"That"s just it. They"re getting so d.a.m.ned high-toned that they"ll soon feel independent of me. But I"ll turn them out, bag and baggage."
"They treat you exactly as they have treated you for thirty years and more, brother."
"Do you think so? Do you think they"ll come to-day?"
"I am sure they will, Hiram."
He looked her up and down, then said, with a startling note of tenderness in his ill-used voice:
"You ought to have a new frock, Marian. That is looking old."
Had not Dr. Webster been wholly deficient in humor he would have smiled at his sister"s expression of terrified surprise. She ran forward and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Hiram," she said, "are you--you do not look well to-day."
"Oh, I am well enough," he replied, shaking her off. "But I have noticed of late that you and Abigail are looking shabby, and I don"t choose that all these fine folks shall criticise you." He opened his desk and counted out four double-eagles.
"Will this be enough? I don"t know anything about women"s things."
Miss Webster was thankful to get any money without days of expostulation, and a.s.sured him that it was sufficient. She left the room at once and sought her companion, Miss Williams.
The companion was sitting on the edge of the bed in her small ascetic chamber, staring, like Dr. Webster down-stairs, through the trees at the rain. So she had sat the night of her arrival at Webster Hall, then a girl of eighteen and dreams. So she had sat many times, feeling youth slip by her, lifting her bitter protest against the monotony and starvation of her existence, yet too timid and ignorant to start forth in search of life. It was her birthday, this gloomy Sunday. She was forty-two. She was revolving a problem--a problem she had revolved many times before. For what had she stayed? Had there been an unadmitted hope that these old people must soon die and leave her with an independence with which she could travel and live? She loved Miss Webster, and she had gladly responded to her invitation to leave the New England village, where she was dependent on the charity of relatives, and make her home in the new country. Miss Webster needed a companion and housekeeper; there would be no salary, but a comfortable home and clothes that she could feel she had earned. She had come full of youth and spirit and hope. Youth and hope and spirit had dribbled away, but she had stayed, and stayed. To-day she wished she had married any clod in her native village that had been good enough to address her. Never for one moment had she known the joys of freedom, of love, of individuality.
Miss Webster entered abruptly.
"Abby," she exclaimed, "Hiram is ill." And she related the tale of his unbending.
Miss Williams listened indifferently. She was very tired of Hiram. She accepted with a perfunctory expression of grat.i.tude the gold piece allotted to her. "You are forty-two, you are old, you are n.o.body," was knelling through her brain.
"What is the matter?" asked Miss Webster, sympathetically; "have you been crying? Don"t you feel well? You"d better dress, dear; they"ll be here soon."
She sat down suddenly on the bed and flung her arms about her companion, the tears starting to her kindly eyes.
"We are old women," she said. "Life has not meant much to us. You are younger in years, but you have lived in this dismal old house so long that you have given it and us your youth. You have hardly as much of it now as we have. Poor girl!"
The two women fondled each other, Abby appreciating that, although Miss Webster might not be a woman of depths, she too had her regrets, her yearnings for what had never been.
"What a strange order of things it is," continued the older woman, "that we should have only one chance for youth in this life! It comes to so many of us when circ.u.mstances will not permit us to enjoy it. I drudged--drudged--drudged, when I was young. Now that I have leisure and--and opportunity to meet people, at least, every chance of happiness has gone from me. But you are comparatively young yet, really; hope on.
The grave will have me in a few years, but you can live and be well for thirty yet. Ah! if I had those thirty years!"
"I would give them to you gladly for one year of happiness--of youth."
Miss Webster rose and dried her eyes. "Well," she said, philosophically, "regrets won"t bring things. We"ve people to entertain to-day, so we must get out of the dumps. Put on your best frock, like a good child, and come down."
She left the room. Miss Williams rose hurriedly, unhooked a brown silk frock from the cupboard, and put it on. Her hair was always smooth; the white line of disunion curved from brow to the braids pinned primly above the nape of the neck. As she looked into the gla.s.s to-day she experienced a sudden desire to fringe her hair, to put red on her cheeks; longing to see if any semblance of her youthful prettiness could be coaxed back. She lifted a pair of scissors, but threw them hastily down. She had not the courage to face the smiles and questions that would greet the daring innovation, the scathing ridicule of old man Webster.
She stared at her reflection in the little mirror, trying to imagine her forehead covered with a soft fringe. Nothing could conceal the lines about the eyes and mouth, but the aging brow could be hidden from critical gaze, the face redeemed from its unyouthful length. Her cheeks were thin and colorless, but the skin was fine and smooth. The eyes, which had once been a rich dark blue, were many shades lighter now, but the dulness of age had not possessed them yet. Her set mouth had lost its curves and red, but the teeth were good. The head was finely shaped and well placed on the low old-fashioned shoulders. There were no contours now under the stiff frock. Had her estate been high she would have been, at the age of forty-two, a youthful and pretty woman. As it was, she was merely an old maid with a patrician profile.
She went down-stairs to occupy her chair in the parlor, her seat at the table, to be overlooked by the fine people who took no interest whatever in the "Websters" companion." She hated them all. She had watched them too grow old with a profound satisfaction for which she reproached herself. Even wealth had not done for them what she felt it could have done for her.
The first carriage drove up as she reached the foot of the stair. The front door had been opened by the maid as it approached, and the rain beat in. There was no _porte-cochere_; the guests were obliged to run up the steps to avoid a drenching. The fashionable Mrs. Holt draggled her skirts, and under her breath anathematized her host.
"It will be the happiest day of my life when this sort of thing is over," she muttered. "Thank heaven, he can"t live much longer!"
"Hush!" whispered her prudent husband; Miss Webster had appeared.
The two women kissed each other affectionately. Everybody liked Miss Webster. Mrs. Holt, an imposing person, with the rigid backbone of the newly rich, held her hostess"s hand in both her own as she a.s.sured her that the storm had not visited California which could keep her from one of dear Dr. Webster"s delightful dinners. As she went up-stairs to lay aside her wrappings she relieved her feelings by a facial pucker directed at a painting, on a matting panel, of the doctor in the robes of j.a.pan.
The other guests arrived, and after making the pilgrimage up-stairs, seated themselves in the front parlor to slide up and down the horse-hair furniture and await the entrance of the doctor. The room was funereal. The storm-ridden trees lashed the bare dripping windows. The carpet was threadbare. White crocheted tidies lent their emphasis to the hideous black furniture. A table, with marble top, like a graveyard slab, stood in the middle of the room. On it was a bunch of wax flowers in a gla.s.s case. On the white plastered walls hung family photographs in narrow gilt frames. In a conspicuous place was the doctor"s diploma. In another, Miss Webster"s first sampler. "The first piano ever brought to California" stood in a corner, looking like the ghost of an ancient spinet. Miss Williams half expected to find it some day standing on three legs, resting the other.
Miss Webster sat on a high-backed chair by the table, nervously striving to entertain her fashionable guests. The women huddled together to keep warm, regardless of their expensive raiment. The men stood in a corner, reviling the mid-day dinner in prospect. Miss Williams drifted into a chair and gazed dully on the accustomed scene. She had looked on it weekly, with barely an intermission, for a quarter of a century. With a sensation of relief, so sharp that it seemed to underscore the hateful monotony of it all, she observed that there was a young person in the company. As a rule, neither threats nor bribes could bring the young to Webster Hall. Then she felt glad that the young person was a man. She was in no mood to look on the blooming hopeful face of a girl.
He was a fine young fellow, with the supple lean figure of the college athlete, and a frank attractive face. He stood with his hands plunged into his pockets, gazing on the scene with an expression of ludicrous dismay. In a moment he caught the companion"s eye. She smiled involuntarily, all that was still young in her leaping to meet that glad symbol of youth. He walked quickly over to her.
"I say," he exclaimed, apologetically, "I haven"t been introduced, but do let ceremony go, and talk to me. I never saw so many old fogies in my life, and this room is like a morgue. I almost feel afraid to look behind me."
She gave him a grateful heart-beat for all that his words implied.
"Sit down," she said, with a vivacity she had not known was left in her sluggish currents. "How--did--you--come--here?"
"Why, you see, I"m visiting the Holts--Jack Holt was my chum at college--and when they asked me if I wanted to see the oldest house in the city, and meet the most famous man "on this side of the bay," why, of course, I said I"d come. But, G.o.ds! I didn"t know it would be like this, although Jack said the tail of a wild mustang couldn"t get him through the front door. Being on my first visit to the widely renowned California, I thought it my duty to see all the sights. Where did you come from?"
"Oh, I live here. I"ve lived here for twenty-four years."
"Great Scott!" His eyes bulged. "You"ve lived in this house for twenty-four years?"
"Twenty-four years."
"And you"re not dead yet--I beg pardon," hastily. "I am afraid you think me very rude."
"No, I do not. I am glad you realize how dreadful it is. n.o.body else ever does. These people have known me for most of that time, and it has never occurred to them to wonder how I stood it. Do you know that you are the first young person I have spoken with for years and years?"
"You don"t mean it?" His boyish soul was filled with pity. "Well, I should think you"d bolt and run."
"What use? I"ve stayed too long. I"m an old woman now, and may as well stay till the end."
The youth was beginning to feel embarra.s.sed, but was spared the effort of making a suitable reply by the entrance of Dr. Webster. The old man was clad in shining broadcloth, whose maker was probably dead these many years. He leaned on a cane heavily mounted with gold.
"Howdy, howdy, howdy?" he cried, in his rough but hospitable tones.
"Glad to see you. Didn"t think you"d come. Yes, I did, though," with a chuckle. "Well, come down to dinner, I"m hungry."
He turned his back without individual greeting, and led the way along the hall, then down a narrow creaking stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt dining-room, an apartment as stark and cheerless as the parlor, albeit the silver on the table was very old and heavy, the linen unsurpa.s.sed.
The guests seated themselves as they listed, the youngster almost clinging to Miss Williams. The doctor hurriedly ladled the soup, announcing that he had a notion to let them help themselves, he was so hungry. When he had given them this brief attention he supplied his own needs with the ladle direct from the tureen.
"Old beast!" muttered Mrs. Holt. "It"s disgusting to be so rich that you can do as you please."
But for this remark, delivered as the ladle fell with a clatter on the empty soup-plate, the first course was disposed of amidst profound silence. No one dared to talk except as the master led, and the master was taking the edge off his appet.i.te.