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Title: The Descent of Man and Other Stories
Author: Edith Wharton
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THE DESCENT OF MAN
AND OTHER STORIES
BY EDITH WHARTON
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE DESCENT OF MAN, AND OTHER STORIES
The Descent of Man
The Other Two
Expiation
The Lady's Maid's Bell
The Mission of Jane
The Reckoning
The Letter
The Dilettante
The Quicksand
A Venetian Night's Entertainment
THE DESCENT OF MAN
I
When Professor Linyard came back from his holiday in the Maine woods
the air of rejuvenation he brought with him was due less to the
influences of the climate than to the companionship he had enjoyed
on his travels. To Mrs. Linyard's observant eye he had appeared to
set out alone; but an invisible traveller had in fact accompanied
him, and if his heart beat high it was simply at the pitch of his
adventure: for the Professor had eloped with an idea.
No one who has not tried the experiment can divine its exhilaration.
Professor Linyard would not have changed places with any hero of
romance pledged to a flesh-and-blood abduction. The most fascinating
female is apt to be encumbered with luggage and scruples: to take up
a good deal of room in the present and overlap inconveniently into
the future; whereas an idea can accommodate itself to a single
molecule of the brain or expand to the circumference of the horizon.
The Professor's companion had to the utmost this quality of
adaptability. As the express train whirled him away from the
somewhat inelastic circle of Mrs. Linyard's affections, his idea
seemed to be sitting opposite him, and their eyes met every moment
or two in a glance of joyous complicity; yet when a friend of the
family presently joined him and began to talk about college matters,
the idea slipped out of sight in a flash, and the Professor would
have had no difficulty in proving that he was alone.
But if, from the outset, he found his idea the most agreeable of
fellow-travellers, it was only in the aromatic solitude of the woods
that he tasted the full savour of his adventure. There, during the
long cool August days, lying full length on the pine-needles and
gazing up into the sky, he would meet the eyes of his companion
bending over him like a nearer heaven. And what eyes they
were!--clear yet unfathomable, bubbling with inexhaustible laughter,
yet drawing their freshness and sparkle from the central depths of
thought! To a man who for twenty years had faced an eye reflecting
the obvious with perfect accuracy, these escapes into the
inscrutable had always been peculiarly inviting; but hitherto the
Professor's mental infidelities had been restricted by an unbroken
and relentless domesticity. Now, for the first time since his
marriage, chance had given him six weeks to himself, and he was
coming home with his lungs full of liberty.
It must not be inferred that the Professor's domestic relations were
defective: they were in fact so complete that it was almost
impossible to get away from them. It is the happy husbands who are
really in bondage; the little rift within the lute is often a
passage to freedom. Marriage had given the Professor exactly what he
had sought in it; a comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of
rising to sentimental crises had made him scrupulously careful not
to shirk the practical obligations of the bond. He took as it were a
sociological view of his case, and modestly regarded himself as a
brick in that foundation on which the state is supposed to rest.
Perhaps if Mrs. Linyard had cared about entomology, or had taken
sides in the war over the transmission of acquired characteristics,
he might have had a less impersonal notion of marriage; but he was
unconscious of any deficiency in their relation, and if consulted
would probably have declared that he didn't want any woman bothering
with his beetles. His real life had always lain in the universe of
thought, in that enchanted region which, to those who have lingered
there, comes to have so much more colour and substance than the
painted curtain hanging before it. The Professor's particular veil
of Maia was a narrow strip of homespun woven in a monotonous
pattern; but he had only to lift it to step into an empire.
This unseen universe was thronged with the most seductive shapes:
the Professor moved Sultan-like through a seraglio of ideas. But of
all the lovely apparitions that wove their spells about him, none
had ever worn quite so persuasive an aspect as this latest
favourite. For the others were mostly rather grave companions,
serious-minded and elevating enough to have passed muster in a
Ladies' Debating Club; but this new fancy of the Professor's was
simply one embodied laugh. It was, in other words, the smile of
relaxation at the end of a long day's toil: the flash of irony that
the laborious mind projects, irresistibly, over labour
conscientiously performed. The Professor had always been a hard
worker. If he was an indulgent friend to his ideas, he was also a
stern task-master to them. For, in addition to their other duties,
they had to support his family: to pay the butcher and baker, and
provide for Jack's schooling and Millicent's dresses. The
Professor's household was a modest one, yet it tasked his ideas to
keep it up to his wife's standard. Mrs. Linyard was not an exacting
wife, and she took enough pride in her husband's attainments to pay
for her honours by turning Millicent's dresses and darning Jack's
socks, and going to the College receptions year after year in the
same black silk with shiny seams. It consoled her to see an
occasional mention of Professor Linyard's remarkable monograph on
the Ethical Reactions of the Infusoria, or an allusion to his
investigations into the Unconscious Cerebration of the Amoeba.
Still there were moments when the healthy indifference of Jack and
Millicent reacted on the maternal sympathies; when Mrs. Linyard
would have made her husband a railway-director, if by this
transformation she might have increased her boy's allowance and
given her daughter a new hat, or a set of furs such as the other
girls were wearing. Of such moments of rebellion the Professor
himself was not wholly unconscious. He could not indeed understand
why any one should want a new hat; and as to an allowance, he had
had much less money at college than Jack, and had yet managed to buy
a microscope and collect a few "specimens"; while Jack was free from
such expensive tastes! But the Professor did not let his want of
sympathy interfere with the discharge of his paternal obligations.
He worked hard to keep the wants of his family gratified, and it was
precisely in the endeavor to attain this end that he at length broke
down and had to cease from work altogether.
To cease from work was not to cease from thought of it; and in the
unwonted pause from effort the Professor found himself taking a
general survey of the field he had travelled. At last it was
possible to lift his nose from the loom, to step a moment in front
of the tapestry he had been weaving. From this first inspection of
the pattern so long wrought over from behind, it was natural to
glance a little farther and seek its reflection in the public eye.
It was not indeed of his special task that he thought in this
connection. He was but one of the great army of weavers at work
among the threads of that cosmic woof; and what he sought was the
general impression their labour had produced.
When Professor Linyard first plied his microscope, the audience of
the man of science had been composed of a few fellow-students,
sympathetic or hostile as their habits of mind predetermined, but
versed in the jargon of the profession and familiar with the point
of departure. In the intervening quarter of a century, however, this
little group had been swallowed up in a larger public. Every one now
read scientific books and expressed an opinion on them. The ladies
and the clergy had taken them up first; now they had passed to the
school-room and the kindergarten. Daily life was regulated on
scientific principles; the daily papers had their "Scientific
Jottings"; nurses passed examinations in hygienic science, and
babies were fed and dandled according to the new psychology.
The very fact that scientific investigation still had, to some
minds, a flavour of heterodoxy, gave it a perennial interest. The
mob had broken down the walls of tradition to batten in the orchard
of forbidden knowledge. The inaccessible goddess whom the Professor
had served in his youth now offered her charms in the market-place.
And yet it was not the same goddess after all, but a pseudo-science
masquerading in the garb of the real divinity. This false goddess
had her ritual and her literature. She had her sacred books, written
by false priests and sold by millions to the faithful. In the most
successful of these works, ancient dogma and modern discovery were
depicted in a close embrace under the lime-lights of a hazy
transcendentalism; and the tableau never failed of its effect. Some
of the books designed on this popular model had lately fallen into
the Professor's hands, and they filled him with mingled rage and
hilarity. The rage soon died: he came to regard this mass of
pseudo-literature as protecting the truth from desecration. But the
hilarity remained, and flowed into the form of his idea. And the
idea--the divine, incomparable idea--was simply that he should
avenge his goddess by satirizing her false interpreters. He would
write a skit on the "popular" scientific book; he would so heap
platitude on platitude, fallacy on fallacy, false analogy on false
analogy, so use his superior knowledge to abound in the sense of the
ignorant, that even the gross crowd would join in the laugh against
its augurs. And the laugh should be something more than the
distension of mental muscles; it should be the trumpet-blast
bringing down the walls of ignorance, or at least the little stone
striking the giant between the eyes.
II
The Professor, on presenting his card, had imagined that it would
command prompt access to the publisher's sanctuary; but the young
man who read his name was not moved to immediate action. It was
clear that Professor Linyard of Hillbridge University was not a
specific figure to the purveyors of popular literature. But the
publisher was an old friend; and when the card had finally drifted
to his office on the languid tide of routine he came forth at once
to greet his visitor.
The warmth of his welcome convinced the Professor that he had been
right in bringing his manuscript to Ned Harviss. He and Harviss had
been at Hillbridge together, and the future publisher had been one
of the wildest spirits in that band of college outlaws which yearly
turns out so many inoffensive citizens and kind husbands and
fathers. The Professor knew the taming qualities of life. He was
aware that many of his most reckless comrades had been transformed
into prudent capitalists or cowed wage-earners; but he was almost
sure that he could count on Harviss. So rare a sense of irony, so
keen a perception of relative values, could hardly have been blunted
even by twenty years' intercourse with the obvious.
The publisher's appearance was a little disconcerting. He looked as
if he had been fattened on popular fiction; and his fat was full of
optimistic creases. The Professor seemed to see him bowing into his
office a long train of spotless heroines laden with the maiden
tribute of the hundredth thousand volume.
Nevertheless, his welcome was reassuring. He did not disown his
early enormities, and capped his visitor's tentative allusions by
such flagrant references to the past that the Professor produced his
manuscript without a scruple.
"What--you don't mean to say you've been doing something in our
line?"
The Professor smiled. "You publish scientific books sometimes, don't
you?"
The publisher's optimistic creases relaxed a little. "H'm--it all
depends--I'm afraid you're a little _too_ scientific for us. We have
a big sale for scientific breakfast foods, but not for the
concentrated essences. In your case, of course, I should be
delighted to stretch a point; but in your own interest I ought to
tell you that perhaps one of the educational houses would do you
better."
The Professor leaned back, still smiling luxuriously.
"Well, look it over--I rather think you'll take it."
"Oh, we'll _take_ it, as I say; but the terms might not--"
"No matter about the terms--"
The publisher threw his head back with a laugh. "I had no idea that
science was so profitable; we find our popular novelists are the
hardest hands at a bargain."
"Science is disinterested," the Professor corrected him. "And I have
a fancy to have you publish this thing."
"That's immensely good of you, my dear fellow. Of course your name
goes with a certain public--and I rather like the originality of our
bringing out a work so out of our line. I daresay it may boom us
both." His creases deepened at the thought, and he shone
encouragingly on the Professor's leave-taking.
Within a fortnight, a line from Harviss recalled the Professor to
town. He had been looking forward with immense zest to this second
meeting; Harviss's college roar was in his tympanum, and he pictured
himself following up the protracted chuckle which would follow his
friend's progress through the manuscript. He was proud of the
adroitness with which he had kept his secret from Harviss, had
maintained to the last the pretense of a serious work, in order to
give the keener edge to his reader's enjoyment. Not since
under-graduate days had the Professor tasted such a draught of pure
fun as his anticipations now poured for him.
This time his card brought instant admission. He was bowed into the
office like a successful novelist, and Harviss grasped him with both
hands.
"Well--do you mean to take it?" he asked, with a lingering coquetry.
"Take it? Take it, my dear fellow? It's in press already--you'll
excuse my not waiting to consult you? There will be no difficulty
about terms, I assure you, and we had barely time to catch the
autumn market. My dear Linyard, why didn't you _tell_ me?" His voice
sank to a reproachful solemnity, and he pushed forward his own
arm-chair.
The Professor dropped into it with a chuckle. "And miss the joy of
letting you find out?"
"Well--it _was_ a joy." Harviss held out a box of his best cigars.
"I don't know when I've had a bigger sensation. It was so deucedly
unexpected--and, my dear fellow, you've brought it so exactly to the
right shop."
"I'm glad to hear you say so," said the Professor modestly.
Harviss laughed in rich appreciation. "I don't suppose you had a
doubt of it; but of course I was quite unprepared. And it's so
extraordinarily out of your line--"
The Professor took off his glasses and rubbed them with a slow
smile.
"Would you have thought it so--at college?"
Harviss stared. "At college?--Why, you were the most iconoclastic
devil--"
There was a perceptible pause. The Professor restored his glasses
and looked at his friend. "Well--?" he said simply.
"Well--?" echoed the other, still staring. "Ah--I see; you mean that
that's what explains it. The swing of the pendulum, and so forth.
Well, I admit it's not an uncommon phenomenon. I've conformed
myself, for example; most of our crowd have, I believe; but somehow
I hadn't expected it of you."
The close observer might have detected a faint sadness under the
official congratulation of his tone; but the Professor was too
amazed to have an ear for such fine shades.
"Expected it of me? Expected what of me?" he gasped. "What in heaven
do you think this thing is?" And he struck his fist on the
manuscript which lay between them.
Harviss had recovered his optimistic creases. He rested a benevolent
eye on the document.
"Why, your apologia--your confession of faith, I should call it. You
surely must have seen which way you were going? You can't have
written it in your sleep?"
"Oh, no, I was wide awake enough," said the Professor faintly.
"Well, then, why are you staring at me as if I were _not?"_ Harviss
leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on his visitor's worn
coat-sleeve. "Don't mistake me, my dear Linyard. Don't fancy there
was the least unkindness in my allusion to your change of front.
What is growth but the shifting of the stand-point? Why should a man
be expected to look at life with the same eyes at twenty and at--our
age? It never occurred to me that you could feel the least delicacy
in admitting that you have come round a little--have fallen into
line, so to speak."
But the Professor had sprung up as if to give his lungs more room to
expand; and from them there issued a laugh which shook the editorial
rafters.
"Oh, Lord, oh Lord--is it really as good as that?" he gasped.
Harviss had glanced instinctively toward the electric bell on his
desk; it was evident that he was prepared for an emergency.
"My dear fellow--" he began in a soothing tone.
"Oh, let me have my laugh out, do," implored the Professor.
"I'll--I'll quiet down in a minute; you needn't ring for the young
man." He dropped into his chair again, and grasped its arms to
steady his shaking. "This is the best laugh I've had since college,"
he brought out between his paroxysms. And then, suddenly, he sat up
with a groan. "But if it's as good as that it's a failure!" he
exclaimed.
Harviss, stiffening a little, examined the tip of his cigar. "My
dear Linyard," he said at length, "I don't understand a word you're
saying."
The Professor succumbed to a fresh access, from the vortex of which
he managed to fling out--"But that's the very core of the joke!"
Harviss looked at him resignedly. "What is?"
"Why, your not seeing--your not understanding--"
"Not understanding _what?"_
"Why, what the book is meant to be." His laughter subsided again and
he sat gazing thoughtfully at the publisher. "Unless it means," he
wound up, "that I've over-shot the mark."
"If I am the mark, you certainly have," said Harviss, with a glance
at the clock.
The Professor caught the glance and interpreted it. "The book is a
skit," he said, rising.
The other stared. "A skit? It's not serious, you mean?"
"Not to me--but it seems you've taken it so."
"You never told me--" began the publisher in a ruffled tone.
"No, I never told you," said the Professor.
Harviss sat staring at the manuscript between them. "I don't pretend
to be up in such recondite forms of humour," he said, still stiffly.
"Of course you address yourself to a very small class of readers."
"Oh, infinitely small," admitted the Professor, extending his hand
toward the manuscript.
Harviss appeared to be pursuing his own train of thought. "That is,"
he continued, "if you insist on an ironical interpretation."
"If I insist on it--what do you mean?"
The publisher smiled faintly. "Well--isn't the book susceptible of
another? If _I_ read it without seeing--"
"Well?" murmured the other, fascinated.--"why shouldn't the rest
of the world?" declared Harviss boldly. "I represent the Average
Reader--that's my business, that's what I've been training myself to
do for the last twenty years. It's a mission like another--the thing
is to do it thoroughly; not to cheat and compromise. I know fellows
who are publishers in business hours and dilettantes the rest of the
time. Well, they never succeed: convictions are just as necessary in
business as in religion. But that's not the point--I was going to
say that if you'll let me handle this book as a genuine thing I'll
guarantee to make it go."
The Professor stood motionless, his hand still on the manuscript.
"A genuine thing?" he echoed.
"A serious piece of work--the expression of your convictions. I tell
you there's nothing the public likes as much as convictions--they'll
always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is
just on the line of popular interest. You've got hold of a big
thing. It's full of hope and enthusiasm: it's written in the
religious key. There are passages in it that would do splendidly in
a Birthday Book--things that popular preachers would quote in their
sermons. If you'd wanted to catch a big public you couldn't have
gone about it in a better way. The thing's perfect for my purpose--I
wouldn't let you alter a word of it. It'll sell like a popular novel
if you'll let me handle it in the right way."
III
When the Professor left Harviss's office, the manuscript remained
behind. He thought he had been taken by the huge irony of the
situation--by the enlarged circumference of the joke. In its
original form, as Harviss had said, the book would have addressed
itself to a very limited circle: now it would include the world. The
elect would understand; the crowd would not; and his work would thus
serve a double purpose. And, after all, nothing was changed in the
situation; not a word of the book was to be altered. The change was
merely in the publisher's point of view, and in the "tip" he was to
give the reviewers. The Professor had only to hold his tongue and
look serious.
These arguments found a strong reinforcement in the large premium
which expressed Harviss's sense of his opportunity. As a satire, the
book would have brought its author nothing; in fact, its cost would
have come out of his own pocket, since, as Harviss assured him, no
publisher would have risked taking it. But as a profession of faith,
as the recantation of an eminent biologist, whose leanings had
hitherto been supposed to be toward a cold determinism, it would
bring in a steady income to author and publisher. The offer found
the Professor in a moment of financial perplexity. His illness, his
unwonted holiday, the necessity of postponing a course of well-paid
lectures, had combined to diminish his resources; and when Harviss
offered him an advance of a thousand dollars the esoteric savour of
the joke became irresistible. It was still as a joke that he
persisted in regarding the transaction; and though he had pledged
himself not to betray the real intent of the book, he held _in
petto_ the notion of some day being able to take the public into his
confidence. As for the initiated, they would know at once: and
however long a face he pulled, his colleagues would see the tongue
in his cheek. Meanwhile it fortunately happened that, even if the
book should achieve the kind of triumph prophesied by Harviss, it
would not appreciably injure its author's professional standing.
Professor Linyard was known chiefly as a microscopist. On the
structure and habits of a certain class of coleoptera he was the
most distinguished living authority; but none save his intimate
friends knew what generalizations on the destiny of man he had drawn
from these special studies. He might have published a treatise on
the Filioque without disturbing the confidence of those on whose
approval his reputation rested; and moreover he was sustained by the
thought that one glance at his book would let them into its secret.
In fact, so sure was he of this that he wondered the astute Harviss
had cared to risk such speedy exposure. But Harviss had probably
reflected that even in this reverberating age the opinions of the
laboratory do not easily reach the street; and the Professor, at any
rate, was not bound to offer advice on this point.
The determining cause of his consent was the fact that the book was
already in press. The Professor knew little about the workings of
the press, but the phrase gave him a sense of finality, of having
been caught himself in the toils of that mysterious engine. If he
had had time to think the matter over, his scruples might have
dragged him back; but his conscience was eased by the futility of
resistance.
IV
Mrs. Linyard did not often read the papers; and there was therefore
a special significance in her approaching her husband one evening
after dinner with a copy of the _New York Investigator_ in her hand.
Her expression lent solemnity to the act: Mrs. Linyard had a limited
but distinctive set of expressions, and she now looked as she did
when the President of the University came to dine.
"You didn't tell me of this, Samuel," she said in a slightly
tremulous voice.
"Tell you of what?" returned the Professor, reddening to the margin
of his baldness.
"That you had published a book--I might never have heard of it if
Mrs. Pease hadn't brought me the paper."
Her husband rubbed his eye-glasses with a groan. "Oh, you would have
heard of it," he said gloomily.
Mrs. Linyard stared. "Did you wish to keep it from me, Samuel?" And
as he made no answer, she added with irresistible pride: "Perhaps
you don't know what beautiful things have been said about it."
He took the paper with a reluctant hand. "Has Pease been saying
beautiful things about it?"
"The Professor? Mrs. Pease didn't say he had mentioned it."
The author heaved a sigh of relief. His book, as Harviss had
prophesied, had caught the autumn market: had caught and captured
it. The publisher had conducted the campaign like an experienced
strategist. He had completely surrounded the enemy. Every newspaper,
every periodical, held in ambush an advertisement of "The Vital
Thing." Weeks in advance the great commander had begun to form his
lines of attack. Allusions to the remarkable significance of the
coming work had appeared first in the scientific and literary
reviews, spreading thence to the supplements of the daily journals.
Not a moment passed without a quickening touch to the public
consciousness: seventy millions of people were forced to remember at
least once a day that Professor Linyard's book was on the verge of
appearing. Slips emblazoned with the question: _Have you read "The
Vital Thing"?_ fell from the pages of popular novels and whitened
the floors of crowded street-cars. The query, in large lettering,
assaulted the traveller at the railway bookstall, confronted him on
the walls of "elevated" stations, and seemed, in its ascending
scale, about to supplant the interrogations as to soap and
stove-polish which animate our rural scenery.
On the day of publication, the Professor had withdrawn to his
laboratory. The shriek of the advertisements was in his ears, and
his one desire was to avoid all knowledge of the event they
heralded. A reaction of self-consciousness had set in, and if
Harviss's cheque had sufficed to buy up the first edition of "The
Vital Thing" the Professor would gladly have devoted it to that
purpose. But the sense of inevitableness gradually subdued him, and
he received his wife's copy of the _Investigator_ with a kind of
impersonal curiosity. The review was a long one, full of extracts:
he saw, as he glanced over them, how well they would look in a
volume of "Selections." The reviewer began by thanking his author
"for sounding with no uncertain voice that note of ringing optimism,
of faith in man's destiny and the supremacy of good, which has too
long been silenced by the whining chorus of a decadent nihilism....
It is well," the writer continued, "when such reminders come to us
not from the moralist but from the man of science--when from the
desiccating atmosphere of the laboratory there rises this glorious
cry of faith and reconstruction."
The review was minute and exhaustive. Thanks no doubt to Harviss's
diplomacy, it had been given to the _Investigator's_ "best man," and
the Professor was startled by the bold eye with which his
emancipated fallacies confronted him. Under the reviewer's handling
they made up admirably as truths, and their author began to
understand Harviss's regret that they should be used for any less
profitable purpose.
The _Investigator_, as Harviss phrased it, "set the pace," and the
other journals followed, finding it easier to let their critical
man-of-all-work play a variation on the first reviewer's theme than
to secure an expert to "do" the book afresh. But it was evident that
the Professor had captured his public, for all the resources of the
profession could not, as Harviss gleefully pointed out, have carried
the book so straight to the heart of the nation. There was something
noble in the way in which Harviss belittled his own share in the
achievement, and insisted on the inutility of shoving a book which
had started with such headway on.
"All I ask you is to admit that I saw what would happen," he said
with a touch of professional pride. "I knew you'd struck the right
note--I knew they'd be quoting you from Maine to San Francisco. Good
as fiction? It's better--it'll keep going longer."
"Will it?" said the Professor with a slight shudder. He was resigned
to an ephemeral triumph, but the thought of the book's persistency
frightened him.
"I should say so! Why, you fit in everywhere--science, theology,
natural history--and then the all-for-the-best element which is so
popular just now. Why, you come right in with the How-to-Relax
series, and they sell way up in the millions. And then the book's so
full of tenderness--there are such lovely things in it about flowers
and children. I didn't know an old Dryasdust like you could have
such a lot of sentiment in him. Why, I actually caught myself
snivelling over that passage about the snowdrops piercing the frozen
earth; and my wife was saying the other day that, since she's read
'The Vital Thing,' she begins to think you must write the
'What-Cheer Column,' in the _Inglenook."_ He threw back his head with
a laugh which ended in the inspired cry: "And, by George, sir, when
the thing begins to slow off we'll start somebody writing against
it, and that will run us straight into another hundred thousand."
And as earnest of this belief he drew the Professor a supplementary
cheque.
V
Mrs. Linyard's knock cut short the importunities of the lady who had
been trying to persuade the Professor to be taken by flashlight at
his study table for the Christmas number of the _Inglenook_. On this
point the Professor had fancied himself impregnable; but the
unwonted smile with which he welcomed his wife's intrusion showed
that his defences were weakening.
The lady from the _Inglenook_ took the hint with professional
promptness, but said brightly, as she snapped the elastic around her
note-book: "I shan't let you forget me, Professor."
The groan with which he followed her retreat was interrupted by his
wife's question: "Do they pay you for these interviews, Samuel?"
The Professor looked at her with sudden attention. "Not directly,"
he said, wondering at her expression.
She sank down with a sigh. "Indirectly, then?"
"What is the matter, my dear? I gave you Harviss's second cheque the
other day--"
Her tears arrested him. "Don't be hard on the boy, Samuel! I really
believe your success has turned his head."
"The boy--what boy? My success--? Explain yourself, Susan!"
"It's only that Jack has--has borrowed some money--which he can't
repay. But you mustn't think him altogether to blame, Samuel. Since
the success of your book he has been asked about so much--it's given
the children quite a different position. Millicent says that
wherever they go the first question asked is, 'Are you any relation
of the author of "The Vital Thing"?' Of course we're all very proud
of the book; but it entails obligations which you may not have
thought of in writing it."
The Professor sat gazing at the letters and newspaper clippings on
the study-table which he had just successfully defended from the
camera of the _Inglenook_. He took up an envelope bearing the name
of a popular weekly paper.
"I don't know that the _Inglenook_ would help much," he said, "but I
suppose this might."
Mrs. Linyard's eyes glowed with maternal avidity.
"What is it, Samuel?"
"A series of 'Scientific Sermons' for the Round-the-Gas-Log column
of _The Woman's World_. I believe that journal has a larger
circulation than any other weekly, and they pay in proportion."
He had not even asked the extent of Jack's indebtedness. It had been
so easy to relieve recent domestic difficulties by the timely
production of Harviss's two cheques, that it now seemed natural to
get Mrs. Linyard out of the room by promising further
reinforcements. The Professor had indignantly rejected Harviss's
suggestion that he should follow up his success by a second volume
on the same lines. He had sworn not to lend more than a passive
support to the fraud of "The Vital Thing"; but the temptation to
free himself from Mrs. Linyard prevailed over his last scruples, and
within an hour he was at work on the Scientific Sermons.
The Professor was not an unkind man. He really enjoyed making his
family happy; and it was his own business if his reward for so doing
was that it kept them out of his way. But the success of "The Vital
Thing" gave him more than this negative satisfaction. It enlarged
his own existence and opened new doors into other lives. The
Professor, during fifty virtuous years, had been cognizant of only
two types of women: the fond and foolish, whom one married, and the
earnest and intellectual, whom one did not. Of the two, he
infinitely preferred the former, even for conversational purposes.
But as a social instrument woman was unknown to him; and it was not
till he was drawn into the world on the tide of his literary success
that he discovered the deficiencies in his classification of the
sex. Then he learned with astonishment of the existence of a third
type: the woman who is fond without foolishness and intellectual
without earnestness. Not that the Professor inspired, or sought to
inspire, sentimental emotions; but he expanded in the warm
atmosphere of personal interest which some of his new acquaintances
contrived to create about him. It was delightful to talk of serious
things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal without being
domestic.
Even in this new world, where all subjects were touched on lightly,
and emphasis was the only indelicacy, the Professor found himself
constrained to endure an occasional reference to his book. It was
unpleasant at first; but gradually he slipped into the habit of
hearing it talked of, and grew accustomed to telling pretty women
just how "it had first come to him."
Meanwhile the success of the Scientific Sermons was facilitating his
family relations. His photograph in the _Inglenook_, to which the
lady of the note-book had succeeded in appending a vivid interview,
carried his fame to circles inaccessible even to "The Vital Thing";
and the Professor found himself the man of the hour. He soon grew
used to the functions of the office, and gave out hundred-dollar
interviews on every subject, from labour-strikes to Babism, with a
frequency which reacted agreeably on the domestic exchequer.
Presently his head began to figure in the advertising pages of the
magazines. Admiring readers learned the name of the only
breakfast-food in use at his table, of the ink with which "The Vital
Thing" had been written, the soap with which the author's hands were
washed, and the tissue-builder which fortified him for further
effort. These confidences endeared the Professor to millions of
readers, and his head passed in due course from the magazine and the
newspaper to the biscuit-tin and the chocolate-box.
VI
The Professor, all the while, was leading a double life. While the
author of "The Vital Thing" reaped the fruits of popular approval,
the distinguished microscopist continued his laboratory work
unheeded save by the few who were engaged in the same line of
investigations. His divided allegiance had not hitherto affected the
quality of his work: it seemed to him that he returned to the
laboratory with greater zest after an afternoon in a drawing-room
where readings from "The Vital Thing" had alternated with plantation
melodies and tea. He had long ceased to concern himself with what
his colleagues thought of his literary career. Of the few whom he
frequented, none had referred to "The Vital Thing"; and he knew
enough of their lives to guess that their silence might as fairly be
attributed to indifference as to disapproval. They were intensely
interested in the Professor's views on beetles, but they really
cared very little what he thought of the Almighty.
The Professor entirely shared their feelings, and one of his chief
reasons for cultivating the success which accident had bestowed on
him, was that it enabled him to command a greater range of
appliances for his real work. He had known what it was to lack books
and instruments; and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand which
summoned them to his aid. For some time he had been feeling his way
along the edge of a discovery: balancing himself with professional
skill on a plank of hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty.
The conjecture was the result of years of patient gathering of
facts: its corroboration would take months more of comparison and
classification. But at the end of the vista victory loomed. The
Professor felt within himself that assurance of ultimate
justification which, to the man of science, makes a life-time seem
the mere comma between premiss and deduction. But he had reached the
point where his conjectures required formulation. It was only by
giving them expression, by exposing them to the comment and
criticism of his associates, that he could test their final value;
and this inner assurance was confirmed by the only friend whose
confidence he invited.
Professor Pease, the husband of the lady who had opened Mrs.
Linyard's eyes to the triumph of "The Vital Thing," was the
repository of her husband's scientific experiences. What he thought
of "The Vital Thing" had never been divulged; and he was capable of
such vast exclusions that it was quite possible that pervasive work
had not yet reached him. In any case, it was not likely to affect
his judgment of the author's professional capacity.
"You want to put that all in a book, Linyard," was Professor Pease's
summing-up. "I'm sure you've got hold of something big; but to see
it clearly yourself you ought to outline it for others. Take my
advice--chuck everything else and get to work tomorrow. It's time
you wrote a book, anyhow."
_ It's time you wrote a book, anyhow!_ The words smote the Professor
with mingled pain and ecstasy: he could have wept over their
significance. But his friend's other phrase reminded him with a
start of Harviss. "You have got hold of a big thing--" it had been
the publisher's first comment on "The Vital Thing." But what a world
of meaning lay between the two phrases! It was the world in which
the powers who fought for the Professor were destined to wage their
final battle; and for the moment he had no doubt of the outcome. The
next day he went to town to see Harviss. He wanted to ask for an
advance on the new popular edition of "The Vital Thing." He had
determined to drop a course of supplementary lectures at the
University, and to give himself up for a year to his book. To do
this, additional funds were necessary; but thanks to "The Vital
Thing" they would be forthcoming.
The publisher received him as cordially as usual; but the response
to his demand was not as prompt as his previous experience had
entitled him to expect.
"Of course we'll be glad to do what we can for you, Linyard; but the
fact is, we've decided to give up the idea of the new edition for
the present."
"You've given up the new edition?"
"Why, yes--we've done pretty well by 'The Vital Thing,' and we're
inclined to think it's _your_ turn to do something for it now."
The Professor looked at him blankly. "What can I do for it?" he
asked--"what _more_" his accent added.
"Why, put a little new life in it by writing something else. The
secret of perpetual motion hasn't yet been discovered, you know, and
it's one of the laws of literature that books which start with a
rush are apt to slow down sooner than the crawlers. We've kept 'The
Vital Thing' going for eighteen months--but, hang it, it ain't so
vital any more. We simply couldn't see our way to a new edition. Oh,
I don't say it's dead yet--but it's moribund, and you're the only
man who can resuscitate it."
The Professor continued to stare. "I--what can I do about it?" he
stammered.
"Do? Why write another like it--go it one better: you know the
trick. The public isn't tired of you by any means; but you want to
make yourself heard again before anybody else cuts in. Write another
book--write two, and we'll sell them in sets in a box: The Vital
Thing Series. That will take tremendously in the holidays. Try and
let us have a new volume by October--I'll be glad to give you a big
advance if you'll sign a contract on that."
The Professor sat silent: there was too cruel an irony in the
coincidence.
Harviss looked up at him in surprise.
"Well, what's the matter with taking my advice--you're not going out
of literature, are you?"
The Professor rose from his chair. "No--I'm going into it," he said
simply.
"Going into it?"
"I'm going to write a real book--a serious one."
"Good Lord! Most people think 'The Vital Thing' 's serious."
"Yes--but I mean something different."
"In your old line--beetles and so forth?"
"Yes," said the Professor solemnly.
Harviss looked at him with equal gravity. "Well, I'm sorry for
that," he said, "because it takes you out of our bailiwick. But I
suppose you've made enough money out of 'The Vital Thing' to permit
yourself a little harmless amusement. When you want more cash come
back to us--only don't put it off too long, or some other fellow
will have stepped into your shoes. Popularity don't keep, you know;
and the hotter the success the quicker the commodity perishes."
He leaned back, cheerful and sententious, delivering his axioms with
conscious kindliness.
The Professor, who had risen and moved to the door, turned back with
a wavering step.
"When did you say another volume would have to be ready?" he
faltered.
"I said October--but call it a month later. You don't need any
pushing nowadays."
"And--you'd have no objection to letting me have a little advance
now? I need some new instruments for my real work."
Harviss extended a cordial hand. "My dear fellow, that's
talking--I'll write the cheque while you wait; and I daresay we can
start up the cheap edition of 'The Vital Thing' at the same time, if
you'll pledge yourself to give us the book by November.--How much?"
he asked, poised above his cheque-book.
In the street, the Professor stood staring about him, uncertain and
a little dazed.
"After all, it's only putting it off for six months," he said to
himself; "and I can do better work when I get my new instruments."
He smiled and raised his hat to the passing victoria of a lady in
whose copy of "The Vital Thing" he had recently written:
_ Labor est etiam ipsa voluptas._
THE OTHER TWO
I
WAYTHORN, on the drawing-room hearth, waited for his wife to come
down to dinner.
It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at
his thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so old, to be sure--his
glass gave him little more than the five-and-thirty years to which
his wife confessed--but he had fancied himself already in the
temperate zone; yet here he was listening for her step with a tender
sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse about the
garlanded nuptial door-posts floating through his enjoyment of the
pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it.
They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness
of Lily Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn's first marriage. The
little girl, at Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house
on the day of her mother's wedding, and the doctor, on their
arrival, broke the news that she was ill with typhoid, but declared
that all the symptoms were favorable. Lily could show twelve years
of unblemished health, and the case promised to be a light one. The
nurse spoke as reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs.
Waythorn had adjusted herself to the situation. She was very fond of
Lily--her affection for the child had perhaps been her decisive
charm in Waythorn's eyes--but she had the perfectly balanced nerves
which her little girl had inherited, and no woman ever wasted less
tissue in unproductive worry. Waythorn was therefore quite prepared
to see her come in presently, a little late because of a last look
at Lily, but as serene and well-appointed as if her good-night kiss
had been laid on the brow of health. Her composure was restful to
him; it acted as ballast to his somewhat unstable sensibilities. As
he pictured her bending over the child's bed he thought how soothing
her presence must be in illness: her very step would prognosticate
recovery.
His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than
circumstance, and he had been drawn to her by the unperturbed gayety
which kept her fresh and elastic at an age when most women's
activities are growing either slack or febrile. He knew what was
said about her; for, popular as she was, there had always been a
faint undercurrent of detraction. When she had appeared in New York,
nine or ten years earlier, as the pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus
Varick had unearthed somewhere--was it in Pittsburgh or
Utica?--society, while promptly accepting her, had reserved the
right to cast a doubt on its own discrimination. Inquiry, however,
established her undoubted connection with a socially reigning
family, and explained her recent divorce as the natural result of a
runaway match at seventeen; and as nothing was known of Mr. Haskett
it was easy to believe the worst of him.
Alice Haskett's remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set
whose recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were
the most popular couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was
brief and stormy, and this time the husband had his champions.
Still, even Varick's stanchest supporters admitted that he was not
meant for matrimony, and Mrs. Varick's grievances were of a nature
to bear the inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is
in itself a diploma of virtue, and in the semi-widowhood of this
second separation Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was
allowed to confide her wrongs to some of the most scrupulous ears in
town. But when it was known that she was to marry Waythorn there was
a momentary reaction. Her best friends would have preferred to see
her remain in the role of the injured wife, which was as becoming to
her as crape to a rosy complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed,
and it was not even suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his
predecessor. Still, people shook their heads over him, and one
grudging friend, to whom he affirmed that he took the step with his
eyes open, replied oracularly: "Yes--and with your ears shut."
Waythorn could afford to smile at these innuendoes. In the Wall
Street phrase, he had "discounted" them. He knew that society has
not yet adapted itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till
the adaptation takes place every woman who uses the freedom the law
accords her must be her own social justification. Waythorn had an
amused confidence in his wife's ability to justify herself. His
expectations were fulfilled, and before the wedding took place Alice
Varick's group had rallied openly to her support. She took it all
imperturbably: she had a way of surmounting obstacles without
seeming to be aware of them, and Waythorn looked back with wonder at
the trivialities over which he had worn his nerves thin. He had the
sense of having found refuge in a richer, warmer nature than his
own, and his satisfaction, at the moment, was humorously summed up
in the thought that his wife, when she had done all she could for
Lily, would not be ashamed to come down and enjoy a good dinner.
The anticipation of such enjoyment was not, however, the sentiment
expressed by Mrs. Waythorn's charming face when she presently joined
him. Though she had put on her most engaging teagown she had
neglected to assume the smile that went with it, and Waythorn
thought he had never seen her look so nearly worried.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is anything wrong with Lily?"
"No; I've just been in and she's still sleeping." Mrs. Waythorn
hesitated. "But something tiresome has happened."
He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a
paper between them.
"This letter?"
"Yes--Mr. Haskett has written--I mean his lawyer has written."
Waythorn felt himself flush uncomfortably. He dropped his wife's
hands.
"What about?"
"About seeing Lily. You know the courts--"
"Yes, yes," he interrupted nervously.
Nothing was known about Haskett in New York. He was vaguely supposed
to have remained in the outer darkness from which his wife had been
rescued, and Waythorn was one of the few who were aware that he had
given up his business in Utica and followed her to New York in order
to be near his little girl. In the days of his wooing, Waythorn had
often met Lily on the doorstep, rosy and smiling, on her way "to see
papa."
"I am so sorry," Mrs. Waythorn murmured.
He roused himself. "What does he want?"
"He wants to see her. You know she goes to him once a week."
"Well--he doesn't expect her to go to him now, does he?"
"No--he has heard of her illness; but he expects to come here."
"_Here?_"
Mrs. Waythorn reddened under his gaze. They looked away from each
other.
"I'm afraid he has the right....You'll see...." She made a
proffer of the letter.
Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal. He stood staring
about the softly lighted room, which a moment before had seemed so
full of bridal intimacy.
"I'm so sorry," she repeated. "If Lily could have been moved--"
"That's out of the question," he returned impatiently.
"I suppose so."
Her lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt himself a brute.
"He must come, of course," he said. "When is--his day?"
"I'm afraid--to-morrow."
"Very well. Send a note in the morning."
The butler entered to announce dinner.
Waythorn turned to his wife. "Come--you must be tired. It's beastly,
but try to forget about it," he said, drawing her hand through his
arm.
"You're so good, dear. I'll try," she whispered back.
Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the
flowers, between the rosy candle-shades, he saw her lips waver back
into a smile.
"How pretty everything is!" she sighed luxuriously.
He turned to the butler. "The champagne at once, please. Mrs.
Waythorn is tired."
In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses. Her
own were quite clear and untroubled: he saw that she had obeyed his
injunction and forgotten.
Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal
II
A small effaced-looking man.
WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual.
Haskett was not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct
of flight drove him forth. He meant to stay away all day--he had
thoughts of dining at his club. As his door closed behind him he
reflected that before he opened it again it would have admitted
another man who had as much right to enter it as himself, and the
thought filled him with a physical repugnance.
He caught the "elevated" at the employees' hour, and found himself
crushed between two layers of pendulous humanity. At Eighth Street
the man facing him wriggled out and another took his place. Waythorn
glanced up and saw that it was Gus Varick. The men were so close
together that it was impossible to ignore the smile of recognition
on Varick's handsome overblown face. And after all--why not? They
had always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before
Waythorn's attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a word on
the perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at
their side was miraculously left empty the instinct of
self-preservation made Waythorn slip into it after Varick.
The latter drew the stout man's breath of relief.
"Lord--I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower." He leaned
back, looking unconcernedly at Waythorn. "Sorry to hear that Sellers
is knocked out again."
"Sellers?" echoed Waythorn, starting at his partner's name.
Varick looked surprised. "You didn't know he was laid up with the
gout?"
"No. I've been away--I only got back last night." Waythorn felt
himself reddening in anticipation of the other's smile.
"Ah--yes; to be sure. And Sellers's attack came on two days ago. I'm
afraid he's pretty bad. Very awkward for me, as it happens, because
he was just putting through a rather important thing for me."
"Ah?" Waythorn wondered vaguely since when Varick had been dealing
in "important things." Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow
pools of speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually
concern itself.
It occurred to him that Varick might be talking at random, to
relieve the strain of their propinquity. That strain was becoming
momentarily more apparent to Waythorn, and when, at Cortlandt
Street, he caught sight of an acquaintance, and had a sudden vision
of the picture he and Varick must present to an initiated eye, he
jumped up with a muttered excuse.
"I hope you'll find Sellers better," said Varick civilly, and he
stammered back: "If I can be of any use to you--" and let the
departing crowd sweep him to the platform.
At his office he heard that Sellers was in fact ill with the gout,
and would probably not be able to leave the house for some weeks.
"I'm sorry it should have happened so, Mr. Waythorn," the senior
clerk said with affable significance. "Mr. Sellers was very much
upset at the idea of giving you such a lot of extra work just now."
"Oh, that's no matter," said Waythorn hastily. He secretly welcomed
the pressure of additional business, and was glad to think that,
when the day's work was over, he would have to call at his partner's
on the way home.
He was late for luncheon, and turned in at the nearest restaurant
instead of going to his club. The place was full, and the waiter
hurried him to the back of the room to capture the only vacant
table. In the cloud of cigar-smoke Waythorn did not at once
distinguish his neighbors; but presently, looking about him, he saw
Varick seated a few feet off. This time, luckily, they were too far
apart for conversation, and Varick, who faced another way, had
probably not even seen him; but there was an irony in their renewed
nearness.
Varick was said to be fond of good living, and as Waythorn sat
despatching his hurried luncheon he looked across half enviously at
the other's leisurely degustation of his meal. When Waythorn first
saw him he had been helping himself with critical deliberation to a
bit of Camembert at the ideal point of liquefaction, and now, the
cheese removed, he was just pouring his _cafe double_ from its
little two-storied earthen pot. He poured slowly, his ruddy profile
bent above the task, and one beringed white hand steadying the lid
of the coffee-pot; then he stretched his other hand to the decanter
of cognac at his elbow, filled a liqueur-glass, took a tentative
sip, and poured the brandy into his coffee-cup.
Waythorn watched him in a kind of fascination. What was he thinking
of--only of the flavor of the coffee and the liqueur? Had the
morning's meeting left no more trace in his thoughts than on his
face? Had his wife so completely passed out of his life that even
this odd encounter with her present husband, within a week after her
remarriage, was no more than an incident in his day? And as Waythorn
mused, another idea struck him: had Haskett ever met Varick as
Varick and he had just met? The recollection of Haskett perturbed
him, and he rose and left the restaurant, taking a circuitous way
out to escape the placid irony of Varick's nod.
It was after seven when Waythorn reached home. He thought the
footman who opened the door looked at him oddly.
"How is Miss Lily?" he asked in haste.
"Doing very well, sir. A gentleman--"
"Tell Barlow to put off dinner for half an hour," Waythorn cut him
off, hurrying upstairs.
He went straight to his room and dressed without seeing his wife.
When he reached the drawing-room she was there, fresh and radiant.
Lily's day had been good; the doctor was not coming back that
evening.
At dinner Waythorn told her of Sellers's illness and of the
resulting complications. She listened sympathetically, adjuring him
not to let himself be overworked, and asking vague feminine
questions about the routine of the office. Then she gave him the
chronicle of Lily's day; quoted the nurse and doctor, and told him
who had called to inquire. He had never seen her more serene and
unruffled. It struck him, with a curious pang, that she was very
happy in being with him, so happy that she found a childish pleasure
in rehearsing the trivial incidents of her day.
After dinner they went to the library, and the servant put the
coffee and liqueurs on a low table before her and left the room. She
looked singularly soft and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against
the dark leather of one of his bachelor armchairs. A day earlier the
contrast would have charmed him.
He turned away now, choosing a cigar with affected deliberation.
"Did Haskett come?" he asked, with his back to her.
"Oh, yes--he came."
"You didn't see him, of course?"
She hesitated a moment. "I let the nurse see him."
That was all. There was nothing more to ask. He swung round toward
her, applying a match to his cigar. Well, the thing was over for a
week, at any rate. He would try not to think of it. She looked up at
him, a trifle rosier than usual, with a smile in her eyes.
"Ready for your coffee, dear?"
He leaned against the mantelpiece, watching her as she lifted the
coffee-pot. The lamplight struck a gleam from her bracelets and
tipped her soft hair with brightness. How light and slender she was,
and how each gesture flowed into the next! She seemed a creature all
compact of harmonies. As the thought of Haskett receded, Waythorn
felt himself yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They were
his, those white hands with their flitting motions, his the light
haze of hair, the lips and eyes....
She set down the coffee-pot, and reaching for the decanter of
cognac, measured off a liqueur-glass and poured it into his cup.
Waythorn uttered a sudden exclamation.
"What is the matter?" she said, startled.
"Nothing; only--I don't take cognac in my coffee."
"Oh, how stupid of me," she cried.
Their eyes met, and she blushed a sudden agonized red.
III
TEN DAYS later, Mr. Sellers, still house-bound, asked Waythorn to
call on his way down town.
The senior partner, with his swaddled foot propped up by the fire,
greeted his associate with an air of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, my dear fellow; I've got to ask you to do an awkward
thing for me."
Waythorn waited, and the other went on, after a pause apparently
given to the arrangement of his phrases: "The fact is, when I was
knocked out I had just gone into a rather complicated piece of
business for--Gus Varick."
"Well?" said Waythorn, with an attempt to put him at his ease.
"Well--it's this way: Varick came to me the day before my attack. He
had evidently had an inside tip from somebody, and had made about a
hundred thousand. He came to me for advice, and I suggested his
going in with Vanderlyn."
"Oh, the deuce!" Waythorn exclaimed. He saw in a flash what had
happened. The investment was an alluring one, but required
negotiation. He listened intently while Sellers put the case before
him, and, the statement ended, he said: "You think I ought to see
Varick?"
"I'm afraid I can't as yet. The doctor is obdurate. And this thing
can't wait. I hate to ask you, but no one else in the office knows
the ins and outs of it."
Waythorn stood silent. He did not care a farthing for the success of
Varick's venture, but the honor of the office was to be considered,
and he could hardly refuse to oblige his partner.
"Very well," he said, "I'll do it."
That afternoon, apprised by telephone, Varick called at the office.
Waythorn, waiting in his private room, wondered what the others
thought of it. The newspapers, at the time of Mrs. Waythorn's
marriage, had acquainted their readers with every detail of her
previous matrimonial ventures, and Waythorn could fancy the clerks
smiling behind Varick's back as he was ushered in.
Varick bore himself admirably. He was easy without being
undignified, and Waythorn was conscious of cutting a much less
impressive figure. Varick had no head for business, and the talk
prolonged itself for nearly an hour while Waythorn set forth with
scrupulous precision the details of the proposed transaction.
"I'm awfully obliged to you," Varick said as he rose. "The fact is
I'm not used to having much money to look after, and I don't want to
make an ass of myself--" He smiled, and Waythorn could not help
noticing that there was something pleasant about his smile. "It
feels uncommonly queer to have enough cash to pay one's bills. I'd
have sold my soul for it a few years ago!"
Waythorn winced at the allusion. He had heard it rumored that a lack
of funds had been one of the determining causes of the Varick
separation, but it did not occur to him that Varick's words were
intentional. It seemed more likely that the desire to keep clear of
embarrassing topics had fatally drawn him into one. Waythorn did not
wish to be outdone in civility.
"We'll do the best we can for you," he said. "I think this is a good
thing you're in."
"Oh, I'm sure it's immense. It's awfully good of you--" Varick broke
off, embarrassed. "I suppose the thing's settled now--but if--"
"If anything happens before Sellers is about, I'll see you again,"
said Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in the end, to appear the more
self-possessed of the two.
The course of Lily's illness ran smooth, and as the days passed
Waythorn grew used to the idea of Haskett's weekly visit. The first
time the day came round, he stayed out late, and questioned his wife
as to the visit on his return. She replied at once that Haskett had
merely seen the nurse downstairs, as the doctor did not wish any one
in the child's sick-room till after the crisis.
The following week Waythorn was again conscious of the recurrence of
the day, but had forgotten it by the time he came home to dinner.
The crisis of the disease came a few days later, with a rapid
decline of fever, and the little girl was pronounced out of danger.
In the rejoicing which ensued the thought of Haskett passed out of
Waythorn's mind and one afternoon, letting himself into the house
with a latchkey, he went straight to his library without noticing a
shabby hat and umbrella in the hall.
In the library he found a small effaced-looking man with a thinnish
gray beard sitting on the edge of a chair. The stranger might have
been a piano-tuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons
who are summoned in emergencies to adjust some detail of the
domestic machinery. He blinked at Waythorn through a pair of
gold-rimmed spectacles and said mildly: "Mr. Waythorn, I presume? I
am Lily's father."
Waythorn flushed. "Oh--" he stammered uncomfortably. He broke off,
disliking to appear rude. Inwardly he was trying to adjust the
actual Haskett to the image of him projected by his wife's
reminiscences. Waythorn had been allowed to infer that Alice's first
husband was a brute.
"I am sorry to intrude," said Haskett, with his over-the-counter
politeness.
"Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I
suppose the nurse has been told?"
"I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett. He had a resigned way of
speaking, as though life had worn down his natural powers of
resistance.
Waythorn stood on the threshold, nervously pulling off his gloves.
"I'm sorry you've been detained. I will send for the nurse," he
said; and as he opened the door he added with an effort: "I'm glad
we can give you a good report of Lily." He winced as the _we_
slipped out, but Haskett seemed not to notice it.
"Thank you, Mr. Waythorn. It's been an anxious time for me."
"Ah, well, that's past. Soon she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn
nodded and passed out.
In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the
womanish sensibility which made him suffer so acutely from the
grotesque chances of life. He had known when he married that his
wife's former husbands were both living, and that amid the
multiplied contacts of modern existence there were a thousand
chances to one that he would run against one or the other, yet he
found himself as much disturbed by his brief encounter with Haskett
as though the law had not obligingly removed all difficulties in the
way of their meeting.
Waythorn sprang up and began to pace the room nervously. He had not
suffered half so much from his two meetings with Varick. It was
Haskett's presence in his own house that made the situation so
intolerable. He stood still, hearing steps in the passage.
"This way, please," he heard the nurse say. Haskett was being taken
upstairs, then: not a corner of the house but was open to him.
Waythorn dropped into another chair, staring vaguely ahead of him.
On his dressing-table stood a photograph of Alice, taken when he had
first known her. She was Alice Varick then--how fine and exquisite
he had thought her! Those were Varick's pearls about her neck. At
Waythorn's instance they had been returned before her marriage. Had
Haskett ever given her any trinkets--and what had become of them,
Waythorn wondered? He realized suddenly that he knew very little of
Haskett's past or present situation; but from the man's appearance
and manner of speech he could reconstruct with curious precision the
surroundings of Alice's first marriage. And it startled him to think
that she had, in the background of her life, a phase of existence so
different from anything with which he had connected her. Varick,
whatever his faults, was a gentleman, in the conventional,
traditional sense of the term: the sense which at that moment
seemed, oddly enough, to have most meaning to Waythorn. He and
Varick had the same social habits, spoke the same language,
understood the same allusions. But this other man...it was
grotesquely uppermost in Waythorn's mind that Haskett had worn a
made-up tie attached with an elastic. Why should that ridiculous
detail symbolize the whole man? Waythorn was exasperated by his own
paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him,
became as it were the key to Alice's past. He could see her, as Mrs.
Haskett, sitting in a "front parlor" furnished in plush, with a
pianola, and a copy of "Ben Hur" on the centre-table. He could see
her going to the theatre with Haskett--or perhaps even to a "Church
Sociable"--she in a "picture hat" and Haskett in a black frock-coat,
a little creased, with the made-up tie on an elastic. On the way
home they would stop and look at the illuminated shop-windows,
lingering over the photographs of New York actresses. On Sunday
afternoons Haskett would take her for a walk, pushing Lily ahead of
them in a white enameled perambulator, and Waythorn had a vision of
the people they would stop and talk to. He could fancy how pretty
Alice must have looked, in a dress adroitly constructed from the
hints of a New York fashion-paper; how she must have looked down on
the other women, chafing at her life, and secretly feeling that she
belonged in a bigger place.
For the moment his foremost thought was one of wonder at the way in
which she had shed the phase of existence which her marriage with
Haskett implied. It was as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every
inflection, every allusion, were a studied negation of that period
of her life. If she had denied being married to Haskett she could
hardly have stood more convicted of duplicity than in this
obliteration of the self which had been his wife.
Waythorn started up, checking himself in the analysis of her
motives. What right had he to create a fantastic effigy of her and
then pass judgment on it? She had spoken vaguely of her first
marriage as unhappy, had hinted, with becoming reticence, that
Haskett had wrought havoc among her young illusions....It was a
pity for Waythorn's peace of mind that Haskett's very
inoffensiveness shed a new light on the nature of those illusions. A
man would rather think that his wife has been brutalized by her
first husband than that the process has been reversed.
"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure
IV
"MR. WAYTHORN, I don't like that French governess of Lily's."
Haskett, subdued and apologetic, stood before Waythorn in the
library, revolving his shabby hat in his hand.
Waythorn, surprised in his armchair over the evening paper, stared
back perplexedly at his visitor.
"You'll excuse my asking to see you," Haskett continued. "But this
is my last visit, and I thought if I could have a word with you it
would be a better way than writing to Mrs. Waythorn's lawyer."
Waythorn rose uneasily. He did not like the French governess either;
but that was irrelevant.
"I am not so sure of that," he returned stiffly; "but since you wish
it I will give your message to--my wife." He always hesitated over
the possessive pronoun in addressing Haskett.
The latter sighed. "I don't know as that will help much. She didn't
like it when I spoke to her."
Waythorn turned red. "When did you see her?" he asked.
"Not since the first day I came to see Lily--right after she was
taken sick. I remarked to her then that I didn't like the
governess."
Waythorn made no answer. He remembered distinctly that, after that
first visit, he had asked his wife if she had seen Haskett. She had
lied to him then, but she had respected his wishes since; and the
incident cast a curious light on her character. He was sure she
would not have seen Haskett that first day if she had divined that
Waythorn would object, and the fact that she did not divine it was
almost as disagreeable to the latter as the discovery that she had
lied to him.
"I don't like the woman," Haskett was repeating with mild
persistency. "She ain't straight, Mr. Waythorn--she'll teach the
child to be underhand. I've noticed a change in Lily--she's too
anxious to please--and she don't always tell the truth. She used to
be the straightest child, Mr. Waythorn--" He broke off, his voice a
little thick. "Not but what I want her to have a stylish education,"
he ended.
Waythorn was touched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Haskett; but frankly, I don't
quite see what I can do."
Haskett hesitated. Then he laid his hat on the table, and advanced
to the hearth-rug, on which Waythorn was standing. There was nothing
aggressive in his manner; but he had the solemnity of a timid man
resolved on a decisive measure.
"There's just one thing you can do, Mr. Waythorn," he said. "You can
remind Mrs. Waythorn that, by the decree of the courts, I am
entitled to have a voice in Lily's bringing up." He paused, and went
on more deprecatingly: "I'm not the kind to talk about enforcing my
rights, Mr. Waythorn. I don't know as I think a man is entitled to
rights he hasn't known how to hold on to; but this business of the
child is different. I've never let go there--and I never mean to."
The scene left Waythorn deeply shaken. Shamefacedly, in indirect
ways, he had been finding out about Haskett; and all that he had
learned was favorable. The little man, in order to be near his
daughter, had sold out his share in a profitable business in Utica,
and accepted a modest clerkship in a New York manufacturing house.
He boarded in a shabby street and had few acquaintances. His passion
for Lily filled his life. Waythorn felt that this exploration of
Haskett was like groping about with a dark-lantern in his wife's
past; but he saw now that there were recesses his lantern had not
explored. He had never inquired into the exact circumstances of his
wife's first matrimonial rupture. On the surface all had been fair.
It was she who had obtained the divorce, and the court had given her
the child. But Waythorn knew how many ambiguities such a verdict
might cover. The mere fact that Haskett retained a right over his
daughter implied an unsuspected compromise. Waythorn was an
idealist. He always refused to recognize unpleasant contingencies
till he found himself confronted with them, and then he saw them
followed by a special train of consequences. His next days were thus
haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by conjuring
them up in his wife's presence.
When he repeated Haskett's request a flame of anger passed over her
face; but she subdued it instantly and spoke with a slight quiver of
outraged motherhood.
"It is very ungentlemanly of him," she said.
The word grated on Waythorn. "That is neither here nor there. It's a
bare question of rights."
She murmured: "It's not as if he could ever be a help to Lily--"
Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question
is," he repeated, "what authority has he over her?"
She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am
willing to see him--I thought you objected," she faltered.
In a flash he understood that she knew the extent of Haskett's
claims. Perhaps it was not the first time she had resisted them.
"My objecting has nothing to do with it," he said coldly; "if
Haskett has a right to be consulted you must consult him."
She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her
as a victim.
Haskett did not abuse his rights. Waythorn had felt miserably sure
that he would not. But the governess was dismissed, and from time to
time the little man demanded an interview with Alice. After the
first outburst she accepted the situation with her usual
adaptability. Haskett had once reminded Waythorn of the piano-tuner,
and Mrs. Waythorn, after a month or two, appeared to class him with
that domestic familiar. Waythorn could not but respect the father's
tenacity. At first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that
Haskett might be "up to" something, that he had an object in
securing a foothold in the house. But in his heart Waythorn was sure
of Haskett's single-mindedness; he even guessed in the latter a mild
contempt for such advantages as his relation with the Waythorns
might offer. Haskett's sincerity of purpose made him invulnerable,
and his successor had to accept him as a lien on the property.
Mr. Sellers was sent to Europe to recover from his gout, and
Varick's affairs hung on Waythorn's hands. The negotiations were
prolonged and complicated; they necessitated frequent conferences
between the two men, and the interests of the firm forbade
Waythorn's suggesting that his client should transfer his business
to another office.
Varick appeared well in the transaction. In moments of relaxation
his coarse streak appeared, and Waythorn dreaded his geniality; but
in the office he was concise and clear-headed, with a flattering
deference to Waythorn's judgment. Their business relations being so
affably established, it would have been absurd for the two men to
ignore each other in society. The first time they met in a
drawing-room, Varick took up their intercourse in the same easy key,
and his hostess's grateful glance obliged Waythorn to respond to it.
After that they ran across each other frequently, and one evening at
a ball Waythorn, wandering through the remoter rooms, came upon
Varick seated beside his wife. She colored a little, and faltered in
what she was saying; but Varick nodded to Waythorn without rising,
and the latter strolled on.
In the carriage, on the way home, he broke out nervously: "I didn't
know you spoke to Varick."
Her voice trembled a little. "It's the first time--he happened to be
standing near me; I didn't know what to do. It's so awkward, meeting
everywhere--and he said you had been very kind about some business."
"That's different," said Waythorn.
She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned
pliantly. "I thought it would be less awkward to speak to him when
we meet."
Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of
her own--no theory about her relation to these men? She had accepted
Haskett--did she mean to accept Varick? It was "less awkward," as
she had said, and her instinct was to evade difficulties or to
circumvent them. With sudden vividness Waythorn saw how the instinct
had developed. She was "as easy as an old shoe"--a shoe that too
many feet had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in too
many different directions. Alice Haskett--Alice Varick--Alice
Waythorn--she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each
name a little of her privacy, a little of her personality, a little
of the inmost self where the unknown god abides.
"Yes--it's better to speak to Varick," said Waythorn wearily.
"Earth's Martyrs." By Stephen Phillips.
V
THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns'
acceptance of Varick. Harassed hostesses were grateful to them for
bridging over a social difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as
a miracle of good taste. Some experimental spirits could not resist
the diversion of throwing Varick and his former wife together, and
there were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity. But
Mrs. Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided
Varick nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that
she had discovered the solution of the newest social problem.
He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He
had fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man. But now he
saw that Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances which
forced her into continued relation with it, and by the traces it had
left on her nature. With grim irony Waythorn compared himself to a
member of a syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife's
personality and his predecessors were his partners in the business.
If there had been any element of passion in the transaction he would
have felt less deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her
change of husbands like a change of weather reduced the situation to
mediocrity. He could have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses;
for resisting Hackett, for yielding to Varick; for anything but her
acquiescence and her tact. She reminded him of a juggler tossing
knives; but the knives were blunt and she knew they would never cut
her.
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his
sensibilities. If he paid for each day's comfort with the small
change of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and
set less store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling
propinquity with Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap
revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the
advantages which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not
better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy
than a whole one who had lacked opportunity to acquire the art. For
it _was_ an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions,
eliminations and embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and
shadows skillfully softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the
lights, and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill. He
even tried to trace the source of his obligations, to discriminate
between the influences which had combined to produce his domestic
happiness: he perceived that Haskett's commonness had made Alice
worship good breeding, while Varick's liberal construction of the
marriage bond had taught her to value the conjugal virtues; so that
he was directly indebted to his predecessors for the devotion which
made his life easy if not inspiring.
From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He
ceased to satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the
situation and the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight
of Haskett's hat on the hall table had ceased to touch the springs
of epigram. The hat was often seen there now, for it had been
decided that it was better for Lily's father to visit her than for
the little girl to go to his boarding-house. Waythorn, having
acquiesced in this arrangement, had been surprised to find how
little difference it made. Haskett was never obtrusive, and the few
visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware of his identity.
Waythorn did not know how often he saw Alice, but with himself
Haskett was seldom in contact.
One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father
was waiting to see him. In the library he found Haskett occupying a
chair in his usual provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to
him for not leaning back.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted
to see Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and your man asked me to wait here
till she came in."
"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that
morning given over the drawing-room to the plumbers.
He opened his cigar-case and held it out to his visitor, and
Haskett's acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their
intercourse. The spring evening was chilly, and Waythorn invited his
guest to draw up his chair to the fire. He meant to find an excuse
to leave Haskett in a moment; but he was tired and cold, and after
all the little man no longer jarred on him.
The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar-smoke
when the door opened and Varick walked into the room. Waythorn rose
abruptly. It was the first time that Varick had come to the house,
and the surprise of seeing him, combined with the singular
inopportuneness of his arrival, gave a new edge to Waythorn's
blunted sensibilities. He stared at his visitor without speaking.
Varick seemed too preoccupied to notice his host's embarrassment.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must
apologize for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to
catch you down town, and so I thought--" He stopped short, catching
sight of Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which
spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a moment he
recovered himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned the bow in
silence, and Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman
came in carrying a tea-table.
The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the
deuce are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the
drawing-room, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the
library." The footman's perfectly respectful tone implied a
reflection on Waythorn's reasonableness.
"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman
proceeded to open the folding tea-table and set out its complicated
appointments. While this interminable process continued the three
men stood motionless, watching it with a fascinated stare, till
Waythorn, to break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't you have a
cigar?"
He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick
helped himself with a smile. Waythorn looked about for a match, and
finding none, proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the
background, held his ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and
then, and stepping forward at the right moment to knock its ashes
into the fire.
The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I
could just say half a word to you about this business--"
"Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room--"
But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and
his wife appeared on the threshold.
She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding
a fragrance from the boa which she loosened in advancing.
"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught
sight of Varick. Her smile deepened, veiling a slight tremor of
surprise. "Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of
pleasure.
As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him.
Her smile faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a
scarcely perceptible side-glance at Waythorn.
"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a
shade less cordially.
The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the
most self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory phrase.
"We--I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered,
brick-red from chin to nape.
Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry
to intrude; but you appointed five o'clock--" he directed his
resigned glance to the time-piece on the mantel.
She swept aside their embarrassment with a charming gesture of
hospitality.
"I'm so sorry--I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely."
She stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful,
diffusing about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the
situation lost its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she
added brightly, "I'm sure every one wants a cup of tea."
She dropped into her low chair by the tea-table, and the two
visitors, as if drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she
held out.
She glanced about for Waythorn, and he took the third cup with a
laugh.
EXPIATION
I.
"I CAN never," said Mrs. Fetherel, "hear the bell ring without a
shudder."
Her unruffled aspect--she was the kind of woman whose emotions never
communicate themselves to her clothes--and the conventional
background of the New York drawing-room, with its pervading
implication of an imminent tea-tray and of an atmosphere in which
the social functions have become purely reflex, lent to her
declaration a relief not lost on her cousin Mrs. Clinch, who, from
the other side of the fireplace, agreed with a glance at the
clock, that it _was_ the hour for bores.
"Bores!" cried Mrs. Fetherel impatiently. "If I shuddered at _them_,
I should have a chronic ague!"
She leaned forward and laid a sparkling finger on her cousin's
shabby black knee. "I mean the newspaper clippings," she whispered.
Mrs. Clinch returned a glance of intelligence. "They've begun
already?"
"Not yet; but they're sure to now, at any minute, my publisher tells
me."
Mrs. Fetherel's look of apprehension sat oddly on her small
features, which had an air of neat symmetry somehow suggestive of
being set in order every morning by the housemaid. Some one (there
were rumors that it was her cousin) had once said that Paula
Fetherel would have been very pretty if she hadn't looked so like a
moral axiom in a copy-book hand.
Mrs. Clinch received her confidence with a smile. "Well," she said,
"I suppose you were prepared for the consequences of authorship?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed brightly. "It isn't their coming," she
owned--"it's their coming _now_."
"Now?"
"The Bishop's in town."
Mrs. Clinch leaned back and shaped her lips to a whistle which
deflected in a laugh. "Well!" she said.
"You see!" Mrs. Fetherel triumphed.
"Well--weren't you prepared for the Bishop?"
"Not now--at least, I hadn't thought of his seeing the clippings."
"And why should he see them?"
"Bella--_won't_ you understand? It's John."
"John?"
"Who has taken the most unexpected tone--one might almost say out of
perversity."
"Oh, perversity--" Mrs. Clinch murmured, observing her cousin
between lids wrinkled by amusement. "What tone has John taken?"
Mrs. Fetherel threw out her answer with the desperate gesture of a
woman who lays bare the traces of a marital fist. "The tone of being
proud of my book."
The measure of Mrs. Clinch's enjoyment overflowed in laughter.
"Oh, you may laugh," Mrs. Fetherel insisted, "but it's no joke to
me. In the first place, John's liking the book is so--so--such a
false note--it puts me in such a ridiculous position; and then it
has set him watching for the reviews--who would ever have suspected
John of knowing that books were _reviewed?_ Why, he's actually found
out about the Clipping Bureau, and whenever the postman rings I hear
John rush out of the library to see if there are any yellow
envelopes. Of course, when they _do_ come he'll bring them into the
drawing-room and read them aloud to everybody who happens to be
here--and the Bishop is sure to happen to be here!"
Mrs. Clinch repressed her amusement. "The picture you draw is a
lurid one," she conceded, "but your modesty strikes me as abnormal,
especially in an author. The chances are that some of the clippings
will be rather pleasant reading. The critics are not all union men."
Mrs. Fetherel stared. "Union men?"
"Well, I mean they don't all belong to the well-known
Society-for-the-Persecution-of-Rising-Authors. Some of them have
even been known to defy its regulations and say a good word for a
new writer."
"Oh, I dare say," said Mrs. Fetherel, with the laugh her cousin's
epigram exacted. "But you don't quite see my point. I'm not at all
nervous about the success of my book--my publisher tells me I have
no need to be--but I _am_ afraid of its being a succes de scandale."
"Mercy!" said Mrs. Clinch, sitting up.
The butler and footman at this moment appeared with the tea-tray,
and when they had withdrawn, Mrs. Fetherel, bending her brightly
rippled head above the kettle, continued in a murmur of avowal, "The
title, even, is a kind of challenge."
"'Fast and Loose,'" Mrs. Clinch mused. "Yes, it ought to take."
"I didn't choose it for that reason!" the author protested. "I
should have preferred something quieter--less pronounced; but I was
determined not to shirk the responsibility of what I had written. I
want people to know beforehand exactly what kind of book they are
buying."
"Well," said Mrs. Clinch, "that's a degree of conscientiousness that
I've never met with before. So few books fulfil the promise of their
titles that experienced readers never expect the fare to come up to
the menu."
"'Fast and Loose' will be no disappointment on that score," her
cousin significantly returned. "I've handled the subject without
gloves. I've called a spade a spade."
"You simply make my mouth water! And to think I haven't been able to
read it yet because every spare minute of my time has been given to
correcting the proofs of 'How the Birds Keep Christmas'! There's an
instance of the hardships of an author's life!"
Mrs. Fetherel's eye clouded. "Don't joke, Bella, please. I suppose
to experienced authors there's always something absurd in the
nervousness of a new writer, but in my case so much is at stake;
I've put so much of myself into this book and I'm so afraid of being
misunderstood...of being, as it were, in advance of my time...
like poor Flaubert....I _know_ you'll think me ridiculous...
and if only my own reputation were at stake, I should never give
it a thought...but the idea of dragging John's name through the
mire..."
Mrs. Clinch, who had risen and gathered her cloak about her, stood
surveying from her genial height her cousin's agitated countenance.
"Why did you use John's name, then?"
"That's another of my difficulties! I _had_ to. There would have
been no merit in publishing such a book under an assumed name; it
would have been an act of moral cowardice. 'Fast and Loose' is not
an ordinary novel. A writer who dares to show up the hollowness of
social conventions must have the courage of her convictions and be
willing to accept the consequences of defying society. Can you
imagine Ibsen or Tolstoy writing under a false name?" Mrs. Fetherel
lifted a tragic eye to her cousin. "You don't know, Bella, how often
I've envied you since I began to write. I used to wonder
sometimes--you won't mind my saying so?--why, with all your
cleverness, you hadn't taken up some more exciting subject than
natural history; but I see now how wise you were. Whatever happens,
you will never be denounced by the press!"
"Is that what you're afraid of?" asked Mrs. Clinch, as she grasped
the bulging umbrella which rested against her chair. "My dear, if I
had ever had the good luck to be denounced by the press, my brougham
would be waiting at the door for me at this very moment, and I
shouldn't have to ruin this umbrella by using it in the rain. Why,
you innocent, if I'd ever felt the slightest aptitude for showing up
social conventions, do you suppose I should waste my time writing
'Nests Ajar' and 'How to Smell the Flowers'? There's a fairly steady
demand for pseudo-science and colloquial ornithology, but it's
nothing, simply nothing, to the ravenous call for attacks on social
institutions--especially by those inside the institutions!"
There was often, to her cousin, a lack of taste in Mrs. Clinch's
pleasantries, and on this occasion they seemed more than usually
irrelevant.
"'Fast and Loose' was not written with the idea of a large sale."
Mrs. Clinch was unperturbed. "Perhaps that's just as well," she
returned, with a philosophic shrug. "The surprise will be all the
pleasanter, I mean. For of course it's going to sell tremendously;
especially if you can get the press to denounce it."
"Bella, how _can_ you? I sometimes think you say such things
expressly to tease me; and yet I should think you of all women would
understand my purpose in writing such a book. It has always seemed
to me that the message I had to deliver was not for myself alone,
but for all the other women in the world who have felt the
hollowness of our social shams, the ignominy of bowing down to the
idols of the market, but have lacked either the courage or the power
to proclaim their independence; and I have fancied, Bella dear, that,
however severely society might punish me for revealing its
weaknesses, I could count on the sympathy of those who, like
you"--Mrs. Fetherel's voice sank--"have passed through the deep
waters."
Mrs. Clinch gave herself a kind of canine shake, as though to free
her ample shoulders from any drop of the element she was supposed to
have traversed.
"Oh, call them muddy rather than deep," she returned; "and you'll
find, my dear, that women who've had any wading to do are rather shy
of stirring up mud. It sticks--especially on white clothes."
Mrs. Fetherel lifted an undaunted brow. "I'm not afraid," she
proclaimed; and at the same instant she dropped her tea-spoon with a
clatter and shrank back into her seat. "There's the bell," she
exclaimed, "and I know it's the Bishop!"
It was in fact the Bishop of Ossining, who, impressively announced
by Mrs. Fetherel's butler, now made an entry that may best be
described as not inadequate to the expectations the announcement
raised. The Bishop always entered a room well; but, when unannounced,
or preceded by a Low Church butler who gave him his surname, his
appearance lacked the impressiveness conferred on it by the due
specification of his diocesan dignity. The Bishop was very fond of
his niece Mrs. Fetherel, and one of the traits he most valued in her
was the possession of a butler who knew how to announce a bishop.
Mrs. Clinch was also his niece; but, aside from the fact that she
possessed no butler at all, she had laid herself open to her uncle's
criticism by writing insignificant little books which had a way of
going into five or ten editions, while the fruits of his own
episcopal leisure--"The Wail of Jonah" (twenty cantos in blank
verse), and "Through a Glass Brightly; or, How to Raise Funds fora
Memorial Window"--inexplicably languished on the back shelves of a
publisher noted for his dexterity in pushing "devotional goods."
Even this indiscretion the Bishop might, however, have condoned, had
his niece thought fit to turn to him for support and advice at the
painful juncture of her history when, in her own words, it became
necessary for her to invite Mr. Clinch to look out for another
situation. Mr. Clinch's misconduct was of the kind especially
designed by Providence to test the fortitude of a Christian wife and
mother, and the Bishop was absolutely distended with seasonable
advice and edification; so that when Bella met his tentative
exhortations with the curt remark that she preferred to do her own
housecleaning unassisted, her uncle's grief at her ingratitude was
not untempered with sympathy for Mr. Clinch.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the Bishop's warmest greetings
were always reserved for Mrs. Fetherel; and on this occasion Mrs.
Clinch thought she detected, in the salutation which fell to her
share, a pronounced suggestion that her own presence was
superfluous--a hint which she took with her usual imperturbable good
humor.
II
Left alone with the Bishop, Mrs. Fetherel sought the nearest refuge
from conversation by offering him a cup of tea. The Bishop accepted
with the preoccupied air of a man to whom, for the moment, tea is but
a subordinate incident. Mrs. Fetherel's nervousness increased; and
knowing that the surest way of distracting attention from one's own
affairs is to affect an interest in those of one's companion, she
hastily asked if her uncle had come to town on business.
"On business--yes--" said the Bishop in an impressive tone. "I had
to see my publisher, who has been behaving rather unsatisfactorily
in regard to my last book."
"Ah--your last book?" faltered Mrs. Fetherel, with a sickening sense
of her inability to recall the name or nature of the work in
question, and a mental vow never again to be caught in such
ignorance of a colleague's productions.
"'Through a Glass Brightly,'" the Bishop explained, with an emphasis
which revealed his detection of her predicament. "You may remember
that I sent you a copy last Christmas?"
"Of course I do!" Mrs. Fetherel brightened. "It was that delightful
story of the poor consumptive girl who had no money, and two little
brothers to support--"
"Sisters--idiot sisters--" the Bishop gloomily corrected.
"I mean sisters; and who managed to collect money enough to put up a
beautiful memorial window to her--her grandfather, whom she had
never seen--"
"But whose sermons had been her chief consolation and support during
her long struggle with poverty and disease." The Bishop gave the
satisfied sigh of the workman who reviews his completed task. "A
touching subject, surely; and I believe I did it justice; at least,
so my friends assured me."
"Why, yes--I remember there was a splendid review of it in the
'Reredos'!" cried Mrs. Fetherel, moved by the incipient instinct of
reciprocity.
"Yes--by my dear friend Mrs. Gollinger, whose husband, the late Dean
Gollinger, was under very particular obligations to me. Mrs.
Gollinger is a woman of rare literary acumen, and her praise of my
book was unqualified; but the public wants more highly seasoned
fare, and the approval of a thoughtful churchwoman carries less
weight than the sensational comments of an illiterate journalist."
The Bishop lent a meditative eye on his spotless gaiters. "At the
risk of horrifying you, my dear," he added, with a slight laugh, "I
will confide to you that my best chance of a popular success would
be to have my book denounced by the press."
"Denounced?" gasped Mrs. Fetherel. "On what ground?"
"On the ground of immorality." The Bishop evaded her startled gaze.
"Such a thing is inconceivable to you, of course; but I am only
repeating what my publisher tells me. If, for instance, a critic
could be induced--I mean, if a critic were to be found, who called
in question the morality of my heroine in sacrificing her own health
and that of her idiot sisters in order to put up a memorial window
to her grandfather, it would probably raise a general controversy in
the newspapers, and I might count on a sale of ten or fifteen
thousand within the next year. If he described her as morbid or
decadent, it might even run to twenty thousand; but that is more than
I permit myself to hope. In fact, I should be satisfied with any
general charge of immorality." The Bishop sighed again. "I need
hardly tell you that I am actuated by no mere literary ambition.
Those whose opinion I most value have assured me that the book is
not without merit; but, though it does not become me to dispute
their verdict, I can truly say that my vanity as an author is not at
stake. I have, however, a special reason for wishing to increase the
circulation of 'Through a Glass Brightly'; it was written for a
purpose--a purpose I have greatly at heart--"
"I know," cried his niece sympathetically. "The chantry window--?"
"Is still empty, alas! and I had great hopes that, under Providence,
my little book might be the means of filling it. All our wealthy
parishioners have given lavishly to the cathedral, and it was for
this reason that, in writing 'Through a Glass,' I addressed my
appeal more especially to the less well-endowed, hoping by the
example of my heroine to stimulate the collection of small sums
throughout the entire diocese, and perhaps beyond it. I am sure,"
the Bishop feelingly concluded, "the book would have a wide-spread
influence if people could only be induced to read it!"
His conclusion touched a fresh thread of association in
Mrs. Fetherel's vibrating nerve-centers. "I never thought of that!"
she cried.
The Bishop looked at her inquiringly.
"That one's books may not be read at all! How dreadful!" she
exclaimed.
He smiled faintly. "I had not forgotten that I was addressing an
authoress," he said. "Indeed, I should not have dared to inflict my
troubles on any one not of the craft."
Mrs. Fetherel was quivering with the consciousness of her
involuntary self-betrayal. "Oh, uncle!" she murmured.
"In fact," the Bishop continued, with a gesture which seemed to
brush away her scruples, "I came here partly to speak to you about
your novel. 'Fast and Loose,' I think you call it?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed assentingly.
"And is it out yet?" the Bishop continued.
"It came out about a week ago. But you haven't touched your tea, and
it must be quite cold. Let me give you another cup..."
"My reason for asking," the Bishop went on, with the bland
inexorableness with which, in his younger days, he had been known to
continue a sermon after the senior warden had looked four times at
his watch--"my reason for asking is, that I hoped I might not be too
late to induce you to change the title."
Mrs. Fetherel set down the cup she had filled. "The title?" she
faltered.
The Bishop raised a reassuring hand. "Don't misunderstand me, dear
child; don't for a moment imagine that I take it to be in anyway
indicative of the contents of the book. I know you too well for
that. My first idea was that it had probably been forced on you by
an unscrupulous publisher--I know too well to what ignoble
compromises one may be driven in such cases!..." He paused, as
though to give her the opportunity of confirming this conjecture, but
she preserved an apprehensive silence, and he went on, as though
taking up the second point in his sermon--"Or, again, the name may
have taken your fancy without your realizing all that it implies to
minds more alive than yours to offensive innuendoes. It
is--ahem--excessively suggestive, and I hope I am not too late to
warn you of the false impression it is likely to produce on the very
readers whose approbation you would most value. My friend Mrs.
Gollinger, for instance--"
Mrs. Fetherel, as the publication of her novel testified, was in
theory a woman of independent views; and if in practise she
sometimes failed to live up to her standard, it was rather from an
irresistible tendency to adapt herself to her environment than from
any conscious lack of moral courage. The Bishop's exordium had
excited in her that sense of opposition which such admonitions are
apt to provoke; but as he went on she felt herself gradually
enclosed in an atmosphere in which her theories vainly gasped for
breath. The Bishop had the immense dialectical advantage of
invalidating any conclusions at variance with his own by always
assuming that his premises were among the necessary laws of thought.
This method, combined with the habit of ignoring any classifications
but his own, created an element in which the first condition of
existence was the immediate adoption of his standpoint; so that his
niece, as she listened, seemed to feel Mrs. Gollinger's Mechlin cap
spreading its conventual shadow over her rebellious brow and the
"Revue de Paris" at her elbow turning into a copy of the "Reredos."
She had meant to assure her uncle that she was quite aware of the
significance of the title she had chosen, that it had been
deliberately selected as indicating the subject of her novel, and
that the book itself had been written indirect defiance of the class
of readers for whose susceptibilities she was alarmed. The words
were almost on her lips when the irresistible suggestion conveyed by
the Bishop's tone and language deflected them into the apologetic
murmur, "Oh, uncle, you mustn't think--I never meant--" How much
farther this current of reaction might have carried her, the
historian is unable to computer, for at this point the door opened
and her husband entered the room.
"The first review of your book!" he cried, flourishing a yellow
envelope. "My dear Bishop, how lucky you're here!"
Though the trials of married life have been classified and
catalogued with exhaustive accuracy, there is one form of conjugal
misery which has perhaps received inadequate attention; and that is
the suffering of the versatile woman whose husband is not equally
adapted to all her moods. Every woman feels for the sister who is
compelled to wear a bonnet which does not "go" with her gown; but
how much sympathy is given to her whose husband refuses to harmonize
with the pose of the moment? Scant justice has, for instance, been
done to the misunderstood wife whose husband persists in
understanding her; to the submissive helpmate whose taskmaster shuns
every opportunity of browbeating her; and to the generous and
impulsive being whose bills are paid with philosophic calm. Mrs.
Fetherel, as wives go, had been fairly exempt from trials of this
nature, for her husband, if undistinguished by pronounced brutality
or indifference, had at least the negative merit of being her
intellectual inferior. Landscape gardeners, who are aware of the
usefulness of a valley in emphasizing the height of a hill, can form
an idea of the account to which an accomplished woman may turn such
deficiencies; and it need scarcely be said that Mrs. Fetherel had
made the most of her opportunities. It was agreeably obvious to
every one, Fetherel included, that he was not the man to appreciate
such a woman; but there are no limits to man's perversity, and he
did his best to invalidate this advantage by admiring her without
pretending to understand her. What she most suffered from was this
fatuous approval: the maddening sense that, however she conducted
herself, he would always admire her. Had he belonged to the class
whose conversational supplies are drawn from the domestic circle,
his wife's name would never have been off his lips; and to Mrs.
Fetherel's sensitive perceptions his frequent silences were
indicative of the fact that she was his one topic.
It was, in part, the attempt to escape this persistent approbation
that had driven Mrs. Fetherel to authorship. She had fancied that
even the most infatuated husband might be counted onto resent, at
least negatively, an attack on the sanctity of the hearth; and her
anticipations were heightened by a sense of the unpardonableness of
her act. Mrs. Fetherel's relations with her husband were in fact
complicated by an irrepressible tendency to be fond of him; and
there was a certain pleasure in the prospect of a situation that
justified the most explicit expiation.
These hopes Fetherel's attitude had already defeated. He read the
book with enthusiasm, he pressed it on his friends, he sent a copy
to his mother; and his very soul now hung on the verdict of the
reviewers. It was perhaps this proof of his general ineptitude that
made his wife doubly alive to his special defects; so that his
inopportune entrance was aggravated by the very sound of his voice
and the hopeless aberration of his smile. Nothing, to the observant,
is more indicative of a man's character and circumstances than his
way of entering a room. The Bishop of Ossining, for instance,
brought with him not only an atmosphere of episcopal authority, but
an implied opinion on the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, and
on the attitude of the church toward divorce; while the appearance
of Mrs. Fetherel's husband produced an immediate impression of
domestic felicity. His mere aspect implied that there was a
well-filled nursery upstairs; that this wife, if she did not sew on
his buttons, at least superintended the performance of that task;
that they both went to church regularly, and that they dined with
his mother every Sunday evening punctually at seven o'clock.
All this and more was expressed in the affectionate gesture with
which he now raised the yellow envelope above Mrs. Fetherel's
clutch; and knowing the uselessness of begging him not to be
silly, she said, with a dry despair, "You're boring the Bishop
horribly."
Fetherel turned a radiant eye on that dignitary. "She bores us all
horribly, doesn't she, sir?" he exulted.
"Have you read it?" said his wife, uncontrollably.
"Read it? Of course not--it's just this minute come. I say, Bishop,
you're not going--?"
"Not till I've heard this," said the Bishop, settling himself in his
chair with an indulgent smile.
His niece glanced at him despairingly. "Don't let John's nonsense
detain you," she entreated.
"Detain him? That's good," guffawed Fetherel. "It isn't as long as
one of his sermons--won't take me five minutes to read. Here, listen
to this, ladies and gentlemen: 'In this age of festering pessimism
and decadent depravity, it is no surprise to the nauseated reviewer
to open one more volume saturated with the fetid emanations of the
sewer--'"
Fetherel, who was not in the habit of reading aloud, paused with a
gasp, and the Bishop glanced sharply at his niece, who kept her gaze
fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to
his hand.--"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder
is proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly
inoffensive as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is,
we believe, a new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent
traces of inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her
pure, fresh view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for
the reader's moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its
distinctly misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant
picture of domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force
in character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be
described as a distinctly pretty story.'"
III
It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the
plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into
the violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin's drawing-room.
"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of
a silk-cushioned bergere, "I've read it at last and I'm not so
awfully shocked!"
Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a
languid hand, looked up without speaking.
"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you're ill."
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she
said, mournfully.
"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks."
Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a
buttered tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin.
"It's not what I said just now--?" she ventured.
"Just now?"
"About 'Fast and Loose'? I came to talk it over."
Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically,
"want to hear it mentioned again!"
"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup.
Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the
incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with
a tragic laugh, "There's nothing left to say."
"Nothing--?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but
feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so
charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything _has_ been
said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin. "Haven't they been
nice?"
"They've been odious--odious--" Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an
ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief. "It's been perfectly
intolerable!"
Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning herself to the propriety of
taking no more tea, crossed over to her cousin and laid a
sympathizing hand on that lady's agitated shoulder.
"It _is_ a bore at first," she conceded; "but you'll be surprised to
see how soon one gets used to it."
"I shall--never--get--used to it--" Mrs. Fetherel brokenly declared.
"Have they been so very nasty--all of them?"
"Every one of them!" the novelist sobbed.
"I'm so sorry, dear; it _does_ hurt, I know--but hadn't you rather
expected it?"
"Expected it?" cried Mrs. Fetherel, sitting up.
Mrs. Clinch felt her way warily. "I only mean, dear, that I fancied
from what you said before the book came out--that you rather
expected--that you'd rather discounted--"
"Their recommending it to everybody as a perfectly harmless story?"
"Good gracious! Is _that_ what they've done?"
Mrs. Fetherel speechlessly nodded.
"Every one of them?"
"Every one--"
"Whew!" said Mrs. Clinch, with an incipient whistle.
"Why, you've just said it yourself!" her cousin suddenly reproached
her.
"Said what?"
"That you weren't so _awfully_ shocked--"
"I? Oh, well--you see, you'd keyed me up to such a pitch that it
wasn't quite as bad as I expected--"
Mrs. Fetherel lifted a smile steeled for the worst. "Why not say at
once," she suggested, "that it's a distinctly pretty story?"
"They haven't said _that?_"
"They've all said it."
"My poor Paula!"
"Even the Bishop--"
"The Bishop called it a pretty story?"
"He wrote me--I've his letter somewhere. The title rather scared
him--he wanted me to change it; but when he'd read the book he wrote
that it was all right and that he'd sent several copies to his
friends."
"The old hypocrite!" cried Mrs. Clinch. "That was nothing but
professional jealousy."
"Do you think so?" cried her cousin, brightening.
"Sure of it, my dear. His own books don't sell, and he knew the
quickest way to kill yours was to distribute it through the diocese
with his blessing."
"Then you don't really think it's a pretty story?"
"Dear me, no! Not nearly as bad as that--"
"You're so good, Bella--but the reviewers?"
"Oh, the reviewers," Mrs. Clinch jeered. She gazed meditatively at
the cold remains of her tea-cake. "Let me see," she said, suddenly;
"do you happen to remember if the first review came out in an
important paper?"
"Yes--the 'Radiator.'"
"That's it! I thought so. Then the others simply followed suit: they
often do if a big paper sets the pace. Saves a lot of trouble. Now
if you could only have got the 'Radiator' to denounce you--"
"That's what the Bishop said!" cried Mrs. Fetherel.
"He did?"
"He said his only chance of selling 'Through a Glass Brightly' was
to have it denounced on the ground of immorality."
"H'm," said Mrs. Clinch. "I thought he knew a trick or two." She
turned an illuminated eye on her cousin. "You ought to get _him_ to
denounce 'Fast and Loose'!" she cried.
Mrs. Fetherel looked at her suspiciously. "I suppose every book must
stand or fall on its own merits," she said in an unconvinced tone.
"Bosh! That view is as extinct as the post-chaise and the
packet-ship--it belongs to the time when people read books. Nobody
does that now; the reviewer was the first to set the example, and
the public were only too thankful to follow it. At first they read
the reviews; now they read only the publishers' extracts from them.
Even these are rapidly being replaced by paragraphs borrowed from
the vocabulary of commerce. I often have to look twice before I am
sure if I am reading a department-store advertisement or the
announcement of a new batch of literature. The publishers will soon
be having their 'fall and spring openings' and their 'special
importations for Horse-Show Week.' But the Bishop is right, of
course--nothing helps a book like a rousing attack on its morals; and
as the publishers can't exactly proclaim the impropriety of their
own wares, the task has to be left to the press or the pulpit."
"The pulpit--?" Mrs. Fetherel mused.
"Why, yes--look at those two novels in England last year--"
Mrs. Fetherel shook her head hopelessly. "There is so much more
interest in literature in England than here."
"Well, we've got to make the supply create the demand. The Bishop
could run your novel up into the hundred thousands in no time."
"But if he can't make his own sell--?"
"My dear, a man can't very well preach against his own writings!"
Mrs. Clinch rose and picked up her proofs.
"I'm awfully sorry for you, Paula dear," she concluded, "but I can't
help being thankful that there's no demand for pessimism in the
field of natural history. Fancy having to write 'The Fall of a
Sparrow,' or 'How the Plants Misbehave!'"
IV
Mrs. Fetherel, driving up to the Grand Central Station one morning
about five months later, caught sight of the distinguished novelist,
Archer Hynes, hurrying into the waiting-room ahead of her. Hynes, on
his side, recognizing her brougham, turned back to greet her as the
footman opened the carriage-door.
"My dear colleague! Is it possible that we are traveling together?"
Mrs. Fetherel blushed with pleasure. Hynes had given her two columns
of praise in the Sunday "Meteor," and she had not yet learned to
disguise her gratitude.
"I am going to Ossining," she said, smilingly.
"So am I. Why, this is almost as good as an elopement."
"And it will end where elopements ought to--in church."
"In church? You're not going to Ossining to go to church?"
"Why not? There's a special ceremony in the cathedral--the chantry
window is to be unveiled."
"The chantry window? How picturesque! What _is_ a chantry? And why
do you want to see it unveiled? Are you after copy--doing something
in the Huysmans manner? 'La Cathedrale,' eh?"
"Oh, no." Mrs. Fetherel hesitated. "I'm going simply to please my
uncle," she said, at last.
"Your uncle?"
"The Bishop, you know." She smiled.
"The Bishop--the Bishop of Ossining? Why, wasn't he the chap who
made that ridiculous attack on your book? Is that prehistoric ass
your uncle? Upon my soul, I think you're mighty forgiving to travel
all the way to Ossining for one of his stained-glass sociables!"
Mrs. Fetherel's smile flowed into a gentle laugh. "Oh, I've never
allowed that to interfere with our friendship. My uncle felt
dreadfully about having to speak publicly against my book--it was a
great deal harder for him than for me--but he thought it his duty to
do so. He has the very highest sense of duty."
"Well," said Hynes, with a shrug, "I don't know that he didn't do
you a good turn. Look at that!"
They were standing near the book-stall, and he pointed to a placard
surmounting the counter and emblazoned with the conspicuous
announcement: "Fast and Loose. New Edition with Author's Portrait.
Hundred and Fiftieth Thousand."
Mrs. Fetherel frowned impatiently. "How absurd! They've no right to
use my picture as a poster!"
"There's our train," said Hynes; and they began to push their way
through the crowd surging toward one of the inner doors.
As they stood wedged between circumferent shoulders, Mrs. Fetherel
became conscious of the fixed stare of a pretty girl who whispered
eagerly to her companion: "Look Myrtle! That's Paula Fetherel right
behind us--I knew her in a minute!"
"Gracious--where?" cried the other girl, giving her head a twist
which swept her Gainsborough plumes across Mrs. Fetherel's face.
The first speaker's words had carried beyond her companion's ear,
and a lemon-colored woman in spectacles, who clutched a copy of the
"Journal of Psychology" on one drab-cotton-gloved hand, stretched her
disengaged hand across the intervening barrier of humanity.
"Have I the privilege of addressing the distinguished author of
'Fast and Loose'? If so, let me thank you in the name of the Woman's
Psychological League of Peoria for your magnificent courage in
raising the standard of revolt against--"
"You can tell us the rest in the car," said a fat man, pressing his
good-humored bulk against the speaker's arm.
Mrs. Fetherel, blushing, embarrassed and happy, slipped into the
space produced by this displacement, and a few moments later had
taken her seat in the train.
She was a little late, and the other chairs were already filled by a
company of elderly ladies and clergymen who seemed to belong to the
same party, and were still busy exchanging greetings and settling
themselves in their places.
One of the ladies, at Mrs. Fetherel's approach, uttered an
exclamation of pleasure and advanced with outstretched hand. "My
dear Mrs. Fetherel! I am so delighted to see you here. May I hope
you are going to the unveiling of the chantry window? The dear
Bishop so hoped that you would do so! But perhaps I ought to
introduce myself. I am Mrs. Gollinger"--she lowered her voice
expressively--"one of your uncle's oldest friends, one who has stood
close to him through all this sad business, and who knows what he
suffered when he felt obliged to sacrifice family affection to the
call of duty."
Mrs. Fetherel, who had smiled and colored slightly at the beginning
of this speech, received its close with a deprecating gesture.
"Oh, pray don't mention it," she murmured. "I quite understood how
my uncle was placed--I bore him no ill will for feeling obliged to
preach against my book."
"He understood that, and was so touched by it! He has often told me
that it was the hardest task he was ever called upon to
perform--and, do you know, he quite feels that this unexpected gift
of the chantry window is in some way a return for his courage in
preaching that sermon."
Mrs. Fetherel smiled faintly. "Does he feel that?"
"Yes; he really does. When the funds for the window were so
mysteriously placed at his disposal, just as he had begun to despair
of raising them, he assured me that he could not help connecting the
fact with his denunciation of your book."
"Dear uncle!" sighed Mrs. Fetherel. "Did he say that?"
"And now," continued Mrs. Gollinger, with cumulative rapture--"now
that you are about to show, by appearing at the ceremony to-day,
that there has been no break in your friendly relations, the dear
Bishop's happiness will be complete. He was so longing to have you
come to the unveiling!"
"He might have counted on me," said Mrs. Fetherel, still smiling.
"Ah, that is so beautifully forgiving of you!" cried Mrs. Gollinger,
enthusiastically. "But then, the Bishop has always assured me that
your real nature was very different from that which--if you will
pardon my saying so--seems to be revealed by your brilliant
but--er--rather subversive book. 'If you only knew my niece, dear
Mrs. Gollinger,' he always said, 'you would see that her novel was
written in all innocence of heart;' and to tell you the truth, when
I first read the book I didn't think it so very, _very_ shocking. It
wasn't till the dear Bishop had explained tome--but, dear me, I
mustn't take up your time in this way when so many others are
anxious to have a word with you."
Mrs. Fetherel glanced at her in surprise, and Mrs. Gollinger
continued, with a playful smile: "You forget that your face is
familiar to thousands whom you have never seen. We all recognized
you the moment you entered the train, and my friends here are so
eager to make your acquaintance--even those"--her smile
deepened--"who thought the dear Bishop not _quite unjustified_ in
his attack on your remarkable novel."
V
A religious light filled the chantry of Ossining Cathedral, filtering
through the linen curtain which veiled the central window, and
mingling with the blaze of tapers on the richly adorned altar.
In this devout atmosphere, agreeably laden with the incense-like
aroma of Easter lilies and forced lilacs, Mrs. Fetherel knelt with a
sense of luxurious satisfaction. Beside her sat Archer Hynes, who
had remembered that there was to be a church scene in his next
novel, and that his impressions of the devotional environment needed
refreshing. Mrs. Fetherel was very happy. She was conscious that her
entrance had sent a thrill through the female devotees who packed
the chantry, and she had humor enough to enjoy the thought that, but
for the good Bishop's denunciation of her book, the heads of his
flock would not have been turned so eagerly in her direction.
Moreover, as she had entered she had caught sight of a society
reporter, and she knew that her presence, and the fact that she was
accompanied by Hynes, would be conspicuously proclaimed in the
morning papers. All these evidences of the success of her handiwork
might have turned a calmer head than Mrs. Fetherel's; and though she
had now learned to dissemble her gratification, it still filled her
inwardly with a delightful glow.
The Bishop was somewhat late in appearing, and she employed the
interval in meditating on the plot of her next novel, which was
already partly sketched out, but for which she had been unable to
find a satisfactory denouement. By a not uncommon process of
ratiocination, Mrs. Fetherel's success had convinced her of her
vocation. She was sure now that it was her duty to lay bare the
secret plague-spots of society, and she was resolved that there
should be no doubt as to the purpose of her new book. Experience had
shown her that where she had fancied she was calling a spade a spade
she had in fact been alluding in guarded terms to the drawing-room
shovel. She was determined not to repeat the same mistake, and she
flattered herself that her coming novel would not need an episcopal
denunciation to insure its sale, however likely it was to receive
this crowning evidence of success.
She had reached this point in her meditations when the choir burst
into song and the ceremony of the unveiling began. The Bishop,
almost always felicitous in his addresses to the fair sex, was never
more so than when he was celebrating the triumph of one of his
cherished purposes. There was a peculiar mixture of Christian
humility and episcopal exultation in the manner with which he called
attention to the Creator's promptness in responding to his demand
for funds, and he had never been more happily inspired than in
eulogizing the mysterious gift of the chantry window.
Though no hint of the donor's identity had been allowed to escape
him, it was generally understood that the Bishop knew who had given
the window, and the congregation awaited in a flutter of suspense
the possible announcement of a name. None came, however, though the
Bishop deliciously titillated the curiosity of his flock by circling
ever closer about the interesting secret. He would not disguise from
them, he said, that the heart which had divined his inmost wish had
been a woman's--is it not to woman's intuitions that more than half
the happiness of earth is owing? What man is obliged to learn by the
laborious process of experience, woman's wondrous instinct tells her
at a glance; and so it had been with this cherished scheme, this
unhoped-for completion of their beautiful chantry. So much, at
least, he was allowed to reveal; and indeed, had he not done so, the
window itself would have spoken for him, since the first glance at
its touching subject and exquisite design would show it to have
originated in a woman's heart. This tribute to the sex was received
with an audible sigh of contentment, and the Bishop, always
stimulated by such evidence of his sway over his hearers, took up
his theme with gathering eloquence.
Yes--a woman's heart had planned the gift, a woman's hand had
executed it, and, might he add, without too far withdrawing the veil
in which Christian beneficence ever loved to drape its acts--might
he add that, under Providence, a book, a simple book, a mere tale,
in fact, had had its share in the good work for which they were
assembled to give thanks?
At this unexpected announcement, a ripple of excitement ran through
the assemblage, and more than one head was abruptly turned in the
direction of Mrs. Fetherel, who sat listening in an agony of wonder
and confusion. It did not escape the observant novelist at her side
that she drew down her veil to conceal an uncontrollable blush, and
this evidence of dismay caused him to fix an attentive gaze on her,
while from her seat across the aisle, Mrs. Gollinger sent a smile of
unctuous approval.
"A book--a simple book--" the Bishop's voice went on above this
flutter of mingled emotions. "What is a book? Only a few pages and a
little ink--and yet one of the mightiest instruments which
Providence has devised for shaping the destinies of man . .. one of
the most powerful influences for good or evil which the Creator has
placed in the hands of his creatures..."
The air seemed intolerably close to Mrs. Fetherel, and she drew out
her scent-bottle, and then thrust it hurriedly away, conscious that
she was still the center of an unenviable attention. And all the
while the Bishop's voice droned on...
"And of all forms of literature, fiction is doubtless that which has
exercised the greatest sway, for good or ill, over the passions and
imagination of the masses. Yes, my friends, I am the first to
acknowledge it--no sermon, however eloquent, no theological
treatise, however learned and convincing, has ever inflamed the
heart and imagination like a novel--a simple novel. Incalculable is
the power exercised over humanity by the great magicians of the
pen--a power ever enlarging its boundaries and increasing its
responsibilities as popular education multiplies the number of
readers....Yes, it is the novelist's hand which can pour balm on
countless human sufferings, or inoculate mankind with the festering
poison of a corrupt imagination...."
Mrs. Fetherel had turned white, and her eyes were fixed with a blind
stare of anger on the large-sleeved figure in the center of the
chancel.
"And too often, alas, it is the poison and not the balm which the
unscrupulous hand of genius proffers to its unsuspecting readers.
But, my friends, why should I continue? None know better than an
assemblage of Christian women, such as I am now addressing, the
beneficent or baleful influences of modern fiction; and so, when I
say that this beautiful chantry window of ours owes its existence in
part to the romancer's pen"--the Bishop paused, and bending forward,
seemed to seek a certain face among the countenances eagerly
addressed to his--"when I say that this pen, which for personal
reasons it does not become me to celebrate unduly--"
Mrs. Fetherel at this point half rose, pushing back her chair, which
scraped loudly over the marble floor; but Hynes involuntarily laid a
warning hand on her arm, and she sank down with a confused murmur
about the heat.
"--When I confess that this pen, which for once at least has proved
itself so much mightier than the sword, is that which was inspired
to trace the simple narrative of 'Through a Glass Brightly'"--Mrs.
Fetherel looked up with a gasp of mingled relief and anger--"when I
tell you, my dear friends, that it was your Bishop's own work which
first roused the mind of one of his flock to the crying need of a
chantry window, I think you will admit that I am justified in
celebrating the triumphs of the pen, even though it be the modest
instrument which your own Bishop wields."
The Bishop paused impressively, and a faint gasp of surprise and
disappointment was audible throughout the chantry. Something very
different from this conclusion had been expected, and even Mrs.
Gollinger's lips curled with a slightly ironic smile. But Archer
Hynes's attention was chiefly reserved for Mrs. Fetherel, whose face
had changed with astonishing rapidity from surprise to annoyance,
from annoyance to relief, and then back again to something very like
indignation.
The address concluded, the actual ceremony of the unveiling was
about to take place, and the attention of the congregation soon
reverted to the chancel, where the choir had grouped themselves
beneath the veiled window, prepared to burst into a chant of praise
as the Bishop drew back the hanging. The moment was an impressive
one, and every eye was fixed on the curtain. Even Hynes's gaze
strayed to it for a moment, but soon returned to his neighbor's
face; and then he perceived that Mrs. Fetherel, alone of all the
persons present, was not looking at the window. Her eyes were fixed
in an indignant stare on the Bishop; a flush of anger burned
becomingly under her veil, and her hands nervously crumpled the
beautifully printed program of the ceremony.
Hynes broke into a smile of comprehension. He glanced at the Bishop,
and back at the Bishop's niece; then, as the episcopal hand was
solemnly raised to draw back the curtain, he bent and whispered in
Mrs. Fetherel's ear:
"Why, you gave it yourself! You wonderful woman, of course you gave
it yourself!"
Mrs. Fetherel raised her eyes to his with a start. Her blush
deepened and her lips shaped a hasty "No"; but the denial was
deflected into the indignant murmur--"It wasn't _his_ silly book
that did it anyhow!"
THE LADY'S MAID'S BELL
I
IT was the autumn after I had the typhoid. I'd been three months in
hospital, and when I came out I looked so weak and tottery that the
two or three ladies I applied to were afraid to engage me. Most of
my money was gone, and after I'd boarded for two months, hanging
about the employment-agencies, and answering any advertisement that
looked any way respectable, I pretty nearly lost heart, for fretting
hadn't made me fatter, and I didn't see why my luck should ever
turn. It did though--or I thought so at the time. A Mrs. Railton, a
friend of the lady that first brought me out to the States, met me
one day and stopped to speak to me: she was one that had always a
friendly way with her. She asked me what ailed me to look so white,
and when I told her, "Why, Hartley," says she, "I believe I've got
the very place for you. Come in to-morrow and we'll talk about it."
The next day, when I called, she told me the lady she'd in mind was
a niece of hers, a Mrs. Brympton, a youngish lady, but something of
an invalid, who lived all the year round at her country-place on the
Hudson, owing to not being able to stand the fatigue of town life.
"Now, Hartley," Mrs. Railton said, in that cheery way that always
made me feel things must be going to take a turn for the
better--"now understand me; it's not a cheerful place i'm sending
you to. The house is big and gloomy; my niece is nervous, vaporish;
her husband--well, he's generally away; and the two children are
dead. A year ago, I would as soon have thought of shutting a rosy
active girl like you into a vault; but you're not particularly brisk
yourself just now, are you? and a quiet place, with country air and
wholesome food and early hours, ought to be the very thing for you.
Don't mistake me," she added, for I suppose I looked a trifle
downcast; "you may find it dull, but you won't be unhappy. My niece
is an angel. Her former maid, who died last spring, had been with
her twenty years and worshipped the ground she walked on. She's a
kind mistress to all, and where the mistress is kind, as you know,
the servants are generally good-humored, so you'll probably get on
well enough with the rest of the household. And you're the very
woman I want for my niece: quiet, well-mannered, and educated above
your station. You read aloud well, I think? That's a good thing; my
niece likes to be read to. She wants a maid that can be something of
a companion: her last was, and I can't say how she misses her. It's
a lonely life...Well, have you decided?"
"Why, ma'am," I said, "I'm not afraid of solitude."
"Well, then, go; my niece will take you on my recommendation. I'll
telegraph her at once and you can take the afternoon train. She has
no one to wait on her at present, and I don't want you to lose any
time."
I was ready enough to start, yet something in me hung back; and to
gain time I asked, "And the gentleman, ma'am?"
"The gentleman's almost always away, I tell you," said Mrs. Ralston,
quick-like--"and when he's there," says she suddenly, "you've only
to keep out of his way."
I took the afternoon train and got out at D-----station at about
four o'clock. A groom in a dog-cart was waiting, and we drove off at
a smart pace. It was a dull October day, with rain hanging close
overhead, and by the time we turned into the Brympton Place woods
the daylight was almost gone. The drive wound through the woods for
a mile or two, and came out on a gravel court shut in with thickets
of tall black-looking shrubs. There were no lights in the windows,
and the house _did_ look a bit gloomy.
I had asked no questions of the groom, for I never was one to get my
notion of new masters from their other servants: I prefer to wait
and see for myself. But I could tell by the look of everything that
I had got into the right kind of house, and that things were done
handsomely. A pleasant-faced cook met me at the back door and called
the house-maid to show me up to my room. "You'll see madam later,"
she said. "Mrs. Brympton has a visitor."
I hadn't fancied Mrs. Brympton was a lady to have many visitors, and
somehow the words cheered me. I followed the house-maid upstairs,
and saw, through a door on the upper landing, that the main part of
the house seemed well-furnished, with dark panelling and a number of
old portraits. Another flight of stairs led us up to the servants'
wing. It was almost dark now, and the house-maid excused herself for
not having brought a light. "But there's matches in your room," she
said, "and if you go careful you'll be all right. Mind the step at
the end of the passage. Your room is just beyond."
I looked ahead as she spoke, and half-way down the passage, I saw a
woman standing. She drew back into a doorway as we passed, and the
house-maid didn't appear to notice her. She was a thin woman with a
white face, and a darkish stuff gown and apron. I took her for the
housekeeper and thought it odd that she didn't speak, but just gave
me a long look as she went by. My room opened into a square hall at
the end of the passage. Facing my door was another which stood open:
the house-maid exclaimed when she saw it.
"There--Mrs. Blinder's left that door open again!" said she, closing
it.
"Is Mrs. Blinder the housekeeper?"
"There's no housekeeper: Mrs. Blinder's the cook."
"And is that her room?"
"Laws, no," said the house-maid, cross-like. "That's nobody's room.
It's empty, I mean, and the door hadn't ought to be open. Mrs.
Brympton wants it kept locked."
She opened my door and led me into a neat room, nicely furnished,
with a picture or two on the walls; and having lit a candle she took
leave, telling me that the servants'-hall tea was at six, and that
Mrs. Brympton would see me afterward.
I found them a pleasant-spoken set in the servants' hall, and by
what they let fall I gathered that, as Mrs. Railton had said, Mrs.
Brympton was the kindest of ladies; but I didn't take much notice of
their talk, for I was watching to see the pale woman in the dark
gown come in. She didn't show herself, however, and I wondered if
she ate apart; but if she wasn't the housekeeper, why should she?
Suddenly it struck me that she might be a trained nurse, and in that
case her meals would of course be served in her room. If Mrs.
Brympton was an invalid it was likely enough she had a nurse. The
idea annoyed me, I own, for they're not always the easiest to get on
with, and if I'd known, I shouldn't have taken the place. But there
I was, and there was no use pulling a long face over it; and not
being one to ask questions, I waited to see what would turn up.
When tea was over, the house-maid said to the footman: "Has Mr.
Ranford gone?" and when he said yes, she told me to come up with her
to Mrs. Brympton.
Mrs. Brympton was lying down in her bedroom. Her lounge stood near
the fire and beside it was a shaded lamp. She was a delicate-looking
lady, but when she smiled I felt there was nothing I wouldn't do for
her. She spoke very pleasantly, in a low voice, asking me my name
and age and so on, and if I had everything I wanted, and if I wasn't
afraid of feeling lonely in the country.
"Not with you I wouldn't be, madam," I said, and the words surprised
me when I'd spoken them, for I'm not an impulsive person; but it was
just as if I'd thought aloud.
She seemed pleased at that, and said she hoped I'd continue in the
same mind; then she gave me a few directions about her toilet, and
said Agnes the house-maid would show me next morning where things
were kept.
"I am tired to-night, and shall dine upstairs," she said. "Agnes
will bring me my tray, that you may have time to unpack and settle
yourself; and later you may come and undress me."
"Very well, ma'am," I said. "You'll ring, I suppose?"
I thought she looked odd.
"No--Agnes will fetch you," says she quickly, and took up her book
again.
Well--that was certainly strange: a lady's maid having to be fetched
by the house-maid whenever her lady wanted her! I wondered if there
were no bells in the house; but the next day I satisfied myself that
there was one in every room, and a special one ringing from my
mistress's room to mine; and after that it did strike me as queer
that, whenever Mrs. Brympton wanted anything, she rang for Agnes,
who had to walk the whole length of the servants' wing to call me.
But that wasn't the only queer thing in the house. The very next day
I found out that Mrs. Brympton had no nurse; and then I asked Agnes
about the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before.
Agnes said she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was
dreaming. To be sure, it was dusk when we went down the passage, and
she had excused herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the
woman plain enough to know her again if we should meet. I decided
that she must have been a friend of the cook's, or of one of the
other women-servants: perhaps she had come down from town for a
night's visit, and the servants wanted it kept secret. Some ladies
are very stiff about having their servants' friends in the house
overnight. At any rate, I made up my mind to ask no more questions.
In a day or two, another odd thing happened. I was chatting one
afternoon with Mrs. Blinder, who was a friendly disposed woman, and
had been longer in the house than the other servants, and she asked
me if I was quite comfortable and had everything I needed. I said I
had no fault to find with my place or with my mistress, but I
thought it odd that in so large a house there was no sewing-room for
the lady's maid.
"Why," says she, "there _is_ one; the room you're in is the old
sewing-room."
"Oh," said I; "and where did the other lady's maid sleep?"
At that she grew confused, and said hurriedly that the servants'
rooms had all been changed about last year, and she didn't rightly
remember.
That struck me as peculiar, but I went on as if I hadn't noticed:
"Well, there's a vacant room opposite mine, and I mean to ask Mrs.
Brympton if I mayn't use that as a sewing-room."
To my astonishment, Mrs. Blinder went white, and gave my hand a kind
of squeeze. "Don't do that, my dear," said she, trembling-like. "To
tell you the truth, that was Emma Saxon's room, and my mistress has
kept it closed ever since her death."
"And who was Emma Saxon?"
"Mrs. Brympton's former maid."
"The one that was with her so many years?" said I, remembering what
Mrs. Railton had told me.
Mrs. Blinder nodded.
"What sort of woman was she?"
"No better walked the earth," said Mrs. Blinder. "My mistress loved
her like a sister."
"But I mean--what did she look like?"
Mrs. Blinder got up and gave me a kind of angry stare. "I'm no great
hand at describing," she said; "and I believe my pastry's rising."
And she walked off into the kitchen and shut the door after her.
II
I HAD been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master. Word came
that he was arriving one afternoon, and a change passed over the
whole household. It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs.
Mrs. Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she
snapped at the kitchen-maid in a way quite unusual with her; and Mr.
Wace, the butler, a serious, slow-spoken man, went about his duties
as if he'd been getting ready for a funeral. He was a great
Bible-reader, Mr. Wace was, and had a beautiful assortment of texts
at his command; but that day he used such dreadful language that I
was about to leave the table, when he assured me it was all out of
Isaiah; and I noticed that whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to
the prophets.
About seven, Agnes called me to my mistress's room; and there I
found Mr. Brympton. He was standing on the hearth; a big fair
bull-necked man, with a red face and little bad-tempered blue eyes:
the kind of man a young simpleton might have thought handsome, and
would have been like to pay dear for thinking it.
He swung about when I came in, and looked me over in a trice. I knew
what the look meant, from having experienced it once or twice in my
former places. Then he turned his back on me, and went on talking to
his wife; and I knew what _that_ meant, too. I was not the kind of
morsel he was after. The typhoid had served me well enough in one
way: it kept that kind of gentleman at arm's-length.
"This is my new maid, Hartley," says Mrs. Brympton in her kind
voice; and he nodded and went on with what he was saying.
In a minute or two he went off, and left my mistress to dress for
dinner, and I noticed as I waited on her that she was white, and
chill to the touch.
Mr. Brympton took himself off the next morning, and the whole house
drew a long breath when he drove away. As for my mistress, she put
on her hat and furs (for it was a fine winter morning) and went out
for a walk in the gardens, coming back quite fresh and rosy, so that
for a minute, before her color faded, I could guess what a pretty
young lady she must have been, and not so long ago, either.
She had met Mr. Ranford in the grounds, and the two came back
together, I remember, smiling and talking as they walked along the
terrace under my window. That was the first time I saw Mr. Ranford,
though I had often heard his name mentioned in the hall. He was a
neighbor, it appeared, living a mile or two beyond Brympton, at the
end of the village; and as he was in the habit of spending his
winters in the country he was almost the only company my mistress
had at that season. He was a slight tall gentleman of about thirty,
and I thought him rather melancholy-looking till I saw his smile,
which had a kind of surprise in it, like the first warm day in
spring. He was a great reader, I heard, like my mistress, and the
two were forever borrowing books of one another, and sometimes (Mr.
Wace told me) he would read aloud to Mrs. Brympton by the hour, in
the big dark library where she sat in the winter afternoons. The
servants all liked him, and perhaps that's more of a compliment than
the masters suspect. He had a friendly word for every one of us, and
we were all glad to think that Mrs. Brympton had a pleasant
companionable gentleman like that to keep her company when the
master was away. Mr. Ranford seemed on excellent terms with Mr.
Brympton too; though I couldn't but wonder that two gentlemen so
unlike each other should be so friendly. But then I knew how the
real quality can keep their feelings to themselves.
As for Mr. Brympton, he came and went, never staying more than a day
or two, cursing the dulness and the solitude, grumbling at
everything, and (as I soon found out) drinking a deal more than was
good for him. After Mrs. Brympton left the table he would sit half
the night over the old Brympton port and madeira, and once, as I was
leaving my mistress's room rather later than usual, I met him coming
up the stairs in such a state that I turned sick to think of what
some ladies have to endure and hold their tongues about.
The servants said very little about their master; but from what they
let drop I could see it had been an unhappy match from the
beginning. Mr. Brympton was coarse, loud and pleasure-loving; my
mistress quiet, retiring, and perhaps a trifle cold. Not that she
was not always pleasant-spoken to him: I thought her wonderfully
forbearing; but to a gentleman as free as Mr. Brympton I daresay she
seemed a little offish.
Well, things went on quietly for several weeks. My mistress was
kind, my duties were light, and I got on well with the other
servants. In short, I had nothing to complain of; yet there was
always a weight on me. I can't say why it was so, but I know it was
not the loneliness that I felt. I soon got used to that; and being
still languid from the fever, I was thankful for the quiet and the
good country air. Nevertheless, I was never quite easy in my mind.
My mistress, knowing I had been ill, insisted that I should take my
walk regular, and often invented errands for me:--a yard of ribbon
to be fetched from the village, a letter posted, or a book returned
to Mr. Ranford. As soon as I was out of doors my spirits rose, and I
looked forward to my walks through the bare moist-smelling woods;
but the moment I caught sight of the house again my heart dropped
down like a stone in a well. It was not a gloomy house exactly, yet
I never entered it but a feeling of gloom came over me.
Mrs. Brympton seldom went out in winter; only on the finest days did
she walk an hour at noon on the south terrace. Excepting Mr.
Ranford, we had no visitors but the doctor, who drove over from
D-----about once a week. He sent for me once or twice to give me
some trifling direction about my mistress, and though he never told
me what her illness was, I thought, from a waxy look she had now and
then of a morning, that it might be the heart that ailed her. The
season was soft and unwholesome, and in January we had a long spell
of rain. That was a sore trial to me, I own, for I couldn't go out,
and sitting over my sewing all day, listening to the drip, drip of
the eaves, I grew so nervous that the least sound made me jump.
Somehow, the thought of that locked room across the passage began to
weigh on me. Once or twice, in the long rainy nights, I fancied I
heard noises there; but that was nonsense, of course, and the
daylight drove such notions out of my head. Well, one morning Mrs.
Brympton gave me quite a start of pleasure by telling me she wished
me to go to town for some shopping. I hadn't known till then how low
my spirits had fallen. I set off in high glee, and my first sight of
the crowded streets and the cheerful-looking shops quite took me out
of myself. Toward afternoon, however, the noise and confusion began
to tire me, and I was actually looking forward to the quiet of
Brympton, and thinking how I should enjoy the drive home through the
dark woods, when I ran across an old acquaintance, a maid I had once
been in service with. We had lost sight of each other for a number
of years, and I had to stop and tell her what had happened to me in
the interval. When I mentioned where I was living she rolled up her
eyes and pulled a long face.
"What! The Mrs. Brympton that lives all the year at her place on the
Hudson? My dear, you won't stay there three months."
"Oh, but I don't mind the country," says I, offended somehow at her
tone. "Since the fever I'm glad to be quiet."
She shook her head. "It's not the country I'm thinking of. All I
know is she's had four maids in the last six months, and the last
one, who was a friend of mine, told me nobody could stay in the
house."
"Did she say why?" I asked.
"No--she wouldn't give me her reason. But she says to me, _Mrs.
Ansey_, she says, _if ever a young woman as you know of thinks of
going there, you tell her it's not worth while to unpack her
boxes_."
"Is she young and handsome?" said I, thinking of Mr. Brympton.
"Not her! She's the kind that mothers engage when they've gay young
gentlemen at college."
Well, though I knew the woman was an idle gossip, the words stuck in
my head, and my heart sank lower than ever as I drove up to Brympton
in the dusk. There _was_ something about the house--I was sure of it
now...
When I went in to tea I heard that Mr. Brympton had arrived, and I
saw at a glance that there had been a disturbance of some kind. Mrs.
Blinder's hand shook so that she could hardly pour the tea, and Mr.
Wace quoted the most dreadful texts full of brimstone. Nobody said a
word to me then, but when I went up to my room Mrs. Blinder followed
me.
"Oh, my dear," says she, taking my hand, "I'm so glad and thankful
you've come back to us!"
That struck me, as you may imagine. "Why," said I, "did you think I
was leaving for good?"
"No, no, to be sure," said she, a little confused, "but I can't
a-bear to have madam left alone for a day even." She pressed my hand
hard, and, "Oh, Miss Hartley," says she, "be good to your mistress,
as you're a Christian woman." And with that she hurried away, and
left me staring.
A moment later Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. Hearing Mr.
Brympton's voice in her room, I went round by the dressing-room,
thinking I would lay out her dinner-gown before going in. The
dressing-room is a large room with a window over the portico that
looks toward the gardens. Mr. Brympton's apartments are beyond. When
I went in, the door into the bedroom was ajar, and I heard Mr.
Brympton saying angrily:--"One would suppose he was the only person
fit for you to talk to."
"I don't have many visitors in winter," Mrs. Brympton answered
quietly.
"You have _me!_" he flung at her, sneering.
"You are here so seldom," said she.
"Well--whose fault is that? You make the place about as lively as a
family vault--"
With that I rattled the toilet-things, to give my mistress warning
and she rose and called me in.
The two dined alone, as usual, and I knew by Mr. Wace's manner at
supper that things must be going badly. He quoted the prophets
something terrible, and worked on the kitchen-maid so that she
declared she wouldn't go down alone to put the cold meat in the
ice-box. I felt nervous myself, and after I had put my mistress to
bed I was half-tempted to go down again and persuade Mrs. Blinder to
sit up awhile over a game of cards. But I heard her door closing for
the night, and so I went on to my own room. The rain had begun
again, and the drip, drip, drip seemed to be dropping into my brain.
I lay awake listening to it, and turning over what my friend in town
had said. What puzzled me was that it was always the maids who left...
After a while I slept; but suddenly a loud noise wakened me. My bell
had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to
go on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I
couldn't find the matches. At length I struck a light and jumped out
of bed. I began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at
the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still
quivering.
I was just beginning to huddle on my clothes when I heard another
sound. This time it was the door of the locked room opposite mine
softly opening and closing. I heard the sound distinctly, and it
frightened me so that I stood stock still. Then I heard a footstep
hurrying down the passage toward the main house. The floor being
carpeted, the sound was very faint, but I was quite sure it was a
woman's step. I turned cold with the thought of it, and for a minute
or two I dursn't breathe or move. Then I came to my senses.
"Alice Hartley," says I to myself, "someone left that room just now
and ran down the passage ahead of you. The idea isn't pleasant, but
you may as well face it. Your mistress has rung for you, and to
answer her bell you've got to go the way that other woman has gone."
Well--I did it. I never walked faster in my life, yet I thought I
should never get to the end of the passage or reach Mrs. Brympton's
room. On the way I heard nothing and saw nothing: all was dark and
quiet as the grave. When I reached my mistress's door the silence
was so deep that I began to think I must be dreaming, and was
half-minded to turn back. Then a panic seized me, and I knocked.
There was no answer, and I knocked again, loudly. To my astonishment
the door was opened by Mr. Brympton. He started back when he saw me,
and in the light of my candle his face looked red and savage.
_ "You!"_ he said, in a queer voice. _"How many of you are there, in
God's name?"_
At that I felt the ground give under me; but I said to myself that
he had been drinking, and answered as steadily as I could: "May I go
in, sir? Mrs. Brympton has rung for me."
"You may all go in, for what I care," says he, and, pushing by me,
walked down the hall to his own bedroom. I looked after him as he
went, and to my surprise I saw that he walked as straight as a sober
man.
I found my mistress lying very weak and still, but she forced a
smile when she saw me, and signed to me to pour out some drops for
her. After that she lay without speaking, her breath coming quick,
and her eyes closed. Suddenly she groped out with her hand, and "_
Emma_," says she, faintly.
"It's Hartley, madam," I said. "Do you want anything?"
She opened her eyes wide and gave me a startled look.
"I was dreaming," she said. "You may go, now, Hartley, and thank you
kindly. I'm quite well again, you see." And she turned her face away
from me.
III
THERE was no more sleep for me that night, and I was thankful when
daylight came.
Soon afterward, Agnes called me to Mrs. Brympton. I was afraid she
was ill again, for she seldom sent for me before nine, but I found
her sitting up in bed, pale and drawn-looking, but quite herself.
"Hartley," says she quickly, "will you put on your things at once
and go down to the village for me? I want this prescription made
up--" here she hesitated a minute and blushed--"and I should like
you to be back again before Mr. Brympton is up."
"Certainly, madam," I said.
"And--stay a moment--" she called me back as if an idea had just
struck her--"while you're waiting for the mixture, you'll have time
to go on to Mr. Ranford's with this note."
It was a two-mile walk to the village, and on my way I had time to
turn things over in my mind. It struck me as peculiar that my
mistress should wish the prescription made up without Mr. Brympton's
knowledge; and, putting this together with the scene of the night
before, and with much else that I had noticed and suspected, I began
to wonder if the poor lady was weary of her life, and had come to
the mad resolve of ending it. The idea took such hold on me that I
reached the village on a run, and dropped breathless into a chair
before the chemist's counter. The good man, who was just taking down
his shutters, stared at me so hard that it brought me to myself.
"Mr. Limmel," I says, trying to speak indifferent, "will you run
your eye over this, and tell me if it's quite right?"
He put on his spectacles and studied the prescription.
"Why, it's one of Dr. Walton's," says he. "What should be wrong with
it?"
"Well--is it dangerous to take?"
"Dangerous--how do you mean?"
I could have shaken the man for his stupidity.
"I mean--if a person was to take too much of it--by mistake of
course--" says I, my heart in my throat.
"Lord bless you, no. It's only lime-water. You might feed it to a
baby by the bottleful."
I gave a great sigh of relief, and hurried on to Mr. Ranford's. But
on the way another thought struck me. If there was nothing to
conceal about my visit to the chemist's, was it my other errand that
Mrs. Brympton wished me to keep private? Somehow, that thought
frightened me worse than the other. Yet the two gentlemen seemed
fast friends, and I would have staked my head on my mistress's
goodness. I felt ashamed of my suspicions, and concluded that I was
still disturbed by the strange events of the night. I left the note
at Mr. Ranford's--and, hurrying back to Brympton, slipped in by a
side door without being seen, as I thought.
An hour later, however, as I was carrying in my mistress's
breakfast, I was stopped in the hall by Mr. Brympton.
"What were you doing out so early?" he says, looking hard at me.
"Early--me, sir?" I said, in a tremble.
"Come, come," he says, an angry red spot coming out on his forehead,
"didn't I see you scuttling home through the shrubbery an hour or
more ago?"
I'm a truthful woman by nature, but at that a lie popped out
ready-made. "No, sir, you didn't," said I, and looked straight back
at him.
He shrugged his shoulders and gave a sullen laugh. "I suppose you
think I was drunk last night?" he asked suddenly.
"No, sir, I don't," I answered, this time truthfully enough.
He turned away with another shrug. "A pretty notion my servants have
of me!" I heard him mutter as he walked off.
Not till I had settled down to my afternoon's sewing did I realize
how the events of the night had shaken me. I couldn't pass that
locked door without a shiver. I knew I had heard someone come out of
it, and walk down the passage ahead of me. I thought of speaking to
Mrs. Blinder or to Mr. Wace, the only two in the house who appeared
to have an inkling of what was going on, but I had a feeling that if
I questioned them they would deny everything, and that I might learn
more by holding my tongue and keeping my eyes open. The idea of
spending another night opposite the locked room sickened me, and
once I was seized with the notion of packing my trunk and taking the
first train to town; but it wasn't in me to throw over a kind
mistress in that manner, and I tried to go on with my sewing as if
nothing had happened.
I hadn't worked ten minutes before the sewing-machine broke down. It
was one I had found in the house, a good machine, but a trifle out
of order: Mrs. Blinder said it had never been used since Emma
Saxon's death. I stopped to see what was wrong, and as I was working
at the machine a drawer which I had never been able to open slid
forward and a photograph fell out. I picked it up and sat looking at
it in a maze. It was a woman's likeness, and I knew I had seen the
face somewhere--the eyes had an asking look that I had felt on me
before. And suddenly I remembered the pale woman in the passage.
I stood up, cold all over, and ran out of the room. My heart seemed
to be thumping in the top of my head, and I felt as if I should
never get away from the look in those eyes. I went straight to Mrs.
Blinder. She was taking her afternoon nap, and sat up with a jump
when I came in.
"Mrs. Blinder," said I, "who is that?" And I held out the
photograph.
She rubbed her eyes and stared.
"Why, Emma Saxon," says she. "Where did you find it?"
I looked hard at her for a minute. "Mrs. Blinder," I said, "I've
seen that face before."
Mrs. Blinder got up and walked over to the looking-glass. "Dear me!
I must have been asleep," she says. "My front is all over one ear.
And now do run along, Miss Hartley, dear, for I hear the clock
striking four, and I must go down this very minute and put on the
Virginia ham for Mr. Brympton's dinner."
IV
TO all appearances, things went on as usual for a week or two. The
only difference was that Mr. Brympton stayed on, instead of going
off as he usually did, and that Mr. Ranford never showed himself. I
heard Mr. Brympton remark on this one afternoon when he was sitting
in my mistress's room before dinner.
"Where's Ranford?" says he. "He hasn't been near the house for a
week. Does he keep away because I'm here?"
Mrs. Brympton spoke so low that I couldn't catch her answer.
"Well," he went on, "two's company and three's trumpery; I'm sorry
to be in Ranford's way, and I suppose I shall have to take myself
off again in a day or two and give him a show." And he laughed at
his own joke.
The very next day, as it happened, Mr. Ranford called. The footman
said the three were very merry over their tea in the library, and
Mr. Brympton strolled down to the gate with Mr. Ranford when he
left.
I have said that things went on as usual; and so they did with the
rest of the household; but as for myself, I had never been the same
since the night my bell had rung. Night after night I used to lie
awake, listening for it to ring again, and for the door of the
locked room to open stealthily. But the bell never rang, and I heard
no sound across the passage. At last the silence began to be more
dreadful to me than the most mysterious sounds. I felt that
_someone_ were cowering there, behind the locked door, watching and
listening as I watched and listened, and I could almost have cried
out, "Whoever you are, come out and let me see you face to face, but
don't lurk there and spy on me in the darkness!"
Feeling as I did, you may wonder I didn't give warning. Once I very
nearly did so; but at the last moment something held me back.
Whether it was compassion for my mistress, who had grown more and
more dependent on me, or unwillingness to try a new place, or some
other feeling that I couldn't put a name to, I lingered on as if
spell-bound, though every night was dreadful to me, and the days but
little better.
For one thing, I didn't like Mrs. Brympton's looks. She had never
been the same since that night, no more than I had. I thought she
would brighten up after Mr. Brympton left, but though she seemed
easier in her mind, her spirits didn't revive, nor her strength
either. She had grown attached to me, and seemed to like to have me
about; and Agnes told me one day that, since Emma Saxon's death, I
was the only maid her mistress had taken to. This gave me a warm
feeling for the poor lady, though after all there was little I could
do to help her.
After Mr. Brympton's departure, Mr. Ranford took to coming again,
though less often than formerly. I met him once or twice in the
grounds, or in the village, and I couldn't but think there was a
change in him too; but I set it down to my disordered fancy.
The weeks passed, and Mr. Brympton had now been a month absent. We
heard he was cruising with a friend in the West Indies, and Mr. Wace
said that was a long way off, but though you had the wings of a dove
and went to the uttermost parts of the earth, you couldn't get away
from the Almighty. Agnes said that as long as he stayed away from
Brympton, the Almighty might have him and welcome; and this raised a
laugh, though Mrs. Blinder tried to look shocked, and Mr. Wace said
the bears would eat us.
We were all glad to hear that the West Indies were a long way off,
and I remember that, in spite of Mr. Wace's solemn looks, we had a
very merry dinner that day in the hall. I don't know if it was
because of my being in better spirits, but I fancied Mrs. Brympton
looked better too, and seemed more cheerful in her manner. She had
been for a walk in the morning, and after luncheon she lay down in
her room, and I read aloud to her. When she dismissed me I went to
my own room feeling quite bright and happy, and for the first time
in weeks walked past the locked door without thinking of it. As I
sat down to my work I looked out and saw a few snow-flakes falling.
The sight was pleasanter than the eternal rain, and I pictured to
myself how pretty the bare gardens would look in their white mantle.
It seemed to me as if the snow would cover up all the dreariness,
indoors as well as out.
The fancy had hardly crossed my mind when I heard a step at my side.
I looked up, thinking it was Agnes.
"Well, Agnes--" said I, and the words froze on my tongue; for there,
in the door, stood Emma Saxon.
I don't know how long she stood there. I only know I couldn't stir
or take my eyes from her. Afterward I was terribly frightened, but
at the time it wasn't fear I felt, but something deeper and quieter.
She looked at me long and long, and her face was just one dumb
prayer to me--but how in the world was I to help her? Suddenly she
turned, and I heard her walk down the passage. This time I wasn't
afraid to follow--I felt that I must know what she wanted. I sprang
up and ran out. She was at the other end of the passage, and I
expected her to take the turn toward my mistress's room; but instead
of that she pushed open the door that led to the backstairs. I
followed her down the stairs, and across the passageway to the back
door. The kitchen and hall were empty at that hour, the servants
being off duty, except for the footman, who was in the pantry. At
the door she stood still a moment, with another look at me; then she
turned the handle, and stepped out. For a minute I hesitated. Where
was she leading me to? The door had closed softly after her, and I
opened it and looked out, half-expecting to find that she had
disappeared. But I saw her a few yards off, hurrying across the
court-yard to the path through the woods. Her figure looked black
and lonely in the snow, and for a second my heart failed me and I
thought of turning back. But all the while she was drawing me after
her; and catching up an old shawl of Mrs. Blinder's I ran out into
the open.
Emma Saxon was in the wood-path now. She walked on steadily, and I
followed at the same pace, till we passed out of the gates and
reached the high-road. Then she struck across the open fields to the
village. By this time the ground was white, and as she climbed the
slope of a bare hill ahead of me I noticed that she left no
foot-prints behind her. At sight of that, my heart shrivelled up
within me, and my knees were water. Somehow, it was worse here than
indoors. She made the whole countryside seem lonely as the grave,
with none but us two in it, and no help in the wide world.
Once I tried to go back; but she turned and looked at me, and it was
as if she had dragged me with ropes. After that I followed her like
a dog. We came to the village, and she led me through it, past the
church and the blacksmith's shop, and down the lane to Mr.
Ranford's. Mr. Ranford's house stands close to the road: a plain
old-fashioned building, with a flagged path leading to the door
between box-borders. The lane was deserted, and as I turned into it,
I saw Emma Saxon pause under the old elm by the gate. And now
another fear came over me. I saw that we had reached the end of our
journey, and that it was my turn to act. All the way from Brympton I
had been asking myself what she wanted of me, but I had followed in
a trance, as it were, and not till I saw her stop at Mr. Ranford's
gate did my brain begin to clear itself. It stood a little way off
in the snow, my heart beating fit to strangle me, and my feet frozen
to the ground; and she stood under the elm and watched me.
I knew well enough that she hadn't led me there for nothing. I felt
there was something I ought to say or do--but how was I to guess
what it was? I had never thought harm of my mistress and Mr.
Ranford, but I was sure now that, from one cause or another, some
dreadful thing hung over them. _She_ knew what it was; she would
tell me if she could; perhaps she would answer if I questioned her.
It turned me faint to think of speaking to her; but I plucked up
heart and dragged myself across the few yards between us. As I did
so, I heard the house-door open, and saw Mr. Ranford approaching. He
looked handsome and cheerful, as my mistress had looked that
morning, and at sight of him the blood began to flow again in my
veins.
"Why, Hartley," said he, "what's the matter? I saw you coming down
the lane just now, and came out to see if you had taken root in the
snow." He stopped and stared at me. "What are you looking at?" he
says.
I turned toward the elm as he spoke, and his eyes followed me; but
there was no one there. The lane was empty as far as the eye could
reach.
A sense of helplessness came over me. She was gone, and I had not
been able to guess what she wanted. Her last look had pierced me to
the marrow; and yet it had not told me! All at once, I felt more
desolate than when she had stood there watching me. It seemed as if
she had left me all alone to carry the weight of the secret I
couldn't guess. The snow went round me in great circles, and the
ground fell away from me....
A drop of brandy and the warmth of Mr. Ranford's fire soon brought
me to, and I insisted on being driven back at once to Brympton. It
was nearly dark, and I was afraid my mistress might be wanting me. I
explained to Mr. Ranford that I had been out for a walk and had been
taken with a fit of giddiness as I passed his gate. This was true
enough; yet I never felt more like a liar than when I said it.
When I dressed Mrs. Brympton for dinner she remarked on my pale
looks and asked what ailed me. I told her I had a headache, and she
said she would not require me again that evening, and advised me to
go to bed.
It was a fact that I could scarcely keep on my feet; yet I had no
fancy to spend a solitary evening in my room. I sat downstairs in
the hall as long as I could hold my head up; but by nine I crept
upstairs, too weary to care what happened if I could but get my head
on a pillow. The rest of the household went to bed soon afterward;
they kept early hours when the master was away, and before ten I
heard Mrs. Blinder's door close, and Mr. Wace's soon after.
It was a very still night, earth and air all muffled in snow. Once
in bed I felt easier, and lay quiet, listening to the strange noises
that come out in a house after dark. Once I thought I heard a door
open and close again below: it might have been the glass door that
led to the gardens. I got up and peered out of the window; but it
was in the dark of the moon, and nothing visible outside but the
streaking of snow against the panes.
I went back to bed and must have dozed, for I jumped awake to the
furious ringing of my bell. Before my head was clear I had sprung
out of bed, and was dragging on my clothes. _It is going to happen
now_, I heard myself saying; but what I meant I had no notion. My
hands seemed to be covered with glue--I thought I should never get
into my clothes. At last I opened my door and peered down the
passage. As far as my candle-flame carried, I could see nothing
unusual ahead of me. I hurried on, breathless; but as I pushed open
the baize door leading to the main hall my heart stood still, for
there at the head of the stairs was Emma Saxon, peering dreadfully
down into the darkness.
For a second I couldn't stir; but my hand slipped from the door, and
as it swung shut the figure vanished. At the same instant there came
another sound from below stairs--a stealthy mysterious sound, as of
a latch-key turning in the house-door. I ran to Mrs. Brympton's room
and knocked.
There was no answer, and I knocked again. This time I heard some one
moving in the room; the bolt slipped back and my mistress stood
before me. To my surprise I saw that she had not undressed for the
night. She gave me a startled look.
"What is this, Hartley?" she says in a whisper. "Are you ill? What
are you doing here at this hour?"
"I am not ill, madam; but my bell rang."
At that she turned pale, and seemed about to fall.
"You are mistaken," she said harshly; "I didn't ring. You must have
been dreaming." I had never heard her speak in such a tone. "Go back
to bed," she said, closing the door on me.
But as she spoke I heard sounds again in the hall below: a man's
step this time; and the truth leaped out on me.
"Madam," I said, pushing past her, "there is someone in the house--"
"Someone--?"
"Mr. Brympton, I think--I hear his step below--"
A dreadful look came over her, and without a word, she dropped flat
at my feet. I fell on my knees and tried to lift her: by the way she
breathed I saw it was no common faint. But as I raised her head
there came quick steps on the stairs and across the hall: the door
was flung open, and there stood Mr. Brympton, in his
travelling-clothes, the snow dripping from him. He drew back with a
start as he saw me kneeling by my mistress.
"What the devil is this?" he shouted. He was less high-colored than
usual, and the red spot came out on his forehead.
"Mrs. Brympton has fainted, sir," said I.
He laughed unsteadily and pushed by me. "It's a pity she didn't
choose a more convenient moment. I'm sorry to disturb her, but--"
I raised myself up, aghast at the man's action.
"Sir," said I, "are you mad? What are you doing?"
"Going to meet a friend," said he, and seemed to make for the
dressing-room.
At that my heart turned over. I don't know what I thought or feared;
but I sprang up and caught him by the sleeve.
"Sir, sir," said I, "for pity's sake look at your wife!"
He shook me off furiously.
"It seems that's done for me," says he, and caught hold of the
dressing-room door.
At that moment I heard a slight noise inside. Slight as it was, he
heard it too, and tore the door open; but as he did so he dropped
back. On the threshold stood Emma Saxon. All was dark behind her,
but I saw her plainly, and so did he. He threw up his hands as if to
hide his face from her; and when I looked again she was gone.
He stood motionless, as if the strength had run out of him; and in
the stillness my mistress suddenly raised herself, and opening her
eyes fixed a look on him. Then she fell back, and I saw the
death-flutter pass over her....
We buried her on the third day, in a driving snow-storm. There were
few people in the church, for it was bad weather to come from town,
and I've a notion my mistress was one that hadn't many near friends.
Mr. Ranford was among the last to come, just before they carried her
up the aisle. He was in black, of course, being such a friend of the
family, and I never saw a gentleman so pale. As he passed me, I
noticed that he leaned a trifle on a stick he carried; and I fancy
Mr. Brympton noticed it too, for the red spot came out sharp on his
forehead, and all through the service he kept staring across the
church at Mr. Ranford, instead of following the prayers as a mourner
should.
When it was over and we went out to the graveyard, Mr. Ranford had
disappeared, and as soon as my poor mistress's body was underground,
Mr. Brympton jumped into the carriage nearest the gate and drove off
without a word to any of us. I heard him call out, "To the station,"
and we servants went back alone to the house.
THE MISSION OF JANE
I
LETHBURY, surveying his wife across the dinner table, found his
transient conjugal glance arrested by an indefinable change in her
appearance.
"How smart you look! Is that a new gown?" he asked.
Her answering look seemed to deprecate his charging her with the
extravagance of wasting a new gown on him, and he now perceived that
the change lay deeper than any accident of dress. At the same time,
he noticed that she betrayed her consciousness of it by a delicate,
almost frightened blush. It was one of the compensations of Mrs.
Lethbury's protracted childishness that she still blushed as
prettily as at eighteen. Her body had been privileged not to
outstrip her mind, and the two, as it seemed to Lethbury, were
destined to travel together through an eternity of girlishness.
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
Since she never did, he always wondered at her bringing this out as
a fresh grievance against him; but his wonder was unresentful, and
he said good-humoredly: "You sparkle so that I thought you had on
your diamonds."
She sighed and blushed again.
"It must be," he continued, "that you've been to a dressmaker's
opening. You're absolutely brimming with illicit enjoyment."
She stared again, this time at the adjective. His adjectives always
embarrassed her: their unintelligibleness savored of impropriety.
"In short," he summed up, "you've been doing something that you're
thoroughly ashamed of."
To his surprise she retorted: "I don't see why I should be ashamed
of it!"
Lethbury leaned back with a smile of enjoyment. When there was
nothing better going he always liked to listen to her explanations.
"Well--?" he said.
She was becoming breathless and ejaculatory. "Of course you'll
laugh--you laugh at everything!"
"That rather blunts the point of my derision, doesn't it?" he
interjected; but she rushed on without noticing:
"It's so easy to laugh at things."
"Ah," murmured Lethbury with relish, "that's Aunt Sophronia's, isn't
it?"
Most of his wife's opinions were heirlooms, and he took a quaint
pleasure in tracing their descent. She was proud of their age, and
saw no reason for discarding them while they were still serviceable.
Some, of course, were so fine that she kept them for state
occasions, like her great-grandmother's Crown Derby; but from the
lady known as Aunt Sophronia she had inherited a stout set of
every-day prejudices that were practically as good as new; whereas
her husband's, as she noticed, were always having to be replaced. In
the early days she had fancied there might be a certain satisfaction
in taxing him with the fact; but she had long since been silenced by
the reply: "My dear, I'm not a rich man, but I never use an opinion
twice if I can help it."
She was reduced, therefore, to dwelling on his moral deficiencies;
and one of the most obvious of these was his refusal to take things
seriously. On this occasion, however, some ulterior purpose kept her
from taking up his taunt.
"I'm not in the least ashamed!" she repeated, with the air of
shaking a banner to the wind; but the domestic atmosphere being
calm, the banner drooped unheroically.
"That," said Lethbury judicially, "encourages me to infer that you
ought to be, and that, consequently, you've been giving yourself the
unusual pleasure of doing something I shouldn't approve of."
She met this with an almost solemn directness. "No," she said. "You
won't approve of it. I've allowed for that."
"Ah," he exclaimed, setting down his liqueur-glass. "You've worked
out the whole problem, eh?"
"I believe so."
"That's uncommonly interesting. And what is it?"
She looked at him quietly. "A baby."
If it was seldom given her to surprise him, she had attained the
distinction for once.
"A baby?"
"Yes."
"A--human baby?"
"Of course!" she cried, with the virtuous resentment of the woman
who has never allowed dogs in the house.
Lethbury's puzzled stare broke into a fresh smile. "A baby I sha'n't
approve of? Well, in the abstract I don't think much of them, I
admit. Is this an abstract baby?"
Again she frowned at the adjective; but she had reached a pitch of
exaltation at which such obstacles could not deter her.
"It's the loveliest baby--" she murmured.
"Ah, then it's concrete. It exists. In this harsh world it draws its
breath in pain--"
"It's the healthiest child I ever saw!" she indignantly corrected.
"You've seen it, then?"
Again the accusing blush suffused her. "Yes--I've seen it."
"And to whom does the paragon belong?"
And here indeed she confounded him. "To me--I hope," she declared.
He pushed his chair back with an inarticulate murmur. "To _you_--?"
"To _us_," she corrected.
"Good Lord!" he said. If there had been the least hint of
hallucination in her transparent gaze--but no: it was as clear, as
shallow, as easily fathomable as when he had first suffered the
sharp surprise of striking bottom in it.
It occurred to him that perhaps she was trying to be funny: he knew
that there is nothing more cryptic than the humor of the unhumorous.
"Is it a joke?" he faltered.
"Oh, I hope not. I want it so much to be a reality--"
He paused to smile at the limitations of a world in which jokes were
not realities, and continued gently: "But since it is one already--"
"To us, I mean: to you and me. I want--" her voice wavered, and her
eyes with it. "I have always wanted so dreadfully...it has been
such a disappointment...not to..."
"I see," said Lethbury slowly.
But he had not seen before. It seemed curious, now, that he had
never thought of her taking it in that way, had never surmised any
hidden depths beneath her outspread obviousness. He felt as though
he had touched a secret spring in her mind.
There was a moment's silence, moist and tremulous on her part,
awkward and slightly irritated on his.
"You've been lonely, I suppose?" he began. It was odd, having
suddenly to reckon with the stranger who gazed at him out of her
trivial eyes.
"At times," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"It was not your fault. A man has so many occupations; and women who
are clever--or very handsome--I suppose that's an occupation too.
Sometimes I've felt that when dinner was ordered I had nothing to do
till the next day."
"Oh," he groaned.
"It wasn't your fault," she insisted. "I never told you--but when I
chose that rose-bud paper for the front room upstairs, I always
thought--"
"Well--?"
"It would be such a pretty paper--for a baby--to wake up in. That
was years ago, of course; but it was rather an expensive paper...
and it hasn't faded in the least..." she broke off incoherently.
"It hasn't faded?"
"No--and so I thought...as we don't use the room for anything ...
now that Aunt Sophronia is dead...I thought I might...
you might...oh, Julian, if you could only have seen it just
waking up in its crib!"
"Seen what--where? You haven't got a baby upstairs?"
"Oh, no--not _yet_," she said, with her rare laugh--the girlish
bubbling of merriment that had seemed one of her chief graces in the
early days. It occurred to him that he had not given her enough
things to laugh about lately. But then she needed such very
elementary things: it was as difficult to amuse her as a savage. He
concluded that he was not sufficiently simple.
"Alice," he said, almost solemnly, "what _do_ you mean?"
She hesitated a moment: he saw her gather her courage for a supreme
effort. Then she said slowly, gravely, as though she were
pronouncing a sacramental phrase:
"I'm so lonely without a little child--and I thought perhaps you'd
let me adopt one....It's at the hospital...its mother is
dead...and I could...pet it, and dress it, and do things for
it...and it's such a good baby...you can ask any of the
nurses...it would never, _never_ bother you by crying..."
II
Lethbury accompanied his wife to the hospital in a mood of chastened
wonder. It did not occur to him to oppose her wish. He knew, of
course, that he would have to bear the brunt of the situation: the
jokes at the club, the inquiries, the explanations. He saw himself
in the comic role of the adopted father, and welcomed it as an
expiation. For in his rapid reconstruction of the past he found
himself cutting a shabbier figure than he cared to admit. He had
always been intolerant of stupid people, and it was his punishment
to be convicted of stupidity. As his mind traversed the years
between his marriage and this unexpected assumption of paternity, he
saw, in the light of an overheated imagination, many signs of
unwonted crassness. It was not that he had ceased to think his wife
stupid: she _was_ stupid, limited, inflexible; but there was a
pathos in the struggles of her swaddled mind, in its blind reachings
toward the primal emotions. He had always thought she would have
been happier with a child; but he had thought it mechanically,
because it had so often been thought before, because it was in the
nature of things to think it of every woman, because his wife was so
eminently one of a species that she fitted into all the
generalizations on the sex. But he had regarded this generalization
as merely typical of the triumph of tradition over experience.
Maternity was no doubt the supreme function of primitive woman, the
one end to which her whole organism tended; but the law of
increasing complexity had operated in both sexes, and he had not
seriously supposed that, outside the world of Christmas fiction and
anecdotic art, such truisms had any special hold on the feminine
imagination. Now he saw that the arts in question were kept alive by
the vitality of the sentiments they appealed to.
Lethbury was in fact going through a rapid process of readjustment.
His marriage had been a failure, but he had preserved toward his
wife the exact fidelity of act that is sometimes supposed to excuse
any divagation of feeling; so that, for years, the tie between them
had consisted mainly in his abstaining from making love to other
women. The abstention had not always been easy, for the world is
surprisingly well-stocked with the kind of woman one ought to have
married but did not; and Lethbury had not escaped the solicitation
of such alternatives. His immunity had been purchased at the cost of
taking refuge in the somewhat rarified atmosphere of his
perceptions; and his world being thus limited, he had given unusual
care to its details, compensating himself for the narrowness of his
horizon by the minute finish of his foreground. It was a world of
fine shadings and the nicest proportions, where impulse seldom set a
blundering foot, and the feast of reason was undisturbed by an
intemperate flow of soul. To such a banquet his wife naturally
remained uninvited. The diet would have disagreed with her, and she
would probably have objected to the other guests. But Lethbury,
miscalculating her needs, had hitherto supposed that he had made
ample provision for them, and was consequently at liberty to enjoy
his own fare without any reproach of mendicancy at his gates. Now he
beheld her pressing a starved face against the windows of his life,
and in his imaginative reaction he invested her with a pathos
borrowed from the sense of his own shortcomings.
In the hospital, the imaginative process continued with increasing
force. He looked at his wife with new eyes. Formerly she had been to
him a mere bundle of negations, a labyrinth of dead walls and bolted
doors. There was nothing behind the walls, and the doors led
no-whither: he had sounded and listened often enough to be sure of
that. Now he felt like a traveller who, exploring some ancient ruin,
comes on an inner cell, intact amid the general dilapidation, and
painted with images which reveal the forgotten uses of the building.
His wife stood by a white crib in one of the wards. In the crib lay
a child, a year old, the nurse affirmed, but to Lethbury's eye a
mere dateless fragment of humanity projected against a background of
conjecture. Over this anonymous particle of life Mrs. Lethbury
leaned, such ecstasy reflected in her face as strikes up, in
Correggio's Night-piece, from the child's body to the mother's
countenance. it was a light that irradiated and dazzled her. She
looked up at an inquiry of Lethbury's, but as their glances met he
perceived that she no longer saw him, that he had become as
invisible to her as she had long been to him. He had to transfer his
question to the nurse.
"What is the child's name?" he asked.
"We call her Jane," said the nurse.
III
Lethbury, at first, had resisted the idea of a legal adoption; but
when he found that his wife's curiously limited imagination
prevented her regarding the child as hers till it had been made so
by process of law, he promptly withdrew his objection. On one point
only he remained inflexible; and that was the changing of the waif's
name. Mrs. Lethbury, almost at once, had expressed a wish to
rechristen it: she fluctuated between Muriel and Gladys, deferring
the moment of decision like a lady wavering between two bonnets. But
Lethbury was unyielding. In the general surrender of his prejudices
this one alone held out.
"But Jane is so dreadful," Mrs. Lethbury protested.
"Well, we don't know that _she_ won't be dreadful. She may grow up a
Jane."
His wife exclaimed reproachfully. "The nurse says she's the
loveliest--"
"Don't they always say that?" asked Lethbury patiently. He was
prepared to be inexhaustibly patient now that he had reached a firm
foothold of opposition.
"It's cruel to call her Jane," Mrs. Lethbury pleaded.
"It's ridiculous to call her Muriel."
"The nurse is _sure_ she must be a lady's child."
Lethbury winced: he had tried, all along, to keep his mind off the
question of antecedents.
"Well, let her prove it," he said, with a rising sense of
exasperation. He wondered how he could ever have allowed himself to
be drawn into such a ridiculous business; for the first time he felt
the full irony of it. He had visions of coming home in the afternoon
to a house smelling of linseed and paregoric, and of being greeted
by a chronic howl as he went up stairs to dress for dinner. He had
never been a club-man, but he saw himself becoming one now.
The worst of his anticipations were unfulfilled. The baby was
surprisingly well and surprisingly quiet. Such infantile remedies as
she absorbed were not potent enough to be perceived beyond the
nursery; and when Lethbury could be induced to enter that sanctuary,
there was nothing to jar his nerves in the mild pink presence of his
adopted daughter. Jars there were, indeed: they were probably
inevitable in the disturbed routine of the household; but they
occurred between Mrs. Lethbury and the nurses, and Jane contributed
to them only a placid stare which might have served as a rebuke to
the combatants.
In the reaction from his first impulse of atonement, Lethbury noted
with sharpened perceptions the effect of the change on his wife's
character. He saw already the error of supposing that it could work
any transformation in her. It simply magnified her existing
qualities. She was like a dried sponge put in water: she expanded,
but she did not change her shape. From the stand-point of scientific
observation it was curious to see how her stored instincts responded
to the pseudo-maternal call. She overflowed with the petty maxims of
the occasion. One felt in her the epitome, the consummation, of
centuries of animal maternity, so that this little woman, who
screamed at a mouse and was nervous about burglars, came to typify
the cave-mother rending her prey for her young.
It was less easy to regard philosophically the practical effects of
her borrowed motherhood. Lethbury found with surprise that she was
becoming assertive and definite. She no longer represented the
negative side of his life; she showed, indeed, a tendency to
inconvenient affirmations. She had gradually expanded her assumption
of motherhood till it included his own share in the relation, and he
suddenly found himself regarded as the father of Jane. This was a
contingency he had not foreseen, and it took all his philosophy to
accept it; but there were moments of compensation. For Mrs. Lethbury
was undoubtedly happy for the first time in years; and the thought
that he had tardily contributed to this end reconciled him to the
irony of the means.
At first he was inclined to reproach himself for still viewing the
situation from the outside, for remaining a spectator instead of a
participant. He had been allured, for a moment, by the vision of
severed hands meeting over a cradle, as the whole body of domestic
fiction bears witness to their doing; and the fact that no such
conjunction took place he could explain only on the ground that it
was a borrowed cradle. He did not dislike the little girl. She still
remained to him a hypothetical presence, a query rather than a fact;
but her nearness was not unpleasant, and there were moments when her
tentative utterances, her groping steps, seemed to loosen the dry
accretions enveloping his inner self. But even at such
moments--moments which he invited and caressed--she did not bring
him nearer to his wife. He now perceived that he had made a certain
place in his life for Mrs. Lethbury, and that she no longer fitted
into it. It was too late to enlarge the space, and so she overflowed
and encroached. Lethbury struggled against the sense of submergence.
He let down barrier after barrier, yielded privacy after privacy;
but his wife's personality continued to dilate. She was no longer
herself alone: she was herself and Jane. Gradually, in a monstrous
fusion of identity, she became herself, himself and Jane; and
instead of trying to adapt her to a spare crevice of his character,
he found himself carelessly squeezed into the smallest compartment
of the domestic economy.
IV
He continued to tell himself that he was satisfied if his wife was
happy; and it was not till the child's tenth year that he felt a
doubt of her happiness.
Jane had been a preternaturally good child. During the eight years
of her adoption she had caused her foster-parents no anxiety beyond
those connected with the usual succession of youthful diseases. But
her unknown progenitors had given her a robust constitution, and she
passed unperturbed through measles, chicken-pox and whooping-cough.
If there was any suffering it was endured vicariously by Mrs.
Lethbury, whose temperature rose and fell with the patient's, and
who could not hear Jane sneeze without visions of a marble angel
weeping over a broken column. But though Jane's prompt recoveries
continued to belie such premonitions, though her existence continued
to move forward on an even keel of good health and good conduct,
Mrs. Lethbury's satisfaction showed no corresponding advance.
Lethbury, at first, was disposed to add her disappointment to the
long list of feminine inconsistencies with which the sententious
observer of life builds up his favorite induction; but circumstances
presently led him to take a kindlier view of the case.
Hitherto his wife had regarded him as a negligible factor in Jane's
evolution. Beyond providing for his adopted daughter, and effacing
himself before her, he was not expected to contribute to her
well-being. But as time passed he appeared to his wife in a new
light. It was he who was to educate Jane. In matters of the
intellect, Mrs. Lethbury was the first to declare her
deficiencies--to proclaim them, even, with a certain virtuous
superiority. She said she did not pretend to be clever, and there
was no denying the truth of the assertion. Now, however, she seemed
less ready, not to own her limitations, but to glory in them.
Confronted with the problem of Jane's instruction, she stood in awe
of the child.
"I have always been stupid, you know," she said to Lethbury with a
new humility, "and I'm afraid I sha'n't know what is best for Jane.
I'm sure she has a wonderfully good mind, and I should reproach
myself if I didn't give her every opportunity." She looked at him
helplessly. "You must tell me what ought to be done."
Lethbury was not unwilling to oblige her. Somewhere in his mental
lumber-room there rusted a theory of education such as usually
lingers among the impedimenta of the childless. He brought this out,
refurbished it, and applied it to Jane. At first he thought his wife
had not overrated the quality of the child's mind. Jane seemed
extraordinarily intelligent. Her precocious definiteness of mind was
encouraging to her inexperienced preceptor. She had no difficulty in
fixing her attention, and he felt that every fact he imparted was
being etched in metal. He helped his wife to engage the best
teachers, and for a while continued to take an ex-official interest
in his adopted daughter's studies. But gradually his interest waned.
Jane's ideas did not increase with her acquisitions. Her young mind
remained a mere receptacle for facts: a kind of cold-storage from
which anything that had been put there could be taken out at a
moment's notice, intact but congealed. She developed, moreover, an
inordinate pride in the capacity of her mental storehouse, and a
tendency to pelt her public with its contents. She was overheard to
jeer at her nurse for not knowing when the Saxon Heptarchy had
fallen, and she alternately dazzled and depressed Mrs. Lethbury by
the wealth of her chronological allusions. She showed no interest in
the significance of the facts she amassed: she simply collected
dates as another child might have collected stamps or marbles. To
her foster-mother she seemed a prodigy of wisdom; but Lethbury saw,
with a secret movement of sympathy, how the aptitudes in which Mrs.
Lethbury gloried were slowly estranging her from their possessor.
"She is getting too clever for me," his wife said to him, after one
of Jane's historical flights, "but I am so glad that she will be a
companion to you."
Lethbury groaned in spirit. He did not look forward to Jane's
companionship. She was still a good little girl: but there was
something automatic and formal in her goodness, as though it were a
kind of moral calisthenics that she went through for the sake of
showing her agility. An early consciousness of virtue had moreover
constituted her the natural guardian and adviser of her elders.
Before she was fifteen she had set about reforming the household.
She took Mrs. Lethbury in hand first; then she extended her efforts
to the servants, with consequences more disastrous to the domestic
harmony; and lastly she applied herself to Lethbury. She proved to
him by statistics that he smoked too much, and that it was injurious
to the optic nerve to read in bed. She took him to task for not
going to church more regularly, and pointed out to him the evils of
desultory reading. She suggested that a regular course of study
encourages mental concentration, and hinted that inconsecutiveness
of thought is a sign of approaching age.
To her adopted mother her suggestions were equally pertinent. She
instructed Mrs. Lethbury in an improved way of making beef stock,
and called her attention to the unhygienic qualities of carpets. She
poured out distracting facts about bacilli and vegetable mould, and
demonstrated that curtains and picture-frames are a hot-bed of
animal organisms. She learned by heart the nutritive ingredients of
the principal articles of diet, and revolutionized the cuisine by an
attempt to establish a scientific average between starch and
phosphates. Four cooks left during this experiment, and Lethbury
fell into the habit of dining at his club.
Once or twice, at the outset, he had tried to check Jane's ardor;
but his efforts resulted only in hurting his wife's feelings. Jane
remained impervious, and Mrs. Lethbury resented any attempt to
protect her from her daughter. Lethbury saw that she was consoled
for the sense of her own inferiority by the thought of what Jane's
intellectual companionship must be to him; and he tried to keep up
the illusion by enduring with what grace he might the blighting
edification of Jane's discourse.
V
As Jane grew up, he sometimes avenged himself by wondering if his
wife was still sorry that they had not called her Muriel. Jane was
not ugly; she developed, indeed, a kind of categorical prettiness
that might have been a projection of her mind. She had a creditable
collection of features, but one had to take an inventory of them to
find out that she was good-looking. The fusing grace had been
omitted.
Mrs. Lethbury took a touching pride in her daughter's first steps in
the world. She expected Jane to take by her complexion those whom
she did not capture by her learning. But Jane's rosy freshness did
not work any perceptible ravages. Whether the young men guessed the
axioms on her lips and detected the encyclopaedia in her eye, or
whether they simply found no intrinsic interest in these features,
certain it is, that, in spite of her mother's heroic efforts, and of
incessant calls on Lethbury's purse, Jane, at the end of her first
season, had dropped hopelessly out of the running. A few duller
girls found her interesting, and one or two young men came to the
house with the object of meeting other young women; but she was
rapidly becoming one of the social supernumeraries who are asked out
only because they are on people's lists.
The blow was bitter to Mrs. Lethbury; but she consoled herself with
the idea that Jane had failed because she was too clever. Jane
probably shared this conviction; at all events she betrayed no
consciousness of failure. She had developed a pronounced taste for
society, and went out, unweariedly and obstinately, winter after
winter, while Mrs. Lethbury toiled in her wake, showering attentions
on oblivious hostesses. To Lethbury there was something at once
tragic and exasperating in the sight of their two figures, the one
conciliatory, the other dogged, both pursuing with unabated zeal the
elusive prize of popularity. He even began to feel a personal stake
in the pursuit, not as it concerned Jane, but as it affected his
wife. He saw that the latter was the victim of Jane's
disappointment: that Jane was not above the crude satisfaction of
"taking it out" of her mother. Experience checked the impulse to
come to his wife's defence; and when his resentment was at its
height, Jane disarmed him by giving up the struggle.
Nothing was said to mark her capitulation; but Lethbury noticed that
the visiting ceased, and that the dressmaker's bills diminished. At
the same time, Mrs. Lethbury made it known that Jane had taken up
charities; and before long Jane's conversation confirmed this
announcement. At first Lethbury congratulated himself on the change;
but Jane's domesticity soon began to weigh on him. During the day
she was sometimes absent on errands of mercy; but in the evening she
was always there. At first she and Mrs. Lethbury sat in the
drawing-room together, and Lethbury smoked in the library; but
presently Jane formed the habit of joining him there, and he began
to suspect that he was included among the objects of her
philanthropy.
Mrs. Lethbury confirmed the suspicion. "Jane has grown very
serious-minded lately," she said. "She imagines that she used to
neglect you, and she is trying to make up for it. Don't discourage
her," she added innocently.
Such a plea delivered Lethbury helpless to his daughter's
ministrations: and he found himself measuring the hours he spent
with her by the amount of relief they must be affording her mother.
There were even moments when he read a furtive gratitude in Mrs.
Lethbury's eye.
But Lethbury was no hero, and he had nearly reached the limit of
vicarious endurance when something wonderful happened. They never
quite knew afterward how it had come about, or who first perceived
it; but Mrs. Lethbury one day gave tremulous voice to their
inferences.
"Of course," she said, "he comes here because of Elise." The young
lady in question, a friend of Jane's, was possessed of attractions
which had already been found to explain the presence of masculine
visitors.
Lethbury risked a denial. "I don't think he does," he declared.
"But Elise is thought very pretty," Mrs. Lethbury insisted.
"I can't help that," said Lethbury doggedly.
He saw a faint light in his wife's eyes; but she remarked
carelessly: "Mr. Budd would be a very good match for Elise."
Lethbury could hardly repress a chuckle: he was so exquisitely aware
that she was trying to propitiate the gods.
For a few weeks neither said a word; then Mrs. Lethbury once more
reverted to the subject.
"It is a month since Elise went abroad," she said.
"Is it?"
"And Mr. Budd seems to come here just as often--"
"Ah," said Lethbury with heroic indifference; and his wife hastily
changed the subject.
Mr. Winstanley Budd was a young man who suffered from an excess of
manner. Politeness gushed from him in the driest seasons. He was
always performing feats of drawing-room chivalry, and the approach
of the most unobtrusive female threw him into attitudes which
endangered the furniture. His features, being of the cherubic order,
did not lend themselves to this role; but there were moments when he
appeared to dominate them, to force them into compliance with an
aquiline ideal. The range of Mr. Budd's social benevolence made its
object hard to distinguish. He spread his cloak so indiscriminately
that one could not always interpret the gesture, and Jane's
impassive manner had the effect of increasing his demonstrations:
she threw him into paroxysms of politeness.
At first he filled the house with his amenities; but gradually it
became apparent that his most dazzling effects were directed
exclusively to Jane. Lethbury and his wife held their breath and
looked away from each other. They pretended not to notice the
frequency of Mr. Budd's visits, they struggled against an imprudent
inclination to leave the young people too much alone. Their
conclusions were the result of indirect observation, for neither of
them dared to be caught watching Mr. Budd: they behaved like
naturalists on the trail of a rare butterfly.
In his efforts not to notice Mr. Budd, Lethbury centred his
attentions on Jane; and Jane, at this crucial moment, wrung from him
a reluctant admiration. While her parents went about dissembling
their emotions, she seemed to have none to conceal. She betrayed
neither eagerness nor surprise; so complete was her unconcern that
there were moments when Lethbury feared it was obtuseness, when he
could hardly help whispering to her that now was the moment to lower
the net.
Meanwhile the velocity of Mr. Budd's gyrations increased with the
ardor of courtship: his politeness became incandescent, and Jane
found herself the centre of a pyrotechnical display culminating in
the "set piece" of an offer of marriage.
Mrs. Lethbury imparted the news to her husband one evening after
their daughter had gone to bed. The announcement was made and
received with an air of detachment, as though both feared to be
betrayed into unseemly exultation; but Lethbury, as his wife ended,
could not repress the inquiry, "Have they decided on a day?"
Mrs. Lethbury's superior command of her features enabled her to look
shocked. "What can you be thinking of? He only offered himself at
five!"
"Of course--of course--" stammered Lethbury--"but nowadays people
marry after such short engagements--"
"Engagement!" said his wife solemnly. "There is no engagement."
Lethbury dropped his cigar. "What on earth do you mean?"
"Jane is thinking it over."
_"Thinking it over?"_ "She has asked for a month before deciding."
Lethbury sank back with a gasp. Was it genius or was it madness? He
felt incompetent to decide; and Mrs. Lethbury's next words showed
that she shared his difficulty.
"Of course I don't want to hurry Jane--"
"Of course not," he acquiesced.
"But I pointed out to her that a young man of Mr. Budd's impulsive
temperament might--might be easily discouraged--"
"Yes; and what did she say?"
"She said that if she was worth winning she was worth waiting for."
VI
The period of Mr. Budd's probation could scarcely have cost him as
much mental anguish as it caused his would-be parents-in-law.
Mrs. Lethbury, by various ruses, tried to shorten the ordeal, but
Jane remained inexorable; and each morning Lethbury came down to
breakfast with the certainty of finding a letter of withdrawal from
her discouraged suitor.
When at length the decisive day came, and Mrs. Lethbury, at its
close, stole into the library with an air of chastened joy, they
stood for a moment without speaking; then Mrs. Lethbury paid a
fitting tribute to the proprieties by faltering out: "It will be
dreadful to have to give her up--"
Lethbury could not repress a warning gesture; but even as it escaped
him, he realized that his wife's grief was genuine.
"Of course, of course," he said, vainly sounding his own emotional
shallows for an answering regret. And yet it was his wife who had
suffered most from Jane!
He had fancied that these sufferings would be effaced by the milder
atmosphere of their last weeks together; but felicity did not soften
Jane. Not for a moment did she relax her dominion: she simply
widened it to include a new subject. Mr. Budd found himself under
orders with the others; and a new fear assailed Lethbury as he saw
Jane assume prenuptial control of her betrothed. Lethbury had never
felt any strong personal interest in Mr. Budd; but, as Jane's
prospective husband, the young man excited his sympathy. To his
surprise, he found that Mrs. Lethbury shared the feeling.
"I'm afraid he may find Jane a little exacting," she said, after an
evening dedicated to a stormy discussion of the wedding
arrangements. "She really ought to make some concessions. If he
_wants_ to be married in a black frock-coat instead of a dark gray
one--" She paused and looked doubtfully at Lethbury.
"What can I do about it?" he said.
"You might explain to him--tell him that Jane isn't always--"
Lethbury made an impatient gesture. "What are you afraid of? His
finding her out or his not finding her out?"
Mrs. Lethbury flushed. "You put it so dreadfully!"
Her husband mused for a moment; then he said with an air of cheerful
hypocrisy: "After all, Budd is old enough to take care of himself."
But the next day Mrs. Lethbury surprised him. Late in the afternoon
she entered the library, so breathless and inarticulate that he
scented a catastrophe.
"I've done it!" she cried.
"Done what?"
"Told him." She nodded toward the door. "He's just gone. Jane is
out, and I had a chance to talk to him alone."
Lethbury pushed a chair forward and she sank into it.
"What did you tell him? That she is _not_ always--"
Mrs. Lethbury lifted a tragic eye. "No; I told him that she always
_is_--"
"Always _is_--?"
"Yes."
There was a pause. Lethbury made a call on his hoarded philosophy.
He saw Jane suddenly reinstated in her evening seat by the library
fire; but an answering chord in him thrilled at his wife's heroism.
"Well--what did he say?"
Mrs. Lethbury's agitation deepened. It was clear that the blow had
fallen.
"He...he said...that we...had never understood Jane...
or appreciated her..." The final syllables were lost in her
handkerchief, and she left him marvelling at the mechanism of a
woman.
After that, Lethbury faced the future with an undaunted eye. They
had done their duty--at least his wife had done hers--and they were
reaping the usual harvest of ingratitude with a zest seldom accorded
to such reaping. There was a marked change in Mr. Budd's manner, and
his increasing coldness sent a genial glow through Lethbury's
system. It was easy to bear with Jane in the light of Mr. Budd's
disapproval.
There was a good deal to be borne in the last days, and the brunt of
it fell on Mrs. Lethbury. Jane marked her transition to the married
state by an appropriate but incongruous display of nerves. She
became sentimental, hysterical and reluctant. She quarrelled with
her betrothed and threatened to return the ring. Mrs. Lethbury had
to intervene, and Lethbury felt the hovering sword of destiny. But
the blow was suspended. Mr. Budd's chivalry was proof against all
his bride's caprices, and his devotion throve on her cruelty.
Lethbury feared that he was too faithful, too enduring, and longed
to urge him to vary his tactics. Jane presently reappeared with the
ring on her finger, and consented to try on the wedding-dress; but
her uncertainties, her reactions, were prolonged till the final day.
When it dawned, Lethbury was still in an ecstasy of apprehension.
Feeling reasonably sure of the principal actors, he had centred his
fears on incidental possibilities. The clergyman might have a
stroke, or the church might burn down, or there might be something
wrong with the license. He did all that was humanly possible to
avert such contingencies, but there remained that incalculable
factor known as the hand of God. Lethbury seemed to feel it groping
for him.
In the church it almost had him by the nape. Mr. Budd was late; and
for five immeasurable minutes Lethbury and Jane faced a churchful of
conjecture. Then the bridegroom appeared, flushed but chivalrous,
and explaining to his father-in-law under cover of the ritual that
he had torn his glove and had to go back for another.
"You'll be losing the ring next," muttered Lethbury; but Mr. Budd
produced this article punctually, and a moment or two later was
bearing its wearer captive down the aisle.
At the wedding-breakfast Lethbury caught his wife's eye fixed on him
in mild disapproval, and understood that his hilarity was exceeding
the bounds of fitness. He pulled himself together, and tried to
subdue his tone; but his jubilation bubbled over like a
champagne-glass perpetually refilled. The deeper his draughts, the
higher it rose.
It was at the brim when, in the wake of the dispersing guests, Jane
came down in her travelling-dress and fell on her mother's neck.
"I can't leave you!" she wailed, and Lethbury felt as suddenly
sobered as a man under a douche. But if the bride was reluctant her
captor was relentless. Never had Mr. Budd been more dominant, more
aquiline. Lethbury's last fears were dissipated as the young man
snatched Jane from her mother's bosom and bore her off to the
brougham.
The brougham rolled away, the last milliner's girl forsook her post
by the awning, the red carpet was folded up, and the house door
closed. Lethbury stood alone in the hall with his wife. As he turned
toward her, he noticed the look of tired heroism in her eyes, the
deepened lines of her face. They reflected his own symptoms too
accurately not to appeal to him. The nervous tension had been
horrible. He went up to her, and an answering impulse made her lay a
hand on his arm. He held it there a moment.
"Let us go off and have a jolly little dinner at a restaurant," he
proposed.
There had been a time when such a suggestion would have surprised
her to the verge of disapproval; but now she agreed to it at once.
"Oh, that would be so nice," she murmured with a great sigh of
relief and assuagement.
Jane had fulfilled her mission after all: she had drawn them
together at last.
THE RECKONING
I
"THE marriage law of the new dispensation will be: _Thou shalt not
be unfaithful--to thyself_."
A discreet murmur of approval filled the studio, and through the
haze of cigarette smoke Mrs. Clement Westall, as her husband
descended from his improvised platform, saw him merged in a
congratulatory group of ladies. Westall's informal talks on "The New
Ethics" had drawn about him an eager following of the mentally
unemployed--those who, as he had once phrased it, liked to have
their brain-food cut up for them. The talks had begun by accident.
Westall's ideas were known to be "advanced," but hitherto their
advance had not been in the direction of publicity. He had been, in
his wife's opinion, almost pusillanimously careful not to let his
personal views endanger his professional standing. Of late, however,
he had shown a puzzling tendency to dogmatize, to throw down the
gauntlet, to flaunt his private code in the face of society; and the
relation of the sexes being a topic always sure of an audience, a
few admiring friends had persuaded him to give his after-dinner
opinions a larger circulation by summing them up in a series of
talks at the Van Sideren studio.
The Herbert Van Siderens were a couple who subsisted, socially, on
the fact that they had a studio. Van Sideren's pictures were chiefly
valuable as accessories to the _mise en scene_ which differentiated
his wife's "afternoons" from the blighting functions held in long
New York drawing-rooms, and permitted her to offer their friends
whiskey-and-soda instead of tea. Mrs. Van Sideren, for her part, was
skilled in making the most of the kind of atmosphere which a
lay-figure and an easel create; and if at times she found the
illusion hard to maintain, and lost courage to the extent of almost
wishing that Herbert could paint, she promptly overcame such moments
of weakness by calling in some fresh talent, some extraneous
re-enforcement of the "artistic" impression. It was in quest of such
aid that she had seized on Westall, coaxing him, somewhat to his
wife's surprise, into a flattered participation in her fraud. It was
vaguely felt, in the Van Sideren circle, that all the audacities
were artistic, and that a teacher who pronounced marriage immoral
was somehow as distinguished as a painter who depicted purple grass
and a green sky. The Van Sideren set were tired of the conventional
color-scheme in art and conduct.
Julia Westall had long had her own views on the immorality of
marriage; she might indeed have claimed her husband as a disciple.
In the early days of their union she had secretly resented his
disinclination to proclaim himself a follower of the new creed; had
been inclined to tax him with moral cowardice, with a failure to
live up to the convictions for which their marriage was supposed to
stand. That was in the first burst of propagandism, when, womanlike,
she wanted to turn her disobedience into a law. Now she felt
differently. She could hardly account for the change, yet being a
woman who never allowed her impulses to remain unaccounted for, she
tried to do so by saying that she did not care to have the articles
of her faith misinterpreted by the vulgar. In this connection, she
was beginning to think that almost every one was vulgar; certainly
there were few to whom she would have cared to intrust the defence
of so esoteric a doctrine. And it was precisely at this point that
Westall, discarding his unspoken principles, had chosen to descend
from the heights of privacy, and stand hawking his convictions at
the street-corner!
It was Una Van Sideren who, on this occasion, unconsciously focussed
upon herself Mrs. Westall's wandering resentment. In the first
place, the girl had no business to be there. It was "horrid"--Mrs.
Westall found herself slipping back into the old feminine
vocabulary--simply "horrid" to think of a young girl's being allowed
to listen to such talk. The fact that Una smoked cigarettes and
sipped an occasional cocktail did not in the least tarnish a certain
radiant innocency which made her appear the victim, rather than the
accomplice, of her parents' vulgarities. Julia Westall felt in a hot
helpless way that something ought to be done--that some one ought to
speak to the girl's mother. And just then Una glided up.
"Oh, Mrs. Westall, how beautiful it was!" Una fixed her with large
limpid eyes. "You believe it all, I suppose?" she asked with
seraphic gravity.
"All--what, my dear child?"
The girl shone on her. "About the higher life--the freer expansion
of the individual--the law of fidelity to one's self," she glibly
recited.
Mrs. Westall, to her own wonder, blushed a deep and burning blush.
"My dear Una," she said, "you don't in the least understand what
it's all about!"
Miss Van Sideren stared, with a slowly answering blush. "Don't
_you_, then?" she murmured.
Mrs. Westall laughed. "Not always--or altogether! But I should like
some tea, please."
Una led her to the corner where innocent beverages were dispensed.
As Julia received her cup she scrutinized the girl more carefully.
It was not such a girlish face, after all--definite lines were
forming under the rosy haze of youth. She reflected that Una must be
six-and-twenty, and wondered why she had not married. A nice stock
of ideas she would have as her dower! If _they_ were to be a part of
the modern girl's trousseau--
Mrs. Westall caught herself up with a start. It was as though some
one else had been speaking--a stranger who had borrowed her own
voice: she felt herself the dupe of some fantastic mental
ventriloquism. Concluding suddenly that the room was stifling and
Una's tea too sweet, she set down her cup, and looked about for
Westall: to meet his eyes had long been her refuge from every
uncertainty. She met them now, but only, as she felt, in transit;
they included her parenthetically in a larger flight. She followed
the flight, and it carried her to a corner to which Una had
withdrawn--one of the palmy nooks to which Mrs. Van Sideren
attributed the success of her Saturdays. Westall, a moment later,
had overtaken his look, and found a place at the girl's side. She
bent forward, speaking eagerly; he leaned back, listening, with the
depreciatory smile which acted as a filter to flattery, enabling him
to swallow the strongest doses without apparent grossness of
appetite. Julia winced at her own definition of the smile.
On the way home, in the deserted winter dusk, Westall surprised his
wife by a sudden boyish pressure of her arm. "Did I open their eyes
a bit? Did I tell them what you wanted me to?" he asked gaily.
Almost unconsciously, she let her arm slip from his. "What _I_
wanted--?"
"Why, haven't you--all this time?" She caught the honest wonder of
his tone. "I somehow fancied you'd rather blamed me for not talking
more openly--before--You've made me feel, at times, that I was
sacrificing principles to expediency."
She paused a moment over her reply; then she asked quietly: "What
made you decide not to--any longer?"
She felt again the vibration of a faint surprise. "Why--the wish to
please you!" he answered, almost too simply.
"I wish you would not go on, then," she said abruptly.
He stopped in his quick walk, and she felt his stare through the
darkness.
"Not go on--?"
"Call a hansom, please. I'm tired," broke from her with a sudden
rush of physical weariness.
Instantly his solicitude enveloped her. The room had been infernally
hot--and then that confounded cigarette smoke--he had noticed once
or twice that she looked pale--she mustn't come to another Saturday.
She felt herself yielding, as she always did, to the warm influence
of his concern for her, the feminine in her leaning on the man in
him with a conscious intensity of abandonment. He put her in the
hansom, and her hand stole into his in the darkness. A tear or two
rose, and she let them fall. It was so delicious to cry over
imaginary troubles!
That evening, after dinner, he surprised her by reverting to the
subject of his talk. He combined a man's dislike of uncomfortable
questions with an almost feminine skill in eluding them; and she
knew that if he returned to the subject he must have some special
reason for doing so.
"You seem not to have cared for what I said this afternoon. Did I
put the case badly?"
"No--you put it very well."
"Then what did you mean by saying that you would rather not have me
go on with it?"
She glanced at him nervously, her ignorance of his intention
deepening her sense of helplessness.
"I don't think I care to hear such things discussed in public."
"I don't understand you," he exclaimed. Again the feeling that his
surprise was genuine gave an air of obliquity to her own attitude.
She was not sure that she understood herself.
"Won't you explain?" he said with a tinge of impatience.
Her eyes wandered about the familiar drawing-room which had been the
scene of so many of their evening confidences. The shaded lamps, the
quiet-colored walls hung with mezzotints, the pale spring flowers
scattered here and there in Venice glasses and bowls of old Sevres,
recalled, she hardly knew why, the apartment in which the evenings
of her first marriage had been passed--a wilderness of rosewood and
upholstery, with a picture of a Roman peasant above the
mantel-piece, and a Greek slave in "statuary marble" between the
folding-doors of the back drawing-room. It was a room with which she
had never been able to establish any closer relation than that
between a traveller and a railway station; and now, as she looked
about at the surroundings which stood for her deepest
affinities--the room for which she had left that other room--she was
startled by the same sense of strangeness and unfamiliarity. The
prints, the flowers, the subdued tones of the old porcelains, seemed
to typify a superficial refinement that had no relation to the
deeper significances of life.
Suddenly she heard her husband repeating his question.
"I don't know that I can explain," she faltered.
He drew his arm-chair forward so that he faced her across the
hearth. The light of a reading-lamp fell on his finely drawn face,
which had a kind of surface-sensitiveness akin to the
surface-refinement of its setting.
"Is it that you no longer believe in our ideas?" he asked.
"In our ideas--?"
"The ideas I am trying to teach. The ideas you and I are supposed to
stand for." He paused a moment. "The ideas on which our marriage was
founded."
The blood rushed to her face. He had his reasons, then--she was sure
now that he had his reasons! In the ten years of their marriage, how
often had either of them stopped to consider the ideas on which it
was founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his
house to examine its foundation? The foundation is there, of
course--the house rests on it--but one lives abovestairs and not in
the cellar. It was she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on
reviewing the situation now and then, on recapitulating the reasons
which justified her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her
adherence to the religion of personal independence; but she had long
ceased to feel the need of any such ideal standards, and had
accepted her marriage as frankly and naturally as though it had been
based on the primitive needs of the heart, and needed no special
sanction to explain or justify it.
"Of course I still believe in our ideas!" she exclaimed.
"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your theory
that the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of
marriage. Have you changed your mind in that respect?"
She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances--on the public one is
addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them
don't care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are
attracted simply by its novelty."
"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and
learned the truth from each other."
"That was different."
"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that
such things never _are_ discussed before young girls; but that is
beside the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my
audience to-day--"
"Except Una Van Sideren!"
He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow.
"Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--"
"Why naturally?"
"The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with her
governess?"
"If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my
house!"
Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I
fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself."
"No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late."
"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of
self-defence?"
"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?"
"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the
marriage tie."
She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that
kind of a girl?"
"Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects."
She took up the argument at another point.
"You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young
girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--" She broke
off, wondering why she had spoken.
Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning
of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my
oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure
you that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for
her. She's quite capable of doing it herself."
"You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed
unguardedly from his wife.
He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting.
"I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me."
II
If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied
to Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was
ready to excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed
that John Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of
relief at the thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask
him to dine.
There had been no scandal connected with the divorce: neither side
had accused the other of the offence euphemistically described as
"statutory." The Arments had indeed been obliged to transfer their
allegiance to a State which recognized desertion as a cause for
divorce, and construed the term so liberally that the seeds of
desertion were shown to exist in every union. Even Mrs. Arment's
second marriage did not make traditional morality stir in its sleep.
It was known that she had not met her second husband till after she
had parted from the first, and she had, moreover, replaced a rich
man by a poor one. Though Clement Westall was acknowledged to be a
rising lawyer, it was generally felt that his fortunes would not
rise as rapidly as his reputation. The Westalls would probably
always have to live quietly and go out to dinner in cabs. Could
there be better evidence of Mrs. Arment's complete
disinterestedness?
If the reasoning by which her friends justified her course was
somewhat cruder and less complex than her own elucidation of the
matter, both explanations led to the same conclusion: John Arment
was impossible. The only difference was that, to his wife, his
impossibility was something deeper than a social disqualification.
She had once said, in ironical defence of her marriage, that it had
at least preserved her from the necessity of sitting next to him at
dinner; but she had not then realized at what cost the immunity was
purchased. John Arment was impossible; but the sting of his
impossibility lay in the fact that he made it impossible for those
about him to be other than himself. By an unconscious process of
elimination he had excluded from the world everything of which he
did not feel a personal need: had become, as it were, a climate in
which only his own requirements survived. This might seem to imply a
deliberate selfishness; but there was nothing deliberate about
Arment. He was as instinctive as an animal or a child. It was this
childish element in his nature which sometimes for a moment
unsettled his wife's estimate of him. Was it possible that he was
simply undeveloped, that he had delayed, somewhat longer than is
usual, the laborious process of growing up? He had the kind of
sporadic shrewdness which causes it to be said of a dull man that he
is "no fool"; and it was this quality that his wife found most
trying. Even to the naturalist it is annoying to have his deductions
disturbed by some unforeseen aberrancy of form or function; and how
much more so to the wife whose estimate of herself is inevitably
bound up with her judgment of her husband!
Arment's shrewdness did not, indeed, imply any latent intellectual
power; it suggested, rather, potentialities of feeling, of
suffering, perhaps, in a blind rudimentary way, on which Julia's
sensibilities naturally declined to linger. She so fully understood
her own reasons for leaving him that she disliked to think they were
not as comprehensible to her husband. She was haunted, in her
analytic moments, by the look of perplexity, too inarticulate for
words, with which he had acquiesced to her explanations.
These moments were rare with her, however. Her marriage had been too
concrete a misery to be surveyed philosophically. If she had been
unhappy for complex reasons, the unhappiness was as real as though
it had been uncomplicated. Soul is more bruisable than flesh, and
Julia was wounded in every fibre of her spirit. Her husband's
personality seemed to be closing gradually in on her, obscuring the
sky and cutting off the air, till she felt herself shut up among the
decaying bodies of her starved hopes. A sense of having been decoyed
by some world-old conspiracy into this bondage of body and soul
filled her with despair. If marriage was the slow life-long
acquittal of a debt contracted in ignorance, then marriage was a
crime against human nature. She, for one, would have no share in
maintaining the pretence of which she had been a victim: the
pretence that a man and a woman, forced into the narrowest of
personal relations, must remain there till the end, though they may
have outgrown the span of each other's natures as the mature tree
outgrows the iron brace about the sapling.
It was in the first heat of her moral indignation that she had met
Clement Westall. She had seen at once that he was "interested," and
had fought off the discovery, dreading any influence that should
draw her back into the bondage of conventional relations. To ward
off the peril she had, with an almost crude precipitancy, revealed
her opinions to him. To her surprise, she found that he shared them.
She was attracted by the frankness of a suitor who, while pressing
his suit, admitted that he did not believe in marriage. Her worst
audacities did not seem to surprise him: he had thought out all that
she had felt, and they had reached the same conclusion. People grew
at varying rates, and the yoke that was an easy fit for the one
might soon become galling to the other. That was what divorce was
for: the readjustment of personal relations. As soon as their
necessarily transitive nature was recognized they would gain in
dignity as well as in harmony. There would be no farther need of the
ignoble concessions and connivances, the perpetual sacrifice of
personal delicacy and moral pride, by means of which imperfect
marriages were now held together. Each partner to the contract would
be on his mettle, forced to live up to the highest standard of
self-development, on pain of losing the other's respect and
affection. The low nature could no longer drag the higher down, but
must struggle to rise, or remain alone on its inferior level. The
only necessary condition to a harmonious marriage was a frank
recognition of this truth, and a solemn agreement between the
contracting parties to keep faith with themselves, and not to live
together for a moment after complete accord had ceased to exist
between them. The new adultery was unfaithfulness to self.
It was, as Westall had just reminded her, on this understanding that
they had married. The ceremony was an unimportant concession to
social prejudice: now that the door of divorce stood open, no
marriage need be an imprisonment, and the contract therefore no
longer involved any diminution of self-respect. The nature of their
attachment placed them so far beyond the reach of such contingencies
that it was easy to discuss them with an open mind; and Julia's
sense of security made her dwell with a tender insistence on
Westall's promise to claim his release when he should cease to love
her. The exchange of these vows seemed to make them, in a sense,
champions of the new law, pioneers in the forbidden realm of
individual freedom: they felt that they had somehow achieved
beatitude without martyrdom.
This, as Julia now reviewed the past, she perceived to have been her
theoretical attitude toward marriage. It was unconsciously,
insidiously, that her ten years of happiness with Westall had
developed another conception of the tie; a reversion, rather, to the
old instinct of passionate dependency and possessorship that now
made her blood revolt at the mere hint of change. Change? Renewal?
Was that what they had called it, in their foolish jargon?
Destruction, extermination rather--this rending of a myriad fibres
interwoven with another's being! Another? But he was not other! He
and she were one, one in the mystic sense which alone gave marriage
its significance. The new law was not for them, but for the
disunited creatures forced into a mockery of union. The gospel she
had felt called on to proclaim had no bearing on her own case....
She sent for the doctor and told him she was sure she needed a nerve
tonic.
She took the nerve tonic diligently, but it failed to act as a
sedative to her fears. She did not know what she feared; but that
made her anxiety the more pervasive. Her husband had not reverted to
the subject of his Saturday talks. He was unusually kind and
considerate, with a softening of his quick manner, a touch of
shyness in his consideration, that sickened her with new fears. She
told herself that it was because she looked badly--because he knew
about the doctor and the nerve tonic--that he showed this deference
to her wishes, this eagerness to screen her from moral draughts; but
the explanation simply cleared the way for fresh inferences.
The week passed slowly, vacantly, like a prolonged Sunday. On
Saturday the morning post brought a note from Mrs. Van Sideren.
Would dear Julia ask Mr. Westall to come half an hour earlier than
usual, as there was to be some music after his "talk"? Westall was
just leaving for his office when his wife read the note. She opened
the drawing-room door and called him back to deliver the message.
He glanced at the note and tossed it aside. "What a bore! I shall
have to cut my game of racquets. Well, I suppose it can't be helped.
Will you write and say it's all right?"
Julia hesitated a moment, her hand stiffening on the chair-back
against which she leaned.
"You mean to go on with these talks?" she asked.
"I--why not?" he returned; and this time it struck her that his
surprise was not quite unfeigned. The discovery helped her to find
words.
"You said you had started them with the idea of pleasing me--"
"Well?"
"I told you last week that they didn't please me."
"Last week? Oh--" He seemed to make an effort of memory. "I thought
you were nervous then; you sent for the doctor the next day."
"It was not the doctor I needed; it was your assurance--"
"My assurance?"
Suddenly she felt the floor fail under her. She sank into the chair
with a choking throat, her words, her reasons slipping away from her
like straws down a whirling flood.
"Clement," she cried, "isn't it enough for you to know that I hate
it?"
He turned to close the door behind them; then he walked toward her
and sat down. "What is it that you hate?" he asked gently.
She had made a desperate effort to rally her routed argument.
"I can't bear to have you speak as if--as if--our marriage--were
like the other kind--the wrong kind. When I heard you there, the
other afternoon, before all those inquisitive gossiping people,
proclaiming that husbands and wives had a right to leave each other
whenever they were tired--or had seen some one else--"
Westall sat motionless, his eyes fixed on a pattern of the carpet.
"You _have_ ceased to take this view, then?" he said as she broke
off. "You no longer believe that husbands and wives _are_ justified
in separating--under such conditions?"
"Under such conditions?" she stammered. "Yes--I still believe
that--but how can we judge for others? What can we know of the
circumstances--?"
He interrupted her. "I thought it was a fundamental article of our
creed that the special circumstances produced by marriage were not
to interfere with the full assertion of individual liberty." He
paused a moment. "I thought that was your reason for leaving
Arment."
She flushed to the forehead. It was not like him to give a personal
turn to the argument.
"It was my reason," she said simply.
"Well, then--why do you refuse to recognize its validity now?"
"I don't--I don't--I only say that one can't judge for others."
He made an impatient movement. "This is mere hair-splitting. What
you mean is that, the doctrine having served your purpose when you
needed it, you now repudiate it."
"Well," she exclaimed, flushing again, "what if I do? What does it
matter to us?"
Westall rose from his chair. He was excessively pale, and stood
before his wife with something of the formality of a stranger.
"It matters to me," he said in a low voice, "because I do _not_
repudiate it."
"Well--?"
"And because I had intended to invoke it as"--
He paused and drew his breath deeply. She sat silent, almost
deafened by her heart-beats.--"as a complete justification of the
course I am about to take."
Julia remained motionless. "What course is that?" she asked.
He cleared his throat. "I mean to claim the fulfilment of your
promise."
For an instant the room wavered and darkened; then she recovered a
torturing acuteness of vision. Every detail of her surroundings
pressed upon her: the tick of the clock, the slant of sunlight on
the wall, the hardness of the chair-arms that she grasped, were a
separate wound to each sense.
"My promise--" she faltered.
"Your part of our mutual agreement to set each other free if one or
the other should wish to be released."
She was silent again. He waited a moment, shifting his position
nervously; then he said, with a touch of irritability: "You
acknowledge the agreement?"
The question went through her like a shock. She lifted her head to
it proudly. "I acknowledge the agreement," she said.
"And--you don't mean to repudiate it?"
A log on the hearth fell forward, and mechanically he advanced and
pushed it back.
"No," she answered slowly, "I don't mean to repudiate it."
There was a pause. He remained near the hearth, his elbow resting on
the mantel-shelf. Close to his hand stood a little cup of jade that
he had given her on one of their wedding anniversaries. She wondered
vaguely if he noticed it.
"You intend to leave me, then?" she said at length.
His gesture seemed to deprecate the crudeness of the allusion.
"To marry some one else?"
Again his eye and hand protested. She rose and stood before him.
"Why should you be afraid to tell me? Is it Una Van Sideren?"
He was silent.
"I wish you good luck," she said.
III
She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or
how he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there.
The fire still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight
had left the wall.
Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word,
that she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had
been no crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at
temporizing or evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns.
Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked
about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity
seemed to be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical
swoon. "This is my room--this is my house," she heard herself
saying. Her room? Her house? She could almost hear the walls laugh
back at her.
She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room
frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door
close a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her
brain. Her husband must have left the house, then--her _husband?_
She no longer knew in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had
a poisoned edge. She sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange
weakness. The clock struck ten--it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly
she remembered that she had not ordered dinner...or were they
dining out that evening? _Dinner--dining out_--the old meaningless
phraseology pursued her! She must try to think of herself as she
would think of some one else, a some one dissociated from all the
familiar routine of the past, whose wants and habits must gradually
be learned, as one might spy out the ways of a strange animal...
The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and walked
to the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. _Her_
room? Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the
narrow hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed
Westall's sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall
table. The same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the
same old French print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the
landing. This visual continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping
chasm; without, the same untroubled and familiar surface. She must
get away from it before she could attempt to think. But, once in her
room, she sat down on the lounge, a stupor creeping over her...
Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the
interval--a wild marching and countermarching of emotions,
arguments, ideas--a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent
upon themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize
these chaotic forces. There must be help somewhere, if only she
could master the inner tumult. Life could not be broken off short
like this, for a whim, a fancy; the law itself would side with her,
would defend her. The law? What claim had she upon it? She was the
prisoner of her own choice: she had been her own legislator, and she
was the predestined victim of the code she had devised. But this was
grotesque, intolerable--a mad mistake, for which she could not be
held accountable! The law she had despised was still there, might
still be invoked...invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to
chain Westall to her side? _She_ had been allowed to go free when
she claimed her freedom--should she show less magnanimity than she
had exacted? Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony--one
does not strike an attitude when one is fighting for life! She would
threaten, grovel, cajole...she would yield anything to keep her
hold on happiness. Ah, but the difficulty lay deeper! The law could
not help her--her own apostasy could not help her. She was the
victim of the theories she renounced. It was as though some giant
machine of her own making had caught her up in its wheels and was
grinding her to atoms...
It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked
with an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was
radiant, metallic: one of those searching American days so
calculated to reveal the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the
excesses of our architecture. The streets looked bare and hideous;
everything stared and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and
gave Mrs. Van Sideren's address. She did not know what had led up to
the act; but she found herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry
out a warning. it was too late to save herself--but the girl might
still be told. The hansom rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat with her
eyes fixed, avoiding recognition. At the Van Siderens' door she
sprang out and rang the bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she
felt calm and self-possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to
say.
The ladies were both out...the parlor-maid stood waiting for a
card. Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and
lingered a moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had
not paid the cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed
it to him. He touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in
the long empty street. She wandered away westward, toward strange
thoroughfares, where she was not likely to meet acquaintances. The
feeling of aimlessness had returned. Once she found herself in the
afternoon torrent of Broadway, swept past tawdry shops and flaming
theatrical posters, with a succession of meaningless faces gliding
by in the opposite direction...
A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since
morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows
of ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she
saw the sign _Ladies' Restaurant:_ a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay
against the dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological
museum. She entered, and a young woman with a weak mouth and a
brazen eye cleared a table for her near the window. The table was
covered with a red and white cotton cloth and adorned with a bunch
of celery in a thick tumbler and a salt-cellar full of grayish lumpy
salt. Julia ordered tea, and sat a long time waiting for it. She was
glad to be away from the noise and confusion of the streets. The
low-ceilinged room was empty, and two or three waitresses with thin
pert faces lounged in the background staring at her and whispering
together. At last the tea was brought in a discolored metal teapot.
Julia poured a cup and drank it hastily. It was black and bitter,
but it flowed through her veins like an elixir. She was almost dizzy
with exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how unutterably tired she had
been!
She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was
once more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as
when she had stood on the Van Siderens' door-step--but the wish to
return there had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an
attempt--the humiliation to which it might have exposed her... The
pity of it was that she did not know what to do next. The short
winter day was fading, and she realized that she could not remain
much longer in the restaurant without attracting notice. She paid
for her tea and went out into the street. The lamps were alight, and
here and there a basement shop cast an oblong of gas-light across
the fissured pavement. In the dusk there was something sinister
about the aspect of the street, and she hastened back toward Fifth
Avenue. She was not used to being out alone at that hour.
At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the
stream of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and
signed to her that he would take her across. She had not meant to
cross the street, but she obeyed automatically, and presently found
herself on the farther corner. There she paused again for a moment;
but she fancied the policeman was watching her, and this sent her
hastening down the nearest side street... After that she walked a
long time, vaguely... Night had fallen, and now and then, through
the windows of a passing carriage, she caught the expanse of an
evening waistcoat or the shimmer of an opera cloak...
Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a
moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without
noticing whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw
the house in which she had once lived--her first husband's house.
The blinds were drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the
windows and the transom above the door. As she stood there she heard
a step behind her, and a man walked by in the direction of the
house. He walked slowly, with a heavy middle-aged gait, his head
sunk a little between the shoulders, the red crease of his neck
visible above the fur collar of his overcoat. He crossed the street,
went up the steps of the house, drew forth a latch-key, and let
himself in...
There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against
the area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the
house. The feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the
strong tea still throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an
unnatural clearness. Presently she heard another step draw near, and
moving quickly away, she too crossed the street and mounted the
steps of the house. The impulse which had carried her there
prolonged itself in a quick pressure of the electric bell--then she
felt suddenly weak and tremulous, and grasped the balustrade for
support. The door opened and a young footman with a fresh
inexperienced face stood on the threshold. Julia knew in an instant
that he would admit her.
"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to
see me for a moment?"
The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for
dinner, madam."
Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me--I will not
detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in
the tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his
hand on the drawing-room door.
"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?"
Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady,"
she returned carelessly.
The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that
instant the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the
hall. He drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning
sallow with the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling
the veins on his temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears.
It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the
change in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down
into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one
conscious thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she
must not let him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her
body throbbed with the urgency of her message.
She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she said.
Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman,
and her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a
"scene" predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said
slowly: "Will you come this way?"
He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as
she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was
unchanged: time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still
lurched from the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the
threshold of the inner room. The place was alive with memories: they
started out from every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided
between the angles of the rosewood furniture. But while some
subordinate agency was carrying these impressions to her brain, her
whole conscious effort was centred in the act of dominating Arment's
will. The fear that he would refuse to hear her mounted like fever
to her brain. She felt her purpose melt before it, words and
arguments running into each other in the heat of her longing. For a
moment her voice failed her, and she imagined herself thrust out
before she could speak; but as she was struggling for a word, Arment
pushed a chair forward, and said quietly: "You are not well."
The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor
unkind--a voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen
developments. She supported herself against the back of the chair
and drew a deep breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued,
with a cold embarrassed politeness.
Julia raised an entreating hand. "No--no--thank you. I am quite
well."
He paused midway toward the bell and turned on her. "Then may I
ask--?"
"Yes," she interrupted him. "I came here because I wanted to see
you. There is something I must tell you."
Arment continued to scrutinize her. "I am surprised at that," he
said. "I should have supposed that any communication you may wish to
make could have been made through our lawyers."
"Our lawyers!" She burst into a little laugh. "I don't think they
could help me--this time."
Arment's face took on a barricaded look. "If there is any question
of help--of course--"
It struck her, whimsically, that she had seen that look when some
shabby devil called with a subscription-book. Perhaps he thought she
wanted him to put his name down for so much in sympathy--or even in
money... The thought made her laugh again. She saw his look change
slowly to perplexity. All his facial changes were slow, and she
remembered, suddenly, how it had once diverted her to shift that
lumbering scenery with a word. For the first time it struck her that
she had been cruel. "There _is_ a question of help," she said in a
softer key: "you can help me; but only by listening... I want to
tell you something..."
Arment's resistance was not yielding. "Would it not be easier
to--write?" he suggested.
She shook her head. "There is no time to write...and it won't
take long." She raised her head and their eyes met. "My husband has
left me," she said.
"Westall--?" he stammered, reddening again.
"Yes. This morning. Just as I left you. Because he was tired of me."
The words, uttered scarcely above a whisper, seemed to dilate to the
limit of the room. Arment looked toward the door; then his
embarrassed glance returned to Julia.
"I am very sorry," he said awkwardly.
"Thank you," she murmured.
"But I don't see--"
"No--but you will--in a moment. Won't you listen to me? Please!"
Instinctively she had shifted her position putting herself between
him and the door. "It happened this morning," she went on in short
breathless phrases. "I never suspected anything--I thought we
were--perfectly happy... Suddenly he told me he was tired of me...
there is a girl he likes better... He has gone to her..." As
she spoke, the lurking anguish rose upon her, possessing her once
more to the exclusion of every other emotion. Her eyes ached, her
throat swelled with it, and two painful tears burnt a way down her
face.
Arment's constraint was increasing visibly. "This--this is very
unfortunate," he began. "But I should say the law--"
"The law?" she echoed ironically. "When he asks for his freedom?"
"You are not obliged to give it."
"You were not obliged to give me mine--but you did."
He made a protesting gesture.
"You saw that the law couldn't help you--didn't you?" she went on.
"That is what I see now. The law represents material rights--it
can't go beyond. If we don't recognize an inner law...the
obligation that love creates...being loved as well as loving...
there is nothing to prevent our spreading ruin unhindered...is
there?" She raised her head plaintively, with the look of a
bewildered child. "That is what I see now...what I wanted to
tell you. He leaves me because he's tired...but _I_ was not
tired; and I don't understand why he is. That's the dreadful part of
it--the not understanding: I hadn't realized what it meant. But I've
been thinking of it all day, and things have come back to me--things
I hadn't noticed...when you and I..." She moved closer to him,
and fixed her eyes on his with the gaze that tries to reach beyond
words. "I see now that _you_ didn't understand--did you?"
Their eyes met in a sudden shock of comprehension: a veil seemed to
be lifted between them. Arment's lip trembled.
"No," he said, "I didn't understand."
She gave a little cry, almost of triumph. "I knew it! I knew it! You
wondered--you tried to tell me--but no words came... You saw your
life falling in ruins...the world slipping from you...and
you couldn't speak or move!"
She sank down on the chair against which she had been leaning. "Now
I know--now I know," she repeated.
"I am very sorry for you," she heard Arment stammer.
She looked up quickly. "That's not what I came for. I don't want you
to be sorry. I came to ask you to forgive me...for not
understanding that _you_ didn't understand... That's all I wanted
to say." She rose with a vague sense that the end had come, and put
out a groping hand toward the door.
Arment stood motionless. She turned to him with a faint smile.
"You forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive--"
"Then will you shake hands for good-by?" She felt his hand in hers:
it was nerveless, reluctant.
"Good-by," she repeated. "I understand now."
She opened the door and passed out into the hall. As she did so,
Arment took an impulsive step forward; but just then the footman,
who was evidently alive to his obligations, advanced from the
background to let her out. She heard Arment fall back. The footman
threw open the door, and she found herself outside in the darkness.
THE LETTER
I
For many years he had lived withdrawn from the world in which he had
once played so active and even turbulent a part. The study of Tuscan
art was his only pursuit, and it was to help him in the
classification of his notes and documents that I was first called to
his villa. Colonel Alingdon had then the look of a very old man,
though his age can hardly have exceeded seventy. He was small and
bent, with a finely wrinkled face which still wore the tan of
youthful exposure. But for this dusky redness it would have been
hard to reconstruct from the shrunken recluse, with his low
fastidious voice and carefully tended hands, an image of that young
knight of adventure whose sword had been at the service of every
uprising which stirred the uneasy soil of Italy in the first half of
the nineteenth century.
Though I was more of a proficient in Colonel Alingdon's later than
his earlier pursuits, the thought of his soldiering days was always
coming between me and the pacific work of his old age. As we sat
collating papers and comparing photographs, I had the feeling that
this dry and quiet old man had seen even stranger things than people
said: that he knew more of the inner history of Europe than half the
diplomatists of his day.
I was not alone in this conviction; and the friend who had engaged
me for Colonel Alingdon had appended to his instructions the
injunction to "get him to talk." But this was what no one could do.
Colonel Alingdon was ready to discuss by the hour the date of a
Giottesque triptych, or the attribution of a disputed master; but on
the history of his early life he was habitually silent.
It was perhaps because I recognized this silence and respected it
that it afterward came to be broken for me. Or it was perhaps merely
because, as the failure of Colonel Alingdon's sight cut him off from
his work, he felt the natural inclination of age to revert from the
empty present to the crowded past. For one cause or another he _did_
talk to me in the last year of his life; and I felt myself mingled,
to an extent inconceivable to the mere reader of history, with the
passionate scenes of the Italian struggle for liberty. Colonel
Alingdon had been mixed with it in all its phases: he had known the
last Carbonari and the Young Italy of Mazzini; he had been in
Perugia when the mercenaries of a liberal Pope slaughtered women and
children in the streets; he had been in Sicily with the Thousand,
and in Milan during the _Cinque Giornate_.
"They say the Italians didn't know how to fight," he said one day,
musingly--"that the French had to come down and do their work for
them. People forget how long it was since they had had any fighting
to do. But they hadn't forgotten how to suffer and hold their
tongues; how to die and take their secrets with them. The Italian
war of independence was really carried on underground: it was one of
those awful silent struggles which are so much more terrible than
the roar of a battle. It's a deuced sight easier to charge with your
regiment than to lie rotting in an Austrian prison and know that if
you give up the name of a friend or two you can go back scot-free to
your wife and children. And thousands and thousands of Italians had
the choice given them--and hardly one went back."
He sat silent, his meditative fingertips laid together, his eyes
fixed on the past which was the now only thing clearly visible to
them.
"And the women?" I said. "Were they as brave as the men?"
I had not spoken quite at random. I had always heard that there had
been as much of love as of war in Colonel Alingdon's early career,
and I hoped that my question might give a personal turn to his
reminiscences.
"The women?" he repeated. "They were braver--for they had more to
bear and less to do. Italy could never have been saved without
them."
His eye had kindled and I detected in it the reflection of some
vivid memory. It was then that I asked him what was the bravest
thing he had ever known of a woman's doing.
The question was such a vague one that I hardly knew why I had put
it, but to my surprise he answered almost at once, as though I had
touched on a subject of frequent meditation.
"The bravest thing I ever saw done by a woman," he said, "was
brought about by an act of my own--and one of which I am not
particularly proud. For that reason I have never spoken of it
before--there was a time when I didn't even care to think of it--but
all that is past now. She died years ago, and so did the Jack
Alingdon she knew, and in telling you the story I am no more than
the mouthpiece of an old tradition which some ancestor might have
handed down to me."
He leaned back, his clear blind gaze fixed smilingly on me, and I
had the feeling that, in groping through the labyrinth of his young
adventures, I had come unawares upon their central point.
II
When I was in Milan in 'forty-seven an unlucky thing happened to me.
I had been sent there to look over the ground by some of my Italian
friends in England. As an English officer I had no difficulty in
getting into Milanese society, for England had for years been the
refuge of the Italian fugitives, and I was known to be working in
their interests. It was just the kind of job I liked, and I never
enjoyed life more than I did in those days. There was a great deal
going on--good music, balls and theatres. Milan kept up her gayety
to the last. The English were shocked by the _insouciance_ of a race
who could dance under the very nose of the usurper; but those who
understood the situation knew that Milan was playing Brutus, and
playing it uncommonly well.
I was in the thick of it all--it was just the atmosphere to suit a
young fellow of nine-and-twenty, with a healthy passion for waltzing
and fighting. But, as I said, an unlucky thing happened to me. I was
fool enough to fall in love with Donna Candida Falco. You have heard
of her, of course: you know the share she had in the great work. In
a different way she was what the terrible Princess Belgioioso had
been to an earlier generation. But Donna Candida was not terrible.
She was quiet, discreet and charming. When I knew her she was a
widow of thirty, her husband, Andrea Falco, having died ten years
previously, soon after their marriage. The marriage had been
notoriously unhappy, and his death was a release to Donna Candida.
Her family were of Modena, but they had come to live in Milan soon
after the execution of Ciro Menotti and his companions. You remember
the details of that business? The Duke of Modena, one of the most
adroit villains in Europe, had been bitten with the hope of uniting
the Italian states under his rule. It was a vision of Italian
liberation--of a sort. A few madmen were dazzled by it, and Ciro
Menotti was one of them. You know the end. The Duke of Modena, who
had counted on Louis Philippe's backing, found that that astute
sovereign had betrayed him to Austria. Instantly, he saw that his
first business was to get rid of the conspirators he had created.
There was nothing easier than for a Hapsburg Este to turn on a
friend. Ciro Menotti had staked his life for the Duke--and the Duke
took it. You may remember that, on the night when seven hundred men
and a cannon attacked Menotti's house, the Duke was seen looking on
at the slaughter from an arcade across the square.
Well, among the lesser fry taken that night was a lad of eighteen,
Emilio Verna, who was the only brother of Donna Candida. The Verna
family was one of the most respected in Modena. It consisted, at
that time, of the mother, Countess Verna, of young Emilio and his
sister. Count Verna had been in Spielberg in the twenties. He had
never recovered from his sufferings there, and died in exile,
without seeing his wife and children again. Countess Verna had been
an ardent patriot in her youth, but the failure of the first
attempts against Austria had discouraged her. She thought that in
losing her husband she had sacrificed enough for her country, and
her one idea was to keep Emilio on good terms with the government.
But the Verna blood was not tractable, and his father's death was
not likely to make Emilio a good subject of the Estes. Not that he
had as yet taken any active share in the work of the conspirators:
he simply hadn't had time. At his trial there was nothing to show
that he had been in Menotti's confidence; but he had been seen once
or twice coming out of what the ducal police called "suspicious"
houses, and in his desk were found some verses to Italy. That was
enough to hang a man in Modena, and Emilio Verna was hanged.
The Countess never recovered from the blow. The circumstances of her
son's death were too abominable, to unendurable. If he had risked
his life in the conspiracy, she might have been reconciled to his
losing it. But he was a mere child, who had sat at home, chafing but
powerless, while his seniors plotted and fought. He had been
sacrificed to the Duke's insane fear, to his savage greed for
victims, and the Countess Verna was not to be consoled.
As soon as possible, the mother and daughter left Modena for Milan.
There they lived in seclusion till Candida's marriage. During her
girlhood she had had to accept her mother's view of life: to shut
herself up in the tomb in which the poor woman brooded over her
martyrs. But that was not the girl's way of honoring the dead. At
the moment when the first shot was fired on Menotti's house she had
been reading Petrarch's Ode to the Lords of Italy, and the lines
_l'antico valor Ne Vitalici cor non e ancor morto_ had lodged like a
bullet in her brain. From the day of her marriage she began to take
a share in the silent work which was going on throughout Italy.
Milan was at that time the centre of the movement, and Candida Falco
threw herself into it with all the passion which her unhappy
marriage left unsatisfied. At first she had to act with great
reserve, for her husband was a prudent man, who did not care to have
his habits disturbed by political complications; but after his death
there was nothing to restrain her, except the exquisite tact which
enabled her to work night and day in the Italian cause without
giving the Austrian authorities a pretext for interference.
When I first knew Donna Candida, her mother was still living: a
tragic woman, prematurely bowed, like an image of death in the
background of the daughter's brilliant life. The Countess, since her
son's death, had become a patriot again, though in a narrower sense
than Candida. The mother's first thought was that her dead must be
avenged, the daughter's that Italy must be saved; but from different
motives they worked for the same end. Candida felt for the Countess
that protecting tenderness with which Italian children so often
regard their parents, a feeling heightened by the reverence which
the mother's sufferings inspired. Countess Verna, as the wife and
mother of martyrs, had done what Candida longed to do: she had given
her utmost to Italy. There must have been moments when the
self-absorption of her grief chilled her daughter's ardent spirit;
but Candida revered in her mother the image of their afflicted
country.
"It was too terrible," she said, speaking of what the Countess had
suffered after Emilio's death. "All the circumstances were too
unmerciful. It seemed as if God had turned His face from my mother;
as if she had been singled out to suffer more than any of the
others. All the other families received some message or token of
farewell from the prisoners. One of them bribed the gaoler to carry
a letter--another sent a lock of hair by the chaplain. But Emilio
made no sign, sent no word. My mother felt as though he had turned
his back on us. She used to sit for hours, saying again and again,
'Why was he the only one to forget his mother?' I tried to comfort
her, but it was useless: she had suffered too much. Now I never
reason with her; I listen, and let her ease her poor heart. Do you
know, she still asks me sometimes if I think he may have left a
letter--if there is no way of finding out if he left one? She
forgets that I have tried again and again: that I have sent bribes
and messages to the gaoler, the chaplain, to every one who came near
him. The answer is always the same--no one has ever heard of a
letter. I suppose the poor boy was stunned, and did not think of
writing. Who knows what was passing through his poor bewildered
brain? But it would have been a great help to my mother to have a
word from him. If I had known how to imitate his writing I should
have forged a letter."
I knew enough of the Italians to understand how her boy's silence
must have aggravated the Countess's grief. Precious as a message
from a dying son would be to any mother, such signs of tenderness
have to the Italians a peculiar significance. The Latin race is
rhetorical: it possesses the gift of death-bed eloquence, the knack
of saying the effective thing on momentous occasions. The letters
which the Italian patriots sent home from their prisons or from the
scaffold are not the halting farewells that anguish would have wrung
from a less expressive race: they are veritable "compositions,"
saved from affectation only by the fact that fluency and sonority
are a part of the Latin inheritance. Such letters, passed from hand
to hand among the bereaved families, were not only a comfort to the
survivors but an incentive to fresh sacrifices. They were the "seed
of the martyrs" with which Italy was being sown; and I knew what it
meant to the Countess Verna to have no such treasure in her bosom,
to sit silent while other mothers quoted their sons' last words.
I said just now that it was an unlucky day for me when I fell in
love with Donna Candida; and no doubt you have guessed the reason.
She was in love with some one else. It was the old situation of
Heine's song. That other loved another--loved Italy, and with an
undivided passion. His name was Fernando Briga, and at that time he
was one of the foremost liberals in Italy. He came of a middle-class
Modenese family. His father was a doctor, a prudent man, engrossed
in his profession and unwilling to compromise it by meddling in
politics. His irreproachable attitude won the confidence of the
government, and the Duke conferred on him the sinister office of
physician to the prisons of Modena. It was this Briga who attended
Emilio Falco, and several of the other prisoners who were executed
at the same time.
Under shelter of his father's loyalty young Fernando conspired in
safety. He was studying medicine, and every one supposed him to be
absorbed in his work; but as a matter of fact he was fast ripening
into one of Mazzini's ablest lieutenants. His career belongs to
history, so I need not enlarge on it here. In 1847 he was in Milan,
and had become one of the leading figures in the liberal group which
was working for a coalition with Piedmont. Like all the ablest men
of his day, he had cast off Mazziniism and pinned his faith to the
house of Savoy. The Austrian government had an eye on him, but he
had inherited his father's prudence, though he used it for nobler
ends, and his discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause
than a dozen enthusiasts could have accomplished. No one understood
this better than Donna Candida. She had a share of his caution, and
he trusted her with secrets which he would not have confided to many
men. Her drawing-room was the centre of the Piedmontese party, yet
so clever was she in averting suspicion that more than one hunted
conspirator hid in her house, and was helped across the Alps by her
agents.
Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love
her, and she knew it. Still, she was young, she was handsome, and he
loved no one else: how could she give up hoping? From her intimate
friends she made no secret of her feelings: Italian women are not
reticent in such matters, and Donna Candida was proud of loving a
hero. You will see at once that I had no chance; but if she could
not give up hope, neither could I. Perhaps in her desire to secure
my services for the cause she may have shown herself overkind; or
perhaps I was still young enough to set down to my own charms a
success due to quite different causes. At any rate, I persuaded
myself that if I could manage to do something conspicuous for Italy
I might yet make her care for me. With such an incentive you will
not wonder that I worked hard; but though Donna Candida was full of
gratitude she continued to adore my rival.
One day we had a hot scene. I began, I believe, by reproaching her
with having led me on; and when she defended herself, I retaliated
by taunting her with Briga's indifference. She grew pale at that,
and said it was enough to love a hero, even without hope of return;
and as she said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant, so
unattainably the woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped
me:--was she so sure then that Briga was a hero? I remember her
proud silence and our wretched parting. I went away feeling that at
last I had really lost her; and the thought made me savage and
vindictive.
Soon after, as it happened, came the _Five Days_, and Milan was
free. I caught a distant glimpse of Donna Candida in the hospital to
which I was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one
and in twenty-four hours I was about again on crutches. I hoped she
might send for me, but she did not, and I was too sulky to make the
first advance. A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion
in Modena, and not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over
there with one or two men whom the Modenese liberals had called in
to help them. When we arrived the precious Duke had been swept out
and a provisional government set up. One of my companions, who was a
Modenese, was made a member, and knowing that I wanted something to
do, he commissioned me to look up some papers in the ducal archives.
It was fascinating work, for in the pursuit of my documents I
uncovered the hidden springs of his late Highness's paternal
administration. The principal papers relative to the civil and
criminal administration of Modena have since been published, and the
world knows how that estimable sovereign cared for the material and
spiritual welfare of his subjects.
Well--in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers
marked: "Taken from political prisoners. A.D. 1831." It was the year
of Menotti's conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was
thrilling. I loosened the band and ran over the letters. Suddenly I
came across one which was docketed: "Given by Doctor Briga's son to
the warder of His Highness's prisons." _Doctor Briga's son?_ That
could be no other than Fernando: I knew he was an only child. But
how came such a paper into his hands, and how had it passed from
them into those of the Duke's warder? My own hands shook as I opened
the letter--I felt the man suddenly in my power.
Then I began to read. "My adored mother, even in this lowest circle
of hell all hearts are not closed to pity, and I have been given the
hope that these last words of farewell may reach you...." My eyes
ran on over pages of plaintive rhetoric. "Embrace for me my adored
Candida...let her never forget the cause for which her father
and brother perished...let her keep alive in her breast the
thought of Spielberg and Reggio. Do not grieve that I die so young...
though not with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit,
and am worthy to be enrolled in the sacred phalanx..." and so on.
Before I reached the signature I knew the letter was from Emilio
Verna.
I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for
Milan. I didn't quite know what I meant to do--my head was in a
whirl. I saw at once what must have happened. Fernando Briga, then a
lad of fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during
Emilio Verna's last hours, and the latter, perhaps aware of the
lad's liberal sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the
letter. But why had Briga given it up to the warder? That was the
puzzling question. The docket said: "_ Given by_ Doctor Briga's
son"--but it might mean "taken from." Fernando might have been seen
to receive the letter and might have been searched on leaving the
prison. But that would not account for his silence afterward. How
was it that, if he knew of the letter, he had never told Emilio's
family of it? There was only one explanation. If the letter had been
taken from him by force he would have had no reason for concealing
its existence; and his silence was clear proof that he had given it
up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope of standing well with the
authorities. But then he was a traitor and a coward; the patriot of
'forty-eight had begun life as an informer! But does innate
character ever change so radically that the lad who has committed a
base act at fifteen may grow up into an honorable man? A good man
may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak into a
hero?
You may fancy how I answered my own questions....If Briga had
been false and cowardly then, was he not sure to be false and
cowardly still? In those days there were traitors under every coat,
and more than one brave fellow had been sold to the police by his
best friend....You will say that Briga's record was unblemished,
that he had exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by
his friends too steadfastly, to permit of a rational doubt of his
good faith. So reason might have told me in a calmer moment, but she
was not allowed to make herself heard just then. I was young, I was
angry, I chose to think I had been unfairly treated, and perhaps at
my rival's instigation. It was not unlikely that Briga knew of my
love for Donna Candida, and had encouraged her to use it in the good
cause. Was she not always at his bidding? My blood boiled at the
thought, and reaching Milan in a rage I went straight to Donna
Candida.
I had measured the exact force of the blow I was going to deal. The
triumph of the liberals in Modena had revived public interest in the
unsuccessful struggle of their predecessors, the men who, sixteen
years earlier, had paid for the same attempt with their lives. The
victors of 'forty-eight wished to honor the vanquished of
'thirty-two. All the families exiled by the ducal government were
hastening back to recover possession of their confiscated property
and of the graves of their dead. Already it had been decided to
raise a monument to Menotti and his companions. There were to be
speeches, garlands, a public holiday: the thrill of the
commemoration would run through Europe. You see what it would have
meant to the poor Countess to appear on the scene with her boy's
letter in her hand; and you see also what the memorandum on the back
of the letter would have meant to Donna Candida. Poor Emilio's
farewell would be published in all the journals of Europe: the
finding of the letter would be on every one's lips. And how conceal
those fatal words on the back? At the moment, it seemed to me that
fortune could not have given me a handsomer chance of destroying my
rival than in letting me find the letter which he stood convicted of
having suppressed.
My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what
could I do but give the letter to Donna Candida? To keep it back was
out of the question; and with the best will in the world I could not
have erased Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in
thinking it lucky that the paper had fallen into my hands.
Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but
she held out her hand with a smile of pardon, and asked what news I
brought from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she
were trying to get me into her power again.
"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to
her. I had purposely turned the superscription downward, so that she
should not see it.
She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light
struck up from it into her face as she read--a radiance that smote
me to the soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her
and efface the name on the back. It hurt me to think how short-lived
her happiness must be.
Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands
and kissed them. "Oh, thank you--bless you a thousand times! He died
thinking of us--he died loving Italy!"
I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the
touch of her lips hardened me.
She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness--what
consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the
bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do
you know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's
flight her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At
heart she was always sure that he had written--I suppose some
blessed instinct told her so." She dropped her face on her hands,
and I saw her tears fall on the wretched letter.
In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted
me. "Tell me where you found it," she said.
I told her.
"Oh, the savages! They took it from him--"
My opportunity had come. "No," I said, "it appears they did _not_
take it from him."
"Then how--"
I waited a moment. "The letter," I said, looking full at her, "was
given up to the warder of the prison by the son of Doctor Briga."
She stared, repeating the words slowly. "The son of Doctor Briga?
But that is--Fernando," she said.
"I have always understood," I replied, "that your friend was an only
son."
I had expected an outcry of horror; if she had uttered it I could
have forgiven her anything. But I heard, instead, an incredulous
exclamation: my statement was really too preposterous! I saw that
her mind had flashed back to our last talk, and that she charged me
with something too nearly true to be endurable.
"My brother's letter? Given to the prison warder by Fernando Briga?
My dear Captain Alingdon--on what authority do you expect me to
believe such a tale?"
Her incredulity had in it an evident implication of bad faith, and I
was stung to a quick reply.
"If you will turn over the letter you will see."
She continued to gaze at me a moment: then she obeyed. I don't think
I ever admired her more than I did then. As she read the name a
tremor crossed her face; and that was all. Her mind must have
reached out instantly to the farthest consequences of the discovery,
but the long habit of self-command enabled her to steady her muscles
at once. If I had not been on the alert I should have seen no hint
of emotion.
For a while she looked fixedly at the back of the letter; then she
raised her eyes to mine.
"Can you tell me who wrote this?" she asked.
Her composure irritated me. She had rallied all her forces to
Briga's defence, and I felt as though my triumph were slipping from
me.
"Probably one of the clerks of the archives," I answered. "It is
written in the same hand as all the other memoranda relating to the
political prisoners of that year."
"But it is a lie!" she exclaimed. "He was never admitted to the
prisons."
"Are you sure?"
"How should he have been?"
"He might have gone as his father's assistant."
"But if he had seen my poor brother he would have told me long ago."
"Not if he had really given up this letter," I retorted.
I supposed her quick intelligence had seized this from the first;
but I saw now that it came to her as a shock. She stood motionless,
clenching the letter in her hands, and I could guess the rapid
travel of her thoughts.
Suddenly she came up to me. "Colonel Alingdon," she said, "you have
been a good friend of mine, though I think you have not liked me
lately. But whether you like me or not, I know you will not deceive
me. On your honor, do you think this memorandum may have been
written later than the letter?"
I hesitated. If she had cried out once against Briga I should have
wished myself out of the business; but she was too sure of him.
"On my honor," I said, "I think it hardly possible. The ink has
faded to the same degree."
She made a rapid comparison and folded the letter with a gesture of
assent.
"It may have been written by an enemy," I went on, wishing to clear
myself of any appearance of malice.
She shook her head. "He was barely fifteen--and his father was on
the side of the government. Besides, this would have served him with
the government, and the liberals would never have known of it."
This was unanswerable--and still not a word of revolt against the
man whose condemnation she was pronouncing!
"Then--" I said with a vague gesture.
She caught me up. "Then--?"
"You have answered my objections," I returned.
"Your objections?"
"To thinking that Signor Briga could have begun his career as a
patriot by betraying a friend."
I had brought her to the test at last, but my eyes shrank from her
face as I spoke. There was a dead silence, which I broke by adding
lamely: "But no doubt Signor Briga could explain."
She lifted her head, and I saw that my triumph was to be short. She
stood erect, a few paces from me, resting her hand on a table, but
not for support.
"Of course he can explain," she said; "do you suppose I ever doubted
it? But--" she paused a moment, fronting me nobly--"he need not, for
I understand it all now."
"Ah," I murmured with a last flicker of irony.
"I understand," she repeated. It was she, now, who sought my eyes
and held them. "It is quite simple--he could not have done
otherwise."
This was a little too oracular to be received with equanimity. I
suppose I smiled.
"He could not have done otherwise," she repeated with tranquil
emphasis. "He merely did what is every Italian's duty--he put Italy
before himself and his friends." She waited a moment, and then went
on with growing passion: "Surely you must see what I mean? He was
evidently in the prison with his father at the time of my poor
brother's death. Emilio perhaps guessed that he was a friend--or
perhaps appealed to him because he was young and looked kind. But
don't you see how dangerous it would have been for Briga to bring
this letter to us, or even to hide it in his father's house? It is
true that he was not yet suspected of liberalism, but he was already
connected with Young Italy, and it is just because he managed to
keep himself so free of suspicion that he was able to do such good
work for the cause." She paused, and then went on with a firmer
voice. "You don't know the danger we all lived in. The government
spies were everywhere. The laws were set aside as the Duke
pleased--was not Emilio hanged for having an ode to Italy in his
desk? After Menotti's conspiracy the Duke grew mad with fear--he was
haunted by the dread of assassination. The police, to prove their
zeal, had to trump up false charges and arrest innocent persons--you
remember the case of poor Ricci? Incriminating papers were smuggled
into people's houses--they were condemned to death on the paid
evidence of brigands and galley-slaves. The families of the
revolutionists were under the closest observation and were shunned
by all who wished to stand well with the government. If Briga had
been seen going into our house he would at once have been suspected.
If he had hidden Emilio's letter at home, its discovery might have
ruined his family as well as himself. It was his duty to consider
all these things. In those days no man could serve two masters, and
he had to choose between endangering the cause and failing to serve
a friend. He chose the latter--and he was right."
I stood listening, fascinated by the rapidity and skill with which
she had built up the hypothesis of Briga's defence. But before she
ended a strange thing happened--her argument had convinced me. It
seemed to me quite likely that Briga had in fact been actuated by
the motives she suggested.
I suppose she read the admission in my face, for hers lit up
victoriously.
"You see?" she exclaimed. "Ah, it takes one brave man to understand
another."
Perhaps I winced a little at being thus coupled with her hero; at
any rate, some last impulse of resistance made me say: "I should be
quite convinced, if Briga had only spoken of the letter afterward.
If brave people understand each other, I cannot see why he should
have been afraid of telling you the truth."
She colored deeply, and perhaps not quite resentfully.
"You are right," she said; "he need not have been afraid. But he
does not know me as I know him. I was useful to Italy, and he may
have feared to risk my friendship."
"You are the most generous woman I ever knew!" I exclaimed.
She looked at me intently. "You also are generous," she said.
I stiffened instantly, suspecting a purpose behind her praise. "I
have given you small proof of it!" I said.
She seemed surprised. "In bringing me this letter? What else could
you do?" She sighed deeply. "You can give me proof enough now."
She had dropped into a chair, and I saw that we had reached the most
difficult point in our interview.
"Captain Alingdon," she said, "does any one else know of this
letter?"
"No. I was alone in the archives when I found it."
"And you spoke of it to no one?"
"To no one."
"Then no one must know."
I bowed. "It is for you to decide."
She paused. "Not even my mother," she continued, with a painful
blush.
I looked at her in amazement. "Not even--?"
She shook her head sadly. "You think me a cruel daughter? Well--_he_
was a cruel friend. What he did was done for Italy: shall I allow
myself to be surpassed?"
I felt a pang of commiseration for the mother. "But you will at
least tell the Countess--"
Her eyes filled with tears. "My poor mother--don't make it more
difficult for me!"
"But I don't understand--"
"Don't you see that she might find it impossible to forgive him? She
has suffered so much! And I can't risk that--for in her anger she
might speak. And even if she forgave him, she might be tempted to
show the letter. Don't you see that, even now, a word of this might
ruin him? I will trust his fate to no one. If Italy needed him then
she needs him far more to-day."
She stood before me magnificently, in the splendor of her great
refusal; then she turned to the writing-table at which she had been
seated when I came in. Her sealing-taper was still alight, and she
held her brother's letter to the flame.
I watched her in silence while it burned; but one more question rose
to my lips.
"You will tell _him_, then, what you have done for him?" I cried.
And at that the heroine turned woman, melted and pressed unhappy
hands in mine.
"Don't you see that I can never tell him what I do for him? That is
my gift to Italy," she said.
The Dilettante.
IT was on an impulse hardly needing the arguments he found himself
advancing in its favor, that Thursdale, on his way to the club,
turned as usual into Mrs. Vervain's street.
The "as usual" was his own qualification of the act; a convenient
way of bridging the interval--in days and other sequences--that lay
between this visit and the last. It was characteristic of him that
he instinctively excluded his call two days earlier, with Ruth
Gaynor, from the list of his visits to Mrs. Vervain: the special
conditions attending it had made it no more like a visit to Mrs.
Vervain than an engraved dinner invitation is like a personal
letter. Yet it was to talk over his call with Miss Gaynor that he
was now returning to the scene of that episode; and it was because
Mrs. Vervain could be trusted to handle the talking over as
skilfully as the interview itself that, at her corner, he had felt
the dilettante's irresistible craving to take a last look at a work
of art that was passing out of his possession.
On the whole, he knew no one better fitted to deal with the
unexpected than Mrs. Vervain. She excelled in the rare art of taking
things for granted, and Thursdale felt a pardonable pride in the
thought that she owed her excellence to his training. Early in his
career Thursdale had made the mistake, at the outset of his
acquaintance with a lady, of telling her that he loved her and
exacting the same avowal in return. The latter part of that episode
had been like the long walk back from a picnic, when one has to
carry all the crockery one has finished using: it was the last time
Thursdale ever allowed himself to be encumbered with the debris of a
feast. He thus incidentally learned that the privilege of loving her
is one of the least favors that a charming woman can accord; and in
seeking to avoid the pitfalls of sentiment he had developed a
science of evasion in which the woman of the moment became a mere
implement of the game. He owed a great deal of delicate enjoyment to
the cultivation of this art. The perils from which it had been his
refuge became naively harmless: was it possible that he who now took
his easy way along the levels had once preferred to gasp on the raw
heights of emotion? Youth is a high-colored season; but he had the
satisfaction of feeling that he had entered earlier than most into
that chiar'oscuro of sensation where every half-tone has its value.
As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable to
Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good many women not to betray their
feelings, but he had never before had such fine material to work in.
She had been surprisingly crude when he first knew her; capable of
making the most awkward inferences, of plunging through thin ice, of
recklessly undressing her emotions; but she had acquired, under the
discipline of his reticences and evasions, a skill almost equal to
his own, and perhaps more remarkable in that it involved keeping
time with any tune he played and reading at sight some uncommonly
difficult passages.
It had taken Thursdale seven years to form this fine talent; but the
result justified the effort. At the crucial moment she had been
perfect: her way of greeting Miss Gaynor had made him regret that he
had announced his engagement by letter. it was an evasion that
confessed a difficulty; a deviation implying an obstacle, where, by
common consent, it was agreed to see none; it betrayed, in short, a
lack of confidence in the completeness of his method. It had been
his pride never to put himself in a position which had to be
quitted, as it were, by the back door; but here, as he perceived,
the main portals would have opened for him of their own accord. All
this, and much more, he read in the finished naturalness with which
Mrs. Vervain had met Miss Gaynor. He had never seen a better piece
of work: there was no over-eagerness, no suspicious warmth, above
all (and this gave her art the grace of a natural quality) there
were none of those damnable implications whereby a woman, in
welcoming her friend's betrothed, may keep him on pins and needles
while she laps the lady in complacency. So masterly a performance,
indeed, hardly needed the offset of Miss Gaynor's door-step
words--"To be so kind to me, how she must have liked you!"--though
he caught himself wishing it lay within the bounds of fitness to
transmit them, as a final tribute, to the one woman he knew who was
unfailingly certain to enjoy a good thing. It was perhaps the one
drawback to his new situation that it might develop good things
which it would be impossible to hand on to Margaret Vervain.
The fact that he had made the mistake of underrating his friend's
powers, the consciousness that his writing must have betrayed his
distrust of her efficiency, seemed an added reason for turning down
her street instead of going on to the club. He would show her that
he knew how to value her; he would ask her to achieve with him a
feat infinitely rarer and more delicate than the one he had appeared
to avoid. Incidentally, he would also dispose of the interval of
time before dinner: ever since he had seen Miss Gaynor off, an hour
earlier, on her return journey to Buffalo, he had been wondering how
he should put in the rest of the afternoon. It was absurd, how he
missed the girl....Yes, that was it; the desire to talk about
her was, after all, at the bottom of his impulse to call on Mrs.
Vervain! It was absurd, if you like--but it was delightfully
rejuvenating. He could recall the time when he had been afraid of
being obvious: now he felt that this return to the primitive
emotions might be as restorative as a holiday in the Canadian woods.
And it was precisely by the girl's candor, her directness, her lack
of complications, that he was taken. The sense that she might say
something rash at any moment was positively exhilarating: if she had
thrown her arms about him at the station he would not have given a
thought to his crumpled dignity. It surprised Thursdale to find what
freshness of heart he brought to the adventure; and though his sense
of irony prevented his ascribing his intactness to any conscious
purpose, he could but rejoice in the fact that his sentimental
economies had left him such a large surplus to draw upon.
Mrs. Vervain was at home--as usual. When one visits the cemetery one
expects to find the angel on the tombstone, and it struck Thursdale
as another proof of his friend's good taste that she had been in no
undue haste to change her habits. The whole house appeared to count
on his coming; the footman took his hat and overcoat as naturally as
though there had been no lapse in his visits; and the drawing-room
at once enveloped him in that atmosphere of tacit intelligence which
Mrs. Vervain imparted to her very furniture.
It was a surprise that, in this general harmony of circumstances,
Mrs. Vervain should herself sound the first false note.
"You?" she exclaimed; and the book she held slipped from her hand.
It was crude, certainly; unless it were a touch of the finest art.
The difficulty of classifying it disturbed Thursdale's balance.
"Why not?" he said, restoring the book. "Isn't it my hour?" And as
she made no answer, he added gently, "Unless it's some one else's?"
She laid the book aside and sank back into her chair. "Mine,
merely," she said.
"I hope that doesn't mean that you're unwilling to share it?"
"With you? By no means. You're welcome to my last crust."
He looked at her reproachfully. "Do you call this the last?"
She smiled as he dropped into the seat across the hearth. "It's a
way of giving it more flavor!"
He returned the smile. "A visit to you doesn't need such
condiments."
She took this with just the right measure of retrospective
amusement.
"Ah, but I want to put into this one a very special taste," she
confessed.
Her smile was so confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into
the imprudence of saying, "Why should you want it to be different
from what was always so perfectly right?"
She hesitated. "Doesn't the fact that it's the last constitute a
difference?"
"The last--my last visit to you?"
"Oh, metaphorically, I mean--there's a break in the continuity."
Decidedly, she was pressing too hard: unlearning his arts already!
"I don't recognize it," he said. "Unless you make me--" he added,
with a note that slightly stirred her attitude of languid attention.
She turned to him with grave eyes. "You recognize no difference
whatever?"
"None--except an added link in the chain."
"An added link?"
"In having one more thing to like you for--your letting Miss Gaynor
see why I had already so many." He flattered himself that this turn
had taken the least hint of fatuity from the phrase.
Mrs. Vervain sank into her former easy pose. "Was it that you came
for?" she asked, almost gaily.
"If it is necessary to have a reason--that was one."
"To talk to me about Miss Gaynor?"
"To tell you how she talks about you."
"That will be very interesting--especially if you have seen her
since her second visit to me."
"Her second visit?" Thursdale pushed his chair back with a start and
moved to another. "She came to see you again?"
"This morning, yes--by appointment."
He continued to look at her blankly. "You sent for her?"
"I didn't have to--she wrote and asked me last night. But no doubt
you have seen her since."
Thursdale sat silent. He was trying to separate his words from his
thoughts, but they still clung together inextricably. "I saw her off
just now at the station."
"And she didn't tell you that she had been here again?"
"There was hardly time, I suppose--there were people about--" he
floundered.
"Ah, she'll write, then."
He regained his composure. "Of course she'll write: very often, I
hope. You know I'm absurdly in love," he cried audaciously.
She tilted her head back, looking up at him as he leaned against the
chimney-piece. He had leaned there so often that the attitude
touched a pulse which set up a throbbing in her throat. "Oh, my poor
Thursdale!" she murmured.
"I suppose it's rather ridiculous," he owned; and as she remained
silent, he added, with a sudden break--"Or have you another reason
for pitying me?"
Her answer was another question. "Have you been back to your rooms
since you left her?"
"Since I left her at the station? I came straight here."
"Ah, yes--you _could:_ there was no reason--" Her words passed into
a silent musing.
Thursdale moved nervously nearer. "You said you had something to
tell me?"
"Perhaps I had better let her do so. There may be a letter at your
rooms."
"A letter? What do you mean? A letter from _her?_ What has
happened?"
His paleness shook her, and she raised a hand of reassurance.
"Nothing has happened--perhaps that is just the worst of it. You
always _hated_, you know," she added incoherently, "to have things
happen: you never would let them."
"And now--?"
"Well, that was what she came here for: I supposed you had guessed.
To know if anything had happened."
"Had happened?" He gazed at her slowly. "Between you and me?" he
said with a rush of light.
The words were so much cruder than any that had ever passed between
them that the color rose to her face; but she held his startled
gaze.
"You know girls are not quite as unsophisticated as they used to be.
Are you surprised that such an idea should occur to her?"
His own color answered hers: it was the only reply that came to him.
Mrs. Vervain went on, smoothly: "I supposed it might have struck you
that there were times when we presented that appearance."
He made an impatient gesture. "A man's past is his own!"
"Perhaps--it certainly never belongs to the woman who has shared it.
But one learns such truths only by experience; and Miss Gaynor is
naturally inexperienced."
"Of course--but--supposing her act a natural one--" he floundered
lamentably among his innuendoes--"I still don't see--how there was
anything--"
"Anything to take hold of? There wasn't--"
"Well, then--?" escaped him, in crude satisfaction; but as she did
not complete the sentence he went on with a faltering laugh: "She
can hardly object to the existence of a mere friendship between us!"
"But she does," said Mrs. Vervain.
Thursdale stood perplexed. He had seen, on the previous day, no
trace of jealousy or resentment in his betrothed: he could still
hear the candid ring of the girl's praise of Mrs. Vervain. If she
were such an abyss of insincerity as to dissemble distrust under
such frankness, she must at least be more subtle than to bring her
doubts to her rival for solution. The situation seemed one through
which one could no longer move in a penumbra, and he let in a burst
of light with the direct query: "Won't you explain what you mean?"
Mrs. Vervain sat silent, not provokingly, as though to prolong his
distress, but as if, in the attenuated phraseology he had taught
her, it was difficult to find words robust enough to meet his
challenge. It was the first time he had ever asked her to explain
anything; and she had lived so long in dread of offering
elucidations which were not wanted, that she seemed unable to
produce one on the spot.
At last she said slowly: "She came to find out if you were really
free."
Thursdale colored again. "Free?" he stammered, with a sense of
physical disgust at contact with such crassness.
"Yes--if I had quite done with you." She smiled in recovered
security. "It seems she likes clear outlines; she has a passion for
definitions."
"Yes--well?" he said, wincing at the echo of his own subtlety.
"Well--and when I told her that you had never belonged to me, she
wanted me to define _my_ status--to know exactly where I had stood
all along."
Thursdale sat gazing at her intently; his hand was not yet on the
clue. "And even when you had told her that--"
"Even when I had told her that I had _had_ no status--that I had
never stood anywhere, in any sense she meant," said Mrs. Vervain,
slowly--"even then she wasn't satisfied, it seems."
He uttered an uneasy exclamation. "She didn't believe you, you
mean?"
"I mean that she _did_ believe me: too thoroughly."
"Well, then--in God's name, what did she want?"
"Something more--those were the words she used."
"Something more? Between--between you and me? Is it a conundrum?" He
laughed awkwardly.
"Girls are not what they were in my day; they are no longer
forbidden to contemplate the relation of the sexes."
"So it seems!" he commented. "But since, in this case, there wasn't
any--" he broke off, catching the dawn of a revelation in her gaze.
"That's just it. The unpardonable offence has been--in our not
offending."
He flung himself down despairingly. "I give it up!--What did you
tell her?" he burst out with sudden crudeness.
"The exact truth. If I had only known," she broke off with a
beseeching tenderness, "won't you believe that I would still have
lied for you?"
"Lied for me? Why on earth should you have lied for either of us?"
"To save you--to hide you from her to the last! As I've hidden you
from myself all these years!" She stood up with a sudden tragic
import in her movement. "You believe me capable of that, don't you?
If I had only guessed--but I have never known a girl like her; she
had the truth out of me with a spring."
"The truth that you and I had never--"
"Had never--never in all these years! Oh, she knew why--she measured
us both in a flash. She didn't suspect me of having haggled with
you--her words pelted me like hail. 'He just took what he
wanted--sifted and sorted you to suit his taste. Burnt out the gold
and left a heap of cinders. And you let him--you let yourself be cut
in bits'--she mixed her metaphors a little--'be cut in bits, and
used or discarded, while all the while every drop of blood in you
belonged to him! But he's Shylock--and you have bled to death of the
pound of flesh he has cut out of you.' But she despises me the most,
you know--far the most--" Mrs. Vervain ended.
The words fell strangely on the scented stillness of the room: they
seemed out of harmony with its setting of afternoon intimacy, the
kind of intimacy on which at any moment, a visitor might intrude
without perceptibly lowering the atmosphere. It was as though a
grand opera-singer had strained the acoustics of a private
music-room.
Thursdale stood up, facing his hostess. Half the room was between
them, but they seemed to stare close at each other now that the
veils of reticence and ambiguity had fallen.
His first words were characteristic. "She _does_ despise me, then?"
he exclaimed.
"She thinks the pound of flesh you took was a little too near the
heart."
He was excessively pale. "Please tell me exactly what she said of
me."
"She did not speak much of you: she is proud. But I gather that
while she understands love or indifference, her eyes have never been
opened to the many intermediate shades of feeling. At any rate, she
expressed an unwillingness to be taken with reservations--she thinks
you would have loved her better if you had loved some one else
first. The point of view is original--she insists on a man with a
past!"
"Oh, a past--if she's serious--I could rake up a past!" he said with
a laugh.
"So I suggested: but she has her eyes on his particular portion of
it. She insists on making it a test case. She wanted to know what
you had done to me; and before I could guess her drift I blundered
into telling her."
Thursdale drew a difficult breath. "I never supposed--your revenge
is complete," he said slowly.
He heard a little gasp in her throat. "My revenge? When I sent for
you to warn you--to save you from being surprised as _I_ was
surprised?"
"You're very good--but it's rather late to talk of saving me." He
held out his hand in the mechanical gesture of leave-taking.
"How you must care!--for I never saw you so dull," was her answer.
"Don't you see that it's not too late for me to help you?" And as he
continued to stare, she brought out sublimely: "Take the rest--in
imagination! Let it at least be of that much use to you. Tell her I
lied to her--she's too ready to believe it! And so, after all, in a
sense, I sha'n't have been wasted."
His stare hung on her, widening to a kind of wonder. She gave the
look back brightly, unblushingly, as though the expedient were too
simple to need oblique approaches. It was extraordinary how a few
words had swept them from an atmosphere of the most complex
dissimulations to this contact of naked souls.
It was not in Thursdale to expand with the pressure of fate; but
something in him cracked with it, and the rift let in new light. He
went up to his friend and took her hand.
"You would do it--you would do it!"
She looked at him, smiling, but her hand shook.
"Good-by," he said, kissing it.
"Good-by? You are going--?"
"To get my letter."
"Your letter? The letter won't matter, if you will only do what I
ask."
He returned her gaze. "I might, I suppose, without being out of
character. Only, don't you see that if your plan helped me it could
only harm her?"
"Harm _her?_"
"To sacrifice you wouldn't make me different. I shall go on being
what I have always been--sifting and sorting, as she calls it. Do
you want my punishment to fall on _her?_"
She looked at him long and deeply. "Ah, if I had to choose between
you--!"
"You would let her take her chance? But I can't, you see. I must
take my punishment alone."
She drew her hand away, sighing. "Oh, there will be no punishment
for either of you."
"For either of us? There will be the reading of her letter for me."
She shook her head with a slight laugh. "There will be no letter."
Thursdale faced about from the threshold with fresh life in his
look. "No letter? You don't mean--"
"I mean that she's been with you since I saw her--she's seen you and
heard your voice. If there _is_ a letter, she has recalled it--from
the first station, by telegraph."
He turned back to the door, forcing an answer to her smile. "But in
the mean while I shall have read it," he said.
The door closed on him, and she hid her eyes from the dreadful
emptiness of the room.
THE QUICKSAND
I
AS Mrs. Quentin's victoria, driving homeward, turned from the Park
into Fifth Avenue, she divined her son's tall figure walking ahead
of her in the twilight. His long stride covered the ground more
rapidly than usual, and she had a premonition that, if he were going
home at that hour, it was because he wanted to see her.
Mrs. Quentin, though not a fanciful woman, was sometimes aware of a
sixth sense enabling her to detect the faintest vibrations of her
son's impulses. She was too shrewd to fancy herself the one mother
in possession of this faculty, but she permitted herself to think
that few could exercise it more discreetly. If she could not help
overhearing Alan's thoughts, she had the courage to keep her
discoveries to herself, the tact to take for granted nothing that
lay below the surface of their spoken intercourse: she knew that
most people would rather have their letters read than their
thoughts. For this superfeminine discretion Alan repaid her
by--being Alan. There could have been no completer reward. He was
the key to the meaning of life, the justification of what must have
seemed as incomprehensible as it was odious, had it not
all-sufficingly ended in himself. He was a perfect son, and Mrs.
Quentin had always hungered for perfection.
Her house, in a minor way, bore witness to the craving. One felt it
to be the result of a series of eliminations: there was nothing
fortuitous in its blending of line and color. The almost morbid
finish of every material detail of her life suggested the
possibility that a diversity of energies had, by some pressure of
circumstance, been forced into the channel of a narrow
dilettanteism. Mrs. Quentin's fastidiousness had, indeed, the flaw
of being too one-sided. Her friends were not always worthy of the
chairs they sat in, and she overlooked in her associates defects she
would not have tolerated in her bric-a-brac. Her house was, in fact,
never so distinguished as when it was empty; and it was at its best
in the warm fire-lit silence that now received her.
Her son, who had overtaken her on the door-step, followed her into
the drawing-room, and threw himself into an armchair near the fire,
while she laid off her furs and busied herself about the tea table.
For a while neither spoke; but glancing at him across the kettle,
his mother noticed that he sat staring at the embers with a look she
had never seen on his face, though its arrogant young outline was as
familiar to her as her own thoughts. The look extended itself to his
negligent attitude, to the droop of his long fine hands, the
dejected tilt of his head against the cushions. It was like the
moral equivalent of physical fatigue: he looked, as he himself would
have phrased it, dead-beat, played out. Such an air was so foreign
to his usual bright indomitableness that Mrs. Quentin had the sense
of an unfamiliar presence, in which she must observe herself, must
raise hurried barriers against an alien approach. It was one of the
drawbacks of their excessive intimacy that any break in it seemed a
chasm.
She was accustomed to let his thoughts circle about her before they
settled into speech, and she now sat in motionless expectancy, as
though a sound might frighten them away.
At length, without turning his eyes from the fire, he said: "I'm so
glad you're a nice old-fashioned intuitive woman. It's painful to
see them think."
Her apprehension had already preceded him. "Hope Fenno--?" she
faltered.
He nodded. "She's been thinking--hard. It was very painful--to me,
at least; and I don't believe she enjoyed it: she said she didn't."
He stretched his feet to the fire. "The result of her cogitations is
that she won't have me. She arrived at this by pure
ratiocination--it's not a question of feeling, you understand. I'm
the only man she's ever loved--but she won't have me. What novels
did you read when you were young, dear? I'm convinced it all turns
on that. If she'd been brought up on Trollope and Whyte-Melville,
instead of Tolstoi and Mrs. Ward, we should have now been vulgarly
sitting on a sofa, trying on the engagement-ring."
Mrs. Quentin at first was kept silent by the mother's instinctive
anger that the girl she has not wanted for her son should have dared
to refuse him. Then she said, "Tell me, dear."
"My good woman, she has scruples."
"Scruples?"
"Against the paper. She objects to me in my official capacity as
owner of the _Radiator_."
His mother did not echo his laugh.
"She had found a solution, of course--she overflows with expedients.
I was to chuck the paper, and we were to live happily ever afterward
on canned food and virtue. She even had an alternative ready--women
are so full of resources! I was to turn the _Radiator_ into an
independent organ, and run it at a loss to show the public what a
model newspaper ought to be. On the whole, I think she fancied this
plan more than the other--it commended itself to her as being more
uncomfortable and aggressive. It's not the fashion nowadays to be
good by stealth."
Mrs. Quentin said to herself, "I didn't know how much he cared!"
Aloud she murmured, "You must give her time."
"Time?"
"To move out the old prejudices and make room for new ones."
"My dear mother, those she has are brand-new; that's the trouble
with them. She's tremendously up-to-date. She takes in all the moral
fashion-papers, and wears the newest thing in ethics."
Her resentment lost its way in the intricacies of his metaphor. "Is
she so very religious?"
"You dear archaic woman! She's hopelessly irreligious; that's the
difficulty. You can make a religious woman believe almost anything:
there's the habit of credulity to work on. But when a girl's faith
in the Deluge has been shaken, it's very hard to inspire her with
confidence. She makes you feel that, before believing in you, it's
her duty as a conscientious agnostic to find out whether you're not
obsolete, or whether the text isn't corrupt, or somebody hasn't
proved conclusively that you never existed, anyhow."
Mrs. Quentin was again silent. The two moved in that atmosphere of
implications and assumptions where the lightest word may shake down
the dust of countless stored impressions; and speech was sometimes
more difficult between them than had their union been less close.
Presently she ventured, "It's impossible?"
"Impossible?"
She seemed to use her words cautiously, like weapons that might slip
and inflict a cut. "What she suggests."
Her son, raising himself, turned to look at her for the first time.
Their glance met in a shock of comprehension. He was with her
against the girl, then! Her satisfaction overflowed in a murmur of
tenderness.
"Of course not, dear. One can't change--change one's life...."
"One's self," he emended. "That's what I tell her. What's the use of
my giving up the paper if I keep my point of view?"
The psychological distinction attracted her. "Which is it she minds
most?"
"Oh, the paper--for the present. She undertakes to modify the point
of view afterward. All she asks is that I shall renounce my heresy:
the gift of grace will come later."
Mrs. Quentin sat gazing into her untouched cup. Her son's first
words had produced in her the hallucinated sense of struggling in
the thick of a crowd that he could not see. It was horrible to feel
herself hemmed in by influences imperceptible to him; yet if
anything could have increased her misery it would have been the
discovery that her ghosts had become visible.
As though to divert his attention, she precipitately asked, "And
you--?"
His answer carried the shock of an evocation. "I merely asked her
what she thought of _you_."
"Of me?"
"She admires you immensely, you know."
For a moment Mrs. Quentin's cheek showed the lingering light of
girlhood: praise transmitted by her son acquired something of the
transmitter's merit. "Well--?" she smiled.
"Well--you didn't make my father give up the _Radiator_, did you?"
His mother, stiffening, made a circuitous return: "She never comes
here. How can she know me?"
"She's so poor! She goes out so little." He rose and leaned against
the mantel-piece, dislodging with impatient fingers a slender bronze
wrestler poised on a porphyry base, between two warm-toned Spanish
ivories. "And then her mother--" he added, as if involuntarily.
"Her mother has never visited me," Mrs. Quentin finished for him.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Mrs. Fenno has the scope of a wax doll.
Her rule of conduct is taken from her grandmother's sampler."
"But the daughter is so modern--and yet--"
"The result is the same? Not exactly. _She_ admires you--oh,
immensely!" He replaced the bronze and turned to his mother with a
smile. "Aren't you on some hospital committee together? What
especially strikes her is your way of doing good. She says
philanthropy is not a line of conduct, but a state of mind--and it
appears that you are one of the elect."
As, in the vague diffusion of physical pain, relief seems to come
with the acuter pang of a single nerve, Mrs. Quentin felt herself
suddenly eased by a rush of anger against the girl. "If she loved
you--" she began.
His gesture checked her. "I'm not asking you to get her to do that."
The two were again silent, facing each other in the disarray of a
common catastrophe--as though their thoughts, at the summons of
danger, had rushed naked into action. Mrs. Quentin, at this
revealing moment, saw for the first time how many elements of her
son's character had seemed comprehensible simply because they were
familiar: as, in reading a foreign language, we take the meaning of
certain words for granted till the context corrects us. Often as in
a given case, her maternal musings had figured his conduct, she now
found herself at a loss to forecast it; and with this failure of
intuition came a sense of the subserviency which had hitherto made
her counsels but the anticipation of his wish. Her despair escaped
in the moan, "What _is_ it you ask me?"
"To talk to her."
"Talk to her?"
"Show her--tell her--make her understand that the paper has always
been a thing outside your life--that hasn't touched you--that
needn't touch _her_. Only, let her hear you--watch you--be with
you--she'll see...she can't help seeing..."
His mother faltered. "But if she's given you her reasons--?"
"Let her give them to you! If she can--when she sees you...." His
impatient hand again displaced the wrestler. "I care abominably," he
confessed.
II
On the Fenno threshold a sudden sense of the futility of the attempt
had almost driven Mrs. Quentin back to her carriage; but the door
was already opening, and a parlor-maid who believed that Miss Fenno
was in led the way to the depressing drawing-room. It was the kind
of room in which no member of the family is likely to be found
except after dinner or after death. The chairs and tables looked
like poor relations who had repaid their keep by a long career of
grudging usefulness: they seemed banded together against intruders
in a sullen conspiracy of discomfort. Mrs. Quentin, keenly
susceptible to such influences, read failure in every angle of the
upholstery. She was incapable of the vulgar error of thinking that
Hope Fenno might be induced to marry Alan for his money; but between
this assumption and the inference that the girl's imagination might
be touched by the finer possibilities of wealth, good taste admitted
a distinction. The Fenno furniture, however, presented to such
reasoning the obtuseness of its black-walnut chamferings; and
something in its attitude suggested that its owners would be as
uncompromising. The room showed none of the modern attempts at
palliation, no apologetic draping of facts; and Mrs. Quentin,
provisionally perched on a green-reps Gothic sofa with which it was
clearly impossible to establish any closer relations, concluded
that, had Mrs. Fenno needed another seat of the same size, she would
have set out placidly to match the one on which her visitor now
languished.
To Mrs. Quentin's fancy, Hope Fenno's opinions, presently imparted
in a clear young voice from the opposite angle of the Gothic sofa,
partook of the character of their surroundings. The girl's mind was
like a large light empty place, scantily furnished with a few
massive prejudices, not designed to add to any one's comfort but too
ponderous to be easily moved. Mrs. Quentin's own intelligence, in
which its owner, in an artistically shaded half-light, had so long
moved amid a delicate complexity of sensations, seemed in comparison
suddenly close and crowded; and in taking refuge there from the
glare of the young girl's candor, the older woman found herself
stumbling in an unwonted obscurity. Her uneasiness resolved itself
into a sense of irritation against her listener. Mrs. Quentin knew
that the momentary value of any argument lies in the capacity of the
mind to which it is addressed, and as her shafts of persuasion spent
themselves against Miss Fenno's obduracy, she said to herself that,
since conduct is governed by emotions rather than ideas, the really
strong people are those who mistake their sensations for opinions.
Viewed in this light, Miss Fenno was certainly very strong: there
was an unmistakable ring of finality in the tone with which she
declared,
"It's impossible."
Mrs. Quentin's answer veiled the least shade of feminine resentment.
"I told Alan that, where he had failed, there was no chance of my
making an impression."
Hope Fenno laid on her visitor's an almost reverential hand. "Dear
Mrs. Quentin, it's the impression you make that confirms the
impossibility."
Mrs. Quentin waited a moment: she was perfectly aware that, where
her feelings were concerned, her sense of humor was not to be relied
on. "Do I make such an odious impression?" she asked at length, with
a smile that seemed to give the girl her choice of two meanings.
"You make such a beautiful one! It's too beautiful--it obscures my
judgment."
Mrs. Quentin looked at her thoughtfully. "Would it be permissible, I
wonder, for an older woman to suggest that, at your age, it isn't
always a misfortune to have what one calls one's judgment
temporarily obscured?"
Miss Fenno flushed. "I try not to judge others--"
"You judge Alan."
"Ah, _he_ is not others," she murmured, with an accent that touched
the older woman.
"You judge his mother."
"I don't; I don't!"
Mrs. Quentin pressed her point. "You judge yourself, then, as you
would be in my position--and your verdict condemns me."
"How can you think it? It's because I appreciate the difference in
our point of view that I find it so difficult to defend myself--"
"Against what?"
"The temptation to imagine that I might be as _you_ are--feeling as
I do."
Mrs. Quentin rose with a sigh. "My child, in my day love was less
subtle." She added, after a moment, "Alan is a perfect son."
"Ah, that again--that makes it worse!"
"Worse?"
"Just as your goodness does, your sweetness, your immense indulgence
in letting me discuss things with you in a way that must seem almost
an impertinence."
Mrs. Quentin's smile was not without irony. "You must remember that
I do it for Alan."
"That's what I love you for!" the girl instantly returned; and again
her tone touched her listener.
"And yet you're sacrificing him--and to an idea!"
"Isn't it to ideas that all the sacrifices that were worth while
have been made?"
"One may sacrifice one's self."
Miss Fenno's color rose. "That's what I'm doing," she said gently.
Mrs. Quentin took her hand. "I believe you are," she answered. "And
it isn't true that I speak only for Alan. Perhaps I did when I
began; but now I want to plead for you too--against yourself." She
paused, and then went on with a deeper note: "I have let you, as you
say, speak your mind to me in terms that some women might have
resented, because I wanted to show you how little, as the years go
on, theories, ideas, abstract conceptions of life, weigh against the
actual, against the particular way in which life presents itself to
us--to women especially. To decide beforehand exactly how one ought
to behave in given circumstances is like deciding that one will
follow a certain direction in crossing an unexplored country.
Afterward we find that we must turn out for the obstacles--cross the
rivers where they're shallowest--take the tracks that others have
beaten--make all sorts of unexpected concessions. Life is made up of
compromises: that is what youth refuses to understand. I've lived
long enough to doubt whether any real good ever came of sacrificing
beautiful facts to even more beautiful theories. Do I seem
casuistical? I don't know--there may be losses either way...but
the love of the man one loves...of the child one loves...
that makes up for everything...."
She had spoken with a thrill which seemed to communicate itself to
the hand her listener had left in hers. Her eyes filled suddenly,
but through their dimness she saw the girl's lips shape a last
desperate denial:
"Don't you see it's because I feel all this that I mustn't--that I
can't?"
III
Mrs. Quentin, in the late spring afternoon, had turned in at the
doors of the Metropolitan Museum. She had been walking in the Park,
in a solitude oppressed by the ever-present sense of her son's
trouble, and had suddenly remembered that some one had added a
Beltraffio to the collection. It was an old habit of Mrs. Quentin's
to seek in the enjoyment of the beautiful the distraction that most
of her acquaintances appeared to find in each other's company. She
had few friends, and their society was welcome to her only in her
more superficial moods; but she could drug anxiety with a picture as
some women can soothe it with a bonnet.
During the six months that had elapsed since her visit to Miss Fenno
she had been conscious of a pain of which she had supposed herself
no longer capable: as a man will continue to feel the ache of an
amputated arm. She had fancied that all her centres of feeling had
been transferred to Alan; but she now found herself subject to a
kind of dual suffering, in which her individual pang was the keener
in that it divided her from her son's. Alan had surprised her: she
had not foreseen that he would take a sentimental rebuff so hard.
His disappointment took the uncommunicative form of a sterner
application to work. He threw himself into the concerns of the
_Radiator_ with an aggressiveness that almost betrayed itself in the
paper. Mrs. Quentin never read the _Radiator_, but from the glimpses
of it reflected in the other journals she gathered that it was at
least not being subjected to the moral reconstruction which had been
one of Miss Fenno's alternatives.
Mrs. Quentin never spoke to her son of what had happened. She was
superior to the cheap satisfaction of avenging his injury by
depreciating its cause. She knew that in sentimental sorrows such
consolations are as salt in the wound. The avoidance of a subject so
vividly present to both could not but affect the closeness of their
relation. An invisible presence hampered their liberty of speech and
thought. The girl was always between them; and to hide the sense of
her intrusion they began to be less frequently together. It was then
that Mrs. Quentin measured the extent of her isolation. Had she ever
dared to forecast such a situation, she would have proceeded on the
conventional theory that her son's suffering must draw her nearer to
him; and this was precisely the relief that was denied her. Alan's
uncommunicativeness extended below the level of speech, and his
mother, reduced to the helplessness of dead-reckoning, had not even
the solace of adapting her sympathy to his needs. She did not know
what he felt: his course was incalculable to her. She sometimes
wondered if she had become as incomprehensible to him; and it was to
find a moment's refuge from the dogging misery of such conjectures
that she had now turned in at the Museum.
The long line of mellow canvases seemed to receive her into the rich
calm of an autumn twilight. She might have been walking in an
enchanted wood where the footfall of care never sounded. So deep was
the sense of seclusion that, as she turned from her prolonged
communion with the new Beltraffio, it was a surprise to find she was
not alone.
A young lady who had risen from the central ottoman stood in
suspended flight as Mrs. Quentin faced her. The older woman was the
first to regain her self-possession.
"Miss Fenno!" she said.
The girl advanced with a blush. As it faded, Mrs. Quentin noticed a
change in her. There had always been something bright and bannerlike
in her aspect, but now her look drooped, and she hung at half-mast,
as it were. Mrs. Quentin, in the embarrassment of surprising a
secret that its possessor was doubtless unconscious of betraying,
reverted hurriedly to the Beltraffio.
"I came to see this," she said. "It's very beautiful."
Miss Fenno's eye travelled incuriously over the mystic blue reaches
of the landscape. "I suppose so," she assented; adding, after
another tentative pause, "You come here often, don't you?"
"Very often," Mrs. Quentin answered. "I find pictures a great help."
"A help?"
"A rest, I mean...if one is tired or out of sorts."
"Ah," Miss Fenno murmured, looking down.
"This Beltraffio is new, you know," Mrs. Quentin continued. "What a
wonderful background, isn't it? Is he a painter who interests you?"
The girl glanced again at the dusky canvas, as though in a final
endeavor to extract from it a clue to the consolations of art. "I
don't know," she said at length; "I'm afraid I don't understand
pictures." She moved nearer to Mrs. Quentin and held out her hand.
"You're going?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Quentin looked at her. "Let me drive you home," she said,
impulsively. She was feeling, with a shock of surprise, that it gave
her, after all, no pleasure to see how much the girl had suffered.
Miss Fenno stiffened perceptibly. "Thank you; I shall like the
walk."
Mrs. Quentin dropped her hand with a corresponding movement of
withdrawal, and a momentary wave of antagonism seemed to sweep the
two women apart. Then, as Mrs. Quentin, bowing slightly, again
addressed herself to the picture, she felt a sudden touch on her
arm.
"Mrs. Quentin," the girl faltered, "I really came here because I saw
your carriage." Her eyes sank, and then fluttered back to her
hearer's face. "I've been horribly unhappy!" she exclaimed.
Mrs. Quentin was silent. If Hope Fenno had expected an immediate
response to her appeal, she was disappointed. The older woman's face
was like a veil dropped before her thoughts.
"I've thought so often," the girl went on precipitately, "of what
you said that day you came to see me last autumn. I think I
understand now what you meant--what you tried to make me see....
Oh, Mrs. Quentin," she broke out, "I didn't mean to tell you this--I
never dreamed of it till this moment--but you _do_ remember what you
said, don't you? You must remember it! And now that I've met you in
this way, I can't help telling you that I believe--I begin to
believe--that you were right, after all."
Mrs. Quentin had listened without moving; but now she raised her
eyes with a slight smile. "Do you wish me to say this to Alan?" she
asked.
The girl flushed, but her glance braved the smile. "Would he still
care to hear it?" she said fearlessly.
Mrs. Quentin took momentary refuge in a renewed inspection of the
Beltraffio; then, turning, she said, with a kind of reluctance: "He
would still care."
"Ah!" broke from the girl.
During this exchange of words the two speakers had drifted
unconsciously toward one of the benches. Mrs. Quentin glanced about
her: a custodian who had been hovering in the doorway sauntered into
the adjoining gallery, and they remained alone among the silvery
Vandykes and flushed bituminous Halses. Mrs. Quentin sank down on
the bench and reached a hand to the girl.
"Sit by me," she said.
Miss Fenno dropped beside her. In both women the stress of emotion
was too strong for speech. The girl was still trembling, and Mrs.
Quentin was the first to regain her composure.
"You say you've suffered," she began at last. "Do you suppose _I_
haven't?"
"I knew you had. That made it so much worse for me--that I should
have been the cause of your suffering for Alan!"
Mrs. Quentin drew a deep breath. "Not for Alan only," she said. Miss
Fenno turned on her a wondering glance. "Not for Alan only. _That_
pain every woman expects--and knows how to bear. We all know our
children must have such disappointments, and to suffer with them is
not the deepest pain. It's the suffering apart--in ways they don't
understand." She breathed deeply. "I want you to know what I mean.
You were right--that day--and I was wrong."
"Oh," the girl faltered.
Mrs. Quentin went on in a voice of passionate lucidity. "I knew it
then--I knew it even while I was trying to argue with you--I've
always known it! I didn't want my son to marry you till I heard your
reasons for refusing him; and then--then I longed to see you his
wife!"
"Oh, Mrs. Quentin!"
"I longed for it; but I knew it mustn't be."
"Mustn't be?"
Mrs. Quentin shook her head sadly, and the girl, gaining courage
from this mute negation, cried with an uncontrollable escape of
feeling:
"It's because you thought me hard, obstinate narrow-minded? Oh, I
understand that so well! My self-righteousness must have seemed so
petty! A girl who could sacrifice a man's future to her own moral
vanity--for it _was_ a form of vanity; you showed me that plainly
enough--how you must have despised me! But I am not that girl
now--indeed I'm not. I'm not impulsive--I think things out. I've
thought this out. I know Alan loves me--I know _how_ he loves
me--and I believe I can help him--oh, not in the ways I had fancied
before--but just merely by loving him." She paused, but Mrs. Quentin
made no sign. "I see it all so differently now. I see what an
influence love itself may be--how my believing in him, loving him,
accepting him just as he is, might help him more than any theories,
any arguments. I might have seen this long ago in looking at
_you_--as he often told me--in seeing how you'd kept yourself apart
from--from--Mr. Quentin's work and his--been always the beautiful
side of life to them--kept their faith alive in spite of
themselves--not by interfering, preaching, reforming, but by--just
loving them and being there--" She looked at Mrs. Quentin with a
simple nobleness. "It isn't as if I cared for the money, you know;
if I cared for that, I should be afraid--"
"You will care for it in time," Mrs. Quentin said suddenly.
Miss Fenno drew back, releasing her hand. "In time?"
"Yes; when there's nothing else left." She stared a moment at the
pictures. "My poor child," she broke out, "I've heard all you say so
often before!"
"You've heard it?"
"Yes--from myself. I felt as you do, I argued as you do, I acted as
I mean to prevent your doing, when I married Alan's father."
The long empty gallery seemed to reverberate with the girl's
startled exclamation--"Oh, Mrs. Quentin--"
"Hush; let me speak. Do you suppose I'd do this if you were the kind
of pink-and-white idiot he ought to have married? It's because I see
you're alive, as I was, tingling with beliefs, ambitions, energies,
as I was--that I can't see you walled up alive, as I was, without
stretching out a hand to save you!" She sat gazing rigidly forward,
her eyes on the pictures, speaking in the low precipitate tone of
one who tries to press the meaning of a lifetime into a few
breathless sentences.
"When I met Alan's father," she went on, "I knew nothing of his--his
work. We met abroad, where I had been living with my mother. That
was twenty-six years ago, when the _Radiator_ was less--less
notorious than it is now. I knew my husband owned a newspaper--a
great newspaper--and nothing more. I had never seen a copy of the
_Radiator_; I had no notion what it stood for, in politics--or in
other ways. We were married in Europe, and a few months afterward we
came to live here. People were already beginning to talk about the
_Radiator_. My husband, on leaving college, had bought it with some
money an old uncle had left him, and the public at first was merely
curious to see what an ambitious, stirring young man without any
experience of journalism was going to make out of his experiment.
They found first of all that he was going to make a great deal of
money out of it. I found that out too. I was so happy in other ways
that it didn't make much difference at first; though it was pleasant
to be able to help my mother, to be generous and charitable, to live
in a nice house, and wear the handsome gowns he liked to see me in.
But still it didn't really count--it counted so little that when,
one day, I learned what the _Radiator_ was, I would have gone out
into the streets barefooted rather than live another hour on the
money it brought in...." Her voice sank, and she paused to steady
it. The girl at her side did not speak or move. "I shall never
forget that day," she began again. "The paper had stripped bare some
family scandal--some miserable bleeding secret that a dozen unhappy
people had been struggling to keep out of print--that _would_ have
been kept out if my husband had not--Oh, you must guess the rest! I
can't go on!"
She felt a hand on hers. "You mustn't go on, Mrs. Quentin," the girl
whispered.
"Yes, I must--I must! You must be made to understand." She drew a
deep breath. "My husband was not like Alan. When he found out how I
felt about it he was surprised at first--but gradually he began to
see--or at least I fancied he saw--the hatefulness of it. At any
rate he saw how I suffered, and he offered to give up the whole
thing--to sell the paper. It couldn't be done all of a sudden, of
course--he made me see that--for he had put all his money in it, and
he had no special aptitude for any other kind of work. He was a born
journalist--like Alan. It was a great sacrifice for him to give up
the paper, but he promised to do it--in time--when a good
opportunity offered. Meanwhile, of course, he wanted to build it up,
to increase the circulation--and to do that he had to keep on in the
same way--he made that clear to me. I saw that we were in a vicious
circle. The paper, to sell well, had to be made more and more
detestable and disgraceful. At first I rebelled--but somehow--I
can't tell you how it was--after that first concession the ground
seemed to give under me: with every struggle I sank deeper. And
then--then Alan was born. He was such a delicate baby that there was
very little hope of saving him. But money did it--the money from the
paper. I took him abroad to see the best physicians--I took him to a
warm climate every winter. In hot weather the doctors recommended
sea air, and we had a yacht and cruised every summer. I owed his
life to the _Radiator_. And when he began to grow stronger the habit
was formed--the habit of luxury. He could not get on without the
things he had always been used to. He pined in bad air; he drooped
under monotony and discomfort; he throve on variety, amusement,
travel, every kind of novelty and excitement. And all I wanted for
him his inexhaustible foster-mother was there to give!
"My husband said nothing, but he must have seen how things were
going. There was no more talk of giving up the _Radiator_. He never
reproached me with my inconsistency, but I thought he must despise
me, and the thought made me reckless. I determined to ignore the
paper altogether--to take what it gave as though I didn't know where
it came from. And to excuse this I invented the theory that one may,
so to speak, purify money by putting it to good uses. I gave away a
great deal in charity--I indulged myself very little at first. All
the money that was not spent on Alan I tried to do good with. But
gradually, as my boy grew up, the problem became more complicated.
How was I to protect Alan from the contamination I had let him live
in? I couldn't preach by example--couldn't hold up his father as a
warning, or denounce the money we were living on. All I could do was
to disguise the inner ugliness of life by making it beautiful
outside--to build a wall of beauty between him and the facts of
life, turn his tastes and interests another way, hide the _Radiator_
from him as a smiling woman at a ball may hide a cancer in her
breast! Just as Alan was entering college his father died. Then I
saw my way clear. I had loved my husband--and yet I drew my first
free breath in years. For the _Radiator_ had been left to Alan
outright--there was nothing on earth to prevent his selling it when
he came of age. And there was no excuse for his not selling it. I
had brought him up to depend on money, but the paper had given us
enough money to gratify all his tastes. At last we could turn on the
monster that had nourished us. I felt a savage joy in the thought--I
could hardly bear to wait till Alan came of age. But I had never
spoken to him of the paper, and I didn't dare speak of it now. Some
false shame kept me back, some vague belief in his ignorance. I
would wait till he was twenty-one, and then we should be free.
"I waited--the day came, and I spoke. You can guess his answer, I
suppose. He had no idea of selling the _Radiator_. It wasn't the
money he cared for--it was the career that tempted him. He was a
born journalist, and his ambition, ever since he could remember, had
been to carry on his father's work, to develop, to surpass it. There
was nothing in the world as interesting as modern journalism. He
couldn't imagine any other kind of life that wouldn't bore him to
death. A newspaper like the _Radiator_ might be made one of the
biggest powers on earth, and he loved power, and meant to have all
he could get. I listened to him in a kind of trance. I couldn't find
a word to say. His father had had scruples--he had none. I seemed to
realize at once that argument would be useless. I don't know that I
even tried to plead with him--he was so bright and hard and
inaccessible! Then I saw that he was, after all, what I had made
him--the creature of my concessions, my connivances, my evasions.
That was the price I had paid for him--I had kept him at that cost!
"Well--I _had_ kept him, at any rate. That was the feeling that
survived. He was my boy, my son, my very own--till some other woman
took him. Meanwhile the old life must go on as it could. I gave up
the struggle. If at that point he was inaccessible, at others he was
close to me. He has always been a perfect son. Our tastes grew
together--we enjoyed the same books, the same pictures, the same
people. All I had to do was to look at him in profile to see the
side of him that was really mine. At first I kept thinking of the
dreadful other side--but gradually the impression faded, and I kept
my mind turned from it, as one does from a deformity in a face one
loves. I thought I had made my last compromise with life--had hit on
a _modus vivendi_ that would last my time.
"And then he met you. I had always been prepared for his marrying,
but not a girl like you. I thought he would choose a sweet thing who
would never pry into his closets--he hated women with ideas! But as
soon as I saw you I knew the struggle would have to begin again. He
is so much stronger than his father--he is full of the most
monstrous convictions. And he has the courage of them, too--you saw
last year that his love for you never made him waver. He believes in
his work; he adores it--it is a kind of hideous idol to which he
would make human sacrifices! He loves you still--I've been honest
with you--but his love wouldn't change him. It is you who would have
to change--to die gradually, as I have died, till there is only one
live point left in me. Ah, if one died completely--that's simple
enough! But something persists--remember that--a single point, an
aching nerve of truth. Now and then you may drug it--but a touch
wakes it again, as your face has waked it in me. There's always
enough of one's old self left to suffer with...."
She stood up and faced the girl abruptly. "What shall I tell Alan?"
she said.
Miss Fenno sat motionless, her eyes on the ground. Twilight was
falling on the gallery--a twilight which seemed to emanate not so
much from the glass dome overhead as from the crepuscular depths
into which the faces of the pictures were receding. The custodian's
step sounded warningly down the corridor. When the girl looked up
she was alone.
A VENETIAN NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT
I
THIS is the story that, in the dining-room of the old Beacon Street
house (now the Aldebaran Club), Judge Anthony Bracknell, of the
famous East India firm of Bracknell & Saulsbee, when the ladies had
withdrawn to the oval parlour (and Maria's harp was throwing its
gauzy web of sound across the Common), used to relate to his
grandsons, about the year that Buonaparte marched upon Moscow.
I
"Him Venice!" said the Lascar with the big earrings; and Tony
Bracknell, leaning on the high gunwale of his father's East
Indiaman, the Hepzibah B., saw far off, across the morning sea, a
faint vision of towers and domes dissolved in golden air.
It was a rare February day of the year 1760, and a young Tony, newly
of age, and bound on the grand tour aboard the crack merchantman of
old Bracknell's fleet, felt his heart leap up as the distant city
trembled into shape. _Venice!_ The name, since childhood, had been a
magician's wand to him. In the hall of the old Bracknell house at
Salem there hung a series of yellowing prints which Uncle Richard
Saulsbee had brought home from one of his long voyages: views of
heathen mosques and palaces, of the Grand Turk's Seraglio, of St.
Peter's Church in Rome; and, in a corner--the corner nearest the
rack where the old flintlocks hung--a busy merry populous scene,
entitled: _St. Mark's Square in Venice_. This picture, from the
first, had singularly taken little Tony's fancy. His unformulated
criticism on the others was that they lacked action. True, in the
view of St. Peter's an experienced-looking gentleman in a
full-bottomed wig was pointing out the fairly obvious monument to a
bashful companion, who had presumably not ventured to raise his eyes
to it; while, at the doors of the Seraglio, a group of turbaned
infidels observed with less hesitancy the approach of a veiled lady
on a camel. But in Venice so many things were happening at
once--more, Tony was sure, than had ever happened in Boston in a
twelve-month or in Salem in a long lifetime. For here, by their
garb, were people of every nation on earth, Chinamen, Turks,
Spaniards, and many more, mixed with a parti-coloured throng of
gentry, lacqueys, chapmen, hucksters, and tall personages in
parsons' gowns who stalked through the crowd with an air of mastery,
a string of parasites at their heels. And all these people seemed to
be diverting themselves hugely, chaffering with the hucksters,
watching the antics of trained dogs and monkeys, distributing doles
to maimed beggars or having their pockets picked by slippery-looking
fellows in black--the whole with such an air of ease and good-humour
that one felt the cut-purses to be as much a part of the show as the
tumbling acrobats and animals.
As Tony advanced in years and experience this childish mumming lost
its magic; but not so the early imaginings it had excited. For the
old picture had been but the spring-board of fancy, the first step
of a cloud-ladder leading to a land of dreams. With these dreams the
name of Venice remained associated; and all that observation or
report subsequently brought him concerning the place seemed, on a
sober warranty of fact, to confirm its claim to stand midway between
reality and illusion. There was, for instance, a slender Venice
glass, gold-powdered as with lily-pollen or the dust of sunbeams,
that, standing in the corner cabinet betwixt two Lowestoft caddies,
seemed, among its lifeless neighbours, to palpitate like an impaled
butterfly. There was, farther, a gold chain of his mother's, spun of
that same sun-pollen, so thread-like, impalpable, that it slipped
through the fingers like light, yet so strong that it carried a
heavy pendant which seemed held in air as if by magic. _Magic!_ That
was the word which the thought of Venice evoked. It was the kind of
place, Tony felt, in which things elsewhere impossible might
naturally happen, in which two and two might make five, a paradox
elope with a syllogism, and a conclusion give the lie to its own
premiss. Was there ever a young heart that did not, once and again,
long to get away into such a world as that? Tony, at least, had felt
the longing from the first hour when the axioms in his horn-book had
brought home to him his heavy responsibilities as a Christian and a
sinner. And now here was his wish taking shape before him, as the
distant haze of gold shaped itself into towers and domes across the
morning sea!
The Reverend Ozias Mounce, Tony's governor and bear-leader, was just
putting a hand to the third clause of the fourth part of a sermon on
Free-Will and Predestination as the Hepzibah B.'s anchor rattled
overboard. Tony, in his haste to be ashore, would have made one
plunge with the anchor; but the Reverend Ozias, on being roused from
his lucubrations, earnestly protested against leaving his argument
in suspense. What was the trifle of an arrival at some Papistical
foreign city, where the very churches wore turbans like so many
Moslem idolators, to the important fact of Mr. Mounce's summing up
his conclusions before the Muse of Theology took flight? He should
be happy, he said, if the tide served, to visit Venice with Mr.
Bracknell the next morning.
The next morning, ha!--Tony murmured a submissive "Yes, sir," winked
at the subjugated captain, buckled on his sword, pressed his hat
down with a flourish, and before the Reverend Ozias had arrived at
his next deduction, was skimming merrily shoreward in the Hepzibah's
gig.
A moment more and he was in the thick of it! Here was the very world
of the old print, only suffused with sunlight and colour, and
bubbling with merry noises. What a scene it was! A square enclosed
in fantastic painted buildings, and peopled with a throng as
fantastic: a bawling, laughing, jostling, sweating mob,
parti-coloured, parti-speeched, crackling and sputtering under the
hot sun like a dish of fritters over a kitchen fire. Tony, agape,
shouldered his way through the press, aware at once that, spite of
the tumult, the shrillness, the gesticulation, there was no
undercurrent of clownishness, no tendency to horse-play, as in such
crowds on market-day at home, but a kind of facetious suavity which
seemed to include everybody in the circumference of one huge joke.
In such an air the sense of strangeness soon wore off, and Tony was
beginning to feel himself vastly at home, when a lift of the tide
bore him against a droll-looking bell-ringing fellow who carried
above his head a tall metal tree hung with sherbet-glasses.
The encounter set the glasses spinning and three or four spun off
and clattered to the stones. The sherbet-seller called on all the
saints, and Tony, clapping a lordly hand to his pocket, tossed him a
ducat by mistake for a sequin. The fellow's eyes shot out of their
orbits, and just then a personable-looking young man who had
observed the transaction stepped up to Tony and said pleasantly, in
English:
"I perceive, sir, that you are not familiar with our currency."
"Does he want more?" says Tony, very lordly; whereat the other
laughed and replied: "You have given him enough to retire from his
business and open a gaming-house over the arcade."
Tony joined in the laugh, and this incident bridging the
preliminaries, the two young men were presently hobnobbing over a
glass of Canary in front of one of the coffee-houses about the
square. Tony counted himself lucky to have run across an
English-speaking companion who was good-natured enough to give him a
clue to the labyrinth; and when he had paid for the Canary (in the
coin his friend selected) they set out again to view the town. The
Italian gentleman, who called himself Count Rialto, appeared to have
a very numerous acquaintance, and was able to point out to Tony all
the chief dignitaries of the state, the men of ton and ladies of
fashion, as well as a number of other characters of a kind not
openly mentioned in taking a census of Salem.
Tony, who was not averse from reading when nothing better offered,
had perused the "Merchant of Venice" and Mr. Otway's fine tragedy;
but though these pieces had given him a notion that the social
usages of Venice differed from those at home, he was unprepared for
the surprising appearance and manners of the great people his friend
named to him. The gravest Senators of the Republic went in
prodigious striped trousers, short cloaks and feathered hats. One
nobleman wore a ruff and doctor's gown, another a black velvet tunic
slashed with rose-colour; while the President of the dreaded Council
of Ten was a terrible strutting fellow with a rapier-like nose, a
buff leather jerkin and a trailing scarlet cloak that the crowd was
careful not to step on.
It was all vastly diverting, and Tony would gladly have gone on
forever; but he had given his word to the captain to be at the
landing-place at sunset, and here was dusk already creeping over the
skies! Tony was a man of honour; and having pressed on the Count a
handsome damascened dagger selected from one of the goldsmiths'
shops in a narrow street lined with such wares, he insisted on
turning his face toward the Hepzibah's gig. The Count yielded
reluctantly; but as they came out again on the square they were
caught in a great throng pouring toward the doors of the cathedral.
"They go to Benediction," said the Count. "A beautiful sight, with
many lights and flowers. It is a pity you cannot take a peep at it."
Tony thought so too, and in another minute a legless beggar had
pulled back the leathern flap of the cathedral door, and they stood
in a haze of gold and perfume that seemed to rise and fall on the
mighty undulations of the organ. Here the press was as thick as
without; and as Tony flattened himself against a pillar, he heard a
pretty voice at his elbow:--"Oh, sir, oh, sir, your sword!"
He turned at sound of the broken English, and saw a girl who matched
the voice trying to disengage her dress from the tip of his
scabbard. She wore one of the voluminous black hoods which the
Venetian ladies affected, and under its projecting eaves her face
spied out at him as sweet as a nesting bird.
In the dusk their hands met over the scabbard, and as she freed
herself a shred of her lace flounce clung to Tony's enchanted
fingers. Looking after her, he saw she was on the arm of a
pompous-looking graybeard in a long black gown and scarlet
stockings, who, on perceiving the exchange of glances between the
young people, drew the lady away with a threatening look.
The Count met Tony's eye with a smile. "One of our Venetian
beauties," said he; "the lovely Polixena Cador. She is thought to
have the finest eyes in Venice."
"She spoke English," stammered Tony.
"Oh--ah--precisely: she learned the language at the Court of Saint
James's, where her father, the Senator, was formerly accredited as
Ambassador. She played as an infant with the royal princes of
England."
"And that was her father?"
"Assuredly: young ladies of Donna Polixena's rank do not go abroad
save with their parents or a duenna."
Just then a soft hand slid into Tony's. His heart gave a foolish
bound, and he turned about half-expecting to meet again the merry
eyes under the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some
kind of fanciful page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between his
fingers and vanished in the throng. Tony, in a tingle, glanced
surreptitiously at the Count, who appeared absorbed in his prayers.
The crowd, at the ringing of a bell, had in fact been overswept by a
sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the moment to step beneath
a lighted shrine with his letter.
"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena"--he read;
but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand fell on
his shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat, and bearing a
kind of rod or mace, pronounced a few words in Venetian.
Tony, with a start, thrust the letter in his breast, and tried to
jerk himself free; but the harder he jerked the tighter grew the
other's grip, and the Count, presently perceiving what had happened,
pushed his way through the crowd, and whispered hastily to his
companion: "For God's sake, make no struggle. This is serious. Keep
quiet and do as I tell you."
Tony was no chicken-heart. He had something of a name for pugnacity
among the lads of his own age at home, and was not the man to stand
in Venice what he would have resented in Salem; but the devil of it
was that this black fellow seemed to be pointing to the letter in
his breast; and this suspicion was confirmed by the Count's agitated
whisper.
"This is one of the agents of the Ten.--For God's sake, no outcry."
He exchanged a word or two with the mace-bearer and again turned to
Tony. "You have been seen concealing a letter about your person--"
"And what of that?" says Tony furiously.
"Gently, gently, my master. A letter handed to you by the page of
Donna Polixena Cador.--A black business! Oh, a very black business!
This Cador is one of the most powerful nobles in Venice--I beseech
you, not a word, sir! Let me think--deliberate--"
His hand on Tony's shoulder, he carried on a rapid dialogue with the
potentate in the cocked hat.
"I am sorry, sir--but our young ladies of rank are as jealously
guarded as the Grand Turk's wives, and you must be answerable for
this scandal. The best I can do is to have you taken privately to
the Palazzo Cador, instead of being brought before the Council. I
have pleaded your youth and inexperience"--Tony winced at this--"and
I think the business may still be arranged."
Meanwhile the agent of the Ten had yielded his place to a
sharp-featured shabby-looking fellow in black, dressed somewhat like
a lawyer's clerk, who laid a grimy hand on Tony's arm, and with many
apologetic gestures steered him through the crowd to the doors of
the church. The Count held him by the other arm, and in this fashion
they emerged on the square, which now lay in darkness save for the
many lights twinkling under the arcade and in the windows of the
gaming-rooms above it.
Tony by this time had regained voice enough to declare that he would
go where they pleased, but that he must first say a word to the mate
of the Hepzibah, who had now been awaiting him some two hours or
more at the landing-place.
The Count repeated this to Tony's custodian, but the latter shook
his head and rattled off a sharp denial.
"Impossible, sir," said the Count. "I entreat you not to insist. Any
resistance will tell against you in the end."
Tony fell silent. With a rapid eye he was measuring his chances of
escape. In wind and limb he was more than a mate for his captors,
and boyhood's ruses were not so far behind him but he felt himself
equal to outwitting a dozen grown men; but he had the sense to see
that at a cry the crowd would close in on him. Space was what he
wanted: a clear ten yards, and he would have laughed at Doge and
Council. But the throng was thick as glue, and he walked on
submissively, keeping his eye alert for an opening. Suddenly the mob
swerved aside after some new show. Tony's fist shot out at the black
fellow's chest, and before the latter could right himself the young
New Englander was showing a clean pair of heels to his escort. On he
sped, cleaving the crowd like a flood-tide in Gloucester bay, diving
under the first arch that caught his eye, dashing down a lane to an
unlit water-way, and plunging across a narrow hump-back bridge which
landed him in a black pocket between walls. But now his pursuers
were at his back, reinforced by the yelping mob. The walls were too
high to scale, and for all his courage Tony's breath came short as
he paced the masonry cage in which ill-luck had landed him. Suddenly
a gate opened in one of the walls, and a slip of a servant wench
looked out and beckoned him. There was no time to weigh chances.
Tony dashed through the gate, his rescuer slammed and bolted it, and
the two stood in a narrow paved well between high houses.
II
THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her.
They climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a
corridor, and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp
hung from the painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former
splendour in his surroundings, but he had no time to examine them,
for a figure started up at his approach and in the dim light he
recognized the girl who was the cause of all his troubles.
She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced
her face changed and she shrank back abashed.
"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried
out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you
are here?"
"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony,
not over-pleased by his reception.
"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?"
"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was
yours--"
"Mine?"--"in sending me a letter--"
"_ You_--a letter?"--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand
it to me under your father's very nose--"
The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was _you_ who
received my letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and
submerged her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in
the same jargon, and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected
in her the doubleted page who had handed him the letter in Saint
Mark's.
"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?"
Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded
instantly and she returned to the charge.
"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my
undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not
intended for you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old
friend of my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh,
how can I ever excuse myself to you?"
"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am
surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador."
Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you
must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English,
and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest
foreigner in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The
English Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome
man."
"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!"
She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a
look of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I
am in dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on
you also--Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale
and leaned tremblingly upon the little servant.
Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment
later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by
half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the
square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst
into furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to
the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning
unpleasantly plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung
himself on the intruder; then, snatched back by his companions,
turned wrathfully on his daughter, who, at his feet, with
outstretched arms and streaming face, pleaded her cause with all the
eloquence of young distress. Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated
vehemently among themselves, and one, a truculent-looking personage
in ruff and Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on
Tony. The latter was at his wit's end how to comport himself, for
the lovely Polixena's tears had quite drowned her few words of
English, and beyond guessing that the magnificoes meant him a
mischief he had no notion what they would be at.
At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on
the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room.
He pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man
to be silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The
latter, at first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently,
sobering, he walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed
together out of earshot.
"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a
perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a
great misfortune."
"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose
blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the
beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed
up to the forehead.
"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his
Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a few
words of it, and--"
"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me
if I ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me."
The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count,
stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is
that you have been detected in secret correspondence with his
daughter, the most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this
gentleman, the most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--" and he waved a
deferential hand at the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff.
"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with
the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--" but here
he stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified
glance at him.
"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to
take shelter behind a lady's reputation."
"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was
merely about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has
never seen me before."
Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have
died to defend her.
The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His
Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's
misconduct has been all the more reprehensible."
"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?"
"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter
which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The
incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo,
who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride."
Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his
Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on
so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of
her father's resentment."
"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your
only excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for
you to advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio."
It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his
enemies, and the thought sharpened his retort.
"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same
behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman
would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was
seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady,
and has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose."
As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as
far as he dared commit himself.
There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the
Count then said:--"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to
meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the
means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to
her father?"
There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to
look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance
toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied
by unmistakable signs of apprehension.
"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined,
and whatever happens I must keep her secret."
He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in
the habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers."
The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father,
dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while
the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.
The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared.
This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to
fatal imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the
obligation incumbent upon you as a man of honour."
Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the
Marquess. "And what obligation is that?"
"To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the
lady."
Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in
heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he remembered that
it had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing
them to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to
disarm suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave plight effaced all
thought of his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so
preposterous that he could not repress a smile.
"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome
this solution."
The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty,"
he said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were
justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed
in this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her
father has selected."
"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman
yonder was in that enviable position."
"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in
your favour."
"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness
obliges me to decline--"
"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a
misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be
consulted than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is
necessary that you should marry her within the hour."
Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his
veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between
himself and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows
of the apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen
sobbing at her father's feet.
"And if I refuse?" said he.
The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to
threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the
consequences would be to the lady."
Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few
impassioned words to the Count and her father; but the latter put
her aside with an obdurate gesture.
The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you--at what
cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an hour his
Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his
Illustriousness consents to leave you in the custody of your
betrothed."
He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony
to Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key
turn in the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena.
III
THE girl had sunk into a chair, her face hidden, a picture of shame
and agony. So moving was the sight that Tony once again forgot his
own extremity in the view of her distress. He went and kneeled
beside her, drawing her hands from her face.
"Oh, don't make me look at you!" she sobbed; but it was on his bosom
that she hid from his gaze. He held her there a breathing-space, as
he might have clasped a weeping child; then she drew back and put
him gently from her.
"What humiliation!" she lamented.
"Do you think I blame you for what has happened?"
"Alas, was it not my foolish letter that brought you to this plight?
And how nobly you defended me! How generous it was of you not to
show the letter! If my father knew I had written to the Ambassador
to save me from this dreadful marriage his anger against me would be
even greater."
"Ah--it was that you wrote for?" cried Tony with unaccountable
relief.
"Of course--what else did you think?"
"But is it too late for the Ambassador to save you?"
"From _you?_" A smile flashed through her tears. "Alas, yes." She
drew back and hid her face again, as though overcome by a fresh wave
of shame.
Tony glanced about him. "If I could wrench a bar out of that
window--" he muttered.
"Impossible! The court is guarded. You are a prisoner, alas.--Oh, I
must speak!" She sprang up and paced the room. "But indeed you can
scarce think worse of me than you do already--"
"I think ill of you?"
"Alas, you must! To be unwilling to marry the man my father has
chosen for me--"
"Such a beetle-browed lout! It would be a burning shame if you
married him."
"Ah, you come from a free country. Here a girl is allowed no
choice."
"It is infamous, I say--infamous!"
"No, no--I ought to have resigned myself, like so many others."
"Resigned yourself to that brute! Impossible!"
"He has a dreadful name for violence--his gondolier has told my
little maid such tales of him! But why do I talk of myself, when it
is of you I should be thinking?"
"Of me, poor child?" cried Tony, losing his head.
"Yes, and how to save you--for I _can_ save you! But every moment
counts--and yet what I have to say is so dreadful."
"Nothing from your lips could seem dreadful."
"Ah, if he had had your way of speaking!"
"Well, now at least you are free of him," said Tony, a little
wildly; but at this she stood up and bent a grave look on him.
"No, I am not free," she said; "but you are, if you will do as I
tell you."
Tony, at this, felt a sudden dizziness; as though, from a mad flight
through clouds and darkness, he had dropped to safety again, and the
fall had stunned him.
"What am I to do?" he said.
"Look away from me, or I can never tell you."
He thought at first that this was a jest, but her eyes commanded
him, and reluctantly he walked away and leaned in the embrasure of
the window. She stood in the middle of the room, and as soon as his
back was turned she began to speak in a quick monotonous voice, as
though she were reciting a lesson.
"You must know that the Marquess Zanipolo, though a great noble, is
not a rich man. True, he has large estates, but he is a desperate
spendthrift and gambler, and would sell his soul for a round sum of
ready money.--If you turn round I shall not go on!--He wrangled
horribly with my father over my dowry--he wanted me to have more
than either of my sisters, though one married a Procurator and the
other a grandee of Spain. But my father is a gambler too--oh, such
fortunes as are squandered over the arcade yonder! And so--and
so--don't turn, I implore you--oh, do you begin to see my meaning?"
She broke off sobbing, and it took all his strength to keep his eyes
from her.
"Go on," he said.
"Will you not understand? Oh, I would say anything to save you! You
don't know us Venetians--we're all to be bought for a price. It is
not only the brides who are marketable--sometimes the husbands sell
themselves too. And they think you rich--my father does, and the
others--I don't know why, unless you have shown your money too
freely--and the English are all rich, are they not? And--oh, oh--do
you understand? Oh, I can't bear your eyes!"
She dropped into a chair, her head on her arms, and Tony in a flash
was at her side.
"My poor child, my poor Polixena!" he cried, and wept and clasped
her.
"You _are_ rich, are you not? You would promise them a ransom?" she
persisted.
"To enable you to marry the Marquess?"
"To enable you to escape from this place. Oh, I hope I may never see
your face again." She fell to weeping once more, and he drew away
and paced the floor in a fever.
Presently she sprang up with a fresh air of resolution, and pointed
to a clock against the wall. "The hour is nearly over. It is quite
true that my father is gone to fetch his chaplain. Oh, I implore
you, be warned by me! There is no other way of escape."
"And if I do as you say--?"
"You are safe! You are free! I stake my life on it."
"And you--you are married to that villain?"
"But I shall have saved you. Tell me your name, that I may say it to
myself when I am alone."
"My name is Anthony. But you must not marry that fellow."
"You forgive me, Anthony? You don't think too badly of me?"
"I say you must not marry that fellow."
She laid a trembling hand on his arm. "Time presses," she adjured
him, "and I warn you there is no other way."
For a moment he had a vision of his mother, sitting very upright, on
a Sunday evening, reading Dr. Tillotson's sermons in the best
parlour at Salem; then he swung round on the girl and caught both
her hands in his. "Yes, there is," he cried, "if you are willing.
Polixena, let the priest come!"
She shrank back from him, white and radiant. "Oh, hush, be silent!"
she said.
"I am no noble Marquess, and have no great estates," he
cried. "My father is a plain India merchant in the colony of
Massachusetts--but if you--"
"Oh, hush, I say! I don't know what your long words mean. But I
bless you, bless you, bless you on my knees!" And she knelt before
him, and fell to kissing his hands.
He drew her up to his breast and held her there.
"You are willing, Polixena?" he said.
"No, no!" She broke from him with outstretched hands. "I am not
willing. You mistake me. I must marry the Marquess, I tell you!"
"On my money?" he taunted her; and her burning blush rebuked him.
"Yes, on your money," she said sadly.
"Why? Because, much as you hate him, you hate me still more?"
She was silent.
"If you hate me, why do you sacrifice yourself for me?" he
persisted.
"You torture me! And I tell you the hour is past."
"Let it pass. I'll not accept your sacrifice. I will not lift a
finger to help another man to marry you."
"Oh, madman, madman!" she murmured.
Tony, with crossed arms, faced her squarely, and she leaned against
the wall a few feet off from him. Her breast throbbed under its lace
and falbalas, and her eyes swam with terror and entreaty.
"Polixena, I love you!" he cried.
A blush swept over her throat and bosom, bathing her in light to the
verge of her troubled brows.
"I love you! I love you!" he repeated.
And now she was on his breast again, and all their youth was in
their lips. But her embrace was as fleeting as a bird's poise and
before he knew it he clasped empty air, and half the room was
between them.
She was holding up a little coral charm and laughing. "I took it
from your fob," she said. "It is of no value, is it? And I shall not
get any of the money, you know."
She continued to laugh strangely, and the rouge burned like fire in
her ashen face.
"What are you talking of?" he said.
"They never give me anything but the clothes I wear. And I shall
never see you again, Anthony!" She gave him a dreadful look. "Oh, my
poor boy, my poor love--'_ I love you, I love you, Polixena!_'"
He thought she had turned light-headed, and advanced to her with
soothing words; but she held him quietly at arm's length, and as he
gazed he read the truth in her face.
He fell back from her, and a sob broke from him as he bowed his head
on his hands.
"Only, for God's sake, have the money ready, or there may be foul
play here," she said.
As she spoke there was a great tramping of steps outside and a burst
of voices on the threshold.
"It is all a lie," she gasped out, "about my marriage, and the
Marquess, and the Ambassador, and the Senator--but not, oh, not
about your danger in this place--or about my love," she breathed to
him. And as the key rattled in the door she laid her lips on his
brow.
The key rattled, and the door swung open--but the black-cassocked
gentleman who stepped in, though a priest indeed, was no votary of
idolatrous rites, but that sound orthodox divine, the Reverend Ozias
Mounce, looking very much perturbed at his surroundings, and very
much on the alert for the Scarlet Woman. He was supported, to his
evident relief, by the captain of the Hepzibah B., and the
procession was closed by an escort of stern-looking fellows in
cocked hats and small-swords, who led between them Tony's late
friends the magnificoes, now as sorry a looking company as the law
ever landed in her net.
The captain strode briskly into the room, uttering a grunt of
satisfaction as he clapped eyes on Tony.
"So, Mr. Bracknell," said he, "you have been seeing the Carnival
with this pack of mummers, have you? And this is where your
pleasuring has landed you? H'm--a pretty establishment, and a pretty
lady at the head of it." He glanced about the apartment and doffed
his hat with mock ceremony to Polixena, who faced him like a
princess.
"Why, my girl," said he, amicably, "I think I saw you this morning
in the square, on the arm of the Pantaloon yonder; and as for that
Captain Spavent--" and he pointed a derisive finger at the
Marquess--"I've watched him drive his bully's trade under the arcade
ever since I first dropped anchor in these waters. Well, well," he
continued, his indignation subsiding, "all's fair in Carnival, I
suppose, but this gentleman here is under sailing orders, and I fear
we must break up your little party."
At this Tony saw Count Rialto step forward, looking very small and
explanatory, and uncovering obsequiously to the captain.
"I can assure you, sir," said the Count in his best English, "that
this incident is the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding, and
if you will oblige us by dismissing these myrmidons, any of my
friends here will be happy to offer satisfaction to Mr. Bracknell
and his companions."
Mr. Mounce shrank visibly at this, and the captain burst into a loud
guffaw.
"Satisfaction?" says he. "Why, my cock, that's very handsome of you,
considering the rope's at your throats. But we'll not take advantage
of your generosity, for I fear Mr. Bracknell has already trespassed
on it too long. You pack of galley-slaves, you!" he spluttered
suddenly, "decoying young innocents with that devil's bait of
yours--" His eye fell on Polixena, and his voice softened
unaccountably. "Ah, well, we must all see the Carnival once, I
suppose," he said. "All's well that ends well, as the fellow says in
the play; and now, if you please, Mr. Bracknell, if you'll take the
reverend gentleman's arm there, we'll bid adieu to our hospitable
entertainers, and right about face for the Hepzibah."
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Descent of Man and Other Stories
by Edith Wharton