Chapter XXI: Mrs. Cromwell’s Niece

IN THE meantime, touching these mothers and daughters, there was a figure not thus far appeared among them, yet destined to be for a while their principal topic and interest. She was, indeed, at this time, a lonely figure, a niece of Mrs. Cromwell’s but not well known to her and living a day’s rail journey to the westward. On the November day of Lily Dodge’s agony this niece of Mrs. Cromwell’s was as agonized as Lily.

Each thought herself the unhappiest soul in the world, and yet, with greater wisdom, each might have known that no girl can ever think herself the unhappiest but that, at the same time, other girls—somewhere—will be thinking the same thing and suffering as sadly. The lonely niece’s tragedy was as dark as Lily’s, but came about in a different way.

The group of girls who had happened to meet at the corner of Maple Street and Central Avenue that morning was like the groups their mothers had sometimes formed, years before, on the same corner. This is to say, it was not unlike any other group of young but marriageable maidens pausing together by chance at a corner in the “best residence section” of a town of forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, anywhere in the land.

Three of these seven girls were on their way homeward from ‘downtown’; three were strolling in the opposite direction; and the seventh, seeing the two parties meet and begin their chatter with loud outcries, had come hurrying from a quiet old house near by to join them. The six made a great commotion. Their laughter whooped on the whirling autumn wind that flapped their skirts about them; their gesturing hands fluttered like the last leaves of the agitated shade trees above them; their simultaneous struggles for a hearing, shattering the peace of the comfortable neighbourhood, were not incomparable to the disorderly uproar of a box of fireworks prematurely exploding on the third of July.

The seventh girl, who had come across the lawn of the quiet old house on the corner to join them, also shouted, begging to be told the cause of so much vociferation.

“What’s happened? What on earth’s the matter?” she cried, going from one to another of the clamorous damsels and trying to make herself heard. “What is it? What’s going on? What’s it all _about_?”

One or two took cognizance of her with a nod and a hasty greeting, “Hello, Elsie,” but found no more time for her; and the rest paid no attention whatever to her or to her eager inquiries. They were too busy shouting, “But listen, my dear!” or “I never in all my _life_!” or “My dear, you never _saw_ anything like it!” though the smallest of them, a pretty brunette with the most piercing voice of all, did at last begin an explanatory response to the repeated entreaties of this Elsie. “Paul Reamer said——” But, as if realizing the waste of so much energy upon a person unconcerned in the matter, she immediately turned to the others, shrieking, “_Listen!_ For Heaven’s sake, _listen_! He said he’d be along before we got halfway _home_! He said——”

Then even the small brunette’s remarkable voice was merged in the conglomerate disturbance, and Elsie was no wiser than before. She continued to go from one girl to another, shouting, “What _about_ Paul Reamer? What’s he _done_? What _about_ him?” But for all the response she got she might have been both invisible and inaudible.

The uproar the six girls were making had no coherence; it accomplished nothing; it was merely a happy noise; and yet it seemed to be about something that concerned the six and was understood by them—something that had nothing to do with the seventh girl and could not be understood by her. The six were not hostile to her; they were merely unaware of her, or, at least, in their excitement, too dimly aware of her to pay any heed to her.

So, presently, she gave over her efforts and stood silent, a little apart from the shouting group and smiling; but her smiling was only an expression of hers, not a true token of feeling within. She wished to go on making her share of the noise; but a persistently disregarded questioner must always become at last a mere onlooker. Thus, Elsie found herself excluded from the merriment she had come to join; and she felt obliged to maintain a lively and knowing look upon her face, so that passers-by might not think her an outsider, for she did not know how to go away with any grace or comfort. Excluded, she could only stand near the congenial, vociferous six and try to look included—a strain upon her facial expression. The strain became painful as she still lingered and the merry group grew merrier; but what pained her more was her regret that she had rushed out so hopefully to meet an exclusion she should have known enough to expect.

She might have known enough to expect it because this was an old familiar experience of hers, an experience so much worse than customary that it was invariable. And another familiar old experience, or phase of this one, was repeated as she stood there, smiling and somewhat glassily beaming, trying to look knowing and included.

From down the street there came swiftly into nearer view an open touring car, driven by a slender young gentleman of a darkly handsome yet sprightly aspect; and upon this the six clamoured far beyond all clamours they had made before. The debonair motorist steered his machine to the curb, close to them, jumped out, was surrounded by the vociferators, and added his own cheerful shoutings to theirs.

What they all meant to convey was for the most part as unknown to Elsie Hemingway as if they gabbled Arabic, though the name “Paul” was prevalent over the tumult, amidst which the owner of it was seized by his coat lapels, his shoulders, even by his chin, and entreated to “listen!” Finally, however, some sort of coherent communication seemed to be established among them, and the young man emerged from the group, though the small girl with the piercing voice still clung to one of his coat pockets. “Call up Fred!” she screamed. “Tell him we won’t wait one instant!”

He detached himself. “Elsie, can I use your telephone?” he asked, but evidently regarded the question as unimportant, for he was already upon his way and did not pause.

“Oh, _do_!” she cried, enthusiastically, glad to seem a part of the mystery at last, and she turned to go with him. “Do you want to call up Fred Patterson to bring his car? Are you getting up a party, Paul? What’s the——”

He had rushed ahead of her and was at the open front door of the house. “Where do you keep it?” he called back to her.

“Wait! It’s in the back hall. Wait till I show you,” she cried; but he ran into the house, found the telephone, and was busy with it before she reached him.

“Did you get Fred’s number?” she asked, eagerly.

He was smiling and his eyes were bright with anticipations that seemed to concern not Elsie but the instrument before him. He did not look at her or seem even to hear her, but moved the nickeled prong up and down impatiently.

“Can’t you get him?” Elsie inquired, and she laughed loudly. Her air was that of a person secretly engaged with another upon a jocular enterprise bound to afford great entertainment. “Old Fred _is_ the slowest old poke, isn’t he? Suppose _I_ try, Paul.”

Young Mr. Reamer’s eyes wandered to her and lost their lustre, becoming dead with absent-mindedness immediately. He said nothing.

“Let me try to get that funny old Fred,” Elsie urged in the same eager voice; and she stretched forth a hand for the instrument.

Upon this he moved his shoulder in her way, turning from her, and at the same time a small voice crackled in the telephone. Mr. Reamer’s brightness of expression returned instantly. “You bet it’s me!” he said. “And if you don’t hurry up here in that old tin boat of yours, you’re going to get killed! The whole gang’s out here on the curbstone, simply raving, right in front of Elsie Hemingway’s.”

“I believe it _is_ Fred!” Elsie exclaimed. “I believe you’ve got him after all. Does he say——”

“You better hurry!” the young man said to the mouthpiece as he dropped the receiver into its hook. Then, as he turned toward the door, he seemed to become conscious, though vaguely, that he was not alone. “Much ’bliged, Elsie,” he said. “Goo’bye!”

“Wait. Wait just a minute, Paul.”

“What for?”

“Fred isn’t on his way yet, I don’t suppose,” she said, timidly. “Let’s—let’s wait in Papa’s library till he comes. There are some pretty interesting books in there I’d like to show you. Papa’s great on bindings and old editions. Wouldn’t you like to see some of ’em?”

“Well, another day maybe,” he answered, obviously surprised. “You see Mamie Ford and all the girls are out there, and I——”

“Wait,” she begged, for he was in motion to depart. “Aren’t you ever coming to see me again, Paul?”

“What?” He appeared to have no comprehension of her meaning.

“Aren’t you ever coming to see me again?” She laughed lightly, yet there was a tremor in her voice. “I don’t believe you’ve been in our house for over two years, Paul.”

“Oh, yes, I have,” he returned. “I must have been here a whole lot in that much time. G’bye, Elsie; the girls are——”

But again she contrived to detain him. “Wait. When will you come to see me again, Paul?”

“Oh, almost any time.”

“But when? What day?”

This urgency, though gentle, bothered him, and he wished he hadn’t thought of using Elsie’s telephone. He was a youth much sought, as he had reason to be pleasantly aware, and life offered him many more interesting vistas than the prospect of an afternoon or an evening or a substantial part of either, to be spent tête-à-tête with Elsie Hemingway. Pressed to give a definite reason why such a prospect dismayed him, he might have been puzzled. Elsie wasn’t exactly a bore; she wasn’t bad-looking, and nobody disliked her. Probably he would have fallen back upon an explanation that would have been satisfactory enough to most of the young people with whom he and Elsie had “grown up.” Elsie was “just Elsie Hemingway,” he would have said, implying an otherwise unexplainable something inherent in Elsie herself, and nothing derogatory to the Hemingway family.

“_When_ will you come, Paul?”

“Why—why, right soon, Elsie. Honestly I will. I’ll try to, that is. Honestly I’ll——”

“Paul, it’s true you haven’t been here in over two years.” Elsie’s voice trembled a little more perceptibly. “The last time you were here was when you came to Mother’s funeral. You had to come then, because you had to bring your mother.”

“Oh, no,” he said, a little shocked at this strange reference. “I was gl—— I mean I wanted to come. I’ll come again, too, some day, before long. I must run, Elsie. The girls——”

“You won’t say when?” She spoke gravely, looking at him steadily, and there was more in her eyes than he saw, for he was not interested in finding what was there, or in anything except in his escape to the gaiety outdoors.

He laughed reassuringly. “Oh, sometime before very long. I’ll honestly try to get ’round. Honestly, I will, Elsie. Listen!”

There were shriekings of his name from the street and lawn. “G’bye! I’m coming!” he shouted, and dashed out of the house to meet the vehement demand for him. He was asked at the top of several voices “what on earth” he’d been doing all that time; but no one even jocularly suggested Elsie as a cause of his delay.

When he had gone, she went to the front door and closed it, keeping herself out of sight; then she stood looking through the lace curtain that covered the glass set into the upper half of the door. The amiable youth she had called “old Fred,” accompanied by a male comrade, was just arriving in a low car wherein they reclined almost at full length rather than sat. The small but piercing Miss Ford leaped to join them, and the other girls, screaming, each trying to make her laughter dominant, piled themselves into Paul Reamer’s car. Both machines trembled into motion at once, and swept away, carrying a great noise with them up the echoing street.

Elsie stood for a little while looking heavily out at nothing; then she went slowly up the old, carpeted stairway to her own room, where she did a singular thing. She took a hand mirror from her dressing-table, looked searchingly into the glass for several long and solemn minutes, then dropped down upon her bed and wept. She might have been a beauty discovering the first gray hair.

It was strange that she should look into a mirror and then weep because, if the glass was honest with her, its revelation should have been in every detail encouraging. The reflection showed lamenting gray eyes, but long-lashed and vividly lustrous; it showed a good white brow and a neat nose and a shapely mouth and chin. No one could have asked a mirror to be coloured a pleasanter tan brown than where it reflected Elsie’s rippling hair; and as for the rest of her, she was neither angular nor awkward, neither stout nor misshapen in any way, but the contrary. Yet this was not the first time she had done that strange thing;—she had come too often silently to her room, looked into her mirror, and then fallen to long weeping.