Part 36 (1/2)
The blue eyes glinted with satisfaction. ”Well, you are an old maid.”
”An old maid! In other words, my purity's a joke!”
”Now, we're getting vulgar.”
”Vulgar? Have you forgotten what you said to Laura Farvel? You taunted her because she's not 'good' as you call it. And you taunt me because I am! But who is farther in the scheme of things--she or I? I envy her because she's borne a child. At least she's a woman. Nature means us to marry and have our little ones. The women who don't obey--what happens to them? The years go”--she looked away now, beyond the walls of Tottie's front-parlor, at a picture her imagining called up--”the light fades from their eyes, the gloss from their hair; they get 'peculiar.' And people laugh at them--and I don't wonder!” Then pa.s.sionately, ”Look at me! Mature! Unmarried! Childless! Where in Nature do I belong? Nowhere! I'm a freak!”
”No, my dear.” Mrs. Milo smiled derisively. ”You're a martyr.”
”Yes! To my mother.”
”Don't forget”--the well-bred voice grew shrill--”that I _am_ your mother.”
”You gave me birth. But--reproduction isn't motherhood.”
”Ah!”--mockingly. ”So I haven't loved you!”
”Oh, you've loved me,” granted Sue. ”You've loved me too much--in the wrong way. It's a mistaken love that makes a mother stand between her daughter and happiness.”
”I deny----”
”Wait!--I got the proof today! I repeat--you forgot everything you've ever stood for at the mere thought that happiness was threatening to come my way.”
Mrs. Milo's eyes widened with apprehension. Involuntarily she glanced at the hand which Farvel had lifted to kiss.
”I ought to have known that my first duty was to myself,” Sue went on bitterly; ”--to my children. But--I put away my dreams. And now! My eyes are open too late! I've found out my mistake--too late! No son--no daughter--'Momsey,' but never 'Mother.' And, oh, how my heart has craved it all--a home of my own, and someone to care for me. And my arms have ached for a baby!”
”Ha! Ha!”--Mrs. Milo found it all so ridiculous. ”A baby! Well,--why don't you have one?”
For a long moment, Sue looked at her mother without speaking. ”Oh, I know why you laugh,” she said, finally. ”I'm--I'm forty-five.
But--after today, _I'm_ going to do some laughing! I'm going to do what I please, and go where I please! I'm free! I'm free at last!”
She cried it up to the chandelier. ”From today, I'm free! This is the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation! This is the Declaration of Independence!”
Mrs. Milo moved away, smiling. At the door she turned. ”What can you do?” she asked, teasingly; ”--at _your_ age!”
Sue b.u.t.toned her coat over the bridesmaid's dress. ”What can I do?”
she repeated. ”Well, mother dear, just watch me!”
CHAPTER X
The Close was the favorite retreat of the Rectory household. In the wintertime, it was a windless, sunny spot, never without bird-life, for to it fared every sparrow of the neighborhood, knowing that the two long stone benches in the yard would be plentifully strewn with crumbs, and that no prowling cat would threaten a feathered feaster.
With the coming of spring, the small inclosure was like a chalice into which the sun poured a living stream. Here the lawn early achieved a startling greenness as well as a cutable height; here a pair of peach trees dared to put out leaves despite any p.r.o.nouncement of the calendar; and in the Close, even before open cars began their run along the near-by avenue, a swinging-couch with a shady awning was installed at one side; while opposite, beyond the sun-dial, and nearer to the drawing-room, a lawn marquee went up, to which Dora brought both breakfast and luncheon trays.
The Close, shut in on its four sides, afforded its visitors perfect privacy. The high blank wall of an office building, which had conformed its architecture to that of the Church and the other structures related to the Church, lifted on one hand to what--from the velvet square of the little yard--seemed the very sky. Directly across from the office building was the Rectory; and two windows of the drawing-room, as well as two upper windows (the window of a guest-room and the window of ”the study”) opened upon it.
One face of the Church, ivy-grown and beautified with glowing eyes of stained-gla.s.s, looked across the stretch of green to a high brick wall which shut off the sights and sounds of the somewhat narrow and fairly quiet street. It was over this wall that the peach trees waved their branches, and in the late summer dropped a portion of their fruit. And it was in this wall that there opened a certain door to the Close which was never locked--a little door, painted a gleaming white, through which the Orphanage babies came, to be laid in the great soft-quilted basket that stood on a stone block beneath a low gable-roof of stone.