Please do! I know that you do, Roberta. I can tell. Please, tell
me now. I'm crazy about you. We have so little time."
He kissed her again upon the cheek and mouth, and suddenly he felt
her relax. She stood quite still and unresisting in his arms. He
felt a wonder of something--he could not tell what. All of a
sudden he felt tears upon her face, her head sunk to his shoulder,
and then he heard her say: "Yes, yes, yes. I do love you. Yes,
yes. I do. I do."
There was a sob--half of misery, half of delight--in her voice and
Clyde caught that. He was so touched by her honesty and simplicity
that tears sprang to his own eyes. "It's all right, Roberta. It's
all right. Please don't cry. Oh, I think you're so sweet. I do.
I do, Roberta."
He looked up and before him in the east over the low roofs of the
city was the thinnest, yellowest topmost arc of the rising July
moon. It seemed at the moment as though life had given him all--
all--that he could possibly ask of it.
Chapter 18
The culmination of this meeting was but the prelude, as both Clyde
and Roberta realized, to a series of contacts and rejoicings which
were to extend over an indefinite period. They had found love.
They were deliciously happy, whatever the problems attending its
present realization might be. But the ways and means of continuing
with it were a different matter. For not only was her connection
with the Newtons a bar to any normal procedure in so far as Clyde
was concerned, but Grace Marr herself offered a distinct and
separate problem. Far more than Roberta she was chained, not only
by the defect of poor looks, but by the narrow teachings and
domestic training of her early social and religious life. Yet she
wanted to be gay and free, too. And in Roberta, who, while gay and
boastful at times, was still well within the conventions that
chained Grace, she imagined that she saw one who was not so bound.
And so it was that she clung to her closely and as Roberta saw it a
little wearisomely. She imagined that they could exchange ideas
and jests and confidences in regard to the love life and their
respective dreams without injury to each other. And to date this
was her one solace in an otherwise gray world.
But Roberta, even before the arrival of Clyde in her life, did not
want to be so clung to. It was a bore. And afterwards she
developed an inhibition in regard to him where Grace was concerned.
For she not only knew that Grace would resent this sudden
desertion, but also that she had no desire to face out within
herself the sudden and revolutionary moods which now possessed her.
Having at once met and loved him, she was afraid to think what, if
anything, she proposed to permit herself to do in regard to him.
Were not such contacts between the classes banned here? She knew
they were. Hence she did not care to talk about him at all.
In consequence on Monday evening following the Sunday on the lake
when Grace had inquired most gayly and familiarly after Clyde,
Roberta had as instantly decided not to appear nearly as interested
in him as Grace might already be imagining. Accordingly, she said
little other than that he was very pleasant to her and had inquired
after Grace, a remark which caused the latter to eye her slyly and
to wonder if she were really telling what had happened since. "He
was so very friendly I was beginning to think he was struck on
you."
"Oh, what nonsense!" Roberta replied shrewdly, and a bit alarmed.
"Why, he wouldn't look at me. Besides, there's a rule of the
company that doesn't permit him to, as long as I work there."
This last, more than anything else, served to allay Grace's notions
in regard to Clyde and Roberta, for she was of that conventional
turn of mind which would scarcely permit her to think of any one
infringing upon a company rule. Nevertheless Roberta was nervous
lest Grace should be associating her and Clyde in her mind in some
clandestine way, and she decided to be doubly cautious in regard to
Clyde--to feign a distance she did not feel.
But all this was preliminary to troubles and strains and fears
which had nothing to do with what had gone before, but took their
rise from difficulties which sprang up immediately afterwards. For
once she had come to this complete emotional understanding with
Clyde, she saw no way of meeting him except in this very
clandestine way and that so very rarely and uncertainly that she
could not say when there was likely to be another meeting.
"You see, it's this way," she explained to Clyde when, a few
evenings later, she had managed to steal out for an hour and they
walked from the region at the end of Taylor Street down to the
Mohawk, where were some open fields and a low bank rising above the
pleasant river. "The Newtons never go any place much without
inviting me. And even if they didn't, Grace'd never go unless I
went along. It's just because we were together so much in
Trippetts Mills that she feels that way, as though I were a part of
the family. But now it's different, and yet I don't see how I am
going to get out of it so soon. I don't know where to say I'm
going or whom I am going with."
"I know that, honey," he replied softly and sweetly. "That's all
true enough. But how is that going to help us now? You can't
expect me to get along with just looking at you in the factory,
either, can you?"
He gazed at her so solemnly and yearningly that she was moved by
her sympathy for him, and in order to assuage his depression added:
"No, I don't want you to do that, dear. You know I don't. But
what am I to do?" She laid a soft and pleading hand on the back of
one of Clyde's thin, long and nervous ones.
"I'll tell you what, though," she went on after a period of
reflection, "I have a sister living in Homer, New York. That's
about thirty-five miles north of here. I might say I was going up
there some Saturday afternoon or Sunday. She's been writing me to
come up, but I hadn't thought of it before. But I might go--that
is--I might--"
"Oh, why not do that?" exclaimed Clyde eagerly. "That's fine! A
good idea!"
"Let me see," she added, ignoring his exclamation. "If I remember
right you have to go to Fonda first, then change cars there. But I
could leave here any time on the trolley and there are only two
trains a day from Fonda, one at two, and one at seven on Saturday.
So I might leave here any time before two, you see, and then if I
didn't make the two o'clock train, it would be all right, wouldn't
it? I could go on the seven. And you could be over there, or meet
me on the way, just so no one here saw us. Then I could go on and
you could come back. I could arrange that with Agnes, I'm sure. I
would have to write her."
"How about all the time between then and now, though?" he queried
peevishly. "It's a long time till then, you know."
"Well, I'll have to see what I can think of, but I'm not sure,
dear. I'll have to see. And you think too. But I ought to be
going back now," she added nervously. She at once arose, causing
Clyde to rise, too, and consult his watch, thereby discovering that
it was already near ten.
"But what about us!" he continued persistently. "Why couldn't you
pretend next Sunday that you're going to some other church than
yours and meet me somewhere instead? Would they have to know?"
At once Clyde noted Roberta's face darken slightly, for here he was
encroaching upon something that was still too closely identified
with her early youth and convictions to permit infringement.
"Hump, uh," she replied quite solemnly. "I wouldn't want to do
that. I wouldn't feel right about it. And it wouldn't be right,
either."
Immediately Clyde sensed that he was treading on dangerous ground
and withdrew the suggestion because he did not care to offend or
frighten her in any way. "Oh, well. Just as you say. I only
thought since you don't seem to be able to think of any other way."
"No, no, dear," she pleaded softly, because she noted that he felt
that she might be offended. "It's all right, only I wouldn't want
to do that. I couldn't."
Clyde shook his head. A recollection of his own youthful
inhibitions caused him to feel that perhaps it was not right for
him to have suggested it.
They returned in the direction of Taylor Street without, apart from
the proposed trip to Fonda, either having hit upon any definite
solution. Instead, after kissing her again and again and just
before letting her go, the best he could suggest was that both were
to try and think of some way by which they could meet before, if
possible. And she, after throwing her arms about his neck for a
moment, ran east along Taylor Street, her little figure swaying in
the moonlight.
However, apart from another evening meeting which was made possible
by Roberta's announcing a second engagement with Mrs. Braley, there
was no other encounter until the following Saturday when Roberta
departed for Fonda. And Clyde, having ascertained the exact hour,
left by the car ahead, and joined Roberta at the first station
west. From that point on until evening, when she was compelled to
take the seven o'clock train, they were unspeakably happy together,
loitering near the little city comparatively strange to both.
For outside of Fonda a few miles they came to a pleasure park
called Starlight where, in addition to a few clap-trap pleasure
concessions such as a ring of captive aeroplanes, a Ferris wheel, a
merry-go-round, an old mill and a dance floor, was a small lake
with boats. It was after its fashion an idyllic spot with a little
band-stand out on an island near the center of the lake and on the
shore a grave and captive bear in a cage. Since coming to Lycurgus
Roberta had not ventured to visit any of the rougher resorts near
there, which were very much like this, only much more strident. On
sight of this both exclaimed: "Oh, look!" And Clyde added at
once: "Let's get off here, will you--shall we? What do you say?
We're almost to Fonda anyhow. And we can have more fun here."
At once they climbed down. And having disposed of her bag for the
time being, he led the way first to the stand of a man who sold
frankfurters. Then, since the merry-go-round was in full blast,
nothing would do but that Roberta should ride with him. And in the
gayest of moods, they climbed on, and he placed her on a zebra, and
then stood close in order that he might keep his arm about her, and
both try to catch the brass ring. And as commonplace and noisy and
gaudy as it all was, the fact that at last he had her all to
himself unseen, and she him, was sufficient to evoke in both a kind
of ecstasy which was all out of proportion to the fragile, gimcrack
scene. Round and round they spun on the noisy, grinding machine,
surveying now a few idle pleasure seekers who were in boats upon
the lake, now some who were flying round in the gaudy green and
white captive aeroplanes or turning upward and then down in the
suspended cages of the Ferris wheel.
Both looked at the woods and sky beyond the lake; the idlers and
dancers in the dancing pavilion dreaming and thrilling, and then
suddenly Clyde asked: "You dance, don't you, Roberta?"
"Why, no, I don't," she replied, a little sadly, for at the very
moment she had been looking at the happy dancers rather ruefully
and thinking how unfortunate it was that she had never been allowed
to dance. It might not be right or nice, perhaps--her own church
said it was not--but still, now that they were here and in love
like this--these others looked so gay and happy--a pretty medley of
colors moving round and round in the green and brown frame--it did
not seem so bad to her. Why shouldn't people dance, anyway? Girls
like herself and boys like Clyde? Her younger brother and sister,
in spite of the views of her parents, were already declaring that
when the opportunity offered, they were going to learn.
"Oh, isn't that too bad!" he exclaimed, thinking how delightful it
would be to hold Roberta in his arms. "We could have such fun now
if you could. I could teach you in a few minutes if you wanted me
to."
"I don't know about that," she replied quizzically, her eyes
showing that his suggestion appealed to her. "I'm not so clever
that way. And you know dancing isn't considered so very nice in my
part of the country. And my church doesn't approve of it, either.
And I know my parents wouldn't like me to."
"Oh, shucks," replied Clyde foolishly and gayly, "what nonsense,
Roberta. Why, everybody dances these days or nearly everybody.
How can you think there's anything wrong with it?"
"Oh, I know," replied Roberta oddly and quaintly, "maybe they do in
your set. I know most of those factory girls do, of course. And I
suppose where you have money and position, everything's right. But
with a girl like me, it's different. I don't suppose your parents
were as strict as mine, either."
"Oh, weren't they, though?" laughed Clyde who had not failed to
catch the "your set"; also the "where you have money and position."
"Well, that's all you know about it," he went on. "They were as
strict as yours and stricter, I'll bet. But I danced just the
same. Why, there's no harm in it, Roberta. Come on, let me teach
you. It's wonderful, really. Won't you, dearest?"
He put his arm around her and looked into her eyes and she half
relented, quite weakened by her desire for him.
Just then the merry-go-round stopped and without any plan or
suggestion they seemed instinctively to drift to the side of the
pavilion where the dancers--not many but avid--were moving briskly
around. Fox-trots and one-steps were being supplied by an
orchestrelle of considerable size. At a turnstile, all the
remaining portions of the pavilion being screened in, a pretty
concessionaire was sitting and taking tickets--ten cents per dance
per couple. But the color and the music and the motions of the
dancers gliding rhythmically here and there quite seized upon both
Clyde and Roberta.
The orchestrelle stopped and the dancers were coming out. But no
sooner were they out than five-cent admission checks were once more
sold for the new dance.
"I don't believe I can," pleaded Roberta, as Clyde led her to the
ticket-stile. "I'm afraid I'm too awkward, maybe. I never danced,
you know."
"You awkward, Roberta," he exclaimed. "Oh, how crazy. Why, you're
as graceful and pretty as you can be. You'll see. You'll be a
wonderful dancer."
Already he had paid the coin and they were inside.
Carried away by a bravado which was three-fourths her conception of
him as a member of the Lycurgus upper crust and possessor of means
and position, he led the way into a corner and began at once to
illustrate the respective movements. They were not difficult and
for a girl of Roberta's natural grace and zest, easy. Once the
music started and Clyde drew her to him, she fell into the
positions and steps without effort, and they moved rhythmically and
instinctively together. It was the delightful sensation of being
held by him and guided here and there that so appealed to her--the
wonderful rhythm of his body coinciding with hers.
"Oh, you darling," he whispered. "Aren't you the dandy little
dancer, though. You've caught on already. If you aren't the
wonderful kid. I can hardly believe it."
They went about the floor once more, then a third time, before the
music stopped and by the time it did, Roberta was lost in a sense
of delight such as had never come to her before. To think she had
been dancing! And it should be so wonderful! And with Clyde! He
was so slim, graceful--quite the handsomest of any of the young men
on the floor, she thought. And he, in turn, was now thinking that
never had he known any one as sweet as Roberta. She was so gay and
winsome and yielding. She would not try to work him for anything.
And as for Sondra Finchley, well, she had ignored him and he might
as well dismiss her from his mind--and yet even here, and with
Roberta, he could not quite forget her.
At five-thirty when the orchestrelle was silenced for lack of
customers and a sign reading "Next Concert 7.30" hung up, they were
still dancing. After that they went for an ice-cream soda, then
for something to eat, and by then, so swiftly had sped the time, it
was necessary to take the very next car for the depot at Fonda.
As they neared this terminal, both Clyde and Roberta were full of
schemes as to how they were to arrange for to-morrow. For Roberta
would be coming back then and if she could arrange to leave her
sister's a little early Sunday he could come over from Lycurgus to
meet her. They could linger around Fonda until eleven at least,
when the last train south from Homer was due. And pretending she
had arrived on that they could then, assuming there was no one whom
they knew on the Lycurgus car, journey to that city.
And as arranged so they met. And in the dark outlying streets of
that city, walked and talked and planned, and Roberta told Clyde
something--though not much--of her home life at Biltz.
But the great thing, apart from their love for each other and its
immediate expression in kisses and embraces, was the how and where
of further contacts. They must find some way, only, really, as
Roberta saw it, she must be the one to find the way, and that soon.
For while Clyde was obviously very impatient and eager to be with
her as much as possible, still he did not appear to be very ready
with suggestions--available ones.
But that, as she also saw, was not easy. For the possibility of
another visit to her sister in Homer or her parents in Biltz was
not even to be considered under a month. And apart from them what
other excuses were there? New friends at the factory--the post-
office--the library--the Y. W. C. A.--all suggestions of Clyde's at
the moment. But these spelled but an hour or two together at best,
and Clyde was thinking of other week-ends like this. And there
were so few remaining summer week-ends.
Chapter 19
The return of Roberta and Clyde, as well as their outing together,
was quite unobserved, as they thought. On the car from Fonda they
recognized no one. And at the Newtons' Grace was already in bed.
She merely awakened sufficiently to ask a few questions about the
trip--and those were casual and indifferent. How was Roberta's
sister? Had she stayed all day in Homer or had she gone to Biltz
or Trippetts Mills? (Roberta explained that she had remained at
her sister's.) She herself must be going up pretty soon to see her
parents at Trippetts Mills. Then she fell asleep.
But at dinner the next night the Misses Opal Feliss and Olive Pope,
who had been kept from the breakfast table by a too late return
from Fonda and the very region in which Roberta had spent Saturday
afternoon, now seated themselves and at once, as Roberta entered,
interjected a few genial and well-meant but, in so far as Roberta
was concerned, decidedly troubling observations.
"Oh, there you are! Look who's back from Starlight Park. Howja
like the dancing over there, Miss Alden? We saw you, but you
didn't see us." And before Roberta had time to think what to
reply, Miss Feliss had added: "We tried to get your eye, but you
couldn't see any one but him, I guess. I'll say you dance swell."
At once Roberta, who had never been on very intimate terms with
either of these girls and who had neither the effrontery nor the
wit to extricate herself from so swift and complete and so
unexpected an exposure, flushed. She was all but speechless and
merely stared, bethinking her at once that she had explained to
Grace that she was at her sister's all day. And opposite sat
Grace, looking directly at her, her lips slightly parted as though
she would exclaim: "Well, of all things! And dancing! A man!"
And at the head of the table, George Newton, thin and meticulous
and curious, his sharp eyes and nose and pointed chin now turned in
her direction.
But on the instant, realizing that she must say something, Roberta
replied: "Oh, yes, that's so. I did go over there for a little
while. Some friends of my sister's were coming over and I went
with them." She was about to add, "We didn't stay very long," but
stopped herself. For at that moment a certain fighting quality
which she had inherited from her mother, and which had asserted
itself in the case of Grace before this, now came to her rescue.
After all, why shouldn't she be at Starlight Park if she chose?
And what right had the Newtons or Grace or anyone else to question
her for that matter? She was paying her way. Nevertheless, as she
realized, she had been caught in a deliberate lie and all because
she lived here and was constantly being questioned and looked after
in regard to her very least move. Miss Pope added curiously, "I
don't suppose he's a Lycurgus boy. I don't remember ever seeing
him around here."
"No, he isn't from here," returned Roberta shortly and coldly, for
by now she was fairly quivering with the realization that she had
been caught in a falsehood before Grace. Also that Grace would
resent intensely this social secrecy and desertion of her. At once
she felt as though she would like to get up from the table and
leave and never return. But instead she did her best to compose
herself, and now gave the two girls with whom she had never been
familiar, a steady look. At the same time she looked at Grace and
Mr. Newton with defiance. If anything more were said she proposed
to give a fictitious name or two--friends of her brother-in-law in
Homer, or better yet to refuse to give any information whatsoever.
Why should she?
Nevertheless, as she learned later that evening, she was not to be
spared the refusing of it. Grace, coming to their room immediately
afterward, reproached her with: "I thought you said you stayed out
at your sister's all the time you were gone?"
"Well, what if I did say it?" replied Roberta defiantly and even
bitterly, but without a word in extenuation, for her thought was
now that unquestionably Grace was pretending to catechize her on
moral grounds, whereas in reality the real source of her anger and
pique was that Roberta was slipping away from and hence neglecting
her.
"Well, you don't have to lie to me in order to go anywhere or see
anybody without me in the future. I don't want to go with you.
And what's more I don't want to know where you go or who you go
with. But I do wish you wouldn't tell me one thing and then have
George and Mary find out that it ain't so, and that you're just
trying to slip away from me or that I'm lying to them in order to
protect myself. I don't want you to put me in that position."
She was very hurt and sad and contentious and Roberta could see for
herself that there was no way out of this trying situation other
than to move. Grace was a leech--a hanger-on. She had no life of
her own and could contrive none. As long as she was anywhere near
her she would want to devote herself to her--to share her every
thought and mood with her. And yet if she told her about Clyde she
would be shocked and critical and would unquestionably eventually
turn on her or even expose her. So she merely replied: "Oh, well,
have it that way if you want to. I don't care. I don't propose to
tell anything unless I choose to."
And at once Grace conceived the notion that Roberta did not like
her any more and would have nothing to do with her. She arose
immediately and walked out of the room--her head very high and her
spine very stiff. And Roberta, realizing that she had made an
enemy of her, now wished that she was out of here. They were all
too narrow here anyway. They would never understand or tolerate
this clandestine relationship with Clyde--so necessary to him
apparently, as he had explained--so troublesome and even
disgraceful to her from one point of view, and yet so precious.
She did love him, so very, very much. And she must now find some
way to protect herself and him--move to another room.
But that in this instance required almost more courage and decision
than she could muster. The anomalous and unprotected nature of a
room where one was not known. The look of it. Subsequent
explanation to her mother and sister maybe. Yet to remain here
after this was all but impossible, too, for the attitude of Grace
as well as the Newtons--particularly Mrs. Newton, Grace's sister--
was that of the early Puritans or Friends who had caught a
"brother" or "sister" in a great sin. She was dancing--and
secretly! There was the presence of that young man not quite
adequately explained by her trip home, to say nothing of her
presence at Starlight Park. Besides, in Roberta's mind was the
thought that under such definite espionage as must now follow, to
say nothing of the unhappy and dictatorial attitude of Grace, she
would have small chance to be with Clyde as much as she now most
intensely desired. And accordingly, after two days of unhappy
thought and then a conference with Clyde who was all for her
immediate independence in a new room where she would not be known
or spied upon, she proceeded to take an hour or two off; and having
fixed upon the southeast section of the city as one most likely to
be free from contact with either the Newtons or those whom thus far
she had encountered at the Newtons', she inquired there, and after
little more than an hour's search found one place which pleased
Дата добавления: 2015-09-29; просмотров: 30 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая лекция | | | следующая лекция ==> |