The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [376]
“Bill, I want you to promise me something,” the father said in a man-to-man manner.
“Yes,” Studs said, hoping to get this over because he wanted to meet Catherine and go swimming, and thinking also that when it came to anything important about himself, it was just about impossible to make them understand his side of the case, and it had been the same always, so far back as he could remember.
“Bill, I want you to promise me this. To think it over, and see if it isn’t possible to wait at least a few months until the fall, when things will be better, and you’ll then probably have more money and prospects to start on. Maybe by fall we’ll turn the corner of this depression and have a real business pickup. And then I’ll be able to have you working for me every day, and if money loosens up I’ll be able to give you a tidy little sum as a wedding present. In days like these, a young fellow is foolish to get married when he’s not sure of being able to work the next day.”
“Two mouths always cost more to be fed than one,” Mrs. Lonigan said.
“I’ve thought it over,” Studs said, realizing there was nothing much to say to them about it, unless he told the truth, and he couldn’t do that.
Both parents stared wistfully at him. The mother dabbed at her eyes, almost in open tears. She was his mother, and he could see why she should cry like this, and it made him feel kind of rotten. He thought, though, that she’d gotten married herself, hadn’t she, and she and the old man had pitched in to try their luck without any bank to start on.
“I got to be going,” he said, arising, wanting to get out of the house quickly.
“Now, Bill, think it over, you and Catherine, and if you do, I know you’ll see where your old man is just telling you what’s right and sensible.”
Nodding affirmatively, Studs left the parlor. In his room, he quickly donned his swimming suit, and pulled an old shirt and pair of trousers on over it. He left the house, dashing so rapidly down the stairway that he emerged on the street breathless and tired, and he trudged slowly to Seventy-first and Jeffrey. He saw Catherine standing in front of the drug store, wearing an old blue skirt and brown pullover sweater, with a blue band around her head.
“How are you?” she asked, swinging a rubber swimming cap on her wrist and smiling wistfully, sadly, he felt.
“O. K. How about you, Kid?” he responded in an attempt at gruff cheerfulness.
“All right, darling,” she said, taking his arm.
Catherine was silent as she walked beside him, her arm inserted in the crook of Studs’ elbow. She seemed to him to have changed almost over night, and he realized that of late she didn’t chatter on the way she used to. He wished she would.
“What did your folks say to you?” she asked.
“They want me to wait longer. They don’t understand things, though. Of course, I didn’t tell them the way things really stand. I only said we decided that since we were going to get married, we have figured it out that we might as well do it right away, because we want to.”
“My parents are the same. They don’t understand things, either. And what is the use of telling them or trying to make them understand? They would only get angry and fly off the handle, and it would make everything worse. But my mother is so suspicious. She didn’t say a word to me, but I could tell that suspicion was just eating her up from the way she looked at me.”
Studs checked himself before letting out the words that his mother was also suspicious. It would make Catherine nervous when she and the old lady got together.
“You know, Bill, if my father and mother were only as understanding as Father Geoghan was this morning. Wasn’t he kind and tolerant?”
“Yes. He was very decent.”
“I was so scared, too, having to go to him the way we did. And he was so nice. He didn’t bawl us out or anything. He’s the same way in confession. He’s showed such an open-minded attitude I could have kissed him.”
“Don’t let me catch you!” Studs smiled.
“Why, Bill! Oh, go on with your teasing. But he was so understanding.”
“What surprised me was that he kept saying not to marry if we didn