As Maris flew down the stairs on panic-stricken feet, the telephone set up a wild ringing, and on top of that the doorbell shrilled out through the house, but Maris sped on to the kitchen where her mother would be. And there on the floor beside the sink, with the dish towel still in her grasp and her soft brown hair that was graying at the temples fallen down around her shoulders, lay her mother. Her face was still and white, and Maris's frightened eyes could see no sign of breathing as she stooped down with a low cry. "Oh, Mother! Mother! Mother! You dear little mother!"
"Yes, very dear to you!" said the sarcastic voice of her brother Merrick as he came angrily into the room. "What's the matter here?"
He caught a glimpse of his mother prone upon the floor and his young face hardened.
"If anything's the matter with Mother, you've yourself to thank for it. That doggone fool wedding is at the bottom of it all. I've seen it killing her day by day! Get out of the way and let me lift her up! Get some water, can't you? Send for the doctor! Somebody answer that telephone and tell 'em to shut up and get out!"
He gathered up his mother in his strong young arms. Such a frail little limp white mother with the dish towel still in her hand!
He strode toward the couch in the dining room.
"Gwyn, can't you stop that telephone! It's fierce! Maris, can't you bring some water? Isn't there any aromatic ammonia around?"
Merrick was standing over his mother, frantically peering down at her white, silent face.
A young man who had come in with Merrick and had up to this time stood in the doorway silently, answered the appeal in his friend's eyes and came over to the couch. He stooped over, listening, and laid his hand on the wrist.
Merrick looked at him with fear in his eyes.
"Is she--gone?" he murmured hoarsely.
"No, I think not," said the other. "Let's have that ammonia. Dip that towel in some water and wet her face."
Maris, with white face and frightened eyes, brought the bottle and then got a wet cloth and began to bathe her mother's face. She knelt down beside the couch and found she was trembling so that her knees would hardly support her.
The telephone had ceased, and presently Gwyneth came to her brother.
"It's Tilford," she said. "He said he's got to speak to Maris."
"Well, he can't speak to Maris now. I'll tell His Highness where to get off!" And Merrick strode out in the hall to the telephone.
If Maris heard at all, she was too frightened to take it in. She knelt there tenderly bathing her mother's still white face and trying to stop the trembling in her limbs, trying to keep her lips from quivering.
She was aware that somebody else, an outsider, was kneeling beside her listening for a heartbeat, feeling for a slender, evasive pulse in her mother's frail wrist, but she did not turn her head to look at him. It didn't occur to her to wonder who he was or if she knew him. She was intent upon her mother's face. Was it too late? Was she gone from them forever? Would she never be able to tell her how much she loved her? How sorry and ashamed she was that she had let her do so many hard things alone, while she had gone on her blithe way having a good time and never noticing how hard she was making it for her precious mother.
She thought of many things while she knelt there so quietly bathing that white face, helping the man beside her to lift the head of the sick woman and hold a glass of water to her lips. She was examining herself, seeing herself as she had never seen herself before in all her happy, carefree days.
Maris did not hear Merrick at the telephone, though he was shouting angrily:
"Well, you can't see my sister. She's busy. Our mother has been taken very ill. We aren't sure but she's dying. Get off this wire. I want to telephone for the doctor. Get off quick, I say!" Bang! Merrick hung up.
Then in a second he lifted the receiver again.
"Merrick, you must be crazy to speak to me this way. Do you realize what you are doing?" babbled forth the indignant voice of his future brother-in-law. "Tell Maris to come here at once. I must speak to her right away. I won't keep her but a moment, but I must tell her something right away!"
"Will you get out of my way?" yelled Merrick. "If my mother dies for want of a doctor, we'll have you arrested for murder. Get off, I tell you! Thunder, have I got to go next door to get a message through to the doctor? Operator! Operator!"
"But, Merrick, listen to me--"
"Oh, go to thunder!" roared Merrick. "No, I won't listen to you. I'll go and use the neighbors' phone, and you can keep right on talking to yourself--" And Merrick banged the receiver down on the table and left Tilford protesting in dignified and indignant tones. But Merrick had gone next door to telephone, and presently Tilford took it in that nobody was listening to him. A vast silence seemed to have dropped down upon the wire, and nobody was getting the benefit of his high-sounding words. Tilford was a handsome man and usually depended a good deal on the effect of his personal appearance when he was talking, but he found himself at a great disadvantage just now, for his physical beauty had no effect whatever on the telephone wires. There didn't seem to be even an operator around to hear him. So at last he hung up in disgust. Somebody should suffer for this! Merrick, of course, was the greatest offender, but if Merrick were not available, his sister should certainly take it. Perhaps it would be as well for him to go right around to the house now and see Maris personally, make her understand what an unforgivable thing her brother had done. He never had liked that fellow anyway. When he and Maris were married, he would forbid Merrick from coming to the house! One didn't have to marry all one's wife's relatives of course. He would make her understand that thoroughly when the time came.
So Tilford Thorpe started on his way to see Maris.
Maris, on her knees beside the dining room couch, was holding a cloth wet in aromatic ammonia in front of her mother's face and crying in her heart, Oh, God. Don't let her die! Oh, God, please don't let my mother die! and was coming out rapidly from the coma of merriment into which the orgy of festivities connected with her engagement had plunged her.
As the agonized minutes passed and still that white face did not change--save for a quick catching of breath, faintly, so faintly that they weren't quite sure it had been a breath--it seemed as if the atmosphere rapidly became clear of a lot of things that had filled it for Maris in the past weeks. True values of things and people began to adjust themselves to her sharply awakened mind. Such things as special hours for wedding invitations to be mailed and the importance of pleasing Tilford's relatives sank into insignificance. Years of tender care and sacrifice and precious love stood out in clear relief and importance. Strange sharp memories came and stood around like witnesses against her. The time when she had cut the vein in her wrist with the bread knife and Mother had held it together until the doctor got there. The time when the bull had dashed into the garden from a herd that was going by on the street and Mother had sheltered her behind her own body. That was when she was only two and a half years old, yet she remembered how safe she had felt. The time when she had the whooping cough and almost died, with an unbelievable temperature, and Mother had stayed up for two whole nights and days, most of the time on her knees bathing the hot little body under a blanket, trying to bring down the temperature. The time when there had had to be a blood transfusion and Mother had offered her own. Such a precious mother who had guarded and served them all. Her deeds stood crowding about the couch hand in hand, silent witnesses of the past. And last of all her lovely wedding dress seemed to her troubled mind to come floating down the stairs and stand with the rest about the couch where the little gray-faced mother lay.
"Oh, Mother, Mother!" Maris suddenly cried, softly, and her hand paused with the wet cloth she was holding, and her head suddenly went down on her mother's breast for an instant of despair. Then up again instantly, just as strong hands lifted her, and Merrick's voice, grown suddenly tender and more worried, said, "Take her in the other room. I'll look out for Mother."
That roused her. She straightened up.
"No! No! I'm all right!" she whispered. "I must stay here!"
"There's the doctor!" announced Gwyneth, hurrying to open the door. And then they all made way for the doctor, and Maris felt those strong arms lifting her again and leading her to a chair.
She did not look up to see who it was. Her eyes were upon her mother's face there on the couch.
Someone brought her a glass of water, and she drank it and then went back to stand at the head of the couch and watched the doctor's face.
The strange young man was sent on an errand for the doctor, and Merrick went to telephone his father. Maris stayed to wait on the doctor and answer his questions, though she found it was fourteen-year-old Gwyneth who did most of the answering.
"I wasn't here," was all Maris could say in answer to some question about whether her mother had felt bad the day before and what she had been doing.
"She had an awful headache yesterday," said Gwyneth sadly. "I guess she worked too hard. She would do so many things. I tried to help her, but she sent me to do my homework and said she could do it all herself. But once I saw her put her hand over her heart, and I asked her what was the matter, and she said, 'Oh, just a sharp pain.' "
"Had she been having pains in her heart?"
"She never complained," said Maris sadly. "I'm afraid we were all so busy with our own affairs that we didn't notice."
"She sewed a lot last night," volunteered Gwyneth. "She told me this morning she'd got it all done, what she was working on."
Tears sprang to Maris's eyes, and she turned away to hide them and then turned back again as she heard her mother give a soft little breath of a sigh. Oh, was she coming back to them, or was she gone? She watched the grave face of the doctor anxiously, but he worked on quietly and gave no sign. Only asked for water and a spoon, and handed the glass back to Maris.
A car drew up at the door. The young man came back and brought whatever it was that he had been sent for, but Maris took no notice of him. Some friend of Merrick's, she thought. Then a few minutes later a nurse arrived, and Maris caught her breath in hope and fear. But there was no time to ask questions. She must go upstairs and get the bed ready for the patient to be moved. There were sheets to hunt out, the good sheets. Where were the good sheets? Every one she unfolded seemed to be torn or badly frayed at the hems. Oh, the house was in perfect order for a wedding but not for an illness. And they had not been expecting to have any of the wedding party stay overnight with them, for they all lived in the town.
"There aren't any good sheets left, Maris," whispered Gwyneth. "Mother had me help her gather up the laundry for the man this morning, and we put the last good ones in the bag. She said she must stitch up some of the torn ones till the laundry got back."
Suddenly Maris took it in. Mother and Father had been scrimping on everything so there might be more to pay her wedding bills. There were beautiful garments hanging in her closet, costly garments, for her parents were sending her proudly away from their care; and her generous hope chest was filled to overflowing with linen and percale sheets and pillowcases, smooth as silk and fine of quality; and towels in abundance, rich and sumptuous as any bride might desire. But the mother of the bride must be put to bed in torn sheets!
Suddenly Maris's face went white and her lips set in a thin line of determination. She put back the torn sheets she had been unfolding hopelessly and marched into her own room to her hope chest. She delved deep and brought out a wealth of lovely smooth sheets and pillow covers and brought them into her mother's room where Gwyneth was taking off the worn sheets that had been on the bed.
Gwyneth looked at her in startled dismay.
"But, Maris, those are your wedding things! You mustn't use those!"
"Why not?" said Maris grimly. "They're mine, aren't they? Mother bought them for me, didn't she? I have a right to use them the way I want to, don't I?"
"Yes, but Mother wouldn't want you to use them up now. Not on her bed."
"I'm sure she would," said Maris, "if she knew how I feel about it. I'd rather use these now on Mother's bed, Gwynnie, than on any grandest occasion that could ever come into my life. Wouldn't you feel that way, Gwyn, if they were yours?"
"Oh, yes, I would," said Gwyneth, "but then, I wouldn't have the Thorpes to think about."
She said it so quaintly and so gravely that Maris would have broken down and laughed if she hadn't felt too frightened and too sad to laugh. But somehow it opened her eyes to the way her young sister felt about her future relatives.
And just then the doorbell pealed through the house.
"We must muffle that bell," said Maris. "The doctor said there mustn't be any noise. Mother startles every time she hears a sharp sound."
"I'll go," said Gwyneth.
"No, you stay here and help me. Tuck the sheets in over that side. The doctor wants to get Mother in bed as soon as possible. They are going to bring her right up. Someone will go to the door, Merrick or that young man he brought in with him. He's been very kind."
"Young man!" said Gwyneth. "Didn't you know who that was? That's Lane Maitland, the boy that used to live next door to us five years ago. Don't you remember him?"
"Lane Maitland? Why, yes, I remember him. But I didn't know him. I guess I didn't even look at him. Gwyn, you run down and tell them we're ready. I'll wait here and put out some more towels. Maybe they'll need me to help get Mother settled."
Gwyneth started, but as she passed the window she exclaimed, "Oh, Maris! That must have been Tilford that rang the bell! There's his car out there now."
Maris looked up in dismay.
"Well, I can't see him now. You run down and tell him what's happened. Quick! Before Merrick gets there! Merrick hasn't any sense."
Gwyneth vanished, and Maris turned back the covers carefully. She could hear that they were bringing her mother up the stairs. The nurse was ahead, eyeing the arrangements with a quick keen glance. Maris had no more time to think of Tilford now. But surely he would understand.
Then there was so much to be done that Maris forgot Tilford entirely. She helped the nurse to undress her mother. There were things to be hunted for. A nightgown and robe. Mother just didn't seem to have anything. All her garments were worn. Maris was ashamed to hand them out. She dashed into her own room, opened the drawer where her own pretty lingerie was waiting to be packed for her trip abroad, and selected a pretty gown and a little pink robe with sprigs of embroidery scattered over it. The tears blinded her eyes as she hurried back to the nurse.
"Oh, haven't you something plainer? Something old and worn?" said the nurse. "Keep these till she is able to sit up."
Maris felt as if her eager gift had been rejected, but she hurried away and hunted again among her mother's things.
"That will do," said the nurse, reaching for an old faded gown with a tear halfway up the back. "I shall want to cut it up the back anyway. It's easier to put it on without disturbing her."
Dear Mother, so inert, lying there limp, while others arrayed her in her old garments. Mother who never let anyone do anything for her and was always waiting on others! Oh, if she had only seen all of this before. If Mother didn't get well, would she ever be able to forgive herself and go on with life?
"Can you get me some ice?" asked the doctor crisply, breaking in on her frantic thoughts.
Maris dashed downstairs for the ice and almost knocked over Tilford, who was standing at the foot of the stairs, his handsome face snarled into an ugly frown.
"What on earth is the matter with you, Maris?" he said vexedly, reaching out his arms to prevent a collision. "You seem to be all wrought up. Can't you have a little self-control? And why have you had to keep me waiting so long when you know how busy I am this morning? I've been waiting here exactly fifteen minutes!" He glanced at his watch to be accurate. He was always accurate about details. "I sent you word that I was in a great hurry and would keep you only a moment, and yet you didn't come. I can't understand it."
He gave her a severe look as if she were a naughty child, and Maris burst into tears. Her lips quivered, but she controlled herself at once.
"Oh, hush, please," she said in a whisper. "We mustn't talk here. Mother is very sick indeed. The doctor said there must be absolute quiet. Come into the kitchen with me. I can't stop even a minute. The doctor wants some ice."
"Well, why doesn't he send the nurse after it? I saw a nurse go upstairs. Does he expect to make a packhorse out of you?"
Maris flew to the refrigerator and began to work away at the ice with an ice pick and mallet. She was suddenly very angry. She had hoped for a little sympathy from Tilford, and he had only sharp words.
"Mercy! Don't you have a modern refrigerator?" he said as he followed her annoyedly and stood watching her knocking off the chunks of ice. "I thought everybody had ice cubes now."
Maris shut her lips tight. At another time she might have explained that her father had had the money saved for an electric refrigerator and was just about to get one when she announced her intention of getting married soon, and everything else had to give way to get money for that. But now she was too angry to explain anything. Tilford was being disagreeable. He knew her father wasn't wealthy.
"Well, come and sit down somewhere," he went on haughtily. "I've got to tell you one or two things before you vanish again. Are these chairs all right to sit on? Kitchen chairs are apt to have flour and grease on them." And he inspected one with a disdainful finger.
"Anything in my mother's kitchen is perfectly clean," said Maris with uplifted chin.
"Oh, certainly, of course," said Tilford perfunctorily, "but servants aren't so careful."
"We have no servant," said Maris briefly.
"You have no servant? Why? What has become of Sally?"
"She is not here anymore," said Maris. "And now, Tilford, you can sit down anywhere you like, but I have no time to sit down. If you have anything to say, say it quickly. I'm taking this ice right upstairs. My mother is too precious to run any risks of delay."
"Nonsense!" said Tilford. "You probably are exaggerating the whole thing. Your mother is just tired and will be all right in a few hours. You should get a good servant at once. Two of them, in fact, while you have a nurse in the house. Would you like for me to stop at an employment agency and send a couple out?"
"Certainly not!" said Maris firmly. "We will look after our own household. Tell me quickly what you want, for I have to go, and I may not be able to come down again for some time."
"Well, really, Maris, I never saw you in a mood like this. I'm sure I hope your mother won't be ill often."
Maris didn't answer. She was working swiftly, gathering up the pieces of ice in a bowl and closing the refrigerator door softly, still sickroom conscious, he perceived. It was evident she meant what she said and would not be there long.
"Well, Maris," he said more pleasantly, "what about this dress Mother wants you to see?"
"Well, what about it?" said Maris, still haughtily.
"Why, Mother said you promised her to go and see it and try it on."
"No, I didn't promise her, Tilford. She told me about the dress and I told her that I had no need for a wedding dress, that I already had one, and then some people came in and we didn't talk anymore. That's all. I have no need for another dress, and if I did, I would pick it out myself."
"That's not a nice spirit, Maris. You certainly don't act like yourself this morning. I don't know what has come over you. Whatever was actually said, you are perfectly aware that my mother expressed a wish for you to have that dress and asked that you go and see it at once because she had had it reserved for you. I came this morning to take you down in my car to the shop, because I wanted to save you the trip, and you act this way. Come, get your hat and we will go at once. Slip on another dress, can't you? That one looks a bit like a kitchen rig."
Maris flashed a look at her bridegroom and spoke in low, decided tones: "I cannot possibly go anywhere today, Tilford, even if I wanted to go, which I certainly do not! I have no wish for another wedding dress. When I am married, I shall wear the dress my mother made for me and no other. If people do not like it, they can look the other way. But at least until I am married, I am the one to say what I shall wear. My mother sewed half the night last night to finish the lovely dress she has made for me, and I certainly shall not wear any other, no matter if it pleases anybody else or not."
Maris was very angry now. She was washing the pieces of ice and lifted them into a clean bowl.
Tilford's face was a study, if she had only had time to see it. Amazement and scorn struggled for the mastery.
"Your mother made your wedding dress?" he exclaimed in a tone of horror. "You were going to wear a homemade dress to my wedding! You were going to do a thing like that to our family?"
Maris wheeled and stared at him for a second in amazement. She had never seen Tilford like this before. His handsome face was almost disfigured with scorn. Then she said crisply, "Why, yes, I was. You see, I thought it was my wedding, not entirely yours, at least I thought it was ours, not your family's. And you have always seemed to rather like my homemade clothes. It didn't occur to me that you or anybody would have anything to say about my wedding dress."
"Well, I am amazed," said the haughty youth. "It seems my mother was entirely right in feeling she ought to do something about this. A homemade dress at a Thorpe wedding!" he repeated. "Really, Maris, you and I will have to have a plain talk. Suppose you take that ice upstairs and come right down and we will settle a few things, here and now. I know, of course, that you are very much wrought up. You have evidently been working too hard. Your family has no right to let you get so tired when you are to be married so soon. The strain of the festivities is enough without difficulties in your home. But it is time I make a few things quite plain to you that I have been taking for granted that you understood."
"You have certainly made a good many things plain to me already," said Maris cryptically, as she rescued that last lump of ice from sliding off the table and plunked it into the bowl with the rest, "but I have no time nor desire to discuss anything more with you this morning. I'm going now."
She opened the back stair door and darted away.
He arose hastily and strode after her, calling up the stairs.
"Listen, Maris. Have you sent off those wedding invitations yet? Because this is the last day they should go. If they aren't done, suppose you give them to me and I will take them home. Mother will have her secretary finish them."
But Maris closed the upper stair door quietly and firmly, and when he sought the front stairs and went halfway up calling her name cautiously, the white-clad nurse came silently out with her finger across her lips and shook her head at him. And though he waited for some minutes, Maris did not appear again.
For Maris had other things to think about. Her mother was gasping for breath, and it was apparent that it was going to take swift work to save her life.
Two hours later the worst seemed over, for the present at least. The tired heart had taken up a slow but dependable beat again, and the mother was sleeping. She had taken a few sips of nourishment, and her hand was lying in her husband's, who sat beside her, gray and worn and anxious.
The nurse was putting her domain into immaculate order, report card and pencil, thermometer and medicine on the bedside stand; starched white uniforms hanging in the guest closet in place of the hastily removed wedding garments. The house had assumed a new atmosphere. Merrick had gone to get Sally to return to the kitchen. Gwyneth had gone to the store for the list of necessities her mother had made out before she suddenly dropped out of the day. The strange young man whom her sister had said was their old neighbor Lane Maitland had disappeared along with the doctor. The nurse was with the patient; the house was very quiet. Maris had just returned from the attic where she had hidden the addressed wedding invitations, boxes and all, wrapped carefully in many thicknesses of tissue paper and stuffed under the eaves behind an old trunk, when the doorbell pealed through the house. She must go and muffle that bell before she did anything else, she thought to herself, as she hastened to answer the ring.
There stood the Thorpe chauffeur with a letter in his hand, addressed in Tilford's handwriting.
She frowned as she looked at it. There was something so assured and almost smug about even his writing. The thought darted through her mind unbidden, and she shut it out again. She must not think things like that about the man she was going to marry, even if he had been disagreeable when she needed sympathy and help. Everybody had faults, and of course Tilford had some little things-- She looked at the chauffeur questioningly.
"Were you to wait for an answer?"
"Yes, ma'am, I was to wait and see if you had any messages."
Maris stepped into the living room and read the letter. It was not long.
Dear Maris:
Of course I realize that you were overwrought just now, and I shall not hold it against you. I would not trouble you again today but the time is getting short, and this matter of the wedding dress is somewhat insistent. My mother feels as I do that we should not let this most suitable garment go, now that we have found it. So I have taken the liberty of having it sent up to your house. I will take care of the bill myself. Call it a wedding gift if you like. I am told that it is the custom in some Asian lands for the groom to provide the wedding garment. And I am sure when you have seen it you will agree with us that it is most suitable for a formal occasion such as our wedding is to be, and that any mere homemade dress would be entirely out of place.
Let me know if I can help with the invitations. You know they should be mailed no later than this evening. The man will wait to see if you have any messages.
Hoping that your mother is now feeling much better and that by tomorrow she will have fully recovered.
Yours as ever,
Affectionately,
Tilford
Maris had just reached the end of the letter when she heard the nurse calling softly, insistently: "Miss Mayberry, could you come here a minute quick! I don't like the way your mother breathes, and I want to telephone the doctor at the hospital."