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diff --git a/77875-0.txt b/77875-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..823e4bd --- /dev/null +++ b/77875-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10746 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77875 *** + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "You and I are going to be married. We need not live +together. But _we are going to be married_"] + + + + + + THE MARRIAGE + OF SUSAN + + + BY + + HELEN R. MARTIN + + + + FRONTISPIECE + BY + WALTER DE MARIS + + + + GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + 1921 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY + DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION + INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN + + + + + _Books by Helen R. Martin_ + + Barnabetta + Betrothal of Elypholate, and Other Tales + of the Pennsylvania Dutch + Crossways + Gertie Swartz: Fanatic or Christian + Her Husband's Purse + Her Courtship + Maggie of Virginsburg + Martha of the Mennonite Country + Revolt of Anne Royle + Sabina, Story of the Amish + The Fighting Doctor + The Marriage of Susan + The Parasite + Those Fitzenbergers + Tillie, A Mennonite Maid + When Half-Gods Go + + + + + CONTENTS + + I. Time, an October Afternoon + II. Evening of the Same Day + III. The Following Spring + IV. A Year Later + V. Face to Face + VI. The Tentacles Close in Upon Susan + VII. July, August, and September + VIII. Autumn + IX. The House Party + X. An Interlude + XI. Home Again + XII. A Few More Years at the Cottage + XIII. In the Big House + XIV. Five Years Later + XV. A Widow + XVI. Susan Realizes Her Freedom + XVII. Susan's Reaping + + + + +THE MARRIAGE OF SUSAN + + + +CHAPTER I + +TIME, AN OCTOBER AFTERNOON + +As she got off the train at Reifsville the loafers about the little +station and about the General Store across the road divined, without +knowing just why, that she was too "different," somehow, to be a +"lady agent"; not young enough to be an applicant for the school; and +too something-else-quite-indefinable to be a possible visitor to any +family of the village. So what was there left for her to be? Why +was she here? They did not usually have any difficulty in "sizing +up" the few daily arrivals by the train. + +As she walked out of the station and up the one street of the +village, their sleepy eyes followed her with mild curiosity. That +any "female" could be very simply dressed and yet not look poor, but, +on the contrary, elegant and prosperous, was puzzling. The trig +neatness of her hair, her clothing, her shoes, her gloves, the light +grace of her walk (though she was at least middle-aged) her assured +bearing, the way she carried her head, all proclaimed her as being, +at one and the same time, both too grand and too plain to be +classified with any feminine species familiar to Reifsville. + +"I got it!" exclaimed Abe Duttonhoffer, his tilted chair falling +forward suddenly from the shock of his idea. "She's mebby a-goin' to +buy Baursox' house that's fur sale." + +"No-p. It's put out, now, that there house can't be solt. The +lawyer says it's got to lay till Charles is in his age." + +"There ain't no funeral goin' on that she'd be comin' to," speculated +Jake Kuntz. "The only funeral due in Reifsville, the party ain't +dead yet." + +"What party are you got reference to? Hess's Missus, mebby?" + +"Yes. Her. I'm to haul fur her, when her funeral is, Mister says." + +"It's to be hoped she won't keep you waitin' long fur the job!" said +a facetious one, provoking a general laugh. + +"It wonders me what that there lady a-goin' up the street there is +after out here!" persisted Jake. + +"Local colour, mebby," suggested Abe. + +"What the hell is local colour?" + +"_You_ are, Jake," retorted Abe. "It's what female authors that +plans books, runs round after." + +"After _me_! A high-stepper like her?" said Jake with a twirl of his +thumb in the direction the lady had taken. "She wouldn't want +nothin' to do with me! 'Local colour?'" Jake shook his head. "It's +new to me." + +"It ain't familiar with me, neither," said another of the loafers. + +The mysterious lady had by this time walked beyond the line of their +vision. + +"It's a wonder, Jake, you didn't schnauffle after her and find out +what she's here fur?--you want to know so bad!" said Abe; to which +Jake replied, indignantly, "Do you suppose I _would_'a? Do you +suppose _you_ would'a?" + +"Say!"--Abe had another bright idea--"Mebby she's one of Susan +Schrekengust's swell city friends!" + +"Och, Susan she never has none of them tony city friends of hern +wisit her out here, 'ceptin' her fellah; that there 'ristocratic dood +that comes to set up with her Sa'rdays," said Jake. + +"I guess Susan she has ashamed, a little, of her folks--her bein' a +grad-yate," suggested one of the men. + +"Susan Schrekengust ain't proud!" retorted a young man among the +group. "She's wery nice and common--fur all she's so grand educated +that way!" + +"Yes, Susan she took lessons a'ready in both Wocal and both +Instrumental, and still she's wonderful common," Jake Kuntz backed up +the other young man's statement. To still be "common"--that is, not +haughty--after having studied "both Wocal and both Instrumental," was +to be rather more than human. + +"Our Katy she says Susan she kin play sich Liszt Ee-toods on the +pyannah!" + +"That ain't so much! There's others in Reifsville kin play Ee-toods." + +Meantime, unconscious of the interest that followed her, the lady +walked slowly, almost shrinkingly, through the silent, empty street +of the village. The houses she passed looked uninhabited, for every +front shutter was closed and bolted to exclude dust, or sunlight +which would fade carpets and furniture coverings. Except on Sundays +and at funerals the inhabitants of Pennsylvania Dutch villages and +farms live in their kitchens. Mrs. Houghton shuddered inwardly as +she noted the crudity of the little homes of the place, the +flower-beds bordered with oyster shells, the gay colouring of the +wood and brick of the houses, the universal cheapness. + +It was such a shock and disappointment that her son, her only child, +hitherto so entirely satisfactory, should have got himself actually +engaged to a girl of a Pennsylvania Dutch community like this!--from +a home such as these! Mrs. Houghton was on her way now to see the +girl; to feel her way to saving Sidney from a mistake so disastrous. +It was surely not his true self, but a lower, hitherto unrevealed +self that had led her fastidious boy into such a relation! A little +"Dutch" school teacher named _Schrekengust_!--the daughter of an +illiterate Mennonite preacher! How such a thing could ever have +happened to Sidney, who had always been rather over-sensitive to +crudity, to commonness; whose tastes and instincts were so true and +fine; who had sometimes seemed to her, for a man, almost too +discriminating in his sense of social values---- + +Even making all due allowance for youth's hot blood and imprudence, +how a son of hers could so have forgotten his traditions, his pride, +his consideration for his mother, his ambitions (all of which Sidney +had always cherished excessively) as to have let himself be carried +away against his judgment, against his self-interest (she had never +before known Sidney to act against his self-interest), and actually +propose marriage to a Pennsylvania Dutch "girl of the people"---- + +"It would seem that sex is the strongest force in a man's life," she +thought. "It will make a man sacrifice anything! Women ought to +refuse to bear sons, for between war and love, what good do we get of +them?" + +It was a most embarrassing and painful errand, this on which she had +come here to-day to Reifsville. + +"But I'd go through anything to save Sidney from such a marriage!" +she told herself, passionately. + +She was quite sure that when he recovered from this vulgar +infatuation and came to himself he would thank her with all his soul +for having rescued him. + +It was trying enough to have your only son, to whom you yourself had +always been all the world, transfer his devotion to another; but to +have him love an impossible person, one whom, with the greatest +straining of your charity, you could not take into your heart and +life--this was indeed hard to bear. + +The straw to which she clung was the fact that Sidney, though very +much in love, was not so far gone as not to be as aware as she +herself was of the disadvantages of his entanglement. + +"I believe he would be ready to break it off if he had not put +himself under such great obligations to her--borrowing money from +her!--gracious!--how _could_ he do that?" she marvelled for the +hundredth time. "To let a self-supporting girl lend him money!--_my +son_!" + +If he himself had not admitted it, she never would have believed it +possible. But she had surprised him yesterday with a visit at his +lodgings at the university town where he was taking a post-graduate +course in International Law, and had found his sitting-room furnished +in beautiful mahogany, which he had been obliged to acknowledge had +been purchased by him and Miss Schrekengust for their future +housekeeping, and paid for with her savings of three years. He was +meantime using it. Also his new golf outfit--she had loaned him +seventy-five dollars for that! + +"But where is your _pride_, Sidney!" she had cried out to him in +shocked astonishment. "To let this working-girl give you things you +can't afford!" + +"She's not a working-girl, Mother," he had protested. "She's a +school teacher." + +"A village school teacher--named Schrekenbust!" + +"Schreken_gust_--not bust! Don't make it worse than it is! It's bad +enough, in heaven's name!" + +"Oh, you admit that it's bad enough?" she had hopefully commented. + +"Can there be any doubt of it?" + +"Don't you see, you poor deluded boy, that this vulgar girl has tried +to make sure of you by _buying_ you?" + +"She's not vulgar!--though of course I must admit," Sidney had +groaned, "that her people _are_!" + +"She can't be so very different from her people--you say she _lives_ +with them. I never would have believed it possible, Sidney, that +_you_ could fall in love with a common girl!" + +"Mother, I've come to see that there's such a lot of difference +between common people and just plain, simple people like the +Schrekengusts." + +"You know you cannot afford to marry out of your class! Remember, +Sidney, you are still dependent on me, and if you should marry +beneath you I certainly would not deny myself any least comfort in +order to help you and your Dutch wife!" + +"Mother, dear, you are wasting breath, for I see it all just as you +do! But Susanna's _got_ me!" + +"Where did you meet her?" + +"At one of the university dances a year ago." + +"This thing has been going on a whole year and you have never told +me!" + +"I've been engaged to her only six months. It has seemed impossible +to tell you--I knew so well how you'd take it, dear. I hated to +worry and distress you." + +"But why should you do anything that _can_ worry and distress me? +Surely your standards and mine cannot be different, Sidney, such +close companions as we have always been! I thought we understood +each other so perfectly--and now it seems that I did not really know +you!" + +"I hate to be such a disappointment to you, Mother--but somehow I +can't feel that I have lowered my standards in falling in love with +Susanna." + +"And yet you are more class-conscious than I am, for you are a +Houghton! You can't make that girl happy. Such a name! +Schrekengust! _Why_ is her name Schrekengust?" she exclaimed, +despairingly. "It seems so unnecessary!" + +"That objection to her will fortunately be removed by her marriage to +me." + +"Where does she live?" + +"Reifsville. Five miles from here." + +"I shall go to see her." + +"Don't!" Sidney had exclaimed protestingly; then suddenly, +unaccountably, he had laughed. "Really, Mother, dear, I warn +you--don't! Susanna'd upset you dreadfully!" + +"Why doesn't she upset _you_, if the bare idea of my meeting her +strikes you as so incongruous?" + +"She has upset me! Bowled me over!" + +Mrs. Houghton had suddenly resolved to say nothing more about going +to see the girl. She would take her unawares, as she had taken +Sidney to-day. + +So here she was in Reifsville, on the very next afternoon, on her way +to the home of the Schrekengusts. + +It was the last house of the village: a white frame house with green +shutters, shaded by great trees. It was really picturesque; the only +attractive house in Reifsville. Mrs. Houghton, appraising it while +she waited for an answer to her knock on the door (a delightful +old-fashioned knocker, no bell), had to admit that by a happy +accident the girl's home was, from the outside, very passable. + +A typical dialogue between two village women parting from each other +at the door of the next house set her nerves on edge at the thought +of her son's close association with such people. + +"Good-by. Come back again soon. Ain't?" + +"Thank you. And you are to come over, mind!" + +"Thank you. _I_ will. Good-by. Come over soon, now!" + +"Good-by. And don't you forget to come over soon. Ain't, you won't?" + +"Thanks; I won't forget. And don't you forget neither to come back." + +"Thanks. I won't. I'll be over then again, when it suits. Good-by." + +"Good-by. Don't make it too long till----" + +Mrs. Houghton was just beginning to wonder whether they ever would +succeed in concluding their leavetaking--when the Schrekengusts' door +was opened and there stood before her a sweet-faced elderly woman in +Mennonite garb who, with mingled shyness and surprise, showed the +stranger into the parlour. + +And here Mrs. Houghton experienced genuine astonishment. It was not +at all the sort of room she had expected to see. Old Sheraton +furniture of graceful lines and exquisite inlaid decoration, framed +copies of famous paintings, an old woven carpet of the sort the +colonists brought over--how had people named "Schrekengust," living +in this Pennsylvania Dutch village, come by such things? The room +actually showed cultured taste! Could she be mistaken and had Sidney +not turned his back on his birth and breeding in choosing this +girl---- + +But that momentary hope was dashed--there was the Mennonite mother +who had answered her knock at the door; and Sidney's own admission +that his marriage would be disadvantageous and outside his own class. + +In a moment Miss Schrekengust appeared in the doorway. + +She, too, like the room, was not just what Mrs. Houghton had expected +to see. At a first glance one might have made the mistake of taking +her, from her dress and manner, for a thoroughbred; indeed, her +simplicity and self-possession as, with a slight inquiry in her +innocent eyes, she came into the room and offered her hand to the +stranger, lent her a certain distinction. + +Mrs. Houghton had been prepared graciously to put an awkward country +girl at her ease, as a necessary preliminary to convincing her of the +undesirability of her marrying Sidney Houghton; but it was she +herself who, for a moment, felt confused and at a loss. + +"I--you are Miss Schrekengust?" + +"Yes?" replied the girl on a questioning note. "Will you sit down?" + +Mrs. Houghton pulled herself together to focus her forces upon her +purpose to save her son (for however presentable the girl might prove +to be superficially, she was nevertheless not of Sidney's world). + +"I don't believe she'll be difficult," she thought, noting, as she +sat down, the sweetness of the child's mouth, the infantile look of +her eyes, the soft drawl of her speech. + +"You have something to sell?" inquired Miss Schrekengust, +encouragingly. + +Mrs. Houghton smiled involuntarily at being taken for a travelling +saleswoman. The girl must, after all, be unsophisticated not to +recognize---- + +"I am Mrs. Houghton--Mr. Sidney Houghton's mother. May I," she +quickly added in a tone impressively grave and reserved, to check the +girl's start of pleased surprise which seemed to threaten to rush at +her with a caress, "have a little talk with you?" + +Miss Schrekengust's intuitions were evidently not dull; she recovered +instantly from her impulsive delight, folded her hands quietly in her +lap, and without speaking, her clear young eyes fixed upon Mrs. +Houghton's face, waited. + +"My son has told me of his--of your--friendship." + +"I appreciate your kindness in coming away out here to see me," said +Miss Schrekengust, gratefully. + +Mrs. Houghton noted that she spoke without the Pennsylvania Dutch +accent. + +"But I am sorry to tell you, Miss Schrekengust, that I don't approve +of my son's relations with you--his owing you money--his using your +furniture! He never went into debt in his life before he knew you, +Miss Schrekengust; he never thought of buying things he couldn't +afford; I didn't think him capable of doing such things!--such things +as he confessed to me yesterday!" + +"Confessed?" + +"Of course he feels the degradation of such a relation!" + +"Oh, I beg your pardon--you got a wrong impression--Sidney does not +feel that our relation is 'degrading'!" + +"I mean his relation of debtor to you. He was horribly ashamed to +admit it to me. Never before in his life has he done anything that +he was ashamed to tell me, his mother. I can see that he has really +deteriorated; and naturally I am distressed and worried." + +Mrs. Houghton paused, feeling that she had put it well. + +But Miss Schrekengust smiled upon her reassuringly. "That is too +bad, for of course you have misunderstood. It's because Sidney and I +have such a high ideal of love that these material considerations +don't enter in at all, don't affect us." + +Mrs. Houghton checked a smile at this youthfully complacent idealism. +It was evidently sincere enough in the girl's case, but Mrs. Houghton +could not quite see Sidney so uplifted by love or anything else as to +be unaffected by "material considerations!" + +"An honourable man cannot ignore 'these material considerations,' +Miss Schrekengust, and I am very, very sorry that you have encouraged +Sidney to do so. You have meant to be generous to him, no doubt, but +unfortunately you have led him to forget the standards of a +gentleman, and to do what men of his class, Miss Schrekengust, do not +do. Of course I'm quite sure that you erred only in--well, in +ignorance. But that does not alter the fact that for the first time +in his life I am forced to be ashamed of my son!" + +"But I am sure you have no real cause to be," Miss Schrekengust +pleaded. + +"If your traditions and environment had been just what Sidney's have +been--if you had been brought up with his standard--you would see it +as I do; as _he_ really sees it." + +"Don't you think you take it too seriously? It's after all a very +small matter." + +"I am extremely sorry," said Mrs. Houghton, gravely, "that you have +apparently led Sidney to think it 'a small matter.' I am very much +afraid, Miss Schrekengust, that your influence on my son's character +does not seem to have been of the best. And surely true love +_should_ bring out the best of a man; don't you think so?" + +"It surely must," the girl assented. + +"That is why I cannot believe that Sidney's feeling for you is quite +true. I hope I don't hurt you very much by saying so? If I could +find him improved by his relation to you instead of deteriorated----" + +The girl's soft eyes met Mrs. Houghton's without a flicker. "I'm +afraid you flatter me, Mrs. Houghton." + +"_Flatter_ you!" + +"When you rate the influence of my short eleven months' acquaintance +with your son above your twenty-five years in influencing and +moulding him; and above those traditions and that environment to +which you referred." + +Mrs. Houghton caught her breath as she thought of how "kindly and +patiently" she had intended to reason with a crude and probably +over-awed country girl! + +Miss Schrekengust, on her side, was saying to herself, "Sidney is not +doing very well by me in the way of a mother-in-law." + +"Your parents are Mennonites?" asked Mrs. Houghton rather abruptly. + +"Yes." + +"And you have always lived here in Reifsville?" + +"Yes, except during the four years that I spent at a boarding school." + +"And do you know," asked Mrs. Houghton, gently, "what a very, very +different background Sidney has had?" + +"In Middleburg?" + +Was there a note of laughter in the question? Mrs. Houghton could +not be quite sure; the girl's face was serious enough. "My son's +associations--at home, in college, in society--his inherited tastes +and instincts, Miss Schrekengust, from a long line of---- Oh, my +child, marriage at best forces one to so _much_ compromising and +adapting and adjusting, that it is very necessary, if there's to be +any least chance of making a success of it, for the pair to at least +start on an equal footing, with as many points of contact in their +background as possible. If they start with wide gaps and differences +in their experiences and their bringing-up they are doomed to +misunderstanding and failure." + +Mrs. Houghton again felt she had put it well; strongly though +delicately. + +But Miss Schrekengust, continuing to gaze at her with unwavering +eyes, did not reply. + +"Don't you agree with me, Miss Schrekengust?" + +"But surely two people who are very essentially different are not apt +to fall in love with each other. And the merely superficial +differences cannot kill love. I think we can always trust ourselves +to love." + +"Are you so very much in love with my son that your faith in love is +quite boundless?" asked Mrs. Houghton, with a slightly supercilious +lift of her brows. + +"What seems a more important point to me is that he is very much in +love with me," smiled Miss Schrekengust. + +"And you think it no drawback at all that you and Sidney come from +such different environments?" + +"We shouldn't dream of letting such nonsense interfere with our love, +Mrs. Houghton. If we did we'd be unworthy of it! It's a gift of the +gods!--and not to be treated lightly or sordidly." + +"But 'such nonsense' _will_ interfere with your love! 'Such +nonsense' makes it quite impossible that you should have the same +outlook upon life, the same instincts, the same friends, the same +prestige. You would differ at all points!" + +"You predict a lively time for us!" smiled Miss Schrekengust. + +Mrs. Houghton stared. Was it impossible to upset the girl's serenity? + +"I suppose Sidney has told you, Miss Schrekengust, that, after he has +finished his work at the university next May his Uncle George +Houghton of New York is going to secure for him a diplomatic +appointment?--his uncle being a man of influence and in close touch +with the Administration." + +"Yes, of course I know of Sidney's prospects." + +"But don't you see," Mrs. Houghton earnestly argued, "that Sidney +being, as you know, quite poor, can't marry a girl with no money--the +diplomatic salaries are too small; and Sidney's tastes are not +simple. And besides----" + +"Yes?" Miss Schrekengust prompted as Mrs. Houghton hesitated. + +"Besides," she plunged in, courageously, "the education of a wide +social experience is surely a prerequisite for being the wife of a +diplomat to a foreign country. A foreign diplomat, more than most +men, needs a real helpmate, a partner, in a wife. Do you feel that +you would be equal to filling such a social position, Miss +Schrekengust?" + +"Well," Miss Schrekengust thoughtfully replied in her soft drawl, "I +don't believe the foreign governments will find me any worse than I +shall find them." + +"But I am serious, Miss Schrekengust! I am sure that you and Sidney +are making a terrible mistake in thinking that you could possibly +pull together, when your rearing and inheritance have been so widely +different!" + +"I know Sidney's ideals and principles are not quite so severe as +mine--but I have hopes for him." + +"His marriage would drag him down!" exclaimed Mrs. Houghton, losing a +bit the restraint which thus far she had tried hard to exercise. +"His engagement has already done so! Sidney admits as much!" + +"Oh, but I am sure you do him injustice," said Miss Schrekengust, +serenely. + +"But the financial side of it? Sidney has nothing of his own--not a +dollar except what I choose to give him. If he should marry out of +his class, I shouldn't dream of helping him." + +"Then I'm afraid I think it would be a very good thing for him to +'marry out of his class,' for it's time he stood on his own feet." + +"He could not possibly support a wife on a diplomat's salary." + +"I've always been able to live on anything I've had to live on." + +"But Sidney's tastes are not so simple." + +"I know he's inclined to be luxurious; but I'm sure I shall be able +to hold him in, never fear," said Miss Schrekengust, again speaking +reassuringly. + +"Has he told you that he and his half-brother are the only natural +heirs of their Uncle George Houghton?--and that Mr. Houghton is a +very eccentric as well as a very rich old man who wouldn't leave a +cent of his money to any one who displeased him? Mr. Houghton has a +great deal of family pride and he is very ambitious for Sidney, and +it would certainly displease him excessively to have Sidney marry +disadvantageously; so much so that he would undoubtedly leave all his +money to my step-son, though he has always disliked Joe and been very +fond of Sidney. So you see, Miss Schrekengust, you have Sidney's +welfare in your hands; his undoing or his salvation." + +"And you are quite sure that Mr. George Houghton would classify +Sidney's marriage to me under that head--'disadvantageous'?" + +"I think I have made it clear to you why he would do to." + +"I'm afraid you haven't. You have spoken of backgrounds, +environments, incomes--but Sidney and I know that a great passion, +any big emotional experience, is not to be measured against such +cheap things as those. We are not so stupid as to give such false +values to the real things of life!" + +"Do you really think you would be worth more to Sidney than all the +things he would lose by marrying you?" + +"Heaps and oodels more!" + +"It is nice," said Mrs. Houghton in a hushed tone which would have +been rather crushing to a timid soul, "to have such a high opinion of +one's value!" + +"It is not so much a high opinion of my own value as a low opinion of +the values you would measure against me." + +"Then, Miss Schrekengust," said Mrs. Houghton, rising and looking +pale and cold, "in spite of all I have said to you, you refuse to +give up my son?" + +"He has not asked me to give him up, Mrs. Houghton," replied Miss +Schrekengust, also rising. + +"_I_ have asked you and have shown you clearly why your marriage to +him would be bad for you both. If you love him you will release him!" + +"I know I would if I were the heroine of a melodrama. At this point +in the play I would tragically and idiotically give up my true love +for his best good, and mysteriously disappear! But if I do that----" + +Miss Schrekengust paused, looking very thoughtful; and Mrs. Houghton, +unable to repress the eagerness born of this hopeful pause, urged her +on with a rather breathless, "Well?" + +"If I do renounce Sidney," the girl sighed, "I suppose I shall then +seriously consider accepting another proposal of marriage," she +astoundingly announced, "which I am afraid might injure Sidney's +financial prospects even more than his marriage with me would do." + +"I don't quite follow you," said Mrs. Houghton, repressing her +eagerness. "How could your marriage with any one else affect +Sidney's financial prospects?" + +"My marriage with Mr. George Houghton might quite seriously affect +Sidney. For you see, I'd be Sidney's Aunt Susan instead of his wife. +I think that would affect Sidney quite disagreeably." + +Mrs. Houghton stared. "You--you know Mr. George Houghton?--and +he--he wants to _marry_ you! But he--why, his----" + +Her astonishment choked her. She could not speak. Her +brother-in-law's family pride was almost an obsession With him! He +had remained a bachelor all his life because he had never found a +woman he considered quite worthy to marry a Houghton! That proud old +man to have become infatuated with a young girl like this!--a village +nobody! + +"He's in his dotage!" she exclaimed. + +"Oh!" breathed Miss Schrekengust, "thanks!" + +"I mean, Miss Schrekengust, that you are such a child--and Mr. +Houghton is over seventy! And his family pride--he is such a--a----" + +"Snob?" Miss Schrekengust suggested. + +"A year ago George Houghton would have thought he was stooping if +he'd been marrying a duchess!" + +"A year ago," said Miss Schrekengust quite truthfully, "he had not +met me." + +Again Mrs. Houghton stared helplessly. Anything more extraordinary +than this girl's complacency she had never encountered. + +"But I promise you," added the girl, "that I'm not going to marry Mr. +George Houghton." + +"But, Miss Schrekengust, if Sidney takes you from his uncle, then his +uncle will have a double reason for disinheriting him! This is +really a dreadful situation!" + +"Isn't it! I thought you would find it so." + +"But what shall we _do_ about it?" cried Mrs. Houghton, desperately. + +"We? You mean you and I?" + +"Surely, Miss Schrekengust, I can hardly believe you would be so +blind to your own interests as to choose a penniless boy like Sidney +if you can marry his uncle!" + +"But doesn't love enter at _all_ into your ideas of marriage, Mrs. +Houghton? I love Sidney and I do not love his Uncle George. I don't +love his Uncle George at _all_!" + +"Then you have already refused to marry Mr. George Houghton?" Mrs. +Houghton wonderingly asked. + +"I shouldn't think of marrying a man seventy years old. Unless, of +course," she quickly added, "I were driven to recklessness by losing +the man I love." + +"But how on earth did old George Houghton ever take it, being refused +by a--well, a girl without either great fortune or great position?" +cried Mrs. Houghton, her amazed curiosity quite upsetting her dignity. + +"Oh, I'm sure he knows, as any other old man would know, that he +can't expect to be wildly attractive to a young girl of eighteen. +Even a Houghton must know that he has become a little slow at +seventy." + +"Well!" Mrs. Houghton exclaimed, unexpectedly, "I do hope it has +taken some of the conceit out of him! George Houghton refused!--and +by---- But I must say, Miss Schrekengust, I think you are extremely +foolish! He can't live long." + +"That, of course, is an inducement. And yet--well, you see, I love +Sidney." + +"You must love him very, very much!" admitted Sidney's mother, almost +softened. + +"I do, Mrs. Houghton." + +Mrs. Houghton quickly reflected, "If she marries George, Sidney's +certain not to get any of his money. If she marries Sidney there's +at least a chance----" + +Her glance swept the girl from head to foot. She really was +attractive, and more than presentable; not at all what she had +expected to find; although of course her family would prove very +embarrassing---- + +Mrs. Houghton suddenly held out her hand. "If you love him enough to +refuse a great fortune and a great position for his sake, I suppose +you must, after all, be the girl he ought to marry." + +"I'm sure I am," Miss Schrekengust said as she took the offered hand. + + +When Mrs Houghton had gone, the young girl collapsed helplessly in a +little heap upon the old davenport before the fire. "If only I see +Sidney before she does!--else what on earth will he think of my yarn +about his old uncle's wanting to marry me!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EVENING OF THE SAME DAY + +If Mrs. Houghton could have caught a glimpse of the Schrekengust +household at supper a half hour later she would have felt that, after +all, rather than have her son marry into a family like this, she +would infinitely prefer that he give the girl up to his Uncle George +and thus lose all hope of inheriting a fortune. For the good taste +manifested in the Schrekengust's parlour, which had so surprised her, +did not extend beyond that room to the rest of the house. And the +girl, Susan, herself, was a quite unique member of her family. She +had never tried to make over her parents and her two elder sisters as +she had made over the parlour. She loved her family very much as +they were, though she was not above finding them embarrassing +sometimes. + +The large kitchen where they were gathered for their substantial +evening meal of fried "ponhaus," fried potatoes, pie, and coffee, was +also the family living room. It was unpapered, bare of ornament, the +floor covered with a patched rag carpet, the furniture of the +plainest and cheapest. + +Mr. and Mrs. Schrekengust and the two elder daughters, Lizzie and +Addie, women of thirty-five and thirty-two, all wore the plain garb +of the Mennonite faith, and their religion obliged them to shun not +only all personal adornment, but all beauty in the home, as they +would have shunned the very devil himself. So that in conceding to +Susan a free hand in the parlour, they had gone as near the ragged +edge of perdition as they dared. + +Addie and Lizzie were both natural born spinsters, tall, angular, +homely, puritanic. Lizzie, like her mother, was talkative, lively, +almost boisterous, and immensely energetic; her warm, generous +impulses constantly outran her means of gratifying them, and her +Pennsylvania Dutch prudence seemed always to be at war with her big +heart. + +Addie, on the contrary, was like her father, economical, minutely +calculating; yet just as kind and unselfish as the less careful +Lizzie. Her manner, also like her father's, was quiet and gentle, +and she willingly let herself be dominated by her noisy sister Lizzie. + +"What fur didn't you ast Sidney's Mom to stay and eat along, Susie?" +her mother inquired in a mildly reproachful tone as she helped +herself from a platter of "ponhaus" and then passed the dish to her +youngest daughter. "To leave her go and set waitin' in the station +fur the train to come, when it don't come till away past supper time +a'ready--when she might be settin' here with us eatin' hot wittles! +What'll she _think_ anyhow?--and you bein' promised to her son yet! +It don't look right--that it don't!" + +It was a difficult question for Susan to meet without betraying what +her parents and sisters would be quite unable to understand--that +Sidney's mother didn't think her "good enough" for Sidney. For the +Schrekengusts, on their side, didn't think any man living quite +worthy of their wonderful Susan. + +She was the child of her parents' old age, being fourteen years +younger than her sister Addie, and she had always been the pet and +idol of the family. They had all denied themselves, ever since her +birth, to give her a chance in life such as none of them had ever +had. They had never let her drudge as they had all drudged; they had +sent her away to school, had kept her well-dressed, had provided her +with enough pocket money to enable her to hold up her end among her +schoolmates, had given her her own way always. Susan was all their +happiness in life; the one warm, bright, glowing spot in their +otherwise colourless existence. In the self-repression of their +Mennonite faith, the affection and care they gave to her were the +only outlet their hearts knew; their only personal expression. + +And they thought themselves well repaid for all their sacrifices by +the charming, lovable result achieved. For strangely enough, Susan +was not spoiled by their devotion and indulgence. Contrary to the +usual effect of such rearing, she deeply appreciated all that had +been done for her and was passionately loyal and devoted to her +family. + +As for her engagement to Sidney Houghton, far from thinking that the +young man had condescended, the Schrekengusts considered it entirely +natural that a "stylish towner" should want to marry Susan, and they +deemed him a lucky man to have won her; for being too simple and +unsophisticated to draw subtle distinctions, they did not perceive in +Sidney any of those variances from ordinary mortals which had been +pointed out that day to Susan by Sidney's mother. + +There was something touching to Susan about this childlike ignorance +of the world's standards, in which her people lived. She had +already, at eighteen years of age, seen enough of life to value, at +its true and high worth, their simple goodness and kindness, their +genuineness, their innocence. + +"Mrs. Houghton said she was not hungry, Mother, and that she wanted +to take a walk about the village before train time," Susan readily +improvised in reply to her mother's question, being accustomed to +protect her parents thus from all the wounds and shocks that +constantly threatened them from the uncomfortable differences between +her and them in education and experience and social relations. + +"But the train to town don't leave here till a quarter over seven +o'clock a'ready, Susie; and here last night she was late a-whole hour +yet, that there seven o'clock train!" replied her mother. + +"I seen her when she come up the street from the station," said +Lizzie (it would have taken an expert to tell whether she referred to +the train or the lady), "and it wondered me that a city person would +be that plain dressed." + +"That's why she dresses plainly--because she's not a villager. You +see, Lizzie, I'm right in not letting you tog me up," Susan pointed +out. + +"Even Sidney don't dress up when he comes to set up with you, Susie, +like the young fellahs here dresses up to go to see their girls. +Ain't, he don't?" said her mother. + +"He considers himself a very well-dressed young man," smiled Susan. + +"Well, he anyhow always looks becoming and wery genteel, no matter +what he's got on," said Lizzie, admiringly. "I do now like his shape +and the way his shoulders is so straight acrost like a sojer's yet!" + +"He is an awful pretty man," agreed Mrs. Schrekengust. + +This was too much for Susan, "Oh, Mother, I wouldn't marry a _pretty_ +man! Heavens! He's handsome, not pretty! He's manly looking. And +he looks what he is--an aristocrat." + +"Aristocrats is fur out in the old country, not fur America," +protested her father. "We wouldn't stand fur havin' no sich +aristocrats here. What fur do you call him an aristocrat? What's +his title then?" + +"I guess Susie means the nice manners he's got at him," ventured +Addie, who spoke seldom. "I like so well to watch him use his +manners," she blandly added. + +"Yes, well, if he don't pay so much attention to 'em that he forgets +his morals!" warned the Mennonite preacher gravely. "Manners is all +wery well if used in moderation. A body mustn't go to excesses in +'em. Sometimes I have afraid Sidney goes a little too fur with them +manners of hisn." + +"Och, yes, he won't even leave our Susan open a door fur herself; or +even pick up a handkerchief he's dropped!" cried Lizzie. "If I was +Susie I'd keep droppin' things just to see him pick 'em up so polite!" + +"He certainly is wery genteel," granted Mrs. Schrekengust. + +"It's to be hoped he'll make you a good purwider, Susie, used as you +are to full and plenty," said her father. + +"But with the education you have given me, Father, I am provided +for--I can always support myself if I need to." + +"But if you had young children to look after you couldn't turn out +and teach school," objected her father. "It's wery important that +your husband is a good purwider; fur whiles it's awful honourable to +be poor, it's wery inconwenient." + +"And to live nice these days," added her mother, "it takes so much +more! Ain't, Pop, the times is changed lately since a few years back +a'ready?" + +"Och, yes, and the young folks they want so much towards what we used +to want. Ain't, Mom?" + +"Yes, ain't!" + +When only a few hours after Mrs. Houghton's departure Sidney +unexpectedly arrived at Reifsville on his bicycle, Susan's feelings +as she greeted him were a rather confusing compound of apprehension +and relief. + +"I came out to warn you, darling," he began as soon as they were +alone together (seated on the big old davenport, his arm around her +shoulders), "that my mother may swoop down upon you!" + +"You came to '_warn_' me? Is she dangerous?" + +"Very!" he laughed uneasily, "to you and me. Harmless enough +otherwise." + +"But how can she be dangerous to us?" + +"She has other ideas for me. She wants me to marry--well, +money--and--oh, and family and all that sort of thing." + +"I can't somehow associate such vulgarity with you." + +"Vulgarity? But, my love! You are speaking of my mother!" + +"Why, no. Of you. But how can she, your mother, imagine your doing +a vulgar, sordid thing, when I can't possibly see you like that? She +has known you longer." + +"And perhaps better. I've always told you, Susanna" (he insisted +upon the "old colonial" form of her name as being less commonplace), +"that you see me through rose-coloured glasses. I'm not above +marrying for money--and other things. Only, I happen to want you +more than I want anything else." + +"And much, much more than you want to keep in your Uncle George's +good graces?" + +"I don't mean to lose his favour. I need it too much. He's only got +to meet you to be won over. He must meet you _before_ he learns of +our engagement, so that he will judge you without prejudice. You +yourself will be all the argument I shall need to convince him." + +"To convince him of what?" + +"That you are not my equal, but my superior." + +"But if he wants you to marry money and--and family--and other things +that have nothing to do with my superiority?" + +"You'll make him realize, as you've made me, that you're a prize +worth more than all those things, my love!" + +"What do you understand by _family_, Sidney? And do you care a lot +about family?" + +"Yes, I do. I do care for family and money and prestige and all the +things I've been brought up to consider of value." + +"None of which I bring to you!" + +"You know what you bring to me!" he said, holding her close and +kissing her. + +"And you are quite sure it makes up to you for losing some of those +other things?" + +"I don't intend to lose any of them." + +"But if you did have to?" + +"But I shan't have to!" + +"Suppose, Sidney," she plunged in astonishingly, "_that your Uncle +George wanted to marry me himself_--would you think me very heroic +for refusing him and cleaving unto you until death us do part?" + +Sidney, startled, took his arm from her shoulder, tilted up her chin +and looked into her eyes. + +"What are you driving at, imp of Satan?" + +"You see, Mr. George Houghton can't possibly live very long--he's +over seventy; I'd soon be a rich widow." + +"Do you _know_ him?" exclaimed Sidney, amazed. + +"_Tell_ me--would I be proving myself quite worthy of you, a +Houghton, if I refused to marry Uncle George?" + +"You'd be too damned unlike any Houghton I ever knew! Excuse me! +What's it all about, anyway?" + +"Sidney, I have charming news for you! Your mother is quite +reconciled to me; she consents to our marriage!" + +"You've seen her? She's been here?" he cried, agitatedly. + +"This afternoon. And when I pointed out to her that it might injure +your financial prospects much more for me to marry Uncle George and +become your Aunt Susan than to marry _you_, she saw that I was so +noble as to be worthy to be her daughter-in-law." + +Sidney gaped at her quite idiotically for an instant; then suddenly, +his hand dropping from her chin, he threw himself back upon the +cushions of the couch and roared with laughing. "You made her +believe that?" he shouted. "You little devil! By Jove, you have +nerve!" + +"She will tell you all about it. I'm glad I've seen you first. What +would you have thought about it if you had heard your mother first?" + +"I suppose I should have been as gullible as she was and _believed_ +it!" he said, still laughing. "I did for a moment! You see I have +such a large faith in your power to charm that I could even find it +credible that a confirmed old bachelor like Uncle George had +succumbed to you!" + +"The amazing part of it all to your mother was that he could so have +forgotten his snobbery----" + +"Snobbery? Oh, I don't know that I'd call Uncle George a snob, +exactly." + +"I know _I_ would; a man who has remained a bachelor for seventy +years because he couldn't find a wife worthy of a Houghton! What +_is_ a snob if that isn't?" + +"Well, he's a mighty fine old chap, anyway," insisted Sidney, growing +sober as he wondered, with a sinking of his heart, how much his +mother had seen of the household here. If she had not gotten beyond +this room and Susan, she had yet much to learn! + +"Tell me all about Mother's visit, dearest," he urged, leaning back +and again slipping his arm to its comfortable and delightful resting +place on her shoulders. + +Throughout her dramatic and graphic report of her afternoon's +experience, Sidney's mingled amusement and anxiety made him +alternately chuckle and frown--until she came to repeat his mother's +views as to the bad influence Susan had had upon his character, when +the frown remained fixed. + +"I tried to make her see how she misjudged you," said Susan; "how the +furniture you are using is just some of our aus tire----" + +"Our which?" exclaimed Sidney. + +"Pennsylvania Dutch for household furnishings. She told me I was +undermining those fine instincts which all gentlemen of your class +possess by inheritance; and that if your fineness was united to my +coarse lack of sensibility, we'd be more like Kilkenny cats than +turtle doves; and it was just then that I had the happy inspiration +to have Uncle George crazy to marry me. It worked. I'm quite worthy +of you, Sidney." + +"Are you aware, dear," he asked, gravely, "that you are making fun of +my mother?" + +"I'm stating facts. If the facts are funny--well, they'd better be +funny than sad. I might be as bad as your mother evidently expected +to find me: talking Pennsylvania Dutch and chewing gum and wearing my +hair in a weird design--instead of the simple, sweet Maud Muller I +am! Be thankful!" + +"I am! Did Mother--stay long?" + +He had started to say, "see any of the rest of the family?"--but +checked himself in time. + +"About an hour. _My_ mother thought it dreadful that I didn't ask +her to stop and have supper with us, since her train wasn't due until +long after she left here. But you see, Sidney," said Susan, her +voice falling a note, "I couldn't explain to Mother why she had come; +and that her reason for coming made it rather impossible for me to +ask her to break bread with us! We, too, have our pride." + +"Susan, dear!" he said, gently, kissing her again, even while feeling +very glad in his heart that his mother had escaped a meal at the +Schrekengusts'--the effect of which would have been tragic! "It's +all such nonsense, dear! Don't let us allow it to disturb our +happiness and our love!" + +"I shan't," she promised, nestling into his embrace. "For of course +it _is_ all nonsense, Sidney. And our love isn't, is it?" + +"I'm very curious, Susanna," he remarked after a moment's palpitating +silence in each other's arms, "to hear Mother's account of your love +affair with Uncle George! You are a rascal!" + +"When I was a child, Sidney, I used to have a little way of +entertaining myself by experimenting upon my playmates or my family +to note the effect upon them of sudden surprising +announcements--announcements of purely imaginary adventures I had had +or discoveries I had made. I would say to a mob of children, 'I was +a waif left on Mr. Schrekengust's doorstep; I am not his child at +all; my rich aunt is coming to fetch me this after, with a coach and +four.' 'Four what?' some wretchedly literal child would inquire. I +didn't know. Or I would personally conduct a group of children up +into the attic of our house to point out to them the signs of a +buried treasure under the floor--a blood stain in the shape of an +arrow pointing to a certain spot in the boards. This particular +invention became so real to me that I once persuaded Lizzie to help +me tear up the flooring. So to-day, while your mother was trying in +vain to convince me of my total unworthiness of you, it suddenly +struck me that it would be an interestingly complicated situation if +rich old bachelor Uncle George who must be placated were (unsuspected +by the Houghton family) in love with me and wanting to marry me. +'Now,' I said to myself adventurously, 'I'll give dear Mother-in-law +something to worry _about_! It was not that I bore her any ill will, +Sidney, dear, but only that I was curious to see how such an +unlooked-for complication would strike her." + +"But what's going to happen when she finds you out?--that's the +question!" exclaimed Sidney, rather ruefully. + +"Perhaps you'd better take me to New York right away and let me +beguile Uncle George into proposing to me. You seem to think I'd be +a good bait for big fish." + +"I can't let you tamper with his young affections! But I do think we +shall have to get married before Mother finds you out. I'll take you +to New York and contrive to introduce Uncle George to you quite +casually; and you'll be your charmingest; and while his impression of +you is still fresh and delightful we'll run around the corner and get +married and then run back and get his blessing. How does it strike +you?" + +Susan shook her head. "We can't think of getting married until you +are earning enough to be independent of your mother." + +"Oh, Susanna, I can't wait that long before I take you unto myself +for better, for worse!" + +"It would be exclusively 'for worse' if we married with nothing to +live on. I couldn't consent to such recklessness. The Pennsylvania +Dutch were ever a prudent race, you know." + +Sidney controlled his inclination to wince at her reference to her +objectionable Pennsylvania Dutch blood. He did not like it a bit +better than his mother did. + +"I wonder, Susanna," he said, "what Mother really thought of you!" + +"All too soon you'll know!" + +"No, I shan't; that's the rub. Of course I do know already that she +thinks you charming. But she will be slow to admit it to me." + +"Why, Sidney?" + +"She was so prejudiced!--because you see, dear, she so hated your +having loaned me money; and my secrecy about you--and all the rest of +it." + +"I never did understand why you would never tell her about me. Were +you only trying to spare my feelings when you said she would be +opposed to your being engaged until you were self-supporting? Was +your real reason my--my family?" + +"Oh, my dear, Mother is so full of the prejudices of her class! This +room must have surprised her," he hastily changed the subject. +"You'll admit that it's not just what one would expect to find in a +little village like this. Did you tell her how you and I collected +this old furniture from old farmhouses about here and had it done +up?--and that it, too, is part of our--what do you call it? 'Aus +tire?'" + +"Dear me, no! She took it for my natural setting. Sidney, you never +told me you had a brother." + +"A half-brother. Did Mother speak of him? Joe and I never felt in +the least like brothers. He never lived at home after I was born. +Mother told you, I suppose, how Uncle George cut him when he married +a farmhouse servant girl?" + +"No, she only told me that if you married me your brother would +probably inherit your half of your uncle's money." + +"When Joe's wife died two months ago, leaving a baby a week old, +Uncle George relented and took him back into favour." + +"Did that console Joe?" + +"Well, I think it did a little. Joe loves money more than he loves +anything in the world. Not as I do, for what I can get out of it. +He loves to hoard it. He's a miser. When Uncle George told him, +after his marriage, that he'd not leave him a cent, I think Joe had +an attack of yellow jaundice!" + +"And do you think he wouldn't have married the girl if he had known +that would happen?" + +"I really can't say. I've never been intimate with Joe." + +"What an exciting family you belong to, Sidney!--with your misers and +rich uncles and backgrounds and traditions and standards and getting +disinherited for marrying persons your distant relatives don't +approve! I didn't know such romantic things happened in the U.S.A. +It sounds so early Victorian." + +"Well, of course Uncle George is a gentleman of the old school." + +"A good thing it's an _old_ school and passing out!" + +"But it was picturesque, Susanna." + +"But nothing else very useful." + +"Of course I couldn't expect you to see these things just as I do." + +"Please, Sidney, don't talk like that; it sounds so like----" + +"Well?" he asked as she checked herself. + +"Surely you feel that in the fundamental things of life we _are_ in +sympathy, don't you?" she pleaded. + +"Naturally," he responded with a kiss. "Else I shouldn't be here, +holding you in my arms!" + +His answer satisfied her completely. + +"Sidney," she said after a moment, "tell me some more about your +brother Joe. I'm so surprised to discover him! It seems so queer +you never told me of him. Tell me where he lives, what's his +business, who takes care of the motherless baby, why he's a miser +when you're a spendthrift (for you are, you know). Go ahead--talk!" +urged Susan with the breathless interest of a child demanding the +continuance of a story. + +Sidney told off the answers to her questions on his fingers. "Joe's +a farmer; lives at White Oak Farm, the old Houghton homestead between +here and Middleburg; Uncle George owns it; Joe works it on shares, +and hoards every dollar he earns; the housekeeper he now employs +takes care of his baby. Anything more you want to know, Miss +Question-Box?" + +"Is it a nice baby?" + +"I'm no judge. Anyway, I've never seen it." + +"Is Joe, then, so very dreadful?" + +"He's a grouch and a screw. I fancy his wife didn't mind +dying--after living a whole year with Joe." + +"Was Joe grown up when you were born?--since you say he didn't live +at home after you were born." + +"He's only ten years older than I am. His mother died at his birth. +He claims that Father left him entirely to servants and that he was +awfully neglected always. So at the age of nine, when he acquired a +step-mother who tried to take him in hand and make something of him, +she could not do a thing with him. He was a hopeless little tough. +A cub! Mother simply couldn't have him about. When I was born her +dread of Joe's contaminating me made Father send him off to boarding +school. He was expelled from three schools in five years, for +insubordination. Then Father died bankrupt, leaving Mother nothing +but his life insurance. She had some income of her own, so we've +worried along. Joe was fifteen when Father died and had gone to +school so little that he could scarcely read and write! So he hired +himself out to learn farming. Lived at a Pennsylvania Dutch farm as +one of the family for eight years and married their maid servant; so +that now you couldn't tell him from a born Pennsylvania Dutchman. +Talks and thinks and acts like one. Even his ideas about women are +'Dutch': a woman is a breeder and a beast of burden! But he likes +farming, and he's done awfully well, though he works like a dog and +never spends a cent--just hoards and hoards!" + +"And you and your mother have nothing to do with him?" + +"Not more than we must. We have to borrow money from him +occasionally when we're short. But he never lends us a nickel +without security and interest. Tells us he doesn't see why he should +provide us with luxuries that he denies himself; that he's slaved +like a Chinese coolie for every dollar he has and he doesn't propose +to hand it out to people who don't work at all and who despise him. +He's a quite impossible grouch, you see!" + +"Did you know his wife at all?" + +"Never saw her. I never could see why Uncle George resented Joe's +marrying a farmer's servant girl--no lady would have married him! +But you see, what Uncle George hated was that no sooner had he +employed Joe to manage White Oak Farm than Joe up and married that +common girl and took her to live at that lovely old, historic, +ancestral home made sacred by seven generations of Houghtons having +lived there. To desecrate it by putting such a mistress there! +Uncle George was all for kicking him out. I suppose, however, Joe +was too valuable to him, for it seems that Joe's a quite +exceptionally good farmer. But anyway, Uncle George wouldn't let him +and his Dutch wife use the front of the house at all. He made Joe +keep the front rooms locked up--the beautiful drawing room and +library and portrait parlour and some of the gorgeous old bedrooms. +Some day I want to show you the place, Susanna: the tapestries, the +old rugs, the colonial beds, the old sideboard. I hope Uncle George +wills it to me! Joe and his wife preferred living in their kitchen. +They were used to it. It was the only place in that house where +they'd feel at home!" + +Susan was silent for a while when Sidney paused, thinking how +different had been the lives of these two boys born of the same +father. + +"Most men are not fit to be fathers," she presently remarked. "I +wonder whether Joe will do as badly by his child as your father did +by him." + +"Probably worse, Father having been a gentleman and Joe being a boor. +Joe hates respectability as an owl hates daylight; as much as I hate +toughness. He says Mother drove him to hating 'gentility' even more +than he naturally hated it." + +Susan felt that she could quite understand that. But before she +could reply they were interrupted by the entrance of her mother. + +Mrs. Schrekengust, wearing the black hood and shawl prescribed by the +Mennonite faith for outdoor apparel, carried into the parlour a tray +bearing two bottles of ginger ale, two glasses, and a plate of +molasses cake. + +Sidney, rising to relieve her of it and place it on a table, so +embarrassed and confused her by his gallantry that she almost dropped +the tray before he could take it. + +"I can't used myself to your so polite manners, Sidney!" she said, +apologetically. "I wasn't never used to 'em. It wonders me how you +kin remember 'em still." + +Susan was intensely sensitive to Sidney's invariable wincing from her +mother and father and sisters. Try as he would he could not conceal +it from her, and though she strove to make excuses for him to herself +and to understand, yet she knew that deep down in her heart she +resented it. + +"Where are you going, Mother?" she asked in surprise at sight of the +hood and shawl Mrs. Schrekengust was wearing at this hour when she +was usually in bed asleep. Suddenly she noticed that her mother was +looking white and frightened. "What is it, Mother?" she exclaimed, +rising and going to her side. "What's the matter?" + +"Och, Susie, an awful thing happened out in our backyard whiles you +and Sidney was settin' in here keepin' company! Hogenbach's Missus +come runnin' over just at supper time to ketch one of her chickens +that jumped the fence over and she fell down in one of them fits she +gets and smothered to death! Yes, anyhow!" + +"Oh!" exclaimed Susan, "Mrs. Hogenbach is dead?" + +"Och, yes, three hours ago she died! Out in our backyard yet! And +now they are got a jury settin' up at Hogenbach's to see what she +died of and I got to go fur such a witness." + +She turned to explain to Sidney: "Missus she used to have +spells--sich fits, you mind; she'd throw a fit most any time; and I +often says to her Mister, 'You don't watch Missus good enough. Some +day she'll smother fur you in one of them spells!' But he didn't +listen on me. So here this evening when she didn't get home from +chasin' her chicken, he come schnaufflin' over to our place after a +whiles to see why she didn't come home. She'd been away a full hour. +And I tol' him, I says, 'If Missus was off that long, Hen Hogenbach, +then this time you carry her in dead.' 'Och,' he says, 'how often'll +you tell me that--that I'll carry her in dead? She _never_ dies in +them spells!' 'But this time, Hen, it _is_!' I says. 'If it's went +a whole hour since she didn't get home a'ready, Hen, then you mind, +this time it _is_!' And it was! Hen he went out with a lantern and +found her by the pig sty with her face down, smothered to death. She +looked awful! So Pop he fetched the coroner. And the coroner he +says he must now send fur a jury to set on her and find out what she +died of. 'But it ain't necessary,' I argued him, 'to have no jury +set; I kin tell you what she died of.' So I tol' him how Missus she +gets spells fur ten years back a'ready and this evening she smothered +in one of 'em. 'That's what she died of--now you know,' I says. But +would you believe it, that there stubborn-headed coroner he wouldn't +have it no other way but that a jury must set to find out what she +died of. 'But I did tell you a'ready what she died of,' I argued +him. 'She has spells! Fur ten years she has 'em! And to-night she +smothered in one of 'em!' I says. But no, a jury must come and set +on her to find out what she died of! Ain't, Susie, it's awful dumb +of that there coroner to have a jury set to see what she died of when +I _tol'_ him what--she had spells and smothered." + +"Would you like me to go with you?" Sidney politely inquired. "Can I +be of any help?" + +"Och, no, you stay settin' with Susie and enjoy yourself pickin' a +piece," replied Mrs. Schrekengust, indicating the tray--"picking a +piece" meaning a light luncheon. + +When a few moments later Susan and Sidney were again alone, partaking +of the ginger ale and cake, Susan said with a sigh, "This death will +be the only thing talked of in Reifsville for the next six months! +Oh, how they'll revel in every gruesome detail! I foresee that it's +going to drive me to commit a crime, to give them something else to +talk about!" + +"How glad you'll be, dear, when I take you away into another world!" + +"Oh, but, Sidney, dear, I am very much a part of this world, too. I +discovered something about myself when I went away to school: I found +out how dependent I am upon affection. I've always had so much of it +lavished on me here. So even if I do have interests that my parents +and sisters don't share, they do fill the biggest part of me--and +that's my heart!" + +"That's awfully sweet of you, dear. You are a loyal little soul!" + +"More than that! My heart is so _tenacious_ where once it has been +given!" she sighed. "I can't seem to wrench it loose!" + +"Why that sigh?" he quickly asked. "You wish you could stop loving +me, but you can't--is that it? Doesn't that prove," he argued, +renewing a discussion which for weeks had kept them both on the rack, +and which now suddenly drove the colour from their faces, "that I am +right and you are wrong, dearest? If _I_ were in the wrong about +this matter, wouldn't it have killed your love for me, Susanna, dear?" + +"Oh, Sidney!" pleaded Susan, piteously, "don't! Please, please, +don't let us talk of that again!" + +"But, dearest, you don't understand," he persisted, his voice +quivering. "You're so obsessed with the conventional view of love +and marriage that you won't look at it simply and naturally, as the +spontaneous, emotional relation that God ordained it to be!" + +"You surely don't believe that it is _right_, Sidney, to bring a +child into the world handicapped from the start with illegitimacy!" + +"Of course I don't! That need not happen--must not! I only mean +that the union of natural rather than legalized love is higher, +finer, purer! You and I, Susanna, will never love more hotly, more +humanly than we do now! Why, then, deny ourselves the full +expression of our love for so material a consideration as an +insufficient income on which to legalize our union? We are losing +weeks and months of our precious youth!--of the ecstasy of youth! +How can a broad-minded girl like you think that a few ceremonial +words can alter the great eternal fact of Love? _Why shouldn't_ you +give yourself to me now as well as after the marriage ceremony?" + +"But why should I? My love for you, Sidney, is something so far +above a mere appetite!" + +Sidney winced. Susan did sometimes offend his taste. "You speak of +our love as 'a mere appetite'!" + +She so often found him, in any discussion between them that tended to +get out of his hands, twisting her statements out of their obvious +meaning; condemning her candid recognition of what he himself had +suggested or implied. + +"I'm protesting, dear," she answered, "against your having that idea +of love. To me it is something so different!" + +"Sometimes I think, Susanna, dear, that you don't know what real love +is, when you can say a--yes, a really coarse thing about it like what +you just said! Love is no more an experience wholly of the spirit +than it is wholly of the senses. It is a full expression of the +entire being!" + +"But, Sidney, dear, if the thing you wish is what you keep saying in +your letters it is--'a holy expression of love'--why is secrecy +necessary?" asked Susan, her voice so pained, her eyes so strained +and tortured, that Sidney involuntarily took her hand reassuringly in +his. "Why," she continued, "not proclaim such a Gospel to all the +world, if it is so true and beautiful?" + +"You know the price we'd have to pay for acting openly, dearest!" + +"If it's not worth that price, it's not what you claim for it!" + +"It's the highest, the most exquisite thing in life, Susanna!" + +"Then don't let us desecrate it! To lose our self-control is not +high or beautiful or holy!--whatever fine phrases you may use about +it, dear!" + +"Yet you think a legal marriage is all that!" exclaimed Sidney. + +"I still believe in the 'institution of the family'--at least until +some better plan for rearing children is suggested. I've never heard +of any that would not be much worse for the children than being +brought up in families--faulty as family life may be." + +"We're talking about love, dear; not about family life and children!" + +"But children happen to be the fruit of love, dear; so we can't leave +them out of this." + +"If you have no higher idea of love than to believe that it is merely +for the begetting of children----" + +"But that's what Nature uses it for. And, dear, you who have such +inordinate family pride--what do you mean by 'family pride'? What +becomes of it in a relation such as you wish? You are proud of a +line of _well-born_ ancestors!" + +"Damn my ancestors! When you and I, Susanna, dearest, are yearning +for the fullest, the most exquisite expression of ourselves, why +should we deny ourselves? Why, why? I love you with every part of +me--with all my heart and all my mind and all my senses!" + +"Oh, my dear, my dear," she tremulously protested, "I cannot, +_cannot_ believe that what you want is so essential to any demand of +our spirits that we can't wait! There is nothing I would refuse to +go through for the sake of our love; there is nothing in all my life +I would count too high a price to pay for it. But to me love is so +much more than mere possession. It is a life shared in the +open!--our work, our ideals, our ambitions lived out together +harmoniously. That's what marriage means to me. And you would lead +me into secrecy, hiding, _shame_!--leading to nothing--nothing but +satiety and disgust!" + +"Susanna, dearest! How can you sit there and philosophize about a +thing that consumes one like a living fire! I want you, Susanna!" he +whispered, drawing her into his arms. "You are mine and I am +yours--and nothing, nothing else matters! Nothing! Nothing!" + +But she forced herself out of his embrace. "Tell me this, Sidney," +she said, her face a deathly white, "would you ask this thing of me +if I were a girl of your mother's choosing? Of your own social +world? Would you?" + +"Perhaps I shouldn't have to plead so hard," he said, chokingly, +"with a more worldly girl! Dearest! Don't be so cruel to me! Come +to me! Love me!" he begged, taking her again to his heart. "How can +you deny me when----" + +A voice in the hall without made them draw apart guiltily. + +Mrs. Schrekengust opened the door and stood on the threshold. "The +jury's still settin'," she announced; and Susan, with a sense of deep +relief at the interruption, thanked heaven in her heart for Mrs. +Hogenbach's timely death. "They're gettin' along, though--that there +jury is. They're got it settled that Missus is anyhow dead. They +ain't got it made out, though, what she died of. They're still +arguin' that--for all I _tol'_ 'em a'ready how she had spells and +smothered. But it seems my word fur it ain't enough. They have to +set awhile till they know oncet what she died of--that dumb they +are----" + +Mrs. Schrekengust seemed suddenly to sense the fact that she was +interrupting a lover's tête-à -tête. She stopped with embarrassing +abruptness, closed the door sharply, and they heard her walk away +down the hall. + +Neither of them moved or spoke until the sound of her step had passed +on to the back of the house and was lost. + +Soon the deep silence of the house, penetrating even to this room +apart, proclaimed that all the family slept. + +But Sidney stayed on. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE FOLLOWING SPRING + +March Sixth. + +DEAREST SIDNEY: + +The time has come at last when I can no longer hold back the question +which for weeks and weeks I have not allowed myself to ask you--and +which you must have wondered why I have not asked you. It has been +because I have been afraid to face your answer. + +Oh, Sidney, my love, put me out of the agony of suspense that I've +been suffering these many weeks and tell me what it is that has come +between you and me! Surely I have not merely _imagined_ that you +have changed to me?--your visits so far apart and so hasty; your +short notes once a week or less often; your altered manner when you +are with me--what is it, Sidney? If you have grown to love me less, +why have you? Is it anything I have said or done? Are you +disappointed in me? _Can_ such love as ours grow cold and die? If +it can, I can never again trust anything in life! Oh, my love, I am +so wholly yours--every beat of my heart, every thought of my mind is +for you--I have no life apart from you--I have given myself to you so +entirely! It surely is not possible that you _could_ take yourself +out of my life, as you seem to be doing! + +Do you know that yesterday you came and went without kissing me, +after not seeing me or writing to me for three weeks? + +Can it be, Sidney, that if I had _not_ given you all that a woman can +give, you might still be my devoted lover? Can it be that having +satisfied and sated your desire for me, you are _through_ with me? + +Susan paused here, as she thought how "coarse" Sidney would consider +that question. But she did not change it. + +She wrote on feverishly: + + +I implore you, dearest, not to treat this letter as all my letters to +you have been treated lately--but to answer it as soon as you get it +and tell me that I have been torturing myself for nothing; that you +are mine--as I am yours. + +Or if you cannot truthfully say that, at least let me have the truth. + +SUSANNA. + + +Ten days later, her letter having remained unanswered, Susan sent a +telegram to Sidney: + + +_Did you get my letter of March sixth? Wire answer._ S. + + +It was two days before she received a reply: + + +_Letter received. Very busy. Spring exams. Will write soon._ +SIDNEY. + + +After a long, dark, despairing week, his letter at last arrived. + + +DEAR SUSAN: + +Why let yourself get morbid and hysterical and imagine things?--just +because I relax now and then from the strain of our first ardour. +Naturally, one can't live at fever heat all the time. Be sensible, +my dear girl, and please, please don't stir me up, at this critical +time of my spring exams, with such forlorn wails, such wild +telegrams! Be your old, jolly, funny self, can't you? You've become +so serious and solemn, it quite gives me the blues to go to +Reifsville. + +I'm afraid you must not look for me for the next few weeks; I shall +be too busy to get away. I shan't have time for much writing, +either. So don't go off on a tangent, my dear, if you don't hear +from me. + +Take care of yourself. Write me one of your old-time funny letters +that used to make me roar so that the housekeeper here would come +running to see what ailed me! + + Yours, + SIDNEY. + + +Susan had recently subscribed for the daily paper published in the +university town where Sidney studied and she had learned from it that +he was not too busy with his spring examinations to attend dances and +theatre parties, to play in golf and tennis tournaments, and to take +automobile trips. + +The "jolly-funny" letter that he requested was not written and +nothing further passed between them for two weeks. + +Meantime, the newspapers from the university town were revealing to +Susan a fact that made her heart turn to lead. Day after day she +read in the "Social Column" of the newspaper a certain name coupled +with Sidney's. + + +Miss Laura Beresford, daughter of the newly elected President of the +University, and Mr. Sidney Houghton, a student in the school of +International Law, led in an old-fashioned German given last night at +Phillipps Hall. + + +Or, + + +Miss Laura Beresford gave a dinner on Tuesday night in honour of her +house guest, Mrs. Joseph Houghton of Middleburg, Pa., mother of Mr. +Sidney Houghton of the Law School. + + +Or, + + +Mrs. Joseph Houghton gave a small dinner dance on Thursday night at +Hotel Mortimer in honour of Miss Laura Beresford and of her son, Mr. +Sidney Houghton of the Law School. + + +Always when Sidney's name was listed "among those present," at any +social affair, the name of Miss Laura Beresford was sure to be there. + +Was Mrs. Houghton trying to separate Sidney from her? Susan +wretchedly speculated. And was he only too ready to be enticed away? + +At last, when she could no longer bear his silence and his continued +remaining away from her, she wrote again, a long, heart-broken +letter, a passionate outcry, pleading with him for her life's +happiness, her honour---- + +But no sooner was it written than she tore it into bits. + +"I won't beg! I won't cringe! Nothing that I can say to him can +alter the fact that he no longer loves me!" + +It added much to her suffering, during these dark days, to realize +the dumb misery of her doting family in their consciousness of her +unhappiness. That she should be a source of pain instead of comfort +to them who had sacrificed so much for her, hurt her bitterly. + +She suddenly resolved, one day, that, as Sidney would not come to her +or answer her letters, and as she had somewhat to say to him which +must be said, at whatever cost to her of wounded pride, she would +have to go to him. + +The tragic extent of his alienation from her seemed to her to be +measured by her instinctive conviction that if she should notify him +of her coming, he would manage to get out of her way. It seemed to +her, when this conviction had burned its way into her heart, that +nothing further which she might be called upon to endure could add to +the humiliation and agony of that hour. + +It took all the resolution she could command to coerce herself to the +self-crucifixion of forcing an interview upon him. + +"But it will be the last time; I shall never, never appeal to him +again!" + +She arrived at his rooms at four o'clock in the afternoon, the hour +when he would be due to come in from his last lecture. + +The Pennsylvania Dutch landlady of the house, a red-faced woman of +ample proportions, recognized her as the young girl who, over a year +ago, had helped "Mr. Sidney" buy and place the lovely furniture for +his study. So she readily consented to let her wait for him there. + +"You're his sister, mebby? Or his cousin--ain't?" she asked +curiously as she unlocked the door of the study and stood aside to +let Susan pass in. + +But Susan did not answer. For the fact that jumped at her and struck +her in the face the moment she crossed the threshold of Sidney's +study, made her speechless. + +The furniture which she and Sidney had bought (which she was still +paying for in installments out of her salary as the village teacher) +was not here; not one piece of it. It had all been replaced with the +cheap oak suit which had been here in the beginning and which Sidney +had so loathed that it had made, him bitter. + +"But this is not Mr. Houghton's room," she faltered, turning to Mrs. +Eschbach. + +"Yes, it is hisn; only it ain't so grand no more, since he solt all +his nice furn-shure he used to have in here. Didn't he tell you," +asked Mrs. Eschbach, following Susan into the room, her curiosity +fairly radiating from all her large person, "how he got so hard up he +had to sell his furn-shure?" + +"No," Susan managed to answer with dry lips. + +"Yes, he couldn't afford to keep it no more. You see, it had cost +awful expensive and I think it fetched a good price when he solt it. +But och," she added, sympathetically, "it went so hard with him to +part with it! He's so much fur havin' things grand around him, that +way." + +"When did he--how long ago did he--sell it?" Susan asked, scarcely +above a whisper. + +"Well, he done it graj-ally; one piece at a time just as he needed +the money, till it was all solt a'ready." + +A wild hope rose in Susan's breast that perhaps _this_ was all that +was keeping Sidney away from her--embarrassment because of money +difficulties; he was so unpractical and foolish about money! Oh, if +this were indeed all that was alienating him! + +"You see," Mrs. Eschbach explained, "he's in so thick with the new +college President's daughter, and she's sich a rich swell, he's just +got to spend on her to keep in with her. Fur a-plenty of others +would run with her if he didn't. So he's got to spend on her." + +Susan sank limply into the nearest chair. + +"It's a pity he ain't a rich young man--ain't?--sich tony friends as +he runs with and sich taste as he's got fur grandness! Och, but he +hates this here common furn-shure I had to put back here when he solt +hisn! But I tol' him it ain't reasonable fur him to expec' no better +fur as cheap rent as what he pays yet. Nor it _ain't_, either." + +"Do you think he will come in soon?" asked Susan, faintly. + +"Mebby he will and again mebby he won't. You can't never count on +him fur nothin' since he's been runnin' with that there Miss +Beresford." + +"I'll wait for him." + +"All right. When he does come in I'll right aways tell him you're +here," said Mrs. Eschbach, kindly. "You ain't lookin' just so +hearty." + +"Please don't tell him I'm here--I--want to surprise him." + +"All right. _Ain't_ you his cousin or sister or what?" + +"No. Just his----" + +Susan hesitated; should she tell this woman that she was Sidney's +promised wife? + +"Just--a friend of his," she concluded. + +"A friend?" repeated Mrs. Eschbach, dubiously. "Say," she added, +tentatively, "it's put out all over this here town that him and Miss +Beresford's promised to each other." + +"Is it?" Susan feebly smiled. "But I think that must be only gossip, +Mrs. Eschbach. I have not heard of it and I am a--a very close +friend of Mr. Houghton's." + +"Yes, he used to have your pitcher on his bureau settin'. I don't +know what's become of that there pitcher; I ain't seen it this good +whiles back a'ready. So you don't believe it that him and her's +promised?" + +"No." + +"Well, I must say she ain't the wife I'd pick out for my son. She's +too much all fur herself that way. They say it got her so spoilt, +havin' her own big fortune that she inherited off of her gran'pop, +her mom bein' dead. Her mom was a old school friend of Mr. Sidney's +mom, and as soon as President Beresford got his job at the college +here (he's the new President) Mrs. Houghton she come on to wisit her +son and interdooced him to Miss Beresford, her old friend's daughter, +you understand. And now Mrs. Houghton she's that tickled at the way +them two young folks takes to each other. To be sure, it certainly +is wery nice fur Mr. Sidney, him bein' so hard up and Miss Beresford +her bein' so good-fixed. They say she's awful rich in her own right." + +Mrs. Eschbach paused after this long speech, to get her breath, her +huge bosom heaving asthmatically. + +Susan, sitting rigid, made no comment. + +"Here's her pitcher on his bureau settin'," the landlady added when +she had recovered a bit. "Want to take a look?" she asked, starting +across the floor. + +But she was checked by the sound of the sudden opening of the front +door in the hall below. + +She turned back to Susan, whose face, at the sound, had gone deadly +white. + +"It's him," Mrs. Eschbach announced, making for the door as steps +came bounding up the stairs, accompanied by gay and noisy whistling. + +Susan's hand clutched her breast--that he could be joyously whistling +when her heart was breaking! + +"You're got comp'ny, Mister Sidney," Mrs. Eschbach informed him, on +the threshold of his room. + +"Have I?" he brightly answered, stepping back to let her pass out, +then entering the room, smiling. + +Susan's burning eyes, the only living part of her colourless face, +met his smiling glance. + +At sight of her, the smile disappeared; the blood mounted to his +forehead; he sank into a chair in front of her. + +Susan did not speak. She would leave it all to him--to explain +himself. + +"Well?" he began, defensively, almost aggressively. + +"How do you do?" she said, pleasantly, her voice as soft as velvet. + +Sidney, at all times peculiarly sensitive to the modulations of a +woman's voice, had always thought Susan's the most pleasing voice he +had ever heard. It had been many weeks since its music had charmed +him, and now it suddenly stirred his pulse as he had not supposed +Susan could ever stir it again. + +"Why did you come here, Susanna?" he asked, huskily. + +"Aren't you pleased to see me, dear?" she asked, almost coquettishly. + +"Of course--but what's the idea?" + +"By the way, what's become of my--our furniture, dear?" + +"Susanna!" he exclaimed, a deeper colour dyeing his face, his tone +ashamed and apologetic. "I'll not rest until I have paid you back +every dollar that that furniture cost us!" + +"'Cost us?' But before you begin to pay me, dear, please pay the +dealer, to whom I'm still paying, as you know, fifteen dollars a +month. I still owe him one hundred dollars of the three hundred +which the furniture cost--me. Will you take over that debt of one +hundred dollars?" + +"Of course I shall. You must not pay another dollar of it!" + +"All right," she quietly agreed, folding her hands in her lap, "I +won't." + +She said nothing more. He waited. But, her friendly glance resting +upon him peacefully (while her heart beat suffocatingly), she also +waited. + +"I never meant to sell the furniture, Susanna," he began, miserably, +"but I----" + +"Oh, you sold it?" she asked as he floundered. + +"Yes," he admitted, his eyes falling, unable to meet hers: + +"All of it?" + +"To the last piece! But I shall pay you back! Every dollar of it! +It may take me a long time, but I shan't let you lose what you paid +for it, Susanna!" + +"Really?" + +"Please, Susanna! Of course I know how the thing must look to +you----" + +"Why did you sell it? Didn't you like it any more, dear?" + +"I know you'll find it hard to forgive me! I needed money, Susanna." + +"What for, Sidney?" + +"For my running expenses. Mother, you see, is a rather luxurious +person and so am I, and the fact is, our income isn't big enough for +our needs." + +"Didn't you think about consulting me before you sold my--our +furniture?" + +"Susanna!" he said, abjectly, his head bowed like a guilty child's. + +"I shall hardly be able, Sidney, to buy another aus tire; I worked so +long to earn money enough for what I did buy. We shall have to marry +without much furniture. Mother and Father and my sisters will think +that a disgrace. But then, we need not tell them, need we? We may +as well spare their feelings." + +Sidney glanced at her uneasily; then his eyes fell again; he could +not meet her clear gaze. + +"When are we to be married, Sydney?" + +"I--I don't know." + +"You finish here in two months. What are your plans?" + +"I have none. That is, no definite plans--I----" + +"Yes?" she urged, as he paused. + +"It would be years before I earned enough to support you, Susanna." + +"The diplomatic appointment--won't your uncle get it for you?" + +"Not if I married you, Susanna!" + +"The only thing left for you to do, then, Sidney, is to work up a law +practice and I shall go on teaching until you are able to support +your--your family." + +"I've no intention whatever of displeasing Uncle George and living +like a beggar!" + +"Then what do you propose to do?" + +"Keep in Uncle George's good graces." + +"But how?--seeing that I am your promised wife, Sidney." + +"My--promised--wife?" he repeated, slowly, dubiously. + +"More than that--I _am_ your wife." + +Sidney's feelings at this moment were a strangely conflicting medley. +Susanna had not ceased to be extremely attractive to him. Her hold +upon his imagination as well as upon his heart was still so strong +that no other woman would ever mean quite so much to him. But having +somewhat sated his passion for her, it no longer outmeasured his +worldly ambition, as it had done at first. + +The somewhat abnormal selfishness of his character usually took the +form of disliking rather spitefully any person or thing that blocked +his desires. Susan, as the one great obstacle to a marriage which +would be in every way highly advantageous to him, to a girl of +beauty, distinction, wealth, and position, to whom he was also +greatly attracted, who would more than satisfy Uncle George's severe +standards; Susan as the woman in whose heart he knew he stood +revealed as a cad, a liar, a scoundrel, whose respect he had valued +and whose scorn stung him to the quick and filled him with +self-contempt; Susan had now become to him a thorn in the flesh, an +irritant that he would ruthlessly tear out and cast off. For his own +gratification and comfort were always to Sidney paramount to every +other consideration. In this riot of conflicting emotions then--on +the one side, remorse, compassion, attraction, conscience; on the +other, ambition, family pride, love of ease and luxury, impatient +irritation and anger at the whole situation--Sidney stood bewildered, +his self-control shaken, the evil feelings in his heart getting the +better of him. + +"Susanna! Can't you see that my feelings have changed?" + +It stabbed him to see how white she looked as, after an instant, she +answered, "It's too late to consider that now. I am your wife." + +"I never dreamed that _you_ would try to hold a man against his will!" + +"You've never gone through the formality of asking me to release you. +You wrote to me not to imagine that you had changed; not to grow +'hysterical' at your neglect." + +"I was trying to let you down easily." + +"Easily?" + +"Of course it's awfully hard on both of us!" + +"Let me down to _what_?" + +"To the fact that I cannot marry you, Susan." + +"Why not?" + +"I could never love any woman enough to suffer poverty for her." + +"But we _are_ married! You know how you persuaded me that the mere +marriage ceremony meant nothing to such a 'holy relation' as yours +and mine!" + +"To bring up all that trumpery spoken in the heat of passion, and try +to use it to force my hand! Where is your _pride_, Susan?" + +"In your keeping, Sidney. I put my pride into your care and keeping +when I gave you myself!" she said, piteously. + +For an instant he was silenced, his eyes again downcast. + +But the situation was critical; he dared not soften. The moment had +come (so long delayed) when he must fight it out. + +"Since I no longer feel as I did, you would be _willing_ to marry +me?" he asked, incredulously. + +"Very unwilling. But you and I have no longer any choice about it; +we've gone too far. _I am your wife_!" + +"You _were_ my _mistress_, Susan." + +He saw her hand, resting on the arm of her chair, tighten its clasp +until the knuckles showed white. + +"You see, that's just the point," he hastened to say. "A gentleman," +with the faintest possible emphasis on the word, "doesn't marry his +mistress." + +"Nor keep his word?" + +"Love promises! Who ever remembers them or considers them binding? +The mother of my possible daughters cannot be the woman who has been +my mistress." + +It sounded cruelly convincing even to himself. But her answer came +swiftly. + +"I'd prefer the father of my possible sons to be a man of honour. +But it's too late for us to select our children's parents now." + +"Oh, no, it's not." + +"Yes. That's what brought me here to-day. You and I must be married +_at once_. For, Sidney, I am with child. Our child will be born in +July." + +There was a deathlike stillness in the room for a moment. Sidney +looked utterly confounded; utterly helpless before a situation that +seemed to have got out of his hands. + +"Oh, Susanna! You poor girl!" he stammered. + +Then suddenly, seeing himself trapped, his bright prospects +destroyed, himself condemned to privation and hard labour, Sidney's +pity for himself killed the compassion which for a moment he had felt +for the woman who would drag him down from the sunny heights in which +he had for weeks past been basking, and would force him to drudge for +her in obscurity and deprivation. + +"But why have you _let_ such a thing happen?" he burst out. "I +trusted to your prudence not to get me (and yourself) into a wretched +hole like this! The low vulgarity of it! It will ruin me! _Ruin_ +me!" + +"It's not of ourselves that you and I may think now. We dare not +wrong our child! We are not _going_ to wrong it! Understand me, +Sidney, I am going to protect it! It is not for myself that I am +here with you to-day. But my child is going to have a father, a +name, a home!" + +The cold fear that clutched Sidney's heart at her words made him +brutal. + +"This is, I suppose, the way girls of your class manage these +matters, in order to make sure of marriage?" + +"And how do gentlemen of your class manage them?" she asked, calmly. +"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Sidney. But be quite clear on this +point--_my child is going to be protected_." + +"What good would marriage do _now_--to you or me or the child? It's +too late. If you had told me of this as soon as you knew of it! But +now? Marriage at this late stage won't save you and will only +disgrace me! I won't consent to it!" + +"You'll have to. I'll make you. Not only for the sake of our child, +but for my dear ones at home that have sacrificed so much for me--I +won't let disgrace and sorrow come to them through me--and you. You +and I are going to be married. We need not live together. But _we +are going to be married_." + +"We are not! I would not marry you now if----" + +There was a knock on the half-open door. Sidney started up; but +before he could reach it, the door was thrown wide, and Miss Laura +Beresford, in sporting golf attire, stood revealed at the threshold. +Susan, sitting just inside the door, was not directly in her line of +vision. + +"I've been honking and _honking_ for you, Sid! Didn't you hear me? +Oh! Not even dressed yet!" she exclaimed, fretfully. "We shall be +too late for the game! Why didn't you phone if you weren't going to +keep your engagement?" she demanded, indignantly. + +And then, all at once she became conscious of Sidney's pallor and +agitation; she cast a quick glance about the room and her eye fell +upon Susan just inside the door. + +"Why! What's the matter? What----" + +Susan suddenly rose and came forward, smiling, with outstretched hand. + +"_This_ is 'Laura,' surely? I've been hearing so much about +you!--how good you've been to dear Sidney and what splendid times +you've been having together! And what good friends your two mothers +have always been! It has been so kind of you to keep dear Sidney +from growing dull when I couldn't be here with him; I can't tell you +how much I appreciate it--your keeping him from moping for _me_! +He's just been telling me he wants you to be my maid of honour. You +shall be the first to congratulate us, Laura (if I may call you +that). We are to be married next week." + +She was standing at Sidney's side, and as she spoke, she clasped her +arms about his neck and leaned against his breast. He, rigid, white +as chalk, his tragic-comic look of despair and dismay, of being +hopelessly caught, brought to Miss Beresford's lips a curve of +contempt that added not a little to his agony. + +But now, suddenly, without warning, Susan's hold upon him relaxed, +her arms fell to her sides, she slipped to the floor and lay in a +little heap at his feet--as still and white as death. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A YEAR LATER + +Susan had quite formed a habit, of late, of taking the precaution, at +the end of her day's work in her school-room, to peep from the window +to see whether the coast were clear so that she could go forth +without danger of being joined on the way home by her objectionable +suitor, Joe Houghton, who lived and worked just across the road from +her new school, at his uncle's famous old homestead, White Oak Farm; +or by some adoring pupil who might be lingering about to walk to the +trolley station with her, as some among the older boys and girls were +apt to do. The sentimental girls were even more trying than the big, +blushing, silent boys. There had been a time, ages and ages ago, +when she had loved all her pupils quite maternally and had been so +humbly grateful for their devotion to her! But now, she only wanted +to be let alone; to keep to herself. It was almost the only desire +she had left; for all capacity for feeling anything, except weariness +and listlessness, seemed to have died within her. + +She had shrunk from the return of the spring, the anniversary of her +great tragedy, lest its old exhilarating effect upon her might bring +back her power to feel, to suffer. But it did not stir a drop of her +blood; her heart remained like lead in her breast; as though some +tension had snapped, leaving her soul a dead weight. + +The new school position which she had secured this year was at White +Oak Station, a hamlet eight miles from her home, in a neighbourhood +in which she had been quite unacquainted. + +To-day when she peeped from the school-room window to reconnoitre, +there was not, as far as she could see, a single boy, girl, or man in +sight. + +Joe Houghton, however, could not be depended upon to give her fair +warning by exposing himself to view; her constant efforts to elude +him had only made him cunning in his pursuit of her. So, in letting +herself out of the school-house door, she moved cautiously, without +noise, and instead of taking the public road, crept like a burglar +around to the back of the little building, intending to cross a field +to another road which would add a half mile to her walk to the +trolley station. She knew that by doing this she ran the risk of +missing her trolley car home and of being obliged to wait an hour for +the next one. That, however, would not be so wearisome as Joe +Houghton's company on the long mile to the station. + +She reached the back of the school-house unobserved, she was sure, +and as, with a sigh of relief at her escape, she turned toward the +adjoining field, there in front of her, scowling at her, stood Joe +Houghton! + +He was not quite forty years of age, but from over-work his tall, +bony frame was stooped like an old man's. His gaunt face was tanned +and his hands red and rough. His countenance, though not evil, was +usually sulky when not actually scowling. The most objectionable +thing about him in Susan's eyes was the way his false teeth wriggled +about, "as though," she thought, "they didn't want to stay on the +job!" + +As a concession to the fact that he was come a-courting, he wore his +best (and only) suit: of cheap material and bad cut; and a brilliant +lavender necktie that he had bought at Woolworth's. + +Joe Houghton was reputed to have amassed a very comfortable bank +account; but money to him was not what the dictionary proclaims it, +"a medium of exchange"; he never exchanged it for anything if he +could help it. The one great dissipation of his whole life was the +accumulation and hoarding of wealth. + +"That's the time I caught you; ain't?" he said, pointing an accusing +finger at Susan as she stopped short at sight of him. His words were +playful, but his tone and look were sullen. + +Without answering, she turned and walked back to the front of the +school-house to take the main road. + +Joe, however, kept at her side. + +"What the hell makes you ac' so menschenshy*, anyhow, Miss Susie?" he +demanded. + + +* Bashful with men. + + +She walked rapidly, without replying. + +"Say, Miss Susan, I got somepin awful particular to tell you this +after!" he pleaded. + +"But you've had my answer so often," she said, wearily. Though her +voice had lost none of its sweetness and drawling softness, it was +lifeless. + +"No, I ain't had your answer a'ready!" growled Joe. "You ain't said +Yes yet; and Yes is a-goin' to be your answer! You make up your mind +to that!" + +"You seem to have made up your mind so firmly," she said, sweetly, +"that my mind doesn't seem to matter." + +"Well, anyhow, it ain't that question I want to bother you with this +after. It's somepin else I got reference to." + +Susan manifested no curiosity. + +"Somepin awful important to me and you," he added. + +"That doesn't seem possible," said Susan, mildly. + +"You mean," said Joe, frowning with the mental effort to which this +retort challenged him, "that me and you ain't got no interests in +common?" + +"I've not noticed any." + +"Well, you'll notice 'em some day, you bet you! It's about my Uncle +George's will I want to tell you. I went to Middleburg yistiddy to +tend the reading of the will. That's some important to you, ain't +it?" + +"Why should it be?" + +"Because some day what's mine will be yourn." + +"But if you were mine, I should certainly wish, for your immortal +soul's sake, that your Uncle George had died a bankrupt!" + +Joe, to whom money was a holy thing, his only religion, felt cold at +such blasphemy. + +"It's temptin' Providence to say sich things!" he frowned. + +"Can 'Providence' be tempted? What a funny expression it is, by the +way--'tempting Providence!' Religion sometimes seems to me the most +humorous thing in all the world!" + +"Och, don't talk so outlandish!" he brusquely admonished her. Joe, +like Mark Antony, was "no orator," but "a plain, blunt man," who did +not stand on ceremony. "Don't you want fur me to tell you about +Uncle George's will?" + +"Why should I?" + +"Say, what makes you ac' so ugly to me? Don't I treat you right?" + +"As right as you know how, Mr. Houghton." + +"Well, I can't do better'n that, can I?" + +"No--that's the trouble." + +"You mean," he demanded with puckered brow, "that I don't know how to +treat a lady right?" + +"You're so bright, Mr. Houghton, in seeing through my remarks!" + +"Yes," said Joe, complacently, "I always was wery smart that way. +But I guess you mean," he added, suspiciously, "that I ain't tony +enough to suit you." + +"You don't have to suit me." + +"But you got to suit _me_! And you got to take interest in Uncle +George's will. Uncle George done awful mean by me! What do you +think he up and done yet, Miss Susan? He's inherited to my +half-brother, Sidney, this here farm here, that I've worked on like a +dog for five years, improvin' the land so much that I've near doubled +the crops! And now the whole place of twelve hundred waluable acres, +with house and all, goes to Sid and I got to get _out_!-- and lose +all the profits of my own work! Yes, anyhow! The will says Sid's +got to come here and make White Oak Farm his home and keep up the +place, because seven generations of Houghtons has lived here. Sid +he's to be sich a gentleman farmer, the will says. Now what do you +think of that? Ain't it dirty mean that I got to get off my farm?" + +Susan could almost have found it in her heart to pity the man at her +side for the tragic suffering she knew this fact meant to him. + +"I'm sorry!" she said, sympathetically. + +"The will inherits to Sid (besides White Oak Farm) two thirds of the +_es_tate worth near a million, and to me only one third," complained +Joe. "To be sure," he admitted, "it ain't as if I hadn't of expected +Sid to get the big share; but I did think Uncle George would give the +_farm_ to me that I've worked on so hard! But my folks always did +have it in fur me! None of 'em ever did think I was good enough fur +'em to 'sociate with!--though it's them that always kep' me down. My +father left me run wild when I was little and never bothered about +me; and then when he married again, my step-mother she had so ashamed +of me, she was all the time pokin' me out of sight whenever she had +comp'ny. She'd make me eat in the kitchen with the hired help and +she wouldn't never speak to me. Her and Sid and Uncle George, all of +'em, had always ashamed of me. And my father _he_ didn't care!" + +Joe spoke with exceeding bitterness, and for the first time in her +acquaintance with him, Susan found herself feeling some sympathy for +him. + +"One thing in that there will," he continued, "ain't so bad fur me, +fur all. If Sid's son dies----" + +"He has a son?" + +"Yes," answered Joe on a deep tragic note that made Susan vaguely +wonder. "And if his kid dies, White Oak Farm goes to _my_ son, so's +the family name'll be kep' on at the ol' homestead." + +Susan whimsically reflected that Joe was quite incapable of plotting +the heir's murder for the sake of his own son's inheritance. "It +must take rather heroic courage to commit some kinds of crime!" she +thought. "And only debased cowardice for the kind Sidney committed!" + +"Now my half-brother, Sidney, he's altogether different to what I am +yet," Joe went on. "He's a elegant swell, Sid is," he sneered. +"From a little kid a'ready, he was always awful genteel. You'd never +take him fur my brother, Miss Susan, if you ever met up with him; +which you're likely to do soon, fur he's comin' here right aways to +White Oak to live at the ol' homestead." + +Susan's detached self, which seemed, in these days, always to be +looking on, with a dull surprise, at her dead other self, noticed, +just now, how strangely unmoved this news found her. Joe might have +been speaking (as he supposed he was) of someone she had never seen! + +"Sid, he kep' on the right side of Uncle George by marryin' awful +good; a wery tony swell with money of her own. A perfec' lady, so +they say. I never seen her. She must be, though, if she satisfied +Uncle George's elegant tastes! Gosh, but Sid'll be ashamed to have +to interdooce her to _me_!" + +Susan made no comment as they walked side by side over the country +highroad in the warm, bright April afternoon, past woods and fields +just beginning to show a down of tender green. + +"Well, ain't it a dirty, mean shame, me havin' to get off my farm fur +my stuck-up half-brother to move in, that never done a stroke of work +on the place; nor nowheres else did he never do no work of no kind!" + +"I wonder," the young school teacher found her brain speculating, +"whether he _could_ get any more negatives into that sentence!" + +"Sid _he_ can't make good on the farm; he don't know nothin' about +farmin'. He don't know nothin' about nothin', except the rules of +society and stylish clo'es and how to squander money and such like. +He even fell down on that there dead easy cinch Uncle George got +him--diplomacy--in Europe. Got all balled up tryin' to work it! His +wife didn't hit it off good with a dukess or a czaress or whatever. +Anyhow, the two of 'em (Mrs. Sid and the dukess or what) had words +and Sid he had to cut out and come home." + +Susan laughed--a little low ripple of quite mirthless laughter. + +"What's so funny?" asked Joe, puzzled. "Sid's mom and Uncle George +took it awful serious. Me, too, fur if he'd stayed over there on his +job, I might of stayed on the farm. _Don't_ you think they done me +dirt?" + +"It's not right," Susan answered, perfunctorily. "It's not right (in +fact, it's quite grotesque) that a man, after he's dead, should +control twelve hundred acres of the earth's surface, decreeing to +whom it shall belong for two generations. It's not right that your +step-brother, who does not work, should reap where others sow. It's +not right that a third of a million dollars that you never worked for +should fall into your hands, while my valuable services in this +township are paid for at fifty dollars a month! I'm afraid, Mr. +Houghton, I can't get warmed up over your wrongs. Are you going to +move away?" she asked, hopefully. + +"Not if I can help it--don't you worry!" + +"I'll try not to." + +"I'm in hopes Sid'll hire me fur his tenant-farmer and leave me live +in the tenant-farmer's cottage on the place and keep on workin' the +farm on shares fur him, like what I done fur Uncle George. I don't +believe he will, though. He'd hate so to have a brother like me," +Joe growled, "livin' close by, so's he'd have to interdooce me, +still, if I chanced along, to his grand friends!" + +Susan noted, without any great interest in the phenomenon, the +strange psychology of the born miser who, with ample means to go +where he would, preferred to work slavishly for a brother who looked +down upon him, rather than lose the few thousand dollars, the fruits +of his own labour which, in the transfer of the property, would +accrue to his brother instead of to him. + +"Sid'll soon find out that a good, honest farmer ain't so easy +found," said Joe. "So mebby he'll _have_ to leave me stay on." + +It was not, Susan knew, that Joe was without pride or sensitiveness, +of a kind. But these sentiments were overborne by his avarice. + +His next words, however, made her doubt whether avarice was the only +or the strongest motive he had for wishing to remain where he was not +wanted. + +"I want to be Johnny-on-the-spot to watch Sid 'waste his substance in +riotous living,'" he chuckled, maliciously. "Till ten years a'ready +_he_ won't have no money left of all his big fortune. I know him. +He'll blow it in! I tell you," he said, wickedly gloating, "you'll +see the day when my swell brother comes to me beggin' fur the price +of a meal ticket. Then watch what _I'll_ do! And say! it won't go +so long, neither, till I get him in my power!" + +"In your power!" smiled Susan, skeptically. It sounded so +melodramatic. + +"You needn't to grin! I got my little plans all right, all right!" + +Susan was silent. + +"One good thing, Miss Susan, you won't have near the housework to do, +us livin' in the tenant's cottage, as what you'd of had if White Oak +Farm had of been willed to me and I'd of stayed on in the big house. +My housekeeper she's always growlin' about how much work it makes in +such a big house, even though we do close off all but just the couple +rooms we use. Yes, me, I'll be awful glad when I got a wife oncet +and don't have to fuss with no hired help no more." + +"Won't it be worse to have to fuss with a wife? You can't discharge +your wife as you can your hired housekeeper." + +"But my first wife, she never bothered me any about the housework +bein' too heavy. And a man's wife can't up and leave like hired +help's always doin'." + +"Oh, yes, she can, in these days. A few do." + +"Not the kind of a woman _I'll_ marry," said Joe, confidently. "I +wouldn't tie up with no sich loose-moralled person." + +"See that you don't!" + +"_You_ don't hold no sich loose views, do you? Don't you think +marriage is awful sakerd?" + +"Sacred to become a man's permanent housekeeper who can't throw up +her job if she doesn't like it? Sacred? Ha!" Susan laughed--almost +with amusement. + +"A wife's a man's partner," argued Joe. + +"His equal partner? With some rights over their earnings and +property?" + +"Well, to be sure, the husband's the head of the wife. The _Bible_ +says so. You believe the Bible, don't you?" + +"I don't believe nonsense." + +"Oh, hell, Miss Susan, ain't you afraid somepin'll happen you, sayin' +sich blasphemous things?" + +Susan thought to herself, "Afraid?--of something happening to +me?--when everything has happened that can ever matter!" + +But when Joe Houghton had left her at the station and she was alone, +during her long hour's ride home to Reifsville, she found that his +announcement of his brother's immediately coming to live in the +neighbourhood of her school did seem to matter to her. She had +suffered so horribly; her present insensibility was such a blessed +respite; she dreaded so unspeakably any possible thing which might +revive her pain! Could she remain as callous at sight of Sidney +Houghton as everything else had found her since the birth of her dead +baby? + +It was just one year ago to-day that she had gone to her lover's +rooms to plead with him for their coming child. And three days after +that futile visit to him she had read the newspaper announcement of +his sudden marriage to Miss Laura Beresford. + +Then for two days and nights she had suffered the prolonged torture +of a tedious and terribly difficult premature child-birth. + +She had never seen her dead baby. She had been unconscious at its +birth; and for many weeks afterward she had lain at death's door in +the delirium of child-bed fever. + +When, after long, dreary, hopeless weeks of illness and suffering, +she had become strong enough to ask questions about the baby, the +answers of her shocked and stricken family had seemed to her strange, +evasive. Her sister Addie had told her it was a girl; her mother, +tearfully, but with a note of heart-broken pride, that it was "a fine +boy"; Lizzie that it was "a seven months' blue baby and couldn't have +lived anyhow." That enigmatical "anyhow" had vaguely troubled her +through all her convalescence. + +"Just to think," Addie would mourn as she waited upon her, "that a +man with such nice manners at him as what Sidney always had, would go +and ac' like this here! Don't it beat all? I wouldn't of thought it +of him! How he must have ashamed of hisself now!" + +"_Him_ ashamed!" Lizzie would sniff. "Nothing doing! He ain't the +pertikkler _kind_!" + +Susan's deepest bitterness against her "betrayer" lay in the fact +that she must be thankful that her baby was dead; that she, whose +longing for a child had been a passion, had been cheated of its +fulfilment; that the ecstasy which her child would have been to her +had been turned into a frenzy of horror lest her coming baby should +be alive!--born "out of wedlock"; an outcast; her innocent child made +to suffer all its life long because of its parents' selfishness and +weakness! That her motherhood had been thus perverted and +distorted--for this she knew that never while she breathed could she +forgive Sidney Houghton. + +It did not seem very strange to her that Miss Beresford, in spite of +that encounter with her at Sidney's rooms, had, after all, married +him. + +"It isn't very much worse than what I did for love of him! And of +course he lied to her about me." + +Strangely enough, the Schrekengusts' desperate efforts to conceal +their darling's "disgrace" had been successful. A doctor had been +"fetched" from another town and they themselves had been her only +nurses. The very length and severity of her illness had precluded +any suspicion in Reifsville as to its true cause, especially as no +least rumour of scandal had been previously aroused. + +The consternation produced in the family by Susan's inquiry, as soon +as she was able to walk out of doors, for the grave of her baby, had +revealed to her poignantly how deeply her family felt her "ruin." + +"But we didn't give you away to folks by makin' a grave yet to show!" +her father had explained to her. "Nobody knows nothing! Nor they +_ain't_ to, neither!" + +"Didn't you have an undertaker?" + +"Och, no," her mother had sadly told her. "Pop he tended to all +hisself." + +"But where did you bury her? I want at least to go to the spot where +she lies!" Susan had pleaded (the consensus of opinion seeming to +favour the assumption, in lieu of any positive statement, that the +baby had been a girl). + +"I couldn't say just the spot," her father had replied, "but--well, +it's anyhow in the orchard over." + +She knew she was morbid to regret so much that she could not have +even the doubtful solace of visiting her child's grave. + +Six months had passed before she had been able to take up teaching +again. Her position at Reifsville had been filled, and she had +secured the country school at White Oak Station. + +Joe Houghton being one of the school directors who had elected her, +and White Oak Farm being so conveniently just across the road from +her school-house, the young widower, with a year-old baby on his +hands, had, from the first hour of their acquaintance, pursued her +assiduously with his unwelcome attentions. + +Susan realized, with an utter indifference to the fact, that she had +come out from her illness much better looking than she had ever been; +her abundant hair, all lost through her terrible fever, had come in +again in thick gold-brown curls; her wasted flesh seemed to have been +renewed in a clearer, softer texture; all the angles of her slender +frame were now softly rounded; she bloomed and glowed with health and +youth. + +But her soul remained heavy and dead. + +She had not taken up again, after her recovery, any of the old +threads of her life. The few choice, intimate, and very precious +friendships she had made at school had been dropped; forever, she +believed. Her friends' letters, persistent, anxious, importunate, +remained unanswered. She had ceased to feel any interest in them. +They belonged so absolutely to that other life, now dead, in which +she had met and known and loved Sidney Houghton; a life so different +from that of her own home; in which she had found colour, joy, music, +culture, and had made them her own. That was all over now. Sidney +had robbed her of everything of worth that she had attained through +hard work, against adverse circumstances. She seemed to have lost +all power to feel, to care for any one, for anything. + +She had found Joe Houghton to be all that Sidney had once told her he +was--crude, miserly, "grouchy." He was of a very jealous disposition +and given to fits of sullenness which made Susan feel that his young +wife must have found a blessed escape in death. He was, of course, +his own worst enemy, an unhappy creature, his only joy and comfort in +life being his passion for hoarding money. He loved his baby boy and +was proud of him, but the child caused him more suffering than +happiness; for while he had quarrelled with one housekeeper after +another for neglecting the boy, he was morbidly jealous of any one +for whom the child manifested more fondness than he showed for his +father. + +Over against these trying characteristics could be named a few +uninteresting virtues. He was scrupulously honest and truthful; much +as he loved gain, there was no stake high enough to lure him from the +strictest integrity. And although a highly sexed individual, he was +quite puritanically virtuous. + +Susan thought, during her homeward drive, what an ideal setting for a +man of Sidney Houghton's tastes White Oak Farm would be and what +delight he would take in that beautiful old home which had been so +religiously preserved in all its primitive quaintness of architecture +and furniture, by so many generations of his family. He had once +told her how the Houghtons had always prided themselves in being the +only family of English extraction in all the Pennsylvania Dutch +township of White Oak. Their social life had of course (he had +explained) been confined exclusively to that of the near-by city of +Middleburg. Their immediate neighbourhood knew them only by sight. + +Joe had one day persuaded her to come over to the farm to see his +baby (little dreaming of the bitterness in her soul as she had held +the pretty child on her breast!) and he had shown her all over the +truly lovely house, unlocking the closed-off rooms with their old +woven rugs brought over to America in colonial days, their carved +four-posted beds, pier tables, davenports, and old portraits of +colonial dignitaries. As she reflected that all these rare things +were now the possession of Sidney Houghton she thought of that one +pathetic little suit of furniture which she and Sidney had chosen +together for their future home and which he had afterward pawned in +order to carry on his courtship with Miss Laura Beresford--even while +she, Susan, was still paying for it out of her hard-earned little +salary. + +"Did he know at the time," she dully wondered, "that we would never +use it in a home of ours? Did he get me to buy it just for his own +use in his college rooms?" + +He had not kept the promise he had made to her about the +furniture--that day she had gone to him to plead with him for their +child's sake---- + +"I shall pay you back every dollar of it!" he had said. "It may take +me a long time, but I shan't let you lose what you paid for it, +Susan." + +When, during her illness, several letters had come to her, dunning +her for the sum still unpaid on the furniture, her father had given +Sidney Houghton's address to the creditor and told him to collect the +amount from him. But the creditor had returned the information that +Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Houghton were in Denmark and that Mr. Houghton's +mother repudiated the bill. + +The furniture had been bought in Susan's name. So, when she was +recovered from her long illness, she sold her parlour furniture to be +able to meet this debt and her large doctor's bill. + +When this afternoon she got off the trolley car and walked listlessly +through Reifsville toward her home, she was still wondering whether a +possible, and probably unavoidable, encounter with the new occupant +of White Oak Farm would shock her back into sensibility. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +FACE TO FACE + +Although Susan's family treated her "ruin" (as they technically +labelled her unlegalized motherhood) with all sympathy and +tenderness, it blighted their simple lives as nothing else could +possibly have done. Her father seemed to have become aged and feeble +over night, her sisters permanently depressed, her mother crushed. +In spite of the fact that they had been able to conceal their +disgrace, Mr. Schrekengust, on the plea of advancing feebleness, +resigned his office of preacher to the Mennonite congregation. The +Mennonite sect does not consist of clergy and laymen; any member of a +congregation may at any time be elected to serve as the preacher; and +if so elected he is obliged to serve, whatever his fitness--or +unfitness. He receives no salary for "doing God's work," and his +office as preacher never interferes with his secular occupation, +which is generally farming. Mr. Schrekengust, whose experience and +knowledge of life were unbelievably limited, had once by accident met +a prominent Episcopal clergyman and, unaware that preaching was, in +any denomination, a bread-winning occupation, he had inquired of the +Episcopalian, "What do you work at?" + +"I'm a clergyman of the Episcopal Church." + +"But what do you work?" + +The Episcopalian, recalling that Mennonites do not have an ordained +ministry and knowing how shocked this preacher would be if told that +any man worked at nothing _else_ than preaching (and not very hard at +that), replied, "Well--I--I fish a little." + +Mr. Schrekengust was a "trucker," but his place at the edge of +Reifsville was not only very small, but had been so heavily mortgaged +to pay for Susan's education that his earnings were now quite +insufficient for the support of his family without the aid of Susan's +salary and the assistance given him on his little farm by his two +elder daughters, who saved him the expense of a hired man. And now +that he was becoming day by day more and more feeble, the family +realized, as the spring advanced, that he was utterly unable to cope +with the heavy work of the farm. They would either have to hire a +farmer, to whom Mr. Schrekengust would give some slight assistance, +or they would have to sell their already heavily mortgaged land. +Either alternative would leave them with almost no income. + +It was Joe Houghton, Susan learned from her father, to her surprise +and somewhat to her consternation, who now held the mortgage against +their land; the neighbour from whom Mr. Schrekengust had borrowed +money some years ago to send Susan to school had sold out his claim +to Joe. + +Susan knew how ruthless Joe Houghton could be in exacting his own. +There had been two instances of families in the neighbourhood of +White Oak Farm whose homes he had seized in payment of the interest +due him on mortgages. + +She decided to broach the subject to him on one of their now almost +daily walks from her school to the trolley station. For he had not +left the neighbourhood with the advent of the new owner of White Oak +Farm. His half-brother had reluctantly consented to his continuing +to farm the place on shares and to his occupying the tenant-farmer's +cottage, where, in fact, Joe was now very cosily established with his +baby and a new housekeeper. + +"I shouldn't have supposed he'd let you stay here!" Susan had met the +information with surprise. "It isn't like him!" + +"Why, how do you know what's like him and what ain't?" Joe had +quickly inquired. + +"I judge from all you've told me of him," she hastily explained. +"What is his reason for letting you stay?" + +"You judged right!" growled Joe. "He has a reason--and a good +one--or out I'd have to _git_!" + +Susan did not repeat her inquiry as to what the reason was. + +"I got a _hold_ on him!" said Joe, darkly. "He darsen't go too far +with me!" + +Again Susan asked no question. And he volunteered no further +information. + +"He ain't interdooced his Missus to me yet," Joe shrugged. "But it +ain't my loss! I took a good look at her here the other day, and +say! If she ain't as sour lookin' as--as you're sweet lookin', Miss +Susie! Gee, I'd hate to set acrost the dinner table from a winegar +face like hern every day! And her baby--why, it's all the time with +that there coloured hired girl. Its mom ain't never got it, fur as I +kin see." + +On rainy days Joe invariably took Susan to her trolley car in his +little gasoline car; but on clear days the car was never forthcoming, +and Susan had come to welcome the sight of rain, which prevented +those long walks with her suitor, during every minute of which she +was dreading a chance meeting on the road with Sidney, who was now +established at White Oak Farm with his wife and baby and a retinue of +servants. + +"Joe would expect to introduce his brother to me if we met," she +reflected, shudderingly. + +She knew, of course, that at the faintest suspicion, on the part of +any school director, of her true story, she would lose her +position--which was now the only certain income of her family--and +that Joe Houghton, who was the president of the school board, would, +from personal chagrin, prove the most implacable of them all. +Therefore, if a meeting between her and Sidney was inevitable, it +must not be in the presence of Joe. + +Thus far she had not caught so much as a glimpse of Sidney though she +had several times seen his wife drive by the school-house in her +great car, with a liveried chauffeur; and every day she saw the baby +being wheeled about the grounds by an untidy-looking Negro nurse. + +She wondered whether Sidney was aware of her daily presence in the +neighbourhood; and if he were, whether, in his prosperity and +security, it affected in the least his serenity. Of course he did +know that the home of the girl he had betrayed and deceived and +robbed, the mother of his dead child, was only eight miles distant +from his own home. Did _this_ fact ever disturb his equanimity? + +He had never, so far as she knew, made any inquiries as to whether +his child had lived or died. + +Joe Houghton did not share Susan's preference for the short ride of +rainy days rather than the long walk of clear weather. + +"The little automobile she makes so quick, it's too soon over +a'ready, Susan. I like better the long walk," he gallantly told her +as they were strolling to the station on the day after she had +learned that he held the mortgage against her home. + +"But I prefer the short ride," she replied. "Don't you think you +might consider what I prefer?" + +"Och, Miss Susie, you do enjoy takin' a fellah down; ain't you do? +But you don't fool me any! I know a coke-wet when I see one! _You_ +don't mean all you leave on!" + +"You see right through me, don't you?" + +"You ain't so hard to see through--a straight, wirtuous female like +you! You ain't like some! You'd be surprised to see how some throws +theirselfs at me fur my fortune! That's what I like about you--you +leave _me_ do the courtin'! And," he added, feelingly, "you're as +refined and pure a wirgin as you otherwise can be! Och, yes, me I +see through you like readin' a book." + +"Ha!" came Susan's little mocking laugh with, to-day, an added note +of bitterness that strangely thrilled Joe's nerves. + +"Mr. Houghton!" + +"Make it Joe, can't you? What?" + +"Father told me last night that it is you who hold the mortgage +against us." + +"Not against _you_--I wisht I did!" he retorted, facetiously. "You'd +see how quick I'd foreclose oncet!" + +"Will you be very kind to us and buy our place for a little more than +it is worth?" said Susan, boldly. + +"I never pay more for nothing than what it's worth. I'll tell you +what I'll do, though. The day you say Yes to me, I'll buy in that +there prop'ty and give your pop a clean deed to it! It'll be my +weddin' present to you. I'd have to buy you a weddin' present +anyhow--you'd expect it; so we'll leave it go at that. Think it +over!" + +"Are you offering to buy me?" + +"Well, if I can't git you no other way! You certainly won't never +git no _better_ chanct." + +Susan thought how shaken his complacency with regard to her would be +if he could know that she considered him the very worst possible +"chance." + +"I'm not up for sale yet, Mr. Houghton, though I don't know how low I +may yet sink." + +"You'd call it sinkin' low to marry me?" Joe demanded, aggrieved. + +"Low to sell myself. It seems to me a much lower thing to marry for +money than to give yourself freely, outside of marriage, for love." + +"Say, Miss Susan, if you'd get off them funny things you say +sometimes, to _some_ folks, that didn't know what a wirtuous girl you +are, they'd think _hard_ of you! I wisht you'd break yourself of the +habit! It's growin' on you! Folks'll talk about you!" + +"Good gracious!" breathed Susan, surprised out of herself at being +held up for reproof like a child. + +"Wouldn't you care if folks talked?" he asked, disapprovingly. + +"You're the only person to whom I ever 'get off' my 'funny +things'--and you won't talk about me, will you?" + +"To be sure you're safe with me; but if you are got the habit of +talkin' so reckless, you'll be doin' it in front of someone where it +_ain't_ safe." + +"I can imagine nothing more tame than always to be safe!" + +"Och, well, you're young yet and wery high-spirited and I guess I got +to make allowance. Oncet you're married to me, you'll settle down." + +"Good Lord deliver me then!" + +"I'd think school teachin' was safe and tame enough, and you stick to +_it_ good and steady. So I guess you won't find married life too +tame fur you." + +"But school teaching isn't safe; it's getting to be one of the most +dangerous professions in this country! Much worse than working in a +dynamite factory. Why, in some states you can't teach at all until +your opinions have been examined; and after that, if you ever happen +to learn something new that might change one of those opinions, you +would run the risk of losing your position and your livelihood. And +in some states if you join the American Federation of Labour you +can't teach in the public schools." + +"Good thing, too," declared Joe. "Nothin' more pertikkler than that +our teachers of the young should have correct opinions." + +"Opinions that our politicians, our state legislators, our country +school directors, consider correct! O Lord!" + +"Tut, tut! Ain't you 'shamed o' yourself!" + +"You've no idea of the depth of my shamelessness!" + +"A lady swearin' yet! Tut, tut!" + +"I'd cuss from morning to night if it would only make you hate me! I +do my very darndest-damndest to make you!" + +"There, there!" he said, soothingly. "Calm yourself down, my dear +sweet little Spitfire! or you'll get the headache!" + +When at last Joe had left her and she was on her homeward ride, she +wondered whether he could perhaps have taken over that mortgage +against her father's property with the deliberate purpose of bribing, +or forcing, her into marrying him! How blind he was! How little he +dreamed of the deep disgust she often felt toward him for some of the +very things which he considered his highest assets, his most +commendable virtues! + +For instance, one day when it had been raining hard, he had offered, +magnanimously, to drive her the whole way to Reifsville in his +automobile instead of just to her trolley car. But when a half mile +from Reifsville he had drawn up short just before coming to a toll +gate. + +"I guess you won't mind walkin' the half mile that's left yet; it'll +save me this here ten cents' toll I'd have to pay goin' and comin'." + +Susan had got out of his car and Joe had turned it about toward White +Oak Farm with a backward grin of cunning at the toll gate keeper +disappointed of a dime. + +He had never dreamed that this self-denying prudence on his part had +sent Susan home with a mingled laughter and loathing which, as long +as she lived, she could never forget. + + +It was a few days later, at recess time, when, having dismissed her +pupils to the playground behind the school-house, she was taking a +breath of fresh air on the front porch, that she saw at close range +Sidney Houghton's little son, as the untidy Negro nurse trundled the +baby coach past the school. So carelessly the indifferent maid +pushed the little cart over the rough, unpaved road, that Susan, +watching her approach, caught her breath in dread of an upset. + +"Take care!" she involuntarily called out, as directly in front of +the school porch the maid, gaping curiously at the teacher instead of +watching where she went, the coach bumped against a stone in the +path, tilted, lost balance, and went over. + +Susan, rushing to the rescue, stooped to pick up the frightened, +crying child, while the nurse, undisturbed, righted the coach and +lazily shook the dust from the cushion and robe that had tumbled into +the path. + +As Susan held the child in her arms, while the nurse arranged the +coach, she found to her astonishment, almost to her bewilderment, +that instead of a little baby a few months old, she was holding a +big, bouncing boy with a strong, upright back; and instead of the +vague eyes of a young infant, she found herself looking into the +intelligent, wide-awake face of a child over a year old. + +He was a lovely boy, resembling his father so strongly as to seem +like a grotesque little image of the man. But there was something +else in this little face that had never been in Sidney's--a wistful +look, a soul---- + +The child stopped crying as she held him, looked up into her eyes, +smiled, and nestled into her arms so appealingly, so trustfully, that +Susan suddenly, unaccountably, felt her soul shaken to its +foundations. Her heart beat suffocatingly, and to her own amazement +she trembled from head to foot. If merely Sidney's baby could affect +her like this, what would it mean to her to meet Sidney himself? + +"What is the baby's name?" she asked the nurse after a moment. + +"They calls him Georgie." + +She noticed that the child's clothing, though of fine quality, was +soiled and torn and that his face and hands were unwashed; a very +neglected baby. + +Again, to her own astonishment, she found herself very tenderly +kissing the child as she let him go. + +"The roads about here are too rough for a baby coach," she warned the +nurse. + +"They sure is! And anyhow I has my orders not to take Georgie +outside where folks kin see him. But I gets so tired stayin' inside +the gates all the time!" + +"You are not to let people see him?" asked Susan, wonderingly. "Why? +Is there something wrong with him?" + +"No, there ain't nothin' wrong with him. I dunno why folks darsen't +see him. I guess because he's so awful overgrowed fur his age +they're afraid it'll make folks talk." + +"How old is he?" + +"Six months." + +"Why, he is almost as big as Mr. Joe Houghton's baby of seventeen +months!" + +"Well, but he ain't but six months old," maintained the nurse. "But +I guess it is because he is so overgrowed that his mother and father +wants him kep' out of sight." + +"To hide such a lovely boy!" breathed Susan, wonderingly, "when one +would think they'd be so proud to show him!" + +"They ain't proud to show him--no siree! They're awful pertikkler +about his not bein' took outside the gates. But I has to git out +_sometimes_," repeated the girl, turning the coach about to go back +to the farm. + +During the rest of that day Susan's pupils found her a very +absent-minded teacher. The question kept obtruding itself as to +_why_ the child of six months should look twice his age and more; and +why his father and mother feared to have that fact noted in the +neighbourhood. Could it be, she wondered, her breath coming short at +the thought, that Sidney had had to choose, a year ago, whether he +would make Laura Beresford's baby or hers his legitimate child? +Could it be that his hasty marriage to Miss Beresford had been forced +upon him? + +But he had said to her, that day in his rooms, "A gentleman doesn't +marry his mistress!" + +Ah, but when at another and earlier time she had put it to him, +"Would you ask this thing of me if I were a girl of your mother's +choosing--of your own social world?"--he had answered, "Perhaps I +should not have to plead so hard with a worldly girl!" (How she +remembered every word Sidney had ever spoken to her!) + +It suddenly flashed upon her that perhaps Joe Houghton's "hold" upon +his brother, of which he had spoken to her, was this secret about the +baby born too disgracefully soon after his marriage! She was quite +sure that Joe, to achieve any advantage to himself, would not be +above holding over his brother a threat of exposure of a disgrace. + +"What a bad breed these Houghtons really are! How strange that a +race like this should consider themselves of rarer, finer quality +than the common herd!" she marvelled. + +That evening, on her way to the station with Joe, she said to him, "I +have seen your brother's baby." + +"Aha! And what do _you_ think of it, heh? Did you see it close up?" +he asked with a sinister cunning that made her shrink from his side. + +"Yes. It is over a year old." + +"Huh! So you seen that, too, did you? That's what _I_ knowed the +minute I laid eyes on it. I ought to know somepin about babies, +havin' one of my own! Why, Georgie's near as big and knowin' as my +Josie, and Josie's seventeen months old yet! No, sir, you can't fool +me! To be sure, I wouldn't say a word to you, Miss Susan, _about_ it +if you was an outsider. But this here's all in the family." + +"No, it isn't. I am an outsider--and always shall be." + +"Och, well, have your little joke as long as you kin. You'll miss +it, oncet you're married to me. You'll have to find somepin to take +its place--like who's the boss in our tie-up, and all like +that--ain't?" he chuckled. "Yes, it's easy seen Sid had to git +married to that winegar-faced Missus of hisn. A clear case of +_must_!" + +"I didn't suppose that a gentleman would ever marry his mistress," +Susan ventured in a light, casual tone. + +"Well, _I_ wouldn't marry no woman that held herself that cheap and +common, you bet you!--fur all Sid thinks I ain't no gentleman. Nor I +don't believe Sid would have married her neither if she hadn't of had +money and been enough of a swell to satisfy Uncle George!" + +"What low ideas men have about fatherhood! A man will make a woman +the mother of his child whom he thinks too unclean to be his wife!" + +"Yes, well, but if a woman ain't good, she had ought to take care not +to have no children." + +"Then bad men ought never to be fathers--and the race would stop!" + +"That wouldn't do--to have the race stop. We are got to have people; +and plenty of 'em. I've been a capitalist just long enough to have +discovered that where there ain't no crowded population (more workers +than there's work fur, you understand) that's where there can't be no +great fortunes built up. No, you got to keep up the population, Miss +Susan. That's why we are got sich severe laws agin birth control and +agin wice districts and agin anything else that tends to keep +marriage from bein' a _necessity_. You're got to make it a necessity +if you're goin' to keep the race a-goin' and capital safe!" + +"Do you mean to tell me that what we innocently take for laws to +protect morality are just meant to protect and promote industrial +exploitation?" asked Susan, incredulously. + +"That's about it. Only I didn't put it so scientific. I ain't got +your learnin', but I got my _facs_ all right! We ain't got no moral +laws fur no other purpose; fur every man knows in his heart that +nature's instincts is too strong fur him; he can't no more go agin +'em than he can stop Niagary!--than a chicken can stop moultin'; or +the grass not grow in the spring! Nature's _nature_--and that's all +there is to it!" + +"Then society is built on a lie, is it? Respectability is a sham and +men and women are all hypocrites?" + +"Och, well, I wouldn't go so fur as to say that. I myself try to be +as honest as I otherwise can be. I----" + +"Oh--_hush_!" exclaimed Susan, her revitalized nerves rasped beyond +endurance. + +"You ain't no hypocrite, anyhow!" grinned Joe. "You ain't no +_flatterer_, anyhow!" + + +It was the next afternoon, near the hour for closing school, when +Susan suddenly felt that she could not, that day--simply could +not--endure Joe Houghton's society on her walk to the station. She +must manage somehow to elude him. So she surreptitiously turned her +clock forward five minutes and dismissed her school in advance of the +hour, before Joe would even have started from his cottage for the +school-house. He would probably think, when he found an empty +school, that his own watch had played him a trick. His amazing +confidence, in spite of her constant rebuffs, in his ability to win +her over ultimately, would prevent him from suspecting her of going +to such lengths to escape him. + +However, she did not really care whether he saw through her ruse. +She only knew that to-day she could not and would not endure walking +with him. + +But when in taking the long and indirect route to the station across +the field behind the school-house and then through a beautiful +stretch of woodland, she suddenly saw, strolling slowly toward her in +the woodsy path, Sidney Houghton, looking gloriously strong and +handsome and prosperous, dressed in riding togs and carrying a riding +crop, she wildly regretted, for an instant, that she was notion the +high-road with Joe. + +There was no way of escape without plainly running away. This, she +quickly decided, she would not do. + +In the first instant of their encounter she saw that he did not +recognize her--she was so greatly altered; with all his old elaborate +courtesy he stepped from the narrow path to allow the young lady to +pass, removing his hat, not just tipping it, bowing from the waist, +not merely nodding--and the next instant, as recognition flashed into +his eyes, she knew for a certainty from his consternation that he had +never learned who was the teacher of the little school across the +road from his home. + +"Why! You are--Susanna!" he gasped, almost staggering forward in the +path, and blocking her way. Every drop of colour left his face and +lips as he stood staring at her. + +She saw that he, too, was greatly changed; he looked much more than a +year older; his face was lined and worried, and his mouth drooped and +sagged. + +Susan who, for weeks, had been nervously dreading an encounter like +this, found herself, now, to her own surprise, perfectly quiet and +cool. + +"Are you--did you--come out here to White Oak to see me?" faltered +Sidney. + +"I teach the district school of White Oak Station." + +"The White Oak Station school! You are teaching that school right +across the road from White Oak Farm!" + +"I have been teaching there for five months." + +Susan's silky, soft voice, that had never failed to charm this man, +fell familiarly upon his soul, grown weary of the rasping fretfulness +of a pampered, dissatisfied wife. + +"But it's impossible! You can't teach there! You must see that you +can't! It's----" + +He stopped short, gazing at her with a look of fright that seemed to +her rather inexplicable. + +"You shall not interfere with my keeping my school! I am practically +the only support of my family." + +"But--but it's impossible--you----" He faltered. + +"Why should it be?" + +He gulped and did not answer. + +"You won't interfere?" + +"I would not willingly hurt you more than I've already done, but----" + +"I shall depend on your not interfering. Will you please let me +pass?" + +"Susanna! I behaved like a dog to you!" + +"Don't insult a dog. You behaved like yourself. You were quite true +to yourself. I was not. I was false to myself. I degraded myself. +You didn't," she concluded, starting to pass on. + +He put out his hand to check her, but at the fire that flashed from +her eyes at the approach of his touch he shrank back; not, however, +making way for her to go. + +"You have grown so beautiful!" he stammered. "I expected to see you +a wreck! Your terrible illness--your suffering! Your father told me +how----" + +"My father told you! My father would not speak to you!" + +The colour flooded Sidney's face and his eyes fell. + +"What do you mean?" Susan breathlessly asked. "When did my father +ever tell you of my illness?" + +"Just before we--I--went abroad--I inquired--and I was told how +desperately ill you were and not expected to pull through. I thought +you _had_ died!--until two months ago when I returned to America and +learned you were alive!" + +"Who told you I was alive?" + +"You--I--made inquiries--I learned it----" + +She saw he was not being candid with her. The truth was not in him. + +"Susanna! You are not the only one that has suffered! Bad as you +think me, I was not a hardened criminal, and when I thought I had +killed you----" + +"I am sure it must have been a great relief to you. It's rather +awkward having me alive, isn't it?--and living right in your +neighbourhood! I suppose Mrs. Houghton thinks I'm comfortably and +safely dead, doesn't she?" + +He nodded dumbly. + +"It will probably be something of a shock to her to find out her +mistake!" + +"She won't know you if she sees you--you are so changed! You are +wonderful! You never were so lovely as this!--but Susanna! For +God's sake, don't reveal yourself to my wife!" + +"_I am your wife!_" + +He stared at her without answering. + +"You convinced me so well, you remember, that a few ceremonial words +could add nothing to the holy sacrament of our true marriage! Let me +tell you something! If our child had lived, I would have pursued you +to the ends of the world to make you right the wrong you would have +done to her!" + +"_Her!_" he exclaimed, involuntarily--then drew back, white and +trembling. "Was it a girl?" he feebly asked. + +"I think so." + +"You--you don't know?" + +"I'm not sure. None of them seemed sure!" + +"Susanna! You poor, poor girl! How I wish I could right the wrong +I've done to _you_!" + +Her bosom rose and fell in a long, deep breach. "You never can," she +said, hopelessly, a far-away light in the tragic depths of her eyes. +"I have borne you a dead child!--and had to thank heaven that it was +dead!" + +Sidney leaned limply against a tree by the path. + +His eyes shifted from her face; he could not look at her. A silence +fell between them, in which the woodland sounds of birds and rustling +tree-tops seemed shrilly loud and clamorous. + +After a moment Susan spoke, in the quiet, almost lifeless tone that +had become habitual with her. + +"What I cannot forgive is that I had to want my baby to be dead! Do +you remember a play of Euripides--_Medea_--that you and I once read +together? Medea said she would rather stand in battle three times +with shield and sword than bear one child! And she tells Jason, who +has forsaken her, 'I could forgive a childless man. But I have borne +you children.' I knew that Greek civilization was a thing of wonder, +but I didn't suppose it was so sympathetic with women." + +Sidney did not attempt to answer. Again she made a movement to pass +him; and at this he looked up and once more blocked her way. + +"Susanna! Believe me! I did love you! I have suffered for what I +did to you! I do suffer!--for it was you only that I loved!" + +"Ha!" came her little mocking laugh. "You loved me! Love! Don't +desecrate the word, if it _has_ any sacredness! Do men bruise and +hurt and wound to death the souls of the women they love? You loved +_me_! Oh! Let me pass, please." + +He did not move. + +"I repeat it--it was you only that I loved!" + +She looked him over appraisingly. + +"What I cannot understand," she said in a tone so genuinely puzzled +that he could not doubt her sincerity, "is that I ever could have +cared enough for so miserable a creature as you, Sidney, as to do +what I did for you! I can find _no_ excuse for myself! I knew I was +dragging myself in the mire--I was being a female, not a woman! It +was so stupid of me not to have seen you for the poor, cheap thing +you are, Sidney!" + +"You need not try so hard to humiliate me--it's quite unnecessary!" + +"And yet," she said, judicially, "after all, it was (for you) just a +choice as to which of your two children you would make legitimate; +and you naturally chose to marry the mother who could give you what +you wanted more than you ever wanted anything else in this +world--money and ease and luxury and social power." + +He gazed at her in a sort of stupefaction. "My _two_ children!" he +repeated, vaguely. "What--what do you mean?" + +"Your little son is as old as ours would be." + +"How--how do you know?" + +"You do well to keep him hidden--valuing respectability as you do." + +"I--I don't know what you mean!" + +"'A gentleman does not marry his mistress,' you remember you told me? +Almost everything you ever said to me was a lie! It seems that +sometimes a gentleman does marry his mistress when she has wealth and +position; when he can do it without losing his respectability." + +"You mean--you are insinuating a slander against my wife?" he +exclaimed with an impetuous astonishment and indignation that made +her, in her turn, marvel at him. Was he a consummate actor or an +utter fool? So sensitive as this about his wife's "honour" when he +had so pitilessly robbed her of hers (at least according to the +world's standards; she knew, now, how artificial and chaotic those +standards were). And a moment ago he had told her he had loved her! + +"Are you saying to me," he asked, growing very red as he drew himself +up from the tree against which he had been leaning, "that I married +my mistress?" + +"You are very astute to catch my idea so quickly. And must I +conclude, then, that you are not a 'gentleman'? Or that you lied +when you said gentlemen didn't do such things? What do you mean, +anyway, by a gentleman? I've often wondered!" + +"Are you going to spread that idea of yours about this neighbourhood, +Susanna?" + +"My idea about your being a gentleman? Or my idea that you married +your mistress?" + +"Stop! I did not!" + +"Your son is over a year old." + +"You don't know what you are saying! You--you are talking wildly! +You----" + +But suddenly, before the cool, unwavering glance with which she met +his futile indignation, it collapsed like a bubble and once more he +limply leaned against the tree. + +"You hold my fate in your hands, Susanna!" he said, heavily. "My +wife thinks (as I did until I returned to America) that you died in +child-bed. I have not told her you did not. If she knew you were +alive--and living and working here at our very door!--she would think +I had deceived her! She would be suspicious of our--that I still +cared for you! She would be bitterly jealous! Our already strained +domestic life would break!" + +She took a step nearer to him. "Do you know what I would do if my +child were living? I would force you to divorce your wife and marry +me!" + +Her words seemed to have the effect of startling and thrilling him. +As he gazed at her--her soft bright eyes, her flushed cheeks, the +short, tender curls about her fair neck, the swell and fall of her +bosom, all the mighty lure of her lovely womanhood--a hungry look +came into his eyes; a look so bitterly familiar to her that she drew +back with a sharp horror. + +"Susanna!" he stretched a shaking hand toward her. "If our child----" + +"Only for my child's sake, not for my own!" she cried, breathlessly. +"Yes, I would force you to marry me--but I would never, never, never +be yours!" + +Sidney's shaking hand dropped to his side. + +"And since," he spoke after a moment's pregnant silence between them, +"your--our child--does not live--what shall you do?" + +"Do you know me so little as to suppose it would gratify me to break +up your marriage? You need have no anxiety about what I shall do. I +am not enough interested in anything concerning you, Sidney, to +disturb your peace and prosperity." + +"But your mere presence in this neighbourhood! To be sure Laura +would never recognize you; she doesn't even know your name; I would +never tell her your name, Susanna--but she could so easily hear of +your teaching that school----" + +"You can't hope to keep it from her that I am living! Your mother +will visit you and may any day see me----" + +A look of pain crossed his face; and Susan knew, before he spoke, +that he had lost his mother. + +"She died of a stroke while I was abroad; brought on, I have always +believed, by the strain and anxiety of my--my sudden marriage, of +my----" + +"I understand," said Susan as he floundered. "The strain of getting +you married before I could force your hand----" + +"Don't, don't! Please! Spare her, Susanna! I have suffered enough +on her account!" + +"So have I!" + +"You are hard!" + +"I try to be--or I could not live!" + +"But you must see, Susanna, that it won't do for you to remain about +here! You can easily get another school. I'll help you all I----" + +"You shall have nothing to do with my life. And I have no concern +with yours. I shall not give up my school." + +"But I can't stand it! It will drive me crazy! Having you so +near--the constant dread of exposure----" + +"Exposure? But your wife knows all there is to be known except that +I am still alive." + +"You don't understand! There are complications in the situation that +you don't understand! You _must_ leave this neighbourhood, Susanna! +I will give you----" + +"You will never give me anything," she quietly interrupted. "Not +even," she added with a dreary smile, "the furniture you robbed me +of." + +He turned red at this unexpected stab and before he could collect +himself to reply, she had forced her way past him and was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE TENTACLES CLOSE IN UPON SUSAN + +Joe Houghton's absence from home to attend the Cashtown cattle sale +gave Susan a blessed four days' respite from his persistent wooing. + +She had declined his urgent invitation to accompany him to Cashtown. + +"The ride over is awful nice. Plenty of scenery and all like +that--you're so much fur scenery, I took notice a'ready. They ain't +nothin' about you escapes me, you bet you!" + +"Isn't there!" Susan returned with a gentle mockery quite lost upon +Joe. + +"You bet there ain't! You better come with. You'd see lots of +people at the sale--if people interest you." + +"But I wouldn't think of closing my school for an outing." + +"Ain't I president of the school board? What I say goes." + +"I wouldn't neglect my work no matter who said I might." + +"Nor me, neither! _I_ never let my work fur no pleasure-seekin'." +Joe so approvingly agreed with her commendable declaration that she +instantly felt like repudiating it. "And I'm wery glad," he added, +"to find you so conscientious, too, like me. Fur if you're that +pertikkler over your school work, you'll be the same at your +housework, oncet we're married." + +"Oh, is _that_ why you are so pleased with me? I thought for a +minute that you were public spirited and concerned for the education +of White Oak Station." + +"Och, no, me, I always think of myself before I think of the +education of the rising generation," Joe frankly admitted. "I'd +sooner have you along to Cashtown than to have White Oak Station good +educated. But I ain't startin' in by encouragin' you to slight work. +That _would_ be a bad beginnin'!" + +"A bad beginning of what?" + +"Of our life together, Miss Susie." + +"Dream on," said Susan, "if it amuses you." + +He had pressed another invitation upon her which she had also +declined. + +"If you won't go _with_, then I wisht you'd stay at my house whiles +I'm off, and see to it that that there mean-actin' housekeeper I got +don't _let_ Josie and go runnin'! I can tell her that you'll wisit +her to keep her comp'ny." + +"I can't stay away from home; father is not well," Susan had objected +to this plan; for the tenant-farmer's cosy cottage at White Oak Farm +where Joe now lived was only a few rods away from the mansion in +which his brother resided. + +"I thought mebby," said Joe, greatly disappointed at her refusal, +"that if I could get you inter_est_ed in Josie, you might want to get +married to me just fur the sake of havin' sich a cute little cuss all +ready made fur you!" + +"I am interested in Josie, but, you see, I love all babies and I +couldn't possibly marry all their fathers." + +Ever since the day when, for an instant, Susan had held Sidney +Houghton's baby boy in her arms, after picking him up from his +overturned coach in front of her school-house, she had wondered at +herself that with her feeling for Sidney so dead her heart could yet +yearn over his child as it had done then, and every time since then, +that she had caught a glimpse of the appealing little fellow. Joe's +boy, Josie, was a dear baby, too, but he did not attract her in the +poignant, irresistible way that Georgie did. + +"One would think I would shrink from the successful rival of my +child," she marvelled. + +"I promise you," she had answered Joe, "that I shall run into your +cottage and see after Josie three times a day while you are away: +before and after school and at the noon recess." + +And with this Joe had had to be satisfied. + +This afternoon, as she was about to leave her school-house for her +final visit of the day to the baby of the cottage, she was detained a +moment by the irate mother of one of her pupils, who had tramped a +half mile from her home to complain to "Teacher" that her boy's +"dinner kittle" had been tampered with. + +"I fixed him sich a nice kittle; and he saved back a piece of snitz +pie to eat on the way home; but till he come to look fur that there +snitz pie after school, here he seen it was swiped! Yes, it's some +swiper in this here school of yourn, Teacher!" + +Susan promised Mrs. Kuntz that she would hound down the criminal. +Mr. Kuntz was a school director, so it behooved the teacher to +placate Mrs. Kuntz. Susan was, by this time, very familiar with the +ways of school directors. To be sure, any teacher of White Oak +Station whom Joe Houghton favoured did not need to concern herself +much about the rest of the school board, for Joe held a mortgage +against the land of more than half of them. The wives of the +directors were sometimes inclined to give themselves airs with the +teacher who held her "job" by the votes of their husbands. But it +was of course so widely known that Susan Schrekengust was a prime +favourite with the wealthy widower that she enjoyed an unusual +immunity from "airs". However, she was only too well aware that just +so soon as Joe realized, finally and irrevocably, that she would not +marry him, his spite would wreak itself upon her, not only by seizing +their home from her parents, but by taking her school away from her. +Her heart stood still with dread sometimes when it was borne in upon +her how completely he held her and hers in his power. + +As soon as Mrs. Kuntz had left her Susan came out from her +school-house, locked the door, and went across the road for her visit +to the baby, Josie. Mrs. Kuntz, who saw where she went, reported to +her son that evening at supper that Joe Houghton was "not doin' all +the courtin'." + +"Teacher's helpin' along a little herself. Joe he wasn't there to +fetch her to-day, like you say he _is_ every day, so she went after +_him_! Yes, you bet you she's doin' her part, too, in the courtin'!" + +It was after Susan's visit to Joe's cottage, when she was walking +through Sidney's private grounds to the highroad (her only way out), +that suddenly, at a bend in the path, she saw approaching her, a few +yards distant, Mrs. Sidney Houghton, strolling leisurely in the May +afternoon sunshine, followed by two big dogs that jumped about her +playfully, to whose demonstrations she responded affectionately. + +She was a slim, graceful woman, very tastefully dressed. An +apparently unconscious haughtiness was manifest in the poise of her +small head and in the way she carried herself. + +As she came nearer, Susan saw that the radiant bloom of the young +girl whom, a year ago, she had seen for a few tragic moments in +Sidney Houghton's rooms was gone, and that a blighted, almost soured, +aspect had taken its place. + +The thought flashed upon Susan, "In her place, even if I were +disappointed in Sidney, I couldn't look like that if I had that baby +boy!" + +And then, at that moment, Susan saw the baby boy escape from his +nurse on the lawn and come toddling toward his mother and her dogs; a +child supposed to be only seven or eight months old walking alone! + +But his mother pushed him away and kept the dog at her side. The +child, to balance himself when pushed, caught at his mother's skirt, +a spotless, creamy broadcloth, with his grimy little hands. + +"Clara!" Mrs. Houghton called sharply to the nurse, "come take him +away! See what he's done!" displaying the soiled spots on the skirt +she had jerked from his clutch. "Why don't you keep him cleaner? +He's always so disgustingly dirty! Take him away from me!" + +Clara snatched the child from her and shook him, but her roughness +met with no reproof from the baby's mother. + +As he was borne away sobbing Mrs. Houghton unconcernedly continued +her stroll, her dogs leaping about her as she stretched toward them +caressingly her gleamingly white hands. + +Susan felt a suffocating indignation at this spectacle, at the same +time that she was desolated with the deepest sadness by it. + +"Such a dear little boy! How can she? How can she?" she asked +herself with a heavy heart. + +It was not until she and Mrs. Houghton drew near to each other in the +path that it occurred to her to wonder whether Sidney Houghton's wife +would recognize her. But they had seen each other for such a brief +moment that day over a year ago; and Susan was sure she never would +have known this woman to be the Laura Beresford of that terrible day +if she had met her anywhere but here. + +When in a moment Mrs. Houghton suddenly saw her, there was, in the +surprised inquiry of her glance, an absolute absence of any +recognition. As the lady and her two dogs quite filled the path +Susan was unable to get by at once, and the two women stopped, for an +instant, face to face. + +Susan reflected with some complacency how little she looked like a +country school teacher. Mrs. Houghton probably mistook her for a +visitor. This supposition was confirmed by Mrs. Houghton's +hesitatingly offering her hand. + +"You wished to see me?" she asked. + +"No," answered Susan, "I have just come from an errand at the +tenant-farmer's cottage." + +Mrs. Houghton, without a comment, stepped back upon the lawn to allow +the intruder to pass. + +Susan thought, as she continued on her way, how incongruous it did +seem for that high-bred, distinguished looking woman to be the +sister-in-law of a man like Joe Houghton. + +"She would not even ask to her table that man who thinks himself +quite worthy to marry me!" thought Susan, a vague wonder in her heart +at life's incongruities. + +She found herself actually feeling, however, that if Joe's baby were +as appealing to her as Georgie was, she could almost be persuaded, as +Joe had suggested she might be, to marry him for the delight of +having such a child to cherish! + +"And Georgie's own mother doesn't realize her blessed privilege! +Prefers those dogs!" + +She had several times caught glimpses of Sidney playing with his +little son about the grounds of White Oak Farm and there could not be +a moment's doubt of his devotion and tenderness to his child. + +Upon her arrival at home, this afternoon, she saw, as she stopped at +the gate, her father standing beside the road which ran back of the +house past his truck garden, talking to a man in a big touring car. + +Susan instantly recognized that car; it was the most luxurious she +had ever seen; it belonged to Sidney Houghton. She could not be +mistaken, surely. Her heart began to beat thickly. Could it be +Sidney Houghton who was talking to her father? What could they +possibly have to say to each other? + +It flashed upon her that perhaps Sidney had learned through Joe of +her father's dire financial straits and was trying to take advantage +of their predicament by offering a bribe to her father if he would +move away from this vicinity where her presence so threatened the +Houghtons' domestic security. + +But why did her father, with his deep and bitter hatred of this man +who had injured his daughter, consent to parley with him, to exchange +a single word with him? + +"I'll find out who is in that car!" she quickly decided. + +Dropping the gate latch, she started on a run toward the truck garden. + +But when at the sound of her steps her father looked around and saw +her hurrying through the orchard toward the road, he abruptly +concluded his interview with his visitor, the car almost instantly +moved on, and Mr. Schrekengust, walking as rapidly as his feebleness +allowed, went back across the road to his garden. + +Susan hesitated to follow him. Her heart ached, these days, for her +old father, so broken because of her who had been the pet of his +life. If he was trying to avoid her she would not torment him. + +She turned away and with slow, thoughtful step, went back to the +house. + +In the past year she had grown accustomed to the sudden silences that +would often fall upon her family at her approach. Just now, as she +unexpectedly entered by the kitchen instead of by the front of the +house, she surprised an earnest conversation between her sisters over +their preparations for supper. + +"A child brought up so, what will it anyhow give out of this child?" +Lizzie was exclaiming, emotionally. + +"Yes, anyhow!" Addie sadly responded. + +"It wonders me if Susie----" began Lizzie, but she stopped short as, +turning from the stove, she saw her young sister standing near the +kitchen door. + +"Och, Susie!" she gasped. "What fur do you come in so quiet, a body +never hears you?" + +"Why should it frighten you?" asked Susan, sinking wearily into a +chair by the table on which Addie was spreading the cloth for supper. + +"It didn't just to say frighten me--but it drawed my breath short! +You most always come by the front door in!" + +"What child do you mean, Lizzie?" + +Lizzie stooped, before replying, to pick up from the floor the fork +she had just noisily dropped. + +"I was talkin' about Joe Houghton's baby you tol' us about a'ready, +that's left to the hired housekeeper all the time; and how she _lets_ +it so much and goes off." + +"But some mothers are even worse," said Susan, pensively. "Some +mothers care more for their pet dogs than for their own children!" + +"Och!" cried Lizzie, "does it give such mothers as that in the world, +Susie?" + +"Who was that talking to Father just now out by the truck garden?" +asked Susan. + +"Was he talkin' to someone? Och, just look," Lizzie changed the +subject, as she suddenly turned to the window, "how these here wines +is owerhangin' the windah yet! I got to make my wines down off of +this here windah, or it'll give dark in the kitchen; ain't?" + +"Never mind your vines, Lizzie, _please_! Whose big car was that out +by the truck garden a few minutes ago?" + +"I didn't take notice to a car out," returned Lizzie, keeping her +face turned away to the window. "Was it a car out?" + +Susan could almost have been moved to smile at this futile duplicity; +for in the quiet monotony of the village life a touring car stopping +at any home in Reifsville was an event only rivalled in interest and +importance by a death, a marriage, or a crime. + +Susan turned to Addie. "Will _you_ tell me, Addie, please--what was +Father talking about to--to Sidney Houghton?" + +The name came with difficulty from her lips in the presence of her +chaste sisters. + +"It wasn't him!" cried Lizzie almost hysterically. "As if Pop or any +of us _would_ speak to him! How you talk, Susie! Say, Addie," she +cried, pointing to the waffle iron on the stove, with obvious intent +to divert the subject, "will you look how our neighbour sent back our +waffle iron busted yet! Ain't she the dopplig* housekeeper, anyhow! +This is the last time I'm ever a-goin' to borrow away _any_thing!" + + +* Awkward. + + +"You ought not to have secrets from me, Lizzie, about--about Sidney +Houghton," persisted Susan. + +"Och, Susie, us we ain't got no secrets from you! I got awful nice +creamed chicken fur your supper. That chicken we had Sundays was so +big. It wonders me such a young chicken could be so big; ain't?" + +"It's the _kind_ of it," explained Addie. "Them Wyandottes gives +awful big chickens at a wery young age." + +Susan, with a long, tired breath, gathered up her school books, left +the kitchen and went upstairs to her own bedroom. + +Later, when in answer to a summons to supper, she went down again, +she noticed, as the family gathered about the table, that her father +was very white. + +Should she annoy him, she asked herself, with the question which +tormented her? Evidently the family was concealing something from +her; and it would go so hard with her father to have to lie to her; +he had no sophistry to justify any deviation from the straight and +simple tenets of his creed. + +But while she hesitated he spoke; and the wholly unwonted +irritability in his usually bland voice struck a chill to her heart. + +"Warmed-over chicken again!" he said, fretfully, as he pushed away +the platter his wife offered him. "I have sick of that there chicken +you've been offerin' me ever since last Sabbath a'ready! I work hard +and I need fresh meat _some_times!--and not sloppy hash all the time!" + +"But us we can't afford to buy fresh meat, Pop," said Lizzie, looking +distressed. "We are got to use the pork and chickens we are got +a'ready." + +The old man's tense mood seemed suddenly to collapse. "Och, I know, +I know," he admitted, dully. "To be sure, I know we can't buy fresh +meat." + +"It does seem," said Susan, "as if the people who do the hard work +ought to have the fresh, nourishing meat. But it is the 'idle rich,' +the women who contribute nothing to the common good, but only prey +upon society--some of them not even taking care of their own +children--it is they who have the best food; while the labourer, who +_needs_ strong nourishment, has the poorest and the least! Things +are very badly regulated!" + +"Och, yes," agreed Mr. Schrekengust, pessimistically; "and as fur our +government, it's spoiled through!" + +"The worst thing that can happen to any one, it seems to me," said +Susan, "is to inherit a fortune; not to have to work for what you +have." + +"Yes, well, but me, I'd like it awful well if someone would inherit a +fortune to _me_," said Lizzie, "so's I could live without workin'." + +"So would I!" Susan ignominiously agreed with her. + +"Them thoughts is of the Enemy," her father admonished them. +"Remember you got to give an account to Gawd for your words as well +as fur your deeds." + +"It seems to me," said Susan, recklessly, "that He'll have to give an +account to _us_, for all the bitter suffering and wrong in this +world! _We_ didn't create it! If we are evil then the source from +which we exist must be evil! Oh, I think He owes a very large +accounting to us poor human wretches!" + +"Tut, tut, Susie!" cried her father, shocked. "Somepin'll happen to +you if you talk so wicked!" + +"It often wonders me," sighed Mrs. Schrekengust, "what Gawd must +think of us mortals the way we live so carnal and disobey to Him so!" + +"What must we think of _Him_ for putting us into a world like this, +of turmoil and hate and injustice and suffering!" Susan persisted. +"It's up to Him, not us, _to make good_!" + +Her father, instead of admonishing her again, looked at her +strangely. "Yes, yes," he murmured. "Here's us that has worked hard +all our lives, all of us, and always--or nearly always," he added, +with conscientious accuracy, "tried to do right; and now in our old +age, me and Mother has got to get out of our home here where we lived +all our married lives together. I got to tell yous all," he stated, +slowly, his voice heavy with sadness, despair in his eyes, "that we +got to make up our minds to move away from Reifsville right aways!" + +Susan realized from the startled looks of her sisters and her mother +that she was perhaps the least astonished of them all at this +announcement. They had, indeed, faced the possibility of having to +leave their home, but they had never dreamed of leaving the village +itself, where Mr. and Mrs. Schrekengust had lived all their lives; +nor had they expected to be obliged to leave their house immediately. + +"I got a offer of a good little place," continued Mr. Schrekengust, +"forty mile from here----" + +"Och, Gott!" cried his wife. "Forty mile yet! Who ever heard the +likes, Pop! I couldn't home myself that fur off!" + +"Since we are got to leave this here house anyhow, Mom, we might as +well go fur off as near by. It's a awful good offer I got--a nice +truck farm on wery easy terms." + +"Who makes you this offer, Father?" asked Susan in a low voice, her +tone very gentle. + +"A business man I done a favour fur oncet. He wants this here land +here, preferable to the place he offers me over in Fokendauqua. +He'll gimme that there place over there, with two horses and two cows +throwed in; and in exchange, he'll take over our place here _with the +mortgage on it_. We'd be free of debt and I'd anyhow let a home over +your heads when I am gone." + +"And who is this man?" persisted Susan in an ominously quiet tone, +"that makes you this very extraordinary offer?" + +"It's neither here nor there who he is," replied her father, +querulously. "It's too good a offer fur us to throw down. Us we'll +be out on the road soon, without no home at all, if we don't look +out! I _got_ to take this here offer!" + +"No, you don't, Father!" + +"Yes, I do, Susie! I tell you I got to." + +"But if you move to Fokendauqua, I could not live at home--for I +don't want to give up my school; I had a hard enough time to get it. +And I might not be able to get a school near Fokendauqua." + +"I won't leave you stay on here if we go!" cried her father so +fiercely that she winced as at a deformity, so unlike him it was to +speak ungently. "And you ain't to keep on teachin' that there +school, _whether_ or no! Right acrost the road from that there dirty +rascal's place!--where any day you can run acrost him! You'll go +with us _along_ when we move away!" + +"If you are moving just to get me away from that school, then I will +give up the school, Father, and try to get my old position here in +Reifsville, so that you need not leave here. You and Mother are +rooted here and _couldn't_ live anywhere else!" + +"You needn't try to get back your old school here, fur even over +here, you're too near to that there scoundrel! We want to get as fur +away from him as we otherwise _can_ get!" + +"But it is he that is making you this offer, Father!" cried Susan, +utterly bewildered. + +"No, it ain't! What fur do you say it's him? It ain't him!" + +"I saw his automobile in the road by the truck garden when I came +from school." + +"It wasn't hisn." + +"Whose was it?" + +"A stranger astin' the road to White Oak Station." + +"Father," said Susan, ignoring this obvious evasion, "_why_ do you +have any dealings with Sidney Houghton? Don't you know that we would +all rather be homeless on the highroad than accept a favour from him? +_Why_ are you letting him bribe you to give up----" + +She stopped short. Her father's head had suddenly sunk upon his +breast; and now his hands slipped from the table and hung limply at +his side; the blood which had rushed to his forehead was slowly +receding, leaving the hue of death upon his old worn face. + +The stricken old man who had dreaded the ordeal of leaving his home +and going into strange surroundings had suddenly, without a moment's +warning, taken his departure alone to that far country to which none +might go with him, of those who loved him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER + +In after years Susan was often obliged to bring before her memory +very vividly the conditions which could have been overwhelming enough +to have driven her into marrying Joe Houghton; for there were times +when nothing seemed to explain or justify it. + +There had been the mortgage held by Joe, covering the full value of +her widowed mother's house and land; his Shylock determination to +have his price, which was her hand in marriage; his ruthlessness in +having her voted out of her school at the end of May, in order to +force her to yield to him; her mother's speechless grief at the bare +thought of leaving the home which held all her memories of her dead +mate; her sisters' unfitness for earning their own living in any +other way than in domestic service on a farm. Whichever way she had +turned, there had seemed to be no escape for her. Every possible +avenue had seemed closed, with whips and scorpions beating her back. +It was not for herself that she had succumbed to the pressure of +gaunt Want. She could always, somehow, somewhere, have earned a +living for herself, and had she been unable to do so, far easier +would it have been to starve and die than to marry a man she +despised. But that comparatively simple solution of her difficulty +had not been open to her. She must live and take care of her +helpless mother and sisters, made helpless through her; for had it +not been for her, surely her father would still be with them, to +support and comfort them. It had been she who had brought shame and +grief and want upon them. She, then, must stand by them and see them +through. Would the great sacrifice she was making act as an antidote +in her soul to the degradation of such a marriage? + +Well, even if she herself must "sink i' the scale," she could not see +her mother die before her eyes in pining for her home; her sisters, +who had lived and worked for her all her life, forced to the +humiliation and slavish labour of domestic service on a farm. She +had always believed that circumstances could not crush the valiant +soul; that one could rise above and master them if one would. But +the conditions which at that time had closed in upon her had seemed +to force her to the bitter choice between saving herself and +sacrificing her mother and sisters. + +She had known from the first that she would not sacrifice them. Her +decision had been delayed only by her desperate efforts to save +herself as well. + +It had been while she was thus battling for her own soul's salvation +that Sidney Houghton, never dreaming of his brother's very commercial +courtship of the school teacher of White Oak Station, had approached +Mrs. Schrekengust with a renewal of the offer he had made to her +husband: if she and her three daughters would move to the comfortable +little home which he would give them over in Fokendauqua, forty miles +distant, he would take upon himself all their debts here in +Reifsville and see to it that they should never come to want. + +To Susan, the amazing spectacle of her mother's heart-broken +submission to this proposition, in the face of her hitherto deep and +wordless grief at the mere mention of leaving her home in Reifsville, +had had in it something mysteriously sinister. Why had her father +denied to her that it was Sidney Houghton who had made this offer to +him? He had died with a lie on his lips!--he who had all his life +been so painfully truthful. Not for gain, not for any material +thing, would he have told a lie. What had been back of his apostasy? +What was back of her mother's acquiescence to a thing which was +tantamount to signing her own death warrant? + +An idea had dawned upon Susan which she had instantly rejected as +being altogether incredible. Even Sidney Houghton, weak and false as +she knew him to be, would scarcely be capable of the perfidy of +threatening her mother (whose holiest religion, like that of all +women of her class, was Respectability) with the exposure of the +secret shame of her daughter--victimized by himself!--unless Mrs. +Schrekengust would at once move away with her family from the +precarious vicinity of his home. + +And yet, impossible as such baseness seemed, even for Sidney +Houghton, what lesser necessity than the maintaining of their ghastly +secret could so have coerced her mother? + +A hot fury of rebellion had risen in Susan's heart against the +humiliation of being thus driven away for the sake of Sidney's +security and peace of mind. If nothing were now left but to choose +between marrying Joe or having her mother suffer and surely die from +being beholden to Sidney Houghton for a home and a livelihood in a +distant town, could she hesitate? She had the human weakness to feel +that there would be actually a drop of bitter consolation for her in +thus defying her betrayer and going boldly to live in the very shadow +of his home; to be hourly in his sight; to pass daily to and fro +before the very eyes of his wife! + +Her decision had been swiftly made. + +On the day when Sidney had called by appointment to give over to her +mother the deed to the Fokendauqua house and lot and receive in +exchange the mortgaged Reifsville property, he had been met with the +announcement that Mrs. Schrekengust could not now fulfil her part of +the bargain to which she had previously agreed, inasmuch as her +daughter, Susan, could not, under the present circumstances, be +enticed away to Fokendauqua--seeing she no longer made her home with +her mother--having married Joseph Houghton that very morning, July +28th, and gone to live at the tenant-farmer's cottage at White Oak +Farm; and that therefore there was now no reason why they should +leave Reifsville; for Joseph Houghton had that morning, before the +marriage ceremony, given them a clear deed to their house and land. + +How Sidney had received this astounding information Susan could only +guess from the incoherent account of it she had received later from +her mother and sisters. + +"Och, Susie, he took it hard!" + +"He turned awful white and there for a while he couldn't har'ly +speak!" + +"I believe, Susie, he likes you _yet_!" + +"He ast me," said Mrs. Schrekengust, "what fur did I leave you marry +a fellah like Joe that ain't worthy to tie your shoes yet! And I +answered him, 'Yes, what fur did I ever leave you, Sidney Houghton, +keep comp'ny with her!--you that wasn't fit neither to _lick_ her +shoes yet!' He turned whiter'n ever when I sayed that. But he ast +us what we thought could have _made_ you marry Joe, seein' as it +wasn't in nature for a girl like you to love sich a fellah. And I +sayed that now you had to be glad fur any decent husband; and that if +Joe knowed all, he wouldn't think you was good enough fur _him_." + +"But Sidney he wouldn't have it no other way," put in Lizzie, "than +that you'd throwed yourself away." + +"But I tol' him," added Mrs. Schrekengust, "you had a'ready throwed +yourself away as fur as you could on _him_." + +"Yes, Mom she come back at him fierce!" said Lizzie. + +"And he took it that meek and calm, Susie, that it wondered me!" put +in Addie. + +Susan had no conscientious qualms in marrying Joe without "confessing +her past," inasmuch as she asked no questions as to his past. + +"He, too, was married before," she reasoned; for she persisted in +believing that before high heaven, or "whatever gods there be," she +had been Sidney Houghton's wife. + +She felt sure that if Joe had been a man whom she could have found it +possible to love, she would have felt impelled to tell him of her +unmarried motherhood. But he had bought her for a price, as +shamelessly as he would have bought a cow or a horse! Therefore, her +past, like his, was her own. + +In the early months of her married life, she was, however, never +without a guilty sense of wronging her husband in her heart by her +secret loathing of him; and she tried conscientiously to atone by +scrupulously performing what seemed to her her wifely obligations; +and by the devoted care she gave to his child; submitting to many +things which otherwise she would not have borne--his little +contemptible, maddening meannesses about expenditures, his refusal to +hire any housework, his exactions of services from her such as he +would not have dared to ask of any hired servant or housekeeper. + +When it was too late--when both his exactions and her submission had +become a habit with them not easy to break--she realized that she had +begun all wrong. + +"For if from the first I had taken a stand against such a régime, I +could have carried the day!" + +"By the time you learn, through bitter mistakes, how to live," she +often reflected in after years, "your knowledge is of no use to you +except to make you wild with regret!" + +She had made Joe promise (and she could absolutely depend on his +word) that he would never reveal to Josie in the years to come that +she was not his own mother. + +"I'll get that out of it, anyway--a son's love for his mother," she +had told herself. + +For Susan had learned from her doctor, over a year ago, that she +could never bear another child. Had she not known this, no other +considerations would have been strong enough to have forced her to +marry Joe. An instinctive conviction that it would be a crime to let +a child be born of a loveless marriage would have held her back. +Susan's intuitive ethics, it will be observed, were not those +commonly held by respectable people. + +The "bitter consolation" she had anticipated in defying Sidney +Houghton's efforts to get her away from tie neighbourhood of his +home, and coming to live at his very door, was postponed by his +departure from home immediately after her marriage. He left, with +his wife, child, and nurse, for a month at Newport. + +"I see through that move!" Joe declared to Susan one day over their +mid-day dinner in the cottage kitchen, Josie in a high chair at +Susan's side. "They're too stuck-up, him and her, to take notice to +_my_ wife! So, to save their faces, they go off! Sich extravagance! +Payin' _ho_tel board when they're got a big, cool place like theirn +to stay at!" + +"Your sister-in-law seems to care so little for her baby, I'm +surprised she takes him with her when she goes away. He would be +quite as well off here alone with his nurse as he is with her." + +"Right you are! _She_ don't give him no attention; nothin' like what +you give to Josie, and him your step-child yet." + +"We're to forget that he is not my own child," Susan reminded him. + +"But Sid _he's_ anyhow crazy about his kid," continued Joe. "He +would not let him here alone with that dopplig nurse girl! You see, +Susan, Sid ain't takin' no chances on that there baby dyin' and my +Josie inheritin' White Oak Farm!" + +Susan recognized it as very characteristic of Sidney to have run away +for a month from a situation which he must ultimately face. + +From New York came a gorgeous wedding present from Sidney and his +wife; a most unsuitable gift for a tenant-farmer's menage: a huge +satin-lined case filled with every possible form of table +silver--knives, forks, teaspoons, tablespoons, dessert spoons, +bouillon spoons, orange spoons, after-dinner coffee spoons, oyster +forks, fruit knives, bread-and-butter knives. + +Joe gloated over the moneyed value of it, even while denouncing his +brother's reckless and senseless extravagance. + +"Put it good away; it would get stole if it was knew we had such +grand stuff around. You see, Susan, you never was used to such +things and don't know their walue; but I was, when I was a kid livin' +at home, before my father died." + +Susan did not think it worth while to tell him how "used to such +things" she had become during her years at school, through the +friendships she had made with girls from homes so unlike her own as +to have seemed to her a wonderland of luxury and ease and refinement. + +But she was glad that Joe would not expect her to use this silver. +It was promptly locked away in the attic. + +From the moment that Susan had made up her mind to marry Joe her +heart had desperately fixed itself upon the one compensation, besides +her family's safety, which she might hope to find in her +situation--the care and love of the baby. But since affection is not +a thing to be commanded at will, perhaps the very intensity of her +determination to lay hold, here, upon comfort and even blessedness, +defeated her desire. Josie, although healthy, pretty, of average +intelligence, and at times both cunning and interesting, proved to be +peevish, exacting, and selfish to a degree that seemed to Susan quite +hopeless. She could not, no matter how hard she tried, warm up to +him. She was sure that if he had responded in the least to her +overtures he would have won her immediately and completely, no matter +what his trying faults of disposition. But nothing she could do +seemed to awaken in the child any affection for her. She would have +concluded that he had no heart, but for the fact that he was so +extremely attached to his father. + +Joe, who was morbidly jealous of Josie's affection, instead of being +troubled by his persistence in repelling his step-mother's advances, +seemed to gloat over it. While he would have resented her least +neglect of the boy, he seemed to begrudge her the natural reward of +her faithful care. + +"Come here to your pop, Josie--see what I got fur you!" he would +entice the child away from her the moment his jealous watchfulness +detected in Josie any sign of fondness for her. + +Josie very quickly learned to associate a rough repulsion of his +"mother" with the reward of a lozenge or a ride "upsy-daisy" on his +father's foot. + +Susan foresaw that when it came to questions of discipline Joe would +always side with the child against her. She feared that it would +require more patience and diplomacy than she could ever hope to +command to deal with the problem. + +Joe's jealousy was not confined to his child. It early became +manifest that he would brook no rival in Susan's regard; such, for +instance, as her love of books, the one love left to her out of the +wreck of her life. He wished and expected her to be interested in +nothing else in the world but his comfort and welfare and that of his +boy. She soon found herself instinctively putting her reading out of +sight at his approach and busying herself with house- or needle-work, +in order to spare herself the morose, sullen silence, lasting +sometimes a whole day, with which he would signify his displeasure +when he found her reading; or his tirades against the sort of books +she "wasted her time on." All novels were lumped together as +abominations. Poetry was "for Sunday afternoons if you got to read +it, but certainly not for busy week-days." Science baffled him. He +once found her reading (or trying to read) Darwin's "Origin of +Species," and when he had demanded to be told what it was about and +had heard her reply, he waxed truly indignant. "The stuff yous +simple females'll swallow yet!" + +She tried to tell him that the evolution of man from a lower species +was no longer an hypothesis, but an historical fact, and she read him +some of the evidences of that fact. + +But he wasn't impressed. "I can't pitcher it to myself. Can you +pitcher it to yourself, a man's ever havin' been in such a form? +It's a lie! Don't fill your head with such foolishness!" + +"But it is the truth." + +"No," he firmly denied it, "I can't pitcher to myself a man's ever +having no other form. Why, no person in White Oak Station believes +such a thing as that there!" + +"Must I believe nothing except what the people of White Oak Station +believe?" smiled Susan. + +"You're safer to." + +"Why?" + +"What's the use of thinkin' different from other folks?" + +"What's the use of thinking just _like_ other people?" + +"Och, well," he gave it up, exhausted with such unwonted mental +strenuousness, "have your own way. Think it, then--but _keep it to +yourself_. I don't want folks 'round here sayin' I married a crazy +woman!" + +When just a month after Susan's marriage her mother died very +suddenly at the end of August, from heart failure, Susan's wild +rebellion against Fate, that she should have sacrificed herself so +needlessly, turned itself speedily into a great indignation against +herself; against that fatal weakness in her character which seemed +always to inhibit her from wrestling with the knotty places in her +life and conquering them. + +"I've let myself be shoved about like a puppet!" + +If one could only have the courage always to do what, in spite of +threatened disaster, one saw was the only true thing to do--and then +trust to Life to right it! + +But of course only great souls were large enough and strong enough +for such high heroism. + +Joe was not unsympathetic for her grief for her mother. But he had a +grotesque way of commingling his gentler feelings with his dominating +sordidness. + +"I guess, now, Susan, you'll be wantin' me to buy you one of these +here stylish crape wails; ain't?--you bein' so much for dressin' +stylish that way. But I took notice you didn't wear one of 'em fur +your pop when he died; I guess because you couldn't afford one; for I +heard a'ready that they cost awful expensive--them crape wails. And +I hold that since you didn't wear one fur your pop, it wouldn't look +according, your wearing one fur your mom." + +"Mennonites don't wear mourning." + +"Yes, well, but you ain't no Mennonite." + +"None of us will wear mourning," she reassured him. + +His relief made him beam upon her benignly. "You show your good +sense, Susan. Fur it would be a awful waste to let all them good +clo'es you're got a'ready and go buy new black ones; ain't, it would?" + +Susan vaguely wondered what it was going to be like when the clothes +she now had were worn out and she was obliged to buy new ones. Her +work as housekeeper and child's nurse was harder, more distasteful, +and involved longer hours than had ever been the case with school +teaching; yet she had nothing for it that she could call her own; +nothing except what Joe saw fit to give her. Thus far he had never +voluntarily offered her a dollar; and when she had one day asked him +for money, he had inquired what she wanted it for. It had been for +some household expenses, not for herself. He had given it to her +grudgingly, mistrustfully, as though he suspected her of a design to +defraud him. + +Such was the chaos and horror of her soul in confronting, now, the +needless sacrifice she had made in marrying Joe that the harrowing +funeral orgie and all its gruesome accompaniments drove her almost +into unrestrained hysteria. First, there was the elderly woman, +unknown to the family with a passion for funerals, who had walked in +from the country, five miles, "to view the remains of the deceased." + +"I didn't know her in life, but I'd like to see her in death," she +devoutly explained--which so moved the hearts of Lizzie and Addie +that they made her stay "for dinner." + +Then the preacher's hypocritical tones and meaningless stock phrases +which made Susan grind her teeth in impotent rebellion--"portals of +memory," "life's peaceful waters," "God's smiles," "the Other Shore," +the awful hymn droned out a line at a time alternately by the +preacher and the people: + + We'll miss you from our home, dear mother, + We'll miss you from your place; + A shadow over our lives is cast; + We'll miss the sunshine of your face. + + Our hearts are bound with sorrow, + Yet the thought comes with each sigh, + She is safe with God's dear angels; + We shall meet her by and by. + + +And finally Lizzie's controversary with the undertaker over the palms +which stood grouped at the head of the coffin and which the +undertaker was going to load on his truck and take away with him. + +"No, you don't!" Lizzie indignantly stopped him, right in the +presence of their assembled kindred, friends, and neighbours, "you +ain't to claim back _all_ them palms! One third of them palms is +_mine_--and them goes with Mom along!" + +They had almost had a tug of war about it over the coffin. + +Susan's struggles to keep herself in hand through the nightmare of it +all ended in a nervous collapse which left her prostrated for weeks +with a continuous, unconquerable pain in her head just at the base of +her brain. + +Joe's genuine alarm, his unexpected sympathy for her suffering, were +a surprising revelation to her. She had not thought him capable of +real tenderness except for his boy. The extent of his feeling for +her was indicated by his surprisingly suggesting one day, with +evident intent to find something that would catch her interest, that +perhaps she might like to learn to drive his roadster? She had +several times requested to be allowed to do so and he had always +refused. + +"If you learn oncet you'll be wantin' to _go_ all the time and you'd +let your housework too much. Gasoline costs too expensive to be used +unnecessary," he had said. + +But now he told her that perhaps it would after all be an economical +move and save a lot of his valuable time to let _her_ make the +occasional necessary trips to town. + +He stipulated, however, that she must exercise self-restraint in the +use of such a precious commodity as gasoline. + +Susan's relation with Sidney, though it had not been sanctified by +society or religion, had yet had in it such elements of beauty, joy, +sacredness, that it had seemed at times to justify itself--as her +entirely respectable marriage could not do, now that its motive, her +mother's welfare, was removed. It was now that she felt herself to +be "living in sin," as she had never felt while she loved; and when +her mother's death removed the necessity of her immolation, she +passionately longed to escape from her ignominy. + +She even went to the length of suggesting to her sisters, some weeks +after her mother's funeral, that if they had courage enough to give +back to Joe their home in Reifsville, go with her to the city and +open a boarding-house, she would leave her husband (whom she had +married only to save her mother the grief of losing her home), and +would help them to earn a comfortable living. Of course if they +would not consent to give back their property to Joe, she could not +leave him; it would be going back on her bargain; it would be like +stealing; but if they would consent---- + +But the consternation, even horror, of their faces at this, to them, +disreputable proposition, told her, before they answered her, that +she could never persuade them to such a step. + +"Och, Susie, are you a loose woman that you talk so light about +leaving your Mister! Who ever heard the likes!" exclaimed Lizzie. + +The three sisters were sitting together on the front porch of the +Reifsville cottage, Susan having driven over from White Oak in the +roadster after the early farm supper, to put before them her plan. + +"It's because I'm not a loose woman that I think I ought to leave +Joe," she tried to explain. "I know how queer it sounds to you and +Addie for me to say I think it's my living with him that's +immoral--but that's what I think." + +"But he's your _Mister_, Susie! How you talk, anyhow!" + +"No, he is not my husband!" she suddenly cried out, passionately. +"He's my keeper, my owner, and I'm his chattel! I can't stand it! I +can't bear it!" + +Her sisters stared in amazement upon her shrinking, shivering body, +her trembling lips, her white face. + +"Don't he use you nice, Susie?" asked Addie, anxiously. + +"For Mother's sake I could have borne it, and if she bad lived longer +I might have gotten used to it. But now it seems so senseless to go +on enduring such a life! I'm young--I'm not twenty-one yet. To +think of living all the rest of my life with him! Oh, Lizzie, I +can't! I just can't!" + +"But what's the matter of him? He seems awful nice and common toward +what his stuck-up brother is!" argued Lizzie. "And he makes you a +good purwider, don't he, Susie?" + +"It's what he is, not what he does!" cried Susan, despairingly. + +"You knowed what he was when you said Yes to him. And even fur Mom's +sake you hadn't ought to have said Yes unlest you knowed you could +stand him pretty good." + +"I know that now. I know I made a terrible mistake. I was an idiot! +There's no excuse for me! But before it's too late, Lizzie," Susan +pleaded, "I want to mend my mistake!" + +"It is too late," Lizzie pronounced. "Would it be treatin' Joe right +and fair to up and leave him and disgrace him so before all the +folks, when you ain't got no good reason except that he mebby +kreistles* you a little?" + + +* Disgusts. + + +Susan had not thought of that--of how unfair it would be to Joe. + +"But he wouldn't deserve any sympathy," she argued, piteously, "for +he backed me into a corner and forced me to marry him--on pain of our +losing our home--when he knew I did not care for him and did not want +to marry him." + +"But you did marry him," said Addie, conclusively. "And what's +done's done." + +"Yes," corroborated Lizzie, "as it is, so it is, and that ends it." + +"Why should it end it? It shan't end it!" cried Susan, fighting for +her very soul. "You must help me to get out of it! You have helped +me all my life--and I never needed your help more than I need it now!" + +"We never helped you to go wrong, Susie--to disgrace and shame us!" +Lizzie maintained. "And this here thing you're astin us to do--to +help you leave your Mister--just like a woman that's got loose morals +that way--it wouldn't be right!" + +"It seems to me you're got it good," said Addie, "with that there +pretty little boy and this here automobile car of Mister's and him so +well-fixed and all, so's you ain't got to worry!" + +"You offer me a stone for bread," responded Susan, hopelessly, as she +rose to leave them. "You would think it right for me to go away from +him if he beat or starved me. You can't see that one's heart and +mind and soul may be starved and torn every hour, every minute! You +can't see!" + +But even as she spoke, Susan realized, with a vague pain in her heart +for her sisters, that perhaps the greater tragedy was theirs--in that +they could not see. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +AUTUMN + +By the time Susan got back to White Oak Farm that September evening +it was dark and late; and Joe, anxiously pacing the front porch of +their picturesque cottage, greeted her crossly. + +"Some married life!--me settin' here alone all evening and you off! +Usin' up gasoline unnecessary! I just knowed it would go like this +if I left you run my car! What did I tell you?" he said, accusingly. + +Susan, offering no response, went into the house, leaving him to put +the car into the garage. + +A few minutes later, however, when he joined her in their room, he +again took up his complaint. + +"I might as well be single again if I got to set alone all evening! +Where was you, anyhow?" + +"Over to Reifsville to see Addie and Lizzie." + +"Sixteen mile there and back! That used up anyhow near two gallon. +And gasoline going up every day higher! What did you have to go over +there fur?" + +"They are lonesome--and so am I." + +"Och, well," returned Joe, softened, "if you was feelin' a little +lonesome, that way, after what's happened, then that's all right. +But leave me tell you somepin, Susan," he said, seating himself in a +rocking chair by the window and feasting his eyes on her young +loveliness as she stood before the bureau with bare arms upraised to +brush her short curly hair. "Be _thankful_ fur your grief fur your +mother! Me, I never knowed my mother. Never knowed what it was to +have no one care fur me in all my life--till I got Josie!" + +"Didn't your wife care for you, Joe?" asked Susan, touched by the +wistfulness in his voice. + +"My wife? Well, it's you that can answer that--whether my wife cares +for me." + +"Your other wife then?" + +"Och, she was so dumb and common, Susan; all she ast of me was that I +make her a good purwider; and in turn she kep' my house nice and +comfortable. That's all there was to it." + +Susan did not ask him what he found more in her. At times she +suspected him of something as near akin to a romantic passion for her +as he was capable of feeling. + +"Well, Susan, what do you think come in the evening mail whiles you +was off?" he inquired as he rocked by the window. + +"A letter from your brother?" + +"Good guess! What do you think he wants me to do yet? _This_ you +won't guess so easy!" + +"To leave here?" + +"How did you know?" cried Joe in surprise. + +"I've wondered and _wondered_ why he has let you stay--you, his +brother, working for him like a menial!" + +"That's what _he_ says in this here letter. He says it mortifies him +and that it had ought to mortify me, too, if I had any pride. Huh!" +grunted Joe. + +"Why doesn't it?" asked Susan. + +"I got my good reasons fur stayin' on here!" returned Joe, darkly, +"and he darsen't chase me off, neither! He knows he darsen't! I'm +a-goin' to write and tell him so! Look-a-here!" he added, taking a +newspaper from his pocket, rising and coming to her to point out a +paragraph, "where it says how Sid and his wife is travellin' with +that there lively set up there at Newport; folks that could buy him +out a thousand times over and never feel it! _He_ can't go their +pace--the pace of the crowd he's tryin' to run with now. He ain't +near rich enough! But Sid he always was awful ambitious that way, to +git in with folks that had more'n what he had. And here's another +piece in the paper," he went on, turning the sheet, "that says where +he was bettin' wery high on some races and how he lost _thirty +thousand dollars_ yet! Thirty thousand, mind you! _Lost_ it! Gosh, +ain't Sid a fool! You just watch out and see how soon he'll git to +the end of his tether now he's got money to spend!" + +Susan plainly perceived that Joe entertained the happiest +anticipations of his brother's speedy ruin. + +"So you see," said Joe, "now that he's blowed in thirty thousand +dollars and more, he wants to come home and stay safe back here fur a +while on the farm; and so he wants me and you to get out before he +comes." + +"Does he say that?" + +"As much as." + +"Then I should think we'd have to go, seeing that he owns the place. +You surely can't stay here if he doesn't want you to." + +"I ain't a-goin'! You'll see what you'll see before I'm done with my +stylish brother Sid!" + +He tossed the paper aside and took a step nearer to her, his eyes +caressing her, his hand raised to fondle her--while she, holding +herself rigid, tried not to betray the repulsion that shook her to +the foundations of her being. And just at that instant, before his +clumsy hand had touched her, a sleepy cry from Josie's room saved +her. She sprang away from her husband and hurried to the baby's +bedside. + +Josie had had a bad dream and was frightened. Susan lifted him from +his crib and sat down to rock him. + +And now, for the first time in her acquaintance with her step-son, he +suddenly responded to her mothering, clasping his fat little arms +tight around her neck as she held him; nestling his curly head +against her breast, cooing and murmuring lovingly in answer to her +low-voiced singing to him. + +It seemed to Susan that at the very first voluntary touch of those +soft baby arms every thwarted motherly instinct of her heart became +alive. An hour ago she had been plotting to cut loose from all the +obligations imposed by her rash and foolish marriage. And now such a +little thing, the clasp of a baby's arms, was binding her fast. + +"I'll bear it for you, Josie, if you'll only love me," she whispered +as she held him close. + +Susan could date from that night a change in the boy. Whatever the +trying peculiarities of his disposition, whatever his violent loyalty +to his father in preference to her, he was nevertheless, after that +night, her child, dependent upon her, jealously fond of her. And +she, from that hour, became his faithful and devoted mother. + +A week after Joe had dispatched his letter to Sidney, in which he +refused to leave White Oak Farm, he came in one day at noon from the +fields with a piece of news which he imparted to Susan at dinner. + +"The housekeeper over at the big house has a letter from Sid's Missus +where it says the house is to be got ready for 'em to come home with +sich a house-party, nex' Sa'rday. Sid and his wife gets here a day +ahead of their comp'ny--on Friday. The housekeeper she sent the +butler to me to say she must have green corn and fresh tomats and +lettuce and grapes and Gawd knows what!" + +Susan, looking very tired from her long morning's housework and +cooking, made no comment, as she poured Joe's coffee and passed it to +him across the table. + +"It's bad enough fur a married man to have to keep so much hired help +as what Sid keeps; but fur his Missus to be that good-for-nothing +that he has to hire someone to do even the _managin'_ yet--a +housekeeper, mind you!--that's goin' _too_ far! Somepin ought to be +did about it!" + +Susan, busily mashing Josie's baked potato, still made no comment. + +"It's squanderin' money somepin fierce to hire so much! What good is +his wife _to_ him, anyhow? That's what I ast you!" + +"Better ask what good is he to her," Susan remarked at last. + +But this was a point of view too foreign to the domestic philosophy +of a Pennsylvania Dutchman to be considered. + +"He's her Mister," was Joe's conclusive response. + +"There, now, Josie, dear," Susan said as she put the child's spoon in +his hand when his potato was ready for him. + +"Wants to be sed! Seed me, Musser!" protested Josie--f's being +always s's in his language. + +As he was quite able to feed himself and as Susan was feeling faint +for food herself, she demurred, appealing to his pride--he was a +great big boy now, not a baby any more; appealing also to his pity +for her who couldn't eat any "din-din" if she had to feed a great +big---- + +"Seed me! Seed me!" clamoured the boy. + +"No, no, Josie must feed himself--like Father! Look at Father!--and +let Mother eat her dinner." + +"Wants to be sed!" howled Josie as Susan turned to her own plate. +"Wants Musser to seed me!" + +But Susan, taking up her knife and fork, ignored his cries. + +Josie cast his spoon upon the floor, slunk down in his high chair, +and sulked. + +Susan paid no attention. + +"He won't eat his dinner if you won't feed him, and he needs his +dinner," Joe objected. + +"He'll eat it if he gets hungry enough, Joe." + +"He's too little to be tormented!" + +"He won't suffer. If you don't interfere, he will soon give in." + +"Wants to be sed!" whimpered Josie. "Seed me!" + +Susan went on eating. + +"If you won't I will," said Joe with an injured air, "and I ain't got +the time to. Will you do it?" + +If she had not been so very tired she might have stuck it out; but a +lassitude of mind and body that made nothing seem worth while save +peace and quiet led her to yield. She rose, picked up the child's +spoon; and sat down again at his side. + +Joe looked pleased and complacent. + +Susan's heart reproached her as she thought, while she fed the child, +"If he were my very own I'd love him too well to spoil him and make +him detestable! I'd love him as a child ought to be loved. I must +try--I must try!" + +"When you stop to think," Joe resumed the discussion of his brother's +affairs, "of all they'll spend over this here comp'ny they're havin' +at Sid's--ten strangers, mind you! To stay from Sa'rday to Monday +yet! Eatin' and carousin'! And a big bunch of hired people doin' +all the work! And after all, what's _to_ it, anyhow?" + +"Your pet dissipation is making money--theirs, spending it. I don't +see much difference between you," said Susan, dully. + +"Och, yes, but I work and purduce something fur other ones. They +don't purduce nothing, that bunch, they only use up. They're like +sich parasites." + +"Hear your daddy, Josie, calling your uncle and aunt potato bugs!" + +"Uncle Tater-Bug!" gurgled Josie. + +His father chuckled. "See how quick he gets you?" he proudly drew +Susan's attention to his son's precocity. "Yes, and potato bugs is +what they are all right, Sid and his Missus!" + +"I wonder whether society will ever learn how to exterminate its +human potato bugs," Susan reflected. "But your real purpose in +working, Joe, doesn't seem to me a bit higher than theirs in +spending; you are both out to enjoy yourselves; you to carouse in +your delightful accumulating and hoarding; they in playing. The +effect on yourselves must be pretty much the same." + +Josie being now comfortably replete with food and having come out +conqueror in his demand to be fed, expressed his satisfaction by +leaning caressingly against Susan, patting her cheek, and murmuring +to her lovingly; a sight which his strangely jealous father never +could stand for more than a minute at a time. Rising abruptly, he +lifted the high chair to his side of the table. + +"Does Josie want some of Pop's pie?" he bargained for the boy's +favour; everything had a commercial value to Joe. "Nice apple pie," +he said, holding a spoonful of the rich crust to Josie's lips. + +"It's very bad for him," Susan objected, "that rich pastry." + +"Och, this good whiles back, before you come, I fed pie to him," +returned Joe. + +"He'll be ill!" warned Susan. + +"He's hearty; he kin eat what I eat. You put too much sugar in your +pies; it's extravagant," Joe complained. "My sugar bill was too high +last week. You ought to watch yourself better, Susan, how you use up +sugar. You ain't been takin' no more cakes over to your folks at +Reifsville, have you--since I tol' you not to?" he asked, +suspiciously. + +"No," she coldly answered. + +"Well, but, Susan, it stands to reason," he argued, "that I done +enough fur your folks. More'n some others would have did, seein' you +didn't fetch me no aus tire. To be sure, I didn't need it, my house +bein' nice furnished a'ready. But other ones would have expected +something in place of a aus tire and I didn't ast nothin' off of you. +And your sisters--where'd they be if I hadn't o' gave 'em a home yet, +heh? You can't look to me to keep on doin' fur 'em! It stands to +reason!" + +All this because she had taken to Addie and Lizzie, one day, half the +batch of "sand tarts" she had baked. + +"Nor you ain't to sneak things to 'em behind my back!" warned Joe. + +Susan, suddenly feeling ill and faint, rose from the table and left +the room. + +Joe, left alone with his boy, looked injured. + +"Ain't got no right to say nawthin, seems!" + +He didn't like being deserted like this at his meals--the only time +he had through the day to be with his delectable bride. For even in +her calico working frock and when tired out and "strubbled"* Susan +was so very good to look at and so "nice to have 'round"; and she +made him so very much more comfortable than his hired housekeepers +had ever done. + + +* Hair mussed. + + +"Got to do my own stretchin', I guess!" he grumbled as he reached for +the coffee pot to refill his cup. "She's got no need to be so +touchy! She's just got to understand from the first that I ain't +supportin' them sisters of hern." + +Meantime Susan, lying on her bed, dry-eyed and staring at the wall, +saw there on its blankness her tragically broken life. + +"So much was done for me--so many sacrifices made--that I might have +something better than they all had ever had! What a hideous, hideous +mess I have made of it!" + +That afternoon the four walls of her cottage seemed to close in upon +her like a jail; she could not endure it. Against all precedent or +reason she shamelessly abandoned a large basket of ironing, took +Josie, and drove over in her husband's car to see her sisters. + +She was never free from anxiety for them, for though they had tried +hard to conceal it from her, she knew well what a hard struggle they +were having to get along. The wages of the necessary hired man to +till their land left them too little income. Susan saw only too +clearly all the many little (and some big) deprivations they were +suffering. + +Joe was so well off (wasn't it a quarter of a million he had +inherited from his uncle?)--he could so easily make life easier for +her sisters---- + +Josie was asleep by the time she reached Reifsville. She left him +lying on the seat of the car while she went into the house to find +Lizzie and Addie. + +The kitchen was empty; they were probably helping their hired man in +the potato patch. + +She went to the settee which stood against the kitchen wall (a settee +being as much a part of a Pennsylvania Dutch kitchen as a cook stove) +and arranged the cushions for Josie before she should bring him in; +and while she was doing this she heard two voices on the porch just +outside the kitchen, a few feet from where she stood, her sister +Lizzie's high-keyed tones answering a man's deep voice; and Susan was +startled at the unusual sound, in this neighbourhood, of good English +and a cultured accent. + +"May I inquah how much ah tuh-nips?" he was asking with a hesitation +which seemed to express a doubt as to whether he did not, perhaps, +mean pumpkins. + +"Did you ast what's turn-ups?" asked Lizzie, doubtfully. + +"Not _what_ they ah; how much they ah; by the bunch. I'm not shu-ah +they grow in bunches, but it seems probable. Grapes do----" + +"Och, no, turn-ups grows one by each that way. Didn't you know +_that_ much?" asked Lizzie with mild wonder, not meaning to be +critical. "It don't seem is if any one could be that dumb as to +think that turn-ups growed in bunches yet! My souls! Our turn-ups," +she added, "is all." + +"All? Are they? All what?" + +"They're _all_, I sayed." + +"All--er--ripe?" ventured the man, tentatively, almost timidly. + +"Och, I mean they was all solt at market; they're _all_." + +"I surmise," responded the deep though gentle voice, "that these are +agricultural terms with which I am unfamilyah. We'll let it pass. +May I ask, ah you not a Mennonite, madam?" + +"Yes, but I'm a Old." + +"'A Old?"' + +"I belong to the Old Mennonites." + +"Are there, then, also, Young Mennonites?" + +"_New_ Mennonites," Lizzie corrected him with a little irrepressible +chuckle of amusement. + +"And what is the difference between the Old and the New?" + +"The Old has more light." Lizzie stated an indisputable and obvious +fact. + +"It must be a comfort to you to know that," responded the man, +sympathetically. + +Susan's curiosity was aroused. She tiptoed to the window, carefully +lifted a corner of the blind, and peeped. + +Her heart gave a great leap in her bosom as she recognized, in the +interesting looking young man standing at the porch steps, dressed in +motoring cap and coat, wearing eye-glasses attached to a heavy black +ribbon, an old acquaintance, the brother of one of those friends of +her school days at whose home she had so often visited, whose letters +she had left unanswered. + +Robert Arnold, a rising author, had been one of her several ardent +"followers" in those days a few years ago, which now seemed so far, +far back in the past! + +She saw that his car was standing in the road behind the house. What +was he doing out here? Looking for local colour for stories, perhaps? + +"In what way do the Old Mennonites have more light?" she heard him +ask poor Lizzie. + +"Well, us Old Mennonites ain't so narrer-minded like what the New is; +we wear the waists of our frocks more fashionable, to come a little +below the belt that way; you see?--where with the New, their waists +must end at the belt. They claim theirn is more after the Gawspel +than what ourn is; but I don' know," said Lizzie, thoughtfully. +"Sometimes, do you know, I think theirn is just as fashionable. But +I often says to my neighbour (she's a New--'Manda Slosser by name) I +says, 'It ain't our clo'es that saves us,' I says, 'nor the name of +our church, Old _or_ New. Yous New Mennonites,' I says, 'is a little +narrer'." + +"You are undoubtedly right," agreed Mr. Arnold. "By the way, can you +tell me who is the school teacher of this village?" + +"Emmy Slosser's her name. She lives next door to us here." + +"Slosser? Are you sure? Isn't it Schrekengust?" + +"Och, no, Susie give up the Reifsville school it's over a year ago +a'ready." + +"Susie! That's it! You know her?" cried Mr. Arnold, eagerly. +"Where can I find her--Susan Schrekengust?" + +"Are you acquainted to Susie then?" asked Lizzie, cautiously. +Susan's sisters knew very well how she had tried, for over a year, to +elude her old school friends in the city. + +"My sister and Miss Susan were intimate friends," replied Mr. Arnold. +"And I--Miss Schrekengust and I were very good friends, too. But we +have not heard from her for over a year, though we have both written +to her repeatedly. So, as a matter of fact, I came out here to-day +to look her up, and not to inquah the price of tuh-nips. When I +mentioned tuh-nips I was really only feeling my way a bit. Can you +tell me where I can find Miss Schrekengust?" + +"You can't find her," answered Lizzie. "She's moved away." + +"I hope you can tell me, then, where she has gone?" + +"Susie she got married and moved away." + +"Married!" + +Robert Arnold looked distinctly dismayed; Susan, watching from behind +the blind, was sure of it. + +"Yes, she got married," repeated Lizzie. + +"But--but she never let her friends know! Whom did she marry?" asked +Mr. Arnold in a tone of dejection. + +"A party by the name of Joe Houghton she got married to." + +"Houghton? No relation, I suppose, to Mr. Sidney Houghton of White +Oak Farm?" + +"Yes, Joe he's a half-brother of hisn." + +"Indeed! Miss Schrekengust married into the Houghton family! Dear +me!" murmured Mr. Arnold; and Susan heard in his tone, as plainly as +though he had spoken, his surprise that she had so risen in the world +from a humble little village school teacher. To be sure, Mr. Arnold +had never seen Joe. + +"Quite a rise in the world for Miss Schrekengust, eh?" he said to +Lizzie, tentatively, as though putting out a feeler. + +"Och, but our Susie she claims she had it a lot easier before she got +married." + +"Oh, these modern Feminists!--who think themselves utterly abused if +they're not drudging for their own living!" cried Mr. Arnold. + +"Yes, well, but Susie she's so much more fur her books and all like +that than what she is fur housework that I don't think she likes it +wery good, bein' married. She enjoyed herself more singlewise; for +all, they say you have anyhow trouble even if you ain't married. And +it's true, too, fur I seen a lot of trouble a'ready," sighed Lizzie, +"and I ain't got no Mister." + +"I'm sorry to hear that our little friend isn't happy----" + +"Well, you see, she's so grand educated that way, our Susie is, you +couldn't expec' her to be satisfied with kitchen work all the time. +Us we sent her to school till she was seventeen a'ready! Yes, +indeed! If you knowed her so well, _I_ don't have to tell you how +good educated she is. Ain't I don't?" + +"You--you are related to her?" asked Mr. Arnold, looking bewildered. + +"Me, I'm her sister." + +"Oh! And this is her home?" + +"Yes, till she got married a'ready." + +"If you are Susan's sister, I'm very glad to meet you," said Mr. +Arnold, holding out his hand. "You must often have heard Susan speak +of us--the Arnolds?" + +"Och, yes! She went often a'ready to wisit at your grand place in +Middleburg! Ain't? So you're Mr. Arnold! Well, well! It wonders +me! Susie will be surprised to hear you come to look her up!" + +"Does she live near here?" + +"No, she lives off." + +"Far off?" + +"Well," said Lizzie, on her guard, "a good pieceways off she lives." + +"Can you give me her address? + +"I ain't got it wery handy." + +"You--you don't want me to have it, Miss Schrekengust?" + +"I--I'd have to ast Susie first," faltered Lizzie, embarrassed, "if +she wants you to." + +It was Mr. Arnold's turn, now, to look embarrassed. "I beg pardon, +Miss Schrekengust, if I am trespassing! Miss Susan--Mrs. +Houghton--has given us to understand plainly enough, I'm sure, that +she did not care any longer for our friendship. But we've not found +it very easy to give her up, you see--we--we---- Will you tell her, +please, when you write to her, or see her, that I called? And that +my sister sends her love? And that we're not forgetting her and +never shall? My sister and I are coming down next Saturday to White +Oak Farm to a house party that Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Houghton are +having (Mrs. Sidney Houghton is an old friend of my sister), and as +we knew Susan lived in this vicinity, we thought we'd look her up. I +came here to-day to try to find Susan and tell her we'd be in her +neighbourhood for three days and that she could not escape us! But +of course--well, I shall be glad to have you tell her I called. +Good-by, Miss Schrekengust," he concluded, again offering his hand. + +"But can't you stop and pick a piece* first?" asked Lizzie, +hospitably. "I can make supper done till a little while yet. To be +sure, us we eat wery plain and common; but if you'll just take it as +it comes that way----" + + +* "Pick a piece"--have a luncheon. + + +"You are very kind and I appreciate your invitation, but----" + +He murmured elaborate excuses and thanks, and was gone. + +The blind dropped from Susan's hand. She stood motionless, overcome, +though her heart was beating fast. The sight of this old friend's +face, the sound of his voice, were bringing back overwhelmingly dear +memories of happiness; arousing suddenly her slumbering youth which +she had thought forever dead; stirring in her the old unconquerable +love of life that had so abounded in her in days long past. The +possibility of really living again and finding joy in life was borne +in upon her with a rush. + +Lizzie did not come into the kitchen. She had probably gone back at +once to the truck patch to join Addie and the hired man. Susan felt, +now, that she would rather not see her sisters this afternoon. She +left the house and got into the car beside the still slumbering Josie. + +On her way home she tried to visualize clearly the situation in which +she found herself. Here were her old, close, and loved friends, +Eleanor and Robert Arnold, who were at the same time friends of her +sister-in-law, coming to the Houghtons' house party. And here was +she, living in the tenant-farmer's cottage within a stone's throw of +"the big house"--so far from being one of her sister-in-law's house +party that she was not even acquainted with her. A unique situation, +truly! It almost moved her to laughter. + +"I suppose I can, if I want to, manage to keep out of sight of the +guests for a day or two, but I certainly could not manage it for +longer." + +To present Joe to the Arnolds as her husband! + +"And Robert thinks it must be such a pleasant change from school +teaching to have married into the Houghton family!" + +It would give Robert and Eleanor a dreadful shock to find her married +to an individual like Joe! And it wasn't a thing you could decently +explain. You didn't go about apologizing for the crudity of your +husband as you might for the incompetence of your cook! + +She remembered Sidney's having once said to her, "I never could see +why Uncle George resented Joe's marrying a farmer's servant girl; no +_lady_ would ever have married him!" + +When she reached home, the question she had been pondering during all +her eight-mile drive still remained unsolved--should she yield to +this stirring of new life in her heart, to which the sight of Robert +Arnold had given birth; meet her old friends and put her situation to +the test; let it either work itself out into something that would +perhaps make life of worth to her once more, or throw her back again +upon herself, into a deeper solitude than ever? If the latter, she +would have only herself to blame; certainly she could not reproach +her friends, since by her own acts she had placed herself where even +the most broad-minded and charitable of those who had cared for her +must find that the price of friendship with her was rather greater +than it was worth. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE HOUSE PARTY + +Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Houghton found themselves alone together longer +and more intimately in their Pullman drawing-room, on their homeward +journey from Newport to White Oak Farm, than they had been at any +time in the past six weeks. Even Georgie was not by to disturb their +tête-à -tête, for his mother had established him and his nurse in a +section of another car; not, indeed, to insure her uninterrupted +isolation with her husband, but in order to escape any possibility of +annoyance from the child. + +This detachment of the young couple, however, from all the world, +during a ten-hours' journey, did not appear to conduce greatly to +their happiness. They were both looking rather jaded from their +recently overdone social life; their faces bore the stamp of that +discontent and weakness which will so soon mar the countenances of +those who live to no purpose; who, while giving no sort of service to +society, prey upon those who do serve. They seemed to have nothing +to talk about together; and this absolute absence of any common +interests was a dreary manifestation of the deadly emptiness of their +pleasure-seeking lives. They read newspapers and magazines, but did +not speak to each other of what they read. They loafed, ate, yawned, +slept. Once for five minutes they did become a little animated over +a delectable bit of Newport scandal. But they quickly lapsed again +into lassitude and boredom. + +In repose Sidney's face looked more than discontented. He was +evidently nervous and worried. + +He made frequent visits to the next car to see Georgie. But Mrs. +Houghton never went near the little boy during the entire trip, nor +was the child brought by his nurse to see her. + +It was toward the end of their journey that she roused herself to +discuss with her husband the entertainment of the house party which +was to arrive at White Oak Farm the day after their return home. + +"If the wine you ordered from New York doesn't come in time, what +shall we do? You can't give the Fairfaxes and the Sherwins the sort +of stuff you'd buy in Middleburg," she said. + +"Of course not. Let us hope it will come in time," he replied. + +"It's rather absurd, you know, our trying to entertain such people as +the Fairfaxes and the Sherwins at White Oak Farm; we haven't enough +to offer them. Nothing, indeed, but a rather attractive old +homestead! We ought not to have undertaken it, really. You were +foolish to insist upon it. You know, my dear, you do have rather +vulgar ambitions!" + +"As usual, you misunderstand me, Laura. It's not 'vulgar ambition' +that makes me want to return the very great hospitality we've been +accepting from both those families." + +"They will probably be bored to death!" Mrs. Houghton shrugged. +"That's why I asked the Arnolds, when I found that the Fairfaxes +admired Robert's magazine stories. And Eleanor is always good +company." + +"It was a good idea," Sidney agreed, "to ask the Arnolds. I'm glad +you thought of it." + +And then suddenly, with a violent mental jolt, he remembered +something--it was Eleanor Arnold who, at a "frat" dance, nearly three +years ago, had introduced him to Susan Schrekengust! The Arnolds +knew Susan! _Why_ had he not remembered it before?--in time to stop +that invitation! + +"_Now_ what the devil's to pay!" he thought in utter consternation. + +"Robert and Eleanor will certainly help to make things go," said his +wife, serenely. + +"Help to make things go to hell!" he thought with an inward frenzy of +apprehension. + +"It's damned awkward that Joe won't move away, isn't it?" he +appealed, in a shaking voice, to his wife. + +Laura glanced at him in surprise. His face was distorted with +anxiety. + +"Dear me, you take it tragically, don't you? Why don't you make him +go? Your reasons for tolerating him have never been very clear to +me." + +"He can injure us! He has suspicions about Georgie! He'd be only +too glad to have White Oak Farm go to _his_ boy! I dare not offend +him--I----" + +"Oh, bother! For the sake of that child you are letting your whole +life be spoiled! I've no patience with you!" + +Sidney shrank away from her into a huddled heap and did not answer. + +"It certainly is to be hoped," she said, presently, "that our guests +won't discover your relationship to your hired farmer living in the +tenant's cottage!" + +"It's a beastly situation!" exclaimed Sidney. + +"And for the sake of that child you endure it! You might consider me +a little and not subject me to such embarrassment!" + +"I'm as much embarrassed as you are! But, Laura," he pleaded, "don't +try to make me be false to the decentest thing in me--my love for +Georgie!" + +"When your love for him makes you sacrifice me, you can't expect me +to get enthusiastic about it! And now there's that girl your brother +has married--it's to be hoped she won't presume upon family ties to +intrude upon us! However," Laura suddenly dismissed the whole matter +with another shrug of her shoulders, "let us drop the subject! I +simply don't intend to let people like that prey upon my mind!" + +"But you'll have to let them prey upon your mind if the Arnolds and +the rest of them discover Joe! He'll take good care to _let_ himself +be known, I'm afraid!" + +"Then why on earth did you insist upon having this party?" + +"I didn't ask the Arnolds." + +"But the others. Why, if you won't make your brother leave, do you +subject yourself and me to the humiliation of entertaining a house +party where he will be all over the landscape in his shirt sleeves or +overalls, talking that crazy Pennsylvania Dutch lingo he has and +making us ridiculous!" + +"I--I thought a crowd of guests would cover the awkwardness of your +not calling on Joe's wife--I----" + +Laura laughed with genuine amusement. "Call on her! I! She'd +hardly expect it, Sidney, I should think!" + +"Why not? It seems to me it's just what she would expect!" + +"Does it? Well, you and I never do seem to see anything under heaven +from the same point of view! But I should think even you would +realize the absurdity of suggesting that I call on your +tenant-farmer's wife!--even if she is your sister-in-law. Any girl +that _could_ marry that half-brother of yours would be impossible!" + +"She isn't!" Sidney broke forth with a hot impetuosity that amazed +himself. But almost instantly he became cautious again. "She--she +does not look impossible, Laura," he concluded, tamely. + +"I didn't know you had met her. Have you?" + +"I--I saw her one day in front of the cottage." + +"She can't possibly be the girl I saw one day on the lawn at White +Oak, coming from Joe's cottage. That girl was--well, she was pretty +and stylish and well-bred looking. I thought she was someone who had +come to call on me--no, it's not possible that Joe could have married +a girl like that!" + +"But remember, Joe's rich enough to have baited bigger game than that +little school teacher!" + +"No amount of riches, with your brother Joe tacked on, could have +been a bait big enough to lure a really nice girl, Sidney. You know +that perfectly well." + +"Have it your own way!" he crossly retorted. + +His mind was torn with a dozen conflicting fears. He was afraid of +Joe's resentment if Laura did not call on Susan; yet feared a +betrayal of his guilty secret if the two women did meet. Association +with or aloofness from his brother's household seemed equally +dangerous and impossible. He feared a scandal; he feared Laura's +indignation and resentment; he feared the loss to his son of his +inheritance. And he did not in the least know how to meet any of +these dangers that menaced him. + +Mingled with his fears were other emotions not so unworthy: a deep +self-abasement, never absent from his heart, for the injury he had +done and was doing to Susan; a great sense of loss and emptiness +because of the wonderful comradeship as well as of the great love +that had been theirs; a painful humiliation in the realization of +Susan's deep contempt for him. + +But presently the quite practical and sordid difficulty that was +causing him, just now, intense anxiety, overshadowed all the other +troubles of his mind. + +"Another devil of a mess," he said to his wife, "my being obliged to +get some ready money right away! My losses over those damned races +have just exactly wiped out over a year's income!" + +"Don't look to me," she warned him. "I shan't give you another +dollar of _my_ income, Sidney! You already owe me half my year's +allowance! And of course I am perfectly aware, my dear, that you'll +never dream of paying it back to me!" + +"I shan't have to--because you'll manage to _get_ it back!" he +retorted. + +"I shall do my best to," she blandly answered. + +"I don't have to worry about _you_! I've got enough of your unpaid +bills in my desk to cover more than all you've loaned me!" + +"See that you pay them!" + +"I shall have to borrow money from Joe," he said, hopelessly. + +"Why do you get it from _him_? Why not from someone else? He +demands such awfully tight security--first thing you know _he'll_ own +everything you inherited from your uncle." + +"I borrow from him because he's got it to lend and money's scarce +just now. He read in the papers of my heavy losses in the races and +he wrote and _offered_ to lend me money. Pretty decent of him, +wasn't it? I guess--I guess," faltered Sidney, "he's feeling extra +good and happy just now--with his new wife and----" + +He rose abruptly. + +"I'll run over and see how Georgie's getting along." + +But he did not go to Georgie. He went, instead, to the day-coach +smoking car, sat down on the very last seat, and lit a cigar. + +He had found it necessary to escape precipitately from Laura to +conceal from her a threatened flood of emotion. Ever since he had +first learned of Susan's inexplicable marriage to Joe he had been +astonished and disgusted by his own overwhelming and unreasonable +jealousy, envy, chagrin--all the more absurd because Susan could not +possibly care for Joe. + +He wondered now, for the hundredth time, as he drearily gazed out of +the window upon the autumn-coloured wooded hills that sped by, what +had made Susan do it. He had been entirely insincere in suggesting +to his wife that Joe's money had been the bait. Laura had answered +truly that the money of a Crœsus, with Joe attached, could not +have tempted "a nice girl." + +Did Susan, perhaps, have a suspicion---- + +No, that was impossible; quite, quite impossible. + +The Schrekengusts had been in dire straits; Susan had lost her +school, Mr. Schrekengust had died, their property was mortgaged, the +elder sisters were getting on in years; had Joe deliberately driven +that lovely girl into a corner and forced her to bargain with him for +the livelihood of those dear to her? It would be like him! Oh, it +would be like him! And she--rather than accept help from her +"betrayer"--had preferred this marriage! + +"How she must loathe me!" he inwardly groaned. + +He sighed profoundly as he thought what delight he himself would have +found in using his wealth to give comfort and happiness to Susan! + +"What a mate she'd have been! My life couldn't have been so sordid +with her at my side!--her zest for life, her fun, her intelligence, +her warm, tender heart, her loveliness! That _Joe_ should have all +that! Oh, damn!" + +However, he could not waste himself upon futile regrets while this +new danger stared him in the face--those Arnolds were bound to see +Susan and recognize her! + +The one mortal dread of his life, these days, was that Laura should +discover Susan's identity. + +"My predicament is perfectly ridiculous! And dangerous! Damned +dangerous!" + +But though from the very hour of his arrival at home he found +himself, in spite of all his apprehensions, thrilling at the fact of +Susan's nearness, peering through every window he passed for a +possible glimpse of her about the grounds or near her cottage, he was +nevertheless immensely relieved to find that she seemed to be +assiduously keeping herself out of sight. + +She, meantime, was experiencing almost as many qualms and emotions as +was Sidney himself. The sudden awakening of her old self which the +sight and sound of her girlhood's friend, Robert Arnold, had brought +to her, gave her a haunting, wistful longing to meet and greet him +and his sister again, even while it revealed to her more poignantly +than ever the hopeless degradation of her marriage; a degradation so +much more real than that of her tragic betrayal at Sidney's hands. + +"To have to feel ashamed of your husband!" she would muse over her +household drudgery (for such it was to her because her heart was not +in it). "Ashamed of the one nearest to you in all the world!--to +whom you would naturally want to feel only loyalty--I am ashamed of +being ashamed!" + +She reflected that if her own deep and strong feelings about some +things were natural, then society must have very distorted standards. + +"The things usually considered shameful!" she thought, wonderingly. +"And the things that are considered respectable!" + +Life seemed to her an inexplicable muddle; all her old standards of +right and wrong in confusion; the very foundations of the universe +knocked out from under her. + +It was on Saturday afternoon, when the house party was gathered about +a tea table on the lawn, that one of the guests, Mrs. Fairfax, a +comely young matron, drew attention to the picturesque little cottage +behind the big white house. + +"A tenant's cottage, I suppose, Mr. Houghton?" + +"The farmer's, yes," Sidney nodded. + +"Pretty! So cosy! I can imagine being quite happy in a dear little +home like that, with no servant worries, no tiresome social +obligations, freedom for doing what I love to do--read and dig a +garden and study music; no fears of a jealous and outraged mob +bringing retribution upon me for having enjoyed such ease and comfort +all my life as _they've_ never had a chance at, poor things! Oh, I +believe I'd love it!" + +"What hinders your having it, Mrs. Fairfax?" asked Eleanor Arnold, +"if you really mean that you'd love it?" + +Miss Arnold was a young girl of an arresting personality. There was +a self-contained calm in her way of sitting very still, her +capable-looking hands folded in her lap, her clear, direct gaze +shining out of a pale face encircled in thick braids of straight, +dark hair. She was keenly and critically observant, yet seemed not +unsympathetic. + +"What hinders me? _That!_" Mrs. Fairfax pointed a forefinger across +the table at her husband, a rather foppishly dressed, futile-looking +person who lived in idleness on his "unearned increments". + +"Nuff said," nodded Eleanor, who yearned to add, "Do you think 'that' +worth the sacrifice of two minutes of your short life?" + +"It makes me laugh," said Mr. Fairfax, "to hear Jane talk about +yearning for the simple life! If any one was ever born that was more +dependent than Jane upon all her little comforts and +conveniences--lead me to her! Jane wouldn't have any trouble meeting +that test of royal blood, you wot of, in the fairy story--a maiden's +sensitiveness to a pea pod under several mattresses--a _pile_ of +mattresses! Jane would feel that pea pod quicker'n your royal +princess, I bet you! Don't you know, Janie," he appealed to her, +"that the farmer's wife in yonder humble cot, whom you are envying, +does her own washing and baking and scrubbing and cooking and----" + +"Don't spoil the sweet picture I had made for myself," protested +Jane, sentimentally, "of rural peace and simplicity, with leisure for +congenial occupations, such as we of our class never have! Let me +believe, Will, dear, that _some_ people in this world do lead +satisfying lives!" + +"Moles and cows do perhaps," responded her husband as he rose and +strolled over to a rustic bench under a tree behind the tea table, +where pretty young Mrs. Sherwin made room for him by her side. + +"Mr. Arnold!" Mrs. Fairfax turned to the young author, Robert +Arnold, whose thoughtful, earnest face stood out in marked contrast +to the unintelligent and somewhat coarse countenances of the other +three men of the group, "you have the honour and distinction of +meeting a long-felt want in my life! I've always yearned to +know--really _know_--a distinguished novelist whose books I've loved. +But now I find to my dismay that the yearning, like that for 'strong +drink,' as the W.C.T.U's call it, increases in proportion as it's +gratified! So I beg and implore you, Mr. Arnold, to bring an author +or two to see me every time you come to the city. Will you?" + +"But 'author' is such a very general term! Please, I beg you, be +specific. What special brand of author are you yearning to meet? I +might grab the wrong kind. There are so many varieties; there is, +for instance, the red-blooded variety; there is the +precious-lavender-and-lace kind; there is the gosh-ding-it sort; the +Close-to-Nature style; the cabaret brand; the +week-end-on-Long-Island-society sort--and many others. So, please, +kind lady, name your brand." + +"The kind I'm yearning to meet is the author who reads and +understands women, Mr. Arnold," said Jane with an earnest intensity. + +"But Shakspere's been dead some time. Ask me something easy." + +"I'll tell you the brand you _don't_ want to introduce to our wives!" +Mr. Andrew Sherwin, a ruddy, heavily built banker, warned the author. +"The kind that will put ideas into their heads! Keep 'em off! Jane, +there, and my wife, too," nodding toward the tree behind the tea +table where Mrs. Sherwin sat with Mr. Fairfax, "laps up ideas as a +cat laps milk! For God's sake keep off authors with ideas!" + +"Don't worry! Authors, these days, don't deal in ideas, only style. +We leave ideas to bankers." + +"Well, _I've_ met one or two writing chaps that were just chuck full +of stuff--new ideas about human brotherhood; impracticable rot like +that! This is no time for new ideas! We've got trouble enough to +keep things going smoothly!" + +"'No time for new ideas?'" repeated Arnold, grinning. "I suppose +that's what the Romans and Jews told Jesus; and what the Diet of +Worms told Luther; and what the Roman Catholics told Galileo when he +got hold of the very dangerous new idea that the world moved; they +weren't ready to have it move; it greatly annoyed them to have it +move! It suited their vested interests to have it remain as stable +as they'd always thought it!" + +"That's different," protested Sherwin a little bewildered. "That's +history. I'm talking about the present." + +"Which is history, too." + +"Are you a Socialist?" asked Sherwin, suspiciously. + +"Of course he's not!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, indignantly. "Don't be +rude and insulting, Andrew! As if a man who is a gentleman could +advocate his wife's sitting down to visit with the washwoman; and +then those community kitchens Socialists would have--how absurd to +suppose that we could eat the food that labourers like!" + +"Are you under the impression, dear madam, that you are discussing +Socialism?" asked Mr. Arnold. + +"Of course I am! Aren't I?" + +"Not any brand I ever heard of." + +"What is the bloomin' thing then?" she asked, plaintively. + +"It is what we of the privileged class must inevitably oppose, +because fundamentally it means (as I understand it) giving everyone +an equal chance in the race of life; which would, I fear, find some +of us in very different places from those we now occupy. Some +peasants who are incipient aristocrats intellectually or spiritually, +like Gorky or Robert Burns, would forge ahead of the line which some +of us hold--while we'd fall far back, perhaps, into the peasant +ranks----" + +"We don't propose to submit, in this country," exclaimed Sherwin, +indignantly, "to the rule of any one class!" + +"But that's what we always have submitted to. In all nations, in all +times, the labouring class has submitted to the rule of the +capitalistic class. The strong have ever ruled, and the strong have +been the capitalists. In our day it seems to be coming about that +the workers are going to be the strong----" + +"This constant menace of changing our fundamental institutions," +interrupted Sherwin, "ought to be suppressed by law! It can only +lead to chaos!" + +"Well," returned Arnold, serenely, "out of chaos came heaven and +earth. But I never heard of anything good coming out of +'suppression' and autocracy. By the way, Mr. Houghton," Arnold +closed the discussion by turning to Sidney, "you have a brother, +haven't you? Joseph's his name?" + +"A half-brother." + +"Does he live in this neighbourhood?" + +"Ye--yes--ah, excuse me a minute, please, will you? I'll--I'll be +back in a minute," responded Sidney, leaving the table abruptly and +striding away across the lawn. + +But both Eleanor and Robert Arnold saw, as he left them, that his +face had gone white at Robert's question. + +Eleanor turned to Mrs. Houghton. "Robert and I have just heard, +Laura, that your brother-in-law has married my old school friend, +Susan Schrekengust. How lucky you are to have acquired anything so +delightful in the way of a sister-in-law as Susan! Don't you think +you are?" + +"I've never seen her--but----" + +"I thought," said Eleanor, as Laura hesitated, "that I understood Mr. +Houghton to say they lived in this neighbourhood." + +"They've just been married--and we've been away. Will you have some +hot tea? You must be mistaken, Eleanor," Laura added in a lower tone +intended only for Eleanor's ear, as she refilled her cup; "no friend +of yours would have married Joe Houghton; he's a perfect boor! Some +mistake, my dear." + +"There must be," said Eleanor, surprised. "Susan would never have +married a perfect boor!" + +"Rather not!" corroborated Robert who had caught his sister's +low-spoken remark. + +"The girl Sidney's half-brother married," Laura explained, "was a +country school teacher, I understand; you couldn't have known her." + +"But Susan was a country school teacher!" said Eleanor. + +"And," added Robert, "Susan's own sister told me she had married +Sidney's brother. You must be mistaken, Laura, about Sidney's +brother. He's evidently a diamond in the rough, for Susan to have +married him. Where do they live?" + +"Sidney will give you their address," answered Laura, turning away to +speak to Mrs. Sherwin and Mr. Fairfax behind her. + +"Want some hot tea back there?" + +Robert and Eleanor exchanged a swift glance over the too-palpable +fact that the Houghtons had something to conceal about their +brother's marriage. + +Their unwilling attention was presently forced upon the chatter of +Mrs. Fairfax who loved nothing so much as to talk about herself, her +"moods," her unique characteristics, her "reactions" upon her +environment and its "reactions" upon her; she was either too +self-absorbed as she would talk on and on interminably, or too +lacking in imagination, ever to sense the boredom of her hearers. + +Mrs. Houghton had gone into the house to answer a telephone call, so +the six guests--the Arnolds, the Sherwins, the Fairfaxes--were left +to themselves; the Arnolds, Mrs. Fairfax, and Mr. Sherwin, the portly +banker, being gathered about the tea table, while Mrs. Sherwin and +Mr. Fairfax sat a few yards away under the tree. + +"It's the very strangest thing about me!" Mrs. Fairfax was saying, +leaning back in her wicker chair in an utter abandonment to an orgy +of self-analysis, to which her three hearers might or might not +listen, she didn't notice, "The way my moods never seem to match +William's moods. If he happens to be in a sentimental mood, asking +me how much I still care, and all that sort of thing--_you_ +know--then I'm just likely to be feeling utterly matter-of-fact and +talk about dances or motors or making fudge! It is so odd! And if +_I_ happen to be sentimental and want to talk of my moods or +feelings, or of my serious thoughts, then he's apt to want to talk +about a baseball game! It _is_ so queer! _Isn't_ it? And yet, +William and I are so perfectly mated! We understand each other so +perfectly; we have no interests apart from each other; we do +everything together--_everything_!" + +"There's one thing you don't do together," said Eleanor, wickedly, +pointing to the bench under the tree which she alone faced; and they +all turned to see this sentimental lady's husband kissing rather too +ardently Mrs. Sherwin's white hand. + +"We trust each other perfectly, William and I," Mrs. Fairfax +responded, undaunted. But she rose to stroll away, and Mr. Sherwin, +more alarmed at the prospect of being left alone with the formidable +and confusing conversation of the Arnolds than at the continuation of +Mrs. Fairfax's monologue, rose also with as much alacrity as his +corpulence permitted and went with her. + +"Isn't it a tragical or comical irony of fate," remarked Robert +Arnold when he and his sister were left alone, "that the feminine +egotist, the woman who is most interested in herself, is the very +least interesting to other people." + +"It's rather deadly here, isn't it?" sighed Eleanor. + +"I'm getting lots of story stuff!" + +"Yes! Of such 'stuff' are stories made; some stories." + +"It isn't necessary, my dear, for you to try to counteract that +woman's flattery." + +"Do you suppose, Robert, that Mr. Andrew Sherwin ever reads _any_ +thing?" + +"Well, no one ever caught him at it." + +"I had so counted on finding dear old Susan here! I'm horribly +disappointed! How refreshing she'd be!" + +"They act as though they had her concealed in a tower!" said Robert. + +"They do conceal their baby! I've not had a glimpse of him. You'd +never know they had a baby, would you?" + +"Go easy, my dear! It might be deformed or something; don't inquire +for it," Robert warned her. + +"I'll be discreet." + +"Discreet? You? I'm not asking the impossible! Only don't jump in +with both feet." + +Meantime, Sidney, to escape Arnold's questions, and to conceal the +betraying embarrassment they had caused, had walked away to the back +of the house to get himself in hand. + +But from the terrace behind the house he saw something which served +greatly to augment his agitation--Georgie and his nurse going down +the path which-led straight to Joe's little cottage. + +With a quick thrill of apprehension Sidney leapt down the slope to +check them. + +"I've told that girl to keep him away from there," he muttered +angrily to himself. + +But his interference came too late. With his heart in his mouth, he +saw, as he stopped and stood stock still to watch, Susan sitting with +Josie on the grass under a tree in front of her house, holding out +her arms to Georgie, who was toddling straight toward her with his +hands outstretched to take hers. Evidently the two were good friends +and this was not their first meeting! + +The very thing he had been dreading! Were his worst fears to be +realized? + +With a bound he stood in the midst of them, his face as white as +chalk, his chair dishevelled, his eyes wild. He seized Georgie +almost out of Susan's arms, casting a glance of angry reproach at the +nurse, as he perched the boy high on his shoulders. + +"Why do you bring him here to annoy this lady?" he harshly demanded +of the maid. + +But Georgie, who usually welcomed his father with rapture, now kicked +and struggled to free him, self, to reach the goal for which he had +been making so eagerly. + +"Down, Daddy! Me down!" he clamoured, wriggling like an eel, sliding +down his father's arm to the ground and rushing to Susan. + +"You kin see fo' yo'se'f, Mistah Houghton!" the nurse defended +herself. "I tries to keep him away f'om her like you tells me to, +but I cayn't! The minute he's outdo's he wants to run down heah to +his aunty and his li'l cousin. An' anyhow he don' git ho _harm_ +here, Mistah Houghton!" + +Sidney, with throbbing heart, gazed down upon the picture on the +grass at his feet, his little son in Susan's arms, their faces close, +the child's eyes and hers seeming to melt into each other, himself +disregarded---- + +Suddenly Josie, his face distorted with jealous rage, had his fingers +in Georgie's curls. Georgie, howling, retaliated valiantly by +pulling at Josie's hair, and a tug of war followed which was stopped +only by the combined efforts of Sidney and Susan to separate the +combatants. + +When peace had been restored by Susan's placing a boy on either side +of her impartially, Sidney abruptly ordered the nurse to go back to +the house. "I'll bring Georgie home," he said. + +As soon as the girl had turned the corner and disappeared around the +cottage he threw himself on the grass at Susan's feet. + +"Look here, Susan," he exclaimed in mingled indignation and fear, +"did you marry Joe Houghton to avenge yourself on me? Just to keep +me in hot water by your living here at my door! And is it you that +is keeping Joe here on this place when I want to be rid of him? If +my guess is wrong, then _what_, in the name of God, made you marry +him?" + +"You did!" came Susan's swift, breathless answer. "I married him to +save my mother from being bribed by you to leave her old home! I +thought it would kill her to go! And then," her voice quivered; +"after all, my sacrifice was for nothing. Mother died a month after +my marriage!" + +"You blame _me_ for your marrying him!" exclaimed Sidney. + +"I believe my father died of worry and grief; I tried to save Mother +from the same fate by marrying Joe, so that she need not yield to +your bribe or threat or whatever it was that you held over her to +force her from her home!" + +"Oh, Susan! I've done you even greater wrong than I realized!" + +"It's the wrong that I've done to myself that matters!" she said, +sadly. "If I'd had any sense, if I'd been worth anything, you +couldn't have wronged me!" + +"I'm not happy, Susan! I don't believe I'll ever be happy again!" + +"Gracious! Do you think you deserve to be?" + +"But that _I_ should have driven you to marrying a fellow like +Joe--you! He's so utterly unworthy of you--so----" + +"Not more so than you were, God knows! Joe's at least ruggedly +honest. He wouldn't lie and steal and--oh, your boasted Houghton +blood seems to me very bad blood! If our child had lived I'd have +hoped she'd have none of it; that she'd inherit only the clean, +upright, simple soul of my father!" + +"Let us be thankful she didn't live, Susan!" he said, his eyes +shifting from hers--but coming back surreptitiously to note the +effect of his words. + +"That I must be thankful for that is, as I told you, the one thing I +can never, never forgive you for!" + +"And you will, then, take your vengeance upon me," he said, +fearfully, "by making trouble for me with my wife?" + +"I think I told you before that 'vengeance' has no appeal for me. I +am not enough interested in your life, Sidney, to go out of my way +either to help or to harm you." + +"I've harmed _you_ so much, it's hard for me to believe you wouldn't +use your present great opportunities to--to come back!" + +"Yes, you _would_ believe that!" she said, listlessly. + +Sidney tugged at the grass savagely. "Oh, I know you think I'm all +sorts of a cad!" he said. + +"Naturally." + +He groaned inwardly; he had meant to lead up tactfully to a hint or a +plea that she keep out of the way of the Arnolds while they were +here; but the tone of their conversation was certainly not propitious +for such a suggestion! It might have the effect of making her +deliberately and perversely seek them out! Better trust to luck that +she and they would not discover each other. + +"Just remember, Susan," he warned her, his face flushing, "you have +kept rather a dark secret, yourself, from your husband!" + +She regarded him with that look of impersonal speculation which he +found so irritating to his vanity, as she asked, "You are capable of +threatening me?" + +"Joe certainly doesn't know your past!" he answered, sombrely. + +"Oh!" she cried, a light coming into her eyes, "you've given me an +idea! _That_ might be my way of escape!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'm bound by my bargain to stick to Joe; he gave Mother and my +sisters their home. But if he should divorce _me_, that would let me +out honourably!" + +"But," said Sidney, seeing too late his mistake in having given her +this "idea," "it would betray to Laura who you are!" + +"Even _you_, Sidney, will hardly go so far as to ask me to live on +with Joe just to spare 'Laura' and you! You've really given me an +idea! I'll think it over." + +"And if you act on it," he burst out, "you'll ruin me! You'll ruin +Georgie! It will give the whole damned business away! It will----" + +He suddenly closed his lips, as he realized, with despair, that he +himself would in a moment be giving "the whole damned business away" +if he said another word. + +Springing to his feet, he snatched up Georgie, who kicked +rebelliously at being taken from Susan, and with a hasty "Good-by, +Susanna!" he strode away. + +"You're takin' it easy; ain't?" + +It was Joe's voice just at her back! + +Evidently he had come in noiselessly from the potato patch. He had a +way of appearing unexpectedly, at any hour of the day, with the +purpose, apparently, of catching her unawares in idleness, a thing he +abhorred; because in his Gospel, Time was Money. + +As she wondered how much, if anything, he had overheard of her talk +with Sidney, she found herself feeling remarkably unconcerned about +it. She certainly had little to lose and perhaps much to gain if Joe +should learn the truth about her. + +"Been havin' comp'ny, seems." + +He came forward, seating himself in the swing under the tree and +taking Josie on his knee. + +"Your brother came down for his boy." + +"And stopped to wisit you, heh?" + +"Yes." + +"He better _not_ come flirtin' and foolin' round my wife!" growled +Joe, jealously. + +Susan made no comment. + +"It ain't the thing!--him and you loafin' here and me workin'!" + +She silently leafed the pages of the magazine on her lap. + +"Have you got supper made, that you have so much time to loaf?" + +Susan did not answer. + +"I ast have you got supper made. Why don't you answer to me, Susan?" + +"I'll answer you, Joe, when you are civil to me." + +"Civil! I got to be civil, must I? To my own wife yet! Huh! I +guess I got to be so pernicketty nice like what Sid is; ain't?" + +Susan scarcely heard him; her mind was revolving that "way of escape" +that Sidney had suggested. + +"Seems you're got an awful lot of time to set round, Susan! I bet +you wouldn't have, if you done all that's to be done." + +But he could draw no answer from her with this bait. + +"You ain't near so pertikkler with the housework as what my first +wife was. You don't hang out the nice wash she hung out! She hung +out the nicest wash in White Oak Station; all the folks sayed so. +They might say that of _yourn_ if you took more time to it, instead +of hurryin' through so's you can set out here and enjoy yourself." + +But when even these aspersions on her "wash" did not rouse Susan to +resentment, Joe felt discouraged. + +"What was Sid gassin' to you about, anyhow?" he inquired, sullenly. + +"We talked about our children," she said after a perceptible +hesitation. + +"Huh! I guess he thinks hisn's better'n mine!--the way him and his +mother always thought I wasn't good enough to 'sociate with 'em! +Well, by gosh, Susan, they'll learn somepin different one of these +here days! Josie ain't a-goin' to have to take no back seat fur that +there bastard of Sid's, you bet you! It'll be the other way round, +you mark my words!" + +"Georgie was born in wedlock," Susan protested, startled. + +"I'd like to prove he _wasn't_!" growled Joe. + +"Oh, Joe, if you could only see how much more your hatred of Sidney +hurts you than it does him, your very selfishness would make you want +to get over it!" + +"It'll hurt Sid a-plenty before I do get over it!" returned Joe. +"When I've got Sid where I want him--and that's under my heel--then +mebby I'll get good over hatin' him. Not _till_ then, though!" + +Susan sighed, but protested no further. + +"Did Sid explain you why his Missus don't take no notice to you--you +her sister-in-law?" Joe demanded. + +Susan shook her head. + +"Don't it spite you none, Susan, that she thinks herself so much?" he +asked, puzzled. + +"It's her loss, not mine," smiled Susan. "I think people who don't +know me miss a lot. Don't you, Joe?" + +She rose and shook out her skirts. + +"Please be ready for supper in half an hour," she said, as she left +him and went into the kitchen. + + +In spite of the sharp reprimand which Sidney administered that day, +on his return home, to Clara, Georgie's nurse, for disobeying his +orders to keep the boy as far away as possible from his uncle's +cottage, she, true to her race, rather than exert herself to struggle +with the child's strong will, or to divert and amuse him, continued +to take the line of least resistance and to follow where he led, +when, the moment he was out of the house, he would make straight for +the little cottage at the foot of the hill; and Susan, at whose heart +strings Georgie's tug was growing more and more potent, did not +discourage the girl's bringing him daily to see his little cousin and +his "aunty." + +Thus it happened that the very next day after Sidney's stern rebuke +and reiterated command to obey orders on pain of being discharged +(those were the days when servants, not employers, were discharged), +Clara again deliberately let her small master lead her, after +luncheon when everybody was taking a map, directly down to the spot +where Sidney had found them the day before. + +Now as it was Sunday and Joe, who hated Sidney's boy, was about the +house to-day, Susan would have preferred, for once, to have had +Georgie kept away. But it happened that at the moment of his joyful +arrival, slowly followed by his spineless attendant, Joe was having a +nap after his heavy noon meal; and so, Susan, deciding that at the +first sound of her husband's awaking she would dispatch her visitors +in haste, settled herself cosily, with a child on either side of her +and her lap full of story books, under the tree outside her house. + +And it was here that, presently, Eleanor Arnold, wandering about +alone, found her. + +It came with a great shock to them both, that first recognizing +encounter of their eyes. For an instant they could only stare at +each other, speechless. But the next moment they had fallen upon +each other with cries of surprise and delight, Eleanor's +self-contained composure entirely broken up, and Susan's habitual +listlessness turned to a burning excitement. + +"But, Susan! I didn't know you at first! You are so changed! Your +golden hair turned brown! And the look out of your eyes--what is it?" + +Susan dared not speak lest a flood of tears overwhelm her. She bit +her lip hard as she silently drew Eleanor to sit down with her on the +grass under the tree. + +But in a moment she had recovered herself, and putting the two boys +to playing with some building blocks, she gave herself up to her +friend. Both she and Eleanor were feeling amazed, in their hearts, +that their sudden reunion was bringing instantaneously such a rush of +old joy, such a quick renewal of a vital tie after so long a breach. +Their eyes sparkled, their cheeks were flushed with excitement. + +"How have we lived so long without each other, Susan!" cried Eleanor, +breathlessly. + +And Susan answered, "What months we've wasted! I'm only this moment +realizing what you've always been to me!" + +"It's been your doing, not mine, that we've been separated, Susan!" + +"Oh, I know----" + +"But you are surely not living here in this house?" Eleanor asked, +looking bewildered. "Why, Laura said she had never met you! Then +you can't have married Sidney's brother?" + +"_Yes_ to all your questions. I am living right here in this house; +I am Sidney's sister-in-law; his wife never met me." + +"Family mysteries and skeletons? Well, I won't pry--though I'm dying +to! Why you should have gone and got married and have had these two +children without ever consulting me----" + +"One of them is Sidney Houghton's," Susan quickly explained. + +"One of these two? Which one is yours, Susan? Oh, you needn't tell +me, it's plain enough! What a darling! Much, much more adorable," +she added in a lowered voice, "than Sidney's." + +"_I_ don't think so!" Susan warmly retorted. "Georgie seems to me a +much finer type than Josie--though of course," she hastily added, +"Josie's a dear and I love him." + +Eleanor stared. "You're disparaging your own---- Oh, but he can't +be yours--you were only just married, weren't you?--so Laura said, +anyway. Then that is _not_ your boy, is he?" asked Eleanor, +indicating Georgie. + +Susan's face lit up. "You took him for mine? Oh, I wish he were! +He's Sidney's. The other one--Josie--is my step-son." + +"And you've never had one of your own? You've not been married +long----?" + +"I've been married five months." + +"I would have sworn that one--Georgie--was yours. He has a look in +the eyes like you--though of course he looks more like Sidney. This +is my first glimpse of him; they never have him about; Laura is +certainly the most indifferent of mothers! You'd think she'd be +proud to show off such a rare child! Susan, you are so changed! You +are lovelier and more blooming than ever; yet you are, somehow, so +matured! As if you had lived, Susan! As if," added Eleanor, gazing +thoughtfully into Susan's face, "you had lived tragically! _Have_ +you?" + +Susan nodded dumbly. + +"Tell me all about it! Begin at _Once upon a time_, and don't skip. +I know it'll be thrilling!" said Eleanor, settling herself +expectantly to listen; "for I always said, you remember, that you +were born for romance. Tell me about your husband." + +Romance and Joe! Susan almost laughed, though her heart was heavy. +In what a position she was placed, when all her pride shrank from +presenting her husband to her friend!--and yet loyalty to the +obligations of her bond must close her lips upon explanations, +excuses, apologies. + +A sound in the kitchen doorway drew their eyes from each other. Joe, +in his shirt sleeves, a scowl on his face, came striding across the +grass to the tree. + +"Here another time I come to use my car and find the gasoline is +all!" he fretfully accused his wife, not heeding her visitor. "Again +you was usin' it without astin' me for the dare! Ain't? A pretty +thing that whenever I go to use my car the gasoline is every time +all! No matter how often I fill it up yet! If I got it so filled up +at twelve o'clock in the night, you'd get out of bed to make sure it +was all used up till morning a'ready! Ain't, you would?" + +Suddenly he became conscious of Susan's deathly pallor and of a fire +in her eyes that alarmed him--and at the same time, of her +companion's look of amazement and alarm. + +Turning away abruptly, frowning and muttering, he disappeared again +in the house. + +"Well!" exclaimed Eleanor, "chauffeurs must be scarce out here if you +stand for---- Susan Schrekengust!" Eleanor seized Susan's arm +convulsively. "_Who is that man?_" + +"My husband, Eleanor!"--and Susan laid her head on Eleanor's shoulder +and sobbed; long, tearing sobs that seemed to come from the depths of +her soul; from the pent-up griefs of years; from the anguish of +defeated love, defeated motherhood, death, despair. + + +Later, when Clara had gone home with Georgie, Josie had gone indoors +to his father, and Susan, now very quiet, still sat on the grass with +her friend, Eleanor asked her wonderingly, "What the devil did you do +such a thing for, Susan?" + +"It's so good," said Susan with a sigh of pleasure, "to hear you cuss +again, Eleanor! Until I met you, I had never, in my short and simple +life, heard a perfect lady swear!" + +"I'm afraid I never did serve up my words on a napkin. And quite +early in life I decided to abandon the career of a perfect lady. A +woman of brains (you'll not question I'm that?) never is a perfect +lady, the absolutely real thing, you know; because, you see, it means +such a well-ordered mind and soul and life as to preclude rioting of +any sort, whether of the emotions or the intellect. It involves +repose, conservatism, a nice moderation in all things, an absence of +big enthusiasms, large vision, vigour of thought and feeling---- + +"You've simply got to explain to me, Susan, how you came to marry +that man! Is he a diamond in the rough? Is _he_ Sidney Houghton's +brother? Is he a real Houghton at _all_?" she demanded, +incredulously. "Why, the Houghtons have always been awfully snippy +about their family blood! Their sense of their own superiority has +been as sublime as it was inexplicable. Don't expect me to spare +your feelings! I don't intend to! You deserve 'most anything for +throwing yourself away like this! I could beat you for it!" + +"I deserve your scorn; I don't deserve your friendship!" + +"You deserve to be shut up in a lunatic asylum! Why did you do it? +Speak up!" + +"It's a very sordid story, Eleanor. No romance about it that _I_ can +see! (You said I was born for romance!) I was engaged to Sidney +Houghton. He jilted me. I was broken-hearted at first; then +reckless and despairing. My father became involved in money troubles +and died suddenly. We would have had to leave our home, which I +thought would kill Mother. So to save her I married Joe Houghton. +Joe gave Mother and my sisters their old home. Then, a month later, +Mother died. My sacrifice was for nothing! That's all." + +"You were a dreadful little fool, of course! You know that, don't +you?" + +"I don't find the knowledge consoling, dear, so please don't draw my +attention to it." + +"But you can't go on living out your life with that man, Susan! +You'll have to leave him!" + +"Wouldn't it be going back on a bargain? He practically bought me." + +"And you've surely paid him back already a thousand per cent!" + +"It wasn't in the bond that I'd be his wife for a few months." + +"You actually consider yourself bound to him, to a creature like +that, _you_?" + +"I don't know." + +"If you do think you're bound, if you're that fanatical, then make +him let you live your own life. Demand your rights!" + +"Make him? Compared to Joe Houghton's obstinacy Gibraltar is wobbly!" + +"If he's in love with you, there's nothing you can't make him do for +you." + +"By playing up my sex? How would I be above the woman of the streets +if I did that? The world thinks it all right, I suppose, for a +_wife_ to gain her ends that way." + +"Oh, the world!" shrugged Eleanor. "Of course its standards are +never right. Show me something that the majority believe and I'll +show you something that's a lie! The persecuted of any age nearly +always turn out to have been the prophets of that age." + +"Carrie Nation!" smiled Susan. "And now we've got national +Prohibition! Who'd ever have thought it!" + +"Talking about morals," Eleanor went on, "people haven't any, really. +They have Respectability, Conformity, Propriety. Those are society's +only values." + +"Yes, I often think," said Susan, "if that hypocrite's cloak, +Respectability, could be stripped from our shrinking souls, what a +sight we'd all be!" + +"You remind me of a letter Robert saw ages ago, when he was a college +student, written by Howells to Mark Twain; Mark Twain showed it to +Robert. It was about the autobiography Mark Twain was writing. +Howells wrote, 'You always rather bewildered me by your veracity, and +I fancy you may tell the truth about yourself. But all of it? The +black truth which we all know of ourselves in our hearts--even _you_ +won't tell the black heart's truth'." + +"What a human document it would be if any man or woman had the +courage to do it!" said Susan. "Of course Rousseau came near it." + +"Susan! You've got to leave that man that you've so absurdly gone +and married!" + +"I have hurt so many people; I shrink from hurting any more!" + +"What do you mean? Whom have you hurt?" + +"My father and mother and sisters! And if I left Joe, I would hurt +not only him; my two sisters would break their hearts. They +_believe_ in the marriage ceremony, you know--as a sort of +fetish--'For better, for worse'--'Until death'--'Whom God hath +joined'--'These two are no more twain, but one flesh.' My sisters +would for the rest of their days walk among their neighbours +disgraced and stricken." + +"Would that be as tragic, as wasteful, as your spending your whole +life with such an outrageous creature? You've got to leave him! And +you will leave him!" + +She rose and Susan stood up at her side. + +"When you've made up your mind, Susan, come to me in Middleburg. +Promise!" + +"I'll--I'll have to think it over," Susan faltered. + +But there was hope in her voice and in her shining eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +AN INTERLUDE + +But she did not leave her husband. Josie came down with +whooping-cough and of course she could not desert a sick child. She +nursed him devotedly for six weeks and became so run down through +overwork and loss of sleep that she fell an easy victim to the +typhoid fever germs which were discovered by the doctor to poison the +boasted well water of White Oak Farm. + +So far into the Valley of the Shadow did Susan drift in this illness +that she would surely never have come back but for Joe's amazing +devotion and ceaseless care. And of this she, of course, knew +nothing during many weeks of delirium and unconsciousness. + +It was over the period of her long, tedious convalescence that she +slowly became aware of the unwonted comfort that enveloped her: the +uniformed trained nurse, the champagne they fed to her by +teaspoonfuls, the pretty down quilt on her bed, the new kimono that +lay across the foot of the bed; and every sort of convenient device +for a sick room that had ever been heard of seemed to have been +provided for her. Where did it all come from? Surely not from Joe +who was always watching every penny she spent---- + +But stranger than this lavish expenditure was Joe's manifest anxiety, +tenderness, grief! + +She felt that he must be neglecting his work, so often was he in and +out of her room, so many hours sitting patiently beside her bed. + +Was he, then, really capable of a great passion?--of fine feeling, of +unselfish love? + +As she grew stronger she found herself wildly regretting first, that +she had not died, and next, that Joe was being so good, so wonderful, +to her. + +"For how can I ever leave him after this?" she would mourn as she lay +through the long days and nights while life came slowly back to her. +If only he would neglect her instead of binding her with these heavy +chains of kindness which she feared she could never, never break! + +"I've never in my life been able to be ruthless! He seems to care +for me so much!" + +The trained nurse admitted, one day, that in all her varied +experiences, she had "never seen a husband so dippy about his wife!" + +"Those two days and nights that we thought you might not pull +through," the nurse told her, "that man was the most pitiable object +I ever saw. I wouldn't want to see my worst enemy go through what he +suffered, Mrs. Houghton! Your husband may not have your education or +be as refined as what you are, Missus, but he certainly loves you, +all right! Well, I just guess! + +"They say round here," she continued, "that Mister's a tight-wad, and +he sure is! But not where you're concerned, Missus! Not when you're +sick, anyhow! Nothing was too good, nothing too expensive, that I +asked him to get you." + +Susan wondered why it was. Remorse flooded her heart, as she thought +of her so different feelings toward him. + +"If he had been ill, I'd have hoped he'd die!" she mercilessly made +herself admit to her own conscience. "He is worse than nothing to +me! A millstone about my neck when I want to be free!" + +As soon as she was well enough to be moved Joe sent her and Josie and +the nurse to Atlantic City. + +And there, one day, on the sands, Eleanor Arnold unexpectedly came +upon her. + +"Of course I came here just to be with you," Eleanor explained as she +sat at Susan's feet in the windy sunshine. "The day after I got your +card telling me you were coming here I packed and started. I +couldn't miss such a chance of seeing you alone!" + +"And you will stay as long as I am here?" + +"Yes, if it means the rest of my mortal life!" + +To Susan, too weak, for the time being, to battle with problems, the +days that followed were times of wonderful peace and content; a +respite of real happiness. Congenial and loved companionship, rest +from the household drudgery which she detested, no anxieties about +expenses, the absence of Joe's society, the sea, the fine air---- + +To be sure, there were shadows. Eleanor would not give up insisting +that she must leave Joe; whereas Susan's new sense of obligation to +him was so great that she felt disloyal in even speaking of it. + +"When your husband greatly loves you," she would argue with Eleanor, +"you surely owe him something." + +"But unless you love him, Susan, you don't belong to him; no matter +how much he loves you; no matter what he has done for you. You +belong to yourself--simply because you don't and can't love him." + +Susan was silent. + +"You know I'm right!" insisted Eleanor. + +"It would mean such a bitter struggle--leaving him--and I'm so tired +of fighting with life!" + +"You're supine! With that child of his, for instance----" + +Josie had a fretful way of nagging at his "mother" which Eleanor, +though sympathetically understanding children, thought very +exasperating. "You let him tyrannize over you, my dear." + +"His father makes it so hard for me to manage him!" Susan defended +her feeble disciplining of Josie. + +Josie chose just this moment of their discussion to leave the nurse +and come running to Susan to renew his momentarily diverted +insistence that she dig something in the sand for him, though the +nurse was doing it much better than his enfeebled mother could, and +though Susan had explained to him, after having yielded several times +to his demands and overtaxed her endurance, that she could do no +more. The nurse had succeeded in distracting his attention for a +moment; but he was back again now, tugging at his mother and +peevishly reiterating that she and no other must dig for him. + +When she firmly refused and told him to go to the nurse, he flew into +a tantrum, screamed rebelliously, and tore at her clothes. + +"There, now!" Susan challenged Eleanor, "O Socrates, what would you +do _now_? Tell me!" + +Eleanor looked rather dashed. "You might jump on his stomach," she +suggested. + +Josie's howls ceased abruptly, and eyeing his mother's friend with a +mixture of resentment and apprehension, he retreated precipitately. + +"_I_ wouldn't stand that nagging, whining habit he has, Susie," +Eleanor declared, when Josie, deciding that safety first lay in a +discreet distance from so fierce a lady, went back to the nurse. + +"I really do try, Eleanor, for his own sake as much as mine, to train +him up in the way he should go. But I'm handicapped." + +"It's rotten! The whole situation!" + +"It has its compensations. Josie can be very lovable. And he is +fond of me." + +"You're too easily compensated! I wish you had my conceit; you'd +hold yourself at your true worth!" + +"You don't begin to realize all my difficulties. It isn't nearly so +easy, I find, to get rid of a husband as to acquire one. To a +divorced woman so many means of self-support are closed. School +teaching, for instance. I suppose I might stand in a store----" + +"'Stand?' I've heard of floor _walkers_!" said Eleanor, tentatively. + +"Perhaps it is a Pennsylvania Dutch-ism. I didn't know it was. I +mean clerk in a store." + +"See who's coming!" exclaimed Eleanor, abruptly. + +Susan looked up and saw, strolling toward them down the beach, alone, +a young lady with a marked air of distinction both in dress and +bearing. + +"Your sister-in-law, my dear!" Eleanor announced. + +"It is! Rather awkward, as we've never been introduced!" + +"Not _yet_!" asked Eleanor, incredulously. + +"What could you reasonably expect--you've seen Joe?" was the answer +which rose to Susan's lips, but which she did not speak. "Of course +she has no idea how nice I am," was what she said. + +"Does she know you are here?" + +"I didn't know _she_ was here. I don't know what she knows about me." + +"Let me have the fun of introducing you to her!" + +"Help yourself--if it will amuse you." + +"It will amuse me very much!" + +Eleanor rose as Laura Houghton drew near, and went forward with +outstretched hand. + +Laura's face, which had been dreary and fretful, lit up at sight of +her friend and she greeted her eagerly. "I'm so glad to see you! +I'm here all alone; Sidney's been called home on business, and +there's not a soul here I know or _would_ know! You're a godsend to +me, Eleanor! You've simply got to stay here with me until Sidney +gets back." + +"How long will that be?" + +"A few days. We splurged so recklessly in New York this winter that +we've had to draw in and come here to recover. Sidney has a most +interesting little habit of running ahead of his income and then +retiring into strict privacy to catch up. It lends great variety to +our life!" Laura shrugged, a look of bitterness in her face. +"Fortunately he has an accommodating half-brother who never spends +any money himself, so always has plenty to loan to Sidney. Are you +staying with friends?" she asked with a questioning glance toward +Susan reclining among her cushions a few yards away. + +"Yes, with an old school friend who is here with her nurse, +convalescing from typhoid. Let me introduce you. My dear," said +Eleanor as she led Laura to Susan, "let me present Mrs. Sidney +Houghton. Mrs. Joseph----" Eleanor coughed over Susan's name and +Laura did not catch it. She bent to offer her hand to the pale, +frail-looking girl on the sand; and Susan took the hand gravely. + +"You've been very ill?" said Laura, sympathetically, thinking how +beautiful the invalid was. She certainly looked as though she might +be a Somebody! It flashed upon her that there was something familiar +in this high-bred, interesting face. + +"Very ill," answered Susan. + +"Is the sea air helping you?" + +"Very much, I think." + +"You and Miss Arnold are stopping at the same hotel?" + +"Yes. At the D---- House." + +Laura looked surprised. It was not the sort of place she would have +expected Eleanor or any friend of hers to patronize. + +Joe had chosen it, and while he would spare no expense necessary for +his wife's recovery, he drew the line at paying for fashion. + +"You are comfortable there?" asked Laura, doubtfully. + +"Comfortable, but not luxurious," answered Eleanor. "It's plain +living and high thinking with Susan and me just now." + +Laura glanced again at the convalescent. "I beg pardon, I didn't +catch your friend's name, Eleanor." + +"Mrs. Joseph Houghton," repeated Eleanor. + +Laura looked dazed, almost bewildered, then utterly astonished. But +only for an instant. Almost immediately she had gotten herself in +hand. + +"Sidney's sister-in-law?" she repeated with perfect composure. "He +will be sorry to hear you have been so ill," she said, graciously. + +She turned back to Eleanor. "I am at Hotel T----. Will you come to +see me?" + +"Of course. I have my evenings off; Susan goes to bed right after +dinner. Shall I come this evening?" + +"Yes, do please, Eleanor." + +"I'll be there about half-past eight." + +"Very well. Good-by." She nodded, a shade ceremoniously, to Susan, +and moved on. + +Eleanor literally flopped down at Susan's side. "I'm limp!" she +feebly cried. "And you--you never looked more cool and collected! +Why aren't you excited or amused or something?" + +"I leave that to you." + +"It's none of my affair! I suppose Laura's furious with me for +dragging her into such an awkward position!" + +"It ought not to be so awfully awkward. She simply won't let herself +be saddled with her husband's uninteresting relatives. Of course I'm +far from uninteresting, but she's never had any reason to suspect it." + +"You're inhumanely just to her. You know very well that in her place +you would have been kind to Joe's wife." + +"I'd hate to have her be 'kind' to me in the way you mean, Eleanor!" + +"You'd have been genuinely nice; not stand-offish." + +"When you think of the sort of person she naturally thought Joe would +have married, I suppose she considered her only safety lay in not +knowing me at all." + +"Damned rot!" + +"I'm afraid you're not a perfect lady." + +"I told you I'd abandoned that futile function! And I'm glad I did! +I'd like to be a roaring savage!" + +"Do savages roar? Dear me, what for?" + +"The great disadvantage of being well-bred is that you can't let off +steam! You've no safety-valve and so become congested, spiritually +poisoned! Oh, I tell you," said Eleanor, darkly, "civilization's got +a lot to answer for!" + +"It _has_ got us into a tangled mess, hasn't it?" said Susan with a +long breath. + +Eleanor parted from Susan that day with an unsolicited promise that +she would faithfully report, next morning, any particularly +interesting phases of the conversation she would have that evening +with Mrs. Sidney Houghton. + +She was, however, greatly disappointed. During the three hours that +she spent with Laura in her suite of rooms at her hotel not the +slightest reference was made to the episode of the morning. For +Laura was a young woman capable of exercising, on occasion, rather +Spartan self-restraint; and Eleanor, though not shy or retiring, and +though dying to know what her friend was thinking about her +unexpectedly charming sister-in-law, had, also, her reticences. + +Just a day or two after the encounter of Laura and Susan the latter +received a letter from Joe in which he told her, in very bad English +and worse spelling, that Sidney had again borrowed money from him. + +"I give him five years to get threw with all he's got," Joe wrote. +"He says his Missus is at Atlantic City just now. When I told him +you was there, too, he looked awful funny. I guess he was some +supprised Ide spend for such as that. And, to be sure, I wouldn't, +neither, but for to get you well and strong again. If you meet up +with that sour-faced high-stepper he married, just you give her as +good as she sends, Susan, for some day you will be living in the big +house and her and Sid will be glad to have so much as the tenant's +cottage to live in. You mind if I ain't right." + +Susan reflected that it was well for Georgie that White Oak Farm was +entailed to him, or Joe would certainly get possession of it. + +But in view of this entailment, she could not imagine how Joe +expected to contrive ever to occupy the big house. + +However, she wasted no thought on the subject, for it did not greatly +interest her. + +She was subjected to a good deal of embarrassment during her stay at +the seaside from the fact that Joe, though standing ready to pay all +her necessary bills, would not supply her with money. Ever since her +marriage he had seemed afraid to entrust her with a dollar, partly +because of his constitutional stinginess and partly because of his +constant fear lest she give help to her struggling sisters. + +Several times the acuteness of her present embarrassment while at the +seaside forced her to the humiliation of borrowing money from her +nurse for some mere trifle like postage stamps, or feeing a servant. + +"Add it to the bill you present to Mr. Houghton," she would tell the +nurse, "and charge one hundred per cent. interest." + +She was duly informed by Eleanor of Sidney having rejoined his wife +at the T----. + +"Do they have Georgie with them?" she inquired with a wistfullness in +her heart that made her wonder at herself. + +"Yes, but he seems to be left entirely to his nurse. Laura never +goes near him apparently! She is the very coldest mother I've ever +seen. She actually told me she wished she _could_ care more for +Georgie, but that somehow she just couldn't work up any motherliness! +It simply isn't in her. I tell her I consider it a frightful waste +for such a woman to have a child, while one like me sits about eating +her heart out with longing for one. I'd almost be willing to settle +down to take care of a husband for the sake of having a child!" + +"You'd go so far as that, dear?" + +"I said I'd 'almost'. Do you suppose, Susan, that Laura is jealous +of Sidney's former attachment to you (you say he jilted you) and that +that's why she doesn't make up to you?" + +"She doesn't know that I am the woman Sidney jilted." + +Eleanor considered this reply for a moment without speaking. "She +knows he jilted someone, but does not know that you are the one?" + +Susan nodded. + +"How can you be so sure?" + +"Sidney told me." + +Eleanor regarded her thoughtfully. "How extraordinary!" she remarked. + +"It is, rather; isn't it!" + +"Sidney can be very charming; but he is not and never was worthy of +you, my dear!" + +"It was because he thought _me_ unworthy that he jilted me!" + +"Wanted money and family, of course?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, he got it. But he doesn't look overwhelmingly happy over it!" + +"I've noticed that he doesn't." + +"Did he behave abominably toward you, Susan?" + +"Very much so!" + +"He'd be capable of that, I'm sure!" said Eleanor with emphasis. + +When at the end of three weeks Susan reluctantly wrote to Joe that +she was now quite strong enough to go home he telegraphed at once +that on the following Sunday he would come for them all and "fetch" +them. + +Susan, after considering the situation, decided to spare herself, if +possible, the painful ordeal of having Eleanor again encounter her +husband. She would take means to prevent it. + +She wrote to Joe that they would not wait until the end of the week +to leave for home, but would start the very day he received her +letter and would be with him on Wednesday evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +HOME AGAIN + +In the first months of her marriage Susan had not felt that Joe's +dwelling-place was her home; she was neither its creator nor its +mistress; only its housekeeper. The only concern she had felt for +it, therefore, was that she should discharge the obligation she was +under to make her husband comfortable. + +But the renewal of her relations with Eleanor had awakened in her a +bit of ambition to try to make the house in which she lived and the +appointments of her daily life a little attractive. After those +weeks at the seaside she came home resolved to experiment with her +situation and see whether she could make it really liveable. Unless +she could change a good many things, both material and spiritual, in +her existence, she saw that if she would save her soul alive, she +must leave her husband. + +She realized that there was probably no limit to the power she could +wield over Joe to get what she wanted, if she followed that +suggestion Eleanor had once made to her, that she play upon his +passion for her. Eleanor, of course, had not really understood what +she was saying. + +"Even if I loved a man, I couldn't do that!" thought Susan. "That +sort of thing may be feminine, but it certainly is not womanly--and +it seems to me that it's up to a woman to _be_ a woman, not just a +female!" + +Her first experiment was to let Joe understand, when, a few weeks +after her return, he suggested that she was now quite strong enough +to dismiss the washwoman, that she did not intend to dismiss her. + +"I shall never again, while I live, stand at the washtub. I prefer +school teaching," she told him. + +"But you can't school teach now you're married oncet!" + +"Oh, yes, I can. If you won't pay for a washwoman, I can easily earn +more than enough to pay for one by substituting in the Middleburg +schools. And as I prefer that work to washing, that is what I shall +do." + +"You talk dumb, Susan!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "Fur a married +lady to be talkin' about workin' out yet! Don't be so ignorant dumb!" + +But though he never again insisted upon dismissing the laundress, he +never failed on wash day to draw Susan's attention to what they would +be saving if she did the work herself. + +"A dollar and a half every week, if you wasn't so high-minded! Yi, +yi, think what that there dollar and a half would buy yet!" + +Susan's proposals for re-papering and re-furnishing the cottage Joe +met with the assurance that it would be a useless expenditure because +in a few years they would be living in the big house. + +"But White Oak Farm is entailed," she reminded him (as though he ever +for a moment forget it!). "Your brother can't mortgage or sell it." + +"Sid is runnin' through with his money as fast as he otherwise can; +he's beginnin' a'ready to draw heavy on his principal. It won't go +long till his money's all. Then when he ain't got none no more fur +to keep this here place a-goin', he'll have to it. He'll rent it to +_me_. See?" + +"I wish you'd move away from here altogether." + +"Well, I won't!" + +"You want me to live in this cottage for five years just as it is?" + +"What's five years?--when you'll be livin' in the big house for the +rest of your life!" + +"Only until Georgie takes it over." + +"But he won't have no money, neither, to run the place. Till Georgie +inherits it a'ready, Sid will have spent the last dollar _he's_ got! +So Georgie, too, will have to rent it out." + +No arguments could budge him from his refusal to "spend any" on the +cottage. + +"I have some very nice friends, Joe, that I knew at school; I'd like +to ask them out to see me sometimes. I could make this cottage very +attractive if you would let me spend about a thousand dollars on it." + +"A thousand dollars yet! On somepin that till five years from now +you won't have no use fur! Och, Susan, just as if I would! Why, I +wouldn't near do somepin like that!" + +"Am I to wait five years before I can ask any of my friends to visit +me? For I can't ask them here while things are as they are now." + +"Me I don't favour comp'ny, anyhow. I like better to be by ourselfs." + +"But I do like company; some kinds." + +"Comp'ny costs too expensive. And it takes a woman's mind off her +housework, comp'ny does. And if you have comp'ny, next thing you'll +want to go runnin' yourself and neglect me and Josie. No'p!" he +shook his head. "I see how it's a good thing our cottage ain't so +fancy like you want fur it to be! Yes, anyhow!" + +Susan considered several possible schemes for forcing Joe's hand in +this matter. "I might just buy a lot of furniture and charge it up +to him----" + +But she knew perfectly well that he would simply send it back to the +shops. + +She might go to Middleburg, get a position of some sort, and refuse +to come home until he consented to let her have the kind of home she +wanted and had a right to. But there was Josie--she could not walk +out of the house and desert a four-year-old child. + +As time moved on and she took no stand, but just let things slide, +she felt that Eleanor had been quite right, entirely justified, in +calling her "spineless". There had been a time in her life when she +would have braced up and wrestled with any conditions that she +greatly wished to change. But the intensity of her suffering through +Sidney had apparently left her without power to fight her way further +through life. Was she, then, doomed to merely exist, not live, all +the rest of her days? + +Occasionally, when she did take issue with Joe, on some point that +seemed to her too vital to admit of indecision on her part, the +ordeal would leave her so limp that she would greatly doubt whether +the gain was worth the cost. + +Joe had a way of holding her punctiliously to those of her domestic +tasks which involved his comforts, but it seemed that she had to be +dangerously ill before he felt an equal obligation toward _her_. Let +him come into the kitchen and find a meal not ready on the minute and +he would grumble and sulk for the rest of the day; yet he was himself +extremely unpunctual and irregular and perfectly heedless of the +inconvenience he caused Susan by keeping her waiting (often for a +mere whim) an hour or more beyond the hour for dinner or supper. + +"But that's what a woman's work is, to run her house fur her Mister's +conwenience," he would excuse himself when she would protest against +such inconsiderateness. + +"I never know when to expect you, Joe, and it keeps me forever in +this dreadful kitchen." + +"That's your place, ain't it? Where else had you ought to want to +be?" + +"If it were necessary for you to be late all the time, I'd bear it. +But you're simply indifferent to my convenience." + +"I do what it suits me to do. I come in to eat when I feel fur +comin'. It's your business to have me a hot meal when I want it." + +"Shall I change the dinner hour to one o'clock, since you so often +come in long after twelve?" + +"No! Fur when I do come in at twelve, then I want to eat at twelve! +So you see to it that you are got it ready at twelve, still." + +"Listen, Joe; I loathe a kitchen. When I am in it my one desire is +to escape from it. You deliberately, for no reason at all, make me +waste hours here that I might be spending on things I like to do." + +"'Waste hours!' You are got no need to waste hours! You could find +a-plenty to do in your kitchen, whiles you're waitin' 'round fur me +to come in, if you _wanted_ to find it. You don't keep your closets +very good redd up, I took notice a'ready." + +Susan suddenly decided that here was one of the places where it would +pay to take a stand. "Even my spine stiffens when it's a question of +useless kitchen work!" she thought. + +"I'll not put up with it any longer, Joe," she informed him. + +Joe stared. "What fur kind of lang'age is that fur a wife to use to +her Mister?--'won't put up with it'! Yi, yi, Susan!" + +"Don't forget," repeated Susan. "I won't put up with it." + +Joe's domestic standards being those of the only home life he had +ever really known, that of the Pennsylvania Dutch farm where he had +lived for so many years of his young manhood, Susan's "putting her +foot down" was, in his estimation, such a usurpation of the male's +exclusive prerogative that it gave him a genuine shock. + +"To think I got married to a wife that would sass me like that!" he +exclaimed. + +Susan said no more, but as Joe furtively watched her across the +dinner table, he saw no softening signs in her face, of shame for her +unwifely talk. + +For the rest of the day he revelled in a perfect orgy of sulking; and +the next morning he put Susan's dictum to the test by deliberately +coming in to dinner at one o'clock instead of the prescribed hour of +noon. + +He found the kitchen empty, the table cleared, and no sign of a meal +on the stove. + +When he searched the house, he discovered that Susan was not even at +home. Anything more outrageously high-handed!---- + +"I got to learn her better'n this!" he reflected, darkly. + +But how? + +"I'm stumped!" he heavily admitted. + +He cooked himself a lunch of eggs and coffee, purposely and quite +unnecessarily cluttering up the kitchen and leaving it in a fearful +state of disorder. + +His supper hour was half-past five, but to further "try out" the +lengths to which his lawful wife would carry her rebellion, he +avoided appearing until nearly seven. + +Again he found emptiness and no supper; and a search of the premises +discovered the car to have been taken from the garage. The kitchen +had been "redd up," so of course she had been back during the +afternoon. + +Such reckless indifference to the needs and comforts of her husband! +Such neglect of her house to "go runnin'"! Such a shameless flouting +of his disapproval! What could a mere man do in the face of such +"crazy behaviours"? + +When at half-past eight that evening she returned home with Josie, +Joe had not yet been able to reach any decision as to how he would +deal with her. + +In his bewilderment and confusion, he actually appealed to her to +help him. + +"What kin I do with you when you ac' up like this here?" + +"That's easy, Joe--come to your meals on time." + +"I'll come when it suits me!" + +"Then you take your chances of having to cook your own meals." + +"I ain't standin' fur no sich behaviours, Susan!" + +"There are a few things that I am not standing for, Joe," she +answered, walking out of the room. + +While Joe had never been more dumbfounded or more furiously resentful +in his life, it surprised and puzzled him to find that his anger +against Susan only augmented his passion for her. + +"She surely has got me, the little feist!" he growled to himself. + +For a week he was so painfully punctual and so heavily sarcastic if +she were not entirely ready to serve him the instant he arrived, that +she soon learned to be fully prepared for him at least five minutes +before she could reasonably look for him. + +One morning he accosted her ceremoniously, almost melodramatically. +"With your permission, Missus, I'll mebby be late three minutes or +so, this dinner, seein' I got to go to Middleburg over." + +"I appreciate your consideration in telling me beforehand, Joe. +Thank you!" she said with such humble sincerity that he found himself +glowing with pleasure, as though she had praised him for a deed of +valour and chivalry. + +Having succeeded in making him punctual, her next stand was to insist +on certain table decencies and even niceties which Joe professed to +hold in great contempt. Among the many phases of his jealousy with +regard to her, none was more evident than his jealousy of her +personal superiority to himself. He resented any least thing that +seemed to take her out of his reach or off of his level, and he hated +every manifestation of her better education, her wider experiences, +her finer tastes. The very intensity of his scorn for the table +reforms she introduced was proof to her that he felt them to be a +criticism of himself and a setting up of herself above and apart from +him. + +But one day she discovered, to her surprise, that he was really +inordinately proud of this very superiority which he so jealously +resented. A cattle dealer, with whom he had to transact some +business, came over from Fokendauqua to take dinner with them, and +Susan decided that as the man was Joe's guest and not hers, she +would, to-day, dispense with the table formalities and daintinesses +which he so hated. + +"I'll serve the dinner as _he_ likes it served." + +What, then, was her surprise to find him hurt, angry, and +disappointed at being foiled of an anticipated pride in displaying to +his crude visitor what a "high-toned" wife he had! + +"Yes, fur yourself and _your_ friends you'd take trouble!" he +reproached her. "But fur mine, not! Any old thing when my folks +comes; ain't?" + +"But I thought you hated napkins and finger bowls and extra forks for +pie and all that! Every day for three weeks you've been telling me +you did. I served the dinner to-day as I thought you liked it." + +"Yes, you did!" he sneered, skeptically. "You done it to spite me!" + +She wondered wearily whether he really believed that. + +"If you _got_ to put on all that there damned style," began Joe--but +Susan checked him with an indignant glance toward Josie. + +"You'll teach him to swear!" she warned. + +"Nevvy mind, Muvver, me knowed dat word before," Josie said, +reassuringly. + +"If you're got to put on style," Joe repeated, firmly, "you ain't got +no need to con_trar_y it all just as soon as strangers comes to eat +along! A awful funny way, I must say--keepin' your fancy manners fur +private and your plain ways fur when comp'ny is here!" + +Susan's occasional glimpses of Sidney's wife made her wonder whether +Laura, with her seemingly more fortunate lot, was really any happier +than was she herself. + +"She looks so awfully discontented, so soured on life!" + +Was it because she depended so entirely upon outside things to give +her happiness?--and had no resources at all within herself?--not even +the love of a child? + +One autumn afternoon Susan had the unusual experience of meeting +Sidney's wife face to face in the narrow lane which afforded a short +cut from White Oak Farm to the trolley line to Middleburg. Both the +little roadster of the cottage and the touring-car of the big house +being out of commission, Susan had just returned from town by the +trolley as Laura was walking to the trolley station. The lane was so +very narrow that Laura was obliged to stop and step aside to let +Susan pass. Susan sensed at once that her sister-in-law was going to +be gracious, condescending. Now nothing which Sidney's wife could do +could so much as even prick the surface of Susan's life, let alone +touch the deep places where she had suffered so much. So it was with +a quite detached and very faint curiosity that she contemplated +Laura's bearing toward her in this moment of their unavoidable +meeting. And before this impersonal regard and slightly ceremonious +bow of Susan Laura's intended condescension and graciousness suddenly +collapsed, leaving her actually confused, almost abashed. + +As Susan walked on home, the words "aristocracy of the spirit" moved +like a refrain in her brain, as she thought of how she, born of lowly +peasants, had, by virtue of her obviously stronger, more intrepid +spirit, abashed and confused her comparatively high-born +sister-in-law. + +She recalled a sentence in "The Water Babies": "A man may learn from +his Bible to be a more thorough gentleman than if he were brought up +in all the drawing-rooms of London." + +"After all," thought Susan, "it's only genuine religion that can make +one _truly_ aristocratic." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A FEW MORE YEARS AT THE COTTAGE + +As the days, weeks, and months slipped by Susan came more and more to +let circumstances get the better of her; her husband's will and +personality dominate their joint life; her own individuality sink and +be submerged in a groove of narrow household drudgery, with almost no +life outside the four walls of their cottage except that which she +got from her lively correspondence with Eleanor--all idea of any +closer contact under present conditions seeming impracticable; from +her flying about the country in her husband's car (a wonderful safety +valve); from her relation with her sisters and a few of her +Pennsylvania Dutch neighbours; but most of all from books, through +which she "roamed at large o'er all this scene of man." It was her +avid love of books, and her growing devotion to Josie during the next +four years that kept her soul alive in an otherwise deep and heavy +loneliness and isolation. + +It seemed to her sometimes, as she would move mechanically through +the household tasks which never had and never would seem worth doing, +but which she nevertheless faithfully performed, that life for most +people was nothing more than going through a succession of senseless +movements which led nowhere. + +"We lie down and rise again; wash dishes and put them away; take them +out again and put them away again; get into bed and out of it and +into it again; dress and undress and dress again; a succession of +motions! What for? What is the Universe doing with us? Are we +fools, not to cut loose and do what we want to do?" + +But what did we want to do? The eternal question! + +"It ain't respectable, the way you won't go to church," Joe sometimes +grumbled. "I want Josie brang up respectable. You had ought to take +him to Sabbath school still." + +"But I do go sometimes with Georgie along, Father," said Josie. "The +last time I went with him along, I ast the teacher was the Holy Ghost +a spook, or whatever? And she says no, but you couldn't see it, you +could only per-theeve it. So I guess," added Josie, thoughtfully, +"it's somepin like a skunk." + +"Now will you listen to that!" cried Joe with an accusing eye upon +Susan. "That my son should by growin' up that ignorant as to think +that the Holy Ghost is like a skunk yet!--just because you won't take +him to Sunday school to get learnt right!" + +"I suppose you went to Sunday school when you were a little boy, +Joe?" asked Susan. + +"Sure, I did. Sometimes I went pretty often, too." + +"Then you can tell Josie what the Holy Ghost is. I don't know +myself." + +"Well, with all the education _you're_ got, you anyhow know it ain't +like a skunk!" + +"Why do you think I ought to go to church when you never go?" + +"Women had ought to be more religious than men. It comes natural to +'em. You had ought to go to church to set a good example to Josie. +To be sure, I know a preacher believes an awful lot that _ain't_. +But still, religion is _religion_. A body's got to have religion." + +"Look at Mother!" cried Josie, "trying not to leave you see her near +bustin' to laugh!" + +Susan let it come then, the little shriek of laughter which her +effort to suppress had turned her crimson. + +Joe looked offended. "Ain't you got no reverence for nothing, +Susan?" he demanded, disapprovingly. + +"Well, yes," Susan admitted. "For babies." + +"Och, Susan," Joe said, impatiently, "sometimes you talk so dumb!" + +A growing source of anxiety and distress to Susan was her sisters' +increasing poverty with their advancing age. To eke out a living +they boarded the school teacher in the winter and took a few summer +boarders during the vacation; but the extra work which this entailed, +in addition to the heavy labour involved in getting a living out of +their bit of land, was quite too much for them. + +There was just one respect in which Susan, after seven years of +married life, knew her husband to be invulnerable to any attack or +strategy which she might employ to move or change him, and that was +his penuriousness. She did not waste herself upon useless attempts +to make him generous. She submitted to the limited expenditure which +he allowed her in spite of the fact that she knew he must every year +be adding enormously to his inheritance from his uncle, the interest +of which he never spent. + +But her mind was constantly active in devising ways and means of +helping Addie and Lizzie without his knowledge; a most difficult feat. + +"I'm growing actually cunning!" she would bitterly tell herself while +carefully calculating how much sugar and coffee she might slip to the +little household in Reifsville without Joe's missing it; or how many +extra cookies she might venture to bake to carry to her sisters +without Joe's noticing how fast the flour "got all". + +Josie early proved to be a stumbling-block in the way of her giving +her sisters aid. He was so constantly her companion that it became +increasingly difficult to elude his seeing how she circumvented his +father's meanness. It was not so much because of her fear of Joe as +of setting an apparently bad example to the growing boy, that she +tried to escape his unchildlike vigilance of her. + +Sometimes she suspected that Joe actually set his son to watch and +spy upon her. It depressed and discouraged her even more than it +angered her when, after a visit to his "aunties", Josie, a great boy +of nine years, would run to his father and, deliberately and with the +keenest relish, "tattle" to him that Mother had given "aunties" a +package of tea and a half-dozen oranges. + +A device for securing a few dollars to give to her sisters occurred +to her one day as she was driving with Josie to Middleburg to buy a +quantity of groceries: if she should make her purchases at one of the +chain of cut-rate stores, of whose existence Joe had not yet learned, +she might save a bit from the sum he had entrusted to her (after he +had made a most careful and accurate calculation as to what the +groceries would cost) and the bit thus saved could be safely passed +over to Lizzie and Addie. + +When on the way home they stopped at the Schrekengusts' cottage at +Reifsville, Susan realized, to her intense disgust, that Josie was +watching her like a detective to see whether any of their load of +groceries was to be given to his aunts. He kept at her heels every +minute, following her about wherever she stepped. She had to watch +for a chance, when Lizzie was giving him an apple, to slip the dollar +she had saved from her shopping into Addie's pocket. + +"Och, Susie, saddy*," Addie gratefully whispered. But as Josie, on +the alert, turned back to them, Susan lifted her eyebrows to impose +silence. + + +* Thank you. + + +"How nice and fresh this room looks," she said, hastily, stepping to +the threshold of the downstairs bedroom which was rented to the +village teacher. + +"Yes, ain't! Teacher she put them white curtains up," explained +Lizzie. "And when Hiram Slosser seen 'em, he come over and ast us, +he says, '_Don't_ you think them curtains is comin' a little near to +bein' fash'nable fur a Old Mennonite?' he says. 'But, Brother +Hiram,' I says, 'look at what Missus over at your place put up at her +windahs!' I says. 'I'm an Old and she's a New, but I ain't got no +sich fixins as hern. Nor I wouldn't, neither,' I says. 'Well,' he +says, 'I tol' Missus when she fetched them curtains of hern from the +store that I had my doubts. But she claims there's nothin' to 'em +but what belongs to neatness.' And I tol' him, 'Hiram,' I says, +'your Missus is listenin' to the temptin's of the Enemy.' Then I +tol' him that me and Addie us we can't help fur what our lady boarder +puts in her own room. Nor we can't, neither, can we, Susie?" she +appealed, highly injured. + +"Of course you can't," responded Susan, sympathetically. + +"I'm sorry, Susie, the new teacher ain't here to make your +acquaintance," Lizzie continued. "She's so high educated that way +that I know us we seem awful dumb to her, me and Addie. So I wisht +she'd meet up with you oncet, so's she'd see there's anyhow one in +the fambly that ain't so dumb! Yes, she's even higher educated than +what you are yet, Susie! Just to think! It gives me and Addie such +a shamed face to have her 'round, us bein' so dumb that way." + +Lizzie and Addie were both looking worried, almost distressed, and +Susan saw with a pang that this innovation of a boarder was a very +considerable strain added to their already burdened lives, especially +as the boarder was, it seemed, a person who gave herself airs of +superiority that humiliated them. + +"Damn her!" thought Susan, resentfully. + +"She's learnin' the school children such ettik-wetty--manners and +rules of good society, she says," Lizzie went on. "When I tol' her +how educated you was, too, she sayed she'd like so well to have an +interduction to you and she keeps astin' us why you don't come and if +you're too high-minded to wisit us. It is a good whiles since you +was to see us, oncet, Susie; ain't you been good?" + +"Oh, yes, I've been well, thank you, Lizzie; I have such a lot of +work to do, it seems to me I'm always grubbing!" + +"Me and Lizzie is all the time talking over you to the teacher," said +Addie. + +"Och, here she comes now!" exclaimed Lizzie. + +A decoratively apparelled young woman of uncertain age, with a +simpering manner, who seemed to ooze sentimentality from every pore, +came into the "front room" where they were gathered; and Susan +realized, when introductions followed, that the school mistress was +evidently applying her "Manners and Rules of Good Society" to the +present occasion, so studied was her bow, so prim her smile, so +carefully enunciated her speech. + +"Your sisters tell me that you, too, are litter-airy, Mrs. Houghton." + +"Oh, no, I make no such ambitious claim, Miss Miller." + +"I understood," said Miss Miller, sadly, "that you were a friend to +litter-at-yure. Are you not?" + +"I'm not its enemy." + +"I'm so glad!" exclaimed Miss Miller, delightedly. + +"Do you like Shakspere?" she abruptly inquired, making Susan feel as +though she had been jerked by a rein. + +"It's hardly respectable not to like Shakspere, is it? If I didn't, +I'd not have the courage to admit it." + +"There's some that don't like his works, though. And Harold Bell +Wright's works, do you admar them?" + +Susan noted how anxious Lizzie and Addie looked lest she fail to hold +up her end with this superior person; so she answered regretfully, +"I'm not familiar with the 'works' of Harold Bell Wright." + +"Oh, ain't you? His books are so well liked, far and wide. Then I +guess you don't read wery much, do you?" + +"Probably not much that you read, Miss Miller." + +"You would find Harold Bell Wright's books enjoyable, I'm sure. His +thoughts are so sa-ad!" + +"You find sad thoughts 'enjoyable'?" + +"If I do say it myself, Mrs. Houghton, I am without a touch of +frivol'ty in my composition." + +"How tragic!" + +"But at the same time, I like gay, glad thoughts, too. Sunshine +mingled with Shadow. _Pollyanna_, for instance, I found wery +instructive. Didn't you, Missus?" + +"It's title, _The Glad Book_, was as far as I could get. Too +depressing!" + +"I had hoped, from what your sisters said of you, to find in you a +kindred mind." + +"My sisters flatter me!" + +"They speak wery well of you. They said you love a book as I do." + +"I'm afraid not as you do, Miss Miller." + +"You don't dearly love a book?" + +"It depends upon the book." + +Miss Miller bent her head to one side, considering. "Yes," she +concluded, thoughtfully, "it does. Some books are more interesting +than other books." + +"I have noticed that myself." + +"I am very pertikkler about the story books which I recommend to my +pu-pills--that they shall be Clean and Wholesome." She repeated the +words lovingly. "Clean and Wholesome. Books that have no bad +children, no bad words, no bad morals, no bad example. Also nothing +to frighten the Child--no ogres or giants. Only what is sweet and +happy and lovely and--and--Clean and Wholesome." + +"My God!" breathed Susan. "Where would you ever find such an insipid +book as that, Miss Miller? Or where the child that would read it?" + +"It's the only kind I permit in my school library," said Miss Miller, +primly, disapprovingly. + +"But do you forget how when you were a child you thrilled and tingled +over ogres and giants and bad children? Why, you can't have an +interesting story out of just good people. Nothing ever seems to +happen to them. Don't you see your rule would prohibit Mark Twain +and Booth Tarkington and James Whitcomb Riley and Dickens and Robert +Burns and----" + +Susan stopped short as she noticed Miss Miller's embarrassment before +this array of names. "She's not to be taken seriously," she +decided--and changed the subject. "I understand, Miss Miller, that +you are making a specialty in your school of--er--etiquette?" + +"Yes," Miss Miller eagerly responded, recovering from her confusion +at the heavy battery with which Susan had refuted her plea for Clean, +Wholesome Insipidity, and glad to return to familiar ground, "and I +find that my pu-pills are wery receptive to my sudgestions." + +"You are making Chesterfields of your Pennsylvania Dutch boys and +girls?" + +"Chesterfields was, I believe, Missus, a foreigner and an aristocrat? +_No!_" Miss Miller democratically repudiated all such. "Amurican +manners for our Amurican boys and girls! An Amurican gentleman, an +Amurican lady--that is my highest ambition for our young people of +Reifsville." + +"How do you go about it?" asked Susan, curiously. + +Miss Miller, in her reply, did not talk, she recited: + +"I train them in the accepted usages of the best society in every +walk of life, from the kitchen to the parlour; from the cottage to +the mansion. Yesterday, for instance, I gave them a lesson in +Interductions; the etiquette to be observed is to accompany the gent +to the lady who, if seated, does not rise; whereupon both bow; the +interducer then retires and the interduced at once enter into +conwersation." + +"Your pupils will find this instruction very useful, I'm sure," +murmured Susan. + +"I teach them what are breaches of etiquette in a social gathering of +the best society--such as whispering. I tell them what to do if they +commit those breaches--such as, If you strike against another in the +street, apologize with, _I beg pardon_. I try also to inculcate +grace; I endeavour to show my young folks that grace should attend +all movements; that walking, speaking, _and_ so forth should be at +once refined and unostentatious. There is a great art in making a +bow dignified and stately while neither stiff nor awkward." + +"I should say there was! A difficult feat, Miss Miller!" + +"With patience it can be acquired. I myself acquired this graceful +accomplishment with only a little practice." + +"_I_ should think it would take an acrobat to strike such a happy +balance! Come, Josie," Susan put an end to the lesson in etiquette. + +"Poor Lizzie and Addie!" she reflected on the way home, "trying to +live up to that poor donkey! And if I tried to show them what a +great big bluff she is, they'd only think I was jealous of her!" + +As Susan had not dreamed for an instant that Josie had noticed the +sort of shop at which she had made her purchases that day, great was +her astonishment when, at the supper table, he announced to his +father, "Mother has some change let over from her trading, Father. +She traded at a new kind of store where everything costs a couple +cents littler than what it does at Diffenderfer's, or Saltzgibbler's." + +It seemed to Joe, when explanations followed, like actual thieving +from him that Susan should have handed that dollar, saved from her +shopping, to her sisters. + +Susan tried, for Josie's own sake, to break him of his pernicious +tattling. + +"I'm going to drive to Middleburg this afternoon, Josie," she told +him one day a few weeks later, "and I don't intend to take you with +me, because the last time I took you driving you were very unkind and +made your father angry with me. So to-day I shall leave you at home." + +"You're afraid I'll tell Father what you sneak to the Aunties!" + +"I'm leaving you at home to punish you for being unkind to me. I +don't want a mischief-maker with me." + +"I'll tell Father you're punishing me for telling him you gave +Aunties things!" + +"Why do you like to make me uncomfortable, Josie? I don't like to +make you unhappy." + +"Yes, you do! You like to _let_ me when you go to Middleburg!" he +whimpered. "I'll tell Father to _make_ you take me!" + +When Joe was informed of the proposed trip to Middleburg without +Josie, to punish the boy for tattling, he simply put the car out of +commission for Susan by removing the ignition tip. + +"That fixes that little idea of yours, Susan!" he told her, +chuckling; and Josie eyed her triumphantly. + +At such times she not only disliked Josie, she shrank from him. She +knew that Sidney's boy, who was constantly at the cottage during the +few months of the year that the big house was occupied by its owners, +was incapable of petty meannesses like this; that he was a generous, +warm-hearted lad; and she wished, almost passionately, that her +foster-child were more like Georgie. + +But Josie, though spoiled, tyrannical, and mean, could be +extraordinarily lovable. He was very handsome; he was intelligent +and responsive to her teaching as well as in the reading that they +did together; and, in his own selfish way, he adored his step-mother. +At times he had a cuddling, demonstrative way with her that acted +like an antidote to the poison of his little basenesses. + +And, strongest appeal of all to Susan, Josie believed her to be his +own mother. His very tyrannies presupposed a sense of exclusive +possession which somehow made her feel that she and Josie did +inalienably belong to each other. Joe had scrupulously kept the +promise he had made to her before their marriage--that his boy should +never know through him that Susan was not his own mother. + +Sidney's increasing indebtedness to Joe and his consequently +decreasing income obliged him to spend more and more of his time +quietly at White Oak Farm. It was evident enough that only the +stress of circumstances, and not choice, kept him there, for almost +in the very hour that his quarterly income fell due he was off again +upon another orgy of extravagance: racing, betting, yachting, +luxurious travelling with people of ten times his means. + +Occasionally there were large and festive house parties at the big +house, with decorators, caterers, and orchestras for dancing, all +brought from Philadelphia. + +Georgie and Josie played and quarrelled together all day long, and +Susan's heart often reproached her because her step-son seemed to her +so much less lovable than Sidney's boy. Georgie was a dreamy, +thoughtful, gentle child who, behind his slow, quiet manner, had an +unusually strong personality. It was really startling, sometimes, to +see him, after having submitted for days, with entire indifference, +to Josie's aggressive and tyrannical self-assertion, suddenly and +quite unexpectedly turn upon his oppressor with an alarming fury, for +some offence much less aggravating (to the ordinary judgment) than +the things which he had meekly borne without a murmur. For instance, +Josie learned, after three times receiving a blow in the face from +Georgie's fist, as punishment, never to dare to speak rudely to Susan +before his cousin. Susan wished that she were as good a +disciplinarian where Josie was concerned. + +On one of these occasions Joe happened to be a witness to the +chastisement inflicted by his nephew upon his son; and the snarling +resentment with which he flung himself upon Georgie to beat him, all +the concentrated hate of years of bitter jealousy ready to wreak +itself upon his defenceless little nephew, made Susan, with a blind +impulse of protection, rush between them, tear the child from Joe's +terrible blows, and stand panting and defiant before him; while +Sidney, who, at Georgie's cries, had rushed down the terrace to the +cottage door, picked up his quivering son and held him in his +arms--looking on, as white as linen, at Susan's fierce defiance of +her husband's brutality. + +"It's Josie you should beat, not Georgie!--if you must beat a child! +You _encourage_ Josie to speak to me so rudely that even this +child"--her hand on Georgie, who trembled in his father's +arms--"resents it! Teach Josie to respect me as Georgie does before +you dare to lay a finger on Georgie." + +She turned and went into the cottage, while Sidney, looking ghastly, +carried Georgie home to the big house. + +But a few days later, when again the two boys were together, Josie, +thinking that Georgie having had a dreadful warning against striking +him, could now be teased and tormented to any extent without daring +to defend himself or to fight for his "Aunt Susan," ventured again to +use rude language to his mother--with the prompt result of a blow in +the face that knocked him down. + +Susan had noticed the fact that Georgie had struck before looking +about to see whether his Uncle Joe were in sight. + +While Josie ran screaming for his father she made Georgie run home as +fast as his legs would carry him. + +Georgie was with her one evening when Lizzie and Addie happened to +drive over from Reifsville to see her. They very seldom came to her +home, for they realized that Joe, in his fear of Susan's giving them +something, did not make them welcome. But Susan had not been to see +them for over a week and they had become anxious. + +"I overtaxed myself with canning and preserving last week," Susan +explained, as they all sat together on the cottage porch, the two +boys playing near by on the lawn. "And I came down with a nervous +sick headache that kept me in bed two days. This is my first day out +of bed." + +She was leaning back in a rocking-chair looking pale and pensive, and +her sisters regarded her with loving anxiety. + +"If only Joe'd hire fur you, Susie! You wasn't never used to hard +work; us we always spared you all we could." + +"Joe seems unable to see that he loses out by my overworking; I had +to have the doctor; and for two days Joe had to cook and wait on me. +He wanted to send for you, Lizzie, but I would not have it. Addie +could not be left alone with all the work over there." + +"Who's the little boy playing with Josie?" asked Addie. + +"Sidney's son." + +The announcement was followed by a silence which seemed to Susan to +take on the character of a deep and pregnant stillness. She glanced +at her sisters. They both looked white and frightened. + +"Poor things!" thought Susan, "I suppose they're thinking of my +child--that was Sidney's!" + +Before her sisters left, Lizzie walked hesitatingly across the grass +and drawing Georgie to her, looked long into his face; then stooped +and gently kissed him. + +Susan saw, to her astonishment, as she said good-night to her +sisters, that they were both crying. + +"They would have loved my baby so!" she reflected, mournfully, as she +walked slowly into the house. + +It was that night, when she and Joe were alone in their room, that +she learned of the immediately impending great change in her life. +Joe informed her quite casually that Sidney had come to the end of +his rope. + +"I left him go to it and spend! I left him borrow off of me all he +wanted; and him, the poor simp, never seen through it! Thought I was +bein' brotherly and generous! Me! To him! Him that his mom always +learnt to treat me like the dirt under his feet! Well, now I _got_ +him! He's in my power! He owes me more'n he kin ever pay!" + +"What are you proposing to do?" + +"Next month us we move into the big house and Sid and his Missus and +his kid _moves in here_!" + +"They'll never do it!" exclaimed Susan, startled. "Move in here! +They can't be _that_ poor!" + +"I tell you Sid has run through with every dollar of his principal. +Ain't he the darned fool though! All he'll have to live on for the +rest part of his life is the rent of White Oak Farm, and only part of +_that_, fur half of it goes to pay me back what he's borrowed off of +me." + +"His wife will surely leave him; she will never live in this cottage!" + +"But her money's all, too. And you know her father died a couple +years back a'ready. So it's this here cottage fur her, or work fur +her livin'! And as she wasn't raised to fit into neither of them +humble stations in life, here's _your_ turn, Susan, to come it over +her the way she's been turnin' _you_ down ever since I got married to +you. If you don't give her as good as what she always sent you, I +won't think much of your spunk!" + +"She never lifted a finger to hurt me; she never for a moment had it +in her power to! And I don't think, Joe, that I have it in my power +to hurt her. Her life and mine simply do not touch." + +"That ain't the high-minded way _she's_ feelin', I bet you! I bet +you she's eatin' her heart out with spite that now you're a-goin' to +be in her place, to hold your head as high as what she held hern and +to turn up your nose at her the way she done to you!" + +Susan wondered, as she lay sleepless that night, whether Sidney, like +Joe, knew her so little as to think that because he had once done her +a great, irreparable injury, she now gloated over his downfall. She +searched her heart to learn what really she felt about this strange +twist of fate that was taking from Sidney and giving to her all those +things for which he had once sacrificed her. And all she could find +there was a profound indifference. Sidney no longer seemed a part of +her life. + +"Georgie is the only one in that family that interests me in the +least," she decided, as she closed her eyes and went to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +IN THE BIG HOUSE + +Susan was early given to understand, after the removal to the big +house, that Joe expected to live there very much as he had previously +lived there with a succession of hired housekeepers; keeping the +greater part of the old house shut off to save coal. He would have +liked to limit their occupancy to the kitchen and their bedrooms, if +he had had his undisputed way. And indeed Susan's utmost revolt +against such a régime got her only so far as to win his consent to +their using the dining room and parlour on festive occasions such as +Christmas or Josie's birthday, or when they had company. + +Joe was deeply chagrined when Sidney, instead of meekly moving his +family into the tenant's cottage, removed them clear out of the +neighbourhood. + +Susan would have been relieved at this except for her sorrow at +parting from Georgie. + +"Never you mind," Joe consoled himself in the form of giving comfort +to Susan for Sidney's failure to play up to the tragic humiliation so +carefully staged for him. "He'll be drove into livin' in that there +cottage _yet_, you mind if he ain't! My only _re_-gret is that his +mother ain't alive to see this day, when I'm on top with him under my +heel; her that didn't think me good enough to live in the same house +with her son and had me turned out of my own father's house! Her a +stranger comin' in and turnin' me out of my father's house!" + +Susan had learned to dread Joe's reminiscences of his boyhood, such +red-hot passion of bitterness and resentment they always aroused in +him. No doubt if his step-mother had been openly and intentionally +cruel, instead of just limited in perception and sympathy to the +circle of her own personal interests, he could have found it less +impossible to forgive her. + +"And now," Joe continued, "it's my turn to open the door and say, +'Get out! You ain't got the price to stay here!' Oh, I ain't done +with Sid Houghton yet, Susan! Don't you think it!" + +Sometimes Susan was afraid of her old propensity to experiment with +situations; to try out the effect of some unexpected announcement, +like that thrilling experiment of giving Sidney's mother the +impression that his Uncle George wanted to marry her. She was afraid +sometimes lest she leap over the precipice by suddenly saying to Joe, +"You think Sidney and his mother greatly wronged you. But they did +you a greater wrong than any you know of! They long ago slew the +soul that once dwelt in this shell you call your wife! This woman +you've married was once your hated brother's mistress! _She bore him +a child!_" + +Where Sidney removed his family Joe never learned. But before a year +went by his prophecy came true and dire need drove the younger +brother back to appeal for help once more. + +Meantime, Susan, finding herself the pseudo-mistress of a mansion, +decided to test the possibility of having Eleanor Arnold and perhaps +a few more of her old school friends visit her. + +The necessity of keeping at least one servant to help with the work +of the big house even Joe had recognized. But when Susan, in +preparing for Eleanor's arrival, undertook to teach the Pennsylvania +Dutch farmer's daughter in her employ the ways of a waitress, she +found that ploughing would have been fairy's work by comparison. + +"Why must folks be so awful waited on just fur to eat their wittles?" +the girl would ask, wonderingly. "Why can't they do their own +stretchin' at the table?" + +Joe really suffered when, inquiring at supper for the pound of +roquefort cheese he had "fetched" from town the day before, he was +told by the girl, "They sent you spoilt and mouldy cheese yet! With +green spots at! I throwed it quick away so's you wouldn't poison +yourselfs!" + +An Edom cheese which arrived with a basket of provisions from the +grocery she took for a jardinière and placed in the middle of the +dining-room table on a centrepiece. + +Doilies she called "tidies" for a long time; then they began to be +"dailies" and "doolies," but never by any chance did she hit upon the +vowel _oi_. + +Joe and Josie made Susan's work of training the girl much harder by +refusing to fall in and coöperate and by openly sneering at her "tony +airs", though Josie, in whom there was an æsthetic, effeminate +streak, was only feigning scorn to curry favour with his father; he +really adored "the ways of high society", as his father called their +waitress's clumsy ministrations. + +Though Eleanor Arnold was the most tactful of guests, her visit was, +for the most part, too great a strain upon both Susan and herself +ever to be repeated. Joe coming to the table in his shirt sleeves +and minus a collar; grumbling at the delay caused by a little service +between a few courses and openly making fun of it; commenting on +Susan's extravagance in using cream on the table which ought to be +saved for butter to be sold at market; reproving her for increasing +the price of the laundry by her frequent changes of the table linen; +objecting to her making the coffee so strong--"You use enough for one +meal to do for three and that there coffee thirty-five cents a pound +yet!" + +The meals came to be times of torment to Eleanor in her mortification +for Susan and her keen sympathy for what seemed an intolerable +degradation. + +It bored her also to have Susan working in the kitchen and about the +house, for nearly two thirds of the day instead of giving herself up +to her. Joe, however, seemed to think that his wife was taking an +unwarranted holiday, his table talk being ornamented with sarcastic +references to her "settin' 'round", her "pleasure-seekin'", her +"runnin'". + +It was made painfully evident to Eleanor that poor Susan had had to +put up a stiff fight to have a guest at all, even on such +uncomfortable terms as these. + +It seemed to be in sheer malice that Joe one day, during Eleanor's +visit, brought from town in his car several bushels of plums to be +preserved and canned. + +"But our own plums will be ripe next month; why did you buy these?" +Susan, in consternation, inquired, as he pointed out to her and +Eleanor the "bargain" he was unloading from his car. + +"Our plum preserves is all; and I don't feel fur waitin' till next +month till I taste plum preserves again. I feel fur some _now_. I +got these here wery cheap." + +"No wonder! They are the miserable little hard kind that are the +very dickens to seed!" exclaimed Susan, despairingly. "This is two +days' work! I don't see how----" + +"Miss Arnold kin help you, I guess," said Joe as he carried the heavy +load of fruit into the kitchen. + +Susan knew, of course, that it was not an unconquerable yearning for +plum preserves, but a determination to make it impossible for her to +spend an idle minute for the next few days at least, that had +prompted the purchase of the plums. + +During the next hour, before they assembled at supper (Joe insisted +upon a noon dinner), Susan was rather silent and thoughtful as she +and Eleanor strolled about the grounds. If Joe's plum scheme +succeeded he would surely not stop there, but would manage to find a +still heavier task to follow it. + +"In self-defence I've got to make it fail," she thought. + +"Eleanor, you know something about chemistry, don't you?" she +presently asked, irrelevantly, in the midst of a discussion of the +newest thing in blouses (which topic had been guilefully introduced +by Eleanor with a purpose). "Can you tell me what I can do to those +plums to make them seem to have rotted overnight? We can drive into +town to-night to a drug-store if you do know----" + +"Concentrated sulphuric acid will do the job." + +During the drive to town Eleanor resumed the discussion of blouses, +leading tactfully, as she thought, up to the fact that Susan's were +out of date and that she needed some new ones. + +"I get your point, my love," smiled Susan. "I was never one not to +know the latest style in blouses! It's lack of money and time that +makes me dress so abominably." + +"Has your husband had reverses, Susan?" + +"Joe never has reverses. He's too cautious ever to lose money. He +seems to be piling it up constantly. But _I_ don't benefit by it." + +"White Oak Farm is such a lovely home--you could have such larks in +that charming place! You ought not to submit, Susan, dear!" + +"By the way, I have no money (I never have any) to buy the +concentrated sulphuric acid. I meant to charge it and have the bill +sent to Joe--but I'm just beginning to see that that won't do. He +will be sure to ask me what I wanted with concentrated sulphuric acid +and that would give away my part in rotting the plums. I want him to +think he has been cheated in them--then he will never again risk +buying fruit in town. How shall I manage it?" + +"That's easy. Tell him you used the concentrated sulphuric acid as a +throat lotion or a hair tonic or a tooth wash." + +Crafty as Joe himself was, it was difficult for him to conceive of a +cunning in another that would deliberately ruin and waste. Thrift +was so ingrained in his very bones that he simply could not imagine +his own wife setting herself to the task of wantonly destroying +several bushels of food for which he had paid out hard cash. +Therefore he never suspected her and Eleanor of their perfidious part +in the tragedy that confronted him early next morning in his kitchen, +when the maid pointed out to him the condition of the fruit he had +bought. + +His manifest suffering for several days caused Eleanor a deep and +sweet contentment that almost compensated her for the manifold +miseries of her visit. + +While Josie seemed to respect and be greatly attached to his father, +he did not try to emulate his roughness, but was, on the contrary, +over-fastidious in trifles; irritatingly nice about things which did +not really matter. Joe, far from criticizing this in his son, as he +criticized his wife's tastes, appeared to take pride in it. + +In some respects it seemed that Josie would never grow up; in his +love, for instance, of being petted, fondled, and made much of by +Susan even after he had reached an age when most boys would have +resented a public caress as the grossest insult. The most effectual +punishments Susan had ever imposed upon him had been to refrain for a +time from all demonstration of affection for him. He was, like his +father, extremely penurious and he seemed to feel, even now at the +age of sixteen, as greatly defrauded by her kisses withheld as he +would have felt if someone had cheated him of dollars and cents. + +"He is the strangest mixture, my dear!" Eleanor wondered over him as +the two friends sat on the piazza one evening before supper. "_I_ +would not know how to deal with him! The way he seems to adore you +and yet so often goes ruthlessly against you and hurts you!--the +flinty hardness with which, just like his father, he will drive a +bargain!--and yet he will bawl like a girl for something he wants +that his father says he can't have!" + +Both Joe and his son displayed, during Eleanor's entire visit, a +childish jealousy of Susan's regard for her friend which added not a +little to the guest's discomfort. In Josie it often took the form of +a covert or even an open rudeness toward Eleanor. He would not +answer her greeting when they came together in the morning; he would +utter what he meant to be biting remarks on the neglect he was just +now suffering at his mother's hands. "For the past six days I've not +had you to myself an hour!" He would never permit his mother and her +friend, when he was at home, to sit alone together for ten minutes at +a time without interrupting them with some demand from Susan for +attention or service. + +"This shirt needs a button--I wish, Mother, you weren't too busy +gabbling all the time to keep my clothes mended!" + +As Susan never put his shirts away buttonless, she suspected him of +cutting off the buttons to make an excuse for taxing her attention. + +He would call her to massage his head for an attack of neuralgia; to +read to him because his eyes ached; to help him with his lessons. + +Just once, when he was deliberately impertinent to Eleanor, Susan's +forbearance broke down. He had overheard his mother speak to her +guest of an automobile ride they would take that day to "Chickies +Rock" and he had interrupted with the assertion that he wanted the +car that night. + +"What for, Josie?" Susan inquired. + +His hesitation betrayed that his demand was entirely impromptu and +that he had no goal in view. + +"I'm going to drive over to Middleburg to get some books from the +library," he answered after an instant. + +"It is too far for an evening's trip," Susan objected. + +"Well, anyway, I want the car this evening, Mother." + +"You can't have it, Josie." + +"I'll ask Father whether I can't!" + +"He won't let you drive to Middleburg at night." + +"Then I'll go over to Reifsville to see Aunt Addie and Aunt Lizzie." + +"Why don't you come with us to Chickies Rock, Josie?" asked Eleanor, +pleasantly. + +Josie, muttering something about not caring for the society of "an +old maid," flung himself out of his mother's room where the +discussion had taken place--leaving Eleanor looking pained for Susan, +and Susan herself suddenly livid with her rarely roused anger. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear!" cried Eleanor, "for that boy's own sake you +must not be so forbearing!" + +"I know I must not! Excuse me a minute, Eleanor." + +Susan left the room and in ten minutes returned with a very abject +and embarrassed Josie who sullenly apologized to Eleanor for his +rudeness. + +"How did you make him do it?" asked Eleanor, curiously, when they +were again alone. + +"I told him he could not come near me or speak to me again until he +had apologized to you; and as he can't stand being alienated from me, +he did it." + +"How you ever endure it all!" breathed Eleanor. + +"I care for Josie a lot," Susan admitted. "Oh, Eleanor, the only +thing I shall have accomplished when my life is over, is the bringing +up of Josie, and if he is a failure, _I_ shall be." + +"You've no doubt given him much, Susan; but when certain qualities +are lacking in a character no one can supply the lack." + +"He has been really improving since he has been attending the +Middleburg High School." + +"Heavens! what must he have been!" + +"I've hopes of what college may do for, or to, him, Eleanor!" + +Eleanor was silent. Susan knew how tragically empty, sombre, wasted, +her friend considered her life. "Yet she doesn't know the worst I've +lived through!--the way my youth was blasted, devastated!" she +thought. "If I should suddenly reveal it to her!" + +Once or twice a vague, inexplicable look in Eleanor's eyes as they +rested upon her made Susan wonder whether she did have a suspicion of +how deep and vital her relation to Sidney had been. + +Susan was, however, very far from the truth as to Eleanor's real +suspicion concerning her and Sidney. + +It was during this visit of Eleanor's that Susan was greatly +surprised one afternoon, while she and her guest were sitting on the +wide piazza that surrounded the house, an hour before their six +o'clock supper, to receive a letter in the mail which Josie brought +from the White Oak Station post office, from Sidney's wife. Sidney's +wife writing to her! A rather extraordinary communication, +considering all the circumstances. + +While Eleanor, busy with her own mail, remained unobservant of her, +Susan read her letter through twice very slowly. + + +My dear Susan (if I may presume upon our relation to call you so) +Sidney and I are feeling so homesick for our old home! It is just +eight months ago to-day that circumstances forced us to give it up to +you and your family. We should just love to spend a few quiet weeks +at White Oak Farm if you will be so very kind as to permit us. The +simple truth is we have no place to go just now until we are due next +month at the Sherwins. I am ill, and it is possible I may not be +well enough to go to the Sherwins when Sidney goes. So if you can +accommodate both of us for a few weeks and me for a bit longer if I +am not strong enough to travel, I shall be glad, in return, to be of +use to you in any way I can. I should like to introduce some of my +Middleburg friends to you--I think it might be mutually profitable +for us to spend a few weeks together at White Oak Farm. I am longing +for my home, the dear old place! I shall very much appreciate your +kindness if you can make room for us. + + Sincerely yours, + LAURA BERESFORD HOUGHTON. + +P.S. We have placed Georgie in a school where he will remain as a +summer boarder. So, you see, we are not asking you to be troubled +with him. We have saved enough out of the wreck of our fortunes to +educate Georgie, whatever may betide. + + +When Eleanor, having gone through her own mail, looked up, Susan, +without comment, handed Laura's astonishing letter to her. + +"Well!" Eleanor exclaimed when she had read it, "of all the +cold-blooded propositions! After ignoring you for years while you +were living right here beside her, to invite herself now to come and +visit you!--offering as a bribe to introduce you into Middleburg +society! She must be terribly stranded, poor Laura!" + +"She seems to look upon White Oak Farm as more her home than ours, +though we are renting it from Sidney," said Susan. + +"But she must know she has no sort of claim upon the place while you +are living here as its tenants. What shall you do, Susan?" + +"If Georgie were with them I'd be tempted to tell them to come!" + +Eleanor glanced at her swiftly, and Susan saw, to her surprise, that +her friend was flushing crimson. + +"You are strangely fond of that boy, Susie, dear!" + +"I know it. He has always appealed to me more than any child I've +ever known. And now that he is no longer a child, he is more +appealing than ever! It is strange, I know, that I should feel so. +But it's because of the boy himself--not any survival of my feeling +for his father, I assure you! He is a lovely boy!" + +"Is he? I've not seen him since he was a baby." + +"He is full of talent; and he is altogether fine and lovable, I +think!" Susan softly cried, her bosom heaving, a wistfulness in her +voice. "I can't help it, I love him!" + +"I've never heard you warm up like that about Josie," remarked +Eleanor, her eyes downcast, averted. + +"I suppose you think me very spineless, Eleanor, to be able to care +for Sidney's boy like that!" + +"What are you going to say to Laura, Susan?" + +"I'm afraid I think her letter too impertinent to deserve a reply. I +think I shall not answer it." + +"They may take your silence for consent and dump themselves down upon +you!" + +"The tenant's cottage is ready for them at any time." + +"Would you have the backbone to refuse to receive them here if they +came and presented themselves?" + +"I shall not entertain them as my guests, Eleanor." + +"It would take a staff of servants to keep them going!" said Eleanor. + +At dinner they learned from Joe that he had had a letter from Sidney +very similar to Susan's from Laura. + +"Says he's willing to do a bit of farm work for me, a couple hours +every day, if I'll put him and Missus up fur a couple weeks or so!" + +Joe chuckled disgustingly. "Listen to here!"; He opened the letter +and read them passages: "'In view of your many favours to me in the +past'--'This time it isn't money, but your hospitality,'--Say, I +wisht yous ladies would have saw the telegraft I wrote off to him! +'Your cottage at the foot of the terraces is ready for you any time +you care to occupy,' I wrote. That's all I sayed. Your cottage +ready for you! Ain't that a side-winder fur my elegant brother Sid, +though? Gee whiz! I never enjoyed myself more in all my life than I +enjoyed myself sendin' that there telegraft! Say! I'd like to have +a photograft of his mug took whiles he's readin' my telegraft!" + +Susan, as she heard her husband, decided not to let him know of her +letter from Laura. His joy was too unholy. + +"If they're too stuck-up to come and live in the cottage," continued +Joe, "leave Missus sell some of her jewels or furs that she throwed +away so much money on. I guess," he chuckled, "I surprised her and +Sid some last winter (ain't, Susan?) when me I bought _my_ wife sich +a fur set, too. Cost me forty-two fifty. Yes, sir! I guess Sid and +Missus took notice to it all right, when they seen you wearin' it, +Susan! Well, I guess, anyhow--a set that cost forty-two fifty! It +was a awful good set," he gravely almost reverently explained to +Eleanor. "_Ought_ to be--I paid forty-two fifty for it. When I do +buy I b'leeve in buyin' good. No cheap trash. Forty-two fifty--yes, +sir. It was a big outlay, I'll admit. But Susie she wanted some +furs and says I to myself, 'All right, if she wants furs she's +a-goin' to have some. Sid's Missus ain't the only lady kin afford to +walk 'round here lookin' like a Esquimaux.' So I up and got Susie a +set. Forty-two fifty I paid, yes, sir! You'd har'ly b'leeve it, but +that's what it cost me. Forty-two fifty." + +Susan did not try to check him or to cover his peculiarities. It +would have been so futile. She let Eleanor have it all. + +Their gathering together at the table, however, came to be a time of +misery to the two women. + +"If Sidney does come to the cottage, Susan, what shall you do?" +Eleanor asked the next day. + +"What I have always done--go my way unmindful of them." + +"Which are you, Susan--very callous or very wise?" + +"Stultified, Eleanor." + +"I predict you'll revive some day!" + +"But I'm getting on. I'm thirty-five, you know." + +"You don't look a day more than twenty-five. And poor Laura looks +any old age! Yet to any casual observer, how much more reason you +would have for looking prematurely old! In a sense, Susan, you've +lived religiously; with self-restraint and unselfishly; while those +others have forged ahead recklessly, living only for their +self-gratification. And yet," Eleanor shrugged, "they'd call you and +me irreligious, Susie, wouldn't they?--because we don't believe in +their respectable little creeds and ceremonies and delusions, the +opiates with which they lull and delude themselves! If a live +teacher of real religion turns up, see how quickly they crucify him +to-day just as in the past! 'Be ye not conformed to this world,' +saith the Scriptures; but who are quicker than Christians to jump on +you with both feet the moment you _don't_ conform to this world! The +man who does conform to the common standard is the only acceptable +man to society and to the church." + +"Why can't we realize," said Susan, "that it is only when a man +_revolts_ from the common standard that he becomes worth hearing? +Aren't we a tiresome race!" + +"I wonder whether it is any better on Mars," Eleanor speculated. + +Contrary to Eleanor's prediction, Laura and Sidney arrived a few days +later to occupy the cottage. + +"I didn't think they'd ever bring themselves to it," she told Susan. +"And now I don't know whether to run in to see Laura or not. It +might be just intolerably humiliating to her!" + +"Does the size of the house she lives in matter such a lot? You will +go to see her, not her house." + +"You've answered me; I go," nodded Eleanor. + +When, the next morning, she carried out her resolution, she was +shocked to find Laura, very white and weak, lying on a couch in the +tiny dining room of the cottage, looking as though she were dying. + +She brightened at the unexpected sight of Eleanor and welcomed her +eagerly, almost cheerfully. + +"Money worries; and living at too rapid a pace," she explained her +plight. "I tried to keep up with Sidney. Personally, I should have +preferred a little less strenuousness. And then--unhappiness, +Eleanor! Sidney and I have never been really happy together. It's a +general breaking up; I know I can't live long--and I don't want to." + +Eleanor could see that poor Laura undoubtedly spoke the truth; she +was doomed. One saw it so unmistakably in her dimmed eyes, her +pinched nostrils, her colourless lips, the whole blighted aspect of +her. + +"She _is_ going to die!" thought Eleanor, sombrely. "But Susan's +fate is worse--a living death!" + +"This human scene makes me sick!" Eleanor burst out. "Look at the +confusion in the world everywhere! We human beings seem as incapable +of arranging life in a sane and wise order for _all_ of us as a lot +of cats and dogs would be! _Just_ as incapable!" + +Laura stared. "Is this supposed to be apropos of my impending death, +Eleanor?" + +"Laura, dear!" Eleanor seated on a low stool beside the couch, +gently clasped the sick woman's hand. "If society had forced you to +serve it--not permitted you to be a parasite--you would not now be +here in this cottage dying!" + +"I'm not sorry I'm dying. Life does not interest me any more. I am +so bored that I _want_ to die!" + +"It's because your interests and activities were always shallow +surface affairs that never struck root, and so were doomed to an +early withering; and now that they are gone, you've nothing left! +It's rather ghastly!" + +"I've nothing left; that's true," repeated Laura. "Maybe if I'd had +a child----" + +She stopped short. + +For & moment neither of them spoke. + +Presently Eleanor repeated, "If you'd had a child? What do you mean, +dear?" + +"I mean--a daughter." + +Eleanor came to a sudden decision. "Laura, will you tell me +something I want very much to know, and which only you can tell me?" +she softly asked. + +"What is it?" + +"I would not ask you this question if it were not a matter of great +importance to me; if I did not believe you are right about not having +long to live. It is because I believe that, that I must have the +truth about this thing; a suspicion that has been growing in my heart +these many years and which lately has become almost a conviction. +But you alone can make me absolutely sure----" + +"Eleanor! You are as white as death! What is it?" + +"Tell me--_is Georgie your own son?_" + +Laura's faded eyes fell from Eleanor's burning gaze, and she did not +reply. + +"I am answered: he is not. _Whose child is he?_" + +"Why do you ask, Eleanor? What made you think he was not mine?" + +"Didn't anyone else ever think he was not yours?" + +"Never. Unmotherly mothers are too common in these days, I suppose!" +said Laura, a touch of sadness in her tired voice. + +"Who is Georgie's mother, Laura?" + +"She died at his birth. She was Sidney's mistress. I saw her once +for a few minutes in Sidney's rooms, but I didn't know she was going +to have a child; and I married him in haste to keep _her_ from +forcing him to marry her. I did not dream she was going to have a +child!" + +"Who was she?" + +"I never knew her name. Sidney would never tell me and I was not +interested in knowing. Her father brought the baby to Sidney the +very night we were married and threatened him with all kinds of +trouble if he did not take the child and bring him up as his own son. +We left the baby with Sidney's mother and went abroad. Mrs. Houghton +put it in the care of a farmer's family; and as soon as we returned +home Sidney insisted, against my wishes, upon taking the child. I +never would have consented but that I didn't want to go through the +agony of having a child myself and Sidney had to have a son to +inherit his Uncle George's estate, or it would go to Joe's boy. So, +for the sake of keeping this estate in our hands, I consented to take +Georgie and pass him off as ours. And after all the fuss and trouble +of it, the disgusting lies I've had to tell, the criticism I've had +to bear for not being motherly--after all this, here we are, just +where we'd have been if we had never acknowledged Georgie at all--Joe +Houghton has White Oak Farm!" + +"But Georgie will have it when he is of age?" + +"If he is anything like his father, he will never earn money enough +to keep it going. And all that Sidney inherited is of course +squandered; and my inheritance went after it!" + +"Laura! How do you know Georgie's mother died?" + +"Her father said so when he brought the baby to Sidney. Our wedding +journey was more like a funeral than a joy trip, Sidney felt her +death so terribly!" + +"Have you truly, truly always believed that Georgie's mother was +dead? Have you never suspected, Laura, _who_ was his mother?" + +Laura stared, speechless, into Eleanor's white face. + +"Haven't you had a _reason_, Laura, for ignoring your sister-in-law +as you have done?" + +"My sister-in-law? You mean Joe Houghton's wife? _What_ do you +mean?" + +"Haven't you ever noticed," pursued Eleanor, breathlessly, her bosom +heaving tumultuously, "how fatally Georgie resembles--Joe's wife? +The first time I ever saw Georgie I took him for Susan's own child! +And he _is_ her child! She doesn't know it, but he is! See how she +idolizes him! It's her blood calling to his!" + +"You're crazy!" gasped Laura; and Eleanor, in her blind eagerness to +get at the truth, for Susan's sake, failed to realize Laura's +dangerous agitation. "Joe's wife Sidney's mistress! You're crazy, +Eleanor!" Laura laughed wildly. "It's melodramatic! Georgia, +Sidney's son, is, you say, the illegitimate child of Joe Houghton's +wife! And she for fifteen years living next door to him and +mothering him every chance she could get and never knowing he was +hers!" Laura almost screamed with laughter, and Eleanor took alarm. +"But perhaps Susan has known it," Laura went on with shrill irony. +"Perhaps she, like me, has played her part so that her son may +illegally get White Oak Farm when it really belongs to Josie!" + +"But morally it belongs to Georgie!" Eleanor maintained. "And--and, +Laura, I'm going----" + +The door opened and Sidney, having been drawn by Laura's unnatural +laughter, walked into the room. + +He looked shabby and wretched, but retained, nevertheless, a vestige +of his old elegance. + +"Hear! Hear, Sidney, Eleanor's wonderful melodrama!" cried Laura, +hoarsely, "in which you are the villain, Joe Houghton and I the +martyred hero and heroine, Susan the--what's her part? Injured +innocence? Or did she wickedly lure two innocent brothers? What a +plot! Has Joe known all along that his wife was the mother of +Sidney's son and has he been working all these years for revenge, by +getting Sidney into his power? Has he? And you, Sidney, you poor +donkey, you never suspected your brother of plotting to get you into +his power! I've been warning you for five years that Joe's seeming +generosity was a trap! But," she groaned, "whenever you wanted +money, you'd believe that any devil who offered you some was an angel +of light! Now, you see! I was right; and you were a fool!" + +Sidney, standing white and shaken at Laura's side, turned agonized, +questioning eyes to Eleanor. + +"You'll kill Laura! Her heart is weak---- What is this tale you are +telling her? The doctor forbids the least excitement for her! +She----" + +"Eleanor thinks that _Georgie is Susan's son!_" interrupted Laura in +uncontrollable excitement. "Did you ever hear of anything more +grotesque? Her only reason seems to be that he looks like her and +that she's fond of him. Explain to her, Sidney, that Georgie's +mother was safely dead and buried sixteen years ago!" + +"Of course she was!" affirmed Sidney in a shaking voice. "Your +suspicion is ridiculous, Miss Arnold! Perfectly ridiculous!" + +"Perhaps it is," said Eleanor, uncertainly, "but----" + +"Don't you see it wouldn't do," cried Laura, mockingly, her eyes +looking feverish, "to have Susan turn out to be Georgie's mother--for +if Joe found it out he would divorce her, and Joe's a millionaire; he +may die before Susan and leave her one third of his estate, which +will in time pass on to Georgie--everything and everybody must be +sacrificed for Georgie!--legality and honour and marriage vows and +wives! For if Georgie were illegitimate, you see, Josie would get +White Oak Farm! Which of course must not happen! Who would think +that an old man's will could cause such crime and suffering?" + +Eleanor rose. "I'm going now, Laura, dear--I am terribly sorry I +have excited you so! My idea was absurd, of course. I, too, would +hate to see Josie get White Oak Farm, for he is detestable. Forget +what I've said!" + +Sidney, a look of fear in his eyes, hesitatingly followed her to the +door. + +"I assure you, Miss Arnold, there's nothing whatever in this idea of +yours--I never heard anything more far-fetched--anything more +preposterous! You won't--you won't spread it about any further, will +you? You--you have not suggested it to Joe or Susan, have you? You +know how much a suggestion can sometimes take root without any least +proof, and----" + +"Mr. Houghton," said Eleanor, as he stopped, floundering, "you can +trust me to do and say nothing that will injure either Susan or--or +her son. Susan may outlive her husband and inherit wealth. I'll +keep quiet for a while, anyway--a little while----" + +Not giving him time to reply, she turned away and almost ran out of +the cottage. + +Sidney, when she had gone, returned slowly, with the step of an old +man, to his wife's couch. + +She was lying back among the cushions, weak and spiritless, her +excitement subsided, but so deeply engrossed in thought that she did +not appear to notice his entrance. + +He bent over her solicitously. "It was outrageous of that woman to +come here and stir you up so, dear! I felt like----" + +"_Is_ there anything in it?--in her suspicion?" she calmly +interrupted him. "Suppose, Sidney, as I am dying, you tell me the +truth for once. _Is Georgie Susan's son?_" + +Sidney, after just a perceptible instant's pause, answered her: "Of +course he's not! I never heard of such a ridiculous idea!" + +Laura looked at him for a moment in silence, her gravely meditative +eyes making him feel as though his very soul were transparent to her. + +"Does Susan know it?" she presently asked. + +"Know what? You don't _believe_ this insane story?" + +"Why did you tell me, the night of our wedding, that the baby's +grandfather had told you his mother was dead?" + +"Because he _did_! And it was not until we came home from Europe +that he came to me and told me she wasn't! That night of the baby's +birth he had left her for dying--but she had rallied. Her parents +and sisters had then told her that her child had died; and she had +believed it. Her father implored me not to let her know the +truth--for the family would be disgraced; she herself would be so +ruined in the eyes of the community that she would be unable to earn +her living; they were poor and needed what she could earn. + +"I offered financial help, but he refused it. Of course I consented +to keep the secret; I had everything at stake in keeping it; I didn't +want to lose you; I didn't want to lose Georgie, I wanted him to +inherit White Oak Farm. I wanted to avoid a scandal. + +"Then I made the discovery that _she_ was teaching the school at +White Oak Station! I could not stand for that--she'd see +Georgie!--and you'd see _her_! I went to her father and begged him +to get her away. I pointed out to him the danger to us all if he +didn't. But--well, he died before he accomplished it. And then--Joe +married her!" + +Laura regarded her husband with a look of utter incredulity. "I've +always known, Sidney," she spoke slowly, "that you were weak! But +that you were capable of such a thing as this--of leaving that poor +woman in ignorance of her own son's existence through all these +years! Beguiling me into passing him off as mine when his own +unsuspecting mother lived just at my door! What have I been married +to? Let me warn you! Never tell Susan that Georgie is her son, or +she'll kill you, Sidney! I would in her place! I would deliberately +and cold-bloodedly murder you! How well you've guarded your secret! +I never suspected it! Never dreamed of it! Susan herself never +dreamed of it--that the boy she was so fond of was her very +own--though Eleanor saw the resemblance as soon as she saw them +together! Susan whom you seduced and robbed----" + +Her voice stopped suddenly, her head fell forward. She was +unconscious. + +That night her empty, purposeless, utterly futile life came to an end. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +FIVE YEARS LATER + +Susan, taking up her vigil at Joe's bedside during the small hours of +the night, to relieve the trained nurse, was kept feverishly wide +awake not only by Joe's laboured, painful respiration, but by the +wearisome intensity of her brain's activity; the flood of speculation +which overwhelmed her at the possibility of Joe's death, the new life +which that possibility opened up to her, her own unprecedented +thoughts and desires in this sudden, unlooked-for crisis. + +Joe was critically ill with pneumonia. + +The doctor, however, gave them a good deal of hope. + +Hope? Why did doctors and nurses and acquaintances always assume in +cases like this that your "hope" could lie in but one direction? + +That word "critically"--it had been on the doctor's and nurse's lips +constantly for two days. It beat in Susan's brain unceasingly. Joe +was "critically ill." Just what shade of danger (to Joe) did that +signify? How much "hope" did it leave to his family? Did +"critically ill" mean more or less than "dangerously ill"? So +strenuously did she try, in her suspense, to wrest from the word its +inmost, finest shade of meaning, that after a while it ceased to mean +anything; it became a dead sound. + +They had made her send for Josie to come home from his law school. +That looked serious (for Joe). The conventional phrases would +persist in her mind, though her deeply ingrained honesty forced her +to modify to herself their significance. She was conscious of a +mental effort to resist transposing them to mean what it shocked and +appalled her to have them mean; to think "hopeful" when she meant (or +ought to have meant) "serious", "promising" for "dangerous"! + +For nearly seventeen years she had been Joe Houghton's wife; and now +perhaps he was dying. Here was she at his bedside, in a +chintz-covered armchair beside a great old, carved, mahogany +four-posted bed in a beautiful and luxurious chamber, watching by a +dim light her husband's distorted, unconscious face, her soul on fire +with hope (yes, _hope_!) as she had not believed it capable of +becoming ever again. If the doctor and nurse could see into her mind +and heart, surely they would think it unsafe to leave her alone with +their patient! + +How her heart had sunk with bitter disappointment when, coming into +the sick room a few hours earlier to relieve the nurse and take her +place, she had been told, "Your husband is doing much better than I +had hoped, Mrs. Houghton; I think, now, that he may, perhaps, pull +through. But keep a very close watch, and at the least return of his +delirium, please call me at once." + +"I will," Susan had promised, with an emphasis meant not so much to +reassure the nurse as to combat the secret blackness in her heart! +It would be only her body, not her soul, that would keep that promise! + +"Oh, God, how I want to be _free_!" + +The vista opened up before her by that word! She seemed only now to +realize what misery her life with Joe had been during all these +years! The prospect of release forever from the sound of his +complaining, carping voice, from the sight of his mean little face, +from his hated touch---- + +She would go mad if he got well! + +She had not known until now what a living death had been hers--now +that escape from its nightmare seemed a possibility. + +She was thirty-nine years old; but the bare thought of freedom made +her feel like a girl. She was afraid of herself. Afraid of being +left alone here in this room with the responsibility on her hands of +a life which she did not wish to be saved! Every drop of blood in +her body throbbed with longing that he should die! It would be too +cruel if, after bringing her to the very brink of freedom like this, +he should get well! + +"I want him to die!" + +The refrain beat in her brain like a hammer. "Oh, God, let him die!" + +With utter wonder she contemplated this unsuspected self she was +discovering. Was she, perhaps, capable of helping him out? Oh, no, +no! Surely no! And yet, was this violent revulsion of feeling at +the thought of such a deed really a genuine horror of crime, or +merely cowardice? + +"What is it that would hold me back when I so much want him to go?" +she wondered, feeling bewildered as she recognized what unsounded +depths there were in her. "We don't know ourselves! What does any +one really know of his own heart, the true motives under his life? +Perhaps it is only the inhibitions of my training that keep me from +being a murderer!" + +She knew that the degradation of such a marriage as hers had worked +in her its insidious poison, in spite of her valiant efforts to hold +her soul high above and aloof from her hated relation to Joe. + +She thought, "No one has ever cared for him except his son. If he +had been loved in his childhood and treated with some justice, +perhaps he would not have been the man he has been. And if he had +married a woman who could have loved him, it might have changed him a +little." + +Yet so faithfully had she paid the price of her foolish marriage that +she doubted whether Joe had ever been aware that, far from caring for +him, she had loathed him. No, he had certainly never suspected it. +She had concealed her loathing. She had lived a lie. + +During the long hours of her vigil at his bedside she thought back +over the past five years: of her own increasing isolation from the +sort of people she would have liked to make her friends, but from +whom her marriage cut her off absolutely; of her ever-growing +submission to the will of her husband and his son; of Josie's +surprisingly selfish dominance, as he grew older, over both his +father and her (the boy really dominated her more than his father had +ever done); of the peculiarly tender and confidential friendship +which had come to exist between her and Georgie; of Sidney's +widowerhood; of the sudden death, from appendicitis, of her only +intimate friend, Eleanor Arnold. + +Her mind reverted to some incidents which were among the ineffaceable +records on her heart. There was one in particular--Sidney's having +one day watched for an opportunity when Joe had gone to Middleburg, +to come to her and beg her to secure some money from Joe for him. + +"But why should I?" She had met his extraordinary request with an +astonishment that had deeply shamed and embarrassed him. + +"I am so completely out of money," he had pleaded. "And Joe refuses +to lend me another dollar!" + +"That's not surprising, seeing you are already in debt to him to the +sum of three more years' rent of this place." + +"I know it. But he doesn't spend his money himself, nor let you +spend it, and what's the good of just hoarding it? He might as well +let me have a little. You can persuade him to, Susan, if you only +will." + +"Why should I?" + +"Susan! For the sake of what we once were to each other, can't you +have a little pity? I'm terribly in need!" + +"Did you have pity on me in much greater need?" + +"I did not! And haven't I been punished for it?" he had said with +such genuine bitterness that she had been startled. + +"It's I, not you, that have borne all the penalty of our folly!" she +had answered. "It's unbelievable that you should appeal to _me_ for +help!" + +"I've suffered in ways you don't know of!" he had exclaimed, +desperately. "Do not dream, Susan, that I have not had to pay for my +treatment of you--in ways you cannot imagine. If I had not, it +_would_ be unbelievable that I should come pleading to you to help +me. But I do ask you--I beg you--to get me some help from my +brother!" + +"I could not even if I wished to." + +"Joe worships you; he'd do anything for you. Any man would!" + +"Except you! _You_ would not even keep your sacred promises to me; +you would not save me from disgrace and anguish; you would not make +my child legitimate; or be at my side when I was suffering and nearly +dying for love of you! _You_ to ask help from me!" + +"You see me impoverished, stricken! Can't you forgive me, Susan?" + +"I wouldn't dream of asking Joe to loan you any more money. Why +don't you get to work, Sidney, and earn your living?" + +"If I had not inherited a fortune, I might now be a successful +lawyer," Sidney had answered, resentfully. "I had no incentive to +work after I was rich. And now it's too late. I'm too old." + +"You could dig coal or clean streets. I should think it might be +easier for you than begging favours from me." + +Then to her horror (horror before the moral deterioration of this man +she had once cared for) Sidney had threatened her; threatened to +expose all their past history to Joe if she refused to secure money +from her husband for her girlhood's lover! Evidently he thought he +had a weapon which he could flourish over her head to terrify her! +It seemed incredible. + +"I've been many kinds of a coward in my time," she had answered him, +"but this kind I happen to be incapable of becoming. I'm not afraid +of anything that you (or Joe, either) can do to me more than what you +have already done. And I shall never ask your brother for a dollar +for you. Now do what you please." + +Then he had produced his last and what he had considered his weakest +card, to force her hand. + +"I'm not quite so base as you think me, Susan. It's not for myself +that I am humiliating myself like this; it's for my boy. You know +that, poor as I have been in the past five years, I have always +managed, whatever my own need for money, to save enough out of what +Joe has let me have in rent to keep Georgie at school and college. +He has not missed one year--you know he hasn't. I'm now for the +first time up against it, to pay for this second half year's board +and tuition for him. _That's_ why I'm asking for help. I tell you I +would not ask for myself. It's for my son, whose inheritance," +Sidney miserably admitted, "I've squandered!" + +To Sidney's surprise, this plea, which he had considered his weakest, +proved to be his only strong one. He had known, of course, that +Susan and Georgie were very great friends; but no one of the three, +not even Susan herself, had realized how vitally her soul was knit to +the soul of Sidney's boy. + +"We can't let Georgie's education suffer," she had answered with an +anxious concern that had gripped Sidney's heart with mingled pain and +relief. "There's not the least use, you know, in my asking Joe to +help either you or Georgie. The truth is Joe is dreadfully +disappointed that in spite of all your misfortunes and extravagances, +you've succeeded in educating Georgie. He hoped you would be driven +to putting him to work as _he_ was put to work when he was a boy. He +wanted Georgie to suffer all the handicaps that he had suffered +because of his homelessness in his childhood. No, nothing I could +say would move Joe to help us here." + +She had pondered the matter earnestly. + +"There's one way I might raise some money for Georgie; there's the +silver you sent us for a wedding gift. I have never touched it. I +can sell it." + +Sidney had regarded her doubtfully, a shade of fear in his tired +eyes. "Susan! Why are you willing to do for Georgie what you +wouldn't do for me?" he had asked in a low voice. + +"I love Georgie--he is worth doing things for. You are nothing to +me." + +The silver had been sold and Joe had never, as yet, missed it. For +the past three years she had been dreading, with a shrinking of her +very flesh, the violent anger he would vent upon her when the +inevitable discovery did take place. + +And now perhaps it never would take place. Here lay Joe before her, +more helpless than an infant, and it was possible that never would he +rally to pour out upon her his hot rage at her having sold five +hundred dollars' worth of silver to help his hated nephew. + +She drew a long, deep, almost gasping breath. Would Joe get well and +would she have to go on living under that eternal vigilance of her +every act, that petty nagging at her for "wasting" her husband's +precious substance; that sordid slavery to the material side of life +which made existence so hideous! At the thought of it the pent-up +misery of years seemed to break its bounds; she bowed her head upon +the arm of her chair and tearing sobs shook her. It would be too +unbearable--she saw now how unbearable it always had been! She would +_not_ bear it! If he got well, she would leave him. No matter how +he might plead with her! No matter what sort of work she might have +to do for a living, she would leave him! + +"Susie!" + +So faintly her name was spoken, she heard it like a far-away whisper. +Her heart stood still. What had the nurse instructed her?--"At the +least return of his delirium, call me at once." She must not fail to +obey implicitly. Her very soul's salvation hung upon her absolute +obedience. + +She lifted her head and looked at Joe. His eyes, clear and natural, +met hers. + +"Susie! Are you cryin' fur _me_?" he whispered; his voice, though +feeble, was steady and entirely free from the hoarse raving of the +past four days. + +Then she need not summon the nurse--he was not "delirious". + +He would get well! + +"Susie!" came the faint, far-away call. + +He was so ill and weak--she must be very kind to him until he was +stronger--as he had always been to her when she had been ill. + +When he was quite well again she would go away and leave him forever! + +She bent nearer to him and laid her hand softly on his. + +"You was cryin' fur me, Susie?" + +She nodded dumbly. + +"You've made me a good wife, Susie--and you've been as good a mother +to Josie as you otherwise could be. I want you to pass me your +promise, Susie----" + +He spoke with difficulty, in halting phrases, his breath rasping, +laboured. + +"I didn't expec' to die as young as what I am--only a little over +fifty. What's fifty? Why, it's the prime of life yet!--I worked +hard and saved and now I got to go and _let_ it all! I done it fur +Josie. But I never made no will, fur I didn't think I'd be dyin' +till this good while a'ready!--and it's too late now fur me to make +my will--I ain't got the strength to fix things like I was a-goin' +to. I'll have to trust to your promise, Susie, fur to do like what I +want you to with my money--fur you'll get your widow's third now, +_whether_ or no. The law'll give it to you. Now, Susie, I want fur +you to promise me you won't squander it, but save it careful fur +Josie and his childern. You won't need to spend near all the +int'rust you'll draw from your capital; you kin turn back a good bit +of your int'rust to be added on to your principal, so's Josie'll have +more when you die oncet. I want fur Josie to be rich and powerful +and grand like what Uncle George was. Pass--me--your promise, +Susan," he spoke with a great effort, "that you won't spend any of my +money on them sisters of yourn. It wouldn't be right--your +squanderin' _my_ money on _your_ folks--you kin see fur yourself it +wouldn't. What's mine had ought all to go to Josie. Ain't so? I +earnt and saved a lot of it--all but what Uncle George inherited to +me and I near doubled _that_. And Josie's to have all. You kin live +on a wery little of your int'rust, Susan," he insisted, struggling +desperately with his weakness. "Promise you will!" + +"Trust me, Joe, to do what is right for Josie." + +"I know you will--you was always a good mother to him. But I have so +afraid you'll want to spend on them sisters! _Don't forget!_ What +you don't have to use _is for Josie_!" he reiterated with all the +force his failing strength could gather. + +"What I don't have to use--yes, I understand," she reassured him. + +"And you ain't to will it to any one but Josie! Promise!" + +"I am not to will it to any one but Josie." + +"I couldn't rest in my grave if you did! If I'd foreseen I was +a-goin' to die, I'd of _fixed_ things! And now I can't no more!" + +"Josie shall have everything that by rights is his, Joe," Susan +comforted him. + +"Call Josie! I'm a-goin' fast!" + +She rose quickly to summon both the nurse and her step-son. + +Joe waved away the nurse. "Don't _you_ come takin' up my time--it's +too short! I want my son and my wife! Josie!" + +His son, sincerely grieved, bent over him, pale and tearful. + +"Your mother's gave me her promise, Josie, that she'll will you her +widow's third of my estate and that she'll save back fur you all she +kin of her int'rust. She's passed me her promise--you hold her to +it!" + +"If she has promised, Father," said Josie, soothingly, "you don't +need to worry. I won't have to hold her to it. Mother'll keep her +promise." + +Susan vaguely reflected how subtle Josie always was when it was a +question of protecting his own interests; his challenging her honour, +just now, to keep that questionable promise she had equivocally +made!--a promise capable of such varied interpretation! + +"You'll know how to take care of your rights, ain't, Josie?" his +father breathed, his ruling passion strong in death. "Don't leave +Susan give away nothing to her sisters that's by rights _yourn_! +Ain't, you won't?" + +"She wouldn't want to, Father. There, there, don't worry about it; +everything will be as you wish it to be; I promise you!" + +"Susan would be a spendthrift if you left her be!" his father warned +him. + +"She has promised you, Father--that's enough." + +Joe breathed a long sigh of utter exhaustion. "Leave me rest now," +he murmured. + +His eyes closed, his head sank deeper into the pillow. + +It seemed but a few moments later, as they stood grouped about him, +the nurse a little apart, when his wheezy breathing stopped suddenly. +His jaw fell open. + +The nurse came forward. "It's all over!" she whispered with +conventional solemnity. + +It was not until the nurse had, with professional mournfulness, drawn +the sheet over Joe's stiffened face, and Susan felt Josie, at her +side, shudder and tremble, that she could believe it. + +Joe was dead! + +She couldn't grasp it. A cold terror gripped her lest it was only a +dream; lest she presently awake to find him still nagging, spying, +carping, sulking, holding tight his purse strings. + +Joe was dead! + +Yet as she went forth from the presence of the dead she was conscious +of a great pity for the man she was forever leaving, pity because +she, his wife, should be feeling just now not grief, but only a +boundless peace and contentment; like one who, having for seventeen +years been bound and gagged, had now suddenly struck off her bonds. + +But Josie, walking after her, felt a new responsibility upon his +shoulders--the responsibility of seeing to it that his father's dying +wish be fulfilled. He had been constituted his mother's keeper. He +would faithfully execute his trust. + +Josie had never been told that Susan was not his own mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A WIDOW + +Josie was shocked and even hurt at the irresponsible gayety with +which his mother bore her bereavement. + +He thought with bitterness, "All she cares about, I guess, is that +now she'll have some money of her own to spend--_my_ money!" + +For of course every dollar his mother spent would take off just that +much from _his_ ultimate inheritance. He was worried. He knew that +his father had never allowed her any freedom in spending money--women +were such spendthrifts! And here she was now, suddenly turned loose +with absolute right (except for the restraint of that death-bed +promise) over a great fortune! He could conceive of no other +explanation of her unaccustomed brightness and joy. For though an +intelligent youth, his perceptions were keen rather than fine; he +lacked the sensitiveness which feels atmospheres and another's point +of view. + +It was a singular fact that Josie, though a graduate of a first-class +college where he had really seen life, had never seemed to become +aware of his father's extreme crudity. His familiarity with it, +together with his genuine affection for his father, had mercifully +kept him from seeing Joe as others saw him. Thanks to the unselfish +tact with which Susan had always maintained domestic peace, he had +never realized the tragic incompatibility between his parents. Hence +his complete mystification at Susan's present offensive attitude; +offensive, that is, to him. + +Her refusal to wear black had outraged his middle-class sense of +propriety; but her lack of even a pretence of a decently sorrowful +demeanour--in public before their very neighbours!--made him more +deeply ashamed of her than he had ever in his life been of his father. + +"Didn't you care for Father at _all_, Mother?" he one day broke out +after witnessing the gay encounter between Susan and Georgie, who had +run over to the big house to greet her five minutes after his arrival +at the cottage for the Christmas holidays. + +Susan's radiant face grew sober at the question. She looked at Josie +uncertainly. She would never be able to make him understand. She +never had made him understand anything in her heart; while Georgie +seemed to realize, without being told, everything about her. _He_ +knew what a release was hers; what a chattel she had been; though she +had never talked to him of herself. + +How should she answer her step-son? Wasn't it better to be done with +pretence and speak the truth, even if it were not understood? + +"Try to think a bit, Josie--how could a woman like me have cared for +a man like your father? Your father was so far beneath me that he +could not hear the sound of my voice when I spoke!" + +Susan felt herself tingle with a strange delight in speaking out at +last the truth from her heart. + +"That's a fine way for you to talk to me of my own father! For a +wife to talk of her husband just dead a month! Father loved _you_!" + +"I know he did, so he had the better of it, you see, for I never let +him see how much I _didn't_ love _him_." + +"Why did you marry a man you considered so far beneath you? If you +ever _were_ so far above Father, as you seem to think yourself, you +certainly must admit that you sank to his level by marrying him! Why +did you do it?" + +"One of the strongest reasons was----" + +She almost said, "My longing to mother you!" + +She checked herself in time. Not yet was she ready to tell him she +was not his own mother. She knew instinctively that however much +recreation Josie found in bullying her he did truly love her so much +that the discovery that he was not hers would deal him a blow far +deeper than that which his father's sudden death had given him. + +"I can only tell you this, Josie--my reasons were unselfish. I have +paid dear for the lesson that a woman had better cut her throat than +marry a man she--despises." She used the word deliberately. It was +such joy to call a spade a spade! "All the same, Josie, I am sure +that my marriage harmed no one but myself; and did a few people some +good, perhaps. But the past seems such an awful nightmare to me that +I don't want to speak of it, to think of it, any more! Only--it may +as well be understood between you and me that your father's death is +to me a blessed release! Now let us forever drop the subject!" + + +Josie had always been intensely jealous of Georgie, not only as the +rival heir to White Oak Farm, but because of the good comradeship +that existed between his mother and his cousin. His mother was his +exclusive possession, and no other boy had a right to any least part +of her consideration. He hotly resented every friendly look or word +that passed between them. + +A third cause of his jealousy was Georgie's superior talents. He was +already, at the age of nineteen, in the graduating class of a school +of civil engineers and had manifested precocious and distinguished +ability. His professors predicted that he would some day do +something very big. + +There were times when Susan saw, to her sorrow, that Josie's aversion +to Georgie almost equalled the venom his father had always felt for +Sidney. + +Joe had died at the end of November, and it was the following spring, +while Josie was home from his Jaw school for the Easter vacation, +that the first real conflict between him and his mother occurred. + +The habit of not spending money had become so fixed with Susan that +when informed by her deceased husband's lawyer that she possessed +three hundred thousand dollars, with no strings attached to it, to +spend it and will it away as she liked, the fact left her rather +uncomprehending. She was still vaguely under the spell of her +husband's last injunctions, enjoining her to remember that she held +his money only in trust for his son, the real heir, and that she must +be most conscientiously economical. + +So, upon Josie's return home at Easter, he was relieved to find no +change in the old order of their life; no extra servants, no +extravagant clothes, no new car. + +Evidently she was taking her promises to his dying father very +seriously. He had not really expected her to do otherwise; yet he +found himself feeling greatly relieved. + +But when, after the habit of his father, he prowled about the house +to catch her up, perhaps, in some secret sin, he discovered in her +bedroom--not hidden, but brazenly displayed in a new +bookcase--several dozens of new, expensive volumes, poetry, essays, +travels, fiction, economics, philosophy, he felt greatly annoyed. +She had never bought books while his father lived; why should she +find it necessary now? + +"You could get enough books to satisfy any reasonable person at the +Middleburg library, I should think, Mother. I don't see why you have +to squander good money on books. It's certainly not being very +economical with my money!" + +How like old times it sounded to Susan!--except that it was couched +in grammatical English. For four restful, heavenly months her ears +had not once been rasped with the menace of that hateful word, +"economical". Was it only a lovely dream? Was Josie going to take +his father's place and nag at her, hamper her at every turn? She had +so revelled in the luxury of buying books quite recklessly, for the +first time in her life! It had been her only orgy since her freedom, +except---- + +Must Josie be told just how she used every dollar of the money which +the family lawyer was paying over to her? He was quite as penurious +as his father had been--was she, then, going to have to account to +him for every least little indulgence? + +She did not even question his _ipse dixit_, "My money." Joe's money +was of course his son's. When every now and then during his vacation +a question of her expenditures came up, she always accepted quite +placidly and as a matter of course his ultimatum, "That would be an +unnecessary expense. I can't consent to it." + +She told him that it was so lonely at White Oak Farm when he was +away, and that the place involved so much more household work than +seemed worth while for one person, that she thought it might be an +economy of labour (as well as of coal) for them to take an apartment +in Middleburg and sublet White Oak Farm. + +But Josie would not consider it. Inasmuch as a desirable tenant +could not readily be found, it was much more economical for them to +remain on the farm. + +"Especially as we don't have to pay Uncle Sidney nearly as much rent +as we would have to pay for an apartment--seeing he still owes the +estate money. What's more, it is only by living out here at White +Oak Farm that we shall ever get out of Uncle Sidney the money he owes +us." + +"But we don't need to get it back, Josie; we've plenty to be +comfortable with; so why sacrifice ourselves for a house--or a debt?" + +"You've no business sense, Mother," was Josie's conclusive reply. "I +would not consider moving away from here." + +But it was not only in the matter of her use of money that Josie +tyrannized. Georgie, too, was home just now for the Easter vacation; +and during the whole two weeks of the two boys' sojourn at the farm +Susan was never free for an hour from her sense of Josie's incessant +spying upon her to intercept a tête-à -tête between her and Georgie. + +She observed that this seemed to trouble Georgie very little. He had +a way (most irritating to Josie) of ignoring the latter's slights, +because the obvious fact was that he minded them no more than he +would have minded the snarling of a cur. But the crowning offence to +Josie, which made him almost hysterical with anger, was the utter +failure of his own inimical attitude toward his cousin to put any +restraint whatever upon the spontaneity of Georgie's intercourse with +his "Aunt Susan". + +"Any one would suppose you were more his mother than mine!" Josie +would complain to Susan, like a jealous child. "What right has he +coming round here to monopolize you, Mother? I'm only here for two +weeks and I want you to myself a _little_ bit! He's always hanging +'round here as if the place were already his--and as if you were his!" + +Susan had long since, in sheer self-defence, fallen into the way of +curbing any expression of affection for Georgie when Josie was by. + +"Why can't he stay at home with his father? _I_ haven't any father! +I haven't any one but you. And he, who has a father, wants my mother +as well, so that I'll have no one!" + +Josie, who in some respects would never be a grown man, seemed to +regard his orphaned condition as a claim to such honorable martyrdom +as to entitle him to unlimited sympathy, indulgence, petting; just +as, in his childhood, he had made large capital of his little +illnesses, prolonging his convalescence and its attendant relaxation +of discipline as long as he possibly could. + +"Do you realize, Mother," Josie pursued the discussion, "that if +Uncle Sidney should die (and he's miserable enough to die any old +time) my cousin George could turn you and me off this place?" + +"Yes, Josie." + +"If he has any honour about him he won't repudiate his father's debts +to my father!" Josie hotly maintained. "He'll let us live on here +until the last dollar of that debt is wiped out!" + +"I don't see why George should burden his young life with his +father's debts, my dear." + +"Oh, you don't, don't you? Do you realize that if Uncle Sidney does +not pay back what he borrowed from Father, _I'm_ the loser? You'd +take from me, your own son, and give to a boy that's no relation to +you!" + +"Georgie has lost enough through his father--without assuming his +debts!" + +"All your sympathy is for Georgie, of course! Why don't you give +_me_ some sympathy for all I'd lose? A pretty mother you are, I must +say!" + +"It isn't as though you needed this place; you'll have so much more +than you will need!--more than any one ought to have! The whole +scheme seems horribly wrong to me. You two young men have no social +right to great wealth for which you have not worked--you nearly a +million dollars and Georgie this great estate! It ought not to be +allowed. Something ought to be done about it!" + +"You know perfectly well there's no use your talking that kind of rot +to me, Mother!" + +"Yes, I do know that perfectly well, Josie, dear!" Susan sighed. +"More's the pity!" + +Josie just here experienced one of his sudden revulsions to +demonstrative affection. "You're my little mother, so you are!" he +exclaimed, rushing at her and burying his head on her bosom, kissing +her roughly, rapturously, fondling her, insisting upon her fondling +him, cooing over her incoherent love phrases. + +She submitted, half appeased, half bored, marvelling at the boy's +morbid nature, responding as warmly as she could. + + +Ever since Joe's death Susan had rioted in the delight, so long +denied her, of doing little kindnesses for her aging sisters. She +did not dream of using Joe's money in any large expenditures for +them, but she constantly carried dainties to them, bought them +trifling gifts, took them driving in her little car, insisted upon +getting their laundry every week and having it done at White Oak Farm +by her laundress, called for them every Sunday and took them out to +her home to dinner. + +It was this latter item which precipitated a discussion between her +and Josie that led to far-reaching results. + +"It seems to me you go gadding an awful lot, Mother," Josie grumbled +when on Sunday morning she announced her intention of driving over to +Reifsville. "You didn't squander gasoline so recklessly while Father +lived!" + +"The word gasoline, Josie, will ever bring up to me bright and tender +memories of your father!" + +"Your sarcasm doesn't cover your taking advantage!" + +"Of whom?" + +"Of poor Father--who you say you did not love!" he irrelevantly +accused her. + +"_Whom_ you did not love--not _who_," she automatically corrected +him--then laughed at herself involuntarily, and so merrily that +Josie, whose heart still mourned, winced perceptibly. + +"What do you want to go to Reifsville for?" he inquired. "You were +there just the other day." + +"I'm going to bring your aunts over to dine with us." + +"Huh! You've been doing that a lot, I guess, while I've been +away--since Father's gone! You didn't do it when he was living." + +"Do you think that's to his credit--that I did not invite my sisters +here while he lived?" + +"Don't fling gibes at my father, Mother! I won't stand for it!" + +"'Fling gibes.' It sounds Shaksperean! 'Whips and arrows of +outrageous fortune'--come, dear boy, please don't be an ass!" + +"'An ass!' I never hear you call George an ass!" + +"Josie, aren't you ever going to grow out of your infancy?" she asked +with a long-drawn breath as turned away and left him. + +This tilt with Josie rankled in her heart all the way over to +Reifsville, preparing a fertile soil for the comments which her +sisters let drop, from time to time, on the ride back. The +Reifsville school would close in a month, they told Susan, and they +would miss the needed board money which the teacher paid them, though +they would be glad to be relieved of the extra work he made, even +though a man teacher wasn't nearly so much trouble as a woman teacher +had always been. They hoped they could get one or two summer +boarders, if they could stand the work it would entail--they were not +so strong as they used to be--they were really getting to be old +women, now, "funny" as it seemed! And yet, how they were going to +live at all without taking summer boarders as they had been doing for +the past few years---- + +"I have so glad for you, Susie, that you'll never have to worry about +money in your old age, nor have to work beyond your strength. Joe's +left you that well-fixed, you can take it easy; ain't? It's a good +thing he died too soon to get a will made a'ready, or mebby he'd of +tied up his money so's you couldn't of had no freedom with it. But +now that the law has gave you your widow's thirds, to do what you +please with, you're _well_-fixed. Ain't?" + +"To do what I please with?" + +"Why, to be sure! You can even will it away from Josie if you want." + +"Do you mind, Susie," asked Addie, "how oncet you was a-goin' to +leave Joe and run off? _Ain't_, it's a good thing, now, you stuck! +Look how nice-fixed you are--and a widdah and all!--and your own +boss." + +"My 'own boss'!" repeated Susan, vaguely. + +"The _County Gazette_ says you are got an income of more than +eighteen thousand dollars a year, Susan! Yi, yi, it wonders me! Is +it so, Susie?" + +"I--I--suppose it is. Yes, I really do have that income. Dear me! +I had not realized it, Addie! I've thought of it as really belonging +to Josie. Of course by rights it is Josie's." + +"Josie's nothin'!" exclaimed Lizzie. "Sure you earnt everything Joe +Houghton inherited to you, Susie!--the way you worked fur him when he +could of hired for you; and you so good-educated and not used to hard +work! And the way you brang up his son for him! That boy would not +be the mannerly, genteel young man he kin be (when he wants to) if it +hadn't of been for you, Susie. Yes, indeedy, you earnt all you got!" + +"Well, I guess anyhow!" Addie corroborated this statement. "Don't +you go thinkin' it ain't every cent of it yourn, Susie, to do what +you like with!" + +"Please don't speak of it before Josie," Susan warned them, hastily, +as they drew up under the porte-cochère at White Oak Farm. + +Josie's manner to his aunts that day aped so perfectly the +inhospitable attitude his father had always taken toward them on +their very occasional visits to White Oak Farm--the curtness with +which Joe had been wont to answer their friendly or propitiatory +overtures; his sullen and prolonged silences; his actual +rudeness--that Susan was conscious of a shade of amusement +conflicting with her mingled indignation and sorrow. She and her +sisters had been, for the past four months, so greatly enjoying their +restful, happy Sundays together, freed from Joe's kill-joy presence, +that they all felt keenly this return to the old wretched atmosphere. + +While the painfully embarrassing dinner was in progress Susan thought +back over the unfailing kindnesses and generosity of her sisters to +her step-son, through all his childhood and youth; of how he used to +love to be taken to the Reifsville cottage for the animal cookies the +"aunties" would bake for him; the "sticker" baskets they would +patiently construct for him, and the chicken-coops and pig-pens they +would build out of clothes pins; the little birthday and Christmas +feasts and gifts they always managed to have for him, no matter how +poor they found themselves. + +How could Josie feel toward them, now, as he seemed to? + +"Ain't these here oranges sweet, though?" Lizzie remarked as she +tasted the "fruit hash" they had for dessert. "It gives an awful +good taste. I have so fond for oranges and we don't never buy none +no more--me and Addie--they come too high. They want eighty cents a +dozen now, on the store, for oranges. Ain't, Addie?" + +"Yes, anyhow!" said Addie. + +"We get them for nothing," began Susan, "from Joe's Florida orange +grove. We get----" + +Josie interrupted her. "For nothing! I don't call it for nothing! +We have to pay the freight, don't we? And the taxes and the labour, +don't we? For nothing! That's just like a woman!" + +"We've got so many more than we can use," said Susan, "you must take +a basket full home with you, Lizzie." + +"We haven't more than we can use!" Josie quickly contradicted her. +"You can make me a lot of orange marmalade, Mother. You know how I +love orange marmalade." + +"I've already made you all the orange marmalade you can eat in a +year, Josie." + +"Well, we can find plenty of use for all the oranges we have," he +persisted. + +"You mustn't give us what you can't spare, Susie," Lizzie protested, +flushing sensitively. + +"Of course I can spare them. We have two big boxes of them in the +storage room." + +Josie, looking annoyed and offended, frowned into his coffee cup. +But he said no more. + +After dinner he neither left the women to themselves nor did he join +them as they sat about the log fire in the parlour; but settling +himself unsociably at the extreme other end of the room, he buried +himself in a book. + +The constraint which his inimical presence put upon their +conversation, and the chilled atmosphere it created, drove Lizzie and +Addie to make an early start for home. + +At the first suggestion of their departure Josie laid down his book +and sauntered toward them. + +"You're going to catch the four o'clock trolley?" he asked as they +rose to don their Mennonite black hoods and shawls. + +Susan had gone to the storeroom to get the oranges. + +"Why--we--Susie generally fetches us in her automobile--but----" + +"It seems hardly worth while to bother taking out the automobile when +the trolley is so handy," said Josie. + +"We'll have the heavy basket of oranges, though," said Lizzie, +hesitatingly, reluctant to lose their always greatly enjoyed ride +with Susan. + +"But I've had Mother to myself so little this vacation! I'd rather +she didn't go away over to Reifsville this afternoon and leave me +here all alone!" objected Josie, plaintively. + +"Why, have you got the stomachache or whatever, Josie?" inquired +Addie, solicitously. + +"Don't you think I want my mother to myself sometimes? Georgie's had +her this vacation nearly as much as I've had her!" + +Lizzie and Addie exchanged hasty, scared glances. + +"And," continued Josie, "gasoline's gone up so, and there's the toll +both ways between Reifsville and White Oak Station. Do you know what +a trip to Reifsville really costs in toll and gas and wear and tear +on your car? It averages twelve cents a mile! Fact! Much more +expensive, you see, than to go by trolley or train." + +"But, you see, Josie, me and Addie, us we couldn't afford to visit +our Susie if she didn't fetch and take us; for we couldn't afford the +twenty-five cents trolley fare." + +"Then Mother would better give you the trolley fare; it would be much +cheaper for her. I'm thinking of selling our car, anyhow." + +The sisters, without replying, continued to bundle up in their hoods +and shawls and overshoes. + +But Susan, upon returning to the parlour, refused to consider letting +them go home by trolley. + +"We all enjoy the automobile ride," she said. "And there's this +heavy basket." + +"Heavy! I should say it is heavy!" exclaimed Josie as he lifted it +tentatively and set it down again. "What on earth have you got in +it?" + +"All it will hold of the good things your aunts are fond of," Susan +briefly answered. + +"Make the load lighter so they _can_ carry it. I don't want you to +take the car so far again to-day, Mother." + +"Please carry the basket out to the car for us, Josie," Susan coldly +requested him. + +"But, Mother, I don't want the car used so hard! You use it much too +hard. Aunties can just as well take the trolley home, and----" + +"Carry the basket out for me, please," she cut him short. + +Josie obeyed so ungraciously that the sisters looked mortified and +worried, and Susan's face took on the weary, drawn expression that it +had quite lost during the past four months. + +No reference was made, during the ride over to Reifsville, to the +unpleasantnesses of the visit, though the sisters were sad at heart +in realizing afresh how "mean-dispositioned" Susan's step-son was and +how unappreciative and ungrateful he seemed for all she had always +been to him. + +On the way back Susan drove slowly to give herself time to think. +And her thinking covered a considerable area, ranging from the vague, +only half-realized "promises" (if such they had really been) with +which she had tried to comfort Joe's last moments on earth, to the +chance words her sisters had dropped that morning--"The law has given +you your widow's thirds _to do what you please with_." "An income of +over eighteen thousand dollars a year." "You surely _earned_ +everything Joe left you!" + +That was the crux of the whole matter! Was she, indeed, by virtue of +her seventeen years of service in Joe's interests, morally entitled, +as she was legally, to full freedom in the use and disposal of her +"widow's third" of her husband's estate? Legally she owed no +accounting to Josie or any one else---- + +There was no question in her mind of her being bound by her last +words to her husband; she had spoken them only to soothe him and had +not realized their full significance. She did not feel herself held +by them in the least. She was not at all sure that she had really +made any definite promises. + +"But even if I did and had meant them, a bad promise is better broken +than kept." + +The only possible question she had to decide was the extent of +Josie's moral right over the property that had been his father's. + +She remembered that Sidney had once told her that if he had not +inherited his uncle's fortune, but had had to work for his living, he +might not have been the wreck he was. + +"Why, even if I didn't want this money (and God knows I do!) I would +be doing the worst possible harm to Josie by saving it for +him--pampering his horrible selfishness and stinginess! The best +service I can do him is to _spend it up_!" + +In a flash she began to see what the command of such an income might +mean to her. And suddenly she gave herself over to lovely dreams of +all the things she could do with it. The first thing she would want +to do would be to buy Georgie the new suit he so badly needed and +some chemicals and tools he had told her he lacked for carrying out a +daring experiment he had in his head. + +The next thing she would love to do would be to settle a comfortable +income--a very comfortable one--upon her sisters. Oh, heavenly joy! +What a lovely thing money could be! To be able to tell Addie and +Lizzie that never more need their "declining years" be fretted and +harassed with anxious cares about the wherewithal to live, never more +need they labour beyond their strength or be worried with boarders or +frightened at the expense of illness or the creeping ravages of old +age. + +After that, she would like to buy a really good automobile; she +mentally apologized to her faithful little old car which had so often +carried her far away from the strained and cramping atmosphere of her +home, out into the fresh air and sunshine, and had recreated her. + +Next thing, how she would dearly love to go to some fearfully +expensive New York shops and buy some real clothes! + +By the time she reached home, the weary, care-worn countenance with +which she had started out was replaced by a radiance which made her +look so very girlish that Josie, coming into the hall to greet her, +prepared with a recitation of his several reasons for being highly +offended with her, was startled and surprised. + +In a moment, however, he recovered his sense of wrong at her hands, +with several points added to the score. What right had she coming in +like a breeze, with rosy cheeks and smiling lips and sparkling eyes, +looking so provokingly kissable?--when all day long she had been +going against his wishes, neglecting him, her fatherless son, giving +her time and his substance to outsiders. + +He had expected her to return to him apologetic, remorseful, +troubled, anxious to propitiate him! And just look at her! + +He began at once to reproach her for that huge basketful of food that +had been given away. + +"You never gave away our provisions like that when Father lived, so +why should you do it now, Mother? You wouldn't even tell me what was +in that basket. Goodness knows what mightn't have been in it! What +_was_ in it?" + +"Josie, darling, will you kindly mind your own business?" she gaily +retorted, to his utter consternation, tripping up the wide, winding +staircase as lightly as a child. + +The next moment he heard her bedroom door close with a snap. + +He stood dumbfounded. _She_ was offended with _him_! After the way +she had treated him all day! What had _she_ to be offended about, +he'd like to know! + +Never, from his babyhood up, had he been able to endure having her +offended with him. + +He set his lips tight, walked firmly upstairs to her bedroom door, +and rapped peremptorily. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUSAN REALIZES HER FREEDOM + +She was propped up on a couch in a deep bay window, reading a novel. + +Josie jerked a chair to the side of the couch and sat down, facing +her. + +"Mother!" he demanded, his voice unsteady, actual tears in his eyes, +"don't you love _me_ any better than you loved Father?" + +"When you are lovable, Josie, I love you," she answered gently, +drawing his hand into hers. + +"You call it being 'unlovable,' I suppose, when I object to your +doing what you would not do if Father were alive!" + +"I'm not such an idiot as to let my life be hampered and thwarted and +dwarfed by the will of a dead man! It was bad enough to have to +submit to the will of a live one!" + +"You can't mean that you don't intend to keep the promises you made +to Father when he was dying!" exclaimed Josie, both shocked and +alarmed; for if he could not hold over her the solemn obligations of +those death-bed promises, how could he ever restrain her reckless +inclinations to give away the money that ought to be hoarded for him? + +"I'm not sure I made him any promises," she answered, indifferently. +"I said anything, at the moment, that I thought would soothe and +comfort him. I would have promised to fly to Mars if he had asked me +to. I'd promise any dying person anything at all that I knew would +please them. But my life is my own now, thank God! It's no longer +Joe Houghton's to use and crush and distort!--as it was for seventeen +years!" + +Josie looked white and shaken. "Well, then, if you have no respect +for a solemn promise given to the dying, will you at least have +enough regard for _my interests_ to restrain your inclination to +shower all sorts of luxuries upon Aunt Addie and Aunt +Lizzie--luxuries that they were never used to!" + +"Josie, my son, do you really think it 'nobler in the mind' to be +mean and stingy to two dear and very poor old women who were always +kindness itself to you, than to break a hideous promise given to a +man whose last dying thoughts were of greed and self? Do you?" + +"If you restricted yourself to giving them a few necessities, I might +put up with it. But I'm just afraid that next thing you'll be +helping them with _money_, and----" + +"How well you know me, Josie!" she smiled, patting his hand. + +"You wouldn't go so far as that, of course--with my money?" + +"Certainly not--with your money." + +"Well, all you have is practically mine and will some day be really +mine." + +"Not necessarily." + +"What do you mean?" he quickly demanded, a catch in his voice. + +"My fortune is not entailed to you." + +"But as it came from my father and his family and not through you or +your family, it's certainly morally mine and not yours to will to any +one but me. You know what Father would wish----" + +"By the way, Josie, as I told you the other day, this place is too +big and lonesome for me when you are away and I don't want to stay +here. I don't want to be burdened with the care of this great house. +I want to take an apartment in Middleburg for a while----" + +"I told you the other day, Mother, I would not consider that. It +would be so uselessly extravagant. A sheer waste of money." + +"I'm not asking you to consider it, Josie." + +"Then why waste words discussing it when we are not really to +consider it?" + +"I said I was not asking you to consider it." + +"Of course you're not--because you know it would be perfectly +useless." + +"Yes. Quite useless." + +"Then let's drop it. Here we stay. + +"But I am considering it. Or rather, I have already decided to move +to town." + +"But I tell you I won't consent----" + +"Don't get excited, son. Your consent is not in the least necessary. +I intend to be free of this house--free to run to New York or Boston +or Florida or California, or perhaps to Europe----" She laughed out +at Josie's look of helpless horror. "You can go with me sometimes if +you like." + +"You shan't do it! You shan't squander my money!" + +"To-morrow morning, Josie, I am going to our Middleburg lawyer to +arrange for settling a good income upon my sisters. A very +comfortable income. That will eliminate, once and for all, any +argument between you and me about _them_." + +Josie stared at her wildly. "You shan't! You dare not! What right +have you?" + +"The same right that you have to dispose of your inheritance as you +please. And you must understand from now on, Josie, that I don't +intend to permit you to nag at me, to question anything I may choose +to do _with my own_. It is impertinent, and I won't tolerate it. +Another thing, you will not only be courteous to my sisters when they +come here, you will make them welcome." + +"I won't!" he snapped back like a spiteful child. "You can't make +me!" + +"Then you and I can't live together, Josie," she answered, dropping +his hand and picking up her novel. + +"Can't live together!" he breathed, appalled at this new mother whom +he did not recognize. + +"Next thing," he said, chokingly, "you'll be handing out our money to +Georgie!--to tide him over until he takes possession of White Oak +Farm!" + +"If I did, it would be my money, not yours. Remember--I will suffer +no interference from you, my dear. I'm only just beginning to bring +you up as you ought to be brought up." + +"And I suppose you won't even promise to make your will in my favour!" + +"Of course I won't promise. I shall wait to see, first, how you +behave. I'm inclined to think it would be far better for your soul, +Josie, if I should sink my fortune in the sea rather than give it to +you! So don't forget--from this day on, so long as I live, you are +on trial for good behaviour." + +Josie sprang up, his face distorted with rage. "You don't love me +any better than you loved Father! You hate me! You're my worst +enemy! You----" + +It was like the old tantrums of his childhood, which his father had +never allowed her to punish or discipline. Susan shrank away from +him in distress, as from an abnormality. + +But in the midst of his raving there was a knock at her bedroom door +and, to her great relief, the entrance of a maid put a sudden stop to +the young man's tirade. + +"Mr. Sidney Houghton," the maid announced. + +"Tell him, please, that I am lying down and wish to be excused," said +Susan, instantly. + +Sidney had been trying for the past month to secure a repeatedly +refused interview with her. + +"He says to tell you, Missus, that it's some important and he's got +to see you," the girl replied. + +"Josie, will you go down and ask him what he wants?" Susan asked. + +Without replying, Josie flung himself out of the room and banged the +door behind him, the maid following him with a grin. + +Susan picked up her novel; but she could not put her mind upon it and +soon laid it aside again. + +For the past four weeks, with a blind, unthinking instinct of +self-defence, she had been warding off an interview with Sidney which +he, with a persistency and determination that vaguely alarmed her, +had been seeking. She was sure he could not possibly have anything +to say to her which she would wish to hear. + +During Joe's lifetime, her occasionally meeting him had come to mean +little more to her than encountering any chance acquaintance. But +his attitude since her widowhood had been so gallant, yet so fearful; +so insinuating, yet so apologetic, that it had assumed to her +imagination the expression of a menace, threatening her newly +acquired freedom, her peace of mind; so that it had become, of late, +intensely disagreeable to her to be forced to speak with him. That +was one reason why she wished to go to Middleburg to live--to avoid +the constant chance of an encounter with him. + +"Would he have the amazing effrontery to ask me to marry him?" she +wondered; for she intuitively sensed, unmistakably, a would-be lover +in his manner. "Does he think, actually, that he has anything at all +to offer any woman--let alone me whose whole life he spoiled?" + +Could it be that, shattered wreck of a man as he was, he considered +merely being a Houghton was a sufficient offset to his disadvantages? +Did he still look down upon her from a superior height as his +discarded and repudiated "mistress" and believe that he would be +stooping to marry her? + +"He's quite capable of thinking like that!" she decided. "While _I_ +feel that my one only consolation for never having had a living child +is that it would have been a Houghton!--would have had to fight that +bad inheritance!" + +It was almost funny, how different the point of view of two people +could be! + +Meantime, Josie was, with much relish, curtly telling his Uncle +Sidney that, his mother declined to see him, and enjoying viciously +his uncle's evident chagrin and disappointment. + +Josie noticed, casually, the shabby finery of his impoverished +uncle--how sprucely he was attired in the worn and out-of-date +clothing of his "better days," how cleanly he was shaven, how shining +were his patched shoes; he noticed, too, the cane and gloves which he +carried; a cane and gloves to walk across the lawn in the country! +Wasn't that like Uncle Sidney? + +An idea flashed upon Josie that made his heart leap into his throat. +He looked into his uncle's face--a tired, disappointed, prematurely +old face which, however, seemed lit up, just now, with a sparkle of +hope, like that of the proverbial drowning man who reaches for a +plank. + +Did Uncle Sidney actually have the nerve, the utter audacity, to come +here trying to defraud him, Josie, out of part of his rightful +inheritance, through courting his mother?--after having squandered a +much larger fortune of his own! Would she be silly enough to get +sentimental about him?--he was still handsome and elegant and +well-mannered and all those things that women love a man to be. +Josie himself had always secretly admired and been proud of his +dandified relative. + +He would have to warn his mother! Uncle Sidney would simply run +through with all the money he could get his hands on. + +"And then Mother'd be on my hands for support! After having given +that self-indulgent spendthrift my father's savings!" + +He would warn her at once! + +But would she heed his warning? She had told him to mind his +business and not to nag or criticize! + +Well, then, he'd use some guile. He'd plot to circumvent such a +disaster to both himself and his mother. + +It was jealousy, now, as well as greed, that moved him. + +"Mother told me to ask you what you wanted," he accosted his uncle in +a tone as insolent as he could make it. + +"I want to see her." + +"What for?" + +"I'll tell her that." + +"She's lying down and doesn't wish to be disturbed. You can tell me +your errand." + +"Tell her, please, that I shall be over again this evening when she's +_not_ lying down. I must see her--on a matter of importance--of +vital importance." + +"Of vital importance to you perhaps, but not to her!" retorted Josie, +eyeing his uncle with a knowing look which was meant to convey to him +that his astute nephew saw straight through his shallow scheme for +rehabilitating his fortunes at the expense of his sister-in-law and +his nephew. "She can't see you this evening. She and I have an +engagement." + +As Sidney Houghton made his crestfallen way back to his cottage, +after this rebuff at the big house, he weighed and considered the +only path yet left open to him by which he might once more become +possessed of comfort and even happiness; for he was still young; and +Susan, who had marvellously carried her years, was even more alluring +as a blooming, full-fledged woman of thirty-nine than she had been as +a young girl. + +Would she spurn him so relentlessly once she knew the secret which, +during more than eighteen years, he had guarded so zealously; with so +much anguish of suspense and fear? + +"When she learns that Georgie is our son--hers and mine--she'll +surely see there's only one way to make things right for him. Josie +need never know. No one need ever know except Susan and me." + +His uncertainty as to how Susan would receive his disclosure; whether +she would, as Laura had warned him, passionately resent her defrauded +motherhood and his long years of deception; or whether she would be +glad that at least her "respectability" had been saved, as well as +that of her son---- + +Sidney's heart failed him when he contemplated going to her with his +confession. + +But what else was there to do? If he could see the least chance of +winning her without it---- + +But far from letting him come courting her, she would not even +receive a business call from him. + +Would he have to tell her in writing? He did not like to risk that. +Suppose his letter should fall into Josie's hands? That detestable +little cad was quite capable of opening Susan's letters if he had the +least suspicion (as he manifestly had) of anything impending which +might menace his fortunes! No, he could not risk a letter. + +But if Susan persisted in avoiding him, refusing to receive him? + +He suddenly saw a possible, though doubtful, way out. He could +confess to Georgie the story of his birth and let _him_ tell his +mother. Then when Susan had had time to recover from the shock, he +himself would go to her and suggest that together they make amends to +their son in the only possible way. + +How would Georgie himself take it? Georgie was the one creature in +the world that Sidney had always loved better than he loved himself. +And the boy was devoted to him; the only human being left to him in +the world who did care whether he lived or died; whether he was +provided with life's bare necessities, or whether he starved or froze +to death! To risk turning Georgie's affection to resentment and +bitterness? The boy was so quixotically honourable and chivalrous! +And so extraordinarily fond of Susan! + +"It's a devil of a mess, any way you look at it!" he sighed. + +But he finally concluded that he would take Georgie into his +confidence. + + +It was at this self-same hour, while Sidney was slowly and +thoughtfully returning to his humble home, foiled for the twentieth +time in his purpose to try out his fortunes with Susan, that a +discussion between Susan's sisters at Reifsville was threatening to +take the matter somewhat out of his hands. + +"Even if we don't tell her now," Lizzie was saying as she and Addie +sat together over a cup of tea in their spotless kitchen, "I know +I'll have to tell her till I come to die oncet, Addie. I could never +go before my Gawd with that there sekert on my conscience!" + +"Me, neither," agreed Addie, who had never in her life been known to +disagree with Lizzie. + +"Georgie's so much nicer a young man than what Josie is and Susie she +has so fond for Georgie," continued Lizzie. + +"Yes, fonder yet than what she has for Josie, it seems; ain't?" + +"Yes, and no wonder! Josie's certainly awful ugly dispositioned that +way!" + +"And for a young man he seems so silly!" said Addie. "More like a +girl." + +"Yes, ain't? I don't see how our Susie stands him so good as what +she does! I could stand him pretty good whiles he was a little boy, +because, to be sure, a body don't expec' much off of a little boy. +But now that he's growed up, he kreistles me awful, with his high, +squeaky voice like a girl's and his finnicky ways and prancing walk +and his nasty fussiness--och!" she ended, disgustedly, "I'd like to +slap him good oncet!" + +"Yes, ain't? So would I," echoed Addie. + +"Say, Addie, our Susie don't seem to take it in that she's rich and +independent now and don't have to take it off of Josie so!" + +"Well, just you wait--our Susie ain't no fool," said Addie, with +unexpected initiative. "She'll soon find it out--and then you watch +out!" + +"What's botherin' me," said Lizzie with a long breath, "is whether we +had ought to tell Susie the truth right aways, or wait till we're on +our death-beds. I'm for tellin' her now." + +"Yes, well, but it might get out and make talk!" + +"Seems to me I don't care no more if it does! I care more for seein' +our Susie own her own son!" said Lizzie, rising to a height. + +"Poor little Georgie!" sighed Addie, wiping a tear from her cheek. +"To have been turned out when he was a baby the way we done!" + +"Yes, well, but we give him to his own pop and him well-fixed to take +care of him," Lizzie repeated the oft-rehearsed arguments in +justification of their years of deception. "Look at what it would +have _give_, Addie, to all of us, Susie and Georgie and us all, if +we'd have did different to what we done!" + +"If we tell now," Addie reminded her, "you know Georgie won't inherit +White Oak Farm, if it gets out that he ain't the legal heir." + +"But Susie could anyhow inherit all _her_ money to him, and that +seems better'n an old farm and a house too big and grand for any but +a millionaire to live in," argued Lizzie. + +"I most have afraid, Lizzie, of how our Susie will take it if we tell +her! She might think awful hard of us! I'd most sooner wait till my +death-bed before I tell her a'ready." + +"But us we might live to such a good old age that her and Georgie +would be cheated out of too many more years that they could enjoy +each other as mother and son," persisted Lizzie. "No, now that +Susie's independent and rich, I think she had ought to be told, +Addie." + +"All right, Lizzie, if you think." + +"We'll go over to-morrow by the trolley and get it over with. For I +can't know no more peace till it's settled oncet. It's been +botherin' me ever since Joe Houghton died, and I can't stand it no +more. And that there Josie's behaviours to-day got me so stirred up! +To think of how different a boy our Susie's own son is! We'll go +over to-morrow, Addie, and tell her all about it." + +"All right if so you think," said Addie. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +SUSAN'S REAPING + +Sidney's story, as recited to his son that night, while they sat +together in the little living room of the cottage, assumed the colour +of a mere college-boy escapade which, far from being to his +discredit, rather reflected lustre upon his youthful power to charm +and lure the weaker sex. He really became quite enamoured of his +tale as he unfolded it; withholding the name of the heroine in the +piece for the dramatic climax. For it was to be feared that the +moment Georgie knew that name, he would be quite unable to see his +father's side with entire fairness. He must hear the whole story +with an unprejudiced judgment; the same judgment which a man (unlike +sentimental, moralizing women) usually brings to such a case, +recognizing the limitations of a man's self-restraint, the hypocrisy +of our sham American social purity. + +For Georgie, though a cleaner and more guileless youth than his +father had been at his age, was yet, in intelligence and +understanding, if not in experience, a full-fledged man. He listened +from the first with a half smile on his finely cut lips (so like his +mother's, Sidney often realized!) as though he were amused and a bit +incredulous of the all-conquering Don Juan, or rather Beau Brummel, +which his father was making himself out. Surely, thought Georgie, it +was the middle-aged conceit and egotism of a man looking back upon a +glorified youth which he saw in high lights and a bit luridly. + +"A Pennsylvania Dutch girl she was, from the crudest sort of +family--her father a trucker--a Mennonite preacher----" + +"What was the attraction for such a swell as you say you were--as you +surely _were_," added Georgie, indulgently. "I should think you +would always have been too fastidious to have been attracted to a +crude, vulgar girl just by her looks; weren't you?" + +"She was not vulgar at all herself. She'd had rather different +associations from the rest of the family; had been sent away to +school and had made friends among a really good class of people who +had invited her to their homes now and then--so that she was really +quite nice--and very, very charming." + +"And haughtily looked down on her poor family, I suppose?" + +"Not she! That was the trouble; she could not see that her family +made marriage between us out of the question----" + +"Did it? Why?" asked Georgie. + +"My boy! A Houghton couldn't marry a village school teacher, the +daughter of a Mennonite preacher!" + +"Couldn't he? That's exactly what Uncle Joe married." + +"There's always one black sheep in every family," answered Sidney, +colouring very red, to Georgie's surprise. "Joe, even though a +Houghton, could not have married a lady!" + +"Aunt Susan not a lady?" + +"Would she have married your Uncle Joe if she had been?" + +"I wonder what ever did make her marry a wretched skinflint like +Uncle Joe!" said Georgie, thoughtfully. "I've often meant to ask +her, but never quite got up the nerve." + +"To go on with my story," said Sidney, his tone less confident, an +actual tremor in his voice, "marriage being out of the question, the +inevitable happened. Unfortunately, the girl, not taking proper +precautions, a child was born. On the very night of my marriage the +girl's father arrived at my house----" + +Georgie's hitherto careless attention to this recital changed, at +this point, to a keen interest, as he saw how the mere memory of what +his father was telling drove the colour from his lips. + +"--and dumped down upon me a baby boy, telling me his daughter had +died at its birth! + +"Of course I did the right thing and provided for the child. I was +awfully cut up by the news of the girl's death--I'd cared for her a +lot! It spoiled my whole wedding-trip!" + +"I should think it might! Why on earth did you do such a thing?--go +and ruin a decent girl?" + +"But of course, Georgie, such things happen by mutual consent. A man +doesn't 'ruin' a woman unless she's awfully willing and perhaps eager +to be ruined. Don't fool yourself with any such old-fashioned, +sentimental notion!" + +"Very well, then, if your attraction for each other was so +irresistible, why didn't you get married? Why break the law? Or if +our social laws are not founded on nature's laws, then why don't men +change the laws? Talk about red anarchy and the upsetting of our +established order! What else is that sort of thing?" + +"Don't moralize to me, you young whippersnapper!" growled Sidney, +filliping his son's ear. "You'll sow a few wild oats yourself, one +of these days, before you settle down." + +"But why did you go off and _marry another woman_? Wasn't that a +pretty rotten deal for the mother of your child? Weren't you sure +the child was yours?" + +"Not a doubt of it. I couldn't marry her, though--a Houghton could +not marry a----" + +Sidney paused significantly, and Georgie spoke up hotly: "A Houghton +could seduce a woman, make her a mother, and then go off and marry +another woman on the very night his child was born and its mother +died! You don't make me proud of being a Houghton, Father!" + +"For shame, Georgie!" Sidney gravely reproved such disrespect to his +blood. "There's something radically wrong with a fellow that has no +family pride when he has _reason_ to have!" + +"What reason have I?" + +"The Houghtons were among the earliest settlers of this country, and +have, for generations, held influential positions in this country. +Has any American any better origin than that?" + +"How could you desert that poor girl after you'd been to each other +what you say you were?" + +"Better ask about the poor baby!" said Sidney, feelingly. + +"Well! What about it?" + +"To go on with my story--I went with my bride to Europe to take the +diplomatic position Uncle George had secured for me--leaving the baby +with my mother, who put it with a farmer's family. When, after a +year, we came home from Europe, what news do you suppose greeted me? +The girl's father came to me and told me that the girl had rallied +and got well!--that in order to save her and her parents and sisters +from disgrace, and the baby boy from the stigma of illegitimacy, they +had told her her baby was dead. Now they wanted me to help them keep +the secret, not only from their little social world, but from the +mother of the boy as well. + +"I was only too anxious to keep the secret--first, because I cared +for the boy's welfare and didn't want him to go through life +nameless; second, because--because, Georgie, I wanted my son to +inherit White Oak Farm and--and my wife, I had learned, would never +bear me a child." + +A silence like death filled the little room where they sat. Georgie, +like his father, had turned white, his eyes filled with a startled +wonder. + +Sidney was the first to speak. + +"You can imagine what my life was like!--trying to placate my wife's +jealousy of the boy; inducing her to tolerate the child in our home +and to pass him off as hers----" + +He stopped--checked by the pallid, tense look on Georgie's face. + +"Then she--was not my mother! And I'm your illegitimate son?" + +Sidney nodded. + +"And you've tried to teach me to be proud of being a Houghton!" + +"You're enough more like a Houghton than Josie is!" said Sidney, +heatedly. + +"Thank God she was not my own mother!" was the boy's unexpected +exclamation. "The way I've suffered all my life at her neglect--her +dislike of me! The only balm I've known for that bitterness, Father, +has been Aunt Susan's real affection for me. It isn't merely that +Aunt Susan is kind to me, she really does care for me a lot! I'm +sure I don't know why she does. But when I was a hungry-hearted +youngster, the way she'd take me up in her arms and hold me--I knew +she _loved_ me! It saved my soul! Go on with your story, Father." + +"Soon after we moved out here to White Oak Farm I found to my horror +that--your--mother--was actually teaching the school of White Oak +Station across the road!--in constant danger of running across you +(whom she thought dead, mind you!)--and in danger of meeting my wife, +with a possible scene and disclosure! For of course I didn't tell +Laura that your mother was alive! She could not have borne it! I +tell you I walked on nettles! I----" + +"Is my mother living?" Georgie broke in with restrained excitement. + +"I'm coming to that. + +"I had never told my wife your mother's name and though they had once +met for a moment in my college rooms, Laura didn't seem to remember +her at all----" + +"I must know, Father!" Georgie broke in again. "Is my mother living? +Just tell me yes or no!" + +"Yes." + +"Go on!" + +"I had to get her (your mother) away from this neighbourhood. So I +went to her father and told him he'd got to move away; I would +finance the move. He was very hard up and though he hated me like +hell, he had no choice; he had to accept my offer; for he was as much +averse to exposure as I was. But on the very eve of his moving away +with his family he died. And then--and then, Georgie----" + +"Yes?" urged Georgie, breathlessly. + +"And then your mother married." + +"Where is she?" demanded Georgie. "Do you know?" + +"Yes, I know." + +"Can I go to her? For of course I shall go to her. Where is she?" + +"Georgie, she is a widow, now, and I want to right the wrong I did +her--I want to marry her!" + +"If she'd be weak enough to marry you now, I'd never own her! Where +is she?" + +"She is up at the big house, Georgie!" + +Georgie sat rigid. Every drop of colour left his face. Again a +deathly silence flooded the little room. + +This time Georgie was the one to break it, speaking slowly, in a low +voice, his eyes piercing his father's. + +"She married _your brother_!" + +"Yes." + +"Your mistress--mother of your bastard!--married your brother!" + +"Rough on Joe, of course! But he never knew it." + +"_Aunt Susan is my mother!_" + +"Yes." + +"My mother! She my mother! Father! What you have defrauded me of +all my life! What it would have meant to her and to me! Yes, to +her, too. Josie, the son whom she knew to be her own, was never so +near to her as I've been, even while she didn't know me to be her +son, too! And if she had known!" + +"Josie's not her son, Georgie!" + +"What! Good God, what next? What do you mean?" + +"He's her step-son. But of course he doesn't know it and she doesn't +want him to know it. He is not to be told, either, of your relation +to Susan--you'd lose White Oak Farm." + +"You are reckoning without me a bit! I don't want White Oak Farm if +I have to get it by repudiating my mother!" + +"You won't have to repudiate her. I tell you I'm going to make +things right for both you and her!" + +"She will never marry you!" + +"Why not?" + +"Why should she?" + +"You think I've got nothing at all to offer her?" demanded Sidney, +piqued. + +"What have you to offer her?" + +"Only myself." + +"A Houghton! But I thought a Houghton could not marry a Pennsylvania +Dutch Mennonite preacher's daughter!--could not marry his mistress, +the mother of his illegal child! Does such a woman get nearer the +level of a Houghton when she's a rich widow and the said Houghton is +a bankrupt? _She'll_ not think so!" + +"She will marry me for your sake, Georgie." + +"She'll see you damned first, Father! Marry you! Do you suppose I +would let her sacrifice herself like that for my sake?" + +"Sacrifice herself! I don't see why you'd call it that! Good +heavens, boy, if she could stand my brother Joe for seventeen years, +she'd certainly find me a pleasant change!" + +"You'd be an awful cad to ask her to marry you now that you're down +and out and shell on top!--after having cast her off and deserted her +and defrauded her of her son! Don't go crawling to her now!" + +He suddenly sprang up and stood before his father. "To-morrow +morning I am going to her and get her side of this story!" + +"Go easy! Remember she doesn't know she's your mother! Break it to +her carefully and don't let Josie hear a word of it!" + +Georgie, as he turned his back upon his father and left the room, +thought, "That such a woman as she is should have had two such +bounders in her life as Uncle Joe and Father!--when the best man that +ever walked would be unworthy of her! Such a waste of loveliness! +Such an absolute waste!" + +On Monday morning, Josie, to thwart his mother's project of going to +Middleburg to arrange with the family lawyer for settling an income +upon her sisters, took the car himself immediately after breakfast to +preface her call upon the lawyer with a legal consultation on his own +account. + +Susan could, of course, have gone by trolley or train, but she was +quite satisfied to give Josie rope enough to hang himself--that is, +to have him learn directly from their lawyer what were her absolute +rights over her inheritance. So she decided to stop at home this +morning and go to Middleburg the next day. This afternoon she would +go over to Reifsville to leave with Lizzie and Addie the first +installment of the income which hereafter should be regularly paid to +them by her lawyer. + +"How heavenly it is to be able to tell them they need not worry with +boarders this summer!" she thought, happily, as she sat in her +upstairs sewing room beside a window, darning Josie's socks. + +Her step-son's genuine suffering in the situation affected her very +little. She had never before found herself callous to any form of +distress; but Josie's anguish was so wholly the creation of his own +meanness and baseness that she could not feel other than indifferent +to it. In fact, she found herself actually hoping that the lawyer +would turn the knife in the wound! It would be so salutary for +Josie! The very best thing that could happen to him. + +It was while she was reflecting thus as she sewed by the window--and +with every stitch which she put into Josie's socks thrilling at the +bright prospects before her of freedom, travel, a larger life--that +Georgie walked in upon her. + +"Oh, I'm so glad you came over!" Susan gaily greeted him. "I have +such a lot to tell you! Come here and sit down. Josie's gone to +Middleburg on business and we'll have a good hour to ourselves." + +"I'm mighty glad he's out of the way! It saves me the necessity of +_putting_ him out. For this morning I've got to be alone with +you--and I'm afraid Josie wouldn't recognize that necessity without +the argument of physical force--which I, being theoretically a +non-resistant, as you know, would not use unless the necessity were +extremely urgent; as it would be to-day." + +"Dear me, what a lot of sophomoric words, Georgie! What's it all +about?" + +Georgie drew a stool to her feet, sat down upon it and folded his +arms on her lap. + +"Aunt Susan! I want you to talk to me. I want you to begin at the +very beginning and tell me your history." + +Susan shook her head. "It's too mournfully tragic! Let's talk of +something far pleasanter--of the chemical outfit I'm going to get +you, and----" + +"I said the necessity was urgent, didn't I? Listen! Last night +Father told me something of _his_ history--an episode of his +youth--of his once having been your lover! I want to hear _your_ +version of that story. I told him I meant to get it from you. I +fancy that in a few details, or at least in the point of view, his +story and yours may differ a bit!" + +Susan was looking at him, now, in astonishment, her face crimson. +"What right had your father to tell you this?" + +"I'll answer you that when I've heard your story," replied Georgie, +taking her hand in his. + +"How much did your father tell you, Georgie?" + +"Please, please tell me _your_ side of it all first--won't you?" + +"In my own defence?" + +"You could never need any defence to me! It's that I may know how to +judge my father that I want to hear your story." + +"I don't like to talk of that hideous blackness of my girlhood, +Georgie! I try so hard to forget it all! I'm afraid to begin to +speak of it! I get so fearfully stirred up, I can hardly bear it!" + +"I hate to put you through it--but I must!--indeed I must!" + +Susan laid aside Josie's sock and with Georgie's hand clasped in +hers, his young eyes gazing into hers, she spoke. + +She told of Sidney's courtship, of their love and happiness; of their +betrothal; of their scouring the countryside together in her father's +old buggy to purchase, with her savings, the old colonial furniture +which they found at out-of-the-way farmhouses; of their keen pleasure +in having it done over for their future home, and their temporarily +arranging it in the Schrekengusts' parlour; of the beautiful +furniture she had bought for Sidney's rooms at college, which was +also to be part of their future home; of the visit Sidney's mother +had paid to her to try to make her break the engagement; of Sidney's +philosophical arguments to urge her to give herself to him before +marriage; of her never having dreamed, for an instant, that he was +capable of deceiving her, of betraying such infinite trust as had led +her to give herself so completely. + +Susan's face was white and drawn as she lived over it all again; and +Georgie, gazing at her, felt his heart on fire for her, against the +man who had wronged her. + +She spoke, then, of Sidney's growing coldness and neglect; of her +reading in the college paper of his attentions to Miss Laura +Beresford, the daughter of the new college president, and an heiress; +of her suffering when her letters to him remained unanswered; of her +finally going to him at his college rooms and discovering there that +to secure money for his courtship of Miss Beresford he had sold the +furniture for which she was still making monthly payments out of her +little salary; of her passionate appeal to him to marry her for their +coming child's sake; of how she had, then, in her lover's rooms, +encountered the woman he soon married; of the birth of her dead baby; +of her soul's numbness and deadness through the many long, dreary +months that followed; and finally of the circumstances that had +driven her into the fatal mistake of marrying Joe. + +When she had finished, leaning back in her chair, pale and spent, +Georgie sat, for a time, without speaking, his hands clasping hers, +his eyes that rested upon her overflowing with tenderness. + +"You never doubted that your baby died?" he found voice at last to +ask her, his heart beating fast. + +"Doubted--that my baby--died?" she dazedly repeated. "What--do you +mean, Georgie? Of course she died!" + +"She? They told you your baby was a girl?" + +"Yes! What--_what_ is it you know?" + +"Your baby was a boy. And my dear, my dear! He didn't die!" + +Susan stared at him stupidly. "A boy! It didn't die! You can't +mean--that he is alive now!" + +She trembled from head to foot. Georgie clasped her two hands to his +breast and gazed up into her face without speaking--trying to convey +to her, without words, the tremendous truth with which his heart was +bursting. + +"Where--is--he? Where is my son?" Susan's stiff, dry lips formed +the words with difficulty, her whole soul one burning question, as +she looked down into Georgie's adoring eyes. + +"Mother! Mother!" + +For a moment she did not move or speak. Then she drew her hands +free, took his face between her palms and looked again, deep and +long, into the boy's face so like her own. Her brain was utterly +incredulous (it was a wicked plot of Sidney's to gain his way with +her!)--but her heart, her blood, cried out with a great longing that +this thing should be true--and suddenly something within her knew +that it was true! + +"You are mine--I know you are!" + +Her head fell forward on his shoulder, her arms went about him close, +she held him to her famished heart as though she would never let him +go---- + + +Later, as they still sat together, Georgie said to her, "I shall +never forgive Father for his treatment of you! For his having +cheated us of each other all these years! He repudiated you--I shall +repudiate him!" + +"But he loves you. He has always loved you. One can forgive +anything to love, Georgie." + +"Anything against myself, perhaps. I can't forgive the brutality to +you!" + +"He loves you," was Susan's answer. + +"You're so much larger-minded than I am, Mother!" + +"There's little enough love in the world, my darling! We can't +afford to spurn or 'repudiate' any drop of it that comes our way." + +There was a knock at the door, it opened, and Lizzie and Addie +stepped into the room. + +At sight of the picture before them, Georgie seated at Susan's feet, +their arms about each other, the two women in sombre Mennonite garb +stopped short. There was an illumined look in the faces of the +mother and son that seemed to mean but one thing. + +"Susie!" dried Lizzie, "someone has told you a'ready! Ain't?" + +"Told me what?" + +"That your baby didn't die for all and that Georgie's him yet! +Ain't--you know it a'ready?" + +"Have you and Addie always known this?" + +"Och, yes, Susie, us we knowed it ever since it was a'ready!" + +"There is _no_ doubt of it then?" + +"Och, no--though I know you never suspicioned it, and to be sure, it +must seem awful funny to you! Och, yes, it's true, all right, Susie. +Me and Addie, us we come over this morning to tell you all about it +and get it off our consciences oncet! How did Georgie find it out?" + +"His father told him!" + +Georgie sprang up and hugged and kissed them both. "I've got two +jolly aunts as well as a Long-Lost Mother! Mother! Mother! I want +to say it all day long!" he cried, going back to her side and again +throwing his arms about her. + +"Here!" exclaimed a high, rasping voice at the threshold of the room; +and they all turned, startled, to see Josie standing there +menacingly, his face flushed with resentment. "I'd thank you to quit +that, Georgie Houghton!" + +"Quit what?" + +"Calling my mother _Mother_! That name is sacred to _me_, I'd have +you know, Georgie Houghton! I don't care to have any other fellow +using it to her!" cried Josie with a grotesque mingling of hauteur +and sentimentality in his high, effeminate voice. "What _right_ have +you to call her _Mother_?" + +Georgie rose and went to Josie's side. "I call her Mother, Josie," +he said, gravely, almost solemnly, "because she _is_ my mother!" + +It was characteristic of him that he did not add, "And she is not +yours!"--as Josie in his place would surely have done. + +"She's not and you shan't call her so!" snapped Josie. + +"Yes, she is, too, his mother, Josie!" spoke in Lizzie, "and wery +glad you will be to hear it, fur now you'll inherit this here +_es_-tate, for all you won't get our Susie's fortune." + +"What on earth are you talking about?" faltered Josie, utterly +bewildered. + +"Come here, Josie, dear," said Susan, gently, "and let me explain it +to you----" + +"Let me spare you that ordeal, Mother," Georgie interposed. "Let me +tell him. You have----" + +"Tell me what?" demanded Josie, looking frightened. + +"Josie, my father's wife was not my mother. Your father's wife is my +mother." + +"How could she be? Are you crazy? What do you mean by saying such a +thing? It's not true! It couldn't be!" + +"Yes, it could be, too, Josie!" Lizzie contradicted him. "Our Susie +had Georgie single-wise." + +"How dare you insult my mother like that?" cried Josie, choking with +indignation. "As if my father would have married a woman like that! +As if----" + +"But, Josie," Susan interposed calmly, "it is true. I am Georgie's +mother." + +Josie stared at her wildly. "But--but he is younger than I am!" + +"Josie, dear, I never meant to tell you--but--I am your step-mother." + +Josie stood stock still, his face slowly going very white. Susan, +with a movement of deep pity for the blow she was dealing him, took +an impulsive step toward him, her hands outstretched. + +But he stepped out of her reach and his lips curving to a sneer, he +turned deliberately upon Georgie. + +"You--bastard!" he hurled at his cousin. + +"Josie, my boy!" pleaded Susan. But he wheeled about and turned upon +her. + +"You--hussy!" he cried out. + +There was an instant's silence in the room. Then Georgie spoke very +quietly: "It will always be a comfort to you to know, Josie, that the +woman to whom you have used that epithet is _not_ your mother, though +she has cared for you as a mother all your life!" + +"You shut up! And get out of my house! _All_ of you get out of my +house!" he exclaimed, hysterically, quite beside himself, scarcely +knowing what he was saying. "This is my house! Clear out of it, +every one of you! I never want to lay eyes on any one of you again +as long as I live! I----" + +Susan saw that he was suffering torture; that the shock of what he +had just learned had wounded him terribly; wounded his pride, his +love for her, his faith in her, the foundation principles of his life. + +Her heart yearned over him. "Leave me alone with him--all of you," +she said. "I want to talk with him." + +"You will never talk with me again!" he almost screamed, shaking off +her hand upon his arm. "Leave my house! You shall not stay here +another hour! Go with your bastard----" + +"Here! You----" cried Georgie in a sudden rage, drawing back his +arm--but Susan sprang between them. + +"We will all go," she said, quietly. + + +Living alone with her son in his college town, sharing his life very +completely and at the same time living her own life in freedom, Susan +now, for the first time since her girlhood, knew genuine contentment, +even great happiness. Their companionship seemed so completely to +satisfy them both, it so filled Susan's heart after all the starved +years behind her, that she dreaded almost with terror the inevitable +hour when Georgie would fall in love and she would lose the best of +him. + +The only cloud upon her peace was her alienation from Josie. He had +too long been the chief concern of her life for her to be able, now, +to cast off all thought of him, all responsibility for his welfare +and happiness. Because she knew he must be suffering, must be +missing her, longing for her, she yearned over him, even while fully +realizing how very salutary for him was this experience through which +he was living. + +She wrote to him once, with all the affection and motherliness she +could command. He sent her letter back unopened. + +The years of care and devotion she had given to him seemed all to +have been for nothing! + + +On the day when Georgie, taking her in his arms, confided to her that +the girl he loved had promised to marry him, Susan fought off her +overwhelming sense of loss and desolation by sobbing on his heart, +"Well, anyway, I shall have some grandchildren to mother!" + +She dreamed of the day when Josie, too, would permit her to "mother" +his children; for her wistful hope that he would some day discover +his need of her to be greater than his resentment was the only thing +which sustained her in the belief that the long sacrifice of her life +had not been utterly without fruit. + + + +THE END + + + + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS + GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77875 *** |