LUELLA’S HUMILIATION
THE door was opened cautiously by the maid, who was “doing” Aunt
Crete’s hair, having just finished a most refreshing facial massage
given at Donald’s express orders.
Aunt Crete looked round upon her visitors with a rested, rosy
countenance, which bloomed out under her fluff of soft, white hair,
and quite startled her sister with its freshness and youth. Could it
be possible that this was really her sister Crete; or had she made a
terrible mistake, and entered the wrong apartment?
But a change came suddenly over the ruddy countenance of Aunt Crete as
over the face of a child that in the midst of happy play sees a trouble
descending upon it. A look almost of terror came over her, and she
caught her breath, and waited to see what was coming.
“Why, Carrie, Luella!” she gasped weakly. “I thought you’d gone to
bed. Marie’s just doing up my hair for night. She’s been giving me a
face-massage. You ought to try one. It makes you feel young again.”
“H’m!” said her affronted sister. “I shouldn’t care for one.”
Marie looked over Luella and her mother, beginning with the painfully
elaborate arrangement of hair, and going down to the tips of their
boots. Luella’s face burned with mortification as she read the
withering disapproval in the French woman’s countenance.
“Let’s sit down till she’s done,” said Luella, dropping promptly on the
foot of Aunt Crete’s bed and gazing around in frank surprise over the
spaciousness of the apartment.
Thereupon the maid ignored them, and went about her work, brushing
out and deftly manipulating the wavy white hair, and chattering
pleasantly meanwhile, just as if no one else were in the room. Aunt
Crete tried to forget what was before her, or, rather, behind her; but
her hands trembled a little as they lay in her lap in the folds of
the pretty pink and gray challis kimono she wore; and all of a sudden
she remembered the unwhitewashed cellar, and the uncooked jam, and
the unmade shirt-waists, and the little hot brick house gazing at her
reproachfully from the distant home, and she here in this fine array,
forgetting it all and being waited upon by a maid—a lazy truant from
her duty.
Did the heart of the maid divine the state of things, or was it only
her natural instinct that made her turn to protect the pleasant little
woman, in whose service she had already been well paid, against the
two women that were so evidently of the common walks of life, and were
trying to ape those that in the eyes of the maid were their betters?
However it was, Marie prolonged her duties a good half-hour, and
Luella’s impatience waxed furious, so that she lost her fear of the
maid gradually, and yawned loudly, declaring that Aunt Crete had surely
had enough fussing over for one evening.
They held in their more personal remarks until the door finally closed
upon Marie, but burst forth so immediately that she heard the opening
sentences through the transom, and thought it wise to step to the young
gentleman’s door and warn him that his elderly relative of whom he
seemed so careful was likely to be disturbed beyond a reasonable hour
for retiring. Then she discreetly withdrew, having not only added to
her generous income by a good bit of silver, but also having followed
out the dictates of her heart, which had taken kindly to the gentle
woman of the handsome clothes and few pretensions.
“Well, upon my word! I should think you’d be ashamed, Aunt Crete!”
burst forth Luella, arising from the bed in a majesty of wrath.
“Sitting there, being waited on like a baby, when you ought to be at
home this minute earning your living. What do you think of yourself,
anyway, living in this kind of luxury when you haven’t a cent in the
world of your own, and your own sister, who has supported you for
years, up in a little dark fourth-floor room? Such selfishness I never
saw in all my life. I wouldn’t have believed it of you, though we might
have suspected it long ago from the foolish things you were always
doing. Aunt Crete, have you any idea how much all this costs?”
She waved her hand tragically over the handsome room, including the
trunk standing open, and the gleam of silver-gray silk that peeped
through the half-open closet door. Aunt Crete fairly cringed under
Luella’s scornful eyes.
“And you, nothing in the world but a beggar, a _beggar_! That’s what
you are—a beggar dependent upon _us_; and you swelling around as if you
owned the earth, and daring to wear silk dresses and real lace collars
and expensive jewelry, and even having a maid, and shaming your own
relatives, and getting in ahead of us, who have always been good to
you, and taking away our friends, and making us appear like two cents!
It’s just fierce, Aunt Crete! It’s—it’s _heathenish_!” Luella paused in
her anger for a fitting word, and then took the first one that came.
Aunt Crete winced. She was devoted to the Woman’s Missionary Society,
and it was terrible to be likened to a heathen. She wished Luella had
chosen some other word.
“I should think you’d be so ashamed you couldn’t hold your head up
before your honest relatives,” went on the shameless girl. “Taking
money from a stranger,—that’s what he is, a _stranger_,—and you whining
round and lowering yourself to let him buy you clothes and things,
as if you didn’t have proper clothes suited to your age and station.
He’s a young upstart coming along and daring to buy you any—and such
clothes! Do you know you’re a laughing-stock? What would Mrs. Grandon
say if she knew whom she was inviting to her automobile rides and
dinners? Think of you in your old purple calico washing the dishes at
home, and scrubbing the kitchen, and ask yourself what you would say
if Mrs. Grandon should come to call on you, and find you that way.
You’re a hypocrite, Aunt Crete, an awful hypocrite!”
[Illustration: “‘IT’S A LIE! I SAY IT’S A LIE!’”]
Luella towered over Aunt Crete, and the little old lady looked into
her eyes with a horrible fascination, while her great grief and horror
poured down her sweet face in tears of anguish that would not be
stayed. Her kindly lips were quivering, and her eyes were wide with the
tears.
Luella saw that she was making an impression, and she went on more
wildly than before, her fury growing with every word, and not realizing
how loud her voice was.
“And it isn’t enough that you should do all that, but now you’re going
to spoil my prospects with Clarence Grandon. You can’t keep up this
masquerade long; and, when they find out what you really are, what
will they think of _me_? It’ll be all over with me, and it’ll be your
fault, Aunt Crete, your fault, and you’ll never have a happy moment
afterwards, thinking of how you spoiled my life.”
“Now, Luella,” broke in Aunt Crete solemnly through her tears, “you’re
mistaken about one thing. It won’t be my fault there, for it wouldn’t
have made a bit of difference, poor child. I’m real sorry for you,
and I meant to tell you just as soon as we got home, for I couldn’t
bear to spoil your pleasure while we were here; but that Clarence
Grandon belongs to some one else. He ain’t for you, Luella, and there
must have been some mistake about it. Perhaps he was just being kind to
you. For Donald knows him real well, and he says he’s engaged to a girl
out West, and they’re going to be married this fall; and Donald says
she’s real sweet and——”
But Aunt Crete’s quavering voice stopped suddenly in mild affright, for
Luella sprang toward her like some mad creature, shaking her finger in
her aunt’s face, and screaming at the top of her voice:
“It’s a lie! I say it’s a lie! Aunt Crete, you’re a liar; that’s what
you are with all the rest.”
And the high-strung, uncontrolled girl burst into angry sobs.
No one heard the gentle knock that had been twice repeated during the
scene, and no one saw the door open until they all suddenly became
aware that Donald stood in the room, looking from one face to another
in angry surprise.
Donald had not retired at once after bidding Aunt Crete good night. He
found letters and telegrams awaiting his attention, and he had been
busy writing a letter of great importance when the maid gave him the
hint of Aunt Crete’s late callers. Laying down his pen, he stepped
quietly across the private parlor that separated his room from his
aunt’s, and stopped a moment before the door to make sure he heard
voices. Then he had knocked, and knocked again, unable to keep from
hearing the most of Luella’s tirade.
His indignation knew no bounds, and he concluded his time had come to
interfere; so he opened the door, and went in.
“What does all this mean?” he asked in a tone that frightened his Aunt
Carrie, and made Luella stop her angry sobs in sudden awe.
No one spoke, and Aunt Crete looked a mute appeal through her tears.
“What is it, dear aunt?” he said, stepping over by her side, and
placing his arm protectingly round the poor, shrinking little figure,
who somehow in her sorrow and helplessness reminded him strongly of his
own lost mother. He could not remember at that moment that the other
woman, standing hard and cold and angry across the room, was also his
mother’s sister. She did not look like his mother, nor act like her.
Aunt Crete put her little curled white head in its crisping-pins down
on Donald’s coat-sleeve, and shrank into her pink and gray kimono
appealingly as she tried to speak.
“It’s just as I told you, Donald, you dear boy,” she sobbed out.
“I—oughtn’t to have come. I knew it, but it wasn’t your fault. It
was all mine. I ought to have stayed at home, and not dressed up and
come off here. I’ve had a beautiful time; but it wasn’t for me, and I
oughtn’t to have taken it. It’s just spoiled Luella’s nice time, and
she’s blaming me, just as I knew she would.”
“What does my cousin mean by using that terrible word to you, which I
heard as I entered the room?”
Donald’s voice was keen and scathing, and his eyes fairly piercing as
he asked the question and looked straight at Luella, who answered not a
word.
“That wasn’t just what she’d have meant, Donald,” said Aunt Crete
apologetically. “She was most out of her mind with trouble. You see
I had to tell her what you told me about that Clarence Grandon being
engaged to another girl——”
“Aunt Crete, don’t say another word about that!” burst out Luella with
flashing eyes and crimson face.
“For mercy’s sake, Crete, can’t you hold your tongue?” said Luella’s
mother sharply.
“Go on, Aunt Crete; did my cousin call you a liar for saying that? Yet
it was entirely true. If she is not disposed to believe me either,
I can call Mr. Grandon in to testify in the matter. He will come if
I send for him. But I feel sure, after all, that that will not be
necessary. It is probably true, as Aunt Crete says, that you were
excited, Luella, and did not mean what you said; and after a good
night’s sleep you will be prepared to apologize to Aunt Crete, and be
sorry enough for worrying her. I am going to ask you to leave Aunt
Crete now, and let her rest. She has had a wearying day, and needs to
be quiet at once. She is my mother’s sister, you know, and I feel as if
I must take care of her.”
“You seem to forget that I am your mother’s sister, too,” said Aunt
Carrie coldly, as she stood stiff and disapproving beside the door,
ready to pass out.
“If I do, Aunt Carrie, forgive me,” said Donald courteously. “It is
not strange when you remember that you forgot that I was your sister’s
child, and ran away from me. But never mind; we will put that aside
and try to forget it. Good night, Aunt Carrie. Good night, Cousin
Luella. We will all feel better about it in the morning.”
They bowed their diminished heads, and went with shame and confusion to
the fourth floor back; and, when the door was closed upon them, they
burst into angry talk, each blaming the other, until at last Luella
sank in a piteous heap upon the bed, and gave herself over to helpless
tears.
“Luella,” said her mother in a business-like tone, “you stop that
bawling, and sit up here and answer me some questions. Did you or
did you not go riding with Mr. Clarence Grandon last winter in his
automobile?”
Luella paused in her grief, and nodded assent hopelessly.
“Well, how’d it come about? There’s no use sniffing. Tell me exactly.”
“Why, it was a rainy day,” sobbed out the girl, “and I met him on the
street in front of the public library the day I’d been to take back
‘The Legacy of Earl Crafton,’ and that other book by the same author——”
“Never mind what books; tell me what happened,” said the exasperated
mother.
“Well, if you’re going to be cross, I sha’n’t tell you anything,” was
the filial reply; and for a moment nothing was heard in the room but
sobs.
However, Luella recovered the thread of her story, and went on to
relate how in company with a lot of other girls she had met Mr. Grandon
the day before at the golf-links, where a championship game was being
played. She did not explain the various manœuvres by which she had
contrived to be introduced to him, nor that he had not seemed to know
her at first when she bowed in front of the library building. She had
called out, “It’s a fine day for ducks, Mr. Grandon; isn’t it good the
game was yesterday instead of to-day?” and he had asked her to ride
home with him.
That was her version. Her mother by dint of careful questioning finally
arrived at the fact that the girl had more than hinted to be taken
home, having loudly announced her lack of rubbers and umbrella, though
she seldom wore rubbers, and had on a rain-coat and an old hat.
“But how about the big box of chocolates he sent you, Luella? That was
a very particular attention to show you if he was engaged.”
“O,” pouted Luella, “I don’t suppose that meant anything either, for
I caught him in a philopena on the way home that day. We said the same
words at the same time, something like ‘It’s going to clear off,’ and I
told him, when we girls did that, the one that spoke first had to give
the other a box of chocolates; so the next day he sent them.”
“Luella, I never brought you up to do things like that. I don’t think
that was very nice.”
“O, now, ma, don’t you preach. I guess you weren’t a saint when you
were a girl. Besides, I don’t think you’re very sympathetic.” She
mopped her swollen eyes.
“Luella, didn’t he ever pay you any more attention after that? I kind
of thought you thought he liked you, by the way you talked.”
“No, he never even looked at me,” sobbed the girl, her grief breaking
out afresh. “He didn’t even know me the next time we met, but stared
straight at me till I bowed, and then he gave me a cold little touch
of his hat. And down here he hasn’t even recognized me once. I suppose
that lady mother of his didn’t like my looks.”
“Look here, Luella; I wish you’d act sensible. This has been pretty
expensive trying to run around after the Grandons. Here’s the hotel
bills, and all that dress-making, and now no telling how Aunt Crete
will act after we get home. Like as not she’ll think she’s got to have
a maid, and dress in silks and satins. There’s one comfort; probably
some of her clothes will fix over for you when she gets off her high
horse and comes down to every-day living again. But I wish you’d brace
up and forget these Grandons. It’s no use trying to get up in the world
higher than you belong. There’s that nice John Peters would have been
real devoted to you if you’d just let him; and he owns a house of his
own already, and has the name of being the best plumber in Midvale.”
Luella sighed.
“He’s only a plumber, ma, and his hands are all red and rough.”
“Well, what’s that?” snapped her practical mother. “He may have his
own automobile before long, for all that. Now dry up your eyes, and go
to sleep; and in the morning do you go down real early, and apologize
to your silly Aunt Crete, and make her understand that she’s not to
disgrace us under any consideration by going in bathing while she’s
here. My land! I expect to see her riding round on one of those
saddle-ponies on the beach next, or maybe driving that team of goats we
saw to-day, with pink ribbon reins. Come now, Luella, don’t you worry.
Set out to show your cousin Donald how nice you can be, and maybe
some of the silk dresses will come your way. Anyhow, this can’t last
forever, and John Peters is at home when we get there.”
So Luella, soothed in spirit, went to bed, and arose very early the
next morning, descending upon poor Aunt Crete while yet the dreams
of sailing alone with Donald on a moonlit sea were mingling with her
waking thoughts.