The Street of the City (14 page)

Marietta stared at the girl she had come to patronize, and then answered coldly, “Yes, my name is Marietta Hollister, and I understood you were a stranger. That’s partly why I came. You see, we are getting up a scheme to socialize this side of the river and give the people living over here a chance to see some of the pleasantries of life and to learn how to behave when they go out among really educated, cultured people. An opportunity, you know, to mingle with young men and women of your own class and have a place where you can have really good times.”

Frannie cast a puzzled glance at the imperious young beauty with the glow of the firelight on her long golden bob. Was all this meant for kindness, or did it smack of condescension?

“Why, that’s kind of you, I’m sure, to think of other girls and try to help them,” she said hesitantly, uncertainly. Was it really kindness, she wondered? “But—I’m afraid I would not be in a position to benefit by anything of a social nature—”

“Oh, well, that’s all nonsense, of course. Everybody has got to have recreation. I suppose you have a job and you think you can’t spare the time, but you owe it to yourself to have some enjoyment out of life. You’ll do better work if you relax now and then. You see, we’re proposing to have a series of dances, and we’ll have some suitable young men there who will ask you to dance and will be attentive to you, and in that way you will get acquainted with some really suitable young men. We shall take care to inquire into their characters and shall sponsor no one who is not respectable and steady and dependable. You know, many girls who are employed have no opportunity to meet young men of their own class, in respectable places, and that is one reason why there are so many unhappy marriages. The girls often cannot meet men anywhere except on the street, and they do not have a chance to get to know them. We are trying to provide places for you girls to meet men who would make good husbands by and by.”

Frannie suddenly broke down and giggled.

“Excuse me!” she said, suddenly sobering. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be interested. I’m not looking out for someone to marry. I have a job to do and my mother and little sister to care for, and I have no time to waste on such things.”

“But that is utterly senseless,” said Marietta. “You want to marry and have your own home. Every girl does. Let your family take care of themselves. There is always welfare for the family if they need it. And then you know there are homes where dependent people can go and be cared for, if they cannot live on what welfare they can get. You have a duty to yourself, and we want to help you with it.”

Frannie grew suddenly white and rose to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” she said coldly. “You are wasting your time! I wouldn’t be interested in anything you have to suggest.” And then, with as much dignity as her gentle self could summon, she added, “And now if you will excuse me, I think I will go up to my sick mother. I’ve been away from her all day. I think that is about all you and I have to say to one another.”

“But you don’t understand,” said Marietta, rising to the occasion and putting out a detaining hand. “I have something else to tell you, and it’s really very important. It’s something you ought to know.”

Frannie stopped, her head up, her lips and eyes suspicious, and looked her visitor over quietly, with much the same look that she had given to Spike Emberly and Kit Creeber not long ago. The very tilt of her chin showed that she was not in a receiving mood.

For an instant even Marietta was a bit abashed. This wasn’t just the way she had planned her approach. Then she flung up her arrogant, beautiful head and went on.

“It seems that you—at least I have been told that you have picked up an acquaintance with a young man who is not at all of your class and that you have been seen skating with him, more than once, holding hands in broad daylight! I felt I ought to warn you that it isn’t safe for you to do a thing like that. Not only would you bring disgrace upon yourself, but there would be actual danger. For it happens that the young man you have selected to play up to is quite an important member of our social order, far above you, and his friends and relatives would certainly rally around him and pay you back for daring to attempt any such bold-faced flirtation with him! It might mean actual bodily harm to you if you keep on having anything to do with him. You probably do not know this, but young men of respectable families do not give serious attention to girls from this side of the river, and you might as well understand at once that such an acquaintance could never come to anything with you. Besides, he is already practically engaged to a girl of his own class, and though he might play around with you a few days, it could never bring you anything but heartache! I mean what I am saying, and I’m speaking out of kindness for you, to warn you, for your own good.”

Now Frannie had a large sense of humor, and just now it suddenly came to the front in a radiant smile, that was almost a grin.

“Thank you!” she said. “I’m sure you’re trying to be kind to me. And now will you go, please? I have other things to do.” Frannie reached out and swung the front door wide open, letting in a blast of the icy outside air. And there seemed nothing in the world for Marietta to do but go. Her resourceful mind could not think of another thing to say. And the worst of it all was that she could not make up her mind whether she had reached the girl in the warning she had just uttered or whether she was being laughed at.

And then, as she swung across the snowy road, there came a burst of more laughter, merry and sweet, from the little red house behind her. Walking into the dusky night, her cheeks were burning with a new kind of shame. This girl whom she had come to humiliate, had humiliated her. And yet she had not transgressed a single law of courtesy nor once lost her temper, although she suspected by the look in the girl’s gentle eyes that some of the things she had dared to say had cut to the quick.

So this was the girl Val Willoughby had been skating with! She was not going to be an easy one to dislodge. She must think up a better plan to get rid of her.

And tonight she would have the evening with Val and would see what she could do with him.

W
hen the nurse and the little sister who were tip-toeing around the kitchen getting supper ready heard the front door shut and then a moment later that merry little gurgle of laughter from Frannie, they came cautiously to investigate. Bonnie opened the door a crack and peeped in, and then opened it a little wider, and whispered hilariously, “She’s gone!” and then the nurse came near and there they stood watching. Frannie was sitting down in the big chair by the door, laughing. But in a moment Frannie lifted her head, looked at their astonished faces, and laughed again. More quietly now and softening down to a good-natured giggle.

“What is it, Frannie? What happened?” asked the nurse, who wondered if Frannie was so tired that she was near hysterics.

“Oh nothing. Nothing. Only it was so very funny. She came here to invite me to a dance, or a series of dances, so that I would meet some respectable young man I could marry and have a happy home,” and Frannie went off again into a burst of giggles.

“Was that all?” asked the nurse with a relieved sigh.

“No!” giggled Frannie. “That wasn’t all. She wanted to warn me not to take up with strange young men whom I met skating out on the river. She said they would have no serious intentions and I would only get my heart broken, or words to that effect, and maybe even my head, too! She said someone had told her that I had been seen skating with one of the young men from the other side of the river, and she felt she ought to warn me that he was somebody important and his friends would never stand for it. But please, Nurse Branner, don’t tell my mother this! She would be filled with horror that we had come to a place where people would meddle and gossip like this. She would think I was disgraced. Oh, I thought Bluebell was bad enough with its kindly folk-gossip, but this is a thousand times worse. It’s so bad it’s really funny.”

“Oh, dear me! That girl is certainly a fool!” said the annoyed nurse. “I should have thought she would have known the minute she laid eyes on you that you were not that kind of girl. But I’m glad you’re taking it this way.”

“Well, why shouldn’t I? She seemed to think the main thing that was the matter with me was that I lived on this side of the river. But if that’s it, I tell you it’s very funny. I’ve heard of living on the wrong side of the railroad track, but this seems to be something a good deal worse.”

“Yes. Absurd, isn’t it? Well, let’s forget her. Come, the supper is all ready, and I’ve just taken your mother’s tray up. Let’s sit down while the beans are hot.”

“Oh yes!” said Frannie. “And am I hungry! How good they smell. Everything smells wonderful! I noticed it the minute I opened the door.”

So they sat down to the simple supper and enjoyed every crumb, and then they sent Bonnie up to talk to the mother while they washed the dishes and got things ready for breakfast.

“But don’t tell Mother anything about what that girl said, Bonnie dear. We don’t want Mother to worry.”

“Of course not, Frannie. Don’t you think I have any sense at all? I’ll just tell her it was someone about some ’fense work. It was, you know. I heard her say the dances were for ’fense work, to get money to have ’musements for the soldiers.”

“That’s the girl,” praised the nurse with a smile of commendation. “She’s got good sense. She knows what not to tell her sick mother. Run along, Bonnie, and don’t talk any more about it than you can help.”

So Bonnie hurried joyfully up to her mother, and Frannie and the nurse went swiftly to work. But the nurse could see a little cloud of annoyance on Frannie’s sweet face and knew that in spite of her bright little laughter she had been troubled by her arrogant visitor.

“Frannie,” said the nurse in her most cheery, comforting tone, “if I were you I wouldn’t waste a minute’s thought on anything that coldhearted, selfish girl said. It isn’t worth it. Believe me, I know what she is, and I’ve known her ever since she was a spoiled baby. When she goes around trying to do good and uplift what she considers inferior people, it’s always because she has an ax to grind for herself.”

“Yes?” said Frannie with a troubled question in her eyes. “But I don’t see what she would expect to get out of it.”

“Well, that’s the subtlety of her. You never know till afterward, unless you know her pretty well. And knowing her, I can guess what she was at when she came here and tried to warn you against picking up young men on the ice that way. She must have either seen you or been told of your skating with Val Willoughby. And she would be very jealous of that. She thinks Val Willoughby, and all the rest of the eligible young men of the neighborhood, belong to herself.”

“Oh!” said Frannie with sudden enlightenment. “That must have been what she meant. She said the young man I had been seen with was practically engaged to another girl who belonged on the other side of the river.”

“Yes, I thought it would be something like that. That sounds very Hollisterish. And what did you answer, Frannie?”

“Why, when she got through talking I didn’t really answer her at all. I just said I guessed her plans wouldn’t interest me, and if she would excuse me I must go up to see my sick mother.”

“Good!” said Nurse Branner. “You couldn’t have done better. Just keep up that kind of a front and pretty Marietta won’t know what to say. She wouldn’t be able to understand your not getting angry and answering back.”

“Well, she made me get all weak and trembly inside,” confessed Frannie as she gathered up the knives and forks and placed them on the table for breakfast.

“Poor child,” said the nurse cheerily. “You certainly didn’t show it when you came out to the kitchen afterward.”

“Well, of course I didn’t want Bonnie to see how I felt. She wouldn’t be able to keep it from Mother if she found out. She may be very wise, but Mother’s eyes are very sharp and keen. She would know at once if something worried Bonnie.”

“Yes of course. Well now, my dear, don’t you worry one bit about this. It will all pass away and you’ll forget it. That girl can’t hurt you. You two don’t live in the same world. She wouldn’t know how to reach you. She couldn’t understand you even if she tried. But if she comes again, don’t give her any answers back. If she gets disagreeable come and call me. I’ll settle her. Just give me the high sign, and I’ll come to your rescue. I know all the answers.”

“Oh, thank you, Nurse Branner. You’ve made me feel a lot better. I won’t worry about her any longer. But I don’t think she’ll come again. I think she was very mad at me that I didn’t let her talk any longer. She probably thinks I’m the rudest girl she ever saw.”

“Never mind what she thinks. Just forget it. Now run up and have a little talk with your mother before she goes to sleep. She’s been a lot stronger today. Her pulse is definitely losing that thready consistency. I thought you’d be glad to know that.”

“Oh, that’s grand, Nurse Branner. But—do you think it may get worse again?”

“No, not if she is reasonably cared for. She must be kept from worrying.”

“Yes, and that’s one thing I was afraid of, Nurse Branner. If she should hear what that girl said about my skating with a young man, she would die of shame to think I had got to a place where I could be gossiped about that way. And there really wasn’t anything wrong about it all. He came after me with a message from the doctor and my mother.”

“Yes, I know, dear. The doctor told me all about it. And anyway, I know Val Willoughby. Nobody would dare say anything against him. But the whole thing is that they wouldn’t bother you. They would know that anything Val Willoughby did was all right and that any girl he took up for, even if it was just to skate home from work with her for a while in order to protect her from any unpleasant boors, was to be treated with reverence. Anybody that is a real friend to that young man has to respect what he respects whether they like it or not, or else they will have to settle with Val Willoughby.”

So gradually Frannie’s perturbation was quieted, and she was able to forget the unpleasant half hour with her beautiful visitor.