Sister Sue/Chapter 20

by Eleanor H. Porter

 

CHAPTER XX

MISTS, SUNSHINE, AND CLOUDS

It was the beginning, but the end was not yet. John Gilmore rallied from the sickness that had kept him in bed a week, and was so well by Christmas that when the letter came from Cousin Abby, Sister Sue wrote she might come.

Yes, Cousin Abby had written a very pitiful letter. She said she was sick, and had spent all her money trying to get well. She wished she could die quickly, but the doctors said it would probably be several months, maybe a year, before she did die, and here she was, still living on! Money all gone and not well enough now to earn any more! She asked, then, could she come to Gilmoreville? She could go, she supposed, to some charity home or hospital; but the thought was torture to her. At most she had but a few more months to live, and she would like to spend them among her own kin and die peacefully with some one of her own people to close her eyes. And Sister Sue was so good, so kind! Why, if she could be with Sister Sue she would n't mind the loss of home and money nor even the pain. Could she come? She would n't be any bother. It was her heart. It would just stop beating some day. There were pains at times, oh, awful pains. But she was not sick in bed and she could wait on herself. She would wait on herself if only Sister Sue would say, yes, she might come.

And Sister Sue had said yes. And Cousin Abby came. A faded, forlorn Cousin Abby, with graying hair and sad eyes, and none of the brisk alertness that used to "order the maids about and cut a dash with the motor car," as Gordon had once described her.

True to her promise, she was, indeed, not much trouble to care for (until toward the end, which came in August), but, inasmuch as she spent most of her waking hours in bemoaning her own sad fate, or the "terrible catastrophe that had befallen dear Cousin John and his family," her conversation was not only uncomfortable, but was exceedingly depressing, and Sister Sue oftentimes wondered how she could combat or even endure it.

When May learned of Cousin Abby's circumstances, the letter and its result, she promptly informed Sister Sue that, of course, she understood that this had made it utterly impossible for her to come to Gilmoreville this summer. That Cousin Abby always had been very distasteful to her, and that certainly now, with a sensitive child like Martia to consider, to go there was quite out of the question. They should go to the shore for the entire summer. That she hoped Sister Sue would understand their absence from Gilmoreville this summer was not any intentional slight to her father, but was occasioned entirely by Sister Sue's own selfishness in entertaining a guest that made other guests impossible.

Sister Sue gasped a little at the "selfishness," but beyond a pleasant note to May, regretting her decision to absent herself from Gilmoreville, she made no comment.

Gordon wrote that they, too, would not be up to Gilmoreville, though he did not give Cousin Abby's presence as the excuse. He wrote as the proud father of a new baby. He was afraid the journey would be quite unsafe for either his wife or his son.

Sister Sue, therefore, except for her father and Cousin Abby, was alone all through the summer, which was well, as it turned out, for the poor little invalid guest was a great sufferer the last two months of her life, and Sister Sue, with her pupils and all, had her hands quite full enough as it was.

In September, two weeks after the funeral, Donald Kendall came to his mother's home for a week's visit. He had been in town just ten minutes when he hurried over to his neighbors to tell Sister Sue that there was nothing the matter with his good right arm this time, and, indeed, there certainly did not seem to be, judging by the way he made use of it during the seven days he was there. From morning until night (and it would apparently have been from night until morning if Donald Kendall could have had his way) the two were playing every spare minute that Sister Sue could wring from her busy life. And when the week was over, Sister Sue declared to herself that that one week had fully compensated for the long summer of distress and discomfort, besides fortifying her for whatever the future had in store. It seemed so good to live with real music, once more, Sister Sue told herself. Nor did it occur to her that the player of the music, the real music, had anything more to do with her rest and refreshment and joy than that he was merely the willing instrument through which the music poured.

It did occur to Granny Preston. After Donald Kendall had gone, she asked the question of Sister Sue: "If your father got better, really himself again, so ye could leave him all right, would ye go on, that is, I mean have ye given up all idea of ever goin' on an' bein' that concert player ye wanted ter be?"

Sister Sue's face instantly flamed into excited eagerness.

"Give it up? No, no! Indeed, no! If Father should get better, and if I wasn't too old—! I'm only twenty-five now, you know! I could do it! I know I could! You should hear the nice things Mr. Kendall says about my playing. Oh, no, I have n't given it up—not yet!"

All of which only goes to prove that not even yet were those clamorous calls of "Encore! Encore! Susanna Gilmore! Encore!" quite silenced in Sister Sue's ears.

But Mrs. Preston only sent a sharp glance over her spectacles and grunted "Humph!"

Martin Kent's newest book came out in October. As usual, Sister Sue received an autographed copy from the author, and very promptly read it. As was usual, also, she wrote a note of congratulations and best wishes to her brother-in-law. The note this year had been a little harder than heretofore to write. Sister Sue worried a little over it after she dispatched it. She hoped it had not shown the disappointment she had felt in the book. She had been growing more and more disappointed in them all, but this latest was quite the worst, she thought. He had named it "Blixie." It was obviously an imitation of his first and only success, "Trixie," and a weak one at that.

That her fears about her note were not groundless Sister Sue realized very soon, for a letter quickly came from May reading as follows:

You don't like "Blixie" [she began abruptly, after the salutation]; anybody could see that from your letter. Martin was real hurt. I do wish you could have kept it from him. I had an awful time with him. He was really very much troubled, coming as it did on top of all the rest. That is, you don't know it, perhaps, but I mean the criticisms on "Blixie"; they're horrid! Perfectly horrid! They say it's nothing but a very weak imitation of "Trixie" and that he's tried to duplicate that wonderful success and failed miserably.

Martin was feeling especially out of fix when your letter came, for he'd just been reading a criticism saying: "Martin Kent was evidently destined to be that deplorable but very common anomaly in the literary world, the author of one book no matter how many books may follow the single success." The mean things! I'm sure I don't know what they do want. It's all their own fault, anyway. They've never liked a single one of Martin's books since "Trixie." When he wrote "The Unknown Highway" they said it was nothing so good as "Trixie" and was unlike that wonderful little gem, and that the author would have done a great deal better to stick to the line of his original success. And they said the same sort of things about his other books. Well, now this year he tried to stick to the line of his original success. He tried to write a story like "Trixie." And now what does he get? He's "copying," if you please! And doing it very poorly, too! It makes me sick! It's positively disgusting!

Besides, it's really serious, from the money point of view, I mean. None of his books have been much of a success except "Trixie," and Martin's preaching economy to me now all the time. He says we've got to economize. I tell him that I'll have to go trying my hand again at writing. I did get one story accepted, you know.

The letter closed then with a few words about Martia and about the weather. But there was a postscript, which said:

If you can think up anything nice to say about "Blixie" when you write, for Heaven's sake say it!

Sister Sue, however, could not think up anything apparently. At all events, she evidently forgot all about the postscript the next time she wrote.

As the winter came on, John Gilmore grew more feeble. He came less frequently downstairs now, spending much of his time sitting quietly in his room looking out upon his snow-covered garden. He did not seem to be suffering any pain and Sister Sue refused to think that he was really not so well.

"It is just that he can't get out of doors," she said to Mrs. Preston one day. "He'll be all right when spring comes and he can get to digging in his beloved garden again."

She said the same thing to Donald Kendall one day just after Christmas. (The violinist had come on to spend the holidays, ostensibly with his mother, though in reality he seemed to be spending them with her neighbor, Sister Sue.) It was then that Donald Kendall, curiously enough, asked Sister Sue a similar question to that asked by Mrs. Preston not very long before:

"Miss Gilmore, have you quite given up all idea of a musical career? That is, if your father should get very much better so that he did not need you at all, would you take up your music again?"

He had asked the question diffidently, and Sister Sue smiled. He was thinking of that peremptory command of his that she go with him as his accompanist, of course! But she would show him most emphatically that that could n't be.

So she answered him very much as she had answered Mrs. Preston; and she let him understand that, yes, oh, yes, she assuredly should go on with her music.

"I should go straight to Signor Bartoni," she declared, "and I should ask him to put me in shape again, if 't was necessary, and then tell me where to go and what to do to train myself for a concert pianist."

She said more, very much more. Because she believed that Donald Kendall had sympathetic ears and would understand, she let him see deep into her heart, deeper than ever before, of what had been her hopes, her longings, her ambitions. And when she had finished and had turned back to the piano, flushed and trembling with the excitement of anticipation, Donald Kendall realized a little something of what those long years of sacrifice and waiting had meant to this girl whose companionship he so craved. But to it all Donald Kendall made no answer. He ejaculated a short "Humph!" then he lifted his violin to position and began to play furiously the scherzo on the rack before him—playing it at almost double his usual tempo.

Donald Kendall had understood, but he had not sympathized. For Donald Kendall had seen the vision of Sister Sue, as the "great artiste," bowing her appreciation to the applauding multitudes, and he had heard again, more clearly than before, that clamorous call of "Encore! Encore! Susanna Gilmore! Encore!" and he was not pleased. It was not now for an accompanist on his concert tours that he wanted Sister Sue. He had found that out. He wanted her accompaniment, yes, he told himself bitterly, passionately, but it was her accompaniment to all his life, not merely to his violin. And if still she was cherishing hopes of pursuing that infernal career of hers, one—!

With a crashing cadence of staccato double-stopping he brought the scherzo to a sudden close and abruptly and very formally took his leave.

Once more it appeared that this wisp of a tantalizing bit of femininity was not going to give him what he wanted when he wanted it. And, like the spoiled child that he was, Donald Kendall went home and sulked. Lying awake in the night, however, he had decided that, even so, there was no reason why he should deprive himself of the pleasure of her pianoforte accompaniments whenever he could have them. So, as usual, in the morning he went over to her house promptly at nine o'clock, though he had to content himself with the magazines on the living-room table for a full hour till the departure of Sister Sue's pupils gave her a short time of freedom to play for him.

The thought that he might as well enjoy these exceedingly satisfying accompaniments as long and as often as he could must have occurred again and yet again to Donald Kendall, for that winter he fell into the way of running up to Gilmoreville between engagements, on one or two days' visits, and in the month of May he thought he had found a whole week to stay.

But Donald Kendall did not stay the whole week. He stayed three days and then went away. And his going was very much like the running away of a man who had found his feet on the edge of an engulfing quicksand and felt the ground underneath him already slipping. Donald Kendall knew now that he could not go on indefinitely "enjoying" those accompaniments. He was beginning to love the player altogether too well to want to see her like this and be with her like this, and yet know that it would always be like this, nothing more, and not even this after she was free to live her own life.

And Donald Kendall believed that she would be free very soon now. He had seen John Gilmore many times during the winter and had watched him moving about and felt then that the feeble old gentleman could not live through till spring, surely not a month longer now. He learned, too, from his mother, that the general belief in the village was that the end was near. When that end came the girl would be free to live her own life. In Donald Kendall's eyes was the vision of her as she had talked to him that December day, flushed, palpitating, and shining-eyed; and to his ears came again very distinctly the clamorous "Encore! Encore! Susanna Gilmore! Encore!" that her glowing words had evoked.

In December he had loved her and he had run away—for a night, because he loved her and could not have her for his own. He still loved her and he was going to run away again. This time for always—perhaps. He now loved her too well to ask her to give up her dreams of success for the sake of marrying him; and he loved her so well now that he did not dare remain and run the risk of sometime letting her see just how dear she was to him and how necessary she was to his happiness. Was he, after all her long years of waiting and self-sacrifices, going to bring to her dear eyes one shadow of regret or of disappointment, just as she saw the way opening wide before her to the long-looked-for goal? Never! Let her spread her wings and fly. Let her have her glorious flight out into the freedom, with the wide, wide world open before her, and without a thought of any one behind her who would be looking after her with longing eyes and outstretching arms. Let her go out unshackled and unhampered. Then, after she had tasted the sweets of fame and success and had found they were not sweet after all, and after she had come to feel wearied with the incessant bowing of her thanks and bored by the everlasting demand for encores, it might be then that she would be glad to come into the circle of his arms and let him love and care for her all the rest of the days of her life. But now—now—he could not, dare not, remain another day, not another day.

And so on the evening of the third day he went through the side gate and up the garden walk with a very determined air—and he did not carry his violin. He had planned to stay as short a time as possible.

"I have come to say good-bye," he began in a particularly gay voice, as he ascended the steps.

"G-good-bye?" Sister Sue's voice was startled. "Why, I thought you were going to stay a week! And where is your violin?"

"That's it—I can't stay—and I did n't bring it. That's what I came over to tell you—I'm going away—" Rapidly talked the man and in the same particularly gay voice. "I'm going to-morrow morning—invitation" (which was true)—"week-end—to the Bentons'—down at the North Shore. They've just opened up their cottage."

"The—the Bentons—at the—North Shore—" Sister Sue echoed the names because evidently she knew not what else to say. Her eyes were puzzled, questioning.

"Yes, the Bentons," he nodded. Then, because he wanted to talk of anything but themselves and their own minds and feelings, he plunged at once into a somewhat voluble description of his host's family. "Nice people. Really a good sort, you know, in spite of their loads of money. There's a daughter Beth who sings, and a daughter Helen who paints—very well, too. Then there are two boys, twins, in Harvard. There's always something doing at the Bentons', you may be sure."

"Yes I—I should think so," murmured Sister Sue.

"And—so I'm going to-morrow—yes, to-morrow morning."

He said more, quite a little more. He told of various experiences he had had in times past at the Bentons' cottage down at the North Shore, and he told what he imagined he would do this time. He rose to his feet then a little abruptly and, before Sister Sue quite realized what was happening, he was gone.

On the porch, alone, Sister Sue shivered as if with a sudden chill. Pulling her coat a little more closely about her, she waited a moment, then went into the house. She sat down at the piano after a while and began to play, and there was in her music a thread of questioning that seemed not to have found an answer even when the player rose from the piano a long half-hour later.

 

John Gilmore did not die that spring, nor in a month, nor yet in two months. He lived on through the summer and into the next winter. But he took to his bed in June and from that time he suffered in a way that made his days and nights a torture not only to him, but to his daughter Sue as well.

In July, May came up with Martin, but they stayed only a few days. May said she was much too sensitive to stand anything like that. Later, Gordon came with Mabel and little Gordon, Jr. Mabel begged to be allowed to stay. She said she knew she could help Sister Sue a little; but Gordon insisted that she go back with him. He said that she was delicate and nervous and had not fully regained her strength from her operation in the spring. Besides, he said, the baby's crying might disturb their father, and anyhow he wanted them with him. So, reluctantly, Mabel went back with Gordon. Sister Sue was alone then with her father except for Delia in the kitchen. Both May and Gordon had suggested a nurse, and one had been hired for a time, but was soon dismissed. Her presence annoyed the sick man, and her ministrations seemed to make him worse rather than better. True to his habit for so long, John Gilmore wanted his daughter Sue—no one else. Fortunately he did not, through the summer, need very frequent attentions, so Sister Sue was still enabled to keep on with her pupils, much to her satisfaction and relief. She not only wanted the money, but she felt she must, at least a part of the time, have something else to think of and to do, something that would take her mind not only off her father's sufferings but also off herself.

Sister Sue was ashamed and dismayed. She admitted it to herself now. She was in love with a man who not only was supremely indifferent to herself,—of that she was very sure,—but very evidently was in love with another woman—a Beth who sang or a Helen who painted.

Sister Sue wondered sometimes just how long she really had been caring for Donald Kendall. She had suspected it first at the time when he had gone away so suddenly that week in May and she had found how empty were those three last days of the week which she had expected would be so full. But she had put the thought out of her mind at once with an indignant "Absurd! Ridiculous! Why, the idea!" In spite of this, however, she found herself watching for his return and even asking Mrs. Kendall one day when her son was coming back. It was the answer, perhaps, that had really opened her eyes to that which she had before refused to see in her heart.

"Back here? Well, not at all, I'm afraid, this summer," said Mrs. Kendall. "He's gone now on a yachting cruise with the Bentons and I can't see, from the plans he tells me of, that he's leaving any time at all for Gilmoreville. A shabby way to treat his mother, I think, don't you?"

"Y-ye-yes, I do!" Sister Sue stammered, wondering if the sudden tightness that seemed to take her very breath did show in her face.

She got away then as soon as she could, appalled at the thing she now knew beyond all doubt; a conviction that no "absurd!" or "nonsense!" or "the very idea!" could silence.

She knew now why the days were so long and empty immediately after Donald Kendall had gone. She knew now why the past winter with its frequent visits from Donald Kendall had seemed so short. She knew now why the Beth who sang and the Helen who painted had always given her a vague uneasiness and the desire to banish them at once from her thoughts. She knew now, too, something else. She knew that never, never, had she loved, really loved, Martin Kent. Last of all she knew, at least she was very sure she knew, that Donald Kendall did not love her. If he had loved her, would he have gone away in the middle of a week to a Beth who sang and a Helen who painted? And if he had loved her, would he not have come up at least once during all that long, long summer? Giving herself the only answers to these questions she thought possible as being true, it is no wonder, perhaps, that Sister Sue was ashamed and dismayed, and that she was glad of even a bungling scale played by Johnny Smith to get her mind off herself. And so the long summer passed and September came.

And September brought Donald Kendall.

Sister Sue knew that he was coming, but she did not know the time of his expected arrival. She hated herself because each day her feet would every little while take her to the window commanding a view of the Kendalls' front walk and because her ears each day would listen for the sound of a motor car coming up the street. At five o'clock one day he came, and at half-past seven he rang the Gilmores' doorbell. For fifteen uncomfortable minutes he sat stiffly erect on the old haircloth-covered sofa making polite inquiries as to the state of her own health and that of John Gilmore and talking of inconsequential nothings. Then he arose to go. And because he was so desperately afraid he would take her in his arms and tell her that he could not live without her, he rambled on very gayly about his yachting cruise with the Bentons. And because Sister Sue was so desperately afraid she would show him how she longed to put her head on his shoulder and be petted and comforted, she gave little hard, short laughs and said she was so glad he'd had such a lovely time—and were the Bentons all well, especially the charming daughter who sang and the other one who painted?

Then they shook hands and the outer door banged. On one side of it Donald Kendall strode down the steps with a choking sound in his throat that might have passed for a cough. On the other side Sister Sue threw herself into the big chair with a sound in her throat that would never have been mistaken for anything in the world but what it was—a great, big sob.

It was that night that the real beginning of the end came with John Gilmore. He had a bad sinking spell, and when he came out of it he was feebler than ever in mind and body, though his sufferings seemed less. A nurse had to be sent for, and her coming disturbed him not at all. Yet he lingered, with the strangely tenacious hold on life that the frailest of invalids sometimes show, through October and November and into December, going peacefully to sleep at last just before the New Year.