16. Chapter XVI
During Beatrice's house party, at which twenty or so equally Gorgeous Girls and their husbands were quartered in the Villa Rosa, while a string orchestra danced them further along the road toward nervous prostration each night, a fire ignited in the offices of the O'Valley Leather Company.
Steve's office and Mary's adjoining room were damaged by water rather than by the slight blaze itself and during an enforced recess from work both Mary and Steve found that a fire in an office building may cause a loss of time from routine yet be a great personal boon.
The day following the accident, Steve having been summoned at midnight to view the flames, Mary came to the office to try to rescue the files and sweep aside the débris.
"Nothing is really hurt, but they always mess things up," Steve said, coming to the doorway to hold up a precious record book. "See this? I wonder why they always leave such a lot of stuff to clear away. Now the whole extent of damage is the destroying of that rickety side stairway that is never used and could have been done away with long ago. Some boys, playing craps and smoking, left the makings of the fire and before it touched these rooms there was water poured into the whole plant. As a consequence, we have a three-day vacation and instead of having the side stairs torn down I'm in line for a chunk of insurance."
"Even the tea isn't spilled from my caddy," Mary answered; "Look."
"Wonder what they used this side stairway for? It was rickety when I bought the place." He looked at the blackened remains of steps.
"I don't know," Mary answered, absent-mindedly. She could have added that whenever she looked at those stairs or their closed door she saw but one thing--Steve on his wedding day as he came stealing up to ask about the long-distance telephone call, aglow with happiness and dreams. For her own reasons, therefore, Mary did not regret the destruction of the side stairs.
"They've shoved this cabinet over as if they had a special antagonism to it," he was saying, righting a small piece of furniture containing mostly Mary's papers. "There--not hurt, is it? Do the drawers open?" He began pulling them out, one after another. The last refused to open.
"What's in this one--it blocks the spring?"
Mary tried her hand at it. "Something wedged right at the edge. I'm sure I don't see what it can be. I never used that drawer for anything but----"
At their combined jerk the drawer came flying into space, and with it the remains of a white cardboard box with the monograms of B. C. and S. O. entwined by means of a cupid and a tiny wreath of flowers. Dried cake crumbs lay in the bottom of the drawer. It was the Gorgeous Girl's box of wedding cake which Mary Faithful had found on her desk.
Neither spoke immediately. Finally Mary said: "I suppose that's as bad an omen as to break a mirror under a ladder on Friday the thirteenth. Now shall I have the men sweep the office out? There is no reason we cannot get to work to-morrow."
"Wait a moment about sweeping out offices and going to work," Steve insisted. "If you want to break the hoodoo you have just brought on yourself by smashing up wedding cake--let me talk and act as high priest."
She shook her head. "You promised, and you've been true-blue--don't spoil it. Besides, it can do no good."
"I want to ask a question," he insisted. "I'm not going to break faith with you or take advantage of knowing what you told me. I shall always try to appreciate the honour done me, no matter if I am unworthy. I want to ask a question in as impersonal a way as if I wrote in to a woman's column." He tried to laugh.
"Ask away." Mary sat down in the nearest chair, the broken cardboard box at her feet.
"Why is it that a man can honestly be in love with the woman he marries and yet in an amazingly short time find himself playing the cad in feeling disappointed, discontented, utterly lacking affection? It's a ghastly happening. Why is it he saw no handwriting on the wall? I am not stupid, Mary, neither am I given to inconstancy--I've had to struggle too much not to have my mind made up once and for all time. Why didn't I see through this veneer of a good time that these Gorgeous Girls manage to have painted over their real selves? Why did I never suspect? And what is a man to do when he discovers the disillusionment? You see it all, there's no sense in not admitting it--why do I find myself ill at ease, now tense, now irritable over trifles, now sulky, despondent--as plainly sulky and despondent as a wild animal successfully caged and labelled, which must perforce stay put yet which will not afford its spectators the satisfaction of walking wistfully from cage corner to cage corner and yowling in unanswered anguish!"
"Is it as bad as that?" she asked, softly.
He nodded as he continued: "I sometimes feel the way the monkish fraternity did at Oxford when they claimed 'they banished God and admitted women.' I want a man-made world, womanless, without a single trace of romance or a good time. Not right, is it? Sometimes I think I'll crack under the pretense, go raving mad and scream out the whole miserable sham under which I live--and every time I indulge myself in such a reverie I find myself writing Beatrice an extra check and going with her to this thing or that, steel-hammer pulses beating at my forehead and a languor about even the attempt at breathing."
Mary would have spoken but he rushed ahead: "I like this fire, this debris. Most people would curse at it--it's real and rather common, sort of plain boiled-dinner variety. It gives me an excuse to take time off from the eternal frolic. I'm glad when there's a strike or a row and I dig out of town to stay in a commercial hotel. I have to get away from the whole tinsel show. And yet it was what I wanted, was willing to play modern Faust to any Wall Street Mephistopheles----"
"And you are sure it wasn't a Mephistopheles?"
"Of course not--for that much I can draw a deep breath and give thanks--it was my own luck."
"Other times, other titles," she murmured.
"One time you told me what you thought of the future of American women, the all-round good fellows of the world--do you remember? I wish you had not told me. It's just another thing to irritate. I'm driven mad by trifles--I'm starved for a big tragedy; that's the way this craving for a fortune and a good time is playing boomerang. I'm so infernally weary of hearing about the cut-glass slipper heels of some chorus girl and so hungry to hear about a shipwreck, a new creed, a daring crime that----"
"You foolish, funny boy," she said, taking pity on his involved analysis, "don't you see what you have done? It's quite the common fate of get-rich-quick dreamers; you merely symbolized your goal by Beatrice Constantine, she stood for the combined relationships of wife, comrade, lady luxury--and you captured your goal, and the greater effort ceased. You have had time to examine your prize in microscopic fashion. It isn't at all what you intended--but it is quite what you deserve. No one can make a lie serve for the truth--at all times and for an indefinite period. There is bound to come a cropper somewhere--usually where you least expect it. And you lied to yourself in the beginning, a passive sort of falsehood, in merely refusing to see the truth and groping for the unreal. You had to justify your race for wealth, so you said, 'Oho, I'll love a story-book princess and let that be my incentive. Story-book princesses are expensive lovelies and you have to have money bags to jingle before their fair selves!' So you became more and more infatuated with the fairy-book princess who happened to be in your pathway--and it was Beatrice. She made you feel that anything your slightly mad and quite unrealizing young self might do was proper. Just as the boy with a new air rifle deliberately sets up a target to shoot away at because the savage in him must justify hitting something besides the ozone, so you have merely wooed and won your own falsehood and disillusionment."
"You say it rather neatly; but that isn't all. The thing is that I'm not game enough to go on and take the punishment. Are you surprised?"
"No. But are you prepared to give up the thing which won her?"
"My money? I've thought of it." He folded his arms and began walking up and down the littered, water-soaked office. "Would you like me any better?" he asked, tenderly.
Mary's eyes grew stormy. "If the men go to work at once we can have the rugs sent to the cleaner's and put down old matting for a temporary covering--and I can go ahead taking inventory," was her answer.
"I see," Steve made himself respond. "Well--I didn't trespass very much," he whispered as he passed her to leave the building.
Beatrice regarded the fire as an amusing happening and before Steve realized what was being done she had proposed that Gaylord refurnish the office in an arts-and-crafts fashion. It had long seemed to her a most inartistic and clumsy place and when Steve refused her offer and told her that a splint-bottomed chair and a kitchen chair were his office equipment some years ago she sent for Gaylord on her own initiative and told him to beard the lion in the den to see if he could win Steve to the cause of painted wall panels typifying commerce, industry, and such, and crippled beer steins and so on as artistic wastebaskets.
There had never been an active feud between Gaylord and Steve; it was always that hidden enmity of a weak culprit toward a strong man. Neither had Trudy been able to win Steve by her Titian curls, baby-blue eyes, and obese compliments. In fact, Gaylord had avoided Steve the last year. He was the one Beatrice called upon to play with her, he accompanied her shopping, even unto the milliner's, and had been in New York one time when Beatrice had gone down to see about buying a moleskin wrap. Not even Trudy knew that he had actually adopted a monocle and squired Beatrice round in state.
So he approached Steve with the attitude of "I hate you and am only waiting to prove it but meanwhile I'll play off the friend lizard no matter how painful."
But after a few "my dear fellows" and "old dears" and gibes about the disordered office with its prosaic chairs and Mary Faithful, quite flushed and plain looking as she dashed round giving orders, Gaylord found himself being neatly set outside on the curbstone and told to remain in that exact position. "I hate this decorating business," Steve said in final condemnation. "I agree with my father-in-law that when a man approaches me with a book of sample braids and cretonnes under his arm I feel it only righteous that he be shot at sunrise--and now you know how strong you stand with me. I don't mind Beatrice having her whirl at the thing. A new colour scheme as often as she has a manicure; that's different. But my office stays as I wish it and you can't rush in any globes of goldfish and inkstands composed of reclining young females with their little hands forming the ink cup, while a single spray of cherry blossoms flourishes over the hook I hang my hat and coat upon. Oh, no, trot back to your boudoirs and purr your prettiest, but stop trying to tackle real men."
Gaylord's one-cylinder brain had become more efficient by dint of daily sparring with his wife. So he retorted: "She is going to make you a present of it--your birthday gift, I understand. Does that alter the case?"
Steve looked at him with an even wilder frown. "Tell her to build a bomb-proof pergola for herself and mark it for me just the same. When we redecorate round here it takes Miss Faithful about a half hour to plan the show. Good-bye, Gay, I'm awfully rushed. Thanks just as much."
Gaylord sauntered outside, smiling, apparently as if he accepted the entire universe. But his one-cylinder brain harboured an unpleasant secret which concerned Steve. Gaylord knew that Steve had not reckoned with his enemies and that he was in no condition to begin doing so now. Constantine was no longer at the helm, fearless, respected, and dominating. Steve was quite the reckless egotist, out of love with his wife, mentally jaded, and weary of the game--and his enemies surmised all this in rough fashion and were making their plans accordingly. How wonderful it would be if certain catastrophes did happen. How lucky Beatrice had her own income! She would never cease ordering bomb-proof pergolas or bird cages carved from rare woods.
The next day--before Beatrice and Steve had a chance to argue the matter out to a fine point--Mark Constantine had a stroke. It was like the sudden crashing down of a great oak tree which within had been hollow and decayed for some time but to all exterior appearances quite the sturdy monarch. Without warning he became first a mighty thing lying day after day on a bed, fussed over and exclaimed over and prayed over by a multitude of people. Then he assumed the new and final proportions of a childish invalid--his fierce, true grasp of things, his wide-sweeping and ambitious viewpoint narrowed hastily to the four walls of the sick room. Instead of the stock-market fluctuation bringing forth his "Gad, that's good!" or oaths of disapproval, the taste of an especially good custard or the way the masseuse neglected his left forearm were cause for joy or grief.
Life had suddenly changed into the monotonous and wearing routine of a broken, lonesome old man who had plenty of time to think of the past with his wife Hannah, recalling incidents he had not recalled until this dull, long day arrived. And after reaching many conclusions about many things Constantine was forced to realize that no one particularly cared for or sought out his opinions. He was placed in the category of all fallen oaks--someone who would have one of the largest funerals ever held in the city. And friends murmured that for Bea's sake they hoped it would not be long.
But it was to be long--for with the tenacity of purpose he had always exhibited Constantine readjusted himself to the narrow realm of four walls. His former tyranny toward the business world was now exercised toward his daughter and son-in-law, his sister and his attendants. He resolved to live--or exist--just as long as life was possible, to vampire-borrow from those about him all the vitality that he could, to have every care and comfort and every new doctor ever heard of called in to attend him; he now said he wished to live as many years as God willed. There was a God, now that he was partially paralyzed, a very real God, to whom he prayed in orthodox fashion. He wanted to keep remembering the past with Hannah, to shed the tears for her death which he had never taken the time to shed, to decide what it was that had been so wrong in his life in order that his death and hereafter might be very properly right.
Aunt Belle had taken this new affliction after the fashion of a Mrs. Gummidge. It affected her worse than any one else, first because the ridicule and fault-finding to which her brother had always treated her were tripled in their amount and quality, and yet as she was dependent upon this childishly weak brother she must endure the treatment. Secondly, she was reminded that her age was somewhat near Mark Constantine's age and perhaps a similar fate lay in store for her. Lastly, it tied her down--propriety demanded that someone be in the sick room a share of the time and certainly Beatrice had no intention of undertaking the responsibility.
Steve had acted as Aunt Belle fancied he would act, genuinely concerned over the catastrophe and seeking refuge with this tired old child a greater share of the time. By degrees Aunt Belle left Steve to play the role of comforter and companion, since no nurse ever stayed at the Constantine bedside for longer than a fortnight. So she was allowed to gambol about in her pinafore frocks and high-heeled shoes, wondering if her brother had made a fair will, taking into account the fact that a woman is only as old as she looks--and with a tidy fortune who knows what might happen after the proper mourning period?
Beatrice had been prostrated at the news. For two days she stayed in bed and sobbed hysterically. Then she was prevailed upon to see her father and to take the sensible attitude of preparing for a long siege, as Steve suggested.
"How cold-hearted it sounds--a long siege!" she reproached.
"But it is true. He will not die--he will live until that splendid vitality of his has been snuffed out by a careless law of rhythm, so you may as well buck up and run in to see him every day and then go about as usual."
"A sick room drives me wild. I wish I had taken a course in practical nursing instead of the domestic-science things."
Steve did not answer.
"I can't bear to think of it. It's like having life-in-death in the very house. Oh, Steve, can't you talk him into going to a sanitarium? They'd have so many interesting kinds of baths to try!"
"He won't mind your parties, if that is what is bothering you. The only thing he asks is to be left in peace in his room with plenty of detective stories and plenty of medical attention, and he won't know if you dance the roof off. But if you really want to hasten the end send Gay up there with plans for remodelling his room--it will either kill or cure," he laughed.
"I must do something to help me forget and make it easier for him," she said, soberly. "I'm going to try a faith healer--not because I believe in them but because I don't want to leave any stone unturned. I think a new interest would help papa. Would you try adopting a child or my taking up classical dancing in deadly earnest?" She was quite sincere and emotionally wrought up as she came up to him and laid her head on his shoulder.
"Oh, I'd take up classical dancing," he advised.
She gave a sigh of relief. "Yes, it's what I really think would be the best. I will dance on the lawn so papa can watch me."
He gave vent to his father-in-law's favourite expletive, "Gad!" under his breath.
He did not add what was an unpleasant probability: that, having to assume full responsibility of affairs, there were likely to be astonishing complications. Crashed-down oak trees are quite helpless concerning their enemies, reckoned upon or otherwise, and Steve, who had never taken count of his foes, would be called upon to meet them all single-handed.