It was an utter impossibility for Ida Edgham to be entirely balked of
any purpose which she might form. There was something at once
impressive and terrible about the strength of this beautiful, smiling
creature's will, about its silence, its impassibility before
obstacles, its persistency. It was as inevitable and unswervable as
an avalanche or a cyclone. People might shriek out against it and
struggle, but on it came, a mighty force, overwhelming petty things
as well as great ones. It really seemed a pity, taking into
consideration Ida's tremendous strength of character, that she had
not some great national purpose upon which to exert herself, instead
of such trivial domestic ones.
Ida realized that she could not send Maria to the school which she
had proposed. Her strength had that subtlety which acknowledges its
limitations and its closed doors, and can look about for other means
and ways. Therefore, when Harry came down-stairs that Sunday
afternoon, his face working with emotion but his eyes filled with a
steady light, and said, with no preface, "It's no use talking, Ida,
that child does not want to go, and she shall never be driven from
under my roof, while I live," Ida only smiled, and replied, "Very
well, dear, I only meant it for her good."
"She is not going," Harry said doggedly.
Harry resumed his seat with a gesture of defiance which was absurd,
from its utter lack of any response from his wife. It was like
tilting with a windmill.
Ida continued to sway gently back and forth, and smile.
"I think if the Adamses do come in to-night we will have a little
salad, there will be enough left from the chicken, and some cake and
tea," she observed presently. "We won't have the table set, because
both the maids have asked to go out, but Maria can put on my India
muslin apron and pass the things. I will have the salad made before
they go, and I will make the tea. We can have it on the table in
here." Ida indicated, by a graceful motion of her shoulder, a pretty
little tea-table loaded with Dresden china.
"All right," replied Harry, with a baffled tone. He felt baffled
without knowing exactly why.
Ida took up another sheet of the Herald, a fashion page was
uppermost. She read something and smiled. "It says that gowns made
like Maria's new one are the most fetching ones of the season," she
said. "I am so glad I have the skirt plaited."
Harry made a gesture of assent. He felt, without in the least knowing
why, like a man who had been completely worsted in a hand-to-hand
combat. He felt humiliated and unhappy. His first wife, even with her
high temper and her ready tongue, had never caused him such a sense
of abjectness. He had often felt angry with her, but never with
himself. She had never really attacked his self-respect as this woman
did. He did not dare look up from his newspaper for a while, for he
realized that he should experience agony at seeing the beautiful,
radiant face of his second wife opposite him instead of the worn,
stern, but altogether loving and single-hearted face of his first. He
was glad when Maria came down-stairs, and looked up and greeted her
with a smile of reassuring confidence. Maria's pretty little face was
still tear-stained, although she had bathed it with cold water. She
also took up a sheet of the Sunday paper.
"Did you see Alice Lundy's new hat in church to-day, dear?" Ida
presently asked her, and her manner was exactly as if nothing had
occurred to disturb anybody.
Maria looked at her with a sort of wonder, which made her honest face
almost idiotic.
"No, ma'am," said she.
Maria had been taught to say "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am" by her own
mother, whose ideas of etiquette were old-fashioned, and dated from
the precepts of her own childhood.
"It is a little better not to say ma'am," said Ida, sweetly. "I think
that expression is not used so much as formerly."
Maria looked at her with a quick defiance, which gave her an almost
startling resemblance to her own mother.
"Yes, ma'am," said she.
Harry's mouth twitched behind his paper. Ida said no more. She
continued to smile, but she was not reading the paper which she held.
She was making new plans to gain her own ends. She was seeking new
doors of liberty for her own ways, in lieu of those which she saw
were closed to her, and by the time dinner was served she was quite
sure that she had succeeded.
The next autumn, Maria began attending the Elliot Academy, in
Wardway. The Elliot Academy was an endowed school of a very high
standing, and Wardway was a large town, almost a city, about fifteen
miles from Edgham. When this plan was broached by Ida, Maria did not
make any opposition; she was secretly delighted. Wollaston Lee was
going to the Elliot Academy that autumn, and there was another Edgham
girl and her brother, besides Maria, who were going.
"Now, darling, you need not go to the Elliot Academy any more than to
the other school she proposed, if you don't want to," Harry told
Maria, privately, one Saturday afternoon in September, shortly before
the term began.
Ida had gone to her club, and Harry had come home early from the
city, and he and Maria were alone in the parlor. Evelyn was having
her nap up-stairs. A high wind was roaring about the house. A
cherry-tree beside the house was fast losing its leaves in a yellow
rain. In front of the window, a hydrangea bush, tipped with
magnificent green-and-rosy plumes, swayed in all its limbs like a
living thing. Somewhere up-stairs a blind banged.
"I think I would like to go," Maria replied, hurriedly. Then she
jumped up. "That blind will wake Evelyn," she said, and ran out of
the room.
She had colored unaccountably when her father spoke. When she
returned, she had a demure, secretive expression on her face which
made Harry stare at her in bewilderment. All his life Harry Edgham
had been helpless and bewildered before womenkind, and now his little
daughter was beginning to perplex him. She sat down and took up a
piece of fancy-work, and her father continued to glance at her
furtively over his paper. Presently he spoke of the academy again.
"You need not go if you do not want to," he repeated.
Then again Maria's delicate little face and neck became suffused with
pink. Her reply was not as loud nor more intelligible than the murmur
of the trees outside in the wind.
"What did you say, darling?" asked Harry. "Father did not understand."
"I would like to go there," Maria replied, in her sweet, decisive
little pipe. A fresh wave of color swept over her face and neck, and
she selected with great care a thread from a skein of linen floss.
"Well, she thought you might like that," Harry said, with an air of
relief.
"Maud Page is going, too," said Maria.
"Is she? That will be nice. You won't have to go back and forth
alone," said Harry.
Maria said nothing; she continued her work.
Her father turned his paper and looked at the stock-list. Once he had
owned a hundred shares of one of the Industrials. He had long since
sold out, not at a loss, but the stock had risen since. He always
noted it with an odd feeling of proprietorship, in spite of not
owning any. He saw with pride that it had advanced half a point.
Maria worked silently; and as she worked she dreamed, and the dream
was visible on her face, had any one been astute enough to understand
it. She was working a lace collar to wear with a certain blue blouse,
and upon that flimsy keystone was erecting an air-castle. She was
going to the Elliot Academy, wearing the blue blouse and the lace
collar, and looking so lovely that Wollaston Lee worshipped her. She
invented little love-scenes, love-words, and caresses. She blushed,
and dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth, the blue light of
her eyes under her downcast lids was like the light of living gems.
She viewed with complacency her little, soft white hands plying the
needle. Maria had hands like a little princess. She cast a glance at
the toe of her tiny shoe. She remembered how somebody had told her to
keep her shoulders straight, and she threw them back with a charming
motion, as if they had been wings. She was entirely oblivious of her
father's covert glances. She was solitary, isolated in the crystal of
her own thoughts. Presently, Evelyn woke and cried, and Maria roused
herself with a start and ran up-stairs. Soon the two came into the
room, Evelyn dancing with the uncertain motion of a winged seed on a
spring wind. She was charming. One round cheek was more deeply
flushed than the other, and creased with the pillow. Her yellow hair,
fine and soft and full of electric life, tossed like a little crest.
She ran with both fat little hands spread palms outward, and pounced
violently upon her father. Harry rolled her about on his knee, and
played with her as if she had been a kitten. Maria stood by laughing.
The child was fairly screaming with mirth.
A graceful figure passed the window, its garments tightly wrapped by
the wind, flying out like a flag behind. Harry set the little girl
down at once.
"Here is mamma coming," said he. "Go to sister and she will show you
the pictures in the book papa brought home the other day."
Evelyn obeyed. She was a docile little thing, and she had a fear of
her mother without knowing why. She was sitting beside Maria, looking
demurely at the pictures which her sister pointed out to her, when
Ida entered.
"See the horsey running away," said Maria. Then she added in a
whisper, "Go and kiss mamma, baby."
The child hesitated, then she rose, and ran to her mother, who
stooped her radiant face over her and kissed her coolly.
"Have you been a good little girl?" asked she. Ida was looking
particularly self-satisfied to day, and more disposed consequently to
question others as to their behavior.
"Yeth," replied Evelyn, without the slightest hesitation. A happy
belief in her own merits was an inheritance from her mother. As yet
it was more charming than otherwise, for the baby had unquestionable
merits in which to believe. Harry and Maria laughed.
"Mamma is very glad," said Ida. She did not laugh; she saw no humor
in it. She turned to Harry. "I think I will go in on the early train
with you to-morrow, dear," she said. "I want to see about Maria's
new dress." Then she turned to Maria. "I have been in to see Miss
Keeler," said she, "and she says she can make it for you next week,
so you can have it when you begin school. I thought of brown with a
touch of blue and burnt-orange. How would you like that?"
"I think that would be perfectly lovely," said Maria with enthusiasm.
She cast a grateful look at her step-mother, almost a look of
affection. She was always very grateful to Ida for her new clothes,
and just now clothes had a more vital interest for her than ever. She
took another stitch in her collar, with Evelyn leaning against her
and kicking out first one chubby leg, then the other, and she
immediately erected new air-castles, in which she figured in her
brown suit with the touches of burnt-orange and blue.
A week later, when she started on the train for Wardway in her new
attire, she felt entirely satisfied with herself and life in general.
She was conscious of looking charming in her new suit of brown, with
the touches of blue and burnt-orange, and her new hat, also brown
with blue and burnt-orange glimpses in the trimmings. Wollaston Lee
got on the same car and sat behind her. Maud Page, the other Edgham
girl who was going to the academy, had a cousin in Wardway, and had
gone there the night before. There were only Maria, Wollaston, and
Edwin Shaw, who sat by himself in a corner, facing the other
passengers with a slightly shamed, sulky expression. He was very
tall, and had blacked his shoes well, and the black light from them
seemed to him obtrusive, the more so because his feet were very
large. He looked out of the window as the train left the station, and
saw a very pretty little child with a fluff of yellow hair, carrying
a big doll, climbing laboriously on a train on the other track, with
the tender assistance of a brakeman. She was in the wake of a very
stout woman, who stumbled on her skirts going up the steps. Edwin
Shaw thought that the child looked like Maria's little sister, but
that she could not be, because the stout woman was a stranger to him.
Then he thought no more about it. He gazed covertly at Maria, with
the black sparkles of his shoes continuing to disturb him. He admired
Maria. Presently he saw Wollaston Lee lean over the back of her seat
and say something to her, and saw her half turn and dimple, and
noticed how the lovely rose flushed the curve of her cheek, and he
scowled at his shiny shoes.
As for Maria, when she felt the boy's warm breath on her neck, her
heart beat fast. She realized herself on the portals of an air-castle.
"Well, glad you are going to leave this old town?" said Wollaston.
"I am not going to leave it, really," replied Maria.
"Oh, of course not, but you are going to leave the old school,
anyhow. I had got mighty tired of it, hadn't you?"
"Yes, I had, rather."
"It's behind the times," said the boy; and, as he spoke he himself
looked quite up to the times. He had handsome, clearly cut features
and black eyes, which seemed at the same time to demand and question.
He had something of a supercilious air, although the expression of
youthful innocence and honesty was still evident on his face. He wore
a new suit as well as Maria, only his was gray instead of brown, and
he wore a red carnation in his button-hole. Maria inhaled the clovy
fragrance of it. At the next station more passengers got into the
train, and Wollaston seized upon that excuse to ask to share Maria's
seat. They talked incessantly--an utterly foolish gabble like that of
young birds. An old gentleman across the aisle cast an impatient
glance at them from time to time. Finally he arose stiffly and went
into the smoker. Their youth and braggadocio of innocence and
ignorance, and the remembrance of his own, irritated him. He did not
in the least regret his youth, but the recollection of the first
stages of his life, now that he was so near the end, was like looking
backward over a long road, which had led to absurdly different goals
from what he had imagined. It all seemed inconceivable, silly and
futile to him, what he had done, and what they were doing. He cast a
furious glance at them as he passed out, but neither noticed it.
Wollaston said something, and Maria laughed an inane little giggle
which was still musical, and trilled through the car. Maria's cheeks
were burning, and she seldom looked at the boy at her side, but
oftener at the young autumn landscape through which they were
passing. The trees had scarcely begun to turn, but here and there one
flamed out like a gold or red torch among the green, and all the
way-sides were blue and gold with asters and golden-rod. It was a
very warm morning for the season. When they stopped at one of the
stations, a yellow butterfly flew in through an open window and
flitted airily about the car. Maria removed her coat, with the
solicitous aid of her companion. She cast a conscious glance at the
orange and blue on her sleeves.
"Say, that dress is a stunner!" whispered Wollaston.
Maria laughed happily. "Glad you like it," said she.
Before they reached Wardway, Wollaston's red carnation was fastened
at one side of her embroidered vest, making a discord of color which,
for Maria, was a harmony of young love and romance.
"That is the academy," said Wollaston, as the train rolled into
Wardway. He pointed to a great brick structure at the right--a main
building flanked by enormous wings. "Are you frightened?" he asked.
"I guess not," replied Maria, but she was.
"You needn't be a bit," said the boy. "I know some of the boys that
go there, and I went to see the principal with father. He's real
pleasant. I know the Latin teacher, Miss Durgin, too. My Uncle Frank
married her cousin, and she has been to my house. You'll be in her
class." Wollaston spoke with a protective warmth for which Maria was
very grateful.
She had a very successful although somewhat confused day. She was
asked this and that and led hither and yon, and so surrounded by
strange faces and sights that she felt fairly dizzy. She felt more
herself at luncheon, when she sat beside Maud Page in the
dining-hall, with Wollaston opposite. There was a restaurant attached
to the academy, for the benefit of the out-of-town pupils.
When Maria went down to the station to take her train for home, Maud
Page was there, and Wollaston. There was a long time to wait. They
went out in a field opposite and picked great bunches of golden-rod,
and the girls pinned them on their coats. Edwin Shaw was lingering
about the station when they returned, but he was too shy to speak to
them. When the train at last came in, Maria, with a duplicity which
shamed her in thinking of it afterwards, managed to get away from
Maud, and enter the car at the same time with Wollaston, who seated
himself beside her as a matter of course. It was still quite light,
but it had grown cold. Everything had a cold look--the clear cowslip
sky, with its reefs of violet clouds; even the trees tossed crisply,
as if stiffened with cold.
"Hope we won't have a frost," said Wollaston, as they got off at
Edgham.
"I hope not," said Maria; and then Gladys Mann ran up to her, crying
out:
"Say, Maria, Maria, did you know your little sister was lost?"
Maria turned deadly white. Wollaston caught hold of her little arm in
its brown sleeve.
"When was she lost?" he asked, fiercely, of Gladys. "Don't you know
any better than to rush right at anybody with such a thing as that?
Don't you be frightened, Maria. I'll find her."
A little knot of passengers from the train gathered around them.
Gladys was pale herself, and had a strong sense of the sadness of the
occasion, still she had a feeling of importance. Edwin Shaw came
lumbering up timidly, and Maud Page pressed quickly to Maria's side
with a swirl of her wide skirts.
"Gladys Mann, what on earth are you talking about?" said she,
sharply. "Who's lost?"
"Maria's little sister."
"Hm! I don't believe a word of it."
"She is, so there! Nobody has seen a sign of her since morning, and
Maria's pa's most crazy. He's been sending telegrams all round.
Maria's step-mother, she telegraphed for him to come home, and he
come at noon, and he sent telegrams all round, and then he went
himself an hour ago."
"Went where?"
"Back to New York. Guess he's gone huntin' himself. Guess he thought
he could hunt better than policemen. Maria's step-mother don't act
scared, but I guess she is, awful. My mummer says that folks that
bear up the best are the ones that feel things most. My mummer went
over to see if she could do anything and see how she took it."
"When was she lost?" gasped Maria. She was shaking from head to foot.
"Your step-mother went down to the store, and when she got back the
baby was gone. Josephine said she hadn't seen her after you had
started for Wardway. She took her doll with her."
"Where?" gasped Maria.
"Nobody knows where," said Gladys, severely, although the tears were
streaming down her own grimy cheeks. "She wouldn't be lost, would
she, if folks knew where she was? Nothin' ain't never lost when you
know where it is unless you drop it down a well, and you 'ain't got
no well, have you, Maria Edgham?"
"No," said Maria. She was conscious of an absurd thankfulness and
relief that she had no well.
"And there ain't no pond round here big enough to drown a baby
kitten, except that little mud-puddle up at Fisher's, and they've
dragged every inch of that. I see 'em."
All this time Edwin Shaw had been teetering on uncertain toes on the
borders of the crowd. He remembered the child with the doll whom he
had seen climbing into the New York train in the morning, and he was
eager to tell of it, to make himself of importance, but he was
afraid. After all, the child might not have been Evelyn. There were
so many little, yellow-haired things with dolls to be seen about, and
then there was the stout woman to be accounted for. Edwin never
doubted that the child had been with the stout woman whom he had seen
stumbling over her voluminous skirts up the car steps. At last he
stepped forward and spoke, with a moist blush overspreading his face,
toeing in and teetering with embarrassment.
"Say," he began.
The attention of the whole company was at once riveted upon him. He
wriggled; the blood looked as if it would burst through his face.
Great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. He stammered
when he spoke. He caught a glimpse of Maria's blue-and-orange
trimmings, and looked down, and again the black light of his shoes,
which all the dust of the day had not seemed to dim, flashed in his
eyes. He came of a rather illiterate family with aspirations, and
when he was nervous he had a habit of relapsing into the dialect in
common use in his own home, regardless of his educational
attainments. He did so now.
"I think she has went to New York," he said.
"Who?" demanded Wollaston, eagerly. His head was up like a hunting
hound; he kept close hold of Maria's little arm.
"Her."
"Who?"
"Her little sister-in-law." Edwin pointed to Maria.
Gladys Mann went peremptorily up to Edwin Shaw, seized his
coat-collar, and shook him. "For goodness sake! when did she went?"
she demanded. "When did you see her? If you know anythin', tell it,
an' not stand thar like a fool!"
"I saw a little girl jest about her size, a-carryin' of a doll, that
clim on the New York train jest as we went out this mornin'," replied
Edwin with a gasp, as if the information were wrung from him by
torture. "And she was with a awful fat woman. Leastways--"
"A fat woman!" cried Wollaston Lee. "Who was the fat woman?"
"I hadn't never saw her afore. She was awful fat, and was a steppin'
on her dress."
Wollaston was keen-witted, and he immediately grasped at the truth of
the matter.
"You idiot!" he said. "What makes you think she was with the stout
woman--just because she was climbing into the train after her?"
"Little girls don't never go to New York alone with dolls,"
vouchsafed Edwin, more idiotically than ever. "Leastways--"
"If you don't stop saying leastways, I'll punch your head," said
Wollaston. "Are you sure the child was Maria's little sister?"
"Looked like her," said Edwin, shrinking back a little. "Leastways--"
"What was she dressed in?" asked Maria, eagerly.
"I didn't see as she had nothin' on."
"You great gump!" said Gladys, shaking him energetically. "Of course
she had something on."
"She had a big doll."
"What did she have on? You answer me this minute!" said Gladys.
"She might have had on a blue dress," admitted Edwin, with a frantic
grasp at his memory, "but she didn't have nothin' on her, nohow.
Leastways--"
"Oh!" sobbed Maria, "she did wear her little blue dress this morning.
She did! Was her hair light?"
"Yes, it were," said Edwin, quite positively. "Leastways--"
"It was Evelyn," sobbed Maria. "Oh, poor little Evelyn, all alone in
New York! She never went but once with Her and me, and she wouldn't
know where to go. Oh, oh!"
"Where did she go when she went with your step-ma and you?" demanded
Gladys, who seemed to have suddenly developed unusual acumen. Her
face was streaming with tears but her voice was keen.
"She went to Her cousin's, who lives in an apartment in West
Forty-ninth Street," said Maria.
"She'd try to go there again," said Gladys. "Did she know the woman's
name?"
"Yes, she did."
"You bet she did. She was an awful bright kid," said Gladys. "Now, I
tell you what, Maria, I shouldn't a mite wonder if your step-ma had
had a telegram from her cousin by this time, that she was to her
house. You'd better jest run home an' see."
"She was only her third cousin," said Maria, "and She hardly ever
heard from her. It was only the other day I heard Her say that she
didn't know but she had left New York. I don't think Her cousin liked
her very well."
"What was the cousin's name?"
"She called her Alice, but her name was Mrs. George B. Edison."
"That's jest where the kid has went," said Gladys. "You go right
home, M'ria. We'll go with you, and I'll bet a cooky you'll find that
your step-ma has had a telegram."
Maria hesitated a moment; then she started, Wollaston Lee still
keeping close hold of her arm. Gladys was on the other side.