When the door closed behind Blair and Elizabeth, Nannie set out to do
that "best," which her brother had demanded of her. She went at once
into the dining-room; but before she could speak, her stepmother called
out to her:
"Here! Nannie! You are just the person I want--Watson's late again, and
I'm in a hurry. Just take these letters and sign them 'S. Maitland per
N. M.' They must be posted before five. Sit down there at the table."
Nannie could not sign letters and talk at the same time. She got pen
and ink and began to write her stepmother's name, over and over,
slowly, like a little careful machine: "S. Maitland," "S. Maitland." In
her desire to please she discarded her own neat script, and reproduced
with surprising exactness the rough signature which she knew so well.
But all the while her anxious thoughts were with her brother. She
wished he had not rushed off with Elizabeth. If he had only come
himself into the detested dining-room, his mother would have bidden him
sign the letters; he might have read them and talked them over with
her, and that would have pleased her. Nannie herself had no ambition to
read them; her eye caught occasional phrases: "Shears for--," "new
converter," etc., etc. The words meant nothing to Nannie, bending her
blond head and writing like a machine, "S. Maitland," "S. Maitland," ...
"Mamma," she began, dipping her pen into the ink, "Blair has bought a
rather expensive--"
Mrs. Maitland came over to the table and picked up the letters. "That's
all. Now clear out, clear out! I've got a lot to do!" Then her eye fell
on one of the signatures, and she gave her grunt of a laugh. "If you
hadn't put 'Per N. M.,' I shouldn't have known that I hadn't signed 'em
myself ... Nannie."
"Yes, Mamma?"
"Is Blair going to be at home to supper?"
"I think not. But he said he would be in this evening. And he wanted me
to--to ask--"
"Well, perhaps I'll come over to your parlor to see him, if I get
through with my work. I believe he goes East again to-morrow?"
"Yes," Nannie said. Mrs. Maitland, at her desk, had begun to write.
Nannie wavered for a minute, then, with a despairing look at the back
of her stepmother's head, slipped away to her own part of the house.
"I'll tell her at supper," she promised herself. But in her own room,
as she dressed for tea, panic fell upon her. She began to walk
nervously about; once she stopped, and leaning her forehead against the
window, looked absently into the dusk. At the end of the cinder path,
the vast pile of the foundry rose black against the fading sky; on the
left the open arches of the cast-house of the furnace glowed with
molten iron that was running into pigs on the wide stretch of sand. The
spur track was banked with desolate wastes of slag and rubbish; beyond
them, like an enfolding arm, was the river, dark in the darkening
twilight. From under half-shut dampers flat sheets of sapphire and
orange flame roared out in rhythmical pulsations, and above them was
the pillar of smoke shot through with flying billions of sparks; back
of this monstrous and ordered confusion was the solemn circling line of
hills. It was all hideous and fierce, yet in the clear winter dusk it
had a beauty of its own that held Nannie Maitland, even though she was
too accustomed to it to be conscious of its details. As she stared out
at it with troubled eyes, there was a knock at her door; before she
could say "Come in," her stepmother entered.
"Here!" Mrs. Maitland said, "just fix this waist, will you? I can't
seem to--to make it look right." There was a dull flush on her cheek,
and she spoke in cross confusion. "Haven't you got a piece of lace, or
something; I don't care what. This black dress seems--" she broke off
and glanced into the mirror; she was embarrassed, but doggedly
determined. "Make me look--somehow," she said.
Nannie, assenting, and rummaging in her bureau drawer, had a flash of
understanding. "She's dressing up for Blair!" She took out a piece of
lace, and laid it about the gaunt shoulders; then tucked the front of
the dress in, and brought the lace down on each side. The soft old
thread seemed as inappropriate as it would have been if laid on a
scarcely cooled steel "bloom."
"Well, pin it, can't you?" Mrs. Maitland said sharply; "haven't you got
some kind of a brooch?" Nannie silently produced a little amethyst pin.
"It doesn't just suit the dress, I'm afraid," she ventured.
But Mrs. Maitland looked in the glass complacently. "Nonsense!" she
said, and tramped out of the room. In the hall she threw
back,"--bliged."
"Oh, _poor_ Mamma!" Nannie said. Her sympathy was hardly more than a
sense of relief; if her mother was dressing up for Blair, she must be
more than usually good-natured. "I'll tell her at supper," Nannie
decided, with a lift of courage.
But at supper, in the disorderly dining-room, with the farther end of
the table piled with ledgers, Mrs. Maitland was more unapproachable
than ever. When Nannie asked a timid question about the evening, she
either did not hear, or she affected not to. At any rate, she
vouchsafed no answer. Her face was still red, and she seemed to hide
behind her evening paper. To Nannie's gentle dullness this was no
betrayal; it merely meant that Mrs. Maitland was cross again, and her
heart sank within her. But somehow she gathered up her courage:
"You won't forget to come into the parlor, Mamma? Blair wants to talk
to you about something that--that--"
"I've got some writing to do. If I get through I'll come. Now clear
out, clear out; I'm too busy to chatter."
Nannie cleared out. She had no choice. She went over to her vast,
melancholy parlor, into which it seemed as if the fog had penetrated,
to await Blair. In her restless apprehension she sat down at the piano,
but after the first bar or two her hands dropped idly on the keys. Then
she got up and looked aimlessly about. "I'd better finish that
landscape," she said, and went over to her drawing-board. She stood
there for a minute, fingering a lead pencil; her nerves were tense, and
yet, as she reminded herself, it was foolish to be frightened. His
mother loved Blair; she would do anything in the world for him--Nannie
thought of the lace; yes, anything! Blair was only a little
extravagant. And what did his extravagance matter? his mother was so
very rich! But oh, why did they always clash so? Then she heard the
sound of Blair's key in the lock.
"Well, Nancy!" he said gaily, "she's a charmer."
"Who?" said Nannie, bewildered; "Oh, you mean Elizabeth?"
"Yes; but there's a lot of gunpowder lying round loose, isn't there?
She was out with David, I suppose because he didn't show up. In fact,
she was so mad she was perfectly stunning. Nancy! I think I'll stick it
out here for two or three days; Elizabeth is mighty good fun, and David
is in town; we might renew our youth, we four; what do you say? Well!"
he ended, coming back to his own affairs, "what did mother say?"
"Oh, Blair, I couldn't!"
"What! you haven't told her?"
"Blair dear, I did my best; but she simply never gave me a chance.
Indeed, I tried, but I couldn't. She wouldn't let me open my lips in
the afternoon, and at supper she read the paper every minute--Harris
will tell you."
Blair Maitland whistled. "Well, I'll tell her myself. It was really to
spare her that I wanted you to do it. I always rile her, somehow, poor
dear mother. Nannie, this house reeks of cabbage! Does she live on it?"
Blair threw up his arms with a wordless gesture of disgust.
"I'm so sorry," Nannie said; "but don't tell her you don't like it."
The door across the hall opened, and there was a heavy step. The
brother and sister looked at each other.
"Blair, _be nice!_" Nannie entreated; her soft eyes under the meekly
parted blond hair were very anxious.
He did not need the caution; whenever he was with his mother, the mere
instinct of self-preservation made him anxious to "be nice." As Mrs.
Maitland had her instinct of self-preservation, too, there had been, in
the last year, very few quarrels. Instead there was, on his part, an
exaggerated politeness, and on her part, a pathetic effort to be
agreeable. The result was, of course, entire absence of spontaneity in
both of them.
Mrs. Maitland, her knitting in her hands, came tramping into the
parlor; the piece of thread lace was pushed awry, but there had been
further preparation for the occasion: at first her son and daughter did
not know what the change was; then suddenly both recognized it, and
exchanged an astonished glance.
"Mother!" cried Blair incredulously, "_earrings!_"
The dull color on the high cheek-bones deepened; she smiled sheepishly.
"Yes; I saw 'em in my bureau drawer, and put 'em on. Haven't worn 'em
for years; but Blair, here, likes pretty things." (Her son, under his
breath, groaned: "pretty!") "So you are off tomorrow, Blair?" she said,
politely; she ran her hand along the yellowing bone needles, and the
big ball of pink worsted rolled softly down on to the floor. As she
glanced at him over her steel-rimmed spectacles, her eyes softened as
an eagle's might when looking at her young. "I wish his father could
see him," she thought. "Next time you come home," she said, "it will be
to go to work!"
"Yes," Blair said, smiling industriously.
"Pity you have to study this summer; I'd like to have you in the office
now."
"Yes; I'm awfully sorry," he said with charming courtesy, "but I feel I
ought to brush up on one or two subjects, and I can do it better abroad
than here. I'm going to paint a little, too. I'll be very busy all
summer."
"Why don't you paint our new foundry?" said Mrs. Maitland. She laughed
with successful cheerfulness; Blair liked jokes, and this, she thought,
complacently, was a joke. "Well, _I_ shall manage to keep busy, too!"
she said.
"I suppose so," Blair agreed.
He was lounging on the arm of Nannie's chair, and felt his sleeve
plucked softly. "Now," said Nannie.
But Blair was not ready. "You are always busy," he said; "I wish I had
your habit of industry."
Mrs. Maitland's smile faded. "I wish you had."
"Oh, well, you've got industry enough for this family," Blair declared.
But the flattery did not penetrate.
"Too much, maybe," she said grimly; then remembered, and began to
"entertain" again: "I had a compliment to-day."
Blair, with ardent interest, said, "Really?"
"That man Dolliver in our office--you remember Dolliver?" Blair nodded.
"He happened to say he never knew such an honest man as old Henry B.
Knight. Remember old Mr. Knight?" She paused, her eyes narrowed into a
laugh. "He married Molly Wharton. I always called her 'goose Molly.'
She used to make eyes at your father; but she couldn't get him--though
she tried to hard enough, by telling him, so I heard, that the 'only
feminine thing about me was my petticoats.' A very coarse remark, in my
judgment; and as for being feminine,--when you were born, I thought of
inviting her to come and look at you so she could see what a baby was
like! She never had any children. Well, old Knight was elder of the
Second Church. Remember?"
"Oh yes," Blair said vaguely.
"Dolliver said Knight once lost a trade by telling the truth, 'when he
might have kept his mouth shut'--that was Dolliver's way of putting it.
'Well,' I said, 'I hope you think that our Works are just as honestly
conducted as the Knight Mills'; fact was, I knew a thing or two about
Henry B. And what do you suppose Dolliver said? 'Oh, yes,' he said,
'you are honest, Mrs. Maitland, but you ain't damn-fool honest.'" She
laughed loudly, and her son laughed too, this time in genuine
amusement; but Nannie looked prim, at which Mrs. Maitland glanced at
Blair, and there was a sympathetic twinkle between them which for the
moment put them both really at ease. "I got on to a good thing last
week," she said, still trying to amuse him, but now there was reality
in her voice.
"Do tell me about it," Blair said, politely.
"You know Kraas? He is the man that's had a bee in his bonnet for the
last ten years about a newfangled idea for making castings of steel. He
brought me his plans once, but I told him they were no good. But last
month he asked me to make some castings for him to go on his
contrivance. Of course I did; we cast anything for anybody--provided
they can pay for it. Well, Kraas tried it in our foundry; no good, just
as I said; the metal was full of flaws. But it occurred to me to
experiment with his idea on my own hook. I melted my pig, and poured it
into his converter thing; but I added some silvery pig I had on the
Yard, made when No. 1 blew in, and the castings were as sound as a nut!
Kraas never thought of that." She twitched her pink worsted and gave
her grunt of a laugh. "Master Kraas hasn't any caveat, and he can't get
one on that idea, so of course I can go ahead."
"Oh, Mamma, how clever you are!" Nannie murmured, admiringly.
"Clever?" said Blair; Nannie shook his arm gently, and he recollected
himself. "Well, I suppose business is like love and war. All's fair in
business."
Mrs. Maitland was silent. Then she said: "Business is war. But--fair?
It is a perfectly legal thing to do."
"Oh, legal, yes," her son agreed significantly; the thin ice of
politeness was beginning to crack. It was the old situation over again;
he was repelled by unloveliness; this time it was the unloveliness of
shrewdness. For a moment his disgust made him quite natural. "It is
_legal_ enough, I suppose," he said coldly.
Mrs. Maitland did not lift her head, but with her eyes fixed on her
needles, she suddenly stopped knitting. Nannie quivered.
"Mamma," she burst in, "Blair wanted to tell you about something very
beautiful that he has found, and--" Her brother pinched her, and her
voice trailed into silence.
"Found something beautiful? I'd like to hear of his finding something
useful!" The ice cracked a little more. "As for your mother's honesty,
Blair, if you had waited a minute, I'd have told you that as soon as I
found the idea was practical I handed it over to Kraas. _I'm_ damn-fool
honest, I suppose." But this time she did not laugh at her joke. Blair
was instant with apologies; he had not meant--he had not intended--"Of
course you would do the square thing," he declared.
"But you thought I wouldn't," she said. And while he was making polite
exclamations, she changed the subject for something safer. She still
tried to entertain him, but now she spoke wearily. "What do you suppose
I read in the paper to-night? Some man in New York--named Maitland,
curiously enough; 'picked up' an old master--that's how the paper put
it; for $5,000. It appears it was considered 'cheap'! It was 14x18
inches. _Inches_, mind you, not feet! Well, Mr. Doestick's friends are
not all dead yet. Sorry anybody of our name should do such a thing."
Nannie turned white enough to faint.
"Allow me to say," said Blair, tensely, "that an 'old master' might be
cheap at five times that price!"
"I wouldn't give five thousand dollars for the greatest picture that
was ever painted," his mother announced. Then, without an instant's
warning, her face puckered into a furious sneeze. "God bless us!" she
said, and blew her nose loudly. Blair jumped.
"_I_ would give all I have in the world!" he said.
"Well," his mother said, ramming her grimy handkerchief into her
pocket, "if it cost all _you_ have in the world, it would certainly be
cheap; for, so far as I know, you haven't anything." Alas! the ice had
given way entirely.
Blair pushed Nannie's hand from his arm, and getting up, walked over to
the marble-topped centre-table; he stood there slowly turning over the
pages of _The Poetesses of America_, in rigid determination to hold his
tongue. Mrs. Maitland's eyebrow began to rise; her fingers tightened on
her hurrying needles until the nails were white. Nannie, looking from
one to the other, trembled with apprehension. Then she made an excuse
to take Blair to the other end of the room.
"Come and look at my drawing," she said; and added under her breath:
"Don't tell her!"
Blair shook his head. "I've got to, somehow." But when he came back and
stood in front of his mother, his hands in his pockets, his shoulder
lounging against the mantelpiece, he was apparently his careless self
again. "Well," he said, gaily, "if I haven't anything of my own, it's
your fault; you've been too generous to me!"
The knitting-needles flagged; Nannie drew a long breath.
"Yes, you are too good to me," he said; "and you work so hard! Why do
you work like a--a man?" There was an uncontrollable quiver of disgust
in his voice.
His mother smiled, with a quick bridling of her head--he was
complimenting her! The soreness from his thrust about legality
vanished. "Yes; I do work hard. I reckon there's no man in the iron
business who can get more pork for his shilling than I can!"
Blair cast an agonized look at Nannie; then set himself to his task
again--in rather a roundabout way: "Why don't you spend some of your
money on yourself, Mother, instead of on me?"
"There's nothing I want."
"But there are so many things you could have!"
"I have everything I need," said Mrs. Maitland; "a roof, a bed, a
chair, and food to eat. As for all this truck that people spend their
money on, what use is it? that's what I want to know! What's it worth?"
Blair put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small beautifully
carved jade box; he took off the lid delicately, and shook a scarab
into the palm of his hand. "I'll tell you what _that_ is worth," he
said, holding the dull-blue oval between his thumb and finger; then he
mentioned a sum that made Nannie exclaim. His mother put down her
knitting, and taking the bit of eternity in her fingers, looked at it
silently. "Do you wonder I got that box, which is a treasure in itself,
to hold such a treasure?" Blair exulted.
Mrs. Maitland, handing the scarab back, began to knit furiously.
"That's what it's worth," he said; he was holding the scarab in his
palm with a sort of tenderness; his eyes caressed it. "But it isn't
what I paid. The collector was hard up, and I made him knock off
twenty-five per cent, of the price."
"Hah!" said Mrs. Maitland; "well; I suppose 'all's fair in love and
collections'?"
"What's unfair in that?" Blair said, sharply; "I buy in the cheapest
market. You do _that_ yourself, my dear mother." When Blair said "my
dear mother," he was farthest from filial affection. "Besides," he
said, with strained self-control, "besides, I'm like you, I'm not
'damn-fool honest'!"
"Oh, I didn't say you weren't honest. Only, if I was going to take
advantage of anybody, I'd do it for something more important than a
blue china beetle." "The trouble with you, Mother, is that you don't
see anything but those hideous Works of yours!" her son burst out.
"If I did, you couldn't pay for your china beetles. Beetles? You
couldn't pay for the breeches you're sitting in!"
"Oh, Mamma! oh, Blair!" sighed poor Nannie.
There was a violent silence. Suddenly Mrs. Maitland brought the flat of
her hand furiously down on the table; then, without a word, got on her
feet, pulled at the ball of pink worsted which had run behind a chair
and caught under the caster; her jerk broke the thread. The next moment
the parlor door banged behind her.
Nannie burst out crying. Blair opened and closed his lips, speechless
with rage.
"What--what made her so angry?" Nannie said, catching her breath. "Was
it the beetle?"
"Don't call it that ridiculous name! I'll have to borrow the $5,000.
And where the devil I'll get it I don't know. Nannie, 'goose Molly'
wasn't an entire fool, after all!"
"Blair!" his sister protested, horrified. But Blair was too angry to be
ashamed of himself. He could not see that his mother's anger was only
the other side of her love. In Sarah Maitland, not only maternity, but
pride, the peculiar pride engendered in her by her immense
business--pride and maternity together, demanded such high things of
her son! Not finding them, the pain of disappointment broke into
violent expression. Indeed, had this charming fellow, handsome,
selfish, sweet-hearted, been some other woman's son, she would have
been far more patient with him. Her very love made her abominable to
him. She was furiously angry when she left him there in Nannie's
parlor; all the same he did not have to borrow the $5,000.
The next morning Sarah Maitland sent for her superintendent. "Mr.
Ferguson," she said--they were in her private office, and the door was
shut; "Mr. Ferguson, I think--but I don't know--I think Blair has been
making an idiot of himself again. I saw in the paper that somebody
called Maitland had been throwing money away on a picture. I don't know
what it was, and I don't want to know. It was 14x18 inches; not feet.
That was enough for me. Why, Ferguson, those big pictures in my parlor
(I bought them when I was going to be married; a woman is sort of
foolish then; I wouldn't do such a thing now), those four pictures are
4x6 feet each; and they cost me $400; $100 apiece. But this New York
man has paid $5,000 for one picture 14x18 inches! If it was Blair--and
it came over me last night, all of a sudden, that it was; he hasn't got
any $5,000 to pay for it. I don't want to go into the matter with him;
we don't get along on such subjects. But I want you to ask him about
it; maybe he'll speak out to you, man fashion. If this 'Maitland' is
just a fool of our name so much the better; but if it is Blair, I've
got to help him out, I suppose. I want you to settle the thing for me.
I--can't." Her voice broke on the last word; she coughed and cleared
her throat before she could speak distinctly. "I haven't the time," she
said.
Robert Ferguson listened, frowning. "You'll give him money to spend in
ways you don't approve of?"
She nodded sullenly. "I have to."
"You don't have to!" he broke out; "for God's sake, Mrs. Maitland,
_stop!_"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean . . . this isn't my business, but I can't see you--Mrs.
Maitland, if I get to talking on this subject, we'll quarrel."
The glare of anger in her face died out. She leaned back in her chair
and looked at him. "I won't quarrel with you. Go on. Say what you
think. I won't say I'll take your advice, but I'll listen to it."
"It's what I have always told you. You are squeezing the life out of
Blair by giving him money. You've always done it, because it was the
easy thing to do. Let up on him! Give him a chance. Let him earn his
money, or go without. Talk about making him independent--you've made
him as dependent as a baby! I don't know my Bible as well as you do,
but there is a verse somewhere--something about 'fullness of bread and
abundance of idleness.' That's what's the trouble with Blair. 'Fullness
of bread and abundance of idleness.'"
"But he's been at college; he couldn't work while he was at college,"
she said, with honest bewilderment.
"Of course he couldn't. But why did you let him dawdle round at
college, pretending to special, for a year after he graduated? Of
course he _won't_ work so long as he doesn't have to. The boy wouldn't
be human if he did! You never made him feel he had to get through and
to go to work. You've given him everything he wanted, and you've
exacted nothing in return; not scholarship, nor even decent behavior.
He's gambled, and gone after women, and bought everything on earth he
wanted--the only thing he knows how to do is to spend money! He has
never done a hand's turn of work in his life. He is just as much a dead
beat as any beggar who gets his living out of other people's pockets.
That he gets it out of your pocket doesn't alter that; that he doesn't
wear rags and knock at back doors doesn't alter it. He's a dead beat!
Any man is, who takes and doesn't give anything in return. It's queer
you can't see that, Mrs. Maitland."
She was silent.
"Why, look here: I've heard you say, many a time, that the best part of
your life was when you had to work hardest. Isn't that so?" She nodded.
"Then why in thunder won't you let Blair work? Let him work, or go
without!"
Again she did not speak.
"For Heaven's sake, give him a chance, before it's too late!"
Mrs. Maitland got up, and stood with her back to him, looking out of
the smoke-grimed window. Presently she turned round. "Well, what would
you do now--supposing he did buy the picture?"
"Tell him that he has overdrawn his allowance, and that if he wants the
picture he must earn the money to pay for it. Say you'll advance it, if
instead of going to Europe this summer he'll stay at home and go to
work. Of course he can't earn five thousand dollars. I doubt if he can
earn five thousand cents! But make up a job--just for this once; and
help him out. I don't believe in made-up jobs, on principle; but
they're better than nothing. If he won't work, darn the picture! It can
be resold."
She blew her lips out in a bubbling sigh, and began to bite her
forefinger. Robert Ferguson had said his say. He gathered his papers
together and got on his feet.
"Mr. Ferguson ..." He waited, his hand on the knob.
"Yes?"
"'Bliged to you. But for the present--"
"Very well," Robert Ferguson said shortly.
"Just put through the business of the picture. Hereafter--"
Ferguson shrugged his shoulders.