The facts in the case, if known to Elizabeth, might have served to throw
a clearer light upon Miss Tripp's somewhat unsatisfactory account of her
day in the city. In the first place, the weather which had dawned bright
and sunny had suddenly turned nasty, with a keen wind driving large,
moist snowflakes into the faces of pedestrians. Evelyn had found herself
without an umbrella and wearing her best hat and gown walking the long
block which intervened between her destination and the car from which
she had alighted.
Mrs. Baxter Crownenshield was known to the wide circle of her
acquaintances as a large, funereal person, invariably clothed in black,
and as perpetually exuding a copious and turgid sympathy upon all who
came in contact with her, somewhat after the manner of a cuttle-fish.
She lived in a mansion, large and dull like herself, on Beacon Street,
where she occupied herself exclusively with those dubious activities
euphemistically called "charitable work."
When Miss Evelyn Tripp was shown into Mrs. Crownenshield's chilly
reception-room that morning in February, she shivered a little in her
damp clothes as she sat down on a slippery chair and endeavoured vaguely
to forecast the coming interview. Her mother had suggested Mrs.
Crownenshield as a sort of _dernier resort_, with a fretful reminiscence
of the days when the Baxter Crownenshields were poor and lived in a
third-story back room of a fifth-rate boarding-house.
"I used to give Jane Crownenshield my gowns after I had worn them a
season," Mrs. Tripp said querulously; "and glad enough she was to get
them. As for her husband, he was not much of a man. Your father used to
say Crownenshield couldn't be trusted to earn his salt at honest work in
a counting-room; but when the war broke out he borrowed five hundred
dollars of your father, and bought and sold army stores. After that he
grew rich somehow, and we grew poor. But Jane Crownenshield ought to
remember that she owes everything she has to-day to your father."
Miss Tripp perched uncomfortably on the unyielding surface of the
inhospitable hair-cloth chair she had chosen, gazed attentively at the
portrait of the late lamented Crownenshield which hung over the
mantle-piece, and at the bronze representation of the same large and
self-satisfied countenance smirking at her from a shadowy corner, while
she repeated nervously the opening words with which she hoped to engage
his widow's friendly interest. It seemed an interminable period before
she heard the slow and ponderous footfall which presaged the majestic
approach of Mrs. Crownenshield; as a matter of fact, it was almost
exactly half an hour by the dismal-voiced black marble clock surmounted
by an urn.
Miss Tripp arose upon the entrance of the large lady in black and held
out her hand with a feeble effort after the sprightly ease of her old
society manner. "Good morning, Mrs. Crownenshield," she began, in a
voice which in spite of herself sounded weak and timid in the gloomy,
high-ceiled room. "I do hope I haven't interrupted any important
labour--I know you are always so much occupied with--charities, and----"
Mrs. Crownenshield stared meditatively at Miss Tripp's small, slight
figure, her gaze appearing to concern itself particularly with her
head-gear from which drooped two large dispirited plumes.
"Tripp--Tripp? I don't place you," she said at last,--"unless you are
Mary Tripp's daughter. She had a daughter, I believe." The Crownenshield
voice was loud and authoritative; it appeared to demand information as
something due, upon which interest had accumulated.
"I am Mary Tripp's daughter," Evelyn informed her, in a sudden panic
lest she be mistaken for an object of charity; then she hesitated, at a
loss for something to say next.
Mrs. Crownenshield sighed heavily. "Poor woman," she observed
lugubriously. "Mary Tripp has had many trials to support."
Evelyn's small, sensitive face grew a shade paler. "Yes," she agreed,
"my dear mother has had more than her share of sorrow and loss. I wonder
if you knew that we--that mother lost all of her remaining property in
the failure of the Back-Bay Security Company?"
Mrs. Crownenshield's cold grey eyes opened a little wider upon her
visitor. "How regrettable!" she observed. "No; I had not heard of it.
But I fear many others have suffered with Mary Tripp. Fortunately for
me, my dear late husband's investments were conservative and safe. Mr.
Crownenshield did not approve of Trust Companies--except those which he
controlled himself. If John Tripp had seen fit to leave his money in
trust with Mr. Crownenshield--and I have always felt surprised and hurt
to think that he did not do so, after all the business relations of the
past--Mary Tripp would be quite comfortable to-day. Pray convey to your
poor afflicted mother my condolences, and tell her that I was greatly
grieved to learn of her misfortunes."
Evelyn murmured incoherent thanks.
"I--came this morning to ask--your advice," she added after a heavy
pause. "I thought--that is, mother thought--that perhaps you--might know
of something I could do to--to earn money. I must do something, you
know." She had grown hot and cold with the shame of this confession
under the unwinking gaze of Mrs. Crownenshield's colourless eyes.
That lady folded her large white hands upon which glittered several
massive rings.
"I shall be very glad to advise you," she said, "if you will acquaint me
with your qualifications for service. I have frequent opportunities to
place indigent but worthy females, such as you appear to be. Are you a
good seamstress?"
"I fear not, Mrs. Crownenshield," faltered Evelyn. "I never liked
sewing."
"You could earn a dollar a day as a skilled seamstress," intoned the
female philanthropist inexorably. "Whether you like sewing or not is of
very little consequence in view of your necessities."
"I thought I should prefer teaching, or----"
Mrs. Crownenshield glanced abstractedly at the massive watch which
depended from some sort of funereal device in black enamel upon her
ample bosom, and compared its silent information with that of the black
marble time-piece on the mantle. Then she arose with a smile, which
appeared to have been carven upon her large pallid face with the effect
of a mask.
"I am very sorry indeed that I can not give you more of my time this
morning," she said mournfully. "But I have a board-meeting of The
Protestant Evangelical Refuge for aged, indigent and immoral females at
half-past eleven o'clock; and at one I am due at a luncheon of the
Federated Woman's Charitable Associations of Boston, at which I shall
preside."
She arose and enfolded both of Miss Tripp's small cold hands in her
large, moist clasp, with an air of fervid emotion.
"I feel for you," she sighed, "I do indeed! and my heart bleeds for your
unfortunate mother. Mary Tripp was always accustomed to every luxury and
extravagance. She must feel the change to abject poverty; but I trust
she will endeavour to lift her thoughts from the sordid cares of earth
toward that better land where--I feel sure--my dear late husband is
enjoying the rest that remaineth. After all, my poor girl, the
consolations of religion are the only sure refuge in this sad world. I
always strive to point the way to those situated like yourself."
"Thank you, Mrs. Crownenshield," said Evelyn stonily.
"If there is anything I can do to assist you further, don't fail to call
upon me freely!" warbled the lady, as Evelyn passed out into the hall.
"I will send you copies of the literature illustrating the work of our
various refuges and asylums. You may be glad to refer to them later."
Evelyn found herself in the street, she hardly knew how, her little feet
carrying her swiftly away from the Crownenshield residence. She felt
hurt and outraged in every fibre of her being, and her tear-blurred eyes
took little note of the weather which had changed from a wet clinging
snow to mingled rain and sleet, which beat upon her unprotected face
like invisible whips. She did not know where to go, or what to do next;
but she hurried blindly forward, her limp skirts gathered in one hand,
her head bent against the piercing wind.
Then, strangely enough, the stinging blast seemed suddenly shut away and
she looked up to find a stout umbrella interposed between her and the
storm. The handle of the umbrella was grasped by a large,
masterful-looking hand in a shabby brown glove, and a broad shoulder
hove into view from behind the hand.
"Where is your umbrella, Miss Tripp?" inquired a voice, as masterful in
its way as the hand.
"Oh!--I--that is, I forgot it," she faltered, looking up into Mr. George
Hickey's eyes, with a belated consciousness of the tears in her own.
"The rain--is--wet," she added, with startling originality.
"Hum; yes," assented Mr. Hickey thoughtfully. He was striving in his
dull masculine way to account for the wan, woe-begone expression of Miss
Tripp's face and for the telltale drops on her thick brown lashes. "I
was on my way to luncheon when I saw you," he went on. "--Er--have
you--lunched, Miss Tripp?"
Evelyn shook her head. "Is it as late as that?" she said. "I ought to
go----"
"Not back to Mrs. Brewster's," he said; "it's too late for
that.--Er--won't you give me the--er--the pleasure of lunching with you?
I--er--in fact, I'm exceedingly hungry myself, and----"
Mr. Hickey stopped short and looked about him somewhat wildly. It had
just occurred to him that he could not invite Miss Tripp to accompany
him to the business men's lunchroom where he usually took his
unimportant meal, and he wondered what sort of a place women went to
anyway, and what they ate?
The experienced Miss Tripp smiled; she appeared to read his thoughts
with an ease which astonished while it frightened him a little.
"It is very good of you to ask me, Mr. Hickey," she said prettily, "and
I shall be very happy to take lunch with you. Do you go to Daniels'? It
is such a nice place, I think, and not far up the street."
"Oh--er--yes; certainly. I like Daniels' exceedingly. A good place,
very. We'll--ah--just step across and---- Oh, I beg your pardon!"
Mr. Hickey was so agitated by the sudden and unprecedented position in
which he found himself that he almost knocked Miss Tripp's hat off with
a sudden swoop of his umbrella, as they crossed the street.
"How stupid of me!" he cried, as she put it straight with one little
hand, smiling up at him forgivingly as she did it. "I'm an awkward sort
of a chap, anyway," he went on with another illustrative jab of the
umbrella. "I guess I'm hopeless as--er--a ladies' man."
"Oh, no, you aren't," contradicted Miss Tripp sweetly. "I never felt
more relieved and--and happy than when I looked up to find your big
umbrella between my head and the storm. I went off to town in such a
hurry this morning that I left my umbrella in the rack in Elizabeth's
hall."
He tried not to look his curiosity; then blurted out his uppermost
thought. "You looked awfully done up when I overtook you; what--er----"
"I was," she confessed. "I was ready to weep with rage and
disappointment. Have you ever felt that way?"
"Well, no," said Mr. Hickey candidly; "I can't say that I've ever got to
the point you mention. I don't believe I've shed a tear since--since my
mother died. She was the only person in the world who cared a rap
whether I sank or swam, survived or perished, and after she went. I----
But I've been angry enough to--er--cuss a little now and then. Of
course ladies can't do that, so----"
Evelyn smiled appreciatively. "It might have relieved my feelings if you
had been there to use a little--strong language for me," she said. Then
she told him something of her visit to Mrs. Crownenshield and its
outcome.
"Hum, yes!" he observed. "I fancy I know her sort, and I--er--despise
it. What did you want her to do for you? There, now I've put my foot in!
It's none of my business of course, Miss Tripp, and you needn't tell
me."
Evelyn hesitated. "I shouldn't like you to think I'm whining or
complaining," she said soberly; "but there's no reason why you--or
anyone--shouldn't know that I am looking for work. I never have
worked"--the brave voice faltered a little--"but that's no reason why I
shouldn't work now. In fact, it's a reason why I must. Everything was
different when I was a girl to what it is now," she went on, calmly
ignoring her "feelings-on-the-subject-of-her-age" which had of late
years been abnormally sensitive. "I wasn't brought up to do anything
more useful than to sew lace on a pocket-handkerchief and play a few
easy pieces on the piano. Of course I learned a little French--enough to
chatter ungrammatically when we went abroad--and a little bad German,
and a little--a very little execrable Italian--nothing of a usable
quantity or quality, you see; so now I find myself----"
"But why? What has happened?" he urged in a low voice.
"The usual and what should have been the expected, I suppose," she told
him. "We--that is mother and I--lost our money. We never thought of such
a thing happening. We had always drawn checks for what we wanted, and
that was all there was of it--till the bank closed, and then of course
we had to think."
"I'm--Confound it; it's too bad!" he said strongly. "Banks have no
business to close; it's--er--it's a national disgrace. There ought to be
some law to--er--put a stop to such outrages on civilisation!"
Miss Tripp said nothing. She was experiencing a quite natural revulsion
of feeling, and was now exceedingly sorry that she had confided anything
of her affairs to Mr. Hickey. "He'll think of course that I am making a
cheap bid for sympathy--perhaps trying to borrow money of him," she
thought, while a painful scarlet crept up into her pale cheeks.
Mr. Hickey was not a tactful man. He did not observe the unwonted colour
in Miss Tripp's face, nor the proud light in her eyes.
"I've got more money than I know what to do with," he said bluntly,
"and--er--I wish you'd allow me to----"
Miss Tripp stopped short. "Oh, Mr. Hickey," she exclaimed regretfully,
"I don't know what you will think of me for accepting your kind
invitation to luncheon, and then leaving you--as I must. I'd entirely
forgotten an important engagement to meet--a friend of mine. I shall
have to ask you to excuse me. It's too bad, isn't it? But I am so
forgetful. And--please don't worry about my absurd confidences. Really,
I exaggerated; I always do. We are perfectly comfortable--mother and
I--only of course it was hard to lose our _surplus_--the jam on our
bread, as I tell mother. But one can live quite comfortably on plain
bread, and it is far better for one; I know that. Good-bye! So kind of
you to shelter me!--No; I couldn't think of taking your umbrella!
Really; don't you see the rain is over; besides, I'm going to take this
car. Good-bye, and thank you so much!"
Mr. Hickey stood quite still on the corner where she had left him and
stared meditatively after the car, which bore her away, for the space of
two unfruitful minutes. Then he turned squarely around and plodded down
town to the business men's lunchroom. He did not care, he told himself,
to change his habits by lunching at Daniels', which was a foolishly
expensive place and haunted by crowds of women shoppers. Women were
singular things, anyway. Mr. Hickey was satisfied, on the whole, that he
was not obliged to meet them often. And later in the day he was
selfishly pleased that he had not been obliged to loan his umbrella; for
the rain, which had ceased a little, came down in icy torrents which
froze as it fell on the sidewalks and branches of the trees.