Life at High Tide Part 12

"I'll name her Hope," she said.

When Hope was two months old she began her mission, and when she had reached six months Blake was vying with Charlotte in his devotion to her. He even plucked up a little interest in his business; sometimes he talked over his place with his wife, and the words which had pa.s.sed between them over the naming of the child, though unforgotten, seemed so far in the past that Charlotte's courage strengthened with each day. The sense of security which had marked the first months of her married life did not return, but she could feel herself making a strong fight against fate to hold what she had, and, if she were never entirely certain of the issue, at least she fought with the obstinacy which has no knowledge of yielding. Sometimes even her love for Blake seemed to lose itself in this obstinacy, and her tenderness towards her child seemed the only womanly sentiment left in her; but more often her love for her husband mounted high and unmixed above the other feelings as the tremendous, inexplicable pa.s.sion of her life.

Hope's attainment of six months was marked by an unusual display of energy on the part of Blake. The first cold weather of autumn had come, and when the house doors were closed, Charlotte was surprised to hear her husband declare that the sitting-room, where the baby would spend most of her time in winter, was poorly lighted, and needed to have a gla.s.s door subst.i.tuted for the wooden one which opened on to the front porch. Still more to her surprise, the door was delivered from an adjoining town the next day, and on the following morning Blake rose earlier than usual and hung it before going down to his store. It was the first time he had lifted his hand towards the improvement of Charlotte's house.

He whistled boyishly while he measured and fitted in the hinges, and when it came to holding the door while the hinges were screwed in place, he called to Charlotte. She came, with lips as usual closed very tight, but with cheeks flushed very pink, and when the work was finished she was so atremble that she had to sit down for a moment before she could put breakfast on the table.

To give a reason for the delay, she kept looking at the door. "The room, is perfect now," she said.

Blake swung the new acquisition back and forth, and latched it once or twice to make sure that it was perfectly adjusted. When he was satisfied he glanced at his wife.

"It will give our baby the sunlight," he said, and their eyes met for a moment.

All that day, whenever Charlotte could bring her work into the sitting-room, she sat facing the gla.s.s door. She was not exactly happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate tension, and if the shadow of a cloud pa.s.sed, even if a red leaf fell outside, she looked out expectantly through the door.

It was middle afternoon when, on looking up, she saw a young woman crossing the porch, leading a little child. Charlotte jumped to her feet, then reseated herself and waited for the tap on the gla.s.s. The visitors were strangers to her, and though she could not have told why, as she sat staring at them through the door, her mouth suddenly set into the lines of indomitable obstinacy which had grown so deep around it in the past three years. When she finally crossed the room to open the door, she walked slowly and deliberately, as if she had some definite purpose in mind and meant to accomplish it.

The woman on the outside was the first to speak. "Does Mr. Emory Blake live here?" she asked.

"He does. I am his wife. What can I do for you?" asked Charlotte.

The woman gave a little cry and drew back. "Oh no!" she said, breathlessly.

Charlotte stood, white and stiff and silent, while the other looked about her in a despairing helplessness. She was a frail-looking woman, worn with fatigue and the excited emotions with which timidity spurs itself to action. She looked as if she longed to sit down somewhere, and as if perhaps she could have more courage seated, but Charlotte made no motion to invite her to enter. After a while the newcomer brought her frightened eyes back to the set face in the doorway.

"I am so sorry for you," she said, timidly. "I am his wife."

A shiver of resentment ran convulsively through Charlotte's muscles.

"You can be sorry for yourself," she said, roughly.

"But he married me while he was at the school of pharmacy," the other cried, weakly. "I was Nettie Trent. I clerked, and I boarded where he did, and we fell in love and married. He told me about you. You are Charlotte Hastings, aren't you, that wanted to marry him before he left home?"

Charlotte moved her dry lips soundlessly once or twice before she could speak. Then her masterful spirit rose to a new task. She drew herself up and looked down gravely, almost compa.s.sionately, upon the woman who had been Nettie Trent.

"I was Charlotte Hastings before my marriage," she said. "I am sorry to be the one to hurt you, but you have been cruelly treated. I was married to Emory Blake before he left home for the school."

The smaller woman gave a little gasp and stood silent, while Charlotte, with the fire in her veins scorching her cheeks and eyes and almost smothering her breath, waited for her to offer some resistance, to a.s.sert her own claim, or to ask for proof of the statement which denied it; but Nettie said nothing, and after a moment her gaze dropped from Charlotte's and she began to sob. Charlotte took her by the hand and led her into the room.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Nettie sat with her face buried in her hands. On one side her child tugged at her dress; on the other, little Hope slept in her cradle. Charlotte stood pale and tall, watching all three.

At last Nettie looked up. "I suppose you think I ought to hate him--now I've found out," she said, "but I don't; I just can't. When we were together he was so sweet to me. I don't think he meant to harm me. He must have thought it would come out all right somehow."

"If I were in your place," Charlotte said, slowly, "I should hate him."

Nettie wiped her eyes and drew her child up into her arms. "But what he did was almost as bad for you as it was for me," she urged, "and you don't hate him."

Charlotte turned suddenly and walked to her own baby's cradle. "Oh, I don't know," she said, in a low voice.

After a moment she came back and sat down. "I must ask you some questions," she said, gravely. "Is this your only child?"

The young woman nodded. Her lips were quivering. "Named Dorcas," she said, brokenly,--"for his mother."

Charlotte flushed and the lines about her lips deepened. "Does he--provide for you?" she asked.

The other nodded once more. "He sends me money once in a while. I wrote him not to worry when he didn't have it. I'm clerking again."

Charlotte made no comment. She was thinking how strange it was that this other woman, who was a frail, poor-spirited thing, should be ready to support herself and child out of love for Blake. In Charlotte's mind, which was pitilessly clear and active, there was room for a pa.s.sing wonder at the mysterious power which so weak a man could exert over women, even without his will. She was wondering, too, if her own pa.s.sion for him would ever rise again. At present she was far from loving him; she felt only a bitter resentment, a desire to punish him by holding to him, and a towering obstinacy and pride which refused to be set at fault and put to shame. While she was boldly examining and a.n.a.lyzing herself she glanced at the clock to see how long before he could possibly return; the time was ample, and she continued to sit silent. Presently her baby woke, and she rose and went to it.

As she lifted it from its cradle, Nettie started up and came towards her. Hope hid her face against her mother's neck, but after an instant turned shyly to steal a glance at the stranger.

Nettie sat down again, trembling. "Your baby is like him," she said.

"Very like him," Charlotte answered, and as the baby nestled up to her again, she dropped her cheek against it and tears came into her eyes--scalding tears that seemed to sear their way up from the depths of her heart.

Suddenly the other wife leaned forward, eagerly suspicious. "You have no other children--_older_?" she asked.

Charlotte looked round blankly, her eyes still wet. "_Other_ children?" she echoed, but Nettie's sharpened face brought her to herself. She wiped her eyes on Hope's dress. "I lost--a child," she said.

"Oh," Nettie murmured, "I'm sorry I asked you. It was older than Dorcas?"

Charlotte stood at bay, with her child strained close to her. She nodded.

"Oh!" Nettie murmured again, in a shaken voice. She looked at Charlotte in despairing envy. "What is this baby named?" she asked.

"This one," Charlotte answered, "we call Hope."

She seated herself and began trotting the child to a slow measure.

There were still a few questions which she wished to ask, but the other's simple acceptance of all she said inspired her with cool deliberation. There was plenty of time, and she wished to make no mistake. She must be sure of her own safety, and after that she must do anything she could for the comfort of the other woman. It would probably be very little.

"How did you get here?" she inquired, finally. "You must have asked somebody where Mr. Blake lived."

"No, I didn't have to ask. He'd written me he was boarding with a woman that lived on his old place," Nettie said, "and I knew where that was because he'd often told me all about where he grew up and just the road he used to take from the station to the house, and I remembered every word of it. I didn't like to go to him at his store for fear there would be loafers around, so I came right to his house.

I thought I wouldn't mind telling the woman that I was his wife, if she asked me any questions while I waited for him."

"You were very wise," Charlotte said, dryly.

Nettie settled back in her chair, rocking her little girl, who had grown restless and impatient, and as she rocked she began to pour out her heart. "You must think queer of me to sit down here with you like this and not to be in a rush to go," she began, "but I feel like I've got to sit still and--and kind of get my breath before I can start out. I've been so afraid of it that it doesn't seem like I ought to be surprised, but I tell you it pretty near kills me now I know it for sure." She paused and stroked a stray lock of hair away from her child's eyes. "My baby's like him, too," she said, irrelevantly. "My baby's just as like him as yours is."

Charlotte glanced again at the clock. "How do your friends treat you?"

she asked, abruptly. "Do they believe you were really married or not?"

A bright flush sprang over Nettie's face. "They believed it at first, of course, just the way I did," she answered, quickly, "but lately they've been suspecting something. It was what they said made me get uneasy. I don't distrust folks right quick myself."

"And none of them tried to make inquiries for you?"--Charlotte put the question seriously, all her nerves tight strung.

"Oh no," Nettie said. "I don't have any family or any friends close enough to me to take trouble like that."

"And I presume you're glad now that they didn't," Charlotte said. "In your place I'd rather find it out for myself."