XIV
It was eight o’clock in the morning and Rosedene was looking its best. The late spring weather was perfect and the flower beds and shrubs about the Winters’ home were faintly misted with bloom.
Lucy was weeding a border of violets and Dimmie assisted her. She wore a clean gingham dress and the customary wide apron. An old hat tied on with a black silk ribbon, and worn gloves of John’s completed her costume. There was a light wind and her skirts billowed out as she bent over the flowers and the ribbon under her chin fluttered.
“Don’t sit down in the mud. You’ll take cold, Dimmie,” Lucy admonished, observing the clayey tint on the seat of Dimmie’s rompers as, panting and perspiring with his exertions, he laboriously replanted an uprooted violet.
Nannie came in from the street. She had been seeing John off to his train and was in a simple but charming morning costume.
“I met the postman on the way,” she observed as she stood removing her gloves.
“Were there any letters for us?” Lucy asked.
“None for you. I got one.” Nannie hesitated. “It was from Professor Walsh,” she added, laughing rather uneasily.
“So you’ve read it already, have you?” Lucy smiled as she spoke but did not look up from her work.
“Now, Lucy, you are trying to make game of me!”
“Indeed I’m not, Mamma. I always like to see what’s in a letter as soon as I get one.”
“I didn’t have to think very hard to guess what would be in this one. The poor man is so alone in Russellville. You know yourself how in a small place there are so few really cultured people.” Mrs. Merwent smoothed out the fingers of the gloves she held.
“I thought you always stood up for Russellville, Mamma,” Lucy said.
“Now, Lucy, I didn’t mean of course that there were no really well bred people in Russellville. There are few enough here in the North, heaven knows, but Professor Walsh is an unusually well educated man.”
“Yes. There are few enough anywhere,” Lucy continued, ignoring Mrs. Merwent’s last allusion.
“But you and John lead such an isolated life,” Nannie went on. “I don’t see how you can judge. Don’t you know any of your neighbors, Lucy?”
“Well, we haven’t any neighbors in the sense we used to have in Russellville, but there are a few really pleasant people near by. There are the Hamiltons just back of us. She is the one who sent the jellied chicken for our luncheon the day you came. Don’t put so much water on the flowers, dear.” (This last remark was addressed to Dimmie.)
Dimmie began to drum on the tin sprinkler with a trowel.
“Jimmie, for heaven’s sake stop that noise,” exclaimed Nannie. “You’ll split my head. I can’t hear myself talk.”
Dimmie ceased drumming and ran off to swing.
“Of course I know you don’t have neighbors like in small towns,” Nannie pursued, speaking to Lucy again, “but I don’t mean people like the Hamiltons. I meant your social circle. Don’t you know any smart people?”
“I think the Hamiltons are very nice,” said Lucy slowly. “We’re very small potatoes here, Mamma.”
“Well, at home children of the first families move in the best society, even if they are poor.”
“We don’t belong to the first families.” As Lucy talked she was pulling weeds from among some clumps of jonquils.
“Well, you certainly do, and John has told me that his father is a distinguished clergyman, and his mother is one of the Montgomerys of Virginia.”
“We only know a few people and those slightly,” explained Lucy, still intent on her task. “We don’t go out much and when we do we only go to a theatre or concert with Jim.”
“That’s just it, Lucy! You make no attempt to get out into the world. All these years you’ve done nothing at all. If you’d started at once, by now you would be at least on the outskirts of good society, and as fast as John made more money you could get into more select things. It’s a woman’s duty to advance herself all she can.”
“We none of us care for society, Mamma, even if we could afford it.”
“ ‘We’—who do you mean by ‘we,’ Lucy?”
“Why John and Jim and me, of course,” replied Lucy with some surprise.
“That’s just it, Lucy! It’s Mr. Sprague who doesn’t like to have you go out. John is as fond of society as anyone could be. I’ll tell you candidly, I think you are making a great mistake in letting an outsider—”
Lucy had paused in her weeding.
“I thought we had decided not to discuss Mr. Sprague,” she put in with an approach to irritation.
“Oh, dear me! Now I’ve done it again! I declare, Lucy, you are certainly abnormally sensitive on the subject of Mr. Sprague,” Nannie complained, hastening on to prevent a reply, “but it’s certainly dull never seeing anybody from one day’s end to another. I don’t mean for myself. It makes no difference about me. But for your own sake you ought to go out occasionally, and have a few friends in once in a while.”
Lucy returned to her jonquils.
“I expect it does seem rather quiet to you, Mamma. I’ve gotten so used to it I don’t notice it. We’ll have to take in a theatre some evening this week. I’ll have John get tickets.”
“You needn’t do it on my account, but I really think it would do you good. You are stuck here in the house night and day. Doesn’t anyone besides Mrs. Hamilton ever call on you?”
“Yes. At least a number did call, but I’m not very good at keeping up formal acquaintances, and most of them have stopped. Miss Storms used to come here often, but she’s so busy, and I’ve gotten into the habit of dropping in on her when I go down—”
“Lucy, I should think you’d have at least consideration enough not to mention that woman in my presence!”
“Well, Mamma, we won’t discuss her either then,” responded Lucy quietly.
“Well, of course people will call on me, now that I’m here.”
“I doubt if anybody knows it except those in the next houses, and we only know them by sight.”
“You oughtn’t to let yourself be forgotten like this, Lucy. If you don’t push yourself a little nobody will notice you.”
Lucy straightened up from her work. She was thinking.
“I’ll invite a few women acquaintances out to meet you, Mamma. Maybe you’ll like some of them, and it will give you a chance to get out a little afterwards.”
“I don’t like to think of your going to trouble and expense for me.”
“It won’t be much trouble or expense.”
“You could have a little tea, couldn’t you? You make such darling little cakes and sandwiches.”
“Al right, we’ll do it.”
“Now you’re sure it’s not too much for you, Lucy?”
“Quite sure,” affirmed Lucy, smiling.
“I’m sure it’s very nice of you. I’ll help decorate the table. I must look through my trunks and fix up something to wear.”
Lucy bent over her plants.
John that night approved the plan for the tea.
“You can get some things from the caterer’s,” he suggested.
Lucy, however, counting the money on hand, decided to prepare the refreshments herself. She asked two young girls who lived near to help her serve, and the simple affair was conducted without a hitch.
Nannie’s toilette, made by herself, was the admiration of all, and she referred to her home and friends in Russellville in a way that made several of the ladies wish they might see her in such lovely surroundings.
One of the guests was a Miss Powell, a voluptuous and very smartly dressed brunette. She was evidently impressed with Nannie.
“I suppose you will find it hard to stay long away from Russellville, even to be with your daughter,” remarked the new acquaintance.
“Oh, I hope to stay a little while yet, Miss Powell,” returned Nannie laughing. “It’s been so long since we could arrange it to be together and we are both enjoying it,” she declared, becoming serious.
When the guests had gone, Lucy bravely attacked the huge pile of dishes in the kitchen sink.
“Are there any sandwiches left, Lucy?” Mrs. Merwent inquired, entering the room where Lucy was in the midst of her work.
Lucy indicated a plate which had been set aside with the idea that it might contribute to the morrow’s luncheon.
“We’ve been in such a rush all day that I’ve hardly had time to eat anything,” Nannie explained as she helped herself to the largest sandwich. “I wish you would leave all those things until I get back. I promised to meet John,” she went on as she selected her second sandwich.
“I must finish up and put dinner on,” Lucy informed her mother somewhat irritably.
Mrs. Merwent halted in the kitchen doorway.
“I hope you aren’t displeased because I promised to meet John,” she challenged resentfully.
“Oh, Mamma, please don’t start any argument now!” Lucy exclaimed.
Nannie gave her daughter a reproachful glance and turned away without speaking, even the set of her shoulders as she left the room expressing offended virtue.
She changed her frock and went to meet John’s train as she had been in the habit of doing. When he alighted from the car it was not yet dusk. Nannie stepped out of the crowd to greet him. They smiled at each other, and a few moments later were walking back to the house together, their arms linked.
“Keep step, Nannie.” John, amused by the shortness of her stride, admonished her gaily. Mrs. Merwent looked up at him and they both laughed.
“You have to work so hard, yet no matter how tired you are you are so cheerful, John,” she said. “It ought to make Lucy and me ashamed of ourselves.”
“What’s the matter with you and Lucy?” John asked, the cheerful note dying out of his voice. Nannie gave him a quick side look.
“Why, nothing, John, except that Lucy is upset by her day, I suppose. She’s irritable now and then, you know, but I certainly don’t hold it against her.”
There was silence for a moment.
“John,” Nannie continued diffidently, “Lucy misunderstands so many things—I’ve been wanting to ask you a favor and I didn’t dare do it!”
John glanced down at her.
“I’m not afraid of Lucy if you are, Nannie,” he protested, smiling, but with his brows still fretfully corrugated.
“I want you to cash a check for me. It—it—Professor Walsh was the only person I could go to for help, John, and he has been kind enough to take charge of my financial affairs. I know so little of such things. The check is from him,” she finished apologetically.
“I don’t see why you have to depend on Professor Walsh while I’m here!” John answered, dropping her arm.
“But remember, John, I didn’t know until I got here—” She stopped speaking, then added, “it is hard not to treasure it up against Lucy when I think how long her siding with her father against me kept us from knowing each other, John.”
John did not reply at once.
“I understand, Nannie,” he said after a minute.
“Here is the check. It’s already endorsed. I knew you would realize in what a position I was placed—without a person in the world to call on!” Mrs. Merwent’s voice broke.
John took the check and put it in his inside pocket.
“Lucy is not as charitable as she might be, John,” Nannie sighed, taking his arm again.
They walked on in silence.
“I wish Professor Walsh would choke!” John ejaculated in a savage undertone, as they entered the gate at their destination.
Nannie laughed and pressed his arm.
“You are a dear boy, John,” she whispered.
Lucy heard them come in laughing and talking. Dimmie did not run to meet them.
“Is dinner ready?” John called as they entered the dining room.
“No,” responded Lucy.
“Whew!” he exclaimed with mock chagrin. “Got a grouch on, Lucy?”
Busied in placing on the table those of the dishes which she had washed to use for the evening meal, she did not reply. Dimmie appeared behind his mother.
“Hello, son! You sore too? Why didn’t you come with Nannie to meet me?” John inquired breezily.
“I did want to,” acknowledged Dimmie, “but Nannie said I couldn’t.”
“Why, Jimmie!” Mrs. Merwent cried. “What an awful story!” She turned to John. “Did you ever see such a child! Lucy had changed his clothes after the ladies left and I only said to him that his mother was too tired to change him again just to go out for a few moments.”
“What do you mean by telling an untruth, Dimmie?” demanded John.
Dimmie began to cry. Lucy took the child’s hand.
“I don’t see any untruthfulness,” she contended. “Mamma didn’t want him and her exact wording doesn’t matter.”
“Why, Lucy,” said John reproachfully, “you surely don’t think your mother would—”
Nannie laid her hand on his arm.
“Don’t, John,” she urged. “Lucy is tired, and it’s really only a trifle. Let’s talk about something pleasant.”
“All right, but I must say you’re awfully good natured, Nannie!”
“I saw you carrying a roll of something. Did you get my music?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s in the hall with my hat. Do you want to try it now?”
“Why, if there’s time before supper. Is there, Lucy?”
“Yes,” said Lucy, and John and Nannie started toward the living room.
That night when John came whistling to bed, he found Lucy by the window staring out.
“Why, Lucy, aren’t you in bed yet?” he asked cheerfully.
“John, I wish you’d mow the lawn again,” she said, as though not hearing his question. “It’s been over two weeks since you did and it looks ragged. You used to keep it so beautifully.”
The next morning Lucy was dusting the dining room furniture. Mrs. Merwent had just finished her usual tardy breakfast.
“Who was that woman with her hat stuck on the back of her head who came so early yesterday?” she asked, pushing her chair away from the table.
Lucy frowned slightly.
“I suppose you mean Mrs. Hamilton. I never noticed how she wore her hat but she was the one who came earliest. I told you she was our neighbor when I introduced you. I like her the best of all those who were here,” Lucy returned with antagonistic emphasis.
“Well, I could never like a woman who wore her hat like that,” Nannie asserted. “Now that Miss Powell was the smartest one present at your tea. The way she put her hat on had real dash to it. She studies herself and dresses to bring out her points to the best advantage. I think that it’s a woman’s duty to look as well as she can.”
“I never cared for Miss Powell,” said Lucy stubbornly. “She always seemed so selfish to me.”
“Well, I thought she was nice,” persisted Nannie injuredly. “Her brother is William J. Powell of Powell and Powell. John knows the firm. She’s going to call on me soon and before the season’s over we’re going to a matinée together. I tell you, Lucy, you’re making a mistake, living by yourself. You owe it to John to make friends. A woman can advance her husband in lots of ways if she’s clever about it.”
Lucy opened her lips to speak but restrained the impulse before she had put her reply into words.
“Now one thing we could do to extend your acquaintance would be to have nice teas on Sundays,” Nannie resumed. “Then you could have friends in, and in time keep sort of open house Sunday evenings.”
“We can’t afford extra things, Mamma. Our means won’t allow it.”
“But, Lucy, it wouldn’t cost hardly anything. You are so clever about making things. Why your biscuits and fricasseed chicken the other day were the best things I ever tasted. Let’s try it next Sunday.”
“But whom shall we invite, Mamma?”
“Let’s invite your friend, Mr. Sprague,” suggested Nannie smiling.
“He’s not my friend any more than he is John’s, and not as much,” said Lucy coldly.
“Why, Lucy, who said he was! I meant yours and John’s both. I only wanted to please you. I declare, we can’t mention Mr. Sprague’s name without your getting offended.”
Lucy changed the subject and did not refer to it again, but Nannie brought up her suggestion when John came home, and he seconded the plan heartily.
“Yes. Let’s have Jim out Sunday!” he cried. “He’s moping around these days like he’d lost his grandmother. It’ll do him good.”
“All right,” suddenly agreed Lucy. “We will.”
Nannie seemed surprised at her ready acquiescence.