Читать книгу Her Mother's Daughter - Nalbro Bartley - Страница 7

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WHEN Gloria was nine years old and owned no less than four party frocks, two necklaces, white furs and a Newfoundland dog which she harnessed to a cart and drove ruthlessly over everyone’s front lawn—Jules Beaumont died in his sleep. The heart lesion must have been more serious than anyone expected.

Gloria did not mourn for her father since they had never been permitted to become intimate. He almost always stayed away at the bakeries. (There were seven Beaumont bakeries now, located in seven corners of the growing city. Bright yellow wagons with Beaumont’s Baked Goods Can’t Be Beat painted on them rattled and clattered all over the township.) Her mother stayed at home, an ornate, old-fashioned house, its rooms crowded with ornate, new-fashioned things. Gloria attended a select school where she was noted for the endless supply of “tarts and tantrums.” At the teachers’ conferences she was referred to as “the pattycake princess.”

Her father’s death merely meant that the small, rather subdued man would not whisper, “What did this cost?” whenever Min purchased something for the house. He would no longer mend her dogcart harness, or say, “tch-tch” under his breath when she flew into a tantrum, her mother offering bribes for an amiable termination of the same. He would no longer ride her on his stooped back or bring her gingerbread figures or play the old music box which had been shunted into a spare room.

As for her mother and herself it meant that she wore black hair ribbons and her mother long veils which made her face less florid. The parlor curtains were drawn low and men came to talk of estates and trust funds. Because she could not attend the Punch-and-Judy show the day following the funeral, her mother bought a beautiful doll that walked and talked and had twelve dresses packed in a miniature wardrobe trunk.

Soon they went to a Rutledge hotel. The Newfoundland dog was kept below stairs and more strangers came to see her mother while the yellow delivery wagons raced by their windows every hour.

“Those are ours,” she said one afternoon, pointing at one.

“Ours,” agreed Min absent-mindedly, looking up from her desk. She seemed forever figuring these days. Too busy to offer bribes, there was no inducement for Gloria to fly into tantrums.

“Come here,” commanded Min a little later.

Gloria obeyed, her graceful little head tilted on one side like a bird inspecting some new tidbit.

“Would you like to live in a new and beautiful house on Blaine Avenue?” began her mother somewhat nervously.

Blaine Avenue was the most fashionable street in Rutledge. Its houses were built in defiance to the antiquated and inconvenient mansions on Deering Avenue. Several of Gloria’s classmates lived on Blaine Avenue.

“I should like to go there now,” she said promptly.

“First we must build a house,” her mother explained. “I have a corner lot and the man is coming to-day with plans. I guess people will admit that it is as handsome a house as there is on the street—three bathrooms and a conservatory and a library,” tossing her head.

“When will it be ready?” her daughter demanded, bored with details.

“Not for many months. While we are waiting we will go to New York and then to the mountains for all summer. You have never been to the mountains. There will be a hotel with playgrounds and ponies. We’ll—we’ll be ready for the new house by the time we come back.”

“When will we start?” directness was one of Gloria’s outstanding traits.

“Soon,” Min drew the child into her arms. “Mother has sold part of the bakeries to a big firm in New York. They want to start a great many other bakeries——”

“With our name on the yellow wagons?” stipulated Gloria.

“Of course,” Gloria did not understand the regret in Min’s voice. “It is the name for which they will pay!”

“I always can have gingerbread dolls and cakes with my name on them?”

“Thousands of them; we will have a great deal more money and no more hard work.”

“Why didn’t father sell?” Gloria’s blue eyes looked straight into Min’s.

“He didn’t understand,” Min answered briefly, memories of recent arguments crossing her mind. “But we will be happy about it, won’t we, Gloria?” hugging the child closer. “You and I—in the new house.”

“Can we take Major to New York?” Gloria interrupted. Major was the Newfoundland dog who howled in the trunk room these days.

“I don’t see how,” began Min, “but we’ll buy a cunning white poodle—a soft, silky thing and he can be with you all summer——”

“I want the Major,” demanded Gloria, freeing herself from her mother’s arms.

“But Major is too big. He can go board somewhere——”

“I want the Major. Not a poodle. I want to go back to our old house. I don’t want men to own part of our yellow wagons——”

“You’re a dear silly who does not understand,” Min slurred over the question as to Major’s destiny. “You’ll thank me the rest of your life for doing as I am——”

“Who will be our new friends?” asked Gloria with unexpected shrewdness, “when we live on Blaine Avenue?”

“Blaine Avenue friends,” was her mother’s fond response.

“I’d rather have old friends and the Major,” she protested.

“You may have all the toys you want and a tricycle, too.” Min’s face was flushed with enthusiasm. She had sold at a figure which Jules would have thought impossible and had retained enough common stock to make her presence at a director’s meeting count for something. It was inconsequential that the bakeries were to become the tools of a gigantic syndicate which produced inferior goods at superior prices. Beaumont’s bakeries had won an enviable reputation. Such a name meant much—and Jules was dead. Min was glad to have finished with the deal. She was eager to leave Rutledge for a few months. Plenty of persons in New York could teach her how to dress and what to say and a summer at the mountain resort would supply valuable suggestions as to living on Blaine Avenue.

“You are a fortunate child,” she answered Gloria’s pleas for taking the Major to New York. “You have everything you want and mama never says no, does she? Mama never had things like you have. She was poor and ugly and nobody loved her. She worked hard all day. When she was no older than you, she scrubbed out pig stys and picked feathers from dead fowls and carried cheeses on a wooden board strapped onto her head and sold them from door to door. If she lost ten centimes or broke a dish or spotted her dress, she was beaten.” Min enjoyed contrasting her own and Gloria’s backgrounds. So did Gloria.

“Tell some more,” Gloria would say, “tell about the time Aunt Marguerite was going to whip you for throwing away the bell clapper but you found a ruby ring and so nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened,” Min would echo. “You see, money makes everything different. If it had been a flower I had found, I’d have been whipped until the blood ran. But it was a ruby ring,” her mouth curving into a scornful smile. “That is what money can save one from—”

No one knew of this sort of dialogues. Had they known, no one could have pointed out their folly. But such conversations had been frequent ever since Gloria remembered. In her childish way she realized that she was a creature favored before all creatures. Because of her mother’s hardships, she was spared everything. Her mother’s life sounded more intriguing than her own existence of “tarts and tantrums.” As an individual she rather disapproved of her mother. As a parent she was loyal to her. There was something harsh and greedy about Min which disappointed and angered Gloria—some queer, slightly abnormal thing about her brain, or perhaps her heart, that made her different from the other mothers. She was forever harping upon one theme: Gloria had everything and she had had nothing. Gloria agreed that this was justice yet she wearied of the repetition.

This afternoon in the hotel sitting-room, the same idea returned to her. The new house, the trip to the mountains, the sale of part of their bakeries—it was due to her mother’s strange greed. The old-fashioned house on Oak Street seemed preferable, so did the pleasant neighbors and Ellen Ann, the “hired girl.” Gloria longed to return to them. To hide in the umbrella jar and cry, “Boo-who is who?” when her father came in. She wanted a ride on his stooping back with the barking Major walking in between his legs and upsetting things in a jolly fashion. She wanted——

A knock at the door brought matters to a crisis. A bell boy brought the news that Major, breaking from his rope, had dashed into the courtyard only to be killed by an incoming team. The manager was most sorry but assumed no responsibility. Mrs. Beaumont would please remember that he had not wanted the dog at the hotel.

Mrs. Beaumont remembered. She dismissed the bell boy and devoted herself to Gloria. Surely a poodle—two poodles, perhaps—would prove sufficient consolation.

“Major is in dog heaven,” she informed her child. “Of course there is a dog heaven—well, mama knows about those things. Mama could not have taken him to New York. But she’ll have him buried at Gardenville and buy a tombstone with his name carved on it. You can fix flowers in a little vase—just like they do for people. Gloria, don’t stiffen and scream like that—whatever will people think? But you must care what people think—yes, even if you have lots of money. They’re apt to think just that much more! Besides, screaming won’t bring Major alive ... maybe Major is with your father—well, dog heaven and people heaven may be near each other ... mama hopes so ... Gloria, if you don’t stop screaming I’m going to be cross ... when I was a little girl, my pet rabbit was eaten for dinner, yes, he was and when I wouldn’t take part of him, they wouldn’t let me have anything else. That was the way little girls were treated in my time ... Gloria, stop screaming about that foolish old beast—”

“You can’t buy him alive,” accused Gloria. “I don’t want a poodle ... I want Major. Why does it hurt inside?” her hand against her heart. “Why can’t you make it stop?”

“It’s grief,” admitted Min in unwilling defeat.

“Then promise I’ll never have any more grief,” screamed the pattycake princess.

“I promise,” was Min’s glib answer.