XXVI
It was late the next morning when Nannie awoke, and Lucy had already combed her own hair and arranged herself for the day. Dr. Hamilton came in before Mrs. Merwent was dressed and there was a scurrying when she ran to her own room as she heard him on the stairs.
“You will be all right, now, Mrs. Winter,” he announced, after listening to her heart. “I advise you, however, to spend a few days in bed so as to insure against a repetition of this business. I won’t come any more unless you need me.” He turned to John, who stood by the bed. “You use your marital authority and make her keep still, Mr. Winter.”
“All right, Doctor,” promised John.
When John was ready to leave for the office he came in, hat in hand, and stood by Lucy’s bed.
“Goodbye, Lucy. I’m going down town.”
“Goodbye,” she answered listlessly.
After looking at her a moment, he went out. He reached the office later than usual.
“Anything wrong?” inquired Jim, looking up from his desk as John entered.
“Lucy’s not very well.” John hung up his coat and stood by his desk, fitting a pen into a holder.
Jim watched his face with growing anxiety.
“She’s not seriously sick, is she?” Jim tried to control his voice but it was unsteady in spite of him.
“I don’t know,” John answered, his eyes on what he was doing.
Jim said no more, but he remained a long time eyeing the plan of a building before him, his pencil idle in his hand. After a time, he rose.
“I’m going to dictate a letter to Miss Burns,” he remarked, referring to the public stenographer whose office was only a few doors down the hall.
Jim went to Miss Burns’ room but, finding her occupied, paced the corridor for a quarter of an hour or more. When he finally went back to John his manner displayed none of the agitation which had been apparent while he was alone.
“I’m going out to Rosedene with you tonight, if you don’t mind, John. I’m worried about what you say about Lucy,” he announced as he reseated himself and began to work.
John hesitated perceptibly before he replied.
“All right,” he conceded somewhat ungraciously.
At one o’clock Katy brought up Lucy’s luncheon. During the course of the morning Mrs. Merwent had been to the bedroom several times to make inquiries regarding her daughter’s condition, but Lucy, a cloth wet with eau de cologne on her forehead, her eyes closed defensively, had made barely audible replies to her mother’s interrogations. Nannie, on these occasions, patted the bed clothes, raised and lowered the window shades, and set to rights Lucy’s bureau and washstand, but, finding no further excuses for lingering, was finally obliged to leave the invalid in peace.
When Nannie reentered the room early in the afternoon Lucy started to rise.
“Don’t get up. I only wanted to ask you a question,” began Nannie. “Why, Lucy, you have been crying again.”
“I still have a very bad headache,” interrupted Lucy.
“You ought to control yourself and not give way to this abnormal melancholy.” Nannie’s tone was virtuous.
Lucy rose and stood looking at her mother.
“It’s about a pudding,” resumed Nannie. “I’m making it for dinner—that baked lemon custard you used to make at home; you remember. Do you use one dozen eggs, or two?”
“It depends on how much custard you want to make,” said Lucy.
“Oh, well—you know what I mean—enough for our family.”
“I should use five eggs,” Lucy replied, holding one hand to her drawn forehead.
“Wait a minute till I put it down.” Mrs. Merwent wrote on a scrap of paper which she had brought with her.
“And how many lemons?”
“Two.”
“And two cups of sugar?”
“No, three fourths of a cup.”
“Why don’t you call me by my name, Lucy? Anyone would think you were talking to one of the tradesmen. You’re so brusque and curt. It makes me feel like I had done something terrible.”
“Is that all?” demanded Lucy.
“Why, yes—no—let’s see. Two cups of sugar?”
“Three fourths of a cup,” repeated Lucy.
“Wait a minute. I think I’ll just have Katy bring the things up here, so you can show me how to do it.” And Nannie ran downstairs, returning, followed by the old negress who was panting from the exertion of her hasty ascent to the upper floor, her arms laden with bowls and pans.
Katy went back to the kitchen twice to bring the full assortment of ingredients and utensils.
“Now,” said Nannie, when she had completed the mixing of the pudding under Lucy’s direction, “I hope it’ll be good. What are you wrinkling up your forehead so for, Lucy? Does your head still ache?”
“Yes.” Lucy answered.
“Law’s sakes, Miss Nannie, dere wa’n’t no sense in pesterin’ Miss Lucy wid dat ’ere custard at all. I cu’d ’a’ done it mase’f. I done made ’em a thousand times.” Old Katy glanced anxiously at Lucy’s pale face.
“You just attend to what you’re told, Katy, and don’t give advice when you’re not asked for it,” Nannie retorted pettishly.
“Yes, Miss Nannie. Suttenly, Miss Nannie. I didn’t mean no ha’m,” Katy apologized, beginning to carry the dishes and materials back to the kitchen.
“Now I must go down and see that it doesn’t burn,” remarked Mrs. Merwent, bustling out the door. “I won’t be long,” she called back as she descended the stairs.
Lucy rubbed her head again with eau de cologne, lay down on the bed and placed a cloth wet with cold water over her eyes. The afternoon was dull and cloudy and it soon began to rain. Soothed by the patter of drops on the tiled roof of the veranda just outside her window, she gradually relaxed and dozed lightly, but her peace was not for long. In a short time Nannie appeared again. As Lucy heard footsteps in the hall she removed the cloth from her eyes.
“Lucy, I wanted to ask you if you think the pudding is ready to take out.” Mrs. Merwent’s manner was agitated.
“How long has it been in?” inquired Lucy.
“Oh, I haven’t timed it, but one edge is getting brown already.”
“Katy will know when it’s done.” Lucy spoke with a visible effort.
“I’m afraid to trust her judgment,” Nannie objected. “I’m so anxious for it to be just perfect.”
“I’ll go and see,” said Lucy, rising.
“Now I didn’t mean for you to go,” protested Mrs. Merwent. “I just wanted your opinion, that was all.”
Lucy started into the hall.
“Lucy, come back,” besought Nannie, following her. “You know Dr. Hamilton ordered that you should be perfectly quiet. Don’t go, Lucy.” They were at the head of the stairs. “Well, Lucy, if you will go, remember that I didn’t ask you to, and did all I could to keep you from it.”
“Why, where is it?” she inquired agitatedly as Lucy reached the kitchen and opened the door of the empty oven.
“I done tuk it out, Miss Nannie. H’it’s in de pantry,” explained Katy.
“What did you mean by touching my pudding, Katy?” Nannie demanded.
“Shucks! H’it ’ud ’a bin all spiled if I hadn’t,” Katy expostulated respectfully, bringing the pudding out for inspection.
“It’s just right,” decided Lucy, examining it carefully.
“I’m so glad,” announced Nannie with a sigh. “I should have felt awfully if it hadn’t been just perfect.”
Lucy turned to enter the dining room.
“Now, Lucy, you must go right back to bed,” said her mother. “You shouldn’t have come down at all.”
Lucy went through the dining room into the living room without replying.
“Please go back to bed,” pleaded Nannie, following her.
“No. I’m going to sit up a while,” answered Lucy.
“Well, if you’re sure it won’t hurt you, but remember I didn’t want you to. Shall we eat some of the pudding now?”
“I don’t care for any, thank you.”
“Just taste it. I can hardly wait to see if it’s good or not.”
“Why don’t you try it?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t eat any unless you did.”
Lucy drummed nervously on the arms of the chair she sat in.
“Do you remember how we used to send out and get oysters—?” Nannie began suddenly.
Lucy rose.
“Lucy!” exclaimed Mrs. Merwent, following her daughter who was leaving the room.
In the hall Lucy put on her raincoat and took an umbrella from the stand.
“Where are you going?” asked her mother.
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t go! Please don’t!” But Lucy had passed through the door.
When she returned from her outing it was nearly sunset. The rain was over and a dim, yellow-green light shone on everything.
Nannie met her in the hall.
“Now, Lucy,” Mrs. Merwent’s voice was reproachful, “you are going to be sick for all this.”
“On the contrary, I feel much better.” Lucy’s appearance supported her assertion.
“Well, change your clothes at any rate,” Nannie advised.
“I think I will put on dry shoes and stockings,” agreed Lucy.
It was almost time to close the office, on the same evening, when there was a knock at the outer door and it was slightly opened.
“Come in,” John called. He was alone, Jim having left him to keep an engagement with the firm of Layard’s in the next street.
Miss Storms walked into the room.
“Well, John, I see you are alone,” she observed, hesitating just inside the door.
“Good evening, Miss Storms. Won’t you sit down?” he answered distantly, rising and making a motion toward the coat which he had removed some time before.
“Don’t bother about that coat. I shan’t stay,” she interrupted, smiling kindly.
But John put on the coat.
“Ellen and Arthur are leaving in the morning. They had hoped Lucy would be in today—though she said yesterday that she didn’t think it would be possible.” Miss Storms paused. “As there seems to be no way for them to communicate with her—” she paused again with significant emphasis, raising her eyebrows but continuing to smile in the same manner, “I have brought this parcel from them. It is for Dimmie. His grandfather promised him a watch.”
John did not speak at once and the two stared at one another. His face grew red and sullen under the enigmatic inquiry of her expression.
She laid the parcel on the desk. Still John said nothing.
“If it is possible for Lucy to get in in the morning—” she began again.
“Lucy is sick in bed,” John informed her shortly.
“Oh! I’m sorry. Poor child! What is—it isn’t anything serious, is it?”
“No. Only an attack of nerves.”
Miss Storms continued to gaze at John, and he partially averted his face, fingering some papers on the desk beside him.
“John,” interrogated Miss Storms, making a step forward, “isn’t there anything to be done?”
He glanced up quickly and his hand on the paper shook.
“No,” he said, looking at Miss Storms almost defiantly, “I don’t see that there is. Not so long as Mr. Merwent and—his wife insist on thrusting their attention where it’s not wanted.”
“Oh?” Miss Storms lifted her eyebrows again and bit her lip. She continued to regard John with an expression that was a mixture of rather bitter humor and bafflement.
“Perhaps you’d rather not deliver my message?”
John frowned slightly.
“I’ll deliver it, Miss Storms. I’m not the one to settle Lucy’s attitude toward her father.”
“Well, I certainly hope the dear child is stronger than she looks. I’ll send over here tomorrow to inquire after her.” Miss Storms declared with insistent good humor. “Goodbye.”
Smiling rather impersonally, she nodded to John and went out.
John walked to the window and stood staring into the rain, and he did not hear Jim when he came in a few minutes later, his umbrella dripping and his shoulders wet.
When Miss Storms reached home she told Merwent and his wife of her visit.
“Well, I’m sorry,” Arthur said slowly, shaking his head as he spoke. “It means that I have lost my daughter. I don’t wonder that she’s sick, poor girl. I could see that she was nearly frantic yesterday. I’ll write to her.” Then his voice grew bitter. “Of all the fiends in human form—!” Ellen laid her hand on his arm. He was silent.
“I don’t think I’ll ever call myself a diplomat again,” announced Miss Storms grimly.
John and Jim closed the office and walked to the station in silence. Even in the close proximity of the suburban train they exchanged only a few desultory remarks.
Lucy had hardly put on her dry clothes and returned downstairs after her walk when John’s key was heard in the front door.
“Come in,” he said to Jim.
The two men hung their rain coats on the hat tree and John led the way to the dining room. Lucy, who was seated by a window, rose at their entrance.
“Well, Lucy, I concluded I’d turn myself into a surprise party. I told John not to phone out,” Jim declared. “I thought you were sick abed.”
“No. I’m feeling better this evening,” she replied rather coldly, shaking hands.
“Good evening, Mr. Sprague. What a nice surprise for Lucy! I hope you weren’t worried about her.” Nannie came forward.
“Good evening, Mrs. Merwent,” returned Jim, ignoring her observations. His perplexed gaze followed Lucy as he looked over her mother’s head.
“Where’s Dimmie?” he inquired at last.
“He has gone to the Hamiltons’. He’s getting to be quite a runabout.” Nannie proffered the information.
“Kin I put dinnah on right away, Miss Nannie?” asked Katy, coming to the door.
“Wait a minute, Katy,” replied Mrs. Merwent. “You must put an extra plate on.” Then, addressing John and Jim, “Shall I mix you two some of Mr. Sprague’s near cocktails before you eat?”
“Not for me, Mrs. Merwent, thank you,” Jim refused hastily.
“Well, let me make one for you, anyway, John,” she urged.
“All right, Nannie. I don’t mind if you do.”
“Then, come into the kitchen while I fix it.” John followed her.
“I invited myself out,” Jim remarked to Lucy, when they were alone. “I was worried about you. And John told me on the train you had a fainting spell and the doctor had to be called in.”
“It wasn’t serious,” Lucy explained impassively. “I was a little nervous and unstrung. That’s all.”
“Well, that’s enough,” asserted Jim grimly.
“It’s not an uncommon female failing,” said Lucy.
Jim regarded her so long without speaking that she flushed under his scrutiny.
“There’s no use trying to deceive me, Lucy. Your looks tell that you’ve been through something serious.”
“There’s no use in trying anything, Jim.” Her tone was new to him.
“Lucy!” he exclaimed. “You know that I—”
John and Nannie came in and Jim stopped speaking.
“You can serve dinner now, Katy,” Mrs. Merwent called as she left the kitchen.
The family were soon seated at the table.
“You’re quite a stranger, Mr. Sprague,” Nannie began.
“Yes, Mrs. Merwent,” said Jim stiffly.
“We have spoken of you so often. Haven’t we, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent turned to her daughter.
Jim interrupted before Lucy could reply.
“Business is very engrossing, Mrs. Merwent. We have new competition. A lady architect has rented offices in the same building with us.”
“You must mean the lady architect is very engrossing, Mr. Sprague,” smiled Nannie. “You seem to have quite forgotten poor Lucy and me—though of course I don’t count.”
“The lady architect is designing small houses too rapidly to leave either herself or me time for personal interests,” responded Jim.
“Well, I think she might be better employed than in trying to compete with men in business,” declared Nannie vigorously. “I don’t believe in women earning their own living. The woman’s place is in the home.”
“Why, more than the man’s?” Jim questioned.
John answered for her.
“Because she’s not fitted by nature to compete with men.”
“Our new competitor has gotten four contracts this month right under our nose.” Jim smiled slightly.
“That’s only because she’s a sort of novelty. It won’t last.” There was no lightness in John’s manner.
“Well, according to Layard’s she’s been at it for six years, and made enough in a small place to enable her to break into big-city practice, just as we did.”
“A woman can’t attend to her home and her children and be in business,” persisted John.
“This one’s got neither, being unmarried, and there are thousands of others in the same fix.” Jim warmed to his subject. “If a man wants money and success, he’s free to get out and go after them, and I fail to see why a woman hasn’t the same right. I don’t see why she lowers herself any more than by living on charity.”
“Like me and Lucy,” put in Mrs. Merwent quickly.
“I don’t mean every woman,” said Jim. “You know what I mean, Lucy. You and I have discussed it a dozen times. What’s the use of insisting a woman’s place is in the home whether she has any home or not, or whether she and her children have enough to make them comfortable or not?”
Lucy did not answer.
“Woman’s place is in the home because she has the babies and man doesn’t,” John asserted again.
“I don’t see that she has them any more than the man does,” retorted Jim.
“You don’t? Well, I don’t think you’d find many women to agree with you!” John’s tone was finely sarcastic.
“Don’t you think that woman’s influence is destroyed when she becomes masculine, Mr. Sprague?” parried Nannie, looking at John.
“What do you mean by masculine?” queried Jim sharply. “It used to be that a woman had to turn all her money over to her husband when she married. Now she can hold on to at least some of it. Is she any less attractive? If she has a voice in the making of the laws that govern her and her children, will she become coarsened by it? Why don’t you help me out, Lucy? You know more about it than I do.”
“I had rather not discuss the subject,” objected Lucy coldly, her eyes downcast.
“I think she is wise,” approved John, “since you only care to ridicule and sneer at opinions other than your own.”
“Nonsense, John. I wasn’t ridiculing you or anybody else. But that stuff about woman’s place in the home is medieval. What a decent woman wants is less chivalry and more real respect and consideration.”
“Then you don’t believe that women should expect politeness and deference from men at all?” insinuated Nannie.
“Well, I don’t exactly believe in fighting with them,” conceded Jim, smiling once more.
“I’m sure I’m not trying to get up a fight, Mr. Sprague,” Nannie snapped. “I was simply asking your view. I don’t think anybody can say I like quarrels.”
“I don’t either, Mrs. Merwent, and I don’t think we are going to quarrel.” Jim spoke as though dismissing the subject.
“Well, I don’t care to quarrel either,” John’s cheeks were flushed, “but I must say that I reserve the right to hold my own opinions on the subject, and do not care to be dismissed as though I were impertinent in daring to express them.”
“What’s the matter with you, John?” Jim looked straight at his partner. “I don’t object to your having your opinion on this or any other subject, but I suppose I may have mine too.”
“Well, please don’t call mine medieval,” retorted John.
“As I am at your table and you choose the occasion to read me a lesson in manners,” Jim flushed also, “I will of course not presume to question any further opinion of yours.”
“Here! You two men frighten me,” protested Mrs. Merwent, laughing forcedly. “Let’s change the subject. What shall we talk about—golf?”
“I don’t play golf, Mrs. Merwent.” Jim drank some water.
“Oh, dear!” Nannie made a gesture of despair. “What shall we discuss then? Lucy, you know lots of things to talk about. You suggest something.”
“It makes no difference to me what you talk about,” stated Lucy enigmatically.
Jim glanced at her in surprise. She did not seem to notice his troubled eyes.
“Wasn’t that a terrible scandal about Mrs. Farnsworth?” Nannie ventured again. She addressed Jim as before. “Don’t you think her husband ought to get a divorce?”
“I don’t know much about it,” he answered.
“Why, the papers have been full of it.”
“I have only seen the headlines. I didn’t read the details.”
The conversation lagged during the remainder of the meal, John hardly speaking, and Lucy saying not a word.
As Katy brought in the dessert Nannie whispered to John, “I made the pudding.”
“It’s fine,” John whispered back.
When they rose Mrs. Merwent and John went into the living room at once, and sat without a light talking in low tones.
“Did you notice how strangely Lucy acts even with Mr. Sprague?” Nannie glanced toward the door as she spoke.
“He’s enough to make anybody act strangely,” was John’s irritated response.
“He is, John, dear, and you were so wonderfully patient with him. But Lucy is sick. There’s no doubt about that. Mentally sick, I mean. Oh, John, I do so want to help you out of this terrible situation!”
He pressed her hand.
“You help me every time you breathe, God knows, Nannie,” he asserted feelingly.
Lucy and Jim were silent in the dining room. Contrary to his custom, Jim was not smoking.
“Lucy, are you offended with me?” he asked at length.
“No, Jim,” was the reply.
“What’s the matter?”
Tears started to Lucy’s eyes and she shook her head.
“I can’t tell you, Jim,” she said in a low tone, after a pause.
Jim’s eyes were deep as he watched her pale face and quivering lips.
“I would do anything, Lucy, anything—to help you.”
“Thank you, Jim. I know you would.”
“Won’t you let me try?” he began.
She shook her head.
“No, Jim. It’s no use. Nobody can help anybody. I—I—” The tears stood in her eyes again.
“Lucy,” Jim’s voice was tense, “if you knew how much I—prize your friendship—how much I—”
“Don’t—Jim—” She spoke under her breath.
Nothing was said by either for several minutes. The murmur of John’s and Nannie’s voices continued in the living room.
“I’m going.” Jim rose and held out his hand.
Lucy placed hers in it. His clasp was warmer and longer than it had ever been before.
“Lucy, if you need me—that is if I—” His voice trembled but his eyes sought hers insistently. “If you need me,” he repeated, and paused.
“Thank you, Jim.”
“Tell Dimmie goodbye for me.”
He went out without saying good night to John and Nannie. Lucy did not go to the door with him.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Merwent called from the living room after a time. “I’m coming in.” She did not show herself immediately.
Lucy made no reply, and Nannie approached the door and looked in.
“Why, where is Mr. Sprague?” she inquired.
“He has gone home.” Lucy’s expression was hostile. “And if he were here, you need not insult us both by warning us that you were coming.”
“Why, Lucy, I only thought—”
“You only thought something vile, as usual,” Lucy interrupted.
“What right have you got to say such a thing as that to me?”
“You have given me the right to say far worse things to you. You are not in a position to defend yourself from anything I care to say.” Lucy’s tone was hard. Nannie could not meet her daughter’s eyes.
“What do you mean by that?” demanded Mrs. Merwent angrily.
“You know very well what I mean,” declared Lucy evenly, rising and starting toward the hall.
John appeared on the threshold.
“Where’s Jim?” he questioned.
“He’s gone home,” Nannie informed him.
“Well, what did he sneak out without saying a word for?”
Lucy’s eyes glinted, but she only said, “You’d better ask him. I don’t know.”
Dimmie ran in from the kitchen.
“Mamma! Mrs. Hamilton wants—” he began.
“Come to bed. You can tell me upstairs.” Lucy caught the child’s hand.
The two went out.
“John, what in the world do you suppose is the matter with Lucy? She treats me terribly.”
“I’m damned if I know!” exclaimed John fiercely. “I’m sick of it.”
“I don’t know what’s to become of us if she keeps on like this,” Nannie continued.
“Well, I know what will become of me if it goes on much longer!” His tone was eloquent.
“Now, John,” Mrs. Merwent placed her hand on the sleeve of his coat. “For my sake, John. I have suffered so much for Lucy already.” Tears seemed near.
“I’ll sit tight and do the best I can, Nannie, but as much as you’ve done for me, there are some things I can’t bear.”
Nannie sighed.
“I’ve noticed that every time she sees Mr. Sprague she’s worse,” she remarked significantly a moment later.
She and John stood looking into each other’s faces.
“Poor John.” She took one of his hands in both hers.
He returned appreciatively the pressure she gave it, then moved away.
“Are you going to bed so early?” she interrogated uneasily.
“No. I’m going to take a walk,” he answered. And the door slammed after him.