Jackson had lately bought a couple of hunters, and Sundays, when it was
good weather, Helen and he often went over to the club stables to see
the horses and the hounds. It was a pleasant spot of a fine summer
morning. The close-cropped turf rolled gently westward from the brow
of the hill on which the club-house stood to a large horizon of fields,
where a few isolated trees, branching loftily, rose against a clear
sky. The stables were hidden in a little hollow some distance from the
house, and beyond them was a paddock where a yelping pack of hounds was
kennelled. Close at hand some captive foxes crouched in their pen,
listening sharp-eyed and fearful to the noisy chorus of their enemies.
No sports of any kind were allowed on Sundays, for the community was
severely orthodox in regard to the observance of Sunday, as in other
merely moral matters. But when the weather was good there were usually
to be found about the stables a number of young men and women,
preparing for tête-à-tête rides over the country roads or practising
jumps at the stone wall beside the paddock. Later in the morning they
would stroll back to the club veranda for a cool drink, and gossip
until the church-going members returned from service, and it was time
to dress for luncheon.
Of the younger set Venetia Phillips was most often to be found down by
the stone wall on a Sunday morning. She had come home from Europe this
last time handsome, tall, and fearless, thirsty for excitement of all
sorts, and had made much talk in the soberer circles of suburban
society. She was a great lover of dogs and horses, and went about
followed by a troop of lolloping dogs--an immense bull presented by an
English admirer, and a wolf hound specially imported, being the leaders
of the pack. She was one of the young women who still played golf now
that it was no longer fashionable, and on hot days she might be seen on
the links, her brown arms bare to the shoulders, and her blue black
hair hanging down her back in a flood. She rode to all the hunts, not
excepting the early morning meets late in the season. It was said,
also, that she drank too much champagne at the hunt dinners, and
occasionally allowed a degree of familiarity to her admirers that
shocked public opinion in a respectable and censorious society which
had found it hard to tolerate the mother.
Indeed, Mrs. Phillips could do nothing with her; she even confided her
troubles to Helen. "My dear, the girl has had every chance over there
abroad;--we had the very best introductions. She spoiled it all by her
idiocy. Stanwood is making a fool of himself with a woman, too. Enjoy
your children now, while you can spank them when they are naughty."
And Helen, although she had scant sympathy with the domestic
tribulations of the rich, was puzzled by the girl. The friendship
between them, which had begun so prosperously over Pete's sick-bed, had
largely faded away. The winter after their visits to Dr. Coburn's
laboratory Venetia had spent in a famous Eastern school, where Western
girls of her class were sent to acquire that finish of manner which is
still supposed to be the peculiar property of the older communities.
On her return she was no longer the impulsive girl that stared
wide-eyed at the eccentric doctor's opinions; there were reticencies in
her which the married woman could not overcome. Since then their paths
had crossed more rarely, and when they met there was a certain teasing
bravado in Venetia's attitude which prevented intimacy.
Mrs. Buchanan's pungent gossip about the girl, and the widow's bitter
complaint of her daughter, rose to Helen's mind one Sunday as they
stood together at the stone wall by the club stables, watching Lane,
who was trying a new hunter. Lane's temper was notoriously bad; the
Kentucky horse was raw and nervous; he refused the jump, almost
throwing his rider. Lane, too conscious of the spectators, his vanity
touched, beat the horse savagely on the head.
"Low!" Venetia grumbled audibly, turning her back on the scene.
"Come!" she said to Helen, seizing her arm. "Haven't you had enough of
brutes for one morning? Come up to the club and have a talk. That's
the man madam my mother would like to have me marry! Do you suppose
he'd use the whip on his wife?"
"He has his good side, even if his temper is short," Helen objected, as
they strolled across the links toward the club-house. "You might do
worse, Venetia."
"Quite the picture of a young girl's fancy! Forty-eight, and he's
asked every eligible girl in the city to marry him, and they have all
shied. So do I, though I wasn't in the running over there in
London--in spite of all the fuss the Chicago papers made about me, I
wasn't--you know Mrs. Phillips runs a regular press bureau! But I am
not quite down to him yet."
They had the club veranda to themselves at that mid-morning hour.
Venetia flung herself into a chair and flicked the tips of her boots
with her whip. The small Francis, who had followed his mother, tumbled
on the grass with the terrier Pete. Now and then Pete, who was
privileged on Sundays, would hobble to the veranda and look at his
mistress.
"You wouldn't marry a man like that, now would you? Well? You want to
say something disagreeable, don't you! You have had it on your
conscience for weeks. I could see it in your eye the other afternoon
when you were with Mrs. Freddie Stewart--that nice little cat. Come,
spit it out, as the boys say."
"Yes, I have had something on my mind."
"You don't like me now that I have grown up?"
"I thought we should be so much better friends," Helen admitted frankly.
"I am not the nice little girl you used to know when the doctor
entertained us and Pete with scientific conversation mixed with social
philosophy--that's what troubles you?"
"Why--why are you so different?"
"You mean, why do I smoke? drink champagne? and let men kiss me?"
She laughed at the look of consternation on Helen's face.
"That's what you mean, isn't it? My sporting around generally, and
drinking too much wine at that dinner last fall, and supplying these
veranda tabbies with so much food for thought? Why can't I be the
nice, sweet young woman you were before you were married? A comfort to
Mrs. Phillips and an ornament to Forest Manor!"
"You needn't be all that, and yet strike a pleasanter note," the older
woman laughed back.
"My dear gray mouse, I'm lots worse than that. Do you know where I was
the other night when mamma was in such a temper because I hadn't come
home, and telephoned all around to the neighbors?"
"At the Bascoms'?"
"Of course, all sweetly tucked up in bed. Not a bit of it! A lot of
us had dinner and went to see a show--that was all on the square. But
afterward Teddy Stearns and I did the Clark Street levee, at one in the
morning, and quite by ourselves. We saw heaps and heaps--it was very
informing--I could tell you such stories! And it went all right until
Teddy, like a little fool, got into trouble at one of the places. Some
one said something to me not quite refined, and Ted was just enough
elated to be on his dignity. If we hadn't had an awful piece of luck,
there would have been a little paragraph in the papers the next
morning. Wouldn't that have made a noise?"
"You little fool!" groaned Helen.
"Oh! I don't know," Venetia continued imperturbably. "Let me tell you
about it. Just as I had hold of Ted and was trying to calm him down,
somebody hit him, and there was a general scrap. Ted isn't so much of
a fool when he is all sober. Just then a man grabbed me, and I found
myself on the street. It was-- Well, no matter just now who it was.
Then the man went back for Ted, and after a time he got him, rather the
worse for his experience. We had to send him to a hotel, and then my
rescuer saw me home to the Bascoms'. My, what a talking he put up to
me on the way to the North Side!"
She waited to see what effect she had produced, but as Helen said
nothing she continued with a laugh:--
"I suppose you are thinking I am a regular little red devil. But you
don't know what girls do. I've seen a lot of girls all over. And most
of 'em, if they travel in a certain class, do just as fool things as
that. On the quiet, you understand, and most of them don't get into
trouble, either. They marry all right in the end, and become quiet
little mammas like you, dear. Sometimes, when they are silly, or weak,
or have bad luck, there's trouble. Now, I am not talking loose, as Ted
would say. I've known Baltimore girls, and New York girls, and
Philadelphia girls, and Boston girls,--and the Boston ones are the
worst ever!
"Why should the women be so different from the men, anyway? They are
the same flesh and blood as their fathers and brothers, and other
girls' fathers and brothers, too.... Don't make that face at me! I'm
nice enough, too, at least a little nice. Didn't you ever sit here
evenings, or over at the Eversley Club, and watch the nice little
girls? But perhaps you couldn't tell what it means when they do things
and say things. You ought to get a few points from me or some other
girl who is next them. We could tell you what they've been up to ever
since they left school, day by day."
The small Francis was rolling over and over on the green turf,
rejoicing in the freedom of soiling his white suit. Beyond the polo
field a couple on horseback were passing slowly along the curving road
into the woods. The cicadas sang their piercing August song among the
shrubs. It was a drowsy, decorous scene.
"It isn't all like that," the older woman protested, looking out on the
pleasant landscape. "You can choose what you will have."
"Do you think I should do any better if I chose your kind, my dear?"
Venetia asked quietly. "Or my mother's? Is Maida Rainbow's
conversation an improvement on Ted's? It isn't any more grammatical.
And Mrs. Ollie Buchanan's talk is worse than mine. Come now, dear
lady, tell me the truth! After several winters by the suburban
fireside do you still find your heart beating warmly when hubbie plods
up the street at eve in his new auto? Do you advise me to marry Mr.
Stephen Lane and transfer my activities to Breathett Lodge,--join the
tabby chorus, just to keep the tabbies quiet? Is the married state of
all these people you and I know out here to be so much desired?"
"Most of the men and women you know here in Chicago are not bad."
"Oh, no! They're good out here, most of 'em, and dull, damn dull.
They're afraid to take off their gloves for fear it isn't the correct
thing. A lot of 'em aren't used to good clothes, like that Mrs.
Rainbow. As uncle says, 'Our best people are religious and moral.'
But there's more going on than you dream of, gray mouse."
"You are too wise, Venetia."
"I'll tell you the reason why we sport. We're dull, and we are looking
for some fun. The men get all the excitement they need scrambling for
money. Girls want to be sports, too, and they can't do the money act.
So they sport--otherwise. That's the why."
She rapped the floor with her whip, and laughed at Helen's perplexity.
"I want to be a real sport, and know what men are like, really, when
they are off parade, as you nice women don't know 'em."
"Well, what are they like?"
"Some beasts, some cads, some good fellows," Venetia pronounced
definitively. "Do you know why I let men kiss me sometimes? To see if
they will, if that sort of thing is all they want of me. And most of
'em do want just that, married or single. When a man has the chance,
why, he goes back to the ape mighty quick."
She nodded sagely when Helen laughed at her air of wisdom, and she
continued undisturbed:--
"There are some of them now, coming up from the paddock. They have had
their little Sunday stroll, and now they want a drink to make them feel
cool and comfy, and some conversation with the ladies. We must trot
out our prettiest smiles and smoothest talk while they sit tight and
are amused."
"And so you think this is all, just these women and men you see here
and in other places like this? And the millions and millions of others
who are trying to live decent lives, who work and struggle?"
"I talk of those I know, dearie. What are the rest to me? Just dull,
ordinary people you never meet except on the street or in the train.
We are the top of it all.... I don't care for books and all that sort
of thing, or for slumming and playing with the poor. If you knew them,
too, I guess you'd find much the same little game going on down there."
"What a horrid world!"
"It is a bit empty," the girl yawned. "I suppose the only thing, after
you have had your run, is to marry the decentest man you can find, who
won't get drunk, or spend your money, or beat you, and have a lot of
children. Yours are awfully nice! I'd like to have the kids without
the husband--only that would make such a row!"
"That would please your mother, to have you married."
"Oh, mother! I suppose it would please her to have me marry Mr.
Stephen Lane," Venetia answered coldly. "One doesn't talk about one's
mother, or I'd like to tell you a thing or two on that head. She
needn't worry over me. She's had her fun, and is taking what she can
get now."
The group of men and women drew near the club-house. Jackson stopped
to speak to a man who had just driven up. Venetia pointed to him
derisively.
"There! See Jackie, your good man? He's buzzing old Pemberton, that
crusty pillar of society, because he's got a little game to play with
him. He's after old Pemby's vote for that school house. You mustn't
look so haughty, dear wife. It's your business, too, to be nice to
dear Mr. Pemberton. I shall leave you when he comes up, so that you
can beguile him with your sweet ways. It's money in thy husband's
purse, mouse, and hence in thy children's mouths. Now if we women
could scramble for the dollars,--why, we shouldn't want other kinds of
mischief. I'd like to be a big broker, like Rainbow, and handle deals,
and make the other fellows pay, pay, pay!"
She swung the small Francis over her head and tumbled him in the grass,
to the delight of Pete, who hobbled about his mistress, yelping with
joy.
There was something hard and final in the girl's summary of her
experience. And yet in spite of the obvious injustice of her
accusations, Helen felt startled and ashamed before her railing. After
all, was there such an infinite distance between the decent lives of
herself, her husband, and their friends and the heedless career of this
undisciplined girl? Were they governed by finer ends than hers?
Vigorous, hot-blooded, and daring, Venetia would have battled among men
as an equal, and got from the fight for existence health, and sanity,
and joy. As it was, she was rich enough to be protected in the
struggle for existence, and was tied down by the prejudices of her
class. She was bottled passion!
The architect still held Pemberton in conversation on the drive, and
Venetia presently returned to Helen, smiling slyly into her face.
"That doctor man was an amusing chap, wasn't he? I mean Dr. Coburn,
the one who mended up Pete when I was a young miss, and outraged mamma
by sending her a receipted bill for two hundred and fifty dollars. He
asks about you still. Why did you drop him? I always thought that was
a bit queer in you, you know. You liked him, but he wasn't your kind,
and you dropped him."
"Where have you seen him?" Helen asked evasively.
"Oh, here and there. He writes me pretty often, too. Why not? He was
the man who helped me out of that scrape with Teddy. Wouldn't Jackie
let you have anything to do with him? Jack is an awful snob, you know."
"Francis didn't like him," Helen admitted a little sadly. "I am afraid
I didn't make much of an effort either with him or with that poor Mr.
Hussey. It's so hard to do some things, to know people you like when
they're out of your path."
Venetia scrutinized the older woman's face and laughed.
"Just so! What did I tell you?"
"How is he?"
"Just as always,--poor, down at the heel and all over, an out-and-out
crank."
"How do you meet him?" Helen asked pointedly.
"Sometimes at his hang-out, as he calls it. I've had supper there once
or twice with Molly Bascom. You needn't be alarmed. We talk science,
and he abuses doctors. He trundled off to Paris or Vienna with that
queer machine of his, and got some encouragement over there. You
should hear him talk about Europe! Now he's crazy over some new bugs
he's found. He may not make good from Jack's point of view. But you
see that doesn't prevent me from liking him. He has a great time
thinking all by himself. He'd starve himself to death if he had to, to
do what he's after. That's the real thing. I offered him money once
to help him out."
"Venetia, not that!"
"Yes. I said, 'See here, my friend, I've more of this than I want,'
which was a lie. But I was willing to sell a horse or two. 'Help
yourself,' I said, 'and when I want it I'll ask you.' I put a cardcase
I had with me on the table, stuffed of course. He took it up, took out
what was in it, handed the money back, and dropped the case in a
drawer. 'None of that,' he said. 'I don't take money from a woman.'
I was glad afterward that he didn't take it, though I don't know
why--he looked specially hard up. I suppose I might have done it a
nicer way, but I thought he would understand and treat me like a little
girl, as he always has.... Well, here comes Jack at last."
She gave the architect a hand, which he shook with mock impressiveness.
"How do, Jackie! I've been teaching your domestic angel a thing or
two."
"I guess you can't corrupt her."
It was evident that she and Jackson understood each other very well.