Books: Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories
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Kathleen Norris >> Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories
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One day Mrs. Costello called the three girls to her sewing-room,
where a brisk young woman was smoothing lengths of snowy lawn on the
long table.
"These are your dresses, girls," said the matron. "Let Miss Curry
get the len'ths and neck measures. And look, here's the embroidery I
got. Won't that make up pretty? The waists will be all insertion,
pretty near."
"Me, too?" said Marg'ret Hammond, catching a rapturous breath.
"You, too," answered Mrs. Costello in her most matter-of-fact tone.
"You see, you three will be the very centre of the group, and it'll
look very nice, your all being dressed the same--why, Marg'ret,
dear!" she broke off suddenly. For Marg'ret, standing beside her
chair, had dropped her head on Mrs. Costello's shoulder and was
crying.
"I worried so about my dress," said she, shakily, wiping her eyes on
the soft sleeve of Mrs. Costello's shirt-waist; when a great deal of
patting, and much smothering from the arms of Teresa and Alanna had
almost restored her equilibrium, "and Joe worried too! I couldn't
write and bother my father. And only this morning I was thinking
that I might have to write and tell Sister Rose that I couldn't be
in the exhibition, after all!"
"Well, there, now, you silly girl! You see how much good worrying
does," said Mrs. Costello, but her own eyes were wet.
"The worst of it was," said Marg'ret, red-cheeked, but brave, "that
I didn't want any one to think my father wouldn't give it to me. For
you know"--the generous little explanation tugged at Mrs. Costello's
heart--"you know he would if he COULD!"
"Well, of course he would!" assented that lady, giving the loyal
little daughter a kiss before the delightful business of fitting and
measuring began. The new dresses promised to be the prettiest of
their kind, and harmony and happiness reigned in the sewing-room.
But it was only a day later that Teresa and Alanna returned from
school with faces filled with expressions of utter woe. Indignant,
protesting, tearful, they burst forth the instant they reached their
mother's sympathetic presence with the bitter tale of the day's
happenings. Marg'ret Hammond's father had come home again, it
appeared, and he was awfully, awfully cross with Marg'ret and Joe.
They weren't to come to the Costellos' any more, or he'd whip them.
And Marg'ret had been crying, and THEY had been crying, and Sister
didn't know what was the matter, and they couldn't tell her, and the
rehearsal was no FUN!
While their feeling was still at its height, Dan and Jimmy came in,
equally roused by their enforced estrangement from Joe Hammond. Mrs.
Costello was almost as much distressed as the children, and excited
and mutinous argument held the Costello dinner-table that night. The
Mayor, his wife noticed, paid very close attention to the
conversation, but he did not allude to it until they were alone.
"So Hammond'll take no favors from me, Mollie?"
"I suppose that's it, Frank. Perhaps he's been nursing a grudge all
these weeks. But it's cruel hard on the children. From his comin'
back this way, I don't doubt he's out of work, and where Marg'ret'll
get her white dress from now, I don't know!"
"Well, if he don't provide it, Tess'll recite the salutation," said
the Mayor, with a great air of philosophy. But a second later he
added, "You couldn't have it finished up, now, and send it to the
child on the chance?"
His wife shook her head despondently, and for several days went
about with a little worried look in her bright eyes, and a constant
dread of the news that Marg'ret Hammond had dropped out of the
exhibition. Marg'ret was sad, the little girls said, and evidently
missing them as they missed her, but up to the very night of the
dress rehearsal she gave no sign of worry on the subject of a white
dress.
Mrs. Costello had offered her immense parlors for the last rehearsal
of the chief performers in the plays and tableaux, realizing that
even the most obligingly blind of Mother Superiors could not appear
to ignore the gathering of some fifty girls in their gala dresses in
the convent hall, for this purpose. Alanna and Teresa were
gloriously excited over the prospect, and flitted about the empty
rooms on the evening appointed, buzzing like eager bees.
Presently a few of the nuns arrived, escorting a score of little
girls, and briskly ready for an evening of serious work. Then some
of the older girls, carrying their musical instruments, came in
laughing. Laughter and talk began to make the big house hum, the
nuns ruling the confusion, gathering girls into groups, suppressing
the hilarity that would break out over and over again, and anxious
to clear a corner and begin the actual work. A tall girl, leaning on
the piano, scribbled a crude programme, murmuring to the alert-faced
nun beside her as she wrote:
"Yes, Sister, and then the mandolins and guitars; yes, Sister, and
then Mary Cudahy's recitation; yes, Sister. Is that too near
Loretta's song? All right, Sister, the French play can go in
between, and then Loretta. Yes, Sister."
"Of course Marg'ret'll come, Tess,--or has she come?" said Mrs.
Costello, who was hastily clearing a table in the family sitting-
room upstairs, because it was needed for the stage setting. Teresa,
who had just joined her mother, was breathless.
"Mother! Something awful has happened!"
Mrs. Costello carefully transferred to the book-case the lamp she
had just lifted, dusted her hands together, and turned eyes full of
sympathetic interest upon her oldest daughter,--Teresa's tragedies
were very apt to be of the spirit, and had not the sensational
urgency that alarms from the boys or Alanna commanded.
"What is it then, darlin'?" said she.
"Oh, it's Marg'ret, mother!" Teresa clasped her hands in an ecstasy
of apprehension. "Oh, mother, can't you MAKE her take that white
dress?"
Mrs. Costello sat down heavily, her kind eyes full of regret.
"What more can I do, Tess?" Then, with a grave headshake, "She's
told Sister Rose she has to drop out?"
"Oh, no, mother!" Teresa said distressfully. "It's worse than that!
She's here, and she's rehearsing, and what DO you think she's
wearing for an exhibition dress?"
"Well, how would I know, Tess, with you doing nothing but bemoaning
and bewildering me?" asked her mother, with a sort of resigned
despair. "Don't go round and round it, dovey; what is it at all?"
"It's a white dress," said Teresa, desperately, "and of course it's
pretty, and at first I couldn't think where I'd seen it before, and
I don't believe any of the other girls did. But they will! And I
don't know what Sister will say! She's wearing Joe Hammond's
surplice, yes, but she IS, mother!--it's as long as a dress, you
know, and with a blue sash, and all! It's one of the lace ones, that
Mrs. Deane gave all the altar-boys a year ago, don't you remember?
Don't you remember she made almost all of them too small?"
Mrs. Costello sat in stunned silence.
"I never heard the like!" said she, presently. Teresa's fears
awakened anew.
"Oh, will Sister let her wear it, do you think, mother?"
"Well, I don't know, Tess." Mrs. Costello was plainly at a loss.
"Whatever could have made her think of it,--the poor child! I'm
afraid it'll make talk," she added after a moment's troubled
silence, "and I don't know what to do! I wish," finished she, half
to herself, "that I could get hold of her father for about one
minute. I'd--"
"What would you do?" demanded Teresa, eagerly, in utter faith.
"Well, I couldn't do anything!" said her mother, with her wholesome
laugh. "Come, Tess," she added briskly, "we'll go down. Don't worry,
dear; we'll find some way out of it for Marg'ret."
She entered the parlors with her usual genial smile a few minutes
later, and the flow of conversation that never failed her.
"Mary, you'd ought always to wear that Greek-lookin' dress," said
Mrs. Costello, en passant. "Sister, if you don't want me in any of
the dances, I'll take meself out of your way! No, indeed, the Mayor
won't be annoyed by anything, girls, so go ahead with your duets,
for he's taken the boys off to the Orpheum an hour ago, the way they
couldn't be at their tricks upsettin' everything!" And presently she
laid her hand on Marg'ret Hammond's shoulder. "Are they workin' you
too hard, Marg'ret?"
Marg'ret's answer was smiling and ready, but Mrs. Costello read more
truthfully the color on the little face, and the distress in the
bright eyes raised to hers, and sighed as she found a big chair and
settled herself contentedly to watch and listen.
Marg'ret was wearing Joe's surplice, there was no doubt of that.
But, Mrs. Costello wondered, how many of the nuns and girls had
noticed it? She looked shrewdly from one group to another, studying
the different faces, and worried herself with the fancy that certain
undertones and quick glances WERE commenting upon the dress. It was
a relief when Marg'ret slipped out of it, and, with the other girls,
assumed the Greek costume she was to wear in the play. The Mayor's
wife, automatically replacing the drawing string in a cream-colored
toga lavishly trimmed with gold paper-braid, welcomed the little
respite from her close watching.
"By Nero's Command" was presently in full swing, and the room echoed
to stately phrases and glorious sentiments, in the high-pitched
clear voices of the small performers. Several minutes of these made
all the more startling a normal tone, Marg'ret Hammond's everyday
voice, saying sharply in a silence:
"Well, then, why don't you SAY it?"
There was an instant hush. And then another voice, that of a girl
named Beatrice Garvey, answered sullenly and loudly:
"I WILL say it, if you want me to!"
The words were followed by a shocked silence. Every one turned to
see the two small girls in the centre of the improvised stage, the
other performers drawing back instinctively. Mrs. Costello caught
her breath, and half rose from her chair. She had heard, as all the
girls knew, that Beatrice did not like Marg'ret, and resented the
prominence that Marg'ret had been given in the play. She guessed,
with a quickening pulse, what Beatrice had said.
"What is the trouble, girls?" said Sister Rose's clear voice
severely.
Marg'ret, crimson-cheeked, breathing hard, faced the room defiantly.
She was a gallant and pathetic little figure in her blue draperies.
The other child was plainly frightened at the result of the quarrel.
"Beatrice--?" said the nun, unyieldingly.
"She said I was a thief!" said Marg'ret, chokingly, as Beatrice did
not answer.
There was a general horrified gasp, the nun's own voice when she
spoke again was angry and quick.
"Beatrice, did you say that to Marg'ret?"
"I said--I said--" Beatrice was frightened, but aggrieved too. "I
said I thought it was wrong to wear a surplice, that was made to
wear on the altar, as an exhibition dress, and Marg'ret said, 'Why?'
and I said because I thought it was--something I wouldn't say, and
Marg'ret said, did I mean stealing, and I said, well, yes, I did,
and then Marg'ret said right out, 'Well, if you think I'm a thief,
why don't you say so?'"
Nobody stirred. The case had reached the open court, and no little
girl present could have given a verdict to save her little soul.
"But--but--" the nun was bewildered, "but whoever did wear a
surplice for an exhibition dress? I never heard of such a thing!"
Something in the silence was suddenly significant. She turned her
gaze from the room, where it had been seeking intelligence from the
other nuns and the older girls, and looked back at the stage.
Marg'ret Hammond had dropped her proud little head, and her eyes
were hidden by the tangle of soft dark hair. Had Sister Rose needed
further evidence, the shocked faces all about would have supplied
it.
"Marg'ret," she said, "were you going to wear Joe's surplice?"
Marg'ret did not answer.
"I'm sure, Sister, I didn't mean--" stammered Beatrice. Her voice
died out uncomfortably.
"Why were you going to do that, Marg'ret?" pursued the nun, quite at
a loss.
Again Marg'ret did not answer.
But Alanna Costello, who had worked her way from a scandalized crowd
of little girls to Marg'ret's side, and who stood now with her small
face one blaze of indignation, and her small person fairly vibrating
with the violence of her breathing, spoke out suddenly. Her brave
little voice rang through the room.
"Well--well--" stammered Alanna, eagerly, "that's not a bad thing to
do! Me and Marg'ret were both going to do it, weren't we, Marg'ret?
We didn't think it would be bad to wear our own brothers' surplices,
did we, Marg'ret? I was going to ask my mother if we couldn't. Joe's
is too little for him, and Leo's would be just right for me, and
they're white and pretty--" She hesitated a second, her loyal little
hand clasping Marg'ret's tight, her eyes ranging the room bravely.
She met her mother's look, and gained fresh impetus from what she
saw there. "And MOTHER wouldn't have minded, would you, mother?" she
finished triumphantly.
Every one wheeled to face Mrs. Costello, whose look, as she rose,
was all indulgent.
"Well, Sister, I don't see why they shouldn't," began her
comfortable voice. The tension over the room snapped at the sound of
it like a cut string. "After all," she pursued, now joining the
heart of the group, "a surplice is a thing you make in the house
like any other dress, and you know how girls feel about the things
their brothers wear, especially if they love them! Why," said Mrs.
Costello, with a delightful smile that embraced the room, "there
never were sisters more devoted than Marg'ret and my Alanna!
However"--and now a business-like tone crept in--"however, Sister,
dear, if you or Mother Superior has the slightest objection in the
world, why, that's enough for us all, isn't it, girls? We'll leave
it to you, Sister. You're the one to judge." In the look the two
women exchanged, they reached a perfect understanding.
"I think it's very lovely," said Sister Rose, calmly, "to think of a
little girl so devoted to her brother as Margaret is. I could ask
Superior, of course, Mary," she added to Mrs. Costello, "but I know
she would feel that whatever you decide is quite right. So that's
settled, isn't it, girls?"
"Yes, Sister," said a dozen relieved voices, the speakers glad to
chorus assent whether the situation in the least concerned them or
not. Teresa and some of the other girls had gathered about Marg'ret,
and a soothing pur of conversation surrounded them. Mrs. Costello
lingered for a few satisfied moments, and then returned to her
chair.
"Come now, girls, hurry!" said Sister Rose. "Take your places, and
let this be a lesson to us not to judge too hastily and
uncharitably. Where were we? Oh, yes, we'll go back to where Grace
comes in and says to Teresa, 'Here, even in the Emperor's very
palace, dost dare....' Come, Grace!"
"I knew, if we all prayed about it, your father'd let you!" exulted
Teresa, the following afternoon, when Marg'ret Hammond was about to
run down the wide steps of the Costello house, in the gathering
dusk. The Mayor came into the entrance hall, his coat pocket bulging
with papers, and his silk hat on the back of his head, to find his
wife and daughters bidding the guest good-by. He was
enthusiastically imformed of the happy change of event.
"Father," said Teresa, before fairly freed from his arms and his
kiss, "Marg'ret's father said she could have her white dress, and
Marg'ret came home with us after rehearsal, and we've been having
such fun!"
"And Marg'ret's father sent you a nice message, Frank," said his
wife, significantly.
"Well, that's fine. Your father and I had a good talk to-day,
Marg'ret," said the Mayor, cordially. "I had to be down by the
bridge, and I hunted him up. He'll tell you about it. He's going to
lend me a hand at the shop, the way I won't be so busy. 'Tis an
awful thing when a man loses his wife," he added soberly a moment
later, as they watched the little figure run down the darkening
street.
"But now we're all good friends again, aren't we, mother?" said
Alanna's buoyant little voice. Her mother tipped her face up and
kissed her.
"You're a good friend,--that I know, Alanna!" said she.
"S IS FOR SHIFTLESS SUSANNA"
"You look glorious. What's the special programme you've laid out for
this morning, Sue?" said Susanna's husband, coming upon her in her
rose garden early on a certain perfect October morning.
"I FEEL glorious too" young Mrs. Fairfax said, returning his kiss
and dropping basket and scissors to bestow all her attention upon
his buttonhole rose. "There is no special occasion for all this
extravagance," she added, giving a complacent downward glance at the
filmy embroideries of her gown, and her small whiteshod feet. "In
fact, to-day breaks before me a long and delicious blank. I don't
know when I have had such a Saturday. I shall write letters this
morning--or perhaps wash my hair--I don't know. And then I'll take
Mrs. Elliot for a drive this afternoon, or take some fruit to the
Burkes, maybe, and stop for tea at the club. And if you decide to
dine in town, I'll have Emma set my dinner out on the porch and
commence my new Locke. And if you can beat that programme for sheer
idle bliss," said Susanna, "let me hear you do it!"
She finished fastening his rose, stepped back to survey it, and
raised to his eyes her own joyous, honest blue eyes, which still
were as candid as a nice child's. Jim Fairfax, keenly alive to the
delight of it, even after six months of marriage, kissed her again.
"You know, Jim," said Susanna, when they were presently sauntering
with their load of roses toward the house and breakfast, "apropos of
this new dress, I believe I put it on just BECAUSE there was no real
reason for it. It is so delightful sometimes to get into dainty
petties, and silk stockings, and a darling new gown, just as a
matter of course! All my life, you know, I've had just one good
outfit at a time, and sometimes less than that, and all the things I
wore every day were so awfully plain--!"
"I know, my darling," Jim said, a little gravely. For he was always
sorry to remember that there had been long years of poverty and
struggle in Susanna's life before the day when he had found her, an
underpaid librarian in a dark old law library, in a dark old street.
Susanna, buoyant, ambitious, and overworked, had never stopped in
her hard daily round long enough to consider herself pitiful, but
she could look back from her rose garden now to the days before she
knew Jim, and join him in a little shudder of reminiscence.
"I don't believe a long, idle day will ever seem anything but a
joyous holiday to me," she said now. "It seems so curious still, not
to be expected anywhere every morning!"
"Well, you may as well get used to it," Jim told her smilingly. But
a few minutes later, when Susanna was busy with the coffee-pot, he
looked up from a letter to say: "Here's a job for you, after all,
to-day, Sue! This--" and he flattened the crackling sheets beside
his plate, "this is from old Thayer."
"Thayer himself?" Susanna echoed appreciatively. For old Whitman
Thayer, in whose hands lay the giving of contracts far larger than
any that had as yet been handled by Jim or his senior partners in
the young firm of Reid, Polk & Fairfax, Architects, was naturally an
enormously important figure in his and Susanna's world. They spoke
of Thayer nearly every night, Jim reporting to his interested wife
that Thayer had "come in," or "hadn't come in," that Thayer had
"seemed pleased," that Thayer had "jumped" on this, or had "been
tickled to death" with that; and the Fairfax domestic barometer
varied accordingly.
"Go ON, Jim," said Susanna, in suspense.
"Why, it seems that his wife--she's awfully sweet and nice," Jim
proceeded, "is coming into town this afternoon, and she wonders if
it would be too much trouble for Mrs. Fairfax to come in and lunch
with her and help her with some shopping."
"Jim, it doesn't say that!" But Susanna's eyes were kindling with
joy at the thought. "Oh, Jim, what a chance! Doesn't that look as if
he really liked you!"
"Liked YOU, you mean," Jim said, giving her the letter. "Now I call
that a very friendly, decent thing for them to do," young Mr.
Fairfax went on musingly. "If you and she like each other, Sue--"
"Oh, don't worry, we will!" Mrs. Fairfax was always sure of her
touch upon a feminine heart.
"Wonder why he didn't think of Mrs. Reid or Mrs. Polk?" said Jim.
"Oh, Jim, they are sort of--stiff, don't you know?" Susanna returned
to her coffee, seasoning Jim's cup carefully before she added, with
a look of naive pleasure that Jim thought very charming: "You know I
rather THOUGHT that Mr. Thayer liked me just that one day I saw
him!"
"Well, you'll like her," Jim prophesied. "She's very sweet and
gentle, not very strong. They live right up the line there
somewhere. She rarely comes into town. Old Thayer is devoted to her,
and he always seems--" Jim hesitated. "I don't know," he went on, "I
may be all wrong about this, Sue, but Thayer always seems to be
protecting her, don't you know? I don't imagine he'd want to run her
up against society women like Jane Reid and Mrs. Polk. You're
younger and less affected; you're approachable. I don't know, but it
seems to me that way. Anyway," he finished with supreme
satisfaction, "I wouldn't take anything in the world for this
chance! It shows the old man is really in earnest."
"He says she'll be at the office at eleven," said Susanna. "That
means I must get the ten twenty-two."
"Sure. And take a taxi when you get to town. Got money? Got the
right clothes?"
"Hydrangea hat," Susanna decided aloud. "New pongee, and pongee coat
hung in careless elegance over my arm. As the last chime of eleven
rings I will step into your office--"
"I hope to goodness you will!" said Jim, with an anxious look.
"You'll really get there, won't you, Sue? No slips?"
This might have seemed overemphatic to an unprejudiced outsider. But
no one who really knew Susanna would have blamed her young husband
for an utter disbelief in the likelihood of her getting anywhere at
any given time. Susanna's one glaring fault was a cheerful
indifference to the fixed plans of others. Engagements she forgot,
ignored, or cancelled at the last minute; dinner guests, arriving at
her lovely home, never dreamed how often the consternation of utter
surprise was hidden under the hilarious greetings of hostess and
host. Dressmakers and dentists charged Susanna mercilessly for
forgotten appointments; but an adoring circle of friends had formed
a sort of silent conspiracy to save her from herself, and socially
she suffered much less than she deserved.
"But some day you'll get an awful jolt; you'll get the lesson of
your life, Sue," Jim used to say, and Susanna always answered
meekly:
"Oh, Jim, I know it!"
"My mother used to have a nursery rhyme about me," she told Jim on
one occasion. "It was one of those 'A is for Amiable Annie' things,
you know; 'K is for Kind little Katie, whose weight is one hundred
and eighty'--you've heard them, of course? Well, 'S was for
Shiftless Susanna.' I know the next line was, 'But such was the
charm of her manner'--but I've forgotten the rest. Whether mother
made that up for my especial benefit or not, I don't know."
"Well, you have the charm all right," Jim was obliged to confess,
for Susanna had an undeniable genius for adjustment and placation.
Nobody was angry long at Susanna, perhaps because so many other
people were always ready to step in gladly and fill any gaps in her
programme. She was too popular to be snubbed. And her excuses were
always so reasonable!
"You know I simply lose my mind at the telephone," she would plead.
"I accept anything then--it never occurs to me that we may have
engagements!" Or, "Well, the Jacksons said Thursday," she would
brilliantly elucidate, "and Mrs. Oliver said the twentieth, and it
never OCCURRED to me that it was the same day!"
And she was always willing--this was the maddening part of Susanna!-
-to own herself entirely in the wrong, and always ended any
conversation on the subject with a cheerful: "But anyway, I'm
improving, you admit that, don't you, Jim? I'm not nearly as bad as
I used to be!"
She said now very seriously: "Jim, darling, you may depend upon me.
I realize what this means, and I am perfectly delighted to have the
chance. At eleven to-day, 'one if by land, and two if by sea,' I'll
be at your office. Trust me!"
"I do, dearest," Jim said. And he went down the drive a little
later, under the blazing glory of the maples with great content in
his heart. Susanna, going about her pretty house briskly, felt so
sure of herself that the day's good work seemed half accomplished
already.
She had adjusted the skirt of the pongee suit, and pinned the
hydrangea hat at a fascinating angle when the telephone rang.
Susanna slipped her bare arms into the stiff sleeves of a Mandarin
coat and crossed the hall to the instrument.
"Hello, Susanna!" said the cheerful voice of young Mrs. Harrington,
a neighbor and friend, at the other end of the telephone. "I just
rang up to know if I could come over early and help you out with
anything and whether--"
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