Trudy

“ Trudy was disappointed. “Did Beatrice ever know?”
“Don’t know myself.” Mary was determined to win out. “I can’t see why she should––it would not interest her. She never listens to things that do not interest her.... You won’t know Luke. He grows like a weed.”
Trudy found herself dismissed. She did not know 247 just how it had come about but Mary was smiling her into the elevator and Trudy was sinking to the ground floor feeling that though it was none of her business unless she got a diamond ring she was just going to make other people unhappy, too. ”

“ For a broken heart is often a man’s strongest asset and a woman’s gravest suspicion. Trudy, however, gave him no hope in this direction. She hung about her fireplace contrary to her former plans concerning it. She really put in an eighteen-hour day as both slavey and sylph, and seemed filled with everlasting patience and jazz.
Coming into the Touraine apartment Trudy found Gaylord showing old prints to some woman customers and advising as to the smartness of having them framed and used in sun parlours or any intriguing little nook. ”

“ Yet it would be rare fun to have a property doll all one’s own, different from the impersonal, harmless herd of boys and poets, a really innocent pastime if you considered it in the eyes of man-written law. What a lark––to switch Gay from this cheap, red-haired 218 little woman, dominate his life, suddenly assert her starved abilities, and make him become far greater than anything Trudy had ever been able to do! It would cause such a jolly row and excitement and pep everyone up. Pet and flatter him and show Trudy that after all she had only been an incompetent clerk in Steve’s office! ”

“ It was almost Christmas week before the realization of Trudy’s ambition to have Beatrice call upon her as the wife of Gaylord Vondeplosshe instead of an unimportant employee of her own husband. Trudy counted upon Beatrice to help her far more than Gaylord dared to hope.
“Bea is like all her sort,” he warned Trudy when the point of Beatrice’s having to invite the Vondeplosshes for dinner was close at hand; “she is crazy about herself and her money. She would cheat for ten cents and then turn right round and buy a thousand-dollar dress without questioning the price.” ”

“ Beatrice found herself amused instead of annoyed as she climbed the stairs to the Vondeplosshe residence. At Trudy’s request Gay had discreetly consented to be absent. He had pretty well picked up the threads of his various enterprises and what with his club duties, his second-rate concerts, his gambling, and commissions from antique dealers, he managed to put in what he termed a full day. So he swung out of the house early in the afternoon to buy himself a new winter outfit, wondering if Trudy would row when she discovered the fact. ”

“ Trudy was shallow and she knew not the meaning of the word “ideal,” but for the most part she was rather amiable and unless she had a certain goal to attain she wished everyone about her to be happy and content. As she had married Gaylord only as a stepping-stone she was fair enough to remind herself of this fact when unpleasant developments occurred. As long as he was useful to her she was not going to seize upon pin-pricks and try to make them into actual wounds.
She decided to wear her one decent tea gown when Beatrice called, pleading a bad headache as an excuse for its appearance. ”

“ But Trudy was irrepressible. Besides boarding at the Faithful home and thus enjoying a certain intimacy with Mary, she was one of those young persons who holds a position merely as a means to an end––the sort who dresses to impress everyone, from the president of the concern if he is in the matrimonial or romantic market to the elevator boy if said elevator boy happens to have a bank account capable of taking one to all the musical shows and to supper afterward. ”

“ Trudy was keen as a brier whenever her own realm was threatened. With the shrewdness which caused her to refrain from ever speaking ill of a woman when talking to a man and never speaking aught but ill of women when talking to their own kind, she foresaw in Gay’s constant attendance on the Gorgeous Girl the possibility of an unpleasant situation. ”

“ Trudy was saying; "it's all burlapped up, so you can't tell what it is. It's easy to judge people from their pictures."
Trudy had graduated the year before from a large and fine girls' school and she knew all about pictures.
"I think you can tell more by chairs," Mrs. Fayre said; "their easy chairs are very good ones. I think they're very nice people."
"Have you seen the girl in the window?" asked Dolly. "She's just about my size."
"So she is," said Mrs. Fayre, glancing at Dolly, and then returning to her study of the chairs. ”

“ Whether or not she was thinking of Steve, Trudy did not dare to ask; but she evidently was, as she added that one might better marry an impoverished nobleman and live in an atmosphere of culture and smart society than marry someone who never attempted to be anything. ”

“ Trudy giggled. “It’s the wedding in the air, and spring, and those diamonds! She never works, she never does anything but spend the money we make 11 for her. All she has is a good time, and what’s the use of living if you don’t have a good time? I’ll have it if I have to steal it. Oh, you needn’t look so horrified. Steve O’Valley almost stole his fortune just because he had to be a rich man before Constantine would let him marry his daughter. Anyway, I’d rather have a good time for a few years and then die than to live to be a hundred and never have an honest-to-goodness party. ”

“ Trudy went home taking some biscuit and half a cake with her, and by the time she reached the Touraine she was in a cheerful frame of mind once more. The relief of confession, the home food, and the knowledge of Mary’s secret had buoyed her up past caring for or considering Gay. ”

“ Their home will be in a good part of the city, if it consists in merely hanging onto a lamp-post. You don’t realize that Gay is a bankrupt snob and married Trudy only because he could play off cad behind his pretty wife’s skirts. Men will like Trudy and the women ridicule and snub her until she finds she has a real use for her claws. Up to now she has only halfway kept them sharpened. In a few years you will find Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord Vondeplosshe in Hanover society with capital letters, hobnobbing with Beatrice O’Valley and her set and somehow managing to exist in elegance. ”

“ They decided, too, that Mary Faithful was clever and good––but queer.
That Steve O’Valley would discover that a self-made man could not marry an heiress and make a go of it as well as a man of an aristocratic family could marry an adorable red-haired young lady and elevate her to his position.
That Trudy was far more beautiful than Beatrice Constantine, and as one lived only once in this world––why not always strive for a good time? ”

“ Dolly went in her own house, and as she ran upstairs, she sang so very gaily, that Mrs. Fayre looked at Trudy, and said, "Another fuss!"
"Yes," and Trudy sighed. "I don't know as Dotty Rose is a very good friend for Dolly; they quarrel a lot."
"Oh, well, they get over it right away. I think it is good for Dolly to have some one to stir her up now and then. She's naturally so meek and mild."
"Well, Dotty Rose stirs her up, all right!" and Trudy laughed.
It was about half an hour later, that Genie Rose appeared before Mrs. Fayre. ”

“ I don’t want to leave Berwick, either. I have lots of friends here—”
“And beaux,” put in Dotty, suddenly realising Trudy’s trials, too.
“Yes,” Trudy agreed, smiling, “and beaux. But probably beaux grow in Buffalo, and friends of other sorts too. Now, I don’t in the least undervalue what it means to you two girls to part, but, Dolly, it can’t be helped. Father has to go. Now, oughtn’t we to help him, by unselfishly forgetting our wishes, and going cheerfully? That’s the only way we can help Dad, and I think it’s our duty to do it.” ”

“ The humour passed over Trudy’s head. “Married on what?” She was her prettiest when angry and she stirred in Gaylord’s one-cylinder brain a resolve to play fairy-godfather husband and somehow deliver a fortune at her feet.
“I can’t live at your club,” she continued; “and your sister is jealous of her husband and wouldn’t want me round. We couldn’t live with the Faithfuls; Mary’s a nice girl but I can’t go their quiet ways. I only stay because it’s cheap. I owe more than two hundred dollars right now.” ”

“ Fayre, as the family sat at dinner one night.
“What is it, Dads?” asked Dolly, as her father paused.
He was still silent, and his face looked a little grave as his eyes rested in turn on his two daughters and on their guest, for Dotty was still there. After a moment, he said:
“I’m afraid it will hit you hard, Trudy, and I know it will make Dolly miserable. So I hate to tell you. But it must be told. I’ve been ordered to Buffalo.”
For a moment the girls didn’t take in just what he meant, then Trudy cried, “Go to Buffalo! To live? All of us?” ”

“ Beatrice scarcely knew the various steps which Trudy had climbed in a figurative sense, dragging Gay after her, grumbling and sneering but quite willing to be dragged.
“You see, aunty,” she explained one stormy February afternoon while they were having a permanent wave put in their hair, “Trudy is so obliging and useful, and I’m sorry for her. She tries to do so many nice things for me that I never have a chance to become offended. I’ve tried! But she just won’t break away. And I like to tease Steve by knowing 148 her, Steve is such a bear when he doesn’t like people. Rude is a mild term. ”

“ To keep down the rising tide of overweight Beatrice abandoned the occult method of having a good time and turned her interest to new creeds containing continual bogus joy and a denial of the vicarious theory of life. But when she discovered that optimism was no deterrent to the oncoming tide of flesh she began a vigorous course in face bleaching, reducing, massage, and electrical treatments, with Trudy playing attentive friend and confidante and secretly chuckling over the Gorgeous Girl’s fast-appearing double chin and her disappearing waistline. ”

“ College professors are lots harder to get along with––but business men are as cross as two sticks in their offices and at home they’re so sweet it would melt pig iron.”
The first plank in Trudy’s platform was to marry a business man as nearly like Steve O’Valley as possible. The second was––whether or not she had a stunning home with brick fireplaces––never to spend her days hanging round them. Her most envied friend lived in New York, and her life was just one roof garden after another. ”

“ After which Beatrice thanked Trudy, wishing her a speedy death by way of gratitude, going to her room to decide what her attitude should be.
To accuse Steve was crude; besides, she must be positive that it was true. To get up an affair herself would be no heart balm since she had never ceased having affairs––well-bred episodes, rather, perfectly harmless when all is said and done, quite like Steve’s, for that matter! She could not find a new interest in life until she had reduced at least twenty pounds, since her dieting and exercises required all surplus will power and thought. ”

“ That was what came of marrying beneath him, he reproached himself as he locked up the apartment and went down to the store. To make a scene in a fifty-cent café was not worth the effort, Trudy had once proclaimed, but to run the gauntlet of real rough-house emotion in a jewellery store frequented by his clientele would be social suicide. The only thing was to make Beatrice pay a larger commission on the things for her new tea house so that he could pay for this red-haired vixen’s ring. ”

“ Gaylord fairly floated home, to find Trudy remodelling a dress, scraps of fur and shreds of satin on the floor.
“Babseley, she’s coming to call to-morrow!” he said, joyfully, hanging up his velours hat and straddling a little gilt chair.
“Really? I wish we had a better place. I feel at a disadvantage. If it were a man I wouldn’t mind, I could act humble and brave––that sort of dope. But it never goes with a woman; you have to bully a rich woman, and I’m wondering if I can.” ”

“ The more money Gaylord made the more he spent on himself, and he seemed to expect Trudy to manage out of the ozone, 219 yet to appear as the indulged wife of her enterprising young husband. It never ended––the eternal searching for bargains; dyeing clothes and mending, cleaning, and pressing; living on delicatessen food; sitting up nights to help out with the work, often doing odds and ends of sewing, and appearing the next afternoon in the customer’s house to admire the effect of the new drapery and tell of the bright-eyed Italian woman who had done the work. ”

“ The doctor made an impatient exclamation.
"That's nonsense, Aunt Trudy," he said curtly. "No child of my mother has ever been frightened of the dark; we were not brought up that way. Every one of us has been trained to go up to bed alone at the right time, as a matter of course. Sarah, put away those dominoes and go upstairs to bed with Shirley." ”

“ She approved of Trudy’s views of life as much as she disapproved and was rather afraid of this young woman who wanted to bustle her into trim house dresses instead of the eternal wrappers.
“I kept Trudy only because she needed work––and a home,” Mary said, frankly; “and because you wanted her. But my salary does nicely for us. Besides, it 79 would be a bad influence for Luke to have such a person as Gay about. We must make a man out of Luke.”
“Don’t go upsetting him. He eats his three good meals a day and always acts like a little gentleman. ”