William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
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chicken, and she's put a little of that on. Sha'n't cost ye any more," he hastened to assure them. "Now this is your room till the train comes, and there aint agoin' to anybody come in here. So you can make yourselves at home. And I hope you'll enjoy your supper as much as we did ourn the night we was married. There! I guess I'll let the lady fix the table; she looks as if she knowed how."
He got himself out of the room again, and then Marcia, who had made him some embarrassed thanks, burst out in praise of his pleasantness.
"Well, he ought to be pleasant," said Bartley, "he's just beaten me on a horse-trade. I've sold him the colt."
"Sold him the colt!" cried Marcia, tragically dropping the napkin she had lifted from the plate of cold chicken.
"Well, we couldn't very well have taken him to Boston with us. And we couldn't have got there without selling him. You know you haven't married a millionnaire, Marcia."
"How much did you get for the colt?"
"Oh, I didn't do so badly. I got a hundred and fifty for him."
"And you had fifteen besides."
"That was before we were married. I gave the minister five for you,—I think you are worth it, I wanted to give fifteen."
"Well, then, you have a hundred and sixty now. Isn't that a great deal?"
"An everlasting lot," said Bartley, with an impatient laugh. "Don't let the supper cool, Marcia!"
She silently set out the feast, but regarded it ruefully. "You oughtn't to have ordered so much, Bartley," she said. "You couldn't afford it."
"I can afford anything when I'm hungry. Besides. I only ordered the oysters and coffee; all the rest is conscience money—or sentiment—from the landlord. Come, come! cheer up, now! We sha'n't starve to-night, anyhow."
"Well, I know father will help us."
"We sha'n't count on him," said Bartley. "Now drop it!" He put his arm round her shoulders and pressed her against him, till she raised her face for his kiss.
"Well, I will!" she said, and the shadow lifted itself from their wedding feast, and they sat down and made merry as if they had all the money in the world to spend. They laughed and joked; they praised the things they liked, and made fun of the others.
"How strange! How perfectly impossible it all seems! Why, last night I was taking supper at Kinney's logging-camp, and hating you at every mouthful with all my might. Everything seemed against me, and I was feeling ugly, and flirting like mad with a fool from Montreal: she had come out there from Portland for a frolic with the owners' party. You made me do it, Marcia!" he cried jestingly. "And remember that, if you want me to be good, you must be kind. The other thing seems to make me worse and worse."
"I will,—I will, Bartley." she said humbly. "I will try to be kind and patient with you. I will indeed."
He threw back his head, and laughed and laughed. "Poor—poor old Kinney! He's the cook, you know, and he thought I'd been making fun of him to that woman, and he behaved so, after they were gone, that I started home in a rage; and he followed me out with his hands all covered with dough, and wanted to stop me, but he couldn't for fear of spoiling my clothes—" He lost himself in another paroxysm.
Marcia smiled a little. Then, "What sort of a looking person was she?" she tremulously asked.
Bartley stopped abruptly. "Not one ten-thousandth part as good-looking, nor one millionth part as bright, as Marcia Hubbard!" He caught her and smothered her against his breast.
"I don't care! I don't care!" she cried. "I was to blame more than you, if you flirted with her, and it serves me right. Yes, I will never say anything to you for anything that happened after I behaved so to you."
"There wasn't anything else happened," cried Bartley. "And the Montreal woman snubbed me soundly before she was done with me."
"Snubbed you!" exclaimed Marcia, with illogical indignation. This delighted Bartley so much that it was long before he left off laughing over her.
Then they sat down, and were silent till she said, "And did you leave him in a temper?"
"Who? Kinney? In a perfect devil of a temper. I wouldn't even borrow some money he wanted to lend me."
"Write to him, Bartley," said his wife, seriously. "I love you so I can't bear to have anybody bad friends with you."
XIII
The whole thing was so crazy, as Bartley said, that it made no difference if they kept up the expense a few days longer. He took a hack from the depot when they arrived in Boston, and drove to the Revere House, instead of going up in the horse-car. He entered his name on the register with a flourish, "Bartley J. Hubbard and Wife, Boston," and asked for a room and fire, with laconic gruffness; but the clerk knew him at once for a country person, and when the call-boy followed him into the parlor where Marcia sat, in the tremor into which she fell whenever Bartley was out of her sight, the call-boy discerned her provinciality at a glance, and made free to say that he guessed they had better let him take their things up to their room, and come up themselves after the porter had got their fire going.
"All right," said Bartley, with hauteur; and he added, for no reason, "Be quick about it."
"Yes, sir," said the boy.
"What time is supper—dinner, I mean?"
"It's ready now, sir."
"Good. Take up the things. Come just as you are, Marcia. Let him take your cap,—no, keep it on; a good many of them come down in their bonnets."
Marcia put off her sack and gloves, and hastily repaired the ravages of travel as best she could. She would have liked to go to her room just long enough to brush her hair a little, and the fur cap made her head hot; but she was suddenly afraid of doing something that would seem countrified in Bartley's eyes, and she promptly obeyed: they had come from Portland in a parlor car, and she had been able to make a traveller's toilet before they reached Boston.
She had been at Portland several times with her father; but he stopped at a second-class hotel where he had always "put up" when alone, and she was new to the vastness of hotel mirrors and chandeliers, the glossy paint, the frescoing, the fluted pillars, the tessellated marble pavements upon which she stepped when she left the Brussels carpeting of the parlors. She clung to Bartley's arm, silently praying that she might not do anything to mortify him, and admiring everything he did with all her soul. He made a halt as they entered the glittering dining-room, and stood frowning till the head-waiter ran respectfully up to them, and ushered them with sweeping bows to a table, which they had to themselves. Bartley ordered their dinner with nonchalant ease, beginning with soup and going to black coffee with dazzling intelligence. While their waiter was gone with their order, he beckoned with one finger to another, and sent him out for a paper, which he unfolded and spread on the table, taking a toothpick into his mouth, and running the sheet over with his eyes. "I just want to see what's going on to-night," he said, without looking at Marcia.
She made a little murmur of acquiescence in her throat, but she could not speak for strangeness. She began to steal little timid glances about, and to notice the people at the other tables. In her heart she did not find the ladies so very well dressed as she had expected the Boston ladies to be; and there was no gentleman there to compare with Bartley, either in style or looks. She let her eyes finally dwell on him, wishing that he would put his paper away and say something, but afraid to ask, lest it should not be quite right: all the other gentlemen were reading papers. She was feeling lonesome and homesick, when he suddenly glanced at her and said, "How pretty you look, Marsh!"
"Do I?" she asked, with a little grateful throb, while her eyes joyfully suffused themselves.
"Pretty as a pink," he returned.