Youth Challenges Part 25

"No--tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs? You might say good night to the groceryman that way."

"Good night--dear," she said, obediently.

"It's true. I'm not dreaming it. Noon TO-MORROW?"

"Noon to-morrow," she repeated.

He walked to the door, stopped, turned, hesitated as if to come back.

Then he smiled at her boyishly, happily, wagged his head gayly, as though admonishing himself to be about his business and to stop philandering, and went out.... He did not see her drag herself to the sofa wearily; he did not see her sink upon it and bury her face again in the cushions; he did not hear the sobs that wrenched and shook her.... He would then have understood that this was not the usual way for a girl to enter her engagement. He would have understood that something was wrong, very wrong.

After waiting a long time for her daughter to come out, Mrs. Frazer opened the door determinedly and went in. Ruth sat up and, wiping her eyes on a tear-soggy handkerchief, said:

"I'm going to marry Bonbright Foote to-morrow noon mother."

Mrs. Frazer sat down very suddenly in a chair which was fortunately at hand, and stared at her daughter.

"Of all things..." she said, weakly.

Bonbright was on the way to make a similar announcement to his parents.

It was a task he did not approach with pleasure; indeed, he did not look forward with pleasure to any sort of meeting with his father. In his heart he had declared his independence. He had broken away from Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, had clambered out of the family groove--had determined to be himself and to maintain his individuality at any cost.... Ruth would make it easier for him. To marry Ruth was the first great step toward independence and the throwing off of the yoke of the Foote tradition.

As he walked home he planned out what he would say and what he would do with respect to his position in the family. He could not break away from the thing wholly. He could not step out of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, as one steps out of an old coat, and think no more of it.

No.... But he would demand concessions. He would insist upon being something in the business, something real. He would no longer be an office boy, a rubber stamp, an automaton, to do thus and to do so when his father pressed the requisite b.u.t.tons.... Oh, he would go back to the office, but it would be to a very different office and to function in a very different manner.

The family ghosts had been dissatisfied with him. Well, they could go hang. Using his father as the working tool, they had sought to remake him according to their pattern. He would show them. There would be a row, but he was buoyed up for whatever might happen by what had just happened.... The girl he loved had promised to marry him--and to-morrow. With a consciousness of that he was ready for anything.

He did not realize how strongly he was gripped by the teaching that had been his from his cradle; he did not realize how the Foote tradition was an integral part of him, as his arm or his skin. It would not be so easy to escape. Nor, perhaps, would his father be so ready to make concessions. He thought of that. But he banished it from his mind. When his father saw how determined he was the concessions would follow. They would have to follow. He did not ask himself what would happen if they did not follow.

Of course his father and mother would resent Ruth. Because Bonbright loved her so truly he was unable to see how anybody could resent her very much. He was blinded by young happiness. Optimism had been born in him in a twinkling, and set aside a knowledge of his parents and their habits of thought and life that should have warned him. He might have known that his father could have overlooked anything but this--the debasing of the Foote blood by mingling with it a plebeian, boarding-house strain; he might have comprehended that his mother, Mrs.

Bonbright Foote VI, no less, could have excused crime, could have winked at depravity, but could never tolerate a daughter-in-law of such origin; would never acknowledge or receive her.

As a last resort, to save Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, his father might even submit to Bonbright's wife; his mother did not bow so low before that G.o.d; her particular deity was a social deity. If Bonbright's argosy did not wreck against the reef of his father, it never could weather the hidden rock of his mother's cla.s.s consciousness.

Bonbright went along, whistling boyishly. He was worried, but not so worried but that he could find room also to be very happy. Everything would come out all right.... Young folks are p.r.o.ne to trust implicitly to the goodness of the future. The future will take care of troubles, will solve difficulties, will always bring around a happy ending. He was not old enough or experienced enough to know that the future bothers with n.o.body's desires, but goes on turning out each day's work with calm detachment, continues to move its endless film of tomorrow's events to the edge of its kingdom and to give them life on the screen of to-day. It does not change or retouch the film, but gives it to to-day as it is, relentlessly, without pity and without satisfaction.

Bonbright saw the future as a benignant soul; he did not realize it is a nonsentient machine.

CHAPTER XVII

Bonbright stopped in the library door, for he saw there not only his father, whom he had expected to see, but his mother also. He had not foreseen this. It made the thing harder to tell, for he realized in an instant how his mother would receive the news. He wished he had been less abrupt, but here he was and there could be no drawing back now.

His mother was first to see him.

"Bonbright..." she said, rising.

He walked to her and kissed her, not speaking.

"Where have you been? Your father and I have been terribly worried. Why did you stay away like this, without giving us any word?"

"I'm sorry if I've worried you, mother," he said, but found himself dumb when he tried to offer an explanation of his absence.

"You have worried us," said his father, sharply. "You had no business to do such a thing. How were we to know something hadn't happened to you--with the strike going on?"

"It was very inconsiderate," said his mother.

There fell a silence awkward for Bonbright. His parents were expecting some explanation. He had come to give that explanation, but his mother's presence complicated the situation, made it more difficult.

There had never been that close confidence between Mrs. Foote and Bonbright which should exist between mother and son. He had never before given much thought to his relations with her; had taken them as a matter of course. He had not given to her that love which he had seen manifested by other boys for their mothers, and which puzzled him. She had never seemed to expect it of him. He had been accustomed to treat her with grave respect and deference, for she was the sort of person who seems to require and to be able to exact deference. She was a very busy woman, busy with extra-family concerns. Servants had carried on the affairs of the household. Nurses, governesses, and such kittle-cattle had given to Bonbright their sort of subst.i.tute for mother care. Not that Mrs. Foote had neglected her son--as neglect is understood by many women of her cla.s.s. She had seen to it rigidly that his nurses and tutors were efficient. She had seen to it that he was instructed as she desired, and his father desired, him to be instructed. She had not neglected him in a material sense, but on that highest and sweetest sense of pouring out her affection on him in childhood, of giving him her companionship, of making her love compel his love--there she had been neglectful.... But she was not a demonstrative woman. Even when he was a baby she could not cuddle him and wonder at him and regard him as the most wonderful thing in creation.... She had never held him to her breast as G.o.d and nature meant mothers to hold their babies. A mercenary breast had nourished him.

So he grew up to admire her, perhaps; surely to stand in some awe of her. She was his mother, and he felt vaguely that the relationship demanded some affection from him. He had fancied that he was giving her affection, but he was doing nothing of the sort.... His childish troubles had been confided to servants. His babyish woes had been comforted by servants. What genuine love he had been able to give had been given to servants. She had not been the companion of his babyhood as his father had failed to be the companion of his youth. ... So far as the finer, the sweeter affairs of parenthood went, Bonbright had been, and was, an orphan....

"Have you nothing to say?" his father demanded, and, when Bonbright made no reply, continued: "Your mother and I have been unable to understand your conduct. Even in our alarm we have been discussing your action and your att.i.tude. It is not one we expected from a son of ours.... You have not filled our hopes and expectations. I, especially, have been dissatisfied with you ever since you left college. You have not behaved like a Foote.... You have made more trouble for me in these few months than I made for my father in my life.... And yesterday--I would be justified in taking extreme measures with you. Such an outburst! You were disrespectful and impertinent. You were positively REBELLIOUS. If I had not more important things to consider than my own feelings you should have felt, more vigorously than you shall, my displeasure. You dared to speak to me yesterday in a manner that would warrant me in setting you wholly adrift until you came to your senses.... But I shall not do that. Family considerations demand your presence in our offices. You are to take my place and to carry on our line.... This hasn't seemed to impress you. You have been childishly selfish. You have thought only of yourself--of that thing you fancy is your individuality. Rubbish! You're a Foote--and a Foote owes a duty to himself and his family that should outweigh any personal desires.... I don't understand you, my son. What more can you want than you have and will have? Wealth, position, family? Yet for months you have been sullen and restless-and then openly rebellious.... And worse, you have been compromising yourself with a girl not of your cla.s.s...."

"I could not believe my ears," said Mrs. Foote, coldly.

"However," said his father, "I shall overlook what has pa.s.sed." Now came the sop he had planned to throw to Bonbright.

"You have been in the office long enough to learn something of the business, so I shall give you work of greater interest and responsibility.... You say, ridiculously enough, that you have been a rubber stamp. Common sense should have told you you were competent to carry no great responsibilities at first.... But you shall take over a part of my burden now.... However, one thing must come first. Before we go any farther, your mother and I must have your promise that you will discontinue whatever relations you have with this boarding-house keeper's daughter, this companion of anarchists and disturbers."

"I have insisted upon THAT," said Mrs. Foote. "I will not tolerate such an affair."

"There is no AFFAIR," said Bonbright, finding his voice. His young eyes began to glow angrily. "What right have you to suppose such a thing--just because Miss Frazer happens to be a stenographer and because her mother keeps a boarder! Father insulted her yesterday. That caused the trouble. I couldn't let it pa.s.s, even from him. I can't let it pa.s.s from you, mother."

"Oh, undoubtedly she's worthy enough," said Mr. Foote, who had exchanged a glance with his wife during Bonbright's outburst, as much as to say, "There is a serious danger here."

"Worthy enough!" said Bonbright, anger now burning with white heat.

"But," said his father, "worthy or not worthy, we cannot have our son's name linked in any way with a person of her cla.s.s. It must stop, and stop at once."

"That you must understand distinctly," said Mrs. Foote.

"Stop!" said Bonbright, hoa.r.s.ely. "It sha'n't stop, now or ever. That's what I came home to tell you.... I'm not a dumb beast, to be driven where you want to drive me. I'm a human being. I have a right to make my own friends and to live my own life.... I have a right to love where I want to--and to marry the girl I love.... You tried to pick out a wife for me.... Well, I've picked out my own. Whether you approve or not doesn't change it. n.o.body, nothing can change it.... I love Ruth Frazer and I'm going to marry her. That's what I came home to tell you."

"What?" said his father, in a tone of one who listens to blasphemy.

Bonbright did not waver. He was strong enough now, strong in his anger and in his love. "I am going to marry Ruth Frazer," he repeated.

"Nonsense!" said his mother.

"It is not nonsense, mother. I am a man. I have found the girl I love and will always love. I intend to marry her. Where is there nonsense in that?"

"Do you fancy I shall permit such a thing? Do you imagine for an instant that I shall permit you to give me a daughter-in-law out of a cheap boarding house? Do you think I shall submit to an affront like that?... Why, I should be the laughingstock of the city."

"The city finds queer things to laugh at," said Bonbright.

"My son--" began Mr. Foote; but his wife silenced him. She had taken command of the family ship. From this moment in this matter Bonbright Foote VI did not figure. This was her affair. It touched her in a vital spot. It threatened her with ridicule; it threatened to affect that most precious of her possessions--the deference of the social world.