The Prodigal Girl (8 page)

Suddenly from out of the still darkness came her husband’s voice:

“Eleanor, are you awake?”

How did he know? She had not stirred. She was alert at once, a pang of fear at her heart.

“Yes, what is it? Do you feel worse?”

His voice sounded as if it came from far away, years ago; as if a great many things had happened since they last talked. He ignored her question as if it had not been.

“Eleanor, would it crush you entirely to give up our life here, in this house, in this town?”

He asked it anxiously, apprehensively, as if he knew he was asking a great thing and was sad for her to have to answer such a question.

Fear gripped her heart, and for an instant all speech left her. It had come, then! Chester had failed. In spite of his bright hopes, all was lost. They were going to be
poor!
Somehow she had never considered that possible. Poor Chester! How terribly he must feel!

Then her brave heart rose to the occasion, and she summoned a cheer that she was far from feeling.

“Why, of course not, Chester. I wouldn’t think of letting a thing like that crush me. If you are only well we can make a lark out of anything else. If that’s what you are worrying about, forget it and go to sleep. It’s really most important that you get your sleep. The doctor told me so. Now just put everything aside and try to relax. We’ll talk everything over tomorrow and fix up some nice plan.”

“You don’t understand, Eleanor,” he said, almost sternly. “This isn’t something that can be put off. We’ve got to act, at once. It is imperative! Eleanor, we’ve got to begin our life all over again! I haven’t told you everything—”

“Don’t try to, dear,” she said eagerly. “Just let it wait. I’m ready to do whatever you think best, of course, but you really must get some rest.”

“I can’t rest until this is settled,” he said decidedly. “I’ve got to act immediately, the first thing in the morning. There isn’t an hour to lose. I’ve been thinking it over in every detail, and there’s only one thing to do. But I’ve got to have your hearty cooperation or it will be a failure.”

“Haven’t I always cooperated, Chester?” she asked half tearfully, feeling a premonition of even more than she had feared.

She leaned toward him, and her hand stole within his. He gripped it feverishly, eagerly, as if it was something strong and comforting to hold to.

“You certainly have, dear, always. You’re a wonderful woman. That is why I shrink from putting this all upon you, especially just now when I had so hoped that I was going to be able to make life beautiful and easy for you from now on. But I see no other solution for our problems.”

Bravely she rose to the occasion as she always had for lesser troubles:

“Then, Chester, let’s accept it and get a good time out of it somehow, as we always have.”

“Bless you, my dear!” said Chester, folding her hand closer and giving it a firmer clasp. “Well, then, wonderful little woman, how soon can you be ready to start?”

She caught her breath with the thought of all she was going to give up. Their lovely home into which they had put so many comforts and sweet memories. Their host of friends! The good schools—all the things that were so superior and had brought them to Briardale in preference to any other suburb. It came over her like a great shock. She had never thought it could come to this. She had expected possible economies but not to have to go away. Then she rallied her strength and forced her voice to be steady:

“Why, let me see, the dressmaker is coming next week—”

“You’ll have to cut that out. It won’t be necessary anyway, now.”

“Oh,” said Eleanor, with another shock, “perhaps not.” Poor Chester! “Why, I can’t tell without thinking. There’ll be a lot of packing and sorting to do, you know.”

“Not much!” said Chester crisply. “We’ll only need to take the barest necessities, of course good warm things, and bedding.”

A new fear gripped her. Then the failure must have been complete.

She was still for a minute trying to take it all in, and then her voice trembled back to steadiness as she asked:

“But what will we do with the house—and—and the things we are leaving behind? Won’t we have to sort—and—and—pack—”

“No,” said Chester quickly. “I’d thought of that. Hannah will be here, and she knows where everything is, and we can send for anything we may have forgotten. There are professional movers, you know, if there is anything Hannah and John can’t manage. There won’t be anything like that to hinder.”

Appalled, she considered again. At last she asked falteringly:

“Why, how soon did you think we could get off, Chester?”

“About noon tomorrow,” he answered crisply, as if it were the greatest relief in the world to have the announcement made.

Chapter 6

T
omorrow!” she gasped. “Why, Chester, it is tomorrow already, and you haven’t been to sleep yet! You know the doctor wouldn’t possibly give his consent to your traveling tomorrow!”

She said the last in a soothing tone as one would speak to a sick child who demanded cake and ice cream.

“The doctor has nothing whatever to do with this,” he said impatiently. “It is something you and I have to settle. As a matter of fact, if it comforts you any, I mentioned it to the doctor that I might be going away on a long trip tomorrow, and he seemed to think it would be the best thing I could do.”

She lay still, growing cold at the thought of the inevitable, unable for the moment to take in all that had befallen her in one short night.

She was still so long that he thought she had gone to sleep.

“Eleanor,” he asked cautiously, “you’re not asleep? Why, Eleanor, you’re not crying, are you?”

“N–no, Chester,” she managed with a little catch of her breath. “I’m just—just—thinking! It’s been rather sudden, you know.”

“You poor darling! Yes, I know. How I wish I might have saved you all this. It seems as if I couldn’t stand it for you—I—” But Eleanor roused to protest once more:

“Don’t think of it, Chester. It’s not a bit harder for me than for you. And so long as we bear things together they won’t get the better of us.”

“You were always brave, Eleanor. But I’m afraid this is going to be particularly hard for you. Going away from comfort and convenience into comparative primitive living. I’m not sure you will be able physically to stand it. And yet I can think of no other way at present.”

Primitive! She turned a startled look at him in the dark.

“Where—had you thought of—going, Chester? Had you any plan?”

“There is only one place. The old farm in Vermont. It’s ours, you know, and I’ve always meant to remodel it someday, make it livable for a summer home. There are associations of my boyhood that I’ve always clung to. But now it seems like a haven, and I guess we’ll have to put up with it as it is for a while, till we can get on our feet again and know what to do.”

Eleanor’s heart sank. Vermont! And he talked as if it was to be permanent! It must be that he was already out of the firm, or he would not think he could run away at a moment’s notice this way. He must be really down and out. She had never seen him give up like this. How terrible!

She roused to her maternal tone.

“Nonsense!” she said briskly. “It will be a lark! I’ve always wanted to go there, and we never seemed to get around to it. Don’t worry another second. Go right to sleep, now. If it isn’t comfortable we’ll make it so, somehow. And it will be good for us to have to go without some of the luxuries we’ve been surrounded with so long that we don’t really have sense enough to be grateful for. What do you think I am? A butterfly? A peacock?”

“But there’s no running water, Eleanor—” he explained anxiously.

“Well, there’s likely some kind of water, isn’t there? And we can do the running ourselves.” She actually summoned a bright little laugh. “The twins will just enjoy carrying water.”

“And no electric lights or gas—” went on the sad, honest voice.

Eleanor was appalled, but she only hesitated a minute.

“We’ll make a bonfire then,” she flashed at him. “Now, will you go to sleep?”

“And you are willing to start tomorrow?” he asked anxiously.

“If you feel well enough in the morning,” she promised. “Come, go to sleep quick, or I can’t get up in time to get ready!” and she deliberately turned over on her pillow and pretended to settle down for sleep.

“It will be very cold up there, Eleanor. You’ll need all the warm clothes you can get, and blankets.”

“All right!” said Eleanor briskly to hide the plunk of a great tear that was rolling down her cheek.

“You’ll have to wear flannel,
real
flannel, you know. You can’t get along with flimsy silk stuff such as you wear down here.”

Eleanor was still a minute over a new thought:

“Hasn’t that house been shut up for several years? Won’t it be very damp? Do you think it will be safe to go in? We might all get sick!”

“There’s been a caretaker living in the back part until a month ago. His son-in-law got hurt, and they went down to Albany to live with the daughter and help her out. It can’t be so very damp. And there are stoves. It won’t take long to rustle a fire.”

There was almost eagerness in his voice, a yearning toward the scenes of his boyhood.

Eleanor’s heart sank again. Rustle a fire! What mysterious thing was that! She had never made a fire in her life, nor come any nearer to it than to set a match to the fire in the fireplace, or stir it up and put on a stick. What was the new life going to mean? Surely, surely, it couldn’t last. But she must be brave. Something would turn up to lighten the burden! When Chester got better he would be back in business again and would soon right their fortunes. At least the change would not be bad for him now. She could see he was almost attracted by it! But the children! How would they take it? Such a shame to take them from their schools where they were doing so well and were so attached. Suddenly she voiced her trouble:

“You don’t think, Chester, that maybe there would be some way to—well, to hold it off a little till the school year was up? Or maybe leave the children here with friends to finish? It’s going to be so embarrassing for them not to get their credits for the year’s work when they have been doing so well. Helen Winslow would take Betty, I’m sure, and maybe Jane. Of course it wouldn’t matter so much about the kiddies. They are young yet. But Chris and Betty ought to finish the grade and not miss a whole year or even six months.”

“Eleanor!”

Chester Thornton sat up abruptly, regardless of the bandage on his head.

“Eleanor! You don’t understand! I wish you didn’t have to either, but you must. No, don’t try to stop me. I’ll have to explain now. Do you know where I found Betty tonight? Up at Todd’s Tavern at the side of the road, in a dark car, lying in the arms of the foulest-mouthed boy it has ever been my fate to hear speak, and she was smoking a cigarette!”

“Oh, Chester!” cried Eleanor as if he had stabbed her, the tears flowing unguarded down her cheeks now. “Oh, Chester! Surely, surely you must be mistaken. Isn’t that
awful
! Oh, but at least—I cannot think it was Betty’s fault! Someone else has—”

“I’m not so sure!” said Betty’s father grimly. “Do you know what she said when I spoke with her? She called me an antique and said I had a Victorian complex! And when I tried to tell her what that little viper had said about her in the train she only laughed and said he was no worse than any other boy of their set, that
everybody
talked ‘frankly’ nowadays. People didn’t have foolish reserves the way they used to, and it was a great deal better. She even hinted that she thought that you and I had probably indulged in the same indecencies when we were young. And she added quite significantly, that I needn’t worry, that she
knew how to take care of herself!”

Eleanor gasped and sobbed brokenheartedly for a minute then pleaded sadly:

“But Chester, really, Betty wouldn’t have
meant
all those things. She really
wouldn’t
. You know that kind of talk is a kind of fad nowadays. The girls put on that sort of thing, but they don’t
really mean
it all.”

“Eleanor!” said Chester Thornton, and his voice was sternness itself. “Is it possible that
you
can excuse a thing like that?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not,” said Eleanor quickly, stifling the great sob that seemed to engulf her. “No, I wouldn’t
uphold
it, of course not! Only really, I don’t think
Betty
had an idea of meaning all that. She must just have been copying some of the other girls—”

“Well, we’ll put her where she won’t have any of that kind to copy, then,” said her father firmly. “Eleanor, where have we been? What have we been doing? Sleeping? That this thing could have burst upon us full fledged? Do you know our eldest son came in drunk tonight? Positively drunk? Do you know he had been in one of the lowest places in this city all the evening gambling? He told me so. He was drunk enough not to realize what he was revealing!”

“Oh, Chester! Chester!” said Eleanor.
“Surely
someone else was to blame for that. Someone gave it to him without his realizing what he was drinking. I’m sure he wouldn’t drink—not
really drink—our Chris!
Or if he did I’m sure he never did it before—”

“I’m afraid not,” said the father sadly, “I found a flask in his pocket with his initials on it from some fool of a girl, and it was not a new flask, either. Chris knew well enough what he was doing, Eleanor!”

Eleanor crumpled down into her pillow and felt as if the world had come to an end. How could all these awful things have come to her in one brief evening!

“And little Jane,” went on the father, as if he were but thinking aloud. “Little Jane. If you could have seen her, leering, making eyes at those fellows, flinging her legs around in the most indecent way for those great loafers to watch her. I won’t repeat the words that passed between them. It was too disgusting. Where have we been, Eleanor, that our children could have got away from us this way? Oh, we have been asleep!” He groaned aloud.