Zelda Dameron

“ Morris had often thought of the old man during the past year as of a gray shadow that haunted Zelda Dameron, grim and despicable but inevitably linked to the girl’s life. He must save Zelda from the consequences of her father’s acts if he could. It was out of the question for him to approach her with a warning against her father; but he would go to her uncle; and he walked directly to Rodney Merriam’s house in Seminary Square. ”

“ He’s a good young man.”
“Zelda Dameron, why do you speak of goodness and of good people in that way? It’s grown noticeable. One would think you the wickedest person in the world to hear you talk. And yet you are the kindest girl—the best-hearted person that I ever knew!”
Olive continued to swing herself back and forth. There were many things about Zelda that mystified her; but she had asked a question that had been often in her mind and heart.
“One might think, to hear you talk, that you really would like to turn all the beatitudes upside down,” she added.
“I’m queer; I’m a Merriam ”

“ Every one has it. I’m a thoroughly practical person, and yet I have my dreams,—my dream!”
Olive and Pollock were singing again. They were far in advance and their voices stole softly upon the night.
Zelda stopped to listen. Her heart was in a tumult of happiness and wonder. The splendor of the moonlight upon the fields about them, the gloomy shadow of the woodland beyond, the man beside her hesitating, yet ready to tell her of his love. There stole across her spirit the tremulous awe of a girl to whom love has come for the first time as it can never come again.
Leighton drew close to her. ”

“ He was a lying hypocrite, Merriam said to himself; and here was his daughter as calm and cheerful as though there were no such thing as unhappiness in the world. His admiration and affection rose to high tide as he played with the pipe that lay by his hand on the table.
“Smoke it if you like,” said Zelda. “This curse of habit, how it does take hold of a man! But a man who gives pearls away in bunches,—well, he may make a smoke-house of his castle if he likes.” ”

“ A girl who could spend money with so little flourish but with so fine an air in demanding exactly what she wanted, received their best attention without question. No one had ever denied Zelda Dameron anything in her life; and she had formed the habit of asking for [81] things in a way that made denial impossible. When her aunt complained that the shopkeepers wouldn’t do anything for her, Zelda brought them to time by telephone. She knew by experience that her aunt’s methods were ineffective. ”

“ None of the possible midsummer night diversions appealed to him; he would not even go up to the Tippecanoe Club for dinner lest some one should break in upon what he felt to be his mood. He was reveling in that state of mind in which the young rather enjoy being melancholy. Zelda Dameron snubbed him persistently—consistently; and Morris was just now persuading himself that there was nothing left for him but to lose himself in his work. This is always an interesting stage, at which a young man’s fancy, interrupted in its flights elsewhere, lightly turns to thoughts of labor ”

“ At twenty we do not look very far ahead; and Zelda Dameron thought it easy to act a part. Her mother’s life had been ruined; her father had the power to make her own life equally a drag and burden; but she would not have it so. She would play her youth against his age, and triumph; and this first encounter between them touching money gave her an opportunity. It was his vulnerable point and she saw that she had reached it. She had heard from her aunt that the estate her father held for her was worth about four hundred thousand dollars ”

“ Zelda went over and stood by him, and he looked up at her and smiled,—an impersonal, martyr-like smile.
“They look good, father. If you don’t mind I’ll get a knife and try one. It’s been a long time since I ate an apple.”
She brought herself a plate and knife from the pantry, and sat down near him. A gentler impulse had taken hold of her. She owed her father honor and respect; he was an old man, and at his age men were entitled to their whims. She won him to a more companionable mood than she had known in him before. ”

“ There were several trunks of her mother’s clothing and Zelda peered into these bravely. Her mother had arranged them thus shortly before her death. The girl was touched by their nice order; they were folded many times in tissue paper and were sweet with lavender. There stole again into her heart a sense of loneliness, of separation from the past to which these plaintive things belonged; and there lay beneath everything a wonder and awe, as of one who entered with another’s key some strange, dark chamber of life. ”

“ Dameron shook hands with Leighton, whom he had seen often in the office of Knight, Kittredge and Carr, and several times at home. He had expected that young men would come to call on his daughter, now that she had returned to his roof, for this was the way of things in Mariona, and he wished Zelda to have the same liberty and the same advantages that other girls enjoyed. If her uncle and aunt expected him to deal churlishly with the girl and make a prisoner of her he would not gratify them. ”

“ While in this frame of mind he walked down Jefferson Street one July morning on his way to the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court. He was sure that he did not think of Zelda Dameron any more and he was congratulating himself on the ease with which he had forgotten her, when he saw, hitched at the curb just ahead of him, Zan, with the runabout. There was a book-shop near at hand,—a real book-shop, with a big fireplace and many pleasant corners. ”

“ Zelda was laughing at Balcomb’s antics as he began to sing with fervor and a real sense of the dramatic requirements. As he neared the end, where Zelda and he sang together the duet that ended the first half of the opera, Zelda put up her hands, and he took them, gazing into her eyes with a fine lover-like air. Their voices soared into the climax without a break, while the director threw himself into strange contortions as he struck the last bars leading to the high note which they gained and held perfectly. ”

“ Zelda Dameron, you are no more sick than I am! No person could get as sick as you are pretending to be in a few hours. You were as well as anybody at midnight, and you went through the rehearsal splendidly. ”

“ He hates very much the idea of having nothing to do but to take care of himself. He has been about so much,—always, let us say, looking for the moose!”
Zelda smiled at this reference to their talk at her uncle’s house. Zelda had been often in Morris’s mind since his first sight of her at Mrs. Carr’s tea. He had speculated and wondered about her, as a young man will about any girl he meets who appeals to his imagination. Carr, in speaking to him from time to time of matters connected with Ezra Dameron’s business, had let fall his own impression of the old man ”

“ The vines about the veranda made a dark screen back of Zelda, shutting out the faint starlight and the lights of the house. She sat in a low chair with her hands clasping its rough arms, and it was well that her eyes could not be seen, for there had come into them a look of [285] sorrow and weariness and fear that is best not seen in the eyes of a girl.
Morris was not wholly dull or stupid. Olive, sitting up stairs with a book which she was not reading, would have thought well of him, if she had heard. ”

“ The young officer and Olive carried off with great animation a dialogue in song into which Herr Schmidt had been able to get some real humor.
“You haven’t told me how much you like my cousin,” said Zelda to Leighton, when he sat down by her in an interval of parley between the director and Mrs. Carr. “I expect something nice.”
[139] “Nothing could be easier. She’s a great hit! She’s a discovery! She’s an ornament to society!”
“Humph! That sounds like sample sentences from a copy-book. A man with a reputation as an orator to sustain ought to be able to do better than that.” ”

“ Beyond Pollock’s head Zelda could see Balcomb’s profile, though she could not hear him.
“She’s a regular piece, that girl. I was scared to death for fear she’d throw me in that duet—we’d never sung it together—but I carried it through all right. She’s that stunning Miss Dameron’s cousin. She’s rather stuck on me, I’m afraid,—I’ve done little things for her,—theater and so on, but I’ll have to cut it all out. She’s amusing, but I can’t afford to have her misunderstand my attentions. When a fellow finds that he’s got a girl down fine she ceases to be interesting. It’s the pursuit that’s amusing ”

“ Dameron’s sharp features were plainly distinguishable. He was without his hat; he sat stiffly on the tree-stump, with his shoulders erect and his legs barely touching the ground. Suddenly he raised his long arms toward the heavens as though in supplication:
“Make it grow; make the corn grow, O merciful heavens! Then I shall be rich. I shall be very rich. And Zelda, she shall be rich, too. O corn, O beautiful corn!”
[289] His shoulders drooped and he seemed about to collapse. Then he straightened himself with sudden energy.
“Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves ”

“ Zelda added vaguely, as though making an effort to recall the complexion of domestic service in Mariona.
“The blacks are not inevitable. I have Swedes. You remember, I had our consul at Stockholm get them for me. Your Uncle Rodney has two Japanese who do everything. How many of these blacks does your father keep?”
“Well, there’s Aunt Polly,” Zelda answered slowly. ”

“ He subscribed for several religious newspapers of his denomination, and these, too, he read and pondered. Zelda knew nothing of his own family. He was the only member of it that lived in the state. His correspondence was carried on from his office, and the only letters that the postman left at the Dameron house were the envelopes that poured in steadily, bearing invitations for Zelda, an occasional foreign letter from some friend she had made abroad, and on the first of the month, bills for her own purchases at the shops. She always found it difficult to talk to her father ”

“ I’m neither sugar, salt nor anybody’s honey. I never had a cold in my life,” she declared, as the two women exclaimed at her drenched appearance. Olive helped her out of the coat and bore it away to the kitchen, and then took Zelda to her own room, where there was more white woodwork, with draperies of pink and white in the dormer-windows.
“I know; I see through it all; you didn’t really want me to fix my dripping locks, but to see this. Isn’t it too good to be true? ”

“ Zelda did not frequent the club, and the pretty, gray-eyed golf-champion with whom in other summers he had played many a round, bowed a little superciliously now when she passed him in her electric runabout. She did not salute him with a jangle of the gong as had been her pleasant habit in the genial days of their comradeship. Nor did the bands in the glittering beer-gardens tempt him; for there is something not wholly edifying in the passing spectacle of every one and every one’s cook. ”

“ Very much cooler here than in the city, as you may have noticed.” And he went down the steps and out upon the highway for his usual evening walk.
“A remarkable man, your father, Miss Dameron. He’s quite the ideal business man of the old school,” said Balcomb. “We youngsters are quicker on the trigger, but our aim isn’t so sure. No siree; your father is an ideal business man.”
He had spoken impressively. He would, in his own language, “make himself solid” when he had a chance. Leighton was talking to Olive, and Balcomb set about entertaining Zelda, with whom he had seldom enjoyed a tête-à-tête. ”

“ That horse of his is a beauty, isn’t it? I wish he would trade with me,” answered Zelda.
“Horse-trading is a science, better let it alone,” declared Balcomb.
He jumped up, fumbling for his watch, which he could not see in the dark of the veranda, but he made a pretense of looking at it.
“Leighton, if we’re going to catch that nine-fifty car we’ve got to hustle. I have to see a man at the Imperial before he goes to bed. Good night, Miss Dameron; good night, Miss Merriam. Not going, Leighton? ”

“ He is a gentleman.”
“He is; he is, indeed;” and Dameron laughed harshly. “He is a gentleman beyond any doubt; but you refused him, just as I knew you would. The force of heredity is very strong. You are a dutiful daughter; you even anticipated my wishes. Your conduct is exemplary. I am delighted.”
“I think you are mad,” said Zelda, looking at him wonderingly. She had begun to feel the strain of events of the few hours since she had gone to her uncle’s house ”

“ I trust he’s quite well.”
“Yes; he’s always well.”
“I believe that is so; but the life he has led is conducive to a tranquil old age. He has led a life of ease, with no responsibilities.”
This was Dameron’s usual attitude toward his brother-in-law; there was nothing to be gained by defending her uncle, and Zelda turned the conversation into other channels. She had enjoyed her summer in many ways and to mention the farm was always to give her father pleasure. ”

“ He knew by the tensity of the hush that fell upon the audience that the song’s appeal was not to himself alone. The professor beamed with joy as the full, deep notes rose in the hall; and he threw down his violin at the end and joined in the applause. And as the hand-clapping continued after Zelda had turned to take up her dialogue, she came smiling down to the footlights, made a sweeping courtesy, and pointed to her throat as she shook her head at the professor, to explain that there could be no encore. ”