Part 16

There was no one else for her. The travelling men and the Morristown boys were distressingly alike. Joe Austin was her favourite only because other girls thought he was a good catch. Laura knew that she would probably never get away from Morristown. She had no special ambition or ability. The family had just enough money to get along, without the girls doing anything useful. No one would ever come to Morristown who counted. She was twenty-four and not awfully young looking, a thinnish girl with light hair who was already getting lines around her mouth and chin.

There were several boys who liked Laura, Fred Ellison and Morgan French and Joe. Joe was in love with her, actually. It always surprised Laura when she thought of it. For she never did anything to appeal to Joe. Of course when he took her places, dances or movies, she was nice to him, a sort of reward for his company. Lately, too, she even went through the pretence of coquetting with him if Mary or Howard were present, just to show them that she was having a good time. She had invented a sort of mask of gaiety for them, a rather tremulous, shrill gaiety. She wanted them to see that she was always having a good time, that she was popular, the centre of things. It was hard, keeping up, when Howard wasn’t there. Why did she like Howard? It seemed so silly. Howard! His mouth was rather soft and full and he had a way of raising one eyebrow with a doubting half-smile ... his hands were the sort you want to reach out and touch, if they were near. Howard....

Her mother called to her, annoyed, from downstairs,

“Breakfast is all ready, now, Laura. You’re a great help to me.”

“Coming right away, Ma.”

Laura yawned and stretched and got up, putting her bare feet into the pink hand-crocheted bedroom slippers that Julia Austin, Joe’s sister, had given her at Christmas, shapeless things, never very pretty, like Julia and all the Austins. In the bathroom she bathed her face and arms and put on a blue cotton crêpe kimono, embroidered in white butterflies, over her pink cotton gown. She inserted a couple of hairpins in her hair and went down stairs to breakfast and her family.

Her mother and Maud, who was two years younger, but more pleasantly plump, were clad in starchy blue morning dresses, with checked aprons over them. They looked agreeably capable as they placed the stewed fruit and oatmeal on the table. Her father and her brother, Philip, were already seated at the breakfast table.

Laura sat down, smiled a mechanical “good morning” and took her napkin from the plated-silver napkin ring with her initials on it. The Morgans had clean napkins twice a week.

“Isn’t she the merry little sunshine!” Philip ventured.

“Let me alone,” said Laura, and her voice trembled. “If you’d been awake half the night with a headache you’d be grumpy, too.”

Philip subsided.

Her father looked at her over his glasses.

“Been having a lot of headaches lately, it seems to me,” he said. “Running around too much to dances. If you get to bed some night before twelve, you might wake up in a better humour.”

Laura didn’t answer. She wanted to scream out, to tell them that her head didn’t ache at all but that they annoyed her and bored her terribly, that she didn’t want to talk to them, that all she wanted was Howard Bates, wanted him there, with her now, always.

She finished her breakfast. The two men left. Maud and her mother, in a pleasant buzz of conversation, cleared off the table, began pottering around the dining-room, putting it in order.

“I’ll dust the living-room,” Laura volunteered. She had to do something, she knew. She could be alone, there.

It couldn’t be true—and yet last night at a dance at Miller’s Hall there were rumours that Mary and Howard were engaged.

Engaged! If Mary once got him—If the engagement were announced—she had lost him, then. She had lost him anyhow. Of course. Lost him. It didn’t seem possible. Howard!

In the living-room she threw herself down on the couch, buried her head in a cushion. There, on that couch, Howard had first kissed her. She stretched out her hand along the back of it. How many times she had found his hand there. And Howard was going to marry Mary Price. She wanted to scream out, to stop things, some way. She didn’t know what to do.

She got up and dusted the living-room. On the upright piano was a pile of popular songs with garish covers, torn. Some of those songs Howard had sung to her—had brought to her. Howard didn’t have a very good voice, just deep and pleasant. She had liked hearing him sing because it was him singing. His hair, soft and always mussed looking ... his hand.... And now he was going to marry Mary. She had tried hard enough ... everything she knew.

She didn’t believe much in prayers—nor in God—since she was grown up. She had often shocked her family and her friends by declaring her unbelief in any God at all. Yet, now, suddenly, she threw herself on her knees, in front of the couch, and buried her head in the seat cushion.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, “send Howard back to me. Make him love me! I—I haven’t asked for much. I haven’t got much. He is all I want. I don’t care ... I want him—please, God.”

She got to her feet feeling a little better. Maybe it was just a rumour, after all. How would Nettie Sayer know? It was Nettie who had told her. Why, even now, Howard might be thinking of her, deciding that he loved her and not Mary, after all. How could he love Mary, after all the good times they had had together, little things, jokes, his kisses?

Laura finished dusting the living-room with a little flourish, even. Why, anything might happen.

Her mother and Maud were in the kitchen. She joined them there, listening for half an hour to their conversation, joining in, finally. Wasn’t Maud silly? If only there were some one she could talk to about things. But Maud—her mother—they didn’t know, couldn’t feel things the way she did. Howard!

He might be going to ring her up. Why, yes, maybe he would telephone her. For an instant she forgot that she had thought that same thing for a long time, months, now. This was different. She had heard of the engagement. She had prayed. Things couldn’t go on. Howard worked in his father’s store. It was a musty store that dealt mostly in leather and saddles but included some hardware. Laura didn’t like it. It was a hard store to find excuses for going into. But he could telephone her from there, any time. Why, she used to telephone him there, lots of times. He got down-town about nine. It was ten, now. He’d been there an hour, more than likely.

“I think I’ll go up and dress,” she said. “I promised Myrtle Turner I’d attend to those programs for the Ladies’ Aid Benefit and get a proof for the meeting to-morrow.”

Her mother and Maud nodded mechanically. What difference did anything make to them?

II

Laura bathed and dressed rather rapidly, in a sort of a fever, listening all the while for the telephone to ring. It did not ring. After she had dressed and put on her neat blue coat and tan velvet hat, she made a pretence of talking with Maud. If Howard did telephone, she didn’t want to miss him. Then she had a feeling, suddenly, of wanting to be out of the house.

She hurried down-town, the business street that stretched out from the Brick Church to the railroad depot. Just off this street she stopped into a grimy little print shop and received smudged copies of the Ladies’ Aid Benefit program. That was all her errand consisted of. She had nothing else to do down-town.

She must see Howard, of course. She invented half a dozen errands that took her past Bates’ Harness and Leather Store, with its hideous imitation horse of dappled grey in one window. She did not see Howard, though she peered in, eagerly, as she passed. She must see him! Once she fancied she did see him. What a dark store it was.

She had bought everything she could think of, down-town. She had talked to half a dozen people, making the conversation last as long as possible, giggling whenever she could giggle. She had accepted an invitation to go to the movies later in the week with Mark Henry, had promised to dance with Archie Miller at the next dance, at Stattler’s Hall. She couldn’t go home without seeing Howard.

She walked past the store again. Her steps dragged. She looked inside. She did not see him. She must go in—find a pretext for going in. What could she get? She had thought of everything so many times. She must go in.

Her hand was on the door. She was inside the store.

Ray Davenport, the clerk, a sprightly young fellow, came up to her. Had she wasted this chance, coming in—and not seeing Howard?

She knew Ray and smiled at him. She couldn’t ask for Howard, now.

“Have you any—any of those new ice-scrapers?” she asked. “Not the kind you chop ice with but the kind that scrapes it, you know, with lots of teeth, into a sort of little cup.”

“I don’t think so,” Ray hesitated. “You don’t mean this kind?”

He walked back of the counter, took something from a dusty bin and held it out to her.

“Oh, no, we’ve got one like that—”

In the back of the store was an office, with partitions just high enough so you could see who was there. Inside, now, was Howard!

She hesitated. Then,

“Hello, Howard,” Laura called, prettily.

Howard Bates looked up, came out of the office toward her. As he came she grew almost dizzy, held tightly to her black leather purse. How lovely he looked—he was dearer than she had thought him. He looked tired, a trifle thin, even, and pale. His hair was dishevelled. Howard—why—he had gone with her—had been hers—hers to love, once....

She smiled nervously as he came up to her, and held out her hand. She wanted to keep his hand in her own, to run her hand over his face, to put her fingers through his hair, on his lips, as she once had done. She felt that she could have stopped loving him, quite without trouble, if his mouth had been different. Or his hair—or his eyes.

“I’m hunting for an ice-shaver,” she told him. “I’ve been making a sort of a new drink we’re all awfully fond of—folks say it’s good, but they are probably just being polite about it—and the ice has got to be shaved. The other night one of the boys nearly broke his finger with our ice pick—Jerome Farmer—it’s taken it nearly a week to heal. So I thought if I could get another kind—”

Jerome Farmer was the banker’s son—awfully popular. He had called, had hurt his finger on an ice pick. She’d let Howard see that she didn’t sit at home and wait for him, anyhow.

He was sorry. He didn’t have the ice-shaver she wanted. How was every little thing? Going to the dance, Wednesday? He’d see her, then. Before, maybe....

What could she say? She had said everything she knew how to say, weeks before.

She was out on the street. Howard hadn’t said anything she hoped he would.

She walked home slowly. She was angry, now, at herself. Why had she gone in the store at all? Wouldn’t he know that she was running after him? He hadn’t mentioned Mary, either. Maybe they weren’t engaged, after all. Hadn’t she prayed to God?

At home, she took off her serge dress and got into her kimono again. Her mother and sister were not at home. Curled up in the biggest living-room chair she read all of the stories in her favourite magazine. She stopped in between stories to think about Howard. Sometimes she read a whole page before she realized that she didn’t know a word she had read. Why had she gone to see him? Still, she wouldn’t have got to see him at all if she hadn’t gone. What did he see in Mary? A little thing like that! Why couldn’t she get him back again? She was as pretty as Mary, as clever, as nice in every way. Maybe—still—hadn’t she prayed for him?

She read, listening for the telephone.

At five o’clock the telephone rang. A masculine voice asked for her. She trembled, though she knew it was not Howard. It was Joe Austin. She had an engagement with him for that evening. He telephoned to ask if she would prefer going to a vaudeville show to staying at home.

“Let’s stay at home for a change,” she said, and wondered why she said it. Usually, she wanted to be going places every minute. “I’ve been out late every night for a week. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll be awfully glad to see you, though, Joe. Around eight.”

Half an hour later her mother came home and then Maud. There were meat cakes for dinner and she did not like them. She had not had any lunch. She went without lunch frequently.

Dinner was the usual meal. The family laughed over the day’s events. She laughed, too, even permitted Phillip to tease her when she said that Joe Austin was coming to call.

“Why doesn’t he take the spare room?” Philip cried. “He’s here enough. Though he isn’t here much for dinner. You got to hand it to Joe. He takes you places. He isn’t one of these home comforts and mealers like Howard Bates used to be, coming in just before we sat down at the table.”

“Is that so?” asked Laura.

Yet she was not angry. She was really happy when, under any circumstances, Howard’s name was brought into the conversation.

After dinner she dressed again putting on a cheap pink frock that had done duty as a dance dress before it lost its freshness. She did her hair over, puffing it out around her ears. Her face was getting thin. She must stop worrying about things. Why, she really looked more than her age. Little fat things like Mary Price always looked younger than they really were—fooled men. She added an extra bit of rouge and powder. What did it matter? She wouldn’t see Howard.

At eight, Joe Austin came. Maud was spending the evening with some girl friends. The rest of the family always stayed in the dining-room when the girls had company so, as usual, Laura had the living-room for her young man and herself. He came laden with a large box of candy, the chocolate creams already hardened by age. Laura greeted it with extravagant praise and made a pretence of feeding him the first piece.

What a tiresome fellow Joe was! She looked at him critically. Stupid. He had light hair that was rather uneven, the sort that can’t be brushed quite smooth, but it lacked the softness of Howard’s. Already it was starting to recede. Worse than that, there was a thin place on the back of his head. Yet Joe wasn’t more than twenty-six or so, about Howard’s age. He was much richer than Howard. His father owned the Austin House, the second best hotel in town, the one frequented by commercial travellers and theatrical companies, people like that.

Joe was a sort of manager and clerk, and no doubt would take over the hotel when his father died. He was more citified than Howard. He went up to Chicago two or three times a year. He wore better fitting clothes, with little fancy touches to them in lapels and pockets. Howard wore awfully plain things, always in need of pressing, always smelling slightly of tobacco—lovely things—

Joe was rather dapper, even. “Good company,” most people called him. He knew a lot of vaudeville jokes, and, in a crowd, could always say something to get applause. Howard wasn’t much fun in a crowd. Howard!

Joe was telling a long anecdote, now. As Laura looked at him, she wondered why she allowed him to call, why he liked her, anyhow. His nose was a trifle too short, turned up just a little. His face was a little too thin. There were slight lines in his cheeks. Howard was thin too,—a different thinness. Joe was so stupid and talky and useless. Why, if he died that minute it wouldn’t matter. He had no force, no personality. Yet he was more popular, more of a catch than Howard. She knew that. Perhaps that, really, was the reason she kept on going with him. What a bore he was! Should she keep on letting him call, talking to him?

The telephone rang. Almost rudely Laura rushed from the room to answer it. The telephone stood on a little table in the hall. She had hoped.... The voice was Rosalie Breen’s.

“Have you heard the news?” she wanted to know. After the usual hesitation she went on, “I thought maybe you had. You are one of the people she was going to call up. Mary Price and Howard Bates. What do you think of that? She just ’phoned me. I guess she’ll ’phone you right away, too. She’s having us all in to-morrow night, a little party. I heard it last night at the dance. Did you? Howard was one of your old flames, once, wasn’t he, Laura?”

“Oh, I didn’t mind him hanging around before I—I—had some one else,” Laura managed to say. She managed a giggle, too.

III

So, Howard was engaged. Well, that was settled. Gone! She might as well wipe him off her slate. She knew Howard. She could never get him back, now. She could never mean anything at all to him. Ever. Something went out. Life was greyer, would always be greyer. Things didn’t seem to matter as much. Maybe things had never mattered, anyhow. Of course she’d get over it. People got over things like that in years. Years. To keep on living.... And she had prayed to God. God!

She told Joe. They talked about that, other things. Howard gone! Joe was talking. She giggled over his stories. She found she couldn’t giggle any more. She lapsed into silence. What did Joe matter? What if she never saw him again? What did anything matter? Joe—well, he was the nicest man she knew—now. A better catch than Howard. Mary knew that. Why of course. Mary would have been glad to have gone with Joe. Why, Mary had made up to Joe. He thought her a stupid little thing. She was, too. Joe! After all, why not? It was better than no one at all, than letting people ask her about Howard.

She went over and sat next to Joe on the couch. She rested her hand, carelessly, near his hand. She leaned toward him just a little. She was glad her dress was rather low. She looked rather nice, that way.

“I feel so nervous, Joe,” she said, “I don’t know why. A sort of a mood. Why, I believe I’m trembling. Feel my hand.”

She held out one hand to him.

“Not an excuse for me to play hands with you, Laura?”

“You old silly. Don’t you know me better than that?”

“Bet I do. What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I just felt sort of—sad. Don’t you get that way, sometimes?”

“Not when a girl as nice as you lets me hold her hand. I say, Laura....”

“Now, Joe,” giggled Laura, and pulled her hand away. Holding Joe’s hand gave her as much emotion as holding Maud’s hand—or the cat’s paw.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said, and sighed.

“Now, now,” said Joe, and gave her shoulder little pats. “Cheer up and tell papa what’s wrong.”

She laughed at that and put one hand over his hand as it lay on her shoulder.

“You’re a dear little girl,” Joe said, “if I only thought you really liked me, Laura....”

Half an hour later he had his arms around her, was telling her he loved her, had asked her to marry him.

Engaged to Joe! The years stretched out indefinitely, without colour. Why not? She couldn’t be unengaged—unmarried—all her life. She couldn’t let Mary laugh at her—or Howard. Now, Howard couldn’t laugh. Why, Howard had been jealous of Joe Austin, one time. She’d show them—show Howard and Mary. She didn’t need Howard. Howard’s father was stingy. Mary wouldn’t have nearly as much as she could have. She could have a new house—or stay at the hotel and have no work at all, if she liked ... clothes, city things, trips ... she’d have a big wedding, too, bigger than the Prices could afford.

The telephone rang again.

“Answer it, won’t you, Joe?” she begged, prettily.

Joe answered it, came back in half a minute.

“It’s for you—Mary Price to break the big news,” he said.

“Want to go to her house, to-morrow night?”

“Sure thing.”

“Shall I tell her—about us?”

“Go ahead, spring it. She’s not the only one with news. Good stuff. Give ’em something else to think about.”

She was at the telephone.

Mary was pleasantly polite.

“I’m having a few friends in to-morrow night.... Howard and I—”

“Just heard it, dear,” said Laura. “I’m awfully glad. And just for that—here’s something for you—you’re the first I’ve told. Joe and I have decided the same thing. Must be in the air. Thanks. Yes ... isn’t it? Won’t it be fun ... lots of parties and things together. I’m so excited. Aren’t you? You’ve got my very, very best wishes. Congratulate Howard for me, won’t you? I certainly know how lucky you are, too. Howard is a fine fellow—one of the nicest boys I know. You know, I used to go with Howard a little ... before—I—I knew Joe. Yes—isn’t he fine? Thanks ... we’ll both be delighted. See you to-morrow evening....”

Howard! With a smile on her lips, Laura went back into the living-room to her fiancé.

BIRTHDAY

I

It was the old lady’s birthday. She was eighty-two years old and well preserved. To be sure, she was a trifle deaf, but not so deaf as she usually made out. She could hear conversations not intended for her, though she had an annoying way of saying “heh?” when she didn’t want to hear a thing. Then, after it had been repeated two or three times she would pass it off as of no consequence, and few things warrant triple repetition.

The old lady was proud of her age. After all, the fact that she had lived so many years was the most remarkable thing about her, as it usually is the most remarkable thing about people who live long. She had outlived her friends, her generation, her welcome.

She was still useful and quite paid her way. She lived with her son, Herman Potter, a thin man of over fifty, who had leather skin and a bald head, and his wife, Minnie, a too-fat woman of the same age, given to useless talk, exclamations and mild hysteria.

There were five children in the family of Herman Potter and one grandchild. They all lived at home except Roger, who was married and in business in Harrington. Fred, the oldest, nearly thirty, had been married but his wife had run away two years before with a soap drummer. Lucius and Phillip, the other sons, had never married. Fanny, the one daughter, had had marital misfortunes, also. She had married, at twenty-four, and a couple of years later her husband had “gone out West to try his luck,” and she had never heard from him again. Now she had a divorce, granted on grounds of desertion, and was ogling every unattached man in Graniteville. She had one child, a peevish, pale little boy of four, named Elbert.

The old lady had had three children. The older son, Morris, lived in Kansas City, but Morris’ wife absolutely refused to consider her husband’s mother as a part of her household. In fact, Morris’ wife felt that she had married beneath herself by accepting Morris at all, and held herself aloof from Morris’ family. The old lady’s only daughter, Martha, was dead. Martha had been her favourite child. Martha’s husband had married again. Her only child, Helen, was married and lived in Chicago.

The old lady’s life was uneventful enough and not unhappy. She was the first one up in the morning because she “didn’t need much sleep.” She would dress quietly, so as not to wake any one. If, occasionally, she stumbled against a chair, some one would be sure to say, at breakfast, “Didje hear Gramma? She woke me up, knocking around before daylight.” The old lady was not very steady and had to hold on to things sometimes when she walked.

There were always unwashed dishes from the night before. The old lady would wash these and then put on the oatmeal for breakfast. There was always oatmeal because it was cheap and filling, and the old lady was there to attend to it. She herself didn’t like oatmeal, though she listened each morning to Herman and Minnie who would say, “Gramma, you ought to eat some of this. Fine. Nourishing. Make you grow young.”

The old lady would purse her thin lips and then answer, politely enough, “Thank you, but I’m not one that’s much for oatmeal.”