Stranger within the Gates (17 page)

He passed his hand heavily over his forehead and realized that his head ached.

He was standing right by the piano, in the spot where he had knelt when Paul prayed. It seemed a sacred spot. That had been a beautiful time. Why had they done that? It had seemed to him a tender welcome for himself and Florimel until now since she had talked that way. It was as if she had befouled and besmirched all their lovely sacrament of tenderness that morning.

What was the matter? He hadn't realized that Florimel would feel that way about religion, or that she would demand liquor. He had never seen her drink, though she had often laughed about drinking. But she had seemed so fragile and gentle and lovely that he hadn't thought of her as having coarse, unholy thoughts such as she had just expressed. Surely, surely he had not heard her aright! It must be that he had hurt her in some way, angered her without knowing. Oh, he should have been so careful bringing her into a strange environment! He hadn't realized how different her upbringing must have been.

Suddenly the qualms of conscience he had had now and then blazed into a real questioning of his action in marrying Florimel. He had realized all along, of course, that his mother would have been disappointed if she knew all about that hasty courtship, but until this morning, he had had no real question in his mind but that everything was coming out all right. Even yet he assured his startled heart that Florimel would soon see how wrong she was and would ask his forgiveness for the hard things she had said about his family.

Just at that moment he heard his mother's step behind him, and he turned and met her loving, questioning smile.

She came over to him and, taking hold of his hand, drew him down on the couch beside her. She had come from her knees, and her eyes were very sweet as she looked at him tenderly, searchingly.

"Rex," she said in a low tone, "suppose you tell me all about it. Tell me how all this happened!"

And then, although he had been rehearsing in his mind for the last three days just what he would say to his mother when the time came, how he would bring her to see he was right and it had been the grandest thing that could have come into his life, now all those flowery phrases deserted him. He dropped his face into his hands and groaned aloud and then said, "Oh, I don't know, Mother!"

It was the last thing he had meant to say! He was horrified at himself now it was said, and he sat there with his head bowed in his hands, his elbows on his knees.

"Oh, Mother, Mother,
Mother
, I didn't mean to bring you all this sorrow!" he moaned.

Mary Garland put out her hand and laid it on her son's head, and he understood that for the moment she was weeping and could not speak. Then suddenly she roused and spoke out in a steady, tender voice.

"Rex, why didn't you tell me about this when you were home a few weeks ago? You never spoke of her. Why didn't you tell me all about it then and let us talk it over together, Son?"

Rex quivered all over at her gentle touch upon his hair.

"I--didn't
know
her then, Mother!"

"You--didn't
know
her then?" said Mary Garland. "But, Rex, that was only five weeks ago. I mean when you came home to have that dental work done."

He was still for a long time, and the great significance of her words dawned upon him.

"Yes, I know," he said at last. "I really haven't known her very long. Not more than three weeks. Of course, I'd seen her more or less all the fall, but I hadn't spoken to her then. But, Mother, she was very sweet. I'm sure when you know her better you will find out."

He was coming back to his first convictions now. He had forgotten for the moment the harsh, bitter words upstairs a few minutes before. He remembered only her enchantment.

"She's had a very hard life, Mother. Her mother died when she was very young, and her father ran away and left her with strangers. And she was utterly alone and needed protection. I was sure you would think it was right that I should protect her. She was in danger from a scoundrel who used to know her father, and she was afraid. She needed protection at once, and there wasn't time to come home and talk it over with you. I figured that you had taught me to be a gentleman--and--Mother, I
loved
her. I felt that if I didn't marry her, and any harm or trouble came to her because she had no one who had a right to protect her, I should never forgive myself."

It was very still in the room, so still that when a stick in the fireplace burned deep with rosy light, gray ashes fringing its edges, then suddenly burned in two and fell apart, it was a startling sound like the crack of a whip. Rex shivered and drew a deep sigh.

"I suppose perhaps it would have been better to tell you about it and bring her here to you, let her be protected here. But, you see, Mother, I was right in the midst of the most important examinations of the whole year, and I couldn't stop then to do anything about it. And there was that basketball game, and others, and they were making a lot of me. I knew it would mean a great deal next year in college--"

He paused as his mother suddenly sat up and looked at him in astonishment.

"But, my son! Why should examinations and basketball games and the like have anything to do with your decision, after you had taken a step like that! After you were
married
! You certainly knew that you could not go back to that college after you had done a thing like that! You knew that they have a rule that if any students marry during their college years they are automatically dropped. You knew that, and yet you thought it important to take examinations! I don't understand it!"

"Oh, Mother, you don't understand," said Rex wearily. "Nobody out there knows we're married, and I thought I'd put her in some nice place where I could go and see her weekends and she would be safe. Then I could go on and finish my college course. You see, don't you, Mother?"

"No, Son, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't see how you figured that way. Just what were you planning to support your wife on all this time while you were getting an education? Even if your father's son would do a dishonorable thing like that to the college. Even if you could bring your conscience to do a thing like that, just what were you planning to support a wife on?"

"Why,
Mom
!" said Rex, aghast. "What do you mean? Haven't I got money? You always made it seem that I had money to start with in the world, that Dad left it that way for each one of us."

There was a grieved dignity about him now that almost broke his mother's heart, but she had prayed about this for hours, and she knew she must not weaken. She longed to stretch out her arms to him and tell him that, of course, she would see him through, but she knew that she must not do that unless she wanted to ruin him for life.

"Yes, Rex," she said sadly, "you will have money, but not for several years yet. Your father arranged it so on purpose. He wanted to safeguard you from being a spoiled boy. You are only eighteen, you know, now, and there is only a small amount that was distinctly designated for your education. Even your monthly allowance for incidentals was not to be used for anything else whatever. Then a larger sum, at my discretion, is to come to you when you are twenty-one, under certain restrictions. You can find out about all that by going to our lawyer. And when you are twenty-five, another larger sum is to be yours. But, you see, there are many years to wait for any substantial amount, and you are not educated yet, therefore not fully fitted to cope with the world and support a wife."

Rex lifted stricken eyes to her face and was speechless.

"You see, Rex," went on Mary Garland, "you aren't grown up yet. But you have chosen to skip about three or four years, two at least, out of your life and preparation for living, and therefore it is up to you to take the consequences. You have chosen to take upon you the support of a wife, so I don't see that there is anything for you to do but to give up your college course and get a job. Of course, while you are finding a job----and I know it isn't an easy thing to find a job in these days, especially for a young, untrained boy--but while you are finding one, of course, you and your wife can stay here, so you are not like many a young couple in your circumstances. You are not actually out in the cold. I am your mother, and I will gladly share with you until you get a job."

"Not on your life, you won't!" said a sharp voice from the hall as Florimel sauntered in arrayed in flaming pajamas of bright orange with fierce dragons of blue and black embroidered all over her. "I wouldn't stay in this dump for any money! If you want to be mean, all right, but you can't put
that
over on us, anyway! I have a lawyer friend that'll help us if I ask him. He has more tricks up his sleeve than you'd believe, and he'll find a way to break that old will. If Rex's father didn't have any more feeling for him than to fix up a rule like that that would send him off to some menial job while he waits for his money, then we'll get that lawyer and do the trick. And you can't stop us, either! And, of course, there are always other colleges that will take Rex if that's what he wants, though I don't see any sense in his having any more education than he's got, myself. He's plenty educated to suit me. But if he's got to have it, I've got a job myself, of course, that I can work at, so you haven't got much on us that way! And you might as well hang up your fiddle and get down off your high horse. I'm not going to be managed by
you
, and I'm not going to live in your house! Not while we're hanging around waiting for the money that is Rex's by right!"

"Florimel!" said Rex severely. "Don't say any more! You don't realize what you are doing! And you certainly will
never
attempt to break my father's will, for I won't allow it! Of course, I didn't understand, or I wouldn't have been so rash as to get you into something like this. But it's done now, and we've got to stand by it. Of course, I'll quit college and get a job. I'm not afraid to work, and I'll take care of you."

Mary Garland's heart, even in the midst of her perturbation, had a quick throb of pride in her son. He was standing true to the Garland form, being as game as his father would have been. Perhaps he had not understood how things were. Very likely he had not counted on her doing a thing like this. He had always expected her to stand by him. But he was not whining and crying, neither was he arguing nor angry. Dismayed he was, of course, but not conquered. Perhaps after all, this was one way in which this terrible act of his was to bring out the best that was in him. Nevertheless, it made it all the harder for her to go on and not relent about her decision. Rex seemed all the more lovable to her now that he was taking this so rightly.

But not so with his young wife. She curled her lip contemptuously and lifted her well-modeled chin.

"Not me!" she said with a toss of her arrogant head. "I'm not going to stand for a skin game like that. Send a guy to college and frill him up with all the accessories of a millionaire's son, and then when a girl has lost her head over him and given up all she had in life for him, tell him he hasn't a cent! That's what I call a dirty, lousy deal, and there are lawyers to look after people like that! In smart society they call those people good little Christians, but in my world they call them low-down liars and thieves!"

Florimel finished with a flourish, and suddenly without warning she stuffed her hand in her pajama pocket and brought out a little gold cigarette case with a flash of near-jewels, took out a cigarette, lit it with a tricky little lighter, and took a puff or two at it, her eyes down on the cigarette.

Rex looked at her in astonishment and horror.

"That'll be about all, Florimel!" he said severely. "Mother, if you'll excuse us, we'll go up to our room!" And taking his recalcitrant wife by the orange satin arm, he marched her across the room, out the door, and up the stairs into the guest room, shutting and locking the door behind him.

Walking home from the pleasant Christmas service in the big old stone church that had been their place of worship ever since they were born, Sylvia and Paul, with Fae and Stan just ahead of them, drifted into talk about old times.

"Marcia Merrill looks wonderful, doesn't she?" said Paul thoughtfully, showing where his thoughts had been during at least part of the morning service, for Marcia Merrill had sat across the aisle just two seats ahead of them, and Paul could easily have watched her all the time.

Sylvia flashed a look of agreement at her brother.

"Yes, doesn't she? I'm so glad you asked her for Christmas dinner. It will seem like old times having you all together. Only----" And then she paused in dismay.

Paul gave her a quick look.

"Yes,
only
!" he said with emphasis. "I wonder how anything is going to work out with this new element Rex has chosen to collect. But I suppose we've got to go through with it. I blame myself a lot. If I only hadn't gone off to the senior dorm this fall, I don't believe this could have happened. Heavens! I didn't think our Rex could be a fool like that!"

"No, nor I," said Sylvia. "Do you think he knows her really well? It doesn't seem as though he
could
care for a girl like that. Not if he realized what she was!"

"I don't know," said Paul with troubled eyes. "He hadn't any chance to get acquainted with her unless he took her off somewhere. Of course, she's capable of making a dead set for him, but how Rex could be fooled by her is more than I can understand. When I think of all the friends he's had. Natalie Sargent, for instance. There isn't a finer girl anywhere. I can't understand it. He must be crazy. Honestly, I get so hot under the collar when I get to thinking about this little yellow rat he's brought home and foisted on you and Mother that I could thrash him within an inch of his life. And then it all comes over me that it must have been entirely my fault. I just got to thinking about my own advantages, getting in the new dorm and being around with my classmates all the time. I ought to have stuck by Rex!"