Eleanor had no intention of going to Mrs. Newbolt's. "She'd talk Edith
to me!" she said to herself; "I _can't_ understand why she likes her!"
Instead of dining with her aunt, she meant to walk about the streets
until she was sure that Maurice had started for the train; then she
would go back to her own house. So she wandered down the avenue until,
tired of looking with unseeing eyes into shop windows, it occurred to
her to go into the park; there, on a bench on one of the unfrequented
paths, she sat down, hoping that no one would recognize her; it was
cold, and she shivered and looked at her watch. Only six o'clock! It
would be two hours before Maurice would leave the house for the station.
It seemed absurd to be here in the dampness of the March evening; but
she couldn't go home and get into any discussion with him; she might
burst out again about Edith!--which always made him angry. She wished
that she had not told him that Edith was in love with him. "It ought to
disgust him, but it might flatter him!" And she oughtn't to have said
that other thing; she oughtn't to have accused him of caring for Edith.
"Of course he doesn't. And it was a horrid thing to say. I was angry,
because I was jealous; but it wasn't true. I wish I hadn't said it. I'll
write to him, and ask him to forgive me." But the other thing _was_
true: "I saw it in her eyes! She loves him. But I oughtn't to have put
the idea into his head!"
The more she thought of what she had put into Maurice's head, the more
uneasy she became. Oh, if she only had Jacky! Then, Edith could be as
brazen as she pleased, and Maurice would never notice her! "Of course he
doesn't love her; I'm certain of _that_!" she said again and
again,--and all her schemes, wise and foolish, for getting possession
of the boy, began to crowd into her mind.
Then an idea came to her which fairly took her breath away! A perfectly
wild idea, which she dared not stop to analyze: suppose, instead of
sitting here in the cold, she should go, now, boldly, to Lily, and ask
for Jacky? "I believe _I_ could persuade her to give him to us! She
wouldn't do it for Maurice, but she might for me!"
She got on her feet with a spring! Her spiritual energy was like her
physical energy that night on the mountain. Again she was
lifting--lifting! This time it was the weight of a Love which might die!
She was dragging it, carrying it! her very soul straining under her
purpose of keeping it alive by the touch of a child's hand! ... Why not
go and see Lily _now_? "She'll have finished her supper by the time I
get to her house; it's at the very end of Maple Street!" If Lily
consented, Eleanor might even get back to her own house in time to see
Maurice, and tell him what she had accomplished before he started for
his train! But she would have to hurry....
She actually ran out of the park toward the street; then stood for an
endless five minutes, waiting for the Medfield car. "Perhaps I can make
her let me bring Jacky home with me!" she said--which showed to what
heights beyond common sense she had risen.
At the little house on Maple Street she rang the bell, though she had a
crazy impulse to bang upon the door to hurry Lily! But she rang, and
rang again, before she heard a child's voice: "Maw. Somebody at the
door."
"Well, go open it, can't you?"
She heard little scuffing steps on the oilcloth in the hall; then the
door opened, and Jacky stood there. He fixed his blue, impersonal eyes
upon her, and waited.
"Is your mother in?" Eleanor said, breathlessly.
"Yes, ma'am," said Jacky.
"Who is it?" Lily called to him; she was somewhere in the back of the
house, and Eleanor could hear the clatter of dishes being gathered up
from an unseen supper table. Jacky, unable to answer his mother's
question, was calmly silent.
"My land! That child's a reg'lar dummy! Jacky, who _is_ it?"
"_I_ do' know," Jacky called back.
"I am Mrs. Curtis," Eleanor said; "I want to see your mother."
"She says," Jacky called--then paused, because it occurred to him to
hang on to the door knob and swing back and forth, his heels scraping
over the oilcloth; "she says," said Jacky, "she's Mrs. Curtis."
The noise of the dishes stopped short. In the dining room Lily stood
stock-still; "My God!" she said. Then her eyes narrowed and her jaw set;
she whipped off her apron and turned down her sleeves; she had made up
her mind: "_I'll lie it through._"
She came out in the hall, which was scented with rose geraniums and
reeked with the smell of bacon fat, and said, with mincing politeness,
"Were you wishing to see me?"
"Yes," Eleanor said.
"Step right in," said Lily, opening the parlor door. "Won't you be
seated?" Then she struck a match on the sole of her shoe, lit the gas,
blew out the match, and turned to look at her visitor. She put her hand
over her mouth and gasped. Under her breath she said, "His _mother_!"
"Mrs. Dale," Eleanor began--
"Well, there!" said Lily, pleasantly (but she was pale); "I guess you
have the advantage of me. What did you say your name was?"
"My name is Curtis. Mrs. Dale, I--I know about your little boy."
"Is that so?" Lily said, with the simper proper when speaking to
strangers.
"I mean," Eleanor said, "I know about--" her lips were so dry she
stopped to moisten them--"about Mr. Curtis and you."
"I ain't acquainted with your son."
Eleanor caught her breath, but went on, "I haven't come to reproach
you."
Lily tossed her head. "Reproach? _Me?_ Well, I must say, I don't see no
cause why you should! _I_ don't know no Mr. Curtis!" She was alertly on
guard for Maurice; "I guess you've mixed me up with some other lady."
"Please!" Eleanor said; "I _know_. He told me--about Jacky."
Instantly Lily's desire to defend Maurice was tempered by impatience
with him; the idea of him letting on to his mother! Then, noticing her
boy, who was silently observing the caller from the doorway, she said:
"Jacky! Go right out of this room."
"Won't," said Jacky. "She gimme the horn," he remarked.
"Aw, now, sweety, go on out!" Lily entreated.
Jacky said, calmly, "Won't."
At which his mother got up and stamped her foot. "Clear right out of
this room, or I'll see to you! Do you hear me? Go on, now, or I'll give
you a reg'lar spanking!"
Jacky ran. He never obeyed her when he could help it, but he always
recognized the moment when he couldn't help it. Lily closed the door,
and stood with her back against it, looking at her caller.
"Well," she said, "if you _are_ on to it, I'm sure you ain't going to
make trouble for him with his wife."
"I am his wife."
"His _wife_?" They looked at each other for a speechess moment. Then the
tears sprang to Lily's eyes. "Oh, you poor soul!" she said. "Say, don't
feel bad! It's pretty near ten years ago; he was just a kid. Since
then--honest to God, I give you my word, he 'ain't hardly said 'How do
you do' to me!"
"I know," Eleanor said; her hands were gripped hard together; "I know
that. I know he has been ... perfectly true to me--lately. I am not
saying a word about that. It's the child. I want to make a proposition
to you about the child." Her lips trembled, but she smiled; she
remembered to smile, because if she didn't look pleasant Lily might get
angry. She was a little frightened; but she gave a nervous laugh. She
spoke with gentleness, almost with sweetness. "I came to see you, Mrs.
Dale, because I hope you and I can make some arrangement about the
little boy. I want to help you by relieving you of--of his support. I
mean," said Eleanor, still smiling with her trembling lips, "I mean, I
will take him, and bring him up, so as to save you the expense." Lily's
amazed recoil made her break into entreaty; "My husband wants him, and I
do, too! I thought perhaps you'd let him go home with me to-night? I--I
promise I'll take the best of care of him!"
Lily was too dumfounded to speak, but her thoughts raced. "For the
land's sake!" she said under her breath. She was sitting down now, but
her hands in her lap had doubled into rosy fighting fists.
Her silence terrified Eleanor. "If you'll give him to me," she said, "I
will do anything for you--anything! If you'll just let Mr. Curtis have
him." She did not mean to, but suddenly she was crying, and began to
fumble for her handkerchief.
"Well, if this ain't the limit!" said Lily, and jumped up and ran to
her, and put her arms around her. ("Here, take mine! It's clean.") "Say,
I'm that sorry for you, I don't know what to do!" Her own tears
overflowed.
Eleanor, wincing away from the gush of perfumery from the little clean
handkerchief, clutched at Lily's small plump hand--"_I'll_ tell you what
to do," Eleanor said; "_Give me Jacky!_"
Lily, kneeling beside her, cried, honestly and openly. "There!--now!"
she said, patting Eleanor's shoulder; "don't you cry! Mrs. Curtis, now
look,"--she spoke soothingly, as if to a child, with her arm around
Eleanor--"you know I _can't_ let my little boy go? Why, think how you'd
feel yourself, if you had a little boy and anybody tried to get him.
Would you give him up? 'Course you wouldn't! Why, I wouldn't let Jacky
go away from me, even for a day, not for the world! An' he ain't
anything to Mr. Curtis. Honest! That's the truth. Now, don't you cry,
dear!"
"You can see him often; I promise you, you can see him."
In spite of her pity, Lily's yellow eyes gleamed: "'See' my own child?
Well, I guess!"
"I'll give you anything," Eleanor said; "I have a little money--about
six hundred dollars a year; I'll give it to you, if you'll let Mr.
Curtis have him."
"Sell Jacky for six hundred dollars?" Lily said. "I wouldn't sell him
for six thousand dollars, or six million!" She drew away from Eleanor's
beseeching hands. "How long has Mr. Curtis thought enough of Jacky to
pay six hundred dollars for him? You can tell Mr. Curtis, from me, that
I ain't no cheap trader, to give away my child for six hundred dollars!"
She sprang up, putting her clenched fists on her fat hips, and wagging
her head. "Why," she demanded, raucously, "didn't you have a child of
your own for him, 'stead of trying to get another woman's child away
from her?"
It was a hideous blow. Eleanor gasped with pain; and instantly Lily's
anger was gone.
"Say! I didn't mean that! 'Course you couldn't, at your age. I oughtn't
to have said it!"
Eleanor, dumb for a moment after that deadly question, began, faintly:
"Mr. Curtis will do so much for him, Mrs. Dale; he'll educate him,
and--"
"I can educate him," Lily said; "you tell Mr. Curtis that; you tell him
I thank him for nothing!--_I_ can educate my child to beat the band. I
don't want any help from _him_. But--" she was on her knees again,
stroking Eleanor's shoulder--"but if he's mean to you because you
haven't had any children, I--I--I'll see to him! Well--I've always
thought, what with him fussing about 'grammar,' and 'truth,' he'd be a
hard man to live with. But if he's been mean to you he'd ought to be
ashamed of himself!"
"Oh, he doesn't even know that I have come!" Eleanor said; "he mustn't
know it. Oh, please!" She was terrified. "Don't tell him, Mrs. Dale.
Promise me you won't! He would be angry."
Her frightened despair was pitiful; Lily was at her wits' end. "My soul
and body!" she thought, "what am I going to do with her?" But what was
all this business? Mrs. Curtis asking for Jacky--and Mr. Curtis not
knowing it? What was all this funny business? "Now I tell you," she
said; "you and me are just two ladies who understand each other, and I'm
going to be straight with you: if Mr. Curtis is trying to get my child
away from me, he'll have a sweet time doing it! There's other places
than Medfield to live in. I have a friend in New York, a society lady;
she's always after me to come and live there. Mind! I'm not mad at
_you_, you poor woman that couldn't have a baby--it's him I'm mad at! He
knows Jacky is mine, and I'll go to New York before I'll--"
"Oh, don't say that!" Eleanor pleaded; "my husband hasn't tried to get
Jacky; it's just I!"
She saw, with panic, that what Maurice had said was true--Lily might
"run"! If she did, there would be no hope of getting Jacky ... and Edith
would be in Mercer....
"Mrs. Dale, _promise_ me you'll stay in Medfield? It was only I who was
trying to get Jacky; Mr. Curtis never thought of such a thing! I wanted
him. I'd do everything for him; I'd--I'd give him music lessons."
"Honest," said Lily, soberly, "I believe you're crazy."
She looked crazy--this poor, gray-haired woman of pitiful dignity and
breeding. ("I bet she's sixty!" Lily thought)--this old, childless
woman, with a "Mrs." to her name, pleading with a mother to give up her
boy, so he could have "music lessons"! "And Mr. Curtis's up against
_that_," Lily thought, and instantly her anger at Maurice ebbed. "There,
dear," she said, touching Eleanor's wet cheeks gently with that perfumed
handkerchief; "I don't believe you've had any supper. I'm going to get
you something to eat--"
"No, please; _please_ no!" Eleanor said. She had risen. She thought,
"If she says 'dear' again, I'll--I'll die!" ... "I promise you on my
word of honor," she said, faintly, "that I won't try to take Jacky away
from you, if--" she paused; it was terrible to have a secret with this
woman; it put her in her power, but she couldn't help it--"I won't try
to get him, if you won't tell Mr. Curtis that I ... have been here?
_Please_ promise me!"
"Don't you worry," Lily said, reassuringly; "I won't give you away to
him."
Eleanor was moving, stumbling a little, toward the door; Lily hesitated,
then ran and caught her own coat and hat from the rack in the hall.
"Wait!" she said, pinning her hat on at a hasty and uncertain angle;
"I'm going with you! It ain't right for you to go by yourself ...
Jacky," she called out to the kitchen, "you be a good boy! Maw'll be
home soon."
Eleanor shook her head in wordless protest. But Lily had tucked her hand
under her arm, and was walking along beside her. "He ought to look out
for you!" Lily said; "I declare, I've a mind to tell that man what I
think of him!" On the car, while Eleanor with shaking hands was opening
her purse, Lily quickly paid both fares, saying, politely, in answer to
Eleanor's confused protest, "_That's_ all right!" There was no talk
between them. Lily was too perplexed to say anything, and Eleanor was
too frightened. So they rode, side by side, almost to Maurice's door.
There, standing on the step while Eleanor took her latch key from her
pocketbook, Lily said, cheerfully, "Now you go and get a cup of
tea--you're all wore out!" Then she hurried off to catch a Medfield car.
"I declare," said little Lily, "I don't know which is the worse off, him
or her!"