Play the Game! by Ruth Comfort Mitchell
CHAPTER VII
Honor was surprised and pleased to find how little she minded livingabroad, after all. They had arrived, the boy and herself, in the monthsbetween their secret understanding and their separation, at the amazedconclusion that it was going to be easier to be apart until that brightday when they might be entirely and forever together. At the best, threeinterminable years stretched bleakly between them and marriage; they hadto mark time as best they could. She liked Florence, she liked themountainous _Signorina_, her stepfather's friend, and she liked herwork. If it had not been for Jimsy King she would without doubt haveloved it, but there was room in her simple and single-trackconsciousness for only one engrossing and absorbing affection. She wroteto him every day, bits of her daily living, and mailed a fat letterevery week, and every week or oftener came his happy scrawl fromStanford. Things went with him there as they had gone at L. A.High,--something less, naturally, of hero worship and sovereignty, buta steadily rising tide of triumph. He chronicled these happeningsbriefly and without emphasis. "Skipper dear," he would write in hiscrude and hybrid hand, "I've made the Freshman team all right and it's apretty fair to middling bunch and I guess we'll stack up pretty wellagainst the Berkeley babes from what I hear, and they made me captain.It seems kind of natural, and I have three fellows from the L. A.team,--Burke and Estrada and Finley."
He was madly rushed by the best fraternities and chose naturally thesame one as Carter Van Meter,--one of the best and oldest and mostpowerful. He made the baseball team in the spring, and the second fallthe San Francisco papers' sporting pages ran his picture often andhailed him as the Cardinal's big man. Honor read hungrily every scrap ofprint which came to her,--her stepfather taking care that every mentionof Jimsy King reached her. It was in his Sophomore year that he playedthe lead in the college play and Honor read the newspapers limp andlimber--"James King in the lead did a remarkable piece of work." "King,Stanford's football star, surprised his large following by his reallybrilliant performance." "Well-known college athlete demonstrates hisability to act." Honor knew the play and she could shut her eyes andsee him and hear him in the hero's part, and her love and pride warmedher like a fire.
She had not gone home that first summer. Mildred Lorimer and Carter'smother managed that, between them, in spite of Stephen's best efforts,and, that decided, Jimsy King went with his father to visit one of theuncles at his great _hacienda_ in old Mexico. Mrs. Van Meter and her sonspent his vacation on the Continent and had Honor with them the greaterpart of the time. She met their steamer at Naples and Carter could seethe shining gladness of her face long before he could reach her andspeak to her, and he glowed so that his mother's eyes were wet.
"Honor!" He had no words for that first moment, the fluent Carter. Hecould only hold both her hands and look at her.
But Honor had words. She gave back the grip of his hands and beamed onhim. "Carter! Carter, _dear_! Oh, but it's wonderful to see you! It's_next_ best to having Jimsy himself!"
Marcia Van Meter winced with sympathy, but her son managed himself verycommendably. They went to Sorrento first, and stayed a week in a mellowold hotel above the pink cliffs, and the boy and girl sat in the gardenwhich looked like a Maxfield Parrish drawing and drove up to the oldmonastery at Deserto and wandered through the silk and coral shops andtook the little steamer across to Capri for the day while Mrs. Van Meterrested from the crossing. She was happier that summer than she had beensince Carter's little-boy days, for she was giving him, in so far as shemight, what he wanted most in all the world, and she saw his courage andconfidence growing daily. She was a little nervous about Roman fever, sothey left Italy for Paris, and then went on to Switzerland, and for thefirst few days she was supremely content with her choice,--Carter gainedcolor and vigor in the sun and snow, and Honor glowed and bloomed, butshe presently saw her mistake. Switzerland was not the place to throwHonor and Carter together,--Switzerland filled to overflowing withknickerbockered, hard muscled, mountain climbing men and women; Honorwho should have been climbing with the best of them; who would be, ifJimsy King were with them; and her son, in the smart incongruities ofhis sport clothes ... limping, his proud young head held high.
They found Miss Bruce-Drummond at Zermatt, brown as a berry and hard asnails with her season's work, and she was heartily glad to see Honor.
"Well, my dear,--fancy finding you here! Your stepfather wrote me youwere studying in Florence and I've been meaning to write you. What luck,your turning up now! The friend who came on with me has been calledhome, and you shall do some climbs with me!"
"Shall I?" Honor wanted to know of her hostess, but it was Carter whoanswered.
"Of course! Don't bother about us,--we'll amuse ourselves well enoughwhile you're hiking,--won't we, Mater?" He was charming about it and yetHonor felt his keen displeasure.
"Yes, do go, dear," said Mrs. Van Meter, quickly. "Make the most of it,for I think we'll be moving on in a very few days. I--I haven't saidanything about it because you and Carter have been so happy here, butthe altitude troubles me.... I've been really very wretched."
"Oh," said Honor penitently, "we'll go down right away, Mrs. VanMeter,--_to-day_! Why didn't you tell us?"
"It hasn't been serious," said Carter's mother, conscientiously, "it'sjust that I know I will be more comfortable at sea level." It wasentirely true; she would be more comfortable at sea level or anywhereelse, so long as she took Carter out of that picture and framed himsuitably again. "But we needn't hurry so madly, dear. Suppose we go onFriday? That will give you a day with your friend." She sent Carter forher cloak and Honor and the Englishwoman strolled to the end of theveranda.
"I don't believe we ought to wait even a day, if she feels the altitudeso," said Honor, troubled. "She's really very frail."
"I expect she can stick it a day," said Miss Bruce-Drummond, calmly."She looks fit enough. But--I say--where's the other one? Where's yourboy?"
The warm and happy color flooded the girl's face. "Jimsy is in Mexicowith his father, visiting their relatives there on a big ranch."
"You haven't thrown him over, have you?"
"Thrown Jimsy over? Thrown--" she stopped and drew a long breath. "Icould just as easily throw _myself_ over. Why, we--_belong_! We're partof each other. I just--can't think of myself without thinking ofJimsy--or of Jimsy without thinking of me." She said it quite simply andsteadily and smiled when she finished.
"I see," said the novelist. "Yes. I see. But you're both frightfullyyoung, aren't you? I expect your people will make you wait a long time,won't they?"
"Well," said Honor, earnestly, "we're going to try our very best towait three years,--three from the time when we found out we were in lovewith each other, you know,--two years longer now. Then we'll betwenty-one." She spoke as if every one should be satisfied then, if theydragged out separate existences until they had attained that hoary age,and Miss Bruce-Drummond, hard on forty-one, grinned with entire goodnature.
"And I daresay they'll keep you over here all the while,--not let you gohome for holidays, for fear you might lose your heads and bolt forGretna Green?"
"Mercy, no!" Her eyes widened, startled. "I shall go home for all summernext year! I meant to go this year, but Muzzie thought I ought to stay,to be with Carter and Mrs. Van Meter, when they'd made such lovely plansfor me,--and it was really all right, this time, because Jimsy ought tobe with his father on the Mexican trip." Her smooth brow registered afleeting worry over James King the elder. "But next summer it'll behome, and Catalina Island, and Jimsy!"
But it wasn't home for her next summer, after all. Mildred Lorimerdecided that she wanted three months on the Continent with her husbandand her daughter.
"Right," said Stephen Lorimer, amiably, "so long as we take the boyalong."
"You mean Rodney?" she wanted to know, not looking at him. (Rodney wasthe youngest Lorimer.)
"I mean Jimsy King, naturally, as you quite well know, Sapphira," heanswered, pulling her down beside him on the couch and making her facehim.<
"Stephen, I don't think Mr. King can afford to send him."
"Then we'll take him."
"Jimsy wouldn't let us. He is very proud,--I admire it in him."
"Do you, my dear? Then, can't you manage to admire some of his othernice young virtues and graces?"
"I do, Stephen. I give the boy credit for all he is, but----"
"But you don't intend to let him marry your daughter if by the hookiesthook and crookedest crook you can prevent it. I observed your StarChamber sessions with Mrs. Van Meter last year; I saw you wave her andher son hopefully away; I observed, smiling with intense internal glee,that you welcomed them back with deep if skillfully dissembleddisappointment. Top Step, God love her, sat tight. Don't you know yourown child yet, Mildred? Don't you know the well and favorably knownchemical action of absence on young and juicy hearts? Don't youknow"--he broke off to stare at her, flushed and a little breathless asshe always was in discussions and unbelievably youthful and beautifulstill, and finished in quite another key--"that you're gettingpositively lovelier with each ridiculous birthday--and your aged andinfirm spouse more and more besottedly in love with you?"
She did not melt because she was tremendously in earnest. She waspledged in her deepest heart to break up what she felt was Honor's sillysentimentality--sentimentality with a dark and sinister background ofmortgages and young widows and Wild Kings and shabby, down-at-the-heelhouses and lawns.
"Woman," said Stephen Lorimer, "did you hear what I said? It was arather neat speech, I thought. However, as you did not give it the raptattention it merited I will now repeat it, with appropriate gestures."He caught her in his arms as youthfully as Jimsy might have done withHonor, and told her again, between kisses. "You lovely, silly, stubbornthing, kiss your wise husband once more in a manner expressive of youradmiration for his unfailing sapience, and he will then, with surprisingagility for one of his years, lope across the intervening lawn and tellJames King that his son goes to Europe with us in June." He grinned backat her from the door. "You'll do your little worst to prevent it, mydear, that I know, but Jimsy King goes with us!"
Honor and Jimsy wrote each other rapturously on receipt of the news, butthey were not fluent or expressive, either of them, and they could onlyunderline and put in a reckless number of exclamation points. "_Gee_,"wrote Jimsy King, "isn't it immense? Skipper, I can't tell you how Ifeel--but, by golly, I can _show_ you when I get there!"
And Honor, reading that line, grew rosily pink to the roots of herhoney-colored hair and flung herself into an hour of practice with suchfire and fervor that the _Signorina_ came and beamed in the doorway.
"So," she nodded. "News? Good or bad?"
"Good," said Honor, swinging round on the piano stool. "The best in theworld!"
"So? Well, it does not greatly matter which, my small one. It does notsignify so much whether one feels joy or grief, so long as one feels. Tofeel ... that is to live, and to live is to sing!"
Honor sprang up and ran to her and put her arm as far around her as itwould go. She was a delicious person to hug, the _Signorina_, warm andsoft and smelling faintly of rare and costly scents.
"_So?_" said the great singer again. "It is of some comfort, then, toembrace so much of fatness, when your arms ache to feel muscles and hardflesh? There, there, my good small one," she patted her with a puffy andjeweled hand, "I jest, but I rejoice. It is all good for the voice,this."
"_Signorina_," said Honor, honestly, "I've told you and told you, butyou don't seem to believe me, that I'm only studying to fill up the timeuntil they'll let me marry Jimsy. I love it, of course, and I'll alwayskeep it up, as much as I can without neglecting more important things,but----"
"Mother of our Lord," said the Italian, lifting her hands to heaven,"'more important things' says this babe with the voice of gold, who, bythe grace of God and my training might one day wake the world!"
"More important to _me_," said Honor, firmly. "I know it must seem sillyto you, _Signorina_, dear, but if you were in love----"
"Mothers of all the holy saints," said the fat woman, lifting her handsagain, "when have I not been in love? Have I not had three husbandsalready, and another even now dawning on the horizon, not tomention--but there, that is not for pink young ears. I will say this toyou, small one. Every woman should marry. Every artist _must_ marry. Runhome, then, in another year, and wed the young savage, and have donewith it. Stay a year with him--two if you like--until there is an infantsavage. Then you shall come back and give yourself in earnest to thebusiness of singing."
But Honor, scarlet-cheeked, shook her head. "I can't imagine coming backfrom--from _that_, _Signorina_!" Her eyes envisaged it and the happycolor rose and rose in her face. "But I've got a good lesson for youto-day! Shall I begin?"
"Begin, then, my good small one," said her teacher indulgently, "and forthe rest, we shall see what we shall see!"
Honor flung herself into her work as never before, and counted the weeksand days and hours until the time when Jimsy should come to her, andJimsy, finishing up a sound, triumphant Sophomore year, saw everythingthrough a hazy front drop of his Skipper on the pier at Naples.
But Jimsy King did not go abroad with Mr. and Mrs. Lorimer, after all,and Honor did not see him through the whole dragging summer. StephenLorimer, sick with disappointment for his stepdaughter, would havefound relief in fixing the blame on his wife, for her lovely andcomplacent face mirrored her satisfaction at the turn of events, but hecould hardly hold her responsible. James King was taken suddenly,alarmingly ill with pneumonia two days before they left Los Angeles tocatch their steamer at New York, and it was manifestly impossible forhis son to leave him. The doctors gave scant hope of his recovery.
Therefore, it was Carter Van Meter who took Jimsy's ticket off his handsand Jimsy's place in the party and the summer plans, leaving his happymother to spend three flutteringly hopeful months alone.