CHAPTER X

The dawn brought confidence and no small feeling of triumph to all of them. The nurse, the Carrington specialist and Cecily’s mother all arrived and with the verdict of the trusted doctor that the baby was small but healthy and that Cecily was in no danger, they all began to enjoy the adventure in retrospect. Cecily could not be moved for at least ten days and the nurse tried to arrange the room as pleasantly and conveniently as possible, rather arousing a smoldering ire in Mrs. Olson until Dick, taking her aside, slipped a check into her hand of sufficient size to feed and clothe the little Olsons for the winter. After that the nurse had things her own way. Much of Cecily’s equipment had been brought already and her stepfather arrived later with a great bunch of roses that towered above Mrs. Olson’s best white water pitcher. It was obviously impossible for them all to stay in Allenby. Mrs. Warner took a room at a neighbor’s house, the nurse stayed with Cecily on a camp bed imported from Carrington, and everything became quickly ordered and made comfortable by the ease of wealth. But the shock, the healthy encounter with an experience which is no respecter of wealth and convenience, was to remain in the minds of each of the four participants for a long time.

Matthew was to take Fliss back to Carrington in the afternoon, for Dick refused to stir for another twenty-four hours. Sleeping in the kitchen with Mr. Olson meant nothing to him, he declared. So he stayed. The nurse was keeping Cecily very quiet, but she let the departing adventurers in for a few moments. Matthew saw first the big clothes basket on a chair by the window and then Cecily, with her hair braided tightly back and dark circles under her eyes. For an instant he looked from one to the other, obviously unable to speak.

“Take a look at my daughter,” said Cecily.

Matthew obeyed. Then he came over to the bedside and looked at Cecily, laying a nervous, strangely hot hand on hers.

“It’s a shame I got you into all this.”

“It’s worked out all right and it wasn’t your fault at all. I insisted on coming. The baby’s healthy and I’m strong--and the experience! You’ve told me I lacked experience and that my life was cushioned. Well, this wasn’t cushioned.”

“God knows it wasn’t.”

The girls looked at each other and Cecily suddenly felt her eyes fill with tears.

“I’ll never forget your seeing me through, Fliss. Never.”

Fliss bent over her and kissed her. She had passed the stage of her first emotion and was ready to recognize what a lucky incident the whole thing had been for her. Mrs. Warner had said the same thing that Cecily had just said. She was established in that family and she knew it. Now that Cecily was comfortable, that she was out of peril and surrounded by American Beauty roses, down comforters and in her own silk nightdress, Fliss could afford to take account of stock and see how her own had risen.

“Good-by, Cecily. When you get back to town I’ll be around to see you.”

“As soon as I get back,” Cecily pledged her.

“Take care of my foster daughter.”

There was an interesting moment--as Fliss crossed to the improvised cradle and stood looking down at the baby, an expression on her face which could mask no ulterior motive. The queer little thing that she had seen come into the world, struggling, seemed to make her feel shaken.

“Come on, Matthew, Cecily’s tired and we must hurry.”

* * * * *

It was a strange convalescence and perhaps an unusually healthy one, for there was no excitement and a great deal of quiet. The brunt of the inconvenience now fell on the nurse and Cecily had only to lie for long, silent hours, thinking over the whole wonderful event. She listened to the voices of the children outside her window, marveling that they had been born just as her child was born, and the roots of that solidarity of motherhood which all mothers feel for each other began to grow in her. She had come to that stage in marriage when the mysteries are shared, not with one other individual, but with a whole sex. Dimly the great expansiveness of motherhood began to dawn upon her mind.

All this expressed itself not only in her dreaming, but in her curiosity. She plied the nurse with questions. Physiology and psychology of other mothers fascinated her. The cases of the nurse, in so far as she would talk about them, were an endless source of interest. Dick joined her in her interest. Step by step they went over the story of the birth again and again. But then Dick left it and went to town, carrying with him the consciousness of his fatherhood, to be sure, but temporarily overlaying that interest with business and masculine contact. Cecily lay in bed and thought and talked on about women and mothers. She had not the slightest intention of playing upon her illness. She was quick to feel her energy coming back and rejoiced in it. There was not a suggestion of querulousness in her manner. That she took the luxury and the petting which surrounded her as things natural to her was not to be wondered at.

But there was a great deal of praising and petting, and while Dick was triumphant he was also surrounded by an atmosphere that made him feel vaguely apologetic for having to undergo so little inconvenience himself. He was ready enough to admit the apparent unfairness of the situation. Not that it had ever struck him before. If he had considered it at all before his marriage he would have said that women had to have children, but men had to rustle to support them and called it fair enough. In the face of his personal situation it seemed different. Cecily, frail and pitiable, seemed indeed to be bearing the heavy end.

It was Fliss who got a real sociological slant on the situation. She visited Cecily’s house before Cecily returned to Carrington, ostensibly to return a scarf which she had borrowed of Cecily for the eventful ride, but really to see and have a gossip with Ellen. Ellen was scrupulous. She would not join Fliss in the living-room and Fliss was compelled to sit in Cecily’s room while Ellen polished the furniture. Ellen was very much excited about all that had happened--a little disappointed at not having been nearer the center of action herself, but determined to make up for that by making Cecily’s homecoming as comfortable as possible. The baby having been born, the pink afghan had been hastened to completion and now lay in state on the foot of the crib.

“Poor Mrs. Harrison,” said Ellen, “she’s been through a lot, hasn’t she?”

Fliss shrugged her shoulders in impatience. “You all make me sick,” she said; “she hasn’t been through more than any other woman, has she?”

But she gave Ellen no chance to answer.

“She had a bad time for twenty-four hours--no, about twelve hours. And for that the whole town sits back and gasps with pity, because it’s Cecily--Cecily who’s been used to ‘everything.’ What got on my nerves was to see what all women had to suffer. But I don’t see that Cecily hasn’t got it so much easier than most people that she doesn’t need my pity or any one else’s. Nurses and doctors and silk quilts and embroidered layettes take a good deal of sting out of having babies, I should think. And Dick acting as if he ought to grovel in the earth because his wife presented him with a baby! I dropped in to see May Robinson on the way here to-day. She’s expecting another and doing her own housework. And her husband is on the road and only gets home for week ends. May isn’t being so darn coddled. She’s worried sick about how they’re going to afford the new one. I can’t say that I’m especially sorry for Cecily.”

Ellen gave the dressing table a last flourishing polish and took refuge in her usual philosophy.

“Well, that’s how things are,” she said. “Some people have more than others. But that’s no reason why you can’t be sorry for a pretty young girl like Mrs. Harrison having a thing like that happen when she’s miles away from home and help and all.”

“She had me,” grinned Fliss, and went on with a brief recital of what she and Mrs. Olson had done. Ellen listened with interest, although with some embarrassment.

“It was certainly fine of you, Fliss.”

“Fine nothing. It was the luckiest thing that ever came my way.”

Ellen looked her question.

“Don’t you see how solid it makes me with the Harrisons? It gives me a real connection. Cecily never will forget a single thing that happened, and among other things she probably won’t forget that I was the first person to hold her baby. Yes--the greatest luck I ever had, for there’s more than that to it. Matthew Allenby knows I’m on earth at last. Of course, it’s Cecily he’s gone on, but because he thinks I was useful for once--especially to the angelic Cecily--he actually noticed me as if I were more than a mechanical toy. And he’s quite a person, Ellen!”

Ellen did not answer and Fliss began to wander around the room looking at things. She opened Cecily’s wardrobe and pushed dress after dress along the sliding rod in envious review.

“Lord, what it must be to be rich,” she sighed, “what fun--what fun!”

“Come,” said Ellen, “come out in the kitchen and I’ll fix you a bit of lunch. You need it,” she added sagely. “You’re always sort of longing when you’re hungry.”

Fliss laughed and caught her cousin around the waist, waltzing her about ecstatically.

“You old darling--wait till I am rich and see what I’ll do for you.”

“Look out--Mrs. Harrison’s rugs,” cautioned Ellen.