Part 2

“Pretty thing!” said Richard More. He pulled his mustache a little nervously.

The woman lifted the coat and shook it out.

“Let madam try it on,” she suggested.

She came from behind the counter and placed it on Eleanor’s shoulders, smoothing the folds.

“It’s not a usual garment—Not every one could wear a garment like that.” She moved back a little, gazing with half-closed eyes.

“It suits madam perfectly!”

The husband surveyed it. “Turn around,” he commanded.

Eleanor turned and moved from him down the cleared space to the mirror. And he was conscious of something remote in her movements. She seemed to withdraw, to hold herself removed, wrapped in the blue and gold folds of the coat.

He moved after her and she turned and faced him.

“It’s all right!” he said approvingly.

He half put out his hand to touch an end of blue sleeve that trailed away to a tasselled cord.... Then he withdrew his hand. “It’s all right!” he repeated vaguely.

The clerk came forward and lifted the tassel and let it fall in place; her fingers sprayed over the garment in an easy, official way.

“How much is it?” asked Richard More.

She consulted the tag hanging on a bit of gold cord in front. She dropped it.

“Ninety-five dollars,” she said indifferently.

She stooped to arrange a fold of the coat.

Eleanor More turned a little. She seemed to gaze down with wide, reproachful eyes at the woman’s bent form.

Her husband’s tone was crisp. “We understood the price was—less than that,” he said.

The woman straightened herself and looked at him. “That was last month—for the sale. It was marked down.”

“And now it’s marked up, is it?” he asked a little cynically.

She assented and touched the coat gently with her fingers, stroking it. “It is a coat Mr. Stewart bought himself,” she said—“in China. He found it when he was buying goods—and liked it. But we’ve had it in stock some time, and he told me to mark it down for the sale. After that, when no one bought it”—she seemed to look at Eleanor almost with reproachful eyes—“then he told me to put back the original price.... It’s more than worth it, of course.”

“Of course,” said Richard absently. He was wondering how much Eleanor really wanted the coat.

She had not spoken from the moment it was laid on her shoulders. She seemed to have withdrawn into it—to have become an inaccessible part of its mystery and charm.

“I had not expected—to pay more than fifty dollars,” said Richard More slowly. “I happen to have that amount with me——-”

The woman waited on the suggestion.... She looked at the two people before her.

“I’ll speak to Mr. Stewart—if he hasn’t gone. It’s not like regular stock. I don’t know whether he would sell it for less——”

She moved away from them down the store and they stood, with all the dummy figures standing around, and waited for her.

Richard More did not speak. He longed to ask his wife whether she wanted it as much as that—as much as ninety-five dollars. But he could not shape the words that would say it. He almost wondered whether she would understand—if he asked her.

She stood with her hands hanging idle and her eyes looking down. She was like a prehistoric creature—an Oriental Madonna of ageless form and beauty.... Almost, he fancied, there were tears in the lidded eyes.... He started and turned brusquely.

The clerk was coming back. He looked at her keenly as she came toward them.

She shook her head. “Ninety-five dollars,” she said. “But you can have a charge, of course.”

His hand moved to his pocket and his eyes were on his wife’s face.

She turned, with a shiver of the long silken lines, and she threw back the coat with a laugh.

“How absurd, Richard I—We can’t pay all that money—for a whim!”

His hand stayed itself from the pocket. “Don’t you want it?” he asked doubt-ingly.

“Of course not!” She shook the coat from her and stepped out.

The woman caught it with a quick gesture as it fell.

His hand waited, fingering the coins in his pocket. “I think we could manage it——”

“Oh—! I don’t want it!” She ignored the woman. She moved swiftly past her and was half-way to the elevator. He sprang after her, with a backward glance of apology at the woman, who stood with the coat on her arm, gazing after them.

In the elevator Eleanor shivered a little, and he squeezed her arm in his in the darkness.

“It’s all right!” he said soothingly, beneath his breath.

She nodded and pressed a little against him.

When they stepped into the light he glanced at her face. It had almost a tragic look.

“Better go back and get it,” he said peremptorily. “Hang the price!”

But she shook her head.

Half-way to the door, he touched her arm. “Let’s get it!” he said coax-ingly.

“I don’t want it!” She turned a gaze on him—half-tragic, half-humorous.... “Do you know why I would not get it?” she demanded.

“I don’t know anything!” he declared, jostling through the crowd to keep pace with her. “I’m incapable of knowing—anything!”

She smiled—a little wistful smile—up at him. “I wouldn’t get it.... Can you hear me?”

“Yes. I can hear you.” He bent his head to her, and they moved as a unit through the crowd. “I can hear you. Go ahead!”

“I thought suddenly”—she gasped a little—“how awful it would be if Annabel should ever want to have clothes—things to wear—as badly as I wanted that coat—and all those dear little beasts winding around on it!... It wasn’t a coat!” Her lips were close to his ear, a little smile seemed to run from them to him, and he laughed out.

“It wasn’t a coat!” she said fiercely. “It was a blue and gold temptation—with dragons! I wouldn’t have it—at any price!”

“Not for fifty dollars?” he asked—and he bent a keen look at her unconscious face in the crowd.

“Not if they would give it to me!” she said with swift decision. “I want Annabel to be mild in her nature!”

Richard More followed her. Privately he fancied that Annabel would be a person who would know her own mind. If she wanted a blue and gold coat, she would have it, he thought; and if she didn’t want a blue and gold coat, she wouldn’t have it, he thought.... And William Archer—? Well—blue and gold were not exactly colors to be desired in the case of William Archer. In any case Annabel and William Archer must look out for themselves.

He was going back to-morrow, or the first chance he could, and buy that Chinese coat for his wife. He wanted it for her.... As they made their way out of the store, he saw it again, wrapped about her, and he saw the down-bent face with its look of mystery, rising above the shimmering folds.

VII

She seemed to have brought away with her some secret of the coat—a touch of its mystery and charm.

Richard watched her as she went about the house, occupied with little things. He fancied there was a look in her face that came and went shadowily—as if the curtains before a hidden place were swept aside by an unseen wind.... And before he could look again—it was gone.

Her face in repose was very common-place, he knew; it had grown a little full and there was a humorous, almost conceited, little upward twist to the mouth, that he found annoying.... And then suddenly, when she was off guard, the look had fled and he was gazing at the strange face.

He found himself growing troubled, driven by a force he did not quite comprehend—a disbelief in the solid earth and the turning of the seasons.... He had sown grass-seed in the new lot; the wall was finished and vines had been planted at its base. But the lot had to his eyes an unsubstantial look. He had an almost superstitious feeling that it had been bought with a price.

He had gone back for the Chinese coat the Monday morning after they were there. He was waiting at the door when the store opened and he hurried directly to the first floor, too impatient to wait for the elevator to make its trip.

The woman saw him coming. She stopped her work and waited.... He fancied her look was a little startled.

He told her he would take the coat. He would pay part on it and have the rest charged—he would take it with him.

Little by little he grasped the fact that the coat was gone.

“But we were here late! There was no one else.... You had no chance to sell it!” He could have believed she was lying to him.

But her face was open—and there was unmistakable regret in her voice. “I would have reserved it for you with pleasure over Sunday, or longer—if you had told me.... I thought your wife did not care for it.”

“She—she may have thought the price was a little steep,” he admitted. “But I wanted her to have it—I intended she should have it.”

“I am sorry. A woman came—not two minutes after you left—I still had the coat on my arm. She must have been in the elevator that came up as you went down.... And the minute she saw the coat she stopped. She seemed to know she wanted it.

“I tried it on her right there where we stood, and she bought it and paid for it and took it away.... I don’t think she meant to buy a coat when she came up. She was looking for something else, I think, and happened to see the coat and took a fancy to it and bought it. I’m sorry you did not tell me to save it.... It was much more becoming to your wife. It really seemed made for your wife.” Her voice was full of interest and a gentle kindness.

There were no customers in the store; he felt as if he and the woman were alone in a vast place. She was not a mere clerk. She seemed linked with the coat and its destiny, and with their lives.

He thanked her and went away. And the next day he went again to see if they could get him a duplicate of the coat—if he left an order.

She looked at him tolerantly. “A coat like that,” her glance seemed to say, “is to be taken when you have the chance—and not be coming back for duplicate orders!”

“There was not a chance in a thousand,” she told him.

“I’ll take your order, of course, and I’ll tell Mr. Stewart. But they don’t make those coats by the dozen; and, besides, it is very, very old—hundreds of years, perhaps.”

“I know!” He groaned a little.

He seemed to see all the mysterious color of the coat and the shimmer of its folds—and the look in Eleanor’s face. “I hope you can get something like it for us,” he said inanely.

He had not gone back to inquire again.

They had his address; they were to send him word if they found anything. Mr. Stewart was to make a trip to the East very soon. She would send him word.

It was left at that. They would send him word.... He planned, in the back of his mind, to buy the coat for Eleanor but not to give it to her—not just yet. He would buy it, he thought, and put it away; and when William Archer arrived, he would bring it out and throw it about her shoulders. He liked to fancy her in it and to think how it would help her disappointment about Annabel.... She could enjoy it to the full. She would not be afraid of injuring Annabel or her morals—when William Archer was there.

But no word came and the months slipped by.

VIII

THEN, one evening, Richard More came home from the office and found a new look in his house. He knew it, even before he caught a glimpse of a nurse’s white cap hurrying through the lower hall and before the doctor met him at the foot of the stair.

“I am just going,” said the doctor.

“Going—?” Richard caught himself. “Has it come?”

The doctor smiled at him—at the ignorance and youthful credulity of it.

“I shall be back in an hour or two. Everything is going splendidly. Your wife has courage!” And he was gone.

“Courage—Eleanor? Of course she had courage! She was made of it. What did the doctor know about Eleanor’s courage?” He hurried up the stairs... the fleeting sense of life in his quick steps.

She turned to him with the little upward twist of her lip. “It’s all right, Dickie!”

There was no mystery, no courage—only Eleanor’s competent look as if there were dusting to be done, and men-folks were better out of the way.... And yet, behind it, he had a sense that she withdrew to some high place, to a remote, inaccessible cliff, and looked down on him with wide eyes.

He wandered miserably about the house; a part of the night he slept, and part of it he spent at the telephone, sending orders for the doctor and nurse, and answering the door-bell when the response came.... All through the early hours he longed fiercely for the arrival of William Archer. Then, as the night went on, he lost interest in William Archer and his coming, and would have welcomed Annabel.... And he cast aside even the thought of Annabel. He longed only for an end to the misery.... And when at last the doctor said in businesslike tones, “A fine girl, Mr. More!” he only blinked at him, and his tousled hair took on a more rebellious twist.

“A fine girl! What of it!... What had girls to do with this?”

“A fine girl” did not connect herself, in any vague way, with Annabel or with life.... Probably a new girl for the kitchen....! Well, they needed a girl! They needed a dozen girls!

He wandered out miserably—and the doctor followed him with a quick look and something in a glass.

“Here, drink this!”

And Richard drank it—and looked at him stupidly. Something was happening inside his brain—things were growing more settled and luminous. A smile wreathed his face.

“It’s a girl, is it?” he cried jubilantly.

The doctor nodded.

Richard More clapped him on the shoulder.

“Good work!” he said.

The doctor removed the shoulder gently. He turned toward Eleanor’s room.

“You can stay outside,” he said as he disappeared. “We shall not need you for a while.”

And Richard sat down in his parlor on the small sofa and took his tousled head in his hands and held it fast. He may have dozed a little.

When he got up and straggled to the kitchen, he found a strange woman making a fire in the range.

She had finished polishing off the top of the range and held a black cloth in her hand. The hand was very black, he noticed.

He nodded to her and went past her to the door and opened it. The world looked very fresh. The earth and the grass on either side the path were very dark and moist—as if they had been dipped in some curious fluid, and the sky had a kind of luminous quality—swelling with fulness and a freshness of light.

Richard More looked up at it and drew in a deep breath—and with the intake he understood, for the first time, that all men see the earth new-washed one morning in their lives. He had a sense of kinship with the earth and with every one living on the earth.

When he turned back to the kitchen, the woman was putting the black cloth under the sink.

“It’s a girl!” he said. He tried in vain to keep the morning out of his voice.

“Glory be to God!” said the woman. She turned promptly and straightened her back and beamed on him.

He held out his hand to her and grasped the blackened one. He did not suspect how many young fathers had shaken hands with cooks.

His experience was unique. He looked about the kitchen with satisfaction.

Ellen Murphy brought some broth and put it on the gas-range.

He watched her with kindling eyes.

He had been familiar with his kitchen before. But it had not looked to him just as it looked now.... That broth she was heating was for his wife... to keep her alive. He looked at a row of saucepans with intelligent gaze.

Ellen Murphy tested the broth and went from the room, carrying it with careful hand.

He watched her disappear and looked about the homelike room.... She was going to feed Eleanor. Just outside the door was the ice-box, where he had blundered in the night, breaking up the ice, crushing it for the doctor—they had told him to hurry—hurry!... Ages ago it seemed. And now Eleanor was to have her broth. She was being fed.... Those stew-pans over there were for her. Somehow out of this kitchen, she was to be fed, his baby was being fed—they were all being fed!

IX

He thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled down the back path to the chicken-yard. He peered through the wire at the strutting fowls. His hair was tousled, there were red rims about his eyes—and he had never felt so alive.

The chicken-yard was close to the back fence; on the other side of the fence were chicken-yards that belonged to the houses at the rear.

They were very common people in the houses at the rear. And the houses themselves, facing on the parallel street, were unsightly and small. Richard had taken pains to have no relations with the houses in the rear. He had an instinctive sense that it might lead to complications.

A man was at work in the yard across the fence, digging a post-hole. Richard’s eye fell on him. He came nearer to the fence and leaned on it and looked over. The man looked up.

Richard nodded. “Fine morning!” he called.

The man nodded a reply, and shifted his pipe in his teeth and thrust his shovel into the ground. His back was very broad, Richard noticed. There was something mighty in the swing of the great shoulders as they flung up the earth out of the hole.

Richard watched a minute in silence. The man paused and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He spit casually on his palms and took up the shovel.

Richard’s voice halted him and he put down the shovel and came over to the fence. Richard smiled a little awkwardly.

“I didn’t mean to stop your work. I was wondering what you were going to put there.” He indicated the hole.

The man’s face was broad, and a little stupid. It stared at Richard. Then it looked at the hole.

“It’s a new run I’m making for the hens. The old one’s dusty.”

“I see!... You’ve got a fine lot of birds!” Richard waved a hand.

“Pretty good!” The man eyed them with slow pride. “Got nine eggs yesterday,” he said.

“It’s a great morning!” responded Richard.

The man’s gaze lifted itself to the clear, fresh-washed sky, and came back and rested on the oak-tree across the lot. “You’ve got a pretty place—nice tree over there!”

Richard wheeled and faced it. “I bought that tree last spring—needed more room—for the children—to play.” He spoke with offhand fatherhood.

“You got children?” said the man. His voice was astonished and a little pleased.

“One,” said Richard. “A little girl.”

The man nodded pleasantly. “I never saw her playing round,” he said simply.

“No—well... She was born this morning!” Richard laughed out.

The man smiled at him a slow, deep smile.... And all his face changed in the light.

“Say, that’s great!” he exclaimed.

“You’re a man now!” he added after a minute. The rough face grew quiet and strong. And Richard had a sense of something human that stirred in him. This man digging a post-hole had known!

They stood a minute in silence, looking about them at the morning and the free space of sky and watching the sun that had come over the roofs of the shabby houses.

It shone full in Richard’s eyes. He turned abruptly.

“I must go in for breakfast.”

The man spat absently on the ground and went back to his shovelling.

In the chicken-yard the hens scuttled about, picking up chaff and bits of grain out of the dust. Over in the corner of Richard More’s yard stood the great oak-tree spreading its branches wide; and in the lot at the rear the stolid, unkempt man lifted his shovel and thrust it into the ground and threw out a handful of earth....

As Richard went up the path, he glanced at the house—The blinds of the upper window to the east were being drawn carefully together.... She was lying there in the shaded room. She would be sleeping now.... And suddenly he saw her in the blue coat, as if she lay wrapped in its folds—in her slumber. He had a sense of loss—that he had not given it to her.... Perhaps he should never be able to give it to her now.

He glanced at the oak-tree, standing majestic in the lot across the lawn with its great gnarled roots protruding from the ground. And as he went up the path he had a sudden blind sense, almost of anger, at the oak-tree and its strength.

X

The thing that surprised Richard most was the ease and efficiency with which Eleanor handled Annabel—she seemed to know by instinct things that Richard could not understand—and that he could not understand how she came by.

If she reached out her hands to take Annabel, her fingers seemed, of themselves, to curve into the places where they would fit into the spineless bundle and give it support. If Richard tried to take up the bundle, his fingers fell away like the legs of the brittle crab and the bundle collapsed, incalculable and helpless.

“How do you do it?” he would say. And he would right Annabel and try to still her protests.

And Eleanor would only smile gently, and send him on some masculine errand while she soothed Annabel’s feelings in the proper way.

Richard had once watched a cat with her kittens and he had a vivid sense of the kinship of method—so had kittens always been brought into the world and tended; so they would always be—likewise babies.

It was not something that could be read in a book or taught in a school.... Eleanor grew very beautiful these days. The little upward twist left her mouth; and if it grew almost too knowing in its sense of the boundless and accumulated wisdom of ages as regards babies—that, Richard decided, was Annabel’s fault.... Really, to know how to manage a little handful like Annabel might make any one proud.

For one thing, Annabel knew exactly what she wanted.... And she usually got it. She was often disciplined on the way to it, and thwarted—but in the end she got what she wanted.

As Richard More watched Annabel’s progress through life, he thought more than once of the regal gesture with which Annabel’s mother had thrown back the Chinese coat and cast it aside for Annabel’s sake....

And now he saw Annabel! Life was often very puzzling. But Richard More had not time to spend working it out. He was too prosperous to puzzle. Whatever he put his hand to seemed to flourish. Men came to have faith in his ventures, and to watch for his investments as pointers to success. His business increased and his family increased.... William Archer came in due season, and then Claude, and then Martin, and Christine, and that was the end.

The children grew up healthy and normal, except Claude. There seemed some obscure trouble with the boy, and before he was six years old it had declared itself. Within a year, in spite of expensive doctors and care, he died. That had been their first and their only real sorrow.

It was when they came back to the house from the funeral that he told Eleanor of his second attempt to get the coat for her.... They were alone in the house. The children had been sent away during the child’s illness and had not come back.

He fancied Eleanor drooped a little as they came into the house; and his mind went out for something to comfort her.... It encountered the Chinese coat.

So, as they sat together in the house that seemed so curiously desolate and different from their usual life together, he told her of the morning he went back to Stewart’s and of his disappointment, and of how he had never quite given up hope that some day Stewart would send for him and tell him to come and get the coat.

She listened with wide, set eyes—almost like a child to a fairy-tale.

“That was very dear of you, Richard!” she said. And she smiled to him, almost as she smiled to the children, and he felt the quick tears in his eyes.

And then suddenly she had thrown herself in his arms.

“Oh, Dick, I am so lonely!” she cried.

And that was the way she came back to him.

After that, although she still guided the children and her hand was on the helm in all decisions, it was to Richard she turned for assurance.

She had come apparently to uncharted waters, and she did not try to make soundings.

And Richard More was as puzzled by her reliance on him as he had been by her wisdom with babies and with life.