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Dust Flower

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<h2>Chapter XX</h2> It was May. In spite of her conviction that she knew what to do and how it to do it, Barbara perceived that at the end of seven months they were much where they had been in the previous October. If there was a change it was that all three, Rashleigh, Letty, and herself, had grown strained and intense. Outwardly they strove to maintain a semblance of friendship. For that Barbara had worked hard, and in a measure had succeeded. She had held Rash; she had won Letty. She had more than won Letty; she had trained her. All that in seven months a woman of the world could do for an unformed and ignorant child she had done. Her experience at Bleary Street had helped her in this; and Letty had been quick. She had seized not only those small points of speech and action foundational to rising in the world, but the point of view of those who had risen. She knew how, Barbara was sure, that there were certain things impossible to people such as those among whom she had been thrown. Since it was May it was the end of a season, and the minute Barbara had long ago chosen for a masterstroke. Each of the others felt the crisis as near as she did herself. “It’s got to end,” Letty confessed to her, as amid the soft loveliness of springtime, they were again driving in the Park. Barbara chose her words. “I suppose he feels that too.” “Then why don’t he let me end it?” “I fancy that that’s a difficult position for a man. If you ask his permission beforehand he feels obliged to say––” “And perhaps,” Letty suggested, “he’s too tender-hearted.” “That’s part of it. He is tender-hearted. Besides that, his position is grotesque—a man with whom two women are in love. To one of them he’s been nominally married, while to the other he’s bound by every tie of honor. No wonder he doesn’t see his way. If he moves toward the one he hurts the other—a man to whom it’s agony to hurt a fly.” “Does the other girl still feel the way she did?” “She’s killing herself. She’s breaking her heart. Nobody knows it but him and her—and even he doesn’t take it in. But she is.” “I suppose she thinks I’m something awful.” “Does it matter to you what she thinks?” “I don’t want her to hate me.” “Oh, I shouldn’t say she did that. She feels that, considering everything, you might have acted with more decision.” “But he won’t let me.” “And he never will, if you wait for that.” “Then what do you think I ought to do?” “That’s where I find you weak, Letty, since you ask me the question. No one can tell you what to do—and he least of all. It’s a situation in which one of you must withdraw—either you or the other girl. But, don’t you see? he can’t say so to either.” “And if one of us must withdraw you think it should be me.” “I have to leave that to you. You’re the one who butted in. I know it wasn’t your fault—that the fault was his entirely; but we recognize the fact that he’s—how shall I put it?—not quite responsible. We women have to take the burden of the thing on ourselves, if it’s ever to be put right.” In her corner of the car Letty thought this over. The impression on her mind was the deeper since, for several months past, she had watched the prince growing more and more unhappy. He was less nervous than he used to be, less excitable; and for that he had told her the credit was due to herself. “You soothe me,” he had once said to her, in words she would always treasure; and yet as his irritability decreased his unhappiness seemed to grow. She could only infer that he was mourning over the girl to whom he was engaged, and on whom he had inflicted a great wrong. For the last few weeks Letty’s mind had occupied itself with her almost more than with the prince himself. “Do you think I shall ever see her?” she asked, suddenly now. Barbara reflected. “I think you could if you wanted to.” “Should you arrange it?” “I could.” “You’re sure she’d be willing to see me?” “Yes; I know she would.” “When could you do it?” “Whenever you like.” “Soon?” “Yes; sooner perhaps than—” Barbara spoke absently, as if a new idea was taking possession of her mind—“sooner perhaps than you think.” “And you say she’s breaking her heart?” “A little more, and it will be broken.” By the time Letty had been set down at the door in East Sixty-seventh Street the afternoon had grown chilly. In the back drawing-room Steptoe was on his knees lighting the fire. Letty came and stood behind him. Without preliminary of any kind she said, quietly: “Steptoe, it’s got to end.” Expecting a protest she was surprised that he should merely blow on the shivering flame, saying, in the interval between two long breaths: “I agrees with madam.” “And it’s me that must end it.” He blew gently again. “I guess that’d be so too.” She thought of the little mermaid leaping into the sea, and trembling away into foam. “If he wants to marry the girl he’s in love with he’ll never do it the way we’re living now.” He rose from his knees, dusting one hand against the other. “Madam’s quite right. ’E won’t—not never.” She threw out her arms, and moaned. “And, O Steptoe! I’m so tired of it.” “Madam’s tired of––?” “Of living here, and doing nothing, and just watching and waiting, and nothing never happening––” “Does madam remember that, the dye when she first come I said there was two reasons why I wanted to myke ’er into a lydy?” Letty nodded. “The one I told ’er was that I wanted to ’elp someone who was like what I used to be myself.” “I remember.” “And the other, what I didn’t tell madam, I’ll tell ’er now. It was—it was I was ’opin’ that a woman’d come into my poor boy’s life as’d comfort ’im like––” “And she didn’t come.” “’E ain’t seen that she’s come. I said it’d be a tough job to bring ’im to fallin’ in love with ’er like; but it’s been tougher than what I thought it’d be.” “So that I must—must do something.” “Looks as if madam’d ’ave to.” “I suppose you know that there’s an easy way for me to do it?” “Nothink ain’t so very easy; but if madam ’as a big enough reason––” She felt the necessity of being plain. “I suppose that if he hadn’t picked me up in the Park that day I’d have gone to the bad anyhow.” “If madam’s thinkin’ about goin’ to the bad––” She threw up her head defiantly. “Well, I am. What of it?” “I was just thinkin’ as I might ’elp ’er a bit about that.” She was puzzled. “I don’t think you know what I said. I said I was––” “Goin’ to the bad, madam. That’s what I understood. But madam won’t find it so easy, not ’avin ’ad no experience like, as you might sye.” “I didn’t know you needed experience—for that.” “All good people thinks that wye, madam; but when you tackle it deliberate like, there’s quite a trick to it.” “And do you know the trick?” was all she could think of saying. “I may not know the very hidentical trick madam’d be in want of—’er bein’ a lydy, as you might sye—but I could put ’er in the wye of findin’ out.” “You don’t think I could find out for myself?” “You see, it’s like this. I used to know a young man what everythink went ag’in’ ’im. And one dye ’e started out for to be a forgerer like—so as ’e’d be put in jyle—and be took care of—board and lodgin’ free—and all that. Well, out ’e starts, and not knowin’ the little ins and outs, as you might sye, everythink went agin ’im, just as it done before. And, would madam believe it? that young man ’e hended by studying for the ministry. Madam wouldn’t want to myke a mistyke like that, now would she?” Letty turned this over in her mind. A career parallel to that of this young man would effect none of the results she was aiming at. “Then what would you suggest?” she asked, at last. “I could give madam the address of a lydy—an awful wicked lydy, she is—what’d put madam up to all the ropes. If madam was to go out into the cold world, like, this lydy’d give ’er a home. Besides the address I’d give madam a sign like—so as the lydy’d know it was somethink special.” “A sign? I don’t know what you mean.” “It’d be this, madam.” He drew from his pocket a small silver thimble. “This’d be a password to the lydy. The minute she’d see it she’d know that the time ’ad come.” “What time?” “That’s somethink madam’d find out. I couldn’t explyne it before’and.” “It sounds very queer.” “It’d be very queer. Goin’ to the bad is always queer. Madam wouldn’t look for it to be like ’avin’ a gentleman lead ’er in to dinner.” “What’s she like—the lady?” “That’s somethink madam’d ’ave to wyte and see. She wouldn’t seem so wicked, not at first sight, as you might sye. But time’d tell. If madam’d be pytient—well, I wouldn’t like to sye.” He eyed the fire. “I think that fire’ll burn now, madam; and if it don’t, madam’ll only ’ave to ring.” He was at the door when Letty, feeling the end of all things to be at hand, ran after him, laying her fingers on his sleeve. “Oh, Steptoe; you’ve been so good to me!” He relaxed from his dignity sufficiently to let his hand rest on hers, which he patted gently. “I’ve been madam’s servant—and my boy’s.” “I shall never think of you as a servant—never.” The frosty color rose into his cheeks. “Then madam’ll do me a great wrong.” “To me you’re so much higher than a servant––” “Madam’ll find that there ain’t nothink ’igher than a servant. There’s a lot about service in the pypers nowadyes, crackin’ it up, like; but nobody don’t seem to remember that servants knows more about that than what other people do, and servants don’t remember it theirselves. So long as I can serve madam, just as I’ve served my boy––” “Oh, but, Steptoe, I shall have gone to the bad.” “That’d be all the syme to me, madam. At my time o’ life I don’t see no difference between them as ’as gone to the bad and them as ’as gone to the good, as you might sye. I only sees—people.” Left alone Letty went back to the fire, and stood gazing down at it, her foot on the fender. So it was the end. Even Steptoe said so. In a sense she was relieved. She was relieved at the prospect of being freed from her daily torture. The little mermaid walking on blades in the palace of the prince, and forever dumb, had known bliss, but bliss so akin to anguish that her heart was consumed by it. The very fact that the prince himself suffered from the indefinable misery which her presence seemed to bring made escape the more enticing. She was so buried in this reflection as to have heard no sound in the house, when Steptoe announced in his stately voice: “Miss Barbara Walbrook.” Having parted from this lady half an hour earlier Letty turned in some surprise. “I’ve come back again,” was the explanation, sent down the long room. “Don’t let William bring in tea,” the imperious voice commanded Steptoe. “We wish to be alone.” There was the same abruptness as she halted within two or three feet of where Letty stood, supporting herself with a hand on the edge of the mantelpiece. “I’ve come back to tell you something. I made up my mind to it all at once—after I left you a few minutes ago. Now that I’ve done it I feel easier.” Letty didn’t know which was uppermost in her mind, curiosity or fear. “What—what is it?” she asked, trembling. “I’ve given up the fight. I’m out of it.” Letty crept forward. “You’ve—you’ve done what?” “I told you in the Park that one or the other of us would have to withdraw––” “One or the other of—of us?” “Exactly and I’ve done it.” With horror in her face and eyes Letty crept nearer still. “But—but I don’t understand.” “Oh, yes, you do. How can you help understanding. You must have seen all along that––” “Not that—that you were—the other girl. Oh, not that!” “Yes, that; of course; why not?” “Because—because I—I couldn’t bear it.” “You can bear it if I can, can’t you—if I’ve had to bear it all these weeks and months.” “Yes, but that’s—” she covered her face with her hands—“that’s what makes it so terrible.” “Of course it makes it terrible; but it isn’t as terrible now as it was—to you anyhow.” “But why do you withdraw when—when you love him—and he loves you––?” “I do it because I want to throw all the cards on the table. It’s what my common sense has been telling me to do all along, only I’ve never worked round to it till we had our talk this afternoon. Now I see––” “What do you see, Miss Walbrook?” “I see that we’ve got to give him a clean sheet, or he’ll never know where he is. He can’t decide between us because he’s in an impossible position. We’ll have to set him absolutely free, so that he may begin again. I’ll do it on my side. You can do—what you like.” She went as abruptly as she came, leaving Letty clearer than ever as to her new course. By midnight she was ready. In the back spare room she waited only to be sure that all in the house were asleep. She had heard Allerton come in about half past nine, and the whispering of voices told that Steptoe was making his explanations, that she was out of sorts, had dined in her room, and begged not to be disturbed. At about half past ten she heard the prince go upstairs to his own room, though she fancied that outside her door he had paused for a second to listen. That was the culminating minute of her self-repression. Once it was over, and he had gone on his way, she knew the rest would be easier. By midnight she had only to wait quietly. In the old gray rag and the battered black hat she surveyed herself without emotion. Since making her last attempt to escape her relation to all these things had changed. They had become less significant, less important. The emblems of the higher life which in the previous autumn she had buried with ritual and regret she now packed away in the closet, with hardly a second thought. The old gray rag which had then seemed the livery of a degraded life was now no more than the resumption of her reality. “I’ll go as I came,” she had been saying to herself, all the evening. “I know he’d like me to take the things he’s given me; but I’d rather be just what I was.” If there was any ritual in what she had done since Miss Walbrook had left her it was in the putting away of small things by which she didn’t want to be haunted. “I couldn’t do it with this on,” she said of the plain gold band on her finger, to which, as a symbol of marriage, she had never attached significance in any case. She took it off, therefore, and laid it on the dressing table. “I couldn’t do it with this in my pocket,” she said of the purse containing a few dollars, with which Steptoe had kept her supplied. This too she laid on the dressing table, becoming as penniless as when Judson Flack had put her out of doors. Somehow, to be penniless seemed to her an element in her new task, and an excuse for it. Since Allerton had never made her a present there was nothing of this kind to discard. It had been part of his non-committal, impersonal attitude toward her that he had never given her a concrete sign that she meant anything to him whatever. He had thanked her on occasions for the comforting quality he found in her presence. He had, in so many words, recognized the fact that when he got into a tantrum of nerves she could bring him out of it as no one else had ever done. He had also imparted to her the discovery that in reading to her, and trying to show her the point of view of a life superior to her own, he had for the first time in his life done something for someone else; but he had never gone beyond all this or allowed her to think that his heart was not given to “the girl he was engaged to.” In that at least he had been loyal to the mysterious princess, as the little mermaid could not but see. She was not consciously denuded, as she would have felt herself six months earlier. As to that she was not thinking anything at all. Her motive, in setting free the prince from the “drag” on him which she now recognized herself to be, filled all her mental horizons. So dominated was she by this overwhelming impulse as to have no thought even for self-pity. When a clock somewhere struck one she took it as the summons. From the dressing-table she picked up the scrawl in Steptoe’s hand, giving the name of Miss Henrietta Towell, at an address at Red Point, L. I. She knew Red Point, on the tip of Long Island, as a distant, partially developed suburb of Brooklyn. In the previous year she had gone with a half dozen other girl “supes” from the Excelsior Studio to “blow in” a quarter looking at the ocean steamers passing in and out. She had no intention of intruding on Miss Towell, but she couldn’t hurt Steptoe’s feelings by leaving the address behind her. For the same reason she took the silver thimble which stood on the scrap of paper. On its rim she read the inscription, “H.T. from H.S.” but she made no attempt to unravel the romance behind it. She merely slipped the scrawl and the thimble into the pocket of her jacket, and stood up. She took no farewells. To do so would have unnerved her. On the landing outside her door she listened for a possible sound of the prince’s breathing, but the house was still. In the lower hall she resisted the impulse to slip into the library and kiss the place where she had kissed his feet on the memorable morning when her hand had been on his brow. “That won’t help me any,” were the prosaic words with which she put the suggestion away from her. If the little mermaid was to leap over the ship’s side and dissolve into foam the best thing she could do was to leap. The door no longer held secrets. She had locked it and unlocked it a thousand times. Feeling for the chain in the darkness she slipped it out of its socket; she drew back the bolt; she turned the key. Her fingers found the two little brass knobs, pressing this one that way, and that one this way. The door rolled softly as she turned the handle. Over the threshold she passed into a world of silence, darkness, electricity, and stars. She closed the door noiselessly. She went down the steps. <hr class='major' /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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