Mary Marie — 06 - When I Am Mary, part 2

* * * * * _Four days later_.

And what did the night bring forth?

Yes, what did it bring!

Verily it brought forth one thing I thought nothing ever could have brought forth.

It was like this.

That night at the supper-table Aunt Jane cleared her throat in the I-am-determined-I-will-speak kind of a way that she always uses when she speaks to Father.

(Aunt.

Jane doesn't talk to Father much more than Mother used to.

) "Charles," she began.

Father had an astronomy paper beside his plate, and he was so busy reading he didn't hear, so Aunt Jane had to speak again--a little louder this time.

"Charles, I have something to say to you."

"Eh?

What?

Oh--er--yes.

Well, Jane, what is it?"

Father was looking up with his I'll-be-patient-if-it-kills-me air, and with his forefinger down on his paper to keep his place.

As if anybody could talk to a person who's simply tolerating you for a minute like that, with his forefinger holding on to what he _wants_ to tend to!

Why, I actually found myself being sorry for Aunt Jane.

She cleared her throat again.

"It is understood, of course, that Mary is to go to school to-morrow morning, I suppose," she said.

"Why, of course, of course," began Father impatiently, looking down at his paper.

"Of course she'll go to--" he stopped suddenly.

A complete change came to his face.

He grew red, then white.

His eyes sort of flashed.

"School?"

he said then, in a hard, decided voice.

"Oh, no;

Mary is not going to school to-morrow morning."

He looked down to his paper and began to read again.

For him the subject was very evidently closed.

But for Aunt Jane it was _not_ closed.

"You don't mean, Charles, that she is not to go to school at all, any more," she gasped.

"Exactly."

Father read on in his paper without looking up.

"But, Charles, to stop her school like this!"

"Why not?

It closes in a week or two, anyway."

Aunt Jane's lips came together hard.

"That's not the question at all," she said, cold like ice.

"Charles, I'm amazed at you--yielding to that child's whims like this--that she doesn't want to go to school!

It's the principle of the thing that I'm objecting to.

Do you realize what it will lead to--what it--" "Jane!"

With a jerk Father sat up straight.

"I realize some things that perhaps you do not.

But that is neither here nor there.

I do not wish Mary to go to school any more this spring.

That is all; and I think--it is sufficient."

"Certainly."

Aunt Jane's lips came together again grim and hard.

"Perhaps you will be good enough to say what she _shall_ do with her time."

"Time?

Do?

Why--er--what she always does; read, sew, study--" "Study?"

Aunt Jane asked the question with a hateful little smile that Father would have been blind not to have understood.

And he was equal to it--but I 'most fell over backward when I found _how_ equal to it he was.

"Certainly," he says, "study.

I--I'll hear her lessons myself--in the library, after I come home in the afternoon.

Now let us hear no more about it."

With that he pushed back his plate, stuffed his astronomy paper into his pocket, and left the table, without waiting for dessert.

And Aunt Jane and I were left alone.

I didn't say anything.

Victors shouldn't boast--and I was a victor, of course, about the school.

But when I thought of what Father had said about my reciting my lessons to him every day in the library--I wasn't so sure whether I'd won out or not.

Recite lessons to my father?

Why, I couldn't even imagine such a thing!

Aunt Jane didn't say anything either.

I guess she didn't know what to say.

And it was kind of a queer situation, when you came right down to it.

Both of us sitting there and knowing I wasn't going back to school any more, and I knowing why, and knowing Aunt Jane didn't know why.

(Of course I hadn't told Aunt Jane about Mother and Mrs. Mayhew.

) It would be a funny world, wouldn't it, if we all knew what each other was thinking all the time?

Why, we'd get so we wouldn't do anything _but_ think--for there wouldn't any of us _speak_ to each other, I'm afraid, we'd be so angry at what the other was thinking.

Well, Aunt Jane and I didn't speak that night at the supper-table.

We finished in stern silence; then Aunt Jane went upstairs to her room and I went up to mine.

(You see what a perfectly wildly exciting life Mary is living!

And when I think of how _full_ of good times Mother wanted every minute to be.

But that was for Marie, of course.

) The next morning after breakfast Aunt Jane said: "You will spend your forenoon studying, Mary.

See that you learn well your lessons, so as not to annoy your father."

"Yes, Aunt Jane," said Mary, polite and proper, and went upstairs obediently; but even Mary didn't know exactly how to study those lessons.

Carrie had brought me all my books from school.

I had asked her to when I knew that I was not going back.

There were the lessons that had been assigned for the next day, of course, and I supposed probably Father would want me to study those.

But I couldn't imagine Father teaching _me_ all alone.

And how was I ever going to ask him questions, if there were things I didn't understand?

Besides, I couldn't imagine myself reciting lessons to Father--_Father_!

But I needn't have worried.

If I could only have known.

Little did I think--But, there, this is no way to tell a story.

I read in a book, "How to Write a Novel," that you mustn't "anticipate."

(_I_ thought folks always anticipated novels.

I do.

I thought you wanted them to.

) Well, to go on.

Father got home at four o'clock.

I saw him come up the walk, and I waited till I was sure he'd got settled in the library, then I went down.

_He wasn't there_.

A minute later I saw him crossing the lawn to the observatory.

Well, what to do I didn't know.

Mary said to go after him; but Marie said nay, nay.

And in spite of being Mary just now, I let Marie have her way.

Rush after him and tell him he'd forgotten to hear my lessons?

_Father_?

Well, I guess not!

Besides, it wasn't my fault.

_I_ was there all ready.

It wasn't my blame that he wasn't there to hear me.

But he might remember and come back.

Well, if he did, _I'd_ be there.

So I went to one of those bookcases and pulled out a touch-me-not book from behind the glass door.

Then I sat down and read till the supper-bell rang.

Father was five minutes late to supper.

I don't know whether he looked at me or not.

I didn't dare to look at him--until Aunt Jane said, in her chilliest manner: "I trust your daughter had good lessons, Charles."

I _had_ to look at him then.

I just couldn't look anywhere else.

So I was looking straight at him when he gave that funny little startled glance into my eyes.

And into his eyes then there crept the funniest, dearest little understanding twinkle--and I suddenly realized that Father, _Father_, was laughing with me at a little secret between _us_.

But 't was only for a second.

The next moment his eyes were very grave and looking at Aunt Jane.

"I have no cause to complain--of my daughter's lessons to-day," he said very quietly.

Then he glanced over at me again.

But I had to look away _quick_, or I would have laughed right out.

When he got up from the table he said to me: "I shall expect to see you to-morrow in the library at four, Mary."

And Mary answered, "Yes, Father," polite and proper, as she should;

but Marie inside was just chuckling with the joke of it all.

The next day I watched again at four for Father to come up the walk;

and when he had come in I went down to the library.

He was there in his pet seat before the fireplace.

(Father always sits before the fireplace, whether there's a fire there or not.

And sometimes he looks _so_ funny sitting there, staring into those gray ashes just as if it was the liveliest kind of a fire he was watching.

) As I said, he was there, but I had to speak twice before he looked up.

Then, for a minute, he stared vaguely.

"Eh?

Oh!

Ah--er--yes, to be sure," he muttered then, "You have come with your books.

Yes, I remember."

But there wasn't any twinkle in his eyes, nor the least little bit of an understanding smile; and I _was_ disappointed.

I _had_ been looking for it.

I knew then, when I felt so suddenly lost and heart-achey, that I had been expecting and planning all day on that twinkly understanding smile.

You know you feel worse when you've just found a father and then lost him!

And I had lost him.

I knew it the minute he sighed and frowned and got up from his seat and said, oh, yes, to be sure.

He was just Dr. Anderson then--the man who knew all about the stars, and who had been unmarried to Mother, and who called me "Mary" in an of-course-you're-my-daughter tone of voice.

Well, he took my books and heard my lessons, and told me what I was to study next day.

He's done that two days now.

Oh, I'm so tired of being Mary!

And I've got more than four whole months of it left.

I didn't get Mother's letter to-day.

Maybe that's why I'm specially lonesome to-night.

* * * * * _July first_.

School is done, both the regular school and my school.

Not that my school has amounted to much.

Really it hasn't. Oh, for three or four days he asked questions quite like just a teacher.

Then he got to talking.

Sometimes it would be about something in the lessons;

sometimes it would be about a star, or the moon.

And he'd get so interested that I'd think for a minute that maybe the understanding twinkle would come into his eyes again.

But it never did.

Sometimes it wasn't stars and moons, though, that he talked about.

It was Boston, and Mother.

Yes, he did.

He talked a lot about Mother.

As I look back at it now, I can see that he did.

He asked me all over again what she did, and about the parties and the folks that came to see her.

He asked again about Mr. Harlow, and about the concert, and the young man who played the violin, and what was his name, and how old was he, and did I like him.

And then, right in the middle of some question, or rather, right in the middle of some _answer_ I was giving _him_, he would suddenly remember he was hearing my lessons, and he would say, "Come, come, Mary, what has this to do with your lessons?"

Just as if I was to blame!

(But, then, we women always get the blame, I notice.

) And then he'd attend strictly to the books for maybe five whole minutes--before he asked another question about that party, or the violinist.

Naturally the lessons haven't amounted to much, as you can imagine.

But the term was nearly finished, anyway; and my _real_ school is in Boston, of course.

It's vacation now.

I do hope _that_ will amount to something!

* * * * * _August first.

_ It hasn't, so far--I mean vacation.

Really, what a world of disappointment this is!

How on earth I'm going to stand being Mary for three months more I don't know.

But I've got to, I suppose.

I've been here May, June, and July; and that leaves August, September, and October yet to come.

And when I think of Mother and Boston and Marie, and the darling good times down there where you're really _wanted_, I am simply crazy.

If Father wanted me, really wanted me, I wouldn't care a bit.

I'd be willing to be Mary six whole months.

Yes, I'd be _glad_ to.

But he doesn't. I'm just here by order of the court.

And what can you do when you're nothing but a daughter by order of the court?

Since the lessons have stopped, Father's gone back to his "Good-morning, Mary," and "Good-night," and nothing else, day in and day out.

Lately he's got so he hangs around the house an awful lot, too, so I can't even do the things I did the first of the month.

I

mean that I'd been playing some on the piano, along at the first, after school closed.

Aunt Jane was out in the garden a lot, and Father out to the observatory, so I just reveled in piano-playing till I found almost every time I did it that he had come back, and was in the library with the door open.

So I don't dare to play now.

And there isn't a blessed thing to do.

Oh, I have to sew an hour, and now I have to weed an hour, too; and Aunt Jane tried to have me learn to cook; but Susie (in the kitchen) flatly refused to have me "messing around," so Aunt Jane had to give that up.

Susie's the one person Aunt Jane's afraid of, you see.

She always threatens to leave if anything goes across her wishes.

So Aunt Jane has to be careful.

I heard her tell Mrs. Small next door that good hired girls were awfully scarce in Andersonville.

As I said before, if only there was somebody here that wanted me.

But there isn't. Of course Father doesn't. That goes without saying.

And Aunt Jane doesn't. That goes, too, without saying.

Carrie Heywood has gone away for all summer, so I can't have even her; and of course, I wouldn't associate with any of the other girls, even if they would associate with me--which they won't. That leaves only Mother's letters.

They are dear, and I love them.

I

don't know what I'd do without them.

And yet, sometimes I think maybe they're worse than if I didn't have them.

They make me so homesick, and I always cry so after I get them.

Still, I know I just couldn't live a minute if 'twasn't for Mother's letters.

Besides being so lonesome there's another thing that worries me, too;

and that is, _this_--what I'm writing, I mean.

The novel.

It's getting awfully stupid.

Nothing happens.

_Nothing!

_ Of course, if 'twas just a story I could make up things--lots of them--exciting, interesting things, like having Mother elope with the violinist, and Father shoot him and fall in love with Mother all over again, or else with somebody else, and shoot that one's lover.

Or maybe somebody'd try to shoot Father, and I'd get there just in time to save him.

Oh, I'd _love_ that!

But this is a real story, so, of course, I can't put in anything only just what happens; and _nothing happens_.

And that's another thing.

About the love story--I'm afraid there isn't going to be one.

Anyway, there isn't a bit of a sign of one, yet, unless it's Mother.

And of course, I haven't seen her for three months, so I can't say anything about that.

Father hasn't got one.

I'm sure of that.

He doesn't like ladies.

I

know he doesn't. He always runs away from them.

But they don't run away from him!

Listen.

As I said before, quite a lot of them call here to see Aunt Jane, and they come lots of times evenings and late afternoons, and I know now why they do it.

They come then because they think Father'll be at home at that time; and they want to see him.

I know it now, but I never thought of it till the other day when I heard our hired girl, Susie, talking about it with Bridget, the Smalls' hired girl, over the fence when I was weeding the garden one day.

Then I knew.

It was like this: Mrs. Darling had been over the night before as usual, and had stayed an awfully long time talking to Aunt Jane on the front piazza.

Father had been there, too, awhile.

She stopped him on his way into the house.

I was there and I heard her.

She said: "Oh, Mr. Anderson, I'm so glad I saw you!

I wanted to ask your advice about selling poor dear Mr. Darling's law library."

And then she went on to tell him how she'd had an offer, but she wasn't sure whether it was a good one or not.

And she told him how highly she prized his opinion, and he was a man of such splendid judgment, and she felt so alone now with no strong man's shoulder to lean upon, and she would be so much obliged if he only would tell her whether he considered that offer a good one or not.

Father hitched and ahemmed and moved nearer the door all the time she was talking, and he didn't seem to hear her when she pushed a chair toward him and asked him to please sit down and tell her what to do;

that she was so alone in the world since poor dear Mr. Darling had gone.

(She always calls him poor dear Mr. Darling now, but Susie says she didn't when he was alive; she called him something quite different.

I wonder what it was.

) Well, as I said, Father hitched and fidgeted, and said he didn't know, he was sure; that she'd better take wiser counsel than his, and that he was very sorry, but she really must excuse him.

And he got through the door while he was talking just as fast as he could himself, so that she couldn't get in a single word to keep him.

Then he was gone.

Mrs. Darling stayed on the piazza two whole hours longer, but Father never came out at all again.

It was the next morning that Susie said this over the back-yard fence to Bridget: "It does beat all how popular this house is with the ladies--after college hours!"

And Bridget chuckled and answered back: "Sure it is!

An' I do be thinkin' the Widder Darlin' is a heap fonder of Miss Jane now than she would have been had poor dear Mr. Darlin' lived!"

And she chuckled again, and so did Susie.

And then, all of a sudden, I knew.

It was Father all those ladies wanted.

It was Father Mrs. Darling wanted.

They came here to see him.

They wanted to marry him.

_They_ were the prospective suitors.

As if I didn't know what Susie and Bridget meant!

I'm no child!

But all this doesn't make Father like _them_.

I'm not sure but it makes him dislike them.

Anyhow, he won't have anything to do with them.

He always runs away over to the observatory, or somewhere, and won't see them; and I've heard him say things about them to Aunt Jane, too--words that sound all right, but that don't mean what they say, and everybody knows they don't. So, as I said before, I don't see any chance of Father's having a love story to help out this book--not right away, anyhow.

As for _my_ love story--I don't see any chance of that's beginning, either.

Yet, seems as if there ought to be the beginning of it by this time--I'm going on fifteen.

Oh, there have been _beginnings_, lots of them--only Aunt Jane wouldn't let them go on and be endings, though I told her good and plain that I thought it perfectly all right; and I reminded her about the brook and river meeting where I stood, and all that.

But I couldn't make her see it at all.

She said, "Stuff and nonsense"--and when Aunt Jane says _both_ stuff and nonsense I know there's nothing _doing_.

(Oh, dear, that's slang!

Aunt Jane says she does wish I would eliminate the slang from my vocabulary.

Well, I wish _she'd_ eliminate some of the long words from _hers_.

Marie said that--not Mary.

) Well, Aunt Jane said stuff and nonsense, and that I was much too young to run around with silly boys.

You see, Charlie Smith had walked home from school with me twice, but I had to stop that.

And Fred Small was getting so he was over here a lot.

Aunt Jane stopped _him_.

Paul Mayhew--yes, _Paul Mayhew_, Stella's brother!

--came home with me, too, and asked me to go with him auto-riding.

My, how I did want to go!

I

wanted the ride, of course, but especially I wanted to go because he was Mrs. Mayhew's son.

I just wanted to show Mrs. Mayhew!

But Aunt Jane wouldn't let me.

That's the time she talked specially about running around with silly boys.

But she needn't have.

Paul is no silly boy.

He's old enough to get a license to drive his own car.

But it wasn't just because he was young that Aunt Jane refused.

I

found out afterward.

It was because he was any kind of a man paying me attention.

I found that out through Mr. Claude Livingstone.

Mr. Livingstone brings our groceries.

He's a _real_ young gentleman--tall, black mustache, and lovely dark eyes.

He goes to our church, and he asked me to go to the Sunday-School picnic with him.

I was _so_ pleased.

And I supposed, of course, Aunt Jane would let me go with _him.