Ten days later, in the midst of her preparations to leave the city for
Clark's Hills, Rachael was summoned to the telephone by the news of a
serious change in young Charlie Gregory's condition. Charlie had been
ill for perhaps a week; kept at home and babied by his grandmother and
Miss Cannon, the nurse, visited daily by his adored Aunt Rachael, and
nearly as often by the uproarious young Gregorys, and duly spoiled by
every maid in the house. Warren went in to see him often in the
evenings, for trivial as his illness was, all the members of his
immediate family agreed later that there had been in it, from the
beginning, something vaguely alarming and menacing.
He was a quiet, peculiar, rather friendless youth at twenty-six; he had
never had "girls," like the other boys, and, while he read books
incessantly, Rachael knew it to be rather from loneliness than any
other motive, as his silence was from shyness rather than reserve. His
dying was as quiet as his living, between a silent luncheon in the
gloomy old dining-room when nobody seemed able either to eat or speak,
and a dreadful dinner hour when Miss Cannon sobbed unobtrusively,
Warren and Rachael talked in low tones, and the chairs at the head and
foot of the table were untenanted.
Only a day or two later his grandmother followed him, and Rachael and
her husband went through the sombre days like two persons in an
oppressive dream. Great grief they did not naturally feel, for Warren's
curious self-absorption extended even to his relationship with his
mother, and Charlie had always been one of the unnecessary, unimportant
figures of which there are a few in every family. But the events left a
lasting mark upon Rachael's life. She had grown really to love the old
woman, and had felt a certain pitying affection for Charlie, too. He
had been a good, gentle, considerate boy always, and it was hard to
think of him as going before life had really begun for him.
On the morning of the day he died an incident had occurred, or rather
two had occurred, that even then filled her with vague discomfort, and
that she was to remember for many days to come.
She had been crossing the great, dark entrance hall, late in the
morning, on some errand to the telephone, or to the service department
of the house, her heart burdened by the sombre shadow of death that
already lay upon them all, when the muffled street-door bell had rung,
and the butler, red eyed, had admitted two women. Rachael, caught and
reluctantly glancing toward them, had been surprised to recognize
Charlotte Haviland and old Fanny.
"Charlotte!" she said, coming toward the girl. And at her low, tense
tone, Charlotte had begun to cry.
"Aunt Rachael"--the old name came naturally after seven years--"you'll
think I'm quite crazy coming here this way"--Charlotte, as always, was
justifying her shy little efforts at living--"but M'ma was busy,
and"--the old, nervous gasp--"and it seemed only friendly to come
and--and inquire--"
"Don't cry, dear!" said Rachael's rich, kind voice. She put a hand upon
Charlotte's shoulder. "Did you want to ask for Charlie?"
"I know how odd, how very odd it must look," said Charlotte, managing a
wet smile, "and my crying--perfectly absurd--I can't think why I'm so
silly!"
"We've all been pretty near crying, ourselves, this morning," Rachael
said, not looking at her, but rather seeming to explain to the
sympathetic yet pleasurably thrilled Fanny. "Dear boy, he is very ill.
Doctor Hamilton has just been here; and he tells us frankly that it is
only a question of a few hours now--"
At this poor Charlotte tried to compose her face to the merely
sorrowful and shocked expression of a person justified in her friendly
concern, but succeeded only in giving Mrs. Gregory a quivering look of
mortal hurt.
"I was afraid so," she stammered huskily. "Elfrida Hamilton told me. I
was so--sorry--"
Rachael began to perceive that this was a great adventure, a tragic and
heroic initiative for Charlotte. Poor Charlotte, red-eyed behind her
strong glasses, the bloom of youth gone from her face, was perhaps
touching this morning, the pinnacle of the few strong emotions her life
was to know.
"How well did you know Charlie, dear?" asked Rachael when Fanny was for
the moment out of hearing and they were in the dark, rep-draped
reception-room. She had asked Charlotte to sit down, but Charlotte
nervously had said that she could stay but another minute.
"Oh, n-n-not very well, Aunt Rachael--that is, we didn't see each other
often, since"--Rachael knew since when, and liked Charlotte for the
clumsy substitute--"since Billy was married. I know Charlie called, but
M'ma didn't tell me until weeks later, and then we were on the ocean.
We met now and then, and once he telephoned, and I think he would have
liked to see me, but M'ma felt so strongly--there was no way. And then
last summer--we h-h-happened to meet, he and I, at Jane Cook's wedding,
and we had quite a talk. I knew M'ma would be angry, but it just seemed
as if I couldn't think of it then. And we talked of the things we
liked, you know, the sort of house we both liked--not like other
people's houses!" Charlotte's plain young face had grown bright with
the recollection, but now her voice sank lifelessly again. "But M'ma
made me promise never to speak to him again, and of course I promised,"
she said dully.
"I see." Rachael was silent. There seemed to be nothing to say.
"I suppose I couldn't--speak to him a moment, Aunt Rachael?" Charlotte
was scarlet, but she got the words out bravely.
"Oh, my dear, he wouldn't know you. He doesn't know any of us now. He
just lies there, sometimes sighing a little--"
Charlotte was as pale now as she had been rosy before, her lip
trembled, and her whole face seemed to be suffused with tears.
"I see," she said in turn. "Thank you, Aunt Rachael, thanks ever so
much. I--I wish you'd tell his grandmother how sorry I am. I--suppose
Fanny and I had better go now."
But before she went Rachael opened her arms, and Charlotte came into
them, and cried bitterly for a few minutes.
"Poor little girl!" said the older woman tenderly. "Poor little girl!"
"I always loved you," gulped Charlotte, "and I would have come to see
you, if M'ma--And of course it was nothing but the merest friendship
b-between Charlie and me, only we--we always seemed to like each other."
And Charlotte, her romance ended, wiped her eyes and blew her nose, and
went away. Rachael went slowly upstairs.
Late that same afternoon, as she and the trained nurse were dreamily
keeping one of the long sick-watches, she looked at the patient, and
was surprised to see his rather insignificant eyes fixed earnestly upon
her. Instantly she went to the bedside and knelt down.
"What is it, Charlie-boy?" she asked, in the merest rich, tender
essence of a tone. The sick eyes broke over her distressedly. She could
see the fine dew of perspiration at his waxen temples, and the lean
hand over which she laid her own was cool after all these feverish
days, unwholesomely cool.
"Aunt Rachael--" The customs of earth were still strong when he could
waste so much precious breath upon the unnecessary address. The nurse
hovered nervously near, but did not attempt to silence him. "Going
fast," he whispered.
"It will be rest, Charlie-boy," she answered, tears in her eyes.
He smiled, and drifted into that other world so near our own for a few
moments. Then she started at Charlotte's name.
"Charlotte," he said in a ghostly whisper, "said she would like a house
all green-and pink-with roses--"
Rachael was instantly tense. Ah, to get hold of poor starved little
Charlotte, to give her these last precious seconds, to let her know he
had thought of her!
"What about Charlotte, dear, dear boy?" she asked eagerly.
"I thought--it would be so pleasant--there--" he said, smiling. He
closed his eyes. She heard the little prayer that he had learned in his
babyhood for this hour. Then there was silence. Silence.
Silence. Rachael looked fearfully at the nurse. A few minutes later she
went to tell his grandmother, who, with two grave sisters sitting
beside her, had been lying down since the religious rites of an hour or
two ago. Rachael and the smaller, rosy-faced nun helped the stiff,
stricken old lady to her feet, and it was with Rachael's arm about her
that she went to her grandson's side.
That night old Mrs. Gregory turned to her daughter-in-law and said:
"You're good, Rachael. Someone prayed for you long ago; someone gave
you goodness. Don't forget--if you ever need--to turn to prayer. I
don't ask you to do any more. It was for James to make his sons
Christians, and James did not do so. But promise me something, Rachael:
if James--hurts you, if he fails you--promise me that you will forgive
him!"
"I promise," Rachael said huskily, her heart beating quick with vague
fright. Mrs. Gregory was in her deep armchair, she looked old and
broken to-night, far older than she would look a few days later when
she lay in her coffin. Rachael had brought her a cup of hot bouillon,
and had knelt, daughter fashion, to see that she drank it, and now the
thin old hand clutched her shoulder, and the eager old eyes were close
to her face.
"I have made mistakes, I have had every sorrow a woman can know," said
old Mrs. Gregory, "but prayer has never failed me, and when I go, I
believe I will not be afraid!" "I have made mistakes, too," Rachael
said, strangely stirred, "and for the boys' sake, for Warren's sake, I
want to be--wise!"
The thin old hand patted hers. Old Mrs. Gregory lay with closed eyes,
no flicker of life in her parchment-colored face. "Pray about it!" she
said in a whisper. She patted Rachael's hands for another moment, but
she did not speak again.
At the funeral, kneeling by Warren's side in the great cathedral, her
pale face more lovely than ever in a setting of fresh black, Rachael
tried for the first time in her life to pray.
They were rich beyond any dream or need now. Rachael could hardly have
believed that so great a change in her fortune could make so little
change in her feeling. A sudden wave of untimely heat smote the city,
and it was hastily decided that the boys and their mother must get to
the shore, leaving all the details of settling his mother's estate to
Warren. In the autumn Rachael would make those changes in the old house
of which she had dreamed so many years ago. Warren was not to work too
hard, and was to come to them for every week-end.
He took them down himself in the car, Rachael beside him on the front
seat, her baby in her arms, Martin and Mary, with Jim, in the tonneau.
Home Dunes had been opened and aired; luncheon was waiting when they
got there. Rachael felt triumphant, powerful. Between their mourning
and Warren's unexpected business responsibilities she would have a
summer to her liking.
He went away the next day, and Rachael began a series of cheerful
letters. She tried not to reproach him when a Saturday night came
without bringing him, she schooled herself to read, to take walks, to
fight depression and loneliness. She and Alice practised piano duets,
studied Italian, made sick calls in the village, and sewed for the
babies of dark's Hills and Quaker Bridge. About twice a month, usually
together, the two went up to the city for a day's shopping. Then George
and Warren met them, and they dined and perhaps went to the theatre
together. It was on one of these occasions that Rachael learned that
Magsie Clay was in town.
"Working hard--too hard," said Warren in response to her questions.
"She's rehearsing already for October."
"Warren! In all this heat?"
"Yes, and she looks pulled down, poor kid!"
"You've seen her, then?"
"Oh, I see her now and then. Betty Bowditch had her to dinner, and now
and then she and I go to tea, and she tells me about her troubles, her
young men, and the other women in the play!"
"I wonder if she wouldn't come down to us for a week?" Rachael said
pleasantly. Warren brightened enthusiastically. A little ocean air
would do Magsie worlds of good.
Magsie, lunching with Rachael at Rachael's club the following week, was
prettily appreciative.
"I would just love to come!" she said gratefully. "I'll bring my
bathing suit, and live in the water! But, Rachael, it can only be from
Friday night until Monday morning. Perhaps Greg will run me down in the
car, and bring me up again?"
"What else would I do?" Warren said, smiling.
Rachael fixed the date. On the following Friday night she met Warren
and Magsie at the gate, at the end of the long run. Warren was quite
his old, delightful self; the boys, perfection. Alice gave a dinner
party, and Alice's brother did not miss the opportunity of a flirtation
with Magsie. The visit, for everyone but Rachael, was a great success.
The little actress and Rachael's husband were on friendly, even
intimate, terms; Magsie showed Warren a letter, Warren murmured advice;
Magsie reached a confident little brown hand to him from the raft;
Warren said, "Be careful, dear!" when she sprang up to leap from the
car. Well, said Rachael bravely, no harm in that! Warren was just the
big, sweet, simple person to be flattered by Magsie's affection. How
could she help liking him?
She went to the gate again, on Monday morning this time, to say
good-bye. Magsie was tucked in trimly in Rachael's place beside
Rachael's husband; her gold hair glinted under a smart little hat;
gloves, silk stockings, and gown were all of the becoming creamy tan
she wore so much.
"Saturday night?" Rachael said to Warren.
"Possibly not, dear. I can tell better later in the week."
"You don't know how we slaves envy you, Rachael!" Magsie said. "When
Greg and I are gasping away in some roof-garden, having our mild little
iced teas, we'll think of you down here on the glorious ocean!"
"We're a mutual consolation league!" Warren said with an appreciative
laugh.
"He laughs," Magsie said, "but, honestly, I don't know where I'd be
without Greg. You don't know how kind he is to me, Rachael!"
"He's kind to everyone," Rachael smiled.
"I don't have to TELL you how much I've enjoyed this!" Magsie added
gratefully.
"Do it any other time you can!" Rachael waved them out of sight. She
stood at the gate, in the fragrant, warm summer morning, for a long
time after they were gone.
In the late summer, placidly wasting her days on the sands with the two
boys, a new experience befell Rachael. She had hoped, at about the time
of Jimmy's third birthday, to present him and his little brother with a
sister. Now the hope vanished, and Rachael, awed and sad, set aside a
tiny chamber in her heart for the dream, and went on about her life
sobered and made thoughtful over the great possibilities that are
wrapped in every human birth. Warren had warned her that she must be
careful now, and, charmed at his concern for her grief and shock, she
rested and saved herself wherever she could.
But autumn came, and winter came, and she did not grow strong. It
became generally understood that Mrs. Gregory was not going about this
season, and her friends, when they came to call in Washington Square,
were apt to find her comfortably established on the wide couch in one
of the great rooms that were still unchanged, with a nurse hovering in
the background, and the boys playing before the fire. Rachael would
send the children away with Mary, ring for tea, and chatter vivaciously
with her guests, later retailing all the gossip to Warren when he came
to sit beside her. Often she got up and took her place at the table,
and once or twice a month, after a quiet day, was tucked into the motor
car by the watchful Miss Snow, and went to the theatre or opera, to be
brought carefully home again at eleven o'clock, and given into Miss
Snow's care again.
She was not at all unhappy, the lessening of social responsibility was
a real relief, and Warren's solicitude and sympathy were a tonic of
which she drank deep, night and morning. His big warm hands, his smile,
the confidence of his voice, these thrilled and rejuvenated her
continually.
The boys were a delight to her. In their small rumpled pajamas they
came into her room every morning, dewy from sleep, full of delicious
plans for the day. Jim was a masterful baby whose continually jerking
head was sure to bump his mother if she attempted too much hugging, but
dark-eyed, grave little Derry was "cuddly"; he would rest his shining
head contentedly for minutes together on his mother's breast, and when
she lifted him from his crib late at night for a last kiss, his warm
baby arms would circle her neck, and his rich little voice murmur
luxuriously, "Hug Derry."
Muffled rosily in gaiters and furs, or running about her room in their
white, rosetted slippers, with sturdy arms and knees bare, or angelic
in their blue wrappers after the evening bath, they were equally
enchanting to their mother.
"It's a marvel to see how you can be so patient!" Warren said one
evening when he was dressing for an especially notable dinner, and
Rachael, in her big Chinese coat, was watching the process contentedly
from the couch in his upstairs sitting-room.
"Well, that's the odd thing about ill health, Greg--you haven't any
chance to answer back," she answered thoughtfully. "If money could make
me well, or if effort could, I'd get well, of course! But there seem to
be times when you simply are SICK. It's an extraordinary experience to
me; it's extraordinary to lie here, and think of all the hundreds of
thousands of other women who are sick, just simply and quietly laid low
with no by-your-leave! Of course, my being ill doesn't make much
trouble; the boys are cared for, the house goes on, and I don't suffer!
But suppose we were poor, and the children needed me, and you couldn't
afford a nurse--then what? For I'd have to collapse and lie here just
the same!"
"It's no snap for me," Warren grumbled after a silence. "Gosh! I will
be glad when you're well--and when the damn nurse is out of the house!"
"Warren, I thought you liked Miss Snow!"
"Well, I do, I suppose--in a way. But I don't like her for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner--so everlastingly sweet and fresh!' I declare I
believe my watch is losing time--this is the third time this week I've
been late!'"
This was said in exactly Miss Snow's tone, and Rachael laughed.
But when he was gone a deep depression fell upon her. Dear old boy, it
was not much of a life for him, going about alone, sitting down to his
meals with only a trained nurse for company! Shut away so deliciously
from the world with her husband and sons, enjoying the very
helplessness that forced her to lean so heavily upon him, she had
forgotten how hard it was for Greg!
Yet how could she get well when the stubborn weakness and languor
persisted, when her nights were so long and sleepless, her appetite so
slight, her strength so quickly exhausted?
"When do you think I will get well, Miss Snow?" she would ask.
"Come, now, we're not going to bother our heads about THAT," Miss Snow
would say cheerfully. "Why, you're not sick! You've just got to rest
and take care of yourself, that's all! Dear ME, if you were suffering
every minute of the time, you might have something to grumble about!"
Doctor Valentine was equally unsatisfactory, although Rachael loved the
simple, homely man so much that she could not be vexed by his kindly
vagueness:
"These things are slow to fight, Rachael," said George Valentine.
"Alice had just such a fight years ago. When the human machinery runs
down, there's nothing for it but patience! You did too much last
winter, nursing the baby until you left for California, and then only
the hot summer between that and September! Just go slow!"
Perhaps once a month Magsie came in to see Rachael, ready to pour tea,
to flirt with any casual caller, or to tickle the roaring baby with the
little fox head on her muff. She had been playing in a minor part in a
successful production. Among all the callers who came and went perhaps
Magsie was the most at home in the Gregory house--a harmless little
affectionate creature, unimportant, but always welcome.
Slowly health and strength came back, and one by one Rachael took up
the dropped threads of her life. The early spring found her apparently
herself again, but there was a touch of gray here and there in her dark
hair, and Elinor and Judy told each other that her spirits were not the
same.
They did not know what Rachael knew, that there was a change in Warren,
so puzzling, so disquieting, that his wife's convalescence was delayed
by many a wakeful hour and many a burst of secret tears on his account.
She could not even analyze it, much less was she fit to battle with it
with her old splendid strength and sanity.
His general attitude toward her, in these days, was one of paternal and
brisk kindliness. He liked her new gown, he didn't care much for that
hat, she didn't look awfully well, better telephone old George, it
wouldn't do to have her sick again! Yes, he was going out, unless she
wanted him for something? She was reminded hideously of her old days
with Clarence.
Shaken and weak still, she fought gallantly against the pain and
bewilderment of the new problem. She invited the persons he liked to
the house, she effaced her own claim, she tried to get him to talk of
his cases. Sometimes, as the spring ripened, she planned whole days
with him in the car. They would go up to Ossining and see the Perrys,
or they would go to Jersey and spend the day with Doctor Cheseborough.
Perhaps Warren accepted these suggestions, and they had a cloudless
day. Or when Sunday morning came, and the boys, coated and capped, were
eager to start, he might evade them.
"I wonder if you'll feel badly, Petty, if I don't go?"
"Oh, WARREN!"
"Well, my dear, I've got some work to do. I ought to look up that
meningitis case--the Italian child. Louise'll give me a bite of lunch--"
"But, dearest, that spoils our day!" Rachael would fling her wraps
down, and face him ruefully. "How can I go alone! I don't want to. And
it's SUCH a day, and the babies are so sweet--"
"There's no reason why you and the children shouldn't go." She had come
to know that mild, almost reproachful, tone.
"Oh, but Warren, that spoils it all!"
"I'm sorry!"
Rachael would shut her lips firmly over protest. At best she might
wring from him a reluctant change of mind and an annoyed offer of
company which she must from sheer pride decline. At worst she would be
treated with a dignified silence--the peevish and exacting woman who
could not understand.
So she would go slowly down to the car, to Mary beaming beside Martin
in the front seat, to the delicious boys tumbling about in the back,
eager for Mother. With one on each side of her, a retaining hand on the
little gaiters, she would wave the attentive husband and father an
amiable farewell. The motor car would wheel about in the bare May
sunshine, the river would be a ripple of dancing blue waves, morning
riders would canter on the bridle-path, and white-frocked babies toddle
along the paths. Such a morning for a ride, if only Warren were there!
But Rachael would try to enjoy her run, and would eat Mrs. Perry's or
Mrs. Cheseborough's fried chicken and home-made ices with gracious
enthusiasm; everyone was quite ready to excuse Warren; his beautiful
wife was the more popular of the two.
He was always noticeably affectionate when they got home. Rachael, her
color bright from sun and wind, would entertain him with a spirited
account of the day while she dressed.
"I wish I'd gone with you; I will next time!" he invariably said.
On the next Sunday she might try another experience. No plans to-day.
The initiative should be left to him. Breakfast would drag along until
after ten o'clock, and Mary would appear with a low question. Were the
boys to go out to the Park? Rachael would pause, undecided. Well, yes,
Mary might take them, but bring them in early, in case Doctor Gregory
wished to take them somewhere.
And ten minutes later he might jump up briskly. Well! how about a
little run up to Pelham Manor, wonderful morning--could she go as she
was? Rachael would beg for ten minutes; she might come downstairs in
seven to find him wavering.
"Would you mind if we made it a pretty short run, dear, and then if I
dropped you here and went on down to the hospital for a little while?"
"Why, Warren, it was your suggestion, dear! Why take a drive at all if
you don't feel like it!"
"Oh, it's not that--I'm quite willing to. Where are the kids?"
"Mary took them out. They've got to be back for naps at half-past
eleven, you see."
"I see." He would look at his watch. "Well, I'll tell you what I think
I'll do. I'll change and shave now--" A pause. His voice would drop
vaguely. "What would YOU like to do?" he might suggest amiably.
Such a conversation, so lacking in his old definite briskness where
their holidays were concerned, would daunt Rachael with a sense of
utter forlornness. Sometimes she offered a plan, but it was invariably
rejected. There were friends who would have been delighted at an
unexpected lunch call from the Gregorys, but Warren yawned and
shuddered negatives when she mentioned their names. In the end, he
would go off to the hospital for an hour or two, and later would
telephone to his wife to explain a longer absence: he had met some of
the boys at the club and they were rather urging him to stay to lunch;
he couldn't very well decline.
"Would you like to have me come down and join you anywhere later?" his
wife might ask in the latter case.
"No, thank you, no. I may come straight home after lunch, and in that
case I'd cross you. Boys all right?"
"Lovely." Rachael would sit at the telephone desk, after she had hung
up the receiver, wrapped in bitter thought, a bewildered pain at her
heart. She never doubted him; to-morrow good, old, homely, trustworthy
George Valentine, whose wife and children were visiting Alice's mother
in Boston, would speak of the bridge game at the club. But with his
wife waiting for him at home, his wife who lived all the six days of
the week waiting for this seventh day, why did he need the society of
his men friends?
A commonplace retaliation might have suggested itself to her, but there
was no fighting instinct in Rachael now. She did not want to pique him,
to goad him, to flirt with him. He should be hers honorably and openly,
without devices, without intrigue. Stirred to the deeps of her being by
wifehood and motherhood, by her passionate love for her husband and
children, it was a humiliating thought that she must coquette with and
flatter other men. As a matter of fact, she found it difficult to talk
with any interest of anything except Warren, his work and his plans, of
Jimmy and Derry, and perhaps of Home Dunes. If it were a matter of
necessity she might always turn to the new plays and books, the opera
of the season, or the bill for tenement requirements or juvenile
delinquents, but mere personalities and intrigue she knew no more.
These matters were all of secondary interest to her now; it seemed to
Rachael that the time had come when mere personalities, when bridge and
cocktails and dancing and half-true scandals were not satisfying.
"Warren," she said one evening when the move to Home Dunes was near,
"should you be sorry if I began to go regularly to church again?"
"No," he said indifferently, giving her rather a surprised glance over
his book. "Churchgoing coming in again?"
"It's not that," Rachael said, smiling over a little sense of pain,
"but I--I like it. I want the boys to think that their mother goes to
church and prays--and I really want to do it myself!"
He smiled, as always a little intolerant of what sounded like sentiment.
"Oh, come, my dear! Long before the boys are old enough to remember it
you'll have given it up again!"
"I hope not," Rachael said, sighing. "I wish I had never stopped. I
wish I were one of these mild, nice, village women who put out clean
stockings for the children every Saturday night, and clean shirts and
ginghams, and lead them all into a pew Sunday morning, and teach them
the Golden Rule, and to honor their father and their mother, and all
the rest of it!"
"And what do you think you would gain by that?" Warren asked.
"Oh, I would gain--security," Rachael said vaguely, but with a
suspicion of tears in her eyes. "I would have something to--to stand
upon, to be guided by. There is a purity, an austerity, about that old
church-going, loving-God-and-your-neighbor ideal. Truth and simplicity
and integrity and uprightness--my old great-grandmother used to use
those words, but one doesn't ever hear them any more! Everything's half
black and half white nowadays; we're all as good or as bad as we happen
to be born. There's no more discipline, no more self-denial, no more
development of character! I want to--to hold on to something, now that
forces I can't control are coming into my life."
"What do you mean by forces you can't control?" he asked with a sort of
annoyed interest.
"Love, Warren," she answered quickly. "Love for you and the boys, and
fear for you and the boys. Love always brings fear. And illness--I
never thought of it before I was ill. And jealousy--"
"What have you got to be jealous of?" he asked, somewhat gruffly, as
she paused.
"Your work," Rachael said simply; "everything that keeps you away from
me!"
"And you think going to Saint Luke's every Sunday morning at eleven
o'clock, and listening to Billy Graves, will fix it all up?" he smiled
not unkindly. But as she did not answer his smile, and as the tears he
disliked came into her eyes, his tone changed. "Now I'll tell you
what's the matter with you, my dear," he said with a brisk kindliness
that cut her far more just then than severity would have done, "you're
all wound up in self-analysis and psychologic self-consciousness, and
you're spinning round and round in your own entity like a kitten
chasing her tail. It's a perfectly recognizable phase of a sort of
minor hysteria that often gets hold of women, and curiously enough, it
usually comes about five or six years after marriage. We doctors meet
it over and over again. 'But, Doctor, I'm so nervous and excited all
the time, and I don't sleep! I worry so--and much as I love my husband,
I just can't help worrying!'"
Looking up and toward his wife as she sat opposite him in the
lamp-light, Warren Gregory found no smile on the beautiful face.
Rachael's hurt was deeper than her pride; she looked stricken.
"Don't put yourself in their class, my dear!" her husband said
leniently. "You need some country air. You'll get down to Clark's Hills
in a week or two and blow some of these notions away. Meanwhile, why
don't you run down to the club every morning, and play a good smashing
game of squash, and take a plunge. Put yourself through a little
training!" He reopened his book.
Rachael did not answer. Presently glancing at her he saw that she was
reading, too.