"It's the way we have in these Western towns," Bob remarked, shortly.
The man said good night reluctantly and as meaningly as possible,
with Emily's eye upon him.
In the light of the living room, Emily said: "Look at your slippers,
Martha! What made you walk home in them?"
"Oh, mother, it was such moonlight. You were absolutely rude to him,
mother. I never saw you act so before," Martha spoke grievedly.
"I know a snubbing when I get one. He didn't ask me to call on his
wife."
"But, mother, you know she isn't well. Eve said so."
"If she isn't well I think he'd better devote himself exclusively to
her. Martha, I don't like this. He ought to know better, if you
don't. You'll get yourself talked about, if this keeps on."
Martha opened her eyes in unfeigned surprise.
"That's a funny way for you to talk, mother. You always say people
have no right to go gossiping around about girls!"
"Well, I certainly said girls oughtn't to do silly things to start
people talking."
"I get sick of this town! It's only in a little crude hole of a
place like this a girl can't look at a man after he's married. He
knows more in a minute than all the boys in this place know in a
year. And just because he's got a wife I'm not to listen to him, I
suppose!"
"You are certainly not to--to let him spend all his time with you.
You went with Johnnie. Why didn't you come home with him? Did you
know that he--this Quin person--was to be there, Martha?"
Martha stood there looking straight at her mother, as if she had seen
in her something new and perplexing.
"What's the matter, mother? What's all the fuss about, anyway?"
"About this man. He's married. He oughtn't to be following you
about when his wife's at home sick. I'm disgusted with you, Martha."
"Because he happens to be married?"
"He doesn't _happen_ to be married; he _is_ married."
"I don't follow you, mother."
Martha spoke, with her head held high, in the lazy tone she used to
infuriate her father.
Emily said, gently smiling: "There's no use your trying that on me,
Martha. You follow me exactly. You know exactly what I mean, and
you're to remember what I say."
"You never spoke like this to me before, mother." She would try
being hurt.
"I never had occasion to, thank goodness! And I'm not going to speak
to you this way again, either." They both heard Bob coming in. "Now
go to bed," Emily said, kissing her, "and be a good girl." Martha
kissed her in return, without any sign of annoyance, and ran quickly
upstairs.
"Where is she?" Bob demanded.
"She's gone to bed."
"Just like her. She crawls out of everything. Did you settle her
once for all?"
"I spoke to her about it. I told her we didn't like it."
"You're too easy with her, Emily. I'm going to settle her in the
morning. I'm going to lay down the law to her!"
He was going to lay down the law to her, was he, when he had never in
his life laid down his work for an hour for her sake! Emily, that
placid woman, for the third time in one evening, was ruffled and
resentful. Johnnie had disturbed her. "That man" had annoyed her.
And now, all of a sudden, Bob, who had never done anything but stand
aside and watch her manage Martha, was going to take her in hand. He
had literally had no time for the girl since she was born; and now he
seemed to think she ought to listen to him.
She said nothing, being wise, and he went up to bed. The Wright
girls came in, presently, with Johnnie and Chris Phillips, all of
them together making a little eddying whirlpool of youth in the quiet
room. Emily, moved by some instinct of security for Martha, called
up to her to come down. "Oh," they said, "is Martha home?" Emily
replied carelessly that they had picked her up near the bridge, and
instantly she happened to look at Helen Wright. She had not been
thinking of the effect of her remark, but she saw Helen wink--yes,
undoubtedly just wink--at Johnnie, and she saw he didn't want to be
winked at on the subject. She felt a sharp mistrust of that
girl--her expressive, cynical face. What did she mean? Did she know
with whom Martha had chosen to walk home? She thanked goodness that
Helen Wright wasn't staying long. She didn't like her.
Martha had only tarried a minute--long enough to have paid, perhaps,
her tribute to the mirror, but by the time she came down the boys had
left. Johnnie said it would be a change to go once before he got
sent home. Martha didn't deign to notice his absence. She talked
serenely to her guests.
But Emily, in her bed, remembered, sighing more than once, how that
horrid Helen had sat looking at Martha, with cynical, initiated
amusement. Perhaps that girl was encouraging her in her naughtiness.
If Martha wasn't careful--and she probably wouldn't be--she would be
getting into a horrible row with her father. That consummation Emily
Kenworthy would do anything to avoid. If Bob "bawled her out" in the
morning, the world underneath their feet would be splitting. Martha
and that odious stranger would be on one side, and Bob would be on
the other. And Emily--well, there was never a moment's doubt in her
mind where she would be!
She remembered, indignant at the thought of it, that perfectly absurd
situation of her friend, Mrs. Harding, whose daughter had married, to
the utter rage and final alienation of her father. One day, months
after that, Mrs. Harding had come creeping into the Kenworthys'
house, almost a stranger then, and had begged for the loan of two
hundred dollars, just begged for it, ashamed and whispering, because
her daughter was ill, and without a penny, in a rooming house
demanding its rent. A girl friend of hers had seen her there, and
had come back to urge her mother to help her. In all her life Emily
had never had to consider the state of a woman living comfortably
without one cent of her own to put a finger on. "If I were you," she
had exclaimed to Mrs. Harding, "I would go straight to her. I would
bring her home, or take her some place and take care of her." But
Mrs. Harding dared not defy her husband. He was an old man, and
delicate, and it might kill him. And Emily had been on the point of
saying: "I don't believe it! And if it does, he deserves it!" She
had entered heartily into that conspiracy, and it had all turned out
so well, and the two women had become friends. Yet Emily essentially
disapproved of her "kowtowing" to her husband. There would be
nothing like that in her house! If any great, deep chasm was to come
splitting across the ground on which the Kenworthy family stood,
Emily was going to be on the side of her daughter! Was it likely
that she would give up that Jim Kenworthy--that she would have
allowed her dear lover to go away to die alone--for that child's
sake, and now give up the child merely for Bob Kenworthy?
"Bob," she said, emphatically.
"What's the matter?" He was sleepy.
"You aren't to 'settle' Martha in the morning! You are to leave her
to me!"
"What?"
"I say you aren't to scold Martha in the morning about--that man.
I've talked to her about it, and that's enough."
"She won't mind you, Emily."
"She'll mind me at least as much as she would you. And more, too.
And I'm not going to have you two--quarreling and arguing
about--this--person. Do you understand that, Bob? If you--speak to
her about it, she'll get to thinking that she's on one side with that
man, and you and I are on the other side."
"She's on his side now."
"No, Bob, she isn't. She is just--playing; she wants a little rope."
"She's got enough to hang herself now."
"You won't speak to her, will you, Bob, now?"
"Oh, well," Bob grumbled, "she's your kid, Emily. You've got to
manage her. She won't listen to anything I say, anyway."
"But I mean, don't you just begin to--don't you forget and bring the
subject up, at all, will you, Bob?"
"I won't say a word to her if you make her quit it. If you don't,
I'll take her in hand. I won't stand for her getting talked about
all over town!"
"She's not going to get talked about, Bob!"
"Oh, well. Manage her to suit yourself."
That was the most he could say. He could offer her no help. All she
could ask of him was that he would refrain from interfering. But if
Jim had been in Bob's place, Jim would have known what to do. Martha
would have listened if Jim could have spoken to her. And Jim would
have listened if Emily had gone to him in perplexity about the girl.
Hadn't she and Jim sat together for hours discussing their children,
enjoying them together, having them in common, almost, in spite of
the barrier between them? Because Jim had always appreciated little
Martha Kenworthy. That was the essential wrong Bob had done the
child since birth. He had failed to appreciate her. He had never in
his life understood a woman. He had never even given the proper
value to his own mother. And Jim's adulterous wife he had simply
cursed whenever he thought of her. It was only men that Bob could
evaluate. There was no use expecting him to judge Martha fairly.
But Jim had enjoyed every phase of her little girlhood, just as he
had played tenderly, reverently with his mother's heroisms and
weaknesses, just as he had so well understood every shade of the
service Emily had unconsciously rendered him when she had loved his
son. If Martha had a man like Jim about familiarly, she wouldn't be
impressed as she seemed to be with the first pretentious masher that
came her way. Jim would have set a standard for the child, given her
a taste for masculine worth. And it all went back again to the old,
old question: Why didn't I marry Jim in the first place? Why did I
ever quarrel with him? Why was I brought up so that I could quarrel
with him, about a book, merely a book that is this minute lying
neglected on the shelf in the painted room because the girls were
bored with old classics? I married Bob to get away from this house,
said Emily. But Martha will never marry to get away from that, Emily
vowed again.
_Chapter Four_
Afterwards, when Emily, thinking those summer weeks over, used to ask
herself again and again why she hadn't prevented their climax, she
could scarcely recall how her realization of the situation had come
about. She had told Martha that she didn't want Eve's brother-in-law
singling her out for his attention. She had supposed that was
sufficient. She had gone with Martha to take the Wrights home the
next day, and all very merrily the afternoon had gone, just as
afternoons usually went before that man came rumbling on the horizon.
There had been no mention of him till towards supper time. Martha's
chum, Greta, had come in then, asking her to go for a swim. Emily
liked Greta, with reservations and allowances, thinking her too
pretty to be judged severely. She had dazzling eyes: light-blue eyes
when she wore light blue; dark-blue eyes when she wore dark blue;
gray eyes when she had on a gray suit; and when she pulled that
wicked little mauve hat down over her forehead, her eyes were purple
as dark pansies. One had to forgive that girl for somewhat too
deliberately flashing those glances into male consciousness, Emily
argued. But Greta didn't--quite tell the very truth--always. Just
lately in a crisis she had told one tale, and Martha had told another
of what happened, and it had all had to come out, Martha justified, a
truthful child, and Greta--well, perhaps she had learned her lesson.
Emily believed so.
Now that afternoon when she came in on her way to the beach, Martha
was indiscreet, to say the least. She said demurely enough, when
Greta urged her:
"Oh, I don't know whether I'm allowed to go swimming. Am I, mammie?"