Martie, the Unconquered Part 39

"You're coming on!" Dr. Ben smiled at his velvet wallflowers.

Surprisingly, Joe Hawkes was another ally. He came back in May, penniless, but full of honours, and with his position in the new hospital secure. A small, second-hand car, packed with Hawkeses of all ages, began to be seen in Monroe streets, and Sally grew rosier and fatter and more childish-looking every day. Sally would never keep her hair neat, or care for hands or complexion, but evidently Joe adored her as he had on their wedding day.

"Your father'll have nothing to leave, Martie," Joe said. "What little the Estates don't eat up must go to Lydia, and if you make a start here, why, you'll move on to something better!"

"Miss f.a.n.n.y hasn't moved on to something better," Martie submitted with a dubious smile.

"Miss f.a.n.n.y isn't you, Mart. She's gotten a long way for her. You know her father was the Patterson's hired man, and her mother actually had town help for a while, when he died. Now they have that cottage free of debt, and something in the Bank, and Miss f.a.n.n.y belongs to the woman's club--that's enough for her. You can do better, and you will!"

"I like you, Joe!" said Martie at this, quite frankly, and her brother-in-law's pleasant eyes met hers as he said:

"I like you, too!"

Sally, herself, did not belong to the Woman's Social and Civic Club; a fact that caused her some chagrin. Rose had actually been president once, as had May Parker, and among the thirty-six or seven members she and May were pleasantly prominent.

"I never see Rose, but I should have thought she might elect me to the club," Sally said to Martie. "Unless, of course," she added, brightening, "Rose realizes how busy I am, and that it really would be an extravagance."

"But why do you want to go, Sis? What do they do--sit around and read papers?"

"Oh, well, they have tea, and they entertain visitors in town. And they have a historical committee to keep up the fountains and statues--well, I don't care!" Sally interrupted herself with a reluctant smile as Martie laughed. "It makes me sick for Rose to have everything and always be so smug!"

"Oh, Sally Price Hawkes! Look at the children, and look at Joe, covering himself with glory!"

"Well, I know." Sally looked ashamed. "But sometimes it does seem as if it wasn't fair!"

"I met Rodney Parker the other day," Martie said thoughtfully. "It isn't that he wasn't extremely pleasant--not to say flattering! No one could have been more so. He told me that Rose was in the hospital, and that they had been so busy since I got to town--I told you all this?

But as we parted my only thought was grat.i.tude to Heaven that I had never married Rodney Parker!"

Lydia, sitting sewing near by, coloured with shame at the indelicacy of this, and made her characteristic comment.

"You don't mean that you--ALWAYS felt so, Martie?"

"Always!" Martie echoed healthily. "Why, I was crazy about him."

Lydia visibly shrank.

"He's so LIMITED" Martie continued with spirit. "I'm glad that things have gone well with them, and that they have a baby at last! But to sit opposite that pleasant, fat face--he is getting quite fat!--and hear that complacent voice all the days of my life, those little puns, and that cheerful way of implying that he is the greatest man since Alexander--no, I couldn't!"

"He has built Rose a lovely home, and made her a very happy woman,"

Lydia said sententiously.

"Well, I suppose that when I thought of marrying Rod, I thought of the old house," Martie pursued. "Of course, they HAVE built a nice home, but the glory for me was the old place! Rose has a big drawing room, and a big bedroom, and a guest's bath, and pantries and a side porch--but I like your house better, Sally, with its trees and flowers and babies!"

"You're just SAYING that!" Sally observed.

"I like civic pride," Martie, who was rambling on in her old inconsequential way, presently added, "but Rod is merely SMUG. I happened to mention some building in New York--I didn't know what to talk to the man about! He immediately told me that the Mason building down town was reinforced concrete throughout. I said that I had always missed the orchards in the East, and he said, with such an unpleasant laugh, 'We lead the world, Martie, you can't get away from it. Do you suppose I'd stay here one moment if I didn't think that there is a better chance of making money right here to-day than anywhere else in the world?'"

She had caught his tone, and Sally disrespectfully laughed.

"Well, I know he is one of our most prominent young men, and Rose was president of the club, and I suppose we less fortunate people can talk all we please, they'll be just that much better off than we are!" Lydia said with a little edge to her voice.

"Because his father is rich, Lyd. If it wasn't for the dear old Judge, who pioneered and mined and planned and foresaw, where would Rod be to-day, telling me that HE thought it best that Rose should nurse the baby, and that he does this and thinks that?"

"Oh, no, Mart, you can't say that. Rodney is really an awfully clever, steady fellow!" Sally said quickly.

"Sometimes I think we talk lightly about making money," said Lydia, "but it's not such an easy thing to do!"

Martie coloured.

"Well, I'm making a start!" she said cheerfully. It was Lydia's turn to colour with resentment; she thought that Martie's acceptance of Miss f.a.n.n.y's offer was something only a trifle short of disgrace.

In the pleasant summer mornings Martie walked down town with her father, as she had done since she came home. But she left him at the big brick doorway of the Library now, and by the time the fogs had risen from Main Street, she was tied into her silicia ap.r.o.n and happily absorbed in her work. She and Miss f.a.n.n.y tiptoed about the wide, cool s.p.a.ces of the airy rooms, whispering, conferring. Sometimes, in mid-morning, Teddy came gingerly in with Aunt Lydia.

"You're talking out loud, Moth'!"

"Because there's n.o.body else here, darling!"

Martie would catch the child to her heart with a joyous laugh. She was expanding like a flower in sunlight. Her work interested her, she liked to pick books for boys and girls, old women and children. She liked moving about in a businesslike way--not a casual caller, but a part of the inst.i.tution. She had long, whispered conversations, at the desk, with Dr. Ben, with the various old friends. Sometimes Sally brought the baby in, and Martie sat Mary on the desk, and talked with one arm about the soft little body.

Her duties were simple. She mastered them, to Miss f.a.n.n.y's amazement, on the very first day, and in a week she felt herself happily at home.

All Monroe pa.s.sed before her desk, and every one stopped for a whispered chat. Martie came to like the wet days, when the rain slashed down, and the boys, reading at the long table, rubbed wet shoes together. There was a warmth and brightness and openness about the Library entirely different from the warmest home. And she took a deep interest in the members, advised them as to books, and held good books for them. She studied human nature under her green hanging-lamp; her eager eyes and brain were never satisfied. Not the least advantage to her new work was that she could carry home the new books.

Where the happiness that began to flood her heart and soul came from had its source she could not tell. Like all happiness, it was made of little things; elements that had always been in Monroe, but that she had not seen before. She was splendidly well, as Teddy was, and their laughter made the days bright in the old house. Also she was lovely to look upon, and she must have been blind not to know it. Her tall, erect figure looked its best in plain black; Martie would never be fat again; her skin was like an apple blossom, white touched deeply with rose, her eyes, with their tender sadness and veiled mirth, were more blue than ever. Monroe came to know her buoyant step, her glittering, unconquered hair, her voice that had in it tones unfamiliar and charming. She scattered her gay and friendly interest everywhere; the women said that she had something, not quite style, better than style, an "air."

One summer day Lydia saw her absorbed in the closely written sheets of a long letter from New York.

"It's from Mr. Dryden, my friend there." Martie said, in answer to her mild look of questioning. "Don't you remember that I told you he had written a play that no manager would produce?"

"You didn't tell ME, dear," Lydia amended, darning industriously.

"Oh, yes, I did, Lyddy! I remember telling you!"

"No, dear, perhaps you thought you did," Lydia persisted.

"Oh, well! Anyway, I wrote and suggested that he try to get it published instead, and my dear--it's to be published next month. Isn't that glorious?"

"That is all worn under the arms," Lydia murmured over an old waist that had been for months in her sewing basket, "I believe I will cut off the b.u.t.tons and give it to the poor!"

"The old idiot!" Martie mused over her letter.

"Does his wife encourage this writing, Martie?"

"Adele? She isn't with him now at all. She's left him, in fact. I believe she wants a divorce."

"Oh?" Lydia commented, in a peculiar tone.

"He wrote me that some weeks ago," Martie explained, suddenly flus.h.i.+ng.

"She was a queer, unhappy sort of woman. She and this doctor of hers had some sort of affair, and the outcome was that she simply went to friends, and wrote John a hysterical girly-girly sort of letter--"