Part 11

The German girl’s name was Gertie, and her American assistant, apparently without good and sufficient reason, was called Sapphira. The latter slipped into her costume with comparative ease, but poor Gertie was innocent of corsets, and the apron bands and strings vanished entirely at the waist line, causing the staying of the apron in position to appear a feat of legerdemain.

This would not do, so Marjory rummaged out a pair of old stays of her own, into which she coaxed the abundant but soft flesh of Gertie, who looked on in dumb astonishment, only saying at the end, “Ver ist, where has gone me?”

“Inside, I suppose,” answered Marjory, laughing; “for I’m sure none of it has come off.”

On seeing the preparations for artificial light, Sapphira asked confidingly: “Say, Ma’am, you must freckle awful easy. I wouldn’t have thought it here indoors, though; Ma does, something awful, so I’ve knit her wash cotton gloves to wear when she hangs out the clothes.”

When the two girls seemed to understand their duties, Marjory wisely desisted, and left her instructions to sink in, her parting word being that neither one was to speak unless she addressed her. Marjory had thought of borrowing the Lathams’ motor to go to the train; she could not force herself to that length, however, and compromised by sending Peter with the buggy instead of going herself, while she put on one of her trousseau gowns of mull and lace instead of the youthful duck skirt and linen blouse of every day, which, though it added several inches to her height, added ten years to her age.

When Mrs. Coates stepped from the buggy and came up the three steps, Marjory’s feelings were mingled of relief and disappointment, for the lady wore a plain skirt and coat of tan linen, and a very simple hat of brown straw; so that the poor little hostess, in her trailing skirts and high-wired collar, felt overdressed to the verge of rudeness.

The greetings being over, Mrs. Coates pleaded the heat of the cars and the warning of a headache as an excuse for staying under the shade rather than driving, and so they went to the side piazza, and began a conversation that was made up largely of words wherein quantity took the place of vital interest.

Mrs. Coates’s almost affectionate manner in greeting Marjory was gradually losing its spontaneity; her husband had said, when she proposed going to visit the Kents: “I want your judgment, my dear; I’m thinking of taking Kent into the firm. As a man he’s all right, and he’s full of praise for his wife and her inexpensive tastes; but I want _you_ to judge his wife before making the partnership proposition, for the woman is usually the pacemaker of the pair, and if she’s the sort to try and splutter all over the surface of society with a flash like fat that’s jumped out of a frying-pan, it will not be good for either Kent or my business.”

So Mrs. Coates was observing, and she in her turn was beginning to be disappointed, for nothing could be more unlike her real self than Marjory was that morning.

“Luncheon is served,” called rather than announced Sapphira, with the air of a theatrical novice who has heretofore merely brought in a card on a tray and is given her first lines, which are, “The Prince has arrived,” and the break gave both women a feeling of relief.

Mrs. Coates turned and looked expectantly about the veranda, for Billy had dwelt so much about the charm of their meals out-of-doors; but as Marjory led the way into the shadowy dining room, where the two maids stood motionless, she blinked once or twice, until she had taken in all the surroundings, and then seated herself with a feeling somehow of having been the victim of a hoax.

The table and room were both correct and charming, but so much like the hundreds of others at which she had sat in houses both public and private for many years, that she could almost tell with her eyes closed the rotation of the dishes of the menu, from the little-neck clams to the green mint frappé. She had dared to think that there was a young woman who had stepped out of the flock of sheep, not only because they ran too fast, but because she preferred not to flock. Well, it was merely another shattered delusion; also knowing the Kents’ income to a penny, she frowned on _two_ waiting-maids.

The luncheon progressed, likewise Mrs. Coates’s headache; she had long ago acquired the necessary trick of using her fork so as to appear to eat; but in reality she only took some salad, and secretly longed for iced tea in place of the claret, while the conversation fast relapsed into the discussion of the trivial events of the past winter, largely composed of the names of people familiar to Mrs. Coates and only slightly known to Marjory.

As the ice cream was in order, there came a sudden halt, while a noise blent of choking and pounding came from the pantry. Finally, Sapphira came in alone, bearing the cream dish upon the tray at a very tipsy angle.

“Where is Gertie?” Marjory asked imprudently.

Setting the dish before the wrong person instead of passing it, Sapphira, with arms akimbo, whispered with a hoarse fervour that gave the words megaphone power:—

“She sampled one of them stuffed peppers on the sly, and near swallowed it whole, but it wouldn’t go all down, and on account of those corsets of yours being so tight, she can’t retch it up neither, though I’ve slapped her back, and June’s going to cut the strings if you don’t mind, ’cause they’re all knotted.”

Horror surged over Marjory, the meanness and responsibility of deceit almost overwhelming her; she dared not catch Mrs. Coates’s eye, yet a sudden movement on that lady’s part made her look up, and she saw that her guest was deadly pale.

“Might we have a little more air?” Mrs. Coates asked quietly.

“Open all the blinds to the east,” said Marjory.

Sapphira did as she was told, but in her turn became transfixed at something she saw a field-length away. Suddenly she began to clasp her hands and sway to and fro, crying, “Oh, ma’am! Oh, Mrs. Kent, little Jimmy’s fell in the rain barrel, and I must go fish him out right off and spoil your party.”

Then, turning, she whisked off her apron, threw it on a chair, clutched at her cap, which had five wire hairpins to moor it, and crying, “I’ll fetch it back when I’ve dried Jimmy and get it free,” she clattered down the front steps and away.

Some women would have made a remark about the depravity of servants in general, or said the girl had gone mad; others would have shed tears; Marjory glanced at Mrs. Coates, and detecting a slight twitch at the corners of her lips, burst into a peal of laughter, not hysterical giggling, but genuine, unfeigned merriment, and at the outburst she was herself once more.

Then in a few words Marjory confessed, ending with, “I’m sure I never should have done such a thing if Billy had been at home and June had not accused me of not treating you with dignification; but ah, how disgusted with me Billy will be.”

“Is it absolutely necessary to tell him?” said the elder woman. “Yes, I see by your face that for you it is, at least sometime.”

“You are ill; please come up and lie down and let me bring you a cup of tea,” said Marjory, a few minutes later, as she noticed the shadows under Mrs. Coates’s eyes, “and I’ll shut up this tell-tale room and put it in order to-morrow.”

“I’m afraid if I do that I shall miss my train, for if I once give in, these headaches always last until sunset.”

“Then please miss your train, and stay all night. Please let me telephone home for you,” said Marjory, with a ring of sincerity in her voice; “my little spare room isn’t a sham, and I can smooth headachy foreheads beautifully, mummy used to say. If your head is better at sunset, you can come to ‘just as we are’ tea on the porch, and Billy will be home by then.” Then Marjory’s voice dropped to a sort of purr in unconscious hypnotism. “A cool, thin wrapper—a cup of tea—and cologne on your head? Yes? You will?”

Soon Mrs. Coates found herself relaxing under Marjory’s soft touch, being gently undressed, and discomfort vanishing, while cool hands unloosed her hair that had never been smoothed by a daughter, or touched by unpaid help since she was a child.

* * * * *

“Oh, Billy, she came, she has a headache, she’s actually asleep up in the spare room, and she’s going to stay all night; aren’t you pleased?” was Marjory’s greeting, as she clung to his neck, and swiftly passed her hands over his face as though she could not trust the evidence of her eyes alone that he was all there.

“But, Billy, if I ever have quality company again, don’t go away. It’s—I’m so silly, I mean nervous, you know.” Then she felt a desire for time; and inwardly prayed that no ill chance should lead him into that dining room just yet.

“Pleased? I should say I am, but it’s no more than I expected;” and in this he was perfectly in earnest.

Then Marjory ran off, dragging him after her, for fresh sweet peas and bluets to decorate the little white wood supper-table on the porch, where in due time the wife of the Head of the Firm joined them, refreshed, and her headache gone, while she delighted June by the justice she did to her iced coffee and fried chicken, “Maryland style,” as the bills of fare word it.

Marjory chancing to step indoors to light the lamp, Billy drew his chair confidentially toward the lady of quality, for Billy was one of the rare men who could always be confidential without giving offence.

“Don’t you see I didn’t exaggerate, Mrs. Coates, when I said that Marjory and this sort of simple living were made for each other?”

“No, you didn’t exaggerate,” she replied, a little reminiscent smile fluttering about her mouth. “You really underrated your wife, for you did not tell me that she has a delicious sense of humour, a very good quality for the wife of a lawyer who is about to become the junior member of a prominent firm, and a quality of saving grace to be copied by the lawyer himself.”

“Mrs. Coates, honestly, do you mean?—oh, there, I’m too cheeky to think it; come out, Marjory Daw, and listen to this;” and Billy rushed to open the screen door and fairly pulled his wife back to her chair, upon the arm of which he perched.

“Would you like I should wash up all that load of dishes, Mis’is Kent? I thought, as I lit out so sudden, I’d come back and offer,” said a voice from the darkness, and Sapphira stumbled up the steps.

“All what dishes, and who is this?” asked Billy.

“It’s part of a little joke that I’ve asked your wife to keep quite between ourselves for the present,” said the wife of the Head of the Firm, tucking Marjory’s hand into her arm; “and if the Junior Partner is willing to protect us, I feel quite like walking down to see Cousin Martin Cortright and Lavinia.”

VIII THE ADOPTION OF ALBERT AND VICTORIA

=AUGUST=—THE CORN MOON

It all happened in August, the limp and lazy month of the year abhorred by Martha Saunders, born Corkle. It surely requires a certain amount of natural philosophy, adaptability to fruit and salad lunches, and an aptitude for lounging in shady places and watching the grass grow, or gazing through the trees skyward from the depth of a hammock, to make August even a mildly pleasurable month. Night is August’s strong point; her full moon sheds a placid coppery light, making the glistening green of the cornfields, heavy in ear, look wet and cool; but in the daytime, the Harvest Fly proclaims the heat insistently, mould born of heavy dew invades the pantry, and the milk is curdled by the shock of frequent thunder.

All the defects of the month sink into her soul, but for none of the assuasions does English-born Martha care. She would not effect even a temporary compromise with her sturdy red-meat diet; she considers lounging of any kind a sin, and the very sight of a hammock calls up most unpleasant memories.

The year that she married Timothy and left our house for the cottage at the poultry farm on the hill above, I gave her one of these offending articles to hang in the shade of some apple trees overlooking the coops, thinking it would be a point of vantage for her. But no, the thing was barely put in place and swaying in the breeze, when her substantial form came from the house and stood before us, arms folded, head erect, but eyes closed: “Mrs. Evan,” she said, moistening her lips conspicuously, “I thank you kindly for your wish, but if it please you, Timothy shall take _it_ down again, for those things are more than I can stand for. Oh, yes, I’ve tried one, and when I was in it, I was minded of the ship the morn after the third night out, which being a storm, the ’atches were down and the smells not working out, took a good clutch on the stummick, so that a fine cup of tea couldn’t find lodging there, the ship still heaving short all the time; and no disrespect intended, Mrs. Evan.”

As Martha came from a county in old England of peculiarly equable climate, she lacked her usual energy in the New England August, and a sort of mental prickly heat usually settled upon her, more trying than the bodily variety. In fact, the most strenuous part of the season’s labour was over: the early chicks were already broilers; the next group were firm on their feet, and the late ones not yet to be set; while the old hens spent all their time kicking up the dust and moulting with a thoroughness sometimes embarrassing to the beholder.

By this time also the jam and jelly gamut had been run through strawberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and the rest, leaving only peaches, the spicy beach plums, and quinces for the future, so that Martha’s capable hands were fairly empty, save for the bit of housework, and what was that with a husband as canty and well-drilled as Timothy? Thus it came about that, into what should have been Martha’s vacation time, unrest entered, and each year she managed to worry herself and prod Timothy into the pursuit of some new scheme which, fortunately, generally came to an end with the first cool day of autumn.

“The woman’s harvest spells” were what Timothy called this mild sort of summer madness, and in speaking of it to father, he once said: “Of coorse ye ken, Dochtor, that some weemen are mickle like their own settin’ hens: when busy season’s over, they’r nae content to scratch beetles in the bonny fresh grass in the pasture, and moult quiet like, but they must raise up dust and maak the feathers fly. Hecht! Dochtor, ye ken, ye ken, and naught said, I see it in yer eye!”

In one of these temporary summer periods, Martha had become a convert to Christian Science, but backslid before winter, because she continued to have the nosebleed, for which she had paid no small sum to be cured by absent treatment, and about the failure of this method she expressed her mind freely.

“Tush, tush, woman, and dinna fash yoursel,” said Timothy, with twinkling eyes. “Doubtless they meant ye weel, but their minds was na pooerful enoo to send the healin’ through sic braw oak trees as we hae hereaboot! Man has to stick up poles like birds’ twigs to catch this new no-wire telegraph, so mebbe had we a braw toor on the hoose to draw it down, yer nose might catch the benefit o’ their far-away healin’!”

Then Martha sniffed and eyed her spouse dubiously, for his Scotch birth should have made it impossible for him to joke, even though constant contact with father and Evan had inoculated him with the tendency.

The next August it was the Salvation Army that stirred Martha’s religious conscience, for she had two of these useful articles,—one that guided her actions as regards life in general, and another that was wholly devoted to the interests of her beloved Mr. Evan and his family.

She took this second conversion in a very matter-of-fact way, but insisted that Timothy should go with her to some round-up meetings over in Bridgeton. For a few weeks matters went well; Martha sewed violently all through the sweltering days on shirts for reformed convicts, until one evening a pretty lassie, young enough twice over to be his daughter, had innocently asked Timothy to take part in a street service, at the same time showing him how to pound and twirl a tambourine.

“I’ll not have my man made a monkey of, hussy! He’s as knowin’ as any of your officers, if his figure is a bit warped,” she proclaimed, and straightway left for home, declaring, as she crossed the threshold, “Them as can’t hold to and be content with the Established Church of England had better do without benefit of Gospel;” and Timothy, Dissenter as he was, had cautiously responded “Amen!”

But this particular and unforgettable August, a far more serious distemper had fallen upon Martha Corkle Saunders: the race suicide idea had not only penetrated her brain, but had therein incubated to such an extent that not only was Timothy’s peace of mind destroyed, but the unrest of the situation enveloped us as well.

All normal women are more or less fond of children; and Martha, being no exception to the rule, had alternately spoiled and ruled my Ian and Richard until they had escaped from her as full-fledged schoolboys, it being shortly after this time that the hysterical screed appeared.

Suddenly Martha fell into an attitude of melancholy self-reproach; she was childless; and so was Timothy, and she immediately saw, as mirrored in themselves, the extinction of the English race. In vain did I remind her that as her first husband, “not being durable,” as she expressed it, had lived but a short time, while she was well faced toward sixty when she married Timothy, no reproach could be attached either to her maternal instinct or to her race loyalty. My words fell unheeded. “Our Queen,”[1] she replied, “had nine all by one marriage; she would expect something of me,” and straightway fell to crying, a thing that Martha had never been known to do before under any stress, either of joy or grief.

“But what can you do?” I gasped; then an idea struck me; “it isn’t possible that you are thinking of adopting a child at your age?”

“That’s my very mind, Mrs. Evan, that is, leastways, _children_, young children, two at the very least, following out your own idea that an only child is quite unfortunate, and no disrespect intended.”

“But do you realize what it means?” I pursued relentlessly; “your whole life changed, broken rest, no more quiet meals for Timothy, sickness and teething, amusements to be supplied as well as schooling. When children are born to us we are always, at least, comparatively young, and everything seems natural and a matter of course; but you and dear old rheumatic, set-in-his-ways Tim! I think it would be cruel. The sun must be affecting your brain.”

“Cruel it may be, Mrs. Evan; duty is cruel, and so is death itself, but my mind is made up.”

“And, pray, how will adopting some one else’s children prevent race suicide in your particular case?”

“It won’t be my _family_, to be sure, Mrs. Evan, but they must be _English_ children, and no other; that is the race part of it. I’ve spoken to Dr. Russell, Mrs. Evan, to see what he can do about it, mayhap in Bridgeton or at the hospital.”

“What did Timothy say when you told him?” I ventured weakly, after the long pause had become awkward, Martha standing, as she was, erect yet respectful, the drops of sweat upon her forehead, above which the pink bow of her cap quivered, it seemed, with imparted nervousness.

“Timothy Saunders quoted Scripture, Mrs. Evan, as a right-minded man should in solemn moments; he says, humble like, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord!’ I’m not quite minded what he fits the words to, but the spirit o’ resignment is right and dutiful.” So saying, Martha dropped a melancholy courtesy and left me under cover of rescuing a very fat and apoplectic Plymouth Rock hen, who, having worked her way partly through a hole in the fence, was trying to back out against the grain of the feathers that securely anchored her.

“Poor Timothy!” I said to myself; “I wonder what you meant; is it your comfortable home, won so late in life, that you fear you are in danger of losing, or were your remarks merely spoken on general principles?”

That night I talked the matter over with father. Yes, Martha had spoken to him, and all he could do was to postpone the event as long as possible by failing to find suitable children. He had tried to compromise the matter by suggesting a pretty little orphan girl of ten, who came of good American people, but was homeless. No, this would not do. Two children of English parentage, if English birth was impossible, not necessarily babies, but young enough to have no recollections—this was what Martha demanded.

* * * * *

Early one morning, of the second week of August, Effie, Timothy’s niece, who had been our waitress for some years, came knocking at our bedroom door long before the usual hour, at the same time saying something that I did not understand. I answered that I was awake, thinking that she had merely mistaken the time; but the knocking and talking continued, and I went to the door with a feeling of apprehension lest father might be ill, or something have happened to the boys, who were spending a few days up at the Bradfords’.

There stood the usually reticent Effie, hands clasping and unclasping nervously with half-suppressed excitement, while her tongue flew so fast that I had to listen keenly to catch even an idea of her meaning.

“Nobody’s ill, ma’am, only there’s twins left up at Uncle Timothy’s, fine big ones, a boy and a girl, ma’am.”

“What?” I managed to say, going into the hall and closing the door behind me.

“It came about this way: Aunt Martha didn’t rest well last night, as I make out, and she went into the sitting-room and lay on the lounge. Just as it was coming light, she was minded to get up and turn off some work before the sun heated her head, as it’s been doing lately, but somehow she dozed off again. Then wagon wheels going up the Bluffs road stirred her, and she says to herself, ‘Those lazy Polack milk pedlers above are late this morning,’ three o’clock being their time of starting for Bridgeton.

“Howsomever, the next minute she thought she heard a step on the porch, and then, raising the blind, she saw a man hurry out of the yard.

“Going back to the bedroom to call Uncle Timothy, she heard and saw that which made her stand still and let out a yell that uncle said nigh stopped his heart, for on the floor right under the open window was two babies sprawlin’ about as if just waked, and when they set their eyes on her, they began to cry both together (which was small wonder, ma’am, seeing the figger aunty is in her nightcap), until she fell back quite weak in her chair.

“Uncle Timothy shook on some clothes, and came over for me to stay with aunty while he hitched up.

“‘Where are you going?’ says I, thinking the doctor had an early call out.

“‘To take the brats down to the constable on their road to the Orphan House at Bridgeton,’ he growled, ‘Timothy Saunders’ hoose being no dump for gypsy strays.’

“But when I gets over to aunty’s, she’d picked herself together, and the two babies were sitting up among the pillows, crumbing crackers into the bed, she chirping to ’em, looking at ’em as if she couldn’t unglue her eyes from theirs.”

“Sitting up! How old are these babies, pray?” I asked.

“Oh, a matter of a year or more, I’m thinking, ma’am, reading by the teeth and the way they can pull to their feet,” said Effie, catching her breath in the short interval.

“Then aunty turns to me and fairly wizzles my stummick with her next words. ‘Look, Effie,’ says she, ‘see the doings of the Lord, a boy and a girl, and English-born, no doubt, if but from the red of their cheeks and their noses, shaped strong and high like our blessed Queen’s, and no disrespect intended.