His Family by Ernest Poole (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

“I’ve sold the house,” he told her. Convulsively she gripped his arms:

“Then tell me where you mean to live!”

“I’m not going to live⁠—I’m going to die⁠—very soon⁠—I have definite knowledge.”

Without speaking Deborah rose; her face went white. Her father kept tight hold of her hands, and he felt them trembling, growing cold.

“You’re soon to be free of everyone,” he continued painfully. “I know this is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child, just what it is I’ve got to do. I’m trying to clear the way for you to make a simple definite choice⁠—a choice which is going to settle your life one way or the other. I want to make sure you see what you’re doing. Because you mean so much to me. We’re flesh and blood⁠—eh, my daughter?⁠—and in this family of ours we’ve been the closest ones of all!” She seemed to sway a little.

“You’re not going to die!” she whispered.

“So it hurts you to lose me,” he replied. “It will be hard to be so free. Would you rather not have had me at all? I’ve been quite a load on your back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging me up when I was down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest, what burdens they have been at times. What sharp worries, heavy sorrows, days and nights you and I have gone through, when we should have been quietly resting⁠—free⁠—to keep up our strength for our next day’s work. Suppose you had missed them, lived alone, would you have worked better? You don’t know. But you will know soon, you’re to give it a trial. For I’ve cleared the way⁠—so that if you throw over Baird to be free you shall get the freedom you feel you need!”

“Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?” She asked in a harsh frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.

“This isn’t a time to be kind, my dear.” His voice was quivering like her own. “I’m bungling it⁠—I’m bungling it⁠—but you must let me stumble along and try to show you what I mean. You will have your work, your crowded schools, to which you’ll be able to give your life. But I look ahead, I who know you⁠—and I don’t see you happy, I don’t even see you whole. For you there will be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that have been in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them all⁠—for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger vision.” He shut his eyes, his jaw set tight. “I look into my family back and back, and I see how it has been made of many generations. Certain figures stand out in my mind⁠—they cover over a hundred years. And I see how much they’ve meant to me. I see that I’ve been one of them⁠—a link in a long chain of lives⁠—all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have all been here⁠—as I shall be in lives to come.

“And this is what I want for you.” He held her close a moment. The tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Until now you have been one of us, too. You have never once been free. You have been the one in this house to step in and take hold and try to decide what’s best to be done. I’m not putting you up on a pedestal, I don’t say you’ve made no mistakes⁠—but I say you’re the kind of a woman who craves what’s in a family. You’re the one of my daughters who has loved this house the most!”

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve loved this house⁠—”

“But now for you all this will stop⁠—quite suddenly,” he told her. “This house of ours will soon be sold. And within a few months I shall be dead, and your family will have dropped out of your life.”

“Stop! Can’t you? Stop! It’s brutal! It isn’t true about you!” she cried. “I won’t believe it!” Her voice broke.

“Go and see my physician,” he said.

“How long have you known it? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because we had troubles enough as it was, other things to think of. But there’s only one thing now, this freedom you are facing.”

“Please! Please!” she cried imploringly. “I don’t want to talk of myself but of you! This physician⁠—”

“No,” he answered with stern pain, “you’ll have to hear me out, my child. We’re talking of you⁠—of you alone when I am gone. How will it be? Are you quite sure? You will have your work, that vision of yours, and I know how close it has been to you, vivid and warm, almost like a friend. But so was my business once like that, when I was as young as you. And the business grew and it got cold⁠—impersonal, a mere machine. Thank God I had a family. Isn’t your work growing too? Are you sure it won’t become a machine? And won’t you lose touch with the children then, unless you have a child of your own? Friends won’t be enough, you’ll find, they’re not bound up into yourself. The world may reach a stage at last where we shall live on in the lives of all⁠—we may all be one big family. But that time is still far off⁠—we hold to our own flesh and blood. And so I’m sure it will be with you. You see you have been young, my dear, and your spirit has been fresh and new. But how are you going to keep it so, without the ties you’ve always had?” He felt the violent clutch of her hand.

“You won’t die!” she whispered. But he went on relentlessly:

“And what will you do without Allan Baird? For you see you have not even worked alone. You have had this man who has loved