CHAPTER III
A DESPERATE YOUNG WOMAN
The house where the Severances lived, and had lived for half a century,was built by Lucius Quintus Severence, Alabama planter, suddenly and,for the antebellum days, notably rich through a cotton speculation. Whenhe built, Washington had no distinctly fashionable quarter; theneighborhood was then as now small, cheap wooden structures where dweltin genteel discomfort the families of junior Department clerks. LuciusQuintus chose the site partly for the view, partly because spaciousgrounds could be had at a nominal figure, chiefly because part of hisconception of aristocracy was to dwell in grandeur among the humble. TheSeverence place, enclosed by a high English-like wall of masonry, filledthe whole huge square. On each of its four sides it put in sheepish andchop-fallen countenance a row of boarding houses. In any other city theneighborhood would have been intolerable because of the noise of therowdy children. But in Washington the boarding house class cannot affordchildren; so, few indeed were the small forms that paused before the bigiron Severence gates to gaze into the mysterious maze of green as far asmight be--which was not far, because the walk and the branching drivesturn abruptly soon after leaving the gates.
From earliest spring until almost Christmas that mass of green was sweetwith perfume and with the songs of appreciative colonies of brightbirds. In the midst of the grounds, and ingeniously shut in on all sidesfrom any view that could spoil the illusion of a forest, stood thehouse, Colonial, creeper-clad, brightened in all its verandas and lawnsby gay flowers, pink and white predominating. The rooms were large andlofty of ceiling, and not too uncomfortable in winter, as the family wasaccustomed to temperatures below the average American indoors. In springand summer and autumn the rooms were delightful, with theirold-fashioned solid furniture, their subdued colors and tints, theirelaborate arrangements for regulating the inpour of light. All thissuggested wealth. But the Severances were not rich. They had about thesame amount of money that old Lucius Quintus had left; but, just as theneighborhood seemed to have degenerated when in fact it had remained allbut unchanged, so the Severence fortune seemed to have declined,altogether through changes of standard elsewhere. The Severances were nopoorer; simply, other people of their class had grown richer, enormouslyricher. The Severence homestead, taken by itself and apart from itsaccidental setting of luxurious grounds, was a third-rate Americandwelling-house, fine for a small town, but plain for a city. And theSeverence fortune by contrast with the fortunes so lavishly displayed inthe fashionable quarter of the capital, was a meager affair, just enoughfor comfort; it was far too small for the new style of wholesaleentertainment which the plutocracy has introduced from England, wherethe lunacy for aimless and extravagant display rages and ravages in itsfull horror of witless vulgarity. Thus, the Severences from beingleaders twenty years before, had shrunk into "quiet people," were savedfrom downright obscurity and social neglect only by the indomitable willand tireless energy of old Cornelia Bowker.
Cornelia Bowker was not a Severence; in fact she was by birthindisputably a nobody. Her maiden name was Lard, and the Lards were"poor white trash." By one of those queer freaks wherewith nature lovesto make mockery of the struttings of men, she was endowed with ambitionand with the intelligence and will to make it effective. Her firstambition was education; by performing labors and sacrifices incredible,she got herself a thorough education. Her next ambition was to be rich;without the beauty that appeals to the senses, she married herself to arich New Englander, Henry Bowker. Her final and fiercest ambition wassocial power. She married her daughter to the only son and namesake ofLucius Quintus Severence. The pretensions of aristocracy would sooncollapse under the feeble hands of born aristocrats were it not for twothings--the passion of the masses of mankind for looking up, and thefrequent infusions into aristocratic veins of vigorous common blood.Cornelia Bowker, born Lard, adored "birth." In fulfilling her thirdambition she had herself born again. From the moment of the announcementof her daughter's engagement to Lucius Severence, she ceased to be Lardor Bowker and became Severence, more of a Severence than any of theveritable Severences. Soon after her son-in-law and his father died, shebecame so much THE Severence that fashionable people forgot her origin,regarded her as the true embodiment of the pride and rank ofSeverence--and Severence became, thanks wholly to her, a synonym forpride and rank, though really the Severences were not especiallyblue-blooded.
She did not live with her widowed daughter, as two establishments weremore impressive; also, she knew that she was not a livable person--andthought none the worse of herself for that characteristic of strongpersonalities. In the Severence family, at the homestead, there were,besides five servants, but three persons--the widowed Roxana and her twodaughters, Margaret and Lucia--Lucia so named by Madam Bowker becausewith her birth ended the Severence hopes of a son to perpetuate in thedirect line the family Christian name for its chief heir. From the sideentrance to the house extended an alley of trees, with white floweringbushes from trunk to trunk like a hedge. At one end of the alley was apretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending; at the otherend, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which extended a stonebench. Here Margaret was in the habit of walking every good day, andeven in rainy weather, immediately after lunch; and here, on the dayafter the Burke dance, at the usual time, she was walking, as usual--upand down, up and down, a slow even stride, her arms folded upon herchest, the muscles of her mouth moving as she chewed a wooden tooth-picktoward a pulp. As she walked, her eyes held steady like a soldier's, asif upon the small of the back of an invisible walker in front of her.Lucia, stout, rosy, lazy, sprawling upon the bench, her eyes opening andclosing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, comfortable cat. Thesunbeams, filtering through the leafy arch, coquetted with Margaret'sraven hair, and alternately brightened and shadowed her features. Therewas little of feminine softness in those unguarded features, much ofintense and apparently far from agreeable thought. It was one of her baddays, mentally as well as physically--probably mentally becausephysically. She had not slept more than two hours at most, and her eyesand skin showed it.
"However do you stand it, Rita!" said Lucia, as Margaret approached thefountain for the thirty-seventh time. "It's so dull and tiring, to walkthat way."
"I've got to keep my figure," replied Margaret, dropping her hands toher slender hips, and lifting her shoulders in a movement that drew downher corsets and showed the fine length of her waist.
"That's nonsense," said Lucia. "All we Severences get stout as we growold. You can't hope to escape."
"Grow old!" Margaret's brow lowered. Then she smiled satirically. "Yes,I AM growing old. I don't dare think how many seasons out, and notmarried, or even engaged. If we were rich, I'd be a young girl still. Asit is, I'm getting on.'"
"Don't you worry about that, Rita," said Lucia. "Don't you let themhurry you into anything desperate. I'm sure _I_ don't want to come out.I hate society and I don't care about men. It's much pleasanter loungingabout the house and reading. No dressing--no fussing with clothes andpeople you hate."
"It isn't fair to you, Lucy," said Margaret. "I don't mind theirnagging, but I do mind standing in your way. And they'll keep you backas long as I'm still on the market."
"But I want to be kept back." Lucia spoke almost energetically, halflifting her form whose efflorescence had a certain charm because it wasthe over-luxuriance of healthy youth. "I shan't marry till I find theright man. I'm a fatalist. I believe there's a man for me somewhere, andthat he'll find me, though I was hid--was hid--even here." And she gazedromantically round at the enclosing walls of foliage.
The resolute lines, the "unfeminine" expression disappeared from hersister's face. She laughed softly and tenderly. "What a dear you are!"she cried.
"You can scoff all you please," retorted Lucia, stoutly. "I believe it.We'll see if I'm not right.... How lovely you did look last night!... Youwait for your 'right man.' Don't let them hurry you. The most dreadfulthings happen as the result of girls' hurrying, and then
meeting himwhen it's too late."
"Not to women who have the right sort of pride." Margaret drew herselfup, and once more her far-away but decided resemblance to GrandmotherBowker showed itself. "I'd never be weak enough to fall in love unless Iwished."
"That's not weakness; it's strength," declared Lucia, out of the fulnessof experience gleaned from a hundred novels or more.
Margaret shook her head uncompromisingly. "It'd be weakness for me." Shedropped upon the bench beside her sister. "I'm going to marry, and I'mgoing to superintend your future myself. I'm not going to let them killall the fine feeling in you, as they've killed it in me."
"Killed it!" said Lucia, reaching out for her sister's hand. "You can'tsay it's dead, so long as you cry like you did last night, when you camehome from the ball."
Margaret reddened angrily, snatched her hand away. "Shame on you!" shecried. "I thought you were above spying."
"The door was open between your bedroom and mine," pleaded Lucia. "Icouldn't help hearing."
"You ought to have called out--or closed it. In this family I can'tclaim even my soul as my own!"
"Please, dear," begged Lucia, sitting up now and struggling to put herarms round her sister, "you don't look on ME as an outsider, do you?Why, I'm the only one in all the world who knows you as you are--howsweet and gentle and noble you are. All the rest think you're cold andcynical, and--"
"So I am," said Margaret reflectively, "except toward only you. I'mgrandmother over again, with what she'd call a rotten spot."
"That rotten spot's the real you," protested Lucia.
Margaret broke away from her and resumed her walk. "You'll see," saidshe, her face stern and bitter once more.
A maidservant descended the steps. "Madam Bowker has come," announcedshe, "and is asking for you, Miss Rita."
A look that could come only from a devil temper flashed into Margaret'shazel eyes. "Tell her I'm out."
"She saw you from the window."
Margaret debated. Said Lucia, "When she comes so soon after lunch she'salways in a frightful mood. She comes then to make a row because,without her after-lunch nap, she's hardly human and can be more--morefiendish."
"I'll not see her," declared Margaret.
"Oh, yes, you will," said Lucia. "Grandmother always has her way."
Margaret turned to the maid. "Tell her I had just gone to my room with araging headache."
The maid departed. Margaret made a detour, entered the house by thekitchen door and went up to her room. She wrenched off blouse and skirt,got into a dressing sacque and let down her thick black hair. Theheadache was now real, so upsetting to digestion had been the advent ofMadam Bowker, obviously on mischief bent. "She transforms me into araging devil," thought Margaret, staring at her fiercely sullencountenance in the mirror of the dressing table. "I wish I'd gone in tosee her. I'm in just the right humor."
The door opened and Margaret whisked round to blast the intruder who haddared adventure her privacy without knocking. There stood hergrandmother--ebon staff in gloved hand--erect, spare body in rustlingsilk--gray-white hair massed before a sort of turban--steel-blue eyesflashing, delicate nostrils dilating with the breath of battle.
"Ah--Margaret!" said she, and her sharp, quarrel-seeking voice torturedthe girl's nerves like the point of a lancet. "They tell me you have aheadache." She lifted her lorgnon and scrutinized the pale, angry faceof her granddaughter. "I see they were telling me the truth. You arehaggard and drawn and distressingly yellow."
The old lady dropped her lorgnon, seated herself. She held her staff outat an angle, as if she were Majesty enthroned to pass judgment of lifeand death. "You took too much champagne at those vulgar Burkes lastnight," she proceeded. "It's a vicious thing for a girl to do--viciousin every way. It gives her a reputation, for moral laxity which anunmarried woman can ill-afford to have--unless she has the wealth thatmakes men indifferent to character.... Why don't you answer?"
Margaret shrugged her shoulders. "You know I detest champagne and neverdrink it," said she. "And I don't purpose to begin, even to oblige you."
"To oblige me!"
"To give you pretext for contention and nagging and quarreling."
Madam Bowker was now in the element she had been seeking--the stormy seaof domestic wrangling. She struck out boldly, with angry joy. "I've longsince learned not to expect gratitude from you. I can't understand myown weakness, my folly, in continuing to labor with you."
"That's very simple," said Margaret. "I'm the one human being you can'tcompel by hook or crook to bow to your will. You regard me as unfinishedbusiness."
Madam Bowker smiled grimly at this shrewd analysis. "I want to see youmarried and properly settled in life. I want to end this disgrace. Iwant to save you from becoming ridiculous and contemptible--an object oflaughter and of pity."
"You want to see me married to some man I dislike and should soon hate."
"I want to see you married," retorted the old lady. "I can't be heldresponsible for your electing to hate whatever is good for you. And Icame to tell you that my patience is about exhausted. If you are notengaged by the end of this season, I wash my hands of you. I have beenspending a great deal of money in the effort to establish you. You are amiserable failure socially. You attach only worthless men. You driveaway the serious men."
"Stupid, you mean."
"I mean serious--the men looking for wives. Men who have something andhave a right to aspire to the hand of MY grandchild. The only men whohave a right to take the time of an unmarried woman. You either cannot,or will not, exert yourself to please. You avoid young girls and youngmen. You waste your life with people already settled. You have taken onthe full airs and speech of a married woman, in advance of having ahusband--and that is folly bordering on insanity. You have discardedeverything that men--marrying men--the right sort of men--demand inmaidenhood. I repeat, you are a miserable failure."
"A miserable failure," echoed Margaret, staring dismally into the glass.
"And I repeat," continued the old lady, somewhat less harshly, thoughnot less resolutely, "this season ends it. You must marry or I'll stopyour allowance. You'll have to look to your mother for your dresses andhats and gee-gaws. When I think of the thousands of dollars I've wastedon you--It's cheating--it's cheating! You have been stealing from me!"Madam Bowker's tone was almost unladylike; her ebon staff wasflourishing threateningly.
Margaret started up. "I warned you at the outset!" she cried. "I tooknothing from you that you didn't force on me. And now, when you've madedress, and all that, a necessity for me, you are going to snatch itaway!"
"Giving you money for dress is wasting it," cried the old lady. "What isdress for? Pray why, do you imagine, have I provided you with three andfour dozen expensive dresses a year and hats and lingerie and everythingin proportion? Just to gratify your vanity? No, indeed! To enable you toget a husband, one able to provide for you as befits your station. Andbecause I have been generous with you, because I have spared no expensein keeping you up to your station, in giving you opportunity, you turnon me and revile me!"
"You HAVE been generous, Grandmother," said Margaret, humbly. There hadrisen up before her a hundred extravagances in which the old lady hadindulged her--things quite unnecessary for show, the intimate luxuriesthat contribute only indirectly to show by aiding in giving the feelingand air of refinement. It was of these luxuries that Margaret wasespecially fond; and her grandmother, with an instinct that those tastesof Margaret's proved her indeed a lady--and made it impossible that sheshould marry, or even think of marrying, "foolishly"--had been mostgraciously generous in gratifying them. Now, these luxuries were to bewithdrawn, these pampered tastes were to be starved. Margaret collapseddespairingly upon her table. "I wish to marry, Heaven knows!Only--only--" She raised herself; her lip quivered--"Good God,Grandmother, I CAN'T give myself to a man who repels me! You make mehate men--marriage--everything of that kind. Sometimes I long to hide ina convent!"
"You can indulge that longing after th
e end of this season," said hergrandmother. "You'll certainly hardly dare show yourself in Washington,where you have become noted for your dress.... That's what exasperatesme against you! No girl appreciates refinement and luxury more than youdo. No woman has better taste, could use a large income to betteradvantage. And you have intelligence. You know you must have a competenthusband. Yet you fritter away your opportunities. A very short time, andyou'll be a worn, faded old maid, and the settled people who profess tobe so fond of you will be laughing at you, and deriding you, and pityingyou."
Deriding! Pitying!
"I've no patience with the women of that clique you're so fond of," theold lady went on. "If the ideas they profess--the shallow frauds thatthey are!--were to prevail, what would become of women of our station?Women should hold themselves dear, should encourage men in that old-timereverence for the sex and its right to be sheltered and worshiped andshowered with luxury. As for you--a poor girl--countenancing such lowand ruinous views--Is it strange I am disgusted with you? Have you nopride--no self-respect?"
Margaret sat motionless, gazing into vacancy. She could not but endorseevery word her grandmother was saying. She had heard practically thosesame words often, but they had had no effect; now, toward the end ofthis her least successful season, with most of her acquaintances marriedoff, and enjoying and flaunting the luxury she might have had--for, theyhad married men, of "the right sort"--"capable husbands"--men who hadbeen more or less attentive to her--now, these grim and terrible axiomsof worldly wisdom, of upper class honor, from her grandmother sounded inher ears like the boom of surf on reefs in the ears of the sailor.
A long miserable silence; then, her grandmother: "What do you purpose todo, Margaret?"
"To hustle," said the girl with a short, bitter laugh. "I must rope insomebody. Oh, I've been realizing, these past two months. I'm awake atlast."
Madam Bowker studied the girl's face, gave a sigh of relief. "I feelgreatly eased," said she. "I see you are coming to your senses beforeit's too late. I knew you would. You have inherited too much of mynature, of my brain and my character."
Margaret faced the old woman in sudden anger. "If you had madeallowances for that, if you had reasoned with me quietly, instead ofnagging and bullying and trying to compel, all this might have beensettled long ago." She shrugged her shoulders. "But that's past anddone. I'm going to do my best. Only--I warn you, don't try to drive me!I'll not be driven!"
"What do you think of Grant Arkwright?" asked her grandmother.
"I intend to marry him," replied Margaret.
The old lady's stern eyes gleamed delight.
"But," Margaret hastened to add, "you mustn't interfere. He doesn't likeyou. He's afraid of you. If you give the slightest sign, he'll sheeroff. You must let me handle him."
"The insolent puppy," muttered Madam Bowker. "I've always detested him."
"You don't want me to marry him?"
"On the contrary," the old lady replied. "He would make the bestpossible husband for you." She smiled like a grand inquisitor atprospect of a pleasant day with rack and screw. "He needs a firm hand,"said she.
Margaret burst out laughing at this implied compliment to herself; thenshe colored as with shame and turned away. "What frauds we women are!"she exclaimed. "If I had any sense of decency left, I'd be ashamed to doit!"
"There you go again!" cried her grandmother. "You can't be practicalfive minutes in succession. Why should a woman be ashamed to do a man aservice in spite of himself? Men are fools where women are concerned. Inever knew one that was not. And the more sensible they are in otherrespects, the bigger fools they are about us! Left to themselves, theyalways make a mess of marriage. They think they know what they want, butthey don't. We have to teach them. A man needs a firm hand duringcourtship, and a firmer hand after marriage. So many wives forget theirduty and relax. If you don't take hold of that young Arkwright, he'll nodoubt fall a victim to some unscrupulous hussy."
Unscrupulous hussy! Margaret looked at herself in the mirror, met herown eyes with a cynical laugh. "Well, I'm no worse than the others," sheadded, half to herself. Presently she said, "Grant is coming thisafternoon. I look a fright. I must take a headache powder and get somesleep." Her grandmother rose instantly. "Yes, you do look badly--foryou. And Arkwright has very keen eyes--thanks to those silly women ofyour set who teach men things they have no business to know." Sheadvanced and kissed her granddaughter graciously on top of the head. "Iam glad to see my confidence in you was not misplaced, Margaret," saidshe. "I could not believe I was so utterly mistaken in judgment ofcharacter. I'll go to your mother and take her for a drive."