But how did Milly Ridge at sixteen perceive all this? What gave her the sense of social distinctions—of place and condition—at her age, with her limited, even if much-travelled experience of American cities? To read this mystery will be to understand Milly Ridge—and something of America as well.
II
A VICTORY FOR MILLY
The lease for the house had been signed, however, and for a five years' term. The glib agent had taken advantage of Horatio's new fervor for being settled, as well as his ignorance of the city. The lease was a fact that even Milly's impetuous will could not surmount—for the present.
Somehow during the next weeks the Ridge furniture was assembled from the various places where it had been cached since the last impermanent experiment in housekeeping. It was a fantastic assortment, as Milly realized afresh when it was unpacked. As a basis there were a few pieces of old southern mahogany, much battered, but with a fine air about them still. These were the contributions of Milly's mother, who had been of a Kentucky family. To these had been added here and there pieces of many different styles and shades of modern inelegance. One layer of the conglomerate was specially distasteful to Milly. That was the black-walnut "parlor set," covered with a faded green velvet, the contribution of Grandma Ridge from her Pennsylvania home. It still seemed to the little old lady of the first water as it had been when it adorned Judge Ridge's brick house in Euston, Pa. Milly naturally had other views of this treasure. Somewhere she had learned that the living room of a modern household was no longer called the "parlor," by those who knew, but the "drawing-room," and with the same unerring instinct she had discovered the ignominy of this early Victorian heritage. She did not loathe the shiny "quartered oak" dining-room pieces—her father's venture in an opulent moment—nor the dingy pine bedroom sets, nor even the worn "ingrain" carpets, as she did these precious relics of her grandmother's home.
Over them she fought her first successful battle with the older generation for her woman's rights—and won. She directed the colored men who were hired to unpack the household goods to put the green velvet horrors in the obscure rear parlor. In the front room she had placed the battered mahogany, and had just rejected the figured parlor carpet when her grandmother came upon her unawares. The old lady had slipped in noiselessly through the area door.
"My dear!" she remarked softly, a deceitful smile on her thin lips. "Why, my dear!" Milly hated this tender appellation, scenting the hypocrisy in it. "Haven't you made a mistake? I think this is the parlor."
"Of course it is the parlor," Milly admitted briskly, wheeling to meet the cold gray eyes that were fixed on her.
"Then why, may I ask, is the parlor furni—"
"Because I am doing this to suit myself," the girl promptly explained. "In this house, I mean to have things suit me, grandma," she added firmly. It was just as well to settle the matter at once.
"But, my dear," the old lady stammered, helpless before the audacity of the revolt. "I'm sure nobody wants to cross you—but—but—where's the carpet?"
"I'm not going to have that ugly green rag staring at me any longer!"
"My dear—"
"Don't 'my dear' me any more, grandma, please!"
Mrs. Ridge gasped, closed her thin lips tightly, then emitted—
"Mildred, I'm afraid you are not quite yourself to-day," and she retreated to the rear room, where in the gloom were piled her rejected idols.
After an interval she returned to the fight, gliding noiselessly forth from the gloom. She was a very small and a very frail little body, and as Milly put it she was "always sneaking about the house like a ghost."
"I see that the kitchen things have not been touched, and the dining-room furniture—"
"And they won't be—until I have this room to suit me. … Sam, please move that desk a little nearer the window. … There!"
It was characteristic of Milly to begin with the show part of the premises first and then work backwards to the fundamentals, pushing confusion slowly before her. The old lady watched the colored man move the rickety mahogany back and forth under Milly's orders for a few more minutes, then her thin lips tightened ominously.
"I think your father may have something to say about this, Mildred!"
"He'll be all right if you don't stir him up," the girl replied with assurance. She walked across the room to her grandmother. "See here, grandma, I'm 'most seventeen now and big for my age—"
"Please-say 'large,' Mildred."
"Large then—'most a woman. And this is my father's home—and mine—until he gets married again, which of course he won't do as long as I am here to look after him. … And, grandma, I mean to be the head of this house."
The old lady drooped.
"Very well, my dear, I see only too plainly the results of your poor mother's—"
"Grandma!" the girl flashed warningly.
"If I'm not wanted here—"
"You're not—now! The best thing for you to do is to go straight back to the boarding-house and read your Christian Vindicator until I'm ready for you to move in."
"At the rate you are going it will be some days before your father can have the use of his home."
"A week at least I should say."
"And he must pay board another week for all of us!"
"I suppose so—we must live somewhere, mustn't we?" Milly remarked sweetly.
So with a final shrug of her tiny shoulders the little old lady let herself out of the front door, stealthily betook herself down the long flight of steps and, without a backward glance, headed for the boarding-house. Milly watched her out of sight from the front window.
"Thank heaven, she's really gone!" she muttered. "Always snooping about like a cat—prying and fussing. She's such a nuisance, poor grandma."
It was neither said nor felt ill-naturedly. Milly was generous with all the world, liked everybody, including her grandmother, who was a perpetual thorn—liked her least of anybody in the world because of her stealthy ways and her petty bullying, also because of the close watch she kept over the family purse when Milly wished to thrust her prodigal hand therein. She made the excuse to herself when she was harsh with the old lady—"And she was so mean to poor mama—" that gentle, soft, weak southern mother, whom Milly had abused while living and now adored—as is the habit of imperfect mortals. …
So with a lighter heart, having routed the old lady, at least for this afternoon, Milly continued to set up the broken and shabby household goods to suit herself. She coaxed the colored boys into considerable activity with her persuasive ways, having an inherited capacity for getting work out of lazy and emotional help, who respond to the personal touch. By dusk, when her father came, she had the two front rooms arranged to her liking. Sam was hanging a bulky steel engraving—"Windsor Castle with a View of Eton"—raising and lowering it patiently at Milly's orders. It was the most ambitious work of art that the family possessed, yet she felt it was not really suited, and accepted it provisionally,