I
Autumn was on the threshold of winter when Lavinia decided that things
had to take a turn. Eileen was spending three mornings a week at the
college, which necessitated her absence from home practically half
the time. She was uniformly polite and gentle with her mother, an
attitude that was not wholly the result of Judith’s stern schooling.
Under the whip of her own discipline, she sought to round off the rough
corners, to modulate her voice and temper her diction. Her outbursts of
picturesque speech were reserved for Dr. Schubert and Syd, with Nanny
in the background, shaking her ample sides with adoring laughter. Now
there would be a fortnightly concert trip, and some elective work in
the academic department, which promised further separation from the
chilly atmosphere of her home.
“Judith, I want to have a talk with you,” Mrs. Trench began, and
the stern set of her jaw left no doubt that the interview would be
unpleasant. “I don’t like the way Eileen is acting.”
“Every one else does.” Judith sought to be impersonal. She had been
expecting some such outburst and had framed a line of defence, against
a possible attack.
“That’s just it! Everybody in Springdale thinks she has done something
fine in going away to New York and Europe, and coming back here to
teach in the college before she’s even been a student. You are making a
rank hypocrite of her.”
“I?”
“Yes, you--who else but you? You did the whole thing. I am sure
Larimore is as disgusted as I am; but he doesn’t dare to say--”
“We won’t discuss my relations with my husband.”
Lavinia’s face flamed scarlet and she tugged at the collar of her
elaborate silk waist. But speech was not wanting, for more than the
fraction of a second.
“Well, I want to know what other wild-goose schemes you have for her.”
Judith shifted impatiently in her chair. “You have a grievance. I wish
you would be specific. Eileen is surely not causing you any anxiety.
She is growing into a beautiful young woman and she has the respect of
the entire community.”
“Respect! Yes!” The words crackled. “The whole town respects her. You
can’t see what that means. You have no religion and no moral sense of
your own. For a girl to do what she did--and then walk right back here
into a position that she never would have had, if she’d been a good
girl, is a positive slur on religion.”
Judith gasped. She wanted to laugh--to take her mother-in-law by the
shoulders and shake her. But Lavinia had not done speaking:
“It says in the Bible--”
“It says a good many things in the Bible. You take from it what appeals
to you--and shape your religion to suit your own needs.”
Lavinia was not slow to catch an idea that could be stopped by the mesh
of her mental net. Her son’s philosophy usually passed through without
leaving a fragment. But this idea was large enough to be arrested.
Two facts conspired to give it substance and form. For his Sunday
sermon, the minister had combined a passage from Isaiah with another
from the Epistle to the Hebrews. And--wholly unrelated, but subtly
significant--Lavinia had just finished an elaborate gelatine dessert
for dinner.
“You mean that we pick from the Bible what we want and fit it together.”
“Practically that. We can’t get anything out of a book unless we have
in our own minds the vessels to carry away the meaning. A cult or a
religion is nothing more than the solidifying of a group of ideas. The
Christian religion--”
“Like lemon jelly in a mould,” the woman said, thinking aloud. Then,
arousing herself to the business at hand, she pursued: “That may be all
true enough about religion; but it has nothing to do with Eileen, and
the way she’s acting.”
“I asked you to be definite. What has she done that displeased you?”
“Staying at Dr. Schubert’s, three nights in the week--with no woman
there except a housekeeper. What will the neighbours say?”
“Have you heard them say anything?”
“No, but they’re likely to. I’m sure I’d think it was queer if Ina
Stevens--”
“I wouldn’t suggest it to them. And another thing--I wouldn’t say a
word to Eileen--if I were you. She is doing so well that it would break
Lary’s heart to have her thrown back on the old life. There is only one
danger, as he sees it. She has a strong vein of stubbornness in her
nature.”
“Yes, she gets that from her father,” Lavinia snapped.
“No, she doesn’t get it from her father. There is no obstinacy in
father, except his stubborn clinging to his ideals. You can’t deal with
Eileen as you did with Sylvia, and you’ll play havoc with her if you
try.”
“No! Sylvia never caused me a moment’s anxiety in her life.”
Judith ignored the palpable falsehood. “You must know that Eileen
couldn’t have finer moral influence than that of Dr. Schubert and his
son. And my faithful Nanny is no ordinary servant. She was more to me
than my own mother, when I was a girl.”
The innocent remark was flint and steel, with Lavinia’s powder heap in
dangerous proximity. “I suppose your mother was _delighted_ with that.
But of course she was a rich woman, and glad to be rid of the moral
training of her children. I can say for myself that I never shirked
my duty--and I don’t intend to hand it over to you or Nanny or Dr.
Schubert now. I made up my mind that I wouldn’t say a word about this;
but it’s grinding my heart out. I can’t stand it any longer.”
“Mother, I don’t follow you at all. I asked you to be frank with me.”
“Very well, I’ll put it so plain that you can’t pretend you don’t
understand. How would you feel if you had a daughter, and some
stranger came along and took that girl’s life clear out of your hands?
I haven’t a word to say about her. She runs to you for all sorts of
things--clothes--as if I wouldn’t know what was stylish or becoming.
If she’s in doubt about what to do, she talks it over with Larimore or
Syd. When anything comes along to make her proud, she tells her father.
She talks to Theodora by the hour about the things she saw when she was
abroad--and she never tells me one thing. I’m simply shut out on every
side, and it’s killing me!” She burst into hysterical weeping.
“I’m so sorry, mother. I hadn’t realized. Perhaps if you weren’t always
so short and critical with her--”
“Oh, I’m to go down on my knees to her? Indeed I won’t. As long as she
is under eighteen, she takes her orders from me. She’ll go to the dogs,
with all this flattery and praise--”
“The surest way to ruin Eileen is to take that attitude towards her.”
“Well, she is _my_ child, and I have a right to do with her as I
please.”
“No--you--have--not!” Judith’s eyes flashed and her voice was hoarse
with indignation. “Rather than permit you to wreck her chance for
happiness, I’ll send her to Laura Ramsay--or even to my mother.”