Part 16

Mrs. Benton stepped in for a minute one afternoon, on her way home. "Where's Bob?" she asked, cautiously.

"He's gone downtown."

"I just thought I'd tell you about Johnnie. He's going to be home in about three weeks, I think, or maybe four. So it would have to come out, anyway. Do you know what he's doing this summer?"

"No. You didn't tell me."

"Well, he got a job as a steward on a boat going to South America; a steward, Emily. Carrying coffee around on a little tray; and from there he went to Hong-Kong on some sort of a ship."

"Goodness! What a lot of the world he's seeing!"

"Yes; carrying coffee into women's staterooms, and they won't have their hair combed!"

"Still, he's seeing the world! How did he get the job?"

"Oh, I don't know. Went with some of his boon companions to New York, and there was a strike, and they just got jobs and went away. He didn't wait to ask my advice, of course."

Emily hesitated.

"What's he planning to do next year?"

"He won't be planning anything. I'm planning to have him go back and get his degree. I'm going to my sister's for a little rest before he gets home."

"You haven't been away at all all summer."

"Well, if I'm going to manage the beach, I've got to be on the job. You haven't been away, either."

"I couldn't think of leaving Bob."

Mrs. Benton's glance spoke disagreeing volumes.

A month later, Emily met Johnnie with his mother coming out of the post office. Just the same old Johnnie, happy-go-lucky and careless, grinning and frank. The Orient had conferred upon him no subtlety, Spanish America had taught him no guile. A small chance they had had, to be sure. A longer one would have been as ineffective. He came to see Emily that same day. She looked at him curiously, envying him his experience. To have smelled China! to have blinked at Brazil!

All he said was: "Sure I had a good time; I earned my own living, anyway. And there's no garbage can in the world I can't eat out of now, after what I lived on across the Pacific. When's Martha to be home?"

Emily didn't know. She gave him, rather reluctantly, her address.

He drove up to Chicago the next day, in the new car his mother had ordered as soon as he left Hong-Kong for San Francisco. Cora Benton said he had gone to see Martha, she felt sure, because he refused to take her with him. But what happened when their children met neither mother knew. Presently Johnnie went back East to college, driving the new car. Mrs. Benton said she really didn't need it. She wasn't well, and she was going to California early, for all the winter. Her tone implied that the town would just have to worry along without her as best it might. She hated, she said, having the children's Christmas party in the hall fall through.

Emily was drawing all the comfort about her that she could get from the fact that she was still, at any rate, with Miss Curtis, when Martha wrote that she had left her flat. She had got a better place in the apartment of a woman doctor in the neighborhood. The announcement upset whatever peace of mind Emily had achieved. Could Martha have quarreled with her friend? A woman doctor, Emily would have thought, was the last person she would have taken up with. There came a dull day when she said to herself that she didn't care whether Martha wanted her or not, she was going to Chicago to see where she was living.

But in the train her heart grew heavier. Martha had said distinctly that she had no room for company. She must have written that to warn her mother not to come investigating. This doctor person wasn't one you could just disturb. So Emily shopped all the afternoon, dispiritedly. Once she tried in vain to get Martha by 'phone. She sat in Field's tea-room an hour, determined not to go back home without seeing her child, yet dreading to find herself unwelcome. That would be more than she could endure. She felt tears coming into her eyes, at length. "I can't stay here and make a fool of myself!" she thought, angrily. She went down to the street into the darkness and got into a taxicab. And, after a long time, during which Emily commanded herself repeatedly not to be silly, the taxi stopped in front of a very smart new apartment house.

Emily announced herself up the speaking tube meekly, half expecting a rebuff. "This is Martha Kenworthy's mother. Is Martha in?"

"Ho!" cried an exuberant voice in surprise. "Wait a moment!"

Some one was running down the stairs to show her the way up. Emily was conscious of a richly carpeted hall, a large gay room, a stunning seal-brown frock on a woman as large as herself, with a fine head, a high color, a heart-warming sort of person of great vitality.

"Mrs. Kenworthy! Do come in! I know all about you. Sit down. I'm Isobel Stevenson. No, Martha isn't here just now; I'll 'phone her. She's getting dinner at Miss Curtis's. I am glad to see you; I've been curious about you, after all I've heard."

She picked up the 'phone from a desk in the room, asked for the number without looking it up, and went on talking all the time she waited for her connection.

"Jennie Curtis told me all about you, of course, about your husband and the garden. I'd like to take her home for week-ends myself, but it's too far. She doesn't stand driving well.--Hello, Martha! Your mother's here.... I said your mother.... Why didn't you tell me she was coming? ... Never mind, drop it. Come on over.... Well, come and have supper with me. Tell Jennie to come.... Of course she'll come. Tell her I said she was to come.... Leave a note for her, then.... Oh, put them in water and let them stand till to-morrow; or bring them along and cook them here.... She told me Martha bought that car just to take her out home with. That's some girl of yours, Mrs. Kenworthy. Of course, Jennie Curtis is pure gold, but you don't often get a girl of Martha's age who knows gold when she sees it. She came over the other day and asked me to take Martha in till my friend comes back." She had seated herself near Emily, who had not had a chance to say one word. She pointed now with a large gesture at the pictures on the walls, the interesting-looking things which Emily had only vaguely realized were about her. "I live here with a friend who travels a great deal. All these things are hers, really. So I took her in, just to please Jennie. And I must say I like her. She's an awfully nice girl for her age. I find her companionable. But tell me, Mrs. Kenworthy--there isn't much time; she'll be here in a minute--hasn't she had some sort of affair, some disappointment, or something?"

The fact that she paused for an answer was as surprising as the question she had asked, professionally, as it were. Her praise of Martha, her vigor, the richness of the setting, her friendliness, all of it was so contrary to Emily's mood and expectations that she was overwhelmed. She felt tears coming into her eyes.

"Oh yes!" she cried. "And you're a doctor. Do something for her. She's been through--terrible things; she's so young!"

"I knew it!" said the doctor, complacently. "I knew it the first time I really talked to her. But she's getting over it; she don't need any help; she's got stuff in her. Don't you worry."

"No," murmured Emily, "I'm not worried, of course. I--I'm tired, I guess. I--can't--I--may I go and wash my face? I don't know what made me--do this."

Emily was shown into Martha's bedroom. A white-tiled bath opened off it. No comfort was lacking in that bedroom, which seemed to have aspired originally to feminine austerity. Martha's familiar things made it homelike. And in that room Martha found her mother, before Emily had had time to powder her nose.

Martha's greeting was warmer because of those tears.

"What on earth's the matter, mammie?" she said, hugging her. "Why didn't you let me know you were coming? You've been crying! What's the matter?"

Emily's impulse was to shout out the truth. "I've been so lonely for you, so worried about you!" But she said, instead: "Oh, nothing's wrong. I just got--bored. I--just felt--I couldn't stay in that house a minute longer! I just had to get away or shriek." Emily had heard women say things like that. Unwittingly she had touched Martha deeply.

"Well, you poor old thing! I always knew you must feel that way, living with--in that house. But you'd never acknowledge it. How did you find this place? Quite an apartment, isn't it? I was sick of a rooming house! Have you seen the doctor?"

"Yes."

"She seemed pleased, didn't you think so? She didn't look annoyed. I was told I couldn't have company here. It isn't often----"

The doctor was there with them.

"We're going to have a spread, Martha! The maid's out. You go and get the lettuce, get two heads, get good ones; and some whipping cream; and some bronze chrysanthemums. Oh, it's no trouble, Mrs. Kenworthy! I feel just like it to-day. The time and place and the loved ones to bother. If you can't get the chrysanthemums, get some--something that color. And hurry back."

The doctor had on a white apron, and the kitchen had made her cheeks rosier. She set Emily down to rest for a little in the interesting living room. Miss Curtis came in, and was ordered to sit and talk to her. But every minute or two the doctor came in from the kitchen, and with her a flood and whirlpool of words. Emily scarcely had a chance to say a word all that evening; but the house excited her until her color was almost as bright as the doctor's.

Everything on the dining table was like the hostess. The table mats were of a strong and superior unbleached linen; the vivid dishes called aloud for admiration; the candle-light was flattering. Emily sat excitedly studying the doctor. Whoever put herself into that woman's care would never afterwards dare to call either body or soul her own. But if she was high handed, she was also high hearted. She talked almost without ceasing; and whatever little thing she talked of, she enjoyed so merrily that the three women watching her, shared her delight to some extent. And when she laughed a hearty laugh, every time Emily thought surprisedly: "What a good time I'm having! This is the best possible place for Martha!"

"Did you ever taste any sort of canned meat as good as this chicken in your life? Lobster simply isn't in it! It's fatted calf for me. My mother keeps me in it; but I never open a jar when I'm alone; I'm not _that_ selfish, anyway. Cold pack, of course, as you know, Mrs. Kenworthy. We had a family scrap about it the last time I went home. My sister Isobel--she's an awful woman as far as she can manage to be--she said to me, 'Now look here, Isobel' (she's always trying to boss me around), 'you can just find a deadly germ in canned chicken. I'm not going to have mother worried to death canning chicken for you to guzzle any longer. She's too old, and so are you. You can just tell her you've got poisoned by it and you aren't going to eat it any longer.' 'I'll be damned if I'll find a deadly germ in it,' I told her. 'If you don't want mother doing it for me, you can do it yourself.' After all you can't just stand your relations imposing on you forever, can you? Not if you have as many as I have! I just made an announcement then and there. My fees for removing appendices are canned fat chicken, and those strawberry preserves they make in the sun so they keep the right color of red. I'm not going to eat city chickens that have been shut up in a little coop on Fifty-seventh Street. I want contented hens that have crowed in the barns I have played in. Nice sunny barn doors! Don't you love barn doors on spring days when all the hens are cackling? What do I practically keep a bed in the Presbyterian Hospital full of my fifty-two first cousins for, anyway, if I have to eat canned salmon on occasions of haste? There are limits to my patience. What are you snickering at, Martha? That's not a pun!"

With such banalities she kept them aroused, expectant. There was no constraint; no one of the three was thinking of something amusing to say; each knew very well she would have no chance to say anything amusing, however well prepared she might be. The doctor never ceased for a minute.

Finally she folded up her tongue for the night and left them together there.

"Is she always like that?" Emily murmured.

"Oh no, I don't think so. I don't know her very well. I never had a meal here before. You've made a hit with her, mammie! She sort of owns Miss Curtis. Maybe she took care of her through--THAT--or something. Anyway, Miss Curtis told her about you, and that's why she asked you to stay here. Of course, she just took me in because Miss Curtis has been fussing about me studying in the kitchen ever since she saw our house. She's made up her mind--the doctor has--that Miss Curtis has got to put those girls out, when she can, because they're so thoughtless about her, and everything, and that I'm to have those front rooms and do them over to suit myself. She bosses everybody around. I guess she thinks she's got a lot more sense than most people, and so she ought to tell them where to get off. You can see why she's got such a practice. Can't you just see her sailing into somebody's sick-room with her tail up, that way, and making them wild to get up and be strong as a horse, like she is? Miss Curtis says she's the only woman who ever got through medical school and got a practice without losing her color. She doesn't pay very much attention to me. She's busy, 'most always. Sometimes she gets to talking about some interesting case, and goes on half the night. I never get a word in edgewise. I just listen."

Emily, as she lay waiting for sleep, said to herself: "Well, if horrible things happen to us when we don't expect them, so do lovely things. If I'd searched this city over for two friends for Martha, I'd never have found any equal to these two. The doctor's just a clean gale blowing through Martha. She'll clean out her mind; she'll do for her what I never could. Why should I want to do everything in the world that's done for her? Why can't I be satisfied to see those women helping her along?"

She went back to her home more happy about Martha than she had been for months. Mrs. Benton had already gone East and it promised to be a quiet winter for club-women in general The one great event of it was to be the annual Christmas party for children. Mrs. Benton had instituted the custom the winter before, the first year of the new dance hall. She had given a splendid party that once. She left a committee behind her to try to follow her example.

They were discussing it at lunch. Emily had realized that the women across from her were talking about ways of finding good jobs for girls who had to leave high school, when Mrs. Bissel leaned across towards her and asked:

"Mrs. Kenworthy, by the way, what's this new job Martha's got? What's she planning to do?"

There were four women who might be supposed to be listening in that pause with more or less curiosity for Emily's reply.

She had heard nothing of Martha's job. She smiled. "Oh, I don't know," she replied, lightly. "I don't think it's anything very--purposeful."

"But do you approve of her leaving the university to take it up?"

Emily had heard not a hint of Martha leaving the university. She must have left in the middle of a quarter.

She said, "Not altogether." She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm afraid her heart's never really been in the university. I wish she could have gone on, in her own college, with her own class. But I do think girls of her age have to decide these things for themselves."

She left the meeting early. She had a notion to go straight to Chicago. What job could Martha possibly have got? And why? And had she left her two good friends? And did she mean deliberately to hurt her mother's feelings by having her learn this through Mrs. Bissel? "Perhaps," thought Emily, longingly, "she's taking somebody's place for a few weeks. Perhaps just at Christmas; perhaps the doctor's office girl has got ill, or something. I expect she's helping some one. And she's been too busy to write. I ought to do some Christmas shopping. I'll go up to-morrow and 'phone her, at least. I'll see for myself what's she into."

And after supper Martha called her by 'phone. The connection was poor. Some operator had to relay the unsatisfactory message. All that Emily understood was that Martha would meet her for tea the next day at the usual place.

But the next afternoon Martha led her to a new-found tea-room in an office building--a remote place, one secure corner of which the two of them had quite to themselves. Emily had to feel her way towards her daughter carefully, for she saw at once that Martha was in an evil mood. Around her eyes were the hollows and shadows of tears.

She began directly: "I got a job; I didn't write you--because I've been too blue. I've just felt like crying my eyes out every minute the last week. I just had to 'phone you. I knew I ought to tell you; I just thought I couldn't write. I'm working in a shop; it's a classy place, believe me. Interior decorators, on Mich. Boul."

"Do you like it?"

"Well, I'm not mad about it by any means. It'll do."

"You go to your lectures still at the U? You don't stay in this shop all day?"

"No. I'm done with that place. I'm going to smoke. You needn't make a fuss; everyone's used to it here."

"Perhaps this will be better than writing away on a novel," Emily was thinking. She didn't want to seem to look too inquisitively at Martha. She played about with her tea; she called Martha's attention to the couple who had entered. "Why is it," she asked, to break the silence, "that the more expensive the fur coat, the fatter the woman inside it?"

But Martha broke forth abruptly, "I've burned my novel up!"

Emily was sharply stung by the bitterness of that confession. She had always wanted that novel burned up, but she hadn't wanted Martha to be so hurt by its destruction.

"Why, Martie? What did you do that for?"

"I needn't have been so hasty! I've got most of it--in rough form. I could put it all together again; but it would be an awful lot of work."

"You worked on it nearly a year."

"Yes, I had. And if I'd known everything _then_ I know _now_, I wouldn't have burned it up, you can bet! I typed it all over without a mistake, from beginning to end; it had seventy thousand words."

"Goodness!" Emily murmured, impressed.

"And I couldn't hardly sleep, I was so anxious to see what that old idiot of a prof. would think of it. I might have known, handing it in to an old rake of a man!"

Emily let her go on unreproved.

"And it was the funniest thing! I just _happened_ to find out what he meant. You hand your work in, mammie, and then you go and have a consultation with the prof. about it. Well, I'd never had any old consultation before. And everybody says he is a horrid man; to women, especially. He don't think women can write novels, of course. He thinks it's his business to discourage them. I was scared out of my wits to go and talk to him about my novel, to tell the truth. I might have known something was wrong, for he was as nice to me as you please. He was surprised to see me when I came in. He didn't know me from Adam, before, of course. I suppose he thought I'd be foaming at the mouth, or something. He jollied me along, the oily old rake; said my work was interesting and everything; that I'd put a lot of work in on it. And then he said: 'You know sometimes we think it well--to refer these themes to other departments. The last one before you,' he said, all smooth and gentle, 'I referred to the biologist under whom the student works. And I had yours read by Doctor Parson, Doctor Edith Parson; she is more able than I am--to judge of the worth of this material,' he said. 'So I had her read it over, and I suggest you go and consult her first, and then come and talk it over with me.' All hemming and hawing, he was, the flea. So I swallowed it all. I didn't know any better. I knew they did send theses and things for grad. degrees around to a lot of profs. I asked somebody there waiting to see him, a girl from the class, who this Doctor Parson was, but she didn't know. So then, mammie, I went home. This was a week ago last Thursday. I was in Doctor Stevenson's living room that evening, and I naturally asked her if she knew who Doctor Parson was. I didn't tell her WHY I was asking, or anything. And, mammie, what do you think she said!"

Tears came flooding into Martha's eyes.

"What difference does it make what she said, child!"

"Well, it may not make any difference to YOU, but it did to ME. 'I know her,' she said, and she smiled sort of funny. So I said, 'Who is she?' And she said, 'Oh, every little while some crazy woman gets into the U, and Doctor Parson is the one that gets them into the asylum. I had to help her once, one summer. She called me in because I was near and strong.'" And suddenly Martha turned away, shuddering in uncontrollable repulsion. She covered her face with her hands, just for a second, and went on:

"I had to sit there, mammie, not saying a word to give myself away, and take it all. She said that woman--the one that went crazy--she wanted to go right out in the street without any clothes on, and everything. I thought she'd never get through talking. They had to have three policemen that night. I thought I'd just die, I was so scared. And I got away from her as soon as I could, and I got the novel and went right down to the janitor and asked him to let me put something into the furnace. So he did, and I saw it burning. I saw it all curling up burned. And then I went and stayed with Miss Curtis. She let me have a bed in her room; she was just sweet to me, mammie. I told her I was sick. She wanted me to go home; she said I needed a rest."

"Martha, you _do_ need a rest, my dear. You've worked so steadily. Why don't you come home with me?"

"Mammie--no. I went and got a job. I had--to have something--else to think about. I couldn't go home; I couldn't bear to go back to the doctor's. I stayed with Miss Curtis for more than a week."

"And now? Where are you now?"

"Oh, I'm back at the doctor's, all right now. I'm not a bit more--out of my head than she is, anyway. It doesn't always follow that if a girl--or a woman--falls in love, as they say, that she's crazy. Look at that Doctor Stevenson. Wouldn't you say she was sane, mammie? Wouldn't you say that if anybody in the world is in her right mind, it's that woman?"

"Yes, I would certainly call her a well-balanced woman."

"Well!" cried Martha, triumphantly. "You say _she's_ sane, and she keeps a lover--there--in that apartment--all the time!"

"Martha! You mustn't say that! Not so loud!" Emily looked around her hurriedly. "You must not say things like that--gossip, like that!"

"I'm not repeating any gossip. You needn't get so excited. I'm not telling anybody but you, and I saw it with my own eyes."

Emily said, sharply, "I don't believe you know what you're talking about."

"I know _exactly_ what I'm talking about! She told me when I went to live with her that she had a friend that came to stay with her, and that when that friend came I had to clear out. Naturally, when a single woman says a friend is coming to stay with her, you suppose it's a woman. But it isn't. It's a man. I saw him!"

"When? How?" Emily was intent upon refuting this mistake.

"Well, he comes for Saturday and Sunday, and I had been staying all week with Miss Curtis. And, anyway, they always go to the concert Saturday night. I had to go and get some underwear out of my room. I thought they would be at the concert, so I went in."

"Well?"