The Vehement Flame Part 54

"Why, she's here, now, in the house!" Edith's mother said.

"_Here?_" Eleanor said, despairingly. If Edith was here, then Maurice, when he came, would see her and she would tell him! "She would make a funny story of it," Eleanor thought; "I know her! She would make him laugh. I can't bear it! ... I would like to speak to Edith," she told Mrs. Houghton, faintly.

Edith, summoned by her mother, stood for a rigid moment outside Eleanor's door, trying to get herself in hand. In these anxious days, Edith's youth had been threatened by a.s.sailing waves of a remorse that at times would have engulfed it altogether, but for that unflinching reasonableness which made her the girl she was. "It may be," Edith had said to herself; "it _may_ be that what I said to her in the garden made her so angry that she tried to kill herself; but why should it have made her angry? I didn't injure her. Besides, she dragged it out of me! I couldn't lie. She said, 'You love him.' I _would_ not lie, and say I didn't! But what harm did it do her?" So she reasoned; but reason did not keep her from suffering. "Did _I_ drive her to it?" Edith said, over and over. So when her mother told her Eleanor wanted to speak to her, she grew a little pale. When she entered Eleanor's room her heart was beating so hard she felt smothered, but she was perfectly matter of fact. "Anything I can do for you, Eleanor?" she said. She stood at the foot of the bed, holding on to the carved bed post.

Eleanor looked at her for a silent moment, then gathered herself together. "Edith," she said (she was very hoa.r.s.e and spoke with difficulty), "I don't want to bother Maurice about--about my accident.

So I am going to ask you, please, not to refer to it to him. Not to tell him anything about it. _Anything._ Promise me."

"Of course I won't!" Edith said. As she spoke she forgot herself in pity for the scared, haggard face. ("Oh, _was_ it my fault?" she thought, with a real pang.) And before she knew it her coldness was all gone and she was at Eleanor's side; she sat down on the edge of the bed and caught her hand impulsively. "Eleanor," she said, "I've been awfully unhappy, for fear anything I said--that morning--troubled you? Of course there was no sense in talking that way, for either of us. So please forgive me! _Was_ it what I said, that made you--that bothered you, I mean? I'm so unhappy," Edith said, and caught her lip between her teeth to keep it steady; her eyes were bright with tears. "Eleanor, truly I am _nothing_ to--to anybody. n.o.body cares a copper for me! Do be kind to me. Oh--I've been awfully unhappy; and I'm _so_ glad you're better."

Instantly the smoldering fire broke into flame: "I'm _not_ better,"

Eleanor said, "and you wouldn't be glad if I were."

It was as if she struck her hand upon those generous young lips. Edith sprang to her feet. "Eleanor!"

Eleanor sat up in bed, her hands behind her, propping her up; her cheeks were dully red, her eyes glowing. "All this talk about making me unhappy means nothing at all. You have always made me unhappy. And as for anybody's caring for you--they _don't_; you are quite right about that.

Quite right! And I want to tell you something else: If anything happens to me, I _want_ Maurice to marry again. But he won't marry you."

"Eleanor," Edith said, "you wouldn't say such a thing, or think such a thing, if you weren't sick. I'm sorry I came in. I'll go right away, and--"

"No," she said; "don't go away,"--her arms had begun to tremble with strain of supporting her, she spoke in whispered gasps: "I am going to speak," she said; "I prefer to speak. I want you to know that if I die--"

"You are not going to die! You are going to get well."

"Will you _please_ not keep interrupting? It is so hard for me to get my breath. I want you to know that he will marry--that Dale woman. Because it is right that he should. Because of the little boy. His little boy."

Edith was dumb.

"So you see, he can't marry _you_," Eleanor said, and fell back on her pillows, her eyes half closed.

There was a long silence, just the ticking of the Empire clock and the faint snapping of the fire. Edith felt as if some iron hand had gripped her throat. For a moment it was impossible for her to speak; then the words came quietly: "Eleanor, I'm glad you told me this. You are going to get well, and I'm glad, _glad_ that you are! But I must tell you: If anything had happened to you, I would have moved heaven and earth to have kept Maurice from marrying that woman. Oh, Eleanor, how can you say you love him, and yet plan such terrible unhappiness for him?"

She turned and ran out of the room, up another flight of stairs to her own bedroom. There she fell down on her bed and lay tense and rigid, her face hidden in her hands. This, then, was what Maurice had meant? She saw again the wood path, and the tall fern breaking under Maurice's racquet; she saw the flecks of suns.h.i.+ne on the moss--she heard him say he "hadn't played the game with Eleanor." Oh, he hadn't, he hadn't! Then she thought of the Dale woman. The accident on the river. The stumble at the gate and of Maurice's child in Lily's arms. "Oh, poor Eleanor!

poor Eleanor! ... All the same, she is wicked, to be so cruel to him.

She is taking her revenge. Jealousy has made her wicked. But, oh, I wish I hadn't hurt her in the garden! But how _could_ Maurice--that little, common woman! How _could_ he?" She shook with sobs: "Poor, poor Eleanor ..."

Eleanor, on her big bed, lay panting with anger and fright. "_Now_ she'll know I'm hiding something from him!" she thought; "I've put myself in her power by having a secret with her; just as I put myself in Lily's power by asking her not to tell Maurice I had been there. Well, Edith is in _my_ power!--because I've made her know he'll never care for her. And she'll keep her word; she'll not tell him about the river."

The relief of this was so great that she could almost forget her humiliation; she gave herself up to thinking what she herself must do to keep Maurice in ignorance. "Auntie will be sure to say something. But he knows how silly she is. She thought we'd quarreled, and that I had tried ... I might tell Maurice that? And he'll make fun of her, and won't believe anything she says! I might say that I went out to--to see our river, and slipped and got wet, and that Auntie thought we'd quarreled, and that I had ... had tried to ... to--And he'll say, 'What a joke!'

But maybe he'll say, 'Why did you go out to Medfield so late?' And I'll say, 'Oh, well, I got delayed.' ... Yes, that's the thing to do."

So, around and around, her poor, frantic thoughts raced and trampled one another. When Mrs. Newbolt interrupted them with a tray and some supper, Eleanor, with eyes closed, motioned her away: "My head aches. I can't eat anything. I'm going to try and get a little sleep."

By and by, through sheer fatigue, she did drowse, and when the wheels of Maurice's cab grated against the curb, she was asleep.

Edith, upstairs in her own room, heard the front door close sharply. "I _can't_ see him!" she said; "I mustn't see him." But she wanted to see him; she wanted to say to him: "Maurice, you can make it all up to Eleanor! You can make her happy. _Don't_ despair about it--we'll all help you make it up to her!" She wanted to say: " Oh,Maurice, you _will_ conquer. I know you will!" If she could only see him and tell him these things! "If I didn't love him, I could," she thought....

Maurice came hurrying into the parlor, with the anxious, "How is she?"

on his lips; and Mrs. Newbolt and Mrs. Houghton were full of rea.s.surances, and suggestions of food, which he negatived promptly.

"Tell me about Eleanor! What happened?"

"She's asleep," Mrs. Newbolt said. "You must have something to eat--"

She was in such a panic of uncertainty as to what must and must not be said to Maurice that she clutched at supper as a perfectly safe topic.

"I--I--I'll go and see about your supper," said Mrs. Newbolt, and trundled off to hide herself in the dining room.

Mary Houghton could not hide, but she would have been glad to! "Eleanor is sleepy, now, Maurice," she said; "but she'll want to have just a glimpse of you--"

"I'll go right up!"

"Maurice, wait one minute. If I were you, I wouldn't get Eleanor to talking, to-night; she's a little feverish--"

"Mrs. Houghton!" he broke in, "Eleanor's all right, isn't she?" His face was furrowed with alarm. (If that wicked rhythm of the wheels should begin again!)

"Oh yes; I--I think so. She hasn't quite got over the shock yet, but--"

"What shock? n.o.body's told me yet what it was! Your dispatch only said she'd slipped into the water. What water?"

"We don't really know," said Mrs. Houghton; "and she mustn't be worried with questions, the doctor says. You see, she got dripping wet, somehow, and then had a long trolley ride--and she had a cold to start with--"

"I'll just crawl upstairs, and see if she's awake," said Maurice. "I won't disturb her."

As he started softly upstairs, Mrs. Newbolt opened the dining-room door a crack, and peered in at Mary Houghton. "Did you tell him?" she said, in a wheezing whisper.

Mrs. Houghton shook her head.

"Well, I can tell you who won't tell him," said Eleanor's aunt; "me! To tell a man that his wife--"

"Hush-s.h.!.+" said Mrs. Houghton; "he's coming downstairs. Besides, we don't know that she did--"

The dining-room door closed softly on the whispered words: "Puffect nonsense. Of course we know."

Maurice, tiptoeing into Eleanor's room, thought she was asleep, and was backing out again, when she opened drowsy eyes and said, faintly, "Hullo."

He bent over to kiss her. "Well, you're a great girl, to cut up like this when I'm away from home!"

She smiled, closed her eyes, and he tiptoed out of the room....

Back again in the parlor, he began, "Mrs. Houghton, for Heaven's sake, tell me the whole thing!" He wasn't anxious now; as far as he could see, Eleanor was "all right"--just sleepy. But what on earth--

She told him what she knew; what she suspected, she kept to herself. But she might as well have told it all. For, as he listened, his face darkened with understanding.

"The river? In Medfield? But, why--?"

"Edith says you and she had a good deal of sentiment about the river, and--"

"At six o'clock, on a March evening?" said Maurice. He put his hands in his pockets and began to walk up and down. Mrs. Houghton had nothing more to say; the room was so silent that the dining-room door opened a furtive crack--then closed quickly! Mrs. Houghton began to talk about Maurice's journey, and Maurice asked whether Eleanor could be taken home the next day--at which the dining-room door opened broadly, and Mrs.

Newbolt said:

"If you ask _me_, I'd say 'no'! If you want to know what I think, I think she's got a temperature! And she oughtn't to stir out of this house till it's normal."