The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig: A Novel

by David Graham Phillips

  CHAPTER XXV

  MRS. JOSHUA CRAIG

  "We change at Albany," said he when they were on the train, after a lasthour of mad scramble, due in part to her tardiness, in the main to theatmosphere of hysteric hustle and bustle he created as a precaution.

  "At Albany!" she exclaimed. "Why, when do we get there?"

  "At midnight."

  "At midnight!" It was the last drop in the cup of gall, she thought."Why, we'd get to Lenox, or to some place where we'd have to changeagain, long before morning! Josh, you must be out of your senses. It's aperfect outrage!"

  "Best I could do," said he, laughing uproariously and patting her on theback. "Cheer up. You can sleep on my shoulder until we get to Albany."

  "We will go on to New York," said she stiffly, "and leave from there inthe morning."

  "Can't do it," said he. "Must change at Albany. You ought to learn tocontrol your temper over these little inconveniences of life. I'vebrought a volume of Emerson's essays along and I'll read to you if youdon't want to sleep."

  "I hate to be read aloud to. Joshua, let's go on to New York. Such anight of horror as you've planned will wear me out."

  "I tell you it's impossible. I've done the best thing in thecircumstances. You'll see."

  Suddenly she sprang up, looked wildly round. "Where's Selina?" shegasped.

  "Coming to-morrow or next day," replied he. "I sent her to the camp forsome things I forgot."

  She sank back and said no more. Again she was tempted to revolt againstsuch imbecile tyranny; and again, as she debated the situation, thewisdom, the necessity of submitting became apparent. How would it soundto have to explain to her grandmother that she had left him because hetook an inconvenient train? "I'd like to see him try this sort of thingif we'd been married six months instead of six weeks," she muttered.

  She refused to talk with him, answered him in cold monosyllables. Andafter dinner, when he produced the volume of Emerson and began to readaloud, she curtly asked him to be quiet. "I wish to sleep!" snapped she.

  "Do, dear," urged he. And he put his arm around her.

  "That's very uncomfortable," said she, trying to draw away.

  He drew her back, held her--and she knew she must either submit or makea scene. There was small attraction to scene-making with such a masterof disgraceful and humiliating scenes as he. "He wouldn't care a rap,"she muttered. "He simply revels in scenes, knowing he's sure to win outat them as a mongrel in a fight with a"--even in that trying moment hersense of humor did not leave her--"with a lapdog."

  She found herself comfortable and amazingly content, leaning against hisshoulder; and presently she went to sleep, he holding the book in hisfree hand and reading calmly. The next thing she knew he was shaking hergently. "Albany," he said. "We've got to change here."

  She rose sleepily and followed him from the car, adjusting her hat asshe went. She had thought she would be wretched; instead, she felt fineas the sharp, night air roused her nerves and freshened her skin. He ledthe way into the empty waiting-room; the porter piled the bags on thebench; she seated herself. "I must send a telegram," said he, and hewent over to the window marked "Telegraph Office." It was closed. Heknocked and rattled, and finally pounded on the glass with his umbrellahandle.

  Her nerves went all to pieces. "Can't you see," she called impatiently,"that there's no one there?"

  "There will be some one!" he shouted in reply, and fell to pounding sovigorously that she thought the glass would surely break. But it didnot; after a while the window flew up and an angry face just escaped ablow from the vibrating umbrella handle. A violent altercation followed,the operator raging, but Craig more uproarious than he and having thefurther advantage of a more extensive and more picturesque vocabulary.Finally the operator said: "I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself.Don't you see there's a lady present?"

  "It's my wife," said Craig. "Now take this message and get it off atonce. You should thank me for not having you dismissed."

  The operator read the message. His face changed and he said in a surlilyapologetic manner: "I'll send it off right away, Mr. Craig. Anythingelse?"

  "That's all, my friend," said Josh. He returned to his wife's side. Shewas all confusion and doubt again. Here they were back in civilization,and her man of the woods was straightway running amuck. What should shedo? What COULD she do? WHAT had she got herself into by marrying?

  But he was speaking. "My dear," he was saying in his sharp, insistentvoice, that at once aroused and enfeebled the nerves, "I must talk fast,as the train comes in fifteen or twenty minutes--the train forChicago--for Minneapolis--for Wayne--for home--OUR home."

  She started up from the seat, pale, quivering, her hands clinchedagainst her bosom.

  "For home," he repeated, fixing her with his resolute, green-blue eyes."Please, sit down."

  She sank to the seat. "Do you mean--" she began, but her faltering voicecould not go on.

  "I've resigned from office," said he, swift and calm. "I've told thePresident I'll not take the Attorney-Generalship. I've telegraphed yourpeople at Lenox that we're not coming. And I'm going home to run forGovernor. My telegrams assure me the nomination, and, with the hold I'vegot on the people, that means election, sure pop. I make my first speechday after to-morrow afternoon--with you on the platform beside me."

  "You are mistaken," she said in a cold, hard voice. "You--"

  "Now don't speak till you've thought, and don't think till I finish. Asyou yourself said, Washington's no place for us--at present. Anyhow, theway to get there right is to be sent there from the people--by thepeople. You are the wife of a public man, but you've had no training."

  "I--" she began.

  "Hear me first," he said, between entreaty and command. "You think I'mthe one that's got it all to learn. Think again. The littletiddledywinks business that I've got to learn--all the value there is inthe mass of balderdash about manners and dress--I can learn it in a fewlessons. You can teach it to me in no time. But what you've got tolearn--how to be a wife, how to live on a modest income, how to takecare of me, and help me in my career, how to be a woman instead of,largely, a dressmaker's or a dancing-master's expression forlady-likeness--to learn all that is going to take time. And we mustbegin at once; for, as I told you, the house is afire."

  She opened her lips to speak.

  "No--not yet," said he. "One thing more. You've been thinking thingsabout me. Well, do you imagine this busy brain of mine hasn't beenthinking a few things about you? Why, Margaret, you need me even morethan I need you, though I need you more than I'd dare try to tell you.You need just such a man as me to give you direction and purpose--REALbackbone. Primping and preening in carriages and parlors--THAT isn'tlife. It's the frosting on the cake. Now, you and I, we're going to havethe cake itself. Maybe with, maybe without the frosting. BUT NOT THEFROSTING WITHOUT THE CAKE, MARGARET!"

  "So!" she exclaimed, drawing a long breath when he had ended. "So! THISis why you chose that five o'clock train and sent Selina back. Youthought to--"

  He laughed as if echoing delight from her; he patted herenthusiastically on the knee. "You've guessed it! Go up head! I didn'twant you to have time to say and do foolish things."

  She bit her lip till the blood came. Ringing in her ears and defying herefforts to silence them were those words of his about the cake and thefrosting--"the cake, maybe with, maybe without frosting; BUT NOT THEFROSTING WITHOUT THE CAKE!" She started to speak; but it was nointerruption from him that checked her, for he sat silent, looking ather with all his fiery strength of soul in his magnetic eyes. Again shestarted to speak; and a third time; and each time checked herself. Thisimpossible man, this creator of impossible situations! She did not knowhow to begin, or how to go on after she should have begun. She felt thateven if she had known what to say she would probably lack the courage tosay it--that final-test courage which only the trained in self-reliancehave. The door opened. A station attendant came in out of the frostynight and shouted:

  "Chicago Expr
ess! Express for--Buffalo! Chicago! Minneapolis! St.Paul!--the Northwest!--the Far West! All--a--BOARD!"

  Craig seized the handbags. "Come on, my dear!" he cried, getting intorapid motion.

  She sat still.

  He was at the door. "Come on," he said.

  She looked appealingly, helplessly round that empty, lonely, strangestation, its lights dim, its suggestions all inhospitable. "He has me athis mercy," she said to herself, between anger and despair. "How can Irefuse to go without becoming the laughing-stock of the whole world?"

  "Come on--Rita!" he cried. The voice was aggressive, but his face wasdeathly pale and the look out of his eyes was the call of a greatloneliness. And she saw it and felt it. She braced herself against it;but a sob surged up in her throat--the answer of her heart to hisheart's cry of loneliness and love.

  "Chicago Express!" came in the train-caller's warning roar from behindher, as if the room were crowded instead of tenanted by those two only."All aboard!... Hurry up, lady, or you'll get left!"

  Get left!... Left!--the explosion of that hoarse, ominous voice seemedto blow Mrs. Joshua Craig from the seat, to sweep her out through thedoor her husband was holding open, and into the train for their home.

  THE END