
the price of her own folly alone or was he going to
pay with her? The night was full of the question.
The quiet figure on the bed stirred.
Instantly the boy had forgotten himself, remembered
only Granny.
He bent over her.
“Granny, don’t you know me? It’s
Teddy,” he pleaded.
The white lips quivered into a faint
smile. The frail hand on the cover lid groped
vaguely for his.
“I know Teddy,” the lips formed
slowly with an effort.
Ted kissed her, tears in his eyes.
“Be a man, dear,”
the lips breathed softly. “Be ”
and Granny was off again to a world of unconsciousness
from which she had returned a moment to give her message
to the grief stricken lad by her side.
To Ted in his overwrought condition
the words were almost like a voice from heaven, a
sacred command. To be a man meant to face the
hardest thing he had ever had to face in his life.
It meant marrying Madeline Taylor, not leaving her
like a coward to pay by herself for something which
he himself had helped to start. He rose softly
and went to the window, staring out into the night.
A few moments later he turned back wearing a strange
uplifted sort of look, a look perhaps such, as Percival
bore when he beheld the Grail.
Strange forces were at work in the
House on the Hill that night. Ruth had gone to
her room to rest as Ted bade her but she had not slept
in spite of her intense weariness. She had almost
lost the way of sleep latterly. She was always
so afraid of not being near when Larry needed her.
The night watches they had shared so often now had
brought them very, very close to each other, made
their love a very sacred as well as very strong thing.
Ruth knew that the time was near now
when she would have to go away from the Hill.
After Granny went there would be no excuse for staying
on. If she did not go Larry would. Ruth
knew that very well and did not intend the latter
should happen.
She had laid her plans well.
She would go and take a secretarial course somewhere.
She had made inquiries and found that there was always
demand for secretaries and that the training did not
take so long as other professional education did.
She could sell her rings and live on the money they
brought her until she was self supporting. She
did not want to dispose of her pearls if she could
help it. She wanted to hold on to them as the
link to her lost past. Yes, she would leave the
Hill. It was quite the right thing to do.
But oh, what a hard thing it was!
She did not see how she was ever going to face life
alone under such hard, queer conditions without Doctor
Philip, without dear Mrs. Margery and the children,
without Larry, especially without Larry. For
that matter what would Larry do without her?
He needed her so, loved her so much. Poor Larry!
And suddenly Ruth sat up in bed.
As clearly as if he had been in the room with her
she heard Larry’s voice calling to her.
She sprang up and threw a dark blue satin negligee
around her, went out of the room, down the stairs,
seeming to know by an infallible instinct where her
lover was.
On the threshold of the living room
she paused. Larry was pacing the floor nervously,
his face drawn and gray in the dim light of the flickering
gas. Seeing her he made a swift stride in her
direction, took both her hands in his.
“Ruth, why did you come?”
There was an odd tension in his voice.
“You called me, didn’t
you? I thought you did.” Her eyes were
wondering. “I heard you say ‘Ruth’
as plain as anything.”
He shook his head.
“No, I didn’t call you
out loud. Maybe I did with my heart though.
I wanted you so.”
He dropped her hands as abruptly as he had taken them.
“Ruth, I’ve got to marry
you. I can’t go on like this. I’ve
tried to fight it, to be patient and hang on to myself
as Uncle Phil wanted me to. But I can’t
go on. I’m done.”
He flung himself into a chair.
His head went down on the table. The clock ticked
quietly on the mantel. What was Death upstairs
to Time? What were Youth and Love and Grief down
here? These things were merely eddies in the
great tide of Eternity.
For a moment Ruth stood very still.
Then she went over and laid a hand on the bowed head,
the hand that wore the wedding ring.
“Larry, Larry dear,” she
said softly. “Don’t give up like that.
It breaks my heart.” There was a faint
tremor in her voice, a hint of tears not far off.
He lifted his head, the strain of
his long self mastering wearing thin almost to the
breaking point at last, for once all but at the mercy
of the dominant emotion which possessed him, his love
for the girl at his side who stood so close he could
feel her breathing, got the faint violet fragrance
of her. And yet he must not so much as touch her
hand.
The clock struck three, solemn, inexorable
strokes. Ruth and Larry and the clock seemed
the only living things in the quiet house. Larry
brushed his hand over his eyes, got to his feet.
“Ruth, will you marry me?”
“Yes, Larry.”
The shock of her quiet consent brought Larry back
a little to realities.
“Wait, Ruth. Don’t
agree too soon. Do you realize what it means to
marry me? You may be married already. Your
husband may return and find you living illegally with
me.”
“I know,” said Ruth steadily.
“There must be something wrong with me, Larry.
I can’t seem to care. I can’t seem
to make myself feel as if I belonged to any one else
except to you. I don’t think I do belong
to any one else. I was born over in the wreck.
I was born yours. You saved me. I would
have died if you hadn’t gotten me out from under
the beams and worked over and brought me back to life
when everybody else gave me up as dead. I wouldn’t
have been alive for my husband if you hadn’t
saved me. I am yours, Larry. If you want
me to marry you I will. If you want me any
way I am yours. I love you.”
“Ruth!”
Larry drew her into his arms and kissed
her the first time he had ever kissed any
girl in his life except his sister. She lay in
his arms, her fragrant pale gold hair brushing his
cheek. He kissed her over and over passionately,
almostly roughly in the storm of his emotion suddenly
unpent. Then he was Larry Holiday again.
He pushed her gently from him, remorse in his gray
eyes.
“Forgive me, Ruth. It’s
all wrong. I’m all wrong. We can’t
do it. I shouldn’t have kissed you.
I shouldn’t have touched you shouldn’t
have let you come to me like this. You must go
now, dear. I am sorry.”
Ruth faced him in silence a moment
then bowed her head, turned and walked away to the
door meekly like a chidden child. Her loosened
hair fell like a golden shower over her shoulders.
It was all Larry could do to keep from going after
her, taking her in his arms again. But he stood
grimly planted by the table, gripping its edge as
if to keep himself anchored. He dared not stir
one inch toward that childish figure in the dark robe.
On the threshold Ruth turned, flung
back her hair and looked back at him. There was
a kind of fearless exaltation and pride on her lovely
young face and in her shining eyes.
“I don’t know whether
you are right or wrong, Larry, or rather when you
are right and when you are wrong. It is all mixed
up. It seems as if it must be right to care or
we wouldn’t be doing it so hard, as if God couldn’t
let us love like this if he didn’t mean we should
be happy together, belong to each other. Why
should He make love if He didn’t want lovers
to be happy?”
It was an argument as old as the garden
of Eden but to Ruth and Larry it was as if it were
being pronounced for the first time for themselves,
here in the dead of night, in the old House on the
Hill, as they felt themselves drawn to each other
by the all but irresistible impulse of their mutual
love.
“Maybe,” went on Ruth,
“I forgot my morals along with the rest I forgot.
I don’t seem to care very much about right and
wrong to-night. You called me. I heard you
and I came. I am here.” Her lovely,
proud little head was thrown back, her eyes still
shining with that fearless elation.
“Ruth! Don’t, dear.
You don’t know what you are saying. I’ve
got to care about right and wrong for both of us.
Please go. I I can’t stand it.”
He left his post by the table then
came forward and held open the door for her.
She passed out, went up the stairs, her hair falling
in a wave of gold down to her waist. She did
not turn back.
Larry waited at the foot of the stairs
until he heard the door of her room close upon her
and then he too went up, to Granny’s room.
Ted met him at the threshold in a panic of fear and
grief.
“Larry I think oh ”
and Ted bolted unable to finish what he had begun
to say or to linger on that threshold of death.
The nurse was bending over Madame
Holiday forcing some brandy between the blue lips.
Larry was by the bedside in an instant. The nurse
stepped back with a sad little shake of the head.
There was nothing she could do and she knew it, knew
also there was nothing the young doctor could do professionally.
He knelt, chafed the cold hands. The pale lips
quivered a little, the glazed eyes opened for a second.
“Ned Larry give
Philip love ” That was all. The
eyes closed. There was a little flutter of passing
breath. Granny was gone.
It was two days after Granny’s
funeral. Ted had gone back to college. Tony
would leave for New York on the morrow. Life cannot
wait on death. It must go on its course as inevitably
as a river must go its way to the sea.
Yet to Tony it seemed sad and heartless
that it should be so. She was troubled by her
selfishness, first to Granny living and now to Granny
dead. She said as much to her uncle sorrowfully.
“It isn’t really heartless
or unkind,” he comforted her. “We
have to go on with our work. We can’t lay
it down or scamp it just because dear Granny’s
work is done. It is no more wrong for you to go
back to your play than it is for me to go back to
my doctoring.”
“I know,” sighed Tony.
“But I can’t help feeling remorseful.
I had so much time and Granny had so little and yet
I wasn’t willing to give her even a little of
mine. I would have if I had known though.
I knew I was selfish but I didn’t know how selfish.
I wish you had told me, Uncle Phil. Why didn’t
you? You told Ruth. You let her help.
Why wouldn’t you let me?” she half reproached.
“I tried to do what was best
for us all. I wanted to find a reason for keeping
Ruth with us and I did not think then and I don’t
think now that it was right or necessary to keep you
back for the little comfort it could have brought
to Granny. You must not worry, dear child.
The blame if there is any is mine. I know you
would have stayed if I had let you.”
Back in college Ted sorted out his
personal letters from the sheaf of bills. Among
them was one from Madeline Taylor, presumably the answer
to the one Ted had written her from the House on the
Hill. He stared at the envelope, dreading to
open it. He was too horribly afraid of what it
might contain. Suddenly he threw the letter down
on the table and his head went down on top of it.
“I can’t do it,”
he groaned. “I can’t. I won’t.
It’s too hard.”
But in a moment his head popped up again fiercely.
“Confound you!” he muttered.
“You can and you will. You’ve got
to. You’ve made your bed. Now lie
on it.” And he opened the letter.
“I can’t tell you,”
wrote the girl, “how your letter touched me.
Don’t think I don’t understand that it
isn’t because you love me or really want to
marry me that you are asking me to do it. It is
all the finer and more wonderful because you don’t
and couldn’t, ever. You had nothing to
gain everything to lose. Yet you offered
it all as if it were the most ordinary gift in the
world instead of the biggest.
“Of course, I can’t let
you sacrifice yourself like that for me. Did you
really think I would? I wouldn’t let you
be dragged down into my life even if you loved me
which you don’t. Some day you will want
to marry a girl not somebody like me but
your own kind and you can go to her clean because
you never hurt me, never did me anything but good ever.
You lifted me up always. But there must have
been something still stronger that pulled me down.
I couldn’t stay up. I was never your kind
though I loved you just as much as if I were.
Forgive my saying it just this once. It will
be the last time. This is really good-by.
Thank you over and over for everything,
“Madeline.”
A mist blurred Ted Holiday’s
eyes as he finished the letter. He was free.
The black winged vulture thing which had hovered over
him for days was gone. By and by he would be
thankful for his deliverance but just now there was
room only in his chivalrous boy’s heart for one
overmastering emotion, pity for the girl and her needlessly
wrecked life. What a hopeless mess the whole
thing was! And what could he do to help her since
she would not take what he had offered in all sincerity?
He must think out a way somehow.