Tomorrow About This Time (14 page)

She drew Silver up the stairs to the bedroom where she had first taken her and then gazed around with a growing fury in her strong old face.

“The young
viper
!” she exclaimed under her breath. “I’ll teach her to upset orders! The master’s orders, too!”

Before Silver could stop her she had seized an armful of silks and lingerie from the bed where Athalie had deposited them in her last trip and rushed across the hall, throwing them in a heap on the floor of the room she had given Athalie, and was back for another.

“But you mustn’t!” cried Silver. “It will only make her angrier. Let her have the room she wants. I don’t care where I am put. If I stay at all, one room will do as well as another.”

“Indeed no!” said Anne with fire in her eye. “Do you think I’m going to have the sacred room of the dear mistress profaned by a little devil like her? The master would in no wise allow her to enter here. He considers his aunt’s room as a holy place, and it shows where he feels you belong that he gave orders you should be put in here. Now, my dear, you just sit down while I empty this closet in the blink of an eye, and then I’ll help you unpack your suitcase.”

“But Anne, I’m sure Athalie will blame this on me. She came in while I was up here and told me she wanted this room and I could go into the other one.”

“Did she, indeed! The limb of Satan! Well, I’ll see that she understands you had nothing to do with it. I’m still housekeeper here, I hope, and the master is still master! I’m not thinking he’ll take her impudence long.” She seized another armful ruthlessly and marched it across the hall, and in a brief space of time the closet was again cleared.

“And look at the dear lady’s best black silk!” she crooned suddenly discovering the garments that Athalie had flung from their hooks to the floor. “It’s a desecration, it certainly is! If Miss Lavinia had lived to see the day that a huzzy like that that flaunts her nakedness before the gentlemen and tries to drag her womanhood in the dust by smoking the vile cigarettes like a man!” Anne drew her breath in a sob of grief and humiliation. “I’m thinking she’s what they call in the newspapers a ‘flopper’! And I never thought when I read about their like that we’d be having a real-live flopper here in this blessed house the day! Aw! It’s a sorry day in the old house that’s always been that respectable!”

All the time she was babbling away in her intense voice her fingers were flying, making the room right once more. She straightened the cover of the little sewing table that had been twisted awry, pulled the winged chair back to its place, picked up a wisp of fabric that had floated under the bed, and even produced a duster and wiped down the walls and shelves of the closet, shaking as it were the very dust from the alien garments out of the sacred chamber.

Silver stood at the front window looking out across the field with troubled eyes, trying to think out the horrible situation. She was convinced that she ought not to have come, that she had followed her heart rather than her good judgment, and probably a bit selfishly and determinedly, too, coming unannounced. She had wanted to forestall any attempt on the part of her father to refuse to see her. She had wanted him so, and now, see!

It took no very great stretch of imagination for her to realize that this other girl was in greater need of a father than she herself, much greater! No matter how fatherless or lonely she would be she would never be tempted to go down a wrong path or do anything to disgrace the family. She had been too well grounded in the things of righteousness for that. She was established. But this other girl was all too apparently self-willed, lawless, ungoverned, like a wild little craft set sail upon a stormy sea without a rudder and liable to wreck not only herself but any others that happened in her path.

Silver was accustomed to look on life in this way, to think of what would be good for others as well as herself. Her conscience had been well trained and was in good working order. If she became convinced that she ought to go, no argument would keep her there. She had a duty toward life to perform, and her highest aim was to perform it right. She was as utterly different from the other daughter as two human souls could well be. And how could there ever be harmony in such an ill-assorted household?

Into the middle of her thoughts came a summons from her father. Would she come down to the library and talk something over with himself and his guest as soon as she was ready for dinner?

Anne nodded approval. That settled it. She must hurry and get ready. Had she another dress, or did she wish just to wear her suit?

Silver realized that this was no time to discuss when her father had a guest, hastily shook out of her suitcase a little silk crepe dress that fell around her like the soft shadows of evening, the color of twilight with gleams of silver in the fastenings that reminded one of the afterglow in the sunset sky and set off her delicate complexion and the gold of her hair, making her eyes starry. The little cloud of worry on her brow only brought out the sweet thoughtfulness and made her more like her mother as she entered the library a few minutes later. Her father could scarcely take his eyes from her face. The wonder of it that Alice’s face and form had come back in the person of her child! The sorrow of it that he had not had the patience to wait for this and enjoy the privilege of seeing it grow! The selfishness of himself!

Bannard had a work down among the foreigners of Frogtown. He had a plan for a school for them that they might learn English and be fit to apply for citizenship. He wanted a class in cooking and sewing for the mothers, and meetings where they might learn American ways and how to care for their children and make their homes sanitary and attractive. He wanted a meeting place for them and some men and women with tact and love of humanity to come down and help him. He had been waiting for Professor Greeves to arrive, feeling that he would be the very one to help him get the educational department started. There was a small room over a grocery they could have for the present. It was lighted with lamps and heated by a small box stove, but warm weather was coming; they could even meet out of doors somewhere down by the river.

“Why not build a hall, a gymnasium or something of the sort, with accommodation for all the different classes? It oughtn’t to cost much. It wouldn’t have to be elaborate. I’ll look after the financial part. I’d be glad to give something to a work like that.”

“Oh, Father! Can you do that?” Silver’s eyes were large with wonder and joy. Money had not been in overabundance in the little parsonage where the Jarvises lived. Greeves looked sharply, keenly at his daughter. Was it possible that there had been any lack in her life that money might have supplied? He had sent presents now and then, a hundred dollars or so. Why had it never occurred to him to send more? His own child never having a real part in his abundant worldly possessions. He began to see more and more how wrong he had been to separate himself from her. And yet, how sweet and unspoiled she was! That other one, Athalie, had had an abundant income stipulated by the court, and see what she had become! Perhaps it had been better for Silver to have been brought up without riches. That was the way her dear mother had been reared. Ah, but it all shut him out of her life, and he had had the right to be in it and had thrown it away! Well, he would make up for it now all he could, but he could not go back and gather from the years the precious experiences that were gone forever.

They talked until the silver-tongued gong sounded through the house for dinner, and then, still quite absorbed in their topic, they went out to the dining room, forgetting that there was anything in the world except beautiful plans for the uplifting of others. And there, like an arrogant young goddess stood Athalie, still in her silver and coral undress as she had been in the garden, with only the addition of a wide coral-colored ribbon, the kind her girlfriends called a “headache band” drawn firmly over her forehead from the little sketchy uplifted eyebrows to the crown of her head, the ends concealed in some mysterious way under the shock of outlandish hair somewhere in the neighborhood of where her ears ought to be. She had arrived unbidden on the scene the moment the dinner gong sounded and stood like an apparition, belligerent and sullen behind a chair at the foot of the table, eyeing her father defiantly.

There had been a pleased smile on his face as he entered, his hand just touching Silver’s arm caressingly, but when he saw her he stopped short, and a stern angry look came into his eyes. It was not a baffled look as Athalie had counted on. She felt that he had weakened during that scene on the terrace, and she could dare anything, but she saw a light in his eyes that boded no good for the one who disobeyed his orders. His eyes gave one full glance at the bare arms and neck, the low, tight silver bodice with it straps of tiny coral roses, the flimsy fabric, and his lips set sternly, then he looked away and ignored her presence. This was not the time for further demonstration. He was a gentleman. He would deal with her later. Yet all through the meal as he spoke to the others his voice was harsh, restrained. They could see that he was very angry. His attitude perhaps awed the girl, or else she was very hungry, for she said not a word except to demand second helpings of everything from the servants. For the rest of the meal she maintained a sullen silence, her eyes on her plate, only now and then raising them in a blank stare of amazement at Bannard when he spoke of his church and his work with earnest enthusiasm. She had never met anyone like him before. Also, she was angry that he ignored her so utterly, giving his entire attention to Silver and her father.

Everyone was glad when the meal was concluded. It had been a particularly trying time to Silver. And as they rose from the table, the master of the house said almost sternly: “Now we will go into the drawing room and have some music.” His eyes dwelt on Silver lovingly, but something in the tone told Athalie that she was excluded from the company. As he stepped back to let the ladies pass through the door Bannard caught a look of hate on the face of Athalie that almost startled him in one so young. Yet she did not slip away as he had supposed she would after the snub she had received at the table. She followed, slowly, almost stealthily toward the heavy crimson curtains of the wide doorway, as if she had some evil intent in her going.

Old Joe had built a fire in the fireplace, and the flames flickered and leaped rosily on the white marble mantel, making shadows and fitful lights on the high ceiling as they entered and giving a look to the lifelike paintings on the wall as if the owners were there awaiting them. They stepped within, and then Greeves touched the switch and flooded the room with light. Old Standish Silver had been a progressive man, and the house had been wired as soon as electricity for lighting had come to Silver Sands. It flared up garishly now and brought the sleeping portraits to life, and instinctively all eyes were raised to the painting over the mantel, where special lights had been placed to show it to advantage.

Joe Quinn had been mending the fire and was just backing away; Anne Truesdale was hovering uneasily beside the curtain, wondering how she could extract the fly from the ointment. The minister and Silver stood inside the doorway at one side, with Athalie still defiant just behind them, when Patterson Greeves stepped within and looked up. They all looked up, and breath was suspended. For there rose the lovely face of Alice Jarvis within her gilded frame, smeared and disfigured with chocolate, covering the sweet lips, dripping down the curve of cheek and chin grotesquely! And there below with bold, sensuous challenge, exulted the pictured eyes of Lilla!

Chapter 12

T
here was a tense moment during which all eyes were fastened with a horrible fascination on the desecrated picture. Then Patterson Greeves’s army-officer voice rang out like cut steel: “Who did that?”

His face had grown so white that it frightened Silver to look at him. Athalie instinctively withdrew to the shelter of the curtain. He stood looking around on the group, slowly from one face to another, beginning with old Joe, who had halted midway to the door and was ashy under his weather-tanned skin, answering back his master’s severe gaze with grave, frightened eyes.

“I dunno, sir. I ain’t seen it, sir, before, sir! It was that dark when I come in to light the fire. I didn’t look up, sir!”

The look passed on, steadily, unflinchingly, recognizing the sympathy in the eyes of Bannard and Silver only by a quiver of the set upper lip. He read the face of Anne Truesdale like a book. It said in every quiver of indignant lip and fiery eye that she was not to blame, though she could tell him where to search for the culprit and only awaited a word from him to turn the tide of retribution as it certainly ought to be turned. So his eyes came to rest upon the daring, unsorry face of his younger daughter, peering out eerily as if relishing the dénouement of her escapade.

No one dared turn and look at her. It would seem that look of her father’s must have scorched her soul, so full it was of outraged pride and love and sanctity. She must have learned from it at once how deep her arrow had gone in his soul, how much he had cared for that woman in the golden frame. How impossible it had been for him ever to care for her own mother like that. How really futile in the light of that look her mission in the house had become. Yet part spirit of his spirit, she dared him back with a glance as steady, as haughty, even while she trembled visibly at what she had invoked. It was as though she had been the embodiment of all his mistakes and sins come to mock him. So their eyes clashed, and the man with one final thrust of judgment and condemnation in the flash of his eye, turned back once more to the profaned picture.

It was then for the first time that he saw the portrait beneath it, set out in the clear detail of perfect photography, as beautiful yet sensuous, as dauntless, as abandoned in every line of supple body and smiling face as the daughter whose hand had placed her there.

A low exclamation of horror burst from his lips, and he strode forward, white with anger, and struck it full in the faithless smiling face till the glass shivered in fine fragments on the white of the marble below and the blood ran down in drops from his hand.