The doctors came, and when they left, Mrs. Lawton went to her son. An hour passed, dinner was served, and still the two did not come out. Brooke went to the door, then prepared and carried in a tray of food, eating her own meal afterward in solitary silence that was very soothing to her.
For the first time she had been able to see the specialist alone, and put such definite questions to him as dispersed the usual non-committal generalities, while at the same time it convinced him that here was a member of the family to whom the truth might and should be told. It was possible that her father might recover from this attack, if there was no further hemorrhage; also that the clot that plugged the brain channel might be absorbed, the paralysis of face, leg, and arm relax, and speech and memory return, so that though full vigour would never again be his he might still have years of placid living and enjoyment. Or else he might regain his physical faculties without the brain cloud ever lifting. As for medicine, a few simple regulations and then quiet must do its work, coupled with constant care. His failure and its agitation had struck the blow, and of this cause not the faintest suggestion must reach him or be even whispered of, for in such cases no one may precisely tell how much of conscious unconsciousness exists.
Meanwhile the laws of trade must be carried on, and others, to keep their rights, sift and settle Adam Lawton’s affairs as far as possible, before Brooke could learn what they as a family had or did not have and by it measure what might be done. For neither mother nor daughter knew of the extent of this final venture of all, and beyond keeping domestic accounts and holding a joint key with her father to a box in an up-town safe deposit company, where family papers and some securities belonging to her mother were kept, Brooke was no partner in her father’s affairs. In fact one of the things, Mr. Dean said, that had hurried the crisis and complicated its untangling was the habit that Adam Lawton had formed of holding aloof from the advice and confidence of his fellows.
Later in the evening, when the Cub emerged from Brooke’s room, he found that she had taken the nurse’s place by her father and the library was empty. While he walked about the room restlessly, alternately enjoying his comparative liberty or wondering what he had best do about his dog, something led him to cross the hall and turn the angle to the den, where, to his intense astonishment, amid a blaze of lights, that contrasted vividly with the semi-dark silence of the other rooms, was Lucy Dean, in the great leather-covered Morris chair, upon one arm of which sat the bull pup, whose persuasive pink tongue had just succeeded at the moment he entered in touching Lucy’s nose in affectionate salute.
“Brooke told me about the dear, and I went down and fished her out of an old box, where they had bedded her, just in time to save her from spoiling her figure with a whole bowl of oatmeal and soup,” said Lucy, in answer to the question on the Cub’s face. “You’ve got to be very particular about feeding her, remember, or she’ll grow groggy and sleepy and wheeze, instead of keeping her sporting blood up—” and Lucy held out her unoccupied left hand to the boy, who, after the callowness and fervour of youth, regarded this friend of his sister’s, eight years his senior, with her dash and vim, as the combination of everything admirable and adorable and himself her equal in years.
“No, I’m not going to kiss you this time,” she continued, leaning back in the chair, as he half stooped behind her; “I’ve just transferred that to Pam here. Why? Because you’ve gained a year and two inches since I saw you when you came home last Christmas—and sixteen is a good stile to stop at. Then hands off, young man, and no kisses outside the family until you are twenty-one and able to shoulder your own responsibilities.” The Cub growled out something half sulkily.
“Yes, I know I never had an own brother, but I’ve been a good sister to more of you boys than were ever born even in a Mormon family, and I’ve kept them all for good friends, just such as you’re going to be. No, don’t mope and go over in the corner, because within five minutes you’ll simply have to come back again and sit by Pam and me—so you might as well do it now.
“That’s it, stretch and be comfortable! See, chains wouldn’t keep Pam away from you now! Do you know I don’t blame you for squandering your last penny on this bull pup—her points are all right, she has an angel disposition; but she doesn’t forget to whom she belongs for a single minute—it was all I could do to drag her past your coat in the hall! But suppose she barks, how can you keep her here?”
“That’s the point, I must take her over to the stable right away; but you’ll be here when I come back, won’t you? I think Brooke said you were stopping here.”