HALF an hour later he brought her a tray, a dainty one prepared by his
mother, and set it upon a table close beside the bed.
“Here you are, dearie,” he said gayly. “Jellied chicken, cold as ice,
and iced tea and ice-cold salad. Not a thing hot except some nice crisp
toast. You’ll feel like running a foot-race after you eat it, Lena!”
She spoke without moving, keeping her face away from him. “Are those
women still downstairs?”
“Who?”
“Your grandmother and that big girl—the awful one.”
“You don’t mean——”
“I asked you if they’re still in the house.”
“They’re just goin’ home, Lena. Martha told me to tell you how sorry she
is you feel the heat so badly. Won’t you eat something now, please,
dear?”
“No, thank you.”
“Please! You’ll feel all right again if you’ll eat something, and
to-morrow morning we’ll drive out to Ornaby Addition. _Then_ you’ll feel
like a _queen_, Lena; because it’s all yours and you’ll see what it’s
goin’ to do for us.”
“Do you think it will get us away from here?” she asked in a dead voice.
“Well, by that time,” Dan answered cheerfully, “I expect maybe you won’t
want to get away.”
“‘By that time,’” she said, quoting him dismally. “You mean it’s going
to be a _long_ time?”
“Lena, I wish you’d just look at this tray. I know if you’d only look at
it, you couldn’t help eating. You’d——”
“Oh, hush!” she moaned, and struck her pillow a futile blow. “Someone
told me once that you people out here always _were_ trying to get
everybody to eat, that you thought just eating would cure everything. I
suppose you and all your family have been eating away, downstairs there,
just the same as ever. It makes me die to think of it! I’ve had delirium
in fevers, but I never was delirious enough to imagine a place where
there wasn’t _some_ mercy in the heat! There isn’t any here; it’s almost
dusk and hotter than ever. I couldn’t any more eat than if I were some
poor thing cooking alive on a grill. What on earth do you want me to
_eat_ for?”
“Well, dearie,” he said placatively. “I think it would strengthen you
and make you feel so much better, maybe you’d be willing to—to——” He
hesitated, faltering.
“To what?”
“Well, you see grandma’s so terribly old—and just these last few months
she’s broken so—we know we can’t hope to see much more of her, dear;
and so we make quite a little fuss over her when she’s able to come
here. I did hope maybe you’d feel able to go down with me to tell her
good-night.”
At that, Lena struck the pillow again, and then again and again; she
beat it with a listless desperation. “Didn’t you _understand_ what I
said to you about her?”
“Oh, yes; but I know that was just a little nervousness, Lena; you
didn’t really mean it. I know you feel differently about it already.”
“No!” she cried, interrupting him sharply. “No! No!” And then, in her
pain, her voice became so passionately vehement that Dan was alarmed.
“No! No! _No!_”
“Lena! I’m afraid they’ll hear you downstairs.”
“What do _I_ care!” she cried so loudly that Martha Shelby, in the
twilight of the yard below, on her way to the gate, paused and half
turned; and Dan saw her through the open window. “What do _I_ care!”
Lena screamed. “What do I _care_!”
“Oh, dear me!” he groaned, and though Martha hurried on he was sure that
she had heard.
“I don’t _care_!”
“Oh, dear me!” he groaned again, and went to close the door which he had
thoughtlessly left open when he came into the room. But, to his dismay,
before he closed it he heard Mrs. Savage’s still sonorous voice in the
hall downstairs: “No, don’t bother him. Harlan’s enough to get me home.
But if _I_ had a daughter-in-law with tantrums I’d mighty soon cure
her.”
At that point Dan shut the door hurriedly, and went back to the bedside.
“Lena,” he said, in great distress, “if you won’t eat anything, I just
don’t see what I can do!”
“You don’t?” she asked, and turned to look at him. “It seems to me
nothing could be simpler. You know perfectly well what you can do.”
“What?”
“Take me out of this. Keep your promise to me and take me abroad.”
“But I _can’t_, dearie,” he explained. “You see I didn’t realize it was
a promise exactly, and now it’s just out of the question. You see
everything we’ve got is in Ornaby Addition and so——”
“Then sell it.”
“What? Why, I wouldn’t have anything left at all if I did that at this
stage of the work. You see——”
“Then put a mortgage on it. People can always get money by mortgages.”
Dan rubbed his forehead. “I’ve already got a mortgage on it,” he said.
“That’s where the money came from I’m workin’ with now.” He sighed, then
went on more cheerfully. “But just wait till you see it, Lena. We’ll
drive out there first thing to-morrow morning and you’ll understand
right away what a big thing you and I own together. You just wait! Why,
two or three weeks from now—maybe only two or three days from
now—you’ll be as enthusiastic over Ornaby as I am!” He leaned over her,
smiling, and took her hand. “Honestly, Lena, I don’t want to brag—I
wouldn’t want to brag to you, the last person in the world—but
honestly, I believe it’s goin’ to be the biggest thing that’s ever been
done in this town. You see if we can only get the city limits extended
and run a boulevard out there——”
But here she startled him; she snatched her hand away and burst into a
convulsive sobbing that shook every inch of her. “Oh, dear!” she wailed.
“I’m trapped! I’m trapped!”
This was all he could get from her during the next half hour; that she
was “trapped,” repeated over and over in a heartbroken voice at
intervals in the sobbing; and Dan, agonized at the sight and sound of
such poignantly genuine suffering, found nothing to offer in the way of
effective solace. He tried to pet her, to stroke her forehead, but at
every such impulse of his she tossed away from his extended hand. Then,
in desperation, he fell back upon renewed entreaties that she would eat,
tempting her with appetizing descriptions of the food he had brought
and, when these were so unsuccessful that she made him carry the
untouched tray out into the hall and leave it there, he returned to make
further prophecies of the restorative powers of Ornaby Addition.
Once she saw Ornaby, he said, she would be fairly in love with it; and
he was so unfortunate as to add that he knew she would soon get used to
his grandmother and like her.
Lena was growing somewhat more composed until he spoke of his
grandmother; but instantly, as if the relation between this cause and
its effect had already established itself as permanently automatic, she
uttered a loud cry of pain, the sobbing again became convulsive; and Dan
perceived that for a considerable time to come it would be better to
omit even the mention of Mrs. Savage in his wife’s presence.
Darkness came upon the room where Lena tossed and lamented, and the
young husband walked up and down until she begged him to stop. He sat by
an open window, helplessly distressed to find that whatever he did
seemed to hurt her; for, when he had been silent awhile she wailed
piteously, “Oh, heavens! Why can’t you _say_ something?” And when he
began to speak reassuringly of the climate, telling her that the
oppressive weather was only “a little hot spell,” she tossed and moaned
the more.
So the long evening passed in slow, hot hours laden with emotions that
also burned. From the window Dan saw the family carriage return from
Mrs. Savage’s; the horses shaking themselves in their lathered harness
when they halted on the driveway to let Harlan out. He went indoors, to
the library as usual, Dan guessed vaguely; and after a while Mr. and
Mrs. Oliphant came from the house and walked slowly up and down the path
that led through the lawn to the gate. They were “taking the air”—or as
much of it as there was to be taken—and, walking, thus together, the
two figures seemed to express a congeniality Dan had never before
noticed with attention, although he had been aware of it all his life.
Both of them had retained their slenderness, and in the night were so
youthful looking that they might have been taken for a pair of young
lovers, except for the peacefulness seeming to be theirs. This emanation
of a serenity between them suddenly became perceptible to their son as a
surprising thing; and he looked down upon them wonderingly.
There came a querulous inquiry from the bed. “What on earth are you
staring at?”
“Only father and mother. They’re outdoors coolin’ off.”
“Good heavens!” Lena said. “Cooling off!”
“You’re feelin’ better now, aren’t you, Lena?” he asked hopefully.
“‘Better!’” she wailed. “Oh, heavens!”
Dan rested his elbows on the window-sill, and his chin on his hands.
“They’re comin’ in, now,” he said after a while. “They’ve had their
little evening walk in the yard together. They nearly always do that
when the weather isn’t too cold.”
“‘Cold?’ I suppose this place gets just as cold in winter as it does hot
in summer!”
“It _does_ get pretty cold here in winter sometimes,” the thoughtless
Dan said, with a touch of pride. “Why, last February——”
“Oh, heavens!” Lena wailed; and she began to weep again.
About midnight she was quiet, and Dan, going near her, discovered that
she drowsed. His foot touched something upon the carpet, and he picked
up the string of artificial pearls, put it upon the table beside the
bed, then tiptoed out of the room, closing the door with great care to
make no noise. The house was silent and solidly dark as he went down the
broad stairway and opened the front door to let himself out into the
faint illumination of the summer night. It was a night profoundly hushed
and motionless; and within it, enclosed in heat, the town lay prostrate.
Sighing heavily, the young husband walked to and fro upon the short
grass of the lawn, wondering what had “happened” to Lena—as he thought
of it—to upset her so; wondering, too, what had happened to himself,
that since he had married her she had most of the time seemed to him to
be, not the Lena he thought he knew, but an inexplicable stranger. This
was a mystery beyond his experience, and he could only sigh and shake
his inadequate head; meanwhile pacing beneath the midnight stars. But
they were neither puzzled nor surprised, those experienced stars, so
delicately bright in the warm sky, for they had looked down upon
uncounted other young husbands in his plight and pacing as he did.
By and by he stood still, aware of another presence in the dimness of
the neighbouring yard. The only sound in all the world seemed to be a
minute tinkling and plashing of water where the stoic swan maintained
himself at his duty while other birds slept; but upon the stone rim of
the fountain Dan thought he discerned a white figure sitting. He went to
the fence between the two lawns to make sure, and found that he was
right; a large and graceful woman sat there, leaning over and drawing
one hand meditatively to and fro through the water.
“Martha?” he said in a low voice.
She looked up, said “Dan!” under her breath, and came to the fence.
“Why, you poor thing! You’re still in that heavy long coat!”
“Am I?” he asked vaguely. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“‘Hadn’t noticed?’ In this weather!”
“It _is_ fairly hot,” he said, as though this circumstance had just been
called to his attention.
“Then why don’t you take it off?”
“My coat?” he returned absently. “I don’t mind it.”
“I do,” Martha said. “You don’t need to bother about talking to _me_
with your coat off, do you? It’s only a dozen years or so since we hid
our shoes and stockings in the harness closet in your stable and ran off
barefoot to go wading in the street after a thunderstorm. Take it off.”
“Well——” He complied, explaining, “I just came out to get cool.”
“So did I; but I don’t believe it can be done, Dan. I believe this is
the worst night for sheer hotness we’ve had in two or three years. I
haven’t felt it so much since the day I landed in New York from
Cherbourg, summer before last. I’ll never forget that day!”
“In New York?” he asked, astonished.
“I should say so! I suppose I felt it more because I was just from
abroad, but I think people from our part of the country suffer fearfully
from the heat in New York, anyhow.”
“I believe they do,” he said thoughtfully. “And New York people suffer
from the heat when they come out here. That must be it.”
“Do you think so?” She appeared to be surprised. “I don’t see how New
York people could mind the heat anywhere else very much after what they
get at home.”
“Oh, but they do, Martha! They suffer terribly from heat if they come
out here, for instance. You see they don’t spend the summers in New
York. They either go abroad in summer or else to the country.”
“Does she?” Martha asked quickly; but corrected herself. “Do they?”
“Yes,” he said, seeming to be unaware of the correction. “That’s why it
upsets her so. You see——”
“Yes?”
“Well——” he said, hesitating. “It—it does kind of upset her. It——”
He paused, then added lamely, “It’s just the heat, though. That’s all
seems to be really the matter; she can’t stand the weather.”
“She’ll get used to it,” Martha said gently. “You mustn’t worry, Dan.”
“Oh, I don’t. In a few days she’ll probably see how lovely it really is
here, and she’ll begin to enjoy it and be more like herself.
Everything’ll be all right in a day or so; I’m sure of that.”
“Yes, Dan.”
“Of course just now, what with the heat and all and everybody strangers
to her, why, it’s no wonder it makes her feel a little upset. Anybody
_would_ be, but in a few days from now”—he hesitated, and concluded,
with a somewhat lame insistence, “Well, it’ll all be entirely
different.”
“Yes, Dan,” she said again, but there was an almost imperceptible
tremble in her voice, and his attention was oddly caught by it.
All his mind had been upon the suffering little bride, but there was
something in the quality of this tremulousness in Martha’s voice that
made him think about Martha, instead. And suddenly he looked at her with
the same wonder he had felt earlier this queer evening, when he noticed
for the first time that emanation of serenity between his father and
mother. For there seemed to be something about Martha, too, that he had
known familiarly all his life, but had never thought of before.
There is indeed a light that is light in darkness, and these strange
moments of revelation, when they come, are brought most often by the
night. Daylight, showing too many things, may afterwards doubt them, but
they are real and not to be forgotten. They are only moments; and yet,
while this one had its mystic little life, Dan was possessed in part by
the feeling, altogether vague, that somewhere a peculiar but indefinable
mistake had been made by somebody not identified to him.
Moreover, here was matter more curious still: this thing he had all his
life known about Martha, but had never realized until now, made her in a
moment a woman new to him, so that she seemed to stand there, facing him
across the iron fence, a new Martha. He had no definition in words for
what he felt, nor sought one; but it was as if he found himself in
possession of an ineffable gift, inexpressibly valuable and shining
vaguely in the darkness. This shining, wan and touching, seemed to come
from Martha herself; and this newness of hers, that was yet so old, put
a glamour about her. The dim, kind face and shimmering familiar figure
were beautiful, he saw, never before having had consciousness of her as
beautiful; but what most seemed to glow upon him out of the glamour
about her was the steadfastness within her; for that was the jewel worn
by the very self of her and shining upon him in the night.
“Martha——” he said in a low voice.
“Yes, Dan?”
“You’ve always been such a friend of mine, I—I—I’ve never said much
about how I feel about it. I haven’t got anything I wouldn’t sooner part
with, Martha.”
“I hope so,” she said gently, and bowed her head in a kind of meekness.
“I hope so, Dan, but——” She stopped.
“But what, Martha?”
“I’m afraid,” she said slowly, “your wife isn’t going to like me.”
“Oh, but she will,” he returned, trying to put heartiness into this
assurance. “She’s bound to! Why, everybody in the world likes you,
Martha.”
“No; I had the feeling as soon as I spoke to her that she never would,
Dan. It was just a feeling, but I’m afraid it’ll turn out so. That
doesn’t mean I won’t try my best to make her.”
“You won’t need to try. Of course just now she’s suffering so terribly,
poor little thing——”
“Poor Dan!” Martha said, as he stopped speaking and sighed instead. “You
never _could_ bear to see anybody suffer. The trouble is it always makes
you suffer more than the person that’s doing the original suffering.”
“Oh, no. But I don’t know what on earth to do for her. Of course, in a
few days, when she begins to see what it’s really _like_ here, and I get
her to understand a little more about the Addition——”
He stopped, startled to hear his name called in a querulous little voice
from an upstairs window.
“She’s awake,” he said in a whisper.
“Who on earth are you talking with out there?” called the querulous
voice.
“Good-night,” he whispered, moving away hurriedly; but, looking back, he
saw that Martha remained at the separating iron fence, leaning upon it
now; and he could feel, rather than see, that she was not looking at
him, but that her head was again bowed in the same meekness with which
she had said she hoped he prized her feeling for him.