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Together, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Part Three - Chapter 31 |
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_ PART THREE CHAPTER XXXI Larry did not return for dinner, which Isabelle ate by herself in sombre silence. When she went upstairs to take the mother's place with the boy, Margaret did not seem to notice her husband's absence, though she inquired repeatedly whether the New York doctor had telephoned. Later in the evening when Isabelle suggested that some effort should be made to find the boy's father, Margaret exclaimed impatiently:-- "I can't tell where he is! ... It is easier for me that he isn't here." And in answer to Isabelle's expression, she added: "Don't look so shocked, B! Larry gets on my nerves frightfully when there is anything extra to bear or do. Of course I shall telephone his office in the morning, and he will come out at once. That doctor said there would be no change before morning. Do you suppose he knows anything, that doctor? He had the look of polite ignorance!" The New York doctor arrived towards midnight with a nurse, and stayed the night to await developments. Margaret still sat by the boy's bed, and Isabelle left her huddled in a large chair, her eyes staring at the shadow on the faintly lighted bed. She had listened to what Dr. Rogers had to say without a word. She was almost stone, Isabelle felt, looking at her with some awe. What could have made her like this! She was still in this stony mood the next morning when Larry reached the house. Dressed in a loose black gown that clung to her slight figure and brought out the perfect whiteness of her skin, she stood and listened indifferently to the vague explanation of his absence that her husband poured out profusely. Then with a remark that the doctor would see him before he went, she left the room. Isabelle, who was present, watched the two keenly, trying to divine the secret. To be sure, Larry was not attractive, she decided,--too effusive, too anxious to make the right impression, as if he were acting a part before Isabelle, and full of wordy concern for every one. A little below the medium height, he stood very erect, consciously making the most of his inches. His sandy hair was thin, and he wore glasses, behind which one eye kept winking nervously. Neatly, almost fashionably dressed, he bore no evident marks of dissipation. After Conny's description, Isabelle had expected to see his shortcomings written all over him. Though he was over-mannered and talkative, there was nothing to mark him as of the outcast class. "One doesn't despise one's husband because he's foolish or unfortunate about money matters," Isabelle said to herself. And the sympathy that she had felt for Margaret began to evaporate. "You say that he fell off that embankment?" Larry remarked to her. "I was afraid he was too young to ride about here by himself with all the motors there are in this neighborhood. But Margaret was anxious to have him fearless.... People who motor are so careless--it has become a curse in the country.... Mrs. Woodyard came out with you? I am so sorry this frightful accident spoiled your day."... He ran on from remark to remark, with no prompting from Isabelle, and had got to their life in Germany when the doctor entered the room. Larry shook hands punctiliously with him, inquiring in a special tone: "I hope you have good news of the little fellow, Doctor? I thought I would not go up until I had seen you first."... The doctor cut short the father's prolixity in a burly voice:-- "It's concussion, passing off, I think. But nobody can say what will happen then,--whether there is anything wrong with the cord. It may clear up in a few days. It may not. No use speculating.... I shall be back to-morrow or send some one. Good day." Larry followed him into the hall, talking, questioning, exclaiming. Isabella noticed that the doctor gave Pole a quick, impatient glance, shaking him off with a curt reply, and jumped into the waiting carriage. In some ways men read men more rapidly than women can. They look for fewer details, with an eye to the essential stuff of character. What had the doctor said to Margaret? Had he let her know his evident fears? When she came into the room for a moment, there was an expression of fixed will in her white face, as if she had gone down into herself and found there the courage to meet whatever was coming.... 'The older boy, too,' thought Isabelle,--'the one so like her, with no outward trace of the father!' While Margaret was giving directions for telephoning, making in brief phrases her arrangements for the day, Falkner came in. He was in his working clothes, and with his thick beard and scrubby mustache looked quite rough beside the trim Larry. "How is the boy?" he demanded directly, going up to the mother. "Better, I think,--comfortable at least," she answered gently. There was a warm gleam in her eyes as she spoke to this stranger, as if she had felt his fibre and liked it. "I will come in this afternoon. I should like to see him when I can." "Yes, this afternoon," Margaret replied. "I should be glad to have you come." Isabelle had told Pole that Falkner was the man who had found the boy and brought him home. Larry, with the subtle air of superiority that clothes seem to give a small man, thanked Falkner in suitable language. Isabelle had the suspicion that he was debating with himself whether he should give this workingman a couple of dollars for his trouble, and with an hysterical desire to laugh interposed:-- "Mr. Pole, this is Mr. Falkner, an old friend of ours!" "Oh," Larry remarked, "I didn't understand!" and he looked at Falkner again, still from a distance. "Rob," Isabelle continued, turning to Falkner, "you didn't tell me yesterday how Bessie is. I haven't heard from her for a long while,--and Mildred?" "They are well, I believe. Bessie doesn't write often." Pole followed him into the hall, making remarks. Isabelle heard Falkner reply gruffly: "Yes, it was a nasty fall. But a kid can fall a good way without hurting himself seriously." When Pole came back and began to talk to her, Isabelle's sympathy for his wife revived. The house had settled into the dreary imitation of its customary routine that the house of suspense takes on. To live in this, with the mild irritation of Larry's conversational fluency, was quite intolerable. It was not what he said, but the fact that he was forever saying it. "A bag of words," Isabelle called him. "Poor Margaret!" And she concluded that there was nothing more useful for her to do than to take upon herself the burden of Larry until he should dispose of himself in some harmless way. _ |
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