Home > Authors Index > Anna Chapin Ray > Brentons > This page
The Brentons, a novel by Anna Chapin Ray |
||
Chapter Thirty-Two |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
|
|
________________________________________________
_ All the world admitted that the summer was a trying one, that year. All the world, with half a dozen exceptions, turned migratory, in the hope of finding better weather farther on. The exceptions included the Opdykes who stayed at home on Reed's account; the Keltridges who remained in mercy to those of the doctor's patients who were too poor to pay the price of a railway ticket to the seashore, even for a day; and Brenton who never, since his wife had left him, had slept a night away from home. That Katharine would one day come back to him, Brenton was so firmly convinced that he saw no need of insisting on his belief to other people. It was his one steadfast ambition to keep the home always ready to welcome her back; always to keep it as nearly as possible as she had left it, so that her home coming might accomplish itself without the slightest jar. In a sense, despite the chasm which had opened out between them, a chasm, as he now admitted frankly to himself, in part of his own making, despite even the ugly facts surrounding the baby's death, Brenton still loved Katharine. Moreover, he still had hours of being desperately lonely. Back of it all, though, was his strict adherence to the letter of his marriage bond. Whatever came between them, Katharine was still his wife; his home was always hers. Whatever other duties lay ahead of him, one was constant: to hold himself true to this avowed allegiance, to win her back from what seemed to him a passing madness; or else, that failing, to take her as she was and forget everything else besides the one great fact of her wifehood, of her recent motherhood of their dead baby boy. If he held firm to that, and to some other things, the future might yet offer untold good to them. Meanwhile, he would be ready for any event that came. The other things to which Brenton, all that summer, was holding firmly, had come out of his association with Reed Opdyke. Opdyke, in all terseness, had summed up man's whole duty: to play out the game uprightly, and, out of loyalty to an all-wise Creator, not to lose touch with the present chance in trying to see too many moves ahead. The remoter parts of life, so long as they remained remote, would take care of themselves. And, in the same way, the problems of the after-life, its meanings, could be left unsolved, if not unstudied, until the time came when one could take them in a nearer view. Properly lived, life was too busy to admit of many questions, anyway. Always there were so many useful things to be done that scanty time remained for over much philosophizing. And, as for the man knocked down and out, whether by spiritual doubting, or black powder, it was for him to choose whether he would lie on his back and wallow limply in the dust of his emotions, or stiffen himself, ready for new effort. All through the blazing heat of the worst June ever recorded; all through the chill of a cold, wet July, Opdyke preached his doctrine with insistence, preached it in season and out. While he preached, he practised; often, it must be confessed, a good deal to his own detriment. The lift and the rolling chair and the down-town office were still in a future which every one, including Reed himself, knew to be increasingly nebulous. However, he and Duncan were building up no small amount of reputation in their work; and, while the loosened screw of which Opdyke had complained to Olive was throwing all the manual toil on Duncan, it was an open secret that Opdyke supplied the brains. However, no amount of professional contentment can quite atone for the strain of many sleepless nights; and, more than once that summer, Doctor Keltridge had been strongly tempted to call a halt in the whole undertaking. Then, at the last minute, he had stayed his prohibition. Opdyke, in all surety, was working far beyond his strength. None the less, it seemed to the old doctor that there would be a certain cruelty in bringing to a sudden halt this sole activity permitted to him, this sole means of contact with his old profession. The doctor spent his summer between the horns of a dilemma: his disapproval of Reed's overworking, his greater disapproval of the need for thrusting Reed back into his former impotence. And, to all seeming, there was no middle ground. It would have taxed the strength even of a full-bodied man to have held together a reputation, under such handicaps as those beneath which Reed was working. The doctor grumbled in his throat at Ramsdell; but he spoke out no word to Reed. For the present, he was well aware, he had power to dominate the situation. And so the cold, wet July rolled along; and then came an August, drearier, more chilly. The sweet New England summer was drowned in a cold, raw fog which only broke at intervals into a day of blazing sunshine which set all the world a-steam. It was a hideous season, even for the prosperous vagrants of society. To Reed, imprisoned in his room and in a town empty of all his friends but two or three, it was well-nigh insupportable. Brenton dropped in upon him, half a dozen times a week, and Olive never missed a day, while Duncan was invaluable. Nevertheless, it was plain that the summer was wearing on the "puffic' fibbous," although his old-time beauty was bidding fair to outlast the malign attacks of fortune. Indeed, to Olive Keltridge, it seemed that Opdyke never had been one half so good to look upon as now, never one half so virile. "Most men would be impossible in such a situation," she said to her father, one morning in early August. "You would be a caricature, and, as for a man like Mr. Brenton--" "Hush! Speak of angels!" her father warned her. Then, in another tone, he added, "Morning, Brenton. You're up early; aren't you?" But Brenton's face refused to light in answer to the doctor's greeting. "I've had a telegram from Boston," he said, and his accent was dull, monotonous. "Katharine is very ill, pneumonia." "They have sent for you?" "Yes. And to hurry." Olive spoke impetuously. "I am so sorry. But it may be better than you think." He looked across at her, as if he had not been aware of her presence until she spoke. "Good morning, Miss Keltridge," he said hastily. "Yes, it may be. In pneumonia there's always some hope, till the very last, I imagine. That is the reason," he turned back to the doctor; "the reason I've come to you. Can you go to Boston with me?" The doctor swiftly conned his list of cases. "This noon? Ye--es. But, Brenton," his keen old eyes were infinitely kind; "you know it is by no means sure that Mrs. Brenton will let me see her." "I think she will," Brenton said quietly. "She has never been in a place like this--" there came a sudden wave of recollection which made him glance furtively across at the doctor, then add, "exactly. Besides, Catie was always very fond of you." And Olive, hearing, comprehended once again and, comprehending, gave to Brenton a new sort of loyalty which she had heretofore denied him. She knew that, in that old-time nickname, coming unbidden to the husband's lips, there was the proof that all memory of Katharine's disaffection had been wiped out from Brenton's mind, for evermore. It was early, the next morning, when Olive carried the final bulletins to Reed. Her father had just called her up upon the telephone to tell her that the end had come. Up to the last of her consciousness, Katharine had refused to see him; only the healer and Brenton had been allowed inside the room. Then, when she had sunk into the fitful stupor which could have only the one ending, Brenton had come to summon him; and they had stood together, hand on hand, while the life before them ebbed away. It had been a peaceful passing. Just at the very end had come a moment of full consciousness, when she had turned to smile up at her husband. "Scott," she said to him; "I'm sorry. But, in the next world, I think perhaps you'll understand me just a little better." And then the earth-light had faded from her eyes and, in its place, there had dawned the dazzling recognition of the things that are to be. Reed listened to it all, in perfect silence. When Olive had finished,-- "Poor old Brenton!" he said slowly. "It was a conjugal I-told-you-so, coming back to him as a message out of the misty borderland he's tried so hard to penetrate." Later, that same day, Olive dropped in on Reed again. She was lonely, she claimed, without her father, restless and nervous from thinking much about the Brentons, wondering what Brenton himself would do. And Reed, who had grown eager at her coming, felt his eagerness departing while he listened to her second reason. Even his courage recognized the fact that there were limits to his strength. It seemed to him quite intolerable that he must lie there and smile, and assent politely to the divagations of Olive concerning Brenton's future plans. Besides, loyal as he was to Olive, Reed was conscious of a little disappointment that a girl, even as uncompromisingly downright as she, should be quite so prompt in expressing interest in Brenton's future. But Olive, noticing his reticence, laid it only to the exhaustion of a hideously rainy day, and talked on steadily. What Reed did not know till later was that her steady monologue was designed to cover up her real intention for just a little while, that she might gain time to stiffen to the resolution she had taken. The resolution had been growing up in her for weeks; it had come to its climax, only that very morning, when she had met Ramsdell on the Opdyke steps. "How is Mr. Opdyke?" she had queried. Then she had caught her breath at Ramsdell's answer. "Rather poorly, Miss Keltridge." She cast a hasty glance upward, to assure herself that Reed's windows were not open. "What do you mean?" she demanded sharply then. Ramsdell looked down upon her gloomily. "That I'm uneasy, Miss Keltridge. There's no one thing the matter, and yet Mr. Hopdyke does seem to be losing ground. It's 'is ambition runs away with all 'is strength. As long as he kept still on his back, 'e gained. But now 'e seems to be trying to get hout of bed and leave his back be'ind 'im, as that 'ealing woman told him; and, like all of us, he isn't meant to cast off his own spinal column, bad as 'tis. His work won't 'urt 'im, if he takes it quiet; but, as a nurse trained in the Royal 'Ospital, I must hinsist it is bad for any man to try to do Delsarte gymnastics on a hempty stomach of a morning." Despite her consternation, Olive laughed. "Can't you make him stop it, Ramsdell?" "Impossible, Miss Keltridge. When it comes to that I'm nothing but another man. What Mr. Hopdyke needs now is a woman to manage 'im and cocker 'im up a bit. In spite of all his work and that, he's away off on 'is nerve." "How does he show it, Ramsdell?" Olive asked, a little faintly, for there was that in the whites of the great black eyes which made her painfully aware that Ramsdell was not talking quite at random, and she disliked to feel that even those dog-like eyes, devoted though they were to Reed, had penetrated the secret of her woman's nature. Ramsdell's reply refreshed her by its very lack of sentiment. "When 'e's feeling fit, Miss Keltridge, 'e swears something glorious. Nowadays, it's as much as he can do to trump up henergy to let off a single damn. There! He's calling!" And Ramsdell vanished in the direction of the stairs. Left to herself, Olive tramped home as if the seven-league boots had been upon her feet. Once at home, for some reason only known to womankind, she elected to sweep and dust the library with her own hands, and then to scour the brasses of the fireplace. Half through the second operation, though, she hesitated, paused, stopped short and threw aside her cloth and pinafore. Leaving them for the maids to discover and gather up at will, she went to her room, arrayed herself immaculately and quite regardless of the weather, and once more sallied out in search of Reed. While she was going up the Opdyke stairs, however, she suddenly became aware that she had nothing to say to him which would account for her suddenly renewed desire for his society. Accordingly, she talked of Brenton till Reed's soul was weary. Then, with a sudden flounce, she brought the talk around to Reed himself. "How many mines have you added to your list, to-day?" she asked him. Reed heaved a short sigh of relief, not out of egotism, but merely to be freed from further talk concerning Brenton. "Only one." "That's unusual. Still, I am rather glad it happens so. Ramsdell is convinced that you are working too hard, in this impossible weather." "Ramsdell is a chronic grumbler," Reed said disloyally. "I'm all right, Olive." She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, and stared down at him intently. "I'm not too sure of that, Reed. You are growing thin, and you look tired. No wonder, from what Mr. Duncan has told us. Is it quite worth while, though?" "It is." "But why?" she urged, with sudden recklessness of any pain her insistence might be causing him. He reddened. "Let's leave the dead past out of it, Olive. What's the use of going over the old ground again? You know my one ambition is to make whatever is left of my life a gift worth while." "Gift?" she queried steadily. "To whom, Reed?" "Its Creator, when the time comes," he answered, with the slow difficulty with which a strong man always touches such a theme. "Who else?" His sudden question, answering as it did to her own thoughts, astounded her. Her face flushed, lighted, filled itself with a dazzling radiance which, for the moment, Reed was powerless to interpret. For just that single moment, Olive caught in her breath and held it. Then,-- "Why, to me," she answered simply. "Reed dear, you have made it wonderfully well worth the asking. May I have it for my very own?" Fifteen minutes later on, Ramsdell came up the stairs. When he had gone down them stealthily and tiptoed through the lower hall, he wiped his eyes, then blew his nose in raucous triumph. "The one thing I 'ave halways 'oped would 'appen!" he said impressively. Four days afterward, Brenton came home again, came straight from the burial service on the country hillside to take up his old life in the wifeless home. As a matter of course, his first evening he spent with Opdyke. Opdyke, looking for change in him, was not disappointed. Change was evident, and of a sort for which Opdyke had scarcely dared to hope. Of sadness there was curiously little sign; the black band on his sleeve was the only outward show of mourning, and Brenton's face explained the lack. Even in the few days of his new experience, the old indecision seemed to have left his face for ever, and with it much of the old sadness. He carried himself more alertly, too, as if, for the future, life were too full of purpose to permit of any indecision or delay. Of his trouble, he said singularly little. "Poor Catie! She died, loyal to me, and happy in her belief," he told Reed briefly. "It was the end she would have chosen for herself. Next time we meet each other, though, we shall understand each other better and have better patience." And that was all he said, then or afterwards. Instead, he congratulated Reed upon his new, great happiness. After a time,-- "Now, shall you go to Whittenden?" Opdyke asked him. Brenton shook his head. "No. My place is here. So far, I have never worked out much good from any of the chances I've had given me. I'd better do it, here and now, without wasting time by any further change. As for the quality of the work, Opdyke, I've been thinking things, the past few days. There are men in plenty doing their level best to work out God's existence in the lives of his created children. For me, I think it's better worth the while to try to prove that universal laws exist, and, out of those laws, prove God." And Opdyke nodded briefly, in token of his perfect comprehension. [THE END] _ |
||