Laura Childs came into the quiet, fire-lit room like a little whirl of
fresh wind. The young man, looming up behind her in the doorway,
clean-shaven, square-jawed, honest-eyed, gave a sunshiny grin of general
friendliness and said he hoped Mrs. Payton would forgive him for butting
in, but Fred had told him to call for some book she wanted him to read,
and the maid didn't know anything about it.
"I thought perhaps she had left it with you," he said.
Mrs. Payton, conscious, as were the other two, of having talked about
the speaker only a minute before, expressed flurried and embarrassed
concern. She was so sorry! She couldn't imagine where the book was! She
got up, and fumbled among the _Flowers of Peace_. "You don't remember
the title?"
He shook his head. "Awfully sorry. I'm so stupid about all these deep
books Fred's so keen on. Something about birth-rate and the higher
education, I think."
Mrs. Payton stiffened visibly. "I don't know of any such book," she
said; then murmured, perfunctorily, that he must have a cup of tea.
Again Mr. Maitland was sorry,--"dreadfully sorry,"--but he had to go. He
went; and the two ladies looked at each other.
"_Do_ you suppose he heard us?"
"I don't believe he did!"
"Nice chap," said Mr. Weston.
On the way down-stairs the nice chap was telling Laura that he had
caught on, the minute he got into that room, that it wasn't any social
whirl, so he thought he'd better get out.
"They're sitting on Freddy, I'm afraid," Laura said, soberly; "poor old
Fred!"
"Well, I put one over when I asked for that book! I bet even old
Weston's never read it! Neither have I. But Fred can give us all cards
and spades on sociology."
"She's great," Laura agreed; "but the book isn't so awfully deep. Well,
I'm going back to root for her!"
She ran up to the sitting-room again, and demanded tea. Her face, under
her big black hat, was like a rose, and her pleasant brown eyes glanced
with all the sweet, good-natured indifference of kindly youth at the
three troubled people about the tea-table. Somehow, quite unreasonably,
their depression lightened for a moment....
"No! No sugar, Aunt Nelly."
"Do you want to be as thin as I am, Miss Laura?" Arthur Weston
remonstrated, watching her rub her cool cheek against her mother's, and
kiss her aunt, and "hook" a sandwich from the tea-table. One had to
smile at Laura; her mother smiled, even while she thought of the walk
home, and realized, despairingly, that the car was coming--coming--and
would be gone in a minute or two!
"My dear, your father says all this fuss about exercise is perfect
nonsense. Really, I think we'd better ride," she pleaded with the
pretty creature, who was asking, ruthlessly, for lemon, which meant
another delay.
"I'll ring, Auntie; Flora will get it in a minute. Mama, I bet you
haven't walked an inch this day! I knew you'd take the car if I didn't
come and drag you on to your legs," she ended, maliciously; but it was
such pretty malice, and her face was so gayly amiable that her mother
surrendered. "The only thing that reconciles me to Billy-boy's being too
poor to give us an auto," Laura said, gravely, "is that Mama would weigh
a ton if she rode everywhere. I bet you've eaten six cream-cheese
sandwiches, Mama? You'll gain a pound for each one!"
"You'll be the death of me, Lolly," her mother sighed. "I only ate
three. Well, I'll stay a little longer, Ellen, and walk part way home
with this child. She's a perfect tyrant," she added, with tender,
scolding pride in the charming young creature, whose arch impertinence
was irresistible.
"Take off your coat, my dear," Mrs. Payton said, patting her niece's
hand, "and go and look at my puzzle over on the table. Five hundred
pieces! I'm afraid it will take me a week yet to work it out;"--then, in
an aside: "Laura, I'm mortified that I should have asked Mr. Maitland
the title of that book before you,"--Laura opened questioning eyes;--"so
indelicate of Fred to tell him to read it! Oh, here's Flora with the
lemon. Thank you, Flora.... Laura, do you know what Freddy is thinking
of doing now?"
"Yes, the real-estate business. It's perfectly corking! Howard Maitland
says he thinks she's simply great to do it. I only wish _I_ could go
into business and earn some money!"
"My dear, if you will save some money in your own home, you will be just
as well off," Mrs. Childs said, dryly.
"Better off," Mr. Weston ventured, "but you won't have so much fun. This
idea of Fred's is a pretty expensive way of earning money."
"You know about it?" Mrs. Payton said, surprised.
"Oh, yes; she broke it to me yesterday."
"Just what is her idea?" Mrs. Childs asked, with mild impatience.
"Let me explain it," Frederica's man of business said ... and proceeded
to put the project into words of three letters, so to speak. Fred had
hit on the fact that there are many ladies--lone females, Mr. Weston
called them; who drift about looking for apartments;--"nice old maids. I
know two of them at this minute, the Misses Graham, cousins of mine in
Grafton. They are going to spend the winter in town, and they want a
furnished apartment. It must be near a drug-store and far enough from an
Episcopal church to make a nice walk on Sundays--_fair_ Sundays. And it
must be on the street-car line, so that they can go to concerts, with,
of course, a messenger-boy to escort them; for they 'don't mean to be a
burden to a young man'; that's me, I'll have you know! 'A young man'!
When a chap is forty-six that sounds very well. Fred proposes to find
shelters for just such people."
[Illustration: "LET ME EXPLAIN IT," FREDERICA'S MAN OF BUSINESS SAID ...
AND PROCEEDED TO PUT THE PROJECT INTO WORDS OF THREE LETTERS]
The two ladies were silent with dismay and ignorance. Laura, sucking a
piece of lemon, and seeing a chance to "root," said, "How bully to have
an office! I'm going to make her take me as office boy."
"The Lord only knows how she got the idea," Arthur Weston went on, "but
it isn't entirely bad. I confess I wish her ambition would content
itself with a post-office address, but nothing short of a real office
will satisfy her. She has her eye on one in the tenth story of the
Sturtevant Building; I am on the third, you know. But I think she can do
it all on her allowance, though rent and advertising will use up just
about all her income."
"I will never consent to it," Mrs. Payton said, angrily. "It is absurd,
anyhow! Freddy, to hunt up houses for elderly ladies--_Freddy_, of all
people! She knows no more about houses, or housekeeping, than--than that
fire-screen! Just as an instance, I happened to tell her that I couldn't
remember whether I had seventy-two best towels and eighty-four ordinary
towels, or the other way round; I was really ashamed to have forgotten
which it was, and I said that as soon as I got time I must count them.
(Of course, I have the servants' towels, too; five dozen and four, with
red borders to distinguish them.) And Freddy was positively insulting!
She said women whose minds had stopped growing had to count towels for
mental exercise. When _I_ was a girl, I should have offered to count the
towels for my mother! As for her finding apartments for elderly ladies,
I would as soon trust a--a baby! Do you mean the Mason Grahams, Mr.
Weston? Miss Eliza and Miss Mary? Mama knows them. You've met them, too,
haven't you, Bessie? Well, I can only say that I should be exceedingly
mortified to have the Misses Graham know that any Payton girl was
behaving in such an extraordinary manner. The real-estate business! She
might as well go out as a servant."
"She would make more money as a cook," he admitted. But he could not
divert the stream of hurt and angry objections. Once Mrs. Childs said to
tell Fred her uncle William would say it was perfect nonsense; and once
Laura whispered to Mr. Weston that she thought it would be great sport
to hunt flats for flatlings; to which he whispered back: "Shoal. 'Ware
shoal, Laura."
There were many shoals in the distressed argument that followed, and
even Arthur Weston's most careful steering could not save some bumps and
crashes. In the midst of them the car came clattering down the street,
and after a while went clattering back; and still the three elders
wrangled over the outlaw's project, and Laura, sitting on the arm of her
mother's chair, listened, giggling once in a while, and saying to
herself that Mr. Weston was a perfect lamb--for there was no doubt about
it, he, too, was "rooting" for Fred.
"I _must_ go," Mrs. Childs said, at last, in a distressed voice. "No,
Lolly, we haven't time to walk; we must take the car. Oh, Ellen, I meant
to ask you: can't you join my bridge club? There's going to be a
vacancy, and I'm sure you can learn--"
"Oh, my dear, I couldn't possibly! I'm so busy; I haven't a minute--"
"Well, think it over," Mrs. Childs urged. "And, Nelly dear, I know it
will be all right about Fred. I'm sure William would say so. Don't
worry!"
But when the door closed upon the escaping aunt and the sympathizing
cousin, poor Mrs. Payton's worry overflowed into such endless details
that at last her hearer gave up trying to comfort her. When he, too,
made his escape, he was profoundly fatigued. His plea that Frederica
should be allowed to burn her fingers so that she might learn the
meaning of fire had not produced the slightest effect. To everything he
said Mrs. Payton had opposed her outraged taste, her wounded love, her
fixed belief in the duty of youth to age. When he ventured to quote that
"... it was better youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Towards making, than repose on aught found made,"
she said poetry was all very well, but that, perhaps, if the poet or
poetess who wrote that had had a daughter, they would think differently.
When she was reminded that she, too, had had different ideas from those
of her parents, she said, emphatically, _never!_--except in things where
they had grown a little old-fashioned.
"I don't believe, when I was a girl, I ever crossed Mama in anything
more important than in little matters of dress or furnishings.... Oh, do
look at my puzzle before you go!"
But Arthur Weston, almost dizzy with the endless words, had fled.
Down-stairs, while he hunted for his hat and coat, he paused to draw a
long breath and throw out his arms, as if he would stretch his cramped
mind, as well as his muscles, stiffened by long relaxing among the
cushions of the big arm-chair.
"Is there anything in this world duller than the pronunciamento of a
dull woman!" he said to himself. On the street, for sheer relief of
feeling the cool air against his face, instead of the warm stillness of
Mrs. Payton's sitting-room, he did not hail the approaching car, but
strolled aimlessly along the pavement, sticky with fog.
"I wonder if she talks in her sleep?" he said. "I don't believe she ever
stops! How can Fred stand it?" He knew he couldn't stand it himself.
"I'd sell pop-corn on the street corner, to get away from it--and from
Andy's old stovepipe!" It occurred to him that the ideals set forth in
Mrs. Payton's ceaseless conversation were of the same era as the hat.
"But the hat would fit Fred best," he thought--"Hello!" he broke off,
as, straining back on the leash of an exasperated Scotch terrier, a girl
came swinging around the corner of the street and caromed into him so
violently that he nearly lost his balance.
"Grab him, will you?" she gasped; and when Mr. Weston had grabbed, and
the terrier was sprawling abjectly under the discipline of a friendly
cuff on his nose, she got her breath, and said, panting, "Where do you
spring from?"
It was Frederica Payton, her short serge skirt splashed with mud, and a
lock of hair blown across her eyes. "He's a wretch, that pup!" she said.
"I'll give him to you for a present."
"I wouldn't deprive you of him for the world!" he protested, in alarm.
"Here, let me have the leash."
She relinquished it, and they walked back together toward Payton Street,
Zip shambling meekly at their heels.
"Well," she said, thrusting a confiding arm in his, "were you able to
move her? Or did she turn Aunt Bessie loose on you, too? I knew Aunt
Bessie was to be asked to the funeral. I suppose she talked
anti-suffrage, and quoted 'my William' every minute? Aunt Bessie hasn't
had an idea of her own since the year one! Isn't it queer what stodgy
minds middle-aged women have? I suppose you are about dead?"
"I have felt more lively. Fred, why can't you see your mother's side of
it?"
"Why can't she see my side of it?"
"But she thinks--"
"But _I_ think! What I object to in Mother is that she wants me to think
her thoughts. Apart from the question of hypocrisy, I prefer my own." As
she spoke, the light of a street lamp fell full on her face--a wolfish,
unhumorous young face, pathetic with its hunger for life; he saw that
her chin was twitching, and there was a wet gleam on one flushed cheek.
"Besides," she said, "I simply won't go on spending my days as well as
my nights in that house. You don't know what it means to live in the
same house with--with--"
"I wish you were married," he said, helplessly; "that's the best way to
get out of that house."
She laughed, and squeezed his arm. "You want to get off your job?" she
said, maliciously; "well, you can't. I'm the Old Man of the Sea, and
you'll have to carry me on your back for the rest of your life. No
marriage in mine, thank you!"
They were sauntering along now in the darkness, her arm still in his,
and her cheek, in her eagerness, almost touching his shoulder; her voice
was flippantly bitter:
"I don't want a man; I want an occupation!"
"But it isn't necessary, Fred. And besides, there are home duties."
"In our house? Name 'em! Shall I make the soap, or wait on the table and
put Flora out of a job? Where people have any money at all, 'home
duties,' so far as girls are concerned, are played out. Machinery is the
cuckoo that has pushed women out of the nest of domesticity. I made that
up," she added, with frank vanity. "I haven't a blessed thing to do in
my good home--I suppose you heard that I had a 'good home'? which means
a roof, and food, so far as I can make out. But as there is something
besides eating and sleeping in this life, I am going to get busy outside
of my 'good home'!"
He thought of the towels, but only murmured vaguely that there were
things a girl could do which were not quite so--so--
"'Unwomanly'? That's Mother's word. Grandmother's is 'unladylike.' No,
sir! I've done all the nice, 'womanly' things that girls who live at
home have to do to kill time. I've painted--can't paint any more than
Zip! And I've slummed. I hate poor people, they smell so. And I've taken
singing lessons; I have about as much voice as a crow. My Suffrage
League isn't work, it's fun. I might have tried nursing, but Grandmother
had a fit; that 'warm heart' she's always handing out couldn't stand the
idea of relieving male suffering. 'What!' she said, 'see a gentleman
entirely undressed, in his bed!' I said, 'It would be much more alarming
to see him entirely dressed in his bed'!" She paused, her eyes narrowing
thoughtfully; "it's queer about Grandmother--I don't really dislike her.
She makes me mad, because she's such an awful old liar; but she's no
fool."
"That's a concession. I hope you'll make as much for me."
"They were poor when she was a girl, and she had to do things--household
things, I mean; really _had_ to. So she has stuff in her; and, in her
way, she's a good sport. But she is narrow and coarse. 'See a gentleman
in his bed!' And she thinks she's _modest_! But poor dear Mother simply
died on the spot when I mentioned nursing. So I gave that up. Well, I
have to admit I wasn't very keen for it; I don't like sick people,
dressed or undressed."
"They don't like themselves very much, Fred."
"I suppose they don't," she said, absently. "Well, nursing really wasn't
my bat, so I have nothing against Mother on that lay. But you see, I've
tried all the conventional things, and I've made up my mind to cut 'em
out. Business is the thing for me. Business!"
"But isn't there a question of duty?" he said.
"Do you mean to Mortimore? Poor wretch! That's what Mother harps on from
morning to night. What duty have I to Mortimore? I'm not responsible for
him. I didn't bring him here. Mother has a duty to him, I grant you. She
owes him--good Lord! how much she owes him! Apologies, to begin with.
What right had she and 'old Andy Payton' to bring him into the world? I
should think they would have been ashamed of themselves. Father was old
and dissipated; and there was an uncle of his, you know, like Mortimore.
His 'intellect was there,' too, but it was very decidedly 'veiled'! I
suppose Mother worked the 'veiled intellect' off on you?"
They had reached the Payton house by this time, and Frederica, her hand
on the gate, paused in the rainy dusk and looked into Arthur Weston's
face, with angry, unabashed eyes. "Don't talk to me about a duty to
Mortimore!"
"I meant a duty to your mother. Think of what you owe your mother."
"What do I owe her? Life! Did I ask for life? Was I consulted? Before I
am grateful for life, you've got to prove that I've liked living. So
far, I haven't. Who would, with Mortimore in the house? When I was a
child I couldn't have girls come and see me for fear he would come
shuffling about." He saw her shoulders twitch with the horror of that
shuffling. "It makes me tired, this rot about a child's gratitude and
duty to a parent! It's the other way round, as I look at it; the parent
owes the child a lot more than the child owes the parent. Did 'old Andy'
and Mama bring me into this world for _my_ pleasure? You know they
didn't. 'Duty to parents'--that talk won't go down," she said, harshly,
and snapped the gate shut between them.
He looked at her helplessly. She was wrong, but much of what she had
said was right,--or, rather, accurate. But when, in all the history of
parenthood, had there been a time when children accused their fathers
and mothers of selfishness, and cited their own existence as a proof of
that selfishness! "Your mother will be very lonely," he said.
She shook her head. "Mother doesn't need me in the least. A puzzle of a
thousand pieces is a darned sight more interesting than I am."
"You are a puzzle in one piece," he said.
"I'm not as much use to Mother as Father's old silk hat down in the
hall; _I_ never scared a burglar yet. I tell you what, Mother and I have
about as much in common as--as Zip and that awful iron dog! Mother
thinks she is terribly noble because she devotes herself to Mortimore.
Mr. Weston, she enjoys devoting herself! She says she's doing her duty.
I suppose she is, though I would call it instinct, not duty. Anyhow,
there's nothing noble about it. It's just nature. Mother is like a cat
or a cow; they adore their offspring. And they have a perfect right to
lick 'em all over, or anything else that expresses cat-love. But you
don't say they are 'noble' when they lick 'em! And cows don't insist
that other cows shall lick calves that are not theirs. Mortimore isn't
mine. Yes; that's where Mother isn't as sensible as a cow. She can give
herself up all she wants to, but she sha'n't give me up. _I_ won't lick
Mortimore!" She was quivering, and her eyes were tragic. "Why, Flora has
more in common with me than Mother, for Flora is at least
dissatisfied--poor old Flora! Whereas Mother is as satisfied as a
vegetable. That's why she's an anti. No; she isn't even a vegetable;
vegetables grow! Mother's mind stopped growing when her first baby was
born. Mother and I don't speak the same language. I don't suppose she
means to be cruel," she ended, "but she is."
"Did it ever occur to you that you are cruel?"
She winced at that; he saw her bite her lip, and for a moment she did
not speak. Then she burst out: "That's the worst of it. I _am_ cruel. I
say things--and then, afterward, I could kick myself. Yet they are true.
What can I do? I tell the truth, and then I feel as if I had--had kicked
Zip in the stomach!"
"Stop kicking Zip anywhere," he admonished her; "it's bad taste."
"But if I don't speak out, I'll _bust_!"
"Well, bust," he said, dryly; "that's better than kicking Zip."
Her face broke into a grin, and she leaned over the gate to give his arm
a squeeze. "I don't know how I'd get along without you," she told him.
"Darn that pup!" she said, and dashed after Zip's trailing leash.
Arthur Weston, looking after her, laughed, and waved his hand. "How
young she is! Well, I'll put the office business through for her."