Part 14

I did not want to leave New York even for two weeks. I had begun to love my life here. There was something fine in the comradeship with the boys in the old ramshackle studio building. I had been accepted as one of the crowd, and I knew it was Bonnat’s influence that made them all treat me as a sister. Fisher once said that a “fellow would think twice before he said anything to me that wasn’t the straight goods,” and he added, “Bonnat’s so darned _big_, you know.”

I had often cooked for all of the boys in the building. We would have what they called a “spread” in Bonnat’s or Fisher’s studio, and they would all come flocking in, and fall to greedily upon the good things I had cooked. I felt a motherly impulse toward them all, and I wanted to care for and cook for--yes--and wash them, too. Some of the artists in that building _were pretty dirty_.

Paul had never spoken of love to me, and I was afraid to analyze my feelings for him. Reggie’s letters were still pouring in upon me, and they still harped upon one thing--my running away from him in Boston. He kept urging me to come home, and lately he had even hinted that he was coming again to fetch me; but he said he would not tell me when he would come, in case I should run off again.

I used to sit reading Reggie’s letters with the queerest sort of feelings for, as I read, I would not see Reggie in my mind at all, but Paul Bonnat. It did seem as if all the things that Reggie said that once would have pierced and hurt me cruelly had now lost their power. I had even a tolerant sort of pity for Reggie, and wondered why he should trouble any longer to accuse me of this or that, or even to write to me at all. I am sure I should not have greatly cared if his letters had ceased to come. And now as I turned over in my mind the question of leaving New York, I thought not of Reggie, but of Paul. It is true, I might only be away for the two weeks in Providence; on the other hand, I realized that should we succeed there, I would be foolish not to go on with the troupe to Boston. I decided finally that I would go.

I went over especially to tell Paul about it. I said:

“Mr. Bonnat, I’m going away from New York, to do some more of that--that living-picture work.” I waited a moment to see what he would say--he had not turned around--and then I added, as I wanted to see if he really cared--“Maybe I won’t come back at all.”

He stood up, and took me by the shoulders, making me look straight at him.

“How long are you to be gone?” he demanded, as if he had penetrated my ruse.

“Two weeks in Providence,” I said, “but if we succeed, we go on to Boston and--”

“Promise me you’ll come back in two weeks. Promise me that,” he said.

He was looking straight down into my eyes, and I think I would have promised him anything he asked me to; so I said in a little weak voice:

“I promise.”

“Good!” he replied. “I would not let you go, if it were in my power to stop you, but I know you need the money, and I have no right to deprive you of it. Oh, good God! it’s _hell_ not to be able to--” He broke off, and gently took my hands up in his:

“Look here, little mouse. There’s a chance of my being able to make a big pot of money. I’ll know in a few days’ time. Then you shall not have to worry about anything. But as I am now fixed, why I can’t stop you from anything. I haven’t the right.”

I wanted to tell him that he could stop me from going if he wanted to; but he had not told me he cared for me, and there was a possibility that I was mistaken about him. He had that big, gentle way with every one, and it might be that I had mistaken his kindly interest in me for something that he did not really feel. So I laughed now lightly, and I said:

“Oh, I’ll be back soon, and if you like you can see me off on the train.”

When we were in the Grand Central the following night, I tried to appear cheerful, but I could not prevent the tears running down my face, and when finally he took my hand to say good-bye, I said:

“Oh, it’s dreadful for me to say this; b-but if I don’t see you soon again I--t-think I will die.”

He bent down when I said that and kissed me right on my lips, and he did not seem to care whether every one in the station saw us or not. Then I knew that he did love me, and that knowledge sent me flying blindly down the platform. After I was aboard, I found I had taken the wrong train to Providence. I should have taken an earlier or a later one. Lil was already there, and was to have met me at the station from the earlier train, but the train I had taken would not get in till four in the morning.

When I arrived in Providence I did not know where to go. I had Lil’s address, but she had written me she was living at a “very respectable house” where the people would have been terribly shocked to know she was a model, and I felt I could not go there at such an hour in the morning. The rain was coming down in torrents. A colored boy was carrying my bag, and he asked me where I wanted to go. Indeed, I did not know. When I hesitated, he said that the hotels didn’t take ladies alone, but that he knew of an all-night restaurant where I could get something hot to eat and I could stay there till morning. So he took me over to Minks’. I had often eaten in Minks’ restaurant in Boston, and the place looked quite familiar to me. I had a cup of hot coffee and a sandwich, and then I asked the waitress if there was some place where I could go and freshen or clean up a bit. She whispered to the man at the desk, and he nodded, and then she beckoned to me to follow her. We went upstairs to a sort of loft. It was bare, save of packing cases, but she showed me to a little cracked looking-glass where she said I could do my hair. I told her I had been on the train all night, and she said sympathetically:

“Sure, you look it.”

I went over to Lil’s boarding-house about seven in the morning. She was right near Minks’, and said I was foolish not to have come right over.

Well, we played every night in the theatre in Providence, and we made what theatrical people call a “hit.” The whole town turned out to see us. The girls were all as pleased as could be, and so was Mr. Hirsch, and they made all kinds of plans for the road tour, but I could think of nothing but New York, and I was so lonely, in spite of the noisy company of the girls, that I used to go over and look at the railway tracks that I knew ran clear to New York. And I thought of Paul! I thought of Paul every single minute. The little maid would slip his letters every morning under my door, and I used to cry and laugh before I even opened them and I held them to my lips and face, and I kept them all in the bosom of my dress, right next to me.

We had finished our engagement. Lil and I were coming out of the dressing-room the last night when somebody slapped me on the back. I turned around, and there was Mr. Davis. He was so glad to see me that he nearly wrung my hand off, and he insisted on walking home with us. He told me he was now manager of a theatrical company, and that he had been looking around for me ever since Lil told him I was in New York.

“Now, Marion,” he said, “you are going to begin where you left off in Montreal, and it’s up to you to make good. You’ve got it in you, and I want to be the man to prove it.”

I asked him what he meant, and he said he was starting a new “show” in Boston that week, and that he had a part for me that would give me an opportunity.

I said faintly:

“I was going back to New York to-morrow.”

Lil exclaimed:

“What’re you talking about? Aren’t you going along with Mr. Hirsch?”

“Instead of going to New York,” said Mr. Davis, “you come along with me to Boston. Cut out this living-picture stuff. It’s not worthy of you. I always said there was the right stuff in you, Marion, and now I’m going to give you the chance to prove it.”

For a moment an old vision came back to me. I saw myself as “Camille,” the part I had so loved when little more than a child in Montreal, and I felt again the sway of old ambitions. I said to Mr. Davis:

“Oh, yes, I think I _will_ go with you!”

But when I got back to my room, I took out Paul’s last letter. How confident he was of my keeping my promise to return! He wrote of all the preparations he was making, and he said he had a stroke of luck, and that I should share it with him. We should have dinner at Mouquin’s, and then we would see some show, or the opera. Whatever we did, or wherever we went we would be together.

I got out my little writing pad, and I wrote a letter hurriedly to Mr. Davis:

“Dear Mr. Davis:

“Will you please excuse me, but I have to go to New York. I’ll let you know later about acting.”

I sent the note to Mr. Davis by the little maid in the house, and he sent back a sheet with this laconic message upon it:

“Now or never--Give me till morning.”

Lil talked and talked and talked to me all night about it, and she seemed to think I was crazy not to grab this chance that had come to me, and she said any one of the other girls would have gone clean daft about it. She said I was a little fool, and never knew when opportunity came in my way. “Just look,” she said, “how you turned down that chance you had to be a show girl, and all of us other girls weren’t even asked, and I’ll bet our legs are as pretty as yours. It’s just because you’ve got a sort of--of--well, I heard a man call it ‘sex-appeal’ about you, but you’re foolish to throw away your good chances, and by and by they won’t come to you. You’ll be fat and ugly.”

I said:

“Oh, Lil, stop it. I guess I know my business better than you do.”

“Well, then, answer me this,” said Lil, sitting up in bed, “are you engaged to that fellow who sends you letters every day?”

I could not answer her.

“Well, what about Reggie Bertie?”

“For heaven’s sakes, go to sleep,” I entreated her, and with a grunt of disgust she at last turned over.

Next morning Paul’s letter fully decided me. It said that he would be at the station to meet me! He was expecting me, and I must not, on any account, fail him.

“Lil, wake up! Wake up!” I cried, shaking her by the arm. “I’m going to take the first train back to New York.”

Lil answered sleepily:

“Marion, you always were crazy.”

All of a sudden the room turned red on all sides of us, and I realized that it was on fire. The little stove had a pipe with an elbow in the wall, and when I put a match to the kindling, the flames must have crept up to the thin wooden walls from the elbow, and in an instant the wall had ignited. I had on only a nightdress. I seized the quilt off the bed, and threw it on the flames, but it seemed only to serve as fresh fuel. Lil was

crouched back on the bed, petrified with terror, and literally unable to move. Desperately screaming, “Fire, fire!” I seized the pitcher and flung it at the flames, and then somehow I grabbed hold of Lil by the hand, and both shrieking, we ran out into the hall. Then I fainted. When I came to, the fire was out, and the landlady and her son and husband and Lil were all standing over me, laughing and crying.

“Well,” said the man, “did you try to burn us out?” He turned to his wife, and said: “It’s a good job I got that insurance, eh?”

My clothes were not burned, but soaking wet, and so I missed my train--the train that Paul was going to meet.

XLIX

Oh, how good it was to enter New York once more! I remembered how ugly the city had looked to me that first time when I had come from Boston. Now even the rows of flat houses and dingy tall buildings seemed to take on a sturdy and friendly beauty.

Paul was walking up and down the station, and he came rushing up to me, as I came through the gates. He was pale, and even seemed to tremble, as he caught me by the arm and cried:

“When you did not come on that train, I was afraid you had changed your mind, and were not coming back to me. I’ve been waiting here all day, watching each train that arrived from Providence. Oh, sweetheart, I’ve been nearly crazy!”

I told him about the fire, and he seized hold of my hands, and examined them.

“Don’t tell me you _hurt_ yourself!” he cried. And when I reassured him, it was all I could do to keep him from hugging me right there in the station. All the way on the car he held my hand, and although he did not say anything at all to me, I knew just what was in his heart. He loved me, and nothing else in all the whole wide world mattered.

He had helped me out at the studio building, and now as I went up the old rickety stairs, I realized that this was _my home_!

It was a ramshackle, very old, neglected, rickety sort of place, and I do not know why they called it Paresis Row. The name did not sound ugly to me, somehow. I loved everything about the place, even the queer business carried on on the lower floors, and old Mary, the slatternly caretaker, who scolded the boys alternately and then did little kindnesses for them. I remember how once she kept a creditor away from poor Fisher, by waving her broom at him, till he fled in fear.

I laughed as we went by the door of that crazy old artist that the boys used to tease by dropping a piece of iron on the floor after holding it up high. They would wait a few minutes, and then he would come hobbling up the stairs. There would be three regular taps, and then he would put his head in and say:

“Gentlemen, methinks I heard a noise!”

On the first floor back a man taught singing, and he had gotten up a class of policemen. It seemed as if they sang forever the chorus of a song that went like this:

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, don’t be a-f-rai-d!”

* * * * *

Several artists had committed suicide in the building. I am not sure of the causes, and we never dwelt upon the reasons. There was nothing pretty about the place; it was cold and not even very clean; but--it was my _home_!

Paul opened the door of his studio. The place was all cleaned up and new paper on the walls. He showed me behind the screen a little gas stove, pots and pans hanging at the back of it, and dishes in a little closet. Then, taking me by the hand, he opened a door, and showed me a little room adjoining his studio. It seemed to me lovely. It was prepared in soft gray, and the curtains of yellow cheesecloth gave an appearance of sunlight to it. There were several pieces of new furniture in the room, and a little mission dresser. Paul opened the drawers, and rather shyly showed me some sheets, pillow slips and towels, which he said he had purchased for me, and added:

“I hope they are all right. I don’t know much about such things.”

I knew then that Paul intended the room to be for me. He had only the one studio room before.

“Well, little mouse,” he said, “are you afraid to live with a poor beggar, or do you love me enough to take the chance?”

Thoughts were rushing through my mind. Memories of conversations and stories among the artists, on the marriage question, by some considered unnecessary and somehow with Paul it seemed right and natural, and the primitive woman in me answered: “Why not? Others have lived with the man they loved without marriage. Why should not I?” He was waiting for me to speak, and I put my hands up on his shoulders, and said:

“Oh, yes, Paul, I will come to you! I will!”

A little later, I said:

“Now I must go over to my old room and have my trunk and some other things I left there brought over, and I must tell Mrs. Whitehouse, the landlady, as she expects me back to-day.”

“Well, don’t be long,” said Paul. “I’m afraid you will slip through my arms just as I have found you.”

Mrs. Whitehouse, the landlady, met me at the door. I told her I was going to move over to Fourteenth Street, to Paresis Row. She threw up her hands and exclaimed:

“Lands sakes! That is no place for a girl to live, and I have no use for them artists. They are a half-crazy lot, and never have a cent to bless themselves with. If I were a young and pretty girl like you, Miss Ascough, I would not waste my time on the likes of them. Now there’s been a fine-looking gent calling for you the last two days, and I told him you’d be back to-day. He’s a real swell, and if you’d take my advice, you’d get right next to him.”

Even as she spoke the front doorbell rang. She opened the door, and there was Reggie! I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, but when I saw him, I fled into the parlor. He came after me, with his arms outstretched. I found myself staring across at him, as if I were looking at a stranger.

“Marion,” he cried, “I’ve come to bring you home.”

I backed away from him.

“No, no, Reggie, I don’t want you to touch me,” I said. “Go away! I tell you go away!”

“You don’t understand,” said Reggie. “I’ve come to take you home. You’ve won out. I’m going to _marry_ you!”

He looked as if he were conferring a kingdom on me.

“Listen to me, Reggie,” I said. “I can never, never be your wife now.”

“Why not? What have you done?” His old anger and suspicion were mounting. He was looking at me lovingly, yet furiously.

“I’ve done nothing--nothing--but I cannot be your wife.”

“If you mean because of Boston--I’ve forgiven everything. I fought it all out in Montreal and I made up my mind that I had to have you. So I’m going to _marry_ you, darling. You don’t seem to understand.”

Further and further away I had backed from him, but now he was right before me. I looked up at Reggie, but a vision arose between us-- Paul Bonnat’s face. Paul who was waiting for me, who had offered to share his all with me, and somehow it seemed to me more immoral to marry Reggie than to live with the man I loved.

“Reggie Bertie,” I said, “it’s you who don’t understand. I can never be your wife because--because--” Oh, it was very hard to drive that look of love and longing from Reggie’s face. Once I had loved him, and although he had hurt me so cruelly in the past, in that moment I longed to spare him the pain that was to be his now.

“Well? What is it, Marion? What have you done?”

“Reggie, it’s this: I no longer love you!” I said.

There was silence, and then he said with an uneasy laugh:

“You don’t mean that. You are angry with me. I’ll soon make you love me again as you did once, Marion. You’ll do it when you are my wife.”

“No--no--I never will,” I said steadily, “because--because--there’s another reason, Reggie. There’s some one else, some one who loves me, and whom I _adore_!”

I hope I may never see a man look like Reggie did then. He had turned gray, even to his lips. He just stared at me, and I think the truth of what I had said slowly sank in upon him. He drew back.

“I hope you’ll be happy!” he said, and I replied:

“Oh, and I hope you will be, too.”

I followed him to the door and he kept on staring at me with that dazed and incredulous look upon his face. Then he went out and I closed the door forever on Reggie Bertie.

* * * * *

The expressman had just put my trunk in the studio. I opened the door of the little room that Paul had fixed up for me.

“Are you afraid, darling?” he asked. “Are you going to regret giving yourself to a poor devil like me?”

I answered him as steadily as my voice would let me, for I was trembling.

“I am yours as long as you love me, Paul.”

I had started to remove my hat.

“Not yet, darling,” said Paul, and he took me by the arm and guided me toward the door. “First we have to go to the ‘Little Church Around the Corner.’”

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's Marion, by Winnifred Eaton