Patterson Greeves had not slept at all the night before. His mind was
wrought to so high a pitch that it seemed as if he never would sleep
again.
Silver’s music had not soothed him, instead it had wrought his heart to
sorrow with the memories which came trooping, flooding, threatening his
self-control. Her touch was so like her mother’s, her selections, many
of them Alice’s own favorites. It seemed as he sat there with
half-closed eyes watching her that it must be Alice. It could be no
other.
At last the girl herself had seemed to feel the strain she was putting
upon her father, and whirling about on the piano stool she declared she
had played enough for the first night.
It was then the minister roused from his delight in the music, realizing
that it was time for him to take his departure and leave this father and
daughter to settle their own situation by themselves. He expressed his
pleasure in the music and his hope that he might hear it again, more and
often, and made his adieu.
“Just a moment, Bannard,” said Greeves as they neared the front door,
“I’ll get that book for you I was speaking of. I saw it this morning in
its old place on the shelf—if you don’t mind taking it with you.”
They stepped into the library and turned up the light. There sat Blink,
sound asleep, with a draping of angle worms all around the rim of his
tomato can, and one bolder than the rest strewn out across his knee.
Roused, he declared he had not been asleep, but had been enjoying the
fire and the music, merely waiting till they were through to present his
gift. Trust Blink to be equal to a situation. Nevertheless he grinned at
his worms, and gathering them up flashed a joke at them that brought a
little breath of mirth into the tense atmosphere of the evening and made
everybody feel better.
When Blink and the minister had taken their leave Silver and her father
sat before the fire hand in hand, half shyly for a few minutes and
talked.
If the music had not helped Patterson Greeves to solve his difficulties,
it had at least made the situation clearer to his daughter.
“Father,” she said shyly, almost hesitantly, “don’t you think perhaps if
you will have a quiet talk with Athalie in the morning it might help?
I’ve been thinking about it. She’s probably as excited as we all are. It
must be hard for her too. I think perhaps if she understood you might be
able to make it easier for her. I was trying to think how I would feel
if I were in her place—she was terribly excited and hurt—you could see
that—”
They talked for sometime and when Silver finally went to her room
Patterson Greeves turned out the light and in the dying firelight he
paced the room for hours, back and forth.
In the small hours of the night Anne Truesdale from her anxious chamber
off the back hall heard him come softly up the stairs to his room, but
when she went in the morning to put his room to rights the bed had not
been slept in. There was only a deep dent in the coverlet where folded
arms and a head must have rested as of one on bended knees. But
Patterson Greeves had no one left to pray to, unless it might have been
his dead wife Alice, or his sweet departed Aunt Lavinia, for he did not
believe in a God. And if there had been a God he was angry with Him for
bringing all this horrible thing to pass upon him.
But when morning dawned, even before Anne Truesdale had been down to
open the shutters and tidy up the rooms, he was back in the library
again, pacing back and forth. And as soon as ever it would have done any
good to call, he was after long distance trying to telephone his
divorced wife. He had decided that Athalie must go back to Lilla. He
would make it worth her while.
He made a pretense of eating some breakfast with Silver—no sound had as
yet been heard from Athalie’s room, and none in the family were disposed
to disturb her—but it was plain that he was nervous and overwrought,
and the slightest sound made him start and listen for the telephone.
When the call came at last, he hurried to the library only to be
informed that Mrs. Greeves had sailed for Europe the day before to be
gone indefinitely.
He hung up the receiver and stared about the room with that dazed
expression he had worn the day before when he first knew that Athalie
was coming to him. And again there sounded in his ear the ring of that
derisive laughter, echoing along the halls of his soul with taunting
sweetness. Lilla had won out again. It was as if she had tossed her
daughter over into his keeping and put the sea between them, so that he
was not able to send her back, not even able to bribe Lilla with money
to take her unwelcome child to her heart again.
After a few moments he rose and gravely walked to the window. The stun
of the blow was subsiding and he was beginning to take it in for the
first time that this impossible child was his irretrievably to keep and
to care for from this time forth, and that he could not rid himself of
the trust. For the first time he was taking it in, and some of the
things he had flung out in his first bitterness of soul in talking with
the minister the night before came back upon him as great truths that he
had uttered. He was responsible for the child, responsible for what she
had become. He could not shirk any longer what he had tried to shirk for
life. He must face it now. There was not distance enough in the whole
universe to put his responsibility away from him. It would follow him
like a shadow wherever he went, whatever he did.
How could he ever write again with this horror hanging over him? Well,
what difference did it make to anyone whether he ever wrote again? What
difference did anything make to him?
Gradually, however, the business habits of his life settled upon his
mind and he began to come at the question more sanely, more seriously,
and to really try to think what he could do, and what he should say to
this strange, unloving, unlovable girl.
Perhaps the thought of Silver with the Alice-eyes writing some letters
up in Aunt Lavinia’s room, a sweet strong sane presence, helped to keep
him from the insane desperation that had come upon him the day before.
At any rate his tortured mind finally thought out a way, made a
semblance of a plan, of what he should say to Athalie and how he should
say it.
Thinking more coolly now he could see that he had antagonized her. She
was like Lilla. That was plain. Strange that both his children should be
like their mothers entirely—and yet—no, he could see some things in
Athalie exactly like himself. That being the case perhaps he could
understand her a little better if he would come at her in the way he
would like to be approached himself, reasonably, gently, firmly, but
pleasantly. Subconsciously he had known that yesterday, but it had
seemed too much like yielding to an outrageous imposition to treat her
in any way but imperiously. Well, that was all wrong, of course, from
her standpoint. He had simply antagonized her. It would be of no sort of
use to try to control her until he had some hold upon her. He had shown
his utter disapproval of her, her dress, her appearance, her habits,
from the start. Could he possibly retrieve the past and begin again?
Well, it was up to him to try. He could not rid himself of her by making
her hate him, though he had no real desire to win her love. Still, he
must try something. He could easily see now it would be useless to send
her to any school against her will in this state of mind. She would only
disgrace him and be back upon his hands in a worse condition than
before. He must do his duty somehow, whatever a father’s duty was.
Somehow he had never thought before, till Silver looked at him with
Alice’s eyes, what the duty of a father might be.
So he rang the bell for Anne and asked her to say to Miss Athalie that
he would like to see her in the library as soon as she had finished her
breakfast.
Athalie took her time.
She bathed herself leisurely, toying with her perfumes, she bathed her
face many times in very hot water and only powdered it lightly, giving a
becoming touch of shadow under her eyes as of much weeping and no lip
stick at all to her full mouth. It took quite a while to get just the
right atmosphere, for it was difficult to make the healthy Athalie look
as if she were going into a decline.
She really was trying to please her father. She chose a little dashing
frock of dark blue wool with a great creamy white wool collar curiously
rolled about her shoulders, and a daring scarlet sash of crimson silk
with fringe that hung several inches below the hem. She even put on
black silk stockings, thin they were and extremely lacy, but black, and
completed by little fairy patent leather slippers with straps
intricately fastened to look like ancient Greek foot attire. A black
velvet band about her forehead completed her costume and she descended
slowly, casually, to the dining room and rang the bell imperiously.
It was Molly who brought a tray with ample food, but she rang again and
sent for more, and pursued the even tenor of a prolonged breakfast with
satisfaction, until Patterson Greeves awaiting her in the library was
almost at the limit of his patience and his newly assumed gentleness,
and could barely keep his resolves from leaping out the door and
escaping him altogether.
But at last, after lingering in the garden a moment to gather a
flaunting red tulip and stick it in her dress where it flared against
the white of the collar, she sallied into the library without waiting to
knock and gave her father a cool good morning, quite as if he might have
been the naughty child and she the casual parent, with many, many
greater interests than just parenthood.
Following out his resolves with a visible effort he wheeled a
comfortable chair for her to sit down where the light would fall full
upon her face and he might study her as they talked. She watched him
sharply and then turned and stood with her back to him looking out the
window.
“Come here and sit down Athalie,” he said, “I want to have a little talk
with you.”
“Fire ahead, Pat,” she said nonchalantly, “I’d rather stand here and
look out.”
What could a father do under those circumstances? I ask you what _would_
a father do? His blood boiled. His temper arose and clamored for
satisfaction. He was no father of course, but how could he be? Here was
this impish child of his defying him again, making it practically
impossible for him to exercise the self-control and gentleness he had
intended. It was as if she suspected his scheme and was blocking it. How
could he have a heart-to-heart talk with a broad blue and white back, a
blur against the sunshine of the morning. How was he to make her
understand that he meant to do his best by her, do all that was best for
her whether it was hard for himself or not, if she stood like that and
ignored him? He ought to give her a good whipping. That was what she
deserved. It was barbarous of course, but she was a little barbarian,
and nothing else would probably reach her. Nevertheless—he glanced
around and summoned his new resolves that were just sliding out the
door, grappled them to his side, and began:
“Athalie, my child,” he began, realizing that it was necessary for his
own good that he recognize the relation openly. He cleared his throat,
“I—ah—”
“Aw, cut the comedy, Pat! What’s eating you? Spit it out! I know I’m in
for the deuce of a time, but if you’re going to preach a sermon you’ll
have to do it without me. This is too gorgeous a morning to be shut up
in the house. Say, Pat, don’t you ever play golf? What say if you and I
go to some country club around here and have a game, and then take
lunch? Let’s have a ripping old time together and get acquainted, and
after that if you haven’t got it all out of your system yet I’ll agree
to listen.”
For an instant the astounded father gazed at the face of his cock-sure
amazing daughter and wavered, almost considering whether he could accept
this high handed proposal. Perhaps if he had this story might have been
a different one in many details, who can tell? But Patterson Greeves’
sole contact with youth since he passed out of that class himself had
been in the class room or on the battle field, in both of which places
he had been the dictator, able to put his victim through instant
discipline if he did not obey in every particular; where a mere black
mark on a report card, or a spoken word to an under officer, meant that
the delinquent would be dealt with speedily and thoroughly, and where
respect and obedience were the foundation of breath itself and nothing
else was to be tolerated.
And now, while his flesh shrank from the encounter before him, and his
whole soul cried out for respect and the open air, a relaxed conscience,
and a chance to get things into some natural order again, his puritan
inheritance and his whole training demanded respect and obedience, and
the moment passed. The scene of the night before rose in his mind’s eye
and his blood boiled. He was again in the position of an outraged parent
struggling for self-control while he read the ten commandments to a
naughty child.
And perhaps it was as well, for Athalie knew how to take advantage of
the least opportunity, and she _had_ to learn _sometime_ that law was
law.
The silence was growing very tense. Athalie, quick to note his every
phase of attitude toward her, so sure of him when she finished her
wheedling sentence, began to grow uneasy as his gaze continued, staring,
stern and displeased.
“Athalie,” he spoke at last and his words were like icicles, “I can go
nowhere, do nothing, until I have had an understanding with you.”
A sullen cloud settled down over the girl’s face.
“Sit down.” He pointed to the chair. Athalie hesitated a second, then
with her sullen eyes like smouldering fires fixed on him, seemed to
think best to obey, but she sat down tentatively, with one foot slid
slightly behind her in readiness to arise again if he offended her. Her
lips were pouted angrily. She shrugged her shoulders with a bored
attitude as if she were but humoring him for the moment.
The speech he had framed through the long hours of the night deserted
him now when he most needed it. Strangely it did not seem to fit. He
struggled to find the phrases, cutting ones, intended to show her her
place, and keep her in it, an ultimatum which would put things on a
proper basis. But the whole thing was gone, and nothing but his own
helplessness was upon him.
Then something Silver had said the night before about talking gently,
reasonably, came to him. A sense of the room and its hallowed memories
filled him. It was as if those who had loved him and cared for him in
his earlier years might be hovering around unseen waiting to help him
through this trying time. He dropped his forehead on his hand for a
moment almost humbly, and then lifting his eyes he tried to tell the
girl what was in his heart. None of the sentences he had planned were
there. Many of the words he spoke he would not have wished to say to
her, it was condescending too much to one who had treated him and his so
lightly.
“Athalie,” he said, and his voice sounded now more gentle, with that
certain something which always brings attention, “you and I are not in a
very pleasant position. Perhaps it may be as hard for you as for me, I
do not know. I may not have seemed to you very kind nor sympathetic when
you arrived. I certainly did not welcome you. I was utterly unprepared
for your arrival, as your mother must have known and intended that I
should be. I do not intend to speak of her nor the past any more than is
necessary; and there must of course be a great many things that you do
not understand about our peculiar situation. We shall just have to put
away the past and try to build up a relationship from the beginning. In
order to do that there are one or two things that must be clearly
understood.
“In the first place we belong to an old and respectable family with many
traditions that must be honored, and standards that must be upheld. We
owe it to the past.”
He studied her blank sullen face for a moment wondering if she
understood.
He struggled to make his words plainer.
“There are certain customs and laws of society which we have always
maintained. I cannot have my daughter transgressing these things. Our
women have always been good and pure, and have never sought to imitate
men, nor to flaunt their personalities or their persons. They have
always been modest, quiet, sweet women, dressing unobtrusively,
becomingly, and in a modest way. I cannot countenance the way you speak,
the flippant, pert, rude disrespect, both to me and to the old house
servants who have been with us so long that they are an integral part of
the family. I cannot countenance your mannish ways, nor your cigarette
smoking, nor your décolleté? dresses. I like sweet, modest girls, and if
you and I are to get on at all together you must drop these ways and try
to be a good girl.”
Athalie’s eyes smouldered furiously, and her lips curled in contempt.
“I suppose that other girl just suits you!” she stormed, “little simp!”
“Silver seems a very modest, sweet girl,” he assented, wondering what he
ought to say about the way she had treated the picture last night.
“Well, I _hate_ her!” said Athalie in low hard tones, “I HATE HER!—and
you sound to me awfully what they call at school, ‘mid-Victorian.’”
Patterson Greeves began to realize that he was not getting on very well.
He looked at his hopeless offspring and longed to vanish out of her
sight forever, caring not where or how his soul was disposed, so he
might finally escape the problem of her. But something in his puritan
conscience refused to let him slide away from the issue. He must face
and conquer it. He had slid out of his situation with Lilla by letting
it take its course—or had he? Was she not even now as poignant and
tangible an element in his life as though he were struggling to live his
daily life by her side? It passed through his mind that perhaps nothing
was quite ever shoved aside or slid out of. Perhaps we always had to
reckon with everything we did, sooner or later—sooner _and_ later. That
was a question of life that might be worth looking into, might make a
good subject for an article for a magazine—what strange thoughts form
themselves beneath the surface when we are in the midst of a tense and
trying time! Patterson Greeves brushed the thoughts away impatiently and
sat up. He must get these things said that he had resolved to say.
“It makes no difference what I sound like,” crisped the father, “nor by
what names your school friends choose to call things. I am telling you
certain facts which must be acted upon by you as long as you are under
my care. They are the only basis upon which you and I can have any
dealings whatever. You cannot carry things with a high hand, ignore
everybody else and overturn systems. You are not the ruler here, and you
must understand it from the beginning.”
He paused and eyed her, but she gave no sign, just let her smouldering
eyes rest on him sullenly, unflinchingly, the slow contempt in the upper
lip continuing to grow.
“Those things being thoroughly understood and complied with on your part
willingly,” he went on hurriedly, determined not to give her an
opportunity to demur, “I am entirely willing to talk over your future
with you, and try to arrange as far as is possible and best for you, to
make such plans as will be agreeable to you. As to the school you will
attend, I shall be glad to send for catalogues and let you have a part
in the selection of your—”
She raised her hand imperiously.
“Stop right there!” she demanded sharply, “if you’re banking on me being
a good little girl and going to school you might as well understand that
I won’t! I came here to live with you. The court said I was to be under
your care, and here I’m going to stay. If you try to send me away
anywhere I’ll simply run away and make you more trouble. I’d drown
myself before I’d go to another boarding school. I’ve lived in boarding
schools all my life and I’m _done with them_! You can’t shunt me off
that way for it can’t be done!”
A glance into her eyes showed that she fully meant every word she said
and something in her tone reminded her stubborn father that she had
inherited his power of sticking to a decision. Remembering last evening
it seemed fully likely that she would carry out any threat that she
might choose to make. He shuddered inwardly and began to weaken.
“Of course, if I found that you were entirely submissive and obedient it
might be possible to arrange a school not far away—”
Athalie arose abruptly.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” she asked in a business like tone,
“because I’ve got some letters to write.”
“Athalie, sit down,” he thundered, entirely unnerved feeling that his
work was all undone again.
“Not when you speak to me in that tone,” said the girl shrugging her
shoulders and raising her chin. “I suppose you call that kind of talk up
to the standards of your respectable family.”
The crimson swept over her white sensitive face. Her voice was so
perfectly like Lilla’s, the reply so entirely what she would have given.
“I beg your pardon, Athalie. It was not. I am very much upset this
morning. I will endeavor to control my voice. Will you kindly be seated?
Now, I want to ask whether you are going to be willing to be subject to
my authority? If not I must begin to take immediate steps to place you
where you will be looked after in the right way. I cannot have such
scenes recurring. I may as well say I _will_ not have them. I am a busy
man with important work to do, and this is utterly upsetting. Will you
be a good girl and try to do right?”
His offspring regarded him coolly.
“I don’t know whether I will or not,” she answered calmly, “it depends
upon how you behave. If you let me have my own way and have a good time
I presume I shall—depends upon what you call good. I don’t intend to be
goody goody. But if you try to bully me you’ll wish you hadn’t, that’s
all. That’s what I told Lilla when I left her. I said ‘Lilla, he may
have bullied you, but he’s not going to bully me. It isn’t being done.’”
A sudden startled wonder came to him as she spoke of her mother that
made him forget to listen to the arrogant ending of her sentence.
“Athalie,” he said suddenly changing the subject, “are you aware that
your mother has sailed for Europe?”
The girl gave him a look as if he had unexpectedly stabbed her, and her
eyes filled up with tears, her lips trembled. She struggled for an
instant with a sob, gave a slight nod of assent with her chin and broke
down with a heart rending little cry, sinking her head upon her arms,
her whole gaudily attired body shaking with suppressed sobs, as if the
thought were too deep for sound.
Patterson Greeves stared at her for a moment uncomprehending, unable to
meet this amazing phase of his most mysterious daughter, resenting her
change of combat as if she had broken some rule of the game. She was not
being true to type. How could he meet such an antagonist? Lilla used to
cry prettily, pettedly, outrageously, to order, when she found all other
weapons useless; but this was grief, genuine, deep, terrible. The grief
of an uncontrolled nature. Grief of the kind he always had felt in his
own troubles. Was it possible that something in his heart was stirring
toward her, yearning—? No. This child of Lilla deserved all she was
getting—ah! but child of himself too. Could it be possible that Lilla
loved the child? If so why had she sent her away from her? It seemed out
of the probable that Lilla could love anything but herself. Could it be
possible that the child loved Lilla? She did not seem like a loving
child. But those sobs were not angry, they were hurt, stricken cries.
Had Lilla been unkind to the girl? His sense of justice roused toward
her. He put out a vague hand and touched her shoulder.
“Athalie, haven’t you had a—_happy_—life? Hasn’t your mother been good
to you?” he asked hesitatingly.
She lifted a tear stained face from behind which fires flashed in her
eyes, and shook his groping hand off.
“That’s none of your business,” she said, “you never tried to make it
any happier, did you?”
The father sat and saw a few more of his shortcomings marched out before
him in the open, and swallowed hard on the sight. He, Patterson Greeves,
of a respected family had contrived to do some of the most contemptible
things a man can do on earth! It was unbelievable, and yet he was
beginning to believe it.
He stared at her a moment with that dazed expression coming again. It
dazes most souls to really look in their own eyes and behold how
different they are from their fancied selves. Then he drew a deep sigh
and arose going to the window to stare out across the meadow.
“No. I don’t suppose I ever did,” he said reluctantly at last. The sobs
ceased as suddenly as they had begun. There ensued a prolonged silence.
Then the father added as though to himself:
“I had no intention of overlooking any duty, I simply did not realize.”
Finally the girl raised her head and in quite a controlled voice said:
“That’s all right, Pat, I’m here now. Forget it! We aren’t getting
anywhere and I’m going up and wash my face. If you change your mind
about that golf just send me word.”
She was at the door when he wheeled about and said hesitatingly:
“There’s one thing, Athalie, I wish you wouldn’t call me Pat. I don’t
like it. It sounds disrespectful. It makes me ashamed. I—”
“All right, dad, since you ask it that way I won’t, but I like you a lot
more when you’re Pat. It seems to make you more homey and
understandable. Well, so long! You know where to find me!” and she
flashed away like a bright-throated, naughty blue-jay.
The father sat down in a chair and covered his face with his hands. The
interview for which he had been all night preparing was over and he had
got nowhere. Nothing had been accomplished, except that perhaps he
himself had weakened. A sense of his own forgotten responsibility, and a
certain wistful turn of her voice had undone him. How was he ever to do
anything with this unmanageable child?
The door suddenly opened without warning and Athalie’s head flashed in
again.
“I just wanted to say, dad, that if you take that other girl along you
needn’t count me in. She and I are two people. I hate her. So don’t go
to bunching us up for it won’t work, and don’t give me any more of that
line about getting advice from her about dress, see? I won’t stand for
it, that’s all. If you want me to live up to your standards you’ve got
to live up to mine! understand?”
She was gone. And if she had suddenly hurled a leaden weight on her
father’s heart the world could not have turned darker or his heart been
more heavy. How was ever such a state of things to work out?
A soft knock on the door broke in upon these thoughts, and Silver
stepped within the room dressed in coat and hat and gloves, with her
suitcase in her hand.