His Second Wife | Page 5

come in?" A woman's voice with a hostile note had replied, "Yes, ma'am." She had entered. And a moment later, down on her knees before a grave little girl of two who sat at a tiny table soberly having her supper, Ethel had cried:
"Oh, you adorable baby!"
For a time she had tried to make friends with the child, but the voice of the nurse had soon cut in. And in the motherly Scotch face Ethel had detected again a feeling of hostility. "What for?" she had asked. And the answer had flashed into her mind. "She's angry because Amy hasn't been in to see Susette." And Ethel had frowned. "It's funny. If I had been away three days--"
She had gone back to her own room and began slowly to take off her things. And a few minutes after that, she had heard a gruff kindly voice, a man's heavy tread and a glad little cry from Amy's room.
"Joe has come home," she had told herself. "I wonder how he and I will get on."
And she had met him a little later with no slight uneasiness. But this had been at once dispelled. Rather tall and full of figure, with thick curling hair and close-cut moustache, Joe Lanier at thirty-five still gave to his young sister-in-law the impression of kindly friendliness she had had from him some years before. There was nothing to be afraid of in Joe. But she had noticed the change in his face, the slightly tightened harassed expression. And she had thought:
"You poor man. How hard you have been working."
And yet she could not say he looked tired, for at dinner his talk had been almost boyish in its welcoming good humour. Later he had drawn her aside and had said with a touch of awkwardness:
"No use in talking about it, of course. I just want you to know I'm so glad you're here." She had clutched his hand:
"That's nice of you, Joe." And then she had turned from him, and with a sudden quiver inside she had added quite inaudibly: "Oh, Dad, dearest! I'm so homesick! Just this minute--if I could be back!"
But she had liked Joe that evening.
She remembered the hungry light in his eyes. He and Amy had soon gone to their room. And as Ethel thought about them now, lying here alone in the dark she felt again that vague delight and confused expectancy.
"How much of all this is coming to me? . . Everything, I guess, but sleep!"
A wisp of her hair fell on her nose, and she blew it back with a vicious, "Pfew!"
CHAPTER III
Her first month in town was a season of shopping and of warm anticipations--and then came a sudden crash. Afterward it was hard to remember. For tragedy entered into these rooms, and it was not easy to look back and see them clearly as they had been. That first month became confused, the memories uneven; in some spots clear and vivid, in others hazy and unreal.
"I want you to be gay, my dear," Amy told her at the start. "You've been through such a lonely time. And what earthly good will it do poor Dad to have you go about in black? You're here now and you've got to make friends and a place for yourself. If he were alive I know he'd agree. He'd want you to have every chance."
So they started in to shop. And though Ethel had her memories, her moods of homesick longing for the old soldier who was gone, these soon became less frequent. There was little time to be lonely or sad.
Amy herself felt new youth these days. Relieved of the first uneasiness with which she had gone to Ohio to bring her young sister to New York, surprised and delighted at finding how the awkward girl she had known had developed since the last time they had met, Amy now took Ethel about to get her "clothes fit to be seen in." And as with intent little glances she kept studying "Ethel's type" in order to set off her charms, the slightly bored expression, the look of disillusionment left Amy's pretty countenance. For Ethel's freshness had given to Amy new zest and belief in her own life, in its purpose and importance. To get Ethel clothes, to show her about, to find her friends, to give her a gay winter in town and later to make a good match for her--these aims loomed large in Amy's mind. She felt her own youth returning, and she prolonged this period. She wanted Ethel all to herself. She even shut her husband out.
"You can rest up a bit," she told him, "for what's coming later on." And Joe, with a good-natured groan at the prospect of late hours ahead, made the most of