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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.