Book: The Iron Woman

M >> Margaret Deland >> The Iron Woman




"I'm afraid Mamma won't like it; it will disturb the table."

"I'm not going to have it in that hole of a dining-room; I'm
going to have it in the parlor. Harris says he can manage
perfectly well. We'll hang a curtain across the arch and have the
table in the back parlor."

"But Harris can't wait on us in there, and on Mamma in the
dining-room," Nannie objected.

"We shall have our dinner at seven, after Harris has given mother
her supper on that beautiful table of hers."

"But--" said Nannie.

"You tell her about it," Blair coaxed; "she'll take anything from
you."

Nannie yielded. Instructed by Blair, she hinted his purpose to
Mrs. Maitland, who to her surprise consented amiably enough.

"I've no objections. And the back parlor is a very sensible
arrangement. It would be a nuisance to have you in here; I don't
like to have things moved. Now clear out! Clear out! I must go to
work." A week later she issued her orders: "Mr. Ferguson, I'll be
obliged if you'll come to supper to-morrow night. Blair has some
kind of a bee in his bonnet about having a party. Of course it's
nonsense, but I suppose that's to be expected at his age."

Robert Ferguson demurred. "The boy doesn't want me; he has asked
a dozen young people."

Mrs. Maitland lifted one eyebrow. "I didn't hear about the dozen
young people; I thought it was only two or three besides David
and Elizabeth; however, I don't mind. I'll go the whole hog. He
can have a dozen, if he wants to. As for his not wanting you,
what has that got to do with it? I want you. It's my house, and
my table; and I'll ask who I please. I've asked Mrs. Richie," she
ended, and gave him a quick look.

"Well," her superintendent said, indifferently, "I'll come; but
it's hard on Blair." When he went home that night, he summoned
Miss White. "I hope you have arranged to have Elizabeth look
properly for Blair's party? Don't let her be vain about it, but
have her look right." And on the night of the great occasion,
just before they started for Mrs. Maitland's, he called his niece
into his library, and knocking off his glasses, looked her over
with grudging eyes: "Don't get your head turned, Elizabeth.
Remember, it isn't fine feathers that make fine birds," he said;
and never knew that he was proud of her!

Elizabeth, bubbling with laughter, holding her skirt out in
small, white-gloved hands, made three dancing steps, dipped him a
great courtesy, then ran to him, and before he knew it, caught
him round the neck and kissed him. "You dear, darling,
_precious_ uncle!" she said.

Mr. Ferguson, breathless, put his hand up to his cheek, as if the
unwonted touch had left some soft, fresh warmth behind it.

Elizabeth did not wait to see the pleased and startled gesture
she gathered up her fluffy tarlatan skirt, dashed out into the
garden, through the green gate in the wall, and bursting into the
house next door, stood in the hall and called up-stairs: "David!
Come! Hurry! Quick!" She was stamping her foot with excitement.

David, who had had a perspiring and angry quarter of an hour with
his first white tie, came out of his room and looked over the
banisters, both hands at his throat. "Hello! What on earth is the
matter?"

"David--see!" she said, and stood, quivering and radiant, all her
whiteness billowing about her.

"See what?" David said, patiently.

"A long dress!"

"A _what_?" said David; then looking down at her, turning
and twisting and preening herself in the dark hall like some
shining white bird, he burst into a shout of laughter.

Elizabeth's face reddened. "I don't see anything to laugh at."

"You look like a little girl dressed up!"

"Little girl? I don't see much 'little girl' about it; I'm nearly
sixteen." She gathered her skirt over her arm again, and
retreated with angry dignity.

As for David, he went back to try a new tie; but his eyes were
dreamy. "George! she's a daisy," he said to himself.

When, the day before, Mrs. Richie had told her son that she had
been invited to Blair's party, he was delighted. David had
learned several things at school besides his prayers, some of
which caused Mrs. Richie, like most mothers of boys, to give much
time to her prayers. But as a result, perhaps of prayers as well
as of education, and in spite of Mr. Ferguson's misgivings as to
the wisdom of trusting a boy to a "good woman," he was turning
out an honest young cub, of few words, defective sense of humor,
and rather clumsy manners. But under his speechlessness and
awkwardness, David was sufficiently sophisticated to be immensely
proud of his pretty mother; only a laborious sense of propriety
and the shyness of his sex and years kept him from, as he
expressed it, "blowing about her." He blew now, however, a
little, when she said she was going to the party: "Blair'll be
awfully set up to have you come. You know he's terribly mashed on
you. He thinks you are about the best thing going. Materna, now
you dress up awfully, won't you? I want you to take the shine out
of everybody else. I'm going to wear my dress suit," he
encouraged her. "Why, say!" he interrupted himself, "that's
funny--Blair didn't tell me he had asked you."

"Mrs. Maitland asked me."

"Mrs. Maitland!" David said, aghast; "Materna, you don't suppose
_she's_ coming, do you?"

"I'm sure I hope so, considering she invited me."

"Great Casar's ghost!" said David, thoughtfully; and added, under
his breath, "I'm betting on his not expecting her. Poor Blair!"

Blair had need of sympathy. His plan for a "dinner" had
encountered difficulties, and he had had moments of racking
indecision; but when, on the toss of a penny, 'heads' declared
for carrying the thing through, he held to his purpose with a
perseverance that was amusingly like his mother's large and
unshakable obstinacies. He had endless talks with Harris as to
food; and with painstaking regard for artistic effect and as far
as he understood it, for convention, he worked out every detail
of service and arrangement. His first effort was to make the room
beautiful; so the crimson curtains were drawn across the windows,
and the cut-glass chandeliers in both rooms emerged glittering
from their brown paper-muslin bags. The table was rather
overloaded with large pieces of silver which Blair had found in
the big silver-chest in the garret; among them was a huge center
ornament, called in those days an epergne--an extraordinary
arrangement of prickly silver leaves and red glass cups which
were supposed to be flowers. It was black with disuse, and Blair
made Harris work over it until the poor fellow protested that he
had rubbed the skin off his thumb--but the pointed leaves of the
great silver thistle sparkled like diamonds. Blair was charmingly
considerate of old Harris so long as it required no sacrifice on
his own part, but he did not relinquish a single piece of silver
because of that thumb. With his large allowance, it was easy to
put flowers everywhere--the most expensive that the season
afforded. When he ordered them, he bought at the same time a
great bunch of orchids for Miss White. "I can't invite her," he
decided, reluctantly; "but her feelings won't be hurt if I send
her some flowers." As for the menu, he charged the things he
wanted to his mother's meager account at the grocery-store. When
he produced his list of delicacies, things unknown on that
office-dining-room table, the amazed grocer said to himself,
"Well, _at last_ I guess that trade is going to amount to
something! Why, damn it," he confided to his bookkeeper
afterward, "I been sendin' things up to that there house for
seventeen years, and the whole bill ain't amounted to shucks.
That woman could buy and sell me twenty times over. Twenty times?
A hundred times! And I give you my word she eats like a day-
laborer. Listen to this"--and he rattled off Blair's order.
"She'll fall down dead when she sees them things; she don't even
know how to spell 'em!"

Blair had never seen a table properly appointed for a dinner-
party; but Harris had recollections of more elaborate and elegant
days, a recollection, indeed, of one occasion when he had waited
at a policemen's ball; and he laid down the law so dogmatically
that Blair assented to every suggestion. The result was a
humorous compound of Harris's standards and Blair's aspirations;
but the boy, coming in to look at the table before the arrival of
his guests, was perfectly satisfied.

"It's fine, Harris, isn't it?" he said. "Now, light up all the
burners on both chandeliers. Harris, give a rub to that thistle
leaf, will you? It's sort of dull." Harris looked at his swollen
thumb. "Aw', now, Mr. Blair," he began. "Did you hear what I
said?" Blair said, icily--and the leaf was polished! Blair looked
at it critically, then laughed and tossed the old man a dollar.
"There's some sticking-plaster for you. And Harris, look here:
those things--the finger-bowls; don't go and get mixed up on 'em,
will you? They come last." Harris put his thumb in his mouth; "I
never seen dishes like that," he mumbled doubtfully; "the police
didn't have 'em."

"It's the fashion," Blair explained; "Mrs. Richie has them, and
I've seen them at swell hotels. Most people don't eat in an
office," he ended, with a curl of his handsome lip.

It was while he was fussing about, whistling or singing, altering
the angle of a spoon here or the position of a wine-glass there,
that his mother came in. She had put on her Sunday black silk,
and she had even added a lace collar and a shell cameo pin; she
was knitting busily, the ball of pink worsted tucked under one
arm. There was a sort of grim amusement, tempered by patience, in
her face. To have supper at seven o'clock, and call it "dinner";
to load the table with more food than anybody could eat, and much
of it stuff that didn't give the stomach any honest work to do--
"like that truck," she said, pointing an amused knitting-needle
at the olives--was nonsense. But Blair was young; he would get
over his foolishness when he got into business. Meantime, let him
be foolish! "I suppose he thinks he's the grand high cockalorum!"
she told herself, chuckling. Aloud she said, with rough jocosity:

"What in the world is the good of all those flowers? A supper
table is a place for food, not fiddle-faddle!"

Blair reddened sharply. "There are people," he began, in that
voice of restrained irritation which is veiled by sarcastic
politeness--"there are people, my dear mother, who think of
something else than filling their stomachs." Mrs. Maitland's eye
had left the dinner table, and was raking her son from head to
foot. He was very handsome, this sixteen-year-old boy, standing
tall and graceful in his new clothes, which, indeed, he wore
easily, in spite of his excitement at their newness.

"Well!" she said, sweeping him with a glance. Her face glowed; "I
wish his father could have lived to see him," she thought; she
put out her hand and touched his shoulder. "Turn round here till
I look at you! Well, well! I suppose you're enjoying those togs
you've got on?" Her voice was suddenly raucous with pride; if she
had known how, she would have kissed him. Instead she said, with
loud cheerfulness: "Well, my son, which is the head of the table?
Where am I to sit?"

"_Mother!_" Blair said. He turned quite white. He went over
to the improvised serving-table, and picked up a fork with a
trembling hand; put it down again, and turned to look at her.
Yes; she was all dressed up! He groaned under his breath. The
tears actually stood in his eyes. "I thought," he said, and
stopped to clear his voice, "I didn't know--"

"What's the matter with you?" Mrs. Maitland asked, looking at him
over her spectacles.

"I didn't suppose you would be willing to come," Blair said,
miserably.

"Oh, I don't mind," she said, kindly; "I'll stick it out for an
hour."

Blair ground his teeth. Harris, pulling on a very large pair of
white cotton gloves--thus did he live up to the standards of the
policemen's ball--came shuffling across the hall, and his aghast
expression when he caught sight of Mrs. Maitland was a faint
consolation to the despairing boy.

"Here! Harris! have you got places enough?" Mrs. Maitland said.
"Blair, have you counted noses? Mrs. Richie's coming, and Mr.
Ferguson."

"Mrs. Richie!" In spite of his despair, Blair had an elated
moment. He was devoted to David's mother, and there was some
consolation in the fact that she would see that he knew how to do
things decently! Then his anger burst out. "I didn't ask Mrs.
Richie," he said, his voice trembling.

"What time is supper?" his mother interrupted, "I'm getting
hungry!" She took her place at the head of the table, sitting a
little sidewise, with one foot round the leg of her chair; she
looked about impatiently, striking the table softly with her open
hand--a hand always beautiful, and to-night clean. "What nonsense
to have it so late!"

"It isn't supper," Blair said; "it's dinner; and--" But at that
moment the door-bell saved the situation. Harris, stumbling with
agitation, had retreated to his pantry, so Mrs. Maitland motioned
to Blair. "Run and open the door for your friends," she said,
kindly.

Blair did not "run," but he went; and if he could have killed
those first-comers with a glance, he would have done so. As for
Mrs. Maitland, still glowing with this new experience of taking
part in her son's pleasure, she tramped into the front room to
say how do you do and shake hands with two very shy young men,
who were plainly awed by her presence. As the others came in, it
was she who received them, standing on the hearth-rug, her back
to the empty fireplace which Blair had filled with roses, all
ready to welcome the timid youngsters, who in reply to her loud
greetings stammered the commonplaces of the occasion.

"How are you, Elizabeth? What! a long dress? Well, well, you
_are_ getting to be a big girl! How are you, David? And so
you have a swallowtail, too? Glad to see you, Mrs. Richie. Who's
this? Harry Knight? Well, Harry, you are quite a big boy. I knew
your stepmother when she was Molly Wharton, and not half your
age."

Harry, who had a sense of humor, was able to laugh, but David was
red with wrath, and Elizabeth tossed her head. As for Blair, he
grew paler and paler.

Yet the dreadful dinner went off fairly smoothly. Mrs. Maitland
sat down before anybody else. "Come, good people, come!" she
said, and began her rapid "Bless, O Lord," while the rest of the
company were still drawing up their chairs. "Amen, soup, Mrs.
Richie?" she said, heartily. The ladling out of the soup was an
outlet for her energy; and as Harris's ideals put all the dishes
on the table at once, she was kept busy carving or helping, or,
with the hospitable insistence of her generation, urging her
guests to eat. Blair sat at the other end of the table in black
silence. Once he looked at Mrs. Richie with an agonized gratitude
in his beautiful eyes, like the gratitude of a hurt puppy lapping
a friendly and helping hand; for Mrs. Richie, with the gentlest
tact, tried to help him by ignoring him and talking to the young
people about her. Elizabeth, too, endeavored to do her part by
assuming (with furtive glances at David) a languid, young-lady-
like manner, which would have made Blair chuckle at any less
terrible moment. Even Mr. Ferguson, although still a little dazed
by that encounter with his niece, came to the rescue--for the
situation was, of course, patent--and talked to Mrs. Maitland;
which, poor Blair thought, "at least shut her up"!

Mrs. Maitland was, of course perfectly unconscious that any one
could wish to shut her up; she did not feel anything unusual in
the atmosphere, and she was astonishingly patient with all the
stuff and nonsense. Once she did strike the call-bell, which she
had bidden Harris to bring from the office table, and say,
loudly: "Make haste, Harris! Make haste! What is all this delay?"
The delay was Harris's agitated endeavor to refresh his memory
about "them basins."

"Is it _now_?" he whispered to Blair, furtively rubbing his
thumb on the shiny seam of his trousers. Blair, looking a little
sick, whispered back:

"Oh, throw 'em out of the window."

"Aw', now, Mr. Blair," poor Harris protested, "I clean forgot; is
it with these here tomatoes, or with the dessert?"

"Go to the devil!" Blair said, under his breath. And the finger-
bowls appeared with the salad.

"What's this nonsense?" Mrs. Maitland demanded; then, realizing
Blair's effort, she picked up a finger-bowl and looked at it,
cocking an amused eyebrow. "Well, Blair," she said, with loud
good nature, "we are putting on airs!"

Blair pretended not to hear. For the whole of that appalling
experience he had nothing to say--even to Elizabeth, sitting
beside him in the new white dress, the spun silk of her brown
hair shimmering in the amazing glitter of the great cut-glass
chandelier. The other young people, glancing with alarmed eyes
now at Blair, and now at his mother, followed their host's
example of silence. Mrs. Maitland, however, did her duty as she
saw it; she asked condescending questions as to "how you children
amuse yourselves," and she made her crude jokes at everybody's
expense, with side remarks to Robert Ferguson about their
families: "That Knight boy is Molly Wharton's stepson; he looks
like his father. Old Knight is an elder in The First Church; he
hands round the hat for other people to put their money in--never
gives anything himself. I always call his wife 'goose Molly.' ...
Is that young Clayton, Tom Clayton's son? He looks as if he had
some gumption; Tom was always Mr. Doestick's friend. ... I
suppose you know that that West boy's grandmother wasn't sure who
his grandfather was? ... Mrs. Richie's a pretty woman, Friend
Ferguson; where are your eyes!" ...

When it was over, that terrible thirty minutes--for Mrs. Maitland
drove Harris at full speed through all Blair's elaborations--it
was Mrs. Richie who came to the rescue.

"Mrs. Maitland," she said, "sha'n't you and I and Mr. Ferguson go
and talk in your room, and leave the young people to amuse
themselves?" And Mrs. Maitland's quick agreement showed how
relieved she was to get through with all the "nonsense."

When their elders had left them, the "young people" drew a long
breath and looked at one another. Nannie, almost in tears, tried
to make some whispered explanation to Blair. but he turned his
back on her. David, with a carefully blase air, said, "Bully
dinner, old man." Blair gave him a look, and David subsided. When
the guests began a chatter of relief, Blair still stood apart in
burning silence. He wished he need never see or speak to any of
them again. He hated them all; he hated--But he did not finish
this, even in his thoughts.

When the others had recovered their spirits, and Nannie had begun
to play on the piano, and somebody had suggested that they should
all sing--"And then let's dance!" cried Elizabeth--Blair
disappeared. Out in the hall, standing with clenched hands in the
dim light, he said to himself he wished they would all clear out!
"I am sick of the whole darned business; I wish they'd clear
out!"

It was there that Elizabeth found him. She had forgotten her
displeasure at David, and was wildly happy; but she had missed
Blair, and had come, in a dancing whirl of excitement, to find
him. "What are you doing? Come right back to the parlor!"

Blair, turning, saw the smooth cheek, pink as the curve of a
shell, the soft hair's bronze sheen, the amber darkness of the
happy eyes. "Oh, Elizabeth!" he said, and actually sobbed.

"Blair! What _is_ the matter?"

"It was disgusting, the whole thing."

"What was disgusting?"

"That awful dinner--"

"Awful? You are perfectly crazy! It was lovely! What are you
talking about?" In her dismayed defense of her first social
function, she put her hands on his arm and shook it. "Why! It is
the first dinner I ever went to in all my life; and look: six-
button gloves! What do you think of that? Uncle told Cherry-pie I
could have whatever was proper, and I got these lovely gloves.
They are awfully fashionable!" She pulled one glove up, not only
to get its utmost length, but also to cover that scar which her
fierce little teeth had made so long ago. "Oh, Blair, it really
was a perfectly _beautiful_ dinner," she said, earnestly.

She was so close to him that it seemed as if the color on her
cheek burned against his, and he could smell the rose in her
brown hair. "Oh, Elizabeth," he said, panting, "you are an
angel!"

"It was simply lovely!" she declared. In her excitement she did
not notice that new word. Blair trembled; he could not speak.
"Come right straight back!" Elizabeth said; "please! Everybody
will have a perfectly splendid time, if you'll just come back. We
want you to sing. Please!" The long, sweet corners of her eyes
implored him.

"Elizabeth," Blair whispered, "I--I love you."

Elizabeth caught her breath; then the exquisite color streamed
over her face. "Oh!" she said faintly, and swerved away from him.
Blair came a step nearer. They were both silent. Elizabeth put
her hand over her lips, and stared at him with half-frightened
eyes. Then Blair:

"Do you care, a little, Elizabeth?"

"We must go back to the parlor," she said, breathing quickly.

"Elizabeth, _do_ you?"

"Oh--Blair!"

"Please, Elizabeth," Blair said; and putting his arms round her
very gently, he kissed her cheek.

Elizabeth looked at him speechlessly; then, with a lovely
movement, came nestling against him. A minute later they drew
apart; the girl's face was quivering with light and mystery, the
young man's face was amazed. Then amazement changed to triumph,
and triumph to power, and power to something else, something that
made Elizabeth shrink and utter a little cry. In an instant he
caught her violently to him and kissed her--kissed the scar on
her upraised, fending arm, then her neck, her eyes, her mouth,
holding her so that she cried out and struggled; and as he let
her go, she burst out crying. "Oh--oh--_oh_--" she said; and
darting from him, ran up-stairs, stumbling on the unaccustomed
length of her skirt and catching at the banisters to keep from
falling. But at the head of the stairs she paused; the tears had
burned off in flashing excitement. She hesitated; it seemed as if
she would turn and come back to him. But when he made a motion to
bound up after her, she smiled and fled, and he heard the door of
Nannie's room bang and the key turn in the lock.

Blair Maitland stood looking after her; in that one hot instant
boyishness had been swept out of his face.




CHAPTER V

"They have all suddenly grown up!" Mrs. Richie said,
disconsolately. She had left the "party" early, without waiting
for her carriage, because Mrs. Maitland's impatient glances at
her desk had been an unmistakable dismissal.

"I will walk home with you," Robert Ferguson said.

"Aren't you going to wait for Elizabeth?"

"David will bring her home."

"He'll be only too glad of the chance; how pretty she was to-
night! You must have been very proud of her."

"Not in the least. Beauty isn't a thing to be proud of. Quite the
contrary."

Mrs. Richie laughed: "You are hopeless, Mr. Ferguson! What is a
girl for, if not to be sweet and pretty and charming? And
Elizabeth is all three."

"I would rather have her good."

"But prettiness doesn't interfere with goodness! And Elizabeth is
a dear, good child."

"I hope she is," he said

"You _know_ she is," she declared.

"Well, she has her good points," he admitted; and put his hand up
to his lean cheek as if he still felt the flower-like touch of
Elizabeth's lips.

"But they have all grown up," Mrs. Richie said. "Mr. Ferguson,
David wants to smoke! What shall I do?"

"Good heavens! hasn't he smoked by this time?" said Robert
Ferguson, horrified. "You'll ruin that boy yet!"

"Oh, when he was a little boy, there was one awful day, when--"
Mrs. Richie shuddered at the remembrance; "but now he wants to
really smoke, you know."

"He's seventeen," Mr. Ferguson said, severely. "I should think
you might cut the apron-strings by this time."

"You seem very anxious about apron-strings for David," she
retorted with some spirit. "I notice you never show any anxiety
about Blair."

At which her landlord laughed loudly: "I should say not! He's
been brought up by a man--practically." Then he added with some
generosity, "But I'm not sure that an apron-string or two might
not have been a good thing for Blair."

Mrs. Richie accepted the amend good-naturedly. "My tall David is
very nice, even if he does want to smoke. But I've lost my boy."

"He'll be a boy," Robert Ferguson said, "until he makes an ass of
himself by falling in love. Then, in one minute, he'll turn into
a man. I--" he paused, and laughed: "I was twenty, just out of
college, when I made an ass of myself over a girl who was as vain
as a peacock. Well, she was beautiful; I admit that."

"You were very young," Mrs. Richie said gravely; the emotion
behind his careless words was obvious. They walked along in
silence for several minutes. Then he said, contemptuously:

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