The Breaking Point - Page 13/275

The Wheeler house was good, modern and commonplace. Walter Wheeler and

his wife were like the house. Just as here and there among the furniture

there was a fine thing, an antique highboy, a Sheraton sideboard or

some old cut glass, so they had, with a certain mediocrity their own

outstanding virtues. They liked music, believed in the home as the unit

of the nation, put happiness before undue ambition, and had devoted

their lives to their children.

For many years their lives had centered about the children. For years

they had held anxious conclave about whooping cough, about small early

disobediences, later about Sunday tennis. They stood united to protect

the children against disease, trouble and eternity.

Now that the children were no longer children, they were sometimes

lonely and still apprehensive. They feared motor car accidents, and

Walter Wheeler had withstood the appeals of Jim for a half dozen years.

They feared trains for them, and journeys, and unhappy marriages, and

hid their fears from each other. Their nightly prayers were "to keep

them safe and happy."

But they saw life reaching out and taking them, one by one. They saw

them still as children, but as children determined to bear their own

burdens. Jim stayed out late sometimes, and considered his manhood in

question if interrogated. Nina was married and out of the home, but

there loomed before them the possibility of maternity and its dangers

for her. There remained only Elizabeth, and on her they lavished the

care formerly divided among the three.

It was their intention and determination that she should never know

trouble. She was tenderer than the others, more docile and gentle. They

saw her, not as a healthy, normal girl, but as something fragile and

very precious.

Nina was different. They had always worried a little about Nina,

although they had never put their anxiety to each other. Nina had always

overrun her dress allowance, although she had never failed to be sweetly

penitent about it, and Nina had always placed an undue emphasis on

things. Her bedroom before her marriage was cluttered with odds and

ends, cotillion favors and photographs, college pennants and small

unwise purchases--trophies of the gayety and conquest which were her

life.

And Nina had "come out." It had cost a great deal, and it was not so

much to introduce her to society as to put a family recognition on a

fact already accomplished, for Nina had brought herself out unofficially

at sixteen. There had been the club ballroom, and a great many flowers

which withered before they could be got to the hospital; and new

clothing for all the family, and a caterer and orchestra. After that,

for a cold and tumultuous winter Mrs. Wheeler had sat up with the

dowagers night after night until all hours, and the next morning had

let Nina sleep, while she went about her household duties. She had aged,

rather, and her determined smile had grown a little fixed.