If You Touch Them They Vanish | Page 9

I could," said Miss Joy, "and perhaps I shall marry him after all."
"What!" exclaimed Martha. "Marry that old devil! Tell me ye'd sooner starve--or--get out of me tub, and take yourself off!"
Old Martha rose hurriedly with a squeak of dismay, and rushed to close the door between the bedroom and the sitting-room. She returned breathing fast.
"They were knocking with the dinner," she explained, "and all the doors open! Ye've soaked long enough, deary. Come out."
"Not until you say that you know I wouldn't marry Mr. Ludlow to save me from drowning."
"Full well I know it," said Martha heartily. "Come out."
The girl came out of the tub reluctantly, and presently, swathed in Martha's best lavender dressing-gown (she had bought it that morning), was lifting a spoonful of clear green-turtle soup to her lips.
"Martha!"
"Miss Joy!"
"I see champagne."
"'Tis not only to look at, Miss Joy."
"It's wonderful," said Miss Joy, "starving--I meet you--champagne--and to-morrow--"
Her sudden high spirits suddenly fell.
"Oh, Martha, from the top of even a small tree to the ground is a cruel, hard fall!"
"We were speakin' of wages, Miss Joy. And of a certain young lady willin' to do almost anything for money. Will ye come back to the woods with me to help with the housework?"
"Oh, but Martha--it wouldn't do. It isn't as if I'd never known him--but we were such good friends--and it would all be too uncomfortable and embarrassing."
"Ye'd never see him, Miss Joy."
"Never see him!"
"He will look no one in the face but me. The faces that he loved are nightmares to him now--all but old Martha's. No, Miss Joy--ye might, peepin' from behind curtains, set eyes on me Poor Boy, but as for you, he'd not know if you was man or woman, old or young, unless I told him. He has his rules; when the men come in from the village he disappears like a ghost. When they have gone he comes back. There'd be hours for housework, when he'd be out of the way, and that there was a born lady helping old Martha out and kapin' the poor woman company--he'd never know--never at all."
"Hum," said Miss Joy to the bubbles in her glass of champagne.
"The life," said Martha, "will bring back the color to your cheeks, the flesh to your bones, the courage to your heart."
"Am I so dreadfully thin?"
"If I was that thin," said Martha, "I'd hate to have me best friends see me without me clothes. But ye've the makin's of a Vanus, and that's more than ever I had."
Miss Joy laughed aloud.
Then, after a silence, and very seriously: "You're sure he'd never know that I was in the house?"
"Not unless I told him."
"But you wouldn't tell him?"
"Not if he hitched wild horses to me sacret and lashed them."
Another thoughtful silence.
"There's just one thing, Martha," said Miss Joy, "that I won't do."
Martha flung up her hands in a gesture of despair.
"That's what they all say!" she cried. "That's how they all get out o' comin'. Well, what is it that ye won't do?"
Miss Joy hated to say. She was a little ashamed. She had enjoyed the reputation of being a good sport, a girl whom it was hard to dare. But she had her weakness. "I won't," she said, "I won't--I can't--bring myself to touch a live lobster."
Old Martha's face became extremely grave. She leaned forward. She was all confidence.
"Deary," she said, "nor more can I."
The two women exploded into laughter, loud and prolonged.
"Well," said Miss Joy at last, and she was still laughing, "it's a sporting proposition.... When do we start?"
"Ye must have warm clothes first."
"I have no money, Martha."
"Do ye remember a house ye took one winter, while your poor father was tearin' out the innerds of his own?"
"On Park Avenue and--"
"The same," said Martha. "The northwest corner. Ye were my tenants that winter.... Yes, deary, I am a rich old woman. And, between you and me, your poor father wanted that house the worst way, and me agents stuck him good and plenty. There's a balance comin' to ye, Miss Joy. 'Tis what they call conscience money, and 'twill buy ye warm clothes, and maybe a bit jool to go at your throat."
"Martha--Martha, what makes you so good to me?"
"Have ye not said ye never believed that me Poor Boy did what they said he did?"
"Is that the only reason?"
"There's another," said Martha. "For in all the world, next to his, ye've the swatest face and way with yez."
The old woman's emotions rose, and her brogue became heavier and heavier upon her, until her words lost all semblance of meaning. And Miss Joy, warm and well fed, leaned back in her deep chair and listened and tried to understand, and looked into Martha's face with eyes that were dark and misty with tenderness.
And she slept that night and late