The Bent Twig

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

"Well, I don't care if I do," answered Mrs. Marshall. Sylvia laughed at the turn of her phrase and went into the dining-room. Mrs. Marshall followed in a moment with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. Sylvia pulled her down and kissed her. "You'd prescribe hot chocolate for anything from getting religion to a broken leg!" she said, laughing. Her voice shook and her laugh ended in a half-sob.

"No—oh no!" returned her mother quaintly. "Sometimes hot milk is better. Here, where is my share of those cakes?" She helped herself, went around the table, and sat down. "Cousin Parnelia was here this morning," she went on. "Poor old idiot, she was certain that planchette would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told her to go ahead—but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it to the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house."

Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her mother, refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, she tried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. But in spite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes—above all, the handsome blond face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly, her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her hands trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. She was silent and talkative by turns—a phenomenon of which Mrs. Marshall took no outward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent her daughter out into the piercing December air with the command to walk six miles before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect of solitude. "Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry!" she cried.

"Well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded.

* * * * *

The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from Jermain Fiske, a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous of the seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled to it. The upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had done anything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded if he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! Everything had been going on so swimmingly—his father had taken the greatest notion to her—had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way) that if he married that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could have the house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and could practise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once into politics—and now she had gone and acted so—what in the world was the matter with her—weren't they engaged to be married—couldn't an engaged man kiss his girl—had he ever been anything but too polite for words to her before she had promised to marry him—and what about that promise anyhow? His father had picked out the prettiest little mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should be announced—the Colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out—if the trouble was that she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was sure the Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washington, where with his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'd have! And above all he was crazy about her—he really was! He'd never had any idea what it was to be in love before—he hadn't slept a wink the night she'd gone away—just tossed on his bed and thought of her and longed to have her in his arms again—Sylvia suddenly tore the letter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard. In answer she wrote, "It makes me sick to think of you!"

She could not endure the idea of "talking over" the experience with any one, and struggled to keep it out of her mind, but her resolution to keep silence was broken by Mrs. Draper, who was informed, presumably by Jermain himself, of the circumstances, and encountering Sylvia in the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the girl, but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidiously friendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful assurance of her friend, heard that she was a silly little unawakened schoolgirl who was throwing away a brilliantly happy and successful life for the queerest and funniest of ignorant notions. "What did you suppose, you baby? You wouldn't have him marry you unless he was in love with you, would you? Why do you suppose a man wants to marry a woman? Did you suppose that men in love carry their sweethearts around wrapped in cotton-wool? You're a woman now, you ought to welcome life—rich, full-blooded life—not take this chilly, suspicious attitude toward it! Why, Sylvia, I thought you were a big, splendid, vital, fearless modern girl—and here you are acting like a little, thin-blooded New England old maid. How can you blame Jerry? He was engaged to you. What do you think marriage is? Oh, Sylvia, just think what your life would be in Washington with your beauty and charm!"

This dexterously aimed attack penetrated Sylvia's armor at a dozen joints. She winced visibly, and hung her head, considering profoundly. She found that she had nothing to oppose to the other's arguments. Mrs. Draper walked beside her in a silence as dexterous as her exhortation, her hand affectionately thrust through Sylvia's arm. Finally, Sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they were approaching the Marshall house, in sight of which she had no mind to appear, she gave Sylvia's arm a little pat, and stood still. She said cheerfully, in a tone which seemed to minimize the whole affair into the smallest of passing incidents: "Now, you queer darling, don't stand so in your own light! A word would bring Jerry back to you now—but I won't say it will always. I don't suppose you've ever considered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have hurt his feelings! He was awfully sore when I saw him. And Eleanor Hubert is right on the spot with Mamma Hubert in the background to push."

Sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing scarlet, "He was—horrid!"

Mrs. Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly: "Dear little ignorant Sylvia—you don't recognize life when you see it. That's the way men are—all men—and there's no use thinking it horrid unless you're going into a convent. It's not so bad either,—once you get the hang of managing it—it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any other force of nature that you can either rebel against, or turn to your account and make serviceable, if you'll only accept it and not try to quarrel with water for running downhill. As long as she herself isn't carried away by it, it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Only the stupid women get hurt by it—the silly ones who can't keep their heads. And after all, my dear, it is a force of nature—and you're too intelligent not to know that there's no use fighting against that. It's just idiotic and puritanic to revolt from it—and doesn't do any good besides!" She looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubled face, and judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. "Good-bye, darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder.