DISH-WASHING
On that night, while all Millings was preparing itself for the Greelys'
dance, while Dickie, bent close to his cracked mirror, was tying his
least crumpled tie with not too steady fingers, while Jim was applying to
his brown crest a pomade sent to him by a girl in Cheyenne, while Babe
was wondering anxiously whether green slippers could be considered a
match or a foil to a dress of turquoise blue, while Girlie touched her
cream-gold hair with cream-padded finger-tips, Sheila Arundel prowled
about her room with hot anger and cold fear in her heart.
Nothing, perhaps, in all this mysterious world is so inscrutable a
mystery as the mind of early youth. It crawls, the beetle creature, in a
hard shell, hiding the dim, inner struggle of its growing wings, moving
numbly as if in a torpid dream. It has forgotten the lively grub stage of
childhood, and it cannot foresee the dragon-fly adventure just ahead.
This blind, dumb, numb, imprisoned thing, an irritation to the nerves of
every one who has to deal with it, suffers. First it suffers darkly and
dimly the pain growth, and then it suffers the sharp agony of a splitting
shell, the dazzling wounds of light, the torture of first moving its
feeble wings. It drags itself from its shell, it clings to its perch, it
finds itself born anew into the world.
When Sheila had left the studio with Sylvester, she was not yet possessed
of wings. Now, the shell was cracking, the dragon-fly adventure about to
begin. To a changed world, changed stars--the heavens above and the earth
beneath were strange to her that night.
It had begun, this first piercing contact of reality, rudely enough. Mrs.
Hudson had helped to split the protecting shell which had saved Sheila's
growing dreams. Perhaps "Momma" had her instructions, perhaps it was only
her own disposition left by her knowing husband to do his trick for him.
Sheila had not overstated the unhappiness that Mrs. Hudson's evident
dislike had caused her. In fact, she had greatly understated it. From the
first moment at the station, when the hard eyes had looked her over and
the harsh voice had asked about "the girl's trunk," Sheila's
sensitiveness had begun to suffer. It was not easy, even with Babe's
good-humored help, to go down into the kitchen and submit to Mrs.
Hudson's hectoring. "Momma" had all the insolence of the underdog. Of her
daughters, as of her husband, she was very much afraid. They all bullied
her, Babe with noisy, cheerful effrontery--"sass" Sylvester called
it--and Girlie with a soft, unyielding tyranny that had the smothering
pressure of a large silk pillow. Girlie was tall and serious and
beautiful, the proud possessor of what Millings called "a perfect form."
She was inexpressibly slow and untidy, vain and ignorant and
self-absorbed. At this time her whole being was centered upon the
attentions of Jim Greely, with whom she was "keeping company." With Jim
Greely in her mind, she had looked Sheila over, thin and weary Sheila in
her shabby black dress, and had decided that here no danger threatened.
Nevertheless she did not take chances. Sheila had been in Millings a
fortnight and had not met the admirable Jim. Her attempt that morning to
send the note to Dickie by Jim was exactly the action that led to the
painful splitting of her shell.
She had seen from her window Sylvester's departure after breakfast. There
was something in his grim, angular figure, moving carefully over the icy
pavement in the direction of the hotel, that gave her a pang for Dickie.
She was sure that Hudson was going to be very disagreeable in spite of
her attempt to soften his anger. And she was sorry that Dickie, with his
odd, wistful, friendly face and his eyes so wide and youthful and
apologetic for their visions, should think that she was angry or
disgusted. She wrote her letter in a little glow of rescue, and was proud
of the tact of that reference to his "fall down the steps"--for she
reasoned that the self-esteem of any boy of nineteen must suffer
poignantly over the memory of being knocked down by his father before the
eyes of a strange girl. She wrote her note and ran down the stairs, then
stopped to wonder how she could get it promptly to Dickie. It was
intended as a poultice to be applied after the "bawling-out," and she
could not very well take it to him herself. She knew that he worked in
the hotel, and the hotel was just around the corner. All that was needed
was a messenger.
She was standing, pink of cheek and vague of eye, fingering her apron
like a cottage child and nibbling at the corner of her envelope, the
light from a window on the stairs falling on the jewel-like polish of her
hair, when Girlie opened the door of the "parlor" and came out into the
hall. Girlie saw her and half-closed the door. Her lazy eyes, as
reflective and receptive and inexpressive as small meadow pools under a
summer sky, rested upon Sheila. In the parlor a pleasant baritone voice
was singing,
"Treat me nice, Miss Mandy Jane,
Treat me nice.
Don't you know I'se not to blame,
Lovers all act just the same,
Treat me nice..."
Girlie's fingers tightened on the doorknob.
"What do you want, Sheila?" she asked, and into the slow, gentle tones of
her voice something had crept, something sinuous and subtle, something
that slid into the world with Lilith for the eternal torment of earth's
daughters.
"I want to send this note to your brother," said Sheila with the
simplicity of the aristocrat. "Is that Mr. Greely? Is he going past
the hotel?"
She took a step toward Jim, but Girlie held out her soft long hand.
"Give it to me. I'll ask him."
Sheila surrendered the note.
"You'd better get back to the dishes," said Girlie over her shoulder.
"Momma's kind of rushed this morning. She's helping Babe with her party
dress. I wouldn't 'a' put in my time writing notes to Dickie to-day if
I'd 'a' been you. Sort of risky."
She slid in through the jealous door and Sheila hurried along the hall to
the kitchen where there was an angry clash and clack of crockery.
The kitchen was furnished almost entirely with blue-flowered oilcloth;
the tables were covered with it, the floor was covered with it, the
shelves were draped in it. Cold struck up through the shining, clammy
surface underfoot so that while Sheila's face burned from the heat of the
stove her feet were icy. The back door was warped and let in a current of
frosty air over its sill, a draught that circled her ankles like cold
metal. On the table in the middle of the room, "Momma" had placed an
enormous tin dish-pan piled high with dirty dishes, over which she was
pouring the contents of the kettle. Steam rose in clouds, half-veiling
her big, fierce face which, seen through holes in the vapor, was like
that of a handsome, vulgar witch.
Through the steam she shot at Sheila a cruel look. "Aren't you planning
to do any work to-day, Sheila?" she asked in her voice of harsh,
monotonous accents. "Here it's nine o'clock and I ain't been able to do a
stroke to Babe's dress. I dunno what you was designed for in this
house--an ornament on the parlor mantel, I guess."
Sheila's heart suffered one of the terrible swift enlargements of angry
youth. It seemed to fill her chest and stop her breath, forcing water
into her eyes. She could not speak, went quickly up and took the kettle
from "Momma's" red hand.
The table at which dish-washing was done, was inconveniently high. When
the big dishpan with its piled dishes topped it, Sheila's arms and back
were strained over her work. She usually pulled up a box on which she
stood, but now she went to work blindly, her teeth clenched, her flexible
red lips set close to cover them. The Celtic fire of her Irish blood gave
her eyes a sort of phosphorescent glitter. "Momma" looked at her.
"Don't show temper!" she said. "What were you doin'? Upstairs work?"
"I was writing a letter," said Sheila in a low voice, beginning to wash
the plates and shrinking at the pain of scalding water.
"Hmp! Writing letters at this hour! One of your friends back East? I
thought it was about time somebody was looking you up. What do your
acquaintance think of you comin' West with Sylly?"
Now that she was at liberty to put a "stroke" of work; on Babe's dress,
"Momma" seemed in no particular hurry to do so. She stood in the middle
of the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked apron and
staring at Sheila. Her eyes were like Girlie's turned to stone, as blank
and blind as living eyes can be.
Sheila did not answer. She was white and her hands shook.
"Hmp!" said "Momma" again. "We aren't goin' to talk about our
acquaintance, are we? Well, some folks' acquaintance don't bear talkin'
about; they're either too fine or they ain't the kind that gets into
decent conversation." She walked away.
Sheila did her work, holding her anger and her misery away from her,
refusing to look at them, to analyze their cause. It was a very busy day.
The help Babe usually gave, and "Momma's" more effectual assistance, were
not to be had. Sheila cleaned up the kitchen, swept the dining-room, set
the table and cooked the supper. Her exquisite French omelette and savory
baked tomatoes were reviled. The West knows no cooking but its own, and,
like all victims of uneducated taste, it prefers the familiar bad to the
unfamiliar good.
"You've spoiled a whole can of tomatoes," said Babe.
Sylvester laughed good-humoredly: "Oh, well, Miss Sheila, you'll learn!"
This, to Sheila, whose omelette had been taught her by Mimi Lolotte and
whose baked tomatoes, delicately flavored with onion, were something to
dream about. And she had toasted the bread golden brown and buttered it,
and she had made a delectable vegetable soup! She had never before been
asked to cook a meal at Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue and she was eager to
please Sylvester. His comment, "You'll learn," fairly took her breath.
She would not sit down with them at the table, but hurried back into the
kitchen, put her scorched cheek against some cold linoleum, and cried.
By the time dinner was over and more dishes ready to be washed, the
cook's wounded pride was under control. Her few tears had left no
marks on her face. Babe, helping her, did not even know that there had
been a shower.
Babe was excited; her chewing was more energetic even than usual. It
smacked audibly.
"Say, Sheila, wot'll you wear to-night?" she yelled above the clatter.
"Wear?" repeated Sheila.
"To the dance, you silly! What did you think I meant--to bed?"
Sheila's tired pallor deepened a little. "I am not going to the dance."
"Not going?" Babe put down a plate. "What do you mean? Of course you're
going! You've gotta go. Say--Momma, Pap, Girlie"--she ran, at a sort of
sliding gallop across the oilcloth through the swinging door into the
dining-room--"will you listen to this? Sheila says she's not going to
the dance!"
"Well," said "Momma" audibly, "she'd better. I'm agoin' to put out the
fires, and the house'll be about 12 below."
Sylvester murmured, "Oh, we must change that."
And Girlie said nothing.
"Well," vociferated Babe. "I call it too mean for words. I've just set my
heart on her meeting some of the folks and getting to know Millings.
She's been here a whole two weeks and she hasn't met a single fellow but
Dickie, and he don't count, and she hasn't even got friendly with any of
the girls. And I wanted her to see one of our real swell affairs.
Why--just for the credit of Millings, she's gotta go."
"Why fuss her about it, if she don't want to?" Girlie's soft voice was
poured like oil on the troubled billows of Babe's outburst.
"I'll see to her," Sylvester's chair scraped the floor as he rose. "I
know how to manage girls. Trust Poppa!"
He pushed through the door, followed by Babe. Sheila looked up at him
helplessly. She had her box under her feet, and so was not entirely
hidden by the dishpan. She drew up her head and faced him.
"Mr. Hudson," she began--"please! I can't go to a dance. You know
I can't--"
"Nonsense!" said Pap. "In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such
word as 'can't.' Say, girl, you can and you must. I won't have Babe
crying her eyes out and myself the most unpopular man in Millings. Say,
leave your dishes and go up and put on your best duds."
"That's talking," commented Babe.
In the dining-room "Momma" said, "Hmp!" and Girlie was silent.
Sheila looked at her protector. "But, you see, Mr. Hudson, I--I--it was
only a month ago--" She made a gesture with her hands to show him her
black dress, and her lips trembled.
Pap walked round to her and patted her shoulder. "I know," he said. "I
savvy. I get you, little girl. But, say, it won't do. You've got to begin
to live again and brighten up. You're only seventeen and that's no age
for mourning, no, nor moping. You must learn to forget, at least, that
is"--for he saw the horrified pain of her eyes--"that is, to be happy
again. Yes'm. Happiness--that's got to be your middle name. Now, Miss
Sheila, as a favor to me!"
Sheila put up both her hands and pushed his from her shoulder. She ran
from him past Babe into the dining-room, where, as she would have sped
by, "Momma" caught her by the arm.
"If you're not aimin' to please _him_," said "Momma" harshly, "wot are
you here for?"
Sheila looked at her unseeingly, pulled herself away, and went upstairs
on wings. In her room the tumult, held down all through the ugly,
cluttered, drudging day, broke out and had its violent course. She flew
about the room or tossed on the bed, sobbing and whispering to herself.
Her wound bled freely for the first time since it had been given her by
death. She called to her father, and her heart writhed in the grim
talons of its loneliness. That was her first agony and then came the
lesser stings of "Momma's" insults, and at last, a fear. An
incomprehensible fear. She began to doubt the wisdom of her Western
venture. She began to be terrified at her situation. All about her lay a
frozen world, a wilderness, so many thousand miles from anything that
she and her father had ever known. And in her pocket there was no penny
for rescue or escape. Over her life brooded powerfully Sylvester Hudson,
with his sallow face and gentle, contemplative eyes. He had brought her
to his home. Surely that was an honorable and generous deed. He had
given her over to the care and protection of his wife and daughters. But
why didn't Mrs. Hudson like it? Why did she tighten her lips and pull
her nostrils when she looked at her helper? And what was the sinister,
inner meaning of those two speeches ... about the purpose of her being
in the house at all? "An ornament on the parlor mantel" ... "aiming to
please him...." Of the existence of a sinister, inner meaning, "Momma's"
voice and look left no doubt.
Something was wrong. Something was hideously wrong. And to whom might she
go for help or for advice? As though to answer her question came a
foot-step on the stair. It was a slow, not very heavy step. It came to
her door and there followed a sharp but gentle rap.
"Who is it?" asked Sheila. And suddenly she felt very weak.
"It's Pap. Open your door, girl."
She hesitated. Her head seemed to go round. Then she obeyed his
gentle request.
Pap walked into the room.