Part 47 (1/2)

Clifford opened doors and smiled at Martie's interest. She could see that he loved every inch of the old place. She saw herself everywhere, writing checks at the old walnut desk, talking with Polly in the pantry. She could sow s.h.i.+rley poppies in the bed beneath the side windows; she could have Mrs. Hunter, the village sewing woman, comfortably established here in the sewing-room for weeks, if she liked, making ginghams for Ruth and Ruth's new mother.

When those days came Clifford would gradually abandon this unwelcome role of lover, and be her kindly, middle-aged old friend again.

Sometimes, in the new shrinking reluctance she felt when they were alone, she wondered what had become of the old Clifford. There was something vaguely offending, something a little undignified, about this fatuous, eager, elderly man who could so poorly simulate patience. He was not pa.s.sionate--she might have forgiven him that. But he was a.s.suming pa.s.sion, a.s.suming youth, happily egotistical.

He was fifty-one: he had won a beautiful woman hardly more than half his age. He wanted to talk about it, to have the conversation always congratulatory and flattering. He had the att.i.tude of a young husband, without his youth, to which everything is forgiven.

Altogether, Martie found her engagement strangely trying. Rose, instantly suspicious, was presently told of it, and Martie's sisters and Rose planned an announcement luncheon for early July. Martie thought she would really be glad when the fuss and flurry was over.

Long familiar with money scarcity, she wondered sometimes just what her financial arrangement with her new husband would be. Clifford was the richest man in Monroe. Not a shop would refuse her credit; nor a woman in town feel so sure of her comfort and safety.

But what else? Bitter as her long dependence had been, and widowed and experienced as she was, she dared not ask. There was something essentially indelicate in any talk of an allowance now. She would probably do what was done by almost all the wives she knew: charge, spend little, and when she must have money, approach her husband at breakfast or dinner: ”Oh, Clifford, I need about ten dollars. For the man who fixed the surrey, dear, and then if I take all the children in to the moving pictures, they'll want ice-cream. And I ought to send flowers to Rose; we don't charge there. Although I suppose I could send some of our own roses just as well!”

And Clifford, like other husbands, would take less money than was suggested from his pocket and say: ”How's seven? You can have more if you want it, but I haven't any more here! But if you like, send Ruth down to the Bank--”

”What a fool I am!” Martie mused. ”What does independence amount to, anyway? If I ever had it, I'd probably be longing to get back into shelter again.

”Teddy, do you understand that Mother is going to marry Uncle Cliff?”

she asked the child. He rested his little body against her, one arm about her neck, as he stood beside her chair.

”Yes, Mother,” he answered unenthusiastically. After a second's thought he began to twist a white b.u.t.ton on her blouse. ”And then are we going back to New York?” he asked.

”No, Loveliness, we stay here.” She looked at the child's downcast face. ”Why, Teddy?” she urged.

Ever since he could speak at all, he had had a fas.h.i.+on of whispering to her anything that seemed to him especially important or precious, even when, as now, they were quite alone. He put his lips to her ear.

”What is it, dearest? I can't hear you!”

”I said,” he said softly, his lips almost touching her cheek, ”that I would like to go back to New York just with you, and have you take me out in the snow again, and have you let me make chocolate custard, the way you always did--for just our own supper, our two selves. I like all my aunts and every one here, but I get lonesome.”

”Lonesome?” she echoed, trying to laugh over a little pang.

”Lonesome--for you!” he answered simply. Martie caught him to her and smothered him in her embrace.

”You little troubadour!” she laughed, with her kiss.

The three sisters had never been so much together in their lives as they were when the time came to demolish the old home. Sally, with a train of dancing children, came up every morning after breakfast, and she and Martie and Lydia patiently plodded through store-rooms, attics, and closets that had not been disturbed for years.

Lydia's constant cry was: ”Ah, don't destroy that; I remember that ever since I was a baby!” Sally was more apt to say: ”I believe I could use this; it's old, but it could be put in order cheaper than buying new!”

Martie was the iconoclast.

”Now here's this great roll of silk from Grandmother Price's wedding dress; what earthly good is this to any one?” she would demand briskly.

”And here's the patchwork quilt Ma started when Len was a baby, with all the patches pinned together! Why should we keep these things? And Lydia's sketch-books, when she was taking lessons, and the old air-tight stove, and Pa's brother's dentist chair--it's hopelessly old-fas.h.i.+oned now! And what about these piles and piles of Harper's and Scribner's, and the broken washstand that was in Belle's, room and the curtains, that used to be in the back hall? I move we have a bonfire and keep it going all day--”

”I'd forgotten that the old rocking-horse was here,” Sally said one day, with pleasure. ”The boys will love it! And do you know, Lyd, I was thinking that this little table with the leg mended and painted white wouldn't be a bit bad in my hall. I really need a table there, for Joe brings in his case, or the children get the mail--we'd have lots of use for it. And here's the bedside table, that's an awfully good thing to have, because in case of illness--”

”Heavens!” said Martie. ”She's trying to break something to us; she suspects that there may be an illness some day in her house--”

”Oh, I do not!” said Sally, flus.h.i.+ng and giggling in the old way.