Mary Stewart Cutting

“ He took a swift look up and down the empty, lifeless street, laid out straight and stiff in the cold, faint glimmer of the dawn, and then his lips sought hers in deep, deep acknowledgment of the joy, and of the sorrow, to which all love is born—one of those moments stolen in its beautifulness from the life to come.
But his voice was tense again, as he set her down within her own doorway, and he looked at her with stern eyes of jealous care, from which she hid the woman’s smile of love at dear love’s unreason. ”

“ Briarley did not know what. There was a wonderful and sweet gentleness in the face of the older woman as it bent to the simple earnestness of the other. Mrs. Briarley’s one little thought of truth had unerringly met and rounded its circle. It is not only at the sacramental table that we are partakers together of the Bread of Life.
“I’m so glad you told me!” said Mrs. Beatoun. She was not a demonstrative woman, but in that pause she had put her arms round Mrs. Briarley and kissed her, under the very shade of the rummage hat. ”

“ The mother went around all day with a stone on her heart, that made her face white and drawn and breathing difficult, while Annette and Elinor talked excitedly and incessantly with household avocations half done, and sought the dear little wayward sister separately afterwards, Annette with mute caresses, and larges pieces of bread and jam to supplement the lack of a breakfast, and Elinor with intelligent reasoning as she put the child’s collar straight and fastened her belt. Tina had never dressed herself alone in her life. ”

“ Hereafter, night after night, the wondering Ridge beheld the deserted husband, disreputably attired, sitting upon his piazza steps or pacing up and down the narrow walk, keeping guard like a faithful dog who has been left to watch. Every evening, some man, urged thereto by his wife, strolled over to keep him company, though the rambling conversation always harked back to Mrs. Ranney through every masculine theme. ”

“ He was a kind, wise old man, who submitted patiently to Miss Clara’s fusses and restrictions because he saw the love back of them; and he had lived his life so fully and well that it did not seem worth while to strive to live it now. Yet sometimes, as Violet divined, he was contented to dwell in the past because the present was a little lonely now that the house was no longer the rallying-place for the young, as in the time of his daughter Kate, who had children of her own. ”

“ Townsend in an odd voice. She faced him with gleaming eyes. “I’ll never do anything that doesn’t please you, no matter how foolish it is. If you say the sky is pea-green I’ll say it is pea-green, too. And if you want to kill yourself I’ll bring the carbolic acid. Oh, yes, I’m to be just too sweet for anything and never say boo when you want to go out looking like a tramp and ruin every chance you have just because it ‘hurts you’ to take this money from me, from your own wife. Haven’t I a right to earn money for you, and love and help you, and work my fingers off for you, if I want to?” ”

“ The spring twilight was coming to a close, and [7] when she stepped into the car in which the lamps gleamed dully over the plush seats, it was like stepping into the long tunnel of the night. Only a few men from further up the road sprawled and dozed wearily on their way. She was unaccustomed to going out thus alone, and for an instant a panic-struck thought of failure seized her, but she lost it in the action of her hurrying brain, which constantly pictured the delightful meeting with her expectant husband and the waiting party. ”

“ Even Robert lectures me, though he’s such a muff with Elinor! I know none of you like Francis. I know you all despise him, but he’s a thousand times nicer to me than any one else is. He likes me to have everything I want.”
“Oh, Tina!” said poor Mrs. Malison, her heart pierced with twenty daggers. “Of course, I’m not saying—— If you still care for him in a couple of years, then, perhaps, your father and I may consider it. But you can’t know your own mind now, my darling. You have seen nothing of life; marriage is a very serious thing.” ”

“ Prescott, who owned the impaired digestion of the travelling man, had long passed the stage of taking whiskey to supplement all deficiencies, arriving at the final attitude of the invariable soft boiled eggs for breakfast and rare roast beef for dinner, but to-night he had recklessly refused to take sickly thought for the morrow. Mame’s pie was good.
Brenner was sitting now cross-legged on the sofa, strumming obliviously on the banjo, while Prescott, his arms on the dining-table, leaned towards Mrs. Brenner’s sympathy. Something in this warm home atmosphere was too much for him. ”

“ The department store wagons were still rattling up and down, delivering relays and relays of parcels at the different houses, and here and there weary, draggled-looking women were returning from town, each carrying by one end the large paper bag which contains an untrimmed hat. You could tell by the way they walked that their feet hurt. Down the block the freshening palms and rubber plants were grouped at intervals. On Mrs. Thatcher’s piazza, the emblem of a much-enduring domesticity once more stood in the sunshine, stolid and green. ”

“ He has found out what his wife is, at last.”
So deep was this feeling of certainty, that almost an electric, shuddering wave of horror passed over the Ridge the next evening when Mr. Ranney, natty and immaculate, his gold-banded yachting cap on the side of his head, pipe in hand, swung jauntily out of his front gate into the broad, white moonlight that lay along the street. Only Mrs. Laurence, from the contradictory evidence of her own deep love, had a sudden, sweet, half-smile-and-tearful divination, that he hadn’t had the heart for freedom before, with his wife away. ”

“ The end of a holiday is the dearest part of [241] a happy one, when the jewels are counted over, to be strung on the silver thread of memory. The lights were turned down low in the nursery, so that the flames of the fire of aromatic pine were reflected rosily from the white surface of the enamelled furniture, as Violet sat there in her loose blue gown, her reddish hair half curling over her shoulders, rocking her little son with his head pressed against her white bosom. ”

“ For nine days Mildred Thatcher lived as her neighbours, a life as thick and solid, as uninformed with the spirit as the rubber plant which stood neglected in the drawing-room by the pile of books—as yet unshelved—and the dusty upright piano. ”

“ She could find nothing for her father-in-law that appealed in the least to an imagination all ready to be fired. Yet it was joy to be out for Christmas shopping [235] in the crisp air to one who had been so little able lately to go abroad, while before her raptured vision she saw ever a wee sock hung by the nursery hearth, and a tiny lighted tree. Many little children were to be made happy this holy-tide because her child had come to her—Violet’s thank-offering had flowed by many streams to reach unseen baby hands. ”

“ To escape for a solid block of sunlit secular hours out of the grimy, artificially lighted, badly ventilated office, with its white, tired-looking clerks, and its association of intricate, harassing toil—to escape from this to the peacefulness of green grass, and the click of the lawn-mower, and the flickering of shade from the new leaves of the elms that arched the street, and the sweet voices of little children calling to one another, was to go back into a little corner of the emerald fields of boyhood. ”

“ Malison in despair—anxiety lent roughness to her voice. “This is nonsense, Tina. Come up-stairs this minute. The idea! with nothing on your feet—you’ll get your death of cold.” She led the girl to her own bed, tucking the soft form with resolute fingers, and lying [179] down herself afterwards under the coverlet with her cheek against Tina’s chill flesh.
“Oh, Tina, as if mother could ever be glad if you were unhappy! It’s just because I fear that if you have what you want that it will only be for your unhappiness that I look as I do. If your father were only at home!” ”

“ Patently unintellectual as Mildred Thatcher was, she yet indisputably retained her charm for the man who was intellectual. She had, in fact, that sweet will to be beloved which instinctively foreruns occasion, and makes a place for it in all the little daily matters of life. ”

“ Effingham. You’ve often said what a difference a person’s appearance made—and it’s so unlike you to look shabby! You ought to do everything to try and get that position; you can’t afford to lose the ghost of a chance. You are so foolish, you won’t listen to reason! Oh, Francis, won’t you stand still and answer me?”
“Yes, I’ll answer you,” said Mr. Townsend deliberately. “You can ‘reason,’ as you call it, until you’re blind. ”

“ A [85] man of semi-nautical tastes, he had at times almost a quarter-deck manner alike to barking dogs, poaching cows and trivial or unauthorized approach from his fellows. With the men who were his friends he was reputed to be a charming companion, witty, genial, and whole-hearted; the wives took the fact on hearsay, with some suspicion. Mrs. Laurence felt a distinct sense of resentment as, sitting on her piazza after dinner she saw him coming up the steps, natty and immaculate in his blue flannels, pipe in hand—he was actually going to leave his wife alone on the eve of her departure. ”

“ Heaven only knew—and heaven did know—how many boys he had saved from temptation by the kind word in season, how many men he had heartened by his prompt recognition of work well done. He was a man who gave of himself, unvaryingly, to those with whom he came in daily contact, and was a greater factor in the prosperity of the great house than the members of the firm. ”

“ It is impossible to hide one’s secrets. The whole family felt sure that Tina was thinking of Francis Fanshawe, though she never even looked out of the window when he spun past it, as sometimes happened, in his big, white motor car, filled with a gay crowd of bugle-blowing boys. Elinor, with the tacit consent of her elders, actually wrote a note inviting him to the house. He came, indeed, but Tina refused to see him, playing checkers up-stairs in the library with Robert, who had a meditative, humorous way of beating her, while Elinor, perforce, did the entertaining. ”

“ Budd’s ménu by heart. “You can adapt and adapt and they’ll never know it, but they do know when they’re comfortable. Nobody can say that Mr. Stone isn’t comfortable in his own house. When I see a man like Mr. Ranney leaving his home every evening you may be sure there’s a screw loose somewhere. That little woman is making a great mistake, but it’s the kind of thing you’d find it difficult to speak about.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t speak about it for the world!” cried Mrs. Laurence in horror. “As Mrs. Budd says very truly, people are so different.” ”

“ You’ve always been down on Francis! And I don’t care whether I keep on with my studies or not.”
“Tina!” Elinor carefully inserted the bathtub in the cage before flinging herself volubly upon the subject. “Tina, you can’t mean that—you want to be educated, I hope! Besides, you’ll enjoy coming out into society a great deal more later, and if you’re seen everywhere now, people will be taking you for much older than you are.”
“I wouldn’t care!” Tina’s defiant tone took on an increasing rapidity. “I don’t see what good it does to be educated, anyway. People like you just as well when you’re silly. ”

“ Anyway, I hate weddings. I only care for dances. Momsey, aren’t you going to let me go to this dance? What difference does it make if I’m not out? All my friends are to be there—the Clarks, and Edith Bayne and Francis Fanshawe. Daddy said I could go before he went away, and I’ve been counting on it all the time, and now you won’t let me!”
Tina sat on an ottoman in the centre of the big, mahogany-furnished, old-fashioned room, with her light hair falling over one ear and her large, clear, blue eyes fixed tragically on the face of the parent who sat busily sewing. ”

“ When she looked at it in the morning it was worse even than she had dreamed—it put her teeth on edge. The home didn’t seem like hers! She averted her face from it patiently at breakfast, and her mouth drooped pathetically, but Nevin only read his paper and kissed her unseeingly when he left. When he was gone, she and [45] Kitty rolled the rug up into a corner. If any one came they could think she was cleaning house.
And on the morrow, and the morrow after, the rug, like a malevolent force, still separated them. She would have given it away if she could have afforded to have done so. ”