"I know, dear, but you see it's her regular Sunday."
"Of course. I'm not criticizing your mother," he answered, in that
tone in which the phrase is so often used, as if he could do it
magnificently if he let himself go. "Only I must say that after three
months' absence I did hope--" He stopped; his face, which had been
blank before, now became set like steel, and Lita saw that his eyes had
fallen on the former partner of his life. It was most alarming. At any
instant her mother might grow weary of the bishop and turn from him.
Lita laid her hand on her father's arm.
"So, you see, dear," she said rather glibly, "I can't possibly lunch
with you."
"I don't see it at all," replied her father. "Your mother has had you
to herself all this winter. I'm afraid I shall have to insist. There is
something I want to talk over with you."
Lita had not anticipated the least difficulty with her father. He
usually yielded his rights in silence, and afterward her mother
explained to her how mistaken he had been in supposing he had any
rights. She sighed, and he caught the sigh.
"Unless," he added, "you don't want to lunch with me."
His feelings were hurt. She couldn't bear that.
"Of course, I always want to lunch with you," she said, and she was
glad this hearty assurance did not carry so far as her mother's ears.
"I'll run and explain, and I'll meet you at the main gate in half an
hour."
She turned away. Miss Barton, to whom Sunday was a terrible day,
devoted to placating visiting parents, who always had one disagreeable
thing to say before they left, had rather mistakenly abandoned the
bishop entirely to Mrs. Hazlitt. As Lita approached them she heard her
mother saying: "But I think it's so much nicer for wolves to be wolfish
and leopards leopardy. I'm sure the heathen are ever so much happier
the way they are, sharpening their teeth and eating one another up,
poor dears."
"But they are not happy, my dear madam," said the bishop, driven by a
sense of duty into correcting her mistake, and yet discouraged by a
sense that whatever he said she would interrupt him before he had said
it. "They are not happy. They are full of terror. Darkness and night
are to them just a recurring fear."
"To me too," said Mrs. Hazlitt. "The heathen have nothing on me, as
these girls would say. I look under my bed every night for a giant
spider I read about when I was a child. You ought to be so careful what
children read. So interesting--your sermon, bishop. I'm sure you could
convert me if I were a heathen. Oh, I see you think I practically am.
Oh, bishop, your face! Lita, the bishop thinks I'm a heathen. This is
my child. May we go to your room before luncheon? Well, I never know.
I'm so afraid of breaking some of their silly rules in this place. Oh,
I hope Miss Barton did not hear me say that. I've asked that nice fat
girl with the red hair to lunch with us at the inn. I'd rather like
to ask the bishop too--he's rather sweet," she added regretfully as
Lita began to lead her away in the direction of her dormitory. "But I
suppose you girls wouldn't be amused by a bishop."
"Mother dear," said Lita, "prepare yourself for a shock."
"You've been expelled," said Mrs. Hazlitt as if it had come at last, as
she always knew it would.
"No, it's almost worse. Father is here too."
Mrs. Hazlitt stopped short and looked at her child.
"What?" she exclaimed, and the final t of the word was like a bullet.
"But this is my Sunday."
"But he didn't know that."
"Didn't he, indeed? It's been my experience that your father usually
contrives to know anything that it's to his advantage to know--and the
other way round. He just thought he could get away with it. Well, he
can't!"
"He's been away on business for three months, mother."
"Has he so? Fortunately I am no longer obliged to keep track of your
father's comings and goings--especially the latter. When I did attempt
to--"
She paused, bitterly brooding on her past anxieties; and Lita, taking
her again by the arm, succeeded in setting her in motion. They entered
the building where Lita lived, mounted the stairs in silence and went
to Lita's room. Aurelia, who shared the room, being in the infirmary,
secured them from interruption.
Mrs. Hazlitt walked at once to the window and peered out in all
directions; but the window did not command that part of the grounds
which lay between the chapel and the main gate. Finding the object of
her hostile interest was not in sight, she turned back to her child.
"It's really too much," she said, "that I cannot have my one quiet
Sunday a month with you. I never wanted you to go to boarding school at
all. I only yielded because your coming here gave your father a place
where he could see you without being obliged to come to my house--not
pleasant for either of us. But it's a mistake to yield an inch to some
people, as I ought to have known. I insist on my own Sunday. All other
days are open to him, except this one, and so, of course, that's just
the only one--"
"Only, mother dear, while he's been away I have been coming down to you
in New York for most of my Sundays."
Mrs. Hazlitt had a way of opening her large black eyes until her curved
lashes were flattened against her lids and looked as if they trimmed
her eyes with black fringe. She did it now.
"And does he complain of that?" she asked. "Isn't it natural for a girl
to spend her Sundays with her mother; or does he expect while he's away
you and I--"
"No, no, mother. He doesn't complain. Father isn't a complainer."
"Lita! You hurt my feelings very much, criticizing me like that."
"Dearest mums, I didn't criticize you."
"You did! You said I was always complaining."
"No, dear, I only said that father did not."
This was so true that Mrs. Hazlitt could not deny it, and so with great
quickness she shifted her ground.
"Isn't it something new," she said, "for you to feel it necessary to
defend your father at every sentence?"
"I wasn't exactly defending him. I only--"
"My dear, you don't need to apologize for defending your father--very
laudable, I'm sure. I feel deeply sorry for him myself--over forty,
without a natural human tie. Only I do not feel called on to give up
one of my few opportunities of being with you in order to suit his
caprices."
"Is it exactly a--"
"It is exactly that. Rather late in the day for him to begin to
discover the responsibilities of parenthood. Is he to have all the
rewards?"
It did not seem a promising beginning; and Lita, in whom her mother's
rapidly reflected changes of idea always set up a sort of baffled
confusion, sighed. Her mother caught instantly that long-drawn-in
breath and went through a complete change of mood--as rapid as her
mental changes.
"Oh, well, of course you must lunch with him. I suppose that is what he
wants, isn't it?"
Lita simply adored her mother when she was suddenly kind and reasonable
like this. It was, the girl knew, a striking triumph of the maternal
instinct over the hardly less fundamental human instinct to stick up
for one's rights.
"Oh, mums, you are awfully good," she said.
This was not the right thing to say; perhaps nothing would have been.
"Don't thank me," her mother answered sharply, "as if I were doing you
a favor. I didn't suppose you were so crazy to leave me. Oh, I know;
and, after all, we have all the rest of our lives to spend together. Be
sure to get back in time to walk to the train with me."
Lita promised to be back immediately after luncheon was over, and she
added that she did really feel it was better to go to her father, as he
had said he had something he wished to discuss with her.
At this, Mrs. Hazlitt, who, strictly against the rules of the school,
had been sitting on Lita's bed, sprang up, and the girl at once began
to smooth the bed. She was always destroying evidence of Mrs. Hazlitt's
illegal conduct after one of her visits.
"Lita," exclaimed her mother, quite unconscious of any reproof in her
daughter's action, "he's going to be married again! Oh! I suppose I
should not have said that, but what else could he want to discuss? I do
hope he is."
"Oh, I hope not!" said Lita, astonished to find how disagreeable the
idea was to her.
"But don't you see how it would get him out of our way? He could hardly
expect you to see much of a new bride, particularly the kind-- Women
pursue him so; they think that manner of his covers such a lot; they
learn different.... No, Lita, not that hat--like Tweedle-dee in the
saucepan. If you come down to me next Sunday I'll get you one that
matches the foulard."
Suddenly they began to talk about clothes, and spoke of nothing else
until it was time for Lita to go.
She thought as she ran across the green that she of all people ought
to understand why her parents couldn't get on. Sometimes her mother
made her feel as if she were clinging to a slippery hillside while an
avalanche passed over her; and sometimes her father made her feel as
if she were trying to roll a gigantic stone up that same hill. But
then, on the other hand, sometimes her mother made her feel gay and
stimulated, and her father gave her calm and serenity. And, after all,
she hadn't chosen them; and they had chosen each other.
Her father was already waiting for her in his little car, a runabout
body on a powerful foreign chassis. Everything that Mr. Hazlitt had was
good of its kind and well kept up. He was sitting in the driver's seat,
reading the sporting sheet of a morning paper, his knees crossed and
one elbow over the back of the seat. He looked young and smart. Other
cars were waiting--closed cars full of heavy bald parents. Lita felt
a glow of pride. To go out with her father was like going out with a
dangerous young man. Fortunately the diversity of tastes between her
parents extended to their places of lodging. Her mother always stayed
at an old-fashioned inn near the school grounds, whereas her father,
who motored the forty miles from New York, and so never spent the
night, preferred to eat at the hotel in the nearest town.
She got in beside him and they drove for some time in silence. Then he
said, and she saw he had been thinking it over for some time:
"Lita, I want to speak to you about interrupting. It's a habit a great
many women allow themselves to form. It's not only rude, but it's
extremely irritating--alienating, indeed." He went on to assert that
such a habit might even wreck her married life. A man, he said, who was
interrupted every time he opened his mouth might get so that he never
spoke at all; never told his wife things she ought to know.
Lita glanced at him sympathetically. Did the poor dear suppose she
did not know just what he meant? She had suffered herself. Her mother
often accused her of concealing things which she had tried repeatedly
to tell; only her mother, with her mind running like a hound on some
other idea, did not even hear. And yet on the other hand she had
felt sympathetic when, not long before, her mother had delivered a
short lecture on the treachery of silence; she had said--and quite
truly--that a silence could be just as much of a lie as a spoken word.
She wondered if she were a weak nature, agreeing with everyone who
spoke to her.
At the hotel she found her father had ordered a special luncheon for
her delight, composed of all the things he liked best himself. The
regular hotel dinner, with its immense opportunities for choice, would
have been a treat to Lita after the monotony of school fare; but she
enjoyed the prestige that the special order gave them in the eyes of
the dragoonlike head waitress, who never left their table. That was one
of the amusing things about going out with her father. He had a quiet
assumption of importance which made everyone think him important.
They had been at table several minutes before he spoke. He said, "If
you take so much sauce you lose the flavor of the fish."
"I like the flavor of the sauce best," said Lita, and he smiled, a
little sadly, as if he were at a loss to understand how his child could
be such an utter barbarian.
Conscious that she had not quite so much time as he thought she had,
she hurried to the point and asked him what it was he wanted to
discuss. He seemed to be thinking deeply, which alarmed her; then he
reached out and added a dash of pepper to his fish.
"Oh," he said, "I find I must go to Italy on business next summer. I
wonder if you could arrange it with your mother so that you could go
with me."
"Mercy!" exclaimed Lita. "I was afraid you were going to tell me you
were going to be married again."
He looked up with a swift dark glance.
"Who put that idea into your head?" he asked.
"No one; it just occurred to me."
Where opposing affections exist, a lady, as much as a gentleman, is
obliged to lie.
"That was your mother's idea," said her father, and gave a short,
bitter laugh, as if human depravity could hardly go lower than to have
made such a suggestion.
Well, Lita thought, perhaps her mother ought not to have said it; and
yet, why not? Her father had remarried once. It made her feel old and
cold, always to be obliged to weigh criticisms and complaints, to
decide which of the two people she loved best in the world was right
and which was wrong, every other minute. How she envied girls who could
accept their parents as a unit!
Seeing her father's mind still occupied with his wrongs, she turned the
conversation back to Italy. Of course, she would adore going--at least
she would if her mother would agree to it.
"Of course, we could not go otherwise," said her father, and there was
somehow in his tone the suggestion that he and his poor child were in
the grip of an irrational and arbitrary power. After a moment he added,
"And we'd stop in Paris on our way back and get you a lot of things."
He smiled--he had a delightful, merry smile, quite at variance to his
habitual blankness. "I don't suppose that idea is exactly repugnant to
you?"
It wasn't, though Lita knew it was practically bribery. She adored
shopping with her father. His method was simple. He went to the best
shop and asked for their best things. If he liked them he bought them.
If he didn't like them he went to the next-best shop. There was no
haggling, no last-minute doubts whether, since the expense was so
great, she really needed to get the things after all. Her father in
Paris! It was a delirious thought.
"I should enjoy Paris with you, Pat," she said. He smiled with a faint
suggestion that others had felt the same way. "If only mother approves."
"I don't see that there is anything to disapprove of, even for your
mother, in a man's taking his daughter to Paris."
"What I mean is if she is really cordial about it. I could not go if
she weren't cordial."
"Then," said her father, "we may as well give it up at once. For, of
course, your mother won't be cordial. She won't want you to go. She
never wants you out of her sight if she can help it."
"Father, mother isn't a bit selfish like that."
"I never said she was. It is natural she should want you to be with
her. Please get it into your head, Lita, that I should never under any
circumstances criticize your mother--least of all to you."
Lita looked at him reflectively. If he had been Aurelia she would have
said "Bunk, my dear, and you know it." That was the way she and Aurelia
carried on their relation--in the open. Candor cleared the air; but
older people, Lita had found, did not really want the air cleared.
They could not stand criticism; perhaps that was why they were always
insisting that they did not criticize, when as a matter of fact they
never did anything else.
Luncheon pursued its delicious but somewhat leisurely way. Mr. Hazlitt
lit a cigar and sent the coffee back to be heated. It was a pleasant
moment. Lita was conscious that he was treating her more as an equal
companion than ever before. She was enjoying herself, and yet in the
back of her mind was a distressing awareness that time was passing and
she ought to be getting back to school to her mother.
"The truth is," her father was saying, "that as one gets older one
loses the power, or perhaps the wish, to make new friends; and one
clings to the old ties. I hope you will arrange eventually, when you
are twenty-one, to spend at least half the year with me. I shall be in
a position then to make some long expeditions--China and Patagonia, and
I should like you to go with me."
Lita's imagination took fire, but she said loyally, "But how about
mother, Pat? I suppose she's lonely too."
Mr. Hazlitt laughed shortly.
"Your mother," he said, "unless she has changed very much, probably
does not spend one waking hour in the twenty-four alone. I doubt if she
ever loses the power of making new friends--quite indiscriminately.
And, after all, I am only asking for half your time."
"But, father, suppose I should marry?"
Her father looked at her with startled eyes, as if she had suggested
something unnatural and wrong.
"Marry!" he said. "I hope you have no such idea in your head."
She had not. Indeed her immunity from the crushes which occupied so
much of the time and attention of her schoolmates occasioned her some
concern. She feared her nature was a cold one. She disclaimed the idea
of marriage, except as she had observed it in common.
"People do, you know," she said.
"A good many would be wiser if they didn't," said her father. "I am
particularly opposed to young marriages."
He and her mother had married when they were young.
Presently she was obliged to tell him that she must go. He did not
gainsay her decision, but she saw he took it as meaning that she had
not really enjoyed herself. Yet when she tried to say she had--that
she was sorry to leave him--it kept sounding as if she were saying it
was a bore to go back and walk to the station with her mother. If only
she could be loyal to one parent without being disloyal to the other!
She was a little bit late at the school. Her mother was just starting
without her.
"Oh, I understand," she said, without listening to Lita's explanation.
"Very natural. You were enjoying yourself; you don't need to explain."
Lita saw she was hurt but had determined to be nice about it.
They started on their walk. First they crossed the athletic fields;
then their way would lie through the school woods, and then across
stony fields, and then they would come out on the macadam road to the
station--about three miles across country.
The Italian trip, which had seemed so simple and pleasant when her
father mentioned it, now began to take on the appearance of a dark
conspiracy. Lita thought that she would far rather give it up than
mention it, only she had promised her father that she would speak of
it that afternoon so that he might have plenty of time to make his
arrangements. He was very particular about special cabins on a special
boat. Oh, dear, with her mother's feelings already a little hurt, it
wasn't going to be easy! Mrs. Hazlitt herself started conversation.
"And so you had a delightful lunch?" she said, trying to be nice, but
also trying to find out what it was her child's father had wanted to
discuss, for she was curious by nature.
"Yes, very nice. Pat's going to Italy next summer on business."
"Really?" said her mother, without special interest. "Some people's
business does take them to the nicest places."
Lita suddenly wondered how it would work if she forced these
insinuations of her parents to their logical conclusions.
"Don't you believe father really has business in Italy?" she inquired
mildly.
"Of course he has if he says so. What funny things you say, Lita! Your
father is one of the most accurate people I ever knew--if he makes an
assertion. Well, if he goes to Italy that will leave us entirely free.
I thought perhaps it would amuse you if I took a house at Southampton
this summer. Of course, when I was young Newport was the place; but now
I'm told the young people prefer--"
"But, mother," said Lita, and she felt just the way she did before she
dived into cold water, "he wants to take me with him."
Mrs. Hazlitt merely laughed.
"A likely idea!" she said.
"And I told him I would ask you how you felt about it."
Her mother stopped short and looked at her. Then she said, and each
syllable dropped lower and lower like pebbles falling down a well, "In
fact--you want--to go."
It was hard to be truthful.
"Well, yes, in a way, I should like to go; at least I thought so when
Pat spoke of it." She thought she ought to go as far as this, but even
this moderate statement was fatal.
"You shall not go!" said her mother, her eyes beginning to enlarge as
they did in moments of emotion until they seemed to fill her whole
face. "I won't hear of it--or go--go if you want to. I never want
anyone to stay with me as a duty."
"Mother dear, I don't care. I don't really want to go; it was just an
idea."
"Do at least be honest about it. Of course you want to go, or you would
not have promised to try to work me round to agreeing to it--conspiring
together. No, of course I don't mean that. Nothing could be more
natural at your age than to snatch at any pleasure that comes. I don't
blame you--a child--but him--trying to steal you--"
Her nostrils began to tremble on her quick intaken breaths.
"Father did not mean--"
"Of course you don't think so; but you don't know him as well as I
do," said her mother. "I suppose you've utterly forgotten how little
he cared for you when you were a child; but now that all the care and
responsibility is over--"
She simply could not go on.
Lita, a little constrained by this display of emotion, said, smiling,
"It's nice to know I'm no care, mother." But as an effort at the light
touch it was not a success.
Mrs. Hazlitt did not even hear her. She went on: "Now he's ready to
charm you and tempt you away so as to leave me alone again. Oh, never
love anyone, Lita, when you grow up! It's all pain. Be like your
father; take what you want and go on your own horrible way, leaving
destruction behind you." She covered her face with her hands, not
because she was crying, but to hide the chattering of her teeth; and
then as a new idea swept over her she dropped them again and continued:
"It's all my own fault. I've been too absurdly honorable. I've brought
you up to respect and admire him, when all the weapons were in my hands
and I might just as well have taught you to despise him as he deserves.
I wish I had. Oh, how I wish I had! I've never said a word against your
father, have I, Lita?"
"Never--never, dearest," said Lita. She thought to herself, "They are
making me a liar between them, but I couldn't say anything else to her
just now."
She was not a prig, but she could hardly help feeling that sense of
superiority--of being in control of the situation--that the calm are so
apt to experience in the presence of turgid emotions.
Mrs. Hazlitt suddenly turned back to her.
"But you don't really want to go with him?" she said as hopefully as if
a minute before she had not considered the contrary as proved.
"No, mother, I don't."
"These silent people! Fortunately I know him like a book. He's probably
been plotting this for months. I see what he's up to. He wants to get
things so that by the time that you're twenty-one you'll be willing to
spend some of your time with him; but you wouldn't do that, would you?"
"Nothing could ever come between you and me, mother. That's the solid
comfort of a mo--"
"You don't answer what I say; you are keeping back some of your
thoughts, just like your father. Oh, I couldn't bear it if you grew
like him! No one is ever so candid as I am. What is in your mind?"
"Nothing, mother. It crossed my mind that I might marry some day."
"Marry!" Her mother's tone, given the difference of sex and
temperament, was identical with her father's; as if marriage were a
crime other people's daughters might commit, but not her lovely child.
"What in heaven's name are you talking about, Lita?"
"Well, mother, you were mar--"
"And do you quote my case? Marriage! No, not until you are twenty-five
at least. Don't mention the word to me!"
At least there was one subject on which her parents were in hearty
agreement--the first, as far as she could remember, that she had ever
found. They did not want her to marry. But, she reflected, as she
joggled home alone on the back seat of the school flivver, was it
entirely interest in her welfare that made them opposed? Wasn't it
rather that they needed her to fill the gap in their lives that their
own separation had made? This, she thought, was the real objection
to divorce--that it made parents too emotionally dependent on their
children. Suppose she died. She considered the possibility steadily.
Why, yes, if she died they would probably come together in their grief.
She saw a little picture of herself in the infirmary, with her parents
standing hand in hand at the foot of the bed. And yet one really could
not commit suicide in order to reconcile one's parents.
Well, Italy was now out of the question; Italy was canned. She must
write to her father immediately that she could not go, and she must do
it so as not to make her mother seem selfish, and so as not to hurt her
father's feelings. Some letter, she thought. She saw herself walking
the deck of an enormous steamer, hanging on his arm, ordering meals in
amusing restaurants, the Paris shops gleaming with hats and jewels and
beaded bags and fans, all for her. Of course it was natural that she
wanted to go....
The car stopped at the door of the main school building, and she sprang
out, free at last to give her attention to Aurelia. Strangely enough,
though she did not love her friend so much as she did her parents, she
worried more about her, as one equal about another.
The infirmary, a neat white cottage, was set in a remote corner of the
grounds. As Lita bounded up the steps she met Miss Barton coming out.
Every head of a school, perhaps every head of an institution, perhaps
everyone in the world, acquires an artificial manner to serve as
a method of holding off crises. Some adopt the genial, some the
meditative, some the stern. Miss Barton had chosen the intellectually
airy. As a problem was presented to her she would say "Ah, yes," with a
faint, calm smile, as if that special problem were so easy and familiar
she might float away to something more stimulating without remembering
to give you the answer. She was a tall, good-looking woman, pale eyed,
pale skinned, with thick, crinkly gray hair, parted and drawn down to a
knot at the nape of her neck; it looked exactly like a wig, but wasn't.
She stopped Lita.
"Oh," she said with her habitual gay casualness, "we have been looking
for you. Don't be alarmed, but it seems that Aurelia has appendicitis."
"Yes I felt pretty sure she had," answered Lita.
Miss Barton did not think it worth while to contradict this absurd
assertion. She merely smiled on one side of her face and replied that
the doctors themselves had only decided it fifteen minutes before. It
appeared that Aurelia was eager to see her friend before the operation.
"She's in Room 11," said Miss Barton. "They will operate as soon as
they can get things ready. Don't alarm her. There is no risk nowadays,
nothing to be excited about."
"Is she excited?"
"I think not."
"Of course she isn't."
It is hard sometimes to be patient with older people, playing their own
rôles so busily they lose all sense of other individualities. Aurelia,
Lita imagined, was probably the calmest person in the infirmary.
In Room 11 she found her roommate lying on her side, very pale, with
her dark hair dragged back and tightly braided. The nurse was moving in
and out and the two girls were practically alone, while the following
dialogue took place.
"Pain?"
"Oh, my!"
"Poor kid!"
"Lita, in my shoe box there are five pictures of Gene Valentine, and a
note--"
"From him?"
"No, dodo, from me--a rough draft. Get them, will you?"
"You bet!"
"Thanks."
Then the nurse came in to say that everything was ready, and Lita
was hurried out of the room. She kept telling herself that there was
nothing to worry about, but her heart was beating oddly.
In the hall a young man was standing; or rather, from Lita's point of
view, an older man, for he must have been twenty-eight or nine. He was
attired in a long white robe rather like a cook--or an angel. The sight
of him dressed thus for his work upset Lita and made her feel like
crying; in fact she did cry.
"Don't you worry," said the young man in a deep voice--a splendid,
rolling, velvet sort of voice. "We've got the best man in the country
to operate; there's no danger."
"Is that you--the best man in the country?"
He laughed.
"To be candid, no," he said. "I'm Doctor Burroughs' assistant. He's the
best there is. There is nothing to cry about."
"If people only cried when there was something to cry about," said
Lita; and added in an exclamation of the deepest concern, "Oh,
goodness!"
Her tone alarmed the young man.
"What is it?"
"I haven't got a handkerchief."
He lifted his apron and from the pocket of his blue serge trousers he
produced an unfolded handkerchief, which he gave her.
"I have a little sister just about your age," he said.