Revelations of a Wife Part 18

At the door, Katie, who evidently had heard the taxicab, stood smiling broadly.

"This is Katie, mother," d.i.c.ky said kindly. "She will help take care of you."

"How do you do, Katie?" The words were the same, but the tones were much kinder than her greeting to me.

d.i.c.ky a.s.sisted her into the living room. She sank into the armchair, and d.i.c.ky took off her hat and loosened her cloak. She leaned her head against the back of the chair, and her face looked so drawn and white that I felt alarmed.

"Katie, prepare a cup of strong tea immediately," I directed, and Katie vanished. "Is there nothing I can do for you, Mrs. Graham?" I approached her chair.

"Nothing, thank you. You may save the maid the trouble of preparing that tea if you will. I could not possibly drink it. I always carry my own tea with me, and prepare it myself. If it is not too much trouble, d.i.c.ky, will you get me a pot of hot water and some cream? I have everything else here."

I really felt sorry for d.i.c.ky. He caught the tension in the atmosphere, and looked from his mother to me with a helpless caught-between-two-fires-expression. With masculine obtuseness he put his foot in it in his endeavor to remedy matters.

"Why do you call my mother Mrs. Graham, Madge?" he said querulously.

"She is your mother now as well as mine, you know."

"I am nothing of the kind." His mother spoke sharply. "Of all the idiotic a.s.sumptions, that is the worst, that marriage makes close relatives, and friends of total strangers. Your wife and I may learn to love each other. Then there will be plenty of time for her to call me mother. As it is, I am very glad she evidently feels as I do about it. Now, d.i.c.ky, if you will kindly get me that hot water."

"I will attend to it," I said decidedly "d.i.c.ky, take your mother to her room and a.s.sist her with her things. I will have the hot water and cream for her almost at once."

In the shelter of the dining room, where neither d.i.c.ky nor his mother nor Katie could see or hear me, I clenched my hands and spoke aloud.

"Call _her_ mother! Give that ill-tempered, tyrannical old woman the sacred name that means so much to me. _Never_ as long as I live!"

d.i.c.ky met me at the door of the dining room and took the tray I carried. It held my prettiest teapot filled with boiling water, a tiny plate of salted crackers, together with cup, saucer, spoon and napkin.

"Say, sweetheart," he whispered, "I want to tell you something. My mother isn't always like this. She can be very sweet when she wants to. But when things don't go to suit her she takes these awful icy 'dignity' tantrums, and you can't touch her with a ten-foot pole until she gets over them. She was tired, from the journey, and the fact that you kept her waiting in the taxicab made her furious. But she'll get over it. Just be patient, won't you, darling?"

If the average husband only realized how he could play upon his wife's heart-strings with a few loving words I believe there would be less marital unhappiness in the world. A few minutes before I had been fiercely resentful against d.i.c.ky's mother. And my anger had reached to d.i.c.ky, for I felt in some vague way that he must be responsible for his mother's rudeness.

But the knowledge that he, too, was used to her injustice and that he resented it when directed against me made all the difference in the world. I reached up my hand and patted his cheek.

"Dear boy, nothing in the world matters, if _you_ aren't cross and displeased."

XIV

A QUARREL AND A CRISIS

"Can you give me a few minutes' time, d.i.c.ky? I have something to tell you."

d.i.c.ky put down the magazine with a bored air. "What is it?" he asked shortly.

Involuntarily my thoughts flew back to the exquisite courtesy which had always been d.i.c.ky's in the days before we were married. There had been such a delicate reverence in his every tone and action. I wondered if marriage changed all men as it had changed my husband.

I went to my room and brought the letter back to d.i.c.ky. He read it through, and I saw his face grow blacker with each word. When he came to the signature, he turned back to the beginning and read the epistle through again. Then he crumpled it into a ball and threw it violently across the room.

"See here, my lady," he exploded. "I think it's about time we came to a show-down over this business. When I found that first letter from this lad, I asked you if he were a relative, and you said 'No.' Then you hand me this touching screed with its 'nearest of kin' twaddle, and speaking of leaving you a fortune. Now what's the answer?"

"Oh, hardly a fortune, d.i.c.ky," I returned quietly. "Jack has only a few thousand at the outside."

I fear I was purposely provoking, but d.i.c.ky's sneering, insulting manner roused every bit of spirit in me.

"A few thousand you'll never touch as long as you are my wife,"

stormed d.i.c.ky. "But you are evading my question."

"Oh, no, I'm not," I said coolly. "That real relations.h.i.+p between Jack and myself is so slight as to be practically nothing. He is the son of a distant cousin of my mother's. Perhaps you remember that on the day you made the scene about the letter you had just emphasized your very close friends.h.i.+p for Mrs. Underwood in a fas.h.i.+on rather embarra.s.sing to me. I resolved that, to speak vulgarly, 'what was sauce for the gander,' etc., and that I would put my friends.h.i.+p for Jack upon the same basis as yours for Mrs. Underwood. So when you asked me whether or not Jack was a relative I said 'No.'"

"That makes this letter an insult both to you and to me," d.i.c.ky said venomously, his face black with anger.

I sprang to my feet, trembling with anger.

"Be careful," I said icily. "You don't deserve an explanation, but you shall have one, and that is the last word I shall ever speak to you on the subject of Jack. His letter is the truth. I am his 'nearest of kin,' save the cousins in Pennsylvania of whom he speaks. He was orphaned in his babyhood and my mother's only sister legally adopted him, and reared him as her own son. We were practically raised together, for my mother and my aunt always lived near each other. Jack was the only brother I ever knew. I the only sister he had.

"When my aunt died she left him her little property with the understanding that he would always look after my mother and myself.

He kept his promise royally. My mother and I owed him many, many kindnesses. G.o.d forbid that I ever am given the opportunity to claim Jack's property. But if he should be killed"--I choked upon the word--"I shall take it and try to use it wisely, as he would have me do."

"Very touching, upon my word," sneered d.i.c.ky, "and very interesting--if true." He almost spat the words out, he was so angry.

"It does not matter to me in the least whether you believe it or not,"

I returned frigidly.

d.i.c.ky jumped up with an oath. "I know it doesn't matter to you.

Nothing is of any consequence to you but this"--he ripped out an offensive epithet. "If he is so near and dear to you, it's a wonder you don't want to go over and bid him a fond farewell."

I was fighting to keep back the tears. As soon as I could control my voice I spoke slowly:

"The reason why I did not go is because I thought you might not like it. G.o.d knows, I wanted to go."

I walked steadily to my room, closed the door and locked it and fell upon the bed, a sobbing heap.

"Where are you going?" d.i.c.ky's voice was fairly a snarl as I faced him a little later in my street costume.

"I do not know," I replied truthfully and coldly. "I am going out for the rest of the afternoon. Perhaps you will be able to control yourself when I return."

It was not the most tactful speech in the world. But I was past caring whether d.i.c.ky were angry or pleased. I am not very quick to wrath, but when it is once roused my anger is intense.

"You know you are lying," he said loudly. "You are going to see this precious-cousin-brother-lover, whichever he may be."

My fear that Katie or his mother would hear him overcame the primitive impulse I had to avenge the insolent words with a blow, as a man would.

"You will apologize for that language to me when I come back," I said icily. "I do not know whether I shall go to bid Jack good-by or not. I have no idea what I shall do, save that I must get away from here for a little while. But if you have any sense of the ordinary decencies of life you will lower your voice. I do not suppose you care to have either your mother or Katie overhear this edifying conversation."

"Much you care about what my mother thinks," d.i.c.ky rejoined, and this time his voice was querulous, but decidedly lower. "Fine courteous treatment you're giving her, leaving her like this when she has been in the house but a couple of hours."