and Frances lingered at the table long after the meal was finished. Partly from fatigue, partly from embarrassment, neither of them cared to suggest getting up. For how were they to spend the evening? They couldn’t sit down and read, as if nothing had happened, and certainly they couldn’t talk. They would both have been delighted never to exchange another word.
There was an unusual air of peace and order. Sandra and the baby were in bed and asleep, wisely and lovingly managed by Frances. Mr. Petersen had gone up to look at them in their cribs, clean, quiet and happy. Mrs. Hansen was working away, without friction.
Yet it was an ominous quiet. There had been no “scene,” no excitement. Simply Minnie had packed a bag and gone off in scornful silence, and Lionel had vanished. It would have been far better if there had been a scene; no matter how violent or disgraceful. The roused emotions were cheated, there was an exasperating lack of finality about it all, a sense of frustration. Mr. Petersen and Frances had not opened the subject at all. Mrs. Hansen of course was silent. Even Sandra had asked no questions. It wasn’t natural!
Mr. Petersen had good reasons for his reticence. He was ashamed of his thoughts; he would not have divulged them to any living creature. Because he was longing and longing for Minnie, for the old turmoil and disorder, Sandra running round the table while he ate, for Minnie, holding the crying baby on her lap and feeding it sugar and water from a spoon, Minnie in a wrapper, with her hair coming down, and her eternally anxious look, worn out after having accomplished nothing.
He was aware of Frances opposite him, beautiful, severely neat, in her starched blouse. He knew she was much better than Minnie, that she had been cruelly wronged, and was behaving nobly. And yet he felt no sympathy for her. All his pity was ridiculously, futilely given to Minnie. He did not even blame her. The upright, honourable Mr. Petersen was able to see the thing from her distorted angle; he could almost hear her saying:
“But I tried to do what seemed best at the time.”
No anger, no bitterness, only a great sense of bereavement and grief. He actually sat there worrying about her, thinking she had no money, afraid she would suffer without her children.... That poor tiny Viking, replica of himself, left now without a mother! And poor, poor mother, bereft of such a son!
Frankie’s thoughts were altogether different. She was angry, burning with resentment against her sister. She hated her! She remembered Lionel’s dreadful face when he had seen her, the shame and anguish in his eyes. Oh, she hated her! The man he might have been, and the thing Minnie had made of him!
She had as little sympathy for Mr. Petersen as he for her. Simply he didn’t matter. When she looked at his stolid face, she felt that it wouldn’t be hard to hate him, too.
What Lionel must have endured to force him into such a course! Living in Mr. Petersen’s house, on Mr. Petersen’s bounty, seeing his wife living with Mr. Petersen, bearing his child! A feeling she didn’t know was in her came rushing up; a longing to see Minnie suffer, even a little of what she had inflicted upon others. She couldn’t stand Mr. Petersen’s presence another moment—silly sheep—fatuous dupe of a vile woman!
She got up abruptly.
“I think I’ll go upstairs to the children,” she said. “Good-night!”
They were sleeping beautifully. She lighted a little night lamp and looked at them, these children of Minnie, with curiously mixed emotions. She bent over the baby; its fat little cheeks were puffed out, its earnest mouth closed in a sort of pout. An ineffable fragrance rose from the warm little body. Her breath stirred the fine fair hairs on its head, where the pulse still beat so pitifully. Child of that hated sister and that fool of a Petersen—but a baby none the less and sacred and dear. She regarded it with love, she pitied the poor deserted little man. She touched the tiny clenched fist, and at once it seized upon her finger and clung to it blindly. Very gently she unclasped the absurd little fingers and went over to Sandra.
This was the child that should have been hers; Lionel’s daughter. The baby was delightful, but Sandra! She was a dream child, she was beauty in its purest, most exquisite moment. Her pale face, her clear features, her cloud of fine-spun hair, the slender grace of her little limbs, were, Frances thought, like some child angel in an old painting, altogether spiritual. She sat down beside her, to think. It helped her to look down at that innocent and fragile loveliness, sublimation of her poor lover. She grew softer; at last began to weep a little.