How the Wasp Built Her Nest
The following weeks were very happy for Linda. When the cast was
removed from Donald’s foot and it was found that a year or two of care
would put him even on the athletic fields and the dancing floor again,
she was greatly relieved.
She lacked words in which to express her joy that Marian was rapidly
coming into happiness. She was so very busy with her school work, with
doing all she could to help Donald with his, with her “Jane Meredith”
articles, with hunting and working out material for her book, that
she never had many minutes at a time for introspection. When she did
have a few she sometimes pondered deeply as to whether Marian had been
altogether sincere in the last letter she had written her in their
correspondence, but she was so delighted in the outcome that if she did
at times have the same doubt in a fleeting form that had not been in
the least fleeting with Peter Morrison, she dismissed it as rapidly as
possible. When things were so very good as they were at that time, why
try to improve them?
One evening as she came from school, thinking that she would take Katy
for a short run in the Bear-cat before dinner, she noticed a red head
prominent in the front yard as she neared home. When she turned in at
the front walk and crossed the lawn she would have been willing to
wager quite a sum that Katy had been crying.
“Why, old dear,” said Linda, putting her arms around her, “if anything
has gone wrong with you I will certainly take to the war-path,
instanter. I can’t even imagine what could be troubling you.” Linda
lowered her voice. “Nothing has come up about Oka Sayye?”
Katy shook her head.
“I thought not,” said Linda. “Judge Whiting promised me that what use
he made of that should be man’s business and exploited wholly for the
sake of California and her people. He said we shouldn’t be involved.
I haven’t been worried about it even, although I am willing to go
upon the stand and tell the whole story if it will be any help toward
putting right what is at present a great wrong to California.”
“Yes, so would I,” said Katy. “I’m not worryin’ meself about the little
baste any more than I would if it had been a mad dog foaming up that
cliff at ye.”
“Then what is it?” asked Linda. “Tell me this minute.”
“I dunno what in the world you’re going to think,” said Katy “I dunno
what in the world you’re going to do.”
Her face was so distressed that Linda’s nimble brain flew to a
conclusion. She tightened her arm across Katy’s shoulder.
“By Jove, Katy!” she said breathlessly. “Is Eileen in the house?”
Katy nodded.
“Has she been to see John and made things right with him?”
Katy nodded again.
“He’s in there with her waitin’ for ye,” she said.
It was a stunned Linda who slowly dropped her arm, stood erect, and
lifted her head very high. She thought intently.
“You don’t mean to tell me,” she said, “that you have been _crying_
over her?”
Katy held out both hands.
“Linda,” she said, “she always was such a pretty thing, and her ma
didn’t raise her to have the sense of a peewee. If your pa had been let
take her outdoors and grow her in the sun and the air, she would have
been bigger and broader, an’ there would have been the truth of God’s
sunshine an’ the glory of His rain about her. Ye know, Linda, that she
didn’t ever have a common dacent chance. It was curls that couldn’t be
shook out and a nose that dassen’t be sunburned and shoes that mustn’t
be scuffed and a dress that shouldn’t be mussed, from the day she was
born. Ye couldn’t jist honest say she had ever had a _fair_ chance, now
could ye?”
“No,” said Linda conclusively, “no, Katherine O’Donovan, you could not.
But what are we up against? Does she want to come back? Does she want
to stay here again?”
“I think she would like to,” said Katy. “You go in and see her for
yourself, lambie, before ye come to any decision.”
“You don’t mean,” said Linda in a marveling tone, “that she has been
homesick, that she has come back to us because she would like to be
with us again?”
“You go and see her for yourself; and if you don’t say she is the worst
beat out and the tiredest mortal that ye have ever seen, you’ll be
surprisin’ me. My God, Linda, they ain’t nothin’ in bein’ rich if it
can do to a girl what has been done to Eileen!”
“Oh, well,” said Linda impatiently, “don’t condemn all money because
Eileen has not found happiness with it. The trouble has been that
Eileen’s only chance to be rich came to her through the wrong kind of
people.”
“Well, will ye jist tell me, then,” said Katy, “how it happened that
Eileen’s ma was a sister to that great beef of a man, which same is
hard on self-rayspectin’ beef; pork would come nearer.”
“Yes,” said Linda, “I’ll tell you. Eileen’s mother had a big streak
of the same coarseness and the same vulgarity in _her_ nature, or she
could not have reared Eileen as she did. She probably had been sent
to school and had better advantages than the boy through a designing
mother of her own. Her first husband must have been a man who greatly
refined and educated her. We can’t ever get away from the fact that
Daddy believed in her and loved her.”
“Yes,” said Katy, “but he was a fooled man. She wasn’t what we thought
she was. Many’s the time I’ve stood injustice about the accounts and
household management because I wouldn’t be wakin’ him up to what he was
bound to for life.”
“That doesn’t help us,” said Linda. “I must go in and face them.”
She handed her books to Katy, and went into the living room. She
concentrated on John Gilman first, and a wee qualm of disgust crept
through her soul when she saw that after weeks of suffering he was once
more ready to devote himself to Eileen. Linda marveled at the power a
woman could hold over a man that would force him to compromise with his
intellect, his education and environment. Then she turned her attention
to Eileen, and the shock she received was informing. She studied her an
instant incredulously, then she went to her and held out her hand.
“How do you do?” she said as cordially as was possible to her. “This is
unexpected.”
Her mind was working rapidly, yet she could not recall ever having seen
a woman quite so beautiful as Eileen. She was very certain that the
colour on her cheeks was ebbing and rising with excitement; it was no
longer so deep as to be stationary. She was very certain that her eyes
had not been darkened as to lids or waxed as to lashes. Her hair was
beautifully dressed in sweeping waves with scarcely any artificial work
upon it. Her dress was extremely tasteful and very expensive. There
was no simper on her lips, nothing superficial. She was only a tired,
homesick girl. As Linda looked at her she understood why Katy had cried
over her. She felt tears beginning to rise in her own heart. She put
both arms protectingly around Eileen.
“Why, you poor little thing,” she said wonderingly, “was it so damn’
bad as all that?”
Eileen stood straight. She held herself rigidly. She merely nodded.
Then after a second she said: “Worse than anything you could imagine,
Linda. Being rich with people who have grown rich by accident is a
dreadful experience.”
“So I have always imagined,” said Linda. And then in her usual
downright way she asked: “Why did you come, Eileen? Is there anything
you wanted of me?”
Eileen hesitated. It was not in Linda’s heart to be mean.
“Homesick, little sister?” she asked lightly “Do you want to come here
while you’re getting ready to make a home for John? Is that it?”
Then Eileen swayed forward suddenly, buried her face in Linda’s breast,
and for the first time in her life Linda saw and heard her cry, not
from selfishness, not from anger, not from greed, but as an ordinary
human being cries when the heart is so full that nature relieves itself
with tears. Linda closed her arms around her and smiled over her head
at John Gilman.
“Finish all of it before you stop,” she advised. “It’s all right. You
come straight home. You didn’t leave me any word, and I didn’t know
what to do with your things, but I couldn’t feel that you would want to
give up such beautiful things that you had so enjoyed. We had planned
for Marian to spend her summer vacation here so I put her things in
your suite and I had moved mine into the guest room, but I have had my
room done over and the guest room things are in there, and every scrap
of yours is carefully put away. If that will do, you are perfectly
welcome to it.”
Eileen wiped her eyes.
“Anything,” she sobbed. “I’d rather have Katy’s room than be shamed
and humiliated and hurt any further. Linda, I would almost like you to
know my Aunt Callie, because you will never understand about her if you
don’t. Her favourite pastime was to tell everyone we met how much the
things I wore cost her.”
Linda released Eileen with a slight shake.
“Cheer up!” she said. “We’ll all have a gorgeous time together. I
haven’t the slightest ambition to know more than that about your Aunt
Callie. If my brain really had been acting properly I would never have
dismantled your room. I would have known that you could not endure her,
and that you would come home just as you should. It’s all right, John,
make yourself comfortable. I don’t know what Katy has for dinner but
she can always find enough for an extra couple. Come Eileen, I’ll help
you to settle. Where is your luggage?”
“I brought back, Linda, just what I have on,” said Eileen. “I will
begin again where I left off. I realize that I am not entitled to
anything further from the Strong estate, but Uncle was so unhappy and
John says it’s all right—really I am the only blood heir to all they
have; I might as well take a comfortable allowance from it. I am to go
to see them a few days of every month. I can endure that when I know I
have John and you to come back to.”
When Eileen had been installed in Linda’s old room Linda went down to
the kitchen, shut the door behind her, and leaning against it, laid her
hand over her mouth to suppress a low laugh.
“Katy,” she said, “I’ve been and gone and done it; I have put the
perfect lady in my old room. That will be a test of her sincerity—even
dainty and pretty as it is since it’s been done over. If she is sincere
enough to spend the summer getting ready to marry John Gilman—why that
is all right, old girl. We can stand it, can’t we?”
“Yes,” said Katy, “it’s one of them infernal nuisances but we can stand
it. I’m thinkin’, from the looks of John Gilman and his manner of
spakin’, that it ain’t goin’ to be but a very short time that he’ll be
waitin’.”
“Katy,” said Linda, “isn’t this the most entertaining world? Doesn’t
it produce the most lightning-like changes, and don’t the most
unexpected things happen? Sort of dazes me. I had planned to take a
little run with you and the Cat. Since we are having—no, I mustn’t
say guests—since John and Eileen have come home, I’ll have to give up
that plan until after dinner, and then we’ll go and take counsel with
our souls and see if we can figure out how we are going to solve this
equation; and if you don t know what an equation is, old dear heart,
it’s me with a war-club and you with a shillalah and Eileen between us,
and be ‘domned’ to us if we can’t make an average, ordinary, decent
human being out of her. Pin an apron on her in the morning, Katy, and
hand her a dust cloth and tell her to industrialize. We will help her
with her trousseau, but she _shall_ help us with the work.”
“Ye know, lambie,” whispered Katy suddenly, “this is a burnin’ shame.
The one thing I _didn’t_ think about is that book of yours. What about
it?”
“I scarcely know,” said Linda; “it’s difficult to say. Of course we
can’t carry out the plans we had made to work here, exactly as we had
intended, with Eileen in the house preparing to be married. But she
tells me that her uncle has made her a generous allowance, so probably
it’s environment and love she is needing much more than help. It is
barely possible, Katy, that after I have watched her a few days, if
I decide she is in genuine, sincere, heart-whole earnest, I might
introduce her and John to my friend, ‘Jane.’ It is probable that if I
did, Eileen would not expect me to help her, and at the same time she
wouldn’t feel that I was acting indifferently because I did not. We’ll
wait awhile, Katy, and see whether we skid before we put on the chains.”
“What about Marian?” inquired Katy.
“I don’t know,” said Linda thoughtfully. “If Marian is big enough to
come here and spend the summer under the same roof with Eileen and John
Gilman, and have a really restful, enjoyable time out of it, she is
bigger than I am. Come up to the garret; I think Eileen has brought no
more with her than she took away. We’ll bring her trunk down, put it
in her room and lay the keys on top. Don’t begin by treating her as a
visitor; treat her as if she were truly my sister. Tell her what you
want and how you want it, exactly as you tell me and as I tell you. If
you see even a suspicion of any of the former objectionable tendencies
popping up, let’s check them quick and hard, Katy.”
For a week Linda watched Eileen closely. At the end of that time she
was sincere in her conviction that Eileen had been severely chastened.
When she came in contact with Peter Morrison or any other man they
met she was not immediately artificial. She had learned to be as
natural with men as with other women. There were no pretty postures,
no softened vocal modulations, no childish nonsense on subjects upon
which the average child of these days displays the knowledge of the
past-generation grandmother. When they visited Peter Morrison’s house
it was easy to see that Eileen was interested, more interested than any
of them ever before had seen her in any subject outside of clothing and
jewels. Her conduct in the Strong home had been irreproachable. She
had cared for her own room, quietly undertaken the duties of dusting
and arranging the rooms and cutting and bringing in flowers. She had
gone to the kitchen and wiped dishes and asked to be taught how to cook
things of which John was particularly fond. She had been reasonable in
the amount of time she had spent on her shopping, and had repeatedly
gone to Linda and shown interest in her concerns. The result was that
Linda at once displayed the same interest in anything pertaining to
Eileen.
One afternoon Linda came home unusually early. She called for Eileen,
told her to tie on her sunshade and be ready for a short ride.
Almost immediately she brought around the Bear-cat and when they
were seated side by side headed it toward the canyon. She stopped at
the usual resting place, and together she and Eileen walked down the
light-dappled road bed. She pointed out things to Eileen, telling her
what they were, to what uses they could be put, while at the same time
narrowly watching her. To her amazement she found that Eileen was
interested, that she was noticing things for herself, asking what they
were. She wanted to know the names of the singing birds. When a big
bird trailed a waving shadow in front of her Linda explained how she
might distinguish an eagle from a hawk, a hawk from a vulture, a sea
bird from those of the land. When they reached the bridge Linda climbed
down the embankment to gather cress. She was moved to protest when
Eileen followed and without saying a word began to assist her, but she
restrained herself, for it suddenly occurred to her that it would be an
excellent thing for Eileen to think more of what she was doing and why
she was doing it than about whether she would wet her feet or muddy her
fingers. So the protest became an explanation that it was rather late
for cress: the leaves toughened when it bloomed and were too peppery.
The only way it could be used agreeably was to work along the edges
and select the small tender shoots that had not yet matured to the
flowering point. When they had an armload they went back to the car,
and without any explanation Linda drove into Los Angeles and stopped at
the residence of Judge Whiting, not telling Eileen where she was.
“Friends of mine,” said Linda lightly as she stepped from the car.
“Fond of cress salad with their dinner. They prepare it after the Jane
Meredith recipe to which you called my attention, in _Everybody’s Home_
last winter. Come along with me.”
Eileen stepped from the car and followed. Linda led the way round the
sidewalk to where her quick ear had located voices on the side lawn.
She stopped at the kitchen door, handed in the cress, exchanged a few
laughing words with the cook, and then presented herself at the door
of the summerhouse. Inside, his books and papers spread over a work
table, sat Donald Whiting. One side of him his mother was busy darning
his socks; on the other his sister Louise was working with embroidery
silk and small squares of gaily coloured linen. Linda entered with
exactly the same self-possession that characterized her at home. She
shook hands with Mrs. Whiting, Mary Louise, and Donald, and then she
said quietly: “Eileen and I were gathering cress and we stopped to
leave you some for your dinner.” With this explanation she introduced
Eileen to Mrs. Whiting. Mary Louise immediately sprang up and recalled
their meeting at Riverside. Donald remembered a meeting he did not
mention. It was only a few minutes until Linda was seated beside
Donald, interesting herself in his lessons. Eileen begged to be shown
the pretty handkerchiefs that Mary Louise was making. An hour later
Linda refused an invitation to dinner because Katy would be expecting
them. When she arose to go, Eileen was carrying a small square of
blue-green linen. Carefully pinned to it was a patch of white with a
spray of delicate flowers outlined upon it, and a skein of pink silk
thread. She had been initiated into the thrillingly absorbing feminine
accomplishment of making sport handkerchiefs. When they left Eileen was
included naturally, casually, spontaneously, in their invitation to
Linda to run in any time she would. Mary Louise had said she would ride
out with Donald in few days and see how the handkerchiefs were coming
on, and more instruction and different stitches and patterns were
necessary, she would love to teach them. So Linda realized that Mary
Louise had been told about the trousseau. She knew, even lacking as she
was in feminine sophistication, that there were two open roads to the
heart of a woman. One is a wedding and the other is a baby. The lure of
either is irresistible.
As the Bear-cat glided back to Lilac Valley, Eileen sat silent. For
ten years she had coveted the entrée to the Whiting home perhaps more
than any other in the city. Merely by being simple and natural, by
living her life as life presented itself each day, Linda with no effort
whatever had made possible to Eileen the thing she so deeply craved.
Eileen was learning a new lesson each day—some days many of them—but
none was more amazing more simple, or struck deeper into her awakened
consciousness. As she gazed with far-seeing eye on the blue walls of
the valley Eileen was taking a mental inventory of her former self.
One by one she was arraigning all the old tricks she had used in her
trade of getting on in the world. One by one she was discarding them in
favour of honesty, unaffectedness, and wholesome enjoyment.
Because of these things Linda came home the next afternoon and left
a bundle on Eileen’s bed before she made her way to her own room to
busy herself with a head piece for Peter’s latest article. She had
taken down the wasp picture and while she had not destroyed it she had
turned the key of a very substantial lock upon it. She was hard at work
when she heard steps on the stairs. When Eileen entered, Linda smiled
quizzically and then broke into an unaffected ejaculation.
“Ripping!” she cried. “Why, Eileen, you’re perfectly topping.”
Eileen’s face flamed with delight. She was a challenging little figure.
None of them was accustomed to her when she represented anything more
substantial than curls and ruffles.
Linda reached for the telephone, called Gilman, and asked him if he
could go to the beach for supper that evening. He immediately replied
that he would. Then she called Peter Morrison and asked him the same
question and when Peter answered affirmatively she told him to bring
his car. Then she hastily put on her own field clothes and ran to the
kitchen to fill the lunch box. To Katy’s delight Linda told her there
would be room for her and that she needed her.
It was evening and the sun was moving slowly toward the horizon when
they stopped the cars and went down on the white sands of Santa Monica
Bay. Eileen had been complimented until she was in a glow of delight.
She did not notice that in piling things out of the car for their beach
supper Linda had handed her a shovel and the blackened iron legs of a
broiler. Everyone was loaded promiscuously as they took up their march
down to as near the water’s edge as the sands were dry. Peter and John
gathered driftwood. Linda improvised two cooking places, one behind a
rock for herself, the other under the little outdoor stove for Katy.
Eileen was instructed as to how to set up the beach table, spread the
blankets beside it, and place the food upon it. While Katy made coffee
and toasted biscuit Linda was busy introducing her party to brigand
beefsteak upon four long steel skewers. The day had been warm. The
light salt breeze from the sea was like a benediction. Friendly gulls
gathered on the white sands around them. Cunning little sea chickens
worked in accord with the tide: when the waves advanced they rose above
them on wing; when they retreated they scampered over the wet sand,
hunting any small particles of food that might have been carried in.
Out over the water big brown pelicans went slowly fanning homeward; and
white sea swallows drew wonderful pictures on the blue night sky with
the tips of their wings. For a few minutes at the reddest point of its
setting the sun painted a marvelous picture in a bank of white clouds.
These piled up like a great rosy castle, and down the sky roadway
before it came a long procession of armored knights, red in the sun
glow and riding huge red horses. Then the colours mixed and faded and
a long red bridge for a short time spanned the water, ending at their
feet. The gulls hunted the last scrap thrown them and went home. The
swallows sought their high cliffs. The insidiously alluring perfume
of sand verbena rose like altar incense around them. Gilman spread a
blanket, piled the beach fire higher, and sitting beside Eileen, he
drew her head to his shoulder and put his arm around her. Possibly he
could have been happier in a careless way if he had never suffered.
It is very probable that the poignant depth of exquisite happiness he
felt in that hour never would have come to him had he not lost Eileen
and found her again so much more worth loving. Linda wandered down the
beach until she reached the lighthouse rocks. She climbed on a high
one and sat watching the sea as it sprayed just below. Peter Morrison
followed her.
“May I come up?” he asked.
“Surely,” said Linda, “this belongs to the Lord; it isn’t mine.”
So Peter climbed up and sat beside her.
“How did the landscape appeal to you when you left the campfire?”
inquired Linda.
“I should think the night cry might very well be Eight o’clock and
all’s well,” answered Peter.
“‘God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world?’” Linda put it in
the form of a question.
“It seems to be for John and Eileen,” said Peter.
“It is for a number of people,” said Linda. “I had a letter from Marian
to-day. I had written her to ask if she would come to us for the
summer, in spite of the change in our plans; but Mr. Snow has made some
plans of his own. He is a very astute individual. He wanted Marian to
marry him at once and she would not, so he took her for a short visit
to see his daughter at her grandmother’s home in the northern part of
the state. Marian fell deeply in love with his little girl, and of
course those people found Marian charming, just as right-minded people
would find her. When she saw how the little girl missed her father and
how difficult it was for him to leave her, and when she saw how she
would be loved and appreciated in that fine family, she changed her
mind. Peter, we are going to be invited to San Francisco to see them
married very shortly. Are you glad or sorry?”
“I am very glad,” said Peter heartily. “I make no concealment of my
admiration for Miss Thorne but I am very glad indeed that it is not
her head that is to complete the decoration when you start the iris
marching down my creek banks.”
“Well, that’s all right,” said Linda. “Of course you should have
something to say about whose head finished that picture. I can’t
contract to do more than set the iris. The thing about this I dread is
that Marian and Eugene are going to live in San Francisco, and I did so
want her to make her home in Lilac Valley.”
“That’s too bad,” said Peter sympathetically. “I know how you
appreciate her, how deeply you love her. Do you think the valley will
ever be right for you without her, Linda?”
“It will have to be,” said Linda. “I’ve had to go on without Father,
you know. If greater happiness seems to be in store for Marian in San
Francisco, all I can do is to efface myself and say ‘Amen.’ When the
world is all right for Marian, it is about as near all right as it
can be for me. And did you ever see much more sincerely and clearly
contented people than John and Eileen are at the present minute?”
Peter looked at Linda whimsically. He lowered his voice as if a sea
urchin might hear and tattle.
“What did you do about the wasp, Linda?” he whispered.
“I delicately erased the stinger, fluffed up a ruffle, and put the
sketch under lock and key. I should have started a fire with it, but I
couldn’t quite bring myself to let it go, yet.”
“Is she going to hold out?” asked Peter.
“She’ll hold out or get her neck wrung,” said Linda. “I truly think she
has been redeemed. She has been born again. She has a new heart and a
new soul and a new impulse and a right conception of life. Why, Peter,
she has even got a new body. Her face is not the same.”
“She is much handsomer,” said Peter.
“Isn’t she?” cried Linda enthusiastically. “And doesn’t having a soul
and doesn’t thinking about essential things make the most remarkable
difference in her? It is worth going through a fiery furnace to come
out new like that. I called her Abednego the other day, but she didn’t
know what I meant.”
Then they sat silent and watched the sea for a long time. By and by the
night air grew chill. Peter slipped from the rock and went up the beach
and came back with an Indian blanket. He put it very carefully around
Linda’s shoulders, and when he went to resume his seat beside her he
found one of her arms stretching it with a blanket corner for him.
So he sat down beside her and drew the corner over his shoulder; and
because his right arm was very much in his way, and it would have been
very disagreeable if Linda had slipped from the rock and fallen into
the cold, salt, unsympathetic Pacific at nine o’clock at night—merely
to dispose of the arm comfortably and to ensure her security, Peter put
it around Linda and drew her up beside him very close. Linda did not
seem to notice. She sat quietly looking at the Pacific and thinking her
own thoughts. When the fog became damp and chill, she said they must
be going, and so they went back to their cars and drove home through
the sheer wonder of the moonlight, through the perfume of the orange
orchards, hearing the night song of the mocking birds.