Part 31 (2/2)
”You have to be away so much on business, you know, Oliver,” I reminded.
Suddenly Ruth spoke, picking up a magazine and opening it. ”How would I do, instead of the hired help, Oliver?” she asked, casually glancing at an advertis.e.m.e.nt. ”Becky didn't seem to mind me.”
”You!” echoed Malcolm.
”Why, Ruth!” I exclaimed.
”What in the world do you mean?” demanded Edith.
”Oh, thanks,” smiled Oliver kindly upon her. ”Thanks, Ruth. It is bully of you to offer, but, of course, I wouldn't think of such a thing.”
”Why not?” she inquired calmly. ”I could give you the entire summer. I'm taking a two months' vacation this year.”
”Oh, no, no. No, thanks, Ruth. Our apartment is, no vacation spot. I a.s.sure you of that. Hot, noisy, one general housework girl. It certainly is fine of you, but no, thanks, Ruth. Such a sacrifice is not necessary.”
”It wouldn't be a sacrifice,” remarked Ruth, turning a page of the magazine.
”Oh, come, come, Ruth!” broke in Tom irritably. ”Let us not discuss such an impossibility. We're wasting time. You have your duties. This is not one of them. It's a fine impulse, generous. Oliver appreciates it. But it's quite out of the question.”
”I don't see why,” Ruth pursued. ”For an unattached woman to come and take care of her brother's children during her vacation seems to me the most natural thing in the world.”
”You know nothing about children,” snorted Tom.
”I can learn,” Ruth persisted.
Ruth's offer proved to be no pa.s.sing whim, no sentimental impulse of the moment. Scarcely a week later, and she was actually installed in Oliver's small apartment. The family talked of little else at their various dinner-tables for weeks to come. Of all Ruth's vagaries this seemed the vaguest and most mystifying.
Oliver's apartment is really quite awful, disorderly, crowded, incongruous. It contains a specimen of every kind of furniture since the period of hair-cloth down to mission--cast-offs from the homes of Oliver's more fortunate brothers and sisters. When I first saw Ruth there in the midst of the confusion of unpacking, the room in Irving Place with its old chests and samovars, Esther Claff quietly writing in her corner, the telephone bell m.u.f.fled to an undisturbing whirr, flashed before me.
The baby was crying. I smelled the odor of steaming clothes, in process of was.h.i.+ng in the near-by kitchen. I heard the deep voice of the big Irish wash-woman I had engaged, conversing with the rough Norwegian.
Becky was hanging on to Ruth's skirt and begging to be taken up. In the apartment below some one was playing a victrola. I hoped Ruth was not as conscious as I of Van de Vere's at this time in the morning--low bells, subdued voices, velvet-footed attendants, system, order.
”Well, Ruth,” I broke out, ”I hope you'll be able to stand this. If it's too much you must write and let me know.”
She picked up Becky and held her a moment. ”I think I shall manage to pull through,” she replied.
CHAPTER x.x.xI
RUTH DRAWS CONCLUSIONS
Will and I were buried in a little place in Newfoundland all summer, and Ruth's letters to us, always three days old when they reached me, were few and infrequent. What brief notes she did write were non-committal.
They told their facts without comment. I tried to read between the practical lines that announced she had changed the formula for the baby's milk, that she had had to let down Emily's dresses, that she had succeeded in persuading Oliver to spend his three weeks' vacation with Madge in Colorado, finally that Becky had been ill, but was better now.
I was unable to draw any conclusions. I knew what sort of service Ruth's new enterprise required--duties performed over and over again, homely tasks, no pay, no praise. I knew the daily wear and tear on good intentions and exalted motives. I used to conjecture by the hour with Will upon what effect the summer would have on Ruth's theories. She has advanced ideas for women. She believes in their emanc.i.p.ation.
<script>