William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells
Читать онлайн книгу.
rooms were for gentlemen only."
"I guess I'd better," said Marcia.
"All right; then I'll take a back seat from this out."
"Oh, I do hope it won't be too much!" sighed the young wife. "I'm so tired, looking."
"You can come right along up," the landlady called down through the oval spire formed by the ascending hand-rail of the stairs.
They found her in a broad, low room, whose ceiling sloped with the roof, and had the pleasant irregularity of the angles and recessions of two dormer windows. The room was clean and cosey; there was a table, and a stove that could be used open or shut; Marcia squeezed Bartley's arm to signify that it would do perfectly—if only the price would suit.
The landlady stood in the middle of the floor and lectured: "Now, there! I get five dollars a week for this room; and I gen'ly let it to two gentlemen. It's just been vacated by two gentlemen unexpectedly; and it's hard to get gentlemen at this time the year; and that's the reason I thought of takin' you. As I say, I don't much like ladies for inmates, and so I put in the window 'for gentlemen only.' But it's no use bein' too particular; I can't have the room layin' empty on my hands. If it suits you, you can have it for four dollars. It's high up, and there's no use tryin' to deny it. But there aint such another view as them winders commands anywheres. You can see the harbor, and pretty much the whole coast."
"Anything extra for the view?" said Bartley, glancing out.
"No, I throw that in."
"Does the price include gas and fire?" asked Marcia, sharpened as to all details by previous interviews.
"It includes the gas, but it don't include the fire," said the landlady, firmly. "And it's pretty low at that, as you've found out, I guess."
"Yes, it is low," said Marcia. "Bartley, I think we'd better take it."
She looked at him timidly, as if she were afraid he might not think it good enough; she did not think it good enough for him, but she felt that they must make their money go as far as possible.
"All right!" he said. "Then it's a bargain."
"And how much more will the board be?"
"Well, there," the landlady said, with candor, "I don't know as I can meet your views. I don't ever give board. But there's plenty of houses right on the street here where you can get day-board from four dollars a week up."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Marcia; "and that would make it twelve dollars!"
"Why, the dear suz, child!" exclaimed the landlady, "you didn't expect to get it for less?"
"We must," said Marcia.
"Then you'll have to go to a mechanics' boardin'-house."
"I suppose we shall," she returned, dejectedly. Bartley whistled.
"Look here," said the landlady, "aint you from Down East, some'eres?"
Marcia started, as if the woman had recognized them. "Yes." she said.
"Well, now," said Mrs. Nash, "I'm from down Maine way myself, and I'll tell you what I should do, if I was in your place. You don't want much of anything tor breakfast or tea; you can boil you an egg on the stove here, and you can make your own tea or coffee; and if I was you, I'd go out for my dinners to an eatin'-house. I heard some my lodgers tellin' how they done. Well, I heard the very gentlemen that occupied this room sayin' how they used to go to an eatin'-house, and one 'd order one thing, and another another, and then they'd halve it between 'em, and make out a first-rate meal for about a quarter apiece. Plenty of places now where they give you a cut o'lamb or rib-beef for a shillin', and they bring you bread and butter and potato with it; an' it's always enough for two. That's what they said. I haint never tried it myself; but as long as you haint got anybody but yourselves to care for, there aint any reason why you shouldn't."
They looked at each other.
"Well," added the landlady for a final touch, "say fire. That stove won't burn a great deal, anyway."
"All right," said Bartley, "we'll take the room—for a month, at least."
Mrs. Nash looked a little embarrassed. If she had made some concession to the liking she had conceived for this pretty young couple, she could not risk everything. "I always have to get the first week in advance—where there ain't no reference," she suggested.
"Of course," said Bartley, and he took out his pocket-book, which he had a boyish satisfaction in letting her see was well filled. "Now, Marcia," he continued, looking at his watch, "I'll just run over to the hotel, and give up our room before they get us in for dinner."
Marcia accepted Mrs. Nash's invitation to come and sit with her till the chill was off the room; and she borrowed a pen and paper of her to write home. The note she sent was brief: she was not going to seem to ask anything of her father. But she was going to do what was right; she told him where she was, and she sent her love to her mother. She would not speak of her things; he might send them or not, as he chose; but she knew he would. This was the spirit of her letter, and her training had not taught her to soften and sweeten her phrase; but no doubt the old man, who was like her, would understand that she felt no compunction for what she had done, and that she loved him though she still defied him.
Bartley did not ask her what her letter was when she demanded a stamp of him on his return; but he knew. He inquired of Mrs. Nash where these cheap eating-houses were to be found, and he posted the letter in the first box they came to, merely saying, "I hope you haven't been asking any favors, Marsh?"
"No, indeed."
"Because I couldn't stand that."
Marcia had never dined in a restaurant, and she was somewhat bewildered by the one into which they turned. There was a great show of roast, and steak, and fish, and game, and squash and cranberry-pie in the window, and at the door a tack was driven through a mass of bills of fare, two of which Bartley plucked off as they entered, with a knowing air, and then threw on the floor when he found the same thing on the table. The table had a marble top, and a silver-plated castor in the centre. The plates were laid with a coarse red doily in a cocked hat on each, and a thinly plated knife and fork crossed beneath it; the plates were thick and heavy; the handle as well as the blade of the knife was metal, and silvered. Besides the castor, there was a bottle of Leicestershire sauce on the table, and salt in what Marcia thought a pepper-box; the marble was of an unctuous translucence in places, and showed the course of the cleansing napkin on its smeared surface. The place was hot, and full of confused smells of cooking; all the tables were crowded, so that they found places with difficulty, and pale, plain girls, of the Provincial and Irish-American type, in fashionable bangs and pull-backs, went about taking the orders, which they wailed out toward a semicircular hole opening upon a counter at the farther end of the room; there they received the dishes ordered, and hurried with them to the customers, before whom they laid them with a noisy clacking of the heavy crockery. A great many of the people seemed to be taking hulled corn and milk; baked beans formed another favorite dish, and squash-pie was in large request. Marcia was not critical; roast turkey for Bartley and stewed chicken for herself, with cranberry-pie for both, seemed to her a very good and sufficient dinner, and better than they ought to have had. She asked Bartley if this were anything like Parker's; he had always talked to her about Parker's.
"Well, Marcia," he said, folding up his doily, which does not betray use like the indiscreet white napkin, "I'll just take you round and show you the outside of Parker's, and some day we'll go there and get dinner."
He not only showed her Parker's, but the City Hall; they walked down School Street, and through Washington as far as Boylston: and Bartley pointed out the Old South, and brought Marcia home by the Common, where they stopped to see the boys coasting under the care of the police, between two long lines of spectators.
"The State House," said Bartley, with easy command of the facts, and, pointing in the several directions; "Beacon Street; Public Garden; Back Bay."
She