§ 6
The end of May, when the dogwood was again powdering the new-leafed woods with its white featheriness, when the Yacht Club had formally opened its season, and Martin had towed his adored A-boat out of winter storage, had pulled it with a row-boat the two-and-a-half miles to its summer moorings, Alice, Roy and the children departed, and Jeannette faced an empty home with what seemed to her an empty life.
It was inevitable she should reach out for distraction. During the spring, Doc French had married Mrs. Edith Prentiss, a rich widow, whom Jeannette had liked from their first meeting. The new Mrs. French was her senior by only a year or two, and much the same type: tall and dark with beautiful brows and skin and masses of glistening black hair. She had a great deal of poise, and dash, and dressed handsomely. At the opening of the season for the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club, when there was a dinner and dance, the Devlins were Doctor and Mrs. French’s guests and had a particularly good time. Jeannette bought herself a new dress for the occasion. She would not have been able to go otherwise, she told Martin, as she had absolutely nothing to wear! All the pretty clothes that had formed her trousseau were completely gone now; she did not have a single decent evening frock left!
The affair led to the young Devlins being asked to a Sunday luncheon on board the new Commodore’s sumptuous yacht and this had been another happy event. Martin had been in high feather, and had proven himself unusually amusing and entertaining. The Commodore’s wife had singled him out for attention; the Commodore, himself, and Doc French had urged him to allow his name to be put up for membership in the Yacht Club.
It was a great temptation for both the young husband and wife, but it was out of the question for them to belong to two yacht clubs, and Martin resolutely refused to resign from the Family. No, he said, there were too many “good scouts” in the little club, and he wouldn’t and couldn’t “throw them down.” Jeannette did not urge it, although it was hard to decline the invitation to join the Cohasset Beach Club. Yet she felt that membership in it was beyond their means and would lead to other extravagances, while specially was she afraid of the free drinking that went on there. Martin had a mercurial temperament; one drink excited him; more made him noisy and silly; he was not the type that could stand it. Better the Family Yacht Club as the lesser of the two evils. She would have been satisfied if he never entered either.
She voiced her complaint to her mother, with a good deal of vexation:
“It makes me so mad! Martin won’t economize, won’t help me save and insists upon being a member of that cheap little one-horse organization with its cheap common members, spending his time and money in a place he knows I detest and where I never set my feet that I don’t regret it. And if he would only help me get out of debt and would behave himself when there was liquor around, we might be able to join the Cohasset Beach and associate with nice, decent people of our own class and enjoy some kind of social life. It’s unfair—rottenly unfair! I’ve been struggling all winter taking care of my sister’s babies, and of course it’s been expensive and we haven’t been able to put by a cent. I’ve done my level best to economize; I haven’t bought myself so much as a pair of shoes since last year, ... and look at me!”
She held out her foot and showed her mother where the stitching along the sole had parted. Mrs. Sturgis shook her head distressfully, and made “tut-tutting” noises with her tongue.
“And what does he expect me to do?” Jeannette went on, her voice rising as her sense of injustice grew upon her. “Here’s Doc French and his wife, Edith,—she’s really a stunning girl, Mama, and I like her so much!—anxious to be nice to me, wanting me to go with them to the smart Yacht Club all the time, asking me to their house for dinner and cards, or to go motoring with them in their beautiful new car, and Commodore and Mrs. Adams inviting me to luncheon on The Sea Gull, and I haven’t a decent stitch to my back! If I complain to Martin, he says I’m ‘crabbing’ or tells me to get what I need and charge it! And that’s just madness, Mama,—you know that. He denies himself nothing and expects me to do all the self-sacrificing. I declare I’m sorely tempted sometimes to take him at his word, to go ahead just as I like, get whatever I need and let him meet the bills as best he can. That’s what most wives would do! I’ve never known such humiliation since I went to that Armenian dance with Dikron Najarian. In all the time I was supporting myself, I was never so shabbily dressed as I am right this minute! It does seem to me that Martin could manage better. I know I did when I was earning my own money and financing my own problems. Martin makes just about what you and I used to have when we were living together, and you know perfectly well, Mama, we had money to throw away then. Why we used to go to the theatre and everything! I haven’t been inside a theatre in—in—well, since last September and that’s nearly a year! I don’t know what he does with his money! He swears he doesn’t gamble any more, but he’s always broke and I have the hardest time getting my sixty-two fifty out of him on the first and the fifteenth. He tried to borrow some of it back from me last month! I tell you, he didn’t get it! He never takes me into his confidence about money matters and he never comes and gives what’s coming to me out of his pay envelope of his own accord! I always have to ask him for it! Think of it, Mama, having to ask him to give me what’s my right! I never had to go to Mr. Corey and ask him for my salary on Saturday mornings, and I work ten thousand times harder for Martin Devlin than I ever did for Mr. Corey! ... I was no shrinking violet when Martin married me! I was a self-supporting, self-respecting business woman and when we married we made a bargain, and I intend he shall live up to it. I don’t propose he’s going to welch on me merely because I’m a woman. He’s got to give me just as much consideration as he would a man with whom he’s made a contract. Our marriage was an honorable agreement with certain specified provisions, and if he doesn’t live up to them, neither shall I!”
“Oh, Janny, Janny!” cried her mother in alarm; “don’t talk so reckless, dearie! What on earth do you mean?”