Part 7

That was the most he could say. He could offer her no help. All she could ask of him was that he would refrain from interfering. But if Jim had been in Bob's place, Jim would have known what to do. Martha would have listened if Jim could have spoken to her. And Jim would have listened if Emily had gone to him in perplexity about the girl. Hadn't she and Jim sat together for hours discussing their children, enjoying them together, having them in common, almost, in spite of the barrier between them? Because Jim had always appreciated little Martha Kenworthy. That was the essential wrong Bob had done the child since birth. He had failed to appreciate her. He had never in his life understood a woman. He had never even given the proper value to his own mother. And Jim's adulterous wife he had simply cursed whenever he thought of her. It was only men that Bob could evaluate. There was no use expecting him to judge Martha fairly. But Jim had enjoyed every phase of her little girlhood, just as he had played tenderly, reverently with his mother's heroisms and weaknesses, just as he had so well understood every shade of the service Emily had unconsciously rendered him when she had loved his son. If Martha had a man like Jim about familiarly, she wouldn't be impressed as she seemed to be with the first pretentious masher that came her way. Jim would have set a standard for the child, given her a taste for masculine worth. And it all went back again to the old, old question: Why didn't I marry Jim in the first place? Why did I ever quarrel with him? Why was I brought up so that I could quarrel with him, about a book, merely a book that is this minute lying neglected on the shelf in the painted room because the girls were bored with old classics? I married Bob to get away from this house, said Emily. But Martha will never marry to get away from that, Emily vowed again.

_Chapter Four_

Afterwards, when Emily, thinking those summer weeks over, used to ask herself again and again why she hadn't prevented their climax, she could scarcely recall how her realization of the situation had come about. She had told Martha that she didn't want Eve's brother-in-law singling her out for his attention. She had supposed that was sufficient. She had gone with Martha to take the Wrights home the next day, and all very merrily the afternoon had gone, just as afternoons usually went before that man came rumbling on the horizon. There had been no mention of him till towards supper time. Martha's chum, Greta, had come in then, asking her to go for a swim. Emily liked Greta, with reservations and allowances, thinking her too pretty to be judged severely. She had dazzling eyes: light-blue eyes when she wore light blue; dark-blue eyes when she wore dark blue; gray eyes when she had on a gray suit; and when she pulled that wicked little mauve hat down over her forehead, her eyes were purple as dark pansies. One had to forgive that girl for somewhat too deliberately flashing those glances into male consciousness, Emily argued. But Greta didn't--quite tell the very truth--always. Just lately in a crisis she had told one tale, and Martha had told another of what happened, and it had all had to come out, Martha justified, a truthful child, and Greta--well, perhaps she had learned her lesson. Emily believed so.

Now that afternoon when she came in on her way to the beach, Martha was indiscreet, to say the least. She said demurely enough, when Greta urged her:

"Oh, I don't know whether I'm allowed to go swimming. Am I, mammie?"

Emily had asked innocently, "Why not?"

"Well, there's sure to be some married men about, some place." And Greta had smiled, as if she understood Martha's cause for complaint.

"Don't be silly!" Emily had replied. They had gone swimming. Afterwards Emily wondered if Martha had known that man would be there, if she had taken that way of warding off subsequent reproof. She wondered, but she could reach no conclusion. She could never make out clearly how it had gone on. She hadn't even known for certain that Martha was seeing the man. She had thought it better to trust her.

Eve had returned the next day, and Emily had been glad, feeling that Eve would be a protection. The girls had gone together to spend the week-end at Geneva with friends. That had been planned days ago. Bob had remarked uneasily, looking up from the daily at noon on Monday:

"That bird's in Geneva, Emily!"

"Who?"

"Quin, that brother-in-law of Eve's."

"Why shouldn't he be?" Emily had asked, carelessly. And she asked herself the same question, but not so carelessly. What was more natural than that he should have gone fishing? Didn't everybody go fishing? Wasn't there a long list in the paper every Monday of all the men from the town who had gone, even though they went regularly every Saturday of the season? The editor had to have something to fill up his columns, and that list, and the list of those who went to Chicago daily to shop, could always be depended upon. Still----

Afterwards she sometimes thought that she should have said to Martha: "Did you see Mr. Quin at Geneva? Did you know he was going to be there?" She might have asked that question the following Wednesday. Perhaps that was where she had made her great mistake. She should have asked Martha directly what had happened there.

For Eve came home that day from the links alone, and announced she was going to Chicago at once to her father; that she had thought when she came to live in this town that at least she wouldn't have her sister hanging around, and her brother-in-law. She wasn't going to come back till they cleared out, she said, angrily red. Afterwards Emily knew that she ought to have asked her exactly what the quarrel had been about. She had, however, practically asked Martha later. Martha had said indifferently she supposed Eve was tired of the little town. It wasn't good enough for her, perhaps. She had spoken sarcastically. She didn't regret Eve's departure. She had gone on her way undisturbed. Perhaps she had spent more time with her friends than she usually did. At home she was quiet; but she had always been that. She had always sat excited, as it were, by her thoughts, chuckling to herself about what was in her mind. Her Uncle Jim had said of her child that it was _herself_ she seemed always to be enjoying. She had seemed to have a hidden source of delight to muse on. Johnnie was no longer about the house. When Emily commented on this fact, Martha had explained indifferently that he had an awful case on a De Kalb girl.

One afternoon Emily sat talking to an old, trustworthy friend. "When's Eve coming back? You know her sister?" Grace Phillips had asked.

Emily couldn't believe she had asked it in malice. She thought afterwards it might have been a well-meant warning. Emily had said she had not even seen the sister. She wasn't receiving callers.

"You see more of him, I suppose?"

Emily had repressed her surprise, and answered, vaguely, "No; that is, not a great deal. Eve--not when Eve isn't here."

What did Mrs. Phillips mean? Had she seen Martha with that man?

"I hear the old grandmother gets worse all the time," Mrs. Phillips had innocently continued. Emily had said she didn't know.

It was after four then; soon after that there had come a long-distance 'phone call: four friends in the next county were driving up to dance in Chicago. Would Martha go with them? They'd be along soon after seven. As Emily hung up the receiver she saw a sort of chance. She would go out to the golf course and bring Martha home to get ready for the evening, and take occasion to see exactly who was playing there, and then she would be rid of this uneasiness. She hated taking the car herself, but it was time she made sure of what was going on.

So she drove out, inch by inch around by the dusty detour, over the well-known ruts. She turned the car anxiously through the gates, which always looked so narrow when she was driving that to miss their post seemed almost miraculous. She chose her place of stopping very carefully, a large place easy to turn around in, in case Martha wasn't there and she had to go back by herself.

She shut off the engine, congratulating herself the more upon the neatness of her achievement because some other woman had stopped her car--but not her engine--wrong way about, at some distance, so that she sat almost facing Emily. A stranger she was. With a swanky little scarlet hat on, and rouged; waiting for some one, looking intently towards the path through the trees by which the players came up to the shack of a clubhouse.

And then it occurred to Emily that that woman must be Eve's sister, because that must be the car that Eve drove. She looked, naturally, with renewed interest. The face was in some ways like Eve's. But it was no wonder Eve didn't like her. She was a discontented woman, ill-natured, with hollows about her eyes, like Eve, but more accentuated; altogether hard faced. She was probably waiting for her husband.

"Shall I go and speak to her, or shall I not?" Emily wondered. The woman hadn't once looked in her direction. Either she was intent upon the path and had not heard anyone coming, or purposely avoided chances of being intruded upon.

Emily had not been sitting there undecided one minute when the woman leaned suddenly forward, shifting her position to get a better view of something. Emily's eyes turned, naturally, to see what she was so eagerly looking at. There were four people walking towards them at a little distance, two in front, young Mr. and Mrs. Williams, two behind, little Martha Kenworthy and that man. Martha had on a pleated white skirt and a belted overblouse of pale yellow crêpe de Chine, with a square neck, and she was walking along, slight and young, bareheaded, of course, with her face all flushed pink, looking up, all smiling and interested, to that man, who seemed, as always, to be leaning down over her. They came walking towards her. They were talking about something so amusing, so intimately interesting, that they paid no attention to the two cars. Emily sitting there, sickening, saw Mrs. Williams call Martha's attention to her mother. She saw the absorbed two turn from their topic and look towards her.

She had looked again quickly at the woman. She knew what she had been waiting for. She saw the discontented face flush angrily, as Eve's did sometimes; and then, just as that man drew near, when he had seen his wife sitting there, she started her car and drove hastily away.

Martha was coming up to her mother. Mrs. Williams was with her. The men had stopped to talk together about something, a few steps away. Had the Williamses seen that woman? Would they know who she was?

"Hello, mother!" Martha said, quite naturally. And Emily, she hoped undismayed, explained to her and Mrs. Williams why she had come. "I thought I'd better come and get you, so you'd have time enough to get ready," she said.

Martha jumped in, taking her place at the wheel. She had come out with Greta, whom Emily saw at some distance, coming towards her. She asked Mrs. Williams to tell her she had gone home. They whirled away.

"Martha!" Emily said, sternly, "I came out here to get you. And this is what I find. Do you know who was in that car?"

"What car?"

"That one ahead, that just drove out." Martha looked down the road.

"Eve?" she asked.

"Her sister. She came out here to see if her husband was with you," Emily's voice trembled with dismay.

"Why, mother!" Martha was indignant. "What makes you say such a thing?"

"I saw her expression. She was waiting to catch him with you. Do the Williamses know her? Oh, I wonder if they saw that--if they understood? Mr. Jenkinson was sitting on the porch there. Martha, this is the end of that. I didn't like you being with that man before; but, now I've seen her, I simply won't have it. She's jealous. Why, Martha, a girl might get into an awful mess, this way! That woman--driving away in that way. Quarreling in public--that way!"

"She quarrels with everybody, Eve says," Martha commented, indifferently.

"Well, she's not going to have any excuse for quarreling with us. You hear what I say, Martha? You're not to play golf, or swim or ride or walk or dance or even smile at that man in public, any place, where anybody can see you."

"It'll look sort of funny, mother, when he's everywhere I am."

"I don't care how it looks. It'll look a lot better than having his wife watching him flirting with you."

Martha raised her head proudly.

"I don't know why you should say a thing like that to me! I was NOT flirting, I was just talking to him, mammie! This seems so--unworthy of you."

"Very well, then. You aren't to talk to him any more. You've got to obey me! You've got to do exactly what I say in this, Martha!"

"I don't know why you get so worked up over this! You never talk so about anybody else!"

"You never look that way at any other man!"

"No. I never find anyone so interesting!"

"It's disgusting. You ought to be spanked!"

"I'm not a child!"

"You certainly are!"

"I'm twenty in April."

"Can she know how that threat--yes, sheer threat of independence--hurts me?" Emily wondered.

"Oh, Martha, you mustn't be--you _mustn't_! It isn't fair. That woman is unhappy! She's haggard! She's sick, and she sees him playing about with you!"

"Am I so dangerous? Can't she even let him talk to a child?"

"I'm not going to argue with you. I've simply laid down the law, for once. You're not to be seen even talking with that man again. Do you understand that?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you understand it before?"

"I never thought you'd act this way about it."

"I never thought for a minute you'd go on, after what I said to you."

"Do you want me to tell him I'm not allowed to speak to him?"

"I don't care what you tell him. You're able to make a man understand when he's not welcome, I hope, at your age."

"A mere child like me, mammie?" Martha asked. But Emily didn't deign to notice her sarcasm. They rode the rest of the way in silence. Martha went directly to her room. She came down for supper, and ate in silence. When it was over she began clearing away the dishes. Was she going to be a martyr? She passed through the living room, when she had finished them, on the way to her room.

"If they call for me, you can tell them I'm not going," she told Emily.

But the girls, when they came, wouldn't take any such answer. They ran into the house and up to the painted room. They must have persuaded her, for she came down with them, all dressed and ready, and, after they had told Emily they were going to keep her till the next afternoon, she said good-by coolly and departed with them.

And Emily was glad. Anything to get the child's mind away from the afternoon, from "that man." She wished Martha would stay with those nice young girls and go playing about with the lads they played with for a week. Perhaps that man would have left town by that time. Perhaps Eve would come back. And there was Mary Carr, who was to come for a visit some time during the holiday, and other girls. If Martha would only invite them for next week! Emily, sitting on the dark veranda, clung eagerly to these hopes. Remembering the expression of that woman's face, she planned almost frantically. She would take Martha and go--to Estey's Park--or--to Banff; she would go to Alaska or--Italy--Norway--any place. Home had become--not a refuge, not a playground of happy security, but a dangerous, threatening place. She wished devoutly that Eve and her family had never come to the town.

However, when Emily suggested Colorado, Martha said it was too hot to travel. Trains would be horrible such nights. And that was true. "This house," Martha remarked, truly, "is cooler than any place else is." When Emily asked about the visit Martha had been looking forward to, she replied: "Dorothy's father has broken his leg. I don't think they want me now." When Emily asked, after a discreet interval, when Mary Carr was to be expected, Martha said: "I don't know yet--exactly. It's such a lot of work for you now, company, in the heat. It's sort of nice to have a rest, for a change." This was something new. And there was something new about the atmosphere of the house. Martha had stopped baiting her father. She had stopped chattering with her mother. She sat through the meals a well-behaved and silent child. She offered to help about the house more thoughtfully than she sometimes had. And when she had finished her tasks, she withdrew to the painted room.

She had said she wanted a sitting room, and she had got one. But Emily had never foreseen that she meant to withdraw from the family altogether. When her friends came now, they went upstairs to her. Emily felt strangely alone, deprived of their chatter. When she went up to them, the girls received her as usual. Their tongues wagged on still. They seemed not to notice Martha's withdrawal, but Emily did. She told herself that she had been trying always to get Martha to rest. And now when Martha was going to bed early, when she was lying on her bed reading, or pretending to, sleeping, or pretending to, all the afternoons, Emily was uncomfortable. Even Bob said: "What's got into the kid? Where's the gang?"

Emily wouldn't ask Bob about "that man." She saw him one day on the street. The next day Martha announced she was going to Chicago. She had to get something for cushions, and a tray. Emily offered to go with her. Martha expressed no eagerness for her company, but showed a desire to go alone. She went, and came back with her purchases.

She went again the next week. Emily was glad to have her away, for a change. She had never gone to play golf since that afternoon. She went about with her girl friends when she couldn't avoid going. She went nearly every evening for a swim with some of them. When she came back, sometimes she went and sat alone in the boat tied under the willow until bedtime. Emily's heart smote her when she saw the girl sitting alone there, in the starlight, a dimmed firefly among the shining ones. That boat, that willow--were for two. She had to think soberly about the deserted veranda, where Bob sat now without blushing. And where were the boys that had been "hanging about" before? Martha had said more than once that they came just to "jolly" her mother. They weren't coming now for that purpose. Johnnie passed back and forth every day up and down the street, but he never came in, unless his mother had sent him on an errand.

The first week of August Emily met Eve downtown. That was a jolt. "Have you been back long?" she asked, carelessly. And Eve hurried to say that she had been back a few days, but she was trying to help at home. Her grandmother was very bad. The nurses were busy every minute. But Eve was going to find time to come down. "I meant to come and see YOU," she asserted, with eager sincerity, with just a little stress on the "you." "I'm going to be here all the time now. My sister's gone," she added cheerfully.

When she went on her way, Emily sighed with deep relief. Those people and their shadow over the Kenworthys had left, finally. Maybe things would be gay now, as they used to be. But Martha, who had given no sign and never mentioned either of them again to Emily, seemed to be unaware of their departure. She was tired, and it was hot, and she wanted to rest. She stated her case with dignity, gently. There was nothing Emily could object to in her bearing.

There was nothing they could object to in her manner the next week, when she refused to drive to Springfield with her father and mother. Bob would do the driving, and she had never liked riding alone in the back seat. So the Kenworthys went alone, and spent the day, and came driving back towards home through the country darkness about midnight.

The day had added to the burden on Emily's mind, instead of lightening it. She had been visiting a friend while Bob had been hurrying through his business. They had been silent for miles, when Emily began talking, wearily:

"Fanny was telling me about her niece, Bob. She wondered if we could get her a job in town here. Her husband has left her with those two children. She learned typing, but she hasn't had any experience. She wants to get some place where she can make a home for them. She'll have to divorce him. I wondered--if she could get some work here, maybe I could help her with the children, sometimes. I said we'd look round and see if we could do anything," Emily sighed.

"She married that Grey, didn't she? Who vamped him?" That was the way Bob WOULD put it, of course. Everything he thought of as some woman's fault.

"I don't know. He's no good. They tried every way to get her not to marry him." Emily sighed again. These daughters--these tragedies. The rumbling of incredible possibilities on the horizon--Emily fell silent, sighing sometimes.

The car drew up to the house, and Emily reproved herself for worrying. It was lighted up; the victrola was playing. It would be gay with dancing within. But the blinds were down, strange to say. Never mind that--Martha was happy again. She was having a party of friends. Bob and Emily went up the walk and into the front hall, both of them relieved and eager, and through it into the living room, to put down their parcels on the table.

And there Emily stopped by the table, without unloading her hands. Bob stopped behind her. They just stood looking for a critical second--looking at Martha and "that man," who were stopping their dance, drawing away from each other, returning their gaze.

"You're late," said Martha, quite naturally, unperturbed.

The man spoke to them. Emily murmured something. She didn't know what to say. Martha went to the victrola and stood there, turning it off. Bob said nothing. Richard Quin looked at Martha inquiringly.

"It's late," he said. "Really, I'd better be going."

Bob took a step towards the table and divested himself of three large bottles of choice olives and a long sprayer for roses. He strode towards the man.

"Yes, you'd better be going," he said. "If you're wise, you'll be staying away." He stood glaring at him, threateningly.

Emily came and stood close to Bob. And Martha came towards "that man," with her head held high. She spoke to him with the most gentle sweetness, looking straight at her father.

"You didn't have a hat, did you?" she asked him. "It was so nice of you to think of coming in." She was going with him towards the door. She went with him into the hall. "Good night," they heard her say. "Good night." She stood in the hall after the door had shut behind the man. She waited there. Emily called her. And when she came into the light from the darkness of the hall, it was plain that for once in his life Bob Kenworthy had "got a rise" out of Martha. She came straight at him. She was white with anger.

"How dare you do such a thing! How dare you speak to my friends that way!" Emily had never seen her so furious.

"Martha!" she cried, warningly.

"I won't stand this! I'll never ask another friend to this house as long as I live!"

"Don't talk that way to _me_!" Bob exclaimed. "Don't say _dare_ to me!"

And Emily said, soothingly, "Martha, didn't I tell you not to let that man come here?"

"You did _not_! You told me not to appear in public with him. Is this public? We've been up in my room till just now. I pulled the blinds down as soon as we came down!"

"My God!" cried Bob. "You pulled the blinds down! You haven't any sense at all. Have those blinds been down before all summer? You're a perfect fool!"

"I'm not going to be cursed, mother." She started towards the stairs proudly.

"You took him up to your bedroom?" Bob exploded.