MRS. GREEN
As Patty went by so quickly, she saw Stephen without appearing to glance
in his direction. For the last few weeks a flame had run over her
whenever she remembered, and there was scarcely a moment when it was out
of her mind, that she had shown her heart so openly and that, as she
expressed it bitterly, "he had hidden behind his mother." "If he comes
back again," she told herself recklessly, and she felt scorched when she
thought that he might never come back, "I'll let him see that I can
trifle as well as, or better, than he can. I'll let him see that two can
play at that kind of game." A hundred times Corinna's warning returned
to her. The words, which had made so slight an impression when she heard
them, were burned now into her memory. Oh, Mrs. Page had known all along
what it meant! She had understood from the beginning; and she had tried,
without hurting her, to make her see the blind folly of such an
infatuation. As she thought of this to-day, Patty's heart ached with
injured pride and resentment, not only against Stephen, but against the
unfairness of life. Why was it that men and circumstances would never
let one be natural and generous? Was there a conspiracy of events, as
Mrs. Page had once said, to prevent the finest impulses from coming to
flower? "I'd have done anything on earth for him," thought the girl with
passionate indignation. "I'd have made any sacrifice. I could have been
anything that he wanted." And she felt bitterly that the best in her
soul, the sacred places of her life had been invaded and destroyed. The
blighted sensation which accompanies the recoil of an emotion seemed to
suspend not only the energy of her spirit, but the very breath in her
body. A change had passed over her heart and the world around her and
the persons and events which had so recently composed her universe. She
felt now that she cared for none of them, that, one and all, they had
ceased to interest her; and that the things which filled their lives
were all vacant and meaningless forms. It was as if the vitality of
existence had been drained away, leaving an empty shell. Nothing was
real, nothing was alive but the aching core of her own wounded heart.
"I don't care. I won't let it spoil my life," she resolved while she bit
back a sob. "Whatever happens, I am not going to let my life be ruined."
She had repeated this so often that it had begun to drone in her mind
like a line out of a hymn-book; and she was still repeating it when she
swept by Stephen without so much as a word or a look. A dangerous mood
was upon her. Nothing mattered, she felt, if she could only prove to him
that she also had been trifling; that his kiss had meant as little to
her as to him; that from the beginning to the end she had been as
indifferent as he was.
Her step quickened into a run; and Gershom, striding, in order to keep
up with her, looked at her with the jovial laugh that she hated. "You're
in a powerful hurry to-day, ain't you?" he remarked.
"I'm always in a hurry. You have to hurry to get anything out of life."
As she glanced up into his admiring eyes, she found herself wondering
what Stephen had thought while he watched her? She wished that it had
been anybody but Gershom. He seemed an unworthy instrument of revenge,
though, she reflected, with a touch of her father's sagacity, one
couldn't always choose the tools one would like best. Most people would
admit that he was good-looking in a common way, she supposed; and it was
only of late that she had realized how essentially vulgar he was.
"I'm sorry you haven't time to listen," he said. "I have news for you."
Then, as she fell into a slower step, he added, with an abrupt change to
a slightly hectoring tone: "We passed that young Culpeper just now. Did
you see him?"
She shook her head disdainfully. "I wasn't looking at him."
"He may have been on his way to the mansion." There was a taunting note
in his voice, as if he were trying deliberately to work her into a
temper.
"It doesn't matter." She spoke flippantly. "I don't care whether he was
or not."
Gershom laughed. "That sounds good to me even if I take it with a grain
of salt. I was beginning to be afraid that you liked him."
She turned on him angrily. "What business is that of yours?"
His amiability, as soon as he had struck fire, became imperturbable.
"Well, I've known you a long time, Patty, and I take an interest in you,
you see. Now, I don't fancy this young Culpeper. He is a conceited sort
of ass like his father before him, the sort that thinks all clover is
his fodder."
Though Gershom would have scorned philosophy had he ever heard of it,
he was well grounded in that practical knowledge of human perversity
from which all philosophers and most philosophic systems have sprung.
Had his next words been barbed with steel they could not have pierced
Patty's girlish pride more sharply. "I reckon he imagines all he's got
to do is to look sweet at a girl, and she'll fall at his feet."
Patty's eyes flashed with anger. "He is not unusual in that, is he?" she
asked mockingly.
"Well, you can't accuse me of that, Patty," said Gershom, with a
sincerity which made him appear less offensively oily. "I never looked
long at but one girl in my life, not since I first saw you, anyway--and
I don't seem ever to have had an idea that she would fall at my feet.
But I didn't bring you out here to begin kidding. I want to talk to you
about the Governor, and I was afraid he would catch on to something if
we stayed indoors."
"About Father?" She looked at him in alarm. "Is there anything the
matter with Father?"
Without turning his head, he glanced at her keenly out of the corner of
his eye. It was a trick of his which always irritated her because it
reminded her of the sly and furtive side of his character.
"You've a pretty good opinion of the old man, haven't you, Patty?"
"I think he is the greatest man in the world."
"And you wouldn't like him to run against a snag, would you?"
"What do you mean? Has anything happened to worry him?"
He had stopped just beyond the nearest side entrance to the Square, and
he stood now, with his eyes on the automobiles before the City Hall,
while he fingered thoughtfully the ornamental scarf-pin in his green and
purple tie. "There's always more or less to worry him, ain't there?"
She frowned impatiently. "Not Father. He is hardly ever anything but
cheerful. Please tell me what you are hinting."
"I wasn't hinting. But, if you don't mind talking to me a minute,
suppose we get away from these confounded cars."
He turned east, following the iron fence of the Square until they
reached the high grass bank and the old box hedge which surrounded the
garden at the back of the Governor's house. At the corner of the street,
which sank far below the garden terrace, he stopped again and laid a
restraining hand on her arm.
"He thinks a great deal of you too."
She shook his hand from her sleeve. "Why shouldn't he? I am his only
child." Then her voice hardened, and she glanced at him suspiciously. "I
wish for once you would try to be honest."
"Honest?" His amusement was perfectly sincere. "I am as honest as the
day, and I've always been. That's why I'm in politics."
"Then tell me what you are trying to say about Father. If there's
anything wrong, I'd rather be told at once."
They were still standing on the deserted corner below the garden, and
while she waited for his answer, she glanced away from him up the side
street, which rose in a steep ascent from the business quarter of the
town. The sun was still high over the distant housetops and the light
turned the brick pavement to a rich red and shot the clouds of gray dust
with silver. The neighbourhood was one which had seen better days, and
some well-built old houses, with red walls and white porches, lent an
air of hospitality and comfortable living to the numerous cheap boarding
places that filled the street. Crowds of children were playing games or
skating on roller skates over the sidewalk; and on the porches a few
listless women gossiped idly; or gazed out over newspapers which they
did not read.
"Well, there ain't anything wrong exactly--yet," replied Gershom.
"But there may be, you think?"
"That depends upon him. If he keeps headed the way he's going, and he's
as stubborn as a mule, there'll be trouble as sure as my name is
Julius."
"Is that what you've quarrelled about of late--the way he's going?"
"Bless your heart, honey, we ain't quarrelled! Has it sounded like that
to you? I've just been trying to make him see reason, that's all. He
ain't got a right, you know, to turn against his best friends the way
he's doing. Friends are friends whether you are in office or out, and
there's a lot that a man owes to the folks that have stood by him. I
tell you I know politics from the bottom up, and there ain't no room in
'em for the man--I don't give a darn who he is--that don't stand by his
friends. If he's the President of the United States, he'll find that he
can't afford not to stand by the people who put him there!"
So this was the trouble! He had let out his grievance at last, and from
the smouldering resentment in his eyes, she understood that some real
or imaginary injustice had put him, for the moment at least, in an ugly
temper. If he had not met her when he left the house, if he had waited
to grow cool, to reflect, he would probably never have taken her into
his confidence. Chance again, she thought, not without bitterness. How
much of the happiness or unhappiness of life depended upon chance!
"I don't believe it," she returned emphatically. "He always stands by
people."
"He used to," he replied sullenly, "but that was in the old days when he
needed 'em. The truth is he's got his head turned by his election. He
thinks he's so strong that he can go on alone and keep the crowd at his
back; but he'll find he's mistaken, and that the crowd, when it ain't
worked right from the inside, is a poor thing to depend on. The crowd
does the shouting, but it's a man's friends that start the tune."
"Are you talking about the strike?" she asked. "I thought he was in
sympathy with the strikers."
"Oh, he says he is, but he won't prove it."
She faced him squarely, with her head held high and her eyes cold and
determined. "What do you want me to do? Please don't beat about the bush
any longer."
He hesitated a moment, and she inferred that he was trying to decide how
far he might venture with safety. "Well, I thought you might speak a
word to him," he said. "He sets such store by what you would like. I
thought you might drop a hint that he ought to stand by his friends."
"To stand by his friends--that means you," she rejoined.
"Oh, he'll know quick enough what it means! You must be smart about it,
of course, but I don't mind his knowing that I've been speaking to you.
It's for his own good that I'm talking--for the very minute that the
fellows find out he ain't been on the square with 'em, it will be
'nothing doing' for the Governor."
"It is a threat, then?" she asked sharply.
"I'd call it something else if I were you. Look here," he continued
briskly. "You'd like to see the old man go to the Senate, and maybe
higher up, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, of course. What has that to do with it?"
He winked and laughed knowingly. "Well, you just take my advice and drop
a hint to him about this business. Then, perhaps, you'll see."
"If he doesn't take the hint, what will you do?"
"Ask me that in the sweet bye and bye, honey!" His tone had become
offensively familiar. "It's for his good, you know. If it's the last
word I ever speak I'm trying to save him from the biggest snag he ever
met in his life."
She had drawn disdainfully away from him; but at his last words she came
a step nearer. "I'll tell him exactly what you say," she answered; and
then she asked suddenly in a firmer tone: "Have you heard anything more
of my aunt?"
He looked at her intently. "Why, yes. You hadn't mentioned her again, so
I thought you'd ceased to be interested. Would you like to see her?" he
demanded abruptly after a pause.
"How can I? I don't know where she is."
For a minute or two before replying he studied her closely. "I wish you
would let your hair grow out, Patty," he remarked at the end of his
examination, and there was a note of genuine feeling in his bantering.
"I remember how pretty you used to look as a little girl, with your hair
flying behind you like the mane of a pony."
"Let my hair alone. Do you know where my aunt is?"
He appeared to yield reluctantly to her insistence. "If you're so bent
on knowing--and, mind you, I tell you only because you make me--she
ain't so very far from where we are standing. I could take you to her in
ten minutes."
She looked at him as if she scarcely believed his words. "You mean that
she is in town?"
"Haven't you known me long enough to find out that I always mean what I
say?"
"Then you can take me to her now?"
He laughed shortly, and dug the end of his walking stick between the
pavement and the edge of the curbstone. "What do you reckon the Governor
would say to it?"
"I needn't tell him--not just yet, anyhow. But are you really and truly
sure that she is my mother's sister?"
"Well, they had the same parents, and I reckon that makes 'em sisters if
anything does. I knew 'em both out yonder in California, and I never
heard anybody suggest they weren't related."
"Why did she come here? Was it to see me?"
"Partly that, and partly--well, she's been pretty sick. I reckon she's
likely to go off at any time, and she wanted to be back where she was
born. She had pneumonia two years ago, and then again last winter. Her
lungs are about used up."
"Then, if I went to see her, I'd better go now, hadn't I?"
"It would be surer. Something may happen almost any day. That's why I
spoke to you."
"I am glad you did. If it isn't far, will you take me now?"
But instead of walking on with her, he dug the end of his stick more
firmly between the pavement and the curbstone. "I don't want to do you
any harm, Patty," he said gently at last. "It may give you a shock to
see her, you know. She's been through some hard times, and she's about
come to the end of her rope. Good Lord, the way life is! When I first
saw her out in California she was one of the prettiest pieces of flesh I
ever laid eyes on. She had something of your look, too, though you
wouldn't believe it now."
But the girl had already started to cross the street. "Don't let's waste
any time talking. Which way do we go?"
At her decision his hesitation vanished, and he joined her with a laugh
and a flourish of the diamond ring on the little finger of his left
hand. "Well, you are a sport, Patty! You always were, even when you
weren't much more than knee high to a duck. If you've made up your mind
to go, you won't be blaming me afterward?"
"Oh, I shan't blame you, of course. Do we turn up this street?"
"Yes, go ahead. It ain't far--just a little way up Leigh Street."
They walked on rapidly, and presently, so swift and determined was
Patty's step, Gershom ceased to speak, and only glanced at her now and
then in a furtive and anxious way. There was a look of tragic resolution
on her small face--oh, she was meeting life in earnest, she
reflected--and even to the coarse mind and the dull imagination of the
man beside her, she assumed gradually the appearance of some ethereal
messenger. At the moment she was thinking of Stephen, but this he did
not suspect. He saw only that there was something almost unearthly in
her expression; and he felt the kind of awe that came over him on Sunday
when he entered a church. He wouldn't hurt the girl, he told himself,
with a twinge, for a pocketful of money.
They had turned into Leigh Street, and had walked some distance in
silence, when Patty asked suddenly without looking round, "Then she
doesn't know I am coming?"
"I told her I'd bring you whenever I could; but she ain't looking for
you this evening. There, that's the house--the one in the middle, with
that wooden swing and all those kids in the yard."
He pointed to what had once been a fine old house of stuccoed brick,
with a square front porch and green shutters which were sagging on
loosened hinges. On the walls where the stucco had peeled away, the red
brick showed in splotches, and the pillars of the porch, which had been
white, were now speckled with yellow stains. Over the whole place, with
its air of fallen respectability, there hung the depressing smell of
mingled dust, stale cooking, and bad tobacco. A number of imposing and
well-preserved houses stood on the block, for of the whole
neighbourhood, it appeared to the girl, they had chosen the most
dilapidated dwelling and the one which was most crowded with children.
"We're here all right. Don't go so fast," remarked Gershom, as they
ascended the steps. "It ain't going to run away from you." Bending down
he picked up a crying urchin from the steps. "Lost your ball, have you?
Well, I expect if you dig deep enough in my pocket, you can find it
again. Hello! You've got a punch, ain't you, sonny? A regular John L., I
reckon." Putting the child down, he continued sheepishly to Patty: "I
always had a soft spot for the kids. Never could pass one in the street
without stopping."
On the porch, beside a broken perambulator, which contained a black-eyed
baby with a bottle of milk, a stout man sat reading the afternoon paper,
while with one hand he patiently pushed the rickety carriage back and
forth. As they reached the porch, he laid aside his paper, and rose with
his hand still on the perambulator.
"Oh, it's you," he said, "Mr. Gershom."
"I've brought this lady to see Mrs. Green," returned Gershom. "How is
she?"
The stout man shook his head and surveyed Patty curiously but not
discourteously. He had a kindly, humorous look, and she felt at once
that she preferred his blunt frankness to Gershom's facetious
insincerity. There was something in his face that suggested the
black-eyed baby sucking placidly at the rubber nipple on the bottle of
milk.
"She's worse if anything. The doctor came this morning." The baby,
having dropped the bottle, lifted a despairing wail, and the father bent
over and replaced the nipple gently between the quivering lips. "The
rent was due yesterday," he added, "I understood that there was to be no
trouble about it."
"Oh, there's no trouble about that. I'm responsible," replied Gershom
quickly. He was about to pass on; but changing his mind, he stopped and
drew out his pocket book. "I'll settle it now. Are there any extras?"
"Yes, she's had to have eggs and milk, and there have been medicines. It
comes to twelve dollars in all. I'll show you the account."
"Very well. Get anything that she needs." Then, as Gershom followed
Patty into the hall, he pointed to the fine old staircase. "It's the
back room. Go straight up. You ain't timid, are you?"
"Timid? Oh, no." Running lightly up the stairs, the girl hesitated a
moment before the half-open door of the room at the back of the house.
Then, in obedience to a gesture from Gershom as he pushed the door
wider, she crossed the threshold, and went rapidly toward a couch in
front of the window. As she went forward there floated to her a heavy,
sweetish scent which seemed to her to be the very breath of despair. Her
first thought was that the sun had gone under a cloud; the next instant
she perceived that the window was shaded by a ragged ailantus tree and
that beyond the tree there was a high brick wall which shut out the
daylight. Then she looked at the woman lying under a ragged blanket on
the couch; and she felt vaguely that the haggard features framed in
coarse black hair awakened a troubled sense of familiarity or
recognition. The next instant there returned to her the memory of her
walk in the Square with Corinna a few weeks before, and of the strange
woman who had looked at them so curiously.
"I have come to see you," she began gently, "Mr. Gershom brought me."
Raising her head, the woman stared at her without replying. Her eyes
were dull and heavy, with drooping lids beneath which a sombre glow
flickered and died down. There was a wan yellow tinge over her face; and
yet now that the approach of death had refined and purified her
features, she was not without a gravity of expression which made her
strangely impressive, like some wax mask of an avenging Fate. With a
sensation of relief, Patty's eyes wandered from the haggard face to a
calla lily in a pot on the window-sill, and she noticed that it bore a
single perfect blossom. While she waited, overcome by a dumbness which
seemed to invade her from head to foot, her eyes clung to that calla
lily as if it were her one connection with reality. All the rest, the
close, dingy room, with the ailantus tree and the high wall beyond, the
sickening sweetish odour with which she was unfamiliar, the waxen mask
and the blank, drooping eyes of the woman; all these things seemed to
exist not in her actual surroundings, but in some hideous dream from
which she was struggling to awake. Somewhere long ago, in a dreadful
nightmare, she had smelled that cloying scent and seen those half-shut
eyes looking back at her. Somewhere--and yet it was impossible. She
could only have imagined it all.
Suddenly the woman spoke in a thick voice. "You are the Governor's
daughter? Gideon Vetch's daughter?"
"Yes. Mr. Gershom told me you wanted to see me."
"Mr. Gershom?" The woman's eyelids flickered and then fell heavily over
her expressionless eyes. "Oh, you mean Julius. Yes, I told him I wanted
to see you." A quiver of animation passed like a spasm over her
features, and she inquired eagerly, "Where is he? Did he come?"
"I'm here all right," said Gershom, stepping briskly into the range of
her vision.
She gazed up at him as he approached her with the look of a famished
animal, a look so little human and so full of physical hunger that Patty
turned her eyes again to the calla lily on the window-sill, and then to
the young green on the ailantus tree and the brick wall beyond. To the
girl it seemed that minutes must have gone by before the next words
came. "You brought the medicine?"
"Yes, I brought it. The doctor gave it to me; but it is hard to get, and
he said you were to have it only on condition that you do everything
that we tell you."
"Oh, I will, I will." She reached out her hand eagerly for the package
he had taken from his coat pocket; and when Patty looked at her again a
curious change had passed over her face, revivifying it with the colour
of happiness. "I have been in such pain--such pain," she whispered. "I
was afraid it would come back before you came. Oh, I was so afraid."
Then she added hurriedly: "Is that all? Did you bring nothing else?"
Though a look of embarrassment crossed his face, he carried off the
difficult situation with his characteristic assurance. "The doctor sent
you a little stimulant. Perhaps I'd better give you a dose now. It
might pick you up." Taking a bottle from his pocket, he poured some
whiskey into a glass and added a little water from a pitcher on the
table. "There, now," he remarked, with genuine sympathy as he held the
glass to her lips. "You'll begin to feel better in a minute. This young
lady can't stay but a little while, so you'd better try to buck up."
"I'll try," answered the woman obediently. "I'll try--but it isn't easy
to come back out of hell." Lifting her head from the pillow, as if it
were a dead weight that did not belong to her, she stared at Patty while
her tormented mind made an effort to remember. In a minute her mouth
worked pathetically, and she burst into tears. "I can't come back now, I
can't come back now," she repeated in a whimpering tone. "But I'll be
better before long, and then I want to see you. There are things I want
to tell you when I get the strength. I can't think of them now, but they
are things about Gideon Vetch."
"About Father?" asked the girl, and her voice trembled.
The woman stopped crying, and looked up appealingly, while she wiped her
eyes on the ragged edge of the blanket. "Yes, about Gideon Vetch. That's
his name, ain't it?"
"I wouldn't talk any more now, if I were you," said Gershom, putting his
hand gently on her pillow. "We'll come again when you're feeling
spryer."
The woman nodded. "Yes, come again. Bring her again."
"I'll come whenever you send for me," said Patty reassuringly; but
instead of looking at the woman, she stooped over and touched the calla
lily with her lips, as if it were human and could respond to her. "I
want you to tell me about my mother--everything. I remember her just
once, the night before they took her to the asylum. She was in spangled
skirts that stood out like a ballet dancer's, and there was a crown of
stars on her hair and a star on the end of the wand she carried. I
remember it all just as plainly as if it were yesterday--though they
tell me I was too little--"
She broke off because the woman was gazing at her so strangely. "You
were too little," she cried, and burst into hysterical weeping. "I can't
stand it," she said wildly. "I never had a chance, and I can't stand
it."
"I think we'd better go," said Gershom. It amazed Patty to find how
gentle he could be when his sympathy was touched. "I oughtn't to have
brought you to-day." Turning away, he left the room hurriedly, as if the
scene were too much for him.
At this the woman controlled herself with a convulsive effort. "No, I
wanted to see you," she said. "You are pretty, but you aren't prettier
than your mother was at your age."
For a moment the girl looked pityingly down on her. "I hope you will
soon be better," she responded in a tone which she tried to make
sympathetic in spite of the physical shrinking she felt. "Let me know
when you wish to see me, and I will come back."
The woman shivered. "Do you mean that?" she asked. "Will you come when I
send for you? I want to see you again--once--before I die."
"I promise you that I will come. I'll send you something, too, and so
will Father."
"Gideon Vetch," said the woman very slowly, as if she were trying to
hold the name in her consciousness before it slipped away from her.
"Gideon Vetch."
As the girl broke away and ran out of the room that expressionless
repetition followed her into the hall and down the staircase, growing
fainter and fainter like the voice of one who is falling asleep:
"_Gideon Vetch. Gideon Vetch._"
On the porch, where the stout man had returned to his newspaper, Patty
found Gershom standing beside the perambulator, with the black-eyed baby
in his arms. He was gazing gravely over the round bald head, and his
face wore a funereal expression which contrasted ludicrously with the
clucking sounds he was making to the attentive and interested baby. When
Patty joined him he put the child back into the carriage, carefully
tucking the crocheted robe about the tiny shoulders. "I kind of thought
the little one might like a chance to get out of that buggy," he
observed, while he straightened himself briskly, and adjusted his tie.
"She must be very ill," said the girl, as they went out of the gate and
turned down the street.
"A sure thing," replied Gershom concisely. Then he whistled sharply, and
added, "Rotten, that's what I call it."
"She said she'd never had a chance," remarked Patty thoughtfully, "I
wonder what she meant."
The funereal expression spread like a pall over Gershom's features, but
his intermittent whistle sounded as sprightly as ever. "Well, how many
folks in this world have ever had what you might call a decent chance?"
he asked.
"I don't know. I hadn't thought." The girl looked depressed and
puzzled. "It's a dreadful thing to think that nobody cares when you're
dying." Then her tone grew more hopeful. "Do you suppose anybody thinks
that Father never had a chance?" she asked.
Gershom broke into a laugh. "Well, if he had it, you may be pretty sure
that he made it himself," he retorted.
"Then I wish he could make some for other people."
"He says he's trying to, doesn't he? But between us, Patty, my child,
you won't forget what you have to say to the old man, will you?"
"What have I to say? Oh, you mean about standing by his friends?"
"That's just it. You tell him from yours truly that the best thing he
can do all round is to stick fast to his friends."
"And that means the strikers?"
"It means what I tell you."
"Well, I'll repeat exactly what you say; it won't make any difference if
his mind is made up."
"Maybe so. Are you going to tell him where you've been?"
"I don't know. I hate to worry him; but that poor woman must need help."
"Oh, she needs it. We all need it," remarked Gershom flippantly. Then,
as they reached the entrance to the Square, he held out his hand. "Well,
I'm off now, and I hope you aren't feeling any worse because of your
visit. The world ain't made of honeycomb, you know, and there's no use
pretending it is. But you're a darn good sport, Patty. You're as good a
sport as I ever struck up with in this little affair of life."