I've Married Marjorie Part 8

"More like a friend nor a 'usband," quoted Francis unexpectedly.

Marjorie looked at him in surprise. Any one who could stop in the middle of a very fine quarrel to see the funny side of things that way wasn't so bad, her mind remarked to itself before she could stop it.

"What do you mean?" she asked, mitigating her wrath a little.

"Why, you know the story; the c.o.c.kney woman who had a black eye, and when the settlement worker asked her if her husband had given it to her said, 'Bless you, no, miss--'e's more like a friend nor a 'usband!'"

"Oh," said Marjorie, smiling a little. Then she remembered, her eyes falling on the yellow paper Francis still held. There was still much to be settled between them.

"But, as you were saying about Mr. Logan----"

"I was saying a lot I hadn't any business to about Mr. Logan," said Francis frankly.

"Then it's all right?" said Marjorie. "At least as far as you're concerned?"

He nodded.

"Well," said she most unfairly, "it isn't, as far as I am. Francis, I don't think we'd better think any more of ever trying to be married to each other. It's too hard on the nervous system."

Francis colored deeply.

"What do you want to do?" he demanded.

Marjorie paused a minute before she answered. The truth was, she didn't know. She had definitely given up her New York position. She liked it up here, very much indeed. She liked the O'Maras and the house, and she was wild to get outdoors and explore the woods. Leaving Francis out of the question, she was freer than she had been for years.

Altogether it was a bit hard to be entirely moved by lofty considerations. She wanted to stay; she knew that.

"Canada's a nice place," she began, dimpling a little and looking up at Francis from under her eyelashes.

"Oh, then----" he began eagerly.

"And I want to stay, for perfectly selfish reasons," she went on serenely. "But if my staying makes you think that there is any hope of--of eventualities--I think I'd better go. In other words, I like the idea of a vacation here. That's all. If you are willing to have me as selfish as all that, why, it's up to you. I think myself I'm a pig."

"You will stay, but not with any idea of learning to like me better--is that it?"

"That's it," she said. "And, as I said, I feel colossally selfish--a regular Hun or something."

"That's because you used the word 'colossal,'" he said absently. "They did, a lot. All right, my dear. That's fair enough. Yes, I'm willing."

"But no tempers, mind, and no expectations!" said Marjorie firmly, making hay while the sun shone.

"No," said Francis. He looked at her appraisingly. "You know," he remarked, "the gamble isn't all one way. It's just possible that I may be as glad as you not to see the thing through when we've seen something of each other. I don't feel that way now, but there's no telling."

She sprang to her feet, angry as he had been. But he had turned, after he said that, and gone quietly downstairs.

The idea was new to her, and correspondingly annoying.

Francis--Francis, who had been spending all his time since he got back trying to win her--Francis suggesting that he might tire of her! Why, people didn't _do_ such things! And if he expected to tire of her what did he want her for at all?

She sprang up and surveyed herself in the gla.s.s that hung against the rough wall, over a draped dressing-table which had apparently once been boxes. Yes, she did look tired and draggled. Her wild-rose color was nearly gone, and there were big circles under her eyes. And there was a smudge on her face that n.o.body had told her a thing about. And her hair was mussed too much to be becoming, even to her, who looked best with it tossed a little. And there was not a sign of water to wash in anywhere, and the room had no furniture except the cot and the dressing-table----

Another knock stopped her here, and she turned to see young Peggy, immaculate and blooming, at the door.

"I just came to bring you towels, and to see that everything was all right, and show you the way to the bathroom," she said most opportunely. "We have a bathtub, you know, even up here in the wilds!"

Marjorie forgot everything; home, husband, problems, life in general--what were they all to the chance at a real bathtub? She followed Peggy down the hall as a kitten follows a friend with a bowl of milk.

"O-o! a bathtub!" she said rapturously.

Peggy threw open a door where, among wooden floor and side-wall and ceiling and everything else of the most primitive, a real and most enticingly porcelain bathtub sat proudly awaiting guests.

"It'll not be so good as you've been used to," she said with more suggestion of Irishry than Marjorie had yet heard, "but I guess you'll be glad of it."

"Glad!" said Marjorie. And she almost shut the door in Peggy's face.

She lingered over it and over the manicuring and hairdressing and everything else that she could linger over, and dressed herself in the best of her gowns, a sophisticated taupe satin with slippers and stockings to match. She'd show Francis what he was perhaps going to be willing to part with! So when Mrs. O'Mara's stentorian voice called "Supper!" up the stair, she had not quite finished herself off. The sophisticated Lucille had tucked in--it was a real tribute of affection--her own best rouge box; and Marjorie was on the point of adding the final touch to beauty, as the advertis.e.m.e.nt on the box said, when she heard the supper call. She was too genuinely hungry to stop.

She raced down the stairs in a most unsophisticated manner, nearly falling over Francis and Peggy, who were also racing for the dining-room.

They caught her to them in a most unceremonious way, each with an arm around her, and sped her steps on. She found herself breathless and laughing, dropped into a big wooden chair with Francis facing her and Peggy and her mother at the other two sides. It was a small table, wooden as to leg under its coa.r.s.e white cloth; but, oh, the beauty of the sight to Marjorie! There were such things as pork and beans, and chops, and baked potatoes, and apple sauce, and various vegetables, and on another table--evidently a concession to manners--was to be seen a n.o.ble pudding with whipped cream thick above it.

"The food looks good, now, doesn't it?" beamed Mrs. O'Mara. "I'll bet ye're hungry enough to eat the side o' the house. Pa.s.s me yer plate to fill up, me dear."

Marjorie ate--she remembered it vaguely afterwards, in her sleep--a great deal of everything on the table. It did not seem possible, when she remembered, also vaguely, all the things there had been; but the facts were against her. She finished with a large cup of coffee, which should have kept her awake till midnight; and lay back smiling drowsily in her chair.

The last thing she remembered was somebody picking her up like a small baby and carrying her out of the dining-room and up the stairs to her own bed, and laying her down on it; and a heavy tread behind her carrier, which must have been Mrs. O'Mara's, for a rich voice that belonged to it had said, "Shure it's a lovely sight, yer carryin' her around like a child. It's the lovely pair yez make, Mr. Francis!" And then she remembered a tightening of arms around her for an instant, before she was laid carefully on her own cot and left alone.

Mrs. O'Mara undressed her and put her to bed, she told her next morning; but Marjorie remembered nothing at all of that. All she knew was that the lady's voice, raised to say that it was time to get up, wakened her about eight next day.

It is always harder to face any situation in the morning. And theoretically Marjorie's situation was a great deal to face. Here she was alone, penniless, at the mercy of a determined young man and his devoted myrmidons--whatever myrmidons were. Marjorie had always heard of them in connections like these, and rather liked the name. Mr.

Logan was imminent at any moment, and a great deal of disagreeableness might be looked for when he turned up and had it out with Francis.

Altogether the Sabine lady felt that she ought to be in a state of panic terror. But she had slept well,--it was an excellent cot--the air was heavenly bracing, Mrs. O'Mara was a joy to think of, with her brogue and her affectionate nature, and altogether Marjorie Ellison found herself wondering hungrily what there would be for breakfast, and dressing in a hurry so that she could go down and eat it.

Peggy, rosy and exuberant, rushed at her and kissed her when she got to the foot of the stairs.

"Oh, isn't it lovely to think you're here, and I've got somebody to have fun with, and Francis has to be out a lot of the time? Do you like to dance? There's a French-Canadian family down the road, two girls and three boys, and seven or eight other men out working with Francis, and under him, and if you only say you like to dance I'll telephone them to-night. Mother said I was too young to dance--and me three years learning at the convent!--but with you here sure she can't say a word. Oh, do say you'll have a little dance to-night! Francis dances, too, if you haven't stopped it in him."

She stopped for a minute to take breath, and Marjorie clapped her hands.

"I love to dance! Do have them up! Never mind whether Francis likes it or not!"

"Sure you have to mind what your own wedded husband likes," said the Irish girl, shocked a little. "But unless he's been more sobered than's likely by the big war, he'll be as crazy over it all as we are.

There's a dozen grand dance records on the phonograph, and sure a bit of rosin on the floor and it'll be as fine as silk. Let's try them now."

She made for the phonograph and had a dance-record on it before Marjorie could answer, and in another minute had picked the smaller girl up and was dancing over the rough floor with her. And so Francis, coming in a little apprehensively, found them flushed and laughing, and whirling wildly around to the music of a record played much too fast.

Peggy, in an effort to show off heavily before Francis, came a cropper over a stool at his feet, pulling Marjorie down in her fall; both of them laughing like children as they fell, so that they could scarcely disentangle themselves, and had to be unknotted by Francis.

"Come on to breakfast now, you young wild animals," said he, his thin, dark face sparkling all over with laughter as Marjorie had never seen it.

"I'm killed entirely," said Peggy. "I have to be taken."

She made herself as limp and heavy as possible, and it ended in a free-for-all scuffle which was finally shepherded into the dining-room by Mrs. O'Mara, who was laughing so herself that she had to stop and catch her breath.