It was in the library next morning that Valerie asked Imogen to join her, and the girl, who had come into the room with her light, soft step, paused to kiss her mother"s forehead before going to the opposite seat.
"Deep in ways and means, mamma dear?" she asked her. "Why, you are quite a business woman." "Quite," Valerie replied. "I have been going over things with Mr. Haliwell, you know." She smiled thoughtfully at Imogen, preoccupied, as the girl could see, by what she had to say.
Imogen was slightly ruffled by the flavor of a.s.surance that she felt in her mother, as of someone who, after gently and vaguely fumbling about for a clue to her own meaning in new conditions, had suddenly found something to which she held very firmly. Imogen was rejoiced for her that she should find a field of real usefulness-were it only that of housekeeping and seeing to weekly bills; but there was certainly a touch of the inappropriate, perhaps of the grotesque, in any a.s.sumption on her mother"s part of maturity and competence. She therefore smiled back at her with much the same tolerantly interested smile that a parent might bestow on a child"s brick-building of a castle.
"I"m so glad that you have that to give yourself to, mama dear," she said.
"You shall most certainly be our business woman and add figures and keep an eye on investment to your heart"s content. I know absolutely nothing of the technical side of money--I"ve thought of it only as an instrument, a responsibility, a power given me in trust for others."
Valerie, whose warmth of tint and softness of outline seemed dimmed and sharpened, as though by a controlled anxiety, glanced at her daughter, gravely and a little timidly. And as, in silence, she lightly dotted her pen over the paper under her hand, uncertain, apparently, with what words to approach the subject, it was Imogen, again, who spoke, kindly, but with a touch of impatience.
"We mustn"t be too long over our talk, dear. I must meet Miss Boc.o.c.k at twelve."
"Miss Boc.o.c.k?" Valerie was vague. "Have I met her?"
"Not yet. She is a _protegee_ of mine--English--a Newnham woman--a folk-lorist. I heard of her from some Boston friends, read her books, and induced her to come over and lecture to us this winter. We are arranging about the lectures now. I"ve got up a big cla.s.s for her--when I say "I," I mean, of course, with the help of all my dear, good friends who are always so ready to back me up in my undertakings. She is an immensely interesting woman; ugly, dresses tastelessly; but one doesn"t think of that when one is listening to her. She has a wonderful mind; strong, disciplined, stimulating. I"m very happy that I"ve been able to give America to her and her to America."
"She must be very interesting," said Valerie. "I shall like hearing her. We will get through our business as soon as possible so that you may keep your appointment." And now, after this digression, she seemed to find it easier to plunge. "You knew that your father had left very little money, Imogen."
Imogen, her hands lightly folded in her lap, sat across the table, all mild attention.
"No, I didn"t, mama. We never talked about money, he and I."
"No; still--you spent it."
"Papa considered himself only a steward for what he had. He used his money, he did not h.o.a.rd it, mama dear. Indeed, I know that his feeling against acc.u.mulations of capital, against all private property, unless used for the benefit of all, was very strong."
"Yes," said Valerie, after a slight pause, in which she did not raise her eyes from the paper where her pen now drew a few neat lines. "Yes. But he has left very little for Eddy, very little for you; it was that I was thinking of."
At this Imogen"s face from gentle grew very grave.
"Mama dear, I don"t think that you and papa would have agreed about the upbringing of a man. You have the European standpoint; we don"t hold with that over here. We believe in equipping the man, giving him power for independence, and we expect him to make his own way. Papa would rather have had Eddy work on the roads for his bread than turn him into a _faineant_."
Valerie drew her lines into a square before saying, "I, you know, with Mr.
Haliwell, am one of your trustees. He tells me that your father gave you a great deal."
"Whatever I asked. He had perfect trust in me. Our aims were the same."
"And how did you spend it? Don"t imagine that I"m finding fault."
"Oh, I know that you couldn"t well do that!" said Imogen with a smile a little bitter. "I spent very little on myself." And she continued, with somewhat the manner of humoring an exacting child: "You see, I helped a great many people; I sent two girls to college; I sent a boy--such a dear, fine boy--for three years" art-study in Paris; he is getting on so well.
There is my girls" club on the East side, my girls" club in Vermont; there is the Crippled Children"s Home,--quite numberless charities I"m interested in. It"s been one thing after another, money has not lacked,--but time has, to answer all the claims upon me. And then," here Imogen smiled again, "I believe in the claims of the self, too, when they are disciplined and harmonized into a larger experience. There has been music to keep up; friends to see and to make things nice for; flowers to send to sick friends; concerts to send poor friends to; dinners and lunches to give so that friends may meet--all the thousand and one little things that a large, rich life demands of one."
"Yes, yes," said Valerie, who had nodded at intervals during the list.
"I quite see all that. You are a dear, generous child and love to give pleasure; and your father refused you nothing. It"s my fault, too. My more mercenary mind should have been near to keep watch. Because, as a, result, there"s very little, dear, very, very little."
"Oh, your being here would not have changed our ideas as to the right way to spend money, mama. Don"t blame yourself for that. We should have bled _you_, too!"
"Oh, no, you wouldn"t," Valerie said quickly. "I"ve too much of the instinctive, selfish mother-thing in me to have allowed myself to be bled for cripples and clubs and artistic boys. I don"t care about them a bit compared to you and Eddy. But this is all beside the mark. The question now is, What are we to do? Because that generous, expensive life of yours has come to an end, for the present at all events."
Imogen at this sat silent for some moments, fixing eyes of deep, and somewhat confused, cogitation upon her mother"s face.
"Why--but--I supposed that you _had_ minded for Eddy and me, mama," she said at last.
"I have very little money, Imogen."
Imogen hesitated, blushing a little, before saying, "Surely you were quite rich when papa married you."
"Hardly rich; but, yes, quite well off."
"And you spent it all--on yourself?"
Valerie"s color, too, had faintly risen. "Not so much on myself, Imogen, though I wish now that I had been more economical; but I was ignorant of your father"s rather reckless expenditure. In the first years of my marriage, before the selfish mother-thing was developed in me, I handed a good deal of my capital over to him, for his work, his various projects; in order to leave him as free for these projects as possible, I educated you and Eddy--that, too, came out of my capital. And the building of the house in Vermont swallowed a good deal of money."
Imogen"s blush had deepened. "Of course," she said, "there is no more reckless expenditure possible--since you use the term, mama--than keeping up two establishments for one family; that, of course, was your own choice.
But, putting that aside, you must surely, still, have a good deal left. See how you live; see how you are taken care of, with a maid,--I"ve never had a maid, papa, as you know, thought them self-indulgences,--see how you dress," she cast a glance upon the refinements of her mother"s black.
"How I dress, my child! May I ask what that dress you have on cost you?"
"I believe only in getting the best. This, for the best, was inexpensive.
One hundred dollars."
"Twenty pounds," Valerie translated, as if to impress the sum more fully on her mind. "I know that clothes over here are ruinous. Now mine cost only eight pounds and was made by a very little woman in London."
Imogen cast another glance, now of some helpless wonder, at the dress.
"Of course you are so clever about such things; I shouldn"t wish to spend my thought--and I couldn"t spend my time--on clothes. And then the standard of wages is so scandalously low in Europe; I confess that I would rather not profit by it."
"I am a very economical woman, Imogen," said Valerie, with some briskness of utterance. "My cottage in Surrey costs me fifty pounds a year. I keep two maids, my own maid, a cook, a gardener; there"s a pony and trap and a stable-boy. I have friends with me constantly and pay a good many visits.
Yet my income is only eight hundred pounds a year."
"Eight hundred--four thousand dollars," Imogen translated, a note of sharp alarm in her voice. "That, of course, would not be nearly enough for all of us."
"Not living as you have, certainly, dear."
"But papa? Surely papa has left something! He must have made money at his legal practice."
"Never much. His profession was always a by-issue with him. I find that his affairs are a good deal involved; when all the enc.u.mbrances are cleared off, we think, Mr. Haliwell and I, that we may secure an amount that will bring our whole income to about five thousand dollars a year. If we go on living in New York it will require the greatest care to be comfortable on that. We must find a flat somewhere, unless you cared to live in England, where we could be very comfortable indeed, without effort, on what we have."
Imogen was keeping a quiet face, but her mother, with a pang of helpless pity and compunction, saw tears near the surface, and that, to control them, she fixed herself on the meaning of the last words. "Live out of my own country! Never!"
"No, dear, I didn"t think that you would want to; I didn"t want it for you, either; I only suggested it so that you might see clearly just where we stand, and in case you might prefer it, with our limited means."
Imogen"s next words broke out even more vehemently. "I can"t leave this house! I _can"t_! It is my home." The tears ran down her face.
"My poor darling!" her mother exclaimed. She rose quickly and came round the table to her, putting her arm around her and trying to draw her near.
But Imogen, covering her eyes with one hand, held her off. "It"s wrong.
It"s unfair. I should have been told before."