Books: Martie The Unconquered

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Dr. Converse did not smile in answer. After a while she knew why.
The baffling weakness did not go, the pain and restlessness seemed
to have been hers forever. Day after day she lay helpless; while
Isabeau grumbled, Margar fretted, and Teddy grew noisy and
unmanageable. Wallace was rarely at home, the dirt and confusion of
the house rode Martie's sick brain like a nightmare. She told
herself, as she lay longing for an appetizing meal, an hour's
freedom from worry, that there was a point beyond which no woman
might be expected to bear things, that if life went on in this way
she must simply turn her face to the wall and die.

Ghost-white, she was presently on her feet. The unbearable had been
borne. She was getting well again; ridden with debts, and as shabby
and hopeless as it could well be, the Bannister family staggered on.
Money problems buzzed about Martie's eyes like a swarm of midges:
Isabeau had paid this charge of seventy cents, there was a drug bill
for six dollars and ten cents--eighty cents, a dollar and forty
cents, sixty-five cents--the little sums cropped up on all sides.

Martie took pencil and paper, and wrote them all down. The hideous
total was two hundred and seventeen dollars on the last day of
October. But there would be rent again on the eleventh--

Her bright head went suddenly down on her arms. Oh, no--no--no! It
couldn't be done. It was all too hard, too bewildering--

Suddenly, looking at the pencilled sums, the inspiration came. Was
it a memory of those days long ago in Monroe, when she had
calculated so carefully the cost of coming on to the mysterious
fairyland of New York? As carefully now she began to count the cost
of going home.

It was five years since she had seen her own people; and in that
time she had carried always the old resentful feeling that she would
rather die than turn to Pa for help! But she knew better now; her
children should not suffer because of that old girlish pride.

Her mother was gone. Len and his wife, one of the lean, tall Gorman
girls, were temporarily living with Pa in the old place. Sally had
four children, Elizabeth, Billy, Jim, and Mary, and lived in the old
Mussoo place near Dr. Ben. Joe Hawkes was studying medicine, Lydia
kept house for Pa, of course, and Sally and her father were
reconciled. "We just started talking to each other when Ma was so
ill," wrote Sally, "and now he thinks the world and all of the
children."

All these changes had filtered to Martie throughout the years. Only
a few weeks ago a new note had been sounded. Pa had asked Sally if
she ever heard of her sister; had said that Mary Hawkes was like her
Aunt Martie, "the cunningest baby of them all."

Wild with hope, Sally had written the beloved sister. It was as if
all these years of absence had been years of banishment to Sally.
Martie recognized the unchanging Monroe standard.

She got Sally's letter now, and re-read it. If Pa could send her a
few hundreds, if she could get the children into Lydia's hands, in
the old house in the sunken garden, if Teddy and Margar could grow
up in the beloved fogs and sunshine, the soft climate of home, then
how bravely she could work, how hopefully she could struggle to get
a foothold in the world for them! She wrote simply, lovingly,
penitently, to her father--She was convalescent after serious
illness; there were two small children; her husband was out of work;
could he forgive her and help her? In the cold, darkening days, she
went about fed with a secret hope, an abounding confidence.

But she held the letter a fortnight before sending it. If her father
refused her, she was desperate indeed. Planning, planning, planning,
she endured the days. Wallace was not well; wretched with grippe, he
spent almost the entire day in bed when he was at home, dressing at
four o'clock and going out of the house without a farewell.
Sometimes, for two or three nights a week, Martie did not know where
he was; his friends kept him in money, and made him feel himself a
deeply wronged and unappreciated man. She could picture him in bars,
in cafes, in hot hotel rooms seriously talking over a card-table,
boasting, threatening.

She dismissed Isabeau Eato with a promise that the girl accepted
ungraciously.

"If I had the money Isabeau, you should have it; you know that!"

"Yas'm. Hit's what dey all says'm."

"You SHALL have it," Martie promised, with hot cheeks. She breathed
easier when the girl was gone. She told the grocer that she had
written her father, and that his bills should be paid; she reminded
the big rosy man that she had been ill. He listened without comment,
cleaning a split thumb-nail. The story was not a new one.

No answer came to her letter, and a sick suspicion that no answer
would come began to trouble her. December was passing. Teddy was
careful to tell her just what he wanted from Santa Claus. On
Christmas Eve she asked Wallace, as he was silently going out, for
some money.

"I want to get Ted SOMETHING for Christmas, Wallie."

"What does he want?"

"Well, of course he wants a coaster and skates, but that's absurd. I
thought some sort of a gun--he's gun-mad, and perhaps a book of
fairy-tales."

With no further comment her husband gave her a five-dollar-bill, and
went on his way. She saw that he had other bills, and went
impulsively after him.

"Wallie! Could you let me have a little more? I do need it so!"

Still silent, he took the little roll from his pocket, and gave her
another five dollars. She saw still a third, and a one dollar bill.

But this was more than her wildest hopes. Joyfully, she went, shabby
and cold, through the happy streets. She walked four blocks to a new
market, and bought bread and butter and salt codfish and a candy
cane. She went into a department store, leaving Teddy to watch the
coach on the sidewalk, and got him the gun and the book. She gave
her grocer four, her butcher three dollars, with a "Merry
Christmas!" Did both men seem a little touched, a little pitying, or
was it just the holiday air? The streets were crowded, the leaden
sky low and menacing; they would have a white Christmas.

Teddy hung up his stocking at dark. The big things, he explained,
would have to go on the floor.

"What big things, my heart?" Martie was toasting bread, eying the
browned fish cakes with appetite.

"Well, the coaster or the skates!" he elucidated off-hand.

His mother's breast rose on a long sigh. She came to put one arm
about him, as she knelt beside him on the floor.

"Teddy, dear, didn't Mother tell you that old Santa Claus is poor
this year? He has so many, many little boys to go to! Wouldn't my
boy rather that they should all have something, than that some poor
little fellows should have nothing at all?" She stopped, sick at
heart, for the child's lip was trembling, and a hot tear fell on her
hand.

"But--but I've been good, Mother!" he stammered with a desperate
effort at self-control.

Well, if he could not be brave, she must be. She began to tell him
about going to California, to Grandfather's house. Later she put the
orange, the apple, the gun, with a triangle puzzle given away at the
drug store, a paper cow from the dairy, and five cents' worth of
pressed figs, into the little dangling stocking, placed the book
beside it, and hung the candy cane over all. Mrs. Converse, the
doctor's wife, had sent a big flannel duck, obviously second-hand,
but none the less wonderful for that, for Margar; Teddy had not seen
it, so it would be one more Christmas touch!

And at eight o'clock, as she was putting her kitchen in order, a
tired driver appeared, clumsily engineering something through the
narrow hall; a great coaster, its brave red and gold showing through
the flimsy, snow-wet wrappings.

"Teddy from Dad," Martie, bewildered, read on the card. Not to the
excited child himself would it bring the joy it gave his mother.
Poor Wallace--always generous! He had gone straight from her plea
for the boy's Christmas to spend his money for this. She hoped he
would come home to-morrow; that they might spend the day together.
Some of the shops would be open for a few hours; if he brought home
money, she could manage a chicken, and one of the puddings from the
French confectioner's--

Another ring at the bell? Martie wiped her hands, and went again to
the door. A telegram--

She tore and crumpled the wet yellow paper. The wonderful words
danced before her eyes:

Pa says come at once told Lydia he would give you and children home
as long as he lives sends his love merry Christmas darling

SALLY.

Martie went back to the kitchen, and put her head down on the little
table and cried.

Wallace did not come home for Christmas Day, nor for many days.
Teddy rejoiced in his coaster while his mother went soberly and
swiftly about her plans. Perhaps Pa had realized that she did not
actually have a cent, and was sending a check by mail. The perfect
telegram would have been just a little more than perfect, if he had
said so. But if he were not sending money, she must go nevertheless.
She must give up this house on January tenth, landlord and grocer
must trust her for the overdue rent and bill. If they would not,
well, then they must have her arrested; that was all.

The fare to California would be less than two hundred dollars. She
was going to borrow that from John.

Martie herself was surprised at the calm with which she came to this
decision. It had all the force of finality to her. She cared for the
hurt to her pride as little as she cared for what Rose Parker would
think of her ignominious return, as little as she cared for what the
world thought of a wife who deliberately left the father of her
children to his fate.

Early in January she planned to take the children with her, and find
John in his office. That very day the tickets should be bought. If
Wallace cared enough for his family to come home in the meantime,
she would tell him what she was doing. But Martie hoped that he
would not. The one possible stumbling-block in her path would be
Wallace's objection; the one thing of which she would not allow
herself to think was that he MIGHT, by some hideous whim, decide to
accompany them. Thinking of these things, she went about the process
of house-cleaning and packing. The beds, the chairs, the china and
linen and blankets must bring what they could. On the third day of
the year, in his room, Martie, broom in hand, paused to study
Wallace's "chestard." That must go, too. It had always been a
cheaply constructed article, with one missing caster that had to be
supplied by a folded wedge of paper. Still, in a consignment with
other things, it would add something to the total. Martie put her
hand upon it, and rocked it. As usual, the steadying wedge of paper
was misplaced.

She stooped to push the prop into position again; noticed that it
was a piece of notepaper, doubly folded; recognized John Dryden's
handwriting--

The room whirled about her as she straightened the crumpled and
discoloured sheet, and smoothed it, and grasped at one glance its
contents:

DEAR MR. BANNISTER:

I am distressed to hear of Mrs. Bannister's illness, and can readily
understand that she must not be burdened or troubled now. Please let
me know how she progresses, and let me be your banker again, if the
need arises. I am afraid she does not know how to save herself.

Faithfully yours,

JOHN DRYDEN.

The date was mid-December.

Martie read it once, read it again, crushed it in her hand in a
spasm of shame and pain. She brought the clenched hand that held it
against her heart, and shut her eyes. Oh, how could he--how could
he! To John, the last refuge of her wrecked life, he had closed the
way in the very hour of escape!

For a long time she stood, leaning against the tipped chest, blind
and deaf to everything but her whirling thoughts. After a while she
looked apathetically at the clock; time for Margar's toast and
boiled egg. She must finish in here; the baby would be waking.

Somehow she got through the cold, silent afternoon. She felt as if
she were bleeding internally; as if the crimson stain from her
shaken heart might ooze through her faded gingham. She must get the
children into the fresh air before the snow fell.

Out of doors a silence reigned. A steady, cold wind, tasting already
of snow, was blowing. The streets were almost deserted. Martie
pushed the carriage briskly, and the sharp air brought colour to her
cheeks, and a sort of desperate philosophy to her thoughts. Waiting
for the prescription for Margar's croup, with the baby in her lap,
Martie saw herself in a long mirror. The blooming young mother, the
rosy, lovely children, could not but make a heartening picture.
Margar's little gaitered legs, her bright face under the shabby,
fur-rimmed cap; Teddy's sturdy straight little shoulders and his
dark blue, intelligent eyes; these were Martie's riches. Were not
comfort and surety well lost for them at twenty-seven? At thirty-
seven, at forty-seven, there would be a different reckoning.

No woman's life was affected, surely, by a trifle like the tourist
fare to California, she told herself sensibly. If the money was not
to come from John, it must be forthcoming in some other way, if not
this month, then next month, or the next still. Perhaps she would
still go to John, and tell him the whole story.

Pondering, planning, she went back to the house, her spirits sinking
as the warm air smote her, the odour of close rooms, and of the
soaking little garments in the kitchen tub. Wallace had come in, had
flung himself across his bed, and was asleep.

Martie merely glanced at him before she set about the daily routine
of undressing the baby, setting the table, getting a simple supper
for Teddy and herself. No matter! It was only a question of a little
time, now. In ten days, in two weeks, she would be on the train; the
new fortune hazarded. The snoring sleeper little dreamed that some
of her things were packed, some of the children's things packed,
that Margar's best coat had been sent to the laundry, with the
Western trip in view; that a furniture man had been interviewed as
to the disposal of the chairs and tables.

At six o'clock Margar, with her bottle, was tucked away in the front
room, and Martie and Teddy sat down to their meal. Roused perhaps by
the clatter of dishes, Wallace came from the bedroom to the kitchen
door, and stood looking in.

"Wallace," Martie said without preamble, "why did you never tell me
that you borrowed money from Mr. Dryden?"

He stared at her stupidly, still sleepy, and taken unawares.

"He told you, huh?" he said heavily, after a pause.

"I found his note!" Martie said, beginning to breathe quickly.

Without glancing at Wallace, she put a buttered slice of bread
before Teddy.

"I didn't want to distress you with it, Mart," Wallace said weakly.

"Distress me!" his wife echoed with a bitter laugh.

"Of course, some of it is paid back," Wallace added unconvincingly.
Martie shot him a quick, distrustful glance. Ah, if she could
believe him! "I have his note acknowledging half of it, seventy-
five," added Wallace more confidently. "I'll show it to you!"

"I wish you would!" Martie said in cold incredulity. Teddy, deceived
by his mother's dispassionate tone, gave Wallace a warm little
smile, embellished by bread and milk.

"I guess you've been wondering where I was?" ventured Wallace,
rubbing one big bare foot with the other, and hunching his shoulders
in his disreputable wrapper. Unshaven, unbrushed, he gave a
luxurious yawn.

"No matter!" Martie said, shrugging. She poured her tea, noticed
that her fingernails were neglected, and sighed.

"I don't see why you take that attitude, Mart," Wallace said mildly,
sitting down. "In the first place, I sent you a letter day before
yesterday, which Thompson didn't mail--"

"Really!" said Martie, the seething bitterness within her making
hand and voice tremble.

"I have the deuce of a cold!" Wallace suggested tentatively. His
wife did not comment, or show in any way that she had heard him. "I
know what you think I've been doing," he went on. "But for once,
you're wrong. A lot of us have just been down at Joe's in the
country. His wife's away, and we just cooked and walked and played
cards--and I sat in luck, too!" He opened the wallet he held in his
hands, showing a little roll of dirty bills, and Martie was ashamed
of the instant softening of her heart. She wanted money so badly! "I
was coming home Monday," pursued Wallace, conscious that he was
gaining ground, "but this damn cold hit me, and the boys made me
stay in bed."

"Will you have some tea?" Martie asked reluctantly. He responded
instantly to her softened tone.

"I WOULD like some tea. I've been feeling rotten! And say, Mart," he
had drawn up to the table now, and had one wrappered arm about
Teddy, "say, Mart," he said eagerly, "listen! This'll interest you.
Thompson's brother-in-law, Bill Buffington, was there; he's an
awfully nice fellow; he's got coffee interests in Costa Rica. We
talked a lot, we hit it off awfully well, and he thinks there's a
dandy chance for me down there! He says he could get me twenty jobs,
and he wants me to go back when he goes--"

"But, Wallace--" Martie's quick enthusiasm was firing. "But what
about the children?"

"Why, they'd come along. Buff says piles of Americans down there
have children, you just have to dress 'em light--"

"And feed them light; that's the most important!" Martie added
eagerly.

"Sure. And I get my transportation, and you only half fare, so you
see there's not much to that!"

"Wallace!" The world was changing. "And what would you do?"

"Checking cargoes, and managing things generally. We get a house,
and he says the place is alive with servants. And he asked if you
were the sort of woman who would take in a few boarders; he says the
men there are crazy for American cooking, and that you could have
all you'd take--"

"Oh, I would!" Martie said excitedly. "I'd have nothing else to do,
you know! Oh, Wallie, I am delighted about this! I am so sick of
this city!" she added, smiling tremulously. "I am so sick of cold
and dirt and worry!"

"Well," he smiled a little shamefacedly, "one thing you'll like. No
booze down there. Buff says there's nothing in it; it can't be done.
He says that's the quickest way for a man to FINISH himself!"

The kitchen had been brightening for Martie with the swift changes
of a stage sunrise. Now the colour came to her face, and the happy
tears to her eyes. For the first time in many months she went into
her husband's arms, and put her own arms about his neck, and her
cheek against his, in the happy fashion of years ago.

"Oh, Wallie, dear! We'll begin all over again. We'll get away, on
the steamer, and make a home and a life for ourselves!"

"Don't you WANT to go, Moth'?" Teddy asked anxiously. Martie laughed
as she wiped her eyes.

"Crying for joy, Ted," she told him. "Don't sit there sneezing,
Wallie," she added in her ordinary tone. Her husband asked her,
dutifully, if she would object to his mixing a hot whisky lemonade
for his cold. After a second's hesitation she said no, and it was
mixed, and shortly afterward Wallace went to bed and to sleep. At
eight Martie tucked Teddy into bed, straightening the clothes over
Margar before she went into the dining room for an hour of
solitaire.

"Mrs. Bannister's Boarding House"; she liked the sound. The men
would tell each other that it was luck to get into Mrs. Bannister's.
White shoes--thin white gowns--she must be businesslike--bills and
receipts--and terms dignified, but not exorbitant--when Ted was old
enough for boarding-school--say twelve--but of course they could
tell better about that later on!

A little sound from the front bedroom brought her to her feet,
fright clutching her heart. Margar was croupy again!

It was a sufficiently familiar emergency, but Martie never grew used
to it. She ran to the child's side, catching up the new bottle of
medicine. A hideous paroxysm subsided as she took the baby in her
arms, but Margar sank back so heavily exhausted that no coaxing
persuaded her to open her eyes, or to do more than reject with
fretful little lips the medicine spoon. She is very ill--Martie said
to herself fearfully. She flew to her husband's side.

"Wallie--I hate to wake you! But Margar is croupy, and I'm going to
run for Dr. Converse. Light the croup kettle, will you, I won't be a
moment!"

His daughter was the core of Wallace's heart. He was instantly
alert.

"Here, let me go, Mart! I'll get something on--"

"No, no, I'm dressed! But look at her, Wallie," Martie said, as they
came together to stand by the crib. "I don't like the way she's
breathing--"

She looked eagerly at his face, but saw only her own disquiet
reflected there.

"Get the doctor," he said, tucking the blankets about the shabby
little double-gown. "I'll keep her warm--"

A moment later Martie, buttoned into her old squirrel-lined coat,
was in the quiet, deserted street, which was being muffled deeper
and deeper in the softly falling snow. Steps, areas, fences, were
alike furred in soft white, old gratings wore an exquisite coating
over their dingy filigree. The snow was coming down evenly,
untouched by wind, the flakes twisting like long ropes against the
street lights. A gang of men were talking and clanking shovels on
the car tracks; an ambulance thudded by, the wheels grating and
slipping on the snow.

Dr. and Mrs. Converse were in their dining room, a pleasant, shabby
room smelling of musk, and with an old oil painting of fruit, a cut
watermelon, peaches and grapes, a fringed napkin and a glass of red
wine, over the curved black marble mantel. The old man was enjoying
a late supper, but struggled into his great coat cheerfully enough.
Mrs. Converse tried to persuade Martie to have just a sip of sherry,
but Martie was frantic to be gone. In a moment she and the old man
were on their way, through the silent, falling snow again, and in
her own hallway, and she was crying to Wallace: "How is she?"

The room was steamy with the fumes of the croup kettle; Wallace, the
child in his arms, met them with a face of terror. Both men bent
over the baby.

"She seems all right again now," said Wallace in a sharp whisper,
"but right after you left--my God, I thought she would choke!"

Martie watched the doctor's face, amazement and fright paralyzing
every sense but sight. The old man's tender, clever hands rested for
a moment on the little double-gown.

"Well, poor little girl!" he said, softly, after a moment of pulsing
silence. He straightened up, and looked at Martie. "Gone," he said
simply. "She died in her father's arms."

"Gone!" Martie echoed. The quiet word fell into a void of silence.
Father and mother stood transfixed, looking upon each other. Martie
was panting like a runner, Wallace seemed dazed. They stood so a
long time.

Relief came first to Wallace; for as they laid the tiny form on the
bed, and arranged the shabby little gown about it, he suddenly fell
upon his knees, and flung one arm about his child and burst into
bitter crying. But Martie moved about, mute, unhearing, her mouth
fallen a little open, her breath still coming hard. She answered the
doctor's suggestions only after a moment's frowning concentration--
what did he say?

After a while he was gone, and Wallace was persuaded to go to bed
again, Teddy tucked in beside him. Then Martie lowered the light in
what had been the children's room, and knelt beside her dead.

The snow was still falling with a gentle, ticking sound against the
window. Muffled whistles sounded on the river; the night was so
stilled that the clanking of shovels and the noise of voices came
clearly from the car-tracks at the corner.

Hour after hour went by. Martie knelt on; she was not conscious of
grief or pain; she was not conscious of the world that would wake in
the morning, and go about its business, and of the bright sun that
would blaze out upon the snow. There was no world, no sun, no
protest, and no hope. There was only the question: Why?

In the soft flicker of the gaslight Margar lay in unearthly beauty,
the shadow of her dark eyelashes touching her cheek, a smile
lingering on her baby mouth. She had been such a happy baby; Martie
had loved to rumple and kiss the aureole of bright hair that framed
the sleeping face.

The old double-gown--with the middle button that did not match--
Martie had ironed only yesterday. She would not iron it again. The
rag doll, and the strings of spools, and the shabby high-chair where
Margar sat curling her little bare toes on summer mornings; these
must vanish. The little feet were still. Gone!

Gone, in an hour, all the dreaming and hoping. No Margar in a
cleaned coat would run about the decks of the steamer--

Martie pressed her hand over her dry and burning eyes. She wondered
that she could think of these things and not go mad.

The days went by; time did not stop. Wallace remained ill; Teddy had
a cold, too. Mrs. Converse and John and Adele were there, all
sympathetic, all helpful. They were telling Martie that she must
keep up for the others. She must drink this; she must lie down.

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