IV

Mrs. Champney did not sleep well that night. When she first turned out

the light, a strange sort of panic seized her. She felt trapped, shut

in, here in this unfamiliar room, in this house where she had no

business to be, and yet could not leave. She got up and turned on the

light, and that was better, for she could think more clearly in the

light. She propped herself up on the pillows, pulled the blanket up to

her chin, and sat there, trying to find the way out.

“There always is a way out,” she thought. “It’s never necessary to do a

thing that injures other people. I must not stay here, or with any of my

children. If I think quietly and sensibly, I can--”

There was a knock at the door.

“Are you all right, mother?” asked Robert’s voice. “I saw your light.”

“Perfectly all right, dear boy!” she answered brightly. “I’m very

comfortable. Good night!”

“Sure?” he asked.

She wanted to jump up and go to him and kiss him--her dear, solemn,

anxious Robert; but that wouldn’t do. Never, never, while she had a

trace of dignity and honor, would she turn to her children for

reassurance. She was the mother. She could not always be strong, but she

could at least hide her weakness from her children. She could endure her

bad moments alone.

“Quite sure!” she answered, and snapped out the light. “There! I’m going

to sleep! Good night, my own dear, dear boy!”

“Good night, mother!” he answered.

His voice touched her so! If only she could let go, and be frail and

helpless, and allow her children to take care of her! They would be so

glad to do it--they would be so dear and kind!

“Shame on you, Jessica Champney!” she said to herself. “You weren’t an

old lady before you came here, and you’re not going to be one now.

You’re only fifty, and you’re well and strong. There must be any number

of things a healthy woman of fifty can do. Find them!”

And then, as if by inspiration, she thought of Emily Lyons.

The next morning, as soon as Robert had gone, she told Molly that she

wanted to “see about something”; and off she went, dressed in her best

again, and took the train to a near-by town. She was going to see Miss

Lyons. She had not met this old school friend for a good many years, but

she remembered her with affection and respect, and perhaps with a little

pity, because Emily had never married. She had devoted her life to

charitable work--an admirable existence, but, Mrs. Champney thought,

rather a forlorn one.

Her pity fled in haste, however, when she saw Emily.

A very earnest young secretary ushered the caller into a big, quiet,

sunny office, and there, behind a large desk, sat Miss Lyons. She rose

at once, and came forward with outstretched hands. Her blue eyes behind

the horn-rimmed spectacles were as friendly and kind as ever, and yet

Mrs. Champney’s heart sank. The Emily she wished to remember was a thin,

freckled girl with a long blond pigtail and a shy and hesitating

manner--an Emily who had very much looked up to the debonair and popular

Jessica. This was such a very different Emily--a person of importance,

of grave assurance, a person with a large, impressive office at her

command. To save her life Mrs. Champney couldn’t help being impressed by

offices and filing cabinets and typewriters.

She sat down, and she tried to talk in her usual blithe and amusing way,

but she knew that she was not succeeding at all. In the presence of this

new Emily she felt shockingly frivolous. She was sorry that she had worn

her white gloves and her sable stole. She wished that the heels of her

new shoes were not so high.

She told Emily that she wanted something to do.

“Do you mean charitable work, Jessica?” asked Miss Lyons.

“I’m afraid I’d have to be paid,” said Mrs. Champney, with a guilty

flush. “You see, Emily, I’ve had a--a financial disaster. Of course, my

children are only too willing, but--”

“They’re all married, aren’t they?” asked Emily.

Something in the grave, kindly tone of her question stung Mrs. Champney

into a sort of bitterness.

“Yes,” she answered. “All of them are married. I’m a mother-in-law,

Emily.”

Miss Lyons did not smile. She was silent for a time, looking down at

her polished desk as if she were consulting a crystal. Then she looked

up.

“We happen to need somebody in the Needlecraft Shop,” she said. “I could

give you that, Jessica, at eighteen dollars a week; but--”

“But what?” asked Mrs. Champney, after waiting a minute.

“I’m afraid you haven’t had much experience,” said Miss Lyons.

“I’ve done a good deal of parish work,” said Mrs. Champney anxiously.

She had known love, and happiness with the man she loved. She had

endured the anguish of losing him. She had borne three children and

brought them up. She had traveled a little in the world. She had even

known a “financial disaster” at fifty; but in the presence of Emily

Lyons she was ready to admit that she had had no experience--that her

sole qualification for any useful occupation was the parish work she had

done.

“If you’d like to try it, then,” said Emily gently. “I’ve found, though,

that women who have led a sheltered domestic life are inclined to be a

little oversensitive when it comes to business.”

Mrs. Champney, into whose sheltered domestic life had come only such

incidents as birth and death and illness and accident and so on, said

that she hoped she wasn’t silly.

“Of course you’re not, my dear!” said her old friend, taking her hand

across the desk. “You’re splendid! You always were!”

And Mrs. Champney had to be satisfied with that. She was to begin at the

Needlecraft Shop the next morning. She was at last to enter the world;

but instead of being filled with ambitious hopes and resolves, she

actually could think of nothing but how she was to tell Robert about it.

The only possible way was to take a mighty high hand with him from the

start, and the trouble was that she didn’t feel high-handed. She felt

depressed, and tired and--yes, crushed--that was the word for it. She

was not going to let Robert suspect that, however, or Molly, either.

She decided to take her time about getting back. After leaving Emily,

she walked for a time through the streets of the brisk suburban town.

Then, seeing a clean little white-tiled restaurant, she went in there

and had her lunch. It was noon, and there were a good many other

business women there. Mrs. Champney tried to feel that she was one of

them now, but somehow she could not. Somehow the whole thing seemed

unreal, and even a little fantastic.

She mustn’t think that it was unreal or fantastic, or how could she

convince Robert? She tried to make it real by doing all sorts of

calculations based upon eighteen dollars a week. With that amount, and

with what was left of her income, she could manage to live by herself,

somewhere near Robert and Molly, where she could see them and the baby

often, and yet be independent. Once more she could be a fairy

godmother--with sadly clipped wings, to be sure, but still able to

bestow a little gift now and then.

She thought she would get something for Bobbetty now, and she bought one

of the nicest gray plush animals imaginable. The saleswoman said it was

a cat, but Mrs. Champney privately believed it to be a dog, because of

its drooping ears. Anyhow, it was a lovable animal, with a frank and

kindly expression and a most becoming leather collar. On the train,

going back, she regretfully took out its round yellow eyes, for they

were pins, and unless she forestalled him, Bobbetty would surely do

this.

Even then it was a lovable animal, and Bobbetty received it with warm

affection. He was sitting in his high chair in the kitchen, while Molly

cooked the dinner. He was almost austerely neat and clean after his

bath, and he was eating a bowl of Graham crackers and milk, with a large

bib tied under his chin. A model child--yet, in the sidelong glance of

his black eyes in the direction of the new bowwow, who was not to be

touched until supper was finished, Mrs. Champney saw a thoughtful and

alarming gleam. Bobbetty was not quite sure whether he would continue

being good, or whether it would be nicer suddenly and violently to

demand the bowwow.

Mrs. Champney helped him to choose the better course. She entertained

him while he ate, and then carried him off upstairs, with the bowwow,

and put him to bed. He became very garrulous then. He lay in his crib,

clasping the bow-wow, and he told Mrs. Champney all sorts of interesting

things in such a polite, conversational tone that she felt quite ashamed

of herself for interrupting him and telling him to go to sleep.

He was nice about it, however. He paid no attention to this rudeness,

but pleasantly went on talking. Even when she went out of the room and

closed the door behind her, she heard his bland little voice continuing

the story of a wild horsy who stampled on _six_ policemens. Bobbetty was

not yet three, but he had personality.

She was smiling as she went down the stairs--until she saw Robert. He

came to the foot of the stairs, watching her as she came toward him. She

had to meet his eyes, she had to smile again, but it was hard beyond all

measure.

She had never seen that look on his face before. He had always been

utterly loyal to her, had always loved her, but it had been after the

fashion of a boy. The look she saw on his face now was not a boy’s; it

was the profound compassion and tenderness of a man. It came to her,

with a stab of pain, that she had cruelly underrated her son. She had

thought of him as a dear and rather clumsy boy, and he was so much more

than that--so much more!

Her own affair seemed more fantastic than ever now. Here was Robert,

making his valiant battle in the world for the life and safety of his

wife and child. Here was Molly, busy with the vital needs of life, with

food and clothes, with the care of their child; and she herself was

going to work in the Needlecraft Shop.

She had to tell them, of course. When they were all seated at the table,

she did so, in the most casual, matter-of-fact way.

It was even worse than she had feared. Robert grew very white.

“You mean--a job?” he asked.

“It’s charitable work, really,” Mrs. Champney explained. “The

foreign-born women bring their needlework to the shop, and we sell it on

commission for them. The idea is to encourage their home industries,

and--”

“But you’re going to get paid for it?” asked Robert.

“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Champney brightly. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the work,

too. I’ve always--”

“You mean you’re going off to work every morning in this shop?” said

Robert. “Do you mind telling me why?”

“Because I consider it very useful and interesting work, Robert,”

replied Mrs. Champney, with dignity.

There was a long silence.

“All right!” said Robert briefly.

She knew how terribly she had hurt him. He had wanted to do so much for

her, to take her into his home and protect her and care for her, and she

would not let him. She had turned away with a smile from all that he had

to offer. She would take nothing.

“I’ve always led--such an active life,” she said, in a very unsteady

voice. “I should think you could understand, Robert--”

“I do!” he said grimly.

“You don’t!” she cried. “You don’t! You--”

She could not go on. She bent her head and pretended to be cutting up

something on her plate, but she could not see clearly. He never would

understand that she was doing this only for love of him, only so that

she might not be here in his home as the sinister third person who saw

everything and--

She started at the touch of Molly’s hand on her arm.

“If that’s your way to be happy, darling,” said Robert’s wife, and Mrs.

Champney saw tears in her honest eyes.

V

Mrs. Champney envisaged her life as divided into epochs, each one with

its own significance and its own memories. There was her childhood,

there was her girlhood. There were the early days of her married life,

when she and her husband had been alone. There were the crowded and

anxious and wonderful years when her children had been little. There was

the beginning of her widowhood, overshadowed with anguish and

loneliness, yet with a dark beauty of its own. There was her tranquil

middle age, and there was her business life.

She had begun it on Tuesday, and this was Friday. It had lasted four

days, yet it seemed to her quite as long as all the years of her youth.

It seemed a lifetime in itself, in which she had acquired a new and

bitter wisdom.

The train stopped at her station, and, with a crowd of other home-going

commuters, Mrs. Champney got out and hurried up the steps to the street,

to catch a trolley car; but she was not quick enough. By the time she

got there the car was full, and she drew back and let it go. She never

was quick enough any more. She seemed to have been transferred into a

world of terrific speed and vigor, where she was hopelessly

outdistanced, hopelessly old and weary and slow.

She had thought, until this week, that she was a fairly intelligent and

energetic woman. She had even had her innocent little vanities; but now,

standing on the corner and looking after the car--

“I’m a silly, doddering old thing!” she said to herself, with a

trembling lip.

She remembered all the dreadful defeats and humiliations of the week.

She remembered how slow she had been about wrapping up things and making

change--how curt she had been with some of the wealthiest and most

important customers--how stupid she had been about understanding the

Polish and Italian women who brought in their work. She remembered the

weary patience of Miss Elliott, who managed the shop. Miss Elliott was

not more than twenty-eight, but she had been to Mrs. Champney like a

discouraged but long-suffering teacher with a very trying child.

“Doddering!” Mrs. Champney repeated.

She was alone on the corner. In this new world nobody waited for

anything. Those who, like herself, had missed the car, had at once set

off on foot; and Mrs. Champney decided to do so herself. It was less

than a mile--a pleasant walk in the soft April dusk.

This walk might have been specially designed by Miss Elliott to teach

Mrs. Champney another lesson; only it was a lesson that she had already

learned. She really needed no further demonstration of the fact that she

was fifty, and utterly tired and miserable. It was superfluous, it was

cruel, and it made her angry. When she reached the street where Robert’s

little house stood, her heart was hot and bitter with resentment.

“If they’d only let me alone!” she thought. “I don’t want any one to

speak to me or look at me. I know I’m unreasonable. I want to be

unreasonable. I want to be let alone!”

But of course she couldn’t be. Nobody can be let alone except those who

would give all the world for a little tiresome interference. Molly saw

at once how tired she was, and wanted her to lie down and have dinner

brought up to her. Robert, by saying nothing at all, was still more

difficult to endure.

“I’m not particularly tired, Molly, thank you,” said Mrs. Champney, with

great politeness.

What she wanted to do was to stamp her foot and cry:

“Let me alone! Let me alone! To-morrow is Saturday, and the next day is

Sunday. You can talk to me on Sunday. Let me alone now!”

She sternly repressed all this. She sat down at the table and tried to

eat her dinner. She forced herself to remain in the sitting room until

ten o’clock.

“In a week or two I’ll go away and get a room for myself,” she thought,

“where I can be as tired as I like!”

When the clock struck ten, she sat still and counted up to five hundred,

so that she wouldn’t seem like a tired person in a dreadful hurry to get

to bed. Then she rose, said good night to Robert and Molly, and went

upstairs.

Even then she would not slight or omit any detail of her routine. She

washed, rubbed cold cream into her hands, braided her hair, folded her

clothes neatly, ready for the morning, and knelt down to say her

prayers. Then she turned out the light, opened the window, and got into

bed; and she was so glad to be there, so glad to lay her tired gray head

on the pillow, that she cried.

She was ashamed of this weakness, and meant to struggle against it; but

sleep came before she had driven it away--a heavy and sorrowful sleep,

colored with the mist of tears.

She slept. Then she sighed, and stirred in her sleep. Something was

coming through into the shadowy world of dreams--something imperious and

menacing. She didn’t want to wake up, but something was forcing her to

do so. She heard something calling.

She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”--a sound

which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.

“Mother! Mother! I _want_ you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no

one answered him. “I want you, mother!”

“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of

anger.

She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby

voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its

heartbreaking cry:

“Mother! Mother!”

Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and

Molly standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door--Molly with her

magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite

desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” cried Mrs. Champney.

“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him

up--said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s perfectly

all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”

“But he’s--so little!” sobbed Molly, in a smothered voice.

“Mother! I want you, mother!” shrieked Bobbetty.

Molly made a move forward, but Robert clutched her arm. He, too, was

pale and desperate.

“No, Molly!” he said. “Dr. Pinney told us definitely--”

“Bah!” cried Mrs. Champney, in a tone that amazed both of them. “Dr.

Pinney, indeed!”

She opened the door of Bobbetty’s room, went in, snatched him out of his

crib, and carried him off, past his speechless parents, and into her own

room.