herself at sea in attempting to sympathize with Mrs. Hilary. She was a
sweet-faced, tired-looking little woman with a vague smile and dreamy
eyes. About five years ago Mrs. Howard had had "reverses" and had been
forced by necessity to live to violate the sanctity of her hearth and
home; grossly speaking, she had been obliged to take boarders, no
feasible alternative seeming to suggest itself. The old house in
Eleventh Street, in which she had embarked upon this cheerless career,
had never been a home for her or her daughter. Yet an irrepressible
sociability of nature enabled her to find a certain pleasure in the life
impossible to her more reserved daughter.
As they all sat around now in the parlor, into which the smell of the
Sunday turkey had somehow penetrated, a few more guests wandered in and
sat about provisionally on the impracticable parlor furniture, waiting
for the dinner signal. Mrs. Howard bravely tried to keep up the
simulation of social interchange with which she ever pathetically
strove to elevate the boarding-house intercourse into the decency of a
chosen association.
Suddenly there came a thump and a crash against the door and the twins
burst in, their jackets unbuttoned, their dusty picture hats awry.
"Oh! mater, mater!" they cried tumultuously, dancing about her.
"Such sport, mater. We fed the elephant."
"And the rabbits--"
"And a monkey carried off Gwendolen's gloves--"
"Children," exclaimed Mrs. Hilary impotently, looking from one to the
other, "where _have_ you been?" (She pronounced it bean.)
"To the park, mater--"
"To see the animals--"
"Oh, mater, you should see the ducky little baby lion!"
"What is it that they call you?" inquired a perpetually smiling young
kindergartner who had just taken possession of a top-floor hall-room.
Mrs. Hilary glanced at her slightingly.
"What is it that they _call_ me? Why, mater, of course."
"Ah, yes," the girl acquiesced pleasantly. "I remember now; it's
English, of course."
"Oh, no," returned Mrs. Hilary instructively, "it's not English; it's
Latin."
The kindergartner was silent. Mrs. Pendleton suppressed a chuckle that
strongly suggested her "mammy." Mr. Barlow grinned and Elsie Howard's
mouth twitched.
"They are such picturesque children," Mrs. Howard put in hastily. "I
wonder you don't paint them oftener."
"I declare I just wish I could paint," Mrs. Pendleton contributed
sweetly, "I think it's such pretty work."
Mrs. Hilary was engrossed in the task of putting the twins to rights.
"I don't know what to do with them, they are quite unmanageable," she
sighed. "It's so bad for them--bringing them up in a lodging-house."
Mrs. Howard flushed and Mrs. Pendleton's eyes flashed. The dinner bell
rang and Elsie Howard rose with a little laugh.
"An English mother with American children! What do you expect, Mrs.
Hilary?"
Mrs. Hilary was busy retying a withered blue ribbon upon the left side
of Gladys' brow. She looked up to explain:
"They are only half-American, you know. But their manners are getting
quite ruined with these terrible American children."
Then they filed down into the basement dining-room for the noon dinner.
"Horrid, rude little Cockney," Mrs. Pendleton whispered in Elsie
Howard's ear.
The girl smiled faintly. "Oh, she doesn't know she is rude. She is
just--English."
Mrs. Howard, over the characterless soup, wondered what it was about the
little English artist that seemed so "different." Conversation with Mrs.
Hilary developed such curious and unexpected difficulties. Mrs. Howard
looked compassionately over at the kindergartner who, with the
hopefulness of inexperience, started one subject after another with her
unresponsive neighbor. What quality was it in Mrs. Hilary that
invariably brought both discussion and pleasantry to a standstill?
Elsie, upon whom Mrs. Howard depended for clarification of her thought,
would only describe it as "English." In her attempts to account for this
alien presence in her household, Mrs. Howard inevitably took refuge in
the recollection of Mrs. Hilary's widowhood. This moving thought
occurring to her now caused her to glance in the direction of Mrs.
Pendleton's black dress and her face lightened. Mrs. Pendleton was of
another sort. Mrs. Pendleton had proved, as Mrs. Howard always expressed
it, "quite an acquisition to our circle." She felt almost an affection
for the merry, sociable talkative Southern woman, with her invariable
good spirits, her endless fund of appropriate platitude and her ready,
superficial sympathy. Mrs. Pendleton had "come" through a cousin of a
friend of a friend of Mrs. Howard's, and these vague links furnished
unlimited material for conversation between the two women. Mrs.
Pendleton was originally from Savannah, and the names which flowed in
profusion from her lips were of unimpeachable aristocracy. Pendleton was
a very "good name" in the South, Mrs. Howard had remarked to Elsie, and
went on to cite instances and associations.
Besides those already mentioned, the household consisted of three old
maids, who had been with Mrs. Howard from her first year; a pensive art
student with "paintable" hair; a deaf old gentleman whose place at table
was marked by a bottle of lithia tablets; a chinless bank clerk, who had
jokes with the waitress, and a silent man who spoke only to request
food.
Mr. Barlow occupied, and frankly enjoyed the place between Miss Elsie
and Mrs. Pendleton. He found the widow's easy witticisms, stock
anecdotes and hackneyed quotations of unfailing interest and her obvious
coquetry irresistible. Mr. Barlow took life and business in a most
un-American spirit of leisure. He never found fault with the food or the
heating arrangements, and never precipitated disagreeable arguments at
table. All things considered, he was probably the most contented spirit
in the house.
The talk at table revolved upon newspaper topics, the weather, the
health of the household, and a comparison of opinions about plays and
actresses. At election times it was strongly tinged with politics, and
on Sundays, popular preachers were introduced, with some expression as
to what was and was not good taste in the pulpit. Among the feminine
portion a fair amount of time was devoted to a review of the comparative
merits of shops.
Mrs. Pendleton's conversation, however, had a somewhat wider range, for
she had traveled. Just what topics were favored in those long undertone
conversations with Mr. Barlow only Elsie Howard could have told, as the
seat on the other side of the pair was occupied by the deaf old
gentleman. There were many covert glances and much suppressed laughter,
but neither of the two old maids opposite were able to catch the drift
of the low-voiced dialogue, so it remained a tantalizing mystery. Mrs.
Pendleton, when pleased to be general in her attentions, proved to be,
as Mrs. Howard had said, "an acquisition." She spoke most entertainingly
of Egypt, of Japan and Hawaii. Yet all these experiences seemed tinged
with a certain sadness, as they had evidently been associated with the
last days of the late Mr. Pendleton. They had crossed the Pyrenees when
"poor Mr. Pendleton was so ill he had to be carried every inch of the
way." In Egypt, "sometimes it seemed like he couldn't last another day.
But I always did say 'while there is life there is hope,'" she would
recall pensively, "and the doctors all said the only hope _for_ his life
was in constant travel, and so we were always, as you might say, seeking
'fresh fields and pastures new.'"
Then Mrs. Howard's gentle eyes would fill with sympathy. "Poor Mrs.
Pendleton," she would often say to Elsie after one of these distressing
allusions. "How terrible it must have been. Think of seeing some one
you love dying that way, by inches before your eyes. She must have been
very fond of him, too. She always speaks of him with so much feeling."
"Yes," said Elsie with untranslatable intonation. "I wonder what he died
of."
"I don't know," returned her mother regretfully. She had no curiosity,
but she had a refined and well-bred interest in diseases. "I never heard
her mention it and I didn't like to ask."
"Poor Mrs. Howard," Mrs. Pendleton was wont to say with her facile
sympathy. "_So_ hard for her to have to take strangers into her home. I
believe she was left without anything at her husband's death; mighty
hard for a woman at her age."
"How long has her husband been dead?" the other boarder to whom she
spoke would sometimes inquire.
Mrs. Pendleton thought he must have been dead some time, although she
had never heard them say, exactly. "You never hear Elsie speak of him,"
she added, "so I reckon she doesn't remember him right well."
As the winter wore on the tendency to tête-à-tête between Mrs. Pendleton
and Mr. Barlow became more marked. They lingered nightly in the chilly
parlor in the glamour of the red lamp after the other guests had left.
It was discovered that they had twice gone to the theater together. The
art student had met them coming in late. As a topic of conversation
among the boarders the affair was more popular than food complaints. A
subtile atmosphere of understanding enveloped the two. It became so
marked at last that even Mrs. Hilary perceived it--although Elsie always
insisted that Gladys had told her.
One afternoon in the spring, as Mrs. Pendleton was standing on the
door-step preparing to fit the latch-key into the lock, the door opened
and a man came out uproariously, followed by Gladys and Gwendolen, who,
in some inexplicable way, always had the effect of a crowd of children.
The man was tall and not ill-looking. Mrs. Pendleton was attired in
trailing black velveteen, a white feather boa, and a hat covered with
tossing plumes, and the hair underneath was aggressively golden. A
potential smile hovered about her lips and her glance lingered in
passing. Inside the house she bent a winning smile upon Gwendolen, who
was the less sophisticated of the two children.
"Who's your caller, honey?"
"That's the pater," replied Gwendolen with her mouth full of candy. "He
brought us some sweets. You may have one if you wish."
"Your--your father," translated Mrs. Pendleton with a gasp. She was
obliged to lean against the wall for support.
The twins nodded, their jaws locked with caramel.
"He doesn't come very often," Gladys managed to get out indistinctly. "I
wish he would."
"I suppose his business keeps him away," suggested Mrs. Pendleton.
Gladys glanced up from a consideration of the respective attractions of
a chocolate cream and caramel.
"He says it is incompatibility of humor," she repeated glibly. Gladys
was more than half American.
"Of _humor_!" Mrs. Pendleton's face broke up into ripples of delight.
She flew at once to Mrs. Howard's private sitting room, arriving all out
of breath and exploded her bomb immediately.
"My dear, did you know that Mrs. Hilary is _not_ a widow?"
"Not a widow!" repeated Mrs. Howard with dazed eyes.
"I met her husband right now at the door. He was telling the children
good-by. He isn't any more dead than I am."
"Not dead!" repeated Mrs. Howard, collapsing upon the nearest chair with
all the prostration a news bearer's heart could desire. "And she was
always talking about what he _used_ to do and _used_ to think and _used_
to say. Why--why I can't believe it."
"True as preachin'," declared Mrs. Pendleton, adding that you could have
knocked her down with a feather when she discovered it.
Elsie Howard came into her mother's room just then and Mrs. Pendleton
repeated the exciting news, adding, "Gladys says they don't live
together because of incompatibility of humor!"
Elsie smiled and remarked that it certainly was a justifiable ground for
separation and unkindly went off, leaving the subject undeveloped.
The next day Mrs. Howard had a caller. It was the friend whose cousin
had a friend that had known Mrs. Pendleton. In the process of
conversation the caller remarked casually:
"So Mrs. Pendleton has got her divorce at last."
Mrs. Howard smiled vaguely and courteously.
"Some connection of our Mrs. Pendleton? I don't think I have heard her
mention it. Dear me, isn't it dreadful how common divorce is getting to
be!"
The guest stared.
"You don't mean to say--why, my dear Mrs. Howard--is it _possible_ you
don't know? It _is_ your Mrs. Pendleton."
Mrs. Howard remained looking at her friend. Once or twice her lips moved
but no words came.
"Her husband is dead," she said at last, faintly.
The caller laughed. "Then he must have died yesterday. Why, didn't you
know that was the reason she spent last year in Colorado?"
"For her husband's health," gasped Mrs. Howard, clinging to the last
shred of her six months' belief in Mrs. Pendleton's widowhood. "I always
had an impression that it was there he died."
The other woman laughed heartlessly. "Did she tell you he was dead?"
Mrs. Howard collected her scattered faculties and tried to think.
"No," she said at last. "Now that you speak of it, I don't believe she
ever did. But she certainly gave that impression. She seemed to be
always telling of his last illness and his last days. She never actually
mentioned the details of his death--but then, how could she--poor
thing?"
"She couldn't, of course. That would have been asking too much." Mrs.
Howard's guest went off again into peals of unseemly laughter.
When her caller had left, Mrs. Howard climbed up to the chilly skylight
room occupied by her daughter and dropped upon the bed, exclaiming:
"Well, I never would have believed it of Mrs. Pendleton!"
Elsie, who was standing before her mirror, regarded her mother in the
glass.
"What's up. Has she eloped with Billie Barlow at last?"
Mrs. Howard tried to say it, but became inarticulate with emotion. After
five minutes of preamble and exclamation, her daughter was in possession
of the fact.
"That explains about her hair," was Elsie's only comment. "I am so
relieved to have it settled at last."
"Why didn't she tell me?" wailed Mrs. Howard.
"Oh, people don't always tell those things."
Mrs. Howard was silent.
As they passed the parlor door on their way down to dinner, Mrs.
Pendleton's merry laugh rang out and Elsie caught a glimpse of the
golden hair under the red lamp and the fugitive glimpse of Mr. Barlow's
bald spot.
About two days later, as the girl came in from an afternoon's shopping,
and was on her way upstairs, her mother called to her. Something in the
sound of it attracted her attention. She hurried down the few steps and
into her mother's room. Mrs. Howard was sitting over by the window in
the fading light, with a strange look upon her face. An open telegram
lay in her lap. Elsie went up to her quickly.
"What is it, mother?"
Mrs. Howard handed her the telegram.
"Your father," she said.
Elsie Howard read the simple announcement in silence. Then she looked
up, the last trace of an old bitterness in her faint smile.
"We will miss him," she said.
"Elsie!" cried her mother. It was a tone the girl had never heard from
her before. Her eyes fell.
"No, it wasn't nice to say it. I am sorry. But I can't forget what life
was with him." She raised her eyes to her mother's. "It was simply hell,
mother; you can't have forgotten. You have said it yourself so often. We
can not deny that it is a relief to know--"
"Hush, Elsie, never let me hear you say anything like that again."
"Forgive me, mother," said the girl with quick remorse. "I never will. I
don't think I have ever felt that death makes such things so different,
and I didn't realize how you would--look at it."
"My child, he was your father," said Mrs. Howard in a low voice. Then
Elsie saw the tears in her mother's eyes.
* * * * *
"_Such_ a shock to her," Mrs. Pendleton murmured, sympathetically, to
Elsie. "I know, Miss Elsie; I can feel for her--" Elsie mechanically
thought of the last hours of Mr. Pendleton, then recalled herself with a
start. "Death always _is_ a shock," Mrs. Pendleton finished gracefully,
"even when one most expects it. You must let me know if there is
anything I can do."
Later in the evening she communicated the astonishing news to Mrs.
Hilary, who ejaculated freely: "Only fancy!" and "How very
extraordinary!"
"Didn't you think he had been dead a hundred years?" exclaimed Mrs.
Pendleton.
"One never can tell in the states," responded Mrs. Hilary
conservatively. "Divorce is so common over here. It isn't the thing at
all in England, you know."
Mrs. Pendleton stared.
"But they were not divorced, only separated. Do you never do that--in
England?"
"Divorced people are not received at court, you know," explained Mrs.
Hilary.
Mrs. Pendleton's glance lingered upon the Englishwoman's immobile face
and a laugh broke into her words.
"But when you are in Rome, you do as the Romans--is that it, Mrs.
Hilary?" But the shot glanced off harmlessly from the thick armor of
British literalness.
"In Rome divorce doesn't exist at all," she graciously informed her
companion. "The Romish church does not permit it, you know."
The American woman looked at the Englishwoman more in sorrow than in
anger.
"How," she reflected, "is one to be revenged like a lady upon an
Englishwoman?"
It was about a week later that Mrs. Pendleton, finding herself alone
with Mrs. Howard and Elsie, made the final announcement.
"I hope you-all will be ready to dance at my wedding next month. It's
going to be very quiet, but I couldn't think of being married without
you and Miss Elsie--and Mr. Barlow, he feels just like I do about it."
WOMEN AND BARGAINS
BY NINA R. ALLEN
Show me the woman who in her heart of hearts does not delight in a
bargain, and I will tell you that she is a dead woman.
I who write this, after having triumphantly passed bargain counters of
every description, untempted by ribbons worth twenty-five cents but
selling for nineteen, insensible to dimities that had sold for nineteen
cents but were offered at six and a fourth cents a yard, and--though I
have a weakness for good cooking utensils--blind to the attractions of a
copper tea-kettle whose former price was now cut in two, at last fell a
victim to a green-and-white wicker chair.
This is how it happened. I asked the price. Eight dollars, replied the
shop-keeper. No. It was a ten-dollar chair. But he had said eight. It
was a mistake. Nevertheless he would keep his word. I could have it for
eight. What heart of woman could resist a bargain like this? Besides, I
thought such honesty ought to be encouraged. It is but too uncommon in
this wicked world. And--well, I really wanted the chair. How could a
woman help wanting it when she found that the salesman had made an error
of two dollars? It was a ten-dollar chair, the shop-keeper repeated. I
saw the tag marked "Lax, Jxxx Mxx." There could be no doubt of it.
I gazed and gazed, but finally went on, like the seamen of Ulysses,
deafening myself to the siren-voice. And though I had hesitated, I
might not have been lost; but returning by the same route, I saw a
neighboring druggist rush into that store bareheaded, as I now suppose
to change a bill. Need I say that I then thought he had come for my
chair? Need I say that I then and there bought that chair?
Thus have I brought shame on a judicious parent--not my mother--who has
conscientiously labored to teach me that the way of the bargain-hunter
is hard.
As well might man attempt to deprive the cat of its mew or the dog of
its bark as to eliminate from the female breast the love of bargains. It
has been burned in with the centuries. Eve, poor soul, doubtless never
knew the happiness of swarming with other women round a big table piled
with remnants of rumpled table-linen, mis-mated towels and soiled
dresser-scarfs, or the pleasure of carrying off the bolt of last fall's
ribbon on which another woman had her eye; nor had she the proud
satisfaction of bringing home to her unfortunate partner a shirt with a
bosom like a checker-board, that had been marked down to sixty-three
cents. But history, since her day, is not lacking in bargains of various
kinds, of which woman has had her share, though no doubt Anniversary
Sales, Sensational Mill End Sales, and Railroad Wreck Sales are
comparatively modern.
A woman's pleasure in a good bargain is akin to the rapture engendered
in the feminine bosom by successful smuggling. It is perhaps a purer
joy. The satisfaction of acquiring something one does not need, or of
buying an article which one may have some use for in the future, simply
because it is cheap or because Mrs. X. paid seventeen cents more for the
same thing at a bargain-sale, can not be understood by a mere man.
Once in a while some stupid masculine creature endeavors to show his
wife that she is losing the use of her money by tying it up in
embroideries for decorating cotton which is still in the fields of the
South, or laying it out in summer dress-goods when snow-storms can not
be far distant. The use of her money forsooth! What is money for except
to spend? And if she didn't buy embroideries and dimities, she would
purchase something else with it.
So she goes on hunting bargains, or rather profiting by those that come
in her way, for generally it is not necessary to search for them. These
little snares of the merchant are only too common in this age, when
everything from cruisers to clothes-pins and pianos to prunes may often
be had at a stupendous sacrifice.
A man usually goes to a shop where he believes that he will run little
or no risk of being deceived in the quality of the goods, even though
prices be higher there than at some other places. A woman thinks she
knows a bargain when she sees it.
She is aware that the store-keeper has craftily spread his web of
bargains, hoping that when lured into his shop she will buy other things
not bargains. But she determines beforehand that she will not be cajoled
into purchasing anything but the particular bargain of her
desire,--unless--unless she sees something else which she really wants.
And generally, she sees something else which she really wants.
Most women are tolerably good judges of a bargain, and therefore have
some ground for their confidence in themselves. I have seen a Christmas
bargain-table containing china and small ornaments of various wares,
completely honeycombed of its actual bargains by veteran
bargain-hunters, who left unpurchased as if by instinct goods from the
regular stock, offered at usual prices.
Bargains are a boon to the woman of moderate means. The deepest joys of
bargain-hunting are not known to the rich, though they by no means
disdain a bargain. To them is not given the delight of saving long, and
waiting for a bargain sale, and at last possessing the thin white china
or net curtains ardently desired and still out of reach at regular
prices. But they have some compensation. They have the advantage not
only of ready money, which makes a bargain available at any time, but
also that of leisure.
While my lady of the slender purse is still getting the children ready
for school, or exhorting Bridget not to burn the steak that will be
entrusted to her tender mercies, they can swoop down upon a bargain and
bear it away victoriously.
A fondness for bargains is not without its dangers, for with some people
the appetite grows with what it feeds on, to the detriment of their
purses as well as of their outlook on life. To them, all the world
becomes a bargain-counter.
A few years ago in a city which shall be nameless, two women looked into
the windows of a piano-store. In one, was an ancient instrument marked
"1796"; in the other, a beautiful modern piano labeled "1896." "Why,"
said one of the gazers to her companion, indicating the latter, "I'd a
good deal rather pay the difference for this one, wouldn't you?"
This is no wild invention of fiction, but a bald fact. So strong had the
ruling passion become in that feminine heart.
Upon a friend of mine, the bargain habit has taken so powerful a hold
that almost any sort of a bargain appeals to her. She is the owner of a
fine parrot, yet not long ago she bought another, which had cost fifteen
dollars, but was offered to her for ten. Its feathers were bedraggled
and grimy, for it had followed its mistress about like a dog; it proved
to be so cross that at first it had to be fed from the end of a stick;
and though represented as a brilliant talker, its discourse was found to
be limited to "Wow!" and "Rah! Rah!"--but it was a bargain.