Part 15

Emily knew Bob felt brutally slighted. If there was one subject on which he might expect a daughter to ask his advice, surely it was on the purchase of a car. Emily felt that, but Bob never uttered one word of complaint. It was unexpected nobleness of him. She knew why: he had been worried by her dejection and loneliness. If having that girl at home made Emily gay again, he was determined not to antagonize her.

So peace reigned over the asparagus at the supper table. Emily got the candles out, because Martha loved them. And when the fragrant dusk deepened, it was Martha who rose to light them, as usual.

"Don't they make just a sweet light here?" she asked Miss Curtis. She sat looking at them flickering; she watched the shadows of them, and the way they lit up the apple-blossom bouquet she had brought in.

She studied the room wistfully. "I'd forgotten the dining room was so large," she remarked. She seemed reluctant to leave the candle-light when supper was over. So the three women sat on; Martha sat with her elbows on the table, dreaming towards the little flames, as she had always done, but taking her part in the conversation thoughtfully. Her one thought seemed to be for Miss Curtis's enjoyment.

Miss Curtis was interested in Mrs. Benton, and Martha rehearsed the history of the swimming park, with now and then a twinkling comment, not spontaneous, a remark calculated to entertain her guest, who questioned her. Emily occasionally took her eyes from Martha's face long enough to glance at Miss Curtis. Even dusk and twilight failed to make her interesting. She looked now only like complete fag. But Martha was mysterious, tantalizing to maternal interest. She was thin, still. She was hushed; but she was steady. She was safe. Miss Curtis wasn't sitting apprehensively waiting for outbursts of bitterness.

Martha had planned to drive Miss Curtis and her mother on Saturday some distance down the river, and have a picnic. The day was fine enough, but Miss Curtis found herself extremely tired from her ride of the day before; besides, as she said, the garden itself was a picnic for her; she would be content to stay there for months. Martha had come downstairs that morning dressed for the day, as soon as Bob had left the house, and had proceeded to the kitchen, where she had got a tray daintily ready for her guest; and she had carried it up to her as if she had always been in the habit of preparing early breakfast for people. Then she had carried an easy chair and cushions and rugs out almost to the river; and in the sun she had prepared a sleeping-place for their morning, where they could all three watch the orioles in the apple trees, and Martha could lie about on the grass, now and then exerting herself to dig up a dandelion. In the afternoon Miss Curtis, with a book, slept there, while Martha, putting in the later "glads" with her mother, watched the untidy head nodding towards rest with obvious satisfaction. When she woke, after a few minutes, she recalled her duty.

"Really, I ought to 'phone Mrs. Bissel that I'm here," she told Martha.

But Martha said: "We should worry. You can call her up--next week--or the next time we're down."

Emily heard that with satisfaction. She had known all the day that Martha avoided even the front garden, where the neighbors would the more surely learn of her return. It was lucky, the way everyone happened to be too busy to "run in" that Saturday or Sunday.

When the unworthy red car drove away on Sunday afternoon, both its passengers declared it had been a most successful week-end. Emily understood why Martha could say that truthfully. She had wanted Miss Curtis to enjoy it, and Miss Curtis had enjoyed it, and that was enough justification for it. It had been, in a way, a triumph for the house. Martha had said she never wanted to see it again as long as she lived, and she had seen it, not unhappily. She had even acknowledged its dearness, she had stayed in the house with her father, and she must have seen that when they both tried to, they could get along without disagreement. She had promised, moreover, chuckling over her success, to bring Miss Curtis back just as soon as possible. Miss Curtis had asked her to, cunningly. For Emily had taken Miss Curtis aside, and begged her, some way, to get Martha out again soon for a week-end. Martha needed the change so much, Emily had pleaded. Miss Curtis had agreed to that.

"And she won't leave that work of hers for a day, as you know, unless she thinks she's doing you a great favor," Emily had insisted.

Miss Curtis was eager to do Mrs. Kenworthy whatever favor she could.

"Only get Martha to bring you down; bring her home some way!" Emily had pleaded, not adding, "That's more than I can do!"

So for four week-ends the unequal pair arrived. Martha brought all sorts of treats out for her guest, thick steaks and expensive chocolates. "I'm not going to have you doing it all, mammie!" she had answered to Emily's protests. She was always in the kitchen now, helping Maggie. Emily understood that the kitchen was the part of the house least tainted by memories. She was still rising to take breakfast up to Miss Curtis. Emily scarcely ever got her to stay late in bed, although she was herself distressingly thin and yellow.

From Sunday till Friday Emily spent every free moment thinking over all that her daughter had said, all the expressions of her face; all the gestures of her significant little hands. It had been impossible, of course, for Martha to avoid her old friends altogether. She received them patiently, gravely. "That poor old thing's got to have these days in the country," her manner seemed to her mother to say, "so I just have to put up with these silly, giggling girls for her sake." She felt separated from them by a great distance; she got on better with people of Miss Curtis's age, even with Mrs. Benton. That neighbor was showing Martha unusual attention. Emily couldn't help wondering if Mrs. Benton was coming to wish Martha would marry her boy. Why should she have made a point of showing Martha's guest such kindness? She had a little lunch in her honor. Emily marveled to see how Martha seemed to belong to that tableful of women in their forties. Mrs. Benton wanted Miss Curtis to come out for the annual opening of the beach. She suggested that Martha take a class of little girls who wanted to learn dancing during the summer.

At that suggestion Martha announced flatly that she wasn't going to be home for the summer. She had decided to go on studying during the summer quarter. "I lost such a lot of time last winter, when I wasn't well, that I've got to make it up," she announced, seriously, looking straight and frankly at Mrs. Benton.

This zeal for education led Cora Benton to say later to Emily, "You ought to be thankful Martha wants to study all summer." And she gave such a sigh that Emily said, quietly:

"What's the news from Johnnie? When's he to be home?"

"He's flunked. He isn't going to get his degree. He's not coming home!"

"Oh, Cora, that's too bad!"

"Oh, I was prepared for it. Charles Fenton got a traveling scholarship. I wish you'd spread the news, Emily. I don't enjoy announcing it, especially."

"Oh, well, Cora."

"I knew you'd say that."

"What else can I say?" retorted Emily.

"I know it. There isn't anything to be said; but people will find enough to talk about, you know that."

"Has he got a job?"

"Yes; that is--a sort of a job." Her voice forbade even friendly inquiry.

Martha said, when Emily told her of it, "I bet he's gone into the movies."

Emily was annoyed by her cynical comment.

"Why should you think Johnnie's gone into the movies!"

"Well, it would be just like him; and he's got such lovely ears. People who can move their ears the way he can never have nice ones, really. Or else he's playing baseball, or rubbing them down, or something."

Later Emily ventured timidly to protest against Martha's plan for the summer. Although in Miss Curtis's quieting presence Martha never railed, still, when she was with her mother alone, there came forth at times spurtings of molten resentment and red-hot bitterness against the nature of things in general, and her nature in particular, so that Emily was never sure what the effect of her words might be. On this occasion Martha turned upon her quickly, in a manner which cried, "Get thee behind me, Satan!"

"I suppose you want me to give up my novel altogether! It's not so easy as I thought. I've started to do it all over. I didn't even know what form was, when I began. It's all out of proportion! And you want me just to loaf. If I don't tell the truth about things, who's going to, I'd like to know? Do you think I'm going to let all these idiots that call themselves realists just go on spoofing girls, and never say a word to them? I'm going to have it all done by Christmas, and send it to some publisher."

One day the second week of July she called Emily up from Chicago by 'phone. Could she bring Miss Curtis and a little niece down for a week or two? Could she, indeed! When Emily told Bob about that 'phone message, he looked at her. She thought it pitiful that he should say with exaggerated eagerness:

"Good! That's fine, Emily."

Emily thought at first sight that Saturday morning, that the child was quite as commonplace as her aunt. She was inclined to be fat; she was shy; she had a featureless little soft face, and blue eyes, and brown bobbed hair and a husky voice; but by noon Emily loved her. Her disposition evoked admiration. She had a way of going suddenly to her aunt and kissing her heartily, that was very spontaneous and endearing. Without warning, as they all sat at the dinner table, she rose from her place and went and threw her fat arms about Miss Curtis's neck and gave her a resounding kiss, as though it was the only thing to do, and then quietly went back to her chair. Bob was amused by her lack of self-consciousness; and, during dessert, he acquired quite suddenly an admiration that was all but awe for Miss Curtis.

She had happened to say that she had never, as a matter of fact, been so well at the end of a school year.

"But of course I was never so well taken care of in my life." She was speaking towards Emily. "Never in my life, before, Mrs. Kenworthy, have I happened to--be living--so that anybody brought my breakfast to me in bed. That's never happened to me before." It wasn't a complaint; it was merely a fact, stated impersonally.

Emily knew perfectly what she meant, but she had to ask the question to enlighten Bob.

"Your colored girl comes early, then, now?" she asked.

"Not the colored girl; this little white girl," she said, indicating Martha affectionately. "This girl simply bosses me about I don't dare to get up and get my breakfast, in my own house."

Martha said: "Oh, that's nothing. Mother always did that for me."

Emily saw that Bob was on the point of crying, "My God!" She blessed him for refraining.

But afterwards he said to her: "Well, you wouldn't think it, to look at her, but there's something in that woman, Emily; she's a great woman! I didn't suppose anybody in the world could get that girl up in the morning. Don't you think the kid's sort of different?"

"Improved, you mean?"

"Well, yes, I guess so."

"She's found somebody who needs her help. She always was a tender-hearted child, and she's sorry for Miss Curtis. She just about runs her flat for her."

"Well, I hope she'll stick around awhile. She'll do the kid good."

Emily was on the point of retorting, "She does you good yourself!" for Bob's somewhat tentative forebearance was in part due to the stranger's presence. When there had been young girls at the table, Bob could "roast" Martha and them all together in one breath. And Martha, who had established herself as a protector and commander of a woman like Miss Curtis, couldn't act like a baby before her when she was with her father. Emily was beginning to see that Miss Curtis, pretending to be so docile, managed Martha by means of the slightest little hints of ridicule. By one smile she could take all the wind out of Martha's naughty sails.

Emily was moved by the grave and tender manner in which Martha took charge of the child, to relieve the aunt. She had told her on the way down that there was in her mother's house a rainbow room prepared for little girls, so that the child went into it eagerly, and accepted it as gravely as Martha gave it to her. Its builder and maker opened all its drawers and cupboards, displayed the electric stove and the fudge-making dishes.

Miss Curtis was on the point of expressing surprise that she hadn't seen the room before.

"Oh, we keep it locked; we never show it to anybody. It's too awful. Mother let me have it done over to suit myself, and I can't endure the sight of it!"

"Well, I don't know; I think it's--rather--a nice room--after you've looked at it a little."

Emily was there. She felt Martha was annoyed for the moment by her presence.

She said, "It's a lovely room; it grows on you."

"If I was you I'd have it papered, mammie. Make it into a good guest room."

"I will not!" said Emily, emphatically. Did Martha suppose she would just agree to the idea that there should be no daughter's room any longer in the house?

"I'm afraid Ruth might spoil something, Martha. You don't mean to let her turn your stove on. Ruth, don't do that!"

"She can't hurt anything. The first day it rains I'll show her how to make candy up here, or maybe we'll cook a little supper up here and invite your aunt and my mammie." And Martha smiled gravely at the happy child. "Nice days like this it's better to play out in the yard. I'm going to show you how to make a beautiful kind of a playhouse out there."

They were running in and out of the house, collecting their house-building material. They were up in the tree. Emily could have imagined that Jim Kenworthy was playing there in the garden with his little niece. For, after a little, four pieces of rope came dangling down from certain limbs of that tree. Presently they were weighted down taut by four bricks tied to them, just missing the grass. These ropes were the four corners of the house. In a few minutes the walls of old sheets were being safety-pinned into place. And a fifth taut rope came down for the side of the door. And the rag rugs were being spread on the grass inside. "And where are those old little chairs, mammie? Where are my old things? Where's my little table been put?" They were running up and down from the attic, dustily. At dinner time Ruth was more talkative than ever before. Nobody else knew how to build as nice playhouses as Uncle Jim, she told her auntie as they sat down. He had invented that kind of playhouse.

"Uncle Jim who?" asked Bob, suddenly.

Ruth looked blank. "I don't know Uncle Jim who," she said. "I just mean Martha's Uncle Jim."

"Oh," said Bob. He looked at her keenly. He looked at Emily. "Funny," his face seemed to say, "to hear this child of a stranger talking about Jim."

Ruth babbled on. She seemed to know a surprising lot about Uncle Jim. She had appropriated him along with the painted room and the playhouse. After lunch she took Bob by the hand and led him out to see it.

Emily hoped Martha saw the two of them walking down the path together. The sight some way made her think of Bob in the graveyard on Decoration Day--standing looking at the tombstone he had erected there for his beloved brother. In spite of Emily's protest he had engraved on it: "In memory also of his son James Kenworthy, 1903-1918--who died an unnecessary death, alone and unafraid."

Mrs. Benton, of course, had been in and seen Ruth. At once she had given orders to the guard that the child was to have special swimming lessons. And she was at the beach with her aunt, the fourth day of their visit, when Martha, having driven Emily about the town on some errands, turned the car towards the country.

"I want to tell you something, mammie!" she had said.

Emily was gratified that Martha cared to talk to her alone, for although she had been polite, always when Miss Curtis was there, she had been distant. Now she chose a road little traveled, and, settling down to drive slowly, she burst abruptly into intimacy.

"Mother, I want to tell you something! It's the most surprising thing you ever heard in your life! You won't believe it!"

"Of course I will."

"Well, guess who Ruth _is_! _Guess_, mammie!"

"Why? Isn't she Miss Curtis's brother's child?"

"She's Miss Curtis's own child. She's her mother, mammie!"

Emily was dazed. She murmured her incredulity.

"I _told_ you you wouldn't believe it! You could have knocked me down with a feather when she told me. Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life? It's too funny, mother. Why did we take so to each other, in the first place? Why did she understand me so? Because she'd been through the same hell herself! It's too strange!"

"Why Martha! How old is she?"

"I don't know how old she is, exactly. I don't think she's more than thirty-five. She kept the child with her for four years; then she had to have more money, and she came to Chicago to teach, and left her there, not at her own house, but in Iowa. She was a very delicate child, and she couldn't leave her and go teaching, with just anybody. She has an awfully good home for her, and she's going to bring her to Chicago when she starts high school, if she keeps well. Imagine, mammie! It makes me boiling mad when I think of that woman slaving away to support that child, and some damned man running around not caring. Isn't she magnificent, mammie? Being good to all those dirty kids in her school! That's why she never has a cent to spend; that's why she eats thirty-cent suppers. And when I think how I came along, and just took care of her and helped her all I could, not knowing, I could just sing! You see those dresses Ruth has got? I bought them all for her; she had only--sort of plain little things, and not enough. They had to be washed out. Makes me so mad to think about it."

"But, Martha, how--how did you find this out?"

"She _told_ me herself. You see--she wouldn't say what she was going to do when her school was out, at first. She sort of hung off--she wouldn't say who was coming into the flat, or when she'd rented it for. Then when I insisted on staying--the other girls were leaving--she said she wanted to keep it a few days, because she was having company from the country. I knew she was tired out, so I said I'd help her entertain them. I'd drive them around. But she didn't want me to. I thought, maybe, they were--sort of funny country people, or something. And, anyway, she didn't intend having any real vacation. She said she was going to spend her vacation with her sister, whose husband has T.B. of the bones, and she has a whole family of children, and she does her own washing and everything. Miss Curtis was going to take care of that man sick in bed, and of the kids, and give her sister a rest. That's just like her, mother. And I just put my foot down and said she had to come here and have a few days' rest herself first. And then she hummed and hawed, and said her niece wanted to come and see Chicago. And then, when all the girls were gone, she told me. She said, 'She's my very own child, Martha.' Just like that! I'd begun to suspect something funny by that time; and even then I thought maybe she had adopted her or something. I couldn't believe it. How could I believe that of a woman like Miss Curtis? And then, mammie, I wish you'd have seen those two when Ruth got there. They just sat down together and cried for joy! You know me, mammie; I'm not sentimental, but I went into my room and cried my eyes out when I remembered how they looked at each other!"

"Well, of all things!"

"Yes! To _think_ that I found her! She said once to me that she'd lived in that flat with students for six years, and she'd never let anybody share her meals with her but me. She doesn't make friends easily--naturally. We understood each other; I didn't know why, of course! And I suppose the reason she talked to me about all her relations so much was so I wouldn't suspect she was hiding anything! Think what she's been through, mammie! Ruth doesn't live near her people, you know. They're in Iowa. They must know about her, of course, but apparently she doesn't take Ruth to them. She just goes out there to see her, or takes her some place. And, mammie, that family that keep her, they love her; they want to adopt her; they do everything for her. Miss Curtis won't be jealous of them, but they have her nearly all the time. My God! Mammie, when I think of it! She can always come here, can't she, mammie? We can be friends to her, mammie!" And when Martha turned to her mother her eyes were swimming with tears. "Think of that child's future! Isn't she a sweet little thing? She doesn't do very well in school; she's so happy, she's lazy. Miss Curtis says she absolutely refused to bring her here until I told her Mrs. Bissel and May had gone to the lakes."

"Of course she can come here! We'll make a home for Ruth here!"

"But we can't do much, mammie. Miss Curtis is so independent, I can hardly manage her. You see, she won't accept anything from me, hardly. But she can't refuse to let me get Ruth things. I got her that doll, of course. I'd like to get hold of that child's father a little while! I bet I'd put the fear of God into him! Mammie, I can't tell you how worked up I've been over this, this last week. When I look at that woman, I just sort of shiver with admiration. She breaks me up so. Isn't she sporting? Isn't she a brick? Look what she is and what she's been through! I look at her and wonder if there's anything in the world a woman can't do! And like as not the school board will find it all out, some day, and fire her! I'm never going to lose track of that child; I'm going to keep friends with her! Mammie, I've been--excited all week! I had to tell you! It seems too strange!"

"It does seem too strange," Emily repeated.

"By heck! what a novel I'm going to write! This--sets me up; this eggs me on so! I'm going to change a lot of it; I'm going to make it hotter!"

"Does Miss Curtis know about the novel?"

"Yes. She knows I'm writing it; but she doesn't know why."

Emily marveled; she kept on marveling. She was as excited as Martha was the next few days. She had to keep from looking at Miss Curtis too intently; that woman had become almost too poignantly interesting. It was as if she was living Emily Kenworthy's life and Martha's. It seemed impossible to believe Martha's story. Miss Curtis was unromantic, so dull, so sensible. She seemed almost stupidly passionless--except when the child came running to her. And when Emily saw her draw little Ruth to herself, and push her fringe of hair away from her forehead, and look at her, she had to believe that Martha had stumbled upon the truth of the situation. The woman, undoubtedly, was maternity itself. Had she some way guessed what Martha had been through, and told her this secret for some unselfish purpose? Could she have loved some one beyond all reason? How had she managed to hide her shame? How had she endured the pity and the jeerings of the secure and holy? Emily found herself in Martha's state. She quivered with curiosity and reverence, and a desire to befriend those two. Could that woman be living in fear that some day when her secret would become known, she would be without a means of earning her living? "I must pretend not to be very much interested in her!" Emily kept saying. But she understood why Martha had felt so lifted up by her discovery.

_Chapter Nine_