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CHAPTER XIII
They were all together in the parlor at Yorkbury—Joy very still, with her head in her auntie's lap. It was two weeks now since that night when she sat writing in her journal at Washington, and planning so happily for the trip to Manassas that had never been taken.
They had been able to learn little about her father's death as yet. A Paris paper reported, and Boston papers copied, the statement that an American of his name, stopping at an obscure French town, was missing for two days, and found on the third, murdered, robbed, horribly disfigured. Mr. George Breynton had been traveling alone in the interior of the country, and had written home that he should be in this town—St. Pierre—at precisely the time given as the date of the American's death. So his long silence was awfully explained to Joy. The fact that the branch of his firm with which he had frequent business correspondence, had not received the least intelligence of him for several weeks, left no doubt of the mournful truth. Something had gone wrong in the shipping of certain goods, which had required his immediate presence; they had therefore written and telegraphed to him repeatedly, but there had been no reply. Day by day the ominous silence had shaded into alarm, had deepened into suspense, had grown into certainty.
Mr. Breynton had fought against conviction as long as he could, had clung to all possibilities and impossibilities of doubt, but even he had given up all hope.
Dead—dead, without a sign; without one last word to the child waiting for him across the seas; without one last kiss or blessing; dead by ruffian hands, lying now in an unknown, lonely grave. It seemed to Joy as if her heart must break. She tried to fly from the horrible, haunting thought, to forget it in her dreams, to drown it in her books and play. But she could not leave it; it would not leave her. It must be taken down into her heart and kept there; she and it must be always alone together; no one could come between them; no one could help her.
And so there was nothing to do but take that dreary journey home from Washington, come quietly back to Yorkbury, come back without father or mother, into the home that must be hers now, the only one left her in all the wide world; nothing to do but to live on, and never to see him any more, never to kiss him, never to creep up into his arms, or hear his brave, merry voice calling, "Joyce, Joyce," as it used to call about the old home. No one called her Joyce but her father. No one should ever call her so again.
Tom called her so one day, never thinking.
"I don't want to hear that—not that name," said Joy, flushing suddenly; then paling and turning away.
She was very still now. Since the first few days she seldom cried; or if she did, it was when she was away alone in the dark, with no one to see her. She had grown strangely silent, strangely gentle and thoughtful for Joy. Sorrow was doing for her what it does for so many older and better; and in her frightened, childish way, Joy was suffering all that she could suffer.
Perhaps only Gypsy knew just how much it was. The two girls had been drawn very near to each other these past few weeks. It seemed to Gypsy as if the grief were almost her own, she felt so sorry for Joy; she had grown very gentle to her, very patient with her, very thoughtful for her comfort. They were little ways in which she could show this, but these little ways are better than any words. When she left her own merry play with the girls to hunt up Joy sitting somewhere alone and miserable, and coax her out into the sunlight, or sit beside her and tell funny stories till the smiles came wandering back against their will to Joy's pale face; when she slid her strawberry tarts into Joy's desk at recess, or stole upstairs after her with a handful of peppermints bought with her own little weekly allowance, or threw her arms around her so each night with a single, silent kiss, or came up sometimes in the dark and cried with her, without saying a word, Joy was not unmindful nor ungrateful. She noticed it all, everything; out of her grief she thanked her with all her heart, and treasured up in her memory to love for all her life the Gypsy of these sad days.
They were in the parlor together on this Sunday night, as I said,—all except Mr. Breynton, who had been for several days in Boston, settling his brother's affairs, and making arrangements to sell the house for Joy; it was her house now, that handsome place in Beacon Street, and that seemed so strange,—strange to Joy most of all.
They were grouped around the room in the fading western light, Gypsy and Tom together by the window, Winnie perched demurely on the piano-stool, and Joy on the cricket at Mrs. Breynton's feet. The faint light was touching her face, and her mournful dress with its heavy crape trimmings,—there were no white chenille and silver brooches now; Joy had laid these things aside of her own wish. It is a very small matter, to be sure, this mourning; but in Joy's case it mirrored her real grief very completely. The something which she had not felt when her mother died, she felt now, to the full. She had a sort of notion,—an ignorant, childish notion, but very real to her,—that it was wicked to wear bows and hair-ribbons now.
She had been sitting so for some time, with her head in her aunt's lap, quite silent, her eyes looking off through the window.
"Why not have a little singing?" said Mrs. Breynton, in her pleasant, hushed voice;—it was always a little different somehow, Sunday nights; a little more quiet.
Gypsy went to the piano, and usurped Winnie's throne on the stool, much to that young gentleman's disgust.
"What shall it be, mother?"
"Joy's hymn, dear."
Gypsy began, without further explanation, to play a low, sweet prelude, and then they sang through the hymn that Joy had learned and loved in these few desolate weeks:
"There is an eye that never sleeps
Beneath the wing of night;
There is an ear that never shuts
When sink the beams of light.
"There is an arm that never tires
When human strength gives way—
There is a love that never fails
When earthly loves decay."
Joy tried to sing, but just there she broke down. Gypsy's voice faltered a little, and Mrs. Breynton sang very softly to the end.
After that they were all still; Joy had hidden her face. Tom began to hum over the tune uneasily, in his deep bass. A sudden sob broke into it.
"This is what makes it all so different."
"The singing, and the prayers, and the Sunday nights; it's been making me think about being a good girl, ever since I've been here. We never had any at home. Father—"
But she did not finish. She rose and went over to the western window, away from the rest, where no one could see her face.
The light was dimming fast; it was nearly dark now, and the crickets were chirping in the distant meadows.
Tom coughed, and came very near trying to whistle. Gypsy screwed the piano-stool round with a sudden motion, and went over to where Joy stood.
Tom and his mother began to talk in a low voice, and the two girls were as if alone.
The first thing Gypsy did, was to put her arms round Joy's neck and kiss her. Joy hid her face on her shoulder and cried softly. Then Gypsy choked a little, and for a while they cried together.
"You see I am so sorry," said Gypsy.
"I know it,—I know it. Oh, Gypsy, if I could see him just one minute !"
Gypsy only gave her a little hug in answer. Then presently, as the best thing she could think of to say:
"We'll go strawberrying to-morrow, and I'll save you the very best place. Besides, I've got a tart upstairs I've been saving for you, and you can eat it when we go up to bed. I think things taste real nice in bed. Don't you?"
"Look here, Gypsy, do you know I love you ever so much?"
"You do! Well, isn't that funny? I was just thinking how much I loved you. Besides, I'm real glad you're going to live here always."
"Why, I thought you'd be sorry."
"I should have once," said Gypsy honestly. "But that's because I was ugly. I don't think I could get along without you possibly—no, not anyway in the world. Just think how long we've slept together, and what 'gales' we do get into when our lamp goes out and we can't find the matches! You see I never had anybody to get into gales with before."
Somebody rang the door-bell just then, and the conversation was broken up.
"Joy, have you a mind to go?" asked Mrs. Breynton. "Patty is out, this evening."
"Why! whoever it is, they've come right in," said Joy, opening the door.
A man was there in the entry;—a man with heavy whiskers and a valise.
The rest of them sitting back there in the dark waited, wondering a little who it could be coming in Sunday night. And this is what they heard:
"Joyce, little Joyce!—why, don't be frightened, child; it's nobody but father."