THE LAST ACT
It was at least a novelty for Joan to find it impossible to get hold
of Dicky when the desire seized her to talk with him. Under ordinary
circumstances she would have found it humiliating to be forced to
accept excuse after excuse in response to her messages—excuses that
were none too adept. It began to seem almost as though he were
deliberately avoiding her. But even in that she blamed herself and
justified him. After all she deserved very little of him. In the hour
when he had needed her, she had turned away from him, and now in her
hour of need he was repaying her in kind.
For she did need him very much. Her mind was all topsy-turvy, and at
this moment he seemed to be the only one who could help her straighten
it out, because somehow her thoughts all revolved about him. She found
herself awakening in the morning to thoughts of him. Every day since
Devons had left had begun that way. Whether the sun was shining and the
world in tune with the singing of birds or whether the sky was dark
and the rain beating down, she felt that she must see Dicky in order
to get a fair start. It was as though her life were marking time for
him. There was no especial point in getting up, but neither was there
any especial point in lying in bed. Without him the forenoon had no
particular significance, neither had the afternoon and evening. It was
a frame of mind she would have found absurd in any one else.
Yet she was not the least bit ashamed of it in herself. Rather she
gloried in it. She accepted it in a way as a sort of purgatory.
And always she admitted with utter frankness her love for him. She
attempted no subtlety on that point. She allowed no quibbling on the
ground of maidenly reserve. She loved him honestly and whole-heartedly
and from the depths. She faced that truth with raised head—with pride.
The fact that he had once asked her to marry him gave her a certain
privilege, but even without this it would have been the same. After
all, such a thing as this was no more to be denied because of the
conventions than the matter of her age or the color of her eyes. Either
it was or it was not. If one were honest one admitted the truth at all
times.
And this love was no mere abstract mental condition. It was a very
personal and vital and altogether human love. She was by no means
content to let it rest where it was; to fold her hands like the maidens
of her mother’s day and if need be to wait and pine away in loneliness.
Because she loved Dicky she wanted him. She wanted to see him—to be
with him. She wanted to share his days with him. She especially wanted
to share these present days with him. He was going to work now at seven
in the morning he had told her. With an hour out for lunch he toiled
until five and then went home dog-tired. It was to her he should come
when dog-tired. She should have had the privilege of relieving his
weariness. She could have kissed him all smutched as he might be. It
was when the rest of him was almost unrecognizable that she had seen
into his eyes. What she had seen there then she craved. It was the
sweet soul of the man—the very gallant knight in the man.
Why did he not come to her? Day after day for a week she asked herself
that and received no answer. And day after day as she dwelt alone with
her love it burned away all the old barriers and gathered heat with
what it fed upon. The need of him became acute, so at the end of a long
day it resolved itself into action.
Half-frightened by her new boldness, she rang up Dicky’s mother at the
little apartment in Brooklyn.
“Please,” she said, “will you ask me to dinner to-night?”
“Why, my dear,” came the gentle voice, “we should be delighted. We have
dinner at six because both Dicky and his father are very hungry when
they get home.”
“Then—may I come a little early?”
“Come as soon as you wish.”
So that much was accomplished without any particular harm to any one.
It is surprising what may be accomplished in violation of all rules if
one has an honest purpose and a clean heart.
She changed her gown into a simple white summer dress and hurried down
to tell her mother.
“I’m going to have dinner to-night with the Burnetts,” she said.
“Very good,” answered Mrs. Fairburne. “I’m glad you are going out.”
Charles left her at the unpretentious apartment house in the quiet
street at five, and a few moments later she had mounted to the third
floor and was facing the door which bore a card reading “Mr. Joshua
Burnett.” Mrs. Burnett herself came in response to her ring, and
without apology and with sincere friendliness welcomed her in.
“I am doing the cooking myself,” she explained as soon as Joan had
removed her hat. “It seems real good to be able to do it again. Both of
the men seem to like it, too.”
Joan insisted upon accompanying her into the tiny kitchen and there
she tried her best to find something to do. But as she watched the
sure, practiced hands busy about their tasks, she felt quite helpless
and useless. There was nothing left but to sit back and keep out from
under foot and watch. Suddenly she realized that she was accepting this
rather startling change in the fortunes of the Burnetts in quite a
matter-of-fact way. It was almost as though there had been no change at
all. And that was because she thought only of the little woman herself
and not of her surroundings or her tasks. She was the mother of Dicky
wherever she was. Here preparing his dinner she was more than ever
that. Only it was not right for the older woman to be doing this. She,
Joan, should be doing it for her.
“I wish you would show me how to do all these things,” she said.
“Haven’t you ever learned to cook?” replied Mrs. Burnett, in
astonishment.
“No,” admitted Joan with a touch of color.
“Then it’s certainly time you did learn,” answered Mrs. Burnett. “But
my way of cooking is all for Mr. Burnett and Dicky.”
“I should like to learn that way, too,” breathed Joan.
It was the tone of the girl’s voice that made Mrs. Burnett glance
sharply at her. Then, while she looked, she saw the young cheeks grow
a deeper and deeper scarlet, though she did not speak a word. The eyes
held steady, but perhaps the lips trembled the slightest bit, partly in
fear, partly in a mute plea for sympathy. That was only for a second
because Mrs. Burnett stepped closer, her face radiant.
“You mean you—you care for Dicky?” she asked tenderly.
Joan rose, breathing rapidly. She tried to answer, but her lips
remained dumb. So she just nodded.
The mother of Dicky, her hands all flour-covered as they were, took the
girl into her arms. She kissed the rich dark hair, murmuring:
“Oh, I’m so glad—so glad.”
“Only,” whispered Joan brokenly, “I—I don’t know if Dicky cares for me.”
“That’s for Dicky to tell you,” answered Mrs. Burnett. “But I think all
you’ll have to do is to give him the chance.”
That evening Joan had the honor of setting the table for Dicky.
Incidentally she set it for the others, but they did not count for very
much, not even herself. The table was set for Dicky alone as, if the
truth were known, the dinner was cooked for Dicky alone. Even when Mr.
Burnett came in, ruddy and tired after his afternoon at the country
club, he did not seem very important.
“Hasn’t Dicky come home yet?” were his first words.
“It isn’t quite time,” answered Mrs. Burnett. “You haven’t spoken to
Miss Fairburne.”
He had not seen her. Now he took her hand and bowed politely, at the
same moment reaching for his watch.
“It’s quarter of six. He was here last night at this time.”
“Now you go get ready,” urged Mrs. Burnett. “What was your score
to-day?”
“Made it in a hundred,” he answered proudly.
As he disappeared, Mrs. Burnett attempted a weak apology for him.
“He acts just as silly as that every time the boy isn’t here when he
gets home.”
It was not five minutes later that Dicky did come in with something
in his hand that looked very much like a lunch-box. Joan, whether
deliberately or not cannot be said with certainty, was standing very
near the door. At sight of her Dicky appeared to be frozen in his
tracks.
“I’m—I’m here to dinner,” explained Joan.
“But how—”
“Your mother invited me,” she faltered on as though she really found it
necessary to account for herself.
“Good for mother!” he exclaimed. “Why—why I’m darned glad to see you.”
“Thank you, Dicky. You’d better get ready. It’s almost cooked.”
“Dad home?”
“He’s waiting for you,” she answered.
From the kitchen came his mother’s voice.
“He’s gone to tidy up.”
“You’ll have to give me time to shave if there’s company,” he called
back.
Joan had turned to put the finishing touches to the table. He followed
her a little way. Then he stopped. He felt like rubbing his eyes.
“Joan,” he said.
She looked over her shoulder.
“I’m _awful_ glad to see you,” he said.
It was not an especially poetic speech, but it made her heart jump.
Nor, all through the dinner, was the conversation of a character to
be worth recording. It was significant neither for its wit nor wisdom
and yet every one appeared happy. After the dinner Joan insisted that
Mrs. Burnett retire to the sitting-room with her husband and leave the
clearing-up to her—and to Dicky if he cared to help.
“You betcha,” agreed Dicky.
So after the table was cleared, Dicky found himself in the little
buttery engaged in the task of wiping dishes, while Joan in a long
apron of his mother’s washed them. Even here the dialogue did not
sparkle. He had a feeling that there was something he did not
understand, which was quite correct. There was a mystery about her
presence. He was not quite clear how his mother happened to ask her
and still less clear how she happened to accept. If he had been
consulted beforehand he would have advised against any such invitation.
He would have said that, under the circumstances, it might place her
in a position where she would not feel at liberty to refuse. She had
been wonderfully decent through these last few weeks—wonderfully
decent. She had extended invitation after invitation to him which he
had turned down because he felt that she was making an especial effort
to be nice to him in what she thought his adversity. In a way she
pitied him, though he did not pity himself in the slightest. Still it
was necessary to recognize the fact that there _had_ been a change in
his circumstances. As a laborer working for fifteen dollars a week,
he was in an entirely different position in regard to her than he had
been a month ago. He had enough faith in himself to believe this was
only temporary, but while such conditions existed they were, that was
all there was about it. Hartley had already recognized his ability to
the extent of making him foreman of the room. In six months or a year
he might be put on the road, and from that point he could climb as
high as he was able. But he had no right to ask her to gamble on any
such prospects. Her life was based on certainties. There was nothing
contingent about the Fairburne income and he had no right to offer her
anything less. A man would be a cad to allow such a woman as she to run
any chances. She must be made as secure as papers in a safe deposit
vault. He was as yet far from a point where he could offer her that.
All this was what the reasoning part of him said, but at the very same
time his heart kept running counter to it. Every time he reached for
a dish and by that much came nearer to her soft arm revealed to the
elbow by her rolled-up sleeves, his heart said, “Go a little nearer.”
Then it was necessary to step back quickly in fear lest he yield to the
temptation. For the heart of him was a very vagabond for carelessness
and laughed to scorn all his best arguments.
“Take her,” it said, “for by all the laws of love she’s yours. You’ve
known her now since you were schoolmates together, and there hasn’t
been a day in all that time when you haven’t known that she was the
biggest thing in your life. There hasn’t been a time when you wouldn’t
have been willing to lay at her feet all the most precious things
of your life—including life itself. You’ve tried her through your
prosperous days and it was like that. You went away from her and it
remained like that. She went away from you and it was just the same.
Now in this sudden shift of your fortunes there is no change in your
love. If anything you love her more than you ever did because you need
her more. You need her to give point to your ambitions. You need her to
give you respite from the sheer drudgery of your labors. You need her
in a thousand new ways.
“Here she is. Take her. The two of you are here alone and you have only
to look into her eyes to know you have better than a sporting chance.”
But because he wanted her—even because he needed her—was no reason why
he should ask for her, replied the cold-blooded, reasoning part of him.
Merely because he wanted the crown jewels, did that justify him in
seizing them? Men called that larceny. It was then a worse larceny to
make off—provided always that were possible—with something infinitely
more valuable. Compared with the pure radiance of her soul the crown
jewels were but so many baubles of colored glass. He must keep a tight
grip on himself or he would land in a jail of his own making.
In the meanwhile Joan went on with the washing of her dishes as though
she had no other concern. And though she tried now and then to open
the conversation on general topics, she did not get very far. Had it
not seemed disloyal to harbor such a thought, she would have said that
Dicky was stupid this evening. At times it seemed almost worse than
that—as though he were bored with having her here. And the pitiful part
of it all was that with both of them attending strictly to business the
work was being completed at such a rapid rate that it was soon only a
matter of minutes before it would be done and they would both be back
again in the sitting-room. Then Lord only knew when there would be
another such opportunity. Fate sometimes plays strange tricks and in
the space of a single evening erects barriers that last a lifetime. It
is difficult to foretell what is going to happen from one minute to the
next.
So they came to the last dish and he was left quite helpless with the
dishcloth in his hands.
“Hang it up nicely on the rack over the stove,” she said.
He did that. She turned and washed her hands.
“There,” she said, “I guess we’re all through now.”
She undid her apron and hung it up. Then she began to roll down her
sleeves. To him it was like a slowly descending curtain. It was the
last act of the play.
When she had done that there was no further excuse for their remaining
there. She looked at him, and as her eyes caught his the old telltale
color flooded back to her cheeks. They faced each other like that a
moment. Then from somewhere deep came a little, stifled cry.
He gripped his jaws.
“Oh, Dicky!” she repeated.
And again, as once before, the name was but a synonym for love. He
heard it this time and reason fled from him. He took her in his arms
and without a single word kissed her lips. He kissed them with the
world swimming about him—kissed them with a kiss that made them
eternally one.
In the due course of time—as far as they were concerned there was no
longer any such thing as time—they came back to the sitting-room.
“Seems to me it took you a long time to finish those dishes,” said
Burnett.
But Mrs. Burnett raised her eyes questioningly to Joan. Then she smiled
and went to her son and kissed him.
Said Burnett senior a little later in the evening as they were
discussing ways and means in a committee of the whole:
“Of course, it’s all nonsense to talk about Dicky having only fifteen
dollars a week. What’s mine is his. And if there’s anything in the
prospect of that little investment of his panning out to the extent of
ten thousand a year, it belongs to him. I loaned him the money and when
he gets ready he can pay that back. I didn’t look upon it then as an
investment, but charged it in my books against profit and loss, so I
don’t see why I should claim it now.”
Dicky jumped to his feet and clapped his father on his back.
“Why, you real old sport!” he exclaimed.
But Joan stole up to the father and placed one arm about his neck and
whispered in his ear. The others did not hear what she said. They
never heard. It remained one of the mysteries of Dicky’s whole life. It
was a secret between Joan and Burnett. As such it really is even to-day
the concern of no one else in the wide world.
However, if any one chooses to be impertinent enough to read the last
sentence, what she said was this:
“You old dear, don’t you go and spoil it all. Please don’t let him have
that money. I want him just as he is.”
THE END
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
Transcriber’s Notes
Spelling, punctuation, and hyphens standardised across the text.
p92 “Gatling gun” capitalised as a proper noun.
p215 Comma adjusted in “My boy, I’ve looked”.
p252 Hyphen removed from “staring one day overlong”.
p212 “A.E. Hartley” and p235 “E.A. Hartley”, elsewhere last name only.