The Gorgeous Girl. Nalbro Bartley
“When I married your mother,” her father remarked, softly, evidently forgetting Johanna’s presence, “we walked to a minister’s house in Gardenville about five miles south of here. Your mother was working for a farmer’s wife and she didn’t say she was going to be married. She was afraid they might try talking her out of it––you know how women do.” He looked round the elegant little room. “I was getting ten dollars a week––that seemed big money in those days. I rented two rooms in the rear cottage of a house on Ontario Street––it’s torn down now. And I bought some second-hand stuff to furnish it.”
He paced up and down; he had a habit of so doing since he was always whisked about in his motor car and he feared growing stiff if he did not exercise.
“But your mother liked the rooms––and the things. I remember I bought a combination chair and stepladder for a dollar and it didn’t work.” He gave a chuckle. “It stayed in a sort of betwixt and between position, about one third stepladder and about two thirds chair, and that worried me a lot. A dollar meant a good deal then. But your mother knew what to do with it, she used it for kindling wood and said we’d charge it up to experience. Yes, sir, we walked to the minister’s––she wore a blue-print dress with a little pink sprig in it, and a sort of a bonnet.” His hand made an awkward descriptive gesture.
“The minister was mighty nice––he took us into his 49 garden and let your mother pick a bunch of roses, and then he hitched up his horse and buggy and drove us back to the farmer’s house. The farmer’s wife cried a little when we told her; she liked your mother. She gave us a crock of butter and some jam. While your mother packed her little trunk––it wasn’t any bigger than one of your hatboxes––I went out and stood at the gate. I kept thinking, ‘By jingo, I’m a married man! Mr. and Mrs. Mark Constantine.’ And I felt sort of afraid––and almost ashamed. It frightened me because I knew it was two to feed instead of one, and I wondered if I’d done wrong to take Hannah away from the farmer’s wife when I was only getting ten dollars a week.
“Well, when she came out of the door she looked as pretty as you’ll look in all your stuff, and she came right up to me and said, game as a pebble, ‘Mark, we’re man and wife and we’ll never be sorry, will we? And when you’re rich and I’m old we will stay just as loving!’ I didn’t feel sorry or frightened any more––not once. Not until you came and they told me she had gone on. Then I felt mighty sorry––and frightened. She looked so tired when I saw her then––so tired.”
He paused, staring at his sunken gardens as seen from Beatrice’s windows. Some men lazily raked new-cut grass and a peacock preened itself by the sundial. The glass conservatory showed signs of activity. The florists were at work for the coming event. Then he looked at his daughter, who waited with polite restraint until his reverie was ended.
“I’ve given you all she would have had,” he said, as if in debate with himself that this was the last rebuttal against possible criticism.
50
Beatrice glided over beside him; she looked out of the window, too, and then at her father. Something quite like tears was in his harsh eyes.
“Daddy,” she began with a quick indrawing of her breath, “do you think she’d have wanted me to have all––all this?”
“Why wouldn’t she?” he answered, taking her arm gently. He had always treated her with a formality amounting almost to awe.
“I don’t know––only I sometimes do almost think––would you suspect it? When I go to the office and watch those queerly dressed women bending over desks and earning a few dollars a week and having to live on it––and when I see how they manage to smile in spite of it––and how I waste and spend––and shed a great many tears––well, I wonder if it is quite safe to start as Steve and I are starting!” Then she threw her arms round him. “Steve won’t believe that I’ve been serious, will he? Now, daddy dear, please go ’way and let me dress, for I’m ’way late.”
She kissed him almost patronizingly and he tiptoed out of her room, rather glad to get into his own domain––the majestic library with its partially arranged wedding gifts.
“We’re doing ourselves proud,” he remarked to his sister, who had been rearranging them.
“What I told Beatrice this morning. Only she is all nerves. She can’t enjoy anything––it will be a relief to me, Mark, as well as a loss, when it is over.”
Her brother viewed her with a quizzical expression. Like the rest of the world his sister never fooled him. But like all supermen there was one human being in 51 whom all his trust was centred, and who very often thus brought about his defeat. In his case, as with Steve O’Valley, it chanced to be Beatrice.
Regarding her both men––merciless with their associates and dubbed as fish-blooded coroners by their enemies––were like gullible children following a lovely and willful Pied Piperess. But Mark’s sister with her vanities and fibs irritated and amused him by turns. Perhaps he resented her sharing this material triumph instead of the tired-faced woman in the churchyard.
“Do you remember the time you did the beadwork for the head carpenter’s wife and when she paid you for it you spent the dollar for liquid rouge? Todd was so mad he wouldn’t speak for a week,” he chuckled, unkindly.
“Don’t say such things! Think how it would embarrass Bea. Of course I don’t remember. Neither do you.”
“Oh, don’t I? What’s the harm recalling old times? I remember when you tried to make Todd a winter overcoat and he said it looked most as good as a deep-sea diver’s outfit. My Hannah nearly died a-laughing.”
Fortunately Steve appeared, flourishing Beatrice’s corsage by way of a greeting.
“Aha, the conquerer comes. My dear lad, your lady love has just ousted me from her room, she’ll be down presently. Belle, Steve and I are going into the den to smoke.”
“I’m trying to look as amiable as possible, but I wish fuss and feathers were not the mode.” Steve smiled his sweetest at Aunt Belle and then took Constantine’s arm. “The cave-man style of 52 clubbing one’s chosen into unconsciousness and strolling at leisure through the jungle with her wasn’t half bad. By the way, I did sell the Allandale man to-day, and the razor-factory stock is going to boom instead of flatten out––I’m sure of it.”
He lit a cigarette and threw himself into an easy-chair. Constantine selected a cigar and trimmed its end, watching Steve as he did so.
“You’ve come on about as well as they ever do,” he remarked, unexpectedly. “None of these rich young dogs could have matched you. Seen the presents?”
“Scads of ’em. Awful stuff. I don’t know what half of it is for. Bea is going to hand you most of it. The apartment is to be a thing of beauty and she won’t hear of taking the offerings along.”
“How is the shop?”
“Splendid––Mary Faithful will manage it quite as well as I do. I shall hear from her daily, you’ll stroll over that way, and I can manage to keep my left little finger on the wheel.”
“Mary’s a good sort,” Constantine mused. “Sorry I ever let her go over to your shebang. What’s her family like?”
“Don’t know. Never thought about ’em. Her kid brother works round the place after school. Guess Mary’s the man of the family.”
“How much do you pay her?”
“Forty a week.”
“Cheap enough. A man would draw down seventy and demand an assistant. I never had any luck with women secretaries––they all wanted to marry me,” he admitted, grimly.
“Mary’s not that sort. Business is her life. If 53 she were a man I’d have a rival. I’m going to give her fifty a week from now on; she’s giving