§ 62
Peter hadn't been so excited since the time when he had waited to
meet young Lackman. He had never quite forgiven himself for this costly
failure, and now he was to have another chance. He took a trolley ride
out into the country, and walked a couple of miles to the palace on the
hilltop, and mounted thru a grove of trees and magnificent Italian
gardens. According to McGivney's injunctions, he summoned his courage,
and went to the front door of the stately mansion and rang the bell.
Peter was hot and dusty from his long walk, the sweat had made
streaks down his face and marred the pristine whiteness of his plasters.
He was never a distinguished-looking person at best, and now, holding
his damaged straw hat in his hands, he looked not so far from a hobo.
However, the French maid who came to the door was evidently accustomed
to strange-looking visitors. She didn't order Peter to the servant's
entrance, nor threaten him with the dogs; she merely said, "Be seated,
please. I will tell
madame" — putting the accent on the second syllable, where
Peter had never heard it before.
And presently here came Mrs. Godd in tier cloud of Olympian
beneficence; a large and ample lady, especially built for the role of
divinity. Peter felt suddenly awe-stricken. How had he dared come here?
Neither in the Hotel de Soto, with its many divinities, nor in the
palace of Nelse Ackerman, the king, had he felt such a sense of his own
lowliness as the sight of this calm, slow-moving great lady inspired.
She was the embodiment of opulence, she was "the real thing." Despite
the look of kindliness in her wide-open blue eyes, she impressed him
with a feeling of her overwhelming superiority. He did not know it was
his duty as a gentleman to rise from his chair when a lady entered, but
some instinct brought him to his feet and caused him to stand blinking
as she crossed to him from the opposite end of the big room.
"How do you do?" she said in a low, full voice, gazing
at him steadily out of the kind, wide-open blue eyes.
Peter stammered, "How d-dy do, M — Mrs. Godd."
In truth, Peter was almost dumb with bewilderment. Could it
really, possibly be that this grand personage was a Red? One of the
things that had most offended him about all radicals was their
noisiness, their aggressiveness; but here was a grand serenity of looks
and manner, a soft, slow voice — here was beauty, too, a skin unlined,
despite middle years, and glowing with health and a fine cleanness. Nell
Doolin had had a glowing complexion, but there was always a lot of
powder stuck on, and when you investigated closely, as Peter had done,
you discovered muddy spots in the edges of her hair and on her throat.
But Mrs. Godd's skin shone
just as the skin of a goddess would be expected to shine, and everything
about her was of a divine and compelling opulence. Peter could not have
explained just what it was that gave this last impression so
overwhelmingly. It was not that she wore many jewels, or large ones, for
Mrs. James had beaten her at that; it was not her delicate perfume, for
Nell Doolin scattered more sweetness on the air; yet somehow even poor,
ignorant Peter felt the difference — it seemed to him that none of Mrs.
Godd's costly garments had ever been worn before, that the costly rugs
on the floor had never been stepped on before, the very chair on which
he sat had never been sat on before!
Little Ada Ruth had called Mrs. Godd "the mother of
all the world;" and now suddenly she became the mother
of Peter Gudge. She had read the papers that morning,
she had received a half dozen telephone calls from horrified
and indignant Reds, and so a few words sufficed to
explain to her the meaning of Peter's bandages and plasters.
She held out to him a beautiful cool hand, and quite
without warning, tears sprang into the great blue eyes.
"Oh, you are one of those poor boys! Thank God they did not kill
you!" And she led him to a soft couch and made him lie down amid silken
pillows. Peter's dream of Mount Olympus had come literally true! It
occurred to him that if Mrs. Godd were willing to play permanently the
role of mother to Peter Gudge, he would be willing to give up his role
of anti-Red agent with its perils and its nervous strains; he would
forget duty, forget the world's strife and care; he would join the
lotus-eaters, the sippers of nectar on Mount Olympus!
She sat and talked to him in the soft, gentle voice, and
the kind blue eyes watched him, and Peter thought that never in all his
life had he encountered such heavenly emotions. To be sure, when he had
gone to see Miriam Yankovich, old Mrs. Yankovich had been just as kind,
and tears of sympathy had come into her eyes just the same. But then,
Mrs. Yankovich was nothing but a fat old Jewess, who lived in a tenement
and smelt of laundry soap and partly completed washing; her hands had
been hot and slimy, and so Peter had not been in the least grateful for
her kindness. But to encounter tender emotions in these celestial
regions, to be talked to maternally and confidentially by this wonderful
Mrs. Godd in soft white chiffons just out of a band-box
this was quite another matter!
