Part 9 (1/2)

And it had a dear mother-face peeping in at the door to chide her gently if she sat too late writing those long letters to d.i.c.k.

The memory of it all came over her with such a rush that she felt she must throw herself upon that broad white bed and sob herself sick. But she sat still, holding her hands tightly clenched, and choking back the tears. She had work to do and she must be ready for that work. To give way in private meant inefficiency in public to-morrow.

School-teaching was a new, untried field of labour for her, and if she went to bed and cried herself to sleep, as she wanted to do, she would have a headache for to-morrow and she would fail. And she must not fail, she told herself desperately; she dared not fail, for Mother was depending upon her success. And yet she had no idea how that success was to be gained. She knew only too well that she was not fitted for her task. She had never wanted to teach school, and had never dreamed she would need to. Her place had always been at home, and a big place she had filled as Mother's help and the minister's right hand. But her father had insisted upon her taking her teacher's certificate. ”It's easy to carry about, Nellie,” he was wont to say, ”and may come useful some day.”

So Helen had gone, with good-natured indulgence of Father's whim, and studied at a training school, with one eye on her books and the other watching for d.i.c.k to come up the street. And when she brought home her despised diploma, there was a diamond ring on the hand that placed it on her father's desk. That had been a year ago. And almost immediately after, her father had been taken from them. The old home went next. The boys and girls scattered to earn their own living.

Mother had gone with Betty, who had married, and who lived away in the West. And then the last and best treasure had been taken, the diamond with its marvellous lights and colours, and with it had gone out all the light and colour of life.

She was just twenty-three, and she had been given the task of working out a new strange life unaided, with nothing ahead of her but work and loneliness.

At first she had given way to a numb despair, then necessity and the needs of the family aroused her. There was something for her to do, something that had to be done, and back of all the wreck of her life, dimmed by clouds of sorrow, there stood her father's G.o.d. In spite of all the despair and dismay she felt instinctively He must be somewhere, behind it all. She did not know as yet, that that a.s.surance spelled hope. But she knew that there was work for her and there was Mother waiting until she should make her a home.

She sprang up, as her misery threatened to overwhelm her again, and began swiftly to change her dress and arrange her hair. She pulled back the stiff curtains of one of the tall windows and leaned out. A soft blue haze, the first glimpse of September's tender eyes, was settling on the distant hills. The sun was setting, and away up the street towards the west flamed a gold and crimson sky, and away down in the east flamed its gold and crimson reflection on the mirror of Lake Algonquin. From the garden below, the scent of the opening nicotine blossoms came up to her.

She was sitting there, trying to admire the beauty of it all, but her heart protesting against the feeling of utter loneliness it bred, when there came a sharp tap on the door. It opened the next moment and a young lady tripped in.

”Good evening, Miss Murray. I just bounced in to say welcome to Rosemount. I'm so glad you've come. I've just been dying to have a girl in the house of my own age.”

She caught Helen's two hands in hers with genuine kindliness.

She was a plump fair lady with fluffy yellow hair and big blue eyes.

She was dressed in a pink flowered muslin trimmed with girlish frills and wore a big hat wreathed with nodding roses. Helen was puzzled.

This wasn't Miss Annabel, then; for her mother had said the Misses Armstrong were both over forty.

”I'm Annabel Armstrong,” she said, settling the question. Helen gave her a second look and saw that Miss Annabel carried signs of maturity in her face and form, albeit she carried them very blithely indeed.

”And I can't tell you how glad I am you've come. You'll just adore Algonquin. It's the gayest place on earth, a dance or a tea or a bridge or some sort of kettle-drum every day. What a love of a dress!

It's the very colour of your eyes, my dear. Come away now; you must meet Mother. She always takes supper in her own room now, and I must carry it to her. Our little maid is about as much use as a p.u.s.s.y-cat and if I'm not in the kitchen every ten minutes to tramp on her tail she'll go to sleep. Come along!”

She danced away down the hall, Helen following her, feeling extremely old and prim. Grandma Armstrong's bedroom was at the back of the house overlooking the orchard and kitchen-garden. She was sitting up in bed, a very handsome little old lady in cap and ribbons. She gave the strange girl's hand a gentle pressure.

”Here she is, Muzzy,” cried Miss Annabel in an apologetic tone. ”It's too bad you didn't see her sooner, but she was so busy.”

”Indeed I generally notice that I am left to the last, when any new person comes to the house,” said Grandma Armstrong in a grieved tone.

”Well, my dear, I am pleased to see the Rev. Walter Murray's son in my house. You look like him--yes, very much, just the image of him in fact, only of course he was a man and wore a portmanteau when I knew him.”

Grandma Armstrong's separate faculties were all alert and as keen as they had ever been in youth. But some strange lack of connection between her tongue and her memory, seemed to have befallen the old lady, so that they did not always agree, and she was wont to intersperse her otherwise quite intelligent conversation with words having no remotest connection with the context.

”A moustache, you mean, Muzzy dear,” said her daughter. ”Mother forgets you know,” she added, in a hasty, low apology to Helen.

”Why do you interrupt me, Annabel? I said a moustache. I hope you sleep well here, my dear. I had that room of yours for some time, but I had to move back here, I could never get to sleep after they put up the Israelite at the corner. It shone right over my bed. Let me see now. You are the second daughter, are you not? Your father was a fine man, my dear. Yes, indeed. We knew him well as a student. He preached one summer in--where was that, Annabel? Alaska?”

”Muskoka, Mother.”

”Oh, yes, Muskoka, and the Rev. Walter Hislop, your father, was there as a student.”

”Murray, you mean, Mother.”

”Don't interrupt me, Annabel. Your uncle preached there two summers, my dear, and I thought my daughter Annabel and he--”

”It was Elizabeth, Mother, not me! Good gracious, how old do you think I am?” demanded Miss Annabel, quite alarmed.