The Vehement Flame Part 55

"Mrs. Newbolt," said Maurice, pausing in his tramping up and down the room; "why did Eleanor go out to Medfield?"

"Perhaps she was lookin' for a cook! I--I think I'll go to bed!" said Mrs. Newbolt--and almost ran out of the room.

Maurice looked down at Mrs. Houghton, and laughed, grimly: "You might as well tell me?"

"My dear fellow, we have nothing to tell! We don't know anything--except that Eleanor has added to her cold, and is very nervous," She paused; could she give him an idea of the extent of Eleanor's "nervousness," and yet not tell him what they all felt sure of? "Why, Maurice," she said; "just to show you how hysterical Eleanor is, she told me--" Mrs.

Houghton dropped her voice, and looked toward the dining-room door; but Mrs. Newbolt's ponderous step made itself heard overhead. "She said--Oh, Maurice, this is too foolish to repeat; but it just shows how Eleanor loves you. She implied that she didn't want to get well, so that you could--could get the little boy, by marrying his mother!"

Maurice sat down and stared at her, open-mouthed. "_Marry?_ I, marry Lily?" He actually gasped under the impact of a perfectly new idea; then he said, very softly, "Good G.o.d."

Mrs. Houghton nodded. "Her one thought," she said (praying that, without breaking her word to Eleanor, and betraying what was so terribly Eleanor's own affair, she might make Maurice's heart so ready for the pathos that he would not be repelled by the folly), "her one desire is that you should have your little boy."

Maurice walked over to the fireplace and kicked two charred pieces of wood together between the fire irons. In the crash of Mary Houghton's calm words, the rhythm of the wheels was permanently silenced.

It was about four o'clock the next morning that the change came: Eleanor had a violent chill.

"I thought we were out of the woods," the doctor said, frowning; "but I guess I was too previous. There's a spot in the left lung, Mr. Curtis."

CHAPTER x.x.xVI

When Maurice saw his wife the next morning, it was with Mrs. Houghton's warning--emphasized by the presence of a nurse--that he must not excite her. So he sat at her bedside and told her about his trip, and how he had got ahead of the Greenleaf heirs, and how he rushed back to Mercer the minute those dispatches came saying that she was ill--and he never asked her why she was ill, or what took her out to the river in the cold dusk of that March afternoon. She didn't try to tell him. She was very warm and drowsy--and she held in her hand, under the bedclothes, that letter which proved how much she loved him, and which, some time, when she got well, she would show him. All that day the household outside her closed door was very much upset; but Eleanor, in the big bed, was perfectly placid. She lay mere watching the tarnished gilt pendulum swing between the black pillars of the clock on the mantelpiece, thinking--thinking. "You'll be all right to-morrow!" Maurice would say; and she would smile silently and go on thinking. "When I get well," she thought, "I will do--so and so." By and by, still with the letter clutched in her hot hand, she began to say to herself, "_If_ I get well." She had ceased worrying over how she was going to explain the "accident" to Maurice; that _"if"_ left a door open into eternal reticence. So, instead of worrying, she made plans for Jacky: "He must see a dentist," she told Maurice. On the third day she stopped saying, "_If_ I get well," and thought, "When I die." She said it very tranquilly, "When I die Maurice must get him a bicycle." She thought of this happily, for dying meant that she had not failed. She would not be ridiculous to Maurice--she would be his wife, giving him a child--a son! So she lay with her eyes closed, thinking of the bicycle and many little, pleasant things; and with the old, slipping inexactness of mind she told herself that she had not "done anything wrong"; she had _not_ drowned herself! She had just caught a bad cold. But she would die, and Maurice would love her for giving him Jacky. Toward evening, however, an uneasy thought came to her: if Maurice knew that, to give him Jacky, she had even tried to get drowned, it might distress him? She wished she hadn't written the letter! It would hurt him to see it.... Well, but he _needn't_ see it! She held out the crumpled envelope. "Miss Ryan," she said to the nurse, huskily, "please burn this."

"Yes, indeed!" said Miss Ryan....

There was a burst of flame in the fireplace, and the little, pitiful letter, with its selfishness and pain and sacrifice, vanished--as Lily's handkerchief had vanished, and the braided ring of blossoming gra.s.s--all gone, as the sparks that fly upward. n.o.body could ever know the scented humiliation of the handkerchief, or the agony of the faded ring, or the renouncing love which had written the poor foolish letter. Maurice wouldn't be pained. As for her gift to him of Jacky, she would just tell him she wanted him to marry Lily, so he could have his child.... And Edith? Oh, he would never think of Edith!

So she was very peaceful until, the next day, she heard Edith's voice in the hall, then she frowned. "She's here! In the house with him!

Don't let her come in," she told Maurice; "she takes my breath." But, somehow, she couldn't help thinking of Edith.... "That morning in the garden she cried," Eleanor thought. It was strange to think of tears in those clear, careless eyes. "I never supposed she _could_ cry. I've cried a good deal. Men don't like tears." And there had been tears in Edith's eyes when she came in and sat on the bed and said she was "unhappy...." "She believed," Eleanor meditated, her own eyes closed, "that it was because of _her_ that I went out to the river." She was faintly sorry that Edith should reproach herself. "I didn't do it because she made me angry; I did it to make Maurice happy. I almost wish she knew that." Perhaps it was this vague regret that made her remember Edith's a.s.sertion that she would do "anything on earth" to keep Maurice from marrying Lily. "But that's the only way he can be sure of getting Jacky," Eleanor argued to herself, her mind clearing into helpless perplexity--"and it's the only way to keep him from Edith. But I wish Lily wasn't so vulgar. Maurice won't like living with her." Suddenly she said, "Maurice, do send the nurse out of the room. I want to tell you something, darling." She was very hoa.r.s.e.

"Better not talk, dear," he said, anxiously.

She smiled and shook her head. "I just want to tell you: I don't mind not getting well, because then you'll marry Lily."

"Eleanor! Don't--don't--"

"And you can give little Jacky the kind of home he ought to have."

She drowsed. Maurice sat beside her with his face buried in his hands.

When she awoke, at dusk, she lay peacefully watching the firelight flickering on the ceiling, and, thinking--thinking. Then, into her peace, broke again the memory of Edith's distress. "Perhaps I ought to tell her that I went to the river for Maurice's sake? _Not_ because I was angry at her." She thought of Edith's tears, and said, "Poor Edith--" And when she said that a strange thing happened: pity, like a soft breath, blew out the vehement flame. It is always so; pity and jealousy are never together....

The next morning she remembered her words about Jacky--"the kind of home he ought to have"--and again uneasiness as to the kind of "home" it would be for Maurice rose in her mind. Her head whirled with worry. "It won't be pleasant for him to live with her, even if she can cook. He loves that chocolate cake; but he couldn't bear her grammar. Edith said I was 'unkind' to him. Am I? I suppose she thought he'd be happier with her? Would he? _She_ can make that cake, too. Yes; he would be happier with her than with Lily;--and Jacky would call her 'Mother,"' Then she forgot Edith.

After a while she said: "Maurice, can't I see Jacky? Go get him! And give Lily the car fare."

Maurice went downstairs and called Mrs. Houghton out of the parlor; in the hall he said: "I think Eleanor's sort of mixed up. She is talking about 'Lily's car fare'! What do you suppose she means? Is she--delirious? And then she says she 'wants to see Jacky.' What must I do?"

"Go and get him," she said.

For a bewildered minute he hesitated. If Mrs. Newbolt should see Jacky, she ... would _know_! And Edith ... would she suspect? Still he went--like a man in a dream. As he got off the car, a block from Lily's door, a glimpse of the far-off end of the route where "Eleanor's meadow"

lay, made his purpose still more dreamlike. But he was abruptly direct with Lily: he had come, he said, to tell her that his wife wanted--

"My soul and body!" she broke in; "if she's sent you--" They were in the dining room, Maurice so pale that Lily, in real alarm, had put her hand on his arm and made him sit down. But she was angry. "Has she got on to that again?"

His questioning bewilderment brought her explanation.

"She didn't tell you she'd been here? Well, I promised her I wouldn't give her away to you, and I _wouldn't_,--but so long as she's sent you, now, there's no harm, I guess, telling you?" So she told him. "What possessed you to let on to her?" she ended. She was puzzled at his folly, but she was sympathetic, too. "I suppose she ragged it out of you?"

Maurice had listened, silently, his elbow on his knee, his fist hard against his mouth; he did not try to tell her why he had "let on"; he could not say that he wanted to defend his son from such a mother; still less could he make clear to her that Eleanor had not "ragged it out of him," but that, to his famished pa.s.sion for truth, confession had been the Bread of Life. He looked at her once or twice as she talked; pretty, yet; kindly, coa.r.s.e, honest--and Eleanor had supposed that he would marry her! Then, sharply, his mind pictured that scene: his wife, his poor, frightened old Eleanor, pleading for the gift of Jacky! And Lily--young, arrogant, kind.... The pain of it made his pa.s.sion of pity so like love that the tears stood in his eyes. "Oh, she _mustn't_ die,"

he thought; "I won't let her die!"

When Lily had finished her story he told her his, very briefly: his wife's forgiveness of his unfaithfulness; her desire to do all she could for Jacky: "Help me--I mean help you--to make a man of him, because she loves me. Heaven knows I'm not worthy of it."

Lily gulped. "She ain't young; but, my G.o.d, she's some woman!" She threw her ap.r.o.n over her face and cried hard; then stopped and wiped her eyes.

"She wants to see him, does she? Well, you bet she shall see him! I'll get him; he's playing in at Mr. Dennett's--he's all on being an undertaker now. Mr. Dennett's a Funeral Pomps Director. But he's got to put on his new suit." She ran out on to the porch, and Maurice could hear the colloquy across the fence: "You come in the house, quick!"

"Won't. We're going to in-in-inter a hen."

"Yes, you will! You're going to put on your new suit and go and see a lady--"

"Lady? Not on your life."

"It's Mr. Curtis wants you--" Then Jacky's yell, "_Mr. Curtis?_" and a dash up the back steps and into the dining room--then, silent, grimy adoration!

Maurice gave his orders. "Change your clothes, young man. I'll bring him back, Lily, as soon as she's seen him."

While he waited for the new suit Maurice walked up and down the little room, round and round the table, where on a turkey-red cloth a hideous hammered bra.s.s bowl held some lovely maidenhair ferns. The vision of Eleanor abasing herself to Lily was unendurable. To drive it from his mind, he went to the window and stood looking out through the fragrant greenness of rose geraniums, into the squalid street where the offspring of the Funeral Pomps Director were fighting over the dead hen; from the bathroom came the sound of a sputtering gush from the hot-water faucet; then splashes and whining protests, and maternal adjurations: "You got to look decent! I _will_ wash behind your ears. You're the worst boy on the street!"

"Eleanor tried to save him," he thought; "she came here, and begged for him!"

Above the bathroom noises came Lily's voice, sharp with efficiency, but shaking with pity and a quick-hearted purpose of helping: "Say, Mr.

Curtis! Could she eat some fresh doughnuts? (Jacky, if you don't stand still I'll give you a regular spanking! I _didn't_ put soap in your eyes!) If she can, I'll fry some for her to-morrow."

Maurice, tramping back and forth, made no answer; he was saying to himself, "If she'll just live, I will make her happy! Oh, she _must_ live!" It was then that, suddenly, agonizingly, in the midst of splashings, and Jacky's whines, and Lily's anxiety about soap and doughnuts, Maurice Curtis prayed ...

He did not know it was prayer; it was just a cry: "Do something--oh, _do_ something! _Do you hear me?_ She tried so hard to save Jacky. Make her get well!" So it was that, in his selfless cry for happiness for Eleanor, Maurice found all those differing realizations--Joy, and Law, and Life, and Love--and lo! they were one--a personality! G.o.d. In his frantic words he established a relationship with _Him_--not It, any longer! "Please, please make her get well," he begged, humbly.

At that moment, at the door of the dining room, appeared an immaculate Jacky in his new suit, his face shining with bliss and soap. He came and stood beside Maurice, waiting his monarch's orders, and listening, without comprehension, to the conversation:

"Nothing will be said to him that will ... give anything away. She just wants to see him. His presence in the room--"

Jacky gave a little leap. "Did you say _presents_!"

"--his merely being there will please her. She loves him, Lily. You see, she's always wanted children, and--we've never had any."