Читать книгу The House of Toys - Henry Russell Miller - Страница 4

This is not a fairy tale, although you will find some old friends here. There is, for example, a witch, a horrid old creature who tricks the best and wisest of us: Circumstance is one of her many names, and a horde of grisly goblins follow in her train. For crabbed beldame an aunt, who meant well but was rich and used to having her own way, will do fairly well. Good fairies there are, quite a number; you must decide for yourself which one is the best. But the tale has chiefly to do with a youth to whom the witch had made one gift, well knowing that one would not be enough. Together with a girl—a sunflower who did not thrive in the shade, as Jim Blaisdell has said—he undertook to build, among other things, a house of love wherein she should dwell and reign. But when it was built he met another girl, who was—say, an iris. There are white irises, and very beautiful flowers they are. From her—

But that is the story.

He was, then, tall, as well favored as is good for a young man, with straight-gazing though at times rather dreamy gray-green eyes, kinky brown hair and a frank friendly manner that was very engaging. Since his tenth year he had been alone in the world, with a guardian trust company for sole relative. But he tried to make up for that by having many friends. He did not have to try very hard.

Men liked him, which was much to his credit. Those near his own age often made him a confidant in such matters as their ambitions and loves. His elders saw to it that he was asked not only to the things their wives and sisters gave but to week-ends in the family bosom as well.

And women liked him, which was not so much to his credit, since we judge our own sex far more wisely than the other. Old ladies praised his manners and visited his rooms, taking an active interest in his intimate wardrobe. Younger women flirted with him ad libitum and used him unconscionably, sure that he would take no advantage. Girls of sixteen or thereabouts secretly held him in awe and spun romances around him. In return he gave them all a sort of reverence, thinking them superfine creatures who could do no meanness or wrong. He envied his men friends who had mothers or sisters or wives to be served; in the life of a young man alone in the world there are gaps that even pleasant friendships can not fill. He had a dream over which he used to burn much tobacco: of a day when he should not be alone. He awaited impatiently the coming of that splendid day.

Therefore he dabbled recklessly in the tender passion. About twice a year on an average he fell experimentally in love. It made him very sad that after a brief captivity his heart was always set free.

Moreover, there was something about him that made his friends, men as well as women, say to one another, "Some of these days that Davy Quentin is going to do big things." You have known young men like that; as often as not they continue through life a promise unfulfilled.

In David's case the faith survived stubbornly on scanty nourishment. He had been left a little patrimony sufficient to carry him beyond college, where he smoked the usual number of cigarettes, drank a limited quantity of beer and managed to pass his examinations respectably though not even cum laude. After that he studied architecture, with more distinction because he had a real enthusiasm for the work, especially the ecclesiastical branch. And it happened that soon after he hung out his shingle he won a prize offered by a magazine for plans for a three-thousand-dollar bungalow. This, when they heard of it, fortified the faith of his friends, who carelessly supposed the prize to have been much bigger than it was and a brilliant career thus to have been safely launched. Oddly enough, however, it never occurred to them to lend a hand at the launching. They took its success for granted and saved their help and their business for young men, such as the energetic but otherwise untalented Dick Holden, of whom less was expected. It is so hard to make friends understand that even a brilliant career needs support at first.

It was not wholly their fault; a very creditable pride kept David from hinting that he was in need of help, which indeed became the fact. The little patrimony had dwindled to a cipher. Clients were few and commissions small. But David, less from design than from habit and taste, maintained the front of prosperity. He had the trick of wearing clothes well, lived in nice rooms, played golf at the country club and was always his jolly, cheerful self.

His good cheer was not a pretense, for he was never made to feel a pinch. This was a misfortune and the blame must be laid to his own engaging qualities. He found that he could borrow as easily as, when in funds, he had lent. Even Jim Blaisdell who, in his cashier's office, was held a skinflint and a keen judge of men, was cordiality itself when David went to him with a note for discount.

"Gladly," he said. "But you'll have to have an indorser, you know."

"I didn't know," laughed David. "You see, I never tried this before. Am

I an innocent?"

"It'll be all right, though," Blaisdell answered. "I'll indorse for you."

Something made David hesitate. "It's fair to say I mightn't be able to meet it promptly."

"Then we'll carry you. Your face is collateral enough for me. Beat it now—I'm busy. And come out for dinner to-night, Davy."

Sometimes David would feel a qualm of discomfort as he found himself gradually getting behind and sometimes he would wonder, a little sensitively, at the slowness of recognition. But such moments were brief. Unconsciously he had imbibed his friends' vague confidence in his future. Some day he would win a big commission which, brilliantly executed, would make him forever secure. In the meantime, because he was an honest workman, he gave to his few clients the best he had, a really fine best, worthy of wider notice. And because he grew daily more in love with his art and proposed to be found ready when his great chance came, he put in his spare hours studying hard, making sketches—he had a pretty knack for that and might have become a third-rate painter—of the numberless ideas that floated to him out of tobacco clouds or down from a moonlit sky or across a music-filled room. Sometimes he would tear the sketches to bits. But sometimes, lingering lovingly over one, he would know a deep thrill.

"Why, this," he would exclaim, "this is good. Oh!" hugging himself, "they'll have to come to me yet."

On the strength of this conclusion he would allow himself some special extravagance.

When he was twenty-seven he was making about nine hundred a year, spending it all as it came, and owed more than five hundred dollars.

Then he met Shirley Lord.

It was at a dinner given by the Jim Blaisdells, whose guest she was.

Mrs. Jim introduced them.

"Shirley dear, this is our Davy Quentin. As a special favor—to each of you—I'm putting you together to-night. You have just a minute now to get acquainted." And Mrs. Jim fluttered away.

David spent most of that minute looking with a thrill—much the sort he felt when he was pleased with his sketches—into a pair of blue eyes that smiled at him out of the prettiest, sweetest, kindest face he thought he had ever seen. And it was very pretty and sweet and kind just then, as she looked at him with the friendliness he always inspired. Framing the face was a lot of wavy brown hair with golden lights dancing in it, her neck and shoulders were slender but softly rounded, the figure hinted at by the soft clinging gown was trim and girlish. But those were details that he drank in later.

He heaved a sigh, so patently one of content with his lot that she laughed outright. To laugh well is a gift from the gods.

"You're not a bit as I thought you would be."

"How did you think I should be?" stammered David, trying to grasp the fact that this dainty creature had been thinking of him at all.

"Why, grim and haughty and altogether overwhelming. You know, you're supposed to be rather wonderful."

David felt anxiously for his head.

"Does it expand so easily?"

"I just wanted to be sure it was still there. I can see it would be easy to lose it."

She laughed again.

It is probable that they talked a polite amount with their respective neighbors. But if so, they regarded it as untimely interruption of the real business of the evening. It was amazing the number of things they found to discuss and they discussed them so earnestly and withal, as it seemed to them, so wittily and wisely that they were blissfully unaware of the significant smiles going around the table. When the coffee was served, David surveyed his cup stupidly.

"Does it strike you," he inquired, "that they've hurried this dinner out of all reason?"

"It has been the usual length, I believe."

"Funny—I've a hazy recollection of fish—and of an ice just now—but entrée and salad and the rest are a total blank."

"Very funny!" she agreed.

"But the queerest of all—" He broke off, with a laugh that did not quite reach his eyes.

"Yes?" she queried provocatively, knowing that one of his daring bits was coming.

"The queerest of all," he repeated, "is that you should turn out to be—you."

"No queerer than—" Then she broke off, with a laugh that did reach her eyes.

The next afternoon they played golf. It was at the fifth tee that they abandoned the last pretense of formality. She topped her drive wretchedly; the ball rolled a scant ten feet.

"Oh, David!" she cried. "Did you ever see anything so awful?"

"Many times," answered David, who was looking at her, not at the ball. "I've often wondered," he mused raptly, "how 'David' would sound, set to music."

He was rewarded by her rippling, musical laugh. "You say the absurdest things—and the nicest."

They pursued her recalcitrant ball until it led them, by many zigzags, to an old elm that had upset more than one good game. But they did not swear at it. They sat down under its generous shade, David lighted a cigarette and they gave themselves to a more agreeable exercise. They pretended to define it.

"I suppose," Shirley broke a brief intimate silence, "people think we're having a violent flirtation. But we're not, are we?"

"Certainly not," said David with emphasis.

"They couldn't understand. We're just naturally meant to be good friends and it didn't take us an age to find that out."

"Yes," said David slowly.

"Tell me about yourself."

He tried to make it interesting but when he came to the point there was really little to tell.

"But that isn't all. You haven't told me why people are so confident of your future."

"I don't know that. Sometimes I wonder whether they've the right to be confident."

"You've been very successful, haven't you?"

He shook his head. "I'm still poor—so poor you'd probably call it indecent—with my way to make. It seems a very slow way, too."

There was a hint of disappointment in the quick glance she turned upon him.

"Have I lost caste?"

"No. I was just wondering—But you're going to be successful, aren't you? Everybody can't be mistaken in you. Tell me what you want to do."

So he told her of his love for his work, of his studies and sketches, of the beautiful churches that he hoped he should some day build.

It was early October; which is not unimportant. Before them opened a vista of wooded hills, tinted by the first frosts dull yellows and maroons, here and there a flash of rich crimson. A thin haze lay over the land, violet in the distance, about them an almost imperceptible golden. The voices of other players came softly to them, subdued and lazy as an echo. Fading hillsides, dying leaves, blue horizons—autumn, too, has its wistful charm, as potent as spring to bring young hearts together.

"Everybody can't be mistaken," she repeated. "All those things you will do. I feel it, too. It's something you can't explain. You know a man is big, just as you know a woman is good—And you couldn't lose caste with me. I'm poor, too."

He swept her with an incredulous glance that took in the beautiful, soft, hand-knit sweater jacket, the white flannel skirt with its air of having been fashioned by an expensive tailor, the white buckskins and bit of white silk stocking. He knew girls, daughters of rich fathers, who did not wear silk stockings for golfing.

She caught his glance. "Mostly presents," she answered it, "from an aunt who has more money than she knows what to do with. The rest is just splurge. It's quite true about my poverty. Ever since we were left alone Maizie and I have had to work. We could have gone to live with my aunt, but we wanted to be independent, to make our own living. And we've made it, though," laughingly, "we've been pretty hard up sometimes. So you see, I'm not a butterfly but just a working girl on her vacation. Have I lost caste?"

Needless question! As she asked it, her chin—her prettiest feature, cleanly molded, curving gently back to the soft throat—went up spiritedly. He caught a picture of a struggle far more cruel than her light words implied. A wave of protest swept over him, of tender protectiveness. He had to fight down an impulse to catch her close, to cry out that thenceforth he would assume her burden. He rejoiced intensely that he had found so rare a spirit, fragile yet brave and equal to all the hard emergencies life had put upon her.

Then he took thought of his income and the brevity of their acquaintance and was abashed.

The Jim Blaisdells met them at the club for a dinner at which David was host. It was a nicely appointed dinner, the best the chef could contrive. Also it was distinctly an extravagance. But David did not care. His spirits ran high, in a gaiety that was infectious. It was a very successful party.

After that came two short hours on the veranda, while a three-quarters moon rose to shower the world with silver, gaiety dwindled and a solemn tender happiness mounted. Then they drove homeward, by a roundabout way, in Jim's car. David and Shirley had the back seat, for the most part in a free intimate silence that was delicious indeed.

Later Mrs. Jim found her guest dreamily braiding her hair for the night.

"Shirley," she began directly, "this is going too fast. David's too nice a boy to be hurt. He's taking your flirtation seriously."

"I'm not flirting with him. At least I don't think I am," Shirley amended slowly.

"I thought you were interested only in rich men?"

"I did think so. But now—It might be fun to be poor—with him—for a while. It wouldn't be for long. You said yourself he'll have a brilliant future."

"I think so. But it might be long coming. A professional career is so uncertain at the start. And it's never fun to be poor—unless you're equipped. Married life is more than parties and golf and dinners at the club. Shirley, dear," she concluded pleadingly, "do be sensible."

"Of course, I will be. You forget I know all about poverty from experience." Shirley looked up suddenly, keenly. "Why do you warn me? Is there any reason why you're afraid to entrust me to David Quentin?"

"No-o," said Mrs. Jim.

How could she voice the question in her mind? It was, could she entrust

David Quentin to Shirley?

Still later, "Jim," she said to her almost sleeping husband, "I'm worried. I'm afraid David and Shirley will get themselves engaged."

"Won't hurt 'em," grunted Jim.

"But they might get married."

"People do it sometimes. Be good for him. Life's been too easy for

Davy."

"I feel responsible. Couldn't you speak to Davy and warn him to go slow?"

"I thought," mumbled Jim, "you were a wise woman," and dropped off to sleep.

At the same late hour David was sitting at the window of his darkened room, smoking pipe after pipe, gazing raptly up at the moon-lit sky. "By George!" he would breathe ecstatically, "By George!" as though he had been seeing something wonderful in ecclesiastical architecture. In fact he was planning that wondrous house of love, none the less entrancing for that many other young lovers had designed it before.

Every day during Shirley's two weeks' visit she and David were together, sometimes, through Mrs. Jim's contrivance, with others and often, by grace of their own ingenuity, alone, drifting carelessly down the most traveled stream of life. If Mrs. Jim's warning had awakened any doubts in Shirley's mind—and it had—the doubts were quickly laid by David's presence. She let herself drift; this in spite of certain very definite and very different plans which she had made for her future. (In her home city was one Sam Hardy, a money-maker, very attractive, very devoted.) People saw it and were charmed; a young woman simply, daringly, unquestioningly yielding to love is a picture from whose wonder neither time nor repetition can subtract. Only to Mrs. Jim did it occur to ponder whether the impulse to surrender sprang from deeps or shallows.

And only Dick Holden, who was then David's chief chum, ventured to hang out a danger signal.

"My son," he said one day when he managed to find David alone, "I'm afraid you're growing susceptible to women."

"Always was. Any great harm in that?"

"Huh! If you'd had sisters," grunted the ungallant Dick, "you wouldn't ask that. You don't know 'em. You think they're nice, fluffy little angels, don't you? Well, they're not. They—they say catty things. And they've claws in their white, soft little paws, and they'd rather scratch than eat. And they don't understand men."

"Whoopee!" said David. "Do it some more."

"Huh! You think they're kind and sympathetic, don't you? You think because they look soulfully up at you when you're gabbling about ecclesiastical architecture they're taking it all in. Well, they're not. They're thinking, 'He has nice eyes—too bad he hasn't money!' I know. I've heard 'em talking behind the scenes. They don't understand the game of things. They only want a husband for a provider and they soon let him know it. Then he might as well go lie down and die. Take it from me. Few men," Dick concluded sagely, "survive matrimony."

David laughed uproariously at this counsel.

"You blooming old cynic! You poor old he-Cassandra! Where did you get all your wisdom? Just wait until you find some one—"

"Huh! I have found her. Or rather she's found me. I could let her make a fool of me. But I won't. A long life and my own life for me. I'm wearing a sign, 'Nothing doing!' You'd better get one just like it."

David roared again.

"All right, laugh!" growled Dick. "Rope, tie and brand yourself. And then some of these days when you're one woman's property and you find the other woman is just around the corner waiting—That's another thing, Davy."

But David turned his back on the counselor and fled. What did Dick know about it?

The dream was being realized, the lonely gaps filled. He was to have some one of his own to love and to serve. This time his heart was a captive for life; any one who had been in love a baker's dozen of times could tell that. He expected great things of love. He saw it as something exquisitely fine and beautiful and yet proof against the vandal fingers of familiarity; a joy always, a light for the dark places, a guide and comrade in stressful times; and everlasting as the hills. Just as the poets have always sung of it. Would any man wear a sign, "Nothing doing!" in the face of that?

The last afternoon of Shirley's visit came, clear and crisp, a strong west wind lifting the haze from the tinted hills. They pretended to play golf, but their strokes were perfunctory, absent-minded. They talked little and that in strangely low tones, always soberly. After a while they gave up the pretense, sought a seat on a secluded sunny slope and fell into a long silence.

"Shirley!" he broke it at length.

"Yes, David?"

"I'll hate to see you go back."

"I know. I'll hate to go, too."

"It—hurts me to think of your going back to work."

"Oh, I'm used to it." She smiled. A world of sweet courage was in that smile.

"Shirley—dear!"

She raised her eyes to his.

"A poor man—I suppose he's a coward to ask a woman to share—But it wouldn't be for always. You believe that, don't you?"

"I believe that."

"I'd try to make up for the lack of money with other things—worth more than money maybe. Are you willing to be poor with me for a while?"

"Yes, David."

He sat very still. His face went white. A happiness, so intense that it hurt, flooded his being.

"You really—mean that?" he whispered.

Tears of tenderness stood in her eyes. She had the sense of having found a rare treasure, worth any sacrifice. She was a little awed by it and lifted to a plane she had never reached before.

"Of course, I do." She laughed tremulously. "We'll wait six months, to give you a chance to get ready. Then I'll come to you. We'll start very small at first and live on what we have, whatever it is. If it's only seventy-five dollars a month, we'll hold our heads as high as if we had millions. We'll make the fight together. I used to think I never could do that. But now I want to. And then when your success comes it will be partly mine."

Her head was lifted in the pretty brave gesture. The glow of a crimson sunset was about her. In her eyes was the glow of the flame he had lighted.

If only the spirit of sunset might abide with us always! …

The witch often turns herself into an old cat and plays with us poor mice before she rends us.

Almost from the beginning of the engagement David's clients increased in number. During the six months which Shirley had set as the term of their waiting his income was almost as big as that of the whole year before; partly because he was taken in by Dick Holden—who had the knack of getting business—on a commission to which that energetic young cynic felt himself unequal. The fee thus shared was a substantial one.

"Our love," David wrote to Shirley, "was born under a lucky star. I believe we are going to have more than we expected. That makes me very happy—on your account."

Nevertheless, when the six months were at an end, he was not out of debt.

"David, dear," Shirley wrote, when she had been scarce a month gone, "couldn't you manage to come on for a few days? Maizie thinks I'm crazy, and I want her to see you and be convinced that I'm not. And I want to show off my wonderful lover to my friends."

David, nothing loath, went—a night's journey into the West, to a city where hotels mounted high in the air and rates mounted with them. This journey became a monthly event. And when they were together, thought of the exchequer took wings. There were theater parties, at which tired Maizie was a happy though protestant third. There were boxes of candy and flowers, seeing which Shirley would cry, "Oh, you extravagant boy!" in a tone that made David very glad of his extravagance. They loved; therefore they were rich. What had they to do with caution and economy?

"We can be engaged only once," they said. "Let us make it beautiful.

Let us have something to remember."

Money, it seemed, was necessary to a memorable engagement.

Maizie at sight of him opened her heart. Shirley's friends hugged and kissed her and declared her lover to be all she had promised. The rich aunt regarded him with a disfavor she was at some pains to voice.

"Shirley tells me," she informed him, with the arrogant assurance of the very rich, "that you're poor. Then I think you're foolish to get married—to Shirley, at least. I wanted her to take Sam Hardy. I hope you understand my checks will stop when she's married."

"But you'll still give her your love, won't you?"

"Of course, but what's that got to do with it?"

"Having that," said David, with the arrogant assurance of young men in love, "Shirley will be content."

The rich aunt stared. "Humph!" she sniffed, "You're not even grown up.

On your own head be it!"

Shirley took some risks in inviting these visits. The picture David had got had her and Maizie living in dingy rooms, marks of hardship and privation thick around them. In fact, he found her a charming hostess in a cozy little apartment, comfortably furnished, with pretty dishes on the table and even a few pictures on the walls. And clearly, to eyes that saw, it was homely faithful Maizie whose arduous but well-paid secretaryship financed this ménage; Maizie who, returning home tired from her long day, got the dinner; Maizie who washed the dishes, that Shirley's hands might not be spoiled, and did the mending when the weekly wash came back. Shirley set the table, sewed on jabots and did yards of tatting. Her "work" consisted of presiding over the reference room of a public library, telling shabby uninteresting young men where to find works on evolution and Assyrian temples and Charlemagne. This position was hers because her rich aunt's husband had political influence and her salary, together with the checks from Aunt Clara—not so big as the latter would have had David suppose but still not to be sneezed at—generally went to buy "extras," little luxuries working girls do not often enjoy.

But David was in love; he saw only the mistress of his heart. And Shirley, who had the habit of contrasting what she had with what she wanted to have, did not see any risk incurred.

"It's been such a grind to-day," she sighed, one afternoon when David went to the library to escort her home. "Fussing half the day with a long-haired Dutchman who wanted to know all about the origin of fire worship. Why should any one want to know about the origin of fire worship?"

David didn't know, but thought it a shame she had to fuss with long-haired Dutchmen.

"It's so deadly dull," she went on in the same plaintive voice. "Oh,

David, you don't know what a rescuer you are, taking me away from this.

I'll be so happy when we're in our own little home and I'll be

dependent again."

David's emotions were too deep for words but he gave her a look more eloquent than speech.

The experts are in accord as to the purblindness of love. No scales fell from his eyes, even when Maizie, on his next to last visit, made an occasion for a serious chat.

"David," she suggested a little timidly, "don't you think you and Shirley had better wait a little longer?"

He laughed at the notion. "Do you think we're not sure of ourselves?"

"Oh, no! I've no doubts there. Just until you're a little better fixed financially."

He shook his head decidedly. "Things are going pretty well with me now.

And I've got to get Shirley out of this awful grind at the library."

Maizie smiled faintly. "It isn't hard. Not so very hard, that is," she amended hastily. "It wouldn't hurt her to stay there a little while longer. You see," picking her words very carefully, "Shirley isn't—she's such a dear we've all petted her a good deal—and maybe spoiled her a little. She hasn't had to give up much that she wanted. People like to do things for her and give her things and save her from things. I think she doesn't quite realize how much has been done for her."

"Do you think that is quite just?" David was very grave. "She is very appreciative of what you've done for her."

Maizie flushed under the reproof. "Oh, yes," she went bravely on, "she's a dear about that. That's one reason why every one likes to do things for her. What I meant was, I don't think she quite realizes how important it has been to her. You see, she has never had to face any real trials. If any came, they would be very real trials to her. And I'm not sure just what she—just how she—" Poor Maizie, torn between loyalty to and fear for her Shirley, floundered miserably and fell into an ashamed silence.

"You don't know how brave Shirley is. Sisters are apt to be that way, I suppose." Poor Maizie! She flushed again and hung her head in shame because she had dared to suggest, however gently, a latent flaw in Shirley. "What you forget is, we have something that makes other things of no account. And besides, trials are just what you make them. If you look at them just as an adventure, part of a big splendid fight you're making, they become very simple—you can even get fun out of them. And that's what we're going to do."

Maizie, with a sigh, yielded the point. But, "David," she said earnestly, "promise me one thing, won't you?"

"Of course, Maizie. Anything but the one."

"Then, if anything happens and if you should happen to mislay those spectacles and—by mistake, of course—put on another pair, you won't judge her too harshly, will you? Just say, 'It's all the fault of that homely old Maizie, who didn't teach Shirley to take life so seriously as she ought to have done.' You'll say that—and think it—won't you?"

David laughed at the absurd notion. "That's easy to promise."

They were married in May, on a night when the wind howled and the rain drove fiercely. The rich aunt gave Shirley the wedding, in the big house on the hill, and intimated that therewith the term of her largess had expired. All of Shirley's home friends were there, exuberantly gay and festive, making merry because two lives were to be mated, as though that were a light matter. The Jim Blaisdells and Dick Holden, who was to be best man, were there thinking of David.

In the room reserved for the groom Dick turned from the mirror where he had been complacently regarding his gardenia, and caught a glimpse of David's face.

"I say, old man, what's wrong? Funk? Cheer up. It'll soon be over."

"It isn't that."

Over David it had suddenly come that the mating of lives is not a light matter. Standing at a window, he had caught from the storm a vague presage of perils and pitfalls approaching, through and around which he must be guide for another. That other was very, very dear to him. The thought set him to quaking. It was the first responsibility he had had in all his life.

Then quick upon the thought surged a wave of deep poignant tenderness for her to whom he must be guide.

There was a tap at the door, answered by Dick.

"They're ready. All right, old man?"

"All right," David said. "I'm ready."

A minute later he stood waiting, while the old music rolled from the organ. A slender veiled figure appeared in a doorway. The mist in his eyes cleared away. Very steadily he took her. … .

They entered their machine amid a shower of rice and old slippers. He caught her close to him and held her, silent. After a while he felt a sob shake her.

"Why, dearest, crying!"

"Oh, David, be good to me! I'm afraid. A girl gives so much. Be good to me always!"

He drew her closer, if that were possible.

"Of course, Shirley—always. You mustn't be frightened. It's the storm.

In the morning the sun will be shining and things will seem different."

And sure enough, in the morning the sun was shining and things seemed different.