What Will People Say? A Novel
She managed the luncheon so well that she finished it ahead of the time
she had told her chauffeur to call for her. She left the bridesmaids all
talking at once, for she had an appointment with one of her dressmakers.
As she came down the steps of the quaintly colonial Colony Club she
found no taxi in sight. She would not wait to have one summoned. The
brief walk would do her good. She set out briskly down Madison Avenue
and turned into Twenty-ninth Street to cross to Fifth Avenue.
This brought her to one of the few churchyards in almost grassless New
York--the pleasant green acre of the Church of the Transfiguration,
known to theatrical history as "The Little Church Around the Corner,"
and to the elopement industry as another Gretna Green.
As she approached it a taxicab drew up at the curb, and Stowe Webb and
Alice Neff bounced out, almost bowling Persis over, as usual. Both had a
much dressed-up look, and Alice carried a little bouquet.
Persis was in a hurry, but she scented excitement. When the two lovers
had apologized for their Juggernautical haste she asked, with the
demurest of smiles:
"And what are you children doing in this dark alley?"
"Oh, we're just--just--" Alice stammered.
"Does your mother know you're out?"
"Naturally not," Alice smiled, more cheerfully.
"Mischief's brewing. I've got to know."
"Can you keep a secret?"
"That's my other name--Inviolate."
Alice hesitated, then took a precaution. "Cross your heart and hope to
swallow fish-hooks?"
Persis drew an X over her heart, and vowed: "I am full of fish-hooks."
Alice looked up and down the street cautiously, then spoke in a whisper
of awesome solemnity: "Well, then, Stowe and I have given mama the slip,
and we're going to--to--"
"Get a chocolate-sundae with two spoons!"
Alice bridled with indignation. "Certainly not! We're not children! We
are going to run away and be married."
Persis nodded her head gravely. "That was what I was afraid you were
going to say. But why this haste?"
"Well, you see, Stowe has just got a job--umm-humm! It's a terribly
important post--secretary to Ambassador Tait."
"Ambassador?"
"Yes; the Senator is going to France, and Stowe is to help him out."
The young secretary spoke in, trying not to look as important as he
felt: "I simply can't endure the thought of leaving Alice all alone over
here. So we're going to get married."
"Fine!" said Persis, with subtlety. "I suppose you get a whopping big
salary."
"Indeed he does!" said Alice. "Twelve hundred a year! It's wonderful for
a beginning."
Persis suppressed her emotions at the talk of salary. She hated the
word; but she exclaimed, "Wonderful!" Then she turned to Stowe to ask:
"Does the Senator know you're going to bring a bride along?"
"No; we're going to surprise him."
Persis thought of her appointment. It was vitally important, but she
felt a call to duty. She thought it was rather good of her to heed it.
She bundled the two young people back into the waiting taxicab in spite
of their protests.
"Take us for a little drive, Stowe," she said. "I want a word with you.
Tell the man to go down Washington Square way. You're not so likely to
meet her mother."
CHAPTER XLVIII
Stowe obeyed reluctantly, and the taxicab groaned on its way. Persis set
Stowe on the small flap-seat and turned so that she could skewer him and
Alice with one look.
"Now, Alice," she began, "let's be sensible." Alice looked appealingly
at Stowe, but Persis objected. "Don't look at him--look at me. First,
who's going to support you children when you are married?"
They answered like a chorus: "Why, he is (I am), of course."
"Alice, dear, how much has your mother been allowing you for
pin-money--say, five thousand a year?"
"Oh, she claims it's more than that. We had an awful row the first of
last month."
Persis looked very innocent and school-girlish as she said: "And Mr.
Webb gets twelve hundred?"
"Yes."
"Now, Alice, I'm very backward in mathematics, so you'll have to tell
me: if one person cannot live on five thousand a year, do you think two
persons will be perfectly comfortable on twelve hundred?"
"Oh, but I'll economize!" Alice protested. "It will be a pleasure to do
without things--if I have Stowe."
"Yes," Persis sniffed, "almost anything we're not used to is pleasant
for a novelty; but in time I should fancy that even economy would cease
to be a luxury. And where in Paris do you plan to live on your twelve
hundred?"
"At a hotel, to begin with," Stowe suggested.
"Oh, you'll eat your cake first, eh? Not a bad idea; you're sure of
getting it, then."
"Then we can get such ducks of flats in Auteuil."
"The Harlem of Paris," Persis sneered, then grew more amiable. "A duck
of an apartment is all very well, my dear, for those who have wings; but
climbing stairs--ugh! Four flights of stairs six times a day--that's
twenty-four flights. Seven times twenty-four is--help!"
"One hundred and sixty-eight, I believe," said Stowe, after a mental
twist.
"Bravo! You're a regular wizard at mathematics," said Persis. "One
hundred and sixty-eight flights of stairs a week, and fifty-two times
one hundred and sixty-eight is how much? Quick!"
"You've got me there. I fancy I could do it with a piece of chalk and a
blackboard."
"Well, it's a million, I'm sure," Persis summed it. "Think of that! a
million flights of stairs the first year of marriage! What love could
survive it? And how many rooms is your sky-parlor going to have?"
"Seven and bath."
"On twelve hundred a year?" Persis gasped. "Aren't you going to eat
anything?"
"Well, we could manage with two."
"Two rooms!" Persis gasped again. "And your mother's house has thirty!
Two rooms? Why, where will the servants sleep?"
"We sha'n't have any servants," Alice averred, stoutly.
And her husband-to-be protested: "No, Alice, I'll never let you soil
your pretty hands with work."
Persis pressed the point. "But really, now, what about food?"
"You can do Wonders with a chafing-dish," said Alice.
"And a chafing-dish can do wonders with a stomach," said Persis. "Bread
and cheese--that is to say, Welsh rabbits--and kisses as a steady diet?"
She shook her head.
Alice made another try. "Well, everybody says you can buy almost
everything in cans."
"Including ptomaines. Oh, children, you don't know what's in store for
you."
"Of course we shall have hardships," Stowe confessed; "but nothing can
be worse than this uncertainty, this separation."
"Oh yes, it can, Stowe!" Persis cried. "There are harder things to bear
than the things we lose, and they are the things we can't lose."
"The things we can't lose?" said Stowe; "that means me, I suppose?"
"Oh, Alice, come back to earth," Persis urged, with all her might.
"Think how tired you'll get of living in a dark little pigeonhole away
up in the air, with no neighbors but working-people. And when your
pretty gowns are worn out, and you lose your pretty looks and your
pretty figure and your fresh color--for those are expensive
luxuries--and when you see that your husband is growing disappointed in
you because the harder you work for him the homelier and duller you
become--that's a woman's fate, Alice: to alienate a man by the very
sacrifices she makes to bind him closer; and when--"
"Oh, don't tell me any more whens," Alice whimpered. "What do I care? I
want Stowe. He needs me. We are unhappy away from each other."
Persis shook her head like a sibyl. "Be careful that you don't find
yourselves more unhappy together. For some day you'll grow bitter.
You'll remember what you gave up. You'll begin to remind him of it--to
nag--and nag--oh, the unspeakable vulgarity of it! And then you'll ruin
Stowe's career--just as it's beginning. The Senator doesn't want a
secretary with a wife. You'll always be in the way. Stowe will have to
be leaving you all the time or fretting over you. You'll hamper his
usefulness, and check his career, and grind him down to poverty, break
his spirit."
"Oh, I don't want to do that!" Alice wept. "I mustn't do that!"
"Then wait--wait!" Persis pleaded. "Marriage is risky enough when there
is no worry about money. But when the bills come in at the door love
flies out at the window."
Stowe seized Alice's hands with ardor. "Don't listen to her, Alice."
"But I'm frightened now," Alice wailed. "It's for your sake, Stowe. We
mustn't--not yet. And now may I please go home where I can cry my eyes
out."
Persis in triumph called the address to the chauffeur. Stowe Webb, in
the depths of dejection, left the cab and stared after it with eyes of
bitter reproach.
Alice's tears were standing out like orient pearls impaled on eyelashes
as she said good-by to Persis at her own curb.
"You hate me now," said Persis, "but you'll be very glad this happened
some day."
"I don't hate you," said Alice. "I know you're terribly wise; but I--I
wish you hadn't come along."
Persis laughed tenderly. "It's only for your happiness, Alice darling.
Well, good-by!"
Persis felt that she had done an honest day's work of Samaritan wisdom,
and ordered the cab to make haste to her dressmaker. A he-dressmaker it
was, who, like a fashionable doctor, found it profitable to behave like
a gorilla and abuse his clients. He turned on Persis and stormed up and
down his show-room. He threatened to throw out all her costumes. She
bore with him as meekly as if she were a ragged seamstress pleading for
a job instead of the bride-elect of an Enslee.
When she had thus appeased his wrath he changed his tune to a rhapsody.
She was to be the most beautiful bride that ever dragged a train up an
aisle, and she should drag the most beautiful train that ever followed a
maid to the altar and a wife away.
CHAPTER XLIX
Persis was not the only busy person in New York. Willie was kept on the
jump preparing his share of the performance. The ushers were to be
chosen, and their gifts, and a dinner given to them; and his list of
friends to receive announcements and invitations must be made up, and
the bride's gift selected, and the itinerary of the honeymoon arranged,
his yacht put into commission, and a dinner of farewell to bachelorhood
accepted and endured.
He hardly caught a glimpse of Persis all this while, and when he heard
her voice on the telephone it was only to receive some new list of
chores. He missed the billing and cooing that he knew belonged to these
conversations. His heart ached to be assured of Persis' love; but she
was incapable of even imitating the amorous note with him. When he
pleaded for tendernesses she put him off as best she could by blaming
her brusqueness on her overwork, as one who does not wish to sign
oneself "Yours faithfully" or "affectionately" or even "truly" writes
"Yours hastily."
But Willie's incessant prayer for love harassed her. It was a phase of
him that had been unimportant hitherto. And it alarmed her a little. It
would have given her greater uneasiness if she had not had so many other
matters to worry her, if she had not had so many fascinating excitements
to divert her.
Forbes was busy, too. Senator Tait had easily arranged his appointment
as military attache. He had his duties to learn in this capacity. He had
to polish up his French and take lessons in conversation and
composition, and learn what he could about the French military
establishment and procedure. And he had to make ready for a long
residence abroad.
To him, too, preoccupation was an opiate for suffering. Ambition and
pride were resuming their interrupted sway. So long as he was busy he
counted Persis as one of the tragedies of his past, and his love of her
as a thing lived down and sealed in the archives of his heart.