CHAPTER XIV
When the door closed behind Blair and Elizabeth, Nannie set out to do that "best," which her brother had demanded of her. She went at once into the dining-room; but before she could speak, her stepmother called out to her:
"Here! Nannie! You are just the person I want--Watson"s late again, and I"m in a hurry. Just take these letters and sign them "S. Maitland per N. M." They must be posted before five. Sit down there at the table."
Nannie could not sign letters and talk at the same time. She got pen and ink and began to write her stepmother"s name, over and over, slowly, like a little careful machine: "S. Maitland," "S.
Maitland." In her desire to please she discarded her own neat script, and reproduced with surprising exactness the rough signature which she knew so well. But all the while her anxious thoughts were with her brother. She wished he had not rushed off with Elizabeth. If he had only come himself into the detested dining-room, his mother would have bidden him sign the letters; he might have read them and talked them over with her, and that would have pleased her. Nannie herself had no ambition to read them; her eye caught occasional phrases: "Shears for--," "new converter," etc., etc. The words meant nothing to Nannie, bending her blond head and writing like a machine, "S. Maitland," "S.
Maitland," ...
"Mamma," she began, dipping her pen into the ink, "Blair has bought a rather expensive--"
Mrs. Maitland came over to the table and picked up the letters.
"That"s all. Now clear out, clear out! I"ve got a lot to do!"
Then her eye fell on one of the signatures, and she gave her grunt of a laugh. "If you hadn"t put "Per N. M.," I shouldn"t have known that I hadn"t signed "em myself ... Nannie."
"Yes, Mamma?"
"Is Blair going to be at home to supper?"
"I think not. But he said he would be in this evening. And he wanted me to--to ask--"
"Well, perhaps I"ll come over to your parlor to see him, if I get through with my work. I believe he goes East again to-morrow?"
"Yes," Nannie said. Mrs. Maitland, at her desk, had begun to write. Nannie wavered for a minute, then, with a despairing look at the back of her stepmother"s head, slipped away to her own part of the house. "I"ll tell her at supper," she promised herself. But in her own room, as she dressed for tea, panic fell upon her. She began to walk nervously about; once she stopped, and leaning her forehead against the window, looked absently into the dusk. At the end of the cinder path, the vast pile of the foundry rose black against the fading sky; on the left the open arches of the cast-house of the furnace glowed with molten iron that was running into pigs on the wide stretch of sand. The spur track was banked with desolate wastes of slag and rubbish; beyond them, like an enfolding arm, was the river, dark in the darkening twilight. From under half-shut dampers flat sheets of sapphire and orange flame roared out in rhythmical pulsations, and above them was the pillar of smoke shot through with flying billions of sparks; back of this monstrous and ordered confusion was the solemn circling line of hills. It was all hideous and fierce, yet in the clear winter dusk it had a beauty of its own that held Nannie Maitland, even though she was too accustomed to it to be conscious of its details. As she stared out at it with troubled eyes, there was a knock at her door; before she could say "Come in," her stepmother entered.
"Here!" Mrs. Maitland said, "just fix this waist, will you? I can"t seem to--to make it look right." There was a dull flush on her cheek, and she spoke in cross confusion. "Haven"t you got a piece of lace, or something; I don"t care what. This black dress seems--" she broke off and glanced into the mirror; she was embarra.s.sed, but doggedly determined. "Make me look--somehow,"
she said.
Nannie, a.s.senting, and rummaging in her bureau drawer, had a flash of understanding. "She"s dressing up for Blair!" She took out a piece of lace, and laid it about the gaunt shoulders; then tucked the front of the dress in, and brought the lace down on each side. The soft old thread seemed as inappropriate as it would have been if laid on a scarcely cooled steel "bloom."
"Well, pin it, can"t you?" Mrs. Maitland said sharply; "haven"t you got some kind of a brooch?" Nannie silently produced a little amethyst pin.
"It doesn"t just suit the dress, I"m afraid," she ventured.
But Mrs. Maitland looked in the gla.s.s complacently. "Nonsense!"
she said, and tramped out of the room. In the hall she threw back,"--bliged."
"Oh, _poor_ Mamma!" Nannie said. Her sympathy was hardly more than a sense of relief; if her mother was dressing up for Blair, she must be more than usually good-natured. "I"ll tell her at supper," Nannie decided, with a lift of courage.
But at supper, in the disorderly dining-room, with the farther end of the table piled with ledgers, Mrs. Maitland was more unapproachable than ever. When Nannie asked a timid question about the evening, she either did not hear, or she affected not to. At any rate, she vouchsafed no answer. Her face was still red, and she seemed to hide behind her evening paper. To Nannie"s gentle dullness this was no betrayal; it merely meant that Mrs.
Maitland was cross again, and her heart sank within her. But somehow she gathered up her courage:
"You won"t forget to come into the parlor, Mamma? Blair wants to talk to you about something that--that--"
"I"ve got some writing to do. If I get through I"ll come. Now clear out, clear out; I"m too busy to chatter."
Nannie cleared out. She had no choice. She went over to her vast, melancholy parlor, into which it seemed as if the fog had penetrated, to await Blair. In her restless apprehension she sat down at the piano, but after the first bar or two her hands dropped idly on the keys. Then she got up and looked aimlessly about. "I"d better finish that landscape," she said, and went over to her drawing-board. She stood there for a minute, fingering a lead pencil; her nerves were tense, and yet, as she reminded herself, it was foolish to be frightened. His mother loved Blair; she would do anything in the world for him--Nannie thought of the lace; yes, anything! Blair was only a little extravagant. And what did his extravagance matter? his mother was so very rich! But oh, why did they always clash so? Then she heard the sound of Blair"s key in the lock.
"Well, Nancy!" he said gaily, "she"s a charmer."
"Who?" said Nannie, bewildered; "Oh, you mean Elizabeth?"
"Yes; but there"s a lot of gunpowder lying round loose, isn"t there? She was out with David, I suppose because he didn"t show up. In fact, she was so mad she was perfectly stunning. Nancy! I think I"ll stick it out here for two or three days; Elizabeth is mighty good fun, and David is in town; we might renew our youth, we four; what do you say? Well!" he ended, coming back to his own affairs, "what did mother say?"
"Oh, Blair, I couldn"t!"
"What! you haven"t told her?"
"Blair dear, I did my best; but she simply never gave me a chance. Indeed, I tried, but I couldn"t. She wouldn"t let me open my lips in the afternoon, and at supper she read the paper every minute--Harris will tell you."
Blair Maitland whistled. "Well, I"ll tell her myself. It was really to spare her that I wanted you to do it. I always rile her, somehow, poor dear mother. Nannie, this house reeks of cabbage! Does she live on it?" Blair threw up his arms with a wordless gesture of disgust.
"I"m so sorry," Nannie said; "but don"t tell her you don"t like it."
The door across the hall opened, and there was a heavy step. The brother and sister looked at each other.
"Blair, _be nice!_" Nannie entreated; her soft eyes under the meekly parted blond hair were very anxious.
He did not need the caution; whenever he was with his mother, the mere instinct of self-preservation made him anxious to "be nice."
As Mrs. Maitland had her instinct of self-preservation, too, there had been, in the last year, very few quarrels. Instead there was, on his part, an exaggerated politeness, and on her part, a pathetic effort to be agreeable. The result was, of course, entire absence of spontaneity in both of them.
Mrs. Maitland, her knitting in her hands, came tramping into the parlor; the piece of thread lace was pushed awry, but there had been further preparation for the occasion: at first her son and daughter did not know what the change was; then suddenly both recognized it, and exchanged an astonished glance.
"Mother!" cried Blair incredulously, "_earrings!_"
The dull color on the high cheek-bones deepened; she smiled sheepishly. "Yes; I saw "em in my bureau drawer, and put "em on.
Haven"t worn "em for years; but Blair, here, likes pretty things." (Her son, under his breath, groaned: "pretty!") "So you are off tomorrow, Blair?" she said, politely; she ran her hand along the yellowing bone needles, and the big ball of pink worsted rolled softly down on to the floor. As she glanced at him over her steel-rimmed spectacles, her eyes softened as an eagle"s might when looking at her young. "I wish his father could see him," she thought. "Next time you come home," she said, "it will be to go to work!"
"Yes," Blair said, smiling industriously.
"Pity you have to study this summer; I"d like to have you in the office now."
"Yes; I"m awfully sorry," he said with charming courtesy, "but I feel I ought to brush up on one or two subjects, and I can do it better abroad than here. I"m going to paint a little, too. I"ll be very busy all summer."
"Why don"t you paint our new foundry?" said Mrs. Maitland. She laughed with successful cheerfulness; Blair liked jokes, and this, she thought, complacently, was a joke. "Well, _I_ shall manage to keep busy, too!" she said.
"I suppose so," Blair agreed.
He was lounging on the arm of Nannie"s chair, and felt his sleeve plucked softly. "Now," said Nannie.
But Blair was not ready. "You are always busy," he said; "I wish I had your habit of industry."
Mrs. Maitland"s smile faded. "I wish you had."
"Oh, well, you"ve got industry enough for this family," Blair declared. But the flattery did not penetrate.