Making Over Martha 37

Making Over Martha 37

"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying

her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam,

the children, even Ma.

 

Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the

sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the

early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly

re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and

common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam

Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob

of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was

there no longer.

 

"What’s the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from

Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.

 

Nobody answered.

 

Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed,

was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a

livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all

the years of their life together.

 

"What’s the matter?" she repeated.

 

Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband,

with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door.

 

"Now, what _is_ the matter? For the love o’ Mike, one of you say!" she

demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.

 

The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out

of Ma.

 

"As Heaven’s me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered

peevishly.

 

"Well?" probed Martha.

 

"But to see me own son castin’ black looks at me, as if he’d slay me——"

 

"Tell me what _you’ve_ done, never mind about Sam!"

 

"The day I first see you writin’ one o’ them letters, Martha——"

 

"What letters?"

 

Sam’s fist came down on the table-top with the force of a sledge-hammer.

 

"Hold your tongue, Ma! By God! I won’t have my wife’s ears soiled with

your dirty gossip. I’ve listened to you myself long enough, too long.

I’d not have done it, even so, except for the need there is to stop your

scandal-mongering—yours and this woman’s here."

 

Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

 

"Why, Sam! What ails you?" she asked in wonder. "I never seen you the

like o’ this before. Let Ma speak. She was sayin’ about letters. What

letters?"

 

The muscles in Sam’s jaws twitched visibly beneath his tense skin. As

Martha looked at him, she seemed scarcely to recognize him for the man

who was her husband. Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses of her

memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted in some far-off, vague time

and association, when she had not consciously taken note of it. "Beware

the fury of a patient man!" Now she understood what the words meant.

 

"If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it’s I will tell her," he

spoke so low, his words were barely audible, but Ma would have felt

easier if he had thundered. "Now listen, you two, to what I say. Never

for one second have I doubted my woman. Never would I. When I tell

you, Martha, what these have been saying, I don’t do so for you to deny

it. You’re my wife. I believe in you—and would, against heaven

and—_hell_. It seems, you’ve been writing letters to some one, lately,

which God knows you’ve the right to do it. But these two here must

needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing the stray bits of scribbling

you thought you’d destroyed and thrown away. They gathered them up,

and, when your back was turned, pieced them together, to send to me with

an anonymous letter—only I suspicioned something was afoot, and watched,

and to-day I caught them at it. My God! There ought to be a separate

fire in hell as punishment for such damned muck-raking!"

 

"Sam!" entreated Martha.

 

"Suppose you _have_ written Gilroy, who, none knows better than I, how

once he wanted to marry you, and how you turned him down for me.

Suppose you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy has written

to you——"

 

"I have, Sam, an’—he has," Martha confessed slowly.

 

"Surely you’d the right to do it, and I’d be the last to question you."

 

Martha gave him a long look.

 

"Did you say Ma an’ Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o’ my letters to Gilroy?"

 

Sam nodded.

 

"Did they give you the letters?"

 

Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.

 

With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came

to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud.

 

"’I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan

as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours—MARTHA."

 

She looked up to meet her husband’s eyes.

 

"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.

 

Mrs. Peckett’s chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its

habitual level.

 

"You see," she observed suavely, "I’m not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I’m

not the other things you have called me to your shame—not mine. But I

bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I’m not that kind of

person. I’m a Christian woman, trying to do my duty."

 

"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.

 

"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband’s

unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look’m

over, ain’t from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They’re from letters

I wrote to—another man."

 

Still Sam did not flinch.

 

Martha took a deep breath.

 

"Won’t you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett? An’ I’ll sit, too. An’ so will

you, Sam. So long’s we got on this subjec’, we better come to a clear

understandin’. That’s always the best way. As I said at the start, Sam,

I have been writin’ to Gilroy, an’ he’s been writin’ to me."

 

She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine stood, pulled open

the drawer of its table, and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes

tied about with a strand of black darning-cotton.

 

"P’raps I’d ought to have told you firstoff, Sam, but I didn’t, because

I thought your feelin’s might be hurt, an’—what you don’t know won’t

worry you. The day after you had the news of Andy’s note comin’ doo, I

got a letter from Gilroy. I’ve it right here now. Also mine answerin’

it. That’s to say, a _copy_ of mine answerin’ it. The reason I kep’ ’m

is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an’—well—when you’re dealin’ with

foxy parties, you got to be foxy to match’m. I won’t read you the

letters. If you like, _you_ can read’m. They’re here _for_ you.

Gilroy said ’twas him held your note for Andy. He’d took it over, an’

he was writin’ me to say that, for the sake o’ the days gone by, he

wanted to do me a kindness. He said he’d let you off the note. He

said, well he knew what a poor provider you was, an’ we’d prob’ly none

too much, if we had anythin’ a tall, an’, as for him, he’d _plenty_, so

he’d never miss it, bein’ as he is a bachelder, an’ right-hand-man to

Judge Granville, an’ prosperin’ better an’ better every day.

 

"I wrote’m back, post-haste, that I thanked’m kindly, but you’d already

sent the money to Andy. Such bein’ the case, I couldn’t o’ course take

him at his word to let you off the note, but knowin’ me so well as he’d

used to, he’d know that I’d like nothin’ better than take money off’n a

friend who meant so kindly by me _as his letter showed he did_. Bein’

that kind of a friend, I said, I knew he’d like to hear you’re doin’

grand—you’re right-hand-man to Mr. Ronald, an’ we’ve all we need an’

more, too, an’ prosperin’ better an’ better every day.

 

"I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I sent it off, to make

sure it was all right, an’ Gilroy’d know what I meant. Miss Claire

laughed when she was through readin’ it. She said, it was surely all

right, but what he’d read between the lines had illustrations, whatever

that means. Anyhow, it stirred up Gilroy somethin’ fierce, an’——"

Martha paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide. "He wrote to

me again. A whole lot o’ love-sick trash. I sent his letter back to’m

(me keepin’ a copy) with just a gentle hint o’ warnin’ to the effec’

that if ever he done the like again, I’d tell you on’m, an’ we’d both of

us come down to New York by the first train, an’ take a turn out

of’m—first you, an’ then me _on your leavin’s_. Here’s the whole

co-respondence, Sam. I’m glad to get rid of it. It was clutterin’ up

my machine-drawer. But, p’raps, before you take it, to lock it

away—Mrs. Peckett an’ Ma would like to examine it."

 

Mrs. Peckett shook her head.

 

"Then you’re satisfied I ain’t a callyope?" Martha asked her.

 

"A _what_?" demanded Sam sharply.

 

"A callyope. One o’ them things whistles on a boat, which, every oncet

in a while we’d hear’m on the river, down home. Likewise, they mean

coqwette."

 

"You mean _siren_?"

 

"Yes. Sure. They’re called both ways. Madam Crewe says all women are

sirens. Then you’re satisfied I ain’t a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"

 

Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy patronage.

 

Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment.

 

"I see you _ain’t_ satisfied!"

 

"I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned, but——"