Chapter 19

Accustomed as Margaret was to the Southern ideal of the chivalry due to a pregnant wife; reared in a state where a fundamental principle of marriage is that the husband's share in the burden and sacrifice of bringing a child into being shall consist in cherishing the mother of his child with reverence and tenderness, so that her difficult ordeal be made as bearable as unselfish love can make it, and that she be upheld throughout her trial by the man's strength and devotion; and that the husband who did not so regard his wife was a cur to be horsewhipped—Margaret had to learn, during her weary, waiting months, that this attitude of the Southern gentleman would have seemed to the average Pennsylvania German ridiculous sentimentality, his view being that woman was created, in the Providence of God, to be a breeder and that was all there was to it; that in merely fulfilling her natural function she was in no more need of sympathy or help or compassion than a cow in the same condition; that her inclination during pregnancy to tears, tantrums, fretfulness, indolence, a muddy complexion, a phlegmatic indifference to everything except the making of baby clothes, not even her husband getting, at this time, any consideration to speak of at her hands—these things were recognized by him as burdens to be borne either with stoicism, or, for the sake of the child, peremptorily prohibited.

So, it was a matter of wonder to Margaret, rather than of distress, that Daniel should be so extremely moderate in his expression of concern or sympathy for her condition. So used as he was to being taken care of by his sisters, it would have been a wholly unnatural attitude on his part, she saw, to be actively solicitous for a woman. He would have felt he lowered his dignity and made himself absurd if he had put himself out for her comfort in the many little ways he might have done and which she had at first looked to see him do.

But, as Daniel told her one day when she expressed some of the wonder she felt at his lack of chivalry toward her, he had never seen Hiram bother about Lizzie when she was in that condition, and it was after all only Nature.

"A baby's teething is only Nature, but we help and comfort it, don't we? I did expect you'd get a little bit excited over my health! It would all be so much easier to bear," she spoke rather to herself than to him, knowing his impenetrability, "if one were treated as a woman!"

"As a woman?" Daniel inquired, puzzled.

"Yes, instead of as a cow."

"A cow?"

"Treated as a Southerner treats a woman."

"Now I should think," was Daniel's complacent reply, "that when a husband acts toward his wife as I saw your brother-in-law act toward your sister, like a butler or a porter, she wouldn't respect him."

"The medi?val peasant idea that if her husband doesn't beat her, he doesn't love her," said Margaret.

But the dreariness of mind Daniel's attitude caused her she, with a sort of medi?val superstition, almost welcomed as being at least some expiation for the sin of her loveless marriage.

Margaret was disappointed to find, as the days passed over her head, that because of her inability to ride on the cars without great physical distress, she was obliged to postpone the promised visit to her mother-in-law; and at last, when her appearance made the little trip no longer possible, she wrote to Mrs. Leitzel and explained the reason for her not keeping her promise.

"But just as soon as your grandchild is able to travel," she concluded her letter, "I shall bring it (not knowing its gender) out to see you."

It seemed to Margaret that, unaggressive though she was, the weeks before her confinement were constantly marked by contentions, apparently inevitable, between her and Daniel about the many things of life which they viewed from diametrically opposed standpoints. Her monthly account of her expenditures with her ten dollars allowance was one of these points of difference. The first time Daniel asked her to produce the little account book he had given her she took it from her desk, scribbled a few words in it, and cheerfully handed it to him, and he read on one page, "Daniel gave me ten dollars," and on the opposite page, "All spent. Balances exactly."

Daniel looked up from the book inquiringly.

"That's as much of an account as you'll ever get from me, Daniel, as to what I did with ten dollars in a whole month! Did you actually suppose I'd give you the items, like a little school-girl?"

And no amount of persuasion, or of fretting and fuming on his part, could induce her to submit to him an itemized account of her allowance.

Her South Carolina property was another bone of contention.

"I can't get a word from that brother-in-law of yours in reply to my letter to him!" Daniel complained one September evening when they were alone in their bedroom just after supper, Margaret, in a pink silk negligé, lying on a couch at the foot of the bed and Daniel seated in an armchair beside her. "The slipshod business ways of those Southerners! What does the man mean?"

"He's such a procrastinator! I must admit Walter's rather lazy. Clever, though. He's considered a mighty intelligent lawyer."

"A clever lawyer has some sense of business, which he does not seem to have!"

"Don't you be so sure of that!"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Well, he does seem to have enough sense of business about him to defraud you out of what belongs to you!" snapped Daniel.

"Walter is an honourable gentleman," Margaret quietly affirmed, "with a sense of honour, Daniel, that to you would be as incomprehensible as a Sanscrit manuscript, or a page of Henry James."

"The quixotic 'sense of honour' of a South Carolinian!" scoffed Daniel. "Oh, I know all about that. Impracticable moonshine! Nothing in it, Margaret. Has no market value."

"No, thank God, it has no market value."

"You're a little simpleton, my dear, about 'values' of any kind, and I wish you wouldn't swear!"

"Can't one thank God except in church and at the vulgar hour of feeding?"

"Be reverent!" Daniel, looking shocked, reproved her. "And I don't see where his sense of honour comes in in his behaviour as to your property!"

"Don't bother about my property, Daniel," Margaret wearily advised. "It's not worth bothering about."

"It's all you have, though," Daniel ruefully retorted.

Margaret offered no reply to this.

"I want you to write to Walter, Margaret, and see whether you can get an answer out of him."

"What about?"

"What about? Haven't I just been telling you? You write and demand of him why I receive no answer from him to my repeated inquiries as to your property."

"But I have told you all there is to know about it, Daniel."

"Margaret," Daniel patiently answered, "I have already explained to you how I can make that estate yield you a handsome income."

"By depriving my sister of a home? No, thank you."

"Naturally your sister would also profit by what I would do for the estate."

"Profit at your expense? Not if you could help it, Daniel."

Daniel laughed appreciatively at this flattering tribute to his business acumen.

"I think I see, Daniel, how you would manage the 'deal.' You'd improve the estate, rent it at a high figure, and keep the rent (at least my share, if not my sister's) to pay you for what you had spent."

"Pretty good, my dear! You have some business cleverness yourself, I see, after all! Sufficient, at any rate, to recognize that you ought to be getting your share of your uncle's bequest. Just inform your brother-in-law, in your letter, that you are going to sign over to me the power of attorney to manage your affairs. That will bring him to time and fetch an answer!"

"But I'm not."

"Not what?"

"Not going to sign away any 'power' I may have. I didn't know I had any. It's a pleasant surprise. I shall certainly hold on to it. I need it, whatever it is."

"Without power of attorney to act for you, Margaret, I can't help you. You'll have to give it to me," said Daniel firmly. "I'll bring up a paper from the office on Monday and Jennie and Sadie will witness your signature. Can't you get up and write to Walter now? I'll dictate the letter."

"I wouldn't rise from this comfortable couch, Daniel, if the house were on fire."

"It's very bad, very bad indeed, I'm sure, for you to lie about so much."

"If you were carrying a weight of several tons, I guess you wouldn't be on your feet when you didn't have to."

"'Several tons?' That's a gross exaggeration, Margaret."

"I never was strong on figures or statistics," Margaret admitted.

"Won't you try to get up and write the letter? I very much wish you to," urged Daniel, still quite unable to credit the fact which in these days frequently confronted him, that any feminine member of his household could fail to jump at his least bidding.

"What do you want me to write?" Margaret parried.

"Great heavens!" Daniel cried, exasperated. "I've told you only about a dozen times!"

"A dozen? A gross exaggeration, I'm sure. And to call upon the heavens is irreverent. There, there, I won't tease you," she patted his hand; and he immediately clasped and held it, for he still adored her. "But as I've told you, Daniel, that I won't sign over to you the power of attorney, there's nothing to write to Walter about."

"Is this your idea of not 'teasing' me? I've said that without the power of attorney, I can't help you."

"I don't want that kind of help, my dear, thank you very much."

"Will you write the letter before I go to the office to-morrow morning?"

"Telling Walter I'm not signing over to you the power of attorney? Is that necessary?"

"Very well, Margaret." Daniel rose with dignity and turned away from her. "I'll dictate to my stenographer what I wish you to say to Walter and I'll bring the letter up from the office for your signature."

"Daniel!" Margaret suddenly exclaimed at mention of his stenographer.

He turned about and looked at her.

"Did you give Catherine the note I sent her this morning?"

"I certainly did not."

"Why not?"

"You ask me to play the messenger boy to my own clerk! I read your silly note, my dear, and burned it."

Margaret, sinking a bit lower among the cushions of the couch, did not trust herself to answer.

"Now, my dear," said Daniel, "since you can no longer go out, you can take advantage of the chance that fact gives you, to drop this unseemly intimacy, which no doubt by this time you find burdensome enough, especially as you have seen how exceedingly annoying it is to my sisters and to me. We are willing to overlook your having flouted our wishes if you'll now——"

"Has Miss Hamilton been to see me and been turned away?" demanded Margaret, who for the past two weeks had neither seen nor heard a word from her friend, her notes and telephone calls having both failed to bring any response. She had been deeply wounded and worried at Catherine's seeming unfaithfulness to her in her time of dire need; and she had suffered keenly from the deadly loneliness that had engulfed her; for she had, through almost daily association for many weeks, become so deeply bound to Catherine that she felt she could never again know happiness if she lost her. While she had indeed suspected that some treachery on the part of the Leitzels was keeping Catherine away, yet she did not understand how her friend could possibly have failed to receive at least some of the communications she had sent to her; letters which she would have supposed must bring Catherine to her side, if she had to storm the house to get there.

"Have your sisters sent my friend away when she came to see me and kept it from me that she was here?" Margaret repeated in a tone so quiet that Daniel never suspected the volcano it covered.

"She has been told by Jennie every time she called that you wished to be excused. This unseemly intimacy is to cease! You will have to understand, Margaret, that I am not a man to be trifled with by a mere woman—a mere girl, I might say!"

"Brave and manly of you, Daniel, certainly."

"If you don't watch out, you will be the cause of my losing the most valuable clerk in New Munich and one to whom I have confided important private business matters, for, if I must, I shall tell her straight that I object to her running after my wife!"

"Oh!"

"I have already hinted to her that you are at last coming to your senses and getting over your silly infatuation for her. I intimated to her that it was only your appreciation of her valuable services to me which had led you to be very nice and friendly to her."

"Do you suppose for an instant, Daniel, that she was idiot enough to believe that?"

"Why shouldn't she believe it?"

"Because she knows me—and she also knows you."

But though Margaret assured herself many times in the course of the wakeful, restless night which followed that Catherine would not believe Daniel's absurd story nor let the family attitude toward her come between them, she really suffered an agony of doubt and fear lest the friendship so precious to her should not be able to stand under the pressure brought to bear upon it.

"Surely Catherine will think I am asking too much of her, to expect her to stick to me through all this! But oh! I can't give her up, I can't! I will not let them separate us!"

The next morning, as soon as Daniel had left the house for his office, she hurried to the telephone and called up Miss Hamilton, knowing that her only chance of getting Catherine was when Daniel was not in his office. She actually trembled with apprehension for fear she should be told that Miss Hamilton had not yet reached the office. But to her joy it was Catherine's own voice that answered her.

"Oh, Catherine! It's Margaret! Catherine, listen! I've been wanting you so! I didn't know why you didn't come, and I only learned last night. Catherine, I'm coming right down to the office, now, in a taxicab, and I want you to come out with me for an hour, for I must see you to straighten things out. Tell the powers that be that you've a headache or small-pox symptoms or something and just come. Will you?"

"I will, dear. I'll leave a note on my desk and walk out now, and meet you at the door when you get here."

"I'll be as quick as I can."

She hung up the receiver. But just as she was going to lift it again, to call the taxicab office, her eyes fell upon Jennie and Sadie congregated a few feet away from her, Sadie staring at her in consternation and Jennie in wrath and indignation.

"Margaret!" Jennie suddenly came to her and forcibly pushed her from the telephone. "You ain't to call a taxicab, so you ain't, Margaret! Our Danny ain't to be spited so when I'm close by!"

"Very well," answered Margaret coolly, "I'll go next door and use Mrs. Kaufman's telephone."

"But," gasped Sadie, "that'll make talk yet!"

Margaret, not replying, started for the door.

"Margaret!" cried Jennie sharply, hurrying after her and catching her arm, "how that'll look yet—you going into the neighbours' to 'phone! You darsent go round to our neighbours' making talk!" she commanded. "I won't leave you do it.'"

"Then will you let me use the telephone here?"

"No, I won't, not for no such a purpose—to go down to see our Danny's clerk when he don't give you dare to. You're near worrying my poor brother to death with the way you act!"

"Please let go my arm, Jennie."

"You pass me your promise, then, that you'll behave yourself. You're all the time raising excitements in our peaceful home that gives Sadie the indigestion!"

Margaret wrenched herself free and went to the front door; but Jennie got there first, turned the key and removed it from the lock.

"I ain't leaving you disgrace us with our neighbours!" she indignantly affirmed.

Margaret, looking white but resolute, went to a side window, raised it, and called into the Kaufmans' dining-room where the family was then breakfasting, while Jennie and Sadie, foiled, but horrified and incredulous of her audacity, fell back.

"Will you please be so very kind, Mrs. Kaufman," Margaret called across the space between the two windows, when Mrs. Kaufman had raised hers, "as to 'phone for a taxicab for me at once. I have to hurry down to Mr. Leitzel's office. I shall be so much obliged, and I'm very sorry to trouble you at breakfast."

"We're just done, Mrs. Leitzel, and I'll be very glad to oblige you. Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"No, but I must get to the office as quickly as I can. Will you please tell them to hurry with the taxicab, Mrs. Kaufman?"

"Yes, of course I will—don't mention it! Your telephone out of order?"

"I can't use it," said Margaret, and with a nod and a smile, she closed the window.

She turned slowly and looked at her sisters-in-law. They, almost leaning upon each other for support, were regarding her as though she were a dangerous lunatic. Without a word, she went past them and upstairs to get her wraps. When she came down five minutes later the taxicab was at the door and Jennie was at the 'phone calling up Daniel's office.

Margaret found, however, that the front door was now unlocked. They evidently felt too uncertain of her to try her any further.