The following week Claire was surprised to find a letter on her desk at
the office. The few written favors that came her way usually were
addressed to the Clay Street flat, so that she was puzzled by this
innovation and the unfamiliar handwriting. Glancing swiftly at the
signature, she was surprised to see the name "Lily Condor," scrawled
loosely at the foot of the note. It seemed that Mrs. Condor was giving a
little musicale in Ned Stillman's apartments on the following Friday
night, and, if one could believe such a thing, the lady implied that the
evening would scarcely be complete without the presence of Claire
Robson--or, to put it more properly, Claire Robson and her _mother_.
As Claire had scarcely said a half-dozen words to Mrs. Condor on the
night of the Red Cross concert, this invitation seemed little short of
extraordinary. But, as Claire thought it over, she recalled that there
had been some general conversation about music, in which she had
admitted a discreet passion for this form of entertainment, even going
so far as to confess that she played the piano herself upon occasion.
Her first impulse, clinched by the familiar feminine excuse that she had
nothing suitable to wear, was to send her regrets. At once she thought
of the scorned finery that Gertrude Sinclair had included in her last
box, and the more she thought about it the more convinced she became
that she had no real reason for refusing. But a swift, strange regret
that her mother had been included in the invitation took the edge off
her anticipations. She tried to dismiss this feeling, but it grew more
definite as the morning progressed.
For days Claire had been striking at the shackles of habit with a rancor
bred of disillusionment. She had been on tiptoe for new and vital
experiences, and yet, for any outward sign, her life bid fair to escape
the surge of any torrential circumstance. Particularly, at the office,
things had gone on smoothly. The other clerks had accepted Claire's
advancement without either protest or enthusiasm. Even Miss Munch had
veiled her resentment behind the saving trivialities of daily
intercourse. She had gone so far as to introduce Claire to her cousin, a
Mrs. Richards, who had come in at the noon hour for a new tatting
design. This cousin was a large, red-faced woman, with an aggressively
capable manner. She had the quick, ferret-like eyes of Miss Munch and
the loose mouth of a perpetual gossip.
"She's the one I told you about the other day," Miss Munch had explained
later--"the housekeeper for _your friend_ Stillman's father-in-law." She
gave nasty emphasis to this trivial speech.
Flint had been direct and business-like almost to the point of
bruskness. But Claire knew that such moods were not unusual, so she took
little stock in the ultimate significance of his restrained manner.
Perhaps the most indefinable change had come over Claire's home life.
Her mother's unfailing string of trivial gossip, formerly not without a
certain interest, now scarcely held her to even polite attention.
Indeed, her self-absorbed silence, while Mrs. Robson poured out the
latest news about Mrs. Finnegan's second sister's husband's mother--who
was suddenly stricken with some incurable disease, made all the more
mysterious by the fact that its nature was not divulged--was so apparent
that her mother, goaded on to a mild exasperation, would ask,
significantly:
"What's the matter, Claire? Have you a headache?"
Mrs. Robson was never so happy as in the discovery of some one with a
mysterious disease, particularly if the victim's relatives were loath to
discuss the issue.
"They think they fool me!" she would say, triumphantly, to Claire, "but
I guess I know what ails her.... Didn't her mother, and her uncle, and
her sister's oldest child die of consumption? I tell you it's in the
family. The last time I saw her she nearly coughed her head off."
Not that Mrs. Robson was unsympathetic; brought face to face with
suffering, she blossomed with every impulsive tenderness, but her
experiences had confirmed her in pessimism, and every fresh tragedy
testified to the soundness of her faith. Her pride at diagnosing
people's ills and pronouncing their death-sentences was almost
professional. And she had an irritating way of making comments such as
this:
"Well, Claire, I see that old Mrs. Talbot is dead at last!... I knew she
wouldn't live another winter. They'll feel terribly, no doubt; but, of
course, it is a great relief."
Or:
"Why, here is the death notice of Isaac Rice! I thought he died _years_
ago. My, but he was a trial! What a blessing!"
This was the type of conversation that Claire was finding either empty
of meaning or illuminating to the point of annoyance. What amazed her
was the fact that she had remained blind so long to the slightest of the
conversational food upon which she had been fed.
Claire did not tell her mother about the invitation to Mrs. Condor's
musical evening.
"I'll wait," she said to herself. "Thursday will be time enough."
Although why delay would prove advantageous was not particularly
apparent.
On Wednesday night at the dinner-table, Mrs. Robson, as if still puzzled
at her daughter's altered mood, said, rather cautiously:
"There's to be a reception at the church on Friday night."
"For whom?" inquired Claire, with pallid interest.
"I didn't quite catch the name.... Some woman back from France. She's
been nursing in one of the British hospitals. She's to get Red Cross
work started at the church. It seems San Francisco is a bit slow over
taking up the work, but, then, you know, we're poked off here in a
corner and I suppose we don't quite realize yet.... Anyway, Mrs. Towne
wants us to help with the coffee. She says you should have been in the
church-work long ago. You look so self-contained and efficient.... I
told her we would be there at half past seven and get the dishes into
shape."
Claire's heart beat violently. "Friday night? I'm sorry, mother; I have
another engagement."
"Another engagement? Why, Claire, how funny! You never said anything
about it. I don't know what to say to Mrs. Towne."
Claire felt calm again. "Just tell her the truth."
"But she'll think so strange that I didn't know ... that I...."
"You shouldn't have spoken for me until you found out whether I was
willing."
"Willing! _Willing!_ I didn't suppose you'd be anything else. I've been
trying to get you in with the right people at the church for the last
fifteen years. I've tried so hard...."
"Yes, mother, I know," said Claire, patiently. "But don't you see?
That's just it. You've tried too hard."
Mrs. Robson began to whimper discreetly. "How you do talk, Claire! I
declare I don't know what to make of it. I suppose you're bitter about
Mrs. Towne the other night. I felt so at first, but I can see now we
were at the wrong table. And, after all, everything came out
beautifully. We sat with Mr. Stillman, and that had a very good effect,
I can tell you. Especially when everybody saw us leave with him. Why, it
brought Mrs. Towne to her feet."
"Yes, and that's the humiliating part of it."
"Well, Claire, when you've lived as long as I have you won't be so
uppish about making compromises," flung back Mrs. Robson. "Of course, if
you've got another engagement, you've got another engagement, but
if...."
"I wouldn't have gone, anyway. I'm through with that sort of thing."
"Why, Claire, how can you! It's your duty, _now_!--with your country at
war--and ... and ... Even that dreadful Serbian the other night made
_that_ plain."
"I'll go with you to church on Sundays, of course, but--"
"What am _I_ to do?" wailed Mrs. Robson. "At least you might think of
me! I've not had much pleasure in my life, goodness knows, and now just
as I...."
Mrs. Robson broke off abruptly on a flood of tears. Two weeks ago these
tears would have overwhelmed Claire. As it was, she sat calmly stirring
her tea, surprised and a little ashamed of her coldness. The truth was
that Claire Robson was feeling all the fanatical cruelty that comes with
sudden conviction. The forms of her new faith had hardened too quickly
and left outlines sharp and uncompromising.
For years Claire had found shelter from the glare of middle-class
snobbery beating about her head, by shrinking into her mother's
inadequate shadow as a desert bird shrinks into the thin shadow of a dry
reed by some burned-out watercourse. Now a full noon of disillusionment
had annihilated this shadow and given her the courage of necessity. And
there was something more than courage--there was an eagerness to stand
alone in the commonplace words with which she sought to temper her
refusal to assist at the coming church reception:
"I can't see any good reason, mother, why you shouldn't go and help Mrs.
Towne.... What have my plans to do with it?"
To which her mother answered:
"I do so hate to be seen at such places alone, Claire."
Claire made no reply. She did not want to give her mother's indecision a
chance to crystallize into a definite stand. She knew by long experience
that if this happened it would be fatal. But in a swift flash of
decision Claire made up her mind for one thing--she would either go to
Mrs. Condor's evening alone or she would send her regrets.