Books: Martie The Unconquered

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"That's a good train," said Rodney. "Let's see, this is Wednesday.
They'll be in New York Sunday night. Awful place on Sunday--no
theatres, no ball games, no drinks--"

"I could manage without theatres or ball games," Martie laughed.
"But I must have my whisky!"

"It sounded as if I meant that, but you know me!" he laughed back.
"Lord, how I'd like to show you New York. Wouldn't you love it!
Broadway--well, it's a wonder! There's something doing every minute.
You'd love the theatres--"

"I know I would!" Martie assented, glowing.

"My aunt lives there; she has an apartment right on the Park, at
West Ninetieth," Rodney said. "Her husband has scads of money," the
boy pursued. "You'll have to go on, Martie, there's no two ways
about it."

"And Delmonico's?" the girl suggested eagerly. "I've heard of
Delmonico's!"

"Delmonico's is where the wedding parties go. Of course, if you say
so, Martie--"

That was one of the sweet and thrilling things to remember. And
there were other things to make Martie's heart dance as she set the
dinner table. But she wondered if she should have asked him in.

Martie stopped short, salt-cellars in her hand. How could she--with
Pa's arrival possible at any moment. Besides she had asked him, as
they lingered laughing at the gate. That was all right--it was late,
anyway. He had gaily refused, and she had not pressed him. And,
wonderful thought, they were going walking on Sunday.

Monroe boys and girls usually walked on Sunday. They walked up the
track to the Junction, or up between bare fields past the Poor House
to the Cemetery. When a young man hired a phaeton at Beetman's, and
took his girl for a drive on Sunday, it was a definite avowal of
serious attachment. In that case they usually had their Sunday
supper at the home of the young man's mother, or married sister, or
with some female relative whose sanction upon their plans was
considered essential.

Rodney Parker was not quite familiar with this well-established
precedent. His sisters were not enough of the village to be asked
either to walk or drive with the local swains, and he had been away
for several years. For two Sundays he walked with Martie, and then
he asked her to drive.

For the girl, these weeks were suffused with a tremulous and
ecstatic delight beyond definition, beyond words. What she would not
have dared to hope, she actually experienced. No need to boast
before Sally and Grace and Florence Frost. They saw: the whole
village saw.

Martie bloomed like a rose. She forgot everything--Pa, Len, the
gloomy home, the uncertain future--for joy. That her old hat was
shabby and her clothes inappropriate meant nothing to Martie;
ignorant, unhelped, she stumbled on her way alone. Nobody told her
to pin her bronze braids more trimly, to keep her brilliant skin
free from the muddying touch of sweets and pastries, to sew a hook
here and catch a looping hem there. Nobody suggested that she
manicure her fine big hands, or use some of her endless leisure to
remove the spots from her blue silk dress.

More; the family dared take only a stealthy interest in Martie's
affair, because of Malcolm's extraordinary perversity and Len's
young scorn. Malcolm, angered by Lydia's fluttered pleasure in the
honour Rodney Parker was doing their Martie, was pleased to assume a
high and mighty attitude. He laughed heartily at the mere idea that
the attentions of Graham Parker's son might be construed as a
compliment to a Monroe, and sarcastically rebuked Lydia when, on a
Sunday afternoon, she somewhat stealthily made preparations for tea.
Martie and Rod were walking, and Martie, before she went, had said
something vague about coming back at half-past four.

Lydia, abashed, gave up her plan for tea. But she did what she could
for Martie, by inveigling her father into a walk. Martie and Rod
came into an empty house, for Sally was out, no one knew where, and
Mrs. Monroe had gone to church where vespers were sung at four
o'clock through the winter.

Martie's colour was high from fast walking in the cold wind, her
eyes shone like sapphires, and her loosened hair, under an old
velvet tam-o'-shanter cap, made a gold aureole about her face.
Rodney, watching her mount the little hill to the graveyard with a
winter sunset before her, had called her "Brunhilde," and he had
been talking of grand opera as they walked home.

Enchanted at finding the house deserted, she very simply took him
into the kitchen. The kettle was fortunately singing over a sleeping
fire; Rodney sliced bread and toasted it, while Martie, trying to
appear quite at her ease, but conscious of awkward knees and elbows
just the same, whisked from pantry to kitchen busily, disappearing
into the dining room long enough to lay the tea cups and plates at
one end of the big table.

Only a few moments before the little feast was ready, Lydia came
rather anxiously into the kitchen. She greeted Rodney smilingly,
seizing the first opportunity for an aside to say to Martie:

"Pa's home, Mart. And he doesn't like your having Rod out here. I
walked him up to the Tates', but no one was home except Lizzie.
Shame! He saw Rodney's cap in the hall--he's in the dining room."
Aloud she said cheerfully: "I think this is dreadful--making you
work so hard, Rod. Come--tea's nearly ready. You and I'll wait for
it in the dining room, like the gentleman and lady we are!"

"Oh, I'm having a grand time!" Rodney laughed. But he allowed
himself to be led away. A few minutes later Martie, with despair in
her heart, carried the loaded tray into the dining room.

Her father, in one of his bad moods, was sitting by the empty
fireplace. The room, in the early autumn twilight, was cold. Len had
come in and expected his share of the unfamiliar luxury of tea, and
more than his share of the hot toast.

Rodney, unaffected by the atmosphere, gaily busied himself with the
tray. Lydia came gently in with an armful of light wood which she
laid in the fireplace.

"There is no necessity for a fire," Malcolm said. "I wouldn't light
that, my dear."

"I thought--just to take the chill off," Lydia stammered.

Her father shook his head. Lydia subsided.

"We shall be having supper shortly, I suppose?" he asked patiently,
looking at a large gold watch. "It's after half-past five now."

"But, Pa," Lydia laughed a little constrainedly, "we never have
dinner until half-past six!"

"Oh, on week days--certainly," he agreed stiffly. "On Sundays,
unless I am entirely wrong, we sit down before six."

"Len," Martie murmured, "why don't you go make yourself some toast?"

"Don't have to!" Len laughed with his mouth full.

"Here--I'll go out and make some more!" Rodney said buoyantly,
catching up a plate. Lydia instantly intervened; this would not do.
Pa would be furious. Obviously Martie could not go, because in her
absence Pa, Rodney, and Len would either be silent, or say what was
better unsaid. Lydia herself went out for a fresh supply of toast.

Martie was grateful, but in misery. Lydia was always slow. The
endless minutes wore away, she and Rodney playing with their empty
plates, Len also waiting hungrily, her father watching them
sombrely. If Len hadn't come in and been so greedy, Martie thought
in confused anger, tea would have been safely over by this time; if
Pa were not there glowering she might have chattered at her ease
with Rodney, no tea hour would have been too long. As it was, she
was self-conscious and constrained. The clock struck six. Really it
WAS late.

The toast came in; Sally came in demurely at her mother's side. She
had rushed out of the shadows to join her mother at the gate, much
to Mrs. Monroe's surprise. Conversation, subdued but general,
ensued. Martie walked boldly with Rodney to the gate, at twenty
minutes past six, and they stood there, laughing and talking, for
another ten minutes.

When she went in, it was to face unpleasantness. Her mother, with
her bonnet strings dangling, was helping Lydia hastily to remove
signs of the recent tea party. Sally was in the kitchen; Len reading
opposite his father.

"Come here a minute, Martie," her father called as I the girl
hesitated in the hallway. Martie came in and eyed him. "I would like
to know what circumstances led to young Parker's being here this
afternoon?" he asked.

"Why--we were walking, and I--I suppose I asked him, Pa."

"You SUPPOSE you asked him?"

"Well--I DID ask him."

"Oh, you DID ask him; that's different. You had spoken to your
mother about it?"

"No." Martie swallowed. "No," she said again nervously. There was a
silence while her father eyed her coldly.

"Then you ask whom you like to the house, do you? Is that the idea?
You upset your mother's and your sister's arrangement entirely at
your own pleasure?" he suggested presently.

"I didn't think it was so much to ask a person to have a cup of
tea!" Martie stammered, with a desperate attempt at self-defense.
She felt tears pressing against her eyes. Lydia would have been
meek, Sally would have been meek, but Martie's anger was her nearest
weapon. It angered her father in turn.

"Well, will you kindly remember in future that your ideas of what to
ask, and what not to ask, are not the ideas by which this house is
governed?" Malcolm asked magnificently.

"Yes, sir." Martie stirred as if to turn and go.

"One moment," Malcolm said discontentedly. "You thoroughly
understand me, do you?"

"Yes, sir." Martie's eyes met Len's discreetly raised over the edge
of his book and full of reproachful interest. She went into the
kitchen.

The spell of a nervous silence which had held the dining room was
broken. Mrs. Monroe and Lydia talked in low tones as they went to
and fro; Len shifted his position; Sally coming in with a plate of
sliced bread hummed contentedly. Martie appeared in her usual place
at supper, not too subdued to win a laugh even from her father with
some vivacious imitation of Miss Tate rallying the children for
Sunday School. Happiness was bubbling like a spring in her heart.

After dinner, the dishes being piled in the sink to greet Belle on
Monday morning, she went to the piano and crashed into "Just a Song
at Twilight," and "Oh, Promise Me," and "The Two Grenadiers." These
and many more songs were contained in a large, heavy album entitled
"Favourite Songs for the Home." Martie had a good voice; not better
than Sally's or Lydia's, but Sally and Lydia rarely sang. Martie had
sung to her own noisy accompaniment since she was a child; she loved
the sound of her own voice. She had a hunger for accomplishment,
rattled off the few French phrases she knew with an unusually pure
accent, and caught an odd pleasing word or an accurate pronunciation
eagerly on the few occasions when lecturers or actors in Monroe gave
her an opportunity.

To-night her father, in his library, heard the sweet, true tones of
her voice in "Lesbia" and "Believe Me," and remembered his mother
singing those same old songs. But when a silence followed he
remembered only faulty Martie, awkwardly making Rodney Parker
welcome at the most inconvenient time her evil genius could have
suggested, and he presently went into the sitting room with the
familiar scowl on his face.

On the next Sunday Rodney hired a Roman-nosed, rusty white horse at
Beetman's, and for two hours he and Martie drove slowly about. They
drove up past the Poor House to the Cemetery, and into the Cemetery
itself, where black-clad forms were moving slowly among the graves.
The day was cold, with a bleak wind blowing; the headstones looked
bare and forlorn.

At half-past three, driving down the Pittsville road, back toward
Monroe, Rodney said:

"Why don't you come and have tea at our house, Martie?"

Martie's heart rose on a great spring.

"Why--would your mother--" She stopped short, not knowing quite how
to voice her hesitation. Had she expressed exactly what was in her
mind she might have said: "First, won't your mother and sisters snub
me? And secondly, is it quite correct, from a conventional
standpoint, for me to accept your casual invitation?"

"Sure. Mother'll be delighted--come on!" Rodney urged.

"I'd love to!" Martie agreed.

"You know, the beauty about you, Martie, is that you're such a good
pal," Rodney said enthusiastically as he drove on. "I've always
wanted a pal. You and I like the same things; we're both a little
different from the common run, perhaps--I don't want to throw any
flowers at us, but that's true--and it's wonderful to me that living
here in this hole all your life you're so up-to-date--so darned
intelligent!"

This was nectar to Martie's soul. But she had never been indulged so
recklessly in personalities before, and she did not quite know how
to meet them. She wanted to say the right thing, to respond
absolutely to his mood; a smile, half-deprecating, half-charmed,
fluttered on her lips when Rodney talked in this fashion, but even
to herself her words seemed ill-chosen and clumsy. A more
experienced woman, with all of Martie's love and longing surging in
her heart, would have vouchsafed him just that casual touch of hand
on hand, that slight, apparently involuntary swerve of shoulder
against shoulder that would have brought the boy's arms about her,
his lips to hers.

It was her business in life to make him love her; the only business
for which her mother and father had ever predestined her. But she
knew nothing of it, except that no "nice" girl allowed a boy to put
his arm about her or kiss her unless they were engaged. She knew
that girls got into "trouble" by being careless on these matters,
but what that trouble was, or what led to it, she did not know. She
and Sally innocently believed that some mysterious cloud enveloped
even the most staid and upright girl at the touch of a man's arm, so
that of subsequent events she lost all consciousness. A girl might
attract a man by words and smiles to the point of wishing to marry
her, but she must never permit the slightest liberties, she must
indeed assume, to the very day of her marriage, that the desire for
marriage lived in the heart of the man alone.

Martie never dreamed that the youth and sex within her had as
definite a claim on her senses as hunger had in the hour before
dinner time, or sleep had when she nodded over her solitaire at
night. But she drank in enchantment with Rodney's voice, his
laughter, his nearness, and the night was too short for her dreams
or the days for her happiness.

They left the Roman-nosed horse and the surrey at Beetman's livery
stable, a damp and odorous enclosure smelling of wet straw, and with
the rear quarters of nervous bay horses stirring in the stalls. The
various men, smoking and spitting there in the Sunday afternoon
leisure, knew Martie and nodded to her; knew who her companion was.

Martie and Rodney walked down South California Street, into the
town's nicest quarter, and passed the old-fashioned wooden houses,
set far back in bare gardens: the Wests' with its wooden palings;
the Clifford Frosts', with a hooded baby carriage near the side
door; and the senior Frosts', a dark red house shut in by a dark red
fence. The Barkers' house was the last in the row, rambling, ugly,
decorated with knobs and triangles of wood, with many porches, with
coloured glass frames on its narrow windows, yet imposing withal,
because of its great size and the great trees about it. Martie had
not been there since her childhood, in the days before Malcolm
Monroe's attitude on the sewer and street-lighting questions had
antagonized his neighbours, in the days when Mrs. Frost and Mrs.
Parker still exchanged occasional calls with Martie's mother.

The girl found strangely thrilling Rodney's familiarity here. He
crossed the porch, opened the unlocked front door, and led Martie
through a large, over-furnished hall and a large, stately drawing
room. The rugs, lamps, chairs, and tables all belonged to entirely
different periods, some were Mission oak, some cherry upholstered in
rich brocade; there was a little mahogany, some maple, even a single
handsome square chair of teakwood from the Orient. On the walls
there were large crayon portraits made from photographs of the
girls, and there were cushions everywhere, some of fringed leather,
some of satin painted or embroidered, some of cigar ribbons of clear
yellow silk, some with college pennants flaunting across them.

Beyond this room was another large one, looking out on the lawn and
the shabby willows at the side of the house. Into this room the more
favoured one had been casting off its abandoned fineries for many
years. There were more rugs, pillows, lamps, and chairs in here, but
it was all more shabby, and the effect was pleasanter and softer.
Ida's tea table stood by the hearth, with innovations such as a
silver tea-ball, and a porcelain cracker jar decorated with a rich
design in the minutely cut and shellacked details of postage stamps.
A fire winked sleepily behind the polished steel bars of the grate,
the western window was full of potted begonias and ferns, the air
was close and pleasantly scented with the odour of a good cigar.

Judge Parker, a genial man looking more than his fifty-five years,
sat alone, smoking this cigar, and Martie, greeting him prettily,
was relieved to find that she must not at once face the ladies of
the house. Rather uncertainly she took off her hat, but did not
remove the becoming blue sweater. She sat erect in a low,
comfortable armchair whose inviting curves made her rigid attitude
unnatural and difficult, and talked to the Judge. The old man liked
all fresh young girls, and laughing with her, he vaguely wondered in
his hospitable heart why Monroe's girls were not more often at the
house.

Ida and May, tall, colourless young women, presently came down. They
noticed Martie's shoe-lacings and the frill of muddy petticoat, the
ungloved hands and the absurdity of her having removed her hat, and
told Rodney about these things later. At the time they only made her
uncomfortable in quiet little feminine ways; not hearing her when
she spoke, asking her questions whose answers must surely embarrass
her.

Tea came in. Martie smiled at Carrie David, who brought it. She
liked Carrie, who was the Hawkes' cousin, but did not quite think
she should speak to her here. Carrie, who was a big, gray-haired
woman of fifty, was in the room only a moment after all.

Judge Parker, amiably under the impression that young people were
happier alone, went away to walk down Main Street, glancing at the
sky and greeting his townspeople in his usual genial fashion. May
poured the tea, holding Rodney in conversation the while. Ida talked
to Martie in a vivacious, smiling, insincere way, difficult to
follow.

Martie listened sympathetically, more than half believing in the
bright picture of social triumphs and San Francisco admirers that
was presented her, even though she knew that Ida was twenty-six, and
had never had a Monroe admirer. Dr. Ben had once had a passing fancy
for May's company; May was older than Ida, and, though like her
physically, was warmer and more human in type. But even this had
never been a recognized affair; it had died in infancy, and the
Parker girls were beginning to be called old maids.

Rodney walked with Martie to the gate when she left, but no farther,
and as she went on her way, uncomfortable thoughts were uppermost in
her mind. Martie had never driven with a young man before, and so
had no precedent to guide her, but she wondered if Rodney should not
have gone with her to her own gate. Perhaps she had stayed too long-
-another miserable possibility. And how "snippy" Ida and May had
been!

Still, Monroe had seen her driving with Rodney, and she had had tea
at the Parkers'! So much was gain. She had almost reached the shabby
green gate that led into the sunken garden when Sally, flying up
behind her in the dusk, slipped a hand through her arm. Martie,
turning with a start and a laugh, saw Joe Hawkes, ten feet away,
smiling at her.

"Hello, Joe!" she said, a little puzzled. Not that it was not quite
natural for Sally to stop and speak to Joe, if she wanted to; Joe
had been a familiar figure in their lives since they were children.
But--

But Sally was laughing and panting in a manner new and
incomprehensible. She caught Martie by both hands. All three, young
and not understanding themselves or life, stood laughing a little
vaguely in the sharp winter dusk. Joe was a mighty blond giant, only
Martie's age, and younger, except in inches and in sinews, than his
years. He had a sweet, simple face, rough, yellow hair, and hairy,
red, clumsy hands. A greater contrast to gentle little Sally, with
her timid brown eyes and the bloodless quiet of manner that was like
her mother and like Lydia, could hardly have been imagined.

"Where've you been?" Martie asked.

"We've been to church!" dimpled Sally with a glance at Joe.

The pronoun startled Martie.

"We were up in the organ loft," Joe contributed with his half-
laughing, half-nervous grin.

Still bewildered, Martie followed her sister into the dark garden,
after a good-night nod to Joe, and went into the house. Their father
reluctantly accepted the girls' separate accounts of the afternoon:
Sally had been in church, Martie had driven about with Rod and had
gone to tea at his house. Lydia fluttered with questions. Who was
there? What was said? Malcolm asked Martie where Rodney had left
her.

"At the gate, Pa," the girl responded promptly.

All through the evening her eyes kept wandering in disapproval
toward Sally. Joe Hawkes!--it was monstrous. That stupid, common
lout of a boy--nearly two years her junior, too.

They were undressing, alone in their room, when she spoke of the
matter.

"Sally," said she, "you didn't really go sit in the choir with Joe
Hawkes, did you?"

"Well--yes, in a way," Sally admitted, adding indulgently, "he's
SUCH an idiot!"

"How do you mean?" Martie asked sharply. For Sally to flush and
dimple and give herself the airs of a happy woman over the calf-like
attentions of this clumsy boy of nineteen was more than absurd, it
was painful. "Sally--you couldn't! Why, you oughtn't even to be
FRIENDS with Joe Hawkes!" she stammered. "He gets--I suppose he gets
twenty dollars a month."

"On, no; more than that!" Sally said, brushing her fine, silky,
lifeless hair. "He gets twenty-five from the express company, and
when he meets the trains for Beetman he gets half he makes."

Martie stood astounded at her manner. That one of the Monroe girls
should be talking thus of Joe Hawkes! What mattered it to Sarah
Price Monroe how much Joe Hawkes made, or how? Joe Hawkes--Grace's
insignificant younger brother! Sally saw her consternation.

"Now listen, Mart, and don't have a fit," she said, laughing. "I'm
not any crazier over Joe than you are. I know what Pa would say. I'm
not likely to marry any one on thirty dollars a month, anyway. But
listen, Joe has always liked me terribly--"

"I never knew it!" Martie exclaimed.

"No; well, neither did I. But last year when he broke his leg I used
to go in and see him with Grace, and one day she left the room for a
while, and he sort of--broke out--"

"The GALL!" ejaculated Martie.

"Oh, no, Mart--he didn't mean it that way. Really he didn't. He just
wanted--to hold my hand, you know--and that. And he never thinks of
money, or getting married. And, Mart, he's so GRATEFUL, you know,
for just a moment's meeting, or if I smile at him, going out of
church--"

"I should think he might be!" Martie interpolated in fine scorn.

"Yes, I know how you feel, Martie," Sally went on eagerly, "and
that's true, of course. I feel that way myself. But you don't know
how miserable he makes himself about it. And does it seem wrong to
you, Mart, for me just to be kind to him? I tell him--I was telling
him this afternoon--that some day he'll meet some nice sweet girl
younger than he, and that he'll be making more money then--you know-
-"

Her voice faltered. She looked wistfully at her sister.

"But I can't see why you let a big dummy like that talk to you at
all!" Martie said impatiently after a short silence. "What do you
care what he thinks? He's got a lot of nerve to DARE to talk to you
that way. I--well, I think Pa would be wild!"

"Oh, of course he would," Sally agreed in a troubled voice. "And I
know how you feel, Martie, with Joe's aunt working for the Parkers,
and all," she added. "I'll--I'll stop it. Truly I will. I'm only
doing it to be considerate to Joe, anyway!"

"You needn't do anything on my account," Martie said gruffly. "But I
think you ought to stop it on your own. Joe is only a kid, he
doesn't know beans--much less enough to really fall in love!"

She lay awake for a long time that night, in troubled thought. Cold
autumn moonlight poured into the room; a restless wind whined about
the house. The cuckoo clock struck eleven--struck twelve.

At all events she HAD gone driving with Rodney; she HAD had tea at
the Parkers'--

CHAPTER IV

"I honestly think that some of us ought to go down to-night and see
Grandma Kelly," said Lydia at luncheon a week later. November had
come in bright and sunny, but with late dawns and early twilights.
Rodney Parker's college friend having delayed his promised visit,
the agitating question of the Friday Fortnightly had been
temporarily laid to rest, but Martie saw him nearly every day, and
family and friends alike began to change in their attitude to
Martie.

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