“Athalie, my child,” he began, realizing that it was necessary for his own good that he recognize the relation openly. He cleared his throat, “I—ha—”
“Aw, cut the comedy, Pat! What’s eating you? Spit it out! I know I’m in for the deuce of a time, but if you’re going to preach a sermon you’ll have to do it without me. This is too gorgeous a morning to be shut up in the house. Say, Pat, don’t you ever play golf? What say if you and I go to some country club around here and have a game and then take lunch? Let’s have a ripping old time together and get acquainted, and after that if you haven’t got it all out of your system yet I’ll agree to listen.”
For an instant the astounded father gazed at the face of his cocksure amazing daughter and wavered, almost considering whether he could accept this high-handed proposal. Perhaps if he had, this story might have been a different one in many details, who can tell? But Patterson Greeves’s sole contact with youth since he passed out of that class himself had been in the classroom or on the battlefield, in both of which places he had been the dictator, able to put his victim through instant discipline if he did not obey in every particular; where a mere black mark on a report card or spoken word to an under officer meant that the delinquent would be dealt with speedily and thoroughly, and where respect and obedience were the foundation of breath itself, and nothing else was to be tolerated.
And now, while flesh shrank from the encounter before him, and his whole soul cried out for respect and the open-air relaxed conscience and a chance to get things into some natural order again, his puritan inheritance and his whole training demanded respect and obedience, and the moment passed. The scene of the night before rose in his mind’s eye, and his blood boiled. He was again in the position of an outraged parent struggling for self-control while he read the Ten Commandants to a naughty child.
And perhaps it was as well, for Athalie knew how to take advantage of the least opportunity, and she had to learn sometime that law was law.
The silence was growing very tense. Athalie, quick to note his every phase of attitude toward her, so sure of him when she finished her wheedling sentence, began to grow uneasy as his gaze continued, staring, stern and displeased.
“Athalie,” he spoke at last, and his words were like icicles, “I can go nowhere, do nothing, until I have had an understanding with you.”
A sullen cloud settled down over the girl’s face.
“Sit down.” He pointed to the chair. Athalie hesitated a second, then with her sullen eyes like smoldering fires fixed on him, seemed to think best to obey, but she sat down tentatively, with one foot slid slightly behind her in readiness to rise again if he offended her. Her lips were pouted angrily. She shrugged her shoulders with a bored attitude as if she were but humoring him for the moment.
The speech he had framed through the long hours of the night deserted him now when he most needed it. Strangely it did not seem to fit. He struggled to find the phrases, cutting ones, intended to show her her place and keep her in it, an ultimatum which would put things on a proper basis. But the whole thing was gone, and nothing but his own helplessness was upon him.
Then something Silver had said the night before about talking gently, reasonably, came to him. A sense of the room and its hallowed memories filled him. It was as if those who had loved him and cared for him in his earlier years might be hovering around unseen waiting to help him through this trying time. He dropped his forehead on his hand for a moment almost humbly, and then lifting his eyes he tried to tell the girl what was in his heart. None of the sentences he had planned were there. Many of the words he spoke he would not have wished to say to her, it was condescending too much to one who had treated him and his so lightly.
“Athalie,” he said, and his voice sounded now more gentle, with that certain something that always brings attention, “you and I are not in a very pleasant position. Perhaps it may be as hard for you as for me, I do not know. I may not have seemed to you very kind nor sympathetic when you arrived. I certainly did not welcome you. I was utterly unprepared for your arrival, as your mother must have known and intended that I should be. I do not intend to speak of her nor the past any more than is necessary; and there must of course be a great many things that you do not understand about our peculiar situation. We shall just have to put away the past and try to build up a relationship from the beginning. In order to do that there are one or two things that must be clearly understood.
“In the first place we belong to an old and respectable family with many traditions that must be honored and standards that must be upheld. We owe it to the past.”
He studied her blank sullen face for a moment wondering if she understood. He struggled to make his words plainer. “There are certain customs and laws of society that we have always maintained. I cannot have my daughter transgressing these things. Our women have always been good and pure and have never sought to imitate men nor to flaunt their personalities or their persons. They have always been modest, quiet, sweet women, dressing unobtrusively, becomingly, and in a modest way. I cannot countenance the way you speak, the flippant, pert, rude disrespect, both to me and to the old house servants who have been with us so long that they are an integral part of the family. I cannot countenance your mannish ways, nor your cigarette smoking, nor your revealing dresses. I like sweet, modest girls, and if you and I are to get on at all together you must drop these ways and try to be a good girl.”
Athalie’s eyes smoldered furiously, and her lips curled in contempt. “I suppose that other girl just suits you!” she stormed. “Little simp!”
“Silver seems a very modest, sweet girl,” he assented, wondering what he ought to say about the way she had treated the picture last night.
“Well, I hate her!” said Athalie in low, hard tones. “I HATE HER!—and you sound to me awfully what they call at school ‘mid-Victorian.’”
Patterson Greeves began to realize that he was not getting on very well. He looked at his hopeless offspring and longed to vanish out of her sight forever, caring not where or how his soul was disposed, so he might finally escape the problem of her. But something in his puritan conscience refused to let him slide away from the issue. He must face and conquer it. He had slid out of his situation with Lilla by letting it take its course—or had he? Was she not even now as poignant and tangible an element in his life as though he were struggling to live his daily life by her side? It passed through his mind that perhaps nothing was quite ever shoved aside or slid out of. Perhaps we always had to reckon with everything we did, sooner or later—sooner and later. That was a question of life that might be worth looking into, might make a good subject for an article for a magazine—what strange thoughts form themselves beneath the surface when we are in the middle of a tense and trying time! Patterson Greeves brushed the thoughts away impatiently and sat up. He must get these things said that he had resolved to say.
“It makes no difference what I sound like,” crisped the father, “nor by what names your school friends choose to call things. I am telling you certain facts that must be acted upon by you as long as you are under my care. They are the only basis upon which you and I can have any dealings whatever. You cannot carry things with a high hand, ignore everybody else, and overturn systems. You are not the ruler here, and you must understand it from the beginning.”
He paused and eyed her, but she gave no sign, just let her smoldering eyes rest on him sullenly, unflinchingly, the slow contempt in the upper lip continuing to grow.
“Those things being thoroughly understood and complied with on your part willingly,” he went on hurriedly, determined not to give her an opportunity to demur, “I am entirely willing to talk over your future with you and try to arrange, as far as is possible and best for you, to make such plans as will be agreeable to you. As to the school you will attend, I shall be glad to send for catalogs and let you have a part in the selection of your—”
She raised her hand imperiously.
“Stop right
there!” she demanded sharply. “If you’re banking on me being a good little girl and going to school you might as well understand that I won’t! I came here to live with you. The court said I was to be under your care, and here I’m going to stay. If you try to send me away anywhere I’ll simply run away and make you more trouble. I’d drown myself before I’d go to another boarding school. I’ve lived in boarding schools all my life and I’m done with them! You can’t shut me off that way for it can’t be done!”
A glance into her eyes showed that she fully meant every word she said, and something in her tone reminded her stubborn father that she had inherited his power of sticking to a decision. Remembering last evening, it seemed fully likely that she would carry out any threat that she might choose to make. He shuddered inwardly and began to weaken.
“Of course, if I found that you were entirely submissive and obedient it might be possible to arrange a school not far away—” Athalie arose abruptly.
“Is that all you have to say to me?” she asked in a businesslike tone. “Because I’ve got some letters to write.”
“Athalie, sit down,” he thundered, entirely unnerved, feeling that his work was all undone again.
“Not when you speak to me in that tone,” said the girl, shrugging her shoulders and raising her chin. “I suppose you call that kind of talk up to the standards of your respectable family.”
The crimson swept over her white sensitive face. Her voice was so perfectly like Lilla’s, the reply so entirely what she would have given.
“I beg your pardon, Athalie. It was not. I am very much upset this morning. I will endeavor to control my voice. Will you kindly be seated? Now, I want to ask whether you are going to be willing to be subject to my authority. If not, I must begin to take immediate steps to place you where you will be looked after in the right way. I cannot have such scenes recurring. I may as well say I will not have them. I am a busy man with important work to do, and this is utterly upsetting. Will you be a good girl and try to do right?”
His child regarded him coolly. “I don’t know whether I will or not,” she answered calmly. “It depends on how you behave. If you let me have my own way and have a good time I presume I shall—depends on what you call good. I don’t intend to be goody-goody. But if you try to bully me you’ll wish you hadn’t, that’s all. That’s what I told Lilla when I left her. I said, ‘Lilla, he may have bullied you, but he’s not going to bully me. It isn’t being done.’”
A sudden startled wonder came to him as she spoke of her mother that made him forget to listen to the arrogant ending of her sentence.
“Athalie,” he said, suddenly changing the subject, “are you aware that your mother has sailed for Europe?”
The girl gave him a look as if he had unexpectedly stabbed her, and her eyes filled up with tears, her lips trembled. She struggled for an instant with a sob, gave a slight nod of assent with her chin, and broke down with a heartrending little cry, sinking her head on her arms, her whole gaudily attired body shaking with suppressed sobs, as if the thought was too deep for sound.
Patterson Greeves stared at her for a moment uncomprehending, unable to meet this amazing phase of his most mysterious daughter, resenting her change of combat as if she had broken some rule of the game. She was not being true to type. How could he meet such an antagonist? Lilla used to cry prettily, pettedly, outrageously, to order, when she found all other weapons useless; but this was grief, genuine, deep, terrible. The grief of an uncontrolled nature. Grief of the kind he always had felt in his own troubles. Was it possible that something in his heart was stirring toward her, yearning? No. This child of Lilla deserved all she was getting—ah! but child of himself, too. Could it be possible that Lilla loved the child? If so, why had she sent her away from her? It seemed impossible that Lilla could love anything but herself. Could it be possible that the child loved Lilla? She did not seem like a loving child. But those sobs were not angry, they were hurt, stricken cries. Had Lilla been unkind to the girl? His sense of justice roused toward her. He put out a vague hand and touched her shoulder.
“Athalie, haven’t you had a—happy—life? Hasn’t your mother been good to you?” he asked hesitatingly.
She lifted a tear-stained face from behind which fires flashed in her eyes and shook his groping hand off.
“That’s none of your business,” she said. “You never tried to make it any happier, did you?”
The father sat and saw a few more of his shortcomings marched out before him in the open and swallowed hard on the sight. He, Patterson Greeves, of a respected family, had contrived to do some of the most contemptible things a man can do on earth! It was unbelievable, and yet he was beginning to believe it.
He stared at her a moment with that dazed expression coming again. It dazes most souls to really look in their own eyes and see how different they are from their fancied selves. Then he drew a deep sigh and rose, going to the window to stare out across the meadow.
“No. I don’t suppose I ever did,” he said reluctantly at last. The sobs ceased as suddenly as they had begun. There ensued a prolonged silence. Then the father added as though to himself: “I had no intention of overlooking any duty, I simply did not realize.”
Finally the girl raised her head and in quite a controlled voice said: “That’s all right, Pat, I’m here now. Forget it! We aren’t getting anywhere, and I’m going up and wash my face. If you change your mind about that golf just send me word.”
She was at the door when he wheeled around and said hesitatingly: “There’s one thing, Athalie. I wish you wouldn’t call me Pat. I don’t like it. It sounds disrespectful. It makes me ashamed. I—”
“All right, Dad, since you ask it that way, I won’t. But I like you a lot more when you’re Pat. It seems to make you more homey and understandable. Well, so long! You know where to find me!” and she flashed away like a bright-throated, naughty blue jay.
The father sat down in a chair and covered his face with his hands. The interview for which he had been all night preparing was over, and he had gone nowhere. Nothing had been accomplished, except that perhaps he himself had weakened. A sense of his own forgotten responsibility and a certain wistful turn of her voice had undone him. How was he ever to do anything with his unmanageable child?
The door suddenly opened without warning, and Athalie’s head flashed in again. “I just wanted to say, Dad, that if you take that other girl along you needn’t count me in. She and I are two people. I hate her. So don’t go to bunching us up for it won’t work, and don’t give me any more of that line about getting advice from her about clothes, see? I won’t stand for it, that’s all. If you want me to live up to your standards you’ve got to live up to mine! Understand?”
She was gone. And if she had suddenly hurled a leaden weight on her father’s heart the world could not have turned darker or his heart been more heavy. How was such a state of things ever to work out?
A soft knock on the door broke in on these thoughts, and Silver stepped inside the room dressed in coat and hat and gloves, with her suitcase in her hand.
Chapter 16
Whenever Silver came into his vision again she gave her father a start, her appearance was so much like his lost Alice.
There was something exquisite and spiritlike in her face that rested and soothed him. It was curious that the word “blessed” flitted through his mind when he thought of how she made him feel. He lifted a troubled face to greet her now, and a sick dismay stole over him as he saw the suitcase in her hand.
She put it down and came quickly over to him, her lips smiling although her eyes were grave. Her voice had a lilt of sorrow in it though she tried to make it cheerful.
“Father, I’ve thought it all out in the night,” she said, perching on the arm of his chair and putting her arm softly around his neck—just as her mother used to sit and touch his hair lightly with her fingers. He had not thought of it in a long, long time.
“You see, I’ve sort of promised
this man that I would take this position, and he has held it for me already for several days while I was getting packed up. I feel that I ought to go back right away and get to work.”
She was talking rapidly, trying to stem the tide of emotion she evidently felt, and the stricken look on his face made it no easier.
“I didn’t tell you this morning at breakfast because I didn’t want you to be disturbed by any other question till you had had your talk with Athalie. It wasn’t fair to her. But I saw her just now as she came upstairs, and I feel sure you have come to some understanding.
“Now Father, dear, please don’t try to change me.” She took the hand that he put out in protest and held it close. “Listen to me. It isn’t at all the way you are thinking. I’m not being driven away or anything. I am simply going away because I feel that is my duty. No, you’re not to talk, please, till I’m through. Listen, Father, Athalie is younger than I am, and she needs you more. You must get acquainted with her and teach her to love you. She hasn’t ever had anybody real to love her, I am sure, and I have, you know. And it isn’t as though I didn’t have you, too. It’s quite, quite different from what it was before I came. I have a father now, and I know he loves me. And we can write to each other, and that will be wonderful! And I’ll have someone to advise me—”
“Stop!” cried Patterson Greeves springing to his feet, his tortured nerves refusing to hear more. “Stop! Don’t speak of it again! I tell you I have withstood enough. You shall not go away, Silver, my Silver-Alice! I need you! I want you! You remember your grandmother told you to find out if I needed you. Well, I do! God knows I do! Do you suppose for an instant I would let the welfare of that other strange child come between us? She is nothing to me, never can be. Her mother was a viper, and she is going to be just like her! I will send her—”
Tomorrow About This Time Page 15
