Part 27 (1/2)

To the amazement of Mrs. Pendleton (who reflected that you really never knew what to expect of children), this appeal produced an immediate and extraordinary result. Lucy, who had been fidgeting about and trying to help with the packing, became suddenly solemn and dignified, while an enn.o.bling excitement mounted to Harry's face. Never particularly obedient before, they became, as soon as the words were uttered, as amenable as angels. Even Jenny stopped feeding long enough to raise herself and pat her mother's cheek with ten caressing, milky fingers.

”Mother's going away,” said Lucy in a solemn voice, and a hush fell on the three of them.

”And grandma's coming here to live,” added Harry after the silence had grown so depressing that Virginia had started to cry.

”Not to live, precious,” corrected Mrs. Pendleton quickly. ”Just to spend two days with you. Mother will be home in two days.”

”Mother will be home in two days,” repeated Lucy. ”May I stay away from school while you're away, mamma?”

”And may I stop learning my letters?” asked Harry.

”No, darlings, you must do just as if I were here. Grandma will take care of you. Now promise me that you will be good.”

They promised obediently, awed to submission by the stupendous importance of the change. It is probable that they would have observed with less surprise any miraculous upheaval in the orderly phenomena of nature.

”I don't see how I can possibly leave them--they are so good, and they behave exactly as if they realized how anxious I am,” wept Virginia, breaking down when Marthy came to announce that the rector had come and the carriage was at the door.

”Suppose you give it up, Jinny. I--I'll send your father,” pleaded Mrs.

Pendleton, in desperation as she watched the tragedy of the parting.

But that strange force which the situation had developed in Virginia yielded neither to her mother's prayers nor to the last despairing wails of the children, who realized, at the sight of the black bag in Marthy's hands, that their providence was actually deserting them. The deepest of her instincts--the instinct that was at the root of all her mother love--was threatened, and she rose to battle. The thing she loved best, she had learned, was neither husband nor child, but the one that needed her.

CHAPTER V

FAILURE

She had lain down in her clothes, impelled by the feeling that if there were to be a wreck she should prefer to appear completely dressed; so when the chill dawn came at last and the train pulled into Jersey City, she had nothing to do except to adjust her veil and wait patiently until the porter came for her bag. His colour, which was black, inspired her with confidence, and she followed him trustfully to the platform, where he delivered her to another smiling member of his race. The cold was so penetrating that her teeth began to chatter as she turned to obey the orders of the dusky official who had a.s.sumed command of her. Never had she felt anything so bleak as the atmosphere of the station. Never in her life had she been so lonely as she was while she hurried down the long dim platform in the direction of a gate which looked as if it led into a prison. She was chilled through; her skin felt as if it had turned to india rubber; there was a sickening terror in her soul; and she longed above all things to sit down on one of the inhospitable tracks and burst into tears; but something stronger than impulse urged her s.h.i.+vering body onward and controlled the twitching muscles about her mouth. ”In a few minutes I shall see Oliver. Oliver is ill and I am going to him,” she repeated over and over to herself as if she were reciting a prayer.

Inside the station she declined the offer of breakfast, and was conducted to the ferry, where she was obliged to run in order to catch the boat that was just leaving. Seated on one of the long benches in the saloon, with her bag at her feet and her umbrella grasped tightly in her hand, she gazed helplessly at the other pa.s.sengers and wondered if any one of them would tell her what to do when she reached the opposite side. The women, she thought, looked hard and hara.s.sed, and the men she could not see because of the rows of newspapers behind which they were hidden. Once her wandering gaze caught the eyes of a middle-aged woman in rusty black, who smiled at her above the head of a sleeping child.

”That's a pretty woman,” said a man carelessly, as he put down his paper, and she realized that he was talking about her to his companion.

Then, as the terrible outlines of the city grew more distinct on the horizon, he got up and strolled as carelessly past her to the deck. He had spoken of her as indifferently as he might have spoken of the weather.

As the tremendous battlements (which were not tremendous to any of the other pa.s.sengers) emerged slowly from the mist and cleft the sombre low-hanging clouds, from which a few flakes of snow fell, her terror vanished suddenly before the excitement which ran through her body. She forgot her hunger, her loneliness, her s.h.i.+vering flesh, her benumbed and aching feet. A sensation not unlike the one with which the rector had marched into his first battle, fortified and exhilarated her. The fighting blood of of her ancestors grew warm in her veins. New York developed suddenly from a mere spot on a map into a romance made into brick; and when a ray of sunlight pierced the heavy fog, and lay like a white wing aslant the few falling snowflakes, it seemed to her that the shadowy buildings lost their sinister aspect and softened into a haunting and mysterious beauty. Somewhere in that place of mystery and adventure Oliver was waiting for her! He was a part of that vast movement of life into which she was going. Then, youth, from which hope is never long absent, flamed up in her, and she was glad that she was still beautiful enough to cause strangers to turn and look at her.

But this mood, also, pa.s.sed quickly, and a little later, while she rolled through the grey streets, into which the slant sunbeams could bring no colour, she surrendered again to that terror of the unknown which had seized her when she stood in the station. The beauty had departed from the buildings; the pavements were dirty; the little discoloured piles of snow made the crossings slippery and dangerous; and she held her breath as they pa.s.sed through the crowded streets on the west side, overcome by the fear of ”catching” some malign malady from the smells and the filth. The negro quarters in Dinwiddie were dirty enough, but not, she thought with a kind of triumph, quite so dirty as New York. When the cab turned into Fifth Avenue, she took her handkerchief from her nostrils; but this imposing street, which had not yet emerged from its evil dream of Victorian brownstone, impressed her chiefly as a place of a thousand prisons. It was impossible to believe that those frowning walls, undecorated by a creeper or the shadow of a tree, could really be homes where people lived and children were born.

At first she had gazed with a childish interest and curiosity on the houses she was pa.s.sing; then the sense of strangeness gave place presently to the exigent necessity of reaching Oliver as soon as possible. But the driver appeared indifferent to her timid taps on the gla.s.s at his back, while the horse progressed with the feeble activity of one who had spent a quarter of a century ineffectually making an effort. Her impatience, which she had at first kept under control, began to run in quivers of nervousness through her limbs. The very richness of her personal life, which had condensed all experience into a single emotional centre, and restricted her vision of the universe to that solitary window of the soul through which she looked, prevented her now from seeing in the city anything except the dreary background of Oliver's illness and failure. The nave wonder with which she had watched the gigantic outlines shape themselves out of the white fog, had faded utterly from her mind. She ached with longing to reach Oliver and to find him well enough to take the first train back to Dinwiddie.

At the hotel her bag and umbrella were wrested from her by an imperious uniformed attendant, and in what seemed to her an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, she was following him along a velvet lined corridor on the tenth floor. The swift ascent in the elevator had made her dizzy, and the physical sensation reminded her that she was weak for food. Then the attendant rapped imperatively at a door just beyond a s.h.i.+ning staircase, and she forgot herself as completely as it had been her habit to do since her marriage.

”Come in!” responded a m.u.f.fled voice on the inside, and as the door swung open, she saw Oliver, in his dressing-gown, and with an unshaved face, reading a newspaper beside a table on which stood an untasted cup of coffee.

”I didn't ring,” he began impatiently, and then starting to his feet, he uttered her name in a voice which held her standing as if she were suddenly paralyzed on the threshold. ”Virginia!”

A sob rose in her throat, and her faltering gaze pa.s.sed from him to the hotel attendant, who responded to her unspoken appeal as readily as if it were a part of his regular business. Pus.h.i.+ng her gently inside, he placed her bag and umbrella on an empty chair, took up the breakfast tray from the table, and inquired, with a kindness which strangely humbled her, if she wished to give an order. When she had helplessly shaken her head, he bowed and went out, closing the door softly upon their meeting.