Part 46

“Shame on you, Jessica Champney!” she said to herself. “You weren’t an old lady before you came here, and you’re not going to be one now. You’re only fifty, and you’re well and strong. There must be any number of things a healthy woman of fifty can do. Find them!”

And then, as if by inspiration, she thought of Emily Lyons.

The next morning, as soon as Robert had gone, she told Molly that she wanted to “see about something”; and off she went, dressed in her best again, and took the train to a near-by town. She was going to see Miss Lyons. She had not met this old school friend for a good many years, but she remembered her with affection and respect, and perhaps with a little pity, because Emily had never married. She had devoted her life to charitable work--an admirable existence, but, Mrs. Champney thought, rather a forlorn one.

Her pity fled in haste, however, when she saw Emily.

A very earnest young secretary ushered the caller into a big, quiet, sunny office, and there, behind a large desk, sat Miss Lyons. She rose at once, and came forward with outstretched hands. Her blue eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles were as friendly and kind as ever, and yet Mrs. Champney’s heart sank. The Emily she wished to remember was a thin, freckled girl with a long blond pigtail and a shy and hesitating manner--an Emily who had very much looked up to the debonair and popular Jessica. This was such a very different Emily--a person of importance, of grave assurance, a person with a large, impressive office at her command. To save her life Mrs. Champney couldn’t help being impressed by offices and filing cabinets and typewriters.

She sat down, and she tried to talk in her usual blithe and amusing way, but she knew that she was not succeeding at all. In the presence of this new Emily she felt shockingly frivolous. She was sorry that she had worn her white gloves and her sable stole. She wished that the heels of her new shoes were not so high.

She told Emily that she wanted something to do.

“Do you mean charitable work, Jessica?” asked Miss Lyons.

“I’m afraid I’d have to be paid,” said Mrs. Champney, with a guilty flush. “You see, Emily, I’ve had a--a financial disaster. Of course, my children are only too willing, but--”

“They’re all married, aren’t they?” asked Emily.

Something in the grave, kindly tone of her question stung Mrs. Champney into a sort of bitterness.

“Yes,” she answered. “All of them are married. I’m a mother-in-law, Emily.”

Miss Lyons did not smile. She was silent for a time, looking down at her polished desk as if she were consulting a crystal. Then she looked up.

“We happen to need somebody in the Needlecraft Shop,” she said. “I could give you that, Jessica, at eighteen dollars a week; but--”

“But what?” asked Mrs. Champney, after waiting a minute.

“I’m afraid you haven’t had much experience,” said Miss Lyons.

“I’ve done a good deal of parish work,” said Mrs. Champney anxiously.

She had known love, and happiness with the man she loved. She had endured the anguish of losing him. She had borne three children and brought them up. She had traveled a little in the world. She had even known a “financial disaster” at fifty; but in the presence of Emily Lyons she was ready to admit that she had had no experience--that her sole qualification for any useful occupation was the parish work she had done.

“If you’d like to try it, then,” said Emily gently. “I’ve found, though, that women who have led a sheltered domestic life are inclined to be a little oversensitive when it comes to business.”

Mrs. Champney, into whose sheltered domestic life had come only such incidents as birth and death and illness and accident and so on, said that she hoped she wasn’t silly.

“Of course you’re not, my dear!” said her old friend, taking her hand across the desk. “You’re splendid! You always were!”

And Mrs. Champney had to be satisfied with that. She was to begin at the Needlecraft Shop the next morning. She was at last to enter the world; but instead of being filled with ambitious hopes and resolves, she actually could think of nothing but how she was to tell Robert about it.

The only possible way was to take a mighty high hand with him from the start, and the trouble was that she didn’t feel high-handed. She felt depressed, and tired and--yes, crushed--that was the word for it. She was not going to let Robert suspect that, however, or Molly, either.

She decided to take her time about getting back. After leaving Emily, she walked for a time through the streets of the brisk suburban town. Then, seeing a clean little white-tiled restaurant, she went in there and had her lunch. It was noon, and there were a good many other business women there. Mrs. Champney tried to feel that she was one of them now, but somehow she could not. Somehow the whole thing seemed unreal, and even a little fantastic.

She mustn’t think that it was unreal or fantastic, or how could she convince Robert? She tried to make it real by doing all sorts of calculations based upon eighteen dollars a week. With that amount, and with what was left of her income, she could manage to live by herself, somewhere near Robert and Molly, where she could see them and the baby often, and yet be independent. Once more she could be a fairy godmother--with sadly clipped wings, to be sure, but still able to bestow a little gift now and then.

She thought she would get something for Bobbetty now, and she bought one of the nicest gray plush animals imaginable. The saleswoman said it was a cat, but Mrs. Champney privately believed it to be a dog, because of its drooping ears. Anyhow, it was a lovable animal, with a frank and kindly expression and a most becoming leather collar. On the train, going back, she regretfully took out its round yellow eyes, for they were pins, and unless she forestalled him, Bobbetty would surely do this.

Even then it was a lovable animal, and Bobbetty received it with warm affection. He was sitting in his high chair in the kitchen, while Molly cooked the dinner. He was almost austerely neat and clean after his bath, and he was eating a bowl of Graham crackers and milk, with a large bib tied under his chin. A model child--yet, in the sidelong glance of his black eyes in the direction of the new bowwow, who was not to be touched until supper was finished, Mrs. Champney saw a thoughtful and alarming gleam. Bobbetty was not quite sure whether he would continue being good, or whether it would be nicer suddenly and violently to demand the bowwow.

Mrs. Champney helped him to choose the better course. She entertained him while he ate, and then carried him off upstairs, with the bowwow, and put him to bed. He became very garrulous then. He lay in his crib, clasping the bow-wow, and he told Mrs. Champney all sorts of interesting things in such a polite, conversational tone that she felt quite ashamed of herself for interrupting him and telling him to go to sleep.

He was nice about it, however. He paid no attention to this rudeness, but pleasantly went on talking. Even when she went out of the room and closed the door behind her, she heard his bland little voice continuing the story of a wild horsy who stampled on _six_ policemens. Bobbetty was not yet three, but he had personality.

She was smiling as she went down the stairs--until she saw Robert. He came to the foot of the stairs, watching her as she came toward him. She had to meet his eyes, she had to smile again, but it was hard beyond all measure.

She had never seen that look on his face before. He had always been utterly loyal to her, had always loved her, but it had been after the fashion of a boy. The look she saw on his face now was not a boy’s; it was the profound compassion and tenderness of a man. It came to her, with a stab of pain, that she had cruelly underrated her son. She had thought of him as a dear and rather clumsy boy, and he was so much more than that--so much more!

Her own affair seemed more fantastic than ever now. Here was Robert, making his valiant battle in the world for the life and safety of his wife and child. Here was Molly, busy with the vital needs of life, with food and clothes, with the care of their child; and she herself was going to work in the Needlecraft Shop.

She had to tell them, of course. When they were all seated at the table, she did so, in the most casual, matter-of-fact way.

It was even worse than she had feared. Robert grew very white.

“You mean--a job?” he asked.

“It’s charitable work, really,” Mrs. Champney explained. “The foreign-born women bring their needlework to the shop, and we sell it on commission for them. The idea is to encourage their home industries, and--”

“But you’re going to get paid for it?” asked Robert.

“Why, yes!” said Mrs. Champney brightly. “I’m sure I’ll enjoy the work, too. I’ve always--”

“You mean you’re going off to work every morning in this shop?” said Robert. “Do you mind telling me why?”

“Because I consider it very useful and interesting work, Robert,” replied Mrs. Champney, with dignity.

There was a long silence.

“All right!” said Robert briefly.

She knew how terribly she had hurt him. He had wanted to do so much for her, to take her into his home and protect her and care for her, and she would not let him. She had turned away with a smile from all that he had to offer. She would take nothing.

“I’ve always led--such an active life,” she said, in a very unsteady voice. “I should think you could understand, Robert--”

“I do!” he said grimly.

“You don’t!” she cried. “You don’t! You--”

She could not go on. She bent her head and pretended to be cutting up something on her plate, but she could not see clearly. He never would understand that she was doing this only for love of him, only so that she might not be here in his home as the sinister third person who saw everything and--

She started at the touch of Molly’s hand on her arm.

“If that’s your way to be happy, darling,” said Robert’s wife, and Mrs. Champney saw tears in her honest eyes.

V

Mrs. Champney envisaged her life as divided into epochs, each one with its own significance and its own memories. There was her childhood, there was her girlhood. There were the early days of her married life, when she and her husband had been alone. There were the crowded and anxious and wonderful years when her children had been little. There was the beginning of her widowhood, overshadowed with anguish and loneliness, yet with a dark beauty of its own. There was her tranquil middle age, and there was her business life.

She had begun it on Tuesday, and this was Friday. It had lasted four days, yet it seemed to her quite as long as all the years of her youth. It seemed a lifetime in itself, in which she had acquired a new and bitter wisdom.

The train stopped at her station, and, with a crowd of other home-going commuters, Mrs. Champney got out and hurried up the steps to the street, to catch a trolley car; but she was not quick enough. By the time she got there the car was full, and she drew back and let it go. She never was quick enough any more. She seemed to have been transferred into a world of terrific speed and vigor, where she was hopelessly outdistanced, hopelessly old and weary and slow.

She had thought, until this week, that she was a fairly intelligent and energetic woman. She had even had her innocent little vanities; but now, standing on the corner and looking after the car--

“I’m a silly, doddering old thing!” she said to herself, with a trembling lip.

She remembered all the dreadful defeats and humiliations of the week. She remembered how slow she had been about wrapping up things and making change--how curt she had been with some of the wealthiest and most important customers--how stupid she had been about understanding the Polish and Italian women who brought in their work. She remembered the weary patience of Miss Elliott, who managed the shop. Miss Elliott was not more than twenty-eight, but she had been to Mrs. Champney like a discouraged but long-suffering teacher with a very trying child.

“Doddering!” Mrs. Champney repeated.

She was alone on the corner. In this new world nobody waited for anything. Those who, like herself, had missed the car, had at once set off on foot; and Mrs. Champney decided to do so herself. It was less than a mile--a pleasant walk in the soft April dusk.

This walk might have been specially designed by Miss Elliott to teach Mrs. Champney another lesson; only it was a lesson that she had already learned. She really needed no further demonstration of the fact that she was fifty, and utterly tired and miserable. It was superfluous, it was cruel, and it made her angry. When she reached the street where Robert’s little house stood, her heart was hot and bitter with resentment.

“If they’d only let me alone!” she thought. “I don’t want any one to speak to me or look at me. I know I’m unreasonable. I want to be unreasonable. I want to be let alone!”

But of course she couldn’t be. Nobody can be let alone except those who would give all the world for a little tiresome interference. Molly saw at once how tired she was, and wanted her to lie down and have dinner brought up to her. Robert, by saying nothing at all, was still more difficult to endure.

“I’m not particularly tired, Molly, thank you,” said Mrs. Champney, with great politeness.

What she wanted to do was to stamp her foot and cry:

“Let me alone! Let me alone! To-morrow is Saturday, and the next day is Sunday. You can talk to me on Sunday. Let me alone now!”

She sternly repressed all this. She sat down at the table and tried to eat her dinner. She forced herself to remain in the sitting room until ten o’clock.

“In a week or two I’ll go away and get a room for myself,” she thought, “where I can be as tired as I like!”

When the clock struck ten, she sat still and counted up to five hundred, so that she wouldn’t seem like a tired person in a dreadful hurry to get to bed. Then she rose, said good night to Robert and Molly, and went upstairs.

Even then she would not slight or omit any detail of her routine. She washed, rubbed cold cream into her hands, braided her hair, folded her clothes neatly, ready for the morning, and knelt down to say her prayers. Then she turned out the light, opened the window, and got into bed; and she was so glad to be there, so glad to lay her tired gray head on the pillow, that she cried.

She was ashamed of this weakness, and meant to struggle against it; but sleep came before she had driven it away--a heavy and sorrowful sleep, colored with the mist of tears.

She slept. Then she sighed, and stirred in her sleep. Something was coming through into the shadowy world of dreams--something imperious and menacing. She didn’t want to wake up, but something was forcing her to do so. She heard something calling.

She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”--a sound which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.

“Mother! Mother! I _want_ you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no one answered him. “I want you, mother!”

“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of anger.

She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its heartbreaking cry:

“Mother! Mother!”

Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and Molly standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door--Molly with her magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” cried Mrs. Champney.

“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him up--said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s perfectly all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”

“But he’s--so little!” sobbed Molly, in a smothered voice.

“Mother! I want you, mother!” shrieked Bobbetty.

Molly made a move forward, but Robert clutched her arm. He, too, was pale and desperate.

“No, Molly!” he said. “Dr. Pinney told us definitely--”

“Bah!” cried Mrs. Champney, in a tone that amazed both of them. “Dr. Pinney, indeed!”

She opened the door of Bobbetty’s room, went in, snatched him out of his crib, and carried him off, past his speechless parents, and into her own room.

VI

Bobbetty’s hand was flung out and fell, soft and limp, across Mrs. Champney’s face. She opened her eyes. The dawn was stealing into the room, coming like music. One drowsy little bird was awake in the world, piping sweetly. The breeze came, fluttering the window curtain, and it seemed to her that she could hear the footsteps of the glorious sun coming up the sky. All creation waited for him--waited breathless, to break into a great chorus of ecstasy when he appeared.

Bobbetty was waking, too. His hard little head bumped against her shoulder. His toes moved softly, he scowled, his great black eyes opened, he looked sternly into her face, and then he smiled.

“Gramma!” he said contentedly, and sat up.

“We must be very quiet, not to wake mother,” said Mrs. Champney.

“Why?” asked Bobbetty.

In his superb arrogance he looked upon his mother somewhat as he looked upon the sun. She existed solely for him. He adored her and he needed her--that was why she existed. Mrs. Champney did not trouble to explain. He would learn soon enough how very many other people there were in this world, and that it was not his own world and his own sun at all. In the meantime, let him make the most of it. She said that they would surprise mother, and the idea appealed to Bobbetty. He said he would be as quiet as a mouse, and so he was.

Mrs. Champney got his ridiculous little garments and dressed him. She knelt at his feet to put on his stubby sandals. She even kissed his feet, and his hands, and his warm, olive-tinted cheeks, and the back of his neck. He smiled upon her, condescendingly but kindly.

Then she carried him down into the kitchen. He was a plump and sturdy baby, but he was no burden to her arms. She wasn’t tired now. Indeed, she thought she had never in her life felt so gay and light and happy.

The sun had come, and the kitchen was filled with it. The aluminium saucepans glittered like silver, and the water ran out of the tap in a rainbow spray. She laid the table in the dining room, and Bobbetty followed her back and forth, carrying the less dangerous things.

There was a wonderful perfume in the air--the intangible sweetness of spring--and with it, and no less wonderful, was the homely fragrance of coffee and oatmeal and bacon. It was a divine hour, and Bobbetty knew it. Bobbetty could share it with her--he and he alone.

He dropped a loaf of bread that he was carrying, and, moved by impulse, kicked it across the room. Mrs. Champney picked it up, without a word of reproof. She knew how Bobbetty felt.

Then she drew the chairs up to the table--and made her great discovery.

“There are four chairs!” she cried aloud. “There are four of us! Why, I’m not the third person at all!”

She was so overcome by this that she sat down, and stared before her with a dazed look.

“There were three already--I’m the fourth, and four’s such a nice number! I can’t go away and leave Robert and Molly alone together. They’ll never be alone together any more--there’s Bobbetty. I can help so much! They’re both so very, very young, and I could do so much! Molly could have time for music. There are two buttons off Bobbetty’s underwaist. Mother-in-law, indeed!”

She heard the percolator boiling too hard, and she got up. In the kitchen doorway she met Bobbetty with the bowwow.

“Bobbetty!” she said. “Do you know something?”

“Yes, I do!” shouted the child.

But Mrs. Champney told him, anyhow.

“Bobbetty,” she said, “there’s a Lucy Stone League for women who don’t want to use their husbands’ names. I believe I’ll start a Jessica Champney League for women who refuse to be called mothers-in-law. There’s really no such thing as a mother-in-law, Bobbetty. It’s just a joke, and a very nasty one. Really and truly, Bobbetty, there are nothing but mothers-in-nature. I think I’ll invent some other word. Why not ‘husbandsmother,’ or ‘wifesmother,’ or--”

Molly appeared before her, evidently in great distress.

“Oh, mother darling!” she cried. “You shouldn’t have done this! You shouldn’t be up so early! You’ll be tired out before you start!”

Mrs. Champney stirred the oatmeal, which was bubbling and spouting like molten lava.

“I don’t believe I will go,” she said. “It seems--such a waste of time. I think I’ll stay home, and help you, and be a grandmother. I’ve tried everything else, and I believe I’d do well at that.”

Molly stared for a moment. Then she ran to the foot of the stairs.

“Robert!” she called, in her ringing, joyous voice. “Robert! Mother’s going to stay home!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

DECEMBER, 1925 Vol. LXXXVI NUMBER 3

As Is

HOW MAUDE’S AUNT DEMONSTRATED THAT SHE WASN’T YOUNG, LIKE HER CHARMING NIECE, AND DIDN’T CARE TO BE SILLY

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Miss Carter fished out the last doughnut from the kettle of bubbling fat, laid it on a sheet of brown paper, and sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

“They’re extra good this time!” she said to herself.

She stood looking down at them. There they lay in rows and rows, feathery light, richly crisp and brown.

“Oh, my!” she cried. “I do wish I could eat just one!”

But even one doughnut would be treachery to Maude.

“You’ll ruin your figure and your digestion by eating between meals, Auntie Sue,” Maude had said. “Promise me you won’t!”

Miss Carter had refused to promise, but she had said that she would try, and she did try. She turned her back upon this temptation, with a faint sigh, and gave a last glance round the kitchen.

Nothing more for her to do here! It was as spotless as a chemist’s laboratory. Indeed, that was what Maude wanted it to be like. She said that a kitchen ought to be a home laboratory, and she wanted it all white and bleak and stern.