They went back to the house very silently; David's confidences were over, but they left their mark on his mother's face. She showed the strain of that talk even a week later when she started on her kindly mission to cheer poor Nannie. On the hazy September morning, when Robert Ferguson met her in the big, smoky station at Mercer, there were new lines of care in her face. Her landlord, as he persisted in calling himself, noticed them, and was instantly cross; crossness being his way of expressing anxiety.
"You look tired," he scolded, as he opened the carriage door for her, "you've got to rest at my house and have something to eat before you go to Nannie's; besides, you don't suppose I got you on here just to cheer her? You've got to cheer me, too! It's enough to give a man melancholia to live next to that empty house of yours, and you owe it to me to be pleasant—if you can be pleasant," he barked.
But his barking was strangely mild. His words were as rough as ever, but he spoke with a sort of eager gentleness, as if he were trying to make his voice soft enough for some unuttered pitifulness. She was so pleased to see him, and to hear the kind, gruff voice, that for a minute she forgot her anxiety about David, and laughed. And when her eyes crinkled in that old, gay way, it seemed to Robert Ferguson, looking at her with yearning, as if Mercer, and the September haze, and the grimy old depot hack were suddenly illuminated.
"Oh, these children!" he said; "they are worrying me to death. Nannie won't budge out of that old house; it will have to be sold over her head, to get her into a decent locality. Elizabeth isn't well, but the Lord only knows what's the matter with her. The doctor says she's all right, but she's as grumpy a—her uncle; you can't get a word out of her. And Blair has been speculating,"—he was so cross that, when at his own door he put out his hand to help her from the carriage, she patted his arm, and said, "Come; cheer up!"
At which, smiling all over his face, he growled at her that it was a pretty thing to expect a man to cheer up, with an empty house on his hands. "You seem to think I'm made of money! You take the house now; don't wait till that callow doctor is ready to settle down here. If you'll move in now, I'll cheer up—and give Elizabeth the rent for pin-money." He was really cheerful by this time just because he was able to scold her, but behind his scolding there was always this new gentleness. Later, when he spoke again of the house, her face fell.
"I am doubtful about our coming to Mercer."
"Doubtful?" he said; "what's all this? There never was a woman yet who knew her own mind for a day at a time—except Mrs. Maitland. You told me that David was coming here next spring, and I've been keeping this house for you; I've lost five months' rent"—there was a worried note in his voice; "what in thunder?" he demanded.
Mrs. Richie sighed. "I don't suppose I ought to tell you, but I can't seem to help it. I discovered the other day that David is not heart-whole, yet. He is dreadfully bitter; dreadfully! I don't believe it's prudent for him to live in Mercer. Do you? He would be constantly seeing Elizabeth."
She had had her breakfast, and they had gone into Mr. Ferguson's garden so that he might throw some crumbs to the pigeons and smoke his morning cigar before taking her to the Maitland house. They were sitting now in the long arbor, where the Isabella grapes were ripening sootily in the sparse September sunshine which sifted down between the yellowing leaves, and touched Mrs. Richie's brown hair; Robert Ferguson saw, with a pang, that there were some white threads in the soft locks. His eyes stung, so he barked as gruffly as he could.
"Well, suppose he does see her? You can't wrap him up in cotton batting for the rest of his life. That's what you've always tried to do, you hen with one chicken! For the Lord's sake, let him alone. Let him take his medicine like any other man. After he gets over the nasty taste of it, he'll find there's sugar in the world yet; just as I did. Only I hope he won't be so long about it as I was."