The Romance of a Plain Man

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE RED FLAG AT THE GATE

  Sally was not beside me when I awoke in the morning, nor was she sippingher coffee by the window, as I had sometimes found her doing when Islept late. Going downstairs an hour afterwards, I discovered her, forthe first time since our marriage, awaiting me in the dining-room. Inher dainty breakfast jacket of blue silk, with a bit of lace and ribbonframing her wreath of plaits, she appeared to my tired eyes as theembodied freshness and buoyancy of the morning. Would her sparklinggaiety endure, I wondered, through the monotonous days ahead, whenpoverty became, not a child's play, not a game tricked out by theimagination, but the sordid actuality of hard work and hourlyself-denial?

  "I am practising early rising, Ben," she said, "and it's astonishingwhat an appetite it gives one. I've made the coffee myself, and AuntMehitable has just taught me how to make yeast. One can never tell whatmay come useful, you know, and if we go to live somewhere in a jungle,which I'm quite prepared to do, you'd be glad to know that I could makeyeast, wouldn't you?"

  "I suppose so, sweetheart, and as a matter of fact," I added presently,"this is the best cup of coffee I've had for many a month."

  Laughing merrily, she perched herself on the arm of my chair, and sippedout of the cup I held toward her. "Of course it is. So you've gainedthat much by losing everything. It's very strange, Ben, and you mayconsider it presumptuous, but I've a profound conviction somewhere inthe bottom of my heart that I can do everything better than anybodyelse, if I once turn my hand to it. At this minute I haven't a doubtthat my yeast is better than Aunt Mehitable's. I'm going to cook dinner,too, and she'll be positively jealous of my performance. How do we knowwhether or not we'll meet any cooks in the jungle? And if we do, they'llprobably be tigers--"

  "Oh, Sally, Sally! You think it play now, but what will you feel whenyou know it's earnest?"

  "Of course it's earnest. Do you imagine I'd get out of my bed at seveno'clock and cut up a slimy potato if it wasn't earnest? That may be youridea of play, but it's not mine."

  "And you expect to flutter about a stove in a pale blue breakfast jacketand a lace cap?"

  "Just as long as they last. When they go, I suppose I'll have to take tocalico, but it will be pretty calico, and pink. Pink calico don't cost apenny more than drab--and there's one thing I positively decline to do,even in a jungle, and that is look ugly."

  "You couldn't if you tried, my beauty."

  "Oh, yes, I could--I could look hideous--any woman could if she tried.But as long as it doesn't cost any more, you've no objection to mycooking in pink instead of drab, I suppose?"

  "I've an objection to your cooking in anything. Another cup of coffee,please."

  "Ben."

  "Yes, dear."

  "You never drank but one of Aunt Mehitable's."

  "I'm aware of it, and I'm aware of something else. It's worth beingpoor, Sally, to be poor with you."

  "Then give me another taste of your coffee. But you don't call thisbeing poor, do you, you silly boy?--with all this beautiful mahoganythat I can use for a mirror? This isn't any fun in the world. Just waituntil I spread the cloth over a pine table. Then we'll have something tolaugh at sure enough, Ben."

  "And I thought you'd cry!"

  "You thought a great many very foolish things, my dear. You even thoughtI'd married you because I wanted to be rich, and it seemed an easy way."

  "Only it turned out to be an easier way of getting poor."

  "Well, rich or poor, what I married you for, after all, was theessential thing."

  "And you've got it, sweetheart?"

  "Of course I've got it. If I didn't have it, do you think I'd be able tolaugh at a pine table?"

  "If I were only sure you realised it!"

  "You'll be sure enough when we are in the midst of it, and we'll be inthe midst of it, I don't doubt, in a little while. I've been thinkingpretty hard since last night, and this is what I worked out while I wasmaking yeast."

  "Let's have it, then."

  "Now, the first thing we've got to do is to get out of debt, isn't it?"

  "The very first thing, if it can be managed."

  "We'll manage it this way. The furniture and the silver and my jewelsmust all be sold, of course; that's easy. But even after we've donethat, there'll still be a great big burden to carry, I suppose?"

  "Pretty big, I'm afraid, for your shoulders."

  "Oh, we'll pay it every bit in the end. We won't go bankrupt. You'll goback to the railroad on a salary, and we'll begin to pinch on the spot."

  "Yes, but times are hard and salaries are low."

  "Anyway they're salaries, there's that much to be said for them. Andwhile we're pinching as hard as we can pinch, we'll move over to ChurchHill and rent two or three rooms in the old house with the enchantedgarden. All the servants will have to go except Aunt Euphronasia, whocouldn't go very far, poor thing, because she's rheumatic and can'tstand on her feet. She can sit still very well, however, and rock thebaby, and I'll look after the rooms and get the meals--I'm glad they'llbe simple ones--and we'll put by every penny that we can save."

  "The mere interest on the debt will take almost as much as we can save.There'll be some arrangement made, of course, and the payments will beeasy, but there's one thing I'm determined on, and that is that I'll payit, every cent, if I live. Then, too, there's chance, you know.Something may turn up--something almost always turns up to a man likemyself."

  "Well, if it turns up, we'll welcome it with open arms. But in themeantime we'll see if we can't scrape along without it. I'm going overthis morning to look for rooms. How soon, Ben, do you suppose they willevict us?"

  "Does there exist a woman," I demanded sternly, "who can be humorousover her own eviction?"

  "It's better to be humorous over one's own than over one's neighbour's,isn't it? And besides, a laugh may help things, but tears never do. Iwas born laughing, mamma always said."

  "Then laugh on, sweetheart."

  I had risen from the table, and was moving toward the door, when shecaught my arm.

  "There's only one thing I'll never, never consent to," she said, "youremember Dolly?"

  "Your old mare?"

  "I've pensioned her, you know, and I'll pay that pension as long as shelives if we both have to starve."

  "You shall do it if we're hanged and drawn for it--and now, Sally, Imust be off to my troubles!"

  "Then, good-by and be brave. Oh, Ben, my dearest, what is the matter?"

  "It's my head. I've been worrying too much, and it's gone back on melike that twice in the last few days."

  I went out hurriedly, convinced that even failure wasn't quite so bad asit had appeared from a distance; and Sally, following me to the door,stood smiling after me as I went down the block toward the car line.Looking back at the corner, I saw that she was still standing on thethreshold, with the sun in her eyes and her head held high under theruffle of lace and ribbon that framed her hair.

  The street was filled with people that morning, and at the end of thefirst block Bonny Page nodded to me jauntily, as she passed on her earlyride with Ned Marshall. Turning, almost unconsciously, my eyes followedher graceful, very erect figure, in its close black habit, swaying soperfectly with the motion of her chestnut mare. An immeasurable,wind-blown space seemed to stretch between us, and the very sound of thehorse's hoofs on the cobblestones in the street came to me, faint andthin, as if it had floated back from some remote past which I but dimlyremembered. I had never felt, even when standing at Bonny's side, that Iwas within speaking distance of her, and to-day, while I looked afterthe vanishing horses, I knew that odd, baffling sensation of strugglingto break through an inflexible, yet invisible barrier. Why was it that Iwho had won Sally should still remain so hopelessly divided from allthat to which Sally by right and by nature belonged?

  Farther down the two great sycamores, still gaunt and bare as skeletons,stood out against a sky of intense blueness; and on the crooked pavementbeneath, the shadows, fine and delic
ate as lace-work, rippled gently inthe wind that blew straight in from the river. Looking up from under thesilvery boughs, I saw the wire cage of the canary between the partedcurtains, and beyond it the pale oval face of Miss Mitty, with itsgrave, set smile, so like the smile of the painted Blands and Fairfaxesthat hung, in massive frames, on the drawing-room walls. In the midst ofmy own ruin an impulse of compassion entered my heart. The vacancy ofthe old grey house was like the vacancy of a tomb in which the asheshave scattered, and the one living spirit seemed that of the canarysinging joyously in his wire cage. Something in the song brought Sallyto my mind as she had appeared that morning at breakfast, and I feltagain the soft, comforting touch of the hand she had laid on my face.Then I turned my eyes to the street, and saw George Bolingbroke comingslowly toward me, beyond the last great sycamore, which grew midway ofthe bricks. At the sight of him all that had comforted or supported mecrumbled and fell. In its place came that sharp physical soreness--likethe soreness from violent action--that the shock of my failure hadbrought. I, who had meant so passionately to win in the race, wassuddenly crippled. Money, I had said, was all that I had to give, andyet I was beggared now even of that. Shorn of my power, what remained tome that would make me his match?

  He came up, taking his cigar from his mouth as he stopped, and flickingthe ashes away, while he stood looking at me with an expression ofsympathy which he struggled in vain, I saw, to dissemble. On his finelycoloured, though rather impassive features, there was the same darkeningof a carefully suppressed emotion--the same lines of anger drawn, not bytemper, but by suffering--that I had seen first at the club when hisfavourite hunter had died, and next on the day when the General hadspoken to him, in my presence, of my engagement to Sally. Under hisshort dark mustache, his thin, nervous lips were set closely together.

  "I'm awfully cut up, Ben," he said, "I declare I don't know when I wasever so cut up about anything before."

  "I'm cut up too, George, like the deuce, but it doesn't appear to helpmatters, somehow."

  "That's the worst thing about being a man of affairs like you--or likeUncle George," he observed, making an amiable effort to assure me thateven in the hour of adversity, I still held my coveted place in theGeneral's class; "when the crash comes, you big ones have to pay thepiper, while the rest of us small fry manage to go scot-free."

  It was put laboriously, but beneath the words I felt the force of thatpainful sympathy, too strong for concealment, and yet not strong enoughto break through the inherited habit of self-command. The General hadbroken through, I acknowledged, but then was not the very greatness ofthe great man the expression of an erratic departure from traditionsrather than of the perfect adherence to the racial type?

  "And the louder the music the bigger the cost of the piper," I observed,with a laugh.

  "Oh, you'll come out all right," he rejoined cheerfully, "things arenever so bad as they might be."

  "Well, I don't know that there's much comfort in reflecting that athunder-storm might have been accompanied by an earthquake."

  For a moment he stood in silence watching the end of his cigar, whichwent out in his hand. Then without meeting my eyes he asked in a voicethat had a curiously muffled sound:--

  "It's rough on Sally, isn't it? How does she stand it?"

  "As she stands everything--like an angel out of heaven."

  "Yes, you're right--she is an angel," he returned, still without lookinginto my face. An instant later, as if in response to an impulse whichfor once rose superior to the dead weight of custom, he blurted out witha kind of suffering violence, "I say, Ben, you know it's really awful.I'm so cut up about it I don't know what to do. I wish you'd let me helpyou out of this hole till you're on your feet. I've got nobody on me,you see, and I can't spend half of my income."

  For the first time in our long acquaintance the tables were turned; itwas George who was awkward now, and I who was perfectly at my ease.

  "I can't do that, George," I said quietly, "but I'm grateful to you allthe same. You're a first-rate chap."

  We shook hands with a grip, and while he still lingered to strike amatch and light the fresh cigar he had taken from his case, the littleyellow flame followed, like an illuminated pointer, the expression ofsuffering violence which showed so strangely upon his face. Then,tossing the match into the gutter, he went on his way, while I passedthe great scarred body of the sycamore and hurried down the long hill,which I never descended without recalling, as the General had said, thatI had once "toted potatoes for John Chitling."

  At the beginning of the next block, I saw the miniature box hedge andthe clipped yew in the little garden of Dr. Theophilus, and as I turneddown the side street, the face of the old man looked at me from themidst of some leafless red currant bushes that grew in clumps at the endof the walk.

  "Come in, Ben, come in a minute," he called, beaming at me over hislowered spectacles, "there's a thing or two I should like to say."

  As I entered the garden and walked along the tiny path, bordered byoyster shells, to the red currant bushes beyond, he laid hispruning-knife on the ground, and sat down on an old bench beside alittle green table, on which a sparrow was hopping about. On hisseventy-fifth birthday he had resigned his profession to take togardening, and I had heard from no less an authority than the Generalthat "that old fool Theophilus was spending more money in roses thanMrs. Clay was making out of pickles."

  "What is it, doctor?" I asked, for, oppressed by my own burdens, Iwaited a little impatiently to hear "the thing or two" he wanted to say.

  "You see I've given up people, Ben, and taken to roses," he began, whileI stood grinding my heel into the gravelled walk; "and it's a goodchange, too, when you come to my years, there's no doubt of that. If youweed and water them and plant an occasional onion about their roots youcan make roses what you want--but you can't people--no, not even whenyou've helped to bring them into the world. No matter how straight theycome at birth, they're all just as liable as not to take an inward crankand go crooked before the end." He looked thoughtfully at the sparrowhopping about on the green table, and his face, beautiful with thewisdom of more than seventy years, was illumined by a smile which seemedin some way a part of the April sunshine flooding the clumps of redcurrant bushes and the miniature box. "George--I mean old George--wastelling me about you, Ben," he went on after a minute, "and as soon as Iheard of your troubles, I said to Tina--'We've got a roof and we've gota bite, so they'll come to us.' What with Tina's pickling and preservingwe manage to keep a home, my boy, and you're more than welcome to shareit with us--you and Sally and your little Benjamin--"

  "Doctor--doctor--" was all I could say, for words failed me, and I,also, stood looking thoughtfully at the sparrow hopping about on thegreen table, with eyes that saw two small brown feathered bodies in theplace where, a minute before, there had been but one.

  "Come when you're ready, come when you're ready," he repeated, "andwe'll make you welcome, Tina and I."

  I grasped his hand without speaking, and as I wrung it in my own, I feltthat it was long and fine and nervous,--the hand, not of a worker, butof a dreamer. Then tearing my gaze from the sparrow, I went back throughthe clump of red currant bushes, and between the shining rows of oystershells, to the busy street which led to a busy world and my office door.

  A fortnight later the house was sold over our heads, and when I came upin the afternoon, I found a red flag flying at the gate, and the dustybuggies of a few real estate men tied to the young maples on thesidewalk. Upstairs Sally was sitting on a couch, in the midst of thescattered furniture, while George Bolingbroke stood looking ruefully ata pile of silver and bric-a-brac that filled the centre of the floor.

  "Are you laughing now, Sally?" I asked desperately, as I entered.

  "Not just this minute, dear, because that awful man and a crowd ofpeople have been going over the house, and Aunt Euphronasia and I lockedourselves in the nursery. I'll begin again, however, as soon as they'vegone. All these things belong to George. It was silly of him t
o buythem, but he says he had no idea of allowing them to go to strangers."

  "Well, George as well as anybody, I suppose," I responded, moodily.

  Beside the window Aunt Euphronasia was rocking slowly back and forth,with little Benjamin fast asleep on her knees, and her great rollingeyes, rimmed with white, passed from me to George and from George to mewith a defiant and angry look.

  "I ain' seen nuttin' like dese yer doin's sence war time," she grumbled;"en hit's wuss den war time, caze war time hit's fur all, en dish yerhit ain't fur nobody cep'n us."

  Throwing herself back on the pillow, Sally lay for a minute with herhand over her eyes.

  "I can laugh now," she said at last, raising her head, and she, also, asshe sat there, pale and weary but bravely smiling, glanced from me toGeorge with a perplexed, inscrutable look. A minute later, when Georgemade some pleasant, comforting remark and went down to join the crowdgathered before the door, her gaze still followed him, a littlepensively, as he left the room. The bruise throbbed again; and walkingto the window, I stood looking through the partly closed blinds to thestreet below, where I could see the dusty buggies, the switching tailsof the horses, bothered by flies, and the group of real estate men,lounging, while they spat tobacco juice, by the red flag at the gate. Inthe warm air, which was heavy with the scent of a purple catalpa tree onthe corner, the drawling voice of the auctioneer could be heard like theloud droning of innumerable bees. A carriage passed down the street in acloud of dust, and the very dust, as it drifted toward us, was drenchedwith the heady perfume of the catalpa.

  "That tree makes me dizzy," I said; "it's odd I never minded it before."

  "You aren't well--that's the trouble--but even if you were, the voice ofthat man down there is enough to drive any sane person crazy. He soundsexactly as if he were intoning a church service over our misfortunes.That is certainly adding horror to humiliation," she finished withmerriment.

  "At any rate he doesn't humiliate you?"

  "Of course he doesn't. Imagine one of the Blands and the Fairfaxes beinghumiliated by an auctioneer! He amuses me, even though it is our woes heis singing about. If I were Aunt Mitty, I'd probably be seated on thefront porch with my embroidery at this minute, bowing calmly to thepassers-by, as if it were the most matter-of-fact occurrence in theworld to have an auctioneer selling one's house over one's head."

  "Dear old enemy, I wonder what she thinks of this?"

  "She hasn't heard it, probably. A newspaper never enters her doors, anddo you believe she has a relative who would be reckless enough to breakit to her?"

  "I hope she hasn't, anyhow."

  "They haven't had time to go to her. They have all been here. Peoplehave been coming all day with offers of help--even Jessy's Mr.Cottrel--and oh, Ben, she told me she meant to marry him! Bonny Page," alittle sob broke from her, "Bonny Page wanted to give up her trip toEurope and have me take the money. Then everybody's been sending meluncheons and jellies and things just exactly as if I were an invalid."

  "Hit's de way dey does in war time, honey," remarked Aunt Euphronasia,shaking little Benjamin with the slow, cradling movement of the armsknown only to the negroes.

  Downstairs the auction was over, the drawling monologue was succeeded bya babel of voices, and glancing through the blinds, I saw the realestate men untying their horses from the young maples. A swirl of dustladen with the scent of the catalpa blew up from the street.

  "But we can't take help, Sally," I said, almost fiercely.

  "No, we can't take help, I told them so--I told them that we didn't needit. In a few years we'd be back where we were, I said, and I believedit."

  "Do you believe it after listening to that confounded fog-horn on theporch?"

  "Well, it's a trial to faith, as Aunt Mitty would say, but, oh, Ben, Ireally _do_ believe it still."