“Oh, I forgot!” cried the child, bouncing out of bed again. “Mrs. Briggs makes me say prayers — do I have to?”
Margaret smiled. “Perhaps we’d better while we stay in her home, dear. Is it the Lord’s Prayer?”
“That’s one — and there’s a little one— ‘Now I lay me.’ I can say them both.” With a clear precision and evident pride she recited the two, her mother listening, very close to tears. There was so much she wished to do for her little daughter, had wished to do for all these years and never until now had there been any time when she could feel the child was hers. Yet even now she was only “Sister Margaret” to her.
“I have been sick,” Dolly volunteered, as she nestled down in her bed again. “Very sick. They brought Dr. Newcome up to see me.”
“Did they, darling? That was very kind. What was your sickness, dear? How long? Did you suffer?”
“Oh, it was not — serious,” said the child gravely. “They thought it was going to be — serious, but it was not. It was only chicken pox. See this mark — I shall have that always!” She lifted the hair from one temple and showed a tiny dimple of faint white. “Dr. Newcome was very nice,” she continued. “I like him very much.”
“So do I — if he made you well again, dear Dorothy.”
“He said I would get well again anyway,” pursued the little one. “But Mrs. Briggs made him stay. She was so afraid it was going to be — serious.”
Margaret held one small hand and pressed it to her lips. “I’m so glad it wasn’t, dear,” she said. “So very glad!”
“Now I must go to sleep,” announced this paragon of infant virtue, and she shut her eyes in two tight white lines with a pinched fringe of curving lashes in the middle of them.
Margaret could hardly insist on her keeping awake. She sat still, hungrily watching the vivid little face, now brown and healthy again in spite of recent illness, and began to sing in her soft contralto a little German slumber song.
“That’s nice,” Dolly allowed, flashing sudden starry eyes at her, and closing them as suddenly. “Do it some more.”
So Margaret sat, motionless, refusing to think of the trials that awaited her downstairs, feasting her eyes on the quiet, childish face before her, easing her full heart a little by the tender beauty of the song. She heard Miss Yale’s step on the stairs presently, and went out softly to meet her, finger on lip.
“She got into bed in two minutes, and went to sleep like a little dormouse,” she said triumphantly. “I even tried to keep her awake — and couldn’t. Oh — she’s so lovely!”
Miss Yale listened with divided attention. Her face was drawn and anxious. “She’s a dear child,” she said, “but it’s you that I’m worrying about. I’m so upset that I can’t think! What excuse can we make to get away? Of course I never dreamed he’d be here! It’s awful!”
Margaret softly closed the door of Dolly’s bedroom and they moved back toward the stairs.
“It is rather more than I expected,” she agreed. “We must go down, mustn’t we?”
“Not this minute — wait! Laura and Daisy are outside and those men have not come in yet. Thank goodness Edward Briggs is so slow! Here — come into my room for a minute.” Miss Yale drew the girl inside and shut the door. “I tried my best to get upstairs and tell you before dinner. It was simply dreadful to have you come down like that without a word of warning.”
Margaret smiled and lifted her fine head proudly. “As well one time as another,” she said. “And really, I do not think he knows.”
“Oh, I’m sure he doesn’t — not yet, neither of them. But it’s a terrible risk — a perfectly impossible situation! Of course we’ll have to go away at once — and I confess I don’t see how. After they’ve been so kind to Dolly, too! And Daisy has quite fallen in love with you — I knew she would. Daisy’s a nice girl.”
“She is a dear girl,” Margaret heartily agreed. “A sweet, lovely girl. I am very much drawn to her.... Perhaps they will go away,” she hazarded presently.
Miss Yale shook her head. “Dr. Newcome was brought up by force, as it were, to see to Dolly, and now he’s having his vacation. As for him—” (She evidently did not refer to the last male mentioned.)
“I’m ashamed to say it, but Laura Briggs has been after him for these ten years — to marry Daisy.”
“Marry that child!” Margaret’s color rose.
“Child! She’s older than you are!” Miss Yale watched her with intense sympathy, wondering just what she was thinking.
“No woman is older than I am,” was Margaret’s solemn response. After a little she added earnestly, “Surely you won’t let that happen. You can stop it!”
“I don’t know how,” Miss Yale answered slowly. “They both approve of him — her father and mother, I mean.”
“Does he — love her?” asked the girl, her face turned away.
“Oh, he makes love to her. He does that to any woman who’s on hand. That’s his little way. And Daisy’s a good deal of a fool, poor child. They’ve never let her know anything, you see. She may think he means it. Then Daisy’s getting on — and her parents’ influence — and long association. I’m afraid it’s a go — that is, if Laura can make him. After all there’s really no reason he should — unless he happens to want to.”
Margaret was pondering deeply. “Do you think she loves him?” she asked in a steady voice.
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Miss Yale miserably. “I hope not. She may think so. What does a girl like that know?”
“Could she be — happy, with him?” pursued Margaret earnestly.
“Happy!” Miss Yale exploded. “Happy — with that man! Why, he’d ruin her health, dislocate her conscience, and break her heart inside of a year. But child, it’s you I’m thinking about. And I’m much too upset to think straight. How can we get out of this soonest — with any decency — that’s my question.”
Then Margaret rose to her feet. “I mean to stay,” she said.
“Stay! Here! With that man!” Miss Yale was bewildered.
“He shall not spoil that dear girl’s life if I can help it.”
“What can you do, Margaret? You don’t mean to tell her — surely?”
“Not unless I have to.”
“But, child, it will kill you. You may be recognized any minute! The risk! The strain!”
“It is worth it!” said Margaret Yale.
10. Further Developments
The Reverend Edward Briggs had at last finished his second fat cigar, and his seventeenth story, to which one of his listeners had offered polite attention, and the other an air of barely repressed impatience; but Mr. Briggs was not sensitive. He rose at last, genially chuckling, and they came back to the hall.
“Very good, Armstrong, very good!” cried Mr. Briggs. “It’s just as you say. Well, well, where is our coffee? Ah! Here you are, my dear!”
Mrs. Briggs reentered promptly. “Come in,” she called over her shoulder, “come in!”
“Yes, Mother,” but Daisy stood for a moment with Margaret and Miss Yale who had come down the outside stair, then entered without them. “They want to stay out for a little, Mama,” she said.
“Very well — don’t tease them. Everyone is free to do as they like here.” Mrs. Briggs seated herself at the little table; put out the alcohol lamp, and poured coffee from the steaming percolator.
Her husband stood by the fireplace, gazing about him with the pleased expression he usually wore after a good dinner — unless the dinner was too good and he knew that he had sinned against the inner man.
“Here, Daisy,” continued Mrs. Briggs, with her usual air of being the goddess in the machine, “will you give Dr. Armstrong his coffee? Dr. Newcome, may I trouble you to take this to Mr. Briggs? While the gentlemen drink their coffee you might give us a little music, Daisy — something light and cheerful. Perhaps Dr. Armstrong will sing for us later.” Well she knew that Dr. Armstrong was especially proud of his deep baritone and that Daisy was
an excellent accompanist.
Then, casting an observant eye on Dr. Newcome, who had disposed of his little cup very promptly and declined more, she inquired if he had seen the article on vivisection in the last Moderator. Dr. Newcome had not, and she was unable to rouse any interest on his part, though he came to her side with docility and turned the pages of the magazine for a moment or two.
Then he went to the piano where Miss Daisy was obediently looking over the music, and they fell to chatting of this and that melody, till Mrs. Briggs again begged Dr. Armstrong to give them something. He sang willingly enough, standing squarely on his feet, with a great deal of chest, and strong mouth well-opened, and Daisy followed in delicately perfect agreement, while Dr. Newcome turned the pages.
Miss Yale entered quietly under cover of the music; took a chair by the center table and fixed a disapproving eye on the article Mrs. Briggs had been discussing; presently followed by Margaret, who slipped softly in and seated herself in the window seat at the far corner.
Dr. Newcome turned the last page and strolled across to where she sat. The good Mr. Briggs, casting his eyes in the same direction, presently lumbered after him. Dr. Armstrong, having finished his deep-throated warbling, and paid Daisy one or two of the compliments which always came naturally to his lips in addressing a young woman, left the piano in an unostentatious manner, and made a third in Margaret’s corner.
Daisy was quite unconscious of this secession, and turned to her with unfeigned cordiality. “Oh, Cousin Margaret, you’ve come in! If you are my Aunt Mary’s daughter, you’re my cousin, surely!” she urged.
“I’m delighted to be called cousin on any ground,” Margaret replied, making room for Daisy near her.
Armstrong leaned forward, with his warm, impressive manner. “Might I presume on that and call you ‘cousin,’ too?”
She met him lightly enough. “I confess I was only thinking of Miss Briggs at the time.”
“But one may have many cousins,” he urged.
“Yes, one does,” Miss Yale broke in dryly. “The more distant the more there are of them.” She was quite sure that Armstrong had no suspicion to whom he was talking, and as she watched the beautiful gracious woman, cool, assured, completely mistress of herself, and compared her in her own mind with that poor little “brick blond” of ten years since, ignorant, awkward, at once shy and overbold, she began to feel safer. Yet to see them together was a constant terror to her.
“But some are very near,” he pursued, and Margaret sweetly answered: “Yet many whistle in vain. I think one cousin’s enough to adopt for an evening.”
“Speaking of cousins,” said a voice outside, and Daisy sprang to the door and opened it to Gerald Battlesmith.
Mrs. Briggs began to feel ill at ease. Her function with the coffee being ended, and the music having stopped prematurely, she cast about for other means of rearranging the company. It gave her no pleasure at all to see three men apparently contented to exchange light words with Mary Yale’s too attractive daughter, and her own evidently contented with the fourth. Gerald was a good boy; she had a high esteem for him; but he would never, never do for Daisy.
She rose cheerfully. “Why do we all sit indoors this lovely evening? If our guests are not too tired I think it would be nice to go to our little summer house on the point — it is only a step. We do not always have as clear a night as this. The moonlight down the valley is entrancing!”
Several of her hearers were willing enough. Dr. Armstrong rose to his feet with a smile, and crooked an elbow. “An admirable suggestion — may I show you this special brand of moonlight, Miss Yale?”
Miss Mary Yale, who had been drawing closer to Margaret, now suddenly took his arm. “Thank you,” she said. “You are very kind,” and forthwith marched him out of the door.
Newcome and Gerald laughed merrily. “I guess he’ll give her her title next time,” the latter suggested. “Come on, Daisy.”
“My wrap, Daisy,” her mother broke in. “And Cousin Gerald — may I trouble you?” She annexed him firmly, while Newcome brought her shawl, and Daisy, piqued, sat down by Margaret.
“I’m not going a step unless we all go,” she announced.
But Margaret begged to be excused. “Pray go,” she said, “all of you. I am really a little tired and shall hope to find the moon tomorrow night.”
“We will stay with you of course, my dear young lady,” her host protested.
“Oh, no, Father — do come out. She’d like to be all alone and rest. I know just how she feels. Come on, all of you.” And Daisy seized upon her father and Dr. Newcome and bore them away, her mother following with the helpless Gerald.
It was not as Mrs. Briggs would have preferred — but it was better than it had been before.
Margaret was left alone. She sat perfectly still in her corner for a little while. For all her trained strength, her unusual agility, she had the gift of sitting still, the long sweeping lines of her figure as motionless as a statue, the strong, delicate hands quite quiet in her lap. After a moment she rose and moved to go upstairs, but stopped herself, shook her head slowly and came back.
She chose a chair before the dying fire this time, and sat there, still quiet again, gazing steadily into the dull glow of the embers, listening to the soft whisper of dropping ash, and the murmur of the wind in the pines outside.
There was a whirling excitement in Margaret’s mind, out of which one dominant idea after another thrust itself into the foremost place. Now it was Dolly, her own sweet little daughter; at last they were together to stay. The child stood out in her memory in a series of pictures, each yearly visit rising clear with its special growth and joy, and each one burnt in past forgetting in the long hungry months between. Always the happiness of being with her had the dark shadow of separation at the end — a shadow that rushed down upon her with growing swiftness as the days passed. Now she could think of her with a sense of peace. They had come home, to their own country, to live, to live together. That was a large contentment. With it was the rebellious thought that even now she could not be acknowledged in her true name — Mother. She could love the child, and win her love, but she could not claim what rightfully was hers. Dorothy thought herself an orphan — spoke of it sometimes — and here the mother’s heart ached to claim her and could not. Again she reviewed the reasons, long since established, for holding to this course, and again, with a deep sigh, accepted it as right.
“Why shouldn’t I suffer?” she asked herself, with a little wry smile. “I ought to. Anyway — I’ve got her!”
The meeting with the Briggses she had schooled herself for, and felt an easy confidence in their complete acceptance of her new position. The long years of foreign life, the familiarity with more than one language, the whole range of her experience shielded her in strangeness. Great pains had been taken in training her voice, which is so apt to betray to the ear when the eye is wholly misled, and with that special cultivation, and her careful, exquisite enunciation, there was seldom a trace of the slipshod, slangy, nasal speech of her girlhood.
Then, over her sense of confidence in this complete disguise, suddenly rushed the terror of that moment when she stood on the landing and saw Richard Armstrong not ten feet away. The sturdy strength of all the struggling years behind her was needed then — the instant shutting of the door in the face of emotion, the calling upon every faculty, and the prompt response of disciplined brain and nerves. But she shivered as she thought of it. He did not know her; she was sure of that. She had met his eyes, fairly, again and again; her own glance level and calm, courteous, but not too friendly; his with the same admiring gleam, warm, persistent, she remembered so well and had once found attractive, but without a flicker of recognition. She felt no terror, but a strange distaste.
Gerald Battlesmith had been completely dismissed as an anxiety, on their ride up the mountain. But what of Newcome? Did he? Didn’t he? He had been courtesy itself, all interest and admiration for her present place and work, wit
hout the faintest hint of knowing more. But nevertheless — did he?
Then the thought of Daisy filled her mind: a sweet, wholesome Boston girl, a little overeducated, but still natural, almost conspicuously simple and girlish in manner and good to look at and to trust. She seemed so attractive to Margaret’s eyes that she was ready to believe her so to anyone and felt a genuine terror lest Armstrong should fulfill the mother’s evident desire. That he might have done so at any time during those ten years, had he chosen, did not occur to her; or, if it did, vaguely she put it aside with the assumption that Daisy had kept him off.
There was Gerald — if he had his way the girl was safe; and modern mothers have scant powers of coercion. Still Margaret was alarmed for her, and keen to defend.
The door, which stood unlatched, opened behind her, and Henry Newcome entered. She did not hear him, so deep was her abstraction; and he stood quietly for a moment, watching her. Then he latched the door, and, as she turned, remarked:
“Your cousin sent me with a message, Dr. Yale. She says she knows you’re tired out, and too polite to admit it; says I’m to tell you — as a prescription, if you like — not to wait up for us; just slip off to bed.”
Margaret flushed with pleasure. “How good of her!” she said. “What a dear, thoughtful child!”
He came forward and dropped lazily into one of the large chairs. “She does seem young,” he admitted.
“It is so beautiful,” pursued Margaret, following her own previous thoughts. “Girlhood growing up naturally, carefree, protected — I do admire it so.”
“How about the other kind — yours?” he asked.
Margaret started — in the depths of her heart she started — but outwardly she was still.
“Mine? The ‘other kind’?” She turned him a face of simple inquiry. His reply was reassuring enough.
“Yes, the brave, strong, achieving kind. You see I’m in the same profession, and I know a little of the work you’ve had to do — and the courage it took. There isn’t a man of us but would be proud of your record — at your age.”
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 62