And, of course, Rex was entirely aware of all this, though he was never a part of it even when they did their best to make him go for a bit of recreation.
"No," he would say, "I mustn't!"
But in spite of all this tumult and distress, Florimel did get better at last. Not too much better. She still demanded her nurse, much as she had wanted her to leave, and she ordered her about most unmercifully.
That word about her being the best nurse to watch out for scars and the like had brought Florimel around to keep her in spite of her dislike, for Florimel cared a great deal whether her young, supple body was to be scarred. When her hands were healed enough so she could hold a mirror, she spent hours looking at herself in the glass and mourning over the loss of her lovely cloud of red-gold hair, which really had been her only great claim to beauty. Even that the nurse began to suspect had not been wholly natural in color. For it was coming in now where it had been scorched away, a dirty shade of dull yellow and straight as a die. All Florimel's hair except one long heavy lock had been burned away, but she cherished that one lock carefully that she might measure the rest by it.
Amazingly her eyes had not been hurt by the fire.
"I covered them up with my hands," she explained coldly when the nurse wondered about it.
She was allowed to read a little every day if she chose, as soon as she could sit up a little. But she was not fond of reading. The only literature that interested her was movie or fashion magazines. Even those did not hold her long.
The young people of the family stole in to see her now and then, but she did not welcome them. She sneered at their freedom.
"I suppose you folks are gloating over me," she said to Sylvia one day. "I'm shut up here alone with a hateful old nurse and nothing to do, and you are just having the time of your life. You've got your young man, and you've got my husband to yourself. You must be awfully happy. Both your brothers and no wife around to hinder."
Sylvia gave a grave look.
"Rex has not been around with us at all," she said and sighed. "We scarcely see Rex since you were hurt."
"Oh, really! You expect me to believe that, I suppose. I don't know where he is, then; he certainly doesn't stay with me, and he hasn't lifted his hand to make me have a pleasant time, me cooped up here with a hateful old nurse."
"I think Rex spends all his time hunting a job. He is really trying very hard to find one. He comes home late every night after we have finished dinner and has to eat his dinner all alone."
"Oh, poor little fellow!" mocked Rex's wife. "Wants a job so much, does he? And your mother is still trying to put that nonsense over on him, when she knows perfectly well that he has money enough to live on in his own right, without any job, if she would just give the word. You can't make me believe that!"
"Please don't speak that way of Mother," said Sylvia, gently trying to control the angry flash that came into her eyes. "If you only knew how Mother tries to find ways of pleasing you and helping you to get well, you wouldn't think such things of our mother!"
"Oh, she does, does she? Well, I'd like it better if she'd just let up on some of these plans of hers that couldn't please me even if they went through, and would just tell that fool lawyer of hers where to get off and hand over Rex's fortune!"
"Well, you're mistaken about all that, of course," said Sylvia with rising color. "Someday, when you are well again, perhaps Mother will take you down to the lawyer's and let you hear our father's will read, and then you will understand. But until then I guess you and I better not talk about it."
"Oh, you don't say so!" mocked Florimel. "Okay! Suit yourself. I'll say what I please, of course, and if you don't like it, you know what you can do. You don't have to stay around me!"
Florimel always ended her interviews in this way; and then Sylvia would go out.
Later that day Rance Nelius came to take her skating.
It was a lovely, clear day; the ice was fine and the sky without a cloud. Just a brisk, cold winter day that brought the color to cheeks and a light to the eyes. The creek was edged with hemlock fringes, tall and graceful, waving in the breeze almost as if they were in tune with the skaters and were trying to keep time for them.
They were skating hand in hand, with long, slow strokes, enjoying every minute of the way. It was getting to be enough for these two just to be together, out in God's day.
"I don't know what to make of Florimel," said Sylvia. "Sometimes I think she is softening and going to be really friendly someday, and then almost in the same breath she flares out and says something perfectly terrible about Mother."
"Your wonderful mother! How can she?" commented Rance. "I don't see how anybody can help but love her."
He looked down at her, she looked up into his eyes, and a warm, sweet glance passed between them.
"Oh, I'm glad you've found out how dear Mother is!" said Sylvia with a glow in her eyes. "I couldn't really even just like anybody that didn't see how wonderful Mother is."
"I don't blame you," he said warmly, "and," he added significantly, "I want you to do more than just 'like' me." And he held her mittened hand in a warm, close clasp.
"I do," she said with drooping eyes, and then he slid his other arm within hers and drew her closer to him, her hand in a clasp that thrilled her.
"That's good!" he said earnestly, with a light in his face. It seemed to make her heart quiver with a new joy such as she had never felt before. Then after a moment he said, "Do you know, you're the only girl that ever made me think I might fall in love someday?"
Her cheeks were rosy red now and her eyes alight.
"That's nice," she said in a comical imitation of his tone a moment before, and then they both laughed merrily, a sweet, embarrassed laughter that meant a great deal more than just merriment.
Rance cast a quick glance up and down the creek; saw that they were alone; and, putting his arm about her with a sudden tender motion, guided them over to a quiet nook where hemlocks arched the way. There he took her in his arms and laid his lips on hers in a tender kiss that she would never forget. There was something sweet and holy about it, like a solemn ceremony, as if a vow had been sealed.
"There! Now!" he said as he took her hands in his and prepared to go on their way down the creek. "Now, we belong!"
"Yes," said Sylvia with a kind of glory in her eyes. "Yes, we belong."
He looked at her tenderly.
"Forever?"
"Yes, forever!" said the girl solemnly as if she were making a vow.
"That means," said Rance, searching her eyes deeply, "that someday we shall be married and always be together. I know you are young yet and not through your studies, and so am I. I've got to take my place in the world and get ready to take care of you, but it's nice to know we belong!"
"Oh, yes!" said Sylvia fervently. And then he bent his head and kissed her again. Hand in hand they pursued their way with joy in their hearts and happiness in their faces.
"We'll talk this over with your mother," said Rance, thoughtfully, as they went on, "as soon as an opportunity offers. We don't want to spring any more worries on her."
"Oh, no!" said Sylvia quickly. "But--" she added shyly, "I don't think it will be a worry. She likes you. She said so! She said you were the right kind!"
"Ah!" said Rance. "That's good to hear! May I always be able to hold her good opinion. I know it's going to be wonderful to have a real mother again, that I can claim at least in part."
Then suddenly there were voices ahead! Sylvia recognized them. Paul and Marcia. Paul was going back to college tomorrow, and they were having a farewell skate together.
Rance smiled understandingly.
"I guess those two have some kind of an understanding, too," he said. "Have they ever been formally engaged?"
"No," said Sylvia, "they've never said anything about it. But they grew up together. As long as I can remember, Paul always wanted Marcia invited when we had any company, and he always paired off with her everywhere. They w
ere chums, even when they were quite young. But they never acted silly even then. They were just like nice brothers and sisters."
Rance's eyes lit up.
"I see! Well, you and I didn't have that advantage, but perhaps we'll have just as much love and joy in each other."
Sylvia's eyes answered his with a blaze of present joy.
"Your mother likes Marcia, doesn't she?"
"She loves her," said Sylvia. "She's very happy over those two. Though I don't know whether they've ever really talked it out with Mother or not. But we've always taken Marcia for granted. Oh, if only Rex had married someone like that!"
"Don't blame Rex too much," said Rance. "He's really only a kid yet. And I'm afraid this Florimel knew and used the ways of the world far better than he did. But I imagine this experience is going to make him grow up sharply when he awakens to see just what he has done."
"I think he has," said Sylvia. "I think the night of the fire finished that for him. I came on him yesterday morning sitting alone under the unlit Christmas tree, looking like death. He seems as if he will never be happy again."
"He will," said Rance solemnly, "when he learns to let the Lord have His way with him. God has an afterward for him, too, sometime."
"Oh, it's so wonderful that you know Him, too!" said Sylvia, softly nestling her hand in his for an instant.
And then the other two swept around the nearby curve of the creek and they could answer only by glances. But they went on together now, and somehow it seemed that Paul and Marcia understood that about them and were glad.
Then with a shout and an outcry of joy came the other two of the family, Stan and Fae, cutting into the ice with flourishes and curves and dashing at them madly.
"Great!" said Stan. "We thought we might find you here!" And Rance looked down at them joyfully.
"It's going to be great to have all these sisters and brothers," he said in a low tone to Sylvia, and she looked back at him proudly and then smiled at Stan and Fae. Oh, there were going to be no regrets with them when she was married, she thought. But poor, poor Rex! Could they ever be happy in any kind of way over Florimel?
And then when they got home that night and Rance came in for the evening meal, Rex came in just as the bell rang, with a look almost of peace on his worn face, and announced that he had got a job at last. It was only a foundry, a sort of machine shop. His work was to be most humble, with a very small wage at first, but he was to learn the business, and there was a chance to rise. Not very high, of course, but perhaps as high as the husband of a girl like Florimel deserved.
He had a very humble attitude, they saw, and it pulled their heartstrings to see how thankful bright Rex was over a humble little position like that. An apprentice in a machine shop! When he had been at the head of his college class and a star in athletics! There was no danger now that handsome, brilliant Rex would ever have too fine an opinion of himself.
It was plain that the lesson had gone deep, all these days in his mother's home, a home that he had well-nigh shattered by his own deed, and no chance of work to help out in any way. Of course, his mother wasn't in need of being paid for his and his wife's board. But it had been bitter to his pride to see his mother enduring the impositions that Florimel put upon her, and he unable even to pay the doctor or for the repairs on the house that her own act had damaged.
Now even the fact that Paul was going back to college without him on the morrow had power to bring a cloud over his face. He seemed to have lived centuries since he left the college town with Florimel. He had grown up and into the knowledge of awful disappointment and sorrow. He had come to find out the ecstatic joys of an hour can turn to dust and ashes on the tongue.
Paul saw that it was not going to be such agony as he had feared for Rex to see him go back to college. For in a way Rex had grown beyond him, beyond them all. He seemed to have come humbly to God and acknowledged that he was wrong, submitted himself to be made right.
And there seemed to be no longer any question whether Florimel could lead him astray again, for Florimel had overstepped her powers, for good, and made it very apparent what she really was.
So Paul spent the evening with Marcia and then went away early the next morning escorted by Rance, who had stayed the night, and by Stan, who had grown older with all that had passed during the vacation.
But Rex put on overalls and went at an early hour down to his machine shop to begin a time of self-abnegation.
Chapter 18
Rex came home one evening about two weeks after he got his job, walking with a quicker step and a strong look of purpose on his face. He washed and dressed and went in to see Florimel for a moment but found her still in a most contemptuous mood. The doctor had told her she might get up, and she had been moving around her room for several days, part of the time. The nurse had told her that she no longer needed her, but she refused to get along without her. The doctor had told her that she might go down to a meal now and then if she felt like it, but she had steadily refused to do this. So when Rex heard the call to dinner, he went down by himself.
There was a cozy feeling about the dining room, and the girls and Stan were smiling as he came in. For the first time, almost, since the night of the fire, Rex smiled back, and stooping over his mother, he kissed her on the forehead. His heart thrilled faintly as he saw the glad light in her eyes that he had remembered to kiss her, and he felt ashamed that he had omitted it before, so wrapped up in himself and his troubles that he had forgotten a custom of years when they had been separated.
After a blessing that Stan asked, Rex began to talk. There was a strong decision in his voice.
"Moms," he said, "I've just found out that Syl's university has an evening course that is practically free; that is, there would be books and a trifle for tuition, but I could probably get books secondhand, or borrow them, or something, or maybe Rance or Syl would have some I could use. What would you think if I took an evening course and kept up with my studies so that someday when I'm able to, I could go back and finish. I don't mean to finish at our old college, of course. That's done forever. But just go evenings and finish somewhere so I could have a diploma and get on a little better. What do you think of it, Moms? The reason I ask is, there's a fellow in the machine shop with me who is doing it, and he's never had any college at all, just high school, and he claims he's getting on really well in spite of handicaps. Would you think that was wise? Do you think Dad would have thought that was best? At least it would give me something to do evenings that was really worthwhile and keep me out of mischief."
He paused and looked at his mother anxiously.
Then a voice behind him spoke. "Yes? And where do I come in? Who's going to amuse me while you go back to your childhood and study your ABC's some more?"
Rex started and paled and turned quickly. There stood Florimel arrayed in the bright red dress she had worn on Christmas Day before she had changed her apparel. Her hair had begun to grow a little, and she had curled it with an iron till it stood in yellow rings around her head; but it wasn't the pretty hair she used to have, and she didn't look in the least like her former self. Rex arose quickly and stood looking at her.
"Why, Florimel!" he said. "I didn't know you were coming down! Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call me to help you down?"
"No, you didn't know I was coming. You didn't ask me, as I remember. But I'm here. I realize that when I want to do something I have to help myself to it hereafter, do I? That's all right with me, of course, only I shall take the same privilege and do what I want to, and you might as well understand that now as later."
"I'm sorry," said Rex gravely, lifting his chin with that patient, humble deference he had been acquiring of late.
"Oh, yes? You're very sorry, I suppose, that I came down and caught you cooking up some scheme with your money-crazy mother for you to go on and get a little more school without my knowing it. But that's all right. Go right on scheming, and let her keep your money. There'll be some way to get
it out of her later, and I don't mean maybe. Now that I'm up, I'm going to work in real earnest. If I can't do it any other way, I'll get a divorce and get alimony, but I'll get it, you'll see!"
"Won't you sit down and have some dinner," said Rex, moving up a chair for her.
She accepted the chair and let Selma get her a plate and knife and fork, a glass of ice water, and a napkin, like a queen whose right it was to have all these things.
They sat down, and the dinner proceeded with conversation on safe, ordinary lines; but Rex said no more about evening classes at the university, and Florimel sat with a grim face and ate her dinner. It did not look much as if the hope were coming true that Mary Garland had expressed once or twice quietly in the privacy of her own room to Sylvia and Paul, that Florimel might be changed by the experience through which she had passed.
Oh, God, she prayed in her heart continually, help my dear Rex to bear this and acquit himself rightly.
Florimel said no more. She ate a good dinner and afterward let Rex help her upstairs, for there was no mistaking that she was tired. But Rex went about with the old despairing look on his face that he had worn before he got that job.
Late that night when all the household was asleep, Rex stole to his mother's room.
"Moms, about that thing I was talking of at the table, don't think any more about it. I can see it wouldn't be best."