2. Troubled Days Ahead
The next three days were anxious ones. All plans for the party had been cancelled, and after school the girls and Tommy hung around Rebecca feeling that she alone could help them bear the suspense. Jean occasionally stole away to her mother’s room and looked around to be sure that everything was as she liked it best, and when she came out into the wide upper hall she usually met Kit and Doris stealing from their father’s room, their eyes red from crying.
Tommy hid himself in dark corners, rather like a small puppy trying to run away from his fears. Kit declared there wasn’t a dry pillow in the house.
“How about your own self?” Doris asked.
“I cry too, but not all the time. I said before that I don’t intend to mope around. We’ve got to keep a stiff upper lip if we don’t want to go to pieces. We must represent the beyondness in feminine efficiency.”
“What does that mean, Kit?” asked Tommy.
Kit gave Tommy a good-natured shove. “Means that we’ve got to keep calm no matter what happens.”
Jean said little. Ever since she could remember, her mother had said to her, “You know I rely on you most, dear. You give me reassurance when I need it most.”
It was a thought that always gave her fresh strength, to know how much her mother needed her. She was smaller than Kit, slender and with dark eyes, with a soft look about them.
“Jeannie, you’ve got such sympathetic, interested, mellow eyes.”
“Eyes can’t be mellow, Dorrie, try something else.”
“Well, they are mellow just the same—tender and nice, aren’t they, Tommy?”
And Tommy would always agree that they were. But they were full of trouble now, as Jean hurried around the house, following Rebecca’s direction. Rebecca really did herself proud as chief of operations. Mr. Craig’s rooms were immaculate and as clear of nonessentials as the deck of a battleship. Under her orders the girls worked hard, Tommy ran all the errands she demanded, while Lydia, the Hungarian maid who came in by the day, regarded her with silent, wide-eyed admiration.
“We’d never have managed without you, Rebecca,” Jean declared when the final day arrived, and they all gathered in the long living room, listening for the hum of the car up the drive. Doris and Tommy were curled up on the wide window seat. Kit paced back and forth restlessly, and Jean sat with her legs dangling over the arm of her father’s lounge chair before the open fireplace. She was watching the curling flames.
“Land, child, I don’t see what you want to burn open fires for when you run a good furnace,” Rebecca had demurred.
“I know it isn’t necessary,” Jean answered, getting up from the chair to poke at the fire already blazing steadily, “but it’s consoling to watch an open fire. Don’t you think so, Becky?”
Rebecca sat in the old-fashioned pine rocker, placidly knitting on a sweater she was making for Tommy.
“We must all hope for the best,” she said, beaming at the anxious faces. “Doris, for pity’s sake stop that silent drizzling. If your father were to walk in now, he’d certainly be discouraged to look at you. I feel just as badly as any of you.” She took off her glasses, that were always balanced halfway down her nose, and reminisced, “Land, didn’t I live with him for years after his mother died? That was your own grandmother, Doris Craig. I’ve still got her spinning wheel up home in the attic. But I always did say we made too much woe of the passing over of our dear ones. And for heaven’s sake, your father not gone yet. Smile, even if your hearts do ache, and cheer him up. Don’t meet him with tears and fears. Jean, run and tell Lydia to keep an eye on that beef tea while I’m here. It has to keep simmering. Kit, can’t you keep still for a minute, or does it ease your mind to keep pacing?”
So she encouraged and cheered them, and when the car came up the driveway to the porch steps with Mr. and Mrs. Craig, the four children did their best to look happy. Mr. Craig, wrapped well in the automobile robe, waved to them, his lean, handsome face showing an eagerness to be with them once more.
“Hello, my dears,” he called to them. “Becky, God bless you, give me a hand. I’m still rather shaky.”
They were all trying to kiss him at once, and Tommy held one of his thin white hands in his strong ones. It did not require the look in their mother’s eyes to warn them about being careful. Slender and tall, she stood behind him smiling at them all.
“Why, he doesn’t look nearly so bad as I expected,” Rebecca told her, kissing her in a motherly way. Somehow it seemed quite natural for all to pet and comfort Mom. It had been the same when their father had been in the service; now, more than ever, when the past three months had shown them the possibilities of trouble and sorrow.
“You mustn’t tire him, girls,” she told them. “Tommy, help your father upstairs.” He and Becky between them helped Mr. Craig go up, one step at a time, then a rest before the next. “He must have a chance to recover from the trip.”
“Land,” Rebecca called back, “I’m so relieved that you didn’t have to bring him back on a stretcher I can hardly catch my breath.”
“I’m hopeful since he stood the trip so well,” answered Mrs. Craig. She leaned her head against the back of the big, cushioned chair. Jean slipped off her coat and Doris took her gloves. Tommy came downstairs and put a fresh log on the fire and Kit hurried out to the kitchen after a cup of tea. They all hovered over her, each eager to make her comfortable. Then suddenly, unable to hold back any longer, she burst into tears. Jean rushed to her side and pulled her close into her arms.
“Mother darling,” she begged. “Don’t, don’t cry so. Why, you’re home, and we’re all going to look after him, and help you as much as we can.”
Doris raced out of the room and up the stairs after Rebecca, and presently she came bustling downstairs, flushed and efficient.
“Why, Margaret Ann,” she cried, smoothing back her hair just as if she had been one of the children. “Don’t give way just when your strength is needed most.”
“Please call me Margie,” protested Mrs. Craig, smiling a little. “It sounds so formal for you to call me Margaret Ann. It always makes me feel like squaring my shoulders, Becky.”
“So you should, child,” Rebecca declared cheerily. “Margie’s so sort of gay to my way of thinking and there’s stability to Margaret Ann. Lord knows, you’re going to need a lot of stability before you find the way out of this.”
“I know I am.” As she spoke she held her family close to her, Doris and Tommy kneeling beside her and Jean and Kit on each side. She leaned back and smiled at them.
“That’s better,” Becky said. “Now you children let her go up to her room. I have to tend my broth and see how Tom’s coming along. Looks to me like rest and quiet will carry him through if anything will.”
“Becky!” There was a note of panic in their Mother’s voice. Nobody but the same unemotional Becky knew how she longed to put her head right down on that ample bosom and have a good old-fashioned cry. “Becky, the doctors at the hospital say he’ll never be any better.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” exclaimed Becky indignantly, with a toss of her head. “Lots they know about it. I never take any stock in those doctors at all, Margie. Give me castor oil, some quinine and calomel, and maybe a little arnica salve for emergencies, and I’ll undertake to help anybody hang on to themselves a little bit longer. They can keep their penicillin and sulfa powder and other fancy drugs.”
“But things seem so near a crisis now.”
“Let them.” Rebecca stood with her hands on her hips, as if she were hurling defiance at somebody, and the family fairly hung on her words. “Buck up, Margie Craig. As for you, Jean and Kit and Doris and Tommy, if I find any of you looking doleful, I declare I’ll stick clothespins on your noses and fasten a smile to your lips with adhesive tape.”
Even without this advice the children were determined to look cheerful and to keep their father carefree and happy.