The situation which confronted Aileen was really a trying one. A girl of less innate courage and determination would have weakened and yielded. For in spite of her various social connections and acquaintances, the people to whom Aileen could run in an emergency of the present kind were not numerous. She could scarcely think of any one who would be likely to take her in for any lengthy period, without question. There were a number of young women of her own age, married and unmarried, who were very friendly to her, but there were few with whom she was really intimate. The only person who stood out in her mind, as having any real possibility of refuge for a period, was a certain Mary Calligan, better known as “Mamie” among her friends, who had attended school with Aileen in former years and was now a teacher in one of the local schools.
The Calligan family consisted of Mrs. Katharine Calligan, the mother, a dressmaker by profession and a widow — her husband, a house-mover by trade, having been killed by a falling wall some ten years before — and Mamie, her twenty-three-year-old daughter. They lived in a small two-story brick house in Cherry Street, near Fifteenth. Mrs. Calligan was not a very good dressmaker, not good enough, at least, for the Butler family to patronize in their present exalted state. Aileen went there occasionally for gingham house-dresses, underwear, pretty dressing-gowns, and alterations on some of her more important clothing which was made by a very superior modiste in Chestnut Street. She visited the house largely because she had gone to school with Mamie at St. Agatha’s, when the outlook of the Calligan family was much more promising. Mamie was earning forty dollars a month as the teacher of a sixth-grade room in one of the nearby public schools, and Mrs. Calligan averaged on the whole about two dollars a day — sometimes not so much. The house they occupied was their own, free and clear, and the furniture which it contained suggested the size of their joint income, which was somewhere near eighty dollars a month.
Mamie Calligan was not good-looking, not nearly as good-looking as her mother had been before her. Mrs. Calligan was still plump, bright, and cheerful at fifty, with a fund of good humor. Mamie was somewhat duller mentally and emotionally. She was serious-minded — made so, perhaps, as much by circumstances as by anything else, for she was not at all vivid, and had little sex magnetism. Yet she was kindly, honest, earnest, a good Catholic, and possessed of that strangely excessive ingrowing virtue which shuts so many people off from the world — a sense of duty. To Mamie Calligan duty (a routine conformity to such theories and precepts as she had heard and worked by since her childhood) was the all-important thing, her principal source of comfort and relief; her props in a queer and uncertain world being her duty to her Church; her duty to her school; her duty to her mother; her duty to her friends, etc. Her mother often wished for Mamie’s sake that she was less dutiful and more charming physically, so that the men would like her.
In spite of the fact that her mother was a dressmaker, Mamie’s clothes never looked smart or attractive — she would have felt out of keeping with herself if they had. Her shoes were rather large, and ill-fitting; her skirt hung in lifeless lines from her hips to her feet, of good material but seemingly bad design. At that time the colored “jersey,” so-called, was just coming into popular wear, and, being close-fitting, looked well on those of good form. Alas for Mamie Calligan! The mode of the time compelled her to wear one; but she had neither the arms nor the chest development which made this garment admirable. Her hat, by choice, was usually a pancake affair with a long, single feather, which somehow never seemed to be in exactly the right position, either to her hair or her face. At most times she looked a little weary; but she was not physically weary so much as she was bored. Her life held so little of real charm; and Aileen Butler was unquestionably the most significant element of romance in it.
Mamie’s mother’s very pleasant social disposition, the fact that they had a very cleanly, if poor little home, that she could entertain them by playing on their piano, and that Mrs. Calligan took an adoring interest in the work she did for her, made up the sum and substance of the attraction of the Calligan home for Aileen. She went there occasionally as a relief from other things, and because Mamie Calligan had a compatible and very understanding interest in literature. Curiously, the books Aileen liked she liked — Jane Eyre, Kenelm Chillingly, Tricotrin, and A Bow of Orange Ribbon. Mamie occasionally recommended to Aileen some latest effusion of this character; and Aileen, finding her judgment good, was constrained to admire her.
In this crisis it was to the home of the Calligans that Aileen turned in thought. If her father really was not nice to her, and she had to leave home for a time, she could go to the Calligans. They would receive her and say nothing. They were not sufficiently well known to the other members of the Butler family to have the latter suspect that she had gone there. She might readily disappear into the privacy of Cherry Street and not be seen or heard of for weeks. It is an interesting fact to contemplate that the Calligans, like the various members of the Butler family, never suspected Aileen of the least tendency toward a wayward existence. Hence her flight from her own family, if it ever came, would be laid more to the door of a temperamental pettishness than anything else.
On the other hand, in so far as the Butler family as a unit was concerned, it needed Aileen more than she needed it. It needed the light of her countenance to keep it appropriately cheerful, and if she went away there would be a distinct gulf that would not soon be overcome.
Butler, senior, for instance, had seen his little daughter grow into radiantly beautiful womanhood. He had seen her go to school and convent and learn to play the piano — to him a great accomplishment. Also he had seen her manner change and become very showy and her knowledge of life broaden, apparently, and become to him, at least, impressive. Her smart, dogmatic views about most things were, to him, at least, well worth listening to. She knew more about books and art than Owen or Callum, and her sense of social manners was perfect. When she came to the table — breakfast, luncheon, or dinner — she was to him always a charming object to see. He had produced Aileen — he congratulated himself. He had furnished her the money to be so fine. He would continue to do so. No second-rate upstart of a man should be allowed to ruin her life. He proposed to take care of her always — to leave her so much money in a legally involved way that a failure of a husband could not possibly affect her. “You’re the charming lady this evenin’, I’m thinkin’,” was one of his pet remarks; and also, “My, but we’re that fine!” At table almost invariably she sat beside him and looked out for him. That was what he wanted. He had put her there beside him at his meals years before when she was a child.
Her mother, too, was inordinately fond of her, and Callum and Owen appropriately brotherly. So Aileen had thus far at least paid back with beauty and interest quite as much as she received, and all the family felt it to be so. When she was away for a day or two the house seemed glum — the meals less appetizing. When she returned, all were happy and gay again.
Aileen understood this clearly enough in a way. Now, when it came to thinking of leaving and shifting for herself, in order to avoid a trip which she did not care to be forced into, her courage was based largely on this keen sense of her own significance to the family. She thought over what her father had said, and decided she must act at once. She dressed for the street the next morning, after her father had gone, and decided to step in at the Calligans’ about noon, when Mamie would be at home for luncheon. Then she would take up the matter casually. If they had no objection, she would go there. She sometimes wondered why Cowperwood did not suggest, in his great stress, that they leave for some parts unknown; but she also felt that he must know best what he could do. His increasing troubles depressed her.
Mrs. Calligan was alone when she arrived and was delighted to see her. After exchanging the gossip of the day, and not knowing quite how to proceed in connection with the errand which had brought her, she went to the piano and played a melancholy air.
“Sure, it’s lovely the way you play, Aileen,” observed Mrs. Calligan who was unduly sentimental herself. “I love to hear you. I wish you’d come oftener to see us. You’re so rarely here nowadays.”
“Oh, I’ve been so busy, Mrs. Calligan,” replied Aileen. “I’ve had so much to do this fall, I just couldn’t. They wanted me to go to Europe; but I didn’t care to. Oh, dear!” she sighed, and in her playing swept off with a movement of sad, romantic significance. The door opened and Mamie came in. Her commonplace face brightened at the sight of Aileen.
“Well, Aileen Butler!” she exclaimed. “Where did you come from? Where have you been keeping yourself so long?”
Aileen rose to exchange kisses. “Oh, I’ve been very busy, Mamie. I’ve just been telling your mother. How are you, anyway? How are you getting along in your work?”
Mamie recounted at once some school difficulties which were puzzling her — the growing size of classes and the amount of work expected. While Mrs. Calligan was setting the table Mamie went to her room and Aileen followed her.
As she stood before her mirror arranging her hair Aileen looked at her meditatively.
“What’s the matter with you, Aileen, to-day?” Mamie asked. “You look so —” She stopped to give her a second glance.
“How do I look?” asked Aileen.
“Well, as if you were uncertain or troubled about something. I never saw you look that way before. What’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing,” replied Aileen. “I was just thinking.” She went to one of the windows which looked into the little yard, meditating on whether she could endure living here for any length of time. The house was so small, the furnishings so very simple.
“There is something the matter with you to-day, Aileen,” observed Mamie, coming over to her and looking in her face. “You’re not like yourself at all.”
“I’ve got something on my mind,” replied Aileen —“something that’s worrying me. I don’t know just what to do — that’s what’s the matter.”
“Well, whatever can it be?” commented Mamie. “I never saw you act this way before. Can’t you tell me? What is it?”
“No, I don’t think I can — not now, anyhow.” Aileen paused. “Do you suppose your mother would object,” she asked, suddenly, “if I came here and stayed a little while? I want to get away from home for a time for a certain reason.”
“Why, Aileen Butler, how you talk!” exclaimed her friend. “Object! You know she’d be delighted, and so would I. Oh, dear — can you come? But what makes you want to leave home?”
“That’s just what I can’t tell you — not now, anyhow. Not you, so much, but your mother. You know, I’m afraid of what she’d think,” replied Aileen. “But, you mustn’t ask me yet, anyhow. I want to think. Oh, dear! But I want to come, if you’ll let me. Will you speak to your mother, or shall I?”
“Why, I will,” said Mamie, struck with wonder at this remarkable development; “but it’s silly to do it. I know what she’ll say before I tell her, and so do you. You can just bring your things and come. That’s all. She’d never say anything or ask anything, either, and you know that — if you didn’t want her to.” Mamie was all agog and aglow at the idea. She wanted the companionship of Aileen so much.
Aileen looked at her solemnly, and understood well enough why she was so enthusiastic — both she and her mother. Both wanted her presence to brighten their world. “But neither of you must tell anybody that I’m here, do you ............