Part 19

"My dear Child." She had got down a further sentence or two. "I couldn't collect my wits in time the other day to tell you what a mistaken idea you had of your father and me. I have never been unfaithful to him in my life." She glanced again guiltily at Bob. Poor old harmless thing! He had been certainly--good and a patient husband. And, sitting there, he did look like Jim. The elusive likeness between the two had always fascinated her; Jim's head had been like that. His face was longer, finer, more delicate. It was for Jim's sake, of course, and not Bob's she was writing this. She would not have Martha thinking Jim a common old love pirate! She took her arms from across the paper; she re-read what she had written. "I have never been unfaithful to him in my life." Then she added, impulsively, "I never had a chance to be." She studied her achievement, and covered it up with a blotter and sat thinking. Then she went at it again for a few minutes. "I am writing this to you the day of Mrs. Benton's funeral in case I haven't an opportunity to tell you personally." She was on the point of adding, "Your uncle wasn't that sort of man." But suppose Bob should sometime see those words? She might say, "The Kenworthy men are too good for that sort of thing." Yes, that might do.

Bob threw down his paper. Emily jumped.

"Some coon story!" he yawned. "Let's go to bed."

"You go on up, Bob," she said, earnestly. "I'm just coming."

When he came up from "fixing the furnace" she was rearranging her desk. In the center of it was a little compartment that could be locked but seldom was. It was full of rather useless trifles. She had found the little key to it now in a small adjoining drawer, and she had locked away a small envelope inclosed in the very center of several larger ones. It was addressed to Martha, "to be opened after my death." As she went upstairs wondering where to hide that key, she felt more like a perfect fool than she had felt in years. She looked about the room. At one side of her bureau there hung an enlarged snapshot of Martha as a four-year-old, hugging a puppy. Emily had always thought it a perfectly beautiful picture. When Bob was in the bathroom, she went cautiously over to it and tied the key to the wire by which the picture hung. "Nobody would ever find it there if I _should_ die," she said to herself; "and besides I probably won't." But later, when she heard Bob sleeping, she got up gently and hid the key in the bottom drawer of the bureau beneath some summer underthings, for, of course, Maggie would dust that picture as soon as she was able to be about, and demand to be told what key that was.

Afterwards she would say to herself, waking in the night: "Well, suppose anyone _should_ find that key and open the desk and see the letter. It's a very sensible thing to leave directions for your funeral. Everybody ought to do it. Still..."

And Johnnie Benton was about from time to time, reminding her of the possibility of sudden death. He wouldn't go back to school. He might have agreed, in the shock of his grief, to conform to all burial conventions out of respect for his mother. But to go back and try for a degree, he refused absolutely and confidently.

"I haven't told THEM," he said to Emily, nodding his head towards the house where his aunts still tarried. "Aunt Grace wants to keep house for me!" The tone of his voice suggested she had proposed at least to murder him. "I told them I'd go back as soon as it's settled, all the business; but I couldn't get a degree in ten years if I did go back. And goodness knows when things will be settled." The delay wasn't annoying Johnnie.

Even Emily grew uneasy about Johnnie as the weeks passed. She wondered sometimes, remembering a sort of threat, if his mother had really disinherited him. Her lawyers, whom he was always going to consult in Chicago, were saying now that Mrs. Benton had gone to California for the express purpose of investigating investments there, and presently the results would come to light. Emily didn't see clearly why Johnnie should have to drive up to Chicago three days a week to learn such meager facts. He stayed in Chicago so much that his aunts closed the house and went home. And then when he came home he stayed with the Kenworthys.

He stayed with them depressed, silent, and inactive. Emily was troubled about his laziness; but, after all, she had been his mother's stanchest friend and she owed him some sympathy and patience. She was as kind to him as possible.

But not so Martha. She came down suddenly for a week-end, the last of February. Emily told her to go into the small guest room; Johnnie's things were in the other.

"Good night!" she cried. "Is he _here_, too?"

Was he then so much in Martha's Chicago?

"Now look here, mammie, I don't approve of this. He's taking advantage of you. Why can't he stay at the hotel?"

"Martha, if you like the hotel so well, you'd better go down and try a meal there! It isn't a comfortable place, and you know it."

"But why doesn't he stay at the Kendalls' or at the Johnsons'? Why can't he stay with his friends?"

"Those boys aren't at home now, you know that."

"Well, he needn't try to--get a stand-in here just because his mother is dead. Why don't he live in his own house, like anybody else would?"

"I didn't know you were coming down, child. I didn't know you would object. After all, you can't live in Chicago and dictate who's to stay with me here."

"No, I suppose not. But you have enough to do without taking care of Johnnie Benton. Why doesn't he go to work?"

"He does work--sometimes. He works in the garage."

Martha turned about, flabbergasted. "You mean--dad's garage?"

"Yes."

"Well, of all the nerve! Look here, mammie, I tell you just now there's no use of dad trying to put that over on me. You can just tell him----"

"My dear child, don't be silly! Nobody's trying to put anything over on you."

"Of course, I can marry anybody I want to, as well as not! Women do it all the time and never say a word! But you needn't think I'm going to; you can get that idea out of your head right now!"

"Oh, come out of it, Martha! Nobody's trying to make you do anything you don't want to."

It would, perhaps, have been foolish to try that. For Martha seemed able to manage. Emily didn't know exactly how she had done it, but Johnnie came up presently from down-town, saw her there, greeted her quite undisturbed and casually, and announced he was going to Chicago for the week-end.

And all Martha said was, "I'll let you know next time before I come, mammie."

Emily felt encouraged about Martha in those days. About Johnnie she grew less and less certain as the spring came on.

Once she had to say to him: "Johnnie, I want to ask you something. I want you to tell me what your plans are. What are you going to do?"

He was walking about her living room gloomily, with his hands in his pockets. He stopped and looked at her. She liked him, and she saw she had hurt him deeply.

"You getting sore at me, too?" he asked.

"No," she said, "but you _are_ going to work sometime, of course?"

"I'm working now," he said. He stopped in front of her. He stroked his hair nervously. "I'm trying to persuade Martha to marry me!" he said, bluntly.

"Oh, Johnnie!" she exclaimed.

"You mean she won't?" he asked.

"Johnnie, no! I don't think she will. I don't think Martha'll marry--young. It doesn't seem to me--that it's likely."

"You mean--that affair--last summer--the summer before last?"

If she had meant it she had not meant him to refer to it. "That affair?" How could Johnnie Benton know about it?

"Well--yes," she acknowledged, "and other things. She isn't very domestic."

"I beg to differ with you!" Johnnie spoke with some heat. "She _is_ domestic. She loves houses. You know she loves houses and--things."

"Well, anyway, Johnnie, I think--she'd be just as apt to marry you--if you went to work; maybe more so. Not that I think----"

Johnnie lifted his head, as if to ward off her reproof. "I'm sick of this," he burst out. "People think I ought to settle down. Well, I would settle down--if Martha'd agree. I'd settle down here, or any place. It doesn't much matter what business I go into; I'll likely be a failure in any of 'em. I'll have enough to live on for us both. But if Martha won't, I'm going to pull out of this for a year or so; let them settle the estate to suit themselves. I can't be bothered with it. I'm going to sea for a year--till I get things into my own hands."

"Oh, Johnnie, what do you want to go to sea for? There's something better than that, surely?"

"Well, I'll have to earn my living--for a while, if things don't get settled up. The bank's howling about advancing me any more money. As if there wasn't plenty coming to me, some place! They won't let me sell the house, even, till the estate's settled.".

"Oh, were you thinking of that?"

"Why not, Mrs. Kenworthy? Martha--wouldn't want to live in it."

"Johnnie, I'd give that up, if I were you. I wouldn't count on that."

"That's what I _won't_ give up. I mean I don't give a--cent--what else happens."

Emily exclaimed. "You know there's nothing I would have liked so well."

"If what?"

"If it--were--possible," she contented herself with saying. "We can't force these things, Johnnie."

"But--it was all right _once_, Mrs. Kenworthy."

Emily wondered.

"Look here, what's Martha living with all those suffragettes for--those school-teachers, and doctor women?"

And then he said, bitterly: "It's natural she'd prefer them to--some people. Martha's been stung once, and she's afraid. That's what's the trouble with her."

"Good heavens!" thought Emily. "This boy is too wise! What does he know? And how does he come to know it?"

After a minute she said, "Well, Johnnie, dear, I would like to see you--all happy--and settled down, but I don't know--that Martha's the woman for you; and I tell you frankly I think you ought to stop this loafing about."

"I'll ask Mr. Kenworthy for a steady job for a month, if you want me to."

"That's not good enough for you, Johnnie; you can't work in a garage. But it's better than nothing."

He stuck to the garage for three weeks, and then he threw it up and departed abruptly on the spring day that Emily noticed the first tall white iris blooming. She was rather out of patience with him. But Bob--an amazing lot of sympathy Bob had for everything masculine--he just grinned.

"He's in love, the poor devil!" he said, and winked a sort of familiar grimace across the table at Emily. It annoyed her. All he had ever said of Martha was: "Well, if she's in love, she'll have to get over it; that's all." It gave her almost satisfaction to get a letter from Martha.

"Johnnie's turned up again. I'm leaving the city for a holiday. I'll write you about it next week."

Not another word from that child for two weeks. No sign of Johnnie; he might at least have had the decency to write whether or not he had taken to the sea. And Martha, Emily planned as the days passed, was going to get a thorough dressing down when she came back. Two weeks without writing was a little too much of a good thing. Two weeks and five days now, still no word had come. Emily was in the garden. She was, in fact, exactly at the side of the house which Martha had suggested adorning with a garage. She had been digging about her "bleeding heart" and looking down towards the river, because she had seen orioles for the first time that morning and planning what she would say to Martha when she got a chance. She turned around suddenly to see what car had stopped in front of the house. It was a brand-new little blue runabout, and expensive-looking.

And then Johnnie Benton jumped out of it, and turned about to give a hand to some one--and Martha Kenworthy jumped out! All dressed up in a new suit of rose color, with a lovely bit of soft fur and a new and nifty hat. And new shoes and a new bag--glorious and smart entirely. And she had caught sight of her mother, and came half running up to her. Johnnie, too, dressed to kill--and beaming--was hurrying to her. They were looking at each other.

"You two are married!" Emily cried to them; and her heart sank in a great pity for Johnnie.

"Mammie, mammie!" Martha was crying, hugging her. They had pulled her into the hall with cries and kisses.

"Oh, Martha!" Emily murmured.

The two were babbling.

"What she's wanted all the time, and she's pretending to scold us. Look at her, Johnnie." Martha was laughing at her mother's consternation. "We wanted to surprise you. How did you _know_? I suppose we _do_ look married, maybe."

"I'm glad," said Emily.

"You're _not_; you're crying! Didn't we surprise you? Did you get my letter? Rather smooth of me, wasn't it--'Johnnie's turned up and I'm leaving the city!' We'd only been married an hour when I wrote that, mammie!"

She shone, she twinkled, like not one star--but the whole canopy of heaven. She adored her husband with her married eyes. She stood the loveliest blossom of the season. Johnnie was explaining. Emily sat breathless looking from one to the other of them. "They're utterly married," she thought. "Martha isn't pretending. She isn't putting something across now." She couldn't believe it. But the bridal garments would have convinced her. Martha's very stockings were shining bridally. She had taken off her rosy hat; her frock matched her coat; she was powdering her nose before the hall glass; she was cavorting about, and shining. She called upon her mother to admire poor Johnnie.

"Isn't he a dear?" she chuckled. "Don't you think he's a lamb, mammie?"

"Cut that out, kiddo!" he cried, enjoying it.

"You bring the stuff in, my son. Mammie, we're going to open up the room. But Johnnie can have the little guest room--just for his things, can't he? I told you so, Johnnie. He's got to go down and break the news softly to dad. You go on, Johnnie; I want to talk to mammie. But don't you stay more than half an hour, I tell you. We're going to turn out that room, mammie. I knew it wouldn't be ready. I'll get out of my glad rags right away. Johnnie can help me. He's good at housework."

The door had finally scarcely closed behind the bridegroom when Emily cried; "Are you happy, Martie? Why did you do this?"

Side by side they placed themselves on the sofa instinctively; and Martha threw her arms about her mother ecstatically.

"Am I happy?" she repeated. "Can't you see I'm happy? Oh, mammie, I've got so much to tell you. Oh, ain't I lucky, mammie? I didn't know when I married him--I was just--mad, inside--I was hardboiled. I didn't intend to be good to Johnnie. I didn't know what else to do. I was sick of being called an old maid! I thought he could just run the risk, if he would keep on asking me. I didn't intend being nice to him, or anything. Mammie, people don't appreciate Johnnie. I didn't. Not at first, and then I found out how SWEET he was! He was just sweet to me, mammie, and I went and told him everything the other night. I could just kiss the ground that man walks on, with his dear old feet!"

Tears came springing into little Mrs. Benton's eyes.

"I told him everything about New York. I told him I'd been crazy. He said we'd be a pair of nuts, then. Fifty fifty, he said, I told him, no, mammie. A thousand to one, I told him. I tried to make him see, but he said I just thought that because I was such a good little kid! He said I was a good little kid, mammie. Those were his very words! I tell you right now, mammie, nobody's ever going to say a word about his mother to me! Because she WAS part of him, after all, and he hates it. I never knew there was anything in the world so darling as that man! You just ought to see him in his pajamas! He's too sweet! Blue and white striped they are. I'll let you see them, mammie!"

"Rare treat," thought Emily, dazedly.

"Don't you think he's a lamb, mammie? Don't you think he's too dear?"

"I always liked Johnnie."

"Oh, I don't mean that way! You just wait till you know him better! But nobody can appreciate Johnnie till she's married to him!"

"That seems too bad!"

"Oh, I don't know. It suits me!" she retorted, immediately. "Nobody wants a lot of women sitting around appreciating her husband. Mammie, it was too funny the way it happened. You know, Mrs. Blacksley and I had an awful row. She practically put me out of the shop."

"Oh?"

"Yes, she did. It was too funny, when you think about it. You see----"

She chuckled. She could enjoy any joke herself in her high mood. "She had to have some money to go on with, and she asked me straight out if there was any chance of me putting some in. And I said no, not unless she got rid of that man of hers. Mother, you can't imagine what a temper that woman's got! I thought she was going to pull my hair or slap me. I kept backing out towards the door, and she kept coming after me. She called me----" Martha giggled. "She called me an evil-minded little old maid! She said she'd like to see me groveling--groveling, it was she said--before some man. And here I am already just groveling! She said she hoped I'd have enough sense some day to appreciate a real man. It was pretty rotten of me to say that to her, because she is fond of him. She said his very cough was precious to her; she said she hoped I'd fall in love till I'd kiss somebody's false teeth when he wasn't there himself!" Martha snickered and added, "But, of course, he'd take them with him, his teeth, but I didn't think of that in time to answer her. I was afraid of her. And I was mad, I can tell you. And then, of course, Johnnie came along again. I was hardboiled and I went and married him. Because, after all, you've got to marry or be called an old maid in this world, haven't you, mammie? Let's ask her down now after a while, for a week. Mrs. Blacksley, I mean. But maybe she won't come. She's got such an awful temper."

Emily cried, the moment there was a pause--suddenly:

"Martha, I was never unfaithful to your father in my life--your father, I mean Bob Kenworthy!"

"You weren't?" She stared at her mother, taken aback. "Well, that's sort of funny."

"I ought to have told you that at once that day when you told me--what you thought! But I didn't."

Martha was looking at her thoughtfully.

"Well, that's sort of funny. I was just thinking of that this morning!" She had spoken slowly, but a thought quickened her pace again. "Mammie, you just ought to see Johnnie in the morning! He's too sweet! His hair never gets mussed up a bit, it's so short, and sort of soft in the morning. And I was just thinking this morning about what you said, or what I said to you, rather, and it would have been a raw deal for dad, after all. Because really, if a woman's got a good husband, she ought to treat him right, I think. Don't you?"

"I CERTAINLY DO!"

"I wouldn't want anybody treating Johnnie that way, I know that." And her tongue wagged happily on. Mother's vices or virtues were dismissed as slight things, in this new joy. They sat still there, Emily listening to Johnnie's praises till he came back into the room with Bob.

The paternal blessing detained them only for a minute. They hurried away to their housekeeping. A hurricane of happiness; seemed to be moving the furniture in the painted room about, judging from the noise. Bob and Emily sat side by side listening to the chortles of mirth that came down to them. Bob couldn't stop grinning.

"I always said this would happen, Emily. I always knew it would."

"Right as usual!" said Emily. If a woman has a good husband, what's the use of reminding him of all he doesn't know? she mused, happily.

She scarcely knew the painted room itself when she went up to it later. It was noon, but the curtains were pushed back as far as possible, and the blinds rolled to the top, so that the sunshine came crashing down like thunder from paradise on the roused and choral colors. The Victrola was grinding out:

Two for tea, And tea for two. A girl for me, And a boy for you.

Johnnie cried out, "Come in, Mrs. Kenworthy!"

Martha gurgled, jeering. "Mrs. Kenworthy! the nerve of you! Call her mother!"

They hadn't ceased dancing. Martha had a gaudy printed purple silk thing, a man's belongings, pinned about her head, turban-wise, and her arms were clasped firmly around her husband's waist. She made a gesture with her head about the room.

"It never looked better, did it, mammie? You always wanted it this way."

The beds were standing together, at length, where they had always belonged.

"I just let Johnnie arrange everything else to suit himself," she said.

THE END