Laughing Last, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  REBELLION

  Not the least of the dissatisfactions that had grown in Sidney's breastwas belonging to an Estate.

  Since the death of Joseph Romley four years earlier, the royalties fromhis published verse and the government bonds and the oil stock, thathad never paid any dividend but might any year, and the four youngdaughters were managed by two trustees who had been college friends ofthe poet and who, even in his lifetime, had managed what of his affairshad had any managing. One was a banker and one was a lawyer and theylived in New York, making only rare visits to Middletown. Theyconsidered it far better for Isolde and Trude to visit them twice ayear and to such an arrangement both older girls were quite agreeable.

  But Sidney, knowing the Trustees only as two brusque busy men whotalked rapidly and called her "mouse" and "youngster" and brought herchildish presents and huge boxes of candy which never contained herfavorite chocolate alligators, found them embarrassingly lacking in thedramatic qualities a "guardian," to be of any value to a girl, shouldpossess. Nor did they ever bother their heads in the least as to what_she_ did or didn't do! In fact no one did. There seemed to be only onelaw that controlled her and everything in the big old house--what onecould _afford_ to do! She disliked the word.

  She resented, too, the Middletown Branch of the League of AmericanPoets. This was a band of women and a scattering of men who had pledgedto foster the art of verse-making; a few of them really wrote poetry, afew more understood it, the greater number belonged to the League asAssociates. Before Joseph Romley's death Sidney had thought them onlyvery funny because her father and Trude and Isolde thought them funny.There had been then a great timidity in their approach. They had seemedto tremble in their adoring gratitude for a hastily scrawled autograph;they had sometimes knocked at the back door and with deep apologiesasked if they might slip in _very_ quietly and take a time exposure ofTHE desk where Joseph Romley worked. They brought senseless gifts whichthey left unobtrusively on the piano or the hall rack. They draggedtheir own daughters to the old house for awkwardly formal calls uponIsolde and Trude. But after her father's death even Sidney realizedthat the League ladies were different. They were not shy any more, theyswooped down upon the little household and cleaned and baked and sewedand "deared" the four girls, actually almost living in the house.Isolde and Trude had made no protest and had gone around with troubledfaces and had talked far into the nights in the bed which they shared.Then one morning at breakfast Isolde had announced: "The League haspaid the mortgage on this house so that we can keep our home here. Itis very good of them--I'm sure I don't know where we could have gone.We must show them how grateful we are." And Sidney had come to know, byexample and the rebukes cast her way by Isolde, that "showing them"meant living, not as _they_ might want to live--but as the Leagueexpected the four daughters of a great poet to live. _That_ was theprice for the mortgage. The League wanted to say possessively: "This isJoseph Romley's second daughter" or "That is our lamb who was only tenmonths old when the poor mother died. I am sure the great man would nothave known what to do if it had not been for old Huldah Mueller whostayed on and took care of the house and the children for him. He wrotea sonnet to Huldah once. It was worth a month's wages to the woman--"And the League had bought its right to that possessive tone. Sidney,when Isolde could not see, indulged in naughty faces behind stout Mrs.Milliken's back and confided to her chum, Nancy Stevens, the story ofhow Dad had once, in a rage of impatience, called down to the adoringMrs. Milliken, waiting in the hall for an autograph: "Madam, if youdon't go off at once and leave me alone I'll come down to you in mypajamas! I tell you I've gone to bed." Oh, Mrs. Milliken had fled_then_!

  Sidney had to go to Miss Downs' stupid private day school when shewould have preferred the Middletown High (as long as she could not goaway to a boarding school), simply because Miss Downs was one of thedirectors of the League and gave her her tuition as a scholarship.

  But Sidney had never thought--until Isolde had spoken so strangely amoment before--that her sisters minded either the Trustees or theLeague or having to be "different." Isolde naturally was everything theLeague wanted her to be, with her grave eyes and her cloudy hair withthe becoming fillets and her drawling voice and her clever smocks.Trude always wanted to oblige everyone anyway, and Vicky was so prettythat it didn't make any difference what she did. Sidney had consideredthat she was alone in her rebellion, a rebellion that had flamed in heroutburst of the morning: "I'm _sick_ of being different!"

  Isolde's words of a moment before, with their hard hint of someportentous meaning, started a train of thought now in Sidney's mindthat drove away all joy in the promise of the next Egg, that made hereven forget her dislike of the duty Isolde had so unexpectedly put uponher. Isolde had said distinctly: "You can't get away from it--look at_me_--look at _Trude_!" And it had sounded queer, bitter, as thoughsomewhere down deep in her Isolde nursed an unhappy feeling aboutsomething. Sidney pondered, lingering in the deserted dining room.Maybe, after all, Isolde did not like being the daughter of a poet andher smocks and her fillets and all the luncheons and teas to which shehad to go and the speeches of appreciation she had to make. And whatdid Trude dislike? She always _seemed_ happy but maybe _she_ wantedsomething. Sidney remembered once hearing Trude cry terribly hard inthe study. She and Dad had been talking at dinner about college. Theyhad come to the door of the study and Dad had said: "It can't be done,sonny." That's what Dad had always called Trude because she was the boyof the family. Trude had come out with her face all shiny with tearsand her father had stood on the threshold of the door with his hairrumpled and his nose twitching the way it did when something botheredhim. That was probably it. Trude had wanted college. That seemed sillyto Sidney who hated lessons, at least the kind Miss Downs gave, but itwas too bad to have good old Trude, who was such a peach, want anything.

  Isolde hadn't included Vicky, but then Vicky _couldn't_ want anything.She wasn't afraid to fly in the faces of the Trustees and the wholeLeague and they wouldn't mind if she did. She was as clever as she waspretty. She could take the old dresses which Mrs. Custer and Mrs.White, the Trustees' wives, and Mrs. Deering whom Isolde had visited inChicago, and Godmother Jocelyn sent every now and then and make thestunningest new dresses. And once an artist from New York had paintedher portrait and exhibited it in Paris and had won a medal for it. TheLeague ladies approved of that and always told of it.

  Vicky had whole processions of beaux who came and crowded in the chairsin the front room or sat on the broad window sills of the open windowssmoking while she talked to them or played for them. Isolde's few beauxwere not noisy and jolly like Vick's--they all looked as though theLeague might have picked them out from some assortment. They usuallyread to Isolde verses of their own or made her read them some of Dad's.Maybe, Sidney's thoughts shot out at a new angle--maybe Isolde did notlike beaux who were poets, liked Vick's kind of men better.

  Trude had only one beau and Sidney had never seen him because Trude hadhad him when she was visiting Aunt Edith White. Trude and Isolde hadwhispered a great deal about him and Trude had let Isolde read hisletters. Then a letter had come that had made Trude look all queer andwhite and Isolde, after she had read it, had gone to Trude and put herarms around her neck and Isolde only did a thing like that whensomething dreadful happened. Sidney had hoped that she might find theletter lying around somewhere so carelessly that she could be pardonedfor reading it, but though she had looked everywhere she had neverfound it. She had had to piece together Trude's romance from the fabricof her agile imagination.

  Sidney had often tried to make herself hate the old house. Though itwas a jolly, rambly place it was so very down-at-the heels and thelight that poured in through the windows made things look even barerand shabbier. Nancy Stevens lived in one of the new bungalows near theschool and it was beautiful with shiny furniture and rugs that feltlike woolly bed slippers under one's tread and two pairs of curtains ateach window and
Nancy's own room was all pink even to the ruffled stuffhung over her bed like a tent. But Sidney had once heard Mrs. Millikensay to Isolde: "I hope, dear girl, that you will not be tempted tochange this fine old house in _any_ way--to leave it just as yourfather lived in it is the greatest tribute we can pay to his memory."After that Sidney knew there was no use hinting for even _one_ pair ofcurtains. But her sisters had seemed quite contented.

  There had been a disturbing ring of finality to Isolde's, "You can'tget away from it," that seemed almost to slap Sidney in the face. Wouldthey _always_--at least she and Isolde and Trude, Vick would manage toescape someway--be bound down there in the "quaint" bare house with theTrustees sending their skimpy allowances and long letters of advice andthe ladies of the League of Poets coming and going and owning them bodyand soul? What was to prevent such a fate? They didn't have moneyenough to just say--"Dear ladies, take the old house and the desk andthe pens and pencils and the old coat--they're yours--" and run awayand do what they pleased; probably a whole dozen of Eggs would not getthem anywhere!

  "What are you doing mooning there in the window?" cried Vick from theopen door. Her arms were filled with a litter of boxes and oldportfolios. "Where's Isolde? I want her to know I dusted things in thestudy."

  "Isolde's writing letters. Then she's going to dye something."

  "On Saturday!"

  "Yes. _I'm_ going to receive the League visitors today."

  "You!" Victoria went off into such a peal of laughter that she had tolean against the door frame. "Oh--how funny! What's _ever_ in the airtoday."

  "I don't know why it's so funny. I'm--"

  "Fifteen. So you are. But bless me, child, the Leaguers will neveraccept you in a middy blouse and pigtails. What's Isolde _thinking_ of?And you look _much_ too plump! Now--" But Sidney stalked haughtily pasther tormenter into the hall.

  Vick's bantering, however, had stung her. The old clock on the stairlanding chiming out the approaching hour of the League visitors warnedSidney that there was not time to change her middy with its fadedcollar; nor to wind the despised pigtails, around her head in thefashion Mrs. Milliken called "So beautifully quaint." Anyway, if therewere all the time in the world she would not do it. She'd begin rightnow being her own self and not something the League wanted her to bebecause she was a poet's daughter! Isolde and Trude might yield weaklyto their fate but she would be strong. Perhaps, some day, she wouldrescue them--even Vicky!

  But as an unmistakable wave of chattering from without struck her earher fine defiance deserted her. She ran to the door and peeped throughone of the narrow windows that framed the door on either side.

  At the gate stood Mrs. Milliken and a strange woman. Behind them, intwos, stretched a long queue of girls--girls of about her own age. Theywore trim serge dresses with white collars, all alike. They carriednotebooks in their hands. They leaned toward one another, whispering,giggling.

  Sidney's heart gave a tremendous bound. It was most certainly aboarding school! It was the nearest she had ever been to one! Sheforgot her middy and the hated pigtails, and the dread of the League.She threw open the door. Mrs. Milliken's voice came to her: "He died onApril tenth, Nineteen eighteen. He had just written that sonnet to theWest Wind. You know it I am sure. He bought this house when he came toMiddletown but he made it his as though he'd lived in it all hislife--we have left it _exactly_ as it was when he was with us--ourcommittee----"

  They came walking slowly toward the house, Mrs. Milliken and thestrange woman with reverent mien, the wriggling queue still whisperingand giggling.