_Mrs. Eugenia Parker receives that lowest form of human expression, an
anonymous letter, and pays the doctor’s daughter a call._
MRS. EUGENIA PARKER arrived at the Bella Vista with that lowest form of
human expression, an anonymous letter, in her neat pigskin portfolio.
It had reached her just as she was closing a convention in Chicago,
and she had caught the first possible train. It was clearly typed on a
sheet of plain white paper, and was brief and unemotional.
“Your son,” it began abruptly, “is making a fool of himself over a mill
girl. It is the talk of the town. For her sake, and for his safety, you
had better call him home.”
Mrs. Parker telephoned to the Carey house as soon as she reached her
room, but was told that her son, together with Miss Nancy, was enjoying
a house-party at Beulah-land, the plantation of Mrs. Bob Lee Tenafee,
and was not expected back for several days. She hung up the receiver
with an expression of reprieve. “It will give me time,” she thought,
compressing her earnest lips.
The next morning Glen Darrow received a letter on Bella Vista paper,
written in a clear and forceful if rather old-fashioned hand.
MY DEAR MISS DARROW,
I should like very much to call on you with reference to a matter
of great interest to us both. As you are employed during the day I
will, unless I hear to the contrary, come to your house at six-thirty
to-morrow, Friday. Trusting that this will be convenient for you,
I remain,
Sincerely yours,
EUGENIA ADAMS PARKER.
Miss Ada’s observant eyes noted that Glen changed color as she read
it. It had been a high-keyed fortnight for Miss Ada; she had not seen
Peter Parker except at a distance, but she had heard him described with
scorn and contumely by her young charge every morning at breakfast
and every evening at supper, and she burned with indignation at the
annoyance--the _impertinence_--which the young upstart continued to
inflict upon Glen Darrow. She was almost goaded to the point of going
to him, herself, and appealing to his better instincts (of whose
existence she had grave doubts) and at other times she considering
protesting to Mr. ’Gene Carey, whose chivalry would certainly extend
to a young gentlewoman in his employ.
But Glen seemed entirely capable, it was to be admitted, of fighting
her own battles with zest and something which closely resembled
enjoyment. The bitterest thing about her encounters with her young
employer was the fact that it was not until hours afterward that she
thought of sufficiently caustic and biting replies....
The serious aspect of it all, which she did not reveal to Miss Ada, was
that Luke Manders was blackly, murderously jealous. She tried earnestly
to make him see the absurdity of his attitude, to convince him of the
patent fact that the junior partner was merely by his farcical attitude
of admiration, choosing the most perfect method of making himself
objectional.
“I have eyes in my head,” the mountaineer reiterated. “I’m not a born
fool. If you can’t see he’s crazy about you, I can. And he’s got
everything in the world to offer you. I’ve got eyes to see that, too.”
“Luke! You know I wouldn’t--_couldn’t_--even if he----”
“Well, there’s only one way you can prove it to me!” He shut the door
of the office and stood with his back against it, and caught hold of
her and pulled her to him.
“But I’m--I’m going to prove it to you, Luke! On my birthday! The--the
very day I’m twenty! I----”
“Prove it _now_! To-day. That’s how you can prove it, and that’s the
only way!”
They were very difficult minutes. She came out of the scene shaken
and unhappy, and Luke flung himself out of the room in a dark and
silent fury, and Peter Parker came in by the other door, leaving it
open behind him, so that he was a silhouette against the greenness of
the lane. Ever since learning of old Ben Birdsall’s perfidy the youth
had been taking a keen if clumsy interest in the business end of the
Altonia, idling about the office and asking childish questions, to the
intense irritation of the superintendent.
“If he knew anything, sir,” he complained to Mr. Carey, “the Lord knows
we’d be glad to have his help, but just to have him nosing round,
asking fool questions----”
“I know, I know, Luke,” said the senior partner sympathetically. “It’s
mighty trying on you, I can see that. And the doctor won’t let me
go down for another week or ten days, so I can’t help you out. But
we can hardly throw him out of his own office, can we? Might look,”
he chuckled, “as if there was something we didn’t want him to find!
Something we wanted to keep covered up! But I’ll tell you, Luke, the
young folks are going to have a house-party out to Beulah-land, and
that’ll keep him amused, I reckon!”
And now the junior partner regarded the superintendent’s assistant with
delight. “I am glad to see you,” he beamed. “It’s amazing, how cleverly
you arrange these little secret meetings of ours!” He stepped nimbly
after her and got between her and the door.
Glen moved toward the other door, slowly, so that it might be quite
clear that he was not succeeding in flustering her, and he followed her
just as slowly, and again prevented her exit.
“I’d better put my hands behind me,” he said wistfully, “because if
I don’t, I shall touch your hair.... I’ve always wanted to ... but I
don’t want to unless you want me to!” He waited hopefully, and then
sighed a little. “It would be a very simple way for you to give a great
deal of innocent pleasure, you know. A fellow could warm his hands in
your hair ... he could warm his heart in it....” He smiled at her, a
little uncertainly, with his wide and humorous mouth, and passed gently
from the room by the other door.
Glen Darrow stood staring after him; it was a strange chance, a
plethora of episode, which gave her two scenes with two different
suitors in ten minutes in the same dingy old office, but they were
poles apart, for one was the golden lad of the golden legend, her
father’s familiar friend, the splendid young savage, the bold and
beautiful mountaineer who had made full use of his time and talents,
and one was the slim and fair young waster, the cumberer of the earth,
on whom she and Black Orlo were utterly agreed.
And now, at her breakfast table, she held in her hand the businesslike
note from his mother, stating that she would call on her with reference
to a matter of great interest to them both.
After an instant’s hesitation she handed it over to Miss Ada, and the
faded gentlewoman read it hastily and trembled with indignation.
“Glen, dear, do you suppose”--the little dabs of color which always
marked excitement stung on her cheekbones--“is it possible that this
woman has the effrontery to think that you are interested in her son?”
“That is exactly what she thinks, Miss Ada. Some one has told her
how he has been following me about--it’s very probable that she has
a detective watching him all the time, to protect him,” the doctor’s
daughter finished with a curling lip.
Miss Tenafee bridled. “What shall you do, dear? Send her word that you
are engaged at that hour? Let her come, and leave me to deal with her?”
The spinster put herself into fierce italics.
“No,” Glen answered her, levelly, “I shall see her, and I shall
talk to her, myself. I shall be--_glad_--to talk to her! It will
be--interesting.”
“Of all the impertinence!” her friend sputtered. “Very ordinary people,
without doubt, who have nothing but their money----”
“I wonder,” the girl gave a tight-lipped smile, “just how she will try
to handle me, Miss Ada? Will she be stern, or conciliatory? Do you
suppose she’ll shed tears and beg me not to ruin his life? Or will she
offer to make a settlement on me if I will let him go?”
“Glen, _dearest_--don’t say such things!”
“That’s what she’s coming for, Miss Ada, to rescue her son from the
clutches of a mill girl. The only wonder is that she didn’t simply
order me to appear at the hotel!”
Glen thought of little else during the day. Over and over again she
enacted the scene in her mind and rehearsed her set speech. She could
not quite decide whether to let Mrs. Parker speak first, to permit her
to plead or to threaten as the case might be, and then to deliver her
broadside, or to hold up a hand before the Federation President could
open her lips, and say--“Perhaps we shall save time, Mrs. Parker,
if I tell you at once that your son’s pursuit of me has been wholly
without encouragement. Indeed, I have let him see--so plainly that
only a defective mentality or a deliberate insolence would fail to be
convinced of it--that I feel for him only the greatest dislike and the
deepest contempt, not only for what he is, but for the life he leads,
and for everything about him!”
She committed the speech to memory, and when she came home to lunch
she rehearsed it before her looking-glass, and she repeated it as she
hurried up the hill at six.
Miss Ada had set the stage. The quaint and charming sitting room was
in perfect order; there were bowls of flowers on the gate-legged table
and on the desk-bookcase, a basket of delicate needlework, and two
irreproachable books, and she wore her gray silk and the good lace and
the jet jewelry which had been her father’s mother’s.
“My dear,” she said with unaccustomed firmness and finality, “I have
decided that it will be best for me to receive Mrs. Parker.”
“But, Miss Ada, _I_ want----”
Miss Ada held up a thin hand. “I said ‘to receive her,’ my child. I
will come down first, after Phemie has admitted her. I will seat her,
and greet her; I will exchange a few words with her--enough, and of a
sort, to let her see that you are not without protection, and then I
will summon you, and retire!”
Miss Tenafee followed her program perfectly. Glen, waiting in her
bedroom with the sprigged wall paper and the hooked rugs, heard the
firm step on the porch, the sharp jingle of the bell, and Phemie’s
unhurried tread. There was a pause, during which, she knew, Miss Ada
was entering from the dining room, and then, for something over five
minutes, the vague murmur of faintly heard voices. This was followed by
Miss Ada’s light and ladylike ascent of the stairs, and her flute-like
tones, a little louder than usual--“Glen, my dear, a Mrs. Parker is
calling. She says she has an appointment with you. Can you see her for
a few minutes?”
As Glen passed her she gave her arm a feverish squeeze.
Mrs. Parker was standing when Glen came into the room, looking at the
desk-bookcase. “Oh!”--she turned sharply, “Good afternoon, Miss Darrow!”
“Good afternoon,” the girl returned colorlessly.
“I--I was just looking at this interesting old piece of furniture,”
the caller remarked. “It is, as of course you know, very unusual, very
rare, in design.” She coughed. “I greatly admire----”
“It is not for sale,” the doctor’s daughter stated coldly.
“Certainly not! I--I had no such thought. I merely noticed--I have some
very good things myself, but nothing quite of that order, and I always
admire----”
It was a surprise to have the great lady speak so jerkily and
hurriedly, but it did not carry the amazement to Glen Darrow that it
would to the thousands who had heard Mrs. Eugenia Adams Parker on the
platform. It was, nevertheless, a distinct disappointment. It would
have been more satisfying to have her haughtier, more regal....
“I was talking of you with a mutual acquaintance, Miss Darrow, and--
May I sit down?--” She chose the armchair of Miss Ada’s own dear father
as Glen nodded permission, “Miss Jennings, who is likewise staying at
the Bella Vista. You were schoolmates, she tells me.”
“For a brief period,” Glen disclaimed gentility. “Then I left Miss
Josephine’s and went to public school.”
“That was an excellent move, I feel sure,” Mrs. Parker approved. “I am
a hearty supporter of the public schools, Miss Darrow, and feel that no
normal child should be deprived of that fine, well-rounded, democratic
training.”
(“That,” Glen told herself, “is put in to show me she is not a snob,
and that she’s not objecting to me because I’m poor!”) She was meeting
Mrs. Parker’s eyes more steadily than Mrs. Parker was meeting hers,
which proved that she was dominating the situation, though it was
possible that the young idler’s mother was not unmindful of the charm
of the room, and that she found something to warrant more than a
passing glance in the girl herself.
She spoke with painstaking enthusiasm of the beauty of the day and of
the landscape, and regretted that this was her first visit further
south than Baltimore, where she had conducted a convention several
years earlier, of which Miss Darrow might have read, but it was
disconcerting to Glen, to have the oppressor of the poor, the glutted
tyrant whose heel was on the aching neck of the toilers, hesitating,
and repeating and correcting herself.
Glen began to feel very uncomfortable. She was not going to feel
sorry for this thick-bodied, sternly corseted, gray dowager, that was
certain, but it was equally certain that much of the zest would go out
of the affair if Mrs. Parker, as seemed only too probable, should beg
and plead instead of threaten. It would be a relief to get it over
with. “You said you wished to see me on a matter of interest to us
both, Mrs. Parker.”
“Yes. Yes, I did, Miss Darrow.” Her voice steadied, but a slow and
difficult red rose in her plain face. “It was, as you surmise, about my
son.”
With a rush, almost as if she feared she would not do it if she
hesitated, Glen flung herself into her speech. She remembered it
perfectly, and did not miss a syllable of it. “Then, perhaps we shall
save time, Mrs. Parker, if I tell you at once that your son’s pursuit
of me has been wholly without encouragement. Indeed, I have let him
see--so plainly that only a defective mentality or a deliberate
insolence would fail to be convinced of it--that I feel for him only
the greatest dislike and the deepest contempt, not only for what he is,
but for the life he leads, and for everything about him.”
Mrs. Eugenia Parker’s embarrassed color ebbed slowly out of her face,
and left her almost alarmingly pale. She opened her severely plain
handbag and took out a good-sized handkerchief initialed with a small
block P and wiped her lips. Then, without a word, she rose from the
Tenafee chair and stepped to the window, and stood looking out into the
glow of the setting sun.
(“She’s so surprised she doesn’t know what to say,” Glen thought. “Now
she won’t have to beg or threaten or bribe, and it just takes her
breath away.”) It was a surprise, and tumbled over all her preconceived
ideas like ninepins, but a greater surprise was in store. Mrs. Parker
faced about, and against the brightness of the window was merely a
silhouette; it was impossible to see her features until she moved
nearer.
“I--I expected--I thought--even before seeing you--after talking with
Miss Jennings, that you would say that--at least”--she turned now,
and the light was on her instead of behind her, and the amazing,
incredible fact was plain: the President of the Federated Clubs was
weeping--“or at least--that you would _think_ that,” she finished
with a little gulp. “I--I could not see how it could be otherwise.
But I--_hoped_. The saying is that love is blind, Miss Darrow, but
when you have lived as long as I have, you will know that that is
not true; love, if it is worth anything, is Argus-eyed for faults in
its object. I know, none better, what Peter’s faults are.” She blew
her nose and swallowed twice. “I have seen them bud and blossom, and
I have deplored them more than any words can tell you. But in spite
of them--and they are not mean or cruel or low faults, Miss Darrow,
I must say that in his defense--in spite of them, many people have
found that he has endearing qualities. I--I have found it so myself,
in spite of my constant disapproval of his idleness and his lack of
guiding ambition. Have you--have you, by any chance, watched him in
the presence of children and animals and old people? That is said to
be a sign of _something_, isn’t it? I have never known him to do an
unkind or ungenerous thing, unless, of course, in the sense that he has
not awakened to any constructive activity. That would make his faults
of omission, rather than commission,” she was warming to her theme,
regaining a little of her platform poise. “Of course, I know that there
is nothing, up to date, in his history or achievements to inspire
faith in a young woman of your type, but I have always dreamed of the
day when he might fall in love, and with a girl who would set his feet
on the upgrade.”
Glen Darrow, looking at her and listening to her, had turned as pale
as the President of the Federation. Twice she essayed to speak, but
produced only a faltering murmur.
“What he needs--all he needs,” the older woman went on, “is an
awakening; something to jar him out of this absurd pose of persiflage.
I have been in such _terror_ that he would be attracted by one of the
girls in his young set; you know the type I mean; it would put the
final seal upon his uselessness. But if a girl with character and
purpose could possibly come to care for him, to see through the youth
and nonsense of him what I honestly believe to be there”--the tears
were coming again, faster than before, and she had to devote an instant
to their disposal. “I beg your pardon; I am not an emotional woman, and
rarely give way to my feelings. But--Miss Darrow--I suppose it is a
waste of breath to ask you to reconsider--to ask if you think there is
any chance that you might change----”
It was still bewilderingly hard to find words and produce them, but
Glen shook her head with its brazen glory of copper-colored hair.
“I hadn’t much hope,” it came desolately. “But I find it much harder,
now, to give up what little hope I had. Oh, Miss Darrow,” she stepped
toward the doctor’s daughter who retreated a little as she advanced,
and halted, by a pixie trick of circumstance upon the Persian rug, “I
wish, I wish more than any words can express to you that you could find
it in your heart to marry my son!”