CHAPTER XIX

There were many times when Cecily felt the absurdity of allowing her life to be affected by her domestic machinery and the servants who operated it. It wasn’t, she felt, dignified. She somehow could not find a place in her philosophy of marriage for the cooks, the housemaids and the nurses. They had to be if she wanted to escape the physical work in a house spacious enough for her needs, but to have to regulate her life by them bothered her. The cheap comedy of the whole servant problem affronted her and to have to play a rôle in it herself was increasingly irritating. Her mother helped her as much as she could by sending her servants, but the presence of three babies was anathema to most of them and they would stay a little while and drift off to a place with “two in the family and the highest wages.” And now her mother had gone to California to avoid the wintry spring of Carrington. Della and Walter were keeping that house open, and coöperation was not in Delia’s line. It did not occur to her to help Cecily out by lending her servants, as Mrs. Warner had sometimes done. Cecily paid high wages, higher and higher, utterly disproportionate to the service she was getting, but money of course inspired no loyalty. There were quarrels in the kitchen between the maids--unpleasant hiatuses when Cecily washed her own Wedgwood china and beautiful hand-made silver dishes. It was all very absurd, but there it was; because there was an actual undersupply of servants in Carrington and because so many women wanted servants and were unable or unwilling to get their own meals and make their own beds at any price, there was a situation which actually affected many a woman’s health and had its influence on married happiness and undoubtedly on the birth rate. What began as a joke had been treated as a joke too long, long after it had become a really sinister influence.

With Ellen in her house it was unnecessary to count and to watch; unnecessary to fear that the children’s food might be insufficiently or badly cooked if she were out. Ellen liked to work, had a conscience about her work and a respect for it that was unusual, and she managed the other servants. Just as Cecily felt pride in her home and her children--felt instinctively that, even if domesticity were out of fashion, it was not rightly or permanently so--so Ellen felt her own pride in oiling the machinery of Cecily’s house. They liked each other and understood each other. And as Ellen watched the development of the children, saw Dorothea take her first steps and graduate from cream of wheat to scraped beef, helped little Leslie through the same formula of growth and watched and aided Cecily through their illnesses--a real friendship, more fundamental than many a one between so-called social equals, grew between the two women.

It was the day after Dick had talked to Matthew with such unusual revelation. Cecily’s latest cook had proved herself in two days both insolent and incompetent and, hunting up the forwarding address for Ellen’s letters, Cecily decided to go to Ellen herself and see if in conversation they could not find a way to take care of the unwieldy relative and let Ellen come back to her. It struck her as she entered the apartment house that she had been here before and yet the cracked, painted walls of the hall were not familiar. She stood before the row of black tin mail boxes looking for Ellen’s name and saw it at last written in lead pencil on a printed card stuck crookedly in the name place. Ellen Forrest--and the card, Mr. Wm. H. Horton.

Cecily pondered the familiarity of the name for a minute before its connection flashed upon her. Then she remembered. She had brought Fliss to the door of this apartment house several times; this was where Fliss lived before she had married. She hesitated, then rang the bell, and mounted the stairs to the third floor. A voice called to her to come in, a high-pitched, quite unpleasant voice and, entering, she saw a woman lying on a leather sofa pushed up to a small library table. She recognized her in spite of the disorderly hair and red bathrobe. It was Fliss’s mother. She had met her two or three times at Fliss’s own house.

Mrs. Horton knew her also. She was a little embarrassed, but not excessively so, being very simple in her ways in spite of Fliss.

“It’s Mrs. Harrison, isn’t it? Well, won’t you sit down? I’m real embarrassed to have you find me looking so, but I’m not able to get about much any more, you know.”

“I didn’t know you were ill, Mrs. Horton? Isn’t it a shame? Is it anything serious?”

Mrs. Horton winced, although at the same time a glad consciousness of the new visitor, to whom she could expound her ills, showed in her face.

“I don’t know. You know how doctors are. They say I’ve got a growth. Now they want to operate on me, but I’m afraid of that and I don’t doubt but that it’s all foolishness. I’m trying a new cure now--perhaps you’ve read about it----” She droned on in the unceasing manner of the patent medicine addict. Cecily listened. She had not yet had a chance to explain her visit, and she was full of crowding thoughts. So this was where Fliss had lived. No wonder it had been an escape to marry Matthew. This mother--but the poor woman was very ill. There were terrible pain ravages on her face. Hadn’t Ellen said cancer? But where was Ellen? And was it possible that Fliss had bribed her to get her there? Or was there really a relationship?

Just at that moment Ellen came in. She looked astonished, but, like Mrs. Horton, was too simple to be much disturbed.

“Why, Mrs. Harrison!”

Cecily shook hands with her. “I didn’t know that Mrs. Horton was your cousin, Ellen.”

“No; I guess I didn’t happen to mention it,” said Ellen.

Not a word of Fliss. There was no need.

“I do hope you haven’t come to try to get Ellen back,” said Mrs. Horton. “I don’t see how I could get along at all without her.”

“We all need Ellen,” Cecily answered.

“Well, of course, being a relative and all, I’d sooner have her with me than a nurse. Those trained nurses are awful high and mighty. And of course Ellen don’t really need to work out at all now. Now that Fliss is married, I tell her she could always have Fliss’s room.”

“You must miss your daughter.”

“Well, Fliss always was a great one to go. I don’t know as I saw much more of her than I do now, when she was living at home. Of course she don’t have much time to come here with her social doings and all.”

They talked for a few minutes and then Ellen took things into her own hands.

“I’ve got to go to the market now,” she said, “if I’m to get anything fresh for dinner. I’ll walk down with you, Mrs. Harrison.”

Cecily rose in spite of Mrs. Horton’s protest.

“I know you’ll beg Ellen away from me. I don’t want to be mean about it, but being as I’m her own cousin, it seems as if I couldn’t get along. If I could get my friend Mrs. Ellis, who’s a widow, I might.”

“Now don’t you fret, Carrie, and get your fever up. No one’s going to leave you. There’s just a few things that Mrs. Harrison and me would like to discuss private.”

She wore her neat blue suit and as they came out of the apartment house together no trace of servility or embarrassment clung to Ellen.

“You see,” she said, “with Mrs. Allenby--Fliss--being at your house so much and all, I thought it was just as well not to tell you we was related. I asked her not to mention it, too.”

“So foolish. I wish she had insisted. But you aren’t the least bit like one another. I never would have guessed.”

“No; there’s no noticeable resemblance. How’s little Leslie, and Dorothea, and the baby?”

“They miss you and they don’t get along as fast as they should with so many strange people taking care of them. Can’t you come back, Ellen? I’d like you to come back as housekeeper--take general charge. Couldn’t you do that?”

“You mustn’t think I was the least bit dissatisfied, Mrs. Harrison. I liked working for you. It was true every word I said. You see Mrs. Horton don’t want a nurse. She’s terrible fussy just now.”

“Is she very ill?”

“She’s going to die, I’m afraid. It’s going awfully fast. We’ve been sort of letting up on the operation question because the doctors don’t hold out much hope for her anyhow. Of course she don’t know how bad she is.”

“Does her daughter know?”

“Yes, Fliss knows.”

“Poor thing.”

“I would like to come back to you, Mrs. Harrison. I’ve been thinking that if that Mrs. Ellis comes I could. I’d really have to, since they haven’t room for more than one of us. And this Mrs. Ellis is closer to Carrie than I am myself; she knew her when she was a bride. I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll find out and let you know on Sunday. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes, indeed. I don’t want you to leave your poor cousin, but if this other friend of hers is coming and you aren’t really needed----”

“I know. We’ll try to do the best by all,” answered Ellen, following the line of thought of John Stuart Mill instinctively.

They shook hands gravely. Cecily went away with a sense of outrage and justification. So that was Fliss!

* * * * *

There was a small dinner at the Garden House Club, for Mrs. Walter Warner, the next week. Della was taking rather well on the whole. Mrs. Longstreet, who liked to “bring out” young people, was the hostess. The Walter Warners, the Richard Harrisons, the Matthew Allenbys, the Frederick Craigs, Madeline Ensign and her husband, Gordon Ames, the boy who had so vainly pursued Fliss and who, with college back of him and a start in his profession, was no longer a boy but a much sought after man, Helen Jefferson, because every one hoped that Gordon would marry her, and a half-dozen other couples--all young, all extremely well acquainted with each other. Della was quite at her best. With nothing to do except be nominal mistress of her mother-in-law’s home and plenty of service at her disposal, Della was keeping in excellent form. It was easy to see to-night why Walter had fallen so very much in love with her. Her pale yellow hair was like a mist around her head and the green of her gown was either a stroke of luck or a stroke of genius, thought Cecily. She looked curiously at Fliss in the light of the revelations of her call on her mother the day before. Fliss evidently did not know about that yet or if she did she made no reference. She greeted Cecily casually and turned back to the glass.

“Just below your cheek-bones, my dear. Most people put it on too high up. It gives much more the look of youth, not that you need that, but you know.”

Della experimented. Cecily looked over their heads at her own hair, combed heavily back in dark waves, at her own cheeks faintly pink with cold. She had it in mind to disdain rouge, but Fliss’s professionalism was tantalizing. She opened her little gold case and gave her cheeks a touch of red below the cheek bone.

“You don’t need it, Cecily. You’re better without,” said Fliss, observing.

“Cecily’s always better looking than anybody else,” contributed Madeline. “You really are, Cecily.”

Della gave Cecily a critical glance. “It’s much easier for a brunette,” she sighed.

That brought her the anticipated compliments from the rest. Cecily did not join them. She was watching Fliss and Della, suddenly mindful that it had not been so long ago when Fliss was more or less outside of all this easy fun. She looked back over the obvious steps of the progress Fliss had made. Funny! And that queer-looking woman in the soiled kimono dying of cancer; and out there Matthew waiting for his wife to take her to their hostess, to pay her honor. She wasn’t worth it. Walter waiting for his wife, for the girl who had pulled him out of college into marriage, who had probably tricked him, who had no respect for marriage. She wasn’t worth it, either! Worth what? She caught her mind back and began to talk to Madeline as they strolled out into the little reception room to meet their husbands.

At dinner she sat between Freddy Craig and Howard Ensign--rather on the dull side of the table. Fliss above and across from her had Dick and Gordon Ames, and Della on the right of her host was dividing her attentions between him and Matthew. Cecily talked at random, intermittent, necessary conversation, her mind and eyes straying to the brightness of Fliss. She seemed so eager and Dick seemed so pleased by her eagerness and so alert. She couldn’t make it out. No right--no wrong. Why can’t I be like the rest of them, she thought, immediately conscious that to be like the rest of them was just what she did not want.

Fliss was telling Dick something _sotto voce_. He listened closely and then broke into irrepressible laughter. Fliss looked at him provocatively and his eyes were slanting down at her in that amused, liking way.

Howard Ensign was following Cecily’s eyes.

“Isn’t Mrs. Allenby a lot of fun?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” answered Cecily, mechanically, “lots of fun.”

“She gives everybody such a good time.”

Fun. That was it. Fun, that god whom they all worshiped. Like a heathen god, like a great bright image, casting great shadows. Queer thought. She sat in the shadow while they worshiped the brightness. An impulse came to Cecily to call to Fliss to stop. She was pinning a flower in Dick’s buttonhole. It was a wager or a joke. Everybody was laughing. She had no right to touch Dick like that. Dick didn’t care. Dick had no pride, no self-respect, no respect for love,--or he wouldn’t let her touch him like that. She was caressing him.

Fliss caught her glance. “Mustn’t, Dick,” she said, laughingly. “Your wife’s looking at me. She has her till-death-do-us-part look on.”

Her voice carried and they turned to look at Cecily--all the people at the end of the table--merrily, jocularly. Cecily tried to smile, tortured by the glances that seemed to be penetrating her thoughts. Dick looked a little annoyed.

“Don’t be worried, Cecily.” Fliss wouldn’t leave her alone.

“I wasn’t worried.” Now they were laughing. That wasn’t what she should have said. She should have been light, gay, debonair, flippant. Why? Because that was what they expected.

Like a match to a gathered pile of brush were the comments to Cecily’s resentment. She was suddenly angry as she had never been angry before in her life--cruelly angry. She wanted to hurt them all--Fliss, Della most. But her opportunity did not come till later.

Howard found her better company. She talked to him now, seeming to insist on talking. He told her about how he thought game should be cooked, about the new club rules for membership, about the things he was interested in. She answered him, played up to him, her mind alert, her eyes casually now on that other end of the table.

“We’ll get up a party and go,” she heard Dick say. They were drinking coffee. Fliss was devoting herself more to Gordon. There was a smoldering look in Gordon’s eyes that Cecily read and that it shamed her to read. He looked as if the presence of people, of Matthew himself, hardly interested him. He wanted to slip his arm down close around her, bend his head lower. Dick was competing for her favor, actually competing.

“We’ll get up a party,” he repeated. “There’s a tiled floor and the funniest nigger band you ever heard. You’ll love it, Fliss.”

“All right,” said Fliss. “Will you come along, Cecily?”

That was to demonstrate her power, thought Cecily. Fliss was asking her to a party with her own husband.

“If I can,” she answered coldly. “If I get a cook and can manage to get out.”

A little smile of pitying superiority to one so tied down by domestic affairs showed on Fliss’s face.

“Miserable luck, Cecily.” Then to Dick, “Do you starve without a cook, poor Dick?”

Like a flash Cecily struck back. Cool and icy and penetrating her voice carried down the table length.

“I think I’ll have my old cook back shortly. She is nursing your mother now, you know, Fliss.” And to her neighbor quite clearly, “She had to go to Mrs. Horton, of course, because she is her cousin.”

There was the faintest little smile, the smallest hush. Mrs. Longstreet’s eyebrows went up and then down,--her only signal of lack of equilibrium. Then she rose and the company followed. Only in that instant Cecily had seen Dick’s angry glance and the cruel flush that had risen on the face of Fliss. It delighted her to see that the blow had gone home. Then an acute sense of degradation swallowed up her delight.

Dick did not claim her for the first dance. It was Fliss he danced with. When he did come to his wife, he looked at her with his eyes still angry. “Dance this, Cecily?”

“Where did you learn that raw stuff?” he asked after they had been around the floor silently.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. That was a pretty raw attack on Fliss.”

“Attack?”

“Attack was what I said.”

“You mean when I mentioned to Fliss that her cousin couldn’t come to cook. I hadn’t told you, had I, that Ellen was a cousin of the Hortons’.”

“I can’t see that it is of much consequence whether she is or not, but you knew how a lot of those people at dinner would make capital of it. It was a deliberate attempt to hurt her. I can’t see why you should do such a thing.”

“You ought to know why,” said Cecily. “You ought to know why. Because that woman is dangerous. Because she’s unworthy. She was flirting with you and with Gordon Ames--she was acting like a bad woman--leaning on you.”

“Don’t be so cheaply jealous.”

“I’m going home,” declared Cecily. “I won’t stay here in this place.”

“Very well. You’ve ruined a delightful party anyhow. Will you say good-night?”

He did not speak to her on the way home, unlocked the door for her and then when she was in the little vestibule said coolly, “I’m going to the club for a couple of hours. Good-night, Cecily.”

The door closed and Cecily went upstairs, her throat choking her. Anger, resentment, but most of all the terrible agony of thought that they had quarreled again and that Dick could not see what she saw nor feel what she felt! Softly she stole through the nurseries so that the children might not be wakened. The sight of them gave her no joy to-night. Only deeper pain and deeper sense of failure! Yet it was some comfort to touch the baby hand lying on Dorothea’s little coverlet, so warm, so confiding even in her sleep. She thought as she stood there of the people who say that they could absorb themselves in their children. Surely even children did not fill up all the spaces in life; not for her anyway could they suffice.

At first she thought Dick would be gone only an hour. She undressed slowly, planning what she would say to him. It became clearer to her that she had been shabby and unworthy. She would tell Dick she was sorry, make it up somehow. The hour passed. She crept into bed and waited. But he did not come. One o’clock--half past one; Cecily got up, tormented by the waiting and all the possibilities it suggested. Where _was_ Dick? Wasn’t he coming back at all? Was it possible that he had left the city? Had there been an accident?

The children slept on. The house was terribly still. She tried to read, tried to think, wrote a note to Dick and placed it on his bureau, only to go in and destroy it after another half hour’s waiting. She thought she would go mad with anxiety. She determined to be quite indifferent. She would not care if he did not. Again she slipped into her bed and this time fell asleep.

When she awoke it was daylight and the telephone was ringing in the distance. She heard the maid answer, heard Dick take the call on his extension. He was home then. He must have come in after half past two. The murmur of his voice was indistinct. She lay there feeling as if she had been beaten; physically tired from the strain of the night before. The children were being dressed in the nursery. She wondered what the inefficient woman in the kitchen was doing, but the routine did not stir her to action as it usually did.

She heard Dick still telephoning. A sick feeling at the thought of meeting him came over her. Would he come in or would he appear at breakfast,--cold, condemning, unjust?

He came in. She braced herself a little, but there was no need. He came swiftly over to her and stood looking down at her, his face troubled, pale. She had not guessed that he would feel like that.

“Cecily, I’ve got to tell you something dreadful. Are you going to be game--brave, darling?”

He was in love with Fliss; he was going to go away from her. She sat up, her hand against her throat to keep back the scream which she felt might come.

Dick sat down beside her and went straight through it.

“Last night Walter found me at the Club. He had a garbled telegram and we spent hours trying to get at the facts. When I came in you were asleep and I wanted you to get the sleep so that you could bear this better.”

“This--this?”

“Darling, your father wired that your mother died of pneumonia at seven o’clock last night.”