  In the little house of the Flowers, Miss Angela sat forlorn at her favorite post. She entertained the younger set no more. It was the middle of December, and a cold rain poured. With a ragged bit of chamois, the old-fashioned girl polished her already comely nails. The window-curtain, shrunken and twisted with more than one washing, was hooked back on a convenient nail; now and then Angela picked up her shabby opera-glasses and peeped over into the fan-shaped sliver of Washington Street. But few pedestrians passed over there to-day, and the motor-cars of the Blessed slid by in curtains of waterproof. ANGELA PEEPED OVER INTO WASHINGTON STREETIt was the slack hour again, it seemed, leaving home-makers with idle hands. Even that subtle business to which but one modern authority gave a scientific rating, the Business of Supplying Beauty and Supplying Charm, was here at a complete standstill. The men of Angela's family, who must be refreshed and made joyful for their battlings in the world without, were at this hour out, battling. Mrs. Flower was lying down in her room, doing her own refreshing. As for the cook downstairs, she had her orders, and recked not of Charm. Angela, thus, had her strictly earned leisure; and, on the other hand, she had not those intenser occupations for leisure, reforms, fights, and attacks on Morals, such as engrossed the mind of her advanced Cousin Mary. As a womanly woman, she naturally thought a great deal about people, her friends, and as an unassisted stranger in the city, she really had very few friends to think about. Hence, it was the most natural thing imaginable if she was now wondering, for the thousandth time, what in the world had become of Mr. Garrott. Angela could not understand about Mr. Garrott. He simply never seemed to walk any more. That she had hurt his feelings very badly that night after the bridge-party she had understood, from the start. But perhaps she had never meant to hurt them so badly as this; and that Mr. Garrott could vanish utterly from Washington Street had, indeed, not entered her thoughts. This, however, was precisely what Mr. Garrott had done, from the very day following the misunderstanding. For so, in the lapse of days, had Angela generously come to think of the occurrence on the sofa. She and Mr. Garrott had had a terrible misunderstanding. It was half-past four o'clock; the dreary day was shutting in. Angela looked down into her own back yard, which was small, mean-looking, not devoid of tin cans, and now running with dirty water. A dingy old shed or outhouse, where some previous tenant had thriftily stabled a horse, contributed not a little to the wintry desolateness of the scene. Beneath the window the cook, Luemma, emerged, a ragged print-skirt turned over her head, and emptied ashes into a broken wooden barrel. Angela yawned, and picked up a hand-glass. The girl's more kindly view of Mr. Garrott's demeanor had been, of course, a gradual growth. Her mortification and rage against the young tribute-payer had lasted two days, at least, and chancing to see her poor Cousin Mary at this time,—who was now being talked about from one end of the town to the other,—she had taken occasion to speak most disparagingly of Mr. Garrott, though, of course, in an indirect manner. She had described him as a person of the lowest ideals. At this Cousin Mary had protested, quite indignantly; and, though Angela well knew there were phases of Mr. Garrott which her mannish cousin was not likely ever to see, that stout championship had doubtless done much to check her first resentment and make her see things in a truer light. Moreover, she was naturally a sweet-tempered creature, and the long days following, and the long empty walks, may have been just the things needed to appeal most subtly to her higher nature. After all, Mr. Garrott had been remarkably nice to her, paying her every attention from the beginning. And even if he had been carried away, for once—what did that show ... A ring at the doorbell made Angela jump a little. While the Flowers had a small house, they had a loud bell. Though its clanging nowadays rarely meant anything exciting, the diversion, on the whole, was not unwelcome. The young housekeeper rose, went out into the hall, and listened down over the banisters. Below, there was nothing to listen to. Receiving only twelve dollars a month, Luemma seemed to think she must take out the residue of her wages in inefficience and impudence, and did; sometimes she answered the bell, sometimes she "had her hands in the lightbread," etc. The present seemed to be one of the latter times. The bell pealed again; a voice from the front called, "Angela!—are you dressed?"—and Angela, replying to her mother, went down to the door herself, smoothing her hair and trimming her waist as she went. The caller proved to be none other than her disgraced cousin, Mary Wing. "Well, Angela, how are you?" said she, entering confidently, and kissed Angela's cheek. "I hope I didn't break into your nap, or anything unforgivable like that?" "Oh, no, indeed, Cousin Mary. How d' you do? I wasn't asleep." Cousin Mary was enveloped from neck to heels in a becoming gray raincoat. Beneath that were seen glimpses of a costume rather elaborate for bad weather and a workaday world. Nor did Cousin Mary's manner seem in the least crushed or subdued, as morals demanded that the manner of a disgraced person should be. All the same, Angela greeted her cordially enough, with only a faint conscientious stiffness traceable to her mother. For one thing, she was really sorry for Mary now; right or wrong, she genuinely wished they hadn't expelled her from the High School, and sent her off to a Grammar School, in a low quarter of the city. And then besides that, whatever Cousin Mary's strange ideas and behavior, the fact remained that she happened still to be one of her, Angela's, particular little coterie—that small group of friends and relatives with whom she herself seemed to be sadly out of touch just now. Mary entered with the air of being in a hurry. In the car-shaped parlor she unbuttoned her coat, nevertheless, the Latrobe heater being, like the doorbell, small but powerful. Angela, seated on the famous sofa, said:— "Cousin Mary, you're all dressed up! I believe you're going to a party!" Mary glanced down at herself with indifference. "No," said she, "but I've been to a little sort of one, a luncheon. And we didn't leave the hotel till half an hour ago, either—" "Oh, a luncheon! They're fun, I think. Where was it?" "At the Arlington—very fine and beautiful, but it took hours! That's why I'm so late getting around here. I've wanted specially to see you for several days, Angela, but I haven't seemed to find a minute, and this was my last chance. I wondered if you had any engagement for to-morrow afternoon?" "No, indeed, Cousin Mary, I haven't any engagement." "Then I want you to come with me to a lecture," said Cousin Mary, "at four o'clock." The young girl's face, which had become brightly expectant at the mention of engagements, fell perceptibly. She covered her disappointment with a little laugh. "Well,—thank you, very much, Cousin Mary,—but you know I don't appreciate lectures very much. I'm not clever enough—" "But this isn't an ordinary lecture. In fact, I shouldn't have used that word at all. It's a talk, a personal talk to women by a woman, and a wonderful one—Dr. Jane Rainey. You may have heard of her?" "Well, I'm not sure. What is she going to talk about?" asked Angela politely. "The subject that means most to every woman, no matter what she thinks or says! And Dr. Rainey, I do believe, knows more about it than anybody else living. Jane Clemm she was—but that was years ago, before you could remember. I got her to come here to speak, myself,—and expect to lose some money on the transaction, too,—heigho! But I don't mind really, it's such a privilege to have the whole subject lit up, from the modern point of view, by a speaker like this. Jane Rainey's a practicing physician, a fine human being, the mother of four children herself, and she—" "But what is her subject, Cousin Mary?" "That's it!—marriage and motherhood." Angela stared at her cousin, and then looked rather shocked. Next, faint color appeared in her smooth cheeks. It really seemed that Mary had learned nothing, from the painful lesson she had just received. Why did she have this persistent interest in the unpleasant side of life? She said more decisively than was her wont: "No, Cousin Mary, I really don't think I'd care to go—thank you." Mary Wing, checked in her forensic by Angela's expression, looked surprised, though, perhaps, not taken aback, and certainly not rebuked. "Now, why not? I honestly hoped the subject would have a special interest for you. You—" "For me!—Oh, no! I—" "My dear, you know you told me once what your ambition was—to be a good wife some day, when the right man came for you. And that's the ambition of every normal woman, I believe,—or one of them,—no matter what else she may have in her head! Well, you see, that's exactly what this brilliant student—and woman—wants to advise us about—how to fulfill this ambition; how to prepare ourselves to be good wives and—" "But I don't think of it that way at all, Cousin Mary. I hope," said Angela, pink-cheeked, but once more standing firm for propriety against all the astonishing Newness—"I hope I'll know how to be a good wife—to the man I love—without going to any lectures—" "Do you think anybody on earth knows as much as that, just by intuition? It seems to me ... But perhaps your feeling is—you don't like the idea of a public talk on the subject?" "I don't, Cousin Mary—frankly. I know I seem to you dreadfully behind the times—and all. But that's the way I was brought up to feel, and it's the way I do feel. I'm not advanced at all, I thought you knew." There was a silence in the dingy little parlor, during which the pouring rain became audible. "Of course I don't want to press you against your will, Angela," said Mary slowly. "You know that? But—I can't get away from feeling that being a good wife—and mother—in this awfully upset, transitional age, when men's ideals are changing step for step with women's—and perhaps a little in advance of them, who knows?—I believe it's the most complicated and difficult vocation in the world. Compared with it, any ordinary man's profession—like engineering, for instance—looks to me like simplicity itself. And, Angela, I can't believe that every woman is born with all this understanding, all this difficult expert knowledge in her head, any more than I believe that every man is born knowing by intuition how to be a good engineer. Of course we'd think it quite strange—shouldn't we?—if Donald, as a boy wanting to be an engineer, had thought he mustn't read any books that mentioned engineering, and must stop his ears if—" Angela, feeling almost ready to stop her ears herself, interrupted with some warmth:— "Cousin Mary, we simply don't understand each other! I don't think of—of romance—and marriage—as anything in the least like engineering—not in the least! I don't think of them as subjects for lectures by experts! And I was brought up to feel there were some things not very—suitable to talk about. I was brought up not to think about them at all." "Of course, my dear!—I understand. But every woman thinks about marriage—doesn't she? She can't help it. Take me," said Mary, good-humoredly—"a confirmed old maid school-teacher who's just scandalized half the city, and been publicly dismissed from her job. I haven't the slightest idea of marrying, ever, and yet I think about it often, and would like to feel—" "You do? Well, I am different. I don't think about it." "You don't think about marriage?" "I never think of it at all," said Angela. That settled Cousin Mary. After a brief pause she said, in the nicest way: "Well, then, forgive me, Angela, and forget everything I've said." Angela forgave her readily enough. Shut your eyes to the horrid, unwomanly streak in her, and Mary Wing was really a very pleasant person. She had always said that, to her mother and others. So talk flowed easily into other channels, and the air of cousinly amity was soon restored. But just when that was accomplished, Mary rose unexpectedly to go, and Angela found herself left with several topics not yet mentioned at all. "Oh, don't go yet!" said she. "I want to—" "I must! I really had no time at all to-day, but came anyway, whether or no. How pretty you look, Angela," said Mary, and kissed the now unblushing cheek again. "I wish the lunch-party hadn't kept you so long! I haven't—" "I do, too! A whole good afternoon! And the worst of it was," said Mary, eyeing her with a sort of speculative archness, "I stayed after everybody was gone just to talk to Charles Garrott, whom you dislike so much! Still," she added, with a fading of archness, "I had something to tell him for his own good, at least." Cousin Mary's changes of expression were lost upon Angela. "Mr. Garrott! Was he at the lunch party?" "He gave it—didn't I say? It was just a little bon voyage party for Donald—and Helen Carson! Donald's leaving to-morrow for Wyoming, you know, to be gone a month—" "No—you hadn't told me.... Who else was at the lunch, Cousin Mary?" "Oh, just those I've mentioned, and Fanny for chaperon, and Talbott Maxon." Angela, naturally, felt more lonely and out of things than ever. In fact, she felt blankly depressed. Mr. Garrott's luncheon had included exactly her coterie, only she herself being omitted. "Why do you say I dislike Mr. Garrott, Cousin Mary? Of course I like him very much. You know I told you long ago he was much the most attractive man I've met here." "Well, but I thought you must have changed your opinion, when you told me the other day that his ideals were so low." "Why, of course I didn't mean it, Cousin Mary! I thought you knew I was angry when I spoke." The two cousins regarded each other, in the dark little hall by the hatstand. Angela felt her position to be annoying. But she explained with that complete lack of embarrassment characteristic only of women conscious of rectitude:— "I can't tell you all about it, even now. But what happened was that Mr. Garrott and I had a terrible misunderstanding, and at first I put all the blame on him, and was awfully mad with him, I admit. But since then, the more I've thought of it, the more I've seen that I was very unjust to him—in what I thought and said, too. He really has much more cause to be mad with me—now—than I have with him." "Well, I'm glad to hear it. Don't quarrel—that's my motto," said the stormy Miss Wing. "And Mr. Garrott thinks you are charming!—I know, for he told me so. Well—" "Yes—that's what has changed my feeling about it all, you see. Cousin Mary—when you see him again, you might just say—" "My dear, I never see Mr. Garrott!" said Mary, rather hastily. "Why, you've just seen him!" "The first time for a week, and probably the last time for a month. He's going down to his mother's in the country on Saturday, to stay over Christmas and New Year's. Angela, I must run!" Left alone, Angela remained standing in the hall for a moment, gazing into space, of which the hall really afforded little. Her despondency now had a certain edge; it did seem hard that, while her friends and relatives—and Cousin Mary, of all people—were going to jolly lunches of the younger set, her invitations should be only to New-Woman lectures. And still, the girl's feeling had no bitterness, even now. Of course she understood that she would have been at Mr. Garrott's luncheon, too, but for the misunderstanding.... As she went upstairs, her mother called out to her, and Angela pursued her way to the front bedroom, as she had meant to do anyway. Here, her mother was discovered prone upon a pillowless lounge, dangerously facing a gaslight and reading a magazine which had no covers. Having laid the magazine, broken open, on her lap, Mrs. Flower listened attentively to her daughter's report of Mary's call, and at the end said:— "I must say I think it's very kind of Mr. Garrott to stand by her in that way. Men secretly can never admire that sort of woman, whatever their theories may be. And that's just it—that explains Mary's whole lurid course. If she had ever had a ray of attention, of course she would never have dreamed of these wild goings on." Angela's mother was still a pretty woman, and long habit, it seemed, had impressed her voice with a permanent plaintiveness. She had kicked off her slippers for comfort; her high-bred feet were clad in faded cotton stockings; she herself looked high-bred and faded. Her air and tone were those of one to whom life had brought rude shocks—such as, that lovely woman's portion was sacrifice ever, and that men cared only for the first bloom of girlish beauty—and who found her only consolations in her religion, and in the noble words, My Duty. "You must see her when she calls, I suppose, but that is all. Until she completely changes her ideas on all subjects, I cannot allow any intimacy. I cannot." "She means to be nice to me, mother. And besides—that's the sort of connections you and father have given us, you know." Mrs. Flower denied any responsibility whatever for the advanced Mary. She continued her remarks with interest, the theme being one of her favorites. Angela, having moved restlessly about the room for a time, had halted at the window. Hence, she gazed out at a board fence billed all over with advertisements of a celebrated spring tonic. A trolley-car went rumbling by, its wheels throwing off jets of icy rain-water. It had been a long, long day. "The things women will do when they discover they're not attractive to men! They simply get defiant. They get all reckless and bitter!" Into the narrow walkway below turned a very tall man, under a small greenish umbrella. In the silence of the house, the front door was heard to open and shut. Then there were footsteps along the hall below, and another door shut quietly, toward the back. "Anything, anything to distract their minds!" "Mother!—where on earth do you suppose father goes! His lecture was over at half-past three. If only, only, he'd try to get some patients! But he's not even in for his office hour half the time!" "I'm sure I do not know," replied her mother, generally, and picked up her coverless magazine. Angela fidgeted at the window, drumming on the dripping pane. Presently she said:— "Oh, mother! Why couldn't you or father have some relations that would help us! We're the only family I ever heard of that hasn't a single rich relation!" Her mother, not looking up, mentioned complainingly the branch of her family to which she always referred in such discussions. "Much good the Ashburtons have done us!" said Angela truly, and also as usual. "When they think we're not good enough to speak to. I have nobody to help me but myself." It was as if the girl was herself struck with the truth of her own observation. Her gaze out the window became thoughtful, and then intent. Suddenly, without more speech, she left the window and the room. In the hall there came an interruption. An untutored voice bawled up, without the slightest preamble:— "Sugar hasn't came!" "All right," responded the young housekeeper, after a short annoyed pause. And then, returning to her own room, she thought: "If I telephone from Mrs. Doremus's now, it'll be too late for supper. I'll have to ask Wallie—just to step around ..." Angela shut the door behind her and lighted a flaring gasjet. Then she stood still, knitting her brows slightly, glancing about. She wanted writing-paper, and didn't know where to put her hands on any, exactly. In the sharp light of the gas it was now seen that Angela's little bedroom lacked Beauty, of the purely objective sort: Beauty of that kind depending, as all know, on fathers being good providers, which was not the case here, alas. Everything in Angela's room was cheap when it was new, and everything was far from new now. A very large old walnut wardrobe occupied all one side of the room, awkwardly substituting for a clothes-closet. The bed was of yellow imitation-oak, and sagged considerably in the middle from worn-out springs. The bureau was to match; its somewhat wavy mirror was the nearest Angela came to a dressing-table; its three drawers would never quite shut, and frequently wouldn't quite open. There were also two chairs in the bedroom, one straight, one a re-seated rocker, and a small walnut work-table, which trembled dangerously if you brushed against it. Nor was the room specially spruce, at the moment at least, people's tastes differing in these matters, even in the same family. Angela's young brother, for example, kept his small room shining like a new pin, and let himself personally go till he was a disgrace to the family. Angela, on the other hand, whose exquisite personal neatness had attracted the notice of Charles Garrott himself, was more or less indifferent about a room which nobody but the family ever saw. The door of the wardrobe stood open now, with one of the yellow bureau-drawers; a pair of shoes rested on the straight chair, with a pair of stockings curled on the rag-carpet below. On the sway-backed bed were strewn various things—a towel, two old summer dresses that she had been trying on a little earlier in the afternoon, a pair of soiled white gloves, a paper of pins and two new dress-shields. In the drawer of the wardrobe, Angela presently found several sheets of note-paper, and, after a longer search, a single envelope. The envelope was not what it had been once. It had knocked about the world a bit in its time; its bright youth was gone. Upon its face was a dusky smudge, souvenir of some forgotten encounter, and, near the smudge, some hand had once written the word "Mrs.," and then lost heart and abandoned the whole enterprise. Still, it was possibly the only envelope in the house. Angela found, after due trial, that the smudge yielded, quite satisfactorily, to the eraser on the end of a pencil. As for the reminiscent "Mrs.," that was easily enough worked over into a "Mr.," though not, to be sure, without a slight blot. Angela sat on the edge of the bed. She pulled the rickety work-table into position before her. Having addressed the remainder of the envelope, after the "Mr.," she sat biting the penholder for a space. But when the business end of the pen was put into action, it went ahead quite steadily:—
She had hardly written the final letter of her pretty name when the front door was heard to open again, this time with a bang. Having hastily tucked the note into the experienced envelope, Angela got downstairs before her little brother, Wallie, had finished taking off his dripping overcoat. Wallie was quite the queerest, gravest boy Angela had ever known. In her whole life, she had never seen him laugh but once. That was one summer day in Mitchellton, when she, having undertaken to paper the walls of her room, had fallen backward off the stepladder into a bucket of paste. Wallie was an eccentric, undoubtedly. Still, he was admitted to be obliging enough about little things. Now he made no special objections to going for the sugar; and when Angela then asked him please to step by at the same time, and give the note to Mr. Garrott, he only said, with one of his absent stares: "Step by? That's six blocks further." "Well, I haven't anybody else to take it for me, Wallie," said Angela, in a voice rather like her mother's. "And, Wallie," she added, presently, "I'm not sure whether there'll be an answer or not. You'd better just ask him, that's the best way. Just say, after he's read it, 'Is there any answer?'" |
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