§ 1
When Martin went on his honeymoon to Atlantic City, he had taken
his annual two weeks’ vacation. During the hot weather of summer,
therefore, he and Jeannette were obliged to remain in the sweltering
city. But Jeannette did not mind the heat. Adventuring in married
life was too utterly absorbing; she loved her new home, and each day
found new delight in managing it. She and her husband considered
themselves deliriously happy. Nights on which they did not go to the
theatre, they roamed the bright upper stretches of Broadway, sauntered
along Riverside Drive as far as Grant’s Tomb, or meandered into the
Park, where electric lights cast a theatrical radiance on trees and
shrubbery. On Sundays they made excursions to the beaches, and one
week-end they went to Coney Island on Saturday afternoon and stayed
the night at the Manhattan Beach Hotel. Jeannette long remembered
the glorious planked steak they enjoyed for dinner on that occasion,
sitting at a little table by the porch railing, listening to the big
military band, while all about them a gay throng chatted and laughed
at other tables, and crowds surged up and down the boardwalk as the
Atlantic thundered a dull rhythmical bourdon to the stirring music of
trumpet and drum.
Her mother departed the first of August for Canada. The concert tour
having been finally decided upon,--without the violinist,--every day or
so cards arrived from Mrs. Sturgis post-marked “Montreal,” “Quebec,”
“Toronto.” The venture could hardly be considered a financial success,
she wrote, but she and the girls were having just too wonderful a time!
The Canadians were extraordinarily hospitable!
Alice, Roy, and the baby returned from Freeport the last of September;
she expected to be confined early in November. The Devlins visited
them one Sunday during the last weeks of their stay on Long Island,
and Jeannette wondered how her sister could be happy in such an
environment. The room the Beardsleys occupied was under the roof and,
during the day, like an oven. Etta, Alice told her, woke up sometimes
as early as five or five-thirty, and nothing would persuade the child
to go to sleep again. As soon as she was awake, she began to fret, and
her wails disturbed the other boarders at that hour. Either father
or mother would find it necessary to get up, dress, and wheel the
child out in her carriage, pushing her around and around the block
until she could be brought safely back to the house. On Sundays when
breakfast was not until nine o’clock, these hours of the early silent
mornings were a long, wearisome, hungry trial. Jeannette thought the
food at the boarding-house was markedly meager, and Alice had to admit
that as the season was drawing to a close, there were evidences of
retrenchment on the part of the landlady, but at first, she assured her
sister, the table had been plentiful and good. The effect of all this
upon Jeannette had been a determination to order her own life along
safer lines. Two or three times Alice had come up to the city during
the summer to spend the night. On these occasions Roy slept at his
own flat in the Bronx, as there was only a narrow couch available at
the Devlins’. To this Martin had been relegated, and the two sisters
occupied the bed together. Alice was very large. It worried Jeannette;
she was once more full of apprehensions. She made up her mind that for
herself she did not want a baby for a long time, not until she and
Martin were out of debt, and had saved something so that she could be
sure of a certain amount of comfort and care.
Martin’s attitude about money distressed her. He did not seem to take
the matter of their finances with sufficient seriousness. He was ever
urging her to engage a maid to attend to the dish-washing and clean
up after dinner. He hated kitchen work, himself, and equally hated to
have his wife do it. When he finished his dinner and rose from the
table, rolling a cigar about between his teeth and filling his mouth
with good, strong inhalations of satisfying tobacco smoke, he felt
contented, replete, ready for talk and relaxation. To have Jeannette
disappear into the kitchen and begin banging around out there with
pans and rattling dishes annoyed him. He could not bring himself to
help her; something in him rebelled at such work. His wife readily
understood how he felt; she sympathized with him, and did not want him
to help her, but she had her own aversion to letting the dishes stand
over night and having them to do after breakfast the following day.
It took the best part of her morning, and meant she could never get
downtown until afternoon. But Martin was willing to concede nothing; he
answered her arguments by reiterating his advice to her to hire a girl.
“Good God, Jan,” he would say in characteristic vigorous fashion, “she
would cost you fifteen or twenty dollars a month, and then you could
get out as early as you wanted to in the mornings and we could have our
evenings together.”
It was just that fifteen or twenty dollars a month which Jeannette
wanted to save to pay on her bills. She had inherited a sense of
frugality; it worried her to be in debt. Martin, on the other hand,
was blandly indifferent. He was willing to deny himself very little,
his wife often felt, to help her contribute to the “till.” They had
many arguments about the matter but never reached a conclusion. Their
creditors,--they owed a little less than three hundred dollars,--were
kept satisfied by a small remittance each month but something more
always had to be charged. Jeannette was baffled. She talked it over
with Alice. The Beardsleys lived more simply than the Devlins; they did
not entertain nor go out to dinner so often nor to the theatre, and
they paid only half as much rent. Their whole scale of expenditure was
more economical. That was the answer, of course. When Jeannette told
Martin they were living beyond their means, he grew angry.
“Damn it,” he answered her, “if there is one thing I hate more than
another, it’s a piker! What do you want to crab about the bills for?
Haven’t we got everything we want? Aren’t we getting along all right?
Who’s kicking?”
Jeannette heaved a sigh of weariness. Some day before long she would
have to persuade him to her way of thinking.
§ 2
Alice’s boy was born in October and was christened Ralph Sturgis
Beardsley by the Reverend Doctor Fitzgibbons, much to Mrs. Sturgis’
tearful satisfaction. Alice had a comparatively easy time with the
birth of her second child, but again there was an aftermath which kept
her weak and anæmic and necessitated an operation just before Christmas.
It was just before Christmas that Jeannette urged Martin to ask for a
raise. Several circumstances encouraged her: she had learned through
Miss Holland that Walt Chase was getting eighty-five dollars a week,--a
big mail order concern out in Chicago had made him an offer and Mr.
Corey had been obliged to raise his salary in order to keep him; Martin
had met John Archibald of the Archibald Engraving Company, the largest
color engravers in the city, and Mr. Archibald had bought Martin a
drink at the bar in the Waldorf and presented him with a cigar; lastly,
her husband had landed a new engraving account a few weeks before and
had brought in considerable holiday business. Martin heeded her advice
and had a talk with Herbert Gibbs, who promised to take the matter up
with his brother, Joe, and seemed disposed to recommend the increase.
In the wildest of spirits, Martin came home, waltzed his wife around
the apartment, kissed her a dozen times, told her again and again
she was a wonder, insisted she stop her preparations for dinner, and
carried her off to a café downtown where he ordered a pint of champagne
and toasted her.
His elation, however, was not fully justified. Martin had asked for
a substantial increase and a commission on all new accounts. It was
evident that in discussing the matter, the brothers had decided this
was too much. They agreed to give him three thousand a year on a twelve
months’ contract.
“I always detested that flat-headed pig,” Jeannette exclaimed
inelegantly when Martin brought home the news. “Think of how we tried
to entertain him and that stupid wife of his, and how we went down to
visit them and let them bore us to death! I knew he was that kind of a
creature!”
“Aw, come, come, Jan,” Martin remonstrated; “you want to be fair. Herb
did the best he could; it was old Joe who kicked. Three thousand a year
isn’t so bad; that’s two hundred and fifty a month. Not so rotten for a
fellow twenty-seven.... Now I hope to God you’ll get a girl in here to
help run the kitchen.”
“Well,--all right,” Jeannette conceded, “only you’ve got to go on
helping me save. I want to pay off every cent we owe.... I suppose I
get my half as usual.”
“Sure. I’ll be paid now twice a month: first and fifteenth.”
“Let’s see; ... that’s a hundred and twenty-five. I get sixty-two
fifty; that’s really five dollars more a week, isn’t it?”
“You’re a little tight-wad,--do you know that, darling?”
“No, I’m not,” Jeannette defended herself. “I’m only trying to run
things economically and systematically, and to do that you’ve _got_ to
plan ahead. The trouble with you, Mart, is that you never do!”
The raise led to the appearance of Hilda in the kitchen. Hilda was
a big-boned, good-natured Swedish girl, willing, but a careless
cook, often exasperatingly stupid. Jeannette paid her fifteen dollars
a month, and established her in the vacant bedroom not hitherto
furnished, which involved an outlay of nearly a hundred dollars.
In spite of the additional income, money continued to be a problem.
Jeannette still felt that she and Martin were living too extravagantly,
and that her husband did not do his share in helping to retrench. She
had been entirely satisfied in the old days before she married to go to
the theatre in gallery or rear balcony seats, but Martin scorned these
locations. When he went to a show, he said, he wanted to enjoy himself,
and sitting in the cheap seats robbed him of any pleasure whatsoever.
It was the same whenever they went downtown to dinner; he preferred the
expensive hotels and restaurants; when he bought new clothes he went
to a tailor and had the suit made to order; he tipped everywhere he
went far too generously. If there was any economizing to be done, it
was always Jeannette who must do it, and what made it all the harder
was that he did not thank her for the self-denial. He spent,--his wife
had no way of knowing how much,--a great deal for drinks, and for the
gin and vermuth he brought home. Once a week, sometimes oftener, he
would arrive with a bottle of each, carefully wrapped up in newspaper,
under his arm. Every time they entertained, she knew it meant more gin
and more vermuth for cocktails. Martin was not a tippler. Frequently
several days or a week would go by without his even suggesting a
cocktail. He did not seem to want one, unless there was company, or
he happened to come home specially tired. Jeannette had never seen
him intoxicated, although on the last day of the year a number of the
men at his office had gathered in the late afternoon at a neighboring
bar, and wished each other “Happy New Year” over and over. Martin
arrived home, glassy-eyed and noisy, wanting her to kiss and love him.
She hated him when he had been drinking; she even loathed the odor
of liquor on his breath; it made it strong and hot like the breath
of a panther. Another expense was his cigars of which he consumed
half-a-dozen a day. She knew they cost money, and she knew Martin well
enough to feel sure that the kind he liked was not the inexpensive
variety.
There was also his card playing to be taken into account. Sandy
MacGregor had a circle of friends who played poker together generally
once a week, on Friday nights. At first Jeannette had urged Martin to
go when Sandy had rung him up, asking if he would like to “sit in.” She
considered it part of a good wife’s rôle: a man should not be expected
to give up masculine society, or an occasional “good time with the
boys” merely because he was married. She did not entirely approve of
poker, but Martin loved it. Whenever he won, he woke her up when he
came home and announced it triumphantly; when he lost he said nothing
about it, and she felt she had no right to ask questions. She suspected
he did not tell her the truth about the size of the stakes for which
he played, realizing she would worry, so she never inquired, and if
Martin came home and put seven or eight dollars on her dressing-table,
exultingly telling her that it was half his winnings, she thanked him
with a bright smile and a kiss for his generous division, even though
she was confident he had won a great deal more.
On the first and fifteenth of the month he gave her sixty-two dollars
and fifty cents. She had to apportion the money among the tradespeople,
the bills “downtown,” and keep enough for Hilda’s wages and incidental
table expenses for the ensuing fortnight. It left her very little to
spend on herself, for clothes and amusements,--far from enough. For
years she had been independent, her own mistress, with the disposal
of her entire earnings; it was hard for her now to have to economize
and compromise and resort to makeshifts because of her husband’s
indifference and improvidence. It brought back disturbing memories
of old days when she and Alice and their mother had had to skimp and
struggle in order to eke out the simplest order of existence. It was
just what she feared might happen when she had considered marrying.
A month arrived when Jeannette found upon her grocer’s bill a charge
for gin and vermuth and for half a box of cigars: nine dollars and
twenty-five cents! It precipitated an angry quarrel between her husband
and herself. Martin had been encroaching in various ways upon her
half share of his salary, and she proposed now to put a stop to it.
He argued that the cocktails and cigars had been for her friends when
invited to dinner; she retorted that neither cocktails nor cigars had
had any share in the entertainment she provided, and if he chose to
have them on hand and offer them, it was his own affair. She taxed
him with the whole score of his extravagance, while Martin chafed and
twisted under her sharp criticisms, swore and grew sulky. He hated
unpleasantness and tried to evade the issue: he’d pay for the booze
and cigars and buy her a hat or anything else she fancied, if she’d
only “forget it” and quit “ragging” him. But Jeannette felt that the
question of an equal division of their financial responsibility was
vital to the success of their marriage, the happiness of both, and
she refused to be deflected. He finally stormed himself out of the
apartment, viciously banging the door shut behind him. Two days of
misery followed for them both, when they met with the exchange of
monosyllables only, though their thoughts pursued one another through
every hour. Their reconciliation was terrific, each willing to concede
everything, eager to make promises and to assure the other of utter
contriteness.
From Jeannette’s point-of-view matters improved. Twice Martin gave her
an extra ten dollars out of his half of his salary.
§ 3
When the year’s lease on the apartment neared its end, Martin was not
for renewing it. Herbert Gibbs had been talking to him about Cohasset
Beach, urging him to move there. Summer was approaching, Gibbs pointed
out, with all its good times of swimming and boating, and even in
winter, he assured Martin, there was plenty of outdoor sport: skating,
tobogganing, even skiing. In particular, his employer counselled, there
was a remarkable little house,--a bungalow,--with floors, ceilings and
inside trim of oak that had just become vacant through the death of its
owner, which could be had for fifty dollars a month. It was a great
bargain for the money. Martin was enthusiastic. Gibbs had promised he
would be at once elected to the Family Yacht Club, and had described
the good times its members had: dances every Saturday night and in
summer, swimming, yachting, picnics. The “bunch,” he assured the young
man, was a “live” one,--the pick of “good fellows.”
Jeannette listened to her husband’s glowing recital with a cold
tightening at her heart.
“He says, Jan,” Martin told her eagerly, “that every once in awhile
they have masquerade parties down at the Club, and everybody goes all
dressed up, with masks on, you know, so nobody recognizes you, and they
just have a riot of fun. Then about a dozen or fifteen of the fellows
are going to get sail-boats this year. There’s a ship-yard near there,
and the ship-builder has designed the neatest little sail-boat you ever
saw in your life. He calls it the A-boat, and they are only going to
cost ninety dollars apiece. Just think of that, Jan: ninety dollars
apiece! A sail-boat,--a little yacht,--for that sum! Gee whillikens!
Can you imagine the fun we’ll have? Everybody, you know, starts the
same with a new boat. Gibbs was crazy to have me order one,--the Club
is anxious to give the ship-builder as big an order as possible so’s to
get the price down,--so I fell for it and told him to put me down. I
thought maybe I’d call her the _Albatross_?”
“You--_what_?” asked Jeannette blankly.
“Sure, I told him to put me down. You know, it made a hit with him;
he’d’ve been awfully sore if I hadn’t; and it’s up to me to keep in
with old Gibbsey. I can sell it if we don’t like it. Gibbs put my name
up for membership in the Yacht Club.”
“He _did_?” Jeannette said blankly again.
“Well, darling, it’s only thirty dollars a year and I guess that’s not
going to break us; the initiation fee is twenty-five,--something like
that. Why the Club is just intended for young married folks like us;
there’re the dances for the ladies, and the card parties and picnics,
and there’re the sports for the men. Gee,--I think it will be great!
And Gibbsey tells me that by special arrangement this year the Cohasset
Beach Yacht Club is going to let us use its tennis courts!”
Jeannette looked into his excited eyes, and a dull exasperation came
over her.
“The poor, poor simpleton,” she thought. “He thinks he’ll like it;
Gibbs has filled him full. He’ll hate it as I hate it now inside of
a fortnight. He never would be contented in such a place; what would
he do without his theatres and the gay night life he loves? It’s hard
enough for us to live as we are,--we have to struggle and struggle
to make ends meet,--and here he is mad to try an even more expensive
method of living, involving clubs and club dues, yachts and commutation
fares! ... And in such a community with such people! The flat-headed
Gibbses and their awful friends picnicking there on the sand that
terrible Fourth of July! And Martin proposes I exchange them and their
vulgar dreadful society, their masquerades and card parties, for my
beautiful little apartment which I’ve tried to make perfect, which
everyone admires, and which is my joy and delight!”
There was a dangerous, fixed smile on her face as she rose from the
dinner table where they had been lingering over their black coffee, and
rang the little brass bell for Hilda to clear away.
“Well, what do you think, Jan? Don’t you believe we’d both come to love
the country? Don’t you think we’d have a pack of fun down there?”
She eyed him with a cold stare a moment before she answered slowly:
“I won’t consider it.”
His face fell.
“What’s more,” she added briefly, “I think you’re a fool.”
His expression darkened; he glowered at her, hurt to the quick. She
ignored him and went about the living-room straightening objects,
lowering shades, adjusting lights. All the time she was steeling
herself to the wrangle she knew was coming. She would be equal to
it; she would give him straight talk; she’d let him have a piece of
her mind and make him realize how absurd he was, how utterly insane.
Buying yachts and joining clubs! What did he think he was, anyway? A
millionaire?
The storm when it broke was the most violent they had yet known; it was
even worse than she had anticipated. Martin, usually noisy, cursing,
was quick to recover, while she rarely lost control of speech or
action. But now the thought of giving up her little home, as he calmly
proposed, infuriated her. He had not the faintest conception of how she
loved it; he had never done one single thing to improve or beautify it
beyond buying those frightful Macy daubs!
For the first time in their quarrels she could not control her tears.
Convulsed with sobbing, Martin thought she had capitulated. He waited
several minutes in distressed silence and then came to where she lay
upon the couch to put his arms about her and draw her to him, but she
turned on him with a fury that was shocking. Rebuffed, he stared at her
savagely, then snatched his hat and coat and left her with a violent
bang of the door.
Jeannette never for one moment thought she could not swing Martin
to her wishes. She could not conceive of herself weakening; Martin
had always been easy-going, good-natured. But she had forgotten how
purposeful he could be when his intent was hot; she had forgotten his
perseverance, his patience, his indefatigability when he wooed her; she
had forgotten his winningness, his persuasiveness. He brought all these
qualities into play now; there was no side-tracking him, no gainsaying
him. His mind was locked against the renewal of their lease, and set
upon Cohasset Beach. He argued, he cajoled, he pleaded, he coaxed.
Never had she known him so irritating or so winning. If she grew cross,
he was amiable; if she grew sorrowful, he was consoling and tender;
if she advanced arguments that brooked no reply, he was loving and
answered her with kisses. But he was determined; nothing swerved him
from his purpose.
Once again, Jeannette found no comforting support in anybody. Her
mother said she ought to give in to her husband if he was so set upon
the plan; it was the wife’s place to give way. Alice thought it would
be delightful to live in the country, and assured her sister she would
come to love it; she and Roy had been talking all winter about moving
to some place on Long Island or in New Jersey, but it was hard to find
anything really nice for twenty-five dollars a month within commuting
distance of the city; they were going to board at Freeport again for
the summer and they intended to look around and see what they could
find there. It would be ideal for the children.... Was there any hope
... any prospect ...?
“No, thank Heaven,” Jeannette answered fervently. She had enough to
bother her without the complication of a baby just now.
On the anniversary of her wedding day she surrendered. Martin had been
so sweet and gentle with her, so anxious to please, so considerate,
every impulse within her prompted her to do the thing he wanted. She
could see how eager he was for his sail-boat, his new club and the
country; he was mad to have them; her heart was full of love for him.
She reminded herself that when she had entered into this marriage
she had been determined to give more, if need be, than he did, to
make their union a success. Here was an opportunity. It meant a great
sacrifice for herself; she had no faith in the experiment, but felt
sure she would learn to hate all the people and the place, and Martin
would soon tire of it and them and share her feelings. But now it
was the thing above all else he wanted, and it was her chance to be
generous.
She extracted from him two promises, however. It was a foregone
conclusion, she told him, that she would not be happy at Cohasset
Beach, but if she agreed to go and live there with him, it must be
understood between them that she was to be free to come into New York
as often as she pleased, to shop or to visit her mother and Alice, or
do anything she liked. He must also understand that he was to keep a
closer watch upon their finances. With commutation, railroad fares and
club dues added to their expenses they would have to practise a much
more rigid economy. She wanted to get the table expenditures down to
fifteen dollars a week, and that would be out of the question if he
expected her to entertain. As soon as they were out of debt and had a
little ahead, she would be more than willing to have him invite people
to visit them.
He promised everything. He was only too anxious and willing, he said,
to agree to all she asked, to show his deep gratitude.
§ 4
The bungalow at Cohasset Beach, at first sight, consoled her in some
degree for giving up the apartment. The little house was charming, and
charmingly situated. It had been built a few years before by a rich
old lady, an invalid, who had been compelled to pass her days in a
wheel-chair which she operated herself. Because of the chair, the house
had been planned bungalow-fashion, though there was an upstairs of two
small bedrooms and an extra bath, and the doorways between rooms had
been made particularly wide to permit the easy passage of the chair.
Inside there were oak floors throughout, a spacious fireplace, and
an oak-timbered ceiling in a generous-sized living-room, off which
opened two bedrooms and, opposite, the dining-room. There was an acre
or so of unkempt ground about the house with some gnarled old apple
trees, in blossom when Jeannette first saw them, and at the rear
the ground sloped down to a rush-bordered pool in whose rippleless
surface all the colors of the sky, blossoming trees and bordering
reeds were intensified in glorious reflection. A white cow stood upon
her own inverted image at the farther side. There was no view of the
Sound,--the bungalow was a good mile from the water,--but it was
picturesquely set, and Jeannette felt, since she had been forced to
abandon the city, she could not have found a home in the country that
suited her better.
The move from town was accomplished without a hitch; even Hilda was
successfully transplanted. Jeannette set herself determinedly to work
to fit herself and her furniture into the new environment, and was
surprised to discover how easily both were accomplished. Expenses alone
distressed her. The vans which brought down the household effects cost
more than she had expected, and she was obliged to order more furniture
and rugs to make the new home attractive. Unfortunately, the bungalow
had casement windows and this necessitated cutting and remaking all
her curtains. Some in addition, too, were needed for the living-room,
and Jeannette had decided that scrim would be both practical and
economical, but the clerk in the store had shown her a soft, lovely
material, stamped with a design of long green grasses and iris, which
he assured her was “sunfast.” The pale purple and green in the goods
had appealed to her as so unusually beautiful and effective that she
had not been able to resist getting it. She decided to plant iris about
the house in the long narrow strips of flower-beds, and to carry iris
as a _motif_ throughout the place. In a Fifth Avenue shop there was
some china that had a pattern of _fleur-de-lis_ in its center, and her
heart was set on some day acquiring it for her new home.
Martin was immediately elected to the Family Yacht Club; the Gibbses
had him and his wife to dinner and invited the Websters and another
couple to make their acquaintance; Mrs. Rudolph Drigo and Mrs. Blum,
who were neighbors, called, also Doctor Vinegartner of the Episcopal
Church. Alice, Roy, and the children spent a Sunday with her sister and
Alice was enthusiastic about everything. She told Roy they would have
to find a house of their own at Cohasset Beach without delay. Summer
had arrived before Jeannette was half aware of its approach.
The weather turned glorious; the dogwood came and went; the country
was full of sweet scents; robins and thrushes sang with open throbbing
throats in the apple trees and hopped about in the shade; the frogs
shrilled musically at evening in the pool, but Jeannette did not find
the happiness for which she hoped. She tried to be content; she sought
for joy in her new life and surroundings. She found none. Too many
things were wrong. Over and over again she decided it was hopeless.
First of all, there was the Family Yacht Club which Martin loved and
she despised. She had known beforehand what it was going to be like,
and closer acquaintance proved her premise to have been correct.
All-year-round residents of Cohasset Beach made up its membership.
There were less than three thousand people in the Long Island village
during the winter; it was only in summer that the place became
fashionable. Among those who belonged to the little yacht club,
Jeannette soon discovered, were Tim Birdsell, the village plumber; Zeb
Kline, a contractor, hardly better than a carpenter; Fritz Wiggens,
who kept an electrical equipment store on Washington Street; Steve
Teschemacher and Adolph Kuntz, who were real estate agents and were
interested in a development known as “Cohasset Park”; then there were
the local dentist and his wife, the local attorney and his helpmate,
and the local doctor, who seemed to be of a better sort than the rest
and was fortunately unmarried. The ladies took an active part in the
social life of the yacht club and ’Stel Teschemacher, Chairwoman of
the Entertainment Committee, went early to call upon the new member’s
wife to invite her to come to the “Five Hundred Club” meeting on the
following Friday afternoon. There was a sprinkling of others who
boasted of a slightly more exalted social status: Mrs. Drigo’s husband
operated a large ice plant in New York City. Mrs. Blum was the wife of
the well-known confectioner, and Percy Webster was connected with an
advertising agency. If there were more interesting members they kept
themselves aloof,--at least Jeannette did not meet them. Once when
she was describing to her mother with a good deal of relish the type
of people who belonged to this club, and was referring to the list
of members in the club’s annual booklet, she was surprised to come
upon the name of Lester Short and that of a prominent magazine editor
well-known to her.
She asked Herbert Gibbs about these people at an early opportunity but
elicited nothing more satisfactory from him than: “Oh, they come round
occasionally.” If such was the case, Jeannette was unable to identify
them. She was interested to learn later that Lester Short and his wife
had six children and lived about half-a-mile beyond the village in the
region known as the “Point.”
Martin had no fault to find with his new friends. He was welcomed into
their hearts; he charmed them all; he was acclaimed immediately the
most popular member, and was appointed by the Commodore, old Jess
Higgenbothen, affable, decrepit and rich, and owner of most of the
acres Teschemacher and Kuntz were trying to sell as choice lots in
Cohasset Park, to serve on the entertainment committee with ’Stel
Teschemacher. Martin was enchanted with the cordiality with which he
was accepted; he thought Zeb Kline, Fritz Wiggens, young Doc French
“corking good scouts”; Zeb and Fritz were a little rough perhaps but
they were regular fellows; Steve Teschemacher was as “funny as a
crutch” and his partner, Adolph Kuntz, had about as sharp and shrewd a
mind as Martin had ever encountered.
“Why, you ought to hear Adolph talk politics!” he told his wife
enthusiastically. “He knows more about what’s going on up in Albany
right this minute than all the newspapers in New York. You ought to
hear him tell some of his experiences in the Republican Party!”
He might be interesting and clever, everything Martin said of him, but
to Jeannette he seemed uncouth, ill-bred, a spitter of tobacco juice.
§ 5
When the Yacht Club formally opened its summer season, Jeannette put
on her prettiest frock and went with her husband to the dance with
which it was inaugurated. It was one of the efforts she made to adapt
herself to the village life. She loved to dance. Swimming, sailing,
tennis did not appeal to her, but from the dances in the club-house she
hoped she might derive a certain amount of genuine pleasure. On the
night of the affair, after studying the reflection in her mirror she
had decided she had never looked so well; with truth she could say she
was a beautiful woman, and in this estimate of herself, she found ample
confirmation in Martin’s eyes. They hired a hack and drove over to the
club.
But for the young wife it proved a dismal experience. The yokels,--the
plumber, the electrician, the carpenter, the dentist and real estate
agents,--were afraid to approach her,--not that she wanted them
to,--and she had been left to the favor of Herbert Gibbs, Doc French,
and the old Commodore. The women eyed her covertly, whispered about
her and her gown, and made no advances. Herbert Gibbs danced with her
once, twice; Martin was three times her partner; Commodore Higgenbothen
had passed his “gallivanting” days; Doc French, whom she liked and to
whom she would have been glad to be cordial, did not dance at all. The
floor was rough and uneven; the music lugubrious; three small boys
kept up a fearful racket playing with some folding chairs stacked in
a corner. She watched Martin whirling and wheeling about the floor,
his face a broad grin, his eyes and teeth flashing, talking, laughing,
exchanging an endless banter with other couples, answering here, there
and everywhere to calls of “Martin” and “Mart.” At half-past ten she
could stand no more of it. She knew she was dragging her husband away
from a hilarious good time, but she was bored, disgusted with the whole
evening and the hoidenish, loud-voiced village folk. She would never
make the mistake of going to another of their wretched dances. Martin
could go if he wanted to; if he liked to hobnob with such people, he
could do so to his heart’s content: she wouldn’t raise one word of
objection, but wild horses wouldn’t drag her there again!
In a fortnight, there was another dance at the club, and this time
Martin took himself to the party alone, while Jeannette went to bed
with a magazine. He woke her up when he came home a little after
twelve, and told her he had had a wonderfully good time, and that
Lester Short, his wife and their two older children had been present.
But Jeannette had no regrets. The Shorts and her husband could enjoy
the society of the plumbers and carpenters and their wives if they
chose to do so; she felt satisfied that if she had gone she would have
been miserable.
§ 6
Besides the Yacht Club there were other things in the new order of
existence that proved annoying. Meat and vegetables cost considerably
more at Cohasset Beach than in the city, and everything else was
proportionally dearer. Jeannette had thought she might save a little
on her marketing in the country, and it was discouraging to discover
that this was quite impossible. She certainly had not expected to find
that prices were actually higher. Then there was not nearly the same
variety from which to choose in the stores here as there had been
in the groceries and particularly the meat markets of Amsterdam and
Columbus Avenues. She and Martin were especially fond of lamb kidneys
which she used to buy at the rate of three for five cents in New York.
Pulitzer’s at Cohasset Beach never seemed to have them. And even more
exasperating was the fact that fish could only be had on Thursdays
when the fish-man came around blowing his horn.
The neighborhood, too, was a source of discomfort. Jeannette
discovered, within a few days after they had moved into the bungalow,
that the reason so attractive a house had been for rent at such a
figure, with its acre and more of ground, its apple trees and pond and
picturesque setting, was that it was situated on the wrong side of
town, beyond the railroad tracks, a mile from the water. The desirable,
residential section of Cohasset Beach was that in which the Herbert
Gibbses lived, on the hill overlooking the Sound. A block from the
bungalow, their rear yards abutting upon the railroad tracks, was a row
of shabby cottages occupied by laborers, Polacks mostly, who worked
in the quarries down on the “Point.” Here fences sagged and refuse
littered the roadway, dirty children scrambled about and screamed at
one another, drying laundry fluttered from clothes-lines, and fat
dark women in calicoes and shuffling shoes gossiped from doorstep
to doorstep. On Saturday nights there were invariably celebrations
among these people at which, from the singing and general racket,
it was evident that red wine flowed freely, and the doleful whine
of an accordion accompanying hoarse masculine voices rose dismally
from sundown until the early morning hours, interrupted by shouts
of rollicking laughter. Martin assured his wife that these people
were simple creatures, peasants transplanted but a few years from
their native soil, celebrating after a week of toil, in a harmless
jovial way after the fashion to which, in the old country, they had
been accustomed. But Jeannette found it disturbing, not a little
frightening, especially on those nights when Martin went off to the
Yacht Club and left her alone with only Hilda in the house.
Lastly mosquitoes, germinated in the pond within a hundred yards of
her own door, made their appearance in hungry numbers early in July.
The pool was practically stagnant,--without visible outlet,--and the
neighbor who owned it and who operated a small dairy, refused to oil
it as his cows watered there. The bungalow windows were unscreened.
Jeannette did not understand how she had failed to notice the fact
when she first inspected the premises. The matter had to be remedied
immediately, or life would be insupportable. The landlord declined to
do anything; Martin thought perhaps they could endure the nuisance
until cold weather came, but his wife declared that unthinkable. If the
windows were shut with the lights on, the bungalow became insufferably
hot and stuffy; if left open, moths, winged bugs, every kind of flying
insect of the night together with the pests bred in the stagnant pool,
flew in to buzz about the globes and torment those beneath them. Zeb
Kline agreed to equip the bungalow with screens,--the frames would have
to be fitted to the insides of the windows on account of their being
casement,--for sixty-five dollars, and Jeannette, angered by Martin’s
complacent acceptance of the circumstances, and his indifferent
attitude towards that for which she felt him largely responsible, told
the carpenter to go ahead.
There were days when in the seclusion of her own bedroom she gave
way freely to her tears. She wanted to be happy; she wanted to be
a good manager of her house, a good wife to Martin. Life often
seemed to demand more from her than she was capable of giving.
Concede--concede--concede! It was all concession for her; Martin gave
nothing.
§ 7
There came another Fourth of July, one year from the time of the visit
to the Gibbses. Doc French was a member of the Cohasset Beach Yacht
Club as well as of the Family Yacht Club. There was to be a wonderful
party at the former on the evening of the Fourth; it was the Club’s
annual show. A dinner was to be followed by a vaudeville entertainment
provided by a number of talented actors from the Lambs Club, and after
that a dance which would probably last all night. Doc French invited
Martin Devlin and his wife to be his guests; he was giving a little
dinner party for his sister-in-law, Lou, and her cousin, Mrs. Edith
Prentiss, who were spending the holiday with him.
Jeannette was overjoyed at the prospect. She spent a day shopping in
New York, and bought herself silver satin slippers, a pair of gray silk
stockings to wear with a silver dress,--part of her trousseau,--which
she had had no occasion to put on since she moved to the country. It
promised to be a delightful affair and Martin shared her excitement.
It turned out to be all she expected. The spacious dining-room, the
dancing floor, even the awninged porches were crowded with tables,
gay with flowers and patriotic decorations. There was a beguiling
atmosphere of soft lights, color and music, smart and lovely women,
elaborate costumes, attractive men. Jeannette felt that she herself
bloomed with beauty, that she appeared tall, statuesque, superb.
People at other tables threw appraising glances and occasionally she
saw a lorgnette levelled in her direction. Doc French was admiring and
attentive; she liked his sister-in-law and particularly Mrs. Prentiss;
the vaudeville show on an improvised stage at one end of the long room
was one of the best she had ever witnessed. Some of the actors were
head-liners in their profession; with songs and stories, they kept the
audience rocking with laughter and stirred it to roars of applause. One
of the entertainers particularly drew Jeannette’s interest,--a young
actor, named Michael Carr. An unusually attractive youth, renowned for
his good looks, a matinée idol, he had held the boards on Broadway all
winter as the leading attraction in a Viennese opera. Jeannette thought
he sang delightfully, and had a most charming personality.
Towards midnight the chairs and tables were cleared away and the
dancing began. Doc French did not dance, himself, but he had no
difficulty in securing partners for his guests, and Jeannette floated
around the gaily decorated ball-room through the soft colors of calcium
lights thrown upon the dancers, in an intoxication of pleasure. Men,
young and old, seemed anxious to know her and ask her to dance; she
was in demand every moment, and in one of these dizzying whirls she
was interrupted by Doc French to introduce Michael Carr. The actor had
asked to be presented; could he have a dance? The next was promised,
but he could have it just the same, she said with shining eyes. She
drifted away in his arms presently, a sweet giddiness enveloping her
senses, rocking her in sensuous delight. They glided from the dance
and wandered out upon the long pier over the water. The lisping waves
lapped the piles and rhythmically beat upon the pebbled shore, the
music of the dance reached them plaintively, yachts white and ghostly
stood sentinels at their moorings, their cabins pin-pricked with
lights, their starboard lanterns glowing green. The night air was
caressing, gay voices floated toward them, there was smothered laughter
from hidden corners, the heavens were a myriad of golden stars. Quite
simply Michael Carr took the slim silver figure in his arms, she
melted into his embrace and their lips clung to one another’s long and
lovingly. It was a night of love, a night for lovers.
The brilliantly lit ball-room, the music drew them back. Jeannette had
no sense of guilt; the mood of the hour still wrapped her; for the
moment she loved this man whole-heartedly; he was divine, a super-man,
a god. No thought of Martin came to distress her. She was supremely
content, supremely happy; it was rapture, bliss, enchantment. In her
ear he kept whispering:
“You are wonderful, you are beautiful, you are adorable.”
Doc French was beckoning to her, but she only smiled amiably at
him as she passed and floated on in Michael’s arms, bending and
undulating with him in perfect symmetry of motion. There was no
such thing as time or space; she shut her eyes, and seemed to be
floating--floating--floating---- Doc French stopped them with a hand on
the actor’s arm.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “but I fear I must. Your husband, Mrs.
Devlin.... May I speak to you a moment?”
Carr said, “Oh, I beg pardon,” and stepped aside, but Jeannette’s
thoughts followed him.
“What is it, Doc?”
“Martin had better go home, Mrs. Devlin. He’s been downstairs at the
bar, and I guess he’s had a bit too much. I was going to take him home
myself but I didn’t know how to get into your house.”
“Martin?”
“He’s been downstairs at the bar, and I’m afraid the fellows there
wouldn’t let him get away.”
“_Martin?_”
Reality came blindingly upon her with a glare of hideous white light.
Her dream shattered. Ugliness obtruded,--things naked and angular,
harshness and cold cruelty! She felt as if she were being jerked from
enchanted slumber by a rude and horrid hand.
She clutched at her heart as if to tear out the pain that had already
stabbed her there.
“Martin!” she breathed again, gasping a little, the blood draining from
her face.
“He’s all right, Mrs. Devlin,--quite all right, I assure you. Nothing’s
happened to him--nothing wrong. There’s been no accident.”
“Accident?” Her eyes widened with sudden fear.
“No--no; it’s all right. He’s just drunk a little too much, and I
thought he’d better go home.”
“Oh, surely--right away. Where is he?”
“Well, we’ve got him out in my car.”
“Let’s go--let’s go then; let’s go quickly. I’ll get my wraps.” She
started for the dressing-room.
“Good-night,” Michael’s voice called after her but she did not turn her
head.
Doc French led her to the motor car. Martin lay huddled in the back,
insensate, a long string of saliva trailing from his under lip. A
strange man supported him.
A trembling, whispered exclamation escaped Jeannette. Her companion
kept on reassuring her.
“There’s nothing--nothing the matter,” he repeated. “He’s had too much
to drink, that’s all.... Get in the front seat with me and I’ll drive
you straight home and we’ll put him to bed.”
They bumped over the car-tracks in Washington Street and the dusty
uneven ground in front of the station. The dawn was coming up angry and
on fire in the east.
Before the bungalow, Jeannette jumped from the motor car and struggled
to insert the twisted latch-key in the lock, but her fingers shook so
much it took her some time to manage it. Behind her, Doc French and the
strange man were lifting Martin from the car. As they wrenched him free
he groaned painfully.
Jeannette flew into the house, flung on lights, tore back the
gay-figured cretonne cover of the bed. Her underclothes lay upon the
chair where she had tossed them when she had been so happily dressing.
She gathered these with one swift reach and threw them to the floor of
a closet. The stumbling feet were coming; the men were carrying Martin
head and feet. With a concerted effort they heaved him upon the bed and
he lay there inertly, sprawling, just as he had fallen.
“Can I help you, Mrs. Devlin?” asked the Doctor, dusting off his hands.
“Oh, no,--thank you very much,” Jeannette answered in a strained voice.
“Don’t you think we’d better undress him? He’s pretty heavy for you to
manage alone.”
Jeannette looked at the helpless figure flung out across the bed,
ungainly postured like a child’s discarded doll, purple lips parting
with each breath, the hair damp and tousled. One of his garters
had loosened and dangled now from the wrinkled hose that covered a
patent-leather pump.
“No,” she said again slowly, “thank you very much for all your
kindness, Doc,--but it’s my--my job; he belongs to me; I’ll take care
of him.”
§ 8
Three hours later she walked out on the back porch. The heat of the
Sunday morning was moist and tropical, giving promise of a scorching
day. The bells of the Catholic Church on the “Point” road were ringing
sweetly for the children’s mass. Her eyes felt burnt out from lack of
sleep: two black holes in her head. Hilda was making a small fuss in
the kitchen, rattling pans, droning hoarsely to herself. Jeannette
stood at the porch railing and looked off across the quiet country,
misty with the early heat. Emotions were at war in her heart, and there
was pain--pain--pain.
She had not been to bed; she had not even lain down. The silver gown
had been put away, her finery discarded, and now she wore the striped
velveteen wrapper in which she usually did her morning’s work. She had
undressed her husband, removed his shoes, drawn off his dress suit,
tugging at its arms, rolling him from one side to another to free the
clothing. She had washed his face with a cold wet rag and brushed the
rumpled hair from his eyes. Then she had put the room in order, opened
the casement windows, drawn the shades, closed the door and left him
to peace and sleep. The house had needed straightening and to this she
had turned her attention, adjusting rugs, pushing chairs into position,
emptying ash receivers, carrying away newspapers, arranging magazines
and books in neat piles, using broom and dust-pan, wiping the furniture
with a dust cloth. Hilda had given her some coffee at eight o’clock
and she had drunk it black and crunched some thin slices of buttered
toast. Now nothing remained to be done and the thoughts to which she
had resolutely shut her mind clamored for admittance to her weary
brain. Remorse and reproach, censure and repugnance, disillusionment,
humiliation, grief and regret,--they swarmed upon her like so many
black flies.
The hours of the morning ticked themselves away. She could not sleep;
she could not rest. Over and over her thoughts turned to the incidents
of the night, giving her no peace, no surcease. Every little while she
would go softly to Martin’s door and silently look in upon him; he lay
as she had left him. In spite of the opened windows the room reeked of
alcohol.
Towards noon she fell asleep on the couch in the living-room, and the
afternoon light was waning when she opened her eyes. The sound of water
woke her; Martin was running a bath, and when presently she entered the
bedroom, she found him shaving. She was shocked at his appearance; his
face was dead white, the eyes bloodshot, and his hand trembled as he
held the razor, but it was Martin, restored to life and sanity.
They avoided one another’s glance, and constraint held them silent. She
could see that physically he was weak, his nerves still shattered and
that his mind was sick with remorse, and fear of her displeasure. He
could not guess she wanted only to take him in her arms, to kiss and
comfort him, wanted only to be kind and good to him, to restore him to
health and strength again, wanted to utter no word of reproach but to
give him all the love she could and so ease the pain and shame within
herself.
§ 9
Three weeks later, Doc French drove up in front of the bungalow door in
his lumbering motor car. It was late in the afternoon. There had been a
heavy thunderstorm about two o’clock but now the sun was glittering on
all the dripping trees and drenched shrubbery and the air was fragrant
with sweet grassy and woodland smells.
There was to be another dance at the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club the
following Saturday night. Doc’s sister-in-law and Mrs. Prentiss were
coming down for it and would stay with him over the week-end; it
happened to be Lou’s birthday and he wanted Martin and Jeannette to
help celebrate the event at a small dinner he was arranging at the
Cohasset Beach club-house before the dance.
Jeannette thanked him and said that, no, she was sorry but she and
Martin had another engagement; Doc was very kind to think of them but
it would have to be another time.
When her husband came home on the five-twenty, she told him about it.
“Oh, you bet you,” he agreed. “No more of that kind of stuff for this
young fellow. We’re out of our class at that club, Jan.”
“I thought,” suggested Jeannette, “we might go to the other club that
night. There’s always a dance there, and it would be our excuse to
Doc French. It occurred to me that perhaps after we got to know those
people a little better, we might like it.”
Martin’s face beamed with pleasure.
“Would you? Would you really go?” he asked eagerly. “Say, Jan, that’ll
be fine. Say, if you only wouldn’t be so standoffish and proud, you’d
learn to like that gang and they’d learn to like you. They’re awfully
good-hearted.”
“Well, I’ll try,” said his wife.