Book: Flower of the Dusk

M >> Myrtle Reed >> Flower of the Dusk




They sat in silence for a long time. Then, speaking of indifferent
things, they tried to get back upon the old friendly footing again, but
failed miserably. There was a consciousness as of guilt, on either side.

Roger tried not to think of it. Later, when he was alone, he would go
over it all and try to reason it out--try to discover if it were true.
Barbara did not need to do this, for, with a woman's quick insight, she
knew.

Secretly, too, both were ashamed, having come unawares upon knowledge
that was not meant for them. Presently, Roger went home, and was glad to
be alone in the free outer air; but, long after he was gone, Barbara sat
in the dark, her heart aching with the burden of her father's doubt and
her dead mother's secret.




VII

An Afternoon Call


The rap at the Norths' front door was of the sort which would impel the
dead to rise and answer it. Before the echo of the imperative summons
had died away, Miriam had opened it and admitted Miss Mattie.

[Sidenote: Bein' Neighbourly]

"I was sewin' over to my house," announced the visitor, settling herself
comfortably, "and I surmised as how you might be sewin' over here, so
I thought we might as well set together for a spell. I believe in bein'
neighbourly."

Barbara smiled a welcome and Miriam brought in a quilt which she was
binding by hand. As she worked, she studied Miss Mattie furtively, and
with an air of detachment.

"I come over on the trail Roger has wore in the grass," continued Miss
Mattie, biting off her thread with a snap. "He's organised himself into
sort of a travellin' library, I take it, what with transportin' books at
all hours back and forth. After I go to bed, Roger lets himself out and
sneaks over here, carryin' readin' matter both ways. But land's sake,"
she chuckled, "I ain't carin' what he does after I get sleepy. I was
never one to stay up after nine o'clock for the sake of entertainment.
If there's sickness, or anythin' like that, of course it's a different
matter.

"Roger's pa was always a great one for readin', and we've both inherited
it from him. Roger sits with his books and I sit with my paper, and we
both read, never sayin' a word to each other, till almost nine o'clock.
We're what you might call a literary family.

[Sidenote: "Jewel of a Girl"]

"I'm just readin' a perfectly beautiful story called _Margaret Merriman,
or the Maiden's Mad Marriage_. Margaret must have been worth lookin' at,
for she had golden hair and eyes like sapphires and ruby lips and pearly
teeth. I was readin' the description of her to Roger, and he said she
seemed to be what some people would call 'a jewel of a girl.'

"Margaret Merriman's mother died when she was an infant in arms, just
like your ma, Barbara, and left her to her pa. Her pa didn't marry
again, though several was settin' their caps for him on account of him
bein' young and handsome and havin' a lot of money. I suppose bein' a
widower had somethin' to do with it, too. It does beat all how women
will run after a widower. I suppose they want a man who's already been
trained, but, speakin' for myself, I've always felt as if I'd rather
have somethin' fresh and do my own trainin'--women's notions differ so
about husbands.

[Sidenote: Training Husbands]

"Just think what it would be to marry a man, thinkin' he was all
trained, and to find out that it had been done wrong. You'd have to
begin all over again, and it'd be harder than startin' in with absolute
ignorance. The man would get restless, too. When he thought he was
graduated and was about ready to begin on a post-graduate course, he'd
find himself in the kindergarten, studyin' with beads and singin' about
little raindrops.

"Gettin' an idea into a man's head is like furnishin' a room. If you can
once get a piece of furniture where you want it, it can stay there until
it's worn out or busted, except for occasional dustin' and repairin'.
You can add from time to time as you have to, but if you attempt to
refurnish a room that's all furnished, and do it all at once, you're
bound to make more disturbance than housecleanin'.

"It has to be done slow and careful, unless you have a likin' for rows,
and if you're one of those kind of women that's forever changin' their
minds about furniture and their husband's ideas, you're bound to have a
terrible restless marriage.

"Roger's pa was fresh when I took him, but, unbeknownst to me, he'd done
his own furnishin', and the pieces was dreadful set and hard to move.
Some of 'em I slid out gently and others took some manouverin', but
steady work tells on anythin'. He was thinkin' as I wanted him to about
most things, though, when he died, and that's sayin' a good deal, for he
didn't die until after we'd been married seven years and three months
and eighteen days. If he wasn't really thinkin' right, he was pretendin'
to, and that's enough to satisfy any reasonable woman.

[Sidenote: The Will]

"Margaret Merriman's pa died when she was at the tender age of ten, and
he left all his money to a distant relation in trust for Margaret, the
relative bein' supposed to spend the income on her. If Margaret died
before she was of age, the relative was to keep it, and if she should
marry before she was of age, the relative was to keep it, too. But,
livin' to eighteen' and marryin' afterwards, it was all to be
Margaret's, and the relative wasn't to have as much as a two-cent stamp
with the mucilage licked off.

"This relative was a sweet-faced lady with a large mole on her right
cheek. Margaret used to call her 'Moley,' when she was mad at her, which
was right frequent. Her name was Magdalene Mather and she'd been married
three times. She was dreadful careless with her husbands and had mislaid
'em all. Not bein' able to find 'em again, she just reckoned on their
bein' dead and was thinkin' of marryin' some more.

[Sidenote: Keeping Margaret Young]

"Seems to me it's a mistake for anybody to marry more'n once. In one of
Roger's books it says somethin' about a second marriage bein' the
triumph of hope over experience. Magdalene Mather was dreadful hopeful
and kept thinkin' that maybe she could get somebody who would stay with
her without bein' chained up. Meanwhile it was to her interest to keep
little Margaret as young as possible.

"Margaret thought she was ten when she went to live with Magdalene, but
she soon learned that it was a mistake and she got to be only seven in
less'n half an hour. Magdalene put shorter dresses on her and kept her
in white and gave her shoes without any heels, and these little short
socks that show a foot or so of bare leg and which is indecent, if
fashionable.

"Margaret's birthdays kept gettin' farther and farther apart, and as
soon as the neighbours begun to notice that Margaret wasn't agin' like
everybody else, why, Magdalene would just pack up and go to a new place.

"She didn't go to school, but had private teachers, because it was in
the will that she was to be educated like a real lady. Any teacher who
thought Margaret was too far advanced for her age got fired the minute
it was spoke of, and pretty soon Margaret got onto it herself. She used
to tell teachers she liked to say that she was very backward in her
studies, and tell those she didn't like that Aunty Magdalene would be
dreadful pleased to hear that she was improvin' in her readin' and
'rithmetic and grammar.

"Meanwhile Nature was workin' in Margaret's interest and she was growin'
taller and taller every day. The short socks had to be took off because
people laughed so, and Magdalene had to let her braid her hair instead
of havin' it cut Dutch and tied with a ribbon. When she was eighteen,
she thought she was thirteen, and she was wearin' dresses that come to
her shoe tops, and her hair in one braid down her back, and dreadful
young hats and no jewels, though her pa had left her a small trunk full
of rubies and diamonds and pearls. Magdalene was wearin' the jewels
herself. They were movin' around pretty rapid about this time, and goin'
from city to city in order to find better teachers for 'the dear child'
as Magdalene used to call her.

[Sidenote: The Conductor]

"One day, soon after they'd gone to a new city, Margaret was goin' down
town to take her music lesson. She went alone because Magdalene was laid
up with a headache and wanted the house quiet. When the conductor come
along for the fare, Margaret was lookin' out of the window, and,
absent-minded like, she give him a penny instead of a nickel.

"The conductor give it back to her, and asked her if she was so young
she could go for half fare, and Margaret says, right sharp, when she
give him the nickel, 'It's not so long since I was travellin' on
half-fare.'

"The conductor says: 'I'd hate to have been hangin' up by the thumbs
since you was,' says he. Of course this made Margaret good and mad, and
she says to the conductor, 'How old do you think I am?'

"The conductor says: 'I ain't paid to think durin' union hours, but
I imagine that you ain't old enough to lie about your age.'

[Sidenote: Ronald Macdonald]

"Just then an old woman with a green parrot in a big cage fell off the
car while she was gettin' off backwards as usual, and Margaret didn't
have no more chance to fight with the conductor. She saw, however, that
he was terrible good lookin'--like the dummy in the tailor's window. It
says in the story that 'Ronald Macdonald'--that was his name--was as
handsome as a young Greek god and, though lowly in station, he would
have adorned a title had it been his.'

"Margaret got to doin' some thinkin' about herself, and wonderin' why it
was she didn't seem to age none. And whenever she happened to get onto
Ronald Macdonald's car, she noticed that he was awful polite and
chivalrous to women. He waited patiently when any two of 'em was
decidin' who was to pay the fare and findin' their purses, and sayin',
'You must let me pay next time,' and he would tickle a cryin' baby
under the chin and make it bill and coo like a bird.

"Did you ever see a baby bill? I never did neither, but that's what it
said in the paper. I suppose it has some reference to the expense of
their comin' and their keep through the whoopin' cough stage and the
measles, and so on. There don't neither of you know nothin' about it
'cause you ain't married, but when Roger come, his pa was obliged to
mortgage the house, and the mortgage didn't get took off until Roger was
out of dresses and goin' to school and beginnin' to write with ink.

[Sidenote: Fine Manners]

"Let me see--what was I talkin' about? Oh, yes--Ronald Macdonald's fine
manners. When a woman give him five pennies instead of a nickel, he was
always just as polite to her as he was to anybody, and would help her
off the car and carry her bundles to the corner for her, and everything
like that. Of course Margaret couldn't help noticin' this and likin' him
for it though she was still mad at him for what he said about her age.

"One morning Margaret give him a quarter so's he'd have to make change,
and while he was doin' it, she says to him, 'How nice it must be to ride
all day without payin' for it.'

"'I'm under age,' says Ronald Macdonald, with a smile that showed all
his beautiful teeth and his ruby lips under his black waxed mustache.

"'Get out,' says Margaret, surprised.

"'I am, though,' says Ronald, confidentially. 'I'm just nineteen. How
old are you?'

"'Thirteen,' says Margaret, softly.

"'Don't renig,' says Ronald. 'I think we're pretty near of an age.'

"When Margaret got home, she looked up 'renig' in the dictionary, but it
wasn't there. She was too smart to ask Magdalene, but she kept on
thinkin'.

[Sidenote: Chance Acquaintances]

"One day, while she was goin' down in the car, two men came in and sat
by her. They was chance acquaintances, it seemed, havin' just met at the
hotel. 'Your face is terrible familiar to me,' one of the men said.
'I've seen you before, or your picture, or something, somewhere. Upon my
soul, I believe your picture is hung up in my last wife's boudoir.'

"'Good God,' says the other man, turnin' as pale as death, 'did you
marry Magdalene Mather, too?'

"'I did,' says the first man.

"'Then, brother,' says the second man, 'let us get off at the next
corner and go and drown our mutual sorrow in drink.'

"After they got off, Margaret went out to Ronald, and she says to him:
'There goes two of my aunt's husbands. She's had three, and there's two
of 'em, right there.'

"'Well,' says Ronald, 'if Aunty ain't got a death certificate and two or
three divorces put away somewhere, she stands right in line to get
canned for a few years for bigamy. You don't look like you had an aunt
that was a trigamist,' says he.

"Margaret didn't understand much of this, but she still kept thinkin'.
One day while Magdalene was at an afternoon reception, wearin' all of
Margaret's jewels, Margaret looked all through her private belongings to
see if she could find any divorces, and she come on a family Bible with
the date of her birth in it, and her father's will.

[Sidenote: Facts of the Case]

"Soon, she understands the whole game, and by doin' a small sum in
subtraction, she sees that she is goin' on nineteen now. She's afraid to
leave the proofs in the house over night, so she wraps 'em up in a
newspaper, and flies with 'em to her only friend Ronald Macdonald, and
asks him to keep 'em for her until she comes after 'em. He says he will
guard them with his life.

"When Margaret goes back after them, havin' decided to face her aunt and
demand her inheritance, Ronald has already read 'em, but of course he
don't let on that he has. He convinces her that she ought to get married
before she faces her aunt, so that a husband's strong arm will be at
hand to defend her through the terrible ordeal.

"Margaret thinks she sees a way out, for she has been studyin' up on law
in the meantime, and she remembers how Ronald has told her he is under
age, and she knows the marriage won't be legal, but will serve to
deceive her aunt.

[Sidenote: The Climax]

"So she flies with him and they are married, and then when they confront
Magdalene with the will, and the family Bible and their marriage
certificate, and tell her she is a trigamist, and they will make trouble
for her if she don't do right by 'em, Magdalene sobs out, 'Oh, Heaven, I
am lost!' and falls in a dead faint from which she don't come out for
six weeks.

"In the meantime, Margaret has thanked Ronald Macdonald for his great
kindness, and says he can go now, as the marriage ain't legal, he bein'
under age and not havin' his parents' consent. Ronald gives a long, loud
laugh and then he digs up his family Bible and shows Margaret how he is
almost twenty-five and old enough to be married, and that women have no
patent on lyin' about their ages, and that he is not going away.

"Margaret swoons, and when she comes to, she finds that Ronald has
resigned his job as a street-car conductor, and has bought some fine
clothes on her credit, and is prepared to live happy ever afterward. He
bids eternal farewell to work in a long and impassioned speech that's so
full of fine language that it would do credit to a minister, and there
Margaret is, in a trap of her own makin', with a husband to take care
of her money instead of an aunt. Next week, I'll know more about how it
turns out, but that's as far as I've got now. Ain't it a perfectly
beautiful story?"

Miriam muttered some sort of answer, but Barbara smiled. "It is very
interesting," she said, kindly. "I've never read anything like it."

[Sidenote: Going the Rounds]

"It's a lot better'n the books you and Roger waste your time over,"
returned the guest, much gratified; "but I can't lend you the papers,
cause there's five waitin' after the postmaster's wife, and goodness
knows how many of them has promised others. I don't mind runnin' over
once in a while, though, and tellin' you about 'em while I sew.

"It keeps 'em fresh in my memory," she added, happily, "and Roger is so
busy with his law books he don't have time to listen to 'em except at
supper. He reads law every evening now, and he didn't used to. Guess he
ain't wasting so much time as he was. Been down to the hotel yet?" she
asked, inclining her head toward Miriam.

"Once," answered Miriam, reluctantly.

[Sidenote: Gossip]

"There ain't many come yet," the postmaster's wife tells me. "There's a
young lady at the hotel named Miss Eloise Wynne, and every day but
Saturday she gets a letter from the city, addressed in a man's writin'.
And every afternoon, when the boy brings the hotel mail down to go out
on the night train, there's a big white square envelope in a woman's
writin' addressed to Doctor Allan Conrad, some place in the city. The
envelope smells sweet, but the writin' is dreadful big and
sploshy-lookin'. Know anything about her?" Miss Mattie gazed sharply at
Miriam over her spectacles.

"No," returned Miriam, decisively.

"Thought maybe you would. Anyhow, you don't need to be so sharp about
it, cause there's no harm in askin' a civil question. My mother always
taught me that a civil question called for a civil answer. I should
think, from the letters and all, that he was her steady company,
shouldn't you?"

"It's possible," assented Barbara, seeing that Miriam did not intend to
reply.

"There's some talk at the sewin' circle of gettin' you one of them hand
sewin' machines," continued Miss Mattie, "so's you could sew more and
better."

Barbara flushed painfully. "Thank you," she answered, "but I couldn't
use it. I much prefer to do all my work by hand."

"All right," assented Miss Mattie, good-humouredly. "It ain't our idea
to force a sewin' machine onto anybody that don't want it. We can use
some of the money in gettin' a door-mat for the front door of the
church. And, if I was you, I wouldn't let my pa run around so much by
himself. If he wants to borrow a dog to go with him, Roger would be
willin' to lend him Judge Bascom's Fido. If the Judge wasn't willin',
Roger would try to persuade him. Lendin' Fido would make law easier for
Roger and be a great help to your pa.

"I must go, now, and get supper. Good-bye. I've enjoyed my visit ever so
much. Come over sometime, Miriam--you ain't very sociable. Good-bye."

The two women watched Miss Mattie scudding blithely over the trail
which, as she said, Roger had worn in the grass. Miriam looked after her
gloomily, but Barbara was laughing.

"Don't look so cross, Aunty," chided Barbara. "No one ever came here who
was so easy to entertain."

"Humph," grunted Miriam, and went out.

[Sidenote: Relief]

But even Barbara sighed in relief when she was left alone. She
understood some of Roger's difficulties of which he never spoke, and
realised that the much-maligned "Bascom liver" could not be held
responsible for all his discontent.

She wondered what Roger's father had been like, and did not wonder that
he was unhappy, if his nature was in any way akin to his son's. But her
mother? How could she have failed to appreciate the beautiful old father
whom Barbara loved with all the passion and strength of her young
heart!

[Sidenote: The Secret]

"He mustn't know," said Barbara to herself, for the hundredth time.
"Father must never know."




VIII

A Fairy Godmother


[Sidenote: The Postponed Visit]

As cool and fresh as the June morning of which she seemed a veritable
part, Miss Eloise Wynne, immaculately clad in white linen, opened the
little grey gate. It was a week later than she had promised to come, but
she had not been idle, and considered herself justified for the delay.

Miriam opened the door for her and introduced Barbara. Eloise smiled
radiantly as she offered a smooth, well-kept hand. "I know I'm late,"
she said, "but I think you'll forgive me for it a little later on.
I want to see all the lingerie--every piece you have to sell."

"Would you mind coming upstairs?" asked Barbara.

"No, indeed."

The two went up, Barbara slowly leading the way. Miriam remained
downstairs to make sure that the blind man did not come in unexpectedly
and overhear things which he would be much happier not to know.

"What a lot of it," Eloise was saying. "And what a wonderful old chest."

[Sidenote: Dainty Wares]

Trembling with excitement, Barbara spread forth her dainty wares. Eloise
was watching her narrowly, and, with womanly intuition, saw the dire
need and the courageous spirit struggling against it.

"Just a minute, please," said Barbara; "I'd better tell you now. My
father is blind and he does not know we are poor, nor that I make these
things to sell. He thinks that they are for myself and that I am very
vain. So, if he should come home while you are here, please do not spoil
our little deceit."

Barbara lifted her luminous blue eyes to Eloise and smiled. It was a
brave little smile without a hint of self-pity, and it went straight to
the older woman's heart.

"I'll be careful," said Eloise. "I think it's dear of you."

"Now," said Barbara, stooping to peer into the corners of the deep
chest, "I think that's all." She began, hurriedly, to price everything
as she passed it to Eloise, giving the highest price each time. When she
had finished, she was amazed at Miss Wynne's face--it was so full of
resentment.

"Do you mean to tell me," asked Eloise, in a queer voice, "that you are
asking _that_ for _these_?"

The blue eyes threatened to overflow, but Barbara straightened herself
proudly. "It is all hand work," she said, with quiet dignity, "and the
material is the very best. I could not possibly afford to sell it for
less."

"You goose," laughed Eloise, "you have misunderstood me. There is not a
thing here that is not worth at least a third more than you are asking
for it. Give me a pencil and paper and some pins."

[Sidenote: Higher Prices]

Barbara obeyed, wondering what this beautiful visitor would do next.
Eloise took up every garment and examined it critically. Then she made a
new price tag and pinned it over the old one. She advanced even the
plainest garments at least a third, the more elaborate ones were
doubled, and some of the embroidered things were even tripled in price.
When she came to the shirtwaist patterns, exquisitely embroidered upon
sheerest handkerchief linen, she shamelessly multiplied the price by
four and pinned the new tag on.

"Oh," gasped Barbara; "nobody will ever pay that much for things to
wear."

"Somebody is going to right now," announced Eloise, with decision. "I'll
take this, and this, and this," she went on, rapidly choosing, "and
these, and these, and this. I'll take those four for a friend of mine
who is going to be married next week--this solves the eternal problem of
wedding-presents--and all of these for next Santa Claus time.

"I can use all the handkerchiefs, and every pin-cushion cover and
corsage-pad you've made. Please don't sell anything else until I've
heard from some more of my friends to whom I have already written. And
you're not to offer one of these exquisite things to those
unappreciative people at the hotel, for I have a letter from a friend
who is on the Board of Directors of the Woman's Exchange, and got a
chance for you to sell there. How long have you been doing this?"

[Sidenote: In a Whirl of Confusion]

"Seven or eight years," murmured Barbara. Her senses were so confused
that the room seemed to be whirling and her face was almost as white as
the lingerie.

"And those women at the hotel would really buy these things at such
ridiculous prices?"

"Not often," answered Barbara, trying to smile. "They would not pay so
much. Sometimes we had to sell for very little more than the cost of the
material. One woman said we ought not to expect so much for things that
were not made with a sewing-machine, but of course, Aunt Miriam had been
to the city and she knew that hand work was worth more."

"I wish I'd been there," remarked Eloise. There was a look around her
mouth which would have boded no good to anybody if she had. "When I see
what brutes women can be, sometimes I am ashamed because I am a woman."

"And," returned Barbara, softly, "when I see what good angels women can
be, it makes me proud to be a woman."

"Where do you get your material?" asked Eloise, quickly.

Barbara named the large department store where Aunt Miriam bought linen,
lawn, batiste, lace, patterns, and incidentally managed to absorb ideas.

"I see I'm needed in Riverdale-by-the-Sea," observed Miss Wynne. "I can
arrange for you to buy all you want at the lowest wholesale price."

"Would it save anything?" asked Barbara, doubtfully.

[Sidenote: Practical Help]

"Would it?" repeated Eloise, smiling. "Just wait and see. After I've
written about that and had some samples sent to you, we'll talk over
half a dozen or more complete sets of lingerie for me, and some more
shirtwaists. Is there a pen downstairs? I want to write a check for
you."

When they went into the living-room, Barbara's cheeks were burning with
excitement and her eyes shone like stars. When she took the check, which
Eloise wrote with an accustomed air, she could scarcely speak, but
managed to stammer out, "Thank you."

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