The house the young Minthrops had taken was of a contracted luxury
that oppressed Deena, accustomed as she was to space and sunshine at
Harmouth. She told Ben that fortunes in New York could be gauged by
the amount of light the individual could afford--billionaires had
houses standing free, with light on four sides; millionaires had
corner houses with light on three sides; while ordinary mortals lived
in tunnels more or less magnificent where electric light had often to
do duty for the sun. Ben declared that his income only admitted light
fore and aft, but that with skillful decoration they could at least
travesty the sunshine, and so they tried to reproduce its effects by
wall hangings of faint yellow and pale green, by chintz-covered
bedrooms that seemed to blossom with roses, and living rooms sweet
with fresh flowers. There was no solemn mahogany--no light-absorbing
color on door or window; all was delicately bright and gay as the
tinting of the spring.
Deena worked hard to get the house ready for Polly, who was still in
Boston with her mother-in-law, and seemed quite content to leave the
arranging of her new quarters to her sister and husband, who preceded
her by several weeks; indeed, she was becoming so accustomed to being
waited upon that she considered herself in a fair way of being
spoiled. An heir was expected, and an heir seemed a very important
thing to the elder Minthrops. They treated Polly as a queen bee, and
the rest of the world as slaves to wait upon her. She was behaving in
a way to satisfy their requirements in a daughter-in-law, and life was
to be smoothed accordingly.
Every day brought a fresh suggestion covered by a check. Ben was
invited to select a high-stepping gray horse--a pair of cobs--a tiny
brougham--a victoria--a piano--a pianola. Deena shopped till she
almost sank exhausted, and yet the requests kept coming. If dear Mrs.
Ponsonby didn't mind the trouble, perhaps Polly might be warmer with
sable rugs--perhaps an extra sofa in her room might induce her to lie
down oftener--perhaps a few of those charming lace and linen
tablecloths might make her feel like giving little dinners at home
instead of fatiguing herself by going out to find her amusements.
Deena would have been more than mortal if the image of old Mrs.
Ponsonby had not risen before her eyes in forbidding contrast to so
much indulgence. She realized that the genus mother-in-law has widely
differing species, and yet in her heart she doubted whether Mrs.
Minthrop, with money to anticipate every wish of her only son, loved
him a whit more than frugal, self-denying Mother Ponsonby had loved
her Simeon. Lavishness or thrift, alike they proved a mother's
affection.
Deena executed all the commissions without a shadow of covetousness
and rejoiced in her sister's good fortune; it was reserved for Polly
and Ben, when they took up their life in New York, to show her the
depths of her own loneliness by the fullness of their comradeship, and
her yearning needs by their mutual devotion.
Polly arrived one bleak December day, the week before Christmas,
escorted by Mrs. Minthrop and two maids, and was met at the Grand
Central by her husband in a state of boyish excitement. His delight in
having his wife with him once more was so genuine that Deena forgave
him an amount of fussiness she never before suspected in his
easy-going nature. He altered his orders half a dozen times as to
which carriage should bring her from the train to the house, and
finally ordered both; he repeated half a dozen times the hour at which
the Boston express was due, in order that Deena might make no mistake
about having tea served to the minute, and when he had shut the front
door, on his way to the Grand Central, he came tearing back to ask the
menu for dinner, as Polly was apt to be fanciful about her food. Deena
remembered the time--not two years ago--when it was quantity rather
than quality that balked Polly's appetite, and nearly laughed in his
face, but she loved her big brother-in-law for his forethought.
The curtains were drawn and the lights turned up before the bustle of
arrival drew Deena to the stairs. First old Mrs. Minthrop came,
stopping to commend the house at every step, and then Polly, with her
arm linked in her husband's, chattering volubly at the delight
everything gave her; and Deena, wedged between the elder lady and the
wall in cordial greeting, could not help hearing Ben welcome his wife
to her own home with a sentiment she never suspected in him before.
Polly flew to her sister and kissed and thanked her for all she had
done, and lavished her praises broadcast, and then she insisted upon
pouring out the tea at her own fireside, and Ben perched on the arm of
her chair; and once, when Deena turned suddenly from handing the toast
to Mrs. Minthrop, she saw him kiss Polly's hair.
Her thoughts sped back to her parting with Simeon, with its prosaic
formality---the feel of his puckered lips brushing her forehead. What
a lack of imagination marked all his dealings with her! She felt
rebellious and sad; not that she wanted any of the luxury that
surrounded Polly, but she was hungry for love. She saw suddenly what
marriage ought to be, and the realization frightened her. How was it
she had committed this crime against her own nature? Was it her sin or
her parents' that she had been so blind? Not Simeon's--she exonerated
him, she knew he had given her as much of himself as he had to spare,
and that his conduct was uniform; what it had been at the beginning
was now and for all time, and if she had suddenly become a connoisseur
in husbands she was not the first woman to whom knowledge brought
misery. It was not Simeon's fault that he remained stationary while
her views expanded. Fortunately for Deena's peace of mind, it was Ben
who figured in these reflections as the exponent of what a husband
should be, and she had no suspicion that it was Stephen French who had
waked her from her domestic coma.
Poor sleeping beauty, her conscience had long ago been pricked by her
mother-in-law's spindle, and her whole moral sense infected with the
belief that to keep house wisely was the end and aim of wifely duty.
She reverenced Simeon for his learning and dignity, and felt proud
that so simple a person as herself should have been chosen in marriage
by a professor of Harmouth. On that she had existed for two years, and
now she was waking up to new needs that stirred her like the prince's
kiss.
Life in the young Minthrops' dovecote soon settled down into a
glorified routine. The elder Mrs. Minthrop returned to Boston, leaving
Deena as her lieutenant, and perplexing her with the multiplicity of
her charges; apparently Mrs. Ponsonby was to be Providence to her
sister, with health and happiness under her control. The situation was
paradoxical. Polly was to be denied nothing, but not allowed to have
her own way too freely; she was to be kept amused, but most amusements
were strictly prohibited--she was not to be encouraged to think
herself an invalid, and at the same time her usual occupations were
taken from her. Deena was wise enough to listen and make no promises,
and when she assumed command she contented herself with trying to
stand between her sister and domestic worries.
Christmas came and went without the visit from Stephen, which Ben had
hoped for, and invitations were pouring in for the plethora of social
functions that mark the season's height. Deena came in for her share,
but she felt too much of a stranger to venture alone into the vortex.
Polly entertained in a modest way at home--a few people at dinner, a
friend or two at lunch--and this Deena greatly enjoyed, and had begun
to make herself favorably known to a small circle when a stop was put
to this mild dissipation. The great doctor, who had been charged by
Mrs. Minthrop never to forget her daughter-in-law's inexperience,
issued orders that Polly was to stay in her room. This enforced quiet
found an outlet in a desire to send Deena everywhere. She drove her
forth to dinners and balls, and the high-stepping gray horse was
always at her service, and so the beautiful Mrs. Ponsonby became the
fashion. New York does not ask too many questions in these days about
the husbands of handsome married women who appear as grass widows in
its midst; indeed, the suspicion of a latent romance or scandal gives
a flavor to the interest, and Deena suffered not a whit from the rumor
that she was a deserted wife, with money.
"Oh, yes, there is a husband," the great Mrs. Star admitted. "She
married him for his money, and he has a hobby--fossils, I think it
is--and he has gone to collect them at Cape Horn. She bears his
absence surprisingly well, doesn't she? Old Mrs. Minthrop's son
married the sister, and she begged me to be civil to them. I forget
who she said they were, but _Mayflower_ people, you know."
In this way Deena was passed on, stamped with the hall-mark of the
_Mayflower_. Mrs. Shelton had contributed very generously to her
daughter's outfit for the season in New York. The black velvet picture
dress was only one of several found suitable for her use in the trunk
of finery belonging to the Chicago cousin, and the jewels that had
come into the Shelton family from the same source were worthy of
Deena's beauty. Her clothes were good, and she wore them like a
princess.
One evening late in January, Deena and Ben were dining with a gay
young matron, who, without any especial personal charm herself, had
the faculty of drawing to her house the best element society had to
offer. The engagement had been made for them by Polly, much against
her husband's wishes, and his anxiety at leaving her alone could
hardly be concealed during dinner. As soon as the ladies left the
table he excused himself to his host, and, following the little
hostess into the drawing room, he whispered a few words in her ear,
nodded to Deena and disappeared.
"Your brother-in-law has gone home to his wife, Mrs. Ponsonby," said
the hostess. "I have never seen such devotion." She laughed a trifle
enviously; her own infelicities were the talk of the town.
Deena started forward in alarm.
"Was he sent for? Is my sister ill?" she inquired, nervously, and then
sank back in her chair, smiling, when she found it was only a phase of
young Minthropism.
While her own daylight hours were given to her sister, she was always
pleased to be out of the way in the evening--it left the lovers to
themselves--though she could not quite free herself from a sense of
responsibility to the elder Mrs. Minthrop.
Mrs. Star, who was beside Deena, gave a sniff--if so fine a lady could
be suspected of such a plebeian way of marking her disapprobation.
"My dear," she said, "why should your charming sister be treated as a
prisoner over whom somebody must perpetually keep watch? I have had
six children--they were all healthy and had their full complement of
legs and arms--except Bob, who lost an arm in the Spanish war, but
that doesn't count--and I never was shut up in my room before I had to
be--nor put on a milk diet--nor forbidden reasonable exercise--and I
think the modern doctors are full of fads and greed. Their bills! I
don't know who is rich enough to be ill nowadays!" Here she shut her
eyes and trembled to think of the portion of her own great fortune
that might have transferred itself to the doctor's pockets if her
nursery had not antedated the present school. "It may not seem very
expensive to young Mrs. Minthrop to lie on her sofa and drink
milk--but just wait till she comes to pay for it!"
"I don't believe anyone will care about the bill, Mrs. Star," said
Deena, "so long as Polly keeps well."
"It is bad enough to have food and exercise taken away from the young
mothers," continued Mrs. Star, who was evidently mounted on a hobby,
"but when helpless infants are deprived of their natural sustenance
and fed from bottles filled in a laboratory and stuffed with cotton,
it is time for the Gerry Society to interfere. Cruelty to children is
practiced far more by the rich than by the poor, in my opinion, and if
you want to see cases of inanition and feeble spines, I'll show you
where to look for them, and it won't be in the tenements!"
Deena wanted to laugh, but didn't dare to; the old lady proclaimed her
fierce sentiments with such earnest gravity. She managed, however, to
say politely:
"You think that science has not improved upon nature in rearing the
race, but you must remember that it finds the higher classes existing
under unnatural conditions."
"The conditions would do very well if we could banish the doctors,"
said the old lady, testily. "I am out of patience with their
incubators and their weighing machines and their charts and their
thermometers--yes, and their baby nurses! What do you suppose I heard
a mother say to her own servant the other day: 'Please, nurse, may I
take the baby up? He is crying fearfully,' and the nurse, who had
reluctantly put down the morning paper, said: 'No, m'am, when he cries
in that angry way, he must learn that it is useless!' _His age was six
weeks._"
Deena burst into a hearty laugh.
"My dear Mrs. Star," she said, "I am a convert."
Mrs. Star wagged her head in approbation.
"Just tell your sister what I have said, will you?" she pursued,
afraid that so much wisdom might be lost. "And, my dear, since your
brother-in-law has gone home, suppose you come along to the opera with
me. I sent some tickets to a few stray men, and I must look in before
the last act."
At this point they were joined by the gentlemen, and as soon as
decency would permit, Mrs. Star made her adieux, followed by Deena.
The Minthrop brougham was dismissed, and the ladies whirled away in
Mrs. Star's electric carriage. She at once took up her parable, but
this time the topic was not the care of infants.
"I think a great deal of the scenic effect of an opera box," she said.
"I always dress with respect to the hangings, and I never take a
discordant color beside me if I can help it. You happen to please me
very much this evening; I like the simplicity of the white dress.
Still, it wouldn't be anything if you didn't have such a neck--it
gives an air to any low gown."
"It was my wedding dress," said Deena, frankly, "and my sister's maid
rearranged it for me. I am glad you like it."
"Your wedding dress," said Mrs. Star, reflectively. "I think I heard
you had married a naturalist--prehistoric bones, is it not? Very
interesting subject--so inspiring. Milliken"--to the footman, who
opened the door on their arrival at the opera house--"you may keep the
carriage here. I shall not be more than half an hour."
Half an hour for the enjoyment of a pleasure that cost her, yearly, a
moderate fortune!
On their way through the foyer to the box, Deena ventured to disclaim
for her husband a peculiar interest in fossils.
"My husband is a botanist," she began, and then desisted when she saw
her companion's attention was barely held by a desire to be civil.
"Ah, indeed!" Mrs. Star vaguely responded. "Delightful topic. I went
into it myself quite extensively when I was a girl."
Deena was not often malicious, but she couldn't help wishing Simeon
could have stood by to hear this announcement of a girlish mastery of
his life's work. She tried to think in what dry words he would have
rebuked the levity, but before she could arrange a phrase quite in
character, they were in the front of the box, and in the obscurity
some one took her hand, and Stephen French's voice murmured:
"What a piece of luck that I should see you to-night! I have only been
in town a few hours, and obeyed my aunt's summons to the opera as a
means of keeping myself from Ben's house till the morning. You can't
think how eager I have been to see you again, Mrs. Ponsonby."
There was a strange break in his voice, as if he were trying to
restrain the rush of happiness.
All the six mighty artists who made the opera the marvel it was were
combining their voices in the closing sextet of the fourth act, and
Deena, thrilled by the loveliness of the music and, perhaps, by the
surprise of French's presence, felt she was trembling with excitement.
"Fancy meeting you here!" she kept repeating, the stupid phrase
concealing the great joy that was puzzling her conscience.
"What is so wonderful in my being in my aunt's opera box?" Stephen
demanded. "Cannot a professor of zoology like music, or do you object
to a bachelor owning an aunt?"
How pleasant it was to hear his kind voice, with its good-natured
raillery! But that was sub-conscious pleasure--her immediate attention
was busy with the first part of his speech about his aunt's opera box;
she never supposed he had any relations.
"Who is your aunt?" she asked, abruptly.
"Mrs. Star," he answered. "Don't you see the family likeness?"
And oddly enough, in the half light, there was a distinct resemblance
in the profile of the bewigged old lady to her handsome young
kinsman's. Deena regretted both the likeness and the relationship; it
made her uncomfortable to know that Stephen was the nephew of this
worldly-minded old lady, with her fictitious standards and her
enormous riches; it seemed to place a barrier between them and to lift
him out of the simplicity of his college setting.
"Have I become a snob in this Relentless City'?" she exclaimed. "_I_
find my whole idea of you changed by this announcement. It depresses
me! You seem to me a different person here, with these affiliations of
fashion and grandeur, than when I thought of you simply as Simeon's
friend."
"Don't think of me simply as Simeon's friend," he pleaded, half in
fun, half in sinful earnest.
"I never shall again," she said, sadly. "Your greatest charm is
eclipsed by this luxury--I want you to belong to Harmouth only."
Stephen's lips were twitching with suppressed amusement.
"There is a proverb, my dear lady," he said, "of the pot and the
kettle, that you may recall. I am not sure but what I may find a word
to say to you upon the cruelty of disturbing associations."
"To me!" she said, turning to him with the gentle dignity that was her
crowning charm. "Surely there are no surprises in me."
Stephen shook his head in mock disapproval as he allowed his eyes to
sweep from the topmost curl of her head to her slipper points, and
then he said:
"Go home, Mrs. Ponsonby, and take off that white lace evening dress,
and perhaps the wreath of holly might come, too--and that diamond star
on your bodice; and put on, instead--let me see--the dark blue frock
you wore the evening I told Simeon about the Patagonian expedition,
and then you will be in a position to reproach me for any relapse from
the simplicity of Harmouth. If you disapprove of me as the nephew of
my aunt, how do you suppose I feel about you? And oh! my stars! what
would Simeon say?"
"Simeon," she said, faintly. "You are right; Simeon might not
understand----" and before French had time to protest that he had only
been teasing her, the curtain went down, strange men came flocking
into the box, Mrs. Star was introducing a Russian grand duke, and
Stephen, surrendering his chair, withdrew to the other side of his
aunt.
Deena could not but admire the old lady's admirable manner. She kept
up an easy chatter, sometimes in French, sometimes in English, with
the Russian and with a Spanish artist; she never allowed Deena to feel
out of touch with the conversation, and in the midst of it all she
managed to welcome her nephew.
"You are stopping _at_ my house, of course, Stephen? No--at the Savoy?
That is uncharitable to a lonely old woman. Where did you know that
pretty creature, Mrs. Ponsonby?" she asked, seeing that the two
foreigners were absorbing the attention of her beautiful protegee.
"You should learn to guard the expression of your face, my dear boy. I
begin to understand why you cling so obstinately to Harmouth. I see
the place has advantages outside the work of the college."
Here she wagged her head in self-congratulation at her own astuteness,
and Stephen flushed angrily.
"Hush!" he said. "She will hear you. You have little knowledge of Mrs.
Ponsonby if you think she would permit the attentions of any man. She
is not in the least that kind of person. She is one of the most
dignified, self-respecting, high-minded women I ever knew."
Mrs. Star cut him short with a wave of her fan.
"Spare me the rhapsodies," she laughed. "You merely mark the stage of
the disease you have arrived at. The object of your love sits
enthroned! If the husband is wise he will throw his fossils into the
sea and come back to look after this pretty possession. Flesh and
blood is worth more than dry bones."
"Ponsonby is a botanist," Stephen corrected, grimly, while his inward
thought was that the dry bones were Simeon's own; and then, ashamed of
the disloyal--though unspoken--sneer, he went back to Deena and began
talking volubly of his last letter from her husband.
They had both had letters from Simeon, now safely arrived in the
Straits of Magellan. He had written to Deena when they first cast
anchor off the Fuegian shore. He described to her the visits of the
Indians in their great canoes, containing their entire families and
possessions, and the never-dying fire of hemlock on a clay hearth in
the middle of the boat; how they would sell their only garment--a fur
cloak---for tobacco and rum, and how friendly they seemed to be, in
spite of all the stories of cannibalism told by early voyagers.
In the midst of this earnest conversation, Mrs. Star rose to go,
escorted by the grand duke, and Stephen, following with Deena, was
able to let his enthusiasm rise above a whisper when they gained the
corridor.
"Didn't he tell you that they were all going guanaco hunting?"
"_Simeon!_" in a tone of incredulity.
"Greatest fun in the world, I am told," pursued French; "something
like stag hunting, only more exciting--done with the bolas. You whirl
it round your head and let it fly, and it wraps itself round a beast's
legs and bowls him over before he knows what hit him."
"Does it kill him?" asked Deena, shrinking from the miseries of the
hunted.
"Only knocks him over," explained Stephen. "You finish him with your
knife."
"Sport is a cruel thing," she said, shuddering. "I am glad Simeon
cannot even ride."
"Can't ride!" repeated Stephen. "Indeed, I can tell you he means to.
He says the Indians have offered him the best mount they have. They
considered him a medicine man, on account of his root-digging
propensities, and treated him as the high cockalorum of the whole
ship's company."
"Surely he is joking," she said. "Simeon is making game of you."
"Simeon!" he echoed, mimicking her incredulous tone.
"A joke would be no stranger to him than a horse," she said, smiling.
They had reached the entrance, and Deena stood shaking with suppressed
laughter. "Fancy! Simeon!" she repeated.
"And why not Simeon, pray?" asked Stephen, slightly nettled.
A vision of Simeon with his gold-rimmed spectacles and stooped figure
mounted on horseback in the midst of a party of Indians, whirling his
bolas over his head and shouting, presented itself to Deena's
imagination. The carriage was waiting, and, obeying Mrs. Star's motion
to get in first, Simeon Ponsonby's wife fell back on the seat and
laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks.
Outside, Stephen was entreating to be allowed to visit her the next
morning.
"I haven't half finished my story, Mrs. Ponsonby," he protested.
And Deena managed to steady her voice and invite him to lunch the next
day.