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Little Stories of Married Life
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“I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: “He kissed the laughing children as they clung to him”
“THE HAPPIEST TIME,” Page 114]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Little Stories of
Married Life
By
Mary Stewart Cutting
[Illustration: Decoration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1920
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright, 1902, by
Doubleday, Page & Co.
Copyright, 1896, by
S. S. McClure Co.
Copyright, 1899, by
S. S. McClure Co.
Copyright, 1902, by
S. S. McClure Co.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
Their Second Marriage 1
A Good Dinner 23
The Strength of Ten 45
In the Reign of Quintilia 73
The Happiest Time 93
In the Married Quarters 115
Mrs. Atwood’s Outer 139
Raiment
Fairy Gold 159
A Matrimonial Episode 181
Not a Sad Story 199
Wings 225
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Their Second Marriage
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their Second Marriage
“HENRY, do you know what day Thursday will be?”
“Thursday? The twenty-first.”
“Yes, and what will the twenty-first be?”
“Thursday.”
“Oh, Henry!” Pretty Mrs. Waring looked tragically across the
breakfast-table at her husband, or rather at the newspaper that screened
him completely from her view. “Do put down that paper for a moment. I
never get a chance to speak to you any more in the morning, and I have
to spend the whole day alone. Do you really mean to say that you don’t
know what the twenty-first is?”
“The twenty-first?” Mr. Waring met his wife’s gaze blankly as he
hurriedly swallowed his coffee, and then furtively observed the hands of
the watch that lay open on the table before him. “What do you mean,
Doll? Say it quickly, for I’ve got to go.”
“Henry, have you forgotten that it is the anniversary of our wedding?”
“Oh—oh!” said Mr. Waring, a light dawning on him, and a suspicious note
of relief perceptible in his voice. He rose from his chair as he spoke.
“Forgotten that? Why, of course not; the day I was married to the
sweetest girl in the world! How lovely you did look, to be sure, and
what a lucky fellow I was to get you! _Can_ you just help me on with my
overcoat, dear? The lining of this sleeve—Yes, I know you haven’t had
time to mend it yet. Now, Doll, I would _like_ to stand here and kiss
you all day, but the train is whistling across the bridge. By, by, dear;
take good care of yourself and the babies!”
His wife watched him fondly as he walked down the path to the gate,
strong, alert, and masculine, and waved her hand as he looked back and
took off his hat to her with a smile before joining another man hurrying
for the train. She could see him almost visibly shut out the little
cottage from his mind as he turned away from it, and set his shoulders
squarely, as if to brace himself for entering the strenuous whirl of
business life that makes up the larger, waking half of a man’s life, and
in which wife and children have but a sub-existence. But this morning
Mrs. Waring did not feel the chill depression that sometimes stole over
her as she saw him disappear; her mind was too occupied with his words,
which, few and perfunctory as they might sound to the uninitiated,
carried deepest meaning to her ears. Her ardent mind conjured up the
picture of the girl in bridal attire who had stood beside her lover on
their marriage-day, and credited him with the same wealth of imagining
and all the tender sentiment connected with it. She fell into a
delightful dream of the romantic past, from which she was only aroused
by the patter of little feet above and the reminder that she was needed
in the nursery.
Mrs. Waring had, unknown to her husband, set her mind for some months
past on a celebration of her wedding anniversary, the observance of
which had lapsed, for one reason or another, for a couple of years; but
she had said to herself firmly that Henry must propose it, and not leave
it all to her. If she had to plan it out as she had their moving into
the country, or their trip to the seashore last summer, or the Christmas
party for the babies—nay, if she even had to suggest it to him, it would
be valueless to her. If he did not love her enough, if he did not have
her happiness enough at heart to think of pleasing her without being
reminded of it—why, she would have no celebration. It was entirely
against her resolution that she had spoken of it this morning, but she
knew in her soul that he never would remember if she did not, and she
could only think that, the date once recalled, the rest must follow.
She herself thought of nothing else all day. She told little Henry all
about mamma’s pretty wedding “once upon a time,” when mamma wore a
beautiful white dress with a long white veil, and walked up the aisle in
church when the organ played, and the chancel was full of roses and
palms; and although the child only asked innocently if there were any
bears or lions there, her small nurse-maid, Beesy, was deeply though
respectfully interested, and Mrs. Waring could not help being secretly
conscious that, while apparently engaged with her infant audience, she
was in reality playing to the gallery. She even got out her wedding
jewels to hang around baby Marjorie’s neck, to provoke Beesy’s
awestricken admiration.
It would have taken close study of the influences of the past year to
determine why this particular wedding anniversary should have assumed
such prominence in young Mrs. Waring’s mind. Both she and her husband
had been surprised to find that, in face of all preconceived opinions,
they had not settled down into the cool, platonic friendship held up to
them as the ultimate good of all wedded pairs, but were still honestly
and sincerely in love with each other. Yet, in spite of this fact, there
had lately been a certain strain. After all the first things are
over—the first year, which is seldom the crucial one in spite of its
conventional aspect in that light; after the first boy, and the first
girl, and the first venture at housekeeping in the suburbs—there comes a
long course of secondary living that tugs with its chain at character
and sometimes pulls it sharply from its stanchions.
Mrs. Waring greeted her husband that night with a countenance of soulful
meaning, and eyes that were uplifted to his in a fervid solemnity that
ought to have warned any man of peril ahead. She had a delightful
sensation that their most commonplace utterances were fraught with
repressed feeling, and when he finally said to her, after dinner, as
they sat by the little wood fire together, “I’ve a surprise for you,
Doll,” her heart gave a joyous bound, and she felt how truly he had
justified her thought of him.
“What is it, Henry?”
“Mother and Aunt Eliza and Mary Appleton and Nan are coming here to
lunch day after to-morrow—Thursday. Of course I said you’d be delighted.
It’s all right, isn’t it?”
“Coming on _Thursday_!”
“Yes. That isn’t a washing day or a cleaning day, is it?”
“No.”
Mr. Waring looked confounded.
“You’ve spoken so many times of their not coming out in the whole year
we’ve lived here, I thought you’d be glad, Doll.”
“Henry, why do you never call me Ethel any more? You used to say it was
the most beautiful name in the world, and now you seem to forget that I
have any name. Oh, if you knew how _sick_ I get of always being called
_Doll_! Such a horrid, common-sounding thing!”
“Why, Doll—”
“There it is again!”
“Ethel, my dear girl, don’t cry. If I had had the dimmest idea—I seem
always fated to do the wrong thing lately. Why can’t you tell me
sometimes what you’re driving at? If you don’t want my mother and the
girls, just say so. I can send them word to-morrow, and—”
“If you _do_!” Mrs. Waring stood up tragically with one hand on her
husband’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have such a thing happen for worlds.”
She gave a little gasp of horror at the thought. “But, oh, Henry, you
nearly kill me sometimes! No, if you don’t know why this time, I shall
not tell you again.” She leaned her head against her husband as if
exhausted, and submitted to be drawn down beside him once more. “You
never think of me any more.”
“But I do think of you, sweetheart.” He patted her head persuasively.
“Lots of times, when you don’t know it. If you’d only tell me what you
want, dear. I’m such a bad guesser. And I know you really do wish to see
my mother and show her the children.”
“It’s the fourth time she has sent word that she was coming,” said his
wife pensively. She was already forecasting the plan of action to be
pursued in making ready for the expected guests.
When you are a young housekeeper with infants and only a nurse-maid
besides the cook, a day’s company means the revolutionizing of the
entire domestic machinery. In the city people carelessly come and go,
and the household of the entertainer is put to no special preparation
for them, but it is an unwritten law in the country that before the
advent of the seldom guest “to spend the day” the entire domicile must
be swept and garnished from top to bottom.
As Ethel Waring rubbed and polished and dusted she could but remember
that she had gone through the process of cleaning three times before for
Henry’s mother, who had always hitherto disappointed her. She prided
herself on being really fond of her mother-in-law, and his sister Nan
had been her particular friend, but Aunt Eliza and Mary Appleton were
the kind of people—well, the kind of people that belonged to her
husband’s family, and they always _saw_ everything around the house. She
cleaned now for the fourth time magnanimously. Since she had moved into
the country, and went to and from the city two or three times a week, it
had seemed odd to have her friends and relatives look upon the
half-hour’s journey in train and ferry-boat as a mighty undertaking, to
be planned for weeks ahead; and although she had been in her cottage
over a year, she had not yet become used to this point of view, and
still expected people to come after they had promised to.
There was something grimly sacrificial in her preparations now that
upheld her in her disappointment; her husband could not remember _her_
pleasure, but she was working her fingers off for his people. Yes, she
had nothing to look forward to but neglect—and the worst of it was that
he would not even know that he was neglecting her.
Perhaps, however, he did remember after all. She watched every word and
gesture of his up to the very morning of their anniversary. He was so
happy and merry and affectionate in his efforts to win her to smiles
that she could hardly withstand the infectiousness of it. But she felt
after his cheerful good-by as if the tragedy of her future years had
begun.
There was, indeed, no time for the luxury of quiet wretchedness. The two
children had to be bathed and put to bed for the morning nap, which both
she and Beesy prayed might be a long one, so that the last clearing up
might be done, and the table set, and the salad-dressing made, and the
cream whipped for the jelly, and she herself dressed and in the
drawing-room before twelve o’clock.
There was the usual panic when the butcher was late with the chickens,
and the discovery was made that the green grocer had not brought what
was ordered, and the usual hurried sending forth of Beesy to the village
at the last moment for the missing lettuce, only to be told that “there
was none in town this day”—a fact that smites the suburban housekeeper
like a blow. But finally everything was ready, the table set to
perfection, the drawing-room curtains drawn at their most effective
angle, the logs burning on the andirons, the chairs set most cozily, and
the vase of jonquils with their long, green stalks showing through the
clear glass, giving a lovely brightness to the room in their hint of
approaching spring. The babies, sweet and fresh, in the whitest of
frocks, and hair curled in little damp rings, ran up and down and
prattled beside the charmingly dressed, pretty mother, who sat with her
embroidery in hand and who could not help feeling somewhat of a glow of
satisfaction through her sadness. But after Harry had peeped out from
the curtains some twenty times to see if grandmamma was coming, and
little Marjorie had fallen down and raised a large bump on her forehead,
and the one-o’clock train had come in, there was a certain change in the
situation. The cook sent up word should she put on the oysters, and Mrs.
Waring answered no, to wait until the next train, although that did not
arrive until two o’clock. She pretended that her guests had missed the
earlier train, but in her soul she felt the cold chill of certainty that
they would not come.
As she sat eating her luncheon afterward in solitary state, and wishing
that she knew any of her neighbors well enough to ask them to join her,
she received a belated telegram from her husband: “Nan says party
postponed; Aunt Eliza has headache.” She read it, and cast it from her
scornfully.
And this was her wedding-day, passed in unnecessary work, futile
preparation for people who didn’t care a scrap for her! Oh, if she had
only been going in town that afternoon, as she had dreamed of doing, to
have a little dinner with Henry at the Waldorf, or Sherry’s, or the St.
Denis even—and go to a play afterward—she didn’t care where—and have
just their own little happy foolish time over it all! She had hardly
been anywhere since little Marjorie was born.
She was surprised to have a caller in the afternoon, a Mrs. Livermore.
The visitor was a large, stout woman with very blond hair, who lived on
the opposite corner. She was dressed in a magnificently florid style,
and sat in the little drawing-room a large mass of purple cloth and fur
and gleaming jet spangles, surmounted by curving plumes, that quite
dwarfed Mrs. Waring’s slender elegance. She apologized profusely for not
having called before, as illness had prevented her doing so, and sailed
at once smoothly off into a sea of medical terms, giving such an
intimate and minute account of the many diseases that had ravaged her
that poor Mrs. Waring paled. The one bright spot in her existence seemed
to have been her husband, whom she described as the most untiring of
nurses.
“I really didn’t know whether I’d find you at home this afternoon or
not,” she said. “Your nurse-girl, Beesy, told my cook that this was the
anniversary of your wedding. Willie and I always used to go off
somewhere for a little treat, but since I’ve been such an invalid I’ve
had to stay at home. But he never forgets. What do you think, Mrs.
Waring, every Saturday since our marriage, fourteen years ago, he has
brought me home a box of flowers! He always says, ‘Here are your roses,
Baby’—that’s his pet name for me. I don’t know what I’d do if Willie
wasn’t so attentive.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Waring.
On her return to the nursery she took occasion to reprove Beesy for
gossiping. Beesy was loud in extenuation. In a cottage one is thrown in
rather close companionship with one’s nurse-maid.
“Ah, I never said but two words to Ellen; but Mrs. Livermore—there’s
nothing she doesn’t find out. And the way she and Mr. Livermore
quar’ls!”
“Why, she says he is so devoted to her,” said Mrs. Waring incautiously.
“He brings her flowers every week.” She sighed as she thought of the
husband who did not bring them once a year.
“Him! Ah, ma’am, Ellen says they fights like cat and dog, and ’twas only
a week ago a-Monday the plates was flyin’ that thick in the dinin’-room,
Ellen she dassent put her head in at the door to take away the meat.
Ellen says ’twould have curdled y’r blood to hear ’em. The neighbors
have complained of ’em in the court. He drinks terrible!”
“You must not tell me these things, Beesy,” said Mrs. Waring with
dignity. “I do not wish to hear them. Come, Marjorie, sweetest, play
pat-a-cake with mamma—this way, baby darling. Oh, Beesy, there’s the
bell again!”
This time it was a neighbor whom Mrs. Waring had met before and rather
liked, a gentle, faded, sympathetic woman who had admired the children.
Mrs. Waring confided some of the household perplexities to her, and they
talked of the village markets and compared notes on prices, gradually
reaching even more personal ground. Mrs. Waring finally divulged the
fact that this was the anniversary of her wedding, and received her
guest’s congratulations.
“I had hoped to have celebrated the day in town,” she added impulsively,
“but Mr. Waring’s business arrangements have prevented.”
“It must be a _real_ disappointment to you,” commented her visitor
feelingly. “I often think how lonely you must be, knowing so few people.
A _man_ so seldom realizes what a _woman’s_ life is! He goes off into
the busy world every morning, little thinking of all _she_ must endure
throughout the day. I often watch you look after your husband when he
has left you in the morning; you look so _longingly_, dear. I said to
Mr. Morris just the other day, ‘I _do_ wish Mr. Waring would look back
just _once_ at that _sweet_ young _wife_ of his.’ Mr. Morris always
turns at the corner and waves his hand to me; perhaps you’ve seen
him—dear fellow!”
Mrs. Waring cooled suddenly toward this too sympathetic visitor, who
soon left, but the words had left a secret sting. Her voice had a tragic
sound when she told Beesy that she would order her meat henceforth from
Einstein, as Mrs. Morris said that his prices were lower than
O’Reilly’s.
“Mrs. Morris, ma’am!” caroled Beesy. “Ah, ma’am, you wouldn’t be after
eatin’ the kind of stuff she does. It’s not a roast of beef that does be
going in at that house from one week’s end to another—nothin’ but little
weenty scraps that wouldn’t keep a dog alive. Mr. Morris, poor man, he’s
that thin and wake. Oh, ’tis she has all the money, and she keeps him
that close! Ellen says ’tis only a quart of milk goes to them for five
days, and nobbut one shovelful of coal allowed to be put on the furnace
at a time, and him with the cough that’s tearing the heart out of him!
Ellen says—”
“That will do, Beesy,” said Mrs. Waring severely. The gossip of
servants, the trivial conversation and fulsome pity of vulgar neighbors,
was this all that was left to her?
She went downstairs again, and sat in the drawing-room, inside of the
window curtains, and wept. The gathering dusk seemed to prefigure the
gloom that was to encompass her future years. If people only wouldn’t
pity her she might be able to live; the children would love her at any
rate. Six years ago how happy she was, how dear his eyes looked when he
gave her that first married kiss! She could smell even now the fragrance
of the bride roses that she had held. She heard the patter of the
children’s feet overhead, and tried to wipe away the blinding tears.
A quick footstep on the walk outside startled her, and the gate slammed
to with a loud noise. Could it be possible? Her husband was running up
the piazza steps with something white in his hand—an enormous bunch of
white roses. Another moment and he was by her side, beaming down at her.
Oh, how handsome he was!
“How soon can you get on your things, Doll? I’ve tickets for the opera
to-night—‘Romeo and Juliet’—Emma Eames and Jean de Reszke—does that suit
you?”
“Oh, _Henry_!”
“I’ve brought some flowers, and we’ll make a lark of it. I’ve ordered a
cab from the station to be here in twenty minutes, and we’ll have to
dress and get a bite, too, if we can. I wanted to come out earlier, but
I wasn’t certain about the tickets until the last moment. We’ll have a
little supper after the opera, and take the one-ten out. What do you say
to that?”
“Oh, Henry! I thought you had forgotten, I thought—” But there was no
time to talk.
Could she ever forget that delightful, bewildering, hurried twenty
minutes? She spent five of them in trimming over a hat, to the masculine
creature’s amazement, her deft fingers pulling off bows and feathers and
sticking them on again with lightning rapidity. She ate a sandwich in
the intervals of dressing and giving directions to Beesy about the
babies.
When they finally whirled off in the stuffy little cab to the railway
station they were like a couple of children in their happy abandonment
to the expected pleasure.
The opera—had they ever gone to any opera before? How inconceivably
beautiful and brilliant the house, the lights, the gay assemblage to the
erstwhile dwellers of the suburbs! Together they scanned the emblazoned
women in the boxes, and pointed out to each other those whom they
recognized. And when Gounod’s delicious music stole into their hearts,
and Mrs. Waring sat with her bride roses in one hand, and the other
tucked secretly into Henry’s, under cover of her wrap, was ever any
woman happier? Had ever any girl a lover more devoted or more bubbling
over with fun? Romeo and Juliet—what were they to a real married couple
of to-day? Then the supper afterward with the gay throng at the
Waldorf—the reckless disregard of the midnight train—could there be
dizzier heights of revelry?
It was when they stood outside on the ferry-boat coming home that Mrs.
Waring spoke at last the thought that had lain nearest her heart all the
evening. They were out alone in front, the cold night wind blew
refreshingly, the dark water plashed around them, and across its black
expanse the colored lights gleamed faintly from the New Jersey shore.
Mrs. Waring leaned a little closer to her husband as they stood there in
the night and the darkness.
“Dear,” she murmured, “I can’t tell you how lovely the evening has been;
but you know what has made it so to me, that has been making me so
_very_ happy? The opera and the supper would have been _nothing_ without
it. Darling, it’s because you thought of it all yourself.”
A sudden tension in the arm on which she leaned startled Mrs. Waring.
She bent forward to look up into her husband’s face, with a swift
suspicion.
“Henry?”
“Well, Doll.”
“_Didn’t_ you think of it, yourself?”
“Nobody could have enjoyed our little fun together more than I have, you
know that, Doll; and nobody could want to make you any happier than I
do. What’s the use of picking the whole thing to pieces now and spoiling
it all?”
“Henry Waring, you haven’t answered me. Did you remember that this was
our wedding-day, or did you not? Who was it told you to take me out
to-night?”
“If you will not tell me these things yourself, Ethel—it’s mean of you,
dear; it puts me at a disadvantage when you remember and I don’t. Heaven
knows that I oughtn’t to forget anything that would give pleasure to
you—that’s true; but I’m not mean on purpose, and you are. You know—But
don’t let’s quarrel to-night.”
“Quarrel!” Mrs. Waring lifted her head indignantly. “As if I wanted to
_quarrel_! Who was it told you, Henry?”
“Well, Ethel, if you must know, Nan was in the office to-day to say they
couldn’t come, and she—”
“Nan—your sister Nan!”
Like a flash Mrs. Waring saw it all. She knew Nan’s impetuous,
whole-souled way; but—One of Henry’s family! Life could have no further
joy for her.
She looked at him furtively as he stood beside her gazing ruefully out
across the water. _Were_ they quarreling—would they get to throwing
plates after a while? His attitude was ludicrously dejected. In spite of
herself and the tears that had been ready to well up in her eyes the
moment before, a sudden sense of the absurdity of it all came over her,
and she broke into a refreshingly unexpected peal of laughter. Her
husband stared, and then laughed, too, in delighted relief. “Ah,” she
murmured, with her cheek against his coat sleeve, “I suppose I’ll just
have to love you as you are!”
“If you only _would_, dear,” he assented humbly.
The lights on the New Jersey shore shone brighter and brighter now,
yellow and red and green, casting their reflection on the black lapping
water below. The boat was nearing the dock. All unbidden with the last
words had come a deep joy, a thrill from heart to heart, wonderful in
its illuminating power. The warm silence that followed was an instant
benediction to unrecorded vows.
The chains clanked in the dock. As they stepped across the gangplank
toward the dark, waiting lines of cars beyond, he pressed her hand in
his as he bent over her, and whispered in tender playfulness, “Shall we
take the train for Washington or Philadelphia?”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Good Dinner
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Good Dinner
“THE butcher, ma’am.”
Mrs. Chauncey Callender put down her half-eaten muffin with a gesture of
despair, as she looked at the tidy, white-capped maid before her.
“Why does he always come at breakfast time? As if it is possible to know
then what one is going to want for the day! I’m sure I can’t think of a
thing! Chauncey, you _might_ help me. I get so tired planning the meals,
and it’s very hard to order for a small family. What would you like for
dinner to-night?”
“Roast peacock,” said Mr. Callender.
“Would you like a beefsteak?” His wife patiently ignored the last
remark, which as a stock answer to a stock question had even ceased to
irritate her.
“I shouldn’t mind having it.”
“‘Shouldn’t _mind_ having it!’ I’m asking you if you want it.”
“I want anything that you do.”
“Oh, Chauncey! You’ll drive me crazy-mad some day. I wish you’d express
a preference; it would make it so much easier for me. Would you like
chicken? I know that Cadmus has poultry on Wednesday.”
Mr. Callender’s expression became suddenly tinged with melancholy.
Although he was now metropolitan in appearance, manner, and habit, his
early existence had been spent upon a farm, where the killing and
eating-up of chickens at certain periods of the year was an economic
process, compulsory upon the household. A momentary sickness and
distaste of life seemed evolved from the recollection as he answered,
“I don’t seem to care much for chicken.”
“You never do, and I am so fond of it. Well, chops then. Would you like
breaded chops?”
“We have those almost every night, don’t we?” returned Mr. Callender
briskly, under the impression that he was being agreeable. “When in
doubt, have chops. Oh, yes, I like them well enough, when they’re not
raw in the middle, like the last. But get what you want yourself,
Cynthia, it really doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“That’s so like you! Why don’t you tell me at the time when things are
wrong, instead of coming out with it like this, afterwards? Why didn’t
you say the chops were raw? Mine were all right.” She regarded him with
affectionate exasperation, her wrath tempered by a guilty consciousness
that there had been undue sameness in the meals lately. “If I were like
some wives—”
“The butcher, ma’am—he’s waiting,” interposed the maid apologetically.
“Tell him I’ll come down to the village myself and give the order,” said
Mrs. Callender with dignity. “I’ll surprise you with a really good
dinner to-night, something out of the ordinary. We’ll have a dinner
party for ourselves.”
“All right,” said Mr. Callender with amiable alacrity, feeling relieved
of all individual responsibility. “Let’s, as the children say. I’ll
bring out a bottle of wine and some flowers for you, to carry out the
idea,” he added, with a magnificent cooperation in her plans that would
have made up for all his previous shortcomings if he had not suddenly
remarked as he was going out of the door,
“By the way, we may have company to-night, but I’m not _sure_. I nearly
forgot to mention it.”
“Chauncey!”
“A couple of Englishmen, over here to interview the firm; nice fellows,
you’d like ’em. They may give us a big order if things are satisfactory,
and we treat ’em right.”
“_Chauncey!_”
But he was gone for his train. Mrs. Callender looked horrified, and then
laughed. It was a way she had. His unexpectedness was always a secret
delight to her, although she outwardly bemoaned it; it gave her a
gambler’s interest in existence, and also a pleasing sense of masculine
masterfulness. She was wont to thank Heaven that she was married to a
_man_.
At no time would Mrs. Callender have been averse to the society of two
nice men for dinner. She decided at once to expect them permanently, and
accordingly took her cookery books in for consultation with the kitchen
divinity, an elderly competent woman, newly installed, whose look of
aggrieved patience had been gained from a peripatetic experience of
young and erratic housewives.
This being swooped a pile of dish-towels off in one arm from the back of
a chair as Mrs. Callender drew it forward, swooped a cluster of dishes
from the table, and with still another swoop wiped the white oil-cloth
cover clean enough for the books to be deposited on it. She then stood,
her hands in front of her, rigidly attentive to the words of fate.
There was, however, an innate joyousness about young Mrs. Callender
which bubbled forth at all times and in all places, carrying
preconceived opinions with it. The countenance of the cook insensibly
relaxed as Mrs. Callender beamingly said,
“I’m going to have a good dinner to-night, Catherine, and I want you to
help me.”
“Yes, ma’am—for how many?”
“Only four. I’ve decided on some of the things I want. You know how to
make cream of celery soup?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And boiled salmon with white sauce—you made the last very nicely; and
cucumbers dressed with oil and vinegar—”
“You’ll have to order the oil, ma’am, as we’re just out of it.”
“Yes, I will; of course, we’ll need it for the mayonnaise also. I’ll
have tomato salad, and I wish you would make some cheese wafers to go
with it like those we had when you came last week. They were awfully
good. And I want just a few rhubarb tarts and a frozen chocolate pudding
for dessert—here’s the receipt for that—with whipped cream. And you
might make a small cake of any kind that’s easy, Catherine.”
“What kind of meat is it to be, ma’am?”
“Spring lamb,” said Mrs. Callender with all the solemnity which such a
resolution demanded. To buy real spring lamb in the suburbs in early
April puts one on a level with a moneyed aristocracy. “Spring lamb with
mint sauce and fresh peas and new potatoes, if I can get them,” she
added reverently as a saving clause. She blessed her lucky stars that it
was not a Friday, when, as every suburban dweller knows, there are only
a few wilted strands of green to be seen in the vegetable bins, and
nothing but cold round potatoes and onions and turnips are untemptingly
offered for sale.
“And oh, Catherine,” concluded Mrs. Callender, “we’ll have coffee, of
course; and I wish you’d make some of those lovely little rolls of
yours—that is, if you have time,” she generously conceded.
“I’ll put the bit of ironing I have on hand away until to-morrow,” said
Catherine with the resignation of necessity. “And you’ll make out a
list, ma’am, if you please, of the things we do be needing. I’d have to
get at the cake and the rolls this morning. There’s not a thing in the
house to-day to start on. We’ve no eggs, nor cheese, nor cream, nor
chocolate, and not enough butter, and no rock salt for the freezing, and
there’s no fruit either, if you want that.”
“Oh, yes, certainly! It’s well that you reminded me.” Mrs. Callender
beamed anew upon her help. “I’m going out to-day to luncheon, so you and
Nelly will have all the time there is. I’ll go and see about the
ordering at once as soon as I have given her directions about the table.
I want everything to look as pretty as possible. Mr. Callender is going
to bring me some lovely flowers for the center of it,” she concluded
with a little flourish.
In the little rounds of a suburban town any incident is an event. Mrs.
Callender felt that the day had become one of real importance. She let
her fancy play around the two Englishmen and her good dinner and her own
toilet until she was in a very pleasurable state of excitement. And to
be going out to luncheon besides! The latter, however, was not a real
function, but only the usual concomitant of a French reading which she
held every week with a friend—still, it was quite like having two
invitations in one day.
It happened that another friend stopped in casually that morning to see
Mrs. Callender, on her way home from marketing, and from her she gained
the pleasing knowledge that all the viands on which she had set her
reckless fancy were really to be had that day—even to the fresh peas,
whose pods might almost have contained small balls of gold, so
stupendous was the price asked for them. But when she finally went
upstairs to dress she found, to her consternation, that it was already
half-past eleven, and not a thing ordered yet!
* * * * *
Every moment now was precious. She concentrated all her attention, and
sitting down by her desk took up a sheet of blue paper and wrote down
rapidly on it a list of all her wants—one for the grocer, and one for
the butcher. Then Fortune favoring her with the sight of little Jack
Rand across the street, on his bicycle, she called him over and confided
the list to his care.
“And be sure that they both read the order carefully,” she said. “Take
it on to Cadmus when O’Reilly is through with it. You will not need to
tell them anything except that they are to send the things _at once_.”
“Yes,” said Jacky, departing with swift-revolving red legs. As she saw
the blue paper in his hands a strange reluctance seemed to hover over
her, she couldn’t tell why, as if it were somehow wrong to write lists
on blue paper. Perhaps it _was_ extravagant. There was a load off her
mind when Jack returned to affirm the faithful performance of his
errand, before she started out for the luncheon. “‘They had all the
things and they’ll send them right up, they _promised_.’” She repeated
his words with a glow of satisfaction.
There was no French after luncheon that day. Her friend had tickets for
the private view of some pictures in town and persuaded Mrs. Callender
to accompany her, under the pledge of taking an early train back. As a
matter of fact, the six o’clock bells were ringing before Mrs. Callender
had started to walk home from the station, feeling thoroughly guilty as
she thought of her long defection from the affairs of the household on
such a day, though it was quite likely that Chauncey’s friends would not
come. The blue paper returned to her mind, unpleasantly, mysteriously.
She hastened into the kitchen, to be confronted by a scene of spotless
order, a brilliant fire in the range shedding a red glow over the
hearth, and the white-aproned cook sitting in front of it with her hands
folded and a stony glare in her eyes.
“How is the dinner getting on?” asked Mrs. Callender nervously.
“There ain’t no dinner,” said the cook.
“No dinner! What do you mean, Catherine?”
“Not the sign of a thing has come this whole blessed day, ma’am; and me
a-waitin’ here with my ironin’ half done, in the middle of the week. Not
an egg nor a potato is there in the house, even.”
Mrs. Callender stopped, confounded. The shops were all closed at that
hour.
“Why, I saw Jack Rand myself, after he had given the order!” she
exclaimed, and then—she knew: like lightning her association with the
sheet of blue writing-paper was revealed to her; on the other side of it
was written the address of a newcomer who lived across the track at the
other end of the village. The marketing had gone there!
“Well, I never heard of such a thing!” she commented blankly, and, as
usual, laughed.
It was but a brief ten minutes later that her husband was presenting his
guests to her—they had come! She had been but hoping against hope that
they would not.
“Cynthia, I want to introduce Mr. Warburton and Mr. Kennard. I have
persuaded them to dine with us to-night.”
“It was awfully good of your husband to invite us,” said Mr. Warburton,
who was the elder, pleasant-faced and gray-haired, with the refined
accent and accustomed manner of a gentleman. “I hope we’ll not
inconvenience you, Mrs. Callender.”
“No, I hope we’re not inconveniencing you,” murmured the other, who
looked nineteen and was twenty-nine, who spoke from somewhere down in
his throat and blushed with every word.
“Not in the least,” said Mrs. Callender, immediately and intrepidly
rising to the occasion. She was a stanchly hospitable little soul, and
to have refused a welcome to the guests foisted on her would have been
as impossible to her at any time as to the proverbial Arab. There was an
inscrutable defiance in her eyes, however, when they met her husband’s,
which puzzled him uncomfortably.
“Mr. Nichols wished us all to dine at the Waldorf-Astoria,” he
explained—Mr. Nichols was the senior partner of the firm. “But I found,
accidentally, that these gentlemen were extremely tired of living at
hotels, and longed for a little home-like dinner, by way of variety.”
“We have been so much in your big hotels,” said Mr. Warburton
apologetically. “It makes one very dull, after a time, I think. You
can’t imagine, Mrs. Callender, our joy when Mr. Callender so kindly
offered to take us in. It’s so uncommonly jolly of you both to treat us
in this way.”
“I remembered that you said we were to have a particularly good dinner
to-night, so I didn’t telegraph you when I found that they could come,”
said Mr. Callender when the party had separated to dress and he and his
wife were alone in their own room. “Nichols is very anxious to have them
pleased—I told you that before, I think. They’re looking at machines,
and if they take the London agency for us it will make a big difference.
Why on earth did you look at me in that way downstairs? Is there
anything wrong?”
“No; nothing is wrong,” said his wife ironically, “except that we
_haven’t_ any dinner—to speak of. Oh, dear, if you make me laugh I’ll
never be able to hook this gown. No, it _isn’t_ the least bit tight,
it’s almost too loose, in fact—but I can’t hook it when I laugh.
Chauncey, the order went wrong in some way, this morning, and the
marketing never came at all. Just stand and take that in. If you had
only helped me at breakfast when I _asked_ you to, it wouldn’t have
happened. I was away all the afternoon, and, of course, Catherine never
sent for anything—just sat and waited. There’s nothing in the house but
some cans of mock-turtle soup and tomatoes, and one can of corned beef,
and a small one of plum pudding. Catherine is going to warm the beef in
the tomatoes, and make a sauce for the pudding. I’d die before I’d
apologize beforehand to those men; they’d never forgive themselves for
coming.”
Mr. Callender whistled. “Good gracious! And to think we’ve come from the
Waldorf-Astoria for this! But I don’t see yet how it happened,” he
incautiously objected. “I should think you could have managed better in
some way, Cynthia.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” said Mrs. Callender. “Well, I don’t. If you had
the housekeeping to look after in a place like this, Chauncey, where you
never can get anything you want, and there’s not a shop in the place
open after half-past six—”
“Yes, I know, I know,” interposed Mr. Callender hastily, dodging the
subject with the ease of long practice. “But couldn’t you knock up an
omelet, or a Welsh rarebit, or some sort of a side dish? Couldn’t you
_borrow_ something?”
Mrs. Callender shook her head tragically.
“Nelly went to the Appletons and the Warings to see if she couldn’t get
some eggs, but they had only one left at each place. It’s no use,
Chauncey, we’ve got to do the best we can. I’ve put on my prettiest
gown, and—did you bring the wine?”
“Yes, and it’s good,” said Mr. Callender with returning cheerfulness. He
was glad now that he had paid a price for it that was too large ever to
be divulged to his wife.
“And the flowers?”
“What flowers?”
“The flowers you said you were going to bring me.”
“My dear girl, I never thought of them from that moment to this.”
“Then we have nothing for the center of the table but that old
crumpled-up fernery,” she paused tragically. “Not even fruit! There’s
another plank gone.”
“Never mind, you’re the whole platform,” said her husband with jollity.
“You always manage some way.”
“I have to,” she pleaded, looking at herself approvingly in the glass.
The jetted black dress set off her white neck and arms very well. She
never considered herself pretty, but she had an infectious smile,
brilliant teeth, and those very light gray eyes that look black under
excitement. She cast a provocative glance at her husband, with mock
coquetry, and then deftly avoided his outstretched arm.
“I’ve no time for you,” she said saucily. “But for goodness’ sake,
Chauncey, rise to the occasion all you _can_!”
The two irreproachably attired men who made their entrance into the
drawing-room looked at her in a manner which she certainly found
encouraging. She concluded that the chances were good for making them
enjoy the dinner, irrespective of its quality. She was enjoying their
unspoken admiration, and the conversation also, when Mr. Warburton
returned to the subject of their invitation.
“It’s so good of you to have us without any notice—so uncommonly jolly
for us. We’ve been so tired of hotel cooking, after the steamer.”
“Yes,” chimed in the other, “it grew to be almost as tiresome to us as
the beastly tinned food we lived on when we were in Africa.”
“Oh, have you been in Africa lately?” asked Mrs. Callender with
composure, although she and her husband felt the piercing of a mortal
dart, and did not dare to look at each other.
“Yes, Kennard and I were on an exploring expedition last year,
accidentally; it’s quite a long tale—but we lived on tinned soups and
meats, and even plum pudding—fancy it in the hot climate!—until even the
smell of them sickened us. We’ve not been able to touch a bit of tinned
food since.”
“Canned things—or tinned, as you call them—are very useful in
emergencies,” said Mr. Callender with idiotic solemnity. “You know you
have to eat them sometimes—when you can’t—help yourself, you know. Oh,
yes, in emergencies tinned things are very useful—if you like ’em.”
Mr. Kennard laughed heartily, as if at some delicate joke. “Ah, yes,
yes, if you like them—if you like them, Warburton, yes—mind that, yes!”
“Excuse me for a moment,” said Mrs. Callender with graceful
deliberation, sweeping slowly out of the room, and as soon as the door
had closed behind her rushing into the kitchen wildly. The fortunes of
war were against her, but win the victory she would. There _had_ to be
some way out of this!
“Don’t dish up a thing, Catherine,” she ordered breathlessly. “It is no
use; the gentlemen never eat anything canned. I’ve got to think up
something else.” Daunted by the grim face of the insulted cook, she
turned appealingly to the waitress, a young and venturesome person, as
woman to woman. “You must know of something I could do, Nelly!”
“The Warings, ma’am—”
“You _told_ me you’d been there, and that everything they had was cooked
for their own dinner.”
The eyes of Irish Nelly sparkled. “That’s just it, ma’am. Mr. Waring’s
home late to-night, and they’re only just now sitting down to the soup.
I seen it going in through the window. If you—” she stopped tentatively.
“Well, well—_say_ it!”
“Sure, they’d loan you the whole dinner, ma’am, if you asked it.”
The light of kindred inspiration kindled in Mrs. Callender. The
neighborhood was practically a joint-stock food company, where maids
might be seen flitting through the back yard at any hour of the day or
evening, with the spoils of the borrower. But an entire dinner! The
magnificence of the scheme took Mrs. Callender’s breath away.
“You’d give the lend of it yourself, ma’am,” said Nelly impartially.
Mrs. Callender gasped—and assented.
“Come!” she said, and followed by the maid, dashed out of the kitchen
door, down the back piazza steps, and then up again on the piazza of the
adjoining house.
The people seated at the table in the dining-room looked up at the long
window, amazed to see Mrs. Callender gesticulating insanely at them from
without.
“Don’t help any more of that soup,” she called insistently. “Don’t help
any more of it—wait till I get in.” The window opened from the inside,
and she hurled herself into the room. “No, _no!_” she answered the look
on their horror-struck faces, “it’s not poisoned. I don’t mean that—it’s
all right; but I want it myself, I want your dinner. Oh, _will_ you let
me take it home with me?”
“My _dear_ Mrs. Callender,” expostulated Mr. Waring in a quieting voice,
rising cautiously.
“No, I’m not crazy! I mean just what I say. My husband has brought home
company, and we had only a canned dinner, and they can’t eat it because
they’ve been in Africa—and, oh, I can’t explain. And it’s so important
to treat them well, and—oh, you _dear_ thing!”
For Mrs. Waring had handed the soup to Nelly and was already giving
orders to her own maid.
“Don’t say another word,” she commanded rapidly, with a woman’s
perception grasping the situation. “Send us over just what you have in
exchange. We have only a plain home dinner—roast beef, vegetables,
macaroni, cottage pudding—you can put the things in your oven again.
Henry, carry over this roast, will you? Don’t make any noise, any of
you.”
“I’ll take the potatoes,” said Mrs. Callender fervently, but as she
climbed her own piazza steps once more and saw the ghostly procession
that came and went stealthily bearing dishes, her knees suddenly bent
under her, and she leaned against one of the piazza posts, too weak from
laughter to move.
“Take care, you’ll drop that dish,” said Mr. Waring interposing a
dexterous arm, while he endeavored to balance the roast on the railing.
“Mrs. Callender, don’t sit down on the piazza; get up. You’ll have me
laughing, too, if you don’t stop, and I’ve got to take this in and go
back for plates.”
“We have plates,” said Mrs. Callender, strangling. “Oh, Mr. Waring, we
have plates—we have _something_. Oh, Mr. Waring, go and leave me, go and
_leave_ me! I’ll never be able to stand up.”
“Hello, what’s the matter?” Mr. Callender, with an excited whisper, came
peering out into the semi-darkness. “That back door keeps letting in an
infernal draught. What on earth are you and Waring doing out here,
Cynthia? And you without a thing over your shoulders! I call that mean,
having a good time out here by yourselves, and leaving me inside to do
all the entertaining. Don’t you know that we’re waiting for dinner, and
it’s after half-past seven o’clock?”
His ill-used expression was the last straw. Mr. Waring rocked and reeled
with his platter, while the roast performed an _obligato_ movement.
“Oh!” moaned Mrs. Callender as her husband finally assisted her to an
erect position, and offendedly took up the dish of potatoes. “Don’t say
a word, don’t ask me a thing; you’ll never in this world know all I’ve
gone through in the last hour—you couldn’t take it in. But I’ve got the
dinner—your Englishmen are provided for—your future is assured, and all
that we have to do now is to go in and eat—and eat—and eat.”
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The Strength of Ten
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The Strength of Ten