Her tone was so broken and imploring that Mrs. Mortimer was startled. She was, moreover, flattered that Lydia should come to her for advice rather than to her parents. She put her arm around her sister’s shoulders, and said gently, “Why, yes, dear; of course; anything—”
“Then stop sewing and listen to me—”
“But I can sew and listen, too.”
“Oh, Etta, please! That’s just the kind of thing that gets me so wild. Just a little while!”
The harassed housekeeper cast an anxious eye on the clock, but loyally stifled the sigh with which she laid her work aside. Lydia apologized for interrupting her. “But I do want you to really think of what I am saying. Everybody’s always so busy thinking about things! Oh, Etta, I’m just as unhappy as I can be—and so scared when I think about—about the future.”
Mrs. Mortimer’s face softened wonderfully. She stroked Lydia’s dark hair. “Why, poor dear little sister! Yes, yes, darling, I know all about it. I felt just so myself the month before I was married, and Mother couldn’t help me a bit. Either she had forgotten all about it, or else she never had the feeling. I just had to struggle along through without anybody to help me or to say a word. Oh, I’m so glad I can help my little sister. Don’t be afraid, dear! There’s nothing so terrible about it; nothing to be scared of. Why, once you get used to it you find it doesn’t make a bit of difference to you. Everything’s just the same as before.”
Lydia lifted a wrinkled brow of perplexity to this soothing view of matrimony. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Etta!” she cried in a bewilderment that seemed to strike her as tragic.
“Why—why, being married! Wasn’t that what you meant?”
“Oh, no! No! Nothing so definite as that! I couldn’t be afraid of Paul—why should I be? I’m just frightened of—everything—what everybody expects me to do, and to go on doing all my life, and never have any time but to just hurry faster and faster, so there’ll be more things to hurry about, and never talk about anything but things!” She began to tremble and look white, and stopped with a desperate effort to control herself, though she burst out at the sight of Mrs. Mortimer’s face of despairing bewilderment, “Oh, don’t tell me you don’t see at all what I mean. I can’t say it! But you must understand! Can’t we somehow all stop—now! And start over again! You get muslin curtains and not mend your lace ones, and Mother stop fussing about whom to invite to that party—that’s going to cost more than he can afford, Father says—it makes me sick to be costing him so much. And not fuss about having clothes just so—and Paul have our house built little and plain, so it won’t be so much work to take care of it and keep it clean. I would so much rather look after it myself than to have him kill himself making money so I can hire maids that you can’t—you say yourself you can’t—and never having any time to see him. Perhaps if we did, other people might, and we’d all have more time to like things that make us nicer to like—”
At this perturbing jumble of suggestions, Mrs. Mortimer’s head whirled. She took hold of the arms of her chair as if to steady herself, but, conscientiously afraid of discouraging the girl’s confidence, she nodded gravely at her, as if she were considering the matter. Lydia sprang up, her eyes shining. “Oh, you dear! You do see what I mean! You see how dreadful it is to look forward to just that—being so desperately troubled over things that don’t really matter—and—and perhaps having children, and bringing them up to the same thing—when there must be so many things that do matter!”