As the meal progressed, she realized that her dim forebodings were fast materializing into a certain danger. Unless she acted promptly this slip of a girl was going to affect, fundamentally, all their lives. Already, it seemed as though she had been amongst them a long time and had colored the future of them all. Mrs. Wade understood far better than her husband would have supposed that, in his own way, his married life had been as starved as her own; oh, far more so, for she had her boy. And while it was not at all likely, it was not wholly impossible that he might seek a readjustment. It seemed far-fetched for her to sit thus and feel that drama was entering their hard lives when nothing had really happened, but nevertheless—she knew. As, outwardly so calm, she speculated with tumbled thoughts on how it might end, she tried to analyze why it was that the prospect of a shake-up filled her with such a sense of disaster. Surely, it was not because of any reluctance to separate from Martin. Her life would be far easier if they went their own ways. With Bill, she could make a home anywhere, one that was far more real, in a house from which broken promises did not sound as from a trumpet. Ashes of resentment still smouldered against Martin because of that failure of his to play fair. She recalled the years during which she had helped him to earn with never an unexpected pleasure; reflected with bitterness that never, since they had cast their lives together, had he urged her to indulge in any sweet little extravagance, though he had denied himself nothing that he really wished. It was no riddle to her, as it had been to her niece earlier in the evening, why the same hard work had dealt so benignly with Martin and so uncharitably with herself. She comprehended only too well that it was not that alone which had crushed her. It was his ceaseless domination over her, the utter subjugation of her will, her complete lack of freedom. She glanced across the table at him, astounded by his hearty laugh in response to one of Rose’s sallies. It seemed incredible that it could be really Martin’s. It had such a ring and came out so easily as if he were more inclined to merriment than to silence. Usually, he seemed made of long strips of thin steel, but under the inspiration of Rose’s presence he had become animated, brisk, interesting. No wonder she was being drawn to him.
It was as if he had withheld from his wife a secret alchemy that had kept him handsome and attractive, as compelling as when he had come in search of herself so long ago. And now that the last vestige of her own bloom was gone, he was laughing at her, inwardly, as a cunning person does who plays a malicious trick on a simpler, more trusting, soul. Only it had taken twenty years to spring the point of this one. Hatred welled in her heart; a sad, weary hatred that knew no tears. She wished that she might hurt him as he had hurt her. Yet, with her usual honesty, she presently admitted how easy it would be for this malevolence to melt away—a word, a look, a gesture from Martin and the heart in her would flood with forgiveness; but the look did not come, the word was unuttered.
He was squandering, she continued to observe, sufficient evidence of his interest at the feet of this child who never would have missed it, while she, herself, who could have lifted mountains from her breast with one tenth of this appreciation, was left, as she always had been left, without the love her being craved, the love of a mate, rising full and strong to meet her own. It was a yearning that the most cherished of children could never satisfy and as she watched Martin and Rose her position seemed to her to be that of a hungry pauper, brought to the table of a rich gourmand, there to look on helplessly while the other toyed carelessly with the precious morsels of which she was in such extreme need. And what rankled was that these thoughts were futile, that too much water had run under the bridge, that it was her lot in Martin’s life merely to accept what was offered her. She knew that the marks of her many hours of suppressed anguish, thousands of days of toil and long series of disappointments were thick upon her. She realized, too, how ironical it was that with all her work she should have grown to be so ungainly although Martin retained the old magnetism of his gorgeous physique. There was no doubt that if he chose, he could still hold a woman’s devotion. Yes, for him there was an open road from this gray monotony, if he had the will and the courage to escape.
Suddenly, she found herself wondering what effect all this would have on Bill. She stole a surreptitious glance at him, but he, too, seemed to have been caught up by Rose’s gay, good humor. Mrs. Wade sighed as she remembered how everyone had flocked around Norah. Rose had inherited her mother’s charm. Such women were a race apart. They could no more be held responsible for trying to please than a flower for exhaling its fragrance. At what a lovely moment of life she was! Small wonder that Martin was captivated, but not even the shadow of harm must fall on that fresh young spirit while she was under their roof. If things went much further she would have it out with him. And this decision reached, Mrs. Wade felt her usual composure gradually return, nor did it again desert her during the long evening through which it seemed to her as if her husband must be some stranger.
CHAPTER VII
Martin Battles With Dust
The human animal is a strange spectacle to behold, let alone comprehend. Not infrequently he goes along for years developing a state of mind, a consistent attitude, and then having got it thoroughly established does something in distinct contradiction to it. Martin had never cared for music, but when one evening, a little more than a week after Rose’s arrival, she suggested, with a laughing lilt, her fondness for it, he agreed that he had missed it in his home and, to Bill’s and Mrs. Wade’s unbelieving surprise, dwelt at length upon his enjoyment of Fallon’s band and his longing to blow a cornet. A little later, finding an excuse to leave, he drove into town on a mission so foreign to his iron-clad character that it seemed to cry against his every instinct, but which, for all that, he did with such simplicity as to indicate that it was the most natural step imaginable. He actually bought a two-hundred-dollar mahogany Victrola and an assortment of records, bringing both home with him in his car and, assisted eagerly by Bill, carrying them into the front room with an air that said it was a purchase he had been intending to make for a long time. Rose rewarded him with her bubbling delight and her aunt noticed with an odd constriction about her heart how Bill revelled at last in the new treasure, until now so hopelessly coveted. Martin had never shone to better advantage than this evening as he helped select and put on different pieces, lending himself to the mood of each. It was while a foot-stirring dance was on that Rose asked suddenly:
“Oh, Uncle Martin, do you know how?”
He shook his head. “You’ll have to teach me to square up for learning to drive the car.”
“That’s a bargain; and I’ll teach Bill too,” she added with native tact. But Mrs. Wade, ill at ease in her own parlor, caught the afterthought quality of Rose’s tone. There was no question but that it was for Martin she sparkled, sweet and spontaneous as she was. Decidedly, the time had come when definite action should not be delayed.
It was nearly twelve o’clock when they finally broke up and husband and wife found themselves alone in their own room. As they undressed, Mrs. Wade acted nervously, confused as to how to begin, while Martin whistled lightly and kept time by a slight bobbing of his head. She shot a meaning look in his direction.
“You seem happy, don’t you?”
He stopped whistling instantly and assumed his more normal look of set sternness. This was the man she knew and she preferred him that way, rather than buoyant because of some other woman, even though that other was as lovable and innocent of any deliberate mischief as her niece. Not that she was jealous so much as she was hurt. When a woman has fortified herself, after years of the existence to which Mrs. Wade had submitted, with the final conviction that undoubtedly her husband’s is a nature that cannot be other than it is, and then learns there are emotional potentialities not yet plumbed, not to mention a capacity for pleasant comradeship of which he has never vouchsafed her an inkling, she finds herself being ground between the millstones of an aching admission of her own deficiencies and a tattered, but rebellious, pride
.
Martin, when her remark concerning his apparent happiness had registered, let his answer be a sober inspection of the garment he had just removed.
“I don’t suppose you can talk to me now after such a strenuous evening,” she went on more emphatically. And as he maintained his silence, she continued with: “Oh, don’t think I’m blind, Martin Wade. I know exactly how far this has gone and I know how far it can go.”
“What are you driving at?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean—the way you are behaving toward Rose.”
“Are you trying to imply that I’m carrying on with her?”
“I certainly am. I’m not angry, Martin. I never was calmer than I am right now, and I don’t intend to say things just for the sake of saying them. I only want you to know that I have eyes, and that I don’t want to be made a fool of.”
To her surprise, Martin came over to her and, looking at her steadily, returned with amazing candidness: “I’m not going to lie to you. You’re perfectly welcome to know what’s in my mind. I love her with every beat of my heart—she has brought something new into my life, something sacred—you’ve always thought I cared for nothing but work, that all I lived for was to plan and scheme how to make money. Haven’t you? I don’t blame you. It’s what I’ve always believed, but tonight I’ve learned something.” Mrs. Wade could see his blood quicken. “She has been in this house only a few days and already I am alive with a new fire. It seems as if these hours are the only ones in which I have ever really lived—nothing else matters. Nothing! If there could be the slightest chance of my winning her love, of making her feel as I am feeling now, I’d build my world over again even if I had to tear all of the old one down.” Martin was now talking to himself, oblivious to his wife’s presence, indifferent to her. “Happiness is waiting for me with her, with my little flower.”
“Your Rose of Sharon?” Her tone was biting.
“If only I could say that! My Rose of Sharon!” It seemed to Mrs. Wade that the very room quivered with his low cry that was almost a groan. “I know what you’re thinking,” he went on, “but you know I have never loved you. You knew it when I married you, you must have.” The twisting agony of it—that he could make capital out of the very crux of all her suffering. “I have never deceived you and I never intend to. My life with you hasn’t been a Song of Solomon, but I’m not complaining.”
“You’re not complaining! I hope I won’t start complaining, Martin.”
“Well, now you know how I feel. I’ll go on with the present arrangement between us, but I’m playing square with you—it’s because there’s no hope for me. If I thought she cared for me, I would go to her, right now, tonight, and pour out my heart to her, wife or no wife. Oh, Rose, have pity! It can’t do you any harm if I drink a little joy—don’t spoil her faith in me! Don’t frighten her away. I can’t bear the thought of her going out into the world to work. She’s like a gentle little doe feeding on lilies—she doesn’t dream of the pitfalls ahead of her. And she will never know—she doesn’t even suspect how I feel towards her. She will meet some young fellow in town and marry. I’m too old for her—but Rose, you don’t understand what it means to me to have her in the same house, to know that she is sleeping so near, so beautiful, so ready for love; that when I wake up tomorrow she will still be here.”
Disarmed and partly appeased by the frankness of his confession, Mrs. Wade sat silently taking in each word, studying him with wet eyes, her lips almost blue, her breath a little short. The fire in his voice, the reality of his strange, terrible love, the eyes that gazed so sadly and so unexpectantly into space, the hands that seemed to have shed their weight of toil and clutched, too late, for the bright flowers of happiness—all filled her with compassion. Never had he looked so splendid. He seemed, in casting off his thongs, to have taken on some of the Herculean quality of his own magnificent gesture. It was as if their barnyard well had burst into a mighty, high-shooting geyser. To her dying day would she remember that surge of passion. To have met it with anger would have been of as little avail as the stamp of a protesting foot before the tremors of an earthquake.
She offered him the comforting directness which she might have given Bill. “I didn’t know you felt so deeply, Martin. Life plays us all tricks; it’s played many with me, and it’s playing one of its meanest with you, for whatever happens you are going to suffer—far more than I am. You can believe it or not, but I’m sorry.”
Martin felt oddly grateful to her; he had not expected this sense of understanding. She might have burst into wild tears. Instead, she was pitying him. More possessed of his usual immobility, he remarked:
“I must be a fool, a great, pathetic fool. I look into a girl’s eyes and immediately see visions. I say a few words to her and she is kind enough to say a few to me and I see pictures of new happiness. I should have more sense. I don’t know what is the matter with me.”
Although countless answers leaped to his wife’s tongue she made none but the cryptic: “Well, it’s no use to discuss it any more tonight. We both need rest.” But all the while that she was undressing with her usual sure, swift movements, and after she had finally slipped between the sheets, her mind was racing.
She was soon borne so completely out on the current of her own thoughts that she forgot Martin’s actual presence. She remembered as if it were yesterday, the afternoon he came to the office and asked her to marry him. She wondered anew, as she had wondered a thousand times, if anything other than a wish for a housekeeper had prompted him. She remembered her misgivings—how she had read into him qualities which she had believed all these years were not there. But hadn’t her intuition been justified, after all, by the very man she had seen tonight? Yes, her first feeling, that he was something finer, still in the rough, had been correct. She had thought it was his shyness, his unaccustomedness to women that had made him such a failure as a lover—and all the while it had been simply that she was not the right woman. When love touched him, he became a veritable white light.
All these years when he had been so cold, so hard toward her, it simply was because he disliked her. She remembered the day she was hurt, and the night her first baby came. Martin’s brutality even now kindled in her a dull blazing anger, and as she realized what depths of feeling were in him, his callousness seemed intensified an hundred-fold. Well, she was having her revenge. All his life he had thwarted her, stolen from her, used her as one could not use even a hired hand, worked her more as a slave-driver hurries his underlings that profits may mount; now, by her mere existence, she was thwarting him. She saw him again as he had flashed before her when he had talked of Rose and she admitted bitterly to herself, what in her heart she had known all along—that if Martin could have loved her, she could have worshipped him. Instead, he had slowly smothered her, but she had at least a dignity in the community. He should not harm that. If they were unhappy, at least no one knew it. Her pride was her refuge. If that were violated she felt life would hold no sanctuary, that her soul would be stripped naked before the world.
But why was she afraid? Didn’t Martin have his own position to think of? What if he had said nothing was to be compared to his new-found love for Rose. What stupidity on his part not to realize that it was his very position, power and money that commanded her respect. Did he command anything else from her? Mrs. Wade reviewed the evening. Yes, response had been in Rose’s laugh, in every movement. Hadn’t she always adored Martin, even as a tiny girl? Hadn’t there always been some mystic bond between them? How she had envied them then. But if Martin were to go to her with only his love? From the depths of her observations of people she took comfort. He might stir his lovely Rose of Sharon to the uttermost, had he been free he might have won her for his wife—but would it be possible for fifty-four to hold the attention of twenty for long if he had nothing but his love to offer?
Such thoughts were hurrying through her heated mind as Martin slowly laid himself beside her. He said nothing, but lost hims
elf in a flood of ceaseless ponderings. After stretching some of the tiredness out of his throbbing muscles, he relaxed and lay quietly, trying to recall exactly what he had said. Did his wife suspect that there might be no truth in the remark that Rose would never know how he felt toward her? At moments he felt that the girl already divined it, again he was not so sure. It was hard to be certain, but the more he thought about it the more hope he began to feel that she would yet be wholly his. Her admiration and trust belonged to him now, but there might be moral scruples which he would have to overcome. There would be the difficulty of convincing her that she would be doing her aunt no wrong. She would gain courage, however, from his own heedlessness. That same daring which he had just shown with the older Rose and which had impressed her into silence would eventually move his flower to him. He had thrown down the bars. Secrecy was now out of the question and it was well that he was moving thus in the open. Rose might shrink at first from the plain-spokenness of the situation, but this phase would soon pass and then the fact that she knew he was not hiding his love for her even from his wife would make it far easier to press his suit and possibly to bring it to a swift consummation.
He must win her! He must. He had been mad to admit to himself, much less to his Rag-weed, that there was any doubt of this outcome. It might take a few more days, a week, not longer than that. But what should he do when Rose gave the message to him? Could he go away with her? This bothered him for a while. Of course, he would have to. He could not send his wife away. The community would not tolerate this. Martin knew his neighbors. He did not care a snap for their good opinion, but he realized exactly how much they could hurt him if he violated their prejudices beyond a certain point. Fortunately, there are millions of communities in the world. This one would rise against him and denounce, another would accept them as pleasant strangers. He might be taken for Rose’s father! He would fight this with tireless care. Yes, he would have to go away. But his business interests—what about his farm, his cattle, his machinery, his bank stock, his mortgages, his municipal bonds? How wonderful it would be if he could go with her to the station—his securities in a grip, his other possessions turned into a bank draft! But this woman lying at his side—the law gave her such a large share.
The Second Western Megapack Page 26