The Wide House

by Taylor Caldwell

  Laurie took up her needlework again. She said: “I never hate anyone. I do not find anyone of sufficient importance to hate him.”

  Janie was shocked again. She felt herself shrink. She said to herself persistently, out of her dwindling conceit: But the lass does hate me. She may put on her la-dee-da ways and airs and graces, but she can’t get over it that I’m her Ma and she’s only my daughter, and that the hen came before the egg.

  She looked up to see that Laurie was gazing at her with strange still derision and contempt. And Janie was frightened. If Laurie hated her, it was with the hatred of a goddess for a worm, and with royal disdain. Laurie in her turn studied her mother. Janie was now more than forty-five, but a shrivelled if lively age. The artfully colored red hair was still in wiry and carroty ringlets about her wrinkling yellow neck and sallow rouged cheeks. She was thinner and slighter than ever, but very stylish, so that even Elissa had been agreeably impressed. Even Janie’s coarse and rowdy wit had delighted Elissa, as Laurie had half suspected it might, and Dick had been highly amused by her, and interested.

  Janie, trying to force herself to meet Laurie’s look unflinchingly, again felt herself dwindling. She had no power over Laurie at all, and it came to her, with furious conviction, that she had never had any power. This tall golden woman was not her daughter, had never been her daughter. She regarded Janie as of no importance at all, and Janie’s enraged hatred and humiliation almost strangled her.

  All this was very hard for Janie to endure, and she seethed inwardly. She was overcome with self-pity. Was this her reward for her motherly care of this creature, her sacrifices, her “sleepless nights,” her “prayers,” her “ambitions”? Did this odious young woman think to detach herself from the mother who had given her birth? If Laurie was famous, it was because of the “good blood” that flowed in Janie’s veins, and through Janie, into her own. Janie began to think of herself as the true source of Laurie’s fame and glorious voice, and to feel much abused and unworthily humiliated.

  But Laurie, narrowing her own long blue eyes, only looked at her mother, guessing her thoughts. Her lip curled in a cruel smile. She looked away.

  In spite of her discomfiture and hatred and rage, there was a burning question in Janie’s mind. Was Laurie to marry this grand Richard Thimbleton, who was so rich and aristocratic, and on easy acquaintance with all the powerful of America and Europe?

  Janie smirked to herself, slyly, with bursting pride and excitement. She had meant to precipitate an understanding between what she believed an importunate and obscure Laurie and a hesitant great gentleman. Yet here was Laurie, indifferent, repelling, condescending, and it was the great gentleman who was humbly ardent and entreating.

  “You are nearly nineteen, lass,” she said, “and time it is you should be married. Have you given thought to it?”

  Laurie said, jocosely: “Why should I marry?”

  Janie gaped. “And why not, pray?”

  “Why does a woman marry?” asked Laurie, with cool and smiling disinterest. “To provide shelter, clothing and food for herself: that is one reason. To escape onerous family surroundings. To have her own home. To keep herself from starving, or to free herself from the odious charity chimney-corner in some brother’s house. To acquire a position in society. For wealth. To be with the man she loves.” She gazed at her mother with sparkling reflection. “None of these reasons urge me into marriage.”

  All this to Janie was outrageous heresy and folly. Yet she had no immediate reply. What Laurie had said was true. She need not marry. At last Janie said with asperity: “You consider it proper, miss, to traipse about the world unmarried, an unprotected female, subject to ambiguous proposals, defenseless and unguarded?”

  Laurie felt the strong life and vitality in her large and beautiful body, and burst into unrestrained mirth. “Why, Ma, I have the muscles and the strength of a man, and am quite capable of dealing with any gentleman who might harbor improper designs! As for traipsing about the world unmarried, I find it a very agreeable position, and I am subject to no man’s whims and pettishnesses and jealousies. I am free.” And now her blue eyes darkened and flashed, hardening into bright stones.

  Janie stared at her with the deepest hatred and envy. Ah, what a life was this, filled with beauty, conquest, wealth and freedom! Why was it not she instead of this insensitive hulk of a girl who had been chosen for this life!

  “Why, then, did this popinjay accompany you into your own home, as your guest, following you about like a mewling calf, and cozening you with his eyes?” she cried, burning with her envy.

  “He came because he wished. I gave him no encouragement,” said Laurie, tranquilly. She put aside her work. She lay back in her chair, her fine long ankles extended beyond the rim of her hoops, her arms folded behind her radiant head. She began to hum softly to herself, and looked at the fire with abstraction. Lazy, loutish creature! thought Janie. Were it not for the neat French maid, now ensconced with the family servants up on the third and fourth floors, Laurie’s hair would be rough and untidy, her clothing mussed and wrinkled, her sandals scuffed, her stockings awry, as they had always been in the days of her childhood in this house. She accepted life, Janie observed bitterly and virulently to herself, like a great indolent cat, casually licking up the cream, indifferent to the desires or the presence of others. Only when she was crossed or annoyed aid any passion flare up in her smooth-planed face. When she had been greeted by the vociferous committee at the depot, and had seen the festoons and the decorations in her honor on Main Street, the blackest look had contorted her features as if she had felt disgust and affront. There were those who flatteringly ascribed this to natural modesty, but Janie knew that it was unjust vanity, that Laurie ought to give some decent heed to and express some gratitude for the demonstrations.

  And all this, Janie saw with her penetrating intuition, came from Laurie’s huge cold hatred for the world and all in it.

  Suddenly Janie was afraid of this girl to whom she had given birth.

  Their eyes met. An odd flicker leapt up, vanished, in the unreadable blue between Laurie’s lashes.

  But she said in an ordinary tone: “What has happened to Angus? Has that lump of German lard become intolerable to him? He looks like death itself.”

  Janie, under usual circumstances, would now have embarked on malicious gossip about her son, but that look in Laurie’s eyes, her negligent sprawled position which was like the repose of a big tawny cat, silenced her. Laurie was dangerous. Janie knew this now. So she said, affecting the annoyance of a loving mother: “Such extravagant language, Laurie! Angus is tired, and extremely busy. As for Gretchen, it is now hoped that she is expecting. It has been long enough, Heaven knows.”

  Laurie was silent. She only gazed at her mother meditatively for a long moment or two. Janie exclaimed irritably: “You and Angus were always such friends! Now you speak of him with contempt!”

  “He deserves nothing but contempt,” replied Laurie quietly. She turned her head and regarded the fire. The rosy light danced on her features as though they had been carved from golden stone.

  “Why?” demanded Janie angrily. “He is furthering himself in the world. He is doing excellently! He is respected everywhere. He is making a fortune.”

  The subtlest quiver of a smile touched Laurie’s lips. “How are his headaches these days?”

  Janie frowned. “He wears spectacles when he reads. It was his eyes, doubtless. He was always so studious. He must have strained them.” She hesitated. “He had quite a severe collapse three months ago.”

  She paused, for Laurie had swung her head back quickly to her mother. All through her long and languid body there was the queerest tightening. “A collapse? What was wrong?”

  “It was the headaches. He was ill in bed for two months, and then for several weeks could only crawl about. Mr. Schnitzel, who is so excessively kind, and as devoted to Angus as a father, brought a special and famous physician from Chicago to attend him. There was nothing
wrong. The doctor was puzzled. It was nerves, and Angus’ eyes, he finally decided.”

  “Nerves,” repeated Laurie. And then she laughed, an ugly sound. She sat up, smoothed her hair. She said: “Robbie is doing well, also, I perceive.”

  “With old Cummings’ help, of course,” replied Janie ill-naturedly. “And that chit of an Alice is expecting, also, though with that little miserable body of hers she will doubtless have an extremely bad time. It is only old Cummings’ influence which makes the city fawn so upon Robbie, I am afraid.”

  “I disagree, Ma. Robbie has a most brilliant mind. He did not need Mr. Cummings. It might have taken him a little longer, perhaps, but he would have reached his goal eventually. And what was this you told me yesterday, that Robbie might run for Congressman this year?”

  “Oh, it is a lot of talk! Nothing will come of it, I assure you. Robbie hasn’t the presence for a politician. There is no real chance for him.”

  You hope, thought Laurie, with malice. She smiled. “I am certain he will succeed. Robbie never fails. He has my best wishes, and any help I can give him.”

  Janie hated her with fresh energy. She hated her for her remarks about Robbie; she hated the negligent rich sound of her voice, which filled the dark warm room with the very sonorous echoes of music. She hated her for the hatred she felt in Laurie, and the power, and the latent danger, the implacable cruelty.

  “There is something that baffles me,” said Laurie, amusedly. “What keeps Bertie alive, with all his excesses. He looks like a corpse.”

  Janie’s heart began to pulse with the profoundest pain and grief and bitterness. She looked at her daughter with lethal intensity. How dared this creature speak of death and Bertie in the same breath, and with such malignance and malicious intent? What had Bertie ever done to her? Yet she could stare at her mother with such mercilessly smiling eyes, with such knowing malevolence, as if she guessed at the anguish in Janie’s soul, and enjoyed it.

  Janie spoke in a trembling voice, and her hands clenched spasmodically. “You never sympathized with poor Bertie. You never understood what he suffers. It will not give you pleasure, I know, to have me tell you that he has not—not—touched a drop for six months, and that he is becoming stronger every day.”

  “On the contrary,” said Laurie smoothly, “I am glad, for your sake, Ma, that he is behaving himself.”

  She yawned, smoothed her rumpled frock, shifted her hoops. Janie could only stare at her, still trembling all through her slight and withered body, as if she had been struck a vicious and intentional blow.

  Laurie was speaking again, in that neutral tone of hers. “And how are the shops getting along?”

  It took Janie a few moments to gather her forces to answer. But here was a subject very vital to her. She said in a hard and exulting voice: “Very badly. I receive my money regularly, of course. Stuart would not dare withhold it, even if it came from his purse, or from the purse of that dreadful Jew. He is horribly in debt, Stuart. The war has done him no good at all. His supply of cotton goods has been cut off, naturally. It would not surprise me if he failed very shortly.”

  In her triumph and elation, she did not see that Laurie had sat up in her chair, that she had paled. She only heard Laurie say: “Why does all this please you? You have money invested in the shops.”

  Janie grinned, and tossed her red ringlets. “Why does it please me, ma’am? Because when Stuart is forced into bankruptcy, which will not be so long now, Angus will buy him out, and buy out that Jew, also. He will force them out. Though you may have such a high and mighty disdain for your family, Laurie, we are not without friends, who would delight to assist Angus. The day I have long awaited is almost at hand. That blackguard’s debts and extravagances, and the war, have finally ruined him. It is only a matter of a few months now.”

  With one slow and vital movement, Laurie stood up and went to the windows with that long free stride which was so unladylike. She pushed aside the draperies. She looked out at the dark April storm. She heard Janie’s exultant voice behind her, going on and on in a mounting frenzy of gloating. She heard the poisonous hatred in that voice, the exultation. Her hand caught a fold of the draperies and twisted it savagely.

  So Stuart was ruined. She had not seen Stuart since her return the day before yesterday. All plans had had to be cancelled because of Elissa’s illness. Laurie’s nostrils widened, and her mouth was pale and evil in its compression. And then she smiled, and the smile, reflected in the polished black of the window, was not a pleasant thing to see.

  “I’ve waited a long time,” said Janie, in the high and virulent voice of final exaltation. “I’ve waited a long time to repay him for his insults and his wantonness and his abandonment of a poor widow and her children. I’ve waited to avenge myself for his slights to Angus, and to my family.” She nodded her head in a kind of malediction.

  Laurie broke in: “Where is Marvina? And how is little Mary Rose?”

  Janie halted, in the very midst of her paeans. She snorted with contempt. “Marvina, that dolt? She has gone to the mountains, as usual with that dreadful and measly brat. I shouldn’t be surprised if it was the end of the child this time. Coughing her lungs out, and Stuart bumbling about her like a frantic bee. And good riddance, too. She’s cost him a pretty penny, out of the coffers of the shops, no doubt.”

  “And Stuart is alone in that house?” asked Laurie, indifferently. The fold of cloth in her hand was crushed and stained with dampness.

  Janie burst out laughing, shrill and venomous laughter. “His damned precious house! Well, he’ll not have it long. I’ve a fancy for it, myself, and Mr. Allstairs is not unagreeable. That house, filled with treasures too good for him, and too expensive! I’d like to see his face when it’s taken from him, in bankruptcy! It will be a joyful day for me, miss!”

  Her eyes narrowed suddenly and cunningly. “He hasn’t asked you to repay him for what he laid out for you, has he? Not that it would surprise me in the least.”

  “No,” said Laurie, “he hasn’t asked me.” Nothing could have been more bored than her voice. She turned from the window and came back to the fire.

  “What do they think of the war, here in Grandeville? They are very excited about it in New York, and there may be trouble But New York is very excitable anyway.”

  Janie shrugged. She was still vibrating with her triumph, and was annoyed at this change of subject. She had wanted to continue her song of exultation. “The war? It is making the farmers rich, of course, and Mr. Schnitzel and his friends are doing unbelievably well. Army contracts for their beef and sausage. Mr. Lincoln’s call for volunteers went almost abegging in Grandeville. Mr. Schnitzel and the other gentlemen in trade and the manufactories warned their men that if they responded to the call they need not look for employment again after the war. Now the draft has come, and we are determined to resist it. Many of the upper class gentlemen are preparing to buy alternates, which is only sensible.”

  “What a fine patriotic spirit!” remarked Laurie, with smiling and shrugging disdain, “I doubt the South is in such a happy quandary.”

  She flung up her arms slowly and deliberately, and yawned. “It is almost time for dinner, is it not? I think I will retire to my room and prepare for it. Elissa may come down, herself, I hope. She is much better.”

  Janie had another hopeful thought. “Has the war affected your own income in America, Laurie?”

  Laurie shook her head. “Not at all. New York is teeming with money and with merrymakers who are profiting from the war. The theatres are packed constantly. You never saw such gaiety, Ma. And such fashion, and such wealth, and such display. Moreover, I expect to leave for Europe again, after this contract. The war means nothing to me at all.”

  She climbed to her old room. Her little polished rosewood desk blinked in the firelight. She sat down slowly, and then was still. Her hand lay on the desk, large, white, exquisitely formed, glittering with jewels in the light of the lamps. Finally she reached out and took up
her pen, dipped it in ink, and wrote on her own engraved stationery:

  “I must see you tomorrow. It is imperative that I see you. I shall call at your house at four o’clock, on the hour. Please do not think this request extraordinary. Do not write me it is impossible. I shall be there.” She signed it: “Laurie.”

  She went to the bell-rope and pulled it. A little maid answered it almost immediately. Laurie put the note in an envelope, held a stick of wax to a candle, dropped the melted red fluid upon the paper, sealed it. She turned to the maid, who was gazing at her with profound awe and admiration. Laurie smiled, and the smile was dazzling. She took up her knitted bead purse, and pressed a golden coin into the maid’s hand.

  “Take this letter immediately to Mr. Stuart Coleman, Bertha, and let no one see you come or go. I’m sure you can manage it.”

  She waited all that evening, tense under her smiles, her slow easy laughter, her teasing of Dick, her pleasant conversation with Elissa. She watched the clock. But no one came to her with a message. At ten, she retired to her bedroom, and smiled to herself.

  CHAPTER 54

  With that unpredictable and always exciting inconstancy of the Northland, the weather changed during the night. Laurie awoke to see that the snow had dwindled to sparkling light heaps of innocent whiteness, like fleece, scattered over the brilliant green of newly revealed grass. The sky, pure and polished cobalt, shook with blazing cold light. The spruces and other evergreens which crowded about the Cauder house showed tips and fringes of green, and were darkly bright with life. The brown trees stretched their sinewy arms upwards. A freshness blew across an earth full of pungency and exhilaration. The shadows on the street were sharp and purple, and windows sparkled in a riot of brilliant sun and patches of glittering snow.

  “I must admit,” said Elissa Rhinelander, as she sat, bundled in furs, in the Cauder carriage, “that this climate would never be boring. Yesterday, one would have thought that this was the North Pole; I almost expected to see Eskimos as I looked through my window! And today, everything is teeming and too lovely.”