VI
Grace set off with the liveliest expectations to keep her appointment with Miss Reynolds. The house struck her at once as a true expression of the taste and characteristics of its owner. It was severely simple in design and furnishing, but with adequate provision for comfort. Grace had seen pictures of such rooms in magazines and knew that they represented the newest ideas in house decoration. The neutral tint of the walls was an ease to eye and spirit. Ethel had spoken of Miss Reynolds as quaint, an absurd term to apply either to the little woman or any of her belongings. She was very much up to date, even a little ahead of the procession, it seemed to Grace.
“Oh, thank you! I’m glad if it seems nice,” Miss Reynolds replied when Grace praised the house. “All my life I’ve lived in houses where everything was old and the furniture so heavy you had to get a derrick to move it on cleaning day. But I can’t accept praise for anything here. The house was built for a family that moved away from town without occupying it. The young architect who designed it had ideas about how it ought to be fixed up and I turned him loose. There was a music room, so I had to get a grand piano to fit into the alcove made for it. That young man is most advanced and I thought at first he wouldn’t let me have any place to sit down but you see he did allow me a few chairs! Are you freezing? I hate an over-heated house.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable,” said Grace, noting that Miss Reynolds wore the skirt of the blue suit she had sold her, with a plain white waist and a loose collar. Her snow white hair was brushed back loosely from her forehead. Her head was finely modeled and her face, aglow from an afternoon tramp in the November air, still preserved the roundness of youth. The wrinkles perceptible about her eyes and mouth seemed out of place,—only tentative tracings, not the indelible markings of age. She had an odd little way of turning her head to one side when listening, and mistaking this for a sign of deafness Grace had lifted her voice slightly.
“Now, my dear child!” cried Miss Reynolds, “just because I cock my head like a robin don’t think I’m shy of hearing. It always amuses me to have people take it for granted that I can’t hear. I hear everything; I sometimes wish I didn’t hear so much! I’ve always had that trick. It’s because one of my eyes is a bit stronger than the other. You’ll find that I don’t do it when I wear my glasses, but I usually take them off in the house.”
At the table Miss Reynolds rambled on as though Grace were an old friend.
“Our old house down on Meridian Street was sold while I was abroad. It had grown to be a dingy hole. Garret full of trunks of letters and rubbish like that. I cabled at once to sell or destroy everything in the place. So that’s why I’m able to have a new deal. Are you crazy about old furniture? Please tell me you are not?”
“Oh, I like new things ever so much better!” Grace assured her.
“I thought you would. I despise old furniture. Old stuff of every kind. Old people too!” With a smile on her lips she watched Grace to note the effect of this speech. “I shouldn’t have dreamed of asking you to give up an evening for me if I meant to talk to you like an old woman. My neighbors are mostly young married people, but they don’t seem to mind my settling among them. I’m sixty-two; hurry and say I don’t look a day over fifty!”
“Forty!” Grace corrected.
“I knew I was going to like you! I think I’ll spend my remaining years here if I can keep away from people who want to talk about old times, meaning of course when I was a girl. It doesn’t thrill me at all to know that right here where this house stands my grandfather owned a farm. Every time I go down town I dodge old citizens I’ve known all my life for fear they’ll tell me about the great changes and expect me to get tearful about it. I can’t mourn over the passing of old landmarks and I’d certainly not weep at the removal of some of the old fossils around this town who count all their money every day to make sure nobody’s got a nickel away from them. They keep their lawyers busy tightening up their wills. They’ve invented ways of tying up property in trusts so you can almost take it with you!”
“That’s their way of enjoying life, I suppose,” remarked Grace, who was taking advantage of Miss Reynolds’ talkativeness to do full justice to a substantial dinner. The filet of beef and the fresh mushrooms testified to the presence of an artist in the kitchen, and the hot rolls were of superlative lightness. Miss Reynolds paused occasionally to urge Grace to a second helping of everything offered.
“I detest anemic people,” Miss Reynolds declared. “If you don’t eat my food I’ll feel terribly guilty at asking you here.”
“It’s the best food I ever ate! We were going to have corned beef and cabbage at home, so all these wonderful dishes seem heavenly!”
“You’ve probably wondered why I grabbed you as I did and asked you to sit at meat with me?”
“Why, I hope you asked me because you liked me!” Grace answered.
“That’s the correct answer, Grace—may I call you Grace? I hate having a lot of people around; I like to concentrate on one person, and when I met you in the church entry it just popped into my head that you wouldn’t mind a bit giving me an evening. It’s awfully tiresome going to dinners where the people are all my own age. I’ve always hated formal entertaining. You struck me as a very fair representative of the new generation that appeals to me so much. Don’t look so startled; I mean that, my dear, as a compliment! And of course I really don’t know a thing about you except that you have very pretty manners and didn’t get vexed that day in the store when I must have frightened you out of your wits.”
“But you didn’t,” Grace protested. “I liked your way of saying exactly what you wanted.”
“I always try to do that; it saves a lot of bother. And please don’t be offended if I say that it’s a joy to see you sitting right there looking so charming. You have charming ways; of course you know that. And the effect is much enhanced when you blush that way!”
Grace was very charming indeed as she smiled at her singular hostess, who had a distinct charm of her own. She felt that she could say anything to Miss Reynolds and with girlish enthusiasm she promptly told her that she was adorable.
“I’ve been called a crank by experts,” Miss Reynolds said challengingly, as though she were daring her guest to refute the statement. “I get along better with foreigners than with my own people. Over there they attribute my idiosyncrasies to American crudeness, to be tolerated only because they think me much better off in worldly goods than I really am.”
They remained at the table for coffee, and the waitress who had served the dinner offered cigarettes. Grace shook her head and experienced a mild shock when Miss Reynolds took a cigarette and lighted it with the greatest unconcern.
“Abominable habit! Got in the way of it while I was abroad. Please don’t let me corrupt you!”
“I suppose I’ll learn in time,” Grace replied, amused as she remembered the stress her mother and Ethel had laid on Miss Reynolds’ conservatism.
It occurred to her that Miss Reynolds was entitled to know something of her history and she recited the facts of her life simply and straightforwardly. She had only said that her father had been unfortunate without explaining his connection with Cummings-Durland. Miss Reynolds smoked and sipped her coffee in silence; then asked in her quick fashion:
“Cummings-Durland? Those names tinkle together away back in my memory.”
“Father and Mr. Cummings came here from Rangerton and began business together. The Cummingses used to live neighbors to us over by Military Park.”
“Bob Cummings is one of my neighbors,” said Miss Reynolds. “Rather tragic—putting that young man into business. He hates it. There ought to be some way of protecting artistic young men from fathers who try to fit square pegs into round holes. I suppose the business troubles broke up the friendship of your families.”
“Yes; my mother and sister are very bitter about it; they think father was unfairly treated. But I met Bob only this morning and he was very friendly. He seemed terribly cut up because I’d left college.”
“He’s a sensitive fellow; he would feel it,” said Miss Reynolds. “So you children grew up together—the Durlands and the Cummings. I’m asking about your present relations because Bob comes in occasionally to play my piano—when there’s something on at his own house that he doesn’t like. His wife’s the sort that just can’t be quiet; must have people around. She’s crazy about bridge and he isn’t! He called me on the telephone just before you came to ask if he might come over after dinner, as his wife’s having people in for bridge. I told him to come along. I enjoy his playing; he really plays very well indeed. You don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” said Grace, wondering at the fate that was throwing her in Bob Cummings’ way twice in one day and a day in which she had been torn with so many conflicting emotions.
“If you have the slightest feeling about meeting him do say so; you may always be perfectly frank with me.”
“Yes; thank you, Miss Reynolds. But I’d love to hear Bob play.”
When they were again in the living room Grace stood for a moment scanning a table covered with periodicals and new books.
“Since I came home I’ve been trying to find out what’s going on in America, so I read everything,” Miss Reynolds explained. “The general opinion seems to be that things are going to pot. Right under your hand there’s a book called ‘Clues to a New Social Order,’ written by a woman named Trenton. I understand she’s a respectable person and not a short-haired lunatic; but she throws everything overboard!”
“I’ve read it,” said Grace. “It’s certainly revolutionary.”
“All of that!” Miss Reynolds retorted. “But it does make you think! Everybody’s restless and crazy for excitement. My young married neighbors all belong to families I know or know about; live in very charming houses and have money to spend—too much most of them—and they don’t seem able to stand an evening at home by themselves. But maybe the new way’s better. Maybe their chances of happiness are greater where they mix around more. I’m curious about the whole business. These young folks don’t go to church. Why don’t they, when their fathers and grandfathers always did? Their parents stayed at home in the evening. My father used to grumble horribly when my mother tried to get him into a dress suit. But there was wickedness then too, only people just whispered about it and tried to keep it from the young folks. There were men right here in this town who sat up very proper in the churches on Sunday who didn’t hesitate to break all the commandments during the week. But now you might think people were sending up fireworks to call attention to their sins! I remember the first time I went to a dinner—that was thirty years ago—where cocktails were passed around. It seemed awful—the very end of the world. When I told my mother about it she was horrified; said what she thought of the hostess who had exposed her daughter to temptation! But now prohibition’s driven everybody to drink. I asked my chauffeur yesterday how long it would take him to get me a quart of whiskey and he said about half an hour if I’d let him use the car. I told him to go ahead and sure enough he was back with it in twenty minutes. It was pretty fair whiskey, too,” Miss Reynolds concluded. “I was curious to see just how it felt to break the law and I confess to you, my dear, that I experienced a feeling of exultation!”
She reached for a fresh cigarette and lighted it tranquilly.
“Everybody’s down on the young people,” said Grace, confident that she had a sympathetic listener. “They tell us all the time that we’re of no account.”
“There are pages of that on that table,” Miss Reynolds replied. “Well, I’m for the young people; particularly you girls who have to rustle for yourselves. If I stood up in a store all day or hammered a typewriter I’m sure I’d feel that I was entitled to some pleasure when I got through. Just what do girls do—I don’t mean girls of your upbringing exactly and your schooling,—but less lucky girls who manage their own affairs and are not responsible to any one.”
“I haven’t been at work long enough to know much about that,” said Grace; “but—nearly every girl who’s at all attractive has a beau!”
“Certainly!” Miss Reynolds affirmed promptly. “It’s always been so. There’s nothing new in that.”
“And they go to dances. Every girl likes to dance. And sometimes they’re taken out to dinner or to a show if the young man can afford it. Girls don’t have parties at home very much; I mean even where they live at home. There’s not room to dance usually; the houses are too small and it isn’t much fun. And if the beau has a car he takes the girl driving.”
“And these girls marry and have homes of their own? That still happens, doesn’t it?”
“Well, a good many girls don’t want to marry,—not the young men they’re likely to meet. Or if they do, some of them keep on working. There are girls in Shipley’s who are married and keep their jobs. They like the additional money; they can wear better clothes, and they like to keep their independence.”
“There you are!” Miss Reynolds exclaimed. “The old stuff about woman’s place being in the home isn’t the final answer any more. If you won’t think it impertinent just how do you feel on that point, Grace?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t want to marry for a long, long time!—even if I had the chance,” Grace answered with the candor Miss Reynolds invited. “I’ve got that idea about freedom and independence myself! I hope I’m not shocking you!”
“Quite the contrary. I had chances to marry myself,” Miss Reynolds confessed. “I almost did marry when I was twenty-two but decided I didn’t love the young man enough. I had these ideas of freedom too, you see. I haven’t really been very sorry; I suppose I ought to be ashamed of myself. But the man I almost married died miserably, an awful failure. I have nothing to regret. How about college girls—you must know a good many?”
“Oh, a good many co-eds marry as soon as they graduate, and settle down. But those I’ve known are mostly country town girls. I think it’s different with city girls who have to go to work. They’re not so anxious to get married.”
“The fact seems to be that marriage isn’t just the chief goal of a woman’s life any more. Things have reached such a pass that it’s really respectable to be a spinster like me! But we all like to be loved—we women, don’t we? And it’s woman’s blessing and her curse that she has love to give!”
She was silent a moment, then bent forward and touched Grace’s hand. There was a mist of dreams in the girl’s lovely eyes.
“I wish every happiness for you, dear. I hope with all my heart that love will come to you in a great way, which is the only way that counts!”