A Modern Instance Part 23

"All right," said Bartley, "we'll take the room--for a month, at least."

Mrs. Nash looked a little embarra.s.sed. If she had made some concession to the liking she had conceived for this pretty young couple, she could not risk everything. "I always have to get the first week in advance--where there ain't no reference," she suggested.

"Of course," said Bartley, and he took out his pocket-book, which he had a boyish satisfaction in letting her see was well filled. "Now, Marcia," he continued, looking at his watch, "I'll just run over to the hotel, and give up our room before they get us in for dinner."

Marcia accepted Mrs. Nash's invitation to come and sit with her till the chill was off the room; and she borrowed a pen and paper of her to write home. The note she sent was brief: she was not going to seem to ask anything of her father. But she was going to do what was right; she told him where she was, and she sent her love to her mother. She would not speak of her things; he might send them or not, as he chose; but she knew he would. This was the spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught her to soften and sweeten her phrase; but no doubt the old man, who was like her, would understand that she felt no compunction for what she had done, and that she loved him though she still defied him.

Bartley did not ask her what her letter was when she demanded a stamp of him on his return; but he knew. He inquired of Mrs. Nash where these cheap eating-houses were to be found, and he posted the letter in the first box they came to, merely saying, "I hope you haven't been asking any favors, Marsh?"

"No, indeed."

"Because I couldn't stand that."

Marcia had never dined in a restaurant, and she was somewhat bewildered by the one into which they turned. There was a great show of roast, and steak, and fish, and game, and squash and cranberry-pie in the window, and at the door a tack was driven through a ma.s.s of bills of fare, two of which Bartley plucked off as they entered, with a knowing air, and then threw on the floor when he found the same thing on the table. The table had a marble top, and a silver-plated castor in the centre. The plates were laid with a coa.r.s.e red doily in a c.o.c.ked hat on each, and a thinly plated knife and fork crossed beneath it; the plates were thick and heavy; the handle as well as the blade of the knife was metal, and silvered. Besides the castor, there was a bottle of Leicesters.h.i.+re sauce on the table, and salt in what Marcia thought a pepper-box; the marble was of an unctuous translucence in places, and showed the course of the cleansing napkin on its smeared surface. The place was hot, and full of confused smells of cooking; all the tables were crowded, so that they found places with difficulty, and pale, plain girls, of the Provincial and Irish-American type, in fas.h.i.+onable bangs and pull-backs, went about taking the orders, which they wailed out toward a semicircular hole opening upon a counter at the farther end of the room; there they received the dishes ordered, and hurried with them to the customers, before whom they laid them with a noisy clacking of the heavy crockery. A great many of the people seemed to be taking hulled corn and milk; baked beans formed another favorite dish, and squash-pie was in large request. Marcia was not critical; roast turkey for Bartley and stewed chicken for herself, with cranberry-pie for both, seemed to her a very good and sufficient dinner, and better than they ought to have had. She asked Bartley if this were anything like Parker's; he had always talked to her about Parker's.

"Well, Marcia," he said, folding up his doily, which does not betray use like the indiscreet white napkin, "I'll just take you round and show you the _outside_ of Parker's, and some day we'll go there and get dinner."

He not only showed her Parker's, but the City Hall; they walked down School Street, and through Was.h.i.+ngton as far as Boylston: and Bartley pointed out the Old South, and brought Marcia home by the Common, where they stopped to see the boys coasting under the care of the police, between two long lines of spectators.

"The State House," said Bartley, with easy command of the facts, and, pointing in the several directions; "Beacon Street; Public Garden; Back Bay."

She came home to Mrs. Nash joyfully admiring the city, but admiring still more her husband's masterly knowledge of it.

Mrs. Nash was one of those people who partake intimately of the importance of the place in which they live; to whom it is sufficient splendor and prosperity to be a Bostonian, or New-Yorker, or Chicagoan, and who experience a delicious self-flattery in the celebration of the munic.i.p.al grandeur. In his degree, Bartley was of this sort, and he exchanged compliments of Boston with Mrs. Nash, till they grew into warm favor with each other.

After a while, he said he must go up-stairs and do some writing; and then he casually dropped the fact that he was an editor, and that he had come to Boston to get an engagement on a newspaper; he implied that he had come to take one.

"Well," said Mrs. Nash, smoothing the back of the cat, which she had in her lap, "I guess there ain't anything like our Boston papers. And they say this new one--the 'Daily Events'--is goin' to take the lead. You acquainted any with our Boston editors?"

Bartley hemmed. "Well--I know the proprietor of the Events."

"Ah, yes: Mr. Witherby. Well, they say he's got the money. I hear my lodgers talkin' about that paper consid'able. I haven't ever seen it."

Bartley now went up-stairs; he had an idea in his head. Marcia remained with Mrs. Nash a few moments. "He's been in Boston before," she said, with proud satisfaction; "he visited here when he was in college."

"Law, is he college-bred?" cried Mrs. Nash. "Well, I thought he looked 'most too wide-awake for that. He aint a bit offish. He seems _re'l_ practical. What you hurryin' off so for?" she asked, as Marcia rose, and stood poised on the threshold, in act to follow her husband. "Why don't you set here with me, while he's at his writin'? You'll just keep talkin to him and takin' his mind off, the whole while. You stay here!" she commanded hospitably. "You'll just be in the way, up there."

This was a novel conception to Marcia, but its good sense struck her.

"Well, I will," she said. "I'll run up a minute to leave my things, and then I'll come back."

She found Bartley dragging the table, on which he had already laid out his writing-materials, into a good light, and she threw her arms round his neck, as if they had been a great while parted.

"Come up to kiss me good luck?" he asked, finding her lips.

"Yes, and to tell you how splendid you are, going right to work this way,"

she answered fondly.

"Oh, I don't believe in losing time; and I've got to strike while the iron's hot, if I'm going to write out that logging-camp business. I'll take it over to that Events man, and hit him with it, while it's fresh in his mind."

"Yes," said Marcia. "Are you going to write that out?"

"Why, I told you I was. Any objections?" He did not pay much attention to her, and he asked his question jokingly, as he went on making his preparations.

"It's hard for me to realize that people can care for such things. I thought perhaps you'd begin with something else," she suggested, hanging up her sack and hat in the closet.

"No, that's the very thing to begin with," he answered, carelessly. "What are you going to do? Want that book to read that I bought on the cars?"

"No, I'm going down to sit with Mrs. Nash while you're writing."

"Well, that's a good idea."

"You can call me when you've done."

"Done!" cried Bartley. "I sha'n't be done till this time to-morrow. I'm going to make a lot about it."

"Oh!" said his wife. "Well, I suppose the more there is, the more you will get for it. Shall you put in about those people coming to see the camp?"

"Yes, I think I can work that in so that old Witherby will like it.

Something about a distinguished Boston newspaper proprietor and his refined and elegant ladies, as a sort of contrast to the rude life of the loggers."

"I thought you didn't admire them a great deal."

"Well, I didn't much. But I can work them up."

Marcia was quite ready to go; Bartley had seated himself at his table, but she still hovered about. "And are you--shall you put that Montreal woman in?"

"Yes, get it all in. She'll work up first-rate."

Marcia was silent. Then, "I shouldn't think you'd put her in," she said, "if she was so silly and disagreeable."

Bartley turned around, and saw the look on her face that he could not mistake. He rose and took her by the chin. "Look here, Mars.h.!.+" he said, "didn't you promise me you'd stop that?"

"Yes," she murmured, while the color flamed into her cheeks.

"And will you?"

"I _did_ try--"

He looked sharply into her eyes. "Confound the Montreal woman! I won't put in a word about her. There!" He kissed Marcia, and held her in his arms and soothed her as if she had been a jealous child.

"Oh, Bartley! Oh, Bartley!" she cried. "I love you so!"

"I think it's a remark you made before," he said, and, with a final kiss and laugh, he pushed her out of the door; and she ran down stairs to Mrs.

Nash again.

"Your husband ever write poetry, any?" inquired the landlady.

"No," returned Marcia; "he used to in college, but he says it don't pay."