She ignores the débris of the carpenters who have been putting in the hardwood floors, without glancing at it, and walking to her guests, welcomes them with regal splendor, receiving Miss Müller with rather obvious dignity. Mrs. Nesbit in those days was a woman of whom the doctor said, “There is no foolishness about Bedelia.” The jovial Mr. Brotherton attempts some pleasant hyperbole of speech, which the hostess ignores and the Doctor greets with a smile. Mrs. Nesbit leads the way to the piano, being a woman of purpose, and whisks the eldest Miss Morton upon a stool and has the hymn book opened in less time than it takes to tell how she did it. The Doctor and Laura stand watching the company, and perhaps they stand awkwardly; which prompts Mr. Brotherton in the goodness of his heart to say, “Doctor, won’t you sit and hear the music?”
Mrs. Nesbit looks around, sees the two figures standing near the fire and replies, “No, the Doctor won’t.”
To which he chirps a mocking echo–“No, the Doctor won’t.”
Mr. Brotherton glances at Mr. Fenn, and the Doctor sees it. “That’s all right, boys–that’s all right; I may be satrap of Harvey and have the power of life and death over my subjects, but that’s down town. Out here, I’m the minority report.”
Mrs. Nesbit opens the hymn book, smooths the fluttering leaves and says without looking toward the Doctor: “I suppose we may as well begin now.” And she begins beating the time with her index finger and marking the accents with her foot.
As they sing they can hear the gentle drone of the Doctor’s soft voice in the intervals in the music, reading in some nearby room to his daughter. They are reading Tennyson’s “Maud” and sometimes in the emotional passages his voice breaks and his eyes fill up and he cannot go on. At such times, the daughter puts her head upon his shoulder and often wipes her tears away upon his coat and they are silent until he can begin again. When his throat cramps, she pats his cheek and they sit dreaming for a time and the dreams they dream and the dreams they read differ only in that the poetry is made with words.
It is a proud night for Margaret Müller. She has come into a new world–the world of her deep desire. Mrs. Nesbit sees the girl’s wandering eyes, taking note of the furniture, as one making an inventory. No article of the vast array of vases and jars and plaques and jugs and statuettes and grotesque souvenirs of far journeys across the world, nor etchings nor steel engravings nor photographs of Roman antiquities nor storied urns nor animated busts escapes the wandering, curious brown eyes of the girl. But in her vast wonderment, though her eyes wander far and wide, they never are too far to flash back betimes at Henry Fenn’s who drinks from the woman’s eyes as from a deep and bewitching well. He does not see that she is staring. But as the minutes speed, he knows that he is electrified with alternating currents from her glowing face and that they bring to him a rapture that he has never known before.
But you may be sure of one thing: Mrs. Nesbit–she that was Satterthwaite of the Maryland Satterthwaites–she sees what is in the wind. She is not wearing gold-rimmed nose glasses for her health. Her health is exceptionally good. And what is more to the point, as they are singing, Mrs. Nesbit gives George Brotherton a look–one of the genuine old Satterthwaite looks that speak volumes, and in effect it tells him that if he has any sense, he will take Henry Fenn home before he makes a fool of himself. And the eldest Miss Morton, swinging her legs under the piano stool and drumming away to Mrs. Nesbit’s one- and two- and three- and four-ands, peeps out of the corners of her eyes and sees Miss Müller gobbling Mr. Fenn right down without chewing him, and whoopee but Mrs. Nesbit is biting nails, and Mr. Brotherton, he can’t hardly keep his face straight from laughing at all, and if Ruth and Martha ever tell she will never tell them another thing in the world. And she mustn’t forget to ask Mrs. Nesbit if she’s used the Peerless Cooker and if she has, will she please say something nice about it to Mrs. Ahab Wright, for Papa is so anxious to sell one to the Wrights!
It is nearly nine o’clock. Mr. Fenn has been eaten up these twenty times. The wandering eyes have caressed the bric-a-brac over and over. Mrs. Nesbit’s tireless index finger has marked the time while the great hands of the tall hall clock have crept around and halfway around again. They are upon the final rehearsal of it.
“Other refuge have I none,” says the voice and the eyes say even more and are mutely answered by another pair of eyes.
“Hangs my helpless soul on thee,” says the deep passionate voice, and the eyes say things even more tender to eyes that falter only because they are faint with joy. In the short interval the moving finger of Mrs. Nesbit goes up, and then comes a rattling of the great front door. A moment later it is opened and the flushed face of Grant Adams is seen. He is collarless, and untidy; he rushes into the room crying, “O, doctor–doctor, come–our baby–he is choking.” The youth sees Margaret, and with passion cries: “Kenyon–Kenyon–the baby, he is dying; for God’s sake–Mag, where is the Doctor?”
In an instant the little figure of the Doctor is in the room. He stares at the red-faced boy, and quick as a flash he sees the open mouth, the dazed, gaping eyes, the graying face of Margaret as she leans heavily upon George Brotherton. In another instant the Doctor sees her rally, grapple with herself, bring back the slow color as if by main strength, and smile a hard forced smile, as the boy stands in impotent anguish before them.
“I have the spring wagon here, Doctor–hurry–hurry please,” expostulates the youth, as the Doctor climbs into his overcoat, and then looking at Margaret the boy exclaims wildly–“Wouldn’t you like to go, too, Maggie? Wouldn’t you?”
She has hold of herself now and replies: “No, Grant, I don’t think your mother will need me,” but she almost loses her grip as she asks weakly, “Do you?”
In another second they are gone, the boy and the Doctor, out into the night, and the horse’s hoofs, clattering fainter and fainter as they hurry down the road, bring to her the sound of a little heart beating fainter and fainter, and she holds on to her soul with a hard hand.
Before long Margaret Müller and Henry Fenn are alone in a buggy driving to Prospect township.
She sees above her on the hill the lights in the great house of her desire. And she knows that down in the valley where shimmers a single light is a little body choking for breath, fighting for life.
“Hangs my helpless soul on thee,” swirls through her brain, and she is cold–very cold, and sits aloof and will not talk, cannot talk. Ever the patter of the horse’s feet in the valley is borne upward by the wind, and she feels in her soul the faltering of a little heart. She dares not hope that it will start up again; she cannot bear the fear that it will stop.
So she leaves the man who knew her inmost soul but an hour ago; hardly a word she speaks at parting; hardly she turns to him as she slips into the house, cold and shivering with the sound of every hoof-beat on the road in the night, bringing her back to the helpless soul fluttering in the little body that once she warmed in hers.
Thus the watchers watched the fighting through the night, the child fighting so hard to live. For life is dear to a child–even though its life perpetuates shame and brings only sorrow–life still is dear to that struggling little body there under that humble roof, where even those that love it, and hover in agony over it in its bed of torture, feel that if it goes out into the great mystery from whence it came, it will take a sad blot from the world with it. And so hope and fear and love and tenderness and grief are all mingled in the horror that it may die, in the mute question that asks if death would not be merciful and kind. And all night the watchers watched, and the watcher who was absent was afraid to pray, and as the daylight came in, wan and gray, the child on the rack of misery sank to sleep, and smiled a little smile of peace at victory.
Then in the pale dawn, a weary man, trudging afoot slowly up the hill into Harvey, met another going out into the fields. The Doctor looked up and was astonished to see Henry Fenn, with hard drawn features, trembling limbs, hollow eyes and set lips. He too had been fighting hard and he also had won his victory. The Doctor met the man’s furtive, burning eyes and piped out softly:
“Stick to it, Henry–by God, stick hard,”