“I won’t paint it,” said Jim. “I want it left its own woodsy gray. But inside it must be painted and things bought to put in it. That’s where I need your help. I don’t know a darn thing about furnishing a house and I’ve precious little money left. I wasn’t going to have a cent of debt on this place. But I must get things for her somehow.”
“We’ll get them,” said Margaret. “I’ll help you paint. I can paint beautifully.”
“And you’re sure it won’t be a nuisance?” said Jim anxiously. “You ought to be resting, I suppose—you’re not strong.”
“It will be the greatest treat of my life,” cried Margaret. “And it will be the right kind of a rest. O, we’ve been here half an hour and I feel as if I’d known this house all my life. When you and Isabel are living here I’m coming to visit you whether you ask me or not—but I won’t stay long. I’ll just come and look at the house—and see if you’re using it right and if you deserve it—and then go away again.”
“I know you’re too nice to be real,” said Jim. “I’m sure I’ve dreamed you. But I hope you’ll get my house furnished before I wake up. And when Isabel comes you’ll love her, too. She’s—she’s—she’s Isabel. Do let me talk about her to you. You needn’t answer, you needn’t even let on you hear me, just let me talk.”
“Talk, dear lover,” laughed Margaret. She wondered a little at herself. It seemed so easy to chatter with Jim, somehow—as easy as talking to herself.
She lay awake quite late that night planning for Jim’s house. As long as she could remember, life had been dull and colourless. Now she had come to a little patch of violets, purple and fragrant, hers for the plucking. She would advise Jim to paint the living-room in tones of deep cream and brown; she would see that he picked the right kind of paper. She would get him to put up shelves in the chimney recess, and a rose trellis over the wildwood gate, and replace the worn-out wooden steps of the porch with red sandstone. And make a new button for the pantry door…and she was asleep, the first sound sleep she had had for weeks.
The next two months seemed like one dream of rapture to Margaret. She was so absorbed and happy that she never thought about herself, and she worked so hard in the daytime that she slept like a log at night.
They painted and papered the house, and Margaret got her own way in everything. Then they borrowed Mrs. Kennedy’s fat old brown mare and jogged far and wide looking for furniture—quaint, old-fashioned bits that belonged in the little house. Margaret knew one whenever she saw it, and she was such a good bargainer that she always got it for a song.
When they got it up to Jim’s house they tried it in a dozen different places and were not satisfied until they found the right one; and sometimes they could not agree about it, and then they would sit on the floor and argue it out. And if they couldn’t settle it, they got Friend Cat to pull a straw with his teeth and decide it that way.
Margaret found a delightful old dinner set of real willowware at a farm auction, and snapped it up in a frenzy. Not a piece was missing and it had shallow thin cups and deep saucers, and scalloped plates and fat, knobby tureens. She knew Isabel would be crazy over it—Jim had told her Isabel loved pretty dishes. She regarded that set as her greatest treasure, though the old chest of drawers with the white china knobs was a close second. She polished the chest until her elbows ached.
Not all the things that went into the little house were bought. Jim had several bits that had belonged to his mother: an old rosewood piano; two tall, lovely brass candlesticks; lots of round, braided rugs; a grandfather clock; a big, brass coal scuttle; a gilt-framed mirror with fat cupids gambolling in a panel over the glass; a battered little silver teapot of incredible age; and a quaint Japanese rose-bowl.
Margaret made potpourri for the bride in this, from the roses that grew in the garden, and she was quite reckless with her scents and spices. She paid for them herself, not telling Jim, for she wanted to give the house something of her own. Finally she made jam—heaps of it: raspberry and cherry and blueberry and plum (the strawberries were over before she thought of it)—and sealed it up in lovely little blue-and-white jars, dozens of them, which Mrs. Kennedy had stored away in her attic, relics of a departed brother’s drugstore.
They had queer names printed them, over which Margaret and Jim had lots of fun. But Margaret made dainty little labels, carefully written and ornamented with curlicues, and pasted them on. She filled the pantry shelves and the swinging shelf in the cellar with them, and she loved them best of all the things in the house.
They had glorious minutes of fun whenever they stopped to rest. There was a little bluebird’s nest in the rosebush under the living-room window, which they watched and protected from Friend Cat. They made friends with an old rabbit that often came hopping out of the woods into the garden. They had a game as to who could count the most rabbits and squirrels in the daytime and the most bats in the evening.
For they did not always go home as soon as it got too dark to work. Sometimes they sat out on the porch steps and watched the twilight creep up from the valley, and the lights twinkle out on the opposite hill, and the shadows waver and advance under the fir trees, and the white, early stars shine over the big guardian pines. Friend Cat sat and purred beside them, or swooped madly about in pursuit of bats. Jim recited some of his poetry to Margaret in these hours. She thought it wonderful—perhaps she was not very critical. But Jim’s voice and the charm of the half-light would have made a masterpiece of anything.
And then, at last, everything was done. They looked at each other one September evening and realized that Jim’s house was ready for Jim’s bride.
“There’s absolutely nothing more we can do,” said Margaret. “We can’t even pretend there’s anything more.”
“I suppose not,” agreed Jim. His voice sounded a little flat. He looked about the living-room wistful, he looked at Margaret, sitting like a little brown elf on the oak settle in the chimney corner; he looked at the fireplace where kindling and pine wood were laid ready for a fire. His eyes lighted again.
“Yes, there is,” he cried. “How could we have forgotten it? We’ve got to see if the chimney will draw properly. I’m going to light that fire.”
Margaret had laid the fire, meaning that Isabel should light it with her own hand the first evening she came as Jim’s wife to Jim’s house. But she made no effort to dissuade Jim. She only nestled down a little closer in her corner. She had come suddenly to the end of everything. Everything. Life seemed simply cut off. It sickened her to think of the transfer department. She would not think of it. For a little while she would just think of her home—yes, her house—and of Jim. Not even of Isabel.
When the fire blazed up, Jim came over and sat down on the settle beside her. Friend Cat hopped up and sat between them. Up blazed the merry flames; they shimmered over the old piano, they glistened on the brass candlesticks, they danced over the glass doors of the cupboard where the willowware dishes were, they darted through the kitchen door, and the row of brown and blue bowls Margaret had arranged on the dresser winked back at them. The room was full of the scent of the rose-jar on the sideboard—a haunting scent like all the lost perfumes of old, unutterably sweet years.
“This is home,” said Jim softly. “It’s lovelier than I ever dreamed it being. And it’s your creation, Margaret.”
Margaret did not answer. She was looking at Jim, as he gazed into the fire—his black hair, his smiling eyes, his whimsical face. She was recalling all his friendly looks and jests and quips and subtle compliments. It was all she could ever have of him. For just this half hour she would give herself up to enchantment. The future was Isabel’s, but this half hour was hers. She shut her eyes and prayed: “Help me to remember every moment of this—never to forget one single breath of it.”
When she opened her eyes Jim was looking at her.
“We’ve been good friends,” he said.
Margaret nodded.
“We’ll just sit here and think about it all,” he said. “We won’t talk. But we’ll think it all over—everything—until the fire burns out.”
The fire crackled and snapped; the great clock ticked; Friend Cat purred; a little slender young moon shone down through the pine boughs straight on them through the window. It was worthwhile to have lived long dreary years for this and to live them again looking back on it, thought Margaret.
When the fire died down into white ashes, Jim got up.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Little friend and chum and comrade, there’s nothing to do but go.”
Margaret wondered if he guessed—if he was sorry for her. She did not care. She didn’t mind his knowing, somehow. He would never laugh at her. He belonged to Isabel. Isabel would have the little house and the jam-pots, and the rabbits and the blue dishes. But Isabel could never have this perfect, enchanted half hour.
She was in her room at sunset, crumpled up in a chair, listening. Jim had gone to bring Isabel over. Isabel had arrived in Glenby the night before and was with her cousin, Mrs. Alden, up the road. Jim had met her at the station and spent the evening with her. At breakfast that morning he had been even more whimsical than usual and Mrs. Kennedy had thought him in remarkably good spirits. Then he had gone to school—it opened that day—promising to bring Isabel over that night.
And now they were coming. Margaret, peeping from the window, saw them in the distance and shrank back in her chair. A few minutes later a peal of laughter floated up to her from the front porch—a frank, hearty, generous peal of laughter, evidently welling up from a friendly, uncritical heart. Margaret stared straight before her. That could not be Isabel’s laughter! Impossible! Isabel’s laughter was like—what had Jim said it was like? O, yes, the tinkle of a woodland brook. This sounded more like rich cream gurgling out of a big jug. Margaret gave a queer, choked, half-hysterical little giggle.
Mrs. Kennedy called her. She went down slowly, wishing herself anywhere else in the world—even in the transfer department, or in her cheap boarding house with its stale cooking smells. She paused for a moment in the doorway of the sitting room. She saw Jim back in the twilight corner, smiling his twisted, enigmatical smile. Then—
A billowy whirl of white and blue surged across the room to her, a pair of plump white arms were around her, a gay voice was exclaiming: “This is Marg’ret—I know this is Marg’ret!”
And she was heartily kissed—no, smacked!
Margaret was ashamed all the rest of her life of what she did then. She said stiffly,
“My name is Margaret.”
She gasped with repentance the next moment. How insufferably rude and silly she was! But Isabel only threw back her big golden head and laughed again – that great, full, jolly laugh of hers. Then she seized Margaret once more and gave her a hearty hug.
“So it is! Do forgive me,” she said frankly. “I know how horrid it is to have your name mangled. I could murder and devour without sauce any boob who calls me ‘Is’bel.’ I guess it was cheeky of me to call you by your name like that, but I just couldn’t help it. I seem to know you by heart; Jim’s written so much of you and how good you’ve been helping him fix up our house and all. I don’t know how we’re ever going to thank you, you darling thing. But I do know I’m just going to love you forever and ever, amen. I’m like that. I just fancy a person at first sight or I never do. And I—love—you.”
Isabel emphasized each word of her last sentence with a squeeze that nearly expelled every particle of breath from Margaret’s slender body. Then she went back and sat down on the settee by Jim, sending Friend Cat spinning to the floor with a cheerful slap and a “here now, puss, this is my place.” Margaret dropped into a chair and stared like one fascinated at Isabel who began talking gaily to Mrs. Kennedy. Outraged, Friend Cat got up on Jim’s knee and Jim stroked him absently.
And this was Isabel! What had Mrs. Kennedy said of her? “A slight reed of a thing?” Isabel was a big, buxom, deep-bosomed creature, altogether splendid in her way. Naturally, one would expect some difference between a girl of seventeen and a woman of twenty-two. And Mrs. Kennedy had been right—perfectly right—in calling her beautiful. She was so beautiful that her beauty struck you in the face. Margaret had heard of “stunning” girls. Well, Isabel was stunning.
Her head was crowned with masses of wavy golden hair held in place by many jeweled pins. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes big and brilliantly blue; she had a crimson mouth, through which bursts of laughter came at the end of every sentence; and superb white teeth, most of which she showed when she laughed.
She had a marble-white neck, a splendid figure, large, capable, dimpled hands, well-ringed, and a very high instep, silken-sheathed. She radiated health and good humour. Never had Margaret felt so brown and skinny and insignificant. And never—never!—had she been so helplessly furious over anything as over the idea of this magnificent girl queening it in Jim’s little gray house. It was outrageous—her house had been furnished for the Isabel of her dreams. And that Isabel had no existence.
“O, yes, I had a perfectly delightful trip home,” Isabel was telling Mrs. Kennedy. “Everybody was so kind. I made friends all along the way. And when I got to Redway—you know how horrid and confusing it is there with that big station and those new lines built since I went away—I was all muddled up and I met the nicest young fellow. He looked after everything for me—said his name was Ned Rogers and he lived in Glenby.”
“O, he’s our new veterinary surgeon,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “Yes, he is a nice young fellow. Everybody likes him—except Jim here.”
“O, Jim!” Isabel turned and chucked him under the chin. “Now, what fault have you to find with him, Jim?”
“None—none whatever,” said Jim solemnly. “It can’t be his fault exactly that he’s a horse doctor; these things are predestined. He’s good-looking, well-off, a church member, and has—they tell me—a great knack with colic.”
Isabel threw back her head and let out a laugh that flooded the sitting-room, large as it was.
“Isn’t that like him?” she appealed to Margaret. “He’s jealous, that’s it. You needn’t be, honey.” She chucked Jim under the chin again. Margaret quivered. It was sacrilege. Jim should be kissed, should have his cheek patted, and his thick black hair stroked softly. He should never, never be chucked under the chin! Then Margaret wanted to laugh hysterically. She had to clutch hold of her chair.
“I s’pose Jim’s told you of the house he’s got for you? “ Mrs. Kennedy said, smiling.
Isabel laughed as if it were a huge joke.
“Yes, I thought he was hoaxing me at first. Then when I found he wasn’t, I said he must be dippy—didn’t I, honey?”
“I told him you wouldn’t like it,” said Mrs. Kennedy.
“Like it? Me? Buried alive up there in the woods! Not for mine! But we’ll have to put up with it for a while, I guess, till we can find a better place. I wondered why he was so mysterious in his letters about the house—never would tell me where or what it was—just kept saying he had a surprise for me. Well, it was a surprise all right.”
Isabel’s laugh made the pendants on the hanging lamp tingle. Jim did not laugh. He continued to stroke Friend Cat slowly and rhythmically.
“Well, I’ll make the best of it till we can mend it,” said Isabel. “I haven’t been up to see it yet—I want to put off the evil day as long as possible. I know I’ll have a conniption when I do see it. Let’s talk of something cheerful.”
They talked—at least Isabel and Mrs. Kennedy did—of births and deaths and marriages and engagements, and motor cars and movies. And when Isabel went away she put on her big hat and came across to Margaret again.
“You sweet little thing. I want another kiss. I don’t know when I’ve seen anybody I liked so much. And you’re going to love me, too, honey, aren’t you? We’re goin
g to be special friends, aren’t we!”
“I—I hope so,” stammered Margaret. Behind Isabel she saw Jim smiling in a curious way, and Friend Cat winking impudently at her.
“Of course we are,” Isabel kissed her again, waved her hand to Mrs. Kennedy, linked her arm in Jim’s and swept out, goddess-like in her liveliness.
“Isabel hasn’t changed a mite,” said Mrs. Kennedy complacently. “Except to fill out. She’s going to be big like her mother, I guess. Mrs. Bartlett weighed two hundred and fifty. But she’s just the same dear, bright, friendly girl. Isn’t she breezy? And hiding her disappointment over the house so well—that’s Isabel, always making the best of things—never a word of reproach to Jim for doing such a fool thing.”
Margaret fled to her room. “Breezy? Why—why,” gasped Margaret, “she’s a tornado!”
Margaret held onto herself—she would not let herself go—she would relapse into helpless, hysterical laughter if she did.
“I hate her, I hate her,” she gasped. “And I could like her awfully—yes, the creature’s abominably likable—if only she weren’t going to live in my house! That’s desecration. O, what does Jim think of her? I suppose he’s perfectly satisfied—she’s so beautiful—she’s as she always was, Mrs. Kennedy says. It’s just that I’ve been a fool with my imagination of something entirely different. O, to think of her washing my lovely dishes with those horrible fat, pudgy hands of hers.”
Margaret looked at her own thin, brown hands. Was she jealous of Isabel’s smooth, dimpled fingers! No, she was not. She had expected to be jealous of Isabel and she was not—not the tiniest bit. She only hated to think of her in Jim’s house, laughing at it. She could wring Isabel’s satin neck for laughing at it.
After Many Years Page 21
