"I don"t think anybody can help." Mrs. Gorman shook her head sadly.
"You see, ever since Grace was a baby, almost, she has wanted to draw things. I brought her up. I was the oldest and she the youngest of 12 children, and our mother died soon after she was born. I was married shortly afterward, and from the time she could hold a pencil in her hand she has drawn pictures on everything she could lay her hands on. In school she was always at the head of her cla.s.s in drawing, but there was no money to give her any lessons, so she didn"t get very far. Since she left school she has been planning every way to save money enough to go to an art school, but something always hinders."
Mrs. Gorman paused only to take breath. Having broken her reserve she seemed unable to stop talking.
"She went into a dressmaking shop as soon as she left school--I had taught her to sew beautifully--thinking she could earn money enough when she had learned her trade to have a term in an art school. But her health broke down at the sewing, and I had her home here a year."
I remembered the remarkable appearance of costly attire Miss Draper had achieved when we saw her in the station. This, then, was the solution. She had made them all herself.
"Then she got another position--"
Miss Draper came into the room in time to hear Mrs. Gorman"s last words. She walked swiftly to her sister"s side, her eyes blazing.
"Kate," she said, her voice low but tense with emotion. "Why are you troubling these strangers with my affairs?"
Before Mrs. Gorman could answer d.i.c.ky interposed.
"Just a minute, please," he said authoritatively. "As it happens, Miss Draper, I am in a position to make a proposition to you concerning employment which will provide you with a comfortable income, and at the same time enable you to pursue your studies."
Mrs. Gorman uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of joy, but Miss Draper said nothing, only looked steadily at him. "This girl has had lessons in a hard school," I said to myself. "She has learned to distrust men and to doubt any proffered kindness."
"I have been commissioned to do a set of ill.u.s.trations," d.i.c.ky went on, "in which the central figure is a young girl in the regulation summer costume, such as you have on. I have been unable to find a satisfactory model for the picture. If you will allow me to say so, you are just the type I wish for the drawings. If you will pose for them I will give you $50 and buy you a monthly commutation ticket from Marvin, so that you will have no expense coming or going. There are several artist friends of mine who have been looking for a model of your type. I think you could safely count upon an income of $40 or $50 a week after you get started. I know there are several other drawings I have in mind in which I could use you."
Mrs. Gorman had attempted to speak two or three times while d.i.c.ky was explaining his proposition, but Miss Draper had silenced her with a gesture. Now, however, she would not be denied. "A model!" she shrilled excitedly. "You"re not insulting my sister by asking her to be a model, are you? Why, I"d rather see her dead than have her do anything so shameful--"
"Kate, keep quiet. You do not know what you are talking about." Miss Draper"s voice was low and calm, but it quieted her older sister immediately.
"I take it you do not mean--figure posing." She hesitated before the word ever so slightly.
"Oh, no, nothing of the kind," I hastened to rea.s.sure her. "It"s the ability to wear clothes well with a certain air, that he especially wants."
"And what do you mean by an opportunity to go on with my studies?"
The girl was really superb as she faced d.i.c.ky. With the prospect of more money than I knew she had ever had before, she yet could stand and bargain for the thing which to her was far more than money.
"Show me some of your drawings," d.i.c.ky spoke abruptly.
She went swiftly upstairs, returning in a moment with two large portfolios. These she spread out before d.i.c.ky on the table, and he examined the drawings very carefully.
I felt very much alone; out of it. For all d.i.c.ky noticed, I might not have been there.
"Not bad at all," was d.i.c.ky"s verdict. "Indeed, some of them are distinctly good. Now I"ll tell you what I will do," he said, turning to Miss Draper. "Until you find out what time you can give to an art school, I will give you what little help I can in your work. If you can be quiet, and I think you can, you may work in my studio at odd times, when you are not posing. What do you think of it?"
"Think of it?" Miss Draper drew a long breath. "I accept your offer gladly. When shall I begin?"
"I will drop you a postal, notifying you a day or two ahead of time,"
he returned.
We went out of the house and down the path to the gate before d.i.c.ky spoke.
"That was awfully decent of you, Madge, to square things with Mrs.
Gorman like that. I appreciate it, I a.s.sure you."
"It was nothing," I said dispiritedly. I felt suddenly tired and old.
"But I wish you would do something for me, d.i.c.ky."
"Name it, and it is yours," d.i.c.ky spoke grandiloquently.
"Take me home. We can see the harbor another time. I really feel too tired to do any more today."
d.i.c.ky opened his mouth, evidently to remind me that my fatigue was of sudden development, but closed it again, and turned in silence toward the railroad station.
We had a silent journey back. Neither d.i.c.ky nor I spoke, except to exchange the veriest commonplaces. We reached home about 5 o"clock to Katie"s surprise.
"I"ll hurry, get dinner," she said, evidently much flurried.
"We"re not very hungry, Katie," I said. "Some cold meat and bread and b.u.t.ter, those little potato cakes you make so nicely, some sliced bananas for Mr. Graham and some coffee--that will be sufficient."
For my own part I felt that I never wished to see or hear of food again. The silent journey home, added to the events of the day, had brought on one of my ugly morbid moods.
XI
"I OWE YOU TOO MUCH"
"Bad news, d.i.c.ky?"
We were seated at the breakfast table, d.i.c.ky and I, the morning after our trip to Marvin, from which I had returned weary of body and sick of mind. Tacitly we had avoided all discussion of Grace Draper, the beautiful girl d.i.c.ky had discovered there and engaged as a model for his drawings, promising to help her with her art studies. But because of my feeling toward d.i.c.ky"s plans breakfast had been a formal affair.
Then had come a special delivery letter for d.i.c.ky. He had read it twice, and was turning back for a third perusal when my query made him raise his eyes.
"In a way, yes," he said slowly. Then after a pause. "Read it." He held out the letter.
It was postmarked Detroit. The writing reminded me of my mother; it was the hand of a woman of the older generation.
I, too, read the letter twice before making any comment upon it. I wondered if d.i.c.ky"s second reading had been for the same purpose as mine--to gain time to think.
I was stunned by the letter. I had never contemplated the possibility of d.i.c.ky"s mother living with us, and here she was calmly inviting herself to make her home with us. For years she had made her home with her childless daughter and namesake, Harriet, whose husband was one of the most brilliant surgeons of the middle West.
I knew that d.i.c.ky"s mother and sister had spoiled him terribly when they all had a home together before d.i.c.ky"s father died. The first thought that came to me was that d.i.c.ky"s whims alone were hard enough to humor, but when I had both him and his mother to consider our home life would hardly be worth the living.
I knew and resented also the fact that d.i.c.ky"s mother and sisters disapproved of his marriage to me. In one of d.i.c.ky"s careless confidences I had gleaned that his mother"s choice for him had been made long ago, and that he had disappointed her by not marrying a friend of his sister.
I felt as if I were in a trap. To have to live and treat with daughterly deference a woman who I knew so disliked me that she refused to attend her son"s wedding was unthinkable.
"Well!"