She had happened to say that she had never, as a matter of fact, been so well at the end of a school year.
"But of course I was never so well taken care of in my life." She was speaking towards Emily. "Never in my life, before, Mrs. Kenworthy, have I happened to—be living—so that anybody brought my breakfast to me in bed. That's never happened to me before." It wasn't a complaint; it was merely a fact, stated impersonally.
Emily knew perfectly what she meant, but she had to ask the question to enlighten Bob.
"Your colored girl comes early, then, now?" she asked.
"Not the colored girl; this little white girl," she said, indicating Martha affectionately. "This girl simply bosses me about I don't dare to get up and get my breakfast, in my own house."
Martha said: "Oh, that's nothing. Mother always did that for me."
Emily saw that Bob was on the point of crying, "My God!" She blessed him for refraining.
But afterwards he said to her: "Well, you wouldn't think it, to look at her, but there's something in that woman, Emily; she's a great woman! I didn't suppose anybody in the world could get that girl up in the morning. Don't you think the kid's sort of different?"
"Improved, you mean?"
"Well, yes, I guess so."
"She's found somebody who needs her help. She always was a tender-hearted child, and she's sorry for Miss Curtis. She just about runs her flat for her."
"Well, I hope she'll stick around awhile. She'll do the kid good."
Emily was on the point of retorting, "She does you good yourself!" for Bob's somewhat tentative forebearance was in part due to the stranger's presence. When there had been young girls at the table, Bob could "roast" Martha and them all together in one breath. And Martha, who had established herself as a protector and commander of a woman like Miss Curtis, couldn't act like a baby before her when she was with her father. Emily was beginning to see that Miss Curtis, pretending to be so docile, managed Martha by means of the slightest little hints of ridicule. By one smile she could take all the wind out of Martha's naughty sails.
Emily was moved by the grave and tender manner in which Martha took charge of the child, to relieve the aunt. She had told her on the way down that there was in her mother's house a rainbow room prepared for little girls, so that the child went into it eagerly, and accepted it as gravely as Martha gave it to her. Its builder and maker opened all its drawers and cupboards, displayed the electric stove and the fudge-making dishes.
Miss Curtis was on the point of expressing surprise that she hadn't seen the room before.
"Oh, we keep it locked; we never show it to anybody. It's too awful. Mother let me have it done over to suit myself, and I can't endure the sight of it!"
"Well, I don't know; I think it's—rather—a nice room—after you've looked at it a little."
Emily was there. She felt Martha was annoyed for the moment by her presence.
She said, "It's a lovely room; it grows on you."
"If I was you I'd have it papered, mammie. Make it into a good guest room."
"I will not!" said Emily, emphatically. Did Martha suppose she would just agree to the idea that there should be no daughter's room any longer in the house?
"I'm afraid Ruth might spoil something, Martha. You don't mean to let her turn your stove on. Ruth, don't do that!"
"She can't hurt anything. The first day it rains I'll show her how to make candy up here, or maybe we'll cook a little supper up here and invite your aunt and my mammie." And Martha smiled gravely at the happy child. "Nice days like this it's better to play out in the yard. I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful kind of a playhouse out there."
They were running in and out of the house, collecting their house-building material. They were up in the tree. Emily could have imagined that Jim Kenworthy was playing there in the garden with his little niece. For, after a little, four pieces of rope came dangling down from certain limbs of that tree. Presently they were weighted down taut by four bricks tied to them, just missing the grass. These ropes were the four corners of the house. In a few minutes the walls of old sheets were being safety-pinned into place. And a fifth taut rope came down for the side of the door. And the rag rugs were being spread on the grass inside. "And where are those old little chairs, mammie? Where are my old things? Where's my little table been put?" They were running up and down from the attic, dustily. At dinner time Ruth was more talkative than ever before. Nobody else knew how to build as nice playhouses as Uncle Jim, she told her auntie as they sat down. He had invented that kind of playhouse.
"Uncle Jim who?" asked Bob, suddenly.
Ruth looked blank. "I don't know Uncle Jim who," she said. "I just mean Martha's Uncle Jim."
"Oh," said Bob. He looked at her keenly. He looked at Emily. "Funny," his face seemed to say, "to hear this child of a stranger talking about Jim."
Ruth babbled on. She seemed to know a surprising lot about Uncle Jim. She had appropriated him along with the painted room and the playhouse. After lunch she took Bob by the hand and led him out to see it.
Emily hoped Martha saw the two of them walking down the path together. The sight some way made her think of Bob in the graveyard on Decoration Day—standing looking at the tombstone he had erected there for his beloved brother. In spite of Emily's protest he had engraved on it: "In memory also of his son James Kenworthy, 1903-1918—who died an unnecessary death, alone and unafraid."
Mrs. Benton, of course, had been in and seen Ruth. At once she had given orders to the guard that the child was to have special swimming lessons. And she was at the beach with her aunt, the fourth day of their visit, when Martha, having driven Emily about the town on some errands, turned the car towards the country.
"I want to tell you something, mammie!" she had said.
Emily was gratified that Martha cared to talk to her alone, for although she had been polite, always when Miss Curtis was there, she had been distant. Now she chose a road little traveled, and, settling down to drive slowly, she burst abruptly into intimacy.
"Mother, I want to tell you something! It's the most surprising thing you ever heard in your life! You won't believe it!"
"Of course I will."
"Well, guess who Ruthis!Guess, mammie!"
"Why? Isn't she Miss Curtis's brother's child?"
"She's Miss Curtis's own child. She's her mother, mammie!"
Emily was dazed. She murmured her incredulity.
"Itoldyou you wouldn't believe it! You could have knocked me down with a feather when she told me. Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life? It's too funny, mother. Why did we take so to each other, in the first place? Why did she understand me so? Because she'd been through the same hell herself! It's too strange!"
"Why Martha! How old is she?"
"I don't know how old she is, exactly. I don't think she's more than thirty-five. She kept the child with her for four years; then she had to have more money, and she came to Chicago to teach, and left her there, not at her own house, but in Iowa. She was a very delicate child, and she couldn't leave her and go teaching, with just anybody. She has an awfully good home for her, and she's going to bring her to Chicago when she starts high school, if she keeps well. Imagine, mammie! It makes me boiling mad when I think of that woman slaving away to support that child, and some damned man running around not caring. Isn't she magnificent, mammie? Being good to all those dirty kids in her school! That's why she never has a cent to spend; that's why she eats thirty-cent suppers. And when I think how I came along, and just took care of her and helped her all I could, not knowing, I could just sing! You see those dresses Ruth has got? I bought them all for her; she had only—sort of plain little things, and not enough. They had to be washed out. Makes me so mad to think about it."
"But, Martha, how—how did you find this out?"
"Shetoldme herself. You see—she wouldn't say what she was going to do when her school was out, at first. She sort of hung off—she wouldn't say who was coming into the flat, or when she'd rented it for. Then when I insisted on staying—the other girls were leaving—she said she wanted to keep it a few days, because she was having company from the country. I knew she was tired out, so I said I'd help her entertain them. I'd drive them around. But she didn't want me to. I thought, maybe, they were—sort of funny country people, or something. And, anyway, she didn't intend having any real vacation. She said she was going to spend her vacation with her sister, whose husband has T.B. of the bones, and she has a whole family of children, and she does her own washing and everything. Miss Curtis was going to take care of that man sick in bed, and of the kids, and give her sister a rest. That's just like her, mother. And I just put my foot down and said she had to come here and have a few days' rest herself first. And then she hummed and hawed, and said her niece wanted to come and see Chicago. And then, when all the girls were gone, she told me. She said, 'She's my very own child, Martha.' Just like that! I'd begun to suspect something funny by that time; and even then I thought maybe she had adopted her or something. I couldn't believe it. How could I believe that of a woman like Miss Curtis? And then, mammie, I wish you'd have seen those two when Ruth got there. They just sat down together and cried for joy! You know me, mammie; I'm not sentimental, but I went into my room and cried my eyes out when I remembered how they looked at each other!"
"Well, of all things!"
"Yes! Tothinkthat I found her! She said once to me that she'd lived in that flat with students for six years, and she'd never let anybody share her meals with her but me. She doesn't make friends easily—naturally. We understood each other; I didn't know why, of course! And I suppose the reason she talked to me about all her relations so much was so I wouldn't suspect she was hiding anything! Think what she's been through, mammie! Ruth doesn't live near her people, you know. They're in Iowa. They must know about her, of course, but apparently she doesn't take Ruth to them. She just goes out there to see her, or takes her some place. And, mammie, that family that keep her, they love her; they want to adopt her; they do everything for her. Miss Curtis won't be jealous of them, but they have her nearly all the time. My God! Mammie, when I think of it! She can always come here, can't she, mammie? We can be friends to her, mammie!" And when Martha turned to her mother her eyes were swimming with tears. "Think of that child's future! Isn't she a sweet little thing? She doesn't do very well in school; she's so happy, she's lazy. Miss Curtis says she absolutely refused to bring her here until I told her Mrs. Bissel and May had gone to the lakes."
"Of course she can come here! We'll make a home for Ruth here!"
"But we can't do much, mammie. Miss Curtis is so independent, I can hardly manage her. You see, she won't accept anything from me, hardly. But she can't refuse to let me get Ruth things. I got her that doll, of course. I'd like to get hold of that child's father a little while! I bet I'd put the fear of God into him! Mammie, I can't tell you how worked up I've been over this, this last week. When I look at that woman, I just sort of shiver with admiration. She breaks me up so. Isn't she sporting? Isn't she a brick? Look what she is and what she's been through! I look at her and wonder if there's anything in the world a woman can't do! And like as not the school board will find it all out, some day, and fire her! I'm never going to lose track of that child; I'm going to keep friends with her! Mammie, I've been—excited all week! I had to tell you! It seems too strange!"
"It does seem too strange," Emily repeated.
"By heck! what a novel I'm going to write! This—sets me up; this eggs me on so! I'm going to change a lot of it; I'm going to make it hotter!"
"Does Miss Curtis know about the novel?"
"Yes. She knows I'm writing it; but she doesn't know why."
Emily marveled; she kept on marveling. She was as excited as Martha was the next few days. She had to keep from looking at Miss Curtis too intently; that woman had become almost too poignantly interesting. It was as if she was living Emily Kenworthy's life and Martha's. It seemed impossible to believe Martha's story. Miss Curtis was unromantic, so dull, so sensible. She seemed almost stupidly passionless—except when the child came running to her. And when Emily saw her draw little Ruth to herself, and push her fringe of hair away from her forehead, and look at her, she had to believe that Martha had stumbled upon the truth of the situation. The woman, undoubtedly, was maternity itself. Had she some way guessed what Martha had been through, and told her this secret for some unselfish purpose? Could she have loved some one beyond all reason? How had she managed to hide her shame? How had she endured the pity and the jeerings of the secure and holy? Emily found herself in Martha's state. She quivered with curiosity and reverence, and a desire to befriend those two. Could that woman be living in fear that some day when her secret would become known, she would be without a means of earning her living? "I must pretend not to be very much interested in her!" Emily kept saying. But she understood why Martha had felt so lifted up by her discovery.
Mrs. Benton stepped in for a minute one afternoon, on her way home. "Where's Bob?" she asked, cautiously.
"He's gone downtown."
"I just thought I'd tell you about Johnnie. He's going to be home in about three weeks, I think, or maybe four. So it would have to come out, anyway. Do you know what he's doing this summer?"
"No. You didn't tell me."
"Well, he got a job as a steward on a boat going to South America; a steward, Emily. Carrying coffee around on a little tray; and from there he went to Hong-Kong on some sort of a ship."
"Goodness! What a lot of the world he's seeing!"
"Yes; carrying coffee into women's staterooms, and they won't have their hair combed!"
"Still, he's seeing the world! How did he get the job?"
"Oh, I don't know. Went with some of his boon companions to New York, and there was a strike, and they just got jobs and went away. He didn't wait to ask my advice, of course."
Emily hesitated.
"What's he planning to do next year?"
"He won't be planning anything. I'm planning to have him go back and get his degree. I'm going to my sister's for a little rest before he gets home."
"You haven't been away at all all summer."
"Well, if I'm going to manage the beach, I've got to be on the job. You haven't been away, either."
"I couldn't think of leaving Bob."
Mrs. Benton's glance spoke disagreeing volumes.
A month later, Emily met Johnnie with his mother coming out of the post office. Just the same old Johnnie, happy-go-lucky and careless, grinning and frank. The Orient had conferred upon him no subtlety, Spanish America had taught him no guile. A small chance they had had, to be sure. A longer one would have been as ineffective. He came to see Emily that same day. She looked at him curiously, envying him his experience. To have smelled China! to have blinked at Brazil!
All he said was: "Sure I had a good time; I earned my own living, anyway. And there's no garbage can in the world I can't eat out of now, after what I lived on across the Pacific. When's Martha to be home?"
Emily didn't know. She gave him, rather reluctantly, her address.
He drove up to Chicago the next day, in the new car his mother had ordered as soon as he left Hong-Kong for San Francisco. Cora Benton said he had gone to see Martha, she felt sure, because he refused to take her with him. But what happened when their children met neither mother knew. Presently Johnnie went back East to college, driving the new car. Mrs. Benton said she really didn't need it. She wasn't well, and she was going to California early, for all the winter. Her tone implied that the town would just have to worry along without her as best it might. She hated, she said, having the children's Christmas party in the hall fall through.
Emily was drawing all the comfort about her that she could get from the fact that she was still, at any rate, with Miss Curtis, when Martha wrote that she had left her flat. She had got a better place in the apartment of a woman doctor in the neighborhood. The announcement upset whatever peace of mind Emily had achieved. Could Martha have quarreled with her friend? A woman doctor, Emily would have thought, was the last person she would have taken up with. There came a dull day when she said to herself that she didn't care whether Martha wanted her or not, she was going to Chicago to see where she was living.
But in the train her heart grew heavier. Martha had said distinctly that she had no room for company. She must have written that to warn her mother not to come investigating. This doctor person wasn't one you could just disturb. So Emily shopped all the afternoon, dispiritedly. Once she tried in vain to get Martha by 'phone. She sat in Field's tea-room an hour, determined not to go back home without seeing her child, yet dreading to find herself unwelcome. That would be more than she could endure. She felt tears coming into her eyes, at length. "I can't stay here and make a fool of myself!" she thought, angrily. She went down to the street into the darkness and got into a taxicab. And, after a long time, during which Emily commanded herself repeatedly not to be silly, the taxi stopped in front of a very smart new apartment house.
Emily announced herself up the speaking tube meekly, half expecting a rebuff. "This is Martha Kenworthy's mother. Is Martha in?"
"Ho!" cried an exuberant voice in surprise. "Wait a moment!"
Some one was running down the stairs to show her the way up. Emily was conscious of a richly carpeted hall, a large gay room, a stunning seal-brown frock on a woman as large as herself, with a fine head, a high color, a heart-warming sort of person of great vitality.
"Mrs. Kenworthy! Do come in! I know all about you. Sit down. I'm Isobel Stevenson. No, Martha isn't here just now; I'll 'phone her. She's getting dinner at Miss Curtis's. I am glad to see you; I've been curious about you, after all I've heard."
She picked up the 'phone from a desk in the room, asked for the number without looking it up, and went on talking all the time she waited for her connection.
"Jennie Curtis told me all about you, of course, about your husband and the garden. I'd like to take her home for week-ends myself, but it's too far. She doesn't stand driving well.—Hello, Martha! Your mother's here.... I said your mother.... Why didn't you tell me she was coming? ... Never mind, drop it. Come on over.... Well, come and have supper with me. Tell Jennie to come.... Of course she'll come. Tell her I said she was to come.... Leave a note for her, then.... Oh, put them in water and let them stand till to-morrow; or bring them along and cook them here.... She told me Martha bought that car just to take her out home with. That's some girl of yours, Mrs. Kenworthy. Of course, Jennie Curtis is pure gold, but you don't often get a girl of Martha's age who knows gold when she sees it. She came over the other day and asked me to take Martha in till my friend comes back." She had seated herself near Emily, who had not had a chance to say one word. She pointed now with a large gesture at the pictures on the walls, the interesting-looking things which Emily had only vaguely realized were about her. "I live here with a friend who travels a great deal. All these things are hers, really. So I took her in, just to please Jennie. And I must say I like her. She's an awfully nice girl for her age. I find her companionable. But tell me, Mrs. Kenworthy—there isn't much time; she'll be here in a minute—hasn't she had some sort of affair, some disappointment, or something?"
The fact that she paused for an answer was as surprising as the question she had asked, professionally, as it were. Her praise of Martha, her vigor, the richness of the setting, her friendliness, all of it was so contrary to Emily's mood and expectations that she was overwhelmed. She felt tears coming into her eyes.
"Oh yes!" she cried. "And you're a doctor. Do something for her. She's been through—terrible things; she's so young!"
"I knew it!" said the doctor, complacently. "I knew it the first time I really talked to her. But she's getting over it; she don't need any help; she's got stuff in her. Don't you worry."
"No," murmured Emily, "I'm not worried, of course. I—I'm tired, I guess. I—can't—I—may I go and wash my face? I don't know what made me—do this."
Emily was shown into Martha's bedroom. A white-tiled bath opened off it. No comfort was lacking in that bedroom, which seemed to have aspired originally to feminine austerity. Martha's familiar things made it homelike. And in that room Martha found her mother, before Emily had had time to powder her nose.
Martha's greeting was warmer because of those tears.
"What on earth's the matter, mammie?" she said, hugging her. "Why didn't you let me know you were coming? You've been crying! What's the matter?"
Emily's impulse was to shout out the truth. "I've been so lonely for you, so worried about you!" But she said, instead: "Oh, nothing's wrong. I just got—bored. I—just felt—I couldn't stay in that house a minute longer! I just had to get away or shriek." Emily had heard women say things like that. Unwittingly she had touched Martha deeply.
"Well, you poor old thing! I always knew you must feel that way, living with—in that house. But you'd never acknowledge it. How did you find this place? Quite an apartment, isn't it? I was sick of a rooming house! Have you seen the doctor?"
"Yes."
"She seemed pleased, didn't you think so? She didn't look annoyed. I was told I couldn't have company here. It isn't often——"
The doctor was there with them.
"We're going to have a spread, Martha! The maid's out. You go and get the lettuce, get two heads, get good ones; and some whipping cream; and some bronze chrysanthemums. Oh, it's no trouble, Mrs. Kenworthy! I feel just like it to-day. The time and place and the loved ones to bother. If you can't get the chrysanthemums, get some—something that color. And hurry back."
The doctor had on a white apron, and the kitchen had made her cheeks rosier. She set Emily down to rest for a little in the interesting living room. Miss Curtis came in, and was ordered to sit and talk to her. But every minute or two the doctor came in from the kitchen, and with her a flood and whirlpool of words. Emily scarcely had a chance to say a word all that evening; but the house excited her until her color was almost as bright as the doctor's.
Everything on the dining table was like the hostess. The table mats were of a strong and superior unbleached linen; the vivid dishes called aloud for admiration; the candle-light was flattering. Emily sat excitedly studying the doctor. Whoever put herself into that woman's care would never afterwards dare to call either body or soul her own. But if she was high handed, she was also high hearted. She talked almost without ceasing; and whatever little thing she talked of, she enjoyed so merrily that the three women watching her, shared her delight to some extent. And when she laughed a hearty laugh, every time Emily thought surprisedly: "What a good time I'm having! This is the best possible place for Martha!"
"Did you ever taste any sort of canned meat as good as this chicken in your life? Lobster simply isn't in it! It's fatted calf for me. My mother keeps me in it; but I never open a jar when I'm alone; I'm notthatselfish, anyway. Cold pack, of course, as you know, Mrs. Kenworthy. We had a family scrap about it the last time I went home. My sister Isobel—she's an awful woman as far as she can manage to be—she said to me, 'Now look here, Isobel' (she's always trying to boss me around), 'you can just find a deadly germ in canned chicken. I'm not going to have mother worried to death canning chicken for you to guzzle any longer. She's too old, and so are you. You can just tell her you've got poisoned by it and you aren't going to eat it any longer.' 'I'll be damned if I'll find a deadly germ in it,' I told her. 'If you don't want mother doing it for me, you can do it yourself.' After all you can't just stand your relations imposing on you forever, can you? Not if you have as many as I have! I just made an announcement then and there. My fees for removing appendices are canned fat chicken, and those strawberry preserves they make in the sun so they keep the right color of red. I'm not going to eat city chickens that have been shut up in a little coop on Fifty-seventh Street. I want contented hens that have crowed in the barns I have played in. Nice sunny barn doors! Don't you love barn doors on spring days when all the hens are cackling? What do I practically keep a bed in the Presbyterian Hospital full of my fifty-two first cousins for, anyway, if I have to eat canned salmon on occasions of haste? There are limits to my patience. What are you snickering at, Martha? That's not a pun!"
With such banalities she kept them aroused, expectant. There was no constraint; no one of the three was thinking of something amusing to say; each knew very well she would have no chance to say anything amusing, however well prepared she might be. The doctor never ceased for a minute.
Finally she folded up her tongue for the night and left them together there.
"Is she always like that?" Emily murmured.
"Oh no, I don't think so. I don't know her very well. I never had a meal here before. You've made a hit with her, mammie! She sort of owns Miss Curtis. Maybe she took care of her through—THAT—or something. Anyway, Miss Curtis told her about you, and that's why she asked you to stay here. Of course, she just took me in because Miss Curtis has been fussing about me studying in the kitchen ever since she saw our house. She's made up her mind—the doctor has—that Miss Curtis has got to put those girls out, when she can, because they're so thoughtless about her, and everything, and that I'm to have those front rooms and do them over to suit myself. She bosses everybody around. I guess she thinks she's got a lot more sense than most people, and so she ought to tell them where to get off. You can see why she's got such a practice. Can't you just see her sailing into somebody's sick-room with her tail up, that way, and making them wild to get up and be strong as a horse, like she is? Miss Curtis says she's the only woman who ever got through medical school and got a practice without losing her color. She doesn't pay very much attention to me. She's busy, 'most always. Sometimes she gets to talking about some interesting case, and goes on half the night. I never get a word in edgewise. I just listen."
Emily, as she lay waiting for sleep, said to herself: "Well, if horrible things happen to us when we don't expect them, so do lovely things. If I'd searched this city over for two friends for Martha, I'd never have found any equal to these two. The doctor's just a clean gale blowing through Martha. She'll clean out her mind; she'll do for her what I never could. Why should I want to do everything in the world that's done for her? Why can't I be satisfied to see those women helping her along?"
She went back to her home more happy about Martha than she had been for months. Mrs. Benton had already gone East and it promised to be a quiet winter for club-women in general The one great event of it was to be the annual Christmas party for children. Mrs. Benton had instituted the custom the winter before, the first year of the new dance hall. She had given a splendid party that once. She left a committee behind her to try to follow her example.
They were discussing it at lunch. Emily had realized that the women across from her were talking about ways of finding good jobs for girls who had to leave high school, when Mrs. Bissel leaned across towards her and asked:
"Mrs. Kenworthy, by the way, what's this new job Martha's got? What's she planning to do?"
There were four women who might be supposed to be listening in that pause with more or less curiosity for Emily's reply.
She had heard nothing of Martha's job. She smiled. "Oh, I don't know," she replied, lightly. "I don't think it's anything very—purposeful."
"But do you approve of her leaving the university to take it up?"
Emily had heard not a hint of Martha leaving the university. She must have left in the middle of a quarter.
She said, "Not altogether." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm afraid her heart's never really been in the university. I wish she could have gone on, in her own college, with her own class. But I do think girls of her age have to decide these things for themselves."
She left the meeting early. She had a notion to go straight to Chicago. What job could Martha possibly have got? And why? And had she left her two good friends? And did she mean deliberately to hurt her mother's feelings by having her learn this through Mrs. Bissel? "Perhaps," thought Emily, longingly, "she's taking somebody's place for a few weeks. Perhaps just at Christmas; perhaps the doctor's office girl has got ill, or something. I expect she's helping some one. And she's been too busy to write. I ought to do some Christmas shopping. I'll go up to-morrow and 'phone her, at least. I'll see for myself what's she into."
And after supper Martha called her by 'phone. The connection was poor. Some operator had to relay the unsatisfactory message. All that Emily understood was that Martha would meet her for tea the next day at the usual place.
But the next afternoon Martha led her to a new-found tea-room in an office building—a remote place, one secure corner of which the two of them had quite to themselves. Emily had to feel her way towards her daughter carefully, for she saw at once that Martha was in an evil mood. Around her eyes were the hollows and shadows of tears.
She began directly: "I got a job; I didn't write you—because I've been too blue. I've just felt like crying my eyes out every minute the last week. I just had to 'phone you. I knew I ought to tell you; I just thought I couldn't write. I'm working in a shop; it's a classy place, believe me. Interior decorators, on Mich. Boul."
"Do you like it?"
"Well, I'm not mad about it by any means. It'll do."
"You go to your lectures still at the U? You don't stay in this shop all day?"
"No. I'm done with that place. I'm going to smoke. You needn't make a fuss; everyone's used to it here."
"Perhaps this will be better than writing away on a novel," Emily was thinking. She didn't want to seem to look too inquisitively at Martha. She played about with her tea; she called Martha's attention to the couple who had entered. "Why is it," she asked, to break the silence, "that the more expensive the fur coat, the fatter the woman inside it?"
But Martha broke forth abruptly, "I've burned my novel up!"
Emily was sharply stung by the bitterness of that confession. She had always wanted that novel burned up, but she hadn't wanted Martha to be so hurt by its destruction.
"Why, Martie? What did you do that for?"
"I needn't have been so hasty! I've got most of it—in rough form. I could put it all together again; but it would be an awful lot of work."
"You worked on it nearly a year."
"Yes, I had. And if I'd known everythingthenI knownow, I wouldn't have burned it up, you can bet! I typed it all over without a mistake, from beginning to end; it had seventy thousand words."
"Goodness!" Emily murmured, impressed.
"And I couldn't hardly sleep, I was so anxious to see what that old idiot of a prof. would think of it. I might have known, handing it in to an old rake of a man!"
Emily let her go on unreproved.
"And it was the funniest thing! I justhappenedto find out what he meant. You hand your work in, mammie, and then you go and have a consultation with the prof. about it. Well, I'd never had any old consultation before. And everybody says he is a horrid man; to women, especially. He don't think women can write novels, of course. He thinks it's his business to discourage them. I was scared out of my wits to go and talk to him about my novel, to tell the truth. I might have known something was wrong, for he was as nice to me as you please. He was surprised to see me when I came in. He didn't know me from Adam, before, of course. I suppose he thought I'd be foaming at the mouth, or something. He jollied me along, the oily old rake; said my work was interesting and everything; that I'd put a lot of work in on it. And then he said: 'You know sometimes we think it well—to refer these themes to other departments. The last one before you,' he said, all smooth and gentle, 'I referred to the biologist under whom the student works. And I had yours read by Doctor Parson, Doctor Edith Parson; she is more able than I am—to judge of the worth of this material,' he said. 'So I had her read it over, and I suggest you go and consult her first, and then come and talk it over with me.' All hemming and hawing, he was, the flea. So I swallowed it all. I didn't know any better. I knew they did send theses and things for grad. degrees around to a lot of profs. I asked somebody there waiting to see him, a girl from the class, who this Doctor Parson was, but she didn't know. So then, mammie, I went home. This was a week ago last Thursday. I was in Doctor Stevenson's living room that evening, and I naturally asked her if she knew who Doctor Parson was. I didn't tell her WHY I was asking, or anything. And, mammie, what do you think she said!"
Tears came flooding into Martha's eyes.
"What difference does it make what she said, child!"
"Well, it may not make any difference to YOU, but it did to ME. 'I know her,' she said, and she smiled sort of funny. So I said, 'Who is she?' And she said, 'Oh, every little while some crazy woman gets into the U, and Doctor Parson is the one that gets them into the asylum. I had to help her once, one summer. She called me in because I was near and strong.'" And suddenly Martha turned away, shuddering in uncontrollable repulsion. She covered her face with her hands, just for a second, and went on:
"I had to sit there, mammie, not saying a word to give myself away, and take it all. She said that woman—the one that went crazy—she wanted to go right out in the street without any clothes on, and everything. I thought she'd never get through talking. They had to have three policemen that night. I thought I'd just die, I was so scared. And I got away from her as soon as I could, and I got the novel and went right down to the janitor and asked him to let me put something into the furnace. So he did, and I saw it burning. I saw it all curling up burned. And then I went and stayed with Miss Curtis. She let me have a bed in her room; she was just sweet to me, mammie. I told her I was sick. She wanted me to go home; she said I needed a rest."
"Martha, youdoneed a rest, my dear. You've worked so steadily. Why don't you come home with me?"
"Mammie—no. I went and got a job. I had—to have something—else to think about. I couldn't go home; I couldn't bear to go back to the doctor's. I stayed with Miss Curtis for more than a week."
"And now? Where are you now?"
"Oh, I'm back at the doctor's, all right now. I'm not a bit more—out of my head than she is, anyway. It doesn't always follow that if a girl—or a woman—falls in love, as they say, that she's crazy. Look at that Doctor Stevenson. Wouldn't you say she was sane, mammie? Wouldn't you say that if anybody in the world is in her right mind, it's that woman?"
"Yes, I would certainly call her a well-balanced woman."
"Well!" cried Martha, triumphantly. "You sayshe'ssane, and she keeps a lover—there—in that apartment—all the time!"
"Martha! You mustn't say that! Not so loud!" Emily looked around her hurriedly. "You must not say things like that—gossip, like that!"
"I'm not repeating any gossip. You needn't get so excited. I'm not telling anybody but you, and I saw it with my own eyes."
Emily said, sharply, "I don't believe you know what you're talking about."
"I knowexactlywhat I'm talking about! She told me when I went to live with her that she had a friend that came to stay with her, and that when that friend came I had to clear out. Naturally, when a single woman says a friend is coming to stay with her, you suppose it's a woman. But it isn't. It's a man. I saw him!"
"When? How?" Emily was intent upon refuting this mistake.
"Well, he comes for Saturday and Sunday, and I had been staying all week with Miss Curtis. And, anyway, they always go to the concert Saturday night. I had to go and get some underwear out of my room. I thought they would be at the concert, so I went in."
"Well?"
"Well, she heard me opening the door with my key, and she called to me: 'Martha, is that you? Come in here!' she said to me. And I went into her living room; and there was that man. A great big, tall man, walking around with his hands in his pockets. She was sitting at her desk, pretending to be looking at an account book. 'This is my brother,' she said to me. And he never took his hands out of his pockets. He said to me, growling, 'I amnother brother!' just like that. And she said, 'Oh, all right, then, you aren't. You aren't any relation to me!' You know how she thinks she can carry anything off, that way. Of course I felt terribly embarrassed. I just got my stuff and fled. That man was staying in my bedroom. His things were there. Did you ever hear anything like that in your life, mother? The nerve of her! With all that practice, and everybody thinking she's so respectable! Nobody thinksshe'scrazy. I'm glad I didn't burn up the first copy of my book."
"But, Martha, look here! That doesn't prove that he's—that doesn't prove anything."
"Don't you fool yourself! I saw the man; I saw his face. You can't tell me what a man means when he looks like that. And, anyway, Miss Curtis saw me coming in. I bet she's in cahoots with her! She said, 'You haven't been at the doctor's, have you?' like that, sort of excited. I said: 'Yes, I have. I thought she would have been at the concert.' She said, 'You oughtn't to have gone there when she has company.' And she didn't know whether to go on and say any more to me, or not. But she didn't. So now I stay there, just as I always did. If I'm mad, she's mad."
"But you're just silly. I don't think either of you is the least speck insane!"
"Well, what did that oily old bird send me to that—woman for then?"
"I don't know. Maybe she was a psychologist—or a—a psychoanalyst, or something. What was in the novel? You must be reasonable, Martha. The university isn't keeping a woman just to send students to asylums. She has something else to do, surely?"
"I don't think she has; not for a minute! If you'd seen that campus, you'd think it kept a dozen specialists to weed out the nuts. And, anyway, why did that prof. act so sort of gentle to me? Why did he ask me so carefully if I was Martha Kenworthy, as if he couldn't believe I was? Anyway, I'll tell you one thing, mammie; if the doctor can keep a lover and a practice in the same apartment, I should hope I can learn interior decoration without anybody saying anything to me! Just imagine if anybody tried to make things uncomfortable for the doctor; wouldn't she tell them where to get off, though! If she can put that across, why can't I?"
"Martha, really, I don't believe this. She doesn't look like that sort of woman."
"Well, of COURSE she doesn't! That's the whole point! Look at the women that go parading around Hyde Park. None of them look it; neither do I, for that matter. I don't suppose there's one of them that's any better than I am; and they're not making any fuss about what's happened! I can be as hardboiled as any of them; I can put on holy airs with the rest of them; I'm understudying the doctor!"
"Well, my opinion is that you're both of you good women and useful women, and you don't need to put on airs!"
"But you'll never understand either of us, if you do mean well; you're too good, that's what's the matter with you. That's why I feel—so much more at home—with Miss Curtis, and the doctor, especially the doctor. Honestly, you can't imagine how blue I was. I wanted to—well, I didn't know—whatever I was going to do, but this bucked me up. Imagine, mammie! I'd like to see a doctor like Doctor Stevenson, only more so—the best surgeon in Chicago—so that people would just HAVE to have her operate to save them; and then I wish she'd just go on living with all the men she wanted to—and snap her finger at the whole bunch of them. I'm going into business. The doctor said for me not to invest a cent with the boss; she was the one that looked him up, and found he'd failed in New York. I told her I hadn't any capital of my own, and I don't give a damn what anybody suspects me of!"
Martha was wearing long thin jade earrings, and she gave her head a little jerk as she announced her intentions. She had on a green hat, of a hard color. Could it be just the shadow of that green over her eyes that made them seem ringed and bitter?
"Oh, very well. But how about Christmas? You'll have a few days off, I suppose?"
"No, I won't have any. I'm going into this business. I've got to stick at it. Look here, mammie, if you'll stay for dinner, I'll get Mrs. Blacksley from my shop to meet us some place. I didn't want to take you to the shop, for I knew her husband was to have dinner with us. He's an idiot, but she's all right. I get along with her; she's divorced one husband. If she'd consult me, I'd tell her to divorce another."
Mrs. Blacksley, Martha said, seldom spent even thirty cents on her dinner. For that reason they awaited her in the Drake Café, and planned to nourish her weariness with a thick rich dinner, and beefsteaks were the one thing you could get better in Chicago than anywhere else in the world, Martha declared, ignoring magnificently her inexperience in most other places in the world. Mrs. Blacksley joined them there.
She joined them languidly, softly. She threw off a short black fur coat, and a little black hat, carelessly, as if all the other women in the crowded room were sitting bareheaded. She stood up for a moment, regardless perhaps of the attention she was attracting. She had on a little soft black wool frock, full skirted, with the waist fitted cunningly over her delicate breast. It was a right little frock; it was a bit too devilishly right for her.
It made Emily think, even as Mrs. Blacksley chose to sit with her back to the room: "Well, if what helps Martha in her friends is a scandalous past or a compromising present, this woman is going to be very useful to her." Nothing less like those utilitarian mentors of Hyde Park could a girl have happened upon. Mrs. Blacksley was still young—but her eyes had a past. Her lips had a history; her smooth hair, drawn back so severely from those beautiful temples, so cleverly from those little ears, had a beguiling present challenge. Surely, for fifty generations, those gray eyes had been looking cynically at eager lovers. Her mouth was soft and lovely; lips like hers must have kissed only with mental reservations for centuries. She was exotic, she was alluring. She had divorced one husband, had she? She aroused a question then, immediately. How many men had wanted to be her second?
She said to Martha, later, as they were going together to her train—she spoke suddenly, struck by an interesting thought:
"Look here, isn't the doctor's name Isobel?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Well, but Martha, she said her sister's name was Isobel."
"Did she? I didn't notice."
"I did! She did say her sister's name was Isobel!"
"Well, what of it?" Martha was curious.
"Well, don't you see, there couldn't be two Isobels in one family? They must be half-sisters, or step sisters, or something. Maybe that man WAS a brother—of some kind."
Then Martha laughed. She laughed just like Mrs. Blacksley, softly, jeeringly.
"You're the limit, mammie!" She laughed again, more naturally, from sheer amusement. "You can't believe what I say, can you? You're too good for this world, mammie! The doctor'll take care of herself. Don't you worry about her!"
"You can laugh at me, if you want to; but I don't believe it. Anyway, why shouldn't a woman doctor have a man patient, if she wants one?"
"To be sure!" agreed Martha, "if she wants one," she added, in another tone. "I don't admire her taste; but I'm willing to let her have as many as she wants."
"Do a deed," they say, "and make a proverb." But why, Emily mused more than once, should Martha, having done but one deed, go on making proverbs indefinitely. Must she interpret life forever by that one bitter mistake of hers? The more Emily thought of the doctor, the more deeply she was convinced that Martha was mistaken about her lover. She would have been a magnificent mother of a family of rollicking boys. Was it likely that a hard-headed professional woman, with a practice to maintain, was going to entangle herself with awkward amorous relationships? Emily decided it was not.
It was possible, too, that Martha had misunderstood Miss Curtis. Emily longed to prove it. She wanted to go and ask Mrs. Bissel all she knew of Miss Curtis's history. If a woman as conventional as Mrs. Bissel knew anything of that discrediting sort, would she have allowed her daughter to live in her flat? Certainly not, Emily said to herself. But just suppose Martha could be right? The least possibility of such a thing made it out of the question for Emily to broach the gossipy subject to Mrs. Bissel. So she held her tongue.
Then Martha walked in one snowy morning, like a normal child, home for the holidays, happy to be home. She walked in unannounced, alone, undefended by any stranger from intimacy with her mother! She walked in and she gave Emily a hug—an old little-girl hug, the like of which she had not had, since—THAT happened. Emily's neck could scarcely believe the feeling of those arms about it. Emily's eyes had to blink. Here now was that first little old Martha, the dear one that had been away from her for so long. Martha had recovered her real self; she was looking better; she was looking—bright, again; she was looking—excited. Yes, that was the word; she was excited through and through. Could she have fallen in love? Alas! that was too much to hope for. When she went upstairs Emily stood and listened. She half expected her to walk into the painted room.
She went into the guest room, however. She wasn't quite completely a daughter yet, then.
When she came down and saw Maggie's condition, she took the preparations for dinner out of her hands. The kitchen, some way, seemed to belong to Martha. Even Maggie, who had never relinquished it to Emily for a second, seemed conscious that it had changed owners. Emily stood about, talking to her.
"What," Martha cried, "the costumes aren't made! They haven't rehearsed for a month! Why didn't you write to me, mammie? I'd have come to help you."
Had she forgotten how shortly she had refused to come home at all for Christmas? Was she offering now, really, to plunge into the affairs of this town whose very existence she seemed of late to have resented?
"I'll go and get them. Let's have a seamstress to come here, and have a bee, and get them all done. I'll bet Miss Trent would train the children, mammie. She loathes Mrs. Benton."
"You mustn't talk that way, Martie!"
"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" Martha derided, making faces. "That's what you mean, really. Only you don't say it. You know you don't want to fall down now—just because of what Mrs. Benton would say! I'd like to show her a thing or two myself. I bet I could get a dozen women into this, who'd work just for spite!"
"That's not a nice way to work!"
"But it cooks the hash, mammie!"
Martha chuckled toward her mother. She kept repeating it—that new gesture toward her. A perplexing sort of amused understanding of her mother kept shining out of her eyes all the time she sat at dinner, talking to her father.
As soon as she had washed the dishes she took the car and set forth twinkling to rally workers. She came back about five with two suit cases full of cut or basted costumes. These she deposited on the floor of the living room, and proceeded to examine them, talking all the time of her success. White wings she shook out, and curious red calico legs she unfolded. Emily was sitting on the sofa. And Martha was standing by the living-room table—where she had stood, exactly, when she announced, "Richard Quin is getting a divorce." She bent down and lifted up a cerise crinoline sort of wide ruche.
"Now, what do you make of this, mammie? This must be for a villain!" And she put it around her neck—it had no fastening, yet—and holding it tightly together, she danced across the room, and looked at herself absurdly in a mirror.
"Believe me, mammie, this is going to be a play!"
Her manner was so triumphant, that Emily was overcome by her impulse.
"Martha!" she exclaimed, "What HAS happened to you? What's the matter?"
The girl faced about abruptly. She stared intently at her mother. And as she looked her face changed. It lost that new expression of admiration with which she had warmed her mother's heart all day. And when she spoke her voice was almost bitter.
"Well, YOU'RE a nice one to ask me that!"
"Why am I a nice one? What have I done now?"
Martha spoke with an effort. "I suppose it doesn't matter; or you think it doesn't matter. I suppose you did what you thought best for me. I'm not judging you, but it would have made things a great deal easier for me if you could have told me the truth."
"The truth about what?"
Martha was annoyed by the question. She hesitated, but decided to go on.
"I can understand you don't want to discuss it; neither would I, but you must have meant to tell me eventually. After all, I have a right to know, mother."
Emily saw she was desperately in earnest. "What are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled.
Martha spoke slowly. "I mean—about my father—about Uncle Jim."
Emily understood then. The shock brought a cry of horror from her. "Oh, Martha!"
Martha knew pain when she heard it.
"Oh, mammie!" she cried back, running to Emily, sitting down close to her. "Mammie, don't cry! Don't think I care! I'd a million times rather have him for my father! I never loved you, really, before! I didn't pry into it. Honestly, mammie, it just came to me, like the morning; like light flashing into me, mammie!"
Emily had drawn away from her and covered her face with her hands. Martha thought she was crying. She besought her tenderly:
"Mammie, don't you mind my understanding it. Oh, if you knew how I felt about it! When I think of you living here all these years! I started to come home to you the minute I realized it. It came to me like a flash in front of Woolworth's in State Street, there. I was walking along, blue enough to die; I just wanted to die, I was so sore. And I saw that front and I remembered going into Woolworth'shere, between you and Uncle Jim. I don't mind calling him that; it's a dear name for him. I remembered all of a sudden just how you looked at each other. Mammie, it just stunned me when I understood. I hadn't gone a block before I saw it all. I don't know why I didn't always understand it. Because he always was just naturally my father, wasn't he? Nobody ever had to teach me to love HIM! Dad never felt that way about me, naturally. It wasn't his fault he never had any interest in me. I knew why you stood Bronson, then! I remembered how you looked after the funeral! I was so excited I just couldn't stand up. I sat down on a bench in the public library lobby, and just sat there! Oh, I never appreciated you till now, mammie! I'm going to take care of you now. When I think of you living year in and year out in this house with dad—I'll call him that! I don't care about names! The way you've put it across right here, in this dirty gossipy little town, and nobody DARED to suspect you of anything! Not ANYTHING! Why do you look at me that way? You intended to tell me some time, surely!"
Now for the first time in her life Emily had drawn away from her child in repulsion. She had started to speak; she had started to cry out her denial. But that young, eager, relit face was close to hers. No matter how illuminating the mistake was, the poor distorted child must know the truth. But as Emily opened her lips to speak, the poor distorted child went on; she had seized Emily's hand in both her own:
"Oh, now I know what they mean, being born again. I was just born again, mammie! I know now why you never scolded me—why you stood by me; you understood. You've been through it! And everybody loves you; they just bless you! You aren't afraid they'll find it out. You just go on! I'm going on, too! My God! how I'm going on! If you can put this across, so can I! You never were afraid of dad finding it out, even, were you?"
Emily Kenworthy murmured, "No." She meant to add, "There was never anything to find out, you bad, silly girl!" but she didn't.
She could find no excuse for her conduct, as she thought it over, that night. She had simply been hypnotized by the beauty of that child's eagerness. It had been such a long time since she had seen eagerness, hopefulness, twinkling out of that little sweet face of hers, that she hadn't had courage to darken it again. Martha had just sat there, caressing her, babbling out her enjoyment of her mother's infamy, until Greta's older sister had come in. Emily had made her entrance an excuse for getting away to her room. And there she had sat dazedly, hurt, ashamed of her daughter, more ashamed of herself. How could I have hesitated a minute! I ought to have corrected her the minute she dared to suggest that to me! But what difference does it make? It's good enough for Bob! He never appreciated her! What do I care what she thinks, if it does her any good? I'm not high and holy any longer! I understand her! Hasn't she any sense of honor at all, that she's so pleased? Why should I be so shocked? Didn't I plan often enough to leave Bob and go to Jim? She only accused me of what I often wanted to do! I gave that up, and this is what I get for it! She wishes she was Jim's. She thinks I went on living with Bob! "My God!" cried Emily. "But she can't help it; she has to suspect somebody. It's her luck, after what she's done. Why should I feel so sick about this?"
And even while she sat there feeling sick at heart, Martha's voice came dancing up the stairs.
"Mammie, what are you doing? Can't you come down a minute?"
And Emily had gone down, hardening her heart. "I'm never going to tell her the truth," she was vowing. "Let her think that, if it does her any good!" And all that evening she had talked and listened to talking, like one in a dream. Whatever she said, it was of Martha's base accusation that she was conscious. "Surely," she was thinking, "if I gave Jim up once for this child, I can give up Bob and my scruples, just in her mind, for a little while." She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she scarcely spoke during supper. Bob noticed her quietness. She had been gay at dinner. He was the more affable to Martha.
"Where's Miss Curtis now? Is she coming down for Christmas?"
"No. She's gone to Ruth—to Indiana."
"Well, she's a nice sort of a woman, for a school-teacher." Emily saw the cynical smile that came about Martha's mouth.
"You bet she is!" she replied, enthusiastically. "But you ought to see the doctor. Dad, she'd show you a thing or two."
"That's what I like about Miss Curtis. You can trust her to mind her own business. You feel safe with her."
"Don't you, though? You can trust her absolutely, couldn't you, dad? You could always be sure she'd be upright, couldn't you?"
Upright was a strange adjective. Bob looked up to see if Martha had begun spoofing him again. She looked innocent, but he changed the subject. Martha looked knowingly across at her mother. Emily wanted to spank her.
Later in the evening again she experienced the same desire. She came into the sitting room to hear Martha cajoling over the 'phone the most conventional, conservative, disapproving woman who ever eyed bobbed hair and short skirts maliciously. "But we want you so, Mrs. Mason. Everybody says there's no one who can get as much work done in one afternoon as you." And on she talked, till she hung up the 'phone triumphantly.
"Martha, why in the world did you inviteherhere?" Emily asked.
Martha winked at her naughtily. "I just asked her because she's so extra holy!" she answered, and she laughed. She had the upper hand of life now, that girl!
She ought to have been pitifully spanked, but now that she had got things under way, there was scarcely time to reprove her. Emily remembered the days when Bob had complained that he could never get her alone long enough to "settle her." The house was bustling and hurrying about, as Martha used to make it stir, full of her girl friends coming and going, confused by committee women of inspired importance. School children were singing their parts at the piano; angels were adjusting their feathers in the hall; the 'phone was ringing. Emily watched Martha "putting it across," each day a little more naughtily, a little more triumphantly. She apparently intended to be as highly respected in the town as her deceitful mother. It was not pleasant, to say the least, to see her sitting deferring with studied docility to the opinion of women whom Emily knew she was scorning with all her might. Never before had she been quite such a "nice girl." She was demure; she was discreet; she gave someone else credit for every good idea she put forth quietly, graciously; she made her elderly neighbors smile at her mother as if to say "What a clever child this is of yours." And, when they left, she would hug her mother, grinning, chuckling. Thick as two thieves they were, together in conspiracy.
The only thing that seemed difficult to explain about Martha was the absence of admirers who had formerly beset her father round about. Johnnie, of course, had not come home from the East, but there were numbers of young collegians who had returned for Christmas. Why, Emily wondered, did they avoid the Kenworthy house? She understood one evening when she overheard a conversation between Greta and her daughter.
"I told Hally I was coming here. I asked him to come along, but he wouldn't." A giggle. "Do you know what he said about you, Martha?"
"What?" The tone was wholly indifferent.
"He said: 'No; I'm not going there. Martie's mad. She's taken to biting.'"
Then Martha's voice, full of interest, "Did he honestly say that?" She seemed gratified.
"Yes, honest he did."
"I didn't suppose he had that much sense," Martha said, simply.
Later: "But why? Tell me the truth, Martie! Why aren't you dancing?"
"I have told you the truth. I've learned my lesson; I can't stand late hours. I don't want another breakdown like that one last winter. I tell you I go to bed regularly early. I'm in bed every night at half past ten."
A silence.
Then: "That'll do to tell! I bet if Johnnie Benton was here to dance with, your health would be all right!"
"Johnnie Benton?" Scorn and derision at such a suggestion. "Excuse me if I seem to yawn. Anyway, he's engaged to somebody down East."
"Who said so? You're making that up! I don't believe it."
"Nobody told me. It's likely, you know that. The way he goes round proposing to everybody."
"He never proposed to me."
"Oh, get out! He must have!"
Martha was rejoicing in her own hypocrisy. She was guzzling down the impression she made. People said it was too sweet of her to have thought of bringing old Miss Knight to the party tenderly in her car. For Miss Knight was a decrepit old primary teacher of Martha's infancy, who seldom went out, and she had beamed every minute of the afternoon upon the dancing children, and blessed Martha loudly for her kindness in bringing her, as Martha had counted on her doing. Martha had remembered the poor. The poor, now, were hard to find in that town. But Martha had sought out a family whose house had been burned recently, and bestirred even protesting Greta to help her to succor them.
"You mustn't be such a lazy selfish pig, Greta!" she had gurgled when the room was fullest of listeners. She had talked, too, cunningly of the turkey she was roasting for Christmas dinner.
"I never had a chance to roast a turkey before," she said to mothers whose daughters were known to be indifferent to cook-stoves, "but I've always wanted to. I adore making mince pies; I'm making a lot of mincemeat, all myself, to take back with me. Yes, I'm fond of cooking. I get my own dinners with Miss Curtis, my friend in Chicago. I have more time than she does. She teaches school; but, of course, now that I'm in business, I'm busier." And she would look at the neighbors simply, quietly. She even dared to say innocently to her mother, just when the gossips might be supposed to be listening:
"Did I tell you, mammie, I met Eve the other day? She's given up New York. Her father isn't well and she's going to stay in Chicago. She's coming down for a week-end soon, if he's better."
And when the neighbors would be gone she would run and give her mother gloating hugs, which asked as plainly as her voice could have spoken, "Don't I just get it across?"
Emily had asked, afterwards: "Did you really meet Eve? When?"
And she pretended to be indignant. "Did I meet her? I like your nerve! Do you suppose I'm not telling you the truth? She is coming down to see you. She said to me, right out, as soon as I saw her, 'Are you still sore about—that?' I just said: 'About what? Where've you been all the time? Why don't you write mother oftener? She wants to see you. Come on down with me.' This was at the station, mammie, just when I was coming home the other day. If she comes down here to stay with us, what can anybody say about——?"
She held the situation in a tight grasp now. If any minute of those busy days she had suffered one pang, remembering the desperate Christmas a year ago, she had never once given a sign of it. Since the day of her first accusation of her mother she had avoided the subject of her paternity excessively. Emily, too, had been afraid of it. She had told Martha firmly that she was not going to Chicago to live with her. Martha, for fear she might make explanations, had not argued the subject very far.
"I never would be content to live in Chicago, you know that, Martha. Our roots are here; I'm too old to be transplanted. I won't leave this house."
"But you get bored to death, mammie. You want to shriek sometimes. You said you did yourself that night, at the doctor's. I hate to go away and leave you here."
"Stay here then. This is your home."
"No. I've got todosomething. It's all right here, when there's a party on, or something. But I couldn't stand it all the time. I'd get to scrapping with dad, you know I would."
The very mention of Bob brought up possibilities of uncomfortable remarks.
Martha hastened to continue.
"I'll come back just as often as I can. And you come and stay with me as much as you can. And in June we'll go to Europe together. Nobody can talk about that! And maybe you'll like it well enough to stay a year or two with me there; lots of people do. And that's the only place really to learn about furnishings and furniture."
Emily lay in her bed that night, ashamed and unhappy. "It's as if I had told her the most enormous and fundamental lie," she reflected. "Nothing good can ever come of this. Strange," she thought, "that I can't remember ever going into Woolworth's with Jim! She remembers something of him that I don't. How old would she have been then? The five-and-ten must have come to town—well—before Bronson came. She loved that store at first, when she was little." She grudged Martha a memory that belonged essentially to her; she thought greedily over every look of his she had ever treasured. She remembered their early love; she recalled still how his dear hands had gone longing, discreetly up inside her stiff cuffs. She remembered his kisses; she remembered how he had come back in the days of his weariness to his mother, and how they had looked across at each other, with that innocent old woman between them. She remembered how he used to sit with little Martha on his knee, in the days of his ill health and bitterness, stroking her hair and looking into her face, trying some way to get close to the mother through the child. She thought of that summer, and of Bronson, and of Jim's irrepressible crying-out to her. She stopped there. She tried always not to think of his death. "He just kissed me," she said, "and went away."
"Oh," she cried to herself, "I'm going to Chicago to-morrow and tell Martha the truth! He was too sweet, too dear. This isn't fair to him. I don't care about Bob; but I won't have her thinking such things of Jim. He was too good for such—baseness. He never forgot I was his brother's wife. He did kiss me, but he went away then. That's the point—he went away. I'll tell her that.
"And if I tell her, she'll never believe me. She thinks I'm sly and sneaking and adulterous now, and if I tell her the truth, she'll think I'm lying to her. She hasn't enough experience yet to believe the truth; she doesn't know enough to believe it. That's why she hates it all so! herself, and passion. All she knows of passion is its roots, in the dark ground; its blossom in the air, its sweet lovely blossom in the sun she hasn't seen. She doesn't know forbearance or tenderness, and that's the best part of it—for us. She wouldn't believe me if I told her what sort of man he was. I don't know what's going to become of her now; she'll never marry now. Probably that way such a lot of women don't marry; the roots of it all look so ugly, so brutal to them. If I could make Martha believe in some one like Jim now! The whole tragedy is that she can't."
When she fell asleep at last, she was thinking still of her lover—not, however, that he went away, but that he kissed her.
Martha hadn't been gone two weeks when that most astonishing news came. Nothing could have stunned the town more than that. The telegram came first to Emily. She heard it over the 'phone.
Mrs. Benton had died suddenly, while motoring in California.
People gathered in groups on the street to discuss it. It seemed a thing that could not be true. To be sure, when you thought it over, you realized that Mrs. Benton was but mortal; but it seemed so unlike her, just to die, to quit, to lay things down. Her body, lifeless, was to be sent home for burial.
Recovering by degrees from the shock of the news; the cruder ones began asking under their breaths what the more sentimental ones had but pondered. Had she lived to hear of the success of the Christmas party? They could not believe that she had. It didn't seem likely.
Mrs. Benton's body was to arrive on a Thursday, from the West. Johnnie arrived from the East on Tuesday morning, to find his home swept and garnished and in possession of an old and silent aunt and a young and gushing one. He came to Emily for refuge that evening. He seemed almost stupefied by the event. Emily had never thought of him as a nervous man before. He talked in a way unnaturally incoherent, and he stirred about nervously, unable to sit down. The second time she noticed his hand refrain spasmodically from a cigarette, she said:
"Smoke if you want to."
But he burst out: "No. I won't have people laughing—about THIS. I won't have them talking about her."