That dismal festivity of the meadow marked the time when Maurice began
to live in his own house only from a sense of duty ... and because Edith
was there! A fact which Eleanor's aunt recognized almost as soon as
Eleanor did; so, with her usual candor, Mrs. Newbolt took occasion to
point things out to her niece. She had bidden Eleanor come to dinner,
and Eleanor had said she would--"if Maurice happened to be going out."
"Better come when he's _not_ going out, so he can be at home and amuse
Edith!" said Mrs. Newbolt. "Eleanor, my dear father used to say that
women were puffect fools, because they never could realize that if they
left the door _open_, a cat would put on his slippers and sit by the
fire and knit; if they locked it, he'd climb up the chimney, but what
he'd feel free to prowl on the roof!"
Eleanor preferred to "lock the door"; and certainly during that next
winter Edith's gay interest in every topic under heaven was a roof on
which Maurice prowled whenever he could! Sometimes he stayed at home in
the evening, just to talk to her! When he did, those "brains" which
Eleanor resented, made him indifferent to many badly cooked
dinners--during which Eleanor sat at the table and saw his enjoyment,
and felt that dislike of their "boarder," which had become acute the day
of the picnic, hardening into something like hatred. She wondered how he
endured the girl's chatter? Sometimes she hinted as much, but Edith
never knew she was being criticized! She was too generous to recognize
the significance of what she called (to herself) Eleanor's grouch, and
Maurice's delight in such unselfconsciousness helped to keep her
ignorant, for he held his tongue--with prodigious effort!--even when
Eleanor hit Edith over his shoulder. If he defended her, he told
himself, the fat _would_ be in the fire! So, as no one pointed out to
Edith what the grouch meant, she had not the faintest idea that Eleanor
was saying to herself, "Oh, if I could _only_ get rid of her!" And as no
one pointed out to Eleanor that the way to hold Maurice was not to get
rid of Edith, but to "open the door," that corrosive thing the girl had
called "Bingoism" kept the anger of the day in the field smoldering in
her mind. It was like a banked fire eating into her deepest
consciousness; it burned all that winter; it was still burning even when
the summer vacation came and Edith went home. Her departure was an
immense relief to Eleanor; she told Maurice she didn't want her to come
back, ever!
"Why not?" he said, sharply; "_I_ like having her here. Besides, think
of telling Uncle Henry we didn't want Edith next winter! If you have the
nerve for that, _I_ haven't." Eleanor had not the nerve; so when, at the
end of June, Edith rushed home, it was understood that she would be with
Maurice and Eleanor during the next term.... That was the summer that
marked the seventh year of their marriage--and the fourth year of Jacky,
over in the little frame house on Maple Street. But it was the first
year of a knowledge, surprisingly delayed!--which came to Edith; namely,
that Johnny Bennett was "queer."
It may have been this "queerness" which made her attach herself to
Eleanor, who, in August, went to Green Hill for the usual two weeks'
visit. Maurice had to go away on office business three or four times
during that fortnight, but he came up for one Sunday. He had insisted
upon Eleanor's going, because, he said, she needed the change. "Can't
you come?" she pleaded. "Do take some extra time from the office!"
"And be docked? Can't afford it!" he said; "but I'll get one week-end in
with you," he promised her, looking forward with real satisfaction to
the solitude of his own house. So Eleanor, saying she couldn't
understand why he was so awfully economical now that he had his own
money!--came alone,--full of remorse at deserting him, and worry because
of his loneliness, and leaving a pining Bingo behind her. But, to her
silent annoyance, as soon as she arrived at Green Hill she encountered a
new and tiresome attentiveness from Edith! Edith was inescapably polite.
She did not urge upon Eleanor any of those strenuous amusements to which
she and Johnny were devoted; she merely gave up the amusements, and, as
Johnny expressed it, "stuck to Eleanor"! Eleanor couldn't understand it,
and when Maurice at last arrived, Johnny's perplexity became audible:
"Perhaps," he told Edith, satirically, "you may be able, now, to tear
yourself away from Eleanor, and go fishing with me? You fish pretty
well--for a woman. Maurice can lug her round."
"I will, if Maurice will go, too," Edith said.
"What do you drag him in for?"--John paused; understanding dawned upon
him: "She doesn't want to be by herself with me!" His tanned face slowly
reddened, and those brown eyes of his behind the big spectacles grew
keen. He didn't speak for quite a long time; then he said, very low,
"I'll be here to-morrow morning at four-thirty. Be ready. I'll dig
bait."
"All right," said Edith; after which, for the first time in her life,
she played a shabby trick on Johnny Bennett; as soon as he had gone
home, she invited Eleanor (who promptly declined), and Maurice (who as
promptly accepted), to go fishing, too! Then, having got what she
wanted, she reproached herself: "Johnny'll be mad as fury. But when he
gets to saying things to me he makes me feel funny in the back of my
neck. Besides, I want Maurice."
The fishermen were to assemble in the grayness of the August dawn; and
Johnny was, as usual, prepared to throw a handful of gravel at Edith's
window to hurry her downstairs. But when he loomed up in the mist, who
should be on the porch, fooling with a rod, but Maurice!
"What's he butting in for?" Johnny thought, looking so cross that
Edith, coming out with the luncheon basket, was really remorseful.
"Hullo, Johnny," she said. ("I never played it on him before," she was
thinking.) But at that moment her remorse was lost in alarm, for
standing in the doorway was Eleanor, her hair caught up in a hurried
twist, a wrapper over her shoulders, her bare feet thrust into pink
bedroom slippers. (Forty-six looks fifty-six at 4.30 A.M.)
"Darling," Eleanor said, "I believe I'd like to go up to the cabin
to-day. Do let's do it--just you and I!"
The three young people all spoke at once:
Johnny said: "Good scheme! We'll excuse Maurice."
Edith said, "Oh, Eleanor, Maurice loves fishing!"
And Maurice said: "I sort of think I'd like to catch a sucker or two in
this pool Johnny is always cracking up. I bet he's in for a big jolt
about his trout! You come, too?"
"I'd get so awfully tired. And I--I thought we could have a day together
up on the mountain," she ended, wistfully.
There was a dead silence. Johnny was thinking: "Gosh! I hope she gets
him." And Edith was thinking, "I'd like to choke her!" Maurice's
thoughts could not be spoken; he merely said, "All right; if you want
to."
"I don't believe I'll go fishing, either," Edith said.
Eleanor, on the threshold, turned quickly: "Please don't stay at home on
my account!"
But Maurice settled it. "I'll not go," he said, patiently; "but you
must, Edith." He threw down his rod and went into the house; Eleanor, in
her flopping pink slippers, hurried after him....
"I did so want to have you to myself," she said; "you don't mind not
going fishing with those children, do you?"
He said, listlessly: "Oh no. But don't let's attempt the cabin stunt."
Then he stood at the window and watched Johnny and Edith, with fishing
rods and lunch basket, disappear down the road into the fog. He was too
bored to be irritated; he only counted the hours until he could get
back to Mercer, and the office, and the table under the silver poplar.
"I'll get hold of the Mortons, and Hannah can give us some sort of grub,
and then we'll go to a show," he thought. "I can stick it out here for
thirty-six hours more."
He stuck it out that morning by sitting in Mr. Houghton's studio, one
leg across the arm of his chair, reading and smoking. Once Eleanor came
in and asked him if he was all right. He said, briefly, "Yes."
But she was uneasy: "Maurice, I'll play tennis with you?"
This at least made him chuckle. "_You?_ How long since? My dear, you
couldn't play a set to save your life!"
After that she let him alone for a while. Early in the afternoon the
need to make up to him for what she had done grew intolerable: "Darling,
let's play solitaire?"
"I'm going to write letters."
She left him to his letters for an hour, then came again: "Let's walk!"
"Well, if you want to," Maurice said, and yawned. So they trudged off.
Eleanor, walking very close to her husband, was thinking, heavily, how
far they were apart; but she did her best to amuse him by anxious
ponderings of household expenses. He, sheering off to the other side of
the road to escape her intimate and jostling shoulder, was thinking of
the expenses of another household, and making no effort whatever to
amuse her. His silence confessed an irritation which she felt but could
not understand; so by and by she fell silent, too, though the helpless
tears stood in her eyes. Then, apparently, he put his annoyance,
whatever it was, behind him.
"Nelly," he said, "let's go down by the West Branch and meet Edith and
Johnny? They'll be coming home that way, 'laden with trout,' I suppose,"
he ended, sarcastically.
Eleanor began to say, "Oh _no_!" Then something, she didn't know what,
made her say, "Well, all right." As they turned into the wood road that
ran up toward the mountain, she said another unexpected thing:
"Maurice, I'm tired. I'll go home; you go on by yourself, and--and meet
Johnny." She didn't know, herself, why she said it! Perhaps, it was just
an effort to make up for what she had done in the morning?
Maurice, astonished, made some half-hearted protest; he would go back
with her? But she said no, and walked home alone. Her throat ached with
unshed tears. "He _likes_ to be with her! He doesn't want me,--and I
love him--I love him!"
* * * * *
The two youngsters had made a long day of it. On their way to the brook
that morning, crashing through underbrush, climbing rotting rail fences
that were hidden in docks and briers, balancing on the precarious
slipperiness of mossy rocks, the triumphant Johnny, his heart warm with
gratitude to Eleanor, had led his captive and irritated Edith. When they
broke through low-hanging boughs and found the pool, the trout
possibilities of which Johnny had so earnestly "cracked up," Edith was
distinctly grumpy. "Eleanor is a selfish thing," she said. "Gimme a
worm."
"I think Maurice would have been cussedly selfish not to do what she
wanted," Johnny said; "my idea of marriage is that a man must do
everything his wife wants."
"Maurice is never selfish! He's great, simply great!" Edith said.
"Oh, he's decent enough," Johnny admitted, then he paused, frowning, for
he couldn't open his bait box; he banged it on a stone, pried his knife
under the lid, swore at it--and turned very red. Edith giggled.
"Let me try," she said.
"No use; the rotten thing's stuck."
But she took it, shook it, gave an easy twist, and the maddening
lid--loosened, of course, by Johnny's exertions--came off! Edith
shrieked with joy; but Johnny, though mortified, was immensely
relieved. They sat down on a sloping rock, and talked bait, and the
grave and spectacled Johnny became his old self, scolding Edith for
talking so loudly. "Girls," he said, "are _born_ not fishermen!" Then
they waded out into the stream, and began to cast. It was broad daylight
by this time, and the woods were filling with netted sunbeams; the water
whispered and chuckled.
"Pretty nice?" Johnny said, in a low voice; and Edith, all her
grumpiness flown, said:
"You bet it is!" Then, as an afterthought, she called back, "But Eleanor
is the limit!"
Johnny, forgetting his gratitude to Eleanor, said, savagely: "_Keep
quiet!_ You scared him off! Gosh! girls are awful."
So Edith kept quiet, and he wandered up the stream, and she wandered
down the stream, and they fished, and they fished--and they never caught
a thing.
"I had _one_ bite," Johnny said when, at about eleven, fiercely hungry,
they met on the bank where they had left their lunch basket; "but you
burst out about Eleanor, and drove him off. Girls simply _can't_ fish."
Edith was contrite--but doubted the bite. Then they sat down on a mossy
rock, and ate stacks of sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and watched the
water, and talked, talked, talked. At least Edith talked--mostly about
Maurice. Johnny lit his pipe, puffed once or twice, then let it go out
and sat staring into the green wall of the woods on the other side of
the brook. Then, suddenly, quietly, he began to speak....
"I want to say something."
"The mosquitoes here are awful!" Edith said, nervously; "don't you think
we'd better go home?"
"Look here, Edith; you've got to be half decent to me--unless, of
course, you've soured on me? If you have, I'll shut up."
"Johnny, don't be an idiot! 'Course I haven't soured on you. You're the
oldest friend I've got. Older than Maurice, even."
"Well, I guess I am an older friend than Maurice! But lately you've
treated me like a dog. You skulk round to keep from being by ourselves.
You never give me a chance to open my head to you--"
"Johnny, that's perfectly absurd! I've had to look after Eleanor--"
"Eleanor _nothing_! It's me you want to shake."
"I do _not_ want to shake you! I'm just busy."
"Edith, I care a lot about you. I don't care much for girls, as a rule.
But you're not girly. And every time I try to talk to you, you sidestep
me."
"Now, Johnny--"
"But I'm going to tell you, all the same." He made a clutch at the
sopping-wet hem of her skirt. "I _will_ say it! I care an awful lot
about you. I'm not a boy. I want to marry you."
There was a dead silence; then Edith said, despairingly, "Oh, Johnny,
how perfectly horrid you are!" He gasped. "You simply spoil everything
with this sort of ... of ... of talk."
"You mean you don't like me?" His face twitched.
"Like you? I like you awfully! That's why I'm so mad at you. Why, I'm
_awfully_ fond of you--"
"Edith!"
"I mean I never had a friend like you. I've always liked you ten times
better than any silly old girl friend I ever had. I've liked you
_almost_ as much as Maurice. Of course I shall never like anybody as
much as Maurice. He comes next to father and mother. But now you go
and--and talk ... I just can't bear it," Edith said, and fumbled for her
pocket handkerchief; "I _hate_ talk." Her eyes overflowed.
"Edith! Look here; now, _don't_! Honestly, I can stand being turned
down, but I can't stand--that. Edith, _please_! I never saw you do
that--girl stunt. I'll never bother you again, if you'll just stop
crying!"
Edith, unable to find her handkerchief, bent over and wiped her eyes on
her dress. "I'm _not_ crying," she said, huskily; "but--"
"I think," John Bennett said, "honestly, Edith, I think I've loved you
all my life."
"And I have loved you," she said; "You are a lamb! Oh, Johnny, I'm
perfectly crazy about you!"
His swiftly illuminating face made her add, hastily, "and now you go and
spoil everything!"
"I won't spoil things, Skeezics," he said, gently; "oh, say, Edith, let
up on crying! _That_ breaks me all up."
But Edith, having discovered her handkerchief, was mopping very flushed
cheeks and mumbling on about her own woes. "Why can't you be satisfied
just to go on the way we always have? Why can't you be satisfied to have
me like you almost as much as I like Maurice?"
"Maurice!" the young man said, with a helpless laugh. "Oh, Edith, you
are several kinds of a goose! In the first place, Maurice is married;
and in the second place, he's old enough to be your father--"
"He isn't old enough to be my father! And I shall _never_ like anybody
as much as Maurice, because there isn't anybody like him in the entire
world. I've always thought he was exactly like Sir Walter Raleigh.
Besides, I shall never marry _anybody_! But I mean, I don't see why it
isn't enough for you to have me awfully fond of you?"
"Well, it isn't," Johnny said, briefly, "but don't you worry." He was
white, but his tenderness was like a new sense. Edith had never seen
_this_ Johnny. Her entirely selfish impatience turned to shyness.
"Edith," he said, very gently, "you don't understand, dear. You're
awfully young--younger than your age. I didn't take in how young you
were--talking about Maurice! I suppose it's because you know so few
girls, that you are so young. Well; I can't hang round with you any
more, as if we were ten years old. You see, I--I love you, Edith. That
makes the difference ... dear."
"Oh," said Edith, desperately, "how perfectly _horrid_--" She looked
really distracted, poor child! (but that was the moment when her
preposterous youthfulness ceased.) She jumped to her feet so suddenly
that Johnny, who had begun, his fingers trembling, to scrape out the
bowl of his pipe, dropped his jackknife, which rolled down the steeply
sloping rock into the water. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Edith said.
John sighed. "Oh, that's nothing," he said, and slid over the moss and
ferns to the water's edge; there, lying flat on his stomach, his sleeve
rolled up, he thrust his bare white arm into the dark and troutless
depths of the pool, and salvaged his knife. Edith, on the bank, began
furiously to pack up. When Johnny climbed back to her she said she
wanted to go home, "_now_!"
"All right," he said again, gently.
So, silently, they started homeward; and never in her life had Edith
been so glad to see any human creature as she was to see Maurice on the
West Branch Road! But she let him do all the talking. To herself she was
saying, "It's all Eleanor's fault for not letting him come this morning!
I just hate her!..."
That night her father said to her mother, rather sadly, "Mary, our
little girl has grown up. Johnny Bennett is casting sheep's eyes at
her."
"Nonsense!" said Mary Houghton, comfortably; "she's a perfect child, and
so is he."