A Modern Madonna. Caroline Abbot Stanley
years, I have had no faith in so-called mother-love. It is good to talk about. It sounds well. It is all right till the test comes—and sometimes the test never does come—but if it does, they'll fly the track every time. You can't depend on a woman. They are treacherous."
"What effect did her going away have on your father—in his relations to you, I mean? Did it bring his affections back to you?"
"No. You would suppose it would have had that effect, but it didn't. It made him misanthropic and hard. He could not bear Victor in his sight. The child seemed to be a constant reminder of the mother and the disgrace she had brought upon him. Then it was that I got into the habit of looking out for him. My father was a hard man—an unforgiving man. He ruled with a rod of iron. I've taken many a whipping that would have fallen upon Victor, small as he was, if I hadn't lied for him."
"Perhaps you would have done him better service to have let them fall upon him," the doctor was thinking.
"You see how it is, Bob. That is why he has always seemed so close to me. I really think of him more as my child than my half-brother. And that's why it hurts. … Oh, well! If he had only waited a few years I think I could have consented to it with a better grace. But my consent wasn't asked."
On his way home Dr. Semple looked at it with a professional eye. "The man has a wrong bias," he said, at last. "It was a case of malpractice, and it has left him with his nature out of joint. If he could have a hard enough wrench in the right hands it might be re-set. But where is the surgeon?" Then he went back to the cause. "Women are accountable for a deal of evil in this world. And it doesn't all come by 'ordinary generation,' as the catechism puts it. Oh, well!"
CHAPTER III
MRS. PENNYBACKER OF MISSOURI
Two or three weeks after the wedding Mrs. Pennybacker sat with her niece in the elegantly appointed library of the mansion that old Cornelius Van Dorn had left to his bereaved widow.
Mrs. Van Dorn had enjoyed her crape, and was now in the softly alleviated stage of violet and heliotrope, which looked so well on her that she was tempted to prolong indefinitely this twilight of her grief. Certainly nothing could be more bewitching than the lavender housegown which enveloped her to-day, with its falls and cascades of soft lace and its coquettish velvet bows.
She was smiling complacently just now at this blond-haired reflection in the mirror as she leaned on the mantel.
"No, I don't believe I shall take off my mourning for another year," she said, half aloud, turning her head a little to one side to adjust a bow in her hair, "at least, not quite. Then perhaps I shall have a season of grays—a velvet hat with long feathers and a cut steel ornament. Soft shades are certainly becoming to me—and I dislike to see people rush into colors immediately, as if they had no feeling at all." The widowed lady sighed softly, as was her wont when referring to her bereavement. It seemed to go well with lavender.
"Your love for purple, Maria," observed Mrs. Pennybacker, ignoring the sentiment of these remarks and grasping promptly their salient point, as was her wont, "is an inherited one. Your mother used to feel when she had on a new purple calico or lawn that she was about as fine as they made them. And if she could get hold of a purple ribbon—"
"Aunt Mary," said Mrs. Van Dorn, in polite exasperation, "if you have to refer to those old days and what you wore, why don't you speak of muslins and organdies instead of calicoes and such things?"
"Because they were not muslins and organdies. They were calicoes and lawns—ten-cent lawns at that, and mighty glad we were to get them."
"Well!" ejaculated Mrs. Van Dorn, in marked disgust, "I can't see any good in constantly advertising the fact, any more than I can see why you should say, as you did to Congressman Andrews last night, that you were from 'Possum Kingdom.'"
Mrs. Pennybacker's lips twitched in a reminiscent smile. "I did that to be explicit. He wanted to know what part of Callaway I was from and I had to tell him. I couldn't dodge. I was born in 'Possum Kingdom.' I thought he seemed to enjoy hearing about it."
"Enjoy it? Yes—at your expense."
"I didn't mind, Maria. It started us on a very mirthful talk. You ought to be thankful that I didn't tell him you were born there too."
"I don't want you ever to tell that to anybody. I am not a Missourian. I am a Washingtonian."
"Maria," said Mrs. Pennybacker, firmly, "you are a Missourian. It is too late now for you to select a birthplace. If you ever get into Statuary Hall (which I somewhat doubt) you will have to be written down from 'Possum Kingdom,' for there you were born."
Mrs. Van Dorn contented herself with a sniff.
"Anyway," continued Mrs. Pennybacker, argumentatively, "I don't see why one wouldn't rather have been born in a great sovereign state like Missouri—an empire in itself—than in a little two by four asparagus bed set like a patch on top of two other states, and not set straight at that. I never had any opinion of people who are ashamed of their native state, even if that was a state of poverty, and yours was a State of affluence."
"If you call calico and ten-cent lawn affluence—" began Mrs. Van Dorn.
"I was speaking of the commonwealth, Maria," Mrs. Pennybacker explained, with suspicious mildness, "a State of affluence written with a capital."
"I never even let Richard De Jarnette know I was from Missouri all the time he was coming to see me. I told him my mother was a Virginian, which was the truth. And that I was a Washingtonian."
"Which was—?"
"Oh, I suppose so. … And I have never let one soul know, Aunt Mary, where you are from."
Mrs. Pennybacker faced her. "You haven't! Well, if I were not going home to-morrow I should make a point of telling every acquaintance you have. Do you think I am ashamed of Missouri? I should as soon think of disowning the mother that bore me. Why should you hesitate to tell Mr. De Jarnette where you were from?"
"I thought a good deal about his opinion in those days, and—"
"Is he as provincial as all that?"
"He has always lived in the East and you know how Eastern people feel about the West."
"I don't know how they feel. But I know how they might feel if they knew anything about it. If the World's Fair is held in Chicago, I suspect it will open their eyes to a few things. Where are these De Jarnettes from?"
"It is an old Maryland family. There are just two of them left now, Richard and Victor. The father died years ago, leaving a large estate to his sons. Then Richard is wealthy in his own right. His property comes mainly from an aunt who did not like Victor's mother. … No, they are only half-brothers. Victor hasn't nearly so much money as Richard. It turns out that Richard has so much more than anybody ever supposed he had years ago." Mrs. Van Dorn's mouth sank into a slightly regretful droop, as if the subject had its stings.
"Maria, you remind me of a woman I used to know in Missouri. Whenever a girl was married and anybody asked this old lady how she had done, she always said, in her slow drawl, 'Well, I really don't know how much the man is worth.' What is there to these De Jarnettes besides money? I want to know something about Margaret's chances for happiness."
"Oh, it is a fine family. She has done well. I really think that Richard has shown himself sometimes quite hard, but the two are not at all alike. Victor's mother was a French woman, or of French descent. That is where he gets his complexion, I suppose—and perhaps his morals, for I guess he has been pretty fast. There was an awful scandal about his mother years ago, I've heard. Of course Richard never mentioned it to me, but I know he hates her like poison. I think she went off with another man or something like that—some dreadful thing that couldn't be talked about above your breath. Anyway, she disappeared and never came back—left her child—and all that. The story goes that she wanted to come back after a while, but old Mr. De Jarnette never