A Family Matter

FIRE IN THE EYE

BY FRANCES LESTER WARNER

I

‘MY wife came running,’ wrote the man who had been attacked by a colony of bees; ‘my wife came running, spurred on by that combination of sympathy and curiosity known as Wifely Love.’

The sentiment of curiosity lends a dash of spice to household love. In the home-circle, this curiosity is not a purely inquisitive desire for information. Knowledge, in itself, is a mild pleasure, but it seldom satisfies. We like to keep an eye on our relatives, that we may surround them with the tender grace of our sympathies, and also that we may see if we approve their plans.

Acts in a household, therefore, are frequently very much like the acts in a rehearsal of an amateur play: the acting and the lines may be interrupted from time to time by the shouts of prompters, coaches, and property-men, and by the hoarse whispers of one actor telling another actor what to say.

The three phases of activity most freely supervised in this fashion are matters of procedure, matters of costume, and matters of the Legal Code.

One might suppose that personal liberty in matters of procedure would, after a few experimental years, be assured in every home. But in the average household any unusual and unexplained act is the signal for a general questionnaire. This is inconvenient for one who suddenly finds himself with something to conceal.

A university oarsman, at home on his vacation, one afternoon took a girl canoeing and upset her in the lake. He ladled her skillfully back into the canoe, climbed in, seated himself, and tipped over again on the other side. Together he and the girl swam ashore, towing the canoe. Neither objected to a wetting, but both objected to having their mishap known among their friends. They hurried dripping along obscure byways, and arrived at her house unobserved. Taking leave of his lady there, the hero sped home, and entered his room by a convenient trellis whose services he had shared for years with the vine of a Dorothy Perkins rose.

Once in his room, his only problem was how he should dry his costume unnoticed by a large and inquisitive band of sisters. He thought of the tailor. But in a small town a tailor is not only a tailor: he, too, has friends. The sun was still high, the weather hot. A hidden, yet sunny, area where he might spread the whit e flannels was all he asked. Resourcefully, he remembered the top of the mansard roof where, in highschool days, his wireless aerial used to wave. Up through the attic, up his old rope-ladder, out through the dusty skylight he went, with his soaking bundle and a ball of twine. The twine he stretched skillfully hither and yon, from one to another of the three chimneys, making a flat low network, much as one arranges horizontal strings for a garden of cucumbers. Then he sat down in the shade of a chimney to wait, planning to turn the garments from time to time as they dried. An hour passed. The sun was warm. A lazy breeze drifted obligingly over the roof. The little affair, he thought, had come off surprisingly well, considering.

At this point in his reflections, he was hailed by his younger sister Claudia, from the lawn below.

‘Herbert,’ she called, ‘what are you doing on the roof?’

Herbert went politely to the edge and gazed down. ‘ I was thinking,’ said he, ‘of planting a Moorish roof-garden.’

‘And what,’ pursued his sister, ‘are you doing with that twine?’

‘Mending my nets,’ said Herbert.

‘I ’ll come up and help,’ she volunteered.

‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ said Herbert affably. ‘I pulled the ladder up after me.’

Claudia was not abashed. ‘Mrs. Lane has been calling on mother,’ she went on, ‘and she said you were spreading out something all over the roof. She said it looked like a small wash.’

‘She did, did she?’ said Herbert admiringly. ‘Einstein must be right. I thought you could n’t see the flat of this roof from the street.’

‘You can’t,’ said Claudia. ‘She was calling on the Farleys on Oak Hill, and they looked down from their sun-porch and saw you. Now what are you doing, Herb? Mother wants to know.’

‘You just tell mother,’ said Herbert with finality, ‘that I’ll tell her if she won’t tell you. Tell her I’m coming right along down.’

To live happily in a sympathetic family of this kind, you should do always, as Jonathan Edwards advised, only those things that you could wish to be found doing if your time should come to die.

II

Occasionally, however, the fiery moment in the domestic drama arrives, not when our relatives are unduly curious, but when they choose the wrong moment to demand from us the sympathy that is their due. Every strong executive, who goes straight to his goal with his Eye on the Object, exerts a powerful pressure upon his relatives to make them his retainers. If his relatives are themselves natural leaders, they resist this pressure with much the same vigor that animates the noncoöperative movement under Mahatma Gandhi. Each in his own sphere remains intent, with projects that fill the mind’s horizon and absorb the nervous system. Several members of the same family, going about the house in this purposeful mood, will sooner or later work up a dramatic climax.

In families of artists, this conflict between Great Moments and executive plans may become a serious thing. In most musical households there is at least one member who, the instant a bit of music is well under way, is inspired with a burst of irrelevant activity. Hostesses are great offenders in this line. Having asked the artists to perform, they glide about inconspicuously while the music is going on, opening and shutting windows, adjusting and distributing sofa-cushions, inquiring in whispers whether the light is right for the accompanist, and, in general, making ready for the end of the world. They think that, if they tiptoe and whisper, their little avocations will be practically unobserved.

One musical clan has felt so bitter about this criminal practice, that they have trained all their friends and all their relatives-in-law to go into a sort of trance-like state whenever any sort of music begins. Even the grandchildren are so trained. On Thanksgiving Day, all the generations had gathered for an afternoon of song. One of the uncles was in full swing in the most telling passage of a tenor solo, and everybody was giving him the tribute of what Mr, Schauffler calls ‘creative listening,’ when a little mouse came suddenly from under the piano, darted across the room, and ran under the chair of the smallest niece. Everyone was breathless, expecting screams. But the well-instructed child sat motionless, wide eyes fixed upon the soloist, until the last note of the song had died away. Then she took her little rocker on her back, as children do, made her stooping way across the room, settled her chair beside her mother, and remarked confidentially, ‘I just saw a little ’quirrel, mother, and I thought I’d come and sit by you.’

This extreme of perfection is rarely attained, even in the most artistic homes. The most carefully disciplined of relatives will occasionally ask a question of a violinist in action. When a player is at. the height of a difficult theme, attention absorbed, tone-quality exquisite, hypnotized nerves intent, it is a fearful come-down to be asked if he feels the draught from the door. He feels that nobody within hearing distance ought possibly to be conscious of a door. When this crisis is precipitated by a friendly hostess, the violinist shakes or wags his head stiffly above his chin-piece, and finishes up his selection as best he may. But when a kinsman is the culprit, fireworks commonly ensue.

III

But it is in attempts to regulate costume that we find the most rapid approach to the great central emotions of the individual. This is the topic upon which all members of a household feel that it is, if not their duty, certainly their privilege, to speak. They feel that they should be consulted about how their kin are clothed. There are families that manage this business with primitive measures and a high hand. No breath is wasted in debate. Unpopular bits of raiment, like incautious enemies of the Soviet, simply disappear.

There are many devices for putting such things out of the way, notably the Salvation Army, the rummage sale, and urn-burial. Family procedure varies. One earnest wife, for example, had reasoned hopelessly with her handsome iron-gray husband, who had taken to wearing a violent cubist tie. This tie, he insisted, meant to him a belated form of self-expression, a sort of Second Blooming, a Winter Rainbow. There was no question about the rainbow, his wife agreed. Too law-abiding herself to steal the expensive thing, she begged her son to take it back to college with him by mistake. This he did, and returned home the next week-end with forty new silk ties. The most famous man of fashion in his fraternity had seen the winter rainbow, had desired it, and had given in exchange all that he had.

Sometimes the article of dress offends, not by reason of bad taste, but by reason of great age. It has suffered, the family feels, from the simple passage of time. A mackinaw, for instance, that has seen its best days; a crush hat that has given up the struggle; a pair of corduroy knickerbockers that has reached the stage eventually reached by all good corduroy when it creaks faintly like harness as its wearer walks about: these are the possessions that are dearly loved by their owners, and guarded apprehensively from lawless domestic ragpickers and officious junkdealers on every hand.

The thing that would happen in the world, if this informal Green-Room Committee should cease to function in every home, is well illustrated whenever a large number of unattached unmarried people live in a town where nobody knows them well enough to lay down the law or steal. On a college campus, for instance, certain costumes become practically immortal; any academic assembly is a capital place to study interesting Old Favorites in various stages of repair. ‘Can I not,’ inquires Carlyle, ‘stitch myself one perennial suit of leather?’ On a university campus he almost could. That college is poorly off indeed that does not hold as a precious tradition at least one objet d’art among its faculty’s haberdashery — at the very least some storied overcoat or book-bag, or eyeglass-ribbon, or curious celebrated hat. The campus legend is enriched, and the student body not without its innocent joys, simply because there is nobody at hand with sufficient Wifely Love to say decisively, ‘It’s high time that thing was called in.’

IV

This matter of laying down the law leads immediately to the third great inflammable topic on every hearthstone — the Criminal Code. The main statutes in the family codex may be firmly established, but there are usually certain by-laws that are not easy to enforce. Even so elementary a matter as the treatment of pets, for example, brings up a number of minor questions. That mother is very commanding, indeed, who can precisely enforce all her regulations as to what varieties of animals may and may not be brought into the house; what they shall be fed, and where; who shall put the cat out, and when; which of the neighbor’s pets shall be encouraged and entertained. The animals themselves are so winning and so agile, that these laws are particularly liable to infringement. That child has missed something who has never surreptitiously let the cat out of the cellar after hours, and smuggled it upstairs to bed. The gentle creature thus released is so affectionate, so astonished, and so pleased. The only difficulty here is the little matter of concealment when older persons come unexpectedly upstairs on errands to one’s room. A cat hastily thrust, out of sight beneath a counterpane is strangely blind to its own interests. There is no way of conveying to it the necessity of lying still. And to the bright parental eye there is something unmistakable about the contour of a cat moving anxiously about beneath a quilt. Back to its dungeon it must go, leaving only the wistful and lovely memory of its furry companionable form.

Laws about pets, however, are as nothing compared with laws about cash. This matter subdivides logically into two phases — where the cash shall be kept, and how it shall be accounted for. There is a type of busy housewife who, even after years of steady training, constantly mislays her wallet and her check-book. She never really loses them; she simply cannot put her hand on them at need. It happens, then, that in the midst of a pleasant domestic chat the laundry is delivered at the door, and she scurries high and low in search of funds. At this point, the other members of the group, rather than spare her longer from the circle, hastily make up a purse among them and pay the bill.

Far worse than the lady who loses her cash is the one who loses track of her accounts, and feels obliged to fill in the empty pages from memory. This sort of retroactive accountant should be suppressed by every means. Late in the evening on the last day of the week, she opens her books and tries to jot down an itemized account of all that she has spent. ‘Do you remember,’ she begins — and the tribal peace is doomed. She wants to know, from Monday to Saturday, the History of Mankind. A person of this stamp should not have a cash-account. Oliver Wendell Homes once observed, ‘There are heads that can’t wear hats.’ Similarly, there are heads that can’t keep books.

It would be interesting to know, not only the community practice regarding pets and cash, but also the code of honor that governs the overhearing of conversations in every talk-loving American home. Our houses are so open, so airy, and confidential. In nearly every typical American-built house there will be found at least one excellent listening-post, from which one can gather the main points of any discussion that may be going on. A certain amount of listening most families agree to countenance. When there is a group of callers for tea, for example, it is just as well to know what is going on before you come breezing in. The least you can do is to flit casually past the door, humming a little tune, and taking a hasty survey as you go. The question is, where is one to draw the line between legitimate reconnoitring and eavesdropping, as such.

The children of a hospitable young couple had this business worked out to a fine point. They entertained no scruples at all. There was a hallway at the top of the stairs, from which one could hear perfectly anything that was said on the floor below. When guests were invited for the evening, these children went dutifully to bed, but not to sleep. After the company had come out from dinner, and the evening’s conversation was at its best, three solemn figures, each wrapped in a down-puff, would assemble by the balustrade. Huddled there, they heard the delicious peals of grown-up ladies’ laughter, and the genial rumbling of the grownup gentlemen’s replies. No reception of later years can ever be as full of wit as those, when it was on pain of death if one should laugh. There was another peril too. The little audience in the first balcony must be always alert, ready to run back to bed at the slightest warning; because they knew from experience that, sooner or later in the course of the evening, the ladies of the group would be invited to inspect the sleeping nursery. Escorted by the children’s proud young mother, the ladies would steal up the stairs for just a glimpse of the innocent little ones sound asleep. At such times, it was well, of course, to have the pretty tableau staged as advertized. Consequently the three down-puffs were girded on compactly, and each small listener was always poised to spring.

This is all very well in childhood; but in later years this general wish ‘for to see and for to know’ is harder to deal with. In one large family, if any two of the relatives particularly wish to consult each other in assured privacy, they invite each other out to the garden, ‘to look at the Brussels sprouts.’ The Brussels sprout is an interesting vegetable the year round; even in the dead of winter the corner is kept green, and frequently inspected in the snow.

The eldest son of this house, on his return from France, wanted to give a certain girl who was leaving town for a long trip a chance to choose among his war-souvenirs. He arranged the matter carefully with his mother, in advance. He was going to bring Dorothy in early on Sunday afternoon, and let her see his treasures in the library, and then take her to her train. All went well. Dorothy was charmed with his things. But he made just one mistake: he closed the library door. Presently it opened. ‘What’s this door shut for?’ inquired his younger brother, darting headlong in. Seeing Dorothy, the brother, without waiting for an answer, darted headlong out again, banging the door behind him as he flew.

Dorothy, much amused, went on narrowing her choice. Once more the door burst wide. ‘Why you got this door shut?’ — his younger sister this time, and again the horrified and precipitate retreat.

His guest was laughing again, but he was not amused. He did not want Dorothy to be amused. He liked her serious and sweet. This moment alone with her was to have been a rare little episode of delicate companionship. Now his little scene had been turned into a burlesque. He could not bear it. It seemed impossible in a civilized country.

And then the thing actually happened once more: another brother this time after a book. ‘What in time is this door — ’ A wide-eyed glance at the situation, a slam, and the retreating sound of running feet.

It was too much. Leaving Dorothy for a moment, the returned warrior rushed out and confronted his relatives on the porch. ‘Come one, come all!’ said he in the smothered tones of contained fury. ‘If anyone else wants to know why I shut that door, mother said that I might show Dorothy my junk.’ The selection made, he took the young lady to her train. Then he went for a long tramp, to work off his feelings before he met his relatives again.

Late in the afternoon he came home. Everyone had gone to vespers, and the house was quiet. His resentment still burned hotly against the huddled life of a family where a man could not have a dignified moment of quiet parting with a girl, without clownish performances on the part of everyone within a mile. But the house, of late so exuberant, was graciously expressive and very peaceful now. He poised on the arm of the davenport, hands in pockets, and glanced critically at the familiar objects in the room: a jonquil opening in the window; his mother’s mending-basket, with his brother’s skating-helmet on top; his father’s newspaper pitched tent-fashion on the floor. Over in the corner stood his own ’cello, the bow hanging from one peg, the late afternoon sunlight making dark ruddy shadows on the curves of its fine old form. Everything in the room was perfectly at peace, yet everything stood potentially for something going on — his father’s reading-lamp, his own briefcase, the basket of winter apples on the table, his sister’s violin. Family life looked very harmonious, he thought grimly, if you were n’t on the inside. Peculiar how such a lovely stage-set could have been the scene for such an impossible slap-stick comedy, and for such a melodramatic thunderstorm of rage. The composition of that room expressed ideals; yet it was the scene of inelegant blunders, of ill-timed comings and goings, of skirmishes and crosspurposes and wrath.

Twilight and silence are weavers of strange spells. The most turbulent family life remembered in quieter years is full of unsuspected dignity and truth. Even reduced to its lowest terms, it was the period when, for a while, we were under close inspection of bright observing eyes; when our doings meant much to several active brains; when we heard and uttered fine unvarnished Truths; and where we knew one little group of lively fellow beings really fairly well. Irrelevant things from those days are never quite forgotten — not even the curiosity, the criticisms, and our sins against the Law. We would hardly forget them even if we could, for they contained a vital spark — a spark, indeed, so vital that it was in its day a never-failing kindler of Fire in the Eye.