MRS. GRAHAM WOODS BARTLETT
The great house stood on a hilltop quite two miles from the station, and
cut into the immense iron door standing guard to the grounds was the
name "Bartlett Villa."
Here for a small part of the year the Graham Woods Bartletts lived. The
family consisted of mother, father, and son, named for his father. In
the city another house as large and more palatial received the family
when they tired of the country home.
Mr. Graham Woods Bartlett held large interests in the Massey Steel
Mills. That he might be on the ground part of the time he had built
Bartlett Villa. In his heart he loved the small town. It was like a
retreat to him to come back to its quiet after feverish hours spent in
the crowded city. Here he seemed to recall in part a few of his vanished
dreams--those dreams so bright, so well-nigh impossible of fulfillment,
which as a young man fresh from college he had cherished. While young,
he met and loved the girl he married. That she had visions he perfectly
believed. That her visions were unworthy no power then could have made
him believe. She came from an impecunious family whose lineage was older
and greater than his. How she could have thought the high-browed,
sensitive-faced young man the one who could fulfill her grasping desires
is not to be fathomed. She had believed so, and he did bring to pass all
her aspirations. That in doing so he killed his finest ideals mattered
not.
Young Graham, too, was always glad when the time came for a stay at
Bartlett Villa in Anchorville. He loved the big upstanding elms; loved
the many gardens, and the flaunting flowers. He loved the two people who
belonged properly in the environs of Bartlett Villa--old Nancy, who had
been his mother's nurse and his own, and David, the gardener, with his
little daughter Daphne.
Nancy, old, with hard rosy cheeks, was still so real. She worked and
sang, loved and sometimes resented on behalf of those whom she served.
Often, when quite a little boy, Graham would seek her in the old nursery
of the city home and climb into her lap, rest his curly head against her
loving breast, and sometimes contentedly fall asleep.
He never so cuddled with his mother, no matter how fervent the longings
that filled his heart. She was always finely dressed; and her eyes were
never for him alone. They were fixed on some distant and glittering
goal, quite beyond the boy's understanding.
Then there was David, big of stature, big of mind. David, given over to
many long, silent periods, because David had lost a loved and cherished
one.
There were times when David would take Graham with him on long rambles,
and then he would talk. He knew everything about the birds, their
habits, their peculiarities, their fears, and their courage. He put into
Graham a great love for the little creatures. Often together near a nest
they would stand, and, scarce breathing, watch the first lesson given by
a mother bird to a frightened young one.
"She's greater, that mother, than some humans," David said once, when
they were on their way home.
"Why?" asked Graham, interestedly.
"Well," said David, slowly, "we most of us hold on too long when it's
time for those we love to try their wings."
"You wouldn't hold on, would you, David?" asked Graham, his boyish eyes
upturned in perfect faith to his friend.
"I might, Graham; human nature is weak and wants always its own."
Upon reaching home Graham would ask: "Will you have time to go riding
this afternoon, David?"
And David would answer: "Perhaps, my lad, if there's not too much work
in the gardens."
Once Graham asked: "Why do you do such work, David? You could be in the
city making lots of money." Thus Graham, who through heritage had been
innoculated with that thought, that money meant everything.
And David had turned with a swift gesture: "Why should I mistreat my
spirit, kill my brightest self trying for money, young Graham? Here
among my flowers, working in the soil, I find time to think."
Graham looked strangely at David. Time to think! On what? Well he knew
that David would tell him some day, and then he would weigh in his own
mind the question of whether it were wise to work hard at something that
took all your time in order to make lots of money; or to work at
something that while you worked gave you time to think and grow.
David had an uncanny way of knowing another's thoughts. "It's not
altogether what you work at, lad," he said, "it's what your ideals of
life are." And turning, he left Graham to ponder.
On the day that he and his mother had paid the visit to his grandmother
in the attic, the boy's mind was deeply concerned with the scene he had
witnessed in his grandmother's attic. He envied the Procter children,
since there grew in his imagination the treasure a grandmother could be.
She probably knew "bully" stories of long-ago days. Certainly as she
stood, crowned, she seemed the best sort of a playfellow, since she
could pretend as well as any child.
His mother drove him home and then went to pay a call in a near town. He
had gone directly to his own room. A telegrapher's outfit, in which he
was then greatly interested, needed his attention. He was anxious to
resume work on it; still his undermind, even as he drew forth the
machine and began to work, was busy.
Suddenly he remembered the time last year when his mother had made
elaborate preparations for an extended sojourn in the South. They were
then in their city home. He had ardently wished that she would decide to
take him with her, but the thought evidently did not occur to her. He
had said good-bye to her with a strange, empty feeling at his heart.
And then quite unexpectedly she had returned, her contemplated stay cut
enchantingly short. She had talked with him, taken long walks with him,
even accompanied him to several ball games.
For a month she had been a friend, a good friend interested in boyish
sports, in active games, and once in an open moment she had asked him if
he had ever been lonely.
He answered, not wishing to hurt her: "Sometimes, when you stayed for
months in Italy. But I was only a very small boy then. Father had to be
away most of the time too, and the tutor you got for me wouldn't allow
me to talk with other children until he knew all about where their
fathers and mothers came from and how much money they had."
She was touched. She meant then to see that her boy should have more of
the normal boy life of fun and roughness.
But gradually her old desire for social leadership pressed in on her.
And it took all her time and energy to dress, to entertain, to outdo her
social rivals. And Graham went his own way again, only wishing that it
was not necessary for both father and mother to be so occupied with
outside interests that they had little time for their one child.
After a time he left his machine to look out of the window, and as he
stood, he saw his mother. She had left her small runabout, and David was
leading the horse to the stables.
He saw her enter the house. In a moment he heard her talking in her
sweet voice to one of the servants before she mounted the stairs to her
own room. She would then, Graham knew, be in the hands of her maid for a
long time, since she was giving a formal dinner party that evening.
When the shadows were lengthening Graham left his room and wandered
aimlessly around the house. Finally he reached the kitchen, where he sat
for a time, watching the imported French chef's noble efforts for the
coming dinner, efforts that must result in the wide proclamation of Mrs.
Graham Woods Bartlett as an original hostess. But in the kitchen it was
made manifest that Graham's presence was not welcome. At last, feeling
this truth, he left.
The maid, coming from his mother's room and meeting him in the hall,
told him that his dinner was to be served at six in his own room. "Your
mother thought you'd like that," she finished.
Graham nodded without speaking and went on once more to his own room. He
felt lonely, dispirited. Old Nancy, to whom he might have turned, had
gone to her old home to visit some grandchildren. David, he knew, would
be very busy.
At six the boy's dinner was brought, and with the hearty appetite of
boyhood he ate. Afterwards he read a little, and then, feeling tired, he
concluded to retire. But he did not go to sleep at once. Occasionally he
heard interesting sounds from below, music from a string orchestra,
laughter of women, and the bass voices of men.
At nine o'clock he was still lying awake when he heard a little running
step outside his door. Out of an impulse he called softly, "Mother."
Mrs. Graham Woods Bartlett, on her way to her private safe for a piece
of jade she wished to show one of her guests, paused at the call. Then
she pushed open Graham's door, which was slightly ajar, and went in.
Graham sat up. By the glow of a small electric light near his bed he
could plainly see his mother. She was a beautiful vision in her soft
white gown, quite untouched by any color, her hair piled high upon her
small, finely shaped head.
"Did you call me, Graham?" she asked.
"Yes," he said, "I wanted to see you all dressed."
She went quickly and sat on the edge of the bed. "Did they serve you a
nice dinner, Graham?" she asked.
He nodded. "Very nice," he answered.
"I thought you'd be asleep long ago," she said. "Otherwise I should have
looked in on you."
"I couldn't sleep," he answered. Then impulsively: "Mother, I know you
have to go downstairs again soon, but I've been thinking so much of
grandmother. Wouldn't it be possible to have her come to live here with
us? We've got such a big house, and she must be very lonely."
She drew herself a little away from him. "Perhaps I haven't explained to
you, Graham," she said, "that your grandmother is given to periods of
hallucinations. That is, she has peculiar fancies, one of them being
that she thinks herself a queen."
"Well, does it hurt if she does think she's a queen?" asked the boy.
"In this way it does. It's not pleasant to have in close proximity one
who isn't what is called just normal. I think she is much better cared
for as she is and in her own home. You'll admit it would be very
unpleasant if she lived here, and appeared before guests in one of her
unnatural moods."
"But she is lonely," persisted the boy, sticking to the one line of
thought that had remained with him all afternoon, and had aroused his
mind to dwell insistently upon his grandmother. "You don't mind, mother,
do you, then since she can't come here, if I go to see her often?" He
hesitated before continuing: "Father told me he wished I would, as he
hasn't the time to do so."
"Of course, you may go to see her, Graham, if you like. I didn't know
you cared so much."
She rose from the bed and walked away to the window, looking through its
leaded panes to where she knew lay the broad road leading out into the
country with farm houses and plowed fields. After a moment she turned to
gaze at the little lad who still sat up in his bed; who still regarded
her with wide eyes very much like her own, but holding a depth and a
promise that hers did not seem to hold.
"Perhaps it's not the proper time to tell you now, Graham," she said,
"but I think I might as well do so. I'm making arrangements to leave for
Italy some time soon."
"To be gone long, mother?" asked the boy.
"Well, for three months anyway. I met some interesting people there on
my last trip and they have invited me to pay them a prolonged visit,"
she said.
Graham did not answer at first. Then: "I suppose you'd better go
downstairs now, mother," he said.
His mother left the window. Passing the bed she once more paused and
looked down at him.
"Well, little son," she said at last, "good night. I've been up here an
outrageous time." She put her arms around his small shoulders and drew
him to her.
But for the first time in his short life she felt no response in her
child. Indeed, she recognized his withdrawal from her, more poignant in
its effect upon her because it was unconscious on his part. In that one
moment the instinct of motherhood leapt full within her, a sudden
bewildering emotion, totally new to her in its aliveness, its vividness.
And then cold truth swept in on her that by some act she had wiped from
his young heart in one moment his ideal of her.
She sank on her knees beside his bed, realizing dimly how great a crown
his love had been. After an appreciable length of time, his hand crept
out and rested a second lightly on her arm, and at the touch she raised
her head. "I've disappointed you, Graham," she said. He did not answer.
She waited, and then as he was still silent she rose. She shook her
unwonted mood from her and her face hardened into its habitual
brilliance.
"Good night, Graham," she said and went away.