LUCILLE HARDCOME, having observed the kiss, instantly pulled the bell,
and Lanny and Alice started apart guiltily, and Alice opened the door.
Seeing Lucille was a relief, for the visitor might have been anyone, and
Lucille further relieved her by pinching her cheek and shaking a playful
finger at her, accompanied by a jingling of many bracelets.
“So this is he!” she teased. “Am I to meet him, Alice, or are you too
jealous to let him know other women!”
Lanny stepped forward. He shook hands warmly, making Lucille's bracelets
jingle like miniature cymbals, and Lucille exchanged a few words, half
grave and half gay, taking his measure meanwhile--or thinking she was
taking it, for she was a poor judge of individual character, however
well she understood it in the gross. She liked the impressive. Henry
Ward Beecher's hair meant more to her than Henry Ward Beecher's mind;
she could never have understood a blithe statesman or one not in a
frock coat. In time, not being an utter fool, she was apt to see through
hollow impressiveness or to see real worth under unimpressive exteriors,
but this came slowly. Her first impressions were usually wrong, as when
she had misjudged Dominie Dean. In Lanny, standing in the illy lighted
little hall, she saw nothing of the inner Lanny. She thought, “A
male trifle; hardly worth serious consideration; a girl's first love
material,” and felt she had him properly scheduled.
“Your father is in the study?” she asked, and tapped on the study door
lightly, not to injure the knuckles of her kid gloves. If David had not
heard the light tap--which he did, knowing Lucille was in the hall--he
would have heard her bracelets. He opened the door.
We are apt to give men and women too much credit for pursuing a definite
course. The hard heads that, at the beginning of a career, lay clean-cut
plans of ambition are in an infinitesimal minority. With most ambition
is not much more than a feeling of uneasiness, an oyster's mild
irritation at the grain of sand that intrudes into the shell. Just as
some forms of indigestion cause an inward uneasiness that urges the
sufferer to eat and eat, regardless of what is eaten, and only seeking
relief from what seems a pang of hunger--but is actually a pathologic
condition--so the victim of ambition feeds on whatever comes to hand.
Lucille was such a victim.
When David opened the door of his study Lucille sailed in like a
full-rigged ship, and seated herself at his desk. She opened her purse,
and disgorged the roll of bank notes, which opened itself like something
alive. She pushed the money to the edge of the desk.
“You'll find that right,” she said, and dipped into her purse again.
“This is the note, if you insist. I've left the time blank--shall I make
it a year?”
She picked up David's pen.
“I think six months--”
“It is to be just as you wish it,” she said, and inserted the time, and
slid the note toward David, handing him the pen. He was standing, and he
bent over the desk and signed his name. Lucille blotted it briskly, and
put the note back in her purse. The money still remained where she had
pushed it. She put it into David's hand.
“There!” she exclaimed. “Now, no more worry!”
“I can't tell you how I appreciate this, Mrs. Hardcome,” said David.
“Please!” she begged, raising a hand. She snapped her purse and dropped
it into her lap. “Alice told me of her engagement, the dear girl!” she
said. “I met the happy man in the hallway just now.”
“Alice told you?” said David, surprised. “Oh! this morning, of course.
She said nothing just now? We think it best not to make the engagement
public yet; they will not be married for a year, at least--they agree to
that--and I thought she might have told you.”
Lucille put out her hand; there was nothing for David to do but take it.
“I'm so glad!” she cried effusively. “Glad the engagement is not to be
announced, I mean; glad the wedding is not to be for a year. I wonder if
you feel as I do, that so many marriages are too hastily made? Alice is
such a dear girl, Mr. Dean; no man could be too good for her.”
The implication was plain; Lanny was not good enough for Alice.
“It isn't as if dear 'Thusia could be up and about,” said Lucille, still
holding David's hand. “We know 'Thusia would do all a mother should do,
but she is so handicapped. Young girls are so impulsive; they need just
a bit of guiding here and a word there. We should let them think they
are making a free choice, but should help them in making it. Mr. Dean,
frankly, don't you think Alice is making a mistake!”
She dropped the dominie's hand, and settled herself in his desk chair
again. It was impossible to shake off the confidential air she had
imparted to the interview. David was not sure that Alice was not making
a mistake. He hesitated, seeking some word that would deny that 'Thusia
had not done all she should have done for Alice. What he wanted to
tell Lucille Hardcome was that he and 'Thusia were quite able to
manage Alice's affairs, but it was necessary to tell Lucille more than
politely, and he felt at heart that Lucille was perhaps right--someone
should have guided Alice's choice a little.
“I know you think so,” Lucille said without waiting for his reply. “I
know just how you feel. I feel the same--quite as if Alice was my own
daughter; we all feel as if Alice was that; the daughter of the church.
Not but what this young man may be thoroughly praiseworthy, Mr. Dean,
but is he the son-in-law our dominie should have! Oh, no! No!”
In anything he said in Lanny's favor, David must be on the defensive.
He did not know enough of the young man yet to speak with unbounded
enthusiasm or calm certainty.
“My short interview with him was quite satisfactory,” he said. “In the
essentials he seems to meet any reasonable requirements. His manner is
manly.”
Lucille interrupted him.
“Oh, all that, of course! Alice is not a baby, she would not choose
anyone utterly impossible, I dare say.” Then, leaning toward David, she
said: “Mr. Dean, you know and I know that Alice ought not marry this
Lanny, or whatever his name is. This Welsh--do you know what his father
is? He's an awful creature. You know Alice can't be permitted to marry
into such a family. Now, please,” she urged, “just leave it all to me.
Men can't manage such things, and poor dear 'Thusia--”
“But, my dear Mrs. Hardcome,” David began. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Nonsense!”
she cried, rising and mocking him. “I think it is about time someone
took you in hand, David Dean; I think it is just about time! 'Thusia is
a dear soul, and Mary and Rose are dear souls too, but the whole lot
of you haven't enough worldly gumption to say boo to a goose. You'd sit
here and let Alice marry a bartender (well, then, an ex-bartender!) and
you wouldn't see it would be the ruin of the whole lot of us, and of
him, too, or if you did see it you wouldn't raise a hand.”
She spoke rapidly but without excitement; teasingly.
“Mr. Dean,” she continued in a more serious tone, “I am worldly and I
know the world. Alice must not marry this young fellow; she must not!
And she is not going to!”
“But, Mrs. Hardcome,” cried David, thoroughly frightened. “I cannot let
you interfere in what is so completely a family matter.”
“David Dean, will you please stop Mrs. Hard-coming me? My name is
Lucille quite as much as Mrs. Derling's is Mary, and you are not going
to frighten me away by calling me Mrs. Hardcome. Now,” she said, “will
you leave Alice to me?”
“I will not!” said David; “I must beg you not to interfere in any way. I
understand Alice; 'Thusia understands her. We are not, perhaps,” he said
with a smile, “as lacking in worldly wisdom as you imagine.”
Lucille shook her head and laughed. “Incorrigible!” she exclaimed.
“You'll never understand how much you need someone like me. A business
manager? Shall I call it that? Then it is all settled--I am to see that
Alice does not make this mistake.”
“No!” cried David, but she was at the door. “It is all settled!” she
triumphed.
“Mrs. Hardcome!”
“All settled!” she laughed, and went out and closed the door.
David put his hand on the knob and hesitated. After all was said,
Lucille was right, no doubt. The marriage would be more than annoying;
he himself was too prone to consider character as canceling worldly
objections. There was one thing about Lucille Hardcome--she usually had
her way. She was a “manager.”
Lucille had gone from David to 'Thusia. David waited until she had left
the house. He found 'Thusia more complacent than he had expected to find
her. Lucille's visits sometimes annoyed her.
“I feel so relieved, David,” she said. “Lucille has been here and spoken
about Alice. There was so little I could do, tied down as I am, and Ruth
could hardly help, and of course Mary would hesitate, feeling as she
does about Alice and Ben. Lucille is just the person we needed.”
“'Thusia! And I thought, of all the women in Riverbank, she was the one
we would want to have keep hands off!”
“But you see,” said 'Thusia cheerfully, “she is going to keep her hands
off, in a way. She is going to be my hands.”
David had his own idea of Lucille's being anyone's hands but her own,
but he said nothing then. He had the money in his pocket with which to
pay his debts, and he was eager to settle with Herwig. He kissed 'Thusia
and went out.