The salt chill of the air that is the blessing of all the bay cities after the sun goes down crept in about them. They heard the switch engines puffing in the railroad yards, and the rumbling thunder of the Seventh Street local slowing down in its run from the Mole to stop at West Oakland station. From the street came the noise of children playing in the summer night, and from the steps of the house next door the low voices of gossiping housewives.
"Can you beat it?" Billy murmured. "When I think of that six-dollar furnished room of mine, it makes me sick to think what I was missin"
all the time. But there"s one satisfaction. If I"d changed it sooner I wouldn"t a-had you. You see, I didn"t know you existed only until a couple of weeks ago."
His hand crept along her bare forearm and up and partly under the elbow-sleeve.
"Your skin"s so cool," he said. "It ain"t cold; it"s cool. It feels good to the hand."
"Pretty soon you"ll be calling me your cold-storage baby," she laughed.
"And your voice is cool," he went on. "It gives me the feeling just as your hand does when you rest it on my forehead. It"s funny. I can"t explain it. But your voice just goes all through me, cool and fine.
It"s like a wind of coolness--just right. It"s like the first of the sea-breeze settin" in in the afternoon after a scorchin" hot morning.
An" sometimes, when you talk low, it sounds round and sweet like the "cello in the Macdonough Theater orchestra. And it never goes high up, or sharp, or squeaky, or scratchy, like some women"s voices when they"re mad, or fresh, or excited, till they remind me of a b.u.m phonograph record. Why, your voice, it just goes through me till I"m all trembling--like with the everlastin" cool of it. It"s -- it"s straight delicious. I guess angels in heaven, if they is any, must have voices like that."
After a few minutes, in which, so inexpressible was her happiness that she could only pa.s.s her hand through his hair and cling to him, he broke out again.
"I"ll tell you what you remind me of. Did you ever see a thoroughbred mare, all shinin" in the sun, with hair like satin an" skin so thin an"
tender that the least touch of the whip leaves a mark--all fine nerves, an" delicate an" sensitive, that"ll kill the toughest bronco when it comes to endurance an" that can strain a tendon in a flash or catch death-of-cold without a blanket for a night? I wanta tell you they ain"t many beautifuler sights in this world. An" they"re that fine-strung, an"
sensitive, an" delicate. You gotta handle "em right-side up, gla.s.s, with care. Well, that"s what you remind me of. And I"m goin" to make it my job to see you get handled an" gentled in the same way. You"re as different from other women as that kind of a mare is from scrub work-horse mares. You"re a thoroughbred. You"re clean-cut an" spirited, an" your lines...
"Say, d"ye know you"ve got some figure? Well, you have. Talk about Annette Kellerman. You can give her cards and spades. She"s Australian, an" you"re American, only your figure ain"t. You"re different. You"re nifty--I don"t know how to explain it. Other women ain"t built like you.
You belong in some other country. You"re Frenchy, that"s what. You"re built like a French woman an" more than that--the way you walk, move, stand up or sit down, or don"t do anything."
And he, who had never been out of California, or, for that matter, had never slept a night away from his birthtown of Oakland, was right in his judgment. She was a flower of Anglo-Saxon stock, a rarity in the exceptional smallness and fineness of hand and foot and bone and grace of flesh and carriage--some throw-back across the face of time to the foraying Norman-French that had intermingled with the st.u.r.dy Saxon breed.
"And in the way you carry your clothes. They belong to you. They seem just as much part of you as the cool of your voice and skin. They"re always all right an" couldn"t be better. An" you know, a fellow kind of likes to be seen taggin" around with a woman like you, that wears her clothes like a dream, an" hear the other fellows say: "Who"s Bill"s new skirt? She"s a peach, ain"t she? Wouldn"t I like to win her, though."
And all that sort of talk."
And Saxon, her cheek pressed to his, knew that she was paid in full for all her midnight sewings and the torturing hours of drowsy st.i.tching when her head nodded with the weariness of the day"s toil, while she recreated for herself filched ideas from the dainty garments that had steamed under her pa.s.sing iron.
"Say, Saxon, I got a new name for you. You"re my Tonic Kid. That"s what you are, the Tonic Kid."
"And you"ll never get tired of me?" she queried.
"Tired? Why we was made for each other."
"Isn"t it wonderful, our meeting, Billy? We might never have met. It was just by accident that we did."
"We was born lucky," he proclaimed. "That"s a cinch."
"Maybe it was more than luck," she ventured.
"Sure. It just had to be. It was fate. Nothing could a-kept us apart."
They sat on in a silence that was quick with unuttered love, till she felt him slowly draw her more closely and his lips come near to her ear as they whispered: "What do you say we go to bed?"
Many evenings they spent like this, varied with an occasional dance, with trips to the Orpheum and to Bell"s Theater, or to the moving picture shows, or to the Friday night band concerts in City Hall Park.
Often, on Sunday, she prepared a lunch, and he drove her out into the hills behind Prince and King, whom Billy"s employer was still glad to have him exercise.
Each morning Saxon was called by the alarm clock. The first morning he had insisted upon getting up with her and building the fire in the kitchen stove. She gave in the first morning, but after that she laid the fire in the evening, so that all that was required was the touching of a match to it. And in bed she compelled him to remain for a last little doze ere she called him for breakfast. For the first several weeks she prepared his lunch for him. Then, for a week, he came down to dinner. After that he was compelled to take his lunch with him. It depended on how far distant the teaming was done.
"You"re not starting right with a man," Mary cautioned. "You wait on him hand and foot. You"ll spoil him if you don"t watch out. It"s him that ought to be waitin" on you."
"He"s the bread-winner," Saxon replied. "He works harder than I, and I"ve got more time than I know what to do with--time to burn. Besides, I want to wait on him because I love to, and because... well, anyway, I want to."
CHAPTER II
Despite the fastidiousness of her housekeeping, Saxon, once she had systematized it, found time and to spare on her hands. Especially during the periods in which her husband carried his lunch and there was no midday meal to prepare, she had a number of hours each day to herself.
Trained for years to the routine of factory and laundry work, she could not abide this unaccustomed idleness. She could not bear to sit and do nothing, while she could not pay calls on her girlhood friends, for they still worked in factory and laundry. Nor was she acquainted with the wives of the neighborhood, save for one strange old woman who lived in the house next door and with whom Saxon had exchanged s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation over the backyard division fence.
One time-consuming diversion of which Saxon took advantage was free and unlimited baths. In the orphan asylum and in Sarah"s house she had been used to but one bath a week. As she grew to womanhood she had attempted more frequent baths. But the effort proved disastrous, arousing, first, Sarah"s derision, and next, her wrath. Sarah had crystallized in the era of the weekly Sat.u.r.day night bath, and any increase in this cleansing function was regarded by her as putting on airs and as an insinuation against her own cleanliness. Also, it was an extravagant misuse of fuel, and occasioned extra towels in the family wash. But now, in Billy"s house, with her own stove, her own tub and towels and soap, and no one to say her nay, Saxon was guilty of a daily orgy. True, it was only a common washtub that she placed on the kitchen floor and filled by hand; but it was a luxury that had taken her twenty-four years to achieve. It was from the strange woman next door that Saxon received a hint, dropped in casual conversation, of what proved the culminating joy of bathing. A simple thing--a few drops of druggist"s ammonia in the water; but Saxon had never heard of it before.
She was destined to learn much from the strange woman. The acquaintance had begun one day when Saxon, in the back yard, was hanging out a couple of corset covers and several pieces of her finest undergarments. The woman leaning on the rail of her back porch, had caught her eye, and nodded, as it seemed to Saxon, half to her and half to the underlinen on the line.
"You"re newly married, aren"t you?" the woman asked. "I"m Mrs. Higgins.
I prefer my first name, which is Mercedes."
"And I"m Mrs. Roberts," Saxon replied, thrilling to the newness of the designation on her tongue. "My first name is Saxon."
"Strange name for a Yankee woman," the other commented.
"Oh, but I"m not Yankee," Saxon exclaimed. "I"m Californian."
"La la," laughed Mercedes Higgins. "I forgot I was in America. In other lands all Americans are called Yankees. It is true that you are newly married?"
Saxon nodded with a happy sigh. Mercedes sighed, too.
"Oh, you happy, soft, beautiful young thing. I could envy you to hatred--you with all the man-world ripe to be twisted about your pretty little fingers. And you don"t realize your fortune. No one does until it"s too late."
Saxon was puzzled and disturbed, though she answered readily:
"Oh, but I do know how lucky I am. I have the finest man in the world."
Mercedes Higgins sighed again and changed the subject. She nodded her head at the garments.
"I see you like pretty things. It is good judgment for a young woman.
They"re the bait for men--half the weapons in the battle. They win men, and they hold men--" She broke off to demand almost fiercely: "And you, you would keep your husband?--always, always--if you can?"
"I intend to. I will make him love me always and always."
Saxon ceased, troubled and surprised that she should be so intimate with a stranger.
""Tis a queer thing, this love of men," Mercedes said. "And a failing of all women is it to believe they know men like books. And with breaking hearts, die they do, most women, out of their ignorance of men and still foolishly believing they know all about them. Oh, la la, the little fools. And so you say, little new-married woman, that you will make your man love you always and always? And so they all say it, knowing men and the queerness of men"s love the way they think they do. Easier it is to win the capital prize in the Little Louisiana, but the little new-married women never know it until too late. But you--you have begun well. Stay by your pretties and your looks. "Twas so you won your man, "tis so you"ll hold him. But that is not all. Some time I will talk with you and tell what few women trouble to know, what few women ever come to know.--Saxon!--"tis a strong, handsome name for a woman. But you don"t look it. Oh, I"ve watched you. French you are, with a Frenchiness beyond dispute. Tell Mr. Roberts I congratulate him on his good taste."
She paused, her hand on the k.n.o.b of her kitchen door.