The Melting of Molly Read online

  Leaf V.

  "The juice of a lemon in two glasses of cold water, to be drunkimmediately on wakening!" Page eleven! I've handed myself that lemonevery morning now until I am sensitive with myself about it. If therewas ever anybody "living a Noah's Ark sort of life" it's I, and I haveto sit at the Ark window from dawn to dusk to get in the gallon of waterI'm supposed to consume in that time. Some time I'm going to get mixedup and try to drink my bath, if I don't look out.

  I don't know what I'm going to do about this book, and I've got myselfinto trouble about writing things besides records in it. He looked at methis morning as coolly as if I was just anybody and said--

  "I would like to see that record now, Mrs. Molly. It seems to me you areabout as slim as you want to be. How did you tip the scales last timeyou weighed, and have you noticed any trouble at all with your heart?

  "I weigh one hundred and thirty-four pounds, and I've got to melt andfreeze and starve off that four," I answered, ignoring the heartquestion and also the question of producing this book. Wonder what hewould do if I gave it to him to read just as it is?

  "How about the heart?" he persisted, and I may have imagined the smilein his eyes, for his mouth was purely professional. Anyhow, I lowered mylashes down on to my cheeks and answered experimentally:

  "Sometimes it hurts." Then a cyclone happened to me.

  "Come here to me a minute!" he said quickly, and he turned me round andput his head down between my shoulders and held me so tight against hisear that I could hardly breathe.

  "Expand your chest three times and breathe as deep as you can," heordered from against my back buttons. I expanded and breathed--prettyquickly at that.

  "Now hold your breath as long as you can," he commanded, and it fittedmy mood exactly to do so.

  "Can't find anything," he said at last, letting me go and lookingcarefully at my face. His eyes were all anxiety; and I liked it. "Whendoes it hurt you, and how?" he asked anxiously.

  "Moonlight nights and lonesomely," I answered before I could stopmyself, and what happened then was worse than any cyclone. He got whitefor a minute and just looked at me as if I was an insect stuck on a pin,then gave a short little laugh and turned to the table.

  "I didn't understand you were joking," he said quietly.

  That maddened me, and I would have done anything to make him think I wasnot the foolish thing he evidently had classified me as being.

  "I'm not joking," I said jerkily; "I am lonely. And worse than beinglonely, I'm scared. I ought to have stayed just the quiet relict ofMr. Carter and gone out with Aunt Adeline and let myself be fat andrespectable; but I haven't got the character. You thought I went to townto buy a monument, and I didn't; I bought enough clothes for two brides,and now I'm too scared to wear 'em, and I don't know what you'll thinkwhen you see my bankbook. Everybody is talking about me and thatdinner-party Tuesday night, and Aunt Adeline says she can't live in ahouse of mourning so desecrated any longer; she's going back to thecottage. Aunt Bettie Pollard says that if I want to get married I oughtto marry Mr. Wilson Graves because of his seven children, and theneverybody would be so relieved that they are taken care of, that theywould forget that Mr. Carter hasn't been dead quite five years yet. Mrs.Johnson says I ought to be declared a minor and put as a ward under you.I can't help judge Wade's sending me flowers and Tom's walking over myfront steps every day. I'm not strong enough to carry him away and drownhim. I am perfectly miserable and I'm--"

  "Now that'll do, Molly, just hush for a half-minute, and let me talk toyou," said Dr. John as he took my hand in his and drew me near him. "Nowonder your heart hurts if it has got all that load of trouble on it,and we'll just get a little of that 'scare' off. You put yourself in myhands, and you are to do just as I tell you, and I say--forget it! Comewith me while I make a call. It is a long drive and I'm--I'm lonesomesometimes myself."

  I saw the worst was over, and I breathed freely again. There was nothingfor it but to go with him, and I wanted to most awfully.

  To my dying day I'll never forget that little house, away out on thehillside, he took me to in his shabby little car. Just two tiny rooms,but they were clean and quiet, and a girl with the sweetest face I eversaw, lay in the bed with her eyes bright with pride, and a tiny, tinylittle bundle close beside her. The young farmer was red withembarrassment and anxiety.

  "She's all right to-day, but she worries because she don't think I cantend to the baby right," he said; and he did look helpless. "Her motherhad to go home for two days, but is coming to-morrow. I dasn't undressand wash the youngster myself. It won't hurt him to stay bundled upuntil granny comes, will it, doc?"

  "Not a bit," answered Dr. John in his big comforting voice.

  But I looked at the girl, and I understood her. She wanted that babyclean and fresh, even if it was just five days old, and I felt all of asudden terribly capable. I picked up the bundle and went into the otherroom with it where a kettle was boiling on the stove and a large bucketby the door. I found things by just a glance from her, and the hourI spent with that small baby was one of the most delicious of all mylife. I never was left entirely to myself with one before, and I didall I wanted to this one, guided by instinct and desire. He slept rightthrough and was the darlingest thing I ever saw when I laid him backon the bed by her. I never looked in Dr. John's direction once, thoughI felt him all the time.

  But on the way home I gave myself the surprise of my life! SuddenlyI turned my face against his sleeve and cried as I never had before.I felt safe, for it is a steep road, and he had to drive carefully.However, he managed to press that one arm against my cheek in a way thatcomforted me into stopping when I saw we were near town. I got out ofthe car at the garage and walked away through the garden home, withoutlooking in his direction at all. I never seem to be able to look at himas I do at other people. We hadn't spoken two words since we had leftthe little house in the woods with that happy-faced girl in it. He hasmore sense than just a man.

  It was almost dusk, and I stopped in the garden a minute to pull theearth closer round some of the bachelor's-buttons that had "popped" theground some weeks ago. Thinking about them made me regain my spirits,and I went on in the house quite prepared to be scolded for whateverAunt Adeline had thought of while I was gone. Jane told me with herbroadest grin that she had gone down to her sister-in-law's for supper,and I sat down with a sigh of relief.

  Some days are like tin nutmeg-graters that everybody uses to grate youagainst, and this was one for me. For an hour I sat and grated my ownself against Alfred's letter that had come in the morning. I realisedthat I would just have to come to some sort of decision about what I wasgoing to do, for he wrote that he was coming in a week or two.

  I like him and always have, of that I am sure. He offers me the mostwonderful life in the world, and no woman could help being proud toaccept it. I am lonely, more lonely than I was even willing to confessto Dr. John. I can't go on living like this any longer. Ruth Clinton hasmade me see that if I want Alfred it will be now or never and--quick. Iknow now that she loves him, and she ought to have her chance if I don'twant him. The way she idolises and idealises him is a marvel of womanlystupidity.

  Some women like to collect men's hearts and hide them away from otherwomen on cold storage, and the helpless things can't help themselves.

  I have contempt for that sort of a woman, and I love Ruth!

  It's my duty to look the matter in the face before I look inAlfred's--and decide. If not Alfred, what then?

  First--no husband. That's out of the question! I'm not strong-mindedenough to crank my own motor-car and study woman's suffrage. I like men,can't help it, and seem to need one for my own.

  Second--if not Alfred, who? Judge Wade is so delightful that I flutterat the thought, but his mother is Aunt Adeline's own best friend, andthey have ideas in common.

  Still, living with him might have adventures. I never saw such eyes!The girl he wanted to marry died of turberculosis, and he wears a locketwith her in it yet. I'd like to rewar
d him for such faithfulness. Butthen Alfred's been faithful too! I look at Ruth Clinton and realise howfaithful, and my heart melts to him in my breast--my brain feels almostall melted away, too, so I had better keep the heart cold enough tomanage, if I want anything left at all for him to come home to.

  In some ways Tom Pollard is the most congenial man I ever knew. I trulytry to make him be serious about the important things in life, likegoing to church with his mother and working all day, even if he is rich.I wish he wasn't so near kin to me! Now, there, I feel in Ruth Clinton'sway again!

  I suppose I really would be doing the right thing to marry Mr. Graves,and I should adore all those children to start with, but I know Billywouldn't get on with them at all. I can't even consider it on hisaccount, but I'll let the nice old gentleman come for a few times moreto see me, for he really is interesting, and we have suffered things incommon. Mrs. Graves lacked the kind of temperament poor Mr. Carter did.I'd like to make it all up to him, but if Billy wouldn't be happy, thatsettles it, and I don't know how good his boys are. I couldn't haveBilly corrupted.

  And so, as there is nobody else exactly suitable in town, it all simmersdown to one or the other of these or Alfred. In my heart I knew that Icouldn't hesitate a minute--and in the flash of a second I _decided_.Of course I love Alfred, and I'll take him gladly and be the wife he haswaited for all these six lonely years. I'll make everything up to him,if I have to diet to keep thin for him the rest of my life. ProbablyI shall have that very thing to do, and I get weak at the idea. BeforeI burn this book I'll have to copy it all out and be chained to it forlife. At the thought my heart dropped like a sinker to my toes; but Ihauled it up to its normal place with picturing to myself how Alfredwould look when he saw me in that old blue muslin remade into a Renewonder. However, my old heart would show a strange propensity forsinking down into my slippers without any reason at all. Tears were evencoming into my eyes when Tom suddenly came over the fence and picked meand the heart up together and put us into an adventure of the firstwater.

  "Molly," he said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got ajolly, strolling, German band up at the hotel; and we're going to havean evening's gaiety. Get into a pretty dress, and don't keep mewaiting."

  "Tom!" I gasped.

  "Oh, don't spoil sport, Moll! You said you would wake up this town, andnow do it. It seems twenty instead of six years since I went to a partywith you, and I'm not going to wait any longer. Everybody is there, andthey can't all have Miss Clinton."

  That settled it--I couldn't let a visiting girl be worn out withattention. Of course, I had planned to make a dignified debut under myown roof, backed up by the presence of ancestral and marital rosewood,silver and mahogany, as a widow should; but _duty_ called me tode-weed myself amidst the informality of an impromptu _soiree_ at thelittle town hotel. And in the fifteen minutes Tom gave me I de-weededto some purpose and flowered out to still more. I never do anythingby halves.

  In that--that--trousseau Madame Rene had made me there was one, whatshe called "simple" lingerie frock. And it looked just as simple as thecheque it called for. It was of lawn as transparent as a cobweb, reallace and tiny delicious incrustations of embroidery. It fitted in linesthat melted into curves, had enticements in the shape of a long sash anda dazzling breast-knot of shimmery blue, the colour of my eyes, and Ilooked new-born in it.

  I'm glad that poor Mr. Carter was so stern with me about pads in myhair, now that they are out of fashion, for I've got lots of my own leftin consequence of not wearing other people's. It clings and coils to myhead just anyhow, so that it looks as if I had spent an hour on it. Thatmade me able to be ready to go down to Tom in only ten minutes over thetime he gave me.

  I stopped on next to the bottom step in the wide old hall and called Tomto turn out the light for me, as Jane had gone out.

  I have turned out that light lots of times, but I felt it best to letTom see me in a full light when we were alone. It is well I did! Atfirst it stunned him--and it is a compliment to any woman to stun TomPollard. But Tom doesn't stay stunned long.

  "Molly," he said, standing off and looking at me with shining eyes, "youare one lovely dream. Your cheeks are peaches under cream, your eyes areblue forget-me-nots, and your mouth a red blossom. Come on before I losemy head looking at you." I didn't know whether I liked that or not, andturned down the light quickly myself and went to the gate hurriedly. Tomlaughed and behaved himself.

  Everybody in town was at the hotel, and everybody was nice to me, girlsand all. There is a bunch of lovely posy girls in this town, and theywere all in full flower. Most of the men were a few years younger thanI. I have been friends with them for always, and they know how I dance.I didn't even get near enough to the wall to know it was there, thoughI was conscious of Aunt Bettie and Mrs. Johnson sitting on it at oneend of the room, and every time I passed them I flirted with them untilI won a smile from them both. I wish I could be sure of hearing Mrs.Johnson tell Aunt Adeline all about it.

  And it was well I did come to save Ruth Clinton from a dancing death,for she is as light as a feather and sails on the air like thistle-down.I felt sorry for Tom, for when he was with me he could see her, and whenhe was with her I pouted at him, even over Judge Wade's arm. I verilybelieve it was from being really jealous that he asked little Pet Bufordto dance with him--by mistake as it were.

  And how I did enjoy it all, every single minute of it! My heart beattime to the music as if it would never tire of doing so. Miss Clintonand I exchanged little laughs and scraps of conversation in betweentimes, and I fell deeper and deeper in love with her. Every pound I havemelted and frozen and starved off me has brought me nearer to her, andI just _can't_ think about how I am going to hurt her in a few daysnow. I put the thought from me, and so let myself swing out intothoughtlessness with one of the boys.

  This has been a happy night, in which I betrothed myself to Alfred,though he doesn't know it yet. I am going to take it as a sign that lifefor us is going to be brilliant and gay, and full of laughter and love.

  I haven't had Billy in my arms to-day, and I don't know how I shall everget myself to sleep if I let myself think about it. His sleep-place onmy breast aches. It is a comfort to think that the great big Godunderstands the women folk that He makes, even if they don't understandthemselves.