CHAPTER XIX
Hugh Benton had lost no time (nor had the widow allowed him, for that matter) after obtaining his divorce decree, in marrying Geraldine DeLacy. Some of their intimates, many of the more conservative element or the society in which they moved, believed that the marriage had occurred indecently soon after Marjorie had been put aside. But in general society let them alone to go their own way. Shoulders were raised eloquently in a few quarters, in others the names of Hugh Benton and the former Mrs. DeLacy were quietly erased from invitation lists, but the scandal was (as is so often the case among the busy four or five thousand who were once four hundred) not long in giving place to something more recent. Society was beginning to yawn when the name of Benton was mentioned.
The financier, happy in the possession of the woman with whom he was so deeply infatuated; his new wife, elated at the good fortune she had so triumphantly maneuvered, apparently cared not a whit for what society might say. Knowing most of them as she did, Geraldine DeLacy Benton smiled knowingly into her dressing table mirror, as she told herself that all would come in good time. With Hugh Benton’s money at her command, she was more than willing to wait her time to take the social leadership she felt so confidently would be hers before long.
Only Elinor was dissatisfied. The freedom she had been so happy over having had not brought her the joy she had expected it to. Even before leaving for Europe with her father and newly acquired step-mother, she had felt the sting of disapproval, and it had only made her more misanthropic than she was already speedily becoming. She could not help noticing that many of her own friends were avoiding her. Invitations were noticeably scarce. But it was some time before she took notice of this, since, in her new freedom, she had taken to visiting the more public tea and dance rooms in company with her various admirers, all of whom seemed to flock around her more than ever, in contradistinction to the cooling ardor for her friendship of their sisters and mothers. It was not until she met Rosebud Greely in the Plaza one afternoon that the truth of the matter was brought home to her, though. Elinor touched the girl on the arm as Rosebud passed through the aisle on her way to a table on the other side of the room, where her mother and some friends were sitting.
“Hello, Rosebud!” she greeted. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to come and see my new quarters. Come down to the hotel and have tea with me to-morrow, won’t you?”
Rosebud Greeley, usually so open, so ready for anything, was noticeably uncomfortable. She cast a furtive glance across the room toward her mother.
“ ’Fraid I can’t, Elinor,” she said nervously. “The mater—you know——”
Elinor lifted surprised eyebrows.
“Why, what can she have against me?” was her hurt query.
Rosebud shook her head and turned to hurry along. But the hurt look in Elinor’s eyes touched the girl’s tender heart, and she gently brushed Elinor Benton’s arm. “Don’t you worry, old dear,” she advised. “It’ll all blow over—it’s so silly anyhow—but you must know what everyone is saying because you’re flying around unchaperoned, and you know my mater. Just the same, I wish I could do what you’re doing for a while!” She took Elinor in enviously and nodded her head toward the table the Benton heiress had left where a blasé youth was sitting waiting for her. “Try to see you some more, some time. Bye!”
Elinor could hardly realize it. So they were saying things about her, were they? Well, she’d show them! Her father——
She could hardly get out of the place quickly enough to tell him. With head held haughtily high, she left the tea room, looking neither to right nor left at the many she knew who were seeing her. But her cheeks flamed hotly as instinct told her she was the subject of conversation at more than one table that she swept by.
Hugh Benton was sympathetic and gentle as he had been since Elinor had chosen to go with him. But he did not take the matter as seriously as she had thought he should. There were matters on his own mind clamoring for attention. One of these was that he had not told his daughter of his intended marriage to Geraldine DeLacy—for the incident of the Plaza tea had occurred before Elinor had any idea her father contemplated re-marriage. Elinor had known, of course, of his infatuation for the widow, and that she had been the cause of the differences between her father and mother. Equally, of course, she had heard much of the gossip concerning the two. But, loving her father as she did, knowing him as she believed she did, it had not entered her head that Hugh Benton would really marry Mrs. DeLacy. And this Hugh Benton knew.
He seized on his daughter’s humiliating experience for an entering wedge for his confession.
“Poor little girl,” he sympathized. “So she’s seeing that her old dad isn’t accepted as a proper chaperon, is she? I was afraid of as much—but never mind, dear,” and he pulled her to him and seated her on his knee. “We’ll fix all that! There really ought to be an older woman to look after you——”
Elinor squirmed about to face him.
“Why, Daddy!” she exclaimed. “Whatever do you mean—” Then as her eyes searched his face, and she saw the half shamed, half triumphant look there, the truth slowly dawned on her. She drew back as if stung. She was surprised, angry by turns. She caught his two arms and shook him furiously.
“Oh, Daddy! Daddy!” she cried. “Surely, you don’t mean to say that you really intend to marry Geraldine DeLacy?”
“Surely, I speak plainly enough, Elinor,” he answered irritably.
“But Daddy—she doesn’t love you! She’ll never make you happy!”
“Please permit me to be the judge of that.” He was very stern as he lifted her from his knees and set her on her feet. “What right have you to say anything about it?”
“The right of one who really loves you, dear.” She threw her arms around his neck in spite of his move to turn away. “One who wants you to be happy. Besides, you’re all I have in the world. I—I can’t bear to lose you.”
“You’ll not lose me, baby!” Once more he was all gentleness. “I’ll be just as close to you as ever. Only you do need a woman’s hand, you know, and Geraldine loves you so devotedly. She’ll be just like a sister to you.”
“I’m glad, Daddy,” Elinor smiled almost sadly, “that you didn’t say she’d be like—a mother—to me. Oh, well, I suppose you’ve quite made up your mind, so nothing I could say would influence you?”
“As you say, I’ve quite made up my mind. I’m not a child; and I never allow anyone to influence me.”
But if Elinor Benton liked the idea of her father’s marriage so little at the time he told her of it, she liked it still less as the days grew into weeks. On the day of the wedding, she knew that the emotion that she held toward Geraldine was hatred; and it increased day by day with the closer relationship. At first, it was prompted by self-pity. She could not overlook the fact that Geraldine had appropriated her place in her father’s heart; but, before long, she began to realize just how little her father really meant to this vain, selfish creature, who had forced herself—yes, she had always been certain of that—into her mother’s place. Her mother! The woman she had held in contempt and ridicule because of her old-fashioned ideas. Why, it seemed almost like sacrilege to even think of her in the presence of this woman!
She was positively astounded at her father’s actions. He was an enigmatical problem, impossible of solution. He permitted himself to be dragged about like a toy poodle. If he passed his opinion about anything or anyone, and it failed to coincide with Geraldine’s—well, he changed it, that was all! And in an apologetical and almost cringing manner that fairly nauseated Elinor.
What had happened to this big, powerful, handsome man, of whom she had once been so proud? There were times when she pitied him. There was something pathetic in his anxiety to please this parasite, who with a smile, or a few words of endearment, could send him to the seventh heaven of delight, or with a frown cast him into the very depths of despair.
But if Elinor Benton was astonished at the change that came over her father in less than a year, she would have been more astonished could she have realized the change that had occurred in herself. She would not have known herself—nor would any of her former friends have known her—for the gay, careless, laughter-loving, joyous creature who had played the butterfly for those few months after her début.
She was at outs with the world. It seemed that everyone plotted against her. Constant brooding over her “wrongs” soon changed the butterfly into a cynical woman of the world. Her brother had “wronged” her terribly by killing the man she loved, or rather, thought she loved, for now as she looked back upon it all, she realized that what she had felt for Templeton Druid had not been love at all, but merely a schoolgirl’s infatuation. Her mother had “wronged” her by refusing ever to see her, and simply shutting her out of her heart and life; and now her father—her Daddy, whom she had idolized had “wronged” her by marrying this clever, designing woman. Geraldine DeLacy had been a most desirable chaperon for her—while she remained Mrs. DeLacy, but as her father’s wife—That was an entirely different matter.
So she consoled herself as best she could with violent flirtations with the foreign gallants with which Paris swarmed. Neither her father nor Geraldine appeared either to know or care what she was doing. But somehow, the sweetness of her freedom had palled, and there came times that she wished for a restraining hand. There were more times when she more bitterly wished herself away from her father and his new wife than she had ever, back there in the security of her own boudoir in her sheltered home in “The Castle,” wished herself away from it.
One thing she made up her mind to, though, and that was that never would she return with them to her former home. This was the bitterest pill of all. They were going back, her father told her. It was Geraldine’s wish. Their year in Paris was almost over when he told them at breakfast one morning that he had cabled Griggs to re-open the place.
He would have preferred disposing of it and purchasing a new place; but Geraldine had firmly made up her mind—a long time ago—that one day she should be mistress of “The Castle”; therefore she insisted upon re-opening it, declaring that she would redecorate it anew, just as soon as they were settled.
But though things had gradually been shaping themselves for a general cataclysm for months, it was not until just before their preparations for sailing were completed that a crisis came. Only Hugh Benton had been placidly unaware of anything wrong. He believed he held the world. He did not know, could not seem to realize, that he was like a child, or a weakling in the hands of his wife. She ruled his every act, his every thought. Like an avalanche, she swept everything before her in the one mad desire to satisfy her unappeasable greed. But her native subtlety had aided her to hide this from Hugh Benton, if not from his daughter. He went about like a man in a dream. He imagined himself to be the happiest of men. He had a young and beautiful wife, who loved him devotedly. What more could he ask? He put the past from him like a bad dream, and lived only in the present. And then suddenly—the awakening!
He had been for a long walk with Geraldine in the afternoon. He had fairly reveled in her gayety, her bubbling wit, the fact that she was his own, and that every man they passed paused to give the dazzling dark-eyed beauty an admiring glance. He had made a note of her admiration of a string of pearls they saw at a famous jeweler’s where they had stopped to get a ring she had left for resetting. Then she had gone home before him, as even in Paris, the calls of his vast business across the water took more of his time than he would like to have taken from his wife’s side.
When he hurried into the luxurious sitting room of the suite they were occupying, he found Elinor there alone. She was already dressed, and stood looking out of the window in a bored fashion. She did not even turn as she greeted her father, hastening to add:
“Hello, dad. You’ll have to hustle and dress for dinner. You know we’re going to the opera to-night.” She couldn’t have shown less enthusiasm had she announced that it was time to retire.
“It will only take me a few minutes,” he said. “Where’s Geraldine?”
Elinor shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “I’m sure I don’t know. Dressing, I suppose.”
Geraldine swept into the room, magnificently gowned in a striking costume of cloth of silver.
“You’re very late, Hugh,” she said peevishly. “Where have you been all afternoon?”
“Now, darling. You mustn’t be cross—I had something to do. My! How beautiful you are!” He attempted to caress her.
“Please, Hugh,” she held him off, “I wish you wouldn’t paw all over me! Nanette simply couldn’t arrange my hair to suit me to-night! I had to do it myself and it was exasperatingly stubborn!”
“It looks wonderful, darling.”
“No, it doesn’t!” She walked to the mantel and stared into the mirror. “It looks a fright, but I can’t help it, and I did want to look particularly nice to-night.”
“Why to-night?” Hugh asked curiously. “To me you always look particularly nice,” he added gallantly.
“There are some people here from New York,” Geraldine answered his question without paying the slightest heed to his compliment—“people who had the impertinence deliberately to cut me—before we were married. I am looking forward to the pleasure of retaliating. I think the women will feel it a great deal more, if I am looking my best.”
“What a disgusting parvenu!” was Elinor’s thought as she still stared into the lighted streets.
“What a child you are,” Hugh laughed indulgently. “Well, I have something here,” and he pulled a long box from his pocket, “that may help you a little. This is what delayed me.”
He held the long string of perfectly matched, lustrous pearls before her.
“Oh, you darling!” she exclaimed, as she threw her arms about him, hair forgotten. “You are too good to me! Here, put them on me!”
She stood still while he clasped the pearls and kissed her neck.
“Aren’t they wonderful?” She fingered them caressingly, and then rushed to the mirror again. “Elinor!” she turned suddenly. “What do you think of them?”
“I think they are very beautiful,” the girl answered simply, as she turned slowly to take in the scene.
Hugh walked over and placed his arm lovingly about his daughter. “I’ve ordered a string as near like them as possible for you, baby. They promised to have them for me in a few days.”
“Oh—no, Daddy—you shouldn’t have done that. I really don’t care for them, for myself.”
“Nonsense! Of course you do! Besides, I want my two treasures to always share alike,” he beamed joyously, glancing across at Geraldine.
She stood in the center of the room, two bright red spots burning in each cheek, as she tugged frantically at the clasp at the back of her neck.
“Why, darling, what is the matter?” He hastened to her.
“Take these things off!” Geraldine screamed. “I won’t have them! If you can’t buy me a thing without immediately ordering a duplicate of it for her,” she pointed her finger dramatically at Elinor, “then I don’t want you to give me anything!”
“Why, Geraldine—” Elinor stepped forward anxiously. She could scarcely control her voice. “You just heard me tell Daddy I didn’t want them. Please keep yours on and don’t make a scene. I assure you, even if Daddy gets them for me, I’ll not accept them.”
“Stop playing the self-sacrificing little angel with me!” She turned on Elinor fiercely. “I know perfectly well how you hate me, and you know how I feel about you. I’m sick and tired of keeping up this pretense any longer!”
“But—my dear.” Hugh was even whiter than Elinor. “I—I thought that you loved Elinor devotedly, and that you two would be just like sisters. You’re—you’re nervous and upset to-night. You don’t know what you’re saying——”
“Please! Don’t make excuses for me, Hugh,” Geraldine interrupted savagely. “I don’t love her! I never have loved her, and I neverwilllove her! And you might as well know it right now!”
“You gave me to understand one night in New York that you had only Elinor’s interest at heart—when you persuaded me to do—something—I didn’t think was quite fair. Do you remember it, Geraldine?” Hugh set his lips in their old grim line, as memory flashed back the picture.
Geraldine tossed aside her necklace. A look of pure contempt, all but hatred, distorted her features as she looked at her husband slowly. Then her lip curled and she laughed.
“For a clever and brilliant business man, you’re the biggest fool I’ve ever met in all my life!” she flung at him. She rushed into her own room and banged the door after her.
For a moment Hugh stood and stared at the closed door, too astonished to move. When the realization of the miserable scene he had just passed through, finally dawned upon his numbed consciousness, he sank heavily down upon the nearest chair and groaned aloud.
Elinor was on her knees beside him instantly. “Oh, Daddy,” she murmured soothingly, “Daddy—dear.”
He buried his head in his hands. “Oh—my God!” His body shook convulsively. “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!”
The sound of his daughter’s heart-broken sobs roused him from his own misery. Her head was buried on his knee, her whole figure a picture of abject misery. He bent over and touched her tumbled hair, idly tried to arrange the torn lace of her bodice.
“There! There, dear!” he begged, but his tone was one of hopelessness as he tried to give the sympathy he was himself so much in need of. “Don’t cry, sweetheart—it’ll all be all right!”
Elinor lifted a tear-stained face to her father’s. She shook her head. Then the sobbing burst out afresh.
“Oh, Daddy! Daddy!” she wailed, “I—want—my—mother!”
Hugh Benton was wrong in believing that matters would right themselves when Geraldine’s nerves should be soothed. He was to learn that she had but dropped the mask that had irked her through all the year that she had been making for herself the place that she was determined to have—bringing Hugh Benton to an abject posture beneath her feet. For the scene she had made about the string of pearls had been but the woman’s opening gun in her new campaign. It was the first of her quarrels with her husband, but others followed in such rapid succession that the first was not long in being lost sight of.
Elinor left them the week following her denunciation by her step-mother. She met some friends who invited her to spend the winter in Italy. She was delighted at the chance to escape from her unhappy surroundings, and Hugh was glad to let her go. He had come to know the impossibility of keeping her under the same roof with Geraldine.
Alone with his new wife, there began a life so terrible for Hugh Benton, that at times he was almost certain it could not be true. He was merely having a dreadful nightmare from which he would suddenly awaken.
Geraldine seemed fairly to thrive upon quarrels and violent scenes. At first, Hugh attempted to plead or remonstrate, or argue with her; but he soon found that that was the thing she craved, so he simply lapsed into silence until the tirade was over. But oh! how it told on him! How it crushed the manhood within him and made of him a thing he himself despised!
Hugh Benton (Huntly Gordon) comes to his daughter’s assistance.(“The Valley of Content” screened as “Pleasure Mad.”)
Hugh Benton (Huntly Gordon) comes to his daughter’s assistance.(“The Valley of Content” screened as “Pleasure Mad.”)
On their return to New York Geraldine had redecorated “The Castle,” but he never entered it without seeing before him a vision of Marjorie, as she stood in the library that never-to-be-forgotten night, completely rejuvenated and beautiful, trying to rekindle his love and pleading with him to give up his engagement and take her to the theater.
Surely that was the night on which God had forsaken him, or he would have listened to her pleadings, and have been spared all this torture.
Hugh Benton knew he was nearing the end of the road. His associates recognized the change in the man, but there was little sympathy such as might have been expected for a man, old and broken before his time, from any other cause than the one which had aged and grayed the financier. For the first time in his life, he bowed his head, content to take the lashings of Fate because of sheer inability longer to fight. He had been vanquished by a woman—a woman for whose sake he had driven wife and children from him, had outlawed his friends, cut short his life.
As he drooped into his office one morning, he felt that the end could not be far off. And he welcomed it. One more blow from the hand of Fate——
He started to look over the opened letters his secretary had left in front of him. There was one, a personal letter, unopened. He recognized Elinor’s handwriting. What would he give for one sight of her! A thought came to him. Why not cut it—go back to Europe with Elinor, let Geraldine do as she pleased. The very thought cheered him. It was worthy of more than passing consideration. Eagerly he opened the letter. But the eagerness turned to pain as he read; the white face turned ashen. The letter dropped with the hand to his knee, and he sat staring at it as though the writing stared out at him in letters of fire.
“Dear Daddy:” Elinor had written:
I know that you are expecting me home soon, but this is to tell you that I am not coming back—ever. What I have to tell you will certainly surprise you, perhaps shock you (or are you past the time of shocks and surprises?) I have been married a month to Signor Guglielmo Bellini, a young baritone in the opera here, of whom you have perhaps never heard, but who is well known and thought of here. Do I love him? I am not sure—any more than I am sure there is any such thing as love. But he is kind and—— He is not exactly what you might call of our kind, but I am through with our kind—forever—and he can give me all that I now crave; constant change and forgetfulness.So it’s good-by, Daddy, and don’t forget your baby. I shall never forget you. You have always been so kind to me and have given me everything, except—my mother.So, if in the future you don’t hear from me often, just remember that I am fluttering about the world, for that is how I shall find peace.Your loving daughter,Elinor.
I know that you are expecting me home soon, but this is to tell you that I am not coming back—ever. What I have to tell you will certainly surprise you, perhaps shock you (or are you past the time of shocks and surprises?) I have been married a month to Signor Guglielmo Bellini, a young baritone in the opera here, of whom you have perhaps never heard, but who is well known and thought of here. Do I love him? I am not sure—any more than I am sure there is any such thing as love. But he is kind and—— He is not exactly what you might call of our kind, but I am through with our kind—forever—and he can give me all that I now crave; constant change and forgetfulness.
So it’s good-by, Daddy, and don’t forget your baby. I shall never forget you. You have always been so kind to me and have given me everything, except—my mother.
So, if in the future you don’t hear from me often, just remember that I am fluttering about the world, for that is how I shall find peace.
Your loving daughter,
Elinor.
The letter fluttered from the man’s nerveless fingers to the floor. His head drooped forward until it rested on the edge of his great mahogany desk, the sharp edge of the glass pressing into his forehead unheeded. His whole body shook with sobs.
“ ‘That is how I shall find peace!’ ” he quoted. “Oh, Marjorie! Marjorie!” he groaned aloud, “if you could see me now, you could find it in your great heart to forgive me!”
Wearily he lifted his head and his hand searched out a desk button. The clerk who answered was told to send Bryson, the manager. When the man stood deferentially before the financier, Benton asked him hurriedly:
“Bryson, I wonder if you will be able to take complete charge here, while I go to California?”
“To California? Shall you be gone long, Mr. Benton?”
“I can’t tell exactly—probably all summer.”
“It would be quite a responsibility for me,” Bryson answered uneasily. “You know what a peculiar state the market is in, Mr. Benton.”
“But you’ve been with me so many years, Bryson,” Hugh argued. “You know my methods. I have every confidence in your judgment.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate your faith in me,” Bryson acknowledged gratefully. “When do you intend starting?”
“The day after to-morrow.”
“Why, Mr. Benton! That’s impossible! You have that gigantic deal on hand with Randall, Small & Company! It might be disastrous for you to leave before it is completed.”
Hugh shook his head stubbornly. “Come back in an hour, and we’ll talk this thing over again,” he ordered.
But on the man’s return at the end of the hour, he found Hugh Benton’s private office empty. A note on the desk informed him that Mr. Benton had gone. He was leaving for Chicago at once, and from there to San Francisco. He left everything in Bryson’s hands, and he would write him particulars as soon as he arrived.
“Strangest thing I ever heard of,” Bryson muttered, reading the note again. “Chances are, he’ll think better of it and hurry right back.”
In her boudoir in “The Castle,” Geraldine DeLacy Benton stopped in her preparations for a gay party to scan the telegram her maid handed her.
“Hmmph!” was her comment, as she dipped deeply into her gold powder box. “California, eh? Rather sudden—wonder how long he’ll stay? Well,” and she held out her slender foot for the velvet slipper the long-suffering maid held, “he needn’t hurry back on my account!”
The only one who knew he never intended to come back at all was—Hugh Benton!
CHAPTER XX
It is one thing to announce a heroic determination to become the family bread winner. It is quite another to put that determination to practical account, as Howard Benton was to learn in the days that followed his sojourn at the sanitarium and since learning that his mother’s resources were almost gone.
Particularly when one’s talents run only to running a sporty little racer and a thorough knowledge of all the most recent dance steps and a canny way of learning just where to find the best bootleggers—a talent which the young man put into the limbo of forgotten things as his first step in his new life.
Both he and his mother felt he could put his knowledge of automobiles to practical account. But when he applied for one position after another with automobile firms, he was laughed at for his pains. Not even he had realized exactly how little he did know about machines. Too long had he left the disagreeable part to mechanics.
His belief in friends (at first) had led him into the offices of those he had known in palmier days. But it was with stung pride that he abandoned this after a few efforts. They had all seemed kind enough—patronizing even—but always it was the same thing he had heard in Thurston’s bond office: “Nothing now, my boy—but if you don’t get settled, you might call again some time.”
But Howard Benton never called again. Instead, he took to spending his evenings with his mother, going over advertisements, writing answers to which, because of his lack of experience, there were few replies. How terribly had he wasted the years at college—years that could not now help him earn a living!
It was when it actually became a question of food that he determined to take whatever might be offered. Months had passed, and he had kept his promise to his mother, but they had gone through hardships together, and there were times when the price of a meal had been difficult to earn.
In the end, his earnestness won him a position in the office of a large manufacturing concern. The salary was not large, but to Marjorie, and to her son, the youth who had once squandered double the amount in a single evening, but who had come to know what it meant to walk about for days trying to earn enough to keep a shelter above their heads, it seemed a small fortune.
And so two years had passed. As soon as possible they had moved into a new home, a little four-room flat in Harlem. It was cozy and comfortable, a sitting and dining room combined, two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen. Marjorie did all of the work, even to their washing. At first, Howard objected to this. She seemed so frail, he was sure that she could never stand it; but when she assured him that she never felt better in all her life, that the work was like play, and gave her something with which to occupy herself while he was at work, he agreed to let her do as she pleased.
He left at seven-thirty every morning to go to his work, and at six he returned, always to find a hot, tempting dinner waiting for him. At noon, when he opened his lunch-box, some new delicacy or dainty invariably met his eye. How could he possibly know that Marjorie went without her own lunch many a day in order to provide these little luxuries for him?
How was he to know that when evening after evening she greeted him at the door with a smile, she had dragged herself about all day doing her work, cooking his dinner, mending his clothes, without uttering a word of complaint, while she suffered the most excruciating pain? It had begun about a year ago, while they were enduring so many hardships, a sharp, stinging sensation, somewhere in the region of her heart, that at times almost drove her insane.
Apparently they were both quite happy. They never referred to the past. Their lives seemed to date from the day when they left Hugh Benton’s house together. Howard could not know that at times Marjorie lay awake all night wondering about Elinor and Hugh. She had never heard a word from Elinor since the day she said good-by to her over the telephone, and of Hugh, she had heard but twice, and that was through the society columns of the paper.
The first time it had been quite by accident. Howard had been lying on the couch one Sunday afternoon reading “The Times.” He had fallen asleep, and the paper slipped to the floor. She picked it up, and the name “Benton” caught her eye. It was a small item saying that Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Benton had returned from Paris, and had reopened “The Castle,” where they expected to entertain extensively during the coming season. After that, she searched the paper every day, but she never saw another article until one day, she read of the departure of Hugh Benton for California for an indefinite stay.
On the other hand, how was she to know that at times Howard was lonely and unhappy? He was just a boy—not quite twenty-three. All day long he worked hard, and then came home to spend his evenings with her. It was true that he loved her devotedly, and that he rejoiced in the thought of being able to take care of her, but just the same, he was young, and at times he craved young society. The monotony began to get on his nerves. The worst of it all was that he couldn’t see where it would ever change; but he wouldn’t worry his mother, so he smiled and laughed always, and made her believe he was contented and happy—just as she never permitted him to know of her days of suffering, of her heartaches and longing, her hours of loneliness. In front of the boy she worshiped, she was always bright and smiling.
They were sitting down to dinner one evening when Howard, shyly and half shame-facedly told his mother of a dance he would like to attend.
“I wonder if you would mind, dearest, if I went?” he asked.
“Why, no dear,” she answered heartily. “I’d be glad to have you go anywhere for a little pleasure. You work so hard you need more recreation.”
“But you know, I don’t like to leave you alone evenings, mother,” the boy demurred. “Even when I go to the first show at the movies, and you won’t go with me, I’m uneasy until I get back to you.”
“That’s foolish, dear. You shouldn’t feel like that.” She smiled at him lovingly. “I’m rather tired at night, and I usually have some mending or darning to do. But about this dance, shall I get your dress-suit out of the trunk? You haven’t worn it in two years and I’m afraid you’ve outgrown it.”
“No, indeed, mother!” He laughed heartily. “First of all, you’ll never find it! I sold it long ago, when we were so hard up, and if I went to this dance in a dress-suit, they’d mob me.”
“Why, Howard!” She was becoming alarmed. “What sort of a dance is it?”
“Oh, it’s a nice enough dance all right, but it isn’t a society affair.” He laughed again. “It’s just a lot of plain working girls and boys like myself. One of the boys in the office asked me to go.”
“That’s fine, dear. It will do you a lot of good. I’ll sponge and press your blue suit and have it all ready for you.”
If a bride were being dressed, there couldn’t have been more excitement in a home than there was in the little flat on Saturday night, when Howard prepared to go to the dance. Marjorie had laid all his things out on his bed during the afternoon. His suit nicely cleaned and pressed, a beautifully laundered shirt, his tie, collar, handkerchief—everything was ready.
“Why, mother,” he laughed, as she bustled about, handing him his things. “I feel like a girl getting ready for my first party! I really believe you’re enjoying all this.”
“I am, dear,” she answered, her cheeks bright with excitement.
“Well, I’m ready.” He stepped back from the mirror. “Do I look all right?”
“I never saw anyone like you!” She clasped her hands and looked at him adoringly. “All the girls will be fighting over you! You’re so handsome, dear.”
“Mother, you’re a little flatterer.” He caught her up in his strong arms to dance about the room with her.
“Oh, please, dear—please don’t!” she screamed. Her face paled, and she held her hand to her side.
“Why, mother—you’re ill! What’s wrong with you?” He placed her gently on the bed and knelt beside her.
“It’s—it’s—nothing, dear.” She forced a smile to her lips.
“But you screamed with pain—and you’re so white. I’m going to call a doctor.”
“No—no—I won’t allow you to be so foolish. I—I’m perfectly all right, dear. You picked me up so suddenly and you’re so big and strong. It was just a stitch in my side. See, it’s entirely gone now.” She sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Just the same,” he said resolutely, “I’m not going! I wouldn’t think of leaving you alone.”
“But you are going, dear—I insist upon it. There’s not a thing in the world the matter with me, but if you stayed at home, you’d make me think I was really ill.”
For ten minutes she argued until he was finally persuaded to go. At the door she kissed him affectionately. “Good-night, darling! Have a wonderful time and don’t worry for a minute—I’m perfectly well.”
She never knew how she managed to reach her bed. For half an hour she suffered the agony of death until the spasm passed.
But Howard Benton went to his first dance in two years with a heavy heart. In spite of his mother’s repeated assurances that she was perfectly well, he could not get her white, drawn face out of his mind. Once or twice he was inclined to turn back, but the fear of aggravating her prevented him. At all events, he would insist upon her seeing a doctor to-morrow.
When he arrived at the Hall about nine-thirty, the dance was well under way. He felt strange and ill at ease. The crowd was so entirely different from the crowd in which he had mingled in the old days. Outside of a few of the boys from the office, he didn’t know a soul. But it didn’t take him very long to become acquainted. He was a good dancer, handsome, and a gentleman—three things always bound to attract young women in whatever station of life.
About eleven o’clock, Frank O’Connor, one of the Floor Committee came up to him: “Say, Benton,” he offered, “I want to introduce you to a peach of a girl. She’s a dandy dancer, and as pretty as a picture.”
“All right, you can’t hurt my feelings,” Howard laughed. “Lead the way!”
He followed him across the room to a corner, where a girl stood talking to two other girls. O’Connor touched her on the shoulder: “Just a minute, Kate—I want you to meet a friend of mine.”
She turned, and Howard was looking at one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. Her beauty was neither statuesque nor dainty and refined; it was something quite different. Just a saucy, Irish face, with dark blue roguish eyes, white and pink skin, a little turned-up nose, and bobbed, black curls.
“Miss Walsh, meet Mr. Benton.” O’Connor performed the introductions.
“Happy to know you, Mr. Benton!” She smiled at him, revealing two rows of dazzling white teeth.
“I’m very glad to meet you, Miss Walsh!” Howard bowed. “How about this dance?” as the “specially engaged jazz-band” began to play “Mammy.”
“Sorry,” she answered. “Just promised it to a guy. But will you meet me here for the next, if you ain’t got it taken?”
He met her for the next, and the next, and the next. By the time the dance was over, he had been her partner eight times, and had gained her consent to see her home.
She lived just three blocks from his own home, and a distance of twenty blocks from the hall. But they walked slowly home in the moonlight, she clinging to his arm and looking up into his face as she talked. They hadn’t gone ten blocks before she had told him her life’s history—how her mother had been married three times, and of all the children in the family, real brothers and sisters, half brothers and sisters, and step-brothers and sisters. She possessed real Irish wit, and her way of telling these things was most amusing. Howard found himself laughing heartily. Through it all, she told him she was perfectly independent, as she had been self-supporting since she was ten years old.
“I ain’t never had much chance to go to school,” she said. “Just picked up what learnin’ I could now and then. I never seen my real father—he died when I was just a little thing, and step-fathers ain’t much for lookin’ after other people’s kids. So I just had to work and take care of myself.”
“You deserve a lot of credit for it, Miss Walsh,” Howard said admiringly. “It’s pretty hard for a man to battle with the world, but it must be mighty tough on a woman, especially a slip of a girl—like you.”
“I ain’t never noticed it much. Guess it’s cause I ain’t never knowed the difference.”
“You live at home with your mother, don’t you?” he asked.
“Sure I do! Ma and me always gets along fine. She lets me do just as I want, ’cause she knows I’m independent, and besides, she’s got her hands full with the other kids.”
When they reached her door, she held out her hand. “I’m awful glad to have met you, Mr. Benton. Hope I’ll see you again?”
“May I call?” he asked eagerly.
“Why sure you can. I’ll be glad to have you any time you say.”
“How about—to-morrow evening?”
“Gee! You believe in rushin’ things, don’t you?” She giggled. “All right—to-morrow evenin’ ’ll be fine.”
She hurried upstairs and crawled into bed with three little sisters. Soon she was dreaming about a boy with wonderful dark eyes and curly hair.
As Howard walked the remaining three blocks to his home, he wondered what had happened to him. He felt so happy and light-hearted. The sensation of loneliness that had made him so miserable only yesterday, seemed suddenly to have disappeared. As he inserted his key in the lock, he felt like whistling or humming a tune, and it was only the remembrance of the lateness of the hour that kept him from yielding to his inclination.
“Howard!” Marjorie called from her room as she heard him come in.
He started suddenly as he opened her door and peered into the darkness: “What are you doing awake as late as this, dearest? Are you feeling better?”
“Of course, dear. I told you I was all right before you left. Did you have a good time?”
“Yes, mother, I had a dandy time.”
“I’m so glad. To-morrow you shall tell me all about it. You must be tired after so much dancing. Good-night, darling.”
“Good-night, dearest.” He bent over and kissed her tenderly.
Instead of undressing and hurrying into bed, he walked to the window in his room and opened it wide, staring out upon the fire-escapes filled with lines of washing.
He still couldn’t imagine what had happened to him that night; and he was trying to fathom it. He wasn’t thinking of the dance or the girl he had met. He was thinking that he had left his home heavy-hearted and terribly worried over his beloved mother, and yet he had come back a few hours later in such a state of exultation, that he had forgotten all about her until she startled him by calling his name. It almost frightened him—this thing that had taken possession of him—and that he couldn’t explain, even to himself!
The next morning he slept until almost noon for Marjorie always let him rest as long as he pleased on Sunday. He opened his eyes greatly refreshed in mind and body. The feeling of light-heartedness still remained with him. He could have started singing joyously—for some unaccountable reason. But the anxious and worried feeling about his mother he had the night before had disappeared. Somehow things appear so different in the daylight than they do in the darkness.
He sat down to the tempting breakfast Marjorie placed before him.
“Umm—mother—waffles and maple-syrup? Just what I feel like eating. Aren’t you going to have some?”
“No, indeed!” she laughed. “I’ve had my breakfast hours ago. It’s noon, dear, but I knew you were tired after last night, so I just let you sleep it out.”
“I’m glad you did; I feel thoroughly rested.”
She sat opposite him while he ate, enjoying the way he seemed to relish each mouthful.
“Now tell me all about the dance,” she said. “Did they have a nice crowd?”
“Yes—a very nice crowd.”
“Did you dance every dance?”
“Every blessed one! The music was fine, and as I told you, last night, I had a dandy time. Would you like to go to Central Park this afternoon?” he asked suddenly, anxious to change the subject.
Somehow he didn’t want to talk about last night, but couldn’t have given a reason for the reluctancy he felt in mentioning it.
“No, dear,” Marjorie answered. “I prefer resting this afternoon, if you don’t mind. But you go somewhere yourself—to a movie, or a vaudeville.”
“No, I’ll stay home with you. I—I may take a little run out—this evening.”
“Certainly, dear. That’s right.” She began clearing away the dishes.
Kate Walsh received Howard Benton in the “front-room” of the Walsh flat—a shabbily furnished little square of room that was used mainly for three purposes—receiving company, exhibiting a new baby, or holding a wake.
The family had been banished to the kitchen at the end of the hall for the evening, with the exception of her mother, whom Kate brought into introduce to Howard. Mrs. Walsh was a good-natured, stout little woman, rather tired and faded looking. She had been in this country since she was sixteen, but she still clung to her native brogue.
“Shure, Mister Benton, ’tis glad to meet ye Oi am. Kitty here’s been tellin’ me what a foine young gintleman ye are.”
“Oh, Ma, you do say such things!” Kate giggled. “You ain’t got no delicacy at all.”
Mrs. Walsh looked wise, but kept silent. She didn’t know exactly what Kitty meant by delicacy. After a minute, she held out her hand to Howard.
“If ye’ll be afther excusin’ me, Mister Benton,” she apologized, “Oi’ll be sayin’ good-night to ye, and goin’ back to the babies. It’s about toime they wuz in bed.”
And feeling that she had nobly done her duty by her daughter by coming in to be introduced to the gentleman—the same as all the society matrons did in the novels Kitty read and told her about—Mrs. Walsh bowed herself out, and hastened to the more urgent duties awaiting her in the kitchen.
Howard remained until ten-thirty. He enjoyed the evening immensely; Kate was such good company.
“Of course,” he began making excuses to himself on his way home, “she is illiterate, and she did say some of the most ridiculous things, trying to use expressions she had picked up in novels. But altogether, she is a sort of rough diamond, and after all, education doesn’t amount to very much—I’ll tell the world mine hasn’t! And she’s so very young! A few months’ instruction from a private teacher would do wonders for her, or—um—um—maybe I could take her on myself.” The idea was far from disagreeable to the youth who had never believed pedagogy to be anywhere in his line.
At the end of the week, after he had seen Kate five more times, he knew what was the matter with him. For the first time in his young life he was madly in love!
He didn’t know whether his love was reciprocated or not. Kate seemed to like him pretty well; she was glad to stay at home and have him call when she might have gone out with some other chap. He had never even attempted to kiss her. She wasn’t the kind of girl who invited that sort of thing. He went with her steadily for another month, taking her to movies, or dances, on the evenings he didn’t spend at her home.
“What did his mother think about his going out every night?” he wondered. She never questioned him when evening after evening he kissed her good-night and said: “I won’t be out very late, mother, just going for a walk”; or, “Going to a show”; or, “Going to a dance to-night.” Finally he felt that he must say something to her—sort of pave the way as it were. She must know that he was going about with a girl, or else some day it might prove too much of a shock.
“Dearest,” he said one evening, after he had kissed her good-by, “don’t you think my going out like this every evening sort of—well—sort of funny?”
“Why, no, dear,” she answered bravely, struggling hard to look unconcerned lest he read the contradiction to her words in her face. “I’m glad to see you go—you were getting into a rut, staying in so much. You’re too young to do that.”
“It’s a joy to have a mother who looks at things as sensibly as you do,” he answered, patting her hand affectionately. “You see, dear, I—I’ve met a very nice little girl—and I enjoy going about with her.”
“Yes—dear——” Although she smiled, the mother’s heart held a leaden weight. “That’s nice,” was her comment.
“I’m going to bring her to meet you some day,” he told her, but he was careful not to say too much.
A month later Howard proposed to Kate. One Sunday afternoon and they had gone for a long walk. Everything seemed to be in his favor. The day could not have been more perfect—one of those glorious, crisp, sunshiny days every New Yorker knows and loves. They came to a bench in one of the smaller parks, and sat down to rest. The sky had never seemed so blue nor the grass so green. The birds sang more sweetly than he had ever known they could, and the flowers about them had wafted a fragrance that was heady. What a wonderful place this old world was after all, he thought, as he reached for her hand. Just made for love and joy and youth!
“Katie, dear,” he said simply as his grip tightened on the capable little fingers, “I—I want to tell you that I love you very, very dearly.”
“Oh—Howard—” She hung her head.
“Do you—like me—a little?” He lifted her chin, and looked into her eyes.
“Of course—I like you!” She was blushing rosy red. “But not a little! I—I like you a whole lot.”
“You darling!” His arms went out to draw her to him. They were in a secluded spot, but it would have made no difference to Howard Benton had they been in the open. “You darling—little girl—I—I’m just crazy about you!”
“Howard—someone might see you,” the girl demurred, but her sigh of happiness contradicted her speech as she snuggled closer to him. “Gee, but I’m happy you love me!”
“I’ve loved you since the first moment I met you, Katie—but I was afraid you might not care about me.”
“Ain’t that funny now! I loved you too, from the start. It must abeen love at first sight,” she giggled. “Only I was afraid a swell educated fellow like you wouldn’t notice an ignorant girl like me.”
“You’re sweet and good—and I love you, dear.” He kissed her. “And after we’re married, I’ll spend a lot of time teaching you, and in a short time you won’t know yourself.”
“Gee, that’ll be great! Ain’t it a shame I never went to school much? I had to work ever since I was a kid.”
“I’m sure you’re not to blame because you’ve never had the opportunity to obtain an education. But that will come in time.”
“Well, I’ll try hard enough,” she replied earnestly.
“And you’ll succeed too,” he assured her. “Now, darling, I must tell you something that I think you ought to know. It may make a difference in your love for me.”
He told her all about the affair of two years ago—of Elinor, of his father, of Mrs. DeLacy, of his wonderful mother. Everything just as it had happened. He was a long time in telling it, as he dwelt on each point, to make it all perfectly clear to her.
When he had finished, it was with a sad little smile he asked: “So now, dear, you see, I’ve had quite a past. Will it make a difference?”
“Just this much of a difference.” The tears were streaming down her cheeks as she clutched him. “That I love you more than ever. Why you’re grand, dear! You’re a hero—I—I’m proud of you!”
“Oh, Katie, dear, you wonderful girl!”
“I knew all along you wuz a swell, though, and didn’t belong with the gang around here!” She nodded her head vigorously at the recognition of her own sagacity.
“When can we get married, Katie? I hope we won’t have to wait too long?” Now that he had spoken, Howard was all eagerness.
“I can be ready most any time. Of course,” she added with a twinkle in her eye and her little nose wrinkled up in that maddening way she had, “it may take a few months to get my troussee ready. I’ll see if Lady Duff Gordon or Lucille can spare the time.”
“Funniest little kid!” he laughed heartily. “But let’s talk it over now and try to settle upon a day.” He told her about his position and just what he was earning.
“Gee, that’s a wonderful job, Howard, and you’re earning more than Ma’s old man, and he’s been in one place for years.”
“Then you think we can manage on it all right?”
“Manage? Why, we’ll live like millionaires,” she enthused.
“Of course, we won’t have to get a house—that will help some. Our flat’s furnished very nicely and we have four rooms.”
“I know—I ain’t never seen yours, but I’ve been in the buildin’ to see Mrs. Lambert, and they’re beautiful flats. Say, do you think your mother’s goin’ to like me?”
“How couldanyonehelp liking you? You’re so pretty, so sweet, Katie.”
“Maybe—but that don’t mean very much to most women,” she answered dubiously.
“My mother’s different,” he defended. “She’ll be wonderful to you and help you a lot. I know you two are going to get along wonderfully together.”
“Why, Howard!” she sat back suddenly and looked at him. “You ain’t figurin’ on your mother livin’ with us, are you?”
“Certainly, dear.” His astonishment was equal to her own. “Surely, you didn’t think I intended to leave my mother?”
“Well, don’t every boy and every girl leave their mothers when they get married? You ain’t no different!”
“No—but my mother’s different,” he answered tenderly. “Why, she’s a brick, I tell you. She stood by me through thick and thin! She had a lot of money two years ago, but she spent every dollar of it for me!”
“Well, it’s a mother’s duty to stand by her children, ain’t it?”
“I don’t know about that! I hadn’t been such a wonderful son to her, and it’s only in the last two years we’ve grown so close to each other. I wouldn’t hurt her for the world!” he declared.
“Oh, all right, kid!” Katie moved away from him. “If that’s the way you feel about it—let’s just call our engagement off!”
“Katie! You wouldn’t do that! I love you too much!”
“And I love you, Howard. But there ain’t goin’ to be no mother-in-law business in my life. My ma says to me: ‘Take it from me, Kitty, there ain’t no home big enough for two families.’ And she ought to know. She’s been married three times.”
“But there wouldn’t be anything like that with my mother—you’re bound to love her.”
“Sure! That’s all right,” she answered heartily. “I want to love her, and I want her to love me! But I don’t want to live with her.”
“It’s the terrible loneliness of it all that keeps me thinking,” Howard went on ruminatively, as though he were thinking aloud. “You see, mother never goes anywhere. Why she never leaves the flat unless it is to go on an errand, or do her marketing. She hasn’t a friend or companion. She just lives for me alone.”
“Well, we can see her every day, can’t we? She’ll get used to it all right. Every mother’s got to see her kids grow up and get married, and leave her. She didn’t think you was goin’ to be a—a—you know what I mean—an old-maid man—did she?”
Howard smiled in spite of himself. “No, I suppose not. But come up now, and meet my mother. You may feel differently after that.”
“I’ll go and meet your mother willingly—but I won’t change my mind,” was his fiancée’s stubborn reply. “There ain’t goin’ to be no mother-in-laws——”
He stopped her with a kiss as they started down the path.
Marjorie had just stepped out to go to the delicatessen store on the corner for a few things. It was just a little after five, her table was set, and everything ready for supper, although she didn’t expect Howard for another hour. Very often on Sunday night, she arranged a cold meal. Howard opened the door and drew the bashful Katie in after him.
“Come in, dear—I’ll call mother.” He went to the door leading to the kitchen. “Oh, mother, dear.”
He looked in and then went to the bedroom. “She’s not here—” he turned to Kate, “but she won’t be long. I suppose she has gone on an errand. See the table is set for supper. Come take off your things,” attempting to remove her hat.
“No, I won’t take off my hat.” She fidgeted about. “I’m so nervous—I’ll just wait and meet your mother, and then I’ll run downstairs and visit Mrs. Lambert.”
“You don’t have to be nervous, dear—everything’s bound to be all right.” He pulled down the shade and switched on the light.
Kate looked about admiringly.
“My, this is a gorgeous flat. Ain’t the furniture handsome!” she enthused.
“I’m so glad you like it. We’re going to be very happy. You do love me, don’t you?” Howard caught her in his arms.
“Of course, I do—you big boob.” She kissed him. “You know, I’m just crazy about you.”
“No more than I am about you.” He returned her kiss. “Still,” he added, “I’d give anything dear, if I could only persuade you to let my mother live with us.”
Kate turned irritably. “Do we have to start all over that thing again?” she asked, with eyes flashing. “I thought it was all settled.”
Further discussion was interrupted by Marjorie’s entrance. She was carrying a market basket and she looked pale and tired in her shabby little dress.
“Good evening, dear,” she said, as Howard rushed to her, and relieved her of the basket. “I didn’t expect you home so early. I have a cold supper, just the things you like. I had a little time to spare so I ran down to the corner to get a few things for to-morrow. Oh—I beg your pardon.” She noticed Kate for the first time. “I didn’t know you had company.”
“Mother,” he said, putting his arm about her, and leading her forward, “I want you to meet Katie—Katie Walsh—the girl I told you—I—I cared for. Well, she has promised—to—become my wife!”
“Your—your wife, dear? Why—why I am surprised.” She leaned against him heavily.
“I’ve cared for Katie ever since the first night I met her—but I wasn’t sure she loved me—until this afternoon. We came right up to tell you.”
“I—I see.” Marjorie was endeavoring, with all her might, to come out of her state of bewilderment. Steadying herself with an effort she went over to Kate and held out her hand.
“I’m glad to know you, dear,” she said in her sweet, simple tones, “and I hope you will make my boy—very happy.”
“I’m goin’ to try to, Mrs. Benton,” Katie replied warmly. “I’m for him as much as he is for me,—so I can’t see how we can help bein’ happy.”
Marjorie winced, but she spoke cheerfully. “Love is the foundation of all real happiness, my dear. I’m glad you have the right idea. You must stay and have supper with us—it won’t take a second to set another place. I’m anxious to have you tell me all about yourself.”
“I—I don’t think I can stay.” Katie was evidently uncomfortable. “I was just goin’ to run down to see Mrs. Lambert—before goin’ home. Howard can come over after his supper.”
“But you mustn’t run away like this,” Marjorie urged. “I’ve only just met you! We’ve so much to talk about, you know. Come, Howard, you coax her to stay.”
“Of course, she’ll stay, mother.” Howard removed Katie’s hat without asking her, whispering in her ear: “Stay if she wants you to, dear.”
“That’s fine!” Marjorie started for the kitchen. “I know you’ll excuse me for a few minutes.”
Howard opened the door and carried her basket into the kitchen for her, then he hurried back to Katie and squeezed her joyously.
“Now, wasn’t she fine? What did I tell you?”
“Whew!” Katie made a stab at whistling. “She’s so grand she makes the chills run up and down my back! Do you know, Howard, all the time she was talkin’ to me, I felt as if she was lookin’ right inside of me—through my clothes and all.”
“Mother’s true blue all right!” Howard declared proudly. “The way she took it is a great relief to me. I confess I was terribly nervous for a minute. I hope we won’t have any trouble with your mother, dear?”
“Humph! My Ma’s goin’ to be tickled to death! Besides, she ain’t got nothin’ to say about me—I told you I’ve always been self-supportin’.”
In the kitchen Marjorie was gathering up the dishes and cutlery for the extra place at the table. Her tears were falling so fast they almost blinded her. She kept brushing them away as she whispered over and over to herself:
“Dear God, help me to-night. Give me the strength to make my boy—happy!”