Why not run down for this week-end? Don’t bother to let me
know--just come if you can. I often think of you, and it seems to
me perfectly terrible that you should be living like that. And
quite unnecessary. I want you to meet some of your own sort.
Yours--most sincerely,
LUCILLE WINTER.
Lucille Winter! And writing in this vein to this boy! Nina held the
letter in her hand for a long time, unable to say anything to cloak her
thought.
“You see,” said Gilbert, “I couldn’t go until to-day, on account of my
job. And I’d have to come back to-morrow night. D’you think that would
be all right?”
“No!” thought Nina. “Nothing could be less right. It’s--a horrible
thing. You’re only a child. And Lucille--You don’t know Lucille, but I
do.”
“You see,” he went on. “Mrs. Winter is my father’s cousin. You wouldn’t
suspect it, but my father’s family were--decent people.”
“Oh!” Nina breathed.
“I don’t mean that mother’s family wasn’t--all right,” he said. “My
mother--” He stopped. “My mother was a saint,” he announced. An odd
change came over his face; all the arrogance vanished, leaving it weary
and sorrowful. “And my father wasn’t,” he added.
Another silence ensued.
“So Bill’s got this idea of a simple life,” he said, with something like
a sneer. “He won’t let us see any of father’s people. Wouldn’t let me go
to college. He made me take this job--in the National Electric--when I
was only seventeen. In a year I’ll be twenty-one, and then Bill can go
to blazes. In the meantime--not much I can do. He controls the finances.
He’s away now, though. And I’m to Mrs. Winter’s.”
“Oh, I don’t blame you!” thought Nina. “What a dreadful thing--to take a
boy like this and put him to work at seventeen, and make him live in
such a way! And if Lucille is his father’s cousin--She knows really good
people--It really would help him--”
And because she was, in spite of her worldly experiences, so innocent
and good at heart, so ready to think well of every one, and so anxious
to help this unhappy boy, she did give him her advice. She told him what
clothes to take, what to tip the servants, and so on.
“Please don’t tell Margie where I’ve gone,” he said. “I’ll be back
to-morrow night for dinner. And she’ll be all right--with you next
door.” He arose. “Thank you!” he said. “You’ve been--very kind to me.”
She had meant to be. She hoped, she believed, that she had done well in
helping him to elude the tyrant Bill.
V
Such a quiet afternoon. Rose turned off the highway, into the beach
road; the bright sea lay before her, roughened by a frolic wind, and on
its edge three or four little children played; their voices came to her
joyous and clear. Their end of the beach had been described by the real
estate agent as “the quiet end,” and so it was; their bungalow and the
Morgans’ were the only ones occupied as yet, and even these two showed
no signs of life to-day.
Rose entered the house. It was certainly not a good house to hide in,
and she very soon discovered Nina in the bedroom with her hat on!
“I had a telegram from Mr. Doyle,” she explained, hurriedly. “He wants
to see me about--something. So I thought to-day would be a good time to
run into town.”
“That won’t do!” said Rose, severely. “You can’t treat me this way, Mrs.
De Haaven! I want to know all about it.”
Nina turned and put both hands on her sister’s shoulders, looking
steadily into her face.
“Rose!” she said. “Let me do this--my own way--alone. I’ve been such a
useless creature. No! Please, darling, let me finish! I have been
useless. I know you don’t mind, but--sometimes--Rose! I do so want to
manage this all by myself. And I know I can!”
They were both silent for a moment.
“All right! Go ahead, darling!” Rose agreed at last. “Only don’t come
back to-night. Stay in a hotel and come back to-morrow morning.”
“And leave you all alone?”
“The Morgans are here, and they’re enough. If you don’t promise not to
come back to-night, I’ll--I’ll go with you!”
So Nina consented, although reluctantly, and a few minutes later they
set off together for the railway station. Rose stood on the platform,
looking after the train.
“God bless you, darling!” she said, softly to herself.
Poor valiant, gentle Nina, going off to attend to business affairs, to
“manage” the elusive and plausible Mr. Doyle.
“But it would have hurt her if I’d said anything,” thought Rose. “And,
anyhow, things couldn’t be much worse, financially.”
She walked back to the bungalow, a long walk; but she was in no hurry to
reënter the empty house. It was ridiculous to miss Nina so, just for one
night; it was weak and sentimental to feel so lonely.
“I might learn a lesson from the Morgans,” she thought, as she went down
the beach road. “No one could accuse them of being too sentimental in
their family life!”
And suddenly she felt sorry for the Morgans, with their quarrels and
their banging doors and their stormy, miserable existence. She thought
of them, and she thought of the love between Nina and herself which made
any place home, any trial endurable. And she pitied them with all her
heart.
There was Margie on the veranda now, sewing--sewing in such a Morgan
way! She had a paper pattern spread out on the table, and the wind
fluttered it, and Margie pounced down upon it furiously, upsetting her
workbasket and getting herself tangled up in the yards and yards of
green charmeuse on her lap. Rose watched her for a minute; then she
said, moved by a friendly impulse:
“Miss Morgan, won’t you let me help you?”
Margie spun round, upsetting everything again.
“No, thanks!” she replied, in her scornful way. But something in Rose’s
face made her flush and glance away. “Well,” she said, sullenly, “I _am_
having a pretty bad time. There’s no reason why you should bother,
but--”
Rose came up on the veranda beside her, and surveyed the woeful muddle.
“What a pretty shade!” she remarked. “It ought to go well with your
hair.”
“I know,” said Margie. “Paul--I mean--I’ve been told I ought to wear
green. And I’m going somewhere to-morrow afternoon.”
“But you don’t expect to have this dress ready for to-morrow afternoon.”
“I’ve got to.”
Rose reflected for a moment.
“I’ll tell you what!” she announced at last. “I have a green dress--a
really pretty georgette. I’ve only worn it once. With just a little bit
of altering, we could make it do beautifully for you to wear to-morrow.
It’s a good model. I got it in Paris last autumn. Won’t you come and
look at it?”
“No!” cried Margie. “I don’t want any of your old clothes. I don’t
want--” Her voice broke. “I just hate you and your--highfalutin’ ways!”
she ended with a sob.
“Upon my word!” Rose began, indignantly. “Is that--” But her resentment
could not endure against the sight of Margie weeping in that furious,
defiant way, the tears falling recklessly on the green charmeuse.
“You don’t really hate me, Margie,” she said. “You couldn’t--when I like
you so much.”
“Like me?”
“I liked you the very first time I saw you,” Rose explained. “You were
saying good-by to Paul, on the beach.”
“You saw Paul?” cried Margie. “I suppose you’ll tell Bill. Well, I don’t
care! If you don’t tell Bill, Gilbert will.”
Rose found it surprisingly easy not to get angry with Margie.
“But why should your brother object to Paul?” she inquired.
“It’s not that,” said Margie. “Only what do you suppose Paul would think
of Bill--and this house--and the way we live? Oh, I’m so ashamed of us!
I’m so--so ashamed of us! If you knew--when mother was alive--three
years ago--we had our dear home, and everything so dainty and pretty in
it--and she kept us from fighting--just by being there. Oh, mother!
Mother darling! You don’t know--nobody knows--what it’s like--without
her.”
Rose knelt down beside the girl, put an arm about her, and drew the
bright head down on her shoulder.
“You poor little thing!” she crooned. “Poor little Margie!”
“And now--I’m going to lose Paul,” Margie went on, in a choked voice.
“He’s always asking why he can’t come to see me in my own home. He’s
awfully particular and high minded. He hates to meet me on the sly that
way. And--”
“I’d let him come, if I were you.”
“I won’t! I’m too much ashamed of us.”
“Couldn’t you make things a little better?” Rose suggested, very gently.
“Bill won’t let me! Bill’s a beast! When mother died, he gave up our
dear old house--he’s packed up all her pretty things--they’re in the
woodshed, in barrels and boxes. He won’t let me touch them. He says
we’ve got to learn to work and to live simply. He just adored mother,
and he thought father didn’t make her happy enough, so he’s got this
idiotic idea about our not being like father’s people--not being
highfalutin’. ‘Plain living and high thinking,’ that’s what he’s always
saying. High thinking, when he hasn’t left one beautiful thing in our
lives! It’s all very well for him; he’s away at sea most of the time--”
“At sea?”
“Yes; he’s first mate on a cargo steamer,” said Margie, with a change in
her voice. “I know he’s a beast, and all that, but there is something
fine about Bill, after all. He’s a real man. And he’s been awfully good
to us--in his way. When Gilbert had bronchitis last winter, Bill
was--wonderful. And when mother died--I--I don’t know how I could have
lived without Bill.”
She was silent for a moment. “Mother said she knew Bill would take care
of us--and he does--only it’s in a wrong way. Bill’s so--I don’t know
how to describe it--Bill’s so--big, he could live on a desert island and
not be discontented. He can live in this rough, common way and still
be--dignified. I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed, but Bill has a way
of coming into a room sometimes and taking off his hat, that’s
like--like a king.”
Rose felt her cheeks grow scarlet.
“He _is_--impressive,” she agreed.
“Bill’s big,” Margie went on, “and he only wants a few big things. But
Gilbert and I are little, and we want lots of little things. And--” She
sat up straight.
“Paul wants to take me to see his sister to-morrow afternoon,” she said,
“and I’m going! There’ll be a row--because Gilbert said he’d have to
have his dinner at six, and he’s not going to get it. I’m not even going
to try to get home by six. He can tell Bill about Paul if he wants. I
don’t care. It’s got to happen some day.”
“Margie, I’ll get Gilbert’s dinner for him to-morrow.”
“You?” said Margie.
“I’d like to. And you can enjoy your afternoon with an easy mind. I’ll
get Gilbert’s supper, and--Margie--bring Paul back with you, and I’ll
have something nice ready for you both.”