Who Cares? A Story of Adolescence

  V

  It was ten o'clock in the morning when Martin brought his car to a stopand looked up at the heavy Gothic decorations of a pompous house inEast Fifty-fifth Street. "Is this it?"

  "Yes," said Joan, getting out of the leather-lined coat that he hadwrapped her in. "It really is a house, isn't it; and luckily, all thegargoyles are on the outside." She held out her hand and gave Martinthe sort of smile for which any genuine man would sell his soul."Marty," she added, "you've been far more than a brother to me. You'vebeen a cousin. I shall never be able to thank you. And I adored thedrive with our noses turned to the city. I shan't be able to be seen onthe streets until I've got some frocks, so please come and see me everyday. As soon as Alice has got over her shock at the sight of me, I'mgoing to compose an historical letter to Grandmother."

  "Let her down lightly," said Martin, climbing out with the suit-case."You've won."

  "Yes, that's true; but I shouldn't be a woman if I didn't get in thelast word."

  "You're not a woman," said Martin. "You're a kid, and you're in NewYork, and you're light-headed; so look out."

  Joan laughed at his sudden gravity and ran up the wide steps and puther finger on the bell. "I've written down your telephone number," shesaid, "and memorized your address. I'll call you up at three o'clockthis afternoon, and if you've nothing else to do, you may take me for awalk in the Park."

  "I sha'n't have anything else to do."

  The door was opened. The footman was obviously English, with the art offootmanism in his blood.

  "Is Mrs. Gilbert Palgrave at home?" asked Joan as if the question wereentirely superfluous.

  "No, miss."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Quite sure, miss. Mrs. Palgrave left for Boston yesterday on accountof hillness in the family, miss."

  There was an awkward and appalled silence. Little did the man suspectthe kind of blow that his statement contained.

  Joan darted an agonized look at Martin.

  "But Mr. Palgrave is at 'ome, miss."

  And that galvanized the boy into action. He had met Gilbert Palgraveout hunting. He had seen the impertinent, cocksure way in which he ranhis eyes over women. He clutched the handle of the case and said:"That's all right, thanks. Miss Ludlow will write to Mrs. Palgrave."Then he turned and went down the steps to the car.

  Trying to look unconcerned, Joan followed.

  "Get in, quick," said Martin. "We'll talk as we go."

  "But why? If I don't stay here, where am I to stay?"

  "I don't know. Please get in."

  Joan stood firm. The color had come back to her face, and a look ofsomething like anger had taken the place of fright. "I didn't tell youto march off like that. Gilbert's here."

  "That's why we're going," Said Martin.

  "I don't understand." Her eyes were blazing.

  "I know you don't. You can't stay in that house. It isn't done."

  "I can do it, and I must do it. Do you suppose I'm going back with mytail between my legs?"

  "If we argue here, we shall collect a crowd." He got into the car andheld out his hand.

  Joan ignored it but followed him in. She was angry, puzzled,disappointed, nonplussed. Alice had no right to be away on such anoccasion. Everything had looked so easy and smooth-sailing. Even Martinhad changed into a different man, and was ordering her about. If hethought he could drive her back to that prison again, he wasconsiderably wrong. She would never go back, never.

  The car was running slowly. "Have you any other friends in town?" askedMartin, who seemed to be trying to hide an odd kind of excitement.

  "No," said Joan. "Alice is my only friend here. Drive to some placewhere I can call up Gilbert Palgrave and explain the whole thing. Whatdoes it matter about my being alone? If I don't mind, who should?Please do as I say. There's no other place for me to go to, and wildhorses sha'n't drag me back."

  "You sha'n't go back," said Martin. He turned the car up Madison Avenueand drove without another word to East Sixty-seventh Street and stoppedin front of a small house that was sandwiched between a mansion and atwelve-story apartment-house. "This is mine," he said simply. "Will youcome in?"

  A smile of huge relief came into Joan's eyes. "Why worry?" she said."How foolish of us not to have thought of this before!"

  But there was no smile on Martin's face. His eyes were amazingly brightand his mouth set firmly. His chin looked squarer than ever. Once morehe carried out the suit-case, put a latchkey into the lock and threwback the door. Joan went in and stood looking about the cheery hallwith its old oak, and sporting prints, white wood and red carpet. "Oh,but this is perfectly charming, Marty," she cried out. "Why did webother our heads about Alice when there is this haven of refuge?"

  Martin marched up to her and stood eye to eye. "Because I'm alone," hesaid, "and you're a girl. That's why."

  Joan made a face. "I see. The conventions again. Isn't there any sortof woman here?"

  "Yes, the cook."

  She laughed. There was a comic side to this tragedy, after all, itseemed. "Well, perhaps she'll give us some scrambled eggs and coffee. Icould eat a horse."

  Martin opened the door of the sitting room. Like the one in which shehad slept so soundly the previous night, it was stamped with thecharacter and personality of the other Martin Gray. Books, warm andfriendly, lined the walls. Mounted on wood, fish of different sizes andbreeds hung above the cases, and over the fireplace there was afull-length oil painting of a man in a red coat and riding breeches.His kind eyes greeted Joan.

  For several minutes she stood beneath it, smiling back. Then she turnedand put her hand involuntarily on the boy's shoulder. "Oh, Marty!" shesaid. "I AM sorry."

  The boy gave one quick upward glance, and cleared his throat. "I toldyou that this house is mine. It isn't. It's yours. It's the only way,if you're to remain in the city. Is it good enough? Do you want to stayas much as all that?"

  The puzzled look came back. For a moment Joan was silent, worrying outthe meaning of Martin's abrupt and rather cryptic words. There seemedto be a tremendous amount of fuss because she happened to be a girl.

  Martin spoke again before she had emerged from the thicket of inwardquestions. She was only eighteen, after all.

  "I mean, you can marry me if you like." he said, "and then no one cantake you back." He was amazed at his courage and hideously afraid thatshe would laugh at him. He had never dared to say how much he loved her.

  She did laugh, but with a ring of so much pleasure and relief that theblood flew to his head. "Why, Marty, what a brain! What organization!Of course I'll marry you. Why ever didn't we think of that last night?"

  But before he could pull himself together a man-servant entered with anair of extreme surprise. "I didn't know you'd come home, sir," he said,"until I saw the suit-case." He saw Joan, and his eyes rounded.

  "I was just going to ring," said Martin. "We want some breakfast. Willyou see to it, please?" Alone again, Martin held out his hand to Joan,in an odd, boyish way. And she took it, boyishly too. "Thank you,Marty, dear," she said. "You've found the magic carpet. My troubles areover; and oh, what a pretty little bomb I shall have for Grandmamma!And now let's explore my house. If it's all like this, I shall simplylove it!" And away she darted into the hall.

  "And now," said Joan, "being duly married,--and you certainly do makethings move when you start, Marty,--to send a telegram to Grandmother!Lead me to the nearest place."

  Certain that every person in that crowded street saw in them a newlymarried couple, Martin tried to hide his joy under a mask of extremecallousness and universal indifference. With the challenging antagonismof an English husband,--whose national habit it is invariably to stalkahead of his women-kind while they scramble along at his heels,--he ledthe way well in advance of his unblushing bride. But his eyes wereblack with emotion. He saw rainbows all over the sky, and rings ofbright light round the square heads of all the buildings which competedin an endeavor to touch the clouds; and there was a song in his heart.

>   They sat down side by side in a Western Union office, dallied for amoment or two with the tied pencils the points of which are alwaysblunt, and to the incessant longs and shorts of a dozen telegraphinstruments they put their epoch-making news on the neat blanks. Martindid not intend to be left out of it. His best pal was off the map, andso he chose a second-best friend and wrote triumphantly: "Have beenmarried to-day. Staying in New York for honeymoon. How are you?" He wassorry that he couldn't remember the addresses of a hundred other men.He felt in the mood to pelt the earth with such telegrams as that.

  "Listen," said Joan, her eyes dancing with mischief. "I think this is apretty good effort: 'Blessings and congratulations on her marriageto-day may be sent to Mrs. Martin Gray, at 26 East Sixty-seventhStreet, New York.--Joan.' How's that?"

  It was the first time the boy had seen that name, and he blinked andsmiled and got very red. "Terse and literary," he said, dying to puthis arms round her and kiss her before all mankind. "They'll havesomething to talk about at dinner to-night. A nice whack in the eye forGleave."

  He managed to achieve a supremely blase air while the words were beingcounted, but it crumbled instantly when the telegraphist shot a quicklook at Joan and gave Martin a grin of cordial congratulation.

  As soon as he saw a taxi, Martin hailed it and told the chauffeur todrive to the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. "We'llwalk from there," he said to Joan, "--if you'd like to, that is."

  "I would like to. I want to peer into the shop windows and look at hatsand dresses. I've got absolutely nothing to wear. Marty, tell me, arewe well off?"

  Martin laughed. She reminded him of a youngster going for a picnic andpooling pocket money. "Yes," he said, "--quite."

  She sat back with her hands crossed in her lap. "I'm so glad. Itsimplifies everything to have plenty to spend." But for her exquisiteslightness and freshness, no one would have imagined that she was anonly just-fledged bird, flying for the first time. Her equability andpoise were those of a completely sophisticated woman. Nothing seemed tosurprise her. Whatever happened was all part and parcel of the greatadventure. Yesterday she was an overwatched girl, looking yearningly ata city that appeared to be unattainable. To-day she was a married womanwho, a moment ago, had been standing before a minister, binding herselffor good or ill to a man who was delightfully a boy and of whom sheknew next to nothing. What did it matter--what did anything matter--solong as she achieved her long-dreamed-of ambition to live and see life?

  "Then I can go ahead," she added, "and dress as becomes the wife of aman of one of our best families. I've never been able to dress before.Trust me to make an excellent beginning." There was a twinkle of humorin her eyes as she said these things, and excitement too. "Tell methis, Marty: is it as easy to get unmarried as it is to get married?"

  "You're not thinking about that already, surely!"

  "Oh, no. But information is always useful, isn't it?"

  Just for a moment the boy's heart went down into his boots. She didn'tlove him yet; he knew that He intended to earn her love as an honestman earns his living. What hurt was the note of flippancy in her voicein talking of an event that was to him so momentous and wonderful. Itseemed to mean no more to her to have entered into a lifelong tie thanthe buying of a mere hat--not so much, not nearly so much, as to havefound a way of not going back to those two old people in the country.She was young, awfully young, he told himself again. Presently her feetwould touch the earth, and she would understand.

  As they walked up Fifth Avenue and with little gurgles of enthusiasmJoan halted at every other shop to look at hats that appealed to Martinas absurdly, willfully freakish, and evening dresses which seemeddeliberately to have been handed over to a cat to be torn to ribbons,it came back to him that one just such soft spring evening, the yearbefore, he had walked home from the Grand Central Station and beenseized suddenly with an almost painful longing to be asked by someprecious person who belonged wholly to him to share her delight in allthe things which then stood for nothing in his life. Then and there hefulfilled an ambition long cherished and hidden away; he touched Joanon the arm and opened the elaborate door of a famous jeweler. He wasknown to the shop from the fact that he and his father had always dealtthere for wedding and Christmas presents. He was welcomed by a man inthe clothes of a concert singer and with the bedside manner of a familydoctor.

  He was desperately self-conscious, and his collar felt two sizes toosmall, but he managed to get into his voice a tone that wassufficiently matter-of-fact to blunt the edge of the man's ratherroguish smile. "Let me see your latest gold-mesh bags," he said asordinary, everyday people ask to see collar studs.

  "Marty!" whispered Joan. "What are you going to do?"

  "Oh, that's all right," said Martin. "You can't get along without abag, you see."

  Half a dozen yellow, insinuating things were laid out on the shiningglass, and with a wonderful smile that was worth all the gold the earthcontained to Martin, Joan made a choice--but not hastily, and notbefore she had inspected every other gold bag in the shop. Even ateighteen she was woman enough to want to be quite certain that shepossessed herself of the very best thing of its kind and would neverhave, in future, to feel jealous of one that might lie alluringly inthe window.

  "This one," she said finally. "I'm quite sure."

  Martin didn't ask the price. It was for his bride. He picked it up andhung it over her wrist, said "The old address," nodded to the man,--whowas just about to call attention to a tray of diamond brooches,--andled the way out, feeling at least six feet two.

  And as Joan regained the street, she passed another milestone in herlife. To be the proprietor of precisely just such a gold bag had beenone of her steady dreams.

  "Marty," she said, "what a darling you are!"

  The boy's eyes filled with tears.