I dont think Justin looks very well, said Dosia that afternoon. She
was sitting on the edge of the bed, with her arms spread out
half-protectingly over Lois. The latter was only resting; she had been
up and around the house now for three or four weeks, and, although she
looked unusually fragile, seemed well, if not very strong.
The baby, wrapped in a blue embroidered blanket, with only a round
forehead and a small pink nose visible, was of that satisfactory variety
entirely given to sleep; Zaidee and even Redge, adoring little sister
and brother, had been allowed to hold him in their arms, so securely
unstirring was their small burden. Lois, who had passionately rebelled
against the prospect of additional motherhood, exhibited a not unusual
phase of it now in as passionately adoring this second boy. He seemed
peculiarly, intensely her own, not only a baby, but a spiritual
possession that communicated a new strength to her. Lois was changed.
She had always been beautiful, as a matter of fact, but there was now
something withheld, mysterious, in her expression, as if she were taking
counsel of some half-slumberous force within, like one listening at a
shell for the murmur of the ocean.
Not only Lois, but everything else, seemed changed to Dosia, at the same
time being also flatly, unchangeably natural. She had longedoh, how
she had longed!to be back here. Even while loving and working in her
so-called home, she had felt that this was her real home, although here
her cruelest blows had fallen on her; even while bleeding with the
wrench of parting from her own flesh and blood, she had felt that this
was the true home, for here she had really livedand it was the home of
the nicer, more delicate instincts. After the crude housekeeping, the
lack of comforts that made the simplest nursing a grinding struggle with
circumstance, it was a blessed relief to get back to a sphere where
minor details were all in order as a matter of course. The Alexanders,
with their three children, kept only one maid now, but even that
restriction did not prevent the unlimited flow of hot and cold water!
Yet she had also dreaded this returning,how she had dreaded it!with
that old sickening shame which came over her inevitably as she thought
of certain people and places and days. The mere thought of seeing Mrs.
Leverich or George Sutton and that chorus of onlookers was like passing
through fire. One braces ones self to withstand the pain of scenes of
joy or sorrow revisited, to find that, after all, when the moment comes,
there is little of that dreaded painit has been lived through and the
climax passed in that previsioning which imagination made more intense,
more harrowingly real, than the reality.
[Illustration: _Even Redge had been allowed to hold him_]
Mrs. Leverich stopped her carriage one day to greet Dosia, and to ask
her, with a tentative semblance of her old effusion, to come and make
her a visitan effusion which immediately died down into complete
non-interest, on Dosias polite refusal; and the incident was not
especially heart-racking at the time, though afterwards it set her
unaccountably trembling. Mrs. Leverich had in the carriage with her a
small, thin, long-nosed, under-bred-looking man with a pale-reddish
mustache and hair, who, gossip said, passed most of his time at the
Leverichshe was seen out driving alone with Myra nearly every day. He
was an old friend from home. It had been gossip at first, but it was
growing to be scandal now, with audible wonder as to how much Mr.
Leverich knew about it.
Her avoidance of George Sutton was as nothing to his desire of avoiding
her; he dived with surreptitious haste down side streets when he saw her
coming, or disappeared within shop doorways. Once, when Dosia confronted
him inadvertently on the platform of a car, and he had perforce to take
off his hat and murmur, Good morning, he turned pale and was evidently
scared to death. After this he only appeared in the village street
guarded on either side by a female Snowusually Ada and her mother,
though occasionally Bertha served as escort instead of the latter. The
elder Snows, in spite of this apparent security, were in a state of
constant nervous tension over Mr. Suttons attention to Ada; he had not
spoken yet, but it had begun to be felt severely of late that he ought
to speak. Whenever Ada came into the house, her face was eagerly scanned
by both mother and sister to see from its look if it bore any trace of
the fateful words having been uttered. Everyone knew, though how no one
could tell, that that bold thing, Dosia Linden, had tried to get him
once, and failed.
The thing that had unaccountably stirred her most since her arrival was
an unexpected meeting with Bailey Girard. Dosia, with Zaidee and Redge
held by either hand and pressing close to her as they walked merrily
along, suddenly came upon a gray-clad figure emerging from the
post-office; he seemed to make an instinctive movement as if to draw
back, that sent the swift color to her cheeks and then turned them
white. Were all the men in the place trying to avoid her? Dosia thought,
with bitter humor; but, if it were so, he instantly recovered himself,
and came forward, hat in hand, with a quick access of bright courtesy, a
punctilious warmth of manner. He walked along with her a few paces as he
talked, lifting Zaidee over a flooded crossing, before going once more
on his way. He was nothing to Dosia, the stranger who had killed her
ideal, yet all day it was as if his image were photographed in the
colors of life upon the retina of her eye; she could not push it away,
try as she might.
Of Lawson Dosia had heard only such vague rumors as had sifted through
the letters written by Lois; he had been reported as going on in his old
way in the mining-camps, drifting from one to another. She heard nothing
more now. He was the only one who had really loved her up here, except
Lois, who loved her now. Dosia had slipped into her now position of
sister and helper as if she had always filled it. She was not an
outsider any more; she _belonged_.
[Illustration: _After this he only appeared in the village street
guarded on either side by a female Snow_]
As she sat bending over Lois now, her attitude was instinct with
something high-mindedly lovely. The Dosia who had only wanted to be
loved, now feltafter a year of trial and conflict with deaththat she
only wanted, and with the same youthful intensity, to be very good, even
though it seemed sometimes to that same youthfulness a strange and
tragic thing that it should be all she wanted. The mysterious,
fathomless depression of youth, as of something akin to unknown primal
depths of loneliness, sometimes laid its chill hand on her heart; but
when Dosia said her prayers, she got, child-fashion, very near to a
Someone who brought her an intimate, tender comfort of resurrection and
of life.
I dont think Justin seems well, she repeated, Lois, looking up at her
with calmly expressionless eyes from her pillow, having taken no notice
of the remark. He has changed, I think, even in the ten days since I
came.
He has something on his mind, assented Lois, with a note of languor in
her voice, I suppose its the businessI made up my mind to ask him
about it to-night; he has been out every evening lately, and I hardly
see him at all before he goes off in the morning, now that I dont get
down to breakfast.
Oh, he gave me a message for you this morning, cried Dosia, with
compunction at having so far forgotten it. He said that Mr. Larue had
come in to inquire about you yesterday; he is going to send you a basket
of strawberries and roses from his place at Collingswood to-morrow.
Eugene Larue! Lois lips relaxed into a pleased curve, a slight color
touched her cheek. That was very nice of him; he knew Id like to look
forward to getting them. Strawberries and roses!
I met Mr. Girard in the street to-day, he asked after you, continued
Dosia, with the feeling that if she spoke of him she might get that
tiresome, insistent image of him from before her eyes.
Bailey Girard? Yes; he has a room at the Snows. Billys out West.
So Ive heard, said Dosia.
It was one of the strange and melancholy ironies of life that the man of
all others whom she had desired to meet should be thrown daily in her
pathway now, after that desire was gone!
Youd better not talk any more now, Lois; you look tired, its time for
you to take a little rest. Ill see to the children, I hope baby will
stay asleep. Let me put this coverlet over you. Shall I pull down the
shades?
No, Id rather have the light. Please hand me that book over there on
the stand, said Lois, holding out her hand for the big, old-fashioned
brown volume that Dosia brought to her.
You oughtnt to read, you ought to go to sleep, said Dosia, with
tender severity.
Im not going to read, returned Lois pacifically. Her hand closed over
the book, she smiled, and Dosia closed the door. Lois turned to the
sleeping child with a peculiar delight in being quite alone with
himalone with him, to think.
The book was a novel of some forty years ago, called, as the title-page
proclaimed, The Womans Kingdom, and written by Dinah Maria Mulock. A
neighbor had brought it in to Lois during the first month of her
convalescencein all the time she had had it, she had never read any
further than that title-page.
There is often more in the birth of a child than the coming of another
son or daughter into the world. Between those forces of life and death a
woman may also get her chance to be born anew, made over again,
spiritually as well as physically; in those long, restful hours
afterwards, when suspense is over and pain is over, and there is a
freedom from household cares, and one is looked upon with renewed
tenderness, the thoughts may flow over long, long ways. To face danger
bravely in itself gives strength for the clearer vision, and a
peculiarly loved child unlocks with its tiny hands springs unknown
before.
Lois, though she had been a mother twice before, had never felt toward
either of the other children at all as she did now toward this little
boy. She could not bear to be parted from him. Somehow that terrible
corrosive selfishness had been blessedly taken away from herfor a
little while only? She only felt at first that she must not think of
those horrible depths, for fear of slipping back into the pit again;
even to think of the slimy powers of darkness gave them a fresh hold on
one. She put off her return to that soul-embracing egotism. It was sweet
to lie there and meet the tender gentleness of her husbands gaze when
he came home, and to talk to him about the baby as a child might talk
about a new toy, though she could not but begin to perceive that she was
as far, far out of his real life as if she had indeed been a child.
One evening he came in to sit by her,her convalescence had been a long
and dragging one,and she had paused in the midst of telling him
something to await an answer. None came. She spoke again, and raised
herself to look. Then she saw that even within that brief space he had
fallen asleep, as a man may who is thoroughly exhausted. Thoroughly
exhausted! Everything proclaimed ithis attitude, grimly grotesque in
the dim light, one leg stretched out half in front of the other, as he
had dropped into the seat, his relaxed arms hanging down, his head
resting sidewise against the back of the chair, with the face sharply
upturned. The shadows lay in the hollows under his cheek-bones and in
those lines that marked his temples. Divested of color and the
transforming play of expression, he looked strangely old, terribly
lifeless. He slept without moving,almost, it seemed, without
breathing,while Lois, with a new dread, watched him with frightened,
dilated, fascinated eyes. How had he grown like this? What unnoticed
change had been at work? She called him again, but he did not hear; she
stretched out her arm, but he was just beyond reach. Suddenly it seemed
to her that he was dead, and that she could never reach him again; an
icy hand seemed to have been laid on her heart. What if never, never,
never
Just then he opened his eyes and sat up, saying naturally, Did you
speak?
Oh, you frightened me so! Dont go to sleep like that again, said
Lois, with a shaking voice. Come here.
He came and knelt down by her, and she pressed his cheek close to hers
with a rush of painful emotion. Why, you mustnt get worked up over a
little thing like that, he objected lightly, going out of the room
afterwards with a reassuring smile at her, while she gazed after him
with strangely awakened eyes. For the first time in months, she thought
of him without any idea of benefit to herself.
The next day the neighbor sent her over the book; the title arrested her
attention oddlyThe Womans Kingdom. Another phrase correlated with
it in her memoryQueen of the Home. The home was supposed to be
womans domain, where she was the sovereign power; there she was helper,
sustainer, director, the dear dispenser of favors. _The Womans Kingdom,
Queen of the Home._ Gradually the words drew her down long lanes of
retrospect, led by the rose-leaf touch of the babys fingers; _they_
kept her strong. What kingdom had she ever made her own? She poor,
bedraggled, complaining suppliant, a beggar where she should have been a
queen! Home and the heart of her husbandthere lay her womans kingdom,
her realm, her God-given province. She had had the ordering of it, none
other; she had married a good man. Glad or sorry, that kingdom was as
her rule made it; she must be judged by her governmentas she was queen
enough to hold it. She fell asleep that day thinking of the words.
Day by day, other thoughts came to her more or less disconnectedly,set
in motion by those magic words,when she lay at rest in the afternoons,
with the book in her fingers and the dear little baby form close beside
her. Lois was one of those women of intense feeling who can never
perceive from imagination, but only from experiencewho cannot even
adequately sympathize with sorrows and conditions which they have not
personally lived through. No advice touches them, for the words that
embody it are in a language not yet understood. The mistakes of the past
seem to have been necessary, when they look back. Given the same
circumstances, they could not have acted differently; but they seldom
look backthe present, that is always climbing on into the future,
occupies them exclusively.
Lois with The Womans Kingdom in her hand, felt that some source of
power and happiness which she had not realized had slipped from her
grasp, yet might still be hers. So many disconnected, half-childish
thoughts came with the wordshistoric names of women whom men had loved
devotedly, who had kept them as their friends and lovers even when they
themselves had grown old, women who had never lost their charm. There
were those women of the French salons, who could interest even other
generations; Queens indeed! She couldnt really interest one man! She
thought over the married couples of her acquaintance, in search of those
who should reveal some secret, some guiding light. One woman across the
street had no other object in life than purveying to the household
comfort of her husband, and seemed, good soul, to expect nothing from
him in return; if William liked his fish, she was repaid. A couple
farther down appeared to be held together by the fact of marriage,
nothing more; they were bored to death by each others society. Another
couple were happily absorbed in their children, to whom they were both
sacrificially subordinate. With none of these conditions could Lois be
satisfied. Then, there were the women who always spoke as if a man were
an animal and a woman were not a woman, but a spirit; but Lois was very
much a woman! She settled at last, after penetrative thought, on one
husband and wife, the latter a plain little person no longer young.
Every man liked to go to her charming, comfortable house; every man
admired her; and that her husband, a very handsome man himself, admired
her most of all was unobtrusively evident. Every look, every gesture,
betrayed the charming, vivifying unity between those two. How was it
accomplished?
How could one interest a man like that? There was Eugene Larueshe
could interest him! The thought of him always gave her a sense of
conscious power; he paid her homage. She did not know what his relations
were with other women, but of his with her she was sure: she felt her
womans kingdom. If you could talk to the soul of a man like that as if
he had the soul of an angel, and learn from him what you wanted to
knowget his guidanceBut Lois was before all things inviolably a
wife, with the instinctive dignity of one. The sympathy between her and
Eugene Larue was so deep that she feared sometimes that in some brief
moment she might reveal in words, to be forever regretted afterwards,
conditions which he knew without her telling. To be loved as Eugene
Larue would love a woman! But his wife had not cared to be loved that
way. Lois took deep, thoughtful counsel of her heart. If they two, she
and Eugene, had met while both were free? The answer was what she had
known it would be, else she had not dared to make the testthe man who
was her husband was the only man who could ever have been her husband.
Justin!
With The Womans Kingdom in her hand now, her lips touching the cheek
of the soft little darling thing beside her, she felt that some
knowledge had been gradually revealed to her, of which she was now
really aware only for the first time. Justin was not looking wellthat
was what Dosia had said. Oh, he was not looking well! But she would make
him forget his cares, his anxieties, with this new-found power of hers;
she would bewitch him, take him off his feet, so that he would be able
to think of nothing, of no one, but herhe had not always thought of
her! No, noshe would not remember that, _she would not pity herself_.
She would learn to laugh, even if it took heroic effortmen liked you
to laugh, she had always taken everything too seriously. The vision of
his sleeping, _dead_ face of a month ago frightened her for a moment,
painfully; but he had seemed better since, though, as Dosia said, he
didnt look well. Oh, when he came home to-night!
She dressed herself with a new care, putting on a soft yellowish gown
with a yoke of creamy lace, unworn for months. The color was more
brilliant than ever in her cheeks, her lips redder, her eyes more deeply
blue. The children exclaimed over their pretty mamma; she looked
younger, more beautiful, than Dosia had ever seen her. The latter could
not help saying:
How lovely you are, Lois! And youre all dressed up, too; do you expect
anyone?
Only Justin, said Lois.
Only Justin! The words brought an exquisite joy with themonly
Justin, the one man in all the world for her. There was but a half-hour
now until dinner-time. It had passed, and he had not come; but he was
often lateStill he did not come; that happened too, sometimes. The two
women sat down to dinner alone, at last. The baby woke up afterwards, an
unusual thing, and wailed, and would not stop; Lois, divested of her
rich apparel and once more swathed in a loose, shabby gown, rocked and
soothed the infant interminably, while Dosia, her efforts to help
unavailing, crouched over a book down-stairs, trying to read. After an
interval of quiet she went up again, to find Lois at last lying down.
Its eleven oclock, Lois; I think Ill go to bed. Shall I leave the
gas burning down-stairs?
Yes, please do; he cant get anything now but the last train out.
And you dont want me to stay here with you?
Nooh, no.
As once before, Lois waited for that trainyet how differently! If that
injured feeling rose, for an instant, at his not having sent her word,
she crushed it back as one would crush the head of a viper that showed
itself between the crevices of the hearthstone. She would not pity
herselfshe would not pity herself! She knew now that madness lay that
way.
The night was clear and warm, the stars were shining, as she got up and
sat by the window, looking out from behind the curtain, her beautiful
braided hair over one shoulder. The last train came in, the people from
it, in twos and threes, straggled down the street, but not Justin. He
must have missed that last train outof course he must have missed it!
We are apt to fancy causeless disaster to those we love; the amount of
worry more or less willingly indulged in by uncontrolled minds seems
at times enough to swamp the understanding. Yet there is a foreboding,
unsought, unwelcomed, combated, which, once felt, can never be
counterfeited; it carries with it some chill, unfathomed quality of
truth.
Lois knew now that she had had this foreboding all day.