She forced his slow gaze to hers calmly, her hands outstretched on the
table between them. "I've made up my mind, Sam. Things can't go on this
way no longer between us."
"Just what do you mean by that?"
"I mean that we've either got to act or quit."
He was rolling the bread pills again, a flush rising. "You know where I
stand, Clara, on things between us."
"Yes, Sam, and now you know where I stand." The din of the dining-room
surged over the pause between them. Still in the purple hat, and her
wrap thrown back over her chair, she held that pause coolly, level of
eye. "I'm thirty-one now, Sam, three weeks and two days older than you.
I don't see the rest of my days with the Arnstein Ribbon Company. I'm
not getting any younger. Five years is a long time out of a girl's life.
Five of the best ones, too. She likes to begin to see her future when
she reaches my age. A future with a good providing man. You and me are
just where we started five years ago."
"I know, Clara, and I'd give my right hand to change things."
"If I'd been able to save a cent, it might be different. But I
haven't--I'm that way. I make big and spend big. But you can't blame a
girl for wanting to see her future. That's me, and I'm not ashamed
to say it."
"If only, Clara, I could get you to see things my way. If you'd be
willing to try it with ma. Why, with a little diplomacy from you, ma'd
move heaven and earth to please you."
"There's no use beginning that, Sam; it's a waste of time. Why--why,
just the difference in the way me and--and your mother feel on money
matters is enough. There's no use to argue that with me; it's a waste
of time."
He lifted and let droop his shoulders with something of helplessness in
the gesture. "What's the use, then? I'm sure I don't know what more to
say to you, Clara. Oh, don't think my mother don't realize how things
are between us--it's all I can do to keep denying and denying."
"Well, you can't say she knows from my telling."
"No; but there's not a day she don't say to me, particularly these last
few times since you been breaking your dates with us pretty
regular--I--well she sees how it worries me, and there's not a day she
don't say to me, 'Sammy,' she said to me, only this morning, 'if I
thought I was keeping you and Clara apart--'"
"A blind man could see it."
"There's not a day passes over her head she don't offer to go to live
with my sister in Ohio, when I know just how that one month of visiting
her that time nearly killed her."
"Funny visiting an own daughter could nearly kill anybody."
"It's my brother-in-law, Clara. My mother couldn't no more live with
Isadore Katz than she could fly. He's a fine fellow and all that, but
she's not used to a man in the house that potters around the kitchen and
the children's food and things like Isadore loves to. She's used to her
own little home and her own little way."
"Exactly."
"If I want to kill my mother, Clara, all I got to do is put her away
from me in her old age. Even my sister knows it. 'Sammy,' she wrote to
me that time after ma's visit out there, 'I love our mother like you do,
but I got a nervous husband who likes his own ways about the
housekeeping and the children and the cooking, and nobody knows better
than me that the place for ma to be happy is with you in her own home
and her own ways of doing.'"
"I call that a nerve for a sister to let herself out like that."
"It's not nerve, Clara; it's the truth. Ruby's a good girl in her way."
"What about you--ain't your life to be thought of? Ain't it enough she
was married off with enough money for her husband to buy a half-interest
in a ladies' ready-to-wear store out there?"
"Why, if I was to bring my little wife to that flat of ours, Clara, or
any other kind further down-town that she'd want to pick out for
herself, I think my mother would just walk on her hands and knees to
make things pleasant for her. Maybe you don't know it, but on your
Wednesday nights up at the house, she is up at five o'clock in the
morning fixing around and cooking the things she thinks you'll like."
"I'm not saying a word against your mother, Sam. I think she's a grand
woman, and I admire a fellow that's good to his mother. I always say,
'Give me a fellow every time that is good to his mother and that fellow
will be good to his wife.'"
"I'm not pretending to say ma mayn't be a little peculiar in her ways,
but you never saw an old person that wasn't, did you? Neither am I
saying it's exactly any girl's idea to start out married life with a
third person in--"
"I've always swore to myself, Sam, and I'm not ashamed to admit it, that
if I can't marry to improve myself, I'm going to stay single till I can.
I'm not a six-dollar-a-week stenog that has to marry for enough to eat.
I can afford to buy a seventy-five dollar suit every winter of my life
and twelve-dollar shoes every time I need them. The hat on my head cost
me eighteen-fifty wholesale, without having to be beholding to
nobody, and--"
"Ma don't mean those things, Clara. It's just when she hears the price
girls pay for things nowadays she can't help being surprised the way
things have changed."
"I'm not a small potato, Sam. I never could live like a small potato."
"Why, you know there's nothing I like better than to see you dressed in
the best that money can buy. You heard what I said about that hat just
now, didn't you? Whatever it cost, it's worth it. I can afford to dress
my little wife in the best that comes. There's nothing too good
for her."
"Yes; but--"
"All ma needs, Clara, is a little humoring. She's had to stint so all
her life, it's a little hard to get her used to a little prosperity.
Take me. Why, if I bring her home a little shawl or a pockabook that
cost, say, ten dollars, you think I tell her? No. I say, 'Here's a
bargain I picked up for three ninety-eight,' and right away she's happy
with something reduced."
"Your mother and me, Sam, and, mind you, I'm not saying she isn't a
grand old lady, wasn't no more made to live together than we was made to
fly. I couldn't no more live her way than she could live mine. I've got
a practical head on my shoulders--I don't deny it--and I want to improve
ourselves in this world when we marry, and have an up-to-date home like
every young couple that starts out nowadays."
"Sure, we--"
"That flat of yours up there or any other one under the conditions would
be run like the ark. I'm an up-to-date girl, I am. There's not a girl
living would be willing to marry a well-off fellow like you and go huck
herself in a place she couldn't even have the running of herself or have
her own say-so about the purse-strings. It may sound unbecoming, but
when I marry I'm going to better myself, I am."
"I--why--"
"If she can't even stand for her own son-in-law walking into his own
kitchen in his own house--Oh, you don't find me starting my married
life that way at this late date. I haven't held off five years
for that."
Mr. Lipkind pushed back his but slightly tasted food, lines of strain
and a certain whiteness out in his face. "It--it just seems awful,
Clara, this going around in a circle and not getting anywheres."
"I'm at the end of my rope, I am."
"I see your point in a way, Clara, but, my God! a man's mother is his
mother! It's eating up my life just as it's eating yours, but what you
going to do about it? It just seems the best years of our life are
going, waiting for God knows what."
Hands clasped until her finger-nails whitened, Miss Bloom leaned across
the table, her voice careful and concentrated. "Now you said something!
That's why you and me are here alone together to-night. There's not
going to be a sixth year of this kind of waiting between us. Things have
got to come to a head. I've got a chance, Sam, to marry. Eddie Leonard
has asked me."
"I--thought so."
"Eddie Leonard ain't a Sam Lipkind, but after the war his
five-thousand-dollar job is down at Arnstein's waiting for him, and he's
got a good stiff bank-account saved as good as yours and--and no strings
to it. I believe in a girl facing those facts the same as any other
facts. Why, I--this war and all--why, if anything was to happen to you
to-morrow--us unmarried this way--I'd be left high and dry without so
much as a penny to show for the best five years of my life. We've got to
do one thing or another, Sam. I believe in a girl being practical as
well as romantic."
"I--see your point, Clara."
"I'm done with going around in this circle of ours."
"You mean--"
"You know what I mean."
The lower half of Mr. Lipkind's face seemed to lock, as it were, into a
kind of rigidity which shot out his lower jaw. "I'll see Eddie Leonard
burning like brimstone before I let him have you!"
"Well?"
"God! I don't know what to say--I don't know what to say!"
"That's your trouble, Sam; you're so chicken-hearted you--"
"My father died when I was five, Clara, and no matter what my feelings
are to you, there's no power on earth can make me quit having to be him
as well as a son to my mother. Maybe it sounds softy to you--but if I
got to pay with her happiness for--ours--then I never want happiness to
the day I die."
"In other words, it's the mother first."
"Don't put it that way--it's her--age--first. It ain't what she wants
and don't want; it's what she's got to have. My mother couldn't live
away from me."
"She could if you were called to war."
There was something electric in the silence that followed, something
that seemed to tighten the gaze of each for the other.
"But I haven't been--yet."
"The next draft will get you."
"Maybe."
"Well, what'll you do then?"
"That's something me and ma haven't ever discussed. The war hasn't been
mentioned in our house for two years--except that the letters don't come
from Germany, and that's a grief to her. There's enough time for her to
cross that bridge when we come to it. She worries about it enough."
"If I was a man I'd enlist, I would!"
"I'd give my right hand to. Every other night I dream I'm a lieutenant."
"Why, there's not a fellow I know that hasn't beaten the draft to it and
enlisted for the kind of service he wants. I know a half a dozen who
have got in the home guard and things and have saved themselves by
volunteering from being sent to France."
"I wouldn't dodge the front thataway. I'd like to enlist as a private
and then work myself up to lieutenant and then on up to captain and get
right into the fray on the front. I--"
"You bet, if I was a fellow, I'd enlist for the kind of home service I
wanted--that's what Eddie and all the fellows are doing."
"So would I, Clara, if I was what you call a--free man. There's nobody
given it more thought than me."
"Well, then, why don't you? Talk's cheap."
"You know why, Clara, to get back to going around in a circle again."
"But you've got to go, sooner or later. You've got a comfortable married
sister and independent circumstances of your own to keep your mother;
you haven't got a chance for exemption."
"I don't want exemption."
"Well, then, beat the draft to it."
"I--Most girls ain't so anxious to--to get rid of their best fellows,
Clara."
"Silly! Can't you see the point? If--if you'd enlist and go off to camp,
I--I could go and live near you there like Birdie Harberger does her
husband. See?"
"You mean--"
"Then--God forbid anything should happen to you!--I'm your wife. You
see, Sam?"
"Why, Clara--"
"You see what I mean. But nothing can happen this way, because if you
try to enlist in some mechanical department where they need you in this
country--you see, Sam? See?"
"I--see."
"Your mother would have to get used to things then, Sam--it would be the
easiest for her. An old lady like her couldn't go trailing around the
outskirts of a camp like your wife could. Think of the comfort it'll be
to her to have me with you if she can't be. She'll get so used
to--living alone--"
"I--You mustn't talk that way to me, Clara. When I'm called to serve my
country, I'm the first one that will want to go. I've given more money
already than I can afford to help the boys who are at the front. So far
as I'm concerned, enlisting like this with--with you--around, would be
the happiest thing ever happened to me, but--well, you see for
yourself."
"You mean, then, you won't?"
"I mean, Clara, I can't."
She was immediately level of tone again and pushed back, placing her
folded napkin beside her place, patting it down.
"Well, then, Sam, I'm done."
"'Done,' Clara?"
"Yep. That lets me out. I've given you every chance to make this thing
possible. Your mother is no better and no different than thousands and
thousands of other mothers who are giving their sons, only, she is
better off than most, because she's provided for. It's all right for a
fellow's mother to come first, maybe, but if his wife isn't even to
come second or third or tenth, then it's about time to call quits. I
haven't made up my mind to this in a day. I'm done."
"Clara--"
"Ed has asked me. I don't pretend he's my ideal, but he's more concerned
about my future than he is about anybody else's. If I'm ready to leave
with him on that twelve-o'clock train for Boston to-morrow, where he's
going to be put in the clerical corps at Camp Usonis, we'll be married
there to-morrow night, and I'll settle down somewhere near camp as long
as I can. He's got a good nest-egg if--God forbid!--anything should
happen. That's the whole thing in a nutshell."
"My God! Clara, this is awful! Eddie Leonard he's not your kind; he--"
"I've given you first chance, Sam. That proves how you stand with me. A
one! Ace high! First! Nobody can ever take your place with me. Don't be
a boob coming and going, Sam; you're one now not to see things and
you'll be another one spelled backward if you don't help yourself to
your chance when it comes. You've got your life in front of you, and
your mother's got hers in back of her. Now choose."
"My God! Clara, this is--terrible! Why--I'd rather be a thousand boobs
than take my mother's heart and tear it to pieces."
"You won't?"
"I can't."
"Don't say that, Sam. Go home and--sleep on it. Think it over. Please!
Come to your senses, honey. Telephone me at eleven to keep me from
catching that twelve-o'clock train. Don't let me take it with Eddie.
Think it over, Sam. Honey--our--future--don't throw it away! Don't let
me take that twelve-o'clock train!"
There were tears streaming from her eyes, and her lips, so carefully
firm, were beginning to tremble. "You can't blame a girl, Sam, for
wanting to provide for her future. Can you, Sam? Think it over. Please!
I'll be praying when eleven o'clock comes to-morrow morning for you to
telephone me. Please, Sam--think!"
He dropped his face low, lower toward the table, trembling under the red
wave that surged over him and up into the roots of his hair. "I'll think
it over, Clara--my girl--my own girl!"
As if the moments themselves had been woven by her flying amber needles
into a whole cloth of meditation, Mrs. Lipkind, beside a kitchen lamp
that flowed in gracious light, knitted the long, quiet hours of her
evening into fabric, her face screwed and out of repose and occasionally
the lips moving. Age is prone to that. Memories love to be mumbled and
chewed over--the unconscious kind of articulation which comes with the
years and for which youth has a wink and a quirk.
A tiger cat with overfed sides and a stare that seemed to doze purred on
the window-ledge, gold and unswerving of eye. The silence was like the
singing inside of a shell, and into it rocked Mrs. Lipkind.
By nine o'clock she was already glancing up at the clock, cocking her
head to each and every of night's creaks.
By half after nine there were small and frequent periods of peering
through cupped hands down into a street so remote that its traffic had
neither shape nor identity. Once she went down a long slit of hallway to
the front door, opening it and gazing out upon a fog-filled corridor
that was papered in embossed leatherette, one speckled incandescent bulb
lighting it sadly. There was something impregnable, even terrible to her
in the featureless stare of the doors of three adjoining apartments. She
tiptoed, almost ran, poor dear! with the consciousness of some one at
her heels, back to the kitchen, where at least was the warm print of the
cat's presence; fell to knitting again, clacking her needles for the
solace of explainable sound.
Identically with the round moment of ten Mr. Lipkind entered, almost
running down the hallway.
"Hello, ma! Think I got lost? Just got to talking and didn't realize.
Haven't been worried, ma? Afraid?"
She lifted her head from his kiss. "'Afraid!' What you take me for? For
why should I be worried at only ten o'clock? Say, I'm glad if you stay
out for recreation."
He kissed her again, shaking out of his coat and unwinding his muffler.
"I could just see you walking the floor and looking out of the window."
"Sa-y, I been so busy all evening I didn't have time to think. I'm not
such a worrier no more like I used to be. Like the saying is--life is
too short."
He drew up beside her, lifting her needles off her work. "Little
sweetheart mamma, why don't you sit on the big sofa in the front room
where it's more comfortable?"
"You can't make, Sammy, out of a pig's ear a silk stocking."
He would detain her hands, his eyes puckered and, so intent upon her.
"You had a good time, Sammy?"
"You'd be surprised, ma, what a nice place Clara boards at."
"What did they have to eat? Good cooking?"
"Not for a fellow that's used to my boarding-house."'
"What?"
"I couldn't tell if it was soup or finger-bowls they served for the
first course."
"I know--stylish broth. Let me warm you up a little of my thick barley
soup that's left over from--"
He pressed her down. "Please, ma! I'm full up. I couldn't. They had pink
ice-cream, too, with pink cake and--"
"Such mess-food what is bad for you. I'm surprised how Clara keeps her
good complexion. Let me fix you some fried--"
"Ma, I tell you I couldn't. It's ten o'clock. You mustn't try to fatten
me up so. In war-time a man has got to be lean."
She sat back suddenly and whitely quiet. "That's--twice already to-day,
Sam, you talk like that."
He took up her lax hand, moving each separate finger up and down, eyes
lowered. "Why not? Doesn't it ever strike you, mamma, that you and me
are--are kidding ourselves along on this war business, pretending to
each other there ain't no war?"