MOTHERS AND FOSTER MOTHERS
From the court-room she was carried straight to the hospital. The
doctor, summoned hastily to attend her, told them gravely that it was
probably the beginning of an attack of brain fever. There was never any
telling where that would end. The strain of the last week had been very
severe. She should have the most skilful and experienced nursing that
could be secured, and constant medical attention.
Then, too, as Judge Kirtley hurriedly explained to Mrs. Pennybacker,
who, having some confidence in her own ability as a nurse and a country
woman's distrust of hospitals, had urged Margaret's removal to her own
home, at the hospital she would be spared the further strain of seeing
the child taken away. It would be hard for her to come back to a house
without him, but not such an ordeal as his forcible removal would be.
After this Mrs. Pennybacker said no more.
With Judge Kirtley she herself had taken Margaret to the hospital, the
girl still mercifully oblivious to all around her. Then she had returned
to Massachusetts Avenue to get Philip ready for his removal to Elmhurst.
Life seemed to be moving on pretty rapidly just now.
When she reached the house the child was gone. Mr. De Jarnette had come
for him almost immediately, Bess reported.
"Did he object to going?"
"No. I told him in Mr. De Jarnette's presence that his mama was sick and
he was going to his Uncle Richard's for a little visit. I guess I
emphasized visit, maybe. I think Margaret had prepared Philip for it. I
heard her tell him last night that perhaps he would go to his Uncle
Richard's for a while, and that he must be a brave little boy and not
cry."
"I know. I think she lost courage last night. Perhaps she had a
presentiment of how it was to be. I am glad she took that way of
preparing the child. Did he cry?"
"No. But his chin quivered, the way it does, you know, when he tries to
keep from crying."
"Poor little thing!"
"Grandma," said Bess, thoughtfully, "I don't believe Mr. De Jarnette is
going to be unkind to Philip. He didn't say much, but he seemed to be
looking out for him--asked if he hadn't some favorite playthings that
could be taken along. You wouldn't imagine his thinking of such a thing
as that, would you? Isn't he a strange man?"
"Incomprehensible, to me. What did you give him?"
"His train of cars and the little red wagon. And Grandma! I gave Mr. De
Jarnette that picture of Margaret and Philip together--the one, you
know, that we call 'the Madonna.' That is the sweetest thing she ever
had taken, with Philip's baby face pressed up against hers. I told him
it might help Philip at night to have it to look at if he was homesick."
"Bess!"
"Yes'm, I did! I knew it would make him howl. I hope it will! Any way, I
thought the picture would do Mr. De Jarnette good."
"Bess," said Mrs. Pennybacker, in a burst of grandmotherly admiration
which she did not always display so openly, "for a young girl you
certainly have a great deal of sense. I hope Philip won't be too brave.
I'd like to see Mr. Richard De Jarnette with a homesick child on his
hands. And if he doesn't have one to-night I'll miss my guess. _Bess!_
There's Maria--and that idiotic little poodle!... Oh, dear! I did hope I
should be spared that to-day."
Looking from the window Bess saw Mrs. Van Dorn alighting from her
carriage, the footman holding what looked like a jet-black silky ball
with dashes of pink about it. He deposited it carefully in his
mistress's waiting arms.
"That's Toddlekyns!" announced Mrs. Pennybacker. "I asked Maria the
other day why she didn't give the thing a decent Christian dog's name.
'Toddlekyns' sounds to me like a weak attenuated cat."
Toddlekyns was in reality a very rare variety of Russian poodle, upon
which Mrs. Van Dorn was just now lavishing the wealth of her unattached
affections. Mrs. Pennybacker had found him on her return to the capital
occupying so large a space in the center of the Van Dorn stage that her
sense of proportion had been greatly outraged. She never passed him
without wishing to administer a surreptitious kick that would send him
into the wings.
The years had dealt kindly with Mrs. Van Dorn. Or perhaps it was that
her emotions had been of that flabby kind that do not leave their
impress on the face. She gave herself careful grooming. Once when she
discovered an incipient line about the corner of her eye she
straightened it out with court plaster over night, not sleeping much in
consequence, and massaged it for two hours the next morning, excusing
herself from attending divine service by saying firmly, "A woman's first
duty is to herself. I simply will _not_ have wrinkles."
"I thought I must come right over and hear all about it," she exclaimed,
sinking gracefully into an arm-chair and lifting Toddlekyns to her lap.
"So the case went against her. I heard something about it from Mrs.
Somerville. And she will really have to give him up! Too bad! Can I see
her? I suppose she feels dreadfully just at first.... At the hospital?
You don't say so.... Brain fever? Why, they always die of that, don't
they?... Well, I feel very sorry for her, though I must say I sympathize
with Richard too."
"On what account?" demanded Mrs. Pennybacker.
"Oh, because everybody is so down on him. It has almost broken off the
intimacy between him and Dr. Semple, they say."
"Good for Dr. Semple!"
"Well--I don't know--I suppose I am broader-minded than some people. I
can always see both sides."
"So can I when there are two sides. This case has but one."
"Well," said Mrs. Van Dorn, in an argumentative tone that was new to
her, "anyway, I think it was very natural that Richard should want to
carry out his brother's wishes. But," she cast her eyes down modestly
and toyed with Toddlekyns' silky ears,--"wouldn't you almost think he
would _have_ to have somebody to help him--in bringing this child up?"
"Humph!" came from her aunt.
"He has Mammy Cely," said Bess, innocently.
"Oh, Mammy Cely--an old negro--yes. But anybody that has a child to rear
would feel the need, I should think, of a sympathizing--well I don't
care, _I_ think if Richard De Jarnette is really going to take Philip,
he should look out for somebody to be a mother to him."
"And I think he had better let him stay with the mother the Lord gave
him!" cried Bess, indignantly, with a flash of her grandmother's spirit.
Mrs. Pennybacker contented herself with looking keenly at her niece over
her spectacles. There was something about the look that embarrassed Mrs.
Van Dorn.
"I don't want you to think I don't sympathize with Margaret, Aunt Mary."
she began. "It isn't that, at all. I feel awfully sorry for her. I know
she will feel lonely at first. I thought about it at home--how lonely I
should be if I should lose Toddlekyns--and I just made up my mind to let
her have him for a few days--till the worst of it is over. I may yet,
when she gets back from the hospital."
Mrs. Pennybacker shut her lips firmly together and shook her head.
"I wouldn't do it Maria," she said, hastily.
She moved over to the window and took up her knitting, leaving Mrs. Van
Dorn to Bess's entertainment. It was hard for anything to hold her
thoughts long to-day away from the child of her adoption. She had come
back from the hospital sorely troubled about her and was falling back,
from life-long habit, upon her inevitable resource when burdened--work.
But as the knitting needles flew in her swift fingers, her thoughts were
with Margaret and her fight against fate.
How would Margaret bear it now that the hope which had been a sheet
anchor to her soul was gone? She had been very brave through it all,
even in these last trying days but it had been in the confident belief
that no court in the land would decree against her. With that prop gone
upon what would she stay her soul? She recalled the girl's passionate
outburst in the court-room with apprehension. It was not like her to
forget time and place and the proprieties like that. She thought of the
doctor's words, "You never can tell how a thing like this will end."
_She_ knew that it ended sometimes in death--and sometimes in----
Mrs. Pennybacker did not finish it. She would not acknowledge even to
herself the fear that was tugging at her heart. Margaret had been under
a fearful mental strain. Would she be able to stand up against it? Would
her physical vigor be such as to enable her to--She broke off again in
her thoughts. She was thinking in fragments to-day. Suppose the next
trial of the case--in whatever form it would come--should go against her
too. Had she the strength of will, of character, to recast her life
still another time and live it out without her child? She had been
amazed at the buoyancy of the girl's nature which had enabled her to
rise above her sorrows and thrust them beneath her feet. But then she
had Philip! Now----
"Aunt Mary," said Mrs. Van Dorn, turning to her and breaking in upon
these somber thoughts somewhat abruptly, "I must say that I was very
much surprised at Margaret De Jarnette's conduct in the court-room
to-day. Mrs. Somerville was telling me about it. Of course people are
different, and I don't expect everybody to have my high standards, but
it seems to me that her allusions were decidedly indelicate--not to say
coarse. Mrs. Somerville says she was actually violent--_swore_, I should
call it. Anyway she said 'hell' or 'damn' or some of those things that
nobody ought ever to say but a man. Mrs. Somerville didn't seem to feel
so, but I am surprised at Margaret. Such bad form! And before gentlemen
too!"
Mrs. Pennybacker's needles clicked. She was knitting fast, and without
much regard to stitches dropped. Those needles were her safety valves.
Her lips just now indicated that steam was at high pressure.... It was
positively no use to talk to Maria!
"Of course it is hard for her to give up her child," Mrs. Van Dorn
continued with the air of one willing to make every reasonable
concession--"any woman can understand a mother's feelings--(come here,
darling, let mama tie his little wibbons)--but to say 'hell'--"
"Maria!" Mrs. Pennybacker gave her yarn a jerk that sent the ball on one
of its perennial journeys across the room--"if you will excuse my saying
so, it is not very becoming in you to criticise Margaret De Jarnette
just at this time. A woman who has never been anything more than
_step-mother to a poodle_ is not authority on maternal feelings!"