Making Over Martha 39

Making Over Martha 39

"Sit still! I know he was your father—but he was my son _first_. I

used to pray, night after night, that he might not live to follow in his

father’s footsteps. Useless. The taint was too strong.

 

"He married your mother precisely as your grandfather had married me. I

would have prevented it, if I had known. It was all so carefully,

secretly arranged that I did not know. Your mother was sacrificed, as I

had been. Her fortune was swept away. She died when you were hardly

more than a baby. I was glad when she died. She was out of it.

 

"Your father brought you to me to be cared for. The sight of you, in

your little black ribbons, was a constant reproach. I was afraid to

look into your eyes, for fear I should see in them what had killed your

mother.

 

"One thing I determined, that you were not to be spoiled. I would bring

you up as well as I could. I had failed with your father. I would try a

different method with you. I repeat, I acted in good faith. I did my

best.

 

"Your father died suddenly—no matter how—enough that ’twas

disgracefully. Within a twelve-month, I was a widow. Behind my crêpe I

humbly thanked Almighty God.

 

"When I came to settle up my estate, I found myself practically

impoverished. That is, everything had been so attached, encumbered, I

could get no benefit from it. My income must be turned back to the

estate, to save it. My only salvation—yours—was to cut myself off from

all but a pittance, until every claim had been met, and I stood free and

quit. That has been done. I owe no man anything. I have sacrificed

much, but not my integrity, and not one acre, one security belonging to

the property your great-grandfather left me, rescued from my husband. It

is all intact. Your inheritance——"

 

Katherine was on her feet in an instant.

 

"Inheritance!" she blazed. "You have just told me what my inheritance

is! Fraud, lies, treachery—everything that is base. What does money

matter to a creature like me? I can never get away from what I am. As

you say, ’the taint is too strong!’ Hush! _I_ am speaking now. And

I’m _going_ to speak, and you’ve _got_ to listen! For once in my life,

I am going to have my say—I’m going to forget I am young and you are

old, and I’m going to let you know what I have been feeling, thinking,

_being_ all these years, when you’ve thought I was a tame thing you

could order about, and scold and ridicule, to the top of your bent.

 

"I know, now, why I was a lonely, unloved child. I’ve always wondered,

before, for I _tried_ to be good—even when I was too much of a baby to

be anything else. I know, now, why you watched me out of the corners of

your eyes, as if you were waiting for me to try to deceive you, in some

way. You were waiting for my ’_inheritance_’ to crop out. How could I

ever have been anything, but at my worst with you? How could I be

clever, when you insisted I was dull? How could I be _myself_, when you

condemned me, by your fears, to be my grandfather, and my father? What

you waited for, came. Of course it would. I stole, I lied. I was a

coward. ’The taint was too strong!’

 

"But let me tell you this, it needn’t have been so. I could have been

saved if, when I was a child—— Oh, I can’t bear it! I can’t bear it!"

 

She shrank together into a wretched heap on the floor, her head bowed on

her knees.

 

Madam Crewe gazed at her, a strange shadow creeping over her face. As

if to herself, she murmured, "That is what your grandfather used to

plead—and your father. Whenever they were discomforted, they always

said they couldn’t bear it. So they didn’t bear it. _I_—and others—had

to bear it."

 

The sound of her voice, low as it was, brought Katherine to her feet.

All the pent-in passion of her life, breaking loose now, beat

mercilessly down upon the defenseless old woman before her. In some

unaccountable way, the two seemed to have changed places. It was she

who dominated, her grandmother who submitted.

 

The lamp burned low, sending out a rank odor that filled the room. The

clock struck out three deep bell-notes.

 

Katherine, shuddering, sobbing, felt herself caught up in the

whirlwind-strength of a new impulse. She turned her back on her

grandmother. A moment, and the door of her own chamber shut her in.

 

Madam Crewe’s head fell forward upon her breast.

 

* * * * *

 

The clock had just struck half-past five, when Martha groped her way

downstairs.

 

She had her work "cut out for her," as she would have expressed it, and

must start in promptly. She had just kindled a new fire in the

kitchen-range, and was about to set out for the henhouse, and cow-barn,

when a step on the porch brought her up standing.

 

In a second she had crossed the room, swung open the kitchen-door.

 

"Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless undertone of one

brought face to face with a dread turned reality.

 

Katherine seemed to understand without need of explanation. She shook

her head.

 

"No—grandmother’s not sick. Grandmother is all right. But—I’m going

away. I’ve left home. I’ll never go back! Never! We had it out

together last night, grandmother and I. _Last_ night, and _all_ night.

I’ll never cross that doorsill again, if I have to beg in the streets,

or—starve."

 

Martha quietly closed the door, led Katherine to a chair, then set the

water-kettle on the stove, without asking a question, saying a word.

 

"I’ve come straight to you, Mrs. Slawson," the girl continued

breathlessly, "because you’re my only friend in the place. The only one

who knows anything about the kind of life I’ve led, and would

understand."

 

"But, I _don’t_ understand," Martha corrected her. "I thought—that is to

say, I somehow or other, got the idea the two of youse was goin’ to get

along better, after this. I can’t think how things could ’a’ got to

this pass when, the last I heard, everything looked so promisin’."

 

Katherine took her up quickly. "I don’t know what you mean by

_promising_. The day Mrs. Ronald was taken sick, I told grandmother

about—about—what I’d done. You know—the pocket—with the letters. And

she treated me like a dog. Oh, she was cruel. Sent me away, out of her

sight, as if I’d been something hateful to her—which I am. She hasn’t

spoken to me since, until last night, except to give some order. I

don’t know how you can say you thought things ’looked promising.’"

 

Martha measured out two heaping tablespoonfuls of freshly-ground coffee

into the percolator, and set it on the stove.

 

"I saw your gran’ma yesterday, Miss Katherine," she explained. "Her an’

me had a long talk, an’, from what she dropped, I got the impression she

meant to turn over a new leaf two-wards you, if you’d give her the

chance."

 

"Did she say she meant to?"

 

"No, not eggsackly ’_say_.’ But——"

 

"Well, then, I guess you were mistaken. Or, perhaps she _meant_ to try

to do better by me, and, when the time came, she just couldn’t, that’s

all. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. But no matter what she

_meant_, no matter what _I_ did, the end of it was, we had a terrible

time and—I’ve come away for—good."

 

After an interval, during which Martha had quietly relieved Katherine of

the bag she clutched, she set before her a cup of steaming, fragrant

coffee.

 

Katherine shook her head. "I couldn’t touch it. I’m not hungry."

 

"Drink it down, hungry or not!" commanded Martha authoritatively.

 

Katherine obeyed.

 

"You must have been at the house late, yesterday afternoon," she said,

between her absent sips. "For, I wasn’t there, and I’d been at home all

day except for an hour or so toward evening, when I went to the

Ronalds’. When I came in grandmother called me, and, now I come to

think of it, she did seem milder, kinder. She told me to take my dinner

and then, after dinner, to come to her. It always scares me when

grandmother summons me to appear before her—like a pensioner, or a

criminal. It’s always been that way, ever since I can remember. The

sight of her, sitting there, cold and distant as a marble image, always

freezes me to ice. I can’t help it. I know I’m a coward, but I can’t

help it.

 

"I couldn’t eat my dinner, for thinking what she had to say, so, by the

time I went up to her, I was all of a tremble inside, though I probably

didn’t show it.

 

"Then she told me—told me—about her life. About my grandfather—my

father. If you knew what I’ve sprung from, Mrs. Slawson, you’d turn me

out of your house."

 

"Rot!" said Martha, "askin’ pardon for the liberty."

 

Katherine went on—"Think of being watched, day after day—always under

suspicion.—Think of having some one always being in fear and trembling

because the time’ll surely come when you’ll show what you’ve sprung

from. And, of course, it comes. I did the things my grandfather and my

father had done before me. That was why, when I told her about the

pocket, she sent me away from her. The thing she had dreaded, had

happened."

 

"It always does," said Martha.

 

"So that’s what I am," the girl went on shudderingly, "a coward, and a

liar, and a thief. The child, and the grandchild, of cowards, thieves,

liars. There’s no hope for me! I can never be anything else."

 

Martha’s hand upon her shoulder shook her, none too gently.