Part 9 (1/2)
Genevieve often told her girl friends that she only began really to live after five, when George was restored to her. She a.s.sured them the psychical connection between George and herself was so close that, sitting alone in her drawing-room, she could feel a tingling thrill all over when the clock struck five and George emerged from his office downtown.
On the afternoon in question she received her five o'clock electric thrill promptly on time, although history does not record whether or not George walked out from his office at that moment. With all due respect for the world-shaking importance of Mr. Remington's movements, it must be stated that history had, on that afternoon, other more important events to chronicle.
As the clock struck five, the front doorbell rang. Marie, the maid, went to open the door. Genevieve adjusted the down-sweeping, golden-brown tress over her right eye, brushed an invisible speck from the piano, straightened a rose in a vase, and after these traditionally bridal preparations, waited with a bride's optimistic smile the advent of a caller. But it was Marie who appeared at the door, with a stricken face of horror.
”Mrs. Remington! Mrs. Remington!” she whispered loudly. ”They've come to stay. The men are getting their trunks down from the wagon.”
”_Who_ has come to stay? _Where?_” queried the startled bride.
”The two ladies who came to call yesterday!”
”_Oh!_” said the relieved Genevieve. ”There's some mistake, of course.
If it's Cousin Emelene and Mrs.----”
She advanced into the hall and was confronted by two burly men with a very large trunk between them.
”Which room?” said one of them in a bored and insolent voice.
”Oh, you must have come to the wrong house,” Genevieve a.s.sured them with her pretty, friendly smile.
She was so happy and so convinced of the essential rightness of a world which had produced George Remington that she had a friendly smile for every one, even for unshaven men who kept their battered derby hats on their heads, had viciously smelling cigars in their mouths, and penetrated to her sacred front hall with trunks which belonged somewhere else.
”Isn't this G. L. Remington's house?” inquired one of the men, dropping his end of the trunk and consulting a dirty slip of paper.
”Yes, it is,” admitted Genevieve, thrilling at the thought that it was also hers. ”This is the place all right, then,” said the man. He heaved up his end of the trunk again, and said once more, ”Which room?”
The repet.i.tion fell a little ominously on Genevieve's ear. What on earth could be the matter?
She heard voices outside and craning her soft white neck, she saw Cousin Emelene, with her gray kitten under one arm and a large suitcase in her other hand, coming up the steps. There was a beatific expression in her gentle, faded eyes, and her lips were quivering uncertainly. When she caught sight of Genevieve's sweet face back of the bored expressmen, she gave a little cry, ran forward, set down her suitcase and clasped her young cousin in her arms.
”Oh Genevieve dear, that n.o.ble wonderful husband of yours! What have you done to deserve such a man... out of this Age of Gold!”
This was a sentiment after Genevieve's own heart, but she found it rather too vague to meet the present somewhat tense situation.
Cousin Emelene went on, clasping her at intervals, and talking very fast. ”I can hardly believe it! Now that my time of trial is all over I don't mind telling you that I was growing embittered and cynical. All those phrases my dear mother had brought me to believe, the sanct.i.ty of the home, the chivalrous protection of men, the wicked folly of women who leave the home to engage in fierce industrial struggle.”... At about this point the expressmen set the trunk down, put their hands on their hips, c.o.c.ked their hats at a new angle and waited in gloomy ennui for the conversation to stop. Cousin Emelene flowed on, her voice unsteady with a very real emotion.
”See, dear, you must not blame me for my lack of faith... but see how it looked to me. There I was, as womanly a woman as ever breathed, and yet _I_ had no home to be sanctified, _I_ had never had a bit of chivalrous protection from any man. And with the New Haven stocks shrinking from one day to the next, the way they do, it looked as though I would either have to starve or engage in the wicked, unwomanly folly of earning my own living. Do you know, dear Genevieve, I had almost come to the point--you know how the suffragists do keep banging away at their points--I almost wondered if perhaps they were right and if men really mean those things about protection and support in place of the vote....
And then George's splendid, n.o.ble-spirited article appeared, and a kind friend interpreted it for me and told what it really meant, for _me_!
Oh, Genevieve.”... The tears rose to her mild eyes, her gentle, flat voice faltered, she took out a handkerchief hastily. ”It seemed too good to be true,” she said brokenly into its folds. ”I've longed all my life to be protected, and now I'm going to be!”
”Which room, please?” said the expressman. ”We gotta be goin' on.”
Genevieve pinched herself hard, jumped and said ”_ouch_.” Yes, she was awake, all right!
”Oh, Marie, will you please get Hanna a saucer of milk?” said Cousin Emelene now, seeing the maid's round eyes glaring startled from the dining-room door. ”And just warm it a little bit, don't scald it. She won't touch it if there's the least bit of a sc.u.m on it. Just take that ice-box chill off. Here, I'll go with you this time. Since we're going to live here now, you'll have to do it a good many times, and I'd better show you just how to do it right.”
She disappeared, leaving a trail of caressing baby-talk to the effect that she would take good care of muvver's ittie bittie kittie.
She left Genevieve for all practical purposes turned to stone. She felt as though she were stone, from head to foot, and she could open her mouth no more than any statue when, in answer to the next repet.i.tion, very peremptory now, of ”Which room?” a voice as peremptory called from the open front door, ”Straight upstairs; turn to your right, first door on the left.”
As the men started forward, banging the mahogany banisters with the corners of the trunk at every step, Mrs. Brewster-Smith stepped in, immaculate as to sheer collar and cuffs, crisp and tailored as to suit, waved and netted as to hair, and chilled steel and diamond point as to will-power.