THE WITCH
The perils and pitfalls appeared. But they were not seen for what they
were. As a guide David left something to be desired.
Very carefully the lovers had planned the disbursement of their income:
so much for rent, so much for the household and "extras," so much for
David's down-town expenses. A limited amount was set for the
furnishing of their home-to-be. With many declarations that love made
up for all lacks and with many tiltings of Shirley's pretty chin, they
had vowed to adhere rigidly to this budget.
But the choice of the abode of so much love and happiness had been put
off until after the brief honeymoon, that Shirley might share the fun
of house-hunting. They thought it would be fun.
It was not.
That week, as they inspected an indefinite number of apartments of as
many degrees of shabbiness and general undesirableness, Shirley's
spirits and chin fell steadily. David's heart, seeing, fell with them.
"Discouraged?" he asked at the end of the last day's hunt.
She nodded wearily. "Landlords are pigs. They want so much for so
little. Are you sure there's nothing else we can look at?"
"I'm afraid not. I've gone through the lists thoroughly."
"I wouldn't mind being _shabby_, if it weren't for the neighborhoods."
She was tired. Her lip quivered. His heart misgave him. He tried to
be gay.
"Oh, let's forget it for a while. Let's go out to the club and play
nine holes and then have a little twosome at dinner out there."
They went. Low spirits rose on the scented May breeze. The dinner was
a success. Afterward they met friends, who were regaled with a
humorous account of the week's adventures.
The friends, of course, made suggestions. One in particular knew "the
very thing you want, and really absurdly cheap." She was enthusiastic
in description. Then the rental was named--fifteen dollars a month
more than the budget allowed. David made a great show of taking the
address and promised to inspect the "find" on the morrow.
"Let's really see it," Shirley suggested, as they rode home on the
front seat of a trolley-car.
"We'd better not," said David, clinging desperately to a dwindling
remnant of caution.
"Not to take it, of course. Only to remind us that there _are_ pretty
places in the world--waiting for us later on." She snuggled closer to
him.
In the morning, of course, they saw the apartment. And it was almost
uncanny, Shirley declared, how exactly it matched what she had had in
mind. She proceeded to place in fancy David's chairs and desk and
lamps, the dining-room furniture that was to be Maizie's wedding gift
and the mahogany bedroom suite the Jim Blaisdells had given them. She
went into ecstasies over the china closet, the dainty bathroom, the
clean convenient kitchen.
"David, can't you _see_ it? With a few small rugs and plain
inexpensive curtains and the pictures we have it would be a gem. We'd
never feel shabby here. And with the hardwood floors and tiled bath
and that kitchen the housework would be so easy." She sighed
rapturously.
"We'd better get away. My mouth is beginning to water. I'm sorry,
dear." He kissed her to prove it. "But we oughtn't even to consider
it."
But at the door she stopped and looked back--a risky business, as Lot's
wife once proved. She surveyed the place with a lingering wishful
glance.
"I wonder if we couldn't make up the difference in rent by cutting down
somewhere else. We could cut the extras in half. And I won't need any
new clothes for a whole year--not a single stitch. By that time--"
She paused, as it seemed for a reply.
"Do you want it so much, Shirley?"
"Oh, if we only could do it, David!"
David, too, did sums in subtraction and found that, with care, he could
cut his expenses down-town.
They took the apartment.
In fact, there came a time when David remembered, with a sickening
qualm, that in almost every item they had stepped little or far beyond
the limits of their budget. They did it because the disappointment
written on Shirley's pretty face when something on which she had set
her heart seemed beyond their reach, was more than he could bear.
But the old cat was still playing. It was a "boom year": the
beginning, said the wise statesmen and newspapers, of an era of
unprecedented prosperity. The city was growing rapidly. Architects'
services were in demand. David's business continued good. Among his
clients was a gambling contractor who shaved his architects' fees but
made up for that by the largeness of his operations. There seemed to
be no need of cutting down "extras." They were not cut down.
It was on the whole a cloudless year. There were, to be sure, a few
little quarrels, impatient words sharply answered, but there was also
the exquisite joy of harmony restored. There were occasions when David
found Shirley in tears, both cake or roast and fingers burned;
occasions which he made festive by carrying her off to the club for
dinner. There were evenings at the theater and concerts, gifts
impulsively bought and rewarded with kisses, little household purchases
that gave a pleasure out of all proportion to their cost, as it seemed
at the time. But there were never any doubts, nor any fears. For all
their demands there was money. The handicap of debt under which they
had started was even a little diminished. As for rainy days--but why
should happy young love take thought of them?
On their first anniversary they gave a dinner in the apartment, twelve
covers with flowers and all the wedding silver on display and a
caterer's man to serve. Shirley, in a new gown, was at her loveliest,
beaming with the happiness of hospitality prettily dispensed. When the
last guest was gone, they turned out all the lights but one shaded
lamp, she found a seat on his knee, snuggled close to him, and they
fell into a long silence.
After a while she stirred. "It's been a wonderful year, hasn't it?"
"You express the sense of the meeting, dear."
"Being poor isn't so bad, after all, is it?"
"Not bad at all, I find." He took up the catechism. "You haven't once
regretted that Sam Hardy chap, have you? With all his money--let's
see, was it millions or billions?"
"Hush!" She laid a hand over his lips. "Not even in fun. That's
almost profane."
There was another silence, broken at length by a contented chuckle from
David.
"Am I doing anything specially ridiculous?" she murmured sleepily from
his shoulder.
"I was just remembering. A year ago tonight I was frightened almost
into a faint. I thought living together might turn out to be _hard_."
"And _we_ know that is perfectly absurd."
You must excuse them. If they had been lovers out of a book, they
would have talked in dithyrambs or long perfervid paragraphs. Since
they were real, they could bear witness to their happiness only by
spooning and being a little bit silly. But--it was part of their
happiness--they did not know they were silly.
The beginning of the second year was like unto the first. But the
witch was biding her time. Toward the end of that year the sky
darkened and the winds howled roughly around the house of love.
Sometimes the designer of this pretty abode--if he was the
designer--bethought him to look to its foundations. But they seemed
strong and safe.
In the first place, there was a sudden falling-off of new business. It
was so with others than David. Only a temporary slump, said the wise
statesmen and newspapers, due to trivial causes and not long to
interrupt the era of prosperity. Jim Blaisdell shook his head and
advised his friends to prepare for heavy weather. The reception of his
counsel made him growl, "Asses!"--a sweeping epithet that included
David, who was not so deeply troubled as he should have been.
Unfinished commissions kept him reasonably busy, and when they were
concluded others would come to meet his needs. They always had;
therefore, they always would. David was content with this logic.
In the second place, a baby was coming. And many and elaborate were
the preparations for this momentous event. Countless stitches must be
taken, a serious number of dollars spent, that the prettiest layette
possible might await the coming mite. But Shirley, in one of her soft
house dresses, head bent over her dainty stitching or laying out before
him for the hundredth time the tiny articles she had collected or her
friends donated, made too pretty a picture; he had not the heart to
ruffle it with discussions of economy. And when, her time drawing
near, she complained of the work in the flat, a maid was installed. He
was glad summer was coming; his overcoat was getting shabby and he felt
he could not afford a new one.
For despite his optimism David was beginning to take thought of the
morrow. And this leads to our tertium.
Sometimes he had moments of restiveness, so vague and fleeting that he
could not define them, under what he did not know. There were times
when little criticisms of Shirley would pop maliciously into his mind,
never worded, hastily banished and always followed by a reaction of
shame that he should have become critical even in thought at such a
time. To correct this disquieting tendency he took medicine for his
liver.
And growing upon him was his joy in his work: not the old boyish
enthusiasm at the thought of ultimate recognition, nor yet the later
gratification that he was earning money against their needs, but a
deep-seated content merely to be in it, an almost personal affection
for the sketches which, after a lapse, had once more begun to multiply.
Gently overruling Shirley's protests, he had taken to sitting up late
of nights after she had retired. Then in the pregnant silence of
midnight he would sit before his easel, smoking furiously and
occasionally making a light swift stroke, until the clock struck one or
two or even three. Many nights would pass thus, and there on the easel
would stand a restful little chapel or a noble cathedral, with separate
sketches for details such as doors or rood screen or altar, the very
presentment of which, if only in black-and-white, filled him with a
solemn worshipful glow. He did not hug himself or say that "they"
would have to come to him yet, but would pat the sketch lingeringly,
thinking, "I'd like to see you _real_."
The next evening he would show the completed sketch to Shirley, who
would give it a cursory glance and say:
"It's very pretty. I wish some one would let you build it. It would
be a big commission, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," he would answer, with a slight sinking of his heart. For some
reason he would tuck the sketch away in the big portfolio and hastily
change the subject.
One evening the house shook in the wind. It was after dinner and David
was opening a new book he had brought home, a bulky volume bearing the
formidable title, _Ecclesiastical Architecture Since the Renaissance_.
Shirley found a seat as close as possible to him and began.
"David, I have a confession to make." A smile proclaimed her assurance
of absolution.
"Yes," he smiled back.
"I broke a rule. I--had something charged."
"Oh, Shirley, when we--"
"But wait until you see what it is. Then scold me if you can."
She led him into another room where on a bed reposed a hooded wicker
basket, lined and covered in silk--blue for a boy--with fine lace
trimmings. She awaited his verdict.
"It's very pretty. But-- How much was it?"
She named the price.
He whistled. "Wouldn't something cheaper have done as well?"
"David, you ought to be ashamed of yourself." Her indignation was
three-fourths in earnest. "_I'd_ be ashamed not to get Davy Junior the
very best of everything. It's the duty of parents to get their
children the very best of everything."
"The best they can afford, yes. But-- However, it's here and the only
thing to do is to pay for it. I'll send a check in the morning."
He returned to the living-room. Shirley followed. He stood for a long
minute by the table, looking down at the new book. Then he restored it
to its wrappings.
"What are you doing?"
"I think I'll not keep it, after all."
"What is it?"
"A book I wanted for some cathedral sketches I'm making."
She studied his face intently.
"David Quentin, do you mean to say you begrudge things for Davy Junior,
when you can buy expensive books for plans nobody will ever want?"
A retort sprang to his lips--that professional knowledge is always an
asset. But the words did not fall. Nor did it seem worth while to
tell her that for three weeks he had had his lunches over a dairy
counter to save money for the book. Instead he mustered a smile.
"As you see, we're keeping the bassinet and the book goes back."
She saw only the smile. "Why, we almost had a tiff, didn't we. Brrr!"
She pretended to shiver. "And you know we mustn't have them, because
they'd have a bad effect on Davy Junior."
So that squall passed, and they talked of Davy Junior. And Davy
Junior--they were sure it was to be a boy--was already a personage in
that household, a hope and a love in which both shared.
But long after Shirley had gone to bed David sat thinking of the
episode. One of the little criticisms, quite definite now, lingered: a
suspicion that Shirley's words were not always pearls of wisdom, that
her attitude was a little too possessive, her demands upon his time and
thought and scanty store of money a trifle less than reasonable
sometimes. Sternly he crushed the suspicion back.
"It must be that I'm settling down. The novelty's wearing off. And I
suppose, having no one but myself to think of for so long, I did get to
be pretty selfish. I must be very careful." But somehow the argument
did not quite convince. "I wish-- Maybe when the baby comes Shirley
will take things a little more"--he halted before the word so
disloyal--"sensibly." . . .
Davy Junior and the panic came at the same time.
And with them came Worry.
The wise statesmen and newspapers offered many explanations of the
panic. But explanations could not soften the grim fact. Ruin stalked
through the land, and its ghostly twin, Fear. Men who had been
accounted rich, men who had been rich, heard the approach of the
fearsome twain and trembled. And what shall be said of their
dependents, the small fry, earners of salaries, young men of the
professions, who saw incomes curtailed or cut off; to whom frank
poverty would have been almost a relief but who must, as habit and the
custom, of their kind decreed, keep up their sham and shabby gentility?
Business was at a standstill. The city ceased to expand. There was no
building. Dick Holden closed his desk and locked his office door.
"There'll be nothing doing in our line for some while. I'm going to
Europe for two or three months to learn something about architecture.
Better pack up your family and come along, Davy."
David laughed grimly. "My Dickybird, you're quite a joker."
Trips to Europe!--when the apartment was a miniature hospital. Davy
Junior was sickly. Shirley's strength came back slowly. For six weeks
the trained nurse stayed, ordering expensive things for her patients.
Anxiously David saw his scanty resources dwindling fast. One by one
his old commissions were paid and disappeared down the hopper of
household expenses. He took to thinking of what would happen when the
commissions were all paid, and to haunting Fisher's office. Fisher was
his contractor client and owed him five hundred dollars. But Fisher
always put him off.
In the meantime the dairy lunch became a habit. He smoked only a pipe
now. The books he loved and needed, little things he used to think
were necessaries, were foregone. He thought wistfully of the
indulgences he might have gone without in the past.
Fisher continued to put him off. Then Worry began to shadow David by
day, to share his pillow at night. If Fisher, like so many others,
should fail--! But with an effort he concealed the unbidden guest from
Shirley. With her he was always cheery, ready with quip and laugh,
teasing her over her devotion to that red-faced bit of humanity, hight
Davy Junior. And in truth, the sight of her, still weak and fragile
but happy in the possession of her baby, would give him a fresh
courage. Things _couldn't_ happen to hurt her, he assured himself.
For her, for them; he would weather the storm--somehow. "Why," thus he
would snub intrusive Worry, "we've got Fisher, anyhow. When he pays,
we'll simply _make_ it last until business picks up." . . . .
The doctor's bill and word that Fisher had gone into bankruptcy reached
him by the same mail. Dazed and trembling, he got out his bank-book
and tried to strike a balance; the figures danced crazily before him.
But too well he knew that slender sum! He could see barely a month
ahead.
He walked home that evening, to get a new grip on his courage. He
found Shirley almost breathless with excitement.
She waved a letter before him. "You can have two guesses to what's in
it."
But David was unequal even to one guess just then.
"It's from Aunt Clara. She wants me to take the baby out there for two
or three weeks. You don't mind, do you, David?"
"Do you want to go so much?"
"I'm just crazy to have them see Davy Junior. And I haven't seen
Maizie and auntie and the rest of them for so long. And I think the
change will do me good. I get tired so easily, you know."
This last was a convincing argument and quite true. "I know. But I'm
afraid, dear, we can't afford it."
"Is business so bad?"
"It's pretty slow---and getting no better."
"Hasn't that Fisher man paid up yet?"
He hesitated. But he could not find the heart--perhaps it was courage
he lacked--to break his evil tidings to her.
"Not yet."
"I'd like to shake him. But he must pay soon. And anyhow," she
reverted to the original topic, "it wouldn't cost so much. There'd be
only railroad fare and in two weeks--or maybe three--we'd save that in
house expenses. We could let the maid go, you know."
He caught at that straw. "And maybe, when you come back, you'll be
strong enough to get along without her--for a while?"
"Maybe." Her tone lacked assurance. "We'll try it, anyhow."
Two mornings later David stood on a platform and watched a train pull
slowly out of the shed. Then he gulped twice, sternly set his teeth
together and walked swiftly to his office.
Shirley and the baby stayed, not two weeks nor three, but five. There
were other expenses than railroad fare, just what her letters did not
set out in detail. Twice she had to write to David for money; in the
midst of riches she found it hard to economize. Still David, by taking
his meals at a cheap boarding-house, managed to save a little.
In other ways the trip was a great success. Shirley's letters were
glowing. She was getting stronger every day. She could lie
deliciously in bed all morning, if she chose. Aunt Clara had a nurse
for the baby. The weather was fine and there was motoring daily. All
her old friends came to see her with warm words of welcome on their
lips. Among them was Sam Hardy.
"He is very nice. (But you mustn't think _anything_ of that. Every
man I see makes me glad I married my David.) He has a gorgeous new
machine and takes us all out. He gets his clothes made in New York
now. Such good times as we're having!" And down in one corner of the
last page was, "If only you were here!"
"P. S.," popped into his mind. But very sternly he drove it out,
calling himself hard names. Ought he not be glad that Shirley was
having a good time?
"I _am_ glad. Poor dear! It's going to be very hard for her if things
don't get better soon. You see," he explained to himself, "in some
things Shirley hasn't quite grown up yet, just as Maizie said, and good
times mean so much to her."
He sat down and wrote her the cheeriest letter he could compose.
He himself felt old enough to interest an antiquarian. Before Shirley
came back he felt older, with nothing to do but sit idly in his office,
figuring his bank balance for the thousandth time or working over some
of his old sketches, jumping nervously every time the door opened.
(But the visitor always turned out to be some one who wanted to sigh
and groan in company over the hard times.) Of evenings in the
apartment, which grew dustier and lonelier every day, he would write
his letter to Shirley, mail it and then get out his easel. Frowning
with determination, he would put and keep his mind firmly on a new idea
for a Norman Gothic cathedral, until, about midnight, worry and
loneliness would steal away and leave him with the swiftly growing
sketch.
Shirley's visit ended at last. David was pacing up and down the
platform a full hour before her train was due. In the street-car that
evening people smiled kindly at the pretty little family group--the
gravely smiling young man who held the baby so awkwardly, the pretty
wife bubbling over with joy in the reunion and with accounts of the
good times she had been having.
Afterward, when Davy Junior had had his bottle and closed his eyes,
Shirley dusted off one chair and they sat down in it.
"Now tell me about yourself and business and everything."
So, finding it harder than he had thought it could be, he told her of
the panic and what it meant to them. She listened with a pretty air of
taking it all in and making ready to meet the situation.
When his account was ended, she pushed herself back to look into his
eyes.
"David, when did you know about that Fisher man?"
"The day you got your aunt's letter." David flushed as though he had
done something shameful.
Her eyes filled with tears. "And you kept it from me so my visit
wouldn't be spoiled, and stayed here worrying by yourself while I was
out there having a good time. Oh, David-- Oh, David! Well," she got
to her feet and stood upright before him, "I'll tell you this much.
Let the old panic come on--I'm not afraid. We'll make out somehow.
And we won't worry either. What if we do have to give up things? We
have each other--and Davy Junior--and nothing else counts."
They repeated in chorus. "We have each other and Davy Junior and
nothing else counts."
They were very happy just then and so it was easy to be brave.