Are Parents People?

by Alice Duer Miller

"Mr. Bing is ill, madam—very ill," Thorpe answered immediately; "but not so ill as the doctors think."

"No?" said Cora in some surprise.

"No, madam. Mr. Bing, if I might use the expression, yields himself up to illness; this assists him to recover."

He opened the door for her at this point, and she went out of it.

She returned home not so emotionally upset but more depressed than before. There was a core of bitterness in her feeling that had not been there when she went to the hospital, and at first she found it difficult to discover the reason for this. Was it anxiety at Valentine's illness? No, for he was a little better than she had feared. Was it the realization that those two former wives, who had always seemed to her like shadows, were, in fact, living beings like herself? No, for they had turned out to be more unattractive, more utterably unsuitable to Valentine than she had imagined. It was true that her taste, her sheltered selectiveness—a passion which many well-brought-up women mistake for morality—was outraged at being in the same room with Hermione, but there was a certain satisfaction in finding her to be worse even than Valentine's highly colored descriptions of her. And as for Margaret, she felt no jealousy of her, even though she had been chosen. No one could be jealous of any woman so kind, so old and so badly dressed.

It came to her gradually as she moved about her room, unable to look at her plans, unable to read, unable to do anything but encourage the toothache at her heart, which was like a memory of all her later relations with Valentine. The reason was Thorpe—Thorpe's instant conviction that it was not she whom Valentine wanted. Why was he so sure? He had been right; Thorpe was always right. For twenty years he had made it his business to know what Valentine wanted. That was Thorpe's idea of the function of a good servant. He had always quietly and consistently followed his line, while the wives had followed others. Margaret had been concerned with what was best for Valentine; Hermione had thought entirely of what was most agreeable to herself; Cora had cared only to preserve the romance of her love. Thorpe's specialty was knowing what at the moment Valentine wished for, and then in getting it. Thorpe had survived all three.

Cora could understand a sick man having a fancy to be nursed by Margaret, but Thorpe's conviction that she, Cora, could not be the wife called for had a deeper and more lasting significance. That was the thought that made her heart ache.

She tried to take up her life where she had left it that morning, but everything had paled in interest—even her new house. She had bought a little corner of land, within the city limits but near the river, surrounded by trees. She saw wonderful possibilities—a walled garden and a river view within twenty minutes of the theaters. She recognized certain disadvantages—the proximity of a railroad track, and the fact that the neighborhood was still unkempt; she enjoyed the idea of being a pioneer. But now, though the plans were lying on the table, she did not open them. It was as if that hour in the hospital had married her again to Valentine, and there was no vividness left in the rest of life.

For ten days the bulletins continued to be increasingly favorable, and then—a sign that convalescence had set in—they ceased entirely.

Cora found the silence trying. With the great question of life or death answered there was so much else that she wanted to know—whether he had been permanently weakened by his illness; whether he would now be starting on one of his long-projected trips—to China or the South Seas. China had always fired his imagination. Twice during her short marriage they had had their trunks packed for China. Had he been softened, or frightened, or in any way changed by the great adventure of almost dying?