Making Over Martha 38

Making Over Martha 38

Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause Mrs. Peckett to come to a

sudden halt.

 

"I know what she means, Sam. Keep cool, an’ let me handle this, which

I’m the only one can, anyhow. You’d like to know the name o’ the party I

wrote them letters to, you an’ Ma amused yourselves playin’ puzzles

with? Well, I’ll tell you his name. It’s Dr. Ballard, an’ even _you_

couldn’t be so much of a looney as think _Dr. Ballard_ would give a

second thought to the likes o’ me, that I’d be writin’ love-letters

to’m, much less him wastin’ time to read’m, let alone write me back.

 

"Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he’d a likin’ for this place

an’ every mother’s son in it, which, _I s’pose_, that means you, too,

an’ he ast would I write’m, to tell how things was goin’ on, an’ if Miss

Claire an’ the baby was gettin’ on, an’ how Buller was comin’ along. I

promised I would. An’ I kep’ my promise, an’ I’m goin’ to keep on

keepin’ it. Any objection?"

 

Mrs. Peckett signified she had none.

 

"Then all that remains is to say good-by," said Martha gravely, rising

and standing with quiet dignity beside her husband.

 

Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door. Then abruptly she turned and

extended her hand to Martha.

 

Sam Slawson shook his head. "No, you don’t!" he forbade decidedly.

 

"I guess we better wait a while, an’ see how we feel about each other

later," Martha explained without animus. "My husban’ says, ’No, you

don’t!’ so’ o’ course that settles it for the present, anyhow. It’s a

kind o’ pity things has come to this pass, for I don’t like to be on the

outs with anybody. But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett. If my

husban’ had been like _some_ men——! I don’t see how you dared do it,

knowin’ you’re a woman, yourself, with a man o’ your own. P’raps ’twas

because you’d set out to make me over, that you hold me so cheap. I

always noticed folks is never so choice o’ made-over things. They think

the best wear’s out of’m anyhow, an’ it don’t matter if they do use’m

sort o’ careless now. But it _is_ matter, for it’s _you’ll_ be blamed

for not bein’ clean, not the thing you’ve dirtied. Besides, sometimes a

_made-over_ will serve you better than new. I give you leave to

remember that, Mrs. Peckett."

 

When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud.

 

"The fear is in me heart. I haven’t a limb to move, the way I’d be

dreadin’ Sam’s punishin’ me!" she moaned, rocking backward and forward

in her chair.

 

"He’ll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.

 

Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother.

 

"I’ll not punish you," he said, "but after what’s happened, I guess

we’ll all feel happier if you make your home away from this."

 

"I’ll die ere ever I’ll go back to New York City to live wit’ the likes

o’ them as don’t want me!" sobbed the old woman explosively.

 

"A Home, then. I’ll see you settled in a good Home."

 

Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting there, and turned to

Martha. She held up her hands with the mute appeal of a child begging

to be carried.

 

And Martha nodded. She would carry her.

 

"For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma’s only a child, after all. With

no more sense, or as much as Sabina. Let her stay, Sam."

 

 

 

 

*CHAPTER XVI*

 

 

Martha had been gone but a quarter of an hour or so, when Katherine

appeared at her grandmother’s door.

 

It had become a purely perfunctory act, this pausing at the sitting-room

threshold, and asking, "Can I do anything for you, grandmother?"

To-night the answer was startlingly out of the ordinary.

 

"Yes. Come in. I want to speak to you."

 

The girl came forward, outwardly calm, inwardly, so shaken with a morbid

dread of what might await her, that she dared not venture to speak, for

fear her voice would betray her.

 

"Light the lamp."

 

Her uncertain fingers fumbled the first match, till it dropped to the

floor. The second went out, before she could guide it to the wick.

Only at the third attempt was she successful—and she knew her

grandmother despised clumsy inefficiency.

 

"Where have you been?"

 

"To the Ronalds. We’re getting up a course of lectures, don’t you

remember, for the natives—to run through the winter."

 

"The natives to run through the winter?"

 

Katherine shrank back hypersensitively from the foolish banter.

 

"I am doing the work. Mr. Ronald is giving the money."

 

"A very proper arrangement."

 

"It has kept me busy. I hope you haven’t felt neglected."

 

"Not in the least. As usual, everything has been done for me that _had_

to be done."

 

The little old woman was trying her best to act on Martha’s advice, but

her tongue, sharpened by years of skilful practice, could not sheathe

its keen edge all at once. When next she spoke, it was with so studied

a mildness that Katherine stared at her, wondering.

 

"You probably met Slawson as you came in? You must have passed her on

the road."

 

"No, the Ronalds brought me home in their car. We drove out along the

mountain-road, to see the foliage. We came back the other way."

 

"Well, get your things off now. And when you’ve had your dinner, come

back to me. Or—no! I’ll ring!"

 

It darted through Katherine’s mind that her grandmother spoke with

singular self-repression. Again she regarded her with puzzled eyes.

Such moderation could only breed suspicion, in a mind grown abnormal in

solitary confinement.

 

The girl ate no dinner.

 

It was late before she heard the silver tinkle that sounded, in her

ears, like the crack of doom.

 

It was well her grandmother bade her, with a gesture, to sit down. Her

quaking knees would hardly have borne her, standing.

 

"I’m a coward! A poor, weak coward!" she confessed to herself bitterly,

resenting her weakness, yet apparently powerless to control it.

 

"I’ve been thinking over what you told me, and I have concluded to

change my tactics with regard to you," the old woman plunged in, without

preamble. "Perhaps I’ve made a mistake in the past, keeping from you

things you should have known. All I can say is, I acted in good faith,

for your best."

 

Katherine smiled faintly. "Isn’t that what parents always say when they

punish?"

 

Madam Crewe raised her chin in her old supercilious manner, then quickly

lowered it.

 

"I don’t know. I’ve had no experience. I never punished. Perhaps that

is where I made my mistake."

 

Again Katherine’s lips curled slightly in a wry smile.

 

"You need have no regrets there, grandmother. You have nothing to make

up to me on that score."

 

"You mean I have punished you?"

 

"Oh—very thoroughly."

 

"Curious! I can’t see myself doing it."

 

"I can’t see you _not_ doing it!"

 

Madam Crewe, in her turn, stared, surprised. Katherine was acting out of

all character, in quite a new, unaccountable fashion.

 

"I suppose I must take your word for it," her grandmother admitted with

an odd sigh. "Be kind enough not to interrupt. You know the story of

the man I did not marry. Now you shall hear the story of the man I did

marry.

 

"My father took me abroad after—after the Ballard fiasco. I did not

care where I went, what I did. I was quite broken down. Quite, as

Slawson would say, ’broken up.’ Nothing made any difference to me.

Everything was distasteful.

 

"One day, in London, my father brought a young man to me, introducing

him as my future husband. That was all there was to it. I neither

objected, nor approved. I had no mother. I did not understand.

 

"We were married almost immediately—my new lover was very eager. He

urged haste. Almost immediately I discovered that my father had been

duped by a cheap adventurer, a man without heart or conscience. A poor,

weak wretch of profligate habits, a liar, a cheat. He had posed in

society as a man of means, heir to a title. He was nothing of the sort.

All those he had brought to stand sponsor for him, were hirelings paid

to mislead us.

 

"For a long time I tried to hide the truth from my father. When, at

last, he learned it, it killed him. He died in a fit of apoplexy,

brought on by rage against the man who had gulled him.

 

"My fortune was large. My husband squandered a considerable part,

before I had sense to take steps to save it. He was a spendthrift. He

forged my name on checks, he stole from my purse. I presume you wonder

why I did not rid myself of him? In those days divorces were not the

casual things they are now. A woman divorced, was a woman disgraced.

Moreover, there was the boy. For his sake I bore, forbore. For his

sake, I fought to save my fortune. He was my one hope. He was to make

up, by his perfect rightness, for all that was wrong in my universe. I

suppose I spoiled him. Slawson says you can’t spoil a good child. If

that is so, my boy must have been bad from the beginning. This I know,

he was always his father’s child. He had none of me in him. As a baby,

he was full of soft, coaxing ways. It was torture to see them gradually becoming smooth, calculating, treacherous.