note to him in the letterbox at the corner last night. And now that he
had come she was afraid to go down and meet him. Afraid of what? She
couldn't have said; instinct didn't take her that far; it only sent her
down the steps hesitatingly and constrainedly.
Culpepper the undemonstrative, the coolly unflattering in his attitude
always, swung about at the sound of her footsteps and met her at the
parlor door.
She held out a hand, a soft and pretty hand, its mate going up
at the same time to push back some imaginary troublesome lock, a
characteristic gesture with her when she was embarrassed.
But Culpepper having taken the soft hand proffered, put it over into
his left one, and----
("Oh, Culpepper, no, I'm not ten now!")
--with the frowning and horrific air of a fearsome captor, undoubtedly
an ogre captor intent and not to be deterred, went creepingly after its
mate and cunningly caught it and brought it down and put it, with even
more diablerie of horrific cunning alongside the other upon his big
left palm, and--
("Culpepper, don't--don't do it, it frightens me still!")
--like as when the compassionless keeper of the ogre dungeon into which
the victim is thrust, lowers the overhead stone that fits into its
place--lowered his big right hand upon these two soft ones----
And why not? So he used to catch her and tease her when she was ten,
playing the thing through in realistic pantomime until she, throwing
herself on him, clung to him perforce! But she was not that little
girl! Nor did she feel as a little girl feels any longer! She tried to
take her hands away.
As well try any other feat in strength which is impossible. And now
Culpepper bending his head a little was trying to make her look up,
those bold eyes in teasing wait to catch her gaze when she did.
Not for worlds could Selina have looked up. Her heart beat wildly,
and the blood pulsed in her throat and pounded at her ears. And as
Culpepper holding the hands captive, went on bending to surprise her
gaze, her lashes swept lower and yet lower upon her cheeks.
As a picture of shy maidenliness, Mamma and Auntie, the thing as you
fancy it in perfection, behold your handiwork!
As a piteous young creature, ignorantly innocent, or innocently
ignorant, as you prefer to put it, Mamma and Auntie, the choice in
terms is yours, a piteous young creature suddenly overswept with
conscious sex that nor you nor any creature has seen fit to explain
to her, behold your handiwork! Groping by her young self, filled with
terror and horror of self, of life, even of the God who made her as she
was, you have left your child to battle as she may with things hideous
to her distorted imaginings, rather than know them as attributes
natural, decent, and sanctioned of God!
Culpepper bent yet lower to find her eyes through the down sweep
of those lashes. The warmth from his young, gloriously alive face,
so close to hers, the lift and fall of his breathing, reached her
consciousness.
"I had your note, Selina. I wonder, writing me that, if you knew how
sweet you were being to me?"
And here she got her hands away because in truth his heart was touched
by her piteous terror, and he let her go. She found a chair and pointed
one to him.
"You didn't come round any more," she said hurriedly.
He looked across at her oddly, those blue eyes of his within their
accentuating black lashes, even humorously baffled in their expression.
Seeing that this speech from her was honest and not arch, it was
disarming to a lover by its very nature. And yet allowing that it was
the child in her that was honest, was he not to gather that the maid in
her was disturbed?
And again allowing that it was the child in her that spoke, was it
not the maiden in her whose fingers even now were plaiting her dress
nervously into folds, her eyes upon these fingers and her color coming
and going? Peradventure, Mamma and Auntie, she does you proud, this
proper and becoming picture of fluttered and timid maidenhood. You,
Mamma, who have been girl, maiden, wife and mother, and have no woman's
word for your woman-child! You, Auntie, who discussed the situation
frankly enough with Culpepper, the man, but as with a flaming sword of
vigilance, have stood guard lest even a breath of the truth reach the
ignorance of Selina, the woman.
Culpepper watching her as she sat there, lovely and drooping and
fair-haired, with her clear young profile partly averted, spoke, and
watched anew to note the effect upon her of what he said.
"I concluded I'd keep away, Selina. I wasn't in the least satisfied
with what you were giving me. I'm an outspoken brute. If there's no
show that my share's going to be any more, I'll go on keeping away."
She shrank as though something had struck her. And in truth something
had. Comprehension of what he meant, so far as knowledge went with
her, the lightning flash of it stunned while it revealed.
Yet even as the poor child reeled pale with the shock, she rallied to
her womanhood as she had had womanhood impressed on her. Courageously
rallied! And bravely dissembled! A thing well-nigh synonymous with
womanhood as taught to her!
Which is to say the child restored herself with a long, deep breath,
laughed with a disarming little throw back to the head, swept her hands
across the plaits she had so busily gathered there in the breadths of
her dress, as though she swept away with these all but an everyday
interpretation of Culpepper's word, and spoke frankly, frankness being
a most excellent dissembling weapon.
"It's good to have you back, Culpepper." Her voice, traitorous at
first, gained in composure. As said before it was a nice voice, and
under conditions, full of cadences. When she was ten, Culpepper used
to kiss her in her pretty neck to tickle her, because he liked these
cadences when she laughed.
Meanwhile with the aid of that dissembling weapon, frankness, she was
going on. "Don't stay away ever again. And, Oh, there's so much to ask
you, and so much to tell you about!"
He looked across at her and her pretty dissembling and laughed. "You
little goose! You haven't known me all this while to think you can put
me off if I'm really ready?"
Her gaze at this was hurried, beseeching, pleading. It seemed to beg
for time, respite, mercy!
He laughed again, and she hurried on. "As I said, there's so, so much
to talk about----"
"As for instance----?"
One saw her hurriedly and desperately searching her mind. "Why, er--of
course--Judy!"
The tone even implied reproach that he could have thought it anything
but Judy.
"All right, my lady," his name for her of old. "I accept the cue. Judy
it's to be, is it? You're sparring for time, I'm to understand? The
idea's planted now alongside any foolishness which Tuttle may have been
putting there and I'm to let you get used to it awhile? And what's the
trouble with Judy, now? Still sore with her father, or something fresh?"
"We're not supposed to know what she's doing," with a rush of evident
relief at his docility, "but we do. She's being coached for her
college examinations by some college chap Algy found and arranged
with. It's mostly done through Algy, too, with an occasional meeting
at the circulating library to outline more work. She'll have to go to
Cincinnati for the examinations when they come, in June, which her
father won't let her do, so we can't see how any of it's going to help
her?"
"Go on," from Culpepper. "Talk along, amuse yourself. But one of these
days when my time comes, my lady----"
Selina's breath came piteously in its flutterings. And for all her
rallyings to that womanhood, her heart had never ceased its cruel
clamberings, and her blood its beatings in her ears and its pulsings
in her throat. And on all that vast sea of terror fast returning on
her again, terror not of him, that was secondary, but of that within
her innocent self she could no longer deny as being there, on all this
rising sea of fear and terror, she could see but the one absurd little
spar of inconsequence to cling to still--Judy.
"We feel so sort of dishonorable toward her father and mother, Maud and
Adele and I do, Culpepper. But we're not supposed to know she's doing
this. And of all people, little Judy!"
"Certainly, by all means, little Judy."
She rose with a pretty dignity which seemed to say she didn't like this
tone from him.
He rose with her. She had to look up to him when they stood thus, which
gives the man the advantage.
"It's lunch time, Culpepper, though we'll be glad to have you stay?"
No doubt he had really meant to be merciful and bide his time when
he said he would. Instead, as she finished her little speech with
its implied reproof, he laughed and with a mighty sweep of his arms,
gathered this suddenly white-cheeked Selina up and kissed her, kissed
her roughly, kissed her gloriously, kissed her exultingly. And set her
down.
She stayed white-cheeked and looked at him. She spoke so quietly it
was a bit discomforting. "That was outrageous of you. And cruel. I'll
listen to you if ever I make up my mind now I want to listen and not
before. Right now I hate you! Yes, I'm sure that's it, hate you! Not
so much because you're Culpepper--"and here it became evident she was
going to cry, one hates to have to tell it on her so soon again--"but
because of something in you that made you think you could!" And the
storm of tears now upon her, she turned and fled upstairs.
* * * * *
Late that afternoon when Selina went into her mother's room, she found
Auntie talking about her paragon and favorite Culpepper. "He's his
father right over again, Lavinia. Women like to be coerced and decided
for. And anything that once belonged to Culpepper, he'd be fierce to
the death caring for."
"I don't agree with you about what women like, Auntie," from Selina, to
this startled lady who didn't know she was around. "Why should a person
like to be coerced because she's a woman? And why should she want to be
decided for, for the same reason?"
Auntie looked not only startled but alarmed. "Why, Selina!"
Selina took a calmer tone. "Maybe we're beginning to feel differently
about these things, Auntie," curiously, as if wondering about it
herself. "Maybe women are different from what you and the ones you
knew were?"
"Lavinia," from Auntie, "do you hear your child?"
Selina overswept by the fury of swift and sudden rage, stamped her foot
and--terrible as it is to have to set it down again--burst into tears.
"But I'm not a child! That's the trouble! If anybody'd only understand
and--help me!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
One afternoon toward the end of April, Mamma came to Selina's door. Her
manner was both pleased and excited.
"Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle is here in her carriage. Tuttle's sister, Mrs.
Sampson, is with her. They've stopped by to take you driving."
Selina flushed. "I don't know that I want to go, Mamma."
Mrs. Wistar looked tried. "When I've already been down to speak to them
and tell them you would? Get up quickly, Selina, and slip off that
dress and let me take your hair down, and put it up again. Nobody can
make it look so well and stay in place as I can. There's plenty of time
if you'll come on. Mrs. Tuttle said they would go up to the Harrison's
and leave cards and be back for you."
Mamma worked swiftly, a hairpin or two for immediate use held between
her lips and preventing conversation, while the clear-cut face of
Selina before the mirror of the mahogany bureau looked absently at the
face of Selina within the mirror.
There was something about Tuttle's solicitude and zeal for her which
she did not understand. This arrival now of Mrs. Tuttle and Mrs.
Sampson was but more of the same vaguely disturbing sort of thing.
"Mamma, it's too much, it's forever Tuttle's family. Do you realize I'm
about being run by his family?"
Mamma got rid of the hairpins. "And why shouldn't you be? They see that
he admires you, and I must say it's very generous and sweet of them----"
"Generous, Mamma?"
"Well, the word was ill-advised. I'll get out your coat and hat now
your hair's done, while you slip on your dress."
"That's all, Mamma, please. I'll finish dressing quicker by myself if
you'll let me."
Selina wanted to think, and she sighed with relief as the door closed
behind her mother. Was she, in truth, being absorbed, by Tuttle and his
people? She ran over the past weeks in her mind. Culpepper Buxton had
apologized and she accepted the truce, but did she have time ever to
see him? When did she see Maud and Juliette and Adele nowadays?
And just how came it about? Quite casually late one afternoon in March,
Tuttle and his mother had dropped in. Selina had not met this lady
before. Report had it that if Tuttle's father took him calmly, he on
the contrary led his mother by her fine, straight Tuttle nose. In the
course of the brief call it developed that Mrs. Jones had charge of a
booth at the forthcoming Easter kirmess, and wanted to know if Selina
would make one of the half dozen young people to assist her? Also in
leaving, she held Selina's hand a moment overlong in her beautifully
gloved one. She was tall, fair and good looking-herself. "You're very
winning and lovely, my dear," she said, "and I quite can see why my
Tuttle thinks so."
Following this a bevy of Tuttle's girl cousins came to call, and next
Selina was asked to a box party given by Mrs. Gwinne Tuttle during the
week of the spring opera. It meant a new dress and all but precipitated
a breach between Mamma and Auntie.
Auntie hotly resented the invitation for some reason known to herself,
whereas Mamma was determined that Selina should accept it.
"Certainly it means a new dress," she agreed promptly, when Auntie
intimated that it did, "and I'm going straight down street now and get
it. Write your note of acceptance to Mrs. Tuttle, Selina, and I'll mail
it on my way."
She came back with an organdie! And French organdies such as this
one she triumphantly unfolded, came by way of New Orleans and cost
accordingly.
"While the ground of it's white," said Mamma, "and there's the faintest
blush in the blossoms, the general effect is of the pale apple-green of
the leaves. With Selina's pale hair, she ought to look more than well
in the green."
Auntie set her lips.
"I didn't get a pattern-book this time; it seemed more a case for a
real fashion-paper. I got sash ribbon and I got lace, and if you think
best, we'll have a seamstress in for a day?"
"As you please," said Auntie grimly, "I prefer to have no say in the
matter."
Whereupon Selina had run and thrown her arms around Auntie and cried,
but then as Mamma said fretfully, Selina cried and Ann Eliza snapped at
everything of late and there wasn't much reward trying to do things for
either of them.
The dress was a triumph and even Mrs. Tuttle resplendent in her box at
the opera said so, while Tuttle whispered--well, no matter what Tuttle
whispered--the point being that not even the success of the dress quite
removed the sting of hurt feelings behind it.
And here three days later were Mrs. Tuttle and Mrs. Sallie Jones
Sampson arrived to take her driving! True, report had it again that
Tuttle led his aunt in her turn, by her grumbling weakness for
himself----
Mamma put her head in at the door. "Ready, Selina? They're here!"
The open carriage at the gate, Selina went out to it. Its upholsterings
and its coachman were in plum color. Mrs. Tuttle was in strawberry, the
newest shade of the day, with a parasol to match, and Mrs. Sampson
a stout, lively and good-humored matron, was in raspberry, the next
newest shade. The effect of the whole, equipage and ladies, was,
well--resplendent. Selina, with a new rose on her last spring's hat,
and new buttons and a new satin collar on her last year's coat, got
in amid the elegance of it. As to where they were going there was no
issue. The carriage world drove out the avenue every bright afternoon
and met all the rest of the carriage world. The plum-colored carriage
and pair whirled about and started for the avenue.
Mrs. Tuttle was talking. "Sally here was just saying, Selina, she
didn't know how lovely your shade of hair was, till she saw you in that
pale green the other night. And you'll go on gaining in your looks, I
tell her. The Wistar women are all handsome to the end. Look at Ann
Eliza at forty-eight!"
They had been discussing her, Selina! They were taking account of her
stock in value it would seem!
The carriage turning into the avenue took its place, one of the
procession moving in one direction meeting a procession returning in
the other. Mrs. Tuttle bowed from time to time, and Mrs. Sampson bowed
and at times waved a hand in friendlier gesture.
"There wasn't a lovelier and more personable matron in town in my young
days, either, Selina, than your grandmother," said Mrs. Tuttle, "the
mother of Ann Eliza and Robert, your father I mean. I've just been
telling Sally here. Your grandfather was prospering, his foundry was
the largest in this part of the state, and Mrs. Wistar as the head of
the establishment was both efficient and popular."
They had been discussing her further. Her grandmother Wistar, her
grandfather, the prospering foundry, the establishment, were to be
considered assets!
And here in Mrs. Tuttle's pompous, plum-colored barouche, Selina told
herself hotly that she understood now what it all meant. It meant
that Tuttle in his own mind had accepted her, but not her world and
her friends! She saw it suddenly. Instead, she, Selina, was being led
to his world, and introduced to his friends! It was she that Tuttle
wanted, because she pleased him, but not her setting. It was she he
would translate as it were, to his world and his affiliations and
familiars. And with such tacit understanding apparently, his coerced
family were discussing her as they accepted her?
Her face burned, her heart raced, her slim fingers gripped at the
plum-colored cushions. Would the mincing, parking drive never be done,
and they and their carriage and pair out of this senseless procession,
and she, Selina, at home?
At home and these polite conversational returns to Mrs. Tuttle and Mrs.
Sampson over with, and in her own room and the key turned and alone!
She wanted to look at the facts. She wanted to put facts together and
apply herself to what they said and try and get at the truth.
Put facts together and so get at the truth. That is the way to reach
truth. Then why hadn't she found it those many, many times before when
she wanted it so? Was it that she failed to know or to admit facts? Had
been discouraged, even taught to shut her mind and her eyes _to_ facts?
"Tuttle's taken his father's house, room by room now," Mrs. Tuttle
was saying to Mrs. Sampson, "and made it over into an absolutely
reproachless interior. And you'll have to allow, Sally, that your
father's only idea when he built it was to spend money. It's a passion
with the boy, a sort of mania to bring things up to convention and
correctness. The more amenable his wife, the greater happiness Tuttle
will get making her into the perfect thing he'd have her."
* * * * *
At home at length, and safe within her room, Selina cried bitterly, her
hat and jacket thrown on the bed, and she dropped into a chair with her
pretty head upon the table that also was desk and book-shelf.
So much for Tuttle? She could see it no other way now she came to
look at it! And what then? Was it so bad a thing she was finding him
guilty of? The repudiation of that world and its people and its things,
that she belonged to? The keeping himself, with the exception of the
Harrisons, skilfully unidentified with her group or their affairs?
And say this was the truth? Was it humiliation at base which Tuttle
was offering her in place, part and identity in life through his own?
Or was it laudation? In that he could conceive nothing better to offer
than his best own?
And by way of contrast with Tuttle, what of Culpepper's attitude to
her? Certainly he had not sinned along these lines? Culpepper made
friends of her friends, made one with her family, easily and serenely,
tolerantly and indulgently in fact, just as he took the confidences she
gave him about her efforts at self-support, and her failures, just as
he played escort and took her to doors and came after her, every way,
indeed, but seriously.
"Play away," his amused manner seemed to say, "amuse yourself with
these things, even improve your character through the effort put into
them. When the time comes, the proper time, it's the man who'll sweep
these out of the way, and have done with their assumptions, and take
care of you."
Was this the truth, too? If she was to read Tuttle the one way, was
this the way she was to read and understand Culpepper?
* * * * *
Quickly and passionately she got up and went and laved her face at
the washstand, and as quickly and passionately went to the window of
her room, through which the while she had heard voices. Auntie down
there in the yard was moving about in company with old colored Uncle
Taliaferro Bucklin. It was April, buds and blooms were on lilac bush
and peach tree, and Auntie and Uncle Taliaferro were looking over the
ground-plan of flower beds and borders preparatory to their yearly
activities.
"Those seedling hollyhocks we put out last spring, Taliaferro, make
a good show. They'll bloom this year," from Auntie. "So'll these
Canterbury bells I brought down from the Buxton's garden, bloom for
the first time. I want to put in quite a good deal this spring with
a thought to next fall, dahlias and astors and cosmos and salvia in
plenty. I don't know anything that comes at a time you're more grateful
to 'em, than the late-blooming things in the fall."
"Look at these he'ah lockspuhs, Miss Ann 'Liza," from Uncle Taliaferro
direfully. "Same thing as las' yeah. Worm right at the root of ev'ey
pesky las' one. Never did have no faith in that wood-ashes you's so
sure about, myse'f."
Flowers take patience and faith, and tendance and waiting. Would she,
Selina, looking down on the little backyard and these two patient
workers in it, ever come to a place like Auntie, where she could care
for them enough to center time and hope and affection in them?
Never! Never! She threw her arms out in refutation of any such
surrender in herself!
[Illustration: "Flowers take patience and faith, and tendance and
waiting."]
Which brought to her mind that she promised Mamma and Auntie answers to
certain pleas from both of them before another week-end. And at this
her hands clenched in further refutation, this time of their claims.
For wherever and however she arrived now, it was going to be through
truth and for herself! Undoubtedly she would have to hurt Mamma and
hurt Auntie, which last was even harder, but at least she would be
honest in doing it.
Passionately she put on her hat and jacket again and left her room and
hurried down the stairs and out of the house. The show and feel of late
April were everywhere, in the green of the lawns, in the buds of the
shrubberies, in the unfolding blooms of the magnolia trees, in the soft
languor of the dusk already falling.
Three blocks away Selina turned in at the brick rectory next the church
she had gone to all her life.
The side-door with a step beneath a little penthouse roof led direct
into the rectory study. She tapped at this door and entering,
hurried across the room to the elderly little clerical figure in the
chair beside the cluttered table. Dropping on the footstool beside
this chair, she put her hands, both, into the parchment brown ones
outstretched to greet her.
The study, with its book-lined walls, its cluttered table, its
cluttered open desk, its smoldering grate fire, reeked with tobacco.
The scholarly little person in clerical garb in the leather chair
seemed mellowed to meerschaum tints with it, from the ivory tones of
his close, small beard, to the parchment brown of those shapely old
hands grasping hers, while their owner looked in kindly fashion down
into her face lifted to his.
The volume he had laid down at her entrance, was of a Hebrew character.
Report had it that he was equally at home in at least three other
tongues as erudite. He had baptized Selina, a wee baby in flowing
robes, and fourteen years later had prepared her for her confirmation.
From the pulpit he had talked to her nearly every Sunday of her life
since babyhood. His wife was fond of her; he was fond of her. In their
ways he and this pretty girl were very good friends. And yet in reality
he knew nothing whatever about her.
"Selina, my child? And what then, my dear?"