VI
Rose had left a lamp burning in her own sitting room, as a beacon for Nina, and all the time she was busy in the Morgan’s kitchen, she was listening for that footstep. And for all her pleasure and excitement in this surprise she had prepared for the Morgans, a vague anxiety lay in the back of her mind, because Nina was so long in coming. She had expected her for lunch, and the whole afternoon had gone by without her.
She wished Nina could have seen Margie set out, in that Paris dress—the loveliest, happiest creature! And she wished Nina were here now, to lend her moral support in this wildly audacious plan, for, now that the thing was done, she felt a little frightened. Margie and Gilbert were little more than children; she could manage them; she could really help them.[Pg 394]
But it seemed to her that the shadow of Bill lay over the house; he himself might be hundreds of miles away, but she couldn’t forget that this was his house, and that she was defying him. The thought caused her an odd sort of pain; you might dislike Bill, she thought, and vigorously resent his domineering ways, but it was impossible not to respect him.
It was even impossible not to like him just a little when you thought how honestly he tried to take care of his unruly household, and when you remembered all those little kindnesses. Well, the sensible thing was, not to remember.
She had a natural talent for cooking, and with the aid of a cookbook, she had managed an excellent dinner. That part of the plan caused her no worry. But the rest—She opened the oven door for one more look at the pair of chickens sizzling richly in there, and then with a sigh, went again to the dining room door.
An amazing change was there! The round table was covered with a fine damask cloth, and set out with gay, old-fashioned china, frail glassware, sturdy old plate, all gleaming in the light of the shaded lamp. On the walls hung two or three framed pictures, not masterpieces by any means, but somehow lovable and friendly.
“She’d like me to do this,” thought Rose. “For her children.”
Because, as she had unpacked these things from the boxes and barrels, such a strange feeling had come over her; she had felt that she understood that mother. Standing here now, surrounded by the perishable and infinitely touching belongings of that beloved woman, dead, but so tenderly remembered by all her children, she thought she knew how she had felt toward them all, how she had managed each one of them, wisely and patiently; how she had loved them for the qualities which were so splendid in them, and the faults that were only pitiful. And she wanted them to remember their mother, not in bitterness and grief, but happily, as if always conscious of her dear spirit.
A sound startled her; a noise like little feet running over the tarred paper on the roof. At first she thought, with no great comfort, that it was rats, but then the pattering came upon the windowpanes, against the door. It was rain.
“Nina!” she thought. “What can be keeping her so late!”
She went into the kitchen and opened the back door; the summer rain was driving down with steady violence, drumming loud on the roof now, spattering up from the path. Such a dark, strange world for Nina to be out in alone! Moved by a sudden impulse, she ran out into the rain and entered their own house; the lamp still burned clear and steady in the neat little room. The clock struck six.
“Oh, Nina!” she cried, aloud, in an unreasoning panic of fear. “Nina, darling!”
And then, above all the noise of the rain, she heard a familiar sound, the slam of a door by which all the Morgans announced their home coming. She hurried back there, her courage, her generous hopes, all gone now.
“I’m an officious busybody!” she thought. “Why didn’t I stay at home and mind my own affairs? Oh, I wish I’d let the Morgans alone! I wish—”
She stopped short in the kitchen doorway, staring at Gilbert. He was wearing a dinner jacket, and it was soaked through with rain; his collar was wilted, his tie askew, his fair hair plastered across his forehead, his blue eyes very brilliant. And his face, his clear-featured, handsome young face, so white, so strained, so lamentably changed! The momentary disgust she had felt turned to a painful compassion.
“Gilbert!” she said, in a pleasant, matter-of-fact voice. “Get on dry clothes. Your dinner’s ready for you.”
She spoke to him as she thought his mother might have spoken; she thought she felt a little as his mother might have felt to see the boy like this.
“No!” he said, in an unsteady voice. “Let me alone! What are you doing here?”
“I’m so glad I am here!” she thought. “So glad! Poor little Margie! If she brings her Paul here now—” And aloud: “Gilbert!” she said, with quiet authority. “Please do as I ask you—at once. Change your clothes.”
“I won’t!” he said. “No, I won’t! You don’t know. You can’t understand. Only Bill. Bill knew. Bill was right. I wish I was dead!”
The same childish passion and unreason that Margie had shown. He sank into a chair by the table and buried his face in his hands.
“I wish I was dead!” he said again.
And Rose, always listening for Nin[Pg 395]a’s step, had also to listen to this boy’s sorry little tale. He had gone to visit his father’s cousin, Lucille Winter.
“Bill told me they were no good,” he said, “but I wouldn’t believe him. And—you don’t know what it was like. I lost over a hundred dollars at bridge. And I drank. I didn’t mean to, but every one else did, and I’ve come home to my sister like this. If I’d had a penny left, I’d never have come home again—never! It’s—you don’t know—it’s all so beastly, and I thought I’d like that sort of life, but—I couldn’t get out fast enough. I’ve found out now that old Bill was right—but it’s too late.”
“It is not!” Rose declared, firmly.
“I can’t pay that hundred,” he said. “And I’ve got to pay it to-morrow. I—you can’t understand.”
“And if you weren’t so honest and sound at heart you couldn’t feel so sorry!” thought Rose. But she did not intend to give him too much consolation; his shame and remorse were of inestimable value to him. “If you’ll wash and change your wet clothes, and eat your nice hot dinner, you’ll feel better,” she insisted.
“I’ll—I’ll never feel better!” said he.
“I’ll give you a cup of coffee now,” she began, when that sound, welcome beyond all others, reached her ears—Nina’s step on the veranda.
“Wait, Gilbert!” she cried, and ran back into her own house. Nina was standing in the front room, drawing off her gloves.
“Rose,” she said, in a strange, flat voice. “It’s all gone—every cent!”
Rose helped her off with her wet jacket, took off her hat, pushed her gently into a chair, and kneeling, began to unfasten her shoes, such absurd little shoes, and soaked through.
“Never mind, Nina!” she said. “We’re together, and that’s all that matters.”
Nina’s hands and feet were cold as ice, and her cheeks flushed.
“Even the check we gave for this rent was no good,” she explained. “The house belongs to Mr. Morgan, and I suppose he didn’t like to tell us. I tried to borrow—just a little—this afternoon—from friends—I thought they were friends—”
“Hush, darling! Who cares? You’ll get straight into bed, with a hot-water bottle at your poor cold feet, and I’ll make you a cup of beautiful coffee.”
She stopped short.
Margie, bringing back Paul, to find Gilbert like that. And she had told Margie to bring him. It was all her fault.
She looked at the clock; half past six. Margie was to be expected any minute now. Gilbert was sitting there in the kitchen in his wet clothes. He didn’t look very strong. And Nina! Nina was telling her about Mr. Doyle, and she pretended to pay attention, but she was listening for Margie’s home-coming now with as much anxiety as she had listened for Nina’s. This might spoil Margie’s poor little romance forever—and it was her fault. Gilbert would be ill.
She had just got Nina into bed when the screen door slammed in the next house.
“One instant, Nina!” she cried, and rushed out, down the steps, through the sodden little garden in the driving rain, and back into the Morgans’ kitchen. Gilbert still sat just as she had left him, his head on his arm.
“I’ll—lock him in!” she thought, desperately. “But I’ll have to tell Margie.”
She went into the little passage, closing the kitchen door behind her, and on into the sitting room. No one there. So she went toward the dining room. The doorway was blocked by a tremendous figure, standing there hat in hand, his back toward her.
“Oh, Bill!” she cried, in her immeasurable relief.
He turned; he saw her there, with her soft hair wet and disordered, her face so white; he had seen his dining table set out with his mother’s sacred possessions—and he showed no surprise. She thought that nothing would surprise him, nothing would shock him, that he would meet anything in his life coolly, honestly, and steadily—like a man.
“Gilbert’s been to a week-end party at Lucille Winter’s,” she said. “He’s—he’s in the kitchen. You’ve got to be very careful with him. He’s only a child.”
“All right!” Bill agreed, with the shadow of a smile. “I’ll take Gilbert back into the fold. But this—” His smile vanished as he glanced toward the dining room again. “This—”
“I’m sorry,” said Rose. “But—poor little Margie’s bringing Paul—a friend of hers, home to dinner to-night, and—” She paused a moment, then she looked resolutely up at Bill. “I thought she would like it,” she went on. “For her children—so that they’d remember—the things they’ve[Pg 396] forgotten. I’m sorry, but—” A sob choked her.
“Please,” she begged, “be very kind to Margie—and Gilbert—and Paul. I’ve got to go. I meant to stay, but—my Nina’s sick.”
She turned to go, but tears blinded her; she stumbled against the lintel. Bill’s hand touched her arm, the lightest touch, to guide her.
“I promise you,” he said, “that everything shall be just as you want it.”
She brushed her hand across her eyes and looked at him. And she thought she had never in her life seen anything like that look on his face.
“I want to help you,” he announced. “That’s what I’ve always wanted, since the first moment I saw you.”
Neither of them had another word to say, to spoil that moment. She ran back again to Nina, through the rain, and she thought she must sing, for joy and relief.
Everything was all right now, for Bill had come. She was so happy—so happy—just because Bill had come.[Pg 397]
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
MAY, 1926
Vol. LXXXVII NUMBER 4
Bonnie Wee Thing
MIMI DEXTER AND DESBOROUGH HUGHES WERE WORLDS APART IN THEIR APPRAISAL OF LIFE—WITH THE ODDS AGAINST COMPROMISE
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
HUGHES did not desire or intend to fall in love, ever, with anybody. And when he realized that he was doing so, and that the girl was Mimi, he rebelled vigorously against this injustice on the part of fate.
She was such an absolutely unsuitable person. She was so much too young, and too pretty, and too lively. Even her name was almost an insult to his intelligence. Mimi! That he should be devoted to a Mimi! He would have struggled gallantly against this outrage, if he had had a chance. But he did not see it coming. It fell upon him like a bolt from the blue, like a sandbag upon the head in an apparently peaceful street.
He met this Mimi on the ship coming over from England, where she had been amusing herself, and he had been attending to some business for his company. He never saw her dancing, or flirting, or promenading the deck, as so many other girls did; on the contrary, he saw her always in a deck chair at her mother’s side, reading books, or looking out over the sea, with a grave and thoughtful expression. So he had thought that she was different from other girls—and did not know that that thought is almost always fatal to a young man’s peace of mind.
Nor had he suspected that her grave and quiet air came, not from a meditative spirit, but was due entirely to the malaise she always felt on shipboard. And by the time she had overcome this, had her sea legs, and was her true self again, it was too late. Five days only were needed to deprive him of all freedom. That fifth evening the blow fell.
There was no moonlight, no music, none of those things which might have put him on his guard. It was four o’clock in the afternoon—one of the most unromantic hours in the day—and he met her outside the purser’s office—surely not a romantic spot. What is more, he had been changing money and thinking about money. Then she came. She said she wanted to send a wireless message to her Uncle Tommy in London.
“I do love Uncle Tommy so!” she said.
In justice, Hughes was obliged to admit that she did not realize what she was doing. She was thinking solely of her Uncle Tommy at the moment; that misty look in her eyes was all for him. But when he saw that look, and when he heard her speak, Hughes was done for. He knew it.
A strange sort of confusion came over him, so that he saw her in a haze, her little, pointed face, her shining hair, her dark eyes, the striped scarf about her shoulders, all swimming before him in a sort of rainbow. He thought: “Good Lord! What a tender, sweet, lovely little thing! What a darling little thing! I can’t help it! I love her!”
It was a mercy that this confusion robbed him, temporarily, of all power to speak, otherwise he would have said this aloud. But all he could do was to stand there, staring at her; and her own preoccupation with Uncle Tommy prevented her from noticing the look on his face.
“You see,” she went on, “he said I’d probably never see him again. Of course he always does say that. Every year mother says we’ll probably never be able to go to England again, and every year they say good-by to each other like that. ‘Good-by, Thomas, my dear brother!’ ‘Good-by, Mary! It is not likely that we shall meet again in this world.’ I know they enjoy it,[Pg 399] but it does make me feel miserable for the first month. And just suppose we couldn’t ever afford to go over again!”
“‘Afford’?” thought Hughes. “Is she poor? Good Heaven! Is she poor—worried—not able to get what she ought to have?”
He studied both Mimi and her mother very critically after that. They didn’t look poor; indeed, they seemed to him better dressed than any other ladies in the world. But what did he know of such matters? All those charming costumes might be pathetically cheap, for all he could tell. Perhaps they made everything themselves.
And, when you looked at them carefully, you saw that both mother and child were very slender and little. They certainly were not the sort of persons who could be poor with impunity.
They asked him to call, and he did so without delay, the very day after they landed. And his fears were confirmed. They were poor. They had a flat over on the West Side, in the Chelsea district—the most pathetic flat!
In the sitting room there were two of the strangest bookcases, which Mrs. Dexter said she had herself made, out of packing cases. Enameled white, they were, with blue butterflies painted upon them by Mimi. And there was a couch, covered in gay cretonne, which, directly he had sat upon it, Hughes felt sure had also been made by Mrs. Dexter, perhaps out of barrel staves.
And everything was so dainty, and so neat, and so fragile. He could scarcely open his mouth all the evening, for the distress and compassion that filled him.
Now, Hughes did not know it, but he was really a young man. He had lived for twenty-six years, and he believed that those years had aged him and completely disillusioned him. But Mrs. Dexter knew better. She knew how young he was. She was sorry for him. She said so, to her daughter. She said:
“Poor Mr. Hughes! He’s such a nice boy!”
She had seen other nice boys come into that pathetic flat, and she knew what happened to them. She knew, better than any one else, what a dangerous creature her child was. She expected Mimi to smile at her words as if they were, somehow, a compliment, but, to her surprise, the girl turned away, and pretended to look out of the window.
“He—he is awfully nice, isn’t he?” Mimi remarked.
Mrs. Dexter could scarcely believe her senses. She looked and looked at her child, saw that dangerous head bent, heard that note of uncertainty in her voice. Mrs. Dexter no longer felt sorry for Mr. Hughes; on the contrary, she was suddenly inspired with an amazing insight into his character. She saw grave faults in him.
It might have been wiser if she had kept these revelations to herself, but where her child was concerned she was perhaps a little prejudiced. She had been a widow for many years, and had had nobody but this child to think about; and although she had long ago made up her mind that she must lose her some day, although she really wanted Mimi to marry some day, she did wish to have a voice in electing the husband when the time came.
She wished to make no unreasonable demands; this husband need not be extraordinarily handsome, or particularly famous; no, all she required was a man of ancient lineage, considerable wealth, lofty character, great intelligence, courtly manners, and a humble if not abject devotion to Mimi.
Mr. Hughes did not possess these qualifications. He was nothing more than the branch office manager of a large typewriter company. His income was pretty good, and the president of the company thought him a very intelligent young man, but it was not the sort of intelligence Mrs. Dexter valued. It was too businesslike.
He did not scintillate. As for his character, that seemed to be good enough, in a matter-of-fact way, and his manners were civil enough. But it was in humility and abjectness that he was so deficient. She had noticed that at once.
“Of course, he’s a very ordinary sort of young man,” she observed.
“I don’t think so!” said Mimi. “I think—”
She couldn’t explain exactly what it was she thought. Only that the very first time she had set eyes on Mr. Hughes, she had realized that there was something about him. Even before she had spoken a word to him, she had watched him promenading the deck, had observed his long, vigorous stride, his keen and somewhat severe profile, and she had liked him. Impossible to explain just why; perhaps it was that very lack of abjectness that most entertained her.[Pg 400]
Other young men had been so terribly eager and anxious to please; and Mr. Hughes was the only one who had ever sat beside her and not even smiled when she smiled. Anyhow, whatever the cause, she liked him, and when Mrs. Dexter called him “ordinary,” it hurt her.
Never before had Mrs. Dexter seen her daughter look hurt about any young man, and it frightened her. When she was alone in her room that night, she cried, and when that necessary prelude was done with, she began to think, and presently she made up her mind.
It was obvious to her that Mr. Hughes did not appreciate Mimi. Probably he was not capable of so doing, but, in the circumstances, it was her duty to do what she could. So she very cordially invited him to call on a Saturday afternoon; and just before he was due to arrive, she told Mimi that she had forgotten to buy tea, and sent her out to buy half a pound of a sort which could only be bought at a shop some distance away.
When Hughes arrived, he found Mrs. Dexter alone. He was not at all alarmed by this, or by her extra-friendly manner; indeed, he was rather touched by her welcome. They sat down, and she began to talk, and he was not surprised that she should talk about Mimi. Such was his condition that he couldn’t imagine how anybody could wish to talk of anything else.
She told him anecdotes of Mimi’s childhood and school days, all designed to show him what a gifted, brilliant, remarkable child she had been. Hughes listened with serious attention; he was impressed; he thought to himself, what a wonderful girl Mimi was. What a wonderful girl!
And then Mrs. Dexter ruined everything. If she had but stopped there, content to demonstrate her child’s rare qualities by her own evidence, all would have been well. But, instead, she tried to strengthen her case by bringing in Professor MacAndrews as a witness.
She began with a fervent eulogy of Professor MacAndrews, his vast learning, his wonderful achievements, his noble character. And Hughes, although still politely attentive, grew secretly restive, and wished to hear no more of this paragon. Then she fetched a photograph of the professor, and the young man was in no mood to admire.
A small man, the professor had been, physically, that is; with a pugnacious little white beard and fierce little eyes, and an upturned nose. Hughes looked at the photograph with what might be called a noncommittal expression, and said, “Yes, I see!”
“A wonderful intellect!” Mrs. Dexter declared. “And you can’t imagine how devoted he was to Mimi! He always predicted a remarkable future for her. He said she was too young, then, for him to tell just how her talents would develop, but he knew she would be something.”
“I see!” said Hughes.
His tone should have warned Mrs. Dexter, but it did not. She was too intent upon making her point.
“It really was beautiful,” she went on, “the devotion of that lonely old scholar for little Mimi! Every one spoke of it. He used to come to the house, you know, and as soon as he got inside the door, he’d say, ‘And where’s the bonnie wee thing?’ That’s what he used to call her. From one of Burns’s poems. See, it’s written here, in this book he gave her.
“‘Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
Lovely wee thing, was thou mine
I wad wear thee in my bosom
Lest my jewel I should tine.’
“Of course it sounded quite different with his quaint Scotch accent.”
“I see!” said Hughes.
He hoped it had sounded different, because, as Mrs. Dexter read it, he thought he had never heard anything so idiotic. The whole thing annoyed him. He had no objection to Mrs. Dexter’s talking about Mimi; in fact, he liked to hear her, and thought it natural and agreeable. But otherwise, apart from Mrs. Dexter, who was Mimi’s mother, he had wished to believe himself the sole true appreciator of Mimi.
It was a pity that there was nobody at hand to tell Mrs. Dexter anecdotes about Hughes’s childhood. If there had been any one—his sister, for instance—she would have learned what a pig-headed fellow he was; how, if you wanted to convince him, you must never, never argue with him; how he simply could not be driven, but must be humored. Any such person could have told her what a disastrous mistake she made in thus bringing Professor MacAndrews into the situation.
When Mimi came back with the tea, she saw at once that something had gone amiss.[Pg 401] At first she was worried, but presently the young man’s silence and his very serious expression became annoying to her. It seemed to her important to show him that she didn’t care in the least, and in order so to do, she became more frivolous than he had ever before seen her. For the first time she treated him as she had treated those other nice boys; she laughed at him, and teased him, and dazzled him.
Hughes was no more proof against this than any of the others had been, but, unlike those others, he stubbornly resisted the enchantment. He was ready to admit that she was dazzling, but the gayer she was, the more he thought of Professor MacAndrews. He thought to himself that she must know only too well how pretty she was, and how great was her power.
“It’s a pity!” he thought, sternly. “It’s very bad for a girl to have a silly old cuckoo like that making such a fuss over her. Calling her a ‘bonnie wee thing’! Of course I won’t deny that she is, but—”
But no one should have told her so before Hughes had a chance. Certainly he wasn’t going to tell her those things all over again, and he wasn’t going to accept any bearded professor’s opinion of her, either. No; he intended to study her gravely and dispassionately, and judge for himself.
Three times he came to the flat for that purpose, and each time that he came, with his grave and dispassionate expression, the girl was more frivolous than ever. And on the third evening she was outrageous.
She said that evening that she would make him a Welsh rarebit. It appeared to him no more than his duty as a guest, or a gentleman, or something of the sort, to go into the kitchen with her, and there he watched her make a most horrible concoction, the most leathery, nightmare-provoking rarebit. And he saw that she knew nothing about cooking, in its true and serious meaning, and she wore a silly little apron, and she burned her silly little finger.
As he walked home that evening, he told himself, almost violently, that he had not kissed Mimi, and had not said a single word to her of any significance. But that gave him precious little comfort. He had wanted to, and he knew that she knew it. He remembered an unsteady little smile of hers.
“I won’t be a fool!” cried Hughes to himself. “I know she’s—well—a very nice girl. I’ll admit that I—I like her. But she’s—well—she’s not my sort. She’s—Look at the way they live! I couldn’t stand that. All those little frilly curtains and covers and doodabs, and those antique plates—with nothing real to eat on ’em. I know it’s all very dainty and so on—but it’s—it’s too damn’ fancy!”
He was honestly frightened, now. He didn’t see how he could ever escape from that atmosphere of doodabs and fanciness. That moment in the kitchen, that one glance they had exchanged, had shown him that being in love was a malady which grew worse with time.
He would inevitably ask Mimi to marry him, and if she refused him, life would be intolerable; and if she accepted him, they would have to have a home which would be filled with little lace doilies and antique plates, and his existence would be made dainty—and fancy.
Hughes had been brought up with Spartan simplicity by his very poor and very proud family in New Hampshire, and their ways were the ways he admired. He was not quite so fond of being poor, though, and had cured himself of that, but he still lived in Spartan style.
He had a furnished room, from which he had obliged the landlady to remove all those things she most admired; he ate his meals in a shining white restaurant where there were no tablecloths, and in his office he would permit no trace of luxury. He wouldn’t even have a private office; he sat out in plain view of his staff, upon a severely efficient chair, before a desk which was a model of neatness and order. That was how he liked things. And now, here he was, in love with Mimi!
What to do?
He thought of a plan.