His Family
Page 14
“This poor devil,” Roger thought, with a pitying glance at Baird, “might just as well be marrying a widow with three thousand brats.”
But Baird did not seem in the least dismayed. On the contrary, his assurance appeared to be deepening every week, and with it Deborah’s air of alarm. For his clinic, as it swiftly grew, he secured financial backing from his rich women patients uptown, many of them childless and only too ready to respond to the appeals he made to them. And one Saturday evening at the house, while dining with Roger and Deborah, he told of an offer he had had from a wealthy banker’s widow to build a maternity hospital. He talked hungrily of all it could do in co-operation with the school. He said nothing of the obvious fact that it would require his whole time, but Roger thought of that at once, and by the expression on Deborah’s face he saw she was thinking, too.
He felt they wanted to be alone, so presently he left them. From his study he could hear their voices growing steadily more intense. Was it all about work? He could not tell. “They’ve got working and living so mixed up, a man can’t possibly tell ‘em apart.”
Then his daughter was called to the telephone, and Allan came in to bid Roger good-night. And his eyes showed an impatience he did not seem to care to hide.
“Well?” inquired Roger. “Did you get Deborah’s consent?”
“To what?” asked Allan sharply.
“To your acceptance,” Roger answered, “of the widow’s mite.” Baird grinned.
“She couldn’t help herself,” he said.
“But she didn’t seem to like it, eh—”
“No,” said Baird, “she didn’t.” Roger had a dark suspicion.
“By the way,” he asked in a casual tone, “what’s this philanthropic widow like?”
“She’s sixty-nine,” Baird answered.
“Oh,” said Roger. He smoked for a time, and sagely added, “My daughter’s a queer woman, Baird—she’s modern, very modern. But she’s still a woman, you understand—and so she’s jealous—of her job.” But A. Baird was in no joking mood.
“She’s narrow,” he said sternly. “That’s what’s the matter with Deborah. She’s so centered on her job she can’t see anyone else’s. She thinks I’m doing all this work solely in order to help her school—when if she’d use some imagination and try to put herself in my shoes, she’d see the chance it’s giving me!”
“How do you mean?” asked Roger, looking a bit bewildered.
“Why,” said Baird with an impatient fling of his hand, “there are men in my line all over the country who’d leave home, wives and children for the chance I’ve blundered onto here! A hospital fully equipped for research, a free hand, an opportunity which comes to one man in a million! But can she see it? Not at all! It’s only an annex to her school!”
“Yes,” said Roger gravely, “she’s in a pretty unnatural state. I think she ought to get married, Baird—” To his friendly and disarming twinkle Baird replied with a rueful smile.
“You do, eh,” he growled. “Then tell her to plan her wedding to come before her funeral.” As he rose to go, Roger took his hand.
“I’ll tell her,” he said. “It’s sound advice. Good-night, my boy, I wish you luck.”
A few moments later he heard in the hall their brief good-nights to each other, and presently Deborah came in. She was not looking quite herself.
“Why are you eyeing me like that?” his daughter asked abruptly.
“Aren’t you letting him do a good deal for you?”
Deborah flushed a little:
“Yes, I am. I can’t make him stop.”
Her father hesitated.
“You could,” he said, “if you wanted to. If you were sure,” he added slowly, “that you didn’t love him—and told him so.” He felt a little panic, for he thought he had gone too far. But his daughter only turned away and restlessly moved about the room. At last she came to her father’s chair:
“Hadn’t you better leave this to me?”
“I had, my dear, I most certainly had. I was all wrong to mention it,” he answered very humbly.
* * * * *
From this night on, Baird changed his tack. Although soon busy with the plans for the hospital, to be built at once, he said little about it to Deborah. Instead, he insisted on taking her off on little evening sprees uptown.
“Do you know what’s the matter with both of us?” he said to her one evening. “We’ve been getting too durned devoted to our jobs and our ideals. You’re becoming a regular school marm and I’m getting to be a regular slave to every wretched little babe who takes it into his head to be born. We haven’t one redeeming vice.”
And again he took up dancing. The first effort which he made, down at Deborah’s school one evening, was a failure quite as dismal as his attempts of the previous year. But he did not appear in the least discouraged. He came to the house one Friday night.
“I knew I could learn to dance,” he said, “in spite of all your taunts and jibes. That little fiasco last Saturday night—”
“Was perfectly awful,” Deborah said.
“Did not discourage me in the least,” he continued severely. “I decided the only trouble with me was that I’m tall and I’ve got to bend—to learn to bend.”
“Tremendously!”
“So I went to a lady professor, and she saw the point at once. Since then I’ve had five lessons, and I can fox-trot in my sleep. To-morrow is Saturday. Where shall we go?”
“To the theater.”
“Good. We’ll start with that. But the minute the play is over we’ll gallop off to the Plaza Grill—just as the music is in full swing—”
“And we’ll dance,” she groaned, “for hours. And when I get home, I’ll creep into bed so tired and sore in every limb—”
“That you’ll sleep late Sunday morning. And a mighty good thing for you, too—if you ask my advice—”
“I don’t ask your advice!”
“You’re getting it, though,” he said doggedly. “If you’re still to be a friend of mine we’ll dance at the Plaza to-morrow night—and well into the Sabbath.”
“The principal of a public school—dancing on the Sabbath. Suppose one of my friends should see us there.”
“Your friends,” he replied with a fine contempt, “do not dance in the Plaza Grill. I’m the only roisterer you know.”
“All right,” she conceded grudgingly, “I’ll roister. Come and get me. But I’d much prefer when the play is done to come home and have milk and crackers here.”
“Deborah,” he said cheerfully, “for a radical school reformer you’re the most conservative woman I know.”
CHAPTER XVIII
In Deborah’s school, in the meantime, affairs had drawn to a climax. The moment had come for the city to say whether her new experiment should be dropped the following year or allowed to go on and develop. There came a day of sharp suspense when Deborah’s friends and enemies on the Board of Education sat down to discuss and settle her fate. They were at it for several hours, but late in the afternoon they decided not only to let her go on the next year but to try her idea in four other schools and place her in charge with ample funds. The long strain came to an end at last in a triumph beyond her wildest hopes; when the news arrived she relaxed, grew limp, and laughed and cried a little. And her father felt her tremble as he held her a moment in his arms.
“Now, Baird,” he thought, “your chance has come. For God’s sake, take it while it’s here!”
But in place of Baird that afternoon came men and women from the press, and friends and fellow workers. The door-bell and the telephone kept ringing almost incessantly. Why couldn’t they leave her a moment’s peace? Roger buried himself in his study. Later, when he was called to dinner, he found that Allan was there, too, but at first the conversation was all upon Deborah’s victory. Flushed with success, for the moment engrossed in the wider field she saw ahead, she had not a thought for anything else. But after dinner the atmosphere changed.
She grew repentant and grateful, first to her father and then to Allan, and then more and more to Allan, with her happy eyes on his. And with a keen worried look at them both, Roger rose and left the room.
* * * * *
Baird was leaning forward. He had both her hands in his own.
“Well?” he asked. “Will you marry me now?”
Her eyes were looking straight into his. They kept moving slightly, searching his. Her wide, sensitive lips were tightly compressed, but did not quite hide their quivering. When she spoke her voice was low and a little queer and breathless:
“Do you want any children, Allan?”
“Yes.”
“So do I. And with children, what of my work?”
“I don’t want to stop your work. If you marry me we’ll go right on. You see I know you, Deborah, I know you’ve always grown like that—by risking what you’ve got to-day for something more to-morrow.”
“I’ve never taken a risk like this!”
“I tell you this time it’s no risk! Because you’re a grown woman—formed! I’m not making a saint of you. You’re no angel down among the poor because you feel it’s your duty in life—it’s your happiness, your passion! You couldn’t neglect them if you tried!”
“But the time,” she asked him quickly. “Where shall I find the time for it all?”
“A man finds time enough,” he answered, “even when he’s married.”
“But I’m not a man, I’m a woman,” she said. And in a low voice which thrilled him, “A woman who wants a child of her own!” His lean muscular right hand contracted sharply upon hers. She winced, drew back a little.
“Oh—I’m sorry!” he whispered. Then he asked her again,
“Will you marry me now?” She looked suddenly up:
“Let’s wait awhile, please! It won’t be long—I’m in love with you, Allan, I’m sure of that now! And I’m not drawing back, I’m not afraid! Oh, I want you to feel I’m not running away! What I want to do is to face this square! It may be silly and foolish but—you see, I’m made like that. I want a little longer—I want to think it out by myself.”
* * * * *
When Allan had gone she came in to her father. And her radiant expression made him bounce up from his chair.
“By George,” he cried, “he asked you!”
“Yes!”
“And you’ve taken him!”
“No!”
Roger gasped.
“Look here!” he demanded, angrily. “What’s the matter? Are you mad?” She threw back her head and laughed at him.
“No, I’m not—I’m happy!”
“What the devil about?” he snapped.
“We’re going to wait a bit, that’s all, till we’re sure of everything!” she cried.
“Then,” said Roger disgustedly, “you’re smarter than your father is. I’m sure of nothing—nothing! I have never been sure in all my days! If I’d waited, you’d never have been born!”
“Oh, dearie,” she begged him smilingly. “Please don’t be so unhappy just now—”
“I’ve a right to be!” said Roger. “I see my house agog with this—in a turmoil—in a turmoil!”
* * * * *
But again he was mistaken. It was in fact astonishing how the old house quieted down. There came again one of those peaceful times, when his home to Roger’s senses seemed to settle deep, grow still, and gather itself together. Day by day he felt more sure that Deborah was succeeding in making her work fit into her swiftly deepening passion for a full happy woman’s life. And why shouldn’t they live here, Allan and she? The thought of this dispelled the cloud which hung over the years he saw ahead. How smoothly things were working out. The monstrous new buildings around his house seemed to him to draw back as though balked of their prey.
On the mantle in Roger’s study, for many years a bronze figure there, “The Thinker,” huge and naked, forbidding in its crouching pose, the heavy chin on one clenched fist, had brooded down upon him. And in the years that had been so dark, it had been a figure of despair. Often he had looked up from his chair and grimly met its frowning gaze. But Roger seldom looked at it now, and even when it caught his eye it had little effect upon him. It appeared to brood less darkly. For though he did not think it out, there was this feeling in his mind:
“There is to be nothing startling in this quiet home of mine, no crashing deep calamity here.”
Only the steadily deepening love between a grown man and a woman mature, both sensible, strong people with a firm control of their destinies. He felt so sure of this affair. For now, her tension once relaxed with the success which had come to her after so many long hard years, a new Deborah was revealed, more human in her yieldings. She let Allan take her off on the wildest little sprees uptown and out into the country. To Roger she seemed younger, more warm and joyous and more free. He loved to hear her laugh these nights, to catch the glad new tones in her voice.
“There is to be no tragedy here.”
So, certain of this union and wistful for all he felt it would bring, Roger watched its swift approach. And when the news came, he was sure he’d been right. Because it came so quietly.
“It’s settled, dear, at last it’s sure. Allan and I are to be married.” She was standing by his chair. Roger reached up and took her hand:
“I’m glad. You’ll be very happy, my child.”
She bent over and kissed him, and putting his arm around her he drew her down on the side of his chair.
“Now tell me all your plans,” he said. And her answer brought him a deep peace.
“We’re going abroad for the summer—and then if you’ll have us we want to come here.” Roger abruptly shut his eyes.
“By George, Deborah,” he said, “you do have a way of getting right into the heart of things!” His arm closed about her with new strength and he felt all his troubles flying away.
“What a time we’ll have, what a rich new life.” Her deep sweet voice was a little unsteady. “Listen, dearie, how quiet it is.” And for some moments nothing was heard but the sober tick-tick of the clock on the mantle. “I wonder what we’re going to hear.”
And they thought of new voices in the house.
CHAPTER XIX
Edith was radiant at the news.
“I do hope they’re not going to grudge themselves a good long wedding trip!” she exclaimed.
“They’re going abroad,” said Roger.
“Oh, splendid! And the wedding! Church or home?”
“Home,” said Roger blissfully, “and short and simple, not a frill. Just the family.”
“Oh, that’s so nice,” sighed Edith. “I was afraid she’d want to drag in her school.”
“School will be out by then,” he said.
“Well, I hope it stays out—for the remainder of her days. She can’t do both, and she’ll soon see. Wait till she has a child of her own.”
“Well, she wants one bad enough.”
“Yes, but can she?” Edith asked, with the engrossed expression which came on her pretty florid face whenever she neared such a topic. She spoke with evident awkwardness. “That’s the trouble. Is it too late? Deborah’s thirty-one, you know, and she has lived her life so hard. The sooner she gives up her school the better for her chances.”
The face of her father clouded.
“Look here,” he said uneasily, “I wouldn’t go talking to her—quite along those lines, my dear.”
“I’m not such an idiot,” she replied. “She thinks me homely enough as it is. And she’s not altogether wrong. Bruce and I were talking it over last night. We want to be closer, after this, to Deborah and Allan. Bruce says it will do us all good, and for once I think he’s right. I have given too much time to my children, and Bruce to his office—I see it now
. Not that I regret it, but—well, we’re going to blossom out.”
* * * * *
She struck the same note with Deborah. And so did Bruce.
“Oh, Deborah dear,” he said smiling, when he found a chance to see her alone, “if you knew how long I’ve waited for this big fine thing to happen. A. Baird is my best chum in the world. Don’t yank him gently away from us now. We’ll keep close—eh?—all four of us.”
“Very,” said Deborah softly.
“And you mustn’t get too solemn, you know. You won’t pull too much of the highbrow stuff.”
“Heaven forbid!”
“That’s the right idea. We’ll have some fine little parties together. You and A. Baird will give us a hand and get us out in the evenings. We need it, God knows, we’ve been getting old.” Deborah threw him a glance of affection.
“Why, Brucie,” she said, in admiring tones, “I knew you had it in you.”
“So has Edith,” he sturdily declared. “She only needs a little shove. We’ll show you two that we’re regular fellows. Don’t you be all school and we won’t be all home. We’ll jump out of our skins and be young again.”
* * * * *
In pursuance of this gay resolve, Bruce planned frequent parties to theaters and musical shows, and to Edith’s consternation he even began to look about for a teacher from whom he could learn to dance. “A. Baird,” he told her firmly, “isn’t going to be the only soubrette in this family.”
One of the most hilarious of these small celebrations came early in June, when they dined all four together and went to the summer’s opening of “The Follies of 1914.” The show rather dragged a bit at first, but when Bert Williams took the stage Bruce’s laugh became so contagious that people in seats on every hand turned to look at him and join in his glee. Only one thing happened to mar the evening’s pleasure. When they came outside the theater Bruce found in his car something wrong with the engine. He tinkered but it would not go. Allan hailed a taxi.
“Why not come with us?” asked Deborah.
“No, thanks,” said Bruce. “I’ve got this car to look after.”
“Oh, let it wait,” urged Allan.