THE UGLY DUCKLING
The thing that Frederick Towne got out of his niece’s flight was this.
“She wouldn’t let anybody sympathize with her. Simply locked the door
of her room, and in the morning she was gone. It has added immeasurably
to the gossip.”
His listeners had, however, weighed him in the balance of understanding
and sympathy, and had found him wanting. The youth in them sided with
Edith. But none of this showed in their manner. They were polite and
hospitable to the last. Frederick, ushered out into the storm by Baldy,
still saw Jane like a bird, warm in her nest.
“You see,” Baldy said to his sister, when he came back, “how he messed
things up.”
Jane nodded. “He doesn’t know----”
“_Unemotional_”--Baldy’s voice seemed to call on all the gods to
listen, “you should see her eyes----”
“Well, he’s rather an old dear,” said Jane, and having thus disposed
airily of the great Frederick Towne, she went about the house setting
things to right for the night.
“Merrymaid’s out,” she told her brother; “you’d better get her.”
He opened the door and the storm seemed to whirl in upon him. He called
the old cat and was presently aware, as he stood on the porch, that she
danced about him in the dark. He chased her blindly, and at last got
his hands on her. She was wet to the thighs, where she had waded in the
drifts, but galvanized like a small electric motor by the intense chill
of the night.
The wind shrieked and seemed to shake the world. Before Baldy entered
the house he turned and faced the night--“_Edith_” was his voiceless
cry, “_Edith--Edith----_”
By morning the violence of the storm had spent itself. But it was
still bitterly cold. The snow was blue beneath the leaden sky. The
chickens, denied their accustomed promenade, ate and drank and went
to sleep again in the strange dusk. Merrymaid and the kitten having
poked their noses into the frigid atmosphere withdrew to the snug
haven of a basket beneath the kitchen stove. Sophy sent word that her
rheumatism was worse, and that she could not come over. Jane, surveying
the accumulated piles of dishes, felt a sense of unusual depression.
While Frederick Towne had talked last night she had caught a glimpse
of his world--the great house--six servants--gay girls in the glamour
of good clothes, young men who matched the girls, money to meet every
emergency--a world in which nobody had to wash dishes--or make soup out
of Sunday’s roast.
She was cheered a bit, however, by the announcement that her brother
had decided to stay home from the office.
“I’ll have a try at that magazine cover----”
Her spirits rose. “Wouldn’t it be utterly perfect if you got the
prize----?”
“Not much chance. The thing I need is a good model----”
“And I won’t do?” with some wistfulness.
They had talked of it before. Baldy refused to see possibilities in
Jane. “Since you bobbed your hair, you’re too modern----” She was,
rather, medieval, with her straight-cut frocks and her straight-cut
locks. But she was a figure so familiar that she failed to appeal to
his imagination.
“Editors like ’em modern, don’t they?”
But his thoughts had winged themselves to that other woman whom his
fancy painted in a thousand poses.
“If Edith Towne were here--I’d put her on a marble bench beside a
sapphire sea.”
“I’ll bet you couldn’t get an editor in the world to look at it.
Sapphire seas and classic ladies are a million years behind the
times----”
“They are never behind the times----”
Jane shrugged, and changed the subject. “Darling--if you’ll put your
mind to mundane things for a moment. To-morrow is Thanksgiving Day, the
Follettes are to dine with us, and we haven’t any turkey.”
“Why haven’t we?”
“You were to get it when you went to town, and now you’re not going----”
“I am _not_--not for all the turkeys in the world. We can have roast
chickens. That’s simple enough, Janey.”
“It may seem simple to you. But who’s going to cut off their heads?”
“Sophy,” said Baldy. Having killed Germans in France he refused further
slaughter.
“Sophy has the rheumatism----”
“Oh, well, we can feast our souls----” Young Baldwin’s mood was one of
exaltation.
Jane leaned back in her chair and looked at him. “Your perfectly poetic
solution may satisfy you, but it won’t feed the Follettes.”
With some irritation, therefore, he promised, if all else failed, to
himself decapitate the fowls. “But your mind, Jane, never soars above
food----”
Jane, with her chin in her hands, considered this. “A woman,” she said,
“who keeps house for a poet--must anchor herself to--something. Perhaps
I’m like a captive balloon--if you cut the cable, I’ll shoot straight
up to the skies----”
She liked that thought of herself, and smiled over it, after Baldy had
left her. She wondered if the cable would ever be cut. If the captive
balloon would ever soar.
So she went about her simple tasks, putting the bone on to boil for
soup, preparing the vegetables for it--wondering what she would have
for dessert--with all his scorn of domestic details, Baldy was apt to
be fastidious about his sweets--and coming finally to her sweeping and
dusting in the front part of the house.
The telephone rang and she answered it. Evans was at the other end of
the wire.
“Mother wants to speak to you.”
Mrs. Follette asked if she might change her plans for Thanksgiving.
“Will you and your brother dine with us, instead of our coming to you?
Our New York cousins find that they have the day free, unexpectedly.
They had been asked to a house party in Virginia, but their hostess has
had to postpone it on account of illness.”
“Is it going to be very grand? I haven’t a thing to wear.”
“Don’t be foolish, Jane. You always look like a lady.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Follette.” Jane hoped that she didn’t look as some
ladies look. But there were, of course, others. It was well for her at
the moment, that Mrs. Follette could not see her eyes.
“And I thought,” went on the unconscious matron, “that if you were not
too busy, you might go with Evans to the grove and get some greens. I’d
like the house to look attractive. Is the snow too deep?”
“Not a bit. When will he come?”
“You’d better arrange with him. Here he is.”
Evans’ voice was the only unchanged thing about him. The sound of it at
long distance always brought the old days back to Jane.
“After lunch?” he asked.
“Give me time to dress.”
“Three?”
“Yes.”
When luncheon was over, Jane went up-stairs to get into out-of-door
clothes. At the foot of the stairs she had a glimpse of herself in the
hall mirror. She wore a one-piece lilac cotton frock--with a small
square apron, and an infinitesimal bib. It was a nice-looking little
frock, but she had had it for a million years. That was the way with
all her clothes. The suit she was going to put on had been dyed. It had
been white in its first incarnation. It was now brown. There was no
telling its chromatic future.
She heard steps on the porch, and turned to open the door for Evans.
But it was not Evans. Briggs, Frederick Towne’s chauffeur, stood there
with a box in his arms. “Mr. Towne’s compliments,” he said, “and shall
I set it in the hall?”
“Oh, yes, thank you.” Her surprise brought the quick color to her
cheeks. She watched him go back down the terrace, and enter the car,
then she opened the box.
Beneath clouds of white tissue paper she came upon a long, low basket,
heaped with grapes and tangerines, peaches and pomegranates. Tucked in
between the fruits were shelled nuts in fluted paper cases, gleaming
sweets in small glass jars, candied pineapples and cherries, bunches of
fat raisins, stuffed dates and prunes.
Jane talked to the empty air. “How dear of him----”
The white tissue paper fell in drifts about her as she lifted the
basket from the box.
There was a little note tied to the handle. Towne’s personal paper was
thick and white. Jane was aware of its expensiveness and it thrilled
her. His script was heavy and black--the note had, unquestionably, an
air.
“DEAR MISS BARNES:
“I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed your hospitality last night--and
you were good to listen to me with so much sympathy. I am hoping that
you’ll let me come again and talk about Edith. May I? And here’s a
bit of color for your Thanksgiving feast.
“Gratefully always,
“FREDERICK TOWNE.”
Jane stood staring down at the friendly words. It didn’t seem within
reason that Frederick Towne meant that he wanted to come--to see her.
And she really hadn’t listened with sympathy. But--oh, of course, he
could come. And it was heavenly to have a thing like this happen on a
day like this.
As she straightened up with the basket in her hands, she saw herself
again in the long mirror--a slender figure in green--bobbed black
hair--golden and purple fruits. She gasped and gazed again. There was
Baldy’s picture ready to his hand--November! Against a background of
gray--that glowing figure--Baldy could idealize her--make the wind blow
her skirts a bit--give her a fluttering ribbon or two, a glorified
loveliness.
She sought him in his studio. “I’ve got something to show you,
darling-dear.”
He was moody. “Don’t interrupt me, Jane.”
She rumpled up his hair, which he hated. “Mr. Towne sent us some fruit,
Baldy, and this.” She held out the note to him.
He read it. “He doesn’t say a word about me.”
“No, he doesn’t,” her eyes were dancing; “Baldy, it’s your little
sister, Jane.”
“You didn’t do a thing but sit there and knit----”
“Perhaps he liked to see me--knitting----”
Baldy passed this over in puzzled silence.
“Where’s the fruit?”
“In the house.”
He rose. “I’ll go in with you----” He felt out of sorts, discouraged.
The morning had been spent in sketching vague outlines--a sweep of fair
hair under a blue hat--detached feet in shoes with shining buckles--a
bag that hung in the air without hands. At intervals he had stood up
and looked out at the blank snow and the dull sky. The room was warm
enough, but he shivered. He suffered vicariously for Edith Towne. He
had hoped that she might telephone. He had stayed home really for that.
His studio was in the garage and was heated by a little round stove.
Jane said the garage reminded her of the Boffins’ parlor--a dead line
was drawn between art and utility. Baldy’s rug and old couch and paints
and brushes flung a challenge as it were to the little Ford, the lawn
mower, the garden hose and the gasoline cans.
“I have spent three hours doing nothing,” he said, as he shut the door
behind him; “not much encouragement in that.”
“I have a model for you.”
“Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
He followed her in, full of curiosity.
She showed him the fruit, then picked up the basket. “Look in the
mirror, not at me,” she commanded.
Reflected there in the clear glass, so still that she seemed fixed in
paint, Baldy really gave for the first time an artist’s eye to the
possibilities of his little sister. In the midst of all that crashing
color----!
“Gosh,” he cried, “you’re good-looking!”
His air of utter astonishment was too much for Jane. She set the basket
on the steps, and laughed until she cried.
“I don’t see anything funny,” he told her.
“Well, you wouldn’t, darling.”
She wiped her eyes with her little handkerchief, and sat up. “I am just
dropping a tear for the ugly duckling.”
“Have I made you feel like that?”
“Sometimes.”
Their lighted-up eyes met, and suddenly he leaned down and touched her
cheek--a swift caress. “You’re a little bit of all right, Janey,” which
was great praise from Baldy.