The two young wives quickly became very intimate. They spent many mornings
together "reading," that is, they sat on the cool west veranda of the
Lanes's house, or less often on the balcony at the Falkners's, with a novel
turned down where their attention had relaxed, chatting and sewing.
Isabelle found Bessie Falkner "cunning," "amusing," "odd," and always
"charming." She had "an air about her," a picturesque style of gossip that
she used when instructing Isabelle in the intricacies of Torso society.
Isabelle also enjoyed the homage that Bessie paid her.
Bessie frankly admired Isabella's house, her clothes, her stylish self, and
enjoyed her larger experience of life,--the Washington winter, Europe, even
the St. Louis horizon,--all larger than anything she had ever known.
Isabelle was very nearly the ideal of what she herself would have liked to
be. So when they had exhausted Torso and their households, they filled the
morning hours with long tales about people they had known,--"Did you ever
hear of the Dysarts in St. Louis? Sallie Dysart was a great belle,--she had
no end of affairs, and then she married Paul Potter. The Potters were very
well-known people in Philadelphia, etc." Thus they gratified their
curiosity about _lives_, all the interesting complications into which men
and women might get. Often Bessie stayed for luncheon, a dainty affair
served on a little table which the maid brought out and set between them.
Sometimes Bessie had with her the baby girl, but oftener not, for she
became exacting and interfered with the luncheon.
Bessie had endless tidbits of observation about Torsonians. "Mrs. Freke was
a cashier in a Cleveland restaurant when he married her. Don't you see the
bang in her hair still? ... Mrs. Griscom came from Kentucky,--very old
family. Tom Griscom, their only son, went to Harvard,--he was very wild.
He's disappeared since.... Yes, Mrs. Adams is common, but the men seem to
like her. I don't trust her green eyes. Mr. Darnell, they say, is always
there. Oh, Mr. Adams isn't the one to care!"
Often they came back to Darnell,--that impetuous, black-haired young lawyer
with his deep-set, fiery eyes, who had run away with his wife.
"She looks scared most of the time, don't you think? They say he drinks.
Too bad, isn't it? Such a brilliant man, and with the best chances. He ran
for Congress two years ago on the Democratic ticket, and just failed. He is
going to try again this next fall, but his railroad connection is against
him.... Oh, Sue Darnell,--she is nobody; she can't hold him--that's plain."
"What does she think of Mrs. Adams?"
Bessie shrugged her shoulders significantly.
"Sue has to have her out at their farm. Well, they say she was pretty gay
herself,--engaged to three men at once,--one of them turned up in Torso
last year. Tom was very polite to him, elaborately polite; but he left town
very soon, and she seemed dazed.... I guess she has reason to be afraid of
her husband. He looks sometimes--well, I shouldn't like to have Rob look at
me that way, not for half a second!"
The two women clothed the brilliant Kentuckian with all the romance of
unbridled passion. "He sends to Alabama every week for the jasmine Mrs.
Adams wears--fancy!"
"Really! Oh, men! men!"
"It's probably _her_ fault--she can't hold him."
That was the simple philosophy which they evolved about marriage,--men were
uncertain creatures, only partly tamed, and it was the woman's business to
"hold" them. So much the worse for the women if they happened to be tied to
men they could not "hold." Isabelle, remembering on one occasion the
flashing eyes of the Kentuckian, his passionate denunciation of mere
commercialism in public life, felt that there might be some defence for
poor Tom Darnell,--even in his flirtation with the "common" Mrs. Adams.
Then the two friends went deeper and talked husbands, both admiring, both
hilariously amused at the masculine absurdities of their mates.
"I hate to see poor Rob so harassed with bills," Bessie confided. "It is
hard for him, with his tastes, poor boy. But I don't know what I can do
about it. When he complains, I tell him we eat everything we have, and I am
sure I never get a dress!"
Isabelle, recollecting the delicious suppers she had had at the Falkners's,
thought that less might be eaten. In her mother's house there had always
been comfort, but strict economy, even after the hardware business paid
enormous profits. This thrift was in her blood. Bessie had said to Rob that
Isabelle was "close." But Isabelle only laughed at Bessie when she was in
these moods of dejection, usually at the first of the month. Bessie was so
amusing about her troubles that she could not take her seriously.
"Never mind, Bessie!" she laughed. "He probably likes to work hard for
you,--every man does for the woman he loves."
And then they would have luncheon, specially devised for Bessie's epicurean
taste. For Bessie Falkner did devout homage to a properly cooked dish.
Isabelle, watching the contented look with which the little woman swallowed
a bit of jellied meat, felt that any man worth his salt would like to
gratify her innocent tastes. Probably Falkner couldn't endure a less
charming woman for his wife. So she condoned, as one does with a clever
child, all the little manifestations of waywardness and selfishness that
she was too intelligent not to see in her new friend. Isabelle liked to
spoil Bessie Falkner. Everybody liked to indulge her, just as one likes to
feed a pretty child with cake and candy, especially when the discomforts of
the resulting indigestion fall on some one else.
"Oh, it will all come out right in the end!" Bessie usually exclaimed,
after she had well lunched. She did not see things very vividly far
ahead,--nothing beyond the pleasant luncheon, the attractive house, her
adorable Isabelle. "I always tell Rob when he is blue that his chance will
come some day; he'll make a lucky strike, do some work that attracts public
attention, and then we'll all be as happy as can be."
She had the gambler's instinct; her whole life had been a gamble, now
winning, now losing, even to that moment when her lover had ridden up to
the hotel and solved her doubts about the rich suitor. In Colorado she had
known men whose fortunes came over night, "millions and millions," as she
told Isabelle, rolling the words in her little mouth toothsomely. Why not
to her? She felt that any day fortune might smile.
"My husband says that Mr. Falkner is doing excellent work,--Mr. Freke said
so," Isabelle told Bessie.
"And Rob talks as if he were going to lose his job next week! Sometimes I
wish he would lose it--and we could go away to a large city."
Bessie thus echoed the feeling in Isabelle's own heart,--"I don't want to
spend my life on an Indiana prairie!" To both of the women Torso was less a
home, a corner of the earth into which to put down roots, than a
way-station in the drama and mystery of life. Confident in their husbands'
ability to achieve Success, they dreamed of other scenes, of a larger
future, with that restlessness of a new civilization, which has latterly
seized even women--the supposedly stable sex.
* * * * *
As the year wore on there were broader social levels into which Isabelle in
company with Bessie dipped from time to time. The Woman's Club had a
lecture course in art and sociology. They attended one of the lectures in
the Normal School building, and laughed furtively in their muffs at "Madam
President" of the Club,--a portly, silk-dressed dame,--and at the
ill-fitting black coat of the university professor who lectured. They came
away before the reception.
"Dowds!" Bessie summed up succinctly.
"Rather crude," Isabelle agreed tolerantly.
During the winter Isabelle did some desultory visiting among the Hungarians
employed at the coke-ovens, for Bessie's church society. Originally of
Presbyterian faith, she had changed at St. Mary's to the Episcopal church,
and latterly all church affiliations had grown faint. The Colonel
maintained a pew in the first Presbyterian Church, but usually went to hear
the excellent lectures of a Unitarian preacher. Isabelle's religious views
were vague, broad, liberal, and unvital. Bessie's were simpler, but
scarcely more effective. Lane took a lively interest in the railroad
Y.M.C.A., which he believed to be helpful for young men. He himself had
been a member in St. Louis and had used the gymnasium. Isabelle got up an
entertainment for the Hungarian children, which was ended by a disastrous
thunderstorm. She had an uneasy feeling that she "ought to do something for
somebody." Alice Johnston, she knew, had lived at a settlement for a couple
of years. But there were no settlements in Torso, and the acutely poor were
looked after by the various churches. Just what there was to be done for
others was not clear. When she expressed her desire "not to live selfishly"
to her husband, he replied easily:--
"There are societies for those things, I suppose. It ought to be natural,
what we do for others."
Just what was meant by "natural" was not clear to Isabelle, but the word
accorded with the general belief of her class that the best way to help in
the world was to help one's self, to become useful to others by becoming
important in the community,--a comfortable philosophy. But there was one
definite thing that they might accomplish, and that was to help the
Falkners into easier circumstances.
"Don't you suppose we could do something for them? Now that the baby has
come they are dreadfully poor,--can't think of going away for the summer,
and poor Bessie needs it and the children. I meant to ask the Colonel when
he was here last Christmas. Isn't there something Rob could do in the
road?"
Lane shook his head.
"That is not my department. There might be a place in St. Louis when they
begin work on the new terminals. I'll speak to Brundage the next time he's
here."
"St. Louis--Bessie would like that. She's such a dear, and would enjoy
pretty things so much! It seems as if she almost had a right to them."
"Why did she marry a poor man, then?" Lane demanded with masculine logic.
"Because she loved him, silly! She isn't mercenary."
"Well, then,--" but Lane did not finish his sentence, kissing his wife
instead. "She's rather extravagant, isn't she?" he asked after a time.
"Oh, she'll learn to manage."
"I will do what I can for him, of course."
And Isabelle considered the Falkners' fate settled; John, like her father,
always brought about what he wanted.
* * * * *
They spent the Christmas holidays that year with her parents. Lane was
called to New York on railroad business, and Isabelle had a breathless ten
days with old friends, dining and lunching, listening to threads of gossip
that had been broken by her exile to Torso. She discovered an unexpected
avidity for diversion, and felt almost ashamed to enjoy people so keenly,
to miss her husband so little. She put it all down to the cramping effect
of Torso. So when the Colonel asked her how she liked her new home, she
burst forth, feeling that her opportunity had come:--
"It doesn't agree with me, I think. I've grown frightfully thin,--John says
I mustn't spend another summer there.... I hope we can get away soon. John
must have a wider field, don't you think?"
"He seems to find Torso pretty wide."
"He's done splendid work, I know. But I don't want him side-tracked all his
life in a little Indiana town. Don't you think you could speak to the
Senator or Mr. Beals?"
The Colonel smiled.
"Yes, I could speak to them, if John wants me to."
"He hasn't said anything about it," she hastened to add.
"So you are tired of Torso?" he asked, smiling still more.
"It seems so good to be here, to hear some music, and go to the theatre; to
be near old friends," she explained apologetically. "Don't you and mother
want us to be near you?"
"Of course, my dear! We want you to be happy."
"Why, we are happy there,--only it seems so out of the world, so
second-class. And John is not second-class."
"No, John is not second-class," the Colonel admitted with another smile.
"And for that reason I don't believe he will want me to interfere."
Nevertheless she kept at her idea, talking it over with her mother. All her
friends were settled in the great cities, and it was only natural that she
should aspire to something better than Torso--for the present, St. Louis.
So the Colonel spoke to Lane, and Lane spoke to his wife when they were
back once more in the Torso house. He was grave, almost hurt.
"I'm sorry, Belle, you are so tired of life here. I can take another
position or ask to be transferred; but you must understand, dear, that
whatever is done, it must be by myself. I don't want favors, not even from
the Colonel!"
She felt ashamed and small, yet protested: "I don't see why you should
object. Every one does the same,--uses all the pull he has."
"There are changes coming,--I prefer to wait. The man who uses least pull
usually hangs on longest."
As he walked to the office that morning, the thought of Isabelle's
restlessness occupied his mind. "It's dull for her here, of course. It
isn't the kind of life she's been used to, or had the right to expect as
the Colonel's daughter." He felt the obligation to live up to his wife,
having won her from a superior position. Like a chivalrous American
gentleman he was not aggrieved because even during the first two years of
marriage, he--their life together--was not enough to satisfy his wife. He
did not reflect that his mother had accepted unquestioningly the Iowa town
to which his father had brought her after the War; nor that Isabelle's
mother had accepted cheerfully the two rooms in the little brick house near
the hardware store. Those were other days.
He saw the picture of Isabelle standing beside the dining-room window with
the sun on her hair,--a developed type of human being, that demanded much
of life for satisfaction and adjustment. He plunged into his affairs with
an added grip, an unconscious feeling that he must by his exertions provide
those satisfactions and adjustments which his wife's nature demanded for
its perfect development.