Marriage -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction; Portrait painters -- Fiction; Women novelists -- Fiction
The trained nurse looked after Baby, while Anna took care of Jane. Jerry
went from one bedside to the other. His happiness and relief were so
intense that he was a most cheerful companion. Jane could not respond,
but she liked to hear him humming about, and making jokes about the
things he tried to persuade her to eat. The second day he carried the
baby around nearly all the time. The small tyrant was not content unless
he had his amusing parent at hand. Jane watched them, smiling faintly
with a sense of peace and gratitude that was like music.
Jerry's new tenderness for them both was very sweet. He had never shown
it before. He was always kind, because he liked people about him to be
comfortable, but this was quite different. He sat beside Jane and tried
to coax her to eat. He searched the town for delicacies to tempt her.
When she could not sleep at night, he came to her bedside and talked to
her by the hour. He had a way with pillows, and nice hands which
mesmerized her into relaxation. He never was tired, nothing was too much
trouble, and he took it as a matter of course that he should do just
what he was doing.
Doctor Grant's week-end visit found the baby almost well again, but Jane
lay where she had fallen. She was content to be still. He had a long
talk with Jerry about her, suggested that he might be in for a long
siege, explained that if he wanted to go back to New York to attend to
his affairs, Anna was capable of taking charge, if the nurse stayed on
another week.
"I think I'll go back with you then, and finish up some things I have on
hand. I can come back later in the week," Jerry said.
So it was arranged. Jane agreed indifferently, nothing mattered much.
But after the two men had gone she found she missed Jerry as she never
had before. She thought about him a great deal in the aimless fashion
which was all her mind could manage.
She could not make out just what had happened to her, but it seemed as
if her whole being had suffered such anguish the night of Baby's danger
that she had been paralyzed since, was incapable of feeling anything
more. She wanted Jerry Jr. where she could see him, but she rarely
spoke.
The installation of the picture at the New Age Club detained Jerry in
town a day or so, and arrangements for a spring exhibition of portraits,
which he had been invited to make, held him up until the end of the
week. He was impatient to get to Lakewood, but he knew these things must
be attended to, for the expenses of the doctors and nurse would be
heavy.
He arrived in Lakewood on Saturday, at noon, and hurried to the cottage.
He had had reports daily by telephone from the nurse, but he was
surprised when Jane came toward him with the baby in her arms.
"Good work!" he cried, hugging them both. "You're better, Jane?"
"Yes."
"You're as white as a cloud, but it's becoming."
She flushed at that, gave the baby to him, and turned away hastily, on
some pretext. A fine romp of the two Jerrys followed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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