Kitabı oku: «Rose of Dutcher's Coolly», sayfa 5

"Nice day, ain't it? Live in Madison?"

"No, sir," she replied, looking away. She did not want to say more, but some power made her add, "I am going to school there."

He seemed pleased.

"Ah, hah! Going to the university?"

"Yes, sir."

"O, I see." He put his knee against the back of the seat in front of her and took an easy position.

"It's a nice town. Wish I could stop off and help you find a boarding-place."

The brakeman, coming through, winked at the conductor as if to say: "I like your 'mash,'" and the terror and shame of her position flashed over Rose, flushing her from head to foot. Her eyes filled with angry tears, and she looked out of the window, not knowing what to do. She was so helpless here, for she was out in the world alone.

The conductor went on serenely, knowing well how scared and angry she was.

"Yes, sir; it's a fine little town. Great place for boating, summer or winter. You'll see a hundred ice-boats out on Monona there all at once. I've got a cousin there who has a boat. He'd be glad to take you out if I'd tell him about you."

"I don't want to know him," she said, in what she intended to be a fierce tone, but which was a pitifully scared tone.

The conductor saw the brakeman looking at him and in order to convey the impression that he was getting on nicely he bent forward and looked around into her face.

"O, you'd like him first rate."

Rose would have screamed, or burst out into some wild action had not the engine whistled. This gave the conductor an excuse to give the talk up for the moment.

"She's a daisy and as green as grass," he said to the brakeman. Her innocence seemed to place her in his hand.

For the next hour they persecuted the girl with their low presences. First one and then the other came along the aisle and sat down beside her. And when she put her valise there, blocking the seat, the brakeman sat on the armrest and tormented her with questions to which she gave no answer.

Just after Pine City she heard a cool, firm woman's voice ask: "May I sit with you?"

She looked up and made room for a handsome, middle-aged woman, in a neat traveling dress.

"It's a shame!" she said. "I've just got in, but I saw at once how those men were torturing you. Strange no one in the car could see it and take your part."

Rose turned to her gratefully, and laid her head on the lady's stalwart shoulder.

"There, there, no harm done! You must learn to expect such things from some men. It would be libelous on the brutes to call them beasts." She said a great many things which Rose hardly understood, but her presence was strong and helpful. Rose liked her very much.

"How far are you going?"

Rose told her in a few words.

"Ah, are you? You could not have made a better choice. Who sends you there – pardon me?"

"Dr. Thatcher."

"Dr. Thatcher! Well, well, how things come about. I know the Doctor very well."

"Do you? I'm going to live there for a while."

Rose was smiling now.

"Well, you couldn't be more fortunate. You'll get into the most progressive home in the city."

From this on they had a royal good time. Rose grew happier than she had been for weeks. There was something strangely masterful about this woman in spite of her sweet smile and soft gray eyes.

When the conductor came down the aisle again she met his eye with a keen, stern glance.

"Young man, I shall have you discharged from this road."

The astonished cur took her card, and when he read the name of a famous woman lawyer of Milwaukee his face fell.

"I didn't mean any harm."

"I know better. I shall see Mr. Millet, and see that he makes an example of you."

Rose was awed by her calm and commanding voice.

"It has been our boast that our girls could travel from east to west in our broad land, and be safe from insult, and I'm not going to let such a thing pass."

She returned to her grave sweet mood presently, and began to talk of other things.

As they neared the town where they were to part company, the elder woman said:

"Now, my dear, I am to get off here. I may never see you again, but I think I shall. You interest me very much. I am likely to be in Madison during the year, and if I do I will see you. I am getting old though, and things of this life are uncertain to us with gray hair. I like that forehead on you, it tells me you are not to be a victim to the first man who lays his hand on you. Let me give one last word of advice. Don't marry till you are thirty. Choose a profession and work for it. Marry only when you want to be a mother."

She rose. "You don't understand what I mean now, but keep my words in your mind. Some day you will comprehend all I mean – good-bye." Rose was tearful as Mrs. Spencer kissed her and moved away.

Rose saw her on the steps and waved her hand back at her as the train drew away. Her presence had been oppressive in spite of her kindness, and her last words filled the girl's mind with vague doubts of life and of men. Everything seemed forcing her thoughts of marriage to definiteness. Her sex was so emphasized, so insisted upon by this first day's experience in the world, that she leaned her head against the window and cried out: "O, I wish I was dead."

But the train shot round the low green hills fringed with the glorious foliage of the maples, the lake sparkled in the afternoon's sun, the dome of the capitol building loomed against the sky, and the romance and terror of her entry into the world came back to her, driving out her more morbid emotions. She became again the healthy country girl to whom Madison was a center of art and society and literature.

CHAPTER IX
ROSE ENTERS MADISON

The train drew up to a long platform swarming with people, moving anxiously about with valises in hand, broad-hatted and kindly; many of them were like the people of the coulé. But the young hackmen terrified her with their hard, bold eyes and cruel, tobacco-stained mouths.

She alighted from the car, white and tremulous with fear, and her eyes moved about anxiously. When they fell upon Thatcher the blood gushed up over her face, and her eyes filled with tears of relief.

"Ah, here you are!" he said with a smile, as he shook her hand and took her valise. "I began to fear you'd been delayed."

She followed him to the carriage with down-cast eyes. Her regard for him would not permit her to say a word, even when they were seated together in the carriage and driving up the street. Her breath came so quick and strange the Doctor noticed it.

"A little bit excited about it, aren't you?" he smilingly said. "I remember how I felt when I went to Chicago the first time. I suppose this seems like Chicago to you. How did you leave the people in the coulé, all well?"

"Yes, sir," she replied without looking up.

"Well, now you are about to begin work. I've got everything all arranged. You are to stay with us for the present at least. My niece is with us and you will get along famously I know. How do you like my horse?" he asked, in his effort to get her to speak.

She studied the horse critically.

"First rate!" she said at last.

He laughed. "Well, I am glad you like him, for I know you are a judge. He is a pretty good stepper, too, though he hasn't quite enough fling in his knees, you notice. I'll let you drive him some time."

He drew up before a pretty cottage, set in the midst of a neat lawn. It was discouragingly fine and handsome to the girl. She was afraid it was too good for her to enter.

A very blonde young girl came dancing out to the block.

"O Uncle Joe, did Rose – " Rose suddenly appeared.

"This is Rose. Rose, this is our little chatter-box."

"Now, Uncle Joe! Come right in, Rose. I'm going to call you Rose, mayn't I?"

Mrs. Thatcher, a tall thin woman, welcomed Rose in sober fashion, and led the way into the little parlor, which seemed incredibly elegant to the shy girl.

She sat silently while the rest moved about her. There was a certain dignity in this reserve, and both Mrs. Thatcher and Josie were impressed by it. She was larger and handsomer than either of them and that gave her an advantage, though she did not realize that. She was comparing in swift, disparaging fashion her heavy boots with their dainty soft shoes, and wondering what she could do to escape from them.

"Josie, take her right up to her room," said Mrs. Thatcher, "and let her get ready for dinner."

"Yes, come up, you must feel like a good scrub."

Rose flushed again, wondering if her face had grown grimy enough to be noticeable.

The young girl led Rose into a pretty room with light green walls, and lovely curtains at the windows. There were two dainty little beds occupying opposite corners.

"We're to occupy this room together," said Josie. "This is my dressing case and that's yours."

Rose saw at once Josie had given her the best one. Josie bustled about helping her lay off her things, pouring water for her and talking on with gleeful flow.

"I'm awful glad you've come. I know we'll be just as thick! I wish you were in my classes though, but you won't be, so Doctor says. Don't you think this is a nice room?"

Rose washed her hands as quickly as possible because they looked so big and dingy beside the supple whiteness of Josephine's. She felt dusty and coarse and hopeless in the midst of this exquisite room, the most beautiful room she had ever seen.

Her eyes moving about fell upon a picture which had the gleam of white limbs in it. Josephine followed her look: "O, that's young Samson choking the lion. I just love that; isn't he lovely?"

Rose blushed and tried to answer but could not. The beautiful splendid limbs of the young man flamed upon her with marvelous appeal. It was beautiful, and yet her training made her think it somehow not to be talked about.

Josephine led the way downstairs into the little parlor, which was quite as uncomfortably beautiful as the bedroom. The vases and flowers, and simple pictures, and the piano, all seemed like the furnishings of the homes she had read about in stories.

But dazed as she was she kept her self-command, at least she kept silence and sat in sombre, almost sullen dejection amid it all. Mrs. Thatcher hardly knew what to think of her, but the Doctor comprehended her mood better for he had passed through such experiences himself. He talked to her for a few minutes about her plans, and then they went out to dinner.

Rose entered the dining-room with a great fear in her heart. She longed to run away and hide.

"O I don't know anything!" was the bitter cry welling up in her throat again and again, and she nearly cried out upon the impulse.

The Doctor liked to have his dinner at one, and so Rose found two knives, and two forks at her plate, and two spoons also. She had read in stories of banquets, and she saw that this was to be her greatest trial. She sat very stiff and silent as the soup was brought on by the Norwegian girl.

She took the plate as it was handed her, and handed back the one which was turned down with the napkin on top of it. The Norwegian girl smiled broadly and handed them both back. Then Rose saw her mistake and the hot blood swept over her brown face in a purple wave.

The Doctor and his wife passed it in silence. Josie fortunately was talking to the cat and did not see it.

Rose could hardly touch her soup, which was delicious; her whole mind was filled with a desire to escape as soon as possible.

Which of the knives should she use first, and what was the extra little plate for, were the disturbing questions. She could use a fork, but she was afraid of betraying herself in the minutiæ of the service. As a matter of fact she got along very well, but of that she had no knowledge.

Some way she lived through the dainty dinner, scarcely tasting anything of it. At the close of it Mrs. Thatcher said:

"Wouldn't you like to lie down for a little while? aren't you tired?" Rose hardly knew what weariness was, but she assented because she wished to be alone.

"I'll call you at three, may I?" asked Josie, who was wildly in love with Rose already.

"O, isn't she big and splendid, but she's queer," she said when she came down.

"That'll wear off," said the Doctor. "She feels a little strange now. I know all about it. I went from a farm to the city."

Rose hardly dared lie down on the spotless bed. A latent good taste in her enabled her to see in every detail harmony of effect, and herself as the one discordant note in the house. O, how dirty and rough and awkward she was!

Looking out of the window she saw a couple of ladies come out of a large house opposite and walk down toward a carriage which waited at the gate. The ladies held their dresses with a dainty action of their gloved hands as they stood for a moment in consultation. (How graceful their hats were!) Then they entered the carriage.

As they gathered their soft dresses about their limbs and stooped to enter the door, the flexile line of waist and hip and thigh came out beautifully, modestly.

They were a revelation of elegance and grace to the farmer's daughter. Their gaiters were of the same color as their dresses. This was most wonderful of all. Such unity and completeness of attire was unknown to her before. She looked down at her red dress, which Mattie Teel had cut out for her, and she saw it in all its deformity. The sleeves didn't fit like Josie's did. It didn't hang right; it just wrinkled all around her waist, and hung in bunches, and she knew it. And her hat, made over from her last winter's hat, was awful.

She might just as well die or go back home, and never go out of the coulé again. She was nothing but a great country gawk, anyway.

In this bitter fashion she raged on, lying face downward on the sofa. She lay there until she heard dancing steps, and Josie called out: "May I come in?"

"Yes," said Rose coldly.

"O, you've been having a good cry, I know! I just like to go off and have a good cry that way. It makes your eyes red, but you can fix that. Just sit still now and let me see what I can do."

She bustled about and Rose let her bathe her face with cool water and cologne, and fuss about. Her little fingers were like a baby's and she murmured and gurgled in the goodness of her heart like a kitten. Rose actually fell asleep under her touch.

Josie stopped astonished and startled for a moment, and then tip-toed out of the room like a burglar, and told Mrs. Thatcher all about it.

"And O, auntie, she's very poor, isn't she? Her clothes – "

"Tut," warned Mrs. Thatcher, "you must be careful not to notice that. Edward, is she so very poor?"

The Doctor, seated at his desk in the little office, looked up a moment.

"No, I don't think so. It is lack of judgment partially. A little tact and taste will fix her all right. Dutcher is fairly well-to-do, and she is all he has. He wrote me to get her what she needed, but I'll leave that to you girls."

Josie danced with delight. Buying things for yourself was fun, but buying for another was ecstasy!

"The poor child hasn't a dress that she can wear without alteration, and she is such a splendid creature, too. I can't conceive how they failed to fit her."

"It seems to me that putting her beside Josie is pretty hard on her. I am afraid you are not conversant with the wardrobe of farmer's girls."

"Well, I didn't suppose – and the other room is so small."

"O, well, it all depends upon Josie. Josie, come here."

The girl rose up, and he put his arm around her.

"Now, my kitten, you must be very careful not to allude to any little mistakes Rose makes."

"O, Uncle Ed – you know – "

"Yes, I know chatterboxes mean all right, but they forget. Now, Rose is going to be a great scholar and she is going to be a lady, very quick, too; but she is awkward, now, and my little girl mustn't make it hard for her."

After Josie went out, Thatcher said:

"I know just how the girl feels. I went through it myself. It's hard, but it won't hurt her, only don't try to talk it over with her. If she's the girl I think she is, she'll work the whole matter out in a week herself. More than that, let me talk to her myself. If she's rested, ask her to come down."

Rose came into the Doctor's office in a numb sort of timidity, for there was a great change in the Doctor. He was hardly the same man who had eaten at their table. She couldn't describe it, but there was something in his voice which awed her. He sat now surrounded by his professional books and tools, which gave him dignity in her eyes.

"Sit down, Rose," he said, "I want to talk with you. I've had a letter from your father about you and your expenses."

And then, in some way, she never knew exactly how, he talked away her bitterness and gave her hope and comfort. He advised about books, and said: "And you'll need some little things which Bluff Siding doesn't keep. Mrs. Thatcher will drive you up town tomorrow and you can get what you need. Your father has deposited some money here to pay your expenses. I am going over to University Hill to make a call; perhaps you'd like to go."

She assented, and went to get her hat.

It was the largest town she had ever seen, and the capitol was wonderful to her, set in its park, where squirrels ran about on the velvet green of the grass. The building towered up in the sky, just as she had seen it in pictures. Swarms of people came and went along the hard, blue-black paths, and round it the teams moved before the stores of the square. It was all mightily impressive to her.

They passed the Public Library, and the Doctor said:

"You'll make great use of that, I imagine."

She could not make herself believe that. She saw students coming and going on the street, and they all seemed so gay and well dressed.

"All this will trouble you for a little while," the Doctor said. "When I came to the University the first time I seemed like a cat in a bath tub. I thought everybody was laughing at me, but, as a matter of fact, nobody paid any attention to me at all. Then I got mad, and I said, 'Well, I'll make you pay attention to me before I'm done.'" The Doctor smiled at her and she had the courage to smile back. It was wonderful how well he understood her.

He drove her around the Lake drive. It was beautiful, but in her depression the more beautiful anything was the more it depressed her. The Doctor did not demand speech of her, well knowing she did not care to talk.

"I'm not mistaken in the girl," he said to his wife when they were alone. "She has immense reserve force – I feel it. Wait until she straightens up and broadens out a little, you'll see! There's some half-savage power in her, magnetism, impelling quality. I predict a great future for her if – "

"If what?"

"If she don't marry. She is passionate, willful as a colt. It seems impossible she has come thus far without entanglement. She's going to be very handsome when she gets a little more at ease. I thought her a wonderful creature as she sat in that school-room, with the yellow sun striking across her head. She appeared to me to have destiny in her favor."

"She's fine, but I think you're over-enthusiastic, Edward."

"Wait and see. She isn't a chatter-box like Josie, that is evident."

"In fact, my dear," he went on to say after a silence, "I should like to adopt her – I mean, of course, take a particular interest in her. She has appealed to me very strongly from the first. You can be a mother to Josie and I'll be a father to Rose."

There was something sombre under his smiling utterance of these words. Their eyes did not meet, and there was a silence. At last the Doctor said:

"The girl's physical perfection is wonderful. Most farmers' girls are round in the shoulders, and flat in the hips, but Rose has grown up like a young colt. Add culture and ease to her and she'll mow a wide swath, largely without knowing it, for the girl is incapable of vanity."

The wife listened with a brooding face. Rose's splendid prophecy of maternity oppressed her some way.

When the girls went up to bed, terror and homesickness and depression all came back upon Rose again. She sat down desolately upon the little cream-and-gold chair and watched Josie as she pattered about taking down her hair and arranging it for the night. She could not help seeing the multitude of bottles and little combs and powder puffs and boxes and brushes which Josie gloated over, seeing that Rose was interested.

They were presents, she said, and named the givers of each. It was a revelation to Rose of the elegancies of a dainty, finicky girl's toilet. She thought of the ragged wash-brush and wooden-backed hair-brush and horn comb which made up her own toilet set, and grew hot and cold.

Josephine was delighted to have some one sit and stare in that admiring way at her, therefore she displayed all her paces. She brushed her hair out with her ivory-backed brush, and laid out all her beautiful underwear, trimmed with lace and embroidered in silk. She did it without malice, but Rose thought of her worn cotton things, shapeless and ugly. She never could undress before Josephine in the world!

She delayed and delayed until Josie had cuddled down into her bed with her little pink nose sticking out, and her merry eyes blinking like the gaze of a kitten. Rose waited, hoping those bright eyes would close, but they would not. At last a desperate idea came to her. She sprang up and went to the gaslight.

"How do you put this out?" she asked.

Josie gurgled with laughter. "Just turn that thingamabob underneath. Yes, that– turn it quick – that's right. O, ain't it dark! But you ain't undressed yet, and the matches are out in the bathroom."

Rose was more at her ease in the dark.

"Never mind, I can undress in the dark. I'm used to it." She loosened the collar of her dress, slipped off her shoes, and lay down on the bed bitter and rebellious.

When Josie awoke in the morning the country girl was awake and fully dressed and reading a book by the window.

The wrinkly red dress could not utterly break up the fine lines of her firm bust and powerful side and thigh, and the admiring little creature hopped out of bed and stole across the room, and threw her arms about Rose.

"How big and beautiful you are!"

These wonderful words ran into the country girl's blood like hot scented wine. To be beautiful made some amends for being coarse and uncultured. As she had never felt abasement before, so she had never felt the need of being beautiful until now.

She turned a radiant, tearful face to Josie, and seized her hands.

"I – I like you – O, so much!"

"I knew we'd be friends," cried the little one dancing about. "And you'll let me go and help you buy your things, won't you?"

"O, I'll be glad to have you – I'm such a fool. I don't know anything at all that I ought to know."

"You're just splendid. I'm the one who don't know anything."

Then they entered upon a day of shopping. They toiled like ants and buzzed like bees.

Rose came home at night worn out, discouraged and dumb as an Indian. She had submitted to her fate, but she was mentally sore, lame and confused. She no longer cared whether Josie saw her poverty or not, and she went to sleep out of utter fatigue, her eyes wet with tears of homesickness. All she hoped for seemed impossible and of no account, and sleep in her own attic bed appeared to be the sweetest thing in the world.

Her good, vigorous blood built up her courage during the night, but she was hardly a sweet and lovable companion in the days which followed. She (temporarily) hated Josie and feared Mrs. Thatcher. Thatcher himself, however, was her savior, for she would surely have gone home had it not been for him.

She had a notable set-to with the dressmaker.

"I won't come here again," she said, sullenly. "I don't want any dresses, I'm going home. I'm tired of being pulled and hauled."

The dressmaker was a brisk little Alsatian, with something of the French adroitness in her manner.

"O, my dear young friend! If you only knew! I am in despair! You have such a beautiful figure. You would give me such pleasure if I might but finish this lovely gown."

Rose looked at her from under a scowling prominent forehead. She had never been called beautiful before, at least not by one who was disinterested or a stranger, and she did not believe the woman.

The dressmaker passed her hands caressingly over the girl's splendid bust and side.

"Ah! I can make myself famous if I may but fit those lines."

Rose softened and put on the gown once more and silently permitted herself to be turned and turned about like a tin sign, while the little artist (which she was) went about with a mouth full of pins, gurgling, murmuring and patting. This was the worst of the worry, and the end of all the shopping was in sight.

The touch of soft flannels upon her flesh, the flow of ample and graceful gowns helped her at once. Her shoulders lifted and her bust expanded under properly cut and fitted garments. Quickly, unconsciously she became herself again, moving with large, unfettered movements. She dominated her clothing, and yet her clothing helped her. Being fit to be seen, she was not so much troubled by the faces of people who studied her.

It was wonderful to see how she took on (in the first few weeks) the graces and refinements of her new life. She met her schoolmates each day with added ease, and came at last to be a leader among them, just as in the home coulé. Her strength and grace and mastery they felt at once.

Her heart beat very hard and fast on the first day as she joined the stream of students moving toward the Central Hall. The maple trees were still in full leaf and blazing color. The sunlight was a magical cataract of etherealized gold, and the clouds were too beautiful to look at without a choking in the throat.

As she stepped over the deeply-worn stone sill, she thought of the thousands of other country girls whose feet had helped to wear that hollow, and her heart ached with unaccountable emotion.

Above her noisy feet clattered and bounded on the winding stairway, and careless voices resounded. She climbed in silence. In such wise she began to climb the way of knowledge, the way which has no returning foot-steps, and which becomes ever more lonely as the climber rises.