Books: Martie The Unconquered
K >>
Kathleen Norris >> Martie The Unconquered
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27
The girls laughed joyously. Martie went home at five, Wallace
accompanying her. She told her father that night that she had been
in the Library.
The next day she did clean the chicken house, and did go down to
spend the afternoon with Miss Fanny. But freedom danced in her
veins; on the third afternoon she and Wallace took a long walk, and
stopped to see Dr. Ben, and, sitting on two barrels behind the old
railway station, ate countless cherries and apricots. Again--and
again--they went to Pittsville. Sally was in their confidence and
feasted them in the little flat or went with them on their innocent
expeditions.
From their third meeting, it was cheerfully taken for granted that
Wallace and Martie belonged to each other. Martie never knew what he
really felt, any more than he dreamed of the girlish amusement and
distrust in which she held him. They flirted only, but they swiftly
found life uninteresting when apart. They never talked of marriage,
yet every time they parted it was reluctantly, and never without
definite plans for another immediate meeting. Wallace began to
advise Martie not to eat the rich things that made her sick; Martie
counselled him about his new suit, and listened, uneasy and ashamed,
to a brief, penitential reference to "crazy" things he had done, as
a "kid." He promised her never to drink again and incidentally told
her that his real name was Edward Tenney. Suddenly they found the
plural pronoun: we must do that; that doesn't interest us; Pa must
not suspect our affair.
"The Cluetts are going to be in Pittsville," said Wallace one day.
"I want you to meet them. You'll like Mabel; she's got two little
kids. She and Jesse have been married only six years. And they'll
like you, too; I've told 'em you're my girl!"
"Am I?" said Martie huskily. They were alone in Sally's little
house, and for answer he put his arms about her. "Do you love me,
Wallace?" she asked.
The question, the raised blue eyes, fired him to sudden passion.
They kissed each other blindly, with shut eyes. After that, whenever
they might, they kissed, and sometimes Martie, ignorant and
innocent, wondered why the memory of his hot lips worried her a
little.
There was nothing wrong in kissing! Martie still said to herself
that of course they would not marry; yet when she was with Wallace
she loved the evidences of her power over him, and seemed unable, as
he was unable, to keep from the constant question: "Do you love me?"
In late June the Cluetts--pretty faded Mabel, her two enormous
babies, her stepson Lloyd, and Jesse, the husband and father--all
came to Pittsville for a few days' leisure before rehearsals began.
Lloyd was a "light juvenile," off as well as on the stage. Jesse
played father, judge, guardian, prime minister, and old family
doctor in turn. Mabel, rouged and befrilled, still made an
attractive foil for Wallace as the hero. Martie liked them all;
their chatter of the fairyland of the stage, their trunks plastered
with labels, their fine voices, their general air of being
incompetent children adrift in a puzzling world. Deep laughter
stirred within her when they spoke of business or of finance.
They talked frankly, in their three cheap rooms at the "Pittsville
White House," before Wallace's girl. Jesse was pompous; Lloyd
boyishly fretful; Mabel, patient, sympathetic, discouraged, and
sanguine by turns. Martie was enraptured by the babies: Bernadette,
a crimped heavy little brunette of five, and Leroy delicious at
three months in limp little flannel wrappers.
"I'll tell you what, Miss Monroe--I'm going to call you Martha--"
said Mabel, "I'm just about sick of California. I'm not a
Californian; little old New York for mine. I first seen the light of
day at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street, and I wish
to the good Lord I was there now. You'll never get a fair deal in
Frisker, if any one should ride up on a bike and ask you, dear. We
were doing very good last fall when little Mister Man here decided
to join the party--after that I was simply no good! The box receipts
have fell off steadily since we put that awful girl in. Don't leave
that heavy child paralyze your limbs--she'll set there forever like
an immidge, if you go on telling her stories!"
"I am amused--genuinely amused at the circumstances under which you
find us, Miss Monroe," said Jesse Cluett with a dignified laugh.
"And my friends in the East would be equally surprised. Professional
pride brought me West, the pride of a man whose public demands one
or two favoured parts from him, year after year. My three or four
successes were a great gratification to me; not only the public, but
my fellow actors at the Lambs, assured me that my future was MADE.
'Made?--no,' I said. 'No. I have no wish to become a one-part man.'
To John Drew I said--I met him going into the Club-'H'ar you,
Jesse?' he said. ... Oh, yes; we are warm friends, old friends. I
played for two years with John Drew. Very brilliant actor--in some
ways. And that is only one instance of the enthusiastic appreciation
to which I am accustomed. ... Are we going to eat, my dear?" For
Mrs. Cluett, who in her hospitable enthusiasm over Martie had taken
a little spirit lamp from the washstand and placed a full kettle
over the flame, was now looking about her in a vague, distressed
sort of way.
"It's going out," said she blankly. Philosophically, Jesse put his
wide-brimmed hat over his loose curls and, straightening his
shoulders, walked mincingly out for alcohol with the younger men.
Mrs. Cluett spread a small, spotted fringed cloth on a trunk,
setting on it a cut and odorous lemon a trifle past its prime and a
sticky jar of jam. Martie continued to cuddle Leroy and tell
Bernadette a fairy tale. She found the crowded, tawdry bedroom
delightfully cosy, especially when the men came back with graham
crackers and cheese and spongy, greasy bakery doughnuts.
They all laughed when Wallace asked for the rat-trap's delight; and
when Lloyd dropped a cruller on the floor and thumped his heel to
show its weight; and when Wallace said: "Don't jam or jar Miss
Monroe, Jesse!" But when, in retort for this latest witticism,
Martie said: "Put your hand where it hurts, Wallace, and show Mama";
the laughter changed to actual shrieks of mirth; Jesse indulging in
a deep "ha-ha-ha!" and Mabel hammering her heels madly together and
sobbing put faintly that she should die--she should simply DIE!
Martie almost missed the five o'clock trolley, but Wallace pushed
her upon the moving platform at the last possible moment, and she
laughed and gasped blindly half the way home, accepting his help
with her disordered hair and hat. When she finally raised her face,
and somewhat shamefacedly eyed the one or two other occupants of the
car, she saw Rose sitting opposite, a neat and interested Rose in
her trousseau tailor-made.
Uncomfortable, Martie bowed, and Rose responded sweetly, presently
patting the seat beside her with an inviting glove. Somewhat
surprised at this unexpected graciousness, Martie and her escort
crossed the car.
"No, MRS.--not Miss!" Rose contradicted Wallace merrily, looking up
at him prettily. "I know I'm not very imposing, but I'm a really
truly old married lady!"
"This is Mrs. Rodney Parker, Wallace," Martie said. Instantly she
was pleasantly conscious that her easy use of this actor's name was
a surprise to Rose, and for the first time a definite pride in
possession seized her. He might not be perfection, but he was hers.
"Is that so!" Wallace exclaimed, with new interest in eyes and
voice. "Gosh--what fun we had that night! Do you remember the night
we had oysters, and sat in that little place gassing for two hours?
You know," said he, in a confidential aside to Rose, "Martie's a
wonder when she gets started!"
"Isn't she?" Rose responded politely. "That was before I met my
husband, I think," she added, "or rather re-met him, for years ago
Mr. Parker and I---"
But Wallace, amused by the discussion that had arisen between the
conductor and a Chinese who was getting on the car, interrupted
abruptly to call Martie's attention to the affair, and Rose's
reminiscence was lost. She said, with her good-byes, that Mr.
Bannister must come and dine with them.
"Gosh, I see myself!" ejaculated Wallace ungratefully, as he walked
with Martie to the gate. "I never could stand that ass Parker!"
"Don't you think she's very pretty, Wallace?"
"Oh, I don't know! I don't care much for those dolly women. I like
red hair and big women, myself. Listen, Martie. To-morrow---"
No more was said of Rose. Martie wondered why she liked to hear
Rodney Parker called an ass.
Malcolm Monroe came home for luncheon every day except Wednesday,
which made Wednesday for the women of the family the easy day of the
week. Their midday meal, never elaborate or formal, was less formal
and even simpler on this day; conversation was more free, and time
less considered.
For several days after Sally's extraordinary marriage Mrs. Monroe
had wept continually, and even her always mild and infrequent
attempts at conversation had been silenced. Later, she and Lydia had
long and mournful discussions of the event, punctuating them with
heavy sighs and uncomprehending shaking of their heads. That a
Monroe in her senses could stoop to a Hawkes was a fact that would
never cease to puzzle and amaze, and what the town was saying and
thinking in the matter was an agonized speculation to Mrs. Monroe
and Lydia. "Socially, of course," said Lydia, "we will never hold up
our heads again!"
But as the days went by and the divorce of the young Mulkeys, and
the new baby at Mrs. Hughie Wilson's, and the Annual Strawberry
Festival and Bazaar for the Church Debt came along to make the
gossip about Sally and Joe of secondary interest, Sally's mother and
sister revived. They came to take a bitter-sweet satisfaction in the
sympathy and interest that were shown on all sides.
Martie was not often at home in these days. "She fairly lives at the
Library, and she takes long walks, I imagine, Ma," Lydia said once.
"You know Martie misses---she's lonely. And then--there was, of
course, the feeling about Rodney. It's just Martie's queer way of
righting herself."
But on the hot Wednesday morning that brought in July Martie, with a
clear conscience, was baking gingerbread. She had improved in manner
and habit, of late, displaying an unwonted interest in the care of
herself and her person, and an unwonted energy in discharging
domestic duties.
She was buttering pans vigorously, and singing "The Two Grenadiers,"
when Lydia came into the kitchen.
"Martie, Pa just came in the gate. Isn't that maddening! We'll have
to give him something canned; he hates eggs. Can't you make some
drop cakes of that batter so they'll be done?"
"Sure I can!" Martie snatched a piece of paper to butter. "But what
brings him home?"
"Why, I haven't the faintest---" Lydia was beginning, when her
father's voice came in a shout from the dining room:
"Martie--Martie--MARTIE!"
Terror seized Martie, her mouth watered saltly, her knees touched,
and a chill shook her. The hot day turned bleak. She and Lydia
exchanged a sick look before Martie, trembling, crossed the pantry,
littered by Lydia's silver polish and rags, and went in to face the
furious old man on the hearthrug. Malcolm was quivering so violently
that his own fear seemed to be that he would lose his voice before
he had gained his information. Martie was vaguely conscious that her
mother, frightened and pale, was in the room, and that Len had come
to the hall doorway.
"Martie," said her father, breathing hard, "where were you yesterday
afternoon?"
"At Alice Clark's Five Hundred with Lyd---" the girl was beginning
innocently. He cut her short with an impatient shake of the head.
"I don't mean yesterday! Where were you on Monday?"
"Monday? Why, Mama and I walked down to Bonestell's."
"Yes, we did, Pa! Yes, we did!" quavered Mrs. Monroe. "Oh, Pa, WHAT
IS IT?"
"And then what did you do?" he pursued blackly, turning to his wife.
"Why--why, Martie said she was going to go over to Pittsville and
back, just for the ride--just to stay on the trolley, Pa!" explained
his wife.
"Martie," thundered her father, "when you went to Pittsville you saw
your sister, didn't you?"
Martie's head was held erect. She was badly frightened, but
conscious through all her fear that there was a certain satisfaction
in having the blow fall at last.
"Yes, sir," she gulped; she wet her lips. "Yes, sir," she said
again.
"You admit it?" said Malcolm, his eyes narrowing.
Lydia, pale and terrified, had come in from the kitchen. Now she
suddenly spoke.
"Oh, Pa, don't--don't blame Martie for that! You know what the girls
always were to each other--I don't mean to be impertinent, Pa--do
forgive me!--but Martie and Sally always---" "One moment, Lydia,"
said her father, with a repressive gesture, the veins blue on his
forehead. "JUST--ONE--MOMENT." And, panting, he turned again to
Martie. "Yes, and who else did you see in Pittsville?" he whispered,
his voice failing.
Martie, breathing fast, her bright eyes fixed upon him with a sort
of fascination, did not answer.
"I'll tell you who you saw," said Malcolm at white heat. "I'll tell
you! You met this young whippersnapper Jackanapes--what's his name--
this young one-night actor---"
"Do you mean Mr. Wallace Bannister?" Martis asked with a sort of
frightened scorn.
Lydia and her mother gasped audibly in the silence. Malcolm moved
his eyes slowly from his youngest daughter's face to his wife's, to
Lydia's, and back to Martie again. For two dreadful moments he
studied her, an ugly smile touching his harsh mouth.
"You don't deny it," he said, after the interval, in a shaking
voice. "You don't deny that you've been disobeying me and lying to
me for weeks? Now I tell you, my girl--there's been enough of this
sort of thing going on in this family. You couldn't get the man you
wanted, so, like your sister, you pick up---"
Martie laughed briefly and bitterly. The sound seemed to madden him.
For a moment he watched her, his head dropped forward like a
menacing animal.
"Understand me, Martie," he said. "I'll break that spirit in you--if
it takes the rest of my life! You'll laugh in a different way! My
God--am I to be the laughing-stock of this entire town? Is a girl
your age to---"
"Pa!" sobbed Mrs. Monroe. "Do what you think best, but don't--DON'T
excite yourself so!"
Her clutching fingers on his arm seemed to soothe in through all his
fury. He fell silent, still panting, and eying Martie belligerently.
"You--go to your room!" he commanded, pointing a shaking finger at
her. "Go upstairs with your sister, Lydia, and bring me the key of
her door. When I decide upon the measure that will bring this young
lady quickest to her senses, I'll let her know. Meanwhile---"
"Oh, Pa, you needn't lock Martie in," quivered Lydia, "she'll stay--
won't you, Martie?"
Martie, like a young animal at bay, stood facing them all for a
breathless moment. In that time the child that had been in her,
through all these years of slow development, died. Anger went out of
her eyes, and an infinite sadness filled them. A quick tremble of
her lips and a flutter at her nostrils were the only signs she gave
of the tears she felt rising. She flung one arm about her mother and
kissed the wet, faded cheek.
"Good-bye, Ma," she said quickly. In another instant she had crossed
to the entrance hall, blindly snatched an old soft felt hat from the
rack, caught up Len's overcoat, and slipped into it, and was gone.
Born in that moment of unreasoning terror, her free soul went with
her.
The streets were flooded with hot summer sunshine, the sky almost
white. Not a breeze stirred the thick foliage of the elm trees on
Main Street as Martie walked quickly down to the Bank.
It was Rodney Parker who gave her her money; the original seventeen
dollars and fifty cents had swelled to almost twenty-two dollars
now. Martie hardly saw the gallant youth who congratulated her upon
her becoming gipsy hat; mechanically she slipped her money into a
pocket, mechanically started for the road to Pittsville.
Five minutes later she boarded the half-past twelve o'clock trolley,
coming in excited and exultant upon Sally who was singing quietly
over a solitary luncheon. The girls laughed and cried together.
"The funny thing is, I am as free as air!" Martie exclaimed, her
cheeks glowing from the tea and the sympathy and the warm room. "But
I never knew it! If Pa had gotten on that trolley, I think I would
have fainted with shock. But what could he do? I am absolutely FREE,
Sally--with twenty-one dollars and eighty-one cents!"
"I wish you had a husband---" mused Sally.
"I'd rather have a job," Martie said with a quick, bright flush
nevertheless. "But I think I know how to get one. Mrs. Cluett is
going to be playing steadily now, and after this engagement they're
going to try very hard to get booked in New York. She's got to have
SOME ONE to look out for the children."
"But Martie---" Sally said timidly, "you'd only be a sort of
servant---"
"Well, that's the only thing I know anything about," Martie answered
simply. "It might lead to something---"
"Then you and Wallace aren't---?" Sally faltered. "There's nothing
serious---?"
Martie could not control the colour that swept up to the white
parting of her hair, but her mouth showed new firmness as she
answered gravely:
"Sally--I don't know. Of course, I like him--how could I help it?
We're awfully good chums; he's the best chum I ever had. But he
never--well, he never asked me. Sally"--Martie rested her elbows on
the table, and her chin on her hands--"Sally, would you marry him?"
"If I loved him I would," said Sally.
"Yes, but did you KNOW you loved Joe?" Martie asked. Sally was
silent.
"Well--not so much--before--as after we were married," she said
hesitatingly, after a pause.
Martie suddenly sprang up.
"Well, I'm going to see Mrs. Cluett!"
"I'll go, too," said Sally, "and we'll stop at the express office
and tell Joe!"
Mrs. Cluett was alone with her children when the callers went in,
and even Martie's sensitive heart could have asked no warmer
reception of her plan.
The little actress kissed Sally, and kissed Martie more than once,
brimming over with interest and sympathy.
"Dearie, it ain't much of a start for you, but it is a start!" said
Mabel warmly over the head of the nursing baby. "And you'll get your
living and your railroad fares out of it, anyway! It'll be an
ackshal godsend to Mr. Cluett and me, for the children have took to
you something very unusual. We'll have elegant times going around
together, and you'll never be sorry."
These cheering sentiments Jesse echoed when he came in with Lloyd a
few minutes later.
"Much depends upon our future contracts, Miss Monroe," said he, "but
I will go so far as to say this. Should you some time desire to try
the calling that Shakespeare honoured, the opportunity will not be
lacking!"
This threw Sally, Martie, and Mabel into transports. It now being
after three o'clock tea was proposed.
And now Martie busied herself happily as one belonging to the little
establishment. Sally had taken rapturous possession of Leroy. Mabel
lighted the alcohol lamp. Martie, delayed by the affectionate
Bernadette, shook out the spotted cloth, and cut the stale cake.
They were all absorbed and chattering when Wallace Bannister opened
the door. At sight of him Martie straightened up, the long knife in
one hand, Bernadette's sticky little fingers clinging to the other.
The news was flung at him excitedly. Martie had left home--she was
never going back--she had only twenty dollars and an old coat and
hat--she was going to stay with Mabel for the present---
"What's this sweet dream about staying with Mabel?" Wallace said,
bewildered, reproachful, definite. He came over to Martie and put
one arm about her. "Look here, folks," he said, almost indignantly,
"Martie's my girl, aren't you, Martie? We're going to be married
right now, this afternoon; and hereafter what I do, she does--and
where I go, she goes!"
The love in his eyes, the love in all their watching faces, Martie
never forgot. Like a great river of warmth and sunshine it lifted
her free of her dry, thirsty girlhood; she felt the tears of joy
pressing against her eyes. There was nothing critical, nothing
calculating, nothing repressing here; her lover wanted her, just as
she stood, penniless, homeless, without a dress except the blue
gingham she wore!
The glory of it lighted with magic that day and the days to come.
They laughed over the pretty gipsy hat, over Len's coat, over the
need of borrowing Mabel's brush and comb. With Joe and Sally, they
all dined together, and wandered about the village streets in the
summer moonlight; then Martie went to bed, too happy and excited to
sleep, in Bernadette's room, wearing a much-trimmed nightgown of
Mabel's. It had been decided that the marriage should take place in
San Francisco, Wallace sensibly suggesting that there would be less
embarrassing questioning there, and also that Martie's money might
be spent to better advantage in the city.
Martie's trunk came to Sally's house the next morning, unaccompanied
by message or note, and three days later Martie wrote her mother a
long letter from a theatrical boarding-house in Geary Street,
sending a copy of the marriage certificate of Martha Salisbury
Monroe to Edward Vincent Tenney in Saint Patrick's Church, San
Francisco, and observing with a touch of pride that "my husband" was
now rehearsing for an engagement of seven weeks at sixty dollars a
week. There was no answer.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
For days it was her one triumphant thought. She was married! She was
splendidly and unexpectedly a wife. And her life partner was no mere
Monroe youth, and her home was not merely one of the old, familiar
Monroe cottages. She was the wife of a rising actor, and she lived
in the biggest city of the State!
Martie exulted innocently and in secret. She reviewed the simple
fact again and again. The two Monroe girls were married. A dimple
would deepen in her cheek, a slow smile tug at her lips, when she
thought of it. She told Wallace, in her simple childish way, that
she had never really expected to be married; she thought that she
would like to go back to Monroe for a visit, and let her old friends
see the plain gold ring on her big, white hand.
Everything in Martie's life, up to this point, had helped her to
believe that marriage was the final step in any woman's experience.
A girl was admired, was desired, and was married, if she was,
humanly speaking, a success. If she was not admired, if no one asked
her in marriage, she was a failure. This was the only test.
Martie's thoughts never went on to the years that followed marriage,
the experiences and lessons; these were all lost in the golden glow
that surrounded the step safely accomplished. That the years between
thirty and fifty are as long as the years between ten and thirty,
never occurred to her. With the long, dull drag of her mother's life
before her eyes, she never had thought that Rose's life, that
Sally's life, as married women, could ever be long and dull. They
were married--doubt and surmise and hope were over. Lydia and Miss
Fanny were not married. Therefore, Rose and Sally and Martie had an
obvious advantage over Lydia and Fanny.
It was a surprise to her to find life placidly proceeding here in
this strange apartment in Geary Street, as if all the world had not
stopped moving and commenced again. The persons she met called her
"Mrs. Bannister" with no visible thrill. Nobody seemed surprised
when she and the big actor quietly went into their room at night and
shut the door.
She had fancied that the mere excitement of the new life filled all
brides with a sort of proud complacency; that they felt superior to
other human beings, and secretly scorned the unwed. It was
astonishing to find herself still concerned with the tiny questions
of yesterday: the ruffle torn on the bureau, the little infection
that swelled and inflamed her chin, the quarter of a dollar her
Chinese laundryman swore he had never received. It was always
tremendously thrilling to have Wallace give her money: delightful
gold pieces such as even her mother seldom handled. She felt a naive
resentment that so many of them had to be spent for what she called
"uninteresting" things: lodging and food and car fares. They seemed
so more than sufficient, when she first touched them; they melted so
mysteriously away. She felt that there should be great saving on so
generous an allowance, but Wallace never saved, nor did any of his
friends and associates.
So that a sense of being baffled began to puzzle her. She was
married now; the great question of life had been answered in the
affirmative. But--but the future was vague and unsettled still. Even
married persons had their problems. Even the best of husbands
sometimes left a tiny something to be desired.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27