The discovery of her dependence upon her step-mother marked an end to
one period of Joan's existence: the apathetic period. Heretofore she had
allowed their daily life, their amusements, their acquaintanceships, to
remain in the hands of Effie May. If that lady chose, as she naively put
it, to "break into society," and society was willing, Joan was amenable,
though a little dubious as to society's taste. She was amenable, that
is, so long as she was not called upon too actively to assist in the
process. Pride forbade her making any effort to interest or to be
interested in people who chose to accept the present Mrs. Darcy as one
of themselves. To the Louisville she knew so far, she was merely the
appendage of her parents, a captive chained to the triumphal
chariot-wheel of her step-mother.
That was all very well so long as she knew that she might snap the chain
at any moment and be free. But a dependence that seemed likely to
continue indefinitely was not to be borne by what the Major would have
called "the proud spirit of a Darcy." Joan, waking in the early dawn,
rose and dressed (not in negligee), demanded breakfast at an hour when
the astonished servants were barely awake themselves, and proceeded to
clear her decks for action....
Ellen had sowed a useful suggestion in her brain. There was one freedom
open to all young girls who were not too exacting in their demands: the
freedom of marriage. Joan decided to marry. She also selected the
victim.
It was the first time she had thought of him for weeks; or of "the
girls," those heart's companions with whom she had shared for two years
her inmost hopes and desires (to say nothing of hats and gloves and
handkerchiefs); with whom at parting she had exchanged vows of lifelong
fealty. Their letters had accumulated unanswered. In the shock and shame
of her father's marriage, she had put away childish things, among them
her schoolmates, who seemed in the retrospect immature and puerile. Even
Eduard of the interesting past had been put away for the moment with
outgrown things, and had remained (fortunately) unthanked for his
parting flowers. As for the love-letter which had accompanied them--Joan
wondered with a start of dismay what had become of it.
She found it neatly smoothed of its tell-tale wrinkles (the reader will
remember that for a day and a night it had reposed against Joan's
heart), filed among the letters in her desk, where it had been duly
placed after being duly read, doubtless, by one of Mrs. Darcy's
efficient housemaids.
The girl studied it with a more dispassionate eye than she had brought
to its first perusal:
My flowers must tell you what I dare not, dearest little girl
of my heart. You will understand why I cannot say good-by.
Truly, "to part is to die a little." Forgive me!--EDUARD.
Joan decided that this could not, after all, be called a love-letter; or
if so, it was of a noncommittal type distinctly piquing to the vanity.
She had given a good many of her precious holidays to the reforming of
Mr. Desmond.
"So!" she thought, with a small gleam in her eye. "I was merely a child
that amused him for the moment! He was probably laughing at me.... I
wonder if he would laugh now?"
She went to her mirror and examined the reflection within impartially.
Something of what she had always candidly recognized as her plainness
seemed to have disappeared. She was no longer scrawny, for one thing.
Her lazy life of the past weeks, and possibly Effie May's beauty
experts, whose ministrations she accepted so ungratefully, had put a
gracious covering over her young bones, and she discovered with some
excitement the rudiments of a figure. Her straight, burnished hair (she
had so far resisted all temptations to "marcel" it) gave her what she
fancied a rather _distingue_ air, and her skin had that rare, pale
transparency of perfect health which is lovelier even than rosiness. Her
eyes had always given perfect satisfaction. She nodded to them in
affectionate fashion, as to good friends (she had always fancied that
one of them was her brain and the other her soul, and even suspected
which was which--the left wearing rather a twinkle, in comparison with
the right, which had a mild, innocuous expression). Her mouth was too
large.
"But then," she reflected, "large mouths are very much worn by heroines
nowadays, and mine isn't mushy or loose at the corners, anyway. There's
a draw-string to it."
Of the nose the less said the better. It was merely a nose.
On the whole, standing there in her pretty morning dress, with the grace
and freshness of nineteen years about her like an aura, young Joan
decided in all modesty that she was one of the women who have their
moments, and that such moments ought not to be wasted.
She sat down at once and indited a little note to Eduard Desmond
expressing gratitude for "flowers which had meant so much to her," and
explaining that she had not written before "because it had seemed best
not to"--the inference being that now danger was past, and time had made
it safe for her to think of him.
"That," mused Joan nibbling her penholder, "ought to make him sit up and
take notice, I should think?" She had been from her cradle something of
a student of her fellow-creatures.
She wrote to his niece, her friend Betty, as well; a long, confidential
screed, mentioning the fact of her father's marriage without comment and
allowing her friend to read between the lines. Betty had an adored
mother of her own.
Then Joan rested on her oars and awaited results, which were prompt in
coming. Not for nothing had she been the prize letter-writer of her
school, entrusted by friend and foe alike with the handling of anything
that was most delicate in the way of correspondence.
A few days later she was able to remark to her family that she had been
invited to visit her schoolmate, Betty Desmond, at the Desmond country
place near Philadelphia.
"The people you spent the Christmas holidays with in Washington? A fine
old Irish name," commented the Major, who made something of a specialty
of names. "I have not the pleasure of their acquaintance, but I am sure
the good Sisters would not have permitted you to visit them if they had
not been--ah! desirable acquaintances."
"They are quite rich, if that is what you mean," said his daughter
bluntly. Her manner to her father had latterly undergone a change which
was not altogether nice.
The Major's eyebrows shot up in pained surprise. "Joan! That is
certainly irrelevant, not to say--"
"And there's an eligible young man in the family," continued the girl
imperturbably.
He stared at her, speechless. "My child!" he exclaimed after a moment.
"One would suppose you were actually--"
"Hunting for a husband? I am," she finished. "What else did you expect
me to do?"
A burst of laughter from Effie May relieved the situation. "Of course
she's hunting for a husband! All girls are, unless they're lookin' for
trouble. Good for you, dearie! You'll land him, too, I'll bet my hat.
Men? Lord," she cried, "they're as easy as fallin' off a log, once you
get the hang of 'em!"
But the Major continued to gaze at his daughter incredulously. "To
think," he murmured, "that I should live to hear _my daughter_ speak in
such a manner!" It was evidently not the idea which shocked him, so much
as the indelicate expression of it.
Joan rose suddenly and left the table.
Effie May came to her afterwards, intent on comforting. "There, there,
girlie, you mustn't mind what your papa says; he's just a man. Besides,
he's so genteel in his instincts he's hardly human. Your mamma would
have understood, just like I do. _She_ wouldn't of thought you'd said
anything unrefined!"
"Thank you," muttered Joan bitterly.
"Why, it's the most natural thing in the world that a girl wants a house
of her own, and a man of her own, and so forth! Only most of 'em ain't
honest enough to come out flat and say so.... I'm for you, dearie.
You're to have the trip, of course, and anything else you want, just let
me know. As if I was really your mother--I mean it!"
"Thank you," said Joan again.
It was not the first time she had been disconcerted to find the enemy
fighting her battles. What is to be done with an enemy which will not
keep its proper place?
Effie May concerned herself in the preparations for departure with a
whole-hearted generosity which occasioned Joan some secret pangs of
remorse. As a step-relative she knew that she herself had left much to
be desired. In vain the girl protested that she had already too many
clothes, too much finery.
"Nonsense! A girl can't have too much finery," was the rejoinder. "Even
if you don't get to wear all your pretties, it makes you feel sort of
easy, sort of good-as-anybody like, just to know you've got 'em in the
closet."
With her own hands she ran ribbons and rearranged trimmings and packed,
to the secret jealousy of Ellen, keeping up a constant stream of shrewd
comment and advice, some of which Joan found worth remembering.
"The trouble with you is, girlie, you think too much," was one of the
pearls that fell from her lips. "Just let go and have a good time, and
don't take yourself so hard. You can feel as different as you like
inside, just so folks don't know it. Folks are sort of leery of what
they aren't used to. See?"
Joan often wondered in what school of experience her step-mother had
gleaned her curious wisdom.
Ellen Neal was the only one of the three elders who watched her going
with any uneasiness.
"Look here, Joan," she said once, abruptly. "When I spoke like I done
about marriage being the best thing for a girl, I meant marriage with
love, child--marriage _with love_. Like your mamma's."
The simile was unfortunate. The eye that Joan believed to be her brain
twinkled mockingly. "Do you mean to insinuate that marriage and love are
not always synonymous? Why, Mrs. Neal, you put so many strange ideas
into my young head lately! Seriously," she added, seeing that the
other's anxious gravity did not relax, "I don't believe it would be hard
to pump up a little love in return for--lots of it, say, and a place of
your own in the world, and independence."
"Where there's love there ain't apt to be much independence, I've
noticed," remarked the other.
"All the more reason to do without love, then!" cried Joan, with
triumphant logic.
But she hugged Ellen remorsefully, glad that the good woman could only
guess at what was going on at the moment in her nursling's brain.
Her step-mother's casual advice and her own inner musings had resulted
in one firm determination. If she missed romance, experience, all the
real things of life, it would not be for lack of meeting them halfway.
She would be no longer a passive agent. She would be bold and
reckless--even if necessary a little Fast; though how to go about being
Fast was somewhat of a puzzle to Mary's daughter.
"If people want to say things, or squeeze my hand, or anything like
that," she told herself rather vaguely, "I must remember not to hold
back and be standoffish.... How do I know what I like unless I try?"
But while the noun on her tongue was plural and indefinite, the noun on
her mind was single and masculine and very definite indeed. It behooved
Mr. Desmond to look to himself.