FullReads

Eunice clasped her hands together under the table. It was what she had been expecting. She said so, in a monotonous voice.

“We must make some arrangement for–for you, Eunice,” Christopher went on, in a hurried, hesitant way, keeping his eyes riveted doggedly on his plate. “Victoria doesn’t exactly like–well, she thinks it’s better for young married folks to begin life by themselves, and I guess she’s about right. You wouldn’t find it comfortable, anyhow, having to step back to second place after being mistress here so long.”

Eunice tried to speak, but only an indistinct murmur came from her bloodless lips. The sound made Christopher look up. Something in her face irritated him. He pushed back his chair impatiently.

“Now, Eunice, don’t go taking on. It won’t be any use. Look at this business in a sensible way. I’m fond of you, and all that, but a man is bound to consider his wife first. I’ll provide for you comfortably.”

“Do you mean to say that your wife is going to turn me out?” Eunice gasped, rather than spoke, the words.

Christopher drew his reddish brows together.

“I just mean that Victoria says she won’t marry me if she has to live with you. She’s afraid of you. I told her you wouldn’t interfere with her, but she wasn’t satisfied. It’s your own fault, Eunice. You’ve always been so queer and close that people think you’re an awful crank. Victoria’s young and lively, and you and she wouldn’t get on at all. There isn’t any question of turning you out. I’ll build a little house for you somewhere, and you’ll be a great deal better off there than you would be here. So don’t make a fuss.”

Eunice did not look as if she were going to make a fuss. She sat as if turned to stone, her hands lying palm upward in her lap. Christopher got up, hugely relieved that the dreaded explanation was over.

“Guess I’ll go to bed. You’d better have gone long ago. It’s all nonsense, this waiting up for me.”

When he had gone Eunice drew a long, sobbing breath and looked about her like a dazed soul. All the sorrow of her life was as nothing to the desolation that assailed her now.

She rose and, with uncertain footsteps, passed out through the hall and into the room where her mother died. She had always kept it locked and undisturbed; it was arranged just as Naomi Holland had left it. Eunice tottered to the bed and sat down on it.

She recalled the promise she had made to her mother in that very room. Was the power to keep it to be wrested from her? Was she to be driven from her home and parted from the only creature she had on earth to love? And would Christopher allow it, after all her sacrifices for him? Aye, that he would! He cared more for that black-eyed, waxen-faced girl at the old Pye place than for his own kin. Eunice put her hands over her dry, burning eyes and groaned aloud.

Caroline Holland had her hour of triumph over Eunice when she heard it all. To one of her nature there was no pleasure so sweet as that of saying, “I told you so.” Having said it, however, she offered Eunice a home. Electa Holland was dead, and Eunice might fill her place very acceptably, if she would.

“You can’t go off and live by yourself,” Caroline told her. “It’s all nonsense to talk of such a thing. We will give you a home, if Christopher is going to turn you out. You were always a fool, Eunice, to pet and pamper him as you’ve done. This is the thanks you get for it–turned out like a dog for his fine wife’s whim! I only wish your mother was alive!”