Читать книгу Pray You, Sir, Whose Daughter? - Gardener Helen Hamilton - Страница 3

To say that Mrs. Foster was cruel, that she lacked sympathy with the unfortunate, or that she was selfish, would be to state only the dark half of a truism that has a wider application than class or sex could give it; a truism whose boundary lines, indeed, are set by nothing short of the ignorance of human beings hedged in by prejudice and handicapped by lack of imagination. So when she sat, with dainty folded hands whose jeweled softness found fitting background on the crimson velvet of her trailing gown, and announced that she could endure everything associated with, and felt deep sympathy for, the poor if it were not for the besetting sin of uncleanliness that found its home almost invariably where poverty dwelt, it would be unjust to pronounce her hard-hearted or base.

"It is all nonsense to say that the poor need be so dirty," she announced, as she held her splendid feather fan in one hand and caressed the dainty tips of the white plumes with the tips of fingers only less dainty and white.

"I have rarely ever seen a really poor man, woman, or child who was at the same time really clean looking in person, and as to clothes – "

She broke off with an impatient and disgusted little shrug, as if to say – what was quite true – that even the touch of properly descriptive words held for her more soilure than she cared to bear contact with.

John Martin laughed. Then he essayed to banter his hostess, addressing his remarks meanwhile to her daughter.

"One could not imagine your mamma a victim of poverty and hunger, much less of dirt, Miss Gertrude," he began slowly; "but even that sumptuous velvet gown of hers would grow to look more or less – let us say – rusty, in time, I fear, if it were the only costume she possessed, and she were obliged to eat, cook, wash, iron, sew, and market in it."

The two ladies laughed merrily at the droll suggestion, and Miss Gertrude pursed up her lips and developed a decided squint in her eyes as she turned them upon the folds of her mother's robe. Then she took up Mr. Martin's description where the laugh had broken in upon it.

"Too true, too true," she drawled; "and if she dusted the furniture a week or so with that fan, I'm afraid it would lose more or less of its – gloss. Mamma quite prides herself upon the delicate peach-fuzz-bloom, so to speak, of those feathers. Just look at them!" The girl reached over and took the fan from her mother's lap. She spread the fine plumes to their fullest capacity, and held them under the rays of the brass lamp that stood near their guest. Then she made a flourish with it in the direction of the music stand, as if she were intent upon whisking the last speck of dust from the sheets of Tannhauser that lay on its top A little cry of alarm and protest escaped Mrs. Foster's lips and she stretched oat her hand to rescue the beloved fan.

"Gertrude! how can you?" She settled back comfortably against the cushions of the low divan with her rescued treasure once more waving in gentle gracefulness before her.

"Oh, no," she protested. "Of course one could not work or live constantly in one or two gowns and look fresh, but one could look and be clean and – and whole. A patch is not pretty I admit, but it is a decided improvement upon a bare elbow."

"I don't agree with you at all," smiled her guest; "I don't believe I ever saw a patch in all my life that would be an improvement upon – upon – " He glanced at the lovely round white arms before him, and all three laughed. Mrs. Foster thought of how many Russian baths and massage treatments had tended to give the exquisite curve and tint to her arm.

"Then beside," smiled Mr. Martin, "a rent or hole may be an immediate accident, liable to happen to the best of us. A patch looks like premeditated poverty." Gertrude laughed brightly, but her mother did not appear to have heard. She reverted to the previous insinuation.

"Oh, well; that is not fair! You know what I mean. I'm talking of elbows that burst or wear out – not about those that never were intended to be in. Then, besides, it is not the elbow I object to; it is the hole one sees it through. It tells a tale of shiftlessness and personal untidiness that saps all sympathy for the poverty that compelled the long wearing of the garment."

"Why, my dear Mrs. Foster," said Martin, slowly, "I wonder if you have any idea of a grade of poverty that simply can't be either whole or clean. Did – ?"

"I'll give up the whole, but I won't give in on the clean. I can easily see how a woman could be too tired, too ill, or too busy to mend a garment; I can fancy her not knowing how to sew, or not having thread, needles, and patches; but, surely, surely, Mr. Martin, no one living is too poor to keep clean. Water is free, and it doesn't take long to take a bath. Besides – "

Gertrude looked at her mother with a smile. Then she said with her sarcastic little drawl again: —

"Russian, or Turkish?"

"Well, but fun' and nonsense aside, Gertrude," said her mother, "a plain hot bath at home would make a new creature out of half the wretches one sees or reads of, and – "

"Porcelain lined bath-tub, hot and cold water furnished at all hours. Bath-room adjoining each sleeping apartment," laughed Mr. Martin. "What a delightful idea you have of abject poverty, Mrs. Foster. I do wish Fred could have heard that last remark of yours. I went with his clerk one day to collect rents down in Mulberry Street. He had the collection of the rents for the Feedour estate on his hands – "

"What's that about the rents of the Feedour estate?" inquired the head of the house, extending his hand to their guest as he entered. Mrs. Foster put out her hand and her husband touched the tips of her fingers to his lips, while Gertrude slipped her arm through her father's and drew him to a seat beside her. Her eyes were dancing, and she showed a double row of the whitest of teeth.

"Oh, Mr. Martin was just explaining to mamma how your clerk collects rent for the porcelain bath-tubs in the Feedour property down in Mulberry Street. Mamma thinks that bath-rooms should be free – hot and cold water, and all convenient appointments."

Fred Foster looked at their guest for a moment, and then both men burst into a hearty laugh.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," protested Mrs. Foster. "Unless you are guying me for thinking Mr. Martin in earnest about the tubs being rented. I suppose, of course, the bath-rooms go with the apartments, and one rent covers the whole of it. In which case, I still insist that there is no reason why the poor can't be clean, and if they have only one suit of clothes, they can wash them out at night and have them dry next morning."

The men laughed again.

"Gertrude, has your mamma read her essay yet before the Ladies' Artistic and Ethical Club on the 'Self-Inflicted Sorrows of the Poor?'" asked Mr. Foster, pinching his daughter's chin, and allowing a chuckle of humorous derision to escape him as he glanced at their guest.

"No," said the girl, a trifle uneasily; "Lizzie Feedour read last time. Mamma's is next, and she has read her paper to me. It is just as good as it can be. Better than half the essays used to be at college, not excepting Mr. Holt's prize thesis on economics. I wish the poor people could hear it. She speaks very kindly of their faults even while criticising them. You – "

"Don't visit the tenement houses of the Feedour estate, dear, until after you read your paper to the club," laughed her husband, "or your essay won't take half so well. College theses and cold facts are not likely to be more than third cousins; eh, Martin? I'm sure the part on cleanliness would be easier for her to manage in discussion before she visited the Spillini family, for example."

"Which one is that, Fred?" asked Mr. Foster.

Martin, a droll twinkle in his eye. "The family of eight, with Irish mother and Italian father, who live in one room and take boarders?"

There was a little explosive "oh" of protest from Gertrude, while her mother laughed delightedly.

"Mr. Martin, you are so perfectly absurd. Why didn't you say that the room was only ten by fifteen feet and had but one window!"

"Because I don't think it is quite so big as that, and there is no outside window at all," said he, quite gravely. "And their only bath-tub for the entire crowd is a small tin basin also used to wash dishes in."

"W-h-a-t!" exclaimed Mrs. Foster, as if she were beginning to suspect their guest's sanity, for she recognized that his mood had changed from one of banter.

The portière was drawn aside, and other guests announced. As Mrs. Foster swept forward to meet them, Gertrude grasped her father's arm and looked into his eyes with something very like terror in her own. "Papa," she said hastily, in an intense undertone; "Papa, is he in earnest? Do the Feedour girls collect rent from such awful poverty as that? Do eight human beings eat and sleep – live – in one room anywhere in a Christian country? Does – ?"

Her father took both of her hands in his own for a moment and looked steadily into her face.

"Hundreds of them, darling," he said, gently. "Don't stare at Miss Feedour that way. Go speak to her. She is looking toward us, and your mother has left her with Martin quite long enough. He is in an ugly humor to-night. Go – no, come," he said, slipping her hand in his arm and drawing her forward through the long rooms to where the group of guests were greeting each other with that easy familiarity which told of frequent intercourse and community of interests and social information.