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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24348-0.txt b/24348-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dabc59b --- /dev/null +++ b/24348-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1092 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Choice, by Edith Wharton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Choice + 1916 + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: January 17, 2008 [EBook #24348] +[Last updated: September 18, 2017] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHOICE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE CHOICE + +By Edith Wharton + +Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner’s Sons + + + + +I + +Stilling, that night after dinner, had surpassed himself. He always did, +Wrayford reflected, when the small fry from Highfield came to dine. He, +Cobham Stilling, who had to find his bearings and keep to his level in +the big heedless ironic world of New York, dilated and grew vast in the +congenial medium of Highfield. The Red House was the biggest house of +the Highfield summer colony, and Cobham Stilling was its biggest man. No +one else within a radius of a hundred miles (on a conservative estimate) +had as many horses, as many greenhouses, as many servants, and assuredly +no one else had three motors and a motor-boat for the lake. + +The motor-boat was Stilling’s latest hobby, and he rode--or steered--it +in and out of the conversation all the evening, to the obvious +edification of every one present save his wife and his visitor, Austin +Wrayford. The interest of the latter two who, from opposite ends of the +drawing-room, exchanged a fleeting glance when Stilling again launched +his craft on the thin current of the talk--the interest of Mrs. Stilling +and Wrayford had already lost its edge by protracted contact with the +subject. + +But the dinner-guests--the Rector, Mr. Swordsley, his wife Mrs. +Swordsley, Lucy and Agnes Granger, their brother Addison, and young +Jack Emmerton from Harvard--were all, for divers reasons, stirred to the +proper pitch of feeling. Mr. Swordsley, no doubt, was saying to himself: +“If my good parishioner here can afford to buy a motor-boat, in addition +to all the other expenditures which an establishment like this must +entail, I certainly need not scruple to appeal to him again for a +contribution for our Galahad Club.” The Granger girls, meanwhile, were +evoking visions of lakeside picnics, not unadorned with the presence of +young Mr. Emmerton; while that youth himself speculated as to whether +his affable host would let him, when he came back on his next vacation, +“learn to run the thing himself”; and Mr. Addison Granger, the elderly +bachelor brother of the volatile Lucy and Agnes, mentally formulated +the precise phrase in which, in his next letter to his cousin Professor +Spildyke of the University of East Latmos, he should allude to “our last +delightful trip in my old friend Cobham Stilling’s ten-thousand-dollar +motor-launch”--for East Latmos was still in that primitive stage of +culture on which five figures impinge. + +Isabel Stilling, sitting beside Mrs. Swordsley, her bead slightly +bent above the needlework with which on these occasions it was her +old-fashioned habit to employ herself--Isabel also had doubtless her +reflections to make. As Wrayford leaned back in his corner and looked +at her across the wide flower-filled drawing-room he noted, first of +all--for the how many hundredth time?--the play of her hands above the +embroidery-frame, the shadow of the thick dark hair on her forehead, + the lids over her somewhat full grey eyes. He noted all this with a +conscious deliberateness of enjoyment, taking in unconsciously, at the +same time, the particular quality in her attitude, in the fall of her +dress and the turn of her head, which had set her for him, from the +first day, in a separate world; then he said to himself: “She is +certainly thinking: ‘Where on earth will Cobham get the money to pay for +it?’” + +Stilling, cigar in mouth and thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, was +impressively perorating from his usual dominant position on the +hearth-rug. + +“I said: ‘If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be +got.’ That’s my way, you know, Swordsley; I suppose I’m what you’d call +fastidious. Always was, about everything, from cigars to wom--” his +eye met the apprehensive glance of Mrs. Swordsley, who looked like her +husband with his clerical coat cut slightly lower--“so I said: ‘If +I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got.’ Nothing +makeshift for me, no second-best. I never cared for the cheap and showy. +I always say frankly to a man: ‘If you can’t give me a first-rate cigar, +for the Lord’s sake let me smoke my own.’” He paused to do so. “Well, if +you have my standards, you can’t buy a thing in a minute. You must look +round, compare, select. I found there were lots of motor-boats on the +market, just as there’s lots of stuff called champagne. But I said to +myself: ‘Ten to one there’s only one fit to buy, just as there’s only +one champagne fit for a gentleman to drink.’ Argued like a lawyer, eh, +Austin?” He tossed this to Wrayford. “Take me for one of your own trade, +wouldn’t you? Well, I’m not such a fool as I look. I suppose you fellows +who are tied to the treadmill--excuse me, Swordsley, but work’s work, +isn’t it?--I suppose you think a man like me has nothing to do but take +it easy: loll through life like a woman. By George, sir, I’d like either +of you to see the time it takes--I won’t say the _brain_--but just the +time it takes to pick out a good motor-boat. Why, I went--” + +Mrs. Stilling set her embroidery-frame noiselessly on the table at her +side, and turned her head toward Wrayford. “Would you mind ringing for +the tray?” + +The interruption helped Mrs. Swordsley to waver to her feet. “I’m afraid +we ought really to be going; my husband has an early service to-morrow.” + +Her host intervened with a genial protest. “Going already? Nothing of +the sort! Why, the night’s still young, as the poet says. Long way from +here to the rectory? Nonsense! In our little twenty-horse car we do +it in five minutes--don’t we, Belle? Ah, you’re walking, to be sure--” + Stilling’s indulgent gesture seemed to concede that, in such a case, +allowances must be made, and that he was the last man not to make them. +“Well, then, Swordsley--” He held out a thick red hand that seemed to +exude beneficence, and the clergyman, pressing it, ventured to murmur a +suggestion. + +“What, that Galahad Club again? Why, I thought my wife--Isabel, didn’t +we--No? Well, it must have been my mother, then. Of course, you know, +anything my good mother gives is--well--virtually--You haven’t asked +her? Sure? I could have sworn; I get so many of these appeals. And in +these times, you know, we have to go cautiously. I’m sure you recognize +that yourself, Swordsley. With my obligations--here now, to show you +don’t bear malice, have a brandy and soda before you go. Nonsense, man! +This brandy isn’t liquor; it’s liqueur. I picked it up last year in +London--last of a famous lot from Lord St. Oswyn’s cellar. Laid down +here, it stood me at--Eh?” he broke off as his wife moved toward him. +“Ah, yes, of course. Miss Lucy, Miss Agnes--a drop of soda-water? Look +here, Addison, you won’t refuse my tipple, I know. Well, take a cigar, +at any rate, Swordsley. And, by the way, I’m afraid you’ll have to go +round the long way by the avenue to-night. Sorry, Mrs. Swordsley, but I +forgot to tell them to leave the gate into the lane unlocked. Well, it’s +a jolly night, and I daresay you won’t mind the extra turn along the +lake. And, by Jove! if the moon’s out, you’ll have a glimpse of the +motorboat. She’s moored just out beyond our boat-house; and it’s a +privilege to look at her, I can tell you!” + +***** + +The dispersal of his guests carried Stilling out into the hall, where +his pleasantries reverberated under the oak rafters while the Granger +girls were being muffled for the drive and the carriages summoned from +the stables. + +By a common impulse Mrs. Stilling and Wrayford had moved together toward +the fire-place, which was hidden by a tall screen from the door into +the hall. Wrayford leaned his elbow against the mantel-piece, and Mrs. +Stilling stood beside him, her clasped hands hanging down before her. + +“Have you anything more to talk over with him?” she asked. + +“No. We wound it all up before dinner. He doesn’t want to talk about it +any more than he can help.” + +“It’s so bad?” + +“No; but this time he’s got to pull up.” + +She stood silent, with lowered lids. He listened a moment, catching +Stilling’s farewell shout; then he moved a little nearer, and laid his +hand on her arm. + +“In an hour?” + +She made an imperceptible motion of assent. + +“I’ll tell you about it then. The key’s as usual?” + +She signed another “Yes” and walked away with her long drifting step as +her husband came in from the hall. + +He went up to the tray and poured himself out a tall glass of brandy and +soda. + +“The weather is turning queer--black as pitch. I hope the Swordsleys +won’t walk into the lake--involuntary immersion, eh? He’d come out +a Baptist, I suppose. What’d the Bishop do in such a case? There’s a +problem for a lawyer, my boy!” + +He clapped his hand on Wrayford’s thin shoulder and then walked over to +his wife, who was gathering up her embroidery silks and dropping them +into her work-bag. Stilling took her by the arms and swung her playfully +about so that she faced the lamplight. + +“What’s the matter with you tonight?” + +“The matter?” she echoed, colouring a little, and standing very straight +in her desire not to appear to shrink from his touch. + +“You never opened your lips. Left me the whole job of entertaining those +blessed people. Didn’t she, Austin?” + +Wrayford laughed and lit a cigarette. + +“There! You see even Austin noticed it. What’s the matter, I say? Aren’t +they good enough for you? I don’t say they’re particularly exciting; +but, hang it! I like to ask them here--I like to give people pleasure.” + +“I didn’t mean to be dull,” said Isabel. + +“Well, you must learn to make an effort. Don’t treat people as if they +weren’t in the room just because they don’t happen to amuse you. Do you +know what they’ll think? They’ll think it’s because you’ve got a bigger +house and more money than they have. Shall I tell you something? My +mother said she’d noticed the same thing in you lately. She said she +sometimes felt you looked down on her for living in a small house. Oh, +she was half joking, of course; but you see you do give people that +impression. I can’t understand treating any one in that way. The more I +have myself, the more I want to make other people happy.” + +Isabel gently freed herself and laid the work-bag on her +embroidery-frame. “I have a headache; perhaps that made me stupid. I’m +going to bed.” She turned toward Wrayford and held out her hand. “Good +night.” + +“Good night,” he answered, opening the door for her. + +When he turned back into the room, his host was pouring himself a third +glass of brandy and soda. + +“Here, have a nip, Austin? Gad, I need it badly, after the shaking up +you gave me this afternoon.” Stilling laughed and carried his glass to +the hearth, where he took up his usual commanding position. “Why the +deuce don’t you drink something? You look as glum as Isabel. One would +think you were the chap that had been hit by this business.” + +Wrayford threw himself into the chair from which Mrs. Stilling had +lately risen. It was the one she usually sat in, and to his fancy +a faint scent of her clung to it. He leaned back and looked up at +Stilling. + +“Want a cigar?” the latter continued. “Shall we go into the den and +smoke?” + +Wrayford hesitated. “If there’s anything more you want to ask me +about--” + +“Gad, no! I had full measure and running over this afternoon. The deuce +of it is, I don’t see where the money’s all gone to. Luckily I’ve got +plenty of nerve; I’m not the kind of man to sit down and snivel because +I’ve been touched in Wall Street.” + +Wrayford got to his feet again. “Then, if you don’t want me, I think +I’ll go up to my room and put some finishing touches to a brief before I +turn in. I must get back to town to-morrow afternoon.” + +“All right, then.” Stilling set down his empty glass, and held out his +hand with a tinge of alacrity. “Good night, old man.” + +They shook hands, and Wrayford moved toward the door. + +“I say, Austin--stop a minute!” his host called after him. Wrayford +turned, and the two men faced each other across the hearth-rug. +Stilling’s eyes shifted uneasily. + +“There’s one thing more you can do for me before you leave. Tell Isabel +about that loan; explain to her that she’s got to sign a note for it.” + +Wrayford, in his turn, flushed slightly. “You want me to tell her?” + +“Hang it! I’m soft-hearted--that’s the worst of me.” + +Stilling moved toward the tray, and lifted the brandy decanter. “And +she’ll take it better from you; she’ll _have_ to take it from you. She’s +proud. You can take her out for a row to-morrow morning--look here, take +her out in the motor-launch if you like. I meant to have a spin in it +myself; but if you’ll tell her--” + +Wrayford hesitated. “All right, I’ll tell her.” + +“Thanks a lot, my dear fellow. And you’ll make her see it wasn’t my +fault, eh? Women are awfully vague about money, and she’ll think it’s +all right if you back me up.” + +Wrayford nodded. “As you please.” + +“And, Austin--there’s just one more thing. You needn’t say anything to +Isabel about the other business--I mean about my mother’s securities.” + +“Ah?” said Wrayford, pausing. + +Stilling shifted from one foot to the other. “I’d rather put that to +the old lady myself. I can make it clear to her. She idolizes me, +you know--and, hang it! I’ve got a good record. Up to now, I mean. My +mother’s been in clover since I married; I may say she’s been my first +thought. And I don’t want her to hear of this beastly business from +Isabel. Isabel’s a little harsh at times--and of course this isn’t going +to make her any easier to live with.” + +“Very well,” said Wrayford. + +Stilling, with a look of relief, walked toward the window which opened +on the terrace. “Gad! what a queer night! Hot as the kitchen-range. +Shouldn’t wonder if we had a squall before morning. I wonder if that +infernal skipper took in the launch’s awnings before he went home.” + +Wrayford stopped with his hand on the door. “Yes, I saw him do it. She’s +shipshape for the night.” + +“Good! That saves me a run down to the shore.” + +“Good night, then,” said Wrayford. + +“Good night, old man. You’ll tell her?” + +“I’ll tell her.” + +“And mum about my mother!” his host called after him. + + + + +II + +The darkness had thinned a little when Wrayford scrambled down the steep +path to the shore. Though the air was heavy the threat of a storm seemed +to have vanished, and now and then the moon’s edge showed above a torn +slope of cloud. + +But in the thick shrubbery about the boat-house the darkness was still +dense, and Wrayford had to strike a match before he could find the lock +and insert his key. He left the door unlatched, and groped his way in. +How often he had crept into this warm pine-scented obscurity, guiding +himself by the edge of the bench along the wall, and hearing the soft +lap of water through the gaps in the flooring! He knew just where one +had to duck one’s head to avoid the two canoes swung from the rafters, +and just where to put his hand on the latch of the farther door that led +to the broad balcony above the lake. + +The boat-house represented one of Stilling’s abandoned whims. He had +built it some seven years before, and for a time it had been the scene +of incessant nautical exploits. Stilling had rowed, sailed, paddled +indefatigably, and all Highfield had been impressed to bear him company, +and to admire his versatility. Then motors had come in, and he had +forsaken aquatic sports for the flying chariot. The canoes of birch-bark +and canvas had been hoisted to the roof, the sail-boat had rotted at her +moorings, and the movable floor of the boat-house, ingeniously contrived +to slide back on noiseless runners, had lain undisturbed through several +seasons. Even the key of the boat-house had been mislaid--by Isabel’s +fault, her husband said--and the locksmith had to be called in to make a +new one when the purchase of the motor-boat made the lake once more the +centre of Stilling’s activity. + +As Wrayford entered he noticed that a strange oily odor overpowered the +usual scent of dry pine-wood; and at the next step his foot struck an +object that rolled noisily across the boards. He lighted another match, +and found he had overturned a can of grease which the boatman had no +doubt been using to oil the runners of the sliding floor. + +Wrayford felt his way down the length of the boathouse, and softly +opening the balcony door looked out on the lake. A few yards away, he +saw the launch lying at anchor in the veiled moonlight; and just below +him, on the black water, was the dim outline of the skiff which the +boatman kept to paddle out to her. The silence was so intense that +Wrayford fancied he heard a faint rustling in the shrubbery on the +high bank behind the boat-house, and the crackle of gravel on the path +descending to it. + +He closed the door again and turned back into the darkness; and as he +did so the other door, on the land-side, swung inward, and he saw a +figure in the dim opening. Just enough light entered through the round +holes above the respective doors to reveal Mrs. Stilling’s cloaked +outline, and to guide her to him as he advanced. But before they met she +stumbled and gave a little cry. + +“What is it?” he exclaimed. + +“My foot caught; the floor seemed to give way under me. Ah, of course--” + she bent down in the darkness--“I saw the men oiling it this morning.” + +Wrayford caught her by the arm. “Do take care! It might be dangerous if +it slid too easily. The water’s deep under here.” + +“Yes; the water’s very deep. I sometimes wish--” She leaned against him +without finishing her sentence, and he put both arms about her. + +“Hush!” he said, his lips on hers. + +Suddenly she threw her head back and seemed to listen. + +“What’s the matter? What do you hear?” + +“I don’t know.” He felt her trembling. “I’m not sure this place is as +safe as it used to be--” + +Wrayford held her to him reassuringly. “But the boatman sleeps down at +the village; and who else should come here at this hour?” + +“Cobham might. He thinks of nothing but the launch.’” + +“He won’t to-night. I told him I’d seen the skipper put her shipshape, +and that satisfied him.” + +“Ah--he did think of coming, then?” + +“Only for a minute, when the sky looked so black half an hour ago, and +he was afraid of a squall. It’s clearing now, and there’s no danger.” + +He drew her down on the bench, and they sat a moment or two in silence, +her hands in his. Then she said: “You’d better tell me.” + +Wrayford gave a faint laugh. “Yes, I suppose I had. In fact, he asked me +to.” + +“He asked you to?” + +“Yes.” + +She uttered an exclamation of contempt. “He’s afraid!” + +Wrayford made no reply, and she went on: “I’m not. Tell me everything, +please.” + +“Well, he’s chucked away a pretty big sum again--” + +“How?” + +“He says he doesn’t know. He’s been speculating, I suppose. The madness +of making him your trustee!” + +She drew her hands away. “You know why I did it. When we married I +didn’t want to put him in the false position of the man who contributes +nothing and accepts everything; I wanted people to think the money was +partly his.” + +“I don’t know what you’ve made people think; but you’ve been eminently +successful in one respect. _He_ thinks it’s all his--and he loses it as +if it were.” + +“There are worse things. What was it that he wished you to tell me?” + +“That you’ve got to sign another promissory note--for fifty thousand +this time.” + +“Is that all?” + +Wrayford hesitated; then he said: “Yes--for the present.” + +She sat motionless, her head bent, her hand resting passively in his. + +He leaned nearer. “What did you mean just now, by worse things?” + +She hesitated. “Haven’t you noticed that he’s been drinking a great deal +lately?” + +“Yes; I’ve noticed.” + +They were both silent; then Wrayford broke out, with sudden vehemence: +“And yet you won’t--” + +“Won’t?” + +“Put an end to it. Good God! Save what’s left of your life.” + +She made no answer, and in the stillness the throb of the water +underneath them sounded like the beat of a tormented heart. + +“Isabel--” Wrayford murmured. He bent over to kiss her. “Isabel! I can’t +stand it! listen--” + +“No; no. I’ve thought of everything. There’s the boy--the boy’s fond of +him. He’s not a bad father.” + +“Except in the trifling matter of ruining his son.” + +“And there’s his poor old mother. He’s a good son, at any rate; he’d +never hurt her. And I know her. If I left him, she’d never take a penny +of my money. What she has of her own is not enough to live on; and how +could he provide for her? If I put him out of doors, I should be putting +his mother out too.” + +“You could arrange that--there are always ways.” + +“Not for her! She’s proud. And then she believes in him. Lots of people +believe in him, you know. It would kill her if she ever found out.” + +Wrayford made an impatient movement. “It will kill you if you stay with +him to prevent her finding out.” + +She laid her other hand on his. “Not while I have you.” + +“Have me? In this way?” + +“In any way.” + +“My poor girl--poor child!” + +“Unless you grow tired--unless your patience gives out.” + +He was silent, and she went on insistently: “Don’t you suppose I’ve +thought of that too--foreseen it?” + +“Well--and then?” he exclaimed. + +“I’ve accepted that too.” + +He dropped her hands with a despairing gesture. “Then, indeed, I waste +my breath!” + +She made no answer, and for a time they sat silent again, a little +between them. At length he asked: “You’re not crying?” + +“No.” + +“I can’t see your face, it’s grown so dark.” + +“Yes. The storm must be coming.” She made a motion as if to rise. + +He drew close and put his arm about her. “Don’t leave me yet. You know I +must go to-morrow.” He broke off with a laugh. “I’m to break the news +to you to-morrow morning, by the way; I’m to take you out in the +motorlaunch and break it to you.” He dropped her hands and stood up. +“Good God! How can I go and leave you here with him?” + +“You’ve done it often.” + +“Yes; but each time it’s more damnable. And then I’ve always had a +hope--” + +She rose also. “Give it up! Give it up!” + +“You’ve none, then, yourself?” + +She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her. + +“None--none?” he insisted. + +He had to bend his head to hear her answer. “Only one!” + +“What, my dearest? What?” + +“Don’t touch me! That he may die!” + +They drew apart again, hearing each other’s quick breathing through the +darkness. + +“You wish that too?” he said. + +“I wish it always--every day, every hour, every moment!” She paused, and +then let the words break from her. “You’d better know it; you’d better +know the worst of me. I’m not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is +poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him +dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes +back I say to myself: ‘Are you here again?’ When I hear of people being +killed in accidents, I think: ‘Why wasn’t he there?’ When I read the +death-notices in the paper I say: ‘So-and-so was just his age.’ When +I see him taking such care of his health and his diet--as he does, you +know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much--when +I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and +weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn’t +gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw +their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: ‘What can +kill a man who thinks only of himself?’ And night after night I keep +myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he’s dead. When I +dream that, and wake and find him there it’s worse than ever--” + +She broke off with a sob, and the loud lapping of the water under the +floor was like the beat of a rebellious heart. + +“There, you know the truth!” she said. + +He answered after a pause: “People do die.” + +“Do they?” She laughed. “Yes--in happy marriages!” + +They were silent again, and Isabel turned, feeling her way toward the +door. As she did so, the profound stillness was broken by the sound of a +man’s voice trolling out unsteadily the refrain of a music-hall song. + +The two in the boat-house darted toward each other with a simultaneous +movement, clutching hands as they met. + +“He’s coming!” Isabel said. + +Wrayford disengaged his hands. + +“He may only be out for a turn before he goes to bed. Wait a minute. +I’ll see.” He felt his way to the bench, scrambled up on it, and +stretching his body forward managed to bring his eyes in line with the +opening above the door. + +“It’s as black as pitch. I can’t see anything.” + +The refrain rang out nearer. + +“Wait! I saw something twinkle. There it is again. It’s his cigar. It’s +coming this way--down the path.” + +There was a long rattle of thunder through the stillness. + +“It’s the storm!” Isabel whispered. “He’s coming to see about the +launch.” + +Wrayford dropped noiselessly from the bench and she caught him by the +arm. + +“Isn’t there time to get up the path and slip under the shrubbery?” + +“No, he’s in the path now. He’ll be here in two minutes. He’ll find us.” + +He felt her hand tighten on his arm. + +“You must go in the skiff, then. It’s the only way.” + +“And let him find you? And hear my oars? Listen--there’s something I +must say.” + +She flung her arms about him and pressed her face to his. + +“Isabel, just now I didn’t tell you everything. He’s ruined his +mother--taken everything of hers too. And he’s got to tell her; it can’t +be kept from her.” + +She uttered an incredulous exclamation and drew back. + +“Is this the truth? Why didn’t you tell me before?” + +“He forbade me. You were not to know.” + +Close above them, in the shrubbery, Stilling warbled: + + “_Nita, Juanita, + Ask thy soul if we must part!_” + + +Wrayford held her by both arms. “Understand this--if he comes in, he’ll +find us. And if there’s a row you’ll lose your boy.” + +She seemed not to hear him. “You--you--you--he’ll kill you!” she +exclaimed. + +Wrayford laughed impatiently and released her, and she stood shrinking +against the wall, her hands pressed to her breast. Wrayford straightened +himself and she felt that he was listening intently. Then he dropped to +his knees and laid his hands against the boards of the sliding floor. It +yielded at once, as if with a kind of evil alacrity; and at their feet +they saw, under the motionless solid night, another darker night that +moved and shimmered. Wrayford threw himself back against the opposite +wall, behind the door. + +A key rattled in the lock, and after a moment’s fumbling the door swung +open. Wrayford and Isabel saw a man’s black bulk against the obscurity. +It moved a step, lurched forward, and vanished out of sight. From the +depths beneath them there came a splash and a long cry. + +“Go! go!” Wrayford cried out, feeling blindly for Isabel in the +blackness. + +“Oh--” she cried, wrenching herself away from him. + +He stood still a moment, as if dazed; then she saw him suddenly plunge +from her side, and heard another splash far down, and a tumult in the +beaten water. + +In the darkness she cowered close to the opening, pressing her face +over the edge, and crying out the name of each of the two men in turn. +Suddenly she began to see: the obscurity was less opaque, as if a +faint moon-pallor diluted it. Isabel vaguely discerned the two shapes +struggling in the black pit below her; once she saw the gleam of a face. +She glanced up desperately for some means of rescue, and caught sight +of the oars ranged on brackets against the wall. She snatched down +the nearest, bent over the opening, and pushed the oar down into the +blackness, crying out her husband’s name. + +The clouds had swallowed the moon again, and she could see nothing below +her; but she still heard the tumult in the beaten water. + +“Cobham! Cobham!” she screamed. + +As if in answer, she felt a mighty clutch on the oar, a clutch that +strained her arms to the breaking-point as she tried to brace her knees +against the runners of the sliding floor. + +“Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!” a voice gasped out from below; and she held +on, with racked muscles, with bleeding palms, with eyes straining from +their sockets, and a heart that tugged at her as the weight was tugging +at the oar. + +Suddenly the weight relaxed, and the oar slipped up through her +lacerated hands. She felt a wet body scrambling over the edge of the +opening, and Stilling’s voice, raucous and strange, groaned out, close +to her: “God! I thought I was done for.” + +He staggered to his knees, coughing and sputtering, and the water +dripped on her from his streaming clothes. + +She flung herself down, again, straining over the pit. Not a sound came +up from it. + +“Austin! Austin! Quick! Another oar!” she shrieked. + +Stilling gave a cry. “My God! Was it Austin? What in hell--Another oar? +No, no; untie the skiff, I tell you. But it’s no use. Nothing’s any use. +I felt him lose hold as I came up.” + +***** + +After that she was conscious of nothing till, hours later, as it +appeared to her, she became dimly aware of her husband’s voice, high, +hysterical and important, haranguing a group of scared lantern-struck +faces that had sprung up mysteriously about them in the night. + +“Poor Austin! Poor Wrayford... terrible loss to me... mysterious +dispensation. Yes, I do feel gratitude--miraculous escape--but I wish +old Austin could have known that I was saved!” + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Choice, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHOICE *** + +***** This file should be named 24348-0.txt or 24348-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/4/24348/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Choice + 1916 + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: January 17, 2008 [EBook #24348] +[Last updated: September 18, 2017] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHOICE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE CHOICE + </h1> + <h2> + By Edith Wharton + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner’s Sons + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I + </h2> + <p> + Stilling, that night after dinner, had surpassed himself. He always did, + Wrayford reflected, when the small fry from Highfield came to dine. He, + Cobham Stilling, who had to find his bearings and keep to his level in the + big heedless ironic world of New York, dilated and grew vast in the + congenial medium of Highfield. The Red House was the biggest house of the + Highfield summer colony, and Cobham Stilling was its biggest man. No one + else within a radius of a hundred miles (on a conservative estimate) had + as many horses, as many greenhouses, as many servants, and assuredly no + one else had three motors and a motor-boat for the lake. + </p> + <p> + The motor-boat was Stilling’s latest hobby, and he rode—or steered—it + in and out of the conversation all the evening, to the obvious edification + of every one present save his wife and his visitor, Austin Wrayford. The + interest of the latter two who, from opposite ends of the drawing-room, + exchanged a fleeting glance when Stilling again launched his craft on the + thin current of the talk—the interest of Mrs. Stilling and Wrayford + had already lost its edge by protracted contact with the subject. + </p> + <p> + But the dinner-guests—the Rector, Mr. Swordsley, his wife Mrs. + Swordsley, Lucy and Agnes Granger, their brother Addison, and young Jack + Emmerton from Harvard—were all, for divers reasons, stirred to the + proper pitch of feeling. Mr. Swordsley, no doubt, was saying to himself: + “If my good parishioner here can afford to buy a motor-boat, in addition + to all the other expenditures which an establishment like this must + entail, I certainly need not scruple to appeal to him again for a + contribution for our Galahad Club.” The Granger girls, meanwhile, were + evoking visions of lakeside picnics, not unadorned with the presence of + young Mr. Emmerton; while that youth himself speculated as to whether his + affable host would let him, when he came back on his next vacation, “learn + to run the thing himself”; and Mr. Addison Granger, the elderly bachelor + brother of the volatile Lucy and Agnes, mentally formulated the precise + phrase in which, in his next letter to his cousin Professor Spildyke of + the University of East Latmos, he should allude to “our last delightful + trip in my old friend Cobham Stilling’s ten-thousand-dollar motor-launch”—for + East Latmos was still in that primitive stage of culture on which five + figures impinge. + </p> +<p> +Isabel Stilling, sitting beside Mrs. Swordsley, her bead slightly +bent above the needlework with which on these occasions it was her +old-fashioned habit to employ herself—Isabel also had doubtless her +reflections to make. As Wrayford leaned back in his corner and looked +at her across the wide flower-filled drawing-room he noted, first of +all—for the how many hundredth time?—the play of her hands above the +embroidery-frame, the shadow of the thick dark hair on her forehead, + the lids over her somewhat full grey eyes. He noted all this with a +conscious deliberateness of enjoyment, taking in unconsciously, at the +same time, the particular quality in her attitude, in the fall of her +dress and the turn of her head, which had set her for him, from the +first day, in a separate world; then he said to himself: “She is +certainly thinking: ‘Where on earth will Cobham get the money to pay for +it?’” + </p> + <p> + Stilling, cigar in mouth and thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, was + impressively perorating from his usual dominant position on the + hearth-rug. + </p> + <p> + “I said: ‘If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got.’ + That’s my way, you know, Swordsley; I suppose I’m what you’d call + fastidious. Always was, about everything, from cigars to wom—” his + eye met the apprehensive glance of Mrs. Swordsley, who looked like her + husband with his clerical coat cut slightly lower—“so I said: ‘If I + have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got.’ Nothing makeshift + for me, no second-best. I never cared for the cheap and showy. I always + say frankly to a man: ‘If you can’t give me a first-rate cigar, for the + Lord’s sake let me smoke my own.’” He paused to do so. “Well, if you have + my standards, you can’t buy a thing in a minute. You must look round, + compare, select. I found there were lots of motor-boats on the market, + just as there’s lots of stuff called champagne. But I said to myself: ‘Ten + to one there’s only one fit to buy, just as there’s only one champagne fit + for a gentleman to drink.’ Argued like a lawyer, eh, Austin?” He tossed + this to Wrayford. “Take me for one of your own trade, wouldn’t you? Well, + I’m not such a fool as I look. I suppose you fellows who are tied to the + treadmill—excuse me, Swordsley, but work’s work, isn’t it?—I + suppose you think a man like me has nothing to do but take it easy: loll + through life like a woman. By George, sir, I’d like either of you to see + the time it takes—I won’t say the <i>brain</i>—but just the + time it takes to pick out a good motor-boat. Why, I went—” + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Stilling set her embroidery-frame noiselessly on the table at her + side, and turned her head toward Wrayford. “Would you mind ringing for the + tray?” + </p> + <p> + The interruption helped Mrs. Swordsley to waver to her feet. “I’m afraid + we ought really to be going; my husband has an early service to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + Her host intervened with a genial protest. “Going already? Nothing of the + sort! Why, the night’s still young, as the poet says. Long way from here + to the rectory? Nonsense! In our little twenty-horse car we do it in five + minutes—don’t we, Belle? Ah, you’re walking, to be sure—” + Stilling’s indulgent gesture seemed to concede that, in such a case, + allowances must be made, and that he was the last man not to make them. + “Well, then, Swordsley—” He held out a thick red hand that seemed to + exude beneficence, and the clergyman, pressing it, ventured to murmur a + suggestion. + </p> + <p> + “What, that Galahad Club again? Why, I thought my wife—Isabel, + didn’t we—No? Well, it must have been my mother, then. Of course, + you know, anything my good mother gives is—well—virtually—You + haven’t asked her? Sure? I could have sworn; I get so many of these + appeals. And in these times, you know, we have to go cautiously. I’m sure + you recognize that yourself, Swordsley. With my obligations—here + now, to show you don’t bear malice, have a brandy and soda before you go. + Nonsense, man! This brandy isn’t liquor; it’s liqueur. I picked it up last + year in London—last of a famous lot from Lord St. Oswyn’s cellar. + Laid down here, it stood me at—Eh?” he broke off as his wife moved + toward him. “Ah, yes, of course. Miss Lucy, Miss Agnes—a drop of + soda-water? Look here, Addison, you won’t refuse my tipple, I know. Well, + take a cigar, at any rate, Swordsley. And, by the way, I’m afraid you’ll + have to go round the long way by the avenue to-night. Sorry, Mrs. + Swordsley, but I forgot to tell them to leave the gate into the lane + unlocked. Well, it’s a jolly night, and I daresay you won’t mind the extra + turn along the lake. And, by Jove! if the moon’s out, you’ll have a + glimpse of the motorboat. She’s moored just out beyond our boat-house; and + it’s a privilege to look at her, I can tell you!” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + The dispersal of his guests carried Stilling out into the hall, where his + pleasantries reverberated under the oak rafters while the Granger girls + were being muffled for the drive and the carriages summoned from the + stables. + </p> + <p> + By a common impulse Mrs. Stilling and Wrayford had moved together toward + the fire-place, which was hidden by a tall screen from the door into the + hall. Wrayford leaned his elbow against the mantel-piece, and Mrs. + Stilling stood beside him, her clasped hands hanging down before her. + </p> + <p> + “Have you anything more to talk over with him?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “No. We wound it all up before dinner. He doesn’t want to talk about it + any more than he can help.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s so bad?” + </p> + <p> + “No; but this time he’s got to pull up.” + </p> + <p> + She stood silent, with lowered lids. He listened a moment, catching + Stilling’s farewell shout; then he moved a little nearer, and laid his + hand on her arm. + </p> + <p> + “In an hour?” + </p> + <p> + She made an imperceptible motion of assent. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell you about it then. The key’s as usual?” + </p> + <p> + She signed another “Yes” and walked away with her long drifting step as + her husband came in from the hall. + </p> + <p> + He went up to the tray and poured himself out a tall glass of brandy and + soda. + </p> + <p> + “The weather is turning queer—black as pitch. I hope the Swordsleys + won’t walk into the lake—involuntary immersion, eh? He’d come out a + Baptist, I suppose. What’d the Bishop do in such a case? There’s a problem + for a lawyer, my boy!” + </p> + <p> + He clapped his hand on Wrayford’s thin shoulder and then walked over to + his wife, who was gathering up her embroidery silks and dropping them into + her work-bag. Stilling took her by the arms and swung her playfully about + so that she faced the lamplight. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the matter with you tonight?” + </p> + <p> + “The matter?” she echoed, colouring a little, and standing very straight + in her desire not to appear to shrink from his touch. + </p> + <p> + “You never opened your lips. Left me the whole job of entertaining those + blessed people. Didn’t she, Austin?” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford laughed and lit a cigarette. + </p> + <p> + “There! You see even Austin noticed it. What’s the matter, I say? Aren’t + they good enough for you? I don’t say they’re particularly exciting; but, + hang it! I like to ask them here—I like to give people pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t mean to be dull,” said Isabel. + </p> + <p> + “Well, you must learn to make an effort. Don’t treat people as if they + weren’t in the room just because they don’t happen to amuse you. Do you + know what they’ll think? They’ll think it’s because you’ve got a bigger + house and more money than they have. Shall I tell you something? My mother + said she’d noticed the same thing in you lately. She said she sometimes + felt you looked down on her for living in a small house. Oh, she was half + joking, of course; but you see you do give people that impression. I can’t + understand treating any one in that way. The more I have myself, the more + I want to make other people happy.” + </p> + <p> + Isabel gently freed herself and laid the work-bag on her embroidery-frame. + “I have a headache; perhaps that made me stupid. I’m going to bed.” She + turned toward Wrayford and held out her hand. “Good night.” + </p> + <p> + “Good night,” he answered, opening the door for her. + </p> + <p> + When he turned back into the room, his host was pouring himself a third + glass of brandy and soda. + </p> + <p> + “Here, have a nip, Austin? Gad, I need it badly, after the shaking up you + gave me this afternoon.” Stilling laughed and carried his glass to the + hearth, where he took up his usual commanding position. “Why the deuce + don’t you drink something? You look as glum as Isabel. One would think you + were the chap that had been hit by this business.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford threw himself into the chair from which Mrs. Stilling had lately + risen. It was the one she usually sat in, and to his fancy a faint scent + of her clung to it. He leaned back and looked up at Stilling. + </p> + <p> + “Want a cigar?” the latter continued. “Shall we go into the den and + smoke?” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford hesitated. “If there’s anything more you want to ask me about—” + </p> + <p> + “Gad, no! I had full measure and running over this afternoon. The deuce of + it is, I don’t see where the money’s all gone to. Luckily I’ve got plenty + of nerve; I’m not the kind of man to sit down and snivel because I’ve been + touched in Wall Street.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford got to his feet again. “Then, if you don’t want me, I think I’ll + go up to my room and put some finishing touches to a brief before I turn + in. I must get back to town to-morrow afternoon.” + </p> + <p> + “All right, then.” Stilling set down his empty glass, and held out his + hand with a tinge of alacrity. “Good night, old man.” + </p> + <p> + They shook hands, and Wrayford moved toward the door. + </p> + <p> + “I say, Austin—stop a minute!” his host called after him. Wrayford + turned, and the two men faced each other across the hearth-rug. Stilling’s + eyes shifted uneasily. + </p> + <p> + “There’s one thing more you can do for me before you leave. Tell Isabel + about that loan; explain to her that she’s got to sign a note for it.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford, in his turn, flushed slightly. “You want me to tell her?” + </p> + <p> + “Hang it! I’m soft-hearted—that’s the worst of me.” + </p> + <p> + Stilling moved toward the tray, and lifted the brandy decanter. “And + she’ll take it better from you; she’ll <i>have</i> to take it from you. + She’s proud. You can take her out for a row to-morrow morning—look + here, take her out in the motor-launch if you like. I meant to have a spin + in it myself; but if you’ll tell her—” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford hesitated. “All right, I’ll tell her.” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks a lot, my dear fellow. And you’ll make her see it wasn’t my fault, + eh? Women are awfully vague about money, and she’ll think it’s all right + if you back me up.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford nodded. “As you please.” + </p> + <p> + “And, Austin—there’s just one more thing. You needn’t say anything + to Isabel about the other business—I mean about my mother’s + securities.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah?” said Wrayford, pausing. + </p> + <p> + Stilling shifted from one foot to the other. “I’d rather put that to the + old lady myself. I can make it clear to her. She idolizes me, you know—and, + hang it! I’ve got a good record. Up to now, I mean. My mother’s been in + clover since I married; I may say she’s been my first thought. And I don’t + want her to hear of this beastly business from Isabel. Isabel’s a little + harsh at times—and of course this isn’t going to make her any easier + to live with.” + </p> + <p> + “Very well,” said Wrayford. + </p> + <p> + Stilling, with a look of relief, walked toward the window which opened on + the terrace. “Gad! what a queer night! Hot as the kitchen-range. Shouldn’t + wonder if we had a squall before morning. I wonder if that infernal + skipper took in the launch’s awnings before he went home.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford stopped with his hand on the door. “Yes, I saw him do it. She’s + shipshape for the night.” + </p> + <p> + “Good! That saves me a run down to the shore.” + </p> + <p> + “Good night, then,” said Wrayford. + </p> + <p> + “Good night, old man. You’ll tell her?” + </p> + <p> + “I’ll tell her.” + </p> + <p> + “And mum about my mother!” his host called after him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II + </h2> + <p> + The darkness had thinned a little when Wrayford scrambled down the steep + path to the shore. Though the air was heavy the threat of a storm seemed + to have vanished, and now and then the moon’s edge showed above a torn + slope of cloud. + </p> + <p> + But in the thick shrubbery about the boat-house the darkness was still + dense, and Wrayford had to strike a match before he could find the lock + and insert his key. He left the door unlatched, and groped his way in. How + often he had crept into this warm pine-scented obscurity, guiding himself + by the edge of the bench along the wall, and hearing the soft lap of water + through the gaps in the flooring! He knew just where one had to duck one’s + head to avoid the two canoes swung from the rafters, and just where to put + his hand on the latch of the farther door that led to the broad balcony + above the lake. + </p> + <p> + The boat-house represented one of Stilling’s abandoned whims. He had built + it some seven years before, and for a time it had been the scene of + incessant nautical exploits. Stilling had rowed, sailed, paddled + indefatigably, and all Highfield had been impressed to bear him company, + and to admire his versatility. Then motors had come in, and he had + forsaken aquatic sports for the flying chariot. The canoes of birch-bark + and canvas had been hoisted to the roof, the sail-boat had rotted at her + moorings, and the movable floor of the boat-house, ingeniously contrived + to slide back on noiseless runners, had lain undisturbed through several + seasons. Even the key of the boat-house had been mislaid—by Isabel’s + fault, her husband said—and the locksmith had to be called in to + make a new one when the purchase of the motor-boat made the lake once more + the centre of Stilling’s activity. + </p> + <p> + As Wrayford entered he noticed that a strange oily odor overpowered the + usual scent of dry pine-wood; and at the next step his foot struck an + object that rolled noisily across the boards. He lighted another match, + and found he had overturned a can of grease which the boatman had no doubt + been using to oil the runners of the sliding floor. + </p> + <p> + Wrayford felt his way down the length of the boathouse, and softly opening + the balcony door looked out on the lake. A few yards away, he saw the + launch lying at anchor in the veiled moonlight; and just below him, on the + black water, was the dim outline of the skiff which the boatman kept to + paddle out to her. The silence was so intense that Wrayford fancied he + heard a faint rustling in the shrubbery on the high bank behind the + boat-house, and the crackle of gravel on the path descending to it. + </p> + <p> + He closed the door again and turned back into the darkness; and as he did + so the other door, on the land-side, swung inward, and he saw a figure in + the dim opening. Just enough light entered through the round holes above + the respective doors to reveal Mrs. Stilling’s cloaked outline, and to + guide her to him as he advanced. But before they met she stumbled and gave + a little cry. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “My foot caught; the floor seemed to give way under me. Ah, of course—” + she bent down in the darkness—“I saw the men oiling it this + morning.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford caught her by the arm. “Do take care! It might be dangerous if it + slid too easily. The water’s deep under here.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; the water’s very deep. I sometimes wish—” She leaned against + him without finishing her sentence, and he put both arms about her. + </p> + <p> + “Hush!” he said, his lips on hers. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly she threw her head back and seemed to listen. + </p> + <p> + “What’s the matter? What do you hear?” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know.” He felt her trembling. “I’m not sure this place is as safe + as it used to be—” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford held her to him reassuringly. “But the boatman sleeps down at the + village; and who else should come here at this hour?” + </p> + <p> + “Cobham might. He thinks of nothing but the launch.’” + </p> + <p> + “He won’t to-night. I told him I’d seen the skipper put her shipshape, and + that satisfied him.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—he did think of coming, then?” + </p> + <p> + “Only for a minute, when the sky looked so black half an hour ago, and he + was afraid of a squall. It’s clearing now, and there’s no danger.” + </p> + <p> + He drew her down on the bench, and they sat a moment or two in silence, + her hands in his. Then she said: “You’d better tell me.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford gave a faint laugh. “Yes, I suppose I had. In fact, he asked me + to.” + </p> + <p> + “He asked you to?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + She uttered an exclamation of contempt. “He’s afraid!” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford made no reply, and she went on: “I’m not. Tell me everything, + please.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, he’s chucked away a pretty big sum again—” + </p> + <p> + “How?” + </p> + <p> + “He says he doesn’t know. He’s been speculating, I suppose. The madness of + making him your trustee!” + </p> + <p> + She drew her hands away. “You know why I did it. When we married I didn’t + want to put him in the false position of the man who contributes nothing + and accepts everything; I wanted people to think the money was partly + his.” + </p> + <p> + “I don’t know what you’ve made people think; but you’ve been eminently + successful in one respect. <i>He</i> thinks it’s all his—and he + loses it as if it were.” + </p> + <p> + “There are worse things. What was it that he wished you to tell me?” + </p> + <p> + “That you’ve got to sign another promissory note—for fifty thousand + this time.” + </p> + <p> + “Is that all?” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford hesitated; then he said: “Yes—for the present.” + </p> + <p> + She sat motionless, her head bent, her hand resting passively in his. + </p> + <p> + He leaned nearer. “What did you mean just now, by worse things?” + </p> + <p> + She hesitated. “Haven’t you noticed that he’s been drinking a great deal + lately?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; I’ve noticed.” + </p> + <p> + They were both silent; then Wrayford broke out, with sudden vehemence: + “And yet you won’t—” + </p> + <p> + “Won’t?” + </p> + <p> + “Put an end to it. Good God! Save what’s left of your life.” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer, and in the stillness the throb of the water underneath + them sounded like the beat of a tormented heart. + </p> + <p> + “Isabel—” Wrayford murmured. He bent over to kiss her. “Isabel! I + can’t stand it! listen—” + </p> + <p> + “No; no. I’ve thought of everything. There’s the boy—the boy’s fond + of him. He’s not a bad father.” + </p> + <p> + “Except in the trifling matter of ruining his son.” + </p> + <p> + “And there’s his poor old mother. He’s a good son, at any rate; he’d never + hurt her. And I know her. If I left him, she’d never take a penny of my + money. What she has of her own is not enough to live on; and how could he + provide for her? If I put him out of doors, I should be putting his mother + out too.” + </p> + <p> + “You could arrange that—there are always ways.” + </p> + <p> + “Not for her! She’s proud. And then she believes in him. Lots of people + believe in him, you know. It would kill her if she ever found out.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford made an impatient movement. “It will kill you if you stay with + him to prevent her finding out.” + </p> + <p> + She laid her other hand on his. “Not while I have you.” + </p> + <p> + “Have me? In this way?” + </p> + <p> + “In any way.” + </p> + <p> + “My poor girl—poor child!” + </p> + <p> + “Unless you grow tired—unless your patience gives out.” + </p> + <p> + He was silent, and she went on insistently: “Don’t you suppose I’ve + thought of that too—foreseen it?” + </p> + <p> + “Well—and then?” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve accepted that too.” + </p> + <p> + He dropped her hands with a despairing gesture. “Then, indeed, I waste my + breath!” + </p> + <p> + She made no answer, and for a time they sat silent again, a little between + them. At length he asked: “You’re not crying?” + </p> + <p> + “No.” + </p> + <p> + “I can’t see your face, it’s grown so dark.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes. The storm must be coming.” She made a motion as if to rise. + </p> + <p> + He drew close and put his arm about her. “Don’t leave me yet. You know I + must go to-morrow.” He broke off with a laugh. “I’m to break the news to + you to-morrow morning, by the way; I’m to take you out in the motorlaunch + and break it to you.” He dropped her hands and stood up. “Good God! How + can I go and leave you here with him?” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve done it often.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; but each time it’s more damnable. And then I’ve always had a hope—” + </p> + <p> + She rose also. “Give it up! Give it up!” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve none, then, yourself?” + </p> + <p> + She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her. + </p> + <p> + “None—none?” he insisted. + </p> + <p> + He had to bend his head to hear her answer. “Only one!” + </p> + <p> + “What, my dearest? What?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t touch me! That he may die!” + </p> + <p> + They drew apart again, hearing each other’s quick breathing through the + darkness. + </p> + <p> + “You wish that too?” he said. + </p> + <p> + “I wish it always—every day, every hour, every moment!” She paused, + and then let the words break from her. “You’d better know it; you’d better + know the worst of me. I’m not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is + poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him + dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes back + I say to myself: ‘Are you here again?’ When I hear of people being killed + in accidents, I think: ‘Why wasn’t he there?’ When I read the + death-notices in the paper I say: ‘So-and-so was just his age.’ When I see + him taking such care of his health and his diet—as he does, you + know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much—when + I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and + weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn’t + gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw + their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: ‘What can + kill a man who thinks only of himself?’ And night after night I keep + myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he’s dead. When I + dream that, and wake and find him there it’s worse than ever—” + </p> + <p> + She broke off with a sob, and the loud lapping of the water under the + floor was like the beat of a rebellious heart. + </p> + <p> + “There, you know the truth!” she said. + </p> + <p> + He answered after a pause: “People do die.” + </p> + <p> + “Do they?” She laughed. “Yes—in happy marriages!” + </p> + <p> + They were silent again, and Isabel turned, feeling her way toward the + door. As she did so, the profound stillness was broken by the sound of a + man’s voice trolling out unsteadily the refrain of a music-hall song. + </p> + <p> + The two in the boat-house darted toward each other with a simultaneous + movement, clutching hands as they met. + </p> + <p> + “He’s coming!” Isabel said. + </p> + <p> + Wrayford disengaged his hands. + </p> + <p> + “He may only be out for a turn before he goes to bed. Wait a minute. I’ll + see.” He felt his way to the bench, scrambled up on it, and stretching his + body forward managed to bring his eyes in line with the opening above the + door. + </p> + <p> + “It’s as black as pitch. I can’t see anything.” + </p> + <p> + The refrain rang out nearer. + </p> + <p> + “Wait! I saw something twinkle. There it is again. It’s his cigar. It’s + coming this way—down the path.” + </p> + <p> + There was a long rattle of thunder through the stillness. + </p> + <p> + “It’s the storm!” Isabel whispered. “He’s coming to see about the launch.” + </p> + <p> + Wrayford dropped noiselessly from the bench and she caught him by the arm. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t there time to get up the path and slip under the shrubbery?” + </p> + <p> + “No, he’s in the path now. He’ll be here in two minutes. He’ll find us.” + </p> + <p> + He felt her hand tighten on his arm. + </p> + <p> + “You must go in the skiff, then. It’s the only way.” + </p> + <p> + “And let him find you? And hear my oars? Listen—there’s something I + must say.” + </p> + <p> + She flung her arms about him and pressed her face to his. + </p> + <p> + “Isabel, just now I didn’t tell you everything. He’s ruined his mother—taken + everything of hers too. And he’s got to tell her; it can’t be kept from + her.” + </p> + <p> + She uttered an incredulous exclamation and drew back. + </p> + <p> + “Is this the truth? Why didn’t you tell me before?” + </p> + <p> + “He forbade me. You were not to know.” + </p> + <p> + Close above them, in the shrubbery, Stilling warbled: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “<i>Nita, Juanita, + Ask thy soul if we must part!</i>” + </pre> + <p> + Wrayford held her by both arms. “Understand this—if he comes in, + he’ll find us. And if there’s a row you’ll lose your boy.” + </p> + <p> + She seemed not to hear him. “You—you—you—he’ll kill + you!” she exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + Wrayford laughed impatiently and released her, and she stood shrinking + against the wall, her hands pressed to her breast. Wrayford straightened + himself and she felt that he was listening intently. Then he dropped to + his knees and laid his hands against the boards of the sliding floor. It + yielded at once, as if with a kind of evil alacrity; and at their feet + they saw, under the motionless solid night, another darker night that + moved and shimmered. Wrayford threw himself back against the opposite + wall, behind the door. + </p> + <p> + A key rattled in the lock, and after a moment’s fumbling the door swung + open. Wrayford and Isabel saw a man’s black bulk against the obscurity. It + moved a step, lurched forward, and vanished out of sight. From the depths + beneath them there came a splash and a long cry. + </p> + <p> + “Go! go!” Wrayford cried out, feeling blindly for Isabel in the blackness. + </p> + <p> + “Oh—” she cried, wrenching herself away from him. + </p> + <p> + He stood still a moment, as if dazed; then she saw him suddenly plunge + from her side, and heard another splash far down, and a tumult in the + beaten water. + </p> + <p> + In the darkness she cowered close to the opening, pressing her face over + the edge, and crying out the name of each of the two men in turn. Suddenly + she began to see: the obscurity was less opaque, as if a faint moon-pallor + diluted it. Isabel vaguely discerned the two shapes struggling in the + black pit below her; once she saw the gleam of a face. She glanced up + desperately for some means of rescue, and caught sight of the oars ranged + on brackets against the wall. She snatched down the nearest, bent over the + opening, and pushed the oar down into the blackness, crying out her + husband’s name. + </p> + <p> + The clouds had swallowed the moon again, and she could see nothing below + her; but she still heard the tumult in the beaten water. + </p> + <p> + “Cobham! Cobham!” she screamed. + </p> + <p> + As if in answer, she felt a mighty clutch on the oar, a clutch that + strained her arms to the breaking-point as she tried to brace her knees + against the runners of the sliding floor. + </p> + <p> + “Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!” a voice gasped out from below; and she held + on, with racked muscles, with bleeding palms, with eyes straining from + their sockets, and a heart that tugged at her as the weight was tugging at + the oar. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the weight relaxed, and the oar slipped up through her lacerated + hands. She felt a wet body scrambling over the edge of the opening, and + Stilling’s voice, raucous and strange, groaned out, close to her: “God! I + thought I was done for.” + </p> + <p> + He staggered to his knees, coughing and sputtering, and the water dripped + on her from his streaming clothes. + </p> + <p> + She flung herself down, again, straining over the pit. Not a sound came up + from it. + </p> + <p> + “Austin! Austin! Quick! Another oar!” she shrieked. + </p> + <p> + Stilling gave a cry. “My God! Was it Austin? What in hell—Another + oar? No, no; untie the skiff, I tell you. But it’s no use. Nothing’s any + use. I felt him lose hold as I came up.” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + After that she was conscious of nothing till, hours later, as it appeared + to her, she became dimly aware of her husband’s voice, high, hysterical + and important, haranguing a group of scared lantern-struck faces that had + sprung up mysteriously about them in the night. + </p> + <p> + “Poor Austin! Poor Wrayford... terrible loss to me... mysterious + dispensation. Yes, I do feel gratitude—miraculous escape—but I + wish old Austin could have known that I was saved!” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Choice, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHOICE *** + +***** This file should be named 24348-h.htm or 24348-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/4/24348/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Choice + 1916 + +Author: Edith Wharton + +Release Date: January 17, 2008 [EBook #24348] +[Last updated: September 18, 2017] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHOICE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE CHOICE + +By Edith Wharton + +Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner's Sons + + + + +I + +Stilling, that night after dinner, had surpassed himself. He always did, +Wrayford reflected, when the small fry from Highfield came to dine. He, +Cobham Stilling, who had to find his bearings and keep to his level in +the big heedless ironic world of New York, dilated and grew vast in the +congenial medium of Highfield. The Red House was the biggest house of +the Highfield summer colony, and Cobham Stilling was its biggest man. No +one else within a radius of a hundred miles (on a conservative estimate) +had as many horses, as many greenhouses, as many servants, and assuredly +no one else had three motors and a motor-boat for the lake. + +The motor-boat was Stilling's latest hobby, and he rode--or steered--it +in and out of the conversation all the evening, to the obvious +edification of every one present save his wife and his visitor, Austin +Wrayford. The interest of the latter two who, from opposite ends of the +drawing-room, exchanged a fleeting glance when Stilling again launched +his craft on the thin current of the talk--the interest of Mrs. Stilling +and Wrayford had already lost its edge by protracted contact with the +subject. + +But the dinner-guests--the Rector, Mr. Swordsley, his wife Mrs. +Swordsley, Lucy and Agnes Granger, their brother Addison, and young +Jack Emmerton from Harvard--were all, for divers reasons, stirred to the +proper pitch of feeling. Mr. Swordsley, no doubt, was saying to himself: +"If my good parishioner here can afford to buy a motor-boat, in addition +to all the other expenditures which an establishment like this must +entail, I certainly need not scruple to appeal to him again for a +contribution for our Galahad Club." The Granger girls, meanwhile, were +evoking visions of lakeside picnics, not unadorned with the presence of +young Mr. Emmerton; while that youth himself speculated as to whether +his affable host would let him, when he came back on his next vacation, +"learn to run the thing himself"; and Mr. Addison Granger, the elderly +bachelor brother of the volatile Lucy and Agnes, mentally formulated +the precise phrase in which, in his next letter to his cousin Professor +Spildyke of the University of East Latmos, he should allude to "our last +delightful trip in my old friend Cobham Stilling's ten-thousand-dollar +motor-launch"--for East Latmos was still in that primitive stage of +culture on which five figures impinge. + +Isabel Stilling, sitting beside Mrs. Swordsley, her bead slightly +bent above the needlework with which on these occasions it was her +old-fashioned habit to employ herself--Isabel also had doubtless her +reflections to make. As Wrayford leaned back in his corner and looked +at her across the wide flower-filled drawing-room he noted, first of +all--for the how many hundredth time?--the play of her hands above the +embroidery-frame, the shadow of the thick dark hair on her forehead, + the lids over her somewhat full grey eyes. He noted all this with a +conscious deliberateness of enjoyment, taking in unconsciously, at the +same time, the particular quality in her attitude, in the fall of her +dress and the turn of her head, which had set her for him, from the +first day, in a separate world; then he said to himself: "She is +certainly thinking: 'Where on earth will Cobham get the money to pay for +it?'" + +Stilling, cigar in mouth and thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, was +impressively perorating from his usual dominant position on the +hearth-rug. + +"I said: 'If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be +got.' That's my way, you know, Swordsley; I suppose I'm what you'd call +fastidious. Always was, about everything, from cigars to wom--" his +eye met the apprehensive glance of Mrs. Swordsley, who looked like her +husband with his clerical coat cut slightly lower--"so I said: 'If +I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got.' Nothing +makeshift for me, no second-best. I never cared for the cheap and showy. +I always say frankly to a man: 'If you can't give me a first-rate cigar, +for the Lord's sake let me smoke my own.'" He paused to do so. "Well, if +you have my standards, you can't buy a thing in a minute. You must look +round, compare, select. I found there were lots of motor-boats on the +market, just as there's lots of stuff called champagne. But I said to +myself: 'Ten to one there's only one fit to buy, just as there's only +one champagne fit for a gentleman to drink.' Argued like a lawyer, eh, +Austin?" He tossed this to Wrayford. "Take me for one of your own trade, +wouldn't you? Well, I'm not such a fool as I look. I suppose you fellows +who are tied to the treadmill--excuse me, Swordsley, but work's work, +isn't it?--I suppose you think a man like me has nothing to do but take +it easy: loll through life like a woman. By George, sir, I'd like either +of you to see the time it takes--I won't say the _brain_--but just the +time it takes to pick out a good motor-boat. Why, I went--" + +Mrs. Stilling set her embroidery-frame noiselessly on the table at her +side, and turned her head toward Wrayford. "Would you mind ringing for +the tray?" + +The interruption helped Mrs. Swordsley to waver to her feet. "I'm afraid +we ought really to be going; my husband has an early service to-morrow." + +Her host intervened with a genial protest. "Going already? Nothing of +the sort! Why, the night's still young, as the poet says. Long way from +here to the rectory? Nonsense! In our little twenty-horse car we do +it in five minutes--don't we, Belle? Ah, you're walking, to be sure--" +Stilling's indulgent gesture seemed to concede that, in such a case, +allowances must be made, and that he was the last man not to make them. +"Well, then, Swordsley--" He held out a thick red hand that seemed to +exude beneficence, and the clergyman, pressing it, ventured to murmur a +suggestion. + +"What, that Galahad Club again? Why, I thought my wife--Isabel, didn't +we--No? Well, it must have been my mother, then. Of course, you know, +anything my good mother gives is--well--virtually--You haven't asked +her? Sure? I could have sworn; I get so many of these appeals. And in +these times, you know, we have to go cautiously. I'm sure you recognize +that yourself, Swordsley. With my obligations--here now, to show you +don't bear malice, have a brandy and soda before you go. Nonsense, man! +This brandy isn't liquor; it's liqueur. I picked it up last year in +London--last of a famous lot from Lord St. Oswyn's cellar. Laid down +here, it stood me at--Eh?" he broke off as his wife moved toward him. +"Ah, yes, of course. Miss Lucy, Miss Agnes--a drop of soda-water? Look +here, Addison, you won't refuse my tipple, I know. Well, take a cigar, +at any rate, Swordsley. And, by the way, I'm afraid you'll have to go +round the long way by the avenue to-night. Sorry, Mrs. Swordsley, but I +forgot to tell them to leave the gate into the lane unlocked. Well, it's +a jolly night, and I daresay you won't mind the extra turn along the +lake. And, by Jove! if the moon's out, you'll have a glimpse of the +motorboat. She's moored just out beyond our boat-house; and it's a +privilege to look at her, I can tell you!" + +***** + +The dispersal of his guests carried Stilling out into the hall, where +his pleasantries reverberated under the oak rafters while the Granger +girls were being muffled for the drive and the carriages summoned from +the stables. + +By a common impulse Mrs. Stilling and Wrayford had moved together toward +the fire-place, which was hidden by a tall screen from the door into +the hall. Wrayford leaned his elbow against the mantel-piece, and Mrs. +Stilling stood beside him, her clasped hands hanging down before her. + +"Have you anything more to talk over with him?" she asked. + +"No. We wound it all up before dinner. He doesn't want to talk about it +any more than he can help." + +"It's so bad?" + +"No; but this time he's got to pull up." + +She stood silent, with lowered lids. He listened a moment, catching +Stilling's farewell shout; then he moved a little nearer, and laid his +hand on her arm. + +"In an hour?" + +She made an imperceptible motion of assent. + +"I'll tell you about it then. The key's as usual?" + +She signed another "Yes" and walked away with her long drifting step as +her husband came in from the hall. + +He went up to the tray and poured himself out a tall glass of brandy and +soda. + +"The weather is turning queer--black as pitch. I hope the Swordsleys +won't walk into the lake--involuntary immersion, eh? He'd come out +a Baptist, I suppose. What'd the Bishop do in such a case? There's a +problem for a lawyer, my boy!" + +He clapped his hand on Wrayford's thin shoulder and then walked over to +his wife, who was gathering up her embroidery silks and dropping them +into her work-bag. Stilling took her by the arms and swung her playfully +about so that she faced the lamplight. + +"What's the matter with you tonight?" + +"The matter?" she echoed, colouring a little, and standing very straight +in her desire not to appear to shrink from his touch. + +"You never opened your lips. Left me the whole job of entertaining those +blessed people. Didn't she, Austin?" + +Wrayford laughed and lit a cigarette. + +"There! You see even Austin noticed it. What's the matter, I say? Aren't +they good enough for you? I don't say they're particularly exciting; +but, hang it! I like to ask them here--I like to give people pleasure." + +"I didn't mean to be dull," said Isabel. + +"Well, you must learn to make an effort. Don't treat people as if they +weren't in the room just because they don't happen to amuse you. Do you +know what they'll think? They'll think it's because you've got a bigger +house and more money than they have. Shall I tell you something? My +mother said she'd noticed the same thing in you lately. She said she +sometimes felt you looked down on her for living in a small house. Oh, +she was half joking, of course; but you see you do give people that +impression. I can't understand treating any one in that way. The more I +have myself, the more I want to make other people happy." + +Isabel gently freed herself and laid the work-bag on her +embroidery-frame. "I have a headache; perhaps that made me stupid. I'm +going to bed." She turned toward Wrayford and held out her hand. "Good +night." + +"Good night," he answered, opening the door for her. + +When he turned back into the room, his host was pouring himself a third +glass of brandy and soda. + +"Here, have a nip, Austin? Gad, I need it badly, after the shaking up +you gave me this afternoon." Stilling laughed and carried his glass to +the hearth, where he took up his usual commanding position. "Why the +deuce don't you drink something? You look as glum as Isabel. One would +think you were the chap that had been hit by this business." + +Wrayford threw himself into the chair from which Mrs. Stilling had +lately risen. It was the one she usually sat in, and to his fancy +a faint scent of her clung to it. He leaned back and looked up at +Stilling. + +"Want a cigar?" the latter continued. "Shall we go into the den and +smoke?" + +Wrayford hesitated. "If there's anything more you want to ask me +about--" + +"Gad, no! I had full measure and running over this afternoon. The deuce +of it is, I don't see where the money's all gone to. Luckily I've got +plenty of nerve; I'm not the kind of man to sit down and snivel because +I've been touched in Wall Street." + +Wrayford got to his feet again. "Then, if you don't want me, I think +I'll go up to my room and put some finishing touches to a brief before I +turn in. I must get back to town to-morrow afternoon." + +"All right, then." Stilling set down his empty glass, and held out his +hand with a tinge of alacrity. "Good night, old man." + +They shook hands, and Wrayford moved toward the door. + +"I say, Austin--stop a minute!" his host called after him. Wrayford +turned, and the two men faced each other across the hearth-rug. +Stilling's eyes shifted uneasily. + +"There's one thing more you can do for me before you leave. Tell Isabel +about that loan; explain to her that she's got to sign a note for it." + +Wrayford, in his turn, flushed slightly. "You want me to tell her?" + +"Hang it! I'm soft-hearted--that's the worst of me." + +Stilling moved toward the tray, and lifted the brandy decanter. "And +she'll take it better from you; she'll _have_ to take it from you. She's +proud. You can take her out for a row to-morrow morning--look here, take +her out in the motor-launch if you like. I meant to have a spin in it +myself; but if you'll tell her--" + +Wrayford hesitated. "All right, I'll tell her." + +"Thanks a lot, my dear fellow. And you'll make her see it wasn't my +fault, eh? Women are awfully vague about money, and she'll think it's +all right if you back me up." + +Wrayford nodded. "As you please." + +"And, Austin--there's just one more thing. You needn't say anything to +Isabel about the other business--I mean about my mother's securities." + +"Ah?" said Wrayford, pausing. + +Stilling shifted from one foot to the other. "I'd rather put that to +the old lady myself. I can make it clear to her. She idolizes me, +you know--and, hang it! I've got a good record. Up to now, I mean. My +mother's been in clover since I married; I may say she's been my first +thought. And I don't want her to hear of this beastly business from +Isabel. Isabel's a little harsh at times--and of course this isn't going +to make her any easier to live with." + +"Very well," said Wrayford. + +Stilling, with a look of relief, walked toward the window which opened +on the terrace. "Gad! what a queer night! Hot as the kitchen-range. +Shouldn't wonder if we had a squall before morning. I wonder if that +infernal skipper took in the launch's awnings before he went home." + +Wrayford stopped with his hand on the door. "Yes, I saw him do it. She's +shipshape for the night." + +"Good! That saves me a run down to the shore." + +"Good night, then," said Wrayford. + +"Good night, old man. You'll tell her?" + +"I'll tell her." + +"And mum about my mother!" his host called after him. + + + + +II + +The darkness had thinned a little when Wrayford scrambled down the steep +path to the shore. Though the air was heavy the threat of a storm seemed +to have vanished, and now and then the moon's edge showed above a torn +slope of cloud. + +But in the thick shrubbery about the boat-house the darkness was still +dense, and Wrayford had to strike a match before he could find the lock +and insert his key. He left the door unlatched, and groped his way in. +How often he had crept into this warm pine-scented obscurity, guiding +himself by the edge of the bench along the wall, and hearing the soft +lap of water through the gaps in the flooring! He knew just where one +had to duck one's head to avoid the two canoes swung from the rafters, +and just where to put his hand on the latch of the farther door that led +to the broad balcony above the lake. + +The boat-house represented one of Stilling's abandoned whims. He had +built it some seven years before, and for a time it had been the scene +of incessant nautical exploits. Stilling had rowed, sailed, paddled +indefatigably, and all Highfield had been impressed to bear him company, +and to admire his versatility. Then motors had come in, and he had +forsaken aquatic sports for the flying chariot. The canoes of birch-bark +and canvas had been hoisted to the roof, the sail-boat had rotted at her +moorings, and the movable floor of the boat-house, ingeniously contrived +to slide back on noiseless runners, had lain undisturbed through several +seasons. Even the key of the boat-house had been mislaid--by Isabel's +fault, her husband said--and the locksmith had to be called in to make a +new one when the purchase of the motor-boat made the lake once more the +centre of Stilling's activity. + +As Wrayford entered he noticed that a strange oily odor overpowered the +usual scent of dry pine-wood; and at the next step his foot struck an +object that rolled noisily across the boards. He lighted another match, +and found he had overturned a can of grease which the boatman had no +doubt been using to oil the runners of the sliding floor. + +Wrayford felt his way down the length of the boathouse, and softly +opening the balcony door looked out on the lake. A few yards away, he +saw the launch lying at anchor in the veiled moonlight; and just below +him, on the black water, was the dim outline of the skiff which the +boatman kept to paddle out to her. The silence was so intense that +Wrayford fancied he heard a faint rustling in the shrubbery on the +high bank behind the boat-house, and the crackle of gravel on the path +descending to it. + +He closed the door again and turned back into the darkness; and as he +did so the other door, on the land-side, swung inward, and he saw a +figure in the dim opening. Just enough light entered through the round +holes above the respective doors to reveal Mrs. Stilling's cloaked +outline, and to guide her to him as he advanced. But before they met she +stumbled and gave a little cry. + +"What is it?" he exclaimed. + +"My foot caught; the floor seemed to give way under me. Ah, of course--" +she bent down in the darkness--"I saw the men oiling it this morning." + +Wrayford caught her by the arm. "Do take care! It might be dangerous if +it slid too easily. The water's deep under here." + +"Yes; the water's very deep. I sometimes wish--" She leaned against him +without finishing her sentence, and he put both arms about her. + +"Hush!" he said, his lips on hers. + +Suddenly she threw her head back and seemed to listen. + +"What's the matter? What do you hear?" + +"I don't know." He felt her trembling. "I'm not sure this place is as +safe as it used to be--" + +Wrayford held her to him reassuringly. "But the boatman sleeps down at +the village; and who else should come here at this hour?" + +"Cobham might. He thinks of nothing but the launch.'" + +"He won't to-night. I told him I'd seen the skipper put her shipshape, +and that satisfied him." + +"Ah--he did think of coming, then?" + +"Only for a minute, when the sky looked so black half an hour ago, and +he was afraid of a squall. It's clearing now, and there's no danger." + +He drew her down on the bench, and they sat a moment or two in silence, +her hands in his. Then she said: "You'd better tell me." + +Wrayford gave a faint laugh. "Yes, I suppose I had. In fact, he asked me +to." + +"He asked you to?" + +"Yes." + +She uttered an exclamation of contempt. "He's afraid!" + +Wrayford made no reply, and she went on: "I'm not. Tell me everything, +please." + +"Well, he's chucked away a pretty big sum again--" + +"How?" + +"He says he doesn't know. He's been speculating, I suppose. The madness +of making him your trustee!" + +She drew her hands away. "You know why I did it. When we married I +didn't want to put him in the false position of the man who contributes +nothing and accepts everything; I wanted people to think the money was +partly his." + +"I don't know what you've made people think; but you've been eminently +successful in one respect. _He_ thinks it's all his--and he loses it as +if it were." + +"There are worse things. What was it that he wished you to tell me?" + +"That you've got to sign another promissory note--for fifty thousand +this time." + +"Is that all?" + +Wrayford hesitated; then he said: "Yes--for the present." + +She sat motionless, her head bent, her hand resting passively in his. + +He leaned nearer. "What did you mean just now, by worse things?" + +She hesitated. "Haven't you noticed that he's been drinking a great deal +lately?" + +"Yes; I've noticed." + +They were both silent; then Wrayford broke out, with sudden vehemence: +"And yet you won't--" + +"Won't?" + +"Put an end to it. Good God! Save what's left of your life." + +She made no answer, and in the stillness the throb of the water +underneath them sounded like the beat of a tormented heart. + +"Isabel--" Wrayford murmured. He bent over to kiss her. "Isabel! I can't +stand it! listen--" + +"No; no. I've thought of everything. There's the boy--the boy's fond of +him. He's not a bad father." + +"Except in the trifling matter of ruining his son." + +"And there's his poor old mother. He's a good son, at any rate; he'd +never hurt her. And I know her. If I left him, she'd never take a penny +of my money. What she has of her own is not enough to live on; and how +could he provide for her? If I put him out of doors, I should be putting +his mother out too." + +"You could arrange that--there are always ways." + +"Not for her! She's proud. And then she believes in him. Lots of people +believe in him, you know. It would kill her if she ever found out." + +Wrayford made an impatient movement. "It will kill you if you stay with +him to prevent her finding out." + +She laid her other hand on his. "Not while I have you." + +"Have me? In this way?" + +"In any way." + +"My poor girl--poor child!" + +"Unless you grow tired--unless your patience gives out." + +He was silent, and she went on insistently: "Don't you suppose I've +thought of that too--foreseen it?" + +"Well--and then?" he exclaimed. + +"I've accepted that too." + +He dropped her hands with a despairing gesture. "Then, indeed, I waste +my breath!" + +She made no answer, and for a time they sat silent again, a little +between them. At length he asked: "You're not crying?" + +"No." + +"I can't see your face, it's grown so dark." + +"Yes. The storm must be coming." She made a motion as if to rise. + +He drew close and put his arm about her. "Don't leave me yet. You know I +must go to-morrow." He broke off with a laugh. "I'm to break the news +to you to-morrow morning, by the way; I'm to take you out in the +motorlaunch and break it to you." He dropped her hands and stood up. +"Good God! How can I go and leave you here with him?" + +"You've done it often." + +"Yes; but each time it's more damnable. And then I've always had a +hope--" + +She rose also. "Give it up! Give it up!" + +"You've none, then, yourself?" + +She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her. + +"None--none?" he insisted. + +He had to bend his head to hear her answer. "Only one!" + +"What, my dearest? What?" + +"Don't touch me! That he may die!" + +They drew apart again, hearing each other's quick breathing through the +darkness. + +"You wish that too?" he said. + +"I wish it always--every day, every hour, every moment!" She paused, and +then let the words break from her. "You'd better know it; you'd better +know the worst of me. I'm not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is +poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him +dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes +back I say to myself: 'Are you here again?' When I hear of people being +killed in accidents, I think: 'Why wasn't he there?' When I read the +death-notices in the paper I say: 'So-and-so was just his age.' When +I see him taking such care of his health and his diet--as he does, you +know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much--when +I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and +weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn't +gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw +their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: 'What can +kill a man who thinks only of himself?' And night after night I keep +myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he's dead. When I +dream that, and wake and find him there it's worse than ever--" + +She broke off with a sob, and the loud lapping of the water under the +floor was like the beat of a rebellious heart. + +"There, you know the truth!" she said. + +He answered after a pause: "People do die." + +"Do they?" She laughed. "Yes--in happy marriages!" + +They were silent again, and Isabel turned, feeling her way toward the +door. As she did so, the profound stillness was broken by the sound of a +man's voice trolling out unsteadily the refrain of a music-hall song. + +The two in the boat-house darted toward each other with a simultaneous +movement, clutching hands as they met. + +"He's coming!" Isabel said. + +Wrayford disengaged his hands. + +"He may only be out for a turn before he goes to bed. Wait a minute. +I'll see." He felt his way to the bench, scrambled up on it, and +stretching his body forward managed to bring his eyes in line with the +opening above the door. + +"It's as black as pitch. I can't see anything." + +The refrain rang out nearer. + +"Wait! I saw something twinkle. There it is again. It's his cigar. It's +coming this way--down the path." + +There was a long rattle of thunder through the stillness. + +"It's the storm!" Isabel whispered. "He's coming to see about the +launch." + +Wrayford dropped noiselessly from the bench and she caught him by the +arm. + +"Isn't there time to get up the path and slip under the shrubbery?" + +"No, he's in the path now. He'll be here in two minutes. He'll find us." + +He felt her hand tighten on his arm. + +"You must go in the skiff, then. It's the only way." + +"And let him find you? And hear my oars? Listen--there's something I +must say." + +She flung her arms about him and pressed her face to his. + +"Isabel, just now I didn't tell you everything. He's ruined his +mother--taken everything of hers too. And he's got to tell her; it can't +be kept from her." + +She uttered an incredulous exclamation and drew back. + +"Is this the truth? Why didn't you tell me before?" + +"He forbade me. You were not to know." + +Close above them, in the shrubbery, Stilling warbled: + + "_Nita, Juanita, + Ask thy soul if we must part!_" + + +Wrayford held her by both arms. "Understand this--if he comes in, he'll +find us. And if there's a row you'll lose your boy." + +She seemed not to hear him. "You--you--you--he'll kill you!" she +exclaimed. + +Wrayford laughed impatiently and released her, and she stood shrinking +against the wall, her hands pressed to her breast. Wrayford straightened +himself and she felt that he was listening intently. Then he dropped to +his knees and laid his hands against the boards of the sliding floor. It +yielded at once, as if with a kind of evil alacrity; and at their feet +they saw, under the motionless solid night, another darker night that +moved and shimmered. Wrayford threw himself back against the opposite +wall, behind the door. + +A key rattled in the lock, and after a moment's fumbling the door swung +open. Wrayford and Isabel saw a man's black bulk against the obscurity. +It moved a step, lurched forward, and vanished out of sight. From the +depths beneath them there came a splash and a long cry. + +"Go! go!" Wrayford cried out, feeling blindly for Isabel in the +blackness. + +"Oh--" she cried, wrenching herself away from him. + +He stood still a moment, as if dazed; then she saw him suddenly plunge +from her side, and heard another splash far down, and a tumult in the +beaten water. + +In the darkness she cowered close to the opening, pressing her face +over the edge, and crying out the name of each of the two men in turn. +Suddenly she began to see: the obscurity was less opaque, as if a +faint moon-pallor diluted it. Isabel vaguely discerned the two shapes +struggling in the black pit below her; once she saw the gleam of a face. +She glanced up desperately for some means of rescue, and caught sight +of the oars ranged on brackets against the wall. She snatched down +the nearest, bent over the opening, and pushed the oar down into the +blackness, crying out her husband's name. + +The clouds had swallowed the moon again, and she could see nothing below +her; but she still heard the tumult in the beaten water. + +"Cobham! Cobham!" she screamed. + +As if in answer, she felt a mighty clutch on the oar, a clutch that +strained her arms to the breaking-point as she tried to brace her knees +against the runners of the sliding floor. + +"Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!" a voice gasped out from below; and she held +on, with racked muscles, with bleeding palms, with eyes straining from +their sockets, and a heart that tugged at her as the weight was tugging +at the oar. + +Suddenly the weight relaxed, and the oar slipped up through her +lacerated hands. She felt a wet body scrambling over the edge of the +opening, and Stilling's voice, raucous and strange, groaned out, close +to her: "God! I thought I was done for." + +He staggered to his knees, coughing and sputtering, and the water +dripped on her from his streaming clothes. + +She flung herself down, again, straining over the pit. Not a sound came +up from it. + +"Austin! Austin! Quick! Another oar!" she shrieked. + +Stilling gave a cry. "My God! Was it Austin? What in hell--Another oar? +No, no; untie the skiff, I tell you. But it's no use. Nothing's any use. +I felt him lose hold as I came up." + +***** + +After that she was conscious of nothing till, hours later, as it +appeared to her, she became dimly aware of her husband's voice, high, +hysterical and important, haranguing a group of scared lantern-struck +faces that had sprung up mysteriously about them in the night. + +"Poor Austin! Poor Wrayford... terrible loss to me... mysterious +dispensation. Yes, I do feel gratitude--miraculous escape--but I wish +old Austin could have known that I was saved!" + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Choice, by Edith Wharton + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHOICE *** + +***** This file should be named 24348.txt or 24348.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/4/24348/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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