II
Five years! It was a long time. Johnny, standing in the railroad station, his heart beating high with pride and joy, couldn’t help crying out when he saw her:—
“Why, how you’ve growed, Annie! Bless my heart, if you ain’t growed!” But his eyes were misty, so perhaps it was that made his little Annie look so tall. He had not recognized her for a moment,—this lady who, with the tears trembling in her eyes, came up to him and took his hands and cried out, “Father!” Afterward he said he didn’t know why he had taken her for a lady, for, sakes alive, her clothes were plain enough. He was quite distressed about her clothes.
“You’ve stinted yourself, Annie,” he reproached her as they went home in the street cars. “You ought to be havin’ a silk dress, lookin’ the way you do. Why, I took you for a lady, Annie. You ought to have fine clothes, my pretty; we’ll take some money out of the bank and get you a regular silk dress,” he told her, scolding her and loving her, and bursting with pride, and taking up their intercourse just where it had paused, five years ago. She was a pretty girl and a great learner, Johnny thought; but she was just his Annie.
It was late when they got home. He had left the kitchen fire clear and ready for the steak Annie would broil, and the gas was flaring wide from new burners, and Johnny had bought a long plush scarf for the top of the mantelpiece over the kitchen range. When Annie was fairly in the house, and the door was shut, it seemed as though the happiness of heaven had come into the little kitchen. Johnny laughed, and drew the back of his hand across his nose, and sniffed and blinked, and the tears ran freely down his little cheeks. He walked round and round Annie in critical inspection; and ran her from room to room, even up to Dave Duggan’s attic, to show her how unchanged everything was. He made her come into the parlor and showed her the faded ribbons and tottering plush frames.
“I dusted ’em every Sunday, Annie,” he said. And then he told her how he had turned out the person to whom he had rented her old room. “Well, now, he was set on stayin’,” Johnny said; “he was always sayin’ he wanted to see you, but I guess Dave Duggan was just as well pleased not to have him round. Dave ain’t married yet, Annie.” Then Johnny laughed very much, and added, winking at his own joke, that he guessed Dave had forgotten her, she’d been away so long.
The wonderful thing about it all, and the beautiful thing about it all, was that this little man did not in the least care that his Annie was an educated woman; he did not even know it.
It seemed as if Annie could not enough show the tenderness that made her heart ache with its swelling. She sat beside him, holding his work-roughened hands in hers, and told him over and over about these five years which he had given her; she knew, and she was feeling as she spoke, how every joy of study, and every pang of the happiness of appreciation had come from these patient, loving, grimy old hands. “You’ve given me everything,” her heart was saying, “and I love you! I can never say how much.” But it seemed as though it were saying, also, “Why, why did you put me where I was to learn that you were you, and I was I?”
One looks on at such a situation and says, “If it could stop here, it might be possible.” But it cannot stop there. It is not the adjustment of the relations between parents and child which is the difficult thing. The acceptance of a different point of view by these three may even come without much pain. No; it is the outsiders who make the situation impossible—the father’s cronies, the mother’s friends, the acquaintances of the untaught girlhood. The impossibility revealed itself that very night when Dave Duggan came in to welcome her home. Annie gave him her hand, flushing and paling at his familiarity, his boisterous, facetious “Hollo, Annie! How you was?” In him, after that easy greeting, the first note of the difference made for all time was struck; for he grew conscious and uneasy, and scuffled his feet, and cleared his throat, and laughed in a silly way. Yet all the old admiration spoke in his eyes. Johnny was full of significant jokes, and kept elbowing Annie and winking; and Dave’s loud rebukes of his host’s “fun” were even more meaning.
At nearly midnight Annie went upstairs, tired, white, smiling; and lay open-eyed until dawn.
Dick Temple’s intention of “passing through South Bend in a fortnight” was a little delayed. Cousin Kate’s vague misgivings took the form of a postscript in a casual note to his mother; there was no more than a word or two about Dick’s tendresse for a pretty college-girl who had been the children’s governess during the last three summers while they were out of town; that was all. But it was enough. And Mrs. Paul felt she had done her duty.
“And perhaps prevented Dick from doing his,” her husband commented grimly.
“If he can be prevented, he’d better be; for he wouldn’t be good enough for Annie Graham!” cousin Kate declared with much spirit, and immediately became, in her own mind, the champion of the incipient love affair.
Her letter was passed on by Dick’s mother to Dick’s father, who said good-naturedly that the boy was a jackass.
“The young lady is probably too good, for him,” said Mr. Henry Temple, “but I’m not going to have that boy marrying John Paul’s governess without a few remarks from me.”
Mr. Temple telegraphed his son not to leave town on the day he had arranged, as he wished to see him; and then he came all the way from Old Chester for the purpose of making the remarks, which, of course, were to be general; it would give the matter too much importance to treat it as particular or probable. So, in a casual way, he referred to cousin Kate’s letter, and enjoined his son not to be a fool. Dick’s instantly aggressive attitude and skill in “answering back” were most surprising to Mr. Temple. A man is always surprised at his son’s ability in this direction; it is as though his own hand or foot suddenly acquired individuality. Furthermore, Richard was very sentimental, and had much to say of his father’s un-American point of view and of his own readiness to marry a “woman he loved” (if she’d have him) if she were a washerwoman.
“As for Miss Graham,” said Dick, “I’ve no right even to speak of her; but she’s a lady, and an angel”—
“Oh, Lord!” groaned Mr. Temple. “I wonder if I ever was as young as you, Dickon?”
But he was really disturbed, and wrote to a friend who owned the great South Bend Rolling and Smelting Furnaces, and might be expected to know who and what the Grahams were.
Meantime, Dick Temple, twice as much in earnest for his father’s not unreasonable expostulation, packed his things and started for the West. It was a hot July afternoon when he arrived in South Bend; he was fretted by the heat and his own impatience and the stupidity of the landlord of the hotel in being unable to tell him where Mr. Graham lived.
“There’s no family by that name on the hill, sir,” he said. “Graham—Graham—there’s some Grahams here in the directory; what’s the gentleman’s business, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Dick said, fuming. “What sort of a place is this, anyhow, that you don’t know where people live? It’s small enough for you to know everybody”—
“We’ve twenty thousand inhabitants, young man,” said the landlord with much offense. “The only Graham I know is Johnny; he’s a gasfitter, and does odd jobs here once in a while”—
“Have your clerk copy all those Graham addresses,” said Dick coldly. “I’ll go round till I find the person I wish. Unfortunately I don’t know the gentleman’s first name. Have you got any kind of conveyance in this place? Just have a hack called, will you?”
He spoke with the insolence of tone peculiar to well-bred young men, and he walked to the open door and stood waiting for the carriage and frowning out at the passers-by. There was a red glare from the furnaces on the other side of the river, shifting and fading on the coils of black smoke which lay motionless in the still, hot air. The street was the narrow unlovely street of the small manufacturing town of the West.
“It’s a beastly place,” Dick said to himself with an irritation which had its root in some formless apprehension; and he got into the lumbering, rattling hack and slammed the door with vicious emphasis. “What on earth does her father live here for, anyhow?” he said to himself.
The carriage drew up first at a small market, where piles of faded vegetables, flanked by glass cases of meats, jutted out upon the pavement; a man in a dirty white butcher’s frock leaned against the door-post, and two jets of gas flared and flickered from long iron stand-pipes.
The driver leaned down from his box and called out in friendly tones to know if this was the place.
“Idiot!” said Dick under his breath. “Of course not. Try the next address.”
This was a forlorn, untidy-looking house on a side street. Lodgers’ heads were thrust out of the windows as Dick climbed the steps and inquired whether Miss Annie Graham lived there? He was conscious of a distinct relief when he went back again to the carriage. They went to two other houses, but there was no Miss Annie Graham.
“I guess,” said the hackman, “we’ll have to cross over to the other side of the river. There’s a Graham over there, at Jack’s Corners. Jack’s Corners is a fine suburb, sir.”
Dick’s heart rose.
“All right; go on,” he said. “Can’t you hurry those beasts of yours up?”
And so it was that, about seven o’clock, the cabman drew up before a small, detached frame house on the Mill Road. It was so hot that the kitchen windows were wide open, and one could see the table drawn up between them, and a little man in his shirt-sleeves eating his supper. Opposite him, by the other window, was a girl with a fan in her hand, and between them were two other persons, for Johnny was entertaining that night. Dave Duggan, uncomfortable, he knew not why (although it certainly was not the weather, for he had, with great good sense, removed his coat), sat on Annie’s left; and next to him, beside Johnny, was an enormously fat woman, in a sort of loose white sack. This was Mrs. Pugsley, who was one of those neighboring ladies of thwarted stepmother potentialities. “But you never know what’ll happen,” Mrs. Pugsley often remarked, and dropped in this hot July night in a friendly way to see if Annie was making her father comfortable. It was Mrs. Pugsley’s opinion that all this learning wasn’t no good. “Better know how to dish a meal’s victuals,” said Mrs. Pugsley, “than be readin’ story papers all the time. That’s what them high-school girls does mostly.”
The room was faintly lighted by a kerosene lamp on the mantelpiece; but the real radiance was in Johnny’s face, as he looked across a bunch of roses in the middle of the narrow table at his Annie.
“Annie walked out two miles to get them flowers,” he said.
“Must ’a’ wanted something to do,” said Mrs. Pugsley.
“I’d ’a’ got ’em for you, Annie,” Dave said bashfully, “if I’d a-known you wanted ’em.” And it was just then that the carriage drew up at the door.
Dick, hot and disappointed and disgusted at the coachman’s stupidity in bringing him into this obviously mechanic’s suburb, leaned out to say, “Drive on!” And then he saw her.
There was a flutter in the tenement at seeing a hack draw up. Johnny Graham rose, seeing in a burst of fancy an important and hasty job, and a carriage sent to convey him to a wilderness of leaks or broken tips. Mrs. Pugsley conceived the hack to be a summons from a lady friend who had expected to need her services on a felicitous occasion, and was instantly agitated, and got up panting, and saying:—
“Goodness! they’ve sent!”
But Annie knew.
One wonders if she flinched, there in the twilight. She rose at once and went to the front door, her hand outstretched in pleased welcome.
“Why, Mr. Temple! This is very pleasant,” she said. “Father, dear, this is Mr. Temple.”
Dick’s face was white. He took Johnny Graham’s hand and bowed, with some murmured reference to pleasure.
“This is my friend, Mr. Duggan, Mr. Temple,” Annie went on placidly, “and Mrs. Pugsley.”
Dick bowed twice. He saw dimly, in the dusky kitchen interior, two other figures, one of which, assisted by the other, was struggling into a coat.
“Why, now set down, sir,” Johnny said joyously; “take a seat and set down. Annie, now, can’t you make room there by Dave? We was just setting out to eat our tea, sir; it’s so hot, we was late,—but it’s the style to be late, I hear! I guess we ain’t eat up everything, have we, Annie? I guess there’s something left for your gentleman friend.”
“You’re very kind,” Dick protested feebly; but he sat down, too bewildered to find any excuse.
Annie put a plate before him, and told him he must have some iced tea.
“It’s the only thing that makes life possible in this weather,” she said; “but I can’t make father believe it; he takes his boiling.”
“Well, sir,” said Johnny, “you had quite a jaunt to get out here, hadn’t you? But I don’t mind the walk myself, back and forth from my work, for it’s fresher out here.”
“I didn’t know your address,” Dick said, not looking at Annie; “I’ve been driving round”—
“When I saw that carriage drive up,” Mrs. Pugsley said, still panting, “I thought a lady friend of mine had sent for me; it give me such a start!”
“Tell me how you left Mrs. Paul,” Annie asked.
“Oh, thanks, very well,” Dick assured her; and there was a moment’s pause. Mrs. Pugsley and Dave were blankly silent. Annie talked against time.
“It was so nice to get home. Just think, I had been away five years,” she said; “that’s a pretty long time not to see one’s father; father didn’t know me when he met me at the station;—now, I would have known you anywhere!” she reproached Johnny, with a loving look.
“Well, but now, you’d growed, Annie; that’s what I said when I saw her. I says, ‘Why, Annie, you’ve growed!’ Dave, here, don’t see no change in her. But I do,” Johnny ended proudly.
“You must have missed your daughter very much,” Mr. Temple murmured.
“Well, indeed, an’ he did,” Mrs. Pugsley said resentfully; “but she would be studyin’. She’s that set on it.”
“Miss Graham is devoted to mathematics,” Dick began miserably, “and—and that sort of thing”—
He stopped so abruptly that Mrs. Pugsley’s hoarse whisper to Dave Duggan was audible to all,—
“Say, is he Annie’s feller?”
“Hush!” said Dave Duggan.
Dick drank his tumbler of iced tea with violent haste, and even Johnny looked disconcerted. Annie said something about the roses.
“The thing I miss most in South Bend are the gardens,” she said. “You know we are all working people on this side of the river, and there are no old houses, so there are no beautiful big gardens. I had to walk far out into the country for those.”
“Won’t you have anything more?” Johnny inquired hospitably. “Take another helping of something? You won’t? Oh, now, take a taste of this! No? Well, let’s go into the parlor, Annie.”
If Annie held back, no one saw it. They went into the best room, where Johnny set all the gas burners flaring, that the full glories of the decorations might strike the visitor, who, indeed, saw nothing but Annie’s set face.
“Miss Graham,” he said, “you are coming East again in September, aren’t you?”
“I think not; I think I must never leave father again. He is not very strong, and I want to be with him.”
“Oh, yes, quite so,” Dick answered, “but”—
“But what, Mr. Temple?”
“Oh, nothing; I only thought—I thought you were to teach in the college, and”—
He did not know how to end his sentence; he caught Dave Duggan’s eyes glowering at him, and Johnny’s rather obsequious smile. Johnny had the true American veneration for wealth, and he felt that this gentleman who kept a hack waiting for an hour was a rich man.
“I shall never leave my father,” Annie said, in a low voice.
Now Richard Temple was not a mean or unworthy man; he was a well-born, well-bred, well-educated young American gentleman; but he had been placed suddenly at a cruel disadvantage; his presence of mind deserted him—he was bewildered and confounded. His plans and hopes were all adrift. He could not meet Annie Graham’s eyes again; he said good-night, at first effusively, and then haughtily; and sneaked out to his carriage, anxious only to escape from an intolerable situation.
“Hope you’ll come again and talk over old times with Annie, sir,” Johnny said, shaking Dick’s hand all the time that he was speaking; “you’ll call again, sir?”
“Oh, certainly, yes, of course,” Dick answered wretchedly.
But Annie knew better.
Dave Duggan had watched Annie’s visitor with burning eyes. He followed the conversation with painful intentness, and a sense of speed which made him breathless. He wished to join in it,—and kept moistening his lips and clearing his throat, but he never found the courage to speak. His shyness probably prevented him from being rude; for his feeling about Dick was rage, pure and simple.
“He’s a blamed dude,” he thought to himself again and again; but he could think of nothing to say which would convey this opinion, and yet fit into the conversation. But when Dick had slunk back to his carriage Dave’s feelings burst forth. For a few moments, indeed, the little group (except Annie) talked, in their excitement, all together.
“Ain’t he handsome!” Johnny said proudly; he was proud of anything connected with Annie.
“He’s real rich, Annie, ain’t he? Ridin’ in hacks?” Mrs. Pugsley demanded.
“He’s a blamed dude; that’s what he is,” Dave said fiercely.
“I thought he was your feller, Annie,” Mrs. Pugsley declared, panting and fanning herself.
“Well, now, he’s none too good to be,” Johnny announced, chuckling.
“Father, dear, wouldn’t it be nicer to sit out on the steps, where it’s cooler? I’ll put the tea things away, and then I’ll come, too. Please—go!” she ended. Johnny looked at her in surprise, sensitive to every change in her voice.
“Why, now—Annie?” he faltered.
“I’ll be through with the dishes in a few minutes, father, dear,” she said; and so Johnny led the way to the front door and placed a chair on the hard, black earth at the foot of the steps for Mrs. Pugsley, and told Dave to take off his coat again.
“It’s that hot,” Johnny said, “there’s no good wearin’ coats.”
“Now that dude’s gone, I suppose there’s no harm being comfortable,” Dave agreed angrily.
They sat there in the dusk, Johnny and Mrs. Pugsley talking the visit over. They could hear Annie moving about in the kitchen, washing the dishes. After a while Dave Duggan got up and with painstaking and elaborate efforts not to attract attention went, with creaking, clumsy steps, into the kitchen. Annie stood by the sink, with her back to him. He heard her draw in her breath in a broken sob; and then he saw—he saw that tears were running down her face.
“Annie!” he said; “oh, now, Annie, don’t, don’t mind, Annie, dear!” He put out his hands beseechingly, his face red and wincing with feeling. Annie turned her shoulder toward him, and set her teeth. She drew her wrist across her eyes.
“It’s that dude’s hurt your feelin’s, Annie—darn him! but never you mind, he ain’t worth”—
“Oh, please go away, Dave,” Annie said; “you don’t know what you are talking about! Please go back to father.”
“Annie,” he burst out, “look here: he ain’t worth it. I say, Annie, will you take up with me?”
“I really don’t know what you are talking about. Mr. Temple—if you are referring to him—has not hurt my feelings in the least. I—I had something on my mind, and”—
“Oh, Annie,” poor Dave said, “what I’m wanting to know”—He stood there in his shirt-sleeves beside the sink, his voice trembling, one big red hand opening and shutting the hot-water spigot. “I’m just wanting to know if you’ll marry me, Annie. Say, now, will you?”
She shrank from him, a sort of horror in her face.
“You?”
“You ain’t mad?” he entreated.
“It is quite impossible,” she answered hoarsely; “quite, quite! Never speak to me of such a thing”—Her face was stinging, her voice was broken, as a woman’s might be to whom some insulting thing had been said. “You will go, if you please,” she ended, her head high, and with a certain gesture that confounded him.
“But look a-here,” he insisted, following her as she moved away from him; “Annie, look a-here; that fellow ain’t a-goin’ to marry anybody but a rich lady; his kind ain’t goin’ to marry you.”
“Well, I shan’t marry my kind, then! You can just understand that,” she cried, with a sudden almost coarse fury. “There’s no use for you to think of such a thing. Don’t ever dare to spake to me that way again!”
This is as far as Annie Graham has lived her story. She and Dave practically summed the matter up between them: “His kind will not marry you;” and “I will not marry my kind.”
The story is unfinished; one waits to see what will happen.
There are three things open to Annie: She may live out her life in South Bend; teaching, perhaps, in the public school, gradually refining the terrible little house, rejoicing Johnny’s heart, and never interfering, merely for her own æsthetic necessities, with the unlovely habits of Johnny’s fifty years of unlovely living; she may learn to accept his intimates as her acquaintances, his Mrs. Pugsleys and Dave Duggans as household friends, starving all the while for the companionship of her equals. Or—
She may shake off these intolerable surroundings which make her shrink as instinctively as an open eye shrinks from dust; she may turn her back on South Bend, and the tenement house, and the painted snow-shovel, and her father’s shirt-sleeves, and her father’s tender heart, and go out into the world to live her own strong, refined, intellectual life, perhaps as a teacher in her old college; marrying, after a while, some one who has never seen her father, and coming into the soul-destroying possession of that skeleton in the American closet—the vulgarity of the preceding generation. Or—
She may, because of sheer misery in the struggle between the new and the old, and for the dreadful suffocating comfort of it, fall back into the pit whence she was digged and try to forget the upper air.
What is the child’s duty? To live her own life, or to live some one else’s life? Is she to accept success or failure, fulfillment or renunciation?
People differ as to what constitutes success; some go so far as to say that the highest fulfillment lies in renunciation; and certainly there was once a life that might have been called a failure because it ended upon a cross on Calvary.
I suppose it all depends on how you look at it.