Norma Sheridan saw the engagement announced in a morning paper two weeks
later, and carried the picture of pretty Miss Melrose home, to entertain
the dinner table. The news had been made known at a dinner given to
forty young persons, in the home of the débutante's aunt, Mrs. Hendrick
von Behrens. Miss Melrose, said the paper, was the daughter and heiress
of the late Theodore Melrose, and made her home with her grandmother.
Mr. Liggett was the brother of Christopher Liggett, whose marriage to
Miss Alice Melrose was a social event some years ago. A number of
dinners and dances were already planned in honour of the young pair.
Norma looked at the pictured face with a little stir of feelings so
confused that she could not define them, at her heart. But she passed
the paper to her aunt with no comment.
"You might send them two dozen kitchen towels, Mother," Wolf suggested,
drily, and Rose laughed joyously. Her own engagement present from her
mother had been this extremely practical one, and Rose loved to open her
lower bureau drawer, and gloat over the incredible richness of
possessing twenty-four smooth, red-striped, well-hemmed glass-towels,
all her own. Norma had brought her two thick, dull gray Dedham bowls,
with ducks waddling around them, and these were in the drawer, too,
wrapped in tissue paper. And beside these were the length of
lemon-coloured silk that Rose had had for a year, without making up, and
six of her mother's fine sheets of Irish linen, and two glass
candlesticks that Rose had won at a Five-hundred party. Altogether, Rose
felt that she was making great strides toward home-making, especially as
she and Harry must wait for months, perhaps a year. Norma had promised
her two towels a month, until there were a whole dozen, and Wolf,
prompted by the same generous little heart, told her not to give the
gas-stove a thought, for she was to have the handsomest one that money
could buy, with a stand-up oven and a water-heater, from her brother.
Rose walked upon air.
But Norma was in a mood that she herself seemed unable to understand or
to combat. She felt a constant inclination toward tears. She didn't hate
the Melroses--no, they had been most friendly and kind. But--but it was
a funny world in which one girl had everything, like Leslie, and another
girl had no brighter prospect than to drudge away in a bookstore all her
life, or to go out on Sundays with her cousin. Norma dreamed for hours
of Leslie's life, the ease and warmth and beauty of it, and when Leslie
was actually heralded as engaged the younger girl felt a pang of the
first actual jealousy she had ever known. She imagined the beautiful
drawing-room in which Acton Liggett--perhaps as fascinating a person as
his brother!--would clasp pearls about Leslie's fair little throat; she
imagined the shining dinner tables at which Leslie's modestly dropped
blonde head would be stormed with compliments and congratulations.
And suddenly molasses peppermints and dish-washing became odious to
her, and she almost disliked Rose for her pitiable ecstasies over china
bowls and glass-towels. All the pleasant excitement of her call upon
Mrs. Melrose, with Aunt Kate, died away. It had seemed the beginning of
some vaguely dreamed-of progress toward a life of beauty and
achievement, but it was two weeks ago now, and its glamour was fading.
True, Christopher Liggett had come into Biretta's bookstore, with
Leslie, and he and Norma had talked together for a few minutes, and
Leslie had extended her Aunt Alice's kind invitation for tea. But no day
had been set for the tea, Norma reflected gloomily. Now, she supposed,
the stir of Leslie's engagement would put all that out of Christopher's
head.
Wolf was not particularly sympathetic with her, she mused,
disconsolately. Wolf had been acting in an unprecedented manner of late.
Rose's engagement seemed to have completely turned his head. He laughed
at Norma, hardly heard her words when she spoke to him, and never moved
his eyes from her when they were together. Norma could not look up from
her book, or her plate, or from the study of a Broadway shop window,
without encountering that same steady, unembarrassed, half-puzzled
stare.
"What's the matter with you, Wolf?" she would ask, impatiently. But Wolf
never told her.
As a matter of fact, he did not know. He was a silent, thoughtful
fellow, old for his years in many ways, and in some still a boy. Norma
and Rose had known only the more prosperous years of Kate's life, but
Wolf remembered many a vigil with his mother, remembered her lonely
struggles to make a living for him and for the girls. He himself was the
type that inevitably prospers--industrious, good, intelligent, and
painstaking, but as a young boy in the working world he had early seen
the terrors in the lives of men about him: drink, dirt, unemployment and
disease, debt and dishonour. Wolf was not quick of thought; he had
little imagination, rather marvelling at other men's cleverness than
displaying any of his own, and he had reached perhaps his twenty-second
or twenty-third summer before he realized that these terrors did not
menace him, that whatever changes he made in his work would be
improvements, steps upward. For actual months after the move to New York
Wolf had pondered it, in quiet gratitude and pleasure. Rent and bills
could be paid, there might be theatre treats for the girls, and chicken
for Sunday supper, and yet the savings account in the Broadway bank
might grow steadily, too. Far from being a slave to his employer, Wolf
began to realize that this rather simple person was afraid of him,
afraid that young Sheridan and some of the other smart, ingenious,
practically educated men in his employ might recognize too soon their
own independence.
And when the second summer in New York came, and Wolf could negotiate
the modest financial deal that gave him and the girls a second-hand
motor-car to cruise about in on Sundays and holidays, when they could
picnic up in beautiful Connecticut, or unpack the little fringed red
napkins far down on the Long Island shore, life had begun to seem very
pleasant to him. Debt and dirt and all the squalid horrors of what he
had seen, and what he had read, had faded from his mind, and for awhile
he had felt that his cup could hold no more.
But now, just lately, there was something else, and although the full
significance of it had not yet actually dawned upon him, Wolf began to
realize that a change was near. It was the most miraculous thing that
had ever come to him, although it concerned only little Norma--only the
little cousin who had been an actual member of his family for all these
years.
He had heard his mother say a thousand times that she was pretty; he had
laughed himself a thousand times at her quick wit. But he had never
dreamed that it would make his heart come up into his throat and
suffocate him whenever he thought of her, or that her lightest and
simplest words, her most casual and unconscious glance, would burn in
his heart for hours.
During his busy days Wolf found himself musing about this undefined and
nebulous happiness that began to tremble, like a growing brightness
behind clouds, through all his days and nights. Had there ever been a
time, he wondered, when he had taken her for granted, helped her into
her blessed little coat as coolly as he had Rose? Had it been this same
Norma who scolded him about throwing his collars on the floor, and who
had sent his coat to the cleaner with a ten-dollar bill in the pocket?
Wolf remembered summer days, and little Norma chattering beside him on
the front seat, as the shabby motor-car fled through the hot, dry city
toward shade and coolness. He remembered early Christmas Mass, and Norma
and Rose kneeling between him and his mother, in the warm, fir-scented
church. He remembered breakfast afterward, in a general sense of hunger
and relaxation and well-being, and the girls exulting over their
presents. And every time that straight-shouldered, childish figure came
into his dream, that mop of cloudy dark hair and flashing laugh, the
new delicious sense of some unknown felicity touched him, and he would
glance about the busy factory self-consciously, as if his thoughts were
written on his face for all the world to read.
Wolf had never had a sweetheart. It came to him with the blinding flash
of all epoch-making discoveries that Norma was his girl--that he wanted
Norma for his own, and that there was no barrier between them. And in
the ecstasy of this new vision, which changed the whole face of his
world, he was content to wait with no special impatience for the hour in
which he should claim her. Of course Norma must like him--must love him,
as he did her, unworthy as he felt himself of her, and wonderful as this
new Norma seemed to be. Wolf, in his simple way, felt that this had been
his destiny from the beginning.
That a glimpse of life as foreign and unnatural as the Melrose life
might seriously disenchant Norma never occurred to him. Norma had always
been fanciful, it was a part of her charm. Wolf, who worked in the great
Forman shops, had felt it no particular distinction when by chance one
day he had been called from his luncheon to look at the engine of young
Stanley Forman's car. He had left his seat upon a pile of lumber, bolted
the last of his pie, and leaned over the hood of the specially designed
racer interested only in its peculiarities, and entirely indifferent to
the respectful young owner, who was aware that he knew far less about it
than this mechanic did. Sauntering back to his work in the autumn
sunlight, Wolf had followed the youthful millionaire by not even a
thought. If he had done so, it might have been a half-contemptuous
decision that a man who knew so little of engines ought not to drive a
racer.
So Norma's half-formed jealousies, desires, and dreams were a sealed
book to him. But this very unreasonableness lent her an odd exotic charm
in his eyes. She was to Wolf like a baby who wants the moon. The moon
might be an awkward and useless possession, and the baby much better
without it, still there is something winning and touching about the
little imperious mouth and the little upstretched arms.
One night, when he had reached home earlier than either of the girls,
Wolf was in the warm bright kitchen, alone with his mother. He was
seated at the end of the scrubbed and bleached little table; Kate at the
other end was neatly and dexterously packing a yellow bowl with bread
pudding.
"Do you remember, years and years ago, Mother," Wolf said, chewing a
raisin, thoughtfully, "that you told me that Norma isn't my real
cousin?"
Kate's ruddy colour paled a little, and she looked anxious. Not Perseus,
coming at last in sight of his Gorgon, had a heart more sick with fear
than hers was at that instant.
"What put that into your head, dear?"
"Well, I don't know. But it's true, isn't it?"
Kate scattered chopped nuts from the bowl of her spoon.
"Yes, it's true," she said. "There's not a drop of the same blood in
your veins, although I love her as I do you and Rose."
She was silent, and Wolf, idly turning the egg-beater in an empty dish,
smiled to himself.
"But what made you think of that, Wolf?" his mother asked.
"I don't know!" Wolf did not look at her, but his big handsome face was
suffused with happy colour. "Harry and Rose, maybe," he admitted.
Kate sat down suddenly, her eyes upon him.
"Not the Baby?" she half whispered.
Her son leaned back in his chair, and folded his big arms across his
chest. When he looked at her the smile had faded from his face, and his
eyes were a trifle narrowed, and his mouth set.
"I guess so!" he said, simply. "I guess it's always been--Norma. But I
didn't always know it. I used to think of her as just another
sister--like Rose. But I know now that she'll never seem that
again--never did, really."
He was silent, and Kate sat staring at him in silence.
"Has she any relatives, Mother?"
"Has--what?"
"Has she people--who are they?"
Kate looked at the floor.
"She has no one but me, Son."
"Of course, she's not nineteen, and I don't believe it's ever crossed
her mind," Wolf said. "I don't think Norma ever had a real affair--just
kid affairs, like Paul Harrison, and that man at the store who used to
send her flowers. But I don't believe those count."
"I don't think she ever has," Kate said, heavily getting to her feet,
and beginning to pour her custard slowly through the packed bread.
Presently she stopped, and set the saucepan down, her eyes narrowed and
fixed on space. Then Wolf saw her press the fingers of one hand upon
her mouth, a sure sign of mental perturbation.
"I know I'm not worthy to tie her little shoes for her, Mother," he
said, suddenly, and very low.
"There's no woman in the world good enough for you," his mother
answered, with a troubled laugh. And she gave the top of his head one of
her rare, brisk kisses as she passed him, on her way out of the room.
Wolf was sufficiently familiar with the domestic routine to know that
every minute was precious now, and that she was setting the table. But
his heart was heavy with a vague uneasiness; she had not encouraged him
very much. She had not accepted this suggestion as she did almost all of
the young people's ideas, with eager cooperation and sympathy. He sat
brooding at the kitchen table, her notable lack of enthusiasm chilling
him, and infusing him with her own doubts.
When she came back, she stood with her back turned to him, busied with
some manipulation of platters and jars in the ice-box.
"Wolf, dear," she said, "I want to ask you something. The child's too
young to listen to you--or any one!--now. Promise me--_promise me_, that
you'll speak to me again before you----"
"Certainly I'll promise that, Mother!" Wolf said, quickly, hurt to the
soul. She read his tone aright, and came to lay her cheek against his
hair.
"Listen to me, Son. Since the day her mother gave her to me I've hoped
it would be this way! But there's nothing to be gained by hurry.
You----"
"But you would be glad, Mother! You do think that she might have me?"
poor Wolf said, eagerly and humbly. He was amazed to see tears brimming
his mother's eyes as she nodded and turned away.
Before either spoke again a rush in the hall announced the home-coming
girls, who entered the kitchen gasping and laughing with the cold.
"Whew!" panted Norma, catching Wolf's hands in her own half-frozen ones.
"I'm dying! Oh, Wolf, feel my nose!" She pressed it against his
forehead. "Oh, there's a wind like a knife--and look at my shoe--in I
went, right through the ice! Oh, Aunt Kate, let me stay here!" and
locking both slender arms about the older woman's neck, she dropped her
dark, shining head upon her breast like a storm-blown bird. "It's four
below zero in Broadway this minute," she added, looking sidewise under
her curling lashes at Wolf.
"Who said so?" Wolf demanded.
"The man I bought that paper from said so; go back and ask him. Oh, joy,
that looks good!" said Norma, eyeing the pudding that was now being
drawn, crackling, bubbling, and crisp, from the oven. "Rose and I fell
over the new lineoleum in the hall; I thought it was a dead body!" she
went on, cheerfully. "I came _down_ on my family feature with such a
noise that I thought the woman downstairs would be rattling the
dumb-waiter ropes again long before this!" She stepped to the
dumb-waiter, and put her head into the shaft. "What is it, darling?" she
called.
"Norma, behave yourself. It would serve you good and right if she heard
you," Mrs. Sheridan said, in a panic. "Go change your shoes, and come
and eat your dinner. I believe," her aunt added, pausing near her, "that
you _did_ skin your nose in the hall."
"Oh, heavens!" Norma exclaimed, bringing her face close to the dark
window, as to a mirror. "Oh, say it will be gone by Friday! Because on
Friday I'm going to have tea with Mrs. Liggett--her husband came in
to-day and asked me. Oh, the darling! He certainly is the--well, the
most--well, I don't know!----His voice, and the quiet, _quiet_ way----"
"Oh, for pity's sake go change your shoes!" Rose interrupted. "You are
the biggest idiot! I went into the store to get her," Rose explained,
"and I've had all this once, in the subway. How Mr. Liggett picks up his
glasses, on their ribbon, to read the titles of books----"
"Oh, you shut up!" Norma called, departing. And unashamed, when dinner
was finished, and the table cleared, she produced a pack of cards and
said that she was going to play _The Idle Year_.
"... and if I get it, it'll mean that the man I marry is going to look
exactly like Chris Liggett."
She did not get it, and played it again. The third time she interrupted
Wolf's slow and patient perusal of the _Scientific American_ to announce
that she was now going to play it to see if he was in love with Mary
Redding.
"Think how nice that would be, Aunt Kate, a double wedding. And if Wolf
or Rose died and left a lot of children, the other one would always be
there to take in whoever was left--you know what I mean!"
"You're the one Wolf ought to marry, to make it complete," Rose, who was
neatly marking a cross-stitch "R" on a crash towel, retaliated neatly.
"I can't marry my cousin, Miss Smarty."
"Oh, don't let a little thing like that worry you," Wolf said, looking
across the table.
"Our children would be idiots--perhaps they would be, anyway!" Norma
reminded him, in a gale of laughter. Her aunt looked up disapprovingly
over her glasses.
"Baby, don't talk like that. That's not a nice way to talk at all. Wolf,
you lead her on. Now, we'll not have any more of that, if you please. I
see the President is making himself very unpopular, Wolf--I don't know
why they all make it so hard for the poor man! Mrs. McCrea was in the
market this morning----"
"If I win this game, Rose, by this time next year," Norma said, in an
undertone, "you'll have----"
"Norma Sheridan!"
"Yes, Aunt Kate!"
"Do you want me to speak to you again?"
"No, ma'am!"
Norma subsided for a brief space, Rose covertly watching the game.
Presently the younger girl burst forth anew.
"Listen, Wolf, I'll bet you that I can get more words out of the letters
in Christopher than you can!"
Wolf roused himself, smiled, took out his fountain pen, and reached for
a sheet of paper. He was always ready for any sort of game. Norma,
bending herself to the contest, put her pencil into her mouth, and
stared fixedly at the green-shaded drop light. Rose, according to
ancient precedent, was permitted to assist evenly and alternately.
And Kate, watching them and listening, even while she drowsed over the
Woman's Page, decided that after all they were nothing but a pack of
children.