LUCY TAKES UP THE NARRATIVE
It was an afternoon in late February. A feeling of spring had been in
the air all day. In the living-room a lingering sun cast a path of light
upon the mahogany surface of a grand piano. In _my_ living-room, I
should say. For I am Mrs. Maynard, wife of Doctor William Ford Maynard
of international guinea-pig fame; sister of Ruth Chenery Vars; one-time
confidante of Robert Hopkinson Jennings. I haven't any identity of my
own. I'm simply one of the audience, an onlooker--an anxious and worried
one, just at present, who wishes somebody would assure me that the play
has a happy ending. I don't like sad plays. I don't like being harrowed
for nothing. I've taken to paper simply because I'm all of a tremble for
fear the play I've been watching for the last month or two won't come
out right. Sometimes I feel as if I'd like to dash across the footlights
and tell the actors what to say.
Ruth is engaged to be married to Robert Jennings. At first it seemed to
me too good to be true. After the sort of bringing up my sister has had,
culminating in that miserable affair of hers with Breckenridge Sewall,
I was afraid that happiness would slip by her altogether.
Robert Jennings is the salt of the earth. I believe I was as happy as
Ruth the first four weeks of her engagement, and then these clouds began
to gather. The first time I was conscious of them was the afternoon I
have just referred to, in late February.
I went into my living-room that day just to see that it was in order in
case of callers. It is difficult to keep a living-room in order when
your spoiled young society-sister is visiting you. Today in the middle
of one of the large cushions on the sofa appeared an indentation. From
beneath one corner of the cushion escaped the edge of a crushed
handkerchief. Open, face down, upon the floor lay an abandoned book. I
straightened the pillow and then picked up the book.
"Oh!" I exclaimed, actually out loud as my eyes fell on the title.
"This!"
It was a modern novel much under discussion, an unpleasant book,
reviewers pronounced it, and unnecessarily bold. I opened it. Certain
passages were marked with wriggling lines made with a soft pencil. I
read a marked paragraph or two, standing just where I was in the middle
of the room.
Suddenly the door-bell rang, twice, sharply, and almost immediately
afterward I heard some one shove open the front door.
I slipped the book behind the pillow which I had just straightened,
walked over to a geranium in the window, and nonchalantly snipped off a
leaf.
"Hello!" a man's cheerful voice called out. "Any one at home?"
"Yes, in here, Bob," I called back. "Come in."
Robert Jennings entered. He glowed as if he had just been walking up
hill briskly. He shook hands with me.
"Hello," he said, his gray eyes smiling pleasantly. "Been out today?
Ought to! Like spring. Where's Ruth?"
"Just gone to the Square. She'll be right back. Run out of cotton for
your breakfast-napkins."
"Breakfast-napkins!" he exclaimed, and laughed boyishly. I laughed, too.
"It doesn't seem quite possible, does it? Breakfast-napkins, and four
months ago I didn't even know her! Mind?" he asked abruptly, holding up
a silver case. He selected and lit a cigarette, flipping the charred
match straight as an arrow into the fireplace. He smoked in silence a
moment, smiling meditatively. "Mother's making some napkins, too!" he
broke out. "They're going to get on--Ruth and mother--beautifully.
'She's a dear!' That's what mother says of Ruth half a dozen times a
day. 'She's a dear!' And somehow the triteness of the phrase from mother
is ridiculously pleasing to me. May I sit down?"
"Of course. Do."
He approached the sofa, but before throwing himself into one of its
inviting corners, manlike he placed one of the large sofa pillows rather
gingerly on the floor against a table-leg. Behind the pillow appeared
the book.
"Hello," he exclaimed, "what's this?" And he held it up.
I put out my hand. "I'll take it, thank you," I said.
"Whose is this, anyhow?" he asked, opening the book instead of passing
it over to me. "Looks like Ruth's marks." Then after a pause, "_Is_ it
Ruth's?"
"I don't know. Perhaps."
"She shouldn't read stuff like this!" pronounced the young judge.
"Oh, Ruth has always read everything she wanted to."
"Yes, I suppose so--more's the pity--best-sellers, anything that's
going. But _this_--_this!_ It's not decent for her, for any girl. I
don't believe in this modern idea of exposure, anyhow. But here she
comes." His face lighted. He put aside the book. "Here Ruth comes!"
And he went out into the hall to meet her.
I heard the front door open, the rustle of a greeting, and a moment
later my sister and Robert Jennings both came in.
Ruth had become a shining roseate creature. Always beautiful, always
exquisite--flawless features, perfect poise, now she pulsated with life.
A new brightness glowed in her eyes. Of late across her cheeks color was
wont to come and go like the shadow of clouds on a hillside on a windy
day. Even her voice, usually steady and controlled, now and again
trembled and broke with sudden emotion. She came into the room smiling,
very pretty, very lovely (could we really be children of the same
parents?), with a pink rose slipped into the opening of her coat. She
drew out her rose and came over and passed it to me.
"There," she said, "it's for you, Lucy. I bought it especially!" Such a
strange new Ruth! Once so worldly, so selfish; now so sweet and full of
queer tenderness. I hardly recognized her. "It's heavenly out-doors,"
she went on. "I'll be back in a minute." And she went out into the hall
to take off her hat and coat.
Robert went over to the book he had laid on the table and picked it up.
When Ruth joined us he inquired pleasantly, "Where in the world did you
run across this, Ruth?"
"That?" she smiled. "Oh, I bought it. Everybody is talking about it, and
I bought it. It isn't so bad. Some parts are really very nice. I've
marked a few I liked."
"Why, Ruth," he said solicitously, "it isn't a book for you to read."
"That's very sweet and protective, Bob," she laughed gently, "but after
all I'm not--what do you call it--early Victorian. I'm twentieth
century, and an American at that. Every book printed is for me to read."
"Oh, no! I should hope not! Too much of this sort of stuff would rob a
girl of every illusion she ever had."
"Illusions! Oh, well," she shrugged her shoulders, "who wants illusions?
I don't. I want truth, Bob. I want to know everything there is to know
in this world, good, bad or indifferent. And you needn't be afraid. It
won't hurt me. Truth is good for any one, whether it's pleasant truth or
not. It makes one's opinions of more value, if nothing else. And of
course you want my opinions to be worth something, don't you?" she
wheedled.
"But, my dear," complained Bob, "this book represents more lies than it
does truth."
"Do you think so?" she asked earnestly. "Now I thought it was a
wonderfully true portrayal of just how a man and woman would feel under
those circumstances."
Bob looked actually pained. "O Ruth, how can you judge of such
circumstances? Of such feelings? Why, I don't like even to discuss such
rottenness with you as _this_."
"How absurd, Bob," Ruth deprecated lightly. "I'm not a Jane Austen sort
of girl. I've always read things. I've always read everything I wanted
to." Bob was still standing with the book in his hands, looking at it.
He didn't reply for a moment. Something especially obnoxious must have
met his eyes, for abruptly he threw the book down upon the table.
"Well," he said, "I'm going to ask you not to finish reading _this_."
"You aren't serious!"
"Yes, I am, Ruth," replied Bob. "Let me be the judge about this. Trust
it to me. You've read only a little of the book. It's worse
later--unpleasant, distorted. There are other avenues to truth--not this
one, please. Yes, I am serious."
He smiled disarmingly. For the first time since their engagement I saw
Ruth fail to smile back. There was a perceptible pause. Then in a low
voice Ruth asked, "Do you mean you ask me to stop reading a book right
in the middle of it? Don't ask me to do a childish thing like that,
Bob."
"But Ruth," he persisted, "it's to guard you, to protect you."
"But I don't want to be protected, not that way," she protested. Her
gray eyes were almost black. Her voice, though low and quiet enough,
trembled. They must have forgotten I was in the room.
"Is it such a lot to ask?" pleaded Bob.
"You _do_ ask it then?" repeated Ruth uncomprehendingly.
"Why, Ruth, yes, I do. If a doctor told you not to eat a certain thing,"
Bob began trying to be playful, "that he knew was bad for you and----"
"But you're not my doctor," interrupted Ruth. "That's just it.
You're----It seems all wrong somehow," she broke off, "as if I was a
child, or an ignorant patient of yours, and I'm not. I'm not. Will you
pass it to me, please--the book?"
Bob gave it to her immediately. "You're going to finish it then?" he
asked, alarmed.
"I don't know," said Ruth, wide-eyed, a little alarmed herself, I think.
"I don't know. I must think it over." She crossed the room to the
secretary, opened the glass door, and placed the book on one of the high
shelves. "There," she said, "there it is." Then turning around she
added, "I'll let you know when I decide, Bob. And now I guess I'll go
upstairs, if you don't mind. These walking-shoes are so heavy. Good-by."
And she fled, on the verge of what I feared was tears.
Both Bob and Ruth were so surprised at the appearance of this sudden and
unlooked-for issue that I felt convinced it was their first difference
of opinion. I was worried. I couldn't foretell how it would come out.
Their friendship had been brief--perhaps too brief. Their engagement was
only four weeks old. They loved--I was sure of that--but they didn't
know each other very well. Old friend of Will's and mine as Robert
Jennings is, I knew him to be conservative, steeped in traditions since
childhood. Robert idealizes everything mellowed by age, from pictures
and literature to laws and institutions. Ruth, on the other hand, is a
pronounced modernist. It doesn't make much difference whether it's a hat
or a novel, if it's new and up to date Ruth delights in it.
I poured out my misgivings to Will that night behind closed doors. Will
had never had a high opinion of Ruth.
"Modernism isn't her difficulty, my dear," he remarked. "Selfishness,
with a big S. That's the trouble with Ruth. Society too. Big S. And a
pinch of stubbornness also. She never would take any advice from any
one--self-satisfied little Ruth wouldn't--and poor Bob is the salt of
the earth too. It's a shame. Whoever would have thought fine old Bob
would have fallen into calculating young Ruth's net anyhow!"
"O Will, please. You do misjudge her," I pleaded. "It isn't so. She
isn't calculating. You've said it before, and she isn't--not always. Not
this time."
"You ruffle like a protecting mother hen!" laughed Will. "Don't worry
that young head of yours too much, dear. It isn't _your_ love affair,
remember."
It _is_ my love affair. That's the difficulty. In all sorts of quiet and
covered ways have I tried to help and urge the friendship along. Always,
even before Ruth was engaged to Breckenridge Sewall, have I secretly
nursed the hope that Robert Jennings and my sister might discover each
other some day--each so beautiful to look upon, each so distinguished in
poise and speech and manner; Ruth so clever; Bob such a scholar; both of
them clean, young New Englanders, born under not dissimilar
circumstances, and both much beloved by me. It _is_ my love affair, and
it simply mustn't have quarrels.
I didn't refer to the book the next day, nor did I let Ruth know by look
or word that I noticed her silence at table or her preoccupied manner. I
made no observation upon Robert's failure to make his daily call the
next afternoon. She may have written and told him to stay away. I did
not know. In mute suspense I awaited the announcement of her decision.
It was made at last, sweetly, exquisitely, I thought.
On the second afternoon Robert called as usual. I was in the living-room
when he came in. When Ruth appeared in the doorway, I got up to go.
"No, please," she said. "Stay, Lucy, you were here before. Hello, Bob,"
she smiled, then very quietly she added, "I've made my decision."
"Ruth!" Robert began.
"Wait a minute, please," she said.
She went over to the secretary, opened the door and took down the book.
Then she crossed to the table, got a match, approached the fireplace,
leaned down, and set fire to my cherished selected birch-logs. She held
up the book then and smiled radiantly at Robert. "This is my decision!"
she said, and laid the book in the flames.
"Good heavens," I wanted to exclaim, "that's worth a dollar
thirty-five!"
"I've thought it all over," Ruth said simply, beautiful in the dignity
of her new-born self-abnegation. "A book is only paper and print, after
all. I was making a mountain out of it. It's as you wish, Bob. I won't
finish reading it."
We were very happy that night. Robert stayed to dinner. Will chanced to
be absent and there were only the three of us at table. There was a
mellow sort of stillness. A softness of voice possessed us all, even
when we asked for bread or salt. Our conversation was trivial,
unimportant, but kind and gentle. Between Ruth and Robert there glowed
adoration for each other, which words and commonplaces could not
conceal.
Robert stayed late. Upstairs in Will's study the clock struck
eleven-thirty when I heard the front door close, and peeked out
and saw Robert walking down over our flag-stones.
A moment later Ruth came upstairs softly. She went straight to her own
room. She closed the door without a sound. My sister, I knew, was filled
with the kind of exaltation that made her gentle even to stairs and
door-knobs.
Next morning she was singing as usual over her initialing. We went into
town at eleven-thirty to look up table linen. Edith met us for lunch.
One of the summer colonists had told Edith about Robert's "connections"
(he has several in Boston in the Back Bay and he himself was born in a
house with violet-colored panes) and Edith had become remarkably
enthusiastic. She was going to present Ruth with all her lingerie.
"After all," she said one day in way of reassurance to Ruth, "you would
have been in a pretty mess if you'd married Breck Sewall. Some gay lady
in Breck's dark and shady past sprang up with a spicy little law suit
two weeks before he was to be married to that Oliphant girl. Perhaps you
saw it in the paper. Wedding all off, and Breck evading the law nobody
knows where. This Bob of yours is as poor as Job's turkey, I suppose,
but anyhow, he's _decent_. An uncle of his is president of a bank in
Boston and belongs to all sorts of exclusive clubs and things. I'm going
to give you your wedding, you know, Toots. I've always wanted a good
excuse for a hack at Boston."