Читать книгу Her Mother's Daughter - Nalbro Bartley - Страница 9

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GLORIA glanced back at her sleeping mother. “She had so set her heart on my winning a title! Only I up and chose Tag. It might have been someone in Madagascar for all I could help it. And because Tag’s family arrived a hundred and fifty years ago, Tag is a gentleman and I am fresh from the Beaumont ovens.”

The idea amused her for she gave a little laugh which caused Min to display symptoms of wakening. In alarm Gloria fled. She would wait downstairs for Tag’s return. They must have it out this morning. Her “roughneck” eyebrow came into prominence as she prepared for battle. She slipped into the drawing-room, a tasteful affair in lime yellow with old French pieces of furniture and the light cleverly subdued by thin silk curtains. Above the mantel was Gloria’s portrait as a painting by Velásquez. Min had sent for a New York artist the winter Gloria came out.

When Agnes Duff-Porter had viewed the result, she had murmured to Enid: “I have it. Min Beaumont is like an alarm clock suddenly come into money and buying itself a cathedral chime!”

It was too pertinent a remark not to make the round of the Rutledge tea tables and, in time, reach Gloria’s ears. For once she had no retort. Something about Duffy’s white-haired, golden-eyed self caused Gloria to feel “all shiny new”—a Christmas tree in contrast with a stained-glass window.

Lounging on a floor cushion before the remains of the open fire, Gloria glanced up at her portrait as she analyzed the situation. First, Tag must realize that she would have her own way. Under Gloria’s domination Tag’s future was assured. That Tag should remain under the sway of an eccentric aunt who had paid his University tuition and retained him as a favored vassal during vacations was not to Gloria’s liking. She was intolerant of the pauper gentility in the famous Bagatelle House, that hidden curious pile of stone with winding, criss-crossed paths leading from the main road in every direction but that of the front door. She did not understand the mind state which preferred shabby rugs and old books and grim ancestors looking down from panelled walls rather than a smart apartment with a great deal of “shiny newness.” She did not believe in considering servants as pensioners if it meant not having a car any more than to forego the season’s wardrobe in order to afford surgery for century old elms. There was something deadly stupid about Duffy’s scheme of life—and something worse than stupid in the way Rutledge reverenced her scheme. If Duffy nodded her imperious white head, Rutledge accepted the nod as final. Whatever she smiled upon flourished like a bay tree; whatever she decried was hopeless from the outset.

Rumors as to the extent of Duffy’s fortune were many. Some held that she was husbanding her resources in order to leave Bagatelle House as an art museum upon her death; others that she was scarcely able to pay taxes, that there was reason for her wearing out-of-date clothes, serving codfish and gingerbread for luncheon (but off family plate) and of shopping at the public market with her familiar Normandy basket to carry home the spoils.

Then Duffy would sail for France—and more rumors would be abroad about her owning a block on lower Broadway. Upon her return would follow mysterious packing cases containing rare art treasures. These were set up in the great drawing-rooms of Bagatelle House. For fifteen years these rooms had been thrown open to a selected public once a month. Wisely, Duffy knew that what human nature could not easily obtain, it both craved and respected. Never did she break the rule of allowing her drawing-rooms to be visited by tardy strangers, however distinguished or appreciative. On the first Tuesday of each month, they would be welcome—from three until five. All other times the doors of the old house were discreetly guarded. There was one Gothic room which the public never entered. It was said to contain cathedral stalls from an archbishop’s chapel, paintings on silk by old masters and brasses and hammered silver of almost forgotten dates. An enticing hidden courtyard was built next to this Gothic room. While snow and wind beat against the outer walls, a fig tree and an acacia bloomed within and a Spanish fountain with a lazy, musical drip punctuated the worthwhile conversations of its mistress and her chosen friends.

The entire Grant family must have been queer, Gloria decided upon recalling Tag’s futile effort to obtain a private view of this Gothic room for her.

“Duffy says no,” he had been obliged to report. “You see, she doesn’t know we are going to be married. Then it will be quite different.”

“But you have the key,” Gloria had insisted. “You have been caretaker and janitor for years. Why can’t I just peek in? She is in bed with her bad knee.”

“My word, she’d hear us walking if she was on the Sahara—walking across the doorstep,” Tag answered. “I’d as soon think of using her lace shawls as fish nets. Part of her is in this room; it never leaves it. Odd sounding stuff, I know—but it’s Duffy’s way of self-expression. Awfully sorry, Gloria, but you must wait.”

Her cupid’s-bow mouth set in a hard line as she remembered this refusal. All the Grant family were queer, she repeated, lighting another cigarette. What had Tag’s father been but a retired rake, the spendthrift son of a wealthy father, married to young Laura Duff-Porter and pleasantly invalided at Bagatelle House until his death? Here he puttered over unimportant correspondence, drummed harmoniously on the ancient piano, played chess with Duffy. To go further back, thought Gloria, the Duff-Porters were queer. Their parents had been the largest holders of government securities in the country, yet these girls had been given but ten cents a week for allowance and made to wear bargain straw hats at midwinter. Despite such economies the government securities had dwindled although in time Agnes Duff-Porter reigned over the famous Bagatelle House with all its treasures while her little sister had married Theodore Ainslie Grant in an attempt to deprive him of his vices. Whatever she had not been able to reform or understand about this attractive man, she forgave. When it proved an increasingly difficult task, she never complained. She preferred to die and have a memorial window “to my beloved wife, Laura Duff-Porter Grant” placed in old Saint Peter’s church.

When Dodo was fifteen and Tag thirteen their father died. Duffy arranged for a companion memorial window to “Theodore Ainslie Grant, husband of Laura Duff-Porter Grant” and secretly regretted that she never had told her brother-in-law her unexpurgated opinion of him. In time Dodo took a course or so in social service work while Tag plodded through a scientific course. Duffy insisted upon a great future for Tag, a future in which Gloria was not included.

Then there was Enid—Gloria paused in her summary, thinking she heard Tag’s footsteps. She was glad it was not he, for she wanted to review the situation as clearly as one could after an all-night romp and an early breakfast party.

Enid Sayre, that third cousin of the Duff-Porters, an orphaned, arrogant snob who preferred to play court jester or masseuse as the occasion demanded, submerging her individuality but living at Bagatelle House with its treasures and traditions. To be known as Duffy’s companion eating codfish and gingerbread off the family plate, mingling with Rutledge’s sacred and inner circle—such was the life Enid selected. It had seemed duty that Duffy accept this tall, pale-faced girl who always agreed with one and seemed eager to do the things everyone else refused to attempt.

With the selfishness of such women as Duffy, Enid’s tasks increased and her pleasures lessened. Between Enid and Dodo was an unspoken agreement to “be decent to each other but keep hands off.” Since Dodo’s interests lay in other directions, Duffy came to rely upon this remote cousin. She gave her old clothes and free tickets and social privileges. Once she took her to Europe. Once she was angry for some complicated reason and tried to find her a situation as governess only to discover herself begging Enid to return to Bagatelle House. It was not only the matter of the spring cleaning—at which time Dodo grubbed in the garden and Duffy visited friends in Charleston—a subtle tie had been formed. Duffy was dependent upon this ingratiating, omnipresent creature. The day Enid returned to Bagatelle House Duffy gave her a garnet necklace and asked her to tea in the hidden courtyard to meet Paul de Chavannes, an artist.

“Duffy reminds me of marble cake,” Dodo once remarked. “There is a wiggly, dark streak through her white part. She can do the bulliest sort of things but without warning turn unfair.”

Dodo was right. Perhaps Duffy was a trifle more human than most persons. Certain it was that with her tenderness and vision was that inconsistent, disappointing “dark streak.” If a friend gave offense she never forgave. If a stranger needed help Duffy provided it. Rather than face her sarcasm one preferred to be called a coward. While she presented a painting to the municipal art gallery with one hand, she berated Enid for burning a thirty-watt light in a dim hall on a rainy afternoon. Her sense of humor was a rare treat but her sense of superiority something well nigh intolerable. Duffy never failed one in a crisis—but in everyday life she was a hard task mistress.

“They will hate me,” said Gloria aloud, “Duffy and Dodo and Enid—blow them! I don’t care—do you hear me, Senorita?” glancing up at her portrait with a spirited toss of her head. “I don’t mind because—Tag—is—mine!”

Gloria could not comprehend the economies which Tag’s sort practiced. She resented the fact that despite dyed gowns and mended glove tips women like Duffy were welcomed where Gloria in Parisian creations was not. That Duffy sold a stamp collection to obtain the needed sum for re-shingling Bagatelle House and boasted of it in the light of an achievement—this seemed poor taste. One must conceal poverty, so Gloria had been taught. Not poverty of ideas nor breeding but of material possessions. When Tag said, “I can’t afford it,” or Duffy remarked that her coal bill was still unpaid because she bought a collection of porcelains to help out an artist friend—Gloria accused Tag’s world of being “threadbare snobs just waiting to be auctioned off.” Duffy and Enid did fine washing such as laces and gloves—and then took tea with a countess. Duffy was expert at selecting the cheaper cuts of meat and serving them on her silver platters. Dodo sold some jewelry in order to rent a saddle horse. Distinguished guests always remained at Bagatelle House far beyond their schedule. These inconsistencies both disturbed and displeased.

“Why don’t you all go to work?” Gloria would insist. “Instead of sitting around hugging remnants of past glories, afraid to earn new ones. It is easy to earn money these days—oh, positively! Who cares whether Bagatelle stables once had the finest mares Kentucky ever bred or your mother’s wedding veil cost over a thousand dollars? What good does it do you now? I call it dishonest to try to keep things one cannot afford; and try to crowd out the people who can afford them. But we win in the end, as you’ll see. I suppose you call it ‘the moneyed mob’s rushing in’ and so on. When your aunt snubs my mother and forgets to pay her coal bills and my mother snubs no one and pays cash for everything whether it is a ton of coal or a ton of coral—I know which woman is to be admired.”

Tag was too deeply in love to argue. Moreover, he had never been called upon to defend his sentiments—they were part of him, no detached, sharp convictions that one could use in debate.

“We are not such a bad lot,” he urged. “It’s not a case of snubbing or dishonesty—it is life. Old families die out and new ones spring up to become old ones. No one has ever been able to remedy the thing. I admit we are a spoiled, shiftless lot according to your lights. But we pride ourselves on traditions, on standing for something a trifle higher than a pocketbook, with an impersonal loyalty towards each other. In time, Duffy will pay that coal man if she has to re-sell the porcelains. As a matter of fact, the coal man would never dun her because using Duffy’s name as a reference has gained him the trade (and payment) of all the new people. She couldn’t fail an old friend in need—she was brought up that way, to be loyal to the damn-fool people in her own world. Don’t jump to conclusions. I admit I’m no bright star and I’d rather play golf and cruise in a yacht than earn my daily bread. But I’m trying to do something worth while because it seems the thing to do. In time you may come to root for shabby, dishonest gentlefolk, too.”

They had been in the library at Bagatelle House when this last discussion took place. Gloria had been glancing about the room, wondering at its indefinable charm even if the walls were dingy and the furniture somewhat nondescript. The library at the Blaine Avenue house lacked this something. It was imposing and paid for but unlived in!

Idly, she picked up a stray book. It happened to be one of Tag’s. On the fly leaf was written in his mother’s pointed hand:

“Dear Tag: You go away to school to-morrow. Take this old tale with you and read it now and then. Beside the joys that school life will give you, may you learn to interpret life in these terms:

‘To thee be all men heroes; every race noble;

All women virgins; and each place

A temple: know thou nothing that is base!’ ”

In contrast Gloria recalled her diary with its jeweled clasps. Min had presented it upon her leaving boarding school. After the affectionate inscription Min had quoted:

“We can attain whatever we wish, when and as we wish, by cultivating poise, cheerfulness of spirit and by concentrating upon the desired goal. No one can interfere or undermine or prevent our success if we hold thought steadfastly to whatever we wish to attain.”

A trifle puzzled, Gloria had abandoned further argument.

The striking of the drawing-room clock broke in on her reverie. She reached for her ukelele.

“Oh, who’ll take care of the caretaker’s daughter,

While the caretaker’s taking care?

Oh, who’ll take care of the caretaker’s daughter,

While the caretaker’s taking care?”

She hummed and strummed.

“Oh, I’ll tend door for the doorman’s daughter,

While the doorman’s tending door,

Oh, I’ll tend door for the doorman’s daughter,

While the doorman’s tending door——” answered Tag coming in and sitting beside her.

“This is a deadly time to become serious,” Gloria began, “but do you mind getting at it?”

Tag regarded her indulgently. She seemed so tiny and exquisite—so impertinent, he found himself thinking.

“Lead on,” he challenged. “Right from the shoulder.”

“You’re to resign from the city laboratories—that is, if you still want to marry me. Wait,” holding up an imperative hand. “You must have a sensible, settled position in order to make us happy. Your family consider you are throwing yourself away—oh, but they do,” her mouth was in the straight, firm line. When Tag bent to kiss her, she pushed him aside.

“Please, darling, not a tantrum—not at this hour.” Gloria’s face had taken on the appearance of an unemotional mask. Tag knew and dreaded the symptoms.

“I’m not going into a tantrum if you are reasonable,” was her promise. “But I consider that you are throwing yourself away by working in the laboratory. An underpaid job at a day laborer’s wages. Duffy has made you feel eternally grateful to her. She was determined one of you should have a career. Dodo ducked it at the start. Then she hoped that Enid might become a prima donna, but a pale ballad sung at tea time is Enid’s capacity. So you, poor thing, were the victim. After begging off from medicine, law, interior decorating, the church and the Russian ballet, you went and studied bugs! I consider that I have loved you in spite of yourself not because of it.”

He caught her to him affectionately. “See here, Gloria, I like my line. Duffy’s been more than generous. She’s believed in me. I can’t disappoint her. Besides, I’m still hoping I can get into service some way. I know you agree about that. Until then, I ought to stick where I am. I’m not adapted for business of any sort——”

“You don’t have to be—not for big business. Only the underpaid jobs take brains and all that,” Gloria murmured. “It is so easy when one can start at the top. Besides, you must become my sort of a person. It’ll be for the good of your soul,” laying a finger on his cheek. “Your family are decadent—sort of give me the creeps every time I’m at Bagatelle House. They’ve spent everything their ancestors earned and are waiting for someone to gird up his loins and go forth for another haul. You are the logical candidate. But not with bugs! Big business, Tag—believe me, that’s the tip. Duffy’s advice isn’t practical—what does she know about real things? She’s the sheltered type whose life has been spent gazing at cathedrals or telephoning the bank to send up grandmother’s silver teapot. She is one of those fighting for dependency! Mama says so.”

“Your mother has said a great many things along these lines, hasn’t she?” asked Tag quickly.

“A few. As a mother-in-law, you rather wince. But I prophesy that mama will be a remarkable ancestor.”

“Doubtless. What else about this serious stuff? I’m due at the laboratory by nine.”

“It won’t be difficult to replace you, will it?” looking up with that impertinent expression he both dreaded and admired. “You see, I’ve decided not to marry you in June and go live in anybody’s barn. What would we do with your eighteen hundred a year salary—and my five thousand a year allowance ... and all Bagatelle House gazing at us through lorgnettes?”

“But you said you would, you promised me that you would——”

“Did I? Well, I’ve changed my mind. I knew I would, too.”

“I’d like to explore your brain,” he remarked. “It would be much more interesting than Peru.”

“Start your expedition any time you like—but first, take the job mama has for you. A marvelous chance and five thousand to start.”

“Would you consider it honest?” he asked soberly. “When I don’t know a darned thing about bakeries and don’t want to.”

“That doesn’t matter—the job is ready-made for you. Your hours will be your own. Why, Tag, you’ll never have to be down before ten and you can take tremendously elastic luncheon intermissions. You can scamper home by four and the week-ends we will always go some place. They need you there, too,” unconscious of her absurdity. “Mama says there is a great chance for a young man. Somebody’s got to take charge of this sugar-ration business—it’s really serving your country to help out about that. Because the world has to have a weeny bit of frosting on its cake even if it is fighting. Then, Tag, I want to live at home. Mama would be so lonely in this big house. And it’s quite comfortable now that I’ve done it all over. After a year or so, if we don’t like it, we can be transferred to the New York offices and get a country place and——”

“I can’t, Gloria, please don’t urge it. My plans may lack glamor but they are honest,” Tag insisted.

“Then you don’t love me,” was her retort.

“It is because I do, that I want things straight.”

“Bakeries are as respectable as dissecting pollywogs. And if you don’t know anything about them, you can learn.”

“I’d feel so obligated, so—so kept,” he flung out. “You are doing this to get the upper hand of Duffy. You don’t understand her. You don’t appreciate all it could mean if you would let me work out my own salvation and come live in a barn on my eighteen hundred a year. I love you so much and want you so much,” his gray eyes were both appealing and honest, “that it is hard to say anything that might make you change. You mean everything to me, Gloria. Are you going to jeopardize happiness for a few thousand a year?”

Her eyes had darkened wilfully. “I don’t want to be hateful but you force me to put it this way: I won’t marry you unless you accept mama’s offer and come live here. You have no right to ask me to crowd into a few rooms and have Duffy patronize and advise.”

“Are you afraid to be poor?” he interrupted.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t be poor—that is just it. I’m trying to share with you. I want you to become independent. You can help everyone at Bagatelle House as well as yourself. If I didn’t love you, Tag, I wouldn’t argue this matter for an instant.”

“Is it that—or because I love you?” Tag was puzzled.

“I love you,” she swept on in her vehement way. “Do as I say and we will be happy. Don’t do as I say—and good-by. Can’t you realize what a marvelous chance it is? After a few years, you can retire and have microscopes and pollywogs as a hobby ... kiss me, Tag, say which ... say it now—now,” her pink mouth against his. “Hold me close, oh, very close ... it isn’t long until June ... Tag,” humming softly, “Please take care of the caretaker’s daughter——”

Suddenly, she rose and broke away from him. Tag rose, too, looking down at her in puzzled fashion.

“It is no light thing to switch a man’s career,” he began.

She snapped her fingers with impatience. “Career—pollywogs—eighteen hundred a year! Are you a moron? Don’t you realize all that you are in danger of losing? Can’t you see how my plan will work out? Don’t you want me? Oh, but if you do, you’ll try my plan—just try it——”

Without warning Tag crushed her to him. “I’ll try,” he breathed hoarsely. As he spoke he felt the tenseness of her body relax and a sigh, either of triumph or exhausted eagerness, preceded her kiss.