The parting at the Stuffed Animal House the next morning was dreary
enough. The day broke heavy with threatening rain. The man, after that
brief flaming up of the embers of burned-out passion, had fallen into a
weariness which he did not attempt to conceal. But the woman--being a
woman--still tried to warm herself at the poor ashes, wasting her
breath in a sobbing endeavor to blow them into some fitful ardor. There
was a hurried breakfast, and while waiting for the stage the desultory
talk that skims over dangerous topics for fear of getting into
discussions for which there is no time. And with it the consciousness
of things that burn to be said--at least on one side.
"I'm sorry I was cross last night," she murmured once, under her breath.
And he responded courteously, "Oh, not at all."
But she pressed him. "You know it was only because I--love you so? And
to make a joke of--"
"Of course! Helena, when is that stage due? You don't suppose the
driver misunderstood, and expects to take me on at the Tavern?"
"No, he was told to call here.... Lloyd, it's just the same? You
haven't--changed?"
"Certainly not! I do hope he hasn't forgotten me? It would be extremely
inconvenient."
She turned away and stood looking out of the window into the
rain-sodden garden. Mr. Pryor lighted a cigar. After a while she spoke
again. "You'll come soon? I hope you will come soon! I'll try not to
worry you."
"Of course," he assured her; "but I trust your cook will be well next
time, my dear."
"Give me a day's notice, and I will have another cook if Maggie should
be under the weather," she answered eagerly.
"Oh, that reminds me," he said, and thrusting his hand into his pocket
he went out to the kitchen. When he came back he went at once to the
window, "I'm afraid that stage-driver has forgotten me," he said,
frowning. But she reassured him--it really wasn't time yet; then she
leaned her cheek on his shoulder.
"Do you think you can come in a fortnight, Lloyd? Come the first of
May, and everything shall be perfect. Will you?"
Laughing, he put a careless arm around her, then catching sight of the
stage pulling up at the gate, turned away so quickly that she staggered
a little.
"Ah!" he said in a relieved voice;--"beg your pardon, Nelly;--There's
the stage!"
At the door he kissed her hurriedly; but she followed him, bareheaded,
out into the mist, catching his hand as they went down the path.
"Good-by!" he called back from the hinged step of the stage. "Get
along, driver, get along! I don't want to miss my train in Mercer.
Good-by, my dear. Take care of yourself."
Helena standing at the gate, followed the stage with her eyes until the
road turned at the foot of the hill. Then she went back to the bench
under the silver poplar and sat down. She said to herself that she was
glad he was gone. His easy indifference to the annoyance to her of all
these furtive years, seemed just for a moment unbearable. He had not
showed a glimmer of sympathy for her position; he had not betrayed the
slightest impatience at Frederick's astonishing health, so contrary to
every law of probability and justice; he had not even understood how
she felt at taking the friendship of the Old Chester people on false
pretences--oh, these stupid people! That dull, self-satisfied,
commonplace doctor's wife, so secure, so comfortable, in her right to
Old Chester friendships! Of course, it was a great thing to be free
from the narrowness and prejudice in which Old Chester was absolutely
hidebound. But Lloyd might at least have understood that in spite of
her freedom the years of delay had sometimes been a little hard for
her; that it was cruel that Frederick should live, and live, and live,
putting off the moment when she should be like--other people; like that
complacent Mrs. King, even; (oh, how she detested the woman!) But Lloyd
had shown no spark of sympathy or understanding; instead he had made a
horrid joke.... Suddenly her eyes, sweet and kind and shallow as an
animal's, clouded with pain, and she burst out crying--but only for one
convulsive moment. She could not cry out here in the garden. She wished
she could get into the house, but she was sure that her eyes were red,
and the servants might notice them. She would have to wait a while.
Then she shivered, for a sharp wind blew from across the hills where in
the hollows the snow still lingered in grimy drifts, icy on the edges,
and crumbling and settling and sinking away with every day of pale
sunshine. The faint fragrance of wind-beaten daffodils reached her, and
she saw two crocuses, long gold bubbles, over in the grass. She put the
back of her hand against her cheek--it was hot still; she must wait a
little longer. Her chilly discomfort made her angry at Lloyd, as well
as hurt.... It was nearly half an hour before she felt sure that her
eyes would not betray her and she could go into the house.
Somehow or other the empty day passed; she had Lloyd's novel and the
candy. It was cold enough for a fire in the parlor, and she lay on the
sofa in front of it, and read and nibbled her candy and drowsed. Once,
lazily, she roused herself to throw some grains of incense on the hot
coals. Gradually the silence and perfume and warm sloth pushed the pain
of the last twenty-four hours into the background of her mind, where it
lay a dull ache of discontent. By and by even that ceased in physical
well-being. Her body had her in its grip, and her spirit sunk softly
into the warm and satisfied flesh. She bade Sarah bring her dinner into
the parlor; after she had eaten it she slept. When she awoke in the
late afternoon, she wished she could sleep again. All her thoughts ran
together in a lazy blur. Somewhere, back of the blur, she knew there
was unhappiness, so this was best--to lie warm and quiet by the fire,
eating candy and yawning over her book.
The next few days were given up to indolence and apathy. But at the end
of the week the soul of her stirred. A letter from Lloyd came saying
that he hoped she had the little boy with her, and this reminded her of
her forgotten promise to Dr. Lavendar.
But it was not until the next Monday afternoon that she roused herself
sufficiently to give much thought to the matter. Then she decided to go
down to the Rectory and see the child. It was another dark day of
clouds hanging low, bulging big and black with wind and ravelling into
rain along the edges. She hesitated at the discomfort of going out, but
she said to herself, dully, that she supposed she needed the walk. As
she went down the hill her cheeks began to glow with the buffet of the
wind, and her leaf-brown eyes shone crystal clear from under her soft
hair, crinkling in the mist and blowing all about her smooth forehead.
The mist had thickened to rain before she reached the Rectory, and her
cloak was soaked, which made Dr. Lavendar reproach her for her
imprudence.
"And where are your gums?" he demanded. When she confessed that she had
forgotten them, he scolded her roundly.
"I'll see that the little boy wears them when he comes to visit me,"
she said, a comforted look coming into her face.
"David? David will look after himself like a man, and keep you in
order, too. As for visiting you, my dear, you'd better visit him a
little first. I tell you--stay and have supper with us to-night?"
But she protested that she had only come for a few minutes to ask about
David. "I must go right home," she said nervously.
"No, no. You can't get away,--oh!" he broke off excitedly--"here he
is!" Dr. Lavendar's eagerness at the sight of the little boy who came
running up the garden path, his hurry to open the front door and bring
him into the study to present him to Mrs. Richie, fussing and proud and
a little tremulous, would have touched her, if she had noticed him. But
she did not notice him,--the child absorbed her. She could not leave
him. Before she knew it she found herself taking off her bonnet and
saying she would stay to tea.
"David," said Dr. Lavendar, "I've got a bone in my leg; so you run and
get me a clean pocket-handkerchief."
"Can I go up-stairs like a crocodile?" said David.
"Certainly, if it affords you the slightest personal satisfaction," Dr.
Lavendar told him; and while the little boy crawled laboriously on his
stomach all the way up-stairs, Dr. Lavendar talked about him. He said
he thought the child had been homesick just at first; he had missed his
sister Janey. "He told me 'Janey' gave him 'forty kisses' every night,"
said Dr. Lavendar; "I thought that told a story--" At that moment the
crocodile, holding a handkerchief between his teeth, came rapidly, head
foremost, down-stairs. Dr. Lavendar raised a cautioning hand;--"Mustn't
talk about him, now!"
There was a quality in that evening that was new to Helena; it was
dull, of course;--how very dull Lloyd would have found it! A childlike
old man asking questions with serious simplicity of a little boy who
was full of his own important interests and anxieties;--the feeding of
Danny, and the regretful wonder that in heaven, the little dog would
not be "let in."
"Who said he wouldn't?" Dr. Lavendar demanded, fiercely, while Danny
yawned with embarrassment at hearing his own name.
"You read about heaven in the Bible," David said, suddenly shy; "an' it
said outside were dogs;--an' some other animals I can't remember the
names of."
Dr. Lavendar explained with a twinkle that shared with his visitor the
humor of those "other animals" itemized in the Revelations. It was a
very mild humor; everything was mild at the Rectory; the very air
seemed gentle! There was no apprehension, no excitement, no antagonism;
only the placid commonplace of goodness and affection. Helena could not
remember such an evening in all her life. And the friendship between
youth and age was something she had never dreamed of. She saw David
slip from his chair at table, and run around to Dr. Lavendar's side to
reach up and whisper in his ear,--oh, if he would but put his cheek
against hers, and whisper in her ear!
The result of that secret colloquy was that David knelt down in front
of the dining-room fire, and made a slice of smoky toast for Dr.
Lavendar.
"After supper you might roast an apple for Mrs. Richie," the old
minister suggested. And David's eyes shone with silent joy. With
anxious deliberation he picked out an apple from the silver wire basket
on the sideboard; and when they went into the study, he presented a
thread to Mrs. Richie.
"Tie it to the stem," he commanded. "You're pretty slow," he added
gently, and indeed her white fingers blundered with the unaccustomed
task. When she had accomplished it, David wound the other end of the
thread round a pin stuck in the high black mantel-shelf. The apple
dropped slowly into place before the bars of the grate, and began--as
everybody who has been a child knows--to spin slowly round, and then,
slowly back again. David, squatting on the rug, watched it in silence.
But Mrs. Richie would not let him be silent. She leaned forward, eager
to touch him--his shoulders, his hair, his cheek, hot with the fire.
"Won't you come and sit in my lap?"
David glanced at Dr. Lavendar as though for advice; then got up and
climbed on to Mrs. Richie's knee, keeping an eye on the apple that
bobbed against the grate and sizzled.
"Will you make me a little visit, dear?"
David sighed. "I seem to visit a good deal; I'd like to belong
somewhere."
"Oh, you will, one of these days," Dr. Lavendar assured him.
"I'd like to belong to you," David said thoughtfully.
Dr. Lavendar beamed, and looked proudly at Mrs. Richie.
"Because," David explained, "I love Goliath."
"Oh," said Dr. Lavendar blankly.
"It's blackening on one side," David announced, and slid down from Mrs.
Richie's knee to set the apple spinning again.
"The red cheek is beginning to crack," said Dr. Lavendar, deeply
interested; "smells good, doesn't it, Mrs. Richie?"
"Have you any little boys and girls?" David asked, watching the apple.
"Come and climb on my knee and I'll tell you," she bribed him.
He came reluctantly; the apple was spinning briskly now under the
impulse of a woolly burst of pulp through the red skin.
"Have you?" he demanded.
"No, David."
Here his interest in Mrs. Richie's affairs flagged, for the apple began
to steam deliciously. Dr. Lavendar, watching her with his shrewd old
eyes, asked her one or two questions; but, absorbed in the child, she
answered quite at random. She put her cheek against his hair, and
whispered, softly: "Turn round, and I'll give you forty kisses."
Instantly David moved his head away. The snub was so complete that she
looked over at Dr. Lavendar, hoping he had not seen it. "I once knew a
little baby," she said, trying to hide her embarrassment, "that had
curly hair the color of yours."
"It has begun to drip," said David briefly. "Does Alice live at your
house?"
"_Alice!_"
"The gentleman--your brother--said Alice was nineteen. I thought maybe
she lived at your house."
"No, dear. Look at the apple!"
David looked. "Why not?"
"Why, she lives at her own house, dear little boy."
"Does she pay you a visit?"
"No. David, I think the apple is done. Why didn't you roast one for Dr.
Lavendar?"
"I had to do it for you because you're company. Why doesn't she pay you
a visit?"
"Because--oh, for a good many reasons. I'm afraid must go home now."
The child slipped from her knee with unflattering haste. "You've got to
eat your apple first," he said, and ran to get a saucer and spoon. With
great care the thread was broken and the apple secured. Then David sat
calmly down in front of her to watch her eat it; but after the first
two or three mouthfuls, Dr. Lavendar had pity on her, and the smoky
skin and the hard core were banished to the dining-room. While the
little boy was carrying them off, she said eagerly, that she wanted him.
"You'll let me have him?"
"I'm going to keep him for a while."
"Oh, do give him to me!" she urged.
"Not yet. You come here and see him. I won't make ye eat a roast apple
every time." He smiled at her as he spoke, for she was clasping her
hands, and her eyes were eager and shining.
"I must have him! I _must_!"
"No use teasing--here comes Dr. King. He'll tell you I'm an obstinate
old man. Hey, Willy, my boy! Ain't I an obstinate old man?"
"You are," said William. He had walked in unannounced, in good Old
Chester fashion, and stood smiling in the doorway.
"Oh, plead my cause!" she said, turning to him.
"Of course I will. But it isn't much use; we are all under his heel."
They were standing, for Mrs. Richie had said she must go, when Dr.
Lavendar had an idea: "Would you mind seeing her home, Willy?" he said,
in an aside. "I was going to send Mary, but this is a chance to get
better acquainted with her--if you're not too tired."
"Of course I'm not too tired," the doctor said eagerly, and went back
to the fireside where Mrs. Richie had dropped on her knees before
David. "I'm going to walk home with you," he announced. She looked up
with a quick protest, but he only laughed. "If we let you go alone,
your brother will think we have no manners in Old Chester. Besides I
need the walk." And when she had fastened her cloak, and kissed David
good night, and thrown Dr. Lavendar an appealing look, William gave her
his hand down the two steps from the front door, and then made her take
his arm. Dr. Lavendar had provided a lantern, and as its shifting beam
ran back and forth across the path the doctor bade her be careful where
she stepped. "These flag-stones are abominably rough," he said; "I
never noticed it before. And one can't see in the dark."
But what with the lantern and the stars, there was light enough for
William King to see the stray curl that blew across her
forehead--brown, was it? And yet, William remembered that in daylight
her hair was too bright to be called brown. He was solicitous lest he
was making her walk too fast. "I don't want your brother to think we
don't take care of you in Old Chester," he said; and in the starlight
he could see that her face flushed a little. Then he repeated some Old
Chester gossip, which amused her very much--and held his breath to
listen to the delicious gayety of her laugh.
"There ought to be a better path for you up the hill," he said; "I must
speak to Sam Wright about it." And carefully he flung the noiseless
zigzag of light back and forth in front of her, and told some more
stories that he might hear that laugh again.
When he left her at her own door she said with a sudden impetuous
timidity, "Dr. King, _please_ make Dr. Lavendar give me the little boy!"
"I will!" he said, and laughed at her radiant face.
It seemed to the doctor as he went down the hill, that he had had a
most delightful evening. He could not recollect what they had talked
about, but he knew that they had agreed on every point. "A very
intelligent lady," he said to himself.
"William," said Martha, looking up from her mending as he entered the
sitting-room, "did you remember to tell Davis that the kitchen sink
leaks?"
"Oh!" said the doctor blankly; "well--I'll tell him in the morning."
Then, smiling vaguely, he dropped down into his shabby old easy-chair,
and watched Martha's darning-needle plod in and out. "Martha," he said
after a while, "what shade would you call your hair if it was--well,
kind of brighter?"
"_What?_" said Martha, looking at him over her spectacles; she put up
her hard capable hand and touched her hair softly, as if she had
forgotten it. "My hair used to be a real chestnut. Do you mean
chestnut?"
"I guess I do. It's a pretty color."
Martha looked at him with a queer shyness in her married eyes, then
tossed her head a little and thrust her darning-needle into the gray
stocking with a jaunty air. "That's what you used to say," she said.
After a while, noticing his tired lounge in the old chair, she said
kindly, "Why did you stay so long at Dr. Lavendar's, Willy? You look
tired. Do go to bed."
"Oh," William explained, "I didn't stay very long; he asked me to see
Mrs. Richie home. She had taken tea with him."
Martha's face suddenly hardened. "Oh," she said coldly. Then, after a
short silence: "Mrs. Richie's hair is too untidy for my taste."
When Dr. Lavendar went back into the study he found David curled up in
an arm-chair in profound meditation.
"What are you thinking about so hard?" Dr. Lavendar said.
"Yesterday. After church."
"Thinking about yesterday?" Dr. Lavendar repeated puzzled. David
offered no explanation, and the old minister searched his memory for
any happening of interest after church ... but found none. He had come
out of the vestry and in the church David had joined him, following him
down the aisle to the door and waiting close behind him through the
usual Sunday greetings: "Morning, Sam!" "Good morning, Dr. Lavendar."
"How are you, Ezra? How many drops of water make the mighty ocean,
Ezra?" "The amount of water might be estimated in tons, Dr. Lavendar,
but I doubt whether the number of minims could be compu--" "Hullo!
there's Horace; how d'ye do, Horace? How's Jim this morning?"--and so
on; the old friendly greetings of all the friendly years.... Surely
nothing in them to make the child thoughtful?
Suddenly David got up and came and stood beside him.
"What is your name?"
"N. or M.," Dr. Lavendar replied.
"What, sir?" said David, in a troubled voice; and Dr. Lavendar was
abashed.
"My name is Edward Lavendar, sir. Why do you want to know?"
"Because, yesterday everybody said 'Dr. Lavendar.' I didn't think
Doctor could be your front name. All the other people had front names."
"Well, I have a front name, David, but you see, there's nobody in Old
Chester to call me by it." He sighed slightly, and then he smiled. "The
last one who called me by my front name is dead, David. John was his
name. I called him Johnny."
David looked at him with wide eyes, silent. Dr. Lavendar took his pipe
out of his mouth, and stared for a minute at the fire.
"I should think," David said sadly, "God would be discouraged to have
_everybody_ He makes, die."
At that Dr. Lavendar came quickly out of his reverie. "Oh, it's better
that way," he said, cheerfully. "One of these days I'll tell you why.
What do you say to a game of dominoes?"
David squeaked with pleasure. Then he paused to say: "Is that lady,
Alice's aunt?" and Dr. Lavendar had to recall who "Alice" was before he
could say "yes." Then a little table was pulled up, and the dominoes
were poured out upon it, with a joyful clatter. For the next half hour
they were both very happy. In the midst of it David remarked,
thoughtfully: "There are two kinds of aunts. One is bugs. She is the
other kind." And after Dr. Lavendar had stopped chuckling they
discussed the relative merits of standing the dominoes upright, or
putting them on their sides, and Dr. Lavendar built his fence in
alternate positions, which was very effective. It was so exciting that
bedtime was a real trial to them both. At the last stroke of eight
David clenched both hands.
"Perhaps the clock is fast?"
Dr. Lavendar compared it with his watch, and shook his head
sympathetically. "No; just right. Tumble 'em back into the box. Good
night."
"Good night, sir," David said, and stood hesitating. The color came and
went in his face, and he twisted the top button of his jacket with
little nervous fingers.
"Good night," Dr. Lavendar repeated, significantly.
But still David hesitated. Then he came and stood close beside Dr.
Lavendar. "Lookee here," he said tremulously, "_I'll_ call you Edward.
I'd just as lieves as not."
There was a full minute's silence. Then Dr. Lavendar said, "I thank
you, David. That is a kind thought. But no; I like Dr. Lavendar as a
name. So many boys and girls have called me that, that I'm fond of it.
And I like to have you use it. But I'm much obliged to you, David. Now
I guess we'll say good night. Hey?"
The child's face cleared; he drew a deep breath as if he had
accomplished something. Then he said good night, and trudged off to
bed. Dr. Lavendar looked after him tenderly.