V
Judith was waiting in Mrs. Fremby’s room. She had been told to come there at six o’clock, in order to hear some news. She had come, and had found the room empty. Judith’s nature, however, was not an impatient one. She waited, full of a calm confidence in her friend. She ate the entire contents of a bag of chocolates that she found on the table, she tried on Mrs. Fremby’s hats, and then she sat down to read Mrs. Fremby’s latest article, which began thus:
Paris no longer reigns undisputed over American modes. There is a distinct tendency—
The door opened, and Mrs. Fremby entered. As was her habit, she locked the door behind her. Then she smiled. It was a pretty sickly smile, but Judith was not observant.
“Hello, Judith!” she said.
“Hello, Evelyn!” answered Judith. “What is the news you said you’d have for me?”
Mrs. Fremby took off her hat and coat, and sat down.
“My dear,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you to-night. Later on—”
Judith’s beautiful eyes filled with tears of disappointment.
“Oh, Evelyn!” she said. “I did hope there’d be something—something about little Doris, or at least an order for an article. I only have two dollars, Evelyn!”
“I’ll lend you a little money,” said Mrs. Fremby.
She spoke absent-mindedly, for she was calculating. The cost of that taxi had been terrific—and all for nothing! She was tired and downcast and miserable; but it was not her way to allow others to know such things. She reflected that after Judith was gone she could be as miserable as much and as long as she liked, but in the meantime—courage!
It was never a difficult matter to divert Judith’s mind, and within a few minutes Mrs. Fremby had got her to talking about the spring costume she wished she could buy. It was scarcely necessary to listen. Mrs. Fremby was able to indulge in her own far from cheery thoughts.
There was a knock at the door. Mrs. Fremby rose and opened it promptly. It was the landlady. Let it be! There were no surreptitious cooking or heating processes going forward just now.
“There’s a gentleman wants to see you, Mrs. Fremby,” said the landlady, with perfect affability. “He’s waiting down in the hall.”
“I’ll see him,” said Mrs. Fremby. “Just a minute, Judith!”
With a firm step she left the room. At heart, though, she was by no means easy. She felt sure that this visitor was Mr. Donalds, and she was not very anxious to see him again.
It was Mr. Donalds. As she descended the stairs, she saw him standing, hat in hand, in the dimly lit hall, and her heart sank still lower. He was not a man to be trifled with. He was[Pg 256]—
“Not a handsome man at all,” thought Mrs. Fremby; “but distinguished-looking.”
He came toward her. Their eyes met. They did not smile.
“Madam,” said he, “I obtained your name and address from the—ah—person in the tea room.”
“She ought to have known better,” observed Mrs. Fremby.
“I succeeded in convincing her that I intended no harm,” he went on; “and I wish to assure you that I bear no ill will.”
Mrs. Fremby softened.
“I gave you a great deal of quite unnecessary trouble and anxiety,” she said. “I regret it very much; but—perhaps I ought to explain. You see, there is a friend of mine—Judith Cane—who has a little niece, her own sister’s child; and the father’s people have taken the little girl away from her. It’s shameful! Judith loves the child so much!”
“But surely the law might be resorted to in such—”
“The law!” said Mrs. Fremby scornfully. “They’ve got the law on their side; but what I wanted was justice—for Judith, I thought I’d steal the child, and force them to do something for Judith.”
“But the risk!” cried Mr. Donalds. “Did you realize the risk you—”
“I don’t care about risks,” said Mrs. Fremby calmly. “Nobody would dare to do anything to me!”
Mr. Donalds knew well how absurd this statement was, yet he was impressed. The dauntlessness of this little woman!
“Judith knows nothing about it,” she continued; “and I don’t intend her to know until the thing’s done.”
“Madam! Mrs. Fremby! You don’t mean that you propose to do this again?”
“Certainly I do.”
“No!” he protested. “That must not be! You don’t realize—”
“Yes, I do,” she interrupted. “It’s the only way; and this afternoon I saw that you—even a man like you—you were willing to make all sorts of concessions. Oh, I do wish!” she exclaimed. “I do wish you had been the right one!”
“Er—why?” asked Mr. Donalds, with a modest, downcast glance.
“Because we got on so well. I could discuss things with you. You were so reasonable—about that poor Miss Mackellar, for instance.”
“Mrs. Fremby,” he said solemnly, “I consider that you were in the right about Miss Mackellar. I mean to carry out your wishes in that matter.”
“No!” she replied incredulously. “You can’t mean that, after I caused you so much worry and—”
“You did me good,” said he. “I don’t mind admitting it. The example of your—your heroism—”
“Oh, no!”
“Your heroism,” he repeated doggedly, “and your unselfish devotion to the interests of others—What is more, my grandchild is—is enthusiastic in your praise. Mrs. Fremby, allow me to say that you are a wonderful woman!”
Mrs. Fremby was deeply touched.
“Mr. Donalds,” she said, “for you to say that—after what has happened—is magnanimous!”
“I mean it,” said he; “but I most earnestly implore you not to do it again. The risk is—appalling! It is possible—it is highly probable—that I can be of some assistance to this friend of yours, this—er—Miss Judith. Whatever I can do, Mrs. Fremby, I will—anything authorized by law,” he added a trifle anxiously.
“Mr. Donalds!” she cried. “Oh, Mr. Donalds! This is—oh, this is really too much! I never—I never in my life—”
He thought she was going to cry. She thought so too, for a moment, but with a pretty severe effort she recovered herself. She smiled. That smile completely finished Mr. Donalds.
“Mrs. Fremby,” he said, “one thing more. I believe I told you that I was an importer—”
“I know. I’ve heard of your firm.”
“Mrs. Fremby, I should be honored—it would be a favor to me—if you would come to our showroom to-morrow morning and pick out for yourself any one of the new model gowns from Paris—”
“Paris!” cried Mrs. Fremby. “Never!” Mr. Donalds was startled by her impassioned tone. “I wouldn’t wear a Paris gown—not for anything!”
“Wouldn’t wear a Paris gown!” he repeated, overcome. “I never before heard of a lady—”
Mrs. Fremby held out her hand, and he took it.
“You mustn’t think I don’t appreciate your generosity,” she said. “It’s just a matter of principle.[Pg 257]”
Again their eyes met.
“Wonderful little woman!” said he.
It was amazing, the difference that one word of six letters made in that phrase. Mrs. Fremby became quite confused.
“What can I do,” continued Mr. Donalds, still holding her hand, “to mark my profound appreciation?”
Appreciation of what? Of Mrs. Fremby’s kidnaping his grandchild? Strange that so practical a man as Mr. Donalds should become so curiously obtuse about the clearest moral issues! Mrs. Fremby was undeniably a lawless, reckless, dangerous sort of creature.
“Mrs. Fremby,” said he, “will you do me the honor of dining with me to-morrow evening?”
“Thank you, Mr. Donalds, I will,” she replied, grave but very gracious.
And you may believe it or not, but neither of them doubted for a moment that it was an honor which she conferred upon him.[Pg 258]
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
OCTOBER, 1925
Vol. LXXXVI NUMBER 1
As Patrick Henry Said
THE UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED DR. JOE TO CHANGE SOME OF HIS IDEAS ON THE SUBJECT OF PERSONAL LIBERTY
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
“MEAN to tell me she won’t let you go?” demanded Dr. Joe, in his big voice.
“No,” said young Bennett stoutly, “I don’t mean to tell you anything of the sort. Of course she’d let me go; only, if I did, there’d be no one—well, no one to look after the furnace or—”
“Merciful powers!” said Dr. Joe, staring at his friend in pity and wonder. “So that’s what it’s done to you!” he thought. “Can’t take two weeks off for a hunting trip with your old friend! Can’t call your soul your own!”
He was determined not to say a word of this, though.
“If the man’s happy,” he thought, “the thing for me is to be tactful.”
And no one could have convinced him that he was not tactful. He got up, a formidable figure of a man, more than six feet in height and stalwart in proportion. He was under thirty-five, yet no one ever spoke of him as a young man, any more than people called him a handsome man, in spite of the fine regularity of his massive features. He was simply Dr. Joe. There was no one like him.
“Well, my boy,” he said, in a soothing way, “I’ll be off now. Got half a dozen calls to make before lunch. See you—”
“Look here, Joe! I want you to come to dinner with us on Sunday.”
“Can’t do it!” replied Dr. Joe, in alarm.
“You’ve got to do it, Joe. She wants to meet you, and I want you to see—what she’s done for me.”
“Seen that already!” thought Dr. Joe, but, true to his policy of tactfulness, he kept the thought to himself. “Some other time, old man,” he said.
“You know you can come on Sunday if you want to,” insisted Bennett.
Dr. Joe did know that. What is more, he knew that Bennett knew it.
“And I’ll have to go some time,” he thought ruefully, so he said: “All right, old man—Sunday it is!”
It was a genuine sacrifice. Although Sunday was six days off, the thought of it recurred to him from time to time during the morning, and bothered him. He hated to be pinned down to a definite engagement. His day’s work was always heavy, and, when it was done, he liked to go home. If no calls came for him in the evening, he was glad to drop in to see a friend, for he was a sociable sort of fellow, but he very much disliked feeling that he had to go, that he was expected somewhere at a definite time. He liked, in short, to feel free.
“Breath of life to me,” he reflected. “As Patrick Henry said, give me liberty or give me death. There’s Bennett—married—tied down like that—dare say he’s happy, but it wouldn’t suit me. No, sir! I’ve got to have my liberty. Come and go as I please—meals when it suits me—come home tired—put on an old coat and light my pipe—that’s the life for me!”
Leaving the enslaved Bennett in his office, Dr. Joe drove off about his business. He flew along the quiet country roads in his little car. He would stop before a house and run up the steps. He never rang bells. If a door was locked, he knocked vigorously upon it. If it was not locked, he flung it open and walked in; and he had never yet failed to find a welcome inside. His step was by no means light, yet no one, not even the most querulous and nervous patient, had ever com[Pg 260]plained of that. He was Dr. Joe. He expected every one to be glad to see him, and every one was.
Things went well that morning. All the patients he visited were doing nicely, and the weather was superb—a cool, bright October day. He drove home for lunch in a very cheerful humor. He was contented and hungry.
As he neared his own house, however, a faint cloud came over his satisfaction. He hoped that Mrs. MacAdams, his housekeeper, would not give him that stew again to-day.
“Don’t like to say anything to her,” he thought; “but seems to me we’re having that stew pretty often these days. It’s not—well, it’s all right, of course, but—”
He went up the steps of the veranda and burst open his own front door with a magnificent crash. That was his signal to Mrs. MacAdams to put his lunch on the table.
He did not turn his head in the direction of the waiting room, though he knew that people were in there. His office hours were from two to four, and patients had no business to come at one o’clock. He often said, with vehemence, that he would see no one—absolutely no one—before two o’clock; but he did. He said he would eat his lunch in peace; but he didn’t. He always had to hurry.
So he was going sternly toward the dining room, without even glancing in at the waiting room, when an extraordinary sight arrested him. There was some one sitting in the hall!
This was altogether too much. Bad enough for patients to come long before office hours, and haunt him while he ate his lunch, but to come out into the hall to waylay him!
He gave this person a severe glance. He got in return a glance which somehow disconcerted him—a cool, amused, very steady glance. He stopped short. The intruder was a woman. She was sitting in a high-backed chair, her hands lying extended on the arms, and her feet planted solidly before her, side by side. It was an Egyptian sort of attitude.
There was nothing else about her, however, to suggest old Egypt. That wrinkled, weather-beaten face with the long upper lip, half doleful, half humorous, and those twinkling little gray eyes, were unmistakably Irish; and Dr. Joe had rather a weakness for that race. Moreover, she was shabbily dressed—a thing difficult for him to resist—and her hair was gray. His just resentment vanished.
“See here!” he said reproachfully. “You ought to be in the waiting room. Patients aren’t allowed to sit out here.”
She rose.
“I am not one o’ thim,” she said. “It’s business I’ve come to see ye about.”
“Selling something?” asked Dr. Joe.
If she was, he meant to buy it.
“I am not,” she answered calmly. “I came to see ye about the bye.”
“Buying what?”
“I mean the young bye—the lad—” she began, when Mrs. MacAdams appeared in the doorway of the dining room.
“Your lunch is on the table, doctor,” she announced, in a faint, sad voice. “I told that person—”
“I’ll wait,” said the person.
Dr. Joe waved his hand toward Mrs. MacAdams, and, as if he had been a wizard, she vanished. It was never her policy to argue with her employer.
“I don’t understand you,” said Dr. Joe to the Irishwoman. “What is it you want?”
He spoke almost gently, for something in this shabby, gray-haired stranger touched him. He didn’t care to eat his lunch and leave her sitting in the hall.
“Come here, Frankie!” said she.
From a shadowy corner, where he had been standing unobserved, came a small boy—a very small boy, thin and wiry, with red hair and a pale, freckled face; a sulky-looking little boy, very neatly dressed in a sailor suit and a cap which proclaimed him as belonging to the United States Navy.
“Take off yer cap, me lad,” said she, “and say good day to the doctor.”
Frankie snatched off the cap, but speak he would not.
“He’s a fantastical bye,” she explained. “Ye’d never believe the notions he has. What’s in his mind now is he wants to be a doctor; and I’ve come to see will ye make a doctor of him?”
Dr. Joe began to laugh, but he stopped when he saw the woman’s face.
“But you see—” he said. “A child of that age—how old is he?”
“He is eight.”
“He can’t know what he wants!”
“He knows,” she asserted tranquilly. “It’s a doctor he wants to be. I’ve been told yourself is the best doctor in it at all,[Pg 261] and I’ve brought the bye to ye to see will ye lave him study with ye.”
The doctor struggled against another outburst of laughter.
“I’m afraid—” he began.
“His father’ll be paying whativer is right for the larnin’,” said the woman. She paused a moment. “His father is a grand, rich man,” she went on. “Him an’ his wife is travelin’ in foreign lands, and they’ve lift the bye with me. It’s his nurse I am. Katie is me name.”
“See here, Katie!” said Dr. Joe, very kindly. “The child’s far too young. Later on, perhaps—”
“Doctor dear!” she interrupted with intense earnestness. “Will ye not lave him try? He’s to school in the mornin’s. Will ye not lave him be with ye in the afternoons, to be watchin’ the way ye’ll be healin’ the sick? Ye’d not know by lookin’ at him all that’s in his head. If ye’ll talk to him, drawin’ it out of him, ye’ll see!”
“I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question,” said Dr. Joe firmly. “When the boy’s parents come back, I’ll talk to them, and—”
“The one day!” said she. “Lave him stop here with ye the one day!”
“I can’t do it. I’m sorry, but—”
She came a step forward, with a look of piteous entreaty on her wrinkled face.
“The one day, doctor dear!” she cried. “Ye’ll do that for an ould woman! He’s fed. He’ll need no more till I’ll come for him at six o’clock. All o’ thim tellin’ me what a grand, kind man ye were, at all—and me ould enough to be yer mother!”
“I can’t!” said Dr. Joe, very much distressed. “It’s ridiculous!”
“Sure, what trouble will it be for yer honor?” she pleaded. “An’ Frankie only the small young child he is—just wantin’ to watch ye! Lave him come with ye the one day, doctor dear! His father’ll—”
“No!” shouted Dr. Joe. “Sorry! Can’t!”
He made a rush for the dining room and closed the door behind him.