Читать книгу Every Soul Hath Its Song - Fannie Hurst - Страница 8

They regarded each other across the table as if each beheld in the other a vision.

"Irving, you—you must be crazy!"

"I'm not, dear. I was never less crazy. What's the use of us having to get apart after we just got each other? What's all those phony counts and picture-galleries and high-sounding stunts compared to us staying home and hitting it off together, Miriam? Just tell me that, Miriam."

"Irving, I—we just couldn't! Look at mamma and papa and Ray, all down at the boat maybe by now waiting for me, and none of them wanting to go except me. For a whole year I had to beg them for this, Irving. They wouldn't be going now if it wasn't for me. I—Irving, you must be crazy!"

He leaned closer and out of range of the waiter, his voice repressed to a tight whisper.

"None of those things count when a girl and a fellow fall in love like you and me, Miriam."

Even in her crisis her diffidence inclosed her like a sheath. "I never said I—I was in love, did I?"

"But you are! They'll go over there, Miriam, without you and have the time of their lives. We'll stay home and keep the flat open for them so your mother won't have to worry any more about burglars. After the first surprise it won't be a trick at all. We got two hours and fifteen minutes, dearie, and we can do the act and be down at the boat with bells on to tell 'em good-by. Now ain't the time to think about the little things and waste time, Miriam. We got to do it now or off you go hiking, just like—like we had never met, a whole ocean between us, Miriam!"

"Irving, you—you mustn't."

She pushed back from the table. He paid his check with a hand that trembled, resuming, even as he crammed his bill-folder into a rear pocket:

"Be a sport, Miriam! I tell you we got the right to do it because we're in love. We'll just tell them the truth, that at the last minute we—we just couldn't let go. I'll do the talking, Miriam; I'll tell the old folks."

"Ray she—"

"If you ain't afraid to start out on a hundred a month and commissions, dear, we don't need to be scared of nothing. I'll tell them just the plain truth, dear. Just think, if we do it now, when they come back in ten weeks we can be down at the pier to meet them, eh, Miriam, just like an—an old married couple—eh, Miriam—eh, Miriam, dear!"

She rose. A red seepage of blood flooded her face; her bosom rose and fell.

"Are you game, Miriam? Are you, darling—eh, Miriam, eh?"

"Yes, Irving."

* * * * *

Alongside her pier, white as a gull, new painted, new washed, cargoed and stoked, the Roumania reared three red smoke-stacks, and sat proudly with the gang-plank flung out from her mighty hip and her nose tapering toward the blue harbor and the blue billows beyond.

Within the narrow confines of a first-deck stateroom, piled round with luggage and its double-decker berths freshly made up, Mrs. Binswanger applied an anxious eye to the port-hole, straining tiptoe for a wider glimpse of deck.

"I tell you this much, papa, in another five minutes when that child don't come, right away off the boat I get and go home where I belong."

In the act of browsing among the lower contents of his wicker hand-bag

Mr. Binswanger raised a perspiring face.

"Na, na, mamma, thirty minutes' time yet she's got to get here.

Everybody don't got to come on four hours too soon like us."

"Ja, you should worry about anything, so long as you got right in front of you your newspapers and your tobacco. Right away for his tobacco he has to dig when he sees so worried I am I can't see. Why don't our Ray come back now if she can't find 'em and say she can't find 'em?"

"I tell you, Carrie, if you let me go myself I can find 'em and—"

"Right here you stay with me, Simon Binswanger! We don't get separated no more as we can help. I ain't—Ach, look such a crowd, and no Miriam. I—"

"Na, na, Carrie!"

"So easy-going he is! My daughter should keep me worried like this! To lunch the day what she sails to Europe she has to go! Always she complains that salesmen ain't good enough for her yet, and on the day she sails she has to go to lunch with one. Why, I ask you, Simon, why don't that Ray come back?"

Mr. Binswanger packed his pipe tight and adjusted a small, close-fitting black cap. "To travel with women, I tell you, it ain't no pleasure."

"Ach, du Himmel! Right away off that cap comes, Simon! With my own hands right away out of sight I hide it. Just once I want Miriam should see you in that skull-hat! Right away off you take it, Simon!"

"Ach, Carrie, on my own head I—"

"I tell you already ten times I wish I was back in my flat. I guess you think it's a good feeling I got to lock up my flat for Himmel knows who to break in, and my son Isadore 'way out in Ohio and not even here to—to say to his mother good-by. Already with such a smell on this boat and my feelings I got a homesickness I don't wish on my worst enemy. My boy should be left like this in America all alone!"

"Ach, Carrie, for why—"

Of a sudden Mrs. Binswanger's face fell into soft creases, her eyes closed, and cold tears oozed through, zigzagging downward. "My boy out West with—"

"Na, na, Carrie! Don't you worry our Izzy don't take care of hisself better as you. For what his expense accounts are—always a parlor car he has to have—he can take care of hisself twice better as us, mamma. Mamma, you should feel fine now we got started. I wish, mamma, you could see such a card-room and such a dining-room they got up-stairs—gold chairs like you never seen. We should go up on deck, Carrie, and—"

"Ach, Simon, Simon, why don't that child come! So nearly crazy I never was in my life. And now on top my Ray gone too. In a few minutes the boat sails, and I don't know yet if I got a child on board. I tell you, Simon, when Ray comes back I think it's better we carry off our trunks and—"

"Na, na, mamma, hear out in the hall. I told you so! Didn't I tell you they come? You hear now Miriam's voice. Didn't I tell you, didn't I tell you?"

"Mamma, papa, here we are!"

And in the doorway the hesitant form of erstwhile Miriam Binswanger, her eyes dim as if obscured by a fog of tulle, over one shoulder the flushed face of Mr. Irving Shapiro, and in turn over his the dark, quick features of Ray, flashing their quick expressions.

"I—I found 'em, mamma, just coming on board."

A white flame of anger seemed suddenly to lick dry the two tears that staggered down Mrs. Binswanger's plump cheeks.

"I tell you, Miriam, you got a lots of regards for your parents."

"But, mamma, we—"

"A child what can worry her mother like this! Ten minutes before we sail on board she comes just like nothing had happened. I should think, Mr. Shapiro, that a young man what can hold a responsible position like you, would see as a young girl what he invites out to lunch should have more regards for her parents as you both."

"Mamma, you—But just wait, mamma."

Miriam stepped half resolutely into the room, peeling the glove from off her left hand, and her glance here and there and everywhere with the hither and thither of a wind-blown leaf.

"Mamma, guess what—what we—we got to tell you? Mamma, we—Irving, you—you tell," Her bared hand fell like a quivering wing and she shrank back against his gray tweed coat-sleeve. "Irving, you tell!"

"Miriam, nothing ain't wrong! Izzy, my—"

"No, no, Mrs. Binswanger, nothing is wrong; what Miriam was trying to say was that everything's right, wasn't it, Miriam?"

"Yes, Irving."

Mr. Binswanger threw two hands with the familiar upward gesture. "Come, right away in a few minutes you got to get off, Shapiro. First I take you up and show you the card-room and—"

"'Sh-h-h-h, papa, let Irving—Go on, Irving."

He cleared his throat, inserting two fingers within his tall collar. "You see, Mr. Binswanger, you and Mrs. Binswanger, just at the last minute we—we both seen we couldn't let go!"

"Miriam!"

"Now don't get excited, Mrs. Binswanger, only we—well, we just went and got married, Mrs. Binswanger, when we seen we couldn't let go. From Dr. Cann we just came. A half-hour on pins and needles, you can believe us or not, we had to wait for him, and that's what made us so late. See, on her hand she's got the ring and—"

"See, mamma!"

"And in my pocket I got the special license. We couldn't help it, Mr.

Binswanger, we—we just couldn't let go."

"We couldn't, mamma, papa. We thought we ought to stay at home in the flat—you're so worried, mamma, about burglars and nobody in America with Izzy—and—and—Mamma? Papa? Haven't you got nothing to say to your Miriam?"

She extended empty and eloquent arms, a note of pleading rising above the tears in her words.

"Nothing? Mamma? Papa?"

From without came voices; the grinding of chains lifting cargo; a great basso from a smoke-stack; more voices. "All off! All off!" Feet scurrying over wooden decks! "All off! All off!" A second steam-blast that shot up like a rocket.

"Mamma? Ray? Papa? Haven't any of you got anything to say?"

"Gott in Himmel!" said Mrs. Binswanger. "Gott in Himmel!"

"So!" said Mr. Binswanger, placing a hand with a loud pat on each knee.

"So!"

"Oh, papa!"

"A fine come-off! A fine come-off! Eh, mamma? To Europe we go to take our daughter, and just so soon as we go no daughter we 'ain't got to take!"

"Gott in Himmel! Gott in Himmel!"

"Ray, haven't you got nothing to say to Irving and me—Ray!"

With a quick, fluid movement the younger sister slid close and her arms wound tight. "Miriam, you—you little darling, you! Miriam! Irving! You darlings!"

Suddenly Mrs. Binswanger inclined, inclosing the two in a wide, moist embrace. "Ach, my Miriam, what have you done! Not a stitch, not even a right wedding! Irving, you bad boy, you, like I—I should ever dream you had thoughts to be our son-in-law. Ach, my children, my children! Simon, I tell you we can be thankful it's a young man what we know is all right. Ach, I—I just don't know—I—just—don't know."

"Papa, you ain't mad at us?"

"What good it does me to be mad? I might just so well be glad as mad. My little Miriam-sha, my little Miriam-sha!" And he fell to blinking as if with gritty eyelids.

"Simon—ach, Simon—you—ach, my husband, you—you ain't crying, you—"

"Go 'way, Carrie, with such nonsense! You women don't know yet the difference between a laff and a cry. Well, Shapiro, you play me a fine trick, eh?"

"It wasn't a trick, Mr. Binswanger—pa, it was—"

"All off! All off!" And a third great blast sounded that set the tumblers rattling in their stands.

"I guess me—me and Irving's got to get off now, mamma—"

Mrs. Binswanger grasped her husband's arm in sudden panic. "Simon, I—I think as we should get off and go home with them. I—"

"Now, now, mamma, don't get excited! No, no, you mustn't! We will keep house fine for you until you come back. See, mamma! I have the key, and everything's fixed. See, mamma! You got to go, mamma. Ray should see Europe before she finds out there—there's just one thing that's better than going to Europe. Please, mamma, don't get excited. I tell you we'll have things fine when you come back. Won't we, Irving, won't we?"

"Ach, nothing in the house, Miriam."

"We got to get off now, Miriam dear, we got to. You can write us about those things, Mrs. Binswanger—mamma. Come, Miriam!"

"Yes, yes, Irving. Now don't cry, mamma, please! When everybody is so happy it's a sin to cry."

"Not a stitch on her wedding-day! All her clothes locked up here on the boat! Let me open the top tray of the trunk, Miriam, and give you your toothbrush and a few waists—Ach, nearly crazy I am! How I built for that girl's wedding when it—"

"Come, mamma, come—"

They were jamming up the crowded stairway and out to the sun-washed deck. Women in gay corsages and bright-colored veils strolled with an air of immediate adjustment. Men already in steamer caps and tweeds leaned against the railings. Travelers were rapidly separating themselves from stay-at-homes. Already the near-side decks were lined with faces, some wet-eyed and some smiling, and all with kerchiefs or small flags ready for adieus.

"All off! All off!"

"Good-by, mamma darling. Don't worry!"

"Irving, you be good to my Miriam. It's just like you got from me a piece of my heart. Be good to my baby, Irving. Be good!"

Ray tugged at her mother's skirts. "'Sh-h-h-h, mamma, the whole boat don't need to know."

"Be good to her, Irving!"

"Like I—just like I could be anything else to her, mamma!"

"Good-by, mamma darling. Don't cry so, I tell you! Let me go, please, mamma, please! Good-by, papa darling, take good care of yourself and—I—just love you, papa! Ray, have a grand time and don't miss none of it. That's right, kiss Irving; he's your brother-in-law now. Don't cry, mamma darling! Good-by! Good-by!"

A tangle of adieus, more handkerchiefing, more tears and laughter, more ear-splitting shrieks of steam and a black plume of smoke that rose in a billow, and hand in hand Miriam and Irving Shapiro joggling down the gang-plank to the pier.

From the bow of the top deck the ship's orchestra let out a blare of music designed to cover tears and heartaches. The gang-plank drew up and in like a tongue, separating land from sea. From every deck faces were peering down into the crowd below.

Miriam grasped her husband's coat-sleeve, in her frenzy taking a fine pinch of flesh with it. Tears rained down her cheeks.

"There they are, Irving, all three of 'em on the second deck, waving down at us! Good-by, mamma, papa, Ray! Oh, Irving, I just can't stand to see 'em go! Papa, Ray, mamma darling!"

"Now, now, Miriam, think what a grand time they're going to have and how soon they're going to be home again."

"Oh, my darlings!"

Mrs. Binswanger sopped at her eyes, waving betimes the small black cap rescued in the up-deck rush.

Laughter crept with a tinge of hysteria into Miriam's voice. "Oh, darlings, I—I just can't bear to have you go. They're—they're moving, Irving! I—Oh, mamma, papa, darlings! They're moving, Irving!"

Out into the bay where the sunlight hung between blue water and bluer sky, a sea-gull swinging round her spar, the Roumania steamed, unconscious of her freight.

"Good-by, mamma, good-by. Let's follow them to the end of the pier,

Irving. I—I want to watch them till they're out of sight."

"Don't cry so, darling!"

"Look! look, see that black speck; it's papa! Oh, I love him, Irving. Good-by, my darlings! Good-by! They didn't want to go except for me, and—Oh, my darlings!"

"Come, dear, we can't see them any more. Come now, it's all over, dear."

They picked their way through the dispersing crowd back toward the dock gates.

"See, dear, how grand everything is! You and me happy here and—"

"Oh, Irving, I know, but—"

"But nothing."

"Pin my veil for me, dear, to—to hide my eyes. I bet I'm a sight!"

"You're not a sight, you're a beauty!"

"'Sh-h-h-h, I don't feel like making fun, Irving!"

"It's a hot day, dear, so we got to celebrate some cool way. Let's take a cab and—"

"No, Irving dear, we can't afford another one."

"To-day we can afford any old thing we want."

"No, no, dear."

"I got it, then! If we ride down to the Battery we can catch a boat for Brighton. Then we can have a little boat-ride all our own, eh? You and me, darling, on a boat-trip all our own."

She turned her shining eyes full upon him. "That'll be just perfect,

Irving!" she said.