Chapter 7

Phyllis had not thought of tea--one does not stop for such leisurely amenities in a busy public library--but she saw the beauty of the idea, and saw to it that the tea was there. Lily-Anna was a jewel. She built the fire up to a bright flame, and brought in some daffodils from the garden without a word from her mistress. Phyllis herself saw that the victrola was in readiness, and cleared a space for the couch near the fire. There was quite a festal feeling.

The talking-machine was also a surprise for Allan. Phyllis thought afterward that she should have saved it for another day, but the temptation to grace the occasion with it was too strong. She and Allan were as excited over it as a couple of children, and the only drawback to Allan's enjoyment was that he obviously wanted to take the records out of her unaccustomed fingers and adjust them himself. He knew how, it appeared, and Phyllis naturally didn't. However, she managed to follow his directions successfully. She had bought recklessly of rag-time discs, and provided a fair amount of opera selections. Allan seemed equally happy over both. After the thing had been playing for three-quarters of an hour, and most of the records were exhausted, Phyllis rang for tea. It was getting a little darker now, and the wood-fire cast fantastic red and black lights and shadows over the room. It was very intimate and thrilling to Phyllis suddenly, the fire-lit room, with just their two selves there. Allan, on his couch before the fire, looked bright and contented. The adjustable couch-head had been braced to such a position that he was almost sitting up. The bull-dog, who had lately come back from a long walk with the gratified outdoor man, snored regularly on the rug near his master, wakening enough to bat his tail on the floor if he was referred to. The little tea-table was between Allan and Phyllis, crowned with a bunch of apple-blossoms, whose spring-like scent dominated the warm room. Phyllis, in her green gown, her cheeks pink with excitement, was waiting on her lord and master a little silently.

Allan watched her amusedly for awhile--she was as intent as a good child over her tea-ball and her lemon and her little cakes.

"Say something, Phyllis," he suggested with the touch of mischief she was not yet used to, coming from him.

"This is a serious matter," she replied gravely. "Do you know I haven't made tea--afternoon tea, that is--for so long it's a wonder I know which is the cup and which is the saucer?"

"Why not?" he asked idly, yet interestedly too.

"I was otherwise occupied. I was a Daughter of Toil," explained Phyllis serenely, setting down her own cup to relax in her chair, hands behind her head; looking, in her green gown, the picture of graceful, strong, young indolence. "I was a librarian--didn't you know?"

"No. I wish you'd tell me, if you don't mind," said Allan. "About you, I mean, Phyllis. Do you know, I feel awfully married to you this afternoon--you've bullied me so much it's no wonder--and I really ought to know about my wife's dark past."

Phyllis's heart beat a little faster. She, too, had felt "awfully married" here alone in the fire-lit living-room, dealing so intimately and gayly with Allan.

"There isn't much to tell," she said soberly.

"Come over here closer," commanded Allan the spoilt. "We've both had all the tea we want. Come close by the couch. I want to see you when you talk."

Phyllis did as he ordered.

"I was a New England country minister's daughter," she began. "New England country ministers always know lots about Greek and Latin and how to make one dollar do the work of one-seventy-five, but they never have any dollars left when the doing's over. Father and I lived alone together always, and he taught me things, and I petted him--fathers need it, specially when they have country congregations--and we didn't bother much about other folks. Then he--died. I was eighteen, and I had six hundred dollars. I couldn't do arithmetic, because Father had always said it was left out of my head, and I needn't bother with it. So I couldn't teach. Then they said, 'You like books, and you'd better be a librarian.' As a matter of fact, a librarian never gets a chance to read, but you can't explain that to the general public. So I came to the city and took the course at library school. Then I got a position in the Greenway Branch--two years in the circulating desk, four in the cataloguing room, and one in the Children's Department. The short and simple annals of the poor!"

"Go on," said Allan.

"I believe it's merely that you like the sound of the human voice," said Phyllis, laughing. "I'm going to go on with the story of the Five Little Pigs--you'll enjoy it just as much!"

"Exactly," said Allan. "Tell me what it was like in the library, please."

"It was rather interesting," said Phyllis, yielding at once. "There are so many different things to be done that you never feel any monotony, as I suppose a teacher does. But the hours are not much shorter than a department store's, and it's exacting, on-your-feet work all the time. I liked the work with the children best. Only--you never have any time to be anything but neat in a library, and you do get so tired of being just neat, if you're a girl."

"And a pretty one," said Allan. "I don't suppose the ugly ones mind as much."

It was the first thing he had said about her looks. Phyllis's ready color came into her cheeks. So he thought she was pretty!

"Do you--think I'm pretty?" she asked breathlessly. She couldn't help it.

"Of course I do, you little goose," said Allan, smiling at her.

Phyllis plunged back into the middle of her story:

"You see, you can't sit up nights to sew much, or practise doing your hair new ways, because you need all your strength to get up when the alarm-clock barks next morning. And then, there's always the money-worry, if you have nothing but your salary. Of course, this last year, when I've been getting fifty dollars a month, things have been all right. But when it was only thirty a month in the Circulation--well, that was pretty hard pulling," said Phyllis thoughtfully. "But the worst--the worst, Allan, was waking up nights and wondering what would happen if you broke down for a long time. Because you _can't_ very well save for sickness-insurance on even fifty a month. And the work--well, of course, most girls' work is just a little more than they have the strength for, always. But I was awfully lucky to get into children's work. Some of my imps, little Poles and Slovaks and Hungarians mostly, are the cleverest, most affectionate babies----"

She began to tell him stories of wonderful ten-year-olds who were Socialists by conviction, and read economics, and dazed little atypical sixteen-year-olds who read Mother Goose, and stopped even that because they got married.

"You poor little girl!" said Allan, unheeding. "What brutes they were to you! Well, thank Heaven, that's over now!"

"Why, Allan!" she said, laying a soothing hand on his. "Nobody was a brute. There's never more than one crank-in-authority in any library, they say. Ours was the Supervisor of the Left Half of the Desk, and after I got out of Circulation I never saw anything of her."

Allan burst into unexpected laughter. "It sounds like a Chinese title of honor," he explained. "'Grand Warder of the Emperor's Left Slipper-Rosette,' or something of the sort."

"The Desk's where you get your books stamped," she explained, "and the two shifts of girls who attend to that part of the work each have a supervisor--the Right and Left halves. The one that was horrid had favorites, and snapped at the ones that weren't. I wasn't under her, though. My Supervisor was lovely, an Irishwoman with the most florid hats, and the kindest, most just disposition, and always laughing. We all adored her, she was so fair-minded."

"You think a good deal about laughing," said Allan thoughtfully. "Does it rank as a virtue in libraries, or what?"

"You have to laugh," explained Phyllis. "If you don't see the laugh-side of things, you see the cry-side. And you can't afford to be unhappy if you have to earn your living. People like brightness best. And it's more comfortable for yourself, once you get used to it."

"So that was your philosophy of life," said Allan. His hand tightened compassionately on hers. "You _poor_ little girl!... Tell me about the cry-side, Phyllis."

His voice was very moved and caressing, and the darkness was deepening as the fire sank. Only an occasional tongue of flame glinted across Phyllis's silver slipper-buckle and on the seal-ring Allan wore. It was easy to tell things there in the perfumed duskiness. It was a great many years since any one had cared to hear the cry-side. And it was so dark, and the hand keeping hers in the shadows might have been any kind, comforting hand. She found herself pouring it all out to Allan, there close by her; the loneliness, the strain, the hard work, the lack of all the woman-things in her life, the isolation and dreariness at night, the over-fatigue, and the hurt of watching youth and womanhood sliding away, unused, with nothing to show for all the years; only a cold hope that her flock of little transient aliens might be a little better for the guidance she could give them--

Years hence in rustic speech a phrase, As in rude earth a Grecian vase.

And then, that wet, discouraged day in February, and the vision of Eva Atkinson, radiantly fresh and happy, kept young and pretty by unlimited money and time.

"Her children were so pretty," said Phyllis wistfully, "and mine, dear little villains, were such dirty, untaught, rude little things--oh, it sounds snobbish, but I'd have given everything I had to have a dainty, clean little _lady_-child throw her arms around me and kiss me, instead of my pet little handsome, sticky Polish Jewess. Up at home everything had been so clean and old and still that you always could remember it had been finished for three hundred years. And Father's clean, still old library----"

Phyllis did not know how she was revealing to Allan the unconscious motherhood in her; but Allan, femininely sensitive to unspoken things from his long sojourn in the dark--Allan did. It was the mother-instinct that she was spending on him, but mother-instinct of a kind he had never known before; gayly self-effacing, efficient, shown only in its results. And she could never have anything else to spend it on, he thought. Well, he was due to die in a few years.... But he didn't want to. Living was just beginning to be interesting again, somehow. There seemed no satisfactory solution for the two of them.... Well, he'd be unselfish and die, any way. Meanwhile, why not be happy? Here was Phyllis. His hand clasped hers more closely.

"And when Mr. De Guenther made me that offer," she murmured, coloring in the darkness, "I was tired and discouraged, and the years seemed so endless! It didn't seem as though I'd be harming any one--but I wouldn't have done it if you'd said a word against it--truly I wouldn't, dear."

The last little word slipped out unnoticed. She had been calling her library children "dear" for a year now, and the word slipped out of itself. But Allan liked it.

"My poor little girl!" he said. "In your place I'd have married the devil himself--up against a life like that."

"Then--then you don't--mind?" asked Phyllis anxiously, as she had asked before.

"No, indeed!" said Allan, with a little unnecessary firmness. "I _told_ you that, didn't I? I like it."

"So you did tell me," she said penitently.

"But supposing De Guenther hadn't picked out some one like you----"

"That's just what I've often thought myself," said Phyllis naively. "She might have been much worse than I.... Oh, but I was frightened when I saw you first! I didn't know what you'd be like. And then, when I looked at you----"

"Well, when you looked at me?" demanded Allan.

But Phyllis refused to go on.

"But that's not all," said Allan. "What about--men?"

"What men?" asked Phyllis innocently.

"Why, men you were interested in, of course," he answered.

"There weren't any," said Phyllis. "I hadn't any place to meet them, or anywhere to entertain them if I had met them. Oh, yes, there was one--an old bookkeeper at the boarding-house. All the boarders there were old. That was why the people at home had chosen it. They thought it would be safe. It was all of that!"

"Well, the bookkeeper?" demanded Allan. "You're straying off from your narrative. The bookkeeper, Phyllis, my dear!"

"I'm telling you about him," protested Phyllis. "He was awfully cross because I wouldn't marry him, but I didn't see any reason why I should. I didn't like him especially, and I would probably have gone on with my work afterwards. There didn't seem to me to be anything to it for any one but him--for of course I'd have had his mending and all that to do when I came home from the library, and I scarcely got time for my own. But he lost his temper fearfully because I didn't want to. Then, of course, men would try to flirt in the library, but the janitor always made them go out when you asked him to. He loved doing it.... Why, Allan, it must be seven o'clock! Shall I turn on more lights?"

"No.... Then you were quite as shut up in your noisy library as I was in my dark rooms," said Allan musingly.

"I suppose I was," she said, "though I never thought of it before. You mustn't think it was horrid. It was fun, lots of it. Only, there wasn't any being a real girl in it."

"There isn't much in this, I should think," said Allan savagely, "except looking after a big doll."

Phyllis's laugh tinkled out. "Oh, I _love_ playing with dolls," she said mischievously. "And you ought to see my new slippers! I have pink ones, and blue ones, and lavender and green, all satin and suede. And when I get time I'm going to buy dresses to match. And a banjo, maybe, with a self-teacher. There's a room upstairs where nobody can hear a thing you do. I've wanted slippers and a banjo ever since I can remember."

"Then you're fairly happy?" demanded Allan suddenly.

"Why, of course!" said Phyllis, though she had not really stopped to ask herself before whether she was or not. There had been so many exciting things to do. "Wouldn't you be happy if you could buy everything you wanted, and every one was lovely to you, and you had pretty clothes and a lovely house--and a rose-garden?"

"Yes--if I could buy everything I wanted," said Allan. His voice dragged a little. Phyllis sprang up, instantly penitent.

"You're tired, and I've been talking and talking about my silly little woes till I've worn you out!" she said. "But--Allan, you're getting better. Try to move this arm. The hand I'm holding. There! That's a lot more than you could do when I first came. I think--I think it would be a good plan for a masseur to come down and see it."

"Now look here, Phyllis," protested Allan, "I like your taste in houses and music-boxes and bull-dogs, but I'll be hanged if I'll stand for a masseur. There's no use, they can't do me any good, and the last one almost killed me. There's no reason why I should be tormented simply because a professional pounder needs the money."

"No, no!" said Phyllis. "Not that kind! Wallis can have orders to shoot him or something if he touches your spinal column. All I meant was a man who would give the muscles of your arms and shoulders a little exercise. That couldn't hurt, and might help you use them. That wouldn't be any trouble, would it? _Please!_ The first minute he hurts, you can send him flying. You know they call massage lazy people's exercise."

"I believe you're really interested in making me better," said Allan, after a long silence.

"Why, of course," said Phyllis, laughing. "That's what I'm here for!"

But this answer did not seem to suit Allan, for some reason. Phyllis said no more about the masseur. She only decided to summon him, any way. And presently Wallis came in and turned all the lights on.

XIII

In due course of time June came. So did the masseur, and more flowered frocks for Phyllis, and the wheel-chair for Allan. The immediate effect of June was to bring out buds all over the rose-trees; of the flowered dresses, to make Phyllis very picturesquely pretty. As for the masseur, he had more effect than anything else. It was as Phyllis had hoped: the paralysis of Allan's arms had been less permanent than any one had thought, and for perhaps the last three years there had been little more the matter than entire loss of strength and muscle-control, from long disuse. By the time they had been a month in the country Allan's use of his arms and shoulders was nearly normal, and Phyllis was having wild hopes, that she confided to no one but Wallis, of even more sweeping betterments. Allan slept much better, from the slight increase of activity, and also perhaps because Phyllis had coaxed him outdoors as soon as the weather became warm, and was keeping him there. Sometimes he lay in the garden on his couch, sometimes he sat up in the wheel-chair, almost always with Phyllis sitting, or lying in her hammock near him, and the devoted Foxy pretending to hunt something near by.

There were occasional fits of the old depression and silence, when Allan would lie silently in his own room with his hands crossed and his eyes shut, answering no one--not even Foxy. Wallis and Phyllis respected these moods, and left him alone till they were over, but the adoring Foxy had no such delicacy of feeling. And it is hard to remain silently sunk in depression when an active small dog is imploring you by every means he knows to throw balls for him to run after. For the rest, Allan proved to have naturally a lighter heart and more carefree disposition than Phyllis. His natural disposition was buoyant. Wallis said that he had never had a mood in his life till the accident.

His attitude to his wife became more and more a taking-for-granted affection and dependence. It is to be feared that Phyllis spoiled him badly. But it was so long since she had been needed by any one person as Allan needed her! And he had such lovable, illogical, masculine ways of being wronged if he didn't get the requisite amount of petting, and grateful for foolish little favors and taking big ones for granted, that--entirely, as Phyllis insisted to herself, from a sense of combined duty and grateful interest--she would have had her pretty head removed and sent him by parcel-post, if he had idly suggested his possible need of a girl's head some time.

And it was so heavenly--oh, but it was heavenly there in Phyllis's rose-garden, with the colored flowers coming out, and the little green caterpillars roaming over the leaves, and pretty dresses to wear, and Foxy-dog to play with--and Allan! Allan demanded--no, not exactly demanded, but expected and got--so much of Phyllis's society in these days that she had learned to carry on all her affairs, even the housekeeping, out in her hammock by his wheel-chair or couch. She wore large, floppy white hats with roses on them, by way of keeping the sun off; but Allan, it appeared, did not think much of hats except as an ornament for girls, and his uncovered curly hair was burned to a sort of goldy-russet all through, and his pallor turned to a clear pale brown.

Phyllis looked up from her work one of these heavenly last-of-June days, and tried to decide whether she really liked the change or not. Allan was handsomer unquestionably, though that had hardly been necessary. But the resignedly statuesque look was gone.

Allan felt her look, and looked up at her. He had been reading a magazine, for Phyllis had succeeded in a large measure in reviving his taste for magazines and books. "Well, Phyllis, my dear," said he, smiling, "what's the problem now? I feel sure there is something new going to be sprung on me--get the worst over!"

"You wrong me," she said, beginning to thread some more pink embroidery silk. "I was only wondering whether I liked you as well tanned as I did when you were so nice and white, back in the city."

"Cheerful thought!" said Allan, laying down his magazine entirely. "Shall I ring for Wallis and some peroxide? As you said the other day, 'I have to be approved of or I'm unhappy!'"

"Oh, it really doesn't matter," said Phyllis mischievously. "You know, I married you principally for a rose-garden, and that's _lovely_!"

"I suppose I spoil the perspective," said Allan, unexpectedly ruffled.

Phyllis leaned forward in her blossom-dotted draperies and stroked his hand, that long carven hand she so loved to watch.

"Not a bit, Allan," she said, laughing at him. "You're exceedingly decorative! I remember the first time I saw you I thought you looked exactly like a marble knight on a tomb."

Allan--Allan the listless, tranced invalid of four months before--threw his head back and shouted with laughter.

"I suppose I serve the purpose of garden statuary," he said. "We used to have some horrors when I was a kid. I remember two awful bronze deer that always looked as if they were trying not to get their feet wet, and a floppy bronze dog we called Fido. He was meant for a Gordon setter, I think, but it didn't go much further than intention. Louise and I used to ride the deer."

His face shadowed a little as he spoke, for nearly the first time, of the dead girl.

"Allan," Phyllis said, bending closer to him, all rosy and golden in her green hammock, "tell me about--Louise Frey--if you don't mind talking about her? Would it be bad for you, do you think?"

Allan's eyes dwelt on his wife pleasurably. She was very real and near and lovable, and Louise Frey seemed far away and shadowy in his thoughts. He had loved her very dearly and passionately, that boisterous, handsome young Louise, but that gay boy-life she had belonged to seemed separated now from this pleasant rose-garden, with its golden-haired, wisely-sweet young chatelaine, by thousands of black years. The blackness came back when he remembered what lay behind it.

"There's nothing much to tell, Phyllis," he said, frowning a little. "She was pretty and full of life. She had black hair and eyes and a good deal of color. We were more or less friends all our lives, for our country-places adjoined. She was eighteen when--it happened."

"Eighteen," said Phyllis musingly. "She would have been just my age.... We won't talk about it, then, Allan ... Well, Viola?"

The pretty Tuskegee chambermaid was holding out a tray with a card on it.

"The doctor, ma'am," she said.

"The doctor!" echoed Allan, half-vexed, half-laughing. "I _knew_ you had something up your sleeve, Phyllis! What on earth did you have him for?"

Phyllis's face was a study of astonishment. "On my honor, I hadn't a notion he was even in existence," she protested. "He's not _my_ doctor!"

"He must have 'just growed,' or else Lily-Anna's called him in," suggested Allan sunnily. "Bring him along, Viola."

Viola produced him so promptly that nobody had time to remember the professional doctor's visits don't usually have cards, or thought to look at the card for enlightenment. So the surprise was complete when the doctor appeared.

"Johnny Hewitt!" ejaculated Allan, throwing out both hands in greeting. "Of all people! Well, you old fraud, pretending to be a doctor! The last I heard about you, you were trying to prove that you weren't the man that tied a mule into old Sumerley's chair at college."

"I never did prove it," responded Johnny Hewitt, shaking hands vigorously, "but the fellows said afterwards that I ought to apologize--to the mule. He was a perfectly good mule. But I'm a doctor all right. I live here in Wallraven. I wondered if it might be you by any chance, Allan, when I heard some Harringtons had bought here. But this is the first chance a promising young chickenpox epidemic has given me to find out."