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A Modern Instance

W >> William Dean Howells >> A Modern Instance




"What--what are you doing here, Marcia?" he asked at last.

They sank on the benching that ran round the wall; he held her hands fast
in one of his, and kept his other arm about her as they sat side by side.

"I don't know--I--" She seemed to rouse herself by an effort from her
rapture. "I was going to see Nettie Spaulding. And I saw you driving past
our house; and I thought you were coming here; and I couldn't bear--I
couldn't bear to let you go away without telling you that I was wrong; and
asking--asking you to forgive me. I thought you would do it,--I thought you
would know that I had behaved that way because I--I--cared so much for you.
I thought--I was afraid you had gone on the other train--" She trembled and
sank back in his embrace, from which she had lifted herself a little.

"How did you get here?" asked Bartley, as if willing to give himself all
the proofs he could of the every-day reality of her presence.

"Andy Morrison brought me. Father sent him from the hotel. I didn't care
what you would say to me, I wanted to tell you that I was wrong, and not
let you go away feeling that--that--you were all to blame. I thought when
I had done that you might drive me away,--or laugh at me, or anything you
pleased, if only you would let me take back--"

"Yes," he answered dreamily. All that wicked hardness was breaking up
within him; he felt it melting drop by drop in his heart. This poor
love-tossed soul, this frantic, unguided, reckless girl, was an angel of
mercy to him, and in her folly and error a messenger of heavenly peace and
hope. "I am a bad fellow, Marcia," he faltered. "You ought to know" that.
You did right to give me up. I made love to Hannah Morrison; I never
promised to marry her, but I made her think that I was fond of her."

"I don't care for that," replied the girl. "I told you when we were first
engaged that I would never think of anything that had gone before that;
and then when I would not listen to a word from you, that day, I broke my
promise."

"When I struck Henry Bird because he was jealous of me, I was as guilty as
if I had killed him."

"If you had killed him, I was bound to you by my word. Your striking him
was part of the same thing,--part of what I had promised I never would
care for." A gush of tears came into his eyes, and she saw them. "Oh, poor
Bartley! Poor Bartley!"

She took his head between her hands and pressed it hard against her heart,
and then wrapped her arms tight about him, and softly bemoaned him.

They drew a little apart when the man came in with his lantern, and set it
down to mend the fire. But as a railroad employee he was far too familiar
with the love that vaunts itself on all railroad trains to feel that he was
an intruder. He scarcely looked at them, and went out when he had mended
the fire, and left it purring.

"Where is Andy Morrison?" asked Bartley. "Has he gone back?"

"No; he is at the hotel over there. I told him to wait till I found out
when the train went north."

"So you inquired when it went to Boston," said Bartley, with a touch of his
old raillery. "Come," he added, taking her hand under his arm. He led her
out of the room, to where his cutter stood outside. She was astonished to
find the colt there.

"I wonder I didn't see it. But if I had, I should have thought that you had
sold it and gone away; Andy told me you were coming here to sell the colt.
When the man told me the express was gone, I knew you were on it."

They found the boy stolidly waiting for Marcia on the veranda of the hotel,
stamping first upon one foot and then the other, and hugging himself in his
great-coat as the coming snow-fall blew its first flakes in his face.

"Is that you, Andy?" asked Bartley.

"Yes, sir," answered the boy, without surprise at finding him with Marcia.

"Well, here! Just take hold of the colt's head a minute."

As the boy obeyed, Bartley threw the reins on the dashboard, and leaped out
of the cutter, and went within. He returned after a brief absence, followed
by the landlord.

"Well, it ain't more 'n a mile 'n a half, if it's that. You just keep
straight along this street, and take your first turn to the left, and
you're right at the house; it's the first house on the left-hand side."

"Thanks," returned Bartley. "Andy, you tell the Squire that you left Marcia
with me, and I said I would see about her getting back. You needn't hurry."

"All right," said the boy, and he disappeared round the corner of the house
to get his horse from the barn.

"Well, I'll be all ready by the time you're here," said the landlord, still
holding the hall-door ajar, "Luck _to_ you!" he shouted, shutting it.

Marcia locked both her hands through Bartley's arm, and leaned her head on
his shoulder. Neither spoke for some minutes; then he asked, "Marcia, do
you know where you are?"

"With you," she answered, in a voice of utter peace.

"Do you know where we are going?" he asked, leaning over to kiss her cold,
pure cheek.

"No," she answered in as perfect content as before.

"We are going to get married."

He felt her grow tense in her clasp upon his arm, and hold there rigidly
for a moment, while the swift thoughts whirled through her mind. Then, as
if the struggle had ended, she silently relaxed, and leaned more heavily
against him.

"There's still time to go back, Marcia," he said, "if you wish. That turn
to the right, yonder, will take us to Equity, and you can be at home in two
hours." She quivered. "I'm a poor man,--I suppose you know that; I've only
got fifteen dollars in the world, and the colt here. I know I can get on;
I'm not afraid for myself; but if you would rather wait,--if you're not
perfectly certain of yourself,--remember, it's going to be a struggle;
we're going to have some hard times--"

"You forgive me?" she huskily asked, for all answer, without moving her
head from where it lay.

"Yes, Marcia."

"Then--hurry."

The minister was an old man, and he seemed quite dazed at the suddenness
of their demand for his services. But he gathered himself together,
and contrived to make them man and wife, and to give them his marriage
certificate.

"It seems as if there were something else," he said, absently, as he handed
the paper to Bartley.

"Perhaps it's this," said Bartley, giving him a five-dollar note in return.

"Ah, perhaps," he replied, in unabated perplexity. He bade them serve God,
and let them out into the snowy night, through which they drove back to the
hotel.

The landlord had kindled a fire on the hearth of the Franklin stove in his
parlor, and the blazing hickory snapped in electrical sympathy with the
storm when they shut themselves into the bright room, and Bartley took
Marcia fondly into his arms.

"Wife!"

"Husband!"

They sat down before the fire, hand in hand, and talked of the light things
that swim to the top, and eddy round and round on the surface of our
deepest moods. They made merry over the old minister's perturbation, which
Bartley found endlessly amusing. Then he noticed that the dress Marcia had
on was the one she had worn to the sociable in Lower Equity, and she said,
yes, she had put it on because he once said he liked it. He asked her when,
and she said, oh, she knew; but if he could not remember, she was not going
to tell him. Then she wanted to know if he recognized her by the dress
before she lifted her veil in the station.

"No," he said, with a teasing laugh. "I wasn't thinking of you."

"Oh, Bartley!" she joyfully reproached him. "You must have been!"

"Yes, I was! I was so mad at you, that I was glad to have that brute of a
station-master bullying _some_ woman!"

"Bartley!"

He sat holding her hand. "Marcia," he said, gravely, "we must write to your
father at once, and tell him. I want to begin life in the right way, and I
think it's only fair to him."

She was enraptured at his magnanimity. "Bartley! That's _like_ you! Poor
father! I declare--Bartley, I'm afraid I had forgotten him! It's dreadful;
but--_you_ put everything else out of my head. I do believe I've died and
come to life somewhere else!"

"Well, _I_ haven't," said Bartley, "and I guess you'd better write to your
father. _You'd_ better write; at present, he and I are not on speaking
terms. Here!" He took out his note-book, and gave her his stylographic pen
after striking the fist that held it upon his other fist, in the fashion of
the amateurs of that reluctant instrument, in order to bring down the ink.

"Oh, what's that?" she asked.

"It's a new kind of pen. I got it for a notice in the Free Press."

"Is Henry Bird going to edit the paper?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," answered Bartley.

"I'll go out and get an envelope, and ask the landlord what's the quickest
way to get the letter to your father."

He took up his hat, but she laid her hand on his arm. "Oh, send for him!"
she said.

"Are you afraid I sha'n't come back?" he demanded, with a laughing kiss. "I
want to see him about something else, too."

"Well, don't be gone long."

They parted with an embrace that would have fortified older married people
for a year's separation. When Bartley came back, she handed him the leaf
she had torn out of his book, and sat down beside him while he read it,
with her arm over his shoulder.

"Dear father," the letter ran, "Bartley and I are married. We were married
an hour ago, just across the New Hampshire line, by the Rev. Mr. Jessup.
Bartley wants I should let you know the very first thing. I am going to
Boston with Bartley to-night, and, as soon as we get settled there, I will
write again. I want you should forgive us both; but if you wont forgive
Bartley, you mustn't forgive me. You were mistaken about Bartley, and I was
right. Bartley has told me everything, and I am perfectly satisfied. Love
to mother.

"MARCIA."

"P.S.--I _did_ intend to visit Netty Spaulding. But I saw Bartley driving
past on his way to the Junction, and I determined to see him if I could
before he started for Boston, and tell him I was all wrong, no matter what
he said or did afterwards. I ought to have told you I meant to see Bartley;
but then you would not have let me come, and if I had not come, I should
have died."

"There's a good deal of Bartley in it," said the young man with a laugh.

"You don't like it!"

"Yes, I do; it's all right. Did you use to take the prize for composition
at boarding-school?"

"Why, I think it's a very good letter for when I'm in such an excited
state."

"It's beautiful!" cried Bartley, laughing more and more. The tears started
to her eyes.

"Marcia," said her husband fondly, "what a child you are! If ever I do
anything to betray your trust in me--"

There came a shuffling of feet outside the door, a clinking of glass and
crockery, and a jarring sort of blow, as if some one were trying to rap on
the panel with the edge of a heavy-laden waiter. Bartley threw the door
open and found the landlord there, red and smiling, with the waiter in his
hand.

"I thought I'd bring your supper in here, you know," he explained
confidentially, "so 's't you could have it a little more snug. And my wife
she kind o' got wind o' what was going on,--women will, you know," he said
with a wink,--"and she's sent ye in some hot biscuit and a little jell, and
some of her cake." He set the waiter down on the table, and stood admiring
its mystery of napkined dishes. "She guessed you wouldn't object to some
cold chicken, and she's put a little of that on. Sha'n't cost ye any more,"
he hastened to assure them. "Now this is your room till the train comes,
and there aint agoin' to anybody come in here. So you can make yourselves
at home. And _I_ hope you'll enjoy your supper as much as we did ourn the
night _we_ was married. There! I guess I'll let the lady fix the table; she
looks as if she knowed how."

He got himself out of the room again, and then Marcia, who had made him
some embarrassed thanks, burst out in praise of his pleasantness.

"Well, he ought to be pleasant," said Bartley, "he's just beaten me on a
horse-trade. I've sold him the colt."

"Sold him the colt!" cried Marcia, tragically dropping the napkin she had
lifted from the plate of cold chicken.

"Well, we couldn't very well have taken him to Boston with us. And we
couldn't have got there without selling him. You know you haven't married a
millionnaire, Marcia."

"How much did you get for the colt?"

"Oh, I didn't do so badly. I got a hundred and fifty for him."

"And you had fifteen besides."

"That was before we were married. I gave the minister five for you,--I
think you are worth it, I wanted to give fifteen."

"Well, then, you have a hundred and sixty now. Isn't that a great deal?"

"An everlasting lot," said Bartley, with an impatient laugh. "Don't let the
supper cool, Marcia!"

She silently set out the feast, but regarded it ruefully. "You oughtn't to
have ordered so much, Bartley," she said. "You couldn't afford it."

"I can afford anything when I'm hungry. Besides. I only ordered the oysters
and coffee; all the rest is conscience money--or sentiment--from the
landlord. Come, come! cheer up, now! We sha'n't starve to-night, anyhow."

"Well, I know father will help us."

"We sha'n't count on him," said Bartley. "Now _drop_ it!" He put his arm
round her shoulders and pressed her against him, till she raised her face
for his kiss.

"Well, I _will!"_ she said, and the shadow lifted itself from their wedding
feast, and they sat down and made merry as if they had all the money in the
world to spend. They laughed and joked; they praised the things they liked,
and made fun of the others.

"How strange! How perfectly impossible it all seems! Why, last night I was
taking supper at Kinney's logging-camp, and hating you at every mouthful
with all my might. Everything seemed against me, and I was feeling ugly,
and flirting like mad with a fool from Montreal: she had come out there
from Portland for a frolic with the owners' party. You made me do it,
Marcia!" he cried jestingly. "And remember that, if you want me to be good,
you must be kind. The other thing seems to make me worse and worse."

"I will,--I will, Bartley." she said humbly. "I will try to be kind and
patient with you. I will indeed."

He threw back his head, and laughed and laughed. "Poor--poor old Kinney!
He's the cook, you know, and he thought I'd been making fun of him to that
woman, and he behaved so, after they were gone, that I started home in a
rage; and he followed me out with his hands all covered with dough, and
wanted to stop me, but he couldn't for fear of spoiling my clothes--" He
lost himself in another paroxysm.

Marcia smiled a little. Then, "What sort of a looking person was she?" she
tremulously asked.

Bartley stopped abruptly. "Not one ten-thousandth part as good-looking,
nor one millionth part as bright, as Marcia Hubbard!" He caught her and
smothered her against his breast.

"I don't care! I don't care!" she cried. "I was to blame more than you,
if you flirted with her, and it serves me right. Yes, I will never say
anything to you for anything that happened after I behaved so to you."

"There wasn't anything else happened," cried Bartley. "And the Montreal
woman snubbed me soundly before she was done with me."

"Snubbed you!" exclaimed Marcia, with illogical indignation. This delighted
Bartley so much that it was long before he left off laughing over her.

Then they sat down, and were silent till she said, "And did you leave him
in a temper?"

"Who? Kinney? In a perfect devil of a temper. I wouldn't even borrow some
money he wanted to lend me."

"Write to him, Bartley," said his wife, seriously. "I love you so I can't
bear to have anybody bad friends with you."




XIII.


The whole thing was so crazy, as Bartley said, that it made no difference
if they kept up the expense a few days longer. He took a hack from the
depot when they arrived in Boston, and drove to the Revere House, instead
of going up in the horse-car. He entered his name on the register with a
flourish, "Bartley J. Hubbard and Wife, _Boston_," and asked for a room and
fire, with laconic gruffness; but the clerk knew him at once for a country
person, and when the call-boy followed him into the parlor where Marcia
sat, in the tremor into which she fell whenever Bartley was out of her
sight, the call-boy discerned her provinciality at a glance, and made free
to say that he guessed they had better let him take their things up to
their room, and come up themselves after the porter had got their fire
going.

"All right," said Bartley, with hauteur; and he added, for no reason, "Be
quick about it."

"Yes, sir," said the boy.

"What time is supper--dinner, I mean?"

"It's ready now, sir."

"Good. Take up the things. Come just as you are, Marcia. Let him take your
cap,--no, keep it on; a good many of them come down in their bonnets."

Marcia put off her sack and gloves, and hastily repaired the ravages of
travel as best she could. She would have liked to go to her room just long
enough to brush her hair a little, and the fur cap made her head hot; but
she was suddenly afraid of doing something that would seem countrified in
Bartley's eyes, and she promptly obeyed: they had come from Portland in a
parlor car, and she had been able to make a traveller's toilet before they
reached Boston.

She had been at Portland several times with her father; but he stopped at a
second-class hotel where he had always "put up" when alone, and she was new
to the vastness of hotel mirrors and chandeliers, the glossy paint, the
frescoing, the fluted pillars, the tessellated marble pavements upon which
she stepped when she left the Brussels carpeting of the parlors. She clung
to Bartley's arm, silently praying that she might not do anything to
mortify him, and admiring everything he did with all her soul. He made a
halt as they entered the glittering dining-room, and stood frowning till
the head-waiter ran respectfully up to them, and ushered them with sweeping
bows to a table, which they had to themselves. Bartley ordered their dinner
with nonchalant ease, beginning with soup and going to black coffee with
dazzling intelligence. While their waiter was gone with their order, he
beckoned with one finger to another, and sent him out for a paper, which he
unfolded and spread on the table, taking a toothpick into his mouth, and
running the sheet over with his eyes. "I just want to see what's going on
to-night," he said, without looking at Marcia.

She made a little murmur of acquiescence in her throat, but she could not
speak for strangeness. She began to steal little timid glances about, and
to notice the people at the other tables. In her heart she did not find the
ladies so very well dressed as she had expected the Boston ladies to be;
and there was no gentleman there to compare with Bartley, either in style
or looks. She let her eyes finally dwell on him, wishing that he would put
his paper away and say something, but afraid to ask, lest it should not be
quite right: all the other gentlemen were reading papers. She was feeling
lonesome and homesick, when he suddenly glanced at her and said, "How
pretty you look, Marsh!"

"Do I?" she asked, with a little grateful throb, while her eyes joyfully
suffused themselves.

"Pretty as a pink," he returned. "Gay,--isn't it?" he continued, with a
wink that took her into his confidence again, from which his study of the
newspaper had seemed to exclude her. "I'll tell you what I'm going to
do: I'm going to take you to the Museum after dinner, and let you see
Boucicault in the 'Colleen Bawn.'" He swept his paper off the table and
unfolded his napkin in his lap, and, leaning back in his chair, began to
tell her about the play. "We can walk: it's only just round the corner," he
said at the end.

Marcia crept into the shelter of his talk,--he sometimes spoke rather
loud,--and was submissively silent. When they got into their own
room,--which had gilt lambrequin frames, and a chandelier of three burners,
and a marble mantel, and marble-topped table and washstand,--and Bartley
turned up the flaring gas, she quite broke down, and cried on his breast,
to make sure that she had got him all back again.

"Why, Marcia!" he said. "I know just how you feel. Don't you suppose I
understand as well as you do that we're a country couple? But I'm not going
to give myself away; and you mustn't, either. There wasn't a woman in that
room that could compare with you,--_dress_ or looks!"

"You were splendid," she whispered, "and just like the rest! and that made
me feel somehow as if I had lost you."

"I know,--I saw just how you felt; but I wasn't going to say anything for
fear you'd give way right there. Come, there's plenty of time before
the play begins. I call this _nice_! Old-fashioned, rather, in the
decorations," he said, "but pretty good for its time." He had pulled up two
arm-chairs in front of the glowing grate of anthracite; as he spoke, he
cast his eyes about the room, and she followed his glance obediently. He
had kept her hand in his, and now he held her slim finger-tips in the fist
which he rested on his knee. "No; I'll tell you what, Marcia, if you want
to get on in a city, there's no use being afraid of people. No use being
afraid of _anything_, so long as we're good to each other. And you've got
to believe in me right along. Don't you let anything get you on the wrong
track. I believe that as long as you have faith in me, I shall deserve it;
and when you don't--"

"Oh, Bartley, you know I didn't doubt you! I just got to thinking, and I
was a little worked up! I suppose I'm excited."

"I knew it! I knew it!" cried her husband. "Don't you suppose I understand
_you?"_

They talked a long time together, and made each other loving promises of
patience. They confessed their faults, and pledged each other that they
would try hard to overcome them. They wished to be good; they both felt
they had much to retrieve; but they had no concealments, and they knew
that was the best way to begin the future, of which they did their best to
conceive seriously. Bartley told her his plans about getting some newspaper
work till he could complete his law studies. He meant to settle down to
practice in Boston. "You have to wait longer for it than you would in a
country place; but when you get it, it's worth while." He asked Marcia
whether she would look up his friend Halleck if she were in his place; but
he did not give her time to decide. "I guess I won't do it. Not just yet,
at any rate. He might suppose that I wanted something of him. I'll call on
him when I don't need his help."

Perhaps, if they had not planned to go to the theatre, they would have
staid where they were, for they were tired, and it was very cosey. But when
they were once in the street, they were glad they had come out. Bowdoin
Square and Court Street and Tremont Row were a glitter of gas-lights, and
those shops, with their placarded bargains, dazzled Marcia.

"Is it one of the principal streets?" she asked Bartley.

He gave the laugh of a veteran _habitué_ of Boston. "Tremont Row? No. Wait
till I show you Washington Street to-morrow. There's the Museum," he said,
pointing to the long row of globed lights on the façade of the building.
"Here we are in Scollay Square. There's Hanover Street; there's Cornhill;
Court crooks down that way; there's Pemberton Square."

His familiarity with these names estranged him to her again; she clung the
closer to his arm, and caught her breath nervously as they turned in with
the crowd that was climbing the stairs to the box-office of the theatre.
Bartley left her a moment, while he pushed his way up to the little window
and bought the tickets. "First-rate seats," he said, coming back to her,
and taking her hand under his arm again, "and a great piece of luck. They
were just returned for sale by the man in front of me, or I should have had
to take something 'way up in the gallery. There's a regular jam. These are
right in the centre of the parquet."

Marcia did not know what the parquet was; she heard its name with the
certainty that but for Bartley she should not be equal to it. All her
village pride was quelled; she had only enough self-control to act upon
Bartley's instructions not to give herself away by any conviction of
rusticity. They passed in through the long, colonnaded vestibule, with its
paintings, and plaster casts, and rows of birds and animals in glass cases
on either side, and she gave scarcely a glance at any of those objects,
endeared by association, if not by intrinsic beauty, to the Boston
play-goer. Gulliver, with the Liliputians swarming upon him; the
painty-necked ostriches and pelicans; the mummied mermaid under a glass
bell; the governors' portraits; the stuffed elephant; Washington crossing
the Delaware; Cleopatra applying the asp; Sir William Pepperell, at full
length, on canvas; and the pagan months and seasons in plaster,--if all
these are, indeed, the subjects,--were dim phantasmagoria amid which she
and Bartley moved scarcely more real. The usher, in his dress-coat, ran up
the aisle to take their checks, and led them down to their seats; half a
dozen elegant people stood to let them into their places; the theatre was
filled with faces. At Portland, where she saw the "Lady of Lyons," with her
father, three-quarters of the house was empty.

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