DISGRACE
The day had been terrible for Cecilia. She had learned from Mrs. De
Pui that she had hopelessly offended.... What she had done, Mrs. De
Pui said, was an act suitable for one of the maids. Mrs. De Pui was
pained. She could not believe that one of her pupils, with the
womanly inspiration of the school set before her, could have so
offended. It was unthinkable!
Cecilia wriggled, and swallowed with difficulty.
"Cultivate repose," ordered Mrs. De Pui coldly. Cecilia stood so
rigidly that she looked like a wooden Indian. One of the girls
entered. She said, "Excuse me," and backed away, plainly much
interested.
"What was the boy's name, Cecilia?" asked Mrs. De Pui. Cecilia
swallowed so hard that she shook. "I don't know," she answered
loudly.
Then what Mrs. De Pui said was very terrible. Cecilia crawled off at
last, white and shaking. She groped for her door knob. Things
before her were not very clear. What Mrs. De Pui had said was very
terrible, but,--but the other, her first lie, uttered with that
brazen assurance.... She went in and threw herself across the
bed.... She didn't cry. The hurt was too big. So her dear father
and the fact that she was born in poverty made her an outcast? If
so, she would stay so. "Learn her to be a lady," the breeze that
came in through an inch opened window whispered. Cecilia felt it,
and set her chin.
And Mrs. De Pui hadn't believed her story. Hadn't believed her....
"One more try, Cecilia, although you are a great trial both to me and
my pupils," echoed through her brain in Mrs. De Pui's cold tones.
Cecilia sat upright on the bed. "My heart's right," she said aloud.
"I believe it's better than Annette's. Don't that count for nothing?
Ain't being kind being a lady?" She stared sullenly across the room.
The white furniture glittered coldly. From between the flutter of
scrim curtains she saw a painfully well arranged park. Even the
trees were smugly superior.
"Gawd _was_ in that flat," she said, and again aloud. A sentence
came to her mind. A sentence that is shopworn and has been on the
top shelf for many years. "I guess Gawd is what I feel fer paw,--"
she said, half musingly,--"Love. An' fer Johnny, even when he's bad,
an' Father McGowan, dear, an' Norah. Just that." ... She looked out
of the window and saw the painfully well regulated trees again.
"Them trees ain't so bad," she stated; "at least they ain't when I
remember that they love me at home." Her face changed, for she
remembered some of Mrs. De Pui's well-aimed truths. Her father,--his
difference. It should always be hers, too, she decided.
Her first touch of hate came. "Gawd, make me a lady quick!" she
implored. Some one tapped on the door. Cecilia opened it. Annie
was there, beaming. She held a long box with stems sticking out of
one end of it. "Fer you, dearie," said Annie. Cecilia opened the
box with trembling hands. The box held pink roses, very, very pink
roses.... On the top lay a card. On it was written in a loose,
boy-hand: "For little 'A-good-deal-of-whipped-cream-on-top.'"
Cecilia stared at the card, breathless.
"Annie," she-said at last, "ain't they lovely?"
"Aren't, dearie," corrected Annie, and then added, "You bet they are!
You bet!" Cecilia lifted them reverently. There were three dozens
of them. Her years were such that numbers and prices still counted.
"Who shall I tell _her_ they're from?" asked Annie. "Yuh got her
goat, yuh know."
"Father McGowan," answered Cecilia. Suddenly the guilt of the other
lie, her shame over the act unthinkable, and her new realisation of
the standing of those she loved, slid from her soul. She was wildly
happy. She hugged Annie.
The white furniture didn't glitter coldly. It smiled. A crowded
flat was far away. The trees in a smug park were beautiful.
"One new frock," read Father McGowan, "twenty-five dollars. Hat,
fifteen. 'Madam Girard's skin food, and wrinkle remover,' two
dollars and fifty cents. Flat-heeled shoes, seven dollars. Taxi,
one dollar and fifty-two cents. Church offering, ten cents."
Father McGowan threw back his head, and laughed loudly. Jeremiah
Madden looked on him, bewildered.
"It's her cash account, yuh know. Twenty-five dollars fer one
dress," he mused, with a pleased smile. "_Ain't_ she learnin' quick?
But the letter," he added, with a perplexed frown appearing, "it
sounds _too_ happy. The happiness is a little _too_ thick. Smells
like she put it on with a paint brush jest fer show."
"Hum----" grunted Father McGowan.
He opened a pink letter sheet. At the top of it a daisy was
engraved. "I give her that paper," said Jeremiah proudly. "She
_was_ tickled. She sez as how none of the girls in school had
nothing like it."
"I believe it," replied Father McGowan. There were heavy lines in
his face. Cecilia's heart-ache lay on his shoulders, he felt, for he
had made the "Brick King."
"Darling Papa:" read Father McGowan, "I was so happy to hear from
you. I read your letters over and over. I love you very much. I am
learning that that is the biggest thing in the world, loving people,
and having them love you. I miss you, but of course I am happy.
"The School is elegant very nice, and I get enough to eat. The view
from the front windows is swell beautiful. It looks right out on the
Park, all over fancy foliage and rich people walking around. I
sometimes walk there, and one little girl, awfully cute, with bare
legs and a nurse, likes me. Yesterday she threw a kiss to me. She
looked like Johnny when he was little, and we lived in the flat. It
made me want to cry.
"I am very happy. You do so much for me. I will be very happy when
I can come home to you and Johnny, and we can have Father McGowan to
supper dinner every Saturday night. I am sending some things that
look like fruit knives, but which are butter spreaders, and are used
to apply butter to bread, etc. (i.e., not to eat off of).
"I am very happy. I went to one party in an exclusive girl's room.
It was kind of her to ask me. I love you so much, Papa. Please kiss
Johnny for me, and Norah. Tell her to use the butter spreaders
daily. (_All_ the time.)
"She need not cherish the blue glass butter dish any more.
"I do love you, dear Papa. Your,
"CECILIA."
"P.S.: I send my respectful regards to Father McGowan, and thanks for
getting me into this exclusive School, which caters only to
sophisticated people with money.
"C."
"Well?" asked Jeremiah, after Father McGowan had laid down a pink
sheet of paper with an engraved daisy at the top. "Well?"
"Hum," grunted Father McGowan, "Hum!" He stared long at a brick
which lay on the top shelf of a gilt cabinet. "I'm going up to
Boston," he said at length. "I'll look in on our little Cecilia."
"Will yuh, now?" asked Jeremiah. "It's kept me awake nights,
thinkin' that mebbe in spite of all the expense, she wasn't happy. I
wanted to go up, but Johnny sez I wasn't suitable fer a girls'
school, being as I remove my collar absent-minded like (having always
did it)."
"You're suitable, all right," said Father McGowan, "but since I am
going up, I might as well attend to it. Hard for you to leave
business, too."
"Yes," admitted Jeremiah happily. He swelled and cast a loving eye
toward the brick. Then he wilted. The proud pleasure was gone.
"_She_ always wanted a bunnit with pink roses on," he said in a low
voice, "an' I couldn't never buy her none, an' now----!"
Father McGowan laid a hand on Jeremiah's. "There, there, Jerry!" he
said. "Think how happy you're making the children!"
A sallow boy came in. He cast a sneering look at a limp figure in a
gilt chair. Then, without a word, he picked up a book and went out.
Jeremiah's eyes were like a child's--the eyes of a frightened child.
"Sometimes," he said in a whisper, "I'm afraid he's _ashamed_ of me!"
"No!" exploded Father McGowan, "No!"
There is nothing like the scorn of the undetected guilty for those
who are exposed. Cecilia was treated to fine scorn, supercilious
looks, and, worst of all, a chill overlooking; for she had allowed a
boy whom she'd never met to buy her a soda water and a pink sundae!
And,--what made the offence doubly revolting?--was the fact that the
boy was considered by the girls a man, and that those who had seen
him termed him "_Ravishing_, my dear!" He,--but let us quote:
"Simply _Rav_ishing, my dear, with dark eyes and hair. _Hon_estly,
he looked as if he had a secret sorrow, or was on the stage, or was
_fear_fully fast. Something wonderfully interesting about him, you
know. Why he would _ever_ look at _her_, I can't see,----" etc.
Cecilia sat in the corner of the shabby-impressive room. She was
reading "Sordello" because it was required by the English teacher.
Cecilia wasn't a bit interested, and twice the book had slipped shut,
and she hadn't known at all where she'd left off, which was annoying;
she was afraid she might read one page twice, and she couldn't bear
the idea of that. She wondered if this Browning person could have
made a success at manufacturing bricks? She judged not. He didn't
seem practical, but inwardly she was sure that he could have done
anything better than write poetry. She really wondered quite a
little bit about him, but after the laughter of the class on her
question: "Is Mr. Browning an American or does he come from the Old
Country?" she had ceased to voice her speculations.
She turned the pages fretfully. There were a great many more. She
hoped that Mr. Browning was dead, so that he wouldn't write any more
stuff that they would be required to read. Then she berated herself
soundly for this unholy wish.
Annette Twombly and a girl with tawny hair and green eyes came in.
When they saw Cecilia they raised their eyebrows.
"There seems to be _no_ privacy in this place!" said Annette.
Cecilia turned a page.
"And what is worse, my dear," answered the green-eyed, "one is
constantly called upon to meet persons socially inferior--the kind
suitable to the kitchen and associating with the policeman."
Cecilia had turned another page, but she had not read it. The print
was jumping dangerously from the quick pump of her heart. "I will
not move," she thought. "I will not move, nor show them that I hear."
"Imagine allowing an unknown man to buy you sodas!" said Annette, who
was looking out of the window. "Isn't it utterly _hope_less?"
There was a pained silence. The hopelessness of it had evidently
eaten deeply into the systems of Annette and the green-eyed.
"Milk, an' sugar, if yuh have it," mimicked the green-eyed. She
scored her point. Cecilia's book closed. She got up quickly and
went toward the door. There she paused with her hand on the jamb.
"I hope it pleases you to make me so unhappy," she said quietly, "for
otherwise I don't know what you are accomplishing." Then she went
upstairs to an always lonely room. She closed the door gently and
lay across the bed, staring at the ceiling. She never cried any
more. She reached beneath the pillow. Her cold and moist little
hand closed about the letter of a brick king.
"I love you!" she whispered fiercely. "I shall make you proud of me,
but Maw, I'm glad you died before the roses came! I'm glad! I'm
glad! ... They have so _many_ thorns!"
The young ladies downstairs didn't giggle as usual. They avoided
each other's eyes. At last Annette said, "Upstart! How dared she
speak to me that way!" It was said in an effort to reinstate her
superior right to exercise the rack. The green-eyed didn't answer.
She looked out of the window. At last she said carelessly, "Going to
dress." And Annette was not invited to her room.
The green-eyed stood still just inside her door. She thought of a
fat father, and of his code of morals. The mother whom her eyes came
from was very distant.
"It has been utterly devilish!" she said loudly. "Utterly. And I
did it while I read 'The Mob,' and ranted over it." Then she threw a
book across the room, which spelled emotional crisis for her
temperament and, this time, reform. Her green eyes were full of
healthily ashamed tears.