Part 29 (1/2)

The idea that Mr. Saychase has been thinking of me as a possible helpmate is certainly ludicrous. I believe thoroughly any girl should ”thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love,” but in this case I do not see how love comes into the question at all. I cannot help feeling that he would intellectually be the sort of a husband to put into a quart-pot, there to bid him drum, and at least he will lose no sleep from a blighted pa.s.sion for me. Certainly I should be intellectually starved if I had to live with him. He is not naturally a man of much power of thinking, I suppose, and he has never cultivated the habit. One cannot help seeing that whatever his original capabilities they have been spoiled by his profession. A minister, Father said to me once, must either be so spiritual that his creed has no power to restrain him, or a poor crippled thing, pathetic because the desire of rising has made him hamper himself with vows. I think I understand what he meant, and I am afraid Mr. Saychase is of the latter sort: a man who meant well, and so pledged himself always to cling to the belief the church had made for him, no matter what higher light might come into his life. He is to be pitied,--though he would not understand why. He could hardly care for anybody so far from his way of thinking as I am, so old lady Andrews cannot be right there.

July 25. George is having his house enlarged. Mrs. Weston is certainly energetic, with what is perhaps a Western energy. She has been married only about four months. George told me the other day that he meant to make the house larger.

”Gertrude wants a bigger parlor,” he explained, rather ill at ease, I thought. ”The house is big enough for me, but when a man has a wife things are different.”

There was a labored playfulness in his manner which troubled me. He has bought a phaeton and pony for her. I hope that he is not going beyond his means. As for a larger parlor, I am afraid that Mrs. Weston will have to fill it with rather odd people.

July 27. Kathie has shown a new side to her character which troubles me.

It is all, I suppose, part of her morbid, unhinged condition, but it is unpleasant. She has conceived a violent jealousy of baby. She refuses to stay in the house if I have Thomasine with me. This afternoon I had sent for her to come over and stay to tea. She came in about five, with a wild look in her eyes which she has almost all the time now. She sat down without saying anything, and began to pull the roses in a bowl on the table to pieces, scattering the petals on the floor.

I laughingly told her that she evidently thought she was in the woods where roses grew wild and there were no rugs. Instead of answering me, or apologizing, she looked at me strangely, and for a moment said nothing.

”Are you going to have baby brought down here this afternoon?” she demanded at last.

I said Tomine was out with Rosa, but that I expected them in soon, as it was almost time for baby's supper.

”Will she come in here?” Kathie asked.

”Oh, yes,” was my reply. ”You will see her. Never fear.”

”Then I may as well go home now,” observed this astounding child, rising, and going deliberately toward the door.

”What in the world do you mean?” I cried out, completely taken by astonishment.

”I never will stay in the room with her again,” Kathie responded emphatically. ”I just hate her!”

I could only stare at her.

”You're all taken up with her now,” Kathie continued. ”You used to like me, but now it's all that baby. I'm much obliged to you for inviting me to supper, but I can't stay any longer if she's coming.”

If anybody could make me understand whether Kathie is sane or not I should have more confidence in attempting to deal with her. To-day I felt as if I were dealing with a mad creature, and that it was idle to try to do anything. It seemed to me it would be a pity to treat the matter too seriously, and I tried to act as if I thought she was merely joking. I laughingly told her that the idea was one of the funniest I ever heard, and that we must tell baby when she came in, to see if we could make the small person laugh. Kathie received my remarks with unmoved seriousness.

”It isn't a joke at all, Miss Ruth,” she said, with an uncanny air which was most uncomfortable, but which in some indefinable way gave me for the first time in all my dealings with the girl a sort of hint that she was partly acting. ”It is just my wicked heart. I hate”--

I interrupted her briskly.

”Your wicked fiddlesticks, Kathie!” I said. ”Don't talk nonsense. What time has been settled on for the church fair?”

She was so taken aback that she had no defense ready, and after a sort of gasp of amazement she answered my question, and said no more about her wickedness. Baby came in with Rosa, and Kathie behaved as usual, only I remember now that she did not offer to touch Tomine. I went upstairs for a moment with Rosa and baby to see if everything was right, and when I went back to the parlor my guest had taken herself off. She had gone without her supper as she had said she should. I confess my first feeling was that she needed to be soundly shaken; but after all when a child is morbidly wrong in her feelings the particular way in which she shows it is not of much consequence. Perhaps she had better be expending her distempered mood on jealousy of baby than on religion. The question is what I had better do; and I confess I do not know how to answer it.

July 28. Mr. Saychase has made his purpose and his ideas entirely clear, and I wish I could think of them with less inclination to laugh. If he could for a single minute know how funny he was, it would do him more good than anything I can think of as likely to happen to him.

He came to call to-night, and so evident was his air of excitement that even Rosa must have noticed it; she was all significant smiles when she ushered him in. I tried to talk about commonplace things, but could get practically no response. For half an hour by the clock we went stumbling on with intervals of silence when I could think of nothing except that I must say something. At last he cleared his throat with a manner so desperate and determined that I knew something dreadful was coming.

”Miss Privet,” he said, ”I thought I would mention to you that I came to-night for a particular purpose.”

It came over me with a sickening sense that old lady Andrews was right, and that it was too late to stop him. I did make a desperate effort to interpose, but he had at last got started, and would not be stayed.