Virginia Part 24

"Are you going there?" he asked. "I am obliged to do a little work on my play while I have the idea, but tell Susan I'll come immediately after dinner."

"I'll stop to inquire on my way back from market, but I won't be able to stay, because I've got all my unpacking to do. Can you take the children out this afternoon so Marthy can help me?"

"I'm sorry, but I simply can't. I've got to get on with this idea while I have control of it, and if I go out with the children I shan't be able to readjust my thoughts for twenty-fours hours."

"I'd like to go out with papa," said Lucy, who sat carefully drinking her cambric tea, so that she might not spill a drop on the mahogany table.

"I want to go with papa," remarked Harry obstreperously, while he began to drum with his spoon on the red tin tray which protected the table from his a.s.saults.

"Papa can't go with you, darling, but if mamma finishes her unpacking in time, she'll come out into the park and play with you a little while. Be careful, Harry, you are spilling your milk. Let mamma take your spoon out for you."

Her coffee, which she had poured out a quarter of an hour ago, stood untasted and tepid beside her plate, but from long habit she had grown to prefer it in that condition. When the waffles were handed to her, she had absent-mindedly helped herself to one, while she watched Harry's reckless efforts to cut up his bacon, and it had grown sodden before she remembered that it ought to be b.u.t.tered. She wore the black skirt and blue blouse in which she had travelled, for she had neglected to unpack her own clothes in her eagerness to get out the things that Oliver and the children might need. Her hair had been hastily coiled around her head, without so much as a glance in the mirror, but the expression of unselfish goodness in her face lent a charm even to the careless fas.h.i.+on in which she had put on her clothes. She was one of those women whose beauty, being essentially virginal, belongs, like the blush of the rose, to a particular season. The delicacy of her skin invited the mark of time or of anxiety, and already fine little lines were visible, in the strong light of the morning, at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Yet neither the years or her physical neglect of herself could destroy the look of almost angelic sweetness and love which illumined her features.

"Are you obliged to go to New York next week, Oliver?" she asked, dividing her attention equally between him and Harry's knife and fork.

"Can't they rehea.r.s.e 'The Beaten Road' just as well without you?"

"No, I want to be there. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"

"Of course not. I was only thinking that Harry's birthday comes on Friday, and we should miss you."

"Well, I'm awfully sorry, but he'll have to grow old without me. By the way, why can't you run on with me for the first night, Virginia? Your mother can look after the babies for a couple of days, can't she?"

But the absent-minded look of young motherhood had settled again on Virginia's face, for the voice of Jenny, raised in exasperated demand, was heard from the nursery above.

"I wonder what's the matter?" she said, half rising in her chair, while she glanced nervously at the door. "She was so fretful last night, Oliver, that I'm afraid she is going to be sick. Will you keep an eye on Harry while I run up and see?"

Ten minutes later she came down again, and began, with a relieved manner, to stir her cold coffee.

"What were you saying, Oliver?" she inquired so sweetly that his irritation vanished.

"I was just asking you if you couldn't let your mother look after the youngsters for a day or two and come on with me."

"Oh, I'd give anything in the world to see it, but I couldn't possibly leave the children. I'd be so terribly anxious for fear something would happen."

"Sometimes I get in a blue funk about that play," he said seriously.

"I've staked so much on it that I'll be pretty well cut up, morally and financially, if it doesn't go."

"But of course it will go, Oliver. Anybody could tell that just to read it. Didn't Mr. Martin write you that he thought it one of the strongest plays ever written in America--and I'm sure that is a great deal for a manager to say. n.o.body could read a line of it without seeing that it is a work of genius."

For an instant he appeared to draw a.s.surance from her praise; then his face clouded, and he responded doubtfully:

"But you thought just as well of 'April Winds,' and n.o.body would look at that."

"Well, that was perfect too, of its kind, but of course they are different."

"I never thought much of that," he said, "but I honestly believe that 'The Beaten Road' is a great play. That's my judgment, and I'll stand by it."

"Of course it's great," she returned emphatically. "No, Harry, you can't have any more syrup on your buckwheat cake. You have eaten more already than sister Lucy, and she is two years older than you are."

"Give it to the little beggar. It won't hurt him," said Oliver impatiently, as Harry began to protest.

"But he really oughtn't to have it, Oliver. Well, then, just a drop. Oh, Oliver, you've given him a great deal too much. Here, take mamma's plate and give her yours, Harry."

But Harry made no answer to her plea, because he was busily eating the syrup as fast as he could under pressure of the fear that he might lose it all if he procrastinated.

"He'll be sick before night and you'll have yourself to blame, Oliver,"

said Virginia reproachfully.

Ever since the babies had come she had a.s.sumed naturally that Oliver's interest in the small details of his children's clothes or health was perpetually fresh and absorbing like her own, and her habit of not seeing what she did not want to see in life had protected her from the painful discovery that he was occasionally bored. Once he had even tried to explain to her that, although he loved the children better than either his plays or the political fate of nations, there were times when the latter questions interested him considerably more; but the humour with which he inadvertently veiled his protest had turned the point of it entirely away from her comprehension. A deeper impression was made upon her by the fact that he had refused to stop reading about the last Presidential campaign long enough to come and persuade Harry to swallow a dose of medicine. She, who seldom read a newspaper, and was innocent of any desire to exert even the most indirect influence upon the elections, had waked in the night to ask herself if it could possibly be true that Oliver loved the children less pa.s.sionately than she did.

"I've got to get to work now, dear," he said, rising. "I haven't had a quiet breakfast since Harry first came to the table. Don't you think Marthy might feed him upstairs again?"

"Oh, Oliver! It would break his heart. He would think that he was in disgrace."

"Well, I'm not sure that he oughtn't to be. Now, Lucy's all right. She behaves like a lady--but if you consider Harry an appetizing table companion, I don't."

"But, dearest, he's only a baby! And boys are different from girls. You can't expect them to have as good manners."

"I can't remember that I ever made a nuisance of myself."

"Your father was very strict with you. But surely you don't think it is right to make your children afraid of you?"

The genuine distress in her voice brought a laugh from him.

"Oh, well, they are your children, darling, and you may do as you please with them."

"Bad papa!" said Harry suddenly, chasing the last drop of syrup around his plate with a bit of bread crumb.

"Oh, no, precious; good papa! You must promise papa to be a little gentleman or he won't let you breakfast with him any more."

It was Virginia's proud boast that Harry's smile would melt even his great-uncle, Cyrus, and she watched him with breathless rapture as he turned now in his high chair and tested the effect of this magic charm on his father. His baby mouth broadened deliciously, showing two rows of small irregular teeth; his blue eyes shone until they seemed full of sparkles; his roguish, irresistible face became an incarnation of infant entreaty.

"I want to bekfast wid papa, an' I want more 'la.s.ses," he remarked.

"He's a fascinating little rascal, there's no doubt of that," observed Oliver, in response to Virginia's triumphant look. Then, bending over, he kissed her on the cheek, before he picked up his newspapers and went into his study at the back of the parlour.

Some hours later, at their early dinner, she reported the result of her visit to the Treadwells.

"It is too awful, Oliver. Aunt Belinda has not spoken yet, and she can't move the lower part of her body at all. The doctor says she may live for years, but he doesn't think she will ever be able to walk again. I feel so sorry for her and for poor Susan. Do you know, Susan engaged herself to John Henry last night just before her mother was paralyzed, and they were to be married in December. But now she says she will give him up."

"John Henry!" exclaimed Oliver in amazement. "Why, what in the world does she see in John Henry?"

"I don't know--one never knows what people see in each other, but she has been in love with him all her life, I believe."

"Well, it's rough on her. Is she obliged to break off with him now?"

"She says it wouldn't be fair to him not to. Her whole time must be given to nursing her mother. There's something splendid about Susan, Oliver. I never realized it as much as I did to-day. Whatever she does, you may be sure it will be because it is right to do it. She sees everything so clearly, and her wishes never obscure her judgment."

"It's a pity. She'd make a great mother, wouldn't she? But life doesn't seem able to get along without a sacrifice of the fittest."