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Book 2Ten
The weeks can be very long in the Platte valley, Lucy found. She began to feel trapped, shut up in a little town in winter. That long, soft, brooding autumn had been like a kind companion. Now the hard facts of country life were upon her. The weather grew windy and bitter cold; the town and all the country round were the colour of cement. The tides that raced through the open world never came here. There was never anything to make one leap beyond oneself or to carry one away. One`s mind got stuffy, like the houses.
Toward the end of January came another heavy snowfall; then a thaw, followed by a week of biting cold. The street, the roads, the yard, the orchard, were stretches of lumpy ice and frozen snow. Why didn`t Professor Auerbach send for her now? If she could only walk past the Arts Building once again, see the hall porter, and George, the elevator man! If she could go to the concert hall where she had first heard Sebastian; sit in a corner, and remember! Some day she would be able to rent his old studio, and she would live there always. There must be ways of making money in this world; she had never seriously tried, but now she would.
One morning Pauline went to help the Methodist women get the basement of the church ready for a chicken-and-waffle supper, so Lucy practised at home. She had found she could, if she were alone in the house. At noon Pauline came in, resolutely cheerful (her sister was a hard person to live with just now). When they sat down to lunch, she announced what she believed to be good news.
"Lucy, my dear, I`ve done pretty well for you this morning. I`ve got two piano pupils for you."
Lucy looked up and grew red.
"Pupils? I don`t want any. I am not going to teach in Haverford."
Pauline didn`t flush; she grew paler. "But seriously, Lucy, don`t you think you ought to be doing something? You must know that Father gets deeper into debt all the time. We made a great sacrifice to send you away to study. I always supposed you`d want to pay back at least part of what it cost us."
"I will, some time. I can`t see that anybody made a great sacrifice. It was Father`s own idea that I should study music. I was never extravagant, certainly. I got along on less than most of the students."
Her careless tone made her sister indignant.
"More than sixteen hundred dollars you cost us in those first two years. I have the cheque stubs, and I know."
"So much as that?" Lucy asked in the same indifferent manner.
"That is a great deal, for us. You might have sent back just a little after you began to earn something, to show good intentions."
"I thought of it, but I bought clothes instead. When I was teaching I had to be decently dressed."
Both the sisters had stopped eating and both were making a pretence of drinking coffee. Pauline went on to say, as mildly as she could, that she had thought Lucy would like to take a few pupils, now that she was feeling better. "People here have always appreciated you. I wonder you haven`t had applications before this. I`m afraid some of Fairy Blair`s talk must have got around."
Lucy knew that she could go away and avoid a scene, but she didn`t care.
"Just what do you mean?" she asked coldly.
The same thing happened to Pauline`s face that happened to sour milk when she poured boiling water into it to make cottage cheese; it clabbered, the flesh curdled.
"The stories about you and that singer. Such things will get out, and Fairy isn`t one to keep them. Now people are saying that when Harry Gordon went to Chicago last spring and saw how things were, he threw you over."
Lucy laughed disagreeably. "Threw me over, did he? Well, one story`s as good as another. I don`t care what they say. So you kept Father`s cheque stubs, Pauline? How like you! You needn`t worry. I`m going back to teach under Auerbach again. It`s been arranged for weeks. The date is set for March, but I can easily go sooner." She had risen and was standing against the light of the window.
Pauline broke out bitterly. "Lucy, why are you so mean! Why do you hide things from us, and treat us like strangers?"
"I suppose I feel that way," Lucy said as she went up the back stairs.
While Pauline was washing the dishes she cried a little, shed a few waxy tears that came hard. You brought a child up, slaved for her and dressed her prettily, did all the work and let her have all the holidays (the parlour cat and the kitchen cat!)--and this was what came of it. You coddled her as if she were a superior being, and she treated you like the housekeeper. And she used to be so proud of her little sister!
When Pauline left the kitchen and came into the sitting-room, she looked out of the window to see who might be passing. Why, there was Lucy! In her hat and coat, out of doors, out in the road, hurrying away from the house and walking toward the country. And she was carrying something, in a black bag. Could it be her skating-shoes?
Pauline caught up a shawl and ran out into the yard.
"Lucy!" she called; then louder: "Lucy, wait!"
But Lucy never turned. She seemed, indeed, to quicken her pace. Pauline went back into the house. "Just the way she used to run off when she was little!" She dropped her shawl. "I wonder if she knows the old skating-place was ruined last spring when the river changed its bed? She`ll have her walk for nothing."
Surely she wouldn`t be crazy enough to try the ice out there? The bank had been torn up by the flood, and anyone could see that the river itself now flowed where the shallow arm used to be. Pauline considered telephoning the livery man to drive out after Lucy and tell her she wouldn`t find any skating. But Lucy might be very much annoyed at any such interference. Probably it was the walk she wanted. Pauline remembered how she used to shut her eyes to Lucy`s truancies; the child usually got over her tempers out on the highroad, but if she were shut up for a punishment it only made her worse.
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