"Why, Miss Claire, how could you! Where have you been? And your mother
in such a bad way!" Mrs. Finnegan broke into sudden tears.
Claire, fumbling in her bag for the front-door key, looked up. Mrs.
Finnegan had swung open the door to the Robson flat and she stood like a
vision of disaster upon the threshold.
"What has happened?" Claire's voice rose with a note of swift
apprehension.
"Your mother ... she's paralyzed! She was taken last night. The doctor
says it would have happened, anyway. But I say it was worry, that's what
it was. With you away all night and never a word!"
Claire climbed the stairs in silence, aware that Mrs. Finnegan was
following at a discreet distance. Already the house seemed permeated
with an atmosphere of tragedy and gloom in spite of the morning light
pouring in unscreened at every window. Mrs. Robson's room was the only
exception to this unusual excess of cold radiance--unusual, because it
was one of Mrs. Robson's prides to keep her window-shades lowered to a
uniform and genteel distance.
Until Claire came face to face with her mother she almost had fancied
that her neighbor was indulging in a crude and terrible joke, but one
look sufficed. Mrs. Robson lay staring vacantly at the ceiling; she
could not move, she could not speak, and her spirit showed through the
veiled light in her eyes like a mysterious spot of sunshine in a shaded
well. Above a swooning sense of calamity Claire felt the strength of a
tender pretense struggling to communicate its vague hope to the stricken
form. She raised the window-shade slightly and sat down upon the bed.
"Why, mother, what's all this?" she began, in a tone of gentle banter,
as she stroked the helpless hands. "Were you worried? I'm so sorry! I
asked Miss Munch to let you know. Didn't she?... I went over to Mr.
Flint's to take dictation. The storm washed out the track. I tried to
make the boat in Mr. Stillman's car, but we broke down and missed it....
I had to stay all night in Sausalito."
Mrs. Robson, stirring faintly, attempted to speak. Claire turned
helplessly to Mrs. Finnegan. "I can't make out what she is trying to
say."
Mrs. Finnegan bent an attentive ear. "It's about Stillman," she
explained. "Your mother don't understand why...."
The speaker stopped with significant discretion. It was plain to Claire
that _nobody_ understood, and she felt a dreary futility as she answered
both her mother and Mrs. Finnegan with:
"It's a long story. Some other time, when ... when you're feeling
better."
A look of gray disappointment crossed Mrs. Robson's face. Mrs.
Finnegan's upper lip seemed shaped suddenly with a suspicion that died
almost as quickly as it began. There was a ring at the bell. "That's the
doctor," said Mrs. Finnegan, and she left to open the door.
The doctor chilled Claire with his steely nonchalance as she stood apart
while he went through the usual forms of a professional visit that was
obviously futile. She followed him to the front door. He answered her
eager inquiries with the cold triumph of authority.
"How long will she last?... Well, Miss Robson, that is hard to say. She
might go off to-night. Then, again, she might live twenty years. She'll
scarcely get any better, though. No, a nurse isn't essential, unless you
can afford one. But you ought to have another woman about. If you have
any relatives you'd better send for them and let them help out."
Claire did not find the doctor's announcement that her mother might die
at once nearly so brutal as his assurance that she had an equal chance
for existing twenty years. _Twenty years!_ Claire closed the door and
sank upon the steps overwhelmed.
But there was scant leisure on this first dreadful day of Mrs. Robson's
illness for theatrical exuberances. Claire, unaccustomed to the routine
of household duties, took a thousand unnecessary steps. She tried to
work calmly, to bring an acquired philosophy to her tasks, but she went
through her paces with a feverish, though stolid, anxiety. The long
night which followed was inconceivably a thing of horror. Her wakeful
moments were dry-eyed with despair, and when she slept it was only to
come back to a shivering consciousness.
Mrs. Finnegan found her next morning fresh from an attempt to rouse her
mother into accepting a few swallows of milk, which had ended in
pathetic and miserable failure. She had thrown herself in an abandon of
grief across the narrow kitchen table, and the coffee from an overturned
cup was trickling in a warm, thick stream to the floor. But the paroxysm
did her good. She rose to the kindly caresses of her neighbor like a
flower beaten to earth but refreshed by a relentless torrent. After
this, custom and habit began to reassert themselves in spite of the
crushing weight of circumstance. She 'phoned to the office. Mr. Flint
had returned, they told her. She explained her trouble to the cashier.
"I'll try to be back the first of the week," she finished, in a burst of
illogical hope.
Later in the day Mrs. Robson's two sisters arrived in answer to Claire's
summons. Claire's impulse to send for them had been purely
instinctive--an atrophied survival of clan-spirit that persisted beyond
any real faith in its significance. Perhaps she had a feeling that her
mother wished it; certainly she had no illusions as to the manner in
which the unwelcome news of Mrs. Robson's illness would be received by
these two self-centered females.
It was Mrs. Thomas Wynne who came in first, bundled mysteriously in her
furs and holding a glass of wine jelly as a conventional symbol of the
rôle of Lady Bountiful which she had for the moment assumed. Claire
could almost fancy how conspicuously she had contrived to carry this
overworked badge of the humanities, and the languid drawl of her voice
as she explained to her friends _en route_:
"So sorry I can't stop and chat. But, as you see, I'm running along to a
sick-room.... Oh no, nothing serious, I hope! Just my sister.... Mrs.
Ffinch-Brown? Oh, dear no! A younger sister. I don't think you know her.
She's had a great deal of trouble and hasn't been about much for a
number of years."
Mrs. Thomas Wynne had the trick of intrenching a stubborn family pride
by throwing back her head and daring all comers to uncover any of the
Carrol clan's shortcomings. But her selfishness had at least the virtue
of a live-and-let-live attitude that contrasted with the futile
aggressiveness of Mrs. Edward Ffinch-Brown. She asked Claire no
questions concerning her life or her prospects; she did not even pry
very deeply into the chances that her sister had for an ultimate
recovery. Her philosophy seemed to be founded on the knowledge that
uncovered cesspools were bound to be unpleasant, and, since she had no
desire to assist in their purification, she was quite content to keep
them properly screened. She came and deposited her wine jelly and patted
her sister's hand and went away again without leaving even a ripple in
her wake. As she departed she gave further proof of her insolent
insincerity by calling back at Claire:
"Remember, Claire, if there is anything I can do, just let me know."
Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's visit was scarcely more comforting, but decidedly
more exciting. She had not the suavity of her indifferences. Mrs.
Robson's untimely tilt with fate irritated her, and she took no pains to
conceal this fact.
"I suppose your mother is just as she's always been--a creature of
nerves," she said, as she dropped into a seat for a preliminary session
with Claire before venturing upon the unwelcome sight of her stricken
sister. "I don't know why it is, but she seems to be one of those people
who always has had something the matter with her. Poor Emily! Well, I
suppose we are all made differently."
When she entered the sick-room she found fault with the arrangement of
the bed, the manner in which the covers slipped off, the uncovered glass
of medicine on the bureau.
"You should braid your mother's hair, too. And why don't you pull the
window down from the top?"
Claire stood in sullen silence while her aunt vented a personal
annoyance on the nearest objects. But when Mrs. Ffinch-Brown's
ill-natured ministrations brought a dumb but protesting misery to the
sufferer's face, Claire found the courage to say, as gently as she
could:
"Why bother, Aunt Julia? Mother is really too sick now to care much
about appearances?"
This was just what Claire's aunt had hoped for. It gave her a chance for
escape without any strain upon her conscience. She did not remain long
after what she was pleased to consider a rebuff.
"Well, Claire, I see I can't be of much help," she announced as she
powdered her nose before the shabby hat-rack mirror and drew on her
gloves.... After she was gone Claire found a five-dollar bill on the
living-room table. She opened the gilt-edged copy of Tennyson that,
together with a calf edition of Ouida's _Moths_, had stood for years as
guard over the literary pretensions of the household, and thrust the
money midway between its covers. Doubtless a time was coming when she
would find it necessary to use this money, but the present moment was
too charged with the giver's resentful benevolence to make such a
compromise possible.
For three consecutive days Mrs. Ffinch-Brown swooped down upon the
Robson household and gave vent to her pique. She had been divorced so
long from these melancholy relations of hers that she had really
forgotten their existence, and she displayed all the rancor of a woman
who discovers suddenly a moth hole in the long undisturbed folds of a
treasured cashmere shawl. Her precisely timed visits had not the
slightest suspicion of attentiveness back of them, and Claire guessed
almost at once that they were more in the nature of assaults carried on
in the hope that she would meet enough opposition to insure an honorable
retreat. Unlike Mrs. Thomas Wynne, Aunt Julia inquired minutely into
family matters, insisted on knowing Claire's plans, and was aggressively
free with advice.
"You ought to be making plans, Claire," she said, at the conclusion of
her second visit. "You can't go on like this. I'd like to be able to do
more, but of course I can't spare much time. And next week you'll have
to be getting into harness again. You'd better think it over."
And on the next day, finding that Claire obviously had _not_ thought it
over, she threw out a hint that was little save a thinly veiled threat.
She came in with a more genial manner than she was accustomed to waste
upon the desert air of penury, and Claire, well schooled in reading the
significance of proverbial calms, had a misgiving.
"I've been talking to Miss Morton ... about your mother," Mrs.
Ffinch-Brown began, without bothering to lead up to the subject. "You
know Alice Morton.... Well, your mother does, anyway. I bumped into her
yesterday, quite by accident ... at a Red Cross meeting. It seems she's
one of the directors of The King's Daughters' Home for Incurables!"
Claire was sitting opposite her aunt, nervously fingering a
paper-cutter. Mrs. Ffinch-Brown eyed her niece sharply, and with an
obvious determination to drive her thrusts home before her victim
recovered from the first vicious stabs she continued: "It seems they
haven't a great deal of room out there, but she thinks she could arrange
things. They'll raise the price to two thousand dollars after the
fifteenth of the month, so I thought that--"
"Oh, not quite yet, Aunt Julia!... Mother has a chance. Surely...."
"Now, Claire, don't get hysterical. You're a business woman and _you_
ought to be practical if any of us are. The price to-day is one thousand
dollars. Think of it! Care for life in a ward with only _three_ others!
Now I can't ask your uncle for any more than is necessary in a case
like this. If we make up our mind promptly we can save just one thousand
dollars."
For the moment Claire felt the harried desperation of a cornered animal.
She had never seen anything more disagreeable than her aunt's sidelong
glance. She felt herself rise from her seat with cold dignity.
"I'm afraid, Aunt Julia, I can't make up my mind as quickly as you wish.
It isn't so simple as it seems. I'm not above a plan like this if I'm
convinced it's necessary. But somehow.... Oh, I know what you're
thinking--you're thinking that beggars shouldn't be choosers. Well, I'm
not quite a beggar yet. But when I am, I won't choose.... I'll promise
you that."
Mrs. Ffinch-Brown rose also. She was in a position to triumph in any
case, and she was washing her hands of the situation with eager
satisfaction. "Oh, indeed! I'm glad you can say that _now_. But you
weren't always so independent. I suppose it never occurs to you to thank
me for what I did when you were younger."
Claire felt quite calm. The events of the past twenty-four hours had
wrung her emotions dry. "Yes, Aunt Julia," she said, with an air of cool
defiance, "it occurred to me many times.... Perhaps if I'd had any
choice...."
Mrs. Ffinch-Brown grew pale. "It's plain that I'm wasting my time here!"
she sneered.
Claire went with her aunt to the door....
Mrs. Ffinch-Brown did not cross the threshold of the Robson home again,
and when on the following day Claire saw the figure of Mrs. Thomas
Wynne outlined against the lace-screened front door she let the bell
ring unanswered.
* * * * *
The dismissal of the last of the Carrol clan from any participation in
the Robson destinies gave Claire a feeling at once independent and
solitary. There had been a vague hope that this crisis might germinate
some stray seeds of kinship, shriveled by the drought of uneventful
years. But the poisonous nettles of memory were the only harvest that
had sprung from the presence of Mrs. Robson's sisters, and Claire was
glad to uproot the arid product of their shallowness.
The week came to a close with a rush of visitors. Suddenly it seemed as
if everybody knew of Mrs. Robson's illness. Fellow church members, old
school friends, casual acquaintances began to ring the front-door bell
insistently. Knowing her mother's instinctive craving for recognition,
it struck Claire that it was the height of irony to see this belated
crowd come swarming in on the heels of calamity at the moment when Mrs.
Robson was unable to so much as see them. Mrs. Robson would have so
liked to sit in even a threadbare pomp and receive the homage of her
visitors, but fate had been scurvy enough to withhold this scant
triumph.
Nellie Whitehead breezed in on Saturday afternoon just as Mrs.
Finnegan's cuckoo clock cooed the stroke of three; immediately the air
began to move out of adversity's tragic current. It was impossible to be
wholly without hope under the impetus of Nellie Whitehead's flaming
good humor.
"I'm all out of breath," she began, as she flopped into the first chair
that came handy. "I keep forgetting I ain't sweet sixteen any more and
never been kissed. I hate to walk slow, though. Don't you? Say, but you
_are_ up against it, ain't you! I saw that Munch dame on the street and
she nearly broke her old neck trying to catch up with me. I wondered
what was the matter, because she ain't usually so keen about flagging
_me_. But, _you_ know, she never misses a trick at spilling out the
calamity stuff, especially if it isn't on her.... 'Oh, Miss Whitehead,'
she called out before I had a chance to beat it, 'have you heard about
Miss Robson's mother?' ...When she got through I fixed her with that
trusty old eye of mine and I said, 'I suppose you see her quite often.'
And what do you think the old stiff said? 'Oh, I'd like to, Miss
Whitehead, but I really haven't had time. You know I'm doing all Mr.
Flint's dictation now.' And she had the nerve to try and slip me a hint
that she was going to keep on doing it. But I just said to myself: 'You
should kid yourself that way, old girl! When Flint picks a bloomer like
you to ornament the back office it will be because his eyesight's failed
him.' ...By the way, how do you manage to stand him off--with religious
tracts or a hat-pin?"
She hardly waited for Claire's reply, but plunged at once into another
monologue.
"Do you know what I'm up to? I got my eye on the swellest fur-lined coat
you ever saw ... at Magnin's. But you can bet I'm going to keep my eye
on it until after the holidays. They want a hundred and a quarter for it
now, but they'll be glad to take sixty-five when the gay festivities are
over, or I miss my guess. I go in every other day to have a look at it,
and when the girl's back is turned I hang it back in the case
myself--'way back where everybody else will overlook it. Oh, I know the
game all right. I did the same thing with a three piece suit last
summer. But I say, All is fair in war and the high cost of living. Maybe
you think I haven't had a time scraping the wherewithal for that coat
together. But I brought the total up to seventy the other day by getting
Billy Holmes to slip me a ten in advance for Christmas. I never trust a
man to invest in anything for me if I can help it. They usually run to
manicure sets in satin-lined cases or cut-glass cologne-bottles. Billy
Holmes?... Oh, you know him! He ran the reinsurance desk at the Royal
for years. They put him on the road last week. He's _some_ live wire.
And what's better, he has no incumbrances. I'll tell you what it is,
Robson, I'm getting kind of tired of the goings. I'm just about ready to
settle down by the old steam-radiator. And as long as I've got eyesight
enough to look the field over, I've decided on a traveling-man or a
sea-captain. They'll be sticking around home just about often enough to
suit me.... Not that I'm a man-hater, but I've never had 'em for a
steady diet and I'm not going to begin to get the habit this late day."
Nellie Whitehead stayed about an hour, and, as Claire opened the front
door upon her friend's departure the letter-man thrust an envelope into
her hands. She opened it hastily and turned suddenly white.
"Well, Robson, what's wrong now?" inquired Nellie.
"Flint ... he's let me out ... Miss Munch was right!"