I am trying to be the perfect young lady according to dear
mummy's definition. You should see me running baby ribbon in
my _lingerie_ and combing out the fringe on tea-napkins.
Every afternoon we are 'entertained' or give an
entertainment. Of course we meet the same people over and
over, but truly I like the cordiality. Even the
inquisitiveness has an affectionate quality to it. I'm
determined to enjoy my village and I do appreciate the homely
niceties of the life here. Of course I have to 'pretend'
rather hard at times--pretend, for example, that I care about
certain things which are really of no moment to me whatever.
To illustrate, mother and I have some recipes which nobody
else has and it's our rôle to be secretive about them! And we
have invented a new sort of 'ribbon sandwich.' Did you ever
hear of a ribbon sandwich? If not, you must be told that it
consists of layers and layers of thin slices of bread all
pressed down together, with ground nuts or dressed lettuce in
between. Each entertainer astonishes her guests with a new
variety. That furnishes conversation for several minutes.
"How long can I stand it, Honora, my dear old defender of
freedom? The classrooms are mine no more; the campus is a
departed glory; I shall no longer sing the 'Alma Mater' with
you when the chimes ring at ten. The whole challenge of the
city is missing. Nothing opposes me, there is no task for me
to do. I must be supine, acquiescent, smiling, non-essential.
I am like a runner who has trained for a race, and, ready for
the speeding, finds that no race is on. But I've no business
to be surprised. I knew it would be like this, didn't I? the
one thing is to ¸make and keep mummy happy. She needs me _so_
much. And I am happy to be with her. Write me often--write me
everything. Gods, how I'd like a walk and talk with you!"
Mrs. Barrington did not attempt to conceal her interest in the letters
which Ray McCrea wrote her daughter. She was one of those women who
thrill at a masculine superscription on a letter. Perhaps she got more
satisfaction out of these not too frequent missives than Kate did
herself. While the writer didn't precisely say that he counted on Kate
to supply the woof of the fabric of life, that expectation made itself
evident between the lines to Mrs. Barrington's sentimental perspicacity.
Kate answered his letters, for it was pleasant to have a masculine
correspondent. It provided a needed stimulation. Moreover, in the back
of her mind she knew that he presented an avenue of escape if Silvertree
and home became unendurable. It seemed piteous enough that her life with
her parents should so soon have become a mere matter of duty and
endurance, but there was a feeling of perpetually treading on eggs in
the Barrington house. Kate could have screamed with exasperation as one
eventless day after another dawned and the blight of caution and
apprehension was never lifted from her mother and Martha. She writhed
with shame at the sight of her mother's cajolery of the tyrant she
served--and loved. To have spoken out once, recklessly, to have entered
a wordy combat without rancor and for the mere zest of tournament, to
have let the winnowing winds of satire blow through the house with its
stale sentimentalities and mental attitudes, would have reconciled her
to any amount of difference in the point of view. But the hushed voice
and covertly held position afflicted her like shame.
Were all women who became good wives asked to falsify themselves? Was
furtive diplomacy, or, at least, spiritual compromise, the miserable
duty of woman? Was it her business to placate her mate, and, by
exercising the cunning of the weak, to keep out from under his heel?
There was no one in all Silvertree whom the discriminating would so
quickly have mentioned as the ideal wife as Mrs. Barrington. She
herself, no doubt, so Kate concluded with her merciless young
psychology, regarded herself as noble. But the people in Silvertree had
a passion for thinking of themselves as noble. They had, Kate said to
herself bitterly, so few charms that they had to fall back on their
virtues. In the face of all this it became increasingly difficult to
think of marriage as a goal for herself, and her letters to McCrea were
further and further apart as the slow weeks passed. She had once read
the expression, "the authentic voice of happiness," and it had lived
hauntingly in her memory. Could Ray speak that? Would she, reading his
summons from across half the world, hasten to him, choose him from the
millions, face any future with him? She knew she would not. No, no;
union with the man of average congeniality was not her goal. There must
be something more shining than that for her to speed toward it.
However, one day she caught, opportunely, a hint of the further meanings
of a woman's life. Honora provided a great piece of news, and
illuminated with a new understanding, Kate wrote:--
"MY DEAR, DEAR GIRL:--
"You write me that something beautiful is going to happen to
you. I can guess what it is and I agree that it is glorious,
though it does take my breath away. Now there are two of
you--and by and by there will be three, and the third will be
part you and part David and all a miracle. I can see how it
makes life worth living, Honora, as nothing else
could--nothing else!
"Mummy wouldn't like me to write like this. She doesn't
approve of women whose understanding jumps ahead of their
experiences. But what is the use of pretending that I don't
encompass your miracle? I knew all about it from the
beginning of the earth.
"This will mean that you will have to give up your laboratory
work with David, I suppose. Will that be a hardship? Or are
you glad of the old womanly excuse for passing by the outside
things, and will you now settle down to be as fine a mother
as you were a chemist? Will you go further, my dear, and make
a fuss about your house and go all delicately bedizened after
the manner of the professors' nice little wives--go in, I
mean, for all the departments of the feminine profession?
"I do hope you'll have a little son, Honora, not so much on
your account as on his. During childhood a girl's feet are as
light as a boy's bounding over the earth; but when once
childhood is over, a man's life seems so much more coherent
than a woman's, though it is not really so important. But it
takes precisely the experience you are going through to give
it its great significance, doesn't it?
"What other career is there for real women, I wonder? What,
for example, am I to do, Honora? There at the University I
prepared myself for fine work, but I'm trapped here in this
silly Silvertree cage. If I had a talent I could make out
very well, but I am talentless, and all I do now is to answer
the telephone for father and help mummy embroider the towels.
They won't let me do anything else. Some one asked me the
other day what colors I intended wearing this autumn. I
wanted to tell them smoke-of-disappointment, ashes-of-dreams,
and dull-as-wash-Monday. But I only said ashes-of-roses.
"'Not all of your frocks, surely, Kate,' one of the girls
cried. 'All,' I declared; 'street frocks, evening gowns,
all.' 'But you mustn't be odd,' my little friend warned.
'Especially as people are a little suspicious that you will
be because of your going to a co-educational college.'
"I thought it would be so restful here, but it doesn't offer
peace so much as shrinkage. Silvertree isn't pastoral--it's
merely small town. Of course it is possible to imagine a
small town that would be ideal--a community of quiet souls
leading the simple life. But we aren't great or quiet souls
here, and are just as far from simple as our purses and
experience will let us be.
"I dare say that you'll be advising me, as a student of
psychology, to stop criticizing and to try to do something
for the neighbors here--go in search of their submerged
selves. But, honestly, it would require too much
paraphernalia in the way of diving-bells and air-pumps.
"I have, however, a reasonable cause of worry. Dear little
mummy isn't well. At first we thought her indisposition of
little account, but she seems run down. She has been flurried
and nervous ever since I came home; indeed, I may say she has
been so for years. Now she seems suddenly to have broken
down. But I'm going to do everything I can for her, and I
know father will, too; for he can't endure to have any one
sick. It arouses his great virtue, his physicianship."
* * * * *