CHAPTER XIX
THE minute I heard Oliver explode out of that house of ours, and swing down the street—proud, angry, indignant, with that ridiculous little creature running on behind—I felt that he was headed straight to unhappiness and disaster. I understand Oliver pretty well, and knew that he saw, as plainly as any of us, all the crude rough corners of the little country girl, to whom he had been attracted, and married in some mad impulsive moment. After listening for half an hour to a lot of plagiarisms from Tom and Alec such as, "He must paddle his own canoe," "Experience is the best teacher," etc., I slipped out of the house and down to the station.
I told Will about it late that night.
"I found them sitting on a bench in the waiting-room. They weren't speaking. She had been crying. Oliver was glum and very silent. I think he was feeling awfully sorry that he had married her—I do really—and I don't know whether I felt sorrier for him or for her. So right then and there I decided to bring them home with me. We must do something, Will. We must. I finally wormed it out of Oliver that he was down to his very last one hundred dollars and not a single thing in sight. I know as well as you that Madge is a difficult proposition, but we've got to have her for a sister-in-law whether we like it or not. I know that our reputations are all tangled up in this thing, but a snarl will never get untangled unless somebody begins to pick it apart. Will, I'm so glad that you have got a mind that is concerned with the ailments of guinea-pigs rather than society and what people think. For you see, dear, I've told Oliver that he and Madge shall stay right here with us until something turns up for Oliver to do."
"But, Bobbie, my dear girl," said Will, "have you forgotten that for Commencement week we have invited Dr. Merrill, who is to receive an honorary degree, and his wife to be our guests?"
"No, Will dear, I haven't forgotten it, nor that I was giving my first really-truly little dinner next Wednesday; but I know that Oliver is my own brother and that I've simply got to stand by him and see him through."
Three days later I received a scathing letter from Edith:
"I suppose that you are posing as the Good Samaritan. We all think you acted very unwisely and not at all for Oliver's best good. You may be interested to know that the doctor says he wouldn't have allowed me to keep the girl here for one minute. I am still in bed, as it is, from the bad effects of the shock of the whole affair. I made Alec write something for the paper yesterday, denying the report that we were entertaining the couple here. On the contrary I have let it be known that I do not intend to recognise the new Mrs. Vars at all. It is the only safe policy. If you want to know my opinion, I think you are extremely foolish to have taken that girl into your house for one night even. You'll simply kill yourself socially. Remember you're a new member in the circle in which you are moving and will be known and judged by the friends and connections you have. It's a shame when you've just got started on the right path to ruin your chances, and Will's too. However, it's your affair. Do as you please."
"Oh, thanks," I said and stuffed the charming epistle into the kitchen stove.
My real difficulty however lay with Madge herself. The poor deluded girl had been brought up to believe that she was irresistibly charming. There hadn't been a prettier girl than she in Glennings Falls. She could boast of more "best young men," as she called them, than any girl I ever knew. Four young aspirants, before Oliver had appeared, had proposed to her, and she was only nineteen. Her father, a man of enough education to be a minister, had died of consumption, when Madge was a baby. Since then, she and her mother had managed to make a living by boarding some of the foremen and superintendents at the quarries. They had always had the distinction of entertaining the owner of the granite works whenever he came to Glennings Falls for a yearly inspection. It was he who had procured a position for Madge "to wait on table" summertimes at one of the big mountain hotels. There she had picked up a great many ideas on style and fashion, and copied them now in cheap exaggerated imitation.
The first evening after her trunk arrived at our house, she appeared decked out in a fearful display of lace and flashy finery, redolent with cologne, and manners that matched her clothes. She talked incessantly. Her lace and perfumery seemed to give her confidence. She discoursed volubly on New York, and aired her newly-acquired knowledge of hotel life in a way that was pitiable. Even Will, quiet and dignified, failed to impress Madge. All the scientific knowledge in the world could not awe the little village coquette into silence. She even dangled her ear-rings at solemn old Will and tried to flirt with him. It was not Madge who appeared ill-at-ease; it was the rest of us who squirmed in our boots, blushed at her mistakes, coughed, gulped down desperate swallows of water to cover our confusion. She was quite unconscious of the horrible burlesque she was playing. As the days went on, the more silent the rest of us became, the more she prattled. The more we failed to appreciate her loveliness and wit, the more toggery she pulled out of her trunk and exhibited for our benefit, the crimpier grew her hair, the higher, if possible, became her pompadour, the noisier her laughter. Once I humbly suggested that she leave off her ear-rings on a certain occasion when we were going shopping. She treated my interference with utter scorn, and appeared half an hour later ready to accompany me to the market, with two large pearls screwed securely into the lobe of each ear. "Every one wears them in New York," she announced.
I didn't know what to do with the child. For two weeks I rose every morning and went downstairs to a painful ordeal at breakfast; for two weeks I saw Oliver flush and try to keep his eyes from meeting mine when Madge opened her mouth to speak; for two weeks I saw a threatening frown hover about Oliver's brow. I began to despair. Then suddenly, one evening, I found my poor brother in the gloomy living-room, brooding over an open fire. His head was in his hand, his elbow on his knee. I hadn't spoken to Oliver directly about Madge. I didn't now. I simply said very gently, "Want me to read aloud to you?"
"She wasn't like this at Glennings Falls," he burst out miserably, not stirring. "I want you to know it, because, well—I suppose you wonder why I ever was attracted to her. I wonder sometimes myself now—" He stopped a moment, then went on, talking straight into the fire. "I used to see a lot of her, you see. Every night and every morning. She used to pack my lunch and bring it up to me to the grove near the works every noon. I used to look forward to having her come—a lot. Glennings Falls is the deadliest hole you ever struck, and well—Madge was bright and full of fun. She isn't herself now. She wasn't like this. She was just as natural and simple. Upon my word," he broke off, "I've seen a lot of girls, one time and another, winners too, but somehow they none of them took such a hold on me as Madge. I thought she'd learn quickly enough, as soon as I got her down into civilisation, and so—anyway, I married her. Since—Well, it's no go, that's all. It's been bully of you to take her in, but I see clearly enough it can't work. Of course I mean to stick to her," he went on. "Of course. I suppose I've simply got to find a job out West somewhere, a long way off from everything and every one I know or—care about, and clear out. I mean to do the right thing." Then raising his eyes to mine he said with a queer, forced smile, "I guess my fun's all over, Bobbie."
"Oh, no, no, no, it isn't." I said fiercely. "Don't say that." I put my hand on his shoulder. "No, it isn't, Oliver," and suddenly, because I couldn't bear to see Oliver unhappy and despairing, because my voice was trembling and there were tears in my eyes, I went quickly out of the room and upstairs.
I was surprised on passing the guest-room to hear muffled sobs. I stopped and listened, and then, quite sure, I abruptly knocked and immediately opened the door. I was amazed to discover Madge face downward on the bed in tears.
"Why, what's the matter?" I exclaimed. I had never seen anything but arch glances in her eyes before.
"I want to go home! I want to go home! They're not ashamed of me at home!" she wailed.
I closed the door and went over to her.
"I just hate it here, I just hate it!" she went on. "Oliver thought I was good enough at home." She was crying all the time and each sentence came brokenly. "Oh, I wish I'd never heard of Oliver Vars," she choked. "I've tried and tried to be like his folks but he finds fault with every single thing I do, or wear, or say, or think, and I'm going home. I think his people are all stuck-up, horrid old things anyway and I just hate it, hate it, hate it here. Oh, go away, go away!" she cried out at me in a torrent of sobs.
Instead I sat down beside her.
"Look here, Madge," I said sternly. "Stop talking like that. Stop it. You can't go home. Don't you know you're married? Why, it's perfectly absurd!"
The sobbing stopped suddenly and she lay still with her nose buried in the down comforter. I went on talking to the cheap rhinestone comb in the back of her head.
"I've got something to say to you," I said, "and I want you to listen. I've been wanting to talk to you ever since you came to this house, and now I'm going to do it. You say Oliver finds fault with you, and let me tell you I don't blame him a bit. He certainly has reason to. Why, I never have run across a young lady who knew so little about things as you do. You don't know how to do anything properly. Your clothes are atrocious, and your manners—your self-assured manners here in my house are inexcusable. You're only a young girl of nineteen years who never has had any experience nor seen anything of the world. I don't blame you, understand. It isn't your fault that everything you do or say or wear makes us all blush with shame; but it does—it does, Madge. Why, I had to give up inviting some people here to dinner because I was afraid of the breaks and the horrible remarks you might make before my friends. Edith wouldn't have you in her house. That's the bald truth of it, my dear. You might as well know how we feel. It may sound cruel and hard, and I wouldn't say these things to Oliver's wife if she had come here modest, unpretentious, and anxious to learn; but she didn't, I should say she didn't! The worst ignorance in the world is that which parades itself up and down thinking itself very grand and elegant while all the lookers-on are laughing up their sleeves. That's what you've been doing, Madge." I stopped a moment to give the poor girl a chance to say something.
"Go away—go away—go away!" she burst out at me, turning her head enough to let the words out into the room. "Oh, go away!"
I stood up.
"No, Madge," I replied calmly. "I shan't go away, and neither shall you. You don't seem to know what's best for yourself, so I will tell you. You're going to stay right here with me, and work and study and learn. You are married to Oliver Vars and you're to make a success of it if it kills you; and it won't kill you. You're going to make him and the rest of us all proud of you before you get through and I am going to help you. Do you hear me? We're going to work it out together. You've got it in you. I know you have. I see you have," I lied. "You're a fine girl underneath. Don't you remember up there in Glennings Falls how you used to bring Oliver his lunch at noon? He has told me all about it—how nice you were, I mean—and how sure he was that you would learn as soon as you came down here. Well—you're going to begin to-night. Hereafter you'll do exactly as I say."
"Go away!" came again from the depths of the down comforter.
I ignored it entirely.
"Get up now and bathe your eyes," I said cheerfully. "Dinner will be ready in half an hour. I want you to wear the white muslin you had on this morning and no ear-rings. Remember," I added distinctly, going to the door, "remember, absolutely no ear-rings to-night, please."
But Oliver and Will and I had dinner alone that evening. "She won't come down," Oliver had announced gloomily. "She's in an awful state. She's crying. She wants to go home," he said, and my heart sank for I knew I had played my last card and lost.
That night Will had brought home the long-looked-for good news of a position for Oliver. We discussed it quietly at dinner—the three of us with Madge crying upstairs. A friend of Will's, a civil engineer, had said that if Oliver cared to go down into South America to some God-forsaken spot in the Argentine Republic—no place for a woman, by the way—there was an engineering job down there waiting for somebody. The job would take some five or six months; there might or might not be any future—Will's friend couldn't say.
"I'll go. I'll go right off," said Oliver. "Madge is unhappy and wants to go home anyway. I'm sure it's best. It was all a mistake," he admitted sadly to Will, "my taking her away from Glennings Falls. I might have known it wouldn't work." I stared hard at a saltcellar. Will began carving the steak silently. "You can go ahead now and have your people here for Commencement," observed Oliver; "Madge and I will both be gone in a week. I'm relieved it's settled," he added gravely.
It was during our dessert, after Delia had taken up a tray to Madge, that I was told that Mrs. Vars wanted me in her bedroom. I excused myself and slipped upstairs quietly. Madge was in bed; her hair was parted, braided neatly down her back; her tears were dried; her plain little nightgown buttoned at her throat. I had never seen her look so pretty. Her dinner stood beside her bed untouched.
"You wanted me?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "I'm not going home. I'll do anything you tell me," she said.
And she didn't go home. We packed Oliver off alone for South America, the next week, and as I rode back from the station in the open car with his slip of a wife beside me, on my hands for the next half year, I drew my first long free breath. Oliver, I recognised, had been more of a responsibility on my mind than Madge. My way was clear now. Lessons could begin any day, and no one will ever know what earnestness and determination went into the task that I had undertaken. From the beginning I took it absolutely for granted that since our stormy talk that evening in the guest-room our relations thereafter would be those of scholar and teacher; my authority would be unquestioned.
I overhauled the child's entire wardrobe with the freedom and cruelty of a customs officer. The cheap lace things I sent to the Salvation Army. The rhinestone comb I dropped into the stove before her very eyes. Ear-rings, jingling bracelets, glass beads, enameled brooches, I put in a box in the storeroom. A much-treasured parasol made out of cheap Hamburg embroidery I presented to Delia. Even Madge's toilet accessories were somehow done away with. Her elaborate hand-mirror with decorated porcelain back and hair-brush to match were replaced by a set of plain white celluloid that could be scrubbed with safety every week. The perfumery was poured down the bathroom sink. As soon as I was able, I purchased for Madge a few plain white shirt-waists with tailored collars, and a "three-fifty" stiff sailor hat made of black straw. When the crimp had all been soaked out of her hair, a wire pompadour supporter, three side-combs, eighteen hairpins, a net, a switch that didn't match, two puffs and a velvet bow had been extracted from her coiffure, I parted the little hair that remained and rolled it into a bun about as big as a doughnut in the back of her neck. She looked as shorn as a young sheep that has just been clipped. Her eyes fairly stared out of her head. I discovered that they were large and blue, with long lashes. Her features, unframed by the dreadful halo of hair, were flawless—small and finely cut. After I had gotten all the dreadful veneer off of the child she reminded me of a lovely old piece of mahogany discovered in some old attic or other, after the several coats of common crude paint have been scraped off and the natural grain finally appears perfect and unharmed.
She looked on at her metamorphosis, and at the cruel ravage of her treasures, passive and apparently indifferent. After her surrender to me she had no spirit left. She accepted my rule with a meekness I couldn't understand. After that night in the guest-room she became a different creature. She dropped her little airs and affectations as abruptly as if they were a garment that she could hang up and leave behind her in the closet. She became dumb at our table, and with Will actually shy and frightened. I thought her sudden change was due to ill-temper, and I bullied the poor beaten little creature terribly. I domineered, tyrannised, scorned and mocked. I didn't dare be tender, for I was convinced that success lay only in complete submission. Poor little "alone" thing—I did feel sorry for her at times! Her eyes were often red from crying. She didn't eat very much and her cheeks grew pale before my sight. She used to sit sometimes for an hour at a time without saying a word, until I longed to put comforting arms about her. When she accompanied me to the market several weeks after Oliver had gone away—quiet, silent, subdued, Glennings Falls would never in the world have recognised their gay sparkling little village coquette who had had a word, a nod, and a smile ready for every one who passed.
Oliver had been gone about six weeks when Madge told me her astounding news. I didn't know what to say to her for a moment. I was awfully surprised. She seemed such a baby, and I suppose it always comes with a jolt when you first realise your younger brother is actually a man. I was amazed too that such an apparently weak little thing as Madge had so pluckily kept her big secret to herself for so many weeks. She had known of it before Oliver had gone away, but she hadn't liked to tell him, she confessed. He had left her without as much as a premonition of the truth, and it was because of what was waiting for her in the future that she had been frightened into staying with me. She hadn't known what else to do. I stared at her open-eyed. It was when I saw her under lip tremble like a little child's and two tears fall splash upon her wrist, that I put out my hand and drew her down beside me on the couch. She leaned against me and began to cry in earnest then.
"Oh, don't, don't cry, Madge," I pleaded quietly. "Please! I'm just as glad as I can be, dear," I said. "Everything will be all right. Don't be afraid." But still she sobbed. "Listen; I've been wanting to tell you for days how well you're doing—even Will remarks on it. Please, please don't cry, Madge. Why, I hadn't an idea of this. I didn't dream of it. But we'll see you safely through. Oh, Madge, don't cry so hard. Listen, my dear girl, you can go home to-morrow if you want to."
Suddenly she turned and buried her head on my shoulder. Her hand sought mine and held it tight. She clung to me as if she needed me very much.
"I don't want to go home. I'd rather stay right here with you," she sobbed.
My arms went around her. Remember I have never had many friendships with girls. Staunch, true, loyal Juliet would nurse me through the smallpox if necessary, but she doesn't like to be kissed. Years ago when we stayed all night at each other's houses we slept on the extreme opposite edges of the bed and if one of my elbows as much as grazed Juliet's shoulder-blade, I was vigorously poked in the ribs and told to get over to my side. My younger sister Ruth had not sought one of my hands since she was able to walk alone. She would rather cry into a pillow than on my shoulder. If there had ever been any doubt about my loving this little helpless creature, who turned to me now in her hour of fear and dread, it was entirely dispelled during that half-hour on the couch in our living-room.
It was after that day that our best work began. I continued stern and severe with Madge, but there was unmistakable affection underneath. I resorted to every device in the world for my little protegée's education. I laugh as I look back to some of the drills and tests I put her through. Fridays, for instance, were our shopping days in Boston. Department stores are regular educational institutions. It wasn't a month before Madge was able to detect machine embroidery from hand-work; imitation Irish crochet from real; coarse linen from fine. We spent hours at "window-gazing." In that old, popular childhood game of "Choosing," Madge became quite an adept. I used to make her pick out the suit, or the hat, or the piece of dress-goods in a window display which was the most conservative, and verify her choice by my selection. Conservatism I preached to her from morning till night, and she got so she could recognise it a block away. Homeward-bound from those Friday shopping days, I would indicate an individual opposite to us in the car, and that evening a vivisection of her toilet would take place in our library. I have often felt sorry for the poor mortals whose oversupply of imitation fillet, high-heeled ill-kept pumps, or spotted veil we so severely criticised; for the young girls—gay, unconscious creatures—who laughed too freely, talked too loudly for our fastidious requirements.
Madge's table-manners had been shocking. She mashed her food with the prongs of her fork and poured gravy over her bread; she ate enough butter for three men. We used to have written examinations on table-manners. After she had progressed so that she could eat a poached egg without daubing the entire plate, and a half-orange with a spoon without sprinkling the front of her waist with drops of yellow juice, I advanced her to my place at the table. For a month she sat opposite Will and played at hostess. She offered the bread; she inquired if any one would have more of the dessert; she learned to address Delia with consideration. I left it to my pupil to suggest that we adjourn to the living-room at the close of our meals. I made her pour the coffee into our tiny best china cups.
The effect of all this training upon myself was as miraculous as upon Madge. You don't know what confidence in a subject it gives you to teach it. I honestly believe Madge did Will and me about as much good as we did her. Our meal-times became regular little models of perfection—quiet voices, good conversation, and manners fit for a queen. I began to dress every evening for the ceremony, as an example for Madge, and it was then that Will who entered into the game beautifully began changing every night into a dinner coat. The fussy little frills—candlelight and coffee served in the living-room, which I had spurned after leaving Edith—I returned to for Madge's sake. For her (for I discovered that my pupil considered me as a model of all that is proper and correct) I dressed myself with greatest care—spotless white kid-gloves, carefully adjusted veil, neat and well-kept boots—and sallied forth to pay some calls. As an example to Madge I invariably inquired what time Will would return in the evening and made a point of arriving at the house at least a half-hour before him, so that he might find me calm, quiet and freshly attired, like a lady leisurely awaiting her lord, in an apartment as neat and well-kept as the library of his Club. I didn't allow myself to slump awkwardly into a comfortable chair in his presence, nor yawn and stretch my arms. I even tucked away the horrid, red worsted bedroom slippers and from my supply of unused negligees drew forth a blue china-silk kimono. There was a pink one like it which I gave to Madge. Her eyes sparkled as they fell upon it. "Save it till Oliver comes," I said, and I, who had scoffed in my heart at Ruth's and Edith's conversation which took place in that same guest-room of mine eight months before, repeated their very words, as if they had left them printed on the walls. "You mustn't be the kind to grow careless before your husband. A man likes a woman to be dainty whether he is married to her or not. A man likes to be proud of his wife," I repeated parrot-like. Oh, you see, there was more than one conversion taking place that spring in the ugly brown house in the unfashionable street, and the greater of these was not, in my estimation, that of the little country girl from Glennings Falls, Vermont.