# Some of Us Are Married/Leslie's Friend

pp. 77-108.

### LESLIE'S FRIEND

IT WAS late in an afternoon, while the new parquet flooring was still distractingly in process of being laid downstairs, that young Mrs. Iverson, leaping from plank to plank across the hall to the telephone on the landing, heard her husband's voice at the other end:
"Hello, Win! Is that you?"
"Yes, dear." She could almost see his fair hair and sunny blue eyes. "Wait until I try to close the door; the hammering is something fearful. There!" She pushed the receiver again under her dark locks. "Aren't you coming home to dinner?"
"Yes, indeed! I'm going to bring somebody out with me—somebody you'll be glad to see—Della Bosby; she used to be Della Forrest, you know. I took my meals at her mother's the first couple of years I was at Amherst—before Della got married. Her father was awfully good to me. When I went out to Chicago, Della was living there. Oh, she heard a lot about you afterward! She's always wanted to know you… Yes; she's here now from Indianapolis, overnight, with her boy, a fine little chap of six or seven… I took them out to lunch and I've been looking up some people for her since. I found she was timid about going to a hotel; so I've asked them to come out with me. That's all right, isn't it?"
His tone had a disarming confidence in her approval of his unexpected invitation.
"But, Leslie!—the floors—it's all so upset!"
"Don't you worry about that; Della says she doesn't mind a bit. You don't need to make company of Della; she'll turn to and help you. We'll just picnic. Will see you soon, dear. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye," said Winifred mechanically, with a dazed look around as she dropped the receiver.
All the furniture of parlour and dining room was jammed into the hall, or on the piazza. Two conversational men hammered in the midst of curly shavings, while one in the dining room, whistling between his teeth, pungently shellacked. Leslie had breakfasted that morning on this narrow landing of the stairway, with the slender piano stool as a perch for his tray, while Winifred purveyed coffee and bacon through the swing door of the kitchen; there was a delicate feeling that Minna, the new Swedish maid, did not fall in with the exigencies of the situation as whole-heartedly as she might.
Leslie had an abounding sense of hospitality—his friends, from all over the earth, were sacred; but heretofore they had always been men.
"Oh, you're here!"
The swing door that led from the kitchen opened, and the slender figure and charming face of Mrs. Silverton appeared, with the ample form of Mrs. Roberts, in purple velvet, just behind.
"The front seemed to be all blocked up with furniture; so we came around. The maid told us to look for you."
"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Winifred, flushing indignantly. "But I'm awfully glad to see you, anyway. Come upstairs, where we can talk in peace."
"We've only dropped in to bring you the concert money for the Relief Fund. We can't stay," said Mrs. Silverton, the two, however, following Winifred's lead and seating themselves on the flowered lounge of the chintz-hung sitting room, the floor of which was littered with the toys of three-year-old Matilda. Mrs. Silverton glanced swiftly at Winifred, on whose face the large, marble-like brown orbs of Mrs. Roberts were already fixed.
"Is there anything the matter?"
"No, nothing; except that Leslie—I don't know what he was thinking of!—just telephoned that he's going to bring out a Mrs. Bosby, an old Amherst friend of his, with her little boy, for the night. She's on now from Indianapolis."
"Oh, Indianapolis!" said Mrs. Roberts, nodding sagely as though the fact covered some ulterior meaning. "Yes, I see! People are so literary out there, I suppose you can't expect much of them. It does seem a little odd to come on a man's invitation, doesn't it?"
"Oh, but I've always heard that she was very nice," protested Winifred eagerly. "I do think it's a little odd for her to be willing to come—with a child, too!—when Leslie told her about the new floors; a woman ought to know what that means; but she only said she didn't mind the inconvenience at all. Of course a man never realizes."
"Oh, my dear! There are any number of people who don't mind how much you're inconvenienced if it suits them," said Mrs. Silverton tragically. "But we're not going to stay another minute if you've got to get ready for company." She gave Winifred an affectionate little tap as she jumped up. "My dear, don't look so intense! It never pays to take too seriously what a man does. If I had taken Edward Silverton seriously I should be in my grave now, after five years!"
"Well, I believe in making husbands see when they have been thoughtless," said Mrs. Roberts meaningly, with a careful precision of speech.
"Oh, they may see; but they never own that they do," said Mrs. Silverton, laughing. "They may be awfully nice to you afterward, to make up for what they've done—but they never, never own up to anything!"
II
The little table in the cleared-up chintz-hung sitting room had been festively laid with the rose-bordered china and the pink-shaded silver candlesticks some time before the guests arrived; the meal, though limited necessarily, was of the best—mushrooms plentifully bestrewed the steak; the creamed potatoes were au gratin; Winifred's mother, Mrs. Brentwood, on being hastily appealed to, had sent over a small freezer of chocolate mousse that had been destined for her own board; Leslie would be pleased to have his guest honoured on her one night's stay. The lower floor was at least wrapped in silence—even little Matilda was in bed—when Winifred, in the pretty coral gown that set off her dark hair and eyes, ran down at last at the sound of Leslie's step, to greet a short, veiled lady.
"Here we are, Win—Della and the boy, and all. She wants to go straight to her room, first."
"Yes, indeed! I'm very glad to see you, Mrs. Bosby. You'll have to step on these boards to reach the stairs. Will you come right up?"
"It is very good of you to have us," said the visitor, in a sweet, low voice. "I trust you won't take any trouble for us."
"Oh, no! This is your room; I hope you'll find everything you need. As soon as you're ready we'll have dinner—just across the hall here, you see."
"Well?" said Winifred to her husband interrogatively when the two were alone together.
He put his arm round her.
"Well, I've had a day of it!" He smiled down at her with sparkling eyes. "Gee! Della is a little woman, but she's had me on the jump. She got into town about eleven; she telegraphed me to meet her. I tell you she was glad to see me; she kissed me right there in the station before she knew it! We've been trying all the afternoon to locate a lawyer who once drew up some title deeds for her mother; I think we're on his trail now. She's come on about some lots in Brooklyn that she hopes to get money from; it may keep her here for three or four days. I told her I knew you'd like to have her."
"Three or four days! But, Leslie——" Winifred's arms slipped away from him. "With everything in such a state——"
"Oh, you'll get along all right," he said reassuringly. "She'll be out nearly all day anyway. You see, she can't leave the child alone in a hotel."
"But why doesn't her husband see to the law business?"
"Hush! Don't speak so loud; she'll hear you—these walls are so thin! That's just it—he wouldn't raise a finger to help her. So she got a pass and came on herself. To tell you the truth, I think he's a bad egg; I only saw him a couple of times when I was out there—he seemed all right then; but she can't even buy a winter coat, he keeps her so close. The thin suit she wears is all she has, and that's why she's trying to raise something on the lots. She doesn't say much about him, but you can see that she feels pretty badly about it. Rough, isn't it, dear?" He bent over to kiss his wife again. "I'll help you carry up the dinner things, Win. Ah, here comes the lady now, and my young friend, Major. Well, Major, what do you think of it here?"
"I like it!" said the little boy in a singularly sweet voice like his mother's, jumping up and down lightly.
He was a straight little fellow in a blue Russian blouse, with dark eyes and close-curled dark hair, and a great contrast to his mother, who was a short, plump, but graceful little woman with a round face, a large waist, and small, plump hands. She had a snub nose and a large mouth; her large, well-opened eyes, which had a vague, abstracted expression, were of the palest blue; her hair was a light drab; and her skin, which was opaque rather than pale, added to her general effect of colourlessness. Even her lips were a pale pink; but when she smiled, as she did now languidly, she showed very white though large teeth. Her brown travelling skirt, of some silk and satin weave, and her handsome white lace waist, though slightly rumpled, had an effect of elegance borne out by her silk stockings and buckled pumps, the little gold-mesh bag she carried, and the many sparkling rings on her small fingers.
"I hope you'll excuse my not changing to another waist; my head is very tired," she announced in a low, plaintive voice. "I can never sleep on a train and I have been doing so much since I reached town."
"Please don't apologize," said Winifred warmly. "Leslie, will you show Mrs. Bosby her seat?"
"Now you two girls mustn't be formal; you're to be Della and Winifred to each other," said Leslie, beaming on them both.
"Yes," said Mrs. Bosby. "I was afraid I shouldn't be able to come to dinner at all, Mrs. Iverson—I had such a pain in my arm; but Major rubbed it out for me—he's very clever at it." Her smile rested for a moment pleasingly on the child, who responded proudly with a nod.
"I always rub her out," he announced. "Mother may I have some olives? Mother, may I have some olives? Mother, may I have some——"
"Be quiet, Major; you will be helped in your turn," said his mother languidly. "May I ask whether there is a window open anywhere? I thought I felt a slight draft. My throat is delicate. Thank you!"
"Does Winifred look as you expected?" asked Leslie. Mrs. Bosby bent a blank gaze on her hostess.
"Not at all. My nerves have been in such a state lately—— Mrs. Culver, one of our wealthiest women in Indianapolis—I wish you could see her home!—says she never knew any one with such a highly nervous organization as I have. You don't know what it was to me, Mrs. Iverson, when I saw Leslie's dear, kind face, and knew that, at any rate, he was the same true friend that he had always been! I have gone through so much."
"Ah, now—now! You mustn't talk like that," responded Leslie cheerily, yet with a half nod at Winifred, which seemed confirmation of depths of sorrow. "I don't know any girl who was ever more popular than you, Della. Do you remember——" The college Past flooded in, Winifred being necessarily left high and dry on the bank; though Leslie occasionally, with gallant effort, strove to throw a grapple in her direction.
The little boy was charming and well behaved, though he had a way of stretching out his small hand slyly and with lightning rapidity abstracting salted almonds or olives, with a roguish smile when his eyes met Winifred's. The latter smiled in return.
"I have a little girl; she's asleep now, but she'll be very glad to see you to-morrow," she said aside to him.
"I like little girls," the agreed gravely. "They give you half their apple."
"Oh!" said Winifred, laughing.
"Is Mr. Iverson your little girl's papa?"
"Yes."
"My papa is awful fond of me!" he confided. "That is why my mamma can always get what she wants. My papa and mamma fights terriable, Katie says. Katie is our cook. We had a nautomobile, and Papa sold it; and Mamma cried."
"Oh!" returned Winifred, staring, before turning to answer a question of Leslie's, with a side glance at Mrs. Bosby, who was consuming all the good things set before her, but without any apparent interest in the act; even when passing her plate afterward, on Winifred's invitation, for a second helping of Mrs. Brentwood's delicious mousse, she remarked that it never made any difference to her what she ate.
After dinner she disappeared, going to her room to unpack her bag and put Major to bed, while Leslie and Winifred hurriedly conveyed dishes and débris to the lower regions, to the sternly disapproving Minna—never in any house where she had lived had there been company at such a time!
When the sitting room was finally set in order Mrs. Bosby reappeared, with a bundle of papers in her hand.
"I've been trying to make out these, but my brain gets very tired," she announced in her gently plaintive voice. "You don't mind my asking Leslie to look them over with me, Mrs. Iverson?"
"No, indeed!" said Winifred cordially, making way for the two on the flowered lounge, where the table, with the lamp, would be in front of them. She had a vague impression, as Mrs. Bosby glanced round, that the latter was rather disappointed because the surroundings were not more affluent.
Winifred tucked herself into an armchair, with a book, and after a while went to sleep to the continued slight rustling of papers and the low, monotonous sound of voices—woke up and drowsed off again; repeated the process, and finally jumped up with the lightsome proclamation that they would all be better in bed.
Even then Mrs. Bosby stood in the doorway, with her hand on the jamb, ready to pass through, but not passing through for an hour more, talking to Leslie, with an occasional word from Winifred. It was after twelve when they separated.
"You must be tired," Winifred said to her husband.
"Oh, not a bit of it!" he protested. "What do you think of Della? Fine, isn't she! She thinks you're wonderful—so sympathetic; that's what she needs—sympathy. If I could tell you all she's been through—she doesn't talk about it, of course, but that husband of hers—— Why, she doesn't dare leave that child behind when she goes away! It's the only hold on him she's got."
"Hush! Don't talk so loud, Leslie; Mrs. Bosby will hear you!" said Winifred nervously. "Do you realize that I've got to carry up the dishes now and set the table for breakfast?"
III
It was rather a relief that Mrs. Bosby asked whether she might have her breakfast in bed; a tray was an easy matter.
Major, however, appeared, fresh and smiling, to the great delight of the little, fair-curled Matilda, who neglected her own cereal while he ate dramatically for her benefit with large wavings of his spoon and snapping bites at his toast; afterward he sat down on the floor by her and built railroads with blocks, keeping her delightedly absorbed.
Leslie had hurried tersely through his meal to the sound of hammers below; so many things had to be left undone yesterday. And just now when, even through the war depression, the much-needed business was starting up a little! To Winifred, it always seemed as though when business was better all care should cease, but it served to make Leslie even more preoccupied.
It was a couple of hours later when the guest appeared, ready for her journey into town, round-faced and pale-eyed but with that subdued effect of elegance in her appointments; she did not look like a lady who was suffering from lack of funds.
"But is your jacket warm enough to-day?" Winifred queried incautiously.
"It is all I have," said Mrs. Bosby, in a tone charged with quiet bitterness.
"I hope you slept well."
"Thank you; I seldom sleep, but I rested," said the visitor. "Is that your little Matilda? She doesn't look like her father, does she? Well, Major!" A charming smile lit up her face as the boy ran to her and put his arms round her neck. "Kiss Mother good-bye. No; you can't come with me—I shall not be home until late. Mind everything Mrs. Iverson tells you while I'm gone. Now run back to the little girl and amuse her nicely."
"He is a dear little boy," said Winifred warmly, as he obeyed. Mrs. Bosby nodded solemnly.
"Major is a wonderful child. Mr. Palfrey—he's one of our millionaires—says he has never seen a boy with such a beautiful face and nature as Major; he hasn't a fault—Major, use your handkerchief! Those workmen make such a frightful noise I don't see how you stand it! No—don't come down to the door with me; you have enough to do. I can find my way out."
In the visitor's glance round, Winifred received the impression of the night before, she couldn't tell how, that Mrs. Bosby was disappointed because they lived on so small a scale. She seemed really rather nice, yet oddly baffling; there was a feeling that she might develop in some way that was not expected.
It was a little difficult flying round the house, putting the rooms in order, with Major interestedly following—little Matilda, of course, stumping in his wake—undoubtedly good, but hamperingly conversational.
"Why do you make the beds, Mrs. Iverson? Why are those men working here? Why haven't you got a little boy like me? Why are you going downstairs again? Why do you have that little mole at the corner of your mouth, Mrs. Iverson?" Questions interspersed with remarks that Winifred felt she should not hear, such as: "My papa didn't know we were going away, I guess he was awful mad. Sometimes my mamma cries at breakfast."
It was a relief when Mrs. Brentwood, after telephoning, stopped to take care of the children; and Winifred herself got over to the market, where you met everybody you knew at eleven o'clock, in these days when people openly bragged of their economies; those whose incomes had not been lessened by the war were almost apologetic.
Back of one's own affairs there was ever that deepening sense of urgent need, both here and abroad. Every small social diversion was made to pay its toll, as well as the big balls and charity concerts. Lucia Bannard's bridge party that night cost you fifty cents for the local Relief Fund; the little dance at Mrs. Silverton's, the Monday when you carried over all your own fox-trot records, mulcted you the same amount for the non-combatants; women knitted woollen scarfs for soldiers in trains and penitentiaries and opera boxes.
"And if you have an overcoat for a poor man——" Lucia Bannard, velvet-toqued and furred, made incidental appeal to Winifred as they stood by the pearly onions and golden grapefruit, unheeding the outstretched hand of the vendor behind the stall, patiently offering change.
"We haven't a thing left to give away."
"Well, somebody's got to find one! Did you ever see anything so dear as things are?" Lucia's tone took on a fervid quality. "It's the most astonishing thing, I don't know how we've managed it, but now, when Donald's business has been so bad and there's less money than we've ever had, we're actually paying cash for everything. Oh, I can't begin to tell you how those bills have hung over me each month ever since I was married! I feel like a free woman.… Yes, that is my change; thank you. Oh, I think I'll take one beet. No, I don't care if a bunch is only five cents; I just want one for garnish."
"Your company came, didn't she?" said Mrs. Roberts, ornately joining the group. "I saw her walking home from the station with Mr. Iverson last evening; he was talking so interestedly he didn't see me. What did you say? She's going to stay a couple of days longer? No—not really! Well, you'll have to bring her to the Bannards' bridge party to-night then. You and Leslie can't possibly drop out now."
"Leslie told her we had the engagement, but she said last night she didn't know much about the game."
"Oh, then she'll come!" said Mrs. Silverton with decision.
Events proved her right. Mrs. Bosby did not return until dinner time, with Leslie; little Major had been glued to the upstairs window for an hour watching for her, the floor below being still in chaos. She had, it appeared, been sitting all day in a corner of Leslie's office by the stenographer's desk, waiting for a telephone message from her husband or the lawyer, neither of which came, and only going out to lunch meekly with Leslie because he insisted on it.
"She hasn't the spirit to eat," he confided to his wife. He himself looked worn, but was most aggressively bright and cheerful. "I tell you that husband of hers is a brute—just plain brute—to keep her waiting like that. She was afraid she was in the way; but I said to her: 'Della, in the little time you're here I want you to use me, or the place, in any way you can.' When I think of what her father did for me! If I have anything private to talk over with a customer I can go in the next room. I tell you, she's as plucky a little woman as you'll find. I don't believe she'll get off now before Monday." His eye fixed on Winifred's. "I admire Della more than any one I know."
"Yes, dear," said his wife heartily.
Mingled with an amused consternation was a tender pride in his unflinching courtesy—she had certainly married a gentleman! She touched his hair with her light finger tips as he went on, with a change of voice:
"I tell you I'm looking forward to a good game to-night with the Wilmers! I wouldn't urge Della to come if I were you—she wants to go straight to bed."
Though Mrs. Bosby ate her dinner in silence, except when admonishing Major to use his handkerchief, afterward—when she sat with the boy on her lap watching Winifred clearing up, while Leslie shaved, whistling, in remote regions—she roused herself to say that she supposed she might as well make the effort to join the party.
"My brain gets very tired thinking so much alone, and I know it would please Leslie—dear fellow—to have me go. If I can wear what I have on——
"Why, yes," said Winifred; later laying aside her evening gown for a plainer one, on Leslie's delicately asking whether it was not a little too dressed up, considering Della's lack of festive array. She knew Leslie would have donned overalls if a friend had been reduced to that garb.
The game, perhaps, failed of its expected bloom, Leslie, with Mrs. Bosby as his partner for most of the evening, being painstakingly occupied in telling her when it was her turn to bid, and what took the last trick, and whether the make at the beginning of the hand had been spades or no-trumps, while their opponents merrily forged ahead.
Afterward, however, Mrs. Bosby proving abstractedly nonconversational with strangers, he sat by her at supper, a little apart from the jolly, intimate crowd, affectionately entertaining and protective, as she evidently leaned toward him in spirit; she looked really pretty when she talked, smiling. Leslie said almost defiantly to Winifred, when they got home, that he had never enjoyed an evening more in his life.
IV
"Well, really, I think it's an outrage that Winifred should have to take care of that boy all the time; she couldn't even come to the matinée with us now!" Slender, green-velveted Mrs. Wilmer's hair was red and her tone had the fervid quality. "How long is that Bosby woman going to stay? Don't get out your money; I always have tickets for the Tube."
Mrs. Roberts, a large, moving mass of brown fur tails, replaced her perfunctorily offered pocketbook as she hurried along with the others.
"Thank you. Well, it seems to me there's something very strange in her staying on in this way from day to day—with a husband in Indianapolis! I should think she'd want to go home and get some clothes, anyway. Yes, I know they say she's here on business; but still—— Do you think Winifred realizes"—Mrs. Roberts was one of these kindly women who never think you know anything about your own affairs unless somebody tells you of them—"how much Leslie and his friend are together?"
"Oh, goodness! Of course she realizes," responded the pretty Mrs. Silverton carelessly. "She doesn't mind, though. I think it's awfully tiresome myself. She says they've always been like brother and sister." Her tall-feathered hat forged ahead. "Come on, if you don't want to miss that train!"
Though, indeed, always heralding her expected flight on the morrow, after two weeks Mrs. Bosby still left the house every morning with Leslie and returned at night with him, her dumpy little figure inclined toward his protective one as they talked earnestly. She spent the greater part of the day in the office, waiting for that telephone either from her husband or the lawyer; the latter sometimes called her up, but the former never did.
There seemed to be, also, an endless amount of complications in regard to title deeds, involving long journeys by trolley with Leslie to some mysteriously situated courthouse, imposing without and incredibly dingy within, which, after traversing immense hallways, always turned out to be the wrong courthouse—trips that necessitated endless studying of papers with Leslie in those evenings when they stayed home.
There was a continued confusion and uncertainty, on receiving an invitation, as to whether it included Mrs. Bosby, or whether she would still be there if it did. She was not, in the slang parlance of the day, a mixer; wherever they went she fell tacitly to Leslie's sole lot. If her bridge playing was bad, her dancing was even worse; small woman though she was and graceful ordinarily, she seemed weighted with lead; her feet clung to the floor. No man asked her as a partner a second time; but Leslie fox-trotted with her heroically and sat out the intervals, affectionately conversational, the smile she always had for him lighting her pale face.
The pile of magazines lay untouched on the table at home; the intimate, haphazard intercourse with the Wilmers and Bannards and Silvertons was imperceptibly cut off. Sometimes Mrs. Bosby took Major to town for the day, and they seemed to make a tour of the shops; but he was usually left in Winifred's hands except when kind Mrs. Brentwood helped her out.
Winifred was sorry for the little fellow; but despite his ostensible goodness, he proved to have annoying ways. Sweet things disappeared in the most astounding quantities; as stated, indeed, by the cheerful Irish Ellen who had taken the place of the gloomy Minna, you couldn't keep a thing hid from that young limb. He as often left little Matilda howling as amused her, and he would scuff his feet along the new floors; even the poor child's caresses were pervaded by the fact that he hadn't used his handkerchief.
It was impossible, perhaps, not to resent somewhat that Mrs. Bosby seldom noticed little Matilda. When Della occasionally talked to Winifred, however, she had a certain charm, in contrast to her usual vague, harassed air of abstraction.
Leslie's ardour never flinched; he was as affectionate, as scrupulously kind, as ever, and even more insistent on the fact of how much they enjoyed Della's visit, narrowly watchful of any hint of dissent from Winifred. Yet there was a change in him. He was, though controlledly, tense to a degree; little things irritated him unaccountably—Major's scuffing feet and sniffle, for instance. He almost shunned his wife, seeming, in their moments alone, separated from her as by a wall of glass, either too sleepy to talk or frustratingly monosyllabic, with the warning to her not to speak so loud. If she knew that the state of things was being commented on in the neighbourhood she felt an arrogant disregard of it in his behalf.
Husbands and wives, like children, have their streaks of being "good"; this was one of Winifred's. She had a carelessly proud, unalterable faith in her husband's faith, too intimately personal to be formulated: he was Leslie! Exasperating as the situation was, she felt a tender, half-humorous, half-admiring indulgence of his state of mind, even though she could not sympathize with it; she knew that Leslie's friend had to be sacred!
For a moment, indeed, one afternoon, the sense of Mrs. Bosby's presence in her husband's office sent a lightning flash of jealousy through her, which seemed to whelm her even for that instant in a flash of choking horror, where every sense writhed in torment. She struggled out of it instantly, and reached the clear, sunlit world again with an inexpressible joy and lightness of spirit, in her freedom from the evil thing.
V
It was at the end of the third week, when the two came home from the station one night somewhat earlier than usual. In the first light snow of the season Mrs. Bosby's apparel showed thinner than ever.
It was evident to the most casual observer that something had happened; she looked as though she were crying, while Leslie bent over her solicitously, half supporting her. Mrs. Roberts and the Silvertons walked, unseen, behind.
"Well, what is it?" asked Winifred curiously of her husband as Mrs. Bosby, calling Major on her way, disappeared in her own room.
Leslie spread out his hands as though unconsciously to keep his wife away, and mechanically dropped into a chair; he looked tense and haggard.
"It's hot as the deuce in here. Open the window—she can't feel the draft here."
"Yes, she will. But what is it, dear?"
"She's had an awful time to-day—she won't get a thing from those lots; and she had a letter from her husband this afternoon. That man's a bad egg; he won't give her a cent. We were all at a consultation in the directors' room when Miss Connolly came running over for me.… They had Della lying out on the floor. I got her quiet after a while.… She can't go back to him—that's certain. I told her of course you'd want her to make her home with us as long as she needed it."
"But, Leslie——"
"Don't you want Della?"
"Yes, yes!" said Winifred hurriedly. She strove for ground to stand on. "But don't you think it would be better if she had some other place to wait in besides your office?" she hazarded, and stopped as he put up his hand impatiently.
"Yes, yes; of course! Don't speak so loud. I told her that last week, and she spoke at once of the Young Women's Christian Association. She doesn't want to stay in the office. Well, I'm glad, at any rate, to do what I can for poor little Della—when I think of what her father did for me. Great Scott!" The sound of Major's slippers scuffing down the stairs became apparent. "Can't that child ever lift his feet?"
"Hush! Don't speak so loud," said Winifred.
Mrs. Bosby was red-eyed; she looked paler and plumper than ever in the invariable brown skirt and lace waist, but she seemed to retain her composure with difficulty. Winifred could not help feeling really sorry for her as the meal progressed.
"I hear you had bad news to-day," she ventured sympathetically.
Mrs. Bosby's voice was tremulous.
"Yes. My brain is very tired. My husband's letter—it was most insulting! If it were not for Leslie—such a dear, true friend as he is—I don't know what I should have done. I will never go back with Major until his father consents to my terms."
Little Major nodded.
"My papa thinks a lot of me—that is why my mamma always gets what she wants," he asserted gently.
"You don't say you are still at dinner! We finished half an hour ago," said a voice in the doorway—no other than that of Mrs. Roberts, in a wonderful lace evening cap, with crimson bows on each side like blinders, her large form wrapped in a long purple cloak.
Mrs. Roberts, after four years of neighbouring with the Leslie Iversons, was invariably surprised that they hadn't finished dinner.
"Now don't get up—anybody; please don't get up! I can't sit down; I can't stay a moment. Mr. Roberts is outside, with the Wilmers, in a taxi; we are on our way over to the Ridge. I just stopped in for a second to inquire about Mrs. Bosby. Mr. Wilmer said she had such a terrible time in the office to-day; it made quite an excitement, everybody was talking about it. I'm so glad to see you downstairs, Mrs. Bosby."
"Oh, she's much better," said Winifred cheerfully. "It was very kind of you to stop in."
"Oh, my dear—one can do so little! You're not going over to the Laurences'? I thought everybody was invited. Good-bye! Now, Mr. Iverson, don't come out with me; go on with your dinner. Don't come out—really! Well——"
They did go on with the dinner, but with an added interruption in the door of the butler's pantry, which developed a squeak necessitating the immediate application of oil by Leslie. The door still squeaked. It was found, after violently swinging it to and fro, that it would not latch—it was in some way out of plumb, though the carpenter had been there only the week before to put a new lock on it.
The whole evening resolved itself into a grim struggle on the part of Leslie, his coat removed, with that door; it was taken off its hinges and laid flat, regardless of Ellen and outgoing dishes; it was whittled, and planed with a plane commandeered from a neighbour, and measured and hung, and taken down again, and the lock pried off and put on again, with more planing and much losing and finding of screws.
Beads stood on Leslie's forehead as he worked in a tense silence, save for an occasional savage, muttered reference to workmen who did not understand their business; while Mrs. Bosby, papers in hand, in the invariable brown skirt and shirtwaist, her plump face very pale, wandered in and out unnoticed, finally seating herself resignedly on the sofa in the other room and replying monosyllabically to Winifred's remarks. She was the sort of guest who never opens a book. When after a two-hours' struggle the door was rehung—still out of plumb!—Leslie only came in to say tersely, though kindly:
"You'd better go to bed, Della; you're tired." And she obeyed, with eyes that meekly waited on his.
He did not speak to his wife, except when it was necessary, barely kissing her good-night.
This state of things could not last any longer—it simply could not; yet what was Winifred to do? As she lay on her pillow a long line of months, perhaps years, seemed to stretch out before her, weighted down with Mrs. Bosby and the care of the boy. She could not keep imposing him on her mother! How could the visitor be got rid of? She must be got rid of! Yet how, with Leslie so obstinately, so sacrificially, a friend?
If she could only talk the situation over with him plainly—make up her mind to break through that guard he kept round the subject—tell him, no matter how he felt about his old Mrs. Bosby, it wasn't fair to her! She felt tired of achieving that painful asset called character. She wanted to put out her small dimpled arm and shake him, and scream to him to wake up and listen to what she had to say; but in the very midst of this growing storm of passion some power seemed to hold on to her warningly, to steady her almost in spite of herself.
To break this silence would, she knew instinctively, shatter something else—the delicate crystal of the lamp that held the flame of love, which could not be made perfect again, no matter how neatly it might be mended. If her husband sacrificed her thus it was because, after the manner of men, he felt her to be one with himself.
If Mrs. Bosby had to stay until an earthquake removed her—she had to; that was all there was about it. The quivering of Winifred's red lips gradually ceased, her dark eyes looked more steadily into the darkness—she even found herself smiling unaccountably. But the night was not to be a peaceful one. Mrs. Bosby knocked at the door an hour later to say that Major was ill.
He was, indeed, very sick and in great pain, with more and more evidences incontinently of purloined food—mince pie, nuts, chocolates, grapes, and the like—a poor little pale-lipped, shivering culprit with a gasping courage during paroxysms, though futilely protesting that Ellen had forced these dainties on him.
The doctor was telephoned for; everybody was hurrying round in wrappers, consulting, heating water, and bringing up needed articles. Mrs. Bosby, two long braids down her back, in a shapeless brown robe open at her white throat, worked over Major. All her abstraction had vanished; she was alert, capable, maternal—nay, more; there was something in her expression that puzzled. Her eyes took on a singular light, even in the midst of anxiety, that seemed to grow more peacefully exalted. It was nearly morning when little Major, after crying out that he wanted his papa, at last slept.
"And I hope you'll get some rest now, Mrs. Bosby," said Winifred, as they parted.
"I hope so," said Mrs. Bosby.
She took Leslie's hand and pressed it to her lips, regardless of his quick, shamefaced, protesting, "Now, Della!" as she murmured:
"Such a friend as Leslie has always been! He has heart. You don't mind my saying that, Mrs. Iverson?"
"Not in the least," said Winifred, with emphasis.
The visitor wore the same high and serene look the next day, which, save for a trip to the telegraph office later, she spent in looking after the child. She even entertained little Matilda winningly with the invalid, who recovered rapidly. Leslie stayed down late at the office to finish some important business; he seemed very tired and taciturn; his eyes shunned his wife's, though he had a few moments' murmured conversation with Della, the latter radiantly earnest.
When she went to town the next morning she took Major with her, leaving Winifred to fly forcefully round the house, like a small embodied Wild West wind, hurling things into place, cleaning the guests' room, and putting up the winter curtains there—Ellen scurrying before her with mops and pails and stepladder.
Mrs. Brentwood came over for her granddaughter—who was being hustled into outdoor apparel—with eyes that kindly questioned, though she said nothing when Winifred announced that the visitors would perhaps be with them a week or two more. And over the telephone and in person Mrs. Iverson unflinchingly accepted invitations, or engaged tickets for the three of them for Mrs. Wilmer's dance the next night, and the Relief Fund bridge party on Friday, and the Zanzibar Exhibition for the unemployed, and the Crandalls' New England supper, the next week, for the War Sufferers.
You had to go to the Crandalls' New England suppers because you liked Nell and Will so much, even though you went as a sufferer yourself, their beans and doughnuts being always of an abnormal pallor. Winifred also paid two calls in the afternoon, in white gloves and her best clothes, insensibly hedging one round from too informal approach, and casually mentioned Mrs. Bosby's prolonged visit. She was still keyed up when she got home, though a little fatigued, and. it being Ellen's day out, with the dinner to get.
Putting on an old pink frock, after Matilda was bathed and put to bed, damp and rosy, with little clinging arms—one's own child was a joy!—she completed her preparations and still had time to spare—and more yet! It was late for little Major to be abroad. It grew later and later; yet they did not come.
It was very strange! Had anything happened? A wild thrill of anxiety went through her. You always thought things could not happen; but they did! Why had not Leslie telephoned? Oh, there was the telephone ringing now! She ran toward it joyfully.
"Oh, is that you, dear?"
"Hello!" said a deep voice at the other end. "Hello! Is this Mrs. Iverson? This is Mr. Roberts, Mrs. Iverson. Is Leslie home yet? Well, will you ask him to call me up as soon as he gets in? Thank you. I want to ask him about the Municipal Rally.… Why, you don't need to be anxious at all, Mrs. Iverson. Mrs. Roberts met him going to dinner at the Venetia with Mrs. Bosby this evening. Mrs. Roberts says she supposed, of course, you knew. … Well, perhaps they've gone to a show since—in that case.… Yes. Good-night!"
Gone to dinner with Mrs. Bosby without taking the trouble to let her know! This was too much—to spend his evenings off with her! To all feminine suburbanites the little dinner in town, with lights and music, and food with which one has had no previous connection, strikes the most intimate note of festivity. They had not thought they could afford the Venetia lately!
Winifred sat enveloped in a strange confusion; the dinner dried up in the oven unnoticed.… Another hour rolled by. If they had gone to a show—— She was thinking so hard that the sound of her husband's key in the lock made her jump; but she sat still, only saying:
"Has Mrs. Bosby taken a cab from the station?"
"No," he answered, throwing open a window in the hall before coming in.
The night was muggy and warm; that might account for his jaded appearance. He mopped a damp brow under his fair hair as he seated himself across the room, his legs stretched out to an abnormal length; tired as he was, there was a strange, unwonted glint in his eye as he looked at her.
"Della's gone home."
"Gone!"
He nodded.
"Yes; with the boy. I just got them off on the last train. You're to parcel-post her bag after her. She left good-bye for you. Her husband 'phoned her this morning, as soon as he heard that Major was ill—he's crazy over the child!—he'll give her anything she wants. Gee, I'm tired!" His voice grew insensibly louder and louder. "I was running round all the afternoon trying to straighten out things for her; I never got back to the office at all. I went nearly crazy! We had to stop for her coat the last thing—it had to be altered. She'd picked it out before, but she tried on a lot of others afterward to be sure she liked the first one best."
"Her coat?"
"Yes—the sealskin; her husband said she could have it—that was what she was standing out for, you know. It cost him a thousand, but she says he can afford it." Leslie shifted his gaze, but still kept on: "She can't keep warm in anything but fur out there; the winters are so cold. You know how sensitive her throat is."
"Oo-ooh!" said Winifred, in a tone of profound enlightenment.
So that had been Mr. Bosby's barbarity to his wife—refusing her a thousand-dollar coat. But Mrs. Bosby was actually gone! There was a growing intoxicating essence of freedom in the thought. Winifred raised her voice:
"Leslie, why on earth didn't you telephone me?"
"I did. Ellen said you were out and I left the message with her; she said she'd write it down."
"She went before I came in. I never thought to look on the shelf."
"Oh!" He rose after a pause, shut the window, and came lazily over to her, that glint in his eye even more apparent. "I like that pink frock you have on—don't ever wear brown! Do you know I haven't kissed you since I got home?"
"Yes; and you're not going to now," returned Winifred with spirit, drawing out of reach.
"I'm not?"
"No. Keep away! I tell you I won't be kissed. I——"
She fended off his arm and, slipping by, dashed up the stairs, with him after her, racing through one room after another, with small shrieks and loud banging of doors until he caught her finally, breathless.
"You're scandalous! You're not behaving like a wife at all," he admonished her fondly.
"I don't feel like one."
"You don't! You—don't! Well, what do you think of that?"
His lips were pressed to her lips, her soft cheek, her soft hair, again and again and again, with a new fervour in them. His voice took on a fuller note as he pushed her head back at last, so that he could look into her lovely eyes.
"You—don't—know—what a darling—what a darling you are! You don't half know it. But I do, dear; I do, my sweetest!"
"Oh," said Winifred dreamily, leaning closer to him. "Doesn't it seem too heavenly to have the house to ourselves!"
"I should think so," he breathed. "Oh, I should think so!" He straightened involuntarily as he added, like one who has caught himself up unflinchingly: "Though, of course, we'll miss Della and the boy. She thinks you're fine! I said to her: 'Della, I never enjoyed anything more than your visit: I hope you'll come again soon and stay twice as long.' When I think of what her father—— What's the joke, you crazy girl? Look out—— You'll scare Matilda!"