This was what she was undergoing, this experience of seeing her husband turn away his eyes from her, as if the very sight of her was painful to him.
d.i.c.ky would never do that, I knew. He had not the capacity for cruelty which Harry Underwood possessed. But I was sure it would torture me more to know that he was disguising his aversion than to see him openly express it.
x.x.xIX
HARRY CALLS TO SAY GOOD-BY
Lillian Underwood kept her promise to d.i.c.ky that I should suffer no scar as the result of the burns I received when my dress caught fire on the night of my dinner.
Never patient had a more faithful nurse than Lillian. She had a cot placed in my room where she slept at night, and she rarely left my side.
I found my invalidism very pleasant in spite of the pain and inconvenience of my burns. Everyone was devoted to my comfort. Even Mother Graham"s acerbity was softened by the suffering I underwent in the first day or two following the accident, although I soon discovered that she was actually jealous because Lillian and not she was nursing me.
"It is the first time in my life that I have ever found my judgment in nursing set aside as of no value," she said querulously to me one day when she was sitting with me while Lillian attended to the preparation of some special dish for me in the kitchen.
"Oh, Mother Graham," I protested, "please don"t look at it that way.
You know how careful you have to be about your heart. We couldn"t let you undertake the task of nursing me, it would have been too much for you."
"Well, if your own mother were alive I don"t believe any one could have kept her from taking care of you," she returned stubbornly.
There was a wistful note in her voice that touched and enlightened me. Beneath all the crustiness of my mother-in-law"s disposition there must lie a very real regard--I tremulously wondered if I might not call it love--for me.
My heart warmed toward the lonely, crabbed old woman as it had never done before. I put out my uninjured hand, clasped hers, and drew her toward me.
"Mother dear," I said softly, "please believe me, it would be no different if my own little mother were here. She, of course, would want to take care of me, but her frailness would have made it impossible. And I want you to know that I appreciate all your kindness."
She bent to kiss me.
"I"m a cantankerous old woman, sometimes," she said quaveringly, "but I am fond of you, Margaret."
She released me so abruptly and went out of the room so quickly that I had no opportunity to answer her. But I lay back on my pillows, warm with happiness, filled with grat.i.tude that in spite of the many controversies in which my husband"s mother and I had been involved, and the verbal indignities which she had sometimes heaped upon me, we had managed to salvage so much real affection as a basis for our future relations with each other.
The reference to my own little mother, which I had made, brought back to me the homesickness, the longing for her which comes over me often, especially when I am not feeling well. When Lillian returned she found me weeping quietly.
"Here, this will never do!" she said kindly, but firmly. "I"m not going to ask you what you were crying about, for I haven"t time to listen. I must fix you up to see two visitors. But"--she forestalled the question I was about to ask--"before you see one of them I must tell you that Harry and I have about come to the parting of the ways."
"The parting of the ways!" I gasped. "Harry and you?"
Lillian Underwood nodded as calmly as if she had simply announced a decision to alter a gown or a hat, instead of referring to a separation from her husband.
"It will have to come to that, I am afraid," she said, and looking more closely at her I saw that her calmness was only a.s.sumed, that humiliation and sadness had her in their grip.
"I have always feared that when the time came for me to be "my honest self" instead of a "made-up daisy""--she smiled wearily as she quoted the childish rhyme--"Harry would not be big enough to take it well.
Of course I could and would stand all his unpleasantness concerning my altered appearance, but the root of his actions goes deeper than that, I am afraid. He dislikes children, and I fear that he will object to my having my little girl with me. And if he does--"
Her tone spelled finality but I had no time to bestow upon the probable fate of Harry Underwood. With a glad little cry, I drew Lillian down to my bedside and kissed her.
"Oh! Lillian!" I exclaimed, "are you really going to have your baby girl after all?"
She nodded, and I held her close with a little prayer of thanksgiving that fate had finally relented and had given to this woman the desire of her heart, so long kept from her.
I saw now, and wondered why I had not realized before the reason for Lillian"s sudden abandonment of the rouge and powder and dyed hair which she had used so long. Once she had said to me, "When my baby comes home, she shall have a mother with a clean face and pepper and salt hair, but until that time, I shall play the game with Harry."
And so for Harry"s sake, for the man who was not worthy to tie her shoes, she had continued to crucify her real instincts in an effort to hide the worst feminine crime in her husband"s calendar--advancing age.
"When will she come to you?" I asked, and then with a sudden remembrance of the only conditions under which Lillian"s little daughter could be restored to her, I added, "then her father is--"
"Not dead, but dying," Lillian returned gravely, "but oh, my dear, he sent for me two weeks ago and acknowledged the terrible wrong he did me. I am vindicated at last, Madge--at last."
Her voice broke, and as she laid her cheek against my hand, I felt the happy tears which she must have kept back all through the excitement of my accident. How like her to put by her own greatest experiences as of no consequence when weighed against another"s trouble!
I kissed her happily. "Do you feel that you can tell me about it?" I asked.
"You and d.i.c.ky are the two people I want most to know," she returned.
"Will confessed everything to me, and better still, to his mother.
I would have been glad to have spared the poor old woman, for she idolizes her son, but you remember I told you that although she loved me, he had made her believe the vile things he said of me. It was necessary that she should know the truth, if after Will"s death I was to have any peace in my child"s companionship.
"Marion loves her grandmother dearly, and the old woman fairly idolizes the child, although her feebleness has compelled her to leave most of the care of the child to hired nurses. There is where I am going to have my chance with my little girl. I never shall separate her from her grandmother while the old woman lives, but from the moment she comes to me, no hireling"s hand shall care for her--she shall be mine, all mine."
Her voice was a paean of triumphant love. My heart thrilled in sympathy with hers, but underneath it all I was conscious of a strong desire to have Harry Underwood reconciled to this new plan of Lillian"s. The calmness with which she had spoken of their parting had not deceived me. I knew that Lillian"s pride, already dragged in the dust by her first unhappy marital experience, would suffer greatly if she had to acknowledge that her second venture had also failed.
I tried to think of some manner in which I could remedy matters.
Unconsciously Lillian played directly into my hands.
"But here I am bothering you with all of my troubles," she said, "when all the time gallant cavaliers wait without, anxious to pay their devoirs."
Her voice was as gay, as unconcerned, as if she had not just been sounding the depths of terrible memories. I paid a silent tribute to her powers of self-discipline before answering curiously.
"Gallant cavaliers?" I repeated. "Who are they?"
"Well, Harry is at the door, and Mr. Gordon at the gate," she returned merrily. "In other words, Harry is downstairs, waiting patiently for me to give him permission to see you, while Mr. Gordon took up quarters at a country inn near here the day after your accident and has called or telephoned almost hourly since. He begged me this morning to let him know when you would be able to see him. If Harry"s call does not tire you, I think I would better "phone him to come over."
"Lillian!" I spoke imperatively, as a sudden recollection flashed through my mind. "Was I delirious, or did I hear Mr. Gordon exclaim something very foolish the night of my accident?"
She looked at me searchingly.
"He said, "My darling, have I found you only to lose you again?"" she answered.
"What did he mean?" I gasped.
"That he must tell you himself, Madge," she said gravely. "For me to guess his meaning would be futile. Shall I telephone him to come over, and will you see Harry for a moment or two now?"
"Yes! to both questions," I answered.
"Well, lady fair, they haven"t made you take the count yet, have they?
By Jove, you"re prettier than ever."