She left him, closing the door and going at once to her own packing of which she made short work, folding into the remaining suitcase her own and her husband’s plainest garments.
Hannah came up while she was doing it.
“Now, Mis’ Thornton, wha’ kin I do? I got the supper packed in the hamper, an’ I got a pot of soup on fer you all ta eat. What you want I should do after you all leave?”
She began as she spoke to smooth up the bed and tidy the room with a deft touch here and there that made it much easier to sort out things and pack.
Mrs. Thornton could hear Chris splashing about in the bathroom and knew that in course of time he would appear, so she gave Hannah a few directions and sat down to write some of the notes that she felt were imperative to send before she left. If Chris got ready in time he could take them, if not she would leave them for Hannah to deliver.
But Chris when he appeared was not inclined to deliver notes.
“What’s all this about going away?” he asked his mother, frowning as he stood imperiously in the door of her room and stared around at the suitcases and the general air of devastation the packing had wrought in his mother’s usually neat room.
His mother was finishing an important note and did not answer at once, and Chris further addressed her:
“I want you to jolly well know that I’m not going along! I’ve got important things to do here at home. If Dad’s broke I’ve got to get some money somehow, even if I have to accept a job somewhere! And you can just take my things outta that suitcase! I’m staying at home!”
His mother looked up sorrowfully, and it seemed to her that she had not really noticed before how her boy had changed. He seemed to have been suddenly transformed in a night, or was it that her eyes had suddenly been opened and she was awake now?
“Chris, there probably won’t be any home here to stay in,” she said sadly, the enormity of the situation sweeping over her anew, and the tears coming unbidden into her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.
“Whaddaya mean?” demanded Chris furiously. “No home. Whaddaya mean?”
“I mean just that. We’re going to have to leave here. I have not had time to talk with your father beyond a few minutes of planning for the immediate future, but I feel positive that the business has been swept away, at least so far as your father’s part in it is concerned. Your father has been going through a terrible ordeal, and the doctor told me last night that unless he gets immediate relief from the strain he will have a stroke of paralysis or something terrible like that. So, you see that if you make it any harder for him you may be responsible for his life!”
“Great cats!” said Chris irreverently. “Has Dad been speculating? I thought he had some sense! He had no business to let things get into a mess when he had us to take care of! A man has no right—”
“Christopher!” said his mother. “A mere boy has no right to criticize his father! Don’t let me ever hear you speak of your father like that again! You ought to be ashamed!”
“Aw well,” said Chris, walking into the room with an air of a young prince. “Looka hear, Muth. This leaves me in an awful fix. I’m broke. D’ya understand? And I’ve practically promised to buy Hal’s automobile day after tamorra. I swore I’d have the first payment for him, an’ a fella can’t let a thing like that go flooey. I ask you, cannee?”
“Chris, you don’t mean that you have bought an automobile without telling your father? You know what he said about not allowing you to drive yet!”
“Oh now, come off, Muth, don’t begin that! This is an offul good bargain. I could fix it up and sell it fer fifty or a hundred bucks more’n I paid, see? It would give me something steady to do outsida school, see? Dad’s always harpin’ on my being employed. As if a fella oughtn’tta have a little fun now an’ then.”
“Chris, for pity’s sake, don’t let’s talk about such things now. I want you to go up in the attic and bring down the large trunk over in the corner, the one with Grandfather’s initials on it. Bring it right away, quick! I’m in a great hurry. And then go back and bring down that pile of blankets at the head of the stairs.”
“Awwright, Muth, only waitaminute! I wanta ast you something. Say, Muth, this is very important to me. How much money have you got, Muth?” He lowered his voice anxiously, “B’cause, if you lend me some—about two hundred say, I’ll pay it up soon’s my allowance comes in, I mean over time, of course. I’ll pay half of my allowance every month till it’s all paid. Honest I will, Muth—”
“Chris!” said his mother, looking at him with a blanched face. “What are you talking about? What in the world could you possibly want with two hundred dollars? And you know what your father said about borrowing from me or anyone else. I couldn’t lend you any money if I had it, and I haven’t got it. I’ve just made out checks for bills we owe, which takes all but a dollar or two of what I had in the bank, and I don’t know when your father will be able to give me any more. You don’t seem to understand that your father is financially ruined. Now, will you get that trunk?”
“But Muth, I gotta have it! Right now, I gotta have it.”
He looked at her pleadingly, his miserable eyes piercing her very soul. She felt as if the earth beneath her was reeling. What had Chris got into now? At another time, even the day before, if Chris had come to her with eyes of anguish and pleaded like this she would have turned heaven and earth to get the money for him. She would have covered it up and thrown some kind of a sop to her conscience for helping him evade his father’s law about borrowing. But her eyes had been opened, at least halfway. She began to suspect that there was something wrong, something more than just what Chris put on the surface.
Downstairs the twins had come bursting into the house, home from school for lunch, and Jane’s voice could be heard outside calling merrily to her companions.
“Oh bother!” said Chris. “Oh heck! Muth, I simply gotta have that money ‘fore night! I’m up ta my eyes. My honor’s at stake!”
“Your honor?” said his father’s voice in the doorway behind him. “Your honor! Just what is it you call your honor, Chris?”
Chris turned as red as a beet. His eyes drooped, and he wheeled and faced his parent like a thing at bay. When he lifted his glance to see how angry his father was, his eyes fell again as if they had been struck.
Eleanor came forward anxiously, her eyes on her husband’s white face:
“It’s nothing you need bother about, Chester,” she said. “It’s just a little matter between me and Chris. You needn’t worry. I’m just as firm as you are when it comes to things like this. You go and lie down and let me deal with this.”
Chester’s eyes looked at her sadly, and then he turned back to the boy again, who had already brightened under his mother’s tone.
“Just a little matter of two hundred dollars,” he said, as if it were a sword that he had held back from doing damage.
“Chris, step into your room for a few minutes. I have something to say to you.”
“Why, I can’t just now, Dad. I promised to get a trunk down for Muth,” said Chris with a show of haste. “She’s waiting for it.” “Very well,” said Chester. “I’ll wait.”
Chris tugged the empty trunk down the attic stairs, with many a thump and a snort as if it were very heavy indeed, and then went back for the blankets while his father waited at the foot of the stairs courteously, until the task was completed.
“Now, if you’re quite ready, Chris, we’ll step into your room,” said Chester.
When the door closed behind the two, Eleanor Thornton sank back into her chair again and buried her face in her hands. She was so tired and frightened and worn out with various emotions that it seemed to her she must just sink down on the bed and cry.
The clamor downstairs roused her. Jane was teasing the twins, or they were teasing Jane. It didn’t matter which. There was sound of breaking crockery and Hannah’s sharp voice remonstrating. This was no time for weeping. She had promised to be ready.
She hurried downstairs and started the children to eating. Jane was clamoring that she must hurry back. They had a rehearsal of the play fifteen minutes before the afternoon session. She begged that she might have bread and butter and plum preserves and go right back, eating it on her way.
“Sit down, Jane. You’re not to go back to school today. We’re going away!”
“Going away?” screamed the twins in chorus. “Gee! Where? Can we go, too?”
“Yes, we’re all going. Now eat your lunch. There isn’t time to talk. There’s a great deal to be done. Jane, sit down! Didn’t you hear me?”
“Mamma, I can’t go anywhere today,” said Jane, assuming Betty’s best manner for the occasion. “I think it’s the limit for you to go away somewhere when you know I can’t go. You know the rehearsal lasts all this afternoon—”
“Jane, sit down, and I’ll explain. You are not going back to school. We are going away. They will have to get along without you at the rehearsal.”
“But they can’t, Mamma,” said Jane with her mouth full. “I’m in every scene. I’m really the star! It wouldn’t be honorable of me to go away and leave them in a hole!”
Honorable! There was that word again. What a strange sense of honor her children seemed to be suddenly developing.
Eleanor tried to explain.
“Circumstances have taken a most unexpected turn, Jane. I haven’t time to explain to you now. But your father or I will see that your teacher is notified. It isn’t as if there isn’t plenty of time before the play to supply your place, and you told me yourself that at least two of your classmates were both eager and able to take your place, so we shall not be seriously inconveniencing anybody.”
“Do you mean that you’re not going to let me be in the play at all?” asked Jane, aghast.
“We will not be in town, Jane. We are going away this afternoon.”
“I won’t stand it!” Jane shouted with a quick burst of angry tears. “I won’t, I won’t! You shan’t do a thing like that to me! I’ll run away! I’ll—I’ll—I’ll stay at Emily Carter’s.” She paused in her outburst and brought out a tempestuous little smile with a tilt of her small chin and a toss of her curly head. “That’s what I’ll do, Mamma. I’ll stay at the Carters’ till you come back, or—or—till after the play’s over.”
“Under no circumstances will you stay at the Carters’, Jane. And your father is quite unwilling that you shall either act or rehearse in that play even once more. He saw quite enough of your part last night. If I had known what it was that you were doing, if I had understood—”
“Why, Mamma, it wasn’t like what I did last night. I changed it just for fun. There’s nothing you couldn’t like about the play, really. If you’ll just come over and watch me rehearse, Mamma. Please—”
“Jane, sit down!” said her mother severely. “Sit down and eat your lunch. We have no time for further discussion. I’ll explain everything later. As soon as you are through, go up and change to the dress that is lying on your bed, and be quick about it!”
But Jane in a storm of tears dashed into the living room and flung herself upon the couch to howl.
“Jane, you must stop this noise at once,” said Eleanor, following her. “Your father has been very ill, and you will make him worse.”
Jane wept on, growing louder.
John appeared on the scene, his face smeared with plum jam and a blackberry tart in either hand:
“Aw, cut it out, Jay,” he called. “We’re goin’ ta have a corkin’ time. Hannah says we haven’t any money anymore an’ we’re goin’ away off to live on a farm where they have pigs and cows and a haystack to slide down and ponies and a wheelbarrow.”
Jane sat up and looked at him. She made a face at him, and then she went on crying.
“I—shan’t—g–g–g–go!” she sobbed out tempestuously.
About that time the door of Chris’s room opened upstairs, and Jane heard her father’s footsteps, heard his voice in grave tones. She remembered his grip of her arm last night and got up from the couch. She came slowly back into the dining room, mopping her red nose and eyes and catching her breath in broken sobs as she slid into her seat at the table.
The dining room became very quiet. Even the twins were still, eating tarts and drinking more milk.
Chris was walking downstairs behind his father.
“Yes, sir!” they could hear him say in a subdued tone. “Yes, sir.
I will.”
They came into the dining room silently and took their seats. Chris did not look at his mother. He sat down and began to eat from the plate Hannah gave him. He asked for coffee, but he did not look at anybody. His eyes were down upon his plate as if he was ashamed, or afraid, his mother could not tell which. Her heart began to quake with new fears.
Chapter 8
Where is Betty?” asked Chester Thornton, looking with troubled gaze around the table.
“She got off to school before I woke up,” said Eleanor apologetically, “and I haven’t had time to send word for her to come home.”
“But she ought to be here by this time,” said her father, looking at his watch.
“She ain’t comin’ home,” volunteered John. “I saw her go into the cafeteria with some kids fer lunch. She told me to tell Mamma she wouldn’t be here.”
“I had better telephone for her,” said Eleanor, rising anxiously.
“No!” said Chester sharply. “Just get her things ready, and we’ll stop for her on the way. We haven’t time to wait for her to come home.”
Eleanor sank back into her chair once more, finished the coffee, and took one more bite of her bread and butter, but she felt as if she could hardly swallow anything.
“The truck will be here soon,” said Chester. “There’ll be room for a trunk or two and all the blankets and pillows you need to take. How soon will you be ready?”
“Oh!” said Eleanor feebly. “Why, yes. Very soon.” “Chris and I have an errand to do,” announced Chester. “It may take us fifteen or twenty minutes, and when we get back I’ll be ready to start whenever you are. I noticed you had my things pretty well packed.”
Eleanor marveled at the restrained voice of her husband. He seemed deathly white, and she feared for him. She wondered what the errand was that was important enough to take him away even for fifteen minutes. She looked keenly at Chris, but he went on eating with his eyes downcast. Her heart seemed heavy like lead. She swallowed the scalding coffee and rose without attempting to eat anything more.
“I’ll go up and put the last things in,” she said. “Jane, you had better come with me.”
Jane looked at her father.
“Daddy?” she said with a quiver in her voice. “Daddy, do I have to go?” Her question ended in a wail.
“Yes!” said Chester, looking at the little girl with a reminder of last evening in his eyes, until she quailed.
“But—Daddy”—her lips were quivering with the pretty, pitiful plea that had always won her what she wanted—“Daddy, I can’t leave my teacher in a h–o–o–ole!”
“I will explain to your teacher,” said Chester Thornton. “Jane, your mother needs you upstairs.”
Jane arose slowly, reluctantly, sobbing into her handkerchief despairingly, but her father and Chris went out without noticing her. Chris walked as though he was about to face an ordeal.
When they had gone out the front door Jane returned to the dining room to retrieve the last tart from the twins and went slowly upstairs, emitting crumbly sobs occasionally.
“Jane, sit on this suitcase while I fasten it,” called Eleanor, and Jane, discovering her old last year’s sweater and cap, grew suddenly interested. She looked around and discovered the other suitcases and the big trunk. Somehow the affair took on new meaning. There might be something interesting in it all, even if one didn’t get to act in the play. There would be other plays, and they would likely be coming back someday. It was rather fun after all to be taken out of school and go off on
a mysterious trip.
Chester and Chris did not come back in fifteen minutes. Eleanor watched the clock anxiously, not because she cared how late they started but for fear of what might be unearthed of Chris’s misdoings.
Then Michael, the driver, arrived with the truck, and she had her hands full getting the right things loaded in. Of course having the truck come made things a thousand times easier. She could just wrap a lot of things in an old quilt and have it piled into the back, without bothering to pack.
During this episode Jane disappeared and was discovered just turning the corner of the street. It was Michael who ran after her and brought her back.
“I was only going to get some things I left at Emily’s and then run around and say good-bye to the school,” she explained sulkily.
Eleanor set her to work scrubbing the tart off the twins, and searching in the hall closet for all the galoshes.
“I don’t see what we need these for,” said Jane. “We’re going in a car, aren’t we? Where are we going, anyway?”
“To a nice place where Daddy used to live when he was a boy,” explained Eleanor. “We’re all going off to have a good time, because Daddy is all tired out and needs a rest.”
Jane eyed her keenly. She had a lurking suspicion that the migration had something to do with her performance at the drugstore, but she said nothing.
Then Chester arrived with a subdued-looking Chris. Eleanor tried in vain to read from their faces what had happened but could not in the bustle of leaving.
Hannah came down to the car to take last directions, and there was no more time. She had to count up the suitcases, run back to look through all the rooms, and make sure that nothing important had been left behind.
The Prodigal Girl Page 8