"Hush, child," she said firmly. "I know nothing. You will hear all
about it tomorrow morning when you receive Dicky's letters. Until then
you must be quiet and brave."
It was like her not to adjure me to keep from worrying. She never did
the usual futile things. But all through my wakeful night, whenever I
turned over or uttered the slightest sound, she was at my side in an
instant.
Never until death stops my memory will I forget that next morning with
its letters from Dicky.
There was one for my mother-in-law, none for me, but I saw an envelope
in Lillian's hand, which I was sure was from my husband, even before I
had seen the shocked pallor which spread over her face as she read it.
"Oh, Lillian, what is it?" I whispered in terror.
"Wait," she commanded. "Do not let your mother-in-law guess anything
is amiss."
But when Mother Graham's demand to know what Dicky had written to me
had been appeased by Lillian's offhand remark that country mails were
never reliable, and that my letter would probably arrive later, the
elder woman went to her own room to puzzle anew over her son's letter,
which simply said over again what he had told her over the telephone.
When she had gone Lillian locked the door softly behind her, then
coming over to me, sank down by my bedside and slipped her arm around
me.
"You must be brave, Madge," she said quietly. "Read this through and
tell me if you have any idea what it means."
I took the letter she held out to me, and read it through.
"Dear Lil," the letter began. "You have never failed me yet, so I know
you'll look after things for me now.
"I am going away. I shall never see Madge again, nor do I ever expect
to hear from her. Will you look out for her until she is free from me?
She can sue me for desertion, you know, and get her divorce. I will
put in no defence.
"Most of her funds are banked in her name, anyway. But for fear she
will not want to use that money I am going to send a check to you each
month for her which you are to use as you see fit, with or without her
knowledge. I am enclosing the key of the studio. The rent is paid a
long ways ahead, and I will send you the money for future payments
and its care. Please have it kept ready for me to walk in at any time.
Mother always goes to Elizabeth's for the holidays, anyway. Keep her
from guessing as long as you can. I'll write to her after she gets to
Elizabeth's.
"I guess that's all. If Madge doesn't understand why I am doing this I
can't help it. But it's the only thing to do. Yours always. DICKY."
The room seemed to whirl around me as I read. Dicky gone forever,
arranging for me to get a divorce! I clung blindly to Lillian as I
moaned: "Oh, what does it mean?"
"Think, Madge, Madge, have you and Dicky had any quarrel lately?"
"Nothing that could be called a quarrel, no," I returned, "and, not
even the shadow of a disagreement since my accident."
"Then," Lillian said musingly, "either Dicky has gone suddenly mad--"
She stopped and looked at me searchingly. "Or what, Lillian," I
pleaded. "Tell me. I am strong enough to stand the truth, but not
suspense."
"I believe you are," she said, "and you will have to help me find out
the truth. Now remember this may have no bearing on the thing at all,
but Harry saw Grace Draper talking to Dicky the other day. He said
Dicky didn't act particularly well pleased at the meeting, but that
the girl was, as Harry put it, 'fit to put your eyes out,' she looked
so stunning. But it doesn't seem possible that if Dicky had gone away
with her he would write that sort of a note to me and leave no word
for you."
"Fit to put your eyes out!" The phrase stung me. With a quick
movement, I grasped the hand mirror that lay on the stand by my bed,
and looked critically at the image reflected there. Wan, hollow-eyed,
with one side of my face and neck still flaming from my burns, I had a
quick perception of the way in which my husband, beauty-lover that he
is, must have contrasted my appearance with that of Grace Draper.
Lillian took the mirror forcibly from me, and laid it out of my reach.
"This sort of thing won't do," she said firmly. "It only makes matters
worse. Now just be as brave as you possibly can. Remember, I am right
here every minute."
I could only cling to her. There seemed in all the world no refuge for
me but Lillian's arms.
The weeks immediately following Dicky's departure are almost a blank
memory to me. I seemed stunned, incapable of action, even of thinking
clearly.
If it had not been for Lillian, I do not know what I should have done.
She cared for me with infinite tenderness and understanding, she
stood between me and the imperative curiosity and bewilderment of
my mother-in-law, and she made all the arrangements necessary for my
taking up my life as a thing apart from my husband.
It seemed almost like an interposition of Providence that two days
after Dicky's bombshell, his mother received a letter from her
daughter Elizabeth asking her to go to Florida for the rest of the
winter. One of the children had been ordered south by the family
physician, and Dicky's sister was to accompany her little daughter,
while the other children remained at home under the care of their
father and his mother. Mother Graham dearly loves to travel, and
I knew from Lillian's reports and the few glimpses I had of my
mother-in-law that she was delighted with the prospect before her.
How Lillian managed to quiet the elder woman's natural worry about
Dicky, her half-formed suspicion that something was wrong, and her
conviction that without her to look after me I should not be able to
get through the winter, I never knew.
I do not remember seeing my mother-in-law but once or twice in the
interval between the receipt of Dicky's letter and her departure. The
memory of her good-by to me, however, is very distinct.
She came into the room, cloaked and hatted, ready for the taxi which
was to take her to the station. Katie was to go into New York with
her, and see her safely on the train. Her face was pale, and I noticed
listlessly that her eyelids were reddened as if she had been weeping.
She bent and kissed me tenderly, and then she put her arms around me,
and held me tightly.
"I don't know what it is all about, dear child," she said. "I hope all
is as it seems outwardly. But remember, Margaret, I am your friend,
whatever happens, and if it will help you any, you may remember that
I, too, have had to walk this same sharp paved way."
Then she went away. I remembered that she had said something of the
kind once before, giving me to understand that Dicky's father had
caused her much unhappiness. Did she believe too, I wondered, that
Dicky was with Grace Draper, that his brief infatuation for the girl
had returned when he had seen her again?
For days after that, I drifted--there is no other word for it--through
the hours of each day. When it was absolutely necessary for Lillian to
know some detail, which I alone could give her, she would come to
me, rouse me, and holding me to the subject by the sheer force of her
will, obtain the information she wished, and then leave me to myself,
or rather to Katie again. Katie was my devoted slave. She waited on
me hand and foot, and made a most admirable nurse when Lillian was
compelled to be absent.
When I thought about the matter at all, I realized that Lillian was
preparing to have me share her apartment in the city when I should
be strong enough to leave my home. Harry Underwood had gone with my
father to South America for a trip which would take many months, so
I made no protest. I knew also, because of questions she had made me
answer, that she had arranged with the Lotus Study Club to have an old
teaching comrade of mine, a man who had experience in club lectures,
take my place until I should be well enough to go back to the work.
In so far as I could feel anything, the knowledge that I was still
to have my club work gratified me. The twenty dollars a week which it
paid me, while not large, would preserve my independence until I could
gain courage to go back to my teaching.
For one feeling obsessed me, was strong enough to penetrate the
lethargy of mind and body into which Dicky's letter had thrown me. I
spoke of it to Lillian one day.
"Do--not--use--any--of--Dicky's--money," I said slowly and painfully.
"My--own--bank--book--in--desk."
She took it out, and I also gave her the bank book and papers my
father had given me the day before he left for South America.
"Keep--them--for--me," I whispered, and then at her tender
comprehending smile, I had a sudden revelation.
"Then--you--know--" Astonishment made my voice stronger.
"That Robert Gordon is your father?" she returned briskly. "Bless you,
child, I've suspected it ever since I first heard of his emotion on
hearing the names of your parents. But nobody else knows, I didn't
think it necessary to tell your mother-in-law or Katie, unless, of
course, you want me to do so."
Her smile was so cheery, so infectious, that I could not help but
smile back at her. There was still something on my mind, however.
"This house must be closed," I told her. "Try to find positions for
Katie and Jim."
"I'll attend to everything," she promised, and I did not realize that
her words meant directly opposite to the interpretation I put upon
them, until after myself and all my personal belongings had been moved
to Lillian's apartment in the city, and I had thrown off the terrible
physical weakness and mental lethargy which had been mine.
"I had to do as I thought best about the house in Marvin, Madge," she
said firmly. "I thoroughly respect your feeling about using any of
Dicky's money for your own expenses, but you are not living in
the Marvin house. It is simply Dicky's home, which as his friend,
commissioned to see after his affairs, I am going to keep in readiness
for his return, unless I receive other instructions from him. Jim
and Katie will stay there as caretakers until this horrible mistake,
whatever it may be, is cleared up. Thus your home will be always
waiting for you."
"Never my home again, I fear, Lillian," I said sadly.
There is no magic of healing like that held in the hands of a little
child. It was providential for me that, a short time after Lillian
took me to the apartment which had been home to her for years, her
small daughter, Marion, was restored to her.
The child's father died suddenly, after all, and to Lillian fell the
task of caring for and comforting the old mother of the man who had
done his best to spoil Lillian's life. She brought the aged and
feeble sufferer to the apartment, established her in the bedroom which
Lillian had always kept for herself, and engaged a nurse to care
for her. When I recalled Lillian's story, remembered that her first
husband's mother without a jot of evidence to go upon had believed her
son's vile accusations against Lillian, my friend's forgiveness seemed
almost divine to me. I am afraid I never could have equaled it. When I
said as much to Lillian, she looked at me uncomprehendingly.
"Why, Madge!" she said. "There was nothing else to do. Marion's
grandmother is devoted to her. To separate them now would kill the
old woman. Besides her income is so limited that she cannot have the
proper care unless I do take her in."
"I thought you said Mr. Morten had a legacy about the time of his
second marriage."
"He did, but most of it has been dissipated, I imagine, and what there
is left is in the possession of his wife, a woman with no more red
blood than a codfish. She would let his mother starve before she
would exert herself to help her, or part with any money. No, there
is nothing else to do, Madge. I'll just have to work a little harder,
that's all, and that's good for me, best reducing system there is, you
know."
The sheer, indomitable courage of her, taking up burdens in her middle
age which should never be hers, and assuming them with a smile and
jest upon her lips! I felt suddenly ashamed of the weakness with which
I had met my own problems.
"Lillian!" I said abruptly, "you make me ashamed of myself. I'm going
to stop grieving--as much as I can--" I qualified, "and get to work.
Tell me, how can I best help you? I'm going back to my club work next
week--I am sure I shall be strong enough by then, but I shall have
such loads of time outside."
My friend came over to me impetuously, and kissed me warmly.
"You blessed child!" she said. "I am so glad if anything has roused
you. And I'm going to accept your words in the spirit in which I am
sure they were uttered. If you can share Marion with me for awhile, it
will help me more than anything else. I have so many orders piled
up, I don't know where to begin first. Her grandmother is too ill to
attend to her, and I don't want to leave her with any hired attendant,
she has had too many of those already."
"Don't say another word," I interrupted. "There's nothing on earth I'd
rather do just now than take care of Marion."
Thus began a long succession of peaceful days, spent with Lillian's
small daughter. She was a bewitching little creature of nine years,
but so tiny that she appeared more like a child of six. I had taught
many children, but never had been associated with a child at home.
I grew sincerely attached to the little creature, and she, in turn,
appeared very fond of me. Lillian told her to call me "Aunt Madge,"
and the sound of the title was grateful to me.
"Auntie Madge, Auntie Madge," the sweet childish voice rang the
changes on the name so often that I grew to associate my name with the
love I felt for the child. This made it all the harder for me to bear
when the child's hand all unwittingly brought me the hardest blow Fate
had yet dealt me.
It was her chief delight to answer the postman's ring, and bring me
the mail each day. On this particular afternoon I had been especially
busy, and thus less miserable than usual. I heard the postman's ring,
and then the voice of Marion.
"Auntie Madge, it's a letter for you this time."
I began to tremble, for some unaccountable reason. It was as though
the shadow of the letter the child was bringing had already begun to
fall on me. As she ran to me, and held out the letter, I saw that it
was postmarked San Francisco! But the handwriting was not Dicky's.
I opened it, and from it fell a single sheet of notepaper inscribed:
"She laughs best who laughs last. Grace Draper."
I looked at the thing until it seemed to me that the characters were
alive and writhed upon the paper. I shudderingly put the paper away
from me, and leaned back in my chair and shut my eyes. Then Marion's
little arms were around my neck, her warm, moist kisses upon my cheek,
her frightened voice in my ears.
"Oh! Auntie Madge," she said. "What was in the naughty letter that
hurt you so? Nasty old thing! I'm going to tear it up."
"No, no, Marion," I answered. "I must let your mother see it first.
Call her, dear, won't you, please?"
When Lillian came, I mutely showed her the note. She studied it
carefully, frowning as she did so.
"Pleasant creature!" she commented at last. "But I shouldn't put too
much dependence on this, Madge. She may be with him, of course. But
you ought to know that truth is a mere detail with Grace Draper. She
would just as soon have sent this to you if she had not seen him for
weeks, and knew no more of his address than you."
"But this is postmarked San Francisco," I said faintly.
Lillian laughed shortly. "My dear little innocent!" she said, "it
would be the easiest thing in the world for her to send this envelope
enclosed in one to some friend in San Francisco, who would re-direct
it for her."
"I never thought of that," I said, flushing. "But, oh! Lillian, if he
did not go away with her, what possible explanation is there of his
leaving like this?"
"Yes, I know, dear," she returned. "It's a mystery, and one in the
solving of which I seem perfectly helpless. I do wish someone would
drop from the sky to help us."
XLII
DAYS THAT CREEP SLOWLY BY
It was not from the sky, however, but from across the ocean that
the help Lillian had longed for in solving the mystery of Dicky's
abandonment of me, finally came. It was less than a week after the
receipt of Grace Draper's message, that Lillian and I, sitting in
her wonderful white and scarlet living room, one evening after little
Marion had gone to bed, heard Betty ushering in callers.
"Betty must know them or she wouldn't bring them in unannounced,"
Lillian murmured, as she rose to her feet, and then the next moment
there was framed in the doorway the tall figure of Dr. Pettit. And
with him, wonder of wonders! the slight form, the beautiful, wistful,
tired face of Katharine Sonnot, whose ambition to go to France as a
nurse I had been able to further.
"My dear, what has happened to you?" Katherine exclaimed solicitously.
"I received no answer to my letter saying I was coming home, so when I
reached New York, I went to Dr. Pettit. He thought you were at Marvin,
but when he telephoned out there, Katie said you had had a terrible
accident, and that you had left Marvin. I was not quite sure, for
she was half crying over the telephone, but I thought she said 'for
keeps.'"
She stopped and looked at me with a hint of fright in her manner. I
knew she wanted to ask about Dicky's absence, and did not dare to do
so.
"Everything you heard is true, Katherine," I returned, a trifle
unsteadily, as her arms went around me warmly. I was more than a
trifle upset by her coming, for associated with her were memories of
my brother-cousin, Jack Bickett, who had gone to the great war when
he had learned that I was married, and of whose death "somewhere in
France," I had heard through Mrs. Stewart.
"Where is your husband?" Dr. Pettit demanded, and there was that in
his voice which told me that he was putting an iron hand upon his own
emotions.
Now the stock answer which Lillian and I returned to all inquiries of
this sort was "In San Francisco upon a big commission." It was upon
my lips, but some influence stronger than my will made me change it to
the truth.
"I do not know," I said faintly. "He left the city very abruptly
several weeks ago, sending word in a letter to Mrs. Underwood that he
would never see me again. It is a terrible mystery."
Dr. Pettit muttered something that I knew was a bitter anathema
against Dicky, and then folded his arms tightly across his chest, as
if he would keep in any further comment. But I had no time to pay
any attention to him, for Katherine Sonnot was uttering words that
bewildered and terrified me.
"Oh! how terrible!" she said. "Jack will be so grieved. He had so
hoped to find you happy together when he came home."
Was the girl's brain turned, I wondered, because of grief for my
brother-cousin's death? I had known before I secured the chance for
her to go to France that she was romantically interested in the man
who had been her brother's comrade, although she had never seen
him. And from Jack's letters to Mrs. Stewart, I had learned of their
meeting in the French hospital, and of the acquaintance which promised
to ripen--which evidently had ripened--into love.
I looked at her searchingly, and then I spoke, hardly able to get the
words out for the wild trembling of my whole body.
"Jack grieved?" I said. "Why! Jack is dead! We had the notice of his
death weeks ago from his friend, Paul Caillard."
I saw them all look at me as if frightened. Dr. Pettit reached me
first and put something under my nostrils which vitalized my wandering
senses. I straightened myself and cried out peremptorily.
"What is it, oh! what is it?"
I saw Katherine look at Dr. Pettit, as if for permission, and the
young physician's lips form the words, "Tell her."
"No, dear. Jack isn't dead," she said softly. "He was missing for some
time, and was brought into our hospital terribly wounded, but he is
very much alive now, and will be here in New York in two weeks."
I felt the pungent revivifier in Dr. Pettit's hand steal under my
nostrils again, but I pushed it aside and sat up.
"I am not at all faint," I said abruptly, and then to Katherine
Sonnot. "Please say that over again, slowly."
She repeated her words slowly. "I should have waited to come over with
him," she added, "for he is still quite weak, but Dr. Braithwaite
had to send some one over to attend to business for the hospital. He
selected me, and so I had to come on earlier."
So it was true, then, this miracle of miracles, this return of the
dead to life! Jack, the brother-cousin on whom I had depended all my
life, was still in the same world with me! Some of the terrible burden
I had been bearing since Dicky's disappearance slipped away from me.
If anyone in the world could solve the mystery of Dicky's actions, it
would be Jack Bickett.
Dr. Pettit's voice broke into my reverie. I saw that Lillian and
Katherine Sonnot were deep in conversation. The young physician and I
were far enough away from them so that there was no possibility of
his low tones being heard. He bent over my chair, and his eyes were
burning with a light that terrified me.
"Tell me," he commanded, "do you want your husband back again. Take
your time in answering. I must know."
There was something in his voice that compelled obedience. I leaned
back in my chair and shut my eyes, while I looked at the question he
had put me fairly and squarely.
The question seemed to echo in my ears. I was surprised at myself that
I did not at once reply with a passionate affirmative. Surely I had
suffered enough to welcome Dicky's return at any time.
Ah! there was the root of the whole thing. I had suffered, how I had
suffered at Dicky's hands! As my memory ran back through our stormy
married life, I wondered whether it were wise--even though it should
be proved to me that Dicky had not gone away with Grace Draper--to
take up life with my husband again.
And then, woman-like, all the bitter recollections were shut out by
other memories which came thronging into my brain, memories of Dicky's
royal tenderness when he was not in a bad humor, of his voice, his
smile, his lips, his arms around me, I knew, although my reason
dreaded the knowledge, that unless my husband came back to me, I
should never know happiness again.
I opened my eyes and looked steadily at the young physician.
"Yes, God help me. I do!" I said.
Dr. Pettit winced as if I had struck him. Then he said gravely:
"Thank you for your honesty, and believe that if there be any way in
which I can serve you, I shall not hesitate to take it."
"I am sure of that," I replied earnestly, and the next moment, without
a farewell glance, a touch of my hand, he went over to Katherine, and,
in a voice very different in volume than the suppressed tones of his
conversation to me, I heard him apologize to her for having to go away
at once, heard her laughing reply that after the French hospitals she
did not fear the New York streets, and then the door had closed after
the young physician, whose too-evident interest in me had always
disturbed me.
I hastened to join Lillian and Katherine. I did not want to be left
alone. Thinking was too painful.
"Just think!" Katherine said as I joined them, "I find that I'm living
only a block away. I'm at my old rooming place--luckily they had
a vacant room. Of course, I shall be fearfully busy with Dr.
Braithwaite's work, but being so near, I can spend every spare minute
with you--that is, if you want me," she added shyly.
"Want you, child!" I returned, and I think the emphasis in my voice
reassured her, for she flushed with pleasure, and the next minute with
embarrassment as I said pointedly:
"I imagine you have some unusually interesting and pleasant things to
tell me, especially about my cousin."
But, after all, it was left for Jack himself to tell me the
"interesting things." Katherine became almost at once so absorbed in
the work for Dr. Braithwaite that she had very little time to spend
with us. There was another reason for her absence, of which she spoke
half apologetically one night, about a week after her arrival.