HER INHERITANCE
The worries of the night never lived over into the sunny day with Eveley,
and when she arose the next morning and saw the amethyst mist lifting
into sunshine, when she heard the sweet ecstatic chirping of little Mrs.
Bride beneath, she smiled contentedly. The world was still beautiful, and
love remained upon its throne.
She started a little early for her work as she was curious to see Angelo
in the broad light of day. It seemed so unbelievable that those bright
eyes and smiling lips had been in the elevator with her many times a week
for many months, and that she had never even seen them.
So on the morning after her initiation into the intricacies of
Americanization, she beamed upon him with almost sisterly affection.
"Good morning, Angelo. Isn't this a wonderful day? Whose secrets have you
ferreted out in the night while I was asleep?"
Angelo flushed with pleasure, and shoved some earlier passengers back
into the car to make room for her beside him.
"I thought you'd be too sick to come this morning," he said, with his
wide smile that displayed two rows of white and even teeth. "I thought it
would take you twenty-four hours to get over us."
"Oh, not a bit of it," she laughed. "And I am equally glad to see that
you are recovering from your attack of me."
This while the elevator rose, stopping at each floor to discharge
passengers.
At the fifth floor Eveley passed out with a final smile and a light
friendly touch of her hand on Angelo's arm.
This was the beginning of their strange friendship, which ripened
rapidly. Her memory of that night in the Service League with the
Irish-American Club was very hazy and dim. Except for the tangible
presence and person of Angelo, she might easily have believed it was all
a dream.
In spite of her deep conviction that she was not destined to any slight
degree of success as an Americanizer, Eveley conscientiously studied
books and magazines and attended lectures on the subject, only to
experience deep grief as she realized that every additional book, and
article, and lecture, only added to her disbelief in her powers of
assimilation.
So deep and absolute was her absorption, that for some days she denied
herself to her friends, and remained wrapped in principles of
Americanization, which naturally caused them no pleasure. And when a
morning came and she called a hasty meeting of her four closest comrades,
voicing imperative needs and fervent appeals for help, she readily
secured four promises of attendance in the Cloude Cote that evening at
exactly seven-thirty.
At seven-forty-five Eveley sat on the floor beside the window impatiently
tapping with the absurd tip of an absurd little slipper. Nolan had not
come.
Kitty Lampton was there, balancing herself dangerously with two cushions
on the arm of a big rocker. Eveley called Kitty the one drone in her
circle of friendship, for Kitty was born to golden spoons and lived a
life of comfort and ease and freedom from responsibility in a great home
with a doting father, and two attentive maids. Eileen Trevis was there,
too, having arrived promptly on the stroke of seven-thirty. Eileen Trevis
always arrived promptly on the stroke of the moment she was expected. She
was known about town as a successful business woman, though still in the
early thirties. The third of the group was Miriam Landis, whose
inexcusable marriage to her handsome husband had seriously deranged the
morale of the little quartet of comrades.
Eveley looked around upon them. "It is a funny thing, a most remarkably
funny thing!" she said indignantly. "Every one says that girls are always
late, and you three, except Eileen, are usually later than the average
late ones. Yet here you are. And every one says that men are always
prompt, and Nolan is certainly worse than the average man in every
conceivable way. But Nolan, where is he?"
"Well, go ahead and tell us the news anyhow," said Kitty, hugging the
back of the chair to keep from falling while she talked. "But if it is
anything about that funny Americanization stuff, you needn't tell it. I
asked father about it, and he explained it fully, only he lost me in the
first half of the first sentence. So I don't want to hear anything more
about it. And you don't need to tell me any more ways of not doing my
duty, either, for I am not doing it now as hard as I can."
Miriam Landis leaned forward from the couch where she was lounging idly.
"What is this peculiar little notion of yours about duty, Eveley?" she
asked, smiling. "My poor child, all over town they are exploiting you and
your silly notions. Even my dear Lem uses your disbelief in duty to
excuse himself for being out five nights a week."
"That is absurd," said Eveley, flushing. "And they may laugh all they
like. I do believe that duty has wrecked more homes and ruined more lives
than--than vampires."
Miriam smiled tolerantly. "Wait till you get married, sweetest," she said
softly. "If married women did not believe in duty, and do it, no marriage
would last more than six months."
"Well, I qualify myself, you know," said Eveley excusingly. "I do think
everybody has one duty--but only one--and it isn't the one most people
think it is."
"For the sake of my immortal soul, tell me," pleaded Kitty. "It was you
who led me into the dutiless paths. Now lead me back."
"Get up, Kitty, and don't be silly," said Eveley loftily. "This is not a
driven duty, but a spontaneous one. And you don't need to know what it
is, for it comes naturally, or it doesn't come at all. Isn't that Nolan
the most aggravating thing that ever lived? Eight o'clock. And he
promised for seven-thirty."
"Go on and tell us, Eveley," said Eileen Trevis. "Maybe somebody is sick,
and has to make a will, and he won't be here all night."
"Oh, I can't tell it twice. You know how many questions Nolan always
asks, and besides I want to surprise you all in a bunch. Look, did I show
you the new blouse I got to-day? I needed a new one to Americanize my
Irish-Americans Saturday. It cost ten dollars, and perfectly plain--but I
look like a sad sweet dream in it."
Then the girls were absorbed in a discussion of the utter impossibility
of bringing next month's allowance or salary within speaking distance of
last month's bills, a subject which admitted of no argument but which
interested them deeply. So after all they did not hear the rumble and
creak of the rustic stairway, nor the quick steps crossing the garden on
the roof of the sun parlor for Nolan was forgotten until his sharp tap on
the glass was followed by the instant appearance of his head, and his
pleasant voice said in tones of friendly raillery:
"Every time I climb those wabbly rattly-bangs that you call rustic
stairs, I wonder that you have a friend to your name. Hello, Eveley."
"Inasmuch as you made the wabbliest pair of all, and since you climb them
more than anybody else, you haven't much room to talk," returned Eveley
tartly, drawing back the portières to admit his entrance, which was no
laughing matter for a large man.
"You positively are the latest thing that ever was," she went on, as he
landed with a heavy thud.
"Me? Why, I am the soul of punctuality."
"You may be the soul of it, but punctuality does not get far with a soul
minus willing feet."
"Anyhow, I am here, and that is something," he said, making the rounds of
the room to shake hands cordially with the other girls.
Eveley hopped up quickly on to the small desk--shoving the telephone off,
knowing Nolan would catch it, as indeed he did with great skill, having
been catching telephones and vases and books for Eveley for five full
years. She clasped her hands together, glowing, and her friends leaned
toward her expectantly.
"I have called you together," she began in a high, slightly imperious
voice, "my four best friends, counting Nolan, because I need advice."
"Do you wish to retain me as counsellor?" asked Nolan, with a strong
legal accent "My fee--"
"I do not wish to retain you in any capacity," Eveley interrupted
quickly. "My chief worry is how to dispose of you satisfactorily. And as
for fees--Pouf! Anyhow, I need advice, good advice, deep advice, loving
advice. So I have called you into solemn conclave, and because it is a
most exceptional occasion I have prepared refreshments, good ones,
sandwiches and coffee and cake--Did you bring the cake, Kit? And
ice-cream--the drug-store is going to deliver it at ten, only the boy
won't climb the stairs; you'll have to meet him at the bottom, Nolan. So
I hope you realize that it is an affair of some moment, and not--Miriam
Landis, are you asleep?"
Miriam flashed her eyes wide open, denial on her lips, but Kitty
forestalled her. "That is a pose," she explained. "Billy Ferris said, and
I told Miriam he said it, that with her eyes closed, she is the loveliest
thing in the world. And since then she walks around in her sleep half the
time."
Miriam turned toward her, still more indignant denial clamoring for
utterance, but Eveley, accepting the explanation as reasonable, went
quickly on.
"Now I want you to be very serious and thoughtful--can you concentrate
better in the dark, Kit? Because I know at seances and things they turn
off the lights, and--"
"Oh, let's do. And we'll all hold hands, and concentrate, and maybe we'll
scare up a ghost or something." Then she looked around the room--four
girls and Nolan--Nolan, who had edged with alacrity toward Eveley on the
telephone desk--and Kitty shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, what's the use?
Never mind. Go on with the gossip, Eveley. I can think with the lights
on."
"The ice-cream will be here before we get started," said Eileen Trevis
suddenly.
Eveley clasped her hands again and smiled. "I have received a fortune.
Somebody died--you needn't advise me to wear mourning, either, Miriam. I
never saw him in my life, and never even heard of him, and honestly I
think he got me mixed up with somebody else and left the fortune to the
wrong grand-niece, but anyhow it is none of my business, and since he is
dead and the money is here, I suppose there is no chance of his
discovering the mistake and making me refund it after it is spent."
"A fortune," gasped Kitty, tumbling off the arm of the chair and rushing
to fling herself on the floor beside Eveley, warm arms embracing her
knees.
"Root of all evil," murmured Miriam, gazing into space through
half-closed lids, and seeing wonderful visions of complexions and
permanent curls and a manicure every day.
"How fortunate," said Eileen in a voice pleased though still unruffled
and even. "A fortune means safety and protection and--"
"Who the dickens has been butting into your affairs now?" demanded Nolan
peevishly, and though the girls laughed, there was no laughter in his
eyes and no smile on his lips.
"Well, since he calls me his great-niece, I suppose he is my
grand-uncle."
"How much, lovey, how much?" gurgled Kitty, at her side.
"Twenty-five hundred dollars," announced Eveley ecstatically.
Nolan breathed again. "Oh, that isn't so bad. I thought maybe some simp
had left you a couple of millions or so."
Eveley fairly glared upon him. "What do you mean by that? Why a simp? Why
shouldn't I be left a couple of millions as well as anybody else? Maybe
you think I haven't sense enough to spend a couple of millions."
"And why did you require advice?" Eileen queried.
"Oh, yes." Eveley smiled again. "Yes, of course. Now you must all think
desperately for a while--I hate to ask so much of you, Nolan--but perhaps
this once you won't mind--I want you to tell me what to do with the
money."
This was indeed a serious responsibility. What to do with twenty-five
hundred dollars?
"You do not feel it is your duty to spend the twenty-five hundred
pounding Americanism into your Irish-American Wops?" asked Nolan
facetiously.
Eveley took this good-naturedly. "Oh, I got off from work at four-thirty
and went down to their field, and we had a celebration. We had ice-cream
and candy and chewing gum, and I spent twenty-five dollars equipping them
with balls and bats and since I was with them an hour and a quarter, I
feel that I am entitled to the rest of the fortune myself."
"Well, dearie," said Eileen, "it is really very simple. Put it in a
savings account, of course. Keep it for a rainy day. You may be ill. You
may get married--"
"Can't she get married without twenty-five hundred dollars?" asked Nolan,
with great indignation. "She doesn't expect to buy her own groceries when
she gets married, does she?"
"She may have to, Nolan," said Eileen gently. "One never knows what may
happen after marriage. Getting married is no laughing matter, and Eveley
should be prepared for any exigency."
"But, Eileen, she won't need her twenty-five hundred to get married. No
decent fellow would marry a girl unless he could support her, and do it
well, even luxuriously. You don't suppose I would let my wife spend her
twenty-five hundred--"
"If you mean me, I shall do whatever I like with my own money when I get
married," said Eveley quickly. "My husband will have nothing to say about
it. You needn't think for one minute--"
"I am not your husband, am I? I haven't exactly proposed to you yet, have
I?"
Eveley swallowed hard. "Certainly not. And probably never will. By the
time you get around to it, getting married will be out of date, and none
of the best people doing it any more."
"You may not have asked her, Nolan," said Eileen evenly. "And that is
your business, of course. She will probably turn you down when you do ask
her, just as she does everybody else. But--"
"Who has been asking her now?" he cried, with jealous interest.
"But while we are on the subject, I hope you will permit me to say that I
think your principles are all wrong, and even dangerous. You think a man
should wait a thousand years until he can keep a wife like a pet dog, on
a cushion with a pink ribbon around her neck--"
"The dog's neck, or the wife's?"
"The dog's--no, the wife's--both of them," she decided at last, with
never a ruffle. "You want to wait until she is tired of loving, and too
old to have a good time, and worn out with work. It isn't right. It is
not fair. It is unjust both to yourself, and to Eve--to the girl."
"But, my dear child," he said. Eileen was three years older than Nolan;
but being a lawyer he called all women "child." "My dear child, do you
realize that my salary is eighteen hundred a year, and I get only a few
hundred dollars in fees. Think of the cost of food these days, and of
clothes, and amusements, to say nothing of rent! Do you think I would
allow Eve--my wife, to go without the sweet things of--"
"You needn't bring me in," said Eveley loftily. "I have never accepted
you, have I?"
"No, not exactly, I suppose, but--"
"Eveley," said Miriam, suddenly sitting erect on the couch. "I have it."
"Sounds like the measles," said Kitty.
"I mean I know what to do with the money. Listen, dear. You do not want
to go on slaving in an office until you are old and ugly. And Nolan is
quite right, you certainly can not marry a grubby clerk in a law office."
Nolan laughed at that, but Eveley sat up very straight indeed and fairly
glowered at her unconscious friend on the couch.
"You must have the soft and lovely things of life, and the way to get
them is to marry them. Now, sweet, you take your twenty-five hundred, be
manicured and massaged and shampooed until you are glowing with beauty,
buy a lot of lovely clothes, trip around like a lady, dance and play, and
meet men--men with money--and there you are. You can look like a million
dollars on your twenty-five hundred--and your looks will get you the
million by marriage."
"Miriam Landis, that is shameful," said Nolan in a voice of horror. "It
is disgraceful. I never thought to hear a woman, a married woman, a nice
woman, utter such low and grimy thoughts. Could any such marriage be
happy?"
"Well, Nolan," said Miriam sadly, "I am not sure that any marriage can be
happy, or was ever supposed to be. But women are such that they have to
try it once. Eveley will be like all the rest. And if she has to try it,
she had better try it with a million, than with eighteen hundred a year."
"There is something in that, Miriam, certainly," said Eveley
thoughtfully. "What do you think, Eileen?"
"I think it is absurd. The notion that woman was born for marriage died
long ago. Ridiculous! Woman is born for life, for service, for action,
just as man is. Look at the married people you know. How many of them are
happy? I do not wish to be personal, but I know very few married people,
either men or women, who would not be glad to undo the marriage knot if
it could be done easily and quietly without notoriety. They are not
happy. But we are happy. Why? Because we work, we think, we feel, we
live. We are not slaves to the contentment of man. Go on working, my
dear. Keep your independence. But play safe. Put your money in the bank,
or in some good investment, and let it safeguard your future. Then you
can go your way serene."
"That is certainly sound. Marriage isn't the most successful thing in the
world."
"I should say not," chimed Kitty. "Husbands are always tired of wives,
their own, I mean, inside of five years."
"Well, if it comes to that," said Eveley honestly, "I suppose wives are
tired of their own husbands, too. But they are so stubborn they won't
admit it. In their hearts I suppose they are quite as sick of their
husbands as their husbands are of them."
"Eve," said Nolan anxiously, "where are you getting all these wicked
notions? Marriage is the most sacred--"
"Institution. I know it. Every one says marriage is a sacred institution,
and so is a church. But nobody wants to live with one permanently."
"But, Eveley, the sanctity of the--"
"Home. Sure, we know it is sanctified. But monotonous. Deadly
monotonous."
"Eve," and his voice was quite tragic, "don't you feel that the divine
sphere of--"
"Woman. You needn't finish it, Nolan; we know it as well as you do. The
divine sphere of woman is in the sanctified home keeping up the sacred
institution of marriage while her husband--oh, tralalalalalala."
"Yes, sir, I'll go you," cried Kitty suddenly, leaping up from the floor,
and waving her hand. "Europe! You and I together."
"She has come to," said Eileen resignedly. "There's an end of sensible
talk for this evening."
"Yes, Kit, what is it? I knew you would think of something good."
"We'll go to Europe, you and I. I think I can work dad to let me go. I
can pretend to fall in love with the plumber, or somebody, and he'll be
glad to trot me off for a while. And he likes you, Eveley. He thinks you
are so sensible."
"Why, he hardly knows me," cried Eveley, astonished.
"Yes, that is why. I tell him how sensible you are when you are not
there, and when he gets home I hustle you out of his sight in a hurry. He
likes me to have sensible friends."
"And what shall we do with the money?"
"Travel, travel, travel, and have a gay good time," said Kitty blithely.
"All over Europe. We'll get some handsome clothes, and have the time of
our lives as long as the money lasts, and then marry dukes or princes or
something like that."
"Two of you," shouted Nolan furiously. "Well, Eve, it is a good thing you
have one friend to give you really decent advice. Of all idiotic ideas.
Buy fine clothes and marry a millionaire. Save it to pay for potatoes
when you get a husband that can't support you. Travel to Europe and marry
some purple prince."
"Why purple?" asked Eveley curiously.
"Do you mean clothed in purple and fine linen?"
"If you mean blood, it is blue," said Kitty. "Blue-blooded princes.
Whoever heard of a purple-blooded prince?"
"What did you mean anyhow, Nolan?" asked Eileen.
Driven into a corner, Nolan hesitated. He had said purple on the spur of
the moment, chiefly because it sounded derogatory and went well with
prince.
"What I really mean," he began in a dispassionate legislative voice,
"what I really mean is--purple in the face. You know, purple, splotchy
skin, caused by eating too much rich food, drinking too much strong wine,
playing cards and dancing and flirting."
"Does flirting make you purple?" gasped Miriam. "It does not show on Lem
yet." And then she subsided quickly, hoping they had not noticed.
"Why, Nolan, I have danced for weeks and weeks at a stretch, evenings, I
mean, when the service men were here," said Kitty, "and I am not purple
yet."
"Oh, rats," said Nolan. Then he brightened. "You have never seen a
prince, so of course you do not understand. Wait till you see one. Then a
purple prince will mean something in your young life."
"I should not like to marry a purple creature," said Eveley, wrinkling
her nose distastefully. "I am too pink. And my blue eyes would clash with
a purple husband, too. But maybe the dukes and lords are a different
shade," she finished hopefully.
Nolan turned his back, and lit a cigarette.
"Yes, you may smoke, Nolan, by all means. I always like my guests to be
comfortable."
"What is your advice then, Nolan? You are so scornful about our
suggestions," said Eileen quietly.
"I know what Nolan would like," said Kitty spitefully. "He would advise
Eveley to give him the money and make him her executor and appoint him
her guardian. That would suit him to a T."
"My poor infant, Eveley can not use an executor and a guardian at the
same time. One comes in early youth, or old age, the other after death.
An executor--" he began, clearing his throat as for a prolonged technical
explanation.
Kitty plunged her fingers into her ears. "You stop that right now, Nolan
Inglish. We came here to advise Eveley, not for you to practise on. If
you begin that I shall go straight home--no, I mean I shall go out on the
steps and wait for the ice-cream."
"What do you advise, Nolan?" persisted Eileen.
"Well, my personal advice is, and I strongly urge it, and plead it, and
it will make me very happy, and--?"
"He wants to borrow it," gasped Kitty.
"Go on, Nolan," urged Eveley eagerly.
"Put it in the bank on your checking account."
"Put it--"
"Checking account?"
"Yes, indeed, right in your checking account."
A slow scornful light dawned in Eileen's eyes. "I see," she said coldly.
"Very selfish, very unprofessional, very unfriendly. He would have his
lady love absolutely bankrupt, that he may endow her with all the goods
of life."
"Why, Nolan," said Eveley weakly, lacking Eileen's sharper perception,
"don't you know me well enough to realize that if I put it into my
checking account it will be gone, absolutely and everlastingly gone,
inside of six months, and not a thing to show for it?"
"Yes, I know it," he admitted humbly.
"And still you advise it?"
"I do not advise it--I just want it," he admitted plaintively.
Eveley sat quietly for a while, counting her fingers, her lips moving
once in a while, forming such words as marriage, travel, princes and
banks. Then she clapped her hands and beamed upon them.
"Lovely," she cried. "Exquisite! Just what I wanted to do myself! You are
dear good faithful friends, and wise, too, and you will never know how
much your advice has helped me. Then it is all settled, isn't it? And I
shall buy an automobile."
In a flash, she caught up a pillow, holding it out sharply in front of
her, whirling it around like a steering wheel, while she pushed with both
feet on imaginary clutches and brakes, and honked shrilly.
But her friends leaned weakly back in their chairs and stared. Then they
laughed, and admitted it was what they had expected all the time.