National Avenue by Booth Tarkington (book recommendations website .txt) 📕

“You’re not goin’ to make me, are you?” he asked piteously.

“No. Tell her anything you like.”

Mistaking this icy permission, he uttered an almost vociferous sigh of relief. “Well, I do truly thank you, Lena. If you’re noble enough to overlook my selfishness in not thinkin’ about who you’d want to have for Henry’s godmother⁠—well, my goodness, I am grateful to you, and I know it’s more’n I deserve. It’s a noble action on your part, and I’m sure it’s goin’ to lead to splendid results, because now you can’t help but get better acquainted with Martha, and you’ll do what I’ve hoped for so long: you’ll get to likin’ her and thinkin’ as much of her as everybody else does. With her in that relation⁠—”

“In what relation?”

“In the relation of the baby’s godmother. From the very day of the christening you’ll⁠—”

“There may not be any such day,” Lena interrupted. “You seem to have mistaken me. There may not be any christening⁠—at least not here. If she’s to be the godmother, the baby and I will be with my own family in New York.”

“Oh, golly!” Dan said, and sank down on the side of the bed again. “Oh, golly!”

Lena became vehement. “I should think you would say ‘golly’! If you had a spark of remorse in you, I think you’d say more than that!”

“Remorse? I don’t see⁠—”

“You don’t?” she cried. “You don’t see what you have to be remorseful for? You bring me out here to the life you’ve given me, and you see nothing to regret? You bring me to this flat town and its flat people, where not once in months can I hear a note of real music and where there’s no art and no beauty and no life⁠—after you’d given me your word I should have a full year in Europe!⁠—and you watch me struggling to bear it, to bear it with the best bravery I have in me, and the most kindness to you⁠—and to be cheerful⁠—and I dare you to say I haven’t made the best of it! I have⁠—and how hard I’ve had to try most of the time to accomplish it! And what have you been? Who was the man I found I’d married? Even in this hole of a town he’s called a failure⁠—the town failure! That’s who you got me to marry! Even these people out here⁠—your own people⁠—even they take you as a joke⁠—the town joke! And when I make the best of it I can and bear it the best I can, and go on, month after month, not complaining, and suffer what I suffered when the baby came, you go gayly over to the woman whose hand you held the very first day I came here⁠—yes, you did!⁠—and the woman you’ve compared me to unfavourably every time you’ve ever dared to speak of me to her⁠—yes, you have; every single time!⁠—and you ask her to come and be the godmother to my child! You can go over there and tell her anything you like⁠—tell her again you want my baby to be like her⁠—but there’s one thing you’d better tell her besides, and that is, there won’t be any christening if she comes to it!”

She ran out, the closing of the door reverberating eloquently through the house; and Dan remained seated upon the side of the bed, his head between his hands. It was by no means the first time he had remained in that position when Lena slammed the door.

His attitude had not changed, fifteen minutes later, when there came a light tapping upon that mishandled door of his; and at the sound he rose quickly, said, “Yes, mother,” and tried to regain his usual cheerfulness of aspect as Mrs. Oliphant came in noiselessly. She was smiling, and he was able to construct a smile in return, telling her she looked “mighty pretty” in her rose-coloured negligee⁠—a compliment not exaggerated. Serenity, a good faith, and a cheerful disposition bring beauty in time even where it has not been; and, where beauty has always been, as it had with Mrs. Oliphant, white hair is only that crowning prettiness so knowingly sought by the ladies of the eighteenth-century when they powdered their blonde or brunette ringlets.

“I just thought I’d slip in for a minute,” she said apologetically. “I was afraid you might forget you had to be up so early tomorrow morning, and get to thinking about something and not go to bed at all.”

“Oh, no; don’t worry. I’ll not do that again,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good, I know. I suppose you heard her?”

She patted his cheek, smiling up at him and resolutely withholding from expression the compassion that had brought her to him. “I just wanted to tell you not to be troubled. You’ll have to give her a little more time to get adjusted, Dan. A great many young couples don’t manage all these little adjustments until after the first few years of marriage; and I think my own father and mother didn’t manage it even that soon;⁠—I’m afraid I remember their having some rather troubled times when I was a pretty old little girl. You mustn’t let yourself be discouraged, dear. Lena really tries to get the best of herself, and though she fails sometimes⁠—”

“It isn’t that,” he interrupted. “At least it seemed to be something more definite than usual this time. You see, I didn’t stop to think about consulting her, and asked Martha to be Henry Daniel’s godmother.”

“I heard Fred Oliphant say so, but I thought perhaps he was only trying to tease Lena.” For a moment Mrs. Oliphant looked disturbed, but brightened with a quickly reassuring second thought. “Well, that would be lovely, and I’m glad you did it; but Martha’ll decline.”

“She didn’t, though, when I asked her.”

“What did she say?”

Dan rubbed his forehead. “Well, I don’t remember that she said anything.”

“No?” His mother laughed. “You won’t have