The Squirrel-Cage Part 48

So she went. Ariadne always did as she was told. 'Stas.h.i.+e was trying to make some ginger cookies, and the oven "jist would _not_ bake thim," she said. They were all doughy when they came out, very much as they were when they went in; but the dough was deliciously sweet and spicy.

'Stas.h.i.+e and Ariadne ate a great deal of it, because 'Stas.h.i.+e knew very well from experience that the grown-ups have an ineradicable prejudice against food that comes out of the oven "prezackly" the way it went in.

After that they had to wash their hands, all sticky with dough, and after that 'Stas.h.i.+e took Ariadne on her lap and told her Irish fairy stories, all about Cap O'Rushes and the Leprechaun, till they were startled by the boiling over of the milk 'Stas.h.i.+e had put on the stove to start a pudding. 'Stas.h.i.+e certainly did have bad luck with her cooking, as she herself frequently sadly admitted.

But, oh! wasn't she darling to Ariadne! It made the lonely little girl warm all over to be loved the way 'Stas.h.i.+e loved her. Sometimes when Ariadne woke up with a bad dream it was 'Stas.h.i.+e who came to quiet her, and she just hugged her up close, close, so that she could feel her heart go thump, thump, thump. And she always, always had time to explain things. It was wonderful how much time 'Stas.h.i.+e had for that--or anything else Ariadne needed.

She was putting more milk on the stove when in dashed Uncle Marius, his mouth wide open and his hands jumping around. "Where's your mother?

Where's Mrs. Hollister?" he cried.

"Out in the arbor," said Ariadne.

"Alone?"

"Oh, no--" Ariadne began to explain, but the doctor had darted to the window. You could see the grape-arbor plainly from there--Muvver sitting with her hair all mussed up around her face, listening to the new man, who sat across the table from her and talked and talked and talked, and never moved a finger. Uncle Marius put his hand up quick to his side and said something Ariadne couldn't catch. She looked up, saw his face, and ran away, terrified, to hide her face in 'Stas.h.i.+e's dirty ap.r.o.n. Now she knew how Uncle Marius looked when he was angry. She heard him go out and down the steps, and went fearfully to watch him. He went across the gra.s.s to the arbor. The others looked toward him without moving, and when he came close and leaned against the table, Muvver looked up at him and said something, and then leaned back again, her head resting against the chair, her eyes closed, her hands dropped down. How tired Muvver always looked!

And just then 'Stas.h.i.+e spilled all the cocoa she was going to use to flavor the pudding with. She spilled it on the stove, and it smoked and stinked--there was n.o.body nowadays to forbid Ariadne to use 'Stas.h.i.+e's words--and 'Stas.h.i.+e said there wasn't any more and they'd have to go off to the grocery-store to get some, and if Ariadne knew where that nickel was Mis' Sandworth give her, they could get a soda-water on the way, and with two straws it would do for both.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

WHAT IS BEST FOR THE CHILDREN?

Lydia lifted her face, white under the shadow of her disordered hair, and said: "It is Mr. Rankin who must take care of the children--Ariadne, and the baby if it lives."

She spoke in a low, expressionless voice, as though she had no strength to spare. Dr. Melton's hand on the table began to shake. He answered: "I have told you before, my dear, that there is no reason for your fixed belief that you will not live after the baby's birth. You must not dwell on that so steadily."

Lydia raised her heavy eyes once more to his. "I want him to have the children," she said.

The doctor took a step or two away from the table. He was now shaking from head to foot, and when he came back to the silent couple and took a chair between them he made two or three attempts at speech before he could command his voice. "It is very hard on me, Lydia, to--to have you turn from me to a--to a stranger." His voice had grotesque quavers.

Lydia raised a thin, trembling hand, and laid it on her G.o.dfather's sinewy fingers. She tried to smile into his face. "Dear G.o.dfather," she said wistfully, "if it were only myself--but the children--"

"What do you mean, Lydia? What do you mean?" he demanded with tremulous indignation.

She dropped her eyes again and drew a long, sighing breath. "I haven't strength to explain to you all I mean," she said gently, "and I think you know without my telling you. You have always known what is in my heart."

"I had thought there was some affection for me in your heart," said the doctor, thrusting out his lips to keep them from trembling.

Lydia's drooping position changed slightly. She lifted her hands and folded them together on the table, leaning forward, and bending full on the doctor the somber intensity of her dark, deep-sunken eyes. "Dear G.o.dfather, I have no time or strength to waste." The slowness with which she chose her words gave them a solemn weight. "I cannot choose. If it hurts you to have me speak truth, you must be hurt. You know what a failure I have made of my life, how I have missed everything worth having--"

Dr. Melton, driven hard by some overmastering emotion, drew back, and threw aside precipitately the tacit understanding he and Lydia had always kept. "Lydia, what are you talking about! You have been more than usually favored--you have been loved and cherished as few women--" His voice died away under Lydia's honest, tragic eyes.

She went on as though he had not spoken. "My children must know something different. My children must have a chance at the real things.

If I die, who can give it to them? Even if I live, shall I be wise enough to give them what I had not wisdom or strength enough to get for myself?"

"You speak as though I were not in the world, Lydia," the doctor broke in bitterly, "or as though you hated and mistrusted me. Why do you look to a stranger to--"

"Could you do for my children what you have not done for yourself?" she asked him earnestly. "How much would you see of them? How much would you know of them? How much of your time would you be willing to sacrifice to learn patiently the inner lives of two little children? You would be busy all day, like the other people I know, making money for them to dress like other well-to-do children, for them to live in this fine, big house, for them to go to expensive private schools with the children of the people you know socially--for them to be as much as possible like the fatherless child I was."

Lydia clenched her thin hands and went on pa.s.sionately: "I would rather my children went ragged and hungry than to be starved of real companions.h.i.+p."

The doctor made a shocked gesture. "But, Lydia, someone must earn the livings. You are--"

Lydia broke in fiercely: "They are not earning livings--they are earning more dresses and furniture and delicate food than their families need.

They are earning a satisfaction for their own ambitions. They are willing to give their families anything but time and themselves."

"Lydia! Lydia! I never knew you to be cruel before! They can not help it--the way their lives are run. It's not that they wish to--they can not help it! It is against an economic law you are protesting."

"That economic law has been broken by _one_ person I know," said Lydia, "and that is the reason I--"

The doctor flushed darkly. The tears rose to his eyes. "Lydia, oh, my dear! trust me--trust me! I, too, will--I swear I will do all that you wish--don't turn away from me--trust me--!"

Lydia's mouth began to quiver. "Ah! don't make me say what must sound so cruel!"

The doctor stared at her hard. "Make you say, you mean, that you _don't_ trust me."

She drew a little, pitiful breath, and turned away her head. "Yes; that is what I mean," she said. She went on hurriedly, putting up appealing hands to soften her words, "You see--it's the children--I _must_ do what is best for them. It must be done once for all. Suppose you found you couldn't now, after all these years, turn about and be different?

Suppose you found you couldn't arrange a life that the children could be a part of, and help in, and really do their share and live with you. You _mean_ to--I'm sure you mean to! But you never _have_ yet! How dare I let you try if you are not sure? I can't come back if I am dead, you know, and make a new arrangement. Mr. Rankin has proved that he can--"

At the name, the doctor's face darkened. He shot a black look at the younger man sitting beside him in his strange silence. "What has Rankin done?" he asked bitterly. "I should say the very point about him is that he has done nothing."

"He has tried, he has tried, he is trying," cried Lydia, beating her hands on the table. "Think! Of all the people I know, he is the only one who is even trying. That was all I wanted myself. That is all I dare ask for my children--a chance to try."

"To try what?" asked the doctor challengingly.

"To try not to have life make them worse instead of better. That's not much to ask--but n.o.body I know, but one only has--"

"Simplicity and right living don't come from camping out in a shed,"

said the doctor angrily. "Externals are nothing. If the heart is right and simple--"

"If the heart is right and simple, nothing else matters. That is what I say," answered Lydia.

Dr. Melton gave a gesture of cutting the question short. "Well, of course it's quite impossible! Rankin can't possibly have any claim on your children in the event of your death. Think of all your family, who would be--"

"_I think of them_," said Lydia with an accent so strange that the doctor was halted. "Oh, I have thought of them!" she said again. She put her hands over her eyes. "Could I not make a will, and appoint as guardian--" she began to ask.

Dr. Melton cut her short with a sound like a laugh, although his face was savage. "Did you never hear of wills being contested? How long do you suppose a will you make under the present circ.u.mstances would stand against an attack on it by your family and the Hollisters, with their money and influence!"

"Oh! Oh!" moaned Lydia, "and I shall not be here to--"

Rankin stirred throughout all his great height and broke his silence.

He said to Lydia: "There is some way--there must be some way. I will find it."

Lydia took down her hands and showed a face so ravaged by the emotions of the colloquy that the physician in her G.o.dfather sprang up through the wounded jealousy of the man. "Lydia, my dear, you must stop--this is idiotic of me to allow you--not another word. You must go into the house this instant and lie down and rest--"

He bent over her with his old, anxious, exasperated, protecting air.