The Dim Lantern

Sherwood Park is twelve miles from Washington. Starting as a somewhat pretentious suburb on the main line of a railroad, it was blessed with easy accessibility until encroaching trolleys swept the tide of settlement away from it, and left it high and dry--its train service, unable to compete with modern motor vehicles, increasingly inefficient.

Property values, inevitably, decreased. The little suburb degenerated, grew less fashionable. People who might have added social luster to its gatherings moved away. The frame houses, which at first had made such a brave showing, became a bit down at the heel. Most of them, built before the revival of good taste in architecture, seemed top-heavy and dull with their imitation towers, their fretted balconies, their gray and brown coloring, their bands of contrasting shingles tied like sashes around their middles.

The Barnes cottage was saved from the universal lack of loveliness by its simple lines, its white paint and green blinds. Yet the paint had peeled in places, and the concrete steps which followed the line of the two terraces were cracked and worn.

Old Baldwin Barnes had bought his house on the instalment plan, and his children were still paying for it. Old Baldwin had succumbed to the deadly monotony of writing the same inscription on red slips through thirty years of faithful service in the Pension Office, and had left the world with his debts behind him.

He had the artistic temperament which his son inherited. Julia was like her mother who had died two years before her husband. Mrs. Barnes had been unimaginative and capable. It was because of her that Julia had married an architect, and was living in a snug apartment in Chicago, that Baldwin Junior had gone through college and had some months at an art school before the war came on, and that Jane, the youngest, had a sense of thrift, and an intensive experience in domestic economy.

As for the rest of her, Jane was twenty, slender as a Florentine page, and fairly pretty. She was in love with life and liked to talk about it. Young Baldwin said, indeed, with the frankness of a brother, that Jane ran on like a babbling brook.

She was “running on” this November morning, as she and young Baldwin ate breakfast together. Jane always got the breakfast. Sophy, a capable negro woman, came over later to help with the housework, and to put the six o’clock dinner on the table. But it was Jane who started the percolator, poached the eggs, and made the toast on the electric toaster, while young Baldwin read the Washington Post. He read bits out loud when he was in the mood. He was not always in the mood, and then Jane talked to him. He did not always listen, but that made no difference.

Jane had named the percolator “Philomel,” because of its purling harmonies.

“Don’t you love it, Baldy?”

Her brother, with one eye on the paper, was eating his grapefruit.

“Love what?”

“Philomel.”

“Silly stuff----”

“It isn’t. I like to hear it sing.”

“In my present mood I prefer a hymn of hate.”

She buttered a slice of toast for him. “Well, of course, you’d feel like that.”

“Who wouldn’t?” He took the toast from her, and buried himself in his paper, so Jane buttered another slice for herself and ate it in protesting silence--plus a poached egg, and a cup of coffee rich with yellow cream and much sugar. Jane’s thinness made such indulgence possible. She enjoyed good food as she enjoyed a new frock, violets in the spring, the vista from the west front of the Capitol, free verse, and the book of Job. There were really no limits to Jane’s enthusiasms. She spoke again of the percolator. “It’s as nice as a kettle on the hob, isn’t it?”

Young Baldwin read on.

“I simply love breakfast,” she continued.

“Is there anything you don’t love, Janey?” with a touch of irritation.

“Yes.”

“What?”

“You.”

He stared at her over the top of the sheet. “I like that!”

“Well, you won’t talk to me, Baldy. It isn’t my fault if you hate the world.”

“No, it isn’t.” He laid down the paper. “But I’ll tell you this, Janey, I’m about through.”

She caught her breath, then flung out, “Oh, you’re not. Be a good sport, Baldy. Things are bound to come your way if you wait.”

He gave a short laugh and rose. “I wish I had your optimism.”

“I wish you had.”

They faced each other, looking for the moment rather like two young cockerels. Jane’s bobbed hair emphasized the boyish effect of her straight, slim figure. Baldy towered above her, his black hair matching hers, his eyes, too, matching--gray and lighted-up.

Jane was the first to turn her eyes away. She looked at the clock. “You’ll be late.”

He got his hat and coat and came back to her. “I’m a blamed sorehead. Give me a kiss, Janey.”

She gave it to him, and clung to him for a moment. “Don’t forget to bring a steak home for dinner,” was all she said, but he was aware of the caress of those clinging fingers.

It was one of his grievances that he had to do the marketing--one could not depend on Sherwood’s single small store--so Baldy with dreams in his head drove twice a week to the butcher’s stall in the old Center Market to bring back chops, or a porterhouse, or a festive small roast.

He had no time for it in the mornings, however. His little Ford took him over the country roads and through the city streets and landed him at the Patent Office at a quarter of nine. There, with a half hour for lunch, he worked until five--it was a dog’s life and he had other aspirations.

Jane, left to herself, read the paper. One headline was sensational. The bride of a fashionable wedding had been deserted at the altar. The bridegroom had failed to appear at the church. The guests waiting impatiently in the pews had been informed, finally, that the ceremony would be postponed.

Newspaper men hunting for the bridegroom learned that he had left a note for his best man--and that he was on his way to southern waters. The bride could not be seen. Her uncle, who was also her guardian, and with whom she lived, had stated that there was nothing to be said. That was all. But society was on tiptoe. Delafield Simms was the son of a rich New Yorker. He and his bride were to have spent their honeymoon on his yacht. Edith Towne had a fortune to match his. Both of them belonged to old and aristocratic families. No wonder people were talking.

There was a picture of Miss Towne, a tall, fair girl, in real lace, orange blossoms, seed pearls----.

Pride was in every line of her. Jane’s tender fancy carried her to that first breathless moment when the bride had donned that gracious gown and had surveyed herself in the mirror. “How happy she must have been.” Then the final shuddering catastrophe.

Sophy arrived at this moment, and Jane told her about it. “She’ll never dare trust anybody, will she?”