February, 1941
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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an offense sitting there in her becoming costume of deep black. He could not bear to look at her. He wished she had not come. Ah! She was one of the things that must be cut out of his life from henceforth. Stephen would never have companioned with a girl like Enid. Yet even as he turned away his eyes from looking at the girl, it came to him that Stephen would never have felt re sentment toward her. He was always full of kindliness even toward those who had injured him. And of course it was not Enid’s fault that Philip had been standing there in the middle of the road talking to her when the peril came. He groaned in spirit as the intermin able service dragged along. He heard nothing of the comfort it was meant to give. He was thinking of his own lost lifo—thinking of how he must now fit himself into his brother’s place and live Stephen’s life instead of his own. He had no impatience toward this idea, no parley with himself whether he could not as well shirk this most un congenial task. It was something that his inner nature demanded of him. He looked at the face in the coffin with a stem mask upon his own, for it seemed he was really looking upon his own face lying there among the flowers. Dead, he, Philip Gardley, dead with his brother! He knew he could never be his brother, much as he should, try, and yet he must try, and equally he could not be himself because of trying. The first night after the funeral was agony. Stephen’s room empty! It had been so very long that Stephen had been always at home. Grammar school days and high school days and then college, and always that wonderful older brother at home making things go, as his father would have done if he had lived. No Stephen in the house ever any more! Stephen had said he, Philip, was to “carry on!” He to be Stephen now! Incredible thought! ‘ Sensing the bitter loss his mother was suffering, Philip had sought to comfort her. Yet somehow he knew he had not comforted her, only showed her that he was sorry and that he needed comfort himself. Stephen would have had words
fancy, and how carelessly he had ac cepted it all! How as a matter of course he had taken it as only his due, and asked for more. And the partnership! Oh, the stabbing pain that shot through him at the thought of that! What would the business be with Stephen gone! Oh, would there not be at least a word, a look, before he went from them forever? And then, at last, it came—a look fully conscious, a slow smile of understanding and farewell that Philip would carry with him into eternity; a voice, low, vibrant, clear, Stephen’s last words: "It’s all right, Phil. You’ll carry on!” A fleeting look of deep love into his mother’s eyes, and he was gone! Stephen was gone! , And he, Philip, was left to carry on! How that thought came down upon his light and easy soul with crushing meaning! How the boy of a day ago shrank into himself and cried out in protest to a God he did not know! How he went through the interminable days of heartache that dragged themselves so unmercifully slowly until the funeral was over! His white, anguished face looked out as from the gloom of the valley of the shadow. People said, “How he loved him!” in slow astonished voices, and looked after him wonder- ingly. No one had thought that he had it in him to love and appreciate his brother so deeply. But Philip did not hear them, did not see the surprise in their faces. He went the necessary way through those awful days up to the afternoon of the service in a kind of daze, with but one thought ever before him. He, Philip, had been a dead man, if Stephen had not died for him! Stephen had died that he might live, and therefore it was his place henceforth to die to himself that he might live Stephen’s life for him. Stephen was an infinitely better man than Philip knew he ever could be. But now it was his place to carry on Stephen’s life as he had begun it, and it seemed an appalling thing that he was asked to do. The day of the service Philip sat by his mother, where she had chosen to stay, close by the casket where lay that kind strong face. When' Philip lifted his grief-filled eyes, there across the room sat Enid Ainsley, the pretty girl to whom he had been speaking when the accident oc curred. Perhaps there had been a bit of self-consciousness on his part as he had moved toward her on the street that day, because he knew that Stephen and his mother did not approve of his friendship with Enid. Yes, he knew that there was a fascination about her. He had owned to himself more than once that he was in love with her; yet now in the revulsion that the great catas trophe had brought, she seemed almost
He went down to the office in the morning with a heavy heart and a stern face. He called his brother’s helpers about him and tried to gather up the threads that had been dropped by the head of the establishment, but though he conscientiously sought to understand, and asked many questions most earnest ly, his mind seemed a blank. There was something hard and artificial about all that he did. He found himself trying to look older than he was, to appear as Stephen would have appeared. “He’s doin’ the best he can,” said the old Scotchman who had looked after the building since Stephen was first in busi ness. “He’s tryin’ hard, but a body can’t take the place o’ thot mon. Nae body can!” And, although the Scotchman did not know it, Philip heard him, gave him one keen glance, and went back to his office to drop his head upon his desk and groan in spirit. How could he carry on for Stephen ? What could he do ? What was lacking? Day after day went by and his heart grew heavier. How could he keep it up? He went gravely from house to office and back again, going through the duties of each day carefully, precisely, becom ing more proficient in their technique each day, yet getting no nearer to his goal. When strangers from out of town came in to do business, they presently sought out the old helpers instead of the new head. They were missing Stephen and he could do nothing about it. He was making a miserable failure of it all! He was not taking Stephen’s place even to his mother: He knew it. He was just Philip, the younger son, and she was grieving alone for Stephen, her dependence! His mother, roused to alarm at last,
urged him to go out among h is young friends, invite them home, bring some brightness a b o u t the house, but he shook his head. [ Continued on Page 76]
about heaven a n d hereafter. Stephen was that way. Phil ip groped around in his mind for some form of family tra dition called reli gion that would help now, but nothing came to mind. Hea ven seemed very fax away and undesir able. One had to go on living and being somebody, else. All the gay brightness of life was gone.
The empty words he was giving them meant nothing.
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