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Ebook has 386 lines and 34702 words, and 8 pages

They were both outrageously extravagant--not in a gross, flaunting way, desiring the pained humiliation of those less fortunate than themselves, but in a way that showed an almost childish ignorance of the value of money. John Lawton, Sr., had been a shrewd, far-sighted, honorable man, a hard worker, who held fast to what he earned until it could earn too. Strong and self-denying, he yet fathered a son who seemed to have been born for the express purpose of being fleeced. Honest, honorable, temperate, moral, without a single vice, possessing most of the virtues, he was nevertheless that piteous creature--the well-intentioned but unsuccessful man.

After the plantations had gently slipped away from him he did not attempt to retrench. He loved his wife; he had not the heart to deny her anything; also he remembered the hysterical outburst and a tiny, tiny little grave, and he--well, he dared not suggest even a slight change in their style of living, but he did decide that something must be found to take the place of the money-yielding coffee plantations. Hence it followed that for some years there were few salted mines, whether of gold or silver; few gushing oil-wells, located miles outside of the oil belt; few Eden-like land-booms in Southern swamps, that had not found in John Lawton an eager purchaser of shares. Some fine corner lots in the business centre of a Western city--built entirely on paper--were his last, large, losing investment. After that he dribbled away the few dollars left to him in helping to secure patents for such useless inventions as an ink-well with automatic cover that was meant to keep the ink from evaporating, but failed to do it. A dish-washing machine looked like a winner, until he found it was apt suddenly to go wrong and crush more dishes in a moment than the most impetuous Bridget would destroy in a week. And a cow-milker had lately absorbed the money that should have gone for walking boots. Each time he was deceived he was as greatly surprised as he had been on the first occasion; then, sadly gathering up his worthless shares, he tied them neatly together with pink tape, labelled them, laid them aside--and was ready to be taken in again. In all these foolish investments he was actuated solely by love for his family. There was no taint of selfishness underlying his desire to regain a lost fortune. He suffered twice to their once, since he felt every one of their privations in addition to his own. In his slow way he had come to understand that his weakness had brought about the family's downfall. He had not been strong enough to hold what he had once possessed, and even when he knew they were rushing to destruction, he had not been strong enough to put the brakes down hard. He said little--almost nothing; but there were times when his wife thought him sleeping when he sat with closed eyes thanking God for that tiny grave which held his only son, for had he lived a weakling like himself he might have carried the good old name down to no one knows what depths; while the girls, such good girls, such pretty girls they were, would doubtless marry some time, and so the name would pass, would be forgotten; and the absent look would be very marked, when his pale blue eyes opened again. The poor, tender-hearted, gullible old gentleman!

That Grandaunt Lucilla, who at their wedding feast had prophesied ruin within twenty years for the Lawtons, had lived long enough to see the seeds of extravagance sown by them take root, develop stalk and stem, and blossom forth into many mortgages--for stranger hands to gather; so, leaving her savings to that "tinkling cymbal of humanity," as she called her grandniece, Letitia Lawton, she first secured the legacy with so many legal knots and seals and witnesses and things, that it simply could not be squandered by one Lawton, nor invested by the other; and now it was to that small inheritance that they clung for their lives.

The family's position was most painful, but the girls suffered most. In the past John and Letitia had danced long and merrily, so it was but fair that they should now "pay the piper," but Sybil and Dorothy, for all their warm young blood and springy feet, danced not, for their hands were empty, and there was no one to "pay the piper" for them. Poor things, they could remember when their fine feathers had made them very fine little birds, indeed; when they had taken their walks abroad under the care of a voluble French nurse. They could remember, too, the day their pretty, ever-talkative mamma had refused to go to church with but one man on the carriage box. Then there had come a time when there was no man and no carriage and no French maid. Then flittings followed, and after each one fewer friends had followed them, and the last flitting had brought them here, to the old White house, or to Woodsedge, as Mrs. Lawton sternly commanded all to call it; and no old friends seemed likely to follow them out of the land of plenty, while it was too soon yet to know whether they would find new friends in the desert. So they could only make the best appearance possible and rush up their bedroom curtains. And as they worked, Sybil, the impetuous, with flushing cheeks, told Dorothy, who steadily turned-down and hemmed, how impossible it was for her to do anything but act; how sure she was she could act; how clearly she was going to put the case before papa. And then Dorothy wished to know how Sybil was going to get into a theatre--a really nice theatre was not so easily entered. For herself, she would rather try to write--then you could send your manuscript to the publishers and not go outside of your own home-- "That is," she added, reluctantly, "if--you have plenty of stamps."

And just then John Lawton lowered the paper he had been reading, as he sat at the far end of the porch, and asked: "Girls, have you noticed a young woman who rides past here on horseback evenings, generally without a groom?"

"Yes!" cried the girls. "Sometimes she comes scrambling down that rocky lane below us," said Sybil, "but she never does that on the big chestnut--he'd break his legs."

"Nice horse, that," commented Mr. Lawton. "But do you know who she is?"

"No, papa, do you?" asked Dorothy, turning the last hem.

"Y--e--s," was the slow answer. "I was looking at the swelling on the leg of that black police-horse last night, and I told him--the policeman, I mean--that a bandage was needed, and just then along came the young woman, riding a small bay at almost a dead run. I thought at first there was work for the policeman to do, but the rider touched her cap as she rushed past, and the officer guessed my thought, for he said: 'No; that ain't no runaway! I suspect the bay's been a bit unruly; anyway, she never rides at such a spanking gait as that except in the cool of the evening and when the roads are quiet.' He seemed to know the lady so well that I asked if she lived in the neighborhood, and he said: 'Why, good Lord! Don't you know who she is? Why, that's Claire Morrell, the actress.'"

With a cry Sybil sprang to her feet, wide-eyed and palpitating with excitement, while Dorothy exclaimed, reproachfully: "Oh, papa, why did you not tell us before? Where does she live? Now don't say you don't know and so reduce us to the necessity of interviewing the policeman for ourselves!"

Mr. Lawton gently pinched his bandaged finger, to see how much it was hurt, before answering: "Miss Morrell, who is Mrs. Barton in private life, you know, lives as the crow flies exactly opposite us on Riverdale Avenue, at a place called The Beeches."

"Oh! oh!" cried Dorothy. "Let's go and tell mamma whom she has for a neighbor--she will be so interested! She used to be quite proud of living near a former residence of Miss Kemble, the English actress. Come, Sybil dear--why, are you asleep?" For her sister had been standing, staring dumbly into space. Now she leaned forward and whispered, rapidly:

"Dorrie! Dorrie! Here is the answer to your question, and here is my one chance! This woman has power to help me, and she shall use it--yes, if I have to go upon my knees to her! Her hand shall open to me the stage-door of the theatre!"

SHOPPING UNDER DIFFICULTIES

Early in their second week at Woodsedge it became evident that someone would have to go to the city to do some very necessary shopping, and a great gloom descended and enwrapped the Lawtons in consequence. The ancient legend says that the prospect of a shopping expedition ever fills the female soul with wild, unreasoning joy, which is a too general and too positive prediction. But that is the trouble with most legends, composed as they are of a little truth, much imagination, and more sweeping assertion; and I have no doubt this last irritating quality has caused the destruction of many a legend that was both beautiful and poetic. Now, fable to the contrary notwithstanding, shopping is not an unalloyed joy--always fatiguing--often a positive penance. It is sometimes a pleasure, and on rare occasions it may become an absolute delight, say, for instance, when a woman is young and pretty and has a full purse. The knowledge of her own beauty and her ability to adorn it will make the selecting, the choosing, the trying, the adapting, the decision, the retraction, the fluttering, and the hesitating--all delightful. Or when a woman who has herself passed the period of coquettish dressing shops from a full purse for those she loves, whose tastes and desires she knows perfectly, with what beaming eyes she will hover over the best, the rarest, comparing, selecting without a thought of price, only seeking beauty and quality--such shopping is unqualified pleasure.

But the gates of this shopping Paradise were closed against the Lawtons, and Sybil and Dorothy, like two made-over, rebound, cotton-backed little Peris, stood and wept as they shook vainly at the bars. Mr. Lawton had in all good faith offered to go to the city and do their errands for them, but his services had been promptly declined, though with many qualifying pats and strokes from Sybil and a violet boutonni?re from Dorothy, who had remarked, as she tied it with a blade of grass: "Poor papa--he would come home with barely half the list filled."

"Worse than that," said Sybil. "Poor papa would have come home plucked bare to his innocent old breast."

"Yes!" sighed Dorothy, "someone would surely swindle him out of part of his money, if he went down by his tempting old self."

It was very difficult for the sisters to go out together, because of the lack of appropriate clothing, yet neither one wished to have Mrs. Lawton as a shopping companion. Not that they were lacking in affection for their mother--far from it; but, truth to tell, she was a very silly old person, who, like a certain royal house of France, never learned anything and never forgot anything; and when she walked through the shopping district with her girls, she invariably made them wish they had never been born. She had such a dreadful habit of stopping before some show window and remarking, in a high shrill voice: "Yes, that's fairly good, but it's not to be compared with what I had when," etc., etc. Or she would sit at a counter, and, with eye-glasses on nose, carefully examine forty-cent pairs of cotton stockings, describing meantime to the clerk the exact style of silk stockings she used to wear years before, closing the incident with a condescending: "You may give me three pairs of these--though, to confess the truth, my foot has never yet become accustomed to such coarse web." Small wonder the girls did not care to shop with their mamma.

Therefore, they had spent an entire day making the preparations that were necessary if they were to go to the city together. Dorothy had pulled apart a black velvet bow from an old hat, steamed it free of wrinkles, and had made a fairly decent belt, and hours had gone to the minute stitching of her gloves; while Sybil's wrath had been aroused by the necessity of inking her purplish boot heels.

"No other shoes but mine go like that," she grumbled. "One would suppose my skirts had teeth to gnaw my heels," and at Dorothy's quick laughter Sybil attacked her with her inky bit of cotton, and their wild struggle so aroused Yellow Dick that he instantly assumed the horrid front of war--quivering his drooping wings, extending his neck, with wee beak open an eighth of an inch wide, and fierce crest rising and lowering rapidly. He felt himself to be a terrifying object, and nothing short of three fat hemp seeds, held to him between the lovely lips of Sybil could induce him to accept peace.

"What a quick-tempered little wretch Dick has become of late," said Dorothy.

"Oh, well--never mind his small tantrums, so long as he doesn't begin to tell about what a splendid cage he used to have."

"He can't," laughed Dorothy, "for he was hatched as well as brought up in this old cage--he doesn't know any other."

"Thank Heaven for that!" responded Sybil, who then ran to the window, crying:

"There she goes, Dorrie!" and her sister understood at once that "she" was that actress-neighbor of whom Sybil dreamed at night and talked by day. For of late the girl's desire to go upon the stage had developed into a passion. Ardent, romantic, and imaginative as she was, the sweetness of a life of ease and pleasure would probably have smothered the ambition that sharp necessity was now rapidly developing. For it is the almost sterile soil of poverty that oftenest produces the cactus-like plant of Ambition, whose splendid and dazzling flowers are, alas, so often without perfume.

And now Dorothy had John Strange Winter and The Duchess quite to herself evenings, while Sybil thumbed the family Shakspere--a dreadful edition of the fifties, all aflaunt with gilt edges and gilt lettering on the outside, and sprinkled through with most harrowing pictures and libellous and defamatory portraits of Forrest, Cushman, and the rest--for the steel engraver too "loveth a shining mark."

Looking once at a picture of the "Merry Wives of Windsor"--a blowsy, frowsy, dreadfully decollet? couple--Dorothy had deprecatingly exclaimed: "Oh, Syb, dear! You won't ever have to look like that, will you, if you become an actress?"

"Good heavens, no! Don't be such a goose, Dorrie! Can't you see these are not actresses at all? They are just imaginary pictures of Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, drawn by some stupid, coarse-minded man!"

And Dorrie, properly snubbed, went back to "Molly Bawn," and left Sybil to rumple her hair and grow very red-cheeked over her study of Juliet--for where is the stage-struck girl who begins with any lesser character? Then, while they brushed their hair and plaited it ? la Chinoise for the night, Sybil laid before her sister some wildly impossible plan for making the immediate acquaintance of Claire Morrell, and Dorothy listened to her continual harping on that one string with a gentle patience that was wonderful in one so young. But Dorrie had a firm faith in God's promise to His people--His people being, in her eyes, those who loved Him; and from that faith came the patience that was her strength, and that often supported older members of the family through trying hours.

All being in readiness, it did not take long for the girls to dress for breakfast and for an early start cityward. So, carrying down their hats and gloves and the sunshade they had borrowed over night from Mrs. Lawton, they came laughing into the dining-room, to find that lady trussed up in her street gown, instead of the usual breakfast jacket, and heard her sharply announce: "I, too, am going to the city this morning!"

"W--why, mamma!" faltered both girls, and then Dorothy turned her blue eyes away, that the rising tears might not be seen.

"But--but I thought everything was all settled last night?" quavered Sybil.

Now to be just, one must admit that, though very garrulous, Letitia Lawton was not an ill-tempered woman, and this unusual sharpness of tone and word brought utter amazement into the eyes of her daughters. John Lawton's slippered feet shifted uneasily beneath the table: "I'm afraid your coffee will grow cold, my dear!" he murmured.

Sybil ventured to suggest that the shopping list, though long, was simple enough for a child to manage successfully, and just then both girls became aware of something unusual in their mother's appearance--of a sort of toning down--a--a lessening of color--a--not a pallor exactly, but a--why? As they turned troubled, bewildered eyes toward each other, Lena, who always left them to wait upon themselves at breakfast, while she played femme de chambre upstairs, came stumbling down, volubly defending herself in advance from some unspoken charge and holding something in her closed wet hand: "I no have done dot ting! no, I neffer make mit dot ting! No, neffer! My Miss Ladies! Vunce--youst vunce--I touch dot cork to de tongue--youst dot I see if it vas beet juice alretty, und it vasn't--und I ain't broke nottings! No, my Herr Mister--nottings!"

"In other days," groaned Mrs. Lawton, "this girl would only have known my scullery!"

"Why, Lena," said Dorothy, "nothing has been broken--so, of course, you cannot be blamed."

"Oh!" cried Lena, desperately, "der mistress's red-cheeks bottle is broked, und I don't do it!"

"Lena!" ejaculated Mrs. Lawton, "leave the room!"

"I show first, den I leave der rooms!" said Lena, tearfully. "See you here, my Miss Ladies," said she, opening her hand. "I find him in der slops-jar--but, I don't neffer break der lady's cheeks-bottle--neffer!-- no!"

There, on the wet palm, lay the half of a tiny bottle, whose contents had been red, and on its front still clung the legend "Rouge-Vinaigre." The girls' eyes sank, their faces flushed red all over. This explained the unusual paleness of their mother, the sudden necessity for visiting the city, and the spoiling of their day. A painful silence, broken only by Lena's snuffle, held them for a moment; then Mr. Lawton spoke, almost sternly: "You may go, Lena--I know all about who broke the toilet bottle. Give me my coffee, Letitia."

And then Sybil gave unconscious proof of an ability to act. For, conquering her shamed surprise at learning that her mother painted, she raised calm eyes, and said, in a perfectly matter-of-course way: "Oh, mamma, it's a shame not to feel more sorry for your accident, but I was always a selfish little wretch, and I know right where that lovely store is where all the imported toilet articles are on sale--and oh, dear mamma! if you will only trust me to get your 'vinaigre de toilette' I shall have a chance of seeing all those exquisite shell ornaments, and the Rhinestone hair-pins, and the newest models for hair dressing. Indeed, Dorrie and I might pick up some very useful ideas there."

Mrs. Lawton hesitated. Sybil's manner of accepting the mortifying discovery as a mere matter of course was certainly comforting, but she "did not think it proper," she said, "for young girls to go into a store and buy r--r--that is, vinaigre de toilette."

"But," urged Sybil, who knew her mother, enjoying perfect health, dearly loved to be treated as an invalid, "the day is going to be a warm one, and the first heat is very trying to one inclined to be delicate."

Mrs. Lawton sighed, and unconsciously drooped a little. Sybil continued: "And bonnet and gloves and corset and walking-boots and all the harness a well-dressed woman has to carry are so fatiguing. And the car-ride after the shopping--you will be used up, mamma!"

And in a burst of self-pity mamma concluded she would best serve the family by conserving her own poor strength. And Dorrie, meantime, under cover of following the flight of an oriole past the window, had dried the shamed tears from her eyes, and her father, cup in hand, discoursing upon the superiority of the Baltimore over the orchard oriole, had screened her from the other two, and had left a pitying kiss on the crown of her bonnie head. And so at last they started for what Sybil called their day of "ninety-nine-and-a-half-cent" shopping.

AN ACQUAINTANCE RENEWED

As they came out of the Forty-second Street station they rushed, after the true American fashion, for a Fourth Avenue car. Another followed in two minutes, and had they been German or English they would in leisurely comfort have taken that, but being American they quite needlessly made a breathless rush for the first car, and at its step collided violently with a rotund and florid old male--"glass-of-fashion and mould-of-form." Three "beg pardons" rose simultaneously into the air. Each party drew back deferentially. The conductor, with murder in his eye, yelled fiercely: "Step lively there, will youse!" With beautiful obedience they all sprang forward to a--second collision. Puffing like a porpoise, the old man, hat in hand, gasped apologies to the now helplessly confused girls, until the conductor, with a contemptuous: "Ah--what's the matter wid youse--eider get on or take de nex'," began hauling the girls roughly up the steps with one hand, while with the other he savagely jerked the starting-bell, leaving the man to decide for himself whether to risk his elderly limbs boarding a moving car or to wait for "de nex'" The decision was swiftly made, for, firmly grasping the platform railing, he ran a few steps by the car and then swung himself safely up, in quite a jaunty fashion--for this rakish old beau had determined to keep the girlish young beauties in sight.

Coming from the station, and each carrying, as he noticed, a small black silk bag, he correctly concluded that, all unattended, they were undertaking a shopping expedition, and he drew himself up with an air and began to twirl his gray mustache, for, relying on their innocence, his own impressive manner, and the recent contretemps for assistance, he hoped to force an acquaintance--one of those chance acquaintances that, dreaded by all parents, are the absolute b?te noir of those mothers who have not been able to teach their young daughters to distinguish between a very courteous reserve and an almost "hail fellow" freedom of speech with amiable strangers. So, it was not long before Sybil, earnestly discussing at what point on their list they should begin, and whether they should leave the car at Twenty-third or at Fourteenth Street, discovered that the overdressed old man opposite was ogling Dorrie outrageously, and her dark eyes flashed indignant glances at him, while she did her best to hold her sister's attention, that she might not be annoyed and shamed by his conduct. This comedy of glances finally caught the attention of a grave-faced young man sitting next to Sybil. He followed the direction of the old man's bold glances, and Dorothy's sweet face held him like a magnet. The rounded cheek, the soft, clear coloring, the sunny, brown hair, the innocent, widely open blue eyes, and the slight lift of the brows, that all unconsciously gave her the pathetic, pleading look that made people ever eager to serve her, moved him instantly to a feeling of positive gratitude for the other girl who was trying to protect her.

The car had filled rapidly, and people, mechanically hanging themselves each by one hand from the overhead straps, swayed back and forth and trampled alike upon the feet of the just and the unjust, forming a solidly opaque screen between tormentor and tormented. Suddenly the whirr of the wheels and the demoniacal voice of the conductor crying: "Move up there--move up! There's room enough up front, if you'se'll step up to the end!" became faint and far off to the hearing of the grave-faced young man, whose gray eyes had discovered a little knot of wild violets snuggled into one of their own round green leaves and drawn through the button-hole of Dorothy's jacket. Through one dim moment he saw a boy's stumpy brown fist holding out a bunch of "vi'lets" to a sick white hand all netted over with distended blue veins, and heard a thin whispering voice saying: "And mother would have loved them quite as well if her boy had called them 'violets' instead of 'vi'lets,'" and the little blossoms became but a purple blur as he thought with a pang how long that dear admonishing voice had been silent.

The crowd had increased, and Sybil, in bobbing her head this way and that in an effort to see just where they were, became conscious of a young woman standing before her. She was very pale, and great drops of perspiration stood on her hollow temples. She carried a heavy-looking baby in her arms, and, having no strap to hold to, she reeled and staggered and pitched with every sudden start or jerking stop of the car. Sybil, with a pitying exclamation, rose and gave her place to the poor, sick-looking creature, who, sinking into the seat, raised grateful, tear-filled eyes to the dark, glowing face above her, saying: "It's the baby--he's that heavy, or I wouldn't take it from you, ma'am." Then up sprang the old beau, and offered his place to Sybil, who coldly thanked him, but preferred to stand by her sister. But that was just what he proposed to do himself--to stand by her, and quite naturally to address a few words to that fair sister, and he so far forgot himself as to put his hand on Sybil's arm and try to force her into his seat, when suddenly the grave young man rose, touched the woman with the baby on the shoulder, and said: "Move into my place, please, and allow this young lady to resume her seat." The thing had been done so quickly that there was no time for thought, and the two quick "thank yous" of the girls were followed by a grateful smile and an upward glance of Dorrie's blue eyes straight into the face of the young man, who felt his hand tremble as he lifted his hat and silently made his way through the crowd to the rear platform.

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