A POLITE REQUEST FOR MONEY
“About your allowance, Zee, I haven’t fixed it yet. So many matters
have been pressing me. But of course if you need anything----”
“Yes, father, I’m glad you spoke of it. I really should like a little
money.”
He looked at her in his quick, furtive way. He was disappointed; he had
expected her to disavow any needs.
“I didn’t suppose,” he said, dropping his eyes to his plate, and
cutting a bit of bacon deliberately--“I didn’t suppose you would
require any money for yourself as yet. There are so many trunks of
your clothes up stairs”--he smiled indulgently--“you can hardly need
anything at present.”
“Clothes? No, I don’t believe I do need any clothes at present. It
wasn’t clothes that I had in mind.”
“Oh!”
“I don’t need anything to wear just now. But I should like some money
of my own to spend. A thousand dollars will run me for a little while.”
He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes while he continued to
manipulate his knife and fork. He really thought she might be jesting;
but she was stirring her coffee absent-mindedly, and did not look at
him.
“May I trouble you for a little more coffee, Zelda?”
He watched her pour it and add the sugar and cream. They were testing
each other in the light of a new attitude that had been established
between them, unconsciously on his part, but with studied care on hers.
She had felt, for a few days following her morning in the garret, that
her position in her father’s house was intolerable; that she could not
go on with it. But this had yielded before a new feeling of pride and
courage that had risen in her. The message her mother had left--a real
testament it was, thrown back from the very shadow of death--wakened in
her a sense of duty and obligation that was fantastic. She would not,
she said to herself, be less brave than her mother; so she had made
her resolve; she would not forsake her father for her mother’s sister
and brother; she would be true to the example of her mother, who had
suffered much and kept her sorrow to herself.
At twenty we do not look very far ahead; and Zelda Dameron thought
it easy to act a part. Her mother’s life had been ruined; her father
had the power to make her own life equally a drag and burden; but she
would not have it so. She would play her youth against his age, and
triumph; and this first encounter between them touching money gave her
an opportunity. It was his vulnerable point and she saw that she had
reached it. She had heard from her aunt that the estate her father
held for her was worth about four hundred thousand dollars; and the
income from this was sufficient, she knew, to give her much more than
the comforts of life. So she had asked for a thousand dollars as an
experiment; and she debated the matter with her father in an amiable
spirit of recklessness well calculated to annoy him.
“We were speaking of your allowance,” he began again. “You named a
large sum--a very large sum. May I ask what you want with so much? I’d
rather pay a certain amount to your credit at the bank every month; but
so large an amount--it would be ample for a year, I should say.”
“No,” Zelda began slowly. “I don’t think it would be enough for a year,
father. You see, in the first place I must have a decent horse.”
“Eh, what? A horse? Why, we have a very good horse and carriage. The
horse is very good. I bought it only a few weeks ago to be ready for
your return.”
“Yes, that was nice of you; but I don’t care much for a carriage. I
like a runabout that I can drive myself; and a horse--what do you call
it, a combination horse--that will do for me to ride, too. I know the
ancient in the barn. It isn’t quite up to the mark. I want a horse to
ride and drive; and you know a plow horse won’t do for that.”
“But you’d need an attendant,” he went on forbearingly. “A girl can’t
ride alone in the city. It wouldn’t be becoming. You’d better give up
the idea. There are many other forms of amusement and exercise.”
“Oh, I think I can manage that. Very likely Uncle Rodney will ride with
me sometimes. And I’m quite grown up, you know.”
“Your Uncle Rodney, my dear,” he began, and shook his head and
smiled in a grieved, sorrowful way. “He’s hardly a good adviser in
these things. Rodney is an excellent man, but he’s never had any
responsibilities in life. He’s always done exactly what he pleased
without consulting any one. You mustn’t let him persuade you into
extravagances. He and your aunt are a good deal alike in their wasteful
ways.”
“I suppose they do get what they want. They’re awfully nice, though.
They’re perfect dears. And I must say, father, that they’ve never said
a thing to me about horses. That’s my own wilfulness and extravagance.”
He laughed and smiled at her with his mirthless smile.
“There’s a lot of trickery in the horse business. You’d better let me
get the horse for you, if you really want one.”
“Oh, never! Half the fun would be to buy my own.”
“But these horse dealers!”--he shrugged his shoulders. “A girl must not
deal with them.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to buy my horse here. I’ll go to Kentucky where the
good horses come from and buy my charger there. You see, Mrs. Carr
has friends in Lexington. She was telling me wonderful things of the
country down there. It would be great fun to go. Why, maybe you’d go
with me!”
“No! no!”
Ezra Dameron sank back in his chair. He was baffled and perplexed.
This demand for money had come unexpectedly. He had underestimated the
girl’s intelligence, for he had never hinted to her that the property
he held in trust was large. On the other hand he had several times
implied quite pointedly that it was necessary for them to exercise
the greatest economy. He challenged for the first time her apparent
simplicity and frankness. She was deeper perhaps than he had imagined;
it was wholly possible that she was asking for this sum of money
merely to draw him out. It might be that she wished a refusal in order
to demand an accounting of her property. He feared Rodney Merriam, and
he thought it quite possible that his brother-in-law had suggested this
course of procedure; for he believed Merriam to be a subtle and crafty
man. Zelda was very probably acting under her uncle’s instructions; but
he would not be caught by any net spread by Rodney Merriam. The amount
was large, to be sure, but it was no breaking matter; he would give it
to the girl graciously. He suffered her to talk of other matters as he
pondered, and he said, after he had risen to go:
“I shall stop at the bank and open an account for you this morning. I
believe you said a thousand dollars. Of course you weren’t serious. But
I’m disposed to be generous. I will call it five hundred dollars.”
He inclined his body slightly. There was in him a formal courtesy,
or the mockery of courtesy. He could give a fine touch to an ignoble
thing, if need be; or he could yield to an importunity in a way that
brought him becoming martyrdom.
Zelda went with him to the door, as she had begun to do on the first
morning after her return, and rendered him those little offices that
women have ordained as part of the minor ritual of their service of
love.
She watched him as he walked rapidly away from the house without
looking back. She was already half-ashamed of herself for having
demanded money of him; yet there was a cry in her blood for war, for
contest, that this little triumph of the breakfast-table did not
satisfy; but as she watched him disappear at the corner pity again
possessed her heart.
An occupant of one of the new houses over the way came out to go to his
appointed labors of the day. His wife and two little children followed
him, and the family gathered about a flower bed in the plot of ground
by their doorstep and discussed the frost that had blighted their
plants. The comments of the children rang out in droll trebles; and
they delayed their father with many clutches and embraces as he started
away. Zelda watched them with a new pain in her heart. The shouts of
the children to their father touched a need of her own, and she turned
away into the house with a sob in her throat and tears gathering in her
eyes.