PREPARING THE PIT
For some time the question troubling the Lawton family had been how and where to establish Sybil for the term of her engagement at the Globe. Returning to Woodsedge after performances was not to be thought of. No, a residence in the city was an absolute necessity.
Mrs. Lawton indignantly wondered if Sybil Van Camp had ever realized that a sort of deputy-maternity devolved upon a god-mother—a term that had taken Leslie Galt, who was sharing the family council, out of the room in search of a handkerchief in his overcoat pocket. At which Mrs. Lawton gloomily expressed a fear of his "becoming a fussy old man in time, because," said she, "Leslie had a handkerchief in his breast pocket that might easily have served his purpose. Now, Dorothy," she continued, "take a mother's advice, and check at once any symptom of faddishness that appears in him, or he'll have you in heelless shoes or on a milk diet, or something of that sort, before you know it. But really, dear, you shouldn't interrupt. [Leslie returned to his seat here.] The question at this moment is, what is to become of your unfortunate sister; for though she has cast in her lot with 'mere players,' and has rejected the comfort and sweet privacy of home life, it does not follow that she is prepared to pass the rest of her life upon the unsheltered, stony streets of the city. What is the matter with you, Leslie? You are not in need of another handkerchief, are you? As I was saying when someone interrupted me, I doubt if Sybil Van Camp ever had any idea of the duties of a god-mother."
"Rattle," counted Sybil on her fingers, "silver mug, corals——"
"Given long ago!" triumphed Dorothy.
"Renouncing the devil for you," went on Sybil, "and seeing that you knew creed, prayers, commandments, and church catechism——"
"Which she didn't do!" cried Mrs. Lawton; "for I have heard your father bribing you many a time to learn and repeat them to him. And now, if she had any appreciation of the duties devolving upon her, would she not open her home to her goddaughter, and shelter her for a brief period from the perils of the city?"
"Upon my word, mamma," laughed Sybil, "if you keep on in that strain I'll drop down on all fours and beg for a bone. Anyone would think you were speaking of a homeless dog. God-mother Van Camp has done more for me than I can ever repay, and she has invited me to stay in her house during my engagement, but it is not to be thought of. Why, papa, dear, I am now quite turning the household topsy-turvey by the irregularity of my hours. Rehearsals may be short, or they may be long. The cook gets cross, and god-mamma gets anxious. Her daily life is regulated like a railroad schedule for precision and exactitude of time. Then, when acting once begins, the watching for my late return at night would be a cruel penance to god-mamma and ancient Margaret and the butler Murphy, who is the greatest old woman of the lot. No, I can't think of so desecrating that last retreat of all the Knickerbocker proprieties; but, in a boarding-house——"
"A barracks!" said Leslie. "Oh, I know all about boarding-houses and their keepers, from the black-bugled lady with ancestors down to the loud-voiced, false-fronted person who makes her husband eat in the kitchen, and I tell you a boarding-house is quite out of the question for you."
"That's just what Mr. Thrall said," eagerly interrupted Sybil, "when the matter was mentioned in his presence. And he knows a woman, whom he has employed for years as a wardrobe woman and sort of general dresser, to help those ladies who have no maids of their own. She is a widow, and she owns—mortgaged, of course—one of those old-fashioned, two-and-a-half-story, red-brick basemented houses——"
"Take a breath, Syb!" laughed Dorothy.
"That's a gem," gravely asserted Galt, "that descriptive sentence is. Spoken rapidly it does leave the impression that the widow is mortgaged and a doubt as to the red brick reaching beyond the basement. But when one writes it all out, and punctuates carefully——"
"Leslie Galt, my young brother! Will you remember that you are still on probation? Final vows have not yet been administered. Though under instruction, you have not yet been admitted into the Lawton community for life!"
"That's about the only thing I do remember at all clearly these days," answered Galt, smiling meaningly at Dorothy.
But John Lawton rumpled his thin hair, and said, anxiously: "Let's get back to that mortgaged house, daughter—it's most train time for you, dear."
"Well," went on Sybil, drawing her father's hand about her neck as she spoke, "her name is—is, oh, something with an S, Mrs.—Stow—Stover—Stine—Sty—Stivers! that's it! Mrs. Jane Stivers—odd, isn't it, papa? And she——"
"My dear child," remonstrated Mrs. Lawton, somewhat wearily, "why will you not adopt my method of remembering names? It's so embarrassing at times to have a cognomen escape you, just when you feel it, too, on the tip of your tongue, but can't get it off. Now, I always associate a name with a thing or an action or an idea, and the result is I never have to go skipping through the alphabet as you and Dorothy do. I recall the case of Mrs.—Mrs.—dear me! Mrs.—you know, girls, to whom I refer—that woman I disliked so. I like most people, but she was underbred—at One Hundredth Street? You must remember her perfectly. I know at the time I associated her name with something—er—er, something she hated. Now, what did that woman hate? Her husband was bandy—polite enough, but bandy, and he had a cross eye! Something she hated—now what?"
"Perhaps she hated anything very straight," laughed Dorothy. "I think I should under the circumstances!"
"There!" broke in Mrs. Lawton. "What did I tell you? Straight—she hated anything straight, because her name was Crook! And Mr. Crook was cross-eyed! It's infallible, my system! But do get on, Sybil, or really you will lose that train!"
"Well, papa!" said the girl, in a quivering voice, "Mrs. Stivers's house is—Mr. Thrall says—fairly near the theatre. It is quiet as a church, and in a most respectable quarter. She has been in the habit of renting the second floor to student lodgers. She has never kept regular boarders, but Mr. Thrall thinks she might, for a few dollars increase in the rent, take me in, instead, and do for me. He uses so many Englishy expressions in ordinary conversation. He says her age, character, and habits would recommend her, and another advantage would be that I could go home nights under her wing, without troubling Mr. Roberts for escort, who lives in the opposite direction. The parlor, he says, is given over to horse-hair. Mrs. Stivers was married during the mahogany reign of terror, you see. But I could do what I liked in my own room, to modernize. And, mamma, he proposes, as she can't come from her work out here, to be interviewed by you, that you authorize Mrs. Van Camp [Letitia straightened up in her chair] to receive her and talk the matter over, and then to report to you for your decision."
Mrs. Lawton closed her eyes, and said, impressively: "A most sensible suggestion from a man très comme il faut!"
To Sybil's questioning eyes Mr. Lawton answered: "Yes, dear! That has a promising sound. What do you think, Leslie?"
"I agree with you, sir, if the woman is kindly disposed. The fact of her working in the theatre should be a distinct advantage. The question is, will she board as well as lodge her guest? For even if a restaurant were next door Sybil is far too pretty a girl to pass in and out unnoticed."
"So very like me," breathed Letitia. "It's the Bassett coloring, I think, that attracts the public eye."
"Dorothy!" exclaimed Sybil, turning from adjusting her hat before the dim old mirror, "my descendants shall rise up and call you blessed, for in the fine art of selecting a brother for your only sister you take the cake. Oh, papa! I beg your pardon! I—I meant she wins the laurel!"
"Sybil!" moaned Mrs. Lawton, distressfully, "I don't wish to rebuke you at the very moment of leave-taking, but, my very dear child, you must really check your tendency toward reckless speech. To allude to your descendants when you are not yet even engaged is not far from indelicacy; and, Dorothy, causeless laughter is rightly esteemed a proof of bad manners. Good-by, my dear; say to Mrs. Van Camp I am quite unable to go to the city in this cold weather, and must therefore ask her to act for me in the case of Mrs.—er, I don't think I quite caught the name? Eh? oh, Stivers—yes, I shall easily remember that by connecting it with a saying contradicted."
"A what, mamma?" laughed the girls.
"Stivers?" repeated Galt, meditatively, "a 'saying contradicted!' I can't find the connection. It's a mystery—impenetrable!"
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawton, "it's very simple. You need just say to yourself 'not worth a stiver'—there's your saying; but she owns a house, there's your contradiction, and you have the name as quickly as possible. Yes, I shall always remember the name Stivers!"
"If," slowly put in John, "if you don't happen to forget 'the saying.'"
And good-by being said, with arms about waists the sisters held in the hall one of those secret conclaves over only heaven and themselves knew what, but without which they were never known to part for more than twenty-four hours.
Then with her moon face all red with heat and hurry Lena rushed out with a package of hot cookies, crying: "I bake dem cake youst by der train time, und dere blazes hot! But I tie 'em mit a long string so you don't com' burnt by der hants!"
Mrs. Lawton came to the door and indignantly demanded: "What folly and presumption is this, Lena Klippert? Retire at once and take your obnoxious offering with you!"
"Den you don' vant dem cookies, my Miss Lady? You tink I com' by der cheek, uf I bring 'em here?" poor Lena quavered, shamefacedly.
But Sybil fitted the looped string over her finger and flashed a radiant smile at the faithful little German drudge, and, dangling the package in the air, quoted:
"'This little pig went to market!' Just wait till to-night, Lena, when I'm alone in my room, and the little pig will have cookies, eh?"
"Ja! ja!" nodded and smiled Lena. "You com' make very fine little pig, Miss Sybbils; sometimes you can com' black, but ven you smiles, your lips youst curl up like a flower!"
And, amid general laughter, Sybil departed for the city with Leslie doing escort duty, while John and Dorothy Lawton received an informing lecture upon the structure, quality, and quantity of brain to be found in the low-class Germans that nicely filled up the rest of their afternoon.
At Mrs. Van Camp's house Sybil's return was followed almost immediately by the announcement from the wearer of the mulberry livery of: "A person—an elderly female person—to see you, ma'am; by appointment, she claims, ma'am. Show her up? Yes, ma'am. Hem! if you'll excuse the boldness—Mr. Poll's in the library, and he do be swearing awful, beyond anythink, ma'am. What for is it? Why, ma'am, someone—I suppose it's the young lady, ma'am—put a shaving-glass in his cage, and he's been cussin' of he'self ever since he laid eyes on it. Shall I be carryin' him to the basement, or covering him up? I don't know. Yes, ma'am, I'll take him down as you say." And a few moments later he returned, haughtily ushered in Mrs. Jane Stivers, and retired.
Sybil, entering by the opposite door, saw a thin, elderly woman, whose dark hair sprinkled with gray and banded smoothly down over each ear, whose small, dark eyes, whose thin, pale-lipped, closely closed mouth, and long, drooping nose spelled as plainly as letters could the word—discreet. Her black gown and unspeakably respectable bonnet, her thick but plain cloak, her neat cashmere gloves, were all prim adjuncts to that picture of discretion. She stood in true servant-like attitude, eyes down and hands crossed at the exact waist-line; and as Sybil reached her god-mother's side that lady, raising her glasses to look at the stranger, said: "Mrs. Stivers, I wish to—why! why! you're Martin—you are surely Jane Martin?" and sat staring.
"Yes, Madam Van Camp," she replied, "I am Jane that was in your sewing-room three years and more. I didn't think you'd remember a servant's face so long, so I didn't tell Mr. Thrall I'd been in your service. My husband was a boss carpenter in a theatre, and that took me there. Me being a good needle-woman, I got work in the wardrobe, and gradually learned the business thorough-like; and when my husband died, as I wanted to hold on to the house, I began taking lodgers as well as working at the theatre, so as to pay off the mortgage some time, I do hope, ma'am."
Both women sighed sympathetically as they listened to Mrs. Stivers's calm and self-controlled statement of her financial and professional situation, little dreaming that the oppressive mortgage existed only in the imagination of the undemonstrative widow, who found it too powerful a lever in raising the rent of rooms, in raising her salary, and in raising the hats of compassionate observers—to be willingly abandoned.
But though the house mortgage had been cancelled long ago, she was then by way of secretly placing a mortgage upon her own character for upright honesty, for sincerity, for honor. True, there was no overt agreement to dupe a young girl and to circumvent her friends; yet if she made no slip, trip, or blunder in this matter intrusted to her, she surely knew that at its end Stewart Thrall, who guided, governed, and controlled her, would hold first mortgage on her character, since by tacit, unspoken agreement she would become a living surveillance, a personified treachery, while still deceptively wearing the livery of prim respectability and honest labor.
Now, Mrs. Van Camp asked the woman to be seated; expressed regret for her bereavement, and, because of the excellent impression Jane Martin had made upon her in the past, looked with unusually lenient eyes upon Jane Stivers of the present, and accepted readily her statements, and trustingly saw in her rectitude, her intelligence, and her respectful and deferential manner the most desirable sort of combination—landlady, maid, and sheep-dog.
When terms came to be considered, though they seemed surprisingly easy, Sybil nervously checked Mrs. Van Camp's acceptance of them, saying that her salary hardly justified such an outlay.
"Oh, Miss Lawton, if you'll pardon the interruption," said Jane Stivers, "your salary will be quite a different thing when you begin playing Juliet. Anyone would know that, as a mere matter of course. But besides that, when Mr. Thrall did me the service of mentioning this matter, he honored my little home with a call, and as he was going he puts on his hat and says: 'And I must have now a bit of a business talk with our little Royal Princess'—that's you, Miss; theatrical people are great for tagging folks with names, be you high or be you low—you're bound to get a tag; even I, miss, have been 'Jane Penny' ever since some rattle-brain found that Stiver was Dutch for a penny."
Sybil recalled her mother's old saying, "Not worth a stiver," and laughed, while Jane went on.
"Yes, ma'am, he said he must have a little talk with the Royal Princess and add a cipher to her salary, so she could settle down with a quiet mind, free for Juliet alone."
And on the strength of that report Mrs. Van Camp accepted the offered terms, but advised Sybil to run over with "Martin," as she would call her, "to look at the apartments and ascertain if there was a sun exposure for at least one room; and whether the drains were all right, and the gas-pipes innocent of dangerous leakage."
And Sybil—the wish being father to the thought—declared the house quite perfect. Mrs. Lawton was notified by letter, and while awaiting her answer a "lightning-change artist" had been at work upon walls and floor of the front room. The drab and blue horror of the wall had become a clear primrose yellow with white enamelled picture-rails. The floor being of old, badly matched pine-boards, and there being no time for painting or staining, was completely covered with a dull grayish-green carpet, with pure white rugs before sofa, writing-desk, etc.; and with flowing white curtains with broad primrose ribbon-ties and a white-framed rocker with cushion of grayish green, flowered over with pale primroses. These changes made so magical an effect that Sybil, coming on the third day to take possession, stood astounded.
"Yes, ma'am," evenly admitted Jane Stivers, "it was a bit of a rush, and I could not manage to get the second room done so quickly. The expense? Oh, I have been saving up for months for the express purpose of doing up my rooms."
But Sybil was amazed at the artistic taste shown here; it was in such strange contrast to the black hair-cloth, the shiny white and gold paper, the wax flowers of the parlor, that yet evidently filled Jane's soul with pride.
"Whom did you advise with, Mrs. Stivers?" she asked, as her fingers stroked the flowered cushion.
"No one. I did it all myself." Then, as a quick side-glance caught the unbelief on her lodger's face, she added: "No, I don't know, on second thought, but what I did get a hint about the color you would be likely to favor. I recall now that Mr. Thrall remarked, seeing that paper hanging in the dealer's window: 'What a fine background for some dark-haired woman.' So I just caught the idea, as you may say."
"You are a very clever woman, I see," answered Sybil, who went joyously about her unpacking, looking every ten minutes from the window for Dorothy, who was coming with home photographs, Lena's personally constructed pillow-sham with a large blue cotton "S. L." worked in the middle, a beautiful old paper-knife from papa, a silver powder-box from Leslie, and two pretty but broken fans from mamma, who thought they would decorate a room nicely, giving quite a little studio-like touch—all to be used in "homing the rooms," as Dorothy put it.
Godmamma Van Camp sent three really precious old engravings that Dorothy, with hat still on, went about rapturously holding up against the clear yellow wall, smacking her young lips as though she were tasting something.
The most exciting moment of the girls' day was when going into the second room Dorothy pointed to a corner cabinet and said: "What's that, Syb?"
"What's what?" asked that person from near the bottom of the trunk Jane was waiting to remove to the attic.
"That in the corner?"
Sybil rose, red and hot, and looked while Jane pulled the trunk out. Then she exclaimed: "Why, that was not there when I came to look at the rooms first!" She went over to it. A small visiting-card was attached to the key—the card of Stewart Thrall. She opened the cabinet door and revealed a coffee outfit. Two cries of delight arose; alcohol was sent for—the picnic was on!
In Africa when a creature is too mighty for the hunters, the wily natives contrive a great trap—they dig a deep pit, and then cover it over with frail green boughs and grasses, until it looks like the rest of the green matted ground about it. They are careful, too, to place this trap in the neighborhood of some rushing river or some stilly pool where in the moonlight or at earliest flush of dawn the great creature must go to lap the cooling water. Then, when it has crashed through into helpless captivity, the small cunning enemy may work their will upon it.
Now, the strange thing is—this cruel and treacherous practice is not confined to Africa. Sometimes pits are dug before young feet and carefully hidden beneath boughs of friendship and flowers of love. Right here in our great city, if we listen closely, we may hear the crashing fall of the victim!