To have David go away for the long-anticipated trip with Dr. Lavendar,
was a relief to Helena struggling up from a week of profound
prostration. Most of the time she had been in bed, only getting up to
sit with David at breakfast and supper, to take what comfort she might
in the little boy's joyous but friendly unconcern. He was full of
importance in the prospect of his journey; there was to be one night on
a railroad-car, which in itself was a serious experience; another in an
hotel; hotel! David glowed at the word. In Philadelphia they were to
see the sights in the morning; in the afternoon, to be sure, Dr.
Lavendar had warned him that it would be necessary to sit still while
some one talked. However, it is never necessary to listen. After the
talking, they would go and see the ships at the wharves, and Liberty
Bell. Then--David's heart sank; bed loomed before him, But it would be
an hotel bed;--there was some comfort in that! Besides, it is never
necessary to sleep. The next day going home on the cars they would see
the Horseshoe Curve; the very words made his throat swell with
excitement.
"Did the locomotive engine ever drop off of it?" he asked Helena.
"No, dear," she said languidly, but with a smile. She always had a
smile for David.
After the Horseshoe Curve there would be a night at Mercer. Mercer, of
course, was less exciting than Philadelphia; still, it was
"travelling," and could be boasted of at recess. But as David thought
of Mercer, he had a bleak revelation. For weeks his mind had been on
this journey; beyond it, his thought did not go. Now, there rushed upon
him the staggering knowledge that after the night in Mercer, _life
would still go on!_ Yes, he would be at home; in Miss Rose Knight's
school-room; at supper with Mrs. Richie. It is a heavy moment, this
first consciousness that nothing lasts. It made David feel sick; he put
his spoon down and looked at Mrs. Richie. "I shall be back," he said
blankly.
And at that her eyes filled. "Yes, darling! Won't that be nice!"
And yet his absence for the next few days would be a relief to her. She
could think the whole thing out, she said to herself. She had not been
well enough to think clearly since Lloyd had gone. To adjust her mind
to the bitter finality meant swift oscillations of hate and the habit
of affection--the spirit warring with the flesh. She would never see
him again;--she would send for him! she despised him;--what should she
do without him? Yet she never wavered about David. She had made her
choice. William King's visit had not shaken her decision for an
instant; it had only frightened her horribly. How should she defend
herself? She meant to think it all out, undisturbed by the sweet
interruptions of David's presence. And yet she knew she should miss him
every minute of his absence. Miss him? If Dr. King had known what even
three days without David would mean to her, he would not have wasted
his breath in suggesting that she should give him up! Yet the
possibility of such a thing had the allurement of terror; she played
with the thought, as a child, wincing, presses a thorn into its flesh
to see how long it can bear the smart. Suppose, instead of this three
days' trip with Dr. Lavendar, David was going away to stay? The mere
question made her catch him in her arms as if to assure herself he was
hers.
The day before he started, Helena was full of maternal preoccupations.
The travelling-bag that she had begun to pack for herself--for so
different a journey!--had to be emptied of its feminine possessions,
and David's little belongings stowed in their place. David himself had
views about this packing; he kept bringing one thing or another--his
rubber boots, a cocoon, a large lump of slag honeycombed with
air-holes; would she please put them into the bag?
"Why, but darling, you will be back again on Saturday," she consoled
him, as each treasure was rejected.--("Suppose he was _not_ coming
back! How should I feel?")
He was to spend the night before the journey at the Rectory, and after
supper Helena went down the hill with him. "I wish I hadn't consented
to it," she said to herself; "do you like to go and leave me, David?"
she pleaded.
And David jumping along at her side, said joyously, "Yes, ma'am."
At the Rectory he pushed the door open and bounded in ahead of her,
"I'm here!"
Dr. Lavendar put down his _Spirit of Missions_, and looked over his
spectacles. "You don't say so! And you're here, too, Mrs. Richie? Come
in!"
Helena, hesitating in the hall, said she had only come to leave David.
But Dr. Lavendar would not listen to that.
"Sit down! Sit down!" he commanded genially.
David, entirely at home, squatted at once upon the rug beside Danny.
"Dr. Lavendar," she said, "you'll bring him back to me on Saturday?"
"Unless I steal him for myself," said Dr. Lavendar, twinkling at David,
who twinkled back, cozily understanding.
Helena stooped over him and kissed him; then took one of his reluctant
hands from its clasp about his knees and held it, patting it, and once
furtively kissing it, "Good-by, David. Saturday you'll be at home
again."
The child's face fell. His sigh was not personal; it only meant the
temporariness of all human happiness. Staring into the fire in sudden
melancholy, he said, "'By." But the next minute he sparkled into
excited joy, and jumped up to hang about her neck and whisper that in
Philadelphia he was going to buy a false-face for a present for Dr.
Lavendar; "or else a jew's-harp. He'll give it to me afterwards; and I
think I want a jew's-harp the most," he explained.
"David," Helena said in a whisper, putting her cheek down against his,
"Oh, David, won't you please, give me--'forty kisses'? I'm so--lonely."
David drew back and looked hard into her face that quivered in spite of
the smile she had summoned to meet his eyes. It was a long look, for a
child; then suddenly, he put both arms around her neck in a breathless
squeeze. "One--two--three--four--" he began.
William King, coming in for his evening smoke, saw that quick embrace;
his face moved with pain, and he stepped back into the hall with some
word of excuse about his coat. When he returned, she was standing up,
hurrying to get away. "Saturday," she repeated to Dr. Lavendar;
"Saturday, surely?"
"Why," the old man said smiling, "you make me feel like a thief. Yes;
you shall have him Saturday night. Willy, my boy, do you think Mrs.
Richie ought to go up the hill alone?"
"Oh, it will be bright moonlight in a few minutes," she protested
nervously, not looking at the doctor.
"I will walk home with Mrs. Richie," William said.
"No! oh, no; please don't!" The dismay in her voice was unmistakable.
Dr. Lavendar thrust out a perplexed lower lip. "If she'd rather just go
by herself, Willy, there are no highwaymen in Old Chester, and--"
But William King interrupted him gently. "I wish to speak to Mrs.
Richie." And Dr. Lavendar held his tongue.
"I am sorry to bother you," William said, as he held the gate open for
her; "but I felt I must speak to you."
Helena made no reply. All the way down the street, almost to the foot
of the hill, Old Chester's evening stillness was unbroken, except for
the rustle of fallen leaves under their feet. Suddenly the great disk
of the hunter's moon lifted slowly up behind the hills, and the night
splintered like a dark crystal; sheets of light spread sharply in the
open road, gulfs of shadow deepened under trees and beside walls. It
was as abrupt as sound. William King broke into hurried words as though
he had been challenged: "I knew you didn't want me to walk home with
you, but indeed you ought not to go up the hill alone. Please take my
arm; the flagging is so uneven here."
"No, thank you."
"Mrs. Richie, please don't feel that I am not your friend, just
because--Indeed, I think I am more your friend than I ever was. You
will believe that, won't you?"
"Oh, I suppose so; that is the way saints always talk to sinners."
"I am far enough from being a saint," William King said with an awkward
effort to laugh; "but--"
"But I am a sinner?" she interrupted.
"Oh, Mrs. Richie, don't let us talk this way! I have nothing but pity,
and--and friendship. The last thing I mean to do, is to set myself as a
judge of your actions; God knows I have no right to judge anybody! But
this matter of David, that's what I wanted to speak to you about. My
responsibility," he stopped, and drew in his breath. "Don't you see, my
responsibility--"
Helena did not speak; she was marshalling all her forces to fight for
her child. How should she begin? But he did not wait for her to begin.
"I would rather lose my right hand than pain you. I've gone all over
it, a hundred times. I've tried to see some way out. But I can't. The
only way is for you to give him up. It isn't right for you to have him!
Mrs. Richie, I say this, and it is hard and cruel, and yet I never felt
more"--William King stopped short--"friendly," he ended brokenly.
He was walking at a pace she found hard to follow. "I can't go quite so
fast," she said faintly, and instantly he came to a dead stop.
"Dr. King, I want to explain to you--"
She lifted her face, all white and quivering in the moonlight, but
instead of explanations, she broke out: "Oh, if you take him away from
me, I shall die! I don't care very much about living anyhow. But I
can't live without David. Please, Dr. King; oh, please; I will be good!
I will be good," she repeated like a child, and stood there crying, and
clinging to his arm. All her reasons and excuses and pleadings had
dropped out of her mind. "Don't take him away from me; I will be good!"
she said.
William King, with those trembling hands on his arm, looked down at her
and trembled too. Then roughly, he pushed her hands away. "Come on. We
mustn't stand here. Don't you suppose I feel this as much as you do? I
love children, and I know what it means to you to let David go. But
more than that, I--have a regard for you, and it pains me inexpressibly
to do anything that pains you. You can't understand how terrible this
is to me, and I can't tell you. I mustn't tell you. But never mind,
it's true. It isn't right, no, it isn't right! that a woman who--you
know what I mean. And even if, after all, you should marry him, what
sort of a man is he to have charge of a little boy like David? He has
deceived us, and lied to us; he is a loose liver, a--"
"Wait," she panted; "I am not going to marry him. I thought you
understood that."
He drew away from her with a horrified gesture. "And you would keep an
innocent child--"
"No! No! I've broken with him--on account of David!"
"Broken with him!" said William King; he caught her by the wrist, and
stared at her. Then with a breathless word that she could not hear, he
dropped her hand and turned his face away.
Again, in their preoccupation, they stood still; this time in a great
bank of shadow by the wall of the graveyard half-way up the hill.
"So you won't take him from me?" she said; "I will leave Old Chester.
You need never see me again."
"Good God!" said William King, "do you think that is what I want?"
She tried to see his face, but he had turned his back on her so that
she stood behind him. Her hands were clasping and unclasping and her
voice fluttering in her throat. "You won't take him?"
"Mrs. Richie," he said harshly, "do you love that man still?"
But before she could answer, he put the question aside. "No! Don't tell
me. I've no right to ask. I--don't want to know. I've no right to know.
It's--it's nothing to me, of course." He moved as he spoke out into the
moonlight, and began to climb the pebbly road; she was a step or two
behind him. When he spoke again his voice was indifferent to the point
of contempt. "This side is smoother; come over here. I am glad you are
not going to marry Mr. Pryor. He is not fit for you to marry."
"Not fit for--_me!_" she breathed.
"And I am glad you have broken with him. But that has no bearing upon
your keeping David. A child is the most precious thing in the world; he
must be trained, and--and all that. Whether you marry this man or not
makes no difference about David. If you have lived--as you have
lived--you ought not to have him. But I started the whole thing. I made
Dr. Lavendar give him to you. He didn't want to, somehow; I don't know
why. So don't you see? I _can't_ leave him in your care. Surely you see
that? I am responsible. Responsible not only to David, but to Dr.
Lavendar."
"If Dr. Lavendar is willing to let me have him, I don't see why you
need to feel so about it. What harm could I do him? Oh, how cruel you
are--how cruel you are!"
"Would Dr. Lavendar let you have him, if--he knew?"
"But that's over; that's finished," she insisted. "Oh, I tell you, it's
over!"
The doctor's silence was like a whip.
"Oh, I know; you think that he was here last week. But there has to be
a beginning of everything--that was the beginning. I told him I would
not give David up to marry him; and we quarrelled. And--it's over."
"I can't go into that," the doctor said. "That's not my business. David
is my business. Mrs. Richie, I want you quietly, without any
explanation, to give the boy back to Dr. Lavendar. If you don't, I
shall have no choice. I shall have to tell him."
"But you said you wouldn't tell him! Oh, you break your word--"
"I won't tell him your affairs," said William King. "I will never do
that. But I'll tell him my own--some of them. I'll say I made a mistake
when I advised him to let you have David, and that I don't think you
ought to be trusted to bring up a little boy. But I won't say why."
"Dr. King, if I tell him just what you've said; that you think you made
a mistake, and you think I am not to be trusted;--if I tell him myself,
and he consents to let me keep him, will you interfere?"
William reflected heavily. "He won't consent," he said; "he'll know I
wouldn't say a thing like that without reason. But if he does, I shall
be silent."
There was a despairing finality in his words. They were at her own gate
now; she leaned her head down on it, and he heard a pitiful sound.
William King's lips were dry, and when he spoke the effort made his
throat ache. What he said was only the repetition of his duty as he saw
it. "I'd rather lose my right hand than make you suffer. But I've no
choice. I've no choice!" And when she did not answer, he added his
ultimatum. "I'll have to tell Dr. Lavendar on Sunday, unless you will
just let me settle it all for you by saying that you don't want David
any long--"
_"Not want David!"_
"I mean, that you've decided you won't keep him any longer. I'll find a
good home for him, Mrs. Richie," he ended in a shaking voice.
She gave him one look of terror; then opened the gate and shut it
quickly in his face, drawing the bolt with trembling fingers. As she
flew up the path, he saw her for an instant as she crossed a patch of
moonlight; then the darkness hid her.