Chapter 37

PLIGHTED TROTH.

"Helen, you seem tired," John said as I met him at the door--at first I peeped out from behind it, I remember, as if I feared the bogey-man--"Have you been too hard at work?"

"I've been out all the afternoon," I said, "and I suppose I am rather tired, but it was pleasant and warm; and I wore a veil."

There was a little awkward pause after I had ushered him to the reception room, and then, guiding the talk through channels he thought safe, he spoke about his law work, the amusing things that happen at the office, his gratifying progress in his profession.

"Oh," I said, "talking of the law reminds me--some stupid paper was left here to-day."

I found with some difficulty and handed to him the stiff folded legal cap the man had brought.

He glanced through it with apprehensive surprise, skipping the long sentences to the end.

"Why, this is returnable to-morrow," he said; "Nelly, I had no idea you were in such urgent money troubles; why didn't you send for me at once; this morning?"

"Oh, if that's all--I've had so many duns that I'm tired of them: tired to death of them."

"But this isn't a dun," he began in the unnaturally quiet tone of a man who is trying to keep his temper and isn't going to succeed. "It is a court order; and people don't ignore court orders unless they want to get into trouble. This paper calls you to court to-morrow morning in supplementary proceedings."

"I don't know what they are."

"You don't want to know what they are. You mustn't know. It's an ordeal so terrible that most creditors employ it only as a last resort, especially against a woman. This plaintiff, being herself a woman, is less merciful."

"Why is it so terrible? I have no money; they can't make me pay what I haven't got, can they? Is it the Inquisition?"

"Yes, of a sort; it's an inquiry into your ability to pay, and almost no question that could throw light upon that is barred. You'll be asked about your business in New York, your income and expenses, your family and your father's means. It will be a turning inside out of your most intimate affairs."

"Why, I should expect all that," I said.

"But, Nelly--" he hesitated. "You're alone here?"

He had not before alluded to Mrs. Whitney, though I suppose he understood that she had gone; I appreciated his delicacy.

"I'm afraid you'll be asked about that," he went on; "asked, I mean, how a young woman without money maintains a fine apartment. They'll inquire about your servants, the daily expenses of your table, your wine bills, if you ever have any; then they'll question you about your visitors, their character and number, and try to wring admissions from you, and to give sinister shades to innocent relations. The reporters will all be there, a swarm of them. You're a semi-public character, more's the pity, and some lawyers like to be known for their severity to debtors. What a field day for the press! The beautiful Miss Winship in supplementary proceedings--columns of testimony, pages of pictures--! Ugh! In a word, the experience is so severe that you cannot undergo it."

"I don't see how it's to be helped; is it a crime to live alone?" I said. "I won't ask Uncle Timothy for money--and have Aunt Frank know about it."

Again he hesitated, then he said more slowly, but plumping out the last words in a kind of desperation: "I've heard a woman--once--asked if she had a lover--to pay the money, you know."

I didn't understand at first; then a flush deepened upon my face.

"They wouldn't dare! This woman knows all about me; why, she's Meg Van Dam's dressmaker; Mrs. Whitney's too--" I said.

"I've heard it done," John repeated patiently. "You must pardon me. I didn't want to go into this phase of it, but it may explain what, with your permission, I am about to do. Now, before I go--for I must go at once to find this attorney, at his house, the Democratic Club, anywhere--I must be frank with you."

He was already at the door, where he turned and faced me, looking almost handsome in his sturdy manliness, his colour heightened by excitement.

"I must tell you one thing," he went on very slowly. "I haven't in all the world a fraction of the money called for by this one bill; but in a way I have made some success. I am beginning to be known. If I myself offer terms, so much cash down, so much a month, pledging my word for the payment, the woman's lawyer will agree. She'll be glad to get the money in that way, or in any way. But I must guard your reputation. I shall tell plaintiff's counsel that you are my affianced wife, that I didn't know how badly you were in debt--both statements are true--and that I assume payment. I wish to assure you that, in thus asserting our old relation, I shall not presume upon the liberty I am obliged to take."

I think I have treated John badly; yet he brought me help. And he had no thought of recompense. Since he has seen how useless it was, he has ceased to pester me with love making, but has been simply, kindly helpful. And I have been so lonely, so harassed and tormented.

It was far enough from my thoughts to do such a thing, but as I stood dumbly looking at him, it flashed upon me that here, after all, was the man who had always loved me, always helped me, always respected me. I almost loved him in return. Why not try to reward his devotion, and throw my distracted self upon his protection?

"I would not have you tell a lie for me, John," said I uncertainly, holding out my hands and smiling softly into his eyes.

"I don't understand--" he stood irresolute, yet moved, I could see, by my beauty. "Do you mean--" and he slowly approached, peering from under his contracted brows as if trying to read my eyes.

"I mean that I have treated you very badly; and that I am sorry," I whispered, hiding my head with a little sigh upon his shoulder; and after a time he put his arms about me gently as if half afraid, and was silent. I felt how good he was, how strong and patient, and was at peace. I knew I could trust him.

So we stood for a little while at the dividing line between the future and the past. I do not know what were his thoughts, but I had not been so much at rest for a long, long time-not since I came from home to New York.

Then with a sigh of quiet content, he said in a low and gentle voice:--

"It's a strange thing to hurry away now, Nelly; but you know I have so much to do before I can rest tonight. I must speak of this: Now--now that we are to belong to each other always--I must know exactly about all your affairs, so that I can arrange them. There are other debts?"

The word grated upon my nerves, I had been so glad to forget.

"Yes, I'm afraid I owe a lot of money, but must we--just to-night?" I asked.

"I'm afraid it's safest. It is not alone that you will be able to forget the matter sooner if you confide in me now, but how can we know that these proceedings will not be repeated if I don't attend promptly to everything? Some one else may bring suit tomorrow, and another the next day, giving you no peace. I'm sorry, but it is the best way. Tell me everything now, and I will arrange with them all, and need never mention the subject again. Then you can be at peace."

"Well, if I must--"

It seemed impossible to go on. Even the thought of how good he was and how he had taken up my burden when it was too heavy for my own strength made it harder to face the horrible business.

"--I owe ten dollars to Kitty Reid, and about twenty-five to Cadge," I admitted. "I didn't mean to borrow of them, but I had to do it, just lately--"

"Poor child!" said John, stroking my hand with his big, warm paw, as he would a baby's. "Poor child!"

"I've bills somewhere for everything else--"

It was like digging among the ruins of my past greatness to pull out the crumpled papers from my writing desk, reminding me of the gay scenes that for me were no more; but John quietly took them from me, and began smoothing them and laying them in methodical piles and making notes of amounts and names.

"I've refused all these to Uncle Timothy; he's been worrying me with questions--" I said desperately.

"Three florists, two confectioners," he enumerated, as if he had not heard me.

"--Women eat sweets by the ton, but lately there have been few of 'em in this house. Then here are the accounts for newspaper clippings, you know; Shanks and Romeike; but they're trifles."

"You must have been a good customer," John said, glancing about the dishevelled flat--I hadn't had the heart to rearrange it since Mrs. Whitney left. "From the look of the place, I believe you would have bought a mummy or a heathen god, if anybody had suggested it to you."

"I have a little heathen god--Gautama; alabaster--and a mummied cat."

"And you're very fond of that? But no matter. Shoemaker and milliner and furniture man; that makes eleven."

He lengthened his list on the margin of a newspaper.

"Well, I never paid Van Nostrand for that painting, and I've even forgotten how much he said it would be. And there's a photograph bill--a perfectly scandalous one--and another dressmaker; Mrs. Edgar; I went back to her after Meg's woman got crusty, but she never'll sue me. And the Japanese furniture shop and--another photographer--and here's the bill for bric-a-brac--that's sixteen. The wine account--there is one, but it ought to be Mrs. Whitney's; for entertaining. I suppose Pa and Ma would say that was a very wicked bill, now wouldn't they, Schoolmaster?"

"They would indeed, Helen 'Lizy; I'm not sure that I don't agree with them. By the way, does your father know about all this?"

"Yes, a little. I've begged him for money, but he won't mortgage the farm. And Judge Baker knows. He wants me to come back to his house, but of course I won't do it. I guess he's sent for Father; Pa's coming East soon, on a cattle train pass."

"A cattle train!"

John stabbed the paper viciously, then he said more gently:--

"A cattle train is cold comfort for a substantial farmer at his time of life; and I don't think we will let him mortgage."

That young man will need discipline; but I imagine he was thinking less about my poor old father than about--well, I needn't have mentioned the Baker house, but what does he really know of how I came to leave it? Perhaps suspicion and bitter memories made my retort more spirited than it need have been.

"We won't discuss that, please," I said with hauteur; "and we won't be too emphatic about what is past. It _is_ past. I'll find out what is a proper scale of expenditure for a young lawyer's wife in New York, and I shall not exceed it. I've been living very economically for the sphere that seemed open to me. Perhaps I ought not to have tried it; but I think you should blame those who lured me into extravagance and then deserted me. I've had a terrible, terrible experience! Do you know that? And I was within an ace of becoming an ornament of the British peerage. Did you know that?"

"Yes; I don't blame you for refusing, either; some girls don't seem to have the necessary strength of mind. No; I'm not blaming anybody for anything. Nelly, next week it will be a year since our first betrothal; do you remember? Haven't you, after all, loved me a little, all the time?"

He looked at me wistfully.

"At least," I said, "I didn't love Lord Strathay."

I didn't think it necessary to correct him as to my refusal of the Earl.

"We'll see if Kitty won't take you in again until we can be married," he said, jabbing the paper again and changing the subject almost brusquely. "If you don't want to go back to your aunt, that'll be better than a boarding house, won't it? You pay the girls out of this, and I'll look after the other bills. There's a good fellow. Now, then what's No. 18?"

I fingered with an odd reluctance the little roll of bills he handed me, though it was like a life buoy to a drowning sailor.

"You'd better," he said, with quiet decision, cutting short my hesitation. "The girls won't need to know where it comes from, or that I know anything about it. It's ever so much nicer that way, don't you think?"

I put the money with my pride into my pocket, and continued sorting out bills from the rubbish. In all we scheduled over forty before we gave it up. Besides the Van Nostrand painting and one or two accounts that probably escaped us, I found that I owed between $4,000 and $5,000.

"That is the whole of my dowry, John," I said.

"I would as willingly accept you as a portionless bride," he declaimed in theatrical fashion; and then we both broke into hysterical laughter.

"Never mind," he said, at last, wiping his eyes. "I never dreamed that all this rubbish about you could cost so much; I ought to have had my eyes open. But now we aren't going to worry one little worry, are we? I'll straighten it all out in time. And now I really must go."

And so he went away with a parting kiss, leaving me very happy. I don't know that I love him; or rather I know that I don't--but I shall be good to him and make him so happy that he'll forget all the trouble I have cost him. Dear old unselfish, patient John!

And I am more content and less torn by anxiety than I have been for many a long day. It is such a relief!

And so I'm thinking it over. Even from the selfish standpoint I have not done so badly. John is developing wonderfully. He is not so destitute of social finesse as when he came, his language is better, his bearing more confident. He makes a good figure in evening dress. He will be a famous success in the law, and, with a beautiful wife to help him, he should go far. He may be President some day, or Minister to the Court of St. James, or a Justice of the Supreme Court.

Whatever his career, I shall help him. I have the power to do things in the world as well as he. And once married, I may almost choose my friends and his associates. The women will no longer fear me so much. He shall not regret this night's work.

So that is settled. I am so relieved, and more tired than I have ever guessed a woman could be. Tired, tired, tired!

I'm sure it is the best thing I could do, now; but--Judge Baker is right! What was it he said? "A loveless marriage,"--Oh, well, since I broke Ned Hynes's heart by setting a silly little girl to drive him away, and broke my own by breaking his, I haven't much cared what becomes of me; only to be at peace.

It will be a relief to move out of this accursed flat, where I have spent the gloomiest hours of my life.