Stories of a Western Town Part 9

IT happened in the church. Mrs. Carriswood was behind the others; so she saw them come in, the same little old couple of the Capitol.

In the chancel, Beatoun was explaining; beside Beatoun shone a curly black head that they knew.

Mrs. Carriswood sat in one of the high old pews. Through a crack she could look into the next pew; and there they stood. She heard the old man: "Whist, Molly, let's be getting out of this! HE is here with all his grand friends. Don't let us be interrupting him."

The old woman's voice was so like Tommy's that it made Mrs. Carriswood start. Very softly she spoke: "I only want to look at him a minute, Pat, jest a minute. I ain't seen him for so long."

"And is it any longer for you than for me?" retorted the husband. "Ye know what ye promised if I'd be taking you here, unbeknownst. Don't look his way! Look like ye was a stranger to him. Don't let us be mortifying him wid our country ways. Like as not 'tis the prisidint, himself, he is colloguein' wid, this blessed minute. Shtep back and be a stranger to him, woman!"

A stranger to him, his own mother! But she stepped back; she turned her patient face. Then--Tommy saw her.

A wave of red flushed all over his face. He took two steps down the aisle, and caught the little figure in his arms.

"Why, mother?" he cried, "why, mother, where did you drop from?"

And before Mrs. Carriswood could speak she saw him step back and push young Sackville forward, crying, "This is my father, this is the boy that knew your grandmother."

He did it so easily; he was so entirely unaffected, so perfectly unconscious, that there was nothing at all embarra.s.sing for anyone. Even the Cabinet girl, with a grandmother in very humble life, who must be kept in the background, could not feel disconcerted.

For this happy result Mrs. Carriswood owns a share of the credit. She advanced on the first pause, and claimed acquaintanceship with the Fitzmaurices. The story of their last meeting and Tommy's first triumph in oratory came, of course; the famous horseshoe received due mention; and Tommy described with much humor his terror of the stage. From the speech to its most effective pa.s.sage was a natural transition; equally natural the transition to Tommy's grandmother, the Irish famine, and the benevolence of Lady Sackville.

Everybody was interested, and it was Sackville himself, who brought the Fitzmaurices' n.o.ble ancestors, the apocryphal Viscounts Fitzmaurice of King James's creation, on to the carpet.

He was entirely serious. "My grandmother told me of your great-grandfather, Lord Fitzmaurice; she saw him ride to hounds once, when she was a little girl. They say he was the boldest rider in Ireland, and a renowned duellist too. King James gave the t.i.tle to his grandfather, didn't he? and the countryside kept it, if it was given rather too late in the day to be useful. I am glad you have restored the family fortunes, Mr. Fitzmaurice."

The Cabinet girl looked on Tommy with respect, and Miss Van Harlem blushed like an angel.

"All is lost," said Mrs. Carriswood to herself; yet she smiled. Going home, she found a word for Tommy's ear. The old Virginian dinner had been most successful. The Fitzmaurices (who had been almost forced into the banquet by Beatoun's imperious hospitality) were not a wet blanket in the least. Patrick Fitzmaurice, brogue and all, was an Irish gentleman without a flaw. He blossomed out into a modest wag; and told two or three comic stories as acceptably as he was used to tell them to a very different circle--only, carrying a fresher flavor of wit to this circle, perhaps, it enjoyed them more. Mrs. Fitzmaurice looked scared and ate almost nothing, with the greatest propriety, and her fork in her left hand. Yet even she thawed under Miss Van Harlem's attentions and gentle Mrs. Beatoun's tact, and the winning ways of the last Beatoun baby. She took this absent cherub to her heart with such undissembled warmth that its mother ever since has called her "a sweet, funny little old lady."

They were both (Patrick and his wife) quite una.s.suming and retiring, and no urging could dissuade them from parting with the company at the tavern door.

"My word, Tommy, your mother and I can git home by ourselves," whispered honest Patrick; "we've not exceeded--if the wines WERE good. I never exceeded in my life, G.o.d take the glory!"

But he embraced Tommy so affectionately in parting that I confess Mrs.

Carriswood had suspicions. Yet, surely, it is more likely that his brain was--let us not say TURNED, but just a wee bit TILTED, by the joy and triumph of the occasion rather than by Beatoun's port or champagne.

But Mrs. Carriswood's word had nothing to do with Tommy's parents, ostensibly, though, in truth, it had everything to do. She said: "Will you dine with us to-morrow, quite _en famille_, Thomas?"

"I ought to tell you, I suppose, that I find your house a pretty dangerous paradise, Mrs. Carriswood," says Tommy.

"And I find you a most dangerous angel, Thomas; but--you see I ask you!"

"Thank you," answers Tommy, in a different tone; "you've always been an angel to me. What I owe to you and Harry Lossing--well, I can't talk about it. But see here, Mrs. Carriswood, you always have called me Tommy; now you say Thomas; why this state?"

"I think you have won your brevet, Thomas."

He looked puzzled, and she liked him the better that he should not make enough of his conduct to understand her; but, though she has called him Tommy often since, he keeps the brevet in her thoughts. In fact, Mrs.

Carriswood is beginning to take the Honorable Thomas Fitzmaurice and his place in the world seriously, herself.

MOTHER EMERITUS

THE Louders lived on the second floor, at the head of the stairs, in the Lossing Building. There is a restaurant to the right; and a new doctor, every six months, who is every kind of a healer except "regular," keeps the permanent boarders in gossip, to the left; two or three dressmakers, a dentist, and a diamond merchant up-stairs, one flight; and half a dozen families and a dozen single tenants higher--so you see the Louders had plenty of neighbors. In fact, the mult.i.tude of the neighbors is one cause of my story.

Tilly Louder came home from the Lossing factory (where she is a typewriter) one February afternoon. As she turned the corner, she was face to the river, which is not so full of shipping in winter that one cannot see the steel-blue glint of the water. Back of her the brick paved street climbed the hill, under a shapeless arch of trees. The remorseless pencil of a railway has drawn black lines at the foot of the hill; and, all day and all night, slender red bars rise and sink in their black sockets, to the accompaniment of the outcry of tortured steam. All day, if not all night, the crooked pole slips up and down the trolley wire, as the yellow cars rattle, and flash, and clang a spiteful little bell, that sounds like a soprano bark, over the crossings.

It is customary in the Lossing Building to say, "We are so handy to the cars." The street is a handsome street, not free from dingy old brick boxes of stores below the railway, but fast replacing them with fairer structures. The Lossing Building has the wide arches, the recessed doors, the balconies and the colonnades of modern business architecture.

The occupants are very proud of the balconies, in particular; and, summer days, these will be a ma.s.s of greenery and bright tints. To-day, it was so warm, February day though it was, that some of the potted plants were sunning themselves outside the windows.

Tilly could see them if she craned her neck. There were some bouvardias and fuchsias of her mother's among them.

"It IS a pretty building," said Tilly; and, for some reason, she frowned.

She was a young woman, but not a very young woman. Her figure was slim, and she looked better in loose waists than in tightly fitted gowns. She wore a dark green gown with a black jacket, and a scarlet shirt-waist underneath. Her face was long, with square chin and high cheek-bones, and thin, firm lips; yet she was comely, because of her l.u.s.trous black hair, her clear, gray eyes, and her charming, fair skin. She had another gift: everything about her was daintily neat; at first glance one said, "Here is a person who has spent pains, if not money, on her toilet."

By this time Tilly was entering the Lossing Building. Half-way up the stairway a hand plucked her skirts. The hand belonged to a tired-faced woman in black, on whose breast glittered a little crowd of pins and threaded needles, like the insignia of an Order of Toil.

"Please excuse me, Miss Tilly," said the woman, at the same time presenting a flat package in brown paper, "but WILL you give this pattern back to your mother. I am so very much obliged. I don't know how I WOULD git along without your mother, Tilly."

"I'll give the pattern to her," said Tilly, and she pursued her way.

Not very far. A stout woman and a thin young man, with long, wavy, red hair, awaited her on the landing. The woman held a plate of cake which she thrust at Tilly the instant they were on the same level, saying: "The cake was just splendid, tell your mother; it's a lovely recipe, and will you tell her to take this, and see how well I succeeded?"

"And--ah--Miss Louder," said the man, as the stout woman rustled away, "here are some _Banner of Lights;_ I think she'd be interested in some of the articles on the true principles of the inspirational faith----" Tilly placed the bundle of newspapers at the base of her load--"and--and, I wish you'd tell your dear mother that, under the angels, her mustard plaster really saved my life."

"I'll tell her," said Tilly.

She had advanced a little s.p.a.ce before a young girl in a bright blue silk gown flung a radiant presence between her and the door. "Oh, Miss Tilly," she murmured, blushing, "will you just give your mother this?--it's--it's Jim's photograph. You tell her it's ALL right; and SHE was exactly right, and _I_ was wrong. She'll understand."

Tilly, with a look of resignation, accepted a stiff package done up in white tissue paper. She had now only three steps to take: she took two, only two, for--"Miss Tilly, PLEASE!" a voice pealed around the corner, while a flushed and breathless young woman, with a large baby toppling over her lean shoulder, staggered into view. "My!" she panted, "ain't it tiresome lugging a child! I missed the car, of course, coming home from ma's. Oh, say, Tilly, your mother was so good, she said she'd tend Blossom next time I went to the doctor's, and----"

"I'll take the baby," said Tilly. She hoisted the infant on to her own shoulder with her right arm. "Perhaps you'll be so kind's to turn the handle of the door," said she in a slightly caustic tone, "as I haven't got any hands left. Please shut it, too."

As the young mother opened the door, Tilly entered the parlor. For a second she stood and stared grimly about her. The furniture of the room was old-fashioned but in the best repair. There was a cabinet organ in one corner. A crayon portrait of Tilly's father (killed in the civil war) glared out of a florid gilt frame. Perhaps it was the fault of the portrait, but he had a peevish frown. There were two other portraits of him, large ghastly gray tintypes in oval frames of rosewood, obscurely suggesting coffins. In these he looked distinctly sullen. He was represented in uniform (being a lieutenant of volunteers), and the artist had conscientiously gilded his b.u.t.tons until, as Mrs. Louder was wont to observe, "It most made you want to cut them off with the scissors." There were other tintypes and a flock of photographs in the room. What Mrs. Louder named "a throw" decorated each framed picture and each chair. The largest arm-chair was drawn up to a table covered with books and magazines: in the chair sat Mrs. Louder, reading.

At Tilly's entrance she started and turned her head, and then one could see that the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"Now, MOTHER!" exploded Tilly. Kicking the door open, she marched into the bed-chamber. An indignant sweep of one arm sent the miscellany of gifts into a rocking-chair; an indignant curve of the other landed the baby on the bed. Tilly turned on her mother. "Now, mother, what did you promise--HUSH! will you?" (The latter part of the sentence a fierce "ASIDE" to the infant on the bed.) In a second Mrs. Louder's arms were encircling him, and she was soothing him on her broad shoulder, where I know not how many babies have found comfort.

Jane Louder was a tall woman--tall and portly. She had a ma.s.sive repose about her, a kind of soft dignity; and a stranger would not guess how tender was her heart. Deprecatingly she looked up at her only child, standing in judgment over her. Her eyes were fine still, though they had sparkled and wept for more than half a century. They were not gray, like Tilly's, but a deep violet, with black eyelashes and eyebrows. Black, once, had been the hair under the widow's cap, now streaked with silver; but Jane Louder's skin was fresh and daintily tinted like her daughter's, for all its fine wrinkles. Her voice when she spoke was mellow and slow, with a nervous vibration of apology. "Never mind, dear," she said, "I was just reading 'bout the Russians."

"I KNEW it! You promised me you wouldn't cry about the Russians any more."

"I know, Tilly, but Alma Brown lent this to me, herself. There's a beautiful article in it about 'The Horrors of Hunger.' It would make your heart ache! I wish you would read it, Tilly."

"No, thank you. I don't care to have my heart ache. I'm not going to read any more horrors about the Russians, or hear them either, if I can help it. I have to write Mr. Lossing's letters about them, and that's enough. I've given all I can afford, and you've given more than you can afford; and I helped get up the subscription at the shops. I've done all I could; and now I ain't going to have my feelings harrowed up any more, when it won't do me nor the Russians a mite of good."