CHAPTER VI

KISSES AND CROSSES

"For 'Im and 'E and 'It (An' Two an' One makes Three)." KIPLING.

Acquaintance with a further element in her husband's life to which she had so far been a stranger was reserved for Val when at Easter his adopted child, Haidee Halston, came home to 68th Street. Westenra, it is true, had told her all the circumstances, and no one was better qualified than Val to appreciate that sense of responsibility towards the helpless and unprotected which had prompted him to take upon himself the entire support and education of a friend's child. Westenra and Pat Halston had been friends from boyhood. The same county in Ireland had been their birthplace, they were at Carlow College together, and, sailing for America within a year of each other, met again in New York, and graduated together from Columbia University, where they obtained their medical degree. Later, launched upon the same profession but inspired by very different ambitions, the paths of the two friends had diverged somewhat. Halston, greatly gifted and of a magnetic personality, aimed for a fashionable practice that would bring him social success as well as a fortune with which to pursue further aims--in fact, like many another he meant medicine to serve him only as a step to the more lucrative and exciting profession of politics, wherefore he followed it only when it led him into the highways of the rich and influential. Westenra, on the other hand, inspired by a racial thirst for knowledge, as well as for eminence in his profession, did not disdain the by-ways, even when they led him into the lowest slums of New York. It was natural, in the circumstances, that the two men should see little of each other, but the bond of boyhood held good, and when "Death and Dismay" all too swiftly and unforeseen came to Halston, it was to Westenra that he turned at the last. Poor Halston had, unfortunately, put a spoke into his own wheel of ambition by marrying a lovely, but very flighty English girl, who came to America as a governess in the family of one of his fashionable patients. Halston adored his pretty wife, but she made ducks and drakes with his money and brought him to the verge of bankruptcy through her extravagance. When death by septic poisoning swooped suddenly down on him, she was within a short period of giving birth to their only child, and the thought of this darkened the dying man's vision until Westenra, with a firm hand on his friend's, gave his promise that the welfare of Mrs. Halston and her child would be his most sacred task. Within a few weeks Mrs. Halston joined her husband in the great beyond, and Westenra found himself the sole guardian of the little baby girl fancifully called by its dying mother--Haidee. That was ten years before, and now Haidee was a beautiful, arrogant slip of a girl with deep dark eyes, a deep dark cave or two in her soul, and the manners of a cowboy. The school at which she had been educated for several years, to the extreme detriment of Westenra's banking account, was one of those highly modern institutions where at the most expensive rates girls are encouraged to "develop their individuality," and Haidee, a hoyden by nature, had developed hers along the cowboy-brigand line. Her idea of argument with servants or other children was to push them down-stairs or administer a hack on the shins with one of her extremely useful-looking feet.

These unsatisfactory reports had for a long time troubled the peace of Westenra, whose sense of responsibility to Pat Halston's child was perhaps a slightly exaggerated one. A vague idea had occurred to him of sending her to a convent to see what the gentle influence of nuns could do for her, but Haidee jibbed like a mule at the mention of nuns, and declared darkly that if he sent her to a convent _he would see_.

When he spoke to Val of his worries on the subject she said, ready at once to embrace any project or protege of his without thought of the fresh tasks entailed:

"Oh, why not have her here for awhile, Joe? A little home life will tame her down, I expect. Look how it has tamed even such a wild ass of the desert as I," she added, with a gay smile in which there was more than a touch of wistfulness. But Westenra said a trifle abruptly that he did not fancy somehow it would be a good plan.

"You have enough worries already," he added, but not quite quickly enough to prevent Val from perceiving that there was some other reason, though she was far from guessing what that reason might be.

In the end, however, by the gift of circumstance, Haidee came to 68th Street after all. For at the expiration of the Easter term the school authorities wrote a brief but eloquent letter to the effect that they wished to be relieved of the care of Westenra's ward. If it did not exactly amount to an expulsion, it certainly could not be looked upon as a certificate of good conduct for presentation at her next school, and for the moment all thought of the convent had to be dismissed. So Haidee came home from New Jersey, bag and baggage, and utterly unashamed of her peccadilloes. Val, with a heart open for anything or any one loved by Westenra, was eager to mother the motherless creature of whom she had heard so much. But Haidee was apparently not in search of a mother, and received her advances coldly and in a keep-off-the-grass manner that only an American-bred child would have the _sang-froid_ to use. More than a hint of hostility, too, was to be found in the deep-set eyes, when they watched Val and Westenra together. The fact was that to find her guardian installed in a house with "a strange woman" had given the girl a great shock. Westenra, following his usual habit of reserve, had prepared her for nothing of the kind when he said, on his return journey from New Jersey:

"I am married now, Haidee."

She never dreamed that such a thing would make any difference to her absolute monopoly of her beloved guardian, and indeed, because Val was generous and he was kind, it would have made but little, if she had not instantly determined to be as obnoxious and tiresome as she could be, in the hope that Val would get tired of her and go away.

From the first she nobly contributed her share towards the business of making life at No. 700 more unlivable than it was already. She fought with the servants, got into the way of the nurses, and disturbed the patients with her noise. A day-school was found for her near at hand, and that kept her energies employed for a certain number of hours, but her new teachers were soon on the war-path after her, and she arrived home daily, flustered with combat, and bringing long accounts of their tyranny and brutality! When it was time for her to go to school in the mornings the house had to be hunted for her from top to bottom by Val or a housemaid. She hated to go to bed, and there was a scene every night before she could be induced to do so; then, on being left alone, she would invariably hop out again, turn up the lights, and amuse herself in some illicit fashion, such as hanging out of the window and dropping things on the heads of patients coming up the front-door steps. Yet in the mornings it almost needed a charge of dynamite to dislocate her from her blankets. She had a rooted aversion to taking baths, and would never brush her teeth unless some one stood over her and saw it done. In fact, she had all the faults and naughtinesses of an ordinary child strongly accentuated, and a sense of perversity extraordinarily developed. Withal she was as clever as paint, and grew prettier every day. What vexed Val most was that everlastingly she broke in upon Westenra, claiming his attention for her troubles, her lessons, her amusements, unless Val were on the alert to prevent it. She would wait outside his office door and slip in "between patients" to relate some woe, and Westenra would listen patiently and in the end the trouble evaporated into smiles and laughter. But this wasted his time and told upon his temper in some later affair of the day, or brought him up to bed a little more tired than usual.

Presently, too, Haidee's jealousy of Val's place in Westenra's life began to take a more active form, and if it had not been for her disarming innocence of mind where worldly matters were concerned, Val would have almost come to dislike her. Instead of which she felt pity for the child who, in her adoration for Westenra, resented being ousted from the central position in his life. Haidee could not or would not understand why a mere wife should have first claim. She considered that she herself possessed it, because she had been first in Westenra's life.

One night Val, going to her husband's room to see that everything was prepared for him to go straight to rest as soon as he got in from a late consultation, found Haidee in her nightgown, curled up and scowling, on Westenra's bed.

"Haidee! What on earth--? I thought you were in bed and asleep long ago."

"Well, I 'm not, you see," was the surly response.

"But, dear chicken, what are you doing here?"

"I 'm waiting for Garry."

"Oh, Haidee, how silly! When Garry comes home he 'll be dead tired and not want to be bothered. You really must have a little consideration for him, dear--besides, you ought to be in bed and asleep by now."

The child suddenly burst out at her like a tornado:

"Why aren't _you_ in bed and asleep, I 'd like to know ... why can _you_ wait up for him and not me? ... I know ... you think he belongs to you ... and that you can have him all the time. You are a greedy guts. You have him every night ... why should n't I have him sometimes? You are trying to take him right away from me. Who asked you to come from your rotten old England and take my Garry away from me? Before you came he was all mine ... when I was little he used to let me sleep with my arms round his neck. But now, whenever I ask if I can come and sleep in his bed he laughs and says I have grown too big and active with my hoofs. But your hoofs are not too big, I suppose! Oh, no! ... and he 's not too tired, however late he comes in for _you_ to come to his room and talk to him.... Mean pig that you are ... greedy guts! I hate you ... and I _will_ sleep with Garry ... I will, I will!"

She burst into a torrent of tears, and Val stood staring at her in amazement that swiftly softened to pity. The trouble with Val was that she could always feel sympathy for another person's point of view, and that frame of mind is very disarming to anger. Immediately she threw her arms round the sobbing creature and began to comfort her.

"Dear old thing, you mustn't feel like that about me. I don't want to take him away from you. I know he is all you have. I only want you to help me as much as you can to make things easier for him. Think how he works ... for both of us--you and me! And how tired he is at nights.... As for my coming to his room ... dear chick, don't you understand that I am his wife? When you are grown up you 'll marry some nice man ... and you 'll want to be greedy over him too a little bit."

"I 'll never marry anybody. I always meant to marry Garry ... and now _you_--" Vindictiveness came into her voice again, and Val's heart gave a little weary sigh, for she was dead beat, and this was her legitimate time of rest, hard wrung from the day. To have to face this exhausting scene late at night seemed very much like the last straw that was one too many for the camel.

However, it was urgent to get it over and done with before Westenra came in, so she stayed on talking to the unhappy child, trying to beguile her from her misery and once and for all place their relationship on a footing of sympathy and affection. It seemed almost a hopeless task, but in the end the effective thing was that she told Haidee of what so far she had spoken to no one but Westenra--her deep, sweet, secret joy in the thought of the child that was coming. It was Haidee's first glimpse into the workings of nature, and she sat wide-eyed and dumb, searching Val from top to toe for circumstantial evidence, while Val, with a faint flush in her pale face, but serene-eyed and in simple words, following on Carpenter's advice in _Love's Coming of Age_, made all clear to the child. She even, with a touch of guile, let Haidee into the secret of suffering to be endured before the baby could come into the world, believing that to touch the heart of the child to a little sympathy might not be an unwise thing. And she was right: from sympathy to compassion is a natural step, and Haidee went to bed in a glow of good resolution to be as helpful and considerate as possible in the days to come. Indeed, without turning into an angel, or even a moderately good child, she did improve greatly in behaviour during the next few months, while waiting with burning impatience for what was to come when the bleak spring days were over.

June came at last, and brought its gift to Valentine and Westenra--a son. Like an impetuous Irishman, as Val had declared, anxious to get into the thick of the fight, he had practically started their married life with them, and arrived as soon as compatibility with schedule permitted. That was a great day in the Westenra household when the golden head of a baby lit up like a star the gloom of dark and difficult ways. Instead of one baby, indeed, there were three. Two of them haggard and thin, but content and care-free as the third in that glad hour of love made incarnate. Even Haidee softened and turned into a real child as she hung with perpetual curiosity over the cot of the new-comer.

"It's got blue eyes, just like the lion cubs in the Zoo.... Oh, look at it clutching on to me! You are lucky, Val.... I wish I could get one, too. Oh, _could n't_ I have it to sleep with me?"

She sulked bitterly when she was not permitted to take charge of it to play with like a doll, and thereafter constantly complained to Westenra of Val's greediness.

"You 'd think it was all hers--and how can it be if it is half yours? And if it is yours it belongs to me too," was the burden of her complaint.

When Val got up and resumed life again, the question of a name for the baby arose. Val was all for Patrick.

"Patrick seems to stand for Ireland, and he is our link with Ireland, Joe."

"It is an unlucky name with us," Westenra objected. "My father was crazy for sons, but three he called Patrick died one after the other. When I came they took no more risks, and gave me an old family name. Choose another, Val."

"Well," she said shyly, after a little thought, "would you mind Richard?"

"Richard?" he mused.

Val had long yearned to talk to Westenra of Dick Rowan, only the ban he had placed on all past things had so far prevented her. But that the day must come when no subject would be taboo between them, she felt confident.

"We could call him Dick," she said. "I once cared very much----"

Westenra turned on her like a flash, white to the lips.

"Is that the way you burn your boats?" he said, in a low, hard voice, and looked at her with furious eyes she did not know. While she stared at him in pain and amazement he rose abruptly and left the room. Slowly her eyes filled with tears. She made no further reference to the matter. She did not know what to say. It seemed she could not refer to that time and tell him who Dick was, and how good he had been to her without giving pain. Therefore it was better to be silent. On the day of the christening itself he said:

"We 'll call him Bran if you like, Val--one of Ireland's old savage kings. I think that son of yours will be some one fine some day," he added with a boyish, lovable smile, that had something of pride in it, and something of humility too, and for those words Val forgave him and was happy again. And the baby was baptised into the Holy Catholic Church under the pagan and kingly name of Bran.