Those next weeks were full of plans and hopes on Eleanor's part, and
gratitude on Maurice's part. But she would not let him say that he was
grateful, or that she was generous; he had told her, of course, how Mrs.
Houghton had guessed long ago what had happened, and how she had urged
him to trust his wife's nobility--but Eleanor would not let him call her
"noble"; "Don't say it! And don't be 'grateful,' I just love you," she
said; "and if you only knew what it means to me to be able to do
anything for you! It's so long since you've needed me, Maurice."
The pathos of her sense of uselessness made his eyes sting. "I couldn't
get along without you," he told her.
Once, on a rainy April Sunday morning, when they were talking about
Jacky (Maurice had gone to see him the day before, and was gnashing his
teeth over some cheerful obliquity on the part of Lily)--Maurice said,
emphatically: "Gosh! Nelly, I don't know what I'd do without you!"
She, sitting on a stool at his side (and looking, poor woman! old enough
to be his mother), was radiant.
"And you don't enjoy talking to Lily?" she said--just for the happiness
of hearing, again, his horrified protest, "I should say _not_! There's
nothing she can talk about."
"She doesn't know about books and things? She hasn't--brains?"
"Brains? She probably never read anything in her life! She has lots of
sense, but no intellect. She hasn't an idea beyond food and flowers--and
Jacky."
"I wish I had her idea about food," Eleanor said, simply.
It was her fairness toward Lily that amazed him; it made him reproach
himself for his stupidity in not having confessed to her long ago! "Why
was I such a fool, Eleanor, as not to know that you were a big woman?
Mrs. Houghton knew it. Why, even Edith knew it! She told me you'd
forgive anything."
"_What_!" She rose abruptly and stood looking at him with suddenly angry
eyes. "Does Edith know?" she said.
"No! Of course she doesn't know--_this_! But one day she and I were
taking a walk, and I was thinking what a devilish mess I was in.... And
I suppose Edith saw I was down by the head, and she got to talking about
you--"
"You let her talk about me!"
"She was saying how perfectly fine you had been about the mountain--"
"I don't need Edith Houghton's approval of my conduct, Maurice." She was
trembling, and her face was quite pale. He rushed in deeper than ever:
"I was only saying I felt so--badly, because I had failed to make you
happy. Of course I didn't say how! And she said, 'Don't have any secrets
from Eleanor!'"
"So it was Edith who made you--"
For a moment Maurice was too dismayed to speak; besides, he didn't know
what to say. What he did say was that she misunderstood him. "Good
heavens! Eleanor, you didn't think I'd tell Edith a thing like _that_?
Or that I'd tell any woman, when I didn't tell you? But Edith knew you
better than I did; she said no matter what I'd done (I just happened to
say I was a skunk), you loved me enough to forgive me. And you have
forgiven me."
"Yes," she said, in a whisper; "I've forgiven you."
She went over to the window, and stood perfectly silent. It was raining
steadily; the river, a block away, was hidden in the yellow fog; down in
the yard, the tables and chairs under the poplar dripped and dripped. As
for Maurice, it was as if some dark finger had stretched out and touched
a bubble.... She was the same Eleanor.
But he did not dwell upon this revealing moment; it was enough that at
last he could stop lying, and that Eleanor would help him about Jacky!
He called her back from the window and made her sit down again beside
him, pretending not to see how her hands were trembling. Then he went on
talking about Jacky.
"His latest achievement is an infernal mouth harmonicon."
She said, listlessly, "I wish I could give him music lessons."
"He's crazy about music; trails hand organs all over Medfield!" Maurice
said, with a great effort to be cheerfully casual; "but, Heaven knows,
I'd be glad if you could give him lessons in anything! Manners, for
instance. He hasn't any. Or grammar; I told him not to say 'ain't,' and,
if you please! he told his mother _she_ mustn't say it! Lily got on her
ear."
She smiled faintly. "I wish I could see him," she said.
She had urged this more than once, but it had not seemed practicable. "I
can't bring him here," Maurice explained; "he'd blurt out to Lily where
he'd been, and she'd get uneasy. Even as it is, I live in dread that
she'll pack up and clear out with him."
"She _shan't_ take him away!" Eleanor said; she was eager again;--after
all, Edith, for all her impertinence in advising Maurice how to treat
his wife!--Edith could not break in upon an intimacy like this!
Her incessant talk about Jacky (which might have bored Maurice just a
little, if it had not touched him) gave her, in some subtle, spiritual
way, a sense of approaching motherhood: _she made preparations_! She
planned little gifts for him;--Maurice had told her of Jacky's lively
interest in benefits to come; once, she thought, "I suppose he's too old
to have one of those funny papers in his room? I saw such a pretty one
to-day, little rabbits in trousers!"--For by this time she had
determined that, somehow, she would get possession of him! In these
maternal moments she feared no rivalry from Edith Houghton. Jacky would
save her from Edith!
"Oh, Maurice! I _must_ see him," she said once.
"I'll fix it so you can," he told her. But it was two months before he
was able to fix it; then "Forepaws" came to town, and the way was clear!
He would take Jacky, and Eleanor should go and have a seat near by, and
come up and speak to the youngster, as any admiring stranger might, and,
indeed, often did, for Jacky was a striking child--his eyes blue and
keen, his skin very clear, and his cheeks glowing with health. "If he
goes home and tells Lily a lady spoke to him," Maurice said, "she won't
think anything of it."
"May I give him some candy?"
"No; he has too much of it as it is; get one of those tin horns for him.
He'll raise Cain for Lily, I suppose; but we won't have to listen to
him!" (That "we" so fed Eleanor's starved soul, that she thought of
Edith Houghton with a sort of gay contempt: "_I'm_ not afraid of her!")
The plan for seeing Jacky went through easily enough. "I'll take that
boy of yours to the circus," Maurice told Lily, carelessly, one day.
"Why, that's awful kind in you, Mr. Curtis; but ain't you afraid
somebody'll see you luggin' a child around?"
"Lots of men take kids to the circus--just as an excuse to go
themselves."
So Maurice and the eight-year-old Jacky, in a new sailor suit, and a
face so clean that it shone, walked in among the gilded cages, felt the
sawdust under their feet, smelled the wild animals, heard the yelps of
the jackals, the booming roar of lions, and the screeching chatter of
the monkeys. And as Jacky dragged his father from cage to cage, a yard
or two behind them came Eleanor.... Now and then, over Jacky's head, she
caught Maurice's eye; and they both smiled.
When a speechless Jacky was taken into the central tent to sit on a
narrow bench, and drink pink lemonade and eat peanuts, Eleanor was quite
near him. He was unconscious of her presence--unconscious of everything!
except the blare of the band, the elephants, the performing
dogs--especially the poor, strained performing dogs! He never spoke
once; his eyes were fixed on the rings; he didn't see his father
watching him, amused and proud; still less did he see the lady who had
been at his heels in the animal tent, and who now kept her mournful dark
eyes on his face. When the last horse gave the last kick and trotted out
through the exit, with its mysterious canvas walls, Jacky was in a daze
of bliss. He sat, open-mouthed, staring at the empty, trampled sawdust.
"Come along, young man!" Maurice said; "do you want to stay here all
night?"
"I'm going to be a circus rider," said Jacky, solemnly.
It was then that the "lady" spoke to him--her voice broke twice: "Well,
little boy, did you like the circus?" the lady said. She was so pale
that Maurice put his hand on her arm.
"Better sit down, Nelly," he said, kindly, under his breath.
She shook her head. "No ... Jacky, don't you want to tell me your name?"
"But you _know_ my name," said Jacky, with a bored look.
Maurice gave her a warning glance, and she tried to cover her blunder:
"I heard your father--I mean this gentleman--call you 'Jacky,'" she
explained--panting, for Maurice's quick frown frightened her. "Here's a
present for you," she said.
"_Present_!" said Jacky--and made a joyous grab at the horn, which he
immediately put to his lips; but before it could emit its ear-piercing
screech, Maurice struck it down.
"Where are your manners? Say 'Thank you' to the lady."
Jacky sighed, but murmured, "'Ank you."
Eleanor, her chin trembling, said: "May I kiss him?"
"'Course," Maurice said, huskily.
She bent down and kissed him with trembling lips--"Ach!--you make me all
wet," Jacky said, frowning at her tears on his rosy cheek.
Later, as Maurice pulled his reluctant son out on to the pavement, he
was so moved that he almost forgot that she was still the old Eleanor;
he didn't even listen to his little boy's passionate assertion that he
would be a flying-trapeze man. As he walked along beside his wife to put
her on the car he spoke with great tenderness:
"I'll leave him at Lily's, and then I'll come right home, dear, and
we'll talk things over."
When he and his son got back to Maple Street, Jacky was blowing that
infernal horn so that the whole neighborhood was aware of his ecstasy.
Lily, waiting for them at the gate, put her hands over her ears.
"My soul and body! For the land's sake, stop! Who give you that horrid
thing?"
"An old lady," said Jacky--and blew a shattering screech on Eleanor's
horn.