This greatly troubled her and stayed with her all that day. And that very evening George came after her with a borrowed car and wanted her to go and look at a house in the suburbs.
It was a charming house, with porches and bay windows and a pussy willow tree in the yard. It filled her with joy to think of living there, having a home of her own and doing as she pleased.
The house had a white-tiled bathroom, and a blue-tiled kitchen with a lovely white sink with porcelain drain boards running across one end. There were low windows looking on a little grassy backyard, and the neighborhood was lovely; nice, neat homes all around and crocuses coming up in the flower beds. In her mind’s eye she saw pretty muslin curtains at the windows and her own furniture placed here and there. For a few minutes her fears and problems vanished, and she rose to enthusiasm and told George it was the very thing and she was delighted.
“The price is pretty high,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know as we ought to buy it, not right off at the start. Still, it’s a peach, of course. We could look around and see if we find anything just as good cheaper.”
But on the way home George talked as if the little house was a settled thing.
“I’ll go see the owner,” he said. “Maybe we can haggle him down a little if we kid him along. He might make a lower price if we paid a year’s rent in advance.”
Several days passed before George had time to see the owner, and he came one evening with a grouch.
“Couldn’t do a thing with that man,” he announced when he got Amorelle alone. “I talked to him for two hours, and he just set his jaw and said that was his price. Couldn’t tempt him with even a year and a half in advance, though that would scarcely pay, reckoning up the interest and all. He says he has a rule never to change his price. Well, let him keep his old house. He’ll learn. I’ve got on the track of two or three others; one especially I think’ll be fine, and the price is fifteen dollars less than the first one. That one was in a snobbish district anyway. We’d have to put on a lot of dog if we lived there. And we just can’t afford to go out a lot or do much entertaining the first two or three years. Especially if we had to pay that much for a house. We’d have to live up to the house, see?”
Amorelle’s heart sank. She had fallen in love with the little house at first sight, and it somehow seemed to make her approaching marriage a happier affair and not nearly so fearsome and uncertain.
They went to see the other house the next day. George did not bring a car. They had to take a trolley.
“There’s another good thing about this house today besides being cheaper,” he orated on the way. “It’s more accessible. Trolleys and trains not far away and no need to have a car right away. Although there’s a garage if I found I needed one for business,” he added. “Here, here we are! This is the corner where we get off.”
Amorelle stepped from the trolley expectantly and looked around her with growing dismay. She had envisioned a suburb, and here were diverging rows of tiny two-story brick houses in every direction, glaring back the sunshine to the simmering red of the brick pavements.
George walked ahead of her up the curb, talking eagerly.
“It’s only a block and a half from here, right down the middle of the next row. Handy for the trolley. I sha’nt have to get up so early as I do now—”
Amorelle halted and looked around a bit, as if by taking a fresh start the impression might somehow be better. She spoke slowly, gently, reluctantly.
“But—I thought it was a suburb. You said—”
“Well, it is,” snapped George brusquely. “This is ‘the annex’ they talk so much about in the papers. ‘North Harrington’; it’s only just become a part of the city. It’s practically a suburb. See those trees up there, only four blocks away? That’s Lemon Park. Have band concerts there every now and then. Over to the right is the dump, and out that street is the cemetery, only five blocks away. You see, we’re practically in the country. And only twenty-five a month! Think how we can save. Fifteen less than the house you’re so crazy about.”
Amorelle fell into step silently, her troubled gaze searching the surroundings, studying anxiously the little children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk.
“Do you know anything about the neighborhood?” she asked, as George paused in the middle of the block and looked up at the number.
“Oh, good enough neighborhood. Doesn’t matter, does it? We sha’n’t be entertaining much for a couple of years yet, I tell you, not till I get my promotion, and think how we can save on clothes! We don’t need to have anything to do with our neighbors, you know, not till we get ready to move up into swell society. Here’s our house. All right, eh? Needs a little painting around the porch, but I can do that evenings, or maybe you’ll amuse yourself doing it when you haven’t anything else to do.”
George was too occupied unlocking the door to notice Amorelle’s silence as she hesitated on the step, looking down the dreary line of sordid porches stretching from corner to corner like stalls in a market. Halfway down the street two children were fighting over a wagon; and a brawling mother shot out of the door untidily, administered a common punishment, and hastened back with a furtive glance toward the strangers.
Amorelle’s slender grace stood out noticeably in the sordid neighborhood. Always her sweet gentleness sat upon her like a pleasant garment and put her apart from the common run. And now, even in her simple dress, she was something rare and out of place standing on that cheap little porch. Her wistful brown eyes were full of sudden distress. But George, all unaware, strode on into the house.
“That’s the parlor. Wallpaper’s all right, not scratched up much. We can set a chair in front of that spot. Agent said it had been recently papered. We sha’n’t have to bother about that.”
Amorelle took in the tawdry gold background with flaring baskets of roses at intervals on endless knots of bright blue ribbon, and she shuddered.
“Oh, George! This paper would be awful to live with.”
“Now, Amorelle, don’t go to getting fussy. I’m not a millionaire yet! It isn’t good for you living so long in luxury at your aunt’s. You’ll get notions. We’ve got to economize, you know. Besides, I’m thinking of getting a car. It’ll save carfare and make a good impression down at the office.”
George walked jauntily through the archway into the speck of a dining room papered in greasy magenta, with finger marks, and gloomily lighted by a single window opening darkly on a dusky brick-lined passageway to the seven-by-nine backyard. The floor was thick with dust, showing the weave of a coarse ingrain rug that had lain and left its aged imprint. The wood was “grained.” There was a closet in one corner, a dirty shelf with a bit of slobbery candle, eloquent of the former occupant, and the opposite door opened into a dim kitchen with one high window over a grim iron sink. A rusty gas range with its door gone completed the desolation.
Amorelle stood in the kitchen aghast an instant and looked around her with sudden perception of a long line of desolate days looming beside that awful sink.
“Oh, George! We can’t take it! This is a terrible kitchen! Think of that nice white sink in the little bungalow. It is worth the extra money.”
“Nonsense!” George’s voice was harsh and sharp. “Spend money just for a sink! Amorelle, you’re crazy! We can’t afford trifles. You might just as well give up notions first as last. What difference does a kitchen make? A place to wash dishes! I don’t care what kind of a kitchen we have. This is plenty good enough.”
“You wouldn’t have to stay in it.” Amorelle’s gentle voice was shaking with distress. She was not used to standing up to George.
“Amorelle! I never thought you were a selfish woman! You surely don’t mean you want me to spend fifteen dollars more a month just for a sink! Why, if it came to that, we could paint this one. Come on upstairs.”
George strode back to the staircase and mounted two steps at a time. The subject was dismissed.
Amorelle did not follow at once.
She stood by the little high window over the kitchen sink and struggled with tears that suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. It wasn’t that she could not put aside her desire and help save if it were necessary. But George was getting a good salary. He was able to give her conveniences and comfort, and he didn’t seem to care. It was his lack of tenderness that hurt her.
“Amorelle!” he called peremptorily. “Come on upstairs.”
She wiped her eyes and went slowly up the steep little flight.
There were two rooms and a bit of a bathroom, with a tiny square of a hall accommodating a ladder to the tin roof. It was stiflingly hot up there. The walls were unpapered and illustrated crudely with penciled sketches in caricature, jokes, and crossed-out names. The plumbing was old-fashioned with a boarded-in tin bathtub.
“We can whitewash up here,” said George. “We’ll take this front room for ours, and I’ll have the back one prepared for a den where I can take men when they come to see me on business.”
Amorelle’s troubled gaze rested on the one shallow closet with its sparse row of hooks and then traveled out the window, where across the street a heavy neighbor, with her sleeves rolled high and her straggling gray locks stuffed into a soiled pink satin boudoir cap, lolled from the opposite window, gazing up and down the street. A baby’s sudden cry rang out, followed by a resounding slap and another yell. A radio whined next door, and a blatant hand organ suddenly piped up far down the street.
George had not noticed that she was not attending to his words. But now he came back to where she stood, and suddenly, almost roughly, he caught her in his arms with an air of possession that started her.
It was the first time they had been absolutely alone together except in her aunt’s living room, where they were constantly liable to interruption, or on the street. It was as though George had just realized this and was taking advantage of it, as if a box of sweets had been left alone with him and he meant to eat them all himself, not even sharing them with her. There was something almost unholy about the fierceness of his embrace that frightened her, as if he would devour her. His kisses burned upon her lips and rained hotly upon her face. There was nothing like tender love in them. Involuntarily she struggled away from him, pushing against his chest with her slim, young hands and turning her face away. He held her tightly, almost fiercely, for a moment; but she struggled from his arms, her back against the wall, her eyes wide, her face distressed. Then he backed off and glared at her thunderously. For a blond-eyed man, he could grow exceedingly dark.
“What is the meaning of this, Amorelle? Is it possible you are going to be childish about a kitchen sink?”
Amorelle covered her face with her hands and drooped. She felt herself trembling. She could feel through her closed eyes the coldness of his glance. The silence when his voice ceased hurt her like a lashing.
When he spoke again, it was with the cold voice of a stranger.
“I guess we’d better go back. You don’t seem to be in a very pleasant mood.”
He went downstairs without waiting for her. She shivered in the heat of the room and followed slowly.
He did not speak a word all the way back to the trolley. She had a feeling that she ought in some way to explain or apologize, but she could not find the words. She did not quite understand herself. A glance into his stern face made her sure he would not accept it if she did apologize.
She was thankful that the car came along almost immediately and that it was crowded, so that she had to sit at the farther end and conversation was impossible.
He spoke no word, even when he left her at the door with just a lifting of his hat. As he turned away, she stole a glance at him, with that recurring thought of his being a stranger—a stern, offended stranger.
She hurried into the house. It was Ida’s day out, and she was expected to prepare the evening meal for the family.
The kitchen was hot and full of flies. The washer-woman had been there laundering the curtains and had left the screen door open. Amorelle was glad to get into her work dress and go to work. It seemed to quiet the wild, frightened throb of her heart. She drove the flies out and went about her duties with quick, skillful fingers—mincing parsley for the creamed potatoes, seasoning the peas that she had shelled before going out with George, arranging the salad on the plates, broiling the chops, cutting the cherry pie, making the coffee, setting the table. She did everything deliberately, trying to convince herself that nothing had happened, that everything was as it had been before she went to see that awful brick house—before George—Oh, what had been the matter with George? Or was the matter with herself?
But she must not think about it now or her trouble would show in her face. Her aunt and Louise would ask what was the matter, and she never could explain. They would not understand if she should. They would probably side with George, anyway. They approved of George thoroughly. And perhaps she had been unfair to him, but every time she thought of the way he held her in his arms in that hot little upstairs room, it made her shudder. There was something wrong somewhere, but now she must put it away. Her present business was to have dinner ready on time.
It was while they were eating the cherry pie that her uncle remarked that Amorelle looked pale.
“Better take her along on your picnic tomorrow, Louise,” he suggested, for the talk all through the meal had been about that picnic—who was going, what they were taking, and what to wear. “It seems to me she doesn’t have enough young company and outings.”
“She has George,” said Louise coldly. “Isn’t that enough for an engaged girl?”
“Why, yes,” blustered in Aunt Clara. “She was just out with George this afternoon, Mr. Dean. You’re talking about something you don’t know anything about, as you usually do!”
Amorelle flushed at the unusual notice and hastened to protest.
“I’m quite all right, Uncle Enoch,” she said with a forced smile. “I guess it’s the unusual hot weather so early that makes me look pale. But I don’t really need an outing.”
“Better take her along!” commanded the uncle in the stern tone that was used so rarely that it was generally obeyed by his family.
“Why, of course if she wants to go,” drawled Louise. “They’re not exactly her crowd! I guess there’ll be room, though I’ve invited that nephew of Dr. Garrison’s who is visiting. He’s been abroad, and they say he’s perfectly stunning! Intellectual type, I hear. I should not like it to look as if we were a big mob—but of course…” Her voice trailed off disagreeably.
“Better take her along, honey,” cooed her mother. “Amorelle can make such good coffee, and you know all young men like coffee. She really will be a help to you. You know you’re not very fond of cooking.”
“Well, perhaps that’s an idea,” admitted the lazy Louise. “All right, Amorelle, you’re elected. I guess we can stow you somewhere. And say, Amorelle, would you mind stirring up some of those little cakes you make and frosting them this evening? They’ll bake while you wash the dishes, and George can talk to you while you frost them.”
Now Amorelle had no intention whatever of going to that picnic. Moreover she was deadly tired, for she had canned cherries all the morning and then washed windows till George came for her to go and see the house. But she did not want the discussion to go on over her any longer, and she did not want Uncle Enoch to look troubled about her, so she answered with a tired smile that she would make the cakes.
She stayed in the kitchen all that evening, washing dishes and baking dozens and dozens of little cakes and then frosting them.
George did not come to talk to her while she did it. She had not expected him. She knew he would be punishing her for daring to disagree with him about the house. By this time she had grown to know about what reaction to expect of George in any given circumstance. Somehow it seemed a dreary prospect, long years of life with a George who sulked if you suggested anything he had not himself proposed.
Amorelle was quite glad that she was sure George
would not come that evening. She wanted time to think things out. Somehow she had to get this matter straight. If the trouble was in herself—if she was being selfish—then she must realize and change, but if it was George then something had to be done about it. She was getting to be afraid of George and his moods, and she couldn’t marry a man she was afraid of. Also, why was it that she had been so indignant, so fairly outraged at the way he had seized her and hugged her, kissing her as if she were something to devour, not as if he loved her tenderly as he used to at first? She didn’t understand it. Once she put her head down in her hands while she was waiting for the last batch of cakes to finish baking and cried a few tears. Oh, why was life so terribly complicated? If only she had a father or a mother to guide her. If only God didn’t seem so terribly far away.
The telephone rang just as she finished her work and was about to go up to bed. Her aunt called to her to answer it, and to her surprise it was George. He spoke in such a jaunty tone of condescending forgiveness that it stirred a faint resentment in her heart.
“That you, Amorelle? I couldn’t get down tonight. Jim Price wanted me to take a little spin with him in the park. He was trying out a new car. Say, Amorelle, we’ll have to give up our trip to the country tomorrow. I’ve got a lot of extra work and I can’t possibly get away. Besides, I’ve had to let my secretary go to her grandmother’s funeral, so I thought you might come down and take her place. It was a lucky thing you took that business course. I’d have to hire a temporary stenographer today. And say, how about asking your aunt to let you off early in the morning, say around half past seven or quarter to eight? I’d like to get started in the office before the rest of the force comes. And I’ll need you all day. We can get a snack at the pie shop downstairs, or you might bring some sandwiches. How about it? The records from the whole district have come in, and we’ve just got word they have to be turned in tomorrow. I doubt if we get through before late in the evening. It’s all up to me, see, and I had to take the responsibility of letting that stenog off. But I knew I could count on you. We’d sort of saved that day for a run to the lake anyway, you know.”