Maris (3 page)

Then Mother must have sat up until all hours last night finishing it! For she knew by having watched the rest of the lace put on what a time it took, and what infinite care her mother used. It was all wrought together so perfectly that the sewing was only a part of the artistry.

Sudden tears sprang to her eyes!
Dear
Mother!

Then it
had
been a crack of light beneath the sewing room door that she had thought she saw last night down the hall as she came softly up the stairs not to disturb anybody! When she looked again, it was gone and she had thought it imagination. But Mother must have heard her and turned the light off quickly so that she wouldn't know what she was doing and then turned it on again when she was sure her child was asleep. Dear Mother! Precious wedding dress! Not for any new formal relatives would she hurt her mother now, by even suggesting that they look at that other formal attire that had been urged upon her!

But there would be Tilford. If he should speak of it, how would she answer? Well, perhaps she could run down sometime this morning and just look at the dress and then tell him she liked her own better.

Suddenly, as she stood at the head of the stairs trying to think it out, there came a frightened cry. Gwyneth from the distant kitchen suddenly flung the door open.

"Maris! Maris! Come quick! Something's happened to Mother!"

As Maris flew down the stairs on panic-stricken feet, the telephone set up a wild ringing, and on top of that the doorbell shrilled out through the house, but Maris sped on to the kitchen where her mother would be. And there on the floor beside the sink, with the dish towel still in her grasp and her soft brown hair that was graying at the temples fallen down around her shoulders, lay her mother. Her face was still and white, and Maris's frightened eyes could see no sign of breathing as she stooped down with a low cry. "Oh, Mother! Mother! Mother! You dear little mother!"

"Yes,
very
dear to
you
!" said the sarcastic voice of her brother Merrick as he came angrily into the room. "What's the matter here?"

He caught a glimpse of his mother prone upon the floor and his young face hardened.

"If anything's the matter with Mother, you've yourself to thank for it. That doggone fool wedding is at the bottom of it all. I've seen it killing her day by day! Get out of the way and let me lift her up! Get some water, can't you? Send for the doctor! Somebody answer that telephone and tell 'em to shut up and get out!"

He gathered up his mother in his strong young arms. Such a frail little limp white mother with the dish towel still in her hand!

He strode toward the couch in the dining room.

"Gwyn, can't you stop that telephone! It's fierce! Maris, can't you bring some water? Isn't there any aromatic ammonia around?"

Merrick was standing over his mother, frantically peering down at her white, silent face.

A young man who had come in with Merrick and had up to this time stood in the doorway silently, answered the appeal in his friend's eyes and came over to the couch. He stooped over, listening, and laid his hand on the wrist.

Merrick looked at him with fear in his eyes.

"Is she--
gone
?" he murmured hoarsely.

"No, I think not," said the other. "Let's have that ammonia. Dip that towel in some water and wet her face."

Maris, with white face and frightened eyes, brought the bottle and then got a wet cloth and began to bathe her mother's face. She knelt down beside the couch and found she was trembling so that her knees would hardly support her.

The telephone had ceased, and presently Gwyneth came to her brother.

"It's Tilford," she said. "He said he's got to speak to Maris."

"Well, he can't speak to Maris now. I'll tell His Highness where to get off!" And Merrick strode out in the hall to the telephone.

If Maris heard at all, she was too frightened to take it in. She knelt there tenderly bathing her mother's still white face and trying to stop the trembling in her limbs, trying to keep her lips from quivering.

She was aware that somebody else, an outsider, was kneeling beside her listening for a heartbeat, feeling for a slender, evasive pulse in her mother's frail wrist, but she did not turn her head to look at him. It didn't occur to her to wonder who he was or if she knew him. She was intent upon her mother's face. Was it too late? Was she gone from them forever? Would she never be able to tell her how much she loved her? How sorry and ashamed she was that she had let her do so many hard things alone, while she had gone on her blithe way having a good time and never noticing how hard she was making it for her precious mother.

She thought of many things while she knelt there so quietly bathing that white face, helping the man beside her to lift the head of the sick woman and hold a glass of water to her lips. She was examining herself, seeing herself as she had never seen herself before in all her happy, carefree days.

Maris did not hear Merrick at the telephone, though he was shouting angrily:

"Well, you
can't
see my sister. She's busy. Our mother has been taken very ill. We aren't sure but she's dying. Get off this wire. I want to telephone for the doctor. Get off quick, I say!"
Bang!
Merrick hung up.

Then in a second he lifted the receiver again.

"Merrick, you must be crazy to speak to me this way. Do you realize what you are doing?" babbled forth the indignant voice of his future brother-in-law. "Tell Maris to come here at once. I must speak to her right away. I won't keep her but a moment, but I must tell her something right away!"

"Will you get out of my way?" yelled Merrick. "If my mother dies for want of a doctor, we'll have you arrested for murder. Get off, I tell you!
Thunder
, have I got to go next door to get a message through to the doctor? Operator! Operator!"

"But, Merrick, listen to me--"

"Oh, go to
thunder
!" roared Merrick. "No, I won't listen to you. I'll go and use the neighbors' phone, and you can keep right on talking to yourself--" And Merrick banged the receiver down on the table and left Tilford protesting in dignified and indignant tones. But Merrick had gone next door to telephone, and presently Tilford took it in that nobody was listening to him. A vast silence seemed to have dropped down upon the wire, and nobody was getting the benefit of his high-sounding words. Tilford was a handsome man and usually depended a good deal on the effect of his personal appearance when he was talking, but he found himself at a great disadvantage just now, for his physical beauty had no effect whatever on the telephone wires. There didn't seem to be even an operator around to hear him. So at last he hung up in disgust. Somebody should suffer for this! Merrick, of course, was the greatest offender, but if Merrick were not available, his sister should certainly take it. Perhaps it would be as well for him to go right around to the house now and see Maris personally, make her understand what an unforgivable thing her brother had done. He never had liked that fellow anyway. When he and Maris were married, he would forbid Merrick from coming to the house! One didn't have to marry all one's wife's relatives of course. He would make her understand that thoroughly when the time came.

So Tilford Thorpe started on his way to see Maris.

Maris, on her knees beside the dining room couch, was holding a cloth wet in aromatic ammonia in front of her mother's face and crying in her heart,
Oh, God. Don't let her die! Oh, God, please don't let my mother die!
and was coming out rapidly from the coma of merriment into which the orgy of festivities connected with her engagement had plunged her.

As the agonized minutes passed and still that white face did not change--save for a quick catching of breath, faintly, so faintly that they weren't quite sure it had been a breath--it seemed as if the atmosphere rapidly became clear of a lot of things that had filled it for Maris in the past weeks. True values of things and people began to adjust themselves to her sharply awakened mind. Such things as special hours for wedding invitations to be mailed and the importance of pleasing Tilford's relatives sank into insignificance. Years of tender care and sacrifice and precious love stood out in clear relief and importance. Strange sharp memories came and stood around like witnesses against her. The time when she had cut the vein in her wrist with the bread knife and Mother had held it together until the doctor got there. The time when the bull had dashed into the garden from a herd that was going by on the street and Mother had sheltered her behind her own body. That was when she was only two and a half years old, yet she remembered how safe she had felt. The time when she had the whooping cough and almost died, with an unbelievable temperature, and Mother had stayed up for two whole nights and days, most of the time on her knees bathing the hot little body under a blanket, trying to bring down the temperature. The time when there had had to be a blood transfusion and Mother had offered her own. Such a precious mother who had guarded and served them all. Her deeds stood crowding about the couch hand in hand, silent witnesses of the past. And last of all her lovely wedding dress seemed to her troubled mind to come floating down the stairs and stand with the rest about the couch where the little gray-faced mother lay.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" Maris suddenly cried, softly, and her hand paused with the wet cloth she was holding, and her head suddenly went down on her mother's breast for an instant of despair. Then up again instantly, just as strong hands lifted her, and Merrick's voice, grown suddenly tender and more worried, said, "Take her in the other room. I'll look out for Mother."

That roused her. She straightened up.

"No! No! I'm all right!" she whispered. "I must stay here!"

"There's the doctor!" announced Gwyneth, hurrying to open the door. And then they all made way for the doctor, and Maris felt those strong arms lifting her again and leading her to a chair.

She did not look up to see who it was. Her eyes were upon her mother's face there on the couch.

Someone brought her a glass of water, and she drank it and then went back to stand at the head of the couch and watched the doctor's face.

The strange young man was sent on an errand for the doctor, and Merrick went to telephone his father. Maris stayed to wait on the doctor and answer his questions, though she found it was fourteen-year-old Gwyneth who did most of the answering.

"I wasn't here," was all Maris could say in answer to some question about whether her mother had felt bad the day before and what she had been doing.

"She had an awful headache yesterday," said Gwyneth sadly. "I guess she worked too hard. She would do so many things. I tried to help her, but she sent me to do my homework and said she could do it all herself. But once I saw her put her hand over her heart, and I asked her what was the matter, and she said, 'Oh, just a sharp pain.' "

"Had she been having pains in her heart?"

"She never complained," said Maris sadly. "I'm afraid we were all so busy with our own affairs that we didn't notice."

"She sewed a lot last night," volunteered Gwyneth. "She told me this morning she'd got it all done, what she was working on."

Tears sprang to Maris's eyes, and she turned away to hide them and then turned back again as she heard her mother give a soft little breath of a sigh. Oh, was she coming back to them, or was she gone? She watched the grave face of the doctor anxiously, but he worked on quietly and gave no sign. Only asked for water and a spoon, and handed the glass back to Maris.

A car drew up at the door. The young man came back and brought whatever it was that he had been sent for, but Maris took no notice of him. Some friend of Merrick's, she thought. Then a few minutes later a nurse arrived, and Maris caught her breath in hope and fear. But there was no time to ask questions. She must go upstairs and get the bed ready for the patient to be moved. There were sheets to hunt out, the good sheets. Where
were
the good sheets? Every one she unfolded seemed to be torn or badly frayed at the hems. Oh, the house was in perfect order for a wedding but not for an illness. And they had not been expecting to have any of the wedding party stay overnight with them, for they all lived in the town.

"There aren't any good sheets left, Maris," whispered Gwyneth. "Mother had me help her gather up the laundry for the man this morning, and we put the last good ones in the bag. She said she must stitch up some of the torn ones till the laundry got back."

Suddenly Maris took it in. Mother and Father had been scrimping on everything so there might be more to pay her wedding bills. There were beautiful garments hanging in her closet, costly garments, for her parents were sending her proudly away from their care; and her generous hope chest was filled to overflowing with linen and percale sheets and pillowcases, smooth as silk and fine of quality; and towels in abundance, rich and sumptuous as any bride might desire. But the mother of the bride must be put to bed in torn sheets!

Suddenly Maris's face went white and her lips set in a thin line of determination. She put back the torn sheets she had been unfolding hopelessly and marched into her own room to her hope chest. She delved deep and brought out a wealth of lovely smooth sheets and pillow covers and brought them into her mother's room where Gwyneth was taking off the worn sheets that had been on the bed.

Gwyneth looked at her in startled dismay.

"But, Maris, those are your wedding things! You mustn't use those!"

"Why not?" said Maris grimly. "They're mine, aren't they? Mother bought them for me, didn't she? I have a right to use them the way I want to, don't I?"

"Yes, but Mother wouldn't want you to use them up now. Not on her bed."

"I'm sure she would," said Maris, "if she knew how I feel about it. I'd rather use these now on Mother's bed, Gwynnie, than on any grandest occasion that could ever come into my life. Wouldn't you feel that way, Gwyn, if they were yours?"