And I could not but confess that he was right. We had no chance.
Chapter XIII
Surrender
And so we came to the last evening. I had said nothing about my interview with Silas Tunstall. I did not see that it would do any good, and besides I knew that mother would not approve of it. More than that, I had virtually promised him that it should remain between ourselves. I realized that it was useless to struggle against fate, and resigned myself to the inevitable. I cannot say that it was a cheerful resignation, but I bore up as well as I could. It was a kind of dreadful nightmare—those last two days. Mother was the bravest of us all; Dick, gallant fellow that he was, managed to assume a cheerful countenance; but Tom went about like a ghost, so white and forlorn that even I, sore at heart as I was, could not help smiling at him. Jane and Abner, too, showed their sorrow in a way that touched me. I came upon Jane one evening, sitting on the kitchen steps, her apron over her head, rocking back and forth, shaken with sobs. I tried to comfort her—but what could I say—who was myself in such need of comfort!
On that last evening, Mr. and Mrs. Chester and Tom sat down with us to dinner, as mother had all along insisted they should do; but in spite of our persistent efforts at cheerfulness, or perhaps because of them, it reminded me most forcibly of a funeral feast. I could fancy our dearest friend lying dead in the next room.
No one referred to the morrow, but it was none the less in the thoughts of all of us, and was not to be suppressed. Mr. Chester, at last, could stand the strain no longer.
“It’s pretty evident what we’re all thinking about,” he said, “but we mustn’t permit ourselves to take too gloomy a view of the future. Remember that old, wise saying that ‘it’s always darkest just before the dawn.’ Deep down in my heart, I believe that something will happen to-morrow to set things right.”
“But what?” blurted out Tom. “What can happen, father?”
“I don’t know,” answered Mr. Chester. “I can’t imagine—but, after all, things usually turn out all right in this world, if we just have patience; and I’m sure that this muddle is going to turn out all right too—I feel it in my bones. There’s one thing, Mrs. Truman. Have you quite made up your mind not to try to break the will? I tell you frankly that I believe it can be broken.”
“Oh, no,” answered mother, quickly; “there must be nothing of that sort. I have quite made up my mind.”
Mr. Chester nodded.