II
Blakie had made very careful plans. He had taken a flat near the park. He had engaged a good cook, and a nursery governess who would come every morning to take the children to the school on Riverside Drive where Katherine had started them. It was not the school he would have[Pg 540] chosen, but they could not change every six months.
He had consulted with his doctor about a proper diet for children of their age. He had drawn up a schedule, not too rigid, for their baths, meals, study, and exercise. He had bought roller skates for them to use in the park; he had arranged riding lessons and dancing lessons for them; he had bought them books and toys.
He had furnished a room for each girl. Martha’s was pink—a pink rug, rose-colored curtains, a little lamp with a rose-colored shade, wicker chairs with cushions, a bookcase, a desk, and a rose-colored eider down quilt on the foot of the little white bed. Next to Martha’s room was Renie’s, decorated in blue.
“How does that suit you?” he asked, opening the two doors.
They stood one on each side of him, looking into those bright, cozy little rooms with wide, solemn eyes.
“They’re awfully sweet, daddy dear,” said Martha.
“Awfully sweet,” Renie echoed, but he saw her restless dark eyes roving about, looking for something. What could he have neglected or forgotten?
“She feels strange here,” he thought. “It was bound to be like that at first.” Aloud he said: “Dinner in ten minutes, chicks.”
For it was his policy to give them no time to be homesick.
All afternoon he had had them out at the Bronx zoo, and the cool April air and the excitement had made them healthily tired.
“Just time for a wash and brush,” he said.
“I—can’t unbutton my shoes, daddy,” said Renie.
“Never mind about your shoes,” he answered.
“But mother said not to wear our best shoes in the house.”
Just like Katherine, he thought! Dress up for a public appearance, and never mind how you looked at home!
“Never mind about your shoes,” he repeated a little impatiently. “Just brush your hair.”
“But mother told us—” said Renie, and he saw her lip tremble.
“All right!” he said hastily. “Sit down!”
He knelt down and unbuttoned the shiny pumps, while Martha, with a brisk, competent air, opened their small suitcase and brought out two pairs of cracked old pumps.
They went off hand in hand to the bathroom, and came back damp and rosy.
“Now!” he said, hoping that the sight of the dinner table would arouse them to some expression of delight.
It had seemed to him a matter of great importance that his daughters should learn to like a well appointed table, to appreciate a charming and orderly environment, and he had done his best here. A damask cloth and gleaming silver, a centerpiece of roses, and before each child a silver knife, fork, and spoon, monogrammed, and, to charm them, a little china basket filled with pink and white sweets.
“This is the way things ought to be,” he wanted to tell them. “This is the way you ought to live. This is what I longed for, all through those years of carelessness and disorder!”
But he could not say that. He must not even hint at any disapproval of their mother’s régime. That would be an inexcusable treachery.
He felt certain that Katherine had never belittled him to them. He could trust her for that. There was nothing petty about Katherine.
“It’s awfully pretty, daddy!” said Martha.
Renie echoed her sister’s approval; but they didn’t seem impressed.
“They are strange here,” he thought. “After a few days it will be different.”
Their appetites were good, he noticed. Their mother had always looked after their physical welfare most vigilantly. Their table manners were good, too. Well, so were hers, when she bothered to think about such things.
“She’s taken good care of them,” thought Blakie.
He had known that she would. Her love for her children was an unfaltering, inexhaustible passion. She was often injudicious with them. She spoiled them, of course, and sometimes she grew angry at them. Once he had heard her call Martha a darned fool; but Martha had only laughed at her, and then Katherine herself had laughed and hugged the child tight.
“Didn’t mean to be so cross, sweetheart baby!”
“Oh, I know it, mother![Pg 541]”
What sort of way was that to bring up children?
“She’ll be missing them to-night,” he thought.
It was hard to imagine Katherine without her children. She had always been with them, and had taken them everywhere with her. Indeed, she had been ridiculous about them, running to the school to say that she feared Marty was tired, and calling in the doctor on any pretext. Yes, she would be missing them to-night!
“Good God, haven’t I missed them for the last six months?” he thought. “They are my children, too!”
He glanced at their little dark heads bent over their plates, at their blunt little fingers grasping the new knives and forks, and such a wave of tenderness and pain swept over him that he could scarcely breathe.
“I want to keep them!” he thought. “I want to give them the very best! Poor little things!”
After dinner he took them into the sitting room and read to them from one of the new books. They were passionately interested.
“Go on! Go on, daddy!” they cried, whenever he stopped to puff at his cigar.
At eight o’clock came the moment he dreaded.
“They’ll miss their mother,” he thought. “It’ll be hard, this first night.”
“We’ll have a race with the undressing,” he said. “Call me when you are ready—and the first one in bed gets a prize!”
That worked very well. In an incredibly short space of time Marty shouted:
“Ready, daddy!”
And her faithful little echo cried:
“Ready, daddy!”
They were both under the covers, grinning from ear to ear. Their clothes were scattered all over the room, but he decided not to notice that to-night. He even had an impulse to pretend to forget their prayers, for fear of troubling them, but he resisted that. He didn’t insist upon any great accuracy, however.
“Now,” he said, “I’m going to be there in the sitting room. You can see the light from your beds. If you want anything, call me.”
Then he turned out their lamps, opened their windows, and kissed them in a cheerful, casual way, fighting down his longing to catch them up, to hold them fast, tight in his arms, after these six long months.
“Night, daddy!” they called simultaneously.
He sat down with a new book to read; but after all he could not read. Here they were, safe in his care, surrounded with everything they ought to have—except one thing.
He smoked, staring at nothing. They were here with him, his children, and yet there was a desolation in the place. He felt it, and he knew they must feel it.
He put down his cigar and went into Renie’s room. She was sound asleep. He touched her head, found it damp with perspiration, and took off the eider down quilt, which she had pulled up.
Then he went into Martha’s room. She, too, was perfectly quiet, but her head was covered up, and, as he tried quietly to draw down the quilt, she clung to it.
“Marty, dear! Are you awake?” he asked gently.
“Yes, daddy,” replied a muffled voice.
“Uncover your head, pet. It’s not good for you.”
She obeyed him, but lay with her back turned to him.
“Look here, Marty dear! Don’t cry!” He sat down beside her, and stroked her hair. “Don’t cry, pet!”
She was very quiet, but he felt her little shoulders shake.
“Look here, Marty! I know how it is. You miss your mother.”
“Oh, no!” she declared with a sob.
“You needn’t mind telling me, Marty. It’s quite natural, dear.”
“But it isn’t—polite,” she said, with another sob.
“Yes, it is, Marty. I don’t mind.”
“Don’t you really and truly mind, daddy?” she asked, turning to him.
“Not a bit, Marty. It’s quite natural.”
She sat up and flung her arms around his neck, burying her head on his shoulder. She was drenched in tears. Even her little hands were damp.
“Oh, I do miss mother!” she whispered. “I do miss her, daddy! I don’t want to be unpolite, but I do miss mother so!”
He held her tight, in despair.
“I know, Marty, I know; but you’ll be going back to her soon, dear.”
“Then I’ll miss you,” she said. “All the t-time I’ll be going away and m-missing you both![Pg 542]”
He was frightened to feel her tremble so. He picked her up and carried her into the bathroom. Her face was stained with tears, her eyes were heavy, her body was shaken with sobs.
He bathed her face with cold water, and gave her a drink. Then he carried her into the sitting room.
“Don’t cry so, Marty dear! Shall I read to you?”
“I didn’t mean to be—so unpolite to you, daddy darling!”
“Don’t say that, Marty!” he cried. “It’s—”
Her wet cheek was pressed against his.
“I missed you so, daddy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from sobbing.
She was growing quieter now, and he held her in his arms, feeling her little heart beat against his. Then, suddenly, she burst out again wildly:
“Oh, daddy! Oh, daddy! I’ve got to be—always going away—and missing you both! I can’t bear it, daddy! Oh, I miss mother so awfully, terribly much! Oh, daddy, I want mother!”
“Hush, Marty!” he said in anguish. “You’ll wake Renie, you know.”
That calmed her at once. She sobbed a little longer, but her tears had ceased.
“It’s worse for Renie,” she said soberly. “She slept right in mother’s room. I just had the door open between. I’d hate to have Renie wake up.”
“So we’d better not talk, eh?” said Blakie.
“I guess probably we hadn’t,” Martha agreed.
She fell asleep there in his arms. Presently he carried her back to her bed, and sat there beside her in the dark.
Every six months a cruel parting, a difficult readjustment! It was bad enough for a mature and armored spirit, but for children, two little loving, bewildered children—what would it do to them?
They were too young to be critical. They gave only love to both parents, making no comparisons; but as they grew older it would not be so. Suppose he succeeded in his attempt to make them appreciate a gracious, well ordered life? Then, when they were with Katherine, they would suffer—would suffer all the more because they loved her. Every six months a cruel parting, a difficult readjustment!
“It can’t be like this,” he said to himself.
It was not for them to suffer, to make readjustments, to have their love so tormented, their faithfulness so tried. No, let the guilty suffer, not these innocent ones!
He was guilty—he knew it; and Katherine was guilty. They had had a beautiful and invaluable thing, and they had destroyed it by a thousand almost imperceptible blows. It was gone now, and could never again be restored; but it need not have perished. If he had been less critical, if she had been less willful, if only there had been a little more patience and generosity on either side, their love could have lived.
Perhaps they were not well suited to each other. What did that matter? He and his business partner were ill suited to each other, but it was expedient for them to get on peacefully together, and they did. His mother had been a very exasperating old lady, but he had considered it his duty to get on with her, and he had done so. He had ardently disliked the captain of his football eleven at college, but as a matter of course he had mastered the dislike. He had learned to get on amicably with all sorts of people; but this woman whom he had chosen—
Any two persons who were reasonably civilized and self-controlled could get on together, if they tried. They might not be particularly happy in doing so, but they could do it, if they tried.
“We didn’t really try, either of us,” he thought.
It was too late now to start again. There was too much to be forgiven and forgotten; but these children should not suffer.