CHAPTER IV

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Before going to the office next morning, I accompanied Letitia to the florist's. She was determined to select the table decorations herself. Later on, she declared, when Anna had become acclimatized and our way of living was to her as an open book, Letitia promised to leave everything to her. We were rather surprised at the cost of the flowers Letitia coveted. Orchids and American Beauty roses appealed to her strongly, and she paid no attention to less expensive blooms. Not that I minded. This little dinner really meant a good deal to me. Besides being a personal friend of mine, Arthur Tamworth was my senior partner, and it was upon him that I relied for the publication of my Lives of Great Men, a work that was to make my name ring through the land and perhaps, through the ages. In fact, I delighted to do him honor, and if my motives were somewhat selfish, they were not less so than those of the majority. This is a practical age.

Letitia went home, flower-laden and smiling. She was neither when I returned at five o'clock. In fact, she seemed distinctly weary and her kiss was more perfunctory than any I had hitherto experienced at her lips.

"Anna is so surly, Archie," she said droopingly, "that I simply can't cope with her. She is furious at the idea of being late at her class. This was to be her great night, she says, as she was to sing With Verdure Clad, and she seems indignant. I was kind though firm. I insinuated—though I didn't say so—that her verdure would keep, and that my dinner must be served properly."

"Quite right, dear."

"I felt it was a sort of crisis," Letitia continued, "a kind of tide in the affairs of the household. Then her sister came, and I suggested that if Anna liked, the girl could remain and wait at table."

"But does she know how?" I asked.

"What is there to know?" queried Letitia, with a tinge of annoyance. "Anybody can wait at table. It is very simple. Anna seemed pleased, or, rather, not displeased. But she is very sulky and I have arranged the flowers on the table myself. I've never worked so hard in my life and I feel quite tired out. But I realize, dear, that one must do something useful—at least at the beginning of housekeeping. I have also placed the hors d'oeuvres on the table. It all looks very charming."

"Poor Letitia!" I exclaimed, stroking her hair, "I hate the idea of your laboring. You mustn't do it again. I have no doubt but that Anna could have done it all, but as she was so cross you were right to heap coals of fire on her head. She is probably remorseful enough by this time."

"No," Letitia remarked thoughtfully, "I don't believe that Anna has a remorseful nature. The colored disposition—I mean by that the disposition of the colored people—is peculiar, Archie. When we have quite settled down, I shall study Anna, psychologically."

"In the meantime, dear," I said, airily jocular, "let us hope that the crÈme d'asperges won't be too psychological."

Letitia looked a picture in blue crÊpe de chine, with her beautiful neck and shoulders emerging from one of those spidery lace effects that render the masculine pen impotent. Her trousseau contained so many evening dresses that one might have imagined that our entire life was to be spent at night, and that morning counted for absolutely nothing. Some of the orchids, remaining from the table decorations, Letitia wore at her bosom, and one exquisite American Beauty rose nestled in the golden glories of her hair.

"You see how economical I am, Archie," she said, "for instead of throwing away the superfluous flowers, I wear them. Aunt Julia says that the essence of good housekeeping consists in utilizing everything."

We sat in the drawing-room to await Arthur Tamworth, and although we both made an admirable feint of ease and nonchalance, it was so obviously a feint that we gave it up, and simply killed time. Of course, we were both accustomed to dinners and receptions—in fact, we had been nourished on them. But other people's affairs are—other people's affairs. This was ours, and our first, and there is no use concealing the fact that we were both nervous. Letitia read Ovid, upside down, and seemed to derive intellectual entertainment from it, judging by her face. I merely looked out of the window, not to watch for Tamworth's advent, but because the window seemed to be such a fitting place to look out of.

When the bell finally rang, Letitia had the decency to adjust Ovid, and I stood by the fireplace in an unstudied, host-like way, with my hands behind me, although there had never been any warmth in that fireplace and never would be—as long as we had steam-heat for nothing.

As we waited, a colored head and nothing more popped in at the door, and the younger Miss Carter—for it must have been she—remarked: "There's a man outside who wants to come in."

"Never let any one in," I said sternly, for there had been an epidemic of burglars, while suspicious characters simply prowled, seeking whom they might devour. "Always keep the chain on the door."

"He says he's come to dinner," remarked the colored head, with a chuckle.

Letitia jumped up as though shot. I felt myself redden. Under the caption of "man" we had not recognized Arthur Tamworth. Of course, he was a man in the best sense of the word, but the best sense of the word is not polite society's. I rushed to the door in a fever, and unchained it noisily. Arthur Tamworth stood outside looking just a trifle annoyed—but not more annoyed than I was.

"Come in, old chap," I said, with elaborate cordiality, "we were waiting for you. The maid who opened the door was not our maid, you know—merely her sister—and—er—"

"That's all right, Fairfax," Arthur Tamworth declared, as he shook my hand, "I didn't know what I had struck. Having, however, lived in New York all my life, I know something about the ladies who help. Hope I'm not late?"

I insisted that this was Liberty Hall—a remark that is always supposed to put all at their ease. Then I escorted him to the drawing-room where Letitia stood, peerless in her blue diaphanous gown. Mr. Tamworth was so engrossed with Letitia's appearance that he did not notice the tiger-head, and tripping over it, fell at her feet. I assisted him to rise and introduced him to my wife. His fall, however, had irritated him a bit. He was much older than we were, being a somewhat portly person of fifty summers, with iron-gray hair and a florid complexion.

"I'm so sorry," said Letitia graciously, "Archie and I always fall over that tiger-head, and have really grown to like it. But it is a stupid thing—very much in the way."

"I always think, Mrs. Fairfax," Mr. Tamworth remarked, rubbing his shin, "that tiger-heads are meant to trip people up. And the worst of them is that they are always so hard. They must be stuffed with rocks."

Letitia's delightful manner, however, soon restored his equanimity. She talked to him so gracefully, so appealingly, so irresistibly, that Arthur Tamworth was under the spell of her presence long before we went in to dinner. I felt proud of her as she held—in the palm of her hand, as it were—this worldly, rotund person. The fate of my Lives of Great Men seemed to be settled. Mr. Tamworth did not wear evening dress, but affected that horrible garb known as a "business suit," with a rude, short coat. This annoyed me, as I was afraid that Letitia would think my friend lacking in respect. In fact, she looked extremely surprised when, just before we moved toward the dining-room, he said: "Had I known we were going to the opera to-night, Mrs. Fairfax, I should have dressed. But Archie did not tell me."

"We are not going to the opera, Mr. Tamworth," Letitia responded, her eyes betraying her astonishment. "Why should you think so?" Then, with a charming determination to make him feel comfortable, she added: "Archie and I dress for each other. I like him better than any audience at the Metropolitan, and he has the same sort of regard for me."

Wasn't it pretty? Mr. Tamworth remarked, "You're a lucky dog, Fairfax," and then Letitia took his arm, and we set forth for the dining-room, cheerful and expectant. I noticed that Tamworth took particular heed of the tiger-head this time. The dignity of our march was also impaired by the fact that the bathroom door stood wide open, and if it had not been for Letitia's presence of mind, we should all have marched in.

Nothing could have looked more fairy-like than the dining-room, except, perhaps, fairy-land itself. Mr. Tamworth's face expanded in a pleasant smile at the mere anticipation of the dinner that awaited him. The orchids, framed in maiden-hair fern, were exquisite, and the roses in long vases of opalescent glass were fragrant as well as beautiful. At each place was a dainty menu-card, bearing misty little water-color pictures. Mr. Tamworth's was called "Children at Play," which did not seem appropriate, but was nevertheless neat and well-done.

The hors d'oeuvres passed off admirably. Letitia was lively, Mr. Tamworth was wonderfully loquacious, and I sat and reveled in their clever encounters of wit. Letitia and I scarcely touched the olives, and the anchois À l'huile, but Mr. Tamworth seemed hungry, and partook of them as though there were nothing to follow. Then Letitia touched a little bell, and after what seemed an eternity the younger Miss Carter appeared. I could not help gasping when I saw her. She wore a coffee-colored dress with bright yellow ribbons, and nestling in her woolly hair—in the style affected by Letitia—was a rose, most red and artificial. On her face was a broad grin. I looked at Letitia, and saw that she was flushed but endeavoring to overcome her vexation. Tamworth's gaze appeared to be riveted upon the picture of "Children at Play."

"Will you take consommÉ julienne, or crÈme d'asperges?" asked Letitia, nervously fingering her dinner-card, and trying to smile in an unconcerned way upon Mr. Tamworth.

Mr. Tamworth selected the crÈme d'asperges; so did Letitia and I. My wife whispered to the Zulu in yellow: "Asparagus soup for everybody," rather anxiously, and then turning to our guest tried to think of something to say. I say, tried to think, because, at that moment, voices were heard in the kitchen, which was as near to us as the bathroom. In fact, the voices seemed as though they were in the dining-room.

"They'll all take sparrowgrass soup," said the younger Miss Carter, with a loud laugh.

"Oh, they will, will they?" retorted the elder Miss Carter. "You jes' ask 'em how they're a-goin to do it. They'll take what I've made, or they'll leave it. I don't know nothin' about no sparrowgrass. She's crazy, askin' for two different soups. Here. You take in them three bowls o' veg., and no back talk. I'm sick and tired of this kind o' monkey business. You bet I am. And just you hurry, Sylvia; we're a-missin' all of our choruses, and—"

By some horrid, demoniac freak of fate, we sat hatefully and relentlessly silent. In vain I tried to think up some remark—be it ever so banal—that would distract Tamworth's attention. I could see that Letitia was in the same quandary. Not an idea lurked in my mind. Even the weather failed. Each word from the kitchen reached us as though by megaphone. Letitia's lip trembled, as she sat, apparently racking her brain for something—anything—to say. It was too cruel.

"Take in the veg. soup, and if you drop it I'll skin you," sang out Miss Carter.

Rescue came, but it was too late. "You really have a charming little apartment, Mrs. Fairfax," said Arthur Tamworth diplomatically, "I don't know when I've seen prettier appointments."

A dainty soup-plate was placed before each of us by the grinning maiden. Sylvia, if you please—Sylvia! It was "beef soup and vegetables" with a vengeance. It stood in a solid mass in each plate and there seemed to be everything in it but soup. It approached the spoon with glutinous reluctance and appeared to be begging to be cut with a knife and put quickly out of its misery.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about the crÈme d'asperges," Letitia murmured, her lips parched, and a fever spot on each cheek, "I suppose that she didn't understand."

"This is delicious, Mrs. Fairfax," said Arthur Tamworth nobly, "there is nothing I like better than good consommÉ julienne. I really prefer it to the other."

We did not sip our soup, but we worked at it. It tasted like boiled everything, served up with the water. There were nasty little flecks of red and streaks of yellow in it. One expected anything, at each spoonful. Not if I had been starving, could I have eaten it. Arthur Tamworth plodded along laboriously, like a youth with his way to make in the world, and Letitia, as hostess, evidently felt bound by the rules of etiquette to do what she could. She had recovered her equanimity, wonderful little girl!

"As we were saying before dinner," she remarked, trying not to look at the odious Sylvia, as she clattered away the plates, "the modern novel does seem to have deteriorated. If you consider all these irritating romances, so vastly inferior to the splendid imaginings of Dumas, you must admit the weakness, the effeminacy of such efforts to-day. It assuredly does seem as though all virility had departed from the modern band of so-called romance-weavers—"

Letitia's effort at "polite conversation" suddenly ceased. The homard naturel arrived and we could scarcely believe our eyes. Instead of the splendid crustacean that we had anticipated—the glowing macrurous delicacy that we had expected to see crouching in a juggle of water-cress—a hideous can, with a picture of a lobster on it, was placed before me. The can had been opened, and there, in poisonous looking obsequiousness, lurked our homard naturel.

"This is absurd," I said, and my voice shook. Tamworth was an old friend, but sometimes old friends respond to insult, apparently deliberate.

"I—I—can't understand," Letitia managed to say. "What—what is it?"

"Simply a can of lobster," replied Arthur Tamworth, with a pleasant smile; "and very good it is, too, no doubt. Suppose you assist us, Fairfax, and cease looking as though you had lost all your available relatives, and your wife's as well."

To say that I felt mortified was to put the matter mildly. The fact that Tamworth was generously trying to make the best of things irritated me the more. After all, at a little dinner, one does not want charity, even though it be supposed to "begin at home." I was too overcome to eat, though I saw Letitia frowning at me and noticed that she was partaking liberally. I was so angry that I could have torn up my dinner-card. The "Children at Play" on Tamworth's did not seem so awfully inappropriate, after all. "Children Playing at Dinner" would have been more to the point, though.

"What are your views on the servant question, Mrs. Fairfax?" asked Arthur Tamworth lightly, as he toyed with a piece of what looked like brick-red india-rubber. "Do you know"—with a smile—"that I am studying it? Positively I am."

A look of freezing severity appeared on Letitia's face. In a voice shiveringly Arctic, she asked: "What is the servant question, Mr. Tamworth? I have never heard of it. If you imagine—"

"Not at all, Mrs. Fairfax, not at all"—he made the rejoinder quickly—"I do not imagine that you will let it upset you. But, honestly, it is one of the topics of the day."

"With silly women, lacking in intellectuality," interposed my wife, with the sublimest inflection of contempt that I have ever heard. "Brainless women must talk about something. They have no interest in the life beautiful and artistic. Rather than adopt a policy of silence which would effectually cover their mental shortcomings, they discuss the kitchen and food. At least, I am told that they do. Personally, I do not know. I do not associate with them."

Letitia was very busy with the cold mummy, masquerading before her as homard naturel. She did not see the look of amusement on Arthur Tamworth's face. I saw it, however, and it was gall and wormwood to me. I hated to believe that he regarded Letitia as a joke. I had no sympathy with jokes, except when I uttered them myself, as the spontaneous bubbles of an exuberant spirit.

"Seriously, Mrs. Fairfax," continued my guest, laying aside his fork with a sigh of relief that seemed to say, "well done, thou good and faithful servant"; "it is not only the brainless ladies who talk servant. Why, some of the best people are contemplating a Women's Domestic Guild. There is, for instance, Mrs. Russell Sage—"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Letitia. "Is she the best example you can find, Mr. Tamworth? I have no doubt but that Mrs. Sage, at a pinch, could cook her own dinner. Stew, probably, followed by baked apples. Really, Mr. Tamworth—"

"I read an interview with a Mrs. Joseph Healey, the other day," said Mr. Tamworth placidly; "I cut it out. I think I have it with me. Ah, yes"—rescuing a newspaper clipping from his pocket—"hark at this: 'Owing to the incompetency of servant girls, housekeepers, too, are compelled, more and more, to buy cooked food for their tables. The growth of the delicatessen business in recent years has been startling—'"

Letitia sat bolt upright, suddenly. The paragraph seemed to sear itself into my brain.

"'Many families,'" he went on, "'live almost continuously on ham and potato salad, which is usually kept in an ice-box two or three days until it is absolutely unfit to be eaten. The servant-girl question is, therefore, not only breaking up the American home, but serving to break down the national health.'"

I tried to pretend that I was not looking at Letitia. Letitia tried to pretend that she was not looking at me. The dual attempt was a failure. We each knew that we were contemplating the other.

"Perhaps it is true," said Letitia airily, "perhaps. At any rate, it reads well in the newspapers, Mr. Tamworth. Sylvia"—to the Zulu—"you can bring in the next course. It is bifsteck aux pommes de terre."

When it arrived we would have given worlds to have been able to resume our discussion. It was then that we really needed to talk—and it was then that we couldn't! We could simply sit and gaze at the travesty. Conversation, which should be so serviceable as a stop-gap, failed us completely. All we could see was a sort of coal-black chest-protector on a large dish, and some boiled potatoes swimming in water on another.

"She didn't soufflÉ the potatoes," murmured Letitia tremulously.

"They are not even maÎtre d'hÔtel," I suggested feebly.

"You see," said Letitia apologetically, as I hacked at the chest-protector furiously, "Anna is in such a hurry to get to her singing class that she is at a disadvantage—"

"Singing class!" exclaimed Mr. Tamworth, laughing. "How funny! I must make a note of it. I hope you don't mind, Mrs. Fairfax. You see, I'm really studying—"

"I do mind," retorted my wife quite irritably. "I quite see that we have given you material for study. Still, it is disagreeable to reflect that our little—"

"My dear Mrs. Fairfax," he cried, genuinely distressed, "please believe that I am not serious. I only want you to feel that I do not share your annoyance. This—why, all this amuses me. It is interesting. It is great. Look at my good friend, Fairfax, wearing an expression that suggests Hamlet in his most melancholy moment. Why? I ask you, why?"

"I—I—I'm glad you feel that way about it," said Letitia, with tears in her eyes, "but—but perhaps, you are just pretending—to make me feel comfortable."

"It is good of you, old chap," I muttered, feeling as abject as though I had just put out my hand for alms and Arthur had popped a nickel into it.

"How absurd!" he laughed. "Why, I'm a great diner-out, and I know all about it, and—shall I read you a bit more about the Women's Domestic Guild?"

"I don't think I could stand it," Letitia said tremulously. "Sometime, perhaps, Mr. Tamworth, but not to-night. There are still the ices—glaces aux fraises. They can't be burnt. They can't be boiled in water."

They were not. They were brought on, in a dingy cardboard box, marked with the name of the purveyor, and the legend: "Ice-cream saloon—Columbus Avenue." They appeared on the edge of Sylvia's finger, balanced by a loop of tape. The cardboard box oozed and perspired. The lid was stuck down. Pink splashes dripped.

"Anna says to tell you," giggled the wide-mouthed Sylvia, "that she got American ice-cream. The French is ten cents more, and there ain't no difference."

This time Arthur Tamworth laughed without an apology. Probably he had a sense of humor, and thought it funny to see my poor little exquisitely attired wife, sitting at the head of her orchid-laden table, and confronted with a question of "ten cents more." That is exactly what a sense of humor achieves. Again, I protest that it is a curse. Mute sympathy would have been more endurable than loud mirth.

Letitia left us while we smoked. She did not go to the drawing-room, but—as I learned afterward—retired to her bedroom to weep. When we joined her later, her eyes were red and swollen. She had lowered the lights, so that this fact should not be too glaringly evident. We sat and talked. I will do Arthur Tamworth the justice to say that he was quite unperturbed and made strenuous efforts to be entertaining. But the tone of our conversation suggested a house of mourning. Absolute failure had benumbed us into a sort of mental paralysis. I kept looking at the clock—longing for my guest to go. Letitia yawned persistently, although she made brave efforts to appear alert. But he stayed until eleven o'clock, and when he did go, remarked, with what I thought ill-timed irony, "I've had a delightful time."

"Never—never have I felt so small," Letitia almost sobbed, as soon as we were alone. "And, Archie, I feel so ill, too. That brutal lobster—I had to eat it, and it won't digest. Capped by the terrible beef-steak, it has nearly done for me."

"Why did you eat it?" I asked querulously, "I didn't."

"If a hostess can't eat her own food, who can?" she demanded furiously. "I would have eaten it, if ptomaine germs had arisen from it, and introduced themselves. I hope I know my duty, and I hope that I am not weak enough to shirk it. Mr. Tamworth ate a lot of it."

"He'll die in the night," I suggested cheerfully, "and then good-by to my Lives of Great Men. It was not homard naturel. It was unnatural. That being the case, you might have refused it, Letitia. It would have been excusable."

"We won't argue the matter, Archie," she retorted, "I have my own ideas of what is right. To place food before an inoffensive person—though I consider your partner was a trifle offensive—and then reject it yourself, is not quite etiquette."

"Would you eat it again to-morrow, under the same circumstances?"

Letitia shuddered. "Yes," she said promptly. Then, "No. Yes, I would. No, I wouldn't. Really, I can't say, Archie. What is the use of suggesting such an impossible case? I think I would eat it. But I don't think I could."

"Poor old girl!" I remarked sympathetically. "We'll try and forget it. I don't know how I shall dare to go to the office to-morrow, though. I dare say that Tamworth won't be there. He'll be in bed. I thought he looked rather feverish just before he left, didn't you, Letitia? His gaiety seemed a bit forced, and I noticed once or twice that he gasped as though he were in pain."

"The Women's Domestic Guild!" laughed Letitia scornfully. "A nice subject to bring up at a dinner party! I call it indecent—like washing one's soiled linen in public. Of course, there are old frumps who like that kind of topic."

"Aunt Julia?" I suggested.

"I did not mean Aunt Julia, Archie. She is not an old frump, though I admit that it was from her lips that I first heard servant question. However—I wonder if we have any ginger in the house, Archie? You shall mix me a little. It might ward off an attack. Perhaps a little weak whisky and water will be better."

"I'm so sorry, dear," I said. "We have discovered one thing, however. It is the utter incompetency of Anna. Out of the house she goes to-morrow. Once bit, twice shy. What do you say, Letitia?"

"Will you tell her, Archie? I'm afraid I shan't feel well enough."

"Tell her? Why, of course," I answered, nobly emphatic. "I only wish she were here now, while I have this strenuous mood upon me. Tell her? Well, I guess so."

In fact, we both believed that Miss Carter was simply waiting to be told.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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