The Sturdy Oak Part 11

"George, it was Penny, I'm sure!" she said. "From what they said,--they talked all the time!--I think Penny went to see them, and sort of--sort of--suggested this! I'm so sorry, George--"

George was sulphurously silent.

"And Penny will make the most of it, you know!"

Genevieve went on quickly and nervously. "If you should send them back, tonight, I know he'd tell Betty! And Betty says she is coming to see you because she has been asked to read an answer to your paper, at the Club, and she might--she has such a queer sense of humor--"

Silence. Genevieve wished that she was dead, and that every one was dead.

"I don't want to criticize you, dear," George said presently, in his kindest tone. "But the time to _act_, of course, was when they first arrived. I can't do anything now. We'll just have to face it through, for a few days."

It was not much of a cloud, but it was their first. Genevieve went downstairs with tears in her eyes.

She had wanted their home to be so cozy, so dainty, so intimate! And now to have two grown women and a child thrust into her Paradise! Marie was sulky, rattling the silver-drawer viciously while her mistress talked to her, and Lottie had an ugly smile as she submitted respectfully that there wasn't enough asparagus.

Then George's remoteness was terrifying. He carved with appalling courtesy. "Is there another chicken, Genevieve?" he asked, as if he had only an impersonal interest in her kitchen. No, there was only the one.

And plenty, too, said the guests pleasantly. Genevieve hoped there were eggs and bacon for Marie and Lottie and Frieda.

"I'm going to ask you for just a mouthful more, it tastes so delicious and homy!" said Alys. "And then I want to talk a little business, George. It's about those houses of mine, out in Kentwood...."

George looked at her blankly, over his drumstick.

"Darling Tom left them," said Tom's widow, "and they really have rented well. They're right near the factory, you know. But now, just lately, some man from the agents has been writing and writing me; he says that one of them has been condemned, and that unless I do something or other they'll all be condemned. It's a horrid neighborhood, and I don't like the idea, anyway, of a woman poking about among drains and cellars. Yet, if I send the agent, he'll run me into fearful expense; they always do.

So I'm going to take them out of his hands tomorrow, and turn it all over to you, and whatever you decide will be best!"

"My dear girl, I'm the busiest man in the world!" George said. "Leave all that to Allen. He's the best agent in town!"

"Oh, I took them away from Allen months ago, George. Sampson has them now."

"Sampson? What the deuce did you change for? I don't know that Sampson is solvent. I certainly would go back to Allen--"

"George, I can't!"

The widow looked at her plate, swept him a coquettish glance, and dropped her eyes again.

"Mr. Allen is a dear fellow," she elucidated, "but his wife is dreadful!

There's nothing she won't suspect, and nothing she won't say!"

"My dear cousin, this isn't a question of social values! It's business!"

George said impatiently. "But I'll tell you what to do," he added, after scowling thought. "You put it in Miss Eliot's hands; she was with Allen for some years. Now she's gone in for herself, and she's doing well.

We've given her several things--" "Take it out of a man's hands to put it into a woman's!" Alys exclaimed. And Emelene added softly:

"What can a woman be thinking of, to go into a dreadful business like selling real estate and collecting rents!"

"Of course, she was trained by men!" Genevieve threw in, a little anxiously. Alys was so tactless, when George was tired and hungry. She cast about desperately for some neutral topic, but before she could find one the widow spoke again.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, George. I'll bring the books and papers to your office tomorrow morning, and then you can do whatever you think best! Just send me a check every month, and it will be all right!"

"Just gather me up what's there, on the plate," Emelene said, with her nervous little laugh in the silence. "I declare I don't know when I've eaten such a dinner! But that reminds me that you could help me out wonderfully, too, Cousin George--I can't quite call you Mr.

Remington!--with those wretched stocks of mine. I'm sure I don't know what they've been doing, but I know I get less money all the time!

It's the New Haven, George, that P'pa left me two years ago. I can't understand anything about it, but yesterday I was talking to a young man who advised me to put all my money into some tonic stock. It's a tonic made just of plain earth--he says it makes everything grow. Doesn't it sound reasonable? But if I should lose all I have, I'm afraid I'd _really_ wear my welcome out, Genevieve, dear. So perhaps you'll advise me?"

"I'll do what I can!" George smiled, and Genevieve's heart rose. "But upon my word, what you both tell me isn't a strong argument for Betty's cause!" he added good-naturedly.

"P'pa always said," Emelene quoted, "that if a woman looked about for a man to advise her, she'd find him! And as I sit here now, in this lovely home, I think--isn't it sweeter and wiser and better this way? For a while,--because I was a hot-headed, rebellious girl!--I couldn't see that he was right. I had had a disappointment, you know," she went on, her kind, mild eyes watering. Genevieve, who had been gazing in some astonishment at the once hot-headed, rebellious girl, sighed sympathetically. Every one knew about the Reverend Mr. Totter's death.

"And after that I just wanted to be busy," continued Emelene. "I wanted to be a trained nurse, or a matron, or something! I look back at it now, and wonder what I was thinking about! And then dear Mama went, and I stepped into her place with P'pa. He wasn't exactly an invalid, but he did like to be fussed over, to have his meals cooked by my own hands, even if we were in a hotel. And whist--dear me, how I used to dread those three rubbers every evening! I was only a young woman then, and I suppose I was attractive to other men, but I never forgot Mr. Totter.

And Cousin George," she turned to him submissively, "when you were talking about a woman's real sphere, I felt--well, almost guilty.

Because only that one man ever asked me. Do you think, feeling as I did, that I should have deliberately made myself attractive to men?"

George cleared his throat. "All women can't marry, I suppose. It's in England, I believe, that there are a million unmarried women. But you have made a contented and a womanly life for yourself, and, as a matter of fact, there always _has_ been a man to stand between you and the struggle!" he said.

"I know. First P'pa, and now you!" Emelene mused happily.

"I wasn't thinking of myself. I was thinking that your father left you a comfortable income!" he said quickly.

"And now you have asked me here; one of the dearest old places in town!"

Emelene added innocently.

Genevieve listened in a stupefaction. This was married life, then? Not since her childhood had Genevieve so longed to stamp, to scream, to protest, to tear this twisted scheme apart and start anew!

She was not a crying woman, but she wanted to cry now. She was not--she told herself indignantly--quite a fool. But she felt that if George went on being martyred, and mechanically polite, and grim, she would go into hysterics. She had been married less than six weeks; that night she cried herself to sleep.

Her guests were as agreeable as their natures permitted; but Genevieve was reduced, before the third day of their visit, to a condition of continual tears.

This was her home, this was the place sacred to George and herself, and their love. n.o.body in the world,--not his mother, not hers, had their mothers been living!--was welcome here. She had planned to be such a good wife to him, so thoughtful, so helpful, so brave when he must be away. But she could not rise to the height of sharing him with other women, and saying whatever she said to him in the hearing of witnesses.

And then she dared not complain too openly! That was an additional hards.h.i.+p, for if George insulted his guests, then that horrid Penny--

Genevieve had always liked Penny, and had danced and flirted with him aeons ago. She had actually told Betty that she hoped Betty would marry Penny. But now she felt that she loathed him. He was secretly laughing at George, at George who had dared to take a stand for old-fas.h.i.+oned virtue and the purity of the home!

It was all so unexpected, so hard. Women everywhere were talking about George's article, and expected her to defend it! George, she could have defended. But how could she talk about a subject upon which she was not informed, in which, indeed, as she was rather fond of saying, she was absolutely uninterested?

George was changed, too. Something was worrying him; and it was hard on the darling old boy to come home to Miss Emelene and the cat and Eleanor and Alys, every night! Emelene adored him, of course, and Alys was always interesting and vivacious, but--but it wasn't like coming home to his own little Genevieve!

The bride wept in secret, and grew nervous and timid in manner. Mrs.

Brewster-Smith, however, found this comprehensible enough, and one hot summer afternoon Genevieve went into George's office with her lovely head held high, her color quite gone, and her breath coming quickly with indignation. [Ill.u.s.tration: It was hard on the darling old boy to come home to Miss Emelene and the cat and Eleanor and Alys every night!]

"George--I don't care what we do, or where we go! But I can't stand it!

She said--she said--she told me--"

Her husband was alone in his office, and Genevieve was now crying in his arms. He patted her shoulder tenderly.

"I'm so worried all the time about dinners, and Lottie's going, and that child getting downstairs and letting in flies and licking the frosting off the maple cake," sobbed Genevieve, "that of _course_ I show it! And if I _have_ given up my gym work, it's just because I was so busy trying to get some one in Lottie's place! And now they say--they say--that _they_ know what the matter is, and that I mustn't dance or play golf--the horrible, spying cats! I won't go back, George, I will not!

I--"

Again George was wonderful. He put his arm about her, and she sat down on the edge of his desk, and leaned against that dear protective shoulder and dried her eyes on one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs. He reminded her of a long-standing engagement for this evening with Betty and Penny, to go out to Sea Light and have dinner and a swim, and drive home in the moonlight. And when she was quiet again, he said tenderly:

"You mustn't let the 'cats' worry you, p.u.s.s.y. What they think isn't true, and I don't blame you for getting cross! But in one way, dear, aren't they right? Hasn't my little girl been riding and driving and dancing a little too hard? Is it the wisest thing, just now? You have been nervous lately, dear, and excitable. Mightn't there be a reason?

Because I don't have to tell you, sweetheart, nothing would make me prouder, and Uncle Martin, of course, has made no secret of how _he_ feels! You wouldn't be sorry, dear?"