CHAPTER FIVE
The following morning Anne and Roger went back to town. They strolled up Market Street to Third and Kearney and there Anne stopped.
"Wilmot & Brown, you said. They're on Mission, aren't they?"
Roger looked puzzled, until he recalled the position he had found for Anne, and laughed. "You're not going to bother with that now."
"I certainly am. Why not?"
"You're engaged."
Anne giggled. "Not yet. I haven't seen them."
"I'm not joking. Listen." He drew her to a doorway from the hurrying stream. "Don't, dear, please. I don't like to think of you tied down in an office, and anyhow it's not worth while. We're going to be married soon."
Anne looked away confused, partly because of the strange feeling it gave to realize herself engaged, partly at the imminence of the wonderful, new experience of matrimony waiting her; and, beyond her own acknowledgment in words, curiosity as to how Roger planned to marry without a position. In the sweet intimacy of the trip from Quincy, Roger had talked of the future, a future that exhilarated and frightened Anne in its possibility.
"We're going to live for something worth while," Roger had said, "and live for it with every scrap of the stuff that's in us."
Anne's eyes came back to him with a tender smile.
"But we're not going to be married to-day. Besides, I——" Anne had not spoken much of her family yet, but at these definite words of Roger's about marrying, Anne realized what a difference it would make when her income into the house had stopped, especially to many little pleasures she had accustomed her mother. "There are lots of things I want to get and—and—I like to work, really I do."
Roger frowned. "Will you promise to quit the instant I ask you to?"
Anne laughed. "Are you always going to boss me round like this?"
Roger's hand slipped into hers. "No. Because we're going to want to do the same things."
The future was going to be very wonderful.
"And I'm going to do some of the wanting and you're going to do some of the meek and mutual obeying?" she teased, and wished they were alone so that Roger could kiss her. Instead he dropped her hand and looked down seriously.
"Do you mean, honestly, that you would rather work until we marry? I never want to try to persuade you to do anything against a real inclination."
Anne knew that her puckered brows and serious lips were weighing, to Roger, hesitation between her own preference and the dislike of going counter to this, his first expressed request. But behind them the thought clicked away that Roger himself could solve the problem by accepting the opening of private secretary to Hilary Wainwright, a millionaire ship owner and philanthropist, who had offered him the place as soon as he heard that Roger had left John Lowell. But Roger was not quite sure that he believed in Wainwright or that he wanted the place. The tick, tick, kept saying: "Take the place for a beginning and we can marry to-morrow."
"Yes, dear, I think I do," she said at last, and added gayly, "Now, where is Wilmot & Brown?"
They walked east to Mission Street and stopped before the building.
"I'll wait here twenty minutes. If you don't turn up I'll know you're taken."
He sought her hands, and linked, they smiled at each other until a passing man turned to look again, when Anne snatched her hands away, and with a whispered, "Good-by, dear," hurried into the building.
Roger waited half an hour and then went, disappointed.
Every noon hour Roger was waiting for Anne and they had lunch together at a nearby cafeteria which Anne insisted was the only kind of place she liked for lunch. For the rest of the hour they strolled on the sunny side of the street, or, if it were raw and foggy, sought some sheltered bench in one of the small plazas and talked. Roger usually did most of the talking, a running commentary on the people they passed, which linked the individuals up to society as a whole. Roger was always seeing people whom he pitied; starved, eager souls, thwarted longings, stunted minds, drudges in a mill whose working they did not understand, whose spiritual profits they did not share. When he pointed out these people and qualities to Anne, she understood, because she too had felt stifled and thwarted and full of vague, high longing. But she never quite understood how Roger understood, because he never seemed to long vaguely, nor to feel suppressed or driven. As the days slipped into weeks, Anne came to feel that there was a surplus of some qualities in Roger over and above the sum of those same qualities in herself. She had ideals and courage and faith, but his ideals were sharper before him, his courage deeper, his faith firmer.
Roger never doubted the best within himself, nor allowed a nervous over-conscientiousness to distort a quality into its reverse. If he had had a family, he long ago would have told them of his engagement, while Anne could not yet make up her mind what to do. Sometimes she saw her hesitancy as loyalty to Roger, because neither her father nor her mother would understand Roger or his standards. At others she felt that it was her own need for harmony and peace in the life about her, a need so deepgrown that it was a weakness in its inability to risk disturbance. And she knew how her father would accept a son-in-law who had no position, who talked of the world's misery as if it really did matter to him personally, who dallied with the prospect of a private secretaryship at fifty dollars a week to begin with because he could not quite prove to himself Hilary Wainwright's sincerity.
Sometimes, after an irritating day in the office, when old Mr. Wilmot dictated worse than usual and, on rehearing the letters, declared he had never used those words at all, Roger's begging to be allowed to come up in the evening and meet her people annoyed Anne almost to the point of confessing the main difficulty.
It was at the end of such a day, more than a month after she had promised to marry Roger, that she came down from the office almost wishing Roger would not be waiting. It was a June day of clear sunshine, but with a gusty wind straight from the ocean. The air was filled with dust that seeped through clothing and got into one's eyes and mouth and scratched one's nerves to snapping. But Roger was there, holding his hat on with one hand and making his happy little gesture of welcome with the other. Anne tried to smile cheerfully, but it was difficult with dust blowing into her face and a wind whipping her skirt about her. Roger came up quickly and took her arm.
"You mite of a thing. It always astonishes me to think of you getting about by yourself."
Anne was glad that a gust forced her to duck at that moment so that Roger did not see her unsmiling eyes. She was tired, sick of getting around by herself, of being respectful to that impossible old Mr. Brown, of keeping exact hours, every one a tiny bit snatched from the happy future of which Roger was so sure. It was one thing to refuse to work with John Lowell, or in the law at all because it was corrupt and unjust, but it was—to-night anyhow—just a bit overstrained to dally about over the possible insincerity of Hilary Wainwright. Whatever the man might be, at least he was doing real things for civic betterment, the kind of thing Roger seemed to believe in. If Hilary Wainwright's methods were not exactly Roger's, still it was an attempt. And she and Roger could marry.
They had crossed the street and now, in the temporary protection of a high building, were safe for a few moments from the wind. Anne could not go on with her head bent. She looked up into Roger's smiling eyes and succeeded in smiling back. His fingers closed over hers and drew her closer to him.
"You mite," he whispered, "you little, silvery-gold princess. When we're married I'm afraid I'll worry every time you're out of my sight."
"That'll be nice," Anne said a little sharply, but she was very tired.
Roger looked down quickly.
"Anne, when are you going to tell your people? It makes me feel as if you weren't sure yourself. You said at first that you wanted to 'gloat' all by yourself; that's very flattering and I believe it when we're together, but, sometimes after I've left you, I feel—Anne, you are sure, aren't you?"
"Of course I am."
"Don't they expect you ever to marry?"
"Why, I suppose so. We never talked about it."
"Is it me, 'specially, they would object to?"
For a moment Anne hesitated. At last he was giving her the chance. Should she take it? But before she could quite make up her mind Roger was pleading again, and suddenly Anne felt her strength exhausted. She would not evade or pretend any more. It might as well come now as later.
"All right, dear, if you feel that way. Come up to-night."
Roger gave her fingers a quick grip, and they stepped from the protection of the buildings into a side crossing. The wind tore at them. Bent against it, they reached the opposite curb. In that interval Anne felt the matter had been settled beyond change.
"I think I'll take the car here. It's useless trying to walk in this wind."
Just then Anne's car came into sight. They hurried out into the street and Roger helped her through the crush about the steps. It was nice to have Roger making a way for her, to feel the strong, sure lift of his hand under her arm, to feel herself swung up by such a small expenditure of his strength. Now that the decision was made, Anne was glad. After all, no matter what the conditions, her people would have found some objection. Clinging to the hand-strap almost beyond her reach, Anne went over the best ways of opening the subject to them.
But in the end Anne did not open it. She was catapulted from an unusually pleasant meal, straight into it, by a chance remark of her father's.
"I see there's likely to be another street railway strike," he remarked. "They were running provisions into the carbarn as I passed."
"Well, now, that will be a nuisance." Hilda beamed round the table. Any general conversations at dinner always made her feel that they were, after all, a closely knit family. "Thank goodness, I don't have to go on a car to do any shopping, although those Saturday sales at the Sunset Market are quite a save."
"Didn't the company promise the men not to push that matter of open shop until the year was up?" Anne, like her mother, was glad of any general conversation, and had no intention of bringing down the wrath of her father. But he peered at her suddenly over the top of his steel-rimmed glasses.
"What if they did? How long do you think the men would have kept their agreement not to agitate a strike if they had been in a position to call one?"
Anne felt herself chill; a thin surface of frost seemed to cover her as it always did when her father talked like this. But she did not want to anger him and so she said quietly:
"I don't know. But I would like to think that there was a little decency and honesty in the world. There must be."
"Well, it's not among labor agitators, let me tell you that. A greedy, selfish lot, out for what they can get. They won't take a job and stick to it themselves and so they try to stir up others to quit."
"But they couldn't stir the others up all the time, if the others didn't really want to be stirred. Something is wrong and people feel it."
When James Mitchell delivered an opinion he did not expect to be answered, much less argued with. He turned swiftly upon Anne.
"What's that? Who feels things are wrong?"
"A lot of people feel things are unjust and wrong and that something has to be done. They may not be clear as to exactly what it is or how they're going to do it, but they know there's trouble somewhere." The icy veneer deepened, but Anne held her ground.
"Who? A lot of Jews and foreigners who never had enough to eat in their own country. The trouble with this country is that the natives are too good-natured. They won't realize the harm these fools are doing until it's done. They ought to be deported now, every last one of them."
Anne nibbled at her lip and did not trust herself to speak. But she saw Roger, his eyes deep and sad, watching some weary soul in a city park.
"I think papa's right, Anne. It is mostly foreigners that do the kicking. Not the blonde kind. Danes and Swedes are hard workers, but Jews and Dagos are always fussing. Don't you remember that Greek, Kapoulos, who lived over Martini's after The Fire, always haranguing about justice and fair play, and the first chance he got he ran off with the firm's funds and went to Greece?"
James shrugged Hilda's efforts aside and leaned across to Anne.
"Let me tell you one thing, Annie; these theories won't hold water, socialism and I. W. W.-ism and all the other fire-eating babble. And they'll never be put into practice, because, at bottom, the working man is too smart and he knows he'd lose his job if he tried them, and then where'd he be?"
James whisked the tail of this inverted logic in Anne's face and waited triumphantly. But Anne did not see the narrow, tired face, the small work-weakened eyes of her father. She saw Roger, hunching toward John Lowell.
"But men do give up their jobs for their beliefs; not unskilled laborers, but professional men who have spent years getting their preparation."
"Bunk! You talk like a romantic school girl. Show me one professional man, likely to succeed in his line, and show me him quitting."
"I will," Anne spoke with difficulty, "to-night. Roger Barton is coming up this evening."
"Now, I am glad of that," Hilda breathed a sigh of relief. "I wish you would have more company, Anne. It's not my fault the place is not filled with young folks."
"Who's he?" James demanded.
"The man I'm engaged to." It was scarcely more than a whisper.
At last Anne looked up, from one to the other. Her mother sat, the look of pleasure at the prospect of young company frozen in her eyes. Her father peered forward, still amused at her childishness, triumphant at his own logic.
"What say?" He too whispered. "You're engaged!"
Anne rose. Sitting, she felt the coming struggle closing down upon her.
"Yes. I am engaged to Roger Barton and we'll be married as soon as he gets a job."
"You're engaged to a man without a job! A fool, that throws up a profession—fine profession it must have been—and then asks a girl from a decent home to marry him!"
There was a silence, filled by small, clicking noises from Hilda. Then James Mitchell rose too, and with the evening paper screwed to a ferule, banged his ultimatum upon the table.
"No damned skunk like that comes into this house, not if I know it. Do you hear? What you do outside the house I can't help, and I'm not fool enough to suppose I can. I never did have any say in this house, nor about you girls. But I'll have my say about this thing and now. If this fellow thinks he's going to sneak into this house and have me support him, he's going to get left. Go ahead. Marry him; a man that asks a girl to wait till he gets a job! Have half a dozen kids and then sneer at the state of the world and a steady job." His rising voice reached a thin scream. "Do you hear? That blackguard never enters this door."
Anne looked at him, gray, thin, raging, and a sudden pity mingled with her anger. He was so tightly locked within his fear of life, his terror of all strange ways and wide roads, all experience that had not been his. In that moment, Anne's feeling for her father parted in clearer strands than she had ever seen it. She scorned and pitied and disliked him.
Without another word, Anne went into the hall, took the receiver from the hook, and called Roger's number. In the momentary silence until she got it, she felt the two gray-headed people peering at her, like animals from a hole.
"Yes, it's Anne. I don't think you can come up to-night, dear. I twisted my foot getting off the car and it's swelling. I'm going straight to bed."
Not even Roger's genuine concern, nor his loving good-night penetrated the icy calm that encased her. She hung up, and, without looking toward the dining-room, went down the hall to her own room and locked the door. Dressed, she lay upon the bed, staring up through the window to the stars.
She did not know what time it was when her mother came tapping gently at the door. But she did not open, and, after a moment, heard her tiptoe away.
Out on the back porch, Hilda Mitchell stood for a long time looking out over the city lights and trying to straighten her world so suddenly upheaved by Anne. But the fact of the engagement loomed like a blank wall before her and finally she gave up. With a sigh she went in, locked the back door and, without turning on the bedroom light, undressed and got into bed. Beside her the small gray man huddled under the clothes, but, by his stillness Hilda knew that he was not asleep.
"Papa, I wish you wouldn't be so harsh with Anne. Young folks can't be expected to think ahead like old folks. Anne's not flighty or silly like most girls. She won't do anything foolish."
"She can't—after this. My God, what a mess you've made of bringing up those girls! Belle was always an obstinate, headlong piece but—little—Annie——"
"Now, papa. Have patience."
"Oh, shut up. It's no good talking to you." James Mitchell turned on his side and drew the clothes high about his shoulders.
For a long time, Hilda lay beside him, thinking. Then, she, too, sighed and turned over.
Life would have been a simple thing to Hilda Mitchell if it had not been for her family.