THE PEACEMAKER
Kathleen Fabian, out of school in that month of June, was at home in
body, but with her mind still clinging about the scenes of her college
life.
"I do believe, all things considered," said her mother when they were
sitting alone one morning over their coffee, "that I am against college
for girls!"
Kathleen looked up absent-mindedly from the letter she had been
reading. "What's the matter?" she asked vaguely.
"You have scarcely heard a word I have said since you came home,"
declared Mrs. Fabian. "Your thoughts are a thousand miles away all the
time."
"Not a thousand," protested the girl. "Four years is a long time, you
know. To break up one's home--to break all those ties--means so much."
"Exactly what I say," retorted Mrs. Fabian. "I should like to know
when you will begin again to realize that this is home, and that your
father and mother would like some share in your thoughts."
"Why, I must be horribly selfish," returned the girl.
"There it is again!" exclaimed her mother, increasingly nettled. "If it
takes unselfishness to show some interest in home after a girl leaves
college, I say she had better not go there."
"Very well," returned Kathleen, smiling. "Don't you ever send another
daughter; but I'm glad you made the mistake with me. I've been so
happy, mother."
"Oh, well," returned Mrs. Fabian, somewhat mollified by the wistfulness
of the girl's look and tone, "I suppose you have, and perhaps it is all
for the best; but hereafter, when I speak to you, I intend to begin
'Kathleen Fabian!' and you must reply 'Present' before I go on."
"Have you been talking to me?" asked Kathleen naïvely.
"Well, rather. I have been telling you something that should be very
interesting, considering the height of the thermometer. Father says we
are to start for the island next Wednesday; and I am holding in my hand
an acceptance from Philip Sidney to my invitation to go with us."
"How very nice," said Kathleen courteously.
Mrs. Fabian, always on the sensitive lookout where her young relative
was concerned, thought she detected a perfunctory note.
"You knew I had asked him?"
"Yes, I think you did mention it before Commencement."
"He says," said Mrs. Fabian, "that you have never talked to him about
the island."
"But think," returned Kathleen, "how seldom I have talked with him."
"Yes," returned her mother resignedly, "and how full your head is of
other matters. You were very nice to Phil on Christmas night, here. I
wasn't sure but that you would invite him yourself."
"Oh, why should I?"
"No reason, if you don't see any. Phil was very polite to you at your
graduation. Those flowers were exquisite."
"Yes." The girl smiled. "They would have worried me, but that I know
flowers are cheaper in June."
"I don't think that's a very nice thing to say," observed Mrs. Fabian.
"I meant it very nicely," returned Kathleen mildly.
"Well, perhaps it isn't so strange that you have not talked the island
to him, since you have been engrossed in other things; but I have had
all the trouble in the world to induce him to go; and if you had roused
his enthusiasm a little it would have been easier."
"Why have you urged him?" asked the girl.
Her mother regarded her for a pause, in exasperated silence. "Are you
aware," she returned at last, "that it is 87 in the shade this morning?
Are you aware that these rooms, where the draught constantly changes
the air, are slightly different from that studio, baking under a stable
roof and hemmed in by high buildings?"
"Of course, of course!"
"Are you aware," went on Mrs. Fabian sonorously, "that one who has
always previously had a home might find a brief change from cheap
restaurants invigorating in hot weather?"
"I didn't know," said Kathleen. "I thought perhaps he was too busy to
notice. He"--she hesitated, but imperceptibly to Mrs. Fabian,--"he has
not called here since I returned."
"That's just it," flashed Phil's defender. "He never spares himself.
He thinks of nothing but work. Now, I have never forced any of my
relatives on the Fabians," with heightened color, "but your father
likes Phil. He was delighted to have me ask him. He has charged me to
hold on to the boy until he can join us."
"I hope he can stay," put in Kathleen politely.
"If I can get him there," said Mrs. Fabian. "Here is this matter of the
berths, as usual. The stateroom has been engaged for a month, but we
have only Molly's berth outside."
Kathleen's eyes grew eager. "Well, that's all right," she said. "You
won't mind taking Molly in the stateroom in my place, and let Mr.
Sidney have her berth. I'll wait and come up with father."
"You not go with us? Kathleen, you're absurd." Color streamed again
over Mrs. Fabian's face.
"No, no. That will be a fine plan, and relieve you of all
embarrassment. Father will like to have me here, and I shall love to
stay with him."
Mrs. Fabian gazed at the girl in silence. She admired Kathleen
extravagantly. There was something in the girl's natural poise and
elegance which the stepmother, with an innate, unacknowledged
consciousness of inferiority, worshipped. She never forgot that
Kathleen's mother had been a Van Ruysler. Now, as if it were not enough
that Edgar scorned the island, and even if he should be granted leave
of absence would not play the courteous host to Phil, now Kathleen was
anxious to avoid him, and caught at an excuse to postpone her departure.
The girl grew uncomfortable under the fixed stare bent upon her, and
when suddenly Mrs. Fabian dropped her coffee-spoon and burying her face
in her hands burst into tears, Kathleen arose in dismay, the soft laces
of her négligée floating in the breeze she made hastening around the
table and taking the weeping one in her arms.
"I don't know what has happened," she said in bewilderment, "but I am
sure it is all my fault. I was trying to help you, mother."
"You were not!" responded Mrs. Fabian, as angrily as the softening
nature of salt water would permit. "You were trying to avoid that poor,
lonely little fellow."
Kathleen bit her lip as memory presented the stalwart, self-confident
artist before her.
"You tell me to take my young cousin if I must, and get his visit over
with before you come up there to enjoy yourself. You don't care how
much you hurt his feelings."
"Why, mother, wouldn't he think it very natural that I should keep
father company?"
"No, certainly not, when he knows that Edgar is here. He doesn't know
that Edgar isn't any use to anybody, unless it's Mrs. Larrabee. He'd
just think the truth: that you don't want to be there at the same time
he is."
"Now, mother, you're so mistaken. He wouldn't even miss me. When he
gets the view from our porch he won't know whether I'm there or not."
"Very convenient excuse; but you needn't make any more of them. I
understand you, Kathleen. Why shouldn't I, when I taught you to walk?
I'm foolish to break down before you. I ought to have more pride; but
it's the heat. I'm tired and nervous; and you come home from college
with no interest except in what you've left behind you, and want to
arrange things so that my guest at the island will have his visit
spoiled--"
"Mother, he--"
"Nobody at the cottage but me, and nobody to help entertain him but
Mrs. Wright and Eliza Brewster and--"
"Mother, he--"
"It's so often that I ask any of my friends there! So often that I bore
you and Edgar to look out for my guests! I must always be on hand for
yours, to chaperone you and see that all goes smoothly for your plans.
I suppose--"
"Mother, indeed--"
"If Phil had sunstroke, it would be all the same to you, just so he
kept out of your way; and Christmas week when we went there to tea, how
nice he was to us, and so amusing, getting everything in such perfect
order that he apologized for not dusting the marshmallows. Oh, my head
is just bursting!"
"There, mother dear, I know you will be ill, if you get so excited,"
said Kathleen, patting the heaving white silken shoulder. "Of course,
I'll go to the island with you. I didn't know you cared so much."
Mrs. Fabian lifted her swollen eyes to behold her victory. "There's one
comfort, Kathleen," she said, deep catches in her breath. "You never do
things by halves. If you do go, you'll never allow Phil to feel that he
bores you."
The girl smiled. "No, if I succeed in calling myself to his
attention," she answered, "I promise he shan't suspect it."
"If he is sometimes absent-minded," said Mrs. Fabian defensively, "I'm
sure I don't know any one who should have so much sympathy with him as
you--the very queen of wool-gatherers."
Kathleen laughed and went back to her seat at the table. "I see that I
must reform," she replied.
"I'm relieved, and I do thank you," said her mother; "but the question
remains, how are we going to get Phil there?"
"That's easy. Send Molly with the other maids by the boat. I'll hook
your gown."
"There," returned Mrs. Fabian; "you see, you might have suggested that
in the first place. I understand you well enough, Kathleen."
"I thought it would be good fun to hob-nob with father. It's so long
since I have."
"I'm going to persuade him to leave business early this year. It has
worried him unusually this winter. He can if he only thinks so. I
reminded him this morning that if he died, the business would have to
get on without him. He agreed, but said in that case the loss would be
wholly covered by insurance. Rather grim sort of humor, that. I told
him I couldn't see anything funny in such talk."
"Poor father," commented Kathleen. "Everybody is tired this time of
year. There should be some arrangement of relays in running a business.
The winter workers should be turned out to grass in May."
She looked at her father that evening with observant eyes, as together
they moved into his den after dinner. It had been closed from the sun
all day and he sank into a big leather armchair by a breeze-blown
window, following his daughter's white-clad figure with appreciative
eyes.
"I'm glad you're through college, Kath," he said.
"So I can light your cigar the rest of my life?" she asked, seating
herself on his knee and applying the lighted match.
"Partly that," he answered, drawing in the flame, "and partly for your
mother's sake. She needs more companionship than I can give her. She
has a gay nature; she likes going out. I hope you aren't too much like
me."
"I hope I'm exactly like you," the girl returned devoutly; and leaning
forward, she drew in a mouthful of the fragrant cigar smoke and
exhaled it through her nostrils. The movement was quick and graceful,
and she looked mischievously pretty.
"Don't do that, you monkey," said her father quickly.
"Why not?"
"I don't like it."
"I'm frightfully unfashionable, because I smoke so little," she
returned.
"It's a vicious habit--for women," declared Mr. Fabian.
"But I'm a suffragist; besides, men tolerate it in women now--they like
them to do it."
"Not the women they love," said Mr. Fabian quickly.
"Oh!" responded Kathleen.
"When I saw you smoking a cigarette with Edgar a little while ago," he
went on, "I spoke to you about it. Don't you remember? I told you how
unbecoming I thought it. I hoped you would heed me."
Kathleen met his serious gaze.
"That wasn't a little while ago," she said.
"Certainly it was. This winter."
"It couldn't have been later than November," she went on slowly, "for
I haven't touched a cigarette since then."
"Good girl." Mr. Fabian patted her shoulder. "It disgusted me to see
you. You'll never do it again?"
"No." She shook her head, and carefully ran her finger through a ring
of smoke as it passed her.
"I wish I could get Edgar to say the same," remarked Mr. Fabian.
"You don't set him a good example," she returned.
"You never saw me with a cigarette. Edgar has to abstain from them in
the office, but I think he sits up all night to make up for it. I have
an idea they contribute to his general uselessness."
Kathleen smoothed the care-worn lines in the speaker's brow with her
gentle fingers. He loved their touch.
"I think Edgar isn't smoking much these days," she said.
"Indeed." The response was indifferent. "Why should that be? Does Mrs.
Larrabee want them all?"
"It's on account of his voice," said Kathleen.
The tired man of affairs removed his cigar to laugh while his daughter
arranged his hair around his temples. "Edgar denying himself!" he
ejaculated quietly.
"Yes, father, he's waking up to it," said the girl, with a little
serious nod; "and that's one thing Mrs. Larrabee has really done for
him--made him believe that his voice is worth working for."
"It's the only thing she can find to flatter him about. That's all that
amounts to," said Mr. Fabian, resuming his cigar. "So long as she can
make any use of him she will keep him dangling about, and flattery is
the best bait."
"But his voice is a real gift," insisted Kathleen, with deliberate
emphasis. "Don't you think so?"
"I never heard him sing that I know of--certainly not for years."
"It is beautiful--the heart-reaching kind. If he hadn't been a rich
man's son it would have been given to the world in some shape."
"A rich man's son." Mr. Fabian repeated the words quietly, and took his
daughter's arm in a strong grasp. "Kathleen, this has been an awful
winter. I don't know what the next year will bring forth. Say nothing
to your mother, but there are threatening clouds all about me."
"Father!" The girl pressed her cheek to his, and there was a moment of
silence; then she spoke again gently. "I have often wished I might have
been your son."
The hand that had gripped her arm, stole around her and drew her close.
After a moment, she sat up again and faced him. "I came in here
to-night on purpose to speak to you about Edgar," she went on. "He
wanted me to intercede for him in a matter."
"A matter of debts, I suppose," said Mr. Fabian, his manner
imperturbable again, and his tone bitter.
"Yes, but--"
"I'm through," interrupted the man. "He has had plenty of warning. I
would not tell you, Kathleen, the number of foolish, and sometimes
disgraceful, affairs I have settled for him."
"I don't doubt it, dear, but let me tell you about this," said the girl
seriously. "Edgar has no judgment or foresight. He persists in claiming
that he was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and that whatever he
can scoop up with it is his right. He is your only son and you owe him
unlimited liberty."
"The lessons I have given him would be sufficient if he had any
brains," said the father sternly.
"Yes; but just a minute more. This debt will astonish you. It is to
Mazzini, the famous voice teacher. He has been studying with him since
January."
"Just like his vanity! Let him send the bill to Mrs. Larrabee. It is
her doing."
"Yes, it was her doing in the first place, but I suspect from what
Edgar says that she is tired of him. He hasn't seen her often of late,
and she sails for Europe anyway next week; and Edgar is so interested
in his music that now it comes first. His teacher is so enthusiastic!"
"Of course he is!" observed Mr. Fabian cynically. "They're always
enthusiastic over the voices of pupils whose pocketbooks will stand the
strain."
"Edgar sang for me last night while you and mother were out. Father,
it was a beautiful performance. It is the real thing. Of course, he
was wrong--crazy, to go into such expense without asking you, for
the lessons are frightfully dear; but if the boy were to amount to
something in an artistic line, wouldn't it be worth the investment? You
are discouraged by his lack of interest in business."
Mr. Fabian's chin sank dejectedly as he flicked the ash from his cigar
into the receiver on the stand beside his chair.
"Discouraged by his inability," he said slowly; "discouraged by his
lack of principle, by his vanity and conceit. I will give him board and
lodging as long as he wishes to live with me; but--"
"Then, dear," interrupted Kathleen, her voice thrilling with the
sympathy she felt, "try this one thing more. If the expense doesn't
appall you--"
Mr. Fabian shook his head impatiently. "That would be nothing--as yet."
"Edgar can't study through the summer. His teacher is going to Italy.
He would like to go with him--" the girl paused doubtfully.
Her father laughed. "I dare say. Edgar's European travel, however, is
over until he is engaged to sing before the crowned heads."
"Yes, I supposed so," agreed the girl; "but he means to work faithfully
all summer."
"Work faithfully! Edgar!" repeated Mr. Fabian.
"Supposing he should, father. Supposing he has found his niche in life
and will do something worth while."
"Wonderful if true," remarked Mr. Fabian.
"But it won't help to disbelieve in him. I know he began all wrong
forcing you to pay this money--"
Kathleen arose suddenly, and, moving across the room, opened the heavy
door of the den. "Come in, Edgar," she called. The invitation was
unnecessary; for the youth, in his eagerness to hear what fate was
being meted out to him within the closed apartment, had been leaning so
hard against the door that when all at once it fell away from him, he
staggered into the room with the most undignified celerity.
Stirred as Kathleen was, she had to bite her lip before she could
speak; but when her brother had gained his perpendicular and faced them
with a somewhat frightened and very crimson countenance, she broke the
silence.
"Tell father," she said, "that you know you began this new venture
wrong: that it was shameful to force him to pay this big bill for your
lessons."
Edgar choked and swallowed, meeting the eyes that were lifting to him
from the depths of the leathern armchair. Convicted of eavesdropping
and reading the cold appraisement in his father's gaze, he had not
gathered himself to utter a word when Mr. Fabian spoke.
"You have not forced me," he said slowly. "I can refuse. You are of
age. You can be sued and imprisoned quite independently of me."
Edgar's heart beat fast and he set the even teeth.
"You have counted once more on my unwillingness to have this occur; but
that unwillingness has been weakening for years."
Still Edgar did not speak. Kathleen, standing by her father's chair,
her hands clasped tightly, dared not. She noted that Edgar's gaze did
not fall. He met his father's eyes in crimson silence.
"You know," continued Mr. Fabian distinctly, "whether I have exhausted
persuasion and argument with you. You know my futile attempts to rouse
your ambition to be my coadjutor, my successor. What you do not know,
because you are incapable of understanding, is the agony of the slow
death of my hope in my only son: the successive stages of thought which
have finally reduced me to closing the account, and charging him up to
profit and loss."
Kathleen watched her brother under the lash with the same pitiful
misery she felt for his punishments when they were children.
"But you're going to try him in this new field, father," she said
beseechingly.
There was a space of silence, then Mr. Fabian spoke:--
"I am going to trust your sister's judgment in this matter, Edgar. She
believes you are in earnest. I am going to pay these tuition bills, and
the coming months will show whether this is another passing toy, or a
matter in which you can make good. To find you are good for anything,
my boy," added the father, after another painful pause, "will be an
amazing and welcome discovery."
Something clicked in Edgar's throat. He evidently wished to speak, but
his tongue seemed glued to the roof of his mouth. At last he found
voice.
"I don't blame you," he said jerkily, "but--I'll show you!"
Mr. Fabian nodded his head slightly. "That's what I want," he said
quietly; "I need to be shown."
Without another word, Edgar turned on his heel and left the room.
Kathleen sank on her knees and buried her face on her father's breast.
"He didn't thank you," she said, half weeping, "but he felt it. I know
he felt it. Oh, father, how I hope for your sake--"
She could not speak further, and Mr. Fabian patted her shoulder, his
eyes gazing out the darkening window.