CHAPTER III. GOOD AS NEW
So Spring danced away, and Summer sauntered in. My pillows lookedless and less tempting. The wine of the northern air imparted a cockyassurance. One blue-and-gold day followed the other, and I spent hourstogether out of doors in the sunshine, lying full length on the warm,sweet ground, to the horror of the entire neighborhood. To be sure, Iwas sufficiently discreet to choose the lawn at the rear of the house.There I drank in the atmosphere, as per doctor's instructions, while thegenial sun warmed the watery blood in my veins and burned the skin offthe end of my nose.
All my life I had envied the loungers in the parks--those silent, inertfigures that lie under the trees all the long summer day, their shabbyhats over their faces, their hands clasped above their heads, legssprawled in uncouth comfort, while the sun dapples down between theleaves and, like a good fairy godmother, touches their frayed andwrinkled garments with flickering figures of golden splendor, while theysleep. They always seemed so blissfully care-free and at ease--thosesprawling men figures--and I, to whom such simple joys were forbidden,being a woman, had envied them.
Now I was reveling in that very joy, stretched prone upon the ground,blinking sleepily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my veryhair grow, and health returning in warm, electric waves. I even daredto cross one leg over the other and to swing the pendant member withnonchalant air, first taking a cautious survey of the neighboring backwindows to see if any one peeked. Doubtless they did, behind thoseruffled curtains, but I grew splendidly indifferent.
Even the crawling things--and there were myriads of them--added tothe enjoyment of my ease. With my ear so close to the ground the grassseemed fairly to buzz with them. Everywhere there were crazily busyants, and I, patently a sluggard and therefore one of those for whom theancient warning was intended, considered them lazily. How they plungedabout, weaving in and out, rushing here and there, helter-skelter, likebargain-hunting women darting wildly from counter to counter!
"O, foolish, foolish antics!" I chided them, "stop wearing yourselvesout this way. Don't you know that the game isn't worth the candle, andthat you'll give yourselves nervous jim-jams and then you'll have to gohome to be patched up? Look at me! I'm a horrible example."
But they only bustled on, heedless of my advice, and showed theircontempt by crawling over me as I lay there like a lady Gulliver.
Oh, I played what they call a heavy thinking part. It was not only theants that came in for lectures. I preached sternly to myself.
"Well, Dawn old girl, you've made a beautiful mess of it. A smashed-upwreck at twenty-eight! And what have you to show for it? Nothing! You'rea useless pulp, like a lemon that has been squeezed dry. Von Gerhard wasright. There must be no more newspaper work for you, me girl. Not if youcan keep away from the fascination of it, which I don't think you can."
Then I would fall to thinking of those years of newspapering--of thethrills of them, and the ills of them. It had been exhilarating, andeducating, but scarcely remunerative. Mother had never approved. Dadhad chuckled and said that it was a curse descended upon me from theterrible old Kitty O'Hara, the only old maid in the history of theO'Haras, and famed in her day for a caustic tongue and a venomedpen. Dad and Mother--what a pair of children they had been! The verydissimilarity of their natures had been a bond between them. Dad,light-hearted, whimsical, care-free, improvident; Mother, gravely sweet,anxious-browed, trying to teach economy to the handsome Irish husbandwho, descendant of a long and royal line of spendthrift ancestors, wouldhave none of it.
It was Dad who had insisted that they name me Dawn. Dawn O'Hara! Hissense of humor must have been sleeping. "You were such a rosy, pinky,soft baby thing," Mother had once told me, "that you looked just likethe first flush of light at sunrise. That is why your father insisted oncalling you Dawn."
Poor Dad! How could he know that at twenty-eight I would be a yellowwreck of a newspaper reporter--with a wrinkle between my eyes. If hecould see me now he would say:
"Sure, you look like the dawn yet, me girl but a Pittsburgh dawn."
At that, Mother, if she were here, would pat my check where the hollowplace is, and murmur: "Never mind, Dawnie dearie, Mother thinks you arebeautiful just the same." Of such blessed stuff are mothers made.
At this stage of the memory game I would bury my face in the warm grassand thank my God for having taken Mother before Peter Orme came into mylife. And then I would fall asleep there on the soft, sweet grass, withmy head snuggled in my arms, and the ants wriggling, unchided, into myears.
On the last of these sylvan occasions I awoke, not with a gracefulstart, like the story-book ladies, but with a grunt. Sis was diggingme in the ribs with her toe. I looked up to see her standing over me,a foaming tumbler of something in her hand. I felt that it was eggy andeyed it disgustedly.
"Get up," said she, "you lazy scribbler, and drink this."
I sat up, eyeing her severely and picking grass and ants out of my hair.
"D' you mean to tell me that you woke me out of that babe-like slumberto make me drink that goo? What is it, anyway? I'll bet it's anotheregg-nogg."
"Egg-nogg it is; and swallow it right away, because there are guests tosee you."
I emerged from the first dip into the yellow mixture and fixed on her asstern and terrible a look at any one can whose mouth is encircled by amustache of yellow foam.
"Guests!" I roared, "not for me! Don't you dare to say that they came tosee me!"
"Did too," insists Norah, with firmness, "they came especially to seeyou. Asked for you, right from the jump."
I finished the egg-nogg in four gulps, returned the empty tumbler withan air of decision, and sank upon the grass.
"Tell 'em I rave. Tell 'em that I'm unconscious, and that for weeks Ihave recognized no one, not even my dear sister. Say that in my presentnerve-shattered condition I--"
"That wouldn't satisfy them," Norah calmly interrupts, "they knowyou're crazy because they saw you out here from their second story backwindows. That's why they came. So you may as well get up and face them.I promised them I'd bring you in. You can't go on forever refusing tosee people, and you know the Whalens are--"
"Whalens!" I gasped. "How many of them? Not--not the entire fiendishthree?"
"All three. I left them champing with impatience."
The Whalens live just around the corner. The Whalens are omniscient.They have a system of news gathering which would make the efforts of aNew York daily appear antiquated. They know that Jenny Laffin feeds thefamily on soup meat and oat-meal when Mr. Laffin is on the road; theyknow that Mrs. Pearson only shakes out her rugs once in four weeks; theycan tell you the number of times a week that Sam Dempster comes homedrunk; they know that the Merkles never have cream with their coffeebecause little Lizzie Merkle goes to the creamery every day with justone pail and three cents; they gloat over the knowledge that ProfessorGrimes, who is a married man, is sweet on Gertie Ashe, who teachessecond reader in his school; they can tell you where Mrs. Black got herseal coat, and her husband only earning two thousand a year; they knowwho is going to run for mayor, and how long poor Angela Sims has tolive, and what Guy Donnelly said to Min when he asked her to marry him.
The three Whalens--mother and daughters--hunt in a group. They sendmeaning glances to one another across the room, and at parties they gettogether and exchange bulletins in a corner. On passing the Whalen houseone is uncomfortably aware of shadowy forms lurking in the windows, andof parlor curtains that are agitated for no apparent cause.
Therefore it was with a groan that I rose and prepared to follow Norahinto the house. Something in my eye caused her to turn at the very door."Don't you dare!" she hissed; then, banishing the warning scowl fromher face, and assuming a near-smile, she entered the room and I followedmiserably at her heels.
The Whalens rose and came forward effusively; Mrs. Whalen, plump, dark,voluble; Sally, lean, swarthy, vindictive; Flossie, pudgy, powdered,over-dressed. They eyed me hungrily. I felt that they were searching myfeatures for
signs of incipient insanity.
"Dear, DEAR girl!" bubbled the billowy Flossie, kissing the end of mynose and fastening her eye on my ringless left hand.
Sally contented herself with a limp and fishy handshake. She and I weresworn enemies in our school-girl days, and a baleful gleam still lurkedin Sally's eye. Mrs. Whalen bestowed on me a motherly hug that envelopedme in an atmosphere of liquid face-wash, strong perfumery and friedlard. Mrs. Whalen is a famous cook. Said she:
"We've been thinking of calling ever since you were brought home, butdear me! you've been looking so poorly I just said to the girls, waittill the poor thing feels more like seeing her old friends. Tell me, howare you feeling now?"
The three sat forward in their chairs in attitudes of tense waiting.
I resolved that if err I must it should be on the side of safety. Iturned to sister Norah.
"How am I feeling anyway, Norah?" I guardedly inquired.
Norah's face was a study. "Why Dawn dear," she said, sugar-sweet, "nodoubt you know better than I. But I'm sure that you are wonderfullyimproved--almost your old self, in fact. Don't you think she lookssplendid, Mrs. Whalen?"
The three Whalens tore their gaze from my blank countenance to exchangea series of meaning looks.
"I suppose," purred Mrs. Whalen, "that your awful trouble was the realcause of your--a-a-a-sickness, worrying about it and grieving as youmust have."
She pronounces it with a capital T, and I know she means Peter. I hateher for it.
"Trouble!" I chirped. "Trouble never troubles me. I just worked toohard, that's all, and acquired an awful 'tired.' All work and no playmakes Jill a nervous wreck, you know."
At that the elephantine Flossie wagged a playful finger at me. "Oh, now,you can't make us believe that, just because we're from the country!We know all about you gay New Yorkers, with your Bohemian ways and yourmidnight studio suppers, and your cigarettes, and cocktails and highjinks!"
Memory painted a swift mental picture of Dawn O'Hara as she used totumble into bed after a whirlwind day at the office, too dog-tired togive her hair even one half of the prescribed one hundred strokes of thebrush. But in turn I shook a reproving forefinger at Flossie.
"You've been reading some naughty society novel! One of thosemillionaire-divorce-actress-automobile novels. Dear, dear! Shall I everforget the first New York actress I ever met; or what she said!"
I felt, more than saw, a warning movement from Sis. But the threeWhalens had hitched forward in their chairs.
"What did she say?" gurgled Flossie. "Was it something real reezk?"
"Well, it was at a late supper--a studio supper given in her honor," Iconfessed.
"Yes-s-s-s," hissed the Whalens.
"And this actress--she was one of those musical comedy actresses, youknow; I remember her part called for a good deal of kicking about in ashort Dutch costume--came in rather late, after the performance. She waswearing a regal-looking fur-edged evening wrap, and she still wore allher make-up"--out of the corner of my eye I saw Sis sink back with anair of resignation--"and she threw open the door and said--
"Yes-s-s-s!" hissed the Whalens again, wetting their lips.
"--said: 'Folks, I just had a wire from mother, up in Maine. The boy hasthe croup. I'm scared green. I hate to spoil the party, but don't ask meto stay. I want to go home to the flat and blubber. I didn't evenstop to take my make-up off. My God! If anything should happen to theboy!--Well, have a good time without me. Jim's waiting outside.'" Asilence.
Then--"Who was Jim?" asked Flossie, hopefully.
"Jim was her husband, of course. He was in the same company."
Another silence.
"Is that all?" demanded Sally from the corner in which she had beenglowering.
"All! You unnatural girl! Isn't one husband enough?"
Mrs. Whalen smiled an uncertain, wavering smile. There passed among thethree a series of cabalistic signs. They rose simultaneously.
"How quaint you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Whalen, "and so amusing! Comegirls, we mustn't tire Miss--ah--Mrs.--er--" with another meaning look atmy bare left hand.
"My husband's name is still Orme," I prompted, quite, quite pleasantly.
"Oh, certainly. I'm so forgetful. And one reads such queer things inthe newspapers nowa-days. Divorces, and separations, and soul-mates andthings." There was a note of gentle insinuation in her voice.
Norah stepped firmly into the fray. "Yes, doesn't one? What a comfort itmust be to you to know that your dear girls are safe at home with you,and no doubt will be secure, for years to come, from the buffeting windsof matrimony."
There was a tinge of purple in Mrs. Whalen's face as she moved towardthe door, gathering her brood about her. "Now that dear Dawn is almostnormal again I shall send my little girlies over real often. She mustfind it very dull here after her--ah--life in New York."
"Not at all," I said, hurriedly, "not at all. You see I'm--I'm writing abook. My entire day is occupied."
"A book!" screeched the three. "How interesting! What is it? When willit be published?"
I avoided Norah's baleful eye as I answered their questions andperformed the final adieux.
As the door closed, Norah and I faced each other, glaring.
"Hussies!" hissed Norah. Whereupon it struck us funny and we fell, ashrieking heap, into the nearest chair. Finally Sis dabbed at her eyeswith her handkerchief, drew a long breath, and asked, with elaboratesarcasm, why I hadn't made it a play instead of a book, while I wasabout it.
"But I mean it," I declared. "I've had enough of loafing. Max mustunpack my typewriter to-night. I'm homesick for a look at the keys. Andto-morrow I'm to be installed in the cubbyhole off the dining-room and Idefy any one to enter it on peril of their lives. If you value the livesof your offspring, warn them away from that door. Von Gerhard said thatthere was writing in my system, and by the Great Horn Spoon and theBeard of the Prophet, I'll have it out! Besides, I need the money. Norahdear, how does one set about writing a book? It seems like such a largeorder."