Martie, the Unconquered Part 32

Presumably the real actors, the real writers and painters led a mad and merry life somewhere, wore priceless gowns and opened champagne; but it was not here. These were the imitators, the pretenders, and the rich idlers who had nothing better to do than believe in the pretenders.

Still, when Wallace suggested it, Martie found it wise to yield. He might stumble home beside her at eleven, the worse for the eating and drinking, but at least he did come home, and she could tell herself that the men in the car who had smiled at his condition were only brutes; she would never see them again; what did their opinion matter!

In other ways she yielded to him; peace, peace and affection at any cost. Yet it cost her dear, for the possibility of another child's coming was the one thought that frightened and dismayed her.

Strongly contrasted to Wallace's open-handedness when he was with his friends was the strict economy Martie was obliged to practise in her housekeeping. She went to market herself, as the spring came on, heaping her little purchases at Margar's feet in the coach. Teddy danced and chattered beside her, neighbours stopped to smile at the baby. At the fruit carts, the meat market, the grocery, Martie pondered and planned. Oranges had gone up, lamb had gone up--dear, dear, dear!

Sitting at the grocery counter, she would rearrange her menus.

"b.u.t.ter fifty--my, that is high! Hasn't the new b.u.t.ter come in? I had better have half a pound, I think. And the beans, and the onions, yes.

Let me see--how do you sell the canned asparagus--that's too much. Send me those things, Mr. O'Brien, and I'll see what I can get in the market."

All about her, in the heart-warming spring suns.h.i.+ne, other women were mildly lamenting, mildly bartering. Martie's brain was still busily milling, as she wheeled the coach back through the checkered sun and shade of the elevated train. She would b.u.mp the coach down into the area, carefully loading her arms with small packages, catching Margar to her shoulder.

Panting, the perspiration breaking out on her forehead, she would enter the dining room.

"Take her, Isabeau! My arms are breaking! Whew!--it is HOT! Not now, Teddy, you can't have anything until lunch time. Amuse her a minute, Isabeau, I can't take her until--I get--my breath! I had to change dinner; he had no liver. I got veal for veal loaf; Mr. Bannister likes that; and stuffed onions, and the pie, and baked potatoes. Make tea.

Put that down, Teddy, you can't have that. Now, my blessedest girl, come to your mother! She's half asleep now; I'll change her and put her out for her nap!"

The baby fed and asleep, Ted out again, Martie would serve Wallace's breakfast herself rather than interrupt the steady thumping of irons in the kitchen. She tried to be patient with his long delays.

"How's the head?" she would ask, sitting opposite him with little socks to match, or boxed strawberries to stem.

"Oh, rotten! I woke up when the baby did."

"But, Wallie--that was seven o'clock! You've been asleep since."

"Just dozing. I heard you come in!"

"Well, I think I'll move her clothes out of that room. Aren't your eggs good?"

"Nope. They taste like storage. I should think we could get good eggs now!"

"They OUGHT to be good!"

"You ought to get a telephone in here," he might return sourly. "Then you could deal with some decent place! I hate the way women pinch and squeeze to save five cents; there's nothing in it!"

Silence. Martie's face flushed, her fingers flew.

"What are you doing to-day?" she might ask, after a while.

"Oh, I'll go down town, I guess. Never can tell when something'll break. Bates told me that Foster was anxious to see me. He says they're having a deuce of a time getting people for their plays. Bates says to stick 'em for a couple of hundred a week."

Martie placed small hope in such a hint, but she was glad he could.

When he had sauntered away, she would go on patiently, mixing the baby's bottles, picking toys from the floor, tying and re-tying Ted's shoe-laces. This was a woman's life. Martha Bannister was not a martyr; n.o.body in the city could stop to help or pity her.

The hot summer shut down upon them, and the baby drooped, even though Martie was careful to wheel her out into the shade by the river every day. She herself drooped, staring at life helplessly, hopelessly. In March there would be a third child.

After a restless night, the sun woke her, morning after morning, glaring into her room at six. Wearily, languidly, she dressed the twisting and leaping Teddy, fastened little Margar, with her string of spools and her shabby double-gown, in the high-chair. The kitchen smelled of coffee, of grease; the whole neighbourhood smelled in the merciless heat of the summer day. Had that meat spoiled; was the cream just a little turned?

Ted, always absorbed in wheels, pulleys, and nails, would be in an interrogative mood.

"Mother, could a giant step across the East River?"

"What was it, dear?--the water was running; Mother didn't hear you."

"Could a giant step across a river?"

"Why, I suppose he could. Don't touch that, Ted."

"Could he step across the whole WORLD?"

"I don't know. Here's your porridge, dear. Listen----"

For Wallace was shouting. Martie would go to the bedroom door, to interrogate the tousle-headed, heaving form under the bedclothes.

"Say, Martie, isn't there an awful lot of noise out there?"

Martie would stand silent for a moment.

"You can't blame the children for chattering, Wallace."

"Well, you tell Ted he'll catch it, if I hear any more of it!"

She would go lifelessly back to the kitchen, to sip a cup of scalding black coffee. Margar went into her basket for her breakfast, banging the empty bottle rapturously against the wicker sides as a finale.

"Wash both their faces, Isabeau," Martie would murmur, flinging back her head with a long, weary sigh. "There are no b.u.t.tons on this suit; I'll have to go back into Mr. Bannister's room--too bad, for he's asleep again! Yes, dear, you may go to market and push the carriage--DON'T ask Mother that again, Ted! I always let you go, and you ALWAYS push Sister." Her voice would sink to a whisper, and her face fall into her hands. "Oh, Isabeau, I do feel so wretched.

Sometimes it seems as if----However!" and with a sudden desperate courage, Martie would rally herself. "However, it's all in the day's work! Run down to the sidewalk, Ted, and Mother'll be right down with the baby!"

Coming in an hour later perhaps, Wallace, better-natured now, would call her again.

"Come in, Mart! h.e.l.l-oo! Is that somebody that loves her Daddy?"

"She's just going to have her bottle, Wallie" Martie would fret.

"Well, here! Let me give it to her." Sitting up in bed, his nightgown falling open at the throat, Margar's father would hold out big arms for the child.

"No, you can't. She'll never go to sleep at that rate; and if she misses her nap, that upsets her whole day!"

"Lord, but you are in a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!"

Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give her a reproachful look.

Martie's face always darkened resentfully at such a speech. Sometimes she did not answer.

"Perhaps if YOU couldn't sleep," she might say in a low, shaken tone, "and you felt as miserable as I do, you might not be so cheerful!"

"Oh, well, I know! But you know it's nothing serious, and it won't last. Forget it! After all, your mother had four children, and mine had seven, and they didn't make such a fuss!"

He did not mean to be unkind, she would remind herself. And what he said was true, after all. There was nothing more to say.