Peter hadn’t been so excited since the time when he had waited to
meet young Lackman. He had never quite forgiven himself for this
costly failure, and now he was to have another chance. He took a
trolley ride out into the country, and walked a couple of miles to
the palace on the hilltop, and mounted thru a grove of trees and
magnificent Italian gardens. According to McGivney’s injunctions, he
summoned his courage, and went to the front door of the stately
mansion and rang the bell.
Peter was hot and dusty from his long walk, the sweat had made
streaks down his face and marred the pristine whiteness of his
plasters. He was never a distinguished-looking person at best, and
now, holding his damaged straw hat in his hands, he looked not so
far from a hobo. However, the French maid who came to the door was
evidently accustomed to strange-looking visitors. She didn’t order
Peter to the servant’s entrance, nor threaten him with the dogs; she
merely said, “Be seated, please. I will tell madame”--putting the
accent on the second syllable, where Peter had never heard it
before.
And presently here came Mrs. Godd in her cloud of Olympian
beneficence; a large and ample lady, especially built for the role
of divinity. Peter felt suddenly awe-stricken. How had he dared come
here? Neither in the Hotel de Soto, with its many divinities, nor in
the palace of Nelse Ackerman, the king, had he felt such a sense of
his own lowliness as the sight of this calm, slow-moving great lady
inspired. She was the embodiment of opulence, she was “the real
thing.” Despite the look of kindliness in her wide-open blue eyes,
she impressed him with a feeling of her overwhelming superiority. He
did not know it was his duty as a gentleman to rise from his chair
when a lady entered, but some instinct brought him to his feet and
caused him to stand blinking as she crossed to him from the opposite
end of the big room.
“How do you do?” she said in a low, full voice, gazing at him
steadily out of the kind, wide-open blue eyes. Peter stammered, “How
d-dy do, M--Mrs. Godd.”
In truth, Peter was almost dumb with bewilderment. Could it really,
possibly be that this grand personage was a Red? One of the things
that had most offended him about all radicals was their noisiness,
their aggressiveness; but here was a grand serenity of looks and
manner, a soft, slow voice--here was beauty, too, a skin unlined,
despite middle years, and glowing with health and a fine cleanness.
Nell Doolin had had a glowing complexion, but there was always a lot
of powder stuck on, and when you investigated closely, as Peter had
done, you discovered muddy spots in the edges of her hair and on her
throat. But Mrs. Godd’s skin shone just as the skin of a goddess
would be expected to shine, and everything about her was of a divine
and compelling opulence. Peter could not have explained just what it
was that gave this last impression so overwhelmingly. It was not
that she wore many jewels, or large ones, for Mrs. James had beaten
her at that; it was not her delicate perfume, for Nell Doolin
scattered more sweetness on the air; yet somehow even poor, ignorant
Peter felt the difference--it seemed to him that none of Mrs. Godd’s
costly garments had ever been worn before, that the costly rugs on
the floor had never been stepped on before, the very chair on which
he sat had never been sat on before!
Little Ada Ruth had called Mrs. Godd “the mother of all the world;”
and now suddenly she became the mother of Peter Gudge. She had read
the papers that morning, she had received a half dozen telephone
calls from horrified and indignant Reds, and so a few words sufficed
to explain to her the meaning of Peter’s bandages and plasters. She
held out to him a beautiful cool hand, and quite without warning,
tears sprang into the great blue eyes.
“Oh, you are one of those poor boys! Thank God they did not kill
you!” And she led him to a soft couch and made him lie down amid
silken pillows. Peter’s dream of Mount Olympus had come literally
true! It occurred to him that if Mrs. Godd were willing to play
permanently the role of mother to Peter Gudge, he would be willing
to give up his role of anti-Red agent with its perils and its
nervous strains; he would forget duty, forget the world’s strife and
care; he would join the lotus-eaters, the sippers of nectar on Mount
Olympus!
She sat and talked to him in the soft, gentle voice, and the kind
blue eyes watched him, and Peter thought that never in all his life
had he encountered such heavenly emotions. To be sure, when he had
gone to see Miriam Yankovich, old Mrs. Yankovich had been just as
kind, and tears of sympathy had come into her eyes just the same.
But then, Mrs. Yankovich was nothing but a fat old Jewess, who lived
in a tenement and smelt of laundry soap and partly completed
washing; her hands had been hot and slimy, and so Peter had not been
in the least grateful for her kindness. But to encounter tender
emotions in these celestial regions, to be talked to maternally and
confidentially by this wonderful Mrs. Godd in soft white chiffons
just out of a band-box _this _was quite another matter!