Making Over Martha 30

Making Over Martha 30

"Well, won’t I? It seems to me, you have quite a keen eye for the main

chance. At least, that’s how I’ve made it out, judging from your

behavior. At first, you were all for marrying him, when you thought you

could do it on the sly, without sacrificing your interests with me.

Then, on the impulse of the moment, for Norris’s benefit, maybe, you

played tragedy-queen and forswore your fortune for the sake of the man

you love. All of which would have been very pretty and romantic—if you

had stuck to it. But, when you had had time to calculate—presto! it’s

your lover you repudiate, to hang on to the money. Now you’re fairly

certain he’s got all you’ll need—doctors fleece one abominably,

nowadays! Come and feel your pulse, and give you a soothing-syrup, and

send in a bill for ten dollars, and _that’s_ no placebo, I tell you!

Oh, there’s no doubt you’ll be rich, if you marry a _doctor_—— Where

was I?"

 

"You were running down doctors, grandmother, and I don’t see how you

can, when you know what those you’ve had have done for you. I——"

 

"There, there! I don’t need _you_ to inform me, young miss. What I was

saying is, nobody would doubt, for a minute, you’ll take him now. _I_

don’t."

 

"Grandmother," the girl began, with the same kind of exaggerated

punctilio Martha had observed in Mr. Ronald. "Grandmother, I want to be

very respectful to you. I don’t want to say one word that will excite

you, or make you ill. But I think you take unfair advantage of me. You

taunt me, and jeer at me because you know I can’t hit back, without

being an unutterable coward."

 

Madam Crewe made a clicking sound with her tongue.

 

"On the whole, I think I’d like it better if you _did_ hit back,

providing you hit back in the right way. No temper, you understand. No

rage, no rumpus and that sort of vulgarity. But real dexterous

thrusting and parrying. Now, for example, you missed an opportunity a

few moments ago. When I said I’d have liked to have a grandchild I could

be proud of, you might have retorted, ’I’m sorry I disappoint you,

grandmother, but, perhaps, if _you_ had been Dr. Ballard’s grandmother,

his distinction might not have been so great.’ That would have been a

silencer, because,—it would have been true. I’m afraid you’re not very

clever, my dear."

 

"If that sort of thing—slashing people with one’s tongue, is clever, I’m

glad I’m stupid."

 

"There! That’s not so bad! Try again!" applauded the old woman.

 

Katherine turned away, with a gesture of discouragement.

 

"It never occurred to me before," Madam Crewe meditated, "but what you

really need is a sense of humor. You’re quite without humor. You’ve

brains enough, but you have about as much dash and sparkle as one of

your husband-that-is-to-be’s mustard-plasters. Only the mustard-plaster

has the advantage of you in sharpness."

 

The girl wheeled about abruptly. "He is not my husband that-is-to-be.

I have told you that before."

 

"But the circumstances have changed. Now you know he is

distinguished—probably well-to-do——"

 

"It only makes another barrier. Can’t you see? Can’t you understand?"

 

"Perhaps I might, if you’d have the goodness to explain. But you must

remember, I’m an old woman. It’s a great many years since I had

heroics."

 

"Perhaps you never had them," Katherine retorted. "Perhaps you never

were _young_—never cared for any one with all your heart. Perhaps you

never had a heart."

 

"Perhaps," agreed Madam Crewe. "In which case, don’t appeal to it.

Appeal to my imagination. That, at least, I can vouch for."

 

"I took your word for it, that Dr. Ballard was a young struggling

doctor, poor—with, at best, no more than a problematic future—that’s

what you said—a problematic future."

 

"Well?"

 

"When I began to suspect he cared for me, I was glad he hadn’t a lot of

advantages, to emphasize my want of them. It didn’t seem to me, then,

so impossible, that as poor as I should be, and as dull as you’ve always

said I am, I might marry him some day, if he loved me. I never cared a

rush about that nonsense connected with his grandfather. I wouldn’t

have cared, if it had been true. So when you threw mud at _my_

grandfather and father, I didn’t suppose _he’d_ care—or believe

it—either. And, he didn’t and—doesn’t. So far, we stood about equal.

I could give him as true a love as he could give me. But——"

 

"Oho! So that’s your idea. I see your point now. You’ve got the kind

of love that weighs and balances, have you? You won’t take more than

you can give! Why, young miss, let me tell you, you may think that’s

high-flown and noble—it’s no such thing! If you want to know what it

is, it’s your great-grandfather’s arrogance turned inside out, that’s

all! If you refuse to marry the man you love, because you have nothing

to offer him, you’re as bad as I was when I refused because my lover had

nothing to offer me. There’s a pride of poverty that’s as detestable as

the pride of riches. You talk about love! You don’t know what the word

means. If you did, you’d see that the real thing is beyond such mean

dickering. In love _fair exchange is low snobbery_."

 

The girl stared silently into her grandmother’s face. Two bright spots

were glowing in the withered cheeks, the old woman’s eyes shot forth the

fire of youth.

 

For the second time Katherine felt that the drawbridge was down.

Impulsively, she took a step forward, grasping one of the little old

hands, folding it tight in both her own.

 

"Grandmother, I want to tell you something—I see what you mean and—I

know it’s true. But—but—there’s something else——"

 

Madam Crewe did not withdraw her hand. It almost seemed to Katherine as

if its clasp tightened on hers.

 

"What else?"

 

"When he—when Dr. Ballard first spoke to me about his grandfather, he

said, ’But after all, the only thing that really counts is character.’

He said: ’One can afford to whistle at family-trees if one’s own record

is clean!’ He said: ’After all, what’s most important, is to be

straight goods one’s self. If I’d lied, or was a coward or had taken

what belonged to some one else, or had any other dirty rag of memory

trailing after me, I’d hesitate to ask any one to share my life with me,

but——’"

 

"Well?"

 

"Grandmother—_I’ve_ the kind of dirty rag of memory, he spoke about.

I’m a coward—I’ve lied—I’ve taken what belonged to some one else."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XIII*

 

 

Madam Crewe said nothing.

 

She gazed into Katherine’s face blankly for a moment, then gradually

withdrew her eyes to fix them on a bit of sky visible through the bowed

shutters of the open window.

 

When the silence became unendurable, "Won’t you speak to me,

grandmother?" the girl pleaded. "Won’t you let me feel you understand?"

 

There was a long pause before any answer came.

 

"Understand? No, I don’t understand. How could one understand one’s

own flesh and blood being, doing—what you describe? That story would be

perpetually new—perpetually incomprehensible. But perhaps you’re

vaporing. Using big words for insignificant things. A child’s trick.

Tell me the truth, and be quick about it."

 

There was something so formidable in the tiny old woman sitting there,

coldly withdrawn into herself again, controlling any show of natural

emotion with a fairly uncanny skill, that Katherine quailed before her.

 

In as few words as possible, she sketched the story of the recovered

pocket.

 

Madam Crewe heard her through, in silence. In silence, received the

object that had, at one time, been such a determining factor in her

life. Katherine could not see that she betrayed, by so much as the

quiver of an eyelash, the natural interest one might be conceived as

feeling in so significant a link with the past.

 

"Be good enough to leave me," the old woman said at last. "And don’t

open this subject again, unless I bid you. If I need any one I’ll ring

for Eunice. Don’t _you_ come—for the present. Oh, before you go, see

that you keep a close mouth about this thing, not alone to me, but to

_every one_. Understand?"

 

Katherine nodded dumbly. She felt like a child dismissed in disgrace,

or a prisoner returned to his cell. She did not know how long she

remained in her room, but when Eunice came to announce luncheon, she

sent her away, merely explaining that she was not hungry. And would

Eunice kindly answer if Madam Crewe should ring?

 

Within her, a hundred impulses of revolt urged to some act of

self-deliverance. She fought them down with appeals to her own better

nature, her grandmother’s need of her. It was to escape from herself,

as much as from her environment, that, at last, in desperation, she

caught up her hat and left the house.

 

She had been gone several hours, and it was twilight, when a low tap

sounded on Madam Crewe’s door.

 

Without waiting for permission to come in, Dr. Ballard did so. The old

woman started up, as if his presence roused her from sleep, but he could see she had been fully awake.