After the first round of excessively formal entertainments for Mr. and
Mrs. O'Valley, Steve found a mental hunger suddenly asserting itself.
It was as if a farm hand were asked to subsist upon a diet of weak tea
and wafers.
In the first place, no masculine mind can quite admit the superiority
of a feminine mind when it concerns handling said masculine mind's
business affairs. Though Steve insisted that Mary had done quite as
well as he would have done, he told himself secretly that he must get
down to hard work and go over the letters and memoranda which had
developed during his absence.
With quiet amusement Mary had agreed to the investigation, watching
him prowl among the files with the same tolerant attitude she would
have entertained toward Luke had he insisted that he could run the
household more efficiently than a mere sister.
"Poor tired boy," she used to think when Steve would come into the
office with a fagged look on his handsome face and new lines steadily
growing across his forehead. "You don't realize yet--you haven't begun
to realize."
And Steve, trying to catch up with work and plan for the future, to
respond graciously to every civic call made upon him, would find
himself enmeshed in a desperate combination of Beatrice's dismay over
the cut of her new coat, her delight at the latest scandal, her
headaches, the special order for glace chestnuts he must not forget,
the demand that he come home for luncheon just because she wanted him
to talk to, the New York trip looming ahead with Bea coaxing him to
stay the entire time and let business slide along as it would. All the
while the anaesthesia of unreality was lessening in its effect now that
he had attained his goal.
The rapt adoration he felt for his wife was in a sense a rather subtle
form of egotism he felt for himself. The Gorgeous Girl or rather any
Gorgeous Girl personified his starved dreams and frantic ambitions. He
had turned his face toward such a goal for so many tense years,
goading himself on and breathing in the anaesthesia of indifference and
unreality to all else about him that having obtained it he now paused
exhausted and about to make many disconcerting discoveries. Had the
Gorgeous Girl had hair as black as his own or a nose such as Mary
Faithful's she would have still been his goal, symbol of his aims.
Having finished the long battle Steve now felt an urge to begin to
battle for something else besides wealth and social position. He felt
ill at ease in Beatrice's salon and among her friends, who all seemed
particularly inane and ridiculous, who were all just as busy and tired
and nervous as Beatrice was for some strange reason, and who
considered it middle class not to smoke and common to show any natural
sentiment or emotion. He soon found it was quite the thing to display
the temperament of an oyster when any vital issue was discussed or any
play, for example, had a scene of deep and inspiring words. A queer
little smirk or titter was the proper applause, but one must wax
enthusiastic and superlative over a clever burglary, a new-style
dance, a chafing-dish concoction, or, a risque story retold in
drawing-room language.
Before his marriage Beatrice had always been terribly rushed and he
had had more time in which to work and glow with pride at the nearing
of his goal. She kept him at arm's length very cleverly anchored with
the two-carat engagement ring and Steve had to fight for time and
plead for an audience. It fired his imagination, making him twice as
keen for the final capture.
But when two persons live in the same apartment, notwithstanding the
eleven rooms and so on, a monotony of existence pervades even the
grandeur of velvet-panelled walls. There are the inevitable three
meals a day to be gone through with--five meals if tea and a supper
party are counted. There are the same ever-rising questions as to the
cook's honesty and the chauffeur's graft in the matter of buying, new
tires. There are just so many persons who have to be wined and dined
and who revenge themselves by doing likewise to their former host; the
everlasting exchanging of courtesies and pleasantries--all the dull,
decent habits of ultra living.
Steve found his small store of possessions huddled into a corner, his
pet slippers and gown graciously bestowed upon a passing panhandler,
and he was obliged to don a very correct gray "shroud," as he named it
in thankless terms, and to put his cigar and cigar ashes into
something having the earmarks of an Etruscan coal scuttle, though
Beatrice said it was a priceless antique Gay had bought for a song!
There were many times when Steve would have liked to roam about his
house in plebeian shirt sleeves, eat a plain steak and French-fried
potatoes with a hunk of homemade pie as a finish, and spend the
evening in that harmless, disorderly fashion known to men of doing
nothing but stroll about smoking, playing semi-popular records,
reading the papers, and very likely having another hunk of pie at
bedtime.
Besides all this there were the topics of the day to discuss. During
his courtship love was an all-absorbing topic. There were many
questions that Beatrice asked that required intricate and tiring
answers. During the first six weeks of living at the apartment Steve
realized a telling difference between men and women is that a woman
demands a specific case--you must rush special incidents to back up
any theory you may advance--whereas men, for the most part, are
content with abstract reasoning and supply their own incidents if they
feel inclined. Also that a finely bred fragile type of woman such as
Beatrice inspires both fear and a maudlin sort of sympathy, and that
man is prevented from crossing such a one to any great extent since
men are as easily conquered by maudlin sympathy as by fear.
When a yellow-haired child with dove-coloured eyes manages to squeeze
out a tear and at the same moment depart in wrath to her room and
lock the doors, refusing to answer--the trouble being why in
heaven's name must a pound-and-a-half spaniel called Monster, nothing
but a flea-bearing dust mop, do nothing but sit and yap for
chocolates?--what man is going to dare do otherwise than suppress
a little profanity and then go and whisper apologies at the keyhole?
After several uncomfortable weeks of this sort of mental chaos Steve
determined to do what many business men do--particularly the sort
starting life in an orphan asylum and ending by having residence pipe
organs and Russian wolfhounds frolicking at their heels--to bury
himself in his work and defend his seclusion by never refusing to
write a check for his wife. When he finally reached this decision he
was conscious of a strange joy.
Everything was a trifle too perfect to suit Steve. The entire effect
was that of the well-set stage of a society drama. Beatrice was too
correctly gowned and coiffured, always upstage if any one was about,
her high-pitched, thin voice saying superlative nothings upon the
slightest provocation; or else she was dissolving into tears and
tantrums if no one was about.
Steve could not grasp the wherefore of having such stress laid upon
the exact position of a floor cushion or the colour scheme for a
bridge luncheon--he would have so rejoiced in really mediocre table
service, in less precision as to the various angles of the shades or
the unrumpled condition of the rugs. He had not the oasis Mark
Constantine had provided for himself when he kept his room of
old-fashioned trappings apart from the rest of the mansion.
Steve needed such a room. He planned almost guiltily upon building a
shack in the woods whither he could run when things became too
impossible for his peace of mind. If he could convince his wife that a
thing was smart or different from everything else its success and
welcome in their house were assured. But an apple pie, a smelly pipe,
a maidless dinner table, or a disorderly den had never been considered
smart in Beatrice's estimation, and Steve never attempted trying to
change her point of view.
Beatrice wondered, during moments of seriousness, how it was that this
handsome cave man of hers rebelled so constantly against the beauty
and correctness of the apartment and yet never really disgraced her as
her own father would have done. It gave her added admiration for Steve
though she felt it would be a mistake to tell him so. She did not
believe in letting her husband see that she was too much in love with
him.
Despite his growls and protests about this and that, and his ignorance
as to the things in life Beatrice counted paramount, Steve adapted
himself to the new environment with a certain poise that astonished
everyone. The old saying "Every Basque a noble" rang true in this
descendant of a dark-haired, romantic young woman whom his grandfather
had married. There was blood in Steve which Beatrice might have envied
had she been aware of it. But Steve was in ignorance, and very
willingly so, regarding his ancestors. There had merely been "my
folks"--which began and ended the matter.
Still it was the thoroughbred strain which the Basque woman had given
her grandson that enabled Steve to be master of his house even if he
knew very little of what it was all about. It was fortunate for his
peace of mind--and pocketbook--that Beatrice had accepted the general
rumour of a goat-tending ancestry and pried no further. Had she ever
glimpsed the genealogy tables of the Benefacio family, from which
Steve descended, she would have had the best time of all; coats of
arms and family crests and mottoes would have been the vogue; a trip
to the Pyrenees would have followed; mantillas and rebozos would have
crowded her wardrobe, and Steve would have been forced to learn
Spanish and cultivate a troubadourish air.
Moreover, the Gorgeous Girl was not willing that her husband be buried
in business. She could not have so good a time without him--besides,
it was meet that he acquired polish. Her father was a different
matter; everyone knew his ways and would be as likely to try to change
the gruff, harsh-featured man as to try surveying Gibraltar with a
penny ruler. Now Beatrice had married Steve because cave men were
rather the mode, cave men who were wonderfully successful and had no
hampering relatives. Besides, her father favoured Steve and he would
not have been amiable had he been forced to accept a son-in-law of
whom he did not approve. Mark Constantine had never learned
graciousness of the heart, nor had his child.
So Beatrice proceeded to badger Steve whenever he pleaded business,
with the result that she kept dropping in at his office, sometimes
bringing friends, coaxing him to close his desk and come and play for
the rest of the day. Sometimes she would peek in at Mary Faithful's
office and baby talk--for Steve's edification--something like this:
"Ise a naughty dirl--I is--want somebody to play wif me--want to be
amoosed. Do oo care? Nice, busy lady--big brain."
Often she would bring a gift for Mary in her surface generous
fashion--a box of candy or a little silk handkerchief. She pitied Mary
as all butterflies pity all ants, and she little knew that as soon as
she had departed Mary would open the window to let fresh air drive out
distracting perfume, and would look at the useless trifle on her desk
with scornful amusement.
Before the New York trip Steve took refuge in his first deliberate lie
to his wife. He had lied to himself throughout his courtship but was
most innocent of the offence.
"If Mrs. O'Valley telephones or calls please say I have gone out to
the stockyards," he told Mary. "And will you lend me your office for
the afternoon? I'm so rushed I must be alone where I can work without
interruption."
Mary gathered up her papers. "I'll keep you under cover." She was
smiling.
"What's the joke?"
"I was thinking of how very busy idle people always are and of how
much time busy people always manage to make for the idle people's
demands."
He did not answer until he had collected his work materials. Then he
said: "I should like to know just what these idle people do with
themselves but I shall never have the time to find out." He vanished
into Mary's office, banging the door.
Beatrice telephoned that afternoon, only to be given her husband's
message.
"I'll drive out to the stockyards and get him," she proposed.
"He went with some men and I don't believe I'd try it if I were you,"
Mary floundered.
"I see. Well, have him call me up as soon as he comes in. It is very
important."
When Steve reached home that night he found Beatrice in a well-developed
pout.
"Didn't you get my message?" she demanded, sharply.
"Just as I was leaving the office. I looked in there on--on my way
back. I saw no use in telephoning then. What is it, dear?"
"It's too late now. You have ruined my day."
"Sorry. What is too late?"
"I wanted you to go to Amityville with me; there is a wonderful
astrologer there who casts life horoscopes. He predicted this whole
war and the Bolsheviki and bombs and everything, and I wanted him to
do ours. Alice Twill says he is positively uncanny."
Steve shook his head. "No long-haired cocoanut throwers for mine," he
said, briefly, unfolding his paper.
"But I wanted you to go."
"Well, I do not approve of such things; they are a waste of time and
money."
"I have my own money," she informed him, curtly.
Steve laid aside the paper. "I have known that for some time."
"Besides, it is rude to refuse to call me when I have asked you to do
so. It makes me ridiculous in the eyes of your employees."
Recalling the shift of offices Steve suppressed a smile. "It was
nothing important, Bea, and I am mighty busy. Your father never had
time to play; he worked a great deal harder than I have worked."
"I can't help that. You must not expect me to be a little stay-at-home.
You knew that before we were even engaged. Besides, I'm no child----"
"No, but you act like one." He spoke almost before he thought. "You
are a woman nearly twenty-six years old, yet you haven't the poise of
girls eighteen that I have known. Still, they were farm or working
girls. I've sometimes wondered what it is that makes you and your
friends always seem so childish and naive--at times. Aren't you ever
going to grow up--any of you?"
"Do you want a pack of old women?" she demanded. "How can you find
fault with my friends? You seem to forget how splendidly they have
treated you."
A cave man must be muzzled, handcuffed, and Under the anaesthetic of
unreality and indifference to be a satisfactory husband for a modern
Gorgeous Girl.
"Why shouldn't they treat me splendidly? I have never robbed or
maltreated any of them. Tell me something. It is time we talked
seriously. We can't exist on the cream-puff kind of conversation. What
in the world has your way of going through these finishing schools
done for you?"
The dove-coloured eyes flickered angrily. "I had a terribly good
time," she began. "Besides, it's the proper thing--girls don't come
out at twenty and marry off and let that be the end of it. You really
have a much better time now if you wait until you are twenty-five, and
then you somehow have learned how to be a girl for an indefinite
period. As for the finishing school in America--well, we had a
wonderful sorority."
"I've met college women who were clear-headed persons deserving the
best and usually attaining it--but I've never taken a microscope to
the sort of women playing the game from the froth end. I'm wondering
what your ideas were."
"You visited me--you met my friends--my chaperons--you wrote me each
day."
"I was in love and busy making my fortune. I was as shy as a
backwoods product--you know that--and afraid you would be carried off
by someone else before I could come up to the sum your father demanded
of me. I have nothing but a hazy idea as to a great many girls of all
sorts and sizes--and mostly you."
"Well, we had wonderful lectures and things; and I had a wonderful
crush on some of the younger teachers--that is a great deal of fun."
"Crushes?"
"You must have crushes unless you're a nobody--and there's nothing so
much a lark. You select your crush and then you rush her. I had a
darling teacher, she is doing war work in Paris now. She was a doll. I
adored her the moment I saw her and I sent her presents and left
flowers in her room, orchids on Sundays, until she made me stop. One
day a whole lot of us who had been rushing her clipped off locks of
our hair and fastened them in little gauze bags and we strung a doll
clothes line across her room and pinned the little bags on it and left
a note for her saying: 'Your scalp line!'"
"What did that amount to?"
"Oh, it was fun. And I had another crush right after that one. Then
some of the classes were interesting. I liked psychology best of all
because you could fake the answers and cram for exams more easily.
Math. and history require facts. There was one perfectly thrilling
experience with fish. You know fish distinguish colours, one from the
other, and are guided by colour sense rather than a sense of smell. We
had red sticks and green sticks and blue sticks in a tank of fish, and
for days we put the fish food on the green sticks and the fish would
swim right over to get it, and then we put it on the red sticks and
they still swam over to the green sticks and waited round--so it was
recognizing colour and not the food. And a lot of things like that."
Steve laughed. "I hope the fish wised up in time."
Beatrice looked at him disapprovingly. "If you had gone to college it
might have made a great difference," she said.
"Possibly," he admitted; "but I'll let the rest of the boys wait on
the fishes. Did you go to domestic science this morning?"
"Yes, it was omelet. Mine was like leather. The gas stove makes my
head ache. But we are going to have a Roman pageant to close the
season--all about a Roman matron, and that will be lots of fun."
"You eat too much candy; that is what makes your head ache," he
corrected.
She pretended not to hear him. "It is time to dress."
"Don't say there's a party to-night," he begged.
"Of course there is, and you know it. The Homers are giving a dinner
for their daughter. Everyone is to wear their costumes wrong side out.
Isn't that clever? I laid out a white linen suit for you; it will look
so well turned inside out; and I am going to wear an organdie that has
a wonderful satin lining. There is no reason why we must be frumps."
"I'd rather stay home and play cribbage," Steve said, almost
wistfully. "There's a rain creeping up. Let's not go!"
"I hate staying home when it is raining." Beatrice went into her room
to try the effect of a sash wrong side out. "It is so dull in a big
drawing room when there are just two people," she added, as Steve
appeared in the doorway.
"Two people make a home," he found himself answering.
The Gorgeous Girl glanced at him briefly, during which instant she
seemed quite twenty-six years old and the spoiled daughter of a rich
man, the childish, senseless part of her had vanished. "Would you
please take Monster into the kitchen for her supper?" she asked,
almost insolently.
So the owner of the O'Valley Leather Works found his solace in tucking
the pound-and-a-half spaniel under his arm and trying to convince
himself that he was all wrong and a self-made man must keep a watch on
himself lest he become a boor!
* * * * *
The day the O'Valleys left for New York in company with three other
couples Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord Vondeplosshe arrived in Hanover, having
visited until their welcome was not alone worn out but impossible ever
to be replaced. A social item in the evening paper stated that they
had taken an apartment at the Graystone and would be at home to their
friends--whoever they might be.
If Gay's club and his friends had determined merely to be polite and
not welcome his wife, Trudy had determined that they would not only
welcome her but insist upon being helpful to them; as for her former
associates--they would be treated to a curt bow. This, however, did
not include the Faithfuls. Mary was not to be ignored, nor did Trudy
wish to ignore her. All the good that was in Trudy responded to Mary's
goodness. She never tried to be to Mary--no one did more than once.
Nor did she try to flatter her. She was truly sorry for Mary's
colourless life, truly grieved that Mary would not consent to shape
her eyebrows. But she respected her, and it was to Mary's house that
Mrs. Vondeplosshe repaired shortly after her arrival.
It was quite true that Beatrice Constantine would have developed much
as Trudy had were the pampered person compelled to earn her living,
and, like Trudy, too, would have married a half portion, bankrupt
snob. As Trudy dashed into the Faithful living room, kissing Mary and
her mother and shaking a finger at Luke, Mary thought what a splendid
imitation she was of Beatrice returning from her honeymoon.
"As pretty as a picture," Mrs. Faithful declared, quite chirked up by
the bridal atmosphere. "How do you do it, Trudy? And why didn't you
write us something besides postals? They always seem like printed
handbills to me."
"Especially mine," Luke protested. "One of Sing Sing with the line: 'I
am thinking of you.'"
Trudy giggled. "I didn't have a minute and I bought postals in flocks.
Oh, I adore New York! I'm wild to live there. I nearly passed away in
New England, but of course we had to stay as long as they would have
us."
She looked at herself in a mirror, conscious of Mary's amused
expression. She wore a painfully bright blue tailored suit--she had
made the skirt herself and hunted up a Harlem tailor to do the
jacket--round-toed, white leather shoes stitched with bright blue,
white silk stockings, an aviatrix cap of blue suede, and a white fox
fur purchased at half price at a fire sale.
"I haven't any new jewellery except my wedding ring," she mourned. "I
expected Gay's sister to give me one of her mother's diamond
earrings--I think she might have. They are lovely stones--but she
never made a move that way--she's horrid. As soon as I can afford to
be independent I shall cut her, for she did her best to politely ask
us to leave."
"You were there several weeks, weren't you?" Mary ventured.
"Yes--I grew tame. I learned a lot from her--I was pretty crude in
some ways." Which was true. Trudy was quite as well-bred looking, at
first glance, as the Gorgeous Girl. "It is always better to get your
experience where the neighbours aren't watching. I didn't lose a
minute. If I never did an honest day's work for Steve O'Valley I
worked like a steam engine learning how to be a real lady, the sort
Gay tried to marry but couldn't!"
"As if you weren't a little lady at all times," Mrs. Faithful added.
"Of course we are stony broke but Gay's brother-in-law just had to
loan us some money in order to have us go. They gave us fifty dollars
for a wedding present. Well, it was better than nothing. Gay has
talked to a lot of concert managers and he's going to have some
wonderful attractions next season. People have never taken Gaylord
seriously; he really has had to discover himself, and he is----"
"Are you practising small talk on me?" Mary asked.
"You've said it," Trudy admitted. "That last is the way I'm going to
talk about Gaylord to his friends. I'll make him a success if he will
only mind me. Just think--I'll be calling on Beatrice O'Valley before
long! She will have to know me because Gay helped furnish her
apartment and was one of her ushers. It will mean everything for us to
know her--and I'm never going to appear at all down and out, either.
People never take you seriously if you seem to need money. Debt can't
frighten me. I was raised on it. All I need is Gay's family reputation
and my own hair and teeth and I'll breeze in before any of the other
entries. I came to ask if you won't come to see where I live?" She
smiled her prettiest. "Gay is at his club and we can talk. It was
quite a bomb in the enemies' camp when he married--people just can't
dun a married man like they do a bachelor."
"I'll come next week." Mary tried putting off the evil day.
"No--now. I want your advice--and to show you my clothes."
"You will have clothes, Trudy, when you don't have food."
"You have to these days--no good time unless you do."
She kissed Mrs. Faithful and promised to have them all up for dinner.
Then she tucked her arm in Mary's and pranced down the street with
her, talking at top speed of how horrid it was that they had to walk
and not drive in a cab like Beatrice, and concluding with a
dissertation on Gaylord's mean disposition.
"I'm not mean, Mary, unless I want to accomplish something--but
Gaylord is mean on general principle. He sulks and tells silly lies
when you come to really know him. Oh, I'm not madly in love--but we
can get along without throwing things. It's better than marrying a
clod-hopper who couldn't show me anything better than his mother's
green-plush parlour."
"Doesn't it seem hard to have to pretend to love him?"
"No, he's so stupid," said the debonair Mrs. Vondeplosshe as she
brought Mary up before the entrance of the Graystone, a cheap
apartment house with a marble entrance that extended only a quarter of
the way up; from there on ordinary wood and marbleized paper finished
the deed. The Vondeplosshes had a rear apartment. Their windows looked
upon ash cans and delivery entrances, the front apartments with their
bulging bay windows being twenty-five dollars a month more rent. As it
was, they were paying forty-five, and very lucky to have the chance to
pay it.
Trudy unlocked the door with a flourish. All that Trudy had considered
as really essential to the making of a home was a phonograph and a
pier glass; the rest was simple--rent a furnished place and wear out
someone else's things. The bandbox of a place with four cell-like
rooms was by turns pitiful and amusing to Mary Faithful.
"We are just starting from here," Trudy reminded her as she watched
the gray eyes flicker with humour or narrow with displeasure. "Wait
and see--we'll soon be living neighbour to the O'Valleys. Besides,
there is such an advantage in being married. You don't have to worry
for fear you'll be an----"
"Old maid," finished Mary. "Out with it! You can't frighten me. I hope
you and Gay never try changing your minds at the same time, for it
would be a squeeze."
She selected a fragile gilt chair in the tiny living room with its
imitation fireplace and row of painted imitation books in the little
bookcase. This was in case the tenants had no books of their
own--which the Vondeplosshes had not. If they possessed a library they
could easily remove the painted board and give it to the janitor for
safekeeping. There were imitation Oriental rugs and imitation-leather
chairs and imitation-mahogany furniture, plated silver, and imitations
of china and of linen were to be found in the small three-cornered
dining room, which resembled a penurious wedge of cake, Mary thought
as she tried saying something polite. The imitation extended to the
bedroom with its wall bed and built-in chiffonier and dresser of gaudy
walnut. Trudy had promptly cluttered up the last-mentioned article
with smart-looking cretonne and near-ivory toilet articles. There was
even a pathetic little wardrobe trunk they had bought for $28.75 in
New York, and Trudy had painstakingly soaked off old European hotel
labels she had found on one of Gay's father's satchels and repasted
them on the trunk to give the impression of travel and money.
The kitchen was nothing but a dark hole with a rusty range and
nondescript pots and pans. "Being in the kitchen gets me nothing, so
why bother about it?" Trudy explained, hardly opening the door. "We
have no halls or furnace to care for, and an apartment house sounds so
well when you give an address. I wish we could have afforded a front
one; it will be hard to have people climbing through the back halls. I
have put in a good supply of canned soups and vegetables and powdered
puddings, and we can save a lot on our food. We'll be invited out,
too, and when we eat at home I can get a meal in a few minutes and
I'll make Gay wash the dishes. Besides, I have a wonderful recipe for
vanishing cream that his sister bought in Paris, and I'm going to have
a little business myself, making it to supply to a few select
customers as a favour. I'll sell small jars for a dollar and large
ones for three, and I can make liquid face powder, too. Oh, we won't
starve. And if you could wait for the money I know I owe you----"
"Call it a wedding present," Mary said, briefly.
"You lamb!"
Trudy fell on her neck and was in the throes of explaining how
grateful she was and how she had an evening dress modelled after one
of Gay's sister's, which cost seven hundred dollars before the war,
when Gay appeared--very debonair and optimistic in his checked suit,
velours hat, and toothpick-toed tan shoes, and his pale little eyes
were quite animated as he kissed Trudy and dutifully shook hands with
Mary, explaining that the Hunters of Arcadia had just offered him a
clerical position at the club, ordering supplies and making out bills
and so on--because he was married, very likely. It would pay forty a
month and his lunches.
"And only take up your mornings! You can slip extra sandwiches in your
pockets for me, deary. I'll give you a rubber-pocketed vest for a
Christmas present," Trudy exclaimed. "Oh, say everything in front of
Mary--she knows what we really are!"
At which Mary fled, with the general after impression of pale, wicked
eyes and a checked suit and a dashing, red-haired young matron with a
can opener always on hand, and the fact that the Vondeplosshes were
going to lay siege to the O'Valleys as soon as possible.
Mary decided that it was a great privilege to be a profane lady
concealing a heartache compared to other alternatives. At least
heartaches were quite real.