One evening Christine decided to make apple fritters. Not that she so
little understood Paul as to imagine that fritters, even if made with
apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, would move him to tenderness,
or that she was so stupid and so gross as to think any sort of cooking a
solution for spiritual problems; but he liked the things, and she liked
to please him, even in the smallest way.
When he came home, she met him at the door, with the smile and the
casual air she knew best suited him. She didn’t ask him to hurry with
his interminable routine of washing and changing his clothes, because it
did not agree with him to hurry, and he could not, even when he tried.
Instead, she wisely made due allowance for that time, and when at last
she heard him coming down the stairs, she dropped the first spoonful of
batter into the frying pan--
Paul heard her scream, and flew to her, but she had already flung a box
of salt into the blazing fat, and she turned toward him, smiling again;
only it was a distorted and piteous smile.
“What’s the matter?” he cried. “What happened, Christy, darling?”
“Nothing,” she answered, struggling with an anguish nearly intolerable.
“The fat blazed up, and I burned myself a little--that’s all.”
“Let me see!” he demanded.
She held out her pretty arm, cruelly scalded. Paul was beside himself.
He telephoned for the doctor and then set to work to assuage her pain,
with the best intentions in the world, but without much skill. He
spilled a great deal of linseed oil on Christine’s frock and on the rug,
he put a frightfully thick and clumsy bandage about her arm, and he got
cologne into her eyes, while trying to relieve a headache which did not
exist.
All the doctors in the world could not have done Christine so much good.
She lay on the sofa, and Paul sat beside her, looking into her face with
miserable anxiety; and so great was her delight in his awkward
tenderness, his terrible concern, that it needed no effort to smile.
“Don’t worry so, Paul, dear,” she entreated.
“I can’t help it, my dearest girl. If we love each other, and share our
work and our play, we can’t help sharing each other’s pain. And you
know, don’t you, little Christy--”
She could have wept when the telephone rang, because she wanted so
dreadfully to hear the rest of that last sentence. She watched Paul
cross the room and take down the receiver. Then he turned and dashed
toward the hall.
“Miss Banks’s house is on fire!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll
leave the door unlatched for the doctor!”
Off he went. Christine sat up.
“You beast!” she sobbed. “You horrid little beast! You’ve spoiled
everything! You did it on purpose--I know you did!”
This was manifestly unjust. Miss Banks might have been capable of
burning down a house to attract attention, but she couldn’t have known
just the right moment in which to do it. She might have been glad enough
to interrupt Paul’s speech, but she couldn’t have managed it so well
unless chance had favored her.
Christine, suffering as she was, may well be excused for being
unreasonable. Perhaps it would be kinder not to tell you all the things
she thought about Miss Banks.
The village fire apparatus went tearing down the road with a noble
uproar. Surely that should have released Paul, but still he didn’t come,
or the doctor, either, and Christine began to grow alarmed.
“He’ll be hurt!” she thought. “She’ll urge him to do all sorts of
dangerous things! He’ll be killed! He’ll be killed, showing off!”
In another instant, regardless of the pain that made her sick and faint,
Christine would have run out of the house and down the road, if she
hadn’t heard Paul’s voice outside.
“Now, then!” he was saying. “Only a step more! That’s a brave girl!”
Christine threw open the front door, and there he was, supporting a
partially collapsed Miss Banks up the steps. Christine forgot all her
resentment at the sight of that limp, helpless figure. She forgot her
own bandaged arm, forgot everything except the honest sympathy and
kindness that made her what she was.
“Oh, you poor child!” she cried. “Is she badly hurt, Paul?”
Paul half carried Miss Banks in, and she dropped face downward on the
sofa--a pitiful little figure, with her bright, disheveled hair and her
slender body.
“The house,” he said solemnly, “is burned to ashes!”
“But Miss Banks--is she badly hurt?”
“She’s not exactly hurt,” said he, still solemn. “It’s more a nervous
shock, I think.”
All sorts of curious things took place in Christine’s mind, but she said
not a word. She watched Paul ministering to the nervously shocked one.
She watched Miss Banks growing a little better, so that she was able to
sob forth a catalogue of the marvelous things she had lost; but never a
word did Christine say--not even when Paul sat down on a near-by chair,
and wrote lists for the insurance company, dictated by Miss Banks with
many sobs.
Suddenly she started up.
“Oh! My photograph of Deccabroni!”
“What’s Deccabroni?” inquired Paul.
“He’s a wonderful patriot--from one of those wonderful, brave little
countries--I forgot which. It’s a signed photograph. Oh, I can’t bear to
lose it! Not _that_! Anything but Deccabroni!”
She became hysterical about the lost Deccabroni. When the doctor came,
she was in an alarming condition, and was making quite a disturbance.
Taking it for granted that this was the patient, and with only a bow for
the silent Christine, the doctor advanced to the sofa, and calmly and
competently set about tranquillizing her.
He showed little enthusiasm for the task, and perhaps Miss Banks noticed
this, for quite suddenly she became tranquil, and explained that the
cause of her agitation was the loss of an invaluable photograph. She
even began to relate some of the exploits of Deccabroni, in so
interesting a way that the doctor sat down to listen more comfortably.
He might have sat there for a long time, if Christine had not fainted.
V
Paul had not needed the doctor’s blunt words to awaken his violent
remorse. He walked up and down the sitting room for the better part of
the night, hating himself, blaming himself beyond all measure or reason.
He had neglected his own Christine, forgotten her suffering, in his
shameful preoccupation with Miss Banks and Deccabroni. He wasn’t fit to
live!
As is often the way with human beings, he wanted very much to blame Miss
Banks for everything; but he was, after all, a just and logical young
man, and he refused to do that.
After Christine’s arm had been dressed, and she had gone to bed, he had
politely conducted Miss Banks to the door of the guest room. At
intervals she had called down the stairs for towels, for cigarettes, for
matches, for a glass of milk, for a book to read, and for the exact
time. He had responded politely to each summons; but never in his life
had he felt less chivalrous.
Toward morning he lay down on the sofa and dropped asleep. It was late
when he awoke, with stiff limbs, heavy eyes, and the frowzy discomfort
that comes from having slept in one’s clothes. He ran up to see
Christine, but she was sleeping.
His next idea was to take a warm bath; but Miss Banks had forestalled
him. She required one hour and four minutes, and she took every drop of
hot water.
When he came downstairs, she was waiting impatiently.
“Oh, do make some coffee!” she cried. “I’m worn out!”
“I don’t know how to make coffee,” he told her.
“You can try,” said she.
“So can you,” he retorted.
Christine had got up, and was just then at the head of the stairs,
prepared to make coffee; but when she heard this dialogue, she stopped
where she was, and listened.
“Not in my line,” said Miss Banks. “I’m not domestic.”
“It’s got nothing to do with being domestic,” said Paul. “You might
simply be fair. You don’t understand the rudiments of fair play. You
want--”
“I want a cup of coffee, and I’m going to have it!” said she. “Fair play
doesn’t interest me. Women aren’t expected to play fair.”
“On the contrary,” said Paul, “a man has no respect for the type of
woman that--”
And so on, about sharing work and play and being comrades. Christine
listened with great delight. So severely eloquent was Paul, so
reasonable did his arguments seem, that she expected Miss Banks to be
abashed. But--in the end, Paul made the coffee.
Christine went quietly back into her room, with an odd smile on her
lips.
“Very well!” she said to herself. “I’m not too old to learn!”
* * * * *
When Paul came home that evening, the door was opened by a trained
nurse.
“Is she--worse?” he cried.
“Oh, no!” said the nurse pleasantly. “Your wife’s resting comfortably;
but she’s suffering from nervous shock, and the doctor thinks she’d
better take a good, long rest.”
He found Christine resting comfortably, to be sure, and not much
inclined to talk; so he left her, saying that he would come up again
after dinner. He went into the sitting room, where Miss Banks was
reading and eating some fudge that she had made.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Good evening,” she replied.
Paul took up a book, to read while he waited.
He waited.
The nurse was moving about upstairs, but no sounds came from the
kitchen. Still, with three women in the house, he could not credit the
monstrous suspicion that was dawning upon him.
At seven o’clock the nurse came downstairs, in hat and coat.
“Good night,” she said. “I’ll be here at seven in the morning. Just give
your wife her medicine at nine, and I think she’ll sleep all night.”
And off she went. Miss Banks continued to read and to eat her candy.
Paul saw now that there was no dinner, that there would not be any
dinner that evening.
At nine o’clock he went up to give Christine her medicine. He was as
gentle and affectionate as he knew how to be. He knew she mustn’t be
worried; yet he couldn’t help asking, in a somewhat plaintive voice:
“Did you have any supper, Christy?”
“Oh, yes,” said she. “The nurse made me some delicious soup and some
nice, crisp toast. I think you’d better see about getting a servant to
cook your meals, Paul.”
Then she closed her eyes, and he didn’t dare to disturb her repose by
asking questions.
He was not afraid of Miss Banks, however.
“Can’t you _help_ me?” he demanded. “Just tell me what to do, if you’re
too high and mighty to do anything yourself. I’m hungry. I don’t know
how to cook anything.”
“I always said you were spoiled,” said Miss Banks. “You’re a perfect
baby. You can’t even feed yourself!”
“My share is to provide the money,” Paul began, when a horrible idea
came to him.
It was one thing to provide money for the thrifty and ingenious
Christine, but a trained nurse, a servant, and doctors’ bills! He didn’t
care so much about dinner now. He ate some bread and butter, while he
did some constructive and intensive thinking.
He came home the next evening, earlier than usual, bringing with him a
cook--a masterful and unscrupulous woman who saw his deplorable plight
and intended to take the fullest advantage of it. Still, she did go to
market, and she did cook dinner; and if he paid an exorbitant price for
the privilege of eating a collection of the dishes he most disliked, he
was nevertheless grateful.
He sat down at the table with the nurse and Miss Banks, and he was in a
better humor than he had been for weeks. Christine, upstairs, heard his
cheerful voice and his laugh, and tears came into her eyes, although she
smiled.
He came up later to sit beside her, and he was so affectionate, so
genuinely concerned on her behalf, that her heart smote her.
“All this is a horribly heavy burden for you, Paul,” she said.
“See here! You’re not to worry, you know,” he said. “I can manage very
well, Christy. All you have to do is to rest. I want you to rest, my
dearest girl, and to enjoy it as much as you can.”
“But the expense!”
“I’ve arranged for that,” he said magnificently. “I’ve got some extra
work to do in the evening, and next month I’m going to a new firm, at
almost double my present salary.”
She knew he wouldn’t like her to appear surprised or too much delighted,
so she merely said:
“That’s very nice, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes--nice enough,” he replied casually; “but I shouldn’t be much of
a man if I weren’t able to get you whatever you needed.”
“And the more I need, the more you’ll get,” she reflected. “Oh, you
dear, splendid, _silly_ boy!”
She found it hard not to hug him violently.
“But isn’t Miss Banks rather a superfluous burden, when you have so much
on your shoulders?” she asked, after a long silence.
“Well, you see, Christy,” he answered seriously, “now that her little
fool house is burned down, she hasn’t anywhere to go. We can’t very well
turn her out, can we? Shell be gone in a few weeks, anyhow. She’s going
to take charge of Deccabroni’s publicity campaign, and she’ll have to
live in the city.”
“Who’s Deccabroni?” asked Christine.
“Didn’t she have a picture of him that was burned?” said Paul. “I don’t
remember who he is; but Heaven help him!”
Paul rose.
“I’ve got to get at my work now, Christy, darling,” he said. “You won’t
worry any more now, will you? You see that I can handle things fairly
well.”
Modest words, and a modest enough expression upon his face, but in his
heart the fellow was shamelessly exultant. Certainly he could handle
things, all things, and not fairly well, but wonderfully well. Wives,
cooks, trained nurses, and Miss Bankses could all be borne upon his
capable shoulders.
So full was the house of dependent females that he had no place to work
except a cold and dismal little sewing room; but what did he care? His
little world was revolving, and he was its axis. Everything depended
upon him and him alone. He put on an overcoat, lighted a cigarette, and
set to work on a pile of documents with zest and good humor. He didn’t
care any longer whether he had eight hours’ sleep or a temperature of
the correct humidity, or how much he smoked. Nor was he much interested
in post-war Beluchistan. He had a man’s work to do!
He didn’t hear Christine as she came down the hall and stood in the
doorway. He was absorbed in his work, his black hair wildly ruffled, his
overcoat collar turned up, and his feet wrapped in a quilt.
“Paul,” said she, “I’ve brought you some hot soup.”
He disentangled his feet as quickly as he could, and sprang up.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” he cried, with a frown. “You’re supposed
to be resting, Christy.”
She was ready then to tell him that she was a fraud, and her need of
rest a deception; but she valiantly resisted the impulse.
“But I like to do something for you, Paul,” she said. “I want to help
you.”
“I don’t want help,” he said proudly. “I don’t need it.”
She put down the bowl of soup on the table and threw her arms around his
neck.
“Oh, Paul!” she cried. “You’re _wonderful_!”
“Nonsense!” said he, grinning in spite of himself. “Now you run along
and rest.”
And she did. She had said that Paul was wonderful, and she knew, and he
knew, that it was true. That was what he needed.
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
MAY, 1923
Vol. LXXVIII NUMBER 4