Bread — Book3 Chapter4 Sections5-6
§ 5 She powdered her shoulders and did her hair; she red-lipped her mouth;
she hooked the black satin dress about her; she hung her generous string of artificial pearls around her neck and screwed the large artificial pearl ear-rings upon her ears.
At five o’clock she was ready, and for the ensuing thirty minutes she studied her reflection in the glass, turning first to one side, then to the other, noting various effects.
She wore no hat, but to-night her hair, with its distinguished touch of white, was dressed high, and thrust into its thick coil at the back of her head were three large brilliant, rhinestone combs.
Promptly at the half-hour, Martin was announced, and slipping on the marvellous jacket, rolling the fur luxuriously against her neck, Jeannette descended in the elevator and met him in the foyer.
The glance he gave her satisfied her; she knew Martin; he had not changed.
There remained only Ruthie, and in that instant it came to Jeannette a cold, disdainful manner would put herself, bound and helpless, at Ruthie’s mercy.
They were two shrewd and clever women,--she assumed Ruthie would be shrewd and clever,--meeting one another under strange and difficult circumstances; any hint of condescension, any suggestion of a patronizing air, and Ruthie would be laughing at her.
No, the part for her to play was one of all sweetness and amiability; graciousness was her only salvation.
Martin guided her out of the hotel, his fingers at her elbow.
A
limousine swept up to the door.
It was a _Parrott_, and there was a liveried chauffeur at the wheel.
“Get right in, Jan.
” He stooped through the doorway and sank heavily against the upholstered cushions beside her.
The “starter” touched his cap, and banged the door.
Memories swept back upon Jeannette, memories of another motor-car, a taxi-cab, and another “starter” who had banged shut an automobile door upon the two of them, and of a night pulsing with high emotions, hopes and young love.
Her little excited mother with her pendent, trembling cheeks, dressed in her lavender velvet, had been with them on that other night, and she had sat beside her daughter where Martin now was sitting, and Martin had occupied the small collapsible seat opposite, and had balanced himself there with his knees uncomfortably hunched up, to keep his feet out of the way!
“...
what we call the _Parrott_ Convertible; it’s just out this year,” Martin was explaining.
“You see with a little manipulation of the glass windows and seats you can turn it from a limousine into a Sedan and drive it yourself.
” “How clever!
” she said.
“You know, Martin, it delights me to think of your being so successful.
It was coming to you.
You were born to be a good salesman, and I’m glad you’ve gotten into a line of business where your talents count for something.
You were entirely out of your element with that Engraving Company; they didn’t begin to appreciate you.
” “They didn’t, did they?
That younger Gibbs,--Herbert Gibbs,--he was certainly a little rat, if there ever was one.
You know I had a terrible row with him after--after....
” “And I’m glad, too,” proceeded Jeannette hastily, “that you’ve married again and ’ve got your son and daughter.
You were always crazy about children.
Remember how you used to rave about Alice’s Etta and Ralph when they were babies?
” “You bet you.
How are----?
” “And then you were much too fine and too good for that Cohasset Beach crowd----” “They were a bunch of good scouts, all right.
” “Weren’t they?
” Jeannette said veering quickly.
“Every one of them has made good.
Steve Teschemacher’s quite wealthy.
” “Tell me about him,--tell me about ’em all.
Say, do you ever go down to Cohasset Beach any more?
” “Oh, yes; frequently.
Alice and Roy bought there, you know.
” “The deuce they did!
You don’t mean to say so?
Well, say, Jan, who’s living in the bungalow?
...
Say, Janny, I often think....
” They were busy in reminiscences, interrupting one another, laughing, ejaculating, now and then arrested by a memory that was not altogether mirth-provoking and unexpectedly stirred them.
At times Martin swayed in his seat and pounded his knee.
“By God!
” he would shout gleefully, “by God, I’d forgotten that!
--by God, that was a hot one, all right!
Say,--that had gone completely out of my mind.
You’re a wonder for remembering little things, Jan!
...
By golly!
” The car rolled smoothly out over the paved highway that circled through the hills.
Large, handsome houses with lights shining here and there from windows, and surrounded by tall, gaunt, leafless trees, alternated on either side of the road and fled past.
Their own vehicle was but one link in a long chain of nimble bugs with glowing antennæ which crawled hard upon one another along the winding course.
There came an abrupt turn, the motor car swung up a steep driveway, slid on to crunching gravel, and stopped.
“Here we are!
” exclaimed Martin.
The chauffeur leaped from his seat and attentively opened the car door.
A large frame house of gracious lines, with exterior stone chimneys, many windows, and a precipitous lawn that swept down to the roadway a hundred feet or more below.
“We get a splendid view of the valley here,” said Martin, coming to stand beside Jeannette as she looked out across the country.
The landscape was shrouded in dusk, pricked with a myriad of lights;
there was a jagged silhouette of distant tree-tops and beyond a pale, mother-of-pearl sky touched faintly with dying pink.
They turned to the house and as Martin stooped to insert his latch-key there was the quick run of small feet within, the door was flung open and a little girl hurled herself upon him with a violent silent hug.
“Well, well,” said Martin, “how’s my darling?
” He kissed her with equal vigor, his hat knocked at an angle upon his head.
“This is ‘Tinker,’” he said, smiling at Jeannette.
“Everybody calls her ‘Tinker,’ but her real name’s ‘Elizabeth.
’ Where’s your brother, Tinker?
” An answering clatter and rush came from an interior region, and a small boy flung himself upon the man.
“And this is Joe, Janny.
He has a nickname, too; sometimes we call him ‘Josephus,’--don’t we, old blunderbuss?
” There was another vigorous embrace.
The two children regarded Jeannette with shy but friendly glances.
The little girl was about nine, the boy two or three years younger.
Tinker was brown of skin and brown of eye; her hair was short and tawny and swept off her face in an old-fashioned way, held back by an encircling comb that reached from one temple to the other.
She was freckled and had an alert, engaging expression, while her brown eyes were sharp as shoe buttons, and twinkled between long tawny eyelashes.
Simply, she approached Jeannette and held up her brown arms as she offered her lips.
The boy was diminutive and wiry with furtive glance and grinning mouth that displayed a gaping hole left by two missing front teeth.
He hung his head as he held out his small hand, but as Jeannette took it, he darted a quick upward look into her face and gave her a friendly elfish grin.
Jeannette was moved, captivated at once by the charm of both.
“They’re darlings!
” came involuntarily from her, and then there was the sound of descending feet upon the stairs and Jeannette straightened herself from the crouching position in which she had greeted the children to face their mother.
“A pretty woman--and sweet--younger than I expected,” went Jeannette’s thoughts; “nothing to fear here.
” Ruthie was in truth a pretty woman, pretty without being either beautiful or handsome.
Her expression was bright, alert, eager, her manner friendly and effusive.
She resembled her small son.
“This is Ruthie, Jeannette----” began Martin.
“How do you do?
” said Ruthie, hurrying forward, leaving no doubt of her cordiality.
“It was very nice of you to come to us to-night.
” “Not at all,” Jeannette responded with her best smile.
“It was nice of you to want me.
” “I was anxious to know you,” said Ruthie.
She could afford to be gracious thought Jeannette.
She had everything: the home, the children, money, position,--she had Martin!
...
Was it possible they were really married?
Or did Ruthie merely _think_ she was his wife?
Jeannette was piloted upstairs to a large, pleasant bedroom.
The chairs, the tables, the bureau and chiffonier, the twin beds were all of bright bird’s-eye maple; rose hangings were at the windows, rose silk comforters were neatly folded at the foot of each bed, rose shades on the wall lights diffused a soft rosy radiance.
The dressing-table glittered with silver toilet articles, and Jeannette noticed they were all monogramed “R. T.
D.
” Flanking them were large silver-framed photographs, one of Martin,--a handsome, fierce-looking Martin in evening dress,--the other of the two children, Tinker with her arm about her brother.
Domesticity radiated everywhere.
“I never looked better,” Jeannette thought consolingly as she caught a full-length reflection of herself in the long mirror impanelled in the bathroom door.
Her hair pleased her; her high color was most becoming;
she knew herself to be beautiful.
She went downstairs, serene and confident, sure of being able to carry off the evening with lightness and ease.
“I thought it would be quieter and perhaps a little pleasanter without the children at table,” said Ruthie brightly as Jeannette joined her, “so I arranged to give them an early supper, and now Martin’s been scolding me.
He thinks you’ll be disappointed.
” “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Jeannette murmured.
“Martin’s almost unreasonable about them; he wants them all the time,” continued Ruthie.
“I tell him if he had them on his hands all day, perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so enthusiastic!
” She laughed an amused little laugh like the twittering of a bird.
“He couldn’t be fonder of them if they were his own,” she added.
There was a moment’s pause.
“You see, I’d lost my first husband before I met Martin,” Ruthie continued thoughtfully.
“My first marriage wasn’t very successful.
” She _did_ think she was married then!
“You were divorced?
” asked Jeannette.
If there was a barb to the question it failed in effect.
“No; Mr. Mason was killed.
He was--was rather intemperate, and there was an accident.
I met Martin some time afterwards and he was wonderful to me.
” “You’ve known him long?
” “Let me see.
About seven years.
Joe was only a baby, and we were living in Scranton.
Martin and I married about a year after my husband’s death.
I was having a very hard time of it; Mr. Mason carried but very little life insurance and I took up manicuring; I had to; there was no other way for us to get along.
” She smiled at the last.
He was sorry for her, thought Jeannette; that was the way of it.
“That had been your--your profession formerly?
” Jeannette asked with an innocent air.
“No, I had to learn it,” Ruthie said, unruffled.
“I had to do something.
I only did private work, you know.
” She cast a quick glance at Jeannette’s face.
“Martin and I didn’t meet in a barber shop!
” she added with a bright laugh.
Jeannette could think of nothing to say to this, so she nodded, and gazed into the red coals of the grate-fire before which the two women were standing.
“Here he is!
” Ruthie said, suddenly.
Martin’s step could be heard approaching and in a moment he entered the living-room.
Jeannette noticed he had changed into dinner clothes.
“Well, Jan, it’s mighty darned nice to see you here,” he said advancing, rubbing his hands.
He appeared well-groomed, was freshly shaved, his clothes fitted him to perfection, his thick neck and swarthy skin seemed clean and wholesome.
“Have a little cocktail?
” he suggested.
“I’ve got a cracker-jack bootlegger that brings me the stuff direct from New York,--real old Gordon!
If this damned governor of ours has his way, we’re not likely to get any more of it.
This prohibition stuff makes me sick, doesn’t it you?
” “It doesn’t bother me, Martin,” Jeannette answered lightly.
“I never drink anything.
” “Well, how about having a little cocktail to-night?
Just by way of celebration?
Huh?
What d’you say?
” “No-o, thank you, Martin; not to-night.
I really never touch it, but don’t let me stop you two.
” “Ruthie doesn’t drink either.
She’s a plumb tee-totaler,--believes in it!
What do you know about that?
” Martin laughed good-naturedly.
His mirth had the old-time extraordinary infectious quality.
“Don’t bother about mixing a cocktail to-night, Martin dear,” Ruthie said in a persuasive voice.
“It takes you so long with the ice and everything, and dinner’s late, now.
” “I’ll have a little of the straight stuff, then,” he said, still rubbing his hands in high good humor.
They went together into the dining-room through the double glass doors, curtained in shirred folds of pink silk.
The table was glittering with polished silverware and sparkling glass; in the center was a low fern in a metal fern-dish.
Martin unlocked a door in the sideboard, took out a whisky bottle, held it up a moment to the light to inspect the measure of its contents, and poured himself an inch into a tumbler.
“D’you remember that guy who used always to say ‘Saloon’ when he was taking a drink?
” asked Martin, grinning at Jeannette.
“He was a card all right?
...
Well, ‘saloon!
’” He drained the drink in two gulps, followed it with a draught of water, and sat down, smacking his lips.
A maid appeared, bearing a tureen of soup, and presently passed cheese straws.
Jeannette observed her spotless white bibbed apron and black dress, and she took note of the fine sprays of celery and olives in side dishes on the table, twinkling with ice.
The dinner proceeded comfortably,--well-served, well-cooked, stereotyped: a roast of beef, with potatoes browned in the pan, canned French peas, a salad of chopped apples and nuts, a dessert of cake and ice-cream.
She recalled with a sharp twinge the “company” dinners she had struggled so hard to prepare for Martin and his friends, and the effort she had made to serve him things he liked so as to make him want to stay at home....
Ah, she had tried, she reminded herself, she had really tried hard to be a good wife to him!
...
It was all so much easier for Ruthie;
she had her cook, her waitress, and there was even the chauffeur.
So easy to sit still and merely tell them what to do!
...
And Martin?
...
Well, he had matured, he had settled down, was more seasoned, more reasonable, more disciplined....
She noticed for the first time a jagged white scar on his right temple; it had not been there when she had known him!
Throughout dinner he was in the gayest of spirits; Ruthie turned bright alert eyes from one face to the other; Jeannette felt the last vestige of constraint slip from her.
The talk was all of Tinker and Josephus, of the good schools of Jenkintown, of motor cars and the future of the automobile industry, of traffic laws and Philadelphia and things in general.
Every once in awhile a chance remark would sound a personal note, but the three with one accord would veer away from it and pursue another topic.
There was no telling where rocks of disaster might be hidden.
But after dinner, when Martin stood before the sucking coal fire in the living-room, stirring his coffee, a fresh cigar tilted up in the corner of his mouth, his head twisted to one side to avoid the smoke, it was evident the moment had arrived when he wanted to hear news of his old friends and start recalling old times.
Tinker and her brother presented themselves to say good-night and their mother made them an excuse for leaving her husband and her guest together.
“She’s far smarter than one would ever suspect from that affected bright expression,” thought Jeannette smiling at the children as they tumbled themselves out of the room.
Ruthie did not reappear until nearly ten o’clock, and then came in with many apologies for having been detained.
Martin, by that time, had heard all the news, had heard of Roy and Alice, of poor unfortunate Doc French, of ’Dolph Kuntz, and Fritz and Steve, and even of some of the changes in the publishing company which interested him.
He was far from satisfied, however, and wanted to go over it all once more.
“Say, do you remember that night, Jan, you and I and that Scotch friend of yours and that awful fright he took along with him had dinner up on the Astor roof?
What became of that guy?
” And---- “D’you ’member that time we got stuck out in the Sound aboard the Websters’ yacht?
...
Say, do they have any more racing down there?
...
What’s become of all the little A-boats?
” But Jeannette knew the time for leave-taking had come.
She rose smiling.
“I’m sorry, Martin; I shall have to say good-night.
I really must be going.
My day’s very full to-morrow.
” He was loud in protest, a little unnecessarily loud, Jeannette thought.
She tried to dissuade him from accompanying her back to the hotel, but he insisted.
“I wouldn’t _think_ of you riding back all by yourself, Jan!
That wouldn’t do at all.
The car’s right here; the man’s waiting.
He’ll run me in and run me out again in less than an hour; I’ll be home again in no time.
” Ruthie urged, too.
“Oh, yes,” she insisted brightly.
“You must let Martin take you back to town; it won’t hurt him a bit, and you two have such a lot to talk over together about old times and everything.
” The little woman’s face was wreathed with smiles; she was confident, solicitous.
She was sure of herself; sure of Martin; her concern had every semblance of sincerity.
Jeannette felt baffled, vaguely irritated.
The two women said good-night to one another with appropriate phrases and amiability.
Ruthie stood in the shining arch of the doorway as the motor car swept up to the steps, crunching on the fine gravel of the drive, and Jeannette and Martin got in.
She even managed a little wave of the hand as its door slammed and the car started.
Jeannette hated her.
It was impossible to guess what thoughts were behind that alert expression of innocent pleasure.
“You’ve come on in the world, Martin,” she observed.
“Yes, I’ve made a little money, but I’m going to make more,--a good deal more.
You know, I often think of the old man and the old woman up there in Watertown settling down forty, or I guess it’s fifty, years ago, to running that little grocery business of theirs, and I can’t help wishing sometimes they were round to see how good I’ve made.
They’d get an eyefull, all right!
But I’ve worked for my success, Jan,--that is, I’ve worked hard the last five years.
You know I was down and out for awhile?
” “Were you?
I didn’t know that.
How did that happen?
” Martin cleared his throat and twisted a little in his seat so as to talk more directly at her.
“I was pretty badly cut-up, Jan, when you ran out on me!
” “Were you?
” “You bet I was, and I began hitting her up there for awhile; I let things go to the devil and I was boozing a good deal.
There were two or three years there when I wasn’t much better than a bum.
” “Martin!
” “Well, I was sore at the world,--and sore, I guess, at you.
Yes, pretty damn sore.
You know, Jan, I didn’t think you treated me quite right, and then I blamed myself an awful lot for the way I treated you.
” “It was too bad,” Jeannette said slowly.
“I think maybe we were both wrong.
We were very young and inexperienced, Mart.
” “Yes, that’s right.
We pulled the wrong way.
” “I’m sorry you took it so badly.
I didn’t feel extra good about it myself.
I’ve often wished since....
” “Oh, there’s no use going over the old ground now.
It’s all over and done with, but I was mighty fond of you, Janny.
” “Don’t, Martin.
” “You bet I was.
I took it pretty hard when you left me; I didn’t care what happened to me.
” “I’m sorry.
It wasn’t easy for me either.
If you’d only come back,--or sent word....
” “You don’t understand, Jan.
I was down and out then.
I had nothing to offer you.
I’d punched Gibbsy’s face and I’d lost my job and I was driving a truck,--that is, when I was working at all.
” “Martin!
” “Oh, what’s the use of going back over old times!
” he said with sudden harshness.
“You’ve changed and I’ve changed.
I’m married now,--got a home and family,--and I’m happy, Jan.
Ruthie’s a good little woman.
” “When did you marry, Mart?
” “In--let’s see!
--in 1917; just before we got into the war.
I got a job as a salesman in an automobile agency in Scranton.
Tinker and her mother were living next door to my boarding-house; it was Tinker that caught my eye first; she and I used to have great times together; I was crazy about that kid, and then I met Ruthie.
” “And after that you were married?
” “Well, not right away.
I had to get free first.
You were awfully decent about not contesting the suit, Jan, but then I was pretty sure you wouldn’t. ” “And was there a suit?
” “Why, sure.
I got a decree in New York.
They gave it to me.
You never showed up.
” “I don’t remember,” said Jeannette vaguely.
“You were served with a summons; we had the testimony of the process server!
You let the case go by default.
” “Did I?
...
