People of the Whirlpool Part 7

By lamplight the scars and wounds of subways appear less vivid, and the perpetual skeleton of the skysc.r.a.per merges in its background. The occasional good bit of architecture steps out boldly from the surrounding shadows of daylight discouragement. City life does not seem to be such an exhausting struggle, and even the "misery wagons," as I always call ambulances to myself, look less dreary with the blinking light fore and aft, for you cannot go far in New York without feeling the pitying thrill of their gongs.

After the brightness of Broadway the side streets seemed cavernous. As we turned westward and crossed Sixth Avenue a dark figure, outlined full length against the blazing window of a corner liquor saloon, lined with mirrors, in some way fixed my attention. It was a woman's figure, slight, and a little crouching. The hat was gay and set on puffy hair, the jacket brave with lace, but the skirt was frayed where it lapped the pavement, and the boot that was pushed from beneath it, as if to steady a swaying frame, was thin and broken. I do not know why I looked back after I had pa.s.sed, but as I did so, I saw the girl, for she was little more, pull a sc.r.a.p of chamois from a little bag she carried and quickly rub rouge upon her hollow cheeks, using the saloon mirror for a toilet gla.s.s. But when I saw the face itself I stopped short, giving Evan's arm such a tug that he also turned.

The woman was Jennie, the Oakland baker's only daughter, who had no lack of country beaus, but was flattered by the attentions of one of the Jenks-Smith's butlers, whose irreproachable manners of the count-in-disguise variety made the native youths appear indeed uncouth.

She grew discontented, thought it beneath her social position to help her mother in the shop, and went to town to work in a store, it was said until her wedding, which was to be that autumn. Father worried over her and tried to advise, but to no purpose. This was more than two years ago.

The butler left the Jenks-Smith's, and we heard that he was a married man, with a family who had come to look him up.

Jennie's mother said she had a fine place in a store, and showed us, from time to time, presents the girl had sent her, so thus to find the truth was a shock indeed. Not but what all women who are grown must bear upon them the weight of the general knowledge of evil, but it is none the less awful to come face to face on a street corner with one who was the pretty village girl, whom you last saw standing behind the neat counter with a pitcher of honeysuckles at her elbow as she filled a bag with sugar cookies for your clamouring babies.

I suppose that I must have exclaimed aloud, for Jennie started back and saw us, then dropped her bag and began to grope about for it as if she was in a dream.

"Can't we do something?" I whispered to Evan, but he only gravely shook his head.

"Give her this for the boys' sake," I begged, fumbling in his change pocket and finding a bill there. "Tell her it's home money from the Doctor's daughter--and--to go home--or--buy--a--pair of shoes."

At first I thought she was not going to take it; but having found her bag she straightened herself a moment, and without looking at Evan gave me a glance, half defiant, half beseeching, grasped the money almost fiercely, and scuttled away in the darkness, and I found that I was crying. But Evan understood,--he always does,--and I hope that if the boys read this little book fifteen or twenty years hence, that they will also.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FEBRUARY VIOLETS.]

As we reached the door the first snowflakes fell. Poor Jennie!

The third day of our stay began in country quiet. In fact we did not wake up until eight; everything was s...o...b..und, and even the occasional horse cars that pa.s.s the front of the house had ceased their primitive tinkling. The milkman did not come, neither did the long crispy French rolls, a New York breakfast inst.i.tution for which the commuters confessedly have no subst.i.tute, and it was after nine before breakfast was served.

Evan, who had disappeared, returned at the right moment with his newspaper and two bulky tissue paper bundles all powdered with snow, one of which he gave to Miss Lavinia, the other to me. I knew their contents the moment I set eyes on them, and yet it was none the less a heart-warming surprise.

Down in a near-by market is a little florist's shop, so small that one might pa.s.s twenty times without noticing it; the man, a local authority, who has kept it for years, makes a specialty of the great long-stemmed single violets, whose fleeting fragrance no words may express. They call them Californias now, but they are evidently the opulent kin of those st.u.r.dy, dark-eyed Russian violets of my mother's garden, and as they mean more than any other flower to me, Evan always brings them to me when I come to town. This morning he trudged out in the snow, hardly thinking this man would have any, but by mere chance the grower, suspecting snow, brought in his crop the night before, and in spite of the storm I had the first morning breath of these flowers of a day.

Miss Lavinia sniffed and sighed, and then buried her aristocratic, but rather chilly, nose in the ma.s.s. "I feel like a young girl with her first bouquet," she said presently.

"Ah, how good it is to be given something with a meaning. Most people think that to be able to buy what they wish, within reason, is perfect happiness, but it isn't. Barbara, you and this man of yours quite unsettle me and shake my pet theories. You show sides of things in my own birthplace that I never dreamed of looking up, and you convince me, when I am on the wane, that married friends.h.i.+p is the only thing worth living for. It's too bad of you, but fortunately for me the notion pa.s.ses off after you have gone away," and Miss Lavinia, after loving her violets a bit longer, put them in a chubby jug of richly chased old silver. After breakfast we tried to coax her to bundle up and come with us to Was.h.i.+ngton Square to see the crystal trees in all their beauty; but that was too unorthodox a feat. To plough through snow in rubber boots in the very heart of the city was entirely too radical a move. She knew people about the square, and I suppose did not wish to be seen by them, so she was obliged to content herself with sight of the snow draperies and ice jewels that decked the trees and shrubs of the doomed back yard.

Even though the storm called a halt in our plans for Miss Lavinia, Evan and I had a little errand of our own, our annual pilgrimage to see the auction room where we first met that February afternoon. The room is not there now, to be sure, but we go to see it all the same, and have our little thrill and buy something near the place to take home to the boys, and we shall continue to come each year unless public improvement causes the thoroughfare itself to be hung up in the sky, which is quite possible.

Then Evan went down town, and I returned to lunch with Miss Lavinia, for, if possible, we were to call on Sylvia Latham and ask her to dinner on the morrow, the last day of our stay. Miss Lavinia proposed to invite Sylvia to spend the night also, that we might become acquainted upon a basis less formal than a mere dinner.

Shortly after three o'clock we started in a coupe with two stout horses driven by a man above suspicion of having "taken anything," at least at the start. It is a curious fact that eight or ten inches of damp snow can so nearly paralyze the transportation facilities of a city like New York, but such is the case. The elevated rails become slippery, the wheels will not grip, and the entire wheel traffic of the streets betakes itself to the tracks of the surface lines, where trolley, truck, and private carriage all move along solemnly in a strange procession, like a funeral I once saw outside of Paris, where the hea.r.s.e was followed by two finely draped carriages, then by the business wagon of the deceased, filled with employees, the draperies on this arranged so as not to disturb the sign,--he kept a patisserie,--while a donkey cart, belonging to the market garden that supplied the deceased with vegetables, brought up the rear.

In the middle and lower parts of New York the streets and their life dominate the houses; on the east side of the park the houses dominate the streets, and the flunkies, whose duty it is either to let you in or preferably to keep you out of these houses, control the entire situation. I may in the course of time come to respect or even like some of these mariners of the Whirlpool, but as a cla.s.s their servants are wholly and unendurably objectionable, and the sum of all that is most aggravating.

The house faced the park. A carpet was spread down the steps, but we could not conjecture if it was an ordinary custom in bad weather, or if some function was afoot. Evidently the latter, as I had barely touched the bell when the door flew open. Two liveried attendants were within, one turned the door k.n.o.b and the other presented his tray for the cards, while in the distance a third, wearing the dress of a butler or majordomo, stood by closed portieres.

We had asked for Mrs. and Miss Latham, and evidently the combination caused confusion. No. 1 remained by the front door, No. 2, after a moment's hesitation, motioned us to seats near the fireplace in the great reception hall, a room by itself, wainscoted with carved oak, that also formed the banisters and the railing of a sort of balcony above, while the walls were hung with rich-hued tapestries, whose colours were revealed by quaint s.h.i.+eld-shaped electroliers of gilded gla.s.s. Man No. 3 disappeared within the portieres bearing our cards. In a moment he reappeared, drew them apart, and stood aside as his mistress swept out, the same cold blond woman I had seen in the market, but now most exquisitely clad in a pale gray gown of crepe embroidered with silver fern fronds and held at the neck by a deep collar of splendid pearls, pearl rings alone upon her hands, in her hair a spray of silver mistletoe with pearls for berries. She made an exquisite picture as she advanced swiftly to meet us, a half smile on her lips and one pink-tipped hand extended. I love to look at beautiful women, yet the sight of her gave me a sort of Undine s.h.i.+ver.

"Dear Miss Dorman, so glad to see you, and Mrs. Evan of Oaklands also. I have seen, but never met you, I believe," she said, giving us her hand in turn. "I must ask you to the library, (Perkins, Miss Sylvia," she said in an aside to No. 2, who immediately vanished upstairs,) "and then excuse myself regretfully, for this is my afternoon for 'bridge,' as Monty Bell and a friend or two of his are good enough to promise to come and give us hints. Monty is so useful, you know, and so good-natured. I think you knew his mother, didn't you, Miss Lavinia? No, Sylvia is not to play; she is not up enough for 'bridge.' I wish you could persuade her to take lessons and an interest in the game, for when Lent begins she will be horribly bored, for there will be a game somewhere every day, and sometimes two and three, and she will be quite out of it, which is very ill-advised for a girl in her first winter, and especially when she starts as late as Sylvia. I'm afraid that I shall have to take her south to wake her up, and that is not in my schedule this season, I've so much to oversee at my Oaklands cottage.

"It is a very cold afternoon for you to have come so far, dear Miss Lavinia; a cup of tea or something? No? Ah, here comes Sylvia, and I know you will forgive me for going," and Mrs. Latham glided away with a glance toward the stairs. She evidently was in a desperate hurry to return to her guests, and yet she spoke slowly, with that delightful southern deliberation that suits women with pretty mouths so well, and still as I felt her eyes upon me I knew that to move her in any way against her own will would be impossible, and that she could never love anything but herself, and never would.

I did not look at Miss Lavinia in the brief moment before Sylvia entered, for we were both too well bred to criticise a woman in her own house, even with our eyes, which had they met would have been inevitable.

At first Sylvia only saw Miss Lavinia, and gathered her into her arms spontaneously, as if she were the elder, as she was by far the bigger of the two. Then seeing me, the cards not having been sent up, she hesitated a moment, colouring shyly, as a girl of sixteen might, and then straightway greeted me without embarra.s.sment. As we laid aside our wraps and seated ourselves in a sort of cosey corner nook deep with pillows, and fur rugs nestling about the feet, I drew my first comfortable breath since entering, and as Miss Lavinia naturally took the lead in the conversation, giving her invitation for the next night, I had ample time to study Sylvia. She was fine looking rather than handsome, a warm brunette with copper glints threading her brown hair, thick curved lashes, big brown eyes, a good straight nose, and a decidedly humorous, but not small mouth, with lips that curled back from even teeth, while her whole face was punctuated and made winningly feminine by a deep dimple in the chin and a couple of vagrant ones that played about her mouth corners when she spoke, as she always did, looking directly at one.

Her hands were long and well shaped, not small, but competent looking, a great contrast to her mother's, as well as to Miss Lavinia's, that could slip easily into a five-and-a-half glove. She wore a graceful afternoon gown of pale blue with lace b.u.t.terflies on the blouse and skirt, held in at waist and neck by enamelled b.u.t.terfly buckles. She moved gracefully, and had a strong individuality, a warmth of nature that contrasted keenly with the statuesque perfection of her mother, and I fell to wondering what her father was like, and if she resembled him.

"Not yet, not until late spring," I heard her say in answer to Miss Lavinia's question as to whether her father had returned from his j.a.pan tour.

"He is detained by railway business in San Francisco, and cannot go farther north to settle it until winter breaks. I've written him to ask leave to join him and perhaps stop awhile at Los Angeles and go up to see my brother on his Wyoming ranch in May. I do so hope he will let me. I've tried to coax mamma to go too, she has had such a wearing life this winter in trying to make it pleasant for me and introduce me to her friends. I wish I could tell her exactly how much I should prefer to be more alone with her. I do not want her to think me ungrateful, but to go out with her to father and pay dear old Carthy a visit would be simply splendid."

Then turning to me she said, I thought with a little quiver in her voice, "They tell me you live with your father, Mrs. Evan--even though you are married, and I have not seen mine for more than two years, only think of it!"

Whereat my heart went out to her, and I prayed mentally that her father might have a broad warm shoulder to pillow her head and a ready ear to hear her confidences, for the perfectly rounded neck and sh.e.l.l ear of the mother playing cards in the next room would never give harbour or heed, I knew.

Sylvia was as pleased as a child at the idea of coming down to spend the night, stipulating that if it was still cold she should be allowed to make taffy and put it on the shed to harden, saying, with a pout: "At school and college there was always somewhere that I could mess with sticky things and cook, but here it is impossible, though mamma says I shall have an outdoor tea-room at the Oaklands all to myself, and give chafing-dish parties, for they are quite the thing. 'The thing' is my boogy man, I'm afraid. If what you wish to do, no matter how silly, agrees with it, it's all right, but if it doesn't, all the wisdom of Solomon won't prevail against those two words."

Man No. 2 at this juncture came in and presented a florist's box and envelope in a tray, saying, _sotto voce,_ as he did so, "Shall I hopen it and arrange them, miss, or will you wear them?" for, as the result of lavish entertaining and many hothouses as well as friends, flowers showered upon the Latham house at all hours, and both library and hall were almost too fragrant. Sylvia glanced at the note, saying, "I will wear them," to the man, handed the card to Miss Lavinia, her face flus.h.i.+ng with pleasure, while No. 2 extracted a modest bunch of California violets from the paper, handed them to his young mistress, and retired with the box on his tray.

The name on the card was Horace Bradford, the pencilled address University Club, on the reverse were the words, "May I give myself the pleasure of calling to-morrow night? These February violets are in remembrance of a May ducking. Am in town for two days only on college business."

"The day that he rowed us on the Avon and reached too far up the bank to pick you wild violets and the boat shot ahead and he fell into the water," laughed Miss Lavinia, as pleased as Sylvia at the recollection.

"But I am going to you to-morrow evening," said Sylvia, ruefully at thought of missing a friend, but quite heart-free, as Miss Lavinia saw.

"Let me take the card, and I will ask him to dinner also," said the dear, comfortable, prim soul, who was still bubbling over with love of youth, "and Barbara shall ask her adopted uncle Cortright to keep the number even."

Time, it seems, had flown rapidly. She had barely slipped the card in her case when the door opened and No. 3 approached solemnly and whispered, "Mrs. Latham requests, Miss, as how you will come and pour tea, likewise bringing the ladies, if _still here_!" How those words _still here_ smote the silence.

We immediately huddled on our wraps, anxious to be gone and spare Sylvia possible embarra.s.sment, in spite of her protestations. As No. 2 led the way to the door a gentleman crossed the hall from the card-room and greeted Sylvia with easy familiarity. He was about forty, a rather colourless blonde, with clean shaven face of the type so commonly seen now that it might belong equally either to footman or master. His eyes had a slantwise expression, but his dress was immaculate.

Strolling carelessly by the girl's side I heard him say, "I came to see if you needed coaxing; some of the ladies are green over their losses, so have a care for your eyes." Then he laughed at the wide-eyed look of wonder she gave him as he begged a violet for his coat.

But Sylvia drew herself up, full an inch above him, and replied, decidedly, but with perfect good nature, "No, those violets are a message from Shakespeare,--one does not give such away."

"That is Monty Bell," said Miss Lavinia, tragically, as soon as the door closed.

"Is there anything the matter with him except that his colouring is like a summer squash?" I asked.

"He's been divorced by his wife, and it was her mother that was my friend, not his, as Mrs. Latham hinted. I know the story; it makes me s.h.i.+ver to see him near Sylvia." Then Miss Lavinia drew into a sh.e.l.l, in which she remained until we reached home.

Meanwhile, as we drove in silence, I remembered that Richard's rubber boots leaked, and I wondered if Martha Corkle would discover it, or if he was paddling about getting his feet wet and bringing on a sore throat.

But when I got home Evan said he had sent the boots to the bicycle tire mender's the morning I came away. It was the third night of my stay, and he would not have known what to make of it if I had not raised some sort of a ghost.

The sidewalks being clear, we dined at the Laurent, giving Miss Lavinia a resurrection of French cooking, manners, women, ogling, ventilation, wine, and music. Then we took her, on the way home, to see some horrible wax figures, listen to a good Hungarian band, and nearly put her eyes out with a cinematograph show of the Coronation and Indian Durbar.

Finis.h.i.+ng up by brewing French chocolate in the pantry and stirring it with stick bread, and our guest, in her own house, went to bed fairly giggling in Gallic gayety, declaring that she felt as if she had spent the evening on the Paris boulevards, that she liked our New York, and felt ten years younger.