So there he lay, little Robinson Crusoe, in a desert expanse of polished
floor, and there he crowed a welcome to my own beautiful baby!
Lady Crusoe was in a big chair. She was not strong, and William Watters
had brought his sister Mandy to wait on her. She was very pale, this
lovely lady, and there were shadows under her eyes. As I sat down beside
her, she said: "I shall have to have your Billy sell some more things
for me. You see the servants must be paid, and my Robin must be comfy.
There's a console-table that ought to bring a lot from a city dealer."
"I wish that you needn't be worried," I said. "I wish--I wish--that
you'd let me send for Robin's father--"
"Robin's father!" she drew a quick breath, "how funny it
sounds!--_Robin's father_--"
I waited for that to sink in, and then I said: "I know how you feel.
When I think of Billy as Junior's father it is different from thinking
of him as my husband, and it makes a funny sensation in my throat as if
I wanted to cry--"
"You've nothing to cry about," she told me fiercely, "nothing, but I
sometimes feel as if I could weep rivers of tears!"
I realized that I must be careful, so I changed the subject. "William,"
I said after a pause, "is worrying about a man who is hunting over the
grounds."
"He told me. I can't understand why any one should trespass when the
place is posted. I sent William to tell him, but it didn't seem to have
any effect. I haven't heard him shoot. When I do, I shall go out and
speak to him myself."
I wondered if Fate were going to settle it in that way, and I wondered
too if it would be breaking my promise to tell him to shoot! We sewed in
silence for a while, but Lady Crusoe was restless. At last she wandered
to the window. It was a long French window which opened on a balcony.
She parted the velvet curtains and looked out. "There he is again," she
said, with irritation, "by the gate with his gun and dog--"
I rose and joined her. The man stood by the gate-post, and the dog sat
at his feet. They might have been a pair of statues planted on the round
top of the hill, with the valleys rolling away beneath them and the
mountain peaks and the golden sky beyond. Lady Crusoe was much stirred
up over it.
"I'll send William again, when he comes with our tea. I won't have my
wild things shot. There was a covey of partridges on the lawn this
morning, and my squirrels come up to the porch to be fed. Men are cruel
creatures with their guns and their traps."
"Women are cruel, too," I told her, and now I took my courage in my
hands. "Suppose, oh, suppose, that the mother robin had stolen her nest
and had never let the father robin share her happiness, wouldn't you
call that cruel?"
"What do you mean?" her voice shook.
"You have stolen your--nest--"
"Why shouldn't I steal it? I had always felt that when I wanted a real
home it would be here. And the time had come when I wanted a--home. So I
planned to come--with him. It was to be my surprise--he doesn't even
know that the old place belongs to me. He thought it was just another of
my restless demands, but he let me have my way. We had friends with us
when we started; they left us at Washington. It was after we were alone
that--we quarreled--and I ran away. I left a note and told him that I
had gone to France. I suppose he followed and didn't find me. I am not
even sure that he wants to find me."
"Do you want to be found?"
"I don't know. I'd rather not talk about it."
William came in with the tea and was told to send the intruder off.
"I done sent him, Miss Lily," he said, with dignity, "but he ain't gwine
to go. He say he ain't, and I kain't make him."
She went again to the window, and this time she drew back the faded
hangings and stepped out on the balcony.
I heard her utter a cry; then the whole room seemed to whirl about me as
she came in, dragging the curtains together behind her. Every drop of
blood was drained from her face.
"William," she said, sharply, "that man--is coming toward the house! If
he asks for me--I am not--at home."
"Nawm," and William went down to answer the blows of the brass knocker.
We heard him open the door, we heard the crisp, quick voice. We heard
William's stately response. Then the quick voice said: "Will you tell
your mistress that I shall wait?"
William came up with the message. "He's settin' on the po'ch, an' he
looks like he was makin' out to set there all night."
"Let him sit," said Lady Crusoe inelegantly. "Lock all of the doors,
William, and serve the tea."
She sat there and drank a cup of it scalding hot, with her head in the
air and her foot tapping the floor. But I couldn't drink a drop. I was
just sick with the thought of how he loved her, and of how she had
hardened her heart.
At last I couldn't stand it any longer. The tears rolled down my cheeks.
Lady Crusoe set her cup on the tray and stared at me in amazement.
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, how can you--when he loves you?"
I don't know how I dared say it, for her eyes were blazing in her white
face, and my heart was thumping, but there was Robinson Crusoe crowing
in his hooded cradle, and Robin's father was on the front step, with the
old oak door shut and barred against him.
She leaned forward, and I knew what was coming. "How did you know it
was--my husband?"
My eyes met hers squarely. "He came to the store. He was looking for
you."
"And you told him that I was here?"
"No. I wanted to. But I had promised."
For a little while neither of us spoke. The silence was broken by a
thud, as if a flying squirrel had dropped from the roof to the balcony.
A stick of wood fell apart in the grate, and the crow of the baby in the
hooded cradle was answered by the baby on my lap.
Lady Crusoe hugged her knees with her white arms as if she were cold,
although the room was hot with the blazing fire. "I think you might have
told me. It would have been the friendly thing to have told me--"
"Billy thought it wasn't best."
"What had Billy to do with it?"
"Billy has everything to do with me. I talked it over with him--and--and
Billy's such a darling to talk things over--"
I broke down and sobbed and sobbed, and the tears dripped on Junior's
precious head. And at last she said, her face softened, "You silly
little thing, what do you want me to do?"
"If it were Billy, I should ask him in--and show him--the baby--"
"If it were Billy, you would set your heart under his heel for him to
step on. I am not like that--"
Another squirrel dropped to the balcony. The sun was setting, and
between the velvet curtains I could see it blood-red behind the hills.
Lady Crusoe rose, pacing the room restlessly. The wind rising rattled
the long windows. A shadow blotted out the sun.
"I suppose if you were I," she said at last, "you'd take your baby in
your arms, and go down and say to that man on the steps, 'Come in and be
lord of the manor and the ruler of your wife and child.'"
I held Junior close and my voice trembled. "I should never say a thing
like that to--Billy--"
"What would you say?"
"I should say"--I choked over it, and broke down at the end--"oh, lover,
lover, this is your son--and I am his happy mother--"
She stopped in front of me and stood looking down, with the anger all
gone from her eyes. Then, before she could turn or cry out, the long
windows were struck open by something that was stronger than the wind.
There had been no flying squirrels on the balcony, and the shadow which
had hidden the sun was the breadth and height of the big man who stood
between the velvet curtains! He crossed the room at a stride.
"Did you think that bolts and bars could keep me from you?" he asked,
and took Lady Crusoe's hands in a tight grip and drew her toward him.
She resisted for a moment. Then her white slenderness was crushed in his
hungry arms.
Well, as soon as I could gather up Junior and his belongings, I went
down to wait for Billy. But before I went I saw her drop on her knees
beside the hooded cradle and lift out little Robin, and, still kneeling,
hold him up toward his father, as the nun holds up Galahad in the Holy
Grail.
And what do you think I heard her say?
_"Oh, lover, lover, this is your son--and I am his happy mother!"_
Billy came in glowing from his walk in the sharp air, and I can't tell
you how good it seemed to feel his cold cheek against my cheek, and his
warm lips on mine. We were a rapturous trio in front of the library
fire, and there we were joined presently by the rapturous trio from
above stairs. They treated Billy and me as if we were a pair of guardian
angels. Then we had dinner together, with Mandy and William in the
background beaming.
And that night I told Billy all about it. "Isn't it beautiful, Billy?
They are going to live on the old Davenant place, and it is to be their
home."
Everybody calls on us now. You see, Lady Crusoe's family is older than
any of the others, and then there's her husband's money. And I shine in
her reflected light, for our friendship, as she says, is founded on a
rock. But Billy says it is founded on a wreck. Yet while he jokes about
it, I know that he is proud of his friendship with Robin's father. And
when the spring comes, we are to take old Tid and our blessed Junior and
our family effects to an adorable cottage with a garden on all four
sides of it and set well back from the road. You see, we feel that we
can afford it, for we have the exclusive business of supplying the needs
of the Davenant estate, and we are thus financially on our feet.