The young husband's apologies were profuse and abject. Bertram was
heartily ashamed of himself, and was man enough to acknowledge it.
Almost on his knees he begged Billy to forgive him; and in a frenzy
of self-denunciation he followed her down into the kitchen that night,
piteously beseeching her to speak to him, to just _look_ at him, even,
so that he might know he was not utterly despised--though he did,
indeed, deserve to be more than despised, he moaned.
At first Billy did not speak, or even vouchsafe a glance in his
direction. Very quietly she went about her preparations for a simple
meal, paying apparently no more attention to Bertram than as if he were
not there. But that her ears were only seemingly, and not really deaf,
was shown very clearly a little later, when, at a particularly abject
wail on the part of the babbling shadow at her heels, Billy choked into
a little gasp, half laughter, half sob. It was all over then. Bertram
had her in his arms in a twinkling, while to the floor clattered and
rolled a knife and a half-peeled baked potato.
Naturally, after that, there could be no more dignified silences on the
part of the injured wife. There were, instead, half-smiles, tears, sobs,
a tremulous telling of Pete's going and his messages, followed by a
tearful listening to Bertram's story of the torture he had endured at
the hands of Miss Winthrop, Bessie Bailey, and an empty, dinnerless
house. And thus, in one corner of the kitchen, some time later, a
hungry, desperate William found them, the half-peeled, cold baked potato
still at their feet.
Torn between his craving for food and his desire not to interfere with
any possible peace-making, William was obviously hesitating what to do,
when Billy glanced up and saw him. She saw, too, at the same time, the
empty, blazing gas-stove burner, and the pile of half-prepared potatoes,
to warm which the burner had long since been lighted. With a little cry
she broke away from her husband's arms.
“Mercy! and here's poor Uncle William, bless his heart, with not a thing
to eat yet!”
They all got dinner then, together, with many a sigh and quick-coming
tear as everywhere they met some sad reminder of the gentle old hands
that would never again minister to their comfort.
It was a silent meal, and little, after all, was eaten, though brave
attempts at cheerfulness and naturalness were made by all three.
Bertram, especially, talked, and tried to make sure that the shadow on
Billy's face was at least not the one his own conduct had brought there.
“For you do--you surely do forgive me, don't you?” he begged, as he
followed her into the kitchen after the sorry meal was over.
“Why, yes, dear, yes,” sighed Billy, trying to smile.
“And you'll forget?”
There was no answer.
“Billy! And you'll forget?” Bertram's voice was insistent, reproachful.
Billy changed color and bit her lip. She looked plainly distressed.
“Billy!” cried the man, still more reproachfully.
“But, Bertram, I can't forget--quite yet,” faltered Billy.
Bertram frowned. For a minute he looked as if he were about to take
up the matter seriously and argue it with her; but the next moment he
smiled and tossed his head with jaunty playfulness--Bertram, to tell the
truth, had now had quite enough of what he privately termed “scenes”
and “heroics”; and, manlike, he was very ardently longing for the old
easy-going friendliness, with all unpleasantness banished to oblivion.
“Oh, but you'll have to forget,” he claimed, with cheery insistence,
“for you've promised to forgive me--and one can't forgive without
forgetting. So, there!” he finished, with a smilingly determined
“now-everything-is-just-as-it-was-before” air.
Billy made no response. She turned hurriedly and began to busy herself
with the dishes at the sink. In her heart she was wondering: could she
ever forget what Bertram had said? Would anything ever blot out those
awful words: “If you would tend to your husband and your home a little
more, and go gallivanting off with Calderwell and Arkwright and Alice
Greggory a little less--“? It seemed now that always, for evermore, they
would ring in her ears; always, for evermore, they would burn deeper and
deeper into her soul. And not once, in all Bertram's apologies, had he
referred to them--those words he had uttered. He had not said he did not
mean them. He had not said he was sorry he spoke them. He had ignored
them; and he expected that now she, too, would ignore them. As if she
could!” If you would tend to your husband and your home a little more,
and go gallivanting off with Calderwell and Arkwright and Alice Greggory
a little less--” Oh, if only she could, indeed,--forget!
When Billy went up-stairs that night she ran across her “Talk to Young
Wives” in her desk. With a half-stifled cry she thrust it far back out
of sight.
“I hate you, I hate you--with all your old talk about 'brushing up
against outside interests'!” she whispered fiercely. “Well, I've
'brushed'--and now see what I've got for it!”
Later, however, after Bertram was asleep, Billy crept out of bed and
got the book. Under the carefully shaded lamp in the adjoining room she
turned the pages softly till she came to the sentence: “Perhaps it would
be hard to find a more utterly unreasonable, irritable, irresponsible
creature than a hungry man.” With a long sigh she began to read; and not
until some minutes later did she close the book, turn off the light, and
steal back to bed.
During the next three days, until after the funeral at the shabby little
South Boston house, Eliza spent only about half of each day at the
Strata. This, much to her distress, left many of the household tasks for
her young mistress to perform. Billy, however, attacked each new duty
with a feverish eagerness that seemed to make the performance of it
very like some glad penance done for past misdeeds. And when--on the
day after they had laid the old servant in his last resting place--a
despairing message came from Eliza to the effect that now her mother was
very ill, and would need her care, Billy promptly told Eliza to stay as
long as was necessary; that they could get along all right without her.
“But, Billy, what _are_ we going to do?” Bertram demanded, when he heard
the news. “We must have somebody!”
“_I'm_ going to do it.”
“Nonsense! As if you could!” scoffed Bertram.
Billy lifted her chin.
“Couldn't I, indeed,” she retorted. “Do you realize, young man, how
much I've done the last three days? How about those muffins you had this
morning for breakfast, and that cake last night? And didn't you yourself
say that you never ate a better pudding than that date puff yesterday
noon?”
Bertram laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
“My dear love, I'm not questioning your _ability_ to do it,” he soothed
quickly. “Still,” he added, with a whimsical smile, “I must remind you
that Eliza has been here half the time, and that muffins and date puffs,
however delicious, aren't all there is to running a big house like this.
Besides, just be sensible, Billy,” he went on more seriously, as he
noted the rebellious gleam coming into his young wife's eyes; “you'd
know you couldn't do it, if you'd just stop to think. There's the
Carletons coming to dinner Monday, and my studio Tea to-morrow, to
say nothing of the Symphony and the opera, and the concerts you'd lose
because you were too dead tired to go to them. You know how it was with
that concert yesterday afternoon which Alice Greggory wanted you to go
to with her.”
“I didn't--want--to go,” choked Billy, under her breath.
“And there's your music. You haven't done a thing with that for days,
yet only last week you told me the publishers were hurrying you for that
last song to complete the group.”
“I haven't felt like--writing,” stammered Billy, still half under her
breath.
“Of course you haven't,” triumphed Bertram. “You've been too dead tired.
And that's just what I say. Billy, you _can't_ do it all yourself!”
“But I want to. I want to--to tend to things,” faltered Billy, with a
half-fearful glance into her husband's face.
Billy was hearing very loudly now that accusing “If you'd tend to your
husband and your home a little more--” Bertram, however, was not hearing
it, evidently. Indeed, he seemed never to have heard it--much less to
have spoken it.
“'Tend to things,'” he laughed lightly. “Well, you'll have enough to do
to tend to the maid, I fancy. Anyhow, we're going to have one. I'll just
step into one of those--what do you call 'em?--intelligence offices on
my way down and send one up,” he finished, as he gave his wife a good-by
kiss.
An hour later Billy, struggling with the broom and the drawing-room
carpet, was called to the telephone. It was her husband's voice that
came to her.
“Billy, for heaven's sake, take pity on me. Won't you put on your duds
and come and engage your maid yourself?”
“Why, Bertram, what's the matter?”
“Matter? Holy smoke! Well, I've been to three of those intelligence
offices--though why they call them that I can't imagine. If ever
there was a place utterly devoid of intelligence-but never mind! I've
interviewed four fat ladies, two thin ones, and one medium with a wart.
I've cheerfully divulged all our family secrets, promised every other
half-hour out, and taken oath that our household numbers three
adult members, and no more; but I simply _can't_ remember how many
handkerchiefs we have in the wash each week. Billy, will you come? Maybe
you can do something with them. I'm sure you can!”
“Why, of course I'll come,” chirped Billy. “Where shall I meet you?”
Bertram gave the street and number.
“Good! I'll be there,” promised Billy, as she hung up the receiver.
Quite forgetting the broom in the middle of the drawing-room floor,
Billy tripped up-stairs to change her dress. On her lips was a gay
little song. In her heart was joy.
“I rather guess _now_ I'm tending to my husband and my home!” she was
crowing to herself.
Just as Billy was about to leave the house the telephone bell jangled
again.
It was Alice Greggory.
“Billy, dear,” she called, “can't you come out? Mr. Arkwright and Mr.
Calderwell are here, and they've brought some new music. We want you.
Will you come?”
“I can't, dear. Bertram wants me. He's sent for me. I've got some
_housewifely_ duties to perform to-day,” returned Billy, in a voice so
curiously triumphant that Alice, at her end of the wires, frowned in
puzzled wonder as she turned away from the telephone.