Read Ebook: The Husband's Story: A Novel by Phillips David Graham

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Ebook has 1936 lines and 126649 words, and 39 pages

That very evening we began to look for a home. As soon as we were outside her front gate she turned in the direction of the better part of the town. Nor did she pause or so much as glance at a house until we were clear of the neighborhood in which we had always lived, and were among houses much superior. I admired, and I still admire, this significant move of hers. It was the gesture of progress, of ambition. It was splendidly American. I myself should have been content to settle down near our fathers and mothers, among the people we knew. I should no doubt have been better satisfied to keep up the mode of living to which we had been used all our lives. The time would have come when I should have reached out for more comfort and for luxury. But it was natural that she should develop in this direction before I did. She had read her novels and her magazines, had the cultured woman's innate fondness for dress and show, had had nothing but those kinds of things to think about; I had been too busy trying to make money to have any time for getting ideas about spending it.

"The rents are much higher in this neighborhood," said I, with a doubtful but admiring look round at the pretty houses and their well-ordered grounds.

"Of course," said she. "But maybe we can find something. Anyway, it won't do any harm to look."

As we walked on, she with an elate and proud air, she said: "How different it smells over here!"

At first I didn't understand what she meant. But, as I thought of her remark, the meaning came. And I believe that was the beginning of my dissatisfaction with what I had all my life had in the way of surroundings. I have since observed that the sense of smell is blunt, is almost latent, in people of the lower orders, and that it becomes more acute and more sensitive as we ascend in the social scale. Up to that time my ambition to rise had been rather indefinite--a desire to make money which everyone seemed to think was the highest aim in life--and also an instinct to beat the other fellows working with me. Now it became definite. I began to smell. I wanted to get away from unpleasant smells. I do not mean that this was a resolution, all in the twinkling of an eye. I simply mean that, as everything must have a beginning, that remark of hers was for me the beginning of a long and slow but steady process of what may be called civilizing.

Presently she said: "If we couldn't afford a house, we might take one of the flats."

"But I'm afraid you'd be lonesome, away off from everybody we know."

She explained--as well as she could--probably as well as anybody could. I admired her learning but the thing itself did not interest me. "I guess there must be something in it," she went on. "I'm sure in a former life I was something a lot different from what I am now."

"Oh, you're all right," I assured her, putting my arm round her in the friendly darkness of a row of sidewalk elms.

When we had indulged in an interlude of love-making, she returned to the original subject. "I wonder how much rent we could afford to pay," said she.

"They say the rent ought never to be more per month than the income is per week."

"Then we could pay twenty-five a month."

That seemed to me a lot to pay--and, indeed, it was. But she did not inherit Weeping Willie's tightness; and she had never had money to spend or any training in either making or spending money. That is to say, she was precisely as ignorant of the main business of life as is the rest of American womanhood under our ridiculous system of education. So, twenty-five dollars a month rent meant nothing to her. "We can't do anything to-night," said she. "But I've got my days free, and I'll look at different places, and when I find several to choose from we can come in the evening or on Sunday and decide."

This suited me exactly. We dismissed the matter, hunted out a shady nook, and sat down to enjoy ourselves after the manner of young lovers on a fine night. Never before had she given herself freely to love. I know now it was because never before had she loved me. I was deliriously happy that night, and I am sure she was too. She no less than I had the ardent temperament that goes with the ambitious nature; and now that she was idealizing me into the man who could lead her to the fairy lands she dreamed of, she gave me her whole heart.

It was the beginning of what was beyond question the happiest period of both our lives. I have a dim old photograph of us two taken about that time. At a glance you see it is the picture of two young people of the working class--two green, unformed creatures, badly dressed and gawkily self-conscious. But there is a look in her face--and in mine-- To be quite honest, I'm glad I don't look like that now. I wouldn't go back if I could. Nevertheless-- How we loved each other!--and how happy we were!

I feel that I weary you, gentle reader. There is in my sentiment too much about wages and flat rents and the smells that come from people who work hard and live in poor places and eat badly cooked strong food. But that is not my fault. It is life. And if you believe that your and your romancers' tawdry imaginings are better than life--well, you may not be so wise or so exalted as you fancy.

The upshot of our inspecting places to live and haggling over prices was that we took a flat in the best quarter of Passaic--the top and in those elevatorless days the cheapest flat in the house. We were to pay forty dollars a month--a stiff rent that caused excitement in our neighborhood and set my mother and her father to denouncing us as a pair of fools bent upon ruin. I thought so, myself. But I could have denied Edna nothing at that time, and I made up my mind that by working harder than ever at the railway office I would compel another raise. When I told my mother about this secret resolve of mine, she said:

"If you do get more money, Godfrey, don't tell Edna. She's a fool. She'll keep your nose to the grindstone all your life if you ain't careful. It takes a better money-maker than you're likely to be to hold up against that kind of a woman."

"That's just it," replied my mother. "That's why I ain't got no use for women. Look what poor managers they are. Look how they idle and waste and run into debt."

"But there's a lot to be said against the men, too. Saloons, for instance."

"And talkin' politics with loafers," said my father's wife bitterly.

"I guess the trouble with men and women is they're too human," said I, who had inherited something of the philosopher from my father. "And, mother, a man's got to get married--and he's got to marry a woman."

"Yes, I suppose he has," she grudgingly assented. "Mighty poor providers most of the men is, and mighty poor use the women make of what little the men brings home. But about you and Edny Wheatlands-- You ought to do better'n her, Godfrey. You're caught by her looks and her style and her education. None of them things makes a good wife."

"I certainly wouldn't marry a girl that didn't have them--all three."

"But there's something more," insisted mother.

"What do you mean, mother?"

"Wait till you've got money in the savings bank. Wait till you've got used to having money. Then maybe you'll be able to put a bit on a spendthrift wife even if you are crazy about her. You're making a wrong start with her, Godfrey. You're giving her the upper hand, and that's bad for women like her--mighty bad."

It was from my mother that I get my ability at business. She and I often had sensible talks, and her advice started me right in the railroad office and kept me right until I knew my way. So I did not become angry at her plain speaking, but appreciated its good sense, even though I thought her prejudiced against my Edna. However, I had not the least impulse to put off the marriage. My one wish was to hasten it. Never before or since was time so leisurely. But the day dragged itself up at last, and we were married in church, at what seemed to us then enormous expense. There was a dinner afterward at which everyone ate and drank too much--a coarse and common scene which I will spare gentle reader. Edna and I went up to New York City for a Friday to Monday honeymoon. But we were back to spend Sunday night in our grand forty-dollar flat. On Monday morning I went to work again--a married man, an important person in the community.

Never has any height I have attained or seen since equalled the grandeur of that forty-dollar flat. My common sense tells me that it was a small and poor affair. I remember, for example, that the bathroom was hardly big enough to turn round in. I recall that I have sat by the window in the parlor and without rising have reached a paper on a table at the other end of the room. But these hard facts in no way interfere with or correct the flat as my imagination persists in picturing it. What vistas of rooms!--what high ceilings--what woodwork--and plumbing!--and what magnificent furniture! Edna's father, in a moment of generosity, told her he would pay for the outfitting of the household. And being in the undertaking business he could get discounts on furniture and even on kitchen utensils. Edna did the selecting. I thought everything wonderful and, as I have said, my imagination refuses to recreate the place as it actually was. But I recall that there was a brave show of red and of plush, and we all know what that means. Whether her "Lady Book" had miseducated her or her untrained eyes, excited by the gaudiness she saw when she went shopping, had beguiled her from the counsels of the "Lady Book," I do not know. But I am sure, as I recall red and plush, that our first home was the typical horror inhabited by the extravagant working-class family.

No matter. There we were in Arcadia. For a time her restless soaring fancy, wearied perhaps by its audacious flight to this lofty perch of red and plush and forty dollars a month, folded its wings and was content. For a time her pride and satisfaction in the luxurious newness overcame her distaste and disdain and moved her to keep things spotless. I recall the perfume of cleanness that used to delight my nostrils at my evening homecoming, and then the intoxicating perfume of Edna herself--the aroma of healthy young feminine beauty. We loved each other, simply, passionately, in the old-fashioned way. With the growth of intelligence, with the realization on the part of men that her keep is a large part of the reason in the woman's mind if not in her heart for marrying and loving, there has come a decline and decay of the former reverence and awe of man toward woman. Also, the men nowadays know more about the mystery of woman, know everything about it, where not so many years ago a pure woman was to a man a real religious mystery. Her physical being, the clothes she wore underneath, the supposedly sweet and clean thoughts, nobler than his, that dwelt in the temple of her soul--these things surrounded a girl with an atmosphere of thrilling enigma for the youth who won from her lips and from the church the right to explore.

All that has passed, or almost passed. I am one of those who believe that what has come, or, rather, is coming, to take its place is better, finer, nobler. But the old order had its charm. What a charm for me!--who had never known any woman well, who had dreamed of her passionately but purely and respectfully. There was much of pain--of shyness, fear of offending her higher nature, uneasiness lest I should be condemned and cast out--in those early days of married life. But it was a sweet sort of pain. And when we began to understand each other--to be human, though still on our best behavior--when we found that we were congenial, were happy together in ways undreamed of, life seemed to be paying not like the bankrupt it usually is when the time for redeeming its promises comes but like a benevolent prodigal, like a lottery whose numbers all draw capital prizes. I admit the truth of much the pessimists have to say against Life. But one thing I must grant it. When in its rare generous moments it relents, it does know how to play the host at the feast--how to spread the board, how to fill the flagons and to keep them filled, how to scatter the wreaths and the garlands, how to select the singers and the dancers who help the banqueters make merry. When I remember my honeymoon, I almost forgive you, Life, for the shabby tricks you have played me.

Now I can conceive a honeymoon that would last on and on, not in the glory and feverish joy of its first period, but in a substantial and satisfying human happiness. But not a honeymoon with a wife who is no more fitted to be a wife than the office boy is fitted to step in and take the president's job. Patience, gentle reader! I know how this sudden shriek of discord across the amorous strains of the honeymoon music must have jarred your nerves. But be patient and I will explain.

Except ourselves, every other family in the house, in the neighborhood, had at least one servant. We had none. If Edna had been at all economical we might have kept a cook and pinched along. But Edna spent carelessly all the money I gave her, and I gave her all there was. A large part of it went for finery for her personal adornment, trash of which she soon tired--much of it she disliked as soon as it came home and she tried it on without the saleslady to flatter and confuse. I--in a good-natured way, for I really felt perfectly good-humored about it--remonstrated with her for letting everybody rob her, for getting so little for her money. She took high ground. Such things were beneath her attention. If I had wanted a wife of that dull, pinch-penny kind I'd certainly not have married her, a talented, educated woman, bent on improving her mind and her position in the world. And that seemed reasonable. Still, the money was going, the bills were piling up, and I did not know what to do.

And--she did the cooking. I think I have already said that she had not learned to cook. How she and her mother expected her to get along as a poor clerk's wife I can't imagine. The worst of it was, she believed she could cook. That is the way with women. They look down on housekeeping, on the practical side of life, as too coarse and low to be worthy their attention. They say all that sort of thing is easy, is like the toil of a day laborer. They say anybody could do it. And they really believe so. Men, no matter how high their position, weary and bore themselves every day, because they must, with routine tasks beside which dishwashing has charm and variety. Yet women shirk their proper and necessary share of life's burden, pretending that it is beneath them.

Edna, typical woman, thought she could cook and keep house because she, so superior, could certainly do inferior work if she chose. But after that first brief spurt of enthusiasm, of daily conference with the "Lady Book's Complete Housekeeper's Guide," the flat was badly kept--was really horribly kept--was worse than either her home or mine before we had been living there many months. It took on much the same odor. It looked worse, as tawdry finery, when mussy and dirty, is more repulsive than a plain toilet gone back. I did not especially mind that. But her cooking-- I had not been accustomed to anything especially good in the way of cooking. Mother was the old-fashioned fryer, and you know those fryers always served the vegetables soggy. I could have eaten exceedingly poor stuff without complaining or feeling like complaining. But the stuff she was soon flinging angrily upon the slovenly table I could not eat. She ate it, enough of it to keep alive, and it didn't seem to do her any harm. How many women have you known who were judges of things to eat? Do you understand how women continue to eat the messes they put into their pretty mouths, and keep alive?

After ten months of married life Edna fell ill. All you married men will prick up your ears at that. Why is it that bread winners somehow contrive to keep on their feet most of the time, little though they know as to caring for their health, reckless though they are in eating and drinking? Why is it that married women--unless they have to work--spend so much time in sick bed or near it? They say we in America have more than nine times as many doctors proportionately to population as any other country. The doctors live off of our women--our idle, overeating, lazy women who will not work, who will not walk, who are always getting something the matter with them. Of course the doctors--parasites upon parasites--fake up all kinds of lies, many of them malicious slanders against the husbands, to excuse their patients and to keep them patients. But what is the truth?

Edna, who read all the time she was not plotting to get acquainted with our neighbors--they looked down upon us and wished to have nothing to do with us--Edna who ate quantities of candy between meals and ate at meals rich things she bought of confectioners and bakers--Edna fell ill and frightened me almost out of my senses. I understand it now. But I did not understand then. I believed, as do all ignorant people--both the obviously ignorant and the ignorant who pass for enlightened--I believed sickness to be a mysterious accident, like earthquakes and lightning strokes, a hit-or-miss blow from nowhere in particular. So I was all sympathy and terror.

She got well. She looked as well as ever. But she said she was not strong. "And Godfrey, we simply have got to keep a girl. I've borne up bravely. But I can't stand it any longer. You see for yourself, the rough work and the strain of housekeeping are too much for me."

I shan't linger upon this part of my story. I am tempted to linger, but, after all, it is the commonplace of American life, familiar to all, though understood apparently by only a few. Why do more than ninety per cent of our small business men fail? Why are the savings banks accounts of our working classes a mere fraction of those of the working classes of other countries? And so on, and so on. But I see your impatience, gentle reader, with these matters so "inartistic." We sank deeper and deeper in debt. Edna's health did not improve. The girl we hired had lived with better class people; she despised us, shirked her work, and Edna did not know how to manage her. If the head of the household is incompetent and indifferent, a servant only aggravates the mess, and the more servants the greater the mess. All Edna's interest was for her music, her novels, her social advancement, and her dreams of being a grand lady. These dreams had returned with increased power; they took complete possession of her. They soured her disposition, made her irritable, usually blue or cross, only at long intervals loving and sweet. No, perhaps the dreams were not responsible. Perhaps--probably--the real cause was the upset state of her health through the absurd idle life she led. Idle and lonely. For she would not go with whom she could, she could not go with whom she would.

"I'm sick of sitting alone," said she. "No wonder I can't get well."

"I should think they would!" cried she. "And if they came I'd see to it that they were so uncomfortable that they would never come again."

I worked hard. My salary went up to fifteen hundred, to two thousand, to twenty-five hundred. "Now," said Edna, "perhaps you'll get hands that won't look like a laboring man's. How can I hope to make nice friends when I've a husband with broken finger nails?"

Our expenses continued to outrun my salary, but I was not especially worried, for I began to realize that I had the money-making talent. Three children were born; only the first--Margot--lived. Looking back upon those six years of our married life, I see after the first year only a confused repellent mess of illness, nurses, death, doctors, quarrels with servants, untidy rooms and clothes, slovenly, peevish wife, with myself watching it all in a dazed, helpless way, thinking it must be the normal, natural order of domestic life--which, indeed, it is in America--and wondering where and how it was to end.

I recall going home one afternoon late, to find Edna yawning listlessly over some book in a magazine culture series. Her hair hung every which way, her wrapper was torn and stained. Her skin had the musty look that suggests unpleasant conditions both without and within. Margot, dirty, pimply from too much candy, sat on the floor squalling.

"Take the child away," cried Edna, at sight of me. "I thought you'd never come. A little more of this and I'll kill myself. What is there to live for, anyhow?"

Silent and depressed, I took Margot for a walk. And as I wandered along sadly I was full of pity for Edna, and felt that somehow the blame was wholly mine for the wretched plight of our home life.

When I was twenty-eight and Edna twenty-three, I had a series of rapid promotions which landed me in New York in the position of assistant traffic superintendent. My salary was eight thousand a year.

It so happened--coincidence and nothing else--that those eighteen months of quick advance for me also marked a notable change in Edna.

There are some people--many people--so obsessed of the know-it-all vanity that they can learn nothing. Nor are all these people preachers, doctors, and teachers, gentle reader. Then there is another species who pretend to know all, who are chary of admitting to learning or needing to learn anything, however small, yet who behind their pretense toil at improving themselves as a hungry mouse gnaws at the wall of the cheese box. Of this species was Edna. As she was fond of being mysterious about her thoughts and intentions, she never told me what set her going again after that long lethargy. Perhaps it was some woman whom she had a sudden opportunity thoroughly to study, some woman who knew and lived the ideas Edna had groped for in vain. Perhaps it was a novel she read or articles in her magazines. It doesn't matter. I never asked her; I had learned that wild horses would not drag from her a confession of where she had got an idea, because such a confession would to her notion detract from her own glory. However, the essential fact is that she suddenly roused and set to work as she had never worked before--went at it like a prospector who, after toiling now hard and now discouragedly for years, strikes by accident a rich vein of gold. Edna showed in every move that she not hoped, not believed, but knew she was at last on the right track. She began to take care, scrupulous care, of her person--the minute intelligent care she has ever since been expanding and improving upon, has never since relaxed, and never will relax. Also she began to plan and to move definitely in the matter of taking care of Margot--to look after her speech, her manners, her food, her person, especially, perhaps, the last. Margot's teeth, Margot's hair, Margot's walk, Margot's feet and hands and skin, the shape of her nose, the set of her ears--all these things she talked about and fussed with as agitatedly as about her own self.

Edna became a crank on the subject of food--what is called a crank by the unthinking, of whom, by the way, I was to my lasting regret one until a few years ago. For a year or two her moves in this important direction were blundering, intermittent, and not always successful--small wonder when there is really no reliable information to be had, the scientists being uncertain and the doctors grossly ignorant. But gradually she evolved and lived upon a "beauty diet." Margot, of course, had to do the same. She took exercises morning and night, took long and regular walks for the figure and skin and to put clearness and brightness into the eyes. I believe she and Margot, with occasional lapses, keep up their regimen to this day.

The house was as slattern as ever. The diet and comfort and health of the family bread-winner were no more the subject of thought and care than--well, than the next husband's to his wife. She gave some attention--intelligent and valuable attention, I cheerfully concede--to improving my speech, manners, and dress. But beyond that the revolution affected only her and her daughter. Them it affected amazingly. In three or four months the change in their appearance was literally beyond belief. Edna's beauty and style came back--no, burst forth in an entirely new kind of radiance and fascination. As for little Margot, she transformed from homeliness, from the scrawny pasty look of bad health, from bad temper, into as neat and sweet and pretty a little lady as could be found anywhere.

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