So, finally, after paying some Torso debts, it came down to buying a house in St. Louis; for the flat that they had first rented was crowded and Bessie found great difficulty in keeping a servant longer than a week. Rob thought that it would be more prudent to rent a house for six to nine hundred than to buy outright or build, until they saw how his work for the A. and P. developed. But Bessie wanted a home,—a house of her own. So they began the wearisome search for a house. Bessie already had her views about the desirable section to live in,—outside the smoke in one of "those private estate parks,"—where the Lanes were thinking of settling. (A few months had been sufficient for Bessie to orientate herself socially in her new surroundings.) "That's where all the nice young people are going," she announced. In vain Rob pointed out that there were no houses to be bought for less than eighteen thousand in this fashionable neighborhood. "You never dare!" she retorted reproachfully. "You have to take risks if you want anything in this world! How many houses in St. Louis that aren't mortgaged do you suppose there are?"
"But there is only about eleven thousand of Uncle Billy's money left, and those houses in Buena Vista Park cost from eighteen to twenty-four thousand dollars."
"And they have only one bath-room," sighed Bessie.
The summer went by in "looking," and the more houses they looked at the less satisfied was Bessie. She had in the foreground of her mind an image of the Lanes' Torso house, only "more artistic"; but Falkner convinced her that such a house in St. Louis would cost thirty thousand dollars at the present cost of building materials.
"It is so difficult," she explained to Mrs. Price, "to find anything small and your own, don't you know?" She arched her brows prettily over her dilemma. Mrs. Price, who, in spite of the fascination that Bessie exerted, had prim ideas "of what young persons in moderate circumstances" should do, suggested that the Johnstons were buying a very good house in the new suburb of Bryn Mawr on the installment plan.
"As if we could bury ourselves in that swamp,—we might as well stay in
Torso!" Bessie said to her husband disgustedly.
Falkner reflected that the train service to Bryn Mawr made it easier of access to his work than the newer residential quarter inside the city which Bessie was considering. But that was the kind of remark he had learned not to make….
In the end it came to their building. For Bessie found nothing "small and pretty, and just her own," with three bath-rooms, two maids' rooms, etc., in any "possible" neighborhood. She had met at a dinner-party an attractive young architect, who had recently come from the East to settle in St. Louis. Mr. Bowles prepared some water-color sketches which were so pretty that she decided to engage him. With misgivings Rob gave his consent. A narrow strip of frontage was found next a large house in the desired section. They had to pay three thousand dollars for the strip of land. Mr. Bowles thought the house could be built for eight or ten thousand dollars, depending on the price of materials, which seemed to be going up with astonishing rapidity.
Then Bessie plunged into plans. It was a gusty March day when the Falkners went out with the architect to consider the lot, and spent an afternoon trying to decide how to secure the most sun. Falkner, weary of the whole matter, listened to the glib young architect. Another windy day in April they returned to the lot to look at the excavation. The contracts were not yet signed. Lumber had gone soaring, and there was a strike in the brick business, the kind of brick they had chosen being unobtainable, while hardware seemed unaccountably precious. Already it was impossible to build the house for less than twelve thousand, even after sacrificing Bessie's private bath. Falkner had consented to the mortgage,—"only four thousand," Bessie said; "we'll save our rent and pay it off in a year or two!" Bessie's periods of economy were always just dawning!
Falkner, looking at the contractor's tool shed, had a sense of depressing fatality. From the moment that the first spadeful of ground had been dug, it seemed to him that the foundation of his domestic peace had begun to crumble. But this depression was only an attack of the grippe, he said to himself, and he tried to take an interest in the architect's description of how they should terrace the front of the lot….