THE DOUBLE BIRTHDAY
With June a renewal of life seemed to have come to the old White house.
A riotous maple massed its vivid green canopy over a side door, tender
young vines with small, tenacious fingers felt their way over its
southern wall, an old-time peony at the corner of the porch lifted its
enormous, bitter-sweet blossoms of deepest pink. A length of white
matting lay on the porch, two neatly painted butter-tubs (in lieu of
majolica jars) held plants, a few chairs and a table kept them company,
and every wind that blew the white curtains in or out of the upper
windows brought forth a ripple of laughter or a snatch of song. For the
old house had received the gift of tongues, and spoke, not only with the
voice of age and disappointment and regret, but with that of youth and
hope and joy; and Dick's yellow throat, like a small golden ewer, poured
forth trill and gurgle all day long in happy answer to all the
delightful sounds about him. And two little paths were creeping through
the thick-growing grass--one, leading up to the tangle of orchard and an
oft-mended old hammock, had been worn by the feet of the sisters; the
other, leading down to a side lane, was shorter but broader, for Lena's
feet were sturdy, her step heavy, and her "mash-man's" whistle called
her often to the lane in the twilight. So, with love flitting about the
kitchen door and youth and beauty dreaming dreams in its ancient
chambers, no wonder the White house seemed rejuvenated.
Sybil was happy--happy as she had never been before. Nothing definite
had yet been decided beyond the fact that she was to begin her work in
September. Mr. Thrall might let her play a small part in New York, or he
might send her with a travelling company and let her have something
better to start with. Meantime, he had advised her to learn several
small parts, and when she had done so, swiftly and willingly, he told
her it would be good practice for her to study a number of important
characters, since she might be called upon to play a Jessica or a
Nerissa, if not the difficult Portia, a Celia, if not a Rosalind; and it
would give her an immense advantage if she were already familiar with
the lines, while, if she had not to play any of them, she would herself
be the richer for her knowledge and her brain would be trained to the
habit of quick study.
Then Mrs. Van Camp, flattered by the popular actor's deferential
attitude toward herself and his warily moderate admiration for
Sybil--well he knew that any rapturous praise of her beauty would act as
a danger-signal to the ancient butterfly of fashion--had not only
consented to her god-daughter's going upon the stage, but for a birthday
gift had lined her hungry little purse with crisp bank-notes, of modest
denomination, it is true, but with power to free her from the care of
things bodily and temporal for all that coming summer, and had added a
note to her "very dear Letitia" earnestly requesting her "not to make a
fool of herself!"
So Sybil, having passed the pocketbook over to Dorothy's management,
knowing that she would get twice as much out of it, gave herself up to
study and to dreams.
John Lawton's misty old eyes noted how she sweetened under this small
ray of prosperity; missed the old sharpness from her tongue, the sting
from her words; saw the increase in her beauty, and was tortured with
shame that his child's happiness came to her from strangers. His
wistful, apologetic eyes often hurt Sybil to the heart, and one morning,
on her way to the orchard, play-book in hand, she saw him leaning
against the grape arbor, gazing at her with such jealous pain in his
face that suddenly she understood, and, throwing an arm about his neck,
she exclaimed: "I am so happy, father, I just have to stop and thank
you!" and she kissed him soundly.
He drew away a little, saying, incredulously: "Thank me? Your happiness
does not come from me, poor little one; to my sorrow, dear--to my
sorrow!"
"Not from you?" cried the girl. "Why--why, what could I have done
without your consent, dada? That was the very corner-stone of my whole
plan!"
His face brightened, then clouded again, as he asked, hesitatingly:
"Supposing I--had--refused, daughter; would--would that have made any
difference to you?"
"Oh, father!" cried Sybil, reproachfully, "you would have closed the
incident with a vengeance--I could not have moved another step!" Seeing
the troubled old face beginning to brighten, she laid her arm upon his
shoulder, and added: "Everything depended on your word. No one wanted to
help a girl who had not the backing of her own father. So, you see, all
hung on your 'yes' or 'no,' dear!"
And the poor old gentleman, comforted and heartened up, kissed her and
patted her back and told her, quite patronizingly, she should have had
more confidence in his willingness to assist her, and, seeing she was
studying Jessica that morning, he devoted himself to a careful reading
of Shylock down under the monster willow. Thus Sybil, with passions and
desires all sleeping, studied and dreamed, and wondered vaguely would
she always be unknown, or would she, some day, some far away radiant
day, be a crowned Queen of the Drama?
And to Dorothy--the patient, practical Dorothy, who knew to the hour how
long a pound of tea would last; who knew to a spoonful how much sugar,
salt, or baking-powder there was in the house--there had come a habit of
musing, a trick of sudden and utter abstraction at the most improbable
moments, when her hands would drop idly at her sides, and, gazing into
space, she would wonder vaguely why all her anxieties, worries, and
annoyances could be so swiftly drowned in the depths of a pair of gray
eyes, whose steely look always darkened and softened when their owner
spoke to her. For so swift is the blossoming of love when once the magic
hour has struck, that already Leslie Galt, the friend of three weeks'
standing, was her reliance and her ever-quoted authority.
Sybil quite understood the situation, and when she jibed gently at the
girl's fits of abstraction, Dorothy would answer nothing, save with
smile and blush and dimple, and surely they were eloquent enough.
John Lawton, considering his daughters as mere well-grown babes, saw
nothing but a liking for himself in young Galt's visits, and Letitia's
usually quick eyes were so dazzled by a certain jack-o'-lantern of her
own discovery that she saw in the young man only a patient listener,
whom she believed she was training to fetch and carry quite nicely.
The discordant note in all this melody of love was William Henry
Bulkley. The overbearing, consequential manner, the fine raiment, and
the red face and neck of the elderly beau aroused the imagination of
Lena, and she named him "Dat Herr Gobbler-mans," and it was with
ill-suppressed laughter and but half-hearted severity that Miss Dorothy
called her to account for her disrespect; and Lena, somewhat sullenly,
made answer that "she guessed she had youst as much respect for der Herr
Bulkley as der Herr Bulkley has for himself. For her mash-mans, he
knowed some tings about----"
"Lena!" interrupted Dorothy, warningly. "Lena!" And Lena, catching the
laughing eyes of Sybil, grinned broadly back at her while in the very
act of making her apologetic peasant bob to Dorothy, and murmuring:
"Oxcuse me! I don't make mit der Herr Gobbler name, nein! no more!"
She retired to the kitchen, while the laughing Sybil inquired of Dorothy
how much she thought she had gained by her lecture on propriety to the
sharp little German girl.
'Twas well for all of them that Mrs. Lawton had not heard of the "Herr
Gobbler" episode, for she alone approved of William Henry Bulkley, she
alone greeted him warmly, effusively, and urged him to repeat his
patronizing visits. She passed much of her time in trying to appraise at
its exact value that long gloating look of admiration he had bestowed
upon the fair Dorothy that day of his first visit to them, back in May.
Like a very small cat in waiting for a very large mouse, she sat with
unwinking eyes, with sharply alert ears, with every strained nerve
ready, like a sensitive whisker, to warn her back from a dangerously
tight place, and watched tensely, patiently watched, ready to spring
upon the silky-coated, cheese-fed big mouse and drag him in triumph to
the feet of her little white kitten, whom she would instruct to pat him
judiciously, with velvet paw, or tear punitively, with sharp curved
claws, just as pussy-mamma should think fit. Nothing in all Letitia
Lawton's silly, superficial life had betrayed so completely her absolute
selfishness as did this eager desire to secure a son-in-law in the
person of William Henry Bulkley. Her knowledge of the man in the past,
and the piteous picture her memory held of Mrs. Bulkley's pale,
fast-thinning face, when, bravely hiding her wounded pride and slain
affection, she received her sympathetically prying neighbors with
uncomplaining chill courtesy, but such woful eyes, that they had
withdrawn without daring to speak one word of condemnation against the
man of whom a certain splendid infamy had but recently caused it to be
said: "Why, his conduct brings a blush of shame to the cheek of
impropriety's self!"
These memories should have filled her mother's heart with sick
repulsion, but, instead, it was filled with fallacies. His conduct had
not been quite what it should have been, perhaps, but then, no one
knew--perhaps his wife had not been entirely faultless. She may not have
been a suitable companion for so jovial and high-spirited a man. She had
probably not known how to manage him. Now she herself had had no such
trouble with her husband, though, of course, she had been a much
prettier woman than had been the late Mrs. Bulkley. Then he had been a
very wealthy man (Letitia's eyes gleamed at the thought), and much was
to be forgiven to the wealthy, they were more tried and tempted than
other men, and--and--oh, well! someone had said that a man had to break
the heart of one wife before he learned how to care properly for a
second one. Dorothy, too, was so young and unsuspicious that he would
probably justify her sweet confidence in him, while she, Letitia, would
keep her eyes very wide open. Not that she would ever interfere between
husband and wife--not she! But still there could be no harm in keeping a
mother's eye upon what was going on. And then, her very soul hungered
after the unforgotten flesh-pots. She calculated to a nicety what
William Henry would in common decency have to do for the parents of his
bride. They could not be left in that shackly old White house, that was
sure; and, of course, she would pay very long visits to her daughter,
and--and assist her in guiding her household. Almost she felt the
caressing touch of rich furs about her; in imagination she ordered "the
brougham," and closely inspected the liveries of the men on the box;
and, in fact, was so dazzled with the gleam of Mr. Bulkley's money, so
a-hungered for the flesh-pots in his keeping, that she was almost
blinded to the sin and shame and degradation that covered his moral
character like a leprosy. Yet, not quite--surely not quite! Else why was
she so silent as to her wild hopes? A secret she had never kept in all
her life before! For years she had crowded the portals of John Lawton's
unwilling ears with not only her own secrets but all those she could
come by of other people's. Why, then, did she often catch herself up, in
that expansive and confidential chat or monologue, peculiar to the
marital chamber?
Why did she press her thin, rouge-tinted lips so closely and stop so
suddenly every time she started to speak of a "splendid chance"? Whose
"chance" was she thinking of, and why did she not complete her sentence?
John, slow John, began to wonder to himself. It was odd. All her married
life Letitia had exalted herself--had proclaimed herself; her
superiority, mentally and spiritually, had usurped the husband's
authority; yet now it was that helpless, broken gentleman, whose
pathetic eyes she shrank from meeting, into whose ears she dared not
pour her shameful secret wish: to marry little Dorothy to William Henry
Bulkley.
Slow and uncertain, foolishly trustful, weak as he had been in business
matters, there was a certain austerity in John Lawton's moral character.
His life had been singularly clean and wholesome. He had known how to
resist the temptations that many men consider it rather "goody-goody" or
"middle-class" to resist. The "high-roller" and the gambler he classed
together, but the immoral married man was, to his old-fashioned belief,
the man unspeakable! And that was why Letitia was learning to keep a
secret! She, the tyrant, was afraid of her slave! So John Lawton was the
only person in that house who was not dreaming dreams or weaving plans
for the future! He was like a mossy stone, immovable, in the middle of a
gentle stream. The water does not rush over it, but parts and races
about it with touches of white caressing foam, then joins again below it
and continues on in one united stream.
But this June day was a special one in the Lawton family, since on it
fell the birthdays of both Mrs. Lawton and Sybil; a fact sufficiently
unusual to justify the mentioning of it, according to Mrs. Lawton's
ideas, though her doing so to such mere acquaintances as Mr. Galt and
Mr. Bulkley covered the girls with mortification. "Poor Sybil!" said
Dorothy, sympathetically, when the mother had mentioned the interesting
coincidence to the second gentleman, "but don't mind, dear! Anyone can
see you are innocent of--of----"
"Of giving a disgracefully broad hint! Oh, what is coming to mamma! Her
pride--where is it? Poor papa simply tries to hide his needs, as mamma
did formerly, at least from strangers. She would always demand help
from any relative, but of late--oh, nothing is so humiliating as the
hint direct! There's no use denying it, mamma reminds me of one of those
creamy-white, fine silky sponges----"
"Oh, don't!" almost whispered Dorothy. "For truly, I'd a great deal
rather hear her say boldly: 'Stand and deliver!'" At which both girls
had broken into laughter.
Now Sybil, who had read his signs of love aright from the first, was
greatly admired and honestly liked by young Galt, and he was quick to
turn to her when he needed a friend at court. Sybil had noted the swift
disappointment clouding his face when he learned that it was not Dorothy
who shared the honors of the twenty-fifth of June with Mrs. Lawton.
More, with swift intuition she had even guessed the exact gift he wished
to offer her young sister; for, being very short of fans, Mrs. Lawton,
when on dress parade, nearly always took Dorrie's little fan from her,
with "Just for a moment, my dear," which moment generally reached to her
final withdrawal, while the owner meantime crimped up a sheet of
newspaper with which to fan her flushed cheeks or defend herself from
the persistent fly. And Galt's brows would knit and his lips twitch
nervously as he helplessly noted the need of his Violet Girl. So it was
easy to guess, when Mrs. Lawton had, with joyous abandon, confided to
him the date of the double birthday, that a fan for his adored was the
first thought that sprang into his mind, and lo! the name of Sybil
dashed all his hopes to flinders.
Though she laughed at his disappointed face, she felt sorry for him
too, and determined to help him to his wish if possible, for she argued:
"He simply can't help himself; he is forced to accept that coy hint--not
more than a yard broad--of mamma's offering, but I think he is a
gentleman sufficiently well-bred not to humiliate us with extravagant
offerings, and he ought to have the pleasure of remembering Dorrie." So:
"Mr. Galt!" she cried, "will you help me fasten up a bit of vine on the
side of the house? It's just above my reach." And, as he obediently
followed her, she continued: "Now, you may weep unobserved."
He looked frowningly at her, and she went on: "You are not going to deny
your vexed disappointment, are you?"
A wry smile twisted his lips as he murmured: "I beg your pardon-- I did
not mean-- I was not aware----"
"No, I suppose not," she laughed; "but you must better control your
features or wear a good heavy veil, to hide them, after this."
"Good Lord! What an idiot you must think me," he said. "But honesty is
the best policy, and I admit I want awfully to offer a certain trifle to
Dor--to Miss Dorothy, and I fancied the opportunity had arrived,
and--and----"
"And it hadn't!" laughed Sybil. "But see here, now, you don't know much
about our family--you are a stranger to us."
"Oh! Miss Sybil!" gasped Leslie Galt. "That's downright cruel. You said
the other day----"
"Do be still!" snapped Sybil, "and attend to what I am saying. You
are--or you ought to be--a stranger yet to the Lawton family history.
You have learned of a double birthday, and you wish to mark the occasion
with some small remembrances; but, for the life of you, being a
stranger, you can't remember which girl it is who shares the day with
Mrs. Lawton, therefore----"
But Galt, with a whoop, had both her hands in his, crying, rapturously:
"Oh, you angel! You angel! Of course I am uncertain, and so I have taken
the liberty! Oh, what a blessed little brick you are!" and on that hint
he acted.
So, on this twenty-fifth of June, many kisses had been exchanged, some
piteously small gifts offered and joyously accepted. A few mixed roses,
with very plenteous greens, were presented by the tremulous hand of John
Lawton to his Letitia, but he had laid aside all the deep red ones, then
made them into a knot, with thorns all carefully removed, and, as he
kissed his first-born daughter on lip and brow and from his soul wished
happy returns of the day, he laid them against her rounded throat, and
said: "Because they are so like you, dear!"
Later in the day Leslie Galt drove up in the dusty old station hack,
carrying in one hand his mandolin and in the other a basket of the
choicest, rarest fruits, prettily decorated with vines and blossoms.
These being accepted, he next brought forth two slim parcels in white
wrappers--but standing before Mrs. Lawton, and suddenly conscious that
Sybil's laughing eyes were upon him, he blushed and stammered and lied
his lie, so redly, so confusedly, that anyone would have sworn he told
the truth, and did not know which girl to congratulate. And Mrs. Lawton
clapped her hands in juvenile delight, and gave consent to Dorothy's
acceptance of the gift. "She really had no right to, naughty thing!"
And the boxes being opened revealed two little Empire fans: one a bit of
scarlet gauze, gold flecked in sandal frame, and the other of
cream-tinted silk, which some true artist's hand had showered thick with
violets so heavenly blue, so mauve, so white, so real that involuntarily
one bent to catch the perfume. No apportionment had been made at all,
yet with a single blue gleam of an upward glancing eye, a swirl of color
in a peachy cheek, Dorothy put out her hand unhesitatingly and claimed
her own, thus proving that she knew herself to be the Violet Girl, and
Sybil, fluttering her gay fan above her head, said, aside to Galt: "I
suppose then, I am a sort of dahlia-girl or a--a--hibiscus-girl?" And
he, being merry and light of heart because of that sweet, comprehending
blue-eyed glance, caught up the mandolin and sang in answer: "My love is
like the red, red rose!" At this Mrs. Lawton, speaking against a rather
large portion of fruit which gave her words a somewhat muffled sound,
remarked that "that used to be a very popular air in her own blooming
days. She had been serenaded by it once; that is, those who serenaded
her sang it; and a public singer--oh, mercy goodness!" coughed and
choked the fruit-eater. Then, the unexpected pit having been ejected
from her throat, she proceeded, with quite watery eyes--"A public
singer, of no breeding at all, no offence meant to you, Sybil, though of
course you will not be a singer--but she was stopping a few days next
door, and if you'll believe me, that creature came to her window and
bowed and smiled, when my serenaders sang: 'Red, red rose!' Her name, by
the way, was Roze--with a z, you understand, not an s. Did you ever hear
of anything more incredibly impertinent? Well, I was a very pretty woman
in those days! Sybil, here, is almost my exact image--not quite so rich
in coloring, perhaps, even now. You may have noticed my color is good
for a poor buried-alive creature who knew only luxury in the past and
knows only penury in the present. I'm sorry I ate the last of those
strange Japanese plums; I meant to save one to show to John. Yes, that's
right, practice a little, my dears--as much as you like--but--but if
that is what you are going to do I won't urge this fruit upon you--it's
fatal to the voice."
And thus it was that Sybil took her place at the piano--which she
hated--and played accompaniments stumblingly but cheerfully, because she
knew that, to the pair behind her, singing together thus unobserved by
others was as the joy of Paradise.
And finally it was upon the picture of Leslie Galt, bending over and
half encircling Dorothy with his arm, as he tenderly placed her
unaccustomed little hands in position to hold the mandolin correctly,
that William Henry Bulkley stumbled, and stood and glared and mentally
swore. Loaded with gifts whose expense made their acceptance a
humiliation, he had, without hesitation, included Dorothy in his list of
recipients, and oddly enough he too presented a fan--a gorgeous affair
of white ostrich plumes mounted on sticks of carved white pearl; and
when Mrs. Lawton had rather sharply commanded its acceptance by the
reluctant girl, Sybil remarked, sweetly: "It is so beautiful, and will
be so useful when you attend balls or the opera, my dear! I suppose you
will hardly care to carry it with a white linen gown to church, will
you?" And truly Mr. Bulkley could have strangled her. The men understood
each other in an instant, and each measured the other swiftly and
savagely. Leslie Galt, who was supposed to be a very poor young lawyer,
yielded not one inch before the old friend-of-the-family air of the
wealthy visitor, and held his place by his Violet Girl's side as long as
it was possible. He was quick to recognize Mrs. Lawton's efforts to
throw Dorothy and Bulkley together, and he was filled with a sick rage
as he saw the blase old eyes greedily devouring the innocent loveliness
of the girl he adored.
This undercurrent of concealed hatred made itself so plainly felt that
no one was sorry when the little party broke up. Mr. Bulkley, after
using a heavy gold-handled pocket knife in cutting some cord from his
parcels, had left it on the piano. As he was leaving he remembered it
and thought to secure a few moments alone with Dorothy, so he paused at
the porch-step and with amazing ill-breeding called familiarly to
Dorothy to bring his knife to him. But Leslie Galt, black-browed, took
the knife from her a moment, and, going to Mr. Bulkley, said, as he
extended it to him: "Permit me to be your servant, sir, for this
occasion!"
For a moment they glared at each other, then Bulkley went his way,
saying to himself: "The impudent young upstart!" while Galt turned
back, muttering, with curling lip: "Gross old animal!"
And when Mrs. Lawton had moaned several times that she "did not
know--no, she was sure she did not know--what was the matter with dear
Mr. Bulkley that day," Sybil, on mischief bent, whispered to Galt: "Do
you know what is the matter with him, by any chance?"
And the young man's eyes were very hard and bright as he replied,
slowly: "Yes, I know what is the matter with him," and then, with a grim
smile, he added, "just as well as he knows what is the matter with me!"