Brentwood

by Grace Livingston Hill

  Then Betty appeared on the scene, heavy-eyed with sleep.

  “Oh, there you are!” said Marjorie cheerily. “How are the patients upstairs? Did you have to be awake with them much?”

  “Not once!” declared Betty. “They seem to be better this morning. Father says he’s all right and is going out to hunt a job. Mother wants some hot cereal. She asked for it herself. I don’t know where she thought it was coming from, but she wanted it.”

  “Well, we’ll fix her a nice tray. You go and get dressed. Should I do something to the furnace? I don’t know much about draughts and things.”

  “No, I heard Ted fix it before he went out.”

  “Oh, he hasn’t gone out without any breakfast again, has he?” cried Marjorie.

  “Oh, he probably took a sandwich with him or something. He goes on his paper route. He told me last night the fellow that bought it wants to sell it back and will go shares till it’s paid for. He goes out for the papers about four o’clock.”

  Marjorie put Sunny in his crib thoughtfully, reflecting on how easily she had always gone to the front door to pick up the morning paper, without ever realizing that somebody had to get up at four o’clock to make it possible for it to be there on the porch when she wanted it. Life had in one short day taken on a different aspect. She was thinking of things she had never noticed before.

  Bonnie’s temperature proved to be a little below normal.

  “That’s all right,” said Marjorie, out of her superior experience. “It usually does that the first day after a fever. Now we must keep her very quiet today so it won’t go up again tonight, and then she’ll probably be all right.” She smiled cheerfully at the little girl, who managed a wan quiver of her thin little lips in reply. Perhaps she thought it was a smile.

  Marjorie gave the children orange juice and fixed a tray for her mother. Betty came down when the cereal was ready and took it up.

  “She’ll know something’s happened with a tray looking like that,” she said as she noticed the daintiness of everything. Even without an array of silver and linen, Marjorie had managed to make everything look inviting.

  When Betty came down Marjorie was setting the table. She had cut the bread and laid out the eggs and bacon.

  “You’d better make the coffee,” she said to her sister. “I don’t know how without a percolator. I’m afraid I would spoil it.”

  “We used to have a percolator when we were at Brentwood, but it got broken in the moving,” sighed Betty.

  “Brentwood? What’s Brentwood? Was that where you lived before you came here?”

  “Yes,” said Betty sadly. “It was swell! It was an old farm house that had got caught on the edge of a new suburb when the city grew out there, and it had been fixed up with a great big porch across the front and the grass growing up close to it. It was built of rugged old stone, and they paved the porch with big thin flat ones. It was ducky. We had a hammock and big rocking chairs out there, and a dear little tiled table. Mother used to bring her sewing out and stay hours at a time. She loved it. There was a view out across a valley, looking away from the city, and a little brook in a meadow next to our place. It had a garage in an old barn, and Father had a little car to go to business in. We were just getting it pretty nicely furnished, too. That was when Mother was getting ready for you to come to visit us. She just lived on the thought of it. And then she went out to see Mrs. Wetherill, and she turned us down, and Mother came home just crushed! A little while after that the crash came, and Dad’s money went in a bank failure. Then the man Dad worked for died and the firm closed up, and here we are!”

  Betty’s tone was almost hopeless as she finished. Then after a minute she went on again.

  “Can you blame Mother for getting sick and going all to pieces? It just seemed too hopeless. And I was thinking last night. You’ve been wonderful, of course, and you’ve pulled us out of starvation, but what is it all going to amount to? You’ll get tired of us and go back to Chicago, of course. You couldn’t be expected to want to stick around a place like this. And we’ll all slump again. Of course, you’ve brought back our furniture, and you’ve paid our bills, and we’ve had something to eat, but Dad hasn’t any job, and mine’s gone, too, and how can I ever hope to get another job looking like this? Of course, we can’t go on living on you, grateful as we are for what you’ve done for us so far.”

  “Look here, Betty, you just stop that sob stuff. That’s no way to act. We’re all here, the sick ones are better, and we’ll get straightened out after a little and think things out bit by bit. There’s no point in trying to swallow the whole future in one bite when you haven’t had your breakfast yet. Come, let’s get everybody fed before we tackle the next thing!”

  Then the father’s voice was heard calling, “Betty!”

  Betty turned and flew up the stairs. In a moment she was down again, her eyes full of excitement.

  “Father’s told Mother, and she wants you to come right up!”

  Marjorie turned on her eager sister and kissed her.

  “Don’t worry,” she said softly, “it’s all going to come right.”

  Then she hurried off upstairs.

  Afterward Marjorie couldn’t quite remember everything that happened, or what they all said. It was just a memory of being folded in tender, frail arms, gentle hands upon her head, the softest lips in all the world upon her own, kisses on her lips and forehead and eyes. A voice saying softly, “My little, little baby. My lost darling!”

  Mrs. Wetherill had loved her. Marjorie had never had any doubt about that. And when Mrs. Wetherill had died, she was stricken and forlorn. She had felt bereaved of mother love. It was all the love she had ever known. But this was different! This was her very own, and was something sweeter and tenderer than anything she had ever known.

  When she came downstairs at last, she had a look upon her as if she had been crowned.

  Betty cast a curious questioning glance toward her, and Marjorie smiled.

  “It’s wonderful to have a birth mother,” she said. “That’s something you’ve had all these years that I didn’t quite have. Of course, Mrs. Wetherill was sweet and dear to me. She loved me very much, and I loved her dearly. But as I grew older, I thought a great deal about what my birth mother would be like, and now I know. I can’t just put into words what I mean, but it is sweet and satisfying and it makes me very happy. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Betty’s tense expression relaxed.

  “Yes, she is. I’m glad you can see it. I thought if you didn’t think so, it would be just too bad!”

  Marjorie flashed a look at her.

  “How could I help seeing how lovely she is? She is like an exquisite flower! Mrs. Wetherill was a handsome woman, everybody said, and I was proud of her looks and bearing, but she wasn’t anything like this. Mother is wonderful, beyond anything I ever dreamed. Just seeing her for that minute, I know she is just what I’ve longed for.”

  She hesitated and looked at Betty half shyly, as if she wasn’t sure just how this tense, belligerent sister would take what she was about to say.

  “You are very like her, do you know it?”

  The color swept up like a flood into the other girl’s pale cheeks.

  “They used to say I was when I was younger,” she said, “but I’ve got awfully skinny and sickly looking. You’re more like Mother, yourself.”

  “Why, we’re just twins, my dear, and how could one be more like her than the other? I can see myself how much alike we are. I’m proud of it and delighted about it.”

  “Well, I guess I must have been awfully mistaken about you,” admitted Betty grudgingly for the third or fourth time since Marjorie had arrived. “I can see you’re real. If you’d been like what I thought you were, you would have been ashamed of us all in these old ragged things. You wouldn’t have recognized the beauty in Mother up there in her tumbled bed with her patched old flannelette nightie on. You would have flung us a five-dollar bill maybe, and then gone off to
your nice luxurious life. That’s what I thought you were.”

  “Well,” said Marjorie thoughtfully, “when I’ve passed my probation, if I do, perhaps you’ll decide to love me like a sister, and then won’t we have fun?”

  Betty looked at her hungrily.

  “I haven’t had much fun in a long time. I’ve about got used to not having any.”

  “Well, we’ll see about that later. Now, breakfast is ready, isn’t it? Here they come.”

  There was a new spring in the father’s step as he came downstairs.

  “Your mother says she’s well,” he said as he came into the room. “She says she wants to come down to breakfast and see her family all together!”

  His face was radiant.

  “You didn’t let her get up, did you?” asked Betty anxiously.

  “Certainly not,” said the father. “She turned right over and went to sleep. She was more tired than she realized. That’s why I didn’t let our new girl stay in the room but a minute. I told her the doctor wouldn’t let her have excitement. Isn’t that right?”

  “It certainly is!” said Betty. “The doctor was very particular about her not being tired or excited.”

  “Well, I think she’s going to get well, now,” said the father. “Where is Ted?”

  “Out on his paper route. He’s bought it back on time,” said Betty.

  “But won’t he get back to get some of this nice breakfast, at all?” asked Marjorie. “You certainly are a good cook, new sister.”

  “Yes, he ought to be here any minute now, unless he’s found another job somewhere, in which case he may stay all day.”

  Then Bud arrived on the scene with tousled head and an eager, hungry look.

  “Gee! That breakfast smells awful good!” he declared. “Oh great cats! Lookit! Orange juice an’ cereal an’ bacum ’n’ eggs! Do we have ta choose, ur do we get all three?”

  “All three!” said Marjorie, pushing out the chair beside her for him.

  Sunny looked up with a face beaming in egg from ear to ear.

  “It’s ’licious, Buddie,” he said with a comical grin, and then they all laughed.

  “I wannta come out, too!” wailed Bonnie from the other room.

  Marjorie flew to her charge.

  “Not just this morning, kitten dear,” she said, smiling down at her. “We’ll have to wait till the doctor comes to see when you can get up. But don’t you worry. We’re going to have a nice time. When Betty and I get the work done, we’re coming in here and fix you up nice and clean, and then we’ll have a story or something. Now, suppose you take another little nap till I get done with my work.”

  Bonnie obediently turned over and shut her eyes, and Marjorie stole back to the table. It gave her a thrill to realize that this family was all hers. They hadn’t really taken her in yet, or at least she felt that they hadn’t had time to think her over and decide about her, and they would probably prove to have faults themselves, but they were dear already.

  Then in came Ted, giving a little shiver and rubbing his bare red hands together.

  “Gosh, it feels great in here! Nice and warm!” he said, and flashed a smile at Marjorie that made her feel warm around her heart.

  “Say, Dad, you look fine!” he said, looking keenly at his father.

  “I feel fine, Son,” said Mr. Gay. “I’m going out this morning and get a new job and set the world on fire.”

  “Oh, yeah?” said Ted, shutting his lips in a thin line. “Not this morning you aren’t! Not on your life! There’s going to be a big snowstorm, if I don’t miss my guess, and you’re staying in till the doctor says you can go out. Besides, you’re not sticking even your nose out the door till I get your overcoat back. Where’s that pawn ticket, Dad? Hand it over.”

  The father grinned and put his hand in his pocket, bringing out the ticket.

  “All right! I guess you’re right about the overcoat. I did get a little chilled yesterday, but it seemed necessary. However, since we have a Santa Claus in the house, perhaps it will pay in the long run to get that overcoat back, for I couldn’t reasonably expect to get a job going out on a day like this without an overcoat. That overcoat was one of my greatest assets, so if you’ll run around and get it for me, Ted, I’ll be obliged.”

  “I’ll get it, Dad, but I’ll hide it well, until you’re fit to wear it again. We can’t afford to have any more sick people around just now. Christmas is coming.”

  “Yes!” said the father, a sudden sharp pain in his voice. “Not much of a Christmas, I’m afraid, for a little new sister who has just come to us, but we’ve a lot to be thankful for!”

  Ted cast another keen look at his father.

  “Mother know about her?”

  “Yes!” said the father with a quick, radiant look. “She’s overjoyed. I wouldn’t let Marjorie stay up there but a minute, told your mother the doctor forbade it, but she looked perfectly satisfied. I think perhaps in spite of everything that this is the happiest day of her life.”

  “Now,” said Marjorie to Betty when the girls had finished the dishes and Sunny was established by the dining room table making a fence of pins from Marjorie’s pin ball around a cake of soap, “it’s time you and I had a consultation.”

  Bonnie was still asleep, and their father was sitting upstairs near his sleeping wife, reading the paper that Ted had brought him, carefully going over the want ads.

  The girls sat down in the kitchen for a minute. Bud had gone with Ted after the overcoat and a few things from the store Betty said they needed, and the house was very quiet.

  “You’ll want to fix Mother’s room before the doctor comes, that is, if she wakes up in time. If she doesn’t we’ll just have to let it go as it is. Doctors always understand.”

  “Oh, I’ll straighten it a little. I can do it without waking her. She’s used to my step. But I wish you would go up with him this time. I hate to meet him looking this way. I ripped the sleeve half out of my dress last night when I stooped over to pick up Sunny, and I’ve just spilled some grease down the front of it. I’m a sight! And this is the only dress I have. I couldn’t possibly get it washed out and ironed and on before he comes.”

  “Oh, I can fix that,” said Marjorie, smiling. “You’ll wear one of my dresses, of course. We’re just the same size, so it’s sure to fit you. Let’s open my suitcases and rummage.”

  Betty’s eyes lighted with sudden longing, but her lips set in a thin line.

  “Indeed I couldn’t deck myself out in your wonderful clothes. I couldn’t do that!”

  “No?” said Marjorie teasingly. “Suppose I deck you then? Come on, let’s see what I’ve got that will be suitable.”

  She dashed into the front hall, brought back her suitcase, and opened it right there in the kitchen before the ravished eyes of her beauty-starved sister.

  Marjorie reached under the neat muslin packing bags that contained frivolous evening things and pulled out two knitted dresses, simple of line, lovely of quality, and rich of color. A brown one and a green one. Hand-knit and expensive, of course, since Mrs. Wetherill had picked them out for her beloved child. But they were so beautifully simple that they did not look out of place for morning attire, though they might have graced almost any occasion.

  “There!” said Marjorie happily, “take your pick. I think there’s a blue one here somewhere, too. Yes, here it is,” and she flung it across a chair. “Put them all on and see which you like the best!”

  Betty stood spellbound.

  “Oh! I couldn’t wear those lovely things. It wouldn’t seem right!”

  “Now, please, Betty, don’t spoil things by objections. Put them on one at a time and let me see which is the most becoming.”

  Betty finally chose the dark blue.

  “It is less dressy than the others,” she said gravely, “though it’s awfully smart. I couldn’t ask anything handsomer on this earth. I never thought I’d have a chance to even try on one of those wonderful hand-knit dresses. I thought about
trying to knit one for myself just before we left Brentwood, and then the crash came and I couldn’t even afford to get common string to knit it with, so I gave it up. But I oughtn’t to put this on in the morning! It’s too fine.”

  “Nonsense!” said Marjorie. “Put it on. I’d like to see you in it. It makes your eyes bluer, and how well it hangs! What a pretty figure you have!”

  “Well, I’ll be awfully careful of it,” compromised Betty, “and I’ll take it off as soon as the doctor has gone.”

  “Nonsense! You’ll do no such thing!” said Marjorie. “You’ll wear it whenever you like. Here, I’ve got a couple of little cotton house gowns, sort of aprons they are, to slip over another dress when you’re actually working. You take the blue one and I’ll take the pink, and then we can tell each other apart. We’ll put those on for kitchen work.”

  Then they heard Bonnie stirring.

  “I’ll go and fix her up, give her a little sponging off and make her nice for the doctor, and you slip up and fix Mother. Then we’ll be ready for the doctor whenever he comes, and after that we’d better plan the meals and see if we have everything we need. Here, put on this apron thing. If Mother wakes up she’ll like to see you in something different.”

  “You make life like a kind of play,” said Betty as she wonderingly obeyed. “It doesn’t seem right to be dolled up like this to make a bed.”

  But she put it on, and Marjorie slipped into the other one and went to Bonnie.

  “You’ve got a new dwess,” said Bonnie, astonished, out of her long silence.

  “Yes, do you like it?”

  “Yes, it’s pwetty. Have you got two dwesses?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Betty hasn’t got but one,” said Bonnie irrelevantly.

  “Well, we’re fixing that all up now,” said Marjorie. “How about you? How many dresses have you got?”

  “Just two,” said Bonnie. “One white one, only it’s too short, and Muvver won’t let me wear it in the winter, and one nasty bwown one. I don’t like it. I want a plaid one.”

  “Well, Christmas is coming pretty soon. We’ll see what can be done about that, too.”