Sturdy Oak — Chapter 10 by Ethel Watts Mumford (1878-1940)
Penny, pacing the drawing-room with pantheresque strides, came to a tense halt as Remington entered.
"Well?"
he said, his eyes hard, his unwelcoming hands thrust deep into his pockets.
That identical "well" with its uptilt of question had been on George's tongue.
It was a monosyllable that demanded an answer.
Penny had got ahead of him, forced him, as it were, into the witness chair, and he resented it.
"Seems to me," he began hotly, "that you were the one who was going to make the statements--' whether or no,' I believe, we were to continue in partnership."
"Perhaps," retorted Penny, with the air of allowing no great importance to that angle of the argument, "but what I want to know is, _are_ you going to be a square man, and own up you were peeved into being a tyrant?
And when you've done that, are you going to tell Betty, and apologize?"
George hesitated, trapped between his irritation and the still small voice.
"Look here," he said, with that amiable suavity that had won him many a concession, "you know well enough I don't want to hurt Betty's feelings.
If she feels that way about it, of course I'll apologize."
His partner looked at him in blank amazement.
"Gad!"
he exclaimed as if examining a particularly fine specimen of some rare beetle, "what a bounder."
"Meaning me?"
snapped George.
"Don't dare to quibble.
Look me in the eye."
There was a third degree fatality about the usually debonair Penny that exacted obedience.
George unwillingly looked him in the eye, and had a ghastly feeling of having his suddenly realized smallness X-rayed.
"You know damned well you acted like a cad," Penny continued, "and I want to know, for all our sakes, if you're man enough to own it?"
George's fundamental honesty mastered him.
Anger died from his eyes.
His clenched hands relaxed and began an unconscious and nervous exploration for a cigarette.
"Since you put it that way," he said, "and it happens that my conscience agrees with you--I'll go you.
I _was_ a cad, and I'll tell Betty so.
Confound it!"
he growled, "I don't know _what's_ come over me these days.
I've got to get a grip on myself."
"You _bet_ you have," said Penny, hauling his fists from his trousers as if with an effort.
Then he grinned.
"Betty said you would."
George's eyes darkened.
"And I'll tell you now," Penny went on, "since you've turned out at least half-decent, Betty'll let you off that apology thing.
_She_ wasn't the one who was exacting it--not she.
_I_ couldn't stand for your highfalutin excuses for being--well, never mind--we all get our off days.
But don't you get off again like that if----" Penny hesitated.
"If you want me for a partner," which seemed the obvious conclusion, was tame.
"If you want to hang on to any one's respect," he finished.
"Say, though," he murmured, "Betty'll give me 'what for' for drubbing you.
She actually took your side--said--oh, never mind--tried to make me think of her just as if she was any old Mamie--the stenog--tried to prune out personal feeling."
"By Jove," he ruminated, "that girl's a corker!"
He raised forgiving eyes from his contemplation of the rug.
"Well, old man, blow me to a Scotch and soda, and I'll be going.
Dinged if it wouldn't have broken me all up to have busted with you, even if you are a box of prunes.
Shake."
George shook, but he was far from happy.
What he had gained in peace of mind he had lost in self-conceit.
His resentment against the pinch of circumstance was deepening to cancerous vindictiveness.
As Pennington left with a cheery good-by and a final half-cynical word of advice "to get onto himself" George mounted the stairs slowly and came face to face with Genevieve, obviously in wait for him.
"What happened?"
she inquired, with an anxious glance at his corrugated brow.
George did not feel in a mood to describe his retreat, if not defeat.
"Oh, nothing.
We had a highball.
I think I made him--well--it's all right."
"There, I knew Betty'd make him see reason," she smiled.
"I'm awfully glad.
I've a real respect for Penny's judgment after all, you know."
"Meaning, you have your doubts about mine."
"No, meaning only just what I said--_just_ that.
By the way, George, I wish you'd take time to look into Alys' real estate.
Somebody ought to, and if you're really representing her----" "Oh, good heavens!"
he exclaimed impatiently, angered by her swift transition from his own to another's affairs.
"I can't!
I simply can't!
Haven't you any conception of how busy I am?"
"I know, dear; I _do_ know.
But something must be done.
The Health Department," she explained, "has sent in complaint after complaint, and Miss Eliot simply won't handle the property unless she's allowed to spend a lot setting things to rights.
Alys says it's absurd; none of the other property owners out there are doing anything, and _she_ won't. So, nobody's looking after it, and somebody should."
"Who told you all this?"
he demanded.
"Miss E. Eliot, I suppose."
His wife nodded.
"And she's right," she added.
"Well, perhaps she is," he allowed.
"I'll get Alien to act as her agent again.
He's in with all the politicians; he ought to be able to stall off the department."
The words slipped out before he realized their import, but at Genevieve's wide stare of amazement he flushed crimson.
"I mean--lots of these complaints are really mere red tape; some self-important employee is trying to look busy.
A little investigation usually puts that straight."
"Of course," she acquiesced, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"That happens, too, but Miss Eliot says that the conditions out there are really dreadful."
"I'll talk to Allen," said George with an affectation of easy dismissal of the subject.
But Genevieve's mind appeared to have grown suddenly persistent.
At dinner she again brought up the subject, this time directing her troubled gaze and troubling words at her guest.
"Alys," she said abruptly, "I really think you ought to go out to Kentwood--to see about your property out there, I mean."
Mrs. Brewster-Smith looked up, rolling her large eyes in frank amazement.
"Go out there?
What for?
It isn't the sort of a district a lady cares to be seen in, I'm told; and, besides, George is looking after that for me.
_He_ understands such matters, and I frankly own _I_ don't. Business makes me quite dizzy," she added with a flash of very white teeth.
Genevieve hesitated, then went to the point.
"But you must advise with your agent, Alys.
The property is _yours_."
Alys raised sharply penciled brows.
"I have utter confidence in George," she answered in a tone of finality that brought an adoring look from Emelene, and her usual Boswellian echo: "Of _course_."
George squirmed uneasily.
Such a vote of confidence implied accepted responsibility, and he acknowledged to himself that he wanted to and would dodge the unwelcome burden.
He turned a benign Jovian expression on Mrs. Brewster-Smith and condescended to explain.
"I have considered what is best for you, and I will myself see Allen and request him to take your real-estate affairs in charge again.
Neither Sampson nor--er--Eliot is, I think, advisable for your best interests."
At the mention of the last name Genevieve's expressive face stretched to speak; then she closed her lips with self-controlled determination.
Mrs. Brewster-Smith looked at her host in scandalized amazement.
"But I _told_ you," she almost whimpered, "that his wife is simply impossible."
George smiled tolerantly.
"But his wife isn't doing the business.
It's the business, not the social interests, we have to consider.
"Oh, but she is in the business," Alys explained.
"I think it's because she's jealous of him; she wants to be around the office and watch him."
Genevieve interposed.
"Mrs. Allen owns a lot of land herself, and she looks after it.
It seems quite natural to me."
"But she _has_ a husband," Alys rebuked.
"Yes," agreed Genevieve, "but she probably married him for a husband, not a business agent."
George felt the reins of the situation slipping from him, so he jerked the curb of conversation.
"We are beside the issue," he said in his most legal manner.
"The fact is that Allen knows more about the Kentwood district and the factory values than any one else, and I feel it my duty to advise Alys to leave her affairs in his hands.
I'll see him for you in the morning."
He turned to Alys with a return of tolerantly protective inflection in his voice.
Genevieve shrugged, a faint ghost of a shrug.
Had George been less absorbed in his own mental discomforts, he would have discovered there and then that the matter of his speech, not the manner of his delivery, was what held his wife's attention.
No longer could rounded periods and eloquent sophistry hide from her his thoughts and intentions.
A telephone call interrupted the meal.
He answered it with relief, bowing a hurried, self-important excuse to the ladies.
But the voice that came over the wire was not modulated in tones of flattery.
"Say," drawled the campaign manager, "you'd better get a hump on, and come over here to headquarters.
There's a couple of gents here who want a word with you."
The tone was ominous, and George stiffened.
"Very well, I'll be right over.
But you can pretty well tell them where I stand on the main issues.
Who's at headquarters?"
A snort of disgust greeted the inquiry.
The snort told George that seasoned campaigners did not use the telephone with such casual lack of circumspection.
The words were in like manner enlightening.
"Well, there might be Mr. Julius Caesar, and then again Mr. George Washington might drop in.
What I'm putting you wise to," he added sharply, "is that you'd better get on to your job."
There was a click as of a receiver hung up with a jerk, and a subdued giggle that testified to the innocent attention of the telephone operator.
With but a pale reflection of his usual courtesy the harassed candidate left the bosom of his family.
No sooner had he taken his departure than the bosom heaved.
"My dear girl," said Alys, "if you take that tone with your husband you'll never hold him--never.
Men won't stand for it.
You're only hurting yourself."
"What tone?"
Genevieve inquired as she rose calmly and led the way to the drawing-room.
"I mean"--Mrs. Brewster-Smith slipped a firm, white hand across Genevieve's shoulders--"you shouldn't try to force issues.
It looks as if you didn't have confidence in your husband, and men, to _do_ and _be_ their best, must feel perfect trust from the woman they love.
You don't mind my being so frank, dear, but we women must help one another--by our experience and our intuitions."
Genevieve looked at her.
Oblique angles had become irritatingly fascinating.
"I'm beginning to think so more and more," she replied.
"It's for your own good, dear," Alys smiled.
"Yes," Genevieve agreed.
"I understand.
Things that hurt are often for our good, aren't they?
We have to be _made_ to realize facts really to know them."
"Coffee, dear?"
inquired Alys, assuming the duties of hostess.
Genevieve shook her head.
"No. I find I've been rather wakeful of late: perhaps it's coffee.
Excuse me.
I must telephone."
A moment later she returned beaming.
"I have borrowed a car for tomorrow, and I want you and Emelene to come with me for a little spin.
We ought to have a bright day; the night is wonderful.
Poor George," she sighed, "I wish he didn't have to be away so much."
"His career is yours, you know," kittenishly bromidic, Emelene comforted her.
The following day fulfilled the promise of its predecessor.
Clear and balmy, it invited to the outer, world, and it was with pleased anticipation that Genevieve's guests prepared for the promised outing.
Genevieve glanced anxiously into her gold mesh bag.
The motor was hired, not borrowed.
She had permitted herself this one white lie.
She ushered her guests into the tonneau and took her place beside the chauffeur.
Their first few stops were for such prosaic purchases as the household made necessary; there was a pause at the post office, another at the Forum, where Genevieve left two highly disgruntled women waiting for her while with a guilty sense of teasing her prey she prolonged her business.
The sight of their stiffened figures and averted faces when she returned to them kindled a new amusement.
At last they were settled comfortably, and the car turned toward the suburbs.
The town streets were passed and lines of villa homes thinned.
The ornate colonial gates of the Country Club flashed by.
Now the sky to the right was dark with the smoke of the belching chimneys of many factories.
For a block or two cottages of the better sort flanked the road; then, grim, ugly and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved" sections of Kentwood and Powderville.
In the air was an acrid odor.
Soot begrimed everything.
The sodden ground was littered with refuse between the shacks, which were dignified by the title of "Workmen's Cottages."
Amid the confusion, irregular trodden paths led, short-cutting, toward the clattering, grinding munition plants.
For a space of at least half an acre around the huge iron buildings the ground, with sinister import, was kept clear of dwellings, but in all directions outside of the inclosure thousands of new yellow-pine shacks testified to the sudden demand for labor.
A large weather-beaten signboard at a wired cross-road bore the name of "Kentwood," plus the advice that the office was adjacent for the purchase or lease of the highly desirable villa sites.
The motor drew up and Genevieve alighted.
For the first time since their course had been turned toward the unlovely but productive outskirts, Genevieve faced her passengers.
Alys' face was pale.
Emelene's expression was puzzled and worried, as a child's is worried when the child is suddenly confronted by strange and gloomy surroundings.
"There is some one in the renting office," said Genevieve with quiet determination.
"I'll find out.
We shall need a guide to go around with us.
Emelene, you needn't get out unless you wish to."
Emelene shuffled uneasily, half rose, and collapsed helplessly back on the cushions, like a baby who has encountered the resistance of his buggy strap.
"I--if you'll excuse me, Genevieve, dear, I won't get out.
I've only got on my thin kid slippers.
I didn't expect to put foot on the pavement this morning, you know."
"Very well, then, Alys!"
Genevieve's voice assumed a note of command her mild accents had never before known.
Alys' brilliant eyes snapped.
"I have no desire," she said firmly, with all the dignity of an affronted lady, "to go into this matter."
"I know you haven't. But I'm going to walk through.
_I_ am making a report for the Woman's Forum."
Alys' face crimsoned with anger.
"You have no right to do such a thing," she exclaimed.
"I shall refuse you permission.
You will have to obtain a permit."
"I have one," Genevieve retorted, "from the Health Department.
And--I am to meet one of the officers here."
Mrs. Brewster-Smith's descent from the tonneau was more rapid than graceful.
"What are you trying to do?"
she demanded.
"Genevieve, I don't understand you."
"Don't you?"
The diffident girl had suddenly assumed the incisive strength of observant womanhood.
"I think you _do_.
I am going to show you your own responsibilities, if that's a possible thing.
I'm not going to let you throw them on George because he's a man and your kin; and I shan't let him throw them on an irresponsible agent because he has neither the time nor the inclination to do justice to himself, to you, nor to these people to whom he is responsible."
She waved a hand down the muddy, jumbled street.
The advent of an automobile had had its effect.
Eager faces appeared at windows and doors.
Children frankly curious and as frankly neglected climbed over each other, hanging on the ragged fences.
Two mongrel dogs strained at their chains, yelping furiously.
Genevieve crossed to the little square building bearing a gilt "office" sign.
There was no response to her imperative knock, but a middle-aged man appeared on the porch of the adjoining shack and observed her curiously.
"Wanta rent?"
he called jeeringly.
"Are you in charge here?"
Genevieve inquired.
"Sorter," he temporized.
"Watcha want?"
"I want some one who knows something about it to go around Kentwood with us."
"What for?"
he snarled.
"I got my orders."
"From whom?"
countered Genevieve.
"None of your business, as I can see."
He eyed her narrowly.
"But my orders is to keep every one nosin' around here without no good raison _out_ of the place--and I don't think _you're_ here to rent, nor your friend, neither.
Besides, there ain't nothin' to rent."
Mrs. Brewster-Smith colored.
The insult to her ownership of the premises stung her to resentment.
"My good man," she said sharply.
"I happen to be the proprietor of North Kent wood."
"Then you'd better beat it."
The guardian grinned.
"There's a dame been here with one of them fellers from the town office."
"Where are they now?"
questioned Genevieve sharply.
"Went up factory way.
But if you _ain't_ one of them lady nosies, you'd better beat it, I tell you."
Genevieve looked up the street.
"Very well, we'll walk on up.
This is North Kentwood, isn't it?"
"Ain't much choice," he shrugged, "but it is.
You can smell it a mile.
Say, you lady owner there"--he laughed at his own astuteness in not being taken in--"you know the monikers, don't you?
South Kentwood, 'Stinktown'; North Kentwood, 'Swilltown'?"
He grinned, pulled at his hip pocket and, extracting a flat glass flask, took a prolonged swig and replaced the bottle with a leer.
The two incongruous visitors were already negotiating the muddy thoroughfare between the dilapidated dwellings.
Presently these gave place to roughly knocked together structures for two and three families.
The number of children was surprising.
Now and again a shrill-voiced woman, who seemed the prototype of her who lived in the shoe, came to admonish her young and stare with hostile eyes at the invaders.
Refuse, barrels, cans, pigs, dogs, chickens, were on all sides, with here and there a street watering trough, fed, apparently, by an occasional tap at the wide-apart hydrants, installed by the factories for protection in case of fire, as evidenced by the signs staked by the apparatus.
"What do they pay you for these cottages?"
Genevieve inquired suddenly.
Mrs. Brewster-Smith, whose curiosity concerning her possessions had been aroused by the physical evidence of the same, balanced on a rut and surveyed her tormentor angrily.
"I'm sure I don't know.
I've told you before I don't understand such matters, and I see nothing to be gained by coming here."
Genevieve pushed open a battered gate, walked up to the door and knocked.
"What are you doing?"
her companion called, querulously.
A noise of many pattering feet on bare floors, a strident order for silence, and the door swung open.
A young girl stood in the doorway.
Behind her were a dozen or more children, varying from toddlers to gawky girls and boys of school age.
Genevieve's eyes widened.
"Dear me," she exclaimed, "they aren't all _yours_!"
The young woman grinned mirthlessly.
"I should say not!"
she snapped.
"They pays me to look out for 'em--their fathers and mothers in the factory.
Watcha want?"
"What do you pay for a house like this?"
The hired mother's brow wrinkled, and her lips drew back in an ugly snarl.
"They robs us, these landlords does.
We gotter be 'longside the works, so they robs us.
What do I pay for this?
Thirty a month, and at that 'tain't fit for no dawg to live in.
I could knock up a shack like this with tar paper, I could.
"And what do we get?
I gotter haul the water in a bucket, and cook on an oil stove, and they hists the price of the ile, 'cause he comes by in a wagon with it.
The landlords is squeezing the life out of us, I tell ye."
She paused in her tirade to yell at her charges.
Then she turned again to the story of her wrongs.
"And of all the pest holes I ever seen, this is the plum worst.
There's chills an' fever an' typhoid till you can't rest, an' them kids is abustin' with measles an' mumps an' scarlet fever.
