Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and others Part 22

The big house was very still. Lizzie, hitherto un-compromisingly a cook, had so far unbent this summer as to offer to fill the place of waitress as well as her own. Today she had joyously accepted Mary's offer of a whole unexpected free afternoon and evening. Mary was alone, and rather enjoying it. She walked, trailing her ruffled wrapper, to one of the windows, and looked down on the Drive. It was almost deserted.

While she stood there idle and smiling, a taxicab veered to the curb, hesitated, came to a full stop. Out of it came a small gloved hand with a parasol clasped in it, a small struggling foot in a gray suede shoe, a small doubled-up form clad in gray-blue silk, a hat covered with corn-flowers.

Mamma had arrived, as Mamma always did, unexpectedly.

Mary stared at the apparition with a sudden rebellious surge at her heart. She knew what this meant, but for a moment the full significance of it seemed too exasperating to be true. Oh, how could she!--spoil their last day together, upset their plans, madden George afresh, when he was only this moment pacified! Mary uttered an impatient little sigh as she went down to open the door; but it was the antic.i.p.ation of George's vexation--not her own--that stirred her, and the sight of Mamma was really unwelcome to Mary only because of George's lack of welcome.

"No Lizzie?" asked Mamma, blithely, when her first greetings were over, and the case of Cousin Will had been dismissed with a few emphatic sentences.

"I let her go this afternoon instead of to-morrow, Muddie, dear. We're going down town to dinner."

"Oh; that's nice,--but I look a perfect fright!" said Mrs. Honeywell, following Mary upstairs. "Nasty trip! I don't want a thing but a cup of tea for supper anyway--bit of toast. I'll be glad to get my things off for a while."

"If you LIKE, Mamma, why don't you just turn in?" Mary suggested. "It's nearly four now. I'll bring you up some cold meat and tea and so on."

"Sounds awfully nice," her mother said, getting a thin little silk wrapper out of her suit-case. "But we'll see,--there's no hurry. What time are you meeting Georgie?"

"Well, we were going to Macbeth's,--but that's not important,--we needn't meet him until nearly seven, I suppose," Mary said patiently, "only I ought to telephone him what we are going to do."

"Oh, telephone that I'll come too, I'll feel fine in half an hour,"

Mrs. Honeywell said decidedly.

Mary, unsatisfied with this message, temporized by sitting down in a deep chair. The room, which had all been made ready for Mamma, was cool and pleasant. Awnings shaded the open windows; the rugs, the wall-paper, the chintzes were all in gay and roseate tints. Mrs.

Honeywell stretched herself luxuriously on the bed, both pillows under her head.

"I'm sure she'd be much more comfortable here than tearing about town this stuffy night!" the daughter reflected, while listening to an account of Cousin Will's dreadful house, and dreadful children.

It was so easy when Mamma was away to think generously, affectionately of her, to laugh kindly at the memory of her trying moods. But it was very different to have Mamma actually about, to humor her whims, listen to her ceaseless chatter, silently sacrifice to her comfort a thousand comforts of one's own.

After a half hour of playing listener she went down to telephone George.

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" said George, heartily. "And here I've been hustling through things thinking any minute that you'd come in. Well, this spoils it all. I'll come home."

"Oh, dearest,--it'll be just a 'pick-up' dinner, then. I don't know what's in the house. Lizzie's gone," Mary submitted hesitatingly.

"Oh, d.a.m.n!" George said forcibly, again.

"What does your mother propose to do?" he asked Mary some hours later, when the rather unsuccessful dinner was over, Mamma had retired, and he and his wife were in their own rooms. Mary felt impending unpleasantness in his tone, and battled with a rising sense of antagonism. She tucked her pink hat into its flowered box, folded the silky tissue paper about it, tied the strings.

"Why, I don't know, dear!" she said pleasantly, carrying the box to her wardrobe.

"Does she plan to stay here?" George asked, with a reasonable air, carefully transferring letters, pocket-book, and watch-case from one vest to another.

"George, when does Mamma ever plan ANYTHING!" Mary reminded him, with elaborate gentleness.

There was a short silence. The night was very sultry, and no air stirred the thin window-curtains. The room, with its rich litter of gla.s.s and silver, its dark wood and bright hangings, seemed somehow hot and crowded. Mary flung her dark cloud of hair impatiently back, as she sat at her dressing table. Brushing was too hot a business tonight.

"I confess I think I have a right to ask what your mother proposes to do," George said presently, with marked politeness.

"Oh, Georgie! DON'T be so ridiculous!" Mary protested impatiently. "You know what Mamma is!"

"I may be ridiculous," George conceded, magnificently, "but I fail to see--"

"I don't mean that," Mary said hastily. "But need we decide tonight?"

she added with laudable calm. "It's so HOT, dearest, and I am so sleepy. Mamma could go to Beach Meadow, I suppose?" she finished unthinkingly.

This was a wrong move. George was disappearing into his dressing-room at the moment, and did not turn back. Mary put out all the lights but one, turned down the beds, settled on her pillows with a great sigh of relief. But George, returning in a trailing wrapper, was mighty with resolution.

"I mean to make just one final remark on this subject, Mary," said George, flashing on three lights with one turn of the wrist, "but you may as well understand me. I mean it! I don't propose to have your mother at Beach Meadow, not for a single night--not for a day! She demoralizes the boys, she has a very bad effect on the nurse. I sympathize with Miss Fox, and I refuse to allow my children to be given candy, and things injurious to their const.i.tutions, and to be kept up until late hours, and to have their first perceptions of honor and truth misled--"

"George!"

"Well," said George, after a brief pause, more mildly, "I won't have it."

"Then--but she can't stay here, George. It will spoil our whole summer."

"Exactly," George a.s.sented. There was another pause.

"I'll talk to Mamma--she may have some plan," Mary said at last, with a long sigh.

Mamma had no plan to unfold on the following day, and a week and then ten days went by without any suggestion of change on her part. The weather was very hot, and Lizzie complained more than once that Mrs.

Honeywell must have her iced coffee and sandwiches at four and that breakfast, luncheon, and dinner regularly for three was not at all like getting two meals for two every day, and besides, there was another bedroom to care for, and the kitchen was never in order! Mary applied an unfailing remedy to Lizzie's case, and sent for a charwoman besides.

Less easily solved were other difficulties.

George, for example, liked to take long motoring trips out of the city, on warm summer evenings. He ran his own car, and was never so happy as when Mary was on the driver's seat beside him, where he could amuse her with the little news of the day, or repeat to her long and, to Mary, unintelligible business conversations in which he had borne a part.

But Mamma's return spoiled all this. Obviously, the little lady couldn't be left to bounce about alone in the tonneau. If Mary joined her there, George would sit silently, immovably, in the front seat, chewing his cigar, his eyes on the road. Only when they had a friend or two with them did Mary enjoy these drives.

Mamma had an unlucky habit of scattering George's valuable books carelessly about the house, and George was fussy about his books. And she would sometimes amuse herself by trying roll after roll on the piano-player, until George, perhaps trying to read in the adjoining library, was almost frantic. And she mislaid his telephone directory, and took telephone messages for him that she forgot to deliver, and insisted upon knowing why he was late for dinner, in spite of Mary's warning, "Let him change and get his breath Mamma, dear,--he's exhausted. What does it matter, anyway?"

Sometimes Mary's heart would ache for the little, resourceless lady, drifting aimlessly through her same and stupid days. Mamma had always been spoiled, loved, amused,--it was too much to expect strength and unselfishness of her now. And at other times, when she saw the tired droop to George's big shoulders, and the gallant effort he made to be sweet to Mamma, George who was so good, and so generous, and who only asked to have his wife and home quietly to himself after the long day, Mary's heart would burn with longing to put her arms about him, and go off alone with him somewhere, and smooth the wrinkles from his forehead, and let him rest.

One warm Sunday in mid-July they all went down to Long Island to see the rosy, noisy babies. It was a happy day for Mary. George was very gracious, Mamma charming and complaisant. The weather was perfection, and the children angelic. They shared the noonday dinner with little George and Richard and Mary, and motored home through the level light of late afternoon. Slowly pa.s.sing through a certain charming colony of summer homes, they were suddenly hailed.

Out from a shingled bungalow, and across a velvet lawn streamed three old friends of Mamma's, Mrs. Law'nce Arch'bald, and her daughter, 'Lizabeth Sarah, who was almost Mamma's age, and 'Lizabeth Sarah's husband, Harry Fairfax. These three were rapturously presented to the Venables by Mrs. Honeywell, and presently they all went up to the porch for tea.

Mary thought, and she could see George thought, that it was very pleasant to discuss the delicious Oolong and Maryland biscuit, and Southern white fruit-cake, while listening to Mamma's happy chatter with her old friends. The old negress who served tea called Mamma "chile," and Mrs. Archibald, an aristocratic, elderly woman, treated her as if she were no more than a girl. Mary thought she had never seen her mother so charming.

"I wonder if the's any reason, Mary Lou'siana, why you can't just come down here and stay with me this summah?" said Mrs. Archibald, suddenly.

"'Lizabeth Sarah and Harry Fairfax, they're always coming and going, and Lord knows it would be like havin' one of my own girls back, to me.

We've room, and there's a lot of nice people down hereabouts--"

A chorus arose, Mrs. Honey well protesting joyously that that was too much imp'sition for any use, 'Lizabeth Sarah and Harry Fairfax violently favorable to the idea, Mrs. Archibald magnificently overriding objections, Mary and George trying with laughter to separate jest from earnest. Mrs. Honeywell, overborne, was dragged upstairs to inspect "her room," old Aunt Curry, the colored maid and cook, adding her deep-noted welcome to "Miss Mar' Lou." It was arranged that Mamma should at least spend the night, and George and Mary left her there, and came happily home together, laughing, over their little downtown dinner, with an almost parental indulgence, at Mamma.

In the end, Mamma did go down to the Archibald's for an indefinite stay. Mary quite overwhelmed her with generous contributions to her wardrobe, and George presented her with a long-coveted chain. The parting took place with great affection and regret expressed on both sides. But this timely relief was clouded for Mary when Mamma flitted in to see her a day or two later. Mamma wondered if Ma'y dearest could possibly let her have two hundred dollars.

"Muddie, you've overdrawn again!" Mary accused her. For Mamma had an income of a thousand a year.

"No, dear, it's not that. I am a little overdrawn, but it's not that.