regularity of a physician looking up his patients. Those that were
out of reach he held by correspondence. Yet always his visits or his
letters seemed the most casual thing. The youngsters looked for him
because it meant a splendid sort of play, something organized and
meaningful. When children play alone they get into ruts and they waste
great time in small disputes; an umpire or a director keeps things
moving.
About this time Blynn began to keep a card index of his “cases,”
recording all available facts about character, and special abilities;
and in addition, data to show the ground they had covered, with notes
of suggestive treatment.
There was no difficulty over any of the cases save that of Gorgas. He
had not the least notion what to do with her. On many counts she was
entirely too wise for her teacher. He knew that she must have constant
practice in German, French, and Italian, or she would lose much of her
previous holdings; she must not neglect her work in copper; she should
have other studies, science, history, literature, mathematics, music;
and she should have opportunity to continue the development of her
physical self.
A forge was constructed in a disused stone spring-house. No one
interfered with any eccentric device that Blynn suggested; it
began to be generally conceded that he could perform miracles with
children--Gorgas’ French and, later, the discovery of her knowledge of
German and Italian caused everyone to look upon him as a wizard--so
there was no objection to the fitting-up of a complete coppersmith’s
workshop in the old spring-house.
When he came to take stock of her mental furnishings he found some
strange wares. Gardiner’s “The Femine” he had laid to the door of
Bardek; but of all Bardek’s odd learning, “The Femine” was not a part;
indeed, he would have scoffed at the contents. An aunt, a “Gorgas,”
had left her namesake a few hundred dollars a year, the interest of
which was to be spent in books. Ever since she could remember, Gorgas
had been permitted to spend that small sum as she should choose. The
effect of the responsibility was to give her a keen interest in the
book-reviews of such magazines as came regularly to the house. And with
the growth of the private collection, there came also a fine love for
books.
Her little “den” was across the hall from the library. One afternoon
Blynn found her there and spent many astonished minutes poring over her
treasures.
“You have read all this?” he inquired incredulously.
She gave several pleased little nods. “Nearly all. Some were too much
for me. I shall give them up until I grow into them. I get only a few
every quarter; so it grows gradually,” she explained.
“Why, some of this is material I ought to know myself--and don’t; books
I’ve promised myself to read.... How did you get to know there were
such things? Bardek, again?”
Oh, no! The advertisements of the _Atlantic Monthly_; the book chat
in _Harper’s_, and the _Nation_; and especially the remarks of wise
persons--like Mr. Blynn!--who have no idea that “a chiel’s among ye
takin’ notes.” There was really a note-book with publishers’ names and
prices; one had to buy carefully so as to get the best for the money
(Pennsylvania-German thrift cropping out here, thought Blynn).
“That one,” she touched a volume, “he’s too much for me. Everybody
is talking about him. The magazines are full of it; and you and Mr.
Leopold are always quoting. That made me buy. I got good binding, too.
Don’t you just love fine bindings?” She stroked the leather cover
gently. “But I suppose I’ll have to know more before I can understand.”
Browning was the big man in those days; he was receiving his belated
hero-worship and, as usual, it was noisy and overdone.
Blynn ran the pages over and stopped at “Andrea del Sarto.” Then he
read. It needed only a touch of explanation here and there to set
the pathetic monologue and make clear the simple story of this great
failure.
The poem was plain enough now, she said; and it was beautiful; but why
did Andrea leave his great work, give up all that was really dear in
life, and in his middle days suffer poverty and disgrace, all for that
worthless Lucrezia?
Why, indeed! Blynn promised to show her reproductions of Sarto’s
paintings, especially the fine figure of young John the Baptist; then
she might understand; for Lucrezia was the model for that spiritual
face. She must have had qualities to inspire a picture like that. A man
would give up much for a woman who called him, even--this is the puzzle
of life--even though he knew she were worthless.
“Do you suppose,” she asked, “that in the first years of their marriage
they were--” She wanted to say “lovers,” but that’s a hard word to say
aloud in English. Except on the stage or in novels, we avoid direct
reference to love. We seem to be half ashamed of it. “Do you think,”
she began again, “they really--cared?”
“I should think so,” he guessed. “Most folks do, for awhile. We can’t
get into the private history of families; but from the outside it
seems that--uh--affection,” he was also shying at the word, “soon dies
out. It rather frightens one to look on the hundreds of indifferent
or possibly discordant couples who, no doubt, were one time
violently--uh--enamored of each other. It doesn’t seem possible to keep
the thing up!”
“If that’s true, I’m sorry,” she said seriously.
“So am I.”
“Why should it be true?”
“I’ve often puzzled over it. My theory is--”
She laughed. “Do you know, you always begin that way? ‘My theory is.’
But go on, I’m interested.... I like your theories.... You don’t care
if I say what I think; do you?”
“Oh, dear, no!” he smiled. “I was only thinking how full of theories I
am. I haven’t breathed half of them aloud yet.... I wouldn’t dare....
Well, my theory is that two people who--uh--”
“Yes?” She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking steadily
up at him.
He looked down at her a second or two, studying her frank eyes.
“Would you mind sitting on a chair?” he asked.
“_Mais, oui_,” yet she did not stir. “But I am quite comfy here, _mon
père_.”
“Uh!” he grinned. “Don’t call me ‘father.’”
“You are ten years older,” she contended, “and--”
“How did you discover that?”
“I asked Edwin.”
“Edwin?”
“Edwin Morris.”
“Oh, your tennis chum. How old is he?”
“Eighteen; only five years older than I.”
“H’m!” he looked at her suspiciously; but she seemed quite guiltless.
“Why mustn’t I sit on the floor, _mon p-- mon duc, mon prince_?”
She hummed the air of “La Tour, Prends Garde,” that old song which
the French children sing and act so prettily in the summer evenings,
reminding us of our own “London Bridge is Falling Down.” Gorgas touched
the words softly,
“Mon duc, mon prince!
Mon duc, mon prince!
Je viens me plaindre à vous.”
“Duke and prince?” he shook his head. “I’m too American for that.”
Without further word she sang the next stanza,
“Mon capitaine,
Mon colonel!
Que me demandez-vous?”
“Ah, that’s better,” Blynn smiled.
“And why, _mon capitaine_,” she smiled back, “may I not sit on the
floor?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” he explained. “It’s--legs. I’ve discovered
something about you.” He spoke with exaggerated jocularity. “When I
see your underpinnings, I know I am talking to a child, aged thirteen,
who looks upon me as a grandfather; but when you squat on the floor
and look up at me like a little coquette”--his tone was that of pure
banter--“I get the craziest notion possible into my head, that you
have grown up and--that you are sitting there quietly laughing at all
my tedious explanation, and well--you know, you fooled me completely
that day on the tennis-courts. I could have sworn you were at least
twenty-two.”
“Why do you need--to treat me--differently?”
Her eyes rested on him now with quiet gravity. They looked into him
and seemed to explore his very mind. This child had been schooled all
her life to mask her feelings until few suspected she was capable of
any. In this confident hour she unmasked and let him see without shame
that he was her _capitaine_, under whom she would serve right loyally.
Youth and faithfulness! Blynn could see all that, too, in her eyes; and
perhaps something else, which disturbed him and caused him to come to
instant decision.
“Do you know, young lady,” he broke the spell of the silence abruptly,
“that in October you are going to the Misses Warren’s Select French and
English School for Young Ladies?”
“No!” she stood up. “I won’t go. Who said I must go? That hateful
place? Why, everybody makes fun of it. It--it would be torture. I won’t
go! Please, Mr. Blynn, don’t let them send me there.”
“But you must go somewhere,” he soothed. “I’ve been inquiring. They’ve
made a number of changes since the death of the elder sister. It’s
really quite a decent place now. What you need is not book education,
but social education.”
“What!”
“I put that badly. I mean you should mix more with your own generation.
There are girls who--”
“Girls! I don’t want to know any. Most of them are just simpletons,
smirking at boys. Boys! boys! boys! That’s their whole talk. They
aren’t interested in books or anything. I tell you, I couldn’t stand
being all day with girls. I couldn’t breathe. I--”
“Now, steady,” he calmed her. “I won’t make you do anything you don’t
want to do. That’s a bargain; isn’t it? No Warren business, if you
don’t like it. Remember, you’re going to do as you like.”
“Yes,” she said more calmly; but all the rebellion in her was stirring.
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t worked out the plan yet. The Warren
school is--well, I’m thinking about it. I’ve been looking into the
School of Applied Arts, too.”
“That’s more like it,” she was blinking hard.
“You see,” he showed her his perplexity. “You and I aren’t getting
anywhere. We just sit around and talk and talk--at least, I do--”
“But that’s the joy of it,” she was astonished at his sudden dullness.
“Don’t you like our--talks?”
“Bless my soul, yes! They’re great! You bring me out; make me think
of things I didn’t know I knew. Enjoy it? Jerusalem! But your mother
thinks I am teaching you things--”
“Why, you are,” her eyes grew wide. “Every day I learn _lots_ from
you. I can’t give you up, Mr. Blynn. Why, we have the most beautiful
pow-wows. Nobody else really talks to me. Look,” she picked up the
Browning, “you have given me Andrea today; I never could have gotten
it myself. And I’m just nervous thinking of more you will give me.
Don’t--don’t--send me off, just when we were--. It’s mean!” she
quavered, stamping her foot in vexation, for she had prided herself on
not being a weeping person, and lately the tears were swelling on the
flimsiest provocation.
But he was firm about regular school and took pains to make his reasons
clear to her. His scheme for her--which gradually began to form as he
talked--was special hours at Miss Warren’s in German and French. They
had a new Swiss teacher there who had a splendid bi-lingual training.
She would also get music, mathematics and Latin. Once or twice a week
she would take the metal classes in the School of Applied Arts. The
Italian she would have to keep up by reading, for awhile at least.
“But English literature?” she protested. “Aren’t you going to keep on
with your readings? Why, we’ve hardly begun!”
“Perhaps,” he held out. “Some of it I will surely do; perhaps I’ll
arrange a little class with your sister and Betty Sommers.”
“That will not be so nice,” she admitted. “But,” with seeming
understanding of the expression that swept across his face, “if you
think it best, _mon capitaine_, I’ll give them a share.”
Youth and faithfulness shone in her eyes again; and the frankness of
childhood.
He collected his belongings, borrowed a book from her shelf and
prepared to go.
“There!” she said. “I knew we had forgotten something. That horrid
school thing hopped in between and spoiled it all.” She held the
Browning open to “Andrea del Sarto.” “You were telling me your theory
about married people, and why they don’t--keep on--keep on--”
“Oh, yes,” he helped. “Well, my theory is a very simple one. There
is no patent on it, but no one seems to want to use it.” He knitted
his brows and looked afar off. “I think young people ought to
prepare ahead of time for all that’s to follow. They get lost in the
beginnings--for there are beginnings, and there are middles and ends,
each is different. They ought to prepare themselves to go on from one
stage of affection into another, without surprise or suspicion of
each other. And better, they should study all the little paths that
tend to take them apart. Therefore, they should cultivate many of the
same interests, insist upon having many associations together, and
refuse to let a separate set of occupations absorb them too much--like
housekeeping or whist playing for the woman, and selling cheeses,
let us say, for the man. Memory is the thing that binds one’s life
together; married people should see to it that they have many, many
beautiful memories in common. There! that’s a long speech; and it’s my
theory. There must be a flaw in it somewhere, or more folks would have
adopted it. I have faith in it--I have faith, you notice, in all my
theories. One should. If ever I have the chance to try it out, I’ll do
my best to make it work.”
“It will work,” she said simply.
“That’s encouraging, now,” he laughed. “What makes you think so?”
“My theory is that the woman is always willing to have memories, the
kind you speak of. It is the man who flies off to his own affairs and
leaves her to just dig along.”
“Ah! Amazonian,” he cried. “That’s out of Gardiner!”
“No,” quietly. “I have been watching my neighbors, that’s all. Men are
awfully excited about men-things. I don’t blame them. They do have lots
of fun, boys and men.... But you will make it work, all right.”
“Why?”
“Well,” she thought, “you will try; and then you aren’t at all
interested in yourself--No! you aren’t--You are always thinking of
somebody else. I’ve watched you--”
“Oh!” he cried, “you’ll make me self-conscious.”
“Often, I’ve watched you. I notice that your eye is always looking to
see what other persons need. You get chairs before other men notice
they are wanted, and you open doors, and pass things before they’re
asked for, and all that sort of thing.... And, you understand--”
“Understand?”
“Yes; you understand ... you understand--me, for instance.”
They looked at each other a quiet second or two.
“I wonder if I do,” he said, trying to smile like a grandfather.
They walked across the hall into the library.
“Oh, you know all about little me,” she laughed, and shook her head as
if it were a doleful burden.
IX
“BONG-JOUR”
The winter was spent for Gorgas pretty much as Blynn had planned. She
was entered as a pupil in the Misses Warren Select French and English
School for Young Ladies; but the desertion from freedom was not made
easily; nor was it ever entirely successful. Gorgas was the vagabond
type. In literature Vagabondia has its charming unconventional men, but
seldom if ever has the female of this species been put forward without
shocking sensitive souls. The unconventional woman is--well, no better
than she should be. Somehow the world has worshipped its men when they
step forth from its fetters of use and wont, but it looks terribly
askance at women of equal daring.
On the morning of the opening of school Gorgas rode solemnly on Gyp,
without even the “shining morning face” of Shakespeare’s famous
reluctant schoolboy. She was full of forebodings of coming disaster.
Professor Blynn, her _capitaine_, had said, go; that was the sole
impelling force. She knew that she could not turn back without
distressing him; he it was who had taken the rebellious untamed forces
of her little life and had bound them both with and against her will.
It was terrible, this bowing to the decisions of another; terrible and
unutterably satisfying! She pondered on this contradictory fact as she
let Gyp trot forward; upon the convicting desires that found reasonable
lodgment in her mind: the desire to turn Gyp’s head right about for a
canter toward Bardek and Cresheim Valley, and the greater wish to obey
the will of another, to plod straight forward and suffer the pangs of a
strange schooldom. Her conscience had a fine glow of satisfaction with
each step toward the disagreeable adventure.
Miss Warren saw her from the window.
“Surely that is not one of our new girls?” she exclaimed to the
secretary.
Both drew aside the heavy lace curtains, discreetly keeping themselves
at a polite distance in the shadows.
“It is Gorgas Levering,” the secretary replied.
“But she is riding astride!” Miss Warren looked helplessly about. “Like
a man!” she added. “Mercy! Do go out and tell her--”
But Gorgas cut that command short by dismounting--like a man. She was
leading Gyp toward the stables, one arm over the horse’s mane, her
head erect, her eyes focused far away. At that moment she was enjoying
a childlike delight in successful martyrdom. As she passed around the
school--really a fine old Colonial mansion--she came face to face with
Miss Warren framed in a massive side door.
“You are Miss Gorgas Levering, I presume?” Miss Warren made the
statement with disarming graciousness.
“Miss Warren!” Gorgas ejaculated.
The child was startled by the apparition, conjuring up the photograph
on Keyser’s dressing-table, that now spoke in the flesh, like an
ancient figure in history suddenly come to life; and her spirits oozed.
The regality of this distinguished-looking woman struck at her and
took away her sense of equality. In the presence of Miss Warren one
had always to struggle against an overwhelming feeling of personal
inferiority.
“I am so glad you have come early,” Miss Warren ignored the
exclamation. “Perhaps you would like to come in and freshen yourself
after your ride.”
Miss Warren’s attire was spotless. Without a further word Gorgas
realized that there was something vulgar and unclean in riding a horse.
She became conscious of her dusty appearance and of Gyp’s warm, sweaty
body.
“Home, Gyp,” she said, and turned his head about and patted him smartly
on the flank. Gyp trotted off alone.
Miss Warren took in the unconventional attire.
“You are wearing--uh--bloomers; are you not?” she asked in a
noncommittal tone.
Then Gorgas answered in a phrase she had never before used in speaking
to her elders. It was the reply of servants and underlings; something
she knew should not be said, but it came unbidden to her lips.
“_Yes, ma’am_,” she said.
Instantly she was aware of having surrendered her will completely
to the overpowering superiority of the woman before her. Her face
flamed; she would have given all she possessed to have recalled the
expression; but it was out, and she was condemned. From afar she heard
the quiet explanation from Miss Warren that young ladies should not say
“yes, ma’am”; they should say, “Yes, Miss Warren.” All of which she
knew by instinct, yet she could offer no explanation. She was suffused
with shame.
“It is too late to ask you to go home and change,” Miss Warren spoke
kindly as she ushered Gorgas into the house and showed her the way to
the water-taps. “Fortunately we have a few proper skirts in the lockers
that you may wear over your--uh--riding costume. While you are getting
refreshed I will have Miss Lewis find one for you.”
Meekly Gorgas let herself be decked in a faded blue serge skirt, which
bulged uncomfortably and succeeded in taking out of her the remaining
grains of spirit. If she had entertained any thought of walking through
the spacious doorway and bolting for Gyp and freedom, that inharmonious
skirt tethered her to the spot like a chain anchor.
She sat on a bench under a window in the wide corridor. A teacher or
two came in.
“_Bon jour!_” they greeted Miss Warren, who bon-joured them in return.
“Old Bong-joor,” Gorgas remembered, was one of the private names for
Miss Warren among the alumnæ. Other French phrases, mainly about the
weather, were passed back and forward. Gorgas recognized them instantly
as by-words among the Warren graduates, and she knew that they were
not quite French. At least it was not Bardek’s way of greeting. That
same type of mystic language was leveled at the first few early pupils.
They replied in kind, and seemed to know what was expected of them.
“Bon jour, Harriet.”
“Bon jour, Ma-de-moi-selle Warren.”
“Tu est arrivé de bonne heure.”
“Oui, Ma-de-moi-selle Warren.”
“C’est bon, Harriet.”
“Oui, Ma-de-moi-selle Warren.”
There was something comic in the picture presented. The little girls
stood at rigid attention and recited their trite phrases, keeping
diplomatically to the plain _oui_ or _non_, and so added to the glory
of “The Misses Warren’s French and English School for Young Ladies.”
Here was the echo far off in America of a one-time supremacy of French
as the language of the upper classes of Europe. Tag-rags of the
language lingered for awhile in novels, until it finally died out and
was deposited in the back pages of the old Webster dictionary, where
the proletariat may still find the meaning of such recondite phrases as
“_entre nous_,” and “_on dit_.”
“I wish you to know one of our new girls,” Miss Warren would say
occasionally after the French pass-words had been given and returned.
“This is Miss Gorgas Levering.”
“We welcome you to our school,” the well drilled young ladies would
recite, step two steps forward, shake hands like a drill sergeant, bow
and retire to a room set apart for assembly.
More “_Bon jours_” went on until about thirty girls, ranging from ten
to eighteen, had assembled. Gorgas was ushered in with the others and
given a seat. A bell was tapped somewhere in the house; the polite
unnatural murmur hushed. Another bell tapped; the girls rose and stood
waiting for the customary prayer, but a clatter in the hall turned
heads and set very natural tongues a-wagging. Two or three smart taps
on the bell brought only partial order. A heavy voice in the hallway
caused smiles of recognition.
“Am I late again?” it cried impatiently.
The words of one of the teachers could not be heard, but the reply of
the late-comer was quite clear.
“Darn it, I’m always late!” the heavy voice boomed out. “Your old
clock’s wrong. I know I started in plenty of time this morning.”
“Bea Wilcox!” The name was uttered aloud by several excited girls.
Miss Warren called the group smartly to attention and requested Miss
Lewis to see that proper care was taken of the unruly late-comer, but
while heads turned to the front dutifully and silence came, the joyful
wreaths on the faces were not so easily ordered away. Bea Wilcox was
the one rift in the morning’s respectable gloom.
“I’m sorry, Miss Warren,” Bea exclaimed comfortingly as she tore off
her gloves and took her place in assembly. “I tried to get here, honest
I did. Your clock’s awful fast.”
“If you please, Miss Wilcox,” the principal assumed her deadliest
tones, “we prefer to hear your excuses in private. And I wish you would
soften down your very--uh--heavy voice; and please do not say ‘awful?’”
A chill passed over the room, thawed instantly by Bea.
“Oh, all right,” she chirped in cheery basso. “But it ain’t my fault if
the clock’s wrong; is it?”
“If you will be so good as not to speak. And pray remember that ‘ain’t’
is not good English.”
“Oh, ain’t it?” she inquired pleasantly, adding, as if to her
compatriots, “but I bet the thingembob’s off the pendulum?”
“Miss Wilcox!” the command was peremptory.
“Yes’m?”
The “yes’m” was most deferential. It was meant to be. Miss Wilcox
was the big, muscular type of girl that goes in for athletics, cares
little for books, loving rather to strive muscle against muscle than to
swaddle and grow prim and become self-conscious of nose and eyelash.
These athletic girls are glorious at tennis and hockey--Bea Wilcox,
at fifteen, was a wonder at both sports; she could even bat and play
first-base like a man--but they are not usually considered refined.
Delicate intellectual shadings they do not always perceive. Her “yes’m”
was a rough attempt at respect, but it drew a titter from the precise
young ladies.
The titter from the comic “yes’m” had hardly died out before a far-off
bell, tolling lazily, proclaimed that in at least one church tower a
belated nine-o’clock was being celebrated.
“There!” cried Miss Wilcox, striking a listening attitude. “Listen!
D’y’ hear that! Ah! ha! Miss Warren! We always go by that bell. I told
you you were fast.”