Part 17

"Well, she heard me opening the door with my key, and she called to me: 'Martha, is that you? Come in here!' she said to me. And I went into her living room; and there was that man. A great big, tall man, walking around with his hands in his pockets. She was sitting at her desk, pretending to be looking at an account book. 'This is my brother,' she said to me. And he never took his hands out of his pockets. He said to me, growling, 'I am _not_ her brother!' just like that. And she said, 'Oh, all right, then, you aren't. You aren't any relation to me!' You know how she thinks she can carry anything off, that way. Of course I felt terribly embarrassed. I just got my stuff and fled. That man was staying in my bedroom. His things were there. Did you ever hear anything like that in your life, mother? The nerve of her! With all that practice, and everybody thinking she's so respectable! Nobody thinks _she's_ crazy. I'm glad I didn't burn up the first copy of my book."

"But, Martha, look here! That doesn't prove that he's--that doesn't prove anything."

"Don't you fool yourself! I saw the man; I saw his face. You can't tell me what a man means when he looks like that. And, anyway, Miss Curtis saw me coming in. I bet she's in cahoots with her! She said, 'You haven't been at the doctor's, have you?' like that, sort of excited. I said: 'Yes, I have. I thought she would have been at the concert.' She said, 'You oughtn't to have gone there when she has company.' And she didn't know whether to go on and say any more to me, or not. But she didn't. So now I stay there, just as I always did. If I'm mad, she's mad."

"But you're just silly. I don't think either of you is the least speck insane!"

"Well, what did that oily old bird send me to that--woman for then?"

"I don't know. Maybe she was a psychologist--or a--a psychoanalyst, or something. What was in the novel? You must be reasonable, Martha. The university isn't keeping a woman just to send students to asylums. She has something else to do, surely?"

"I don't think she has; not for a minute! If you'd seen that campus, you'd think it kept a dozen specialists to weed out the nuts. And, anyway, why did that prof. act so sort of gentle to me? Why did he ask me so carefully if I was Martha Kenworthy, as if he couldn't believe I was? Anyway, I'll tell you one thing, mammie; if the doctor can keep a lover and a practice in the same apartment, I should hope I can learn interior decoration without anybody saying anything to me! Just imagine if anybody tried to make things uncomfortable for the doctor; wouldn't she tell them where to get off, though! If she can put that across, why can't I?"

"Martha, really, I don't believe this. She doesn't look like that sort of woman."

"Well, of COURSE she doesn't! That's the whole point! Look at the women that go parading around Hyde Park. None of them look it; neither do I, for that matter. I don't suppose there's one of them that's any better than I am; and they're not making any fuss about what's happened! I can be as hardboiled as any of them; I can put on holy airs with the rest of them; I'm understudying the doctor!"

"Well, my opinion is that you're both of you good women and useful women, and you don't need to put on airs!"

"But you'll never understand either of us, if you do mean well; you're too good, that's what's the matter with you. That's why I feel--so much more at home--with Miss Curtis, and the doctor, especially the doctor. Honestly, you can't imagine how blue I was. I wanted to--well, I didn't know--whatever I was going to do, but this bucked me up. Imagine, mammie! I'd like to see a doctor like Doctor Stevenson, only more so--the best surgeon in Chicago--so that people would just HAVE to have her operate to save them; and then I wish she'd just go on living with all the men she wanted to--and snap her finger at the whole bunch of them. I'm going into business. The doctor said for me not to invest a cent with the boss; she was the one that looked him up, and found he'd failed in New York. I told her I hadn't any capital of my own, and I don't give a damn what anybody suspects me of!"

Martha was wearing long thin jade earrings, and she gave her head a little jerk as she announced her intentions. She had on a green hat, of a hard color. Could it be just the shadow of that green over her eyes that made them seem ringed and bitter?

"Oh, very well. But how about Christmas? You'll have a few days off, I suppose?"

"No, I won't have any. I'm going into this business. I've got to stick at it. Look here, mammie, if you'll stay for dinner, I'll get Mrs. Blacksley from my shop to meet us some place. I didn't want to take you to the shop, for I knew her husband was to have dinner with us. He's an idiot, but she's all right. I get along with her; she's divorced one husband. If she'd consult me, I'd tell her to divorce another."

Mrs. Blacksley, Martha said, seldom spent even thirty cents on her dinner. For that reason they awaited her in the Drake Café, and planned to nourish her weariness with a thick rich dinner, and beefsteaks were the one thing you could get better in Chicago than anywhere else in the world, Martha declared, ignoring magnificently her inexperience in most other places in the world. Mrs. Blacksley joined them there.

She joined them languidly, softly. She threw off a short black fur coat, and a little black hat, carelessly, as if all the other women in the crowded room were sitting bareheaded. She stood up for a moment, regardless perhaps of the attention she was attracting. She had on a little soft black wool frock, full skirted, with the waist fitted cunningly over her delicate breast. It was a right little frock; it was a bit too devilishly right for her.

It made Emily think, even as Mrs. Blacksley chose to sit with her back to the room: "Well, if what helps Martha in her friends is a scandalous past or a compromising present, this woman is going to be very useful to her." Nothing less like those utilitarian mentors of Hyde Park could a girl have happened upon. Mrs. Blacksley was still young--but her eyes had a past. Her lips had a history; her smooth hair, drawn back so severely from those beautiful temples, so cleverly from those little ears, had a beguiling present challenge. Surely, for fifty generations, those gray eyes had been looking cynically at eager lovers. Her mouth was soft and lovely; lips like hers must have kissed only with mental reservations for centuries. She was exotic, she was alluring. She had divorced one husband, had she? She aroused a question then, immediately. How many men had wanted to be her second?

She said to Martha, later, as they were going together to her train--she spoke suddenly, struck by an interesting thought:

"Look here, isn't the doctor's name Isobel?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Well, but Martha, she said her sister's name was Isobel."

"Did she? I didn't notice."

"I did! She did say her sister's name was Isobel!"

"Well, what of it?" Martha was curious.

"Well, don't you see, there couldn't be two Isobels in one family? They must be half-sisters, or step sisters, or something. Maybe that man WAS a brother--of some kind."

Then Martha laughed. She laughed just like Mrs. Blacksley, softly, jeeringly.

"You're the limit, mammie!" She laughed again, more naturally, from sheer amusement. "You can't believe what I say, can you? You're too good for this world, mammie! The doctor'll take care of herself. Don't you worry about her!"

"You can laugh at me, if you want to; but I don't believe it. Anyway, why shouldn't a woman doctor have a man patient, if she wants one?"

"To be sure!" agreed Martha, "if she wants one," she added, in another tone. "I don't admire her taste; but I'm willing to let her have as many as she wants."

_Chapter Ten_

"Do a deed," they say, "and make a proverb." But why, Emily mused more than once, should Martha, having done but one deed, go on making proverbs indefinitely. Must she interpret life forever by that one bitter mistake of hers? The more Emily thought of the doctor, the more deeply she was convinced that Martha was mistaken about her lover. She would have been a magnificent mother of a family of rollicking boys. Was it likely that a hard-headed professional woman, with a practice to maintain, was going to entangle herself with awkward amorous relationships? Emily decided it was not.

It was possible, too, that Martha had misunderstood Miss Curtis. Emily longed to prove it. She wanted to go and ask Mrs. Bissel all she knew of Miss Curtis's history. If a woman as conventional as Mrs. Bissel knew anything of that discrediting sort, would she have allowed her daughter to live in her flat? Certainly not, Emily said to herself. But just suppose Martha could be right? The least possibility of such a thing made it out of the question for Emily to broach the gossipy subject to Mrs. Bissel. So she held her tongue.

Then Martha walked in one snowy morning, like a normal child, home for the holidays, happy to be home. She walked in unannounced, alone, undefended by any stranger from intimacy with her mother! She walked in and she gave Emily a hug--an old little-girl hug, the like of which she had not had, since--THAT happened. Emily's neck could scarcely believe the feeling of those arms about it. Emily's eyes had to blink. Here now was that first little old Martha, the dear one that had been away from her for so long. Martha had recovered her real self; she was looking better; she was looking--bright, again; she was looking--excited. Yes, that was the word; she was excited through and through. Could she have fallen in love? Alas! that was too much to hope for. When she went upstairs Emily stood and listened. She half expected her to walk into the painted room.

She went into the guest room, however. She wasn't quite completely a daughter yet, then.

When she came down and saw Maggie's condition, she took the preparations for dinner out of her hands. The kitchen, some way, seemed to belong to Martha. Even Maggie, who had never relinquished it to Emily for a second, seemed conscious that it had changed owners. Emily stood about, talking to her.

"What," Martha cried, "the costumes aren't made! They haven't rehearsed for a month! Why didn't you write to me, mammie? I'd have come to help you."

Had she forgotten how shortly she had refused to come home at all for Christmas? Was she offering now, really, to plunge into the affairs of this town whose very existence she seemed of late to have resented?

"I'll go and get them. Let's have a seamstress to come here, and have a bee, and get them all done. I'll bet Miss Trent would train the children, mammie. She loathes Mrs. Benton."

"You mustn't talk that way, Martie!"

"Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!" Martha derided, making faces. "That's what you mean, really. Only you don't say it. You know you don't want to fall down now--just because of what Mrs. Benton would say! I'd like to show her a thing or two myself. I bet I could get a dozen women into this, who'd work just for spite!"

"That's not a nice way to work!"

"But it cooks the hash, mammie!"

Martha chuckled toward her mother. She kept repeating it--that new gesture toward her. A perplexing sort of amused understanding of her mother kept shining out of her eyes all the time she sat at dinner, talking to her father.

As soon as she had washed the dishes she took the car and set forth twinkling to rally workers. She came back about five with two suit cases full of cut or basted costumes. These she deposited on the floor of the living room, and proceeded to examine them, talking all the time of her success. White wings she shook out, and curious red calico legs she unfolded. Emily was sitting on the sofa. And Martha was standing by the living-room table--where she had stood, exactly, when she announced, "Richard Quin is getting a divorce." She bent down and lifted up a cerise crinoline sort of wide ruche.

"Now, what do you make of this, mammie? This must be for a villain!" And she put it around her neck--it had no fastening, yet--and holding it tightly together, she danced across the room, and looked at herself absurdly in a mirror.

"Believe me, mammie, this is going to be a play!"

Her manner was so triumphant, that Emily was overcome by her impulse.

"Martha!" she exclaimed, "What HAS happened to you? What's the matter?"

The girl faced about abruptly. She stared intently at her mother. And as she looked her face changed. It lost that new expression of admiration with which she had warmed her mother's heart all day. And when she spoke her voice was almost bitter.

"Well, YOU'RE a nice one to ask me that!"

"Why am I a nice one? What have I done now?"

Martha spoke with an effort. "I suppose it doesn't matter; or you think it doesn't matter. I suppose you did what you thought best for me. I'm not judging you, but it would have made things a great deal easier for me if you could have told me the truth."

"The truth about what?"

Martha was annoyed by the question. She hesitated, but decided to go on.

"I can understand you don't want to discuss it; neither would I, but you must have meant to tell me eventually. After all, I have a right to know, mother."

Emily saw she was desperately in earnest. "What are you talking about?" she asked, puzzled.

Martha spoke slowly. "I mean--about my father--about Uncle Jim."

Emily understood then. The shock brought a cry of horror from her. "Oh, Martha!"

Martha knew pain when she heard it.

"Oh, mammie!" she cried back, running to Emily, sitting down close to her. "Mammie, don't cry! Don't think I care! I'd a million times rather have him for my father! I never loved you, really, before! I didn't pry into it. Honestly, mammie, it just came to me, like the morning; like light flashing into me, mammie!"

Emily had drawn away from her and covered her face with her hands. Martha thought she was crying. She besought her tenderly:

"Mammie, don't you mind my understanding it. Oh, if you knew how I felt about it! When I think of you living here all these years! I started to come home to you the minute I realized it. It came to me like a flash in front of Woolworth's in State Street, there. I was walking along, blue enough to die; I just wanted to die, I was so sore. And I saw that front and I remembered going into Woolworth's _here_, between you and Uncle Jim. I don't mind calling him that; it's a dear name for him. I remembered all of a sudden just how you looked at each other. Mammie, it just stunned me when I understood. I hadn't gone a block before I saw it all. I don't know why I didn't always understand it. Because he always was just naturally my father, wasn't he? Nobody ever had to teach me to love HIM! Dad never felt that way about me, naturally. It wasn't his fault he never had any interest in me. I knew why you stood Bronson, then! I remembered how you looked after the funeral! I was so excited I just couldn't stand up. I sat down on a bench in the public library lobby, and just sat there! Oh, I never appreciated you till now, mammie! I'm going to take care of you now. When I think of you living year in and year out in this house with dad--I'll call him that! I don't care about names! The way you've put it across right here, in this dirty gossipy little town, and nobody DARED to suspect you of anything! Not ANYTHING! Why do you look at me that way? You intended to tell me some time, surely!"

Now for the first time in her life Emily had drawn away from her child in repulsion. She had started to speak; she had started to cry out her denial. But that young, eager, relit face was close to hers. No matter how illuminating the mistake was, the poor distorted child must know the truth. But as Emily opened her lips to speak, the poor distorted child went on; she had seized Emily's hand in both her own:

"Oh, now I know what they mean, being born again. I was just born again, mammie! I know now why you never scolded me--why you stood by me; you understood. You've been through it! And everybody loves you; they just bless you! You aren't afraid they'll find it out. You just go on! I'm going on, too! My God! how I'm going on! If you can put this across, so can I! You never were afraid of dad finding it out, even, were you?"

Emily Kenworthy murmured, "No." She meant to add, "There was never anything to find out, you bad, silly girl!" but she didn't.

She could find no excuse for her conduct, as she thought it over, that night. She had simply been hypnotized by the beauty of that child's eagerness. It had been such a long time since she had seen eagerness, hopefulness, twinkling out of that little sweet face of hers, that she hadn't had courage to darken it again. Martha had just sat there, caressing her, babbling out her enjoyment of her mother's infamy, until Greta's older sister had come in. Emily had made her entrance an excuse for getting away to her room. And there she had sat dazedly, hurt, ashamed of her daughter, more ashamed of herself. How could I have hesitated a minute! I ought to have corrected her the minute she dared to suggest that to me! But what difference does it make? It's good enough for Bob! He never appreciated her! What do I care what she thinks, if it does her any good? I'm not high and holy any longer! I understand her! Hasn't she any sense of honor at all, that she's so pleased? Why should I be so shocked? Didn't I plan often enough to leave Bob and go to Jim? She only accused me of what I often wanted to do! I gave that up, and this is what I get for it! She wishes she was Jim's. She thinks I went on living with Bob! "My God!" cried Emily. "But she can't help it; she has to suspect somebody. It's her luck, after what she's done. Why should I feel so sick about this?"

And even while she sat there feeling sick at heart, Martha's voice came dancing up the stairs.

"Mammie, what are you doing? Can't you come down a minute?"

And Emily had gone down, hardening her heart. "I'm never going to tell her the truth," she was vowing. "Let her think that, if it does her any good!" And all that evening she had talked and listened to talking, like one in a dream. Whatever she said, it was of Martha's base accusation that she was conscious. "Surely," she was thinking, "if I gave Jim up once for this child, I can give up Bob and my scruples, just in her mind, for a little while." She was so preoccupied with her thoughts that she scarcely spoke during supper. Bob noticed her quietness. She had been gay at dinner. He was the more affable to Martha.

"Where's Miss Curtis now? Is she coming down for Christmas?"

"No. She's gone to Ruth--to Indiana."

"Well, she's a nice sort of a woman, for a school-teacher." Emily saw the cynical smile that came about Martha's mouth.

"You bet she is!" she replied, enthusiastically. "But you ought to see the doctor. Dad, she'd show you a thing or two."

"That's what I like about Miss Curtis. You can trust her to mind her own business. You feel safe with her."

"Don't you, though? You can trust her absolutely, couldn't you, dad? You could always be sure she'd be upright, couldn't you?"

Upright was a strange adjective. Bob looked up to see if Martha had begun spoofing him again. She looked innocent, but he changed the subject. Martha looked knowingly across at her mother. Emily wanted to spank her.

Later in the evening again she experienced the same desire. She came into the sitting room to hear Martha cajoling over the 'phone the most conventional, conservative, disapproving woman who ever eyed bobbed hair and short skirts maliciously. "But we want you so, Mrs. Mason. Everybody says there's no one who can get as much work done in one afternoon as you." And on she talked, till she hung up the 'phone triumphantly.

"Martha, why in the world did you invite _her_ here?" Emily asked.

Martha winked at her naughtily. "I just asked her because she's so extra holy!" she answered, and she laughed. She had the upper hand of life now, that girl!

She ought to have been pitifully spanked, but now that she had got things under way, there was scarcely time to reprove her. Emily remembered the days when Bob had complained that he could never get her alone long enough to "settle her." The house was bustling and hurrying about, as Martha used to make it stir, full of her girl friends coming and going, confused by committee women of inspired importance. School children were singing their parts at the piano; angels were adjusting their feathers in the hall; the 'phone was ringing. Emily watched Martha "putting it across," each day a little more naughtily, a little more triumphantly. She apparently intended to be as highly respected in the town as her deceitful mother. It was not pleasant, to say the least, to see her sitting deferring with studied docility to the opinion of women whom Emily knew she was scorning with all her might. Never before had she been quite such a "nice girl." She was demure; she was discreet; she gave someone else credit for every good idea she put forth quietly, graciously; she made her elderly neighbors smile at her mother as if to say "What a clever child this is of yours." And, when they left, she would hug her mother, grinning, chuckling. Thick as two thieves they were, together in conspiracy.

The only thing that seemed difficult to explain about Martha was the absence of admirers who had formerly beset her father round about. Johnnie, of course, had not come home from the East, but there were numbers of young collegians who had returned for Christmas. Why, Emily wondered, did they avoid the Kenworthy house? She understood one evening when she overheard a conversation between Greta and her daughter.

"I told Hally I was coming here. I asked him to come along, but he wouldn't." A giggle. "Do you know what he said about you, Martha?"

"What?" The tone was wholly indifferent.

"He said: 'No; I'm not going there. Martie's mad. She's taken to biting.'"

Then Martha's voice, full of interest, "Did he honestly say that?" She seemed gratified.

"Yes, honest he did."

"I didn't suppose he had that much sense," Martha said, simply.

Later: "But why? Tell me the truth, Martie! Why aren't you dancing?"

"I have told you the truth. I've learned my lesson; I can't stand late hours. I don't want another breakdown like that one last winter. I tell you I go to bed regularly early. I'm in bed every night at half past ten."

A silence.

Then: "That'll do to tell! I bet if Johnnie Benton was here to dance with, your health would be all right!"

"Johnnie Benton?" Scorn and derision at such a suggestion. "Excuse me if I seem to yawn. Anyway, he's engaged to somebody down East."

"Who said so? You're making that up! I don't believe it."

"Nobody told me. It's likely, you know that. The way he goes round proposing to everybody."

"He never proposed to me."

"Oh, get out! He must have!"

Martha was rejoicing in her own hypocrisy. She was guzzling down the impression she made. People said it was too sweet of her to have thought of bringing old Miss Knight to the party tenderly in her car. For Miss Knight was a decrepit old primary teacher of Martha's infancy, who seldom went out, and she had beamed every minute of the afternoon upon the dancing children, and blessed Martha loudly for her kindness in bringing her, as Martha had counted on her doing. Martha had remembered the poor. The poor, now, were hard to find in that town. But Martha had sought out a family whose house had been burned recently, and bestirred even protesting Greta to help her to succor them.