Part 9

"Well done!" he said. "By Jove! what a game old party. Well done! The money was champagne on an empty stomach; of course, she got drunk. It would have been cheaper to have bought a bottle of the genuine article and shut herself up for twenty-four hours. Well, it's worth the cost of a new chimney. I'll put her repairs through, Dr. Lavendar--unless you want to get up another present?" And then he roared again. Very ill-bred man he was.

Dr. Lavendar said that there would not be another present. He said Miss Lydia had a right, in his opinion, to spend her money as she chose; but there would not be another present.

And then he walked home, blinking and smiling. "Smith's a good fellow," he said to himself, "if he is one of the new folks. But what I'd like to know is: _did Lydia think $100 a low price?_"

AMELIA

I

The exception that proved Old Chester's rule as to the subjection of Youth was found in the household of Mr. Thomas Dilworth.

When the Dilworth children (at least the two girls) hung about their father when he came home at night or teased and scolded and laughed at him at their friendly breakfast-table, an observer might have thought himself miles away from Old Chester and its well-brought-up Youth. The way those girls talk to Thomas Dilworth! "Where will it end?" said Old Chester, solemnly. For instance, the annual joke in the Dilworth family was that father had been in love with mother for as many years as she was old, less so many minutes.

Now, imagine Old Chester children indulging in such familiarities!

Yet on Mrs. Dilworth's birthday this family witticism was always in order:

"Father, how long have you been mother's beau?"

And Thomas, rosy, handsome, looking at least ten years younger than his Amelia, would say: "Well, let's see: forty-one years" (or two or three, as the case might be), "eleven months, twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, and forty minutes; she was twenty minutes old when I first laid eyes on her, and during those twenty minutes I was heart-whole."

But Mrs. Dilworth, smiling vaguely behind her coffee-cups, would protest: "I never heard anything about it, Tom, until you were sixteen."

And then the girls would declare that they must be told just what father said when he was sixteen and mother was twelve. But Thomas drew the line at that. "Come! come! you mustn't talk about love-making. As for marrying, I don't mean to let you girls get married at all. And Ned here had better not let me catch him thinking of such nonsense until he's twenty-five. He can get married (if I like the girl) when he is twenty-eight."

"You got married at twenty-two, sir," Edwin demurred.

"If you can find a woman like your mother, you can get married at twenty-two. But you can't. They don't make 'em any more. So you've got to wait. And remember, I've decided not to let Mary and Nancy get married, ever. I don't propose to bring up a brace of long-legged girls, and clothe 'em and feed 'em and pay their doctors' bills, and then, just as they get old enough to amount to anything and quit being nuisances, hand 'em over to another fellow. No, sir! You've got to stay at home with me. Do you understand?"

The girls screamed at this, and flung themselves upon him to kiss him and pull his hair.

No wonder Old Chester was shocked.

Yet, in spite of such happenings, Thomas and Amelia Dilworth were of the real Old Chester. They were not tainted with _newness_--that sad dispensation of Providence which had to be borne by such people as the Macks or the Hayeses, or those very rich (but really worthy) Smiths. The Dilworths were not new; yet their three children had the training--or the lack of training--that made the Hayes children and their kind a subject for Old Chester's prayers.

"Who can say what the result of Milly Dilworth's negligence will be?" Mrs. Drayton said, sighing, to Dr. Lavendar; who only reminded her that folks didn't gather thistles of figs--generally speaking.

But in spite of Dr. Lavendar's optimism, it was a queer household, according to Old Chester lights.... In the first place, the father and mother were more unlike than is generally considered to be matrimonially safe. Amelia was a dear, good soul, but, as Miss Helen Hayes said once, "with absolutely no mind"; while Thomas Dilworth was eminently level-headed, although very fond (so Mrs. Drayton said) of female society. And it must be admitted that Thomas had more than once caused his Milly a slight pang by such fondness. But at least he was never conscious that he had done so--and Milly never told him. (But Mrs. Drayton said that that was something she could not forgive in a married gentleman. "My dear husband," said Mrs. Drayton, "has never wandered from me, even in imagination.") Added to conjugal incongruity was this indifference on the part of Thomas and his wife to the training of the children. The three young Dilworths were allowed to grow up exactly as they pleased. It had worked well enough with Mary and Nancy, who were good girls, affectionate and sensible--so sensible that Nancy, when she was eighteen, had practically taken the housekeeping out of her mother's hands; and Mary, at sixteen, looked out for herself and her affairs most successfully. With Edwin the Dilworth system had not been so satisfactory. He was conceited (though that is only to be expected of the male creature at nineteen) and rather selfish; and he had an unlovely reserve, in which he was strikingly unlike his father, who overflowed with confidences. This, and other unlikeness, was, no doubt, the reason that there were constant small differences between them. And Mrs. Dilworth--vague, gentle soul!--was somehow unable to smooth the differences over as successfully as most mothers do.

Now, smoothing things over is practically a profession to mothers of families. But Milly Dilworth had never succeeded in it. In the first place, she had no gift of words; the more she felt, the more inexpressive she became; but, worst of all, she had, poor woman, not the slightest sense of humor. Now, in dealing with husbands and children (especially with husbands), though you have the tongues of men--which are thought to be more restrained than those of women--and though you have the gift of prophecy (a common gift of wives) and understand all mysteries--say, of housekeeping--and though you give your body to be used up and worn out for their sakes, yet all these things profit you nothing if you have no sense of humor. And Milly Dilworth had none.

That was why she could not understand.

She loved, in her tender, undemonstrative way, her shy, unpractical, secretive Edwin and her two capable girls; she loved, with the single, silent passion of her soul, her generous, selfish, light-hearted Tom, who took her wordless worship as unconsciously and simply as he took the air he breathed; she loved them all. But she did not pretend to understand them. Thus she stood always a little aside, watching and loving, and wondering sometimes in her simple way; but often suffering, as people with no sense of humor are apt to suffer. Dear, dull, gentle Milly! No one could remember a harsh word of hers, or mean deed, or a little judgment. No wonder Dr. Lavendar felt confident that there would be no thistles in her household.

Thomas Dilworth had the same comfortable conviction, especially in regard to his girls. "Now, Milly, honestly," he used to say, "apart from the fact that they are ours, don't you really think they are the nicest girls in Old Chester?"

Milly would admit, in her brief way, that they were good children.

"And Edwin means all right," the father would assure himself; and then add that he couldn't understand their boy--"at least, I suppose he's ours? Willy King says so. I have thought perhaps he was a changeling, put into the cradle the first day."

"But, Tom," Milly would protest, anxiously, "Neddy couldn't be a changeling. He was never out of my sight for the first week--not even to be taken out of the room to be shown to people. Besides, he has your chin and my eyes."

"Well, if you really think so?" Thomas would demur. And Mrs. Dilworth always said, earnestly, that she was sure of it.

Still, in spite of eyes and chin, Ned's unpracticalness was an anxiety to his father, and his uncommunicativeness a constant irritation. Thomas himself was ready to share anything he possessed, money or opinions or hopes, with any friend, almost with any acquaintance. "I don't want to know anybody's business," he used to say; "I'm not inquisitive, Milly; you know I'm not. But I hate hiding things! Why shouldn't he say where he's going when he goes out in the evening? Sneaking off, as if he were ashamed."

"He just doesn't think of it," the mother would say, trying to smooth it over.

"Well, he ought to think of it," the father would grumble, eager to be smoothed.

But Milly found it harder to reconcile her husband to their boy's indifference to business than to his reserves.

"He sees fit to look down on the hardware trade," Tom told his wife, angrily. "'Well, sir,' I said to him the other day, 'it's given you your bread-and-butter for nineteen years; yes--and your fiddle, too, and your everlasting music lessons.' And I'll tell you what, Milly, a man who looks down on his business will find his business looking down on him. And it's a good business--it's a darned good business. If Ned doesn't have the sense to see it, he had better go and play his fiddle and hold out his hat for pennies."

Milly looked anxiously sympathetic.

"I don't know what is going to become of him," Thomas went on. "When you come to provide for three out of the hardware business, nobody gets very much."

Mrs. Dilworth was silent.

"I was talking about him to Dr. Lavendar yesterday, and he said: 'Oh, he'll fall in love one of these days, and he'll see that fiddling won't buy his wife her shoe-strings; then he'll take to the hardware business,' Dr. Lavendar said. It's all very well to talk about his falling in love and taking to business; but if he falls in love, I'll have another mouth to fill. And maybe more," he added, grimly.

"Not for a year, anyway," his wife said, hopefully. "And, besides, I don't think Neddy's thinking of such a thing."

"I hope not, at his age."

"You were engaged when you were nineteen."

"My dear, I wasn't Ned."

Mrs. Dilworth was silent.

"The Packards telegraphed to-day that they wouldn't take that reaper," Tom Dilworth said.

Milly seemed to search for words of sympathy, but before she found them Tom began to talk of something else; he never waited for his wife's replies, or, indeed, expected them. He was so constituted that he had to have a listener; and during all their married life she had listened. When she replied, she was a sounding-board, echoing back his own opinions; when she was silent, he took her silence to mean agreement. Tom used to say that his Milly wasn't one of the smart kind; he didn't like smartness in a woman, anyway; but she had darned good sense;--for, like the rest of us, Thomas Dilworth had a deep belief in the intelligence of the people who agreed with him....

"I have a great mind," he rambled on, "to go up to the Hayeses'. You know that note is due on the 15th, and I believe I'll have to ask him to extend it. I hate to do it, but Packard has upset my calculations, and I'll have to get an extension, or else sell something out; and just now I don't like to do that."

"Very well," she said. It was her birthday--the one day in the year that her Thomas remembered that he had been in love with her for so many years, months, days, hours, minutes--a fact she never for one day in the year forgot. But she could no more have reminded him of the day than she could have flown. She was constitutionally inexpressive.

Tom began to whistle:

but broke off to say, "Well, since you advise it, I'll see Hayes"; then he gave her a kiss, and immediately forgot her--as completely as he had forgotten his supper or any other comfortable and absolutely necessary thing. Then he lighted his cigar and started for the Hayeses'.

II

"And who do you suppose I found there?" he said, when he got home, well on towards eleven o'clock, an hour so dissipated for Old Chester that Milly was broad awake in silent anxiety. "Why, Ned, if you please! He was talking to Hayes's daughter Helen. She seems a mighty nice girl, Milly. I packed young Edwin off at nine; he was boring Miss Helen to death. Boys have no sense about such things. Can't you give him a hint that women of twenty-five don't care for little boys' talk? By-the-way, she talks mighty well herself. After I settled my business with Hayes, we got to discussing the President's letter; she had just read it."

"Do you mean to say _that the President has written to Helen Hayes_?" cried Mrs. Dilworth, sitting up in bed in her astonishment.

Thomas roared, and began to pull his boots. "Why, they are regular correspondents! Didn't you know it?"

"No! I hadn't the slightest idea--Tom, you're joking?"

"My dear, you can't think I am capable of joking? But, Milly, look here, I'll tell you one thing: she was mighty sensible about Ned. She thinks there's a good deal to him--"

"I don't need Helen Hayes to tell me that," said Ned's mother.

Tom, who never paused for his wife's reply, was whistling joyfully:

Helen Hayes had been very comforting to him; he had protested, when Ned reluctantly departed, that a boy never knew when to clear out; and Miss Helen had pouted, and said Ned shouldn't be scolded; "I wouldn't let him 'clear out'--so there!" Few women of thirty-two can be cunning successfully, but Tom thought Miss Helen very cunning. "I just perfectly love to hear him talk about his music," she said.

"He can't talk about anything else," Ned's father said. "That's the trouble with him."

"The trouble with him? Why, that's the beauty of him," said Miss Hayes, with enthusiasm; and Thomas said to himself that she was a mighty good-looking girl. The rose-colored lamp-shade cast a soft light on a face that was not quite so young as was the frock she wore--rose-colored also, with much yellowish lace down the front. It was very unlike Milly's dresses--dark, good woollens, made rather tight, for Milly, short and stout and forty-three, aspired (for her Thomas's sake) to a figure,--which is always a pity at forty-three. Furthermore, Helen Hayes's hands, very white and heavy with shining rings, lay in lovely idleness in her lap; and that is so much more restful in a woman's hands than to be fussing with sewing "or everlasting darning," Thomas thought. In fact, what with her lovely idleness and her praise of his boy, Tom Dilworth thought he had rarely seen so pleasing a young woman. "Though she's not so very young, after all; she must be twenty-five," he told his wife.

"She'll never see thirty again."

"Well, she's a mighty nice girl," Thomas said.

Except to look pretty, Miss Helen Hayes had done nothing to produce this impression, for she had contradicted Mr. Dilworth up and down about Ned.

"He has genius, you know."

"You mean his fiddle?" Tom said, incredulously.

"I mean his music. We'll hear of him one of these days."

"I don't care much whether we ever hear from his music," he said, "but I wish I could hear that he was applying himself to business."

"Business!" cried Helen Hayes. "What is business compared to Art?"

Thomas looked over at Mr. Hayes in astonishment, for in those days, in Old Chester, this particular sort of talk had not been heard; the older man sneered and changed his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. Miss Hayes did not get much sympathy from her family. But she went on with pretty dogmatism:

"You see, in a man like your son--"

"A man! He's only twenty, my dear young lady."

"In a _man_, sir! like your son--genius is the thing to consider; and you owe it to the world to let genius have its fullest play. Don't bring Pegasus down to plough Old Chester cornfields. Why, it seems to me," said Helen Hayes, "that he ought to be allowed to just soar. We common folk ought to do the ploughing."

"Thunder an' guns!" said Tom Dilworth.

"I don't care if he can't be sure that two and two make four," cried Miss Helen (Thomas, bubbling into aggrieved confidence on this sore subject, had alleged this against his son); "he can put four notes together that open the gates of heaven. And he'll distinguish himself in music, because his father's son is bound to have tremendous perseverance and energy."

Old Mr. Hayes snorted and spat into the fire; but Miss Helen's look when she said "his father's son" made Mr. Thomas Dilworth simper.

"That girl has sense," he said to himself as he walked home at a quarter to eleven. But he only told Mrs. Dilworth that she had better hint to Ned to be a little more backward in coming forward. "That Hayes girl is nice to him on our account," said Tom, "but he needn't bore her to death. Milly, why don't you have one of those pink wrappers? She had one on to-night. Loose, you know, and trimmed down the front."

"A wrapper isn't very suitable for company," Mrs. Dilworth said, briefly. "It didn't matter with you, because you're an old married man; but she oughtn't to go round in wrappers when Neddy's there."

"Why, it was a sort of party dress--all lace and stuff. I wish you had one like it. As for Ned, he's a babe; and her wrapper thing was perfectly proper, of course. Can't you ask her for the pattern?"

And then Thomas went to sleep and dreamed of a large order for galvanized buckets; but his Milly lay awake a long time, wondering how she could get a pink dress; pleased, in her silent way, that Tom should be thinking about her clothes; but with a slow resentment gathering in her heart that Helen Hayes's clothes should have suggested his thought.

"And pink isn't my color," she thought, a vision of her own mild, red face rising in her mind. Still, a fresh pink lawn--"that's always pretty," Milly Dilworth said to herself, earnestly.

III

Tom Dilworth's boy was a curious _sport_ from the family stock. He did, indeed, look down on the hardware business, but not much more than on any business, although galvanized utensils were perhaps a little more hideous than most things. Business in itself did not interest him. Money-making was sordid folly, he said; because, "What do you want money for? Isn't it to buy food and clothes and shelter? Well, you can't eat more food than enough; you can only wear one suit of clothes at a time; and an eight-foot cell is all the shelter that is necessary."

"Eight-foot--_grandmother!_" his father would retort; "you'll inventory that lot of spades, young man, and dry up."

And Ned, with shrinking hands and ears that shuddered at the hideous screech of scraping shovels, would make out his inventory with loathing. His mother was not impatient or contemptuous with him--she could not have been that to any one; she simply could not understand what he meant when he spouted upon the folly of wealth (for, like most shy people, he occasionally burst into orations upon his theories), or when he set off some fireworks of scepticism borrowed from Mr. Ezra Barkley, or undertook (when Thomas was not present) to prove his father's politics entirely wrong. On such occasions Nancy would say, "Oh, Ned, _do_ be quiet!" and Mary would yawn openly. As for his music, nobody cared about it, except, perhaps, his mother. "But I must say, Neddy, I like a tune," she would say, mildly, after Edwin had tucked his violin under his chin and poured out all his young soul in what was a true and simple passion.

"A tune!" poor Ned said, and groaned. "Mother, I wish you wouldn't call me that ridiculous name."

"I'll try not to, Neddy, dear," she would promise, anxiously; and Ned would groan again.

With such a family circle, one can fancy what it was to the lad when quite by accident he found a friend. It was the summer that he was twenty, that once, coming back in the stage with him from Mercer, Miss Helen Hayes showed a keen interest in something he said; then she asked a question or two; and when, hesitating, waiting for the laugh which did not come, he began to talk, she listened. Oh, the joy of finding a listener! She looked at him, as they sat on the slippery leather seat of the old stage, with soft, intelligent eyes, her slightly faded prettiness giving a touch of charm to the high and flattering gravity of her manner. When she asked him to bring his violin sometime and play to her, the boy could almost have wept with joy. He made haste to work off several of his dearest and most shocking phrases, which she took with deep seriousness: A whale's throat is not large enough to swallow a man--therefore the Biblical account is false, etc., etc. "In fact," said Ned, "if I could have a half-hour's straight conversation with Dr. Lavendar, I could prove to him the falsity of most of the Old Testament."

Helen Hayes was shocked; she regretted Mr. Dilworth's scepticism with almost tearful warmth; yet she realized that a powerful mind must search for truth, above all. She wished, however, that he would read such and such a book. "I can't argue with you myself," she said--"you are far too clever for my poor little reasoning powers."

It was in April that Edwin entered into this experience of feminine sympathy; and by mid-summer, at the time when Mr. Thomas Dilworth also found Miss Helen Hayes so remarkably intelligent, the boy was absorbed in his new emotion of friendship. He never spoke of it at home, hence his father's astonishment at finding him at the Hayeses'. And when, a week later, he found him a second time, Tom Dilworth was much perplexed.

"I dropped in on my way back from the store," he told his wife, "and there was that boy. I said to Miss Helen that she really must not let him bother her. I told her he was a blatherskite, and she must just tell him to dry up if he talked too much."

"Tom, I don't think you ought to talk that way about Neddy," Mrs. Dilworth said. "He's a dear boy."

"He may be a dear boy, but he is a great donkey," Ned's father said, dryly; "and I think it is very good in Helen Hayes to put up with him. I can see she does it on my account. Milly, why don't you ask her to come to supper, sometime? I like to talk to her; she's got brains, that girl. And she's good-looking, too. Ask her to tea, and have waffles and fried chicken, and some of that fluffy pink stuff the children are so fond of, for dessert."

"She's not much of a child," said Mrs. Dilworth, her face growing slowly red. "She's thirty-two if she's a day."

"My dear, she has aged rapidly; you said thirty a month ago. I like the pink stuff myself, and I'm nearly fifty. I bet the Hayeses don't have anything better at their house."