VIII
Mrs. Aldrich and Mrs. Journay sat in the kitchen, side by side, on two straight-backed chairs. They had just had a quarrel, due to Mrs. Journay’s obstinately refusing to eat her lunch with Mrs. Aldrich and insisting upon having it in the kitchen. In the course of this quarrel Mrs. Aldrich had explosively confessed that it was she who had ordered the Cooper & Cooper letters sent, and who had observed from her hilltop all that went on below.
“Because I didn’t like the way you treated my nephew,” she explained. “Can you forgive me for that?”
“I can,” said Mrs. Journay, calmly. “I should have felt the same, if it had been my nephew.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Aldrich triumphantly, “if you really do forgive me, the least you can do is to come in and have lunch with me decently!”
But Mrs. Journay would not, so Mrs. Aldrich had sent away the two servants and eaten there in the kitchen with Mrs. Journay. In the beginning both of them were very angry, but they became more and more friendly every minute. They had a great deal to talk about—they had Lynn and Jerry to talk about.
“Jerry tells me that your niece is a charming girl,” said Mrs. Aldrich. “He’s talked about her incessantly ever since he first saw her; and it isn’t like Jerry to be so enthusiastic.”
“She is a charming girl,” replied Mrs. Journay complacently; “and as for your nephew—”
The front doorbell rang, and Mrs. Aldrich went to open the door. Mrs. Journay sat where she was.
“Jerry!” she heard Mrs. Aldrich cry in a tone of fright.
“Don’t worry!” answered a cheerful voice which Mrs. Journay recognized without difficulty. “It’s only a scratch; but—this is Miss Journay. She saved my life!”
“Oh!” protested Lynn. “Really I didn’t!”
Mrs. Journay then entirely forgot her position, and hurried into the hall. There she saw that man, with a bandage around his head, and Lynn standing beside him.
“Auntie!” cried Lynn, amazed. “You here?”
“Why not?” inquired Mrs. Journay. “I might ask why you are here!”
“Mr. Sargent got hurt trying to save my boxes,” Lynn explained anxiously; “so you see, auntie—”
“What am I expected to see?” asked Mrs. Journay, with lifted eyebrows.
Mrs. Aldrich now intervened.
“Jerry,” said she, “now that I’ve had an opportunity of knowing Mrs. Journay better, I see that I was wrong—altogether wrong. I want her and her niece to stay here with us until that horrible old barn is put in order for them again—if it ever is; and I want you—”
Jerry stepped forward and held out his hand, smiling. Lynn thought, with a flash of hope, that even her aunt could not resist him; but Mrs. Journay regarded him sternly.
“Lynn,” said she, “introduce this young man to me. I do not know him.”
“But, auntie!” protested Lynn. “You’ve seen him—”
“Not properly,” said Mrs. Journay.
“Mrs. Journay, this is my nephew, Gerald Sargent,” said Mrs. Aldrich.
Then Mrs. Journay took his outstretched hand and smiled, the jolliest sort of smile.
“I always liked that boy!” she observed aside to Mrs. Aldrich.[Pg 181]
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER, 1924
Vol. LXXXII NUMBER 4
Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN OLIVE’S ARDENT ADMIRER AND HER FORMIDABLE AUNT
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
OLIVE was weeping quietly, but Miss Torrance, sitting beside her in the dark, was very calm, and even a little scornful. The unmerited sufferings of the hero and heroine on the screen before them didn’t trouble her. It was sure to come out all right in the end; and even if it didn’t, who cared?
Olive was a sentimental little thing, and yet the strong-minded, prodigiously sensible Miss Torrance could understand, perhaps too well, how she felt. It wasn’t the story that made Olive cry. It was the spectacle of that swift, vivid, intense life that so disturbed her; and it disturbed Miss Torrance, too.
Yachts, tropical islands, coral reefs, dark figures in oilskins seen by lightning flashes on storm-swept decks, clear lagoons, palm trees in the moonlight—when you saw all that, and when you thought of getting up six mornings a week at half past seven, and going down to the office, and coming back to the boarding house at twenty minutes past five, and when you were a stern, adventurous spirit, like Miss Torrance, or only twenty-one, like Olive—
Miss Torrance and Olive often talked about traveling. They even got booklets from the steamship companies, and planned routes and figured expenses. Olive took it all very seriously, but Miss Torrance smiled indulgently at such a childish pastime.
Miss Torrance was not the sort of woman to cry for the moon. She often said she wasn’t, and she never suspected that she was one of those still more romantic creatures who try to build bridges to reach the moon. Olive longed for impossible things, but Miss Torrance tried to get them.
“Come, my dear!” said she, with just a trace of impatience. “This is where we came in.”
“All right!” answered Olive, with a resigned sigh.
They squeezed past a row of people and went up the aisle and out into the lobby.
“Oh, mercy!” cried Olive. “Raining!”
Miss Torrance said nothing, but her brows met in an anxious frown.
The April rain was coming down in a steady torrent, drumming loud on the roof, and spattering on the pavement. The streets shone like deep, black water under the arc lights. Taxis spun by like incredibly swift motor boats. It hadn’t at all the appearance of a shower. It was obstinately and definitely a rainy night—chill, too, and windy, so that it was almost impossible to believe that only six days ago, on Saturday, spring had begun, and Miss Torrance and Olive had been irresistibly tempted to buy spring hats.
“We’ll take a taxi,” said Miss Torrance. “It’s cheaper than ruining our new hats.”
“All right!” said Olive.
So Miss Torrance advanced to the very limit of the covered entrance, and signaled to the taxis that went by, fleet and careless; but not one of them stopped—no, not one.
“Beasts!” said she.
“Maybe they’re all taken,” suggested the gentle Olive, but Miss Torrance would have none of that.
She, too, still had in her mind the images of tropical islands and coral reefs and high adventures, and somehow it hurt and angered her, and the taxis that would not stop were like the stream of life itself that hurried past and left her behind.[Pg 183]
“I’ll make one stop!” she declared grimly. “Here!” Taking off her brave new hat, she thrust it into Olive’s hands. “I’ll stop one if I have to stand in the middle of the street!”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Olive. “Wait just a minute!”
“Let me get you one,” said a cheerful voice.
Turning, they both looked into the face of an unknown young man. It was by no means a face to inspire alarm, nor was his manner at all sinister. He was a sturdy, square-shouldered young chap, with a sunburned face, in which his eyes looked amazingly blue. As he stood there, hat in hand, he looked altogether so good-humored and friendly and honest that Miss Torrance’s glare softened.
“Well—” said she.
He needed no more than that grudging consent.
“Half a minute!” he cried, and off he darted into the rain.
“Oh!” cried Olive. “Oh, Miss Torrance! Oh, we forgot! We can’t pay for it! We have only fifteen cents!”
“Oh!” said Miss Torrance, too.
She certainly had forgotten, for the moment, that they had come out simply for a walk, and hadn’t meant to go to the movies, or to buy the cake of chocolate they had just eaten inside. To-morrow was pay day at the office, and only that morning Miss Torrance had deposited the week’s surplus in the savings bank, and Olive never had any surplus.
“I’ll stop him!” she said hurriedly, and she, too, dashed off into the rain.
Just as she reached the curb, the young man arrived there on the running board of a taxi.
“Here you are!” said he, opening the door.
“I meant—” said Miss Torrance. “Thank you just the same, but we have changed our minds. We—we are going in the subway; but thank you.”
The lights from the brilliant lobby shone across the street, making it very bright where they were. The rain was pelting down on her sleek blond head. The valiant little white ruffle at her neck was already beaten flat, but she herself was indomitable—a little woman and a good-looking one, although, by her severe expression and her curt manner, you might fancy that she was trying to deny both the littleness and the good looks, and to force you to remember only her thirty-five years and her ability to earn her own living.
“But—” protested the young man.
“Thank you, just the same,” said Miss Torrance again, and, turning, hastened back to Olive.
The stranger was not a faint-hearted young man, however. He followed her.
“Look here!” he said earnestly. “You haven’t even an umbrella. You’ll catch cold!”
“Thank you, but it can’t be helped,” said Miss Torrance.
She spoke sternly, but she didn’t really dislike this man. There was something rather engaging about him, and she was very much pleased to observe that not once did he even glance at Olive. Miss Torrance did not wish strange young men to look at Olive.
“I meant to take a taxi, anyhow,” said he. “Won’t you please let me drop you?”
He looked at Miss Torrance with a wistful, humble expression, which she knew very well to be false. There was precious little humility in that young man! Still, she didn’t dislike him on that account, either. Indeed, she was almost ready to smile, when he added:
“I’m going through West Twelfth Street. If you live anywhere near there—”
All thoughts of smiling abandoned her.
“Thank you, no!” she replied frigidly. “Good evening! Come, Olive!”
To her dismay, Olive did not come.
“Let’s!” the girl whispered. “Why not? He seems—”
Politely the young man stepped back a little. Miss Torrance gave Olive a long and severe glance.
“No!” said she.
Olive was silent for a moment. Then she raised her eyes to her friend’s face.
“But I’d like to,” she said quietly.
Then Miss Torrance had her turn at being silent.
“Very well!” she said, at last.
In those two words there was something not far from tragedy. Miss Torrance was not stupid. She had seen in Olive’s face the dawn of a new spirit of independence, and the shadow of the end of her own fiercely benevolent despotism. And she loved Olive so!
She put on her hat—such a smart little hat!—and, at that moment, she hated it. It was absurd that any one who felt as she[Pg 184] did just then should wear a jaunty little hat like this!
The young man was standing by the open door of the taxi. In they got, she and Olive side by side, the stranger facing them. There was something else in that cab which almost stifled Miss Torrance—something which she insisted upon in stories, but found unbearable here—something known professionally as “heart interest.” Olive did not speak one word, and did not stir. The stranger’s conversation was quite impersonal, and yet Miss Torrance knew. It seemed to her that she knew exactly what was in the minds of her companions.
The young fellow’s cheerful voice was speaking in the darkness.
“Beastly weather, isn’t it?” he remarked, to fill a long, long pause.
“Personally,” said Miss Torrance, “I don’t believe in thinking about the weather. I agree with Dr. Johnson that it is contemptible for a being endowed with reason to live in dependence upon the weather and the wind.”
“Well—” said the young man, who knew not Dr. Johnson, but was respectful toward Miss Torrance. “You can’t help it very well at sea, you know.”
“Have you been at sea?” came Olive’s clear little voice.
“Ever since I was seventeen. I’m chief officer now,” he answered, with modest pride. “Passenger ship.”
It seemed to Miss Torrance that even as he spoke she could smell a salty vigor in the air. He came from the sea, did he—the sea of which she and Olive talked so often? He was a sailor, was he? Miss Torrance’s heart sank, remembering all that she and Olive had said about sailors. The romance of the sea—what nonsense!
They had reached the house. The young man sprang out and held open the door of the cab; but he stood in the doorway, so that no one could get out.
“I wish I could see you again!” he said earnestly. “We’re not sailing until Monday—engine trouble. The cargo’s all in, and I know I could get another afternoon or evening on shore.”
He waited.
“My name’s Martin—Sam Martin,” he went on anxiously. “I—I know a fellow who lives in your house—Robertson. He could tell you—”
“We don’t know any one in the boarding house,” said Miss Torrance stiffly; “but thank you for bringing us home, Mr. Martin. Good evening!”
The house door closed behind them, leaving them in the dark hall and Mr. Martin out in the rain. Miss Torrance began to mount the stairs, and Olive followed her, rather slowly. They entered the room which they shared.
“How,” inquired Miss Torrance, “did that young man know we lived on West Twelfth Street?”
“Well,” said Olive, who was taking off her shoes, so that her fair head was bent and her face not to be seen, “I think perhaps he saw me coming out of the house this morning.”