When Maurice saw his wife the next morning, it was with Mrs. Houghton's
warning--emphasized by the presence of a nurse--that he must not excite
her. So he sat at her bedside and told her about his trip, and how he
had got ahead of the Greenleaf heirs, and how he rushed back to Mercer
the minute those dispatches came saying that she was ill--and he never
asked her why she was ill, or what took her out to the river in the cold
dusk of that March afternoon. She didn't try to tell him. She was very
warm and drowsy--and she held in her hand, under the bedclothes, that
letter which proved how much she loved him, and which, some time, when
she got well, she would show him. All that day the household outside her
closed door was very much upset; but Eleanor, in the big bed, was
perfectly placid. She lay mere watching the tarnished gilt pendulum
swing between the black pillars of the clock on the mantelpiece,
thinking--thinking. "You'll be all right to-morrow!" Maurice would say;
and she would smile silently and go on thinking. "When I get well," she
thought, "I will do--so and so." By and by, still with the letter
clutched in her hot hand, she began to say to herself, "_If_ I get
well." She had ceased worrying over how she was going to explain the
"accident" to Maurice; that _"if"_ left a door open into eternal
reticence. So, instead of worrying, she made plans for Jacky: "He must
see a dentist," she told Maurice. On the third day she stopped saying,
"_If_ I get well," and thought, "When I die." She said it very
tranquilly, "When I die Maurice must get him a bicycle." She thought of
this happily, for dying meant that she had not failed. She would not be
ridiculous to Maurice--she would be his wife, giving him a child--a
son! So she lay with her eyes closed, thinking of the bicycle and many
little, pleasant things; and with the old, slipping inexactness of mind
she told herself that she had not "done anything wrong"; she had _not_
drowned herself! She had just caught a bad cold. But she would die, and
Maurice would love her for giving him Jacky. Toward evening, however, an
uneasy thought came to her: if Maurice knew that, to give him Jacky, she
had even tried to get drowned, it might distress him? She wished she
hadn't written the letter! It would hurt him to see it.... Well, but he
_needn't_ see it! She held out the crumpled envelope. "Miss Ryan," she
said to the nurse, huskily, "please burn this."
"Yes, indeed!" said Miss Ryan....
There was a burst of flame in the fireplace, and the little, pitiful
letter, with its selfishness and pain and sacrifice, vanished--as Lily's
handkerchief had vanished, and the braided ring of blossoming grass--all
gone, as the sparks that fly upward. Nobody could ever know the scented
humiliation of the handkerchief, or the agony of the faded ring, or the
renouncing love which had written the poor foolish letter. Maurice
wouldn't be pained. As for her gift to him of Jacky, she would just tell
him she wanted him to marry Lily, so he could have his child.... And
Edith? Oh, he would never think of Edith!
So she was very peaceful until, the next day, she heard Edith's voice
in the hall, then she frowned. "She's here! In the house with him!
Don't let her come in," she told Maurice; "she takes my breath." But,
somehow, she couldn't help thinking of Edith.... "That morning in the
garden she cried," Eleanor thought. It was strange to think of tears in
those clear, careless eyes. "I never supposed she _could_ cry. I've
cried a good deal. Men don't like tears." And there had been tears in
Edith's eyes when she came in and sat on the bed and said she was
"unhappy...." "She believed," Eleanor meditated, her own eyes closed,
"that it was because of _her_ that I went out to the river." She was
faintly sorry that Edith should reproach herself. "I didn't do it because
she made me angry; I did it to make Maurice happy. I almost wish she knew
that." Perhaps it was this vague regret that made her remember Edith's
assertion that she would do "anything on earth" to keep Maurice from
marrying Lily. "But that's the only way he can be sure of getting
Jacky," Eleanor argued to herself, her mind clearing into helpless
perplexity--"and it's the only way to keep him from Edith. But I wish
Lily wasn't so vulgar. Maurice won't like living with her." Suddenly she
said, "Maurice, do send the nurse out of the room. I want to tell you
something, darling." She was very hoarse.
"Better not talk, dear," he said, anxiously.
She smiled and shook her head. "I just want to tell you: I don't mind
not getting well, because then you'll marry Lily."
"Eleanor! Don't--don't--"
"And you can give little Jacky the kind of home he ought to have."
She drowsed. Maurice sat beside her with his face buried in his hands.
When she awoke, at dusk, she lay peacefully watching the firelight
flickering on the ceiling, and, thinking--thinking. Then, into her
peace, broke again the memory of Edith's distress. "Perhaps I ought to
tell her that I went to the river for Maurice's sake? _Not_ because I
was angry at her." She thought of Edith's tears, and said, "Poor
Edith--" And when she said that a strange thing happened: pity, like a
soft breath, blew out the vehement flame. It is always so; pity and
jealousy are never together....
The next morning she remembered her words about Jacky--"the kind of home
he ought to have"--and again uneasiness as to the kind of "home" it
would be for Maurice rose in her mind. Her head whirled with worry. "It
won't be pleasant for him to live with her, even if she can cook. He
loves that chocolate cake; but he couldn't bear her grammar. Edith said
I was 'unkind' to him. Am I? I suppose she thought he'd be happier with
her? Would he? _She_ can make that cake, too. Yes; he would be happier
with her than with Lily;--and Jacky would call her 'Mother,"' Then she
forgot Edith.
After a while she said: "Maurice, can't I see Jacky? Go get him! And
give Lily the car fare."
Maurice went downstairs and called Mrs. Houghton out of the parlor; in
the hall he said: "I think Eleanor's sort of mixed up. She is talking
about 'Lily's car fare'! What do you suppose she means? Is
she--delirious? And then she says she 'wants to see Jacky.' What must I
do?"
"Go and get him," she said.
For a bewildered minute he hesitated. If Mrs. Newbolt should see Jacky,
she ... would _know_! And Edith ... would she suspect? Still he
went--like a man in a dream. As he got off the car, a block from Lily's
door, a glimpse of the far-off end of the route where "Eleanor's meadow"
lay, made his purpose still more dreamlike. But he was abruptly direct
with Lily: he had come, he said, to tell her that his wife wanted--
"My soul and body!" she broke in; "if she's sent you--" They were in the
dining room, Maurice so pale that Lily, in real alarm, had put her hand
on his arm and made him sit down. But she was angry. "Has she got on to
that again?"
His questioning bewilderment brought her explanation.
"She didn't tell you she'd been here? Well, I promised her I wouldn't
give her away to you, and I _wouldn't_,--but so long as she's sent you,
now, there's no harm, I guess, telling you?" So she told him. "What
possessed you to let on to her?" she ended. She was puzzled at his
folly, but she was sympathetic, too. "I suppose she ragged it out of
you?"
Maurice had listened, silently, his elbow on his knee, his fist hard
against his mouth; he did not try to tell her why he had "let on"; he
could not say that he wanted to defend his son from such a mother; still
less could he make clear to her that Eleanor had not "ragged it out of
him," but that, to his famished passion for truth, confession had been
the Bread of Life. He looked at her once or twice as she talked; pretty,
yet; kindly, coarse, honest--and Eleanor had supposed that he would
marry her! Then, sharply, his mind pictured that scene: his wife, his
poor, frightened old Eleanor, pleading for the gift of Jacky! And
Lily--young, arrogant, kind.... The pain of it made his passion of pity
so like love that the tears stood in his eyes. "Oh, she _mustn't_ die,"
he thought; "I won't let her die!"
When Lily had finished her story he told her his, very briefly: his
wife's forgiveness of his unfaithfulness; her desire to do all she could
for Jacky: "Help me--I mean help you--to make a man of him, because she
loves me. Heaven knows I'm not worthy of it."
Lily gulped. "She ain't young; but, my God, she's some woman!" She threw
her apron over her face and cried hard; then stopped and wiped her eyes.
"She wants to see him, does she? Well, you bet she shall see him! I'll
get him; he's playing in at Mr. Dennett's--he's all on being an
undertaker now. Mr. Dennett's a Funeral Pomps Director. But he's got to
put on his new suit." She ran out on to the porch, and Maurice could
hear the colloquy across the fence: "You come in the house, quick!"
"Won't. We're going to in-in-inter a hen."
"Yes, you will! You're going to put on your new suit and go and see a
lady--"
"Lady? Not on your life."
"It's Mr. Curtis wants you--" Then Jacky's yell, "_Mr. Curtis?_" and a
dash up the back steps and into the dining room--then, silent, grimy
adoration!
Maurice gave his orders. "Change your clothes, young man. I'll bring him
back, Lily, as soon as she's seen him."
While he waited for the new suit Maurice walked up and down the little
room, round and round the table, where on a turkey-red cloth a hideous
hammered brass bowl held some lovely maidenhair ferns. The vision of
Eleanor abasing herself to Lily was unendurable. To drive it from his
mind, he went to the window and stood looking out through the fragrant
greenness of rose geraniums, into the squalid street where the offspring
of the Funeral Pomps Director were fighting over the dead hen; from the
bathroom came the sound of a sputtering gush from the hot-water faucet;
then splashes and whining protests, and maternal adjurations: "You got
to look decent! I _will_ wash behind your ears. You're the worst boy on
the street!"
"Eleanor tried to save him," he thought; "she came here, and begged for
him!"
Above the bathroom noises came Lily's voice, sharp with efficiency, but
shaking with pity and a quick-hearted purpose of helping: "Say, Mr.
Curtis! Could she eat some fresh doughnuts? (Jacky, if you don't stand
still I'll give you a regular spanking! I _didn't_ put soap in your
eyes!) If she can, I'll fry some for her to-morrow."
Maurice, tramping back and forth, made no answer; he was saying to
himself, "If she'll just live, I will make her happy! Oh, she _must_
live!" It was then that, suddenly, agonizingly, in the midst of
splashings, and Jacky's whines, and Lily's anxiety about soap and
doughnuts, Maurice Curtis prayed ...
He did not know it was prayer; it was just a cry: "Do something--oh,
_do_ something! _Do you hear me?_ She tried so hard to save Jacky. Make
her get well!" So it was that, in his selfless cry for happiness for
Eleanor, Maurice found all those differing realizations--Joy, and Law,
and Life, and Love--and lo! they were one--a personality! God. In his
frantic words he established a relationship with _Him_--not It, any
longer! "Please, please make her get well," he begged, humbly.
At that moment, at the door of the dining room, appeared an immaculate
Jacky in his new suit, his face shining with bliss and soap. He came and
stood beside Maurice, waiting his monarch's orders, and listening,
without comprehension, to the conversation:
"Nothing will be said to him that will ... give anything away. She just
wants to see him. His presence in the room--"
Jacky gave a little leap. "Did you say _presents_!"
"--his merely being there will please her. She loves him, Lily. You see,
she's always wanted children, and--we've never had any."
Jacky's mother said, in a muffled voice, "My land!" Then she caught
Jacky in her arms and kissed him all over his face.
"Aw, stop," said Jacky, greatly embarrassed; to have Mr. Curtis see him
being kissed, "like a kid!" was a cruel mortification. "Aw, let up,"
said Jacky.
When he and Mr. Curtis started in to town his eyes seemed to grow bluer,
and his face more beaming, and his voice, asking endless questions, more
joyous every minute. In the car he shoved up very close to Maurice, and
tried to think of something wonderful to tell him. By and by, breathing
loudly, he achieved: "Say, Mr. Curtis, our ash sifter got broke." Then
he shoved a little closer. Just before they reached Mrs. Newbolt's house
the haggard, unhappy father gave his son orders:
"There is a lady who wants to see you, Jacky. She's my wife. Mrs.
Curtis. You are to be very polite to her, and kiss her--"
"Kiss a lady!"
"Yes. You'll do what I tell you! Understand?"
"Yes, sir," Jacky said, sniffling.
"You are to tell her you love her; but you are not to speak unless you
are spoken to. Do you get on to that?"
"Yes, sir. No, sir," poor Jacky said, dejectedly.
It was Edith who, watching for Maurice from the parlor window, opened
the front door to him. She looked up into his eyes, then down into
Jacky's, who, at that moment, took the opportunity, sighing, to obey
orders; be reached up and gave a little peck at Edith's cheek.
"I love you," he said, gloomily. "I done it," he told Maurice. "_He_
said I got to," he explained to Edith, resignedly, as she, startled but
pleased, took his little rough hand in hers.
Just as she did so Mrs. Newbolt, coming downstairs, saw him and stopped
short in the middle of a sentence--the relationship between the man and
the child was unmistakable. When she got her breath she said, coldly:
"There's a change, Maurice. Better go right upstairs."
He went, hurriedly, leading his little boy by the hand.
"Well, upon my word!" said Mrs. Newbolt, looking after the small,
climbing figure in the new suit. "I wouldn't have believed such a thing
of Maurice Curtis--oh, my poor Eleanor!" she said, and burst out crying.
"I suppose she knows? Did she want to see the child? I always said she
was a puffect angel! But I don't wonder she--she got wet ..."
Eleanor was very close to the River now, yet she smiled when Jacky's
shrinking lips touched her cheek.
"Take her hand," Maurice told him, softly, and the little boy, silent
and frightened, obeyed; but he kept his eyes on his father.
Eleanor, with long pauses, said: "Dear ... Jacky. Maurice, did you give
her ... five cents? He must have ... music lessons."
"Yes, Star," he said, brokenly. "Jacky," he said, in a whisper, "say 'I
love you.'"
But Jacky whispered back, anxiously, "But I said it to the other one?"
"_Say it!_" his father said.
"I love you," said Jacky, trembling.
Eleanor smiled, slept for a moment, then opened her eyes. "He doesn't
look ... like _her_?"
"Not in the least," Maurice said.
Jacky, quailing, tried to draw his hand away from those cool fingers;
but a look from his father stopped him.
"No," Eleanor murmured; "I see ... it won't do for"--Maurice bent close
to her lips, but he could not catch the next words--"for you to marry
her."
After that she was silent for so long that Maurice led the little boy
out of the room. As he brought him into the parlor, Henry Houghton, who
had just come in, looked at the father and son, and felt astonishment
tingle in his veins like an electric shock. He gripped Maurice's hand,
silently, and gave Jacky's ear a friendly pull.
"Edith," Maurice Said, "I would take him home, but I mustn't leave
Eleanor. Will you get one of the maids to put him on a Medfield car--"
"I'll take him," Edith said.
Maurice began to say, sharply, "_No!_" then he stopped; after all, why
not? "She must know the whole business by this time. Jacky's face gives
it all away." She might as well, he thought, know Jacky's mother, as she
knew his father.
Jacky, in a little growling voice, said, "Don't want _nobody_ to put me
on no car. I can--"
"Be quiet, my boy," Maurice said, gently. He gave Edith Lily's address
and went back upstairs.
Henry Houghton, watching and listening, felt his face twitch; then he
blew his nose loudly. "I'll look after him," he told Edith. "I--I'll
take him to--the person he lives with. It isn't suitable for a girl--"
In spite of the gravity of the moment his girl laughed. "Father, you
_are_ a lamb! No; I'll take him." Then she gave Jacky a cooky, which he
ate thoughtfully.
"We have 'em nicer at our house," he said. On the corner, waiting for
the Medfield car, Edith offered a friendly hand, which he refused to
notice. The humiliation of being taken home, "by a woman!" was scorching
his little pride. He made up his mind that if them scab Dennett boys
seen him getting out of the car with a woman, he'd lick the tar out of
them! All the way to Maple Street he sat with his face glued to the
window, never speaking a word to the "woman." When the car stopped he
pushed out ahead of her and tore down the street. Happily no Dennett
boys saw him!--but he dashed past his mother, who was standing at the
gate, and disappeared in the house.
Lily, bareheaded in the pale April sunshine, had been watching for him
rather anxiously. In deference to the occasion she had changed her
dress; a string of green-glass beads, encircling her plump white neck,
glimmered through the starched freshness of an incredibly frank blouse,
and her white duck skirt was spotless. Her whole little fat body was as
fresh and sweet as one of her own hyacinths, and her kind face had the
unchanging, unhuman youthfulness of flesh and blood which has never been
harried by the indwelling soul. But she was frowning. She had begun to
be nervous; Jacky had been away nearly two hours! "Are they playing a
gum game on me?" Lily thought; "Are they going to try and kidnap him?"
It was then that she caught sight of Jacky, tearing toward home, his
fierce blue eyes raking the street for any of them there Dennett boys,
who must have the tar licked out of 'em! Edith was following him, in
hurrying anxiety. Instantly Lily was reassured. "One of Mrs. Curtis's
lady friends, I suppose," she thought. "Well, it's up to me to keep her
guessing on Jacky!" She was very polite and simpering when, at the gate,
Edith said that Mr. Curtis asked her to bring Jacky home.
"Won't you come in and be seated?" Lily urged, hospitably.
Edith said no; she was sorry; but she must go right back; "Mrs. Curtis
is very ill, I am sorry to say."
At this moment Jacky came out to the gate; he had two cookies in his
hand. He said, shyly: "Maw's is better 'an yours. You can have"--this
with a real effort--"the _big_ one."
Edith took the "big one," pleasantly, and said, "Yes, they are nicer
than ours, Jacky."
But Lily was mortified. "The lady'll think you have no manners. Go on
back into the house!"
"Won't," said Jacky, eating his cooky.
His mother tried to cover his obstinacy with conversation: "He's crazy
about Mr. Curtis. Well, no wonder. Mr. Curtis was a great friend of my
husband's. Mr. Dale--his name was Augustus; I named Jacky after him;
Ernest Augustus. He died three years ago; no, I guess it was two--"
"Huh?" said Jacky, interested, "You said my paw died--"
Lily, with that desire to smack her son which every mother knows, cut
his puzzled arithmetic short. "Yes. Mr. Dale was a great clubman. In
Philadelphia. I believe that's where he and Mr. Curtis got to be chums.
But I never met _her_."
Edith said, rigidly, "Really?"
"Jacky's the image of Mr. Dale. He died of--of typhus fever. Mr. Curtis
was one of the pallbearers; that's how I got acquainted with him. Jacky
was six then," Lily ended, breathlessly. ("I guess _that's_ fixed her,"
she thought.)
Edith only said again, "Really?" Then added, "Good afternoon," and
hurried away. So _this_ was the woman Eleanor would make Maurice marry!
"Never!" Edith said. "Never! if _I_ can prevent it!"
Upstairs in Mrs. Newbolt's spare room, as the twilight thickened, there
was silence, except for the terrible breathing, and the clock ticking
away the seconds; one by one they fell--like beads slipping from a
string. Maurice sat holding Eleanor's hand. The others, speaking,
sometimes, without sound, or moving, noiselessly, stood before the meek
majesty of dying. Waiting. Waiting. It was not until midnight that she
opened her eyes again and looked at Maurice, very peacefully.
"Tell Edith it wasn't what she said, made me try ... our river ... Jacky
will call her ... Tell Edith ... to be kind to Jacky."
She did not speak again.