Part 31 (1/2)
Ten days later she wrote him an answer. She thanked him for the books, and announced that her daughter Margaret was just a week old, and sent her love to Uncle John. Adele immediately sent baby roses and a card to say that she was dying to see the baby, and would come soon. She never came: but after that John wrote occasionally to Martie, and she answered his notes. They did not try to meet.
CHAPTER VI
Wallace was playing a few weeks' engagement in the vaudeville houses of New Jersey and Brooklyn when his second child was born. He had been at home for a few hours that morning, coming in for clean linen, a good breakfast, and a talk with his wife. He was getting fifty dollars a week, as support for a woman star, and was happy and confident. The hard work--twelve performances a week--left small time for idling or drinking, and Martie's eager praise added the last touch to his content.
She was happy, too, as she walked back into the darkened, orderly house. It was just noon. Isabeau, having finished her work, had departed with Teddy to see a friend in West One Hundredth Street; John had sent Martie Maeterlinck's ”Life of the Bee,” and a fat, inviting brown book, ”All the Days of My Life.” She had planned to go to the hospital next week, Wallace coming home on Sunday to act as escort, and she determined to keep the larger book for the stupid days of convalescence.
She stretched herself on the dining-room couch, reached for the smaller book, and began to read. For a second, a look of surprise crossed her face, and she paused. Then she found the opening paragraph, and plunged into the story. But she had not read three sentences before she stopped again.
Suddenly, in a panic, she was on her feet. Frightened, breathless, laughing, she went into the kitchen.
”Isabeau out ... Heavenly day! What shall I do!” she whispered. ”It can't be! Fool that I was to let her go ... what SHALL I do!”
Life caught her and shook her like a helpless leaf in a whirlwind. She went blindly into the bedroom and began feverishly to fling off her outer garments. Presently she made her way back to the kitchen again, and put her lips to the janitor's telephone.
Writhing seconds ensued. Finally she heard the shrill answering whistle.
”Mr. Kelly, is Mrs. Brice at home, do you know? Or Mrs. Napthaly? This is Mrs. Bannister... I'm ill. Will you get somebody?”
She broke off abruptly; catching the back of a chair. Kelly was a grandfather ... he would understand. But if somebody didn't come pretty soon...
It seemed hours; it was only minutes before the blessed sound of waddling feet came to the bedroom door. Old Grandma Simons, Mrs.
Napthaly's mother, came in. Martie liked and Teddy loved the shapeless, moustached old woman, who lived out obscure dim days in the flat below, was.h.i.+ng and dressing and feeding little black-eyed grandchildren.
Martie never saw her in anything but a baggy, spotted black house-dress, but there were great gatherings and feasts occasionally downstairs, and then presumably the adored old head of the family was more suitably clad.
”Vell ... vot you try and do?” said Grandma Simons, grasping the situation at once, and full of sympathy and approval.
”I don't know!” half-laughed, half-gasped Martie from the pillows. ”I'm awfully afraid my baby...” A spasm of pain brought her on one elbow, to a raised position. ”Oh, DON'T DO THAT!” she screamed.
”I do nothing!” said the old woman soothingly. And as Martie sank back on the pillows, gasping and exhausted, yet with excited relief brightening her face, Grandma Simons added triumphantly: ”Now you shall rest; you are a goot girl!”
A second later the thin cry with which the newborn catch the first weary breath of an alien world floated through the room. Protesting, raw, it fell on Martie's ears like the resolving chord of an exquisite melody. Still breathless, still panting from strain and fright, she smiled.
”Ah, the darling! Is he all right?” she whispered.
”You haf a girl!” the old woman interrupted her clucking and grumbling to say briefly. ”Vill you lay still, and let the old Grandma fix you, or not vill you?” she added sternly. ”Grandma who has het elefen of dem....”
”Don't cry, little Margaret!” Martie murmured, happy under the kindly adjusting old hands. The old woman stumped about composedly, opening bureau drawers and scratching matches in the kitchen, before she would condescend to telephone for the superfluous doctor. She was pouring a flood of Yiddish endearments and diminutives about the newcomer, when the surprised pract.i.tioner arrived. Mrs. Simons scouted the idea of a nurse; she would come upstairs, her daughters would come upstairs--what was it, one baby! Martie was allowed a cupful of hot milk, and went to sleep with one arm about the flannel bundle that was Margaret.
Well--she thought, drifting into happy dreams--of course, the hospital was wonderful: the uniformed nurses, the system, the sanitation. But this was wonderful, too. So many persons had to be consulted, had to be involved, in the coming of a hospital baby; so much time, so many different rooms and hallways.
The clock had not yet struck two; she had given Wallace his breakfast at eleven, Isabeau would be home at five; Grandma had gone downstairs to borrow some of the put-away clothes of the last little Napthaly.
Martie had nothing to do but smile and sleep. To-morrow, perhaps, they would let her go on with ”The Life of the Bee.”
Peace lapped soul and body. The long-approaching trial was over. In a few days she would arise, mistress of herself once more, and free to remake her life.
First, they must move. Even if they could afford to pay six hundred dollars a year in rent, this flat was neither convenient nor sanitary for little children. Secondly, Wallace must understand that while he worked and was sober, his wife would do her share; if he failed her, she must find some other life. Thirdly, as soon as the baby's claims made it possible, Martie must find some means of making money; her own money, independent of what Wallace chose to give.
She pondered the various possibilities. She could open a boarding-house; although that meant an outlay for furniture and rent.