The Hope of Happiness by Meredith Nicholson - HTML preview

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I

Carroll and Bruce dined at the University Club on an evening early in October. The tragic end of Shepherd Mills and George Whitford had brought them into a closer intimacy and they were much together. The responsibility of protecting Shep’s memory had fallen upon them; and they had been fairly successful in establishing in local history a record of the tragedy as an accident. Only a very few knew or suspected the truth.

“Have you anything on this evening?” asked Carroll as they were leaving the table.

“Not a blessed thing,” Bruce replied.

“Mr. Mills, you know, or rather you don’t know, is at Deer Trail. The newspaper story that he had gone south for the winter wasn’t true. He’s been ill—frightfully ill; but he’s better now. I was out there today; he asked about you. I think he’d like to see you. You needn’t dread it; he’s talked very little about Shep’s death.”

“If you really think he wants to see me,” Bruce replied dubiously.

“From the way he mentioned you I’m sure it would please him.”

“Very well; will you go along?”

“No; I think he’d like it better if you went alone. He has seen no one but Leila, the doctor and me; he’s probably anxious to see a new face. I’ll telephone you’re coming.”

As Bruce entered Mills’s room a white-frocked nurse quietly withdrew. The maid who had shown him up drew a chair beside the bed and left them. He was alone with Mills, trying to adjust himself to the change in him, the pallor of the face against the pillow, the thin cheeks, the hair white now where it had only been touched with gray.

“This is very kind of you! I’m poor company; but I hoped you wouldn’t mind running out.”

“I thought you were away. Carroll just told me you were here.”

“No; I’ve been here sometime—so long, in fact, that I feel quite out of the world.”

“Mrs. Thomas is at home—I’ve seen her several times.”

“Yes, Leila’s very good to me; runs out every day or two. She’s full of importance over having her own establishment.”

Bruce spoke of his own affairs; told of the progress that had been made with the Laconia memorial before the weather became unfavorable. The foundations were in and the materials were being prepared; the work would go forward rapidly with the coming of spring.

“I can appreciate your feeling about it—your own idea taking form. I’ve thought of it a good deal. Indeed, I’ve thought of you a great deal since I’ve been here.”

“If I’d known you were here and cared to see me I should have come out,” said Bruce quite honestly.

While Mills bore the marks of suffering and had plainly undergone a serious illness, his voice had something of its old resonance and his eyes were clear and alert. He spoke of Shep, with a poignant tenderness, but left no opening for sympathy. His grief was his own; not a thing to be exposed to another or traded upon. Bruce marveled at him. The man, even in his weakness, challenged admiration. The rain had begun to patter on the sill of an open window and Bruce went to close it. When he returned to the bed Mills asked for an additional pillow that he might sit up more comfortably, and Bruce adjusted it for him. He was silent for a moment; his fingers played with the edge of the coverlet; he appeared to be thinking intently.

“There are things, Storrs,” he remarked presently, “that are not helped by discussion. That night I had you to dine with me we both played about a certain fact without meeting it. I am prepared to meet it now. You are my son. I don’t know that there’s anything further to be said about it.”

“Nothing,” Bruce answered.

“If you were not what you are I should never have said this to you. I was in love with your mother and she loved me. It was all wrong and the wrong was mine. And in various ways I have paid the penalty.” He passed his hand slowly over his eyes and went on. “It may be impertinent, but there’s one thing I’d like to ask. What moved you to establish yourself here?”

“There was only one reason. My mother was the noblest woman that ever lived! She loved you till she died. She would never have told me of you but for a feeling that she wanted me to be near you—to help in case you were in need. That was all.”

“That was all?” Mills repeated, and for the first time he betrayed emotion. He lay very still. Slowly his hand moved along the coverlet to the edge of the bed until Bruce took it in his own. “You and I have been blessed in our lives; we have known the love of a great woman. That was like her,” he ended softly; “that was Marian.”

The nurse came in to see if he needed anything, and he dismissed her for the night. He went on talking in quiet, level tones—of his early years, of the changing world, Bruce encouraging him by an occasional question but heeding little what he said. If Mills had whined, begged forgiveness or offered reparation, Bruce would have hated him. But Mills was not an ordinary man. No ordinary man would have made the admission he had made, or, making it, would have implored silence, exacted promises....

“Millicent—you see her, I suppose?” Mills asked after a time.

“Yes; I see her quite often.”

“I had hoped you did. In fact Leila told me that Millie and you are good friends. She said a little more—Leila’s a discerning person and she said she thought there was something a little more than friendship. Please let me finish! You’ve thought that there were reasons why you could never ask Millicent to marry you. I’ll take the responsibility of that. I’ll tell her the story myself—if need be. I leave that to your own decision.”

“No,” said Bruce. “I shall tell her myself.”

Instead of wearying Mills, the talk seemingly acted as a stimulus. Bruce’s amazement grew. It was incomprehensible that here lay the Franklin Mills of his distrust, his jealousy, his hatred.

“Millicent used to trouble me a good deal with some of her ideas,” said Mills.

“She’s troubled a good many of us,” Bruce agreed with a smile. “But sometimes I think I catch a faint gleam.”

“I’m sure you do! You two are of a generation that looks for God in those far horizons she talks about. The idea amused me at first. But I see now that here is the new religion—the religion of youth—that expresses itself truly in beautiful things—in life, in conduct, in unselfishness. The spirit of youth reveals itself in beautiful things—and calls them God. Shep felt all that, tried in his own way to make me see—but I couldn’t understand him. I—there are things I want to do—for Shep. We’ll talk of that later.... Every mistake I’ve made, every wrong I’ve done in this world has been due to selfishness—I’ve been saying that to myself every day since I’ve been here. I’ve found peace in it. There’s no one in the world who has a better right to hear this from me than you. And this is no death-bed repentance; I’m not going to die yet a while. It’s rather beaten in on me, Bruce”—it was the first time he had so addressed him—“that we can’t just live for ourselves! No! Not if we would find happiness. There comes a time when every man needs God. The wise thing is so to live that when the need comes we shan’t find him a stranger!”

The hour grew late, and the wind and rain made a continual clatter about the house. When Bruce rose to go Mills protested.

“There’s plenty of space here—a room next to mine is ready for a guest. You’ll find everything you want. We seem to meet in storms! Please spend the night here.”

And so it came about that for the first time Bruce slept in his father’s house.

II

Bruce and Millicent were married the next June. A few friends gathered in the garden late on a golden afternoon—Leila and Thomas, the Freemans, the Hendersons, a few relatives of the Hardens from their old home, and Carroll and Bruce’s cousin from Laconia. The marriage service was read by Dr. Lindley and the music was provided by a choir of robins in the elms and maples. Franklin Mills was not present; but before Bruce and Millicent drove to the station they passed through the gate in the boundary hedge—Leila had arranged this—and received his good wishes.

The fourth of July had been set as the time for the dedication of the memorial. The event brought together a great company of dignitaries, and the governor of the state and the Secretary of War were the speakers. Mills had driven over with Leila and Thomas, and he sat with them, Millicent beside him.

Bruce hovered on the edges of the crowd, listening to comments on his work, marveling himself that it was so good. The chairman of the local committee sent for him at the conclusion of the ceremonies to introduce him to the distinguished visitors. When the throng had dispersed, Millicent, with Carroll and Leila, paused by the fountain to wait until Bruce was free.

“This is what you get, Millie, for having a famous husband,” Leila remarked. “He’s probably signing a contract for another monument!”

“There he is!” exclaimed Carroll, pointing up the slope.

Bruce and Mills were slowly pacing one of the colonnades. Beyond it lay the woodland that more than met Bruce’s expectations as a background for the memorial. They were talking earnestly, wholly unaware that they were observed. As they turned once more to retrace their steps Mills, unconsciously it seemed, laid his arm across Bruce’s shoulders; and Millicent, seeing and understanding, turned away to hide her tears.

THE END