"It was perfect--that!"
"Yes! Steve was a good man, and Alice loved him."
Each knew what lay behind these commonplace words in the heart of the other. These two, Steve and Alice, in spite of hardship, the dull grind of their restricted existence, the many children, the disappointments, had had something--a human satisfaction--that _they_ had missed--forever; and as they walked on through the deserted streets silently, side by side, they saw that now it could never be for them. It was something that missed once in its perfection was missed for all time. However near they might come to be, however close in understanding and effort, they could never know the mystery of two who had lived together, body and soul, and together had solved life.
For mere physical fidelity is but a small part of the comradeship of marriage.
CHAPTER LXXVII
Miss Marian Lane was such a thorough cosmopolite that she had no discernible affection for any place. She referred to Central Park, to the Farm, to the Price house in St. Louis, to Grosvenor with equal indifference and impartiality, as she might later to London or Paris or Rome. She did not even ask her mother where they were to spend the summer. That there was a Park in St. Louis, as in all properly created cities, she had confidence, because she asked Miss Joyce to take her there the day after her arrival.
Isabelle"s own childhood had been strongly colored by places,--the old house in K Street, this ugly Victorian mansion, and especially the Farm.
Places had meant so much to her in her youth, her feelings reflecting their physical atmosphere, that they had been more vivid than persons. But Molly was equally content anywhere. She needed merely Miss Joyce, a Park, and pretty clothes.
Clothes, indeed, were the only subject that aroused a semblance of pa.s.sion in Molly"s sedate soul. "Oh, we shall go shopping, mamma!" she exclaimed with the first real animation Isabelle had seen in her, when her grandmother remarked that Molly had outgrown all her dresses this winter.
They were sitting in the large front bedroom that the Colonel and his wife had always occupied. Mrs. Price had just returned from the Springs, and was already talking of spending the summer in Europe. Since the Colonel"s death she had become a great globe-trotter, indefatigably whisking hither and thither with her reliable maid. It seemed as if after all these years of faithful economy and routine living, the suppressed restlessness of her race, which had developed at an earlier age in Isabelle, was revenging itself upon the old lady. "Mother"s travels" had become a household joke....
"Can"t we go to-day? Miss Joyce and I saw some lovely things at Roseboro"s, mother!" Molly urged, jumping up from the lounge, where she had been telling her grandmother about Grosvenor. "Oh, yes, grandmother," Isabelle had heard her say in a listless voice, "we had a pleasant time in Grosvenor. Miss Joyce took me coasting with James Pole. And we had sleigh rides. Miss Joyce was afraid to drive the horses, so we did not go except when Mrs. Pole took us.... Aunt Margaret was very nice. Miss Joyce gave us all dancing lessons."...
It was always Miss Joyce this and Miss Joyce that, since Molly"s return, until Isabelle had impatiently concluded that the faithful English governess with her narrow character had completely ironed out the personality of her charge. As she listened to Molly"s conversation with her grandmother, she resolved to get rid of Miss Joyce, in order to escape hearing her name if for no other reason.
"I suppose you"ll wait to get her clothes until you are back in New York,"
the practical Mrs. Price observed; "they are so much cheaper and more tasteful there. The stores here don"t seem to be what they were,--even Roseboro"s can"t compare with Altman"s and Best"s for children"s things."
"We may not be in New York this spring," Isabelle replied, waking from her meditations on the subject of Miss Joyce and her daughter. "John"s plans are uncertain--and I don"t care to go without him."
"You can try Roseboro"s, then; but I don"t believe you will be satisfied."
"Oh, mamma, can"t we go in the motor now!"
And Molly ran to Miss Joyce to dress herself for the expedition.
Isabelle had scrutinized her little daughter with fresh interest the few days she had been with her. Molly had always been an unresponsive child since she was a baby. In spite of her beautiful pink coloring, carefully preserved by country life, she was scarcely more alive than an automaton.
Whatever individuality she had was so deeply buried that her mother could not discover it. Why was it? Why was she so colorless? She had been "moved about" a good deal, like many American children, according to the exigencies of the family,--to St. Louis, the Farm, the New York hotel, the New York house, Europe, Grosvenor,--a rapid succession of panoramas for one small mind to absorb. But Molly had never seemed disturbed by it. One place was as good as another,--one set of children, provided they had nice manners and were well dressed, as agreeable as any other. If she were put down in a Pasadena hotel, she found playmates, judiciously selected by Miss Joyce, of course, who supervised their games. In all the changes of scene Isabelle had been most scrupulous in her care for diet, exercises, regime, and as long as the child seemed content and physically well she had seen no harm in taking her about from scene to scene. Now Isabelle had her doubts.
The little girl came downstairs, followed by the capable Miss Joyce, who was brushing out a fold in her white broadcloth coat and arranging a curl, and looked in at her mother"s room, with a pretty little smile and a gesture of the fingers she had copied from some child. "All ready, mamma,--shall we wait for you in the motor?" As she pa.s.sed on, followed by Miss Joyce,--the figure of dainty young plutocracy and her mentor,--Isabelle murmured, "I wonder if it has been good for her to move about so much!"
Mrs. Price, a literal old lady, took up the remark:--
"Why, she looks healthy. Miss Joyce takes excellent care of her. I think you are very fortunate in Miss Joyce, Isabelle."
"I don"t mean her health, mother!"
"She is as forward as most children of her age,--she speaks French very prettily," the grandmother protested. "She has nice manners, too."
Isabelle saw the futility of trying to explain what she meant to her mother, and yet the old lady in her next irrelevant remark touched the very heart of the matter.
"Children have so much attention these days,--what they eat and do is watched over every minute. Why, we had a cat and a dog, and a doll or two, the kitchen and the barn to run about in--and that was all. Parents were too busy to fuss about their children. Boys and girls had to fit into the home the best they could."
There was a home to fit into! A cat and a dog, a few dolls, and the kitchen and the barn to run about in,--that was more than Molly Lane with all her opportunities had ever had.
"There weren"t any governesses or nurses; but we saw more of our father and mother, naturally," the old lady continued. "Only very rich people had nurses in those times."
The governess was a modern luxury, provided to ease the conscience of lazy or incompetent mothers, who had "too much to do" to be with their children.
Isabelle knew all the arguments in their favor. She remembered Bessie Falkner"s glib defence of the governess method, when she had wanted to stretch Rob"s income another notch for this convenience,--"If a mother is always with her children, she can"t give her best self either to them or to her husband!" Isabelle had lived enough since then to realize that this vague "best self" of mothers was rarely given to anything but distraction.
Isabelle had been most conscientious as a mother, spared no thought or pains for her child from her birth. The trained nurse during the first two years, the succession of carefully selected governesses since, the lessons, the food, the dentist, the doctors, the clothes, the amus.e.m.e.nts,--all had been scrupulously, almost religiously, provided according to the best modern theories. Nothing had been left to chance. Marian should be a paragon, physically and morally. Yet, her mother had to confess, the child bored her,--was a wooden doll! In the scientifically sterilized atmosphere in which she had lived, no vicious germ had been allowed to fasten itself on the young organism, and yet thus far the product was tasteless. Perhaps Molly was merely a commonplace little girl, and she was realizing it for the first time. Isabelle"s maternal pride refused to accept such a depressing answer, and moreover she did not believe that any young thing, any kitten or puppy, could be as colorless, as little vital as the exquisite Miss Lane. She must find the real cause, study her child, live with her awhile. The next generation, apparently, was as inscrutable a ma.n.u.script to read as hers had been to the Colonel and her mother. Her parents had never understood all the longings and aspirations that had filled her fermenting years, and now she could not comprehend the dumbness of her child. Those fermenting years had gone for nothing so far as teaching her to understand the soul of her child. The new ferment was of a different composition, it seemed....
Isabelle was to find that her daughter had developed certain tastes besides a love for clothes and a delight in riding in motor-cars.... Molly was in the library after luncheon, absorbed in an ill.u.s.trated story of a popular magazine, which Isabelle glanced over while Miss Joyce made ready her charge to accompany her mother to the Johnstons". The story was "innocent,"
"clean reading" enough,--thin pages of smart dialogue between prettily dressed young men and athletic girls, the puppy loves of the young rich,--mere stock fiction-padding of the day. But the picture of life--the suggestion to the child"s soft brain? Isabelle tossed the magazine into the waste basket, and yawned. Molly had left it with a sigh.
On the way to the Bryn Mawr house Isabelle tried to explain to Molly what had happened to the Johnstons through the loss of the father, telling her what a good man Steve was, the sorrow the family had to bear. Molly listened politely.
"Yes, mother!" And she asked, "Are they very poor?" An innocent remark that irritated Isabelle unreasonably.
The children played together downstairs while Isabelle discussed with Alice some business matters. It had not sounded very lively below, and when the mothers came down they found Molly and Belle sitting on opposite sides of the little parlor, looking stiffly at each other. The boys had slipped off for more stirring adventures outdoors, which Molly had refused to join, as she was making a formal call with her mother. In the motor going home Molly remarked: "The boys haven"t good manners. Belle seems a nice girl. She hasn"t been anywhere and can"t talk. That was a very homely dress she had on; don"t you think so? Does she have to wear dresses like that? Can"t you give her something prettier, mamma?"
Isabelle, who thought her G.o.d-daughter an interesting child, full of independence and vitality in spite of her shyness, wondered, "Is Molly just a stick, or only a little sn.o.b?"
Molly was sitting very gracefully in her grandmother"s limousine, riding through the parks and avenues with the air of a perfect little lady accustomed to observe the world from the cushioned seat of a brougham or motor-car. Catching sight of a bill board with the announcement of a popular young actress"s coming engagement, she remarked:--
"Miss Daisy May is such a perfect dear, don"t you think, mamma? Couldn"t Miss Joyce take me to see her act next Sat.u.r.day afternoon? It"s a perfectly nice play, you know."
Repressing a desire to shake her daughter, Isabelle replied: "I"ll take you myself, Molly. And shan"t we invite Delia Conry? You know she is at school here and has very few friends."
"Oh!" Molly said thoughtfully. "Delia is so ordinary. I should like to ask Beatrice Lawton,--Miss Joyce knows her governess.... Or if we must be good to some one, we might take Belle."
"We"ll take them both."
"I don"t think Beatrice would enjoy Belle," her daughter objected after further reflection.
"Well, I shall ask Delia and Belle, then, to go with me alone!"
(She had looked up the Conry child at the school where Vickers had sent her, and had arranged to have her brother"s small estate settled on the girl, as she felt he would have wished. Delia, whose mother had never been heard from, was a forlorn little object and Isabelle pitied her.)
When her temporary irritation with Molly had pa.s.sed, she saw there was nothing unnatural in the child"s att.i.tude. Probably she was a little sn.o.b.
Most children brought up as Molly had been, most of her friends, were little sn.o.bs. Their governesses taught them sn.o.bbery, unconsciously; their domestic habits taught them sn.o.bbery.
Isabelle resolved more firmly that she should dispense with the excellent Miss Joyce. A beginning very far down would have to be made, if she were to reach the individuality of this perfectly nurtured modern child of hers.
There was nothing bad about Molly; she was irritatingly blameless. But what she lacked was appalling! At eighteen she would be unendurable.
And the mother had no warm feeling, no impelling affection for her daughter, any more than the child had for her. That lack would make it all the harder to do what must be done. Here, again, as with her husband, she must begin to pay for all the years that she had shirked her job,--for the sake of "her own life," her intellectual emanc.i.p.ation and growth,--shirked, to be sure, in the most conscientious and enlightened modern manner.