I have never identified myself with my husband's family, and Charles
Edward, who is the best sort ever, doesn't expect me to. Of course, I
want to be decent to them, though I know they talk about me, but you
can't make oil and water mix, and I don't see the use of pretending that
you can. I know they never can understand how Charles Edward married
me, and they never can get used to my being such a different type from
theirs. The Talberts are all blue-eyed, fair-haired, and rosy, and I'm
dark, thin, and pale, and Grandmother Evarts always thinks I can't be
well, and wants me to take the medicine she takes.
But, really, I see very little of the family, except Alice and Billy,
who don't count. Billy comes in at any time he feels like it to get a
book and something to eat, though the others don't know it, and Alice
has fits of stopping in every afternoon on her way from school, and then
perhaps doesn't come near me for weeks. Alice is terribly discontented
at home, and I think it's a very good thing that she is; anything is
better than sinking to that dreadful dead level. She doesn't quite know
whether to take up the artistic life or be a society queen, and she
feels that nobody understands her at home. It makes her nearly wild when
Aunt Elizabeth comes back from one of her grand visits and acts as if
SHE wasn't anything. She came over right after the row, of course, and
told me all about it--she had on her new white China silk and her hat
with the feathers. She said she was so excited about everything that
she couldn't stop to think about what she put on; she looked terribly
dressed up, but she had come all through the village with her waist
unfastened in the middle of the back--she said she couldn't reach the
hooks. Aunt Elizabeth had gone away that morning for overnight, so
nobody could get at her to find out about her actions with Mr. Goward,
and the telegram she had sent to him, until the next day, and every one
was nearly crazy. They talked about it for two hours before Maria went
home. Then Peggy had locked herself in her room, and her mother had
gone out, and her grandmother was sitting now on the piazza, rocking and
sighing, with her eyes shut. Alice said each person had got dreadfully
worked up, not only about Aunt Elizabeth, but about all the ways every
other member of the family had hurt that person at some time. Maria said
that Peggy never would take HER advice, and Peggy returned that Maria
had hurt her more than any one by her attitude toward Harry Goward, that
she was so suspicious of him that it had made him act unnaturally from
the first--that nothing had hurt her so much since the time Maria took
away Peggy's doll on purpose when she was a little girl--the doll she
used to sleep with--and burned it; it was something she had NEVER got
over.
Then her mother, who hadn't been talking very much, said that Peggy
didn't realize the depth of Maria's affection for her, and what a good
sister she had been, and how she had taken care of Peggy the winter that
Peggy was ill--and then she couldn't help saying that, bad as was this
affair about Harry Goward, it wasn't like the anxiety one felt about a
sick child; there were times when she felt that she could bear anything
if Charles Edward's health were only properly looked after. Of course
Lorraine was young and inexperienced, but if she would only use her
influence with him--
Alice broke off suddenly, and said she had to go--it was just as Dr.
Denbigh's little auto was coming down the street. She dashed out of the
door and bowed to him from the crossing, quite like a young lady, for
all her short skirts--she really did look fetching! Dr. Denbigh smiled
at her, but not the way he used to smile at Peggy. I really thought he
cared for Peggy once, though he's so much older that nobody else seemed
to dream of such a thing.
Of course, after Alice went, I just sat there in the chair all humped
up, thinking of her last words.
The family are always harping on “Lorraine's influence.” If they wanted
their dear Charles Edward made different from the way he is, why on
earth didn't they do it themselves, when they had the chance? That's
what I want to know! I know they mean to be nice to me, but they take
it for granted that every habit Charles Edward has or hasn't, and
everything he does or doesn't, is because I didn't do something that I
ought to have done, or condoned something that I ought not. They seem to
think that a man is made of soft, kindergarten clay, and all a wife has
to do is to sit down and mould him as she pleases. Well, some men may be
like that, but Peter isn't. The family never really have forgiven me for
calling their darling “Charles Edward” Peter. I perfectly loathe that
long-winded Walter-Scotty name, and I don't care how many grandfathers
it's descended from. I'm sorry, of course, if it hurts their feelings,
but as long as _I_ don't object to their calling him what THEY like,
I don't see why they mind. And as for my managing Peter, they know
perfectly well that, though he's a darling, he's just mulishly
obstinate. He's had his own way ever since he was born; the whole family
simply adore him. His mother has always waited on him hand and foot,
though she's sensible enough with the other children. If he looks
sulky she is perfectly miserable. I am really very fond of my
mother-in-law--that is, I am fond of her IN SPOTS. There are times when
she understands how I feel about Peter better than any one else--like
that dreadful spring when he had pneumonia and I was nearly wild. I
know she is dreadfully unselfish and kind, but she WILL think--they all
do--that they know what Peter needs better than I do, and whenever they
see me alone it's to hint that I ought to keep him from smoking too much
and being extravagant, and that I should make him wear his overcoat
and go to bed early and take medicine when he has a cold. And through
everything else they hark back to that everlasting, “If you'd only exert
your influence, Lorraine dear, to make Charles Edward take more interest
in the business--his father thinks so much of that.”
If I were to tell them that Charles Edward perfectly detests the
business, and will NEVER be interested in it and never make anything out
of it, they'd all go straight off the handle; yet they all know it just
as well as I do. That's the trouble--you simply can't tell them the
truth about anything; they don't want to hear it. I never talk at all
any more when I go over to the big house, for I can't seem to without
horrifying somebody.
I thought I should die when I first came here; it was so different
from the way it is at home, where you can say or do anything you please
without caring what anybody thinks. Dad has always believed in not
restricting individuality, and that girls have just as much right to
live their own lives as boys--which is a fortunate thing, for, counting
Momsey, there are four of us.
We never had any system about anything at home, thank goodness! We just
had atmosphere. Dad was an artist, you know, and he does paint such
lovely pictures; but he gave it up as a profession when we were little,
and went into business, because, he said, he couldn't let his family
starve--and we all think it was so perfectly noble of him! I couldn't
give up being an artist for anybody, no matter WHO starved, and Peter
feels that way, too. Of course we both realize that we're not LIVING
here in this hole, we're simply existing, and nothing matters very
much until we get out of it. In six months, when Charles Edward is
twenty-five, there's a little money coming to him--three thousand
dollars--and then we're going to Paris to live our own lives; but nobody
knows anything about that. One day I said something, without thinking,
to my mother-in-law about that money; I've forgotten what it was, but
she looked so horrified and actually gasped:
“You wouldn't think of Charles Edward's using his PRINCIPAL, Lorraine?”
And I said: “Why not? It's his own principal.”
Well, I just made up my mind afterward that I'd never open my mouth
again, while I live here, about ANYTHING I was interested in, even about
Peter!
His father might have let him go to Paris that year before we met,
when he was in New York at the Art League, just as well as not, but
the family all consulted about it, Peter says, and concluded it wasn't
“necessary.” That is the blight that is always put on everything we want
to do--it isn't necessary. Oh, how Alice hates that word! She says she
supposes it's never “necessary” to be happy.
Well, Peter heard that when the Paris scheme came up--he'd written home
that he couldn't work without the art atmosphere--Grandmother Evarts
said:
“Why, I'm sure he has the Metropolitan Museum to go to; and there's
Wanamaker's picture-gallery, too. Has he been to Wanamaker's?”