INGRATITUDE PERSONIFIED
“What do you suppose is the matter with Gwyn? Ever since Jenny Warner
delivered a note from her mother Saturday afternoon, she has been as glum
as a—well, what is glum, anyway?” Patricia looked up from the book she
was studying to make this comment.
Beulah mumbled some reply which was unintelligible, nor did she cease
trying to solve the problem she was intent upon. Pat continued: “I have
it figured out that Gwyn’s mother wrote something which greatly upset our
never-too-amiable friend. She kept shut in her room yesterday, tight as a
clam in its shell. I rapped several times and asked if she had a headache
and if she wished me to bring tea or anything, but she did not reply.”
“Take it from me, Pat, you waste your good Samaritan impulses on a person
like Gwyn. She is simply superlatively selfish.”
Pat leaped up and put a hand over her friend’s mouth. “I heard the knob
turn. I think we are about to be honored with a visit. Don’t be
sarcastic, Beulah. Maybe Gwyn has a real trouble.”
This whispered remark had just been concluded when there came an
imperative rapping on the inner door. Pat skipped to open it. Gwynette,
dressed for the street, entered. “What’s the grand idea of locking the
door between our rooms?” she inquired.
“Didn’t know it was locked,” Pat replied honestly. Beulah was again
solving the intricate problem, or attempting to, and acted as though she
had not heard.
Patricia, always the more tender-hearted, offered their visitor a chair.
Then solicitously: “What is the matter, Gwyn. You look as though you had
cried for hours. Bad news in the note Jenny Warner brought you?”
There was a hard expression in the brown eyes that were turned coldly
toward the sympathetic inquirer. Slowly she said, “I sometimes think that
I hate my mother and that she hates me.”
There was a quick protest from Pat. “Don’t say that, Gwyn, just because
you are angry! You have told me, yourself, that your mother has granted
your every wish until recently.”
Gwynette shrugged her proudly-held shoulders. “Even so! Why am I now
treated like a child and told what I must do, or be punished?” Noting a
surprised expression in Patricia’s pleasant face, Gwyn repeated with
emphasis: “Just exactly that! If I do not take the tests, or if I fail in
them when they are taken, I cannot have my coming-out party next year,
but must remain in this or some other school until I obtain a diploma as
a graduate with honors. So Ma Mere informed me in the note brought by
that despicable Jenny Warner.”
Beulah could not help hearing and she looked up, her eyes flashing.
“Gwynette, if you wish to slander a friend of Pat’s and mine, you will
have to choose another audience.”
The eyebrows of the visitor were lifted. “Indeed? Since when have you
become the champion of the granddaughter of my mother’s servants?”
Beulah’s answer was defiant. “Pat and I both consider Jenny Warner one of
the most beautiful and lovable girls we have ever met. We went for a ride
with her on Saturday, and this afternoon, if we aren’t too exhausted
after the tests, we are going to walk down to her farm home and call on
her and upon little Lenora Gale, who has been moved there from the
infirmary.”
Gwynette rose, flinging over her shoulder contemptuously, “Well, I see
that you have made your choice of friends. Of course you cannot expect to
associate with me, if you are hobnobbing at the same time with our
servants. What is more, that Lenora Gale’s father is a wheat rancher in
Dakota. I, at least, shall select my friends from exclusive families. I
will bid you good-bye. From now on our intimacy is at end.” The door
closed behind Gwyn with an emphatic bang. Beulah leaped up and danced a
jig. Pat caught her and pushed her back into her chair. “Don’t. She’ll
hear and her feelings will be hurt.”
“Well, she’s none too tender with other people’s feelings,” Beulah
retorted.
A carriage bearing the Poindexter-Jones coat-of-arms and drawn by two
white horses was waiting under the wide portico in front of the seminary
when Gwynette emerged. The liveried footman was standing near the open
door to assist her within, then he took his place by the coachman and the
angry girl was driven from the Granger Place grounds.
She did not notice the golden glory of the day; she did not glance out as
she was driven down the beautiful Live Oak Canyon road, nor did she
observe when the wife of the lodgekeeper opened the wide iron gates and
curtsied to her. She was staring straight ahead with hard, unseeing eyes.
When the coach stopped and the footman had opened the door, the girl
mounted the many marble steps leading to the pillared front porch.
Instantly, and before she could ring, a white-caped maid admitted her. It
was one who had been with them for years in their palatial San Francisco
home, as had, also, the other servants. “Where is my mother, Cecile?” the
girl inquired with no word of greeting, though she had not seen the trim
French maid for many months. The maid’s eyes narrowed and her glance was
not friendly. She liked to be treated, at least, as though she were
human. She volunteered a bit of advice: “Madame is veer tired, Mees Gwyn.
What you call, not yet strong. Doctor, he say, speak quiet where Madame
is.”
Gwyn glared at the servant who dared to advise her. “Kindly tell me where
my mother is at this moment. Since she sent the carriage for me, it is
quite evident that she wishes to see me.”
“Madame is in lily-pond garden. I tell her Mees Gwyn has come.” But the
girl, brushing past the maid, walked down the long, wide hall which
extended from the front to the double back door and opened out on a most
beautiful garden, where, on the blue mirror of an artificial pond many
fragrant white lilies floated. There, sheltered from the sea breeze by
tall, flowering bushes, Mrs. Poindexter-Jones reclined on a softly
cushioned chair. Near her was a nurse in blue and white uniform who had
evidently been reading aloud.
When Gwynette approached, the older woman said in a low voice: “Miss
Dane, I prefer to be alone when I receive my daughter.”
The nurse slipped away through the shrubbery and Mrs. Poindexter-Jones
turned again toward the girl whose rapid step and carriage plainly told
her belligerence of spirit. The pale face of the patrician woman would
have touched almost any heart, but Gwyn’s wrath had been accumulating
since her conversation with Beulah and Pat. She considered herself the
most abused person in existence.
“Ma Mere,” the girl began at once, “I don’t see why you didn’t let me
come to you in France. If you aren’t any stronger than you seem to be, I
should have thought you would have remained where you were and sent for
Harold and me to join you there.”
“Sit down, Gwyn, if you do not care to kiss me.” There was a note of
sorrow in the weary voice that did not escape the attention of the
selfish girl. Stooping, she kissed her mother on the pale forehead. Then
she took the seat vacated by the nurse. “Of course I am sorry you have
been sick, Ma Mere,” she said in a tone which implied that decency
demanded that much of her. “But it seems to me it would have been much
better for you to have remained where you were. I was simply wild to have
you send for me while you were at that adorable resort in France. I can’t
see why you wanted to return _here_.” The last word was spoken with an
emphasis of depreciation.
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones leaned her head back wearily on the cool pillow as
she said, more to herself than to her listener, “I just wanted to come
home. I wanted to see the trees my husband and I planted when we were
first married. I felt that I would be nearer him someway, and I wanted to
see my boy. Harold wished me to come home. He preferred to spend the
summer here and I was glad.”
The pity, which for a moment had flickered in the girl’s heart when she
saw how very weak her mother really was, did not last long enough to warm
into a flame. “Ma Mere,” she said petulantly, “I cannot understand why
you never speak of your husband as my father.” There was no response,
only a tightening of the woman’s lips as though she were making an effort
to not tell the truth.
“Moreover,” Gwyn went on, not noticing the change in her mother’s manner,
“why should Harold’s wishes be put above mine? Perhaps you do not realize
that he has become interested, to what degree I do not know, but
nevertheless really interested, in the granddaughter of your servants on
the farm.”
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones turned toward the girl. There was not in her eyes
the flash of indignation which Gwynette had expected, only surprise and
perhaps inquiry. “Is that true?” Then, after a meditative moment the
woman concluded, “Fate does strange things. What was it they called her?”
Gwyn held herself proudly erect. At least she had been sure that her
mother would have sided with her in denouncing Harold’s plan to become a
farmer under the direction of Silas Warner. She hurried on to impart the
information without telling the name of the girl whom she so disliked,
although without reason.
“I recall now,” was the woman’s remark. “Jenny Warner. Jeanette was her
name and yours was Gwynette.”
Angrily her companion put in, “Ma Mere, did you hear me say that Harold
has decided to become a farmer, a mere laborer, when you had planned that
he should become a diplomat or something like that?”
“Yes, I heard.” The woman leaned back wearily. “My boy wrote me that was
why he wanted to stay here, although he would give up his own wishes if
they did not accord with mine.” Then she added, with an almost pensive
smile on her thin lips, “He is more dutiful than my daughter is, one
might think.”
Gwynette flung herself about in the chair impatiently. “Harold knows you
will do everything to please him and nothing to please me.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the hard, selfish face which
nevertheless was beautiful in a cold way.
The woman seemed to be making an effort to speak calmly. “Gwynette,” she
said at last, “we will call this unpleasant interview at an end. The
fault probably is mine. Without doubt I do favor Harold. He is very like
his father, and I seem to feel that Harold cares more for me than you
do.” She put up a protesting hand. “Don’t answer me, please. I am very
tired. You may go now.”
The girl rose, somewhat ashamed of herself. Petulantly, she said, “But Ma
Mere, must I take the horrid old test? I will fail miserably and be
disgraced. I supposed I was to make my debut next winter and I did not
consider a diploma necessary to an eligible marriage.”
The woman had been watching the girl, critically, but not unkindly. Her
reply was in a softer voice. “No, Gwyn, you need not take the tests.
Somehow I have failed to bring you up well.” Then to the listener’s
amazement, the invalid added: “Tell the coachman, when he returns from
the seminary, to stop at the farm and bring Jenny Warner over to see me.
I would like to know how Susan Warner succeeded in bringing up her girl.”
Gwynette was again angry. “You are a strange mother to wish to compare
your own daughter with the granddaughter of one of your servants.”
With that she walked away, and, with a sorrowful expression the woman
watched her going. How she wished the girl would relent, turn back and
fling herself down by the side of the only mother she had ever known, and
beg to be forgiven and loved, but nothing was farther from Gwynette’s
thought.
Glad as she was to be freed from taking the tests, she was more than ever
angry because she would have to remain at the seminary until the close of
the term, which was another week. Why would not her mother permit her to
visit some friend in San Francisco? Then came the sickening realization
that she no longer had an intimate friend. Patricia and Beulah had both
gone over to the enemy. Why did she hate Jenny Warner, she wondered as
she was being driven back to the school. Probably because Beulah had once
said they looked alike with one difference, that the farmer’s
granddaughter was much the more beautiful. And then Harold actually
preferred the companionship of that ignorant peddler of eggs and honey to
his own sister. Purposely she neglected to mention to the coachman that
he was to call at the farm and take Jenny Warner back with him. But Fate
was even then planning to carry out Mrs. Poindexter-Jones’s wishes in
quite another way.