A FAMILY SCENE
While Mr. Lawton still strove to regain his self-control he saw, passing
out through the further gate, the big chestnut, the battered looking
livery buggy, and the gorgeous William Henry Bulkley, whose cowed,
dispirited "man" was driving, while he--W. H.--gave himself the pleasure
of vigorously damning the entire outfit, individually and collectively.
A little later the doctor drove his lightly built, dark bays out--full
sisters they were, with faces so kind and manners so gentle as always to
suggest a pair of nurses. After that John Lawton thought he might then
go up to the house and get a quiet peep at Dorothy, whose face he half
expected to see changed somehow since she had given him her morning
kiss. "She had been a child then, and now, yes now, she was a woman." He
did not realize that the sudden change had been but in his point of
view.
Walking slowly up the steep rise to the porch, he thought he heard high
voices, and, opening the door, he stood amazed. Looking up, where at the
stair-top German Lena stood, one outstretched hand against the wall, the
other on the bannister, both feet braced firm and wide apart, her small
blue eyes a-light, a girl on guard! And just beneath her, hair
disarranged, face crimson, and eyes snapping, Mrs. Lawton, in high,
piercing tones, was spitting and hissing abusive epithets:
"You! how dare you? You German steerage rat! You stupid wooden-headed,
wooden-shod _thing_! How dare you--dare you! In my days of wealth, my
housekeeper, my _cook_, wouldn't have allowed you to care for my pots
and pans! My daughter's nothing to you! I can say what I please to her,
and say it how I please! How dare you interfere! You shall feel the law
for your Dutch insolence! Stand aside, and let me into that room!"
"Nein! _nein!_" said Lena, savagely. "_Nein!_ I don't stand on my sides!
I make by Herr Doctor's orders, und I keep my Miss Lady quiet uf I can!"
Then, catching sight of John Lawton, she cried: "Oh, my Herr Mister! is
dat you? Oh, you vas velcome as never vas!"
"John Lawton!" cried Mrs. Lawton, at the same time, "if you have one
spark of manhood in you, if you even dimly remember your promise to
protect and cherish me, you will order this crazy Dutch slattern to the
scullery!"
"Letitia! Letitia!" remonstrated the mortified and bewildered man, "come
away, I beg of you, and explain quietly what has happened."
But a perfect shriek of rage leapt from the woman's throat: "What has
happened? Do you know, that _thing_ there has struck me--me--a lady!"
"Nein! nein!" stoutly protested Lena, "I don't strike nobodys, my Herr
Mister! She com' mad by me! for dat--dat doctor mans--ven he have put
der sticks und shplinters on der Miss Lady's arm, dat com' got break by
der Bergamots man, he com' say dat I must make for der quiet! Und two
time he tell me dot! He say she make of der fever rite avay quick uf she
com' get excite! und nobody shall com' by her, for much talk! Und I
shall vatch until der odder vun, der Miss Sybells com', und take care by
her! Und--und--I tell you true now, Herr Boss, he say der mutter
downstair seem very hy-strikle like, und not fit to com' by der
sickroom! Und den he go und der Frau Mistress, she com' fly in der room,
und she com' mad like a vitch! Und she say some tings at my Miss Lady
'how she dare do sometings?' Und my Miss Lady, she com' vite, com' red,
und begin shake! Und I say, 'Blease for go!' Und she say, 'Miss Doroty
is a God-forsakens simpletons!' und I say vonce more, 'Blease!' und--und
den I don't strike, I don't shuf der Frau Mistress, I youst pick her
round by der waist, und I histe her out of der room! Und she shmack me
on der cheek und try to come by der room again! Und I lock der door, und
now I stand here und keep my Miss Lady quiet, youst so long as I have
der legs to shtand by! Ja! So!"
The old man's face was a study of pained bewilderment. He slowly
ascended the stairs, and taking by the arm the dishevelled creature, in
whom it was hard for him to recognize his wife, he said: "Come to your
room, Letitia. You will bring upon yourself an attack of nerves if this
continues. You need some drops." And the innocently spoken words wrung
a cry of rage from the woman, as she recalled how, down-stairs, a few
minutes before, William Henry Bulkley had hurled the bottle across the
room to the sofa, with the courteous words: "There's your damned old
drops! Much good they've done us, haven't they!"
"Come!" continued John. Then, looking back, he added to Lena: "Open Miss
Dorothy's door and tell her 'my love' and I'll be with her directly, and
will read a little out of Sybbie's play to her while you get tea ready."
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Mrs. Lawton. "When you hear of her outrageous
conduct it will be a lecture, not Sybil's play, that you will read!
Anything, _anything_ but slyness in a girl!"
"_Letitia!_" The tone rather startled the angry woman. She allowed
herself to be led into her room, where John filled the basin with water,
added a little cologne, and opened out a fresh towel ready for use. For
though Letitia had had no maid for years past, she had not been without
trained service. Now, however, she could not put aside her grievance
even to lave her burning face. She went on: "Never have I been so--so
discredited, so lowered, so belittled! One does not often meet two such
hypocrites on the same day! She, with her pretended coyness and shyness!
That any child of mine should be capable of such deception, such
concealment!"
"My dear! my dear!" interrupted John Lawton, "you are not stopping to
consider the force of your words. There has been no deception, no
concealment. Our young people have been learning to love each other,
wife, and we were too blind to see what was going on."
"W-why! w-why! do you know about it?" surprisedly questioned Mrs.
Lawton. "Did Mr. Bulkley tell you, too, before he drove away?"
"Mr. Bulkley?" frowned Lawton, "I don't see what on earth Mr. Bulkley
has to do with our affairs. Besides, he has been most unpleasant in his
manner toward Leslie Galt."
"It's a pity that we have not followed his example--the young hypocrite!
with his suave tone and underhand conduct!"
"No! no!" interrupted Lawton, "there has been nothing underhand in
Leslie Galt's conduct. He loves Dorothy; there's no crime in that,
surely, and he has come like a man and asked for her, and----"
"And you! Have you presumed to encourage that mere salaried clerk to
hope to marry a Lawton? Understand this, if any child of mine ever went
to live in a flat, I would not recognize her though she lay upon her
death-bed! To be dragged down to poverty by another [the old man winced]
is no crime, but to deliberately choose poverty is a vulgarity that is
worse than crime! You will forbid this thing at once! What--love? They
love each other? Bah! He's got a straight, flat back and good teeth and
eyes--will they make up for a shabby wardrobe and no visiting list?
Love? Love in poverty is an impossibility! I ought to know by this
time!" she sneered, bitterly. "I've had plenty of opportunity for
experimenting!" Without noticing the quivering of her husband's chin
and mouth, she went on: "She's mad or a fool to throw away money and
position for some hole-in-a-corner existence with a good-looking
lawyer's clerk!"
"Letitia," broke in her husband very gently, "I don't just know what you
mean, my dear, but I suppose you are speaking figuratively of money and
position; but if you will let me explain all about young Galt's present
standing and his future prospects, I think you will yourself sanction an
engagement."
"The prospects of a mere clerk!" she jeered. "What a poor-spirited,
broken thing you have become, calmly permitting one daughter to go upon
the public stage, and giving the other to the first poverty-stricken
applicant that asks for her! No! I'm not speaking figuratively of money
and position! They are within her reach, and she shall accept them! She
has no right to keep me in poverty, because she prefers it for herself!
The time will come when she will thank me for my interference--that is,
if she has not driven the man off forever! Perhaps even I may not be
able to whistle back a Mr. Bulkley, once he is gone!"
"_My God!_" the words came in a sort of choking gasp. The man's pale
eyes stared at her with a sort of questioning horror. "You do not
mean--you can not mean?"
"I mean," recklessly responded the woman, "that with a few smiles and
half promises from Dorothy and a little veiled management on my part,
her well-ringed fingers might this moment be holding the strings of the
Bulkley purse!"
"She must be mad!" interjected the trembling voice of the husband, as if
thinking aloud. "It is a charity to believe her mad!"
"Then I'm mad from disappointment and wasted effort. Any opportunity is
thrown away upon you! And Sybil hated him and opposed me at every turn!
Yet with a little more time my finesse would have brought William Henry
Bulkley to the point of marrying Dorothy!"
"_Damnation!_" cried John Lawton, as he sprang to his feet and stood a
hard, breathing moment, holding fast to the corner of the dressing-table
for support. His pale eyes shone with the phosphorescent glare of the
angry cat. His long fingers opened and closed convulsively. For the
first time in all her life, Letitia saw danger in him.
"You--are--an--infamous woman!" The words came slowly and with effort
from his tremulous lips. "You have forgotten your motherhood, your
womanhood! But you never forget the sweetly spicy savor of the
flesh-pots of Egypt! No!" he cried with increasing anger, "nor have you
forgotten the nature, the gross brutality, of this man, who has control
of the flesh-pots you still dream of! You have not forgotten either the
long, slow dying of his faithful wife, whom he crowned with public
infamies! And since that time you know, as all people know, he has been
one of the mightiest in a very sink of iniquity--know him to be a
walking danger to unprotected innocence and a vainglorious 'friend' of
fashionable vice! Yet to this immorality add an uncontrollably violent
temper, impaired health, and a grandfather's years; and for a few
fripperies and gew-gaws, a wrap or two of fur and velvet for the
satisfaction of your vanity, you would fling, without a thought of her
pure soul's fate--fling the white, sweet body of your innocent child
into his foul embrace, relying on the name of wife to cover the
iniquity! Dorothy, my little white-souled woman-child, and Bulkley? I--I
wonder--I don't kill you, Letitia!"
He advanced toward her so fiercely that she shrank back, crying out in
terror: "John! John! don't hurt me!"
"Why not?" he asked, savagely. "Why not? Do you know what you have done
for me? You have dragged down the woman I have loved and honored as my
wife--down, down to within one step of being a procu----!"
Her sharp scream of shame and terror cut across the hideous word.
"No, I won't hurt you; but oh, God! oh, God! to wake and find the wife
you have pillowed on your breast for twenty years is, after all, a
stranger to you! That hurts!--yes, that hurts!"
He passed his hand across his eyes, then he said, sternly: "Never bring
that man into Dorothy's presence again--I forbid it! Yes, I told you you
would make yourself ill!"
But as she lapsed into a faint she was dimly conscious that John was
leaving the room. She had gone too far--her slave had rebelled for
once. He who always had waited upon her himself in her previous attacks,
now called on Lena to attend her and get her to bed, while he went to
Dorothy's room and kissed and blessed her and made her very soul sing
for joy, because he praised her beloved.
And in the silence, when his cheek rested on her piled-up sunny hair,
she did not know of the bitter tears creeping down his face--tears of
disapppointment and sorrow, because he had that day learned that the
wife he believed to be but frivolous was in truth a personified
selfishness.