“I wonder what you’d think,” he said, “if I should tell you what the young lady you admire so much has to say about your son and about me.” And then he told her what had occurred. But he did not tell her that because it had occurred, the writs of attachment had been issued at that time. He finished by saying: “Since you so greatly admire the young lady, by all means be her first patron. I’ve never seen you when either your gown or your hat wouldn’t have been better for an application of Spellman taste.”
Mrs. Moreland thought the matter over.
“Martin, I wonder at you,” she said slowly. “Of course, it makes me mad to have her treat Junior the lovely way she always has, and then suddenly turn on him like this. I can’t imagine why she did it. I can’t believe she really meant it.”
“Junior believes that she meant it,” he said tersely.
“Anyway,” said Mrs. Moreland, “I couldn’t possibly follow your suggestion since you issued those attachments and made the foreclosure. It wouldn’t look right for me to be the first, or among the first, to go and offer Mahala work.”
Martin Moreland’s laugh was so genuine that he almost convinced his wife of its spontaneity.
“Well, it would look good to me,” he said. “It would look like just exactly the right and proper thing.”
At the new Spellman home, with Jemima and Mahala at the task of ministering to the stricken woman and arranging the house, matters progressed speedily. In a day or two things were in a reasonable state of order. Lying in her own bed in the tiny, dingy room, Elizabeth Spellman kept her eyes shut, because every time she opened them her surroundings struck her dainty, beauty-loving soul a blow that brought into full realization the height and the depth of her loss. It was these shocking, ugly things obtruding themselves that threw her back constantly upon the greater proposition which constituted the loss of Mahlon. She had believed in him; she had loved him; she had waited upon him; she had well nigh worshipped him. He had completely satisfied her every desire and ambition. She had no conception of life that would not allow them to go hand in hand, as they had gone every day since their marriage, down a peaceful path that was supposed to end at the pearly gates. Elizabeth had no vision of Mahlon that did not encompass him marching in full pride, head erect and unchallenged, through these same pearly gates, and even the desire to be with and to help Mahala, could not keep her from wishing that hand in hand with him, she was marching beside him now. She could conceive of no reason in her orderly life as to why she should be challenged entrance. “Sweeping through the gates” with her was a literal proposition. She was sorry in her soul that when Mahlon swept through, she had not been with him, and her deepest wish at the moment was that she might join him as speedily as possible. She felt in her heart that it was impossible for her to survive ugliness and poverty and pity, not to mention the contempt, of her former friends and neighbours. She did not want to see any of them. She was thankful when they remained away. The few who came in order to inventory and report what had been saved, had not been able to control either their eyes or their lips.
Elizabeth Spellman was not mentally brilliant, but she was far from a fool. She could translate what was said to her with accuracy. No matter what was said, so long as she looked into eyes, she saw what the lips would say were they really honest. She asked to see no one and refused whoever called if it were a possible thing. She was not interested in anything. She made no effort. She simply lay still, and what time was not devoted to a dazed summary of her calamity and a struggle to think how and why it had befallen her, she spent upon Mahala.
She decided that she had not known Mahala; that she was not the delicate, sensitive creature she had thought her. She admitted that she had failed miserably in rearing her. How could the girl come into her presence with her curls twisted into a rough knot on the top of her head, her body tied up in one of Jemima’s big kitchen aprons, her hands and arms visibly soiled, at times even her face? She would have had more respect for Mahala if the girl had lain down upon her bed, folded her hands, and announced that the blow was too severe for her. It is quite possible that, in such an event, Elizabeth might have arisen and gone to work herself. She felt in her heart that she would die from the horrible shock she had received; she also felt in her heart that her daughter obviously should be enough of a lady to do the same thing. And obviously, Mahala was not that kind of lady; some days her mother doubted if she were a lady at all.