Cabin Fever

by B. M. Bower

  CHAPTER TWELVE. MARIE TAKES A DESPERATE CHANCE

  Domestic wrecks may be a subject taboo in polite conversation, but JoeDe Barr was not excessively polite, and he had, moreover, a very likelyhope that Marie would yet choose to regard him with more favor than shehad shown in the past. He did not chance to see her at once, but as soonas his work would permit he made it a point to meet her. He went aboutit with beautiful directness. He made bold to call her up on "longdistance" from San Francisco, told her that he would be in San Jose thatnight, and invited her to a show.

  Marie accepted without enthusiasm--and her listlessness was not lostover forty miles of telephone wire. Enough of it seeped to Joe's earsto make him twist his mustache quite furiously when he came out of thetelephone booth. If she was still stuck on that fellow Bud, and couldn'tsee anybody else, it was high time she was told a few things about him.It was queer how a nice girl like Marie would hang on to some cheapguy like Bud Moore. Regular fellows didn't stand any show--unlessthey played what cards happened to fall their way. Joe, warned by herindifference, set himself very seriously to the problem of playing hiscards to the best advantage.

  He went into a flower store--disdaining the banked loveliness upon thecorners--and bought Marie a dozen great, heavy-headed chrysanthemums,whose color he could not name to save his life, so called them pink andlet it go at that. They were not pink, and they were not sweet--Joe heldthe bunch well away from his protesting olfactory nerves which were noteducated to tantalizing odors--but they were more expensive than roses,and he knew that women raved over them. He expected Marie to rave overthem, whether she liked them or not.

  Fortified by these, groomed and perfumed and as prosperous looking as atobacco salesman with a generous expense account may be, he went to SanJose on an early evening train that carried a parlor car in which Joemade himself comfortable. He fooled even the sophisticated porterinto thinking him a millionaire, wherefore he arrived in a glow ofself-esteem, which bred much optimism.

  Marie was impressed--at least with his assurance and the chrysanthemums,over which she was sufficiently enthusiastic to satisfy even Joe. Sincehe had driven to the house in a hired automobile, he presently had theadded satisfaction of handing Marie into the tonneau as though she werea queen entering the royal chariot, and of ordering the driver to takethem out around the golf links, since it was still very early. Then,settling back with what purported to be a sigh of bliss, he regardedMarie sitting small and still and listless beside him. The glow of thechrysanthemums had already faded. Marie, with all the girlish prettinessshe had ever possessed, and with an added charm that was very elusiveand hard to analyze, seemed to have lost all of her old animation.

  Joe tried the weather, and the small gossip of the film world, and ajudiciously expurgated sketch of his life since he had last seen her.Marie answered him whenever his monologue required answer, but she wasunresponsive, uninterested--bored. Joe twisted his mustache, eyed heraslant and took the plunge.

  "I guess joy-ridin' kinda calls up old times, ay?" he began insidiously."Maybe I shouldn't have brought you out for a ride; maybe it brings backpainful memories, as the song goes."

  "Oh, no," said Marie spiritlessly. "I don't see why it should."

  "No? Well, that's good to hear you say so, girlie. I was kinda afraidmaybe trouble had hit you hard. A sensitive, big-hearted little personlike you. But if you've put it all outa your mind, why, that's whereyou're dead right. Personally, I was glad to see you saw where you'dmade a mistake, and backed up. That takes grit and brains. Of course, weall make mistakes--you wasn't to blame--innocent little kid like you--"

  "Yes," said Marie, "I guess I made a mistake, all right."

  "Sure! But you seen it and backed up. And a good thing you did. Lookwhat he'd of brought you to by now, if you'd stuck!"

  Marie tilted back her head and looked up at the tall row of eucalyptustrees feathered against the stars. "What?" she asked uninterestedly.

  "Well--I don't want to knock, especially a fellow that's on the tobogganalready. But I know a little girl that's aw-fully lucky, and I'm honestenough to say so."

  "Why?" asked Marie obligingly. "Why--in particular?"

  "Why in particular?" Joe leaned toward her. "Say, you must of heard howBud's going to the dogs. If you haven't, I don't want--"

  "No, I hadn't heard," said Marie, looking up at the Big Dipper so thather profile, dainty and girlish still, was revealed like a cameo to Joe."Is he? I love to watch the stars, don't you?"

  "I love to watch a star," Joe breathed softly. "So you hadn't heard howBud's turned out to be a regular souse? Honest, didn't you know it?"

  "No, I didn't know it," said Marie boredly. "Has he?"

  "Well, say! You couldn't tell it from the real thing! Believe me, Bud'ssome pickled bum, these days. I run across him up in the mountains, amonth or so ago. Honest, I was knocked plumb silly--much as I knew aboutBud that you never knew, I never thought he'd turn out quite so--" Joepaused, with a perfect imitation of distaste for his subject. "Say, thisis great, out here," he murmured, tucking the robe around her withthat tender protectiveness which stops just short of being proprietary."Honest, Marie, do you like it?"

  "Why, sure, I like it, Joe." Marie smiled at him in the star-light."It's great, don't you think? I don't get out very often, any more. I'mworking, you know--and evenings and Sundays baby takes up all my time."

  "You working? Say, that's a darned shame! Don't Bud send you any money?"

  "He left some," said Marie frankly. "But I'm keeping that for baby, whenhe grows up and needs it. He don't send any."

  "Well, say! As long as he's in the State, you can make him dig up. Forthe kid's support, anyway. Why don't you get after him?"

  Marie looked down over the golf links, as the car swung around the longcurve at the head of the slope. "I don't know where he is," she saidtonelessly. "Where did you see him, Joe?"

  Joe's hesitation lasted but long enough for him to give his mustache enda twist. Marie certainly seemed to be well "over it." There could be noharm in telling.

  "Well, when I saw him he was at Alpine; that's a little burg up in theedge of the mountains, on the W. P. He didn't look none too prosperous,at that. But he had money--he was playing poker and that kind of thing.And he was drunk as a boiled owl, and getting drunker just as fast ashe knew how. Seemed to be kind of a stranger there; at least he didn'tthrow in with the bunch like a native would. But that was more than amonth ago, Marie. He might not be there now. I could write up and findout for you."

  Marie settled back against the cushions as though she had alreadydismissed the subject from her mind.

  "Oh, don't bother about it, Joe. I don't suppose he's got any money,anyway. Let's forget him."

  "You said it, Marie. Stacked up to me like a guy that's got just enoughdough for a good big souse. He ain't hard to forget--is he, girlie?"

  Marie laughed assentingly. And if she did not quite attain her oldbubbling spirits during the evening, at least she sent Joe back to SanFrancisco feeling very well satisfied with himself. He must have beensatisfied with himself. He must have been satisfied with his wooingalso, because he strolled into a jewelry store the next morning andpriced several rings which he judged would be perfectly suitable forengagement rings. He might have gone so far as to buy one, if he hadbeen sure of the size and of Marie's preference in stones. Since helacked detailed information, he decided to wait, but he intimatedplainly to the clerk that he would return in a few days.

  It was just as well that he did decide to wait, for when he tried againto see Marie he failed altogether. Marie had left town. Her mother, withan acrid tone of resentment, declared that she did not know anymore than the man in the moon where Marie had gone, but that she"suspicioned" that some fool had told Marie where Bud was, and thatMarie had gone traipsing after him. She had taken the baby along, whichwas another piece of foolishness which her mother would never havepermitted had she been at home when Marie left.

  Joe did not take the matter seriously
, though he was disappointed athaving made a fruitless trip to San Jose. He did not believe thatMarie had done anything more than take a vacation from her mother'ssharp-tongued rule, and for that he could not blame her, after havinglistened for fifteen minutes to the lady's monologue upon the subjectof selfish, inconsiderate, ungrateful daughters. Remembering Marie'sattitude toward Bud, he did not believe that she had gone hunting him.

  Yet Marie had done that very thing. True, she had spent a sleeplessnight fighting the impulse, and a harassed day trying to make up hermind whether to write first, or whether to go and trust to the elementof surprise to help plead her cause with Bud; whether to take LovinChild with her, or leave him with her mother.

  She definitely decided to write Bud a short note and ask him if heremembered having had a wife and baby, once upon a time, and if he neverwished that he had them still. She wrote the letter, crying alittle over it along toward the last, as women will. But it soundedcold-blooded and condemnatory. She wrote another, letting a littleof her real self into the lines. But that sounded sentimental andmoving-pictury, and she knew how Bud hated cheap sentimentalism.

  So she tore them both up and put them in the little heating stove,and lighted a match and set them burning, and watched them until theywithered down to gray ash, and then broke up the ashes and scatteredthem amongst the cinders. Marie, you must know, had learned a good manythings, one of which was the unwisdom of whetting the curiosity of acurious woman.

  After that she proceeded to pack a suit case for herself and LovinChild, seizing the opportunity while her mother was visiting a friendin Santa Clara. Once the packing was began, Marie worked with a feverishintensity of purpose and an eagerness that was amazing, considering herusual apathy toward everything in her life as she was living it.

  Everything but Lovin Child. Him she loved and gloried in. He was likeBud--so much like him that Marie could not have loved him so much if shehad managed to hate Bud as she tried sometimes to hate him. Lovin Childwas a husky youngster, and he already had the promise of being as talland straight-limbed and square-shouldered as his father. Deep in hiseyes there lurked always a twinkle, as though he knew a joke that wouldmake you laugh--if only he dared tell it; a quizzical, secretlyamused little twinkle, as exactly like Bud's as it was possible fora two-year-old twinkle to be. To go with the twinkle, he had a quirkylittle smile. And to better the smile, he had the jolliest littlechuckle that ever came through a pair of baby lips.

  He came trotting up to the suit case which Marie had spread wide open onthe bed, stood up on his tippy toes, and peered in. The quirky smile wastwitching his lips, and the look he turned toward Marie's back was fullof twinkle. He reached into the suit case, clutched a clean handkerchiefand blew his nose with solemn precision; put the handkerchief back allcrumpled, grabbed a silk stocking and drew it around his neck, and wasstraining to reach his little red Brownie cap when Marie turned andcaught him up in her arms.

  "No, no, Lovin Child! Baby mustn't. Marie is going to take her lovin'baby boy to find--" She glanced hastily over her shoulder to make surethere was no one to hear, buried her face in the baby's fat neck andwhispered the wonder, "--to find hims daddy Bud! Does Lovin Man wantto see hims daddy Bud? I bet he does want! I bet hims daddy Bud willbe glad--Now you sit right still, and Marie will get him a cracker, an'then he can watch Marie pack him little shirt, and hims little bunnysuit, and hims wooh-wooh, and hims 'tockins--"

  It is a pity that Bud could not have seen the two of them in the nexthour, wherein Marie flew to her hopeful task of packing her suit case,and Lovin Child was quite as busy pulling things out of it, and gettingstepped on, and having to be comforted, and insisting upon having onhis bunny suit, and then howling to go before Marie was ready. Bud wouldhave learned enough to ease the ache in his heart--enough to humble himand fill him with an abiding reverence for a love that will live, asMarie's had lived, on bitterness and regret.

  Nearly distracted under the lash of her own eagerness and the fear thather mother would return too soon and bully her into giving up her wildplan, Marie, carrying Lovin Child on one arm and lugging the suit casein the other hand, and half running, managed to catch a street car andclimb aboard all out of breath and with her hat tilted over one ear.She deposited the baby on the seat beside her, fumbled for a nickel,and asked the conductor pantingly if she would be in time to catch thefour-five to the city. It maddened her to watch the bored deliberationof the man as he pulled out his watch and regarded it meditatively.

  "You'll catch it--if you're lucky about your transfer," he said, andrang up her fare and went off to the rear platform, just as if it werenot a matter of life and death at all. Marie could have shaken him forhis indifference; and as for the motorman, she was convinced that he ranas slow as he dared, just to drive her crazy. But even with these twoinhuman monsters doing their best to make her miss the train, and withthe street car she wanted to transfer to running off and leaving her atthe very last minute, and with Lovin Child suddenly discovering that hewanted to be carried, and that he emphatically did not want her to carrythe suit case at all, Marie actually reached the depot ahead of thefour-five train. Much disheveled and flushed with nervousness and herexertions, she dragged Lovin Child up the steps by one arm, found a seatin the chair car and, a few minutes later, suddenly realized that shewas really on her way to an unknown little town in an unknown part ofthe country, in quest of a man who very likely did not want to be foundby her.

  Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and were traced to the corners of hermouth by the fat, investigative finger of Lovin Child before Marie couldfind her handkerchief and wipe them away. Was any one in this worldever so utterly, absolutely miserable? She doubted it. What if she foundBud--drunk, as Joe had described him? Or, worse than that, what if shedid not find him at all? She tried not to cry, but it seemed as thoughshe must cry or scream. Fast as she wiped them away, other tears droppedover her eyelids upon her cheeks, and were given the absorbed attentionof Lovin Child, who tried to catch each one with his finger. To distracthim, she turned him around face to the window.

  "See all the--pitty cows," she urged, her lips trembling so much thatthey would scarcely form the words. And when Lovin Child flattened afinger tip against the window and chuckled, and said "Ee? Ee?"--whichwas his way of saying see--Marie dropped her face down upon his fuzzyred "bunny" cap, hugged him close to her, and cried, from sheer, nervousreaction.