Martha By-the-Day

by Julie Mathilde Lippmann

  CHAPTER IX

  It is hard to readjust all one's prearranged plans in the twinkling ofan eye. Claire felt as if she had received a sudden dash of cold watersquare in the face. She quite gulped from the shock of it. How in theworld was she to adapt herself to this brand-new set of conditions onsuch short notice--on no notice at all? How was she to be anything butawkwardly monosyllabic?

  "Sit down, please."

  Obediently she sat.

  "Martha--Mrs. Slawson--tells me, your father was Judge Lang ofMichigan?"

  "Yes--Grand Rapids."

  "You are a college graduate?"

  "Wellesley."

  "You have taught before?"

  "I tutored a girl throughout a whole summer. Prepared her for hercollege entrance exams."

  "She passed creditably?"

  "She wasn't conditioned in anything."

  "How are you on discipline?"

  "I don't know."

  "You have had no experience? Never tried your hand at training a boy,for example?"

  Claire's blue-gray eyes grew suddenly audacious, and the bridge of hershort nose wrinkled up delightfully in a roguish smile.

  "I trained my father. He was a dear old boy--the dearest in the world.He used to say he had never been brought up, until I came along. He usedto say I ruled him with a rod of iron. But he was very well-behavedbefore I got through with him. He was quite a model boy, really."

  Glancing quickly up into the steadfast eyes that had, at first, seemedto her so stern as to be almost forbidding, she met an expression somild, so full of winning kindness, that she suddenly remembered andunderstood what Martha had meant when she said once: "A body wouldn'tcall the queen her cousin when he looks at you like that!"

  "Your father was a credit to your bringing-up, certainly. I never hadthe honor of meeting Judge Lang, but I knew him by reputation. Iremember to have heard some one say of him once--'He was a judge afterSocrates' own heart. He heard courteously, he answered wisely, heconsidered soberly, he decided impartially. Added to this, he was onewhom kings could not corrupt.' That is an enviable record."

  Claire's eyes filled with grateful moisture, but she did not allow themto overflow. She nodded rapidly once or twice in a quaint,characteristic little fashion, and then sat silent, examining the linksin her silver-meshed purse, with elaborate attention.

  "Perhaps Mrs. Slawson has told you that my young nephew is something ofa pickle."

  The question restored Claire at once. "I'm fond of pickles."

  "Good! I believe there are said to be fifty-eight varieties. Are youprepared to smack your lips over him, whichever he may be?"

  "Well, if I can't smack my lips, there's always the alternative ofsmacking _him_."

  Mr. Ronald laughed. "Not allowed," he announced regretfully. "My sisterwon't have it. Radcliffe is to be guided 'by love alone.'"

  "Whose love, please? His or mine?"

  Again Mr. Ronald laughed. "Now you've got me!" he admitted. "Perhaps alittle of both. Do you think you could supply your share? I have nodoubt of your being able to secure his."

  "I like children. We've always managed to hit it off pretty well, thekiddies and I, but, of course, I can't guarantee anything definite inconnection with your little boy, because, you see, I've never been agoverness before. I've only had to do with youngsters who've comea-visiting, or else the small, lower East-siders at the Settlement. ButI'll promise to do my best."

  "'Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly._Angles_ could no more,' as I wrote in my sister's autograph-album whenI was a boy," announced Mr. Ronald gravely.

  Claire smiled over at him with appreciation. "I'd love to come and try,"she said heartily.

  She did not realize she had lost all sensation of alarm, had forgottenher altered position, that she was no longer one whom these people wouldregard as their social equal. She was talking as one talks to a friend.

  "And if Radcliffe doesn't get on--if he doesn't improve, I shouldsay--if you don't _like_ me, you can always send me away, you know."

  For a very long moment Mr. Ronald sat silent. So long a moment, indeed,that Claire, waiting in growing suspense for his answer, suddenlyremembered all those things she had forgotten, and her earlierembarrassment returned with a wave of bitter self-reproach. She accusedherself of having been too free. She had overstepped her privilege. Itwas not apparent to her that he was trying to visualize the picture shehad drawn, the possibility of his _not liking her and sending her away,you know,_ and that, to his utter consternation, he found it wassomething he could not in the least conceive of himself as doing. That,on the contrary, the vision of her going away for any reason, of herpassing out of his life, now she had once stepped into it, left him witha chill sensation in the cardiac region that was as unexpected as it wasdisturbing. When he spoke at last, it was with a quick, authoritativebrevity that seemed to Claire to bear out her apprehension, and prove hethought she had forgotten her place, her new place as "hired help," andmust be checked lest she presume on good nature and take a tone to heremployers that was not to be tolerated.

  "You will come without fail on Monday morning."

  "Very well."

  Her manner was so studiously cold and ceremonious, so sharply incontrast with her former piquant friendliness, that Mr. Ronald looked upin surprise.

  "It is convenient for you to come on Monday, I hope?"

  "Perfectly."

  "I presume my sister, Mrs. Sherman, will take up with you the questionof--er--compensation."

  "O--" quickly, with a little shudder, "that's all right!"

  "If it isn't all right, it shall be made so," said Mr. Ronald cordially.

  Claire winced. "It is quite, it is perfectly all right!" she repeatedhurriedly, anxious to escape the distasteful subject, still smartingunder the lash of her own self-condemnation--her own wounded pride.

  How could she have forgotten, even for a moment, that she was no longerin a position to deal with these people on equal terms? That now,kindness on their part meant patronage, on hers presumption. Of course,she deserved the snub she had received. But, all the same, it hurt! O,but it hurt! She knew her George Eliot well. It was a pity she did notrecall and apply a certain passage in Maggie Tulliver's experience.

  "It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the pleasanteremotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense ofglowing warmth, an innocent drop of cold water may fall upon us with asudden smart."

  Mr. Ronald, searching her face for some clue to the abrupt change in hervoice and manner, saw her cheeks grow white, her lips and chin quiverpainfully.

  "You are not well?" he asked, after a second of troubled groping in thedark.

  "O, perfectly." She recollected Martha's injunction, "Never you let onto 'em, any of your worries. The rich must not be annoyed," and pulledherself together with a determined mental grip.

  "It is good that, being so far away from home, you can be under thecare of your old nurse," observed Mr. Ronald thoughtfully.

  "My old nurse," Claire mechanically repeated, preoccupied with her ownpainful meditations.

  "Martha. It is good, it certainly must be comforting to those who carefor you, to know you are being looked after by so old and trusted afamily servant."

  Claire did not reply. She was hardly conscious he was speaking.

  "When Martha first mentioned you to me--to Mrs. Sherman, rather--shedescribed you as her young lady. She has a very warm feeling for you. Ithink she considers you in the light of personal property, like a childof her own. That's excusable--it's commendable, even, in such a case asthis. I believe she said she nursed you till you were able to walk."

  With a shock of sudden realization, Claire waked to the fact thatsomething was wrong somewhere--something that it was _up to_ her to makeright at once. And yet, it was all so cloudy, so confused in her mindwith her duty to Martha, her duty to herself, and to these people--herfear of being again kindly but firmly put back in her _place_ if sheventure
d the merest fraction of an inch beyond the boundary prescribedby this grandee of the autocratic bearing and "keep-off-the-grassexpression," that she hesitated, and her opportunity was lost.

  "I think I must go now," she announced abruptly, and rose, got past himsomehow, and made blindly for the door. Then there was the dim vista ofthe long hall stretching before her, like a path of escape, and she fledits length, and down that of the staircase. Then out at the street-door,and into the chill of the cold December noonday.

  When she had vanished, Francis Ronald stood a moment with eyes fixed inthe direction she had taken. Then, abruptly, he seized the telephonethat stood upon the table beside him, switched it to connect with thebasement region, and called for Mrs. Slawson.

  "This is Mr. Ronald speaking. Is Martha there?"

  "Yes, sir. Please hold the wire, and I'll call her."

  "Be quick!"

  "Yes, sir!"

  A second, and Martha's voice repeated his name. "Mr. Ronald, this isMartha!"

  "Good! I want you to put on your things at once, and follow Miss Lang,"he directed briefly. "I do not think she's sick, but as she was talkingto me, I noticed she grew suddenly quite pale, and seemed troubled andanxious. Waste no time! Go at once!"

  The only answer was a sharp click over the wire, as Mrs. Slawson snappedthe receiver into its crotch.

  But though Claire was not five minutes in advance of her, Martha wasunable to make up the distance between them, and by the time she hadmounted the stairs leading to the Elevated, and stood panting for breathon the platform, the train she had hoped to catch was to be seendisappearing around the curve at Fifty-third Street.

  All the way uptown she speculated as to the why and wherefore of Mr.Ronald's immediate concern about Claire.

  "It's kinder previous, his gettin' so stirred up over her at this stageo' the game," she pondered. "It ain't natural, or it ain't lucky. I'dmuch liefer have it go slower, an' be more thora. A thing like thisaffair I'm tryin' to menoover, is like some o' the things you cook. Youwant to leave 'em get good an' het-up before the stirrin' begins. Ifthey're stirred up too soon, they're ap' to cruddle on you, an' neverget that nice, smooth, thick, _gooey_ look you like to see in richcustuds, same as love-affairs. I hope she didn't go an' have a scare on,an' give 'em to think she ain't healthy. She's as sound as a nut, but ifMis' Sherman once is fixed with the notion she's subjeck tofaint-spells, nothin' on earth will change her mind, an' then it'll benit, not, nohow for Martha's little scheme. I must caution Miss Claireabout showin' the white feather. No matter how weak-kneed she feels,she's just _got_ to buck up an' ack like she's a soldier. That's how--"

  Martha had reached her own street, and was turning the corner, when shestopped with a sensation as of a quick, fierce clutching at her heart.Evidently there had been some sort of accident, for a great crowd wasgathered on the sidewalk, and beside the gutter-curbstone, just ahead ofher, stood waiting an ambulance. Her healthy, normal mind did not easilyjump at tragic conclusions. She did not, as a general thing, fear theworst, did not even accept it when it came, but now, somehow, a closeassociation of ideas suggested Claire in an instant, and before ever shehad stirred a step, she saw in her mind's eye the delicate little formshe loved, lying injured, maybe mangled, stretched out upon the asphalt,in the midst of the curious throng.

  She hurried, hurried faster than any of the others who were alsohurrying, and pushed her way on through the press to the very edge ofthe crowd. A crying woman caught wildly at her arm, as she stood for asecond struggling to advance.

  "It's a child!--A little girl--run over by an automobile! O God helpthe poor mother!" the stranger sobbed hysterically.

  Martha freed herself from the clinging fingers and pressed forward. "Achild--Miss Claire's such a little thing, no wonder they think she's achild," she murmured. "True for you, my good woman, God help the poormother!"

  "You know her?"

  "I know Miss Claire."

  For some reason the crowd made way, and let her through to the veryheart of it, and there--sure enough, there was Claire, but Claire cryingand kneeling over an outstretched little form, lying unconscious on thepavement.

  "Why, it's--my Francie!" said Martha quietly.