"Oh, Meg, Meg, Meg!" she cried, laughing and crying at the same time.
"I knew you"d come! I knew you"d manage it somehow! I"ve been praying so--I"ve been watching the clock! Oh, Meg," she went on pitifully, fumbling blindly for a handkerchief, "he"s been suffering so, and I had to leave him! They thought he was asleep, but when I tried to loosen his little hand he woke up!"
"Mary--Mary!" said Mrs. Coppered, soothingly, patting the bowed shoulder. No one else moved; a breathless attention held the group. "Of course I came," she went on, with a little triumphant laugh, "and I think everything"s ALL right!"
"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Penrose, with a convulsive effort at self-control. She caught Margaret"s soft big m.u.f.f, and drew it across her eyes. "I"m ru-ru-ruining your fur, Margaret!" she said, laughing through tears, "but--but seeing you this way, and realizing that I could go--go--go to him now--"
"Mary, you must NOT cry this way," said Mrs. Coppered, seriously. "You don"t want little Phil to see you with red eyes, do you? Mr. Wyatt and I have been talking it over," she went on, "but it remains to be seen, dear, if all the members of the company are willing to go to the trouble." Her apologetic look went around the listening circle. "It inconveniences every one, you know, and it would mean a rehearsal tonight--this minute, in fact, when every one"s tired and cold." Her voice was soothing, very low. But the gentle tones carried their message to every one there. The mortal cleverness of such an appeal struck Duncan sharply, as an onlooker.
The warm-hearted star, Eleanor Forsythe, whose photographs Duncan had seen hundreds of times, was the first to respond with a half-indignant protest that SHE wasn"t too tired and cold to do that much for the dear kiddy, and other volunteers rapidly followed suit. Ten minutes later the still tearful little mother was actually in a cab whirling through the dark streets toward the hospital where the child lay, and a rehearsal was in full swing upon the stage of the Colonial. Only the few actors actually necessary to the scenes in which Mabel figures need have remained; but a general spirit of sympathetic generosity kept almost the entire cast. Mr. Penrose, as Triplet, had the brunt of the dialogue to carry; and he and Margaret, who had quite unaffectedly laid aside her furs and entered seriously into the work of the evening, remained after all the others had lingered away, one by one.
Duncan watched from one of the stage boxes, his vague, romantic ideas of life behind the footlights rather dashed before the three hours of hard work were over. This was not very thrilling; this had no especial romantic charm. The draughts, the dust, the wide, icy s.p.a.ce of the stage, the droning voices, the crisp interruptions, the stupid "business," endlessly repeated, all seemed equally disenchanting. The stagehands had set the stage for the next day"s opening curtain, and had long ago departed. Duncan was cold, tired, headachy. He began to realize the edge of a sharp appet.i.te, too; he and Margaret had barely touched their dinner, back at home those ages ago.
He could have forgiven her, he told himself, bitterly, if this plunge into her old life had had some little glory in it. If, for instance, Mrs. Gregory had asked her to play Lady Macbeth or Lady Teazle in amateur theatricals at home, why one could excuse her for yielding to the old lure. But this, this secondary part, these commonplace, friendly actors, this tiring night experience, this eager deference on her part to every one, this pitiful anxiety to please, where she should, as Mrs. Carey Coppered, have been proudly commanding and dictatorial--it was all exasperating and disappointing to the last degree; it was, he told himself, savagely, only what one might have expected!
Presently, when Duncan was numb in every limb, Margaret began to b.u.t.ton herself into her outer wraps, and, escorted by Penrose, they went to supper. Duncan hesitated at the door of the cafe.
"This is an awful place, isn"t it?" he objected. "You can"t be going in here!"
"One must eat, Duncan!" Mrs. Coppered said blithely, leading the way.
"And all the nice places are closed at this hour!" Duncan sullenly followed; but, in the flood of reminiscences upon which she and Penrose instantly embarked, his voice was not missed. Mollified in spite of himself by delicious food and strong coffee, he watched them, the man"s face bright through its fatigue, his stepmother glowing and brilliant.
"I"ll see this through for Dad"s sake," said Duncan, grimly, to himself; "but, when he finds out about it, she"ll have to admit I kicked the whole time!"
At four o"clock they reached the Penroses" hotel, where rooms were secured for Duncan and Margaret. The boy, dropping with sleep, heard her cheerfully ask at the desk to be called at seven o"clock.
"I"ve a cloak to buy," she explained, in answer to his glance of protest, "and a hairdresser to see, and a hat to find--they may be difficult to get, too! And I must run out and have just a glimpse of little Phil, and get to the theatre by noon; there"s just a little more going over that second act to do! But don"t you get up."
"I would prefer to," said Duncan, with dignity, taking his key.
But he did not wake until afternoon, when the thin winter sunlight was falling in a dazzling oblong on the floor of his room; and even then he felt a little tired and stiff. He reached for his watch--almost one o"clock! Duncan"s heart stood still. Had SHE overslept?
He sat up a little dazed, and, doing so, saw a note on the little table by his bed. It was from Margaret, and ran:
DEAR DUNCAN:
If you don"t wake by one they"re to call you, for I want you to see Mabel"s entrance. I"ve managed my hat and cloak, and seen the child--he"s quiet and not in pain, thank G.o.d. Have your breakfast, and then come to the box-office; I"ll leave a seat for you there. Or come behind and see me, if you will, for I am terribly nervous and would like it. So glad you"re getting your sleep. MARGAEET.
P.S. Don"t worry about the nerves; I ALWAYS am nervous.
Duncan looked at the note for three silent minutes, sitting on the edge of his bed.
"I"m sorry. She--she wanted me. I wish I"d waked!" he said slowly, aloud.
And ten minutes later, during a hurried dressing, he read the note again, and said, aloud again:
""Have breakfast"! I wonder if she had HERS?"
He entered the theatre so late, for all his hurry, that the first act was over and the second well begun, and was barely in his seat before the now familiar opening words of Mabel Vane"s part fell clearly on the silence of the darkened house.
For a moment Duncan thought, with a great pang of relief, that some one else was filling his stepmother"s place; but he recognized her in another minute, in spite of rouge and powder and the piquant dress she wore. His heart stirred with something like pride. She was beautiful in her flowered hat and the caped coat that showed a foam of lacy frills at the throat; and she was sure of herself, he realized in a moment, and of her audience. She made a fresh and appealing figure of the plucky little country bride, and the old lines fell with delicious naturalness from her lips.
Duncan"s heart hardly beat until the fall of the curtain; tears came to his eyes; and when Margaret shared the applause of the house with the gracious Peg, he found himself shaking with a violent nervous reaction.
He was still deeply stirred when he went behind the scenes after the play. His stepmother presently came up from her dressing-room, dressed in street clothes and anxious to hurry to the hospital and have news of the little boy.
Duncan called a taxicab, for which she thanked him absently and with worried eyes; and presently, with her and with the child"s father, he found himself speeding toward the hospital. It was a silent trip.
Margaret kept her ungloved fingers upon Penrose"s hand, and said only a cheerful word of encouragement now and then.
Duncan waited in the cab, when they went into the big building. She was gone almost half an hour. Darkness came, and a sharp rain began to fall.
He was half drowsy when she suddenly ran down the long steps and jumped in beside him. Her face was radiant, in spite of the signs of tears about her eyes.
"He took the ether like a little soldier!" she said, as the motor-car slowly wheeled up the wet street. "Mary held his hand all the while.
Everything went splendidly, and he came out of it at about four. Mary sang him off to sleep, sitting beside him, and she"s still there--he hasn"t stirred! Dr. Thorpe is more than well satisfied; he said the little fellow had nerves of iron! And the other doctor isn"t even going to come in again! And Thorpe says it is LARGELY because he could have his mother!"
But the exhilaration did not last. Presently she leaned her head back against the seat, and Duncan saw how marked was the pallor of her face, now that the rouge was gone. There was fatigue in the droop of her mouth, and in the deep lines etched under her eyes.
"It"s after six, Duncan," she said, without opening her eyes, "so I can"t sleep, as I hoped! We"ll have to dine, and then go straight to the theatre!"
"You"re tired," said the boy, abruptly. She opened her eyes at the tone, and forced a smile.
"No--or, yes, I am, a little. My head"s been aching. I wish to-night was over." Suddenly she sighed. "It"s been a strain, hasn"t it?" she said. "I knew it would be, but I didn"t realize how hard! I just wanted to do something for them, you know, and this was all I could think of.
And I"ve been wishing your father had been here; I don"t know what he will say. I don"t stop to think--when it"s the people I love--" she said artlessly. "I dread--" she began again, but left the sentence unfinished, after all, and looked out of the window. "I suspect you"re tired, too!" she went on brightly, after a moment. "I shan"t forget what a comfort it"s been to have you with me through this queer experience, Duncan. I know what it has cost you, my dear."
"Comfort!" echoed Duncan. He tried to laugh, but the laugh broke itself off gruffly. He found himself catching her hand, putting his free arm boyishly about her shoulders. "I"m not fit to speak to you, Margaret!"
he said huskily. "You"re--you"re the best woman I ever knew! I want you to know I"m sorry--sorry for it all--everything! And as for Dad, why, he"ll think what I think--that you"re the only person in the world who"d do all this for another woman"s kid!"
Mrs. Coppered had tried to laugh, too, as she faced him. But the tears came too quickly. She put her wet face against his rough overcoat and for a moment gave herself up to the luxury of tears.
"Carey," said his wife, on a certain brilliant Sunday morning a month later, when he had been at home nearly a month. She put her head in at the library door. "Carey, will you do me a favor?"
He looked up to smile at her, in her gray gown and flowered hat, and she came in to take the seat opposite him at the broad table.
"I will. Where are you going?"
"Duncan and I are going to church, and you"re to meet us at the Gregorys" for lunch," she reminded him.
"Yes"m. And what do you two kids want? What"s the favor?"
"Oh!" She became serious. "You remember what I told you of our New York trip a month ago, Carey? The Penroses, you know?"
"I do."
"Well, Carey, I"ve discovered that it has been worrying Duncan ever since you got home, because he thinks I"m keeping it from you."
"Thinks you haven"t told me, eh?"
"Yes. Don"t laugh that way, Carey! Yes. And he asked me in the sweetest little way, a day or two ago, if I wouldn"t tell you all about it."