Undertow

The marriage of Albert Bradley and Anne Polk Barrett was as close as anything comes, in these prosaic days, to a high adventure. Nancy's Uncle Thomas, a quiet, gentle old Southe...

She was still the centre of his universe and her own when she walked with her hand on his arm, to the little hospital around the corner, on a sweet April morning. The slow comin...

Up to this time it might have been said that the Bradleys had grasped their destiny, and controlled it with a high hand. Now their destiny grasped them, and they became its help...

However, on Sunday she forgot to ask him. The circumstances were so unexpectedly pleasant as to banish from her head any pre-arranged plan of procedure. It was a glowing June da...

But Nancy began to ask herself seriously; was it such fun? When house and maids and children, garden, car, table-linen and clothes had all been brought to the standard of Marlbo...

"Well! Listen to what I've planned, Bert, and tell me what you think. Item one: this is vacation, but when it's over I want to start Anne and the boys in at the village school....

Bert was very late, that night. The children were all asleep, and Nancy had dined, and was dreaming over her black coffee when, at nine o'clock, he came in. He was not hungry--j...

Nevertheless, she accepted the invitation that came from Bert's cousin Dorothy, one autumn, for a week-end visit. Dorothy had married now, and had a baby. She was living in a re...

There was no stopping half way, however. The current had caught the Bradleys and it carried them on. There was no expense that could be lessened without weakening the whole stru...

Blinded with an exquisite rush of tears, somehow Nancy reached them, and fell on her knees at her husband's side, and caught her baby to her heart. Three hundred persons heard t...

They both were destined to learn how it was managed, and being young and healthy and in love, they learned easily, and with much laughter and delight. Bert's share was perhaps t...

For a year or two the Bradleys kept up these Sunday expeditions without accomplishing anything definite. But they accomplished a great amount of indirect happiness, ate a hundre...

The week dragged by. The undercurrent of longing to see Nancy flowed on and on. Bert wanted nothing else--just Nancy. He had been spending the summer with a friend, at the frien...

"The Old Hill House," on the north Connecticut line, seemed almost too good to be true. It was an unpretentious country hotel, and Nancy and Junior settled themselves in one of...

Dummy again. She seemed to be dummy often, this afternoon. They were playing for quarter cents, but even that low stake, Nancy thought irritably, ran up into a considerable sum,...

The last words were no more than a breath of utter agony. A second later Nancy turned, and ran. She did not hear the protest that followed her, nor realize that, as she had take...

For two hours more the Bradleys sat as they were, and watched the swift ruin of their home. Nancy's hot face cooled by degrees, and she showed an occasional faint interest in th...

Miraculously, finances stood the strain. Bert was doing well, and sometimes made several good commissions together--not as large as the famous commission, but still important. N...

It was their first Christmas, and they spent it alone together. Bert and Nancy knew that they would not spend another Christmas alone, and the shadowy hope for April lent a new...

They had been married eleven days, and were loitering over a Sunday luncheon in their tiny home, when they first seriously discussed finances; not theoretical finances, but fina...

When the second boy came, in early December the Bradleys decided to move. They moved into a plain, old-fashioned flat, with two enormous rooms, two medium-sized, and two small o...

There was a brief halt when a fourth child, Priscilla, was born. It was in the quiet days that followed Priscilla's birth, that the Bradleys began to look certain unpleasant fac...

An hour later they went to see Holly Court again. It was even lovelier than ever in the sweet spring twilight. Triangles of soft light lay upon its dusty, yet polished, floors....

So the Bradleys had a bank account. And even before the precious money was actually paid them, and deposited in the bank, Nancy knew what they were going to do with it. There wa...

The rest of that summer, and the fall, were like an exquisite dream. All the Bradleys were well, and happier than their happiest dream. Nancy took the children swimming daily on...

Worse than any real or fancied change in the children, however, was the unmistakable change in Bert. Heartsick, Nancy saw it. It was not that he failed as a husband, Bert would...

Twenty-five thousand. It was out at last, falling like a stone on the Bradleys' hearts. Nancy could hardly keep the bitter tears from her eyes. Bert, more hardy, barked out a sh...

That night they slept in the garage. With a flash of her old independence, Nancy so decided it. She was firm in declining the hospitable offers that would have scattered the Bra...

Contentedly, the Bradleys dined. Bert served scrambled eggs and canned macaroni to the ravenous children--a meal that was supplemented by a cold roast fowl from the Rose's, a sh...

It was a happy time, untroubled by the thought of money that was soon to be so important. Bert's various aunts and cousins sent him checks, and Nancy's stepmother sent her all h...

Life spun on. The Bradleys felt that they had never really lived before. They rushed, laughed, played cards, dressed, danced, and sat at delicious meals from morning until night...

But it was almost a year before Dorothy thought of her cousins again, and then the proud Nancy wrote her that the arrival of Anne Bradley was daily expected, and no plans could...

The dinner was an ordeal; her partner was unfortunately interested only in motor-cars, of which Nancy could find little that was intelligent to say. She felt like what she was,...

That same week Bert brought home the deeds, and put them down on the dinner table before her. Nancy usually started the meal promptly at half past six, so that the children's fi...

"The whole trouble is that Bert loves neither the children nor myself any more!" she decided bitterly, on a certain August afternoon, when, with three other young wives and moth...

No formal reconciliation ended this time of discomfort. Guests came to the house, and Bert addressed his wife with some faint spontaneity, and Nancy eagerly answered him. They n...

One day Bert told Nancy that a man named Rogers had been in the office, and had been telling him about a place called Marlborough Gardens. Usually Bert's firm did not touch anyt...

His mother had straightened her hair, and turned the box upon which she sat for the better accommodation of Anne and herself. Now she was placidly watching the flames devour Hol...

We need no gifts, whose thoughts and prayers maintain Through all the years a strong and stronger chain, Yet take the little gift, the visible sign Of the deep love between your...