England country ministers always know lots about Greek and Latin and how
to make one dollar do the work of one-seventy-five, but they never have
any dollars left when the doing's over. Father and I lived alone
together always, and he taught me things, and I petted him--fathers need
it, specially when they have country congregations--and we didn't bother
much about other folks. Then he--died. I was eighteen, and I had six
hundred dollars. I couldn't do arithmetic, because Father had always
said it was left out of my head, and I needn't bother with it. So I
couldn't teach. Then they said, 'You like books, and you'd better be a
librarian.' As a matter of fact, a librarian never gets a chance to
read, but you can't explain that to the general public. So I came to the
city and took the course at library school. Then I got a position in the
Greenway Branch--two years in the circulating desk, four in the
cataloguing room, and one in the Children's Department. The short and
simple annals of the poor!"
"Go on," said Allan.
"I believe it's merely that you like the sound of the human voice," said
Phyllis, laughing. "I'm going to go on with the story of the Five Little
Pigs--you'll enjoy it just as much!"
"Exactly," said Allan. "Tell me what it was like in the library,
please."
"It was rather interesting," said Phyllis, yielding at once. "There are
so many different things to be done that you never feel any monotony, as
I suppose a teacher does. But the hours are not much shorter than a
department store's, and it's exacting, on-your-feet work all the time. I
liked the work with the children best. Only--you never have any time to
be anything but neat in a library, and you do get so tired of being just
neat, if you're a girl."
"And a pretty one," said Allan. "I don't suppose the ugly ones mind as
much."
It was the first thing he had said about her looks. Phyllis's ready
color came into her cheeks. So he thought she was pretty!
"Do you--think I'm pretty?" she asked breathlessly. She couldn't help
it.
"Of course I do, you little goose," said Allan, smiling at her.
Phyllis plunged back into the middle of her story:
"You see, you can't sit up nights to sew much, or practise doing your
hair new ways, because you need all your strength to get up when the
alarm-clock barks next morning. And then, there's always the
money-worry, if you have nothing but your salary. Of course, this last
year, when I've been getting fifty dollars a month, things have been all
right. But when it was only thirty a month in the Circulation--well,
that was pretty hard pulling," said Phyllis thoughtfully. "But the
worst--the worst, Allan, was waking up nights and wondering what would
happen if you broke down for a long time. Because you _can't_ very well
save for sickness-insurance on even fifty a month. And the work--well,
of course, most girls' work is just a little more than they have the
strength for, always. But I was awfully lucky to get into children's
work. Some of my imps, little Poles and Slovaks and Hungarians mostly,
are the cleverest, most affectionate babies----"
She began to tell him stories of wonderful ten-year-olds who were
Socialists by conviction, and read economics, and dazed little atypical
sixteen-year-olds who read Mother Goose, and stopped even that because
they got married.
"You poor little girl!" said Allan, unheeding. "What brutes they were to
you! Well, thank Heaven, that's over now!"
"Why, Allan!" she said, laying a soothing hand on his. "Nobody was a
brute. There's never more than one crank-in-authority in any library,
they say. Ours was the Supervisor of the Left Half of the Desk, and
after I got out of Circulation I never saw anything of her."
Allan burst into unexpected laughter. "It sounds like a Chinese title of
honor," he explained. "'Grand Warder of the Emperor's Left
Slipper-Rosette,' or something of the sort."
"The Desk's where you get your books stamped," she explained, "and the
two shifts of girls who attend to that part of the work each have a
supervisor--the Right and Left halves. The one that was horrid had
favorites, and snapped at the ones that weren't. I wasn't under her,
though. My Supervisor was lovely, an Irishwoman with the most florid
hats, and the kindest, most just disposition, and always laughing. We
all adored her, she was so fair-minded."
"You think a good deal about laughing," said Allan thoughtfully. "Does it
rank as a virtue in libraries, or what?"
"You have to laugh," explained Phyllis. "If you don't see the laugh-side
of things, you see the cry-side. And you can't afford to be unhappy if
you have to earn your living. People like brightness best. And it's more
comfortable for yourself, once you get used to it."
"So that was your philosophy of life," said Allan. His hand tightened
compassionately on hers. "You _poor_ little girl!... Tell me about the
cry-side, Phyllis."
His voice was very moved and caressing, and the darkness was deepening
as the fire sank. Only an occasional tongue of flame glinted across
Phyllis's silver slipper-buckle and on the seal-ring Allan wore. It was
easy to tell things there in the perfumed duskiness. It was a great many
years since any one had cared to hear the cry-side. And it was so dark,
and the hand keeping hers in the shadows might have been any kind,
comforting hand. She found herself pouring it all out to Allan, there
close by her; the loneliness, the strain, the hard work, the lack of all
the woman-things in her life, the isolation and dreariness at night, the
over-fatigue, and the hurt of watching youth and womanhood sliding away,
unused, with nothing to show for all the years; only a cold hope that
her flock of little transient aliens might be a little better for the
guidance she could give them--
Years hence in rustic speech a phrase,
As in rude earth a Grecian vase.
And then, that wet, discouraged day in February, and the vision of Eva
Atkinson, radiantly fresh and happy, kept young and pretty by unlimited
money and time.
"Her children were so pretty," said Phyllis wistfully, "and mine, dear
little villains, were such dirty, untaught, rude little things--oh, it
sounds snobbish, but I'd have given everything I had to have a dainty,
clean little _lady_-child throw her arms around me and kiss me, instead
of my pet little handsome, sticky Polish Jewess. Up at home everything
had been so clean and old and still that you always could remember it
had been finished for three hundred years. And Father's clean, still old
library----"
Phyllis did not know how she was revealing to Allan the unconscious
motherhood in her; but Allan, femininely sensitive to unspoken things
from his long sojourn in the dark--Allan did. It was the mother-instinct
that she was spending on him, but mother-instinct of a kind he had never
known before; gayly self-effacing, efficient, shown only in its results.
And she could never have anything else to spend it on, he thought. Well,
he was due to die in a few years.... But he didn't want to. Living was
just beginning to be interesting again, somehow. There seemed no
satisfactory solution for the two of them.... Well, he'd be unselfish
and die, any way. Meanwhile, why not be happy? Here was Phyllis. His
hand clasped hers more closely.
"And when Mr. De Guenther made me that offer," she murmured, coloring in
the darkness, "I was tired and discouraged, and the years seemed so
endless! It didn't seem as though I'd be harming any one--but I wouldn't
have done it if you'd said a word against it--truly I wouldn't, dear."
The last little word slipped out unnoticed. She had been calling her
library children "dear" for a year now, and the word slipped out of
itself. But Allan liked it.
"My poor little girl!" he said. "In your place I'd have married the
devil himself--up against a life like that."
"Then--then you don't--mind?" asked Phyllis anxiously, as she had asked
before.
"No, indeed!" said Allan, with a little unnecessary firmness. "I _told_
you that, didn't I? I like it."
"So you did tell me," she said penitently.
"But supposing De Guenther hadn't picked out some one like you----"
"That's just what I've often thought myself," said Phyllis naively. "She
might have been much worse than I.... Oh, but I was frightened when I
saw you first! I didn't know what you'd be like. And then, when I looked
at you----"
"Well, when you looked at me?" demanded Allan.
But Phyllis refused to go on.
"But that's not all," said Allan. "What about--men?"
"What men?" asked Phyllis innocently.
"Why, men you were interested in, of course," he answered.
"There weren't any," said Phyllis. "I hadn't any place to meet them, or
anywhere to entertain them if I had met them. Oh, yes, there was one--an
old bookkeeper at the boarding-house. All the boarders there were old.
That was why the people at home had chosen it. They thought it would be
safe. It was all of that!"
"Well, the bookkeeper?" demanded Allan. "You're straying off from your
narrative. The bookkeeper, Phyllis, my dear!"
"I'm telling you about him," protested Phyllis. "He was awfully cross
because I wouldn't marry him, but I didn't see any reason why I should.
I didn't like him especially, and I would probably have gone on with my
work afterwards. There didn't seem to me to be anything to it for any
one but him--for of course I'd have had his mending and all that to do
when I came home from the library, and I scarcely got time for my own.
But he lost his temper fearfully because I didn't want to. Then, of
course, men would try to flirt in the library, but the janitor always
made them go out when you asked him to. He loved doing it.... Why,
Allan, it must be seven o'clock! Shall I turn on more lights?"
"No.... Then you were quite as shut up in your noisy library as I was in
my dark rooms," said Allan musingly.
"I suppose I was," she said, "though I never thought of it before. You
mustn't think it was horrid. It was fun, lots of it. Only, there wasn't
any being a real girl in it."
"There isn't much in this, I should think," said Allan savagely,
"except looking after a big doll."
Phyllis's laugh tinkled out. "Oh, I _love_ playing with dolls," she said
mischievously. "And you ought to see my new slippers! I have pink ones,
and blue ones, and lavender and green, all satin and suede. And when I
get time I'm going to buy dresses to match. And a banjo, maybe, with a
self-teacher. There's a room upstairs where nobody can hear a thing you
do. I've wanted slippers and a banjo ever since I can remember."
"Then you're fairly happy?" demanded Allan suddenly.
"Why, of course!" said Phyllis, though she had not really stopped to ask
herself before whether she was or not. There had been so many exciting
things to do. "Wouldn't you be happy if you could buy everything you
wanted, and every one was lovely to you, and you had pretty clothes and
a lovely house--and a rose-garden?"
"Yes--if I could buy everything I wanted," said Allan. His voice dragged
a little. Phyllis sprang up, instantly penitent.
"You're tired, and I've been talking and talking about my silly little
woes till I've worn you out!" she said. "But--Allan, you're getting
better. Try to move this arm. The hand I'm holding. There! That's a lot
more than you could do when I first came. I think--I think it would be a
good plan for a masseur to come down and see it."
"Now look here, Phyllis," protested Allan, "I like your taste in houses
and music-boxes and bull-dogs, but I'll be hanged if I'll stand for a
masseur. There's no use, they can't do me any good, and the last one
almost killed me. There's no reason why I should be tormented simply
because a professional pounder needs the money."
"No, no!" said Phyllis. "Not that kind! Wallis can have orders to shoot
him or something if he touches your spinal column. All I meant was a man
who would give the muscles of your arms and shoulders a little exercise.
That couldn't hurt, and might help you use them. That wouldn't be any
trouble, would it? _Please!_ The first minute he hurts, you can send him
flying. You know they call massage lazy people's exercise."
"I believe you're really interested in making me better," said Allan,
after a long silence.
"Why, of course," said Phyllis, laughing. "That's what I'm here for!"
But this answer did not seem to suit Allan, for some reason. Phyllis
said no more about the masseur. She only decided to summon him, any way.
And presently Wallis came in and turned all the lights on.
XIII
In due course of time June came. So did the masseur, and more flowered
frocks for Phyllis, and the wheel-chair for Allan. The immediate effect
of June was to bring out buds all over the rose-trees; of the flowered
dresses, to make Phyllis very picturesquely pretty. As for the masseur,
he had more effect than anything else. It was as Phyllis had hoped: the
paralysis of Allan's arms had been less permanent than any one had
thought, and for perhaps the last three years there had been little more
the matter than entire loss of strength and muscle-control, from long
disuse. By the time they had been a month in the country Allan's use of
his arms and shoulders was nearly normal, and Phyllis was having wild
hopes, that she confided to no one but Wallis, of even more sweeping
betterments. Allan slept much better, from the slight increase of
activity, and also perhaps because Phyllis had coaxed him outdoors as
soon as the weather became warm, and was keeping him there. Sometimes
he lay in the garden on his couch, sometimes he sat up in the
wheel-chair, almost always with Phyllis sitting, or lying in her hammock
near him, and the devoted Foxy pretending to hunt something near by.
There were occasional fits of the old depression and silence, when Allan
would lie silently in his own room with his hands crossed and his eyes
shut, answering no one--not even Foxy. Wallis and Phyllis respected
these moods, and left him alone till they were over, but the adoring
Foxy had no such delicacy of feeling. And it is hard to remain silently
sunk in depression when an active small dog is imploring you by every
means he knows to throw balls for him to run after. For the rest, Allan
proved to have naturally a lighter heart and more carefree disposition
than Phyllis. His natural disposition was buoyant. Wallis said that he
had never had a mood in his life till the accident.
His attitude to his wife became more and more a taking-for-granted
affection and dependence. It is to be feared that Phyllis spoiled him
badly. But it was so long since she had been needed by any one person as
Allan needed her! And he had such lovable, illogical, masculine ways of
being wronged if he didn't get the requisite amount of petting, and
grateful for foolish little favors and taking big ones for granted,
that--entirely, as Phyllis insisted to herself, from a sense of combined
duty and grateful interest--she would have had her pretty head removed
and sent him by parcel-post, if he had idly suggested his possible need
of a girl's head some time.
And it was so heavenly--oh, but it was heavenly there in Phyllis's
rose-garden, with the colored flowers coming out, and the little green
caterpillars roaming over the leaves, and pretty dresses to wear, and
Foxy-dog to play with--and Allan! Allan demanded--no, not exactly
demanded, but expected and got--so much of Phyllis's society in these
days that she had learned to carry on all her affairs, even the
housekeeping, out in her hammock by his wheel-chair or couch. She wore
large, floppy white hats with roses on them, by way of keeping the sun
off; but Allan, it appeared, did not think much of hats except as an
ornament for girls, and his uncovered curly hair was burned to a sort of
goldy-russet all through, and his pallor turned to a clear pale brown.
Phyllis looked up from her work one of these heavenly last-of-June days,
and tried to decide whether she really liked the change or not. Allan
was handsomer unquestionably, though that had hardly been necessary. But
the resignedly statuesque look was gone.
Allan felt her look, and looked up at her. He had been reading a
magazine, for Phyllis had succeeded in a large measure in reviving his
taste for magazines and books. "Well, Phyllis, my dear," said he,
smiling, "what's the problem now? I feel sure there is something new
going to be sprung on me--get the worst over!"
"You wrong me," she said, beginning to thread some more pink embroidery
silk. "I was only wondering whether I liked you as well tanned as I did
when you were so nice and white, back in the city."
"Cheerful thought!" said Allan, laying down his magazine entirely.
"Shall I ring for Wallis and some peroxide? As you said the other day,
'I have to be approved of or I'm unhappy!'"
"Oh, it really doesn't matter," said Phyllis mischievously. "You know, I
married you principally for a rose-garden, and that's _lovely_!"
"I suppose I spoil the perspective," said Allan, unexpectedly ruffled.
Phyllis leaned forward in her blossom-dotted draperies and stroked his
hand, that long carven hand she so loved to watch.
"Not a bit, Allan," she said, laughing at him. "You're exceedingly
decorative! I remember the first time I saw you I thought you looked
exactly like a marble knight on a tomb."
Allan--Allan the listless, tranced invalid of four months before--threw
his head back and shouted with laughter.
"I suppose I serve the purpose of garden statuary," he said. "We used to
have some horrors when I was a kid. I remember two awful bronze deer
that always looked as if they were trying not to get their feet wet,
and a floppy bronze dog we called Fido. He was meant for a Gordon
setter, I think, but it didn't go much further than intention. Louise
and I used to ride the deer."
His face shadowed a little as he spoke, for nearly the first time, of
the dead girl.
"Allan," Phyllis said, bending closer to him, all rosy and golden in her
green hammock, "tell me about--Louise Frey--if you don't mind talking
about her? Would it be bad for you, do you think?"
Allan's eyes dwelt on his wife pleasurably. She was very real and near
and lovable, and Louise Frey seemed far away and shadowy in his
thoughts. He had loved her very dearly and passionately, that
boisterous, handsome young Louise, but that gay boy-life she had
belonged to seemed separated now from this pleasant rose-garden, with
its golden-haired, wisely-sweet young chatelaine, by thousands of black
years. The blackness came back when he remembered what lay behind it.
"There's nothing much to tell, Phyllis," he said, frowning a little.
"She was pretty and full of life. She had black hair and eyes and a
good deal of color. We were more or less friends all our lives, for our
country-places adjoined. She was eighteen when--it happened."
"Eighteen," said Phyllis musingly. "She would have been just my age....
We won't talk about it, then, Allan ... Well, Viola?"
The pretty Tuskegee chambermaid was holding out a tray with a card on
it.
"The doctor, ma'am," she said.
"The doctor!" echoed Allan, half-vexed, half-laughing. "I _knew_ you had
something up your sleeve, Phyllis! What on earth did you have him for?"
Phyllis's face was a study of astonishment. "On my honor, I hadn't a
notion he was even in existence," she protested. "He's not _my_ doctor!"
"He must have 'just growed,' or else Lily-Anna's called him in,"
suggested Allan sunnily. "Bring him along, Viola."
Viola produced him so promptly that nobody had time to remember the
professional doctor's visits don't usually have cards, or thought to
look at the card for enlightenment. So the surprise was complete when
the doctor appeared.
"Johnny Hewitt!" ejaculated Allan, throwing out both hands in greeting.
"Of all people! Well, you old fraud, pretending to be a doctor! The last
I heard about you, you were trying to prove that you weren't the man
that tied a mule into old Sumerley's chair at college."
"I never did prove it," responded Johnny Hewitt, shaking hands
vigorously, "but the fellows said afterwards that I ought to
apologize--to the mule. He was a perfectly good mule. But I'm a doctor
all right. I live here in Wallraven. I wondered if it might be you by
any chance, Allan, when I heard some Harringtons had bought here. But
this is the first chance a promising young chickenpox epidemic has given
me to find out."
"It's what's left of me," said Allan, smiling ruefully. "And--Phyllis,
this doctor-person turns out to be an old friend of mine. This is Mrs.
Harrington, Johnny."
"Oh, I'm so glad!" beamed Phyllis, springing up from her hammock, and
looking as if she loved Johnny. Here was exactly what was
needed--somebody for Allan to play with! She made herself delightful to
the newcomer for a few minutes, and then excused herself. They would
have a better time alone, for awhile, any way, and there was dinner to
order. Maybe this Johnny Hewitt-doctor would stay for dinner. He should
if she could make him! She sang a little on her way to the house, and
almost forgot the tiny hurt it had been when Allan seemed so saddened by
speaking of Louise Frey. She had no right to feel hurt, she knew. It was
only to be expected that Allan would always love Louise's memory. She
didn't know much about men, but that was the way it always was in
stories. A man's heart would die, under an automobile or anywhere else,
and all there was left for anybody else was leavings. It wasn't fair!
And then Phyllis threw back her shoulders and laughed, as she had
sometimes in the library days, and reminded herself what a nice world it
was, any way, and that Allan was going to be much helped by Johnny
Hewitt. That was a cheering thought, anyhow. She went on singing, and
ordered a beautiful, festively-varied dinner, a very poem of gratitude.
Then she pounced on the doctor as he was leaving and made him stay for
it.
Allan's eyes were bright and his face lighted with interest. Phyllis, at
the head of the table, kept just enough in the talk to push the men on
when it seemed flagging, which was not often. She learned more about
Allan, and incidentally Johnny Hewitt, in the talk as they lingered
about the table, than she had ever known before. She and Allan had lived
so deliberately in the placid present, with its almost childish
brightnesses and interests, that she knew scarcely more about her
husband's life than the De Guenthers had told her before she married
him. But she could see the whole picture of it as she listened now: the
active, merry, brilliant boy who had worked and played all day and
danced half the night; who had lived, it almost seemed to her, two or
three lives in one. And then the change to the darkened room--helpless,
unable to move, with the added sorrow of his sweetheart's death, and
his mother's deliberate fostering of that sorrow. It was almost a shock
to see him in the wheel-chair at the foot of the table, his face lighted
with interest in what he and his friend were saying. What if he did care
for Louise Frey's memory still! He'd had such a hard time that anything
Phyllis could do for him oughtn't to be too much!
When Dr. Hewitt went at last Phyllis accompanied him to the door. She
kept him there for a few minutes, talking to him about Allan and making
him promise to come often. He agreed with her that, this much progress
made, a good deal more might follow. He promised to come back very soon,
and see as much of them as possible.
Allan, watching them, out of earshot, from the living-room where he had
been wheeled, saw Phyllis smiling warmly up at his friend, lingering in
talk with him, giving him both hands in farewell; and he saw, too,
Hewitt's rapt interest and long leave-taking. At last the door closed,
and Phyllis came back to him, flushed and animated. He realized,
watching her return with that swift lightness of foot her long years of
work had lent her, how young and strong and lovely she was, with the
rose-color in her cheeks and the light from above making her hair
glitter. And suddenly her slim young strength and her bright vitality
seemed to mock him, instead of being a comfort and support as
heretofore. A young, beautiful, kind girl like that--it was natural she
should like Hewitt. And it was going to come natural to Hewitt to like
Phyllis. He could see that plainly enough.
"Tired, Allan Harrington?" she asked brightly, coming over to him and
dropping a light hand on his chair, in a caressing little way she had
dared lately.... Kindness! Yes, she was the incarnation of kindness.
Doubtless she had spoken to and touched those little ragamuffins she had
told him of just so.