Chapter XIV: Sophy Waylays Roger Madison

SEVERAL days elapsed before they dared tell Peter of the fate of Sirius. The doctor’s orders that he should be kept very quiet must be obeyed, and that was the excuse which they gave him when the boy begged that Sirius might come to him.

The spring days, so beautiful in themselves, seemed to have brought much care and anxiety to the Starrs. Honor was visibly depressed, but Katherine had her music with Miss Madison to divert her, and Victoria’s feelings, whatever they may have been, she was careful to hide. The presence of Mrs. Wentworth Ward made a great change in the household, and Peter’s accident a still more serious one.

There were many extra steps to be taken, and sometimes he was a difficult patient. He did not mean to be exacting, but he felt it to be a greater trial than he deserved, to be kept in bed with a broken leg when the days out of doors were so beautiful, when trees and grass were daily growing greener, and the creatures had awakened from their winter’s nap, when “the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.”

Peter did not express his feelings in just these words perhaps, but the thought of all that was beautiful out of doors made him restless and his pain hard to bear.

Honor and Katherine divided the teaching hours, one remaining with Peter while the other superintended the school. The spring weather seemed to affect the pupils also, for at times they became quite unmanageable. Sometimes Honor wondered if her own impatience did not react upon herself, influencing the children and making them more or less refractory. Whatever the cause, the school had certainly never been so irksome. She was anxious, too, about Mr. Abbott. He was still very much of an invalid, and they had not seen him for several months.

In addition to all this, Peter’s illness would be a great expense to them, and Honor wondered how they should meet the doctor’s bills. She felt almost glad that her aunt was at Glen Arden; for, in spite of the many inconveniences which her presence brought, it also meant an increased income, and in the present state of their finances this was most important. To be sure, Blanch, indignant with the newcomer in the kitchen, had threatened more than once to leave, but that was one of the smaller vexations which, perhaps, could be avoided.

The thought that was now filling the hearts of Peter’s sisters with dread, was the fact that the time was rapidly approaching when they must tell him that Sirius was dead. Each one wondered how and when it was to be done and who should be the one to do it. They finally decided upon Victoria.

And so with an anxious heart, one afternoon Victoria went to her brother’s room. She knew that she should have no difficulty in introducing the subject, for Peter’s first question was always in regard to Sirius, and the sisters had found it almost impossible to answer him without arousing his suspicions. As she supposed would be the case, Victoria had scarcely crossed the threshold when she heard her brother’s somewhat querulous voice.

“Vic, where is Sirius? It does seem very hard that I can’t see my own dog. He wouldn’t excite me, and he wouldn’t jump on the bed if I told him not to. It excites me a great deal more not to see him, than it would if he were here.”

“I know, Peter dear!” said Victoria, going to the bed and sitting down upon the edge of it. “And there is nothing we would rather do, than bring Sirius to you. But we can’t. Will you try to bear it, Peter, when I tell you something very sad?”

“What is it, Vic?” exclaimed Peter, in a low voice. “I know what you are going to say! Is Sirius dead?”

Victoria nodded. Peter turned his face towards the wall.

“Please go away,” he said, still in the same low voice, and Victoria left him.

She returned in a short time to find him still in the same position. When she spoke to him he did not reply, and though she went again and again, it was always with the same result.

“What are we to do with him?” she said later to her sisters. “He won’t speak, and he just lies there with his face turned away. If he would only cry about it!”

“Peter won’t cry,” said Sophy. “He thinks it’s babyish. He was awful fond of Sirius, though. I’ve seen him kiss him often, on the top of his head, and he never likes to kiss anybody else. Oh dear, I wish I could do something to make him feel better!” The loving little sister’s eyes filled with tears, and she hid her face in Honor’s shoulder.

“The trouble is,” said Victoria, “he thinks we’re only girls and so he won’t talk to us. If father were here, or Mr. Abbott, it would be better. I really believe Peter would speak to them. If we only had somebody!”

It was unusual for Victoria’s courage to desert her, but it had all been very sad and depressing. Peter’s accident had unnerved her, and the subsequent dread of breaking the news to him, and then the disclosure itself, had been more of a strain than she realized.

“I wish we had an older brother!” she said, and then greatly to the surprise of the others she too began to cry. “What a goose I am!” she sobbed. “But I do feel so sorry for Peter and for all of us, and I wish he would speak to us.”

“I wonder if Mr. Madison would come and talk to him,” suggested Katherine.

“We can’t ask him to,” said Honor, quickly. “We must never ask him to do a thing. He would be the very one, I’ve no doubt, for Peter likes him, and he was the one who saved his life and was there when Sirius was killed, but it would never do to ask him. If he were to come of his own accord, it would be different.”

“It seems a great pity, then, that he can’t know how much he is needed,” said Katherine. “He seems to be the kind of man who always knows exactly what to say, and he is so good-natured he wouldn’t mind coming a bit. Do you really think, Honor, that it wouldn’t do to ask him?”

Honor shook her head very decidedly.

“It wouldn’t do at all,” said she.

Sophy, who had been listening attentively, dried her eyes. She was extremely disturbed by Victoria’s emotion, as were they all. It was so unusual to see her cry that Sophy felt that something very serious must be the matter. The little girl was ready to do anything to make her happier or to help Peter. The girls all said that to talk to a grown-up man would be the best thing for Peter, and that Mr. Madison would be the one of all others. Why not get Mr. Madison, then? To be sure, Honor had said that he must not be asked, but perhaps he would come without being asked if he knew that Peter needed him. Sophy felt very confident that Mr. Madison was a kind-hearted man, and if he were once told that he was needed, he would not wait to be asked.

She tried to say something of this to her sisters, but they were talking to each other and endeavoring to comfort Victoria, and she could not make them hear, so she determined to act for herself. She heard the whistle of one of the afternoon trains as it left the junction at Waterview. Perhaps Mr. Madison was on it!

Without further delay, she ran downstairs and out the front door. Like a young squirrel she scampered across the lawn and along the grassy path that led to the little station, arriving there just as the train did. One passenger only left it, and, greatly to her disappointment, it was not Mr. Madison.

There would not be another train for a long time, she knew, but nevertheless Sophy determined to wait for it. She was afraid that if she went back to the house, something or, more probably, somebody, would prevent her coming again, and she had made up her mind that the only way to secure Mr. Madison was to meet him at the train. She sat down on the edge of the platform,—there was no house here, only a little shed at which the trains stopped,—and waited.

The sun, which was warm to-day, shone down upon her, the soft May breezes played with the daisies that had sprung up about the railroad track, little birds gathered courage from her stillness, and hopped nearer to the small figure, looking at her with inquisitive glances, but Sophy heeded nothing. Many serious thoughts were passing through her childish mind in rapid succession. She wondered why Sirius had to die when they all loved him so, and it made it so hard for Peter. She wondered if there was anything in the world that she could do to make Peter happier.

And Victoria! She was so surprised to see real tears on Vic’s face. Was Vic a baby to cry, as Peter always said that Sophy was? She had never seen her do it before except when their father died. Then everybody had cried. Where was her father now, she wondered? Did he know they were all so sad and there was so little money? Where had he gone, and where had they come from? How strange everything was, and how puzzling! Sophy supposed that she should understand it all when she grew up.

In the meantime she wished that the train would come. She was tired of waiting, and perhaps Vic was still crying, and Peter still lying so strangely silent, with his face turned away from them, as they went one by one to express their sympathy. Would the train never come?

And at last it did come, and, to her intense relief, Mr. Madison was on it. He was the only passenger who left it, and he was greatly surprised when a small and hatless figure danced up to him and seized his hand.

“I’m so glad to see you!” cried a lisping voice. “I’ve been waiting ever and ever and ever so long!” Sophy’s face looked almost pretty in her excitement. “I’m not going to ask you to come,” she continued, “for Honor says you must never be asked to do anything; but we want a grown-up man so dreadfully to talk to Peter. Peter won’t say anything, and he knows Sirius is dead. He thinks we’re only girls, and if you were only our brother, you would talk to him. I wish you were our brother!”

“But even if I am not, I can talk to Peter,” said Roger Madison, quickly, “and that is what you would like, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Sophy; “and I haven’t asked you, have I? Honor said, you know, that you must never be asked to do anything. I don’t exactly see why not. I wouldn’t mind asking you a bit, but I haven’t, have I?”

“Oh, no indeed! I’m coming entirely of my own free will. I want to talk to Peter.”

“How lovely!” said Sophy, as, with her hand tightly clasped in his, she skipped along at his side. “You are such a nice man. You would make a lovely brother. You see, everything was dreadful this afternoon, and Vic really cried!”

Sophy said this with the air of imparting a most unheard-of piece of news. That Vic should cry was to her almost as important as Peter’s broken leg.

“Come right upstairs,” said she, when they reached the house. “Come right up to Peter’s room.”

“I think you had better say that I am here,” said Madison, hesitating.

“Oh, why?” exclaimed Sophy, impatiently; but seeing that he was firm in regard to this, she ran upstairs and peeped into Peter’s room. He was still lying with his face turned away, and she did not look far enough to see that Victoria was sitting behind the door. She ran down again as quickly as she had gone up and once more grasped Mr. Madison by the hand.

“It is all right,” she said. “Come right up.”

They mounted the stairs, and still hand in hand they entered Peter’s room.

“Peter,” said the small sister, “here’s a grown-up man come to see you. Here is Mr. Madison.”

Peter turned his head, and Sophy gave a sigh of relief. He had actually moved and was looking at them. At the same moment an exclamation of surprise came from some one else. Victoria rose to her feet and stood for a moment in silence. She gave one glance at Mr. Madison, and then her eyes fell, while the color came and went in her cheeks. She looked precisely as she had looked in the picture shop and stood in almost the same attitude. Madison recognized her at once, and he held out his hand.

“I’m glad to meet you again,” he said simply.

“Please don’t tell any one,” said Victoria. “No one knows it, and I’ve tried not to meet you. Honor wouldn’t like it.”

“Very well,” said he, gravely, and Victoria could see that he was surprised at her remark. “Just as you say, of course.”

Then she left the room, wondering if she had said the wrong thing. Was it what Honor would call “unconventional”? She wished that she had never tried to hide the fact that she had met Roger Madison before. It was such a little thing in itself, and yet it was constantly leading her to do rude and peculiar things. This was certainly a most trying afternoon, and again Victoria shut herself into her room and cried, and though Sophy came more than once and rattled the handle of the door, she would not let her in.

Sophy, when Mr. Madison was safely shut into Peter’s room, lost no time in making known the fact to her sisters.

“Why, Sophy!” exclaimed Honor. “How did he happen to come?”

“I met him at the station,” said she, “and I told him we wished we had a grown-up man, and so he said he would come. I didn’t ask him to, Honor. Really and truly I didn’t ask him to come. I only said we needed him.”

“But, Sophy dear, that amounted to the same thing, and don’t you remember that I said we mustn’t ask him. I wouldn’t have had you do it for the world.”

“I don’t see why, Honor. You asked Miss Madison to come the other day. Why can’t we ask Mr. Madison?”

“The cases are very different,” said Honor, somewhat severely, “and you ought not to have done what I told you not to.”

“Oh dear me,” cried Sophy, tears again trembling on her lashes, “I only wanted to make Peter better, and I didn’t really ask him to come! I only said I wished he was our brother, for then he’d be here.”

“You didn’t say that, surely, Sophy!” exclaimed Katherine.

“Why, yes!” said Sophy, surprise at Katherine’s vehemence drying her tears. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Never mind,” interposed Honor. “It is too late now, but another time, Sophy, please be more careful to do exactly as I say. Isn’t it time for you to go to your music lesson, Katherine? I am going to Aunt Sophia’s room to see if she wants anything. Come, Sophy.”

But Sophy declined to accompany her. She sat on the top step of the stairs, waiting for Vic to emerge from her locked room or for Mr. Madison to leave Peter. She thought her sisters were all very peculiar to-day. She had heard Victoria’s remark to Mr. Madison and she wondered what she could have meant. She stored it away in the recesses of her memory, intending to ask about it when a convenient opportunity should present itself.

When Roger Madison was left alone with Peter, he quietly closed the door, and drawing up the chair which Victoria had vacated he sat down near the bed.

“I am sure you want to hear all about your brave, good dog,” said he; “and so I have come to tell you. He saved his master’s life if ever a dog did. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t be lying here now. Would you like me to tell you about it?”

“Yes,” said Peter.

And then Mr. Madison described to him the scene on the bridge.

“It was a glorious end for Sirius,” said he, when he had finished. “I know you feel badly enough about losing your dog. So should I. Indeed, I went through very much the same experience myself once, when I was a little younger than you—no, perhaps about your age. You are fourteen, aren’t you? I lost a dog that I was very fond of, and if it hadn’t been for my sister I should have been very selfish about it. She showed me how I ought to take it.”

“Oh, it’s easy for girls to talk,” said Peter. “They’ve all been in here this afternoon, telling me I ought to bear it, and make the best of it, and all that. As if I could ever get over losing Sirius, the best dog that ever lived! It is ridiculous for those girls to talk the way they do.”

“My dear fellow,” said Roger Madison, “do you know that you are a very lucky fellow to have those sisters? I’ve often wondered whether you appreciated them. I have one sister, and I wouldn’t give her up for all the money in the world. You have four, so you ought to be four times as grateful.”

“For four sisters?” said Peter, incredulously. “They’re nice enough, of course, but they order a fellow round too much, and they don’t understand. They seem to think I oughtn’t to mind about Sirius a bit.”

“I don’t think they feel that way. They have been very much worried about you, and they have felt pretty badly, I can tell you, about Sirius’s death and the way you would feel it. I happen to know that, and I also know that your sister Victoria has been crying about it this afternoon.”

“Vic crying?” Peter seemed to be as much impressed by this fact as Sophy had been.

“They are about the pluckiest girls that I ever knew,” continued Madison. “If they were my sisters, I should be mighty proud of them, I can tell you. I’ve no doubt that you are too, and are doing all you can to help.”

“There is nothing I can do,” said Peter, gloomily. “Just lying here and looking out at the trees and wishing I was out there. And I’ve been wanting Sirius so much and wishing he could come to me, and now I’ll never see him again.” He turned his face away as he had done before.

“Peter,” said his friend, “I like you and I think there’s good stuff in you. Here’s a chance for you to show it. You can be a hero just as much as Sirius was, though in a very different way. You have a good deal to bear. A broken leg is no small matter, and the loss of your dog is a great sorrow to you, but if you try to be brave about it all, and try to make things easier for your sisters while you are laid up instead of worrying them in any way, I think you will be doing a good deal. I know it’s hard. We men are not very patient, and we don’t bear pain and discomfort as well as women do. Do you know that?”

“No,” said Peter, scornfully; “that can’t be!”

“Indeed it is so. If one of your sisters had broken her leg and were lying here, she would probably be three times as patient as either you or I should be.”

“Honor or Vic, perhaps,” remarked Peter, “but not Katherine.”

“Well, I’m not able to judge of that, of course, but I wish you would show that our sex occasionally does know how to behave under trying circumstances. I wish you’d do your best to be a hero. I was ill once, and when I got well, they told me I had nearly driven them all crazy,—I was so impatient and exacting,—so you see I don’t exactly practise what I preach. But that was a good while ago.”

“I wish you’d come to see me again,” said Peter, when his new friend rose to take leave. “You may say that girls are so fine, and all that, but I’d like to talk to you once in a while. I want to ask you something. I think I’ll ask you now. Don’t you think it’s pretty mean that I’m so much younger than the others, and that the girls have to work, when if I’d been the eldest I could have taken care of them?”

“My dear boy,” said Roger Madison, “depend upon it, you are placed in the family just where you are most needed. God knows better than we do about such things, as He does about everything else, and He intended you to be of use just where you are. And I think He means you to begin at once to be of use; and you can be so by being as brave as Sirius was. There are several kinds of courage and they are equally good. The courage to be patient and cheerful and kind when you don’t feel like it counts for as much in the eyes of God as the courage which saves a life. I don’t often talk like this, but I’m interested in you, Peter, and I want you to be the man I think you have it in you to be. Good-bye. I’ll come in again to-morrow, if you like.”