The Road to Understanding
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 13: A Woman’s Won’t
Two days after his visit to Dalton, Frank Gleason dropped himself into a low chair in his sister’s private sitting-room in the Beacon Hill house.
“Well?” prompted Mrs. Thayer, voice and manner impatiently eager.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing! But there must have been something!”
“There wasn’t a thing—that will help.”
“But, aren’t they frightened—anxious—anything? Don’t they care where she is?”
“Oh, yes; they care very much,” smiled the doctor wearily; “but not in the way that is going to help any. I couldn’t get anything out of Burke, and I didn’t get much more out of his father. But I did a little.”
“They don’t know, of course, that she’s here?”
“Heavens, I hope not!—under the circumstances. But I felt all kinds of a knave and a fool and a traitor. I got away as soon as possible. I couldn’t stay. I hoped to get something—anything—that I could use for a cudgel over Helen, to get her to go back, you know. But I couldn’t get a thing. However, I shall keep on urging, of course.”
“But what did they say?”
“Burke said nothing, practically. Nor would he let me say anything. He is very angry (his father told me that), and very bitter.”
“But isn’t he frightened, or worried?”
“Not according to his father. It seems they have had a detective on the case, and have traced her to Boston. There the trail ends. But they have found out enough to feel satisfied that no evil has befallen her. Burke argues that Helen is staying somewhere (with friends, he believes) because she wants to. Such being the case he doesn’t want her back until she gets good and ready to come. He does want the baby. John Denby told me, in fact, that he believed if Burke found them now, as he’s feeling, he’d insist on a separation; and that the baby should be given to him.”
“Given to him, indeed!” flashed Mrs. Thayer angrily. “And yet, in the face of that, you sit there and say you shall urge her to go back, of course.”
Frank Gleason stirred uneasily.
“I know, Edith, but—”
“There isn’t any question about it,” interrupted Mrs. Thayer decidedly. “That poor child stays where she is now.”
“Oh, but, Edith, this sort of thing can’t go on forever, you know,” remonstrated the doctor nervously, his forehead drawn into an anxious frown.
“I wasn’t talking about forever,” returned the lady, with tranquil confidence. “I was talking about now, to-day, next week, next year, if it’s necessary.”
“Next year!”
“Certainly—if Burke Denby hasn’t come to his senses by that time. Why, Frank Gleason, don’t you suppose I’d do anything, everything, to help that child keep her baby? She worships it. Besides, it’s going to be the making of her.”
“I know; but if they could be brought together—Burke and his wife, I mean—it seems as if—as if—” The man came to a helpless pause.
“Frank, see here,” began Edith Thayer resolutely. “You know as well as I do that those two people have been wretched together for a year or more. They are not suited to each other. They weren’t in the first place. To make matters worse, they were both nothing but petted, spoiled children, no more fit to take on the responsibilities of marriage than my Bess and Charlie would be. All their lives they’d had their own dolls and shotguns to do as they pleased with; and when it came to marrying and sharing everything, including their time and their tempers, they flew into bits—both of them.”
“Yes, I know,” sighed the man, still with a troubled frown.
“Well, they’re apart now. Never mind who was to blame for it, or whether it was or wasn’t a wise move. It’s done. They’re apart. They’ve got a chance to think things over—to stand back and get a perspective, as it were. Helen thinks she can metamorphose herself into the perfect wife that Burke will love. Perhaps she can. Let us say she has one chance in a million of doing so;—well, I mean she shall have that chance, especially as the alternative—that is, her going back home now—is sure to be nothing but utter wretchedness all round.”
Frank Gleason shook his head.
“Yes, yes, very plausible—to say, of course. I see she’s talked you over. She did me. I was ready to pull the moon down for her footstool that first night she came to me. I’m ready to do it now—when I’m with her. But away from her, with a chance to think, —it really is absurd, you know, when you come right down to it. Here are Burke and his father, my good friends, hunting the country over for Burke’s wife and child. And here am I, harboring her and abetting her, and never opening my head. Really, it’s the sort of thing that you’d say—er—couldn’t happen, you know.”
“But it is happening; and so far as their finding her is concerned, you said yourself, long ago, that it was the safest hiding-place in the world, for they’d never think of looking in it. They’ve never been in the habit of coming here, and their friends don’t know us. As for the servants, and the few of my friends who see her, she’s merely Mrs. Darling. That’s all. Besides, you’re entirely leaving out of consideration Helen’s own attitude in the matter. I haven’t a doubt but that, if you did tell, she’d at least attempt to carry out her crazy threats of flight and oblivion. Really, Frank, so far as being a friend is concerned, you’re being the truest friend, both to Burke and his father, and to Helen, by keeping her and protecting her from herself and others—to say nothing of the real help I hope I’m being to her.”
“I know, I know,” sighed the man, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and scowling at the toe of his shoe. “You ‘re a brick, Edith! It’s been simply marvelous to me—the way you’ve taken hold. Even that first awful Sunday morning last July, when I showed you what I’d brought you, didn’t quite bowl you over.”
“It did almost,” laughed Edith; “especially when she blurted out that alarming speech, after you’d told me who she was.”
“What did she say? I don’t remember.”
“She said, tragically, frenziedly: ‘Oh, Mrs. Thayer, you will help me, won’t you?—to be swell and grand and know things, so’s Burke won’t be ashamed of me. And if you can’t make me so, you will Baby, won’t you? I’ll do anything—everything you say. Oh, please say you will. I know you’re Burke’s kind of folks, just to look at you, and at this—the house, and all these swell fixings! You will, won’t you? Oh, please say you will!’”
“Gorry! Did she say that—all that?”
“Every bit of it—and more, that I can’t remember. You see, I couldn’t say anything—not anything, for a minute. And the more she said, the less I could say. Probably she saw something of the horror and dismay in my face, and that’s what made her so frenzied in her appeal.”
“No wonder you were struck dumb at her nerve and at mine in asking you to take her in,” laughed the doctor softly.
“Oh, but ‘twas for only a minute. I capitulated at once, first because of the baby—she was such a dear!—then because of the mother’s love for it. I thought I’d seen devotion, Frank, but never have I seen it like hers.”
“How is she doing, really, about—well, er—this private self-improvement association of hers?” The doctor’s smile was eager and quizzical. “I’ve been away so much, and I’ve seen so little of her for months past—how is she doing?”
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