Part 26

I will marry you now, if you won’t ask me to give up my job.

“I don’t wonder you wrote it,” said Hardy, when he met her for lunch.

“Joe, it’s the only way!”

“It’s not _my_ way,” said he.

She reminded him that he had promised her to do whatever she wanted, and he replied that he would do so--except in this instance.

“Well, I won’t let you have the burden of taking care of Aunt Bessie,” she told him. “It’s bad enough for you to think of getting married, anyhow, when you’re so young, and just at the beginning of a wonderful career--”

“Young, am I? Then what about you?” he asked. “No! When you marry me, you’ll be done with offices. That’s something I won’t argue about.”

She pretended to be angry, but in her heart she adored him when he was magnificent and arbitrary.

III

“It isn’t really a lie,” said Edith. “I really do go to the French class.”

“It’s too near a lie to suit me,” said Hardy bluntly. “I’m sick of this hole-and-corner business. It’s--can’t you see for yourself that it’s degrading to both of us? Edith, can’t we be honest about this? Let me go and see your aunt, and tell her the whole thing. If she makes a row, I dare say I can live through it.”

“I dare say _you_ could,” Edith answered briefly.

They were coming near to one of the gates of Central Park. Their walk together was almost at an end--a walk which only a few weeks ago would have been a delight almost unsupportable, a thing to lie awake at night remembering, to think of all through a busy day. Now that rapture, that glamour, was gone. With all their love, their hope, their blind tenderness for each other, they were bitter at heart.

It was a wild, bright October evening. The moon seemed rocking in the fitful clouds, the wind sprang like a kitten along the paths after the dry leaves, the bare trees creaked stiff and resistant. All the world was in motion, restless, hurried. All things were free--except themselves. It was intolerable to Hardy, an affront to his fine young pride in himself, his magnificent assurance. It was petty, base, shameful!

“Edith!” he said suddenly. “I won’t go on like this!”

She stopped short in the middle of the path.

“I’m tired of hearing that,” she replied, in a queer, unsteady voice. “You’re always saying that--always blaming me; and you know we’ve got to go on like this--or not go on at all!”

“We haven’t. That’s what I’m always trying to tell you,” he said stormily. “We don’t have to meet this way--in this beastly, lying way--pretending to your aunt that your French lesson is for two hours instead of one, so that we can have one hour a week alone together. Tell her! Let her be upset! She’ll have to know some time. Then at least I can come to see you in your own place, decently and honorably.”

“I will not tell her now! You don’t realize what it’ll mean to Aunt Bessie. You don’t care. She hasn’t any one but me. I _won’t_ tell her now, and let her have all that long time to think about--losing me. She’s going to be happy as long as possible.”

Hardy took her arm.

“Come on,” he said, “or you’ll be ten minutes late, and she’ll have a nervous attack and keep you up all night, as usual!”

But when he felt how she was shivering in her thin jacket, a terrible compunction seized him.

“Oh, Edith!” he cried. “Edith, never mind all that! Darling little Edith, it’s only our affair, after all! Let’s get married now, before I go!”

“You know we can’t,” she said, with a sob. “Not when you’re so obstinate and--and unkind. You know we couldn’t manage for ourselves and Aunt Bessie, too, in any place where she’d be comfortable, just on your salary; and you’re so unreasonable about my job!”

“Look here, Edith--I’ll sell that blamed stock, and that’ll provide for Aunt Bessie until I’ve got my raise.”

“You won’t! You shan’t!” She pulled her arm away from him, and roughly wiped away the tears running down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare to mention such a thing! I’m not going to ruin your whole life just for--”

“Well, you’ve ruined it!” said Hardy. “I can tell you that, if it’s any satisfaction to you. I don’t care now what happens to me, or whether I go on or not. You’ve shown me how little you care for me. You’ve--Edith!”

She had started running along the path, but he easily overtook her. All at once their arms were about each other, Edith’s wet cheek against his, and all their pain, their bitterness, lost in a passion of tenderness and remorse.

IV

Still Hardy went about the office, magnificent as ever, very well aware of being a remarkable young fellow, who was to be made assistant buyer at twenty-three, a man talked about, admired, and envied. He was still proud of himself, still sure of himself, but some of the magic had gone out of it, some of the zest. He couldn’t look forward to that trip to Europe with unmixed joy now.

Indeed, all the joys he had at this time were so mixed with anxiety and impatience that he could scarcely recognize them. He dreaded leaving Edith. He imagined all sorts of misfortunes that might befall her in his absence. Sometimes he even resented his splendid future, because it so burdened and harassed the present. He wanted to live _now_, not to wait.

Worst of all was the humiliation he endured from their furtive and hasty meetings. He had never before in his life been furtive, or even cautious. He had lived boldly and rashly, in the light of day, and it hurt and angered him to do otherwise. He wanted to love boldly and rashly. He wanted to be proud of his love.

Well, he wasn’t proud; he was ashamed.

He couldn’t understand Edith’s viewpoint. Her life had been so repressed, so weighted down by unjust and inordinate demands upon her, that she was thankful for the briefest minutes of happiness. If she could meet Hardy for ten minutes on a street corner, she was joyous for those ten minutes--when he would let her be. He tried to let her. He would watch her coming toward him--such a gallant little figure!--and he would make up his mind to be tender and considerate; but when she was with him, when he saw her ill dressed and ill nourished, and couldn’t help her, when he saw her glance at her watch even when he was speaking, his good resolutions only too often vanished, and he reproached her bitterly.

She didn’t endure his reproaches meekly. He wouldn’t have loved her, if she had. On the contrary, she replied to him vigorously, and so many, many times they had left each other in anger, to be paid for later by hours of remorse.

Neither of them was quarrelsome by nature, nor was there any lack of real harmony between them. They were both generous, quick to forgive, eager to understand, passionately loyal to each other. Every one of their disagreements would have been quickly adjusted and forgotten, if they had had time; but they never did have time, and neither did this fellow of twenty-three and this girl of twenty have any greater amount of patience and ripe wisdom than others of their age.

Sometimes a sort of panic seized them, and they felt it necessary to “explain.” They had fallen into the habit of taking a little more than the allotted hour for lunch. Though Edith had been solemnly warned by her superior, she found it impossible to leave Joe in the middle of a speech. He was so unreasonable about her always being in a hurry.

So there was lunch almost every day, and the walk to the Subway, and that hour stolen from the French class once a week, all through October and November, until the trip to Europe was only a few weeks ahead of them. Mr. Plummer hadn’t actually told Hardy he was to go, but the thing was understood. Mr. Loomis, the buyer, was taking pains to train him, and had once or twice said such things as:

“You’ll see how that is for yourself, Hardy, when you’re in France.”

“It’ll probably be before Christmas,” said Hardy. “The idea is that I’m not to be told until Hallock is gone, because I might slack up on my present work. Silly, childish way to do--as if it was a treat for a good boy!”

“Well, it will be a treat, won’t it?” said Edith. “You’ve always--”

He looked across the table at her. The cold air had brought no color into her cheeks. She looked weary, downcast. He could see that her smile was an effort, and in her eyes was the look that he couldn’t bear.

“No!” he said. “I wish to Heaven I wasn’t going! I mean it! If I have to leave you like this--”

“Joe,” she began, and was silent for a minute. “I--I know it’s selfish of me; but--oh, Joe, when I think of your going away--”

Mr. Plummer, who was also taking lunch in that restaurant, saw his promising young man lean across the table and lay his hand on that of Miss Patterson from the auditing department.

“Too bad!” thought Mr. Plummer. “A boy with a remarkable future before him--and getting himself entangled before he’s begun! Too bad! Too bad!”

Fortunately, however, he could not hear what monstrous folly the boy spoke.

“I won’t go, Edith! I’ll stay here with you. Nothing else counts with me but you--only you. I’ll--”

“I want you to go, Joe, darling,” said she, with quivering lips; “but I thought--only I know you wouldn’t! I--if we could just get married before you go, and not tell any one till you come back--just so that we’d really belong to each other--then it wouldn’t be so hard!”

And Hardy, the bold, the rash, the magnificent, who hated anything secret and furtive, looked only once at her dear face, and agreed.

V

“You’re late again, Miss Patterson,” said Mr. Dunne.

“I’m awfully sorry,” said Edith. “I’ll really try not to again.”

But she didn’t look sorry. She sat down at her desk, flushed and a little out of breath, and, to Mr. Dunne’s great displeasure, there was a smile hovering about her lips.

“Miss Patterson,” said he, “I’m afraid this is once too often.”

Edith looked up in alarm.

“But, you see--” she began, and stopped.

She couldn’t explain to Mr. Dunne that this was a most pardonable lateness, and not at all likely to happen again. Going to the City Hall for a marriage license wouldn’t occupy much of her time in the future. Thinking of this, she smiled again--and lost her job. Mr. Dunne didn’t like people who smiled when they were late.

So it happened that just when she badly needed a smile she hadn’t one. The wretched little imitation she gave to Hardy, an hour later, didn’t deceive him for an instant. He stopped beside her desk--a thing he had never done before.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded, and would not be put off.

No use to tell him that he shouldn’t stand there and talk to her! He knew that very well, and he didn’t care. A mighty rage filled him. Edith, his Edith, his own girl, to be discharged and humiliated like this!

“Get on your hat and jacket,” he commanded, “and come on!”

“Joe! You mustn’t--”

“Look here!” said he. “I won’t have you here like this. If Dunne told you to go, then go now. Good Lord! Haven’t you any pride?”

She was too wretched to be angry at him. She did get on her hat and jacket, and, in full view of every one. Hardy walked out of the office with her at three o’clock on a busy afternoon.

“We’ll go to the flat,” he said, “and talk it over.”

They had a flat of their own. Hardy had insisted upon this.

“We’ll take it now,” he had said: “and whenever we see anything especially good in the way of furniture, we’ll buy it. Then, when I come back, we’ll have a place of our own all ready for us.”

It wasn’t quite what they wanted, but Hardy had very little money just then, and their only time for house hunting was what they had been able to pilfer from their lunch hour; so they had taken the first one that seemed at all suitable. It consisted of three tiny rooms in a remodeled house west of Central Park.

They had already become inordinately fond of this future home. To be sure, there was nothing in it except a barrel containing a Limoges dinner set, which Hardy had bought from a shipment received at the office; but Edith had made a flying visit and measured the windows for curtains, and after that she could look upon the place as her own.

This afternoon, when Hardy opened the door with his latchkey, the place was obviously a _future_ home. It was bare, bleak, and dusty, with slanting sun rays falling across the ill laid board floor of what was going to be the sitting room.

The door closed behind them, and there they were, alone, with plenty of time for talking now, and neither of them said one word. Hardy began walking about. His footsteps made a loud and somehow a melancholy sound. His voice in the empty little rooms was not at all his confident office voice, but boyish, and, to Edith, terribly touching.

She sat down on the barrel, struggling against her despair and misery, while he moved about in the kitchen, mocked by a gas stove with no gas in it, and water taps that gave forth no water. She knew how he felt; she knew what he would say.

“But I won’t!” she thought. “I’ll get another job. I won’t let him take care of Aunt Bessie now. I won’t! I won’t! Not now, when he’s just beginning.”

If she were making resolves in the sitting room, so was Hardy in the kitchen. He hadn’t been singled out by Mr. Plummer because of his gentleness and consideration. He had a remarkable future because he was remarkably persistent and clear-sighted about getting his own way, and Edith was no match for him.

“No!” said he. “No more jobs! We’ll tell your aunt _now_, and we’ll get married to-morrow, as we planned, and we’ll move in here.”

“We can’t, Joe. We haven’t any furniture, you know--”

“Then we’ll get it.”

“And Aunt Bessie--”

“We’ll see Aunt Bessie now. Look here, little Edith! It’s got to be this way. I couldn’t have my wife running about looking for a job. I couldn’t go away and leave you working in a strange office. It was bad enough in the old place. Look here, Edith, don’t you think you can be happy with me? Don’t you love me enough?”

“I love you too much, Joe! It’s not fair to you. You’ll--oh, Joe, you’ll have to sell your stock, and Mr. Plummer--”

“Edith,” he said, “I’ve been thinking lately--I don’t know how to put it very well--but it seems to me that maybe it’s a mistake to live so much in the future. Suppose there wasn’t any future--for us? Suppose something happened to one of us? Edith, I can’t stand thinking of that! Look here! Let’s just live now, and not be afraid of what’s going to happen. Let’s start this thing”--he stopped for a moment--“with courage and confidence,” he finished.

She put her hand on his cheek and turned his head so that she could look into his honest, steady eyes.

“Let’s!” she said, with a very unsteady little smile. “I feel that way, too, Joe. We’ll begin this minute, and unpack the china, just so that we’ll--we’ll feel at home!”

VI

Hardy turned his back upon Mr. Plummer, and looked out of the window. It was a cold, rainy day. The people far below on the street were hurrying by under umbrellas.

“In that case, Hardy,” said Mr. Plummer, “I’m sorry, but--”

“Yes, sir,” said Hardy.

He couldn’t, at that moment, say anything more. Something had risen into his throat and silenced him. He would have liked to speak, to tell the man who had shown so kindly an interest in him that he regretted his hasty and violent words. He hadn’t meant all that he said. He had come to tell Mr. Plummer that he wanted to sell his stock. He had listened, as patiently as he could, while his employer remonstrated with him. He had endured a pretty stiff lecture upon his recent slackness and lack of attention to work, because he knew he deserved it; but when Mr. Plummer undertook to warn him about “entangling” himself with that “young woman in the auditing department;” all his genuine respect for his chief had vanished in an overwhelming anger. That “young woman” was his Edith!

He didn’t like, now, to recall what he had said.

“I’m sorry, Hardy,” said Mr. Plummer again. He was looking at the boy with an odd expression on his lined face, a look half respectful, half sorrowful. As a man, he liked Hardy the better for his outburst, but as a business man he deplored it.

“I wish you the best of luck, my boy,” he said. “Refer to me at any time.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Hardy.

Off he went, with his words of apology unsaid, with five years of friendly interest unrewarded, and with his own heart like lead. He walked through the office for the last time, and into the corridor, leaving so much behind him.

Edith was waiting for him in the lobby.

“Oh, Joe!” she cried. “I found a place uptown where they promised to deliver the furniture this afternoon. Imagine! And I got the dearest material for curtains! I brought a sample to show you.”

She was opening her hand bag, but he stopped her.

“No, don’t,” he said curtly. “Not just now.”

Here she was, chattering about curtains, after all that had happened! He remembered how he had left her the evening before, after a horrible interview with her aunt. He remembered her pitiful attempts to soothe and comfort that hysterical old demon, and her anguish when she failed so utterly, and was told that if she married “that man” she would be cast off--except for the trifling communications necessary to continuing her support of the martyr.

“And I couldn’t sleep for worrying about her!” he thought bitterly. “I thought she’d be ill, and look at her now--perfectly happy, talking about curtains!”

“Come on!” he said aloud, and then stopped, with a frown. “Haven’t you any umbrella?” he asked.

“I have one,” she replied, “but not here. It wasn’t raining when I started.”

“Edith!” he said suddenly. “Don’t you remember?”

How could he have imagined that she was happy, or that her mind was filled with thoughts of curtains? That small, gallant, smiling thing, so pale, so troubled, with the shadow of her suffering dark in her eyes!

“It’s nearly twelve, Joe,” she said, looking at her watch. “We haven’t much time.”

“Oh, yes, we have!” he told her. “We have any amount of time, for I’m never going back there.”

“Joe!” she cried. “Oh, Joe! Oh, no, no! Don’t tell me you’ve--”

He drew a long breath, and then looked down at her with a grin.

“You’ve got a young man with a remarkably uncertain future,” he said. “Never mind--we’ll start a new future. Anyhow, I shan’t have to go to Europe now, and leave you.”

“Oh, Joe! What have I done?”

“I did it myself,” he said sturdily, “and I’m glad. Thank Heaven, we’ve got time, now, for a nice, peaceful wedding!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

JULY, 1924 Vol. LXXXII NUMBER 2

His Own People

MRS. DENIS LANIER’S FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH HER HUSBAND’S FAMILY PROVES TO BE A TRYING ORDEAL

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

After each stroke of the brush her bright hair flew out in glittering threads, and in the strong light that centered upon the mirror her vivid little face seemed framed in a sort of unearthly radiance. She looked at the reflected image, at her great, solemn amber eyes, at her white shoulders, at that sparkling flood of hair.

A brief moment of joy that was, however, for almost at once came other thoughts that put an end to it. She grew disconsolate and troubled. With a sigh she threw down the hairbrush, and, going over to the table, picked up her book. Being pretty wasn’t going to do her any good. On the contrary, it might well be another charge against her, another offense in a list already very long.

“They’ll say he married me just because I’m pretty,” she reflected.

And it was not so! Her incomparable Denis had seen and loved and praised all those things in her heart of which she was honestly proud. He loved her because she was valiant and loyal and tender.

“Of course, he does like my looks,” she thought; “but even when I’m old and ugly, he’ll still feel the same toward me. He said so--and I know it!”

But how was she to make these terrible people see all that? What she needed for the ordeal before her was dignity, assurance, poise--that was it. She had even gone so far as to buy a book on etiquette, to find the secret. Useless! No situation like hers was mentioned in the portentous volume. The bride received a visit from her husband’s family, or he brought her to visit them, but there was no help offered to a bride who was suddenly commanded to go all alone to meet her new people for the first time.

She looked through the pages again. “The Etiquette of Weddings”--there had been precious little of that about _their_ wedding--just she and Denis and a strange clergyman, with a deaconess and the sexton for witnesses. “The Bride’s Family”--hers was hundreds of miles away, in Maine. “The Groom’s Family”--she closed the book violently.

“I ought to be ashamed of myself!” she cried.

It seemed like treachery toward her own people, this fear of Denis’s family. There was no reason on earth why she shouldn’t go to them with her head high, no reason why she shouldn’t have poise. She must; she would summon it up from the depth of her anxious heart, so that she might do credit to her Denis.

“And they may be very nice to me,” she said to herself, without for an instant believing in the probability.

She remembered the letters that Denis had received from his mother after he had written to tell her of his engagement. He had never read a word of them to Emily, but his face told her enough, and the black gloom that settled over him. He admitted that his mother wanted him to wait--he didn’t say how long, or for what, but Emily knew very well. His mother was hoping that time would cure his deplorable and unaccountable folly of wishing to marry an American stenographer.