Books: Martie The Unconquered
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Kathleen Norris >> Martie The Unconquered
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Martie thought of Rose, laughing, pink-cheeked, discarding her neat
little raincoat with Rodney's help at four o'clock, at the Parkers'
house, and bringing her fresh laughter into their fire. She thought
of her at six--at seven--and during the silent two hours when she
brooded over her cards.
Coming out of church the next morning, Rose rejoiced over the clear
bath of sunlight that followed the rain. "Rod is going to take me
driving," she told Martie. "I like him ever so much; don't you,
Martie?"
Alice Clark, coming in for a chat with Lydia late that afternoon,
added the information that when little Rose Ransome left the city at
four o'clock, Rod Parker and that fat friend of his went, too.
Escorting Rose--and he and Rose would have tea in the city before he
took her to Berkeley--Martie thought.
That was the beginning, and now scarcely a day passed without its
new sting. The girl was not conscious of any instinct for bravery;
she did not want to be brave, she wanted to draw back from the rack-
-to escape, rather than to endure. A first glimpse of happiness had
awakened fineness in her nature; she had been generous, sweet,
ambitious, only a few weeks ago. She had given new thought to her
appearance, had carried her big frame more erectly. All her bigness,
all her capacity for loving and giving she would have poured at
Rodney's feet; his home, his people, his hopes, and plans--these
would have been hers.
Repulsed, this gold of youth turned to brass; through long idle days
and wakeful nights Martie paid the cruel price for a few hours of
laughter and dreaming. She was not given another moment of hope.
Not that she did not meet Rodney, for in Monroe they must often
meet. And when they met he greeted her, and they laughed and chatted
gaily. But she was not Brunhilde now, and if Sally or Lydia or any
one else was with her she knew he was not sorry.
In the middle of December Rose's mother, the neat little widow who
was like an older Rose, told Sally that Rose was not going back to
college after Christmas. Quietly, without comment, Sally told this
to Martie when they were going to bed that night.
Martie walked to the window, and stood looking out for a long time.
When she came back to Sally her face was pale, her breast moving
stormily, and her eyes glittering.
"They're engaged, I suppose?" Martie said.
Sally did not speak. But her eyes answered.
"Sally," said her sister, in a voice thick with pain, as she sat
down on the bed, "am I to blame? Could I have done differently? Why
does this come to Rose, who has everything NOW, and pass me by? I--I
don't want to be like--like Lyd, Sally; I want to live! What can I
do? Oh, my GOD," said Martie, rising suddenly and beginning to walk
to and fro, with her magnificent mane of hair rolling and tumbling
about her shoulders as she moved, "what shall I do? There is a
world, out there, and people working and living and succeeding in
it--and here I am, in Monroe--dying, dying, DYING of longing! Sally
..." and with tears wet on her cheeks, and her mouth trembling, she
came close to her sister. "Sally," whispered Martie unsteadily, "I
care for--him. I wanted nothing better. I thought--I thought that by
this time next year we might--we might be going to have a baby--
Rodney and I."
She flung back her head, and went again to the window. Sally burst
into bitter crying.
"Oh, Martie--Martie--I know! I know! My darling, splendid, glorious
sister--so much more clever than any one else, and so much BETTER! I
think it'll break my heart!"
And in each other's arms, nineteen and twenty-one wept together at
the bitterness of life.
The days wore by, and Rose came smiling home for Christmas, and
early in the new year Martie and Sally were asked to a pink luncheon
at the Ransome cottage, finding at each chair two little tissue-
paper heart-shaped frames initialled "R. P." and "R. R." with kodak
prints of Rose and Rodney inside. The Monroe girls gave Rose a
"linen shower" in return, and the whole town shared the pleasure of
the happy pair.
Martie had enough to think of now. Not even the thoughts of the
prospective bride could dwell more persistently on her own affairs
than did Martie's thoughts. Rose, welcome at the Parkers', envied
and admired even by Ida and May and Florence; Rose, prettily buying
her wedding finery and dashing off apt little notes of thanks for
her engagement cups and her various "showers"; Rose, fluttering with
confidences and laughter to the admiring Rodney, with the diamond
glittering on her hand; these and a thousand other Roses haunted
Martie. Lydia and her mother admired and marvelled with the rest.
Lydia it was who first brought home the news that the young Parkers
were to be married at Easter, Sally learned from Rose's own lips
that they were to spend a week in Del Monte as honeymoon.
The Monroe girls still wandered down town on weekday mornings,
loitering into the post-office, idling an hour away in the Library,
drifting home to mutton stew or Hamburg steak when the clock in the
town hall struck twelve. Sometimes Martie watched the big eastern
trains thunder by, looking with her wistful young blue eyes at the
card-playing men and the flushed, bored young women with their heads
resting on the backs of their upholstered seats. Sometimes she
stopped at the little magazine stand outside of Carlson's cigar
store; her eye caught by a photograph on the cover of a weekly:
"Broadway at Forty-Second," or "Night Lights from the Singer
Building," or the water-front silhouette that touches like the sight
of a beloved face even some hearts that know it not. She wanted to
do something, now that it was certain that she would not marry.
Slowly, and late, Martie's soul was awakening.
She asked her father if she might go to work. Certainly she might,
her father said lifelessly. Well, what should she do?--the girl
persisted.
"Ah, that's quite another thing!" Malcolm said, with his favourite
air of detecting an inconsistency. "You want to work? Well and good,
go ahead and do it! But don't expect me to tell you what to do. Your
mother may have some idea. Your grandmother--and she was the
loveliest woman I ever knew!--was content to be merely a lady,
something I wish my daughters knew a little more about. Her
beautiful home, her children and servants, her friends and her
church--that was her work! She didn't want to push coarsely out into
the world. However, if you do, go ahead! I confess I am tired of
seeing the dark, ugly expression you've worn lately, Martie. Go your
own way!"
Armed with this ungracious permission, Martie went down to see Miss
Fanny, talked with Grace, and even, meeting him on a lonely walk,
climbed into the old phaeton beside Dr. Ben, and asked his advice.
Nothing definite resulted, yet Martie was the happier for the new
interest. Old Father Martin talked to her of her plans one day, and
presently put her in communication with a certain widow, Mrs.
O'Brien, of San Francisco, who wanted an intelligent young woman to
go with her to New York to help with the care and education of two
little O'Briens.
This possibility fired Martie and Sally to fever-heat, and they
hoped and prayed eagerly while it was under discussion. New York at
last! said Martie, who felt that she had been waiting endless years
for New York. But Mrs. O'Brien, it seemed, wanted some one who would
be able to begin French and German and music lessons for little Jane
and Cora, and the question of Martie's fitness was settled.
Still she was happier, and when Easter came, and the Monroe girls
were bidden to Rose's wedding, it was with a new and charming
gravity in face and manner that Martie went.
The ceremony took place in the comfortable parlours of the Ransome
house; the pretty home wedding possible because Rodney was not a
Catholic. Just like Rose's luck--instead of being married in the
bare, big church, thought Martie, at whose age the religious side of
the question did not appear important. Dr. Ben gave his young cousin
away, and Rose's mother, whose every thought since the fatherless
child was born had been for the girl's good, who had schemed and
worked and prayed for twenty years that Rose might be happy, that
Rose might have music and languages, travel and friends, had her
reward when the lovely little Mrs. Parker flung her fragrant arms
about her, and gave her her first kiss.
Rose looked her prettiest, just becomingly pale, becomingly merry,
becomingly tearful. Her presents, on view upstairs, were far finer
than any Monroe had seen since Cliff Frost was married. Rodney was
the usual excited, nervous, laughing groom. The wedding supper was
perfection, and the young people danced when Father Martin was gone,
and when the bride and groom had dashed away to the ten-o'clock
train.
It was all over. Rose had everything, as usual, and Martie had
nothing.
Easter was in early April that year, and the sweet, warm month was
dying away when one afternoon Miss Fanny, always hopeful for this
dreaming helpless young creature so full of big faults and big
possibilities, detained Martie in the Library for a little
dissertation upon card catalogues. Martie listened with her usual
enthusiastic interest. Yes--she understood; yes, she understood.
"There's your telephone, Miss Fanny!" said she, in the midst of a
demonstration. The older woman picked up the instrument.
"It's for you, Martie. It's Sally," she said, surprised. "Sally!"
Martie did not understand. She had left Sally at the bridge, and
Sally was to go on to the Town Hall for Pa, with a letter.
"Hello, Martie!" said a buoyant yet tremulous voice. "Martie--this
is Sally. I'm over at Mrs. Hawkes's. Martie--I'm married!"
"Married!" echoed Martie stupidly, eyeing the listening Miss Fanny
bewilderedly.
"Yes--to Joe. Lissun--can't you come right over? I'll tell you all
about it!"
Martie put back the receiver in a state of utter stupefaction.
Fortunately the Library was empty, and after telling Miss Fanny the
little she knew, she went out into the sweet, hot street. The town
was in a tent of rustling new leaves; lilacs were in heavy flower.
Roses and bridal-wreath and mock-orange trees were in bloom. Rank
brown grass stood everywhere; the fruit blossoms were gone, tall
buttercups were nodding over the grass.
At the Hawkes's house there were laughter and excitement. Sally,
rosier and more talkative than even Martie had ever seen her before,
was the heroine of the hour. When Martie came in, she flew toward
her in an ecstasy, and with laughter and tears the tale was told.
She and Joe had chanced to meet on the Court House steps, Sally
coming out from the task of delivering a letter from Pa to Judge
Parker, Joe going in with a telegram for Captain Tate. And almost
without words from the lilac-scented, green-shaded street they had
gone into the License Bureau; and almost without words they had
walked out to find Father Martin. And now they were married! And the
thin old ring on Sally's young hand had belonged to Father Martin's
mother.
Martie was too generous not to respond to her sister's demand, even
if she had not been completely carried away by the excitement about
her.
Mrs. Hawkes, tears of joy in her eyes, yet smiles shining through
them, was brewing tea for the happy pair. Minnie Hawkes's Rose was
making toast when she was not jumping up and down half mad with
delight. Ellen Hawkes, now Mrs. Castle, was setting the table.
Grandma Kelly was quavering out blessings, and Joe's older brother,
Thomas, who worked at night, and had been breakfasting at four
o'clock, when the young pair burst in, rushed out to the bakery to
come back triumphantly with a white frosted cake.
"It's a fair cake," said Mrs. Hawkes in the babel. "But you wait--
I'll make you a cake!"
"And you know, Joe and I between us just made up the dollar for the
license!" laughed Sally.
"Say, listen," said Ellen suddenly, "you folks have got to take our
house for a few days; how about that, Mother? You and Joe can start
housekeeping there like Terry and me. How about it, Mother? We'll
come here!"
"But, Sally--not to tell me!" Martie said reproachfully.
"Oh, darling--I did that deliberately!" her sister answered
earnestly. "I'm going to telephone Pa, and I know he'll be wild. And
I DIDN'T want you to be in it! You'll have enough--poor Martie!"
Already the shadow of the old house was passing from her. With what
gaiety she went about the old room, thought Martie, stopped by Mrs.
Hawkes's affectionate arms for a kiss, stopping to kiss Grandma
Kelly of her own free will. Sally had no sense of social values; she
loved to be here, admired, loved, busy.
"Think of the priest giving her his mother's own ring!" said the
women over and over. "It'll bring you big luck, Sally!"
They all sat down at the table, and Terry and John Healey came in to
rejoice, and the Healey baby awoke, and Grace came in from work.
When Martie left there was talk of supper; everybody was to stay for
supper.
Walking home in the late spring twilight, Martie felt a certain
satisfaction. Sally was happy, and they would be good to her, and
she would be better off than Lydia, anyway. Joe as a husband was
perfectly absurd, of course, but Joe certainly did love Sally.
Monroe would buzz, but Martie had heard Monroe buzzing for a long
time now, and after the first shock, had found herself unhurt.
Curiously, Sally's plunge into a new life seemed to free her own
hands.
"Now I am going to get out!" said Martie, opening her own gate.
When Malcolm Monroe came home that night it was to a well-sustained
hurricane of tears and protest. Mrs. Monroe and Lydia shed genuine
tears, and Martie and Len added diplomatically to the hubbub. Pa
must suspect no one of sympathy for the shameless Sally.
"To think, Pa, after all we've done for her!" sobbed Mrs. Monroe,
and Lydia, wiping her nose and shaking her head, kept saying with
reproachful firmness: "I can't believe it of Sally! Why shouldn't
she tell one of us. To stand up and be married all alone!"
Her father took the news exactly as might have been expected. While
there was hope of convicting Martie or Lydia of complicity, he
questioned them sharply and sternly. When this was gone, he swiftly
worked himself into such a passion as his children had rarely seen
before. Sally and Joe were solemnly denounced, disinherited, and
abandoned. And any child of his who spoke to either should share
their fate.
"Oh, Papa--don't!" quavered Lydia, as her father strode to the
Bible, and with horrible precision inked from the register the
record of Sally's birth. Mrs. Monroe looked terrified, and even
Leonard was pale. But Martie, to her own amazement, found a sudden
calm scorn in her heart. What a silly thing to do, just because poor
little Sally married the boy she loved. How dared Pa call himself a
Christian while he regarded Sally's downward step from a mere social
level a disgrace! And how cruel he was, playing upon poor Ma's and
Lydia's feelings just for his own satisfaction.
"You understand me, don't you, Martie?" he asked grimly.
"I suppose so." An ugly smile curved Martie's lips. Her lids were
half lowered.
"Well--remember it. And never any one of you mention your sister's
name to me again!"
"No, Pa," said four fervent voices. Then they had dinner.
The next day the three women packed up Sally's things; Lydia and her
mother in tears, but Martie strangely content. Something had
happened at all events. She put Sally's baby sash and collar and
other treasured rubbish in the package, with two scribbled lines
pinned to them: "Praying for you, darling. Pa is furious. The
slipper is for luck. Your M."
And then the eventless days began to wheel by again. Rose came home,
and came to see Martie, and Martie dined at the Parkers'. Rodney,
though obviously blind to all women but his wife, was cordial and
gallant to the guest and Rose took her up to her pretty, frilly
bedroom, so that Martie might take off her hat and coat, and told
Martie that Rod was the neatest man she had ever seen, such a fusser
about his bath and his clothes. On Rose's bureau was a big
photograph of Rodney in a silver frame, and on Rodney's high dresser
a charming photograph of Rose in her wedding gown. When she was
putting on her hat four hours later to be driven home by Rodney,
Martie heard Rose's wifely voice in the hall: "You are a darling to
do this, Rod!" The tone was that in which a man is praised by his
women for a hard duty cheerfully done. Martie was not surprised when
Rose merrily confided to her that Rod wanted his wife to go along--
the silly!--and accompanied them on the short drive.
She did not see much of the young Parkers after that, nor did she
expect to be counted among their intimate friends. She began to
drift into the public kindergarten in the mornings, to help Miss
Malloy with the unruly babies. And she missed Sally more every day.
Sally and Joe had gone to Pittsville immediately after their
wedding; Joe having received a dazzling offer of forty dollars a
month for two summer months from the express company there.
But when Sally had been married six weeks, Martie heard her voice
one day when the younger sister was passing the Hawkes's house.
Instantly she entered the gate, her heart beating high. Sally's
dear, unforgettable voice! And Sally's slender shoulders and soft,
loose hair!
The girls were in each other's arms, laughing and crying as they
clung together. Martie thought she had never seen her sister look so
well, or seem so sweet and gay. There were a thousand questions on
each side to ask; Martie poured out the home news. Sally and Joe
were housekeeping in three rooms, and it was more FUN! And Sally
really cooked him wonderful dinners; his father and mother had come
over to one, and wasn't it good? Mrs. Hawkes enthusiastically
agreed.
Of course, they had hardly ANYTHING, bubbled Sally, only two
saucepans and one frying pan and the coffee pot. But it was more
FUN! And in the evenings they walked around Pittsville, and went to
the ten-cent theatre, or bought candy and divided it. COULDN'T
Martie come some time to dinner?
"Pa," said Martie simply. Sally's bright face clouded. She sent a
kiss to Ma and darling Lyd. She and Joe would come back to Monroe in
September, and then she would come see Pa and make him forgive her.
Tell him she still loved him!
Martie delivered none of these airy messages. She secretly marvelled
at the happiness that could blind Sally to a memory of Pa, and Pa's
stubbornness.
"Listen, Martie," said Sally, when for a moment the sisters were
alone, "it wasn't so sudden as you think, my marrying Joe!" She
stopped, interrupted by some thought, and added impulsively, "Isn't
it STRANGE, Mart, that we might have missed each other; it makes us
both just SHIVER to think of it! Well"--and with a visible effort
the little wife brought herself down from a roseate cloud to
realities again--"if--if Lyd had married Cliff Frost," she said
uncertainly, "I never should have DARED marry Joe!"
"Or if I had married Rodney Parker, Sally?" Martie added steadily.
"Well--" The colour flew to Sally's face. "As it was," she went on a
little hurriedly, "I just--couldn't bear to go on and on, it made me
desperate! And I thought Pa and Ma's way is no good, our house never
seems to have much happiness in it--and I'm going to get OUT! There
never was a place like this for good times, and babies, and jokes,
and company to dinner!" smiled Sally, looking about the Hawkeses'
parlour triumphantly.
But then Sally was born devoid of a social sense, mused Martie,
walking home. What would life be without it--she wondered. No
affectations, no barriers, no pretenses--
"Flout me not, Sweet!" said some one at her side. She looked up into
the beaming eyes of Wallace Bannister. "Don't you remember me--I'm
the city feller that came here breakin' all hearts awhile back!"
"You idiot!" Martie laughed, too. "I thought you were miles away!"
"Well, judging by your expression, darling, you were miles away,
too," said the irrepressible Wallace. "How are you, Brunhilde? Ich
liebe dich! Yes'm, we ought to be miles away, but to tell you the
honest truth, the season is simply ROTTEN here on the coast. We've
bust up, for the moment, but dry those tears. Here's my contract for
seven weeks in San Francisco--seven plays. Sixty bones per week;
pretty neat, what? We begin rehearsing in July, open August eighth,
and if it's a go, go on indefinitely. The Cluetts and I are in this-
-the rest of the company's gone flooey. Meanwhile, I have three
weeks to wait, and I'm staying with my aunt in Pittsville studying
like mad."
"And what are you doing in Monroe?" Martie said contentedly, as they
wandered along.
"I came here a week ago to change some shoes," said Wallace, "and I
saw you. So to-day I came and made you a formal call."
"You did NOT!" Martie ejaculated, laughing.
"Why didn't I? I fell down eleven steps into your garden, knocked on
the front door, knocked on the side door, talked to some one called
'Ma,' talked to some one called 'Lydia,' and learned that Miss
Martha Brunhilde Monroe was out for a sashay. There!"
"Well--for goodness sake!" Martie was conscious of flushing. From
that second she grew a little self-conscious. He was a funny
creature. He would have been unusually handsome, she thought, if it
were not for a certain largeness--it was not quite coarseness--of
feature. He would have been extraordinarily charming, decided
Martie, but for that same quality in his manner; recklessness,
carelessness. She knew he was not always telling the truth; these
honours, these affairs, these fascinating escapades were not all his
own. His exaggerated expressions of affection for herself were only
a part of this ebullient sense of romance. But he was amusing.
"Bon soir, papillon!" he said at her gate. "How about a meet to-
morrow? Tie a pink scarf to thy casement if thy jailer sleeps.
Seriously, leave us meet, kid. Leave us go inter Bonestell's with
the crowd--watto? I'll wait for youse outside the Library at three."
"With the accent on the WAIT," said Martie significantly. But she
did not think of Rodney that evening. She thought of Sally and of
Wallace Bannister.
Fortunately for her, it did not occur to her father to cross-examine
her on any other event of the day except the circumstance that she
had been seen walking with an unknown young man. This was food for
much advice.
"I don't like it, my daughter," said Malcolm, rubbing his shins
together and polishing his glasses as he sat by the fire. "I don't
like it at all. I don't like this tendency to permit familiarities
with this young man and that young man--all very well for a while,
but not the sort of thing a young man chooses in a WIFE."
Martie, looking at him respectfully, as she placed a red Queen on a
black King, felt in her heart that she would like to kill him.
The next afternoon she decided to clean the chicken house, one of
the tasks in which her strange nature delighted. To splash about
with hose and broom, tip over the littered drinking trough, wash
cobwebs from the windows with a well-directed stream of water; in
these things Martie found some inexplicable satisfaction. She went
upstairs after luncheon to get into old clothes, came down half an
hour later with her best hat on, walked straight out of the gate and
down town.
Wallace was waiting, elated at her punctuality. Martie explaining
her fear that some one might report their meeting to her father,
they waited openly at Masset's corner, boarded the half-past three
o'clock trolley, and went to Pittsville.
Pittsville was two miles away, but this adventure had all the charm
of foreign travel to Martie. Every house interested her, the main
street of the little town might have been Broadway in New York. The
people looked different, she said. She and Wallace laughed their way
through the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store, enjoyed a Floradora Special
composed of bananas, ice cream, nuts, whipped cream, maple syrup,
and cherries, and finally bought six cream puffs and carried them to
Sally.
Sally's delight was almost tearful. She led Martie rapturously over
her domain: the little bedroom spotless and sunshiny in the summer
afternoon; the microscopic kitchen scented with the baked apples
that HAD burned a little and the cookies that would NOT brown; the
living-and-dining room that was at once so bare and so rich. It was
a home, Martie realized dimly, and Sally was a person at last. The
younger sister peeped interestedly into spice-tins and meat safe;
three eggs were in a small yellow bowl, two thin slices of bacon on
a plate. In the bread box was half a loaf of bread and one cut
slice.
"Sally, it must be fun!" said Martie. "All this doll's house for six
dollars a month!"
"Oh--fun!" Sally was rapturous beyond words. She gave them pale, hot
cookies; the cream puffs would delight Joe.
The three laughed and feasted happily; Martie with a new sense of
freedom and independence that exhilarated her like wine.
"Find us a nice little place like this, sister," said Wallace.
"Martie loves me, Sarah. Their lips met in one long, rapturous kiss.
The end."
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