It has suddenly been revealed to me that the complacency with which I
have been regarding my care and rearing of the children is abysmally
false and wholly unjustified.
They are not properly clothed for New York and even here in Crestlands
they seem on a sudden pitifully shabby. The competition in that sort of
thing in a suburb is keen. Everybody's children seem better dressed than
my own and yet, do what I will, I cannot afford to spend more.
Randolph's high-school dignity is positively impaired by clothes which
he is constantly outgrowing. And the rate at which Jimmie wears out
trousers and soils white suits is simply unbelievable. Laura alone
seems to have the gift of always keeping her things fresh and wearing
them as though they were new.
As for Alicia, that girl ought to be clothed in purple, at least
figuratively, if only I could afford it. It seems to me I cannot live
another day unless I procure for Alicia a large collection of frocks and
blouses and shoes and whatever else would set off that faunlike
creature, compact of energy and grace. For almost daily that child
grows more beautiful in a way that pulls at my heartstrings.
I trust I am no idiotic parent, or foster parent, to rave about her eyes
and complexion and the like. I am as dispassionate as any one can well
be. But truly there is something starlike in her eyes and at times,
when she is sewing or reading or working on my eternal catalogue, I
surprise her pensive, absorbed in some long thoughts of her own that not
for worlds would I disturb. At such moments I am absolutely fascinated
by those soft pools of light that irradiate her face.
Are other girls like that at her age, I wonder? It seems scarcely
conceivable. At any rate, I have never seen any others like her. But
then, I have seen so few.
The truth remains, however, that I positively must dress her better.
Even my dull fancy joyously leaps at the vision of Alicia beautifully
dressed and diffusing sweetness and fragrance through the house. Of
course, I cannot single her out. There is Laura, too. And it might
seem invidious, although as the eldest of them all, Alicia is entitled
to especial consideration. I cannot moreover allow Pendleton to observe
that I have kept his children shabby. Few are the claims that Pendleton
can legitimately array against me, but the shabbiness of the children
would too flagrantly proclaim my failure. Nor does Dibdin know as yet my
rake's progress since Fred Salmon made a business man of me.
But where am I to get the money for clothes when the mere routine of
subsistence absorbs it all? There is still Dibdin's yellowing cheque
intact, but I cannot use that--no.