Birge’s Corners, having had one genius develop in its humble and unappreciative midst, frowned upon this suggestion—it is not always the most pleasing nor convenient event to have a genius arise from one’s backyard!
“I guess Cora will marry well,” Mrs. Spooner used to say, “so I don’t mind doing the work and keeping her hands white—have you ever noticed them? Dear me, I should think Mrs. Birge would keep a maid instead of slaving so. Cora says she works like a little Turk. They say he has a lot of money.... I wish there were some brothers in his family.”
So Cora went her selfish way, awaiting the arrival of a rich bachelor who was to besiege her with attentions. She used to prey on Lorraine’s sympathy and lack of experience by her tales of being misunderstood and abused. Cora was shrewd in shallow fashion, highly emotional, jealous, small-minded and given to extreme views of anything which happened to appeal to her for the moment. She was a bad asset to the village since she could arouse discontent and rebellion quickly among her associates. She had a way of unsettling every one and then withdrawing from the situation without leaving a solution.
The neighbors said she raged and fought with her mother over the question of money and that she always came out victor. In public, she was devotion itself, although she was ashamed of her mother’s appearance and managed to keep her in the house most of the time. “Mamma has heart trouble” was her tender explanation, although mamma was probably ironing ruffled petticoats or cleaning white kid boots at the very moment Cora pensively explained the maternal maladies!
Lorraine regarded Cora as a story-book sort of person, marvelling at her daring and style. Cora openly had tried to bewitch Dan and, being curtly shown she was of no more consequence than Mr. Toots, began systematically and painstakingly to “knock” him to every one except his wife.
“Poor little Lorraine—little slave, she is—I go to see her because I’m so sorry for her, yes, he’s terribly mean—oh, awful! I’ve heard some things, but of course it wouldn’t be right to repeat them,” and so on, all the time borrowing Lorraine’s pin money and eating up her dinners, riding in her car and making Lorraine introduce her to every man, married or unmarried, who stopped over in the village long enough to visit the Birges.
Lorraine did not press the matter of taking Cora on the vacation, although Cora had managed to invite herself!
“There is melancholia in our family,” she told Lorraine. “Oh, yes, several suicides—terrible, isn’t it? I try not to brood but I am a daughter of the sun, I crave love and life. How could I be content in this pokey place? Oh, Lorraine, I look upon you as a sister—do be good to me,” at which Lorraine’s gullible little self would be utterly won over and she would bake Cora’s favorite cake and make her a crêpe de chine waist and ask over, braving Dan’s wrath, some drummer who might be in search of a wife as well as a buyer for his dustless mops!
But there was another person who had come into The Corners since Thurley had left it and whom Dan regarded as every one’s enemy. He had said publicly that it was a patriotic duty to have this person, Owen Pringle, although he spelled it Oweyne and had a book plate, shot at sunrise, velvet smoking-jacket, hair parted in the middle and all!