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Revelations of a Wife

<h2 id="id00411" style="margin-top: 4em">VIII</h2> <h5 id="id00412">A TRAGEDY AVERTED</h5> It was well after 7 o'clock when the ringing of the door bell told me that the Lesters had come. Dicky welcomed them and introduced me to them. Mrs. Lester was a pretty creature, birdlike, in her small daintiness, and a certain chirpy brightness. I judged that her mentality equalled the calibre of a sparrow, but I admitted also that the fact did not detract from her attractiveness. She was the sort of woman to be protected, to be cherished. "I'm afraid I shall be very dull tonight. I am so worried about leaving the baby. She's only six months old, you know, and, I have had my mother with me ever since she was born until two weeks ago, so I have never left her with a maid before. This girl we have appears very competent, says she is used to babies, but I just can't help being as nervous as a cat." "Are you still worrying about that baby?" Mrs. Underwood's loud voice sounded behind us. "Now, look here, Daisy, have a little common sense. You have had that maid over a year; she has been with your mother and you since the baby was born; there's a telephone at her elbow, and you are only five blocks away from home. Wasn't the child well when you left?" "Sleeping just like a kitten," the proud mother answered. "You just ought to have seen her, one little hand all cuddled up against her face. I just couldn't bear to leave her." Over Lillian Gale's face swept a swift spasm of pain. So quickly was it gone that I would not have noticed it, had not my eyes happened to rest on her face when Mrs. Lester spoke of her baby. Was there a child in that hectic past of hers? I decided there must be. "Why don't you telephone now and satisfy yourself that the baby is all right, and instruct the maid to call you if she sees anything unusual about her?" I queried. "Tell her you are going to telephone every little while. Then she will be sure to keep on the job," cynically suggested Mrs. Underwood. "Oh, that will be just splendid," chirped Mrs. Lester. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Graham. Where is the telephone?" "Dicky will get the number for you," said Mrs. Underwood, ushering her into the living room. I heard her shrill voice. "Oh, Dicky-bird, please get Mrs. Lester's apartment for her. She wants to be sure the baby's all right." Then I heard a deeper voice. "For heaven's sake, Daisy, don't make a fool of yourself. The kid's all right." That was Mr. Lester's voice, of course. Neither the tones of Dicky nor Harry Underwood had the disagreeable whining timbre of this man's. Lillian's retort made me smile, it was so characteristic of her. "Who unlocked the door of your cage, anyway? Get back in, and if you growl again tonight there will be no supper for you." We all laughed and I went to help Katie put the finishing touches to our dinner. When I returned Mrs. Lester was seated in an armchair in the corner as if on a throne, with Harry Underwood in an attitude of exaggerated homage before her. I felt suddenly out of it all, lonely. These people were nothing to me, I said to myself. They were not my kind. I had a sudden homesickness for the quiet monotony of my life before I married Dicky. I thought of the few social evenings I had spent in the days before I met Dicky, little dinners with the principals and teachers I had known, when I had been the centre of things, when my opinions had been referred to, as Lillian Gale's were now. I went through the rest of the evening in a daze of annoyance and regret from which I did not fully emerge until we were all at the dinner table, with Dicky officiating at the chafing dish. Then suddenly Mrs. Lester turned to me, her face filled with nervous fears. "Oh, Mrs. Graham, I don't believe I can wait for anything. I am getting so nervous about baby. I know it's awful to be so silly, but I just can't help it." "Daisy!" Her husband's voice was stern, his face looked angry. "Do stop that nonsense. We are certainly not going home now." His wife seemed to shrink into herself. Her pretty face, with its worried look, was like that of a little girl grieving over a doll. I felt a sudden desire to comfort her. "I think you are worrying yourself unnecessarily, Mrs. Lester," I said in an undertone. We were sitting next each other, and I could speak to her without her husband overhearing. "When you telephoned the maid an hour ago, the baby was all right, wasn't she?" "Yes, I know," she returned dejectedly. "But I have heard such dreadful things about maids neglecting babies left in their care. Suppose she should leave her alone in the apartment, and something should catch fire and—" "See here, Daisy!" Lillian Gale joined our group, coffee cup in hand. "Drink your coffee and your cordial. Then pretty soon, if you feel you really must go, I'll gather up Harry and start for home. Then you can make Frank go." "You are awfully good, Lillian." Mrs. Lester looked gratefully up at the older woman. "I know I am as silly as I can be, but you can't know how I am imagining every dreadful thing in the calendar." "I know all about it," Mrs. Underwood returned shortly, almost curtly, and walked away toward the group of men at the other side of the apartment. "I never knew that she ever had a child." Mrs. Lester's eyes were wide with amazement as they met mine. "Neither did I." Purposely I made my tone non-committal. From the look in Lillian Gale's eyes when Mrs. Lester told us in my room of the way the baby looked asleep, I knew that some time she must have had a baby of her own in her arms. But I detest gossip, no matter how kindly—if, indeed, gossip can ever be termed kindly. I could not discuss Mrs. Underwood's affairs with any one, especially when she was a guest of mine. "But she must have had a baby some time," persisted little Mrs. Lester. Her anxiety about her own baby appeared to be forgotten for the moment. "It must have been a child of that awful man she divorced, or who divorced her. I never did get that story right." I looked around the room. How I wished some one would interrupt our talk. I could not listen to Mrs. Lester's prattle without answering her, and I did not wish to express any opinion on the subject. As if answering my unspoken wish, Harry Underwood rose and came toward me. "Were you looking for me?" he queried audaciously. I had a sudden helpless, angry feeling that this man had been covertly watching me. Annoyed as I was, I was glad that he had interrupted us, for his presence would effectually stop Mrs. Lester's surmises concerning his wife. "Indeed I was not looking for you," I replied spiritedly. "But I am glad you are here. Please talk to Mrs. Lester while I go to the kitchen. I must give some directions to Katie." "Of course that's a terribly hard task"—he began, smiling mischievously at Mrs. Lester. But he never finished his sentence. A loud, prolonged ringing of the doorbell startled us all. It was the sort of ring one always associates with an urgent summons of some sort. "Oh! my baby. I know something's happened to the baby and they've come to tell me." Mrs. Lester's words rang high and shrill. They changed to a shriek as Dicky opened the door and fell back startled. For past him rushed a girl with a fear-distorted face holding in her arms a baby that to my eyes looked as if it were dead. But I had presence of mind enough to quiet Mrs. Lester's hysterical fears. "That is not your baby," I said sharply, grasping her by the arm. "It is the child from across the hall!" There is nothing in the world so pitiful to witness as the suffering of a baby. We all realized this as the maid held out to us the tiny infant, rigid and blue as if it were already dead. "Is the baby dead?" she gasped, her face convulsed with grief and fear. "My madam is at the theatre, and the baby has been fretty for two hours, and just a minute ago he stiffened out like this. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she began to sob. "Stop that!" Lillian Gale's voice rang out like a trumpet. "The baby is not dead. It is in a convulsion. Give it to me and run back to your apartment and bring me some warm blankets." Of the six people at our little chafing dish supper, so suddenly interrupted, she was the only one who knew what to do. I had been able to, quiet Mrs. Lester's hysteria by telling her at once that the baby was not her own, as she had so widely imagined, but was helpless before the baby's danger. Lillian's orders came thick and fast. She dominated the situation and swept us along in the fight to save the baby's life until the doctor, who had been summoned, arrived. The physician was a tall, thin, young man, with a look of efficiency about him. He looked at the baby carefully, laid his hand upon the tiny forehead, then straightened himself. "Is there any way in which the child's parents can be found?" Mr. Underwood evidently had told him of the nature of the seizure and the absence of the parents on the way up. Lillian Gale's face grew pale under her rouge. "There is danger, doctor?" she asked quietly "There is always danger in these cases," he returned quietly, but his words were heard by a wild-eyed woman in evening dress who rushed through the open door followed by a man as agitated as she. I said an unconscious prayer of thankfulness. The baby's mother had arrived. It seemed a week, but it was in reality only two hours later when Lillian Gale returned from the apartment across the hall, heavy eyed and dishevelled, her gown splashed with water, her rouge rubbed off in spots, her whole appearance most disreputable. "The baby?" we all asked at once. "Out of any immediate danger, the doctor says. The nurse came an hour ago, but the child had two more of those awful things, and I was able to help her. The mother is no good at all, one of those emotional women whose idea of taking care of a baby is to shriek over it." Her voice held no contempt, only a great weariness. I felt a sudden rush of sympathetic liking for this woman, whom I had looked upon as an enemy. "What can I get you, Mrs. Underwood?" I asked. "You look so worn out." "If Katie has not thrown out that coffee," she returned practically, "let us warm it up." I felt a foolish little thrill of housewifely pride. A few minutes before her appearance I had gone into the kitchen and made fresh coffee, anticipating her return. Katie, of course, I had sent to bed after she had cleared the table and washed the silver. I had told her to pile the dishes for the morning. "I have fresh coffee all ready," I said. "I thought perhaps you might like a cup. Sit still, and I'll bring it in." Harry Underwood sprang to his feet. "I'll carry the tray for you." I thought I detected a little quiver of pain on Mrs. Underwood's face. Her husband had expressed no concern for her, but was offering to carry my tray. Truly, the tables were turning. I had suffered because of the rumors I had heard concerning this woman's regard for Dicky. Was I, not meaning it, to cause her annoyance? "Indeed you will do no such thing," I spoke playfully to hide my real indignation at the man. "Dicky is the only accredited waiter around this house." "Card from the waiters' union right in my pocket," Dicky grinned, and stretched lazily as he followed me to the kitchen. We served the coffee, and Lillian and her husband went home. As the door closed behind them Dicky came over to me and took me in his arms. "Pretty exciting evening, wasn't it, sweetheart?" he said. "I'm afraid you are all done out." He drew me to our chair and we sat down together. I found myself crying, something I almost never do. Dicky smoothed my hair tenderly, silently, until I wiped my eyes. Then his clasp tightened around me. "Tonight has taught me a lesson," he said. "Sometimes I have dreamed of a little child of our own, Madge. But I would rather never have a child than go through the suffering those poor devils had tonight. It must be awful to lose a baby." I hid my face in his shoulder. Not even to my husband could I confess just then how the touch of the naked, rigid little body of that other woman's child had sent a thrill of longing through me for a baby's hands that should be mine. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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