The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss Read Free

beckoning, she could only wonder, but that she
was
doing it and would continue to do it and would live by it was now her dusky faith. “I will. I will. I
will!
” she repeated over and over, until she had worked herself into a sort of frenzy and was banging her head against the bedpost. Then the door opened, swiftly, as though they had been standing just outside, and her mother and father and Nannie came in and looked at her in dismay.

2
    Mrs. Spreddon had certainly no idea what had possessed her daughter. She was not without intelligence or sympathy, and responsibility sat easily with the furs on her ample shoulders, but there was little imagination and no humor in her make-up, and she could not comprehend any refusal of others to participate in that portion of the good of the universe which had been so generously allotted to herself. The disappointments that resulted from a failure to achieve an aim, any aim, were well within her comprehension, and when her son Sammy had failed to be elected head monitor of his school she and Mr. Spreddon had journeyed to New England to be at his side; but misery without a cause or misery with bitterness was to her unfathomable. She discussed it with her husband’s sister, Mrs. Lane, who was in New York on a visit from Paris. Lila Lane was pretty, diminutive, and very chatty. She laughed at herself and the world and pretended to worship politics when she really worshiped good food. She dressed perfectly, always in black, with many small diamonds.
    â€œIt isn’t as if the child didn’t have everything she wanted,” Mrs. Spreddon pointed out. “All she has to do is ask, and she gets it. Within limits, of course. I’m not one to spoil a child. What could it be that she’s dissatisfied with?”
    Mrs. Lane, taking in the detail of her sister-in-law’s redecorated parlor, heavily Georgian, all gleaming mahogany and bright new needlework, reflected that Maud might, after all, have something to be dissatisfied with.
    â€œIs she ever alone?” she asked.
    â€œWhy should she be alone?” Mrs. Spreddon demanded. “She’s far too shy as it is. She hates playing with other children. She hasn’t a single friend at school that I know of.”
    â€œNeither did I. At that age.”
    Mrs. Spreddon was not surprised to hear this, but then she had no intention of having her Maud grow up like Lila and perhaps live in Paris and buy a Monet every fifth year with the money that she saved by not having children.
    â€œBut Maud doesn’t like
anybody
,” she protested. “Not even me.”
    â€œWhy should she?”
    â€œOh, Lila. You’ve been abroad too long. Whoever heard of a child not liking her own family when they’ve been good to her?”
    â€œI have. Just now.”
    Mrs. Spreddon frowned at her. “You seem to think it’s my fault,” she said.
    â€œIt isn’t anyone’s fault, Mary,” Mrs. Lane assured her. “Maud didn’t choose you for a mother. There’s no reason she should like you.”
    â€œAnd what should I do about it?”
    Mrs. Lane shrugged her shoulders. “Is there anything to be done?” she asked. “Isn’t the milk pretty well spilled by now?”
    â€œThat’s all very well for you to say,” Mrs. Spreddon retorted. “But a parent can’t take that point of view. A parent has to believe.”
    â€œI don’t mean that she’s hopeless,” Mrs. Lane said quickly. “I just mean that she’s different. There’s nothing so terrible about that, Mary. Maud’s more like her grandfather.”
    â€œThe Judge? But he was such an old dear, Lila!”
    Mrs. Lane placed a cigarette carefully in her ivory holder and held it for several seconds before lighting it. She hated disputes, but the refusal of her sister-in-law to face any facts at all in the personalities around her other than the cheerful ones that she