Revelations of a Wife Part 32

"There are two or three of the fellows who come down here summers who I know will be glad to go Dutch on a motor boat," he said. "We can take the bulliest trips, way out to deserted sand islands, where the surf is the best ever. We'll take along a tent and spend the night there sometime, or we can stretch out in the boat. Then we must see if we can get hold of some horses. Do you ride? Think of it! We've been married months, and I don't know yet whether you ride or not!"

"No, I don't ride, but oh, how I've always wanted to!" I returned with enthusiasm. Then, with a sudden qualm, "But all that will be terribly expensive, won't it?"

"Not so awful," d.i.c.ky said, smiling down at me. "But even if it is, I guess we can stand it. I've had some cracking good orders lately.

We'll have one whale of a summer."

My heart beat high with happiness. Surely, with all these plans for me, my husband's thoughts could not be much occupied with his beautiful model. As he lifted me down to the station platform at Marvin I looked with friendliness at the dingy, battered old railroad station which I remembered, at the defiant sign near it which trumpeted in large type, "Don't judge the town by the station," and the winding main street of the village, which, when I had visited Marvin before, d.i.c.ky had wished to show me.

Upon that other visit our first sight of Grace Draper and d.i.c.ky's interest in her had spoiled the trip for me. I had insisted upon going back without seeing some of the things d.i.c.ky had planned to show me, and I had disliked the thought of the town ever since. But with d.i.c.ky's loving plans for my happiness dazzling me, I felt a touch of the glamour with which he invested the place in my eyes. I caught at his hand in an unwonted burst of tenderness.

"Let's walk down that old winding street which you told me about last winter," I said. "I've wanted to see it ever since you spoke about it."

"We'll probably motor down it instead," he grinned. "There's a real estate office just opposite here, and I see the agent's flivver in front of the door, where he stands just inside his office. The spider and the fly, eh, Madge? Well, Mr. Spider, here are two dear little flies for you!"

"Oh, d.i.c.ky!" I dragged at his arm in protest. "Don't spoil our first view of that street by whirling through it in a car. Let's saunter down it first and then come back to the real estate man."

"You have a gleam of human intelligence, sometimes, don't you?" d.i.c.ky inquired banteringly. Then he took my arm to help me across the rough places in the country road.

We had almost reached the door of the office when d.i.c.ky caught sight of a plainly dressed woman coming toward us. I heard him catch his breath, his grasp on my arm tightened, and with an indescribable agile movement he fairly bolted into the real estate office, dragging me with him.

"I'll explain later," he said in my ear. "Just follow my lead now."

As he turned to the rotund little real estate agent, who came forward to greet us, a look of surprise on his round face, I looked through the window at the woman from whose sight he had dodged.

Then I felt that I needed an explanation, indeed.

For the woman whose eyes my husband so evidently wished to avoid was Mrs. Gorman, Grace Draper's sister.

So I was to live in a house of Grace Draper's choosing, after all!

This was the thought that came most forcibly to me when Mr. Brennan, the owner of the house d.i.c.ky had impetuously decided to rent, told us that Miss Draper had looked over the place for an artist friend, and that she would have taken it only for finding another house nearer her own home.

I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that I did not at first notice d.i.c.ky's embarra.s.sment when Mr. Brennan asked him if he knew Grace Draper. It was only when the man, who had all the earmarks of a gossiping countryman, repeated the question, that I realized d.i.c.ky's confusion.

"Did you say you knew her?"

"Yes, I know her; she works in my studio," remarked d.i.c.ky, shortly.

"Oh!" The exclamation had the effect of a long-drawn whistle. "Then you probably were the artist friend she spoke of."

"I probably was." d.i.c.ky's tone was grim. I knew how near his temper was to exploding, and the look which I beheld on the face of Mr.

Birdsall, the little real estate agent, galvanized me into action.

"Dear, what do you suppose led Grace to think we would like that other place better than this?" I flashed a tender little smile at d.i.c.ky. "Of course we would like to be nearer her, but this is not very far from her home, and it is so much better, isn't it?"

d.i.c.ky took the cue without a tremor.

"Why, I suppose she thought you would find this house too big for you to look after," he replied in a matter-of-fact way.

"That was awful dear and thoughtful of her," I murmured, careful to keep my voice at just the right pitch of friendliness toward the absent Grace, "but I don't think this will be too much, for we can shut up the rooms we don't need."

I had the satisfaction of seeing the puzzled looks of Mr. Brennan and Mr. Birdsall change into an evident readjustment of their ideas concerning my husband and Grace Draper. But I did not relax my iron hold upon myself. I knew if I dared let myself down for an instant angry tears would rush to my eyes.

"When did you say we could move in?" I turned to Mr. Brennan, determined to get away from the subject of Grace Draper as quickly as possible.

"Today, if you want it."

"No," returned d.i.c.ky, "but we will want it soon. When do you think we can move?" He turned to me.

I spent three busy days at the Brennan place. There was much to be done both inside and outside the house. After the first day, Katie did not return with me, as my mother-in-law needed her in the apartment.

But I engaged another woman with the one I had for the work in the house and put the grinning William in charge of an old man I had secured to clean up the grounds and make the garden.

I soon found that I had a treasure in Mr. Jones, who was a typical old Yankee farmer, a wizened little man with chin whiskers. He could only give me a day or two occasionally, as he was old and confided to me that he was subject to "the rheumatics." But while I was there he ploughed and harrowed and planted the garden, cleared the rubbish away, and made me innumerable flower beds, keeping an iron hand over the irresponsible William, whose grin gradually faded as he was forced to do some real work for his day's wages.

A riotous and extravagant hour in a seed and bulb store resulted in my getting all the flower favorites I had loved in my childhood. I also bought the seeds of all vegetables which d.i.c.ky and I liked, and a few more, and put them in Mr. Jones's capable hands.

If there was a variety of vegetables or flower seeds which looked attractive in the seedman's catalogue, and which remained unbought, it was the fault of the salesman, for I conscientiously tried to select every one. I planned the location of a few of the beds, and then confided to Mr. Jones the rest of the outdoor work, knowing that he could finish it after my return to the city.

Mr. Birdsall, the agent, was very tractable about the kitchen, sending men the second day to paint it. So at the end of the third day, when I turned the key in the lock of the front door, I was conscious that the house was as clean as soap and water and hard work could make it, that the grounds were in order, and the growing things I loved on their way to greet me.

I fancy it was high time things were accomplished, for in some way I had caught a severe cold. At least that was the way I diagnosed my complaint. My throat seemed swollen, my head ached severely, and each bone and muscle in my body appeared to have its separate pain. When I reached the apartment I felt so ill that I undressed and went to bed at once.

"You must spray your throat immediately," my mother-in-law said in a businesslike way, "and I suppose we ought to send for that jackanapes of a doctor."

Even through my suffering I could not help but smile at my mother-in-law's reference to Dr. Pett.i.t, who had attended her in her illness. She had summarily dismissed him because he had forbidden her to see to the unpacking of her trunks when she was barely convalescent, and we had not seen him since.

"I'm sure I will not need a physician," I said, trying to speak distinctly, although it was an effort for me to articulate. "Wait until d.i.c.ky comes, anyway."

For distinct in my mind was a mental picture of the look I had detected in Dr. Pett.i.t's eyes upon the day of his last visit to my mother-in-law. I remembered the way he had clasped my hand in parting.

The feeling was indefinable. I scored myself as fanciful and conceited for imagining that there had been anything special in his farewell to me or in the little courtesies he had tendered me during my mother-in-law's illness. But I told myself again, as I had after closing the door upon his last visit, that it were better all around if he did not come again.

"If you wait for Richard, you'll wait a long time," his mother observed grimly. "He called up a while ago, and said he had been invited to an impromptu studio party that he couldn't get away from, and that he would be home in two or three hours. But I know Richard.

If he gets interested in anything like that he won't be home until midnight."

I do not pretend either to a.n.a.lyze or excuse the feeling of reckless defiance that seized me upon hearing of d.i.c.ky's absence. I reflected bitterly that I had taken all the burden of seeing to the new home, and was suffering from illness contracted because of that work, while d.i.c.ky was frolicking at a studio party, with never a thought of me.

I know without being told that Grace Draper was a member of the frolic. And here I was suffering, yet refusing the services of a skilled physician because I fancied there was something in his manner the tolerance of which would savor of disloyalty to d.i.c.ky!

I turned to my mother-in-law to tell her she could summon the physician, but found that I could hardly speak. My throat felt as if I were choking.

"The spray!" I gasped.

Thoroughly alarmed, Mother Graham a.s.sisted me in spraying my throat with a strong antiseptic solution. Then I gave her the number of Dr.

Pett.i.t's office, and she called him up. I heard her tell him to make haste, and then she came back to me. I saw that she was frightened about the condition of my throat, but the choking feeling gave me no time to be frightened. I kept the spray going almost constantly until the physician came. It was the only way I could breathe.