Part 14 (1/2)
”What can I do? I shouldn't have mentioned her.” Selwyn's forehead ridged frowningly, and, taking out his watch, he looked at it, took up his hat and coat, and held out his hand.
”Thank you for letting me talk to you. And don't worry about the other girl. You can't do anything.”
”Perhaps I can't, but you said just now one of the many things you couldn't understand in women was their disregard of other women.
That Mildred would probably give the girl no thought. The rich girl, you meant.”
”Well--” Selwyn waited. ”I did say it, but I don't see what you're getting at.”
”That sometimes women do remember the woman who has to pay--the price; do give a thought to the girl who is left to pay it alone.
Come to-morrow--no, not to-morrow. Come next week. It will take Mrs. Mundy until then to--”
”Mrs. Mundy has nothing to do with Miss Swink. The other girl, I told you, can take care of herself. You mustn't look into that side of it. I'll attend to that, do what is necessary. It's only about her you seem to be thinking.”
”I'm thinking about both girls, the poor one and the rich one. But the rich girl has a million-dollar mother to look after her.
Good-by, and come Tuesday. I forgot--What is the girl's name, the little cas.h.i.+er-girl's?”
”Etta--Etta something.” Selwyn made effort to think, then took a note-book out of his pocket and looked at it. ”Etta Blake is her name. I wish you'd forget her. There are some things one can't talk about, but certainly you know I will do what is right if Harrie--”
His face darkened.
”I know you will, but sometimes a girl needs a woman to do--what is right. She's such a little thing, and so young. Come Tuesday evening at eight o'clock.”
CHAPTER XVII
Late that evening I had a talk with Mrs. Mundy. I told her where Etta Blake lived, that is, where she could find the house from which I had seen her come with the baby in her arms, the house whose address had been given me by Selwyn, and the next morning she was to go and see her; but the next morning Mrs. Mundy was ill. Acute indigestion was what the doctor called it, but to Bettina and me it seemed a much more dreadful thing, and for the time all thought of other matters was put aside and held in abeyance.
With Bettina's help I tried to do Mrs. Mundy's work, but my first breakfast was not an artistic product. I shall never know how to cook.
I don't want to know how. I don't like to cook. There were many other things I could do, however, and though Mrs. Mundy wept, being weak from nausea, at my refusal to leave undone the usual cleaning, I did it with pride and delight in the realization that, notwithstanding little practice, I could do it very well. I am a perfect dish-washer, and I can make up beds as well as a trained nurse.
Mrs. Mundy is much better to-day and to-morrow she will be up. Three days in bed is for her an unusual and depressing experience, and her sunny spirit drooped under the combined effects of over-indulgence in certain delectable dishes, and inability to do her usual work.
”It don't make any difference how much character a person's got, it's gone when sick-stomach is a-wrenching of 'em.” Mrs. Mundy groaned feebly. ”I 'ain't had a spell like this since Bettina was a baby. Pig feet did it. When they're fried in batter I'm worse than the thing I'm eating. I et three, and I never can eat more than two. And to think you had to do everything for Lillie Pierce, to get her off in time!
The doctor says she can't live many months. Outside the doctor, and Nurse White and Mr. Guard, don't anybody know she's been here. I reckon it ain't necessary to mention it. People are so--”
”People-is.h.!.+ They love to stick pins in other people! It's tyranny--the fear of what people will think about us, say about us, do about us! I'm going to give myself a present when I get like Mr. Guard and can tell some people to go--go anywhere they please, if it's where I won't meet them. Are you all right now and ready for your nap?”
Mrs. Mundy nodded, looked at me with something of anxiety in her eyes as I straightened the counterpane of her spotless bed; but she said nothing more, and, lowering the shades at the windows lest the sunlight bother her, I went out of the room and left her to go asleep.
I am glad of the much work of these past few days. It has kept me from thinking too greatly of what Selwyn told me of Harrie, of the girl to whom he is engaged, and of the little cas.h.i.+er-girl whose terror-filled face is ever with me. It has kept me, also, from dwelling too constantly on the message Lillie Pierce sent by me to the women of clean and happy worlds. For herself there was no plea for pity or for pardon, no effort at palliation or excuse. But with strength born of bitter knowledge she begged, demanded, that I do something to make good women understand that worlds like hers will never pa.s.s away if men alone are left to rid earth of them. Ceaselessly I keep busy lest I realize too clearly what such a message means. I shrink from it, appalled at what it may imply. I am a coward. As great a coward as the women whose unconcern I have of late been so condemning.
Yesterday Lillie went away. Mr. Guard took her to the mountains where a woman he used to know in the days of his mission work will take care of her. He is coming back to-morrow. The sense of comfort that his coming means is beyond a.n.a.lysis or definition. Only once or twice in a lifetime does one meet a man of David Guard's sort, and whatever my mistakes, whatever my impulses and lack of judgment may lead me to do, he will never be impatient with me. We have had several long and frank and friendly talks since the day he brought Lillie in to Mrs. Mundy, and if Scarborough Square did no more for me than to give me his friends.h.i.+p I should be forever in its debt.
Early this morning I had a dream I have been trying all day to forget.
Through the first part of the night sleep had been impossible. The haunting memory of Lillie's eyes could not be shut out, and the sound of her voice made the stillness of the room unendurable. I tried to read, to write, to do anything but think. I fought, resisted; refused to face what I did not want to see, to listen to what I did not want to hear; and not until the dawn of a new day did I fall asleep.