The Presidential canvas of the summer which followed upon these events in
Bartley's career was not very active. Sometimes, in fact, it languished so
much that people almost forgot it, and a good field was afforded the Events
for the practice of independent journalism. To hold a course of strict
impartiality, and yet come out on the winning side was a theory of
independent journalism which Bartley illustrated with cynical enjoyment. He
developed into something rather artistic the gift which he had always shown
in his newspaper work for ironical persiflage. Witherby was not a man to
feel this burlesque himself; but when it was pointed out to him by others,
he came to Bartley in some alarm from its effect upon the fortunes of the
paper. “We can't afford, Mr. Hubbard,” he said, with virtuous trepidation,
“we can't _afford_ to make fun of our friends!”
Bartley laughed at Witherby's anxiety. “They're no more our friends than
the other fellows are. We are independent journalists; and this way of
treating the thing leaves us perfectly free hereafter to claim, just as we
choose, that we were in fun or in earnest on any particular question if
we're ever attacked. See?”
“I see,” said Witherby, with not wholly subdued misgiving. But after due
time for conviction no man enjoyed Bartley's irony more than Witherby when
once he had mastered an instance of it. Sometimes it happened that Bartley
found him chuckling over a perfectly serious paragraph, but he did not mind
that; he enjoyed Witherby's mistake even more than his appreciation.
In these days Bartley was in almost uninterrupted good humor, as he had
always expected to be when he became fairly prosperous. He was at no time
an unamiable fellow, as he saw it; he had his sulks, he had his moments of
anger; but generally he felt good, and he had always believed, and he had
promised Marcia, that when he got squarely on his legs he should feel good
perpetually. This sensation he now agreeably realized; and he was also now
in that position in which he had proposed to himself some little moral
reforms. He was not much in the habit of taking stock; but no man wholly
escapes the contingencies in which he is confronted with himself, and sees
certain habits, traits, tendencies, which he would like to change for the
sake of his peace of mind hereafter. To some souls these contingencies are
full of anguish, of remorse for the past, of despair; but Bartley had never
yet seen the time when he did not feel himself perfectly able to turn over
a new leaf and blot the old one. There were not many things in his life
which he really cared to have very different; but there were two or three
shady little corners which he always intended to clean up. He had meant
some time or other to have a religious belief of some sort, he did not much
care what; since Marcia had taken to the Hallecks' church, he did not see
why he should not go with her, though he had never yet done so. He was not
quite sure whether he was always as candid with her as he might be, or as
kind; though he maintained against this question that in all their quarrels
it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. He had never been tipsy
but once in his life, and he considered that he had repented and atoned for
that enough, especially as nothing had ever come of it; but sometimes he
thought he might be over-doing the beer; yes, he thought he must cut down
on the tivoli; he was getting ridiculously fat. If ever he met Kinney again
he should tell him that it was he and not Ricker who had appropriated his
facts and he intended to make it up with Ricker somehow.
He had not found just the opportunity yet; but in the mean time he did not
mind telling the real cause of their alienation to good fellows who
could enjoy a joke. He had his following, though so many of his brother
journalists had cooled toward him, and those of his following considered
him as smart as chain-lightning and bound to rise. These young men and not
very wise elders roared over Bartley's frank declaration of the situation
Between himself and Ricker, and they contended that, if Ricker had taken
the article for the Chronicle-Abstract, he ought to take the consequences.
Bartley told them that, of course, he should explain the facts to Kinney;
but that he meant to let Ricker enjoy his virtuous indignation awhile.
Once, after a confidence of this kind at the club, where Ricker had refused
to speak to him, he came away with a curious sense of moral decay. It did
not pain him a great deal, but it certainly surprised him that now, with
all these prosperous conditions, so favorable for cleaning up, he had so
little disposition to clean up. He found himself quite willing to let
the affair with Ricker go, and he suspected that he had been needlessly
virtuous in his intentions concerning church-going and beer. As to Marcia,
it appeared to him that he could not treat a woman of her disposition
otherwise than as he did. At any rate, if he had not done everything he
could to make her happy, she seemed to be getting along well enough, and
was probably quite as happy as she deserved to be. They were getting on
very quietly now; there had been no violent outbreak between them since the
trouble about Kinney, and then she had practically confessed herself in
the wrong, as Bartley looked at it. She had appeared contented with his
explanation; there was what might be called a perfect business amity
between them. If her life with him was no longer an expression of that
intense devotion which she used to show him, it was more like what married
life generally comes to, and he accepted her tractability and what seemed
her common-sense view of their relations as greatly preferable. With his
growth in flesh, Bartley liked peace more and more.
Marcia had consented to go down to Equity alone, that summer, for he had
convinced her that during a heated political contest it would not do for
him to be away from the paper. He promised to go down for her when she
wished to come home; and it was easily arranged for her to travel as far as
the Junction under Halleck's escort, when he went to join his sisters in
the White Mountains. Bartley missed her and the baby at first. But he
soon began to adjust himself with resignation to his solitude. They had
determined to keep their maid over this summer, for they had so much
trouble in replacing her the last time after their return; and Bartley said
he should live very economically. It was quiet, and the woman kept the
house cool and clean; she was a good cook, and when Bartley brought a man
home to dinner she took an interest in serving it well. Bartley let her
order the things from the grocer and butcher, for she knew what they were
used to getting, and he had heard so much talk from Marcia about bills
since he bought that Events stock that he was sick of the prices of things.
There was no extravagance, and vet he seemed to live very much better after
Marcia went. There is no doubt but he lived very much more at his ease. One
little restriction after another fell away from him; he went and came with
absolute freedom, not only without having to account for his movements, but
without having a pang for not doing so. He had the sensation of stretching
himself after a cramping posture; and he wrote Marcia the cheerfulest
letters, charging her not to cut short her visit from anxiety on his
account. He said that he was working hard, but hard work evidently agreed
with him, for he was never better in his life. In this high content he
maintained a feeling of loyalty by going to the Hallecks, where Mrs.
Halleck often had him to tea in pity of his loneliness. They were dull
company, certainly; but Marcia liked them, and the cooking was always good.
Other evenings he went to the theatres, where there were amusing variety
bills; and sometimes he passed the night at Nantasket, or took a run for
a day to Newport; he always reported these excursions to Marcia, with
expressions of regret that Equity was too far away to run down to for a
day.
Marcia's letters were longer and more regular than his; but he could have
forgiven some want of constancy for the sake of a less searching anxiety on
her part. She was anxious not only for his welfare, which was natural and
proper, but she was anxious about the housekeeping and the expenses, things
Bartley could not afford to let trouble him, though he did what he could in
a general way to quiet her mind. She wrote fully of the visit which Olive
Halleck had paid her, but said that they had not gone about much, for Ben
Halleck had only been able to come for a day. She was very well, and so was
Flavia.
Bartley realized Flavia's existence with an effort, and for the rest this
letter bored him. What could he care about Olive Halleck's coming, or Ben
Halleck's staying away? All that he asked of Ben Halleck was a little
extension of time when his interest fell due. The whole thing was
disagreeable; and he resented what he considered Marcia's endeavor to clap
the domestic harness on him again. His thoughts wandered to conditions, to
contingencies, of which a man does not permit himself even to think without
a degree of moral disintegration. In these ill-advised reveries he mused
upon his life as it might have been if he had never met her, or if they had
never met after her dismissal of him. As he recalled the facts, he was at
that time in an angry and embittered mood, but he was in a mood of entire
acquiescence; and the reconciliation had been of her own seeking. He could
not blame her for it; she was very much in love with him, and he had been
fond of her. In fact, he was still very fond of her; when he thought of
little ways of hers, it filled him with tenderness. He did justice to her
fine qualities, too: her generosity, her truthfulness, her entire loyalty
to his best interests; he smiled to realize that he himself preferred his
second-best interests, and in her absence he remembered that her virtues
were tedious, and even painful at times. He had his doubts whether there
was sufficient compensation in them. He sometimes questioned whether he
had not made a great mistake to get married; he expected now to stick it
through; but this doubt occurred to him. A moment came in which he asked
himself, What if he had never come back to Marcia that night when she
locked him out of her room? Might it not have been better for both of them?
She would soon have reconciled herself to the irreparable; he even thought
of her happy in a second marriage; and the thought did not enrage him; he
generously wished Marcia well. He wished--he hardly knew what he wished. He
wished nothing at all but to have his wife and child back again as soon as
possible; and he put aside with a laugh the fancies which really found
no such distinct formulation as I have given them; which were mere vague
impulses, arrested mental tendencies, scraps of undirected revery. Their
recurrence had nothing to do with what he felt to be his sane and waking
state. But they recurred, and he even amused himself in turning them over.