WAR DECLARED
The April morning was brimming with golden sunshine when Fran looked
from the window of her second-story room. Between two black streamers
left from last night's rain-clouds, she found the sun making its way
up an aisle of intense blue. Below, the lawn stretched in level
greenness from Hamilton Gregory's residence to the street, and the
grass, fresh from the care of the lawn-mower, mixed yellow tints of
light with its emerald hue. Shadows from the tender young leaves
decorated the whiteness of the smooth village road in dainty tracery,
and splashed the ribbons of rain-drenched granitoid walks with warm
shadow-spray.
Fran, eager for the first morning's view of her new home, stared at
the half-dozen cottages across the street, standing back in picket-
fenced yards with screens of trees before their window-eyes. They
showed only as bits of weather-boarding, or gleaming fragments of
glass, peeping through the boughs. At one place, nothing was to be
seen but stone steps and a chimney; at another, there was an open door
and a flashing broom; or a curl of smoke and a face at a window. She
thought everything homelike, neighborly. These houses seemed to her
closer to the earth than those of New York, or, at any rate, closer in
the sense of brotherhood. She drew a deep breath of pungent April
essence and murmured: "What a world to live in!"
Fran had spoken in all sincerity when declaring that she wanted
nothing but a home; and when she went down to breakfast it was with
the expectation that every member of the family would pursue his
accustomed routine, undeflected by her presence. She was willing that
they should remain what they were, just as she expected to continue
without change; however, not many days passed before she found herself
seeking to modify her surroundings. If a strange mouse be imprisoned
in a cage of mice, those already inured to captivity will seek to
destroy the new-comer. Fran, suddenly thrust into the bosom of a
family already fixed in their modes of thought and action, found
adjustment exceedingly difficult.
She did not care to mingle with the people of the village--which was
fortunate, since her laughing in the tent had scandalized the
neighborhood; she would have been content never to cross the
boundaries of the homestead, had it not been for Abbott Ashton. It was
because of him that she acquiesced in the general plan to send her to
school. In the unanimous conviction of the need of change in Fran, and
because there were still two months of school, she must pass through
this two-months' wringer--she might not acquire polish, but the family
hoped some crudities might be squeezed out. It was on the fifth day of
her stay, following her startling admission that she had never been to
school a day in her life, that unanimous opinion was fused into
expressed command--
"You must go to school!"
Fran thought of the young superintendent, and said she was willing.
When Mr. Gregory and the secretary had retired to the library for the
day's work, Mrs. Gregory told Fran, "I really, think, dear, that your
dresses are much too short. You are small, but your face and manners
and even your voice, sometimes, seem old--_quite_ old."
Fran showed the gentle lady a soft docility. "Well," she said, "my
legs are there, all the time, you know, and I'll show just as much of
them, or just as little, as you please."
Simon Jefferson spoke up--"I like to see children wear short dresses--
"
and he looked at this particular child with approval. That day, she
was really pretty. The triangle had been broadened to an oval brow,
the chin was held slightly lowered, and there was something in her
general aspect, possibly due to the arrangement of folds or colors--
heaven knows what, for Simon Jefferson was but a poor male observer--
that made a merit of her very thinness. The weak heart of the burly
bachelor tingled with pleasure in nice proportions, while his mind
attained the aesthetic outlook of a classic age. To be sure, the
skirts did show a good deal of Fran; very good--they could not show
too much.
"I like," Simon persisted, "to see young girls of fourteen or fifteen,
dressed, so to say, in low necks and high stockings in--er--in the
airy way such as they are by nature..." It was hard to express.
"Yes," Fran said impartially, "it pleases others, and it doesn't hurt
me."
"Fran!" Mrs. Gregory exclaimed, gazing helplessly at the girl with
something of a child's awe inspired by venerable years. It was a
pathetic appeal to a spirit altogether beyond her comprehension.
Fran's quick eye caught the expression of baffled reaching-forth, of
uncertain striving after sympathetic understanding. "You darling
lady!" she cried, clasping her hands to keep her arms from flying
about the other's neck, "don't you be troubled about me. Bless your
heart, I can take care of myself--and you, too! Do you think I'd add a
straw to your...Now you hear me: if you want to do it, just put me
in long trains with Pullman sleepers, for I'm the little girl for you,
dear heart, and I'll do whatever you say. If you want to show people
how tame I am, just hold up your hand, and I'll crawl into my cage."
The laughter of Mrs. Gregory sounded wholesome and deep-throated--the
child was so deliciously ridiculous. "Come, then," she cried, with a
lightness she had not felt for months, "come, crawl into your cage!"
And she opened her arms.
With a flash of her lithe body, Fran was in her cage, and, for a time,
rested there, while the fire in her dark eyes burned tears to all
sorts of rainbow colors. It seemed to her that of all the people in
the world, Mrs. Gregory was the last to hold her in affectionate
embrace. She cried out with a sob, as if in answer to her dark
misgivings--"Oh, but I want to belong to somebody!"
"You shall belong to me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gregory, folding her closer.
"To you?" Fran sobbed, overcome by the wonder of it. "To _you,_ dear
heart?" With a desperate effort she crowded back intruding thoughts,
and grew calm. Looking over her shoulder at Simon Jefferson--"No more
short dresses, Mr. Simon," she called, "you know your heart mustn't be
excited."
"Fran!" gasped Mrs. Gregory in dismay, "hush!"
But Simon Jefferson beamed with pleasure at the girl's artless ways.
He knew what was bad for his heart, and Fran wasn't. Her smiles made
him feel himself a monopolist in sunshine. Simon Jefferson might be
fifty, but he still had a nose for roses.
Old Mrs. Jefferson was present, and from her wheel-chair bright eyes
read much that dull ears missed. "How gay Simon is!" smiled the
mother--he was always her spoiled boy.
Mrs. Gregory called through the trumpet, "I believe Fran has given
brother a fresh interest in life."
Simon nodded; he didn't care who knew it. Since his sister's marriage
to the millionaire philanthropist, Simon had found life appallingly
dull; how could he have found interest in the passing years without
his heart-complaint? Hamilton Gregory's perennial absorption in the
miseries of folk beyond the horizon, and lack of sympathy with those
who sat at his table, set him apart as a model; Simon hated models.
Old Mrs. Jefferson beamed upon Fran and added her commendation: "She
pushes me when I want to be pushed, and pulls me when I want to be
pulled."
Fran clapped her hands like a child, indeed. "Oh, what a gay old
world!" she cried. "There are so many people in it that like me." She
danced before the old lady, then wheeled about with such energy that
her skirts threatened to level to the breeze.
"Don't, don't!" cried Mrs. Gregory precipitately. _"Fran!"_
"Bravo!" shouted Simon Jefferson. _"Encore!"_
Fran widened her fingers to push down the rebellious dress. "If I
don't put leads on me," she said with contrition, "I'll be floating
away. When I feel good, I always want to do something wrong--it's
awfully dangerous for a person to feel good, I guess. Mrs. Gregory,
you say I can belong to you,--when I think about that, I want to
dance...I guess you hardly know what it means for Fran to belong to a
person. You're going to find out. Come on," she shouted to Mrs.
Jefferson, without using the trumpet--always a subtle compliment to
those nearly stone-deaf, "I mustn't wheel myself about, so I'm going
to wheel you."
As she passed with her charge into the garden, her mind was busy with
thoughts of Grace Noir. Belonging to Mrs. Gregory naturally suggested
getting rid of the secretary. It would be exceedingly difficult. "But
two months ought to settle _her_," Fran mused.
In the meantime, Grace Noir and Gregory sat in the library, silently
turning out an immense amount of work, feeding the hungry and
consoling the weak with stroke of pen and click of typewriter. If
conversation sometimes trickled across the dry expanse of statistical
benevolence, it was never, on Grace's part, for pastime. Beneath her
words was always an underflowing current, tugging at the listener to
bear him away to her chosen haven. As an expert player of checkers
knows his moves in advance, so her conversations, however brief, were
built up with a unity of purpose which her consciousness of purest
motives saved from artificiality.
"About this case, number one hundred forty-three," she said, looking
up from her work as copyist, "the girl whose father wouldn't
acknowledge her..."
"Write to the matron to give her good clothing and good schooling." He
spoke softly. There prevailed an atmosphere of subtle tenderness; on
this island--the library--blossomed love of mankind and devotion to
lofty ideals. These two mariners found themselves ever surrounded by a
sea of indifference; there was not a sail in sight. "It is a sadcase,"
he murmured.
"You think number one hundred forty-three a sad case?" she repeated,
always, when possible, building her next step out of the material
furnished by her companion. "But suppose she _is_ an impostor. He says
she's not his daughter, this number one hundred forty-three. Maybe she
isn't. Would you call her conduct _sad_?"
Gregory took exquisite pleasure in arguing with Grace, because her
serene assumption of "being in the right gave to her beautiful face a
touch of the angelic. "I should call it impossible."
"Impossible? Do you think it's impossible that Fran's deceiving you?
How can you know that she is the daughter of your friend?"
He grew pale. Oh, if he could have denied Fran--if he could have
joined Grace in declaring her an impostor! But she possessed proofs so
irrefutable that safety lay in admitting her claim, lest she prove
more than he had already admitted. "I know it, absolutely. She is the
daughter of one who was my most--my most intimate friend."
Grace repeated with delicate reproof--"Your intimate friend!"
"I know it was wrong for him to desert his wife."
"Wrong!" How inadequate seemed that word from her pure lips!
"But," he faltered, "we must make allowances. My friend married Fran's
mother in secret because she was utterly worldly--frivolous--a
butterfly. Her own uncle was unable to control her--to make her go to
church. Soon after the marriage he found out his mistake--it broke his
heart, the tragedy of it. I don't excuse him for going away to
Europe--"
"I am glad you don't. He was no true man, but a weakling. I am glad I
have never been thrown with such a--a degenerate."
"But, Miss Grace," he urged pleadingly, "do you think my friend, when
he went back to find her and she was gone--do you think he should have
kept on hunting? Do you think, Grace, that he should have remained
yoked to an unbeliever, after he realized his folly?"
There was heavenly compassion in her eyes, for suddenly she had
divined his purpose in defending Fran's father. He was thinking of his
own wife, and of his wife's mother and brother--how they had ceased to
show sympathy in what he regarded as the essentials of life. Her
silence suggested that as she could not speak without casting
reflection upon Mrs. Gregory, she would say nothing, and this tact was
grateful to his grieved heart.
To the degree that Grace Noir took solemn satisfaction in attending
every service of the Walnut Street church, no matter what the weather,
she had grown to regard non-attendants as untrue soldiers, bivouacking
amidst scenes of feasting and dancing. She made nothing of Mrs.
Gregory's excuse that she stayed at home with her mother--the old lady
should be wheeled to the meeting-house, even if against her
inclinations. As for the services being bad for Simon Jefferson's weak
heart,--she did not think they would hurt his heart or that it would
matter if they did. Visible, flesh-and-blood presence was needful to
uphold the institution, and Grace would have given more for one body
resting upright in a pew, than for a hundred members who were there
only "in the spirit".
"I have been thinking of something very strange," Grace said, with a
marked effort to avoid the issue lest she commit the indiscretion of
blaming her employer's wife. "I remember having heard you say that
when you were a young man, you left your father's home to live with a
cousin in a distant town who happened to be a teacher in a college,
and that you were graduated from his college. Don't you think it
marvelous, this claim of Fran, who says that her father, when a young
man, went to live with a cousin who was a college professor, and that
he was graduated from that college? And she says that her father's
father was a rich man--just as yours was--and that the cousin is dead
--just as yours is."
At these piercing words, Gregory bowed his head to conceal his
agitation. Could it be possible that she had guessed all and yet, in
spite of all, could use that tone of kindness? It burst upon him that
if he and she could hold this fatal secret in common, they might, in
sweetest comradeship, form an alliance against fate itself.
She persisted: "The account that Fran gives of her father is really
your own history. What does that show?"
He spoke almost in a whisper. "My friend and I were much alike." Then
he looked up swiftly to catch a look of comprehension by surprise, if
such a look were there.
Grace smiled coolly. "But hardly identical, I presume. Don't you see
that Fran has invented her whole story, and that she didn't have
enough imagination to keep from copying after your biographical sketch
in the newspaper? I don't believe she is your friend's daughter. I
don't believe you could ever have liked the father of a girl like
Fran,--that he could have been your intimate friend."
"Well--" faltered Gregory. But why should he defend Fran?
"Mr. Gregory," she asked, as if what she was about to say belonged to
what had gone before, "would it greatly inconvenience you for me to
leave your employment?"
He was electrified. "Grace! Inconvenience me!--would you--could..."
"I have not decided--not yet. Speaking of being yoked with
unbelievers--I have never told you that Mr. Robert Clinton has wanted
me to marry him. As long as he was outside of the church, of course it
was impossible. But now that he is converted--"
"Grace!" groaned the pallid listener.
"He would like me to go with him to Chicago."
"But you couldn't love Bob Clinton--he isn't worthy of you, Grace.
It's impossible. Heaven knows I've had disappointments enough--" He
started up and came toward her, his eyes glowing. "Will you make my
life a complete failure, after all?"
"Love him?" Grace repeated calmly. "This is merely a question of doing
the most good."
"But, Grace, love must be considered--if it comes too late, it
overturns the purest purposes. Don't wait until it's too late as I--
as--I repeat, until it's too late."
"I know nothing about love."
"Then let me teach you, Grace, let--"
"Shall we not discuss it?" she said gently. "That is best, I think. If
I decide to marry Mr. Clinton, I will tell you even before I tell him.
I don't know what I shall choose as my best course."
"But, Grace! What could I do--without--"
"Shall we just agree to say no more about it?" she softly interposed.
"That is wisest until my decision is made. We were talking about Fran
--do you not think this a good opportunity for Mrs. Gregory to attend
services? Fran can stay with Mrs. Jefferson."
"I have no doubt," he said, still agitated, "that my wife would find
it easy enough to go to church, if she really wanted to go."
"Mr. Gregory!" she reproved him.
"Well," he cried, somewhat defiantly, "don't you think she could go,
if she wanted to?"
"Well," Grace answered slowly, "this girl will leave her without any--
any excuse."
"Oh, Miss Grace, if my wife were only--like you--I mean, about going
to church!"
"I consider it," she responded, "the most important thing in the
world." Her emphatic tone proved her sincerity. The church on Walnut
Street stood, for her, as the ark; those who remained outside, at the
call of the bell, were in danger of engulfment.
After a long silence, Grace looked up from her typewriter. "Mr.
Gregory," she said pausingly, "you are unhappy."
Nothing could have been sweeter to him than her sympathy, except
happiness itself. "Yes," he admitted, with a great sigh, "I am very
unhappy, but you understand me, and that is a little comfort. If you
should marry Bob Clinton--Grace, tell me you'll not think of it
again."
"And you are unhappy," said Grace, steadfastly ruling Bob Clinton out
of the discussion, "on account of Fran."
He burst forth impulsively--"Ever since she came to town!" He checked
himself. "But I owe it to my friend to shelter her. She wants to stay
and--and she'll have to, if she demands it."
"You are unhappy," Grace quietly pursued, "because her character is
already formed, because she is a girl who laughs at sacred things, and
mocks the only true objects of life. You know it is too late to change
her, and you know her influence is bad for--for everybody in this
house."
"But it can't be helped," he insisted disconsolately. "If she wants to
stay, I can't help it. But, Grace, you are right about her influence.
Even my wife finds new strength to resist what she knows to be her
duty, because the girl likes her."
"Do you owe more to your dead friend," Grace asked, with passionate
solemnity, "than to the living God?"
He shrank back. "But I can't send her away," he persisted in nervous
haste. "I can't. But heaven bless you, Grace, for your dear thought of
me."
"You will bless me with more reason," said Grace softly, "when Fran
decides to go away. She'll tire of this house--I promise it. She'll
go--just wait!--she'll go, as unceremoniously as she came. Leave it to
me, Mr. Gregory." In her earnestness she started up, and then, as if
to conceal her growing resolution, she walked swiftly to the window as
if to hold her manuscript to the light. Gregory followed her.
"If she would only go!" he groaned. "Grace! Do you think you could?--
Yes, I will leave everything to you."
"She'll go," Grace repeated fixedly.
The window at which they stood overlooked the garden into which Fran
had wheeled old Mrs. Jefferson.
Fran, speaking through the ear-trumpet with as much caution as
deafness would tolerate, said, "Dear old lady, look up at the library
window, if you please, for the muezzin has climbed his minaret to call
to prayers."
Very little of this reached its destination--muezzin was in great
danger of complicating matters, but the old lady caught "library
window", and held it securely. She looked up. Hamilton Gregory and
Grace Noir were standing at the tower window, to catch the last rays
of the sun. The flag of truce between them was only a typewritten
sheet of manuscript. Grace held the paper obliquely toward the west;
Hamilton leaned nearer and, with his delicate white finger, pointed
out a word. Grace nodded her head in gentle acquiescence.
"Amen," muttered Fran. "Now let everybody sing!"
The choir leader and his secretary vanished from sight.
"Just like the play in Hamlet," Fran said half-aloud. "And now that
the inside play is over, I guess it's time for old Ham to be doing
something."
Mrs. Jefferson gripped the arms of her wheel-chair and resumed her
tale, as if she had not been interrupted. It was of no interest as a
story, yet possessed a sentimental value from the fact that all the
characters save the raconteur were dead, and possibly all but her
forgotten. Fran loved to hear the old lady evoke the shades of long
ago, shades who would never again assume even the palest manifestation
to mortals, when this old lady had gone to join them.
There was "Cousin Sarah Tom", who had been present at the great ball
in Lexington. "Even Cousin Sarah Tom was there," said Mrs. Jefferson,
thus for ever stamping this ghostly outline with greatness. And there
was "Aunt Mandy" hovering on the outskirts of the general theme--"Aunt
Mandy was there, as full of fun and mischief as ever." The old lady's
stories bristled with such subsidiary characters concerning whom it
was sufficient to say that they were "there". Sometimes so many were
"there" that the historian forgot her original intention and wandered
aimlessly among irrelevant acquaintances.
Usually Fran brought her back, with gentle hand, but to-day she
divined subterfuge; the tale was meant to hide Mrs. Jefferson's real
feelings. Fran ventured through the trumpet:
"I wish there was a man-secretary on this place, instead of a woman."
Mrs. Jefferson snatched away the instrument with indignation. "What is
that you say?" she asked, glaring. "In bed with a woman? Who? What
woman? "Then she clapped the trumpet to her ear as if defying a French
romance to do its worst.
Fran called, "Your grandmother-goosey, and not so loud, if you
please!"
The other drew herself up, while her black lace cap quivered at every
ribbon-end. What was this? How dare this chit?
Fran took the tube with sudden decisiveness. "All right," she called,
"you can take it that way, if you want to. But let me tell you _one_
thing, dear old soldier--there's going to be a big fight put up on
these grounds. I guess you ought to stay out of it. But either I or
the secretary has got to _git."_
Fran was not unmindful of grammar, even of rhetoric, on occasion. She
knew there was no such word as "git", but she was seeking to symbolize
her idea in sound. As she closed her teeth, each little pearl meeting
a pearly rival, her "git" had something of the force of physical
ejectment.
Behind large spectacle lenses, sparks flashed from Mrs. Jefferson's
eyes. She sniffed battle. But her tightly compressed lips showed that
she lacked both Fran's teeth and Fran's intrepidity. One steps
cautiously at seventy-odd.
Fran comprehended. The old lady must not let it be suspected that she
was aware of Gregory's need of cotton in straining ears, such as had
saved Ulysses from siren voices. The pretense of observing no danger
kept the fine old face uncommonly grim.
"Little girls shouldn't fight," was her discreet rejoinder. Then
leaning over the wheel, she advanced her snow-white head to the head
of coal-black. "Better not stir up _dragons."_
Fran threw back her head and laughed defiantly. "Bring on your
dragons," she cried boastfully. "There's not one of 'em that I'm
afraid of." She extended one leg and stretched forth her arm. "I'll
say to the Dragon, 'Stand up'--and she'll stand: I'll say 'Lie down'--
and down she'll lie. I'll say _Git_--and she'll--" Fran waved her
dragon to annihilation.
"Goodness," the old lady exclaimed, getting nothing of this except the
pantomime; that, however, was eloquent. She recalled the picture of
David in her girlhood's Sunday-school book. "Are you defying the Man
of Gath?" She broke into a delicious smile which seemed to flood the
wrinkles of her face with the sunshine of many dear old easy-going
years.
[Illustration with caption: "'Lie down'--and down she'll lie."]
Fran smote her forehead. "I have a few pebbles here," she called
through the trumpet.
Mrs. Jefferson grasped the other's thin arm, and said, with zestful
energy, "Let her have 'em, David, let her have 'em!"