Part 3

Her earliest memories were of a large, square, white house with a front porch supported by Corinthian pillars, a long drive-way lined with great trees on either side, and much display of lavish hospitality.

From early childhood her whims were gratified and it never occurred to her that the numerous things given to her, the clothes, the pony, the negress who nursed her, the rings and brooches, were not a part of her own charm and importance.

Her first pleasure was to attract attention; whether by doing things that earned her the name of “Tomboy,” by being able to show dresses and ribbons finer than her playmates, or by any other device her ingenuity could discover.

She liked negroes because they were obsequious, and she was saucy to white children supposed not to be her social equals whom, in imitation of her elders, she designated as “trash.”

Anna, or Nannie as she was called, delighted in showing her power, and was relentless in exacting notice and recognition of her position. She stuck pins into the arms of Aunt Martha, her nurse, while the old negress was dressing her; she stepped on the bare toes of the small black children on her father’s place, and invented punishments for the dogs, cats, and other domestic animals that happened to be at her mercy.

Especially she enjoyed her tyranny over Troupe, as the large family dog was named. It pleased her to see him grovel before her when she scolded him. She often played a game that she called “circus.” She would tie the dog with a rope that had a loop which she could slip over a stake driven into the ground, and with a buggy whip she would make him run round and round. He would look back at her with pleading eyes, his tail clamped to his body, but she did not pity him. When he was completely exhausted he would lie down, his tongue lolling and the saliva dripping from his mottled black gums. After she untied him he would run about, crazy with joy, barking and licking at her hands and ankles. She paid no attention to these demonstrations.

Nannie was called stingy, as she seldom divided her sweetmeats or other good things with her playmates, and would not allow them to touch her toys. But occasionally, when glory could be gotten out of giving, she would bestow some old or broken plaything, always demanding profuse expressions of gratitude, however, from the recipient.

No attempt was made to teach Nannie any useful occupation, and, as she cared neither for stories nor for books, the task of amusing her became no sinecure.

As she grew older she loved to go shopping with her mother in the little town. They always went in the family carriage and Mrs. Lockhart, who considered that she could insult salespeople with impunity, invariably asked for the best in a haughty voice and inquired the price after she had decided on the article.

Nannie’s desire to attract notice increased with the years. She was fond of having her picture taken in fancy dress in imitation of various popular actresses. One, in which she was represented as Iphigenia, was most flattering and was displayed for some months in the windows of the establishment of the local photographer.

She begged a riding horse from her father, and she liked to be seen in elegant riding habits, and at parties in sumptuous gowns too old for her. She adopted a pertness and flippancy of speech that was described as “smart” and assumed a domineering manner toward the servants which was, it is true, less marked as regarded the “house boy” who was a handsome young mulatto.

She also picked out for condescending notice an admiring girl friend at the private school which they both attended and made a chum of her. This girl, Roberta White, was far from pretty, and could be patronized, but was not unintelligent, and possessed considerable personality. Unfortunately Nannie’s first boy admirer soon transferred his callow devotion to “Bob White,” as Nannie had dubbed Roberta. There was a curious scene in which Bob White was forever disowned, and Nannie ever after, in referring to it, spoke of Roberta’s “ingratitude.”

Nannie was eighteen years old when she left school. It was a disastrous year for her father. He had inherited money which he invested and spent with equal display and absence of judgment, but he awoke one day to find that creditors were impervious both to the dignity of the Lockhart name and the impressiveness of the ancestral mansion. Mrs. Lockhart was an efficient person, however, and brought to bear upon the situation many of the practical qualities in which her husband was lacking. The same could not be said of Nannie, who had absorbed from those around her what seemed a tacit recognition of divine right as regarded the members of her family. If she had been subject to her father alone it is probable that only the jolt of an absolute downfall would have aroused her to an appreciation of financial values, but fortunately Mrs. Lockhart exercised her authority as decisively as was her custom and gave Nannie to understand that, for the time being at least, she might enjoy few dresses and fewer parties.

Not to be cut out of the gaieties in which the once envious Bob White was participating, Nannie astonished no one more than her mother by displaying considerable taste and talent in the improvization of very effective frocks with the simplest means. Nannie was not a good seamstress. The hastily devised costumes were never neatly made and were often in actual danger of falling apart, but a ribbon here or a flower there was applied with a discrimination that Russellville was not too provincial to recognize as “chic.”

Though such haphazard dressmaking was her only contribution to the household economy, it had a value that was more than apparent, and Mrs. Lockhart recognized it. She had determined that Nannie should find salvation for the family by attracting a husband whose pretensions to that distinction should rest on a solid financial basis.

* * * * *

It seemed almost a divine intervention to insure the Lockharts’ future when Arthur Merwent, a young lawyer from the north, came to the home town.

Young Merwent rented an office and bought some furniture. He purchased steel engravings of famous jurists to decorate his walls, unpacked his law books, and had a sign painted and hung over his door.

Mrs. Lockhart knew, by hearsay at least, that Merwent held expectations of inheriting some money, and, as the young man was attractive and a stranger, it was soon arranged that Arthur should live at the Lockhart home. He insisted on paying for his board and, after some perfunctory objections which embarrassed Nannie and Mr. Lockhart but did not disturb the mother, this was agreed to.

Arthur was agreeable but uncommunicative. His reserve pleased Nannie’s father, who was pompous of manner and weak of purpose, but invariably inclined to be enthusiastic about a new acquaintance.

“That young man can keep his mouth shut. He’ll rise,” Mr. Lockhart often said.

From the beginning Nannie assumed a light and jesting attitude toward Arthur. She was saucy and capricious, demanding services and attentions calculated to convince him of her superior birth and position, and suggesting with unconscious skill potentialities that she neither possessed nor appreciated. He said little, as was his wont, but Nannie was clever enough to perceive the favorable impression she was making.

Thrown into a continuous semi-intimacy the two young people reacted as might have been expected and soon the imperturbable Arthur gravely declared himself. Mrs. Lockhart preserved a grim neutrality in the affair. True, his financial prospects were inclined to soften her, but with all that he was a Yankee and there existed a grave doubt as to the aristocracy of his connections. Her husband, who had visited the Merwents and had been considerably impressed by the prosperity evinced in their domestic establishment, was, however, positive in his approbation. This did not alter his wife’s opinion or change her attitude, for she was not accustomed to take his point of view seriously; but when a friend made a self imposed pilgrimage to the Merwent home and returned with enthusiastic corroboration of Mr. Lockhart’s report, Mrs. Lockhart relented and her negative aloofness became encouragement.

Nannie, who shared the common conviction that Arthur was a rising young lawyer and a desirable catch, consented to become engaged.

This did not hinder her from indulging in coquettish tricks of a number and variety that her fiancé found disconcerting.

Finally he brought things to an issue, refusing to be played with longer, and, after exhausting her ingenuity in the endeavor to gain more delay, she fixed the wedding day for a date four months ahead.

Twice in the midst of the work on the extensive trousseau, Nannie and Arthur quarrelled, and on each occasion she returned his ring. But the misunderstandings were adjusted and the wedding morning finally arrived.

Nannie had shown much interest in the more obvious preparations for the ceremony, insisting that her gowns must be of such and such a price, that her bridesmaids outnumber those of her previously married friends, and that the affair as a whole be conducted with an _éclat_ which strained the resources of the Lockharts’ reduced finances to the uttermost.

Nevertheless, on the day before the wedding she showed herself to the household in a state of extraordinary depression, wandering listlessly from room to room, striking discordant notes on the piano, and finally, having fled from Arthur’s presence, she was discovered face downwards on an old horsehair sofa in a violent paroxysm of weeping.

Mrs. Lockhart, who had gone to seek her, was unable to elicit any explanation of her distress and called Merwent. But it was a mistake. Nannie turned on him with a storm of accusations.

“You’ve wrecked my life! I don’t know what’s to become of me!” she wailed.

“It’s not too late yet, Nannie,” Arthur answered. His voice was slightly unsteady and his eyes shone dangerously, but his manner was quiet.

“Oh! Oh! How dare you! I was never so insulted in my life! You don’t care how much disgrace and humiliation you heap on me! It doesn’t make any difference to _you_ what they say about me!”

Arthur was left alone. He sat on the sofa Nannie had quitted and held his head in his hands. After a few moments he rose and lighted a cigar. He was smoking when Mrs. Lockhart came in search of him a quarter of an hour later. She brought with her a glass of hot eggnog which she had made to comfort him.

“It’s all the perfectly natural result of her high strung state,” remarked Mrs. Lockhart emphatically. “You must remember this is the last day of her girlhood,” she added in a significant manner.

Arthur drank the eggnog and said nothing.

* * * * *

The next day, however, Nannie was radiant. Her mother and her cousin, Mrs. Sheldon, had helped to dress her. The wedding gown bore the mark of an expensive Louisville house, the bouquet was of white orchids, and the diamond pendant which Arthur had given her, though modestly small and fragile, glittered becomingly on her plump throat.

Arthur entered the church gravely, his head bent, and even as Nannie came toward him at the chancel rail he did not lift his eyes. It was only as they stood side by side that he glanced at her face. Every trace of depression had vanished. She held her head high with the slightly insolent air that she had so often been told was aristocratic, and she really looked prettier than he had ever seen her.

The recessional was played. As the bridal couple emerged from the church he turned slightly toward her.

“Well, Nannie,” he whispered, smiling a little.

They were close to the carriage steps. Arthur moved back to assist her. By some chance awkwardness his heel caught in a loop of satin. There was a tearing sound and Nannie flung herself from his grasp.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

An impassioned but enigmatic “Ah!” was her only reply, and until the house was reached she sat far away from him on the carriage cushions, replying in monosyllables until Arthur relapsed into moody silence. When they arrived at their destination Nannie left the carriage hurriedly and unassisted.

A supper had been planned but the hour of the departure of the train they were to take prevented their presence. There was, however, no way to escape the brief reception. At this function Nannie, who had looked almost defiantly spirited during the ceremony, assumed a sudden appearance of disconcerting melancholy. The pair stood under an arch of smilax, and Nannie could see herself quite plainly in the long pier glass opposite and appreciated how large and dark her eyes seemed in the shadows that fell on her face.

The affair as a whole was not gay. Mrs. Lockhart shed a few impressive tears, glancing somewhat apprehensively from time to time at her daughter’s unresponsive features. Bob White had come to the reception, being herself engaged. Nannie greeted her with effusive sadness and clasped her in an embrace that was like a despairing renewal of devotion. The two girls talked in low tones, and Arthur was conscious of being ignored. A few moments later Nannie went off to prepare for travel and he was able to excuse himself.

* * * * *

It was half past eleven at night. The Pullman was dimly lighted. Merwent had avoided a stateroom and every appearance that might indicate that he and Nannie were a bridal couple, but he felt that the fresh modishness of Nannie’s costume betrayed them. They sat down in a vacant seat while the beds were being made up. Arthur kept an unresponsive profile turned to his wife. He had resolved not to make any more advances.

The two swayed stiffly with the motion of the car. The woodwork creaked. Long shadows moved up and down at the end of the passage. Snoring from a curtained berth was audible.

Nannie touched Arthur’s arm lightly. He looked down at her in surprise. She was regarding him with a new and softened expression.

“Arthur!” Her voice shook slightly.

His face cleared.

“Nannie!” They kissed stealthily.

When the conductor came down the aisle they were sitting consciously far apart and Arthur’s face was flushed.

V

Lucy was born about a year after the Merwent wedding.

Although everything was normal and the baby a fine healthy child, Nannie persistently vowed that she had gone through an experience never before equalled and that she could never have another child.

Toward the end of their wedding journey, over some slight misunderstanding at a hotel, Nannie had given way to a hysterical fit of passion that amazed and dismayed her husband, but this was nothing compared with the scene when she discovered that she was pregnant. Tears, screams, striking Arthur in the face, with threats of killing herself, him, and the child were only the beginnings of the drama. However, Arthur had by this time begun to perfect his attitude of non-reaction to the stimuli she employed, and went to his office unworried.

Nannie afterward in a thousand ways suggested that the coming of the child was in the nature of a crime and a calamity, and that Arthur was to blame for it. Nannie’s father died a month before her confinement and she even implied that Arthur was responsible for this coincidence. To add to her sense of disappointment and injury Mr. Merwent senior, who had been ill for some time, died also, leaving an involved estate, and the hope that Nannie had secretly treasured of inheriting his money died with him. Arthur’s future, from the Lockhart standpoint, had ceased to be. Mrs. Lockhart, calling to ascertain the truth of the rumor already circulated by gossiping neighbors, met Nannie’s tearful announcement with, “I always thought so!” and when Arthur entered the house a few moments later, she greeted him with marked coldness. After her mother’s departure Nannie turned on him with fresh reproaches.

“Now we are penniless and you don’t seem to care!” she exclaimed.

Arthur did not reply. “I seem to be the only one who ever thinks about the baby’s future. You haven’t opened your mouth since we got the letter!”

Arthur took out a cigar and lighted it.

“O--oh! _Why_ don’t you say something? I’ll go crazy!” she almost screamed.

“I don’t see just what there is to say,” Arthur answered quietly, and left the room.

Nannie’s bitterness was accentuated by the fact that Arthur could not afford to buy the Lockhart residence which had to be sold to clear her own father’s estate, and she was forced to see the property pass into the hands of “Cousin Minnie Sheldon” whom she cordially hated. The spirit of rivalry between Nannie and her cousin, the fruit of a childhood antipathy, had reached its climax in a contest for the affections of the well-to-do young business man who afterward became Minnie’s husband, and when he and his wife took formal possession of Nannie’s ancestral home she felt it as the cruel affirmation of her first defeat.

Mrs. Lockhart, who on previous occasions had not hesitated to express her own disapproval of “Cousin Minnie,” after feeble and unconvincing protestations to the effect that she did not wish to inconvenience her prosperous relatives, accepted a grudging offer which allowed her to remain in the old place on the bounty of its new owner.

Little Lucy was weaned soon after she was born, for Nannie declared that she could not nurse a baby. By great good fortune, however, sterilized cow’s milk agreed with the child and she thrived, thanks to the devoted care of old Martha who came to live with Nannie and Arthur and “bring up” their baby. Nannie continually quarreled with the old negress but Aunt Martha stayed on, partly from a habit of allegiance to the family and partly from real devotion to little Lucy.

Nannie gave scant attention to her baby until other people began to notice and praise the child, when she promptly asserted her proprietorship, pointing out with great pride the little thing’s remarkable feats and insisting that Lucy be given to her whenever visitors were present. Nevertheless, the child preferred Aunt Martha and even Arthur, as the latter often held his daughter during the evenings and sang lullabies to her. Nannie resented this deeply, and it made her secretly furious to see Lucy toddle toward him as he came into the room. She often said things to drive Arthur out of the house so that he need not divide the child’s affections.

Lucy did not begin to go to school until she was eight years old. Even then her mother objected to the separation, and in the little girl’s absence wandered restlessly about the house. Lucy, on her return, was covered with kisses. Acquaintances remarked on the unusual affection between the two, although Nannie spoke crossly and often cruelly to the child when they were alone, and not infrequently struck her. In attitude she placed herself on an equality with Lucy and at times depended on the little girl’s judgment and ideas.

Nannie could never help Lucy with her lessons at night, saying that the figures in the book made her head ache, and if Arthur attempted to offer any assistance a situation was usually precipitated that resulted in driving him from the house. Left alone with the little girl, Nannie played and sang, or produced candy from some hiding place, while she persuaded the child to talk to her about teachers and schoolmates. She enjoyed giving her piano lessons because Arthur knew nothing of music. However, she never wanted Lucy to try to sing and always insisted that her daughter had no voice for singing.

Nannie, however, resented Lucy’s growing self-sufficiency as the girl became graver of manner and expressed herself positively on all sorts of subjects.

Arthur’s law practice did not increase and, as there were no more expectations from his father’s estate, it was decided to discharge Aunt Martha. After the old woman had gone Nannie made a few half-hearted experiments at cooking, but soon relegated this undertaking to her daughter, who at sixteen was virtually the head of the domestic establishment.

But, though Lucy was responsible under this arrangement for the selection and quantity of food bought for the family, Mrs. Merwent reserved for herself the prerogative of giving orders to the groceryman. The young solicitor, who always made a punctual appearance, had soft brown eyes and a beautiful complexion. Nannie never opened the back door to him without first looking into the mirror.

“Are you sure your eggs are fresh today?” she would ask coquettishly. She tapped him on the arm with the pencil she held as she objected to the exorbitant price of bacon.

Lucy, who was annoyed by his habit of staring, expressed her dislike.

“Well, _you_ don’t have to give the orders to him!” was her mother’s pettish answer.

Lucy worked too hard and, as a result, became ill. Arthur was away at the time. Nannie called the family physician and annoyed the girl with useless attentions. The doctor telegraphed Merwent that his daughter’s condition was serious. Arthur returned on the first train and, arriving at the house, found Nannie walking the floor with senseless gestures. He went into the sick room and seated himself beside Lucy’s bed. His quiet, emotionless manner seemed to drive Nannie to distraction. Her chief resentment, however, seemed to arise from the fact that he did not comfort her but only concerned himself with Lucy.

“Are you going to eat your dinner, or sit there all night?” she asked, her voice trembling with vindictiveness.

Arthur went into the dining room without answering. Nannie shut the door between them. She would not eat because she did not want to leave Arthur and Lucy alone together, and the doctor was obliged to order her to begin her meal. When she did go, however, her appetite was as hearty as usual.

After a few critical days Lucy’s condition improved and on the fourth morning, when the crisis was passed, she smiled at Arthur. Nannie, in the room at the time, bent over the bed.

“Why don’t you smile at Nannie?” she asked accusingly, and Lucy smiled at her mother too.

Arthur, as was his wont when he saw the approach of a useless scene, left the room.

During the convalescence Nannie invented a thousand meaningless attentions with which she endeavored to fix upon herself the regard of the invalid, but as Lucy grew stronger and began to walk about Nannie forgot to flutter around her and their life together resumed its former course.

VI

Even after reaching the age when young girls begin to notice the opposite sex, Lucy preferred girls to men. She also delighted in caring for younger children and babies. Nannie laughed at Lucy for not having beaux.

“I had dozens at your age,” she would say.

The most common cause of misunderstanding between the mother and daughter was Nannie’s trick of regarding every remark about other people, or about human nature in general, as a covert slur on herself. Each mention of an ignoble quality brought forth, “That’s just like me,” from Nannie, while any reference to an admirable characteristic was greeted with, “I haven’t got that.”

“I wish Mamma wasn’t that way,” Lucy confided to her father one night, after a number of irritating experiences with this mania. “It makes things so unpleasant.” The evening had ended in a quarrel and Nannie had gone upstairs to cry.

“Your mother has every defect of character that can be mentioned,” Arthur replied, “so I suppose she shouldn’t be blamed for being sensitive.”