THE WHITE ELEPHANT
Mrs. Baron “took to her room,” as the saying is. For an hour or more
she might have been, to all intents and purposes, in some far country.
She left an awed silence behind her.
“If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and talk to Mrs. Shepard a
while,” said Bonnie May, not without significance. The atmosphere had
become too rarefied for her. She was turning from an inimical clan. She
was obeying that undying instinct which impelled the cavemen of old to
get their backs toward a wall.
Baron, Sr., prepared to go out. He turned to Victor and Flora as he
took his leave, and his whole being twinkled quietly. He seemed to be
saying: “Don’t ask me!”
Flora stole up to her mother’s room. She tapped at the door
affectionately--if one can tap at a door affectionately.
A voice muffled by pillows was heard. “Making hay,” it seemed to say.
Flora frowned in perplexity. Then her brow cleared and she smiled
wistfully. “Oh!” she interpreted, “‘Go away.’”
She went to Victor again.
“I suppose she’ll have to go,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“Oh, yes, certainly; yes, she’ll have to go,” agreed Victor firmly.
“And yet I can’t say it’s her fault.”
“You might say it’s her misfortune.”
“Yes.... Isn’t she--wonderful!”
“Oh, well, if two people simply can’t understand each other, that’s all
there is to it.”
“But _she_ understands. She just talks too much. She won’t realize that
she’s only a child.”
“Oh, what’s the use!” exclaimed Baron. He thrust his hands into his
pockets and strolled through the house, up into the library.
He took down a copy of “Diana of the Crossways,” and opened it at
random, staring darkly at words which the late Mr. Meredith never wrote:
“Why couldn’t she have made allowances? Why couldn’t she have
overlooked things which plainly weren’t meant to be the least
offensive?”
Obscurities, perhaps, but what does one expect of Meredith?
He meditated long and dejectedly. And then he heard his mother in the
sitting-room.
He put aside his book and assumed a light, untroubled air. “Better have
it out now,” he reflected, as he opened the door and went into the
sitting-room.
“Where is the Queen of Sheba?” asked Mrs. Baron.
Baron dropped into a chair. “You know I’m awfully sorry, mother,” he
said. There was a singular lack of real repentance in his tone.
“I don’t doubt that. Still, you might have taken me into your
confidence before you brought that little limb of Satan into the house.
I never heard of such a child. Never.”
“But you know what the circumstances were----”
“Don’t go into that again. I know that you brought her here, and that
there wasn’t any excuse for such a foolish action.”
“But, mother!” Baron’s face was heavy with perplexity. “She’s such a
little thing! She hasn’t got anybody to turn to when she’s in trouble.
My goodness! I think she’s done nobly--not whimpering once since she
came into the house. She’s probably--rattled! How would you or I behave
if we were in her shoes?”
Mrs. Baron’s eyebrows steadily mounted. “The point is, we’re not in the
slightest degree responsible for her. I want to know how we’re going to
get rid of her.”
Baron had taken a chair directly in front of his mother. Now he arose
and paced the floor. When he spoke his tone was crisp almost to
sharpness.
“It isn’t any more difficult now than it was yesterday,” he said. “I
can turn her over to the police.”
Something in his manner startled his mother. She flushed quickly.
“That’s just like you,” she protested. “What do you suppose people
would say if we turned a motherless child over to the police? You ought
to see that you’ve forced a responsibility on me!”
“Well, I should think it would be a question of what your own
conscience says. As for ‘people,’ I don’t see why anybody need know
anything about it.”
“And the newspapers and everything? Of course they would--everything.”
“I could ask Thornburg to take her. He offered to help. I have an idea
he’d be only too glad to have her.”
“The theatre man--yes. And he’d dress her up in a fancy-ball costume,
and encourage her in her brazen ways, and she’d be utterly shameless by
the time she got to be a young woman.”
Baron sat down again with decision. “Mother, don’t!” he exclaimed.
“Thornburg isn’t that kind at all. He’d--he’d probably try to get at
her point of view now and then, and he might allow her to have certain
liberties. I think he’s broad enough to want her to be good without
insisting upon her being miserable!”
“Victor Baron!” warned his mother, and then she added with decision:
“Then you’d better get him to take her--and the sooner the better.”
“That will be all right. To-morrow. I’ll call on him at his office
to-morrow. I’ve never met his family. I’d consider it an intrusion to
go to his house to-day, whether he did or not.”
This, of course, was spoken disagreeably, and Mrs. Baron resented it.
“You’re very obliging, I’m sure,” she said. “But after what I’ve gone
through I’ve no doubt I can wait until to-morrow.”
* * * * *
“No, it’s not that she has disappointed me,” responded Baron to a
question by Thornburg the next morning.
They were sitting in the manager’s office, and Baron had realized too
late that he should have waited until after luncheon, or for some other
more auspicious occasion, to have a confidential talk with Thornburg.
There were frequent interruptions, and the manager had his mind upon
the complicated business of amusement purveying, rather than upon the
welfare of a waif who, as he conceived it, had become the hobby of
a somewhat eccentric young man. A special rehearsal was in progress
in the theatre, and the voice of the stage-manager, lifted in anger,
occasionally reached them. It was a warm morning, and many doors were
open.
“The fact is,” Baron resumed, “I didn’t foresee the--the complications.
My mother has taken them into account, and it’s her decision, rather
than mine, that we ought to give her up.”
Thornburg turned hurriedly to examine, and then to approve, the
underline for a gorgeous poster of highly impressionistic design,
which one of his employees had placed before him. When he turned to
Baron again he presented the appearance of one who has lost the thread
of a conversation.
“We were saying--oh, yes. You’ve got enough of--of what’s her name.
Well, what’s your impression of her, now that you’ve had time to look
her over?”
“I haven’t changed my mind at all. I like her.”
“The family made a row?”
Baron answered evasively. “It isn’t quite a question of liking. It’s
something like trying to keep a canary in a suitcase, or putting a lamb
or a kitten into harness.”
Thornburg smiled. “Tell me just how she fails to square with the--the
domestic virtues,” he said.
“Her way of saying things--her views--she is so wholly unconventional,”
said Baron haltingly. “She doesn’t stand in awe of her superiors. She
expresses her ideas with--well, with perfect liberty. You know children
aren’t supposed to be like that. At least my mother takes that view of
the case.”
He so plainly had little or no sympathy with the argument he made that
Thornburg looked at him keenly.
“I see. She scratches the paint off!” interpreted the manager. He
smiled upon Baron exultingly.
“You might put it so,” agreed Baron, to whom the words were highly
offensive. What right had Thornburg to speak contemptuously of the
things which his family--and their kind--represented? He proceeded
coldly. “I understood that you felt some measure of responsibility. I
thought perhaps you might be willing to take her, in case we decided it
would be difficult for us to keep her.”
The manager pretended not to note the aloofness of the other’s tone.
“Now, if it were a matter of expense--” he began.
“It isn’t. She doesn’t seem at home with us. I think that states the
whole case.”
“How could she feel at home in the short time she’s been with you?”
“Then I might put it this way: She doesn’t seem congenial.”
“Of course that’s different. That seems to leave me out, as near as I
can see.”
“You mean,” said Baron, “you wouldn’t care to assume the responsibility
for her?”
“Why should I?” demanded Thornburg bluntly. He glared at Baron
resentfully.
“You’re quite right, certainly. I seem to have had the impression----”
“I have an idea she’s doing better with you than she would anywhere
else, anyway,” continued Thornburg in milder tones. “Why not give her
her place and make her stay in it? I can’t understand a family of grown
people throwing up their hands to a baby!”
“I merely wanted to get your views,” said Baron stiffly as he rose to
go. “I didn’t care to send for the police until----”
Thornburg got up, too. “Don’t understand that I wash my hands of
her,” he hastened to say. “It might not hurt me any for the public to
know that I didn’t do anything, under the circumstances, but it would
certainly be a boost for me to have it known that I went out of my way
to do a good deed. Of course if you _won’t_ keep her----”
Baron turned and looked at him and waited.
“Look here, Baron, I’m going to be frank with you. When you took her
home, I was sore at you. Especially after you told me something about
her. I like them--children, I mean. You had taken her off my premises.
I thought about the big house I’ve got, and not a child in it, and
never to be, and I figured I might as well have taken her myself. But
there’s difficulties.” His expression became troubled. “Once before I
tried to take a child into the house and Mrs. Thornburg objected. It
was my own child, too.” He paused. “You know I’ve been married twice.”
Baron’s thoughts went back a few years to the somewhat unpleasant story
of Thornburg’s divorce from an actress with whom he had spent only a
little more than one troubled year. The facts had been public property.
He made no reply.
Thornburg continued: “I’m in doubt as to how my wife would look at it
if I suggested that I’d like to bring this waif home. Of course, it’s
just possible she might not want to take a child of mine, and still be
willing to take in some outsider. You know what strange creatures women
are.”
Baron waited. Was Thornburg being quite frank with him--at last?
“You see the difficulty. The--the wife is likely to suspect that Bonnie
May is the same little girl I wanted to bring home before--that she’s
mine. She never saw the little daughter. I’d have to be careful not to
make her suspicious.”
“But the circumstances ... I don’t see how she could suspect anything,”
argued Baron.
“Not if I don’t seem too much interested. That’s the point. I’ll tell
you, Baron--you come out and see us. Me and my wife. Come to-night.
State the case to us together. Tell the plain truth. Explain how you
got hold of Bonnie May, and tell my wife your people have changed their
minds. That ought to make the thing clear enough.”
Baron, homeward bound, marvelled at Thornburg. It seemed strange that
a crude, strong man should feel obliged to shape his deeds to please
an ungracious, suspicious wife. He felt sorry for him, too. He seemed
to be one of those blunderers whose dealings with women are always
bewildering, haphazard experiments.
He had promised to call that evening--to lend his aid to the manager.
It was the sensible thing to do, of course. They had to get rid of
Bonnie May. Nothing was to be gained by debating that point any
further. And yet....
When he reached home he was hoping that his mother might, on some
ground or other, have changed her mind.
He speedily learned that she had done nothing of the kind.
Indeed, matters were a little more at cross-purposes than they had been
the night before. Mrs. Baron had tried again to make a dress for the
fastidious guest, accepting certain of Flora’s suggestions, and the
result of the experiment hadn’t been at all gratifying.
Baron received the first report of the matter from Bonnie May, who was
waiting for him at the foot of the stairs when he entered the house.
“You will please make no unkind remarks about my new dress,” she began,
assuming the attitude of a fencer, and slowly turning around.
The subject--and the child’s frivolous manner--irritated Baron.
“Really, I think it’s very pretty and suitable,” he said.
“Not at all. It’s neither pretty nor suitable--though both words mean
about the same thing, when it comes to a dress. But it’s a great
improvement on that first thing. I told your mother that. I told her
I’d wear it until I got something better.”
Baron sighed. “What did she say to that?”
“She was offended, of course. But what was I to do? I can’t see that
I’m to blame.”
“But can’t you see that mother is doing the best she can for you, and
that you ought to be grateful?”
“I see what you mean. But I believe in having an understanding from the
beginning. She’s got her ideas, and I’ve got mine. She believes you’re
Satan’s if you look pretty--or something like that. And I believe you
ought to be Satan’s if you don’t.”
“But you do look--pretty.” Baron spoke the last word ungraciously. He
was trying to believe he would not care much longer what turn affairs
took--that he would have forgotten the whole thing in another day or
two.
He found his mother up-stairs.
“Well--any change for the better?” he asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know. That depends entirely upon what arrangements
you have made.”
“I think Thornburg will take her. He’s got to do a little planning.”
“People sometimes do before they bring strange children into their
houses,” Mrs. Baron retorted.
Baron realized that his mother was becoming more successful with her
sarcasm. He passed into the library. A mischievous impulse seized
him--the fruit of that last fling of his mother’s. He called back over
his shoulder. “If the perverse little thing is quite unendurable, you
might lock her up in the attic and feed her on bread and water until
she leaves.”
Mrs. Baron stared after him, dumfounded. “I’ll do nothing of the sort!”
she exclaimed. “She shall not be treated unkindly, as you ought to
know. We owe that much to ourselves.”