The Happy End Part 22

Nowhere was the nation's failing more evident than in the att.i.tude toward women. It had always been maudlin; and now, long content to use their advantages in small ways, women would become a serious menace to the country generally. He had admitted their economic value--they filled every possible place in the large establishment of the Turnbull Bakery; rather, they performed all the light manual labor. There they were more satisfactory than men, more easily controlled--yes, and cheaper. But in Congress, voting, women in communities reporting on factory conditions were a dangerous nuisance.

He had left the poorer part, and the suavity of the succeeding streets rapidly increased to a soothing luxury. Wide cottages occupied velvet-green lawns, and the women he saw were of the sort he approved--closely skirted creatures with smooth shoulders in transparent crepe de Chine. They invited a contemplative eye, the thing for which they were created--a pleasure for men; that and maternity.

The automobile turned toward the sea and stopped at his house midway in the block. It was a square dwelling painted white with a roof of tapestry slate, and broad awning-covered veranda on the sea. A sprinkler was flas.h.i.+ng on the lawn, dripping over the concrete pavement and filling the air with a damp coolness. No one was visible and, leaving his hat and coat on a chair in an airy hall furnished in black wicker and flowery chintz hangings on buff walls, he descended to the bas.e.m.e.nt dressing rooms.

In his bathing suit he presented a figure of vigorous glowing well-being. Only the silvering hair at his temples, the fatty bulge across the back of his neck, and a considerable stomach indicated his multiplying years. He left by a lower door, and immediately after was on the sand. The tide was out, the lowering sun obscured in a haze, and the sea undulated with a sullen gleam. Two men were swimming, and farther at the left a woman stood in the water with arms raised to her head. It was cold, but August Turnbull marched out without hesitation and threw himself forward with an uncompromising solid splash.

He swam adequately, but he had not progressed a dozen feet before he was conscious of a strong current sweeping him up the beach, and he regained his feet with an angry flourish. The other men came nearer, and he recognized Bernard Foster, his son-in-law, and Frederick Rathe, whose cottage was directly across the street from the Turnbulls'.

Like August they were big men, with light hair and eyes. They were very strong and abrupt in their movements, they spoke in short harsh periods, and fingered mustaches waxed and rolled into severe points.

"A gully has cut in above," Bernard explained, indicating a point not far beyond them; "it's over your head. Watch where you swim." They were moving away.

"Are you coming over to dinner?" August Turnbull called to Bernard.

"Can't," the latter shouted; "Victorine is sick again. Too many chocolate sundaes."

Left alone, August dived and floated until he was thoroughly cooled; then he turned toward the beach. The woman, whose existence he had forgotten, was leaving at the same time. She approached at an angle, and he was admiring her slim figure when he realized that it was Miss Beggs, his wife's companion. He had never seen her in a bathing suit before.

August Turnbull delayed until she was at his side.

"Good evening." Her voice was low, and she scarcely lifted her gaze from the sand.

He wondered why--she had been in his house for a month--he had failed completely to notice her previously. He decided that it had been because she was so pale and quiet. Ordinarily he didn't like white cheeks; and then she had been deceptive; he had subconsciously thought of her as thin.

She stopped and took off her rubber cap, performing that act slowly, while her body, in wet satin, turned like a faultless statue of glistening black marble.

"Do you enjoy bathing in the ocean?" he asked.

A momentary veiled glance accompanied her reply. "Yes," she said; "though I can't swim. I like to be beaten by the waves. I like to fight against them."

She hesitated, then fell definitely back; and he was forced to walk on alone.

His wife's companion! With the frown once more scoring the line between his eyes he satirically contrasted Miss Beggs, a servant really, and Emmy.

II

His room occupied the front corner on the sea, Emmy's was beyond; the door between was partly open and he could hear her moving about, but with a cigarette and his hair-brushes he made no acknowledgment of her presence.

The sun was now no more than a diffused gray glow, the sea like unstirred molten silver. The sound of the m.u.f.fled gong that announced dinner floated up the stairs.

Below, the damask was lit both by rose silk-shaded candles and by the radiance of a suspended alabaster bowl. August Turnbull sat at the head of a table laden with silver and crystal and flowers. There were individual pepper mills--he detested adulterated or stale spices--carved goblets for water, c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses with enameled roosters, ruby goblets like blown flowers and little gilt-speckled liqueur gla.s.ses; there were knives with steel blades, knives all of silver, and gold fruit knives; there were slim oyster forks, entree forks of solid design, and forks of filigree; a bank of spoons by a plate that would be presently removed, unused, for other filled plates.

Opposite him Emmy's place was still empty, but his son, Morice, in the olive drab and bar of a first lieutenant, together with his wife, was already present. August was annoyed by any delay: one of the marks of a properly controlled household, a house admirably conscious of the importance of order--and obedience--was an utter promptness at the table. Then, silent and unsubstantial as a shadow, Emmy Turnbull slipped into her seat.

August gazed at her with the secret resentment more and more inspired by her sickness. At first he had been merely dogmatic--she must recover under the superlative advice and attention he was able to summon for her. Then his impatience had swung about toward all doctors--they were a pack of incompetent fools, medicine was nothing more than an organized swindle. They had tried baths, cures, innumerable infallible treatments--to no purpose. Finally he had given up all effort, all hope; he had given her up. And since then it had been difficult to mask his resentment.

The butler, a white jacket taking the place of the conventional somber black, poured four c.o.c.ktails from a silver mixer and placed four dishes of shaved ice, lemon rosettes and minute pinkish clams before August Turnbull, Morice and his wife, and Miss Beggs, occupying in solitude a side of the table. Then he set at Mrs. Turnbull's hand a gla.s.s of milk thinned with limewater and an elaborate platter holding three small pieces of zwieback.

She could eat practically nothing.

It was the particular character of her state that specially upset August Turnbull. He was continually affronted by the spectacle of Emmy seated before him sipping her diluted milk, breaking her dry bread, in the midst of the rich plenty he provided. d.a.m.n it, he admitted, it got on his nerves!

The sting of the c.o.c.ktail whipped up his eagerness for the iced tender clams. His narrowed gaze rested on Emmy; she was actually seven years older than he, but from her appearance she might be a hundred, a million. There was nothing but her painfully slow movements to distinguish her from a mummy.

The plates were again removed and soup brought on, a clear steaming amber-green turtle, and with it crisp wheat rolls. Morice's wife gave a sigh of satisfaction at the latter.

"My," she said, "they're elegant! I'm sick and tired of war bread."

She was a pinkish young woman with regular features and abundant coppery hair. Marriage had brought her into the Turnbull family from the chorus of a famous New York roof beauty show. August had been at first displeased, then a certain complacency had possessed him--Morice, who was practically thirty years old, had no source of income other than that volunteered by his father, and it pleased the latter to keep them depending uncertainly on what he was willing to do. It insured just the att.i.tude from Rosalie he most enjoyed, approved, in a youthful and not unhandsome woman. He liked her soft scented weight hanging on his arm and the perfumed kiss with which she greeted him in the morning.

Nevertheless, at times there was a gleam in her eyes and an expression at odds with the perfection of her submission; on several occasions Morice had approached him armed with a determination that he, August, knew had been injected from without, undoubtedly by Rosalie. Whatever it had been he quickly disposed of it, but there was a possibility that she might some day undertake a rebellion; and there was added zest in the thought of how he would totally subdue her.

"It's a wonder something isn't said to you," she continued. "They're awfully strict about wheat now."

"That," August Turnbull instructed her heavily, "is a subject we needn't pursue."

The truth was that he would permit no interference with what so closely touched his comfort. He was not a horse to eat bran. His bakery--under inspection--conformed rigidly with the Government requirements; but he had no intention of spoiling his own dinners. Any necessary conservation could be effected at the expense of the riffraff through which he had driven coming from the station. Black bread was no new experience to them.

He saw that Miss Beggs' small white teeth were crus.h.i.+ng salted cashew nuts. Noticing her in detail for the first time he realized that she enormously appreciated good food. Why in thunder, since she ate so heartily, didn't she get fat and rosy! She was one of the thin kind--yet not thin, he corrected himself. Graceful. Why, she must weigh a hundred and twenty-five pounds; and she wasn't tall.

The butler filled his ruby goblet from a narrow bottle of Rhine wine. It was exactly right, not sweet but full; and the man held for his choice a great platter of beef, beautifully carved into thick crimson slices; the bloodlike gravy had collected in its depression and he poured it over his meat.

"A piece of this," he told Emmy discontentedly, "would set you right up; put something in your veins besides limewater."

She became painfully upset at once and fumbled in her lap, with her face averted, as the attention of the table was momentarily directed at her.

There was an uncontrollable tremor of her loose colorless mouth.

What a wife for him, August Turnbull! The stimulants and rich flavors and roast filled him with a humming vitality; he could feel his heart beat--as strong, he thought, as a bell. In a way Emmy had deceived him--she probably had always been fragile, but was careful to conceal it from him at their marriage. It was unjust to him. He wished that she would take her farcical meals in her room, and not sit here--a skeleton at the feast. Positively it made him nervous to see her--spoiled his pleasure.

It had become worse lately; he had difficulty in putting her from his mind; he imagined Emmy in conjunction with the bakery, of her slowly starving and the thousands of loaves he produced in a day. There was something unnatural in such a situation; it was like a mockery at him.

A vision of her came to him at the most inopportune moments, lingering until it drove him into a hot rage and a pounding set up at the back of his neck.

The meat was brought back, and he had more of a sweet boiled huckleberry pudding. A salad followed, with a heavy Russian dressing. August Turnbull's breathing grew thicker, he was conscious of a familiar oppression. He a.s.saulted it with fresh wine.

"I saw Bernard on the beach," he related; "Victorine is sick once more.

Chocolate sundaes, Bernard said. She is always stuffing herself at soda-water counters or with candy. They oughtn't to allow it; the child should be made to eat at the table. When she is here she touches nothing but the dessert. When I was ten I ate everything or not at all.

But there is no longer any discipline, not only with children but everywhere."

"There is a little freedom, though," Rosalie suggested.

His manner clearly showed displeasure, almost contempt, and he turned to Miss Beggs. "What do you think?" he demanded. "I understand you have been a school-teacher."

"Oh, you are quite right," she responded; "at least about children, and it is clear from them that most parents are idiotically lax." A blaze of discontent, loathing, surprisingly invaded her pallid face.

"A rod of iron," August recommended.

The contrast between his wife and Miss Beggs recurred, intensified--one an absolute wreck and the other as solidly slender as a birch tree. Fate had played a disgusting trick on him. In the prime of his life he was tied to a hopeless invalid. It put an unfair tension on him. Women were charming, gracious--or else they were nothing. If Emmy's money had been an a.s.sistance at first he had speedily justified its absorption in the business. She owed him, her husband, everything possible. He suddenly pictured mountains of bread, bread towering up into the clouds, fragrant and appetizing; and Emmy, a thing of bones, gazing wistfully at it.