Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence

  IV

  Martin couldn't settle down after his solitary dinner that night.Several times he had jumped out of his father's reading chair and stoodlistening at the window. It seemed to him that some one had called hisname. But the only sounds that broke the exquisite quietude of thenight were the distant barking of a dog, the whirl of an automobile onthe road or the pompous crowing of a master of a barnyard, taken up andanswered by others near and far.

  Each time the boy had stood at the open window and peered out eagerlyand wistfully, but nothing had moved across the moon-bathed lawn ordisturbed the sleeping flowers. Under the cold light of the stars theearth appeared to be more than usually peaceful and drowsy. All waswell.

  But the boy's blood tingled, and he was filled with an unexplainablesense of excitement. Some one needed him, and he wanted urgently to beneeded. He turned from the window and ran his eyes over the long, wide,low-ceilinged masculine room, every single thing in which spelledFather to him; then he went back to the chair the right to sit in whichhad been given to him by death, persuaded that over the unseen wiresthat stretch from heart to heart a signal had been sent, certain thathe was to hold himself in readiness to do something for Joan.

  He had written out the words, "We count it death to falter, not to die"on a long strip of card in big bold letters. They faced him as he satand read over and over again what he regarded as his father's message.It was a call to service, an inspiration to activity, and it hadalready filled him with the determination to fall into step with themovement of the world, to put the money of which he was now the mostreluctant owner to some use as soon as the necessary legal steps ofproving his father's Will had been taken. He had made up his mind toleave the countryside at the end of the week and meet his father'slawyers and take advice as to how he could hitch himself to somevigorous and operative pursuit. He was going, please God, to build up aworkmanlike monument to the memory of his father.

  Ten o'clock struck, and uninterested in his book, he would have gone tobed but for the growing feeling that he was not his own master, that hemight be required at any moment. The feeling became so strong thatfinally he got up and went into the hall. He couldn't wait any longer.He must go out, slip into the garden of the Ludlow house and search thewindows for a sight of Joan.

  He unbolted the front door, gave a little gasp and found himself faceto face with the girl who was in his thoughts.

  There was a ripple of excited laughter; a bag was thrust into his hand,and like a bird escaped from a cage, Joan darted past him into the hall.

  "I've done it," she cried, "I've done it!" And she broke into a dance.

  Martin shut the door, put the bulging suit-case on a chair and watchedthe girl as she whirled about the hall, as graceful as a water sprite,with eyes alight with mischief and animation. The sight of her was sobewitching, the fact that she had come to him for help so good, thathis curiosity to know what it was that she had done fell away.

  Suddenly she came to a breathless stop and caught hold of his arm."Bolt the door, Marty," she said, "quickly, quickly! They may sendafter me when they find I've got away. I'll never go back, never,never!"

  All the spirit of romance in the boy's nature flamed. This was a greatadventure. He had become a knight errant, the rescuer of a damsel indistress. He shot the bolts back, turned out the lights, took Joan'shand and led her into his father's room.

  "Turn these lights out too," she said. "Make it look as if everybodyhad gone to bed."

  He did so, with a sort of solemn sense of responsibility; and it was ina room lighted only by a shaft of pale moonlight that fell in a poolupon the polished floor that these two utterly inexperienced childrensat knee to knee, the one to pour out her story, the other to listenand hold his breath.

  "I was right about Gleave. He was spying. It turns out that he's beenwatching us for two or three days. When I went back this afternoon, Igot a look from Mrs. Nye that told me there was a row in the air. I waslater than usual and rushed up to my room to change for dinner. Thewhole house seemed awfully quiet and ominous, like the air before athunderstorm. I expected to be sent for at once to stand like acriminal before Grandfather and Grandmother--but nothing happened. Allthrough dinner, while Gleave tottered about, they sat facing each otherat the long table, conducting,--that's the only word to describe it,--apolite conversation. Neither of them took any notice of me or even oncelooked my way. Even Gleave put things in front of me as though hedidn't see me, and when I caught the watery eyes of the old dogs, theyboth seemed to make faces and go 'Yah!'"

  "It was weird, and would have been frightfully funny if I hadn't knownthat sooner or later I should have to stand up and take my dose. Phew,it was a ghastly meal. I'm certain I shall dream it all over againevery time I eat something that doesn't agree with me! It was a greatrelief when at last Grandmother turned at the door and looking at myfeet as though they were curiosities, said: 'Joan, you will follow usto the drawing-room.' Her voice was cold enough to freeze the sea."

  "Then she went out, her stick rapping the floor, Grandfather after herwith his shoulders bent and a piece of bread on the back of his dinnerjacket. The two dogs followed, and I made up the tail of that queerprocession. I hate that stiff, cheerless drawing room anyhow, with allits shiny cases of china and a collection of all the uncomfortablechairs ever designed since Adam. I wanted to laugh and cry, and when Isaw myself in the glass, I couldn't believe that I wasn't a littleshivering girl with a ribbon in my hair and white socks."

  Some one whistled outside. The girl seized the boy's arm in a suddenpanic of fright.

  "It's all right," he said. "It's only the gardener going to hiscottage."

  Joan laughed, and her grip relaxed. "I'm jumpy," she said. "My nervesare all over the place. Do you wonder?"

  "No, tell me the rest."

  Joan's voice took on a little deeper note like that of a child who hascome to the really creepy bit of his story. "Marty," she went on, "Iwish you could have heard the way in which Grandmother let herself go!She held me by the scruff of my neck and hit me right and left with thesort of sarcasm that made me crinkle. According to her, I was on thedownward path. I had done something quite hopeless and unforgivable.She didn't know how she could bring herself to report the affair--thinkof calling it an affair, Marty!--to my poor mother. Mother, who'd neversay a word to me, whatever I did! She might have out-of-date views, shesaid, of how young girls should behave, but they were the right views,and so long as I was under her roof and in her care, she would see thatI conformed to them. She went on making a mountain out of our littlemolehill, till even Grandfather broke in with a word; and then shesnapped at him, got into her second wind and went off again. I didn'tlisten half the time. I just stood and watched her as you'd watch oneof those weird old women in one of Dickens' books come to life. What Iremember of it all is that I am deceitful and fast, ungrateful,irresponsible, with no sense of decency, and when at last shepronounced sentence, what do you think it was? Confinement to the housefor a week and if after that, I ever meet you again, to be packed offto a finishing-school in Massachusetts. She rapped her stick on thefloor by way of a full stop, and waved her hand toward the door. Inever said a word, not a single one. What was the use? I gave her alittle bow and went. Just as I was going to rush upstairs and thinkover what I could do, Grandfather came out and told me to go to hisroom to read something to him. And there, for the first time, he let mesee what a fine old fellow he really is. He agreed with Grandmotherthat I ought not to have met you on the sly. It was dangerous, he said,though perfectly natural. He was afraid I found it very trying to liveamong a lot of old grouches with their best feet in the grave, but hebegged me to put up with it because he would miss me so. He likedhaving me about, not only to read to him but to look at. I reminded himof Grandmother when she was young, and life was worth living.

  "I cried then. I couldn't help it--more for his sake than mine. Hespoke with such a funny sort of sadness. 'Be patient, my dear,' hesaid. 'Treat us both with a little kindness. You're
top dog. You haveall your life before you. Make allowances for two old people enteringsecond childhood. You'll be old some day, you know.' And he said thiswith such a twisted sort of smile that I felt awfully sorry for him,and he saw it and opened out and told me how appalling it was to becomefeeble when the heart is as young as ever. I had no idea he felt likethat."

  "When I left him I tried hard to be as patient as he asked me to be andwait till Mother comes back and make the allowances he spoke about andgive up seeing you and all that. But when I got up to my room with theecho of Grandmother's rasping voice in my ears, the thought of beingshut up in the house for a week and treated like a lunatic was too muchfor me. What had I done that every other healthy girl doesn't do everyday without a question? How COULD I go on living there, watched andsuspected? How could I put up any longer with the tyranny of an oldlady who made me feel artificial and foolish and humiliated--a kind ofdoll stuffed with saw dust?

  "Marty, I couldn't do it. I simply couldn't. Something went snap, and Ijust flung a few things into a suit-case, dropped it out the window,climbed down the creeper and made a dash for freedom. Nothing on earthwill ever take me back to that house again, nothing, nothing!"

  All this had been said with a mixture of humor and emotion that carriedthe boy before it. He saw and heard everything as she described it. Hisown relations with his father, which had been so free and friendly,made Joan's with those two old people seem fantastic and impossible.All his sympathy went out to her. To help her to get away appealed tohim as being as humane as releasing a squirrel from a trap. No thoughtof the fact that she was a girl who had rushed impulsively into a mostawkward position struck him. Into his healthy mind no sex questionthrust itself. She was his friend, and as such, her claim upon him wasoverwhelming and unarguable.

  "What do you want me to do?" he asked. "Have you thought of anything?"

  "Of course I have. In the morning, early, before they find out thatI've bolted, you must drive me to New York and take me to AlicePalgrave. She'll put me up, and I can telegraph to Mother for money tobuy clothes with. Does it occur to you, Marty, that you're the cause ofall this? If I hadn't turned and found you that afternoon, I shouldstill be eating my soul away and having my young life crushed. As itis, you've forced my hand. So you're going to take me to the magiccity, and if you want to see how a country cousin makes up for losttime and sets things humming, watch me!"

  So they talked and talked, sitting in that room which was made the verysanctum of romance by young blood and moonlight. Eleven o'clock slippedby, and twelve and one; and while the earth slept, watched by a millionglistening eyes, and nature moved imperceptibly one step nearer tomaturity, this boy and girl made plans for the discovery of a world outof which so many similar explorers have crept with wounds andbitterness.

  They were wonderful and memorable hours, not ever to be lived again.They were the hours that all youth enjoys and delights in once--when,like gold-diggers arrived in sight of El Dorado, they halt and peer atthe chimera that lies at their feet--

  "I'm going to make my mark," Martin said. "I'm going to make somethingthat will last. My father's name was Martin Gray, and I'll make it MEANsome thing out there for his sake."

  "And I," said Joan, springing to her feet and throwing up her chin,"will go joy-riding in the huge round-about. I've seen what it is to beold and useless, and so I shall make the most of every day and hourwhile I'm young. I can live only once, and so I shall make life spinwhatever way I want it to go. If I can get anybody to pay my whack,good. If not, I'll pay it myself--whatever it costs. My motto's goingto be a good time as long as I can get it, and who cares for the price?"

  The boy followed her to the window, and the moonlight fell upon themboth. "Yes," he said, "you'll get a bill, all right. How did you knowthat?"

  "I haven't lived with all those old people so long for nothing," sheanswered. "But you won't catch me grumbling if I get half as much asI'm going out for. Listen to my creed, Martin, and take notes, if youwant to keep up with me."

  "Go ahead," he said, watching the sparkle in her eyes.

  She squared her shoulders and folded her arms in a half-defiant way. "Ishall open the door of every known Blue Room--hurrying out again ifthere are ugly things inside, staying to enjoy them if they're good tolook at. I shall taste a little of every known bottle, feel everythingthere is to feel except the thing that hurts, laugh with any one whoselaugh is catching, do everything there is to do, go into every booth inthe big Bazaar; and when I'm tired out and there's nothing left, Ishall slip out of the endless procession with a thousand things storedaway in my memory. Isn't that the way to live?"

  From the superior height of twenty-four, Martin looked down on Joanindulgently. He didn't take her frank and unblushing individualismseriously. She was just a kid, he told himself. She was a girl who hadbeen caged up and held in. It was natural for her to say all those wildthings. She would alter her point of view as soon as the first surpriseof being free had worn off--and then he would speak; then he would askher to throw in her lot with his and walk in step with him along thestreet of adventure.

  "I sha'n't see the sun rise on this great day," she said, letting ayawn have full play. "I'm sleepy, Marty. I must lie down this veryinstant, even if the floor's the only place you can offer me. Quick!What else is there?" Before he could answer, she had caught sight of alow, long, enticing divan, and onto this, with a gurgle of pleasure,she made a dive, placed two cushions for her head, put one little handunder her face, snuggled into an attitude of perfect comfort anddeliberately went to sleep. It was masterly.

  Martin, not believing that she could turn off so suddenly at a completetangent, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than along, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make outher outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to thehall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laidit gently and tenderly over the unconscious girl.

  He didn't intend to let sleep rob him of the first sight of a day thatwas to mean so much to him, and he went over to the open window, caughtthe scent of lilac and listened, with all his imagination and sense ofbeauty stirred, to the deep breathing of the night.... Yes, he had cutthrough the bars which had kept this girl from taking her place amongthe crowd. He was responsible for the fact that she was about to playher part in the comedy of life. He was glad to be responsible. He hadpassionately desired a cause to which to attach himself; and was there,in all the world, a better than Joan?

  Spring had come again, and all things were young, and the call to materang in his ears and set his heart beating and his thoughts racingahead. He loved her, this girl that he had come upon standing out inall her freshness against a blue sky. He would serve her as the greatlovers had served, and please God, she would some day return his love.They would build up a home and bring up a family and go together up theinevitable hill.

  And as he stood sentinel, in a waking dream, waiting for the finger ofdawn to rub the night away, sleep tapped him on the shoulder, and heturned and went to the divan and sat down with his back to it, touchedone of Joan's placid hands with his lips and drifted into furtherdreams with a smile around his mouth.