The Project Gutenberg eBook of Marriage inside out
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Title: Marriage inside out
Author: Helen R. Hull
Photographer: Alfred Cheney Johnston
Release date: October 27, 2026 [eBook #79869]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: International Magazine Company, 1924
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79869
Credits: Jens Sadowski. This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE INSIDE OUT ***
Marriage Inside Out
A Story That Might Have Happened in Your Next-door Neighbor’s Home
Helen R. Hull
Photographic Illustrations by Alfred Cheney Johnston
Cosmopolitan, vol. 77, July 1924, pp. 64-69, 150-154.
“Dull show, isn’t it?” Shirley moved away from her husband’s elbow which
jerked emphatically as he clapped. Out before the painted street scene
bounded the dancer, kissing her finger-tips; more smacking of hands. She
slid across past the footlights, paused for a final whirl of one
muscular leg and vanished to a crash of drums.
“What you say?” Kent turned, grinning.
“Old stuff.” said Shirley lightly. “Always makes me ache to see a girl
do the splits. Why do you like it?”
“Nimble pair of legs. Well, here’s the last act.”
The lights faded as a hand shifted the easel card to _H_. The curtain
rolled up on a dark stage. Shirley snuggled against Kent’s arm. Silence
and darkness, while the audience waited. A faint sound from the man with
the traps, like a snore. Another. Giggles from some girl ahead of them.
A door opening, suspense in the slowly widening crack of light. A figure
silhouetted, bent, cautious, shoes in hand. The door closed as slowly
after him. Another snore. Then a thud, a rumble of the snare drum, a
shrill “Wow!” and a sudden flash of brightness over the stage. A
bedroom, the wife sitting up in bed in a marvelous negligée, the husband
picking tacks out of his stockinged feet, the dialog breaking into
rapid, violent patter of domestic accusation. Shirley felt Kent’s
chuckle as the man waved feeble expostulatory hands.
“You brute. I slave for you and you treat me this way!”
“Business engagement, wifey dear.”
“Did it wear white gloves?” The husband tried unsuccessfully to conceal
the long white glove dangling from his pocket. The wife leaped out of
bed, singing to the sudden stirring of the orchestra.
“I’m going home to mo-other’s! I’m going to le-eave you flat.”
“Now lissen, dearie, don’t do that!”
And so on, with some hurling of movable bric-à-brac, dodged by the man
in clog steps, with all the comic supplement stuff of married life.
Shirley screwed her mouth into active disgust. She loathed it. Vulgar,
common stuff. And all around her came bursts of laughter, a relaxed
amusement, as if the rest of the audience found the stale quips almost
too funny to endure.
“You leave me all alone, night after night.”
“I couldn’t leave you any other way, it wouldn’t be right.”
Loud thumps from the drum.
They were dancing now, an intricate and violent interweaving of steps,
and out of the man’s pocket squirmed a long white thing—a stocking. He
wadded it up, pretended it was a handkerchief, sniffled into it, still
gyrating, while he declared his innocence in syncopated bad rhymes.
Finally, after a period of acrobatic dancing, a closing slow clog, to
the song, “For you can’t marry anything else but a man.”
“Huh!” Kent gave a final grunt of laughter as he rose and held Shirley’s
coat. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“It was awful!” Shirley pushed out to the aisle. Kent’s hand at her
elbow. She wanted to get out of the theater; she felt shrunken into a
dot on the surface of a bland masculine amusement—as if all the men in
the audience were melted together into one guffaw, and the women, the
girls, were reduced to imperceptible, separate dots. She had had that
feeling before; she had felt that solidity back of Kent’s attitude,
sometimes, during this year. But tonight....
“Hi, Kent!” The lean, hooked face of Henry Beech peered out at them.
“Can’t marry anything else but a man, eh?”
“That’s it.” Kent grinned, and Shirley nodded at Henry. She wanted to
like him; he was Kent’s best friend. He was alone tonight; Mrs. Beech
probably had to stay home with the children.
Wedged in the crowd, they moved out to the lobby. As they passed the
ticket booth Shirley found herself staring briefly into the round, hard
blue eyes of the girl who sold tickets, eyes black-fringed, under
amazing red hair. Only for an instant, and the girl turned to smile at
the manager who stood behind her. Shirley thought Kent spoke, but when
she looked at him he was just glancing away from the ticket window, a
faint smile on his wide mouth.
“You want to wait here while I get the car?” They had slipped through
the doors to the street, the fresh chill March air a little shivery
after the close theater. “I had to park down the block.”
“No. I’ll come along.”
The streets were fringed solidly with cars, so solidly that escape was a
Matter of agile maneuvering. Spitting, choking, grinding of gears, as
they twisted and backed and finally edged cautiously out past the next
bumper. Shirley buttoned the curtain of the roadster into place and
watched Kent. She wanted to get away from the street, away from all the
cars. Fancifully they seemed to her like the audience, a collective
maleness, chugging about, guffawing. There, they were out with a skilful
twirl of the wheel, slipping dexterously through traffic down the main
street.
Kent stretched back against the seat.
“Council ought to do something about the way cars get jammed in.” He
looked around at Shirley. “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel good? You
never cracked a smile all that last act.” He grinned reminiscently.
“I loathed it,” said Shirley.
“Huh?” He laughed. “Why, it was pretty good. Nothing new, but I tell
you, some of those lines were all right. That’s the way folks go on.
Fellow was telling me just this last week about his wife giving him the
razoo. Said she’d go home to mother. That’s why it was funny. It had a
lot of real stuff.”
“Was it Henry Beech?”
“I’m not saying who.”
“Well....” Shirley stared out at the dark street. “If that’s true stuff
and people talk like that, then marriage ought to be abolished by law,
that’s all.”
“Wow!” Kent laughed again. “I’ll bet if I came home at three with a silk
stocking in my hip pocket, you’d hand me a few.”
Shirley giggled. “You wouldn’t do it, Kent.” She slipped her hand under
his arm, squeezing it softly. “Not even once, would you?”
“No. I’d be sure I left the stocking where it belonged.”
Shirley was silent a moment. Then: “But I think Amy Beech ought to do
something. Only she’s got those children. That’s why I don’t see how you
can like him.”
“Henry’s all right.” Kent was intent on the road. “Amy takes him too
seriously. A man likes a little fun, that’s all. He’s as fond of Amy as
he ever was.”
Kent swung around a corner, down a short block and into a driveway, the
headlights waving across the small white house and focusing on the
garage door. Kent halted the car with a sudden grinding of brakes, and
reaching in his pocket, jumped out. Shirley waited. She heard a jingle,
and a mutter from Kent.
“Those blamed keys! Shirley, reach me the spot light.”
Shirley fumbled in the pocket of the door. Where was the thing? She
pulled out a wad of gloves, a hard round something, a tire gauge; there
it was. As she handed it out to Kent, the round something slipped to the
floor. Kent went on to the garage door as she bent to pick it up. The
little dash light shone on it. A small gold vanity case with
peacock-blue enamel inlaid on the cover. Her eyes touched it, moved to
the gloves in her lap. Why, this was like vaudeville. Not Kent’s gloves.
A pair of not too fresh yellow chamois, ridiculously small.
“Hey, drive her in, Shirley!” The glow from the headlights caught Kent
in sharp poster relief of black and white.
Shirley slid over to the steering wheel, slipping the vanity case and
gloves into the pocket. Clumsily she let the car into gear and jerked
into the garage. Whose things were those? She climbed out of the car and
waited at the house door for Kent to bolt the garage and let her into
the house.
“How about a little snack?” Kent rushed up behind her, unlocked the
door, swung her over the threshold with a firm hug. “_Brr!_ ’Scold here.
I’ll see to the furnace while you rustle some grub, what?”
As she hung away her coat and hat and went out to the tiny blue and
white kitchen, Shirley heard him in the basement, rattling at the
shaker, shouting up, “Shirley! Let down that check, will you?”
She stood by the table, bread knife poised over the loaf, and listened
to the rumble of coal slipping over the shovel. Why, nothing had
happened. The house was still a sweet, separate place, shutting them in
together. Some customer, some woman asking about insurance had left
those things. She wouldn’t suspect Kent. It was just that horrid
vaudeville act. She wished she had spoken of them. Henry Beech was
always dropping little innuendoes. “How the ladies must miss you, Kent.
Or perhaps you don’t let them? Do you keep an eye on him, Mrs. Shirley?”
Kent was coming, two steps at a time, whistling. Shirley cut into the
loaf.
“I’m starved.”
“I had a grand dinner, and then you never came home.”
“Rotten shame. But I had to see this party on business. Thought you
wouldn’t mind meeting me at the theater.” Kent bit into a sandwich.
“Who was it?” Shirley poured milk into the glasses.
“Oh, a prospect.” Kent was casual. “That tastes like another.”
“Was the prospect a woman?” Shirley was cutting more bread, her sleeve
falling away from a slender wrist. As she spoke her eyelids half lowered
over the soft, dark irises, and then with the end of her question lifted
suddenly into the beautiful curve of the sockets, a little unconscious
mannerism which pointed her words with quick intensity.
“Why, see here, Shirley!” Kent’s heavy brows pulled together in a
startled frown. “You trying to stage a vaudeville act?”
“Yes.” Shirley spread the cheese evenly. “Isn’t that the right way? You
said it was true.”
“You almost had me choked.” He consumed the second sandwich with gusto.
He hadn’t answered her. Shirley pushed away the ugly thought. Kent had
gone down to put the furnace to bed, as he always said, and she had set
out the milk bottles, locked the side door and gone on into the bedroom.
He hadn’t answered her. As she pulled hairpins out of her soft dark
hair, her eyelids fluttered with a sudden pricking of fear. If she had
insisted ... he might even have lied. Kent! Why, she was crazy. It was
just that horrid play. She trusted him. Absolutely.
But she lay awake for a long time listening to his slow, steady
breathing, watching the dimity curtains move against the black night.
That girl in the restaurant, months ago, soon after she had married
Kent, swaggering up to their table. “Won’t you introduce me to your
wife, Kent?” Kent had been stiff, almost taciturn, unlike his usual
jaunty self. “I’ve wanted to meet you, Mrs. Mason. Kent knows how much.”
A kind of pinched look about the hard line of her scarlet mouth. And all
Kent had said when the girl had gone was, “A girl I used to know.
Nervy.”
And that little soft pink and yellow stenographer in Kent’s office.
Shirley had seen her in the car with Kent several times during the fall.
On business, Kent had explained. One day when Shirley had gone into the
office she had felt uncomfortable like an interloper. Kent was
dictating, but the girl had an intense, suppressed excitement in her
blue eyes. A few weeks later Kent said the firm had fired the girl.
“Silly little piece. No good,” he had said. “Man-crazy. Thinks if a man
looks at her he’s making love. She can’t even spell.”
Kent always stood up for Henry Beech, too, in spite of Henry’s
conspicuous affairs. But that was because they had been together in
France, been in school together earlier than that.
She was a fool to lie there making herself wretched. For nothing. She
loved Kent. All these months together. Ever since she had met him that
summer, at the little resort on Lake Michigan where she had gone for her
short holiday. He was there ... well, face it! He was there to see
another girl. But he hadn’t looked at her, once he had seen Shirley.
Henry Beech said Shirley caught him because they were separated by so
many miles, she at her decorating job in Detroit, Kent down here. What
was the matter with her tonight? She twisted under the warm covers,
curled an arm beneath her cheek. A vanity case in the car pocket, and
that feeling in the theater—of men melted together into a huge amusement
because women were jealous, because women minded their philandering,
their unfaithfulness. But Kent wasn’t men. He was Kent. And she wasn’t
one of those women, bleating out jealously, with no pride, with nothing
but fear. Kent had loyalty. If he hadn’t.... But she wouldn’t think any
more. In the morning she wouldn’t be so silly.
And in the morning, with bright March sun filling the rooms, Kent in his
usual rush to be off, Shirley grinned satirically at her mood of the
night before. Fortunately she hadn’t let it leak out. A picturesque,
gallant figure, her orange smock blowing in the wind, she waved good-by
to Kent from the porch. He couldn’t come in for luncheon. She wandered
about the house, humming, touching her possessions with friendly pats of
her duster. It had been fun, planning a house for herself and Kent. None
of the big jobs she had handled in Detroit had given her that kind of
thrill. If sometimes, now that the planning was accomplished, the day
seemed very full of hours before Kent came home again, she never
admitted that aloud. Less than a year of marriage. Of building, with
Kent, something beautiful, something that was life itself. She wasn’t
sighing for her old job. She stared down at the orange smock; perhaps if
she wore ordinary aprons, she wouldn’t keep reminding herself.
Just eleven. She picked up the alarm clock and ran her finger slowly
around the hours down to the VI. She might begin that dyeing; she had
the designs worked out for the curtains. But it was a messy job, and the
day was too lovely to spend it in the basement with wax and smelly
chemicals. She’d go off somewhere. Kent needed the car. But if she
hopped on the trolley and rode to the end of the line, maybe there would
be pussy-willows. It was almost April. Pussy-willows for the brown jug.
She telephoned the office. Mr. Mason was not in.
She dressed in a rush, eager now for the tramp. Sandwiches in the pocket
of her coat, soft tan hat with its green feather pulled down over her
hair, she ran out to dig her toe into the tiny yard; did she need
overshoes? The ground was soft where the sun had lain; the country roads
might be deep in mud. She glanced back at the house as she went down the
street, with a wave of her hand and a “Stay just as you are till I come
home!”
The conductor was evidently doubtful about her destination when she
climbed off the car. He looked after her as he plodded around with the
trolley pole, reversing his route. But Shirley strode off, hands in her
pockets, her small nose sniffing at the air—spring air, with faint hints
of earth slowly warmed from ice, dirty snow melting into ditches. The
road was hard surfaced, part of the long straight drive across the
state; they had driven out here often—no other road was fit for winter
use. Kent said the town would stretch out this way soon; so far the
street-car ran its last mile chiefly on that hope.
Shirley passed a farmhouse, dingy in the bright sun, smoke from a
chimney spiraling against the cottony white clouds drifting along the
wind. Where did pussy-willows grow? Not in ditches along a state road.
The trees were still bare, although she thought perhaps, if she stared
up at their tracery, she could see a subtle softening of their hard
boughs. Another mile, and she came to a lane leading off between fields.
Perhaps pussy-willows would grow there. She liked the curious springy
feeling of the ground; the frost was working out, but under the muddy
surface she could feel hard earth.
Car tracks cut deeply into the mud. Shirley hesitated. Had someone
driven in? The mud hung in little blobs along the cuts as if the track
had been made recently. Hard walking. Just beyond the fence rose an elm,
with flat stones, sun-warmed, at its base. She’d eat her luncheon there.
She wriggled through the wires and sat down, leaning against the trunk
of the elm, squinting up at the vivid blue. It was a good day, even if
she didn’t find the pussy-willows.
She could hear cars whirring past on the state road she had left. Too
bad she’d been so stingy about her luncheon. She pulled an apple out of
her pocket and bit into it. Suddenly, farther up the lane, she heard the
burr of a starter catching the engine. There was a car, then. She peered
around the tree. Why, it looked like.... Her hand pressed against the
rough bark. Chugging slowly down through the mud came the little
roadster with Kent, laughing, and beside him, dimly visible in the
darkened recess, a face ... that girl at the theater, the ticket girl!
Shirley, her body twisted in a half turn there on the flat stone, did
not move; her face lost its color except for a smudge of blue along her
lips. Then the blood flooded dully back and she sagged down against the
tree trunk; she felt very sick, as if every muscle, everything within
her body contracted in bitter rejection. Kent, sneaking off into a
country lane. She stared down at the apple, with the neat line of teeth
marks. Suddenly she flung it away. This was the way it felt, then! She
did want to hurl things, to shriek horrible words, to hurt him. Her
heart beat rapidly, pounding up into her throat until she couldn’t
breathe.
Presently she lifted her eyes, looking out amazed at the sunshine, the
brilliant sky. Unchanged. Nothing was changed except that she knew. She
was tired. But she crawled under the wire fence and plodded down the
lane. If she tried to tell Kent—he would be amused, nonchalant,
defiant—or indignant. What was there to say?
The ride back through the town dragged out and out while Shirley sat,
her hands clutched together, her eyelids lowered over dark anger.
Clicking, whirling bits of scenes, trifles, words out of the past months
fitted relentlessly together. Separately, they had meant nothing. Just
Kent’s way. But fitted together, with today, they meant—well, what?
Oh, at least there’s no baby! Shirley watched the woman in front of her
settle a little boy beside her, pull a blanket over the child in her
arms. Nothing to make me helpless, so I have to cry and cajole and beg.
At the door of her house she hesitated, dreading to go in. All that
tangible evidence around her of the thing she thought they were making
together. Her chin lifted, her lips firm, she stepped inside. Her
exhaustion had vanished, and she felt a curious excitement. She must do
something.
“I’m going home to mo-ther! I’m going to leave you flat!”
She winced at the horrible grimace out of last night’s vaudeville. Then,
as if the little rosewood desk offered her tranquil advice, she knew.
Old Mr. Bragg who had ordered it for her, saying in jocular
friendliness: “If you ever want a job, Mrs. Mason, let me know. I’d like
someone in charge of this department. You’ve had experience, and you’ve
got ideas.”
* * * * *
When she came back to the house the spring twilight held it in darkness,
except for the soft squares of light through the curtained windows. Kent
was home, then. Shirley pressed her hand against her throat an instant
and then pushed open the door.
“Well, where you been?” Kent dropped his paper. Shirley pulled off her
gloves, her eyelids lowered. “All ragged out. Somebody pull a party?”
Slim, erect, Shirley stood in front of him. “I did. I’ve been getting a
job and finding a place to live.”
“Huh?”
“This house is too far from town, and I’ll be too busy anyway.” If only
that frantic throbbing of her heart would stop!
“What’s the joke?”
Shirley slipped out of her jacket, smoothing its fur with cold fingers.
“It’s all off, Kent. I’m tired of—keeping house.” She went past him into
the bedroom to hang away the coat. She heard him come plunging after
her.
“What’s the big idea? This your notion of a joke?”
“No.” Shirley closed the closet door and sat down quickly because her
knees wouldn’t stop shaking. “You see, I found out today—why woman’s
place is home.” Her lips had a new cruelty in their sharp twist. “If I’d
stayed home, I wouldn’t have known, so soon. But you’re tired of it too,
aren’t you? So....”
“You crazy, Shirley?” Kent stood over her, a bewildered frown between
his heavy brows. “Or sick?”
“Mr. Bragg is making me head of the furnishing department. Going to
feature me in his store ads. I’ll step out and let you”—oh, how hard it
was not to seize some of the ugly phrases!—“let you have your joy
rides....”
“What’s happened?” Kent was flushing now, angry, crouching forward.
“Kent.” Shirley lifted her face, from which the color had drifted out.
The swift triumph of the afternoon was ebbing. “I don’t want to quarrel.
I saw you today, in that lane. It isn’t the first time, is it?”
“Good Lord, Shirley, can’t I take a girl in the car? What ails you?”
“You can take anybody you like. But you can’t have me too. That’s all.
Silly of me.” Shirley slipped to her feet, backed away from him. She
flung one hand up, palm out, against her forehead. “I’m jealous, or
crazy! But I can’t stay.”
[Illustration: “You can take anybody you like in the car, Kent. But you
can’t have me too. I won’t live on half rations of love.”]
“See here, Shirley—I did have the girl out for a ride.” He admitted that
with an air of ingenuous openness. “What of it? You aren’t so foolish as
all that. You know it’s you I love.”
“Loving me isn’t that easy. You can’t do it in between times.”
“Shirley!” He tried to catch her hand, cajoling, dominant. “You know
it’s really you. Why, if I’d thought you’d mind....”
Shirley edged away from him.
“You think I’m just making a scene. Women stuff. It’s what you’ve said
about Henry, always. I won’t be like Amy Beech, living on half rations
of love. Kent, I’m going away. I found a room at the hotel. I got me a
job. You thought you had me safely parked.”
“You needn’t threaten me! You’re my wife. I haven’t done anything that
justifies such nonsense,” blustered Kent.
If he once touched her, held her, all her fierce resolve would topple!
That was the trouble with women, soft, forgiving fools!
“I don’t know what you’ve done!” she cried out. “Maybe I couldn’t bear
it if I knew. But you’re selfish.”
“Go on! Call me a brute!”
Ah, he heard those horrid echoes too!
“Light lover. Love isn’t just excitement—amusing yourself. I thought it
had to be loyal too. That’s why I can’t stay. I’m afraid of all the rest
of my life!” She dodged past him, through the hall, into the next room,
the little guest chamber. She locked the door and leaned there amazed,
her hands pressed against its smooth panels.
“Shirley!” He rattled at the knob. “Come out of there! Shirley!” Then,
coaxingly: “I won’t touch you. You must come out.” She could hear him
stride away, come back to listen. He was running his hand through his
brown hair, his face twisted in angry bewilderment—she could see him as
clearly as if the door were transparent. “Do you want me to break down
that door?”
“No.” A hysteric giggle shook Shirley. “I can’t talk any more. I said it
all.”
Silence. Then: “Shirley, dear, I’m sorry. Please come.”
[Illustration: “Shirley! Come out of there! Do you want me to break down
that door?” Silence. Then: “Shirley dear, I’m sorry. Please come out.”]
She crept back from the door, to huddle down on the bed in the dark
room. If she went.... She needed a barrier like that thin piece of wood,
something to hold her back. Her foolish heart was melting, creeping out
through the crack of yellow at the bottom.
[Illustration: “No. I can’t talk any more. I said it all.” Shirley’s
heart was melting, creeping out through the crack at the bottom of the
door.]
“I’m not going to make a fool of myself standing here all night! Are you
coming?” A little boy, angry, bristling.
She strained her ears. He was walking away from the door, his very
footsteps sounding cross. He thought still that it was just a scene.
Part of the pattern of marriage. Presently she heard the outer door
slam. Why, he was going away! She heard him back the car out of the
garage, heard him whirring away until the house was full of silence.
That was part of the pattern, too. The husband slams the door and
vanishes, until the wife.... But she wouldn’t have her marriage like
that!
She got to her feet unsteadily. She would undress and go to bed. If she
meant to work tomorrow she couldn’t sit there all night.
She wasn’t asleep when Kent came back several hours later. She heard him
tiptoe to the door, pause, tiptoe away. Busily her mind followed the
sounds of his undressing. Finally she heard him raise the window
cautiously. He thought she was asleep. He had lost his anger, she knew;
probably he was sanguine about morning and his power to cajole her. With
a shiver she pressed her face into the pillow. It was well she had let
that wave of discovery carry her straight into action.
Morning. Kent was shaking down the furnace fire. Why, she had slept,
then. It would be easier to stay there, behind that door, until Kent had
gone. That was part of the pattern, too. Kent had said once, “They’d
pull a grand family row, and then mother would hide herself upstairs for
days till they made it up.” She wouldn’t hide. Breakfast together,
calmly. She hurried through her bath, splashing water into her white
face; if only her eyelids didn’t look so smeary!
“Oh, Shirley! Where’s that new white shirt of mine?” Kent’s question
followed her into the kitchen, a deliberate challenge.
“In the third drawer.” Her voice was steady enough. But ridiculous how
much heartbreak stirred from homely, pleasant things—fragrance of
coffee, even toast!
Kent’s face across the table, fresh-shaven, bland; his poker face,
waiting for her to give some sign.
“Why the funeral silence?” Kent could wait no longer. “Feel better?”
[Illustration: Kent’s face across from Shirley, fresh-shaven, bland; his
poker face, waiting for her to give some sign—“Why the funeral
silence?”]
Shirley finished her coffee, pushed away from the table. “I’ll have to
hurry,” she said.
Kent did not stir. She washed and dried the bright china, hung the towel
carefully on the rack and walked swiftly into the guestroom. Her bags
were packed. Resolutely she marched into the hall. She’d call a taxi.
Then her cards would be on the table.
They were! She looked up into Kent’s face, incredulous, hard.
“I thought you’d come to your senses. You can’t go off like this!”
“I can’t do anything else.” Shirley went back to the dressing-table and
fitted her hat carefully at the right angle. Her reflection helped her,
like a stern second self watching.
“You want people talking about us? Good Lord, Shirley, I haven’t done
anything.”
“I can’t help folks talking. It’s what I feel that matters.”
“If you go off like this, it’s for good!” Kent’s mouth twitched. “You
can’t make a fool of me....”
“No, _I_ can’t.” Her emphasis was sharp.
“You’ve just been waiting for an excuse, that’s it. What kind of wife
are you?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at her reflection. Stiff now! “I only know if
being married to me is so dull for you, I can’t stand it.” The door-bell
jangled. Shirley lifted the bags, walked straight past Kent to the door.
The chauffeur took the bags, and she turned. For an instant her voice
wouldn’t sound. Kent strode toward her, stopped half-way, his fists
doubled.
“I got the laundry ready,” she said, and then, in the same monotonous
tone, “You see, if it can’t be beautiful, I won’t have it at all!”
She ran down the steps and stumbled into the taxi, one hand pressed
against her lips.
During the curious, feverish weeks that followed, Shirley discovered
many things. She told herself day after day that once she had been
happy, just working, without Kent. That some day she might fill up the
awful, bottomless hole. He couldn’t have changed the world in so short a
time. If she could work hard enough.... Mr. Bragg was enthusiastic about
her schemes. Did Kent see the long two-column ads? “Our New Interior
Decorating Department. Bring your decorating problems here and let our
specialist from an exclusive Detroit shop solve them for you.”
Kent needn’t have worried about gossip. Perhaps his friends knew she was
living in the hotel. Henry Beech knew. He had bowed to her accusingly
one day. But incredible things could happen, and no one noticed. Mr.
Bragg may have wondered—but business satisfied him. No one had
questioned her. And she never saw Kent. Sometimes, as the spring
twilights grew longer and Shirley escaped from her lonely room to walk
along the river drive, suddenly wings would stir in her heart. Was that
Kent, that man ahead of her? Or was that roadster his? The faint odor of
the dark river, the green whiff of shrubs budding, the silver shred of
moon dropping through softened boughs; the river drive was no place for
Shirley on a spring night!
If Kent had cared, wouldn’t he try to see her? If you go, you go for
good. Pride—perhaps he was glad to be free.
She tried to wind herself firmly in the demands of this house she was
planning—her first big job. A huge, ornate red brick, set in half a
block of lawn, with high-ceilinged, poorly proportioned rooms. Shirley
wondered about the house; and the mistress, a faded thin woman, seemed
to seize upon Shirley as a defense against some obscure foe. Just
boredom, loneliness, or something worse? Shirley had bits of information
dropped by Mr. Bragg; the woman, Mrs. Kirsall, had been out of town for
several years. Lots of money. Husband one of the old families. They had
said Mrs. Kirsall had left him for good—and a sense of spicy stories
reluctantly withheld by Mr. Bragg.
Then one morning, when the clear sun shone on the freshly done walls
with their soft green and the draperies lay in shimmering folds of
silver and black, the woman leaned toward Shirley.
“You’re married, aren’t you? Isn’t that fine-looking Kent Mason your
husband?”
“Yes.” Shirley listened for the workmen.
“You—haven’t left him?” The woman’s face was piteous rather than
curious.
“I’m too busy to keep house, you see.”
“Oh, if I had ever had anything to do! Anything! You girls today....”
She flung her arms wide, a nervous, petulant gesture toward the
draperies. “All this—is a peace offering. A bribe. I’d said I was
through. But what else could I do but come back? Helpless. He can go his
way—and I can have new furnishings.” Her face quivered into its wrinkled
mask as the men clattered in.
She never opened that door again, except for a crack one day when she
whispered, “I envy you, my dear. I envy you!” And Shirley was glad when
finally that job was done.
April had come, with crocuses pricking out in sheltered corners, pale,
fragile stars in lawns still unkempt. Shirley carried to her room a
bunch of pussy-willows from the florist’s. If Kent doesn’t see what I
mean—she thought. It would be like Mrs. Kirsall, my going back. The dark
stems of the willows, with soft gray knobs, were for reminder. Kent
hadn’t cared enough. After the passion and delight of those first
months, he had gone hunting again.
Late one afternoon Shirley sat in the tiny booth which served her for
office. She turned the pages of a sample book of chintzes. Mr. Bragg’s
voice outside the door, “You’ll find her in there, I think.” She looked
up, and a panic whirled inside her head. Kent’s father! He came in and
sat dawn opposite her.
“Oh!” said Shirley softly. “You!” She closed the sample book and dropped
her hands firmly into her lap. He was like Kent. The few days last
summer when she had gone with Kent to see his family, they had got on
famously, she and Kent’s father. Gray, stiff hair, all Kent’s charm
stiffened into wrinkles; but too much like him.
“I ran over from home to see you folks,” he began, “and found you’d had
a spat. So I thought I’d come collect you.”
“Did Kent say that?” Shirley lifted her eyelids wide. The late sun
showed her face thinner, a little strained.
“No, not exactly. But I’ve been married, too. He said you’d left him.
He’s so stubborn, he couldn’t come after you. So I thought I would.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Oh, he said what a fool he’d been, joyriding with the girls. You aren’t
mad about that yet, are you?”
“You think it was all right?”
“It wasn’t so wicked you ought to pull out this way. Just usual. And
Kent’s cut up. He’s not bad. He’s always fooled around with the girls.
But he didn’t mean anything. Women have to sort of expect that. I
thought you seemed pretty fond of Kent. You weren’t just waiting a
chance to step out, were you?”
“That’s what Kent said. It isn’t true. I wasn’t waiting.”
“Um. Just the shine wore off, and then you got mad. Well, you come on
back. You can keep Kent in order, I guess. By the time you’ve got a baby
or two, you’ll see things different.”
“You mean that then I’d have to take whatever happened!”
“Well,” he grinned at her, an echo of Kent’s grin. “I know Kent’s mother
used to give me fits. I had an eye for good-looking girls, too. Kent
gets that honestly. But after a while, with babies and all, things got
settled down. We were glad when Kent got married, and I sort of thought
you’d be sensible.”
Shirley caught her breath. “You think I’m jealous and stubborn. It’s not
that. You think men have to be forgiven and women patch things up—and
then they go hobbling along somehow. I won’t have my life that way. Half
measures. It isn’t easy, being married. Tying yourself onto a man. If he
won’t help you—build something out of it—I can’t stand it.”
Mr. Mason squinted his eyelids at her.
“Men and women are sort of different folks,” he said slowly. “Women
idealize things. I guess men do, when they are boys. But all boys are
better than any man. Kent didn’t want to mess things all up. He was
careless. You ought to help him. Kind of ballast. If you don’t, he’ll
just go on, worse and worse.”
“I won’t be ballast!” Shirley cried out. “Ballast—and all the jokes
about not letting your wife find out. If men are that different from
women, they ought to stay away from each other!”
Mr. Mason laughed. “Now, Shirley. They have to get along together
someway.”
“A decent way, then! For me, anyhow.”
Mr. Mason sobered and a queer shadow lay in his eyes. “When you’re
young, you feel hard and sure and indestructible. But when you get
older, you see. You never find the perfect thing you’re looking for.”
“You don’t find perfect things. You have to make them. Work at them. I
guess being married is like any job. Kent fell down.”
“Job!” Mr. Mason scowled, a vein rising over one temple. “That’s the
trouble, right there. You modern girls are too darned independent.
That’s what’s wrong. You don’t like your job and so you throw it over
just because you can get another and make some money. Bah!”
“And your wife couldn’t do anything but forgive you, could she?”
“That’s something, isn’t it?” Mr. Mason stared belligerently at Shirley.
“What kind of girl are you, wanting to ruin Kent’s life just because he
hugged another girl? He’s like most men. Never means any serious harm.
It’s the woman’s fault if there’s a smash.”
“All right.” Shirley’s eyelids were down and she spoke rapidly. “It’s my
fault. But I won’t go on. Not that way. If being married isn’t Kent’s
job too, then I’m out of it.” She rose as a knock sounded at the door.
“Mrs. Mason, customer wants to see you about some portières.” A clerk
peered through the half opened door.
“I’ll be out at once.” Shirley moved past her father-in-law and paused
an instant at the door. “Don’t hate me,” she said softly, and her hand
touched his doubled fist. “I ...” and then she hurried out before the
mist clouding her eyes could become real tears. He looked so
disappointed, so middle-aged!
Couldn’t he see that unless Kent had loyalty there was nothing to do
about it? “Yes, madam, you could have a valance, cut like this.” She
seized a pencil, began a sketch. Was it her fault? “Coming down at the
corners, with a heavy tassel.”
* * * * *
That night she couldn’t sleep. The fog of the evening had thickened into
rain which splashed on the window and tinkled on roofs below. Over and
over the talk of the afternoon wound itself through her head. Her fault?
Did she expect too much? But she asked nothing more than she wanted to
give. Kent’s father—he wasn’t happy. Respectable and comfortable. He had
drifted along, light of love, like Kent. Makeshift. Was that all life
gave you?
It still rained the next morning, a steady, gray downpour. Shirley
frowned at her mirror. She looked gaunt. She choked down an undesired
breakfast in a corner of the big dining room. A few traveling men at
scattered tables bent over their bacon and eggs and morning mail. She
stopped in the hallway for her raincoat and rubbers. Just around the
corner at the hotel desk a corpulent salesman was chatting with the
clerk. Shirley listened apathetically to their words.
“Quite a head-line spill for a town this size, eh?”
“Yeuh.”
“I happened along just afterwards, saw the crowd, yuh know, and went
across to see. Was the girl hurt much, did’ja hear?”
“She’s all right. Stunned. Too tough to die, I’d say.”
“Good-looking dame, if you like that kind. I saw ’em pick her up.”
“Yeuh. Ticket pusher at the vaudeville house here. Pretty fly Jane. Too
bad about the fellow.”
“Um. Sent him right out. Skull cracked, they said. Drunk, wasn’t he?”
“I donno. Might of had something. Car skidded and hit the telephone
pole.”
Shirley leaned back against the shelves, a rubber dangling from her
fingers. She couldn’t move; nothing lived within her except the
intensity of her listening.
“Hard on his wife.”
“Yeuh.” The clerk lowered his voice. “He’d been running around with this
Jane.”
“Nasty way to kick out. We always hope we won’t get caught with the
goods, don’t we?”
The clerk had turned away to answer a telephone call. The salesman
wouldn’t know her. Shirley ran across the lobby, pushed through the
revolving door, splashed across the sidewalk to a taxi waiting at the
stand. Did the driver look at her pityingly as she gave the address?
Hard on his wife. The girl was too tough to die. But Kent....
Shirley huddled in the corner of the cab, a curious apathy binding all
her senses. Kent, dead. She ought to feel something, not just this
mulled dullness. “Why, I didn’t think Kent could die!” she said, and the
words rattled like hail in her ears.
She fitted her key into the lock of the front door, her movements
automatic and exact. Why had she come back here now? Too late. “I never
thought you might die.” she whispered as she pushed into the house. And
through her apathy there boomed and thundered a strange amazement,
terrific and incredible. Death. Why, every day she had thought Kent
would come for her. That was it. She had just been waiting for him to
come swinging along, his hand out, that young grin on his face.
“Shirley, let’s try it, again....” That was what he had said, that
summer.
She moved slowly through the rooms. An evening paper sprawled on the
rug; a half smoked cigar lay in the ash tray. Kent had been staying
here. The long fronds of the fern under the window were fresh and green.
Bewildered, she touched her fingers to the fern tips, to the back of the
chair where he had sat. Things, just things, could stay unaltered. Oh!
She flung her hand up against her lips. It wasn’t fair! Death wasn’t
fair.
She tiptoed into the dining room. Dust grayed the table top and chairs.
One of Kent’s soft collars and a bright blue tie straggled off the edge
of the buffet. Shirley reached toward them, drew back her hand. If she
touched them, she would cry.
Ballast, Kent’s father had said. If she had stayed, perhaps Kent would
be alive now.
She came to the closed kitchen door and laid her hand on the knob. From
beyond the door there came the faint scruff of a chair scraped along
linoleum. As the door swung open into the kitchen at Shirley’s frantic
thrust, she swayed back against it, arms outspread, while the familiar
blue and white of the room went whirling off into dizzy blackness. Her
self was melting down out of her body and crawling across the floor to
the chair where Kent sat, staring at her. Slowly her heart began to beat
again; she brushed a hand across her eyelids, trying to look through
that queer cloud.
“Shirley!” Kent had an arm about her shoulders, and as the cloud eddied
away she saw his face close to hers, gray, unshaven, the eyelids swollen
and weary.
“You—aren’t dead?” She lifted her fingers to his cheek. “They said you
were dead.” She was crying, clinging to him, with long shivering sobs.
Kent pushed off her hat, touched her hair gently.
“I’m all right. Here, sit down. Who said I was dead?”
“I heard them.” Shirley dashed her hand against the tears; they blurred
Kent. “At the hotel. Auto accident, they said....”
Kent leaned on the edge of the table, looking down at her. “It was Henry
Beech,” he said slowly. “Not me. I was home here. They sent for me. To
tell his wife.” Shirley reached for his hand, held it. “I was just
sitting here, sort of thinking about things. Dad had just gone. The
phone rang. My heavens, Shirley, I felt mean. Poor old Henry.”
“I thought it was you.” Shirley dug her fingers into his hand; it was
real. Kent was there.
“It might of been me if you hadn’t knocked me flat, going off. Amy—well,
it wasn’t easy telling her. She’s got those kids. She didn’t take on,
but it was worse, her being quiet. She said, ‘Well, nothing worse can
happen to me and the children now.’” Kent hesitated. “I didn’t know
Henry was running that girl. I haven’t seen him much lately. I’ve been
sticking around here.” He looked at Shirley piteously. “Henry never
meant to have any real disgrace like that—to leave his kids and all.
It’s queer. And you—you thought it was me.”
“Yes.” Shirley’s breath choked in a faint sigh. “Poor Amy.”
“But Henry was a grand fellow.” Kent’s face settled into somber, haggard
lines. “When I think of folks sniffing around about his dying that way,
I could——” He doubled his fist against the table. “Amy’s better off. She
just nagged at him. She never put it to him straight and clean. She’s
not like you.”
Shirley slipped to her feet and laid her hands firmly on his shoulders.
“When I thought you were dead,” she said, “I wanted to die too. I had to
find you.”
“Shirley——” Kent did not move, although Shirley felt the tautness of his
muscles under her fingers. “Shirley, let’s try it again.” Shirley’s
hands slipped about his neck in a fierce little clasp. “I don’t care
what you do,” he went on doggedly, “so long as you let me hang around
where you are. I got to have you, Shirley!”
“All right,” she said. “Let’s try.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Transcribed from Cosmopolitan, vol. 77, July 1924, pp. 64-69, 150-154.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public
domain.
The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved.
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