The Awakening of Helena Richie Part 46

"Mrs. Richie," said William miserably, "you know you can't keep David."

"Not keep David!"

She sat up in bed, supported on each side by her shaking hands; she was like a wild creature at bay, she looked him full in the face. "Do you think I would give him up, just to please you, or Dr. Lavendar, when I quarrelled with Lloyd, to keep him? Lloyd wouldn't agree that I should have him. Yes; if it hadn't been for David, you wouldn't have the right to despise me! Why, he's all I've got in the world."

William King was silent.

"You think I am wicked! But what harm could I possibly do him?" Her supporting arms shook so that the doctor laid a gentle hand on her shoulder,

"Lie down," he said, and she fell back among her pillows.

"Who could do more for him than I can? Who could love him so much? He has everything!" she said faintly.

"Please take this medicine," William interposed, and his calm, impersonal voice was like a blow, "Oh, you despise me! But if you knew--"

"I don't despise you," he said again. And added, "I almost wish I did."

But this she did not hear. She was saying desperately, "I will never give David up. I wish I hadn't told you; but I will never give him up!"

"I am going now," the doctor said. "But sometime I am afraid I must tell you how I feel about David. But I'll go now. I want you to try to sleep."

When he had gone, she took from under her pillow that letter which had made her "faint like." It was brief, but conclusive:

"The matter of the future has seemed to settle itself--I think wisely; and I most earnestly hope, happily, for you. The other proposition would have meant certain unhappiness all round. Keep your boy; I am sure you will find him a comfort. I am afraid you are a little too excited to want to see me again immediately. But as soon as you decide where you will go, let me know, and let me be of any service in finding a house, etc. Then, when you are settled and feel equal to a visit, I'll appear. I should certainly be very sorry to let any little difference of opinion about this boy interfere with our friends.h.i.+p.

L.P."

Sitting up in bed, she wrote in lead-pencil, two lines;

"I will never see you again. I never want to hear your name again."

She did not even sign her name.

CHAPTER XXIX

To have David go away for the long-antic.i.p.ated trip with Dr.

Lavendar, was a relief to Helena struggling up from a week of profound prostration. Most of the time she had been in bed, only getting up to sit with David at breakfast and supper, to take what comfort she might in the little boy's joyous but friendly unconcern. He was full of importance in the prospect of his journey; there was to be one night on a railroad-car, which in itself was a serious experience; another in an hotel; hotel! David glowed at the word. In Philadelphia they were to see the sights in the morning; in the afternoon, to be sure, Dr. Lavendar had warned him that it would be necessary to sit still while some one talked. However, it is never necessary to listen. After the talking, they would go and see the s.h.i.+ps at the wharves, and Liberty Bell. Then--David's heart sank; bed loomed before him, But it would be an hotel bed;--there was some comfort in that! Besides, it is never necessary to sleep. The next day going home on the cars they would see the Horseshoe Curve; the very words made his throat swell with excitement.

"Did the locomotive engine ever drop off of it?" he asked Helena.

"No, dear," she said languidly, but with a smile. She always had a smile for David.

After the Horseshoe Curve there would be a night at Mercer. Mercer, of course, was less exciting than Philadelphia; still, it was "travelling," and could be boasted of at recess. But as David thought of Mercer, he had a bleak revelation. For weeks his mind had been on this journey; beyond it, his thought did not go. Now, there rushed upon him the staggering knowledge that after the night in Mercer, _life would still go on!_ Yes, he would be at home; in Miss Rose Knight's school-room; at supper with Mrs. Richie. It is a heavy moment, this first consciousness that nothing lasts. It made David feel sick; he put his spoon down and looked at Mrs. Richie. "I shall be back," he said blankly.

And at that her eyes filled. "Yes, darling! Won't that be nice!"

And yet his absence for the next few days would be a relief to her.

She could think the whole thing out, she said to herself. She had not been well enough to think clearly since Lloyd had gone. To adjust her mind to the bitter finality meant swift oscillations of hate and the habit of affection--the spirit warring with the flesh. She would never see him again;--she would send for him! she despised him;--what should she do without him? Yet she never wavered about David. She had made her choice. William King's visit had not shaken her decision for an instant; it had only frightened her horribly. How should she defend herself? She meant to think it all out, undisturbed by the sweet interruptions of David's presence. And yet she knew she should miss him every minute of his absence. Miss him? If Dr. King had known what even three days without David would mean to her, he would not have wasted his breath in suggesting that she should give him up! Yet the possibility of such a thing had the allurement of terror; she played with the thought, as a child, wincing, presses a thorn into its flesh to see how long it can bear the smart. Suppose, instead of this three days' trip with Dr. Lavendar, David was going away to stay? The mere question made her catch him in her arms as if to a.s.sure herself he was hers.

The day before he started, Helena was full of maternal preoccupations.

The travelling-bag that she had begun to pack for herself--for so different a journey!--had to be emptied of its feminine possessions, and David's little belongings stowed in their place. David himself had views about this packing; he kept bringing one thing or another--his rubber boots, a coc.o.o.n, a large lump of slag honeycombed with air- holes; would she please put them into the bag?

"Why, but darling, you will be back again on Sat.u.r.day," she consoled him, as each treasure was rejected.--("Suppose he was _not_ coming back! How should I feel?")

He was to spend the night before the journey at the Rectory, and after supper Helena went down the hill with him. "I wish I hadn't consented to it," she said to herself; "do you like to go and leave me, David?"

she pleaded.

And David jumping along at her side, said joyously, "Yes, ma'am."

At the Rectory he pushed the door open and bounded in ahead of her, "I'm here!"

Dr. Lavendar put down his _Spirit of Missions_, and looked over his spectacles. "You don't say so! And you're here, too, Mrs. Richie?

Come in!"

Helena, hesitating in the hall, said she had only come to leave David.

But Dr. Lavendar would not listen to that.

"Sit down! Sit down!" he commanded genially.

David, entirely at home, squatted at once upon the rug beside Danny.

"Dr. Lavendar," she said, "you'll bring him back to me on Sat.u.r.day?"

"Unless I steal him for myself," said Dr. Lavendar, twinkling at David, who twinkled back, cozily understanding.

Helena stooped over him and kissed him; then took one of his reluctant hands from its clasp about his knees and held it, patting it, and once furtively kissing it, "Good-by, David. Sat.u.r.day you'll be at home again."

The child's face fell. His sigh was not personal; it only meant the temporariness of all human happiness. Staring into the fire in sudden melancholy, he said, "'By." But the next minute he sparkled into excited joy, and jumped up to hang about her neck and whisper that in Philadelphia he was going to buy a false-face for a present for Dr.

Lavendar; "or else a jew's-harp. He'll give it to me afterwards; and I think I want a jew's-harp the most," he explained.

"David," Helena said in a whisper, putting her cheek down against his, "Oh, David, won't you please, give me--'forty kisses'? I'm so-- lonely."

David drew back and looked hard into her face that quivered in spite of the smile she had summoned to meet his eyes. It was a long look, for a child; then suddenly, he put both arms around her neck in a breathless squeeze. "One--two--three--four--" he began.

William King, coming in for his evening smoke, saw that quick embrace; his face moved with pain, and he stepped back into the hall with some word of excuse about his coat. When he returned, she was standing up, hurrying to get away. "Sat.u.r.day," she repeated to Dr. Lavendar; "Sat.u.r.day, surely?"

"Why," the old man said smiling, "you make me feel like a thief. Yes; you shall have him Sat.u.r.day night. w.i.l.l.y, my boy, do you think Mrs.

Richie ought to go up the hill alone?"

"Oh, it will be bright moonlight in a few minutes," she protested nervously, not looking at the doctor.

"I will walk home with Mrs. Richie," William said.

"No! oh, no; please don't!" The dismay in her voice was unmistakable.

Dr. Lavendar thrust out a perplexed lower lip. "If she'd rather just go by herself, w.i.l.l.y, there are no highwaymen in Old Chester, and--"