Part 17

He threw back his head and laughed. "If she's in this part of the country, I'll find her." And I knew that he would. He was the kind of man you felt wouldn't know there were obstacles in the way when he went after the thing he wanted.

I made him stay to supper. It was a drizzly cold night and he looked very tired.

"Jove," he said, "you're comfortable here, with your fire and your pussy-cat, and your teakettle on the hearth! This is the sort of thing I like--"

"You wouldn't like living over a grocery store," I told him.

"Why not?"

"Oh, nobody around here ever has, and they are all descended from signers of the Declaration of Independence and back of that from William the Conqueror, and they stick their noses in the air."

"Shades of Jefferson!--why should they?"

"They shouldn't. But they do--"

He came back to the subject of his wife. "I didn't want her to warm my slippers. It was only that I wanted her to feel like warming them," he appealed to Billy, and Billy nodded. Billy positively purrs when I make him comfortable after his day's work. He says that it is the homing instinct in men and that women ought to encourage it.

"Does she warm yours?" he asked Billy.

"Not now, she's too busy--" and then as if the stage were set for it, there came from the next room a little, little cry.

I went in and brought out--Junior! He was only a month old, but you know how heavenly sweet they are with their rose-leaf skins, and their little crumpled hands and their downy heads--Junior's down was brown, for Billy and I are both dark.

"You see he keeps me busy," I said.

I was so proud I am perfectly sure it stuck out all over me, and as for Billy he beamed on us in a funny fatherly fashion that he had adopted from the moment that he first called me "Little Mother."

"Do you wonder that she hasn't time to warm my slippers?" was his question.

The stranger held out his arms--"Let me hold the little chap." And he sat there, without a smile, looking down at my baby. When he raised his head he said in a dry sort of fashion, "I thought the pussy-cat and the teakettle were enough--but this seems almost too good to be true--"

I can't tell you how much I liked him. He seemed so big and fine--and tender. I came across a poem the other day, and he made me think of it:

"... the strong" The Master whispered, "are the tenderest!"

Before he went away, he took my hand in his. "I want you to play a game with me. Do you remember when we were children that we used to hide things, and then guide the ones who hunted by saying 'warmer' when we were near them, and 'colder' when they wandered away? Will you say 'warm' and 'cold' to me? That won't be breaking your promise, will it?"

"No."

"Then let's begin now. To-morrow morning I shall go to the north and east--"

"Cold!"

"To the south and west--"

"Warmer."

"Up a hill?"

"Very warm. But you mustn't ask me any more."

"All right. But I am coming again, and we will play the game."

Billy went down with him, and when he came back we stood looking into the fire, and he said, "You didn't tell him?"

"Of course not. That's the lovely, lovely thing that he must find out for himself--"

The next day I went to see Lady Crusoe. William Watters took me. "They's a man been hangin' round this mawnin'," he complained, "an' a dawg--"

"What kind of man, William?"

"He's huntin', and Miss Lily she doan' like things killed--"

Half-way up, we passed the man. His hat came off when he saw me. "It's cold weather we're having," he said pleasantly.

"It's getting warmer," I flung back at him, and William drove on with a grunt.

I had Junior with me, and when I reached the house I went straight up-stairs. In the very center of the room in the hooded mahogany cradle was another crumpled rose-leaf of a child. But this was not a "Junior."

"Robin-son," Lady Crusoe had whispered, when I had first bent over her and had asked the baby's name.

"Because of the robins?" I had asked.

She shook her head. "I couldn't call him Crusoe, could I?"

So there he lay, little Robinson Crusoe, in a desert expanse of polished floor, and there he crowed a welcome to my own beautiful baby!

Lady Crusoe was in a big chair. She was not strong, and William Watters had brought his sister Mandy to wait on her. She was very pale, this lovely lady, and there were shadows under her eyes. As I sat down beside her, she said: "I shall have to have your Billy sell some more things for me. You see the servants must be paid, and my Robin must be comfy. There's a console-table that ought to bring a lot from a city dealer."

"I wish that you needn't be worried," I said. "I wish--I wish--that you'd let me send for Robin's father--"

"Robin's father!" she drew a quick breath, "how funny it sounds!--_Robin's father_--"

I waited for that to sink in, and then I said: "I know how you feel. When I think of Billy as Junior's father it is different from thinking of him as my husband, and it makes a funny sensation in my throat as if I wanted to cry--"

"You've nothing to cry about," she told me fiercely, "nothing, but I sometimes feel as if I could weep rivers of tears!"

I realized that I must be careful, so I changed the subject. "William," I said after a pause, "is worrying about a man who is hunting over the grounds."

"He told me. I can't understand why any one should trespass when the place is posted. I sent William to tell him, but it didn't seem to have any effect. I haven't heard him shoot. When I do, I shall go out and speak to him myself."

I wondered if Fate were going to settle it in that way, and I wondered too if it would be breaking my promise to tell him to shoot! We sewed in silence for a while, but Lady Crusoe was restless. At last she wandered to the window. It was a long French window which opened on a balcony. She parted the velvet curtains and looked out. "There he is again," she said, with irritation, "by the gate with his gun and dog--"

I rose and joined her. The man stood by the gate-post, and the dog sat at his feet. They might have been a pair of statues planted on the round top of the hill, with the valleys rolling away beneath them and the mountain peaks and the golden sky beyond. Lady Crusoe was much stirred up over it.

"I'll send William again, when he comes with our tea. I won't have my wild things shot. There was a covey of partridges on the lawn this morning, and my squirrels come up to the porch to be fed. Men are cruel creatures with their guns and their traps."

"Women are cruel, too," I told her, and now I took my courage in my hands. "Suppose, oh, suppose, that the mother robin had stolen her nest and had never let the father robin share her happiness, wouldn't you call that cruel?"

"What do you mean?" her voice shook.

"You have stolen your--nest--"

"Why shouldn't I steal it? I had always felt that when I wanted a real home it would be here. And the time had come when I wanted a--home. So I planned to come--with him. It was to be my surprise--he doesn't even know that the old place belongs to me. He thought it was just another of my restless demands, but he let me have my way. We had friends with us when we started; they left us at Washington. It was after we were alone that--we quarreled--and I ran away. I left a note and told him that I had gone to France. I suppose he followed and didn't find me. I am not even sure that he wants to find me."

"Do you want to be found?"

"I don't know. I'd rather not talk about it."

William came in with the tea and was told to send the intruder off.

"I done sent him, Miss Lily," he said, with dignity, "but he ain't gwine to go. He say he ain't, and I kain't make him."

She went again to the window, and this time she drew back the faded hangings and stepped out on the balcony.

I heard her utter a cry; then the whole room seemed to whirl about me as she came in, dragging the curtains together behind her. Every drop of blood was drained from her face.

"William," she said, sharply, "that man--is coming toward the house! If he asks for me--I am not--at home."

"Nawm," and William went down to answer the blows of the brass knocker.

We heard him open the door, we heard the crisp, quick voice. We heard William's stately response. Then the quick voice said: "Will you tell your mistress that I shall wait?"

William came up with the message. "He's settin' on the po'ch, an' he looks like he was makin' out to set there all night."

"Let him sit," said Lady Crusoe inelegantly. "Lock all of the doors, William, and serve the tea."

She sat there and drank a cup of it scalding hot, with her head in the air and her foot tapping the floor. But I couldn't drink a drop. I was just sick with the thought of how he loved her, and of how she had hardened her heart.

At last I couldn't stand it any longer. The tears rolled down my cheeks. Lady Crusoe set her cup on the tray and stared at me in amazement. "What's the matter?"

"Oh, how can you--when he loves you?"

I don't know how I dared say it, for her eyes were blazing in her white face, and my heart was thumping, but there was Robinson Crusoe crowing in his hooded cradle, and Robin's father was on the front step, with the old oak door shut and barred against him.

She leaned forward, and I knew what was coming. "How did you know it was--my husband?"

My eyes met hers squarely. "He came to the store. He was looking for you."

"And you told him that I was here?"

"No. I wanted to. But I had promised."

For a little while neither of us spoke. The silence was broken by a thud, as if a flying squirrel had dropped from the roof to the balcony. A stick of wood fell apart in the grate, and the crow of the baby in the hooded cradle was answered by the baby on my lap.

Lady Crusoe hugged her knees with her white arms as if she were cold, although the room was hot with the blazing fire. "I think you might have told me. It would have been the friendly thing to have told me--"

"Billy thought it wasn't best."

"What had Billy to do with it?"

"Billy has everything to do with me. I talked it over with him--and--and Billy's such a darling to talk things over--"

I broke down and sobbed and sobbed, and the tears dripped on Junior's precious head. And at last she said, her face softened, "You silly little thing, what do you want me to do?"

"If it were Billy, I should ask him in--and show him--the baby--"

"If it were Billy, you would set your heart under his heel for him to step on. I am not like that--"

Another squirrel dropped to the balcony. The sun was setting, and between the velvet curtains I could see it blood-red behind the hills.

Lady Crusoe rose, pacing the room restlessly. The wind rising rattled the long windows. A shadow blotted out the sun.

"I suppose if you were I," she said at last, "you'd take your baby in your arms, and go down and say to that man on the steps, 'Come in and be lord of the manor and the ruler of your wife and child.'"

I held Junior close and my voice trembled. "I should never say a thing like that to--Billy--"

"What would you say?"

"I should say"--I choked over it, and broke down at the end--"oh, lover, lover, this is your son--and I am his happy mother--"

She stopped in front of me and stood looking down, with the anger all gone from her eyes. Then, before she could turn or cry out, the long windows were struck open by something that was stronger than the wind. There had been no flying squirrels on the balcony, and the shadow which had hidden the sun was the breadth and height of the big man who stood between the velvet curtains! He crossed the room at a stride.

"Did you think that bolts and bars could keep me from you?" he asked, and took Lady Crusoe's hands in a tight grip and drew her toward him. She resisted for a moment. Then her white slenderness was crushed in his hungry arms.

Well, as soon as I could gather up Junior and his belongings, I went down to wait for Billy. But before I went I saw her drop on her knees beside the hooded cradle and lift out little Robin, and, still kneeling, hold him up toward his father, as the nun holds up Galahad in the Holy Grail.

And what do you think I heard her say?

_"Oh, lover, lover, this is your son--and I am his happy mother!"_

Billy came in glowing from his walk in the sharp air, and I can't tell you how good it seemed to feel his cold cheek against my cheek, and his warm lips on mine. We were a rapturous trio in front of the library fire, and there we were joined presently by the rapturous trio from above stairs. They treated Billy and me as if we were a pair of guardian angels. Then we had dinner together, with Mandy and William in the background beaming.

And that night I told Billy all about it. "Isn't it beautiful, Billy? They are going to live on the old Davenant place, and it is to be their home."

Everybody calls on us now. You see, Lady Crusoe's family is older than any of the others, and then there's her husband's money. And I shine in her reflected light, for our friendship, as she says, is founded on a rock. But Billy says it is founded on a wreck. Yet while he jokes about it, I know that he is proud of his friendship with Robin's father. And when the spring comes, we are to take old Tid and our blessed Junior and our family effects to an adorable cottage with a garden on all four sides of it and set well back from the road. You see, we feel that we can afford it, for we have the exclusive business of supplying the needs of the Davenant estate, and we are thus financially on our feet.

A REBELLIOUS GRANDMOTHER

Mrs. Cissy Beale and her daughter Cecily sat together in the latter's bedroom--a bewitching apartment, in which pale-gray paper and pale-gray draperies formed an effective background for the rosewood furniture and the French mirrors and tapestried screens.

Between the two women was a bassinet and a baby.

"You act," said Cecily, "as if you were sorry about--the baby."

Her mother, who lay stretched at ease on a pillowed couch, shook her head.

"I'm not sorry about the baby--she's a darling--but you needn't think I'm going to be called 'grandmother,' Cecily. A grandmother is a person who settles down. I don't expect to settle down. My life has been hard. I struggled and strove through all those awful years after your father--left me. I educated you and Bob. And now you've both married well, and I've a bit of money ahead from my little book. For the first time in my life I can have leisure and pretty clothes; for the first time in my life I feel young; and then, absolutely without warning, you come back from Europe with your beautiful Surprise, and expect me to live up to it--"

"Oh, no!" Cecily protested.

"Yes, you do," insisted little Mrs. Beale. She sat up and gazed at her daughter accusingly. With the lace of her boudoir cap framing her small, fair face, she looked really young--as young almost as the demure Cecily, who, in less coquettish garb, was taking her new motherhood very seriously.

"Yes, you do," Mrs. Beale repeated. "I know just what you expect of me. You expect me to put on black velvet and old lace and diamonds. I shan't dare to show you my new afternoon frock--it's _red_, Cecily, geranium _red_; I shan't dare to wear even the tiniest slit in my skirts; I shan't dare to wear a Bulgarian sash or a Russian blouse, or a low neck--without expecting to hear some one say, disapprovingly, 'And she's a _grandmother_!'" She paused, and Cecily broke in tumultuously:

"I should think you'd be proud of--the baby."

"No, I'm not proud." Mrs. Beale thrust her toes into a pair of silver-embroidered Turkish slippers and stood up. "I'm not proud just at this moment, Cecily. You see--there's Valentine Landry."

"Mother--!"

"Now please don't say it that way, Cecily. He's half in love with me, and I'm beginning to like him, awfully. I've never had a bit of romance in my life. I married your father when I was too young to know my own mind, and he was much older than I. Then came the years of struggle after he went away.... I was a good wife and a good mother. I worshiped you and Bob, and I gave my youth for you. I never thought of any other man while your father lived, even though he did not belong to me. And now he is dead. You'll never know--I hope you may _never_ know--what drudgery means as I have known it. I've written my poor little screeds when I was half-dead with fatigue; I've been out in cold and rain to get news; I've interviewed all sorts of people when I've hated them and hated the work. And if now I want to have my little fling, why not? Everybody effervesces some time. This is my moment--and you can't expect me to spoil it by playing the devoted grandmother."

The baby was wailing, a little hungry call, which made her mother take her up and say, hastily: "It's time to feed her. You won't mind, mother?"

"Yes, I _do_ mind," said the little lady. "I don't like that Madonna effect, with the baby in your arms. It makes me feel horribly frivolous and worldly, Cecily. But it doesn't change my mind a bit."

After a pause, the Madonna-creature asked, "Who is Valentine Landry?"

Mrs. Beale had her saucy little cap off, and was brushing out her thin, light locks in which the gray showed slightly. But she stopped long enough to explain. "He isn't half as sentimental as his name. I met him in Chicago at the Warburtons', just before I made a success of my book. I was very tired, and he cheered me a lot. He's from Denver, and he made his money in mines. He hasn't married, because he hasn't had time. We're awfully good friends, but he doesn't know my age. He knows that I have a daughter, but not a grand-daughter. He thinks of me as a young woman--not as a grandmother-creature in black silk and mitts--"

"_Mother_! nobody expects you to wear black silk and mitts--"

"Well, you expect me to have a black-silk-and-mitt mind. You know you are thinking this very minute that there is no idiot like an old one--Cecily--"

The girl flushed. "I don't think you are quite kind, mother."

Mrs. Beale laughed and forgot to be cynical. "I know what you'd like to have me, dearie, but this is my moment of emancipation." She crossed the room and looked down at the tiny bit of humanity curled like a kitten in the curve of her daughter's arm. "I'm not going to be your grandmother, yet, midget," she announced, with decision. Then, "Cecily, I think when she's old enough I shall have her call me--Cupid--"

And laughing in the face of her daughter's horrified protest, the mutinous grandparent retired precipitately to her own room.

Three hours later, Mrs. Cissy Beale went forth to conquer, gowned in a restaurant frock of shadow lace topped by a black tulle hat.

Valentine Landry, greeting her in Cecily's white-and-gold drawing-room, was breezy and radiant. "You're as lovely as ever," he said, as he took her hand; "perhaps a bit lovelier because you are glad to see me."

"I am glad," she assured him; "and it is so nice to have you come before the summer is at an end. We can have a ride out into Westchester, and come back by daylight to dinner."

"And no chaperons?"

"No." She was looking up at him a little wistfully. "We know each other too well to have to drag in a lot of people, don't we? It is the men whom women trust with whom they go alone."

He met her glance gravely. "Do you know," he said, "that you have the sweetest way of putting things? A man simply has to come up to your expectations. He'd as soon think of disappointing a baby as of disappointing you."

His selection of a simile was unfortunate. Mrs. Beale's eyes became fixed upon a refractory button of her glove.

"Please help me," she said; "your fingers are stronger," and as he bent above her hand she forgot the baby, forgot her new estate, forgot everything except the joy she felt at having his smooth gray head so close to her own.

When he had her safely beside him in his big car he asked, "What made you run away from me in Chicago?"

"My daughter came home from Europe."

"I can't quite think of you with a grown daughter."

"Cecily's a darling." Mrs. Beale's voice held no enthusiasm.

Landry, noting her tone, looked faintly surprised. "You and she must have great good times together."

"Oh, yes--"

Mrs. Beale wished that he wouldn't talk about Cecily. Cecily had married before good times were possible. They had never played together--she and the little daughter for whom she had toiled and sacrificed.

Landry's voice broke in upon her meditations: "I should like to meet Cecily."

Mrs. Beale switched him away from the topic expeditiously. He should not see her as yet in the bosom of her family. _He should not_. He should not see Cecily with her air of mature motherliness. He should not see Victor, Cecily's husband, who was ten years older than Cecily and only ten years younger than herself. He should not hear her big son Bob call her "Grandma." He should not gaze upon the pretty deference of Bob's little wife toward the queen-dowager!