Dr. Lavendar's People. Deland Margaret Wade Campbell
and the veined hands covering the aged face. Dr. Lavendar sighed.
"What can I do, Edward? I can't go to-morrow. You see I can't."
"Yes, you can, John."
"He would die; he'd have another attack. His heart is bad, Edward."
"Oh, I'm afraid it is, I'm afraid it is. But John, you do your duty. Never mind Alex's heart. That isn't your affair."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly go – not possibly," the father protested, nervously.
The glow died out. The room grew dusk and then dark. Mr. Gordon got up and reached to the mantel-shelf for a spill. "Mary used to make the spills for me," he said, vaguely. "Now our Rachel does it, and she doesn't half bend the end over." He lighted the spill, the little flame flickering upon his poor old face peering out from under his purple handkerchief. "Oh, Alex ought not to be so hard. I would go with you to-morrow, Edward, but I can't, you know. I can't." Then, with a shaking hand, he took off the ground-glass globe and lighted the tall lamp that stood among a litter of papers on the library-table. "You see how it is, Edward, don't you? I can't possibly go."
"You will be sorry if you don't, John."
"I'll be sorry anyhow," he burst out. "I'm always sorry. I've been sorry all my life. My children are my sorrow."
Algy Keen, his face swollen with crying, his black hair limp and uncurled, sat on the edge of the bed in the back room of a dingy Mercer lodging-house. The windows had been left open after Mary had been taken away, so that the room was cold; and there were still two chairs facing each other, – a certain distance apart. The room was in dreary order, and there was the scent of flowers in the chill air. The bed was tumbled, for the forlorn man had dropped down upon it to rest. But he was too tired to rest, and was sitting up again, dangling his stockinged feet on the shabby carpet and talking to Dr. Lavendar. He snuffled, and his poor, weak lips shook, and he rubbed the back of his trembling hand across his nose. Algy had had broken nights for a fortnight, and the last three days and nights of Mary's life he had almost no sleep at all; these two days when she lay dead in their bare room he had slept and wept and slept again; and now, when he and Dr. Lavendar had come back from the funeral, he sat on the edge of the bed and whimpered with weakness and grief.
"Well, sir, she was a good girl," he said. "I don't care what anybody says, she was a good girl. I ain't saying that things was just right, to begin with. But that wasn't Mary's fault. No; she was a good girl. And her folks treated her bad. They'd always treated her mean bad. My goodness! if they'd 'a' let me come to see her respectable, as you would any of your lady friends, 'stead of skulkin' 'round – … I can't stand the smell of those flowers," he broke out, in a high, crying voice; "I left them all out there at the cemetery, and I smell them here – I smell them here," he moaned, trembling.
"I like to smell them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They mean the old friendship for Mary. Mrs. King sent them. She's our doctor's wife in Old Chester. She always liked Mary."
"I don't see how she could help it," Algy said, his face crumpling with tears. "Well, she was a good girl. And she was a good wife, sir, too. I tell you, you never saw a better wife. I used to come home tired, and there'd be my slippers out for me. Yes, sir; she never missed it. And she was always pleasant, too; you mayn't call just being pleasant, religion, but I – "
"I do," Dr. Lavendar interposed.
"Well, so do I," Algy said, his face lightening a little. "I call it a better religion than her folks showed. Well, now, sir, I loved Mary" – he stopped and cried, openly – "I loved her (I didn't need that hell-hound of a brother to come after me) – yes, I was just as fond of her; and yet there was times when I come home at night – not – not quite – well, maybe a little – you know?"
"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar.
"But, my God, sir, Mary was pleasant. It isn't every woman that would be pleasant then, is it?"
"No, it isn't, Algy."
"Course, next day she'd tell me I done wrong. (She never told me so at the time – Mary had sense.) And I always said: 'Well, yes, Mary, that's so. And I'll never do it again.' But she was pleasant. Course I don't mean she was lively. She used to remember – well, that we'd made a mistake. You know? And she used to kind a brood on it. She talked to you considerably about it, I guess. She said you comforted her. She said you said that maybe her – her mistake had brought her to be kind o' more religious – saved her, as you might say."
"I said that she had come to know her Saviour through His forgiveness."
"I don't think Mary needed any forgiveness," the poor husband said, with tearful resentment; "I think her folks needed it."
"I'm sorry for them," Dr. Lavendar said. "They have got to remember that they might have been kinder. That's a hard thing to have to remember."
The young man nodded. "I hope they'll remember it, hard!"
"They will," said Dr. Lavendar, sighing.
"I spent my last cent on Mary," Algernon rambled on. "I got her a good coffin – a stylish coffin. The plate was solid silver. The man wanted me to take a plated one. I says 'no,' I says; 'I don't get plated things for my wife if it takes my last cent.' Well, it just about took it. But I don't care. Her people threw her off, and I did for her. I spent my last cent."
"You took her from them in the first place, Algernon," the old minister said. "Don't forget that you sinned."
"Well, you said she was forgiven," the other broke out, angrily. "I guess God's more easy than some people."
"He is."
"Well, then," Algy said, resentfully; "what's the use of talking?"
Dr. Lavendar was silent.
"I don't begrudge a cent I spent on her," Algy went on. "I had laid by $1140 to set up a place of my own here in Mercer. At least, it wasn't me; I'm not one to save much; it was Mary did it. But these last eight months have taken it all, 'cause I 'ain't done hardly any work; couldn't be away from her on the road, you know; so we had to live on that money. I could 'a' got a cheaper coffin; but I wouldn't. As for the doctor, I got the best in town. I don't believe in economizing on your wife. And I paid him. I paid him $204 yesterday morning, though it seems high, considering he didn't cure her. But I wasn't going to let Mary get buried owing the doctor. And I paid for the coffin. 'Spot cash,' I says to the man, 'make it spot cash, and name your figure.' He took off $17. Well, how much do you suppose I've got left now, Dr. Lavendar, out of $1140? Just $23, sir. I don't care; I don't begrudge Mary a cent. I thought the coffin looked handsome, didn't you? —Oh, I wish somebody had 'a' moved those chairs when we were gone!" he cried, his voice shrill and breaking.
Dr. Lavendar got up and pushed one of the chairs back against the wall and brought the other to Algy's side. The young man laid his hand on it and began to cry.
"No, I suppose you don't care to hear about it, John. But I want to tell you; so I guess you'll listen to please me?"
John Gordon said nothing.
"It isn't a long story," Dr. Lavendar said, and told him briefly of the funeral. When he ended there was silence. Then, "John," Dr. Lavendar said.
"Yes, Edward."
"The man is in need."
"What's that to me?" the other burst out.
"Much," said Dr. Lavendar; "it gives you a chance."
"You mean a chance to give him some money?" said the other. "Good God! To pay the scoundrel for what he did to us? Edward, you don't understand human nature."
"He spent his last cent making Mary comfortable, John. She told me so herself."
"I will never give that – creature one penny of my clean money."
Dr. Lavendar said nothing.
The older man bent forward, shivering, and stirred the fire. The coal broke into sputtering fragments and the flames roared up into the soot. "Alex would never listen to giving him any money."
"Don't ask him to listen to it. Haven't you got your own check-book?"
"Let