The Wheel Revolves
It was midnight, yet Polly O'Neill had not gotten into bed.
Instead she sat before a tiny, dying fire in her own bedroom with her
hands clasped about her knees and her black hair hanging gypsy-fashion
over her crimson dressing gown. Mollie had gone to her own room several
hours before. In a moment there was a light knock at the door and Polly
had scarcely turned her head when her mother stood beside her.
Mrs. Wharton looked younger than she had several years before, absurdly
young to be the mother of two almost grown-up daughters! Her face had
lost the fatigue and strain of another spring evening, when Betty Ashton
had first hurried across the street to confide the dream of her Camp
Fire club to her dearest friends. Of course her hair was grayer and she
was a good deal less thin. Notwithstanding her eyes held the same soft
light of understanding that was so curiously combined with quiet
firmness.
"Why aren't you in bed, Polly mine?" she asked. "I saw that the gas was
shining or I should never have disturbed you."
In answer Polly without rising pushed a low rocking chair toward her
mother. "I wasn't sleepy. Is that the same reason that keeps you awake,
Mrs. Wharton?" she queried.
In all their lives together Polly O'Neill and her mother had always held
a different relation toward each other than ordinarily exists between
most mothers and daughters. In the first place Mrs. Wharton was so very
little older than her children that in the days in the cottage when they
had lived and worked for one another, they had seemed more like three
devoted and intimate friends. Of course the two girls had always
understood that when a serious question was to be decided their mother
remained the court of the last decision. However, in those years few
serious questions had ever arisen beyond the finding of sufficient
money for their food and clothes and occasional good times. So that
there had been nothing to disturb the perfection of their attitude
toward one another until Mrs. O'Neill's marriage to her former employer,
Mr. Wharton. And then there is no doubt that Polly for a time had been
difficult. Naturally she was glad for her mother's sake that she had the
new love and wealth and position; nevertheless she was homesick for
their old life and its intimacy and in her heart half sorry that her own
dream of some day bringing fortune and ease to her mother and Mollie was
now of so little account. And then all too soon, before matters had
really become adjusted between the two families, had followed her own
act of insurbordination and deception and her mother's mandate.
Of course Polly had bowed before it and had even understood that it was
both right and just. She had been happy enough in these last two years,
in spite of missing Betty Ashton almost every hour, and had come to like
and admire her stepfather immensely. Nevertheless there had remained a
slight shadow between herself and her mother, a misapprehension so
intangible that Polly herself did not realize it, although Mrs. Wharton
did.
"I suppose you are not sleepy, dear, because you are sitting here
thinking that never in the whole world was there ever a mother so narrow
and so dictatorial as I am," Mrs. Wharton began. "Oh, I have been in
bed, but I have been lying awake for the past hour looking at myself
with Polly's eyes."
Polly frowned, shaking her head, yet her mother went on without
appearing to notice her.
"I wonder if you think that I have no realization of the wonderful
opportunity I have just made you refuse. Do you think, Polly, that I
don't appreciate what it must mean to a girl like you to have made a
friend of a great woman like Margaret Adams? And to have her so desire
your companionship that she has asked you to be her guest during her
summer abroad? Why such a chance does not come to one girl in a hundred
thousand and yet I have made you give it up!"
With a little protesting gesture Polly stretched out her hand. "Then let
us not discuss it any further, mother of mine," she demanded. "I
promised you not to speak of it again after our talk the other day and I
am going to exact the same promise of you."
The girl shut her lips together in a tight line of scarlet and all
unconsciously began rocking herself slowly backward and forward with her
expression turned inside instead of out, as her sister Mollie used
sometimes to say. But Mrs. Wharton leaned over, and putting her finger
under Polly's chin tilted it back until her eyes were upturned toward
hers.
"But was I fair to you, dear? Have I decided what was best for you, as
well as for Mollie and me? We have not spoken of it; we have both felt
that silence was the wisest course; but tonight I should like to know
whether, when the three years of your promise to me have passed, do you
still intend going upon the stage?" Mrs. Wharton asked.
"Would you mind so very, very much?" Polly inquired quietly. And then
with a sudden rush of confidence, which she had never before shown in
any of their talks together on this subject, Polly faced their old
difference of opinion squarely. "It has always been hard for me to
understand, mother, why you are so opposed to my trying to become an
actress. You are broad-minded enough on other subjects. You have worked
for your own living and ours; and you were willing enough to have
Sylvia, who is younger than I am and who will be very rich some day, go
away and study to become a trained nurse, just because she believed it
her calling. Yet because I want to learn to act, why the whole stage and
everything connected with it is anathema. You do not even like Miss
Margaret Adams as much as you would if she were in some other kind of
work. Oh, of course I appreciate that people used to feel that no woman
could be good and be on the stage, but no sensible person thinks that
nowadays." Polly stopped abruptly. "I don't mean to be rude, mother,"
she concluded.
But Mrs. Wharton nodded. "Please go on. I came in tonight to find out
just what you were thinking. I don't believe you realize how little you
have explained your real feeling to me on this subject since that
unfortunate time in New York."
"I didn't want to trouble you," again Polly hesitated. "It is hardly
worth while doing it now. Because honestly I have not made up my mind
just how to answer the question that you asked me a few minutes ago.
Whether at the end of another year, when you have agreed to let me do as
I like, I shall still insist upon going upon the stage, knowing that you
and Mollie are at heart unwilling to have me, I can't tell. Perhaps I
shall give up and stay on here at Woodford and maybe marry some one I
don't care about and then be sorry ever afterwards."
Instead of replying Mrs. Wharton got up and walked several times
backwards and forwards across the length of the room, not glancing
toward the girl who still sat before the fire with her hands clasped
tightly over her knees. But Polly had small doubt where her mother's
thoughts were. And a few moments afterwards she too rose and the next
instant pulled her mother down on a cushion before the fire, and resting
close beside her put her head on her shoulder.
"Dear, you were mistaken when you came in and found me awake," Polly
explained, "in supposing that I was thinking of my own disappointment in
not being allowed to make the journey with Miss Adams or feeling hurt or
angry with you because you decided against it. Really, I never dreamed
in the first place that you would be willing. Still, I was thinking of
asking you to let me break my word to you after all! You said that I was
to stay here in Woodford for three years, and yet I want you to let me
go away somewhere very soon. I don't care where, any place will do."
Now for the first time since the beginning of their conversation Mrs.
Wharton appeared mystified and deeply hurt.
"Is your own home so disagreeable to you, Polly, that you would rather
go anywhere than stay with us?" she queried. And then to her further
surprise, turning she discovered that tears were standing unshed in
Polly's eyes and that her lips were trembling.
"I don't know how to tell you, mother. It is all so mixed up and so
uncertain in my own mind and so foolish. But I wonder if you have ever
thought that Mollie liked Billy Webster better than our other friends?"
"Mollie?" Mrs. Wharton could hardly summon her thoughts back from the
subject which had lately absorbed them, to follow what she believed a
quickly changing idea of Polly's. "Why, yes, I think I have," she
answered slowly. "But I have never let the supposition trouble me.
Mollie is so young and her deepest affections are for you and me.
Besides, Billy is a fine fellow and perhaps when the time comes I shall
not be quite so selfish with her."
But Polly's cheeks were so crimson that she had to put up her cold hands
to try and cool them.
"And you have always believed that Billy almost hated me, haven't you?"
Mrs. Wharton laughed. "Well, I have never thought a great deal about it,
except that you argued a great deal about nothing and that each one of
you was determined to influence the other without producing the smallest
result."
"Yes, mother, and that is what makes what I want to tell you so horrid
and silly," Polly went on, intentionally making a screen for her face
with her dark hair. "Because Billy Webster has a perfectly absurd idea
that he cares for me, simply because he wishes to manage me. And--and he
was tiresome enough to tell me so this afternoon."
Surprise and consternation for the moment kept Mrs. Wharton silent. "But
you, Polly?" she managed to inquire finally. "How do you feel? What did
you answer him?"
Then for an instant the girl's former expression changed and the old
Irish contrariness of spirit hovered in a half smile about her lips.
"Oh, I told him that I did not like him any better than I had in the
beginning of our acquaintance and that I had only been nicer to him now
and then lately because he was your friend and Mollie's. And no matter
what happened to me, if I never, never stirred a foot out of Woodford, I
should never dream of marrying him even when I am a hundred years old."
A sigh of some kind escaped Mrs. Wharton, partly of relief and partly of
annoyance.
"Then why should you wish to go away, dear?" she queried. "If you said
all that, surely Billy will never trouble you again!"
A characteristic shrug was Polly's first answer. "Oh, Billy only cares
about me because he can't have me," she replied the next minute. "But he
insists that he will go on trying to win me until doomsday. Still it
isn't either about Billy or about me that I am thinking at present.
Can't you understand, mother, without my having to explain? It is so
hard to say. It's Mollie! Not for anything in the world would I have her
feelings hurt or have her think that I had come between her and her
friendship for Billy."
But Mrs. Wharton's manner was immediately quiet and reassuring. "Mollie
would never think anything unfair of you, Polly. And perhaps it will be
better for you to speak of this to her. If Mollie has had any false
impression, if her feeling for Billy has been anything but simple
friendliness, now it will not be difficult for her to adjust herself.
When later--" However, Mrs. Wharton was not able to finish her sentence,
for Polly had murmured, "She does know. Of course she has not said
anything to me and I never want to have to refer to it to her. But you
need not trouble. Billy was so stupid." Here Polly gave an irrepressible
giggle. "He proposed to both of us this afternoon. And I think he was
much more worried over Mollie's telling him that she should have been
taken into his confidence sooner, than he was over my refusal."
The clock on Polly's mantel shelf was striking one long stroke. Hearing
it Mrs. Wharton rose to leave the room, first pulling Polly up beside
her. The girl was several inches taller than her mother.
"Polly dear," she said, "so far as Mollie is concerned I don't agree
with the wisdom of your going away from home. But I want you to
understand something else, something that I have never properly
explained to you. It is not just narrowness or prejudice, this
opposition of mine to your going upon the stage. You remember, dear, why
your father left Ireland and came here to live in these New Hampshire
hills. And you know you are not so strong as Mollie, and I used to be
afraid that you had less judgment. Recently, however, you have seemed
stronger and more poised. And I had almost decided before I came in to
you tonight, that if in another year you are still sure that you wish to
make the stage your profession, I shall not stand in the way of your
giving it a fair trial. You don't know, but in your father's family not
so many years ago there was a great actress. She ran away from home and
her people never forgave her. I don't even know what became of her.
Nothing like that must ever happen between you and me." Mrs. Wharton
kissed Polly good night. "Have faith in me, dear, for I have understood
the ambition and the heart-burning you have suffered better than you
dreamed. I shall go to see Miss Adams again tomorrow. If you must try
your wings some day, perhaps there could be no better beginning than
that you should learn to know intimately one woman who has fought
through most of the difficulties of one of the hardest professions in
the world and has earned for herself the right kind of fame and
fortune."