_Adjustment_
After Kit had left them Miss Carrington and Helen remained till late
talking earnestly, with their chairs drawn close. Their voices rose
and fell--the fall emphasized--in all the earnestness of an important
discussion, but never did they rise to the point at which words were
distinguishable at any distance.
Minerva passed in and out of the room behind them, and though its
windows were open she heard nothing except a clear yet muffled murmur.
“She will know all about it, _plus_, but there is no reason why
she should be gratified now,” said Miss Carrington, malice in her
eye. At last, when the old clock on the stairway struck eleven, Miss
Carrington rose.
“Well, Helen, it will be past midnight before we get our chapter read
and are in bed,” she said. “Of course, my dear, you read your nightly
chapter? I am sure I can’t predict. Men differ almost as much as other
animals; in fact, I’m not sure that they don’t vary more--sorrel
horses, black ones, maltese cats--it’s easy to generalize on their
traits. I’ve never known Kit under these conditions; I can’t say how
he’ll react. It’s notorious that widowers are easily consoled. Still,
it is often easier to console a man for the loss of what he had than
for what he missed. Death is supposed to soften the hard heart. Kit
might easily be caught on the rebound; then, again, he may not rebound,
but drop. You handle a racquet well; can you bat him? That’s the wrong
term!”
“Serve him?” laughed Helen. “That’s the word, and a lovely word it is
in this connection.”
“Well, I don’t know. My recollection is that you serve into another’s
court, which is not to our liking in this case. I think I mean pick him
up; you do that with racquets, don’t you? I don’t know why I should
insist on a tennis term! The whole thing, Helen, is that you are to be
nice to my boy, and wisely nice. You will slip along, pussy-footed,
your hand on the leader. I believe, from my experience with youngsters,
that Kit will learn to lean upon your satisfying comradeship. It can’t
be more than a fancy for the Dallas girl. He was ready supplied with
ideals and she stood convenient, as a sort of rack, to hang them on.
That’s the explanation of most first love. No harm done, my dear!
Except that it is keeping us up, and that is harmful to me at my age!
Unless there’s something going on, and then tiny hours don’t harm me!”
The dauntless old lady laughed and went into the house, Helen following
with her forgotten knitting bag.
Kit presented himself at breakfast with the marks of misery on his
face. He was not used to unhappiness; aside from the actual pain, the
discomfort of its friction hurt him, as a chain galls in addition to
its weight. He did not know how to adjust himself to what had happened.
He had the good sense to see that the only thing for him to do was to
occupy himself with something that demanded genuine effort of body and
mind.
“I’ve got to get at something that I can’t foozle over,” is the way he
put it to himself.
He had amused himself so far through life successfully, but he
instinctively realized that entertainment did not entertain, except
when one’s light-heartedness might dispense with it.
Helen and Miss Carrington had made a compact to be unconscious of Kit’s
depression. At breakfast Helen talked happily of inconsequent matters,
not to Kit, yet not excluding him; she did not suggest his sharing any
part of that day with her; instead, she announced plans for herself
that excluded him. He was grateful for what he mistook for Helen’s
unintentional mercy to him and rewarded her with a friendly smile as
he left the dining room. He had added to his advice to himself while
dressing the sane counsel not to show it if he felt sore, and not to be
a grouch.
The first necessity upon him was to make an errand to Richard Latham’s
house to see for himself. There were moments when he did not believe
that what he had heard was true, yet at every moment he was surer that
it was true.
He found work going on so briskly in the poet’s room that, like little
Anne on an earlier day, he bestowed himself outside the window to wait.
Anne waved her hand, the pen in it, to him, but Richard did not know
that he was there.
Where he sat Kit could not help catching every movement that Richard
made. They were not many: Richard sat with his head resting against the
back of his chair, his voice flowing steadily on, rising and falling
so expressively that, though he could not hear the words, Kit found
its cadences dramatic, interesting. The poet’s slender hands moved
ceaselessly, the long fingers rapidly opening, closing, pointing, erect
or drooping, but otherwise he was motionless.
The look that passed over Richard’s face at intervals when he turned
his blind eyes upon Anne; the tone with which he sometimes asked a
question that Kit fancied was extraneous to the dictation, gradually
destroyed whatever slight hope had lingered.
At last Richard straightened himself, and Anne began gathering up her
papers, laying one upon another. Richard held out his hands with a
smile that told Kit all that there was to tell. He saw Anne’s lips
move, though her voice did not reach him, and Richard jumped up to
hasten to the door.
“Why, Christopher Carrington!” Richard cried, boyishly. “What are you
doing here? Come in, come in! Glad to see you.”
Kit let the poet shake his limp hand, though Kit’s tight grasp was
famous.
“Good morning, Miss Dallas,” Kit said, and Anne greeted him with the
sweet cordiality that had always been one of her chief charms.
“It was silly of me to wait,” Kit said, “but that’s a nice step to sit
on! Now it’s too late for me to do more than say I’m going.”
“Oh, but we have more than that to say to you!” protested Richard.
“We’ve had a great morning, Kit! We’ve done the third act. And it’s a
great third act, if I do say it as shouldn’t! We’ve made our notes on
it these past two days and to-day we’ve written it. I needn’t hesitate
to say it’s great, either: Anne did it. She saved it from being a sad
third act; she changed the play back to our first idea of it. I was
going to spoil it!”
“You don’t as a rule,” Kit managed to say; he had had too much of the
“we” to answer easily.
“There is no rule, Kit, my son!” Richard laughed. “There is no rule, no
precedent, because there is no old me! There’s not even English grammar
left of my old self, you see! All the world is new. Do you know that
this is _Anne_ now?”
He held out his hands to Anne and she came over to him and laid her own
hands into his. She was pale, her eyes cast down, her lips parted as if
she were breathing quickly; Kit saw her breast rise and fall. He could
not guess that Anne was wondering why she found her new part almost
impossible to play. She had been thankful to find herself peacefully,
unemotionally happy since she had made Richard ecstatically happy, but
now the situation crushed her.
Kit made an attempt to answer, but Richard forestalled him.
“She was Anne all along, you are going to say? Indeed, she was not! She
was my devoted, wise, unselfish little secretary, Miss Dallas! But now
she is Anne. Don’t you see, Kit? We have made a happy end of the play.
I didn’t know how; I should have spoiled it, but she saved it--and me!
We made a happy end of the play, good old Kit!”
Anne raised her eyes and looked at Kit, gravely, steadily. Then she
smiled at him. He had no idea of what that smile conveyed; for that
matter Anne was equally in the dark. Kit threw back his head, pulled
himself together as he had done on the football field more than once
when the game demanded him and he was nearly finished. He smiled back
at Anne and put out his hand, first to her, then to Richard.
“I had heard something about it,” he said, and his voice rang out
cheerily. “I suppose, to be honest, that is why I came around to-day
and why I waited; I wanted to know. Wish you all sorts of luck, Miss
Dallas, and whatever good comes to you won’t be luck, you know, after
all! Congratulations, Mr. Latham! You surely do deserve the best thing
in the world. I know what it is, too, though I don’t use your label on
it: she’s Miss Dallas, not Anne to me, but there’s only one best thing,
anyway.”
“What a trump you are, Kit Carrington!” cried Richard, jumping up and
seizing Kit’s hands delightedly. “Why, you’re a poet yourself! That had
the ring of imagination and beauty! Sit down. You’re here to lunch, you
know.”
“Sorry, but I’m not, thanks,” said Kit; he could not wait to escape.
“I’m on my way to Paul’s, Antony Paul’s. Miss Abercrombie bought
a white Angora kitten for little Anne to play with while she’s
convalescing. I’m going to find out when it won’t be too exciting for
her to have it. Good-bye. Thanks for telling me. I don’t wonder you
made a big thing of the play, Mr. Latham. Good-bye, Miss Dallas.”
Kit hastened out of the door, thankful to get into the air, yet
tortured in leaving Anne with her betrothed.
If he could have seen how gently Richard touched her hair and let her
take the low Greek stool on which she sat to read to him; how tight he
clasped his hands lest he forget and draw her to him where he hungered
to have her, Kit would have been a little consoled.
Richard knew that Anne shrank from a caress. He loved her for it; it
seemed to him part of that rare quality of soul for which he adored her.
It was too soon, he was still too new to the wonder of the happiness
that had fallen upon him when he was schooling himself to do without
it, to miss in Anne the warmth that would have glowed in her had she
loved Richard as he loved her. Thus far Richard was content, and waited
as a worshipper to become a lover.
Kit walked fast to the Berkleys’; he had decided to go there first.
Very likely Joan was at her mother’s, admiring little Anne’s progress.
He found that he had been right. The first thing that he saw when
he was admitted was the baby, standing beside a chair, her rings of
hair exceedingly up-standing and tousled, waving one hand lightly,
proudly, to show that she was balancing with but one little fist on
the chair seat, yet that she did not disdain to salute a world of
her inferiors. The inferiors present--Mrs. Berkley and Joan--made no
claim to equality. With a delight that surpassed the baby’s, as if
countless millions of human beings had not once stood alone for the
first time, they waved their hands at Barbara in return, making sounds
as rapturously inarticulate as hers. It ended in Joan’s swooping down
on her, snatching her up, burying her face in Barbara’s tiny mound of a
stomach and swaying her up and down, till baby and mother were gasping.
“Oh, Kit, forgive us, dear!” cried Mrs. Berkley. “You saw how Barbara
stood? Isn’t it wonderful, the beginning of living? Think how far those
little feet will carry her through the world and beyond the world! Anne
is gaining every hour, thank you.”
Joan righted the baby, then her clothing, and set her down to her toys
on a blanket on the floor, to which Barbara, who was the embodiment of
health and hence of contentment, turned with the interest of an hour’s
separation from them.
“Kit, nice boy, anything wrong?” asked Joan, seeing, now that the baby
was settled and she looked well at Kit, that he was changed. Kit sat
down on a chair that allowed him to rest an elbow on its arm and shade
his face with his hand.
“Richard Latham is going to marry----”
“Anne Dallas!” cried Joan, and exchanged significant looks with
her mother. “I was afraid of that; he’s so fine and she’s so
sympathetic----”
“Joan!” warned Mrs. Berkley.
She shook her head hard at her daughter. She and Joan had long
suspected that the interest growing up between Anne and Kit was
stronger than either had gauged. It would never do to let him know that
they feared that Anne loved Richard less than she should love the man
whom she married.
Kit made no secret of his unhappiness to these two simple, sweet women.
“He’s the finest fellow I ever saw,” said Kit. “He’s all around fine.
Always makes me think of the Round Table, those great old knightly
chaps. She couldn’t find another like him short of--Camelot!” Poor Kit
made a sorry attempt to laugh. “All the same, I’d rather she’d choose
someone more ordinary, provided that I could nominate him.”
“I, myself, would have selected another sort of man for Anne,” said
Joan, making up for her narrow escape from indiscretion by her most
mature manner. “I’m sorry, Kit! Mother and I are both sorry, aren’t we,
Mother?”
“I’m profoundly sorry if Kit minds,” said Mrs. Berkley, gently. “I
think Kit means us to understand that he does mind. Anne is a dear
girl; she is worth loving. But I’ve no doubt it will make you a nicer
boy than ever to carry a cross, though we can’t endure seeing your
young shoulders bend, dear Kit, and you are nice enough now, in all
conscience! Little Anne will stand by! You will have lots of help,
dear, and win through with benefit from the experience. Little Anne has
been asking when she should see you. Would you like to see her?”
Mrs. Berkley rose and laid her arm over Kit’s shoulder as she would
have over her Peter. Kit rested his head against her for a moment, and
felt better.
“You know I lost two children between Joan and Peter, and one between
Peter and Anne, Kit, so I know that denial is good for us. It taught me
a great deal to relinquish the babies that I loved,” Mrs. Berkley said,
softly.
“Oh, what a peach, what a dear, sweet, good, good woman you are!” Kit
exclaimed, ashamed that he had seemed to complain of a loss that was
but a denial of his hopes.
“Surest thing you know I want to see little Anne! I’ll go up, if I
may? You don’t think I’ll be exciting and bring on fever? I wouldn’t
consider myself that sort. And when may she have a kitten, Mrs.
Berkley? Miss Abercrombie has bought her a white Angora that gets me,
and I’m sure will make it necessary to put a strait waistcoat over
little Anne’s gown!”
“Could anything be luckier?” Mrs. Berkley demanded of space. “Anne has
begged me to get her a pet that may stay with her on the bed. She asked
for a kitten, a puppy, a rabbit, or a small monkey, and she added that
if I couldn’t find any of these beasties she’d try to love a white
mouse, though the poor little heroine, longing for a comrade, shuddered
as she said it! Her strong preference was for a kitten, an everyday
kitten. I’m sure I don’t know what will happen when she sees yours!”
“It’s the cream of creation!” declared Kit. “But it isn’t mine; it’s
Miss Abercrombie’s. She didn’t want me to say so, but of course I
should.” Again Joan glanced at her mother. They wondered if Helen was
to solve Kit’s difficulty, after all.
“You are going to lunch with us,” said Mrs. Berkley, and Kit did not
demur. “You shall see Anne after luncheon. You won’t mind the baby? We
bring her to the table, in her high chair, inherited from Anne. She
pounds, but otherwise behaves with decorum.”
“The baby and little Anne--but little Anne first in order, by your
leave, Joan--seem to me the most desirable of comrades to-day,” said
Kit.
Mrs. Berkley smiled on him and patted his shoulder. “Good boy and true
instinct!” she approved him.
It was a happy little luncheon party. Kit felt unaccountably soothed
and heartened. The sense of loss, the jealous pang of leaving Anne
to Richard, were softened. They did not talk of great things, nor
brilliantly, but Mrs. Berkley and Joan talked well; their subjects were
interesting, and it seemed to Kit that they judged justly and expressed
themselves with temperance.
“Balanced, wise women!” Kit thought, judging in his turn.
The baby did pound, it was true, but except for a frustrated attempt on
the cream, and, later, on the rosily alluring strawberries, she behaved
with propriety, admitting her premise that a spoon and a drum stick
were made for like purpose.
“Why not let me cut around home and get that kitten? It won’t take me a
half hour, and if you think little Anne’s reached the kitten stage of
recovery I’d love to see her with it,” suggested Kit when luncheon was
over and Joan offered to take him up to see little Anne.
“Won’t to-morrow do, as long as she isn’t told about it?” asked Joan.
But seeing Kit’s disappointment, she added:
“Of course, if you don’t mind going, it would be dear of you to get it
for her right away.”
Kit ran off, racing down the street like a boy, and Mrs. Berkley went
up to make sure, mother-fashion, that the carefully tended little
patient was ready for a caller.
“What’s up, Kit?” asked Helen as Kit assaulted the piazza where she sat.
“I’m allowed to give little Anne the kitten,” Kit explained. “I came
after it, told them it was your gift, Nell. Would you care to go with
me?” he added as an afterthought, unwelcome, but due.
“Yes, I would,” said Helen. “I won’t wear a hat, I’m ready.”
Kit fetched the kitten in its basket; he found that Minerva had allowed
it to entwine itself around her affections and was loath to let it
go. Helen and Kit took longer to cover the ground than Kit would have
consumed alone. He tried to keep in mind that the kitten was due to
Helen and not to regret her coming. She did not bother him with much
talk, and when they reached the Berkleys’ she refused to go upstairs.
“No, indeed! I’ll stay here, happily, with a book and don’t you hurry!
Get all the fun there is out of the child’s pleasure. I hope she will
be pleased! I’m perfectly contented alone. Forget I’m here, but don’t
forget to tell me just what the little girl does! It would be horrid in
me to go up; she doesn’t know me,” Helen said with such friendliness
that the Berkleys were charmed.
Kit followed Mrs. Berkley and Joan up to little Anne’s room and stood
in the doorway. Little Anne was fingering paper dollies but her lack of
interest in them was evident. She raised her eyes, which looked immense
and as dark as night in her thin white face.
“Oh, Kit, my dear, dear, _dear_ Kit! You saved me, but I loved you
hard before!” she cried.
“Well, little Anne, I’m glad enough to see you to eat you up!” cried
Kit, sincerely.
He lifted her in his arms and she kissed him again and again.
“You are more splendid than I remembered,” little Anne sighed in
profound contentment. “Doctor says I may get up in my wrapper half the
day Sunday. But he says I can’t go to Mass yet, but it’s all right when
you can’t honest-truth go! And then, sooner than you’d think, I’m to
be dressed! And by the Fourth you wouldn’t know anything’d happened,
’cept I’ve got to look out and not catch cold. That’s what he says. I’m
grateful, Kit, that I’m going to stay right here with everyone! I know
lots of people in Heaven, nicer’n anybody, but, well, don’t you think
you love those you know sort of closer? And I’ll have to be just’s
good! Because I stayed here. And prob’ly I’ve got something to do, or
I’d have died.”
“Just the same, little Anne!” Kit thought, but he said:
“It’s reason enough for letting you live that we all wanted you so
badly, little Anne. Now, what have I here?”
“Window in the end!” cried little Anne, all excitement in an instant.
“Alive? Oh, could it be a kitten, Kit?”
“It could be. It is!” said Kit.
He unstrapped the basket and took out the small white creature with the
appealing face.
Little Anne fell back on her pillow, clasped her hands, and closed her
eyes for an instant of intense feeling. Then she caught the kitten to
her and kissed and kissed it in wordless rapture.
“Oh, God, I thank Thee for making kittens like powder puffs, and giving
me one!” they heard her whisper as she held the kitten off, then
clasped it to her breast, passionately.
Kit told her how Helen had brought it from the city to her, and she
listened with dilated eyes.
“How wonderful! I shall love her now whether I can or not,” little Anne
said.
“Thank her; oh, do thank her, and tell her the way I feel about it,
though no one on earth can ’magine! Would you mind if I named her
Kitca, for you, dear, dear Kit? Short for Kit Carrington? ’Cause you
fished me out that day and brought this angel-thing here?”
“I should be honoured, little Anne! I must go now, or you’ll be tired.
Good-bye, dear! Some day, when you’re able to hear it, I will tell you
a story about Kit Carrington, and how he sat all night watching the
stars, heavy-hearted, when little Anne was so ill,” he said, bending
over the child to kiss her cheek.
Little Anne clasped her long, thin arms around his neck, and drew his
ear to her lips, and whispered:
“You don’t look well yourself, my Kit, but when I get up I’ll look
after you! Good-bye; and all the blessings of all the blessedest
blessings be upon your rather tumbled head. ’Cause I have tumbled your
hair, Kit, quite outrageous!”
Kit took Helen home feeling happier than he had thought that he could
feel when the day had begun. He knew that his wound would throb again
in the darkness of night, but little Anne and that peaceful household
had helped him.
Behind her Helen left conflicting opinions. Mrs. Berkley was inclined
to give her credit for her sweet consideration, but Joan was not sure
of her. Again Helen walked with Kit in silence. She was affectionate in
an unobtrusive way, like a kind sister. Kit, thinking her over as he
dressed for dinner, was forced to acknowledge to himself that she could
be very nice.