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The Shoulders of Atlas: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 4 |
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_ Chapter IV The dining-room in the White homestead was a large, low room whose southward windows were shaded at this season with a cloud of gold-green young grape leaves. The paper was a nondescript pattern, a large satin scroll on white. The room was wainscoted in white, and the panel-work around the great chimney was beautiful. A Franklin stove with a pattern of grape-vines was built into the chimney under the high mantel. Sylvia regarded this dubiously. "I don't think much of that old-fashioned Franklin stove," she told Henry. "Why Abrahama had it left in, after she had her nice furnace, beats me. Seems to me we had better have it taken out, and have a nice board, covered with paper to match this on the room, put there instead. There's a big roll of the paper up garret, and it ain't faded a mite." "Mr. Allen will like it just the way it is," said Henry, regarding the old stove with a sneaking admiration of which he was ashamed. It had always seemed to him that Sylvia's taste must be better than his. He had always thought vaguely of women as creatures of taste. "I think maybe he'll like a fire in it sometimes," he said, timidly. "A fire, when there's a furnace?" "I mean chilly days in the fall, before we start the furnace." "Then we could have that nice air-tight that we had in the other house put up. If we had a fire in this old thing the heat would all go up chimney." "But it would look kind of pretty." "I was brought up to think a fire was for warmth, not for looks," said Sylvia, tartly. She had lost the odd expression which Henry had dimly perceived several days before, or she was able to successfully keep it in abeyance; still, there was no doubt that a strange and subtle change had occurred within the woman. Henry was constantly looking at her when she spoke, because he vaguely detected unwonted tones in her familiar voice; that voice which had come to seem almost as his own. He was constantly surprised at a look in the familiar eyes, which had seemed heretofore to gaze at life in entire unison with his own. He often turned upon Sylvia and asked her abruptly if she did not feel well, and what was the matter; and when she replied, as she always did, that nothing whatever was the matter, continued to regard her with a frown of perplexity, from which she turned with a switch of her skirts and a hitch of her slender shoulders. Sylvia, while she still evinced exultation over her new possessions, seemed to do so fiercely and defiantly. When Horace Allen arrived she greeted him, and ushered him into her new domain with a pride which had in it something almost repellent. At supper-time she led him into the dining-room and glanced around, then at him. "Well," said she, "don't you think it was about time we had something nice like this, after we had pulled and tugged for nothing all our lives? Don't you think we deserve it if anybody does?" "I certainly do," replied Horace Allen, warmly; yet he regarded her with somewhat the same look of astonishment as Henry. It did not seem to him that it could be Sylvia Whitman who was speaking. The thought crossed his mind, as he took his place at the table, that possibly coming late in life, after so many deprivations, good-fortune had disturbed temporarily the even balance of her good New England sense. Then he looked about him with delight. "I say, this is great!" he cried, boyishly. There was something incurably boyish about Horace Allen, although he was long past thirty. "By George, that Chippendale sideboard is a beauty," he said, gazing across at a fine old piece full of dull high lights across its graceful surfaces. Sylvia colored with pleasure, but she had been brought up to disclaim her possessions to others than her own family. "Mrs. Jim Jones has got a beautiful one she bought selling Calkin's soap," she said. "She thinks it's prettier than this, and I must say it's real handsome. It's solid oak and has a looking-glass on it. This hasn't got any glass." Horace laughed. He gazed at a corner-closet with diamond-paned doors. "That is a perfectly jolly closet, too," he said; "and those are perfect treasures of old dishes." "I think they are rather pretty," said Henry. He was conscious of an admiration for the old blue-and-white ware with its graceful shapes and quaint decorations savoring of mystery and the Far East, but he realized that his view was directly opposed to his wife's. This time Sylvia spoke quite in earnest. As far as the Indian china was concerned, she had her convictions. She was a cheap realist to the bone. She sniffed. "I suppose there's those that likes it," said she, "but as for me, I can't see how anybody with eyes in their heads can look twice at old, cloudy, blue stuff like that when they can have nice, clear, white ware, with flowers on it that _are_ flowers, like this Calkin's soap set. There ain't a thing on the china in that closet that's natural. Whoever saw a prospect all in blue, the trees and plants, and heathen houses, and the heathen, all blue? I like things to be natural, myself." Horace laughed, and extended his plate for another piece of pie. "It's an acquired taste," he said. "I never had any time to acquire tastes. I kept what the Lord gave me," said Sylvia, but she smiled. She was delighted because Horace had taken a second piece of pie. "I didn't know as you'd relish our fare after living in a Boston hotel all your vacation," said she. "People can talk about hotel tables all they want to," declared Horace. "Give me home cooking like yours every time. I haven't eaten a blessed thing that tasted good since I went away." Henry and Sylvia looked lovingly at Horace. He was a large man, blond, with a thick shock of fair hair, and he wore gray tweeds rather loose for him, which had always distressed Sylvia. She had often told Henry that it seemed to her if he would wear a nice suit of black broadcloth it would be more in keeping with his position as high-school principal. He wore a red tie, too, and Sylvia had an inborn conviction that red was not to be worn by fair people, male or female. However, she loved and admired Horace in spite of these minor drawbacks, and had a fiercely maternal impulse of protection towards him. She was convinced that every mother in East Westland, with a marriageable daughter, and every daughter, had matrimonial designs upon him; and she considered that none of them were good enough for him. She did not wish him to marry in any case. She had suspicions about young women whom he might have met while on his vacation. After supper, when the dishes had been cleared away, and they sat in the large south room, and Horace had admired that and its furnishings, Sylvia led up to the subject. "I suppose you know a good many people in Boston," she remarked. "Yes," replied Horace. "You know, I was born and brought up and educated there, and lived there until my people died." "I suppose you know a good many young ladies." "Thousands," said Horace; "but none of them will look at me." "You didn't ask them?" "Not all, only a few, but they wouldn't." "I'd like to know why not?" Then Henry spoke. "Sylvia," he said, "Mr. Allen is only joking." "I hope he is," Sylvia said, severely. "He's too young to think of getting married. It makes me sick, though, to see the way girls chase any man, and their mothers, too, for that matter. Mrs. Jim Jones and Mrs. Sam Elliot both came while you were gone, Mr. Allen. They said they thought maybe we wouldn't take a boarder now we have come into property, and maybe you would like to go there, and I knew just as well as if they had spoken what they had in their minds. There's Minnie Jones as homely as a broom, and there's Carrie Elliot getting older, and--" "Sylvia!" said Henry. "I don't care. Mr. Allen knows what's going on just as well as I do. Neither of those women can cook fit for a cat to eat, let alone anything else. Lucy Ayres came here twice on errands, too, and--" But Horace colored, and spoke suddenly. "I didn't know that you would take me back," he said. "I was afraid--" "We don't need to, as far as money goes," said Sylvia, "but Mr. Whitman and I like to have the company, and you never make a mite of trouble. That's what I told Mrs. Jim Jones and Mrs. Sam Elliot." "I'm glad he's got back," Henry said, after Horace had gone up-stairs for the night and the couple were in their own room, a large one out of the sitting-room. "So am I," assented Sylvia. "It seems real good to have him here again, and he's dreadful tickled with his new rooms. I guess he's glad he wasn't shoved off onto Mrs. Jim Jones or Mrs. Sam Elliot. I don't believe he has an idea of getting married to any girl alive. He ain't a mite silly over the girls, if they are all setting their caps at him. I'm sort of sorry for Lucy Ayres. She's a pretty girl, and real ladylike, and I believe she'd give all her old shoes to get him." "Look out, he'll hear you," charged Henry. Their room was directly under the one occupied by Horace. Presently the odor of a cigar floated into their open window. "I should know he'd got home. Smoking is an awful habit," Sylvia said, with a happy chuckle. "He'd do better if he smoked a pipe," said Henry. Henry smoked a pipe. "If a man is going to smoke at all, I think he had better smoke something besides a smelly old pipe," said Sylvia. "It seems to me, with all our means, you might smoke cigars now, Henry. I saw real nice ones advertised two for five cents the other day, and you needn't smoke more than two a day." Henry sniffed slightly. "I suppose you think women don't know anything about cigars," said Sylvia; "but I can smell, anyhow, and I know Mr. Allen is smoking a real good cigar." "Yes, he is," assented Henry. "And I don't believe he pays more than a cent apiece. His cigars have gilt papers around them, and I know as well as I want to they're cheap; I know a cent apiece is a much as he pays. He smokes so many he can't pay more than that." Henry sniffed again, but Sylvia did not hear. She had one deaf ear, and she was lying on her sound one. Then they fell asleep, and it was some time before both woke suddenly. A sound had wakened Henry, an odor Sylvia. Henry had heard a door open, forcing him into wakefulness; Sylvia had smelled the cigar again. She nudged her husband. Just then the tall clock in the sitting-room struck ten deliberately. "It's late, and he's awake, smoking, now," whispered Sylvia. Henry said nothing. He only grunted. "Don't you think it's queer?" "Oh no. I guess he's only reading," replied Henry. He had a strong masculine loyalty towards Horace, as another man. He waited until he heard Sylvia's heavy, regular breathing again. Then he slipped out of bed and stole to the window. It was a strange night, very foggy, but the fog was shot through with shafts of full moonlight. The air was heavy and damp and sweet. Henry listened a moment at the bedroom window, then he tiptoed out into the sitting-room. He stole across the hall into the best parlor. He raised a window in there noiselessly, looked out, and listened. There was a grove of pines and spruces on that side of the house. There was a bench under a pine. Upon this bench Henry gradually perceived a whiteness more opaque than that of the fog. He heard a voice, then a responsive murmur. Then the fragrant smoke of a cigar came directly in his face. Henry shook his head. He remained motionless a moment. Then he left the room, and going into the hall stole up-stairs. The door of the southwest chamber stood wide open. Henry entered. He was trembling like a woman. He loved the young man, and suspicions, like dreadful, misshapen monsters, filled his fancy. He peeped into the little room which he and Sylvia had fitted up as a bedroom for Horace, and it was vacant. Henry went noiselessly back down-stairs and into his own room. He lay down without disturbing his wife, but he did not fall asleep. After what seemed to him a long time he heard a stealthy footstep on the stair, and again smelled the aroma of a cigar which floated down from overhead. That awoke Sylvia. "I declare, he's smoking again," she murmured, sleepily. "It's a dreadful habit." Henry made no reply. He breathed evenly, pretending to be asleep. _ |
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