THE HUSBAND
Burke Denby had never given any thought as to whether he were going to
be a perfect husband or not. He had wanted to marry Helen, and he had
married her. That was all there was to it, except, of course, that they
had got to show his father that they could make good.
So far as being a husband--good, bad, or indifferent--was concerned,
Burke was not giving any more thought to it now than he had given before
his marriage. He was quite too busy giving thought to other
matters--many other matters.
There was first his work. He hated it. He hated the noise, the smell,
the grime, the overalls, the men he worked with, the smug
superciliousness of his especial "boss." He felt abused and indignant
that he had to endure it all. As if it were necessary to put him through
such a course of sprouts as this! As if, when the time came, he could
not run the business successfully without all these years of dirt and
torture! Was an engineer, then, made to _build_ an engine before he
could be taught to handle the throttle? Was a child made to set the type
of a primer before he could be taught his letters? Of course not! But
they were making him not only set the type, but go down into the mines
and dig the stuff the type was made of before they would teach him his
letters. Yet they pretended it all must be done if he would ever learn
to read--that is, to run the Denby Iron Works. Bah! He had a mind to
chuck it all. He would if it weren't for dad. Dad hated quitters. And
dad was looking wretched enough, as it was.
And that was another thing--dad.
Undeniably Burke was very unhappy over his father. He did not like to
think of him, yet his face was always before him, pale and drawn, as he
had seen it at that first interview after his return. As the days
passed, Burke, in spite of his wish not to see his father, found himself
continually seizing every opportunity that might enable him to see him.
Daily he found himself haunting doorways and corridors, quite out of his
way, when there was a chance that his father might pass.
He told himself that it was just that he wanted to convince himself that
his father did not look quite so bad, after all. But he knew in his
heart that it was because he hoped his father would speak to him in the
old way, and that it might lead to the tearing down of this horrible
high wall of indifference and formality that had risen between them.
Burke hated that wall.
The wall was there, however, always. Nothing ever came of these
connivings and loiterings except (if it were during working hours) a
terse hint from the foreman, perhaps, to get back on his job. How Burke
hated that foreman!
And that was another thing--his position among his fellow workmen. He
was with them, but not of them. His being among them at all was plainly
a huge joke--and when one is acting a tragedy in all seriousness, one
does not like to hear chuckles as at a comedy. But, for that matter,
Burke found the comedy element always present, wherever he went. The
entire town took himself, his work, and his marriage as a huge joke--a
subject for gay badinage, jocose slaps on the back, and gleeful cries
of:--
"Well, Denby, how goes it? How doth the happy bridegroom?"
And Burke hated that, too.
It seemed to Burke, indeed, sometimes, that he hated everything but
Helen. Helen, of course, was a dear--the sweetest little wife in the
world. As if any one could help loving Helen! And however disagreeable
the day, there was always Helen to go home to at night.
Oh, of course, he had to take that abominable flat along with
Helen--naturally, as long as he could not afford to put her in a more
expensive place. But that would soon be remedied--just as soon as he got
a little ahead.
This "going home to Helen" had been one of Burke's happiest
anticipations ever since his marriage. It would be so entrancing to find
Helen and Helen's kiss waiting for him each night! Often had such
thoughts been in his mind during his honeymoon trip; but never had they
been so poignantly promising of joy as they were on that first day at
the Works, after his disheartening interview with his father. All the
rest of that miserable day it seemed to Burke that the only thing he was
living for was the going home to Helen that night.
"Home," to Burke, had always meant a place of peace and rest, of
luxurious ease and noiseless servants, of orderly rooms and well-served
meals, of mellow lights and softly blended colors. Unconsciously now
home still meant the same, with the addition of Helen--Helen, the center
of it all. It was this dear vision, therefore, that he treasured all
through his honeymoon trip, that he hugged to himself all that wretched
first day of work, and that was still his star of hope as he hurried
that night toward the Dale Street flat. If he had stopped to think, he
would have realized at once that this new home of a day was not the old
home of years. But he did not stop to think of anything except that for
the first time in his life he was going home from work to Helen, his
wife.
Burke Denby never forgot the shock of that first home-going. He opened
the door of his apartment--and confronted chaos: a surly janitor
struggling with a curtain pole, a confusion of trunks, chairs, a
stepladder, and a floor-pail, a disorder of dishes on a coverless table,
a smell of burned milk, and a cross, tired, untidy wife who flung
herself into his arms with a storm of sobs.
"Home," after that, meant quite something new to Burke Denby. It meant
Helen, of course, but--
Still it would be only for a little while, after all, he consoled
himself each day. Just as soon as he got ahead a little, it would be
different. He could sell the stuff, then; and the very first thing to go
would be that hideous purple pillow on the red plush sofa--for that
matter, the sofa would follow after mighty quick. And the chairs, too.
They were a little worse to sit on than to look at--which was
unnecessary. As for the rugs--when it came to those, it would be his
turn to select next time. At all events, he would not be obliged to have
one that, the minute you opened the door, bounced into your face and
screamed "Hullo! I'm here. See me!" How he hated that rug! And the
pictures and those cheap gilt vases--everything, of course, would be
different in the new home.
Nor did Burke stop to think that this constant shifting, in one's mind,
of things that are, to things that may some time be, scarcely makes for
content.
Still, Burke could not have forgotten his house-furnishings, even if he
had tried to do so, for he had to make payments on them "every few
minutes," as he termed it. Indeed, one of the unsolved riddles of his
life these days was as to why there were so many more Mondays (the day
he paid his installments) than there were Saturdays (the day the Works
paid him) in a week. For that matter, after all was said and done,
perhaps to nothing was Burke Denby giving more thought these days than
to money.
Burke's experience with money heretofore had been to draw a check for
what he wanted. True, he sometimes overdrew his account a trifle; but
there was always his allowance coming the first of the month; and
neither he nor the bank worried.
Now it was quite different. There was no allowance, and no bank--save
his pocket, and there was only fifteen dollars a week coming into that.
He would not have believed that fifteen dollars a week could go so
quickly, and buy so little. Very early in the first month of
housekeeping all that remained of his allowance was gone. What did not
go at once to make payments on the furniture was paid over to Helen to
satisfy some of her many requests for money.
And that was another of Burke's riddles--why Helen needed so much money
just to get them something to eat. True, of late, she had not asked for
it so frequently. She had not, indeed, asked for any for some time--for
which he was devoutly thankful. He would not have liked to refuse her;
and he certainly was giving her all that he could afford to give,
without her asking. A fellow must smoke some--though Heaven knew he had
cut his cigars down, both in quantity and quality, until he had cut out
nearly all the pleasure!
Still he was glad to do it for Helen. Helen was a little brick. How
pretty she looked when she was holding forth on his "making good," and
her not "dragging" him "down"! Bless her heart! As if she could be
guilty of such a thing as that! Why, she was going to drag him up--Helen
was!
And she was doing pretty well, too, running the little home, for a girl
who did not know a thing about it, to begin with. She was doing a whole
lot better than at first. Breakfast had not been late for two weeks, nor
dinner, either. And she was almost always at the door to kiss him now,
too, while at the first he had to hunt her up, only to find her crying
in the kitchen, probably--something wrong somewhere.
Oh, to be sure, he _was_ getting a little tired of potato salad, and he
always had abhorred those potato-chippy things; and he himself did not
care much for cold meat. But, of course, after she got a little more
used to things she wouldn't serve that sort of trash quite so often. He
would be getting real things to eat, pretty soon--good, juicy beefsteaks
and roasts, and nice fresh vegetables and fruit shortcakes, with muffins
and griddle-cakes for breakfast. But Helen was a little brick--Helen
was. And she was doing splendidly!