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The Romance of a Plain Man, a novel by Ellen Glasgow |
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Chapter 25. We Face The Facts And Each Other |
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_ CHAPTER XXV. WE FACE THE FACTS AND EACH OTHER
For three days we paid off our accounts, and at the end of that time, when I left the building, after the run had stopped, it seemed to me that the city had a deserted and trampled look, as if some enormous picnic had been held in the streets. A few loose shreds of paper, a banana peel here and there, the ends of numerous cigars, and the white patch torn from a woman's petticoat littered the pavement. Over all there was a thick coating of dust, and the wind, blowing straight from the east, whipped swirls of it into our faces, as the General and I drove slowly up-town in his buggy. "You look down in the mouth, Ben," he remarked, as I took the reins. "I've got an infernal toothache, General; it kept me awake all night." "Well, bless my soul, you ought to be thankful if it takes your mind off the country. I haven't seen such a state of affairs since the days of reconstruction. I tell you, my boy, the only thing on earth to do is to take a julep. Lithia water is well enough in times of prosperity, but you can't support a panic on it. I've gone back to my julep, and if I die of it, I'll die with a little spirit in me." "There're worse things than death ahead of me, General, there's ruin." "It's the toothache, Ben. Don't let it take all the spirit out of you." "No, it's more than the toothache, confound it!--it never leaves off. The truth is, I'm in the tightest place of my life, and to keep what I own would cost me more than I've got. I haven't the money to pay up--and if I can't buy outright, you see that I must let go." "I've done what I could for you, Ben, and if there is more I can do, heaven knows I'll be thankful enough." "You've already done too much, General, but I've made sure that you shan't suffer by it. I've simply gone down, that's all, and I've got to stay there till I can get on my feet. The bank will close temporarily, I suppose, but when it starts again, it will have to start with another man. I shall look out for a smaller job." "If you come back to the road, I'll find a place for you--but it won't be like being a bank president, you know." "Well, when the time comes, I'll let you know," I added, when the buggy stopped before my door, and I handed him the reins. "Listen to me, my boy," he called back, as he drove off and I went up the brown stone steps, "and take a julep." But the support I needed was not that of whiskey, and though I swallowed a dozen juleps, the thought of Sally's face when I broke the news would suffer no blessed obscurity. "Shall I tell her now, or after dinner?" I asked, while I drew out my latch-key; and then when she met me at the head of the staircase, with her shining eyes, I grew cowardly again, and said, "Not now--not now. To-night I will tell her." At night, when we sat opposite to each other, with a silver bowl of jonquils between us, she began talking idly about the marriage of Bonny Page, inspired, I felt, by a valiant determination to save the situation in the eyes of the servants at least. The small yellow candle shades, made to resemble flowers, shone like suns in a mist before my eyes; and all the time that my thoughts worked over the approaching hour, I heard, like a muffled undertone, the soft, regular footfalls of old Esdras, the butler, on the velvet carpet. "I'll tell her after the servants have gone, and the house is quiet--when she has taken off her dinner gown--when she may turn on her pillow and cry it out. I'll say simply, 'Sally, I am ruined. I haven't a penny left of my own. Even the horses and the carriages and the furniture are not mine!' No, that is a brutal way. It will be better to put it like this"--"What did you say, dear?" I asked, speaking aloud. "Only that Bonny Page is to have six bridesmaids, but the wedding will be quiet, because they have lost money." "They've lost money?" "Everybody has lost money--everybody, the General says. Ben, do you know," she added, "I've never cared truly about money in my heart." In some vague woman's way she meant it, I suppose, yet as I looked at her, where she sat beyond the bowl of jonquils, in one of her old Paris gowns, which she had told me she was wearing out, I broke into a short, mirthless laugh. She held her head high, with its wreath of plaits that made a charming frame for her arched black eyebrows and her full red mouth. On her bare throat, round and white as a marble column, there was an old-fashioned necklace of wrought gold, which had belonged to some ancestress, who was doubtless the belle and beauty of her generation. Was it possible to picture her in a common gown, with her sleeves rolled up and the perplexed and anxious look that poverty brings in her eyes? For the first time in my life I was afraid to face the moment before me. The roast was removed, the dessert served, and played with in silence. The footfalls of old Esdras, the butler, sounded softer on the carpet, as he carried away the untasted pudding and brought coffee and an apricot brandy, which he placed before me with a persuasive air. I lit a cigar at the flame of the little silver lamp he offered me, drank my coffee hurriedly, and rose from the table. "Are you going to work, Ben?" asked Sally, following me to the door of the library. "Yes, I am going to work." Without a word she raised her lips to mine, and when I had kissed her, she turned slowly away, and went up the staircase, with the branching lights in the hall shining upon her head. I closed the door, lowered the wick of the oil lamp on my desk, and began walking up and down the length of the room, between the black oak bookcases filled with rows of calf-bound volumes. I tried to think, but between my thoughts and myself there obtruded always, like some small, malignant devil, the face of the old woman on the pavement before the bank, with her distorted and twisted mouth. "This will have to go--everything will have to go--when I've sold every last stick I have in the world, I shall still owe a debt of some cool hundreds of thousands. I'll pay that, too, some day. Of course, of course, but when? Meanwhile, we've got to live somewhere, somehow. There's the child, too--and there's Sally. I always said I'd only money to give her, and now I haven't that. We'll have to go into some cheap place, and I'll begin over again, with the disadvantages of a failure behind me, and a burden of debt on my shoulders. She's got to know--I've got to tell her. Confound that old woman! Why can't I keep her out of my thoughts?" The hours went by, and still I walked up and down between the black oak bookcases, driven by some demon of torture to follow the same line in the Turkish rug, to turn always at the same point, to measure always the same number of steps. "Well, she got her money--they all got their money," I said at last. "I am the only one who is ruined--no, not the only one--there is Sally and there is the child. I'd feel easier," I added, echoing the words of the old woman aloud, "I'd feel easier if I were the only one." A clock somewhere in the city struck the hour of midnight, and while the sound was still in the air, the door opened softly and Sally came into the room. She had slipped on a wrapper over her nightdress, and her hair, flattened and warmed by the pillow, hung in a single braid over her bosom. There were deep circles under her eyes, which shone the more brilliantly because of the heavy shadows. "What is the matter, Ben? Why don't you come upstairs?" "I couldn't sleep--I am thinking," I answered, almost roughly, oppressed by my weight of misery. "Would you rather be alone? Shall I go away again?" "Yes, I'd rather be alone." She went silently to the door, stood there a minute, and then ran back with her arms outstretched. "Oh, Ben, Ben, why are you so hard? Why are you so cruel?" "Cruel? Hard? To you, Sally?" "You treat me as if--as if I'd married you for your money and you've made me hate and despise it. I wish--I almost wish we hadn't a penny." I laughed the bitter, mirthless laugh that had broken from me at dinner. "As a matter of fact we haven't--not a single penny that we can honestly call our own." She drew back instantly, her head held high under the branching electric jet in the ceiling. "Well, I'm glad of it," she responded defiantly. "You don't in the least understand what it means, Sally. It isn't merely giving up a few luxuries, it is actually going without the necessities. It is practically beginning again." "I am glad of it," she repeated, and there was no regret in her voice. "Oh, can't you understand?" "Tell me and I will try." "I've lost everything. I'm ruined." "There is nothing left?" "There is honour," I said bitterly, "a couple of hundred thousand dollars of debt, and a little West Virginia railroad too poor to go bankrupt." "Then we must start from the very bottom?" "From the very bottom. Nothing that you are likely to imagine can be worse than the facts--and I've brought you to it." Something that was like a sob burst from me, and turning away, I flung myself into the chair on the hearth-rug. "Can't you think of anything that would be worse?" she asked quietly. I shook my head, "The worst thing about it is that I've brought you to it." "Wouldn't it be worse," she went on in the same level voice, "if you had lost me?" "Lost you!" I cried, and my arms were open at the thought. "I'm glad, I'm glad." With the words she was on her knees at my side, and her mouth touched my cheek. "I knew it wasn't the worst, Ben,--I knew you'd rather give up the money than give up me. Ah, can't you see--can't you see, that the worst can't come to us while we are still together?" Leaning over her, I gathered her to me with a hunger for comfort, kissing her eyes, her mouth, her throat, and the loosened braid on her bosom. "Oh, you witch, you've almost made me happy!" I said. "I am happy, Ben." "Happy? The horses must go, and the carriage and the furniture even. We'll have to move into some cheap place. I'll get a position of some kind with the railroad, and then we'll have to scrimp and save for an eternity, until we pay off this damned burden of debt." She laughed softly, her mouth at my ear. "I'm happy, Ben." "We shan't be able to keep servants. You'll have to wear old clothes, and I'll go so shabby that you'll be ashamed of me. We'll forget what a bottle of wine looks like, and if we were ever to see a decent dinner, we shouldn't recognise it." Again she laughed, "I'm still happy, Ben." "We'll live in some God-forsaken, out-of-the-way little hole, and never even dare ask a person in to a meal for fear there wouldn't be enough potatoes to go around. It will be a daily uphill grind until I've managed to pay off honestly every cent I owe." Her arms tightened about my neck, "Oh, Ben, I'm so happy." "Then you are a perfectly abandoned creature," I returned, lifting her from the rug until she nestled against my heart. "I've given up trying to make you as miserable as a self-respecting female ought to be. If you won't be proper and wretched, I can't help it, for I've done my best. And the most ridiculous part of it is, darling, that I actually believe I'm happy, too!" She laughed like a child between her kisses. "Then, you see, it isn't really the thing, but the way you take it that matters." "I'm not sure about the logic of that--but I'm inclined to think just now that the only thing I've ever taken is you." "If you'll try to remember that, you'll be always happy." "But I must remember also that I've brought you to poverty--I, who had only money to give you." "Do you dare to tell me to my face that I married you for money?" "You couldn't very well have married me without it." "I don't know about the 'very well,' but I know that I'd have done it." "Do you think that, Sally?" Turning in my arms, she lifted her head, and looked steadily into my face. "Have I ever lied to you since we were married, Ben?" "No, darling." "Have I ever deceived you?" "Never, I am sure," I responded with a desperate levity, "except for my good." "Have I ever deceived you," she demanded sternly, "even for your good?" "To tell the truth, I don't believe you ever have." The warm pressure of her body was withdrawn, and rising to her feet, she stood before me under the blazing light. "Then I'm not lying to you when I say that I'd have married you if you hadn't possessed a penny to your name--I'd have married you if--if I'd had to take in washing." "Sally!" I cried, and made a movement to recapture her; but pushing me back, she stood straight and tall, with the fingers of her outstretched hand touching my breast. "No, listen to me, listen to me," she said gravely. "As long as I have you and you love me, Ben, nothing can break my spirit, because the thing that makes life of value to me will still be mine. If you ever ceased to love me, I might get desperate, and do something wild and foolish--even run off with another man, I believe--I don't know, but I am my father's daughter, as well as my mother's. Until that time comes, I can bear anything, and bear it with courage--with gaiety even. I can imagine myself without everything else, but not without you. I love my child--you know I love my child--but even my child isn't you. If I had to choose to-night between my baby and you, I'd give him up,--and cling the closer to you. You are myself, and if I had to choose between everything else I've ever known in my life and you, I'd let everything else go and follow you anywhere--anywhere. There is nothing that you can endure that I cannot share with you. I can bear poverty, I could even have borne shame. If we had to go to some strange country far away from all I have ever known, I could go and go cheerfully. I can work beside you, I can work for you--oh, my dear, my dearest, I am your wife, do you still doubt me?" I had fallen on my knees before her, with her open palms pressed to my forehead, in which my very brain seemed throbbing. As I looked up at her, she stooped and gathered me to her bosom. "Do you know me now?" she asked in a whisper. Then her voice broke, and the next instant she would have sunk down beside me, if I had not sprung to my feet and lifted her in my arms. While I held her thus, pressed close against me, something of her radiant strength entered into me, and I was aware of a power in myself that was neither hers nor mine, but the welding of the finer qualities in both our natures. _ |
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