CHAPTER III
Hugh Benton reached out and took a large piece of the chocolate cake which his wife held toward him. He bit into it hugely with satisfaction.
“Well, little one,” he said, his mouth full of the toothsome morsel, “let’s hear what’s on your mind. Shoot!”
“Hugh, dear!” Marjorie shook a remonstrative finger at him. “You know how I dislike slang! And what if the babies should see you with your mouth crammed like that!”
Her husband grinned boyishly.
“Pardon me,” he said, with exaggerated dignity. “What I meant to say, Mrs. Benton, was, what have you been planning to do when your husband is no longer a wage slave, a poor minion whose chief duty is to watch other people’s money, and shall himself become a personage of wealth and position?”
Marjorie’s eyes sparkled and her cheeks glowed rosy with excitement as she answered enthusiastically. “Oh, such heaps and heaps of wonderful plans, dear. I scarcely know how to begin to tell them all. First of all, of course, we’ll leave here and go to New York. We will purchase a lovely home—somewhere on the Drive, I think. Then we will spend days and days going about in all sorts of quaint little shops searching for rare antiques and selecting beautiful furniture and draperies. When our home is ready, we will have a nurse for the kiddies, and after a couple of years, a governess, and when they grow up, Elinor can go to a select finishing school for young ladies, and Howard can attend college and—oh, I could go on forever and ever planning, but it seems absurd, so many years ahead, and—” She stopped suddenly. “Why dear, you’re not enthusing at all, and you don’t seem to be interested in anything I am saying. Don’t my castles in the air meet with your approval?”
Hugh shook his head sadly. “Well not exactly, dear—the first time since we’ve been married, too, but our ideas are mighty far apart.”
“Well then, what do your ideas happen to be?” Marjorie was a little hurt.
Hugh contemplated his wife for a moment, as though loath to say anything that might dim the enthusiasm that glowed in her blue eyes.
“My thoughts are a long way from New York,” he began, “probably you wouldn’t be interested at all. But all my life I’ve had just one dream.”
“Of course, I’m interested in what you want, Hugh dear,” quietly answered Marjorie, but something in her tone belied the ardor of the words. “Tell me.”
“It’s just this.” For a moment Hugh stopped, and the vision he conjured brought an eagerness to his words when he spoke.
“I want to be a farmer—a gentleman farmer. I want to buy an estate or small farm not far from New York but near this place where we have always been so happy. I’ll hire men to do the rough part of the work, but I want to keep myself busy and occupied overseeing things. I never did like to be idle. You know that. Then we can have that nurse for the children so that we can run up to New York occasionally for a few days and have all the theaters and opera we want. Then when the youngsters are old enough to attend school, I should like to send them to a public school. Some of our greatest men and women have been educated in them, you must recall. I don’t believe in finishing schools—never did—they’d make Elinor a snob. As for colleges, unless a boy is absolutely sincere in wanting to be a professional man, what good would they do him? Howard would just get in with the idle rich, which in the end would surely spell disaster for him morally and financially. You see, my dear, I want my daughter to be a real woman like her mother; and my son, all I ask is that he be a man!” He stopped, musing.
Had Hugh Benton not been so interested in his own dream, he would have seen on the face of his wife more varying emotions than he had ever seen since he had known her. They would have been new to him. Disappointment she showed, disapproval, injury, then, swiftly following, a real indignation in the narrowing to pin points of the pupils of her wide eyes. But when she spoke, it was in a meek, cool voice.
“And what about your wife?”
Hugh laughed. “Why, everything for my wife,” he said. “You’ll be chatelaine of it all.” He glanced up at her and stopped, fork suspended in midair at the strange expression he saw. “Why, Marjorie, little girl,” he queried, earnestly, “what’s wrong? What is it, dear?”
Marjorie’s foot tapped impatiently on the bare floor of the kitchen-dining room. She gave an almost imperceptible shrug.
“Nothing,” she declared, without apparent interest. “Nothing at all—except that after all these five years of privation and hard work, now when you have prospects of actually becoming wealthy, you sit there and calmly propose to bury me on a farm!” The scorn in the utterance of the last words brought a look of surprise, quickly followed by pain to the eyes of Hugh Benton. He spoke, slowly, contritely.
“I suppose I’m selfish, like all men,” he said sadly, “but, someway, because I’ve been so happy myself, I’ve never known before that the years we’ve been married had been a burden to you.”
Then the real Marjorie Benton came to the surface. She reached over to grab his hand convulsively.
“I’m the one to be forgiven, dear,” she begged contritely. “Oh, I never meant that—indeed I didn’t—you know I’ve been happy. Oh, I didn’t realize what I was saying!” She forced back the tears.
“Of course, it hasn’t been hard—I’ve had you, haven’t I, and my babies, but somehow, I can’t make you understand how I feel—I’m all unstrung. I do want to try life in a different sphere among an entirely different class of people. I can’t help having aspirations for my children, can I, and I can’t see anything ahead of them if they are narrowed down to a life like ours has been. And what could I do if we go to live on a farm? Just routine—monotony—forever!”
“You could do a great deal of good, dear,” Hugh answered gently. “Think of all the poor and needy that you could aid. You could be a ministering angel right here in our own little town, for you know as well as I do how many there are who would be grateful to have a helping hand.”
“So you think being a ‘ministering angel’ could fill my life?”
“Combined with the love of your husband and children, it most assuredly should. Why, dear, there isn’t anything in the world that can bring you such happiness as helping someone in distress.”
“Well, couldn’t I do that in New York?” Marjorie brightened a little. “There’s lots of room for charity there—I could go in for settlement work or something. Think how much larger a field I would have to ‘minister’ in!”
So earnest was his gravity, that he passed his wife’s bit of levity unheeded.
“There you are!” he exclaimed. “The field’s too large—and there are already too many in it—workers of all kinds,—sincere and insincere. I guess you could find enough to do, if you want to, a lot nearer home.”
With his usual manner of having settled a matter, Hugh Benton rose from the little table and yawned broadly. He never even thought as he saw his wife fingering a doily, nervously folding and unfolding it in creased patterns, that this was a symptom of nervous tumult.
“Oh, well, I guess we’re a couple of kids,” he told her with a laugh. “Day dreaming,—fussing over make believes. We haven’t any money—yet—Time enough to argue when the papers are signed. And if I don’t get to bed pretty quick I won’t be in much shape to talk to those people, either. Coming along?”
Marjorie shook her head.
“Not for a few minutes. I must put the cake away. Butter and eggs still mean something, as you’ve reminded me. So run along.”
Deeply in love with his wife as he was, Hugh Benton would not have dropped off to sleep so quickly had he known how long his wife was to sit where he had left her, brooding over their talk, telling herself of his unfairness, wearing herself into a mood so entirely unlike herself. There was indeed, something radically wrong with Marjorie Benton,—and money was at the bottom of it. Already it had made her almost quarrel with her husband. Now the prospect of it had roused in her a bitterness and resentment of which she would not have believed herself capable a few short weeks before.
When at last she crept softly in beside her sleeping husband, it was with the determination that she would not be put aside in the way Hugh had put her—that she was going to have one great big say as to how that not-yet-earned money was going to be spent. And none of her plans included any farms or ministering angels. Restlessly she turned from side to side, unable to sleep. She was filled with smoldering indignation. Surely she was right about Hugh treating her unfairly. Wasn’t it his duty to live where she would be happiest, if he could afford it? Was it right for him to want to please himself only? And besides—all that talk about the children. Surely she, their mother, should know what was best for them. With her last troubled waking thought a determination to let Hugh understand exactly how she stood in the matter before he left for New York, she dropped into an uneasy slumber.
A dream came. She was walking through a narrow path in a beautiful garden. On each side of her were rows of magnificent roses. She gathered them as she walked along. Repeatedly a voice whispered to her to turn back, but she ignored the warning, and went on her way blithely. As she reached a bend in the path and was about to turn into it Hugh suddenly appeared before her. He, too, implored her to relinquish her roses and return from whence she came. She eyed him haughtily from head to foot, and disdainfully brushing aside his detaining hand, went forward. Then it was that the ground gave way under her, and she found herself slipping downward—downward, with startling rapidity. The weight of the roses in her arms became unbearable. It was impossible to free herself from their overwhelming odor of sickening sweetness; she was submerged beneath them. In desperation she commanded her last ounce of strength and screamed aloud for Hugh to save her.
She awoke to find him bending solicitously over her.
“What is it, honey?” he asked gently. “That nightmare must have been dreadful—you screamed so you awakened us all.” Marjorie sat up in bed dazedly, rubbing her eyes. Through the open door she saw Elinor and Howard peeking at her through the bars of their cribs. “Did I scream?” she asked wonderingly. “How silly—I did have a dreadful dream, but,” she sat up wide awake, “what time is it?”
“Half past six.”
“Already?” She yawned a bit, but strangely was not sleepy. Sudden memory of her determination came to her. “Well, then, I’m going to get up and dress the babies as long as I scared them out of their sleep. I’ll start them with their breakfast, then I want to have a talk with you, Hugh.”
Hugh groaned with mock seriousness.
“Can’t a fellow even go to the big town to make a million dollars without having to carry a lot of samples to match or have to bring home an aluminum pan or something?”
But there was no answering light of humor from his wife. How little Hugh knew how serious had been their talk of the night before, she thought as she deftly swung little Elinor around to fasten her tiny rompers. Well, he would know before he left that she was not going to let him have his own way without a word from her.
As a usual thing Hugh’s not over-melodious whistling as he shaved and dressed was a pleasure to her. She thought of him as a big boy, a grown-up edition of her own small Howard, and it was with an indulgent smile that she would listen to him as she hurried the children with their breakfasts while his coffee was being prepared and the little table set for their own breakfast. This morning, however, it had a strangely disturbing effect. Somehow she wished he wouldn’t do it. He sounded so—well, so overconfident. Of course, she was glad if he felt confident of the success of his mission in New York, but he shouldn’t be planning, as she knew he was, to spend their money as he had proposed the night before.
But Hugh was so full of his plans for selling his invention, so eager in his hurried talk, that he never noticed her attitude, her unusual silence as she opened his eggs, spilling them a little as her hand trembled with the indignation that she had nursed through the night. He hurried through the last mouthful, rose and started to put on his overcoat.
“Got to hurry a little in spite of our early start, honey,” he observed, glancing at his watch. “Hurry up with your orders for the head of the house.”
Still Marjorie Benton was silent until she had followed her husband from the kitchen out onto the little porch and closed the door behind her.
“Hugh,” she began, and there was firmness and determination in her tone and in the set of her daintily-molded young chin. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but I can’t let you go off to New York until we come to a decision about the matter of which we spoke last night.”
“What matter?” For the minute, his mind far away on what he intended to do, the master of the house of Benton had forgotten the talk which had come to mean so much to his wife. Then a light dawned on him, and he grinned. “Oh, yes, I remember,” and his light laugh only further annoyed Marjorie, “we spent several million dollars in several different ways, didn’t we?”
“It’s no laughing matter, Hugh.” At last Hugh turned his wondering gaze on his wife’s set face to see that she was really in earnest. “Why, honey——”
“Oh, it’s all right to put me off with sweet words,” Marjorie burst out with a sudden impatience, “but we must have an understanding before you go. It’s just as well for you to know I won’t be shut up in anybody’s farm house.”
The man glanced again at his watch, and all the smile had died from his eyes as he spoke quietly.
“Don’t you think it just a little unfair to bring up unpleasant things to-day, of all days—when I ought not to think of anything but business. Trivial annoyances of this kind are anything but pleasant at any time, but——”
“Trivial possibly to you,” Marjorie retorted, and her face flushed darkly as she bit her lips to keep back the tears that were imminent, “but it’s a serious matter to me, and I want you to know exactly how I feel. I think it is but right that you should, before even another step is taken. It is just this. Not only do I positively refuse to live on a farm, but I will not have my children given a public-school education if I can afford to give them any other!”
“Said it all?” Hugh bit off his words, and there was a graveness and injury in his manner that was new to Marjorie, and which she did not fail to catch. “If you have, I think I’d better be getting along, or we may not have any money to quarrel over!”
Chameleon that she was, Marjorie Benton was changed in a minute. One soft arm reached up to cling around her husband’s neck, while she pulled him toward her by one overcoat lapel.
“Oh, Hugh dear, we weren’t quarreling, were we? Please say we weren’t! Why, we’ve never had a quarrel in our lives, and—oh, I just wanted you to know how I feel, and try to think as I do. You will, won’t you?”
Hugh Benton bent and kissed both eyes that looked at him so beseechingly.
“I’ll try, dear,” was his grave promise. “You know that your happiness is all that concerns me, just as you know it is for you that I want to put this thing across at all.”
Marjorie Benton sighed with happiness as she bade her husband good-by. What a good place the world was after all!
Busy as she was through the day, Mrs. Hugh Benton often thought afterward that it was the longest day of her life. It seemed that night and the train that would bring Hugh back—back to her with the good news that she was sure he would bring—would never come.
In the afternoon there was one slight diversion. Mrs. Birmingham’s big car stopped outside her gate, and the great lady herself came into Marjorie’s humble little home bearing the books she had promised the day before. But for once in her life, Marjorie was not in the least interested in the chatter of the banker’s wife. She did not even take the trouble to offer any prideful reason for Hugh’s absence in New York. She only wanted to be alone to think what he was doing, and to plan what they would all do with the wealth he would lavish on them.
Four o’clock, five—six at last. Time for Howard’s and Elinor’s supper. At last they were in bed. The last question was answered, little Elinor’s eyes shutting tightly in spite of herself as she crooned the last lines of her “Wock-a baby” she had had in mother’s lap.
Alone, Marjorie was distinctly restless. She even began to be sorry she had not sent for Mrs. Clancy, and once even started for the telephone to send for the garrulous old lady. It was such a long time between six-thirty and mid-night. But no, she would find something to do. It was not with a great deal of success that she tried to busy herself, however. She straightened out the sideboard drawers. Another half hour gone. There was a lot of mending piled in her sewing basket, but somehow she did not feel like that now. She contented herself with rearranging its contents. Scattered about were a lot of magazines she and Hugh had finished reading. Now was a good time to tie them up to be sent to the infirmary. She straightened up from this task to glance at the clock which had never ticked so slowly before. Why, it was only a little after seven now! Her eyes wandered to the table where she had placed the gayly bound books Mrs. Birmingham had brought. She idly turned the pages of one. It did not look uninteresting. Once more her hand reached out for a moment through habit for the mending basket. Then she laughed as she withdrew it. What was the use? They wouldn’t have to be wearing mended things much longer, any of them. She might as well read until Hugh’s train reached Atwood.
“I’ll find out just how Mrs. Birmingham’s sister’s taste in literature runs,” she mused, “though I doubt if Mrs. B. will ever profit very much this time by having her books read for her.”
Another shovelful of coal for the fire, and with the big wicker chair drawn up in front of it, Marjorie Benton gave herself a little shake to settle down comfortably as she opened her book and slipped her fingers between its pages to find if there were any uncut leaves. For the first time that day, she forgot the passage of time. Page after page she turned as the clock ticked on, striking its hours and half hours unheeded. It was a fascinating story, at that.
The soft closing of the kitchen door caused her to look up with a start. She jumped to her feet as though she could not believe her eyes. There was Hugh standing before her, a wide bland smile on his handsome face as he drew off a brand new glove.
“Hugh, dear!” she exclaimed, “how you startled me! I didn’t hear you come up the walk—why, I didn’t even hear the train! Did you get an earlier one? What time is it?”
“Ten after twelve, honey,” he answered. “You must have been reading something mighty good, and here I came in so quietly. Thought you’d be asleep!”
“Asleep! Oh, how could you! Don’t you know I’m just perishing to know what happened! Tell me—quick, quick!”
Hugh Benton’s ready grin broadened. He was teasingly slow in answering as his hand went into his pocket and he drew out a wallet, and with maddening slowness drew from it a certified check.
“Just a scrap of paper,” he commented off-handedly, “but this will tell you what you want to know, and then I’ll tell you the rest.”
Marjorie’s eyes widened with amazement at the startling figures on the face of the small piece of paper he dangled before her. She was too choked with emotion for a moment to speak. Her husband’s arms closed gently around her and he drew her to him.
“We did it, dear—you and I,” he whispered. “And it’s all for you. This is only a starter, too, for if you think this is big, you ought to see the contracts I’ve made for royalties.”
“Hugh! Hugh!” Marjorie’s voice was a sob as she kissed him again and again. “Oh, I’m too happy to tell you! Oh, please don’t wake me out of this wonderful dream!”
“Well, I, for one,” Hugh laughed as he slipped the check between his fingers, “am too used to handling these things belonging to other people to think this is a dream. There is only one thing I’m thinking of, and that is your happiness.” Marjorie drew back from him a step and looked levelly into his eyes.
“Are you quite, quite sure, Hugh dear?” she begged earnestly.
“Quite.” In that one word Hugh Benton put a world of meaning. “I’ve had plenty of time to think, too—and I’ve decided. You shall do with this money just exactly as you please. Whatever your plans are, they must be for the best, so I have given up all thoughts of the farm. And now that’s settled,” he said, in the old way, giving himself a little shake of renunciation.
“Oh, Hugh, you are a darling! And you’ll never regret it—never regret letting me have my way in this one big thing. I promise you!”
For a moment the big man’s eyes were solemn. Into them came just a hint of that far-away look of wonder. But his voice was tender, if a bit grave as he spoke:
“Let’s hope not, sweetheart—let’s hope not!”