PAINFUL DUTY
When Eveley arrived home late that night she smiled to observe that all
the down-stairs windows were wide open to the breeze, and in the corner
bedroom, apportioned to Father-in-law, the curtains were down. At the
back of the house she found Father-in-law himself, with the proverbial
whiskered friend, critically inspecting her rustic steps through the
clouds of smoke from their pipes which they removed to facilitate their
interested stares as she approached.
"How do you do?" she cried brightly. "You are Mr. Severs, Senior, aren't
you? Welcome home! And this is your friend, I know." She shook hands with
them both, with great cordiality. She must disarm them, before she could
begin working them into a proper adjustment with life. "I am Eveley
Ainsworth. Are you admiring my steps? I am very eccentric and
temperamental and all that, and I have to live alone. I do not like being
crowded in with other folks. I like to do as I please, and not bother
with anybody else."
"Very sensible, I'm sure," said Father-in-law.
"Sure," echoed the whiskered one breezily.
"That was the first little seed," she chuckled to herself, as she ran
blithely up the stairs. Later, when she heard Mrs. Severs in the room
beneath, she went to the head of the inner stairway and called down to
her.
"Come up a minute. I want to see you."
Mrs. Severs lost no time. "My husband says it is simply absurd," she
began breathlessly. "He says people have to do their duty. He says a
thing is right or wrong, and that settles it. We are all father has in
the world, and Dody says it is plainly our duty to keep him with us. He
says a fellow would be taking an awful chance to marry you, if that is a
sample of your principles. Don't you believe in any duty, Miss
Ainsworth?"
"Only one," said Eveley with great firmness.
"Oh, what is that?" came the eager query.
"That," was the dignified reply, "is something that doesn't enter into
this case at all, and doesn't need to be discussed."
"Well, Dody says--"
"Dody may be a very sweet husband, but he is not progressive. His idea is
old, outworn and antedeluvian. Simply musty. Now, this is my plan--the
plan of progress according to new ideas which means happiness for all.
Father-in-law and the whiskered friend are born for each other. They are
affinities, and soul-mates, and everything. I saw it at the first glance.
We'll get them a little cottage off somewhere beyond the odor of onions,
and they can revel in liver and pipes to their hearts' content."
"Impossible! Whiskers has a wife of his own."
"What?" Eveley was much disconcerted. "Well, maybe she will get a divorce
so her husband can marry your father--I mean--maybe it won't stick, you
know."
"It's been sticking for forty years, and I suppose it will go on forever.
You see she doesn't have him around much and so she probably forgets how
he is. He is always out with father, and she is asleep when he gets
home."
"Well, don't worry about it. He had no business being married, for it was
a lovely plan--but it can't be helped now. Never mind."
"Listen," said Mrs. Severs suddenly. "Hear the sizzling. That's onions.
Didn't I tell you? I was going to have chicken croquettes and creamed
peas, with lettuce salad and fruit jello. But how can Dody and I sit down
to a decent meal with the whole house reeking with tobacco and onions?"
"Never mind, dear. We'll find the adjustment in time. Just try to be
patient."
For another night, and another day, Eveley puzzled and pondered--during
intervals of studying motor folders and reading advertisements. And the
next evening she found Mrs. Severs wringing her hands on the front porch.
"What is it?" she asked anxiously. "Did he kill himself?"
"No such luck," wailed Mrs. Severs. "He won't sleep in the bedroom
because he says it is too shady under all those vines, and he has moved
himself out into the living-room on the couch. He says there is no sense
having a house all cluttered up with rooms anyhow, he doesn't believe in
it. He says two rooms are enough for anybody. You can cook and eat in the
kitchen, and sit and sleep in the other room, and anything more is just
plain tony."
"I tell you what," suggested Eveley brightly. "Be mean to him. Be real
snippy and bossy. Don't let him have his own way. You just fire him right
back into the bedroom. Tell him you are head of this house, and he's got
to mind. Then he'll be only too glad to move out and then you'll have
some peace."
"I can't," moaned Mrs. Severs. "He's really kind of nice if he wasn't so
awful. I couldn't be mean to Dody's father. And Dody would not let me if
I wanted to."
"Well, don't worry," said Eveley automatically. "I am still working. We
will try every different adjustment, and in time we shall hit the right
one. Just keep happy and--"
"Keep happy," wailed Mrs. Severs. "Don't be sarcastic, Miss Ainsworth,
please. I never expect to be happy again."
Then she went home, and Eveley called Nolan on the telephone.
"You must come immediately and have supper with me. And stop on the way
and get a small steak, and ask the drug-store to deliver a pint of
ice-cream at six-thirty sharp. And you might bring a nice tomato if you
can remember, and I shall have everything else ready. We won't have much
to-night, just steak and salad and ice-cream. I need professional
advice."
Nolan never dreamed of refusing an invitation of any sort whatever from
Eveley, and he started immediately, gathering up the dinner on his way.
As he put his foot on the lowest step of the rustic stair, Eveley's head
thrust itself suddenly from between the curtains.
"There is a proper adjustment," she said, in a stern voice. "Just keep
your mind on that. Painful duty is no duty, and can not be. There is a
right adjustment--and we must find it."
Nolan continued warily up the rickety stair, greeting her at the top
cordially.
"Hello, Eveley. My, the coffee smells good. I am hungry as a bear, too. I
saw you out last night with that sad-eyed Buddy soldier, and I do not
approve of it. I shall deem it my duty to administer a proper adjustment
of his facial characteristics if he doesn't mind his own business. The
ice-cream will be here at six-thirty sharp. How is Kitty? You have flour
on your ears. Shall I fix the tomatoes?"
"I did not bring you here in a social capacity to discuss personal
matters," said Eveley coldly. "I told you yesterday that my home is
saddened by the grotesque figure of maladjustment stalking in our midst
under his usual guise of Duty. As I have explained so many times, there
is bound to be a happy adjustment. But this time I can not figure it out.
Now I call on you."
"Retainer's fee, one hundreds dollars. Payable, of course, in advance."
"Oh, well, it is not strictly legal. Let's just talk it over nicely as
dear good friends, and if you have an idea I can absorb it. Nolan, Eileen
said she saw you at lunch to-day with a woman."
"Eileen? How is Eileen? I haven't seen her for days. Let's have a party
soon, and invite Kitty and Eileen and Miriam and me, and you give us a
midnight supper here in the Cote, will you?"
"It was at the Grant."
"I did not see Eileen, but of course I was busy. Was she alone? We had a
nice luncheon--grilled pork chops and country gravy. The gravy was
good--no lumps. It made me think of yours."
"My gravy is not always lumpy," she said with a frown. "It just happened
that way the last two times because I was called to the telephone while I
was making it."
"Oh, sure, that's all right."
He carefully adjusted her chair at the table, and drew his own close
beside it, pulling his plate and silverware half-way around the table
from where Eveley had placed them.
"You look sweeter than ever, to-night, Eve. But I hope the gravy is not
lumpy."
"She wore a black dress and white gloves, and a black hat."
"Eileen did? Was it a new dress?"
"No, the one with you."
"Sure enough, I believe she did. A georgette dress, beaded in front.
Quite pretty. But there was a rip in her glove. She showed it to me
herself. She said she did it on the car, but it looked like an old rip to
me."
"And after luncheon you went away in her car, didn't you?"
"Her uncle's car. Just for a short run through the park, and then she
dropped me at the office. Quite a pleasant woman. She was so polite to
me, and treated me with such gentle deference. It was quite a change. It
made me think of you."
Eveley put down her fork. "Who was it?"
"Bartlett's niece from San Francisco. Visiting here. He had promised to
take her for luncheon, but at the last minute Graves came in and they
were busy, so he turned her over to me."
"I do not see why you are always the one to take their nieces and
daughters out for luncheon. This is the fourth time in two months. I
believe you do it on purpose. Why should they always pick on you?"
"Partly because of my beauty, perhaps, and my charming manners as well as
my generally winsome demeanor in the presence of ladies. I suppose Eileen
also informed you that this niece is Mrs. Harmon Delavan, and has three
children in addition to a husband."
"Oh, Nolan, how you do burble along. I didn't bring you here to discuss
Bartlett's relatives. Now get down to business. How can we adjust the
honeymooners and the father-in-law--though honestly I think he is great
fun myself, and would a whole lot rather live with him than with Dody.
Only he does not fit in with the honeymoon scheme of life."
"Well," said Nolan dreamily, "why don't you marry him, and bring him up
here?"
"Oh, Nolan, you are clever. I never thought of that."
At the evident delight in her voice, Nolan stared.
"Not to me, goosey, he would never consent, for I have a dimple and he
does not approve of them. So far I have kept it on the off side, and he
has not noticed, but I couldn't always turn the left side to a husband,
could I?"
"Well, then--"
"Marry him to somebody else, of course. I can't just decide who--but
there will be some one. You are such a help, Nolan. Now let's not bother
with the duties of our neighbors, but have a good time. To-morrow I shall
find him a wife." Then she leaned toward Nolan, refilling his cup, and
said gurglingly, "Was he working awfully hard at the stupid old office?"
"Eveley, just one thing, while we are on our duties," he said, catching
her hand. "You have made one exception, always, but you have never told
me what it is. And it is so unlike you to except anything when you get
started. What is the one duty that is justified and necessary?"
Eveley promptly pulled her hand away. "That," she said, "is purely
personal. It will not do any one any good to talk about it. So it is all
sealed up on the inside."
"And I shall never know what your one duty in life is?" he asked, with
mock pleading, but real curiosity.
"It may hit you sometime--harder than anybody else," she said, laughing.
"But in the meantime let's talk of other things."
As soon as Mr. Severs had started to work the next morning, without the
tender farewells, for the presence of Father-in-law placed an instinctive
veto on such demonstrations--Eveley kicked briskly on the floor as a
summons, and Mrs. Severs answered.
"Eveley?" she called up to the ceiling.
And Eveley shouted down to the floor of her room, "Come up--I've got it."
At that Mrs. Severs fairly flew up the stairs.
Eveley caught her on the landing, and whirled her around the room in a
triumphant dance, stopping at last so abruptly that Mrs. Severs was
almost precipitated to the floor.
"Now listen. I've got it. The proper adjustment, that will make you all
happy and prove my theory."
"Yes, yes, yes," chanted Mrs. Severs ecstatically.
"He must get married."
"But--"
"Now don't interrupt. Let me finish. Of course he has no notion of such a
thing, but leave it to me. We shall marry him off before he knows it. We
must find the woman first. Out at Chula Vista there are a lot of
beautiful elderly ladies in the Home who are all alone and would be only
too glad to have a cozy home and a--a--pleasant husband and--all that. So
we'll go out on Saturday afternoon and look them over and pick out a good
one. Then I'll invite her to visit me for a week, and you and I will both
be busy so Father-in-law will have to entertain her, and she'll cut out
old Whiskers in no time at all."
Eveley flung out her hands jubilantly.
Mrs. Severs showed no enthusiasm. "That is what I wanted to tell you. He
can't. He is already married."
Eveley dropped into a chair. "Married!" she stammered. "You told me
Dody's mother was dead."
"She is, of course. But what I did not tell you is this. Three years ago
while Dody was in France, father must have sort of lost his mind or
something, for without a minute's warning, he up and married somebody--a
woman, of course. When Dody got home from the war she was not there, and
when he asked about her, father just sort of laughed and looked sheepish,
and said, 'Oh, she's gone on a visit.' 'Where to?' Dody asked. 'Oh,
somewhere around,' said father. 'Is she coming back?' asked Dody. 'Holy
Mackinaw, I hope not,' said father, and that is the last we ever heard of
her. But of course he is still married."
It was a hard blow, but Eveley rallied at last, though slowly. "Don't
worry," she said monotonously. "There is another adjustment. Just keep
happy--and give me time."