THE HONOR GIRL (9 page)

The day was warm for that time of year, and the gaunt cat had folded herself neatly together on the railing of the porch in the sun, her paws doubled closely, eyes like two tailored button-holes set slantwise in the lapels of a coat. A very common, cold little pussy, seeking to get warm in the sun, asking little of the world and receiving less.

The key was under the mat, and Elsie looked anxiously about as she entered to see whether the good cheer she had left behind last week had remained.

Yes, everything was in order, as if great pains had been taken to leave it so. The closet door was closed, and no coats or hats were about. Even the papers were piled together under the table, and there had been a rude attempt to sweep up the dust; for she could see the marks of the broom in long dabbling sweeps, alternating with the places where the broom had not touched. Something queer and sweet leaped in her breast at the sight of that. It was a little message from the three to say that they had liked what she had done.

A glimpse into the dining-room and kitchen showed awkward attempts to clean up and to keep things looking as she had left them. The tears sprang unbidden to her eyes as she realized this.

Upstairs the rooms had been kept very tidy, and the beds were spread up bunglingly with brave attempts to make them smooth.

With her heart somehow suddenly light and happy Elsie slipped into the little cotton gown and apron she had brought along, and ran downstairs. She had decided to bake more pies and make some cookies and gingerbread. These were things that would last a few days and not deteriorate. She had copied from her aunt’s cookbook several recipes for her use, and now she set about getting things in order for the day.

She had brought with her some simple muslin curtains, which she had bought during the week. She proceeded to put them up while she waited for the things to come from the store.

It did not take long to do it and to smooth out the wrinkles from the man-made beds; then she was ready for her baking.

If the young man who had asked her to go in an automobile with him, and the friend who wanted her to go to the play, and the cousins who could not understand why she had chosen to stay at home, could have seen her with bright eyes and rosy cheeks flying around that kitchen for the next few hours, they would have stared in amazement. When she finally slipped out of the door at five minutes after six, not risking another car, lest she should be caught, she left behind her a row of pies, a big bowl of cookies, two tins of gingerbread, and a nicely cooked dinner; and her heart was very light and happy as she sank into her seat in the trolley. She knew she was going to meet with reproaches when she got back to Aunt Esther’s, but she didn’t care; she had done what she thought was right, and she never felt happier in her life.

For three weeks Elsie kept up her pilgrimages, growing more and more deeply interested in the household of Morningside, finding extra little things to do for them, leaving touches of beauty and comfort behind her, and gradually obliterating the traces of desolation.

The weeks were not filled with roses altogether, for her path was conscientiously strewn with thorns of advice and protest by her aunt and cousins; and she found it necessary to get up early and slip away before breakfast that third Saturday, lest she be prevented entirely.

The day had gone well, and she was singing a little song as she worked. It was doughnuts she had elected to fry that afternoon, and everything was coming on finely. The dinner was well started; a big pan of biscuits was cooling in the pantry, a whole platter full of doughnuts well sprinkled with powdered sugar was on the kitchen table; and she was just cutting out another lot of them for frying when suddenly she became aware that she was not alone in the room! With that stealthy alertness we have when we become conscious of another presence Elsie looked up, and there in the pantry door stood both her brothers, their faces filled with wonder and delight, looking at her as if they could not believe she was real.

She dropped the dough she was just lifting from the moulding-board, and clasped her hands with a little startled cry. She was surprised to find a tightening of joy around her heart. She stood for a second reading the surprise and pleasure in their faces; and then she sprang forward toward them, her arms outstretched, just as she used to do when she was a little bit of a girl.

Startled, abashed, the two great fellows braced themselves for her coming, and, flinging their arms about her, lifted their sister from her feet, and held her so between them for a moment, with a look almost of adoration on their faces.

The girl’s heart leaped up unexpectedly, and she felt a great wave of love for them sweep over her. After all, they were her own brothers; and how strong and splendid they seemed, lifting her in this way as if she were a feather! She put an arm around each, and kissed first one and then the other, half laughing, half ashamed at the surge of emotion within her.

“Say, kid, this is great!” burst forth Jack. “We couldn’t make out who was the fairy; so we thought we’d steal a march on her, whoever she was.”

They had put her upon her feet, but stood each side of her, looking down from their young height with pride and tenderness, as if they could hardly believe they had her, as if it were too good to be true.

“It was wonderful!” said Gene. “But we didn’t think it was you. We didn’t suppose you could cook like that—that is, we didn’t suppose you had time for such things. We—” He stopped, realizing that he was showing her just what kind of an opinion he had had of her.

But she nestled her head against his shoulder lovingly. “You thought I was a feather-brained, giddy little girl who couldn’t do a single sensible thing; and you thought, anyhow, that I didn’t care a cent for you. I begin to see that you had good reason to think so, too. But I never understood; really I didn’t! I didn’t realize that you needed me—at least, you needed someone.”

“That’s it, we needed,” said Gene drawing his arm closer around her, and taking her little floury hand in his.

“Here! Let me in on this!” cried Jack, throwing his big arms around the two of them and almost smothering his sister.

Thus in a merry scrimmage the moment of their meeting was tided over, and suddenly the kettle of fat on the stove asserted itself.

“Oh, my doughnuts!” screamed Elsie, rushing back to see the three fat floaters already turning very dark indeed.

“Doughnuts!” said Jack. “That’s what we smelled! Gee! This is great! Can I have one now?”

“Take all you want!” said Elsie grandly, her heart rejoicing in the ability to give.

They ate doughnuts, and helped her to make more; and, while it all was going on they were stealing shy looks at one another, seeing in this intimate hour for the first time in years a vision of what each was and what they might be to one another.

The brothers were recognizing something fine and beautiful in Elsie, a culture far above their own, that told in every little word and glance. They were swelling with pride in her, and at the same time shrinking inwardly at their own short-comings. They rejoiced that she had not been too proud to come to them and cook for them, and they rejoiced most of all that she was beautiful and above them.

“Gee! This is great!” sighed Jack as he reached for his seventh doughnut. “Wouldn’t it be simply ripping if you lived here all the time?”

“Not for Elsie,” said Gene shortly with sudden gloom getting up and going over to the kitchen window, where he stood looking out with his back turned so that his sister could not see his face. His back, however, was eloquent. Elsie remembered it for many a night as she lay trying to think out her life and plan what to do.

At present, however, she only answered quietly: “I’m not so sure about that, Gene. I think it would be rather nice.”

She hadn’t intended saying it at all. She did not know until that moment that she had arrived in her thoughts even so far as that; but, having said it, she felt content to let it go, and was thrilled with the instant flash of joy in her brothers’ eyes as they both wheeled and stared at her.

“My! Kid! You don’t know how we’d like that!” said Gene. “If you ever got where you could consider that, we’d do anything we knew how to show you a good time. This house has been an awful mess, you know, ever since mother died.”

His voice died away wistfully.

“I know!” said Elsie softly, pitifully. “I’m afraid you thought me awfully selfish and hard-hearted; but, indeed, I never realized till the other day when I came out and found everything—well, you know—the way it was.”

“Gee! Elsie if you come back and live, I’ll stay in every evening, and play tiddleywinks with you!” declared Jack. “I’ll get up and get your breakfast every morning, and dry the dishes nights, and you shall have half my pay!”

“Jack, why don’t you buy a dear little single brass bed for your room? It wouldn’t cost much,” interrupted Elsie in the midst of a bear hug he was giving her.

“I will!” said Jack, bringing his fist down on the moulding-board till all the little uncooked doughnuts quivered. “Say, Elsie, will you go with me to buy it? Gee! Elsie but I certainly was glad to have those curtains. And you fixed my room up something fine. That dinky bed quilt and all the other little doo-dads! Why, I like to wake up in the night now just to think where I am. It’s pretty as a red wagon.”

They rollicked through the afternoon, half playfully, half seriously. Yet through it all Elsie knew that they had a great longing for her to be with them all the time, and she felt the drawing of their desire in her own heart. Two months before, if anyone had proposed her going home to live, she would have cried her eyes out at the thought of it, and have fled from the suggestion as if at the thought of slavery. Now it seemed an altogether right and pleasant proposition, and she really felt a degree of pleasurable excitement in contemplating such a possibility. Besides, it was dear to have two big brothers wanting one. It was something so new and charming that Elsie forgot for the time being all that she would have to leave behind in going away from her aunt’s.

It was growing dusk when the father came home, and Elsie had been thinking about staying to supper.

“I’ll take you home, you know,” said Jack wistfully. “And here comes Dad, too,” he added, looking out of the window somewhat anxiously; then, after an instant’s hesitation, during which he watched the coming figure intently, his voice rang out happily again, with something like relief in it, Elsie thought.

“Yes, that’s Dad! He’s all right, and he’ll want to see you. Dad’s been all kinds of curious to know who’s been doing all this. He’s come home straight, and early, too, to see if he can’t catch you, I’ll bet!”

Elsie with her cheeks prettily pink went forward to meet her father, and put up her lips to kiss him. There was no breath of liquor about him tonight. Jack had known that by some subtle sense when he had said, “Dad’s all right.”

She stayed to supper. Of course she stayed to supper. Could mortal girl resist the appeal she saw in all their faces?

Her father, after the first greeting, sank into a chair and watched her, alternately sighing and burying his face in his hands, his head bowed.

It was a beautiful supper, with Elsie in her mother’s place opposite her father and the boys one on each side. They all felt as if it were a party, and the girl’s cheeks blazed charmingly with all the pleasant compliments her brothers paid her, while the father sat and looked at her, and told her how she seemed as her mother did when he first met her.

After supper the boys helped wash up the dishes and then they all went to the piano. Elsie playing, the brothers standing around her, singing with her or listening, and watching her white fingers on the keys. Jack entirely forgot that he had a date with the fellows, and Gene shut his eyes to a game of poker he had promised to play that evening down at the clubrooms over the firehouse. When Elsie finally remembered that the people at home would be anxious about her, it was late indeed.

She had not realized how much this visit had meant to her father till she came to say good-bye to him, and found his tears upon her cheek. He put his face down into her neck, and sobbed, and called her his little girl, and she suddenly knew that this sad, grave man loved her deeply. Why hadn’t she known it before? Had it been right, even for her sake, to tear a family apart like that and separate their lives so thoroughly?

Jack took her home as he promised, and on the way she found out a good many things about her younger brother. For one thing she discovered that he had never finished high school, had just quit because he and the teachers “didn’t hit it,” he said. He had gone to work where his mechanical skill and his natural brightness had brought him good wages, but he spent all without anything to show for it, and he was just drifting through life without any particular aim or ambition.

Jack was jolly and sociable. He could tell more jokes in a minute than anybody she ever met, and he was happy beyond expression to be seeing his beautiful sister home.

As they neared Aunt Esther’s house, walking from the corner where they left the trolley car, Elsie saw Bettina at the window looking out for her, and knew her escort would be recognized and that a storm was in process of preparation for her. She was glad that Jack laughingly declined to come in, and she bade him an affectionate good-bye and went upstairs to the sitting-room to face what she knew was awaiting her.

B
etina, in the sitting-room window, announced the arrival.

“Mother, there comes Elsie at last! And she has been to Morningside, just as I said. Jack’s coming home with her. They’re right under the electric light now. My! But Jack’s grown awfully handsome! Really, Katharine, you ought to come here and look at him. He’s quite stunning.”

“That’s just what I was afraid of!” said Aunt Esther. “Elsie has been coaxed off there again; and she’s slaving away her young life for that drunkard and his miserable sons, who are too lazy and shiftless to lift a finger to better their own condition. The next thing we hear her father will be saying that she has got to come home and live. And after we’ve had all the trouble of bringing her up and steering her through all the hard years of her life. I declare there’s no such thing as gratitude in this world!”