The Fifth Wheel Part 14

"We! we! Come, Ruth. You aren't one of them in an hour, are you? Better wait and consult Bob first."

"Oh, Bob will agree with me. I know he will. It's such a progressive idea. And I _am_ one of them. I'm proud to be. I'm going to march in the parade next week."

I came to life at that. "Oh, Ruth, not really--not in Boston!"

"What? Up the center of Washington Street in French heels and a shadow veil?" scoffed Will.

"Up the center of Washington Street in something," announced Ruth, "if that's the line of march. Remember, Will, French heels and shadow veils have been my stock in trade, and not through any choice of mine, either.

So don't throw them at me, please."

Will subsided. "Well, well, what next? A raring, tearing little suffragette, in one afternoon, too!"

Ruth went upstairs.

"Poor old Bob," remarked Will to me when we were alone.

CHAPTER XV

ANOTHER CATASTROPHE

I didn't know whether it was more "poor old Bob" or "poor old Ruth."

Ruth was so arduous at first, so in earnest--like a child with a new and engrossing plaything for a day or two, and then, I suppose, she showed her new toy to Bob, and he took it away from her. Anyway, she put it by.

It seemed rather a shame to me. The new would have worn off after a while.

"And after all, Will," I maintained to my husband, "Robert Jennings is terribly old-school, sweet and chivalrous as can be toward women, but he can't treat Ruth in the way he does that helpless little miniature of a mother of his. He simply lives to protect her from anything practical or disagreeable. She adores it, but Ruth's a different proposition. The trouble with Robert is, he's about ten years behind the times."

"And Ruth," commented Will, "is about ten years ahead of the times."

"That is true of the different members of lots of households, in these times, but they don't need to come to blows because of it. Everybody ought to be patient and wait. Ruth has a p.r.o.nounced individuality, for all you think she is nothing but a society b.u.t.terfly. I can see it hurts to cram it into Robert Jennings' ideal of what a woman should be. It makes me feel badly to see Ruth so quiet and resigned, like a little beaten thing, so pitiably anxious to please. Self-confidence became her more. She hasn't mentioned suffrage since Robert called and stayed so late Wednesday, except to say briefly, 'I'm not going to march in the parade.' 'Why not?' I asked. 'Doesn't Bob want you to?' 'Oh, certainly.

He leaves it to me,' she pretended proudly. 'But, you see, women in parades do offend some people. It isn't according to tradition, and I think it's only courteous to Bob, just before we are to be married, not to do anything offensive. After all, I must bear in mind,' she said, 'that this parade is only a matter of walking--putting one foot in front of the other. I'm bound to be happy, and I don't intend to allow suffrage to stand in my way either. Even convictions are only a certain condition of gray matter.' Oh, it was just pitiful to hear her trying to convince herself. I'm just afraid, Will, afraid for the future."

Not long after that outburst of mine to Will, my fears came true. One late afternoon, white-faced, wide-eyed, Ruth came in to me. She closed the door behind her. Her outside things were still on. I saw Robert Jennings out the window going slowly down the walk. Before Ruth spoke I knew exactly what she had to say.

"We aren't going to be married," she half whispered to me.

"Oh, Ruth----"

"No. Please. Don't, don't talk about it," she said. "And don't tell Will. Don't tell any one. Promise me. I've tried so hard--so hard. But my life has spoiled me for a man like Bob. Don't talk of it, please."

"I won't, Ruth," I a.s.sured her.

"I can do it. I thought I couldn't at first. But I _can_!" she said fiercely, "I _can_! I'll be misunderstood, I know. But I can't help that. We've decided it together. It isn't I alone. Bob has decided it, too. We both prefer to be unhappy alone, rather than unhappy together."

"In every marriage, readjustments are necessary," I commented.

"Don't argue," she burst out at me. "Don't! Don't you suppose Bob and I have thought of every argument that exists to save our happiness? For heaven's sake, Lucy, don't argue. I can't quite bear it." She turned away and went upstairs.

She didn't want any dinner. "I'm going to bed early," she told me an hour later when I knocked at her door. "No, not even toast and tea.

Please don't urge me," she begged, and I left her. At ten when I went to bed her room was dark.

At half-past eleven I got up, stole across the hall, and stood listening outside her closed door. At long intervals I could hear her move. She was not sleeping. I waited an hour and stole across the hall again. She was still awake. Poor Ruth--sleepless, tearless (there was no sound of sobbing) hour after hour, there she was lying all night long, staring into the darkness, waiting for the dawn. At three I opened the door gently and went in, carrying something hot to drink on a tray.

"What is the matter?" she asked calmly.

"Nothing, Ruth. Only you must sleep, and here is some hot milk with just a little pinch of salt. It's so flat without. n.o.body can sleep on an empty stomach."

"I guess that's the trouble," she said, and sat up and took the milk humbly, like a child. Her fingertips were like ice. I went into the bath-room, filled a hot-water bag, and got out an extra down-comforter. I was tucking it in when she asked, "What time is it?" And I told her.

"Only three? Oh, dear--don't go--just yet." So I wrapped myself up in a warm flannel wrapper and sat down on the foot of her bed with my feet drawn up under me.

"I won't," I said, "I'll sit here."

"You're awfully good to me," Ruth remarked. "I _was_ cold and hungry, I guess. Oh, Lucy," she exclaimed, "I wish one person could understand, just _one_."

"I do, Ruth. I do understand," I said eagerly.

"It isn't suffrage. It isn't the parade. It isn't any _one_ thing. It's just _everything_, Lucy. I'm made up on a wrong pattern for Bob. I hurt him all the time. Isn't it awful--even though he cares for me, and I for him, we hurt each other?"

I kept quite still. I knew that Ruth wanted to talk to some one, and I sat there hugging my knees, thankful that I happened to be the one.

Always I had longed for this mysterious sister's confidence, and always I had seemed to her too simple, too obvious, to share and understand.

"You know, Lucy," she went on wistfully, "I was awfully happy at first--so happy--you don't know. Why, I would do anything for Bob. I was glad to give up riches for him. My worldly ambitions shriveled into nothing. Comforts, luxuries--what were they as compared to Bob's love?

But, oh, Lucy, it is giving up little things, little independencies of thought, little daily habits, which I can't do. I tried to give up these, too. You know I did. I said that the book was just paper and print and the cards just pasteboard. But all the time they were symbols.

I could destroy the symbols easily enough, but I couldn't destroy what they stood for. You see, Bob and I have different ideals. That's at the bottom of all the trouble. We tried for weeks not to admit it, but it had to be faced finally."

"Your ideals aren't very different way down at their roots--both clean, true, sincere, and all that," I said, with a little yawn, so she might not guess how tremblingly concerned I really was.

"You don't know all the differences, Lucy," she said sadly. "There's something the trouble with me--something left out--something that I cannot blame Bob for feeling sorry about. I believe I'll tell you. You see, Bob met me under a misapprehension, and I've been trying to live up to his misapprehension ever since. The first time he ever saw me I was tucked away in a little room by myself looking at the picture of a sick child. I was crying a little. He thought that I was feeling badly out of sympathy for the mother of the child--the mother in me, you see, speaking to the mother in her. I wasn't really. I was crying because the house that the picture happened to hang in was so dull and grimy beside Gra.s.smere. I was crying for the luxuries I had lost. I never told Bob the truth about that picture until last week, and all this time he's been looking upon me as an ideal woman--a kind of madonna, mother of little children, you understand, and all that--and I'm not. Something must be wrong with me. I don't even long to be--yet. Oh, you see how unfitted I am for a man to weave idealistic pictures about--like that.

It seemed to hurt Bob when I told him the truth about myself, hurt him terribly, as if I'd tumbled over and broken his image of me--at the cradle, you know. Oh, Lucy, what an unnatural girl I am! I don't admire myself for it. I wish I could be what Bob thinks, but I can't. I can't."

"You aren't unnatural. You're just as human as you can be, Ruth. I felt just the way you do before I was married, and most every girl does as young as you, too. Bob ought to give you chance to grow up."

"Grow up! Oh, Lucy, I feel so old! I feel used up and put by already.

I've lived my life and haven't I made a botch of it?" She laughed shortly. "And what shall I do with the botch now? I can't stay here. It would break my heart to stay here where I had hoped to be so happy--everything reminding me, you know. No, I can't stay here."

"Of course you can't, Ruth. We'll think of a way."

"And I simply can't go back to Edith," she went on, "after knowing Bob.

I don't want to go out to Michigan with Tom and Elise. I hate Michigan.

Dear me! I don't know what I shall do. I'm discouraged. Once I was eager and confident, filled with enthusiasm and self-pride. Like that old hymn, you know. How does it go? 'I loved to choose my path and see, but now lead Thou me on. I loved the garish day, and spite of fears, Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.' That is what I repeat over and over to myself. 'Lead, kindly light, amidst th' encircling gloom.' The encircling gloom! Oh, dear!" She suddenly broke off, "I wish morning would come." It did finally, and with it, when the approaching sun began to pinken the eastern sky, sleep for my tormented sister.

CHAPTER XVI