men are very strange people. they are like those sums in algebra that you think about and worry about and cry about and try to get help from other women about, and then, all of a sudden, x works itself out into perfectly good sense.
i know now that i really never got any older than the poor, foolish, eighteen-years child that aunt adeline married off "safe." but all that was a mild sort of exasperation to what a widow has to go through with in the matter of—of, well, i think worrying interference is about the best name to give it.
"molly carter," said mrs. johnson just day before yesterday, after the white-dress, judge-wade episode that aunt adeline had gone to all the friends up and down the street to be consoled about, "if you haven't got sense enough to appreciate your present blissful condition, somebody ought to operate on your mind."
i was tempted to say, "why not my heart?" i was glad she didn't know how good that heart did feel under my blouse when the boy brought that basket of fish from judge wade's fishing expedition saturday. i have firmly determined not to blush any more at the thought of that gorgeous man—at least outwardly.
"don't you think it is very—very lonely to be a widow, mrs. johnson?" i asked timidly to see what she would say about mr. johnson, who is really a kind-hearted sort of man, i think. he gives me the gentlest understanding smile when he meets me in the street of late weeks.
"lonely, lonely, molly? you talk about the married state exactly like an old maid. don't do it—it's foolish, and you will get the lone notion really fastened in your mind and let some man find out that is how you feel. then it will be all over with you. i have only one regret; and it is that if i ever should be a widow mr. johnson wouldn't be here to see how quickly i turned into an old maid." mrs. johnson sews by assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was mending the sleeve of mr. johnson's lounge coat.
"i think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a man who loves her. lots of them have been married for years," i said, just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream, and went on darning one of billy's socks.
"well, be that as it may, they are the blessed members of the women tribe," she answered, looking at me sharply. "now i have often told mr. johnson——" but here we were interrupted in what might have been the rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of aunt bettie pollard, and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most wonderful close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat the minute you saw it. i hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel as though i had gained all the more than twenty pounds that i have slaved off me and doubled them on again. i would have liked to lead her that minute into dr. john's office and just to have looked at him and said one word—"scarlet-runner!" aunt betty introduced her as miss clinton from london.
"oh, my dear mrs. carter, how glad i am to meet you!" she said as she towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool almost to slimness. "i am the bearer of so many gracious messages that i am anxious to deliver them safely to you. not six weeks ago i left alfred bennett in paris, and really—really his greetings to you almost amounted to a pile of luggage. he came down to cherbourg to see me off, and almost the last thing he said to me was, 'now, don't fail to see mrs. carter as soon as you get to hillsboro; and the more you see of her the more you'll enjoy your visit to mrs. pollard.' isn't he the most delightful of men?" she asked me the question, but she had the most wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time, so mrs. johnson got in the first answer.
"delightful indeed! but alfred bennett is a man of sense not to marry any of the string of women who i suppose are running after him!" she said. miss clinton looked at her in a mild kind of wonder, but she went on hacking mr. johnson's coat-sleeve with the needle without noticing the glance at all.
"well, well, dearie, i don't know about that," said aunt bettie as she fanned and rocked her great, big, darling, fat self in the strong rocking-chair i always kept for her. "alfred is not old enough to have proved himself entirely, and from what i hear——" she paused with the big hearty smile that she always wears when she begins to tease or match-make, and she does them both most of her time.
but at whom do you suppose she looked? not me! miss clinton! that was cold tub number two for that day, and i didn't react as quickly as i might, but when i did i was in the proper glow all over. when i revived and saw the lovely pale blush on her face i felt like a cabbage-rose beside a tea-bud. i was glad aunt adeline came in just then so i could go in and tell julia to bring out the tea and cakes. when i came from the kitchen i stepped into my room and took out one of alfred's letters from the desk drawer and opened it at random, and put my finger down on a line with my eyes shut. this was what it was—
"—and all these years i have walked the world, blindfolded to its loveliness with the blackness that came to me when i found that you—"
i didn't read any more, but pushed it back in a hurry and went back to the company comforted in a way, but feeling a little more in sympathy with mrs. johnson than i had before aunt bettie and her guest from london had interrupted our algebraic demonstration on the man subject. you can't always be sure of the right answer to x in any proposition of life; that is, a woman can't!
and, furthermore, i didn't like that next hour much, just as a sample of life, for instance. aunt bettie had got her joining-together humour well started, and there, before my face, she made a present of every nice man in hillsboro to that lovely, distinguished, strange girl who could have slipped through a bucket hoop if she had tried hard. i had to sit there, listen to the presentations, watch her drink two delicious cups of tea full of sugar and cream, and consume without fear three of jane's puffy cakes, while i crumbled mine in secret and set half the cup of tea out of sight behind a fern pot.
it was bad enough to hear aunt bettie just offer her tom, who, if he is her own son, is my favourite cousin, but i believe the worst minute i almost ever faced was when she began on the judge, for i could see from aunt adeline's shoulder beyond miss clinton how she was enjoying that, and she added another distinguished ancestor to his pedigree every time aunt bettie paused for breath. i couldn't say a word about the fish and aunt adeline wouldn't! i almost loved mrs. johnson when she bit off a thread viciously and said, "humph," as she rose to start the tea-party home.
that night i did so many exercises that at last i sank exhausted in a chair in front of my mirror and put my head down on my arms and cried the real tears you cry when nobody is looking. i felt terribly old and ugly and dowdy and—widowed. it couldn't have been jealousy, for i just love that girl. i want most awfully to hug her very slimness, and it was more what she might think of poor dumpy me than what any man in hillsboro, or paris, could possibly feel on the subject, that hurt so hard. but then, looking back on it, i am afraid that jealousy sheds feathers every night so you won't know him in the morning, for something made me sit up suddenly with a spark in my eyes and reach out to the desk for my pencil and cheque-book. it took me more than an hour to reckon it all up, but i went to bed a happier, though in prospects a poorer woman.
as i sat in the train on my way to town early the next morning i thought a good deal about poor mr. carter. after this i shall always appreciate and admire him for the way he made money, and his kindness in leaving it to me, since, for the first time in my life, i fully realised what it could buy. and i bought things!
first i went to see madam courtier for corsets. i had heard about her, and i knew it meant a fortune. but that didn't matter! she came in and looked at me for about five minutes without saying a word, and then she ran her hands down and down over me until i could feel the superfluous flesh just walking off of me. it was delicious!
then she and two girls wearing fashionable frocks and fashionable hair came in and did things to a corset they laced on me that i can't even write down, for i didn't understand the process, but when i looked in that long glass i almost dropped on the floor. i wasn't tight and i wasn't stiff, and i looked—i'm too modest to write how lovely i really looked to myself. i was spellbound with delight.
next i signed the cheque for three of those wonders with my head so in the clouds i didn't know what i was doing, but i came to with a jolt when the prettiest girl began to get me into that black silk bag i had worn down to the west end. i must have shrunk the whole remaining pounds i had felt obliged to lose for alfred and ruth clinton, from the horror i felt when i looked at myself. the girl was really sympathetic and said with a smile that was true kindness: "shall i call a taxi for madame and have it take her to klein's? they have wonderful gowns by rene all ready to be fitted at short notice. really, madame's figure is such that it commands a perfect costume now."
men do business well, but when women enter the field they are geniuses at money extracting. i felt myself already clothed perfectly when that girl said my figure "commanded" a proper dress. of course, klein pays madame courtier a commission for the customers she passes on to him. the one for me must have looked to her like a big transaction.
i spent three days at the great klein establishment, only going to the hotel to sleep, and most of the time i forgot to eat. madame rene must have been madame courtier's twin sister in youth, and madame telliers in the hat department was the triplet to them both. when women have genius it breaks out all over them like measles, and they never recover from it; those women had the confluent kind. but i know that madame rene really approved of me, for when i blushed and asked her if she could recommend a good beauty doctor she held up her hands and shuddered.
"never, madame, never pour vous. ravissant, charmant—it is too foolish. nevair! jamais, jamais de la vie!" i had to calm her down, and she bowed over my hand when we parted.
i thought klein was going to do the same thing or worse when i signed the cheque which would be enough to provide him with a new motor-car, but he didn't. he only said politely, "and i am delighted that the trousseau is perfectly satisfactory to you, madame."
that was an awful shock, and i hope i didn't show it as i murmured "perfectly, thank you."
the word "trousseau" can be spoken in a woman's presence for many years with no effect, but it is an awful shock when she first really hears it. i felt queer all the afternoon as i packed those trunks for the five o'clock train.
yes, the word "trousseau" ought to have a definite surname after it always, and that's why my loyalty dragged poor mr. carter out into the light of my conscience. the thinking of him had a strange effect on me. i had laid out the dream in dark grey-blue cloth, tailored almost beyond endurance, to wear in the train going home, and had thrown the old black silk bag across the chair to give to the hotel maid, but the decision of the session between conscience and loyalty made me pack the precious blue wonder and put on once more the black rags of remembrance in a kind of panic of respect.
i would lots rather have bought poor mr. carter the monument i have been planning for months (to keep up conversation with aunt adeline) than wear that dress again. i felt conscience reprove me once more with loyalty looking on in disapproval as i buttoned the old thing up for the last time, because i really ought to have stayed a day longer to buy that monument, but—to tell the truth i wanted to see billy so desperately that his "sleep-place" above my heart hurt as if it might have prickly heat break out at any minute.
so i hurried and stuffed the grey-blue darling in the top tray, lapped the old black silk around my waist and belted it in with a black belt off a new green linen i had bought for morning walks—down to the butcher's in the high street, i suppose. that is about the only morning dissipation in hillsboro that i can think of, and it all depends on whom you meet, how much of a dissipation it is.
the next thing that happens after you have done a noble deed is, you either regard it as a reward of virtue or as a punishment for having been foolish. i felt both ways when judge wade came down the platform at st. pancras, looking so much grander than any other man in sight that i don't see how they ever stand him. at that minute the noble black-silk deed felt foolish, but at the next minute i was glad i had done it.
it is nice to watch for a person to catch sight of you if you feel sure how they are going to take it, and somehow in this case i felt sure. i was not disappointed, for his smile broke his face up into a joy-laugh. off came his hat instantly so i could catch a glimpse of the fascinating frost over his temples, and with a positive sigh of pleasure he got into the same carriage and took a seat beside me. i turned with an echo smile all over me, when suddenly his face became grave and considerate, and he looked at me as all the people in hillsboro have been doing ever since poor mr. carter's funeral.
"mrs. carter," he said very kindly, in a voice that pitched me out of the carriage window and left me a mile behind on the rails, all by myself, "i wish i had known of your sad errand to town, so that i could have offered you some assistance in your selection. you know we have just had our family grave in the cemetery finally arranged, and i found the dealers in memorial stones very confusing in their ideas and designs. mrs. henderson just told my mother of your absence from home last night, and i could only come up to town for the day on important business or i would have arranged to see you. i hope you found something that satisfied you."
what is a woman going to say when she has a tombstone thrown in her face like that? i didn't say anything, but what i thought about aunt adeline filled in a dreadful pause.
perfectly dumb and quiet i sat for a space of time and wondered just what i was going to do. it was beyond me at the moment, and the molly that is ready for life quick didn't know what to say. i shut my eyes, counted three to myself as i do when i go over into the cold tub, and then told him all about it. we both got a satisfactory reaction, and i never enjoyed myself so much as that before.
i understand now why judge wade has had so many women martyr themselves over him and live unhappily ever afterward, as everybody says henrietta mason is doing. he's a very inspiring man, and he fairly bristles with fascinations. some men are what you call taking, and they take you if they want you, while others are drawing, and after you are drawn to them they will consider the question of taking you. the judge is like that.
in the meantime i feel that it will be good for his judgeship for me to let him "draw" me at least a little way. i may get hurt, but i shall at least have only myself to thank for it. when we reached home, the judge stopped under the old lilac bush that leans over my side-gate and kissed my hand. old lilac shook a laugh of perfume all over us, and i believe signalled the event with the top of his bough to the white clump on the other side of the garden. i'm glad aunt adeline isn't in the flower fraternity. suppose she had seen or heard!
and it didn't take many minutes for me to slip into old summer-before-last—also for the last time inside of those buttons—and run through the garden, my heart singing, "billy, billy," in a perfect rapture of tune. i ran past the surgery door and found him in his cot almost asleep, and we had a bear reunion in the wicker chair by the window that made us both breathless.
"what did you bring me, molly?" he finally kissed under my right ear.
"a real cricket-ball and bat, lover, and an engine with five carriages, a rake and a spade and a hoe, two guns that pop a new way, and something that squirts water, and some other things. will that be enough?" i hugged him up anxiously, for sometimes he is hard to please, and i might not have got the very thing he wanted.
"thank you, molly, all them things is what i want, but you oughter have bringed more'n that for three days not being here with me."
did any woman ever have a more lovely lover than that? i don't know how long i should have rocked him in the twilight if dr. john's voice hadn't come across the hall in command.
"put him down now, mrs. molly, and come and say other how-do-you-does," he called softly.
it was a funny glad-to-see-him i felt as i came into the surgery where he was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its twilight glow. i gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a blush than i intended.
he very far from kissed the hand; he held it just long enough to turn me round into the light and give me one long looking-over from head to feet.
"just where does that corset press you worst?" he asked in the tone of voice he uses to say "put out your tongue." so much of my bad temper rose to my face that it is a wonder it didn't make a scar; but i was cold enough to all outward appearances.
"i am making a call on a friend, dr. moore, and not a consultation visit to my physician," i said, looking into his face as though i had never seen him before.
"i beg your pardon, molly," he exclaimed, and his face was redder than mine, and then it went white with mortification. i couldn't stand that.
"don't do that!" i exclaimed, and before i knew it i had taken hold of his hand, and had it in both of mine. "i know i look as if i was shrunk or laced, but i'm not! i was going to tell you all about it. i'm really inches bigger in the right place, and just—just 'controlled,' the woman called it, in the wrong place."
the blood came back into his face, and he laughed as he gave me a little shake that pushed me away from him. "don't you ever scare me like that again, child, or it might be serious," he said in the billy-and-me tone of voice that i like a little, only—
"i never will," i said in a hurry; "i want you to ask me anything in the world you want to, and i'll always do it."
"well, let me take you home through the garden then—and, yes, i believe i'll stay to supper with mrs. henderson. don't you want to tell me what a little girl like you did in a big city, and—and read me part of that paris letter i saw the postman give jane this afternoon?"
again i ask myself the question why his friendliness to alfred bennett's letters always makes me so instantly cross.
