K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER II

  Sidney could not remember when her Aunt Harriet had not sat at thetable. It was one of her earliest disillusionments to learn that AuntHarriet lived with them, not because she wished to, but because Sidney'sfather had borrowed her small patrimony and she was "boarding it out."Eighteen years she had "boarded it out." Sidney had been born and grownto girlhood; the dreamer father had gone to his grave, with valuablepatents lost for lack of money to renew them--gone with his faith inhimself destroyed, but with his faith in the world undiminished: for heleft his wife and daughter without a dollar of life insurance.

  Harriet Kennedy had voiced her own view of the matter, the after thefuneral, to one of the neighbors:--

  "He left no insurance. Why should he bother? He left me."

  To the little widow, her sister, she had been no less bitter, and moreexplicit.

  "It looks to me, Anna," she said, "as if by borrowing everything I hadGeorge had bought me, body and soul, for the rest of my natural life.I'll stay now until Sidney is able to take hold. Then I'm going to livemy own life. It will be a little late, but the Kennedys live a longtime."

  The day of Harriet's leaving had seemed far away to Anna Page. Sidneywas still her baby, a pretty, rather leggy girl, in her first yearat the High School, prone to saunter home with three or fourknickerbockered boys in her train, reading "The Duchess" stealthily, andbegging for longer dresses. She had given up her dolls, but she stillmade clothes for them out of scraps from Harriet's sewing-room. In theparlance of the Street, Harriet "sewed"--and sewed well.

  She had taken Anna into business with her, but the burden of thepartnership had always been on Harriet. To give her credit, she had notcomplained. She was past forty by that time, and her youth had slippedby in that back room with its dingy wallpaper covered with paperpatterns.

  On the day after the arrival of the roomer, Harriet Kennedy came down tobreakfast a little late. Katie, the general housework girl, had tieda small white apron over her generous gingham one, and was servingbreakfast. From the kitchen came the dump of an iron, and cheerfulsinging. Sidney was ironing napkins. Mrs. Page, who had taken advantageof Harriet's tardiness to read the obituary column in the morning paper,dropped it.

  But Harriet did not sit down. It was her custom to jerk her chair outand drop into it, as if she grudged every hour spent on food. Sidney,not hearing the jerk, paused with her iron in air.

  "Sidney."

  "Yes, Aunt Harriet."

  "Will you come in, please?"

  Katie took the iron from her.

  "You go. She's all dressed up, and she doesn't want any coffee."

  So Sidney went in. It was to her that Harriet made her speech:--

  "Sidney, when your father died, I promised to look after both you andyour mother until you were able to take care of yourself. That was fiveyears ago. Of course, even before that I had helped to support you."

  "If you would only have your coffee, Harriet!"

  Mrs. Page sat with her hand on the handle of the old silver-platedcoffee-pot. Harriet ignored her.

  "You are a young woman now. You have health and energy, and you haveyouth, which I haven't. I'm past forty. In the next twenty years, at theoutside, I've got not only to support myself, but to save something tokeep me after that, if I live. I'll probably live to be ninety. I don'twant to live forever, but I've always played in hard luck."

  Sidney returned her gaze steadily.

  "I see. Well, Aunt Harriet, you're quite right. You've been a saint tous, but if you want to go away--"

  "Harriet!" wailed Mrs. Page, "you're not thinking--"

  "Please, mother."

  Harriet's eyes softened as she looked at the girl

  "We can manage," said Sidney quietly. "We'll miss you, but it's time welearned to depend on ourselves."

  After that, in a torrent, came Harriet's declaration of independence.And, mixed in with its pathetic jumble of recriminations, hostility toher sister's dead husband, and resentment for her lost years, camepoor Harriet's hopes and ambitions, the tragic plea of a woman who mustsubstitute for the optimism and energy of youth the grim determinationof middle age.

  "I can do good work," she finished. "I'm full of ideas, if I could get achance to work them out. But there's no chance here. There isn't a womanon the Street who knows real clothes when she sees them. They don't evenknow how to wear their corsets. They send me bundles of hideous stuff,with needles and shields and imitation silk for lining, and when Iturn out something worth while out of the mess they think the dress isqueer!"

  Mrs. Page could not get back of Harriet's revolt to its cause. To her,Harriet was not an artist pleading for her art; she was a sister and abread-winner deserting her trust.

  "I'm sure," she said stiffly, "we paid you back every cent we borrowed.If you stayed here after George died, it was because you offered to."

  Her chin worked. She fumbled for the handkerchief at her belt. ButSidney went around the table and flung a young arm over her aunt'sshoulders.

  "Why didn't you say all that a year ago? We've been selfish, but we'renot as bad as you think. And if any one in this world is entitled tosuccess you are. Of course we'll manage."

  Harriet's iron repression almost gave way. She covered her emotion withdetails:--

  "Mrs. Lorenz is going to let me make Christine some things, and ifthey're all right I may make her trousseau."

  "Trousseau--for Christine!"

  "She's not engaged, but her mother says it's only a matter of a shorttime. I'm going to take two rooms in the business part of town, and puta couch in the backroom to sleep on."

  Sidney's mind flew to Christine and her bright future, to a trousseaubought with the Lorenz money, to Christine settled down, a marriedwoman, with Palmer Howe. She came back with an effort. Harriet had twotriangular red spots in her sallow cheeks.

  "I can get a few good models--that's the only way to start. And if youcare to do hand work for me, Anna, I'll send it to you, and pay you theregular rates. There isn't the call for it there used to be, but just atouch gives dash."

  All of Mrs. Page's grievances had worked their way to the surface. Sidneyand Harriet had made her world, such as it was, and her world was inrevolt. She flung out her hands.

  "I suppose I must do something. With you leaving, and Sidney renting herroom and sleeping on a folding-bed in the sewing-room, everything seemsupside down. I never thought I should live to see strange men running inand out of this house and carrying latch-keys."

  This in reference to Le Moyne, whose tall figure had made a hurried exitsome time before.

  Nothing could have symbolized Harriet's revolt more thoroughly than hergoing upstairs after a hurried breakfast, and putting on her hat andcoat. She had heard of rooms, she said, and there was nothing urgent inthe work-room. Her eyes were brighter already as she went out. Sidney,kissing her in the hall and wishing her luck, realized suddenly whata burden she and her mother must have been for the last few years. Shethrew her head up proudly. They would never be a burden again--never, aslong as she had strength and health!

  By evening Mrs. Page had worked herself into a state bordering onhysteria. Harriet was out most of the day. She came in at three o'clock,and Katie gave her a cup of tea. At the news of her sister's condition,she merely shrugged her shoulders.

  "She'll not die, Katie," she said calmly. "But see that Miss Sidney eatssomething, and if she is worried tell her I said to get Dr. Ed."

  Very significant of Harriet's altered outlook was this casual summoningof the Street's family doctor. She was already dealing in largerfigures. A sort of recklessness had come over her since the morning.Already she was learning that peace of mind is essential to successfulendeavor. Somewhere Harriet had read a quotation from a Persian poet;she could not remember it, but its sense had stayed with her: "Whatthough we spill a few grains of corn, or drops of oil from the cruse?These be the price of peace."

  So Harriet, having spilled oil from her cruse in the shape of Dr. Ed,departed blit
hely. The recklessness of pure adventure was in her blood.She had taken rooms at a rental that she determinedly put out of hermind, and she was on her way to buy furniture. No pirate, fitting outa ship for the highways of the sea, ever experienced more guilty anddelightful excitement.

  The afternoon dragged away. Dr. Ed was out "on a case" and might not bein until evening. Sidney sat in the darkened room and waved a fan overher mother's rigid form.

  At half after five, Johnny Rosenfeld from the alley, who worked for aflorist after school, brought a box of roses to Sidney, and departedgrinning impishly. He knew Joe, had seen him in the store. Soon thealley knew that Sidney had received a dozen Killarney roses at threedollars and a half, and was probably engaged to Joe Drummond.

  "Dr. Ed," said Sidney, as he followed her down the stairs, "can youspare the time to talk to me a little while?"

  Perhaps the elder Wilson had a quick vision of the crowded officewaiting across the Street; but his reply was prompt:

  "Any amount of time."

  Sidney led the way into the small parlor, where Joe's roses, refused bythe petulant invalid upstairs, bloomed alone.

  "First of all," said Sidney, "did you mean what you said upstairs?"

  Dr. Ed thought quickly.

  "Of course; but what?"

  "You said I was a born nurse."

  The Street was very fond of Dr. Ed. It did not always approve of him.It said--which was perfectly true--that he had sacrificed himself to hisbrother's career: that, for the sake of that brilliant young surgeon,Dr. Ed had done without wife and children; that to send him abroadhe had saved and skimped; that he still went shabby and drove the oldbuggy, while Max drove about in an automobile coupe. Sidney, not atall of the stuff martyrs are made of, sat in the scented parlor and,remembering all this, was ashamed of her rebellion.

  "I'm going into a hospital," said Sidney.

  Dr. Ed waited. He liked to have all the symptoms before he made adiagnosis or ventured an opinion. So Sidney, trying to be cheerful, andquite unconscious of the anxiety in her voice, told her story.

  "It's fearfully hard work, of course," he commented, when she hadfinished.

  "So is anything worth while. Look at the way you work!"

  Dr. Ed rose and wandered around the room.

  "You're too young."

  "I'll get older."

  "I don't think I like the idea," he said at last. "It's splendid workfor an older woman. But it's life, child--life in the raw. As we getalong in years we lose our illusions--some of them, not all, thank God.But for you, at your age, to be brought face to face with things asthey are, and not as we want them to be--it seems such an unnecessarysacrifice."

  "Don't you think," said Sidney bravely, "that you are a poor person totalk of sacrifice? Haven't you always, all your life--"

  Dr. Ed colored to the roots of his straw-colored hair.

  "Certainly not," he said almost irritably. "Max had genius; Ihad--ability. That's different. One real success is better than twohalves. Not"--he smiled down at her--"not that I minimize my usefulness.Somebody has to do the hack-work, and, if I do say it myself, I'm apretty good hack."

  "Very well," said Sidney. "Then I shall be a hack, too. Of course, I hadthought of other things,--my father wanted me to go to college,--but I'mstrong and willing. And one thing I must make up my mind to, Dr. Ed; Ishall have to support my mother."

  Harriet passed the door on her way in to a belated supper. The man inthe parlor had a momentary glimpse of her slender, sagging shoulders,her thin face, her undisguised middle age.

  "Yes," he said, when she was out of hearing. "It's hard, but I dare sayit's right enough, too. Your aunt ought to have her chance. Only--I wishit didn't have to be."

  Sidney, left alone, stood in the little parlor beside the roses. Shetouched them tenderly, absently. Life, which the day before had calledher with the beckoning finger of dreams, now reached out grim insistenthands. Life--in the raw.