Susan Clegg and Her Love Affairs Read online

  II

  SUSAN CLEGG AND THE CHINESE LADY

  And not merely a lady, but a Chinese lady at that. A particularlychubby, solemn, Chinese lady, who descended from the train which broughtJathrop Lathrop back to his native town after making a fortune in theKlondike, and meekly trotted along in his wake, carrying the largevalise, while Jathrop carried the small one.

  Susan walked off straightway with Jathrop and the Chinese lady, whilethe town remained stock and staring behind. The town was frankly "donedid up." That Jathrop might return with a wife had never once enteredthe head of any one. Still less had the idea of any one of thatcommunity ever wedding a Chinese been entertained. It was a peculiarlyoverwhelming sensation, and one which led Gran'ma Mullins to leanagainst Hiram, while Mrs. Macy leaned against the equally firm side-wallof the station itself. It was several seconds before people came totheir senses enough to go around by the track gate and look to see howfar the bewildering party had got on their way. They were just crossingthe square.

  "Well, if that doesn't beat the Dutch," said Mr. Kimball, and his wordsseemed to break the deadlock; everybody scattered forthwith, all talkingat once.

  Meanwhile Jathrop, arriving at his mother's gate, paused and said quiteeasily:

  "I'll go in alone, Susan; mother will like the first hour or so quitealone with me, I know. Won't you take Hop Loo to your house forbreakfast?"

  Susan, who had by no means as yet recovered from the shock of theCelestial bride, opened and shut her mouth once and her eyes twice, andyielded. For the nonce she seemed as speechless as Mrs. Lathropherself. Jathrop's appealing ease of manner had overawed her all the wayup from the station, and the walk had been accomplished in statelysilence. If the Klondike Prodigal had been surprised over the alterationin Susan, he had not said so, and now he quietly handed Hop Loo hisalligator-skin traveling-bag (or hers, whichever it was), and passing inthrough his mother's gate, shut it forthwith behind him, and went on upthe walk. Susan cast one look, which would have thrown a basilisk intoeverlasting darkness, after him; and then, turning, marched back to herown gate. Hop Loo followed, Susan opened her own gate and passed throughit; Hop Loo passed through after her. Susan went up her walk; Hop keptclose to her heels. Together they mounted the steps and then entered thehouse.

  It was all of half an hour before Mrs. Macy, the first completely torally from the shock at the station, arrived to call. When she climbedthe steps and rang the bell, Susan came to the door at once. She lookedpeculiarly grim and smileless. It was plain to be seen at the presentmoment that she was not pleased with the world in general.

  "I thought I'd just come up for a little," began Mrs. Macy, smilingenough for two all alone by herself. Mrs. Macy always tried to keep upher own spirits in a laudable attempt, possibly, to heighten those ofothers. "I thought maybe you'd be glad to see a face you knew."

  This allusion to the Chinese lady was not intended as unkindly as itmight have been in better society, Mrs. Macy being wholly incapable ofanything so subtle.

  "Sit down," said Susan, briefly, indicating a porch chair. "There's nouse taking you in; she's up-stairs unpacking, and she's already setabout doing his cooking. It's plain to be seen that Jathrop Lathropnever come all this way from the Klondike to take any chances of beingpoisoned by me as soon as he got here. No, sir, Jathrop Lathrop haslearned too many little tricks for that."

  Susan's tone was extremely bitter. She had removed the famous stripedsilk and applied her hairbrush to both sides of her head after dippingit (the hairbrush, not her head) in water. It was easy to be seen thatthe vanities of this life had suddenly become offensive in her nostrils.

  "Do you suppose she's really his wife?" asked Mrs. Macy, seating herselfand looking eagerly in her friend's face.

  "Oh, yes, she's his wife," said Susan.

  "Oh, Susan," Mrs. Macy went on, her eyes becoming quite globular underthe severe stress of her curiosity, "do you suppose anybody married 'em,or did he just buy her for beads?"

  "I don't know," said Susan, rocking severely back and forth, "I don'tknow a _tall_. You must ask some one wiser than me what a white man doesabout a Chinese when he wants her to cook for him. You ought to haveseen her in my kitchen, Mrs. Macy; she walked straight to my rack ofpans and took down just whatever she fancied. I _never_ saw the beat!No, nor nobody else. She's learned how to be cool from Jathrop and theNorth Pole together, looks to me. I never see such ways as Jathrop haspicked up. He never said a word walking up--nothing but 'Ah' once. Idon't call 'Ah' once much of a conversation for the woman as rocked yourcradle and might have married you, too--if she'd wanted to. For I couldhave married Jathrop Lathrop, Mrs. Macy; nobody but me will ever knowwhat passed between us, but I could have married him. I won't say whatprevented, but I can tell you it wasn't him. And he's lived to regretit, too. Just like the minister regrets it. When the minister speaks ofthe treasure that layeth up in heaven, he doesn't mean no chicken--hemeans me."

  Susan paused and shook her head angrily.

  "I don't doubt but what he's sorry," said Mrs. Macy; "maybe he married aChinese for fear any other kind would remind him of you."

  Miss Clegg rejected this possible poetic view of Jathrop's action with alook of great disgust accompanied by another shake of the head.

  "I don't believe it's very often that a man ever marries some otherwoman on account of any other woman. That's very pretty in books, butbooks ain't life. Life's life, and if Jathrop Lathrop's married thatheathen Chinese, he's got very strange notions of life, and that's all Ican say. Why, if she didn't lug that heavy bag along and walk a littleback, and he never bothered to speak to her. She's very different fromwhat I'd have been, I can tell you. You can maybe fancy me carryingJathrop Lathrop's bag a little behind Jathrop Lathrop! I think I seemyself. 'How's Susan Clegg?' He'll soon find out how Susan Clegg is.What do you think, Mrs. Macy, what _do_ you think? When we came to hismother's gate, he just stopped, said he thought she'd like him alonebest, said to me, 'Give Hop Loo some breakfast, will you?'--and then ifmy gentleman didn't walk through the gate and shut it after him! Well, I_never_ did. There was me and his wife carefully shut out on the otherside of the fence like we was pigs. And then I had to bring her overhere and give her father's room. What would my dead and gone father sayto a Chinese woman having his room, I wonder! Father had very finefeelings for a man as got about so little, and if he was alive, I don'tbelieve no Jathrop Lathrop would have gone sending no heathen Chinesewife to live with _me_. She won't live with me long, I can tell you thatto your face, Mrs. Macy. I took her because I was too dumb did up overhaving a gate shut in my face by Jathrop Lathrop to do anything else,but I ain't intending to have her long. I've always been for shuttingthe Chinese out, and I ain't going back on my principles at my time oflife. No, indeed. 'How's Susan Clegg?'"

  Susan paused angrily. Her repetition of the deceptive phrase inJathrop's letter seemed to turn her boiling wrath into one of still,white menace. She sat perfectly still, snapping her eyelids up and down,and breathing hard.

  "I don't blame you one mite, Susan," said Mrs. Macy warmly; "I wish Mrs.Lupey was here. She wanted to come, too, but she's got her bag to packto go home. She only come for one night, and to-night'll make two, soshe wants to get packed. But she knows all about the Chinese. Herhusband's got a cousin who is a missionary in China, and she could havefelt for you. The cousin's got eleven Chinese servants besides a Bibleclass of two as she's training to be missionaries after they're trained.Mrs. Lupey says she'd have known what to do when that Chinese lady gotoff the train this morning. They don't let 'em ride in the same cars inChina."

  Just here Jathrop came out of his mother's front door and walked downthe path. Both ladies were freshly shocked by the sight. At the gate heturned in the opposite direction. Both ladies stared after him. Soon hewas out of sight. Then they stared at each other.

  "Well, what is he up to now?" Mrs. Macy finally ejaculated.

  "I don't know," said Susan in a tone of complete despair as to everagain gaining any ins
ight into the motives which moved Jathrop, "I d'nknow, Mrs. Macy. Don't ask me anything about Jathrop Lathrop after he'sgone home to see his mother and has handed me over a Chinese wife toboard. He may be gone up to Mrs. Brown's to run off with Amelia for allI know. Nothing is ever going to surprise me any more after this day. Ionly know one thing, if he does run off with Amelia, that Chinee'll findherself and his valises dumped off of my premises pretty quick. I neverwas one for false feelings, and I should see no call for Christiancharity toward a heathen who comes to me with two black bags on her legsand a dressing-sack for an overcoat."

  "I wonder if Jathrop likes her wearing such clothes," said Mrs. Macy."Everybody is wondering."

  "I don't know," said Miss Clegg, "men are very queer. There's no tellingwhat they are going to fancy till they get out of the train married toit. Think of his having the face to write 'How's Susan Clegg?' and himmarried to that puzzle-blocks thing all the time. I wonder what hismother said when he told her!"

  "Let's go over and see Mrs. Lathrop!" suggested Mrs. Macy, "she's overthere alone now."

  This idea immediately found favor with Susan. "But I'll have to go inand see what _she's_ up to first," she said. "If she's caught a rat andis making soup in my teapot with it, I shan't feel to enjoy leaving heralone with my teapot."

  Mrs. Macy could but feel the extreme justice of this view, and Susan,whose countenance indicated that she was sorely beset by misgivings,went into the house.

  When she came out, her face wore a relieved expression.

  "She's all safe," she said. "She's asleep on the floor. I must say it'schanged my feelings toward her. It shows she knows her place."

  They walked sedately to Mrs. Lathrop's. They climbed the back steps, andthey knocked.

  Mrs. Lathrop was busy making preparations for dinner. She came to thedoor with a promptitude which, in view of her well-known habit ofdeliberation, was little short of miraculous.

  "We came to see how you were," said Mrs. Macy.

  "Come in," said Mrs. Lathrop.

  They walked in and seated themselves on two of the wooden-bottomedkitchen chairs. Mrs. Lathrop went on with her work. She was uncommonlyactive, and her face wore a broad, unusual smile. "Jathrop's gone up tothe cemetery," she said. "He's going to have a monument put up to hisfather."

  "What do you think of--?" interrupted Susan.

  "Yes, we come to--" began Mrs. Macy.

  "He's going," continued Mrs. Lathrop, taking down a plate and blowingthe thick dust from its surface, "to have an awful handsome monument putup. Not a animal like you put up to your father, Susan, but a angelhanging to a pillar with both hands and feeling for a cloud with itsfeet. He showed me the picture. And he's going to have the parlorpapered and give the town a watering-trough for horses, with a tin cupon a chain for people, and he's--"

  "Yes, but--" interrupted Susan.

  "You know, of course--" began Mrs. Macy.

  Mrs. Lathrop swept off the top of the rolling-pin with the stove-brush."And he's going to build me on a bedroom right off the hall," shecontinued, "and put a furnace under the whole house. And one of thoselamps that haul up and down, and a new set of kitchen things, and he'llcome here every year and see if I want anything else, and if I do, I'mto have it. I'm to have a pew in church, even if I never do go tochurch, and a paper every day, and his baby picture done big, and befitted for new glasses."

  "But, Mrs. Lathrop--" Susan interrupted, seeing that Mrs. Lathrop wassurely still in ignorance as to her Mongolian daughter-in-law.

  "Yes, you--" began Mrs. Macy.

  "Liza Em'ly is to do all the sewing I want," went on Mrs. Lathrop,proceeding with her baking preparations at a great rate, "and Jathrop'llpay the bill. And any things I want, I'm just to send for, andJathrop'll pay the bill; and anything I can think of what I want done,I'm just to say so, and Jathrop'll pay the bill."

  It seemed as if Susan Clegg would burst at this. It was plain now thatJathrop really was rich, and here was his mother supposing the rose wasutterly thornless.

  "But did he tell you about his wife?" she broke in desperately. "That'swhat I want to know."

  Mrs. Lathrop, who was mixing butter and sugar together in a yellow bowl,stopped suddenly and stared.

  "His wife!" she said blankly.

  "Yes, his wife," repeated Susan.

  "The wife he brought back with him," explained Mrs. Macy.

  "The wife he--" Mrs. Lathrop pushed the yellow bowl a little back on thetable and rested her hands on the edge. They trembled visibly; "the wifehe--" she repeated.

  "Surely you know that he brought his wife back with him?" said Mrs.Macy. "Surely he's told you?"

  Mrs. Lathrop--turned her usual dumb self again--looked at Mrs. Macy withalmost unseeing eyes.

  "I--" she ejaculated faintly, "no, he--"

  "Now, you see," exclaimed Susan, half to the friend and half to thestricken mother, "it don't make any difference what a man turns intooutside, he stays just the same inside. What have I always said to you,Mrs. Lathrop? You can't make no kind of a purse out of ears likeJathrop's. Jathrop Lathrop could turn into fifty millionaires, and he'dstill be Jathrop Lathrop. He can hang all the angels he pleases andwater all the horses from here to Meadville, and still he never could beany other man but just himself. And being himself, he never by no mannerof means could be frank and open. He was always one that held thingsback. You thought it was because he didn't have no brains, but you washis mother and naturally looked on the best side of him. But he neverdeceived me, Mrs. Lathrop; I saw through Jathrop right from the start.There was a foxiness about Jathrop as nobody never fully saw into butme. That was my reason for never marrying him--one of my many reasons,for his foxiness hasn't been the only thing about Jathrop that I've seenthrough. I never was one to soften the blows to a tempered lamb, so Iwill say that so many reasons for not loving a man as I've seen inJathrop I never see in any other man yet. But none of my reasons for notmarrying him has ever equalled this new reason as has cropped up now inhis bringing home a wife. When a man comes home with a wife, then you dosee through him for good and all, and when Jathrop come scrambling outfrom between those two cars this morning with a heathen Chinee at hisheels--"

  Mrs. Lathrop screamed loudly. "A--"

  "Heathen Chinee," repeated Susan.

  "You know what a Chinee is, don't you?" interposed Mrs. Macy; "they'refrom China, you know."

  Mrs. Lathrop retreated to her rocker with a totter.

  "Yes, she's a heathen Chinee," said Susan, with unfailing firmness, "thekindest heart in the world couldn't mistake her for anything even ashigh up as a nigger. Her eyes cross just under her nose, and she's gother hair wound round her head with a piece of black tape to hold it on.She wears divided skirts as is most plainly divided, and not a gore hasshe got to her name or her figure. She _is_ a Chinese and no mistake,and you may believe me or not, just as you please, Mrs. Lathrop, butJathrop without a so much as by-your-leave dumped her onto me forbreakfast, and she's asleep on father's floor now."

  "On your--" gasped Mrs. Lathrop.

  "No, on father's," said Susan, "and now, Mrs. Lathrop, you see what heis at last. He not only marries a Chinese when if he'd been patient hemight have got a white one, but he brings her home, and don't even tellyou he's brought her home, or even that he's got her, or even that he'smarried her, or anything. A man might line my house with furnaces andhave his baby picture done big in every room, and I'd never forgive hisacting in such a way. I never hear the beat. It throws all the othercalamities as ever come upon anybody in this community clean out of theshade. What will be the use of your having a pew in church; you won'teven be able to face the minister now with your son's marrying one ofthem as we have to give our good money to teach to wear clothes. Whatgood will your having the parlor papered be with everybody ashamed to goto see a woman who has got a Chinese daughter. To my order of thinking,you was better off poor. Why, they eat the hen's nests, the Chinese do,and prefer 'em to the eggs. It's small wonder I dreamed Jathrop was acat, w
ith him descending on us like the wrath of heaven married to aChina woman. Jathrop's no fool though, and if you'd seen that humbleheathen going along back of him with his big valise, you'd have to seeas the man as picks out a wife like that never could have been a fool. Ifelt for her, I really did, only she was watching me with the wrong eyeall the time, and it made me dizzy to try and look at her kindly. I'lltell you what, Mrs. Lathrop, when Jathrop comes back, you'll just go forhim and give it to him good. Men must learn as they can't bring theirChinese wives into this community. There's a principle as we'd ought tolive up to whether we enjoy it or not, and it's all against marryingChinese. The Chinese are all right, I hope and trust, but nothing asfeeds itself with a toothpick had ever ought to be held pressed to thebosom of families like you and me, Mrs. Lathrop. It isn't the way we'rebrought up to look at them, and it's a well-known fact as no matter whatthe leopard does to the Ethiopian, he sticks to his spot just the sameas before--"

  "But--" broke in Mrs. Lathrop.

  "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Lathrop,--we've been friendstoo long for me not to feel kindly to you,--but Mrs. Macy is a witnessto his bringing her, even if I wasn't well known to be one as neverlies. Mrs. Macy is a witness, too, to how he's got her dressed, and amore burning disgrace than this keeping your chosen wife in looseoveralls and a jacket as any monkey on a hand-organ would weep to seethe fit of, I never see. It may be the custom in the Klondike and maybe convenient for sliding, but this is no sliding community, and, to myorder of thinking, Jathrop would have showed you more affection and usmore respect if he'd bought his wife a bonnet and a shawl before hebrought her here."

  Susan paused for breath. Mrs. Lathrop continued speechless. Mrs. Macytried to lighten the atmosphere by remarking, "Lands, she's got apigtail, too."

  Susan picked up the cudgels afresh at that. "Wound twice around herhead," she said bitterly; "oh, she _is_ a figure of fun and no mistake.I d'n know, I'm sure, what Jathrop was ever thinking of the day hepicked her out, but this I do know, and that is, that he'd better pickher off of me pretty quick. You know, Mrs. Lathrop, as a friend is afriend and I've always been a good friend to you, but I never was one tostand any nonsense--not now and not never--and when a man writes, 'I'mrich' and 'How's Susan Clegg?' he gets me where no Chinese wife ain'tgoing to please me in a hurry. I'm glad Jathrop is rich, on youraccount, Mrs. Lathrop, but his being rich don't alter my views of him amite. I look upon him as a gray deceiver, that's what I look upon himas, and if he's brought a piece of carnelian or anything back to me, youcan tell him to give it to his lawfully wedded wife, for I don't want tohave nothing more to do with him."

  "But, Susan--" broke in poor Mrs. Lathrop.

  "Don't interrupt me, Mrs. Lathrop; I'm in no mood to listen to noone just now. I ain't mad, but I'm hurt. It's no wonder I dreamed hewas a cat, for of all the sly, back-door things a cat is themeanest. And there was always something very cat-like about JathropLathrop--something soft and slow and creepy--nothing bold andout-spoken. I might have known as even if he did come home rich, he'dfind a way to even it up. And now look how he has evened it up. Think ofyour grandchildren; there won't be one of 'em able to ever look anybodystraight in more'n one eye at once. Marrying Chinese is terrible,anyway--in some States it's forbidden. It's to be hoped Jathrop'll keepout of those States or he may land in the penitentiary yet."

  Just here the front door slammed, and Jathrop's voice was heard calling,"Where are you, mother?"

  He didn't wait for an answer, but came straight through the kitchen.Entering there, what he saw startled him so much that he came to asudden halt.

  "We've been telling your--" began Mrs. Macy.

  "--mother about your wife," finished up Susan.

  Jathrop looked at all three in great astonishment. "About my _wife_!" herepeated. "Did you say 'my wife'?"

  "Yes," said Susan, absolutely undaunted. "I think it would have beenkinder in you to have broke it to her yourself; but anyhow, we've doneit now."

  "Oh, Jathrop, my son, my son!" wailed poor Mrs. Lathrop inheart-wringing Biblical paraphrase.

  "But I haven't got any wife," said Jathrop. "What under the sun do youmean?"

  There was a clammy pause; Susan and Mrs. Macy clasped hands.

  "What made you think I had one?" Jathrop asked, quite bewildered. "Whosaid I had one?"

  Susan rose with dignity and coughed. Mrs. Macy rose, too, looking atSusan. Poor Mrs. Lathrop seemed fairly terror-stricken.

  "I think I'll go now," said Susan. "I hope I needn't board her muchlonger, that's all. Even if she's only using the floor, it's a floor ashas been sacred to my dead father up to now, and a dead father is not tobe lightly took in vain by a heathen Chinee."

  "But what does it all mean?" asked Jathrop, appearing genuinelybewildered. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

  Susan moved toward the door; Mrs. Macy faltered. "Maybe it was allright in the Klondike," she began, trying to put a brace under thesituation.

  "Maybe what was all right in the Klondike?" asked Jathrop.

  "To buy her with beads."

  "To buy who with beads? Who's her?" Jathrop's voice was becomingexasperated.

  "Hop Loo," said Susan, in a tone of piercing scorn, "the Chinese lady asyou brought with you and gave me to board."

  Jathrop looked at them all in amazement. "But Hop Loo's a boy--my boy,"he said.

  "Your boy!" said Susan.

  "Yes, my boy."

  Miss Clegg turned and gave him a long look fraught with disgust, pity,and hopeless resignation.

  "Jathrop Lathrop," she said, "I _did_ suppose you had some sense even inthe view of all that's dead and gone, but I guess now I'll have to giveup. I did have some respect for you while I thought she was maybe yourwife, but if you've gone so clean crazy that you believe that that isyour boy--well!"

  Susan thereupon sailed out of Mrs. Lathrop's house with Mrs. Macywobbling in her wake.