“The only possible condition under which you are free to remain in this
town and in my house is that you hereafter conduct yourself as a lady in
every way!”
This was the ultimatum which Patterson Greeves after a night of vigil
flung out upon his subdued and waiting daughter sometime along in the
middle of the morning when she chose to come down to a languid
breakfast.
Silver had gone early to the Flats with the minister and Anne Truesdale
was out doing marketing. They had the house to themselves. The father
girded up his soul and went to the task before him. It had to come
sooner or later.
Athalie regarded him composedly for a moment before responding:
“Well,” said she, “with Lilla on the high seas, and my money mostly gone
I suppose I’ll have to make a try. I won’t go to school. What is it you
want me to do? Go to church and Sunday school?”
Now nothing was farther from Patterson Greeves’ intention than to attend
divine service of any sort or to make his family do so, but in that
instant it flashed across his consciousness that that was the very thing
that would have to be done if Athalie was to remain in the town and live
as a member of the old Silver family should, in good and regular
standing. Athalie could not associate with the young people of the town
and expect to be comfortable among them unless she did as they did,
unless she did as the traditions of the family laid down. For himself he
would probably have ignored what people thought and have shut himself in
with his books and his few friends and let the town go hang. But here he
was preaching the standard of his old family and insisting upon its
being kept high, and in his heart not planning to do so himself. He saw
the inconsistency at once, and knew also that the thing she had
suggested was the very influence that would readjust her abnormal young
soul, if anything could do it. If religion was good for anything it
ought to be good for that. In fact, there was somewhere hid away in his
own soul the belief not yet extinct that religion did do things to souls
when it really got a chance! Also, there was Bannard. He had some sense
if he was a minister. She wouldn’t likely get much nonsense hearing him.
And there was Silver! Of course Silver would want to go to church.
Somehow he shrank from letting Silver know how far he had strayed from
the religion of her mother, and her mother’s people. All this passed
through his mind in the lifting of an eye. He was accustomed to control
his face and cover it with a mask among men. He scarcely seemed to
hesitate as he replied:
“Yes. Certainly. Of course you will go to church and Sunday school.”
“Oh, heck!” said Athalie, a kind of hunted look coming into her eyes as
she flounced around and stared out of the window.
Greeves watched her painfully trying to adjust his own thoughts to this
unexpected turn. He would have to go to church himself probably to
enforce this. He felt like reechoing her exclamation. What was he
letting himself in for? Well, if it got too strenuous he could always
send her away to camp when he found the right place. Then too, he would
have to be courteous to Bannard. He had been awfully decent last night,
knowing just the thing to be done, and not making a great fuss about it
as some would have done, and making every thing public. Yes, of course
he would have to go to church occasionally. Tomorrow was the Sabbath. He
would have to go then to start things right. Then after that perhaps he
could manage to be away a good deal Sundays, run down to the shore or
make a visit to New York or Boston—any excuse would do. He would have
to go a good deal anyway to consult libraries.
“Well,” said Athalie as suddenly whirling back as she had turned away.
“What else? I’m game.”
Her fixed gaze was rather disconcerting. He couldn’t help admiring the
way she took it. There was something rather interesting about her in
spite of all her devilishness. Where did she get that?
“There are three things that I shall require,” he said following out the
plan he had evolved during the night. Poor soul, he had gone such a
little way in this matter of fatherhood and discipline. He thought it
could all be enumerated under three heads.
Athalie watched him attentively.
“Obedience—”
Athalie winced.
“Who do I have to obey? Not that red-faced servant woman! Not that other
girl!”
Her father faltered.
“Because I _won’t_! That’s _flat_!”
“They would come under the next head,” temporized Patterson Greeves,
“which is courtesy.”
“Oh, you mean I’ve got to be _polite_! All right. I suppose I can. What
next?”
“Modesty!” finished the father with a sudden realization that his list
was pitifully short and she was dismissing them all and making them
shorter.
“Well, what do you mean by that?”
“I mean that I do not like the way you dress nor behave. You constantly
call attention to yourself, to your person. It is probably not your
fault that you are somewhat stout, although I have understood there are
diets that will regulate that sort of thing, but it is your fault when
you dress in loud and noticeable colors and strange styles, or when you
expose your flesh to view.”
Athalie’s brow drew down.
She glanced down at her dashing little blouse of orange crochet over a
flannel skirt of orange and black stripes. Her plump pink arms showed
through the knitted mesh, and the brilliant neckerchief she was wearing
jauntily across one shoulder revealed much fat neck. A flush of
disappointment rolled up her carefully unpowdered cheek. She had really
tried to look pleasing for that interview. According to her standard she
looked nice.
“I’ve worn the only things I had,” she said sullenly. “I’m sure I don’t
know how to please you.”
Something in the wistfulness of her tone appealed to him. He cast about
how to answer her.
“Suppose you go up and spread out what you have and I’ll come and look
at your things. If you haven’t got the proper clothes we’ll have to go
and buy some.”
A glint of interest shone in Athalie’s eyes.
“I’ll go up and spread them out,” she said eagerly, “it won’t take me
long. There’s really some quite spiffy ones.”
He almost groaned aloud as she disappeared like a bright, saucy
butterfly. How was he to make her understand that it was their very
“spiffiness” that made the trouble.
In a few minutes he heard her calling, and he goaded himself up the
stairs trying to prepare to be very diplomatic and gentle and firm.
Athalie stood by the door her face radiant and behind her on the bed lay
shining masses of silks and satins and velvets in gaudy array and all
around the room were hangers on which hung limp effigies of herself done
in all colors of the rainbow, the vintage of Lilla’s cast off frocks,
made over for her neglected daughter.
Athalie led him around the room beginning with what she considered the
sober ones, and going on to the more dressy affairs. He went from one to
the other with growing bewilderment and pain, and when he had finished
he stood back in dismay and began at the beginning again. He could not
find one thing that filled his idea of what a young girl should wear.
Once he thought he had discovered it in a simple looking brown affair
with a gleam of brilliant green which Athalie had hung behind the door
as if she had forgotten it or did not want it inspected because it was
too dull. He took the hanger down and began to examine it.
“Now this,” he said with a tone of growing satisfaction, and picking up
a corner of the long tunic that was bound in tailored fashion, “this
seems—why, what is this? Trousers?”
“Yes, those are the knickerbockers,” said Athalie, “I used to like that
a lot but I’m sort of tired of it. However, if you like it I’ll put it
on. I thought maybe—but I’ll put it on!”
She seized the hanger and slipped into the bathroom, returning in a
brief space with the garment on. Patterson Greeves drew a long breath.
She seemed to be clothed properly for the first time. The lines were
straight, the color was dark, her form did not appear so sensuous.
“Now that—” he began, “step out from behind the bed and let me see.”
Athalie stepped out and walked.
“Why, what is that? Is it torn? Is it ripped? Why how short it is!”
“No, those are open all the way up to the waist. That is the
knickerbockers underneath. Haven’t you been used to the knickerbocker
suits? They’re all the craze at school. I had one of the first that came
out. I just made Lilla get it, or rather I bought it myself and sent the
bill to her and told her I’d tell a friend of hers something she didn’t
want told if she didn’t pay it—”
Athalie’s tongue was rattling on eagerly, but Athalie’s father was sick
at heart. As she strode about the room, whirling in front of the long
mirror on the old-fashioned bureau, her stout legs were revealed clad in
green trousers which finished in a tailored cuff below the knee and
fully eight inches above this brown tunic flopped and flared, making her
a grotesque figure, neither man nor maid. A fashion that might have been
tolerated or even fancied on a slender little child, but was revolting
on a girl of Athalie’s age and build.
“Take it off,” ordered the discouraged parent. “Haven’t you anything
decent at all?”
Athalie stopped dismayed and retreated half frightened into the other
room. When she came out again she was wearing the little yellow dress
and she looked lonesome and unhappy.
Her father wheeled about from the window where he had been looking
unseeingly into the garden—it was strange how the only relief from
things sometimes is to look out of the window and get a wider
vision—and eyed her perplexedly.
“We’ll have to go to town and do some shopping. I think it would be best
to take your sister along—”
“She’s _not_ my sister! And I won’t go if you take her! I thought you
understood that!”
“That’s not obedience, Athalie!”
The girl looked down stormily.
“Well, then if you force her on me I won’t obey. I don’t see why you
want her along. She can’t pick out my clothes! I wouldn’t wear a rag she
selected. You ask her if she would like what I chose for her.”
The father reflected that that was probably true. Silver would certainly
not look right in any of Athalie’s clothes.
“Well, then we’ll take the housekeeper,” he temporized.
“That frumpy thing!” said Athalie.
“Well, who would you suggest?” He looked desperately at his daughter and
wondered why a creature of so young an age should be able to perpetrate
so much trouble and get away with it.
Athalie dimpled into a charming smile.
“I don’t see why you and I couldn’t go just together. It’s you that’s to
be suited, isn’t it? And me that’s to do the wearing? Well, then, what
has anybody else to do with it.”
“I’m not at all certain that I—”
“Oh, if you don’t know what you want—” began Athalie with a toss of her
head.
“Very well,” said her father, with swift decision, “get ready at once.
I’ll phone for a car. Can you be ready in half an hour?” he looked at
his watch.
“Yes,” she said brightly, casting a selective eye around her wardrobe.
“But what will you wear?” he asked uneasily looking around also trying
to find something that would do. “I don’t see anything here that is
suitable.”
Athalie pouted.
“Perhaps we’d better wait and I’ll telephone for something to be sent
out on approval, a blue serge suit or something,” he suggested
helplessly.
Athalie darkened.
“I’ve got an old tweed thing in the trunk. I hate it but maybe you’d
like it.”
“Let me see it.”
She pawed in her trunk a moment and fished out a brown tweed coat and
skirt. He took it up and examined it, his face clearing.
“Now, that’s what I call a nice neat, sensible dress for a girl,” he
said. “Is it all whole? There aren’t any slits or anything in it? Well,
put that on, and some kind of a hat that doesn’t look too fast, and dark
stockings and gloves. And—Athalie, wash your face! _Wash_ it I mean!”
Athalie waited until he had closed the door and then she looked her
thought of him behind his back in a very forceful expression. Having
thus unburdened her soul she set about making a hasty toilet and when
she came down stairs seemed to him quite presentable in her trim brown
coat and skirt. The skirt was more abbreviated both horizontally and
perpendicularly than he would have desired, but it would have to do for
the present, and she wore a small, neat hat of brown straw from which
she had just extracted some kind of an ornament in feathers that
resembled a burning bush. It was drawn down over her forehead till she
looked quite demure, and her feet were quietly encased in brown
stockings and tan oxfords with low heels and rubber soles. She wore
gloves and her whole aspect seemed to have changed. Looking on her now
her father wondered perhaps if it might not be possible sometime to
even—well—rather like her.
That morning’s shopping was an experience Patterson Greeves will never
be likely to forget. He felt as if he were leading a wild young coyote
by a chain, which might at any moment give way in his hand and let chaos
loose in the stores. The number of things that Athalie picked out and
her father disapproved were too numerous to mention. Sometimes they
found a saleswoman who sided with the girl and took it upon herself to
advise the father, and then Greeves went to another store. Again they
fell to the hands of a prim, sharp woman with a false front who called
Athalie “dearie” and patronized her, and the girl simply refused to try
on or look at a thing under her guidance.
In his pocket Patterson Greeves carried a brief memorandum the result of
a secret interview with Anne Truesdale, which he from time to time
consulted anxiously as if it were a talisman that would somehow guide
him through the mazes of this expedition. It read:
“Four or five stout gingham dresses for school.
Two sprigged muslins for afternoons.
A nice white dress for evening socials.
A dark blue silk for best.
Two serviceable blue serges made sailor style.”
Athalie had two methods. One was to go into ecstacies over something she
liked, talk about its simplicity, and its classic lines, and how sweet
and quiet it was. The other was to walk off out of the department
entirely and be found looking drearily out of a window when she saw her
father’s eye on something that did not interest her.
On the whole she worked things pretty well, and came off with four wash
silks, which by the aid of the saleswoman she had persuaded her father
were now taking the place of ginghams; several crêpe de chines, a couple
of handkerchief linens, and a one-piece serge that cost twice as much as
any dress she had ever owned before. If she was going to have to be
severe and plain, by all means let it be the severity of elegant
simplicity. After a sumptuous repast at an irreproachable tea room at
which she ordered everything on the menu that took her fancy from
lobster salad to café frappé she carried her exhausted parent home
triumphantly and spent the afternoon making little alterations in her
purchases. He had selected them himself, hadn’t he? Well, then he
couldn’t possibly find fault with anything about them. He would never
know what she had done to them.
Life settled down quietly. Patterson Greeves got out some of his notes
and began to put his papers away in the desk. Silver had sent word that
she was spending the day at the Flats. There was nothing to hurt or
annoy. He reflected that both Lizette Weldon and several of the
Vandemeeters had been in evidence at their front windows or gates when
he and Athalie had driven away and again when they returned. Surely
Athalie’s escapade would be forgotten if all went on in the conventional
manner. Surely he might relax a little now.
From the region of the kitchen there floated from time to time spicy
suggestive odors.
And the next day was the Sabbath.