CHAPTER XX
When Edith's Easter vacation was over, and she went back to Mercer, shewas followed by a letter from Mrs. Houghton to Eleanor, explaining theplan for the school dormitory the following winter. But there wasanother letter, to Maurice, addressed (discreetly) to his office. It wasfrom Henry Houghton, and it was to the effect that if any "unexpectedexpenses" came along, and Maurice felt strapped because of the cessationof Edith's board, he must let Mr. Houghton know; then a suggestion as torealizing on certain securities.
"That's considerate in him," Eleanor said; "but I don't know what'unexpected expenses' we could have?"
It was a chilly April day. Maurice happened to be laid up home with asore throat; Eleanor, searching for a cook, had stopped at his officefor a lease he wanted to see, and brought back with her some mail shefound on his desk.
"I knew this letter was from Mr. Houghton, so I opened it," she said, asshe handed it to him. His instant and very sharp annoyance surprisedher. "I wouldn't open your _business_ letters," she defended herself;"but I didn't suppose you'd mind my seeing anything the Houghtons mightwrite--"
"I don't like to have any of my mail opened!" he said, briefly, his eyesraking Henry Houghton's letter, and discovering (of course!) nothing inthe fine, precise handwriting which was in the least betraying. ("Butsuppose he _had_ said what the 'unexpected expenses' might be!")
"We shall miss Edith's board," Eleanor said; "but, oh, I'll be so gladto have her go!"
Maurice was silent. "If she lives in Medfield all the time, she'll besure and run into Lily," he thought. "The devil's in it." He was in hisbedroom, wrapped up in a blanket, shivering and hot and headachy. Thechance of Edith's "running into Lily" would, of course, be even less ifshe were at Fern Hill, than it was now when she was going back and forthin the trolley every day; but he was so uncomfortable, physically, thathe didn't think of that; and his preoccupation made him blind toEleanor's hurt look.
"I am willing to have you read all _my_ letters," she said.
"I'm not willing to have you read mine!" he retorted.
"Why not?" she demanded--"unless you have secrets from me."
"Oh, Eleanor, don't be an idiot!" he said, wearily.
"I believe you _have_ secrets!" she said--and burst out crying and ranout of the room.
He called her back and apologized for his irritability; but as he gotbetter, he forgot that he had been irritable--he had something else tothink of! He must get down to the office and write to Mr. Houghton,asking him to address personal letters to a post-office box. And he madethings still safer by going out to Medfield to see Lily and give her thenumber of the box in case she, too, had occasion to write any "personal"letters, which, indeed, she very rarely had. "I say _that_ for her!"Maurice told himself. He hoped--as he always did when he had to go toMaple Street, that he would not see It--an It which had, of course, longbefore this, acquired sufficient personality to its father to bereferred to as "Jacky"; a Jacky who, in his turn, had discoveredsufficient personality in Maurice to call him "Mr. Gem'man"--acorruption of his mother's title for her very infrequent visitor, "thegentleman."
Jacky's "Mr. Gem'man" found the front door of the little house open,and, looking in, saw Lily in the parlor, mounted on a ladder, hangingwall paper. She stepped down, laughing, and moved her bucket of pasteout of his way.
"Won't you be seated?" she said. Her rosy face was beaming withartistic satisfaction; "Ain't this paper lovely?" she demanded; "it'sone of them children's papers that's all the rage now. I call it areg'lar art gallery! Look at the pants on them rabbits! It pretty nearbroke me to buy it. The swells put this kind of paper in 'nurseries,'and stick their kids off in 'em; but that ain't _me_! I put it on theparlor! Set down, won't you?"
Maurice sat down and, very much bored, listened while Lily chattered on,with stories about Jacky:
"He says to the milkman yesterday, 'I like your shirt,' he says. AndAmos--that's his name--he said, 'You can get one like it when you'regrown up like me.' And Jacky, he says--oh, just as _sad_!--I'd ratherhave it now, 'cause when I grow up, maybe I'll be a lady.'"
Maurice smiled perfunctorily.
"Ain't he the limit?" Lily demanded, proudly; "he's a reg'lar rascal! Hestuck out his tongue at the grocer's boy, yesterday, 'cause he steppedon my pansy bed. I wish you could 'a' seen him."
Maurice swallowed a yawn. "He's fresh."
"'Course," Lily said, quickly, "I gave him a smack! He's getting a goodbringing up, Mr. Curtis. I give him a cent every morning, to say hisprayers."
Maurice didn't care a copper about Jacky's manners, or his morals,either; but he said, carelessly, "A kid that's fresh is a bore."
Lily frowned. When Maurice, having explained about the letter box, gaveher the usual "present" she made her usual good-natured protest--butthis time there was more earnestness in it, and even a little sharpness."I don't need it; I've got three more mealers--well, one of 'em can'tpay me; her husband's out of work; but she don't eat more than a canary,poor thing! I can take care of Jacky _myself_."
The emphasis puzzled Jacky's father for a moment. That Lily, seeing thegrowing perfection of her handsome, naughty little boy, was becominguneasy lest Maurice might be moved to envy, never occurred to him. If ithad, he would of course have been enormously relieved; he might evenhave played upon her fear of such an impossibility to induce her to moveaway from Mercer! As it was, after listening to the account of the pansycatastrophe, he got up to go, thankful that he had not had to lay eyeson the child, whose voice he heard from the back yard.
Lily, friendly enough in spite of that moment of resentment, went to thefront door with him. She had grown rather stout in the last year or two,but she was always as shiningly clean as a rose, and her little lodginghouse was clean, too; she was indefatigably thorough--scrubbing andsweeping and dusting from morning to night! "It's good business," saidlittle Lily; "and it is just honest, too, for they pay me good!" Heronly unbusinesslike quality was a generous kindliness, which sometimesconsidered the "mealers'" purses rather than her own. She had, to besure, small outbursts of temper, when she "smacked" Jacky, or beratedher lodgers for wasting gas; but Jacky was smothered with kisses evenbefore his howls ceased, and the lodgers were placated with cookies thevery next day--but that, too, was "good business"! Her "respectability"had become a deep satisfaction to her. She occasionally referred toherself as "a perfect lady." Her feeling about "imperfect" ladies was ofmost virulent disapproval. But she had no more spirituality than a hen.Her face was as good-humored, and common, and pretty as ever; and shehad a fund of not too refined, but always funny, stories to tellMaurice; so he liked her, after a fashion, and she liked him, after afashion, too, although she was a little afraid of him; his boredpreoccupation seemed like sternness to Lily. "Grouchiness," she calledit; "probably that's why he don't take to Jacky," she thought; "well,it's lucky he don't, for he shouldn't have him!" But as Maurice, on thelittle porch, said good-by, she really wondered at his queerness in nottaking to Jacky, who, grimy and handsome, was sitting on the ground,spooning earth into an empty lard pail.
"Come in out o' the dirt, Sweety!" Lily called to him.
Jacky rose reluctantly, then stood looking, open-mouthed, at hismother's visitor.
"Say," he remarked; "I kin swear."
"You don't say so!" said Maurice.
"I kin say 'dam,'" Jacky announced, gravely.
"You are a great linguist! Who instructed you in the noble art ofprofanity?"
"Huh?" said Jacky, shyly.
"Who taught you?"
"Maw," said Jacky.
Maurice roared; Lily giggled,--"My soul and body! Listen to that child!Jacky, you naughty boy, telling wrong stories. One of these days I'mgoing to give you a reg'lar spanking." Then she stamped her foot, forJacky had settled down again in the dust; "Do you hear me? Come right inout of the dirt! That's one on me!" she confessed, laughing: then added,anxiously: "Say, Mr. Curtis, I do smack him when he says bad words;honest, I do! He's getting a _good_ bringing up, th
ough my mealers spoilhim something awful. But I'd just shake his prayers out of him, if heforgot 'em."
Maurice, still laughing, said: "Well, don't become too proficient,Jacobus. Good-by," he said again. And as he said it, Eleanor, in atrolley car, glanced out of the window and saw him.
"Why, there's Maurice!" she said; and motioned to the conductor to stop.Hunting for a cook had brought her to this impossible suburb, whereMaurice, no doubt, was trying to buy or sell a house. "I'll get out andwalk home with him," she thought, eagerly. But the car would not stopuntil the end of the second block, and when she hurried back Maurice haddisappeared. He had either gone off in another direction, or elseentered the house; but she could not remember which house!--thosegingerbread tenements were all so much alike that it was impossible tobe sure on which of the small porches she had seen her husband, and afat, common-looking woman, and a child playing in the yard. All shecould do was to wander up and down the block, looking at every frontdoor in the hope that he would appear; as he didn't, she finally tookthe next car into town.
"Did you sell the house this afternoon?" she asked Maurice at dinnerthat night; and he, remembering how part of his afternoon had beenspent, said he hadn't any particular house on the string at the moment.
"Then what took you to Medfield?" Eleanor asked, simply.
"Medfield!"
"I saw you out there this afternoon," she said; "you were talking to awoman. I supposed she was a tenant. I got off the car to walk home withyou, but I wasn't sure of the house; they were all alike."
"What were you doing in Medfield?"
"Oh, Hannah has given notice; I was hunting for a cook. I heard of oneout on Bell Street."
"Did you find her?"
"No," Eleanor said, sighing, "it's perfectly awful!"
"Too bad!" her husband sympathized.
In the parlor, after dinner, while Eleanor was getting out the cardsfor solitaire, Maurice, tingling with alarm and irritation, sat downat the piano and banged out all sorts of chords and discords. "Lily'll_have_ to move," he was saying to himself. (Bang--_Bang!_) HisImagination raced with the possibilities of what would have happenedif Eleanor had found the house which was "like all the other houses,"and heard his "good-by" to Lily, or perhaps even caught the latestaddition to Jacky's vocabulary! "The jig would have been up," he thought.(Bang--Crash!)... "She'll _have_ to move! Suppose Eleanor took it intoher head to hunt her up? She's capable of it!" (Crash!)
Eleanor's absorption in the cook she could not find kept her for nearlyforty-eight hours from speculation as to what, if not office business,took Maurice to Medfield. When she did begin to speculate she said toherself, "He doesn't tell me things about his business!" Then she wasstabbed again by his annoyance because she had opened the letter fromMr. Houghton; then by his secretiveness in regard to that adventure onthe river with Mrs. Morton. (He had told Edith!) Then this--thenthat--and by and by a tiny heap of nothings, that implied reserves. Hewasn't confidential. She told him _everything_! She never kept a thingfrom him! And he didn't even tell her why he was over in Medfield whenno real-estate matters took him there. Why should he _not_ tell her? Andwhen she said that, the inevitable answer came: He didn't tell her,because he didn't want her to know! Perhaps he had friends there? No. Nofriends of Maurice's could live in such a locality. Well, perhaps therewas some woman? Even as she said this, she was ashamed. She knew shedidn't believe it. Of course there wasn't any woman!... But, at anyrate, he had interests in Medfield that he did not tell her about. Shehinted this to him at breakfast the next morning. She had not meant tospeak of it; she knew she would be sorry if she did. Eleanor wasincapable of analysis, but she was, in her pitiful way, aware thatjealousy, _when articulate_, is almost always vulgar--perhaps becausethe decorums of breeding (which insist that, for the sake of others,one's own pain must be hidden) are not propped up by the reserves ofpride. At any rate, she was not often publicly bitter to Maurice. Thistime, however, she was.
"Apparently," she said, "Maurice has acquaintances on Maple Street whomI don't know."
"The elite," Edith remarked, facetiously; "his lovely Mrs. Dale livesthere."
Maurice's start was perceptible.
"Perhaps it was Mrs. Dale you went to see?" Eleanor said.
Maurice, trained in these years of furtiveness to self-control, said,"Does she live on Maple Street, Edith?"
"I guess so. The time I rescued her little boy and her flower pot, agesago, she was going into a house on Maple Street."
"I saw Maurice in Medfield on Thursday," said Eleanor; "and he doesn'tseem to want to say what he was doing there!"
"I am perfectly willing to tell you what I was doing," he retorted; "Iwent from our office to see the woman who rents the house."
Eleanor's slow mind accepted this entirely true and successfully falseremark with only the wonder of wounded love. "Why didn't he say that atfirst?" she thought; "why does he hide things from me?"
Maurice, however, made sure of that "hiding." Eleanor's attack upon himfrightened him so badly that that very afternoon, after office hours(Eleanor being safe in bed with a headache), he went to see Lily. Herastonishment at another visit so soon was obvious; she was still furtherastonished when he told her why he had come. He hated to tell her. Tospeak of Eleanor offended his taste--but it had to be done. So,stammering, he began--but broke off:
"Send that child away!"
"Run out in the yard, Sweety," Lily commanded.
"Won't," said Jacky.
"Clear out!" Maurice said, sharply, and Jacky obeyed like a shot--butpaused on the porch to turn the ferociously clanging doorbell round andround and round. "Well," Maurice began, "I'll tell you what'shappened... Lily! Make him stop!"
"Say, now, Jacky, stop," Lily called; but Jacky, seized apparently witha new idea, had already stopped, and was running out on to the pavement.
So again Maurice began his story. Lily's instant and sympatheticunderstanding was very reassuring. He even caught himself, under thecomfort of her quick co-operation, ranging himself with her, and saying_"we."_ "We've got to guard against anything happening, you know."
"Oh, my soul and body, yes!" Lily agreed; "it would be too bad, and nosense, either; you and me just acquaintances. 'Course I'll move, Mr.Curtis. But, there! I hate to leave my garden--and I've just paperedthis room! And I don't know where to go, either," she ended, with aworried look.
"How would you like to go to New York?" he said, eagerly.
She shook her head: "I've got a lot of friends in this neighborhood. Butthere's a two-family house on Ash Street--"
"Say," said Jacky, in the hall; "I got--"
"Oh, but you must leave Medfield!" he protested; "she"--that "she" madehim wince--"she may try to hunt you up."
"She can't. She don't know my name."
Maurice felt as if privacy were being pulled away from his soul, as skinmight be flayed from living flesh. "But you see," he began, huskily,"there's a--a girl who lives with us; and she--she mentioned your name."Then, cringing, he told her about Edith.
Lily looked blankly puzzled; then she remembered; "Why, yes, sureenough! It was right at the gate--oh, as much as four years ago; Islipped, and she grabbed Jacky. Yes; it comes back to me; she told meshe seen me the time we got ducked. 'Course, I gave her the glassy eye,and said I didn't remember the gentleman in the boat with her. And shecaught on that I lived here? Well, now, ain't the world small?"
"Damned small," Maurice said, dryly.
"Say," said Jacky, from the doorway, "I got a--"
"Well, she--I mean this young lady--told my--ah, wife that you lived onMaple Street, and--" He was stammering with angry embarrassment; Lilygave a cluck of dismay. "Confound it!" said Maurice; "what'll we do?"
"Now, don't you worry!" Lily said, cheerfully. "If she ever speaks to meagain, I'll say, 'Why, you have the advantage of me!'"
Her mincing politeness made him laugh, in spite of his irritation. "Ithink you'd like it in New York?" he urged.
Lily's amber eyes were full
of sympathy--but she was firm: "I wouldn'tlive in New York for anything!"
"Mr. Gem'man," said Jacky, sidling crabwise into the room to the shelterof his mother's skirt; "I--"
"Say, now, Sweety, be quiet! No, Mr. Curtis; I only go into real goodsociety, and I've always heard that New York ladies ain't what theyshould be. And, besides, I want a garden for Jacky. I'll tell you whatI'll do! I'll take the top flat in that house on Ash Street. It hasthree little rooms I could let. There's a widow lady's been asking me togo in on it with her; it has a garden back of it Jacky could playin--last summer there was a reg'lar hedge of golden glow inside thefence! Mr. Curtis, you'd 'a' laughed! He pinched an orange off ahand-cart yesterday, just as cute! 'Course I gave him a good slap, andpaid the man; but I had to laugh, he was so smart. And he's got goingnow, on God--since I've been paying him to say his prayers. Well, Isuppose I'll have to be going to church one of these days," she said,resignedly. "The questions he asks about God are something fierce! _I_don't know how to answer 'em. Crazy to know what God eats--I told himbad boys."
"Lily, I don't think--_Thunder and guns!_" said Maurice, leaping to hisfeet and rubbing his ankle; "Lily, call him off! The little wretch puthis teeth into me!"
Lily, horrified, slapped her son, who explained, bawling, "Well, b-b-buthe didn't let on he heard me tellin' him that I--"
"I _felt_ you," Maurice said, laughing; "Gosh, Lily! He's cut hiseyeteeth--I'll say that for him!" He poked Jacky with the toe of hisboot, good-naturedly: "Don't howl, Jacobus. Sorry I hurt your feelings.Lily, what I was going to say was, I don't believe that Ash Street placeis what you want?"
"Yes, it is. The widow lady is a dressmaker, and she has three children.We were talking about it only yesterday. Her father's feeble-minded,poor old man! I take him in some doughnuts whenever I fry 'em. Mr.Curtis, don't worry; I'll fix it, somehow! And until I get moved, Iwon't answer the bell here. Look! I'll give you a key, and you can comein without ringing if you want to."
"No--_no_! I don't want a key! I wouldn't take a key for a milliondollars!"
Lily's quick flush showed how innocent her offer had been. "I supposethat doesn't sound very high toned--to offer a gentleman a key? ButI'll tell you! I ain't giving any door keys to my house. Jacky ain'tever going to feel funny about his mother," she said, sharply.
It was on the tip of Maurice's tongue to say, "Nor about his father!"but he was silent. It was the first time his mind had articulated hispaternity, and the mere word made him dumb with disgust. Lily, however,was her kind little self again, full of promises to "clear out," andreassurances that "_she_" would never get on to it.
It was then that the grimness of the situation for Maurice lightened fora ridiculous moment. Jacky, breathing very hard, peered from behind hismother, and stretched out to Maurice an extremely dirty, tightlyclenched fist. "I got a--a pre-present for you," he explained, panting.Maurice, in a great hurry to get away, paused to put out his hand, inwhich his son placed, very gently, a slimy, half-smoked cigar. "Foundit," Jacky said, in a stertorous whisper, "in the gutter."
It was impossible not to laugh, and Maurice swallowed his impatiencelong enough to say, "Jacobus, you overwhelm me!" Then he took hisdeparture, holding the gift between a reluctant thumb and finger. "Funnylittle beggar," he said to himself, and pitched the stub into the gutterfrom which Jacky had salvaged it; he didn't look back to see his sonhanging over the palings, watching the fate of his present with strickeneyes... So it was that, when the day came that Eleanor did actuallybegin to search for what was hidden, Maple Street was empty ofpossibilities; Lily had flitted away into the secrecy of the two-familyhouse on Ash Street.
It was nearly three months before the search began. Edith had gone home,Mrs. Newbolt was at the sea-shore, and Maurice was in and out--away fortwo or three days at a time on office business, and when at home absentalmost every evening with some of those youthful acquaintances whoseemed ignorant of Eleanor's existence. So there were long hours when,except for her little old dog, she was entirely alone--alone, to broodover Maurice's queer look when she had accused him of having an"acquaintance on Maple Street"; and by and by she said, "I'll find outwho it is!" Yet she had moments of trying to tear from her mind the ideaof any concealment, because the mere suspicion was an insult to Maurice!She had occasional high moments of saying, "I _won't_ think he hassecrets from me; I'll trust him." But still, because suspicion is thediversion of an empty mind, she played with it, as one might play with adagger, careful only not to let it touch the quick of belief. After awhile she deluded herself into thinking that, to exonerate Maurice, shemust prove the suspicion false! It was only fair to him to do that. Soshe must find the woman whom she had seen on the porch with him. If shewasn't Mrs. Dale, that would "prove" that everything was all right, andthat Maurice's presence there only meant that he was attending to officebusiness; nothing to be jealous about in _that_! And if the woman _was_Mrs. Dale? Eleanor's throat contracted so sharply that she gasped. Butagain and again she put off the search for the exonerating proof--forshe was ashamed of herself, "I'll do it to-morrow." ... "I'll do it nextweek."
It was a scorching, windy July day when she took her first defiling stepand "did it." There had been a breakfast-table discussion of a vacationat Green Hill, the usual invitation having been received.
"Do go," Maurice had urged. "I'll do what I did last year--hang aroundhere, and go to the ball games, and come up to Green Hill for Sundays."He was acutely anxious to have her go.
She was silent. "_Why_ does he want to be alone?" she thought;"why--unless he goes over to Medfield?" Then, in sudden decision, shesaid to herself, "I will find out why, to-day!" But she was afraid thatMaurice would, somehow, guess what she was going to do; so, to throw himquite off the track, she told him that Donny O'Brien was sick again; "Imust go and see him this morning," she said.
Maurice, reading the sports page of the morning paper, said, "Too bad!"and went on reading. He had no interest in his wife's movements; thetwo-family house on Ash Street was beyond her range!
An hour later, Eleanor, giving Bingo a cooky to console him for beingleft at home, started out into the blazing heat, saying to herself:"I'll recognize her the minute I see her. Of course I _know_ she isn'tthe Dale woman, but I want to _prove_ that she isn't!"
Her plan was to ring the bell at every one of the gingerbread houses onthat block on Maple Street, and ask if Mrs. Dale lived there? If she wasnot to be found, that would prove that Maurice had not gone to see her.If she was found, why, then--well, then Eleanor would say that she hadheard that the house was in the market? If Mrs. Dale said it was not,that would show that it wasn't "office business" which had broughtMaurice to that porch!
On Maple Street the heat blazed up from the untidy pavement, and a harshwind was whirling little spirals of dust up and down the dry gutter.Eleanor's heart was beating so smotheringly that when her first ring wasanswered she could scarcely speak: "Does Mrs. Dale live here?"
"No," said the girl who opened the door, "there ain't nobody by thatname livin' here."
And at the next door: "Mrs. Dale? No. This is Mrs. Mahoney's house."
It was at the sixth house, where some dusty pansies were drying upunder the little bay window, that a woman whose red, soapy hands hadjust left the wash tub, said:
"Some folks with that name lived here before I took the house. But theymoved away. She was real nice; used to give candy to the children roundhere. She was a widow lady. She told me her husband's name was Joseph.Was it her you was looking for?"
"I don't know her husband's name," Eleanor said.
"Her baby had measles when mine did," the woman went on; "I lived acrossthe street, then. But I took a fancy to the house, because she'd paperedthe parlor so handsome, so I moved in the first of May, when she gotout."
A little cold, prickling thrill ran down Eleanor's back. She had toldherself that "Maurice had a secret"; but she had not really believedthat the secret was about Mrs. Dale. She had been sure, in the bottom ofher heart, that she w
ould be able to "prove" that the woman he had beentalking to that day was not Mrs. Dale.
Now, she had proved--that she was.
Eleanor swayed a little, and put her hand out to clutch at the porchrailing. The woman exclaimed:
"Come in and sit down! I'll get you a glass of water."
Eleanor followed her into the kitchen and sat down on a wooden chair.She was silent, but she whitened slowly. The mistress of the house,scared at her pallor, ran to draw a tumbler of water from the faucet inthe sink; she held it to Eleanor's lips, apologizing for her wet hands:
"I was tryin' to get my wash out.... Where do you feel bad?"
"It's so hot, that's all," Eleanor said, faintly: "I--I'm notill--thank you very much." She tried to smile, but the ruthless glare ofsunshine through the open kitchen door showed her face strained, as ifin physical suffering.
"I'm awfully sorry I can't tell you where Mrs. Dale lives," the womansaid, sympathetically. "Was she a friend of yours?" Eleanor shook herhead. "There! I'll tell you who maybe could tell you--the doctor. Hetook care of her baby. Doctor Nelson--"
"Nelson!"
"He's the hospital doctor now. Why don't you ask him?"
"Thank you," said Eleanor vaguely. She rose, saying she felt better andwas much obliged. Then she went out on to the porch, and down the brokensteps to the windy scorching street.
She was certain: Maurice had gone to Medfield to see Mrs. Dale...
_Why?_
She was quite calm, so calm that she found herself thinking that she hadforgotten to get an yeast cake for Mary. "I'll get it as I go home," shethought. But as she stood waiting for the car it occurred to her thatshe had better think things out before she went home. Better not seeMaurice until she had decided just how she should tell him that therewas no use having secrets from her! That she _knew_ he was seeing Mrs.Dale! Then he would have to tell her _why_ he was seeing her... Therecould be only one reason... For a moment she was suffocated by that"reason"! She let the returning car pass, and signaled the one going outinto the country; she would go, she told herself, to the end of theroute, and by that time she would know what to do. The car was crowded,but a kindly faced young woman rose and offered her a seat. Eleanordeclined it, although her knees were trembling.
"Oh, do take it!" the woman urged, pleasantly, and Eleanor could notresist sinking into it.
"You are very kind," she said, smiling faintly.
The woman smiled, too, and said, "Well, I always think what I'd likeanyone to do for my mother, if _she_ couldn't get a seat in a car! Iguess you're about her age."
Eleanor hardly heard her; she sat staring out of the window--staring atthat same landscape on which she and Maurice had gazed in the unseeingecstasy of their fifty-four minutes of married life! "He said we wouldcome back in fifty years--not by ourselves." As she said that, a thoughtstabbed her! _There was a child that day, in the yard!_
When she saw that the car was approaching the end of the route, shethought of the locust tree, and the blossoming grass, and the whisperingriver. "I'll go there, and think," she said.
"All out!" said the conductor; and she rose and walked, stumbling onceor twice, and with one hand outstretched, as if--in the dazzling Julyday--she had to feel her way in an enveloping darkness. She went downthe country road, where the bordering weeds were white with dust, towardthat field of young love, and clover, and blue sky.
When she reached the river, curving around the meadow, brown and shallowin the midsummer droughts, she saw that the big locust was long pastblossoming, but some elderberry bushes, in full bloom, made the airheavy with acrid perfume; the grass, starred by daisies, and with hereand there a clump of black-eyed Susans, was ready for mowing, and wastugging at its anchoring roots, blowing, and bending, and rippling inthe wind, just as it had that other day!... "And I sat right here, bythe tree," she said, "and he lay there--I remember the exact place. Andhe took my hand--"
Her mind whirled like a merry-go-round: "Well, I knew he was hidingsomething. I wish I had seen Doctor Nelson, and asked him where shelives. I wonder if he's the Mortons' friend?... If I don't get thatyeast cake to Mary before lunch, she can't set the rolls.... Edith sawher with a child five years ago. Why"--her mind stumbled still fartherback--"why, the very day Edith arrived in Mercer, Maurice had beenlooking at some house in Medfield, where the tenant had a sick child.That was why he was late in meeting Mrs. Houghton!... The child hadmeasles. I wish I had gone to see Doctor Nelson! Then I would haveknown.... I can get some rolls at the bakery, and Mary needn't set themfor dinner. I sang 'O Spring.'" She put her hands over her face, butthere were no tears. "He kissed the earth, he was so happy. When did hestop being happy? What made him stop?... I wonder if there are anysnakes here?--Oh, I _must_ think what to do!" Again her mind flew off atso violent a tangent that she felt dizzy. "I didn't tell Mary what tohave for dinner.... He gave her his coat, that time when the boatupset.... She was all painted, he said so." She picked three strands ofgrass and began to braid them together: "He did that; he made the ring,and put it over my wedding ring." Mechanically she opened herpocketbook, and took out the little envelope, shabby now, with years ofbeing carried there. She lifted the flap, and looked at the crumblingcircle. Then she put it back again, carefully, and went on with hertoilsome thinking: "I'll tell him I know that he went to see the Dalewoman. ... He said we had been married fifty-four minutes. It's eightyears and one month. He thinks I'm old. Well, I am. That woman in thecar thought I was her mother's age, and _she_ must have been thirty! Whydid he stop loving me? He hates Mary's cooking. He said Edith could makesoup out of a paving stone and a blade of grass. Edith is rude to meabout music, and he doesn't mind! How vulgar girls are, nowadays. Oh--I_hate_ her!... Mary'll give notice if I say anything about her soup."
Suddenly through this welter of anger and despair a small, confusedthought struggled up; it was so unexpected that she actually gasped: Hehadn't quite lied to her! "There _was_ office business!" Somereal-estate transfer must have been put through, because--"Mrs. Dale hadmoved"! In her relief, Eleanor burst into violent crying; he had not_entirely_ lied! To be sure, he didn't say that the woman whom he hadgone "from the office" to see, the woman who rented the house, was Mrs.Dale; in that, he had not been frank; he kept the name back--but thatwas only a reserve! Only a harmless secrecy. There was nothing _wrong_in renting a house to the Dale woman! As Eleanor said this to herself,it was as if cool water flowed over flame-licked flesh. Yes; he didn'ttalk to her as he did to Edith of business matters; he didn't tell herabout real-estate transactions; but that didn't mean that the Dale womanwas anything to him! She was crying hard, now; "He just isn't frank,that's all." She could bear _that_; it was cruel, but she could bear it!And it was a protection to Maurice, too; it saved him from the slur ofbeing suspected. "Oh, I am ashamed to have suspected him!" she thought;"how dreadful in me! But I've proved that I was wrong." When she saidthat she knew, in a numb way, that after this she must not play with thedagger of an unbelieved suspicion. She recognized that this sort ofthing may be a mental diversion--but it is dangerous. If she allowedherself to do it again, she might really be stabbed; she might lose thesaving certainty that he had not lied to her--that he had only been "notfrank."
Suddenly she remembered how unwilling he had been, years ago, to talk ofthe creature to her! She smiled faintly at his foolishness. Perhaps hedidn't want to talk of her now? Men are so absurd about their wives! Herheart thrilled at such precious absurdity. As for seeing that doctor--ofcourse she wouldn't see him! She didn't _need_ to see him. And, anyhow,she wouldn't, for anything in the world, have him, or anybody else,suppose that she had had even a thought that Maurice wasn't--all right!"He just wasn't quite frank; that was all." ... Oh, she had been wickedto suspect him! "He would never forgive me if he knew I had thought ofsuch a thing, He must never know it."
In the comfort of her own remorse, and the reassurance of his halffrankness, she walked back to the station and waited, in the middayheat, for the returning car. Her head had begu
n to ache, but she said toherself that she must not disappoint little Donny. So she went, in theblazing sun, to the old washerwoman's house, climbed three flights ofstairs, and found the boy in bed, flushed with worry for fear "MissEleanor" wasn't coming. She took the little feeble body in her arms,and sat down in the steamy kitchen by an open window, where Donny couldsee, on the clothes lines that stretched like gigantic spiderwebs acrossa narrow courtyard, shirts and drawers, flapping and kicking andbellying in the high, hot wind. She talked to him, and said that if hisgrandmother would hire a piano, she would give him music lessons;--andall the while her sore mind was wondering how old the mother of thatwoman in the car was? Then she sang to Donny--little merry, silly songsthat made him smile:
"The King of France,And forty thousand men,Marched up a hill--"
She stopped short; Edith had thrown "The King of France" at her, thatday of the picnic, when she had cringed away from the water and theslimy stones, and climbed up on the bank where she had been told to"guard the girl's shoes and stockings"! "Oh, I'll be so glad to get herand her 'brains' out of the house!" Eleanor thought. But her voice,lovely still, though fraying with the years--went on:
"Marched up a hill--_And then marched down again_!"
When, with a splitting headache, she toiled home through the heat, shesaid to herself: "He ought to have been frank, and told me the woman wasMrs. Dale; I wouldn't have minded, for I know such a person couldn'thave interested him. She had no figure, and she looked stupid. Hecouldn't have said _she_ had 'brains'! That girl in the car wasimpertinent."
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