Her Last Day, in this History; how she wakes with a Wonder
in her Heart, has her Banquet laid at the Board of the
Cooneys, dreams back over the Long Strange Year; finally how
she learns Something that not Everybody Knows: what it is
like at the End of the World.
A morning in October, and she had waked to fare forth and capture, by
hook or by crook, the most eligible parti who was ever likely to swim
into her ken. Another morning in October, and all her waking horizon
seemed filled by the knowledge that, at half-past four in the afternoon,
she would meet and talk of cheroot factories with a man so little
eligible that he trusted the crows to bring his raiment. In the wide
world was there another person whose life's pendulum, in a twelvemonth,
had swung so wildly far?
Eight o'clock now, by the little clock on the mantel: eight hours and a
half to Mr. Pond's meeting for workers at the old Dabney House. One
needn't be an astronomer to calculate that. And Cally Heth lay wide-eyed
in her great bed, and thought how strange, how wonderful is life....
In the watches her mind had gone back and back over the long year; and
she had marvelled at the tininess of turnings upon which, it was all
clear now, great issues had hung. She could put her finger on time after
time, last year and even this, when the smallest shifting in the course
would have brought her, to-day, far otherwhere. 'Had she said that, had
she done this'.... Was it all the wild caprice of Chance, then, that had
no eyes? Were people so helpless, the slight sport of Luck, thistledown
blowing in the winds of the gods? Ah, but she saw clearer than that. Had
she not felt all along how powerfully this sequence of happening and
encounter had pressed toward far other ends? And the divinity that had
shaped them at last, acting and reacting and giving circumstance a
soul, had been only that mysterious divinity that makes human beings
what they are. There was truth in the saying that destiny is only
character under its other name.
No chance here, surely, that had waked her so still and shining-eyed,
such a wonder in her heart....
She had marked this day for diligent study. Last night an unknown hand
had left at the door a hard-used copy of "The New Factory Idea," by T.B.
Halton. And Cally, at the end of a second long business conference with
her father, had read three chapters of the absorbing work, and slept
upon the resolve to devote this morning to it altogether. But she had
seen at the first look of the flooding sunshine upon the shutters, that
she did not feel studious at all. Let books look to themselves to-day.
Her desire was to be outdoors; to be alone, and to muse awhile. Surely
nobody ever had so much, so much, to think about.
However, as a daughter one wasn't altogether free; nor yet again as a
member of organized society. All day the claims of the familiar
encroached upon the real world within, and thoughts, the radiant aliens,
had to range themselves in as they could.
* * * * *
She was breakfasting with her father. They were to forage for luncheon
to-day, these two, and spoke of it; he naming the club, she electing her
cousins the Cooneys. And here was the token of the more cheerful
atmosphere prevailing this morning in the house. Mrs. Heth was
entertaining a lunch-party of seven ladies, her contemporaries, at two
o'clock this day. True, the invitations had been issued before the
crash: but the hopeful point, as even the servants were aware, was that
they had not been recalled.
They were glad that mamma felt like seeing people again; and said so.
And Cally then asked her father if he had any engagement for
the evening.
Mr. Heth glanced at her over his "Post," and his glance feared that he
saw yet another conference advancing upon him. Yet, it was fair to say,
he had not been by any means inconvincible about the new Works. Real
estate was real estate, say what you would; and it might be that the
violent shake-up in the family plans had made the immediate future of
the business a somewhat concrete issue.
He said, guardedly perhaps: "To-night?--let's see.... Well, not that I
think of just now."
But Cally merely wanted to propose a table of bridge in the library, he
and she against a third and fourth. And papa's changed expression said
at once that that was a horse of another color.
"Well, that'd suit me.... Suit me first-rate."
Their evening was so arranged. She warned him gaily to be on his mettle;
she would pick up two of the keenest players to be found. Papa, with
gathering zest, admitted that practice was what he needed, most
particularly as to the bids. Had a rubber at the club Saturday night,
and Carmichael and those fellows took nine dollars from her
old daddy....
"Let's make it a standing engagement, papa--one evening a week, the same
table!... Oh, I'd love to!..."
This, too, seemed remarkably suited to her father's whim. A decidedly
amiable-looking gentleman he was, with his fresh coloring, spotless
waistcoat and fine blond mustaches; a home-loving man, not much used to
having parties given for him.
And Cally regarded him with eyes which held new depths of affection. The
last moment of the interview yesterday had brought an undreamed
development, strangely endearing: her father, in the nicest way, had
invited Dr. Vivian to call on him at the Works this afternoon and see
the plant for himself. Part of this perfect consummation had been due,
without doubt, to Vivian himself, a little, perhaps, to the direction
she had artfully given the conversation; but she well knew that most of
it had sprung spontaneously from the father-love which had never failed
her yet....
"And, Cally, hunt up that book I saw kicking around here last year,"
said Mr. Heth, when he rose. "If we're going to do it at all, we might
as well take the thing seriously, and get the bids straight."
"I'll find it, papa. We might read up a little before dinner. I'm
awfully rusty."
And then her father stood by her chair, pinching her smooth cheek,
looking down at her with an odd expression, half quizzical, half grave
and speculative. So she had found him looking at her last night, as she
sought to explain to him how different Dr. Vivian was from the articles
he wrote, and hated....
"So I'm to be on my company manners with this young man, eh? Ask him
won't he please be kind enough to teach an old man how to run his
business, that it?"
"I didn't say that, papa dear.... I feel I haven't thanked you half
enough for being so sweet to me ... about it all."
"Rather surprised at my sweetness myself.... Well," said Mr. Heth,
musing down at the apple of his eye. "There must be something a good
deal out of the common about a boy who could get you so worked up about
a factory, I'll say that.... And he certainly looks a whole lot better'n
he writes."
He quoted something about an old dog's new tricks, kissed her with
tenderness, said, "Well, if we come to blows, I'll 'phone you for help,"
and went off humming an air.
For Cally was not to be of the Works party this afternoon. It had stood
as an ideal opportunity for the two men's better acquaintance; her
presence, she had thought, might only mar it. Now, gazing after her
father's departing back, she rather wished she had decided otherwise....
She searched and found So-and-So's "Auction Bridge." A time passed: and
she was in the big bedroom, making her peace with mamma.
She had supposed the thing to do was simply to go on, as nearly as she
could, as if nothing had happened. But when she saw her mother's face,
marked as from an illness, she remembered nothing of any plan. She was
on her knees by the morris-chair, her arms flung about the strong little
figure whose dearest hopes she had spoiled: begging mamma to forgive her
for being such a disappointment and failure as a daughter, for seeming
so ungrateful and unreasonable, saying that she would do anything,
anything to make up for all that had gone amiss.
And mamma, already somewhat propitiated, it had seemed, by the return of
the money, said presently, with some emotion of her own, that she would
try to regard it as a closed episode. She, with her tireless energies,
was not one to cry forever over milk hopelessly spilt. But neither was
she one to temper justice with too much mercy, and her final word on the
matter was a final one, indeed: "But of course you can never make it up
to me, Carlisle, never...." And Carlisle, rising, knew even better than
mamma how sad and true this was. There was only one thing that her
mother had wanted of her, and that thing she had not done. Life, even on
this day of song and mist, was seen to be inexorable....
She was in her room for a little while, and it came to be eleven
o'clock: five hours and a half.... While she unwisely lingered there,
dreamily irresolute between a walk and a drive, she was summoned to the
drawing-room by a call from Mattie Allen, not seen of her since the
dinner at the New Arlington last week. Mattie stayed a long time; and
before she went--of course--other callers had drifted in....
"Are you going to Sue Louise's bridge to-night?" demanded Mattie,
continuing to inspect her with evident curiosity.
"Oh, Mats! I forgot all about it--horrors!... And I've made another
engagement!"
"That means you don't want to go, Cally. You know it does...."
Cally confessed to a certain want of enthusiasm; asked her friend if
she, too, didn't weary of their little merry-go-round at times. Nothing
of the sort, however, would be admitted by Mats, who was now known to be
having a really serious try for J. Forsythe Avery.
"Dear," she went on before long, "do you know you seem to be changing
_entirely_ lately? And toward me specially.... I--I've wondered a
_great_ deal if I've done something to offend you."
Cally embraced her; spoke with reassuring tenderness. And there was
compunction in these endearments. She and Mattie had been intimate
friends as long as she could remember; and now it had come over her
suddenly that it would nevermore be with them quite as it had been
before. Must life be this way, that greetings over there would always
mean farewells here?...
And then Mats, quite mollified, was speaking in her artless way of Hugo
Canning, who had so obviously been on her mind all along.
"People keep asking me," she said, still just a little plaintive, "and I
have to say I don't know _one thing_. It makes me so ashamed. They think
I'm not your best friend any more."
Cally observed that all that was too absurd. For the rest, she seemed
somewhat evasive.
"I feel, dearie," said Mats, "that I _ought_ to know what concerns your
life's happiness. You don't know how anxious I've been about you while
you were sick...." If there seemed a tiny scratch in that, the next
remark was more like a purr: "People say that he did something perfectly
terrible, and you threw him over."
"Well, Mats, you know people always get things exactly wrong."
"Then you didn't?" demanded her best friend, with a purely feminine
gleam.
And Cally, ardently wishing to be free of this subject, said gaily that
Mr. Canning had thrown _her_ over--the second time, too! So she had told
him that she had _some_ spirit, that some day he would do that once
too often....
"Oh, you're joking," said Mats, quite pettishly. "Dear, I _don't_ care
for jokes."
And then, as she gazed, not without envy, at her friend's profile, so
strangely sweet and gay, she exclaimed suddenly in a shocked tone: "I
believe you really did do it!"
"Whisper it not in Gath," said Cally, with shining calm....
It was a belief, so mamma had cried in the midnight, which nobody
outside of institutions for the feeble-minded would ever hold. But Cally
was struck only with Mattie's enormous seriousness. Self-reproach filled
her for the interval that seemed to lie between them....
"Mats, you know I've never kept secrets from you. I'll tell you
everything you want to hear about it, from beginning to end.
Only--not to-day."
The kaleidoscope shifted: Mattie faded out of the purview, and in her
stead sat the Misses Winton, who had helped to pass the time in Europe
last year, but whose presence had a contrary effect to-day. And she
wondered how they could not see for themselves what a shell of a hostess
they were talking at. All her being was so far away from company: one
half of her continually flowing back over the months; the rest always
going forward to the afternoon, and beyond; nothing at all left here....
Certainly she would tease him a little about the neat way he and papa
had dropped her out of the Works. "_And I thought I was the one who was
doing it, too_!..."
Callers gone; and then mamma, in the vein of dignity, was inviting her
opinion about the color scheme of her luncheon-table. And with what an
uprush of affection she responded, what eagerness to help, to be friends
again!... And then it was time for her to make ready for luncheon
herself. One-thirty o'clock; a long day....
In the May-time, once, Hugo had asked her to name a day, and she had
named the seventeenth of October. And now the seventeenth was here,
to-day. Her wedding-day it might have been, but for this or that: and
behold, her high banquet was laid at the board of the Cooneys, cold
corned beef and baked potatoes, with sliced peaches such as turn nicely
from the can for an unexpected guest.
Cally was glad to be with her cousins to-day. The simple and friendly
atmosphere here was mightily comfortable. Never had they seemed so poor
to her, never so fine and merry in their poverty. Her heart went out
to them.
They were all well now, the Cooneys, and the table was their
clearing-house. There was much talk, of the new Works and other matters;
great argument. Two faces were missing: Tee Wee, who pursued his studies
at the University, and Chas, who was lunching from a box at his desk,
snowed under with work accumulated during his sickness. In their places,
however, sat Cousin Martha Heth, who was described as "very miserable"
with her various ailments, but whose strength at conversation, regarding
symptoms, seemed as the strength of ten.
Round Cally the Cooney talk rattled on; family jokes kept flickering
up; strange catchwords evoked unexpected laughter. The woman of all work
waited spasmodically upon the table; she proved to be Lugene, none other
than the girl Hen and Cally had found on Dunbar Street, that day long
ago.... Old times; so, too, when the Major told with accustomed verve
how papa, a little shaver then, had brought the note from Aunt Molly
down to camp, fifty years ago....
Across the table sat Looloo, the best-looking of all the good-looking
Cooneys. She had lucid gray eyes, with the prettiest black lashes; and
Cally found herself continually looking at them.... Strange how
expressive eyes could be, how revealing, looking things unspoken that
influenced one's whole life. Imagine somebody with eyes something like
Looloo's, say, to have had totally different ones; small, glassy black
eyes like shoe-buttons, for instance, or to have worn thick blue-tinged
glasses, like Evey's grandmother....