"Let us take a night off and enjoy ourselves, my girl," I said at
breakfast in one of those elaborately, "off-hand" manners that so
frequently betoken profound premeditation. "Somehow or other, we seem to
be getting into a groove, and--missing things. Don't you agree with me,
Letitia? A nice little dinner down town and a theater will cheer us up
wonderfully. We owe it to ourselves, I think, and--well, I believe in
paying that kind of debt, and not letting the account drag on," I added
felicitously.
"Oh, yes," Letitia assented rather meditatively, and without enthusiasm,
"it would be very nice. Not that I feel the need of a change as much as
you do, Archie. However, it will do us good, and I'll tell Miriam that
we shall not be home, and that if she likes to ask her sister from
Tremont to dinner, she can do so. You see, dear, I fancy she was going
out to-night. That is why I hesitated about going to the theater. But
she will be just as pleased to entertain Mrs. O'Flaherty here, and if
you don't mind--"
"Not at all," I said magnanimously, and I really meant it. If cook
could have more fun in our "home" than I did, she was welcome to it.
Domesticity, under impossible circumstances, was not essentially gay. So
set was I upon an evening of forgetfulness, that it seemed a trifle to
resign our apartment temporarily to cook and "me sister, Mrs.
O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont."
"I fancy little Letitia looks rather pale," pursued my wife. "The run of
the house for a night will do her good, I am sure--"
The run of the house had not been denied little Letitia, though I was
determined to keep silent and not argue the matter. Cook's child was not
particularly dear to me. We had her for breakfast and dinner. She stood
and watched me while I shaved. She had become hatefully affectionate,
and abominably fond of me. When I kissed Letitia before I went to the
office, the McCaffrey cub insisted upon similar treatment. This might
have been touching, but it wasn't. Letitia called me hard-hearted and
callous. I believe that she was a bit jealous. Although she devoted
herself heart and soul to the brat, it had no use whatsoever for her.
But I, who loathed it, was singled out for popularity, and the
compliment made no appeal to me.
"Well, my dear," I said, as I rose from the table, "I'll take my evening
clothes with me in a dress-suitcase, and you can call for me at the
office at a quarter to seven. We'll dine until eight o'clock, and then
proceed to the theater. I'll get tickets this morning. What would you
like to see?"
Letitia's lack of exuberance was rather depressing. A month ago she
would have hailed the prospect with joy, and an ebullition of girlish
delight. At present, she was apathetic.
"Oh," she replied in a preoccupied manner, "I have no particular
choice." But suddenly she brightened up, and went on: "Yes, I have,
Archie. Somebody told me that _Merely Mary Arm_ was absolutely charming.
It is the story of a little servant girl, a drudge in a lodging-house, a
pathetic figure, that--"
"No, dear," I said peremptorily, "we get all the servant girl we need in
this cunning little home. I don't see why we should pay four dollars to
see Mr. Zangwill's English idea--idealized, of course, for the stage. It
would be cheaper to stay at home and weep over the real American thing."
"But perhaps," said Letitia thoughtfully, "if we could really feel sorry
for Mary Ann, we might be less harshly disposed toward Anna Carter, or
Mrs. Potzenheimer, or Mrs. McCaffrey."
"No, my dear," I murmured sadly, "it would be waste of time. I decline
to see _Merely Mary Arm_. The subject is disgusting to me. We want to
get away from ourselves when we go to the theater. We don't want to
reopen wounds, and brood."
"But in this Zangwill play," she persisted, "Mary Ann inherits five
million dollars, and becomes a society girl, in pink chiffon and
low-neck."
"Which is immoral," I declared. "It is a nasty, low, and revolutionary
idea--enough to make all cooks anarchists. Such plays should be
prohibited by a censor. Positively to make a heroine of one of these
creatures, who break up happy homes and make life unendurable, who seem
to be responsible for everything, from race-suicide to--"
"Hush, Archie!" cried Letitia indignantly, "I can't discuss these social
questions with you. I haven't been married long enough. I still consider
them improper. Besides, you can't accuse Mrs. McCaffrey of race-suicide,
with little Letitia--"
"Oh, they reserve the right to have as many children as they like," I
retorted bitterly, "but if _you_ had them, they would soon let you know
what they thought of you."
"You mustn't talk to me like this, Archie," said Letitia, vexed, "you
wouldn't have done so when we were engaged. I consider such conversation
rowdy--just fit for the smoking-room. And as we haven't a smoking-room
you must restrain yourself, please. However, I am willing to drop
_Merely Mary Arm_. The reason I suggested it was that I thought it might
make us both kinder and more indulgent."
"Imagine old Potzenheimer with five million dollars, and low-neck!" I
exclaimed, outraged. "I call it absolutely nauseating."
"Not if we _could_ imagine it, dear," she said gently. "Zangwill is an
artist, and I hoped that if we saw the subject poetically treated, and
really shed tears for Mary Ann, as Aunt Julia wrote me yesterday that
she did--"
"No, Letitia. I should shed tears only for Mary Ann's employer. It is
the employers who are the martyrs. It would be better and less expensive
to stay at home and shed tears for ourselves. For example, I feel
depressed when I think of that cabinet of Indian _bibelots_ all in rack
and ruin--the only present that Uncle Ben ever gave me, and he is dead!"
I added lugubriously.
"How _can_ you be so petty, Archie? I am surprised at you worrying about
that ivory rubbish hidden away in a cabinet."
"Please, Letitia," I interrupted with dignity, "please don't call it
rubbish. Uncle Ben was not the man to give his favorite nephew
rubbish."
"Oh, how we argue! How we argue!" she exclaimed desperately. "I am
astonished at this acidulation of character. No more of _Merely Mary
Arm_. You ask me what I want to see, and then decline to see it. It
doesn't matter. I'll select something else. Suppose you get tickets for
the Barrie play, _The Admirable Crichton_."
"That's more like it, old girl," I responded exultantly. "Barrie is
delightful. He wrote _The Little Minister_ and _Quality Street_, didn't
he? He is reliable; always good--like tea. I admire his originality."
"In _The Admirable Crichton_," said Letitia, rather demurely, I thought,
"there is an old nobleman, who believes in equality. His mania takes the
form of treating his servants as his equals. He invites them to parties
in his own drawing-room, and makes his own daughters, ladies of title,
wait upon them, and ply them with cake and lemonade."
"Bosh!" I ejaculated furiously. "It must be in the air--this vile theme.
It is a germ. It is a microbe. I won't pay to see such depravity on the
stage. I simply refuse. I--"
"And then," Letitia went on sedately--I couldn't help fancying that she
was enjoying herself, and that galled me--"they are all wrecked on a
desert island, and the servant becomes the master of the situation,
while the old nobleman fetches and carries, and proves that outside of
civilization there is no such thing as social superiority."
"Ha! ha!" I laughed sarcastically. "Imagine going to a desert island to
prove it. He could find proof of that right here in New York--right here
in this very apartment."
"Archie!"
"Certainly he could. Moreover, it is an idea that needs no illumination,
to my mind. If that is _The Admirable Crichton_ I don't want to see it.
I wouldn't sit it out. Possibly it might be amusing in England. Here, I
should consider it insulting. The idea of letting a foreigner treat the
servant question for New York. Where is the American playwright? Why
don't we foster him? Why are we obliged to swallow the dramatic food
made for European stomachs? The only 'servant' play I want to see, is
one that places her in her true light--as the bar to marriage, the bar
to family life, the bar to domesticity, the bar to digestion, to mental
serenity, to--"
Letitia rose suddenly, and confronted me. "I can suggest nothing else,"
she asserted doggedly; "I seem unable to please you. Take tickets for
anything you like."
"There seems to be a cook in everything," I declared dejectedly, "and I
want to escape it. Don't be so angry with me, Letitia. In reality, it is
for your sake as much as for my own. I guess I'll take tickets for the
opera. It's _Parsifal_ to-night. I never read musical criticisms, as
they are so prohibitively prosy, but if you can assure me that there is
no cook in _Parsifal_--"
"How ignorant you are, Archie! _Parsifal_ is sacred, and deals with the
Holy Grail."
"Still, they might sneak a cook in," I insisted with irony. "I wouldn't
put them past it. Everything is adapted, nowadays, and grand opera
artists would lend themselves so easily to the rôles of cooks. However,
_Parsifal_ seems safe. There is less risk about it than anything else.
To be sure, Wagner is rather stupefying, and you remember, dear, that we
had our first quarrel after hearing _Siegfried_. It made us both so
cross."
"It doesn't need _Siegfried_ to do that, nowadays," she said sadly.
"I'm a brute, Letitia. I know I am. Forgive me just this once, dear, and
I'll try and be better. I--I'll look on the bright side of things,
and--and I won't argue so much. I'll take tickets for _Parsifal_ even
though they cost ten dollars apiece. The idea of the Holy Grail appeals
to me. It doesn't sound humorous, and Barrie and Zangwill seem to be
dying to vent their sense of the ridiculous upon a suffering public. So
it is understood, Letitia. _Parsifal_ to-night, preceded by a dainty
little dinner."
"The opera begins at five," said Letitia, "and I don't think I could
leave the house at that hour. It is an uncomfortable hour."
"Quite right, dear. Let _Parsifal_ adapt itself to us. It is absurd to
make a toil of pleasure. Besides, one never understands anything at the
opera, so it doesn't really matter at what time one gets there. We will
not alter our plans. I shall wait at the office for you until a quarter
to seven. Then dinner, a cab, and _Parsifal_. Say that this pleases you,
Letitia."
"Oh, I'm glad, dear. I want to see you pleased. I hate to have my poor
boy cross and disagreeable, and misanthropic. And I am anxious to hear
_Parsifal_, so that I can _say_ I have heard it. You understand, Archie.
Perhaps we may not enjoy it while we are there, but I know we shall be
delighted when it is over, and we can truthfully say that we have sat
through it. There is no glory in sitting through an amusing play. But it
_is_ quite a feather in one's cap to go deliberately through a
performance of _Parsifal_. It is a good idea, Archie."
Letitia put my evening clothes in a dress-suit-case, and, with a heart
once more lightened, I departed. The old affection lingered in her
parting kiss; she clung to me tenderly, and although the McCaffrey brat
hovered around, and Letitia insisted upon my kissing its sticky face, I
made no protest. The prospect of a night off made a boy of me again. I
felt young, and enthusiastic, and happy.
It was not easy to buy _Parsifal_ tickets. Evidently the subject of the
Holy Grail, heavy, lugubrious, massive, with an elusive fantasy about
it, appealed to the wearied hearts of New York. A long line of women
stood making _Parsifal_ investments, anxious doubtless, as we were, to
spend a cookless evening. Probably these women would have winced at
suggestions of _Merely Mary Ann_ and _The Admirable Crichton_. I
couldn't help thinking, as, in return for a twenty-dollar bill, I
received a couple of pasteboard bits, that if New York managers had
homes of their own, and lived the lives of the public, for which they
cater, their views upon the desirability of certain plays would change.
Managers are not conspicuously domestic in their habits, and they have
no inkling of the real joys and sorrows of their clients. They produce
plays written in other lands, for the people of other lands, and reason
that human nature is the same everywhere. In which, I ween, they err.
They are impatient and restive at their many failures, but--they
continue their policy of risk.
The day passed slowly. Tamworth seemed sorry for me when I told him that
I was going to the opera, and suggested that I take a pillow with me--a
rather tactless remark, I thought. He had once suffered, he said, from
insomnia, and the doctors had almost despaired of curing him. He grew
thin and restless, through lack of sleep. He read the very dullest books
he could find, every night--all the romances and historical novels--and
even these that had never failed him before as a narcotic, were useless.
Then, in an inspired moment, he went to the Metropolitan House and
tackled _Der Nibelungenring_. Wagner triumphed over the physicians.
Morpheus emerged from his hiding-place, and insomnia was vanquished.
Said Tamworth: "Nowadays, if I have a return of my old complaint, I just
walk up Broadway and look at the outside of the Metropolitan House. The
effect is magical. I go home and sleep the sleep of the virtuous."
This was not encouraging, but I did not repine. Better a peaceful
nerveless lethargy, induced by the Holy Grail, than the discordant din
of horse-laughter set in motion by ill-timed variations, in fantasy
form, upon tragic domestic themes.
At six o'clock, I was left alone in the office. Tamworth went home; and
so did the typists and clerks. It occurred to me that I might utilize a
half-hour or so by working upon my _Lives of Great Men_, the thread of
which I had lost. I was hopelessly out of tune with lives of great men.
Lives of great women--the great women of the kitchen--had lured me
astray. Goethe was obscured by Mrs. Potzenheimer; Molière lurked beneath
the shade of Birdie Miriam McCaffrey. I found it quite impossible to
concentrate my thoughts. They were diffuse, and unresponsive. They
wobbled; and I abandoned my task. Instead, I donned my evening clothes,
and made myself look as presentable as I could. I was alarmingly hungry,
and could not repress a sensation of furtive delight at the thought that
we were to dine at a restaurant, where nobody would say "Ga-ga!" and I
should not have to call the waiter Miriam. We would begin steadily and
industriously with oysters, and plow our way methodically through
everything, until we landed safe and sound, at coffee.
Man proposes. At a quarter to seven I put on my overcoat, and went to
the window to wave to Letitia as soon as I saw her approach. She was
generally punctuality itself, and prided herself upon it. As time
dragged itself slowly along, however, and the slim little figure I knew
so well was not to be detected in the Twenty-third crowd, I began to get
nervous and apprehensive. Perhaps there had been an accident on the
elevated. I thought up all sorts of catastrophes, and when the clock
struck seven I had worked myself into a distressing state of
perturbation. Something had assuredly happened, and I made up my mind to
wait five minutes longer before telephoning. If Letitia had left the
house--as she must have done--it was not much use telephoning. Certainly
Birdie--I always thought of her aggressively as Birdie--would know
nothing about answering telephone rings. Moreover, she was probably
vividly engaged in entertaining "me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, of
Tree-mont."
Seven-twenty, and no Letitia. Even if she came, we should have but forty
minutes to devote to dinner. Food, however, was rapidly losing all
interest for me. I grew cold as the minutes passed. A sense of
powerlessness overcame me. At last I could stand it no longer, and going
to the telephone I rang up my own address, and then stood, nervously
shivering, until I got it.
"This is Archie," I said tremblingly. "It is I--Archie. Who is that at
the 'phone?"
A moment's pause, then: "Birdie--I mean Miriam. You are Archie?"
My worst fears seemed about to be realized. I felt like the pain-racked
husband in the little play _At the Telephone_. I scarcely dared to
listen. "This is Mr. Fairfax, Mrs. McCaffrey. What has happened? Tell me
quickly."
"Letitia's awful sick, and the doctor's coming to see what the matter
is."
The perspiration was trickling down my face. The roots of my hair seemed
to tighten. Letitia was too ill to answer the telephone! The familiarity
of cook's allusion to my wife passed unnoticed in the wave of
apprehension that swept over me.
"Telephone at once for the doctor, and I'll come right back," I
commanded.
"The doctor's telephone doesn't work," was the reply, "and your wife has
gone to fetch him. Me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, was too tired to go, and
I had to stay with Letitia."
A ray of light! I laughed--almost hysterically. The sudden removal of
the nervous tension nearly made me collapse. It was the McCaffrey brat
that was "awful sick," and as I hung up the receiver, I experienced
nothing but a sense of utter thankfulness. Our little dinner most
assuredly was off, and the Holy Grail was lost. Then a normal sense of
vexation set in, and I felt indignant as I thought of Letitia trotting
off for De Voursney, while I was left, lamenting.
If I had only been strong-minded enough to dine in town alone, and go to
the opera in solitary state! Now that I knew Letitia was unharmed, I
could easily have done this, and telephoned my determination to her.
Unluckily, I was not built for such a course. Such stringency might be
effective, but it was beyond me. I could not take my pleasures
wifelessly. The only thing to do was to go home, and I should have been
impelled to this course, even if I had been expected to sit up all night
with cook's brat--and I was not at all sure that Letitia would not
suggest this.
My mood had changed, and despondency had set in. I put my clothes into
the dress-suit-case, locked up the office, and went home as rapidly as I
could, after having bestowed the two ten-dollar _Parsifal_ tickets upon
the elevator boy, who rather ruefully told me that he had seats for the
Third Avenue Theater, where they were playing a pretty little thing
called _Too Proud to Beg_. I was not too proud, however, and I begged
him to take twenty-dollars' worth of opera, for my sake, which he
promised to do.
Letitia was very flushed and excited when I reached our apartment. It
was she who opened the door, and I noticed that she had her hat and coat
on.
"Oh, Archie, I'm so sorry," she said lachrymosely, "and I do hope that
you are not disappointed. Poor little Letitia is quite ill and feverish.
She has been moaning and crying 'Ga-ga!' I had to go for De Voursney,
and he is here now. I couldn't send Miriam, or Mrs. O'Flaherty, or the
three girls."
"The three girls!"
"Yes, Archie. Cook has three other daughters, who live with Mrs.
O'Flaherty, and they are all here--very nice respectable girls."
"She has no right--"
"What can I do, Archie? Besides, they live in Tremont, so that really
they don't concern us. She might have been frank, and have candidly
admitted that little Letitia had sisters. But, perhaps, if you had to
earn your living as a cook, dear, you would do the same thing under the
same circumstances. We won't argue; I don't feel equal to it. Ah, here
_is_ the doctor."
Dr. De Voursney entered at that moment, and shook hands most amiably.
His presence was generally reassuring, but I must admit that at present
I felt no very wild sense of alarm.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Fairfax,"' he said, rubbing his hands affably.
"The little patient has a febrile disturbance, and I notice a stiffening
of the parotid gland in front of the ear. I should say undoubtedly--in
fact I can affirm--that it is a case of _cynanche parotidaea_."
Letitia grew pale. "How horrible!" she exclaimed in a low voice.
"Perhaps you could give it us in English," I suggested ironically. "Mrs.
Fairfax is well versed in Latin, but medical phrases, I am afraid--"
"Certainly--oh, certainly," he said, in irrepressible good humor. "I
generally use Latin in apartment houses and reserve mere English for the
tenements. _Cynanche parotidaea_ is very prevalent just at present. It
is almost epidemic. Gentle laxatives and warm fomentations are really
all that it is necessary to prescribe. In English, we call the malady,
mumps."
"Mumps!" I murmured.
"Mumps!" exclaimed Letitia.
"It is not serious, as you may perceive. It is painful and quite ugly to
look at. I shall leave some directions with the mother and shall come in
to-morrow morning."
"Is it catching?" I asked anxiously.
"Nothing more so--nothing more so," he replied cheerfully. "It is
highly contagious. It spreads through schools, through apartment houses,
with the rapidity of lightning."
"Then you think that my wife might--"
"I should say it was very likely--extremely probable," he declared,
beaming upon us; "still it might be worse. Now, you know, scarlet fever,
at present, is raging in this neighborhood. I have just come from a
house where six little children are attacked, and the seventh has all
the symptoms--"
We bowed him out in a trail of depression, and stood looking at each
other silently. Then Letitia slowly took off her hat and coat and I did
the same, deposing my dress-suit-case in my bedroom viciously. Fate was
not smiling upon us.
Miriam came bustling in, with a grim, set face. She scowled as she saw
us, and placed her arms akimbo, in the style made popular by fishwives,
and _Madame Angot_.
"I've packed off me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, and me daughters in a
hurry," she said savagely. "Yer doctor says it's catching, and it's just
me luck that Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred should have been here.
Worse luck to it, say I! Me poor Letitia, a-prattling so cutely as she's
laid low by the nasty disease."
"It is not at all serious," murmured Letitia sympathetically.
"For them as ain't got it--no, it ain't serious," said Birdie Miriam
McCaffrey mockingly. "For them as ain't got it--it just tickles, that's
all. Curse me for a-comin' here. That's my motto. 'The neighborhood's
just alive with it,' says yer doctor. 'It's in the air. It's epileptic.
Why,' says he, 'there's hardly a house where they ain't got mumps.' Nice
for me, eh? If them's yer Christian principles, luring a hard-working
woman, with a child, into a mumpy house, and a-saying no word to put her
on her guard--"
"You can go whenever you are ready," I said loftily, "and no
impertinence, please."
"As soon as my Letitia can be moved--if the poor thing ever lives
through it--and I have me doubts, as she's that delicate--we'll go. Oh,
we'll go, right enough. Don't you worry about that. Not if yez poured
gold at me feet, and if I wuz a-perishing for want of a bit o' food, to
keep body and soul together, would I stay in a house that's alive with
germs. 'Yes,' says yer doctor, 'it's a germ. It's a mikey in the air.'
Me poor Mike! 'A mikey in the air,' says he. And I only hope that me
Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred will be spared, as it's so catching.
Why didn't ye tell me, Mrs. Fairfax? Why didn't ye say, when ye come
down to Sixth Avenue, that there was diseases all around? Play fair;
that's my motto. I don't believe in no underhand game, I don't. Not for
me!"
As she flounced out of the room, Letitia sank into a chair and burst
into tears. The twittering of Birdie had been horribly effective. It had
made me feel nervous and unstrung. Logic was quite unavailing, and for
the first time in my life, I realized that those with a sense of humor
might have fared better than we did.