Across the Years
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
The Axminster Path
“There, dear, here we are, all dressed for the day!” said the girl gayly, as she led the frail little woman along the strip of Axminster carpet that led to the big chair.
“And Kathie?” asked the woman, turning her head with the groping uncertainty of the blind.
“Here, mother,” answered a cheery voice. “I’m right here by the window.”
“Oh!” And the woman smiled happily. “Painting, I suppose, as usual.”
“Oh, I’m working, as usual,” returned the same cheery voice, its owner changing the position of the garment in her lap and reaching for a spool of silk.
“There!” breathed the blind woman, as she sank into the great chair. “Now I am all ready for my breakfast. Tell cook, please, Margaret, that I will have tea this morning, and just a roll besides my orange.” And she smoothed the folds of her black silk gown and picked daintily at the lace in her sleeves.
“Very well, dearie,” returned her daughter. “You shall have it right away,” she added over her shoulder as she left the room.
In the tiny kitchen beyond the sitting-room Margaret Whitmore lighted the gas-stove and set the water on to boil. Then she arranged a small tray with a bit of worn damask and the only cup and saucer of delicate china that the shelves contained. Some minutes later she went back to her mother, tray in hand.
“‘Most starved to death?” she demanded merrily, as she set the tray upon the table Katherine had made ready before the blind woman. “You have your roll, your tea, your orange, as you ordered, dear, and just a bit of currant jelly besides.”
“Currant jelly? Well, I don’t know, --perhaps it will taste good. ‘T was so like Nora to send it up; she’s always trying to tempt my appetite, you know. Dear me, girls, I wonder if you realize what a treasure we have in that cook!”
“Yes, dear, I know,” murmured Margaret hastily. “And now the tea, Mother--it’s getting colder every minute. Will you have the orange first?”
The slender hands of the blind woman hovered for a moment over the table, then dropped slowly and found by touch the position of spoons, plates, and the cup of tea.
“Yes, I have everything. I don’t need you any longer, Meg. I don’t like to take so much of your time, dear--you should let Betty do for me.”
“But I want to do it,” laughed Margaret. “Don’t you want me?”
“Want you! That isn’t the question, dear,” objected Mrs. Whitmore gently. “Of course, a maid’s service can’t be compared for an instant with a daughter’s love and care; but I don’t want to be selfish--and you and Kathie never let Betty do a thing for me. There, there! I won’t scold any more. What are you going to do to-day, Meg?”
Margaret hesitated. She was sitting by the window now, in a low chair near her sister’s. In her hands was a garment similar to that upon which Katherine was still at work.
“Why, I thought,” she began slowly, “I’d stay here with you and Katherine a while.”
Mrs. Whitmore set down her empty cup and turned a troubled face toward the sound of her daughter’s voice.
“Meg, dear,” she remonstrated, “is it that fancy-work?”
“Well, isn’t fancy-work all right?” The girl’s voice shook a little.
Mrs. Whitmore stirred uneasily.
“No, it--it isn’t--in this case,” she protested. “Meg, Kathie, I don’t like it. You are young; you should go out more--both of you. I understand, of course; it’s your unselfishness. You stay with me lest I get lonely; and you play at painting and fancy-work for an excuse. Now, dearies, there must be a change. You must go out. You must take your place in society. I will not have you waste your young lives.”
“Mother!” Margaret was on her feet, and Katherine had dropped her work. “Mother!” they cried again.
“I--I shan’t even listen,” faltered Margaret. “I shall go and leave you right away,” she finished tremulously, picking up the tray and hurrying from the room.
It was hours later, after the little woman had trailed once more along the Axminster path to the bed in the room beyond and had dropped asleep, that Margaret Whitmore faced her sister with despairing eyes.
“Katherine, what shall we do? This thing is killing me!”
The elder girl’s lips tightened. For an instant she paused in her work-- but for only an instant.
“I know,” she said feverishly; “but we mustn’t give up--we mustn’t!”
“But how can we help it? It grows worse and worse. She wants us to go out--to sing, dance, and make merry as we used to.”
“Then we’ll go out and--tell her we dance.”
“But there’s the work.”
“We’ll take it with us. We can’t both leave at once, of course, but old Mrs. Austin, downstairs, will be glad to have one or the other of us sit with her an occasional afternoon or evening.”
Margaret sprang to her feet and walked twice the length of the room.
“But I’ve--lied so much already!” she moaned, pausing before her sister. “It’s all a lie--my whole life!”
“Yes, yes, I know,” murmured the other, with a hurried glance toward the bedroom door. “But, Meg, we mustn’t give up--’twould kill her to know now. And, after all, it’s only a little while!--such a little while!”
Her voice broke with a half-stifled sob. The younger girl shivered, but did not speak. She walked again the length of the room and back; then she sat down to her work, her lips a tense line of determination, and her thoughts delving into the few past years for a strength that might help her to bear the burden of the days to come.
Ten years before, and one week after James Whitmore’s death, Mrs. James Whitmore had been thrown from her carriage, striking on her head and back.
When she came to consciousness, hours afterward, she opened her eyes on midnight darkness, though the room was flooded with sunlight. The optic nerve had been injured, the doctor said. It was doubtful if she would ever be able to see again.
Nor was this all. There were breaks and bruises, and a bad injury to the spine. It was doubtful if she would ever walk again. To the little woman lying back on the pillow it seemed a living death--this thing that had come to her.
It was then that Margaret and Katherine constituted themselves a veritable wall of defense between their mother and the world. Nothing that was not inspected and approved by one or the other was allowed to pass Mrs. Whitmore’s chamber door.
For young women only seventeen and nineteen, whose greatest responsibility hitherto had been the selection of a gown or a ribbon, this was a new experience.
At first the question of expense did not enter into consideration. Accustomed all their lives to luxury, they unhesitatingly demanded it now; and doctors, nurses, wines, fruits, flowers, and delicacies were summoned as a matter of course.
Then came the crash. The estate of the supposedly rich James Whitmore was found to be deeply involved, and in the end there was only a pittance for the widow and her two daughters.
Mrs. Whitmore was not told of this at once. She was so ill and helpless that a more convenient season was awaited. That was nearly ten years ago--and she had not been told yet.
Concealment had not been difficult at first. The girls had, indeed, drifted into the deception almost unconsciously, as it certainly was not necessary to burden the ears of the already sorely afflicted woman with the petty details of the economy and retrenchment on the other side of her door.
If her own luxuries grew fewer, the change was so gradual that the invalid did not notice it, and always her blindness made easy the deception of those about her.
Even the move to another home was accomplished without her realizing it--she was taken to the hospital for a month’s treatment, and when the month was ended she was tenderly carried home and laid on her own bed; and she did not know that “home” now was a cheap little flat in Harlem instead of the luxurious house on the avenue where her children were born.
She was too ill to receive visitors, and was therefore all the more dependent on her daughters for entertainment.
She pitied them openly for the grief and care she had brought upon them, and in the next breath congratulated them and herself that at least they had all that money could do to smooth the difficult way. In the face of this, it naturally did not grow any easier for the girls to tell the truth--and they kept silent.
For six years Mrs. Whitmore did not step; then her limbs and back grew stronger, and she began to sit up, and to stand for a moment on her feet. Her daughters now bought the strip of Axminster carpet and laid a path across the bedroom, and another one from the bedroom door to the great chair in the sitting-room, so that her feet might not note the straw matting on the floor and question its being there.
In her own sitting-room at home--which had opened, like this, out of her bedroom--the rugs were soft and the chairs sumptuous with springs and satin damask. One such chair had been saved from the wreck--the one at the end of the strip of carpet.
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