“Don’t swear, Eloise. You might perjure yourself,” and Edith hung up the receiver.
CHAPTER XVIII
AN INTERLUDE
The day after Christmas.
“Baldy, darling: The operation is over, and the doctor gives us hope. That is the best I can tell you. I haven’t been allowed to see Judy, though they have let Bob have a peep at her, and she smiled.
“You can imagine that we have had little heart for good times. But the babies had a beautiful Christmas Day, with a tree—and stockings hung above the gas logs. How I longed for our own little wood fire, but the blessed darlings didn’t know the difference. We couldn’t spend much money, which was fortunate. The things that came from the east were so perfect. Yours, honey-boy, only you shouldn’t have made the check so large. I shan’t spend it unless it is very necessary. Mr. Towne sent flowers, loads of them—and perfectly marvellous chocolates in a box of gold lacquer—and Edith sent a string of carved ivory beads, and there was a blue Keats from Evans, and a ducky orange scarf from Mrs. Follette.
“I wish you could have seen the babies. Julia staggered around the tree on her uncertain little feet as if she were drunk, and then settled down to an adorable stuffed bunny, and Junior had eyes for nothing but the red automobile that the Townes ordered for him. I think it was dear of Edith and her uncle. Junior is such a charming chap, with beautiful manners like his dad, but with a will of his own at times.
“I roasted a chicken for dinner, and—well, we got through it all. And now the babies are in bed, and Bob is at the hospital, and I am writing to you. But my heart is tight with fear.
“I mustn’t think about Judy.
“Give my love to everybody. I have had Christmas letters from Evans and Edith and Mr. Towne. Baldy, Mr. Towne wants to marry me. I haven’t told you before. It is rather like a dream and I’m not going to think about it. I don’t love him, and so, of course, that settles it. But he says he can make me, and, Baldy, sometimes I wish that he could. It would be such a heavenly thing for the whole family. Of course that isn’t the way to look at it, but I believe Judy wants it. She believes in love in a cottage, but she says that love in a palace might be equally satisfying, with fewer things to worry about.
“Somehow that doesn’t fit in with the things I’ve dreamed. But dreams, of course, aren’t everything....
“I had to tell you, dear old boy. Because we’ve never kept things from each other. And you’ve been so perfectly frank about Edith. Are things a bit blue in that direction? Your letter sounded like it.
“Be good to yourself, old dear, and love me more than ever.”
Jane signed her name and stood up, stretching her arms above her head. It was late and she was very tired. A great storm was shaking the windows. The wind from the lake beat against the walls with the boom of guns.
Jane pulled back the curtains—there was snow with the storm—it whirled in papery shreds on the shaft of light. All sounds in the street were muffled. She had a sense of suffocation—as if the storm pressed upon her—shutting her in.
She went into the next room and looked at the babies. Oh, what would they do if anything happened to Judy? What would Bob do? She dared not look ahead.
She walked the floor, a tense little figure, fighting against fear. The storm had become a whistling pandemonium. She gave a cry of relief when the door opened and her brother-in-law entered.
“I’m half-frozen, Janey. It was a fight to get through. The cars are stopped on all the surface lines.”