_ CHAPTER VI. MR. CRAIG IN SWEET DANGER
It is a rash enterprise to open wide to the world the private doors of the family, to expose intimate interiors all unconscious of outside observation, and all unprepared for it. Such frankness tends to destroy "sympathetic interest," to make delusion and illusion impossible; it gives cynicism and his brother, pharisaism, their opportunity to simper and to sneer. Still rasher is it to fling wide the doors of a human heart, and, without any clever arrangement of lights and shades, reveal in the full face of the sun exactly what goes on there. We lie to others unconsciously; we lie to ourselves both consciously and unconsciously. We admit and entertain dark thoughts, and at the first alarm of exposure deny that we ever saw them before; we cover up our motives, forget where we have hidden them, and wax justly indignant when they are dug out and confronted with us. We are scandalized, quite honestly, when others are caught doing what we ourselves have done. We are horrified and cry "Monster!" when others do what we ourselves refrain from doing only through lack of the bad courage.
No man is a hero who is not a hero to his valet; and no woman a lady unless her maid thinks so. Margaret Severence's new maid Selina was engaged to be married; the lover had gone on a spree, had started a free fight in the streets, and had got himself into jail for a fortnight. It was the first week of his imprisonment, and Selina had committed a series of faults intolerable in a maid. She sent Margaret to a ball with a long tear in her skirt; she let her go out, open in the back, both in blouse and in placket; she upset a cup of hot cafe au lait on her arm; finally she tore a strap off a shoe as she was fastening it on Margaret's foot. Though no one has been able to fathom it, there must be a reason for the perversity whereby our outbursts of anger against any seriously-offending fellow-being always break on some trivial offense, never on one of the real and deep causes of wrath. Margaret, though ignorant of her maid's secret grief and shame, had borne patiently the sins of omission and commission, only a few of which are catalogued above; this, though the maid, absorbed in her woe, had not even apologized for a single one of them. On the seventh day of discomforts and disasters Margaret lost her temper at the triviality of the ripping off of the shoe-strap, and poured out upon Selina not only all her resentment against her but also all that she had been storing up since the beginning of the season against life and destiny. Selina sat on the floor stupefied; Margaret, a very incarnation of fury, raged up and down the room, venting every and any insult a naturally caustic wit suggested. "And," she wound up, "I want you to clear out at once. I'll send you your month's wages. I can't give you a character-- except for honesty. I'll admit, you are too stupid to steal. Clear out, and never let me see you again."
She swept from the room, drove away to lunch at Mrs. Baker's. She acted much as usual, seemed to be enjoying herself, for the luncheon was very good indeed, Mrs. Baker's chef being new from France and not yet grown careless, and the company was amusing. At the third course she rose. "I've forgotten something," said she. "I must go at once. No, no one must be disturbed on my account. I'll drive straight home." And she was gone before Mrs. Baker could rise from her chair.
At home Margaret went up to her own room, through her bedroom to Selina's--almost as large and quite as comfortable as her own and hardly plainer. She knocked. As there was no answer, she opened the door. On the bed, sobbing heart-brokenly, lay Selina, crushed by the hideous injustice of being condemned capitally merely for tearing off a bit of leather which the shoemaker had neglected to make secure.
"Selina," said Margaret.
The maid turned her big, homely, swollen face on the pillow, ceased sobbing, gasped in astonishment.
"I've come to beg your pardon," said Margaret, not as superior to inferior, nor yet with the much-vaunted "just as if they were equals," but simply as one human being to another. The maid sat up. One of her braids had come undone and was hanging ludicrously down across her cheek.
"I insulted you, and I'm horribly ashamed." Wistfully: "Will you forgive me?"
"Oh, law!" cried the maid despairingly, "I'm dreaming." And she threw herself down once more and sobbed afresh.
Margaret knelt beside the bed, put her hand appealingly on the girl's shoulder. "Can you forgive me, Selina?" said she. "There's no excuse for me except that I've had so much hard luck, and everything seems to be going to pieces under me."
Selina stopped sobbing. "I told a story when I came to you and said I'd had three years' experience," moaned she, not to be outdone in honorable generosity. "It was only three months as lady's maid, and not much of a lady, neither."
"I don't in the least care," Margaret assured her. "I'm not strictly truthful myself at times, and I do all sorts of horrid things."
"But that's natural in a lady," objected Selina, "where there ain't no excuse for me that have only my character."
Margaret was careful not to let Selina see her smile in appreciation of this unconsciously profound observation upon life and morals. "Never mind," said she; "you're going to be a good maid soon. You're learning quickly."
"No, no," wailed Selina. "I'm a regular block-head, and my hands is too coarse."
"But you have a good heart and I like you," said Margaret. "And I want you to forgive me and like me. I'm so lonely and unhappy. And I need the love of one so close to me all the time as you are. It'd be a real help."
Selina began to cry again, and then Margaret gave way to tears; and, presently, out came the dreadful story of the lover's fight and jailing; and Margaret, of course, promised to see that he was released at once. When she went to her own room, the maid following to help her efface the very disfiguring evidence of their humble, emotional drama, Margaret had recovered her self- esteem and had won a friend, who, if too stupid to be very useful, was also too stupid to be unfaithful.
As it was on the same day, and scarcely one brief hour later, it must have been the very same Margaret who paced the alley of trimmed elms, her eyes so stern and somber, her mouth and chin so hard that her worshipful sister Lucia watched in silent, fascinated dread. At length Margaret noted Lucia, halted and: "Why don't you read your book?" she cried fiercely. "Why do you sit staring at me?"
"What a temper you have got--what a NASTY temper!" Lucia was goaded into retorting.
"Haven't I, though!" exclaimed Margaret, as if she gloried in it. "Stop that staring!"
"I could see you were thinking something--something--TERRIBLE!" explained Lucia.
Margaret's face cleared before a satirical smile. "What a romancer you are, Lucia." Then, with a laugh: "I'm taking myself ridiculously seriously today. Temper--giving way to temper--is a sure sign of defective intelligence or of defective digestion."
"Is it about--about Mr. Craig?"
Margaret reddened, dropped to the bench near her sister--evidence that she was willing to talk, to confide--so far as she ever confided her inmost self--to the one person she could trust.
"Has he asked you to marry him?"
"No; not yet."
"But he's going to?"
Margaret gave a queer smile. "He doesn't think so."
"He wouldn't dare!" exclaimed Lucia. "Why, he's not in the same class with you."
"So! The little romancer is not so romantic that she forgets her snobbishness."
"I mean, he's so rude and noisy. I DETEST him!"
"So do I--at times."
Lucia looked greatly relieved. "I thought you were encouraging him. It seemed sort of--of--cheap, unworthy of you, to care to flirt with a man like that."
Margaret's expression became strange indeed. "I am not flirting with him," she said gravely. "I'm going to marry him."
Lucia was too amazed to speak, was so profoundly shocked that her usually rosy cheeks grew almost pale.
"Yes, I shall marry him," repeated Margaret slowly.
"But you don't love him!" cried Lucia.
"I dislike him," replied Margaret. After a pause she added: "When a woman makes up her mind to marry a man, willy-nilly, she begins to hate him. It's a case of hunter and hunted. Perhaps, after she's got him, she may change. But not till the trap springs--not till the game's bagged."
Lucia shuddered. "Oh, Rita!" she cried. And she turned away to bury her face in her arms.
"I suppose I oughtn't to tell you these things," pursued Margaret; "I ought to leave you your illusions as long as possible. But-- why shouldn't you know the truth? Perhaps, if we all faced the truth about things, instead of sheltering ourselves in lies, the world would begin to improve."
"But I don't see why you chose him," persisted Lucia.
"I didn't. Fate did the choosing."
"But why not somebody like--like Grant Arkwright? Rita, I'm sure he's fond of you."
"So am I," said Rita. "But he's got the idea he would be doing me a favor in marrying me; and when a man gets that notion it's fatal. Also--He doesn't realize it himself, but I'm not prim enough to suit him. He imagines he's liberal--that's a common failing among men. But a woman who is natural shocks them, and they are taken in and pleased by one who poses as more innocent and impossible than any human being not perfectly imbecile could remain in a world that conceals nothing.... I despise Grant--I like him, but despise him."
"He IS small," admitted Lucia.
"Small? He's infinitesimal. He'd be mean with his wife about money. He'd run the house himself. He should have been a butler."
"But, at least, he's a gentleman." "Oh, yes," said Margaret. "Yes, I suppose so. I despise him, while, in a way, I respect Craig."
"He has such a tough-looking skin," said Lucia.
"I don't mind that in a man," replied Margaret.
"His hands are like--like a coachman's," said Lucia. "Whenever I look at them I think of Thomas."
"No, they're more like the parrot's--they're claws. ...That's why I'm marrying him."
"Because he has ugly hands?"
"Because they're ugly in just that way. They're the hands of the man who gets things and holds on to things. I'm taking him because he can get for me what I need." Margaret patted her sister on the shoulder. "Cheer up, Lucia! I'm lucky, I tell you. I'm getting, merely at the price of a little lying and a little shuddering, what most people can't get at any price."
"But he hasn't any money," objected Lucia.
"If he had, no doubt you'd find him quite tolerable. Even you--a young innocent."
"It does make a difference," admitted Lucia. "You see, people have to have money or they can't live like gentlemen and ladies."
"That's it," laughed Margaret. "What's a little thing like self- respect beside ease and comfort and luxury? As grandmother said, a lady who'd put anything before luxury has lost her self-respect."
"Everybody that's nice ought to have money," declared Lucia. "Then the world would be beautiful, full of love and romance, with everybody clean and well-dressed and never in a hurry."
But Margaret seemed not to hear. She was gazing at the fountain, her unseeing eyes gloomily reflecting her thoughts.
"If Mr. Craig hasn't got money why marry him?" asked her sister.
"He can get it," replied Margaret tersely. "He's the man to trample and crowd and clutch, and make everybody so uncomfortable that they'll gladly give him what he's snatching for." She laughed mockingly. "Yes, I shall get what I want"--then soberly--"if I can get him."
"Get HIM! Why, he'll be delighted! And he ought to be."
"No, he oughtn't to be; but he will be."
"A man like him--marrying a lady! And marrying YOU!" Lucia threw her arms round her sister's neck and dissolved in tears. "Oh, Rita, Rita!" she sobbed. "You are the dearest, loveliest girl on earth. I'm sure you're not doing it for yourself, at all. I'm sure you're doing it for my sake."
"You're quite wrong," said Rita, who was sitting unmoved and was looking like her grandmother. "I'm doing it for myself. I'm fond, of luxury--of fine dresses and servants and all that....Think of the thousands, millions of women who marry just for a home and a bare living! ... No doubt, there's something wrong about the whole thing, but I don't see just what. If woman is made to lead a sheltered life, to be supported by a man, to be a man's plaything, why, she can't often get the man she'd most like to be the plaything of, can she?"
"Isn't there any such thing as love?" Lucia ventured wistfully. "Marrying for love, I mean."
"Not among OUR sort of people, except by accident," Margaret assured her. "The money's the main thing. We don't say so. We try not to think so. We denounce as low and coarse anybody that does say so. But it's the truth, just the same .... Those who marry for money regret it, but not so much as those who marry only for love --when poverty begins to pinch and to drag everything fine and beautiful down into the mud. Besides, I don't love anybody--thank God! If I did, Lucia, I'm afraid I'd not have the courage!"
"I'm sure you couldn't!" cried Lucia, eager to save all possible illusion about her sister. Then, remorseful for disloyal thoughts: "And, if it wasn't right, I'm sure you'd not do it. You MAY fall in love with him afterward."
"Yes," assented Margaret, kissing Lucia on an impulse of gratitude. "Yes, I may. I probably shall. Surely, I'm not to go through life never doing anything I ought to do."
"He's really handsome, in that bold, common way. And you can teach him."
Margaret laughed with genuine mirth. "How surprised he'd be," she exclaimed, "if he could know what's going on in my head!"
"He'll be on his knees to you," pursued Lucia, wonderfully cheered up by her confidence in the miracles Margaret's teaching would work. "And he'll do whatever you say."
"Yes, I'll teach him," said Margaret, herself more hopeful; for must always improves with acquaintance. "I'll make him over completely. Oh, he's not so bad as they think--not by any means."
Lucia made an exaggerated gesture of shivering.
"He gets on my nerves," said she. "He's so horribly abrupt and ill-mannered."
"Yes, I'll train him," said Margaret, musing aloud. "He doesn't especially fret my nerves. A woman gets a good, strong nervous system--and a good, strong stomach--after she has been out a few years." She laughed. "And he thinks I'm as fine and delicate as-- as--"
"As you look," suggested Lucia.
"As I look," accepted Margaret. "How we do deceive men by our looks! Really, Lucia, HE'S far more sensitive than I--far more."
"That's too silly!"
"If I were a millionth part as coarse as he is he'd fly from me. Yet I'm not flying from him."
This was unanswerable. Lucia rejoined: "When are you going to--to do it?"
"Right away....I want to get it over with. I can't stand the suspense....I can't stand it!" And Lucia was awed and silenced by the sudden, strained look of anguish almost that made Margaret's face haggard and her eyes wild. _