There was a sudden silence while Ellen beat her riding crop against her
leg. “I must say she’s very queer. I never understood her. You know when
I was a girl, she gave me the creeps ... the way she had of looking at
you with those pale eyes.”
“I know,” replied Lily. And then after a pause. “You know they want to
buy Cypress Hill too. The Lord alone knows how many times they tried.
They began before Mama died. Irene hasn’t any share in it. It belongs
outright to me.”
“I suppose it’s the Mills.”
“No, not this time. The Town wants it now.” She paused while she
buttered another roll. “They want it for a new railway station ... a
union station, you know, for all three roads. It’s perfect for that. And
each time they increase the offer. Now they write me that they’ve made a
last offer. If I won’t sell, they’ll undertake proceedings to condemn
it.”
During this speech the countenance of Ellen Tolliver underwent a
complete metamorphosis. The devil-may-care look vanished slowly,
replaced by a certain hardness, a squaring of the handsome jaw, a slight
hardening of the firm lips. It may have been that while Lily talked her
cousin was swept by a torrent of memories--memories of hurt pride, of
poverty and indignities endured because she was helpless, memories of
patronizing women and young girls who spoke of “poor Ellen Tolliver,”
memories of her father’s defeats and disappointments, of Judge
Weissman’s dishonesty and corruption, of her mother’s agonizing and
endless struggle to keep up appearances. As sometimes occurs with
individuals of strong personality, a whole life, a complete philosophy
stood revealed for an instant in her intelligent face. She had run off
with Clarence Murdoch “to show the Town.” She had become famous and
successful because, deep down in her heart, she was resolved always to
show the Town how little it counted in her life, how great was the
contempt she felt for it. It was always this thought--this more than
everything else--which had driven her forward. And now came this new
opportunity, perhaps the best of all, to block the Town, to thwart its
most cherished desire. It was a chance to prevent a new and flamboyant
effort to advertise its wealth, its prosperity, its bigness.
“As if,” she said aloud, “‘bigness’ was something to be proud of. Let
them try and condemn it, Lily. I doubt if they can. Anyway I’d keep it
just to spite them. It’s a chance to show your power.” She leaned
earnestly across the table, striking it with her riding crop to
emphasize her words. “You hate the place as much as I do. Why, it isn’t
even the same Town we grew up in. It’s another place built upon filth
and soot. It’s not that we’re fouling our own nest. Why, Lily, the Town
your mother and my grandfather loved wasn’t that sort of place at all.
It was a pleasant place where people lived quietly and peacefully, where
they had horses and dogs and were decent to each other. And now that’s
all buried under those damned filthy Mills, under a pile of muck and
corruption with Judge Weissman and his crowd enthroned on the very top.”
She stood up, her blue eyes flashing. “It’s changed the very people in
it. It’s made them noisy, common, cheap. Damn it! I hate them all!” She
struck the table a violent blow with her riding crop. “Don’t sell it.
You don’t need the money. It’s nothing to you ... not even if they
offered you a million!” And then she laughed savagely. “That’s the best
part of it. The longer you hold it, the more they’ll have to pay you.
The more prosperous they are, the more it will cost them to have a new
railway station. You’re the one who has the power now. Don’t you see
what power there is in money?... the power that grows out of just owning
a thing?”
Lily, it appeared, was amazed by the passion of the sudden, outburst.
For a time she lay back in the wicker chair, regarding her cousin with a
thoughtful look. At last, she said, “I had no idea that you felt that
way about it. It’s the way Mama used to feel. I suppose I never had
enough of the place to really hate it.”
Ellen again interrupted her passionately. “If you’d had as much as I
had, you’d have hated it all right.”
“I just ran away from it as soon as I could,” continued Lily. “Besides,”
she added after a pause, “Mama left a letter asking me to keep Cypress
Hill. She always felt that way about the Town.”
Ellen, persistent, bent over the table toward her cousin. The riding
crop fell to the gravel terrace. “Promise me you won’t sell it, Lily....
Promise me you’ll keep it. It’s a chance to hit back.... Promise!”
And Lily, who after all was indifferent in matters of business,
promised, perhaps because the violent revelations made by her cousin
astounded her so completely that she was unable to think of any
argument. Doubtless she had reasons of her own ... secret reasons which
had to do with the worn clippings in the enameled box.
“I’ll keep it,” she replied. “They can wait until Hell freezes over. And
besides you put the idea so that it amuses me. I’ll sell the other stuff
and invest the money.”
Ellen interrupted her with a bitter laugh. “It’s funny, you know, that
all this time they’ve been pouring money into your pocket. That’s the
joke of it. In a way, it was all this booming and prosperity that helped
me too. If you hadn’t been so rich, I suppose I’d never have made a
success of it.”
Lily languidly finished the last of her chocolate. “I’d never thought of
it in that way. It’s an amusing idea.”
Ellen was satisfied. Gathering up her letters she went into the house,
changed her clothes, and in a little while, seated under the flaming
Venice of Mr. Turner, she was working stormily at her music, filling the
house with glorious sound until it overflowed and spilled its rhapsodies
over the terrace into the garden where the first bright irises were
abloom.