Part 18 (2/2)
”Well, Wallace ought to do well,” Mabel conceded. ”But of course, you can't be sure. My idea is to plunge in and HAVE them, regardless.
Things'll fit if they've GOT to.”
”That's the NICEST way,” Martie said timidly. She had married, knowing nothing of wifehood and motherhood, except the one fact that the matter of children must be left entirely to chance. But she did not like to tell Mabel so.
She sat on in the pleasant morning suns.h.i.+ne, utterly happy, utterly at ease. The baby went to sleep as the two women murmured together.
Outside the lace-curtained windows busy Geary Street had long been astir. Wagons rattled up and down; cable-cars clanged. Sunlight had already conquered the summer fog. It was nine o'clock.
Mabel was enjoying tea and toast, but Martie refused to join her. If every hour had not been so blissful the young wife would have said that the happiest time of the day was when she and Wallace wandered out into the suns.h.i.+ne together for breakfast.
Presently she slipped away to take the bath that was a part of her morning routine now, and to wake Wallace. With his tumbled hair, his flushed face and his pale blue pajama jacket open at the throat Martie thought him no more than a delightful, drowsy boy. She sat on the edge of the bed beside him, teasing him to open his eyes.
”Ah--you darling!” Wallace was not too sleepy to appreciate her cool, fresh kisses. ”Oh, Lord, I'm a wreck! What time is it?”
”Nearly ten. You've had ten hours' sleep, darling. I don't know what you WANT!” Martie answered--at the bureau now, with the glory of her hair falling about her.
While they dressed they talked; delicious irrelevant chatter punctuated with laughter and kisses. The new stock company was a success, and Wallace working hard and happily. At ten the young Bannisters went forth in search of breakfast, the best meal of the day.
Martie loved the city: Market Street, Kearney Street, Union Square. She loved the fresh breath of the morning in her face. She always had her choice of flowers at the curb market about Lotta's fountain, pinning a nodding bunch of roses, Shasta daisies, pansies, or carnations at the belt of her white s.h.i.+rtwaists. They went to the Vienna Bakery or to Swain's for their leisurely meal, unless Wallace was hungry enough to beg for the Poodle Dog, or they felt rich enough for the Palace. Now and then they walked out of the familiar neighbourhood and tried a strange restaurant or hotel--but not often.
Usually Martie had Swain's famous toasted m.u.f.fins for her breakfast, daintily playing with coffee and fruit while Wallace disposed of cereal, eggs and ham, and fried potatoes. She used to marvel that he never grew fat on this hearty fare; sometimes he had sharp touches of indigestion.
Over their meal they talked untiringly, marvelling anew at the miracle of their finding each other. Martie learned her husband's nature as if it had been a book. Sensitive here--evasive there; a little coa.r.s.e, perhaps, a little simple. However surprising his differences it was for her to adapt herself. She was almost glad when his unconscious demands required of her the smallest sacrifice; getting so much, how glad she was to give!
After breakfast, when Wallace was not rehearsing and they were free to amuse themselves, they prowled through the Chinese quarter, and through the Italian colony. They rode on windy ”dummies” out to the beach, and went scattering peanut sh.e.l.ls along the wet sands. They visited the Park, the Mint, and the big baths, or crossed to Oakland or Sausalito, where Martie learned to swim. Martie found Wallace tireless in his appet.i.te for excursions, and committed herself cheerfully to his guidance. Catching a train, they rejoiced; missing it, they were none the less happy.
Twice a week a matinee performance brought Wallace to the Granada Theatre at one o'clock. On other days, rehearsals began at eleven and ended at three or occasionally as late as four. The theatre life charmed Martie like a fairy tale. She never grew tired of its thrill.
It was gratifying in the first place to enter the door marked ”Stage”
with a supplementary legend, NO ADMITTANCE, and pa.s.s the old doorkeeper who knew and liked her. The dark pa.s.sages beyond, smelling of escaping gas and damp straw, of unaired rooms and plumbing and fresh paint, were perfumed with romance to her, as were the little dressing rooms with old photographs stuck in the loosened wallpaper and dim initials scratched on the bare walls, and odd wigs and scarfs and paint jars littering the shelves. Wallace making up his face was an exalted being in the eyes of his wife.
When the play began, she took her station in the wings--silent, un.o.btrusive, eager to keep out of everybody's way, eager not to miss a word of the play. The man over her head, busy with his lights; the one or two s.h.i.+rt-sleeved, elderly men who invariably stood dispa.s.sionately watching the performance; the stage-hands; the various members of the cast: for all these she had a smile, and their answering smiles were Martie's delight.
”Take off ten pounds, Martie, and Bellew will give you a show some time!” said Maybelle La Rue, who was Mabel Cluett in private life.
Martie gasped at the mere thought. She determined to diet.
A few months before, she had supposed that social intercourse was a large factor in the actor's life, that midnight suppers were shared by the cast, and that intimacy of an unconventional if harmless nature reigned among them. Now, with some surprise, she learned that this was not the case. The actors, leaving the play at different moments, quietly got into their street clothes and disappeared; so that Mabel and Wallace, usually holding the stage for the last few moments by reason of their respective parts of maid and lover, often left a theatre empty of performers except for themselves. Jesse would frequently reach home enough earlier to be sound asleep when his wife rushed in to seize her hungry and fretting baby. Little Leroy spent the early evening in Martie's bed; one of the maids in the house being paid in Mabel's old finery for coming to look at the children now and then.
At intervals the Bannisters and the Cluetts did have little after-theatre suppers, but Martie was heroically dieting, Mabel tired and sleepy, and both gentlemen somewhat subject to indigestion. So Martie and Wallace more often went alone, Martie drinking bouillon and nibbling a cracker, and her husband devouring large orders of coffee and scrambled eggs.
They had been married perhaps eight weeks when Wallace astonished her by drinking too much. She had always fancied herself too broad-minded to resent this in the usual wifely way, but the fact angered her, and she suffered over the incident for days.
It was immediately after the termination of his successful engagement, and he and the Cluetts were celebrating the inauguration of a rest.
With two or three other members of the cast, they went to dine at the Cliff House, preceding the dinner with several c.o.c.ktails apiece. There was a long wait for the planked steak, during which time more c.o.c.ktails were ordered; Martie, who had merely tasted the first one, looking on amiably as the others drank.
Presently Mabel began to laugh unrestrainedly, much to Martie's half-comprehending embarra.s.sment. The men, far from seeming to be shocked by her hysteria, laughed violently themselves.
<script>