Cupids Understudy | Page 7

Burgundy. If Dad knew as much about
architecture as he does about wine, they'd insist on his designing all the
buildings for the next world's fair.
All through dinner Blakely wasn't quite himself--I could see it; I think
Dad saw it, too-but I knew he would tell us what was the matter as soon
as he had an opportunity. One, of the sweetest things about Blakely is
his perfect frankness. I couldn't love a man who wasn't frank with me.
That is, I suppose I could, but I should hate to; it would break my heart.
Well, after dinner, when Dad had lighted his cigar, and Blakely his
cigarette, it all came out.
"Tom!"

"Yes, my boy." (I think Dad loved to hear Blakely say Tom almost as
much as I loved to hear him say Elizabeth.)
"Tom, I've got you and Elizabeth into a deuce of an unpleasant position.
I've told you what a fine woman my mother is, and how she'd welcome
Elizabeth with open arms, and now I find I was all wrong. My mother
isn't a fine woman; she's an ancestor-worshiping, heartless, selfish snob.
I'm ashamed of her, Tom. She refuses to meet Elizabeth."
Chapter Seven
I never was so sorry for anybody in my whole life as I was for Blakely;
I would have done anything to have saved him the bitterness and
humiliation of that moment. As for Dad, he couldn't understand it at all.
That Blakely's mother should refuse to meet his Elizabeth was quite
beyond his comprehension.
"This is very strange," he said, "very strange. There must be some
mistake. Why shouldn't she meet Elizabeth?"
"There is no reason in the world," Blakely answered.
"Then why--?"
"She probably has other plans for her son, Daddy dear," I said. "And no
doubt she has heard that we're fearfully vulgar."
"Well, we ain't," said Dad in a relieved voice; "and as for those plans of
hers, I reckon she'll have to outgrow them. Buck up, my boy! One look
at Elizabeth will show her she's mistaken"
"You don't know my mother," Blakely replied; "I feel that I haven't
known her till now. It's out of the question, our staying here after what
has happened. Let's go up to Del Monte, and let's not wait four months
for the wedding. Why can't we be married this week? I'm done with my
mother and with the whole tribe of Porters; they're not my kind, and
you and Elizabeth are."

"Tom, I never felt, that I had a father till I found you. Elizabeth, girl, I
never knew what happiness was till you told me you loved me. My
mother says she would never consent to her son's marrying the
daughter of a man who has kept a livery-stable. I say that I'm done with
a family that made its money out of whisky. My mother's father was a
distiller, her grandfather was a distiller, and if there's any shame, it's
mine, for by all the standards of decency, a livery- stable is a hundred
times more respectable than a warehouse full of whisky. You made
your money honestly, but ours has been wrung out of the poor, the sick,
the ragged, the distressed. The whisky business is a rotten business,
Tom, rotten!"
"It was whisky that bought an ambassadorship for my mother's brother;
it was whisky that paid for the French count my sister married; it was
whisky that sent me to college. Whisky, whisky- always whisky!"
"I never thought twice about it before, but I've done some tall thinking
today. I'm done with the Porters, root and branch. Elizabeth and I are
going to start a little family tree, of our own, and we're not going to
root it in a whisky barrel, either. We're-- we're--"
"There, there!" said Dad. "It's all right, Blakely, boy. It ain't so bad as
you think. You ain't going to throw your mother over and your mother
ain't going to throw you over. I take it that all mothers are alike; they
love their sons. Naturally, you're sore and disappointed now, but I
reckon that mother of yours is sore and disappointed, too. As for our
going to Del Monte, I never heard of a Middleton yet that cut and ran at
a time like this, and Elizabeth and I ain't going to start any precedent."
"No, my boy, we're going to stay right here, and you're going to stay
here with us. There's lots of good times ahead for you and Elizabeth,
and in the meantime, I want you to be mighty sweet to that mother of
yours. She's the only mother you've got, boy. You don't know what it
means for us old folks to be disappointed in our children. Now, don't
disappoint me, lad. You be nice to