XXIV
On Monday morning Nannie was descending the stairs when the telephone on the landing rang and she stopped to answer it.
“Is this Mrs. Winter?” a voice responded to her “hello.”
“Who is this speaking?” interrupted Nannie.
“It’s Miss Storms. Is that you, Lucy?”
Nannie hesitated a second.
“No. This is Mrs. Merwent. Mrs. Winter is upstairs. Is there anything I could tell her?”
“If you wouldn’t mind asking her to step to the phone I should be so obliged,” said Miss Storms.
“Oh, very well. Wait a minute. Hold the wire.” And Nannie went into the kitchen.
“That woman wants to speak to you on the phone,” she told Lucy. “It must be something very private as she insisted on your coming to the phone yourself. I told her you were busy.”
Lucy turned from the table where she was mixing cake batter.
“Whom do you mean? Miss Storms?” she asked.
“Of course. Who else!” Nannie replied impatiently.
Lucy went into the hall and, mounting to the landing, picked up the receiver.
“Good morning, Miss Storms,” she called.
“I’m sorry to bring you downstairs, but I wanted to speak to you personally, Lucy,” began Miss Storms.
“Why, I wasn’t upstairs,” Lucy explained.
“Well—” and Miss Storms paused, “anyway I’ve some news for you. Your father is here, and his wife. I wondered if you would like to see them here. Can you come and have a cup of tea with us this afternoon?”
“Oh, thank you. Of course I’ll come. When did they get in?”
“Last night. Well, we’ll expect you, dear.”
“What time?”
“We’ll have tea about four o’clock, but you come as early as you can and stay as long as you can. Goodbye till afternoon.”
“Goodbye,” answered Lucy, “and thank you so much.”
Nannie had been listening.
“What did she want?” was demanded of Lucy as soon as she hung up the receiver.
“She wants me to take tea with her this afternoon.”
“Who is that you asked when they arrived? Some friends of hers she wants you to meet?”
“Yes,” returned Lucy, not knowing what else to say.
“She didn’t say anything about me?” pursued Nannie.
“No,” responded Lucy, relieved.
“Well, she doesn’t have to invite me if she doesn’t want to. I’m sure I’m not dying to have anything to do with either her or her friends. Of course it makes no difference to you whether your mother is given the cold shoulder or not. You go running after her just the same. Well, I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to me. She needn’t think I give it a single thought. I wouldn’t go to her teas if she begged me to, and I shouldn’t think you would either after the way she’s treated me. First, she puts that Mrs. Low up to making trouble between me and your father, and then she tries to ignore me. But all she has to do is to crook her finger, and you go tagging after her. I should think you’d have more pride about you than that, Lucy.”
“But, Mother—” expostulated Lucy.
“Oh, well, don’t mind me. Go on. I’m used to being ignored and humiliated. I can forgive and forget, but little credit do I get for it. Anybody is better than I am, in your eyes. Go on. Go to your tea. I’ll find someone who thinks I’m worth looking at. I was going down town with Miss Powell this afternoon anyway.” And Nannie sat down to her as yet untouched breakfast.
Lucy had just returned from her visit and was removing her hat and gloves before the hall mirror when John entered. She turned to face him and greeted him expectantly.
“Hello,” he answered sulkily.
“I’ve been to Miss Storms’,” Lucy volunteered.
“Oh, I know all about your Miss Storms!” John told her. “Where’s Nannie?” He glanced about inquiringly.
“She’s upstairs.” Lucy’s tone had become as distant as his own.
“I don’t think your father ought to have come to Chicago while Nannie was here,” he began, speaking in a low voice, but with some heat.
“What do you mean, John? I didn’t know you knew they were here.”
“Miss Storms brought them by the office in her machine. She said she had just driven you to the station. I don’t think you ought to have gone under the circumstances.” His speech became louder.
“Why?” demanded Lucy, looking at him.
“Out of consideration for Nannie, of course.”
“What would you have done?”
“I should have told Miss Storms.”
“Told her that I wouldn’t see my own father? I couldn’t do that, John. He’s dearer than anyone else in the world, after you and Dimmie, and—” Lucy paused.
“More so than your own mother,” accused John.
A noise was heard. John stepped to the foot of the stairs and saw Nannie disappear in the upper hallway.
“I wonder if she heard,” he mused, frowning.
Lucy’s face grew hard. She turned and mounted the stairs.
“Dinner is ready, Mother,” she called, knocking at Mrs. Merwent’s door.
There was no answer. Lucy repeated the knock several times, always with the same result. John had followed her.
“I’ll talk to Nannie,” he announced pugnaciously.
Lucy turned away.
He tapped at the door. “Don’t you want some dinner?” he called in a voice that he tried to make careless.
Mrs. Merwent did not reply, but he could hear the sound of soft sobbing within. He tapped again.
“Please try to eat some dinner, Nannie,” he called once more pleadingly. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
“No thank you, dear John. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t swallow food. I o-oh,” and the sobbing was redoubled.
When John returned to the dining room Lucy was at the table. He seated himself in silence.
“She won’t come,” he announced gloomily after a few moments. “Now you see what you’ve done. Nannie is heartbroken.”
“I don’t see that I’ve done it,” retorted Lucy quickly. “I couldn’t help their coming to Chicago, and I didn’t tell her about it.”
“Well, if you had refused to go,” argued John, “and told Miss Storms you didn’t care to see the woman your father had deserted your mother for—”
“That would have been a good way to keep it from Mamma, who was listening to every word I said!” Lucy gazed at John defiantly.
“At any rate, if you had refused without any explanation Nannie would have needed to know nothing.”
“If she had not listened to what wasn’t intended for her ears she would have needed to know nothing.”
“How could she help hearing when we were talking in the hall?”
Lucy did not reply.
“I think you ought to take your stand, Lucy, without vacillating.”
“What do you mean by taking my stand, John?”
“Well, you are either on Nannie’s side, or you are on your father’s side. You can’t be on both.”
“I don’t see why not. That is just the stand I’ve taken. I’m not to blame for the divorce and I have a right to see my father whenever I wish.”
“Not after the way he has treated Nannie!” John answered hotly.
“I see her after the way she has treated him!” Lucy returned with equal heat.
“Lucy, do you mean to say that you have taken your father’s side against Nannie?” John interrogated incredulously.
“I’ve just said that I’ve taken neither side.”
“But if you took sides, it would be for him,” persisted John.
“Yes,” admitted Lucy.
Dimmie came in through the kitchen doorway and halted by the table. Lucy drew her to him, and he leaned against her chair. John took no notice of him.
“Lucy, I am surprised. How a woman can turn against her own mother—”
“What about her own father?” Lucy interrupted angrily.
“You are unjust, cruel and ungrateful,” continued John, paying no attention to her question.
Lucy was white.
“It is entirely my own affair,” she said coldly. “Suppose we don’t discuss it further.”
“It’s not your own affair,” contradicted John, “and I don’t propose to see you insult and humiliate your mother in any such way.”
“You have no right to dictate to me in this matter or any other.” Lucy rose from the table, her eyes blazing.
John sprang up and went out through the hall, slamming the front door after him.
“What is Papa mad about?” Dimmie asked of his mother.
Lucy sat down again and buried her face in her arms on the table.
As Lucy had not taken any dinner to her the previous evening, Mrs. Merwent appeared at the breakfast table at an unwonted hour, shortly after John’s departure for the office. She was almost without rouge and wore the negligee of the previous Sunday, a creation of grey and rose.
“I’m not hungry,” she explained as she seated herself and began to eat. “Every bite I take chokes me. But I am so empty and weak that I must take some nourishment or I’ll be sick.”
Lucy sat down wearily, saying nothing.
“I never saw such coarseness before in my whole life,” resumed Nannie. “The idea of that woman calling you up to go and see your father and that creature while I was actually in your house! I suppose that is fine feeling here in the North.”
Katy had gone to market, so it was Lucy who went into the kitchen when Nannie was ready for hot waffles.
“I suppose you saw her,” continued Mrs. Merwent, when Lucy returned.
“Have another cup of coffee, Mother.”
“I think I had better. I feel faint and dizzy.”
Lucy poured the coffee and pushed the bacon and eggs nearer her mother’s plate.
“You saw her, didn’t you?” repeated Nannie, helping herself to waffles and taking more bacon and eggs.
“Saw whom?” asked Lucy.
“You know whom I mean, Lucy. There’s no use trying to get out of it.”
“I’m not trying to get out of anything, Mother. I saw Miss Storms and Papa and—Papa’s wife.” Lucy hesitated a little over the last two words.
“I hope she dresses better than she used to in Russellville,” remarked Nannie.
Lucy was silent.
“Did she say anything about me?” Nannie took another waffle.
“No, Mother. No one mentioned you.”
“I see. Nobody even thought of me. Did that woman seem very fond of your father?”
“Who? Miss Storms?” interrogated Lucy, in a lame attempt at pleasantry.
“You know whom I mean, Lucy. It’s not funny to me if it is to you.”
“Let’s not discuss Papa’s wife.” Lucy showed that she anticipated an outburst.
“Why not?” insisted Nannie virtuously.
“Because—” Lucy looked out the window.
“Because what?” demanded her mother.
“Why, don’t you think it’s in—well, bad taste, Mother?”
The explosion came.
“You’re a nice one to try to teach me good taste and propriety!” Nannie’s voice was suddenly raised to its highest pitch. “I may be divorced but I was never talked about while I was living with your father.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Lucy regarded her mother steadily.
“No, of course you don’t!” taunted Nannie. “Well, other people do. A married woman ought to be satisfied with the friendship of her husband.”
“If you are referring to Jim Sprague,” Lucy’s tone was menacing, “my friendship for him or anybody else is none of your business.”
She had risen. Her breast heaved and her nostrils widened as she gazed at her mother.
“Why, Lucy! How can you fly into such a passion!” Nannie was frightened. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong about it.”
“You said people were talking about us,” accused Lucy in a trembling voice.
“Why, no, I didn’t. I only meant that I was afraid people might talk.”
“That wasn’t what you said.” Lucy was very pale and continued to eye her mother steadily.
“You misunderstood me, Lucy. You are always misunderstanding me,” protested Mrs. Merwent soothingly. “I only consider your own welfare, and at the least thing you flare up like you hated me—over the merest trifles. I think I’m the one who ought to get angry.” Nannie assumed an air of injury.
“Oh, I’m too tired to talk about it, Mother.” Lucy’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, ‘Mother!’ You always used to call me ‘Mamma.’ ”
Lucy did not reply.
“I suppose you didn’t get a chance to talk a minute alone with your father,” resumed Mrs. Merwent, as if nothing had happened. “Did you?” she repeated after a moment’s silence.
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything about me?” Nannie went on.
“I told you once, Mother, that nobody said anything about you.”
“Well, did he seem conscience stricken and ashamed of what he had done?”
“No. Please let’s not talk about it.”
“I suppose then he looked happy?”
Lucy did not answer.
“Of course he did,” concluded Nannie, “and you said nothing at all about it. You were afraid to tell him what you thought of his crime. You are a nice daughter—”
Lucy went into the kitchen.
Nannie, having finished her meal, rose from the table and followed.
“Did you tell him what we think of his cruel and contemptible action? I suppose that creature gloats over it. What did you say to him, Lucy?”
Dimmie bounded into the room, breathless from play.
“Mother,” Lucy’s manner was defensive, “I wish you wouldn’t insist on knowing what it is better not to discuss.” Then, turning to the child she added, “Get your hat, Son. It’s time for you to go to Mrs. Hamilton’s. The wagon will be there pretty soon.”
“Then you did not take my part at all?” continued Mrs. Merwent tenaciously.
Again Lucy made no reply.
“You took his side, and the side of that odious snake in the grass who tempted him away from us. I should have thought that your self-respect would have kept you from making friends with her, even if your mother’s suffering couldn’t. She’s no better than a common—”
“Mother!” Lucy’s eyes were dangerous once more.
“And that sneaking Miss Storms is no better. I—”
“Stop!” cried Lucy in a voice of command.
Mrs. Merwent paused involuntarily and shrank back.
“So far I have taken nobody’s part in this matter, Mother, and have tried to blame nobody. But if you are wise you will not make it too hard for me.”
“I suppose that means that you are going to take your father’s side,” sneered Nannie.
“It means just what I say,” Lucy was growing angrier with every word, “but I will not listen to you insult my father, or Miss Storms, who is my friend, or my father’s wife—”
“Who is also your friend,” supplied Nannie with another sneer.
“Yes, she is,” declared Lucy defiantly. “And they all had the decency not to discuss you in your absence,” she finished bitterly.
“And I’m not decent!” her mother almost screamed, throwing a cup she held in her hand on the kitchen table.
The cup broke into a dozen pieces and Dimmie, who had been listening with open mouth, began to cry from fright. Mrs. Merwent rushed from the kitchen upstairs.
Lucy took Dimmie to Mrs. Hamilton’s house. The carryall arrived as they were approaching. After Stella and Dimmie were safely ensconced in the vehicle Lucy followed Mrs. Hamilton into the house.
“You look all tired out, Mrs. Winter,” Lucy’s neighbor observed as they seated themselves in the neat kitchen.
The tears started to Lucy’s eyes.
“I just felt as if it would do me good to see you, Mrs. Hamilton,” she replied.
“How is your mother?” Lucy’s hostess inquired pleasantly, a few moments later. “I’m afraid she thinks I’m never going to get over to see her. She was out when I called after the tea, and I’m just so busy I haven’t time to turn around. I wish she’d do as I said and just run in now and then.”
“She’s been going out a good deal. Is little Stella over her cold? She seems quite well again.” Lucy changed the subject quickly, looking uncomfortable.
Mrs. Hamilton had risen to open a window and did not hear.
“Mrs. Merwent is so wonderfully young looking. You ought to learn her secret, whatever it is, and take care of your nerves, Mrs. Winter.” Mrs. Hamilton smiled sympathetically and patted Lucy’s arm as she spoke.
Lucy bit her lip.
The telephone in the Winter home rang shortly after Lucy’s departure and Nannie came downstairs to answer.
A voice asked for Lucy.
“Is this Miss Storms?” interrogated Nannie.
“Yes.”
“Well, this is Mrs. Merwent. If you wish to insult me again in my daughter’s house, please don’t do it over the telephone, Miss Storms. If you want to crow over your cousin’s success in—” Miss Storms had hung up the receiver with a jerk. Nannie, after listening a minute, hung up her receiver also.
When Lucy returned Nannie met her in the hall. She smiled nervously into her daughter’s unresponsive eyes.
“Where have you been, Lucy?” she began in a conciliatory manner.
“I went over to Mrs. Hamilton’s for a few minutes.”
“I suppose you felt you needed sympathy, with such a difficult mother,” said Mrs. Merwent in a joking tone.
“No, Mother,” Lucy answered a little wearily. “I don’t take my troubles to others.”
“Except Mr. Sprague!” Nannie’s tone became quickly caustic.
Lucy met her mother’s eyes coldly.
“What I meant was that I do not tell my troubles to the neighbors.”
“I’m much obliged, I’m sure,” retorted Nannie cuttingly.
Lucy moved toward the stairs.
“Lucy,” Mrs. Merwent resumed in a voice which showed a desire to propitiate.
Lucy ascended the stairs without heeding her.
The next morning being Sunday, breakfast was late and Nannie took her meal with the rest of the family. She asked John for the woman’s page of the morning paper and soon became engrossed in a perusal of “Complexion Hints.”
The door bell rang. Katy answered it and returned with a letter, which she handed to Lucy, who, without opening it, laid it by her plate.
“Who’s your letter from?” questioned Mrs. Merwent, looking up from her paper.
“It’s from—Miss Storms.” Lucy hesitated as she glanced at the handwriting on the envelope.
Nannie’s expression became disturbed and she watched her daughter silently.
“Good Sunday atmosphere,” remarked John sarcastically, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading. “Cheerful as a funeral.”
Lucy took up her letter and opened it.
“Now, Lucy,” her mother began uneasily, her voice gentle, “Miss Storms will probably have something mean to say about me in that letter, because she called up on the phone yesterday and I answered. But just remember that you haven’t heard my side.”
“Why didn’t you tell me she rang up?” demanded Lucy, with the open letter in her hand.
“Why—I—she didn’t leave any message, and I forgot it,” explained Nannie with embarrassment.
“What difference does it make anyway!” put in John. “Miss Storms had no right to call up while Nannie was here and it served her right.”
Lucy read the letter.
“What does she say?” inquired Nannie, trying to sound casual but not succeeding.
Lucy, her lips compressed, folded up the letter and put it in the envelope before she answered.
“Why don’t you tell?” urged John impatiently. “What’s the use of keeping Nannie in hot water about it?”
“She says she’s sorry for what happened,” announced Lucy quietly.
“She ought to be!” declared John. “I hope you gave her a piece of your mind, Nannie.”
“No. I only said that I didn’t think she ought to call up here under the circumstances,” cooed Nannie softly.
“Well, I think you were too forbearing,” returned John. “I’ll put it in stronger terms when I see her.”
“I don’t think either you or Mother have any right to treat my friends in any such way!” exclaimed Lucy feelingly.
“Lucy thinks I’ve already robbed her of Mr. Sprague’s friendship,” insinuated Nannie in the same silvery tone, “and now I suppose I’m to blame for Miss Storms considering herself injured.”
“In the first place, you have no right to have any friends who insult your mother,” began John dictatorially.
“I have no obligation to defend my mother when she insults my friends,” retorted Lucy, rising from the table, pale with anger.
“Nor your husband, either,” interposed Mrs. Merwent pointedly.
“No! Nor my husband either!” Lucy exploded stormily, looking straight at John.
“Lucy, you ought to think about what you say,” warned Nannie virtuously. “A woman who has as good a husband as you have should—”
“It’s no use, Nannie,” interrupted John gently, laying his hand on Nannie’s arm, “but thank you, all the same. It’s a comfort that someone still thinks I’m not a brute.”
“John,” Lucy spoke steadily, controlling herself with an effort, “be careful what you do. Consider well before you side with my mother against me. I warn you, John—think before you do this.” The last words were imploring.
“She is warning you against me, John,” commented Mrs. Merwent, smiling bitterly.
“Wherefore all this tragedy, Lucy?” inquired John, returning to his sarcastic manner. “I only ask you to be just to Nannie.”
Dimmie looked from one to the other, his lip trembling. Lucy burst into tears and left the room, leading him by the hand.
“Now what do you know about that, Nannie?” John’s voice floated out to Lucy as she ascended the stairs.
“Poor John,” Nannie answered softly.
“If it wasn’t for you, I’d go crazy,” he declared.
“I know, John, dear.”
“Lucy acts as if her mind was unbalanced,” he went on.
“Now you see what I have had to bear. It’s the Merwent characteristic to have a tendency toward melancholia. Lucy’s father—but I won’t talk about my own troubles.”
“You’re a brick, Nannie!” John cried emotionally.
During most of the day Lucy remained in her room reading and talking with Dimmie. Dinner and tea were silent meals. That night, when she undressed Dimmie, she put him in her bed, and then lay down beside him. In about an hour John knocked at the locked door. Lucy took no notice.
“Where is the money I gave you the first of the month?” he called from the hall.
“It’s in the desk drawer,” Lucy replied. “Here is the key,” and she tossed it through the open transom above the door.
In a few minutes Mrs. Merwent tapped at the door.
“Good night, Lucy. We’re going to the theatre,” she volunteered.
“Hurry up, Nannie. We’ll be late.” John’s voice could be heard as he shouted from the hall beneath.
“I’m coming, John,” Nannie responded, not waiting for Lucy’s answer, and she hastened down the stairs.
The front door slammed and the house became silent.
When she and John returned, Mrs. Merwent stopped again before her daughter’s closed door.
“Good night, Lucy,” she called. There was no response.
Soon John came up and, finding the door still locked, rapped. There was no sound.
“All right. Just as you like,” he growled, and went to Jim’s room to sleep.