The Fifth Wheel Part 29

Tom looked at me, shut his mouth very tight, and shook his head. "I suppose all this takes the place of babies in your life. It wouldn't satisfy some women ten minutes. Elise wouldn't give up one of her babies for a business paying thirty per cent."

"But Tom," I replied calmly. "We all can't marry. Some of us----"

"_You_ could have. This is not natural. 'Tisn't according to nature. No, sir. Abnormal. Down here in New York living like a man. What do you want to copy men for? Why don't you devote yourself to becoming an ideal woman, Ruth? That's what I want to know. I don't approve of this sort of thing at all."

I felt no anger. I felt no impulse to strike back. I had reached such an elevation on my mountain of Self-discovery, as Esther would have put it, that I commanded vision at last. Tom and his ideas did not obstruct my progress, like the huge blow-down that he had once been in my way, against which I had blindly beaten my fists raw. I had found my way around Tom. I could look down now and see him in correct proportion to other objects in the world about me. I saw from my height that such obstructions as Tom could be circ.u.mvented--a path worn around him, as more and more girls pursued the way I had chosen. I looked down and perceived, already, girls trooping after me. There was no use hacking away at Tom any more. Nature herself removes blow-downs on mountain-trails in time, by a process of slow rot and disintegration.

When time accomplishes the same with the Toms of the world then we shan't need even to walk around. We can walk over!

So, "I know you don't approve, Tom," I replied almost gently, "and there's truth in what you say--that women are made to run homes and families, instead of businesses, most of them. Of course Elise wouldn't give up one of her babies! She's one of the 'most-of-them.' How are the babies anyway?"

CHAPTER XXVIII

A CALL FROM BOB JENNINGS

One day, however, I realized that I hadn't walked around Tom. I really hadn't circ.u.mvented, by persistence and determination, the obstacles that lay in the way to triumph. Some one, like a fairy G.o.dmother from Grimm's, had waved a wand and wished the obstacles away. Virginia told me about it. I learned that except for Mrs. Sewall I might still be delivering bandboxes. The searchlight following me about wherever I went for the last six months, making my way bright and easy, came not from heaven. It came instead from a lady in black who chose to conceal her good offices beneath an unforgiving manner, as she hid the five hundred dollars inside a trivial bag.

Mrs. Sewall called one day at the shop. She asked for Miss Van de Vere.

She was contemplating redecorating a bed-chamber, it seemed. Virginia came to me in the workshop, and told me about it.

"Your old lady is out there," she said. "You'd better take her order."

"My old lady?"

"Yes, Mrs. Sewall, who landed you in our midst, my dear."

I stared at Virginia.

"Certainly, and pays a portion of your ridiculous salary, baby-mine."

She went on pinching my cheek playfully. She delights in patronizing me.

"You're an expensive a.s.set, my dear--not but what I am glad. I always urged somebody of your sort to relieve me. Mrs. Scot-Williams never saw it that way, however, until the old lady Sewall came along and crammed you down our throats. I wasn't to tell you, but I see no harm in it. Go on in, and whatever the tiff's about make it up with the old veteran.

She's not a bad sort."

I went upstairs. My heart was bursting with grat.i.tude. I had vexed, displeased, cruelly hurt my benefactress--she had likened me to a steel knife--and yet she had bestowed upon me my greatest desire. Much in the same way as I had rescued the little bug, buffeted by winds, Mrs. Sewall had picked me up and placed me at the zenith of my hopes. But for her, no Mrs. Scot-Williams, no Van de Vere's, no trade of my own, no precious business to work for, and make succeed!

"Mrs. Sewall," I began eagerly (I found her alone in the living-room), "Mrs. Sewall----" and then I stopped. There was no encouragement in her expression.

"Ah, Miss Vars," she remarked frostily.

"Mrs. Sewall--please," I begged, "please let me----"

"My time is limited this morning," she cut in. "Doubtless Miss Van de Vere has sent you to me to attend to my order. If so, let us hasten with it. I am hunting for a cretonne with a peac.o.c.k design for a bed-chamber. I should like to see what you have."

"But Mrs. Sewall----"

"My time is limited," she repeated.

"I know, but I simply _must_ speak."

She raised her hand. "I hope," she said, "that you are not going to make me ill again, Miss Vars."

I surrendered at that. "No, no," I a.s.sured her. "No, I'm not. I'm thoughtless. I think only of myself. I'll go and call Miss Van de Vere."

"That will not be necessary," said Mrs. Sewall. "You may show me the cretonne, now that you are here."

For half an hour we hunted for peac.o.c.ks. I had the samples brought down to the living-room, piled on a chair near-by, and then dismissed the attendant. Mrs. Sewall appeared only slightly interested. In fact, I think we both were observing each other more closely than the cretonnes.

They acted simply as a screen, through the cracks of which we might surrept.i.tiously gaze.

I noted all the familiar points--the superb string of pearls about Mrs.

Sewall's neck; the wealth of diamonds on her slender fingers when she drew off her glove; the band of black on the lower edge of the veil, setting off her small features in a heavy frame. I noted, too, the increased pallor beneath the veil. There was a sort of emaciated appearance just behind the ears, which neither carefully-set earring nor cleverly arranged coiffure could conceal. The veins on Mrs. Sewall's hands, moreover, were prominent and blue.

But for a tangle in the chain of Mrs. Sewall's gla.s.ses she would have left me with no sign of friendliness. It was when I pa.s.sed her a small sample in a book, and she attempted to put on her gla.s.ses, that I observed the fine platinum cord was in a knot. I offered my services. I didn't suppose she would accept them. I was surprised at her cool, "Yes, if you will."

Mrs. Sewall was sitting down. I had to kneel to my task. The chain proved to be in a complicated snarl. My fingers trembled. I was very clumsy. I was afraid Mrs. Sewall would become exasperated. "Just a moment," I said, and looked up. Our eyes met. I was so close I could see the tiny network of wrinkles in the face above me. I could see the sudden tenderness in the eyes.

"It seems to be a particularly difficult snarl," I quavered, then bent my head and worked in silence for a moment. We were so near, we could hear each other breathe.

Suddenly in a low voice, almost a whisper, Mrs. Sewall asked, "Are you happy here?"

"Oh, so happy," I replied.

"Are you better? Are you well?" she pursued.

I dropped my hands in her lap, looked up, and nodded. I could not trust myself to speak. I knelt there in silence for a moment.

Finally I said, "Are _you_ happy? Are _you_ better? Are _you_ well, dear Mrs. Sewall?"

"What does it matter? I am an old woman," she replied, in that disparaging little way of hers.

Our old intimacy shone clear and bright in that stolen moment. We were like two lovers forbidden to each other, whispering there together, when the lights suddenly go out, and they are enfolded in the protecting dark. "You are not too old to have created great happiness!" I exclaimed softly.

She shrugged and smiled.

It was a rare moment. I did not mean to spoil it. I ought to have been content. My eagerness was at fault.

"Oh!" I burst out crudely, "if you knew how sorry I am to have done anything to _you_, of all people, that displeased. If----" She recoiled; she drew back. I had ventured where angels feared to tread. The chain was not yet untangled, but she would not let me kneel there any longer.

She rose; I too.

"My time is limited, as I said," she reminded me; "I am here on business. Let us endeavor to complete it, Miss Vars."

"Yes," I said, blus.h.i.+ng scarlet, "let us, by all means. I'm sorry, excuse me, I'll go upstairs and see what else we have."

When Bob finally called at Van de Vere's I hadn't seen him for over a year. While I had been working so hard to establish myself in my new venture, Bob had been starting a brand-new law firm of his own, in a little town I had never heard of in the Middle West. He had severed all connections with the University when his mother had died. I knew as well as if he had told me that when he broke loose from any sort of steady salary he had abandoned all hope of persuading me to come and grow in his green-house, as he had once put it. It had been our original plan that Bob would work gradually into a law firm in Boston, at the same time retaining some small salaried position at the University enabling us to be married before he became established as a lawyer. Bob had been able to lay little by. His mother had required specialists and trained nurses. When I first realized that Bob had gone West and set about planning his life without reference to me I felt peculiarly free and unhampered. When he as much as told me that it was easier for him not to hear from me at all, than in the impersonal way I insisted upon, I was glad. I cared for Bob too much not to feel a little pang in my breast every time I saw my name and address written by his hand. And I wanted nothing to swerve me away from the goal I had my eyes set on--the goal of an acknowledged success as an independent, self-supporting human being.