Started on practical issues, Mary's mind had flown to the need of a telephone to link them to her doctor. “May we install a 'phone?” she asked. “I never lived with one till two months ago, but already it is a confirmed vice with me.”
“Mayn't I have it put in for you—there should be one here,” said he.
“Oh, no, please!”
“At least let me arrange for it,” he urged.
“Now, son, thee must not keep Mrs. Byrd out too late. Get her home before sundown,” Mrs. Farraday's voice admonished. Obediently, every one moved toward the hall. At a word from McEwan, the mute Jamie ran to open the tonneau door. Farraday stopped to lock the kitchen entrance and found McEwan on the little porch as he emerged, while the others were busy settling themselves in the car. As Farraday turned the heavy front door lock, his friend's hand fell on his shoulder.
“Ought ye to do it, James?” McEwan asked quietly.
Farraday raised his eyes, and looked steadily at the other, with his slow smile.
“Yes, Mac, it's a good thing to do. In any case, I shouldn't have been likely to marry, you know.” The two friends took their places in the car.
After much consideration from Mary, the Byrds decided to give up their recently acquired flat, but to keep the old studio. She felt they should not attempt to carry three rents through the summer, but, on the other hand, Stefan was still working at his Demeter, using an Italian model for the boy's figure, and could not finish it conveniently elsewhere. Then, too, he expressed a wish for a pied-à-terre in the city, and as Mary had very tender associations with the little studio she was glad to think of keeping it.
Stefan was working fitfully at this time. He would have spurts of energy followed by fits of depression and disgust with his work, during which he would leave the house and take long rides uptown on the tops of omnibuses. Mary could not see that these excursions in search of air calmed his nervousness, and she concluded that the spring fever was in his blood and that he needed a change of scene at least as much as she did.
About this time he sold his five remaining drawings of New York to the Pan-American Magazine, a progressive monthly. They gained considerable attention from the art world, and were seized upon by certain groups of radicals as a sermon on the capitalistic system. On the strength of them, Stefan was hailed as that rarest of all beings, a politically minded artist, and became popular in quarters from which his intolerance had hitherto barred him.
It entertained him hugely to be proclaimed as a champion of democracy, for he had made the drawings in impish hatred not of a class but of American civilization as a whole.
Their bank account, in spite of much heightened living expenses, remained substantial by reason of this new sale, but Stefan was as indifferent as ever to its control, and Mary's sense of caution was little diminished. Her growing comprehension of him warned her that their position was still insecure; he remained, for all his success, an unknown quantity as a producer. She wanted him to assume some interest in their affairs, and suggested separate bank accounts, but he begged off.
“Let me have a signature at the bank, so that I can cash checks for personal expenses, but don't ask me to keep accounts, or know how much we have,” he said. “If you find I am spending too much at any time, just tell me, and I will stop.”
Further than this she could not get him to discuss the matter, and saw that she must think out alone some method of bookkeeping which would be fair to them both, and would establish a record for future use. Ultimately she transferred her own money, less her private expenditures during the winter, to a separate account, to be used for all her personal expenses. The old account she put in both their names, and made out a monthly schedule for the household, beyond which she determined never to draw. Anything she could save from this amount she destined for a savings bank, but over and above it she felt that her husband's earnings were his, and that she could not in honor interfere with them. Mary was almost painfully conscientious, and this plan cost her many heart-searchings before it was complete.
After her baby was born she intended to continue her writing; she did not wish ever to draw on Stefan for her private purse. So far at least, she would live up to feminist principles.
There was much to be done before they could leave the city, and Mary had practically no assistance from Stefan in her arrangements. She would ask his advice about the packing or disposal of a piece of furniture, and he would make some suggestion, often impracticable; but on any further questioning he would run his hands through his hair, or thrust them into his pockets, looking either vague or nervous. “Why fuss about such things, dear?” or “Do just as you like,” or “I'm sure I haven't a notion,” were his most frequent answers. He developed a habit of leaving his work and following Mary restlessly from room to room as she packed or sorted, which she found rather wearing.
On one such occasion—it was the day before they were to leave—she was carrying a large pile of baby's clothes from her bedroom to a trunk in the sitting-room, while Stefan stood humped before the fireplace, smoking. As she passed him he frowned nervously.
“How heavily you tread, Mary,” he jerked out. She stood stock-still and flushed painfully.
“I think, Stefan,” she said, with the tears of feeling which came over-readily in these days welling to her eyes, “instead of saying that you might come and help me to carry these things.”
He looked completely contrite. “I'm sorry, dearest, it was a silly thing to say. Forgive me,” and he kissed her apologetically, taking the bundle from her. He offered to help several times that afternoon, but as he never knew where anything was to go, and fidgeted from foot to foot while he hung about her, she was obliged at last to plead release from his efforts.
“Stefan dear,” she said, giving him rather a harassed smile, “you evidently find this kind of thing a bore. Why don't you run out and leave me to get on quietly with it?”
“I know I've been rotten to you, and I thought you wanted me to help,” he explained, in a self-exculpatory tone.
She stroked his cheek maternally. “Run along, dearest. I can get on perfectly well alone.”
“You're a brick, Mary. I think I'll go. This kind of thing—” he flung his arm toward the disordered room—“is too utterly unharmonious.” And kissing her mechanically he hastened out.
That night for the first time in their marriage he did not return for dinner, but telephoned that he was spending the evening with friends. Mary, tired out with her packing, ate her meal alone and went to bed immediately afterwards. His absence produced in her a dull heartache, but she was too weary to ponder over his whereabouts.
Early next morning Mary telephoned Miss Mason. Stefan, who had come home late, was still asleep when the Sparrow arrived, and by the time he had had his breakfast the whole flat was in its final stage of disruption. A few pieces of furniture were to be sent to the cottage, a few more stored, and the studio was to be returned to its original omnibus status. Mrs. Corriani, priestess of family emergencies, had been summoned from the depths; the Sparrow had donned an apron, Mary a smock; Lily, the colored maid, was packing china into a barrel, surrounded by writhing seas of excelsior. For Stefan, the flat might as well have been given over to the Furies. He fetched his hat.
“Mary,” he said, “I'm not painting again until we have moved. Djinns, Afrits and Goddesses should be allowed to perform their spiritings unseen of mortals. I shall go and sit in the Metropolitan and contemplate Rodin's Penseur—he is so spacious.”
“Very well, dearest,” said Mary brightly. She had slept away her low spirits. “Don't forget Mr. Farraday is sending his car in for us at three o'clock.”
He looked nonplused. “You don't mean to say we are moving to-day?”
“Yes, you goose,” she laughed, “don't you remember?”
“I'm frightfully sorry, Mary, but I made an engagement for this evening, to go to the theatre. I knew you would not want to come,” he added.
Mary looked blank. “But, Stefan,” she exclaimed, “everything is arranged! We are dining with the Farradays. I told you several times we were moving on the fourth. You make it so difficult, dear, by not taking any interest.” Her voice trembled. She had worked and planned for their flitting for a week past, was all eagerness to be gone, and now he, who had been equally keen, seemed utterly indifferent.
He fidgeted uncomfortably, looking contrite yet rebellious. Mary was at a loss. The Sparrow, however, promptly raised her crest and exhibited a claw.
“Land sakes, Mr. Byrd,” she piped, “you are a mighty fine artist, but that don't prevent your being a husband first these days! Men are all alike—” she turned to Mary—“always ready to skedaddle off when there's work to be done. Now, young man—” she pointed a mandatory finger—“you run and telephone your friends to call the party off.” Her voice shrilled, her beady eyes snapped; she looked exactly like one of her namesakes, ruffled and quarreling at the edge of its nest.
Stefan burst out laughing. “All right, Miss Sparrow, smooth your feathers. Mary, I'm a mud-headed idiot—I forgot the whole thing. Pay no attention to my vagaries, dearest, I'll be at the door at three.” He kissed her warmly, and went out humming, banging the door behind him.
“My father was the same, and my brothers,” the Sparrow philosophized. “Spring-cleaning and moving took every ounce of sense out of them.” Mary sighed. Her zest for the preparations had departed.
Presently, seeing her languor, Miss Mason insisted Mary should lie down and leave the remaining work to her. The only resting place left was the old studio, where their divan had been replaced. Thither Mary mounted, and lying amidst its dusty disarray, traced in memory the months she had spent there. It had been their first home. Here they had had their first quarrel and their first success, and here had come to her her annunciation. Though they were keeping the room, it would never hold the same meaning for her again, and though she already loved their new home, it hurt her at the last to bid their first good-bye. Perhaps it was a trick of fatigue, but as she lay there the conviction came to her that with to-day's change some part of the early glamour of marriage was to go, that not even the coming of her child could bring to life the memories this room contained. She longed for her husband, for his voice calling her the old, dear, foolish names. She felt alone, and fearful of the future.
“My grief,” exclaimed Miss Mason from the door an hour later. “I told you to go to sleep 'n here you are wide awake and crying!”
Mary smiled shamefacedly.
“I'm just tired, Sparrow, that's all, and have been indulging in the 'vapors.'” She squeezed her friend's hand. “Let's have some lunch.”
“It's all ready, and Lily with her hat 'n coat on. Come right downstairs—it's most two o'clock.”
Mary jumped up, amazed at the time she had wasted. Her spell of depression was over, and she was her usual cheerful self when, at three o'clock, she heard Stefan's feet bounding up the stairs for the last time.
“Tra-la, Mary, the car is here!” he called. “Thank God we are getting out of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and see us at Crab's Bay. March, Lily. A riverderci, Signora Corriani. Come, dearest.” He bustled them all out, seized two suitcases in one hand and Mary's elbow in the other, chattered his few words of Italian to the janitress, chaffed Miss Mason, and had them all laughing by the time they reached the street. He seemed in the highest spirits, his moods of the last weeks forgotten.
As the car started he kissed his fingers repeatedly to Miss Mason and waved his hat to the inevitable assemblage of small boys.
“The country, darling!” he cried, pressing Mary's hand under the rug. “Farewell to ugliness and squalor! How happy we are going to be!”
Mary's hand pressed his in reply.
It was late April. The wooded slopes behind “The Byrdsnest,” as Mary had christened the cottage, were peppered with a pale film of green. The lawn before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early morning, Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching for nest-making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so serious and stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but her favorites were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like greenish canaries, of which she did not know the name. None of them, she thought, had such melodious song as at home in England, but their brilliant plumage was a constant delight to her.
Daffodils were springing up in the garden, crocuses were out, and the blue scylla. On the downward slope toward the bay the brown furry heads of ferns had begun to push stoutly from the earth. The spring was awake.
Stefan seemed thoroughly contented again. He had his north light in the barn, but seldom worked there, being absorbed in outdoor sketching. He was making many small studies of the trees still bare against the gleam of water, with a dust of green upon them. He could get a number of valuable notes here, he told Mary.
During their first two weeks in the country his restlessness had often recurred. He had gone back and forth to the city for work on his Demeter, and had even slept there on several occasions. But one morning he wakened Mary by coming in from an early ramble full of joy in the spring, and announcing that the big picture was now as good as he could make it, and that he was done with the town. He threw back the blinds and called to her to look at the day.
“It's vibrant, Mary; life is waking all about us.” He turned to the bed.
“You look like a beautiful white rose, cool with the dew.”
She blushed—he had forgotten lately his old habit of pretty speech-making. He came and sat on the bed's edge, holding her hand.
“I've had my restless devil with me of late, sweetheart,” he said. “But now I feel renewed, and happy. I shan't want to leave you any more.” He kissed her with a gravity at which she might have wondered had she been more thoroughly awake. His tone was that of a man who makes a promise to himself.
Since that morning he had been consistently cheerful and carefree, more attentive to Mary than for some time past, and pleased with all his surroundings. She was overjoyed at the change, and for her own part never tired of working in the house and garden, striving to make more perfect the atmosphere of simple homeliness which Farraday had first imparted to them. Lily was fascinated by her kitchen and little white bedroom.
“This surely is a cute little house, yes,ma'am,” she would exclaim emphatically, with a grin.
Lily was a small, chocolate-colored negress, with a neat figure, and the ever ready smile which is God's own gift to the race. Mary, who hardly remembered having seen a negro till she came to America, had none of the color-prejudice which grows up in biracial communities. She found Lily civil, cheerful, and intelligent, and felt a sincere liking for her which the other reciprocated with a growing devotion.
Often in these days a passerby—had there been any—could have heard a threefold chorus rising about the cottage, a spring-song as unconscious as the birds'. From the kitchen Lily's voice rose in the endless refrain of a hymn; Mary's clear tones traveled down from the little room beside her own, where she was preparing a place for the expected one; and Stefan's whistle, or his snatches of French song, resounded from woods or barn. Youth and hope were in the house, youth was in the air and earth.
Farraday's gardens were the pride of the neighborhood, these and the library expressing him as the house did his mother. Several times he sent down an armful of flowers to the Byrdsnest, and, one Sunday morning, Mary had just finished arranging such a bunch in her vases when she heard the chug of an automobile in the lane. She looked out to see Constance, a veiled figure beside her, stopping a runabout at the gate. Delighted, she hastened to the door. Constance hailed her.
“Mary, behold the charioteer! Theodore has given me this machine for suffrage propaganda during the summer, and I achieved my driver's license yesterday. I'm so vain I'm going to make Felicity design me a gown with a peacock's tail that I can spread. I've brought her with me to show off too, and because she needed air. How are you, bless you? May we come in?”
Not waiting for an answer, she jumped down and hugged Mary, Miss Berber following in more leisurely fashion. Mary could not help wishing Constance had come alone, as she now felt a little self-conscious before strangers. However, she shook hands with Miss Berber, and led them both into the sitting-room.
“Simply delicious!” exclaimed Constance, glancing eagerly about her, “and how divinely healthy you look—like a transcendental dairy-maid! This place was made for you, and how you've improved it. Look, Felicity, at her chintz, and her flowers, and hercunningpair of china shepherdesses!” She ran from one thing to another, ecstatically appreciative.
Mary had had no chance to speak yet, and, as Felicity was absorbed in the languid removal of a satin coat and incredible yards of apple green veiling, Constance held the floor.
“Look at her pair of love-birds sidling along the curtain pole, as tame as humans! Where did you find that wooden cage? And that white cotton dress? You smell of lavender and an ironing-board! Oh, dear,” she began again, “driving is very wearing, and I should like a cocktail, but I must have milk. Milk, my dear Mary, is the only conceivable beverage in this house. Have you a cow? You ought to have a cow—a brindled cow—also a lamb; 'Mary had,' et cetera. My dear, stop me. Enthusiasm converts me into an 'agreeable rattle,' as they used to call our great-grandmothers.”
“Subdue yourself with this,” laughed Mary, holding out the desired glass of milk. “Miss Berber, can I get anything for you?”
Felicity by this time was unwrapped, and had disposed herself upon a window-seat, her back to the light.
“Wine or water, Mrs. Byrd; I do not drink milk,” she breathed, lighting a cigarette.
“We have some Chianti; nothing else, I'm afraid,” said Mary, and a glass of this the designer deigned to accept, together with a little yellow cake set with currants, and served upon a pewter plate.
“I see, Mrs. Byrd,” Felicity murmured, as Constance in momentary silence sipped her milk, “that you comprehend the first law of decoration for woman—that her accessories must be a frame for her type. I—how should I appear in a room like this?” She gave a faint shrug. “At best, a false tone in a chromatic harmony. You are entirely in key.”
Her eyelids drooped; she exhaled a long breath of smoke. “Very well thought out—unusually clever—for a layman,” she uttered, and was still, with the suggestion of a sibyl whose oracle has ceased to speak.
Mary tried not to find her manner irritating, but could not wholly dispel the impression that Miss Berber habitually patronized her.
She laughed pleasantly.
“I'm afraid I can't claim to have been guided by any subtle theories—I have merely collected together the kind of things I am fond of.”
“Mary decorates with her heart, Felicity, you with your head,” said Constance, setting down her empty tumbler.
“I'm afraid I should find the heart too erratic a guide to art. Knowledge, Mrs. Byrd, knowledge must supplement feeling,” said Felicity, with a gesture of finality.
“Really!” answered Mary, falling back upon her most correct English manner. There was nothing else to say. “She is either cheeky, or a bromide,” she thought.
“Felicity,” exclaimed Constance, “don't adopt your professional manner; you can't take us in. You know you are an outrageous humbug.”
“Dear Connie,” replied the other with the ghost of a smile, “you are always so amusing, and so much more wide awake in the morning than I am.”
Conversation languished for a minute, Constance having embarked on a cake. For some reason which she could not analyze, Mary felt in no great hurry to call Stefan from the barn, should he be there.
Felicity rose. “May we not see your garden, Mrs. Byrd?”
“Certainly,” said Mary, and led the way to the door. Felicity slipped out first, and wandered with her delicate step a little down the path.
“Isn't it darling!” exclaimed Constance from the porch, surveying the flower-strewn grass, the feathery trees, and the pale gleam of the water. Mary began to show her some recent plantings, in particular a rose-bed which was her last addition to the garden.
“I see you have a barn,” said Felicity, flitting back to them with a hint of animation. “Is it picturesque inside? Would it lend itself to treatment?” She wandered toward it, and there was nothing for the others to do but follow.
“Oh, yes,” explained Mary, “my husband has converted it into a studio. He may be working there now—I had been meaning to call him.”
She felt a trifle uncomfortable, almost as if she had put herself in the wrong.
“Coo-oo, Stefan,” she called as they neared the barn, Felicity still flitting ahead. The door swung open, and there stood Stefan, pallette in hand, screwing up his eyes in the sun.
As they lit on his approaching visitor an expression first of astonishment, and then of something very like displeasure, crossed his face. At sight of it, Mary's spirits subconsciously responded by a distinct upward lift. Stefan waved his brush without shaking hands, and then, seeing Constance, broke into a smile.
“How delightful, Mrs. Elliot! How did you come? By auto? And you drove Miss Berber? We are honored. You are our first visitors except the Farradays. Come and see my studio.”
They trooped into the quaint little barn, which appeared to wear its big north light rather primly, as a girl her first low-necked gown. It was unfurnished, save for a table and easel, several canvases, and an old arm-chair. Felicity glanced at the sketches.
“In pastoral mood again,” she commented, with what might have been the faintest note of sarcasm. Stefan's eyebrows twitched nervously.
“There's nothing to see in here-these are the merest sketches,” he said abruptly. “Come along, Mrs. Elliot, I've been working since before breakfast; let's say good-morning to the flowers.” And with his arm linked through hers he piloted Constance back toward the lawn.
“Mr. Byrd ought never to wear tweed, do you think? It makes him look heavy,” remarked Felicity.
Again Mary had to suppress a feeling of irritation. “I rather like it,” she said. “It's so comfy and English.”
“Yes?” breathed Felicity vaguely, walking on.
Suddenly she appeared to have a return of animation.
She floated forward quickly for a few steps, turned with a swaying movement, and waited for Mary with hands and feet poised.
“The grass under one's feet, Mrs. Byrd, it makes them glad. One could almost dance!”
Again she fluttered ahead, this time overtaking Constance and Stefan, who had halted in the middle of the lawn. She swayed before them on tiptoe.
“Connie,” she was saying as Mary came up, “why does one not more often dance in the open?”
Though her lids still drooped she was half smiling as she swayed.
“It may be the spring; or perhaps I have caught the pastoral mood of Mr. Byrd's work; but I should like to dance a little. Music,” her palms were lifted in repudiation, “is unnecessary. One has the birds.”
“Good for you, Felicity! Thatwillbe fun,” Constance exclaimed delightedly. “You don't dance half often enough, bad girl. Come along, people, let's sit on the porch steps.”
They arranged themselves to watch, Constance and Mary on the upper step, Stefan on the lower, his shoulders against his wife's knees, while Felicity dexterously slipped off her sandals and stockings.
Her dress, modeled probably on that of the central figure in Botticelli's Spring, was of white chiffon, embroidered with occasional formal sprigs of green leaves and hyacinth-blue flowers, and kilted up at bust and thigh. Her loosely draped sleeves hung barely to the elbow. A line of green crossed from the shoulders under each breast, and her hair, tightly bound, was decorated with another narrow band of green. She looked younger than in the city—almost virginal. Stooping low, she gathered a handful of blue scylla from the grass, Mary barely checking an exclamation at this ravishing of her beloved bulbs. Then Felicity lay down upon the grass; her eyes closed; she seemed asleep. They waited silently for some minutes. Stefan began to fidget.
Suddenly a robin called. Felicity's eyes opened. They looked calm and dewy, like a child's. She raised her head—the robin called again. Felicity looked about her, at the flowers in her hand, the trees, the sky. Her face broke into smiles, she rose tall, taller, feet on tiptoe, hands reaching skyward. It was the waking of spring. Then she began to dance.
Gone was the old languor, the dreamy, hushed steps of her former method. Now she appeared to dart about the lawn like a swallow, following the calls of the birds. She would stand poised to listen, her ear would catch a twitter, and she was gone; flitting, skimming, seeming not to touch the earth. She danced to the flowers in her hand, to the trees, the sky, her face aglint with changing smiles, her skirts rippling like water.
At last the blue flowers seemed to claim her solely. She held them sunward, held them close, always swaying to the silent melody of the spring. She kissed them, pressed them to her heart; she sank downward, like a bird with folding wings, above a clump of scylla; her arms encircled them, her head bent to her knees—she was still.
Constance broke the spell with prolonged applause; Mary was breathless with admiration; Stefan rose, and after prowling restlessly for a moment, hurried to the dancer and stooped to lift her.
As if only then conscious of her audience, Felicity looked up, and both the other women noticed the expression that flashed across her face before she took the proffered hand. It seemed compounded of triumph, challenge, and something else. Mary again felt uncomfortable, and Constance's quick brain signaled a warning.
“Surely not getting into mischief, are you, Felicity?” she mentally questioned, and instantly began to east about for two and two to put together.
“Wonderful!” Stefan was saying. “You surely must have wings—great, butterfly ones—only we are too dull to see them. You were exactly like one of my pictures come to life.” He was visibly excited.
“Husband disposed of, available lovers unattractive, asks me to drive her out here; that's one half,” Constance's mind raced. “Wife on the shelf, variable temperament, studio in town; and that's the other. I've found two and two; I hope to goodness they won't make four,” she sighed to herself anxiously.
Mary meanwhile was thanking Miss Berber. She noticed that the dancer was perfectly cool—not a hair ruffled by her efforts. She looked as smooth as a bird that draws in its feathers after flight. Stefan was probably observing this, too, she thought; at any rate he was hovering about, staring at Felicity, and running his hands through his hair. Mary could not be sure of his expression; he seemed uneasy, as if discomfort mingled with his pleasure.
They had had a rare and lovely entertainment, and yet no one appeared wholly pleased except the dancer herself. It was very odd.
Constance looked at her watch. “Now, Felicity, this has all been ideal, but we must be getting on. I 'phoned James, you know, and we are lunching there. I was sure Mrs. Byrd wouldn't want to be bothered with us.”
Mary demurred, with a word as to Lily's capacities, but Constance was firm.
“No, my dear, it's all arranged. Besides, you need peace and quiet. Felicity, where are your things? Thank you, Mr. Byrd, in the sitting-room. Mary, you dear, I adore you and your house—I shall come again soon. Where are my gloves?” She was all energy, helping Felicity with her veil, settling her own hat, kissing Mary, and cranking the runabout—an operation she would not allow Stefan to attempt for her—with her usual effervescent efficiency. “I'd no idea it was so late!” she exclaimed.
As Felicity was handed by Stefan into the car, she murmured something in French, Constance noticed, to which he shook his head with a nervous frown. As the machine started, he was left staring moodily after it down the lane.
“Thee is earlier than I expected,” little Mrs. Farraday said to Constance, when they arrived at the house. “I am afraid we shall have to keep thee waiting for thy lunch for half an hour or more.”
“How glad I shall be—” Stefan turned to Mary, half irritably—“when this baby is born, and you can be active again.”
He ate his lunch in silence, and left the table abruptly at the end. Nor did she see him again until dinner time, when he came in tired out, his boots whitened with road dust.
“Where have you been, dearest?” she asked. “I've been quite anxious about you.”
“Just walking,” he answered shortly, and went up to his room. The tears came to her eyes, but she blinked them away resolutely. She must not mind, must not show him that she even dreamed of any connection between his moodiness and the events of the morning.
“My love must be stronger than that, now of all times,” thought Mary. “Afterwards—afterwards it will be all right.” She smiled confidently to herself.
It was the end of June. Mary's rosebushes were in full bloom and the little garden was languid with the scent of them. The nesting birds had all hatched their broods—every morning now Mary watched from her bedroom window the careful parents carrying worms and insects into the trees. She always looked for them the moment she got up. She would have loved to hang far out of the window as she used to do in her old home in England, and call good-morning to her little friends—but she was hemmed in by the bronze wire of the windowscreens. These affected her almost like prison bars; but Long Island's summer scourge had come, and after a few experiences of nights sung sleepless by the persistent horn of the enemy and made agonizing by his sting, she welcomed the screens as deliverers. The mosquitoes apart, Mary had adored the long, warm days—not too hot as yet on the Byrdsnest's shady eminence—and the perpetually smiling skies, so different from the sulky heavens of England. But she began to feel very heavy, and found it increasingly difficult to keep cool, so that she counted the days till her deliverance. She felt no fear of what was coming. Dr. Hillyard had assured her that she was normal in every respect—“as completely normal a woman as I have ever seen,” she put it—and should have no complications. Moreover, Mary had obtained from her doctor a detailed description of what lay before her, and had read one or two hand-books on the subject, so that she was spared the fearful imaginings and reliance on old wives' tales which are the results of the ancient policy of surrounding normal functions with mystery.
Now the nurse was here, a tall, grave-eyed Canadian girl, quiet of speech, silent in every movement. Mary had wondered if she ought to go into Dr. Hillyard's hospital, and was infinitely relieved to have her assurance that it was unnecessary. She wanted her baby to be born here in the country, in the sweet place she had prepared for it, surrounded by those she loved. Everything here was perfect for the advent—she could ask for nothing more. True, she was seeking comparatively little of Stefan, but she knew he was busily painting, and he was uniformly kind and affectionate when they were together. He had not been to town for over two months.
Mrs. Farraday was a frequent caller, and Mary had grown sincerely to love the sweet-faced old lady, who would drive up in a low pony chaise, bringing offerings of fruit and vegetables, or quaint preserves from recipes unknown to Mary, which had been put up under her own direction.
Then, too, McEwan would appear at week-ends or in the evening, tramping down the lane to hail the house in absurd varieties of the latest New York slang, which, never failed to amuse Mary. The shy Jamie was often with her; they were now the most intimate of friends. He would show her primitive tools and mechanical contrivances of his own making, and she would tell him stories of Scotland, of Prince Charlie and Flora, of Bruce and Wallace, of Bannockburn, or of James, the poet king. Of these she had a store, having been brought up, as many English girls happily are, on the history and legends of the island, rather than on less robust feminine fare.
Farraday, too, sometimes dropped in in the evening, to sit on the porch with Stefan and Mary and talk quietly of books and the like. Occasionally he came with McEwan or Jamie; he never came alone—though this she had not noticed—at hours when Stefan was unlikely to be with her.
At the suggestion of Mrs. Farraday, whose word was the social law of the district, the most charming women in the neighborhood had called on Mary, so that her circle of acquaintances was now quite wide. She had had in addition several visits from Constance, and the Sparrow had spent a week-end with them, chirping admiration of the place and encomiums of her friend's housekeeping. But Mary liked best to be with Stefan, or to dream alone through the hushed, sunlit hours amid her small tasks of house and garden. Now that the nurse was here, occupying the little bedroom opening from Mary's room, the final preparations had been made; there was nothing left to do but wait.
Miss McCullock had been with them three days, and Stefan had become used to her quiet presence, when late one evening certain small symptoms told her that Mary's time had come. Stefan, entering the hall, found her at the telephone. “Dr. Hillyard will be here in about an hour and a quarter,” she said quietly, hanging up the receiver. “Do you know if she has driven out before? If not, it might be well for you, Mr. Byrd, to walk to the foot of the lane soon, and be ready to signal the turning to her.” Miss McCullock always distrusted the nerves of husbands on these occasions, and planned adroitly to get them out of the way.
Stefan stared at her as flabbergasted as if this emergency had not been hourly expected. “Do you mean,” he gasped, “that Mary is ill?”
“She is not ill, Mr. Byrd, but the baby will probably be born before morning.”
“My God!” said Stefan, suddenly blanching. He had not faced this moment, had not thought about it, had indeed hardly thought about Mary's motherhood at all except to deplore its toll upon her bodily beauty. He had tried for her sake, harder than she knew, to appear sympathetic, but in his heart the whole thing presented itself as nature's grotesque price for the early rapture of their love. That the price might be tragic as well as grotesque had only now come home to him. He dropped on a chair, his memory flying back to the one other such event in which he had had part. He saw himself thrust from his mother's door—he heard her shrieks—felt himself fly again into the rain. His forehead was wet; cold tingles ran to his fingertips.
The nurse's voice sounded, calm and pleasant, above him. A whiff of brandy met his nostrils. “You'd better drink this, Mr. Byrd, and then in a minute you might go and see Mrs. Byrd. You will feel better after that, I think.”
He drank, then looked up, haggard.
“They'll give her plenty of chloroform, won't they?” he whispered, catching the nurse's hand. She smiled reassuringly. “Don't worry, Mr. Byrd, your wife is in splendid condition, and ether will certainly be given when it becomes advisable.”
The brandy was working now and his nerves had steadied, but he found the nurse's manner maddeningly calm. “I'll go to Mary,” he muttered, and, brushing past her, sprang up the stairs.
What he expected to see he did not know, but his heart pounded as he opened the bedroom door. The room was bright with lamplight, and in spotless order. At her small writing-table sat Mary, in a loose white dressing gown, her hair in smooth braids around her head, writing. What was she doing? Was she leaving some last message for him, in case—? He felt himself grow cold again. “Mary!” he exclaimed hoarsely.
She looked round, and called joyfully to him.
“Oh, darling, there you are. I'm getting everything ready. It's coming, Stefan dearest. I'm so happy!” Her face was excited, radiant.
He ran to her with a groan of relief, and, kneeling, caught her face to his. “Oh, Beautiful, you're all right then? She told me—I was afraid—” he stumbled, inarticulate.
She stroked his cheek comfortingly. “Dearest, isn't it wonderful—just think—by to-morrow our baby will be here.” She kissed him, between happy tears and laughter.
“You are not in pain, darling? You're all right? What were you writing when I came in?” he stammered, anxiously.
“I'm putting all the accounts straight, and paying all the bills to date, so that Lily won't have any trouble while I'm laid up,” she beamed.
Stefan stared uncomprehendingly for a moment, then burst into half-hysterical laughter.
“Oh, you marvel,” he gasped, “goddess of efficiency, unshakable Olympian! Bills! And I thought you were writing me a farewell message.”
“Silly boy,” she replied. “The bills have got to be paid; a nice muddle you would be in if you had them to do yourself. But, dearest—” her face grew suddenly grave and she took his hand—“listen. Ihavewritten you something—it's there—” her fingers touched an elastic bound pile of papers. “I'm perfectly well, but if anythingshouldhappen, I want my sister to have the baby. Because I think, dear—” she stroked his hand with a look of compassionate understanding—“that without me you would not want it very much. Miss Mason would take it to England for you, and you could make my sister an allowance. I've left you her address, and all that I can think of to suggest.”
He gazed at her dumbly. Her face glowed with life and beauty, her voice was sweet and steady. There she sat, utterly mistress of herself, in the shadow of life and death. Was it that her imagination was transcendent, or that she had none? He did not know, he did not understand her, but in that moment he could have said his prayers at her feet.
The nurse entered. “Now, Mr. Byrd, I think if you could go to the end of the lane and be looking out for the doctor? Mrs. Byrd ought to have her bath.”
Stefan departed. In a dream he walked to the lane's end and waited there. He was thinking of Mary, perhaps for the first time, not as a beautiful object of love and inspiration, nor as his companion, but as a woman. What was this calm strength, this certitude of hers? Why did her every word and act seem to move straight forward, while his wheeled and circled? What was it that Mary had that he had not? Of what was her inmost fiber made? It came to him that for all their loving passages his wife was a stranger to him, and a stranger whom he had never sought to know. He felt ashamed.
It was about eleven o'clock when the distance was pricked by two points of light, which, gradually expanding, proved to be the head-lamps of the doctor's car. She stopped at his hail and he climbed beside her.
“I'm glad you came, though I think I know the turning,” said Dr. Hillyard cheerfully.
“How long will it be, doctor?” he asked nervously.
“Feeling jumpy?” she replied. “Better let me give you a bromide, and try for a little sleep. Don't you worry—unless we have complications it will be over before morning.”
“Beforemorning!” he groaned. “Doctor, you won't let her suffer—you will give her something?”
He was again reassured. “Certainly. But she has a magnificent physique, with muscles which have never been allowed to soften through tight clothing or lack of exercise. I expect an easy case. Here we are, I think.” The swift little car stopped accurately at the gate, and the doctor, shutting off her power, was out in a moment, bag in hand. The nurse met them in the hall.
“Getting on nicely—an easy first stage,” she reported. The two women disappeared upstairs, and Stefan was left alone to live through as best he could the most difficult hours that fall to the lot of civilized man. Presently Miss McCullock came down to him with a powder, and advice from the doctor anent bed, but he would take neither the one nor the other. “What a sot I should be,” he thought, picturing himself lying drugged to slumber while Mary suffered.
By and by he ventured upstairs. Clouds of steam rose from the bathroom, brilliant light was everywhere, two white-swathed figures, scarcely recognizable, seemed to move with incredible speed amid a perfectly ordered chaos. All Mary's pretty paraphernalia were gone; white oil cloth covered every table, and was in its turn covered by innumerable objects sealed in stiff paper. Amid these alien surroundings Mary sat in her nightgown on the edge of the bed, her knees drawn up.
“Hello, dearest,” she called rather excitedly, “we're getting awfully busy.” Then her face contracted. “Here comes another,” she said cheerily, and gasped a little. On that Stefan fled, with a muttered “Call me if she wants me,” to the nurse.
He wandered to the kitchen. There was a roaring fire, but the room was empty—even Lily had found work upstairs. For an hour more Stefan prowled—then he rang up the Farraday's house. After an interval James' voice answered him.
“It's Byrd, Farraday,” said Stefan. “No—” quickly—“everything's perfectly all right, perfectly, but it's going on. Could you come over?”
In fifteen minutes Farraday had dressed and was at the door, his great car gliding up silently beside the doctor's. As he walked in Stefan saw that his face was quite white.
“It was awfully good of you to come,” he said.
“I'm so glad you asked me. My car is a sixty horsepower, if anything were needed.” Farraday sat down, and lighted a pipe. Stefan delivered knowledge of the waiting machine upstairs, and then recommenced his prowl. Back and forth through the two living rooms he walked, lighting, smoking, or throwing away endless cigarettes. Farraday sat drawing at his pipe. Neither spoke. One o'clock struck, and two.
Presently they heard a loud growling sound, quite un-human, but with no quality of agony. It was merely as if some animal were making a supreme physical effort. In about two minutes this was repeated. Farraday's pipe dropped on the hearth, Stefan tore upstairs. “What is it?” he asked at the open door. Something large and white moved powerfully on the bed. At the foot bent the little doctor, her hands hidden, and at the head stood the nurse holding a small can. A heavy, sweet odor filled the room.
“It's all right,” the doctor said rapidly. “Expulsive stage. She isn't suffering.”
“Hello, Stefan dear,” said a small, rather high voice, which made him jump violently. Then he saw a face on the pillow, its eyes closed, and its nose and mouth covered with a wire cone. In a moment there came a gasp, the sheathed form drew tense, the nurse spilled a few drops from her can upon the cone, the growling recommenced and heightened to a crescendo. Stefan had an impression of tremendous physical life, but the human tone of the “Hello, Stefan,” was quite gone again.
He was backing shakily out when the doctor called to him.
“It will be born quite soon, now, Mr. Byrd,” her cheery voice promised.
Trembling with relief, he stumbled downstairs. Farraday was standing rigid before the fireplace, his face quite expressionless.
“She's having ether—I don't think she's suffering. The doctor says quite soon, now,” Stefan jerked out.
“I'm thankful,” said Farraday, quietly.
He stooped and picked up his fallen pipe, but it took him a long time to refill it—particles of tobacco kept showering to the rug from his fingers. Stefan, with a new cigarette, resumed his prowl.
Midsummer dawn was breaking. The lamplight began to pale before the glimmer of the windows. A sleepy bird chirped, the room became mysterious.
There had been rapid steps overhead for some moments, and now the two men became aware that the tiger-like sounds had quite ceased. The steps overhead quieted. Farraday put out the lamp, and the blue light flooded the room.
A bird called loudly, and another answered it, high, repeatedly. The notes were right over their heads; they rose higher, insistent. They were not the notes of a bird. The nurse appeared at the door and looked at Stefan.
“Your son is born,” she said.
Instantly to both men it was as if eerie bonds, drawn over-taut, had snapped, releasing them again to the physical world about them. The high mystery was over; life was human and kindly once again. Farraday dropped into his chair and held a hand across his eyes. Stefan threw both arms round Miss McCullock's shoulders and hugged her like a child.
“Oh, hurrah!” he cried, almost sobbing with relief. “Bless you, nurse. Is she all right?”
“She's perfect—I've never seen finer condition. You can come up in a few minutes, the doctor says, and see her before she goes to sleep.”
“There's nothing needed, nurse?” asked Farraday, rising.
“Nothing at all, thank you.”
“Then I'll be getting home, Byrd,” he said, offering his hand to Stefan. “My warmest congratulations. Let me know if there's anything I can do.”
Stefan shook the proffered hand with a deeper liking than he had yet felt for this silent man.
“I'm everlastingly grateful to you, Farraday, for helping me out, and Mary will be, too. I don't know how I could have stood it alone.”
Stefan mounted the stairs tremblingly, to pause in amazement at the door of Mary's room. A second transformation had, as if by magic, taken place. The lights were out. The dawn smiled at the windows, through which a gentle breeze ruffled the curtains. Gone were all evidences of the night's tense drama; tables and chairs were empty; the room looked calm and spacious.
On the bed Mary lay quiet, her form hardly outlined under the smooth coverlet. Half fearfully he let his eyes travel to the pillow, dreading he knew not what change. Instantly, relief overwhelmed him. Her face was radiant, her cheeks pink—she seemed to glow with a sublimated happiness. Only in her eyes lay any traces of the night—they were still heavy from the anaesthetic, but they shone lovingly on him, as though deep lights were behind them.
“Darling,” she whispered, “we've got a little boy. Did you worry? It wasn't anything—only the most thrilling adventure that's ever happened to me.”
He looked at her almost with awe—then, stooping, pressed his face to the pillow beside hers.
“Were they merciful to you, Beautiful?” he whispered back. Weakly, her hand found his head.
“Yes, darling, they were wonderful. I was never quite unconscious, yet it wasn't a bit bad—only as if I were in the hands of some prodigious force. They showed me the baby, too—just for a minute. I want to see him again now—with you.”
Stefan looked up. Dr. Hillyard was in the doorway of the little room. She nodded, and in a moment reappeared, carrying a small white bundle.
“Here he is,” she said; “he weighs eight and a half pounds. You can both look at him for a moment, and then Mrs. Byrd must go to sleep.” She put the bundle gently down beside Mary, whose head turned toward it.
Almost hidden in folds of flannel Stefan saw a tiny red face, its eyes closed, two microscopic fists doubled under its chin. It conveyed nothing to him except a sense of amazement.
“He's asleep,” whispered Mary, “but I saw his eyes—they are blue. Isn't he pretty?” Her own eyes, soft with adoration, turned from her son to Stefan. Then they drooped, drowsily.
“She's falling off,” said the doctor under her breath, recovering the baby. “They'll both sleep for several hours now. Lily is getting us some breakfast—wouldn't you like some, too, Mr. Byrd?”
Stefan felt grateful for her normal, cheery manner, and for Mary's sudden drowsiness; they seemed to cover what he felt to be a failure in himself. He had been unable to find one word to say about the baby.
At breakfast, served by the sleepy but beaming Lily, Stefan was dazed by the bearing of doctor and nurse. These two women, after a night spent in work of an intensity and scope beyond his powers to gage, appeared as fresh and normal as if they had just risen from sleep, while he, unshaved and rumpled, could barely control his racked nerves and heavy head, across which doctor and nurse discussed their case with animation.
“We are all going to bed, Mr. Byrd,” said the doctor at last, noting his exhausted aspect. “I shall get two or, three hours' nap on the sofa before going back to town, and I hope you will take a thorough rest.”
Stefan rose rather dizzily from his unfinished meal.
“Please take my room,” he said, “I couldn't stay in the house—I'm going out.” He found the atmosphere of alert efficiency created by these women utterly insupportable. The house stifled him with its teeming feminine life. In it he felt superfluous, futile. Hurrying out, he stumbled down the slope and, stripping, dived into the water. Its cold touch robbed him of thought; he became at once merely one of Nature's straying children returned again to her arms.
Swimming back, he drew on his clothes, and mounting to the garden, threw himself face down upon the grass, and fell asleep under the morning sun.
He dreamed that a drum was calling him. Its beat, muffled and irregular, yet urged him forward. A flag waved dazzlingly before his eyes; its folds stifled him. He tried to move, yet could not—the drum called ever more urgently. He started awake, to find himself on his back, the sun beating into his face, and the doctor's machine chugging down the lane.