The attorney had thought it all out, had decided just how he was going
to break the news. But when he found his client confronting him, across
the unaccustomed barrier of his desk, his assurance forsook him.
“Judith, what are you going to do, now that you are free?”
“What am I going to do, Griff? That, as usual, depends on mamma. You
know I have never planned anything--vital--in my life. When she lays
too much stress on the ‘must’ I do the opposite. She says that I am
going to sail with her and the boys on the fifth of April, a month from
to-day. Ben is going on with his architecture at the Beaux Arts and
Jack is wild about airplanes. Paris has hideous memories--but there’s
no other place for me.”
“You are not going to Paris.”
The woman started. “No?”
“Not if you have the qualities I believe you have. Judith, may I for
once talk cold unpleasant facts? You are twenty-seven years old and the
life you have made for yourself is a failure.” Mrs. Ascott deprecated
the finality of the word, but she let it pass. “Going to Paris would
only be temporizing. Your mother’s influence has always been bad. You
and your father are scarcely acquainted. Your brothers are too young to
count. Laura and I have been your only intimates, since your return to
New York. I need not remind you of our staunch friendship for you.”
“Griff--tell me what you have in mind. I promise not to cry out, if I
do squirm a little.”
He told her of Springdale, the kindly old physician who had a theory
that soft coal could be transformed, at the mines, into clean fuel and
a whole retinue of valuable by-products--of his need for a secretary
and laboratory assistant, to keep his records and assist him with
experiments. He told her of Vine Cottage, its wide garden and fruit
trees. “The house faces south. Get that solidly established in your
mind,” he admonished. He knew how important it was for Judith Ascott to
be properly oriented. Other details of the place he painted, graphic
and engaging. She would take with her her old nurse, Nanny. For
servants he had leased Jeff Dutton and wife, who occupied the rooms
above the garage. As an afterthought he added that she would spend four
mornings a week in Dr. Schubert’s laboratory. Her compensation--a large
block of treasury stock in the corporation that would result from the
evolving of a process for the cleansing of soft coal.
“Where is this Springdale--this Utopia? What has it to do with Sutton
and Olive Hill, where the mines are located?”
“As little as possible. You’ll note that Springdale draws its virtuous
white skirts away from those filthy towns, with an air so smug that
it would disgust you if it were not so amusingly naïve. It claims ten
thousand inhabitants--when the census taker isn’t within hearing. There
is a denominational college--co-ed, I believe--with a conservatory
of music and a school of dramatic art. The President isn’t the lean
sycophant in a shabby Prince Albert coat that you might expect. I met
him--a singularly spruce-minded successor to that old Presbyterian
war-horse, Thomas Henderson, who built the college out of Illinois
dirt.”
“Sounds interesting, Griff. Is there any more?”
“Yes, ever so much. The college isn’t the whole show, by any means. At
one end of the town is a Bible Institute and at the other an asylum for
the feeble-minded. There is a manual training school for deaf-mutes and
a sanitarium for drug fiends and booze fighters. On the whole, quite an
intellectual centre. It is under no circumstances to be confused with
Springfield, the capital of the state. You are sentenced to live there
for a year. At the end of your term you may come back to New York--if
you haven’t found yourself.”
“Only last night I was wishing that I could run
away--somewhere--anywhere--to a place I had never heard of. Do you
think I can do the work?”
“Oh, that part of it.... My only concern is for your mother. I’ll send
Laura down to Pelham to help persuade her.”
Judith Ascott’s finely modelled shoulders came up in an almost
imperceptible shrug. “Mamma will be so relieved. Don’t trouble Laura.
I was only going to Paris because there was no convenient pigeonhole to
stow me away ‘till wanted.’ Mamma, of course, hopes that I will marry.
She wouldn’t want me tagging around after her, the rest of her life.
_You_ know that I am done with men.”
“By-the-way,” Ramsay interrupted, “I led those people to suppose
your husband was dead. It’s that kind of town. Not the old doctor,
understand. His sympathy’s as wide as humanity. But your next-door
neighbours--excellent people, though with small-town limitations.
You’ll have to depend on them for such social life as your gregarious
nature demands. How soon can you be ready to go west?”
“As soon as I can bring Nanny from Vermont. I ought to be on my way in
a week.”