“What do you see, child?” she demanded.
“I’d rather not commit myself,” I said, with a little laugh. “I don’t really understand palmistry much.” I didn’t, that was a fact. But I went on looking at some of the others, and then went back, asking to see her other hand, and shaking my head over that, too. She got quite excited, and insisted that I should tell her what I saw, or thought I saw.
“Why, it’s nothing,” I said. “I oughtn’t to speak of it at all. I’m not an expert. And it might just frighten you — only you wouldn’t be so foolish as to be frightened over such nonsense, would you?”
She protested that she wouldn’t, and that I really must tell her.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said, as if I was ashamed of my limitations. “It’s only, well, I don’t see your life going on... after a certain point.” They were all feeling sort of creepy by this time, with all the talk we’d had, and I said it with just that little deprecatory, suggestive air.
She turned a little pale, and then I was sure she panted a little, but she wanted to know which point. Of course any point would do — I’m no forecaster of people’s lives. I just said, “Oh, I tell you what we’ll do. Let’s have Alison come in. Alison is Scotch — she has second sight. Perhaps she can tell us something, really.”
So after a good deal of persuading Alison came in, looking very clean and starchy in her big, white apron.
She said it was “a’ nonsense!” But I wheedled her. Most of my wheedling had been done before. I had quite thrown myself on her mercy and begged her to help me out, lest our flourishing little business be ruined. She didn’t want to lose what she was making, and she knew as well as I that it would be a lovely thing for Mother, so she let herself be persuaded. And once she began, she did spendidly. I wouldn’t have believed she had it in her.
First she sat quite still, with fixed staring eyes. Then she began to rock gently back and forth, and make a queer low crooning sound. It got on our nerves awfully, even mine.
Then she got up stiffly and walked to first one and then the other of us, looking for all the world like a sleepwalker. Over some she would nod, or smile a little, at others she’d shake her head. But when she came to Mrs. Miller, who sat waiting for her, with eyes getting bigger and bigger, Alison stopped right in front of her, clapped her hand to her eyes, and dropped into a chair.
“What is it?” demanded Mrs. Miller, visibly frightened.
“I will na’ say,” was all we could get out of Alison. But presently she lifted her head, fixed her eyes on the door of the back parlor — Mrs. Miller’s room, you know — and that queer, set look came back.
She got up, slowly, like a somnambulist, and walked in a queer, wooden way right up to the door and looked in, standing and swaying a little, and staring. Then she went right up to the bed, and again clapped her hands to her eyes, with a low cry, and came back to us, hastily. We all crowded around her.
“What is it, Alison? Do tell us! What did you see?”
But she shook her head darkly.
“We maun a’ die in our beds — unless worse comes to us,” she said. “What matters it where or when? Each one must dree his wierd.”
But she did pause one moment by Mrs. Miller to whisper: “Ye’d be safer higher up!” Alison always had maintained that it was dangerous to sleep on the ground floor.
There was certainly a good deal of excitement among us.
We went and looked into the back parlor. I stepped in, and out again, quickly.
“Do you feel anything... queer?” I asked the little music teacher, who was actually shivering.
“I wouldn’t go in there for anything!” she protested. “Mrs. Miller, don’t sleep there. Come up and sleep with me.”
Well, she did sleep upstairs that night, and the next day she left, furniture and all. She went to a hotel, and from there to a sanatorium — said her nerves were affected. And everywhere she went she spread reports that our house was haunted.
But as for us, we settled into peaceful ways again. I had a brilliant new wallpaper put on both parlors, opened the big doors wide, let in the sunshine, and kept the vases full of nasturtiums and coreopsis.
The little music teacher went away, but I soon had the rooms full again, and we went on as smoothly as before.
Some of the boarders tried to get Alison to tell what she saw, but she would only shake her head and smile, remarking that it took no great wisdom to say that folk died in their beds.
As the malign influence of Mrs. Miller wore off, and we had bright times as we did before, I think most of them concluded Alison had tried to frighten her off just because she didn’t like her. I was quite willing they should think so.
Well! I breathed deep after that affair. Also I learned, if not humility, at least more caution. You see most people are easy. Even as a child I learned that. And most people are good — that is, well-intentioned. The harm they do is just by clumsiness — too many clumsinesses together. Then the meanest person I’d known, so far, was Father. Now I began to see, measuring him by Mrs. Miller, that Father wasn’t bad, that is he did not try to do mischief. The trouble with Father was first being that kind of person, and then having married Mother. If he had married a different kind, such as Mrs. Miller, for instance, how different Father would have been. But she seemed to be really a bad person, seemed to like to do mischief for the fun of it.
When I counted up profit and loss I found that she had just about paid for what she cost, in money. Except that one of the new boarders was not as permanent as the two who had quarrelled and left.
I was going to have a vacant room by the middle of August, and that was not an easy time to get another person in. Meantime I determined to make an extra effort in selecting a good one. Mother was to arrive home sometime in September.
Father had written home a few times — not often — and I had read his letters. What if it is a prison offense? It doesn’t say anything against it in the Bible. Anyhow, it seemed right to me, and what I think is right I mean to do, law or no law. These laws people make, they unmake as fast as they make them — always having new ones and altering old ones, or repealing them. And they don’t even pretend to have a revelation or anything. Besides, some are made on purpose by rich people, and the lawmakers paid to do it — I’ve read about that.
Well, anyway I read them, and he never said a word about that mortgage. If only I could keep him over there until I earned enough to pay it.
He didn’t say anything about coming back, nor much about what he was doing, except visiting around among his cousins. There was no end to those cousins, and so far, he had only quarrelled with two and was still staying with the third. So I thought he’d be over there a long time.
Now if only I could get the right kind of person into that big front room — one of my best — before Mother came.
I had a pretty wide circle of acquaintances, and a lot of friends, too. I kept a list of them in a blank book, with descriptive notes (in cipher of course); and had their names dated by the calendar, with the unwritten note: “do something for.” Anything would do, no matter how little, but people do love to be remembered. Every Sunday I’d look over my notes, as to that week’s bunch, and take them flowers, or a library book to look at, or just stop and ask if I couldn’t do an errand — anything.
I made a serious study of this list now, but everybody I knew either had a home, or was settled somewhere. Besides there wasn’t one there who could fill just the place I had in mind.
Then, just happening to look out of the window, I saw someone turn in at Mrs. Gale’s gate, and I had an inspiration. It was Mary Allen Windsor, the new woman minister who had just come to the little Universalist Church on Ash Street. I used to go there sometimes when Mr. Cutter was away, but I never liked their old minister; he looked like Noah, at least, if not Methuselah.
This one I’d heard once, the Sunday before, and liked immensely. Someone must have directed her to Mrs. Gale’s because it was near, prob
ably knew we were full, or was Mrs. Gale’s friend. But I had a hope now.
She took a room there — poor Mrs. Gale always had vacancies, and I began my campaign.
First I went to her church, steadily, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mr. Cutter was a nice man, and had always been a good friend to me, but he only preached religion, and this woman preached sense. I was tremendously pleased because, when you’re doing things by force, as it were, all the time, it’s nice to have something come natural. It was no effort at all to be fond of Mary A. Windsor. She was kind to me. That, I suppose, is part of a minister’s business, but I wanted a lot more than that. I began to go to see her, running in with a few roses or a little dish of fruit or something, and never once staying too long. I asked questions about her sermons, and when she recommended books to read, I read them and asked more questions.
I brought some others to hear her, and with them, and the ones she had, I got up a little reading club at my house, once a week, and got her to drop in for a few minutes and advise us. She made a sort of special Bible class for us, and we had this other one on the side, in special reading. There was one book she had written herself, and we devoted ourselves to that. I got so I could quote from it extensively. That book was a great help, though I think I could have done it without it.
Club nights I asked her to dinner, and she did enjoy it — after the Gales’.
When it got to be nearly August I asked her if she could advise me about that room, if she knew anybody. “Won’t you come and look at it,” I said, “so you could recommend it.”
“I suspect you of mercenary designs, Benigna,” she said, and patted my shoulder. “But I’ll look at it, certainly.”
It was a very comfortable corner room, clean as a dish, the white curtains waving softly in the breeze, the bed in a sort of alcove that had a window in it too. The floor was bare, dark and shining, with a few rugs. There was a large writing table, in a good light, a big wastebasket, a low bookcase, a reading lamp. I had given a great deal of thought to that room. It was near the bathroom, and there was a little sink in it besides, with hot and cold water.
Mary Allen Windsor looked it over carefully. In her mind’s eye, and in mine too, was that darkish room of Mrs. Gale’s — big, but all full of furniture, with a spare little stand-uppish writing desk — sort of lady-in-the-parlor desk.
“I know a lady who would like it every much, Miss MacAvelly,” she said. “And so do you, you designing young person. What do you charge for this room?”
It wasn’t any more than Mrs. Gale’s, and as soon as it was vacant she came over.
Then I drew a long sigh of relief. Here was a person of real dignity and position, one who could handle the conversation, push it or check it or turn it as she liked. I always wanted to do that, but of course I can’t until I am a lot older. Perhaps never, if I keep on being so... so negative. But I like to see it done. And I felt sure Mother would like her. That was the main thing.
My purpose now was to study her tastes and wants, to make the place so comfortable she’d want to stay, and arrange the other boarders to suit her.
There was only one she seemd to really dislike, one of those patients of Dr. Bronson’s, a sickly sort of person of course, being a patient, and showing a mean, critical spirit. Whatever the talk was he’d sit there with a superior little smile, and then say something calculated to make the other people feel small. At least it worked that way, and I don’t believe it was an accident. Dr. Bronson said it was dyspepsia, but what difference did that make to us?
He played chess, and was very proud of it, used to play with the poor vegetarian gentleman and beat him, and be so hateful about it.
Miss Ayres’ sister used to watch them a little, and he found she could play, and invited her to try a game with him. He beat her badly, and then made patronizing remarks about it, as to “the female mind,” and so on.
I had never said that I could play or shown any interest in it, but now I did. I hung around until he said, “Well, young lady — do you think you can play chess?”
I told him I used to play with Father when I was quite a child.
“Aha! And did you beat him?”
“He beat me the most,” I admitted.
“Beat you, did he? A father’s privilege! Well, would you like to play with me?”
I could try, I said, and did try.
I played a weak sort of game, and he hardly gave his mind to it at all, but all of a sudden I took advantage of a weak point and mated him.
He was immensely astonished, and annoyed. But I said it was only that he had let me do it, accused him of encouraging me, and so on, and we tried again. This time he played better, but so did I, though still a quiet game, and the others gathered around to watch. He was awfully surprised that time, but I beat him again.
Mr. Wales, the vegetarian, began to get a little uproarious, he was so pleased; called me David, and his little champion, and things like that. Mrs. Coulter, that’s Miss Ayers’ sister, said that the female mind must vary somewhat. He was quite white about the lips by then, and had little dents round the corner of the nostrils, but he didn’t say much — just asked me if I’d play again. I seemed willing to stop, suggested that perhaps he was tired, which made him madder than ever. I pleaded that I was tired, at which he accused me of cowardice, and finally we began again. This time, having watched his play and made up my mind as to methods, I beat him hard and quick, so quick he couldn’t believe it.
He got up and went out of the room without a word, and they all praised me, but I said it was just because he was angry and didn’t play his best. That was true enough.
They all kidded him about it a lot, particularly Mr. Wales, and urged him to play with me some more. At first he wouldn’t, but I played with Mr. Wales, and he beat me, and then I played with Mrs. Coulter, and she beat me, so he thought it must have been an accident, and after a while he did try again. I beat him three straight games. After that they said he was in the infant class, and taunted him unmercifully. Whatever else came up, they would bring it back to chess, and pretty soon he left us.
I consulted with Miss Windsor about whom we should have next. I told her about Mother, and her temperament, and that in case Father’s return was delayed I thought it would be such a good thing for Mother to have a nice congenial group of friends there.
“Or even if he does come back,” I said, “I think Mother would enjoy earning some money of her own, don’t you?”
“Every woman should earn her own money when it is possible,” she said. And she gave her mind to it and suggested a young man in her church, who was putting himself through college.
“He can’t pay much, but he is a dear fellow, and I know your mother would like him. Suppose you try. He can do a great deal about the place in winter, snow and coal and so on.”
I thought it would be fine to have a nice young man in the house. With Mother at home it would be all right, and as for Peggy, I guessed I could manage.
He was waiting on table at a summer resort then, but he came just before college began. Now we had a nice family, and I waited with the utmost eagerness for Mother to come back.
She did arrive finally, and I declare I should hardly have known her. She was brown instead of pale; she was plump instead of thin; her eyes were bright. She’d had her teeth all put in order by Grandpa’s dentist; there had never been money enough before.
Peggy looked blooming, of course. That was to be expected; but Mother was a joy.
She was a good deal overcome at first by the size of our family. I had written her from time to time, and so had Miss Ayres, to reassure her, but I don’t think she had realized how many there were. But her room was all right, and Peggy’s, and Alison was the picture of calm pride.
“Do I mind it, Mrs. MacAvelly?” she protested when Mother insisted it was too much for her. “Why should I mind cooking for a dozen, or two dozen, for that matter, any more than for four?”
“But the dishes, Alison, you have s
o many dishes to do afterwards.”
“And what else should I do afterwards? I cannot cook the whole day long. No, Ma’am, I do not mind it, not if it is agreeable to you — on the same terms, that is, of course.”
Mother was more than willing to ratify my arrangements, and wanted to give her more, but I dissuaded her. She was very dubious about going on with it, but I begged her to try it for a while anyway.
“It’ll take up your mind, Mother dear,” I said, “while Father is away. And I believe you’ll like it.”
I had guessed pretty well, but even I had not imagined just how much she would like it. You see some of them were old friends of hers, and the rest soon became new ones. The boy, Robert Aylesworth, she took to her heart at once. He was an orphan it appeared, and he did enjoy being mothered, and was so tender and polilte to her it did my heart good to watch him.
And Mary Allen Windsor — I was so pleased! She took to dear little Mother as I hoped she would, and Mother simply laid hold of her like a long-neglected vine rushing up a congenial trellis. Father wasn’t a very good trellis.
I don’t mean that Mother was offensively devoted — not a bit of it — but she seemed to find just the kind of strength and stimulus she needed. It was exactly what I had hoped, and better. Mother was busy all the morning, fussing about trying to make things more pleasant for her guests. There was time enough for visiting, afternoons, or for pretty work such as she loved to do, with nice people to talk to. In the evening we had games, and Mother would play for us, or some of the others would. Robert Aylesworth could sing, just hymns and college songs and such — a nice baritone voice. And we played whist. Mother did love whist so, and she played a good game when Father was not there to intimidate her.
There was only one thing I was afraid of now. That was that Mother would save up enough to send for Father. I had never told her how much of a profit there was, and Alison never let on how much she made. Trust Alison for keeping quiet. It was easy of course to keep on with the accounts myself. She was glad to have me do it, and as I took in the money and paid the bills I could hand over what I liked.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 97
