Mary Marie Part 8

"Why, _Father_!" I tried to show by the way I said it that he knew--of course he knew. But he made me tell him right out that Aunt Jane wouldn't like it, and that he wouldn't like it, and that the books always had to be kept exactly where they belonged.

"Well, why not? Why shouldn't they?" he asked then, almost crossly, and hitching again in his chair. "Aren't books down there--in Boston--kept where they belong, pray?"

It was the first time since I'd come that he'd ever mentioned Boston; and I almost jumped out of my chair when I heard him. But I soon saw it wasn't going to be the last, for right then and there he began to question me, even worse than Aunt Jane had.

He wanted to know everything, _everything_; all about the house, with its cushions and cozy corners and curtains 'way up, and books left around easy to get, and magazines, and Baby Lester, and the fun we had romping with him, and everything. Only, of course, I didn't mention Mother. Aunt Jane had told me not to--not anywhere; and to be specially careful before Father. But what can you do when he asks you himself, right out plain? And that's what he did.

He'd been up on his feet, tramping up and down the room all the time I'd been talking; and now, all of a sudden, he wheels around and stops short.

"How is--your mother, Mary?" he asks. And it was just as if he'd opened the door to another room, he had such a whole lot of questions to ask after that. And when he'd finished he knew everything: what time we got up and went to bed, and what we did all day, and the parties and dinners and auto rides, and the folks that came such a lot to see Mother.

Then all of a sudden he stopped--asking questions, I mean. He stopped just as suddenly as he'd begun. Why, I was right in the middle of telling about a concert for charity we got up just before I came away, and how Mother had practiced for days and days with the young man who played the violin, when all of a sudden Father jerked his watch from his pocket and said:

"There, there, Mary, it's getting late. You've talked enough--too much. Now go to bed. Good-night."

Talked too much, indeed! And who'd been making me do all the talking, I should like to know? But, of course, I couldn't _say_ anything.

That's the unfair part of it. Old folks can say anything, _anything_ they want to to _you_, but you can't say a thing back to them--not a thing.

And so I went to bed. And the next day all that Father said to me was, "Good-morning, Mary," and, "Good-night," just as he had ever since I came. And that's all he's said yesterday and to-day. But he's looked at me. He's looked at me a lot. I know, because at mealtimes and others, when he's been in the room with me, I've looked up and found his eyes on me. Funny, isn't it?

_Two weeks later_.

Well, I don't know as I have anything very special to say. Still, I suppose I ought to write something; so I'll put down what little there is.

Of course, there doesn't so much happen here, anyway, as there does at home--I mean in Boston. (I _must_ stop calling it home down to Boston as if this wasn't home at all. It makes Aunt Jane very, very angry, and I don't think Father likes it very well.) But, as I was saying, there really doesn't so much happen here as there does down to Boston; and it isn't nearly so interesting. But, there! I suppose I mustn't expect it to be interesting. I'm Mary now, not Marie.

There aren't any teas and dinners and pretty ladies and music and soulful-eyed prospective suitors _here_. My! Wouldn't Aunt Jane have four fits? And Father, too. But I'd just like to put one of Mother's teas with the little cakes and flowers and talk and tinkling laughs down in Aunt Jane's parlor, and then watch what happened. Oh, of course, the party couldn't stand it long--not in there with the hair wreath and the coffin plate. But they could stand it long enough for Father to thunder from the library, "Jane, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of all this?" And for Aunt Jane to give one look at the kind of clothes _real_ folks wear, and then flee with her hands to her ears and her eyes upraised to the ceiling. Wouldn't it be fun?

But, there! What's the use of imagining perfectly crazy, impossible things like that? We haven't had a thing here in that parlor since I came but one missionary meeting and one Ladies' Aid Sewing Circle; and after the last one (the Sewing Circle) Aunt Jane worked a whole day picking threads off the carpet, and smoothing down the linen covers because they'd got so mussed up. And I heard her tell the hired girl that she shouldn't have that Sewing Circle here again in a hurry, and when she did have them they'd have to sew in the dining-room with a sheet spread down to catch the threads. My! but I would like to see Aunt Jane with one of Mother's teas in her parlor!

I can't see as Father has changed much of any these last two weeks. He still doesn't pay much of any attention to me, though I do find him looking at me sometimes, just as if he was trying to make up his mind about something. He doesn't say hardly anything to me, only once or twice when he got to asking questions again about Boston and Mother.

The last time I told him all about Mr. Harlow, and he was so interested! I just happened to mention his name, and he wanted to know right away if it was Mr. Carl Harlow, and if I knew whether Mother had ever known him before. And of course I told him right away that it was--the same one she was engaged to before she was engaged to him.

Father looked funny and kind of grunted and said, yes, yes, he knew.

Then he said, "That will do, Mary." And he began to read his book again. But he never turned a page, and it wasn't five minutes before he got up and walked around the room, picking out books from the bookcases and putting them right back, and picking up things from the mantel and putting _them_ right back. Then he turned to me and asked with a kind of of-course-I-don't-care air:

"Did you say you saw quite a little of--this Harlow fellow?"

But he did care. I know he did. He was _real_ interested. I could see that he was. And so I told him everything, all about how he came there to the teas, and sent her flowers and candy, and was getting a divorce himself, and what he said on the sofa that day, and how Mother answered. As I said, I told him everything, only I was careful not to call Mr. Harlow a prospective suitor, of course. I remembered too well what Aunt Hattie had said. Father didn't say anything when I got through. He just got up and left the room, and pretty quick I saw him crossing the lawn to the observatory.

I guess there aren't any prospective suitors here. I mean, I guess Father isn't a prospective suitor--anyhow, not yet. (Of course, it's the man that has to be the suitor.) He doesn't go anywhere, only over to the college and out to the observatory. I've watched so to see. I wanted specially to know, for of course if he was being a prospective suitor to any one, she'd be my new mother, maybe. And I'm going to be awfully particular about any new mother coming into the house.

A whole lot more, even, depends on mothers than on fathers, you know; and if you're going to have one all ready-made thrust upon you, you are sort of anxious to know what kind she is. Some way, I don't think I'd like a new mother even as well as I'd like a new father; and I don't believe I'd like _him_ very well.

Of course, there are quite a lot of ladies here that Father _could_ have. There are several pretty teachers in the schools, and some nice unmarried ladies in the church. And there's Miss Parmelia Snow. She's Professor Snow's sister. She wears gla.s.ses and is terribly learned.

Maybe he _would_ like her. But, mercy! I shouldn't.

Then there's Miss Grace Ann Sanborn. She's fat, and awfully jolly. She comes here a lot lately to see Aunt Jane. I don't know why. They don't belong to the same church, or anything. But she "runs over," as she calls it, almost every afternoon just a little before dinner--I mean supper.

Mrs. Darling used to come then, too, when I first came; but she comes over evenings now more. Maybe it's because she doesn't like Miss Grace Ann. I don't think she _does_ like her, for every time she saw her, she'd say: "Oh, _you_? So you're here!" And then she'd turn and talk to Aunt Jane and simply ignore Miss Grace Ann. And pretty quick she'd get up and go. And now she comes evenings. She's fixing over her house, and she runs and asks Aunt Jane's advice about every little thing. She asks Father's, too, every chance she gets, when she sees him in the hall or on the front steps. I heard her tell Aunt Jane she considered Professor Anderson a man of most excellent taste and judgment.

I suppose Mrs. Darling _could_ be my new mother. She's a widow. Her husband died last year. She is very well off now that her husband is dead, I heard Aunt Jane say one day. She meant well off in money--quite a lot of it, you know. I _thought_ she meant well off because he was dead and she didn't have to live with him any more, and I said so to Aunt Jane. (He was a cross man, and very stern, as everybody knew.) But, dear suz me! Aunt Jane was awfully shocked, and said certainly not; that she meant Mr. Darling had left his wife a great deal of money.

Then she talked very stern and solemn to me, and said that I must not think just because my poor dear father's married life had ended in such a wretched tragedy that every other home had such a skeleton in the closet.

_I_ grew stern and dignified and solemn then. I knew, of course, what she meant. I'm no child. She meant Mother. She meant that Mother, my dear blessed mother, was the skeleton in their closet. And of course I wasn't going to stand there and hear that, and not say a word.

But I didn't say just a word. I said a good many words. I won't try to put them all down here; but I told her quietly, in a firm voice, and with no temper (showing), that I guessed Father was just as much of a skeleton in Mother's closet as she was in his; and that if she could see how perfectly happy my mother was now she'd understand a little of what my father's skeleton had done to her all those years she'd had to live with it.

I said a lot more, but before I'd got half finished with what I wanted to say, I got to crying, so I just had to run out of the room.

That night I heard Aunt Jane tell Mrs. Darling that the worst feature of the whole deplorable situation was the effect on the child's mind, and the wretched conception it gave her of the sacredness of the marriage tie, or something like that. And Mrs. Darling sighed, and said, oh, and ah, and the pity of it.

I don't like Mrs. Darling.

Of course, as I said before, Mrs. Darling could be my new mother, being a widow, so. But, mercy! I hope she won't. I'd rather have Miss Grace Ann than her, and I shouldn't be crazy about having Miss Grace Ann.

Well, I guess there's nothing more to write. Things at school are just the same, only more so. The girls are getting so they act almost as bad as those down to Boston in the school where I went before I changed. Of course, maybe it's the divorce here, same as it was there.

But I don't see how it can be that here. Why, they've known it from the very first!

Oh, dear suz me! How I do wish I could see Mother to-night and have her take me in her arms and kiss me. I'm so tired of being Mary 'way off up here where n.o.body cares or wants me.

Even Father doesn't want me, not really want me. I know he doesn't. I don't see why he keeps me, only I suppose he'd be ashamed not to take me his six months as long as the court gave me to him for that time.

_Another two weeks later_.

I'm so angry I can hardly write, and at the same time I'm so angry I've just got to write. I can't talk. There isn't anybody to talk to; and I've got to tell somebody. So I'm going to tell it here.

I've found out now what's the matter with the girls--you know I said there _was_ something the matter with them; that they acted queer and stopped talking when I came up, and faded away till there wasn't anybody but me left; and about the party Stella Mayhew had and didn't invite me.

Well, it's been getting worse and worse. Other girls have had parties, and more and more often the girls have stopped talking and have looked queer when I came up. We got up a secret society and called it the "Tony Ten," and I was going to be its president. Then all of a sudden one day I found there wasn't any Tony Ten--only Carrie Heywood and me.

The other eight had formed another society and Stella Mayhew was their president.

I told Carrie we wouldn't care; that we'd just change it and call it the "Tony Two"; and that two was a lot more exclusive than ten, anyway. But I did care, and Carrie did. I knew she did. And I know it better now because last night--she told me. You see things have been getting simply unbearable these last few days, and it got so it looked as if I wasn't even going to have Carrie left. _She_ began to act queer and I accused her of it, and told her if she didn't want to belong to the Tony Two she needn't. That I didn't care; that I'd be a secret society all by myself. But I cried. I couldn't help crying; and she knew I did--care. Then she began to cry; and to-day, after school, we went to walk up on the hill to the big rock; and there--she told me. And it _was_ the divorce.

And it's all that Stella Mayhew--the new girl. Her mother found out I was divorced (I mean Mother was) and she told Stella not to play with me, nor speak to me, nor have a thing to do with me. And I said to Carrie, all right! Who cared? _I_ didn't. That I never had liked that Mayhew girl, anyway. But Carrie said that wasn't all. She said Stella had got to be real popular before I came; that her folks had lots of money, and she always had candy and could treat to ice-cream and auto rides, and everybody with her was sure of a good time. She had parties, too--lots of them; and of course, all the girls and boys liked that.

Well, when I came everything was all right till Stella's mother found out about the divorce, and then--well, then things were different.

First Stella contented herself with making fun of me, Carrie said. She laughed at the serge dresses and big homely shoes, and then she began on my name, and said the idea of being called Mary by Father and Marie by Mother, and that 't was just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (That's a story, Carrie says. I'm going to read it, if Father's got it. If there ever was another Mary and Marie all in one in the world I want to know what she did.) But Carrie says the poking fun at me didn't make much difference with the girls, so Stella tried something else.

She not only wouldn't speak to me herself, or invite me, or anything, but she told all the girls that they couldn't go with her and me, too.

That they might take their choice. And Carrie said some of them did choose and stayed with me; but they lost all the good times and ice-cream and parties and rides and everything; and so one by one they dropped me and went back to Stella, and now there wasn't anybody left, only her, Carrie. And then she began to cry.

And when she stopped speaking, and I knew all, and saw her crying there before me, and thought of my dear blessed mother, I was so angry I could scarcely speak. I just shook with righteous indignation.