The next day, after breakfast, while they stood together before the parlor fire, Bartley proposed one plan after another for spending the day. Marcia rejected them all, with perfectly recovered self-composure.
“Then whatshallwe do?” he asked, at last.
“Oh, I don't know,” she answered, rather absently. She added, after an interval, smoothing the warm front of her dress, and putting her foot on the fender, “What did those theatre-tickets cost?”
“Two dollars,” he replied carelessly. “Why?”
Marcia gasped. “Two dollars! Oh, Bartley, we couldn't afford it!”
“It seems we did.”
“And here,—how much are we paying here?”
“That room, with fire,” said Bartley, stretching himself, “is seven dollars a day—”
“We mustn't stay another instant!” said Marcia, all a woman's terror of spending money on anything but dress, all a wife's conservative instinct, rising within her. “How much have you got left?”
Bartley took out his pocket-book and counted over the bills in it. “A hundred and twenty dollars.”
“Why, what has become of it all? We had a hundred and sixty!”
“Well, our railroad tickets were nineteen, the sleeping-car was three, the parlor-car was three, the theatre was two, the hack was fifty cents, and we'll have to put down the other two and a half to refreshments.”
Marcia listened in dismay. At the end she drew a long breath. “Well, we must go away from here as soon as possible,—that I know. We'll go out and find some boarding-place. That's the first thing.”
“Oh, now, Marcia, you're not going to be so severe as that, are you?” pleaded Bartley. “A few dollars, more or less, are not going to keep us out of the poorhouse. I just want to stay here three days: that will leave us a clean hundred, and we can start fair.” He was half joking, but she was wholly serious.
“No, Bartley! Not another hour,—not another minute! Come!” She took his arm and bent it up into a crook, where she put her hand, and pulled him toward the door.
“Well, after all,” he said, “it will be some fun looking up a room.”
There was no one else in the parlor; in going to the door they took some waltzing steps together.
While she dressed to go out, he looked up places where rooms were let with or without board, in the newspaper. “There don't seem to be a great many,” he said meditatively, bending over the open sheet. But he cut out half a dozen advertisements with his editorial scissors, and they started upon their search.
They climbed those pleasant old up-hill streets that converge to the State House, and looked into the houses on the quiet Places that stretch from one thoroughfare to another. They had decided that they would be content with two small rooms, one for a chamber, and the other for a parlor, where they could have a fire. They found exactly what they wanted in the first house where they applied, one flight up, with sunny windows, looking down the street; but it made Marcia's blood run cold when the landlady said that the price was thirty dollars a week. At another place the rooms were only twenty; the position was as good, and the carpet and furniture prettier. This was still too dear, but it seemed comparatively reasonable till it appeared that this was the price without board.
“I think we should prefer rooms with board, shouldn't we?” asked Bartley, with a sly look at Marcia.
The prices were of all degrees of exorbitance, and they varied for no reason from house to house; one landlady had been accustomed to take more and another less, but never little enough for Marcia, who overruled Bartley again and again when he wished to close with some small abatement of terms. She declared now that they must put up with one room, and they must not care what floor it was on. But the cheapest room with board was fourteen dollars a week, and Marcia had fixed her ideal at ten: even that was too high for them.
“The best way will be to go back to the Revere House, at seven dollars a day,” said Bartley. He had lately been leaving the transaction of the business entirely to Marcia, who had rapidly acquired alertness and decision in it.
She could not respond to his joke. “What is there left?” she asked.
“There isn't anything left,” he said. “We've got to the end.”
They stood on the edge of the pavement and looked up and down the street, and then, by a common impulse, they looked at the house opposite, where a placard in the window advertised, “Apartments to Let—to Gentlemen only.”
“It would be of no use asking there,” murmured Marcia, in sad abstraction.
“Well, let's go over and try,” said her husband. “They can't do more than turn us out of doors.”
“I know it won't be of any use,” Marcia sighed, as people do when they hope to gain something by forbidding themselves hope. But she helplessly followed, and stood at the foot of the door-steps while he ran up and rang.
It was evidently the woman of the house who came to the door and shrewdly scanned them.
“I see you have apartments to let,” said Bartley.
“Well, yes,” admitted the woman, as if she considered it useless to deny it, “I have.”
“I should like to look at them,” returned Bartley, with promptness. “Come, Marcia.” And, reinforced by her, he invaded the premises before the landlady had time to repel him. “I'll tell you what we want,” he continued, turning into the little reception-room at the side of the door, “and if you haven't got it, there's no need to trouble you. We want a fair-sized room, anywhere between the cellar-floor and the roof, with a bed and a stove and a table in it, that sha'n't cost us more than ten dollars a week, with board.”
“Set down,” said the landlady, herself setting the example by sinking into the rocking-chair behind her and beginning to rock while she made a brief study of the intruders. “Want it for yourselves?”
“Yes,” said Bartley.
“Well,” returned the landlady, “I alwayshavepreferred single gentlemen.”
“I inferred as much from a remark which you made in your front window,” said Bartley, indicating the placard.
The landlady smiled. They were certainly a very pretty-appearing young couple, and the gentleman was evidently up-and-coming. Mrs. Nash liked Bartley, as most people of her grade did, at once. “It's always be'n my exper'ence,” she explained, with the lazily rhythmical drawl in which most half-bred New-Englanders speak, “that I seemed to get along rather better with gentlemen. They give less trouble—as a general rule,” she added, with a glance at Marcia, as if she did not deny that there were exceptions, and Marcia might be a striking one.
Bartley seized his advantage. “Well, my wife hasn't been married long enough to be unreasonable. I guess you'd get along.”
They both laughed, and Marcia, blushing, joined them.
“Well, I thought when you first come up the steps you hadn't been married—well, not agreatwhile,” said the landlady.
“No,” said Bartley. “It seems a good while to my wife; but we were only married day before yesterday.”
“The land!” cried Mrs. Nash.
“Bartley!” whispered Marcia, in soft upbraiding.
“What? Well, say last week, then. We were married last week, and we've come to Boston to seek our fortune.”
His wit overjoyed Mrs. Nash. “You'll find Boston an awful hard place to get along,” she said, shaking her head with a warning smile.
“I shouldn't think so, by the price Boston people ask for their rooms,” returned Bartley. “If I had rooms to let, I should get along pretty easily.”
This again delighted the landlady. “I guess you aint goin' to get out of spirits, anyway,” she said. “Well,” she continued, “Ihavegot a room 't I guess would suit you. Unexpectedly vacated.” She seemed to recur to the language of an advertisement in these words, which she pronounced as if reading them. “It's pretty high up,” she said, with another warning shake of the head.
“Stairs to get to it?” asked Bartley.
“Plenty ofstairs.”
“Well, when a place is pretty high up, I like to have plenty of stairs to get to it. I guess we'll see it, Marcia.” He rose.
“Well, I'll just go up and see if it'sfitto be seen, first,” said the landlady.
“Oh, Bartley!” said Marcia, when she had left them alone, “howcouldyou joke so about our just being married!”
“Well, I saw she wanted awfully to ask. And anybody can tell by looking at us, anyway. We can't keep that to ourselves, any more than we can our greenness. Besides, it's money in our pockets; she'll take something off our board for it, you'll see. Now, will you manage the bargaining from this on? I stepped forward because the rooms were for gentlemen only.”
“I guess I'd better,” said Marcia.
“All right; then I'll take a back seat from this out.”
“Oh, I dohopeit won't be too much!” sighed the young wife. “I'm sotired, looking.”
“You can come right along up,” the landlady called down through the oval spire formed by the ascending hand-rail of the stairs.
They found her in a broad, low room, whose ceiling sloped with the roof, and had the pleasant irregularity of the angles and recessions of two dormer windows. The room was clean and cosey; there was a table, and a stove that could be used open or shut; Marcia squeezed Bartley's arm to signify that it would do perfectly—if only the price would suit.
The landlady stood in the middle of the floor and lectured: “Now, there! I get five dollars a week for this room; and I gen'ly let it to two gentlemen. It's just been vacated by two gentlemen unexpectedly; and it's hard to get gentlemen at this time the year; and that's the reason I thought of takin' you. As Isay, I don't much like ladies for inmates, and so I put in the window 'for gentlemen only.' But it's no use bein' too particular; I can't have the room layin' empty on my hands. If it suits you, you can have it for four dollars. It's high up, and there's no use tryin' to deny it. But there aint such another view as them winders commands anywheres. You can see the harbor, and pretty much the whole coast.”
“Anything extra for the view?” said Bartley, glancing out.
“No, I throw that in.”
“Does the price include gas and fire?” asked Marcia, sharpened as to all details by previous interviews.
“It includes the gas, but it don't include the fire,” said the landlady, firmly. “And it's pretty low at that, as you've found out, I guess.”
“Yes, it is low,” said Marcia. “Bartley, I think we'd better take it.”
She looked at him timidly, as if she were afraid he might not think it good enough; she did not think it good enough for him, but she felt that they must make their money go as far as possible.
“Allright!” he said. “Then it's a bargain.”
“And how much more will the board be?”
“Well, there,” the landlady said, with candor, “I don't know as I can meet your views. I don't ever give board. But there's plenty of houses right on the street here where you can get day-board from four dollars a week up.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Marcia; “and that would make it twelve dollars!”
“Why, the dear suz, child!” exclaimed the landlady, “you didn't expect to get it for less?”
“We must,” said Marcia.
“Then you'll have to go to a mechanics' boardin'-house.”
“I suppose we shall,” she returned, dejectedly. Bartley whistled.
“Look here,” said the landlady, “aint you from Down East, some'eres?”
Marcia started, as if the woman had recognized them. “Yes.” she said.
“Well, now,” said Mrs. Nash, “I'm from down Maine way myself, and I'll tell you what I should do, if I was in yourplace. You don't want much of anything tor breakfast or tea; you can boil you an egg on the stove here, and you can make your own tea or coffee; and if I was you, I'd go out for my dinners to an eatin'-house. I heard some my lodgers tellin' how they done. Well, I heard the very gentlemen that occupied this room sayin' how they used to go to an eatin'-house, and one 'd order one thing, and another another, and then they'd halve it between 'em, and make out a first-rate meal for about a quarter apiece. Plenty of places now where they give you a cut o'lamb or rib-beef for a shillin', and they bring you bread and butter and potato with it; an' it's always enough for two. That's what theysaid. I haint never tried it myself; but as long as you haint got anybody but yourselves to care for, there aint any reason whyyoushouldn't.”
They looked at each other.
“Well,” added the landlady for a final touch, “sayfire. That stove won't burn a great deal, anyway.”
“All right,” said Bartley, “we'll take the room—for a month, at least.”
Mrs. Nash looked a little embarrassed. If she had made some concession to the liking she had conceived for this pretty young couple, she could not risk everything. “I always have to get the first week in advance—where there ain't no reference,” she suggested.
“Of course,” said Bartley, and he took out his pocket-book, which he had a boyish satisfaction in letting her see was well filled. “Now, Marcia,” he continued, looking at his watch, “I'll just run over to the hotel, and give up our room before they get us in for dinner.”
Marcia accepted Mrs. Nash's invitation to come and sit with her till the chill was off the room; and she borrowed a pen and paper of her to write home. The note she sent was brief: she was not going to seem to ask anything of her father. But she was going to do what was right; she told him where she was, and she sent her love to her mother. She would not speak of her things; he might send them or not, as he chose; but she knew he would. This was the spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught her to soften and sweeten her phrase; but no doubt the old man, who was like her, would understand that she felt no compunction for what she had done, and that she loved him though she still defied him.
Bartley did not ask her what her letter was when she demanded a stamp of him on his return; but he knew. He inquired of Mrs. Nash where these cheap eating-houses were to be found, and he posted the letter in the first box they came to, merely saying, “I hope you haven't been asking any favors, Marsh?”
“No, indeed.”
“Because I couldn't stand that.”
Marcia had never dined in a restaurant, and she was somewhat bewildered by the one into which they turned. There was a great show of roast, and steak, and fish, and game, and squash and cranberry-pie in the window, and at the door a tack was driven through a mass of bills of fare, two of which Bartley plucked off as they entered, with a knowing air, and then threw on the floor when he found the same thing on the table. The table had a marble top, and a silver-plated castor in the centre. The plates were laid with a coarse red doily in a cocked hat on each, and a thinly plated knife and fork crossed beneath it; the plates were thick and heavy; the handle as well as the blade of the knife was metal, and silvered. Besides the castor, there was a bottle of Leicestershire sauce on the table, and salt in what Marcia thought a pepper-box; the marble was of an unctuous translucence in places, and showed the course of the cleansing napkin on its smeared surface. The place was hot, and full of confused smells of cooking; all the tables were crowded, so that they found places with difficulty, and pale, plain girls, of the Provincial and Irish-American type, in fashionable bangs and pull-backs, went about taking the orders, which they wailed out toward a semicircular hole opening upon a counter at the farther end of the room; there they received the dishes ordered, and hurried with them to the customers, before whom they laid them with a noisy clacking of the heavy crockery. A great many of the people seemed to be taking hulled corn and milk; baked beans formed another favorite dish, and squash-pie was in large request. Marcia was not critical; roast turkey for Bartley and stewed chicken for herself, with cranberry-pie for both, seemed to her a very good and sufficient dinner, and better than they ought to have had. She asked Bartley if this were anything like Parker's; he had always talked to her about Parker's.
“Well, Marcia,” he said, folding up his doily, which does not betray use like the indiscreet white napkin, “I'll just take you round and show you theoutsideof Parker's, and some day we'll go there and get dinner.”
He not only showed her Parker's, but the City Hall; they walked down School Street, and through Washington as far as Boylston: and Bartley pointed out the Old South, and brought Marcia home by the Common, where they stopped to see the boys coasting under the care of the police, between two long lines of spectators.
“The State House,” said Bartley, with easy command of the facts, and, pointing in the several directions; “Beacon Street; Public Garden; Back Bay.”
She came home to Mrs. Nash joyfully admiring the city, but admiring still more her husband's masterly knowledge of it.
Mrs. Nash was one of those people who partake intimately of the importance of the place in which they live; to whom it is sufficient splendor and prosperity to be a Bostonian, or New-Yorker, or Chicagoan, and who experience a delicious self-flattery in the celebration of the municipal grandeur. In his degree, Bartley was of this sort, and he exchanged compliments of Boston with Mrs. Nash, till they grew into warm favor with each other.
After a while, he said he must go up-stairs and do some writing; and then he casually dropped the fact that he was an editor, and that he had come to Boston to get an engagement on a newspaper; he implied that he had come to take one.
“Well,” said Mrs. Nash, smoothing the back of the cat, which she had in her lap, “I guess there ain't anything like our Boston papers. And they say this new one—the 'Daily Events'—is goin' to take the lead. You acquainted any with our Boston editors?”
Bartley hemmed. “Well—I know the proprietor of the Events.”
“Ah, yes: Mr. Witherby. Well, they say he's got the money. I hear my lodgers talkin' about that paper consid'able. I haven't ever seen it.”
Bartley now went up-stairs; he had an idea in his head. Marcia remained with Mrs. Nash a few moments. “He's been in Boston before,” she said, with proud satisfaction; “he visited here when he was in college.”
“Law, is he college-bred?” cried Mrs. Nash. “Well, I thought he looked 'most too wide-awake for that. He aint a bit offish. He seemsre'lpractical. What you hurryin' off so for?” she asked, as Marcia rose, and stood poised on the threshold, in act to follow her husband. “Why don't you set here with me, while he's at his writin'? You'll just keep talkin to him and takin' his mind off, the whole while. You stay here!” she commanded hospitably. “You'll just be in the way, up there.”
This was a novel conception to Marcia, but its good sense struck her. “Well, I will,” she said. “I'll run up a minute to leave my things, and then I'll come back.”
She found Bartley dragging the table, on which he had already laid out his writing-materials, into a good light, and she threw her arms round his neck, as if they had been a great while parted.
“Come up to kiss me good luck?” he asked, finding her lips.
“Yes, and to tell you how splendid you are, going right to work this way,” she answered fondly.
“Oh, I don't believe in losing time; and I've got to strike while the iron's hot, if I'm going to write out that logging-camp business. I'll take it over to that Events man, and hit him with it, while it's fresh in his mind.”
“Yes,” said Marcia. “Are you going to write that out?”
“Why, I told you I was. Any objections?” He did not pay much attention to her, and he asked his question jokingly, as he went on making his preparations.
“It's hard for me to realize that people can care for such things. I thought perhaps you'd begin with something else,” she suggested, hanging up her sack and hat in the closet.
“No, that's the very thing to begin with,” he answered, carelessly. “What are you going to do? Want that book to read that I bought on the cars?”
“No, I'm going down to sit with Mrs. Nash while you're writing.”
“Well, that's a good idea.”
“You can call me when you've done.”
“Done!” cried Bartley. “I sha'n't be done till this time to-morrow. I'm going to make a lot about it.”
“Oh!” said his wife. “Well, I suppose the more there is, the more you will get for it. Shall you put in about those people coming to see the camp?”
“Yes, I think I can work that in so that old Witherby will like it. Something about a distinguished Boston newspaper proprietor and his refined and elegant ladies, as a sort of contrast to the rude life of the loggers.”
“I thought you didn't admire them a great deal.”
“Well, I didn't much. But I can work them up.”
Marcia was quite ready to go; Bartley had seated himself at his table, but she still hovered about. “And are you—shall you put that Montreal woman in?”
“Yes, get it all in. She'll work up first-rate.”
Marcia was silent. Then, “I shouldn't think you'd put her in,” she said, “if she was so silly and disagreeable.”
Bartley turned around, and saw the look on her face that he could not mistake. He rose and took her by the chin. “Look here, Marsh!” he said, “didn't you promise me you'd stop that?”
“Yes,” she murmured, while the color flamed into her cheeks.
“And will you?”
“Ididtry—”
He looked sharply into her eyes. “Confound the Montreal woman! I won't put in a word about her. There!” He kissed Marcia, and held her in his arms and soothed her as if she had been a jealous child.
“Oh, Bartley! Oh, Bartley!” she cried. “I love you so!”
“I think it's a remark you made before,” he said, and, with a final kiss and laugh, he pushed her out of the door; and she ran down stairs to Mrs. Nash again.
“Your husband ever write poetry, any?” inquired the landlady.
“No,” returned Marcia; “he used to in college, but he says it don't pay.”
“One my lodgers—well, she was a lady; you can't seem to get gentlemen oftentimes in the summer season, for love or money, and I was puttin' up with her,—breakin' joints, as you may say, for the time bein'—shewrote poetry; 'n' I guess she found it pretty poor pickin'. Used to write for the weekly papers, she said, 'n' the child'n's magazines. Well, she couldn't get more 'n a doll' or two, 'n' I do' know but what less, for a piece as long as that.” Mrs. Nash held her hands about a foot apart. “Used to show 'em to me, and tell me about 'em. I declare I used to pity her. I used to tell her I ruther break stone for my livin'.”
Marcia sat talking more than an hour to Mrs. Nash, informing herself upon the history of Mrs. Nash's past and present lodgers, and about the ways of the city, and the prices of provisions and dress-goods. The dearness of everything alarmed and even shocked her; but she came back to her faith in Bartley's ability to meet and overcome all difficulties. She grew drowsy in the close air which Mrs. Nash loved, after all her fatigues and excitements, and she said she guessed she would go up and see how Bartley was getting on. But when she stole into the room and saw him busily writing, she said, “Now I won't speak a word, Bartley,” and coiled herself down under a shawl on the bed, near enough to put her hand on his shoulder if she wished, and fell asleep.
It took Bartley two days to write out his account of the logging-camp. He worked it up to the best of his ability, giving all the facts that he had got out of Kinney, and relieving these with what he considered picturesque touches. He had the newspaper instinct, and he divined that his readers would not care for his picturesqueness without his facts. He therefore subordinated this, and he tried to give his description of the loggers a politico-economical interest, dwelling upon the variety of nationalities engaged in the industry, and the changes it had undergone in what he called itspersonnel; he enlarged upon its present character and its future development in relation to what he styled, in a line of small capitals, with an early use of the favorite newspaper possessive,
And he interspersed his text plentifully with exclamatory headings intended to catch the eye with startling fragments of narration and statement, such as
He spent a final forenoon in polishing his article up, and stuffing it full of telling points. But after dinner on this last day he took leave of Marcia with more trepidation than he was willing to show, or knew how to conceal. Her devout faith in his success seemed to unnerve him, and he begged her not to believe in it so much.
He seized what courage he had left in both hands, and found himself, after the usual reluctance of the people in the business office, face to face with Mr. Witherby in his private room. Mr. Witherby had lately dismissed his managing editor for his neglect of the true interests of the paper as represented by the counting-room; and was managing the Events himself. He sat before a table strewn with newspapers and manuscripts; and as he looked up, Bartley saw that he did not recognize him.
“How do you do, Mr. Witherby? I had the pleasure of meeting you the other day in Maine—at Mr. Willett's logging-camp. Hubbard is my name; remember me as editor of the Equity Free Press.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Witherby, rising and standing at his desk, as a sort of compromise between asking his visitor to sit down and telling him to go away. He shook hands in a loose way, and added: “I presume you would like to exchange. But the fact is, our list is so large already, that we can't extend it, just now; we can't—”
Bartley smiled. “I don't want any exchange, Mr. Witherby. I'm out of the Free Press.”
“Ah!” said the city journalist, with relief. He added, in a leading tone: “Then—”
“I've come to offer you an article,—an account of lumbering in our State. It's a little sketch that I've prepared from what I saw in Mr. Willett's camp, and some facts and statistics I've picked up. I thought it might make an attractive feature of your Sunday edition.”
“The Events,” said Mr. Witherby, solemnly, “does not publish a Sunday edition!”
“Of course not,” answered Bartley, inwardly cursing his blunder,—“I mean your Saturday evening supplement.” He handed him his manuscript.
Mr. Witherby looked at it, with the worry of a dull man who has assumed unintelligible duties. He had let the other papers “get ahead of him” on several important enterprises lately, and he would have been glad to retrieve himself; but he could not be sure that this was an enterprise. He began by saying that their last Saturday supplement was just out, and the next was full; and he ended by declaring, with stupid pomp, that the Events preferred to send its own reporters to write up those matters. Then he hemmed, and looked at Bartley, and he would really have been glad to have him argue him out of this position; but Bartley could not divine what was in his mind. The cold fit, which sooner or later comes to every form of authorship, seized him. He said awkwardly he was very sorry, and putting his manuscript back in his pocket he went out, feeling curiously light-headed, as if his rebuff had been a stunning blow. The affair was so quickly over, that he might well have believed it had not happened. But he was sickeningly disappointed; he had counted upon the sale of his article to the Events; his hope had been founded upon actual knowledge of the proprietor's intention; and although he had rebuked Marcia's overweening confidence, he had expected that Witherby would jump at it. But Witherby had not even looked at it.
Bartley walked a long time in the cold winter sunshine, fie would have liked to go back to his lodging, and hide his face in Marcia's hands, and let her pity him, but he could not bear the thought of her disappointment, and he kept walking. At last he regained courage enough to go to the editor of the paper for which he used to correspond in the summer, and which had always printed his letters. This editor was busy, too, but he apparently felt some obligations to civility with Bartley; and though he kept glancing over his exchanges as they talked, he now and then glanced at Bartley also. He said that he should be glad to print the sketch, but that they never paid for outside material, and he advised Bartley to go with it to the Events or to the Daily Chronicle-Abstract; the Abstract and the Brief Chronicle had lately consolidated, and they were showing a good deal of enterprise. Bartley said nothing to betray that he had already been at the Events office, and upon this friendly editor's invitation to drop in again some time he went away considerably re-inspirited.
“If you should happen to go to the Chronicle-Abstract folks,” the editor called after him, “you can tell them I suggested your coming.”
The managing editor of the Chronicle-Abstract was reading a manuscript, and he did not desist from his work on Bartley's appearance, which he gave no sign of welcoming. But he had a whimsical, shrewd, kind face, and Bartley felt that he should get on with him, though he did not rise, and though he let Bartley stand.
“Yes,” he said. “Lumbering, hey? Well, there's some interest in that, just now, on account of this talk about the decay of our shipbuilding interests. Anything on that point?”
“That's the very point I touch on first,” said Bartley.
The editor stopped turning over his manuscript. “Let's see,” he said, holding out his hand for Bartley's article. He looked at the first head-line, “What I Know about Logging,” and smiled. “Old, but good.” Then he glanced at the other headings, and ran his eye down the long strips on which Bartley had written; nibbled at the text here and there a little; returned to the first paragraph, and read that through; looked back at something else, and then read the close.
“I guess you can leave it,” he said, laying the manuscript on the table.
“No, I guess not,” said Bartley, with equal coolness, gathering it up.
The editor looked fairly at him for the first time, and smiled. Evidently he liked this. “What's the reason? Any particular hurry?”
“I happen to know that the Events is going to send a man down East to write up this very subject. And I don't propose to leave this article here till they steal my thunder, and then have it thrown back on my hands not worth the paper it's written on.”
The editor tilted himself back in his chair and braced his knees against his table. “Well, I guess you're right,” he said. “What do you want for it?”
This was a terrible question. Bartley knew nothing about the prices that city papers paid; he feared to ask too much, but he also feared to cheapen his wares by asking too little. “Twenty-five dollars,” he said, huskily.
“Let's look at it,” said the editor, reaching out his hand for the manuscript again. “Sit down.” He pushed a chair toward Bartley with his foot, having first swept a pile of newspapers from it to the floor. He now read the article more fully, and then looked up at Bartley, who sat still, trying to hide his anxiety. “You're not quite a new hand at the bellows, are you?”
“I've edited a country paper.”
“Yes? Where?”
“Down in Maine.”
The editor bent forward and took out a long, narrow blank-book. “I guess we shall want your article What name?”
“Bartley J. Hubbard.” It sounded in his ears like some other name.
“Going to be in Boston some time?”
“All the time,” said Bartley, struggling to appear nonchalant. The revulsion from the despair into which he had fallen after his interview with Witherby was still very great. The order on the counting-room which the editor had given him shook in his hand. He saw his way before him clearly now; he wished to propose some other things that he would like to write; but he was saved from this folly for the time by the editor's saying, in a tone of dismissal: “Better come in to-morrow and see a proof. We shall put you into the Wednesday supplement.”
“Thanks,” said Bartley. “Good day.”
The editor did not hear him, or did not think it necessary to respond from behind the newspaper which he had lifted up between them, and Bartley went out. He did not stop to cash his order; he made boyish haste to show it to Marcia, as something more authentic than the money itself, and more sacred. As he hurried homeward he figured Marcia's ecstasy in his thought. He saw himself flying up the stairs to their attic three steps at a bound, and bursting into the room, where she sat eager and anxious, and flinging the order into her lap; and then, when she had read it with rapture at the sum, and pride in the smartness with which he had managed the whole affair, he saw himself catching her up and dancing about the floor with her. He thought how fond of her he was, and he wondered that he could ever have been cold or lukewarm.
She was standing at the window of Mrs. Nash's little reception-room when he reached the house. It was not to be as he had planned, but he threw her a kiss, glad of the impatience which would not let her wait till he could find her in their own room, and he had the precious order in his hand to dazzle her eyes as soon as he should enter. But, as he sprang into the hall, his foot struck against a trunk and some boxes.
“Hello!” he cried, “Your things have come!”
Marcia lingered within the door of the reception-room; she seemed afraid to come out. “Yes,” she said, faintly; “father brought them. He has just been here.”
He seemed there still, and the vision unnerved her as if Bartley and he had been confronted there in reality. Her husband had left her hardly a quarter of an hour, when a hack drove up to the door, and her father alighted. She let him in herself, before he could ring, and waited tremulously for what he should do or say. But he merely took her hand, and, stooping over, gave her the chary kiss with which he used to greet her at home when he returned from an absence.
She flung her arms around his neck. “Oh, father!”
“Well, well! There, there!” he said, and then he went into the reception-room with her; and there was nothing in his manner to betray that anything unusual had happened since they last met. He kept his hat on, as his fashion was, and he kept on his overcoat, below which the skirts of his dress-coat hung an inch or two; he looked old, and weary, and shabby.
“I can't leave Bartley, father,” she began, hysterically.
“I haven't come to separate you from your husband, Marcia. What made you think so? It's your place to stay with him.”
“He's out, now,” she answered, in an incoherent hopefulness. “He's just gone. Will you wait and see him, father?”
“No, I guess I can't wait,” said the old man. “It wouldn't do any good for us to meet now.”
“Do you think he coaxed me away? He didn't. He took pity on me,—he forgave me. And I didn't mean to deceive you when I left home, father. But I couldn't help trying to see Bartley again.”
“I believe you, Marcia. I understand. The thing had to be. Let me see your marriage certificate.”
She ran up to her room and fetched it.
Her father read it carefully. “Yes, that is all right,” he said, and returned it to her. He added, after an absent pause: “I have brought your things, Marcia. Your mother packed all she could think of.”
“Howismother?” asked Marcia, as if this had first reminded her of her mother.
“She is usually well,” replied her father.
“Won't you—won't you come up and see our room, father?” Marcia asked, after the interval following this feint of interest in her mother.
“No,” said the old man, rising restlessly from his chair, and buttoning at his coat, which was already buttoned. “I guess I sha'n't have time. I guess I must be going.”
Marcia put herself between him and the door. “Won't you let me tell you about it, father?”
“About what?”
“How—I came to go off with Bartley. I want you should know.”
“I guess I know all I want to know about it, Marcia. I accept the facts. I told you how I felt. What you've done hasn't changed me toward you. I understand you better than you understand yourself; and I can't say that I'm surprised. Now I want you should make the best of it.”
“You don't forgive Bartley!” she cried, passionately. “Then I don't want you should forgive me!”
“Where did you pick up this nonsense about forgiving?” said her father, knitting his shaggy brows. “A man does this thing or that, and the consequence follows. I couldn't forgive Bartley so that he could escape any consequence of what he's done; and you're not afraid I shall hurt him?”
“Stay and see him!” she pleaded. “He is so kind to me! He works night and day, and he has just gone out to sell something he has written for the papers.”
“I never said he was lazy,” returned her father. “Do you want any money, Marcia?”
“No, we have plenty. And Bartley is earning it all the time. Iwishyou would stay and see him!”
“No, I'm glad he didn't happen to be in,” said the Squire. “I sha'n't wait for him to come back. It wouldn't do any good, just yet, Marcia; it would only do harm. Bartley and I haven't had time to change our minds about each other yet. But I'll say a good word for him to you. You're his wife, and it's your part to help him, not to hinder him. You can make him worse by being a fool; but you needn't be a fool. Don't worry him about other women; don't be jealous. He's your husband, now: and the worst thing you can do is to doubt him.”
“I won't, father, I won't, indeed! I will be good, and I will try to be sensible. Oh, IwishBartley could know how you feel!”
“Don't tell him fromme,” said her father. “And don't keep making promises and breaking them. I'll help the man in with your things.”
He went out, and came in again with one end of a trunk, as if he had been giving the man a hand with it into the house at home, and she suffered him as passively as she had suffered him to do her such services all her life. Then he took her hand laxly in his, and stooped down for another chary kiss. “Good by, Marcia.”
“Why, father! Are you going toleaveme?” she faltered.
He smiled in melancholy irony at the bewilderment, the childish forgetfulness of all the circumstances, which her words expressed. “Oh, no! I'm going to take you with me.”
His sarcasm restored her to a sense of what she had said, and she ruefully laughed at herself through her tears. “What am I talking about? Give my love to mother. When will you come again?” she asked, clinging about him almost in the old playful way.
“When you want me,” said the Squire, freeing himself.
“I'll write!” she cried after him, as he went down the steps; and if there had been, at any moment, a consciousness of her cruelty to him in her heart, she lost it, when he drove away, in her anxious waiting for Bartley's return. It seemed to her that, though her father had refused to see him, his visit was of happy augury for future kindness between them, and she was proudly eager to tell Bartley what good advice her father had given her. But the sight of her husband suddenly turned these thoughts to fear. She trembled, and all that she could say was, “I know father will be all right, Bartley.”
“How?” he retorted, savagely. “By the way he abused me to you? Where is he?”
“He's gone,—gone back.”
“I don't care where he's gone, so he's gone. Did he come to take you home with him? Why didn't you go?—Oh, Marcia!” The brutal words had hardly escaped him when he ran to her as if he would arrest them before their sense should pierce her heart.
She thrust him back with a stiffly extended arm. “Keep away! Don't touch me!” She walked by him up the stairs without looking round at him, and he heard her close their door and lock it.