MRS. LAWTON LAYS PLANS
Before Sybil's trunks had been opened and her simple little home-coming
gifts distributed, she knew that her sister, the patient, cheerful
Dorothy, was being seriously worried by somebody or something, and she
had not sat at the family table three times before she saw that her
mother waged a secret, petty warfare against the young girl, who was
really the mainspring that kept the whole family machinery in clock-work
motion.
They had been so wholly united in their home-life that this
surreptitious nagging, these swift side-glances that made sure John
Lawton was out of ear-shot before the jeer or sneer or wounding innuendo
was delivered, filled Sybil with amazement as well as hot anger.
"Poor little Dorrie!" she thought; "denied every pleasure that a young,
healthy, pretty girl longs for! Skimping and saving, turning and
cleaning and pressing, rarely going out dressed entirely in her own
garments, never complaining, always smilingly winking back threatening
tears, smoothing rough places, straightening out the tangles for others,
and when the burden becomes too heavy, the cloud of small torments
unendurable, instead of bursting into bitter railing or furious tears as
I do, Dorrie, with the absolute, unquestioning faith of a child, goes to
her room and prays, asking that her burden be made lighter, or, if that
may not be, that the blessed Lord will give her strength and patience
and please make her understand what it is wisest for her to do in that
special emergency! Poor little trusting ninny! As though God could
trouble about her infinitesimal affairs! As though He would distinguish
her faint appeal when once it had fluttered upward and been caught in
that mighty whirlwind of a world's anguished prayer that, with a
thousand times Niagara's sound, goes thundering to the Throne! Dear
Dorrie! Such a patient little slave as she is to mamma, too! But I'll
take a few hours from work and find out what is going on here--yes, even
if I have to question Lena!"
She shook her head. "An indecorous and undignified proceeding that, but
what else can I do? Poor papa never sees an inch beyond his handsome old
nose! If it concerned anyone but mamma, Dorothy would tell me everything
herself, for we have confided in each other ever since we had to 'make
up' the secrets we shared. But she and papa always make a sort of fetish
of mamma. It's strange, too," said Sybil to herself, "for mamma was very
little to either of us, indeed, in the old days of luxury. As that
English housemaid once said of us, 'we were little better nor horphans
for all our finery and our sweets!' Mamma was always out, or going out,
or just getting ready to go out. Or there were people staying with her,
and we had to keep close to the nursery. We should just have been
servant-bred but for papa. Shall I ever forget his face the day he asked
Dorrie some question, which she answered with a hearty, 'Bedad! I have
then!' After he had read us a lecture on the subject of English as it
should be used by intelligent and obedient little girls, Dorothy lifted
her repentant, small countenance to be kissed, saying, 'Please forgive
me, papa!' and he caught her up in his arms and said, 'Oh, baby girl, it
is for you to forgive us--forgive us!' And when he was gone we talked
and talked, and finally concluded that 'us' meant papa and Delia,
because she was all the time saying 'bedad' and 'bad-cess,' and such
words. That same night I heard mamma's voice, high and excited, from her
dressing-room. She was saying, 'I really do _not_ see why I am to be
held responsible for the aimless chatter of children of _that_ age. Of
course, when they are older, and it's worth while, I shall impress
myself upon them--shall take complete charge of--what? my mother? Never
mind my mother! Times are changed, and really it's more than a trifle
presumptuous for any Lawton to attempt to teach a Bassett how to--' and
the voice became inaudible, because mamma had entered her sleeping-room
and closed the door. But next day we took our drive with her, instead of
the nurse or maid, and in our big feathered hats--I in pink and Dorrie
in blue--we sat one on each side of her and swung our slim, black-silk
legs against her skirts and wished papa was there. And that very day she
cut Mr. Bulkley dead as he saluted her in passing, and said, under her
breath, 'Horrid wretch!' Horrid wretch then! And now? She can't be too
cordial to him, actually pressing him to come again. Has she no eyes?
Can't she see how he stares poor Dorrie out of countenance, and
how--how--" Suddenly the girl started. "Why," she said, "it can't be!
Oh, it can't be that she _does_ see and understand and--and--still
welcomes him--that she is tormenting my little sister about _him_?"
A certain ominous tremble of the ceiling told of the energetic Lena's
presence in the room above. Sybil flew up the stairs, went first to her
trunk, and a moment later came to Lena, holding in her hand a spray of
artificial flowers, and saying: "If you will bring me your hat I'll
freshen it up with these velvet roses. I can do it right here while you
are finishing mamma's room." With a cry of rapture the little,
square-rigged German girl dropped the pillow she was holding between her
teeth, while trying to introduce its further end into a fresh cover, and
rushed from the room, to return in the twinkling of an eye with one of
those forlornly tawdry hats, peculiar to the foreign servant. They
always seemed to be trimmed with samples, boasting a pale spring blossom
twisted with a dahlia or a few hips and haws of autumnal tinting, a bit
of feather, always straight; a bit of lace, always cotton; a scrap of
velvet, always dusty--the whole incongruity invariably suggesting the
police station, no matter how respectable the wearer of the "mussy"
confection may be. For a moment Lena looked frightened as Sybil's long
fingers swiftly tore the rubbish apart; but a glance at the deep rich
glow of color in the crushed velvet rose with the trail of bronzy-green
leaves reassured her, and she smiled the whole breadth of her honest
moon-face as she exclaimed:
"Mein Gott! my Miss Lady! Dot mash-man will sure make me of der name of
Miss Klippert, ven I make der Sunday valk, mit der roses on, youst like
I com' by America! Ja! dot is too fine youst for Lena--all short! Dot
make of me Miss Klippert--sure! you see now!" And full of excitement and
happy anticipations, Lena rose like a hungry trout to Sybil's first
cast, which was the remark: "I don't think Miss Dorothy is looking quite
well?"
In her broken English the maid poured out the story of the trials and
persecutions to which Dorothy had been subjected; of how her mother's
selfishness in her imaginary illness had taxed the girl's strength; of
how Leslie Galt had tried unsuccessfully to take Miss Dorrie for a
drive, to bring the color back to her cheeks; of how Mrs. Lawton had
changed her mind about the proprieties when Mr. Bulkley had driven up to
the house with a similar object; and of a disgraceful scene at a near-by
resort in which Mr. Bulkley and several "painted ladies" figured--a
scene of which she and her "mash-man" were the witnesses.
The pitiful story finished, Sybil, controlling her feelings, went to the
troubled Lena, set the newly trimmed hat on her head, gave her a little
push toward the glass, and then fled to her own room, where, with
blazing eyes and flushed cheeks, she paced the floor, repeating, over
and over: "How dare he? How dare he force his attentions upon an
innocent young girl? He is as vulgar as he is wicked! His conduct is
unpardonable--disgraceful! Oh, what can I do? How can I shield Dorrie,
and where is Leslie Galt? I know he loves her, devotedly, but he can't
have spoken yet, for she would have shared the secret with me within an
hour of my coming! He's not a man to change, nor yet to hesitate without
grave cause. Oh, I suppose it's poverty that commands his
silence--poverty, fruitful mother of many miseries, of shame and
humiliation! And yet--and yet," frowned Sybil, as she called up a mental
picture of Leslie Galt, "he never looks like a poor man; and surely I
ought to recognize any or all of the symptoms of indigence, know all the
dear little earmarks made by straitened circumstances. And now that I
think of it, his dress is perfect in its way, quiet, oh, yes, quiet
enough, but such perfect cut and fit can scarcely belong to ready-made
'marked-downs.'"
And when had she ever seen spot or soil or sagging pocket, loose button,
frayed binding, or faded tie? Her mother had called him "a salaried
boy," but she recalled Lena's statement that he wished to take her
sister to drive. She knew he often rode a horse, hired in Yonkers. He
lavished gifts of fruit upon Mrs. Lawton and music and books and flowers
on Dorrie. Surely, she thought, a young lawyer must receive a good
salary to do all that and dress so well. She wondered if she ought to
make him understand Dorothy's position. Even if they were only engaged,
that engagement would protect the young fiancee from the detested
approaches of another man. Papa? Ah! poor dear papa had no authority
where mamma was concerned! What should she do? Then suddenly she began
to dress for the street. She decided that she would go to her god-mother
with her trouble. She had always been fond of Dorothy, and if Mrs.
Lawton feared any adverse opinion it was that of Mrs. Van Camp.
As she hurried down-stairs, hoping, by fast walking to the station, to
catch the next train cityward, Mrs. Lawton came into the hall, to
express shocked disapproval of her daughter's action and her sorrow at
not having more fully impressed herself upon that daughter's mind and
character, in which case she could have seen for herself the horrible
impropriety of going to the city unaccompanied; in fact, to be perfectly
explicit and exact, 'er _alone_! And Sybil, as she rapidly buttoned her
gloves, replied with the humble deference of tone, which usually cloaked
her worst impertinences: "Yes, mamma dear, undoubtedly the girl who can
buy tickets for two and pay the salary of a chaperon who watches her, is
guilty of a criminal impropriety in travelling alone. You see the point,
don't you, dear mamma? Without wealth there is no impropriety. Of course
that's unfair, but the fact remains that a poor girl may ride for an
hour in a public car in broad daylight, and not only retain her
self-respect, but fail to hear a single charge of impropriety. Of course
it's hard, but since we have fallen upon poverty, we must not lay claim
to the attributes of the wealthy. Good-by, dear mamma! Tell Dorrie and
papa I shall probably have to see the costumer to-morrow, if Mr. Thrall
can spare the time to accompany me, and decide upon correct designs; but
I shall be home in time for tea--D. V.--I mean of course."
As she flew down the steep driveway leading to the street, Mrs. Lawton,
looking after her, said, aloud: "Dear me! With Sybil assuming this
freedom of action and Dorothy developing a streak of real obstinacy, I
have to ask myself why I ever assumed the responsibility of bringing
daughters into the worlds. Sons would doubtless have been far more
satisfactory, particularly under the present unfortunate circumstances."
And she returned to her rocker, her smelling-bottle, and her French
novel, shaking her head and sighing portentously.