"I ought to have been here to wait on him. What I was cheated out of!"
"But, Mr. Jack," Miss Berry spoke pleadingly, "you was trampin' through Switzerland, and just havin' the best time of all. Your father used to have guide-books and atlases, and follow up what you were doin' every day. Why, he entered into it, and enjoyed it just as if it was himself. He didn't know, and Mrs. Van Tassel didn't know, that there wasn't many another summer comin'."
"It makes it especially hard," said Jack, still staring at the forgotten cigar, dropped now into the saucer, "that I had been away from him four years already. The past summer is the one I should have spent with him. It seems as though the regret and the loss could never be forgotten. There never was such a father as mine." The speaker's features worked convulsively an instant. "The world is only a big, barren desert, without him, and I might have had all those months. I might"—
Aunt Love used to feel an especial tenderness for Jack when she tucked him into bed at night, because he had no mother to do it for him, and she had often kissed the child after he was asleep, for the same reason. Now his pale face in its pain and effort at self-mastery appealed to her irresistibly. In a moment she had slipped her arm around his shoulders, and with her other hand drawn his head gently against her breast.
"I know you've been hurt awful bad, dear heart," she said, tears running down her own cheeks, as she softly patted his hair.
For Jack, he did not stop to be astonished. It was too comforting to have the barriers of his self-restraint forcibly broken down. From the time when furtive bitter drops had added to the ocean's brine, as he meditated at evening on board the home-coming ship in cold November, no loving human soul had dared till now to take his grief into full companionship. Aunt Love's primitive, spontaneous method worked well. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to her that he should weep in her embrace, on the ample bosom of her black silk gown; and who shall say what a comfort it was to Jack, with no spectators but the haircloth chairs and sofa, to be held close in loving arms after weeks of lonely, speechless heartache under a conventional exterior.
"You are very good to me," he said at last, and though he leaned back in his chair, he continued to hold one of Aunt Love's plump hands as though she were a sort of anchor which he could not let go all at once.
"And now you've got to be patient with me just a minute, dear boy," said his companion, "and listen to something you won't like to hear, perhaps. My conscience wouldn't rest easy unless I told you a little about your father's wife."
"I know her," said Jack. "I don't want you to think I doubt her kindness to him. I am jealous of her. That is all."
"Kindness ain't just the word," persisted Aunt Love. "I can imagine your father livin' through such a summer as last was, and havin' a pretty weary time of it, cut off from so much that had made his life before. Now I just want you to picture this young woman, a pretty, girlish critter that had seen trouble enough to make her low-spirited if she'd had a mind to be, just studyin' to make the days pleasant for him. She was cheerful in just such a stiddy way as a brook is; not much noise about it, but always right there, singin' if so be you want it. She played games with your dear father, or she read to him, or she waited on him, or she just set and sewed and let him look at her, whichever happened to suit his mood; and he bein' always thoughtful and tender of her, 'twas just a pleasure to see 'em together. She hunted up maps and articles about places you was travelin', and from sunrise till sunset she just had one idea, and that was whether anything could make Mr. Van Tassel any more comfortable than he was. He was a happy man in spite of the new weakness which might have made him miserable. Ain't that somethin' for you to remember when you think of the woman that bears his name? You know some kinds o' clover brings the person that finds it good luck. I often used to think o' that as I watched 'em together, and I thought your father had found one of the best sort. It's a good name for her. Clover's just like her, unpretendin' and sweet, whether it's red or white; always cheerful and innocent, distillin' honey for mankind." Miss Berry paused a minute before she went on: "The word father means a great deal to you, Mr. Jack. It was the heavenly Father that gave that lovely companion to soothe Mr. Van Tassel's last days; and the same all-lovin' Father has permitted a great blow to fall upon you; but the Holy One whose birthday we are keepin' to-day said that in this world we must have tribulation, and He told us, too, be of good cheer. The Saviour did overcome the world; there is a heaven, your father has gone to it, and you and I are both bound for it. It's the main concern we've got in life to get ready for it. Let your sorrow help you along, Mr. Jack, and don't shut anybody out o' your generous heart, least of all the woman I've been talkin' about."