Читать книгу Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence - Cosmo Hamilton - Страница 8

It was ten o'clock in the morning when Martin brought his car to a stop and looked up at the heavy Gothic decorations of a pompous house in East Fifty-fifth Street. "Is this it?"

"Yes," said Joan, getting out of the leather-lined coat that he had wrapped her in. "It really is a house, isn't it; and luckily, all the gargoyles are on the outside." She held out her hand and gave Martin the sort of smile for which any genuine man would sell his soul. "Marty," she added, "you've been far more than a brother to me. You've been a cousin. I shall never be able to thank you. And I adored the drive with our noses turned to the city. I shan't be able to be seen on the streets until I've got some frocks, so please come and see me every day. As soon as Alice has got over her shock at the sight of me, I'm going to compose an historical letter to Grandmother."

"Let her down lightly," said Martin, climbing out with the suit-case. "You've won."

"Yes, that's true; but I shouldn't be a woman if I didn't get in the last word."

"You're not a woman," said Martin. "You're a kid, and you're in New York, and you're light-headed; so look out."

Joan laughed at his sudden gravity and ran up the wide steps and put her finger on the bell. "I've written down your telephone number," she said, "and memorized your address. I'll call you up at three o'clock this afternoon, and if you've nothing else to do, you may take me for a walk in the Park."

"I sha'n't have anything else to do."

The door was opened. The footman was obviously English, with the art of footmanism in his blood.

"Is Mrs. Gilbert Palgrave at home?" asked Joan as if the question were entirely superfluous.

"No, miss."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, miss. Mrs. Palgrave left for Boston yesterday on account of hillness in the family, miss."

There was an awkward and appalled silence. Little did the man suspect the kind of blow that his statement contained.

Joan darted an agonized look at Martin.

"But Mr. Palgrave is at 'ome, miss."

And that galvanized the boy into action. He had met Gilbert Palgrave out hunting. He had seen the impertinent, cocksure way in which he ran his eyes over women. He clutched the handle of the case and said: "That's all right, thanks. Miss Ludlow will write to Mrs. Palgrave." Then he turned and went down the steps to the car.

Trying to look unconcerned, Joan followed.

"Get in, quick," said Martin. "We'll talk as we go."

"But why? If I don't stay here, where am I to stay?"

"I don't know. Please get in."

Joan stood firm. The color had come back to her face, and a look of something like anger had taken the place of fright. "I didn't tell you to march off like that. Gilbert's here."

"That's why we're going," Said Martin.

"I don't understand." Her eyes were blazing.

"I know you don't. You can't stay in that house. It isn't done."

"I can do it, and I must do it. Do you suppose I'm going back with my tail between my legs?"

"If we argue here, we shall collect a crowd." He got into the car and held out his hand.

Joan ignored it but followed him in. She was angry, puzzled, disappointed, nonplussed. Alice had no right to be away on such an occasion. Everything had looked so easy and smooth-sailing. Even Martin had changed into a different man, and was ordering her about. If he thought he could drive her back to that prison again, he was considerably wrong. She would never go back, never.

The car was running slowly. "Have you any other friends in town?" asked Martin, who seemed to be trying to hide an odd kind of excitement.

"No," said Joan. "Alice is my only friend here. Drive to some place where I can call up Gilbert Palgrave and explain the whole thing. What does it matter about my being alone? If I don't mind, who should? Please do as I say. There's no other place for me to go to, and wild horses sha'n't drag me back."

"You sha'n't go back," said Martin. He turned the car up Madison Avenue and drove without another word to East Sixty-seventh Street and stopped in front of a small house that was sandwiched between a mansion and a twelve-story apartment-house. "This is mine," he said simply. "Will you come in?"

A smile of huge relief came into Joan's eyes. "Why worry?" she said. "How foolish of us not to have thought of this before!"

But there was no smile on Martin's face. His eyes were amazingly bright and his mouth set firmly. His chin looked squarer than ever. Once more he carried out the suit-case, put a latchkey into the lock and threw back the door. Joan went in and stood looking about the cheery hall with its old oak, and sporting prints, white wood and red carpet. "Oh, but this is perfectly charming, Marty," she cried out. "Why did we bother our heads about Alice when there is this haven of refuge?"

Martin marched up to her and stood eye to eye. "Because I'm alone," he said, "and you're a girl. That's why."

Joan made a face. "I see. The conventions again. Isn't there any sort of woman here?"

"Yes, the cook."

She laughed. There was a comic side to this tragedy, after all, it seemed. "Well, perhaps she'll give us some scrambled eggs and coffee. I could eat a horse."

Martin opened the door of the sitting room. Like the one in which she had slept so soundly the previous night, it was stamped with the character and personality of the other Martin Gray. Books, warm and friendly, lined the walls. Mounted on wood, fish of different sizes and breeds hung above the cases, and over the fireplace there was a full-length oil painting of a man in a red coat and riding breeches. His kind eyes greeted Joan.

For several minutes she stood beneath it, smiling back. Then she turned and put her hand involuntarily on the boy's shoulder. "Oh, Marty!" she said. "I AM sorry."

The boy gave one quick upward glance, and cleared his throat. "I told you that this house is mine. It isn't. It's yours. It's the only way, if you're to remain in the city. Is it good enough? Do you want to stay as much as all that?"

The puzzled look came back. For a moment Joan was silent, worrying out the meaning of Martin's abrupt and rather cryptic words. There seemed to be a tremendous amount of fuss because she happened to be a girl.

Martin spoke again before she had emerged from the thicket of inward questions. She was only eighteen, after all.

"I mean, you can marry me if you like." he said, "and then no one can take you back." He was amazed at his courage and hideously afraid that she would laugh at him. He had never dared to say how much he loved her.

She did laugh, but with a ring of so much pleasure and relief that the blood flew to his head. "Why, Marty, what a brain! What organization! Of course I'll marry you. Why ever didn't we think of that last night?"

But before he could pull himself together a man-servant entered with an air of extreme surprise. "I didn't know you'd come home, sir," he said, "until I saw the suit-case." He saw Joan, and his eyes rounded.

"I was just going to ring," said Martin. "We want some breakfast. Will you see to it, please?" Alone again, Martin held out his hand to Joan, in an odd, boyish way. And she took it, boyishly too. "Thank you, Marty, dear," she said. "You've found the magic carpet. My troubles are over; and oh, what a pretty little bomb I shall have for Grandmamma! And now let's explore my house. If it's all like this, I shall simply love it!" And away she darted into the hall.

"And now," said Joan, "being duly married,—and you certainly do make things move when you start, Marty,—to send a telegram to Grandmother! Lead me to the nearest place."

Certain that every person in that crowded street saw in them a newly married couple, Martin tried to hide his joy under a mask of extreme callousness and universal indifference. With the challenging antagonism of an English husband,—whose national habit it is invariably to stalk ahead of his women-kind while they scramble along at his heels,—he led the way well in advance of his unblushing bride. But his eyes were black with emotion. He saw rainbows all over the sky, and rings of bright light round the square heads of all the buildings which competed in an endeavor to touch the clouds; and there was a song in his heart.

They sat down side by side in a Western Union office, dallied for a moment or two with the tied pencils the points of which are always blunt, and to the incessant longs and shorts of a dozen telegraph instruments they put their epoch-making news on the neat blanks. Martin did not intend to be left out of it. His best pal was off the map, and so he chose a second-best friend and wrote triumphantly: "Have been married to-day. Staying in New York for honeymoon. How are you?" He was sorry that he couldn't remember the addresses of a hundred other men. He felt in the mood to pelt the earth with such telegrams as that.

"Listen," said Joan, her eyes dancing with mischief. "I think this is a pretty good effort: 'Blessings and congratulations on her marriage to-day may be sent to Mrs. Martin Gray, at 26 East Sixty-seventh Street, New York.—Joan.' How's that?"

It was the first time the boy had seen that name, and he blinked and smiled and got very red. "Terse and literary," he said, dying to put his arms round her and kiss her before all mankind. "They'll have something to talk about at dinner to-night. A nice whack in the eye for Gleave."

He managed to achieve a supremely blase air while the words were being counted, but it crumbled instantly when the telegraphist shot a quick look at Joan and gave Martin a grin of cordial congratulation.

As soon as he saw a taxi, Martin hailed it and told the chauffeur to drive to the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. "We'll walk from there," he said to Joan, "—if you'd like to, that is."

"I would like to. I want to peer into the shop windows and look at hats and dresses. I've got absolutely nothing to wear. Marty, tell me, are we well off?"

Martin laughed. She reminded him of a youngster going for a picnic and pooling pocket money. "Yes," he said, "—quite."

She sat back with her hands crossed in her lap. "I'm so glad. It simplifies everything to have plenty to spend." But for her exquisite slightness and freshness, no one would have imagined that she was an only just-fledged bird, flying for the first time. Her equability and poise were those of a completely sophisticated woman. Nothing seemed to surprise her. Whatever happened was all part and parcel of the great adventure. Yesterday she was an overwatched girl, looking yearningly at a city that appeared to be unattainable. To-day she was a married woman who, a moment ago, had been standing before a minister, binding herself for good or ill to a man who was delightfully a boy and of whom she knew next to nothing. What did it matter—what did anything matter—so long as she achieved her long-dreamed-of ambition to live and see life?