And we laughed, and Peter turned around for a moment and smiled, too.
Oh, it WAS nice to meet somebody of one's own kind! You get so sick of
having everything taken seriously.
That night, after we'd left the house, Harry caught up with us at the
corner on his way to the hotel, and went home with us, and we all
talked until three o'clock in the morning. We simply ate all over the
house--goodness! how hungry we were! At Peter's home it's an unheard-of
thing to eat anything after half-past six--almost a crime, unless it's a
wedding or state reception. We began now with coffee in the dining-room,
and jam and cheese, and ended by gradual stages at hot lobster in the
chafing-dish in the studio--the darky was out all night, as usual.
Then Harry and Peter concluded that it was too late to go to bed at
all--it was really daylight--so they took bath-towels and went down to
the river and had a swim, and Harry slipped back to the house at six
o'clock. He said we'd repeat it all the next night, but of course we
didn't. He's the kind that, as soon as he's promised to do a thing,
feels at once that he doesn't really want to do it.
The next day Peter's Aunt Elizabeth came on the scene, and of course we
stayed away as much as we could. She loves Peter--they all do--but she
hasn't any use for me, and shows it. She thinks I'm perfectly dumb
and stupid. I simply don't exist, and I've never tried to undeceive
her--it's too much trouble. She always wants to tell people how to do
their hair and put on their clothes.
Miss Elizabeth Talbert is a howling swell; she only just endures it
here. I've heard lots of things about her from Bell Pickering, who knows
the Munroes--Lily Talbert, they call her there. She thinks she's fond of
Art, but she really doesn't know the first thing about it--she doesn't
like anything that isn't expensive and elegant and a la mode.
The only time she ever came to see me she actually PICKED her way
around the house when I was showing it to her--there's no other word
to use--just because there was a glass of jelly on the sofa, and
the painting things were all over the studio with Peter's clothes. I
perfectly hated her that day, yet I do love to look at her, and I can
see how she might be terribly nice if you were any one she thought worth
caring for. There have been times when I've seen a look on her face,
like the clear ethereal light beyond the sunset, that just PULLED at me.
She is very fond of Peggy; I know she would never do anything to injure
Peggy.
Poor little Peggy! When I think of this affair about Harry Goward I
don't believe she ever felt sure of him; that is why she is so worked
up over this matter now. I know there was something that I felt from the
first through all her excitement, something that wasn't quite happy in
her happiness. I feel atmospheres at once; I just can't help it. And
when I get feeling other people's atmospheres too much I lose my own,
and then I can't paint. I began so well the other day with the picture
of that Armenian peddler, and now since Alice left I can't do a thing
with it; his bare yellow knees look just like ugly grape-fruit. I wish
Sally was in. She can't cook, but she can do a song-and-dance that's
worth its weight in gold when you're down in the mouth.
--Just then I looked out of the window and saw my mother-in-law coming
in. For a minute I was frightened. I'd never seen her look like that
before--so white and almost OLD; she seemed hardly able to walk, and I
ran to the door and helped her in, and put her in a chair and her
feet on a footstool, and got her my dear little Venetian bottle of
smelling-salts with the long silver chain; it's so beautiful it makes
you feel better just to look at it. I whisked Peter's shoes out into the
hall, and when I sat down by her she put her hand out to me and said,
“Dear child,” and I got all throaty, the way I do when any one speaks
like that to me, for, oh, I HAVE been lonesome for Dad and Momsey and my
own dear home! though no one ever seems to imagine it, and I said:
“Oh, can't I do something for you, Madonna?” I usually just call her
“you,” but once in a great while, when there's nobody else around, I
call her Madonna, and I know she likes it, even if she does think it a
little Romish or sacrilegious or something queer.
But she said she didn't want anything, only to rest a few minutes, and
that there was something she wanted me to tell Peter. She couldn't come
in the evening to see him without every one wanting to know why she
came. There was some terrible trouble about Peggy's engagement. She
flushed up and hesitated, and when I broke in to say, “You needn't
bother to explain, I know all about the whole thing,” she didn't seem at
all surprised or ask how I knew--she only seemed relieved to find
that she could go right on. I never can be demonstrative to her before
people, but I just put my arms around her now when she said:
“It's a great comfort to be able to come to you, Lorraine, and speak
out. At home your dear grandmother considers me so much--she only thinks
of everything as it affects me, but it makes it so that I can't always
show what I feel, for if I do she gets ill. All _I_ can think of is
Peggy. If you knew what it was to me just now when my little Peggy went
away from me and locked herself in her room--Peggy, who all her life has
always come to me for comfort--”
She stopped for a minute, and I patted her. It was so unlike my
mother-in-law to speak in this way; she's usually so self-contained that
it made me sort of awestruck. After a moment she went on in a different
voice:
“They all want me to tell Cyrus--your father--that Aunt Elizabeth has
been trying to take Mr. Goward's affections away from Peggy. I'm afraid
it's just what she has been doing, though it seems incredible that she
should have any attraction for a young man. I was glad Elizabeth had
gone away overnight, for Maria is in such a state I don't know what
might have happened.”
“And don't you want to tell--father?” I gulped, but I knew I must say
it. “Why not, Madonna?”
She shook her head, with that look that makes you feel sometimes that
she isn't just the gentle and placid person that she appears to be. I
seemed to catch a glimpse of something very clear and strong. If I could
paint her with an expression like that I'd make my fortune.
“No, Lorraine. If it was about anybody but your aunt Elizabeth I would,
but I can't speak against her. It's her home as well as mine; I've
always realized that. I made up my mind, when I married, that I never
would come between brother and sister, and I never have. Aunt Elizabeth
doesn't know how many times I have smoothed matters over for her, how
many times Cyrus has been provoked because he thought she didn't show
enough consideration for me. I have always loved Aunt Elizabeth, and
I believed she loved us--but when I saw my Peggy to-day, Lorraine, I
couldn't go and tell your father about Aunt Elizabeth while I feel as I
do now! I couldn't be just. If I made him angry with her--”
She stopped, and I didn't need to have her go on. My father-in-law is
one of those big, kind, sensible, good-natured men who, when they do
get angry, go clear off the handle, and are so absolutely furious and
unreasonable you can't do anything with them. He got that way at Peter
once--but it makes me so furious myself when I think of it that I never
do.
“And, Lorraine,” Madonna went on, quite simply, “bringing all this home
to Aunt Elizabeth and making her pay up for it really has nothing to
do with Peggy's happiness. It is my child's happiness that I
want, Lorraine. There may be a misunderstanding of some
kind--misunderstandings are very cruel things sometimes, Lorraine. I
cannot believe that boy doesn't care for her--why, he loved her dearly!
It seems to me far the best and most dignified thing to just write to
Mr. Goward himself and find out the truth.”
“I think so, too!” said I. “Oh, Madonna, you're a Jim Dandy!”
“And so,” she went on, “I want you to ask Charles Edward to write
to-night. I'll leave the address with you. As Peggy's brother, it will
be more suitable for him to attend to the matter.”
Charles Edward! I simply gasped. The idea of Peter's writing to Harry
Goward to ask him the state of his affections! If Peter's mother
couldn't realize how perfectly impossible it was for even ME to make
Peter do a thing that--Well--I was knocked silly.
Dear Madonna is the survival of a period when a woman always expected
some man to face any crisis for her. All I could do was to say,
resignedly:
“I'll give him the address.” And when she got up I went to the gate
with her. She was as dear as she could be; I just loved her until she
happened to say:
“When I came in I thought you might be lying down, for I looked up and
saw the shades were pulled down in your room, as they are now.”
“Oh,” I said, “I don't suppose anybody has been back in the room since
we got up.” And I was downright scared, she looked at me so strangely
and began to tremble all over. “What IS the matter?” I cried. “Do come
into the house again!” But she only grasped my arm and said, tragically:
“Lorraine, it isn't POSSIBLE that you haven't made your bed at four
o'clock in the afternoon!” And I answered:
“Oh, I always make it up before I sleep in it.” And then I knew that I'd
said just the wrong thing. What difference it can make to ANYBODY what
time you make your OWN bed I can't see! She tried to make me promise
I'd always make it up before ten o'clock in the morning. Why, I wouldn't
even promise to always feel fond of Peter at ten o'clock in the morning!
I NEVER have anything to do with the family without always feeling on
edge afterward. Why, when she was so sweet and strong about Peggy and
Aunt Elizabeth and all the rest of it, WHY should she get upset about
such a trifle?
I stood there by the gate just glowering as she went off. I knew she
thought I was going to perdition. I was sick of “the engagement.” What
business was it of Peter's and mine, anyhow? It had nothing to do with
us, really. Then I thought of the time Peter and I quarrelled, and how
DEAR Lyman Wilde was about it, and how he brought Peter back to me--just
to say the name of Lyman Wilde always makes me feel better. I adore him,
and always shall, and Peter knows it. If I could only go back to the
Settlement and hear him say, “Little girl,” in that coaxing voice of
his! He is one of those men who are always working so hard for other
people that you forget he hasn't anything for himself.
Thinking of him made me quite chipper again, and I went in and got his
picture and stuck it up in the mantel-piece and put flowers in front
of it. When Peter came in I told him about everything, and of course he
refused to write to Harry Goward, as I knew he would. He said it was all
rot, anyway, and that Harry was a nice boy, but not worth making such
a fuss over. He didn't know that he was particularly stuck on Peggy's
marrying Harry Goward, anyway--but there was no use in any one's
interfering. Peggy was the person to write. Finally he said he'd
telephone to Harry the next day to come out and stay at our house over
Sunday, and then he and Peggy could have a chance to settle it.
But Peter didn't telephone. He was late at the Works the next
day--though not nearly so late as he often is; but Mr. Talbert has a
perfect fad about every one's getting there on time; it's one of the
things there's always been a tug about between him and Peter. I should
think he'd have realized long ago that Peter NEVER will be on time, and
just make up his mind to it, but he won't. Well, Peter came back again
to the house a little after nine, perfectly white; he said he'd never
enter the factory again....
His father was in a towering rage when Peter went in; he spoke to
Peter so that every one could hear him, and then--Oh, it was a dreadful
time!...
Alice told me afterward that Maria had found her father in the garden
before breakfast. She insinuated, in HER way, all kinds of dreadful
things about Harry Goward and Aunt Elizabeth, and there was a scene at
the breakfast-table--and Peggy was taken so ill that they had to send
for Dr. Denbigh. I don't know what will happen when Aunt Elizabeth comes
home.