Part 15 (1/2)
Indeed she would not, either in his eyes or in those of any other man capable of appreciating womanly grace. Genuine beauty is a rare and wonderful gift, and, like genius, triumphs over adverse circ.u.mstances, and is often enhanced by them. Even prosaic Mrs.
Wheaton was compelled to pause from time to time to admire the slender, supple form whose perfect outlines were revealed by the stooping, twisting, and reaching required by the nature of the labor. But the varying expressions of her face, revealing a mind as active as the busy hands, were a richer study. The impact of her brush was vigorous, and with looks of aversion and disgust she would cleanse away the grimy stains as if they were an essential part of the moral as well as gross material life of the former occupants. To a refined nature a.s.sociation forms no slight element in the const.i.tution of a home; and horrible conjectures concerning repulsive indications of the vulgar people who once kennelled where others would live decently and purely are among the manifold miseries of tenement life. In spite of all her will-power, Mildred shuddered, and shrank from even this remote contact with a phase of humanity peculiarly revolting to her, and the protest of her innate delicacy would often appear strongly upon her face.
”The worst of it is,” she muttered, ”that soap and water cannot blot out thoughts of the people who were here before us.”
But thoughts of other people, some of whom were very dear to her, brought varying expressions, and once she smiled and said to herself, ”Roger Atwood now thinks, no doubt, that in me he has seen another 'ghost of a woman,' weighing a little less than 'two hundred.' Of all my little affairs of that nature, his was the most preposterous and absurd. That one human being should expect and seek from another what is so impossible to give produces a certain half-humorous irritation that is indescribable.”
Stout Mrs. Wheaton's mind and fancy were not so busy as her hands, and when twelve o'clock came she knew the hour, although carrying no watch. She had interrupted Mildred's musings from time to time, but had received rather absent replies, for the actual inception of a life of toil occasioned many thoughts.
When, however, the practical woman remarked, ”I've a hinside 'int that hit's time we took a bite together,” Mildred awakened to an honest and hungry approval of the suggestion.
”I don't like to intrude upon you, Mrs. Wheaton,” she said. ”Isn't there some place near where I can go?”
”Hindeed there his--right down to my room, hif ye're not habove my company. I can brew yer has good a cup o' tea has hany cook in the land, and we'll find somethin' nouris.h.i.+n' to go vith hit.”
”Mrs. Wheaton, you are a genuine friend. I'm so glad you were here and willing to help me, for you make me feel safer and more hopeful. You seem brave and not afraid of being poor, and I want to learn your courage. So far from being above your company, I am very grateful for it, and I shall try to repay your kindness with like neighborly return when I can; but when it comes to actual expense you must let me pay my way. How is it you are so brave and cheery when, as you say, you are alone with several children to support?”
”I'll tell yer vhile we heat hour dinner; so lock the door and come vith me.”
Mrs. Wheaton's room was plain, indeed, but neat and homelike. A variegated and much-patched carpet covered part of the floor, which was bare around the ample cooking-stove, whereon a wholesome dinner soon smoked with appetizing odors. Her daughter, a young girl about twelve years of age, a.s.sisted in the preparations, and then went to call the other children, who were playing on the sidewalk.
'”Ow is it I'm so brave and cheery?” Mrs. Wheaton at last answered with a suns.h.i.+ny smile. ”I've a stout pair hof harms, I've a stout body, and I've a downright belief that the Lord means veil by me and mine. I'm try in' to do my best, and hit's 'is biziness to take care hof the rest. Hand 'E 'as so far. I've been a bit 'ungry meself now and then, but the children halways 'ad enough. So I vork and trust and lose no time and strength ha-vorrying. Things'll all come hout right some day; and I've no time to be doin' the Lord's vork bin carryin' the burden hon my shoulders, hif they are broad.
'Ere's the children; now sit right down vith hus, and velcome. Since we're neighbors we'll be neighborly and friendly like; and before yer know hit, yer'll be snug and comfortable hin your hown rooms, and yer can be jist as 'appy bin 'em has hever yer vas him yer life. Bein' poor and 'aving to vork hain't the vorst troubles in the vorld.”
The good woman's stout, cheery spirit and homely faith were just the tonics that Mildred needed, and they were all the more effective because combined with the exhilarating tea and wholesome food.
Therefore instead of a weary and depressing day, in which body and spirit acted and reacted on each other until the evening brought shadows deeper than the night, her courage and cheerfulness grew with the hours of sustained and healthful toil, and when her father appeared at six o'clock her smile warmed his heart. At the cost of no slight effort he had so reduced his doses of morphia that neither she nor any one could have detected anything unnatural in his manner. He praised their work unstintedly, and thanked Mrs.
Wheaton for her kindness with such warm Southern frankness that her eyes grew moist with gratification. Indeed the rooms had grown so clean and wholesome that Mr. Jocelyn said that they looked homelike already. Mrs. Wheaton a.s.sured Mildred that if she would be content, she could be made quite comfortable on a lounge in her large living-room, and the young girl won her heart completely by saying that she would rather stay with her than go to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Her words were sincere, for in accordance with her nature her heart was already drawn toward the place which gave even promise of a home, and the hearty kindness received there made her shrink from the strange, indifferent world without.
Her father asked her to resume her travelling dress, and then by a street-car they soon reached a quiet restaurant near Central Park, from which the outlook was upon trees and shrubbery. The people of New York are singularly fortunate in their ability to reach, at slight expense of money and time, many places where the air is pure, and the sense of beauty can find abundant gratification. Mildred felt that only extreme poverty could rob them in summer of many simple yet genuine pleasures. When, after their frugal supper, she and her father strolled through a path winding around a miniature lake on which swans were floating, she believed that one of her chief fears might be unfounded. Her love of beauty need not be stifled, since there was so much, even in the crowded town, which could be seen without cost.
”Papa,” she said, ”our lives will not be meagre and colorless unless we make them so. Every tree and shrub--indeed every leaf upon them and every ripple on the water--seems beautiful to me this evening.
I do not fear working hard if we can often have these inexpensive pleasures. The thing in poverty that has most troubled me was the fear that one's nature might become blunted, callous, and unresponsive.
A starved soul and heart seem to me infinitely worse than a starved body. Thank G.o.d, this beautiful place is as free to us now as ever, and I think we enjoy it more than many of those people in yonder carriages. Then at the cost of a few pennies we can get many a breezy outlook, and fill our lungs with fresh air on the ferryboats. So don't let us be downhearted, papa, and mope while we are waiting for better days. Each day may bring us something that we can enjoy with honest zest.”
”G.o.d bless you, Millie,” replied her father. ”We'll try to do just as you suggest.” Nevertheless he sighed deeply. She was free; he was a slave. In the depths of the placid lake the graceful swans, the pretty wooded sh.o.r.es, were faithfully reflected. In Mildred's clear blue eyes the truth of her words, the goodness and sincerity of her heart, were revealed with equal certainty. His eyes were downcast and fixed on an abyss which no soul has ever fathomed.
”Great G.o.d!” he murmured, ”I must escape; I shall--I WILL escape;”
but while Mildred stepped into a florist's shop to purchase a blooming plant for Mrs. Wheaton, he furtively took from his pocket a small paper of white-looking powder--just the amount which experience had taught him he could take and not betray himself.
As a result she was delighted to find him genial and wakeful until they parted rather late in the old mansion wherein, she jestingly said, she proposed to build their nest, like a barn-swallow, the following day.
After a brief consultation with Mrs. Wheaton the next morning Mildred told her father to send for the rest of the family at once, and that she would be ready for them. The household goods arrived promptly from their place of storage, and she was positively happy while transforming the bare rooms into a home that every hour grew more inviting. They had retained, when giving up their house in the spring, more furniture than was sufficient for the limited s.p.a.ce they would now occupy, and Mildred had enough material and taste to banish the impression of poverty almost wholly from their two rooms.
She had the good sense, also, to make the question of appearances always secondary to that of comfort, and rigorously excluded what was bulky and unnecessary. ”I don't like crowded rooms,” she said, ”and mamma must have just as little to care for and tax her strength as possible.” One side of the large room was part.i.tioned off as a sleeping apartment for her father, mother, and the two children, and was made private by curtains of dark, inexpensive material. The remainder and larger part facing the east was to be kitchen, dining and living room. Mrs. Wheaton did the heavy work, and looked on in delighted wonder as the young girl, with a gift peculiarly her own, gave an air of grace and homelike coziness to every part. Hers was a true woman's touch in woman's undisputed realm, and her father, with strange alternations of sighs and smiles, a.s.sisted her after his return from business. Gas had never been introduced in the old house, and so two pretty shaded lamps were bought. One stood on the lofty, old-fas.h.i.+oned mantel, which was so high that Mildred could pa.s.s under it without stooping, and the other on the table that was to serve for many uses.
”If we should put a crane in the fireplace,” Mr. Jocelyn dreamily mused, ”I could imagine that we were at my old home in the South;”
but she had said they could not afford that amount of sentiment, and therefore a stove was obtained of the same model that shrewd Mrs. Wheaton had found so well adapted to varied uses.
After two busy days their task was wellnigh completed, and Mildred slept in her own little room, which she was to share with Belle, and her weariness, and the sense that the resting-place was hers by honest right, brought dreamless and refres.h.i.+ng sleep. For the sake of ”auld lang syne,” her father kindled a fire on the hearth, and sat brooding over it, looking regretfully back into the past, and with distrustful eyes toward the future. The dark commercial outlook filled that future with many uncertain elements; and yet, alas! he felt that he himself was becoming the chief element of uncertainty in the problem of their coming life. There were times when he could distinguish between his real prospects and his vague opium dreams, but this power of correct judgment was pa.s.sing from him. When not under the influence of the drug everything looked dull, leaden, and hopeless. Thus he alternated between utter dejection, for which there would have been no cause were he in his normal condition, and sanguine hopes and expectations that were still more baseless. He had not gone to a physician and made known his condition, as he had intended while on his brief visit to the country; his pride had revolted at such a confession of weakness, and he felt that surely he would have sufficient strength of mind to break the spell unaided. But, so far from breaking it, every day had increased its power.