_ CHAPTER VII
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."
Which was true. Beatrice had never had to acquire any sense of values regarding either money or character. By turns she was penurious and lavish, suspecting a maid of stealing a sheet of notepaper and then writing a handsome check for a charity in which she had only a passing interest. She would send her soiled finery to relief committees, and when someone told her that satin slippers and torn chiffon frocks were not practical she would say in injured astonishment: "Sell them and use the money. I never have practical clothes."
If a maid pleased her Beatrice pampered her until she became overbearing, and there would be a scene in which the maid would be told to pack her things and depart without any prospect of a reference; and someone else would be rushed into her place, only to have the same experience. Beatrice was like most indulged and superfluously rich women, both unreasonable and foolishly lenient in her demands. She had no schedule, no routine, no rules either for herself or others. She had been denied the chance of developing and discovering her own limitations and abilities. She expected her maids and her friends to be at her beck and call twenty-four hours out of the twenty-four, she would not accept an excuse of being unfitted by illness for some task or of not knowing how to do any intricate, unheard-of thing which suddenly it occurred to her must be done.
When a servant would plead her case Beatrice always told her that for days at a time she left her alone in her beautiful home with nothing to do but keep it clean and eat up all her food and very likely give parties and use her talking machine and piano--which was quite true--and that she must consider this when she was asked to stay on duty until three or four o'clock in the morning or be up at five o'clock with an elaborate breakfast for Beatrice and her friends just returning from a fancy-dress ball.
On a sunny day she often sent the maids driving in her car, and if a blizzard came up she was certain to ask them to walk downtown to match yarn for her, not even offering car fare. She would borrow small sums and stamps from them and deliberately forget to pay them back, at the same time giving her cook a forty-dollar hat because it made her own self look too old. She had never had any one but herself to rely upon for discipline, and whenever she wanted anything she had merely to ask for it. When anything displeased her it was removed without question.
American business men do not always toil until they are middle-aged for the reward of being made a fool by a chorus girl or an adventuress. That belongs to yellow-backed penny-dreadfuls and Sunday supplement tales of breach-of-promise suits. More often the daughter of the business man is both the victim and the vampire of his own shortsighted neglectfulness. The business man expresses it as "working like a slave to give her the best in the land." And sometimes, as in the case of Steve O'Valley, it is his own wife instead of a blonde soul mate who lures him to destruction in six installments.
When Beatrice first knew of Gaylord's return she was inclined to pay no attention to his wife, despite her remarks to Steve. Then Gaylord telephoned, and she had him up for afternoon tea, during which he told her all about it. He was very diplomatic in his undertaking. He pictured Trudy as a diamond in the rough, and in subtle, careful fashion gave Beatrice to understand that just as she had married a diamond in the rough--with a Virginia City grandfather and a Basque grandmother and the champion record of goat tending--so he, too, had been democratic enough to put aside precedent and marry a charming, unspoiled little person with both beauty and ability, and certainly he was to be congratulated since he had been married for love alone, Truletta knowing full well his unfortunate and straitened circumstances.... Yes, her people lived in Michigan but were uncongenial. Still, there was good blood in the family only it was a long ways back, probably as far back as the age of spear fighting, and he relied upon Beatrice, his old playmate, to sympathize with and uphold his course.
Secretly annoyed that the tables had been so skillfully turned, yet not willing to admit it to this bullying morsel, Beatrice was obliged to say she would call upon his wife and ask them for dinner the following week.
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."
"I did," he said, his pale eyes twinkling with delight. "It was easy, too. I dragged in O'Valley's orphan-asylum days and all, and how we both married diamonds in the rough. Woof, how she squirmed!" He rose and went to the absurd little buffet, pouring out two glasses of "red ink" and gulping down one of them. "I wish I had O'Valley's money; I'd put away a houseful of this stuff. I'm going to dig up a few bottles at the club--in case of illness." Trudy did not want her glass, so he drank that as well.
"You take too much of that stuff," Trudy warned, gathering up her debris; "and when you have taken too much you talk too much."
Gaylord rewarded her by consuming a third glass. "Shall we eat out?"
She shook her head. "Too expensive. There's no need for it now. I bought some potato salad and I have canned pineapple and sugar cookies."
She dumped her work into a basket and flew round the dining room until she summoned Gaylord to join her in a meal laid out on the corner of a dingy luncheon table.
The wine dulled Gay's appetite and Trudy's had been taken quite away by Beatrice's proposed visit. Besides, they put the latest jazz record on their little talking machine, which helped substitute for a decent meal. They danced a little while and then Trudy planned what she should wear for the O'Valley dinner party and Gaylord figured how much money he needed before he would dare try buying an automobile, and they finished the evening by attending the nine-o'clock movie performance and buying fifteen cents' worth of lemon ice and two sponge cakes to bring home as a piece de resistance.
* * * * *
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.
Gaylord's theory of married life was "What's mine is my own, and what's yours is mine." He relied on Trudy to mend his clothes and make his neckties, keep house and manage with a laundress a half day a week, yet always be as well dressed and pretty as when she had slacked in the office and boarded without cares at Mary's house. She must always seem happy and proud of her husband and have her old pep--being on the lookout for a way to make their fortunes. She must also remain as young looking as ever and always be at his beck and call. Gaylord was rapidly developing into an impossible little bully, the usual result of an impoverished snob who manages to become a barnacle-like fixture on someone a trifle more foolish yet better of nature than himself.
Had he been less aristocratic of family and stronger of brawn he would have beaten Trudy if she displeased him. As it was, after the first flush of romance passed, he began to sneer at her in private when she made mistakes in the ways of the smart set into which Gaylord had been born, and when she protested he only sneered the louder. He felt Trudy should be eternally grateful to him. Trudy found herself bewildered, hurt--yet unable to combat his contemptible little laughs and sneers. 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. She knew the tea gown was an excellent French model, a hand-me-down from Gay's sister, and her nimble fingers had cleaned and mended the trailing pink-silk loveliness until it would make quite a satisfactory first impression.
She cleaned the apartment, recklessly bought cut flowers, bonbons, and two fashion magazines to give an impression of plenty. She even set old golf clubs and motor togs in the tiny hall, and she timed Beatrice's arrival so as to put the one grand-opera record on the talking machine just as she was coming up the stairs.
Then she ran to the door in pretty confusion, to say spiritedly: "Oh, Mrs. O'Valley, so good of you. I'm ever so happy to have you. I'm afraid it isn't proper to be wearing this old tea gown but I had a bad headache this morning and I stayed in bed until nearly luncheon, then I slipped into the first thing handy.... Oh, no. Only a nervous headache. We took too long a motor trip yesterday, the sun was so bright.... No, indeed; you do not make my headache worse. It's better right this minute.... Now please don't laugh at our little place. Can't you play you're a doll and this is the house you were supposed to live in? I do--I find myself laughing every time I really take time to stand back and look at the rooms.... Put your coat here. Such a charming one, the skins are so exquisitely matched. I do so want to talk to you."
She had such an honest, innocent expression that Beatrice found herself won over to the cause. Trudy understood Beatrice at first sight; she knew how to proceed without blundering.
"Sit here, Mrs. Steve, for I can't call you Mrs. O'Valley with Gay singing the praises of Bea and Beatrice and the Gorgeous Girl."
"Then--er--call me Beatrice," she found herself saying.
"How wonderful! But only on condition that I am Trudy to you. How pleased Gay is going to be! He adores you. You have no idea of how much he talks about you and approves all you do and say. I used to be a teeny weeny bit jealous of you when I was a poor little nobody." She passed the chocolates, nodding graciously as Beatrice selected the largest one in the box.
Trudy chattered ahead: "I was glancing through these fashion books this afternoon to get an idea for an afternoon dress. Of course I can't have wonderful things like you have"--looking with envy at the Gorgeous Girl's black-velvet costume--"still, I don't mind. When one is happy mere things do not matter, do they--Beatrice?"
Beatrice hesitated. Then she fortified herself by another bonbon. This strange girl was both interesting and dangerous. Certainly she was not to be snubbed or ridiculed. Vaguely Beatrice tried to analyze her hostess, but as she had never been called upon to judge human nature she was sluggish in even trying to exercise her faculties.
In China fathers have their daughters' feet bound and make them sleep away from the house so their moans will not disturb the family. In America fathers often repress their daughters' self-sufficiency and intellect by bonds of self-indulgence, and when the daughters realize that a stockade of dollars is a most flimsy fortress in the world against the experiences which come to every man and woman the American girls are the mental complement of their physically tortured Chinese cousins--hopeless and without redress.
"You have made this place look well," Beatrice said, presently, "It is a perfect tinder box. Papa knows the man who built it."
Trudy flushed. "We are merely trying out love in a cliffette," she said, sweetly, "instead of the old-style cottage. We can't expect anything like your apartment. We have that prospect to look forward to. Besides, we have the advantage of knowing just who our real friends are," she added, smiling her prettiest.
Beatrice disposed of another chocolate. She told herself she was being placed in an awkward position. She had occasion to keep thinking so every moment of her visit, for Trudy hastened to add that she had never liked office work and yet Mr. O'Valley had been so good to her, and wasn't it splendid that America was a country where one had a chance and could rise to whatsoever place one deserved; and when one thought of Beatrice's own dear papa and handsome husband, well, it was all quite inspiring and wonderful--until Beatrice was as uncomfortable about Steve's goat tending and her father's marital selection of a farmer's hired girl as Trudy really was of the apartment and her second-hand frock.
Trudy lost no time in introducing the magic vanishing-cream and liquid face power, and before the call ended Beatrice had ordered five dollars' worth of each and some for Aunt Belle, and she had offered to take Trudy to her bridge club some time soon.
As the door closed Trudy sank back in her chair, informing the imitation fireplace joyously: "It was almost too easy; I didn't have to work as hard as I really wanted to." Wearily she dragged off her tea gown for a bungalow apron and then prepared a supper of delicatessen baked beans and instantaneous pudding for her lord and master.
* * * * *
The dinner with the O'Valleys was equally fruitful of results. Despite Steve's protests that he did not wish to know Gay and that Trudy was impossible he was forced to listen to their inane jokes and absurd flatteries and to look at Trudy in her taupe chiffon with exclamatory strands of burnt ostrich, and watch her deft fashion of handling his wife, realizing that people with one-cylinder brains and smart-looking, redheaded wives usually get by with things!
After their guests had departed Steve began brusquely: "Do you like'em?"
"No; I told you before that they amused me. She is fun, and poor Gay is a dear."
"Are you going to have them round all the time? That woman's laugh gets on my nerves, and I want him shot at sunrise. They can't talk about anything but the movies and jazz dancing and clothes."
"What do you want them to talk about? Don't pace up and down like a wild beast." Beatrice came up and stood before him to prevent his turning the corner.
He looked down at her without answering. She was clad in shimmering white loveliness cut along the same medieval lines as the gown another Beatrice had worn when Dante first saw her walking by the Arno; her hair was very sunshiny and fragrant and her dove-coloured eyes most appealing.
He burst out laughing at his own protest. "Am I a bear? Come and kiss me. If you like them or they amuse you just tote 'em about, darling. Only can't you manage to do it while I am out of town? They do fleck me on the raw."
"Hermit--beast," she dimpled and shook her finger at him.
"I just want you," he said, simply; "or else people who can do something besides spend money or sponge round for it."
"Sometimes you frighten me--you sound booky."
"I'm not; I want real things, Bea. I feel hungry for plain people."
"You have them all day long in your office and your shops; I should think when you come home you'd welcome a good time."
"Our definitions differ. Anyhow, I'm not going to find fault with your friends. I've nothing against them except that they are time wasters."
"Trudy boarded at your wonderful Miss Faithful's house."
"In spite of Mary's common sense, and not because of it."
"You think a great deal of that girl, don't you?" she asked, patting his sleeve.
"She deserves a great deal of credit; she has worked since she was thirteen, and she is as true-blue as they come."
"Do you think she will ever marry and leave you?" she asked, laying the sunshiny head on his arm.
"I never want her to; I'd feel like buying off any prospective bridegroom."
"That's not fair." Her hand stole up to pat his cheek. "She has the right to be happy--as we are, Steve!"
He stared at her in all her lovely uselessness. "You funny little wife," he whispered--"fighting over losing a postage stamp one minute and buying a new motor car the next; going to luncheon with the washed of Hanover and spending the afternoon with Trudy; making fun of Mary Faithful's shirt waists and then pleading for her woman's happiness.... Beatrice, you've never had half a chance!"
* * * * *
The next afternoon Mary and Luke Faithful were summoned home. Later in the day Steve received word that their mother had succumbed to a violent heart attack. He found himself feeling concerned and truly sorry, wondering if Mary had any one to see to things and relieve her of the responsibility. Then he wondered if this death would cause a dormant affection to become active love as often happens, causing him to lose his right-hand man. He reproached himself for knowing so little of her private life. When he went into her deserted office to find a letter it seemed distinctly lonesome. It was hard to realize how suddenly things happen and how easily the world at large becomes accustomed to radical changes. Already a snub-nosed little clerk was taking up a collection for the flowers.
For the first time in years Steve felt depressed and weary. The anaesthesia was losing its power.
Within the coming week as vital a mental change was to come to Steve as the death of Mrs. Faithful was to cause in Mary's life. And as Mary, to all purposes, would resume her business routine with not a hint of the change, so would Steve fail to betray the mental revolution that was to take place in his hitherto ambitious and obedient brain.
Briefly what was to happen was this--after visiting Mary in her home and after seeing the Gorgeous Girl during a test of one's abilities, Steve was to realize that there are two kinds of person in the world: Those who make brittle, detailed plans, and those who have but a steadfast purpose. His wife belonged to the former class and Mary to the latter, which he was to discover was his choice at all times! _