FAIR PLAY
The late October sunshine poured its prodigal gold into the little room
of which Annabel Sinclair was the sole occupant, and as its single door
and window were both closed, the resulting temperature was suggestive
of mid-July. The room itself was plain and bare. The cottage Thad
West had purchased the year following his marriage was needlessly
spacious for the immediate requirements of the two young people and for
that reason, several of the rooms had been left unfurnished or nearly
so, until time should justify Thad's foresight. As a rule Annabel had
a feline instinct for comfort, selecting the easiest chair and the
pleasantest outlook almost unconsciously. To-day her discomfort and
the convent-like austerity of her surroundings failed to impress her.
She was hardly aware of them.
She was not in her daughter's home of her own volition that October
morning. She had yielded as the most self-willed must on occasion to
the assumption of her little world that this was the place where she
would wish to be. But the first glimpse of Diantha had convinced her
that her shrinking recoil had been well-grounded. Diantha, deadly pale
and yet with little flickering, unsteady smiles, Diantha, quiet and
self-possessed, with nothing but those white cheeks to show how flesh
and spirit shrank from the approaching ordeal, was terrifyingly a
stranger. But that she was a woman there could be no doubt. And this
woman, soon to be a mother, was her child.
The little, bare, remote room seemed a refuge. Annabel closed the door
and would have locked it, but the key was missing. She sank into the
single chair, her face storm-swept, transformed by her emotion almost
beyond recognition. The natural assumption would have been that she
was enduring vicariously the suffering of her daughter, bearing for the
second time the pangs that had given Diantha life. As a matter of
fact, Diantha's pain and peril were remote from her mood. Her mind had
room for one thought: "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy!"
As she stared before her, hand gripping hand, her bloodless lips moving
inarticulately, she saw the monstrous folly of her self-deception. She
had played at youth, listened to the love-making of undeveloped boys
whose mother she might have been, and made herself believe that she
could cheat Time. And Time, too, had had his fun. For the moment it
almost seemed to her that her girlish prettiness had been his merciless
concession to add to the spirit of the game, as a cat lets a mouse run
with a sense of recovered freedom, only to pounce again.
And now she was to be a grandmother. She made a futile effort to face
the thought, to adjust her idea of herself to so astounding a
development. But it was like the effort to imagine herself belonging
to another race, Ethiopian or Oriental. It was unthinkable. She had a
clearly defined conception of grandmothers, persons with a generous
waist-line and white hair. Undoubtedly they were useful people in
their way, and worthy of regard. But she found it impossible to
realize that she herself might belong to their number.
As if recalling some experience far distant, she fell to reviewing the
events of the previous evening. Her caller had been a young fellow
with a carefully nurtured and on the whole a promising mustache and
with a lurid taste in socks. She had enjoyed the call. The boy's
crude efforts at veiled sentiment, his languishing glances had been
incense to her vanity. But to-morrow! "How is your little grandchild,
Mrs. Sinclair?" he would say. Or no! He would not say it. He would
not come again. He must realize, as she was doing, the absurdity of
their acquaintance. He would laugh at the old woman who had painted
her cheeks that she might look a girl and had let him kiss her hand as
though granting a priceless favor. Annabel moaned faintly as she
writhed. Every one would laugh. Every one must have been laughing for
years over her silly pretenses.
She did not know how long a time had elapsed before heavy footsteps
creaked down the hall. She shuddered and her body stiffened. The
knock was twice repeated before she could utter an audible, "Come in."
Mrs. West pushed the door ajar and started violently as her eyes fell
on Annabel. As not infrequently happens with women who preserve an
unnaturally youthful appearance, under the stress of deep emotion,
Annabel had aged years in an hour. It was a moment before Mrs. West
could recover herself.
"I've made us a cup of tea, Mis' Sinclair, and set out a light lunch.
We'll both feel better for a bite."
Annabel shook her head. "I don't want--anything." It took an effort
to stifle a frenzied appeal to be left to herself.
This was far from Mrs. West's thoughts. She creaked into the little
room, her ample proportions making it seem more cramped and small than
ever, and patted Annabel's shoulder.
"Oh, come now, Mis' Sinclair, I know just how you feel."--Never was
boast vainer.--"But Diantha's going to come through this all right.
She's young and she's strong. The doctor says she's got everything in
her favor."
Annabel's answer was a vague uncomprehending stare. Then she began to
understand. Mrs. West supposed her consumed with anxiety for her
daughter's safety, whereas the possibility that Diantha might die had
hardly occurred to her. She found herself wondering if she were unlike
all other women, an abnormality in her selfishness. In the larger
matters Annabel had remained contemptuously indifferent to the opinion
of her sex, though she would have found their criticism of her personal
appearance disquieting. But now she was conscious of an unaccustomed
sense of relief that Mrs. West could not read her thoughts.
"I don't want--anything," she repeated mechanically, and Thad's mother
departed with obvious reluctance. In five minutes she was back with a
cup of tea which Annabel swallowed in hopes of thus purchasing immunity
from further kindly attentions. And Mrs. West, bearing away the empty
tea-cup, carried too, a better opinion of Annabel Sinclair than she
would have believed possible.
"I never thought she cared anything much for Diantha," she told Persis
who had dropped in several times during the day to see how matters were
progressing. "But I must say, I did her an injustice. She's been
pretty nearly crazy all day. She looks like a ghost."
"Well, she's Diantha's mother when all's said and done," Persis
responded. Happiness makes for tolerance. With all her charity for
the wrong-doer, Persis had made an exception of Annabel Sinclair. But
now the years of fatness, following instead of preceding the lean
years, the overflowing fulness of her heart and life had taught her new
indulgence. She was capable of believing that there was good in the
woman.
The afternoon dragged cruelly. Now and then some faint sound reached
Annabel, vaguely suggestive of the battle which must be waged for every
new existence, and each time the sagging body of the woman stiffened,
and her breath grew hurried. Once Thad passed her window, his young
face set and white, and his eyes reddened as if from weeping. Annabel
shrank away fearful that his glance might fall on her, but the fixed
eyes of the young husband saw only his wife's girlish face as he had
seen it last, colorless, quivering, undaunted.
It was not far from four o'clock when the sound of hurrying feet
quickened Annabel's lagging pulses. A door shut quickly and then
another. Some one was hurrying down the hall; some one who brought
news. Annabel found herself on her feet. And then, instinctively she
caught at the back of her chair to support herself, for the floor was
undulating and the sunny room had grown dark.
Out of the shapeless blur in which her surroundings blended, a face
took shape, the face of Mrs. West, wet with tears and radiant with
smiles. It was she who had sped so lightly down the long hall as if
joy had given wings to her feet.
"It's a boy!" She laughed out the three exultant words and hurried
back to some interrupted task. Annabel continued to stand. When at
length she released her grip of the chair, her fingers were numb and
stiff. The thought crossed her mind that now she was at liberty to go
home, since her grandson had come into the world, but the effort seemed
beyond her strength. She sank into the chair again, half closing her
eyes. The poignant pain of the past hours had changed to an
overwhelming listlessness. She was too tired to think any longer, too
tired even to suffer.
A brisk knock at the door roused her from her apathy sufficiently for a
resentful wish that they would leave her to herself. Then the door
opened and Persis entered. Her face wore the look that had impressed
Annabel on the face of Mrs. West, that look of supreme satisfaction,
blended with a curious, vicarious pride, and with it all, something
that told of tears held back. Annabel's eyes went from that radiant
look to the shawl-draped bundle in Persis' arms. She put out her hand
as if to ward off a danger.
Persis halted, gazing in consternation at the wreck of Annabel. In
that shallow face the record of mental anguish was so unmistakable that
the other woman felt a pang of self-reproach.
"Here I've been leaving this poor little bundle of nerves to fight this
thing through all alone. I'd ought to have known she'd be scaring
herself into a conniption." As a reaction from the severity with which
she dealt with her own thoughtlessness, Persis' voice, in addressing
Annabel was as tender and caressing as if she strove to soothe a
troubled child.
"Well, Mis' Sinclair, your worry's over. Diantha came through this
fine, and before we know it, she'll be up and about and as lively as a
cricket. But it's been a hard day for you same as for the rest of us.
The Lord asks a good deal of women, to help Him keep this old world
a-going, but He's got His own way of making it up to 'em."
As if to give point to her words, Persis' eyes dropped to the bundle in
her arms. She came a step nearer.
"I s'pose, of course, you're glad it's a boy. I don't know why it is,
but you just can't help feeling tickled when the first baby's a boy.
Nine pounds, too. That's a grandson to be proud of."
"Don't! Don't! I don't want to see it."
Annabel's cry was involuntary, wrung from her by the realization of
Persis' purpose. And Persis who had lifted the shawl that concealed
the little face, let it fall again and stood staring.
"You don't want--to see the baby?"
The revulsion indicated by Annabel's attitude was a sufficient answer.
Persis crossed to the cot-bed and sat down. If there was a person on
earth she cordially detested, it was Annabel Sinclair, yet the
conviction that this poor counterfeit of a woman was in need of
strength and sympathy was sufficient to thrust that old dislike into
the background.
"I guess to-day's been pretty trying to your nerves, Mis' Sinclair.
But you'll feel better if you take a look at this nice boy. I've seen
a good many of 'em first and last, and I told Diantha I'd never set
eyes on a finer baby."
A curious distortion of Annabel's face broke off Persis' eulogy. "Are
you feeling sick, Mis' Sinclair?" she asked in real alarm, thinking
that she would never have given Annabel credit for this excess of
material solicitude.
"Sick? Yes, I'm sick of everything. I'm glad that child's a boy.
Those people that drown the girl babies like kittens, are in the right
of it. No woman ought to live beyond thirty."
"Some of us," remarked Persis, recovering herself with difficulty,
"would have missed a good deal at that rate." But her lips curled
slightly. She was beginning to understand and to acquit herself of
past injustice.
Annabel had reached a point where speech was a necessity. For years,
she had returned Persis' dislike with the added venom of a small
nature. But at this moment, when an outpouring of confidence seemed
essential, she knew there was no one to whom she could speak so freely
as to this woman she had hated.
"Life's cruel, cruel! It promises us women everything. And then it
cheats us and tricks us and takes away all that it gave, one thing
after another. It's like bleeding to death, losing your beauty little
by little, fighting your hardest and knowing you've got to be beaten in
the end. When I was a child in bed I used to think I heard footsteps
coming along the hall, slow and stealthy, and I'd lie there trembling
and quaking, afraid to open my eyes. That's the way I've been
listening to old age, creeping on me--for the last ten years."
"And if only you'd got your courage up to opening your eyes when you
were a little, trembly thing, scared of those footsteps, like enough
all you'd have seen beside your bed was your mother smiling down on
you."
Annabel looked at the speaker without replying. Her look offered
little encouragement for Persis to continue, but she needed no such
incentive.
"You talk about life's being cruel. Why, you poor little soul, you
don't know what life's like. You've never given it a chance. You
haven't played fair."
For years Persis had acknowledged to a desire to give Annabel Sinclair
"a good talking to." On various occasions she had uttered truths that
had cut like knives. She had the same truths to utter now but the
spirit had altered.
"I guess every girl that was ever born liked to have men courting her
and ready to fight one another for a kind word from her. That's
nature. But it ain't nature to have it last, Mis' Sinclair. And
that's where you made your mistake. You wanted to keep right on
pretending it was May after it got along to August or so."
Something she saw in the poor harassed face caused her to change her
position slightly, so that she could pat the listless hand of Diantha's
mother while she spoke.
"Life ain't cruel, you poor soul! It comes along with both hands full.
It says to the little girl, 'Come, drop that doll-baby, I've got
something better than that. Here's a lover for you.' And then it says
to the girl that's picking and choosing among her beaux, 'Drop that
flirting, I've got something better for you. Here's a husband and a
home!' And so it goes. Instead of getting poorer all the time, we're
getting richer."
She looked at Annabel tentatively. She was not altogether sure that
her eloquence was having effect. But as Annabel sat in an attitude of
expectancy, her face turned toward her monitor, though her eyes were
downcast, Persis tried again.
"I don't say Thomas and I haven't missed a lot, I'm not belittling
youth and its love and its hopes. But I do say that I wouldn't change
this last year of my life for any that might have been. Why, when I
wake up in the morning, my head's full of the children, thinking of 'em
and planning for 'em and sometimes worrying about 'em. It needs a
little tart taste, sometimes, to bring out the sweet. Thomas and I
have spent hours, trying to decide whether we'll make a doctor out of
Algie, or a civil engineer, and we know both of us, that when the time
comes, he'll take the bit in his teeth and do as he likes. Only it's
such fun planning it out. When I look back five years or ten, or
twenty, for that matter, and see how my life has filled up and widened
out, I feel real sorry for that little, young, silly Persis Dale who
thought she was so happy and knew so little about it. If life takes
with one hand, Mis' Sinclair, it gives with two, only you'll never find
it out as long as you grip tight to what you've got."
She looked down on the bundle in her arms, and again her face was
irradiated by a vivid tenderness, almost as if she had been mother of
the child.
"Now, here's a case in point, Annabel Sinclair. Right here in my arms
is a little lump of joy that ought to fill up your cup of happiness so
full that it would spill over. Seems to me if this little mite
belonged to me, if I knew my blood was in his veins, this town wouldn't
be big enough to hold me. I love my five, dear knows, but there's a
hurt in thinking that I'm never going to see the Dale stubbornness
cropping out or any of the Hardin ways. But you haven't got that
little nagging hurt to take off your joy, like a pinch in a pair of new
shoes. It's all along of you that this boy's here."
As if dominated by the stronger will, Annabel's eyes turned toward the
bundle. And inwardly praying that this was the moment for her _coup
d'état_, Persis started to her feet.
"I b'lieve that's Thad calling. 'Fraid like as not, that I'm going to
kidnap his son and heir. You hold the baby, Mis' Sinclair, till I see
what's wanted."
She had tucked the baby into the curve of his grandmother's arm before
Annabel could protest, and she left the room without looking back.
Annabel, breathing fast, stared down into the little red face against
her shoulder. Such a queer little face, wrinkled with the ponderous
wisdom of the world it had so lately quitted, placid through ignorance
of the new life into which it had entered. She could not turn away her
eyes. And this being, newer than the morning paper and yet ancient as
man, was flesh of her flesh.
The little, tightly clenched fists attracted her as irresistibly as the
face. She surprised herself by poking one tentatively, and when the
fingers opened and closed about hers, her lips parted as if to cry out.
She had not dreamed that there could be such tenacity in those wee
fingers. It was uncanny to be thus gripped by a creature so intensely
new. And Persis had said that this was one of Heaven's good gifts, a
joy that might brim life's cup over.
The door opened and she raised her eyes. Her husband stood there,
gravely intent. She had never looked less beautiful than in her pale
disorder, but the pathos of her drooping figure and bewildered face
touched him strangely. Or perhaps it was the child in her arms.
"It's holding to my finger, Stanley! See!" Annabel's features twisted
in a strange distorted smile. "Our little grandchild."
He moved nearer. For all his efforts, he found it impossible to make
his voice altogether matter-of-fact.
"You've had a hard day, I'm sure. You'd better speak to Diantha and
then let me take you home."
She rose to her feet unsteadily, holding the child with the peculiar
awkwardness of the woman in whom the maternal instinct is lacking. But
as she passed on before him, her husband saw that the tiny hand still
curled tendril-like about her finger.