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The Grain Of Dust: A Novel, a novel by David Graham Phillips |
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Chapter 22 |
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_ CHAPTER XXII The baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well taken care of. Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and perhaps more than her former beauty--as the habit is with healthy women well taken care of. Norman's career continued to prosper, likewise according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of. In a world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must have some grave fault as its hidden cause. We mortals, who love to live at haphazard and to blame God or destiny or "bad luck" for our calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world and life. But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth--and, as we can't get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little less ignorant and ridiculous? During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants it employed--that is to say, paid. But Norman was neither unreasonable nor impatient. Also, in his years of experience with his sister's housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his expectations from them. He had reached the conclusion that the women who were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful classes were proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond the wagging of the tongue. He saw that Dorothy was making honest endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes time--much time. He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother. Before the baby was two years old, his belief was rewarded. Things began to run better--began to run well, even. Dorothy--a serious person, unhampered of a keen sense of humor, had taught herself the duties of her new position in much the same slow plodding way in which she had formerly made of herself a fair stenographer and a tolerable typewriter. Mrs. Lowell had helped--and Ursula, too--and Norman not a little. But Dorothy, her husband discovered, was one of those who thoroughly assimilate what they take in--who make it over into part of themselves. So, her manner of keeping house, of arranging the gardens, of bringing up the baby, of dressing herself, was peculiarly her own. It was not by any means the best imaginable way. It was even what many energetic, systematic and highly competent persons would speak contemptuously of. But it satisfied Norman--and that was all Dorothy had in mind. If those who have had any considerable opportunity to observe married life will forget what they have read in novels and will fix their minds on what they have observed at first hand, they will recognize the Norman marriage, with the husband and wife living together yet apart as not peculiar but of a rather common type. Neither Fred nor Dorothy had any especial reason on any given day to try to alter their relations; so the law of inertia asserted itself and matters continued as they had begun. It was, perhaps, a chance remark of Tetlow's that was the remote but efficient cause of a change, as the single small stone slipping high up on the mountain side results in a vast landslide into the valley miles below. Tetlow said one day, in connection with some estate they were settling: "I've always pitied the only child. It must be miserably lonesome." No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he colored violently; for, he remembered that the Normans had but one child and he knew the probable reason for it. Norman seemed not to have heard or seen. Tetlow hoped he hadn't, but, knowing the man, feared otherwise. And he was right. In the press of other matters Norman forgot Tetlow's remark--remembered it again a few days later when he was taking the baby out for an airing in the motor--forgot it again--finally, when he took a several days' rest at home, remembered it and kept it in mind. He began to think of Dorothy once more in a definite, personal way, began to observe her as his wife, instead of as mere part of his establishment. An intellectual person she certainly was not. She had a quaint individual way of speaking and of acting. She had the marvelous changeable beauty that had once caused him to take the bit in his teeth and run wild. But he would no more think of talking with her about the affairs that really interested him than--well, than the other men of large career in his acquaintance would think of talking those matters to their wives. But--He was astonished to discover that he liked this slim, quiet, unobtrusive little wife of his better than he liked anyone else in the world, that he eagerly turned away from the clever and amusing companionship he might have at his clubs to come down to the country and be with her and the baby--not the baby alone, but her also. Why? He could not find a satisfactory reason. He saw that she created at that Hempstead place an atmosphere of rest, of tranquility. But this merely thrust the mystery one step back. _How_ did she create this atmosphere--and for a man of his varied and discriminating tastes? To that question he could work out no answer. She had for him now a charm as different from the infatuation of former days as calm sea is from tempest-racked sea--utterly different, yet fully as potent. As he observed her and wondered at these discoveries of his, the ghost of a delight he had thought forever dead stirred in his heart, in his fancy. Yes, it was a pleasure, a thrilling pleasure to watch her. There was music in those quiet, graceful movements of hers, in that quiet, sweet voice. Not the wild, blood-heating music of the former days, but a kind far more melodious--tender, restful to nerves sorely tried by the tensions of ambition. He made some sort of an attempt to define his feeling for her, but could not. It seemed to fit into none of the usual classifications. Then, he wondered--"What is _she_ thinking of _me_?" To find out he resorted to various elaborate round about methods that did credit to the ingenuity of his mind. But he made at every cunning cast a barren water-haul. Either she was not thinking of him at all or what she thought swam too deep for any casts he knew how to make in those hidden and unfamiliar waters. Or, perhaps she did not herself know what she thought, being too busy with the baby and the household to have time for such abstract and not pressing, perhaps not important, matters. He moved slowly in his inquiries into her state of mind because there was all the time in the world and no occasion for haste. He moved cautiously because he wished to do nothing that might disturb the present serenity of their home life. Did she dislike him? Was she indifferent? Had she developed a habit of having him about that was in a way equivalent to liking? These languid but delightful investigations--not unlike the pastimes one spins out when one has a long, long lovely summer day with hours on hours for luxurious happy idling--these investigations were abruptly suspended by a suddenly compelled trip to Europe. He arranged for Dorothy to send him a cable every day--"about yourself and the baby"--and he sent an occasional cabled bulletin about himself in reply. But neither wrote to the other; their relationship was not of the letter-exchanging kind--and had no need of pretense at what it was not. In the third month of his absence, his sister Ursula came over for dresses, millinery and truly aristocratic society. She had little time for him, or he for her, but they happened to lunch alone about a week after his arrival. "You're looking cross and unhappy," said she. "What's the matter? Business?" "No--everything's going well." "Same thing that's troubling Dorothy, then?" "Is Dorothy ill?" inquired he, suddenly as alert as he had been absent. "She hasn't let me know anything about it." "Ill? Of course not," reassured Ursula. "She's never ill. But--I've not anywhere or ever seen two people as crazy about each other as you and she." "Really?" Norman had relapsed into interest in what he was eating. "You live all alone down there in the country. You treat anyone who comes to see you as intruder. And as soon as darling husband goes away, darling wife wanders about like a damned soul. Honestly, it gave me the blues to look at her eyes. And I used to think she cared more about the baby than about you." "She's probably worried about something else," said Norman. "More salad? No? There's no dessert--at least I've ordered none. But if you'd like some strawberries----" "I thought of that," replied Ursula, not to be deflected. "I mean of her being upset about something beside you. I'm slow to suspect anyone of really caring about any _one_ else. But, although she didn't confess, I soon saw that it was your absence. And she wasn't putting on for my benefit, either. My maid hears the same thing from all the servants." "This is pleasant," said Norman in his mocking good-humored way. "And you're in the same state," she charged with laughing but sympathetic eyes. "Why, Fred, you're as madly in love with her as ever." "I wonder," said he reflectively. "Why didn't you bring her with you?" He stared at his sister like a man who has just discovered that he, with incredible stupidity, had overlooked the obvious. "I didn't think I'd be away long," evaded he. He saw Ursula off for the Continent, half promised to join her in a few weeks at Aix. A day or so after her departure he had a violent fit of blues, was haunted by a vision of the baby and the comfortable, peaceful house on Long Island. He had expected to stay about two months longer. "I'm sick of England and of hotels," he said, and closed up his business and sailed the following week. * * * * * She and the baby were at the pier to meet him. He looked for signs of the mourning Ursula had described, but he looked in vain. Never had he seen her lovelier, or so sparkling. And how she did talk!--rattling on and on, with those interesting commonplaces of domestic event--the baby, the household, the garden, the baby--the horses, the dogs, the baby--the servants, her new dresses, the baby--and so on, and so on--and the baby. But when they got into the motor at Hempstead station for the drive home, silence fell upon her--he had been almost silent from the start of the little journey. As the motor swung into the grounds, looking their most beautiful for his homecoming, an enormous wave of pure delight began to surge up in him, to swell, to rush, to break, dashing its spray of tears into his eyes. He turned his head away to hide the too obvious display of feeling. They went into the house, he carrying the baby. He gave it to the nurse--and he and she were alone. "It certainly is good to be home again," he said. The words were the tamest commonplace. We always speak in the old stereotyped commonplaces when we speak directly from the heart. His tone made her glance quickly at him. "Why, I believe you _are_ glad," said she. He took her hand. They looked at each other. Suddenly she flung herself wildly into his arms and clung to him in an agony of joy and fear. "Oh, I missed you so!" she sobbed. "I missed you so!" "It was frightful," said he. "It shall never happen again." [THE END] _ |
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