Seed on the Wind

Lora, astonished and fascinated, lay and listened to this recital of her origin and early history. Her mother talked on and on in a ceaseless flood, protesting, accusing, justifying, revealing the details of the homely and vulgar tragedy that had ended by her grasping the occasion of her daughter’s pregnancy for sharing the tortures she had kept concealed for twenty years. Lora understood that, and she understood too why her sympathy for her mother had always been smothered within her, never emerging into expression, never truly finding itself in her heart. She could not have explained it, but she felt that she understood it. As her mother’s story went on Lora heard less and less of it; her mind was filling with the clear and strong conviction that she was going to have all she could do to manage her own affairs so as to avoid disaster; these people were dangerous; whatever prudence and good will were found to lift her out of her difficulty she would have to furnish herself or discover elsewhere, not here.

Except money. That was the real point: money. She felt this all the more strongly on account of an unpleasant discovery she had made a few hours earlier. Undressing the night before, cold and sleepy and exhausted, she had placed her roll of twenties carelessly on top of the bureau, and on arising shortly after noon and going to get her hairbrush had noticed that the roll was no longer there. She looked in all the drawers, on the floor, in her bag and suitcase, everywhere; it was gone. Later she asked her mother, who said she knew nothing of it. Martha was out of the question. Had her father come in her room before he left that morning? Her mother didn’t know. It was quite possible. It was certain.

Her father knew that too, that the real point was money. He would. Of course the twenties were rightfully his, but that only made it worse. She was in a tight place. He had locked her door more effectually than he could have done with any key.

Her mother’s mouth, once opened, seemed likely never again to close. Towards twilight that first afternoon she went to her neglected household duties downstairs, but the next day she resumed; obviously she was cleaning out a pool that had lain stagnant for two decades. For three weeks, daily, she poured into her daughter’s ears all her accumulation of venom and despair. In the end Lora heard nothing; it became just a meaningless disagreeable noise whose only significance consisted in its interruption to her own thoughts. Her mother demanded a judgment in terms, but Lora could not furnish it; not bothering to evade, she merely shook her head and was silent. She had a feeling that not only was a judgment impossible, but also that neither her father nor her mother desired one. Her mother sought an ally, that was all; and no thank you, she had her own battle to win and could not afford to identify it with a cause already lost before she was born.

For three weeks she kept to her room. After the first day or two Martha brought up her meals. Martha didn’t say much, refusing to answer the simplest questions; she had instructions not to talk, she said; plainly she was frightened and apprehensive. But good heavens, Lora protested, there was no reason why she shouldn’t talk to her, it was too ridiculous, she wasn’t a mysterious captive in a dungeon. Martha merely sighed and shook her head. In the morning Mrs. Winter would come in for a brief visit, and always soon after lunch she would appear again, establish herself in the rocker near the window, and knit and talk until long after the early winter dusk had compelled them to draw the shades and turn on the light. It appeared that Mrs. Ivers, who had come from Toronto not so long ago, had persuaded a group of ladies to knit socks for Canadian soldiers, and it amused Lora to consider that the very pair now growing so rapidly in her mother’s deft fingers might be destined for Pete Halliday’s feet. She doubted though if they were big enough; Pete had enormous feet.

She hated being confined to her room. Besides, Before the Baby Comes said that gentle but regular exercise should be continued right up to the last. Uneasily she submitted. She didn’t like it. If secrecy was what he wanted why drag her down here from Chicago? It was idiotic to think it could really be kept a secret. For her part she was willing to let the whole town know it, and take the consequences. She wasn’t going to stay here anyway; she had gone once and she would go again, just as soon as she could manage it. How, was another question, to be answered when the time came. For the present there was nothing for it but to let her father have his way, even to acquiescence in his elaborate and melodramatic precautions.