CHAPTER IX

HOME

"I tell Celie, it ain't like we couldn't buy 'em perfect. (I could pay for 'em whole.) But she sez that ain't it."

Jeremiah Madden surveyed a Greek Venus as he spoke, whose arms were quite lacking. "As fer me," he went on, "I like 'em with all their limbs with 'em,--tasty and neat. This here kind of thing makes me think of the War. There's one in the Eyetalian garden I'm going to buy a cork leg for."

The young men who surrounded Jeremiah Madden laughed loudly. The loudness of their laughter made Jeremiah a bit suspicious at first, but he reasoned they would hardly accept his hospitality and laugh at him,--it must be with him. So, vastly pleased and beaming widely, he went on with pleased pride: "This here garden cost me near a million, fixings and all. That fountain to the right (the one with the dinky bird settin' on the female's arm) cost me----" but he didn't finish, for Johnny came around the corner of a path and emerged from its boxwood protection with a cough, and then a loud inanity. He frowned on Jeremiah and the laughter of the young men stopped.

"I didn't know _you_ were here," he said coolly to the quaking Jeremiah. Jeremiah realised that he had displeased, and began unsurely, "I'll be gettin' back to work. I just left fer a few minutes, I----"

"Come on," broke in Johnny, and the group of tired-looking youths followed him, leaving Jeremiah confiding to the stone "female" of his work and of how he must get back to it. Realising himself alone, he swallowed his words, and watched the group disappear toward the tennis courts with a puzzled hurt in his face.... A half a mile away, and well below, the waters of the Sound shone brazen blue in the sunlight. Sometimes a gull swooped low, and its wings were silver. In one spot a marble wall with a Greek relief stood out in blazing white against the distant water.... Jeremiah saw all the loveliness, but he could not feel it.

"That wall cost me----" he muttered, and then stopped, hearing footsteps.

Cecilia stepped from the same path from which Johnny had made his entrance. Her hat was a broad one, hiding her face provokingly, her dress one of those "simple" affairs, so dangerous to hearts and purses.

"Dearest!" she called rather breathlessly, "I did so want to see you! I've been hunting for you everywhere!" Jeremiah put his arms around her and forgot his worry about a certain son, and even forgot the cost of things.

"Well?" he questioned gently.

"Well," she repeated after him, "I just wanted to see you." She fidgetted as she had at seven, when the request for a new skillet or pan had been necessary. Jeremiah understood, and looked down at the simple affair, talking of it, to give her time. "That dress now," he said, "ain't it kind of plain? Don't you like 'em fancied up with ruffles and lace and stuff?"

Cecilia said that perhaps it was plain, but that she rather liked it. However, she would get one all-over ruffles for Jeremiah's dear gaze. After that they were silent, Cecilia staring absently out over the deep, blue Sound.

"Papa, dear," she said at last, with a gulp. "There's a man coming out to see me,--I mean us,--for Sunday. I hope you'll like him. He--he's really nice. I hope you'll like him." She stopped for a moment and then again said: "I _do_ hope you'll like him."

"Do you want me to like him?" asked Jeremiah.

"Oh, yes," said Cecilia, "I do!" She was again looking toward the Sound. Her small, white teeth were set on her lower lip. "He's very dear," she said at last; then she plaited a pink-edged handkerchief. Jeremiah frowned. "There ain't a man fit fer yuh!" he said crossly, "not a one!"

"Yes, there is," answered Cecilia.

"There ain't!" contradicted Jeremiah. "Does he play tennis?" he questioned, "and set around in white pants?" Jeremiah's voice had grown absolutely fierce. Cecilia laughed. "I suppose he does," she admitted, "but he works, really hard. He told me that life had only meant work for him, until----"

"Hum!" grunted Jeremiah. "Hum! Let me catch him trying to keep company with you! White tennis, and pants, and gulfing around with them funny sticks! _Lemme_ catch him!"

"Don't get so excited!" said Cecilia between little giggles. "He may not even want me. He really hasn't asked me yet."

"He ain't?" exploded Jeremiah. "He ain't? _Why_ not? Is the durn fool blind? I'd like to know why not."

Cecilia sank to a white marble seat. She was laughing helplessly. Suddenly she sobered and wiped her eyes.

"Dear," she said, "do you think I'd love you less, for--for loving some one else? Didn't you love the whole world more because of mamma? It only makes me want to be much nicer, and want to hug the earth!"

She covered her face as she finished, with slender, little hands. Jeremiah sat down by her.

"I want my bonnet with pink roses on it!" she whispered, "I _do_ want it!" He put his arms around her because he couldn't answer. A gull with silver wings swooped low. Cecilia uncovered her face, and kissed the brick king. "Which is my very prettiest dress?" she asked. "I want to wear it Saturday afternoon."

She tried to think her depression came from the night before, but half of it came from the letter which she held in her hand. She had had the strangest sinking sensation on reading it, and she _did_ love Marjory. Why it had made her feel that way was a mystery.

She opened the letter again. Its pages crackled, and sprung into their first folds as she laid them on the table. The third sheet she picked up and read: "Mamma is really quite wild about travelling with the Johnstons and I am absurdly relieved. Being with that dear lady tells on my disposition (usually perfect, you know, dear!), and I am happy to say a dutifully depressed good-bye to the water bottles and ailments which are all I know of my progenitor. I told her I would come to you for the summer months, and then perhaps go to Cousin Alice. I may go home, but I'm not sure, and such a course involves the proper dowager, who is always too proper, or too improper, and ever a bore! I shall write you again about all this, and when I shall arrive.

"Dear, I shall so enjoy being with you. You are the only good person I know who does not offend me. Perhaps because you are so unconscious of that quality. Your influence is wonderful with me.... How do you like being an 'Influence'? I have turned flippant, but you know I was serious----"

And that letter, in some strange way, had depressed Cecilia. She had wanted the summer to be a quiet one,--one in which she could learn to know a small brother, have ample time to amuse her father,--and----

Well, she was utterly ashamed, but she'd wanted it alone. It was so little of her to wish it so. Marjory had been so good to her. But,--Cecilia had dreamed of quiet evenings with the moon making a glittering path of silver on the Sound.... She'd dreamed of a big, gruff man coming toward her across soft grass.... That, and the scent of roses, pink roses.... Instead the summer would be full of Marjory's friends. Marjory had so many and such gay ones! Dancing, playing cards, motoring,--hunting pleasure with a strained intensity, running foolishly so that boredom should not overtake them.... And she had needed the summer with John. Marjory, her good friend, was not the one to show him things as Cecilia would have him see them. Cecilia sighed.

Then a little spasm of pain flickered across her face. The night before was in her mind, when John, with the friends who were visiting him, had grown too joyous. She had heard them come in in the deep night. The sounds had rung clear in the still air.

The cars they drove had come crashing through rose bushes, knocking down slender trellises.... With silly laughter, she had heard the men come toward the house. There had been unpleasant words said loudly, as if such utterances were humorous. There had been more silly laughter after them.

Cecilia had felt quite sick. She had covered her eyes and made requests of some one's else mother.... Then she had slipped into a negligee and cautiously opened her door.

The hall was empty and she went to John's room. She shook as she travelled the long hall, and she hated John's friends with a marvellous hate for one so sweet-natured. She was heart-sick and afraid. John's room was empty.

She stood there a moment, steadying herself. There were pictures scattered about the room, which made her understand things more fully. One, on a table near her, showed a pert miss, with tightly curled hair, and a dress of cheap fanciness.

"Your own little girl," was written across its corner, and then the little girl's name, "Fanchette LeMain."

Cecilia turned away. She went out into the hall. She felt as she had years ago when John was her baby. At the top of the broad and long stairs she looked down. John was on the first step, sprawled unbeautifully, his head hanging limp on his chest, his hands closed around a cerise scarf on which glittered little silver spots.

She looked about to see that no one else was there and then ran quickly down the stairs.

"I'm too heavy," said John, halfway up the stairs. He had been considerably sobered by black coffee, and more so by the sight of Cecilia. He leaned on her arm.

"I have carried you before," answered Cecilia. "When we lived in the flat, that was. I used to think that when you grew up I could lean on you. It was funny how I planned."

John didn't answer. They had reached his room and he sank to his bed and sat, blinking stupidly, on the edge of it. Cecilia slipped to her knees, and began to take off his shoes.

"Don't!" he ordered sharply. "Ring for Higgens."

"I'd rather not," answered Cecilia.

"It was the heat----" he began. Cecilia sat back on her little heels. She looked like a small girl saying her "Now I lay me----"

"It was not the heat," answered Cecilia. "When you were small I washed your mouth out with brown soap for doing that. Now do you want a drink? I'll wet this towel; you'd better put it on your head. There's the dawn," she said, looking toward the window. Then she turned and picked up a cerise scarf with silver spots on it. She folded it and laid it on the table by the photograph of Fanchette LeMain. John looked unhappy.

Cecilia put her hand on her brother's shoulder. "Good-night, dear," she said. A quiver ran across his face.

"I didn't want you to know," he whispered "You're so dear, but old-fashioned. You don't understand how a man----" he stopped, and she slipped down on the bed by him. "Everything's so beastly here. I'm so ashamed to have the fellows see dad," he went on incoherently. "Always talkin' of how things cost--always makin' breaks in grammar,--afraid of his own butler----" John's eyelids were drooping. He fell back, asleep. Cecilia got up and tried to pull him into a more comfortable position. Then she went to her own room. On the way she passed Jeremiah's. She paused by his door. She wanted to kiss him,--as she had Johnny, when, very small, he had bumped himself.

"Excuse him, Dearest," she whispered. "He's very young. Some day he'll understand, I hope." Then she went on. The dawn had come. The Sound was covered by a grey fog. Cecilia lay down to stare up at her ceiling. She did not sleep again.

At last came noises. The gardeners talked as they worked on the terrace below her windows. "Cut up rough," said one. Cecilia could hear the break of wood. The white trellis with its pink rambler had evidently suffered.

"The old man----!" said another voice expressively. They laughed a little.

"Well, the kid's a gent, anyway," said the other, loudly. "Drunk every night, and enough lady friends for a Hippodrome chorus----" they laughed again.

Cecilia turned and hid her face in the pillow. Her palms were wet.

Father McGowan was surrounded by brigands. Their burnt cork moustaches gave them a fierce expression terrible to view.

"So you saw a man climbing up the grape arbor?" questioned Father McGowan.

The spokesman wriggled a little, and then said, "Well, we didn't just see him but we heard him."

"I seen him," said the youngest brigand, whose lower lip was quivering. "I seen him. He had eyes like fire. I want--my maw! I'm scared!" The youngest brigand dissolved into tears. They ran down his cheeks and through his Kaiser Wilhelm of burnt cork, leaving a grey trail on his small chin. "I want my maw!" he repeated.

"An' las' night I seen a man down the alley. He sez 'Hello Bub.' That fierce I ran home, _I_ tell yuh!" said another of the group.

"Bet it was Jack, the Hugger," came in an ominous tone from the background. The brigands quaked. Their eyes had grown large with excitement, and fear was plain above the moustaches. One small boy who wore a horse-hair imperial, muttered of "gettin' home to study his gogerfy." He, and all the rest, cast longing eyes toward the door. The youngest mopped the tears and smeared his moustache across his face with his coat sleeve.

The fat priest got up and laid aside his pipe with reluctance. "Come on," he said; "we'll go find the villain. Come on!"

Two small boys clung to his cassock,--the rest pretended a bravado. They swaggered largely through the kitchen, where Mrs. Fry, washing the rectory dishes, glared at their intrusion. Outside the soft dark covered the fears of the brigands. Father McGowan went toward the arbour. He looked well on the frail structure, and then shook it. A black cat hissed, and jumped down.

"_I_ wasn't scared none!" said the brigand who had wanted his maw, "_I_ was just pretending!" The rest of the brigands giggled foolishly and muttered of "Foolin'."

Father McGowan tactfully spoke of the weather, and then he suggested going down to the corner drug store, where pink sodas could be bought for five cents. There was a flattering acceptance of his offer. They started off, all talking loudly to him of their large achievements. He listened and answered just at the right time, and said just the right thing. So they faded into the night, the long, black shadow with the smaller ones about it, clinging to it.

"He's takin' 'em to the drug store, I bet," said a lanky boy who was smoking in the shadows. His voice was sad.

"He must say lots of Masses," said his companion. "Every time them kids bawl around his place they get something to eat."

"Um hum," agreed the first speaker, "but he ain't no soft guy. Sometimes he licks 'em fit to kill."

Down the street the drug store screen door slapped shut smartly.

"Them five-cent sodas ain't no good anyway!" said the lanky boy. "_I_ wouldn't want none!" the other sighed.

"No," said Mrs. Fry, "he ain't here. He's went to the drug store with a mess of kids. Yuh can set, or yuh can go. _He_ don't care. That's the kind of a man _he_ is."

The man who stood on the Rectory porch said he would wait. As he stepped across the threshold Mrs. Fry recognised him as a doctor who had been uppish and sent in his card, "like he was a King." She looked critically at his boots. "Trackin' in dust all the time----" she muttered. Then she went heavily down the hall, slamming the dining-room door after her.

"_He_ never gets no rest!" she stated aloud to a picture of a dead duck, hanging by its feet. "Never no peace nor no time to smoke!" She glared at the fowl which had been given Father McGowan by Agnes O'Raddle, as she soliloquised. The erstwhile Mr. Fry, who had always been forced to smoke in the backyard, was far away.

"Well?" questioned Father McGowan. The doctor who sat across the table from him leaned forward and began to speak quickly, his breath coming between his quick words in gasps: "My wife's people had the controlling interest in this plant, and I put all my money in it. It had always paid well. A ventilator, it is, which slips beneath a raised window,--simple affair, yet good. Then this Madden man got ahold of an improved article, patented it, and started a manufactory in the same town, started it on a large scale,--advertised extensively.... Well, we're ruined. We can't compete. He sells below cost. He can't want money; he's losing now. Why does he do it? We've done everything. I've offered him----"

The bell of the telephone which stood on the desk rang sharply.

"Pardon," said Father McGowan, and then, "Why, Cecilia!" There was an interval then the doctor heard him say: "Your prettiest dress? Why they're all pretty! Why?" There was a longer interval, then a sharp "What?" from Father McGowan. A silence, and then, "Dear child! I'll be out to-morrow!" Father McGowan hung up the receiver. His manner and voice were changed and softened.

"The little boy is dead," he said to the doctor. "He was happy before he died. He grew very young, and forgot a great deal, the little boy who was in your care, I mean. Now go on, tell me more of this. Will you smoke?"

The fat priest pushed a box of cigars toward the shaking doctor.

"I--I wouldn't do that now----" began the doctor. "Something's broken me. God, I've suffered! What's that?" he ended sharply. There was the tap-tap-tap that sounded like small crutches on a polished floor. Father McGowan looked perplexed.

"It must be the vines against the window," he said, "but I didn't know it was windy. Have you a match?"

The doctor nodded, and lit his cigar. His hands shook cruelly.

"God, I've suffered!" he said hoarsely, "and I believe this Madden man has caused it all. My practice and money gone, I----" he stopped. "_Can't_ you help me?" he finished. "_Can't_ you?"

"Norah," said Cecilia, "which is my prettiest dress?"

"I dunno, dearie," replied Norah. "Yuh ain't exactly homely in none! But don't go thinkin' too much of yer looks. My maw used to say, 'Beauty's only skin deep.' She was a great one fer them sayin's."

"Norah," said Cecilia, "am I--am I what you'd call pretty?"

"That depends," said Norah, "on whether yuh like dark or light hair." She surveyed Cecilia critically, her lips sternly tight, but a proud light showing in her eyes. Since Cecilia had grown up, the Virgin had undergone a complete physical transformation for Norah. If Norah's Virgin had been on earth, she might easily have been confused with Cecilia Evangeline Agnes Madden.

"How you kin set in them corsets!" said Norah, anxious to change the subject. Cecilia laughed, then turned before a long glass which stood between windows. "I wish I hadn't been educated," said Cecilia. "I _love_ pink ones, trimmed all over with roses and lace!"

"My maw used to say, 'Handsome is as handsome does!'" said Norah sternly. Cecilia's new concern for her looks and clothes was disquieting to her. She thought with a horror of Marjory's salves, and eyebrow pencils.... Suppose Cecilia!--Norah shook her head.

A maid came in the room with a froth of lacy frills falling over her arm. She disposed of the froth, then bent above the seated Cecilia, and began taking the pins from her yellow hair. It fell loosely, with the soft, slow motion of waves, about her shoulders and well below her hips....

"_Tres joli!_" said the true worshipper of beauty, as she always did.

"Nonsense!" replied Cecilia, absently, as she always did. This was the rite, frowned on by the jealous Norah.

"I mended yer skirt," said Norah crossly. "It was tore fierce."

"Thank you, dear," said Cecilia, and then: "Josephine, which is my most pretty dress?"

Norah left, shutting the door with decision. She muttered of people who talked Eyetalian, and other Heathen languages. Then she decided it was her duty to tell Cecilia of Josephine's outrageous flirting with Mr. 'Iggens. After this lofty resolve her face cleared, and her expression, became pleasant.

She passed a heavy-eyed boy in the hall. In the early days he had often shed his tears against her shoulder.... He had found love, and understanding, exhibited by doughnuts, and bread spread thickly with brown sugar.

"Mr. John----" said Norah timidly as they were opposite.

"Huh?" he responded, with a cool look. Norah swallowed with a gulp, and went on. Her heart was heavy. Her spirit ached.

"We give him too many doughnuts," she said. Then again her face cleared.

"I'll tell Celie how they go on!" she reflected. "Then I guess she won't be so smart! Winkin' and carryin' on!" The dwelling on the iniquities of Josephine was vastly cheering. Norah almost forgot a heavy-eyed and overgrown boy, who, when little, had sobbed his troubles out against her thin shoulder, and had turned to her for soothing sugar cookies.

At the pretty little station, K. Stuyvesant was met by Cecilia.

"How'd do?" he said gruffly.

"How do you do?" said Cecilia. She had on her prettiest dress, but K. Stuyvesant Twombly didn't notice it. They disposed of the baggage question and then he settled, stiff and conscious, by her side in a small grey car.

"Pretty day," said K. Stuyvesant at last. Then he looked at Cecilia. "Gosh! I love----" He stopped suddenly and shook his head.

"Wh-what have you been doing since I saw you?" asked Cecilia.

"Thinking of you," answered K. Stuyvesant gruffly. Cecilia didn't answer. He was afraid she hadn't liked his telling her the truth, so he described a futurist exhibition, while horribly conscious that the quick beating of his heart made his voice shake.

"I'm glad you came," said Cecilia after the futurist exhibition had been described. "I wanted to see you."

"Dear!" said K. Stuyvesant loudly, and without the least effort. He sat looking down on her with a very honest and revealing look, a look that would have made any one with the least feeling bet their last cent on him.

"Two months," reminded Cecilia.... It was really too wonderful. It had to be proved. If he really cared he would wait two months.

"There's the house," she said aloud, "and on the terrace my dear brother." The car twisted between tall gate posts, and the house and terrace were lost to sight from the shading trees. A collie dog bounded out from the shrubbery and barked fiercely.

"Evangeline!" called Cecilia. "He is Norah's," she explained to K. Stuyvesant. "She named him after me."

"Who is Norah?" asked K. Stuyvesant.

"She was our 'hired girl,'" answered Cecilia, "before we ever heard of maids." K. Stuyvesant didn't reply. In a second the car was by a side entrance. "John!" called Cecilia to the languid figure on the terrace. John sauntered slowly toward them.

"Glad to know you, I'm sure," he said in his most grown-up and _blasé_ manner. "Nice of you to run out to see us. We get jolly bored, you know." After this John turned toward the house. There was an old man on the broad porch, looking wistfully and undecidedly toward the group.

"Oh, the Gov'ner!" said John in a tone indescribable.

"Daddy," called Cecilia loudly, "please come here _right_ away!" The brick king came toward them eagerly. "Pleased to meet yuh," he said as he acknowledged the introduction. K. Stuyvesant spoke kindly of the beauty of the place. "It ought to be beautiful!" answered Jeremiah. "It cost enough! Them there fixings fer the garden," he went on, "them alone cost----"

"Let me take you to your room," broke in John. "Don't you want to get in cooler things?" K. Stuyvesant assented and followed John to the house. When he reached the porch he looked back. Cecilia stood with her arm through her father's. She was looking up at his face. Her smile was tender.

"Gosh!" said K. Stuyvesant, and shook his head. Then he drew a long breath and turned to follow John.

The dinner had been what she wanted, thought Cecilia. He had seen _everything_.... Jeremiah had asked the butler to "spare" him a piece of bread. He had also tucked his napkin in his collar, and then, with a quick movement, removed it, looking around as he did so to see if he'd been noticed.

John had wiggled and sighed loudly when bricks had been talked of. In an effort to gloss over the crudities he had contributed a "smart line of talk," far more impossible than any amount of money mention.

K. Stuyvesant had responded politely to everything and had avoided looking at Cecilia with a studied effort. Cecilia had been silent. She felt it better that she should not appear in this act.

"He come to me, being as I was a man with money, and I sez----" came to her again in Jeremiah's cracked voice.

"I beg pardon?" K. Stuyvesant had said, having lost it through John's interruption.

"Granted," said Jeremiah. "I sez, he come to me an'----"

K. Stuyvesant had been _so_ dear! Cecilia stood leaning on the wall with the Greek relief, as she thought her thoughts.... She looked on the Sound, which was black in the night, except for a path of white moonlight. A path that quivered silver. She looked and saw K. Stuyvesant listening to Jeremiah's talk. He _had_ been so dear! She wondered whether they'd never finish their smoke and talk, and whether he'd _ever_ come to her.

Her eyes filled with tears.

"Mamma!" she whispered to the soft dark. A fitful little breeze sprang up, seeming to answer.

He came across the soft grass slowly. His heart knelt to the little Irish girl who sat upon the white marble wall.

"Hello, Mr. K. Stuyvesant!" she called gaily.

"Hello," he answered heavily. He stood, arms on the wall, a few feet from her, looking at her boldly in the soft light. The world was full of the rhythmic surge of his pulses.... The night air seemed to beat upon him with the heat of fire, but there was no thought of touching her. He was utterly humble before his shrine. He wanted, this American man of 1915, to kneel before this little maiden.... He craved the touch of her hands on his head. He was shaken, purified, thrilled.... He repeated "two months--two months!" to still his overmastering desires. The silence had been long and had grown heavy. K. Stuyvesant was afraid of it. He gulped convulsively and almost yelled: "Great night, isn't it?"

Cecilia nodded. "Don't you want to smoke?" she asked.

"I guess I'd better," he said unsteadily, then, "Oh, Cecilia!" He reached toward her, then drew back, for John came toward them.

"Cablegram," he said languidly, "for you, Celie."

Cecilia opened it. "From Marjory," she said, after reading it by the light of John's flash. "She comes next week. You must like her," she added to Stuyvesant. "She is my best friend."