Even after her baby's funeral, Luella still couldn't believe that she
had lost him. She came back to the apartment and walked around the
nursery in a circle, saying his name. Then, frightened by grief, she sat
down and stared at his white rocker with the red chicken painted on the
side.
"What will become of me now?" she whispered to herself. "Something awful
is going to happen to me when I realize that I'll never see Chuck any
more!"
She wasn't sure yet. If she waited here till twilight, the nurse might
still bring him in from his walk. She remembered a tragic confusion in
the midst of which some one had told her that Chuck was dead, but if
that was so, then why was his room waiting, with his small brush and
comb still on the bureau, and why was she here at all?
"Mrs. Hemple."
She looked up. The weary, shabby figure of Doctor Moon stood in the
door.
"You go away," Luella said dully.
"Your husband needs you."
"I don't care."
Doctor Moon came a little way into the room.
"I don't think you understand, Mrs. Hemple. He's been calling for you.
You haven't any one now except him."
"I hate you," she said suddenly.
"If you like. I promised nothing, you know. I do the best I can. You'll
be better when you realize that your baby is gone, that you're not going
to see him any more."
Luella sprang to her feet.
"My baby isn't dead!" she cried. "You lie! You always lie!" Her flashing
eyes looked into his and caught something there, at once brutal and
kind, that awed her and made her impotent and acquiescent. She lowered
her own eyes in tired despair.
"All right," she said wearily. "My baby is gone. What shall I do now?"
"Your husband is much better. All he needs is rest and kindness. But you
must go to him and tell him what's happened."
"I suppose you think you made him better," said Luella bitterly.
"Perhaps. He's nearly well."
Nearly well--then the last link that held her to her home was broken.
This part of her life was over--she could cut it off here, with its
grief and oppression, and be off now, free as the wind.
"I'll go to him in a minute," Luella said in a far-away voice. "Please
leave me alone."
Doctor Moon's unwelcome shadow melted into the darkness of the hall.
"I can go away," Luella whispered to herself. "Life has given me back
freedom, in place of what it took away from me."
But she mustn't linger even a minute, or Life would bind her again and
make her suffer once more. She called the apartment porter and asked
that her trunk be brought up from the storeroom. Then she began taking
things from the bureau and wardrobe, trying to approximate as nearly as
possible the possessions that she had brought to her married life. She
even found two old dresses that had formed part of her trousseau--out
of style now, and a little tight in the hips--which she threw in with
the rest. A new life. Charles was well again; and her baby, whom she had
worshipped, and who had bored her a little, was dead.
When she had packed her trunk, she went into the kitchen automatically,
to see about the preparations for dinner. She spoke to the cook about
the special things for Charles and said that she herself was dining out.
The sight of one of the small pans that had been used to cook Chuck's
food caught her attention for a moment--but she stared at it unmoved.
She looked into the ice-box and saw it was clean and fresh inside. Then
she went into Charles's room. He was sitting up in bed, and the nurse
was reading to him. His hair was almost white now, silvery white, and
underneath it his eyes were huge and dark in his thin young face.
"The baby is sick?" he asked in his own natural voice.
She nodded.
He hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he asked:
"The baby is dead?"
"Yes."
For a long time he didn't speak. The nurse came over and put her hand on
his forehead. Two large, strange tears welled from his eyes.
"I knew the baby was dead."
After another long wait, the nurse spoke:
"The doctor said he could be taken out for a drive to-day while there
was still sunshine. He needs a little change."
"Yes."
"I thought"--the nurse hesitated--"I thought perhaps it would do you
both good, Mrs. Hemple, if you took him instead of me."
Luella shook her head hastily.
"Oh, no," she said. "I don't feel able to, to-day."
The nurse looked at her oddly. With a sudden feeling of pity for
Charles, Luella bent down gently and kissed his cheek. Then, without a
word, she went to her own room, put on her hat and coat, and with her
suitcase started for the front door.
Immediately she saw that there was a shadow in the hall. If she could
get past that shadow, she was free. If she could go to the right or left
of it, or order it out of her way! But, stubbornly, it refused to move,
and with a little cry she sank down into a hall chair.
"I thought you'd gone," she wailed. "I told you to go away."
"I'm going soon," said Doctor Moon, "but I don't want you to make an old
mistake."
"I'm not making a mistake--I'm leaving my mistakes behind."
"You're trying to leave yourself behind, but you can't. The more you try
to run away from yourself, the more you'll have yourself with you."
"But I've got to go away," she insisted wildly. "Out of this house of
death and failure!"
"You haven't failed yet. You've only begun." She stood up.
"Let me pass."
"No."
Abruptly she gave way, as she always did when he talked to her. She
covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
"Go back into that room and tell the nurse you'll take your husband for
a drive," he suggested.
"I can't."
"Oh, yes."
Once more Luella looked at him, and knew that she would obey. With the
conviction that her spirit was broken at last, she took up her suitcase
and walked back through the hall.
V
The nature of the curious influence that Doctor Moon exerted upon her,
Luella could not guess. But as the days passed, she found herself doing
many things that had been repugnant to her before. She stayed at home
with Charles; and when he grew better, she went out with him sometimes
to dinner, or the theatre, but only when he expressed a wish. She
visited the kitchen every day, and kept an unwilling eye on the house,
at first with a horror that it would go wrong again, then from habit.
And she felt that it was all somehow mixed up with Doctor Moon--it was
something he kept telling her about life, or almost telling her, and yet
concealing from her, as though he were afraid to have her know.
With the resumption of their normal life, she found that Charles was
less nervous. His habit of rubbing his face had left him, and if the
world seemed less gay and happy to her than it had before, she
experienced a certain peace, sometimes, that she had never known.
Then, one afternoon, Doctor Moon told her suddenly that he was going
away.
"Do you mean for good?" she demanded with a touch of panic.
"For good."
For a strange moment she wasn't sure whether she was glad or sorry.
"You don't need me any more," he said quietly. "You don't realize it,
but you've grown up."
He came over and, sitting on the couch beside her, took her hand.
Luella sat silent and tense--listening.
"We make an agreement with children that they can sit in the audience
without helping to make the play," he said, "but if they still sit in
the audience after they're grown, somebody's got to work double time for
them, so that they can enjoy the light and glitter of the world."
"But I want the light and glitter," she protested. "That's all there is
in life. There can't be anything wrong in wanting to have things warm."
"Things will still be warm."
"How?"
"Things will warm themselves from you."
Luella looked at him, startled.
"It's your turn to be the centre, to give others what was given to you
for so long. You've got to give security to young people and peace to
your husband, and a sort of charity to the old. You've got to let the
people who work for you depend on you. You've got to cover up a few more
troubles than you show, and be a little more patient than the average
person, and do a little more instead of a little less than your share.
The light and glitter of the world is in your hands."
He broke off suddenly.
"Get up," he said, "and go to that mirror and tell me what you see."
Obediently Luella got up and went close to a purchase of her honeymoon,
a Venetian pier-glass on the wall.
"I see new lines in my face here," she said, raising her finger and
placing it between her eyes, "and a few shadows at the sides that might
be--that are little wrinkles."
"Do you care?"
She turned quickly. "No," she said.
"Do you realize that Chuck is gone? That you'll never see him any more?"
"Yes." She passed her hands slowly over her eyes. "But that all seems so
vague and far away."
"Vague and far away," he repeated; and then: "And are you afraid of me
now?"
"Not any longer," she said, and she added frankly, "now that you're
going away."
He moved toward the door. He seemed particularly weary to-night, as
though he could hardly move about at all.
"The household here is in your keeping," he said in a tired whisper. "If
there is any light and warmth in it, it will be your light and warmth;
if it is happy, it will be because you've made it so. Happy things may
come to you in life, but you must never go seeking them any more. It is
your turn to make the fire."
"Won't you sit down a moment longer?" Luella ventured.
"There isn't time." His voice was so low now that she could scarcely
hear the words. "But remember that whatever suffering comes to you, I
can always help you--if it is something that can be helped. I promise
nothing."
He opened the door. She must find out now what she most wanted to know,
before it was too late.
"What have you done to me?" she cried. "Why have I no sorrow left for
Chuck--for anything at all? Tell me; I almost see, yet I can't see.
Before you go--tell me who you are!"
"Who am I?--" His worn suit paused in the doorway. His round, pale face
seemed to dissolve into two faces, a dozen faces, a score, each one
different yet the same--sad, happy, tragic, indifferent, resigned--until
threescore Doctor Moons were ranged like an infinite series of
reflections, like months stretching into the vista of the past.
"Who am I?" he repeated; "I am five years." The door closed.
At six o'clock Charles Hemple came home, and as usual Luella met him in
the hall. Except that now his hair was dead white, his long illness of
two years had left no mark upon him. Luella herself was more noticeably
changed--she was a little stouter, and there were those lines around her
eyes that had come when Chuck died one evening back in 1921. But she was
still lovely, and there was a mature kindness about her face at
twenty-eight, as if suffering had touched her only reluctantly and then
hurried away.
"Ede and her husband are coming to dinner," she said. "I've got theatre
tickets, but if you're tired, I don't care whether we go or not."
"I'd like to go."
She looked at him.
"You wouldn't."
"I really would."
"We'll see how you feel after dinner."
He put his arm around her waist. Together they walked into the nursery
where the two children were waiting up to say good night.