Chapter I. The Mother Of Alice
It was written in the outlines of Mrs. Copeland's nose that she was a Code of Public Morals which you would do well to investigate and live by. So remark able was this eloquent feature, that no description could bring it before you ; no portrait do it full justice, because it shifted its position — not upon her face ; pray do not misunderstand — but in its attitude towards the world. It needed not the cold grayness of her near-set eyes to accentuate its standard of Self, for if you could put your hand over her eyes, still you never would think of asking that B nose for anything. No ill-clad, desperate man would beg her to visit his sick wife ; no lost child ask her the way home. Had she been a man it would have been the nose of a money getter, a money lender, a usurer. The peculiar thing about it was that it had no salient points by which to describe it.
You could not recall her to a friend by referring to her nose, for it was neither hooked nor retrouss/, but once you saw it you never forgot it. It meant so much for what had happened, and presaged so clearly what would happen. It was neither large nor thin nor high, and yet it was all three, but so cunningly were these attributes combined that you noticed without speaking of it. The nostrils were not thin to show sensitiveness. They were not thick. They were shapeless. And in a nose plainly intended by nature to be pointed, there was an unexpected broadness in the end, which meant suffi ciency unto itself, and in a determined belief in the supremacy of her Ego over the Egoes of everybody else in the world. Her nose challenged your pedigree on the spot. If you had your own life to live, and your own view of how to live it, Mrs. Copeland's nose became most annoying.
There is a virtue so blatant that it becomes a vice. Hers was of that order. You felt that you ought to adopt it, and that she thought so too, and that if you were in her family she would make you. After one critical look at her nose you knew why George Copeland went to West Point when his father hoped he would be a lawyer. You knew why Alice Copeland, having been brought up by her mother, loved her father the best. You knew why the poor sometimes refused to accept blankets from her which entitled her to order their whole future lives to suit herself. You knew why beggars occasionally threw her bread back in her face. You knew why she B never gave generously, palms outward, but always with her hands turned in. You knew why, when she sent a sick friend a potted plant, she asked her to return the pot; or if she sent her jelly, she asked her to return the glass.
You knew why she always walked to church on Sundays, rain or shine, with her black kid hands crossed over one another, her whole attitude that of an unrecognized martyr, her stiff skirts breathing the Pharisee's prayer. And if you were a weak-minded person, and Mrs. Copeland's way on a rainy Sunday lay by your house, you knew why you altered your feeble intention of staying at home, and why you went to church too. Yet nobody ever discovered all this except Kate Vandevoort, who gave this description to Mollie Overshine, after her first interview. But then Kate was frivolous. Everybody who did not know her, said so. This morning, all that you could see of Judge Copeland across the breakfast table, was the Philadelphia Press. Un doubtedly he was behind it, for no paper, no matter how stiff its policy, could have sat up there alone.
Besides, on either side of its outstretched pages, you could see the Judge's fingers, one of which wore an amethyst ring, with the crest of the Copelands embedded in it in tiny diamonds. Mrs. Copeland sat opposite, behind the fat silver coffee urn, whose polished convex sides transformed her narrow, aristocratic countenance into an impertinent cartoon. It turned her long nose into the squat feature of a South African, and broadened her dignified mouth daringly. If that urn had not belonged to the Copelands for generations, Mrs. Copeland never would have tolerated the impudence of the cari cature. As it was, she never permitted the butler to stand where he could obtain this view of her. She had been known to dismiss a maid without a moment's warning, because, upon first catching this glimpse of her new mistress in the coffee urn, she had burst out laughing, and flinging her apron over her head, had rushed from the room in confusion.
If Mrs. Copeland had possessed a sense of humour she might have forgiven the unfortunate creature. But the outrage to her sacred dignity was so great that it was only partially wiped out by ordering the poor maid's trunk to be set outside the gate in a pouring rain. She never knew that the Judge quietly paid for the ruined clothes and a month's wages besides. And it was better so. On one side of the table sat Alice Copeland. You would not consider her face unusual until you knew her. Then you wondered how she came to be so pretty. Her mother never realized how she absorbed Alice's personality. She still regarded her as a child. Opposite to her, on the other side of the table, her younger brother squirmed. Gifford's years are of no importance. He was at the age when boys wriggle. George, the older boy, was at West Point, and breakfast was half over before little Elsie, long-legged, thin and sallow, came in, with a martyred expression, and sat down without greeting anyone.
Mrs. Copeland permitted her to do this because she was shy. As a result, her manners were always atrocious. " I see by the paper," said the Judge cheerfully, looking over the top of it, " that I have been appointed on the board of visitors to West Point." The look of quiet pleasure faded from his face at his wife's distinct silence, and an anxious shade crossed it. " That will be pleasant, I think, for then I can see George." He put forth this remark as one who was accustomed to apologize not only for himself, but for existing circumstances. Still no reply. Mrs. Copeland's knife grated harshly through her toast, then slipped and struck her plate. A faint flush suffused her face, the unmistakable flush of displeasure. " Are you pleased, Mary ? " " I do not like to be informed of your movements through the columns of the newspapers," she said icily.
" But that was only my way of telling you, dear. I thought it would be a little surprise." " I do not like surprises." " But I only did it for a jest." " I do not like jests." The Judge's fine ruddy countenance paled a little. He stirred his coffee, eyeing it absently. " I would have told you, if I myself had known it sooner," he said, looking up with a smile meant to propitiate her. " This cannot be the first you have heard of it," she said, refusing his glance. " No, but it is the first I knew of the appointment. I only knew that my name had been suggested." " I think I might have been trusted with so important a piece of news." The Judge coloured at her sarcastic emphasis. " I know it is not much of an honour, dear, but you know I only accept these things on your account. I don't care for them myself.
I would much rather attend to my flowers and stay quietly at home with you. You are my greatest attraction." " That is right. Make me feel how much of your comfort you sacrifice for me," she said, ignoring the little compliment which many a woman would have hugged to her heart all day. " Oh, my dear wife, I did not mean it that way. Pray pardon me. You surely could not think me so rude as to insinuate that anything I do for your pleasure is a sacrifice." She compressed her thin lips without replying. "Who makes these appointments, father ? " asked Alice. " The President appoints the visitors at large, and the Senate and House each appoints some of its members." " It is very nice, I think, to be selected by the President, to have him reach down into private life in that way, and let you put a finger in the Government pie.
It makes you feel so American." " And how else could one possibly feel when one is an American ? " asked Mrs. Copeland, who was of Scotch descent. " One can feel any nationality here in America, when everybody has more liberty than native-born Americans," said Alice. Mrs. Copeland frowned, and Alice and her father exchanged sympathetic glances. " I thought of taking you with me," he said to his daughter, with all a man's unwisdom as to when to broach a subject. " Alice cannot go," said her mother. The girl's face flashed and drooped in silence under these two sentences. She knew better than to urge or coax. " I thought perhaps she might like it," said the Judge dubiously. " It makes no difference whether she would like it, if I think it unwise for her to go." " But I thought it was time she began to see a little of the world," pursued the Judge, anxious to vindicate his wisdom in the eyes of his wife.
She is eighteen. You were married at that age." " I think it hardly chivalrous of you to remind me that I have a daughter as old as I was when I was married," said Mrs. Copeland, biting her words off with great distinctness. " You have an excellent way of reminding me that I am getting old. My mirror, however, anticipates the courtesy of my husband." " Oh, my dear love, you misunderstood me. To me you are just as young and lovely as on our wedding day, and Alice here is a surprise, a curious jest of Time. Alice, you must shorten your frocks. It certainly is a mistake for me to have a grown daughter and a wife who looks even younger." "You will see George in his uniform, Alice, if father takes you to West Point, and they have dress parade every after noon, and all the cadets carry guns, and their mothers aren't there to ask 'em if they are loaded," put in Gifford, with a mutinous look at his mother.
She smiled at this, for he was her idol, but she would not trust him even with the picture of a gun, much to his disgust. " Alice is not going to West Point," she said. But it was a gentler tone, and everyone's countenance brightened. Even the butler stepped more briskly. He was used to this sort of thing, however. He had been with the Copelands twelve years. The Judge, although scrupulously careful about his diet, had dyspepsia. Perhaps this was because he went through with a good deal at his meals besides eating, particularly at breakfast, which was a pity. Breakfast is bad enough in itself, without anyone selecting that unfortunate time to be particularly disagreeable. " Oh, let her go, mother ! Let them both go, and we will stay at home to gether. Or, no, you take me to Phila delphia. You promised, because I had the measles.
Now do ! " cried the real diplomat of the family, scrambling from his chair and rushing up to her. He trod upon her dress, but she did not push him away. " I'll see about it," she said. " That means that you can go, Alice," he cried. " It always means that when she says she will see about it." Alice smiled without speaking. " I'll go to Philadelphia, too," said little Elsie suddenly. Gifford's face clouded. Alice shook her head at him imperceptibly, and although he knew that Elsie's going would spoil everything for him, he smiled at her bravely. " You are not well enough, Elsie," said Mrs. Copeland. " You look sallow. I think you ought not to have got up this morning." Elsie stopped eating, and refused her third waffle. She was the sort of child whom you could make ill by telling her she looked so.
" I am ill, but I want to go," she whimpered. Everybody looked up anxiously. " Let her go, mother," said Gifford, " She'll have hysterics if you don't." " Very well. You can go, Elsie. The poor child is able to take so few pleasures," sighed Mrs. Copeland. Elsie's face, which had brightened at the prospect of Phila delphia, drew down to a proper degree of martyrdom at her mother's last words. She had everything in the world she wanted, yet she was always referred to as " Poor little Elsie Copeland." Alas, to waste the heavenly gift of pity upon the carefully suffering rich ! "I am afraid the noise and crowd of the city will frighten my little bird," said Mrs. Copeland, " and make her cry." " No, it won't," said Elsie. Perhaps it willnot be anticipating too much to chronicle at this point that Elsie went with them and began to cry in the train, so that by the time they were to begin the excursion which was Gifford's reward, Elsie was in strong hysterics and had to be put to bed.
Gifford spent the day with his little nose flattened against the hotel window, gazing into the street and winking back his tears. But he was growing used to it. Elsie always spoiled things for everybody wherever she went. When Gifford and Alice were alone after breakfast, Gifford seized her hand, saying in an undertone, — " I'll make her let you go to West Point, because you never told her that I went in swimming on Saturday. You said you were going to, but you didn't. That's just like a girl. And I'll make her let you and father both go." "Perhaps you can't," said Alice, in a spiritless voice. " I couldn't." " Ho, don't you know I can make her do anything ? That is, anything except let me have any fun with guns and things. If I were father, I'd make her let me have a gun. He says I am old enough."
" Make her ! " said Alice aghast. " No body ever makes mother do anything. You oughtn't to speak so." " Ho, you're only a girl," said Gifford scornfully, which incontestable fact Alice did not attempt to disprove.
Chapter II
A SMALL TOWN. Stockbridge, Pennsylvania, is situated on the Delaware River. It was an old town, even on the day when Alice Copeland was declared old enough to see a little of the world outside its narrow limits, and that was soon after the war, whose echoes were still reverberating in women's ears ; and whose ragged wounds were still bleeding in women's hearts. In church the black-robed figures in mourning were silent witnesses of the grief and losses which time had not yet wiped out. The quiet of the girl's life in conservative old Stockbridge had been rendered even more absolute for this reason, and her education had gone on without a break caused by C anything more exciting than a game of croquet in the morning or a game of whist in the evening. A small town in the East is as different from a small town in these latter days in the West, as black is from white.
Their chief point of resemblance is that everybody knows everybody else's affairs. Otherwise let no one confuse the two. In the West, the broad, open streets, given by the generosity of the never ending prairies, are symbolic of the town's radical hospitality. In the East, the narrow, thrifty streets, jammed in between the hills and the sea, indicate the town's conservative selection of guests. In the West, everything is new, nobody was born there, and the graveyards are fresh and small and bustling. In the East, everybody was born there, everything is old, and the graveyards are large and stately and silent. In the West, there is freshly turned sod, and there are miles of barbed wire fences. In the East, there are stone walls and ivy and green mould and lichens. In the West nobody knows who your grandfather was ; in the East everybody knew your great-grandfather.
In the West, to hustle is to be great. In the East everybody has time to be slow, and haste is inelegant. The provincialism of the West is uncouth and broad. The provincialism of the East is maddeningly narrow. The innate feeling of a young man from a small Western town that he is only one of a tremendous mass of humanity, and that in order to be individualized he must boisterously assert himself; that because his family name is unknown in the great city, he must shout it in your ear, and begin each argument with the premise that he is just as good as anybody, springs from the very nature of the new West. This new ness largely consists of a broad, democratic brotherhood, which evidences itself in servants insisting upon being called C "help," and of dining with the family. In a town of the same size in the East, caste is recognized from the ancient order of things.
The banker's son who goes to New York states his name modestly and expects it to be known. Very likely it is. If not, he is neither hurt nor offended. His place in the economy of the universe is secure, even if a few do not know him. He goes on about his business quietly. It never would occur to him to insist that he was " as good as you are," — probably because, in his secret heart, very quietly and elegantly, he thinks himself much better ! Both young fellows, being Americans, are at heart gentlemen. Their manners alone betray the difference in their environment, and neither is to blame. Both are creatures of circum stance and the natural product of their respective civilizations. Because Alice Copeland had lived in the small town of Stockbridge all her life, was no reason why she was provincial in the Western acceptation of the term.
Her provincialism she inherited quite naturally from her mother, and it only took the mild form of a feeling of indifference to all the world except Stockbridge and Philadelphia. The names of the two towns may differ in various Eastern states, but their tolerance rarely gets beyond two, and when it does, it skips over to London and Paris. It never, for instance, comes to include three, their own, New York and Boston, or their own, Philadelphia and New York. For most Eastern people the trinity does not exist. They have fallen into a certain geographical Unitarianism. If Alice was narrow, it was a very gentle narrowness, neither obstinate nor froward. She was a Scotch Presbyterian because her mother was. Everybody knows that the Giffords of Philadelphia have always been Scotch Presbyterians.
Alice never discussed the matter, but she believed in election and predestination, and honestly thought that no man could be saved unless he were equally firm in that faith, and safe within the fold of the Presbyterian church, with his name written upon the church books in ink. Such simple, iron conviction admitted of no discussion. Stockbridge had reason to be proud of one or two of its distinctions, which set it apart from its fellows, aside from its being so godly. It boasted no theatre, but it had nine churches. Of course the Scotch Presbyterian was the most prosper ous, because the Copelands belonged there. Unsaved Baptists and Methodists with their less handsome edifices some times shook their heads over the luxuries of the Presbyterians and smiled to think what old John Knox would have said to their cushions and velvet hangings and choir.
But they never mentioned these things to Mrs. Copeland. Somehow Mrs. Copeland's nose did not invite impertinent home thrusts like these. But the truth of it was that this unusual spectacle of a rich church in those times was grounded in the same fundamental reasons which made the Copeland family unusual in other respects. Mrs. Copeland's Scotch blood made her give steadily to her church, and the Judge's French blood caused him, if he gave at all, to give lavishly. But there were counteracting influences which kept down the pride of the people in the godliness and chastity of their institutions, one of which was the constant illness of the inhabitants. These ailments seldom ended fatally. Indeed, people died quite as often of old age or railroad accidents in Stockbridge as anywhere else, but surely no town could boast such varied chronic complaints, which just gently stirred people's sympathy to a healthy activity, and gave them an excuse for visiting, as Stockbridge.
Nearly everybody who was full-grown, and there were also quite a goodly number of non dangerous infantile disorders, had his own private malady, which was as distinctive and peculiarly his own, and as unavailable to others as his silver door-plate. Indeed, for one family to lap over into another family's complaint, without adding a com plication which made it individual, would have been regarded as impertinent a trespass upon sacred privacy as for a man to copy his neighbour's grave decoration in the churchyard. On the evening of the day when Alice's visit to West Point was trembling in the balance, a small excitement took place in the visit of Colonel and Mrs. Christopher Overshine. The Overshines were next in importance to the Copelands, but just now the Over shines were in a position to cast a lustre by their presence upon even the Cope lands.
Mrs. Overshine, knowing the im portance of having a piece of news like a divorce almost in their immediate family, for John Vandevoort was her own second cousin, had held aloof from everybody, even from Mrs. Copeland, to whom her friends always told everything first, as became her station, for something like ten days, much to Mrs. Copeland's secret annoyance. Outside gossip was scarce, of course, in a town like Stockbridge, where nothing ever happened. Still, Mrs. Copeland thought there was no sense in Mrs. Overshine's acting as if she were the ark of the covenant, just because she was in the inner circle of a celebrated New York divorce case. And when on Sunday Mrs. Overshine went so far as to keep her veil down all during the sermon, as if being related to the Vandevoorts made her sacred, and afterwards made her way out of church to her carriage, with her head down, speaking to nobody, Mrs. Cope land's grenadier spirit actually chafed under the restraint which Christianity imposed.
Now, however, the Overshines were coming up the walk. Mrs. Copeland, knowing of course that this was Mrs. Overshine's first visit since the details of the divorce came, forgave her impertinence of Sunday, and even felt a sort of respect for the coup d'etat which had made the presence of Mrs. Overshine of more im portance than that of any woman in Stockbridge. It was a pleasure to see Judge Copeland greet his guests. After you had taken the colourless fingers of Mrs. Copeland, it was like floating out into the Gulf Stream to look into his keen blue eyes and to see him bend over your hand and to hear his courtly " Good day, madam." The Copeland house was Colonial, and set well back on a handsome terrace front ing the river. From all the windows you could look down upon the sinuous and tricky Delaware winding its indolent way to the sea.
Indeed, as if to accommodate so influential a family as the Copelands, it even made a gracious bend, and wandered past the dining-room windows, so that from all over the house you had the loveliest view of its friendly ways. Colonel Overshine limped to the window. " The old Delaware is quite high just now, Judge. It doesn't look as though it would ever get so low that the dust would blow off it." " No, no. It does not. It looks to me as though it were deep enough to float the Kennebunk. It is a great pity our river is not navigable up here." " You are right. It would straighten out a good deal of that snarl about freight rates if the river would step in and say, ' Here, use me.' " " It would so. How is your knee, Colonel? This damp weather gives you an extra twinge now and then ? " " Oh yes.
But I am getting used to it. You can get used to anything, you know, Judge. A man could get used to hanging, if he were hanged every day." " Bad place to have a ball, Colonel. Never fails to leave a stiff knee. John Feversham — you know Feversham who was Colonel of the 13th, Rhode Island, and is now Captain in the regular army ? —he had a stiff knee for two years, but he got rid of it in some way. He's all right now." " Gad, I wish I knew how he did it," said Colonel Overshine, sitting down, his lame leg stretched out stiffly before him. " I hear about these marvellous cures, but I never see them. Every once in a while me wife discovers a sure cure for a bald head. But look at mine. Me two com plaints are a bald head and a lame leg, and I expect to die in full possession of both of them." The maid entered with a tray.
Mrs. Copeland, being a total abstainer, never served wine to her guests, but there was sure to be lemonade and cocoanut cake in abundance. " And she began to behave badly soon after they were married," Mrs. Overshine was saying. Both men forgot what they were talking about and listened. " Me wife's cousin, John Vandevoort," murmured Colonel Overshine. " I have no patience with John that he did not take her in hand at once," said Mrs. Copeland, who loved to direct other people's families. "Yes, but you know John. He is too gentle and lovely to take a fly in hand, let alone that woman, who, as you know, is a wonderfully attractive creature, when she wants to be ; accomplished, clever, sings well, and they say she has written a book." Mrs. Copeland threw up both hands. "Poor John," she said. "Is it pub lished ?
" " No ; and it may never be now." Mrs. Copeland gave a sigh of relief. Things were very bad indeed with poor John Vandevoort, but not as bad as they might be. " She is perfectly well and strong, I believe," said Mrs. Copeland, "so John has not had illness to contend with ? " "Oh, no, she has some trouble which causes her to go into hysterics every time she loses her . temper. She gets violent at times. John says he thinks her mind is affected." " Mind ! " said Mrs. Copeland. " Tem per ! I know her. I saw her when I went to New York to hear Sontag. She weighed nearly two hundred pounds last winter, if I am any judge of weight from seeing a woman in as shameless an evening dress as she wore." " I think so too. If John only had made a stand when they were first mar ried ! He says he couldn't. When he told me of some of her tantrums, I said to him ' John, a good shaking would do her good.' And he said, ' Cousin Mollie, she is the mother of my children.' Now you know I couldn't say a word after that."
" Children ? I thought there was only one." " No, two. Frances and Margaret — Peggy, they call her." " What will be done with them ? " " John says I am to have them for a time." " And bring them here ? " "Yes." Mrs. Copeland cleared her throat in a pleased way. She was glad she was going to see some of this trying and sad affair. "Where is Alice?" asked Mrs. Over shine. Mrs. Copeland eyed her sharply, knowing that Mrs. Overshine knew and was overjoyed at the knowledge that Alice was out with Frank Overshine. Mrs. Overshine only wanted to make Mrs. Copeland admit it. " She went to the archery meeting, I believe." " No, the Archery Club meets on Friday. This is only Tuesday." " Oh, then it must have been the Canoe Club." " Did she go alone ? " " No, Ellen St. Francis went with her." " And did those two girls go alone ?
" " No, one of the young boys in the neighbourhood went with them." Mrs. Overshine retired from the field, and rocked her chair in exasperated silence. " That is a handsome ring you have on, Judge," said Colonel Overshine. " Have I ever seen it before ? " " I think not. My wife gave it to me on my last birthday," said the Judge, taking it off and handing it to him. " Very fine stone. What is the design ? " Judge Copeland leaned back in his chair, set his finger tips together and looked at the ceiling. Mrs. Copeland laid down her fancy work. She was never without either her fancy work or her Bible. If laid out in a straight line, she must have done miles of fancy work. If read in a straight line, she must have read miles in her Bible. She rested her long slim hands, glitter ing with rings, upon her crewel work, which in after years passed through the various stages of fashionable fancy work, through silk knitting, tatting, cardboard embroidery, and from that into centre pieces and drawn work — and Colonel Overshine looked towards her.
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The end
You’ve reached the end of The Under Side of Things. A novel.