Books: Martie The Unconquered
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Kathleen Norris >> Martie The Unconquered
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When at eleven o'clock Martie went upstairs for her wraps, Rose
came, too, and they had a word in private, in the pretty bedroom.
"Martie--did Cliff say that you and he were going on a--on a sort of
picnic on Sunday?"
"Why, yes," Martie admitted, surprised, "Sally is going down to the
city to see Joe, and I'll have the children. I happened to mention
it to Cliff, and he suggested that he take us all up to Deegan's
Point, and that we take a lunch."
Innocently commenced, the sentence ended with sudden self-
consciousness. Martie, putting a scarf over her bronze hair saw her
own scarlet cheeks in the mirror.
"Yes, I know!" Rose cocked her head on one side, like a pretty bird.
"Well, now, I have a plan!" she said gaily, "I suggest that Cliff
take his car, and we take ours, and the Ellises theirs, and we all
go--children and all! Just a real old-fashioned family picnic."
"I think that would be fun," Martie said, with a slow smile.
"I think it would be fun, too," Rose agreed, "and I've been sort of
half-planning something of the sort, anyway! And--perhaps, just
now," she added sweetly, "it would be a little wiser that way. You
see, _I_ understand you, Martie, and I know we seem awfully small
and petty here, but--since we ARE in Monroe, why, isn't it better
not to give any one a chance to talk? Well, about the picnic! Ida
and May always bring cake; I'll take the fried chicken; and Mrs.
Ellis makes a delicious salad--"
Martie's heart was beating high, and two little white lines marked
the firm closing of her lips. Rose's brightly flung suggestion as to
the impropriety of her going off for the day with Clifford, Teddy,
and Ruth, was seething like a poison within her. But presently she
was mechanically promising sandwiches, and Rose was so far
encouraged that she could give Martie's arm a little squeeze in
farewell.
It had seemed such a natural thing to propose, when Sally announced
that she was to go down to San Francisco for the day. Martie had
asked for the two older children, and had in all innocence suggested
to Clifford that they make it a picnic. She carried all day a
burning resentment of Rose's interference, and something like anger
at him for consulting Rose.
But she showed nothing. She duly kissed Rose, and thanked her for
the lovely dinner, and Rodney took her home. Undressing, with
moonlight pouring in two cool triangles on the shabby carpet, Martie
yawned. The whole experience had been curiously flat, except for
Rose's little parting impertinence. But there was no question about
it, it had had its heartening significance! It was the future Mrs.
Clifford Frost who had been entertained to-night.
Plans for the picnic proceeded rapidly, and Martie knew, as they
progressed, that she need only give Cliff his opportunity that day
to enter into her kingdom. His eagerness to please her, his
unnecessary calls at the Library to discuss the various details, and
the little hints and jests that fluttered about her on all sides,
were a sure clue.
The morning came when the Frost's big car squeaked down the raw
driveway from Clipper Lane, with little Ruth, in starched pink
gingham, beaming on the back seat. Martie, in white, with a daisy-
crowned hat mashed down over her bright hair, came out from the
shadow of the side porch, the children and boxes were duly
distributed: they were off.
Martie glanced back to see Lydia's slender form, in a severe gray
percale, under one of the lilacs in the side yard. Mary and Jim
Hawkes were with her: they all waved hands. Lydia had shaded her
face with her fingers, and was blinking in the warm June sunlight.
Poor Lydia, Martie thought, she should have been beside Cliff on
this front seat, she should have been the happy mother of a sturdy
Cliff and Lydia, where Ruth and Teddy and the Hawkes children were
rioting in the tonneau.
They went to the Parkers', where the other cars had gathered: there
was much laughing and running about in the bright sunlight. The day
would be hot--ideal picnic weather. Rodney, directing everybody,
managed to get close to Martie, who was stacking coats in the car.
"Like old times, Martie! Remember our picnics and parties?"
Martie glanced at him quickly, and smiled a little doubtfully. She
found nothing to say.
"I often look back," Rodney went on. "And I think sometimes that
there couldn't have been a sweeter friendship than yours and mine!
What good times we had! And you and I always understood each other;
always, in a way, brought out the best of each other." He looked
about; no one else was in hearing. "Now, I've got the sweetest
little wife in the world," he said. "I worked hard, and I've
prospered. But there's nothing in my life, Martie, that I value more
than I do the memory of those old days; you believe that, don't
you?"
"Indeed I do," Martie said cordially, over a deep amusement that was
half scorn.
Rodney's next remark was made in a low, intense tone and accompanied
by a direct look.
"You've grown to be a beautiful woman, Martie!"
"I have?" she laughed uncomfortably.
"And Cliff," he said steadily, "is a lucky fellow!"
He had noticed it, then? It must be--it must be so! But Martie could
not assume the implied dignity.
"Cliff is a dear!" she said lightly, warmly.
"Rose has seen this coming for a long time," Rodney pursued. "Rose
is the greatest little matchmaker!"
This was the final irony, thought Martie. To have Rose credited with
this change in her fortunes suddenly touched her sense of humour.
She did not speak.
"The past is the past," said Rodney. "You and I had our boy-and-girl
affair--perhaps it touched us a little more deeply than we knew at
the time; but that's neither here nor there! But in any case, you
know that you haven't a warmer or a more devoted friend than I am-
you do know that, don't you?-and that if ever I can do anything for
you, Martie, I'll put my hand in the fire to do it!"
And with his eyes actually a little reddened, and his heart glowing
with generous affection, Rodney lightly pressed her hand, laughed,
blinked, and turned away. A moment later she heard him call Rose
"Dearest," as he capably held her dust-coat for his wife, and
capably buttoned and straightened it. They were starting.
The three cars got away in a straggling line, trailed each other
through Main Street, and separated for the eleven-mile run. Martie
was listening with a half-smile to the children's eager chatter, and
thinking vaguely that Clifford might ask her to-day, or might not
ask her for three years, when a half-shy, half-husky aside from him,
and a sudden exchange of glances ended the speculation once and for
all.
"Makes me feel a little bit out of it, seeing all the boys with
their wives," he said, with a rueful laugh.
"Well, DOESN'T it?" she agreed cordially, and she added, in a
thoughtful voice: "Nothing like happy married life, is there,
Cliff?"
"You said it," he answered soberly. "I guess you were pretty happy,
Martie?" he questioned delicately.
"In some ways--yes," she said. "But I had sorrow and care, too."
They were on the top of the hill now, and could look back at the
roofs of Monroe, asleep in Sunday peace, and to the plumy tree-tops
over the old graveyard where Ma lay sleeping; "asleep," as the worn
legend over the gateway said, "until resurrection morn." Near the
graveyard was the "Town farm," big and black, with bent old figures
moving about the bare garden. "That's one reason why I love it all
so, now," she said softly. "I'm safe-I'm home again!"
"You've certainly got a lot of friends here, Martie."
"Yes, I know I have!" she said gratefully.
He cleared his throat.
"You've got one that will be mighty sorry to have you ever go away
from California again." He became suddenly confused and embarrassed
by his own words.
"I don't suppose--I don't suppose you'd care to--to try it again,
Martie? I'm considerable older than you are--I know that. But I
don't believe you'd ever be sorry--home for the boy--"
Colour rushed to her face: voiceless, she looked at him.
"Don't be in any hurry to make up your mind," he said kindly. "You
and me are old neighbours and friends--I'm not a-going to rush you--
"
Still Martie was speechless, honestly moved by his affection.
"It never entered my head to put any one in Mary's place," he said,
gaining a little ease as he spoke, "until you came back, with that
boy to raise, and took hold so plucky and good-natured. Ruth and I
are alone now: I've buried my wife and my brother, and my father and
mother, and poor Florence ain't going to live long--poor girl. I
believe you'd have things comfortable, and, as I say--"
"Why, there's only one thing I can say, Cliff," Martie said, finding
words as his voice began to flounder. "I--I'm glad you feel that
way, and I hope--I hope I can make you happy. I certainly--I surely
am going to try to!"
He turned her a quick, smiling glance, and drew a great breath of
relief.
"Well, sir--then a bargain's a bargain!" he said in great
satisfaction. "I've been telling myself for several days that you
liked me enough to try it, but when it came right down to it I--
well, I was just about scared blue!"
Martie's happy laugh rang out. She laid her smooth fingers over his
big ones, on the wheel, for a second. "I don't know that I ever felt
any happier in my life!" the man presently declared. "We may not be
youngsters, but I don't know but what we can give them all cards and
spades when it comes to sure-enough, old-fashioned happiness!"
So it was settled, in a few embarrassed and clumsy phrases. Martie's
heart sang with joy and triumph. She really felt a wave of devotion
to the big, gentle man beside her; all the future was rose-coloured.
She had reached harbour at last.
There was time for little more talk before they were at the beach,
and the excitement of luncheon preparations were upon them. The bay,
a tidal bay perhaps a mile in circumference, was framed in a fine,
sandy shore: long, natural jetties of rock had been flung out far
into the softly rippling water. The tide was making, perhaps a dozen
feet below the fringe of shells and seaweed, cocoanuts and driftwood
that marked high-water.
In a group of great rocks the boxes and baskets were piled, and the
fire kindled. The wind blew a shower of fine sand across the faces
of the laughing men and women, the children screamed and shouted as
they flirted with the lazily running waves. Women, opening boxes of
neatly packed food, exclaimed with full mouths over every
contribution but their own.
"Martie, this spice cake--! Mine never looks like this. Oh, May, you
villain! You said you weren't going to bother with the lettuce
sandwiches; they look perfectly delicious! What's in these?--cream
cheese and pineapple--they look delicious! Look out for the eggs,
George!"
Salt sifted from a folded paper, white enamelled cups were set upon
a level surface of the rock, a quart glass jar held lump sugar. The
smoke of the fire shifted capriciously, reddening eyes, and bearing
with it the delicious odour of brewing coffee.
Bending over the cake she was cutting, Martie sensed that Cliff was
beside her. She dared not give him a betraying word, the others were
too close, but she sent him an upward glance. His answering glance
was so full of pride and excitement, Martie felt her soul flood with
content. Driving home, against the straight-falling spokes of the
setting sun, they could talk a little, shyly and inconsequently. A
first dew had fallen, bringing a sharp, sweet odour from the brown
grass; Monroe seemed a dear and homely place as they came home.
"Were you surprised, Martie?"
"When I first thought of it? I was absolutely stunned! But to-day?--
no, I wasn't exactly surprised to-day."
"I had no idea, even this morning!" he confessed. She wondered if
her admission smacked of the designing widow.
"Other people will be!" she said in smiling warning.
He chuckled mischievously.
"Well, won't they?" He smiled for a moment or two in silence, over
his wheel. Martie made another tiny misstep.
"I suppose there's no reason why I shouldn't tell Lydia--" she began
musingly.
"Don't tell a soul!" he said quickly. "Not for a while, anyway. When
we get all our plans made, then we'll tell 'em, and turn around and
get married before you could say 'Jack Robinson!'"
She felt a little chill; a younger woman, with a younger lover,
would have had her pouting and her petting for this. But what did it
matter? Clifford had his first kiss in the dim old parlour with the
gas-brackets that evening; and after a few days he was as fervent a
lover as any woman could ask, eager to rush through the necessary
preparations for their marriage, and to let the world know of his
happiness.
He was more demonstrative than Martie had anticipated, or than she
really cared to have him. She found odd girlish reserves deep in her
being when he put his arms about her. He was never alone with her
for even a minute without holding her close, turning up her lovely
face for his smiling kisses, locking a big warm arm about her
shoulders.
After some thought, she told Lydia and Sally, on a hot afternoon
when they were upstairs in the cool window end of the hallway,
patiently going over boxes and boxes of old letters. She had been
absent-minded and silent that day, and Sally had once or twice
looked at her in surprise.
"Girls--listen. I'm going to be married!" she said abruptly, her
eyes childishly widened, dimples struggling at the corners of her
demure mouth. Sally leaped up in a whirlwind of letters, and gave a
shout of delight.
"I knew it! I knew it! You can't tell ME! I said so to Joe. Oh,
Mart, you old darling, I'm so glad--I'm gladder than I can say!"
"Well, dear, I hope you'll be just as happy as possible!" said
Lydia's wilted voice. Martie kissed her cheek, and she returned the
kiss. "I can't say I'm surprised, for nothing very much surprises me
now," Lydia went on. "Cliff was simply heartbroken when Mary died,
and he said then to Angela that there would never be another woman
in his life, but of course we all know how much that means, and
perhaps it's better as it is. I often wish I was constituted as most
people seem to be nowadays--forget, and rush on to something else;
that's the idea! But I hope you'll be very happy, Martie; you'll
certainly have everything in the world to make you happy, but that
doesn't always do it, of course. I believe I'll take these letters
of Ma's to Aunt Sally downstairs; they might get mixed in with the
others and burned. I suppose I'm not much in the mood for weddings
and jollifications now, what with all this change bringing back--our
loss. If other people can be happy, I hope they will; but sometimes
I feel that I'll be glad to get out of it all! I'll leave you two
girls to talk wedding, and if you need me again, call me."
"Isn't she the limit!" Sally said indignantly, when Lydia had
trailed away. "Just when you're so happy! For Heaven's sake tell me
all about it, and when it's going to be, and how it began, and
everything!"
Martie was glad to talk. She liked to hear Sally's praise of Cliff;
she had much to praise in him herself. She announced a quiet
wedding; indeed they were not going to spread the news of the
engagement until all their plans were made. Perhaps a week or two
before the event they would tell a few intimate friends, and be
safely away on their honeymoon before the village was over the first
gasp.
"Don't mind Lyd," Sally said consolingly. "She'll have a grand talk
with Pa, and feel martyred, and talk it over with Lou and Clara, and
come to the conclusion that it's all for the best. Poor Lyd, do you
remember how she used to laugh and dance about the house when we
were little? Do you remember the Spider-web Party?"
"Do you remember the pink dress, Sally? I used to think Lyd was the
loveliest thing in creation in that dress!"
Sally was flushed and dimpling; she was not listening.
"Mart! I think it's the most exciting thing--! Shall you tell
Teddy?"
"Sally, I don't dare." A shadow fell across Martie's bright face. In
these days she was wistfully tender and gentle with her son. Teddy
would not always be first in her consideration; there might be
serious rivals some day. Life was changing for little unconscious
Teddy.
He would not remember his father, and the little sister laughing in
her high-chair, and the cold, dirty streets, and the shabby, silent
mother with her busy, tired hands and her frozen heart. It was all
gone, like a dream of struggle and shame, love and hate, joy and
suffering.
One day, with Teddy and Clifford, she went up to the old house.
Ruth, clean and mannerly, raised her innocent girl's face for her
new mother's kiss, for Ruth was in the secret. Martie liked Ruth, a
simple, normal little person who played "jacks" and "houses" with
her friends under the lilac trees, and had a "best dress" and loved
"Little Women" with a shy passion. Martie foresaw only a pleasant
relationship with the child. What she lacked in imagination was more
than made up in sense. Ruth would graduate, marry, have children, as
placidly as a stout and sturdy little cow. But Martie and Ruth would
always love, even if they did not understand, each other.
The house was old-fashioned: big double parlours, big folding doors,
and one enormous square bathroom on the second floor, for the needs
of all the house. The cheerful, orderly pantries smelt of painted
wood; the kitchen had cost old Polly two or three unnecessary miles
of walking every month of her twenty-six years' tenancy. Martie
liked the garden best, and the old stables painted white. She loved
the rich mingled scents of wallflower and alyssum and lemon verbena;
and, as they walked about, she tucked a velvet plume of dark
heliotrope into the belt of her thin white gown. "My first colour!"
she said to Clifford.
Ruth assumed charming, older-sister airs with Teddy. She laughed at
his comments, and quoted him to Martie: "He says he's going to learn
to ride Whitey!" "He says he doesn't like such big houses!"
Clifford opened doors and smiled at Martie's interest. She could see
that he loved every inch of the old place. She saw herself
everywhere, writing checks at the old walnut desk, talking with
Polly in the pantry. She could sow Shirley poppies in the bed
beneath the side windows; she could have Mrs. Hunter, the village
sewing woman, comfortably established here in the sewing-room for
weeks, if she liked, making ginghams for Ruth and Ruth's new mother.
When those days came Clifford would gradually abandon this unwelcome
role of lover, and be her kindly, middle-aged old friend again.
Sometimes, in the new shrinking reluctance she felt when they were
alone, she wondered what had become of the old Clifford. There was
something vaguely offending, something a little undignified, about
this fatuous, eager, elderly man who could so poorly simulate
patience. He was not passionate--she might have forgiven him that.
But he was assuming passion, assuming youth, happily egotistical.
He was fifty-one: he had won a beautiful woman hardly more than half
his age. He wanted to talk about it, to have the conversation always
congratulatory and flattering. He had the attitude of a young
husband, without his youth, to which everything is forgiven.
Altogether, Martie found her engagement strangely trying. Rose,
instantly suspicious, was presently told of it, and Martie's sisters
and Rose planned an announcement luncheon for early July. Martie
thought she would really be glad when the fuss and flurry was over.
Long familiar with money scarcity, she wondered sometimes just what
her financial arrangement with her new husband would be. Clifford
was the richest man in Monroe. Not a shop would refuse her credit;
nor a woman in town feel so sure of her comfort and safety.
But what else? Bitter as her long dependence had been, and widowed
and experienced as she was, she dared not ask. There was something
essentially indelicate in any talk of an allowance now. She would
probably do what was done by almost all the wives she knew: charge,
spend little, and when she must have money, approach her husband at
breakfast or dinner: "Oh, Clifford, I need about ten dollars. For
the man who fixed the surrey, dear, and then if I take all the
children in to the moving pictures, they'll want ice-cream. And I
ought to send flowers to Rose; we don't charge there. Although I
suppose I could send some of our own roses just as well!"
And Clifford, like other husbands, would take less money than was
suggested from his pocket and say: "How's seven? You can have more
if you want it, but I haven't any more here! But if you like, send
Ruth down to the Bank--"
"What a fool I am!" Martie mused. "What does independence amount to,
anyway? If I ever had it, I'd probably be longing to get back into
shelter again.
"Teddy, do you understand that Mother is going to marry Uncle
Cliff?" she asked the child. He rested his little body against her,
one arm about her neck, as he stood beside her chair.
"Yes, Mother," he answered unenthusiastically. After a second's
thought he began to twist a white button on her blouse. "And then
are we going back to New York?" he asked.
"No, Loveliness, we stay here." She looked at the child's downcast
face. "Why, Teddy?" she urged.
Ever since he could speak at all, he had had a fashion of whispering
to her anything that seemed to him especially important or precious,
even when, as now, they were quite alone. He put his lips to her
ear.
"What is it, dearest? I can't hear you!"
"I said," he said softly, his lips almost touching her cheek, "that
I would like to go back to New York just with you, and have you take
me out in the snow again, and have you let me make chocolate
custard, the way you always did--for just our own supper, our two
selves. I like all my aunts and every one here, but I get lonesome."
"Lonesome?" she echoed, trying to laugh over a little pang.
"Lonesome--for you!" he answered simply. Martie caught him to her
and smothered him in her embrace.
"You little troubadour!" she laughed, with her kiss.
The three sisters had never been so much together in their lives as
they were when the time came to demolish the old home. Sally, with a
train of dancing children, came up every morning after breakfast,
and she and Martie and Lydia patiently plodded through store-rooms,
attics, and closets that had not been disturbed for years.
Lydia's constant cry was: "Ah, don't destroy that; I remember that
ever since I was a baby!" Sally was more apt to say: "I believe I
could use this; it's old, but it could be put in order cheaper than
buying new!" Martie was the iconoclast.
"Now here's this great roll of silk from Grandmother Price's wedding
dress; what earthly good is this to any one?" she would demand
briskly. "And here's the patchwork quilt Ma started when Len was a
baby, with all the patches pinned together! Why should we keep these
things? And Lydia's sketch-books, when she was taking lessons, and
the old air-tight stove, and Pa's brother's dentist chair--it's
hopelessly old-fashioned now! And what about these piles and piles
of Harper's and Scribner's, and the broken washstand that was in
Belle's, room and the curtains, that used to be in the back hall? I
move we have a bonfire and keep it going all day--"
"I'd forgotten that the old rocking-horse was here," Sally said one
day, with pleasure. "The boys will love it! And do you know, Lyd, I
was thinking that this little table with the leg mended and painted
white wouldn't be a bit bad in my hall. I really need a table there,
for Joe brings in his case, or the children get the mail--we'd have
lots of use for it. And here's the bedside table, that's an awfully
good thing to have, because in case of illness--"
"Heavens!" said Martie. "She's trying to break something to us; she
suspects that there may be an illness some day in her house--"
"Oh, I do not!" said Sally, flushing and giggling in the old way.
"Len's first little suit," Lydia mused. "Dear me--dear me! And this
old table-cover; I remember when that was new! And here are Aunt
Carrie's things; she sent Ma a great box of them when she died;
look, Sally, the old-fashioned sleeves with fibre-chamois in them!
This box is full of hats; this was my Merry Widow hat; it was always
so pretty I hated to destroy it, but I suppose it really isn't much
good! I wonder if some poor woman could use it. And these are all
old collars of Pa's and Len's--it seems a shame to throw them away.
I wonder if we could find some one who wears this size? Martie,
don't throw that coat over there in the pile for the fire--it's a
good piece of serge, and that cape style may come in again!"
Absorbed and interested, the three worked among memories. Sometimes
for an hour at a time there was silence in the attic. Martie, with a
faded pink gingham dress spread across her lap, would be eight
again, trotting off to school with Sally, and promising Ma to hold
Len's hand when they crossed Main Street. How clean and trim, how
ready for the day, she had felt, when her red braid was tied with a
brown ribbon, and this little garment firmly buttoned down the back,
and pressed with a great sweep of Ma's arms to crush the too stiffly
starched skirt!
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