Read Ebook: What Diantha Did by Gilman Charlotte Perkins

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Ebook has 1477 lines and 58375 words, and 30 pages

He was glad of the quiet, the fresh, sweet air, the smell of flowers instead of the smell of molasses and cheese, soap and sulphur matches. But the headache did not stop, nor the worry that caused it. He loved his mother, he loved his sisters, he loved their home, but he did not love the grocery business which had fallen so unexpectedly upon him at his father's death, nor the load of debt which fell with it.

That they need never have had so large a "place" to "keep up" did not occur to him. He had lived there most of his life, and it was home. That the expenses of running the household were three times what they needed to be, he did not know. His father had not questioned their style of living, nor did he. That a family of five women might, between them, do the work of the house, he did not even consider.

Mrs. Warden's health was never good, and since her husband's death she had made daily use of many afghans on the many lounges of the house. Madeline was "delicate," and Adeline was "frail"; Cora was "nervous," Dora was "only a child." So black Sukey and her husband Jonah did the work of the place, so far as it was done; and Mrs. Warden held it a miracle of management that she could "do with one servant," and the height of womanly devotion on her daughters' part that they dusted the parlor and arranged the flowers.

Roscoe shut his eyes and tried to rest, but his problem beset him ruthlessly. There was the store--their one and only source of income. There was the house, a steady, large expense. There were five women to clothe and keep contented, beside himself. There was the unappeasable demand of the mortgage--and there was Diantha.

When Mr. Warden died, some four years previously, Roscoe was a lad of about twenty, just home from college, full of dreams of great service to the world in science, expecting to go back for his doctor's degree next year. Instead of which the older man had suddenly dropped beneath the burden he had carried with such visible happiness and pride, such unknown anxiety and straining effort; and the younger one had to step into the harness on the spot.

He was brave, capable, wholly loyal to his mother and sisters, reared in the traditions of older days as to a man's duty toward women. In his first grief for his father, and the ready pride with which he undertook to fill his place, he had not in the least estimated the weight of care he was to carry, nor the time that he must carry it. A year, a year or two, a few years, he told himself, as they passed, and he would make more money; the girls, of course, would marry; he could "retire" in time and take up his scientific work again. Then--there was Diantha.

When he found he loved this young neighbor of theirs, and that she loved him, the first flush of happiness made all life look easier. They had been engaged six months--and it was beginning to dawn upon the young man that it might be six years--or sixteen years--before he could marry.

He could not sell the business--and if he could, he knew of no better way to take care of his family. The girls did not marry, and even when they did, he had figured this out to a dreary certainty, he would still not be free. To pay the mortgages off, and keep up the house, even without his sisters, would require all the money the store would bring in for some six years ahead. The young man set his teeth hard and turned his head sharply toward the road.

And there was Diantha.

She stood at the gate and smiled at him. He sprang to his feet, headacheless for the moment, and joined her. Mrs. Warden, from the lounge by her bedroom window, saw them move off together, and sighed.

"Poor Roscoe!" she said to herself. "It is very hard for him. But he carries his difficulties nobly. He is a son to be proud of." And she wept a little.

Diantha slipped her hand in his offered arm--he clasped it warmly with his, and they walked along together.

"You won't come in and see mother and the girls?"

"No, thank you; not this time. I must get home and get supper. Besides, I'd rather see just you."

He felt it a pity that there were so many houses along the road here, but squeezed her hand, anyhow.

She looked at him keenly. "Headache?" she asked.

"Yes; it's nothing; it's gone already."

"Worry?" she asked.

"Yes, I suppose it is," he answered. "But I ought not to worry. I've got a good home, a good mother, good sisters, and--you!" And he took advantage of a high hedge and an empty lot on either side of them.

Diantha returned his kiss affectionately enough, but seemed preoccupied, and walked in silence till he asked her what she was thinking about.

"About you, of course," she answered, brightly. "There are things I want to say; and yet--I ought not to."

"You can say anything on earth to me," he answered.

"You are twenty-four," she began, musingly.

"Admitted at once."

"And I'm twenty-one and a half."

"That's no such awful revelation, surely!"

"And we've been engaged ever since my birthday," the girl pursued.

"All these are facts, dearest."

"Now, Ross, will you be perfectly frank with me? May I ask you an--an impertinent question?"

"You may ask me any question you like; it couldn't be impertinent."

"You'll be scandalised, I know--but--well, here goes. What would you think if Madeline--or any of the girls--should go away to work?"

He looked at her lovingly, but with a little smile on his firm mouth.

"I shouldn't allow it," he said.

"O--allow it? I asked you what you'd think."

"I should think it was a disgrace to the family, and a direct reproach to me," he answered. "But it's no use talking about that. None of the girls have any such foolish notion. And I wouldn't permit it if they had."

Diantha smiled. "I suppose you never would permit your wife to work?"

"My widow might have to--not my wife." He held his fine head a trifle higher, and her hand ached for a moment.

"Wouldn't you let me work--to help you, Ross?"

"My dearest girl, you've got something far harder than that to do for me, and that's wait."

His face darkened again, and he passed his hand over his forehead. "Sometimes I feel as if I ought not to hold you at all!" he burst out, bitterly. "You ought to be free to marry a better man."

"But how about science?" she asked him.

"I don't let myself think of it. I'll take that up later. We're young enough, both of us, to wait for our happiness."

"And have you any idea--we might as well face the worst--how many years do you think that will be, dearest?"

He was a little annoyed at her persistence. Also, though he would not admit the thought, it did not seem quite the thing for her to ask. A woman should not seek too definite a period of waiting. She ought to trust--to just wait on general principles.

"I can face a thing better if I know just what I'm facing," said the girl, quietly, "and I'd wait for you, if I had to, all my life. Will it be twenty years, do you think?"

He looked relieved. "Why, no, indeed, darling. It oughtn't to be at the outside more than five. Or six," he added, honest though reluctant.

"You see, father had no time to settle anything; there were outstanding accounts, and the funeral expenses, and the mortgages. But the business is good; and I can carry it; I can build it up." He shook his broad shoulders determinedly. "I should think it might be within five, perhaps even less. Good things happen sometimes--such as you, my heart's delight."

They were at her gate now, and she stood a little while to say good-night. A step inside there was a seat, walled in by evergreen, roofed over by the wide acacia boughs. Many a long good-night had they exchanged there, under the large, brilliant California moon. They sat there, silent, now.

Diantha's heart was full of love for him, and pride and confidence in him; but it was full of other feelings, too, which he could not fathom. His trouble was clearer to her than to him; as heavy to bear. To her mind, trained in all the minutiae of domestic economy, the Warden family lived in careless wastefulness. That five women--for Dora was older than she had been when she began to do housework--should require servants, seemed to this New England-born girl mere laziness and pride. That two voting women over twenty should prefer being supported by their brother to supporting themselves, she condemned even more sharply. Moreover, she felt well assured that with a different family to "support," Mr. Warden would never have broken down so suddenly and irrecoverably. Even that funeral--her face hardened as she thought of the conspicuous "lot," the continual flowers, the monument --all that expenditure to do honor to the man they had worked to death was probably enough to put off their happiness for a whole year.

She rose at last, her hand still held in his. "I'm sorry, but I've got to get supper, dear," she said, "and you must go. Good-night for the present; you'll be round by and by?"

"Yes, for a little while, after we close up," said he, and took himself off, not too suddenly, walking straight and proud while her eyes were on him, throwing her a kiss from the corner; but his step lagging and his headache settling down upon him again as he neared the large house with the cupola.

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