XXIII
John left the office earlier than usual and reached home before anyone expected him. Nannie had just completed her toilette, however, and she fluttered into the hall to meet him.
“Are you tired, John, dear?” she asked as he hung up his hat.
“No, I’m not tired,” he answered without glancing at her. “Where’s Lucy?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she replied in a hurt tone of voice. “I suppose she is in her own room.”
John ascended the stairs without further conversation.
Left alone, Nannie examined her carefully groomed image in the hall mirror, and saw there a rather nonplussed face.
John entered the bedroom and found Lucy seated in a rocking chair crooning to Dimmie who was in her lap. The light in the room was dim, and her profile, as she bent over the child, was silhouetted against the glowing square of a western window.
“How do you feel, Lucy?” John asked, going over to her and hesitating awkwardly by her chair.
“I’m feeling all right. Why?” she returned, looking up quickly.
“Why—nothing. That is, I’ve been thinking that you haven’t looked very well of late. And you weren’t downstairs so I came up to see if anything was the matter.”
“Oh, thank you, John! I thought you—” Lucy could say no more. The tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“Thought what? You little goose!” His voice shook slightly but it had something of its old time tone of affectionate banter. “You’re all frazzled out nervously. That’s what’s the matter with you. I’ve been noticing for some time that you didn’t look well. Come on down to dinner and quit thinking about imaginary troubles.”
Lucy’s eyes were grateful. Her lips quivered a little.
“All right,” she answered, smiling with tears still on her lashes.
“Come on, Son,” invited John, lifting Dimmie to his shoulder. And the three descended the stairs.
Mrs. Merwent was sitting in the shadowy dining room without a light. John opened the electric switch.
“Kin I put de dinnah on?” asked Katy, emerging from the kitchen.
“Yes, Katy. I think everybody is ready at last,” responded Nannie, rising from her chair with reproachful dignity.
“Gee, but I’m hungry!” exclaimed John.
“Me, too!” chimed in Dimmie.
“How about you, Lucy?” laughed John.
“I think I am, too.” Lucy smiled rather wanly.
“Well, let’s eat.” John picked up his napkin. “The soup smells good.”
“It’s crawfish bisque,” Nannie put in quickly. “I had it made especially for you.”
“Can’t the rest of us have any?” asked Lucy with a slight attempt at pleasantry.
“I didn’t mean that,” observed Nannie acidly. “I only meant that I thought of John. He said the other day that he had never eaten any. But of course I might have expected that you would misunderstand me.”
“Now, Nannie,” expostulated John, “that was only an innocent joke. For heaven’s sake let’s not have another quarrel! I’d like a little peace.”
Mrs. Merwent’s eyes filled with tears.
“Well, I’ll go and—leave you in peace,” she sniffed, laying down her napkin and rising from the table.
“Well, what do you know about that!” ejaculated John after Nannie had left the room. “You two women will run me crazy. If it’s not one it’s the other.”
“John, I’m not to blame!” Lucy uttered this in the form of a statement but her tone was tremulously beseeching.
“I’m hanged if I know who’s to blame!” declared John petulantly. “All I’m certain of is that I’ve got about all I can stand of it.”
Katy rushed breathlessly into the room.
“Miss Lucy,” she wheezed, “I ’spec’s Miss Nannie am dretful sick. She am groanin’ an’ cryin’ pow’ful bad.”
John sprang to his feet.
“I wonder what’s the matter?” he exclaimed questioningly. “Why don’t you go and see, Lucy?” he added accusingly.
“She’s only angry, John,” answered Lucy, watching his face with anxiety.
Nannie’s moans could be heard.
“People don’t make sounds like that because they are angry,” retorted John. “If you’re not going upstairs, I am!”
Lucy rose.
She ascended the stairs to Nannie’s room. John followed her almost immediately, but remained in the hall outside the door.
“What is the matter, Mother?” Lucy inquired, approaching the bed where Nannie lay in an abandon of weeping, her face hidden by the pillows.
“Oh, go away! Go away!” cried Mrs. Merwent, breaking into a fresh paroxysm of sobs.
“Now, Mother, don’t act this way.” Lucy spoke as to a child. “Tell me what it is you’re crying about.”
“Oh, Lucy, is it—oh, it was John—oh, I can’t—” she moaned.
“What did he do?” insisted Lucy. “If you mean what he said at dinner, I don’t see anything to get into this state over.”
“It wasn’t that alone. It was when he came home. O-oh—” and Nannie lamented afresh.
“Mother,” ordered Lucy impatiently, seizing Mrs. Merwent’s shoulder as though with intent to shake her, “either stop crying or tell what you are crying about. You’ll drive everybody crazy. John is half distracted already, and nobody can do anything for you while you act like this.”
Nannie continued to weep, but less violently.
“Tell us what it is so we can do something, and let John go down and eat his dinner.”
“Is he upstairs?” inquired Nannie, glancing at the door.
“Yes, of course. He’s standing outside in the hall.”
Nannie redoubled her sobs and wails.
“Well, if you intend to keep on like this, I am going,” threatened Lucy, losing her temper.
“Oh, don’t go, Lucy! Please don’t go!” moaned Nannie.
“Well, then, stop acting as though you were dying, and say what you’re crying about.”
“Oh, you are so cruel,” sighed Nannie.
“Very well. I’m going.” Lucy moved toward the door.
“Come back! Come—back—and I—will tell—” Nannie entreated brokenly.
“Well?” Lucy returned to the bed.
Nannie seized her hand.
“It was when—he—came home. I—went to meet—him—and he—he was so cold and cross with me! I have just written to Professor Walsh—and told him—I couldn’t go—back to Russellville yet—and now—John—makes me feel like I ought—to have gone right away. O-oh!” and a fresh fit of weeping began.
“What did John say?”
“Why—why he—he hardly answered me—and—and—o-oh what have I done?” she wailed again in a storm of sobbing.
“I’m sure you misunderstood him, Mother. He was probably worried and tired. John is human like the rest of us, and you are foolish to make a mountain out of a mole hill.”
“No, I didn’t misunderstand him, Lucy,” persisted Mrs. Merwent, forgetting to cry. “He has never spoken to me in that way before. Something has happened to make him hate me.”
Lucy smiled in spite of herself.
“Well, let’s not have any more tragic scenes over it. It’s doubtless something very simple, and I’ll speak to him about it. Come on down and finish your dinner.”
“Oh, I couldn’t see him like this. I don’t care for any dinner.” Nannie sat up in bed and reached for the hand mirror which lay on her dressing table.
“I’ll send you up some then.”
“All right. You can tell Katy to bring me up a little something. I’d like some of the bisque I had her fix for John. He’ll feel hurt if I don’t taste it,” asserted Nannie apologetically.
Lucy made a motion toward the door but Mrs. Merwent held her hand.
“Wait a minute. Kiss me, Lucy. I’m so lonely.”
Lucy hesitated almost imperceptibly, and then bent down and kissed her mother’s cheek.
“Tell Katy she can send up the saucer of blanc mange she saved for me yesterday,” Nannie instructed as her daughter reached the door.
“What was the matter?” inquired John anxiously as he descended the stairs behind Lucy.
“Why, she was crying because she thought you were angry with her when you came home,” replied Lucy.
“Angry? I didn’t say anything to her.”
“I think it was your manner as much as what you said.”
“Well, I can’t be eternally thinking of my every word and intonation in this house. I’ll lose my mind. It’s first on one side, and then on the other. A man don’t know how to talk or act.”
“I don’t think you can quite compare us, John. I haven’t made any scenes like this.”
“No, but here you are jumping on me for not keeping your mother in a good humor, while I was only worried about you. You’re a very appreciative person, I must say!”
“I’m not jumping on you, John.”
“Well, you said I was the cause of all this to-do.”
“I didn’t say you were to blame, John.”
“Well, my good intentions weren’t very successful, if that’s so. You go around like the chief mourner at a funeral, and then when I make any attempt to help, you give me a slap like this.”
“You certainly don’t help me when you start situations like this one.” Lucy’s voice became cutting. “You don’t have to spend all day with her. It will take me a week to get her over the fit of blues she has.”
“Yes! That’s all the thanks I get for trying to show consideration! Talk about being misunderstood! I think I’ll keep my mouth shut after this.” John reseated himself at the table, and began to eat again in gloomy silence.
“John, what has gotten into you? You are so changed I hardly know you. You didn’t use to be so sensitive and childish.”
“Thank you,” he retorted sarcastically.
“Well, you are. Since Mother came you have gotten to be more like her every day. I think I am the one who has a hard time. I feel sometimes as though I would lose my mind.”
“That’s the second time you have said I was changed,” he snapped. “You are the one who is changed, and I think I can guess the reason. It’s not your mother half so much as it is someone else.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Lucy, her cheeks paling.
“Never mind what I mean. I don’t want to hear you accuse Nannie of anything more. If you are so warped that you think she has destroyed my manhood and made me into a baby, the less we have to say to each other, the better. She may be sensitive but she at least appreciates attempts at kindness, which you don’t.”
“I don’t want to talk any more,” announced Lucy wearily, with an effort at self control.
“Neither do I. I’m going down town,” he declared savagely. He threw down his napkin and went into the hall. Taking his hat from the stand, he left the house. Lucy heard the gate slam.
She took Dimmie up to bed.
It was Saturday night. John did not come in until past midnight.
Nannie did not get downstairs even for the usual late Sunday breakfast, and Katy took coffee, toast, eggs, and fruit to the bedroom. When the invalid finally appeared she was wearing an elaborate negligee. She clung to the walls, chairs, and tables, as she walked, and otherwise exhibited symptoms of extreme prostration.
When she came into the dining room, John, who was seated by the table, reading, looked up with an air of constraint.
Nannie greeted him in a faint voice.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he answered.
After a second’s hesitation, he put down his paper and rose and went toward her.
“You look pale, Nannie,” he remarked in a low tone, pushing forward an armchair, but avoiding her glance as he did so.
“I’m all right, John. It’s nothing,” she replied in the same weak voice. “Thank you so much,” she added, sinking into the chair.
“Let me get you a little port wine,” he offered, standing beside her and watching her face as she leaned back with closed eyes.
“Oh, no, John. Don’t bother. I’ll be better in a minute,” she protested, smiling bravely. Then, with a sigh, she reached into the bosom of her gown and took out an envelope. “I want you to mail this letter for me,” she continued, with an obvious effort.
John took the letter from her and stared at the address uncomfortably.
There was a pause.
“I slept so badly last night,” said Nannie, moving her head from one side to the other as it rested against the chair.
“Nannie!” John blurted out, unconsciously crushing the envelope in his hand as he spoke, “I didn’t mean anything last night. I didn’t intend to hurt your feelings at all. I was tired and worried, that’s all.”
His face flushed and he hesitated, gazing at her expectantly.
She did not answer at once, but when she opened her eyes she was smiling faintly. Reaching out her hand she laid it on his. He gave a relieved sigh.
“I know, John, dear! Lucy is so abnormal,” she breathed, tenderly sympathetic, lowering her voice and glancing toward the kitchen as she spoke.
“And you won’t talk any more about this confounded Professor Walsh?” John spread out the envelope and looked at it.
“I must write to him and acknowledge the check,” Nannie protested, accepting the letter which he held out.
“But you’ll tear this one up?”
Nannie tore the paper in two and replaced the fragments in her dress.
“I thought you didn’t want me here any longer, John,” she murmured, averting her face.
“And that’s what you wrote him?” John was too full for further utterance.
“I told him I was coming back soon,” she admitted.
“Nannie!” John gasped reproachfully.
She touched his hand again. He caught her fingers and clasped them, but his expression was still hurt.
“You mustn’t be angry with me, John, dear!” she begged, lifting her face to his.
“I can’t be angry with you very long, but if you do that again—!”
“I won’t, John! I—I—” With an effort that looked heroic Nannie tried to rise but sank back in her chair. “I’m still so faint,” she apologised almost inaudibly.
“Don’t move, Nannie. I’ll get you the wine,” and John hurried to the pantry, returning with a glass and a bottle. “Take a good stiff drink,” he urged, pouring some of the liquor into the tumbler as he spoke.
She made a wry face as she sipped it.
“You are so good, John. I feel better now.”
“So do I,” said John.
“While Lucy is so morbid we must try to cooperate, John.” She lowered her voice again.
“You’re right, Nannie,” he agreed with conviction.
When Lucy entered the room a few moments later John and Mrs. Merwent were talking as though there had never been a misunderstanding between them.