Miss Diantha Bell,To Mr. Henderson R. Bell, Dr.To medical and dental expenses... $110.00To school expenses... $76.00To clothing, in full... $1,130.00To board and lodging at $3.00 a week... $2,184.00To incidentals... $100.00———— $3.600.00
He studied the various items carefully, stroking his beard, half in anger, half in unavoidable amusement. Perhaps there was a tender feeling too, as he remembered that doctor's bill—the first he ever paid, with the other, when she had scarlet fever; and saw the exact price of the high chair which had served all three of the children, but of which she magnanimously shouldered the whole expense.
The clothing total was so large that it made him whistle—he knew he had never spent $1,130.00 on one girl's clothes. But the items explained it.
Materials, three years at an average of $10 a year... $30.00Five years averaging $20 each year... $100.00Five years averaging $30 each year... $50.00Five years averaging $50 each year... $250.00———- $530.00
The rest was “Mother's labor”, averaging twenty full days a year at $2 a day, $40 a year. For fifteen years, $600.00. Mother's labor—on one child's, clothes—footing up to $600.00. It looked strange to see cash value attached to that unfailing source of family comfort and advantage.
The school expenses puzzled him a bit, for she had only gone to public schools; but she was counting books and slates and even pencils—it brought up evenings long passed by, the sewing wife, the studying children, the “Say, Father, I've got to have a new slate—mine's broke!”
“Broken, Dina,” her Mother would gently correct, while he demanded, “How did you break it?” and scolded her for her careless tomboy ways. Slates—three, $1.50—they were all down. And slates didn't cost so much come to think of it, even the red-edged ones, wound with black, that she always wanted.
Board and lodging was put low, at $3.00 per week, but the items had a footnote as to house-rent in the country, and food raised on the farm. Yes, he guessed that was a full rate for the plain food and bare little bedroom they always had.
“It's what Aunt Esther paid the winter she was here,” said Diantha.
Circuses—three... $1.50Share in melodeon... $50.00
Yes, she was one of five to use and enjoy it.
Music lessons... $30.00
And quite a large margin left here, called miscellaneous, which he smiled to observe made just an even figure, and suspected she had put in for that purpose as well as from generosity.
“This board account looks kind of funny,” he said—“only fourteen years of it!”
“I didn't take table-board—nor a room—the first year—nor much the second. I've allowed $1.00 a week for that, and $2.00 for the third—that takes out two, you see. Then it's $156 a year till I was fourteen and earned board and wages, two more years at $156—and I've paid since I was seventeen, you know.”
“Well—I guess you did—I guess you did.” He grinned genially. “Yes,” he continued slowly, “I guess that's a fair enough account. 'Cording to this, you owe me $3,600.00, young woman! I didn't think it cost that much to raise a girl.”
“I know it,” said she. “But here's the other side.”
It was the other side. He had never once thought of such a side to the case. This account was as clear and honest as the first and full of exasperating detail. She laid before him the second sheet of figures and watched while he read, explaining hurriedly:
“It was a clear expense for ten years—not counting help with the babies. Then I began to do housework regularly—when I was ten or eleven, two hours a day; three when I was twelve and thirteen—real work you'd have had to pay for, and I've only put it at ten cents an hour. When Mother was sick the year I was fourteen, and I did it all but the washing—all a servant would have done for $3.00 a week. Ever since then I have done three hours a day outside of school, full grown work now, at twenty cents an hour. That's what we have to pay here, you know.”
Thus it mounted up:
Mr. Henderson R. Bell,To Miss Diantha Bell, Dr.For labor and services!!!!!Two years, two hours a day at 10c. an hour... $146.00Two years, three hours a day at 10c. an hour... $219.00One year, full wages at $5.00 a week... $260.00Six years and a half, three hours a day at 20c... $1423.50———— $2048.50
Mr. Bell meditated carefully on these figures. To think of that child's labor footing up to two thousand dollars and over! It was lucky a man had a wife and daughters to do this work, or he could never support a family.
Then came her school-teaching years. She had always been a fine scholar and he had felt very proud of his girl when she got a good school position in her eighteenth year.
California salaries were higher than eastern ones, and times had changed too; the year he taught school he remembered the salary was only $300.00—and he was a man. This girl got $600, next year $700, $800, $900; why it made $3,000 she had earned in four years. Astonishing. Out of this she had a balance in the bank of $550.00. He was pleased to see that she had been so saving. And her clothing account—little enough he admitted for four years and six months, $300.00. All incidentals for the whole time, $50.00—this with her balance made just $900. That left $2,100.00.
“Twenty-one hundred dollars unaccounted for, young lady!—besides this nest egg in the bank—I'd no idea you were so wealthy. What have you done with all that?”
“Given it to you, Father,” said she quietly, and handed him the third sheet of figures.
Board and lodging at $4.00 a week for 4 1/2 years made $936.00, that he could realize; but “cash advance” $1,164 more—he could not believe it. That time her mother was so sick and Diantha had paid both the doctor and the nurse—yes—he had been much cramped that year—and nurses come high. For Henderson, Jr.'s, expenses to San Francisco, and again for Henderson when he was out of a job—Mr. Bell remembered the boy's writing for the money, and his not having it, and Mrs. Bell saying she could arrange with Diantha.
Arrange! And that girl had kept this niggardly account of it! For Minnie's trip to the Yosemite—and what was this?—for his raisin experiment—for the new horse they simply had to have for the drying apparatus that year he lost so much money in apricots—and for the spraying materials—yes, he could not deny the items, and they covered that $1,164.00 exactly.
Then came the deadly balance, of the account between them:
Her labor... $2,047.00Her board... $936.00Her “cash advanced”... $1,164.00————- $4,147.00His expense for her... $3,600————- Due her from him... $547.00
Diantha revolved her pencil between firm palms, and looked at him rather quizzically; while her mother rocked and darned and wiped away an occasional tear. She almost wished she had not kept accounts so well.
Mr. Bell pushed the papers away and started to his feet.
“This is the most shameful piece of calculation I ever saw in my life,” said he. “I never heard of such a thing! You go and count up in cold dollars the work that every decent girl does for her family and is glad to! I wonder you haven't charged your mother for nursing her?”
“You notice I haven't,” said Diantha coldly.
“And to think,” said he, gripping the back of a chair and looking down at her fiercely, “to think that a girl who can earn nine hundred dollars a year teaching school, and stay at home and do her duty by her family besides, should plan to desert her mother outright—now she's old and sick! Of course I can't stop you! You're of age, and children nowadays have no sense of natural obligation after they're grown up. You can go, of course, and disgrace the family as you propose—but you needn't expect to have me consent to it or approve of it—or of you. It's a shameful thing—and you are an unnatural daughter—that's all I've got to say!”
Mr. Bell took his hat and went out—a conclusive form of punctuation much used by men in discussions of this sort.
Duck! Dive! Here comes another one!Wait till the crest-ruffles show!Beyond is smooth water in beauty and wonder—Shut your mouth! Hold your breath! Dip your head under!Dive through the weight and the wash, and the thunder—Look out for the undertow!
If Diantha imagined that her arithmetical victory over a too-sordid presentation of the parental claim was a final one, she soon found herself mistaken.
It is easy to say—putting an epic in an epigram—“She seen her duty and she done it!” but the space and time covered are generally as far beyond our plans as the estimates of an amateur mountain climber exceed his achievements.
Her determination was not concealed by her outraged family. Possibly they thought that if the matter was well aired, and generally discussed, the daring offender might reconsider. Well-aired it certainly was, and widely discussed by the parents of the little town before young people who sat in dumbness, or made faint defense. It was also discussed by the young people, but not before their parents.
She had told Ross, first of all, meaning to have a quiet talk with him to clear the ground before arousing her own family; but he was suddenly away just as she opened the subject, by a man on a wheel—some wretched business about the store of course—and sent word that night that he could not come up again. Couldn't come up the next night either. Two long days—two long evenings without seeing him. Well—if she went away she'd have to get used to that.
But she had so many things to explain, so much to say to make it right with him; she knew well what a blow it was. Now it was all over town—and she had had no chance to defend her position.
The neighbors called. Tall bony Mrs. Delafield who lived nearest to them and had known Diantha for some years, felt it her duty to make a special appeal—or attack rather; and brought with her stout Mrs. Schlosster, whose ancestors and traditions were evidently of German extraction.
Diantha retired to her room when she saw these two bearing down upon the house; but her mother called her to make a pitcher of lemonade for them—and having entered there was no escape. They harried her with questions, were increasingly offended by her reticence, and expressed disapproval with a fullness that overmastered the girl's self-control.
“I have as much right to go into business as any other citizen, Mrs. Delafield,” she said with repressed intensity. “I am of age and live in a free country. What you say of children no longer applies to me.”
“And what is this mysterious business you're goin' into—if one may inquire? Nothin you're ashamed to mention, I hope?” asked Mrs. Delafield.
“If a woman refuses to mention her age is it because she's ashamed of it?” the girl retorted, and Mrs. Delafield flushed darkly.
“Never have I heard such talk from a maiden to her elders,” said Mrs. Schlosster. “In my country the young have more respect, as is right.”
Mrs. Bell objected inwardly to any reprimand of her child by others; but she agreed to the principle advanced and made no comment.
Diantha listened to quite a volume of detailed criticism, inquiry and condemnation, and finally rose to her feet with the stiff courtesy of the young.
“You must excuse me now,” she said with set lips. “I have some necessary work to do.”
She marched upstairs, shut her bedroom door and locked it, raging inwardly. “Its none of their business! Not a shadow! Why should Mother sit there and let them talk to me like that! One would think childhood had no limit—unless it's matrimony!”
This reminded her of her younger sister's airs of superior wisdom, and did not conduce to a pleasanter frame of mind. “With all their miserable little conventions and idiocies! And what 'they'll say,' and 'they'll think'! As if I cared! Minnie'll be just such another!”
She heard the ladies going out, still talking continuously, a faint response from her mother now and then, a growing quiet as their steps receded toward the gate; and then another deeper voice took up the theme and heavily approached.
It was the minister! Diantha dropped into her rocker and held the arms tight. “Now I'll have to take it again I suppose. But he ought to know me well enough to understand.”
“Diantha!” called her mother, “Here's Dr. Major;” and the girl washed her face and came down again.
Dr. Major was a heavy elderly man with a strong mouth and a warm hand clasp. “What's all this I hear about you, young lady?” he demanded, holding her hand and looking her straight in the eye. “Is this a new kind of Prodigal Daughter we're encountering?”
He did not look nor sound condemnatory, and as she faced him she caught a twinkle in the wise old eyes.
“You can call it that if you want to,” she said, “Only I thought the Prodigal Son just spent his money—I'm going to earn some.”
“I want you to talk to Diantha, Doctor Major,” Mrs. Bell struck in. “I'm going to ask you to excuse me, and go and lie down for a little. I do believe she'll listen to you more than to anybody.”
The mother retired, feeling sure that the good man who had known her daughter for over fifteen years would have a restraining influence now; and Diantha braced herself for the attack.
It came, heavy and solid, based on reason, religion, tradition, the custom of ages, the pastoral habit of control and protection, the father's instinct, the man's objection to a girl's adventure. But it was courteous, kind, and rationally put, and she met it point by point with the whole-souled arguments of a new position, the passionate enthusiasm of her years.
They called a truce.
“I can see that youthinkits your duty, young, woman—that's the main thing. I think you're wrong. But what you believe to be right you have to do. That's the way we learn my dear, that's the way we learn! Well—you've been a good child ever since I've known you. A remarkably good child. If you have to sow this kind of wild oats—” they both smiled at this, “I guess we can't stop you. I'll keep your secret—”
“Its not a secret really,” the girl explained, “I'll tell them as soon as I'm settled. Then they can tell—if they want to.” And they both smiled again.
“Well—I won't tell till I hear of it then. And—yes, I guess I can furnish that document with a clean conscience.”
She gave him paper and pen and he wrote, with a grin, handing her the result.
She read it, a girlish giggle lightening the atmosphere. “Thank you!” she said earnestly. “Thank you ever so much. I knew you would help me.”
“If you get stuck anywhere just let me know,” he said rising. “This Proddy Gal may want a return ticket yet!”
“I'll walk first!” said Diantha.
“O Dr. Major,” cried her mother from the window, “Don't go! We want you to stay to supper of course!”
But he had other calls to make, he said, and went away, his big hands clasped behind him; his head bent, smiling one minute and shaking his head the next.
Diantha leaned against a pearly eucalyptus trunk and watched him. She would miss Dr. Major. But who was this approaching? Her heart sank miserably. Mrs. Warden—andallthe girls.
She went to meet them—perforce. Mrs. Warden had always been kind and courteous to her; the girls she had not seen very much of, but they had the sweet Southern manner, were always polite. Ross's mother she must love. Ross's sisters too—if she could. Why did the bottom drop out of her courage at sight of them?
“You dear child!” said Mrs. Warden, kissing her. “I know just how you feel! You want to help my boy! That's your secret! But this won't do it, my dear!”
“You've no idea how badly Ross feels!” said Madeline. “Mrs. Delafield dropped in just now and told us. You ought to have seen him!”
“He didn't believe it of course,” Adeline put in. “And he wouldn't say a thing—not a thing to blame you.”
“We said we'd come over right off—and tried to bring him—but he said he'd got to go back to the store,” Coraline explained.
“He was mad though!” said Dora—“Iknow.”
Diantha looked from one to the other helplessly.
“Come in! Come in!” said Mrs. Bell hospitably. “Have this rocker, Mrs. Warden—wouldn't you like some cool drink? Diantha?”
“No indeed!” Mrs. Warden protested. “Don't get a thing. We're going right back, it's near supper time. No, we can't think of staying, of course not, no indeed!—But we had to come over and hear about this dear child's idea!—Now tell us all about it, Diantha!”
There they sat—five pairs of curious eyes—and her mother's sad ones—all kind—all utterly incapable of understanding.
She moistened her lips and plunged desperately. “It is nothing dreadful, Mrs. Warden. Plenty of girls go away to earn their livings nowadays. That is all I'm doing.”
“But why go away?”
“I thought you were earning your living before!”
“Isn't teaching earning your living?”
“Whatareyou going to do?” the girls protested variously, and Mrs. Warden, with a motherly smile, suggested!!!!!
“That doesn't explain your wanting to leave Ross, my dear—and your mother!”
“I don't want to leave them,” protested Diantha, trying to keep her voice steady. “It is simply that I have made up my mind I can do better elsewhere.”
“Do what better?” asked Mrs. Warden with sweet patience, which reduced Diantha to the bald statement, “Earn more money in less time.”
“And is that better than staying with your mother and your lover?” pursued the gentle inquisitor; while the girls tried, “What do you want to earn more money for?” and “I thought you earned a lot before.”
Now Diantha did not wish to state in so many words that she wanted more money in order to marry sooner—she had hardly put it to herself that way. She could not make them see in a few moments that her plan was to do far more for her mother than she would otherwise ever be able to. And as to making them understand the larger principles at stake—the range and depth of her full purpose—that would be physically impossible.
“I am sorry!” she said with trembling lips. “I am extremely sorry. But—I cannot explain!”
Mrs. Warden drew herself up a little. “Cannot explain to me?—Your mother, of course, knows?”
“Diantha is naturally more frank with me than with—anyone,” said Mrs. Bell proudly, “But she does not wish her—business—plans—made public at present!”
Her daughter looked at her with vivid gratitude, but the words “made public” were a little unfortunate perhaps.
“Of course,” Mrs. Warden agreed, with her charming smile, “that we can quite understand. I'm sure I should always wish my girls to feel so. Madeline—just show Mrs. Bell that necktie you're making—she was asking about the stitch, you remember.”
The necktie was produced and admired, while the other girls asked Diantha if she had her fall dressmaking done yet—and whether she found wash ribbon satisfactory. And presently the whole graceful family withdrew, only Dora holding her head with visible stiffness.
Diantha sat on the floor by her mother, put her head in her lap and cried. “How splendid of you, Mother!” she sobbed. “How simply splendid! I will tell you now—if—if—you won't tell even Father—yet.”
“Dear child” said her Mother, “I'd rather not know in that case. It is—easier.”
“That's what I kept still for!” said the girl. “It's hard enough, goodness knows—as it is! Its nothing wicked, or even risky, Mother dear—and as far as I can see it is right!”
Her mother smiled through her tears. “If you say that, my dear child, I know there's no stopping you. And I hate to argue with you—even for your own sake, because it is so much to my advantage to have you here. I—shall miss you—Diantha!”
“Don't, Mother!” sobbed the girl.
“Its natural for the young to go. We expect it—in time. But you are so young yet—and—well, I had hoped the teaching would satisfy you till Ross was ready.”
Diantha sat up straight.
“Mother! can't you see Ross'll never be ready! Look at that family! And the way they live! And those mortgages! I could wait and teach and save a little even with Father always losing money; but I can't see Ross wearing himself out for years and years—I justcan'tbear it!”
Her mother stroked her fair hair softly, not surprised that her own plea was so lost in thought of the brave young lover.
“And besides,” the girl went on “If I waited—and saved—and married Ross—what becomes ofyou,I'd like to know? What I can't stand is to have you grow older and sicker—and never have any good time in all your life!”
Mrs. Bell smiled tenderly. “You dear child!” she said; as if an affectionate five-year old had offered to get her a rainbow, “I know you mean it all for the best. But, O mydearest! I'd rather have you—here—at home with me—-than any other 'good time' you can imagine!”
She could not see the suffering in her daughter's face; but she felt she had made an impression, and followed it up with heart-breaking sincerity. She caught the girl to her breast and held her like a little child. “O my baby! my baby! Don't leave your mother. I can't bear it!”
A familiar step outside, heavy, yet uncertain, and they both looked at each other with frightened eyes.
They had forgotten the biscuit.
“Supper ready?” asked Mr. Bell, with grim humor.
“It will be in a moment, Father,” cried Diantha springing to her feet. “At least—in a few moments.”
“Don't fret the child, Father,” said Mrs. Henderson softly. “She's feeling bad enough.”
“Sh'd think she would,” replied her husband. “Moreover—to my mind—she ought to.”
He got out the small damp local paper and his pipe, and composed himself in obvious patience: yet somehow this patience seemed to fill the kitchen, and to act like a ball and chain to Diantha's feet.
She got supper ready, at last, making griddle-cakes instead of biscuit, and no comment was made of the change: but the tension in the atmosphere was sharply felt by the two women; and possibly by the tall old man, who ate less than usual, and said absolutely nothing.
“I'm going over to see Edwards about that new incubator,” he said when the meal was over, and departed; and Mrs. Bell, after trying in vain to do her mending, wiped her clouded glasses and went to bed.
Diantha made all neat and tidy; washed her own wet eyes again, and went out under the moon. In that broad tender mellow light she drew a deep breath and stretched her strong young arms toward the sky in dumb appeal.
“I knew it would be hard,” she murmured to herself, “That is I knew the facts—but I didn't know the feeling!”
She stood at the gate between the cypresses, sat waiting under the acacia boughs, walked restlessly up and down the path outside, the dry pepper berries crush softly under foot; bracing herself for one more struggle—and the hardest of all.
“He will understand!” he told herself, over and over, but at the bottom of her heart she knew he wouldn't.
He came at last; a slower, wearier step than usual; came and took both her hands in his and stood holding them, looking at her questioningly. Then he held her face between his palms and made her look at him. Her eyes were brave and steady, but the mouth trembled in spite of her.
He stilled it with a kiss, and drew her to a seat on the bench beside him. “My poor Little Girl! You haven't had a chance yet to really tell me about this thing, and I want you to right now. Then I'm going to kill about forty people in this town!Somebodyhas been mighty foolish.”
She squeezed his hand, but found it very difficult to speak. His love, his sympathy, his tenderness, were so delicious after this day's trials—and before those further ones she could so well anticipate. She didn't wish to cry any more, that would by no means strengthen her position, and she found she couldn't seem to speak without crying.
“One would think to hear the good people of this town that you were about to leave home and mother for—well, for a trip to the moon!” he added. “There isn't any agreement as to what you're going to do, but they're unanimous as to its being entirely wrong. Now suppose you tell me about it.”
“I will,” said Diantha. “I began to the other night, you know, you first of course—it was too bad! your having to go off at that exact moment. Then I had to tell mother—because—well you'll see presently. Now dear—just let me say itall—before you—do anything.”
“Say away, my darling. I trust you perfectly.”
She flashed a grateful look at him. “It is this way, my dear. I have two, three, yes four, things to consider:—My own personal problem—my family's—yours—and a social one.”
“My family's?” he asked, with a faint shade of offence in his tone.
“No no dear—your own,” she explained.
“Better cut mine out, Little Girl,” he said. “I'll consider that myself.”
“Well—I won't talk about it if you don't want me to. There are the other three.”
“I won't question your second, nor your imposing third, but isn't the first one—your own personal problem—a good deal answered?” he suggested, holding her close for a moment.
“Don't!” she said. “I can't talk straight when you put it that way.”
She rose hurriedly and took a step or two up and down. “I don't suppose—in spite of your loving me, that I can make you see it as I do. But I'll be just as clear as I can. There are some years before us before we can be together. In that time I intend to go away and undertake a business I am interested in. My purpose is to—develop the work, to earn money, to help my family, and to—well, not to hinder you.”
“I don't understand, I confess,” he said. “Don't you propose to tell me what this 'work' is?”
“Yes—I will—certainly. But not yet dear! Let me try to show you how I feel about it.”
“Wait,” said he. “One thing I want to be sure of. Are you doing this with any quixotic notion of helping me—inmybusiness? Helping me to take care of my family? Helping me to—” he stood up now, looking very tall and rather forbidding, “No, I won't say that to you.”
“Would there be anything wrong in my meaning exactly that?” she asked, holding her own head a little higher; “both what you said and what you didn't?”
“It would be absolutely wrong, all of it,” he answered. “I cannot believe that the woman I love would—could take such a position.”
“Look here, Ross!” said the girl earnestly. “Suppose you knew where there was a gold mine—knew it—and by going away for a few years you could get a real fortune—wouldn't you do it?”
“Naturally I should,” he agreed.
“Well, suppose it wasn't a gold mine, but a business, a new system like those cigar stores—or—some patent amusement specialty—oranything—that you knew was better than what you're doing—wouldn't you have a right to try it?”
“Of course I should—but what has that to do with this case?”
“Why it's the same thing! Don't you see? I have plans that will be of real benefit to all of us, something worth while todo—and not only for us but foreverybody—a real piece of progress—and I'm going to leave my people—and even you!—for a little while—to make us all happier later on.”
He smiled lovingly at her but shook his head slowly. “You dear, brave, foolish child!” he said. “I don't for one moment doubt your noble purposes. But you don't get the man's point of view—naturally. What's more you don't seem to get the woman's.”
“Can you see no other point of view than those?” she asked.
“There are no others,” he answered. “Come! come! my darling, don't add this new difficulty to what we've got to carry! I know you have a hard time of it at home. Some day, please God, you shall have an easier one! And I'm having a hard time too—I don't deny it. But you are the greatest joy and comfort I have, dear—you know that. If you go away—it will be harder and slower and longer—that's all. I shall have you to worry about too. Let somebody else do the gold-mine, dear—you stay here and comfort your Mother as long as you can—and me. How can I get along without you?”
He tried to put his arm around her again, but she drew back. “Dear,” she said. “If I deliberately do what I think is right—against your wishes—what will you do?”
“Do?” The laughed bitterly. “What can I do? I'm tied by the leg here—I can't go after you. I've nothing to pull you out of a scrape with if you get in one. I couldn't do anything but—stand it.”
“And if I go ahead, and do what you don't like—and make you—suffer—would you—would you rather be free?” Her voice was very low and shaken, but he heard her well enough.
“Free of you? Free ofyou?” He caught her and held her and kissed her over and over.
“You are mine!” he said. “You have given yourself to me! You cannot leave me. Neither of us is free—ever again.” But she struggled away from him.
“Both of us are free—to do what we think right,alwaysRoss! I wouldn't try to stop you if you thought it was your duty to go to the North Pole!” She held him a little way off. “Let me tell you, dear. Sit down—let me tell you all about it.” But he wouldn't sit down.
“I don't think I want to know the details,” he said. “It doesn't much matter what you're going to do—if you really go away. I can't stop you—I see that. If you think this thing is your 'duty' you'll do it if it kills us all—and you too! If you have to go—I shall do nothing—can do nothing—but wait till you come back to me! Whatever happens, darling—no matter how you fail—don't ever be afraid to come back to me.”
He folded his arms now—did not attempt to hold her—gave her the freedom she asked and promised her the love she had almost feared to lose—and her whole carefully constructed plan seemed like a child's sand castle for a moment; her heroic decision the wildest folly.
He was not even looking at her; she saw his strong, clean-cut profile dark against the moonlit house, a settled patience in its lines. Duty! Here was duty, surely, with tenderest happiness. She was leaning toward him—her hand was seeking his, when she heard through the fragrant silence a sound from her mother's room—the faint creak of her light rocking chair. She could not sleep—she was sitting up with her trouble, bearing it quietly as she had so many others.
The quiet everyday tragedy of that distasteful life—the slow withering away of youth and hope and ambition into a gray waste of ineffectual submissive labor—not only of her life, but of thousands upon thousands like her—it all rose up like a flood in the girl's hot young heart.
Ross had turned to her—was holding out his arms to her. “You won't go, my darling!” he said.
“I am going Wednesday on the 7.10,” said Diantha.
“Lovest thou me?” said the Fair Ladye;And the Lover he said, “Yea!”“Then climb this tree—for my sake,” said she,“And climb it every day!”So from dawn till dark he abrazed the barkAnd wore his clothes away;Till, “What has this tree to do with thee?”The Lover at last did say.
It was a poor dinner. Cold in the first place, because Isabel would wait to thoroughly wash her long artistic hands; and put on another dress. She hated the smell of cooking in her garments; hated it worse on her white fingers; and now to look at the graceful erect figure, the round throat with the silver necklace about it, the soft smooth hair, silver-filletted, the negative beauty of the dove-colored gown, specially designed for home evenings, one would never dream she had set the table so well—and cooked the steak so abominably.
Isabel was never a cook. In the many servantless gaps of domestic life in Orchardina, there was always a strained atmosphere in the Porne household.
“Dear,” said Mr. Porne, “might I petition to have the steak less cooked? I know you don't like to do it, so why not shorten the process?”
“I'm sorry,” she answered, “I always forget about the steak from one time to the next.”
“Yet we've had it three times this week, my dear.”
“I thought you liked it better than anything,” she with marked gentleness. “I'll get you other things—oftener.”
“It's a shame you should have this to do, Isabel. I never meant you should cook for me. Indeed I didn't dream you cared so little about it.”
“And I never dreamed you cared so much about it,” she replied, still with repression. “I'm not complaining, am I? I'm only sorry you should be disappointed in me.”
“It's notyou,dear girl! You're all right! It's just this everlasting bother. Can't you getanybodythat will stay?”
“I can't seem to get anybody on any terms, so far. I'm going again, to-morrow. Cheer up, dear—the baby keeps well—that's the main thing.”
He sat on the rose-bowered porch and smoked while she cleared the table. At first he had tried to help her on these occasions, but their methods were dissimilar and she frankly told him she preferred to do it alone.
So she slipped off the silk and put on the gingham again, washed the dishes with the labored accuracy of a trained mind doing unfamiliar work, made the bread, redressed at last, and joined him about nine o'clock.
“It's too late to go anywhere, I suppose?” he ventured.
“Yes—and I'm too tired. Besides—we can't leave Eddie alone.”
“O yes—I forget. Of course we can't.”
His hand stole out to take hers. “Iamsorry, dear. It's awfully rough on you women out here. How do they all stand it?”
“Most of them stand it much better than I do, Ned. You see they don't want to be doing anything else.”
“Yes. That's the mischief of it!” he agreed; and she looked at him in the clear moonlight, wondering exactly what he thought the mischief was.
“Shall we go in and read a bit?” he offered; but she thought not.
“I'm too tired, I'm afraid. And Eddie'll wake up as soon as we begin.”
So they sat awhile enjoying the soft silence, and the rich flower scents about them, till Eddie did wake presently, and Isabel went upstairs.
She slept little that night, lying quite still, listening to her husband's regular breathing so near her, and the lighter sound from the crib. “I am a very happy woman,” she told herself resolutely; but there was no outpouring sense of love and joy. She knew she was happy, but by no means felt it. So she stared at the moon shadows and thought it over.
She had planned the little house herself, with such love, such hope, such tender happy care! Not her first work, which won high praise in the school in Paris, not the prize-winning plan for the library, now gracing Orchardina's prettiest square, was as dear to her as this most womanly task—the making of a home.
It was the library success which brought her here, fresh from her foreign studies, and Orchardina accepted with western cordiality the youth and beauty of the young architect, though a bit surprised at first that “I. H. Wright” was an Isabel. In her further work of overseeing the construction of that library, she had met Edgar Porne, one of the numerous eager young real estate men of that region, who showed a liberal enthusiasm for the general capacity of women in the professions, and a much warmer feeling for the personal attractions of this one.
Together they chose the lot on pepper-shaded Inez Avenue; together they watched the rising of the concrete walls and planned the garden walks and seats, and the tiny precious pool in the far corner. He was so sympathetic! so admiring! He took as much pride in the big “drawing room” on the third floor as she did herself. “Architecture is such fine work to do at home!” they had both agreed. “Here you have your north light—your big table—plenty of room for work! You will grow famouser and famouser,” he had lovingly insisted. And she had answered, “I fear I shall be too contented, dear, to want to be famous.”
That was only some year and a-half ago,—but Isabel, lying there by her sleeping husband and sleeping child, was stark awake and only by assertion happy. She was thinking, persistently, of dust. She loved a delicate cleanliness. Her art was a precise one, her studio a workshop of white paper and fine pointed hard pencils, her painting the mechanical perfection of an even wash of color. And she saw, through the floors and walls and the darkness, the dust in the little shaded parlor—two days' dust at least, and Orchardina is very dusty!—dust in the dining-room gathered since yesterday—the dust in the kitchen—she would not count time there, and the dust—here she counted it inexorably—the dust of eight days in her great, light workroom upstairs. Eight days since she had found time to go up there.
Lying there, wide-eyed and motionless, she stood outside in thought and looked at the house—as she used to look at it with him, before they were married. Then, it had roused every blessed hope and dream of wedded joy—it seemed a casket of uncounted treasures. Now, in this dreary mood, it seemed not only a mere workshop, but one of alien tasks, continuous, impossible, like those set for the Imprisoned Princess by bad fairies in the old tales. In thought she entered the well-proportioned door—the Gate of Happiness—and a musty smell greeted her—she had forgotten to throw out those flowers! She turned to the parlor—no, the piano keys were gritty, one had to clean them twice a day to keep that room as she liked it.
From room to room she flitted, in her mind, trying to recall the exquisite things they meant to her when she had planned them; and each one now opened glaring and blank, as a place to work in—and the work undone.
“If I were an abler woman!” she breathed. And then her common sense and common honesty made her reply to herself: “I am able enough—in my own work! Nobody can do everything. I don't believe Edgar'd do it any better than I do.—He don't have to!”—and then such a wave of bitterness rushed over her that she was afraid, and reached out one hand to touch the crib—the other to her husband.
He awakened instantly. “What is it, Dear?” he asked. “Too tired to sleep, you poor darling? But you do love me a little, don't you?”
“Oyes!” she answered. “I do. OfcourseI do! I'm just tired, I guess. Goodnight, Sweetheart.”
She was late in getting to sleep and late in waking.
When he finally sat down to the hurriedly spread breakfast-table, Mr. Porne, long coffeeless, found it a bit difficult to keep his temper. Isabel was a little stiff, bringing in dishes and cups, and paying no attention to the sounds of wailing from above.
“Well if you won't I will!” burst forth the father at last, and ran upstairs, returning presently with a fine boy of some eleven months, who ceased to bawl in these familiar arms, and contented himself, for the moment, with a teaspoon.
“Aren't you going to feed him?” asked Mr. Porne, with forced patience.
“It isn't time yet,” she announced wearily. “He has to have his bath first.”
“Well,” with a patience evidently forced farther, “isn't it time to feed me?”
“I'm very sorry,” she said. “The oatmeal is burned again. You'll have to eat cornflakes. And—the cream is sour—the ice didn't come—or at least, perhaps I was out when it came—and then I forgot it..... I had to go to the employment agency in the morning!.... I'm sorry I'm so—so incompetent.”
“So am I,” he commented drily. “Are there any crackers for instance? And how about coffee?”
She brought the coffee, such as it was, and a can of condensed milk. Also crackers, and fruit. She took the baby and sat silent.
“Shall I come home to lunch?” he asked.
“Perhaps you'd better not,” she replied coldly.
“Is there to be any dinner?”
“Dinner will be ready at six-thirty, if I have to get it myself.”
“If you have to get it yourself I'll allow for seven-thirty,” said he, trying to be cheerful, though she seemed little pleased by it. “Now don't take it so hard, Ellie. You are a first-class architect, anyhow—one can't be everything. We'll get another girl in time. This is just the common lot out here. All the women have the same trouble.”
“Most women seem better able to meet it!” she burst forth. “It's not my trade! I'm willing to work, I like to work, but I can'tbearhousework! I can't seem to learn it at all! And the servants will not do it properly!”
“Perhaps they know your limitations, and take advantage of them! But cheer up, dear. It's no killing matter. Order by phone, don't forget the ice, and I'll try to get home early and help. Don't cry, dear girl, I love you, even if you aren't a good cook! And you love me, don't you?”
He kissed her till she had to smile back at him and give him a loving hug; but after he had gone, the gloom settled upon her spirits once more. She bathed the baby, fed him, put him to sleep; and came back to the table. The screen door had been left ajar and the house was buzzing with flies, hot, with a week's accumulating disorder. The bread she made last night in fear and trembling, was hanging fatly over the pans; perhaps sour already. She clapped it into the oven and turned on the heat.
Then she stood, undetermined, looking about that messy kitchen while the big flies bumped and buzzed on the windows, settled on every dish, and swung in giddy circles in the middle of the room. Turning swiftly she shut the door on them. The dining-room was nearly as bad. She began to put the cups and plates together for removal; but set her tray down suddenly and went into the comparative coolness of the parlor, closing the dining-room door behind her.
She was quite tired enough to cry after several nights of broken rest and days of constant discomfort and irritation; but a sense of rising anger kept the tears back.
“Of course I love him!” she said to herself aloud but softly, remembering the baby, “And no doubt he loves me! I'm glad to be his wife! I'm glad to be a mother to his child! I'm glad I married him! But—thisis not what he offered! And it's not what I undertook! He hasn't had to change his business!”
She marched up and down the scant space, and then stopped short and laughed drily, continuing her smothered soliloquy.
“'Do you love me?' they ask, and, 'I will make you happy!' they say; and you get married—and after that it's Housework!”
“They don't say, 'Will you be my Cook?' 'Will you be my Chamber maid?' 'Will you give up a good clean well-paid business that you love—that has big hope and power and beauty in it—and come and keep house for me?'”
“Love him? I'd be in Paris this minute if I didn't! What has 'love' to do with dust and grease and flies!”
Then she did drop on the small sofa and cry tempestuously for a little while; but soon arose, fiercely ashamed of her weakness, and faced the day; thinking of the old lady who had so much to do she couldn't think what to first—so she sat down and made a pincushion.
Then—where to begin!
“Eddie will sleep till half-past ten—if I'm lucky. It's now nearly half-past nine,” she meditated aloud. “If I do the upstairs work I might wake him. I mustn't forget the bread, the dishes, the parlor—O those flies! Well—I'll clear the table first!”
Stepping softly, and handling the dishes with slow care, she cleaned the breakfast table and darkened the dining-room, flapping out some of the flies with a towel. Then she essayed the parlor, dusting and arranging with undecided steps. “Itoughtto be swept,” she admitted to herself; “I can't do it—there isn't time. I'll make it dark—”
“I'd rather plan a dozen houses!” she fiercely muttered, as she fussed about. “Yes—I'd rather build 'em—than to keep one clean!”
Then were her hopes dashed by a rising wail from above. She sat quite still awhile, hoping against hope that he would sleep again; but he wouldn't. So she brought him down in full cry.
In her low chair by the window she held him and produced bright and jingling objects from the tall workbasket that stood near by, sighing again as she glanced at its accumulated mending.
Master Eddy grew calm and happy in her arms, but showed a growing interest in the pleasing materials produced for his amusement, and a desire for closer acquaintance. Then a penetrating odor filled the air, and with a sudden “O dear!” she rose, put the baby on the sofa, and started toward the kitchen.
At this moment the doorbell rang.
Mrs. Porne stopped in her tracks and looked at the door. It remained opaque and immovable. She looked at the baby—who jiggled his spools and crowed. Then she flew to the oven and dragged forth the bread, not much burned after all. Then she opened the door.
A nice looking young woman stood before her, in a plain travelling suit, holding a cheap dress-suit case in one hand and a denim “roll-bag” in the other, who met her with a cheerful inquiring smile.
“Are you Mrs. Edgar Porne?” she asked.
“I am,” answered that lady, somewhat shortly, her hand on the doorknob, her ear on the baby, her nose still remorsefully in the kitchen, her eyes fixed sternly on her visitor the while; as she wondered whether it was literature, cosmetics, or medicine.
She was about to add that she didn't want anything, when the young lady produced a card from the Rev. Benjamin A. Miner, Mrs. Porne's particularly revered minister, and stated that she had heard there was a vacancy in her kitchen and she would like the place.
“Introducing Mrs. D. Bell, well known to friends of mine.”
“I don't know—” said Mrs. Porne, reading the card without in the least grasping what it said. “I—”
Just then there was a dull falling sound followed by a sharp rising one, and she rushed into the parlor without more words.
When she could hear and be heard again, she found Mrs. Bell seated in the shadowy little hall, serene and cool. “I called on Mr. Miner yesterday when I arrived,” said she, “with letters of introduction from my former minister, told him what I wanted to do, and asked him if he could suggest anyone in immediate need of help in this line. He said he had called here recently, and believed you were looking for someone. Here is the letter I showed him,” and she handed Mrs. Porne a most friendly and appreciative recommendation of Miss D. Bell by a minister in Jopalez, Inca Co., stating that the bearer was fully qualified to do all kinds of housework, experienced, honest, kind, had worked seven years in one place, and only left it hoping to do better in Southern California.
Backed by her own pastor's approval this seemed to Mrs. Porne fully sufficient. The look of the girl pleased her, though suspiciously above her station in manner; service of any sort was scarce and high in Orchardina, and she had been an agelong week without any. “When can you come?” she asked.
“I can stop now if you like,” said the stranger. “This is my baggage. But we must arrange terms first. If you like to try me I will come this week from noon to-day to noon next Friday, for seven dollars, and then if you are satisfied with my work we can make further arrangements. I do not do laundry work, of course, and don't undertake to have any care of the baby.”
“I take care of my baby myself!” said Mrs. Porne, thinking the new girl was presuming, though her manner was most gently respectful. But a week was not long, she was well recommended, and the immediate pressure in that kitchen where the harvest was so ripe and the laborers so few—“Well—you may try the week,” she said. “I'll show you your room. And what is your name?”
“Miss Bell.”