Kathryn Morris, as the days of Northrup's absence stretched into
weeks, grew more and more restless. She began to do some serious
thinking, and while this developed her mentally, the growing pains
hurt and she became twisted.
Heretofore she had been borne along on a peaceful current. She was
young and pretty and believed that everyone saw her as she wanted them
to see her--a charming, an unusually charming girl.
People had always responded to her slightest whim, but suddenly her
own particular quarry had eluded her; did not even pine for her; was
able to keep silent while he left her and his mother to think what
they chose.
At this moment Kathryn placed herself beside Helen Northrup as a timid
débutante shrinks beside her chaperon.
"And that old beast"--Kathryn in the privacy of her bedchamber could
speak quite openly to herself--"that old beast, Doctor Manly,
suggested that at forty I might be fat if----" Well, it didn't matter
about the "if." Kathryn did a bit of mental arithmetic, using her
fingers to aid her. What was the difference between twenty-four and
forty? The difference seemed terrifyingly _little_. "A fat forty! Oh,
good Lord!"
Kathryn was in bed and it was nine-thirty in the morning! She sprang
out and looked at herself in the mirror.
"Well, my body hasn't found it out yet!" she whispered, and her pretty
white teeth showed complacently.
Then she sat down in a deep chair and took account of stock. That
"fat-forty" was a mere panic. She would not think of it--but it
loomed, nevertheless.
Of course, for the time being, there was Sandy Arnold on the crest of
one of his financial waves.
Kathryn was level-headed enough not to lose sight of receding waves
but then, on the other hand, the crest of a receding wave was better
than to be left on the sands--fat and forty! And Northrup was
displaying dangerous traits. A distinct chill shook Kathryn.
She turned her thought to Northrup. Northrup had seemed safe. He
belonged to all that was familiar to her. He would be famous some
day--that she might interfere with this never occurred to the girl.
She simply saw herself in a gorgeous studio pouring tea or dancing,
and all the people paying court to her while knowing that they ought
to be paying it to Northrup.
"But he always gets a grubby hole to work in." Kathryn fidgeted. "I
daresay he is working now in some smudgy old place."
But this thought did not last. She could insist upon the studio. A man
owes his wife _something_ if he will have his way about his job.
Just at this point a tap on the door brought a frown to Kathryn's
smooth forehead.
"Oh! come in," she called peevishly.
A drab-coloured woman of middle age entered. She was one of the
individuals so grateful for being noticed at all that her cheerfulness
was a constant reproach. She had been selected by Kathryn's father to
act as housekeeper and chaperon. As the former she was a gratifying
success; as the latter, a joke and one to be eliminated as much as
possible.
For the first time in years Kathryn regarded her aunt now with
interest.
"Aunt Anna"--Kathryn never indulged in graceful tact with her
relations--"Aunt Anna, how old _are_ you?"
Anna Morris coloured, flinched, but smiled coyly.
"Forty-two, dear, but it was only yesterday that my dressmaker said
that I should not tell that. It is not necessary, you know."
"I suppose not!" Kathryn was regarding the fatness of the woman who
was calmly setting the disorderly room to rights. "Aunt Anna, why
didn't you marry?"
The dull, fat face was turned away. Anna Morris never lost sight of
the fact that when Kathryn married she would face a stern situation
unless Kathryn proved kinder than any one had any reason to expect her
to be. So her remarks were guarded.
"Oh! my dear, my dear, _what_ a question. Well, to be quite frank, I
discovered at eighteen that some men could stir my senses"--Anna
Morris tittered--"and some couldn't. At twenty-two the only man who
could stir me was horribly poor; the other stirring ones had been
snapped up. You see, there was no one to help me with my affairs.
Your father never _did_ understand. The only thing he was keen about
was making money enough to marry your mother. Then you were born and
your mother died and--well, there was nothing for me to do but come
here and help him out. One has plain duties. I always had sense
enough"--Anna Morris moved about heavily--"to realize that senses do
not stir when poverty pinches, and this house _was_ comfortable; and
duty _can_ fill in chinks. I always contend"--the dull eyes now
confronted Kathryn--"that there _is_ a dangerous age for men and
women. If they get through that alive and alone--well, there is a
kind of calm that comes."
"I suppose so." Kathryn felt a sinking in the region of the heart.
"Are you ever lonely?" she asked suddenly. "Ever feel that you let
your own life slip when you helped Father and me?"
Anna Morris's lips trembled as they always did when any one was kind
to her; but she got control of herself at once--she could not afford
the comfort of letting herself go!
"Oh, I don't know. Yes; sometimes. But who isn't lonely at times?
Marriage can't prevent that and even your own private life, quite your
own, is bound to have some lonely spells. There are all kinds of
husbands. Some float about, heaven knows where; their wives must be
lonely; and then the settled sort--dear me! I've often seen women
terribly lonely right in the rooms with their husbands. I have come
to the conclusion that once you pass the dangerous age you're as well
placed one way as another. That is, if you are a woman."
Kathryn was looking unusually serious. While she was in this mood she
clutched at seeming trifles and held them curiously.
"What was Brace's father like?" she suddenly asked.
Anna Morris started.
"Why, what ails you, Kathie?" she asked suspiciously. "You've never
taken any interest before. Why should you? A young girl and all
that--why should you?"
"Tell me, Aunt Anna. I've often wondered."
Anna Morris sat down heavily in a chair. The older Northrup had once
had power to stir her; was one of the men too poor for her to
consider.
"Well," she began slowly, tremblingly, "he wasn't companionable at
the last, but I shall always see _his_ side. Helen Northrup is a
fine woman--I can understand how many take her part, but being
married to her kind must seem like mental Mormonism. _She_ calls
it developing--but a man like Thomas Northrup married a woman
because she was the kind he wanted and he couldn't be expected to
keep trace of all the kinds of women Helen Northrup ran into
and--out of!"
"I don't know what you mean, Aunt Anna. Do talk sense."
Kathryn was almost excited. It was like reading what wasn't intended
for innocent young girls to know.
"Well, first, Helen Northrup was just like all loving young girls, I
guess--but when she didn't find _all_ she wanted, she took to
developing, as she called it. For _my_ part I believe when a woman
finds her husband isn't _all_ she expected, she ought to accept her
lot and make the best of it."
"And Brace's mother started out to make her own lot? I see."
Kathryn nodded her head.
"Well, something like that. She took to writing. Thomas Northrup
didn't know what ailed her and I don't wonder. She should have spent
herself on _his_ career, not making one for herself. But I must say
when Brace was born she stopped that nonsense but she evolved then
into a mother!" Anna sniffed. "A man can share with his children, but
when it comes to giving up everything, well!"
"What did he do, Aunt Anna?"
"He went away."
"With a woman?"
"Yes."
"One he just met when Mrs. Northrup became a mother?"
"He knew her before, but if Helen Northrup had been all she should
have been to him----"
"I begin to see. And then?"
"Well, then he died and proved how noble he was at heart. When he went
off, Helen Northrup wouldn't take a cent. She had a little of her own
and she went to work and Brace helped when he grew older--and then
when Thomas Northrup died he left almost all his fortune to his wife.
He never considered her anything else. I call his a really great
nature." Poor Anna was in a trembling and ecstatic state.
"I call him a--just what he was!" Kathryn was weary of the subject. "I
think Brace's mother was a fool to let him off so easy. I would have
bled him well rather than to let the other woman put it all over me."
"My dear, that's not a proper way for you to talk!" Aunt Anna became
the chaperon. "Come, get dressed now, dearie. There's the luncheon,
you know."
"What luncheon?"
"Why, with Mr. Arnold, my dear, and he included me, too! Such a sweet
fellow he is, and so wise and thoughtful."
"Oh!"
There had been a time when she and Sandy Arnold met clandestinely--it
was such fun! He included Aunt Anna now. Why?
And just then, as if it were a live and demanding thing, her eyes fell
on Northrup's last book. She scowled at it. It was a horrible book.
All about dirty, smudgy people that you couldn't forget and who kept
springing out on you in the most unexpected places. At dinners and
luncheons they often wedged in with their awful eyes fixed on your
plate and made you choke. They probably were not true. And those
things Brace said! Besides, if they were true, people like that were
used to them--they had never known anything else!
And then Brace had said some terrible things about war; that war going
on over the sea. Of course, no one expected to have a war, but it was
unpatriotic for any one to say what Brace had about those perfectly
dear officers at West Point and--what was it he said?--oh, yes--having
the blood of the young on one's soul and settling horrid things, like
money and land, with lives.
At this Kathryn tossed the book aside and it fell at Anna's feet. She
picked it up and handled it as if it were a tender baby that had
bumped its nose.
"It must be perfectly wonderful," she said, smoothing the book, "to
have an autographed copy of a novel. It's like having a lock of
someone's hair. Where _is_ Brace, Kathryn?"
This was unfortunate.
"That is my business and his!" Kathryn spoke slowly. Her eyes slanted
and her lips hardened.
"My darling, I beg your pardon!" And once more Anna Morris was shoved
into the groove where she belonged.
Later that day, after the luncheon with Sandy--Anna had been
eliminated by a master stroke that reduced her to tears and left Sandy
a victim to Kathryn's wiles--Kathryn called upon Helen Northrup.
She was told by the smiling little maid to go up into the Workshop.
This room was a pitiful attempt to lure Brace to work at home; in his
absence Helen sat there and scribbled. She wrote feeble little verses
with a suggestion of the real thing in them. Sometimes they got
published because the suggestion caught the attention of a sympathetic
publisher, and these small recognitions kept alive a spark that was
all but extinguished when Helen Northrup chose, as women of her time
did, a profession or--the woman's legitimate sphere!
There had been no regret in Helen's soul for whatever part she played
in her own life--her son was her recompense for any disappointment she
might have met, and he was, she devoutly believed, her interpreter.
She loved to think in her quiet hours that her longings and
aspirations had found expression in her child; she had sought, always,
to consider his interests wisely--unselfishly, of course--and leave
him as free to live his own life as though she were not the lonely,
disillusioned woman that she was.
She had never known how early Brace had understood the conditions in
his home--mothers and fathers rarely do. Only once during his boyhood
had Brace ventured upon the subject over which he spent many confused
and silent hours.
When he was fourteen he remarked, in that strained voice that he
believed hid any emotion:
"I say, Mother, a lot of fellows at our school have fathers and
mothers who live apart--most of the fellows side with their mothers!"
These words nearly made Helen ill. She could make no reply. She looked
dumbly at the boy facing her with a new and awful revealment. She
understood that he wanted her to _know_, wanted to comfort her; and
she knew, with terrifying certainty, that she could not deceive
him--she was at his mercy!
She was wise enough to say nothing. But after that she felt his
suddenly acquired strength. It was shown in his tenderness, his
cheerfulness, his companionship, and, thank God! in his silence.
But while Helen gloried in her boy she still was loyal to the
traditions of marriage, and her little world never got behind her
screen. She had divorced her husband because he desired it--then she
went on alone. When her husband died away from home, his body was
brought to her. It had been his last request and she paid all respect
to it with her boy close beside her. And then she forgot--really, in
most cases--the things that she had been remembering. She erected over
her dead husband, not a stone, but a living _unreality_. It answered
the purpose for which it was designed; it made it possible for her to
live rather a full life, be a comrade to her son--a friend indeed--and
to share all his joys and many of his confidences, and to impress upon
him, so she trusted, that he must not sacrifice anything for her.
Why should he, indeed? Had she not interests enough to occupy her? The
sight of a widowed mother draining the life-blood from her children
had always been a dreadful thing to Helen Northrup, and so well had
she succeeded in her determination to leave Brace free that the
subject rarely came into the minds of either.
But Brace's latest move had disturbed Helen not a little. It startled
her, made her afraid, as that remark of his in his school days had
done. Did he chafe under ties that he loved but found that he must
flee from for awhile? Why did he and Kathryn not marry? Were they
considering her? Was she blinded?
Helen had been going over all this for days before the visit of
Kathryn, and during the night preceding the call she had awakened in
great pain; she had had the pain before and it had power to reduce her
to cowardice. It seemed to dare her, while she lay and suffered, to
confide in a physician!
There was an old memory of one who had suffered and died from----"Find
out the truth about me!" each dart of fire in the nerves cried, and
when the pain was over Helen Northrup had not dared to meet the
challenge and go to Manly or another! At first she tried to reason
with herself; then she compromised.
"After all, it is so fleeting. I'll rest, take better care of myself.
I'm not so young as I was--Nature is warning me; it may not be the
other."
Well, rest and care helped and the attacks were less frequent. That
gave a certain amount of hope.
When Kathryn entered the Workshop she found Helen on the couch instead
of at the flat-topped desk. She looked very white and blue-lipped but
she was smiling and happily glad to see her visitor. She was extremely
fond of Kathryn. Early in life she had prepared herself to accept and
love any woman her son might choose--she would never question the gift
he offered! But when Kathryn was offered, she was overjoyed. Kathryn
was part of the dear, familiar life; the daughter of old friends.
Helen Northrup felt that she was blessed beyond all mothers. The
thing, to her, seemed so exactly right. That the marriage did not take
place had hardly disturbed her. Kathryn was young, Brace was winning,
not only a home for the girl, but honour, and there was always time.
_Time_ is such a splendid heritage of youth and such a rare relic of
age.
"Why, my dearie-dear!" exclaimed Kathryn, kneeling beside the couch.
"What _is_ it?"
"Nothing, dear child; nothing more than a vicious touch of neuralgia."
"Have you seen Doctor Manly?" Kathryn patted the pillows and soothed,
by her touch, the hot forehead. Kathryn had the gift of healing in her
small, smooth hands, but not in her soul.
She had always been jealous of the love between Brace and his mother.
It was so unusual, so binding, so beyond her conception; but she could
hide her feelings until by and by.
"Now, dearie-dear, we _must_ send for Doctor Manly. Of course Brace
ought to know. He would never forgive us if he did not know. I hate to
trouble you but, my dear, you look simply terrifyingly ill." Like a
lightning flash Kathryn's nimble wits caught a possibility.
Helen smiled. Then spoke slowly:
"Now, my dear, when Brace comes home, I promise to see Doctor Manly.
These attacks are severe--but they pass quickly and there are long
periods when I am absolutely free from them."
"You mean, you have attacks?" Kathryn looked appalled.
"Oh, yes; off and on. That fact proves how unimportant they are."
Kathryn was again taking stock.
She believed that Brace was still at that place from which the letter
came! She was fiendishly subject to impressions and suspicions.
"Now if he is still there"--thoughts ran like liquid fire in Kathryn's
brain--"_why_ does he stay? It isn't far." She had made sure of that
by road maps when the letter first came. "I could motor out there and
see!" The liquid fire brought colour to the girl's face.
She was dramatic, too, she could always see herself playing the
leading parts in emotional situations. Just now, like more flashes of
lightning, disclosing vivid scenes, she saw herself, prostrated by
fear and anxiety for Helen Northrup, finding Brace, confiding in him
because she dared not take the chances of silence and dared not
disobey and go to Doctor Manly.
Brace would be fear-filled and remorseful, would see at last how she,
Kathryn, had his interests in mind. He would cling to her. Sitting
close by the couch, her face pressed to Helen Northrup's shoulder,
Kathryn contemplated the alluring and passionate scenes. Brace had
always lacked passion. She had always to hold Arnold virtuously in
check, but Brace was able to control himself. But--and here the vivid
pictures reeled on, familiarity had dulled things, long engagements
were flattening--Brace would at last see her as she was. She'd forgive
anything that might have happened--of course, anything _might_ have
happened--she, a woman of the world, understood.
And--Kathryn was brought to a sudden halt--the reel spun on but there
was no picture!
Suppose, after all, there was nothing really to be frightened about in
these attacks? Well, that would be found out after Brace had been
brought home and might enhance rather than detract from--her divine
devotion.
Presently Kathryn became aware of the fact that Helen Northrup had
been speaking while the reel reeled!
"And then that escapade of his when he was only seven." Helen patted
the golden head beside her while her thoughts were back with her boy.
"He was walking with me when suddenly he looked up; his poor little
face was all twisted! He just said rather impishly, 'I'm going! I am
really!' and he went! I was, naturally, frightened, and ran after
him--then, when I caught sight of him, a long way ahead, I stopped and
waited. When he thought I was not following, he waded right out into a
puddle; he even had a scrappy fight with a bigger boy who contested
his right to invade the puddle. It was so absurd. Kathryn, I actually
went home; I felt sure Brace would find his way back and he did. I was
nearly wild with anxiety, but I waited. He came back disgustingly
dirty, but hilariously happy. He expected punishment. When none was
meted out to him--he told me all about it--it seemed flat enough when
he saw how I took it. Why, I never even mentioned the mud on him. He
was disappointed, but I think he understood more than I realized. When
he went to bed that night, he begged my pardon!"
Kathryn got up and walked about the room. She was staging another
drama. Brace was now playing in puddles--not such simple ones as those
of his childhood. He was having his little fight, too, possibly; with
whom?
Well, how perfectly thrilling to save him!
Such a girl as Kathryn has as cheap an imagination as any lurid
factory girl, but it is kept as safely from sight as the contents of
her vanity bag.
"Kathryn, have you heard from Brace?"
The girl started almost guiltily. Helen hated to ask this, she feared
Kathryn might think her envious; but Kathryn rose and drew a chair to
the couch.
"No, dearie-dear," she said sweetly.
"So you don't know just where he is?"
"How could I know, dearie thing?"
So they were not keeping things from her; shutting her out! Helen
Northrup raised her head from the pillow.
"We're in the same boat, darling," she said, so glad to be in the same
boat. "Lately I've had a few whim-whams." Helen felt she could be
confidential. "I suppose I am touching the outer circle of old age,
and before it blinds me, I'm going to have my say. It would be just
like you and Brace to forget yourselves and think of me. And if I do
not look out, I'll be taking your sacrifice and calling it by its
wrong name. You and Brace must marry. I half believe you've been
waiting for me to push you out of the nest. Well, here you go! Your
own nest will be sacred to me, another place for me to go to, another
interest. I'll be having you both closer. Now, don't cry, little girl.
I've found you out and found myself, too!"
Kathryn was shedding tears--tears of gratitude for the material Helen
was putting at her disposal.
"My dear little Kathryn! It is going to be all right, all right. Why,
childie, when he comes home I am going to insist upon the wedding. I
am not a young woman, really, though I put up a bit of a bluff--and
the time isn't very long, no matter how you look at it--so, darling,
you and Brace must humour me, do the one big thing to make me
happy--you must be married!"
Kathryn looked up. The tears hung to her long lashes.
"You want this?" she faltered with quivering lips.
Helen believed she understood at last.
"My darling!" she said tenderly, "it is the one great longing of my
heart."
Then she dropped back on her pillow and closed her eyes while the pain
gripped her. But the pain, for a moment, seemed a friend, not a foe.
It might be the thing that would open the door--out.
Helen had spoken truth as truth should be but never quite is, to a
mother. She had taken her place in the march, her colours flying. But
her place was the mother's place, lagging in the rear.
Such an effort as she had just made caused angels to weep over her.