Booth Tarkington Read online

  The present incumbent was not she. Alice, profoundly interested herself, kept her mother likewise so preoccupied with the dress that they were but vaguely conscious of the gong’s soft warnings, though these were repeated and protracted unusually. Finally the sound of a hearty voice, independent and enraged, reached the pair. It came from the hall below.

  “I says goo’-bye!” it called. “Da’ss all!”

  Then the front door slammed.

  “Why, what——” Mrs. Adams began.

  They went down hurriedly to find out. Miss Perry informed them.

  “I couldn’t make her listen to reason,” she said. “She rang the gong four or five times and got to talking to herself; and then she went up to her room and packed her bag. I told her she had no business to go out the front door, anyhow.”

  Mrs. Adams took the news philosophically. “I thought she had something like that in her eye when I paid her this morning, and I’m not surprised. Well, we won’t let Mr. Adams know anything’s the matter till I get a new one.”

  They lunched upon what the late incumbent had left chilling on the table, and then Mrs. Adams prepared to wash the dishes; she would “have them done in a jiffy,” she said, cheerfully. But it was Alice who washed the dishes.

  “I don’t like to have you do that, Alice,” her mother protested, following her into the kitchen. “It roughens the hands, and when a girl has hands like yours——”

  “I know, mama.” Alice looked troubled, but shook her head. “It can’t be helped this time; you’ll need every minute to get that dress done.”

  Mrs. Adams went away lamenting, while Alice, no expert, began to splash the plates and cups and saucers in the warm water. After a while, as she worked, her eyes grew dreamy: she was making little gay-coloured pictures of herself, unfounded prophecies of how she would look and what would happen to her that evening. She saw herself, charming and demure, wearing a fluffy idealization of the dress her mother now determinedly struggled with upstairs; she saw herself framed in a garlanded archway, the entrance to a ballroom, and saw the people on the shining floor turning dramatically to look at her; then from all points a rush of young men shouting for dances with her; and she constructed a superb stranger, tall, dark, masterfully smiling, who swung her out of the clamouring group as the music began. She saw herself dancing with him, saw the half-troubled smile she would give him; and she accurately smiled that smile as she rinsed the knives and forks.

  These hopeful fragments of drama were not to be realized, she knew; but she played that they were true, and went on creating them. In all of them she wore or carried flowers—her mother’s sorrow for her in this detail but made it the more important—and she saw herself glamorous with orchids; discarded these for an armful of long-stemmed, heavy roses; tossed them away for a great bouquet of white camellias; and so wandered down a lengthening hothouse gallery of floral beauty, all costly and beyond her reach except in such a wistful day-dream. And upon her present whole horizon, though she searched it earnestly, she could discover no figure of a sender of flowers.

  Out of her fancies the desire for flowers to wear that night emerged definitely and became poignant; she began to feel that it might be particularly important to have them. “This might be the night!” She was still at the age to dream that the night of any dance may be the vital point in destiny. No matter how commonplace or disappointing other dance nights have been this one may bring the great meeting. The unknown magnifico may be there.

  Alice was almost unaware of her own reveries in which this being appeared—reveries often so transitory that they developed and passed in a few seconds. And in some of them the being was not wholly a stranger; there were moments when he seemed to be composed of recognizable fragments of young men she knew—a smile she had liked, from one; the figure of another, the hair of another—and sometimes she thought he might be concealed, so to say, within the person of an actual acquaintance, someone she had never suspected of being the right seeker for her, someone who had never suspected that it was she who “waited” for him. Anything might reveal them to each other: a look, a turn of the head, a singular word—perhaps some flowers upon her breast or in her hand.

  She wiped the dishes slowly, concluding the operation by dropping a saucer upon the floor and dreamily sweeping the fragments under the stove. She sighed and replaced the broom near a window, letting her glance wander over the small yard outside. The grass, repulsively besooted to the colour of coal-smoke all winter, had lately come to life again and now sparkled with green, in the midst of which a tiny shot of blue suddenly fixed her absent eyes. They remained upon it for several moments, becoming less absent.

  It was a violet.

  Alice ran upstairs, put on her hat, went outdoors and began to search out the violets. She found twenty-two, a bright omen—since the number was that of her years—but not enough violets. There were no more; she had ransacked every foot of the yard.

  She looked dubiously at the little bunch in her hand, glanced at the lawn next door, which offered no favourable prospect; then went thoughtfully into the house, left her twenty-two violets in a bowl of water, and came quickly out again, her brow marked with a frown of decision. She went to a trolley-line and took a car to the outskirts of the city where a new park had been opened.

  Here she resumed her search, but it was not an easily rewarded one, and for an hour after her arrival she found no violets. She walked conscientiously over the whole stretch of meadow, her eyes roving discontentedly; there was never a blue dot in the groomed expanse; but at last, as she came near the borders of an old grove of trees, left untouched by the municipal landscapers, the little flowers appeared, and she began to gather them. She picked them carefully, loosening the earth round each tiny plant, so as to bring the roots up with it, that it might live the longer; and she had brought a napkin, which she drenched at a hydrant, and kept loosely wrapped about the stems of her collection.

  The turf was too damp for her to kneel; she worked patiently, stooping from the waist; and when she got home in a drizzle of rain at five o’clock her knees were tremulous with strain, her back ached, and she was tired all over, but she had three hundred violets. Her mother moaned when Alice showed them to her, fragrant in a basin of water.

  “Oh, you poor child! To think of your having to work so hard to get things that other girls only need lift their little fingers for!”

  “Never mind,” said Alice, huskily. “I’ve got ’em and I am going to have a good time to-night!”

  “You’ve just got to!” Mrs. Adams agreed, intensely sympathetic. “The Lord knows you deserve to, after picking all these violets, poor thing, and He wouldn’t be mean enough to keep you from it. I may have to get dinner before I finish the dress, but I can get it done in a few minutes afterward, and it’s going to look right pretty. Don’t you worry about that! And with all these lovely violets——”

  “I wonder——” Alice began, paused, then went on, fragmentarily: “I suppose—well, I wonder—do you suppose it would have been better policy to have told Walter before——”

  “No,” said her mother. “It would only have given him longer to grumble.”

  “But he might——”

  “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Adams reassured her. “He’ll be a little cross, but he won’t be stubborn; just let me talk to him and don’t you say anything at all, no matter what he says.”

  These references to Walter concerned some necessary manœuvres which took place at dinner, and were conducted by the mother, Alice having accepted her advice to sit in silence. Mrs. Adams began by laughing cheerfully. “I wonder how much longer it took me to cook this dinner than it does Walter to eat it?” she said. “Don’t gobble, child! There’s no hurry.”

  In contact with his own family Walter was no squanderer of words. “Is for me,” he said. “Got date.”

  “I know you have, but there’s plenty of time.”<
br />
  He smiled in benevolent pity. “You know, do you? If you made any coffee—don’t bother if you didn’t. Get some down-town.” He seemed about to rise and depart; whereupon Alice, biting her lip, sent a panic-stricken glance at her mother.

  But Mrs. Adams seemed not at all disturbed; and laughed again. “Why, what nonsense, Walter! I’ll bring your coffee in a few minutes, but we’re going to have dessert first.”

  “What sort?”

  “Some lovely peaches.”

  “Doe’ want ’ny canned peaches,” said the frank Walter, moving back his chair. “G’-night.”

  “Walter! It doesn’t begin till about nine o’clock at the earliest.”

  He paused, mystified. “What doesn’t?”

  “The dance.”

  “What dance?”

  “Why, Mildred Palmer’s dance, of course.”

  Walter laughed briefly. “What’s that to me?”

  “Why, you haven’t forgotten it’s to-night, have you?” Mrs. Adams cried. “What a boy!”

  “I told you a week ago I wasn’t going to that ole dance,” he returned, frowning. “You heard me.”

  “Walter!” she exclaimed. “Of course you’re going. I got your clothes all out this afternoon, and brushed them for you. They’ll look very nice, and——”

  “They won’t look nice on me,” he interrupted. “Got date down-town, I tell you.”

  “But of course you’ll——”

  “See here!” Walter said, decisively. “Don’t get any wrong ideas in your head. I’m just as liable to go up to that ole dance at the Palmers’ as I am to eat a couple of barrels of broken glass.”

  “But, Walter——”

  Walter was beginning to be seriously annoyed. “Don’t ‘Walter’ me! I’m no s’ciety snake. I wouldn’t jazz with that Palmer crowd if they coaxed me with diamonds.”

  “Walter——”

  “Didn’t I tell you it’s no use to ‘Walter’ me?” he demanded.

  “My dear child——”

  “Oh, Glory!”

  At this Mrs. Adams abandoned her air of amusement, looked hurt, and glanced at the demure Miss Perry across the table. “I’m afraid Miss Perry won’t think you have very good manners, Walter.”

  “You’re right she won’t,” he agreed, grimly. “Not if I haf to hear any more about me goin’ to——”

  But his mother interrupted him with some asperity: “It seems very strange that you always object to going anywhere among our friends, Walter.”

  “Your friends!” he said, and, rising from his chair, gave utterance to an ironical laugh strictly monosyllabic. “Your friends!” he repeated, going to the door. “Oh, yes! Certainly! Good-night!”

  And looking back over his shoulder to offer a final brief view of his derisive face, he took himself out of the room.

  Alice gasped: “Mama——”

  “I’ll stop him!” her mother responded, sharply; and hurried after the truant, catching him at the front door with his hat and raincoat on.

  “Walter——”

  “Told you had a date down-town,” he said, gruffly; and would have opened the door, but she caught his arm and detained him.

  “Walter, please come back and finish your dinner. When I take all the trouble to cook it for you, I think you might at least——”

  “Now, now!” he said. “That isn’t what you’re up to. You don’t want to make me eat; you want to make me listen.”

  “Well, you must listen!” She retained her grasp upon his arm, and made it tighter. “Walter, please!” she entreated, her voice becoming tremulous. “Please don’t make me so much trouble!”

  He drew back from her as far as her hold upon him permitted, and looked at her sharply. “Look here!” he said. “I get you, all right! What’s the matter of Alice goin’ to that party by herself?”

  “She just can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “It makes things too mean for her, Walter. All the other girls have somebody to depend on after they get there.”

  “Well, why doesn’t she have somebody?” he asked, testily. “Somebody besides me, I mean! Why hasn’t somebody asked her to go? She ought to be that popular, anyhow, I sh’d think—she tries enough!”

  “I don’t understand how you can be so hard,” his mother wailed, huskily. “You know why they don’t run after her the way they do the other girls she goes with, Walter. It’s because we’re poor, and she hasn’t got any background.”

  “‘Background?’” Walter repeated. “‘Background?’ What kind of talk is that?”

  “You will go with her to-night, Walter?” his mother pleaded, not stopping to enlighten him. “You don’t understand how hard things are for her and how brave she is about them, or you couldn’t be so selfish! It’d be more than I can bear to see her disappointed to-night! She went clear out to Belleview Park this afternoon, Walter, and spent hours and hours picking violets to wear. You will——”

  Walter’s heart was not iron, and the episode of the violets may have reached it. “Oh, blub!” he said, and flung his soft hat violently at the wall.

  His mother beamed with delight. “That’s a good boy, darling! You’ll never be sorry you——”

  “Cut it out,” he requested. “If I take her, will you pay for a taxi?”

  “Oh, Walter!” And again Mrs. Adams showed distress. “Couldn’t you?”

  “No, I couldn’t; I’m not goin’ to throw away my good money like that, and you can’t tell what time o’ night it’ll be before she’s willin’ to come home. What’s the matter you pay­in’ for one?”

  “I haven’t any money.”

  “Well, father——”

  She shook her head dolefully. “I got some from him this morning, and I can’t bother him for any more; it upsets him. He’s always been so terribly close with money——”

  “I guess he couldn’t help that,” Walter observed. “We’re liable to go to the poorhouse the way it is. Well, what’s the matter our walkin’ to this rotten party?”

  “In the rain, Walter?”

  “Well, it’s only a drizzle and we can take a streetcar to within a block of the house.”

  Again his mother shook her head. “It wouldn’t do.”

  “Well, darn the luck, all right!” he consented, explosively. “I’ll get her something to ride in. It means seventy-five cents.”

  “Why, Walter!” Mrs. Adams cried, much pleased. “Do you know how to get a cab for that little? How splendid!”

  “Tain’t a cab,” Walter informed her crossly. “It’s a tin Lizzie, but you don’t haf’ to tell her what it is till I get her into it, do you?”

  Mrs. Adams agreed that she didn’t.

  Chapter VI

  * * *

  ALICE WAS busy with herself for two hours after dinner; but a little before nine o’clock she stood in front of her long mirror, completed, bright-eyed and solemn. Her hair, exquisitely arranged, gave all she asked of it; what artificialities in colour she had used upon her face were only bits of emphasis that made her prettiness the more distinct; and the dress, not rumpled by her mother’s careful hours of work, was a white cloud of loveliness. Finally there were two triumphant bouquets of violets, each with the stems wrapped in tin-foil shrouded by a bow of purple chiffon; and one bouquet she wore at her waist and the other she carried in her hand.

  Miss Perry, called in by a rapturous mother for the free treat of a look at this radiance, insisted that Alice was a vision. “Purely and simply a vision!” she said, meaning that no other definition whatever would satisfy her. “I never saw anybody look a vision if she don’t look one to-night,” the admiring nurse declared. “Her papa’ll think the same I do about it. You see if he doesn’t say she’s purely and simply a vision.”

  Adams did not fulfil the prediction quite literally
when Alice paid a brief visit to his room to “show” him and bid him good-night; but he chuckled feebly. “Well, well, well!” he said. “You look mighty fine—mighty fine!” And he waggled a bony finger at her two bouquets. “Why, Alice, who’s your beau?”

  “Never you mind!” she laughed, archly brushing his nose with the violets in her hand. “He treats me pretty well, doesn’t he?”

  “Must like to throw his money around! These violets smell mighty sweet, and they ought to, if they’re going to a party with you. Have a good time, dearie.”

  “I mean to!” she cried; and she repeated this gaily, but with an emphasis expressing sharp determination as she left him. “I mean to!”

  “What was he talking about?” her mother inquired, smoothing the rather worn and old evening wrap she had placed on Alice’s bed. “What were you telling him you ‘mean to?’”

  Alice went back to her triple mirror for the last time, then stood before the long one. “That I mean to have a good time to-night,” she said; and as she turned from her reflection to the wrap Mrs. Adams held up for her, “It looks as though I could, don’t you think so?”