Not Under the Law

The kitchen door stood open wide, and the breath from the meadow blew freshly across Joyce Radway’s hot cheeks and forehead as she passed hurriedly back and forth from the kitchen stove to the diningroom table preparing the evening meal.

It had been a long, hard day and she was very tired. The tears seemed to have been scorching her eyelids since early morning, and because her spirit would not let them out they seemed to have been flowing back into her heart till its beating was almost stopped by the deluge. Somehow it had been the hardest day in all the two weeks since her aunt died; the culmination of all the hard times since Aunt Mary had been taken sick and her son Eugene Massey brought his wife and two children home to live.

To begin with, at the breakfast table Eugene had snarled at Joyce for keeping her light burning so long the night before. He told her he couldn’t afford to pay electric bills for her to sit up and read novels. This was most unjust since he knew that Joyce never had any novels to read, but that she was studying for an examination which would finish her last year of normal school work and fit her for a teacher. But then her cousin was seldom just. He took especial delight in tormenting her. Sometimes it seemed incredible that he could possibly be Aunt Mary’s son, he was so utterly unlike her in every way. But he resembled markedly the framed picture of his father Hiram Massey, which hung in the parlor, whom Joyce could but dimly remember as an uncle who never smiled at her.

She had controlled the tears then that sprang to her eyes and tried to answer in a steady voice:

“I’m sorry, Gene, I was studying, I wasn’t reading a novel. You know last night was the last chance I had to study. The examination is today. Maybe when I get a school I’ll be able to pay those electric light bills and some other things too.”

“Bosh!” said Eugene discourteously, “You’ll pay them a big lot, won’t you? That’s all poppy-cock, your trying to get a school, after a whole year out of school yourself. Much chance you’ll stand! And you may as well understand right now that I’m not going to undertake the expense of you lying around here idling and pretending to go to school for another whole year, so you better begin to make other plans.”

Joyce swallowed hard and tried to smile:

“Well,” she said pleasantly, “Wait till after the examinations. I may pass and then there won’t be any more trouble about it. The mathematics test is this morning. If I pass that I’m not in the least afraid of the rest. It is all clear sailing.”

“What’s that?” broke in Nannette’s voice sharply, “Are you expecting to go off this morning? Because if you are you’ve missed your calculation. I have an appointment with the dressmaker in town this morning and I don’t intend to miss it. She’s promised to get my new dress done by the day after tomorrow, and you’ll have to stay home and see that the children get their lunch and get back to school. Besides, it’s time the cellar was cleaned and you’d better get right at it. I thought I heard a rat down there last night.”

Joyce looked up aghast:

“But Nan! You’ve known all along I must go to the school house this morning early!”

“You needn’t ‘but-Nan’ me, young lady, you’re not in a position to say ‘must’ to any one in this house. If mother chose to let you act the independent lady that was her affair, but she’s not here now, and you’re a dependent. It’s time you realized that. I say I’m going to town this morning, and you’ll have to stay at home.”

Nannette had sailed off upstairs with the parting words and Eugene went on reading his paper as if he had not heard the altercation. For a moment Joyce contemplated an appeal to him but one glance at the forbidding eyebrows over the top of the morning paper made her change her mind. There was little hope to be had from an appeal to him. He had never liked her and she had never liked him. It dated back to the time when she caught him deceiving his mother and he dared her to tell on him. She had not told, it had not seemed a matter that made it necessary, but he hated her for knowing he was not all that his mother thought him. Besides, he was much older than she, and had a bullying nature. Her clear, young eyes annoyed him. She represented conscience in the concrete, his personal part of which he had long ago throttled. He did not like to be reminded of conscience, and too, he had always been jealous of his mother’s love for Joyce.