On that same afternoon, several of the most influential members of the
Santa Paloma Woman's Club met informally at Mrs. Carew's house. Some of
the directors were there, Miss Pratt, Mrs. Lloyd and Mrs. Adams, and of
course Mrs. White, who had indeed been instrumental in arranging the
meeting. They had met to discuss Mrs. Burgoyne's plan of using the
clubhouse as a meeting place for the Old Paloma factory girls. All
these ladies were quite aware that their verdict, however unofficial,
would influence the rest of the club, and that what this group of a
dozen or fifteen decided upon to-day would practically settle the
matter.
Mrs. Willard White, hitherto serenely supreme in this little world, was
curiously upset about the whole thing, openly opposed to Mrs.
Burgoyne's suggestion, and surprised that her mere wish in the matter
was not sufficient to carry a negative vote. Her contention was that
the clubhouse had been built for very different purposes than those
Mrs. Burgoyne proposed, and that charity to the Old Paloma girls had no
part in the club's original reasons for being. She meant, in the course
of the argument, to hint that while so many of the actual necessities
of decent living were lacking in the factory settlement homes, mere
dancing and moving-pictures did not appeal to her as reasonable or
right; and although uneasily aware that she supported the unpopular
argument, still she was confident of an eventual triumph.
But despite the usual laughter, and the pleasantries and compliments,
there was an air of deadly earnestness about the gathered club-women
today that bespoke a deeper interest than was common in the matter up
for discussion. The President's color rose and deepened steadily, as
the afternoon wore on, and one voice after another declared for the new
plan, and her arguments became a little less impersonal and a little
more sharp. This was especially noticeable when, as was inevitable, the
name of Mrs. Burgoyne was introduced.
"I personally feel," said Mrs. White finally, "that perhaps we Santa
Paloma women are just a little bit undignified when we allow a perfect
stranger to come in among us, and influence our lives so materially,
JUST because she happens to be a multi-millionaire. Are we so swayed by
mere money? I hope not. I hope we all live our lives as suits US best,
not to please--or shall I say flatter, and perhaps win favor with?--a
rich woman. We--some of us, that is!"--her smile was all
lenience--"have suddenly decided we can dress more simply, have
suddenly decided to put our girls into gingham rompers, and instead of
giving them little dancing parties, let them play about like boys! We
wonder why we need spend our money on imported hats and nice dinners
and hand-embroidered underwear, and Oriental rugs, although we thought
these things very well worth having a few months ago--and why? Just
because we are easily led, I'm afraid, and not quite conscious enough
of our own dignity!"
There had been a decided heightening of color among the listening women
during this little speech, and, as the President finished, more than
one pair of eyes rested upon her with a slightly resentful steadiness.
There was a short silence, in which several women were gathering their
thoughts for speech, but Mrs. Brown, always popular in Santa Paloma,
from the days of her short braids and short dresses, and quite the
youngest among them to-day, was the first to speak.
"I daresay that is quite true, Mrs. White," said Mrs. Brown, with
dignity, "except that I don't think Mrs. Burgoyne's money influences
me, or any of us! I admit that she herself, quite apart from her great
fortune, has influenced me tremendously in lots of ways, but I don't
think she ever tried to do it, or realizes that she has. And as far as
copying goes, don't we women always copy somebody, anyway? Aren't we
always imitating the San Francisco women, and don't they copy New York,
and doesn't New York copy London or Paris? We read what feathers are
in, and how skirts are cut, and how coffee and salads are served, and
we all do it, or try to. And when Mrs. Burgoyne came to the Hall, and
never took one particle of interest in that sort of thing, I just
thought it over and wondered why I should attempt to impress a woman
who could buy this whole town and not miss the money?"
Laughter interrupted her, and some sympathetic clapping, but she
presently went on seriously:
"I took all the boys' white socks one day, and dyed them dark brown.
And I dyed all their white suits dark blue. I've gotten myself some
galatea dresses that nothing tears or spoils, and that come home fresh
and sweet from the wash every week. And, as a result, I actually have
some time to spare, for the first time since I was married. We are
going to try some educational experiments on the children this winter,
and, if that leaves any leisure, I am heart and soul for this new plan.
Doctor Brown feels as I do. Of course, he's a doctor," said the loyal
little wife, "and he KNOWS! And he says that all those Old Paloma girls
want is a little mothering, and that when there are mothers enough to
go round, there won't be any charity or legislation needed in this
world."
"I think you've said it all, for all of us, Mary!" Mrs. Carew said,
when some affectionate applause had subsided. "I think things were
probably different, a few generations ago," she went on, "but nowadays
when fashions are so arbitrary, and change so fast, really and
honestly, some of us, whose incomes are limited, will have to stop
somewhere. Why, the very children expect box-parties, and motor-trips,
and caterers' suppers, in these days. And one wouldn't mind, if it left
time for home life, and reading, and family intercourse, but it
doesn't. We don't know what our children are studying, what they're
thinking about, or what life means to them at all, because we are too
busy answering the telephone, and planning clothes, and writing formal
notes, and going to places we feel we ought to be seen in. I'm having
more fun than I had in years, helping our children plan some abridged
plays from Shakespeare, with the Burgoyne girls, for this winter, and
I'm perfectly astonished, even though I'm their mother, at their
enjoyment of it, and at my own. Mr. Carew himself, who NEVER takes much
interest in that sort of thing, asked me why they couldn't give them
for the Old Paloma Girls' Club, if they get a club room. I didn't know
he even knew anything about our club plans. I said, 'George, are you
willing to have Jeannette get interested in that crowd?' and he said,
'Finest thing in the world for her!' and I don't know," finished Mrs.
Carew, thoughtfully, "but what he's right."
"I'm all for it," said breezy Mrs. Lloyd, "I don't imagine I'd be any
good at actually talking to them, but I would go to the dances, and
introduce people, and trot partners up to the wallflowers--"
There was more laughter, and then Mrs. Adams said briskly:
"Well, let's take an informal vote!"
"I don't think that's necessary, Sue," said Mrs. White, generously, "I
think I am the only one of us who believes in preserving the tradition
of the dear old club, and I must bow to the majority, of course.
Perhaps it will be a little hard to see strangers there; our pretty
floors ruined, and our pretty walls spotted, but--" an eloquent shrug,
and a gesture of her pretty hands finished the sentence with the words,
"isn't that the law?"
And upon whole-hearted applause for Mrs. White, Mrs. Carew tactfully
introduced the subject of tea.
They were all chatting amicably enough in the dining-room a few minutes
later when George Carew and Barry Valentine came in. Barry, who seemed
excited, exhilarated and tired, had come to borrow a typewriter from
the Carews. He responded to sympathetic inquiries, that he had been
working like a madman since noon, and that there would be an issue of
the Mail ready for them in the morning. He said, "everyone had been
simply corking about everything," and it began to look like smooth
sailing now. In the few minutes that he waited for young George Carew
to find the typewriter and bring it down to him, a fresh interruption
occurred in the entrance of old Mrs. Apostleman.
Mrs. Apostleman, between being out of breath from hurrying up the hill
in the late afternoon heat, and fearful that the gathering would break
up before she could say what she wanted to say, and entirely unable to
control her gasping and puffing, was a sight at once funny and
pitiable. As she sank into a comfortable chair she held up one fat hand
to command attention, and with the other laid forcible hold upon Barry
Valentine. Three or four of the younger women hurried to her with fans
and tea, and in a moment or two she really could manage disconnected
words.
"Thanks, me dear. No, no cake. Just a mouthful of tea to--there, that's
better! I was afraid ye'd all be gone--that'll do, thank ye, Susie!
Well," she set down her tea-cup, "well! I've a little piece of news for
you all--don't go, Barry, you'll be interested in this, and I couldn't
wait to come up and tell ye!" She began to fumble in her bag, and
presently produced therefrom her eye-glasses and a letter. The latter
she opened with a great crackling of paper.
"This is from me brother, Alexander Wetherall," said she, with an
impressive glance over her glasses. "As ye know, he's a family lawyer
in New York, he has the histories of half the old families in the
country pigeon-holed away in those old offices of his. He doesn't write
me very often; his wife does now and then--stupid woman, but nice.
However, I wrote him in May, and told him Mrs. Burgoyne had bought the
Hall, and just asked him what he knew about her and her people. Here--"
marking a certain line with a pudgy, imperative finger, she handed a
page of the letter to Barry, "read from there on," she commanded, "this
is what he says."
Barry took the paper, but hesitated.
"It's all right!" said the old lady, impatiently, "nobody could say
anything that wasn't good about Sidney Burgoyne."
Thus reassured, Barry turned obediently to the indicated place.
"'You ask me about your new neighbor,'" he read, "'I suppose of course
you know that she is Paul Frothingham's only child by his second
marriage. Her mother died while she was a baby, and Frothingham took
her all over the world with him, wherever he went. She married very
young, Colonel John Burgoyne, of the Maryland family, older than she,
but a very fine fellow. As a girl and as his wife she had an
extraordinary opportunity for social success, she was a great favorite
in the diplomatic circle at Washington, and well known in the best
London set, and in the European capitals. She seems to be quite a
remarkable young woman, but you are all wrong about her money; she is
very far from rich. She--'"
Barry stopped short. Mrs. Apostleman cackled delightedly; no one else
stirred.
"'She got very little of Frothingham's money,'" Barry presently read
on, '"it came to him from his first wife, who was a widow with two
daughters when he married her. The money naturally reverted to her
girls, Mrs. Fred Senior and Mrs. Spencer Mack, both of this city.'"
"Ha! D'ye get that?" said Mrs. Apostleman. "Go on!"
"'Frothingham left his own daughter something considerably less than a
hundred thousand dollars,'" Barry presently resumed, "'not more than
seventy or eighty thousand, certainly. It is still invested in the
estate. It must pay her three or four thousand a year. And besides that
she has only Burgoyne's insurance, twenty or twenty-five thousand, for
those years of illness pretty well used up his own money. I believe the
stepsisters were very anxious to make her a more generous arrangement,
but she seems to have declined it. Alice says they are quite devoted--'"
"Alice don't count!" said the old lady "that's his wife. That's
enough." She stopped the reader and refolded the letter, her
mischievous eyes dancing. "Well, what d'ye think of that?" she demanded.
Barry's bewildered, "Well, I will be darned!" set loose a babel of
tongues. Mrs. Apostleman had not counted in vain upon a sensation;
everyone talked at once. Mrs. White's high, merry laugh dominated all
the other voices.
"So there is a very much better reason for this
simple-dinner-blue-gingham existence than we supposed," said the
President of the Santa Paloma Women's Club amusedly when the first rush
of comment died away. "I think that is quite delicious! While all of us
were feeling how superior she was not to get a motor, and not to
rebuild the Hall, she was simply living within her income, and making
the best of it!"
"I don't know that it makes her any less superior," Mrs. Carew said
thoughtfully. "It--it certainly makes her seem--NICER. I never
suspected her of--well, of preaching, exactly, but I have sometimes
thought that she really couldn't enter into our point of view, with all
that money! I think I'm going to like her more than ever!" she finished
laughingly.
"Why, it's the greatest relief in the world!" exclaimed Mrs. Adams.
"I've been rather holding back about going up there, and imitating her,
because I honestly didn't want to be influenced by eight millions, and
I was afraid. I WAS. Not a week ago Wayne asked me if I thought she'd
like him to donate a sewing machine to her Girls' Club for them to run
up their little costumes with--he has the agency, you know--and I said,
'Oh, don't, Wayne, she can buy them a sewing machine apiece if she
wants to, and never know it!' But I'm going to make him write her,
TO-NIGHT," said Mrs. Adams, firmly, "and I declare I feel as if a
weight had dropped off my shoulders. It MEANS so much more now, if we
offer her the club. It means that we aren't merely giving a Lady
Bountiful her way, but that we're all working together like neighbors,
and trying to do some good in the world."
"And I don't think there's any question that she would live exactly
this way," Miss Pratt contributed shyly, "and play with the children,
and dress as she does, even if she had fifty millions! She's simply
found out what pays in this life, and what doesn't pay, and I think a
good many of us were living too hard and fast ever to stop and think
whether it was really worth while or not. She's the happiest woman I
ever knew; it makes one happy just to be with her, and no money can buy
that."
"But it's curious she never has taken the trouble to undeceive us,"
said Mrs. White beginning to fit on an immaculate pair of white gloves,
finger by finger.
"Why--you'll see!--She never dreamed we thought she was anything but
one of ourselves." Mrs. Brown predicted. "Why should she? When did she
ever speak of money, or take the least interest in money? She never
speaks of it. She says 'I can't afford the time, or I can't afford the
effort,' that's what counts with her. Doesn't it, Barry?"
"Barry, do you really suppose--" Mrs. Carew was beginning, as she
turned to the doorway where he had been standing.
But Barry had gone.