As for his long-suffering hostess, when she was alone Helena Richie
rubbed her eyes and began to wake up. "That boy never knows when to
go!" she said to herself with amused impatience. Then her mind turned
to her own affairs. This little boy, David Allison, would be in Old
Chester on Saturday; he was to stay with Dr. Lavendar for a while, and
then come to her for a week or two. But she was beginning to regret
the invitation she had sent through Dr. King. It, would be pleasant to
have the little fellow, but "I can't keep him. so why should I take
him even for a week? I might get fond of him! I'm afraid it's a
mistake. I wonder what Lloyd would think? I don't believe he really
loves children. And yet--he cared when the baby died."
She pulled a low chair up to the hearth and sat down, her elbows on
her knees, her fingers ruffling the soft locks about her forehead.
"Oh, my baby! my little, little baby!" she said in a broken whisper.
The old passion of misery swept over her; she shrank lower in her
chair, rocking herself to and fro, her fingers pressed against her
eyes. It was thirteen years ago, and yet even now in these placid days
in Old Chester, to think of that time brought the breathless smother
of agony back again--the dying child, the foolish brute who had done
him to death.... If the baby had lived he would be nearly fourteen
years old now; a big boy! She wondered whether his hair would still
have been curly? She knew in her heart that she never could have had
the courage to cut those soft curls off--and yet, boys hated curls,
she thought; and smiled proudly. He would have been so manly! If he
had lived, how different everything would have been, how incredibly
different! For of course, if he had lived she would have been happy in
spite of Frederick. And happiness was all she wanted.
She brushed the tears from her flushed cheeks, and propping her chin
in her hands stared into the fire, thinking--thinking.... Her
childhood had been passed with her father's mother, a silent woman who
with bitter expectation of success had set herself to discover in
Helena traits of the poor, dead, foolish wife who had broken her son's
heart. "Grandmamma hated me," Helena Richie reflected. "She begrudged
me the least little bit of pleasure." Yet her feeling towards the hard
old woman now was not resentment; it was only wonder. "Why didn't
she like me to be happy?" she thought. It never occurred to her
that her grandmother who had guarded and distrusted her had also loved
her. "Of course I never loved her," she reminded herself, "but I
wouldn't have wanted her to be unhappy. She wanted me to be wretched.
Curious!" Yet she realized that at that time she had not desired love;
she had only desired happiness. Looking back, she pondered on her
astounding immaturity; what a child she had been to imagine that
merely to get away from that gray life with her grandmother would be
happiness, and so had married Frederick. Frederick.... She was
eighteen, and so pretty. She smiled remembering how pretty she was.
And Frederick had made such promises! She was to have every kind of
happiness. Of course she had married him. Thinking of it now, she did
not in the least blame herself. If the dungeon doors open and the
prisoner catches a glimpse of the green world of sunshine, what
happens? Of course she had married Frederick! As for love, she never
thought of it; it did not enter into the bargain--at least on her
part. She married him because he wanted her to, and because he would
make her happy. And, oh, how glad her grandmother had been! At the
memory of that passionate satisfaction, Helena clasped her hands over
the two brown braids that folded like a chaplet around her head and
laughed aloud, the tears still glittering on her lashes. Her prayers,
her grandmother said, had been answered; the girl was safe--an honest
wife! "Now lettest Thou Thy servant--" the old woman murmured, with
dreadful gratitude in her voice.