For the first four years after Thea went to Germany things went on as usual with the Kronborg family. Mrs. Kronborg’s land in Nebraska increased in value and brought her in a good rental1. The family drifted into an easier way of living, half without realizing it, as families will. Then Mr. Kronborg, who had never been ill, died suddenly of cancer of the liver, and after his death Mrs. Kronborg went, as her neighbors said, into a decline. Hearing discouraging reports of her from the physician who had taken over his practice, Dr. Archie went up from Denver to see her. He found her in bed, in the room where he had more than once attended her, a handsome woman of sixty with a body still firm and white, her hair, faded now to a very pale primrose2, in two thick braids down her back, her eyes clear and calm. When the doctor arrived, she was sitting up in her bed, knitting. He felt at once how glad she was to see him, but he soon gathered that she had made no determination to get well. She told him, indeed, that she could not very well get along without Mr. Kronborg. The doctor looked at her with astonishment3. Was it possible that she could miss the foolish old man so much? He reminded her of her children.
“Yes,” she replied; “the children are all very well, but they are not father. We were married young.”
The doctor watched her wonderingly as she went on knitting, thinking how much she looked like Thea. The difference was one of degree rather than of kind. The daughter had a compelling enthusiasm, the mother had none. But their framework, their foundation, was very much the same.
In a moment Mrs. Kronborg spoke4 again. “Have you heard anything from Thea lately?”
During his talk with her, the doctor gathered that what Mrs. Kronborg really wanted was to see her daughter Thea. Lying there day after day, she wanted it calmly and continuously. He told her that, since she felt so, he thought they might ask Thea to come home.
“I’ve thought a good deal about it,” said Mrs. Kronborg slowly. “I hate to interrupt her, now that she’s begun to get advancement5. I expect she’s seen some pretty hard times, though she was never one to complain. Perhaps she’d feel that she would like to come. It would be hard, losing both of us while she’s off there.”
When Dr. Archie got back to Denver he wrote a long letter to Thea, explaining her mother’s condition and how much she wished to see her, and asking Thea to come, if only for a few weeks. Thea had repaid the money she had borrowed from him, and he assured her that if she happened to be short of funds for the journey, she had only to cable him.
A month later he got a frantic6 sort of reply from Thea. Complications in the opera at Dresden had given her an unhoped-for opportunity to go on in a big part. Before this letter reached the doctor, she would have made her debut7 as Elizabeth, in “Tannhäuser.” She wanted to go to her mother more than she wanted anything else in the world, but, unless she failed,—which she would not,—she absolutely could not leave Dresden for six months. It was not that she chose to stay; she had to stay—or lose everything. The next few months would put her five years ahead, or would put her back so far that it would be of no use to struggle further. As soon as she was free, she would go to Moonstone and take her mother back to Germany with her. Her mother, she was sure, could live for years yet, and she would like German people and German ways, and could be hearing music all the time. Thea said she was writing her mother and begging her to help her one last time; to get strength and to wait for her six months, and then she (Thea) would do everything. Her mother would never have to make an effort again.
Dr. Archie went up to Moonstone at once. He had great confidence in Mrs. Kronborg’s power of will, and if Thea’s appeal took hold of her enough, he believed she might get better. But when he was shown into the familiar room off the parlor8, his heart sank. Mrs. Kronborg was lying serene9 and fateful on her pillows. On the dresser at the foot of her bed there was a large photograph of Thea in the character in which she was to make her debut. Mrs. Kronborg pointed10 to it.
“Isn’t she lovely, doctor? It’s nice that she hasn’t changed much. I’ve seen her look like that many a time.”
They talked for a while about Thea’s good fortune. Mrs. Kronborg had had a cablegram saying, “First performance well received. Great relief.” In her letter Thea said; “If you’ll only get better, dear mother, there’s nothing I can’t do. I will make a really great success, if you’ll try with me. You shall have everything you want, and we will always be together. I have a little house all picked out where we are to live.”
“Bringing up a family is not all it’s cracked up to be,” said Mrs. Kronborg with a flicker11 of irony12, as she tucked the letter back under her pillow. “The children you don’t especially need, you have always with you, like the poor. But the bright ones get away from you. They have their own way to make in the world. Seems like the brighter they are, the farther they go. I used to feel sorry that you had no family, doctor, but maybe you’re as well off.”
“Thea’s plan seems sound to me, Mrs. Kronborg. There’s no reason I can see why you shouldn’t pull up and live for years yet, under proper care. You’d have the best doctors in the world over there, and it would be wonderful to live with anybody who looks like that.” He nodded at the photograph of the young woman who must have been singing “Dich, theure Halle, grüss’ ich wieder,” her eyes looking up, her beautiful hands outspread with pleasure.
Mrs. Kronborg laughed quite cheerfully. “Yes, wouldn’t it? If father were here, I might rouse myself. But sometimes it’s hard to come back. Or if she were in trouble,............