Jeannette was deeply moved when her sister told her she was going to have a baby. It tore at her heart to think of little Alice, to herself so young, so immature, so tender and weak and inexperienced, bringing a child into the world. She worried about it, wondered if Alice would die, felt with terrifying conviction that that would be the way of it. Her mother’s pleasure and complacency about the matter reassured her but little. Alice was having a child much too soon after her wedding; she ought to have waited for a year or so at least.
She watched the changes in her sister’s face and figure with growing wonder. Child-bearing was a mystery. Jeannette had never known a woman intimately who had had a baby; now she was both curious and concerned. After the early months of discomfort had passed, a benign gentleness settled upon Alice; her expression became placid, serene, beautiful. A quality of goodness transfigured her. She moved through the days toward her appointed time with supreme tranquillity. Whenever Alice spoke of “my baby,” Jeannette winced, while her mother maddened her each time with the remark that it was “only right and proper.”
One morning early in March, shortly after Jeannette had reached the office, her mother telephoned her in a great state of excitement. She had just heard from Roy; Alice’s baby would arrive that day; they were taking her right away to the hospital; she wasn’t in any pain yet, but the doctor thought it would be best to have her there; he didn’t say when the child was likely to be born.
There was no more news. The morning stretched itself out endlessly. Jeannette worried and suffered in silence; at noon she telephoned the hospital and got Roy; there was little change; Alice was miserable, but there was no talk about when the baby would be born; the doctor had promised to be in at three; Roy would let her know if anything happened. All afternoon there was a meeting of the members of the firm in Corey’s office; the question of the move to the new building was being discussed; it lasted until four, until five, until quarter to six. Jeannette was beside herself. Alice was dead and they were afraid to let her know!
At six o’clock her mother telephoned again. Alice was having her pains with some regularity now; the baby ought to be there about eight or nine o’clock, the doctor said.
As soon as she was at liberty Jeannette left the office. She did not want to eat, but took the elevated direct to the hospital. Her mother and Roy met her and they kissed one another again and again. Alice was “upstairs” now. They sat with their elbows touching on a hard leather-covered seat in the reception-room. Jeannette’s head began to ache; she counted the sixty-three squares in the rug on the floor twenty-two times; the black on the Welsbach burner in the lamp looked exactly like two people kissing.
Towards midnight the baby was born.
When Jeannette first saw her niece, the upper part of the little head and forehead were carefully bandaged. Her mother whispered that it had been an “instrument case”; Roy was not to know for a while at any rate. The baby was perfect,—a fine, healthy, eight-pound girl, and Alice was doing nicely.
But Alice did not leave the hospital for six weeks and was six months in recovering her old strength and buoyancy.