“She’s an Armenian, Jeannette, and I know nothing about Armenians. Besides she is not my daughter. The kind of men I want for husbands to my girls will not be looking for their wives behind shop counters!”
“But, Mama, stenographers don’t work behind counters.”
“Oh, yes, they do.... Anyway it’s the same thing.”
Jeannette felt suddenly too tired to continue the discussion. Her mind began turning over the changes the step she contemplated would occasion. Mrs. Sturgis’ fingers played a nervous tattoo upon her tremulous lips. She glanced apprehensively at her daughter and in that moment realized the girl would have her way.
“Oh, dearie, dearie!” she burst out. “I can’t have you go to work!”
Jeannette knew that no opposition from her mother would alter her purpose. Where her mind was made up, her mother invariably capitulated. It had been so for a long time, and Jeannette, at least, was aware of it. As she foresaw the full measure of her mother’s distress when she put her decision into effect, she came and knelt beside her chair, gathered the tired figure in its absurd flannelette nightgown in her arms and kissed the thin silky hair where it parted and showed the papery white skin of her scalp. Mrs. Sturgis bent her head against her daughter’s shoulder, while the tears trickled down her nose and fell upon the girl’s bare arm. Jeannette murmured consolingly but her mother refused to be comforted, indicating her disapproval by firm little shakes of her head which she managed now and then between watery sniffles.
There were finally many kisses between them and many loving assurances. The girl promised to do nothing without careful consideration, and they would all three discuss the proposition from every angle in the morning. When they had said a last good-night and the girl had gone to her room, Mrs. Sturgis still sat on under the hissing gas jet with the red, torn shawl about her shoulders, the comforter across her knees. The tears dried on her face, and for a long time she stared fixedly before her, her lips moving unconsciously with her thoughts.
The little suite of rooms she had known so intimately for twelve long years grew still; the chill of the dead of night crept in; Jeannette’s light went out. Mrs. Sturgis reached for the canvas-covered ledger on the table beside her and began a rapid calculation of figures on its last page. For a long time she stared at the result, then rose deliberately, and went into her room. There she cautiously pulled an old trunk from the wall, unlocked its lid, raised a dilapidated tray, and knelt down. In the bottom was an old papier-maché box, battered and scratched, with rubbed corners. She opened this and began carefully to examine its contents. There was the old brooch pin Ralph had given her after the first concert they attended together, and there were her mother’s coral earrings and necklace, and the little silver buckles Jeannette had worn on her first baby shoes. There were some other trinkets: a stud, Ralph’s collapsible gold pencil, a French five-franc piece, a scarf-pin from whose setting the stone was missing. Tucked into a faded leather photograph case was a sheaf of folded pawn tickets. That was the way her rings had gone, and the diamond pin, Ralph’s jeweled cuff-links and the gold head of her father’s ebony cane. She picked up the pair of silver buckles and examined them in the palm of her hand; presently she added the gold brooch and the collapsible pencil before she put back the contents of the trunk and locked it. For some moments she stood in the center of her room gently jingling these ornaments together. Then her eye travelled to her bureau; slowly she approached it, and one after another lifted the gold chains she wore during the day. These she disengaged from her eye-glasses and watch, and wrapped them with the buckles and the brooch in a bit of tissue paper pulled from a lower drawer. But still she did not seem satisfied. With the tissue-paper package in her hand, she sat on the edge of her bed, frowning thoughtfully, her fingers slowly tapping her lips. Presently a light came into her eyes. She lit a candle and stole softly through the girls’ rooms, into the great gaunt chamber that was the studio. In one corner was a bookcase, overflowing with old novels, magazines, and battered school-books. It was a higgledy-piggledy collection of years, a library without value save for five substantial volumes of Grove’s Musical Dictionary on a lower shelf. Mrs. Sturgis knelt before these, drew them out one by one, and laid them beside her on the floor. She opened the first volume and read the inscription: “To my ever patient, gentle Henrietta, for five trying years my devoted wife, true friend, and loving companion, from her grateful and affectionate husband, Ralph.” There was the date,—twelve years ago,—and he had died within six months after he had written those words. Her fingers moved to her trembling lips and she frowned darkly.
She closed the book, carried the five volumes to a shelf in a closet near at hand, and tucked them out of sight in a far corner. There was one last business to be performed: the books in the bookcase must be rearranged to fill the vacant place where the dictionary had stood. Mrs. Sturgis was not satisfied until her efforts seemed convincing. At last she picked up her wavering candle and made her way back to her own room. As she got into bed the old onyx clock on the mantel in the dining-room struck three blurred notes upon its tiny harsh gong. Only when darkness had shut down and the night was silent, did tears come to the tired eyes. There was then a blinding rush, and a few quick, strangling sobs. Mrs. Sturgis stifled these and wiped her eyes hardily upon a fold of the rough sheet. She steadied a trembling lip with a firm hand and resolutely turned upon her side to compose herself for sleep.