Dear Dad: I've gone to Helen. I had to. I've lived ayearof misery in this last month: so, as far as I am concerned, Ihavewaited my year already. We shall be married at once. I wrote Helen last week, and she consented.Now, dad, you'll just have to forgive me. I'm twenty-one. I'm a man now, not a boy, and a man has to decide these things for himself. And Helen's a dear. You'll see, when you know her. We'll be back in two weeks. Now don't bristle up. I'm not going to bring her home, of course (at present), after the very cordial invitation you gave me not to! We're going into one of the Reddington apartments. With my allowance and my—er—wages (!) we can manage that all right—until "the stern parent" relents and takes his daughter home—as he should!
Dear Dad: I've gone to Helen. I had to. I've lived ayearof misery in this last month: so, as far as I am concerned, Ihavewaited my year already. We shall be married at once. I wrote Helen last week, and she consented.
Now, dad, you'll just have to forgive me. I'm twenty-one. I'm a man now, not a boy, and a man has to decide these things for himself. And Helen's a dear. You'll see, when you know her. We'll be back in two weeks. Now don't bristle up. I'm not going to bring her home, of course (at present), after the very cordial invitation you gave me not to! We're going into one of the Reddington apartments. With my allowance and my—er—wages (!) we can manage that all right—until "the stern parent" relents and takes his daughter home—as he should!
Good-bye,Burke.
John Denby read the letter once, twice; then he pulled the telephone toward him and gave a few crisp orders to James Brett, his general manager. His voice was steady and—to the man at the other end of the wire—ominously emotionless. When he had finished talking five minutes later, certain words had been uttered that would materially change the immediatefuture of a certain willful youth just then setting out on his honeymoon.
There would be, for Burke Denby, no "Reddington apartment." There would also be no several-other-things; for there would be no "allowance" after the current month. There would be only the "wages," and the things the wages could buy.
There was no disputing the fact that John Denby was very angry. But he was also sorely distressed and grieved. Added to his indignation that his son should have so flouted him was his anguish of heart that the old days of ideal companionship were now gone forever. There was, too, his very real fear for the future happiness of his boy, bound in marriage to a woman he believed would prove to be a most uncongenial mate. But overtopping all, just now, was his wrath at the flippant assurance of his son's note, and the very evident confidence in a final forgiveness that the note showed. It was this that caused the giving of those stern, momentous orders over the telephone—John Denby himself had been somewhat in the habit of having his own way!
The harassed father did not sleep much that night. Until far into the morning hours he sat before the fireless grate in his library, thinking. He looked old, worn, and wholly miserable. In his hand, and often under his gaze, was the miniature of a beautiful woman—his wife.
It was on a cool, cloudy day in early September that Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby arrived at Dalton from their wedding trip.
With characteristic inclination to avoid anything unpleasant, the young husband had neglected to tell his wife that they were not to live in the Denby Mansion. He had argued with himself that she would find it out soon enough, anyway, and that there was no reason why he should spoil their wedding trip with disagreeable topics of conversation. Burke always liked to put off disagreeable things till the last.
Helen was aware, it is true, that Burke's father was much displeased at the marriage; but that this displeasure had gone so far as to result in banishment from the home, she did not know. She had been planning, indeed, just how she would win her father-in-law over—just how sweet and lovely and daughterly she would be, as a member of the Denby household; and so sure was she of victory that already she counted the battle half won.
In the old days of her happy girlhood, Helen Barnet had taken as a matter of course the succumbing of everything and everybody to her charm and beauty. And although this feeling had, perforce, been in abeyance for some eighteen months, it had been veryrapidly coming back to her during the past two weeks, under the devoted homage of her young husband and the admiring eyes of numberless strangers along their honeymoon way.
It was a complete and disagreeable surprise to her now, therefore, when Burke said to her, a trifle nervously, as they were nearing Dalton:—
"We'll have to go to a hotel, of course, Helen, for a few days, till we get the apartment ready. But 'twon't be for long, dear."
"Hotel! Apartment! Why, Burke, aren't we going home—toyourhome?"
"Oh, no, dear. We're going to have a home of our own, you know—ourhome."
"No, I didn't know." Helen's lips showed a decided pout.
"But you'll like it, dear. You just wait and see." The man spoke with determined cheeriness.
"But I can't like it better than your old home, Burke. Iknowwhat that is, and I'd much rather go there."
"Yes, yes, but—" Young Denby paused to wet his dry lips. "Er—you know, dear, dad wasn't exactly—er—pleased with the marriage, anyway, and—"
"That's just it," broke in the bride eagerly. "That's one reason I wanted to go there—to show him, you know. Why, Burke, I'd got it all planned out lovely, how nice I was going to be to him—get his paper and slippers, and kiss him good-morning, and—"
"Holy smoke! Kiss—" Just in time the fastidious son of a still more fastidious father pulled himself up; but to a more discerning bride, his face would already have finished his sentence. "Er—but—well, anyhow, dear," he stammered, "that's very kind of you, of course; but you see it's useless even to think of it. He—he has forbidden us to go there."
"Why, the mean old thing!"
"Helen!"
Helen's face showed a frown as well as a pout.
"I don't care. He is mean, if he is your father, not to let—"
"Helen!"
At the angry sharpness of the man's voice Helen stopped abruptly. For a moment she gazed at her husband with reproachful eyes. Then her chin began to quiver, her breath to come in choking little gasps, and the big tears to roll down her face.
"Why, Burke, I—"
"Oh, great Scott! Helen, dearest, don't,please!" begged the dismayed and distracted young husband, promptly capitulating at the awful sight of tears of which he was the despicable cause. "Darling, don't!"
"But you never sp-poke like that to me b-before," choked the wife of a fortnight.
"I know. I was a brute—so I was! But, sweetheart,pleasestop," he pleaded desperately. "See, we're just pulling into Dalton. You don't want them to see you crying—a bride!"
Mrs. Burke Denby drew in her breath convulsively,and lifted a hurried hand to brush the tears from her eyes. The next moment she smiled, tremulously, but adorably. She looked very lovely as she stepped from the car a little later; and Burke Denby's heart swelled with love and pride as he watched her. If underneath the love and pride there was a vague something not so pleasant, the man told himself it was only a natural regret at having said anything to cast the slightest shadow on the home-coming of this dear girl whom he had asked to share his life. Whatever this vague something was, anyway, Burke resolutely put it behind him, and devoted himself all the more ardently to the comfort of his young wife.
In spite of himself, Burke could not help looking for his father's face at the station. Never before had he come home (when not with his father), and not been welcomed by that father's eager smile and outstretched hand. He missed them both now. Otherwise he was relieved to see few people he knew, as he stepped to the platform, though he fully realized, from the sly winks and covert glances, that every one knew who he was, and who also was the lady at his side.
With only an occasional perfunctory greeting, and no introductions, therefore, the somewhat embarrassed and irritated bridegroom hurried his bride into a public carriage, and gave the order to drive to the Hancock Hotel.
All the way there he talked very fast and very tenderly of the new home that was soon to be theirs.
"'Twill be only for a little—the hotel, dear," he plunged in at once. "And you won't mind it, for a little, while we're planning, will you, darling? I'm going to rent one of the Reddington apartments. You remember them—on Reddington Avenue; white stone with dandy little balconies between the big bay windows. They were just being finished when you were here. They're brand-new, you see. And we'll be so happy, there, dearie,—just us two!"
"Us two! But, Burke, there'll be three. There'll have to be the hired girl, too, you know," fluttered the new wife, in quick panic. "Surely you aren't going to make me do without a hired girl!"
"Oh, no—no, indeed," asserted the man, all the more hurriedly, because he never had thought of a "hired girl," and because he was rather fearfully wondering how much his father paid for the maids, anyway. There would have to be one, of course; but he wondered if his allowance would cover it, with all the rest. Still, hecouldsmoke a cigar or two less a day, he supposed, if it came to a pinch, and—but Helen was speaking.
"Dear, dear, but you did give me a turn, Burke! You see, there'll just have to be a hired girl—that is, if you want anything to eat, sir," she laughed, showing all her dimples. (And Burke loved her dimples!) "I can't cook a little bit. I never did at home, you know, and I should hate it, I'm sure. It's so messy—sticky dough and dishes, and all that!" Again she laughed and showed all her dimples,looking so altogether bewitching that Burke almost—but not quite—stole a kiss. He decided, too, on the spot, that he would rather never smoke another cigar than to subject this adorable little thing at his side to any task that had to do with the hated "messy dough and sticky dishes." Indeed he would!
Something of this must have shown in his face, for the little bride beamed anew, and the remainder of the drive was a blissfully happy duet of fascinating plans regarding this new little nest of a home.
All this was at four o'clock. At eight o'clock Burke Denby came into their room at the hotel with a white face and tense lips.
"Well, Helen, we're in for it," he flung out, dropping himself into the nearest chair.
"What do you mean?"
"Father has cut off my allowance."
"But you—you've gone to work. There's your wages!"
"Oh, yes, there are my—wages."
Something in his tone sent a swift suspicion to her eyes.
"Do you mean—they aren't so big as your allowance?"
"I certainly do."
"How perfectly horrid! Just as if it wasn't mean enough for him not to let us live there, without—"
"Helen!" Burke Denby pulled himself up in his chair. "See here, dear, I shan't let even you say things like that about dad. Now, for heaven's sake,don't let us quarrel about it," he pleaded impatiently, as he saw the dreaded quivering coming to the pouting lips opposite.
"But I—I—"
"Helen, dearest, don't cry, please don't! Crying won't help; and I tell you it's serious business—this is."
"But are you sure—do you know it's true?" faltered the young wife, too thoroughly frightened now to be angry. "Did you see—your father?"
"No; I saw Brett."
"Who's he? Maybe he doesn't know."
"Oh, yes, he does," returned Burke, with grim emphasis. "He knows everything. They say at the Works that he knows what father's going to have for breakfast before the cook does."
"But who is he?"
"He's the head manager of the Denby Iron Works and father's right-hand man. He came here to-night to see me—by dad's orders, I suspect."
"Is your father so awfully angry, then?" Her eyes had grown a bit wistful.
"I'm afraid he is. He says I've made my bed and now I must lie in it. He's cut off my allowance entirely. He's raised my wages—a little, and he says it's up to me now to make good—with my wages."
There was a minute's silence. The man's eyes were gloomily fixed on the opposite wall. His whole attitude spelled disillusion and despair. The woman's eyes, questioning, fearful, were fixed on the man.
Plainly some new, hidden force was at work within Helen Denby's heart. Scorn and anger had left her countenance. Grief and dismay had come in their place.
"Burke,whyhas your father objected so to—to me?" she asked at last, timidly.
Abstractedly, as if scarcely conscious of what he was saying, the man shrugged:—
"Oh, the usual thing. He said you weren't suited to me; you wouldn't make me happy."
The wife recoiled visibly. She gave a piteous little cry. It was too low, apparently, to reach her husband's ears. At all events, he did not turn. For fully half a minute she watched him, and in her shrinking eyes was mirrored each eloquent detail of his appearance, the lassitude, the gloom, the hopelessness. Then, suddenly, to her whole self there came an electric change. As if throwing off bonds that held her she flung out her arms and sprang toward him.
"Burke, it isn't true, it isn't true," she flamed. "I'm going to make you happy! You just wait and see. And we'll show him. We'll show him we can do it! He told you to make good; and you must, Burke! I won't have him and everybody else saying I dragged you down. I won't!I won't!I won't!"
Burke Denby's first response was to wince involuntarily at the shrill crescendo of his wife's voice. His next was to shrug his shoulders irritably as the meaning of her words came to him.
"Nonsense, Helen, don't be a goose!" he scowled.
"I'm not a goose. I'm your wife," choked Helen, still swayed by the exaltation that had mastered her. "And I'm going to help you win—win, I say! Do you hear me, Burke?"
"Of course I hear you, Helen; and—so'll everybody else, if you don't look out.Pleasespeak lower, Helen!"
She was too intent and absorbed to be hurt or vexed. Obediently she dropped her voice almost to a whisper.
"Yes, yes, I know, Burke; and I will, I will, dear." She fell on her knees at his side. "But it seems as if I must shout it to the world. I want to go out on the street here and scream it at the top of my voice, till your father in his great big useless house on the hill just has to hear me."
"Helen, Helen!" shivered her husband.
But she hurried on feverishly.
"Burke, listen! You're going to make good. Do you hear? We'll show them. We'll never let them say they—beat us!"
"But—but—"
"We aren't going to say 'but' and hang back. We're going todo!"
"But, Helen, how? What?" demanded the man, stirred into a show of interest at last. "How can we?"
"I don't know, but we're going to do it."
"There won't be—hardly any money."
"I'll get along—somehow."
"And we'll have to live in a cheap little hole somewhere—we can't have one of the Reddingtons."
"I don't want it—now."
"And you'll have to—to work."
"Yes, I know." Her chin was still bravely lifted.
"There can't be any—maid now."
"Then you'll have to eat—what I cook!" She drew in her breath with a hysterical little laugh that was half a sob.
"You darling! I shall love it!" He caught her to himself in a revulsion of feeling that was as ardent as it was sudden. "Only I'll so hate to have you do it, sweetheart—it's so messy and doughy!"
"Nonsense!"
"You told me it was."
"But I didn't know then—what they were saying about me. Burke, they just shan't say I'm dragging you down."
"Indeed they shan't, darling."
"Then you will make good?" she regarded him with tearful, luminous eyes.
"Of course I will—withyouto help me."
Her face flamed into radiant joy.
"Yes,with me to help! That's it, that's it—I'm going tohelpyou," she breathed fervently, flinging her arms about his neck.
And to each, from the dear stronghold of the other's arms, at the moment, the world looked, indeed, to be a puny thing, scarcely worth the conquering.
It is so much easier to say than to do. But nothing in the experience of either Burke Denby or of Helen, his wife, had demonstrated this fact for them. Quite unprepared, therefore, and with confident courage, they proceeded to pass from the saying to the doing.
True, in the uncompromising sunlight of the next morning, the world did look a bit larger, a shade less easily conquerable; and a distinctly unpleasant feeling of helplessness assailed both husband and wife. Yet with a gay "Now we'll go house-hunting right away so as to save paying here!" from Helen, and an adoring "You darling—but it's a burning shame!" from Burke, the two sallied forth, after the late hotel breakfast.
The matter of selecting the new home was not a difficult one—at first. They decided at once that, if they could not have an apartment in the Reddington Chambers, they would prefer a house. "For," Burke said, "as for being packed away like sardines in one of those abominable little cheap flat-houses, I won't!" So a house they looked for at the start. And very soon they found what Helen said was a "love of a place"—a pretty little cottage with a tiny lawn and a flower-bed.
"And it's so lucky it's for rent," she exulted. "For it's just what we want, isn't it, dearie?"
"Y-yes; but—"
"Why, Burke, don't you like it?Ithink it's a dear! Of course it isn't like your father's house. But we can't expect that."
"Expect that! Great Scott, Helen,—we can't expect this!" cried the man.
"Why, Burke, what do you mean?"
"It'll cost too much, dear,—in this neighborhood. We can't afford it."
"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll economize somewhere else. Come; it says the key is next door."
"Yes, but, Helen, dearest, I know we can't—" But "Helen, dearest," was already halfway up the adjoining walk; and Burke, with a despairing glance at her radiant, eager face, followed her. There was, indeed, no other course open to him, as he knew, unless he chose to make a scene on the public thorough-fare—and Burke Denby did not like scenes.
The house was found to be as attractive inside as it was out; and Helen's progress from room to room was a series of delighted exclamations. She was just turning to go upstairs when her husband's third desperate expostulation brought her feet and her tongue to a pause.
"Helen, darling, I tell you we can't!" he was exclaiming. "It's out of the question."
"Burke!" Her lips began to quiver. "And when you know how much I want it!"
"Sweetheart, don't, please, make it any harder for me," he begged. "I'd give you a dozen houses like this if I could—and you know it. But we can't afford even this one. The rent is forty dollars. I heard her tell you when she gave you the key."
"Never mind. We can economize other ways."
"But, Helen, I only get sixty all told. We can't pay forty for rent."
"Oh, but, Burke, that leaves twenty, and we can do a lot on twenty. Just as if what we ate would cost us that! I don't care for meat, anyhow, much. We'll cut that out. And I hate grapefruit and olives. They cost a lot. Mrs. Allen was always having them, and—"
The distraught husband interrupted with an impatient gesture.
"Grapefruit and olives, indeed! And as if food were all of it! Where are our clothes and coal and—and doctor's bills, and I don't-know-what-all coming from? Why, great Scott, Helen, I smoke half that in a week, sometimes,—not that I shall now, of course," he added hastily. "But, honestly, dearie, we simply can't do it. Now, come, be a good girl, and let's go on. We're simply wasting time here."
Helen, convinced at last, tossed him the key, with a teary "All right—take it back then. I shan't! I know I should c-cry right before her!" The next minute, at sight of the abject woe and dismay on her husband's face, she flung herself upon him with a burst of sobs.
"There, there, Burke, here I am, so soon, making a fuss because we can't afford things! But I won't any more—truly I won't! I was a mean, horrid old thing! Yes, I was," she reiterated in answer to his indignant denial. "Come, let's go quick!" she exclaimed, pulling herself away, and lifting her head superbly. "I don't want the old place, anyhow. Truly, I don't!" And, with a dazzling smile, she reached out her hand and tripped enticingly ahead of him toward the door; while the man, bewildered, but enthralled by this extraordinary leap from fretful stubbornness to gay docility, hurried after her with an incoherent jumble of rapturous adjectives.
Such was Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby's first experience of home-hunting. The second, though different in detail, was similar in disappointment. So also were the third and the fourth experiences. Not, indeed, until the weary, distracted pair had spent three days in time, all their patience, and most of their good nature, did they finally arrive at a decision. And then their selection, alas, proved to be one of the despised tiny flats, in which, according to the unhappy young bridegroom, they were destined to be packed like sardines.
After all, it had been the "elegant mirror in the parlor," and the "just grand" tiled and tessellated entrance, that had been the determining factors in the decision; for Burke, thankful that at last something within reach of his pocketbook had been found to bring a sparkle to his beloved's eyes, had stifledhis own horror at the tawdry cheapness of it all, and had given a consent that was not without a measure of relief born of the three long days of weary, well-nigh hopeless search.
Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping, flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows, where a blade of grass was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. There was Old Dalton, with its winding, tree-shaded streets clambering all over the slope of Elm Hill, where old colonial mansions, with an air of aloofness (borrowed quite possibly from their occupants), seemed ever to be withdrawing farther and farther away from plebeian noise and publicity. There was, of course, the mill district, where were the smoke-belching chimneys and great black buildings that meant the town's bread and butter; and there were the adjoining streets of workmen's houses, fitted to give a sensitive soul the horrors, so seemingly endless was the repetition of covered stoop and dormer window, always exactly the same, as far as eye could reach. There was, too, the bustling, asphalted, brick-blocked business center; and there were numerous streets of simple, prettycottages, and substantial residences, among which, with growing frequency, there were beginning to appear the tall, many-windowed apartment houses, ranging all the way from the exclusive, expensive Reddington Chambers down to the flimsy structures like the one whose tawdry ornamentation had caught the fancy of Burke Denby's village-bred wife.
To Burke Denby himself, late of Denby House (perhaps the most aloof of all the "old colonials"), the place was a nightmare of horror. But because his wife's eyes had glistened, and because his wife's lips had caroled a joyous "Oh, Burke, I'dlovethis place, darling!"—and because, most important of all, if it must be confessed, the rent was only twenty dollars a month, he had uttered a grim "All right, we'll take it." And the selection of the home was accomplished.
Not until they were on the way to the hotel that night did there come to the young husband the full realizing sense that housekeeping meant furniture.
"Oh, of course Iknewit did," he groaned, half-laughingly, after his first despairing ejaculation. "But I just didn't think; that's all. Our furniture at home we'd always had. But of course it does have to be bought—at first."
"Of course! AndIdidn't think, either," laughed Helen. "You see, we'd always hadourfurniture, too, I guess. But then, it'll be grand to buy it. I love new things!"
Burke Denby frowned.
"Buy it! That's all right—if we had the moneyto pay. Heaven only knows how much it'll cost. I don't."
"But, Burke, you've gotsomemoney, haven't you? You took a big roll out of your pocket last night."
He gave her a scornful glance.
"Big roll, indeed! How far do you suppose that would go toward furnishing a home? Of course I've got some money—a little left from my allowance—but that doesn't mean I've got enough to furnish a home."
"Then let's give up housekeeping and board," proposed Helen. "Then we won't have to buy any furniture. And I think I'd like it better anyhow; and Iknowyou would—after you'd sampled my cooking," she finished laughingly.
But her husband did not smile. The frown only deepened as he ejaculated:—
"Board! Not much, Helen! Wecouldn'tboard at a decent place. 'Twould cost too much. And as for the cheap variety—great Scott, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd stand for that! Heaven knows we'll be enough gossiped about, as it is, without our planting ourselves right under the noses of half the tabby-cats in town for them to 'oh' and 'ah' and 'um' every time we turn around or don't turn around! No, ma'am, Helen! We'll shut ourselves up somewhere within four walls we can call home, even if we have to furnish it with only two chairs and a bed and a kitchen stove. It'll be ours—and we'll be where we won't be stared at."
Helen laughed lightly.
"Dear, dear, Burke, how you do run on! Just as if one minded a little staring! I rather like it, myself,—if I know my clothes and my back hair are all right."
"Ugh! Helen!"
"Well, I do," she laughed, uptilting her chin. "It makes one feel so sort of—er—important. But I won't say 'board' again,never,—unless you begin to scold at my cooking," she finished with an arch glance.
"As if I could do that!" cried the man promptly, again the adoring husband. "I shall love everything you do—just because it'syouthat do it. The only trouble will be,youwon't get enough to eat—because I shall want to eat it all!"
"You darling! Aren't you the best ever!" she cooed, giving his arm a surreptitious squeeze. "But, really, you know, I am going to be a bang-up cook. I've got a cookbook."
"So soon? Where did you get that?"
"Yesterday, while you went into Stoddard's for that house-key. I saw one in the window next door and I went in and bought it. 'Twas two dollars, so it ought to be a good one. And that makes me think. It took all the money I had, 'most, in my purse. So I—I'm afraid I'll have to have some more, dear."
"Why, of course, of course! You mustn't go without money a minute." And the young husband, with all the alacrity of a naturally generous naturesupplemented by the embarrassment of this new experience of being asked for money by the girl he loved, plunged his hand into his pocket and crowded two bills into her unresisting fingers. "There! And I won't be so careless again, dear. I don't ever mean you to have toaskfor money, sweetheart."
"Oh, thank you," she murmured, tucking the bills into her little handbag. "I shan't need any more for ever so long, I'm sure. I'm going to be economicalnow, you know."
"Of course you are. You're going to be a little brick.Iknow."
"And we won't mind anything if we're only together," she breathed.
"There won't be anything to mind," he answered fervently, with an ardent glance that would have been a kiss had it not been for the annoying presence of a few score of Dalton's other inhabitants on the street together with themselves.
The next minute they reached the hotel.
At nine o'clock the following morning Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby sallied forth to buy the furniture for their "tenement," as Helen called it, until her husband's annoyed remonstrances changed the word to "apartment."
Burke Denby learned many things during the next few hours. He learned first that tables and chairs and beds and stoves—really decent ones that a fellow could endure the sight of—cost a prodigious amount of money. But, to offset this, and to make life reallyworth the living, after all, it seemed that one might buy a quantity sufficient for one's needs, and pay for them in installments, week by week. This idea, while not wholly satisfactory, seemed the only way of stretching their limited means to cover their many needs; and, after some hesitation, it was adopted.
There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people, otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a mass of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and "homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted, particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the one on his—which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to refute.
Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp line as to quantity; for Helen;—with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's onlytwenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"—seemed not to realize that there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend—on sixty dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh, and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace.
Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief, yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked "Sold to Burke Denby."
"Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy—and that's the main thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor did it occur to him that this was not the usual attitude of a supposedly proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.
Getting settled in the little Dale Street apartment was, so far as Burke was concerned, a mere matter of moving from the hotel and dumping the contents of his trunk into his new chiffonier and closet. True, Helen, looking tired and flurried (and not nearly so pretty as usual), brought to him some borrowed tools, together with innumerable curtains and rods andnails and hooks that simply must be put up, she said, before she could do a thing. But Burke, after a half-hearted trial,—during which he mashed his thumb and bored three holes in wrong places,—flew into a passion of irritability, and bade her get the janitor who "owned the darn things" to do the job, and to pay him what he asked—'twould be worth it, no matter what it was!
With a very hasty kiss then Burke banged out of the house and headed for the Denby Iron Works.
It was not alone the curtains or the offending hammer that was wrong with Burke Denby that morning. The time had come when he must not only meet his fellow employees, and take his place among them, but he must face his father. And he was dreading yet longing to see his father. He had not seen him since he bade him good-night and went upstairs to his own room the month before—to write that farewell note.
Once, since coming back from his wedding trip, he had been tempted to leave town and never see his father again—until he should have made for himself the name and the money that he was going to make. Then he would come back and cry: "Behold, this is I, your son, and this is Helen, my wife, who, you see, hasnotdragged me down!" He would not, of course,talklike that. But he would show them. He would! This had been when he first learned from Brett of the allowance-cutting, and of his father's implacable anger.
Then had come the better, braver decision. He would stay where he was. He would make the name and the money right here, under his father's very eyes. It would be harder, of course; but there would then be all the more glory in the winning. Besides, to leave now would look like defeat—would make one seem almost like a quitter. And his father hated quitters! He would like to show his father. Hewouldshow his father. And he would show him right here. And had not Helen, his dear wife, said that she would aid him? As if he could help winning out under those circumstances!
It was with thoughts such as these that he went now to meet his father. Especially was he thinking of Helen, dear Helen,—poor Helen, struggling back there with those abominable hooks and curtains. And he had been such a brute to snap her up so crossly! He would not do it again. It was only that he was so dreading this first meeting with his father. After that it would be easier. There would not be anything then only just to keep steadily going till he'd made good—he and Helen. But now—father would be proud to see how finely he was taking it!
With chin up and shoulders back, therefore, Burke Denby walked into his father's office.
"Well, father," he began, with cheery briskness. Then, instantly, voice and manner changed as he took a hurried step forward. "Dad, what is it? Are you ill?"
So absorbed had Burke Denby been over the part he himself was playing in this little drama of Denby and Son, that he had given no thought as to the probable looks or actions of any other member of the cast. He was quite unprepared, therefore, for the change in the man he now saw before him—the pallor, the shrunken cheeks, the stooped shoulders, the unmistakable something that made the usually erect, debonair man look suddenly worn and old.
"Dad, you are ill!" exclaimed Burke in dismay.
John Denby got to his feet at once. He even smiled and held out his hand. Yet Burke, who took the hand, felt suddenly that there were uncounted miles of space between them.
"Ah, Burke, how are you? No, I'm not ill at all. And you—are you well?"
"Er—ah—oh, yes, very well—er—very well."
"That's good. I'm glad."
There was a brief pause. A torrent of words swept to the tip of the younger man's tongue; but nothing found voice except another faltering "Er—yes, very well!" which Burke had not meant to say at all. There was a second brief pause, then John Denby sat down.
"You will find Brett in his office. You have come to work, I dare say," he observed, as he turned to the letters on his desk.
"Er—yes," stammered the young man. The next moment he found himself alone, white and shaken, the other side of his father's door.
To work? Oh, yes, he had come to work; but he had come first to talk. There were a whole lot of things he had meant to say to his father. First, of course, there would have had to be something in the nature of an apology or the like to patch up the quarrel. Then he would tell him how he was really going to make good—he and Helen. After that they could get down to one of their old-time chats. They always had been chums—he and dad; and they hadn't had a talk for four weeks. Why, for three weeks he had been saving up a story, a dandy story that dad would appreciate! And there were other things, serious things, that—
And here already he had seen his father, and it was over. And he had not said a word—nothing of what he had meant to say. He believed he would go back—
With an angry gesture Burke Denby turned and extended his hand halfway toward the closed door. Then, with an impatient shrug, he whirled about and strode toward the door marked "J. A. Brett, General Manager."
If young Denby had obeyed his first impulse and reëntered his father's office he would have found the man with his head bowed on the desk, his arms outflung.
John Denby, too, was white and shaken. He, too, had been dreading this meeting, and longing for it—that it might be over. There was now, however, on his part, no feeling of chagrin and impotencebecause of things that had not been said. There was only a shuddering relief that things hadnotbeen said; that he had been able to carry it straight through as he had planned; that he had not shown his boy how much he—cared. He was glad that his pride had been equal to the strain; that he had not weakly succumbed at the first glimpse of his son's face, the first touch of his son's hand, as he had so feared that he would do.
And he had not succumbed—though he had almost gone down before the quick terror and affectionate dismay that had leaped into his son's voice and eyes at sight of his own changed appearance. (Whycouldnot he keep those abominable portions of his anatomy from being so wretchedly telltale?) But he had remembered in time. Did the boy think, then, that a mere word of sympathy now could balance the scale against so base a disregard of everything loyal and filial a month ago? Then he would show that it could not.
And he had shown it.
What if he did know now, even better than he had known it all these last miserable four weeks, that his whole world had lain in his boy's hand, that his whole life had been bounded by his boy's smile, his whole soul immersed in his boy's future? What if he did know that all the power and wealth and fame of name that he had won were as the dust in his fingers—if he might not pass them on to his son? He was not going to let Burke know this. Indeed, no!
Burke had made his own bed. He should lie in it. Deliberately he had chosen to cast aside the love and companionship of a devoted father at the beck of an almost unknown girl's hand. Should the father then offer again the once-scorned love and companionship? Had he no pride—no proper sense of simple right and justice? No self-respect, even?
It was thus, and by arguments such as these, that John Denby had lashed himself into the state of apparently cool, courteous indifference that had finally carried him successfully through the interview just closed.
For a long time John Denby sat motionless, his arms outflung across the letters that might have meant so much, but that did mean so little, to him—now. Then slowly he raised his head and fixed somber, longing eyes on the door that had so recently closed behind his son.
The boy was in there with Brett now—his boy. He was being told that his wages for the present were to be fifteen dollars a week, and that he was expected to live within his income—that the wages were really very liberal, considering his probable value to the company at the first. Hewouldbegin at the bottom, as had been planned years ago; but with this difference: he would be promoted now only when he had earned it. He would have been pushed rapidly ahead to the top, had matters been as they once were. Now he must demonstrate and prove his ability.
All this Brett was telling Burke now. Poor Burke! Brett was so harsh, so uncompromising. As if it weren't tough enough to have to live on a paltry fifteen dollars a week, without—
John Denby sighed and rose to his feet. Aimlessly he fidgeted about the spacious, well-appointed office. Twice he turned toward the door as if to leave the room. Once he reached a hesitating hand toward the push-button on this desk. Then determinedly he sat down and picked up one of his letters.
Brett was right. It was the best way; the only way. And it was well, indeed, that Brett had been delegated to do the telling. If it had been himself now—! Shucks! If it had been himself, the boy would only have had tolookhis reproach—and his wages would have been doubled on the spot! Fifteen dollars a week—Burke!Why, the boy could not— Well, then, he need not have been so foolish, so headstrong, so heartlessly disregardful of his father's wishes. He had brought it upon himself, entirely, entirely!
Whereupon, with an angry exclamation, John Denby shifted about in his hand the letter which for three minutes he had been holding before his eyes upside down.
Helen Denby had never doubted her ability to be a perfect wife. As a girl, her vision had pictured a beauteous creature moving through a glorified world of love and admiration, ease and affluence.
Later, at the time of her marriage to Burke Denby, her vision had altered sufficiently to present a picture of herself as the sweet good-angel of the old Denby Mansion, the forgiving young wife who lays up no malice against an unappreciative father-in-law. Even when, still later (upon their return from their wedding trip and upon her learning of John Denby's decree of banishment), the vision was necessarily warped and twisted all out of semblance to its original outlines, there yet remained unchanged the basic idea of perfect wifehood.
Helen saw herself now as the martyr wife whose superb courage and self-sacrifice were to be the stepping-stones of a husband's magnificent success. She would be guide, counselor, and friend. (Somewhere she had seen those words. She liked them very much.) Unswervingly she would hold Burke to his high purpose. Untiringly she would lead him ever toward his goal of "making good."
She saw herself the sweet, loving wife, graciously presiding over the well-kept home, always ready,daintily gowned, to welcome his coming with a kiss, and to speed his going with a blessing. Then, when in due course he had won out, great would be her reward. With what sweet pride and gentle dignity would she accept the laurel wreath of praise (Helen had seen this expression somewhere, too, and liked it), which a remorseful but grateful world would hasten to lay at the feet of her who alone had made possible the splendid victory—the once despised, flouted wife—the wife who was to drag him down!
It was a pleasant picture, and Helen frequently dwelt upon it—especially the sweet-and-gentle-dignity-wife part. She found it particularly soothing during those first early days of housekeeping in the new apartment.
Not that she was beginning in the least to doubt her ability to be that perfect wife. It was only that to think of things as they would be was a pleasant distraction from thinking of things as they were. But of course it would be all right very soon, anyway,—just as soon as everything got nicely to running.
Helen did wonder sometimes why the getting of "everything nicely to running" was so difficult. That a certain amount of training and experience was necessary to bring about the best results never occurred to her. If Helen had been asked to take a position as stenographer or church soloist, she would have replied at once that she did not know how to do the work. Into the position of home-maker, however,she stepped with cheerful confidence, her eyes only on the wonderful success she was going to make.
To Helen housekeeping was something like a clock that you wound up in the morning to run all day. And even when at the end of a week she could not help seeing that not once yet had she got around to being the "sweet, daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept home," before that husband appeared at the door, she still did not doubt her own capabilities. It was only that "things hadn't got to running yet." And it was always somebody else's fault, anyway,—frequently her husband's. For if he did not come to dinner too early, before a thing was done, he was sure to be late, and thus spoil everything by her trying to keep things hot for him. And, of course, under such circumstances, nobody couldexpectone to be a sweet and daintily gowned wife!
Besides, there was the cookbook.
"Do you know, Burke," she finally wailed one night, between sobs, "I don't believe it's good for a thing—that old cookbook! I haven't got a thing out of it yet that's been real good. I've half a mind to take it back where I got it, and make them change it, or else give me back my money. I have, so there!"
"But, dearie," began her husband doubtfully, "you said yourself yesterday that you forgot the salt in the omelet, and the baking powder in the cake, and—"
"Well, what if I did?" she contended aggrievedly."What's a little salt or baking powder? 'Twasn't but a pinch or a spoonful, anyhow, and I remembered all the other things. Besides, if those rules were any good they'd be worded so Icouldn'tforget part of the things. And, anyhow, I don't think it's very nice of you to b-blame me all the time when I'm doing the very best I can. Itoldyou I couldn't cook, but yousaidyou'd like anything I made, because I did it, and—"
"Yes, yes, darling, and so I do," interrupted the remorseful husband, hurriedly. And, to prove it, he ate the last scrap of the unappetizing concoction on his plate, which his wife said was a fish croquette. Afterwards still further to show his remorse, he helped her wash the dishes and set the rooms in order. Then together they went for a walk in the moonlight.
It was a beautiful walk, and it quite restored Helen to good nature. They went up on West Hill (where Helen particularly loved to go), and they laid wonderful plans of how one day they, too, would build a big stone palace of a home up there—though Burke did say that, for his part, he liked Elm Hill quite as well; but Helen laughed him out of that "old-fashioned idea." At least he said no more about it.
They talked much of how proud Burke's father was going to be when Burke had made good, and of how ashamed and sorry he would be that he had so misjudged his son's wife. And Helen uttered some very sweet and beautiful sentiments concerning herintention of laying up no malice, her firm determination to be loving and forgiving.
Then together they walked home in the moonlight; and so thrilled and exalted were they that even the cheap little Dale Street living-room looked wonderfully dear. And Helen said that, after all, love was the only thing that mattered—that they just loved each other. And Burke said, "Yes, yes, indeed."
The vision of the sweet, daintily gowned wife and the perfect home was very clear to Helen as she dropped off to sleep that night; and she was sure that she could begin to realize it at once. But unfortunately she overslept the next morning—which was really Burke's fault, as she said, for he forgot to wind the alarm clock, and she was not used to getting up at such an unearthly hour, anyway, and she did not see whyhehad to do it, for that matter—he was really the son of the owner, even if he wascalledan apprentice.
This did not help matters any, for Burke never liked any reference to his position at the Works. To be sure, he did not say much, this time, except to observe stiffly that hewouldlike his breakfast, if she would be so good as to get it—as if she were not already hurrying as fast as she could, and herself only half-dressed at that!
Of course the breakfast was a failure. Helen said that perhaps some people could get a meal of victuals on to the table, with a hungry man eyeing their everymove, but she could not. Burke declared then that he really did not want any breakfast anyway, and he started to go; but as Helen only cried the more at this, he had to come back and comfort her—thereby, in the end, being both breakfastless and late to his work.
Helen, after he had gone, spent a blissfully wretched ten minutes weeping over the sad fate that should doom such a child of light and laughter as herself to the somber rôle of martyr wife, and wondered if, after all, it would not be really more impressive and more soul-torturing-with-remorse for the cruel father-in-law, if she should take poison, or gas, or something (not disfiguring), and lay herself calmly down to die, her beautiful hands crossed meekly upon her bosom.
Attractive as was this picture in some respects, it yet had its drawbacks. Then, too, there was the laurel wreath of praise due her later. She had almost forgotten that. On the whole, that would be preferable to the poison, Helen decided, as she began, with really cheerful alacrity, to attack the messy breakfast dishes.
It was not alone the cooking that troubled the young wife during that first month of housekeeping. Everywhere she found pitfalls for her unwary feet, from managing the kitchen range to keeping the living-room dusted.
And there was the money.
Helen's idea of money, in her happy, care-free girlhood,had been that it was one of the common necessities of life; and she accepted it as she did the sunshine—something she was entitled to; something everybody had. She learned the fallacy of this, of course, when she attempted to earn her own living; but in marrying the son of the rich John Denby, she had expected to step back into the sunshine, as it were. It was not easy now to adjust herself to the change.
She did not like the idea of asking for every penny she spent, and it seemed as if she was always having to ask Burke for money; and, though he invariably handed it over with a nervously quick, "Why, yes, certainly! I don't mean you to have to ask for it, Helen"; yet she thought she detected a growing irritation in his manner each time. And on the last occasion he had added a dismayed "But I hadn't any idea you could have got out so soon as this again!" And it made her feel very uncomfortable indeed.
As ifshewere to blame that it took so much butter and coffee and sugar and stuff just to get three meals a day! And as if it were her fault that that horrid cookbook was always calling for something she did not have, like mace, or summer savory, or thyme, and she had to run out and buy a pound of it! Didn't he suppose it tooksomemoney to stock up with things, when one hadn't a thing to begin with?
Helen had been on the point of saying something of this sort to her husband, simply as a matter ofself-justification, when there unexpectedly came a most delightful solution of her difficulty.
It was the grocer who pointed the way.
"Why don't you open an account with us, Mrs. Denby?" he asked smilingly one day, in reply to her usual excuse that she could not buy something because she did not have the money to pay for it.
"An account? What's that? That wouldn't make me have any more money, would it? Father was always talking about accounts—good ones and bad ones. He kept a store, you know. But I never knew what they were, exactly. I never thought of asking. I never had to pay any attention to money at home. What is an account? How can I get one?"
"Why, you give your orders as usual, but let the payment go until the end of the month," smiled the grocer. "We'll charge it—note it down, you know—then send the bill to your husband."
"And I won't have to ask him for any money?"
"Not to pay us." The man's lips twitched a little.
"Oh, that would be just grand," she sighed longingly. "I'd like that. And it's something the way we're buying our furniture, isn't it?—installments, you know."
The grocer's lips twitched again.
"Er—y-yes, only we send a bill for the entire month."
"And he pays it? Oh, I see. That's just grand! And he'd like it all right, wouldn't he?—because of course he'd have to pay some time, anyhow. Andthis way he wouldn't have to have me bothering him so much all the time asking for money. Oh, thank you. You're very kind. I think I will do that way if you don't mind."
"We shall be glad to have you, Mrs. Denby. So we'll call that settled. And now you can begin right away this morning."
"And can I get those canned peaches and pears and plums, and the grape jelly that I first looked at?"
"Certainly—if you decide you want 'em," mumbled the grocer, throwing the last six words as a sop to his conscience which was beginning to stir unpleasantly.
"Oh, yes, I want 'em," averred Helen, her eager eyes sweeping the alluringly laden shelves before her. "I wanted them all the time, you know, only I didn't have enough money to pay for them. Now it'll be all right because Burke'll pay—I mean, Mr. Denby," she corrected with a conscious blush, suddenly remembering what her husband had said the night before about her calling him "Burke" so much to strangers.
Helen found she wanted not only the fruits and jelly, but several other cans of soups, meats, and vegetables. And it was such a comfort, for once, to select what she wanted, and not have to count up the money in her purse! She was radiantly happy when she went home from market that morning (instead of being tired and worried as was usually the case); and the glow on her face lasted all through theday and into the evening—so much so that even Burke must have noticed it, for he told her he did not know when he had seen her looking so pretty. And he gave her an extra kiss or two when he greeted her.
The second month of housekeeping proved to be a great improvement over the first. It was early in that month that Helen learned the joy and comfort of having "an account" at her grocer's. And she soon discovered that not yet had she probed this delight to its depths, for not only the grocer, but the fishman and the butcher were equally kind, and allowed her to open accounts with them. Coincident with this came the discovery that there were such institutions as bakeries and delicatessen shops, which seemed to have been designed especially to meet the needs of just such harassed little martyr housewives as she herself was; for in them one might buy bread and cakes and pies and even salads and cold meats, and fish balls. One might, indeed, with these delectable organizations at hand, snap one's fingers at all the cookbooks in the world—cookbooks that so miserably failed to cook!
The baker and the little Dutch delicatessen man, too (when they found out who she was), expressed themselves as delighted to open an account; and with the disagreeable necessity eliminated of paying on the spot for what one ordered, and with so great an assortment of ready-to-eat foods to select from, Helen found her meal-getting that second month a much simpler matter.
Then, too, Helen was much happier now that she did not have to ask her husband for money. She accepted what he gave her, and thanked him; but she said nothing about her new method of finance.
"I'm going to keep it secret till the stores send him the bills," said Helen to herself. "Then I'll show him what a lot I've saved from what he has given me, and he'll be so glad to pay things all at once without being bothered with my everlasting teasing!"
She only smiled, therefore, enigmatically, when he said one day, as he passed over the money:—
"Jove, girl! I quite forgot. You must be getting low. But I'm glad you didn't have to ask me for it, anyhow!"
Ask him for it, indeed! How pleased he would be when he found out that she was never going to ask him for money again!
Helen was meaning to be very economical these days. When she went to market she always saw several things she would have liked, that she did not get, for of course she wanted to make the bills as small as she could. Naturally Burke would wish her to do that. She tried to save, too, a good deal of the money Burke gave her; but that was not always possible, for there were her own personal expenses. True, she did not need many clothes—but she was able to pick up a few bargains in bows and collars (one always needed fresh neckwear, of course); and she found some lovely silk stockings, too, that were very cheap, so she bought several pairs—to save money. Andof course there were always car-fares and a soda now and then, or a little candy.
There were the "movies" too. She had fallen into the way of going rather frequently to the Empire with her neighbor on the same floor. It did her good, and got her out of herself. (She had read only recently how every wife should have some recreation; it was a duty she owed herself and her husband—to keep herself youthful and attractive.) She got lonesome and nervous, sitting at home all day; and now that she had systematized her housekeeping so beautifully by buying almost everything all cooked, she had plenty of leisure. Of course she would have preferred to go to the Olympia Theater. They had a stock company there, and real plays. But their cheapest seats were twenty-five cents, while she might go to the Empire for ten. So very bravely she put aside her expensive longings, and chose the better part—economy and the movies. Besides, Mrs. Jones, the neighbor on the same floor, said that, for her part, she liked the movies the best,—you got "such a powerful lot more for your dough."
Mrs. Jones always had something bright and original like that to say—Helen liked her very much! Indeed, she told Burke one day that Mrs. Jones was almost as good as a movie show herself. Burke, however, did not seem to care for Mrs. Jones. For that matter, he did not care for the movies, either.
No matter where Helen went in the afternoon, she was always very careful to be at home before Burke.She hoped she knew what pertained to being a perfect wife better than to be careless about matters like that! Mrs. Jones was not always so particular in regard to her husband—which only served to give Helen a pleasant, warm little feeling of superiority at the difference.
Perhaps Mrs. Jones detected the superiority, for sometimes she laughed, and said:—
"All right, we'll go if you must; but you'll soon get over it. This lovey-dovey-I'm-right-here-hubby business is all very well for a while, but—you wait!"
"All right, I'm waiting. But—you see!" Helen always laughed back, bridling prettily.
Hurrying home from shopping or the theater, therefore, Helen always stopped and got her potato salad and cold meat, or whatever else she needed. And the meal was invariably on the table before Burke's key sounded in the lock.
Helen was, indeed, feeling quite as if she were beginning to realize her vision now. Was she not each night the loving, daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-ordered, attractive home? There was even quite frequently a bouquet of flowers on the dinner table. Somewhere she had read that flowers always added much to a meal; and since then she had bought them when she felt that she could afford them. And in the market there were almost always some cheap ones, only a little faded. Of course, she never bought the fresh, expensive ones.
After dinner there was the long evening together.Sometimes they went to walk, after the dishes were done—Burke had learned to dry dishes beautifully. More often they stayed at home and played games, or read—Burke was always wanting to read. Sometimes they just talked, laying wonderful plans about the fine new house they were going to build. Now that Helen did not have to ask Burke for money, there did not seem to be so many occasions when he was fretful and nervous; and they were much happier together.
All things considered, therefore, Helen felt, indeed, before this second month of housekeeping was over, that she had now "got things nicely to running."