NIP AND TUCK
When I reached home late that afternoon I was in that state of
spring-time restlessness which clamors for immediate activity--when
the home-keeping instinct tries to make you believe that you'll be
content if you spend a little money for garden seeds--but a reckless
demon of extravagance notifies you that nothing short of salary
sacrificed for railroad fare is going to avail.
Grandfather and Uncle Lancelot, of course, came in with their
gratuitous advice, the one suggesting nasturtium beds with geraniums
along the borders--the other slyly whispering that a boat trip from
Savannah to Boston was no more than I deserved.
Then, reaching home in this frame of mind, I was confronted with two
very perplexing and unusual conditions. _Mignon_ was being played with
great violence in the front parlor--and all over the house was the
scent of burnt yarn.
"What's up?" I demanded of mother, as she met me at the door--dressed
in blue. "Everything seems mysterious and topsyturvy to-day! I believe
if I were to go out to the cemetery I'd find the tombstones nodding
and whispering to one another."
"Come in here!" she begged in a Santa Claus voice.
I went into the parlor, then gave a little shriek.
"Mother!"
I have neglected to state, earlier in the narrative, that the one
desire of my heart which doesn't begin with H was a player-piano! It
was there in the parlor, at that moment, shining, and singing its
wordless song about the citron-flower land.
"It's the very one we've been _watching_ through the windows up-town,"
she said in a delighted whisper.
"But did you get it as a prize?" I inquired, walking into the dusky
room and shaking hands with my betrothed, who rose from the instrument
and made way for me to take possession. "How came it here?"
"I had it sent out--on--on approval," she elucidated. That is, her
words took the form of an explanation, but her voice was as appealing
as a Salvation Army dinner-bell, just before Christmas.
"On approval? But why, please?"
"Because I want you to get used to having the things you want,
darling!"
Then, to keep from laughing--or crying--I ran toward the door.
"What _is_ that burning?" I asked, sniffing suspiciously.
It was a vaguely familiar scent--scorching dress-goods--and suggestive
of the awful feeling which comes to you when you've stood too close to
the fire in your best coat-suit--or the comfortable sensation on a
cold night, when you're preparing to wrap up your feet in a red-hot
flannel petticoat.
"What is it? Tell the truth, mother!"
But she wouldn't.
"It's your brown tweed skirt, Grace," Guilford finally explained, as
my eyes begged the secret of them both. They frequently had secrets
from me.
"My brown tweed skirt?"
"It was as baggy at the knees as if you'd done nothing all winter but
_pray_ in it!" mother whimpered in a frightened voice. "I've--I've
burned it up!"
For a moment I was silent.
"But what shall I tramp in?" I finally asked severely. "What can I
walk out the Waverley Pike in?"
Then mother took fresh courage.
"You're not going to walk!" she answered triumphantly. "You're going
to ride--in your very--own--electric--coupé! Here's the catalogue."
She scrambled about for a book on a table near at hand--and I began to
see daylight.
"Oh, a player-piano, and an electric coupé--all in one day! I see! My
fairy godmother--who was old Aunt Patricia, and she looked exactly
like one--has turned the pumpkin into a gold coach! You two plotters
have been putting your heads together to have me get rich quick and
gracefully!"
"We understand that this stroke of fortune is going to make a great
change in your life, Grace," Guilford said gravely. He was always
grave--and old. The only way you could tell his demeanor from that of
a septuagenarian was that he didn't drag his feet as he walked.
"'Stroke of fortune?'" I repeated.
"The Coburn--" mother began.
"Colt--" he re-enforced, then they both hesitated, and looked at me
meaningly.
I gave a hysterical laugh.
"You and mother have counted your Coburn-Colts before they were
hatched!" I exclaimed wickedly, sitting down and looking over the
music rolls. I did want that player-piano tremendously--although I had
about as much use for an electric coupé, under my present conditions
in life, as I had for a perambulator.
"Grace, you're--indelicate!" mother said, her voice trembling.
"Guilford's a man!"
"A man's a man--especially a Kentuckian!" I answered. "You're not
shocked at my mention of colts and--and things, are you, Guilford?"
My betrothed sat down and lifted from the bridge of his nose that
badge of civilization--a pair of rimless glasses. He polished them
with a dazzling handkerchief, then replaced the handkerchief into the
pocket of the most faultless coat ever seen. He smoothed his already
well-disciplined hair, and brushed away a speck of dust from the toe
of his shoe. From head to foot he fairly bristled with signs of civic
improvement.
"I am shocked at your reception of your mother's kind thoughtfulness,"
he said.
He waited a little while before saying it, for hesitation was his way
of showing disapproval. Yet you must not get the impression from this
that Guilford was a bad sort! Why, no woman could ride in an elevator
with him for half a minute without realizing that he was the
flower-of-chivalry sort of man! He always had a little way of standing
back from a woman, as if she were too sacred to be approached, and in
her presence he had a habit of holding his hat clasped firmly against
the buttons of his coat. You can forgive a good deal in a man if he
keeps his hat off all the time he's talking to you!
"'Shocked?'" I repeated.
"Your mother always plans for your happiness, Grace."
"Of course! Don't you suppose I know that?" I immediately asked in an
injured tone. It is always safe to assume an injured air when you're
arguing with a man, for it gives him quite as much pleasure to comfort
you as it does to hurt you.
"I didn't--mean anything!" he hastened to assure me.
"Guilford merely jumped at the chance of your freeing yourself of this
newspaper slavery," mother interceded. "You know what a humiliation it
is to him--just as it is to me and to every member of the--Christie
family."
My betrothed nodded so violently in acquiescence that his glasses flew
off in space.
"You know that I am a Kentuckian in my way of regarding women, Grace,"
he plead. "I can't bear to see them step down from the pedestal that
nature ordained for them!"
I turned and looked him over--from the crown of his intensely
aristocratic fair head to the tip of his aristocratic slim foot.
"A Kentuckian?"
"Certainly!"
"A Kentuckian?" I repeated reminiscently. "Why, Guilford Blake, you
ought to be olive-skinned--and black-eyed--and your shoes ought to
turn up at the toes--and your head ought to be covered by a red
fez--and you ought to sit smoking through a water-bottle of an
evening, in front of your--your--"
"Grace!" stormed mother, rising suddenly to her feet. "I will not have
you say such things!"
"What things?" I asked, drawing back in hurt surprise.
"H-harems!" she uttered in a blushing whisper, but Guilford caught the
word and squared his shoulders importantly.
"But, I say, Grace," he interrupted, his face showing that mixture of
anger and pleased vanity which a man always shows when you tell him
that he's a dangerous tyrant, or a bold Don Juan--or both. "You don't
think I'm a Turk--do you?"
"I do."
He sighed wistfully.
"If I were," he said, shaking his head, "I'd have caught you--and
_veiled_ you--long before this."
I looked at him intently.
"You mean--"
"That I shouldn't have let you delay our marriage this way! Why should
you, pray, when my financial affairs have changed so in the last
year?"
I rose from my place beside the new piano, breaking gently into his
plea.
"It isn't that!" I attempted to explain, but my voice failed drearily.
"You ought to know that--finances hadn't anything to do with it. I
haven't kept from marrying you all these years because we were both so
poor--then, last year when you inherited your money--I didn't keep
from marrying you because you were so rich!"
"Then, what is it?" he asked gravely, and mother looked on as eagerly
for my answer as he did. This is one advantage about a life-long
betrothal. It gets to be a family institution. Or is that a
disadvantage?
"I--don't know," I confessed, settling back weakly.
"I don't think you do!" mother observed with considerable dryness.
"Well, this business of your getting to be a famous compiler of
literature may help you get your bearings," Guilford kept on, after an
awkward little pause. "You have always said that you wished to
exercise your own wings a little before we married, and I have given
in to you--although I don't know that it's right to humor a woman in
these days and times. Really, I don't know that it is."
"Oh, you don't?"
"No--I don't. But we're not discussing that now, Grace! What I'm
trying to get at is that this offer means a good deal to you. Of
course, it is only the beginning of your career--for these fellows
will think up other things for you to do--and it will give you a way
of earning money that won't take you up a flight of dirty office
stairs every day. Understand, I mean for just a short while--as long
as you insist upon earning your own living."
"And the honor!" mother added. "You could have your pictures in good
magazines!"
I stifled a yawn, for, to tell the truth, the conflict had made me
nervous and weary.
"At all events, I must decide!" I exclaimed, starting again to my
feet. "Somehow, the office atmosphere isn't exactly conducive to deep
thought--and I've had so little time since morning to get away by
myself and thresh matters out."
Mother looked at me incredulously.
"Will you please tell me just what you mean, Grace?" she asked.
"I mean that I must get away--I've imagined that I ought to take some
serious thought, weigh the matter well, so to speak--before I write to
the Coburn-Colt Publishing Company. In other words, I have to decide."
"Decide?" mother repeated, her face filled with piteous amazement.
"_Decide?_"
"Decide?" Guilford said, taking up the strain complainingly.
"If you'll excuse me!" I answered, starting toward the door, then
turning with an effort at nonchalance, for their sakes, to wave them a
little adieu. "Suppose you keep on playing 'Knowest thou the land
where the citron-flower blooms,' Guilford--for I am filled with
_wanderlust_ right now, and this music will help out Uncle Lancelot's
presentation of the matter considerably!"
"What?"
"I'm going to listen to the voices," I explained. "All day long
grandfather and Uncle Lancelot have been busy making the fur fly in my
conscience!"
Mother darted across the room and caught my hand.
"You don't mean to say that you have scruples--_scruples_--Grace
Christie?"
She couldn't have hated smallpox worse--in me.
"Honest Injun, I don't know!" I admitted. "Of course, it does seem
absurd to ponder over what a family row might be raised in the
Seventh Circle of Nirvana by the publication of these old
love-letters, but--"
"James Mackenzie Christie died in 1849," she declared vehemently.
"Absurd! It is _insane_!"
"That's what the Uncle Lancelot part of my intelligence keeps telling
me," I laughed. "But--good heavens! you just ought to hear the
grandfather argument."
"What does he--what does that silly _Salem_ conscience of yours say
against the publication of the letters?" she asked grudgingly.
I sat down again.
"Shall I tell you?" I began good-naturedly, for I saw that mother was
at the melting point--melting into tears, however, not assent.
"Whenever I want to do anything I'm not exactly _sure_ of, these two
provoking old gentlemen come into the room--the council-chamber of my
heart--and begin their post-mortem warfare. Grandfather is
white-bearded and serene, while Uncle Lancelot looks exactly as an
Italian tenor _ought_ to look--and never does."
"And you look exactly like him," mother snapped viciously. "Nothing
about you resembles your grandfather except your brow and eyes."
"I know that," I answered resignedly. "Hasn't some one said that the
upper part of my face is as lofty as a Byronic thought--and the lower
as devilish as a Byronic _deed_?"
Neither of them smiled, but Guilford stirred a little.
"Go on with your argument, Grace," he urged patiently. He was always
patient.
"I'm going!" I answered. "All day grandfather has been telling me what
I already know--that the Coburn-Colt Company doesn't want those
letters of James Christie's because they are literary, or beautiful,
or historical, but simply and solely because they are _bad_! They'll
make a good-seller because they're the thing the public demands right
now. Lady Frances Webb was a _married_ woman!"
"Nonsense," mother interrupted, with a blush. "The public doesn't
demand bad things! There is merely a craze for intimate, biographical
matter--told in the first person."
"I know," I admitted humbly. "This is what distinguishes a human from
an inhuman document."
"The craze demands a simple straightforward narrative--" Guilford
began, then hesitated.
"In literature this is the period of the great '_I Am_,'" I broke in.
"People want the secrets of a writer's soul, rather than the tricks of
his vocabulary, I know."
"Well, good lord--you wouldn't be giving the twentieth century any
more of these people's souls than they themselves gave to the early
nineteenth," he argued scornfully. "She put his portrait into every
book she ever wrote--and he annexed her face in the figure of every
saint--and sinner--he painted!"
"Well, that was because they couldn't _see_ any other faces," I
defended.
"Bosh!"
"But Lady Frances Webb was a good woman," mother insisted weakly.
"She had pre-Victorian ideas! She sent her lover across seas, because
she felt that she must! Why, the publication of these letters would do
_good_, not harm."
"They would shame the present-day idea of 'affinity' right," said
Guilford.
I nodded my head, for this was the same theory that Uncle Lancelot had
been whispering in my ears since the postman blew his whistle that
morning. And yet--
"Maybe you two--don't exactly understand the import of those letters
as I do," I suggested, sorry and ashamed before the gaze of their
practical eyes. "But to me they mean so much! I have always _loved_
James Christie and--his Unattainable. I can feel for them, and--"
"And you mean to say that you are going to give way to an absurd fancy
now--a ridiculous, far-fetched, namby-pamby, quixotic fancy?" mother
asked, in a tone of horror.
"I--I'm--afraid so!" I stammered.
"And miss this chance--for all the things you want most? The very
things you're toiling day and night to get?"
"And put off the prospect of our marriage?" Guilford demanded. "I had
hoped that this business transaction would satisfy the unaccountable
desire you seem to have for independence--that after you had circled
about a little in the realm of emancipated women and their strained
notions of what constitutes freedom, you'd see the absurdity of it all
and--come to me."
"I am awfully sorry, Guilford," I answered, dropping my eyes, for I
knew that "freedom," "independence" and "emancipation" had nothing on
earth to do with my delayed marriage--and I knew that I was doing
wrong not to say so. "I am _awfully_ sorry to disappoint you."
"Then you have decided finally?" mother asked in a suspicious voice.
"I believe I have," I answered. "Oh, please don't look at me that
way--and please don't cry! I can't help it!"
"It is preposterous," Guilford said shortly.
"But you don't--understand!" I cried, turning to him pleadingly. "You
don't know what it is to feel as I feel about those lovers--those
people who had no happiness in this world--and are haunted and
tormented by curiosity in their very graves!--don't you suppose I want
to do the thing you and mother want me to do? Of course, I do! I want
this--this new piano--and another brown tweed skirt that doesn't bag
at the knees--and I want--so many things!"
"Then why in the name of----" he began.
"Because I _won't_!" I told him flatly. "Call it conscience--fancy, or
what you will!--I have those two people in my power--their secrets are
right here in my hands! And I'm not going to _give them away_!"
"Grace, you a-maze me!" mother sobbed.
But Guilford rose tranquilly and reached for his hat.
"Any woman who has a conscience like that ought to cauterize it--with
a curling-iron--and get rid of it," he observed dryly.