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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: Virginia + +Author: Ellen Glasgow + +Release Date: August 14, 2008 [EBook #26316] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIA *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover01.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<h1>VIRGINIA</h1> + +<h2>By ELLEN GLASGOW</h2> + + +<h4>GARDEN CITY NEW YORK<br /> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY<br /> +MCMXIII</h4> + + +<h4><i>Copyright, 1913, by</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Doubleday, Page & Company</span></h4> + +<h4><i>All rights reserved, including that of +translation into Foreign Languages, +including the Scandinavian.</i></h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h4>TO<br /> +THE RADIANT SPIRIT<br /> +WHO WAS<br /> +MY<br /> +SISTER<br /> +CARY GLASGOW<br /> +MC CORMACK</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/col01.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + +<h3>VIRGINIA</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> + +<a href="#BOOK_FIRST">BOOK FIRST—THE DREAM</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. The System</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. Her Inheritance</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. First Love</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. The Treadwells</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. Oliver, the Romantic</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. A Treadwell in Revolt</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. The Artist in Philistia</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. White Magic</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. The Great Man Moves</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. Oliver Surrenders</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_II">BOOK SECOND—THE REALITY</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I2">CHAPTER I. Virginia Prepares for the Future</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II2">CHAPTER II. Virginia's Letters</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III2">CHAPTER III. The Return</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV2">CHAPTER IV. Her Children</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V2">CHAPTER V. Failure</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI2">CHAPTER VI. The Shadow</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII2">CHAPTER VII. The Will to Live</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII2">CHAPTER VIII. The Pang of Motherhood</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX2">CHAPTER IX. The Problem of the South</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BOOK_THIRD">BOOK THIRD—THE ADJUSTMENT</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I3">CHAPTER I. The Changing Order</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II3">CHAPTER II. The Price of Comfort</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III3">CHAPTER III. Middle-age</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV3">CHAPTER IV. Life's Cruelties</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V3">CHAPTER V. Bitterness</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI3">CHAPTER VI. The Future</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR">BY THE SAME AUTHOR</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_FIRST" id="BOOK_FIRST"></a>BOOK FIRST</h2> + +<h3>THE DREAM</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE SYSTEM</h3> + + +<p>Toward the close of a May afternoon in the year 1884, Miss Priscilla +Batte, having learned by heart the lesson in physical geography she +would teach her senior class on the morrow, stood feeding her canary on +the little square porch of the Dinwiddie Academy for Young Ladies. The +day had been hot, and the fitful wind, which had risen in the direction +of the river, was just beginning to blow in soft gusts under the old +mulberry trees in the street, and to scatter the loosened petals of +syringa blossoms in a flowery snow over the grass. For a moment Miss +Priscilla turned her flushed face to the scented air, while her eyes +rested lovingly on the narrow walk, edged with pointed bricks and +bordered by cowslips and wallflowers, which led through the short garden +to the three stone steps and the tall iron gate. She was a shapeless yet +majestic woman of some fifty years, with a large mottled face in which a +steadfast expression of gentle obstinacy appeared to underly the more +evanescent ripples of thought or of emotion. Her severe black silk gown, +to which she had just changed from her morning dress of alpaca, was +softened under her full double chin by a knot of lace and a cameo brooch +bearing the helmeted profile of Pallas Athene. On her head she wore a +three-cornered cap trimmed with a ruching of organdie, and beneath it +her thin gray hair still showed a gleam of faded yellow in the sunlight. +She had never been handsome, but her prodigious size had endowed her +with an impressiveness which had passed in her youth, and among an +indulgent people, for beauty. Only in the last few years had her +fleshiness, due to rich food which she could not resist and to lack of +exercise for which she had an instinctive aversion, begun seriously to +inconvenience her.</p> + +<p>Beyond the wire cage, in which the canary spent his involuntarily +celibate life, an ancient microphylla rose-bush, with a single imperfect +bud blooming ahead of summer amid its glossy foliage, clambered over a +green lattice to the gabled pediment of the porch, while the delicate +shadows of the leaves rippled like lace-work on the gravel below. In the +miniature garden, where the small spring blossoms strayed from the prim +beds into the long feathery grasses, there were syringa bushes, a little +overblown; crape-myrtles not yet in bud; a holly tree veiled in bright +green near the iron fence; a flowering almond shrub in late bloom +against the shaded side of the house; and where a west wing put out on +the left, a bower of red and white roses was steeped now in the faint +sunshine. At the foot of the three steps ran the sunken moss-edged +bricks of High Street, and across High Street there floated, like +wind-blown flowers, the figures of Susan Treadwell and Virginia +Pendleton.</p> + +<p>Opening the rusty gate, the two girls tripped with carefully held +flounces up the stone steps and between the cowslips and wallflowers +that bordered the walk. Their white lawn dresses were made with the +close-fitting sleeves and the narrow waists of the period, and their +elaborately draped overskirts were looped on the left with graduated +bows of light blue ottoman ribbon. They wore no hats, and Virginia, who +was the shorter of the two, had fastened a Jacqueminot rose in the thick +dark braid which was wound in a wreath about her head. Above her arched +black eyebrows, which lent an expression of surprise and animation to +her vivid oval face, her hair was parted, after an earlier fashion, +under its plaited crown, and allowed to break in a mist of little curls +over her temples. Even in repose there was a joyousness in her look +which seemed less the effect of an inward gaiety of mind than of some +happy outward accident of form and colour. Her eyes, very far apart and +set in black lashes, were of a deep soft blue—the blue of wild +hyacinths after rain. By her eyes, and by an old-world charm of +personality which she exhaled like a perfume, it was easy to discern +that she embodied the feminine ideal of the ages. To look at her was to +think inevitably of love. For that end, obedient to the powers of Life, +the centuries had formed and coloured her, as they had formed and +coloured the wild rose with its whorl of delicate petals. The air of a +spoiled beauty which rested not ungracefully upon her was sweetened by +her expression of natural simplicity and goodness.</p> + +<p>For an instant she stood listening in silence to the querulous pipes of +the bird and the earnest exhortations of the teacher on the joys of cage +life for both bird and lady. Then plucking the solitary early bud from +the microphylla rose-bush, she tossed it over the railing of the porch +on the large and placid bosom of Miss Priscilla.</p> + +<p>"Do leave Dicky alone for a minute!" she called in a winning soprano +voice.</p> + +<p>At the sound, Miss Priscilla dropped the bit of cake she held, and +turned to lean delightedly over the walk, while her face beamed like a +beneficent moon through the shining cloud of rose-leaves.</p> + +<p>"Why, Jinny, I hadn't any idea that you and Susan were there!"</p> + +<p>Her smile included Virginia's companion, a tall, rather heavy girl, with +intelligent grey eyes and fair hair cut in a straight fringe across her +forehead. She was the daughter of Cyrus Treadwell, the wealthiest and +therefore the most prominent citizen of the town, and she was also as +intellectual as the early eighties and the twenty-one thousand +inhabitants of Dinwiddie permitted a woman to be. Her friendship for +Virginia had been one of those swift and absorbing emotions which come +to women in their school-days. The stronger of the two, she dominated +the other, as she dominated every person or situation in life, not by +charm, but by the force of an energetic and capable mind. Though her +dress matched Virginia's in every detail, from the soft folds of tulle +at the neck to the fancy striped stockings under the <i>bouffant</i> +draperies, the different shapes of the wearers gave to the one gown an +air of decorous composure and to the other a quaint and appealing grace. +Flushed, ardent, expectant, both girls stood now at the beginning of +womanhood. Life was theirs; it belonged to them, this veiled, radiant +thing that was approaching. Nothing wonderful had come as yet—but +to-morrow, the day after, or next year, the miracle would happen, and +everything would be different! Experience floated in a luminous mystery +before them. The unknown, which had borrowed the sweetness and the +colour of their illusions, possessed them like a secret ecstasy and +shone, in spite of their shyness, in their startled and joyous look.</p> + +<p>"Father asked me to take a message over to General Goode," explained +Virginia, with a little laugh as gay as the song of a bird, "but I +couldn't go by without thanking you for the cherry bounce. I made mother +drink some of it before dinner, and it almost gave her an appetite."</p> + +<p>"I knew it was what she needed," answered Miss Priscilla, showing her +pleasure by an increasing beam. "It was made right here in the house, +and there's nothing better in the world, my poor mother used to say, to +keep you from running down in the spring. But why can't you and Susan +come in and sit a while?"</p> + +<p>"We'll be straight back in a minute," replied Susan before Virginia +could answer. "I've got a piece of news I want to tell you before any +one else does. Oliver came home last night."</p> + +<p>"Oliver?" repeated Miss Priscilla, a little perplexed. "You don't mean +the son of your uncle Henry, who went out to Australia? I thought your +father had washed his hands of him because he had started play-acting or +something?" Curiosity, that devouring passion of the middle-aged, worked +in her breast, and her placid face grew almost intense in expression.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's the one," replied Susan. "They went to Australia when +Oliver was ten years old, and he's now twenty-two. He lost both his +parents about three years ago," she added.</p> + +<p>"I know. His mother was my cousin," returned Miss Priscilla. "I lost +sight of her after she left Dinwiddie, but somebody was telling me the +other day that Henry's investments all turned out badly and they came +down to real poverty. Sarah Jane was a pretty girl and I was always very +fond of her, but she was one of the improvident sort that couldn't make +two ends meet without tying them into a bow-knot."</p> + +<p>"Then Oliver must be just like her. After his mother's death he went to +Germany to study, and he gave away the little money he had to some +student he found starving there in a garret."</p> + +<p>"That was generous," commented Miss Priscilla thoughtfully, "but I +should hardly call it sensible. I hope some day, Jinny, that your father +will tell us in a sermon whether there is biblical sanction for +immoderate generosity or not."</p> + +<p>"But what does he say?" asked Virginia softly, meaning not the rector, +but the immoderate young man.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Oliver says that there wasn't enough for both and that the other +student is worth more to the world than he is," answered Susan. "Then, +of course, when he got so poor that he had to pawn his clothes or +starve, he wrote father an almost condescending letter and said that as +much as he hated business, he supposed he'd have to come back and go to +work. 'Only,' he added, 'for God's sake, don't make it tobacco!' Wasn't +that dreadful?"</p> + +<p>"It was extremely impertinent," replied Miss Priscilla sternly, "and to +Cyrus of all persons! I am surprised that he allowed him to come into +the house."</p> + +<p>"Oh, father doesn't take any of his talk seriously. He calls it +'starvation foolishness,' and says that Oliver will get over it as soon +as he has a nice little bank account. Perhaps he will—he is only +twenty-two, you know—but just now his head is full of all kinds of new +ideas he picked up somewhere abroad. He's as clever as he can be, +there's no doubt of that, and he'd be really good-looking, too, if he +didn't have the crooked nose of the Treadwells. Virginia has seen him +only once in the street, but she's more than half in love with him +already."</p> + +<p>"Do come, Susan!" remonstrated Virginia, blushing as red as the rose in +her hair. "It's past six o'clock and the General will have gone if we +don't hurry." And turning away from the porch, she ran between the +flowering syringa bushes down the path to the gate.</p> + +<p>Having lost his bit of cake, the bird began to pipe shrilly, while Miss +Priscilla drew a straight wicker chair (she never used rockers) beside +the cage, and, stretching out her feet in their large cloth shoes with +elastic sides, counted the stitches in an afghan she was knitting in +narrow blue and orange strips. In front of her, the street trailed +between cool, dim houses which were filled with quiet, and from the hall +at her back there came a whispering sound as the breeze moved like a +ghostly footstep through an alcove window. With that strange power of +reflecting the variable moods of humanity which one sometimes finds in +inanimate objects, the face of the old house had borrowed from the face +of its mistress the look of cheerful fortitude with which her generation +had survived the agony of defeat and the humiliation of reconstruction. +After nineteen years, the Academy still bore the scars of war on its +battered front. Once it had watched the spectre of famine stalk over the +grass-grown pavement, and had heard the rattle of musketry and the roar +of cannon borne on the southern breeze that now wafted the sounds of the +saw and the hammer from an adjacent street. Once it had seen the flight +of refugees, the overflow of the wounded from hospitals and churches, +the panic of liberated slaves, the steady conquering march of the army +of invasion. And though it would never have occurred to Miss Priscilla +that either she or her house had borne any relation to history (which +she regarded strictly as a branch of study and visualized as a list of +dates or as a king wearing his crown), she had, in fact, played a modest +yet effective part in the rapidly changing civilization of her age. But +events were powerless against the genial heroism in which she was +armoured, and it was characteristic of her, as well as of her race, +that, while she sat now in the midst of encircling battlefields, with +her eyes on the walk over which she had seen the blood of the wounded +drip when they were lifted into her door, she should be brooding not +over the tremendous tragedies through which she had passed, but over the +lesson in physical geography she must teach in the morning. Her lips +moved gently, and a listener, had there been one, might have heard her +murmur: "The four great alluvial plains of Asia—those of China and of +the Amoo Daria in temperate regions; of the Euphrates and Tigris in the +warm temperate; of the Indus and Ganges under the Tropic—with the Nile +valley in Africa, were the theatres of the most ancient civilizations +known to history or tradition——"</p> + +<p>As she ended, a sigh escaped her, for the instruction of the young was +for her a matter not of choice, but of necessity. With the majority of +maiden ladies left destitute in Dinwiddie after the war, she had turned +naturally to teaching as the only nice and respectable occupation which +required neither preparation of mind nor considerable outlay of money. +The fact that she was the single surviving child of a gallant +Confederate general, who, having distinguished himself and his +descendants, fell at last in the Battle of Gettysburg, was sufficient +recommendation of her abilities in the eyes of her fellow citizens. Had +she chosen to paint portraits or to write poems, they would have rallied +quite as loyally to her support. Few, indeed, were the girls born in +Dinwiddie since the war who had not learned reading, penmanship ("up to +the right, down to the left, my dear"), geography, history, arithmetic, +deportment, and the fine arts, in the Academy for Young Ladies. The +brilliant military record of the General still shed a legendary lustre +upon the school, and it was earnestly believed that no girl, after +leaving there with a diploma for good conduct, could possibly go wrong +or become eccentric in her later years. To be sure, she might remain a +trifle weak in her spelling (Miss Priscilla having, as she confessed, a +poor head for that branch of study), but, after all, as the rector had +once remarked, good spelling was by no means a necessary accomplishment +for a lady; and, for the rest, it was certain that the moral education +of a pupil of the Academy would be firmly rooted in such fundamental +verities as the superiority of man and the aristocratic supremacy of the +Episcopal Church. From charming Sally Goode, now married to Tom +Peachey, known familiarly as "honest Tom," the editor of the Dinwiddie +<i>Bee</i>, to lovely Virginia Pendleton, the mark of Miss Priscilla was +ineffaceably impressed upon the daughters of the leading families.</p> + +<p>Remembering this now, as she was disposed to do whenever she was +knitting without company, Miss Priscilla dropped her long wooden needles +in her lap, and leaning forward in her chair, gazed out upon the town +with an expression of child-like confidence, of touching innocence. This +innocence, which belonged to the very essence of her soul, had survived +both the fugitive joys and the brutal disillusionments of life. +Experience could not shatter it, for it was the product of a courage +that feared nothing except opinions. Just as the town had battled for a +principle without understanding it, so she was capable of dying for an +idea, but not of conceiving one. She had suffered everything from the +war except the necessity of thinking independently about it, and, though +in later years memory had become so sacred to her that she rarely +indulged in it, she still clung passionately to the habits of her +ancestors under the impression that she was clinging to their ideals. +Little things filled her days—the trivial details of the classroom and +of the market, the small domestic disturbances of her neighbours, the +moral or mental delinquencies of her two coloured servants—and even her +religious veneration for the Episcopal Church had crystallized at last +into a worship of customs.</p> + +<p>To-day, at the beginning of the industrial awakening of the South, she +(who was but the embodied spirit of her race) stood firmly rooted in all +that was static, in all that was obsolete and outgrown in the Virginia +of the eighties. Though she felt as yet merely the vague uneasiness with +which her mind recoiled from the first stirrings of change, she was +beginning dimly to realize that the car of progress would move through +the quiet streets before the decade was over. The smoke of factories was +already succeeding the smoke of the battlefields, and out of the ashes +of a vanquished idealism the spirit of commercial materialism was born. +What was left of the old was fighting valiantly, but hopelessly, against +what had come of the new. The two forces filled the streets of +Dinwiddie. They were embodied in classes, in individuals, in articles of +faith, in ideals of manners. The symbol of the one spirit was the +memorial wreaths on the battlefields; of the other it was the prophetic +smoke of the factories. From where she stood in High Street, she could +see this incense to Mammon rising above the spires of the churches, +above the houses and the hovels, above the charm and the provincialism +which made the Dinwiddie of the eighties. And this charm, as well as +this provincialism, appeared to her to be so inalienable a part of the +old order, with its intrepid faith in itself, with its militant +enthusiasm, with its courageous battle against industrial evolution, +with its strength, its narrowness, its nobility, its blindness, that, +looking ahead, she could discern only the arid stretch of a civilization +from which the last remnant of beauty was banished forever. Already she +felt the breaking of those bonds of sympathy which had held the +twenty-one thousand inhabitants of Dinwiddie, as they had held the +entire South, solidly knit together in a passive yet effectual +resistance to the spirit of change. Of the world beyond the borders of +Virginia, Dinwiddians knew merely that it was either Yankee or foreign, +and therefore to be pitied or condemned according to the Evangelical or +the Calvinistic convictions of the observer. Philosophy, they regarded +with the distrust of a people whose notable achievements have not been +in the direction of the contemplative virtues; and having lived +comfortably and created a civilization without the aid of science, they +could afford not unreasonably to despise it. It was a quarter of a +century since "The Origin of Species" had changed the course of the +world's thought, yet it had never reached them. To be sure, there was an +old gentleman in Tabb Street whose title, "the professor," had been +conferred in public recognition of peaceful pursuits; but since he never +went to church, his learning was chiefly effective when used to point a +moral from the pulpit. There was, also, a tradition that General Goode +had been seen reading Plato before the Battle of Seven Pines; and this +picturesque incident had contributed the distinction of the scholar to +the more effulgent glory of the soldier. But for purely abstract +thought—for the thought that did not construct an heroic attitude or a +concrete image—there was as little room in the newer industrial system +as there had been in the aristocratic society which preceded it. The +world still clung to the belief that the business of humanity was +confined to the preservation of the institutions which existed in the +present moment of history—and Dinwiddie was only a quiet backwater into +which opinions, like fashions, were borne on the current of some +tributary stream of thought. Human nature in this town of twenty-one +thousand inhabitants differed from human nature in London or in the +Desert of Sahara mainly in the things that it ate and the manner in +which it carried its clothes. The same passions stirred its heart, the +same instincts moved its body, the same contentment with things as they +are, and the same terror of things as they might be, warped its mind.</p> + +<p>The canary fluted on, and from beyond the mulberry trees there floated +the droning voice of an aged negress, in tatters and a red bandanna +turban, who persuasively offered strawberries to the silent houses.</p> + +<p>"I'se got sw-eet straw-ber'-ies! I'se got swe-e-t str-aw-ber'-ies! +Yes'm, I'se got sw-e-et straw-ber'ies des f'om de coun-try!"</p> + +<p>Then, suddenly, out of nothing, it seemed to Miss Priscilla, a miracle +occurred! The immemorial calm of High Street was broken by the sound of +rapidly moving wheels (not the jingling rattle of market wagons nor the +comfortable roll of doctors' buggies), and a strange new vehicle, +belonging to the Dinwiddie Livery Stables, and containing a young man +with longish hair and a flowing tie, turned the corner by Saint James' +Church, and passed over the earthen roadbed in front of the green +lattice. As the young man went by, he looked up quickly, smiled with the +engaging frankness of a genial nature, and lifting his hat with a +charming bow, revealed to Miss Priscilla's eyes the fact that his hair +was thick and dark as well as long and wavy. While he looked at her, she +noticed, also, that he had a thin, high-coloured face, lighted by a pair +of eager dark eyes which lent a glow of impetuous energy to his +features. The Treadwell nose, she recognized, but beneath the Treadwell +nose there was a clean-shaven, boyish mouth which belied the Treadwell +nature in every sensitive curve and outline.</p> + +<p>"I'd have known him anywhere from Susan's description," she thought, and +added suspiciously, "I wonder why he peered so long around that corner? +It wouldn't surprise me a bit if those girls were coming back that way."</p> + +<p>Impelled by her mounting excitement, she leaned forward until the ball +of orange-coloured yarn rolled from her short lap and over the polished +floor of the porch. Before she could stoop to pick it up, she was +arrested by the reappearance of the two girls at the corner beyond which +Oliver had gazed so intently. Then, as they drew nearer, she saw that +Virginia's face was pink and her eyes starry under their lowered lashes. +An inward radiance shone in the girl's look, and appeared to shape her +soul and body to its secret influence. Miss Priscilla, who had known her +since the first day she came to school (with her lunch, from which she +refused to be parted, tightly tied up in a red and white napkin), felt +suddenly that she was a stranger. A quality which she had never realized +her pupil possessed had risen supreme in an instant over the familiar +attributes of her character. So quickly does emotion separate the +individual from the inherent soul of the race.</p> + +<p>Susan, who was a little in advance, came rapidly up the walk, and the +older woman greeted her with the words:</p> + +<p>"My dear, I have seen him!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he just passed us at the corner, and I wondered if you were +looking. Do tell us what you think of him."</p> + +<p>She sat down in a low chair by the teacher's side, while Virginia went +over to the cage and stood gazing thoughtfully at the singing bird.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't think his nose spoils him," replied Miss Priscilla after +a minute, "but there's something foreign looking about him, and I hope +Cyrus isn't thinking seriously about putting him into the bank."</p> + +<p>"That was the first thing that occurred to father," answered Susan, "but +Oliver told me last night while we were unpacking his books—he has a +quantity of books and he kept them even when he had to sell his +clothes—that he didn't see to save his life how he was going to stand +it."</p> + +<p>"Stand what?" inquired Miss Priscilla, a trifle tartly, for after the +vicissitudes of her life it was but natural that she should hesitate to +regard so stable an institution as the Dinwiddie Bank as something to be +"stood." "Why, I thought a young man couldn't do better than get a place +in the bank. Jinny's father was telling me in the market last Saturday +that he wanted his nephew John Henry to start right in there if they +could find room for him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, it's just what John Henry would like," said Virginia, +speaking for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Then if it's good enough for John Henry, it's good enough for Oliver, I +reckon," rejoined Miss Priscilla. "Anybody who has mixed with beggars +oughtn't to turn up his nose at a respectable bank."</p> + +<p>"But he says it's because the bank is so respectable that he doesn't +think he could stand it," answered Susan.</p> + +<p>Virginia, who had been looking with her rapt gaze down the deserted +street, quivered at the words as if they had stabbed her.</p> + +<p>"But he wants to be a writer, Susan," she protested. "A great many very +nice people are writers."</p> + +<p>"Then why doesn't he go about it in a proper way, if he isn't ashamed of +it?" asked the teacher, and she added reflectively after a pause, "I +wish he'd write a good history of the war—one that doesn't deal so much +with the North. I've almost had to stop teaching United States history +because there is hardly one written now that I would let come inside my +doors."</p> + +<p>"He doesn't want to write histories," replied Susan. "Father suggested +to him at supper last night that if he would try his hand at a history +of Virginia, and be careful not to put in anything that might offend +anybody, he could get it taught in every private school in the State. +But he said he'd be shot first."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he's a genius," said Virginia in a startled voice. "Geniuses +are always different from other people, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," answered Susan doubtfully. "He talks of things I never +heard of before, and he seems to think that they are the most important +things in the world."</p> + +<p>"What things?" asked Virginia breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can't tell you because they are so new, but he seems on fire when +he talks of them. He talks for hours about art and its service to +humanity and about going down to the people and uplifting the masses."</p> + +<p>"I hope he doesn't mean the negroes," commented Miss Priscilla +suspiciously.</p> + +<p>"He means the whole world, I believe," responded Susan. "He quotes all +the time from writers I've never heard of, and he laughs at every book +he sees in the house. Yesterday he picked up one of Mrs. Southworth's +novels on mother's bureau and asked her how she could allow such immoral +stuff in her room. She had got it out of the bookcase to lend to Miss +Willy Whitlow, who was there making my dress, but he scolded her so +about it that at last Miss Willy went off with Mill's 'Essay on +Liberty,' and mother burned all of Mrs. Southworth's that she had in the +house. Oliver has been so nice to mother that I believe she would make a +bonfire of her furniture if he asked her to do it."</p> + +<p>"Is he really trying to unsettle Miss Willy's mind?" questioned the +teacher anxiously. "How on earth could she go out sewing by the day if +she didn't have her religious convictions?"</p> + +<p>"That's just what I asked him," returned Susan, who, besides being +dangerously clever, had a remarkably level head to keep her balanced. +"But he answered that until people got unsettled they would never move, +and when I wanted to find out where he thought poor little Miss Willy +could possibly move to, he only got impatient and said that I was trying +to bury the principle under the facts. We very nearly quarrelled over +Miss Willy, but of course she took the book to please Oliver and +couldn't worry through a line of it to save her soul."</p> + +<p>"Did he say anything about his work? What he wants to do, I mean?" asked +Virginia, and her voice was so charged with feeling that it gave an +emotional quality to the question.</p> + +<p>"He wants to write," replied Susan. "His whole heart is in it, and when +he isn't talking about reaching the people, he talks about what he calls +'technique.'"</p> + +<p>"Are you sure it isn't poetry?" inquired Miss Priscilla, humming back +like a bee to the tempting sweets of conjecture. "I've always heard that +poetry was the ruination of Poe."</p> + +<p>"No, it isn't poetry—not exactly at least—it's plays," answered Susan. +"He talked to me till twelve o'clock last night while we were arranging +his books, and he told me that he meant to write really great dramas, +but that America wasn't ready for them yet and that was why he had had +to sell his clothes. He looked positively starved, but he says he +doesn't mind starving a while if he can only live up to his ideal."</p> + +<p>"Well, I wonder what his ideal is?" remarked Miss Priscilla grimly.</p> + +<p>"It has something to do with his belief that art can grow only out of +sacrifice," said Susan. "I never heard anybody—not even Jinny's father +in church—talk so much about sacrifice."</p> + +<p>"But the rector doesn't talk about sacrifice for the theatre," retorted +the teacher, and she added with crushing finality, "I don't believe +there is a particle of sense in it. If he is going to write, why on +earth doesn't he sit straight down and do it? Why, when little Miss +Amanda Sheppard was left at sixty without a roof over her head, she +began at once, without saying a word to anybody, to write historical +novels."</p> + +<p>"It does seem funny until you talk with him," admitted Susan. "But he is +so much in earnest that when you listen to him, you can't help believing +in him. He is so full of convictions that he convinces you in spite of +yourself."</p> + +<p>"Convictions about what?" demanded Miss Priscilla. "I don't see how a +young man who refuses to be confirmed can have any convictions."</p> + +<p>"Well, he has, and he feels just as strongly about them as we do about +ours."</p> + +<p>"But how can he possibly feel as strongly about a wrong conviction as we +do about a right one?" insisted the older woman stubbornly, for she +realized vaguely that they were approaching dangerous ground and set out +to check their advance in true Dinwiddie fashion, which was strictly +prohibitive.</p> + +<p>"I like a man who has opinions of his own and isn't ashamed to stand up +for them," said Virginia with a resolution that made her appear suddenly +taller.</p> + +<p>"Not <i>false</i> opinions, Jinny!" rejoined Miss Priscilla, and her manner +carried them with a bound back to the schoolroom, for her mental vision +saw in a flash the beribboned diploma for good conduct which her +favourite pupil had borne away from the Academy on Commencement day two +years ago, and a shudder seized her lest she should have left a single +unprotected breach in the girl's mind through which an unauthorized idea +might enter. Had she trusted too confidently to the fact that Virginia's +father was a clergyman, and therefore spiritually armed for the defence +and guidance of his daughter? Virginia, in spite of her gaiety, had been +what Miss Priscilla called "a docile pupil," meaning one who +deferentially submitted her opinions to her superiors, and to go through +life perpetually submitting her opinions was, in the eyes of her parents +and her teacher, the divinely appointed task of woman. Her education +was founded upon the simple theory that the less a girl knew about life, +the better prepared she would be to contend with it. Knowledge of any +sort (except the rudiments of reading and writing, the geography of +countries she would never visit, and the dates of battles she would +never mention) was kept from her as rigorously as if it contained the +germs of a contagious disease. And this ignorance of anything that could +possibly be useful to her was supposed in some mysterious way to add to +her value as a woman and to make her a more desirable companion to a man +who, either by experience or by instinct, was expected "to know his +world." Unlike Susan (who, in a community which offered few +opportunities to women outside of the nursery or the kitchen, had been +born with the inquiring spirit and would ask questions), Virginia had +until to-day accepted with humility the doctrine that a natural +curiosity about the universe is the beginning of infidelity. The chief +object of her upbringing, which differed in no essential particular from +that of every other well-born and well-bred Southern woman of her day, +was to paralyze her reasoning faculties so completely that all danger of +mental "unsettling" or even movement was eliminated from her future. To +solidify the forces of mind into the inherited mould of fixed beliefs +was, in the opinion of the age, to achieve the definite end of all +education. When the child ceased to wonder before the veil of +appearances, the battle of orthodoxy with speculation was over, and Miss +Priscilla felt that she could rest on her victory. With Susan she had +failed, because the daughter of Cyrus Treadwell was one of those +inexplicable variations from ancestral stock over which the naturalists +were still waging their merry war; but Virginia, with a line of earnest +theologians and of saintly self-effacing women at her back, offered as +little resistance as some exquisite plastic material in the teacher's +hands.</p> + +<p>Now, as if the same lightning flash which had illuminated the beribboned +diploma in Miss Priscilla's mind had passed to Virginia also, the girl +bit back a retort that was trembling on her lips. "I wonder if she can +be getting to know things?" thought the older woman as she watched her, +and she added half resentfully, "I've sometimes suspected that Gabriel +Pendleton was almost too mild and easy going for a clergyman. If the +Lord hadn't made him a saint, Heaven knows what would have become of +him!"</p> + +<p>"Don't try to put notions into Jinny's head, Susan," she said after a +thoughtful pause. "If Oliver were the right kind of young man, he'd give +up this nonsense and settle down to some sober work. The first time I +get a chance I'm going to tell him so."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it will be any use," responded Susan. "Father tried to +reason with him last night, and they almost quarrelled."</p> + +<p>"Quarrelled with Cyrus!" gasped the teacher.</p> + +<p>"At one time I thought he'd walk out of the house and never come back," +pursued Susan. "He told father that his sordid commercialism would end +by destroying all that was charming in Dinwiddie. Afterward he +apologized for his rudeness, but when he did so, he said, 'I meant every +word of it.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, I never!" was Miss Priscilla's feeble rejoinder. "The idea of +his daring to talk that way when Cyrus had to pay his fare down from New +York."</p> + +<p>"Of course father brought it on," returned Susan judicially. "You know +he doesn't like anybody to disagree with him, and when Oliver began to +argue about its being unscrupulous to write history the way people +wanted it, he lost his temper and said some angry things about the +theatre and actors."</p> + +<p>"I suppose a great man like your father may expect his family to bow to +his opinions," replied the teacher, for so obscure was her mental +connection between the construction of the future and the destruction of +the past, that she could honestly admire Cyrus Treadwell for possessing +the qualities her soul abhorred. The simple awe of financial success, +which occupies in the American mind the vacant space of the monarchical +cult, had begun already to generate the myth of greatness around Cyrus, +and, like all other myths, this owed its origin less to the wilful +conspiracy of the few than it did to the confiding superstition of the +many.</p> + +<p>"I hope Oliver won't do anything rash," said Susan, ignoring Miss +Priscilla's tribute. "He is so impulsive and headstrong that I don't see +how he can get on with father."</p> + +<p>At this Virginia broke her quivering silence. "Can't you make him +careful, Susan?" she asked, and without waiting for an answer, bent over +and kissed Miss Priscilla on the cheek. "I must be going now or mother +will worry," she added before she tripped ahead of Susan down the steps +and along the palely shining path to the gate.</p> + +<p>Rising from her chair, Miss Priscilla leaned over the railing of the +porch, and gazed wistfully after the girls' vanishing figures.</p> + +<p>"If there was ever a girl who looked as if she were cut out for +happiness, it is Jinny Pendleton," she said aloud after a minute. A tear +welled in her eye, and rolling over her cheek, dropped on her bosom. +From some obscure corner of her memory, undevastated by war or by ruin, +her own youth appeared to take the place of Virginia's. She saw herself, +as she had seen the other an instant before, standing flushed and +expectant before the untrodden road of the future. She heard again the +wings of happiness rustling unseen about her, and she felt again the +great hope which is the challenge that youth flings to destiny. Life +rose before her, not as she had found it, but as she had once believed +it to be. The days when little things had not filled her thoughts +returned in the fugitive glow of her memory—for she, also, middle-aged, +obese, cumbered with trivial cares, had had her dream of a love that +would change and glorify the reality. The heritage of woman was hers as +well as Virginia's. And for the first time, standing there, she grew +dimly conscious of the portion of suffering which Nature had allotted to +them both from the beginning. Was it all waiting—waiting, as it had +been while battles were fought and armies were marching? Did the future +hold this for Virginia also? Would life yield nothing more to that +radiant girl than it had yielded to her or to the other women whom she +had known? Strange how the terrible innocence of youth had moved her +placid middle-age as if it were sadness!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>HER INHERITANCE</h3> + + +<p>A block away, near the head of High Street, stood the old church of +Saint James, and at its back, separated by a white paling fence from the +squat pinkish tower and the solitary grave in the churchyard (which was +that of a Southern soldier who had fallen in the Battle of Dinwiddie), +was the oblong wooden rectory in which Gabriel Pendleton had lived since +he had exchanged his sword for a prayer-book and his worn Confederate +uniform for a surplice. The church, which was redeemed from +architectural damnation by its sacred cruciform and its low ivied +buttresses where innumerable sparrows nested, cast its shadow, on clear +days, over the beds of bleeding hearts and lilies-of-the-valley in the +neglected garden, to the quaint old house, with its spreading wings, its +outside chimneys, and its sloping shingled roof, from which five +dormer-windows stared in a row over the slender columns of the porch. +The garden had been planned in the days when it was easy to put a dozen +slaves to uprooting weeds or trimming flower beds, and had passed in +later years to the breathless ministrations of negro infants, whose +experience varied from the doubtful innocence of the crawling age to the +complete sophistication of six or seven years. Dandelion and wire-grass +rioted, in spite of their earnest efforts, over the crooked path from +the porch, and periwinkle, once an intruder from the churchyard, spread +now in rank disorder down the terraced hillside on the left, where a +steep flight of steps fell clear to the narrow cross street descending +gradually into the crowded quarters of the town. Directly in front of +the porch on either side of the path grew two giant paulownia trees, +royal at this season in a mantle of violet blossoms, and it was under +their arching boughs that the girls stopped when they had entered the +garden. Ever since Virginia could remember, she had heard threats of +cutting down the paulownias because of the litter the falling petals +made in the spring, and ever since she could lisp at all she had begged +her father to spare them for the sake of the enormous roots, into which +she had loved to cuddle and hide.</p> + +<p>"If I were ever to go away, I believe they would cut down these trees," +she said now a little wistfully, but she was not thinking of the +paulownias.</p> + +<p>"Why should they when they give such splendid shade? And, besides, they +wouldn't do anything you didn't like for worlds."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course they wouldn't, but as soon as I was out of sight they +might persuade themselves that I liked it," answered Virginia, with a +tender laugh. Though she was not by nature discerning, there were +moments when she surprised Susan by her penetrating insight into the +character of her parents, and this insight, which was emotional rather +than intellectual, had enabled her to dominate them almost from infancy.</p> + +<p>Silence fell between them, while they gazed through the veil of twilight +at the marble shaft above the grave of the Confederate soldier. Then +suddenly Susan spoke in a constrained voice, without turning her head.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, Oliver isn't one bit of a hero—not the kind of hero we used to +talk about." It was with difficulty, urged by a vigorous and +uncompromising conscience, that she had uttered the words.</p> + +<p>"And besides," retorted Virginia merrily, "he is in love with Abby +Goode."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that. They stayed in the same boarding-house once, and +you know how Abby is about men."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, and it's just the way men are about Abby."</p> + +<p>"Well, Oliver isn't, I'm sure. I don't believe he's ever given her more +than a thought, and he told me last night that he couldn't abide a +bouncing woman."</p> + +<p>"Does Abby bounce?"</p> + +<p>"You know she does—dreadfully. But it wasn't because of Abby that I +said what I did."</p> + +<p>Something quivered softly between them, and a petal from the Jacqueminot +rose in Virginia's hair fluttered like a crimson moth out into the +twilight. "Was it because of him, then?" she asked in a whisper.</p> + +<p>For a moment Susan did not answer. Her gaze was on the flight of steps, +and drawing Virginia with her, she began to walk slowly toward the +terraced side of the garden. An old lamplighter, carrying his ladder to +a lamp-post at the corner, smiled up at them with his sunken toothless +mouth as he went by.</p> + +<p>"Partly, darling," said Susan. "He is so—I don't know how to make you +understand—so unsettled. No, that isn't exactly what I mean."</p> + +<p>Her fine, serious face showed clear and pale in the twilight. From the +high forehead, under the girlish fringe of fair hair, to the thin, firm +lips, which were too straight and colourless for beauty, it was the +face of a woman who could feel strongly, but whose affections would +never blur the definite forms or outlines of life. She looked out upon +the world with level, dispassionate eyes in which there was none of +Virginia's uncritical, emotional softness. Temperamentally she was +uncompromisingly honest in her attitude toward the universe, which +appeared to her, not as it did to Virginia, in mere formless masses of +colour out of which people and objects emerged like figures painted on +air, but as distinct, impersonal, and final as a geometrical problem. +She was one of those women who are called "sensible" by their +acquaintances—meaning that they are born already disciplined and +confirmed in the quieter and more orderly processes of life. Her natural +intelligence having overcome the defects of her education, she thought +not vaguely, but with clearness and precision, and something of this +clearness and precision was revealed in her manner and in her +appearance, as if she had escaped at twenty years from the impulsive +judgments and the troublous solicitudes of youth. At forty, she would +probably begin to grow young again, and at fifty, it is not unlikely +that she would turn her back upon old age forever. Just now she was too +tremendously earnest about life, which she treated quite in the large +manner, to take a serious interest in living.</p> + +<p>"Promise me, Jinny, that you'll never let anybody take my place," she +said, turning when they had reached the head of the steps.</p> + +<p>"You silly Susan! Why, of course, they shan't," replied Virginia, and +they kissed ecstatically.</p> + +<p>"Nobody will ever love you as I do."</p> + +<p>"And I you, darling."</p> + +<p>With arms interlaced they stood gazing down into the street, where the +shadow of the old lamplighter glided like a ghost under the row of pale +flickering lights. From a honeysuckle-trellis on the other side of the +porch, a penetrating sweetness came in breaths, now rising, now dying +away. In Virginia's heart, Love stirred suddenly, and blind, wingless, +imprisoned, struggled for freedom.</p> + +<p>"It is late, I must be going," said Susan. "I wish we lived nearer each +other."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it too dark for you to go alone? John Henry will stop on his way +from work, and he'll take you—if you really won't stay to supper."</p> + +<p>"No, I don't mind in the least going by myself. It isn't night, anyway, +and people are sitting out on their porches."</p> + +<p>A minute afterwards they parted, Susan going swiftly down High Street, +while Virginia went back along the path to the porch, and passing under +the paulownias, stopped beside the honeysuckle-trellis, which extended +to the ruined kitchen garden at the rear of the house. Once vegetables +were grown here, but except for a square bed of mint which spread +hardily beneath the back windows of the dining-room, the place was left +now a prey to such barbarian invaders as burdock and moth mullein. On +the brow of the hill, where the garden ended, there was a gnarled and +twisted ailanthus tree, and from its roots the ground fell sharply to a +distant view of rear enclosures and grim smoking factories. Some clothes +fluttered on a line that stretched from a bough of the tree, and turning +away as if they offended her, Virginia closed her eyes and breathed in +the sweetness of the honeysuckle, which mingled deliciously with the +strange new sense of approaching happiness in her heart. The awakening +of her imagination—an event more tumultuous in its effects than the +mere awakening of emotion—had changed not only her inner life, but the +ordinary details of the world in which she lived. Because a young man, +who differed in no appreciable manner from dozens of other young men, +had gazed into her eyes for an instant, the whole universe was altered. +What had been until to-day a vague, wind-driven longing for happiness, +the reaching out of the dream toward the reality, had assumed suddenly a +fixed and definite purpose. Her bright girlish visions had wrapped +themselves in a garment of flesh. A miracle more wonderful than any she +had read of had occurred in the streets of Dinwiddie—in the very spot +where she had walked, with blind eyes and deaf ears, every day since she +could remember. Her soul blossomed in the twilight, as a flower +blossoms, and shed its virginal sweetness. For the first time in her +twenty years she felt that an unexplored region of happiness surrounded +her. Life appeared so beautiful that she wanted to grasp and hold each +fugitive sensation before it escaped her. "This is different from +anything I've ever known. I never imagined it would be like this," she +thought, and the next minute: "I wonder why no one has ever told me that +it would happen? I wonder if it has ever really happened before, just +like this, since the world began? Of all the ways I've dreamed of his +coming, I never thought of this way—no, not for an instant. That I +should see him first in the street like any stranger—that he should be +Susan's cousin—that we should not have spoken a word before I knew it +was he!" Everything about him, his smile, his clothes, the way he held +his head and brushed his hair straight back from his forehead, his +manner of reclining with a slight slouch on the seat of the cart, the +picturesque blue dotted tie he wore, his hands, his way of bowing, the +red-brown of his face, and above all the eager, impetuous look in his +dark eyes—these things possessed a glowing quality of interest which +irradiated a delicious excitement over the bare round of living. It was +enough merely to be alive and conscious that some day—to-morrow, next +week, or the next hour, perhaps, she might meet again the look that had +caused this mixture of ecstasy and terror in her heart. The knowledge +that he was in the same town with her, watching the same lights, +thinking the same thoughts, breathing the same fragrance of +honeysuckle—this knowledge was a fact of such tremendous importance +that it dwarfed to insignificance all the proud historic past of +Dinwiddie. Her imagination, seizing upon this bit of actuality, spun +around it the iridescent gossamer web of her fancy. She felt that it was +sufficient happiness just to stand motionless for hours and let this +thought take possession of her. Nothing else mattered as long as this +one thing was blissfully true.</p> + +<p>Lights came out softly like stars in the houses beyond the church-tower, +and in the parlour of the rectory a lamp flared up and then burned dimly +under a red shade. Looking through the low window, she could see the +prim set of mahogany and horsehair furniture, with its deep, heavily +carved sofa midway of the opposite wall and the twelve chairs which +custom demanded arranged stiffly at equal distances on the faded +Axminster carpet.</p> + +<p>For a moment her gaze rested on the claw-footed mahogany table, bearing +a family Bible and a photograph album bound in morocco; on the engraving +of the "Burial of Latane" between the long windows at the back of the +room; on the cloudy, gilt-framed mirror above the mantel, with the two +standing candelabra reflected in its surface—and all these familiar +objects appeared to her as vividly as if she had not lived with them +from her infancy. A new light had fallen over them, and it seemed to her +that this light released an inner meaning, a hidden soul, even in the +claw-footed table and the threadbare Axminster carpet. Then the door +into the hall opened and her mother entered, wearing the patched black +silk dress which she had bought before the war and had turned and darned +ever since with untiring fingers. Shrinking back into the dusk, Virginia +watched the thin, slightly stooping figure as it stood arrested there in +the subdued glow of the lamplight. She saw the pale oval face, so +transparent that it was like the face of a ghost, the fine brown hair +parted smoothly under the small net cap, the soft faded eyes in their +hollowed and faintly bluish sockets, and the sweet, patient lips, with +their expression of anxious sympathy, as of one who had lived not in her +own joys and sorrows, but in those of others. Vaguely, the girl realized +that her mother had had what is called "a hard life," but this knowledge +brought no tremor of apprehension for herself, no shadow of disbelief in +her own unquestionable right to happiness. A glorious certainty +possessed her that her own life would be different from anything that +had ever been in the past.</p> + +<p>The front door opened and shut; there was a step on the soft grass under +the honeysuckle-trellis, and her father came towards her, with his long +black coat flapping about him. He always wore clothes several sizes too +large for him under the impression that it was a point of economy and +that they would last longer if there was no "strain" put upon them. He +was a small, wiry man, with an amazing amount of strength for his build, +and a keen, humorous face, ornamented by a pointed chin beard which he +called his "goatee." His eyes were light grey with a twinkle which +rarely left them except at the altar, and the skin of his cheeks had +never lost the drawn and parchment-like look acquired during the last +years of the war. One of the many martial Christians of the Confederacy, +he had laid aside his surplice at the first call for troops to defend +the borders, and had resumed it immediately after the surrender at +Appomattox. It was still an open question in Dinwiddie whether Gabriel +Pendleton, who was admitted to have been born a saint, had achieved +greater distinction as a fighter or a clergyman; though he himself had +accepted the opposite vocations with equal humility. Only in the dead of +sweltering summer nights did he sometimes arouse his wife with a groan +and the halting words, "Lucy, I can't sleep for thinking of those men I +killed in the war." But with the earliest breeze of dawn, his remorse +usually left him, and he would rise and go about his parochial duties +with the serene and child-like trust in Providence that had once carried +him into battle. A militant idealism had ennobled his fighting as it now +exalted his preaching. He had never in his life seen things as they are +because he had seen them always by the white flame of a soul on fire +with righteousness. To reach his mind, impressions of persons or objects +had first to pass through a refining atmosphere in which all baser +substances were eliminated, and no fact had ever penetrated this medium +except in the flattering disguise of a sentiment. Having married at +twenty an idealist only less ignorant of the world than himself, he had, +inspired by her example, immediately directed his energies towards the +whitewashing of the actuality. Both cherished the naïve conviction that +to acknowledge an evil is in a manner to countenance its existence, and +both clung fervently to the belief that a pretty sham has a more +intimate relation to morality than has an ugly truth. Yet so unconscious +were they of weaving this elaborate tissue of illusion around the world +they inhabited that they called the mental process by which they +distorted the reality, "taking a true view of life." To "take a true +view" was to believe what was pleasant against what was painful in spite +of evidence: to grant honesty to all men (with the possible exception of +the Yankee army and a few local scalawags known as Readjusters); to deny +virtue to no woman, not even to the New England Abolitionist; to regard +the period before the war in Virginia as attained perfection, and the +present as falling short of that perfection only inasmuch as it had +occurred since the surrender. As life in a small place, among a simple +and guileless class of gentlefolk, all passionately cherishing the same +opinions, had never shaken these illusions, it was but natural that they +should have done their best to hand them down as sacred heirlooms to +their only child. Even Gabriel's four years of hard fighting and scant +rations were enkindled by so much of the disinterested idealism that +had sent his State into the Confederacy, that he had emerged from them +with an impoverished body, but an enriched spirit. Combined with his +inherent inability to face the facts of life, there was an almost +superhuman capacity for cheerful recovery from the shocks of adversity. +Since he had married by accident the one woman who was made for him, he +had managed to preserve untarnished his innocent assumption that +marriages were arranged in Heaven—for the domestic infelicities of many +of his parishioners were powerless to affect a belief that was founded +upon a solitary personal experience. Unhappy marriages, like all other +misfortunes of society, he was inclined to regard as entirely modern and +due mainly to the decay of antebellum institutions. "I don't remember +that I ever heard of a discontented servant or an unhappy marriage in my +boyhood," he would say when he was forced against his will to consider +either of these disturbing problems. Not progress, but a return to the +"ideals of our ancestors," was his sole hope for the future; and in +Virginia's childhood she had grown to regard this phrase as second in +reverence only to that other familiar invocation: "If it be the will of +God."</p> + +<p>As he stood now in the square of lamplight that streamed from the +drawing-room window, she looked into his thin, humorous face, so +spiritualized by poverty and self-sacrifice that it had become merely +the veil for his soul, and the thought came to her that she had never +really seen him as he was until to-day.</p> + +<p>"You're out late, daughter. Isn't it time for supper?" he asked, putting +his arm about her. Beneath the simple words she felt the profound +affection which he rarely expressed, but of which she was conscious +whenever he looked at her or spoke to her. Two days ago this affection, +of which she never thought because it belonged to her by right like the +air she breathed, had been sufficient to fill her life to overflowing; +and now, in less than a moment, the simplest accident had pushed it into +the background. In the place where it had been there was a restless +longing which seemed at one instant a part of the universal stirring of +the spring, and became the next an importunate desire for the coming of +the lover to whom she had been taught to look as to the fulfilment of +her womanhood. At times this lover appeared to have no connection with +Oliver Treadwell; then the memory of his eager and searching look would +flush the world with a magic enchantment. "He might pass here at any +minute," she thought, and immediately every simple detail of her life +was illuminated as if a quivering rosy light had fallen aslant it. His +drive down High Street in the afternoon had left a trail of glory over +the earthen roadbed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was just going in," she replied to the rector's question, and +added: "How sweet the honeysuckle smells! I never knew it to be so +fragrant."</p> + +<p>"The end of the trellis needs propping up. I noticed it this morning," +he returned, keeping his arm around her as they passed over the short +grassy walk and up the steps to the porch. Then the door of the rectory +opened, and the silhouette of Mrs. Pendleton, in her threadbare black +silk dress with her cameo-like profile softened by the dark bands of her +hair, showed motionless against the lighted space of the hall.</p> + +<p>"We're here, Lucy," said the rector, kissing her; and a minute later +they entered the dining-room, which was on the right of the staircase. +The old mahogany table, scarred by a century of service, was laid with +a simple supper of bread, tea, and sliced ham on a willow dish. At one +end there was a bowl of freshly gathered strawberries, with the dew +still on them, and Mrs. Pendleton hastened to explain that they were a +present from Tom Peachey, who had driven out into the country in order +to get them. "Well, I hope his wife has some, also," commented the +rector. "Tom's a good fellow, but he could never keep a closed fist, +there's no use denying it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pendleton, who had never denied anything in her life, except the +biblical sanction for the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, +shook her head gently and began to talk in the inattentive and anxious +manner she had acquired at scantily furnished tables. Ever since the +war, with the exception of the Reconstruction period, when she had lived +practically on charity, she had managed to exist with serenity, and +numerous negro dependents, on the rector's salary of a thousand dollars +a year. Simple and wholesome food she had supplied to her family and her +followers, and for their desserts, as she called the sweet things of +life, she had relied with touching confidence upon her neighbours. What +they would be for the day, she did not know, but since poverty, not +prosperity, breeds the generous heart, she was perfectly assured that +when Miss Priscilla was putting up raspberries, or Mrs. Goode was making +lemon pie, she should not be forgotten. During the terrible war years, +it had become the custom of Dinwiddie housekeepers to remember the wife +of the rector who had plucked off his surplice for the Confederacy, and +among the older generation the habit still persisted, like all other +links that bound them to a past which they cherished the more +passionately because it guarded a defeated cause. Like the soft +apologetic murmur of Mrs. Pendleton's voice, which was meant to distract +attention rather than to impart information, this impassioned memory of +the thing that was dead sweetened the less romantic fact of the things +that were living. The young were ignorant of it, but the old <i>knew</i>. +Mrs. Pendleton, who was born a great lady, remained one when the props +and the background of a great lady had crumbled around her; and though +the part she filled was a narrow part—a mere niche in the world's +history—she filled it superbly. From the dignity of possessions she had +passed to the finer dignity of a poverty that can do without. All the +intellect in her (for she was not clever) had been transmuted into +character by this fiery passage from romance into reality, and though +life had done its worst with her, some fine invincible blade in the +depths of her being she had never surrendered. She would have gone to +the stake for a principle as cheerfully as she had descended from her +aristocratic niche into unceasing poverty and self-denial, but she would +have gone wearing garlands on her head and with her faint, grave smile, +in which there was almost every quality except that of humour, touching +her lips. Her hands, which were once lovely, were now knotted and worn; +for she had toiled when it was necessary, though she had toiled always +with the manner of a lady. Even to-day it was a part of her triumph that +this dignity was so vital a factor in her life that there was none of +her husband's laughter at circumstances to lighten her burden. To her +the daily struggle of keeping an open house on starvation fare was not a +pathetic comedy, as with Gabriel, but a desperately smiling tragedy. +What to Gabriel had been merely the discomfort of being poor when +everybody you respected was poor with you, had been to his wife the slow +agony of crucifixion. It was she, not he, who had lain awake to wonder +where to-morrow's dinner could be got without begging; it was she, also, +who had feared to doze at dawn lest she should oversleep herself and not +be downstairs in time to scrub the floors and the furniture before the +neighbours were stirring. Uncle Isam, whose knees were crippled with +rheumatism, and Docia, who had a "stitch" in her side whenever she +stooped, were the only servants that remained with her, and the nursing +of these was usually added to the pitiless drudgery of her winter. But +the bitter edge to all her suffering was the feeling which her husband +spoke of in the pulpit as "false pride"—the feeling she prayed over +fervently yet without avail in church every Sunday—and this was the +ignoble terror of being seen on her knees in her old black calico dress +before she had gone upstairs again, washed her hands with cornmeal, +powdered her face with her pink flannel starchbag, and descended in her +breakfast gown of black cashmere or lawn, with a net scarf tied daintily +around her thin throat, and a pair of exquisitely darned lace ruffles +hiding her wrists.</p> + +<p>As she sat now, smiling and calm, at the head of her table, there was no +hint in her face of the gnawing anxiety behind the delicate blue-veined +hollows in her forehead. "I thought John Henry would come to supper," +she observed, while her hands worked lovingly among the old white and +gold teacups which had belonged to her mother, "so I gathered a few +flowers."</p> + +<p>In the centre of the table there was a handful of garden flowers +arranged, with a generous disregard of colour, in a cut-glass bowl, as +though all blossoms were intended by their Creator to go peaceably +together. Only on formal occasions was such a decoration used on the +table of the rectory, since the happiest adornment for a meal was +supposed to be a bountiful supply of visible viands; but the hopelessly +mended mats had pierced Mrs. Pendleton's heart, and the cut-glass bowl, +like her endless prattle, was but a pitiful subterfuge.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I like them!" Virginia had started to answer, when a hearty voice +called, "May I come in?" from the darkness, and a large, carelessly +dressed young man, with an amiable and rather heavy countenance, entered +the hall and passed on into the dining-room. In reply to Mrs. +Pendleton's offer of tea, he answered that he had stopped at the +Treadwells' on his way up from work. "I could hardly break away from +Oliver," he added, "but I remembered that I'd promised Aunt Lucy to take +her down to Tin Pot Alley after supper, so I made a bolt while he was +convincing me that it's better to be poor with an idea, as he calls it, +than rich without one." Then turning to Virginia, he asked suddenly: +"What's the matter, little cousin? Been about too much in the sun?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's only the rose in my hair," responded Virginia, and she felt +that there was a fierce joy in blushing like this even while she told +herself that she would give everything she possessed if she could only +stop it.</p> + +<p>"If you aren't well, you'd better not go with us, Jinny," said Mrs. +Pendleton. "It was so sweet of John Henry to remember that I'd promised +to take Aunt Ailsey some of the bitters we used to make before the war." +Everything was "so sweet" to her, the weather, her husband's sermons, +the little trays that came continually from her neighbours, and she +lived in a perpetual state of thankfulness for favours so insignificant +that a less impressionable soul would have accepted them as undeserving +of more than the barest acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>"I am perfectly well," insisted Virginia, a little angry with John Henry +because he had been the first to notice her blushes.</p> + +<p>Rising hurriedly from the table, she went to the door and stood looking +out into the spangled dusk under the paulownias, while her mother +wrapped the bottle in a piece of white tissue paper and remarked with an +animation which served to hide her fatigue from the unobservant eyes of +her husband, that a walk would do her good on such a "perfectly lovely +night."</p> + +<p>Gabriel, who loved her as much as a man can love a wife who has +sacrificed herself to him wisely and unwisely for nearly thirty years, +had grown so used to seeing her suffer with a smile that he had drifted +at last into the belief that it was the only form of activity she really +enjoyed. From the day of his marriage he had never been able to deny her +anything she had set her heart upon—not even the privilege of working +herself to death for his sake when the opportunity offered.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, if you feel like it, of course you must go, my dear," he +replied. "I'll step over and sit a minute with Miss Priscilla while you +are away. Never could bear the house without you, Lucy."</p> + +<p>While this protest was still on his lips, he followed her from the +house, and turned with Virginia and John Henry in the direction of the +Young Ladies' Academy. From the darkness beyond the iron gate there came +the soothing flow of Miss Priscilla's voice entertaining an evening +caller, and when the rector left them, as if irresistibly drawn toward +the honeyed sound of gossip, Virginia walked on in silence between John +Henry and her mother. At each corner a flickering street lamp burned +with a thin yellow flame, and in the midst of the narrow orbit of its +light several shining moths circled swiftly like white moons revolving +about a sun. In the centre of the blocks, where the darkness was broken +only by small flower-like flakes of light that fell in clusters through +boughs of mulberry or linden trees, there was the sound of whispering +voices and of rustling palm-leaf fans on the crowded porches behind +screens of roses or honeysuckle. Mrs. Pendleton, whose instinct prompted +her to efface herself whenever she made a third at the meeting of maid +and man (even though the man was only her nephew John Henry), began to +talk at last after waiting modestly for her daughter to begin the +conversation. The story of Aunt Ailsey, of her great age, and her +dictatorial temper, which made living with other servants impossible to +her, started valiantly on its familiar road, and tripped but little when +the poor lady realized that neither John Henry nor Virginia was +listening. She was so used to talking for the sake of the sound she made +rather than the impression she produced that her silvery ripple had +become almost as lacking in self-consciousness as the song of a canary.</p> + +<p>But Virginia, walking so quietly at her side, was inhabiting at the +moment a separate universe—a universe smelling of honeysuckle and +filled with starry pathways to happiness. In this universe Aunt Ailsey +and her peculiarities, her mother's innocent prattle, and the solid body +of John Henry touching her arm, were all as remote and trivial as the +night moths circling around the lamps. Looking at John Henry from under +her lowered lashes, she felt a sudden pity for him because he was so +far—so very far indeed from being the right man. She saw him too +clearly as he was—he stood before her in all the hard brightness of the +reality, and first love, like beauty, depends less upon the truth of an +outline than it does upon the softening quality of an atmosphere. There +was no mystery for her in the simple fact of his being. There was +nothing left to discover about his great stature, his excellent heart, +and his safe, slow mind that had been compelled to forego even the sort +of education she had derived from Miss Priscilla. She knew that he had +left school at the age of eight in order to become the support of a +widowed mother, and she was pitifully aware of the tireless efforts he +had made after reaching manhood to remedy his ignorance of the +elementary studies he had missed. Never had she heard a complaint from +him, never a regret for the sacrifice, never so much as an idle wonder +why it should have been necessary. If the texture of his soul was not +finely wrought, the proportions of it were heroic. In him the Pendleton +idealism had left the skies and been transmuted into the common +substance of clay. He was of a practical bent of mind and had developed +a talent for his branch of business, which, to the bitter humiliation of +his mother, was that of hardware, with a successful specialty in +bathtubs. Until to-day Virginia had always believed that John Henry +interested her, but now she wondered how she had ever spent so many +hours listening to his talk about business. And with the thought her +whole existence appeared to her as dull and commonplace as those hours. +A single instant of experience seemed longer to her than all the years +she had lived, and this instant had drained the colour and the sweetness +from the rest of life. The shape of her universe had trembled suddenly +and altered. Dimly she was beginning to realize that sensation, not +time, is the true measure of life. Nothing and everything had happened +to her since yesterday.</p> + +<p>As they turned into Short Market Street, Mrs. Pendleton's voice trailed +off at last into silence, and she did not speak again while they passed +hurriedly between the crumbling houses and the dilapidated shops which +rose darkly on either side of the narrow cinder-strewn walks. The scent +of honeysuckle did not reach here, and when they stopped presently at +the beginning of Tin Pot Alley, there floated out to them the sharp +acrid odour of huddled negroes. In these squalid alleys, where the lamps +burned at longer distances, the more primitive forms of life appeared to +swarm like distorted images under the transparent civilization of the +town. The sound of banjo strumming came faintly from the dimness beyond, +while at their feet the Problem of the South sprawled innocently amid +tomato cans and rotting cabbage leaves.</p> + +<p>"Wait here just a minute and I'll run up and speak to Aunt Ailsey," +remarked Mrs. Pendleton with the dignity of a soul that is superior to +smells; and without noticing her daughter's reproachful nod of +acquiescence, she entered the alley and disappeared through the doorway +of the nearest hovel. A minute later her serene face looked down at them +over a patchwork quilt which hung airing at half length from the window +above. "But this is not life—it has nothing to do with life," thought +Virginia, while the Pendleton blood in her rose in a fierce rebellion +against all that was ugly and sordid in existence. Then her mother's +tread was heard descending the short flight of steps, and the sensation +vanished as quickly and as inexplicably as it had come.</p> + +<p>"I tried not to keep you waiting, dear," said Mrs. Pendleton, hastening +toward them while she fanned herself rapidly with the small black fan +she carried. Her face looked tired and worn, and before moving on, she +paused a moment and held her hand to her thin fluttering breast, while +deep bluish circles appeared to start out under the expression of +pathetic cheerfulness in her eyes. This pathetic cheerfulness, so +characteristic of the women of her generation, was the first thing, +perhaps, that a stranger would have noticed about her face; yet it was a +trait which neither her husband nor her child had ever observed. There +was a fine moisture on her forehead, and this added so greatly to the +natural transparency of her features that, standing there in the wan +light, she might have been mistaken for the phantom of her daughter's +vivid flesh and blood beauty. "I wonder if you would mind going on to +Bolingbroke Street, so I may speak to Belinda Treadwell a minute?" she +asked, as soon as she had recovered her breath. "I want to find out if +she has engaged Miss Willy Whitlow for the whole week, or if there is +any use my sending a message to her over in Botetourt. If she doesn't +begin at once, Jinny, you won't have a dress to wear to Abby Goode's +party."</p> + +<p>Virginia's heart gave a single bound of joy and lay quiet. Not for +worlds would she have asked to go to the Treadwells', yet ever since +they had started, she had longed unceasingly to have her mother suggest +it. The very stars, she felt, had worked together to bring about her +desire.</p> + +<p>"But aren't you tired, mother? It really doesn't matter about my dress," +she murmured, for it was not in vain that she had wrested a diploma for +deportment from Miss Priscilla.</p> + +<p>"Why can't I take the message for you, Aunt Lucy? You look tired to +death," urged John Henry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shan't mind the walk as soon as we get out into the breeze," +replied Mrs. Pendleton. "It's a lovely night, only a little close in +this alley." And as she spoke she looked gently down on the Problem of +the South as the Southern woman had looked down on it for generations +and would continue to look down on it for generations still to +come—without seeing that it was a problem.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's good to get a breath of air, anyway!" exclaimed John Henry +with fervour, when they had passed out of the alley into the lighted +street. Around them the town seemed to beat with a single heart, as if +it waited, like Virginia, in breathless suspense for some secret that +must come out of the darkness. Sometimes the sidewalks over which they +passed were of flag-stones, sometimes they were of gravel or of strewn +cinders. Now and then an old stone house, which had once sheltered +crinoline and lace ruffles, or had served as a trading station with the +Indians before Dinwiddie had become a city, would loom between two small +shops where the owners, coatless and covered with sweat, were selling +flat beer to jaded and miserable customers. Up Bolingbroke Street a +faint breeze blew, lifting the moist satin-like hair on Mrs. Pendleton's +forehead. Already its ancient dignity had deserted the quarter in which +the Treadwells lived, and it had begun to wear a forsaken and injured +look, as though it resented the degradation of commerce into which it +had descended.</p> + +<p>"I can't understand why Cyrus Treadwell doesn't move over to Sycamore +Street," remarked John Henry after a moment of reflection in which he +had appeared to weigh this simple sentence with scrupulous exactness. +"He's rich enough, I suppose, to buy anything he wants."</p> + +<p>"I've heard Susan say that it was her mother's old home and she didn't +care to leave it," said Mrs. Pendleton.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it's that a bit," broke in Virginia with characteristic +impulsiveness. "The only reason is that Mr. Treadwell is stingy. With +all his money, I know Mrs. Treadwell and Susan hardly ever have a dollar +they can spend on themselves."</p> + +<p>Though she spoke with her accustomed energy, she was conscious all the +time that the words she uttered were not the ones in her thoughts. What +did Cyrus Treadwell's stinginess matter when his only relation to life +consisted in his being the uncle of Oliver? It was as if a single shape +moved alive through a universe peopled with shadows. Only a borrowed +radiance attached itself now to the persons and objects that had +illumined the world for her yesterday. Yet she approached the crisis of +her life so silently that those around her did not recognize it beneath +the cover of ordinary circumstances. Like most great moments it had come +unheralded; and though the rustling of its wings filled her soul, +neither her mother nor John Henry heard a stir in the quiet air that +surrounded them. Walking between the two who loved her, she felt that +she was separated from them both by an eternity of experience.</p> + +<p>There were several blocks of Bolingbroke Street to walk before the +Treadwells' house was reached, and as they sauntered slowly past decayed +dwellings, Virginia's imagination ran joyously ahead of her to the +meeting. Would it happen this time as it had happened before when he +looked at her that something would pass between them which would make +her feel that she belonged to him? So little resistance did she offer to +the purpose of Life that she seemed to have existed from the beginning +merely as an exquisite medium for a single emotion. It was as if the +dreams of all the dead women of her race, who had lived only in loving, +were concentrated into a single shining centre of bliss—for the +accumulated vibrations of centuries were in her soul when she trembled +for the first time beneath the eyes of a lover. And yet all this +blissful violence was powerless to change the most insignificant +external fact in the universe. Though it was the greatest thing that +could ever happen to her, it was nothing to the other twenty-one +thousand human beings among whom she lived; it left no mark upon that +procession of unimportant details which they called life.</p> + +<p>They were in sight of the small old-fashioned brick house of the +Treadwells, with its narrow windows set discreetly between outside +shutters, and she saw that the little marble porch was deserted except +for the two pink oleander trees, which stood in green tubs on either +side of the curved iron railings. A minute later John Henry's +imperative ring brought a young coloured maid to the door, and Virginia, +who had lingered on the pavement, heard almost immediately an effusive +duet from her mother and Mrs. Treadwell.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do come in, Lucy, just for a minute!"</p> + +<p>"I can't possibly, my dear; I only wanted to ask you if you have engaged +Miss Willy Whitlow for the entire week or if you could let me have her +for Friday and Saturday? Jinny hasn't a rag to wear to Abby Goode's lawn +party and I don't know anybody who does quite so well for her as poor +Miss Willy. Oh, that's so sweet of you! I can't thank you enough! And +you'll tell her without my sending all the way over to Botetourt!"</p> + +<p>By this time Susan had joined Virginia on the sidewalk, and the liquid +honey of Mrs. Pendleton's voice dropped softly into indistinctness.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny, if I'd only known you were coming!" said Susan. "Oliver +wanted me to take him to see you, and when I couldn't, he went over to +call on Abby."</p> + +<p>So this was the end of her walk winged with expectancy! A disappointment +as sharp as her joy had been pierced her through as she stood there +smiling into Susan's discomfited face. With the tragic power of youth to +create its own torment, she told herself that life could never be the +same after this first taste of its bitterness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>FIRST LOVE</h3> + + +<p>The next morning, so indestructible is the happiness of youth, she awoke +with her hope as fresh as if it had not been blighted the evening +before. As she lay in bed, with her loosened hair making a cloud over +the pillows, and her eyes shining like blue flowers in the band of +sunlight that fell through the dormer-window, she quivered to the early +sweetness of honeysuckle as though it were the charmed sweetness of love +of which she had dreamed in the night. She was only one of the many +millions of women who were awaking at the same hour to the same miracle +of Nature, yet she might have been the first woman seeking the first man +through the vastness and the mystery of an uninhabited earth. Impossible +to believe that an experience so wonderful was as common as the bursting +of the spring buds or the humming of the thirsty bees around the +honeysuckle arbour!</p> + +<p>Slipping out of bed, she threw her dressing-gown over her shoulders, and +kneeling beside the window, drank in the flower-scented air of the May +morning. During the night, the paulownia trees had shed a rain of violet +blossoms over the wet grass, where little wings of sunshine, like golden +moths, hovered above them. Beyond the border of lilies-of-the-valley she +saw the squat pinkish tower of the church, and beneath it, in the +narrow churchyard, rose the gleaming shaft above the grave of the +Confederate soldier. On her right, in the centre of the crooked path, +three negro infants were prodding earnestly at roots of wire-grass and +dandelion; and brushing carelessly their huddled figures, her gaze +descended the twelve steps of the almost obliterated terrace, and +followed the steep street down which a mulatto vegetable vendor was +urging his slow-footed mule.</p> + +<p>A wave of joy rose in her breast, and she felt that her heart melted in +gratitude for the divine beauty of life. The world showed to her as a +place filled with shining vistas of happiness, and at the end of each of +these vistas there awaited the unknown enchanting thing which she called +in her thoughts "the future." The fact that it was the same world in +which Miss Priscilla and her mother lived their narrow and prosaic lives +did not alter by a breath her unshakable conviction that she herself was +predestined for something more wonderful than they had ever dreamed of. +"He may come this evening!" she thought, and immediately the light of +magic suffused the room, the street outside, and every scarred roof in +Dinwiddie.</p> + +<p>At the head of her bed, wedged in between the candle stand and the +window, there was a cheap little bookcase of walnut which contained the +only volumes she had ever been permitted to own—the poems of Mrs. +Hemans and of Adelaide Anne Procter, a carefully expurgated edition of +Shakespeare, with an inscription in the rector's handwriting on the +flyleaf; Miss Strickland's "Lives of the Queens of England"; and several +works of fiction belonging to the class which Mrs. Pendleton vaguely +characterized as "sweet stories." Among the more prominent of these +were "Thaddeus of Warsaw," a complete set of Miss Yonge's novels, with a +conspicuously tear-stained volume of "The Heir of Redclyffe," and a +romance or two by obscure but innocuous authors. That any book which +told, however mildly, the truth about life should have entered their +daughter's bedroom would have seemed little short of profanation to both +the rector and Mrs. Pendleton. The sacred shelves of that bookcase +(which had been ceremoniously presented to her on her fourteenth +birthday) had never suffered the contaminating presence of realism. The +solitary purpose of art was, in Mrs. Pendleton's eyes, to be "sweet," +and she scrupulously judged all literature by its success or failure in +this particular quality. It seemed to her as wholesome to feed her +daughter's growing fancy on an imaginary line of pious heroes, as it +appeared to her moral to screen her from all suspicion of the existence +of immorality. She did not honestly believe that any living man +resembled the "Heir of Redclyffe," any more than she believed that the +path of self-sacrifice leads inevitably to happiness; but there was no +doubt in her mind that she advanced the cause of righteousness when she +taught these sanctified fallacies to Virginia.</p> + +<p>As she rose from her knees, Virginia glanced at her white dress, which +was too crumpled for her to wear again before it was smoothed, and +thought regretfully of Aunt Docia's heart, which invariably gave warning +whenever there was extra work to be done. "I shall have to wear either +my blue lawn or my green organdie this evening," she thought. "I wish I +could have the sleeves changed. I wonder if mother could run a tuck in +them?"</p> + +<p>It did not occur to her that she might smooth the dress herself, because +she knew that the iron would be wrested from her by her mother's hands, +which were so knotted and worn that tears came to Virginia's eyes when +she looked at them. She let her mother slave over her because she had +been born into a world where the slaving of mothers was a part of the +natural order, and she had not as yet become independent enough to +question the morality of the commonplace. At any minute she would gladly +have worked, too, but the phrase "spare Virginia" had been uttered so +often in her hearing that it had acquired at last almost a religious +significance. To have been forced to train her daughter in any +profitable occupation which might have lifted her out of the class of +unskilled labour in which indigent gentlewomen by right belonged, would +have been the final dregs of humiliation in Mrs. Pendleton's cup. On one +of Aunt Docia's bad days, when Jinny had begged to be allowed to do part +of the washing, she had met an almost passionate refusal from her +mother. "It will be time enough to spoil your hands after you are +married, darling!" And again, "Don't do that rough sewing, Jinny. Give +it to me." From the cradle she had borne her part in this racial custom +of the sacrifice of generation to generation—of the perpetual +immolation of age on the flowery altars of youth. Like most customs in +which we are nurtured, it had seemed natural and pleasant enough until +she had watched the hollows deepen in her mother's temples and the +tireless knotted hands stumble at their work. Then a pang had seized her +and she had pleaded earnestly to be permitted to help.</p> + +<p>"If you only knew how unhappy it makes me to see you ruining your pretty +fingers, Jinny. My child, the one comfort I have is the thought that I +am sparing you."</p> + +<p>Sparing her! Always that from the first! Even Gabriel chimed in when it +became a matter of Jinny. "Let me wash the dishes, Lucy," he would +implore. "What? Will you trust me with other people's souls, but not +with your china?"</p> + +<p>"It's not a man's work, Mr. Pendleton. What would the neighbours think?"</p> + +<p>"They would think, I hope, my dear, that I was doing my duty."</p> + +<p>"But it would not be dignified for a clergyman. No, I cannot bear the +sight of you with a dishcloth."</p> + +<p>In the end she invariably had her way with them, for she was the +strongest. Jinny must be spared, and Gabriel must do nothing +undignified. About herself it made no difference unless the neighbours +were looking; she had not thought of herself, except in the indomitable +failing of her "false pride," since her marriage, which had taken place +in her twentieth year. A clergyman's wife might do menial tasks in +secret, and nobody minded, but they were not for a clergyman.</p> + +<p>For a minute, while she was dressing, Virginia thought of these +things—of how hard life had been to her mother, of how pretty she must +have been in her youth. What she did not think of was that her mother, +like herself, was but one of the endless procession of women who pass +perpetually from the sphere of pleasure into the sphere of service. It +was as impossible for her to picture her mother as a girl of twenty as +it was for her to imagine herself ever becoming a woman of fifty.</p> + +<p>When she had finished dressing she closed the door softly after her as +if she were afraid of disturbing the silence, and ran downstairs to the +dining-room, where the rector and Mrs. Pendleton greeted her with +subdued murmurs of joy.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid I'd miss you, daughter," from the rector, as he drew her +chair nearer.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to carry up your tray, Jinny," from her mother. "I +kept a nice breast of chicken for you which one of the neighbours sent +me."</p> + +<p>"I'd so much rather you'd eat it, mother," protested Jinny, on the point +of tears.</p> + +<p>"But I couldn't, darling, I really couldn't manage it. A cup of coffee +and a bit of toast is all I can possibly stand in the morning. I was up +early, for Docia was threatened with one of her heart attacks, and it +always gives me a little headache to miss my morning nap."</p> + +<p>"Then you can't go to market, Lucy; it is out of the question," insisted +the rector. "After thirty years you might as well make up your mind to +trust me, my dear."</p> + +<p>"But the last time you went you gave away our shoulder of lamb to a +beggar," replied his wife, and she hastened to add tenderly, lest he +should accept the remark as a reproof, "it's sweet of you, dearest, but +a little walk will be good for my head if I am careful to keep on the +shady side of the street. I can easily find a boy to bring home the +things, and I am sure it won't hurt me a bit."</p> + +<p>"Why can't I go, mother?" implored Virginia. "Susan always markets for +Mrs. Treadwell." And she felt that even the task of marketing was +irradiated by this inner glow which had changed the common aspect of +life.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny, you know how you hate to feel the chickens, and one can +never tell how plump they are by the feathers."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll feel them, mother, if you'll let me try."</p> + +<p>"No, darling, but you may go with me and carry my sunshade. I'm so sorry +Docia can't smooth your dress. Was it much crumpled?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dreadfully! And I did so want to wear it this evening. Do you think +Aunt Docia could show me how to iron?"</p> + +<p>Docia, who stood like an ebony image of Bellona behind her mistress's +chair, waving a variegated tissue paper fly screen over the coffee-urn, +was heard to think aloud that "dish yer stitch ain' helt up er blessed +minute sence befo' daylight." Not unnaturally, perhaps, since she was +the most prominent figure in her own vision of the universe, she had +come at last to regard her recurrent "stitch" as an event of greater +consequence than Virginia's appearance in immaculate white muslin. An +uncertain heart combined with a certain temper had elevated her from a +servile position to one of absolute autocracy in the household. +Everybody feared her, so nobody had ever dared ask her to leave. As she +had rebelled long ago against the badge of a cap and an apron, she +appeared in the dining-room clad in garments of various hues, and her +dress on this particular morning was a purple calico crowned +majestically by a pink cotton turban. There was a tradition still afloat +that Docia had been an excellent servant before the war; but this +amiable superstition had, perhaps, as much reason to support it as had +Gabriel's innocent conviction that there were no faithless husbands when +there were no divorces.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid Docia can't do it," sighed Mrs. Pendleton, for her ears had +caught the faint thunder of the war goddess behind her chair, and her +soul, which feared neither armies nor adversities, trembled before her +former slaves. "But it won't take me a minute if you'll have it ready +right after dinner."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, of course I couldn't let you for anything. I only thought +Aunt Docia might be able to teach me how to iron."</p> + +<p>At this, Docia muttered audibly that she "ain' got no time ter be +sho'in' nobody nuttin'."</p> + +<p>"There, now, Docia, you mustn't lose your temper," observed Gabriel as +he rose from his chair. It was at such moments that the remembered joys +of slavery left a bitter after taste on his lips. Clearly it was +impossible to turn into the streets a servant who had once belonged to +you!</p> + +<p>When they were in the hall together, Mrs. Pendleton whispered nervously +to her husband that it must be "poor Docia's heart that made her so +disagreeable and that she would feel better to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be possible, my dear?" inquired the rector in his pulpit +manner, to which his wife's only answer was a startled "Sh-sh-ush."</p> + +<p>An hour later the door of Gabriel's study opened softly, and Mrs. +Pendleton entered with the humble and apologetic manner in which she +always intruded upon her husband's pursuits. There was an accepted +theory in the family, shared even by Uncle Isam and Aunt Docia, that +whenever Gabriel was left alone for an instant, his thoughts naturally +deflected into spiritual paths. In the early days of his marriage he had +tried honestly to live up to this exalted idea of his character; then +finding the effort beyond him, and being a man with an innate +detestation of hypocrisy, he had earnestly endeavoured to disabuse his +wife's imagination of the mistaken belief in his divinity. But a notion +once firmly fixed in Mrs. Pendleton's mind might as well have been +embedded in rock. By virtue of that gentle obstinacy which enabled her +to believe in an illusion the more intensely because it had vanished, +she had triumphed not only over circumstances, but over truth itself. By +virtue of this quality, she had created the world in which she moved and +had wrought beauty out of chaos.</p> + +<p>"Are you busy with your sermon, dear?" she asked, pausing in the +doorway, and gazing reverently at her husband over the small black silk +bag she carried. Like the other women of Dinwiddie who had lost +relatives by the war, she had never laid aside her mourning since the +surrender; and the frame of crape to her face gave her the pensive look +of one who has stepped out of the pageant of life into the sacred +shadows of memory.</p> + +<p>"No, no, Lucy, I'm ready to start out with you," replied the rector +apologetically, putting a box of fishing tackle he had been sorting back +into the drawer of his desk. He was as fond as a child of a day's sport, +and never quite so happy as when he set out with his rod and an old +tomato can filled with worms, which he had dug out of the back garden, +in his hands; but owing to the many calls upon him and his wife's +conception of his clerical dignity, he was seldom able to gratify his +natural tastes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, please hurry!" called Virginia from the porch, and rising +obediently, he followed Mrs. Pendleton through the hall and out into the +May sunshine, where the little negroes stopped an excited chase of a +black and orange butterfly to return doggedly to their weeding.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure you wouldn't rather I'd go to market, Lucy?"</p> + +<p>"Quite sure, dear," replied his wife, sniffing the scent of +lilies-of-the-valley with her delicate, slightly pinched nostrils. "I +thought you were going to see Mr. Treadwell about putting John Henry +into the bank," she added. "It is such a pity to keep the poor boy +selling bathtubs. His mother felt it so terribly."</p> + +<p>"Ah, so I was—so I was," reflected Gabriel, who, though both of them +would have been indignant at the suggestion, was as putty in the hands +of his wife. "Well, I'll look into the bank on Cyrus after I've paid my +sick calls."</p> + +<p>With that they parted, Gabriel going on to visit a bedridden widow in +the Old Ladies' Home, while Mrs. Pendleton and Virginia turned down a +cross street that led toward the market. At every corner, it seemed to +Virginia, middle-aged ladies, stout or thin, wearing crape veils and +holding small black silk bags in their hands, sprang out of the shadows +of mulberry trees, and barred their leisurely progress. And though +nothing had happened in Dinwiddie since the war, and Mrs. Pendleton had +seen many of these ladies the day before, she stopped for a sympathetic +chat with each one of them, while Virginia, standing a little apart, +patiently prodded the cinders of the walk with the end of her sunshade. +All her life the girl had been taught to regard time as the thing of +least importance in the universe; but occasionally, while she listened +in silence to the liquid murmur of her mother's voice, she wondered +vaguely how the day's work was ever finished in Dinwiddie. The story of +Docia's impertinence was told and retold a dozen times before they +reached the market. "And you really mean that you can't get rid of her? +Why, my dear Lucy, I wouldn't stand it a day! Now, there was my Mandy. +Such an excellent servant until she got her head turned——" This from +Mrs. Tom Peachey, an energetic little woman, with a rosy face and a +straight gray "bang" cut short over her eyebrows. "But, Lucy, my child, +are you doing right to submit to impertinence? In the old days, I +remember, before the war——" This from Mrs. William Goode, who had been +Sally Peterson, the beauty of Dinwiddie, and who was still superbly +handsome in a tragic fashion, with a haunted look in her eyes and masses +of snow-white hair under her mourning bonnet. Years ago Virginia had +imagined her as dwelling perpetually with the memory of her young +husband, who had fallen in his twenty-fifth year in the Battle of Cold +Harbor, but she knew now that the haunted eyes, like all things human, +were under the despotism of trifles. To the girl, who saw in this +universal acquiescence in littleness merely the pitiful surrender of +feeble souls, there was a passionate triumph in the thought that her own +dreams were larger than the actuality that surrounded her. Youth's scorn +of the narrow details of life left no room in her mind for an +understanding of the compromise which middle-age makes with necessity. +The pathos of resignation—of that inevitable submission to the petty +powers which the years bring—was lost upon the wistful ignorance of +inexperience. While she waited dutifully, with her absent gaze fixed on +the old mulberry trees, which whitened as the wind blew over them and +then slowly darkened again, she wondered if servants and gossip were the +only things that Oliver had heard of in his travels? Then she remembered +that even in Dinwiddie men were less interested in such matters than +they were in the industries of peanuts and tobacco. Was it only women, +after all, who were in subjection to particulars?</p> + +<p>When they turned into Old Street, John Henry hailed them from the +doorway of a shop, where he stood flanked by a row of spotless bathtubs. +He wore a loose pongee coat, which sagged at the shoulders, his straight +flaxen hair had been freshly cut, and his crimson necktie had got a +stain on it at breakfast; but to Virginia's astonishment, he appeared +sublimely unconscious both of his bathtubs and his appearance. He was +doubtless under the delusion that a pongee coat, being worn for comfort, +was entirely successful when it achieved that end; and as for his +business, it was beyond his comprehension that a Pendleton could have +reason to blush for a bathtub or for any other object that afforded him +an honest livelihood.</p> + +<p>He called to them at sight, and Mrs. Pendleton, following her instinct +of fitness, left the conversation to youth.</p> + +<p>"John Henry, father is going to see Mr. Treadwell about the place in the +bank. Won't it be lovely if he gives it to you!"</p> + +<p>"He won't," replied John Henry. "I'll bet you anything he's keeping it +for his nephew."</p> + +<p>Virginia's blush came quickly, and turning her head away, she gazed +earnestly down the street to the octagonal market, which stood on the +spot where slaves were offered for sale when she was born.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Treadwell is crossing the street now," she said after a minute. "I +wonder why he keeps his mouth shut so tight when he is alone?"</p> + +<p>A covered cart, which had been passing slowly, moved up the hill, and +from beyond it there appeared the tall spare figure of a man with +iron-gray hair, curling a little on the temples, a sallow skin, +splotched with red over the nose, and narrow colourless lips that looked +as if they were cut out of steel. As he walked quickly up the street, +every person whom he passed turned to glance after him.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it is true that he hasn't made his money honestly?" asked +Virginia.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Mrs. Pendleton, who in her natural desire to +believe only good about people was occasionally led into believing the +truth.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care," retorted Virginia, "he's mean. I know just by the +way his wife dresses."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny!" gasped Mrs. Pendleton, and glanced in embarrassment at her +nephew, whose face, to her surprise, was beaming with enjoyment. The +truth was that John Henry, who would have condemned so unreasonable an +accusation had it been uttered by a full-grown male, was enraptured by +the piquancy of hearing it on the lovely lips of his cousin. To demand +that a pretty woman should possess the mental responsibility of a human +being would have seemed an affront to his inherited ideas of gallantry. +His slow wit was enslaved by Jinny's audacity as completely as his kind +ox-like eyes were enthralled by the young red and white of her beauty.</p> + +<p>"But he's a great man. You can't deny that," he said with the playful +manner in which he might have prodded a kitten in order to make it claw.</p> + +<p>"A great man! Just because he has made money!"</p> + +<p>"Well, he couldn't have got rich, you know, if he hadn't had the sense +to see how to do it," replied the young man with enthusiasm. Like most +Southerners who had been forced without preparation into the hard school +of industry, he had found that his standards followed inevitably the +changing measure of his circumstances. From his altered point of view, +the part of owing property appeared so easy, and the part of winning it +so difficult, that his respect for culture had yielded almost +unconsciously to his admiration for commerce. When the South came again +to the front, he felt instinctively that it would come, shorn of its +traditional plumage, a victor from the hard-fought industrial +battlefields of the century; and because Cyrus Treadwell led the way +toward this triumph, he was ready to follow him. Of the whole town, this +grim, half legendary figure (passionately revered and as passionately +hated) appeared to him to stand alone not for the decaying past, but for +the growing future. The stories of the too rapid development of the +Treadwell fortune he cast scornfully aside as the malicious slanders of +failure. What did all this tittle-tattle about a great man prove anyhow +except his greatness? Suppose he <i>had</i> used his railroad to make a +fortune—well, but for him where would the Dinwiddie and Central be +to-day if not in the junk shop? Where would the lumber market be? the +cotton market? the tobacco market? For around Cyrus, standing alone and +solitary on his height, there had gathered the great illusion that +makes theft honest and falsehood truth—the illusion of Success; and +simple John Henry Pendleton, who, after nineteen years of poverty and +memory, was bereft alike of classical pedantry and of physical comforts, +had grown a little weary of the endless lip-worship of a single moment +in history. Granted even that it was the greatest moment the world had +seen, still why couldn't one be satisfied to have it take its place +beside the wars of the Spartans and of the ancient Britons? Perpetual +mourning was well enough for ladies in crape veils and heroic gentlemen +on crutches; but when your bread and meat depended not upon the graves +you had decorated, but upon the bathtubs you had sold, surely something +could be said for the Treadwell point of view.</p> + +<p>As Virginia could find no answer to this remark, the three stood in +silence, gazing dreamily, with three pairs of Pendleton eyes, down +toward the site of the old slave market. Directly in their line of +vision, an over-laden mule with a sore shoulder was straining painfully +under the lash, but none of them saw it, because each of them was +morally incapable of looking an unpleasant fact in the face if there was +any honourable manner of avoiding it. What they beheld, indeed, was the +most interesting street in the world, filled with the most interesting +people, who drove happy animals that enjoyed their servitude and needed +the sound of the lash to add cheer and liveliness to their labours. +Never had the Pendleton idealism achieved a more absolute triumph over +the actuality.</p> + +<p>"Well, we must go on," murmured Mrs. Pendleton, withdrawing her +visionary gaze from the hot street littered with fruit rinds and +blood-stained papers from a neighbouring butcher shop. "It was lovely +to have this glimpse of you, John Henry. What nice bathtubs you have!" +Smiling her still lovely smile into the young man's eyes, she proceeded +on her leisurely way, while Virginia raised the black silk sunshade over +her head. In front of them they could see long rows of fish-carts and +vegetable stalls around which hovered an army of eager housekeepers. The +social hours in Dinwiddie at that period were the early morning ones in +the old market, and Virginia knew that she should hear Docia's story +repeated again for the benefit of the curious or sympathetic listeners +that would soon gather about her mother. Mrs. Pendleton's marketing, +unlike the hurried and irresponsible sort of to-day, was an affair of +time and ceremony. Among the greetings and the condolences from other +marketers there would ensue lengthy conversations with the vendors of +poultry, of fish, or of vegetables. Every vegetable must be carefully +selected by her own hands and laid aside into her special basket, which +was in the anxious charge of a small coloured urchin. While she felt the +plump breasts of Mr. Dewlap's chickens, she would inquire with +flattering condescension after the members of Mr. Dewlap's family. Not +only did she remember each one of them by name, but she never forgot +either the dates of their birthdays or the number of turkeys Mrs. Dewlap +had raised in a season. If marketing is ever to be elevated from an +occupation to an art, it will be by a return to Mrs. Pendleton's method.</p> + +<p>"Mother, please buy some strawberries," begged Virginia.</p> + +<p>"Darling, you know we never buy fruit, or desserts. Somebody will +certainly send us something. I saw Mrs. Carrington whipping syllabub on +her back porch as we passed."</p> + +<p>"But they're only five cents a basket."</p> + +<p>"Well, put a basket with my marketing, Mr. Dewlap. Yes, I'll take that +white pullet if you're sure that she is plumper than the red one."</p> + +<p>She moved on a step or two, while the white pullet was handed over by +its feet to the small coloured urchin and to destruction. If Mrs. +Pendleton had ever reflected on the tragic fate of pullets, she would +probably have concluded that it was "best" for them to be fried and +eaten, or Providence, whose merciful wisdom she never questioned, would +not have permitted it. So, in the old days, she had known where the +slave market stood, without realizing in the least that men and women +were sold there. "Poor things, it does seem dreadful, but I suppose it +is better for them to have a change sometimes," she would doubtless have +reasoned had the horror of the custom ever occurred to her—for her +heart was so sensitive to pain that she could exist at all only by +inventing a world of exquisite fiction around her.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you nearly through, mother?" pleaded Virginia at last. "The sun +will be so hot going home that it will make your head worse."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pendleton, who was splitting a pea-shell with her thumb in order to +ascertain the size and quality of the peas, murmured soothingly, "Just a +minute, dear"; and the girl, finding it impossible to share her mother's +enthusiasm for slaughtered animals, fell back again into the narrow +shade of the stalls. She revolted with a feeling of outrage against the +side of life that confronted her—against the dirty floor, strewn with +withered vegetables above which flies swarmed incessantly, and against +the pathos of the small bleeding forms which seemed related neither to +the lamb in the fields nor to the Sunday roast on the table. That divine +gift of evasion, which enabled Mrs. Pendleton to see only the thing she +wanted to see in every occurrence, was but partially developed as yet in +Virginia; and while she stood there in the midst of her unromantic +surroundings, the girl shuddered lest Oliver Treadwell should know that +she had ever waited, hot, perspiring, with a draggled skirt, and a bag +of tomatoes grasped in her hands, while her mother wandered from stall +to stall in a tireless search for peas a few cents cheaper than those of +Mr. Dewlap. Youth, with its ingenuous belief that love dwells in +external circumstances, was protesting against the bland assumption of +age that love creates its own peculiar circumstances out of itself. It +was absurd, she knew, to imagine that her father's affection for her +mother would alter because she haggled over the price of peas; yet the +emotion with which she endowed Oliver Treadwell was so delicate and +elusive that she felt that the sight of a soiled skirt and a perspiring +face would blast it forever. It appeared imperative that he should see +her in white muslin, and she resolved that if it cost Docia her life she +would have the flounces of her dress smoothed before evening. She, who +was by nature almost morbidly sensitive to suffering, became, in the +hands of this new and implacable power, as ruthless as Fate.</p> + +<p>"Now I'm ready, Jinny dear. Are you tired waiting?" asked Mrs. +Pendleton, coming toward her with the coloured urchin in her train. +"Why, there's Susan Treadwell. Have you spoken to her?"</p> + +<p>The next instant, before the startled girl could turn, a voice cried out +triumphantly: "O Jinny!" and in front of her, looking over Susan's +shoulder, she saw the eager eyes and the thin, high-coloured face of +Oliver Treadwell. For a moment she told herself that he had read her +thoughts with his penetrating gaze, which seemed to pierce through her; +and she blushed pink while her eyes burned under her trembling lashes. +Then the paper bag, containing the tomatoes, burst in her hands, and its +contents rolled, one by one, over the littered floor to his feet. Both +stooped at once to recover it, and while their hands touched amid wilted +cabbage leaves, the girl felt that love had taken gilded wings and +departed forever!</p> + +<p>"Put them in the basket, dear," Mrs. Pendleton could be heard saying +calmly in the midst of her daughter's agony—for, having lived through +the brief illumination of romance, she had come at last into that steady +glow which encompasses the commonplace.</p> + +<p>"This is my cousin Oliver, Virginia," remarked Susan as casually as if +the meeting of the two had not been planned from all eternity by the +beneficent Powers.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I've spoiled your nice red tomatoes," said a voice that +filled Virginia's whirling mind with a kind of ecstatic dizziness. As +the owner of the voice held out his hand, she saw that it was long and +thin like the rest of him, with blue veins crossing the back, and +slender, slightly crooked fingers that hurt hers with the strength of +their pressure. "To confess the truth," he added gaily after an instant, +"my breath was quite taken away because, somehow, this was the last +place on earth in which I expected to find you. It's a dreadful +spot—don't you think so? If we've got to be cannibals, why in Heaven's +name make a show and a parade of it?"</p> + +<p>"What an extraordinary young man!" said Mrs. Pendleton's eyes; and +Virginia found herself blushing again because she felt that her mother +had not understood him. A delicious embarrassment—something different +and more vivid than any sensation she had ever known—held her +speechless while he looked at her. Had her life depended on it, she +could not have uttered a sentence—could hardly even have lifted her +lashes, which seemed suddenly to have become so heavy that she felt the +burden of them weighing over her eyes. All the picturesque phrases she +had planned to speak at their first meeting had taken wings with +perfidious romance, yet she would have given her dearest possession to +have been able to say something really clever. "He thinks me a +simpleton, of course," she thought—perfectly unconscious that Oliver +was not thinking of her wits at all, but of the wonderful rose-pink of +her flesh. At one and the same instant, she felt that this silence was +the most marvellous thing that had ever happened to her and longed to +break it with some speech so brilliant that he would never forget it. +Little thrills of joy, like tiny flames, ran over her, and the light in +her eyes shone on him through the quivering dusk of her lashes. Even +when she looked away from him, she could still see his expression of +tender gaiety, as though he were trying in vain to laugh himself free +from an impulse that was fast growing too strong for him. What she did +not know was that the spring was calling to him through her youth and +sex as it was calling through the scented winds and the young buds on +the trees. She was as ignorant that she offered herself to him through +her velvet softness, through the glow in her eyes, through her quivering +lips, as the flower is that it allures the bee by its perfume. So subtly +did Life use her for its end that the illusion of choice in first love +remained unimpaired. Though she was young desire incarnate, he saw in +her only the unique and solitary woman of his dreams.</p> + +<p>"Do you come here every day?" he asked, and immediately the blue sky and +the octagonal market spun round at his voice.</p> + +<p>As nothing but commonplace words would come to her, she was obliged at +last to utter them. "Oh, no, not every day."</p> + +<p>"I've always had a tremendous sympathy for women because they have to +market and housekeep. I wonder if they won't revolt some time?"</p> + +<p>This was so heretical a point of view that she tried earnestly to +comprehend it; but all the time her heart was busy telling her how +different he was from every other man—how much more interesting! how +immeasurably superior! Her attention, in spite of her efforts at serious +thought, would not wander from the charm of his voice, from the peculiar +whimsical trick of his smile, which lifted his mouth at one corner and +made odd little wrinkles come and go about his eyes. His manner was full +of sudden nervous gestures which surprised and enchanted her. All other +men were not merely as clay beside him—they were as straw! Seeing that +he was waiting for a response, she made a violent endeavour to think of +one, and uttered almost inaudibly: "But don't they like it?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's just it," he answered as seriously as if she hadn't known +that her speech bordered on imbecility. "Do they really like it? or have +they been throwing dust in our eyes through the centuries?" And he gazed +at her as eagerly as if he were hanging upon her answer. Oh, if she +could only say something clever! If she could only say the sort of thing +that would shock Miss Priscilla! But nothing came of her wish, and she +was reduced at last to the pathetic rejoinder, "I don't know. I'm afraid +I've never thought about it."</p> + +<p>For a moment he stared at her as though he were enraptured by her reply. +With such eyes and such hair, she might have been as simple as she +appeared and he would never have known it. "Of course you haven't, or +you wouldn't be you!" he responded; and by the time she came to her +senses, she was following her mother and the negro urchin out of the +market. Though she was in reality walking over cinders, she felt that +her feet were treading on golden air.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE TREADWELLS</h3> + + +<p>Above the Dinwiddie of Virginia's girlhood, rising sharply out of the +smoothly blended level of personalities, there towered, as far back as +she could remember, the grim and yet strangely living figure of Cyrus +Treadwell. From the intimate social life of the town he had remained +immovably detached; but from the beginning it had been impossible for +that life to ignore him. Among a people knit by a common pulse, yet +separated by a multitude of individual differences, he stood aloof and +indispensable, like one of the gaunt iron bridges of his great railroad. +He was at once the destroyer and the builder—the inexorable foe of the +old feudal order and the beneficent source of the new industrialism. +Though half of Dinwiddie hated him, the other half (hating him, perhaps +none the less) ate its bread from his hands. The town, which had lived, +fought, lost, and suffered not as a group of individuals, but as a +psychological unit, had surrendered at last, less to the idea of +readjustment than to the indomitable purpose of a single mind.</p> + +<p>And yet nobody in Dinwiddie, not even Miss Willy Whitlow, who sewed out +by the day, and knew the intimate structure of every skeleton in every +closet of the town—nobody could tell the precise instant at which Cyrus +had ceased to be an ordinary man and become a great one. A phrase, +which had started as usual, "The Mr. Treadwell, you know, who married +poor Belinda Bolingbroke—" swerved suddenly to "Cyrus Treadwell told me +that, and you must admit that <i>he</i> knows what he is talking about"—and +a reputation was made! His marriage to "poor Belinda," which had at +first appeared to be the most conspicuous fact in his career, dwindled +to insignificance beside the rebuilding of the tobacco industry and his +immediate elevation to the vacant presidency of one of the Machlin +railroads.</p> + +<p>It was true that in the meantime he had fought irreproachably, but +without renown, through a number of battles; and returning to a +vanquished and ruined city, had found himself still young enough to go +to school again in matters of finance. Whether he had learned from +Antrum, the despised carpet-bagger for Machlin & Company, or had taken +his instructions at first hand from the great Machlin himself, was in +the eighties an open question in Dinwiddie. The choice was probably +given him to learn or starve; and aided by the keen understanding and +the acute sense of property he had inherited from his Scotch-Irish +parentage, he had doubtless decided that to learn was, after all, the +easier way. Saving he had always been, and yet with such strange and +sudden starts of generosity that he had been known to seek out distant +obscure maiden relatives and redeem the mortgaged roof over their heads. +His strongest instinct, which was merely an attenuated shoot from his +supreme feeling for possessions, was that of race, though he had +estranged both his son and his daughter by his stubborn conviction that +he was not doing his duty by them except when he was making their lives +a burden. For, as with most men who have suffered in their youth under +oppression, his ambition was not so much to relieve the oppressed as to +become in his turn the oppressor. Owing, perhaps, to his fine +Scotch-Irish blood, which ran a little muddy in his veins, he had never +lost a certain primitive feeling of superstition, like the decaying root +of a religious instinct; and he was as strict in his attendance upon +church as he was loose in applying the principles of Christianity to his +daily life. Sunday was vaguely associated in his mind with such popular +fetiches as a frock coat and a roast of beef; and if the roast had been +absent from dinner, he would have felt precisely the same indefinite +disquietude that troubled him when the sermon was left out of the +service. So completely did his outward life shape itself around the +inner structure of his thought, that, except for the two days of the +week which he spent with unfailing regularity in Wall Street, he might +have been said to live only in his office. Once when his doctor had +prescribed exercise for a slight dyspepsia, he had added a few +additional blocks to his morning and evening walk, and it was while he +was performing this self-inflicted penance that he came upon Gabriel, +who was hastening toward him in behalf of John Henry.</p> + +<p>For an instant a gleam of light shone on Cyrus's features, and they +stood out, palely illuminated, like the features of a bronze statue +above which a torch suddenly flares. His shoulders, which stooped until +his coat had curved in the back, straightened themselves with a jerk, +while he held out his hand, on which an old sabre cut was still visible. +This faded scar had always seemed to Gabriel the solitary proof that +the great man was created of flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>"I've come about a little matter of business," began the rector in an +apologetic tone, for in Cyrus's presence he was never without an uneasy +feeling that the problems of the spirit were secondary to the problems +of finance.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm just going into the office. Come in and sit down. I'm glad to +see you. You bring back the four happiest years of my life, Gabriel."</p> + +<p>"And of mine, too. It's queer, isn't it, how the savage seems to sleep +in the most peaceable of men? We were half starved in those days, half +naked, and without the certainty that we'd live until sunset—but, +dreadful as it sounds, I was happier then—God help me!—than I've ever +been before or since."</p> + +<p>Passing through an outer office, where a number of young men were +bending over ledgers, they entered Cyrus's private room, and sat down in +two plain pine chairs under the coloured lithograph of an engine which +ornamented the largest space on the wall. The room was bare of the most +ordinary comforts, as though its owner begrudged the few dollars he must +spend to improve his surroundings.</p> + +<p>"Well, those days are over, and you say it's business that you've come +about?" retorted Cyrus, not rudely, but with the manner of a man who +seldom wastes words and whose every expenditure either of time or of +money must achieve some definite result.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's business." The rector's tone had chilled a little, and he +added in spite of his judgment, "I'm afraid it's a favour. Everybody +comes begging to you, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Then, it's the Sunday-school picnic, I reckon. I haven't forgotten it. +Smithson!" An alert young man appeared at the door. "Make a note that +Mr. Pendleton wants coaches for the Saint James' Church picnic on the +twenty-ninth. You said twenty-ninth, didn't you, Gabriel?"</p> + +<p>"If the weather's good," replied Gabriel meekly, and then as Smithson +withdrew, he glanced nervously at the lithograph of the engine. "But it +wasn't about the picnic that I came," he said. "The fact is, I wanted to +ask you to use your influence in the matter of getting John Henry a +place in the bank. He has done very well at the night school, and I +believe that you would find him entirely satisfactory."</p> + +<p>At the first mention of the bank, a look of distrust crept into Cyrus's +face—a look cautious, alert, suspicious, such as he wore at directors' +meetings when there was a chance that something might be got out of him +if for a minute he were to go off his guard.</p> + +<p>"I feel a great responsibility for him," resumed Gabriel almost sternly, +though he was painfully aware that his assurance had deserted him.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go to James? James is the one to see about such a +matter."</p> + +<p>If the rector had spoken the thought in his mind, he would have +answered, "Because James reminds me of a fish and I can't abide him"; +but instead, he replied simply, "I know James so slightly that I don't +feel in a position to ask a favour of him."</p> + +<p>The expression of suspicion left Cyrus's face, and he relaxed from the +strained attitude in which he had sat ever since the Sunday-school +picnic had been dismissed from the conversation. Leaning back in his +chair, he drew two cigars from the pocket of his coat, and after +glancing a little reluctantly at them both, offered one to the rector. +"I believe he really wanted me to refuse it!" flashed through Gabriel's +mind like an arrow—though the other's hesitation had been, in fact, +only an unconscious trick of manner which he had acquired during the +long lean years when he had fattened chiefly by not giving away. The +gift of a cigar could mean nothing to a man who willingly contributed to +every charity in town, but the trivial gestures that accompany one's +early habits occasionally outlast the peculiar circumstances from which +they spring.</p> + +<p>For a few minutes they smoked in silence. Then Cyrus remarked in his +precise voice: "James is a clever fellow—a clever fellow."</p> + +<p>"I've heard that he is as good as right hand to you. That's a fine thing +to say of a son."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I don't know what I should do without James. He's a saving hand, +and, I tell you, there are more fortunes made by saving than by +gambling."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't think James need ever give you any concern on that +account," replied Gabriel, not without gentle satire, for he recalled +several unpleasant encounters with the younger Treadwell on the subject +of charity. "But I've heard different tales of that nephew of yours who +has just come back from God knows what country."</p> + +<p>"He's Henry's son," replied Cyrus with a frown. "You haven't forgotten +Henry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I remember. Henry and George both went out to Australia to open +the tobacco market, and Henry died poor while George lived and got rich, +I believe?"</p> + +<p>"George kept free of women and attended to his affairs," returned Cyrus, +who was as frank about his family as he was secretive about his +business.</p> + +<p>"But what about Henry's son? He's a promising chap, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>"It depends upon what you call promising, I reckon. Before he came I +thought of putting him into the bank, but since I've seen him, I can't, +for the life of me, think of anything to do with him. Unless, of course, +you could see your way toward taking him into the ministry," he +concluded with sardonic humour.</p> + +<p>"His views on theology would prevent that, I fear," replied the rector, +while all the kindly little wrinkles leaped out around his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Views? What do anybody's views matter who can't make a living? But to +tell the truth, there's something about him that I don't trust. He isn't +like Henry, so he must take after that pretty fool Henry married. Now, +if he had James's temper, I could make something out of him, but he's +different—he's fly-up-the-creek—he's as flighty as a woman."</p> + +<p>Gabriel, who had been a little cheered to learn that the young man, with +all his faults, did not resemble James, hastened to assure Cyrus that +there might be some good in the boy, after all—that he was only +twenty-two, and that, in any case, it was too soon to pass judgment.</p> + +<p>"I can't stand his talk," returned the other grimly. "I've never heard +anybody but a preacher—I beg your pardon, Gabriel, nothing +personal!—who could keep going so long when nobody was listening. A +mere wind-bag, that's what he is, with a lot of nonsensical ideas about +his own importance. If there wasn't a girl in the house, it would be no +great matter, but that Susan of mine is so headstrong that I'm half +afraid she'll get crazy and imagine she's fallen in love with him."</p> + +<p>This proof of parental anxiety touched Gabriel in his tenderest spot. +After all, though Cyrus had a harsh surface, there was much good at the +bottom of him. "I can enter into your feelings about that," he answered +sympathetically, "though my Jinny, I am sure, would never allow herself +to think seriously about a man without first asking my opinion of him."</p> + +<p>"Then you're fortunate," commented Cyrus dryly, "for I don't believe +Susan would give a red cent for what I'd think if she once took a fancy. +She'd as soon elope with that wild-eyed scamp as eat her dinner, if it +once entered her head."</p> + +<p>A knock came at the door, and Smithson entered and conferred with his +employer over a telegram, while Gabriel rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"By the way," said Cyrus, turning abruptly from his secretary and +stopping the rector as he was about to pass out of the door, "I was just +wondering if you remembered the morning after Lee's surrender, when we +started home on the road together?"</p> + +<p>"Why, yes." There was a note of surprise in Gabriel's answer, for he +remembered, also, that he had sold his watch a little later in the day +to a Union soldier, and had divided the eighty dollars with Cyrus. For +an instant, he almost believed that the other was going to allude for +the first time to that incident.</p> + +<p>"Well, I've never forgotten that green persimmon tree by the roadside," +pursued the great man, "and the way you stopped under it and said, 'O +Lord, wilt Thou not work a miracle and make persimmons ripen in the +spring?'"</p> + +<p>"No, I'd forgotten it," rejoined Gabriel coolly, for he was hurt by the +piece of flippancy and was thinking the worst of Cyrus again.</p> + +<p>"You'd forgotten it? Well, I've a long memory, and I never forget. +That's one thing you may count on me for," he added, "a good memory. As +for John Henry—I'll see James about it. I'll see what James has to +say."</p> + +<p>When Gabriel had gone, accompanied as far as the outer door by the +secretary, Cyrus turned back to the window, and stood gazing over a +steep street or two, and past the gabled roof of an old stone house, to +where in the distance the walls of the new building of the Treadwell +Tobacco Company were rising. Around the skeleton structure he could see +the workmen moving like ants, while in a widening circle of air the +smoke of other factories floated slowly upward under a brazen sky. +"There are too many of them," he thought bitterly. "It's competition +that kills. There are too many of them."</p> + +<p>So rapt was his look while he stood there that there came into his face +an expression of yearning sentiment that made it almost human. Then his +gaze wandered to the gleaming tracks of the two great railroads which +ran out of Dinwiddie toward the north, uncoiling their length like +serpents between the broad fields sprinkled with the tender green of +young crops. Beside them trailed the ashen country roads over which +farmers were crawling with their covered wagons; but, while Cyrus +watched from his height, there was as little thought in his mind for the +men who drove those wagons through the parching dust as for the beasts +that drew them. It is possible even that he did not see them, for just +as Mrs. Pendleton's vision eliminated the sight of suffering because her +heart was too tender to bear it, so he overlooked all facts except those +which were a part of the dominant motive of his life. Nearer still, +within the narrow board fences which surrounded the backyards of negro +hovels, under the moving shadows of broad-leaved mulberry or sycamore +trees, he gazed down on the swarms of mulatto children; though to his +mind that problem, like the problem of labour, loomed vague, detached, +and unreal—a thing that existed merely in the air, not in the concrete +images that he could understand.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's a pity Gabriel never made more of himself," he thought +kindly. "Yes, it's a pity. I'll see what I can do for him."</p> + +<p>At six o'clock that evening, when the end of his business day had come, +he joined James at the door for his walk back to Bolingbroke Street.</p> + +<p>"Have you done anything about Jones's place in the bank?" was the first +question he asked after his abrupt nod of greeting.</p> + +<p>"No, sir. I thought you were waiting to find out about Oliver."</p> + +<p>"Then you thought wrong. The fellow's a fool. Look up that nephew of +Gabriel Pendleton, and see if he is fit for the job. I am sorry Jones is +dead," he added with a touch of feeling. "I remember I got him that +place the year after the war, and I never knew him to be ten minutes +late during all the time that I worked with him."</p> + +<p>"But what are we to do with Oliver?" inquired James after a pause. "Of +course he wouldn't be much good in the bank, but——"</p> + +<p>And without finishing his sentence, he glanced up in a tentative, +non-committal manner into Cyrus's face. He was a smaller and somewhat +imperfect copy of his father, naturally timid, and possessed of a +superstitious feeling that he should die in an accident. His thin anæmic +features lacked the strength of the Treadwells, though in his cautious +and taciturn way he was very far indeed from being the fool people +generally thought him. Since he had never loved anything with passion +except money, he was regarded by his neighbours as a man of +unimpeachable morality.</p> + +<p>At the end of the block, while the long pointed shadows of their feet +kept even pace on the stone crossing, Cyrus answered abruptly: "Put him +anywhere out of my sight. I can't bear the look of him."</p> + +<p>"How would you like to give him something to do on the road? Put him +under Borrows, for instance, and let him learn a bit about freight?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care. Only don't let me see him—he turns my stomach."</p> + +<p>"Then as long as we've got to support him, I'll tell him he may try his +hand at the job of assistant freight agent, if he wants to earn his +keep."</p> + +<p>"He'll never do that—just as well put him down under 'waste,' and have +done with him," replied Cyrus, chuckling.</p> + +<p>A little girl, rolling a hoop, tripped and fell at his feet, and he +nodded at her kindly, for he had a strong physical liking for children, +though he had never stopped to think about them in a human or personal +way. He had, indeed, never stopped to think about anything except the +absorbing problem of how to make something out of nothing. Everything +else, even his marriage, had made merely a superficial impression upon +him. What people called his "luck" was only the relentless pursuit of an +idea; and in this pursuit all other sides of his nature had been sapped +of energy. From the days when he had humbly accepted small commissions +from the firm of Machlin & Company, to the last few years, when he had +come to be regarded almost superstitiously as the saviour of sinking +properties, he had moved quietly, cautiously, and unswervingly in one +direction. The blighting panic of ten years before had hardly touched +him, so softly had he ventured, and so easy was it for him to return to +his little deals and his diet of crumbs. They were bad times, those +years, alike for rich and poor, for Northerner and Southerner; but in +the midst of crashing firms and noiseless factories, he had cut down his +household expenses to a pittance and had gone on as secretively as +ever—waiting, watching, hoping, until the worst was over and Machlin & +Company had found their man. Then, a little later, with the invasion of +the cigarette, there went up the new Treadwell factory which the subtle +minded still attributed to the genius of Cyrus. Even before George and +Henry had sailed for Australia, the success of the house in Dinwiddie +was assured. There was hardly a drug store in America in those days that +did not offer as its favourite James's crowning triumph, the Magnolia +cigarette. A few years later, competition came like a whirlwind, but in +the beginning the Treadwell brand held the market alone, and in those +few years Cyrus's fortune was made.</p> + +<p>"Heard from George lately?" he inquired, when they had traversed, +accompanied by their long and narrow shadows, another couple of blocks. +The tobacco trade had always been for him merely a single pawn in the +splendid game he was playing, but he had suspected recently that James +felt something approaching a sentiment for the Magnolia cigarette, and +true to the Treadwell scorn of romance, he was forever trying to trick +him into an admission of guilt.</p> + +<p>"Not since that letter I showed you a month ago," answered James. "Too +much competition, that's the story everywhere. They are flooding the +market with cigarettes, and if it wasn't for the way the Magnolia holds +on, we'd be swamped in little or no time."</p> + +<p>"Well, I reckon the Claypole would pull us through," commented Cyrus. +The Claypole was an old brand of plug tobacco with which the first +Treadwell factory had started. "But you're right about competition. It's +got to stop or we'll be driven clean out of the business."</p> + +<p>He drew out his latchkey as he spoke, for they had reached the corner of +Bolingbroke Street, and the small dingy house in which they lived was +only a few doors away. As they passed between the two blossoming +oleanders in green tubs on the sidewalk, James glanced up at the flat +square roof, and observed doubtfully, "You'll be getting out of this old +place before long now, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"Oh, someday, someday," answered Cyrus. "There'll be time enough when +the market settles and we can see where the money is coming from."</p> + +<p>Once every year, in the spring, James asked his father this question, +and once every year he received exactly the same answer. In his mind, +Cyrus was always putting off the day when he should move into a larger +house, for though he got richer every week, he never seemed to get quite +rich enough to commit himself to any definite change in his +circumstances. Of course, in the nature of things, he knew that he ought +to have left Bolingbroke Street long ago; there was hardly a family +still living there with whom his daughter associated, and she complained +daily of having to pass saloons and barber shops whenever she went out +of doors. But the truth was that in spite of his answer to James's +annual question, neither of them wanted to move away from the old home, +and each hoped in his heart that he should never be forced into doing +so. Cyrus had become wedded to the house as a man becomes wedded to a +habit, and since the clinging to a habit was the only form of sentiment +of which he was capable, he shrank more and more from what he felt to be +the almost unbearable wrench of moving. A certain fidelity of purpose, +the quality which had lifted him above the petty provincialism that +crippled James, made the display of wealth as obnoxious to him as the +possession of it was agreeable. As long as he was conscious that he +controlled the industrial future of Dinwiddie, it was a matter of +indifference to him whether people supposed him to be a millionaire or a +pauper. In time he would probably have to change his way of living and +put an end to his life-long practice of saving; but, meanwhile, he was +quite content to go on year after year mending the roof and the chimneys +of the old house into which he had moved the week after his marriage.</p> + +<p>Entering the hall, he hung his hat on the walnut hat-rack in the dark +corner behind the door, and followed the worn strip of blue and red +oilcloth which ran up the narrow staircase to the floor above. Where the +staircase bent sharply in the middle, the old-fashioned mahogany +balustrade shone richly in the light of a gas-jet which jutted out on a +brass stem from the wall. Although a window on the upper floor was +opened wide to the sunset, the interior of the house had a close musty +smell, as if it had been shut up, uninhabited, for months. Cyrus had +never noticed the smell, for his senses, which were never acute, had +been rendered even duller than usual by custom.</p> + +<p>At the top of the stairs, a coloured washerwoman, accompanied by a +bright mulatto boy, who carried an empty clothes basket on his head, +waited humbly in the shadow for the two men to pass. She was a dark +glistening creature, with ox-like eyes, and the remains of a handsome +figure, now running to fat.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Marster," she murmured under her breath as Cyrus reached her, to +which he responded brusquely, "Howdy, Mandy," while he glanced with +unseeing eyes at the mulatto boy at her side. Then, as he walked rapidly +down the hall, with James at his heels, the woman turned back for a +minute and gazed after him with an expression of animal submission and +acquiescence. So little personal to Cyrus and so free from individual +consciousness was this look, that it seemed less the casual glance from +a servant to a master than the intimate aspect of a primitive racial +attitude toward life.</p> + +<p>At the end of the hall, beyond the open door of the bedroom (which he +still occupied with his wife from an ineradicable conviction that all +respectable married persons slept together no matter how uncomfortable +they might be), Cyrus discerned the untidy figure of Mrs. Treadwell +reflected in a mirror before which she stood brushing her back hair +straight up from her neck to a small round knot on the top of her head. +She was a slender, flat-chested woman, whose clothes, following some +natural bent of mind, appeared never to be put on quite straight or +properly hooked and buttoned. It was as if she perpetually dressed in a +panic, forgetting to fasten her placket, to put on her collar or to mend +the frayed edges of her skirt. When she went out, she still made some +spasmodic attempts at neatness; but Susan's untiring efforts and +remonstrances had never convinced her that it mattered how one looked in +the house—except indeed when a formal caller arrived, for whom she +hastily tied a scarf at the neck of her dirty basque and flung a purple +wool shawl over her shoulders. Her spirit had been too long broken for +her to rebel consciously against her daughter's authority; but her mind +was so constituted that the sense of order was missing, and the pretty +coquetry of youth, which had masqueraded once as the more enduring +quality of self-respect, was extinguished in the five and thirty +penitential years of her marriage. She had a small vacant face, where +the pink and white had run into muddiness, a mouth that sagged at the +corners like the mouth of a frightened child, and eyes of a sickly +purple, which had been compared by Cyrus to "sweet violets," in the only +compliment he ever paid her. Thirty-five years ago, in one of those +attacks of indiscretion which overtake the most careful man in the +spring, Cyrus had proposed to her; and when she declined him, he had +immediately repeated his offer, animated less by any active desire to +possess her, than by the dogged male determination to over-ride all +obstacles, whether feminine or financial. And pretty Belinda +Bolingbroke, being alone and unsupported by other suitors at the +instant, had entwined herself instinctively around the nearest male prop +that offered. It had been one of those marriages of opposites which +people (ignoring the salient fact that love has about as much part in it +as it has in the pursuit of a spring chicken by a hawk) speak of with +sentiment as "a triumph of love over differences." Even in the first +days of their engagement, there could be found no better reason for +their marriage than the meeting of Cyrus's stubborn propensity to have +his way with the terror of imaginary spinsterhood which had seized +Belinda in a temporary lapse of suitors. Having married, they +immediately proceeded, as if by mutual consent, to make the worst of it. +She, poor fluttering dove-like creature, had lost hope at the first +rebuff, and had let go all the harmless little sentiments that had +sweetened her life; while he, having married a dove by choice and +because of her doveliness, had never forgiven her that she did not +develop into a brisk, cackling hen of the barnyard. As usually happens +in the cases where "love triumphs over differences," he had come at last +to hate her for the very qualities which had first caught his fancy. His +ideal woman (though he was perfectly unconscious that she existed) was a +managing thrifty soul, in a starched calico dress, with a natural +capacity for driving a bargain; and Life, with grim humour, had rewarded +this respectable preference by bestowing upon him feeble and insipid +Belinda, who spent sleepless nights trying to add three and five +together, but who could never, to save her soul, remember to put down +the household expenses in the petty cash book. It was a case, he +sometimes told himself, of a man, who had resisted temptation all his +life, being punished for one instant's folly more harshly than if he +were a practised libertine. No libertine, indeed, could have got himself +into such a scrape, for none would have surrendered so completely to a +single manifestation of the primal force. To play the fool once, he +reflected bitterly, when his brief intoxication was over, is after all +more costly than to play it habitually. Had he pursued a different pair +of violet eyes every evening, he would never have ended by embracing the +phantom that was Belinda.</p> + +<p>But it was more than thirty years since Cyrus had taken the trouble to +turn his unhappiness into philosophy—for, aided by time, he had become +reconciled to his wife as a man becomes reconciled to a physical +infirmity. Except for that one eventful hour in April, women had stood +for so little in his existence, that he had never stopped to wonder if +his domestic relations might have been pleasanter had he gone about the +business of selection as carefully as he picked and chose the tobacco +for his factory. Even the streak of sensuality in his nature did not run +warm as in the body of an ordinary mortal, and his vices, like his +virtues, had become so rarefied in the frozen air of his intelligence +that they were no longer recognizable as belonging to the common +frailties of men.</p> + +<p>"Ain't you dressed yet?" he inquired without looking at his wife as he +entered—for having long ago lost his pride of possession in her, he had +ceased to regard her as of sufficient importance to merit the ordinary +civilities.</p> + +<p>"I was helping Miss Willy whip one of Susan's flounces," she answered, +turning from the mirror, with the hairbrush held out like a peace +offering before her. "We wanted to get through to-day," she added +nervously, "so Miss Willy can start on Jinny Pendleton's dress the first +thing in the morning."</p> + +<p>If Cyrus had ever permitted himself the consolation of doubtful +language, he would probably have exclaimed with earnestness, "Confound +Miss Willy!" but he came of a stock which condemned an oath, or even an +expletive, on its face value, so this natural outlet for his irritation +was denied him. Instead, therefore, of replying in words, he merely +glanced sourly at the half-open door, through which issued the whirring +noise of the little dressmaker at her sewing. Now and then, in the +intervals when her feet left the pedal, she could be heard humming +softly to herself with her mouth full of pins.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she going?" asked Cyrus presently, while he washed his hands at +the washstand in one corner and dried them on a towel which Belinda had +elaborately embroidered in red. Peering through the crack of the door as +he put the question, he saw Miss Willy hurriedly pulling basting threads +out of a muslin skirt, and the fluttering bird-like motions of her hands +increased the singular feeling of repulsion with which she inspired him. +Though he was aware that she was an entirely harmless person, and, +more-over, that her "days" supplied the only companionship his wife +really enjoyed, he resented angrily the weeks of work and gossip which +the little seamstress spent under his roof. Put two gabbling women like +that together and you could never tell what stories would be set going +about you before evening! A suspicion, unfortunately too well founded, +that his wife had whimpered out her heart to the whirring accompaniment +of Miss Willy's machine, had caused him once or twice to rise in his +authority and forbid the dressmaker the house; but, in doing so, he had +reckoned without the strength which may lie in an unscrupulous weakness. +Belinda, who had never fought for anything else in her life, refused +absolutely to give up her dressmaker. "If I can't see her here, I'll go +to her house," she had said, and Cyrus had yielded at last as the bully +always yields before the frenzied violence of his victim.</p> + +<p>After a hasty touch to the four round flat curls on her forehead, Mrs. +Treadwell turned from the bureau with her habitually hopeless air, and +slipped her thin arms into the tight sleeves of a black silk basque +which she took up from the bed.</p> + +<p>"Did you see Oliver when you came in?" she asked. "He was in here +looking for you a few minutes ago."</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't see him, but I'm going to. He's got to give up this +highfaluting nonsense of his if he expects me to support him. There's +one thing the fellow's got to understand, and that is that he can choose +between his precious stuff and his bread and meat. Before I give him a +job, he'll have to let me see that he is done with all this business of +play-writing."</p> + +<p>A frightened look came into his wife's face, and indifferently glancing +at her as he finished, he was arrested by something enigmatical and yet +familiar in her features. A dim vision of the way she had looked at him +in the early days of their marriage floated an instant before him.</p> + +<p>"Do you think he wants to do that?" she asked, with a little sound as if +she had drawn her breath so sharply that it whistled. What in thunder +was the matter with the woman? he wondered irritably. Of course she was +a fool about the scamp—all the women, even Susan, lost their heads over +him—but, after all, why should it make any difference to her whether he +wrote plays or took freight orders, as long as he managed to feed +himself?</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't reckon it has come to a question of what he wants," he +rejoined shortly.</p> + +<p>"But the boy's heart is bound up in his ambition," urged Belinda, with +an energy he had witnessed in her only once before in her life, and that +was on the occasion of her historic defence of the seamstress.</p> + +<p>For a moment Cyrus stared at her with attention, almost with curiosity. +Then he opened his lips for a crushing rejoinder, but thinking better of +his impulse, merely repeated dryly, "His heart?" before he turned toward +the door. On the threshold he looked back and added, "The next time you +see him, tell him I'd like a word with him."</p> + +<p>Left alone in her room, Mrs. Treadwell sat down in a rocking-chair by +the window, and clasped her hands tightly in her lap with a nervous +gesture which she had acquired in long periods of silent waiting on +destiny. Her mental attitude, which was one of secret, and usually +passive, antagonism to her husband, had stamped its likeness so +indelibly upon her features, that, sitting there in the wan light, she +resembled a woman who suffers from the effects of some slow yet deadly +sickness. Lacking the courage to put her revolt into words, she had +allowed it to turn inward and embitter the hidden sources of her being. +In the beginning she had asked so little of life that the denial of that +little by Fate had appeared niggardly rather than tragic. A man—any man +who would have lent himself gracefully as an object of worship—would +have been sufficient material for the building of her happiness. +Marriage, indeed, had always appeared to her so desirable as an end in +itself, entirely apart from the personal peculiarities or possibilities +of a husband, that she had awakened almost with surprise one morning to +the knowledge that she was miserable. It was not so much that her +romance had met with open disaster as that it had simply faded away. +This gradual fading away of sentiment, which she had accepted at the +time as only one of the inevitable stages in the slow process of +emotional adjustment, would perhaps have made but a passing impression +on a soul to whom every other outlet into the world had not been closed +by either temperament or tradition. But love had been the one window +through which light could enter her house of Life; and when this +darkened, her whole nature had sickened and grown morbid. Then at last +all the corroding bitterness in her heart had gathered to a canker which +ached ceaselessly, like a physical sore, in her breast.</p> + +<p>"He saw I'd taken to Oliver—that's why he's anxious to spite him," she +thought resentfully as she stared with unseeing eyes out into the gray +twilight. "It's all just to worry me, that's why he is doing it. He +knows I couldn't be any fonder of the boy if he had come of my own +blood." And she who had been a Bolingbroke set her thin lips together +with the only consciousness of superiority to her husband that she had +ever known—the secret consciousness that she was better born. Out of +the wreck of her entire life, this was the floating spar to which she +still clung with a sense of security, and her imagination, by long +concentration upon the support that it offered, had exaggerated its +importance out of all proportion to the other props among which it had +its place. Like its imposing symbol, the Saint Memin portrait of the +great Archibald Bolingbroke, which lent distinction, by its very +inappropriateness, to the wall on which it hung, this hidden triumph +imparted a certain pathetic dignity to her manner.</p> + +<p>"That's all on earth it is," she repeated with a kind of smothered +fierceness. But, even while the words were on her lips, her face changed +and softened, for in the adjoining room a voice, full of charm, could be +heard saying: "Sewing still, Miss Willy? Don't you know that you are +guilty of an immoral act when you work overtime?"</p> + +<p>"I'm just this minute through, Mr. Oliver," answered the seamstress in +fluttering tones. "As soon as I fold this skirt, I'm going to quit and +put on my bonnet."</p> + +<p>A few more words followed, and then the door opened wider and Oliver +entered—with his ardent eyes, his irresolute mouth, and his physical +charm which brought an air of vital well-being into the depressing +sultriness of the room.</p> + +<p>"I missed you downstairs, Aunt Belinda. You haven't a headache, I hope," +he said, and there was the same caressing kindness in his tone which he +had used to the dressmaker. It was as if his sympathy, like his charm, +which cost him so little because it was the gift of Nature, overflowed +in every casual expression of his temperament.</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't a headache, dear," replied Mrs. Treadwell, putting up her +hand to his cheek as he leaned over her. "Your uncle is waiting for you +in the library, so you'd better go down at once," she added, catching +her breath as she had done when Cyrus first spoke to her about Oliver.</p> + +<p>"Have you any idea what it means? Did he tell you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, he wants to talk to you about business."</p> + +<p>"The deuce he does! Well, if that's it, I'd be precious glad to get out +of it. You don't suppose I could cut it, do you? Susan is going to take +me to the Pendletons' after supper, and I'd like to run upstairs now and +make a change."</p> + +<p>"No, you'd better go down to him. He doesn't like to be kept waiting."</p> + +<p>"All right, then—since you say so."</p> + +<p>Meeting the dressmaker on the threshold, he forgot to answer her +deprecating bow in his eagerness to have the conversation with Cyrus +over and done with.</p> + +<p>"I declare, he does startle a body when you ain't used to him," observed +Miss Willy, with a bashful giggle. She was a diminutive, sparrow-like +creature, with a natural taste for sick-rooms and death-beds, and an +inexhaustible fund of gossip. As Mrs. Treadwell, for once, did not +respond to her unspoken invitation to chat, she tied her bonnet strings +under her sharp little chin, and taking up her satchel went out again, +after repeating several times that she would be "back the very minute +Mrs. Pendleton was through with her." A few minutes later, Belinda, +still seated by the window, saw the shrunken figure ascend the area +steps and cross the dusty street with a rapid and buoyant step, as +though she, also, plain, overworked and penniless, was feeling the +delicious restlessness of the spring in her blood. "I wonder what on +earth she's got to make her skip like that," thought Belinda not without +bitterness. "I reckon she thinks she's just as important as anybody," +she added after an instant, touching, though she was unaware of it, the +profoundest truth of philosophy. "She's got nothing in the world but +herself, yet I reckon to her that is everything, even if it doesn't make +a particle of difference to anybody else whether she is living or dead."</p> + +<p>Her eyes were still on Miss Willy, who stepped on briskly, swinging her +bag joyously before her, when the sound of Cyrus's voice, raised high in +anger, came up to her from the library. A short silence followed; then a +door opened and shut quickly, and rapid footsteps passed up the +staircase and along the hall outside of her room. While she waited, +overcome by the nervous indecision which attacked her like palsy +whenever she was forced to take a definite action, Susan ran up the +stairs and called her name in a startled and shaking voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, father has quarrelled dreadfully with Oliver and ordered +him out of the house!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>OLIVER, THE ROMANTIC</h3> + + +<p>An hour later Oliver stood before the book-shelves in his room, wrapping +each separate volume in newspapers. Downstairs in the basement, he knew, +the family were at supper, but he had vowed, in his splendid scorn of +material things, that he would never eat another morsel under Cyrus's +roof. Even when his aunt, trembling in every limb, had brought him +secretly from the kitchen a cup of coffee and a plate of waffles, he had +refused to unlock his door and permit her to enter. "I'll come out when +I am ready to leave," he had replied to her whispered entreaties.</p> + +<p>It was a small room, furnished chiefly by book-shelves, which were still +unfinished, and with a depressing view from a single window of red tin +roofs and blackened chimneys. Above the chimneys a narrow band of sky, +spangled with a few stars, was visible from where Oliver stood, and now +and then he stopped in his work and gazed up at it with an exalted and +resolute look. Sometimes a thin shred of smoke floated in from the +kitchen chimney, and hung, as if drawn and held there by some magnetic +attraction, around the kerosene lamp on a corner of the washstand. The +sultriness of the night, which was oppressive even in the street, was +almost stifling in the little room with its scant western exposure.</p> + +<p>But the flame burning in Oliver's breast had purged away such petty +considerations as those for material comforts. He had risen above the +heat, above the emptiness of his pockets, above the demands of his +stomach. It was a matter of complete indifference to him whether he +slept in a house or out of doors, whether he ate or went hungry. His +exaltation was so magnificent that while it lasted he felt that he had +conquered the physical universe. He was strong! He was free! And it was +characteristic of his sanguine intellect that the future should appear +to him at the instant as something which existed not beyond him, but +actually within his grasp. Anger had liberated his spirit as even art +had not done; and he felt that all the blood in his body had rushed to +his brain and given him the mastery over circumstances. He forgot +yesterday as easily as he evaded to-day and subjugated to-morrow. The +past, with its starved ambitions, its tragic failures, its blighting +despondencies, melted away from him into obscurity; and he remembered +only the brief alternating hours of ecstasy and of accomplishment. With +his wind-blown, flame-like temperament, oscillating in the heat of youth +between the inclinations he miscalled convictions, he was still, though +Cyrus had disowned him, only a romantic variation from the Treadwell +stock. Somewhere, in the depths of his being, the essential Treadwell +persisted. He hated Cyrus as a man hates his own weakness; he revolted +from materialism as only a materialist in youth revolts.</p> + +<p>A knock came at his door, and pausing, with a volume of Heine still +unwrapped in his hand, he waited in silence until his visitor should +retire down the stairs. But instead of Mrs. Treadwell's trembling +tones, he heard, after a moment, the firm and energetic voice of Susan.</p> + +<p>"Oliver, I must speak to you. If you won't unlock your door, I'll sit +down on the steps and wait until you come out."</p> + +<p>"I'm packing my books. I wish you'd go away, Susan."</p> + +<p>"I haven't the slightest intention of going away until I've talked with +you——" and, then, being one of those persons who are born with the +natural gift of their own way, she laid her hand on the door-knob while +Oliver impatiently turned the key in the lock.</p> + +<p>"Since you are here, you might as well come in and help," he remarked +none too graciously, as he made way for her to enter.</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll help you—but, oh, Oliver, what in the world are you +going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't thought. I'm too busy, but I'll manage somehow."</p> + +<p>"Father was terrible. I heard him all the way upstairs in my room. But," +she looked at him a little doubtfully, "don't you think he will get over +it?"</p> + +<p>"He may, but I shan't. I'd rather starve than live under a petty tyranny +like that?"</p> + +<p>"I know," she nodded, and he saw that she understood him. It was +wonderful how perfectly, from the very first instant, she had understood +him. She grasped things, too, by intelligence, not by intuition, and he +found this refreshing in an age when the purely feminine was in fashion. +Never had he seen a finer example of young, buoyant, conquering +womanhood—of womanhood freed from the consciousness and the +disabilities of sex. "She's not the sort of girl a man would lose his +head over," he reflected; "there's too little of the female about +her—she's as free from coquetry as she is from the folderol of +sentimentality. She's a free spirit, and God knows how she ever came out +of the Treadwells." Her beauty even wasn't of the kind that usually goes +by the name. He didn't suppose there were ten men in Dinwiddie who would +turn to look back at her—but, by Jove, if she hadn't beauty, she had +the character that lends an even greater distinction. She looked as if +she could ride Life like a horse—could master it and tame it and break +it to the bridle.</p> + +<p>"It's amazing how you know things, Susan," he said, "and you've never +been outside of Dinwiddie."</p> + +<p>"But I've wanted to, and I sometimes think the wanting teaches one more +than the going."</p> + +<p>He thought over this for an instant, and then, as if the inner flame +which consumed him had leaped suddenly to the surface, he burst out +joyously: "I've come to the greatest decision of my life in this last +hour, Susan."</p> + +<p>Her eyes shone. "You mean you've decided not to do what father asks no +matter what happens?"</p> + +<p>"I've decided not to accept his conditions—no matter what happens," he +answered.</p> + +<p>"He was in earnest, then, about wanting you to give up writing?"</p> + +<p>"So much in earnest that he would give me a job only on those terms."</p> + +<p>"And you declined absolutely?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I declined absolutely."</p> + +<p>"But how will you live, Oliver?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can easily make thirty dollars a month by reviewing German books +for New York papers, and I dare say I can manage to pull through on +that. I'll have to stay in Dinwiddie, of course, because I couldn't live +anywhere else on nearly so little, and, besides, I shouldn't be able to +buy a ticket away."</p> + +<p>"That will be twenty dollars for your board," said the practical Susan, +"and you will have to make ten dollars a month cover all your other +expenses. Do you think you can do it?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to. Better men have done worse things, haven't they? Better +men have done worse things and written great plays while they were about +them."</p> + +<p>"I believe Mrs. Peachey would let you have a back room and board for +that," pursued Susan. "But it will cost you something to get your books +moved and the shelves put up there."</p> + +<p>"As soon as I get through this I'll go over and see her. Oh, I'm free, +Susan, I'm happy! Did you ever see an absolutely happy man before? I +feel as if a weight had rolled off my shoulders. I'm tired—dog-tired of +compromise and commercialism and all the rest of it. I've got something +to say to the world, and I'll go out and make my bed in the gutter +before I'll forfeit the opportunity of saying it. Do you know what that +means, Susan? Do you know what it is to be willing to give your life if +only you can speak out the thing that is inside of you?" The colour in +his face mounted to his forehead, while his eyes grew black with +emotion. In the smoky little room, Youth, with its fierce revolts, its +impassioned egoism, its inextinguishable faith in itself, delivered its +ultimatum to Life. "I've got to be true to myself, Susan! A man who +won't starve for his ambition isn't worth his salt, is he? And, besides, +the best work is all done not in plenty, but in poverty—the most +perfect art has grown from the poorest soil. If I were to accept Uncle +Cyrus's offer, I'd grow soft to the core in a month and be of no more +use than a rotten apple."</p> + +<p>His conviction lent a golden ring to his voice, and so winning to Susan +was the impetuous flow of his words, that she felt herself swept away +from all the basic common sense of her character. She saw his ambition +as clearly as he saw it; she weighed his purpose, as he weighed it, in +the imaginary scales of his judgment; she accepted his estimate of his +powers as passionately as he accepted it.</p> + +<p>"Of course you mustn't give up, Oliver; you couldn't," she said.</p> + +<p>"You're right, I couldn't."</p> + +<p>"If you can get steady reviewing, I believe you can manage," she +resumed. "Living in Dinwiddie costs really so very little." Her voice +thrilled suddenly. "It must be beautiful to have something that you feel +about like this. Oh, I wish I were you, Oliver! I wish a thousand times +I were you!"</p> + +<p>Withdrawing his eyes from the sky at which he had been gazing, he turned +to look at her as if her words had arrested him. "You're a dear girl," +he answered kindly, "and I think all the world of you." As he spoke he +thought again what a fine thing it would be for the man who could fall +in love with her. "It would be the best thing that could happen to any +man to marry a woman like that," he reflected; "she'd keep him up to the +mark and never let him grow soft. Yes, it would be all right if only +one could manage to fall in love with her—but I couldn't. She might as +well be a rose-bush for all the passion she'd ever arouse in me." Then +his charming egoism asserted itself, and he said caressingly: "I don't +believe I could stand Dinwiddie but for you, Susan."</p> + +<p>She smiled back at him, but there was a limpid clearness in her look +which made him feel that she had seen through him while he was thinking. +This clearness, with its utter freedom from affectation or +sentimentality, embarrassed him by its unlikeness to all the attributes +he mentally classified as feminine. To look straight seemed to him +almost as unwomanly as to throw straight, and Susan would, doubtless, be +quite capable of performing either of these difficult feats. He liked +her fine brow under the short fringe, which he hated, and he liked the +arched bridge of her nose and the generous curve of her mouth. Yet had +he stopped to analyze her, he would probably have said that the woman +spirit in her was expressed through character rather than through +emotion—a manifestation disconcerting to one whose vision of her sex +was chiefly as the irresponsible creature of drama. The old +shackles—even the shackles of that drama whose mistress and slave woman +had been—were out of place on the spirit which was incarnated in Susan. +Amid the cramping customs of the period, she moved large, free, and +simple, as though she walked already in the purer and more bracing air +of the future.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could help you," she said, stooping to pick up a newspaper +from a pile on the floor. "Here, let me wrap that Spinoza. I'm afraid +the back will come off if you aren't careful."</p> + +<p>"Of course a man has to work out his own career," he replied, as he +handed over the volume. "I doubt, when it comes to that, if anybody can +be of much help to another where his life's work is concerned. The main +thing, after all, is not to get in one's way, not to cripple one's +energy. I've got to be free—that's all there is about it. I've got to +belong to myself every instant."</p> + +<p>"And you know already just what you are going to do? About your writing, +I mean."</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. I've ideas enough to fill fifty ordinary lifetimes. I'm +simply seething with them. Why, that box over there in the corner is +full of plays that would start a national drama if the fool public had +sense enough to see what they are about. The trouble is that they don't +want life on the stage; they want a kind of theatrical wedding-cake. +And, by Jove, they get it! Any dramatist who tries to force people to +eat bread and meat when they are crying for sugar plums may as well +prepare to starve until the public begins to suffer from acute +indigestion. Then, if he isn't dead—or, perhaps, if he is—his hour +will come, and he will get his reward either here or in heaven."</p> + +<p>"So you'll go on just the same and wait until they're ready for you?" +asked Susan, laughing from sheer pride in him. "You'll never, never +cheapen yourself, Oliver?" For the first time in her life she was face +to face with an intellectual passion, and she felt almost as if she +herself were inspired.</p> + +<p>"Never. I've made my choice. I'll wait half a century if need be, but +I'll wait. I know, too, what I am talking about, for I could do the +other thing as easily as I could eat my dinner. I've got the trick of +it. I could make a fortune to-morrow if I were to lose my intellectual +honesty and go in simply for the making of money. Why, I am a Treadwell, +after all, just as you are, my dear cousin, and I could commercialize +the stage, I haven't a doubt, as successfully as your father has +commercialized the railroad. It's in the blood—the instinct, you +know—and the only thing that has kept it down in me is that I +sincerely—yes, I sincerely and enthusiastically believe that I am a +genius. If I didn't, do you think I'd stick at this starvation business +another fortnight? That's the whole story, every blessed word of it, and +I'm telling you because I feel expansive to-night—I'm such a tremendous +egoist, you know, and because—well, because you are Susan."</p> + +<p>"I think I understand a little bit how you feel," replied Susan. "Of +course, I'm not a genius, but I've thought sometimes that I should +almost be willing to starve if only I might go to college."</p> + +<p>Checking the words on his lips, he looked at her with sympathy. "It's a +shame you can't, but I suppose Uncle Cyrus won't hear of it."</p> + +<p>"I haven't asked him, but I am going to do it. I am so afraid of a +refusal—and, of course, he'll refuse—that I've lacked the courage to +speak of it."</p> + +<p>"Good God! Why is one generation left so absolutely at the mercy of the +other?" he demanded, turning back to the strip of sky over the roof. "It +makes a man rage to think of the lives that are spoiled for a whim. +Money, money—curse it!—it all comes to that in the end. Money makes us +and destroys us."</p> + +<p>"Do you remember what father said to you the other night—that you would +come at last to what you called the property idea and be exactly like +James and himself?"</p> + +<p>"If I thought that, I'd go out and hang myself. I can understand a man +selling his soul for drink, though I rarely touch a drop, or for women, +though I've never bothered about them, but never, not even in the last +extremity, for money."</p> + +<p>A door creaked somewhere on the second floor and a minute afterwards the +slow and hesitating feet of Mrs. Treadwell were heard ascending the +stairs.</p> + +<p>"Let her come in just a moment, Oliver," begged Susan, and her tone was +full of the impatient, slightly arrogant affection with which she +regarded her mother. There was little sympathy and less understanding +between them, but on Susan's side there was a feeling of protective +tenderness which was almost maternal. This tenderness was all her own, +while the touch of arrogance in her manner belonged to the universal +inability of youth to make allowances for age.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well," said Oliver indifferently; and going to the door, he opened +it and stood waiting for Mrs. Treadwell to enter.</p> + +<p>"I came up to ask if you wouldn't eat something, dear?" she asked. "But +I suppose Susan has brought you your supper?"</p> + +<p>"He won't touch a morsel, mother; it is useless to ask him. He is going +away just as soon as we have finished packing."</p> + +<p>"But where is he going? I didn't know that he had any place to go to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, a man can always find a place somewhere."</p> + +<p>"How can you take it so lightly, Susan," protested Mrs. Treadwell, +beginning to cry.</p> + +<p>"That's the only sensible way to take it, isn't it, Oliver?" asked +Susan, gaily.</p> + +<p>"Don't get into a fidget about me, Aunt Belinda," said Oliver, pushing +the pile of newspapers out of her way, while she sat down nervously on +the end of a packing-case and wiped her eyes on the fringe of her purple +shawl. The impulsive kindness with which he had spoken to her a few +hours before had vanished from his tone, and left in its place an accent +of irritation. His sympathy, which was never assumed, resulted so +entirely from his mood that it was practically independent of the person +or situation which appeared to inspire it. There were moments when, +because of a sensation of mental or physical well-being, he overflowed +with a feeling of tenderness for the beggar at the crossing; and there +were longer periods, following a sudden despondency, when the suffering +of his closest friend aroused in him merely a sense of personal outrage. +So complete, indeed, was his absorption in himself, that even his +philosophy was founded less upon an intellectual conception of the +universe than it was upon an intense preoccupation with his own +personality.</p> + +<p>"But you don't mean that you are going for good?—that you'll never come +back to see Susan and me again?" whimpered his aunt, while her sagging +mouth trembled.</p> + +<p>"You can't expect me to come back after the things Uncle Cyrus has said +to me."</p> + +<p>A look so bitter that it was almost venomous crept into Mrs. Treadwell's +face. "He just did it to worry me, Oliver. He has done everything he +could think of to worry me ever since he persuaded me to marry him. I +sometimes believe," she added, gloating over the idea like a decayed +remnant of the aristocratic spirit, "that he has always been jealous of +me because I was born a Bolingbroke."</p> + +<p>To Oliver, who had not like Susan grown accustomed through constant +repetition to Mrs. Treadwell's delusion, this appeared so fresh a view +of Cyrus's character, that it caught his interest even in the midst of +his own absorbing perplexities. Until he saw Susan's head shake +ominously over her mother's shoulder, it did not occur to him that his +aunt, whom he supposed to be without imagination, had created this +consoling belief out of her own mental vacancy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he wanted to worry me all right, there's no doubt about that," he +replied.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't spoken to me when he could help it for twenty years," pursued +his aunt, who was so possessed by the idea of her own relation to her +husband that she was incapable of dwelling upon any other.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't talk about it, mother, if I were you," said Susan with +resolute cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why I shouldn't talk about it. It's all I've got to talk +about," returned Mrs. Treadwell peevishly; and she added with smothered +resentment, "Even my children haven't been any comfort to me since they +were little. They've both turned against me because of the way their +father treats me. James hardly ever has so much as a word to say to me."</p> + +<p>"But I do, mother. How can you say such an unkind thing to me?"</p> + +<p>"You never do the things that I want you to. You know I'd like you to go +out and enjoy yourself and have attention as other girls do."</p> + +<p>"You are disappointed because I'm not a belle like Abby Goode or Jinny +Pendleton," said Susan with the patience that is born of a basic sense +of humour. "But I couldn't help that, could I?"</p> + +<p>"Any girl in my day would have felt badly if she wasn't admired," +pursued Mrs. Treadwell with the venom of the embittered weak, "but I +don't believe you'd care a particle if a man never looked at you twice."</p> + +<p>"If one never looked at me once, I don't see why you should want me to +be miserable about it," was Susan's smiling rejoinder; "and if the girls +in your day couldn't be happy without admiration, they must have been +silly creatures. I've a life of my own to live, and I'm not going to let +my happiness depend on how many times a man looks at me." In the clear +light of her ridicule, the spectre of spinsterhood, which was still an +object of dread in the Dinwiddie of the eighties, dissolved into a +shadow.</p> + +<p>"Well, we've about finished, I believe," remarked Oliver, closing the +case over which he was stooping, and devoutly thanking whatever +beneficent Powers had not created him a woman. "I'll send for these +sometime to-morrow, Aunt Belinda."</p> + +<p>"You'd just as well spend the night," urged Mrs. Treadwell stubbornly. +"He need never know of it."</p> + +<p>"But I'd know of it—that's the great thing—and I'd never forget it."</p> + +<p>Rising unsteadily from the box, she stood with the ends of her purple +shawl clutched tightly over her flat bosom. "Then you'll wait just a +minute. I've got something downstairs I'd like to give you," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, but won't you let me fetch it?"</p> + +<p>"You'd never find it," she answered mysteriously, and hurried out while +he held the door open to light her down the dark staircase.</p> + +<p>When her tread was heard at last on the landing below, Susan glanced at +the books that were still left on the shelves. "I'll pack the rest for +you to-morrow, Oliver, and your clothes, too. Have you any money?"</p> + +<p>"A little left from selling my watch in New York. My clothes don't +amount to much. I've got them all in that bag, but I'll leave my books +in your charge until I can find a place for them."</p> + +<p>"I'll take good care of them. O Oliver!" her face grew disturbed. "I +forgot all about my promise to Virginia that I'd bring you to see her +to-night."</p> + +<p>"Well, I've no time to meet girls now, of course, but that doesn't mean +that I'm not awfully knocked up about it."</p> + +<p>"I hate so to disappoint her."</p> + +<p>"She won't think of it twice, the beauty!"</p> + +<p>"But she will. I'm sure she will. Hush! Mother is coming."</p> + +<p>As he turned to the door, it opened slowly to admit the figure of his +aunt, who was panting heavily from her hurried ascent of the stairs. Her +ill-humour toward Susan had entirely disappeared, for the only +resentment she had ever harboured for more than a few minutes was the +life-long one which she had borne her husband.</p> + +<p>"It was not in the place where I had put it, so I thought one of the +servants had taken it," she explained. "Mandy was alone in my room +to-day while I was at dinner."</p> + +<p>In her hand she held a small pasteboard box bearing a jeweller's +imprint, and opening this, she took out a roll of money and counted out +fifty dollars on the top of a packing-case. "I've saved this up for six +months," she said. "It came from selling some silver forks that belonged +to the Bolingbrokes, and I always felt easier to think that I had a +little laid away that he had nothing to do with. From the very day that +I married him, he was always close about money," she added.</p> + +<p>The sordid tragedy—not of poverty, but of meanness—was in the gesture +with which she gathered up the notes and pressed them into his shrinking +hands. And yet Cyrus Treadwell was a rich man—the richest man living in +Dinwiddie! Oliver understood now why she was crushed—why she had become +the hopeless victim of the little troubles of life. "From the very day +of our marriage, he was always close about money."</p> + +<p>"I had three dozen forks and spoons in the beginning," she resumed as if +there were no piercing significance in the fact she stated so simply, +"but I've sold them all now, one or two at a time, when I needed a +little money of my own. He has always paid the bills, but he never gave +me a cent in my life to do as I pleased with."</p> + +<p>"I can't take it from you, Aunt Belinda. It would burn my fingers."</p> + +<p>"It's mine. I've got a right to do as I choose with it," she persisted +almost passionately, "and I'd rather give it to you than buy anything in +the world." Something in her face—the look of one who has risen to a +generous impulse and finds happiness in the sacrifice—checked the hand +with which he was thrusting the money away from him. He was deeply +touched by her act; it was useless for him to pretend either to her or +to himself that she had not touched him. The youth in him, unfettered, +strong, triumphant, pitied her because she was no longer young; the +artist in him pitied her because she was no longer beautiful. Without +these two things, or at least one of these two, what was life worth to a +woman?</p> + +<p>"I'll take it on condition that you'll let me pay it back as soon as I +get out of debt to Uncle Cyrus," he said in obedience to Susan's +imploring nod.</p> + +<p>To this she agreed after an ineffectual protest. "You needn't think +about paying it back to me," she insisted; "I haven't anything to spend +money on now, so it doesn't make much difference whether I have any or +not. I can help you a little more after a while," she finished with +enthusiasm. "I'm raising a few squabs out in the back yard, and Meadows +is going to buy them as soon as they are big enough to eat."</p> + +<p>An embarrassment out of all proportion to the act which produced it held +him speechless while he gazed at her. He felt at first merely a sense of +physical revolt from the brutality of her self-revelation—from the +nakedness to which she had stripped the horror of her marriage under the +eyes of her daughter. Nothing, not even the natural impulse to screen +one's soul from the gaze of the people with whom one lived, had +prevented the appalling indignity of this exposure. The delusion that it +is possible for a woman by mere virtue of being a woman to suffer in +sweetness and silence, evaporated as he looked at her. He had believed +her to be a nonentity, and she was revealing an inner life as intense, +as real, as acutely personal as his own. A few words of casual kindness +and he had made a slave of her. He regretted it. He was embarrassed. He +was sorry. He wished to heaven she hadn't brought him the money—and yet +in spite of his regret and his embarrassment, he was profoundly moved. +It occurred to him as he took it from her how easy it would have been +for Cyrus to have subjugated and satisfied her in the beginning. All it +needed was a little kindness, the cheapest virtue, and the tragedy of +her ruined soul might have been averted. To make allowances! Ah, that +was the philosophy of human relations in a word! If men and women would +only stop judging each other and make allowances!</p> + +<p>"Well, I shan't starve just yet, thanks to you, Aunt Belinda," he said +cheerfully enough as he thrust the notes into his pocket. It was a small +thing, after all, to make her happy by the sacrifice of his pride. Pride +was not, he remembered, included among the Christian virtues, and, +besides, as he told himself the next instant, trifling as the sum was, +it would at least tide him over financially until he received the next +payment for his reviewing. "I'd better go, it's getting late," he said +with a return of his old gaiety, while he bent over to kiss her. He was +half ashamed of the kiss—not because he was self-conscious about +kissing, since he had long since lost that mark of provincialism—but +because of the look of passionate gratitude which glowed in her face. +Gratitude always made him uncomfortable. It was one of the things he was +forever evading and yet forever receiving. He hated it, he had never in +his life done anything to deserve it, but he could never escape it.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Susan." His lips touched hers, and though he was moving only +a few streets away, the caress contained all the solemnity of a last +parting. Words wouldn't come when he searched for them, and the bracing +sense of power he had felt half an hour ago was curiously mingled now +with an enervating tenderness. He was still confident of himself, but he +became suddenly conscious that these women were necessary to his +happiness and his success, that his nature demanded the constant daily +tonic of their love and service. He understood now the primal necessity +of woman, not as an individual, but as an incentive and an appendage to +the dominant personality of man.</p> + +<p>"Send for me if you need me," said Susan, resting her loving eyes upon +him; "and, Oliver, please promise me to be very careful about money."</p> + +<p>"I'll be careful, never fear!" he replied with a laugh, as he took up +his bag and opened the door. A few minutes later, when he was leaving +the house, he reflected that the fifty dollars in his pocket would keep +life in him for a considerable time in Dinwiddie.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>A TREADWELL IN REVOLT</h3> + + +<p>York Street, in which Mrs. Peachey lived and supplied the necessaries of +life to a dozen boarders, ran like a frayed seam of gentility between +the prosperous and the impoverished quarters of Dinwiddie; and in order +to reach it, Oliver was obliged to pass the rectory, where, though he +did not see her, Virginia sat in stiffly starched muslin on the old +horsehair sofa. The fragrance of honeysuckle floated to his nostrils +from the dim garden, but so absorbed was he in the engrossing problems +of the moment, that only after he had passed the tower of the church did +he remember that the house behind him sheltered the girl who reminded +him of one of the adorable young virgins of Perugino. For an instant he +permitted himself to dwell longingly on the expression of gentle +goodness that looked from her face; but this memory proved so +disturbing, that he put it obdurately away from him while he returned to +the prudent consideration of the fifty dollars in his pocket. The appeal +of first love had been almost as urgent to him as to Virginia; but the +emotion which had visited both alike had affected each differently, and +this difference was due to the fundamental distinction between woman, +for whom love is the supreme preoccupation of being, and man, to whom it +is at best a partial manifestation of energy. To the woman nothing else +really mattered; to the man at least a dozen other pursuits mattered +very nearly as much.</p> + +<p>The sultriness of the weather dampened his body, but not his spirits, +and as he walked on, carrying his heavy bag, along York Street, his +consciousness of the tremendous importance to the world of his decision +exhilarated him like a tonic. He had freed himself from Cyrus and from +commercialism at a single blow, and it had all been as easy as talking! +The joke about starvation he had of course indulged in merely for the +exquisite pleasure of arousing Susan. He wasn't going to starve; nobody +was going to starve in Dinwiddie on thirty dollars a month, and there +was no doubt in the world of his ability to make that much by his +reviewing. It was all simple enough. What he intended to do was to write +the national drama and to practise economy.</p> + +<p>He had, indeed, provided for everything in his future, he was to +discover a little later, except for the affable condescension of Mrs. +Peachey toward the profession of letters. Cyrus's antagonism he had +attributed to the crass stupidity of the commercial mind; but it was a +blow to him to encounter the same misconception, more discreetly veiled, +in a woman of the charm and the character of Mrs. Peachey. Bland, plump, +and pretty, she received the modest avowal of his occupation with the +smiling skepticism peculiar to a race whose genius has been chiefly +military.</p> + +<p>"I understand—it is very interesting," she observed sweetly. "But what +do you do besides—what do you do, I mean, for a living?"</p> + +<p>Here it was again, this fatuous intolerance! this incomprehensible +provincialism! And the terrible part of it was that he had suddenly the +sensation of being overwhelmed by the weight of it, of being smothered +under a mountain of prejudice. The flame of his anger against Cyrus went +out abruptly, leaving him cold. It was the world now against which he +rebelled. He felt that the whole world was provincial.</p> + +<p>"I shall write reviews for a New York paper," he answered, trying in +vain to impress her by a touch of literary hauteur. At the moment it +seemed to him that he could cheerfully bear anything if they would only +at least pretend to take him seriously. What appalled him was not the +opposition, but the utter absence of comprehension. And he could never +hope to convince them! Even if he were to write great plays, they would +still hold as obstinately by their assumption that the writing of plays +did not matter—that what really mattered was to create and then to +satisfy an inordinate appetite for tobacco. This was authentic success, +and by no illegitimate triumph of genius could he persuade an industrial +country that he was as great a man as his uncle. The smiling incredulity +in Mrs. Peachey's face ceased to be individual and became a part of the +American attitude toward the native-born artist. This attitude, he +admitted, was not confined to Dinwiddie, since it was national. He had +encountered it in New York, but never had the destructive force of it +impressed him as it did on the ripe and charming lips of the woman +before him. In that illuminating instant he understood why the American +consciousness in literature was still unawakened, why the creative +artist turned manufacturer, why the original thinker bent his knee in +the end to the tin gods of convention.</p> + +<p>Her eyes—beautiful as the eyes of all happy women are beautiful—dwelt +on him kindly while he struggled to explain his mission. All the dread +of the unusual, all the inherited belief in the sanctity of fixed +opinions, all the passionate distrust of ideas that have not stood the +test of centuries—these things which make for the safety and the +permanence of the racial life, were in the look of motherly indulgence +with which she regarded him. She had just risen from a rocking-chair on +the long porch, where honest Tom sat relating ponderous war anecdotes to +an attentive group of boarders; and beyond her in the dimly lighted hall +he could see the wide old staircase climbing leisurely into the +mysterious silence of the upper storeys.</p> + +<p>"I have a small room at the back that I might rent to you," she said +hesitatingly after a pause. "I am afraid you will find it warm in +summer, as it is just under the roof and has a western exposure, but I +hardly think I could do better for you at the price you are able to pay. +I understood that you intended to live with your uncle," she added in a +burst of enthusiasm. "My husband has always been one of his greatest +admirers."</p> + +<p>The mention of Cyrus was like a spur to Oliver's ambition, and he +realized with gratitude that it was merely his sensibility, not his +resolution, which had been shaken.</p> + +<p>"I'll take the room," he returned, ignoring what she had said as well as +what she had implied about Cyrus. Then as she tripped ahead of him, he +entered the dismantled hall, filled with broken pieces of fine old +furniture, and ascended the stairs as far as the third storey. When she +turned a loosened door-knob and passed before him into the little room +at the back, he saw first of all the narrow window, with its torn green +shade, beyond which clustered a blur of silvery foliage in the midst of +red roofs and huddled chimneys. From this hilltop, he could look down +unseen on that bit of the universal life which was Dinwiddie. He could +watch the town at work and at play; he could see those twenty-one +thousand souls either moved as a unit by the secret forces which ignore +individuality, or separated and enclosed by that impenetrable wall of +personality which surrounded each atom among them. He could follow the +divisions of class and the still deeper divisions of race as they were +symbolized in the old brick walls, overgrown with young grasses, which +girdled the ancient gardens in High Street. From the dazzling glimpses +of white muslin under honeysuckle arbours, to the dusky forms that +swarmed like spawn in the alleys, the life of Dinwiddie loved, hated, +enjoyed, and suffered beneath him. And over this love and this hatred, +this enjoyment and this suffering, there presided—an outward and +visible sign of the triumph of industrialism—the imposing brick walls +of the new Treadwell tobacco factory.</p> + +<p>A soft voice spoke in his ear, and turning, he looked into the face of +Mrs. Peachey, whom he had almost forgotten.</p> + +<p>"You will find the sun warm in the afternoon, I am afraid," she +murmured, still with her manner of pleasantly humouring him which he +found later to be an unconscious expression of her half maternal, +wholly feminine attitude toward his sex.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay it will be all right," he responded. "I shall work so +hard that I shan't have time to bother about the weather."</p> + +<p>Leaving the window, he gazed around the little room with an impulse of +curiosity. Who had lived here before him? A clerk? A travelling +salesman? Perhaps one of the numerous indigent gentlewomen that formed +so large and so important a part of the population of Dinwiddie? The +walls were smeared with a sickly blue wash, and in several places there +were the marks left from the pictures of the preceding lodger. An old +mahogany bureau, black with age and ill usage, stood crosswise in the +corner behind the door, and reflected in the dim mirror he saw his own +face looking back at him. A film of dust lay over everything in the +room, over the muddy blue of the walls, over the strip of discoloured +matting on the floor, over the few fine old pieces of furniture, fallen +now into abject degradation. The handsome French bed, placed +conveniently between door and window, stood naked to the eyes, with its +cheap husk mattress rolled half back, and its bare slats, of which the +two middle ones were tied together with rope, revealing conspicuously +its descent from elegance into squalor. As he saw it, the room was the +epitome of tragedy, yet in the centre of it, on one of the battered and +broken-legged Heppelwhite chairs, sat Mrs. Peachey, rosy, plump, and +pretty, regarding him with her slightly quizzical smile. "Yes, life, of +course, is sad if you stop to think about it," her smile seemed to +assure him; "but the main thing, after all, is to be happy in spite of +it."</p> + +<p>"Do you wish to stay here to-night?" she asked, seeing that he had put +down his bag.</p> + +<p>"If you will let me. But I am afraid it will be inconvenient."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "Not if you don't mind the dust. The room has been +shut up for weeks, and the dust is so dreadful in the spring. The +servants have gone out," she added, "but I'll bring you some sheets for +your bed, and you can fill your pitcher from the spout at the end of the +hall. Only be careful not to stumble over the step there. It is hard to +see when the gas is not lit."</p> + +<p>"You won't object to my putting shelves around the walls?" he asked, +while she pushed the mattress into place with the light and +condescending touch of one who preserves the aristocratic manner not +only in tragedy, but even in toil. It was, indeed, her peculiar +distinction, he came to know afterward, that she worked as gracefully as +other women played.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you find room enough without them?" she inquired while her +gaze left the mattress and travelled dubiously to the mantelpiece. "It +seems a pity for you to go to any expense about shelves, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they won't cost much. I'll do the work myself, and I'll do it in +the mornings when it won't disturb anybody. I daresay I'll have to push +that bed around a bit in order to make space."</p> + +<p>Something in his vibrant voice—so full of the richness and the buoyant +energy of youth—made her look at him as she might have looked at one +of her children, or at that overgrown child whom she had married. And +just as she had managed Tom all his life by pretending to let him have +his way, so she proceeded now by instinct to manage Oliver. "You dear +boy! Of course you may turn things upside down if you want to. Only wait +a few days until you are settled and have seen how you like it."</p> + +<p>Then she tripped out with her springy step, which had kept its +elasticity through war and famine, while Oliver, gazing after her, +wondered whether it was philosophy or merely a love of pleasure that +sustained her? Was it thought or the absence of thought that produced +her wonderful courage?</p> + +<p>He heard her tread on the stairs; then the sound passed to the front +hall; and a minute later there floated up the laughter with which the +assembled boarders received her. Closing the door, which she had left +open, he turned back to the window and stared from his hilltop down on +the red roofs of Dinwiddie. White as milk, the moonlight lay on the +brick wall at the foot of the garden, and down the gradual hill rows of +chimneys were outlined against the faintly dappled sky in the west. In +the next yard a hollow tree looked as if it were cut out of silver, and +beneath its boughs, which drooped into the alley, he could see the +huddled figure of an aged negress who had fallen asleep on a flagstone. +So still was the night that the very smoke appeared to hang suspended +above the tops of the chimneys, as though it were too heavy to rise and +yet too light to float downward toward the motionless trees. Under the +pale beams the town lost its look of solidity and grew spectral. Nothing +seemed to hold it to the earth except the stillness which held the +fallen flowers of the syringa there also. Even the church towers showed +like spires of thistledown, and the winding streets, which ran beside +clear walls and dark shining gardens, trailed off from the ground into +the silvery air. Only the black bulk of the Treadwell factory beside the +river defied the magic of the moon's rays and remained a solid reminder +of the brevity of all enchantment.</p> + +<p>Gradually, while Oliver waited for Mrs. Peachey's return, he ceased to +think of the furniture in his room; he ceased to think even of the way +in which he should manage to do his work, and allowed his mind to dwell, +almost with a feeling of ecstasy, on the memory of Virginia. He saw the +mist of little curls on her temples, her blue eyes, with their good and +gentle expression, and the look of radiant happiness which played like +light over her features. The beauty of the night acted as a spur to his +senses. He wanted companionship. He wanted the smile and the touch of a +woman. He wanted to fall in love with a girl who had blue eyes and a +mouth like a flower!</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't take me ten minutes to become a fool about her," he +thought. "Confound this moonlight, anyhow. It's making an idiot of me."</p> + +<p>Like many persons of artistic sensibility, he had at times the feeling +that his imagination controlled his conduct, and under the sharp +pressure of it now, he began to picture what the end would be if he were +to fling himself headlong in the direction where his desires were +leading him. If he could only let himself go! If he could only defy the +future! If he could only forget in a single crisis that he was a +Treadwell!</p> + +<p>"If I were the right sort, I suppose I'd rush in and make her fall in +love with me, and then marry her and let her starve," he thought. "But +somehow I can't. I'm either not enough of a genius or not enough of a +Treadwell. When it comes to starving a woman in cold blood, my +conscience begins to balk. There's only one thing it would balk at more +violently, and that is starving my work. That's what Uncle Cyrus would +like—nothing better. By Jove! the way he looked when he had the nerve +to make that proposition! And I honestly believe he thought I was going +to agree to it. I honestly believe he was surprised when I stood out +against him. He's a downright idiot, that's what is the matter with him. +Why, it would be a crime, nothing less than a crime, for me to give up +and go hunting after freight orders. Any ninny can do that. James can do +that—but he couldn't see, he positively couldn't see that I'd be wasted +at it."</p> + +<p>The vision of Cyrus had banished the vision of Virginia, and leaving the +window, Oliver began walking rapidly back and forth between the +washstand and the bare bedstead. The fire of his ambition, which +opposition had fanned into a blaze, had never burned more brightly in +his heart than it did at that instant. He felt capable not only of +renouncing Virginia, but of reforming the world. While he walked there, +he dedicated himself to art as exclusively as Cyrus had ever dedicated +himself to money—since Nature, who had made the individual, had been +powerless to eradicate this basic quality of the type. A Treadwell had +always stood for success, and success meant merely seeing but one thing +at a time and seeing that thing at every instant. It meant to Cyrus and +to James the thought of money as absolutely as it meant to Oliver the +thought of art. The way to it was the same, only the ideas that pointed +the way were different. To Cyrus and to James, indeed, as to all +Treadwells everywhere, the idea was hardly an idea at all, since it had +been crystallized by long usage into a fact. The word "success" (and +what was success except another name for the universal Treadwell +spirit?) invariably assumed the image of the dollar in the mind of +Cyrus, while to Oliver, since his thinking was less carefully +coördinated, it was without shape or symbol. Pacing the dusty floor, +with the pale moonlight brooding like a flock of white birds over the +garden, the young man would have defined the word as embracing all the +lofty aspirations in the human soul. It was the hour when youth scaled +the heights and wrested the divine fire from the heavens. At the moment +he was less an individual than the embodied age of two-and-twenty. He +was intellect in adolescence—intellect finding its strength—intellect +in revolt against the tyranny of industrialism.</p> + +<p>The staircase creaked softly, and following a knock at the door, Mrs. +Peachey entered with her arms full of bed-clothes.</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry I kept you waiting, Mr. Treadwell, but I was obliged to +stop to speak to a caller. Oh, thank you. Do you really know how to make +up a bed? How very clever of you! I'm sure Mr. Peachey couldn't do such +a thing if his life depended upon it. Men are so helpless that it +surprises me—it really does—when they know how to do anything. Oh, of +course, you have lived about the world so much that you have had to +learn how to manage. And you've been abroad? How very interesting! Some +day when I have the time you must tell me about it. Not that I should +ever care to go myself, but I love to hear other people talk about their +travels. Professor Trimble—he lived over there a great many years—gave +a talk before the Ladies' Aid Society of our church, and everybody said +it was quite as instructive as going one's self. And then, too, one +escaped all the misery of seasickness."</p> + +<p>All the time she was busily spreading his bed, while he assisted her +with what she described to her husband afterward as "the most charming +manner, just as if he enjoyed it." This charming manner, which was the +outward expression of an inborn kindliness, won her entirely to his side +before the bed-making was over. That any one so frank and pleasant, with +such nice boyish eyes, and so rich a colour, should prove untrustworthy, +was unbelievable to that part of her which ruled her judgment. And since +this ruling part was not reason, but instinct, she possessed, perhaps, +as infallible a guide to opinions as ever falls to the lot of erring +humanity. "I know he's all right. Don't ask me <i>how</i> I know it, Mr. +Peachey," she observed while she brushed her hair for the night; "I +don't know how I know it, but I do know it."</p> + +<p>Oliver, meanwhile, had thrown off his coat, and settled down to work +under the flickering gas, at the end of the mantelpiece. Inspiration had +seized him while he helped Mrs. Peachey make his bed, and his "charming +manner," which had at first been natural enough, had become at last +something of an effort. He was writing the second act of a play in +which he meant to supplant the pretty shams of the stage by the aspect +of sober reality. The play dealt with woman—with the new woman who has +grown so old in the last twenty years—with the woman whose past is a +cross upon which she crucifies both herself and the public. Like most +men of twenty-two, he was convinced that he understood all about women, +and like most men of any age, he was under the impression that women +acted, thought, and felt, not as individuals, but as a sex. The classic +phrases, "women are like that," and "women think so queerly about +things," were on his lips as constantly as if he were an average male +and not an earnest-minded student of human nature. But while the average +male applies general principles loosely and almost unconsciously, with +Oliver the habit was the result of a distinctly formulated philosophy. +He had, as he would probably have put it, a feeling for reality, and the +stage appeared to him, on the whole, to be the most effective vehicle +for revealing the universe to itself. If he was not a genius, he +possessed the unconquerable individualism of genius; and he possessed, +also, a cleverness which could assume the manner of genius without +apparent effort. His ability, which no one but Cyrus had ever +questioned, may not have been of the highest order, but at least it was +better stuff than had ever gone into the making of American plays. In +the early eighties profound darkness still hung over the stage, for the +intellect of a democracy, which first seeks an outlet in statesmanship, +secondly in commerce, and lastly in art and literature, had hardly begun +to express itself, with the immaturity of youth, in several of these +latter fields. It was Oliver's distinction as well as his misfortune +that he lived before his country was ready for him. Coming a quarter of +a century later, he might have made a part of a national emancipation of +intellect. Coming when he did, he stood merely for one of the spasmodic +reactions against the dominant spirit. Unwritten history is full of such +reactions, since it is by the accumulated energy of their revolts that +the world moves on its way.</p> + +<p>But at the age of twenty-two, though he was assured that he understood +both woman and the universe in which she belonged, he was pathetically +ignorant of his own place in the extravagance of Nature. With the rest +of us, he would have been astounded at the suggestion that he might have +been born to be wasted. Other things were wasted, he knew, since those +who called Nature an economist had grossly flattered her. Types and +races and revolutions were squandered with royal prodigality—but that +he himself should be so was clearly unthinkable. Deep down in him there +was the obstinate belief that his existence was a vital matter to the +awful Power that ruled the universe; and while he worked that May +evening at the second act of his great play, with the sweat raining from +his brow in the sweltering heat, it was as impossible for him to +conceive of ultimate failure as it was for him to realize that he should +ever cease to exist. The air was stagnant, the light was bad, his +stomach was empty, and he was tormented by the stinging of the gnats +that circled around the flame—but he was gloriously happy with the +happiness of a man who has given himself to an idea.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE ARTIST IN PHILISTIA</h3> + + +<p>At dawn, after a sleepless night, Oliver dressed himself and made a cup +of coffee on the spirit lamp he carried in his bag. While he drank, a +sense of power passed over him like warmth. He was cheered, he was even +exhilarated. A single cup of this miraculous fluid, and his depression +was vanquished as no argument could have vanquished it. Without +sermonizing, without logic even, the demon of pessimism, which has its +home in an empty stomach, was expelled into spiritual darkness. He +remembered that he had eaten nothing for almost twenty-four hours +(having missed yesterday's dinner), and this thought carried him +downstairs, where he begged a roll from a yawning negro cook in the +kitchen. Coming up to his room again, he poured out a second cup of +coffee, added a dash of cream, which he had brought with him in a +handleless pitcher, and leaning comfortably back in the worn horsehair +covered chair by the window, relapsed into a positive orgy of enjoyment. +His whole attitude toward the universe had been altered by a bubbling +potful of brown liquid, and the tremendous result—so grotesquely out of +proportion to its cause—appeared to him at the minute entirely right +and proper. Everything was entirely right and proper, and he felt able +to approve with a clear conscience the Divine arrangement of existence.</p> + +<p>Outside, the sunrise, which he could not see, was flooding the roofs of +Dinwiddie with a dull golden light. The heat had given way before the +soft wind which smelt of flowers, and scattered tiny shreds of mist, +like white rose-leaves, over the moist gardens. The look of unreality, +which had been a fiction of the moonlight, faded gradually as the day +broke, and left the harsh outlines and the blackened chimneys of the +town unsoftened by any shadow of illusion. Presently, as the sunlight +fell aslant the winding streets, there was a faint stir in the house; +but since the day was Sunday, and Dinwiddie observed the Sabbath by +sleeping late, this stir was slow and drowsy, like the movement of +people but half awake. First, a dilapidated milk wagon rumbled through +the alleys to the back gates, where dishevelled negro maids ran out with +earthenware pitchers, which went back foaming around the brims. Then the +doors of the houses opened slowly; the green outside shutters were flung +wide; and an army of coloured servants bearing brooms, appeared on the +porches, and made expressive gestures to one another over the railings. +Occasionally, when one lifted a doormat in order to beat the dust out of +it, she would forget to put it down again while she stared after the +milk cart. Nobody—not even the servants—seemed to regard the wasted +hours as of any importance. It struck Oliver that the only use Dinwiddie +made of time was to kill it.</p> + +<p>He fell to work with enthusiasm, and he was still working when the +reverberations of the breakfast bell thundered in his ears. Going +downstairs to the dining-room, he found several thin and pinched looking +young women, with their hats on and Sunday-school lessons beside their +plates. Mrs. Peachey, still smiling her quizzical smile, sat at the head +of the table, pouring coffee out of an old silver coffee-pot, which was +battered in on one side as if it had seen active service in the war. +When, after a few hurried mouthfuls, he asked permission to return to +his work, she received his excuses with the same cheerful acquiescence +with which she accepted the decrees of Providence. It is doubtful, +indeed, if her serenity, which was rooted in an heroic hopelessness, +could have been shaken either by the apologies of a boarder or by the +appearance of an earthquake. Her happiness was of that invulnerable sort +which builds its nest not in the luxuriant gardens of the emotions, but +in the bare, rock-bound places of the spirit. Courage, humour, an +adherence to conviction which is wedded to an utter inability to respect +any opinion except one's own; loyalty which had sprung from a principle +into a passion; a fortifying trust, less in the Power that rules the +universe than in the peculiar virtues of the Episcopal prayer-book when +bound in black; a capacity for self-sacrifice which had made the South a +nation of political martyrs; complacency, exaltation, narrowness of +vision, and uncompromising devotion to an ideal—these were the +qualities which had passed from the race into the individual and through +the individual again back into the very blood and the fibre of the race.</p> + +<p>"Do you work on Sunday?" she inquired sweetly, yet with the faintest +tinge of disapproval in her tone.</p> + +<p>He nodded. "Once in a while."</p> + +<p>"Saint James' Church is only a few minutes' walk from here; but I +suppose you are a Presbyterian, like your uncle?"</p> + +<p>His respectability he saw hung in the balance—for to have avowed +himself a freethinker would have dyed him socially only one shade less +black than to have declared himself a Republican—so, escaping without a +further confession of faith, he ascended to his room and applied himself +anew to the regeneration of the American drama. The dull gold light, +which slept on the brick walls, began presently to slant in long beams +over the roofs, which mounted like steps up the hillside, while as the +morning advanced, the mellow sound of chimes floated out on the +stillness, calling Dinwiddians to worship, as it had called their +fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers before them. The Sabbath +calm, so heavy that an axe could hardly have dispelled it, filled the +curving streets and the square gardens like an invisible fog—a fog that +dulled the brain and weighed down the eyelids and made the grim walls of +the Treadwell tobacco factory look as if they were rising out of a +dream. Into this dream, under the thick boughs of mulberry trees, there +passed presently a thin file of people, walking alone or in pairs. The +men were mostly old; but the women were of every age, and all except the +very young were clad in mourning and wore hanging veils on their +bonnets. Though Oliver did not know it, he was, in reality, watching a +procession of those who, having once embraced a cause and lost it, were +content to go on quietly in a hush of memory for the rest of life. +Passion had once inflamed them, but they moved now in the inviolable +peace which comes only to those who have nothing left that they may +lose. At the end of the line, in the middle of the earthen roadbed +walked an old horse, with an earnest face and a dump cart hitched to +him, and in the cart were the boxes of books which Susan had helped +Oliver to pack the evening before. "Who'd have thought she'd get them +here so soon?" he said to himself. "By George, she is a wonder! And +Sunday too!"</p> + +<p>The old horse, having reached the hilltop, disappeared behind the next +house, and ten minutes later Mrs. Peachey escorted the smallest of his +boxes into his bedroom.</p> + +<p>"Your cousin is downstairs, but I didn't know whether you wanted me to +bring her up here or not?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Of course you do, don't you, Oliver?" asked Susan's voice, and entering +the room, she coolly presented her cheek to him. This coolness, which +impressed him almost as much as her extraordinary capability, made him +feel sometimes as if she had built a stone wall between them. Years +afterwards he asked himself if this was why his admiration for her had +never warmed into love?</p> + +<p>"Well, you're a good one!" he exclaimed, as she drew back from the +casual embrace.</p> + +<p>"I knew you were here," she answered, "because John Henry Pendleton" +(was it his imagination or did the faintest blush tinge her face?) "saw +Major Peachey last night and told me on his way home."</p> + +<p>"You can't help me straighten up, I suppose? The room looks a sight."</p> + +<p>"Not now—I'm on my way to church, and I'll be late if I don't hurry." +She wore a grey cashmere dress, made with a draped polonaise which +accentuated her rather full hips, and a hat with a steeple crown that +did not suit the Treadwell arch of her nose. He thought she looked +plain, but he did not realize that in another dress and hat she might +have been almost beautiful—that she was, indeed, one of those +large-minded, passionately honest women who, in their scorn of pretence +or affectation, rarely condescend to make the best of their appearances. +To have consciously selected a becoming hat would have seemed to her a +species of coquetry, and coquetry, even the most innocent, she held in +abhorrence. Her sincerity was not only intellectual; it was of that +rarer sort which has its root in a physical instinct.</p> + +<p>After she had gone, he worked steadily for a couple of hours, and then +opened one of the boxes Susan had brought and arranged a few of his +books in a row on the mantelpiece. It was while he stood still undecided +whether to place "The Origin of Species" or "The Critique of Pure +Reason" on the end nearest his bed, that a knock came at his door, and +the figure of Miss Priscilla Batte, attired in a black silk dolman with +bugle trimmings, stood revealed on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Sally Peachey just told me that you were here," she said, enfolding him +in the embrace which seemed common to Dinwiddie, "so I thought I would +speak to you on my way back from church. I don't suppose you've ever +heard of me, but I am your cousin Priscilla Batte."</p> + +<p>Though he was entirely unaware of it, the moment was a momentous one in +his experience. The visit of Miss Priscilla may have appeared an +insignificant matter to those who have not learned that the +insignificant is merely the significant seen from another angle—but the +truth was that it marked a decisive milestone in his emotional history. +Even Mrs. Peachey, who had walked back from church with her, and who +harboured the common delusion that Life selects only slim bodies for its +secret agents, did not dream as she watched that enormous figure toil up +the staircase that she was gazing upon the movement of destiny. Had +Oliver been questioned as to the dominant influence in shaping his +career, he would probably have answered blindly, but sincerely, "The +Critique of Pure Reason"—so far was he from suspecting that his +philosophy had less control over his future than had the accident that +his mother was the third cousin of Priscilla Batte.</p> + +<p>He pushed a chair into the widest space he could find, and she seated +herself as modestly as if she were not the vehicle of the invisible +Powers. The stiff grosgrain strings of her bonnet stood out like small +wings under her double chin, and on her massive bosom he saw the cameo +brooch bearing the war-like profile of Athene. As she sat there, beaming +complacently upon him, with her prayer-book and hymnal held at a decent +angle in front of her, she seemed to Oliver to dominate the situation +simply by the solid weight of her physical presence. In her single +person she managed to produce the effect of a majority. As a mere mass +of humanity she carried conviction.</p> + +<p>"I was sorry not to see you at church," she said, "but I suppose you +went with Cyrus." As he shook his head silently, she added hastily, "I +hope there's nothing wrong between you and him."</p> + +<p>"Nothing except that I have decided not to go into the tobacco +business."</p> + +<p>"But what in the world are you going to do? How are you going to live if +he doesn't provide for you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll manage somehow. You needn't worry, Cousin Priscilla." He +smiled at her across the unfinished page of his play, and this smile won +her as it had won Mrs. Peachey. Like most spinsters she had remained a +creature of sentiment, and the appeal of the young and masculine she +found difficult to resist. After all he was a charming boy, her heart +told her. What he needed was merely some good girl to take care of him +and convert him to the Episcopal Church. And immediately, as is the way +with women, she became as anxious to sacrifice Virginia to this possible +redemption of the male as she had been alarmed by the suspicion that +such a desire existed in Susan. Though it would have shocked her to hear +that she held any opinion in common with Mohammed (who appeared in the +universal history she taught only in a brief list of "false prophets"), +there existed deep down in her the feeling that a man's soul was of +greater consequence than a woman's in the eyes of God.</p> + +<p>"I hope you haven't been foolish, Oliver," she said in a tone which +conveyed an emotional sympathy as well as a moral protest.</p> + +<p>"That depends upon what you mean by foolishness," he returned, still +smiling.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't think you ought to quarrel with Cyrus. He may not be +perfect. I am not saying that he mightn't have been a better husband, +for instance—though I always hold the woman to blame when a marriage +turns out a failure—but when all's said and done, he is a great man, +Oliver."</p> + +<p>He shook his head impatiently. "I've heard that until I'm sick of +it—forgive me, Cousin Priscilla."</p> + +<p>"Everybody admires him—that is, everybody except Belinda."</p> + +<p>"I should say she'd had excellent opportunities for forming an opinion. +What's he ever done, anyhow, that's great," he asked almost angrily, +"except accumulate money? It seems to me that you've gone mad over money +in Dinwiddie. I suppose it's the reaction from having to do without it +so long."</p> + +<p>Miss Priscilla, whose native serenity drew strength from another's loss +of temper, beamed into his flushed face as if she enjoyed the spectacle +of his heightened colour.</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to talk like that, Oliver," she said. "How on earth are +you going to fall in love and marry, if you haven't any money to keep a +wife? What you need is a good girl to look after you. I never married, +myself, but I am sometimes tempted to believe that even an unhappy +marriage is better than none at all. At least it gives you something to +think about."</p> + +<p>"I have enough to think about already. I have my work."</p> + +<p>"But work isn't a wife."</p> + +<p>"I know it isn't, but I happen to like it better."</p> + +<p>Her matchmaking instinct had received a check, but the placid +determination which was the basis of her character was merely reinforced +thereby to further efforts. It was for his good to marry (had not her +mother and her grandmother instilled into her the doctrine that an early +marriage was the single masculine safeguard, since, once married, a +man's morality became not his own business, but his wife's), and marry +him she was resolved to do, either with his cheerful co-operation, or, +if necessary, without it. He had certainly looked at Virginia as if he +admired her, and surely a girl like that—lovely, loving, unselfish to a +fault, and trained from her infancy to excel in all the feminine +virtues—surely, this perfect flower of sex specialization could have +been designed by Providence only for the delight and the sanctification +of man.</p> + +<p>"Then, if that is the way your mind is made up I hope you will be +careful not to trifle with the feelings of a girl like Jinny Pendleton," +she retorted severely.</p> + +<p>By a single stroke of genius, inspired by the diplomacy inherent in a +sex whose chief concern has been the making of matches, she transfixed +his imagination as skilfully as she might have impaled a butterfly on a +bodkin. While he stared at her she could almost see the iridescent wings +of his fancy whirling madly around the idea by which she had arrested +their flight. Trifle with Virginia! Trifle with that radiant vision of +girlhood! All the chivalry of youth revolted from the suggestion, and he +thought again of the wistful adoration in the eyes of a Perugino virgin. +Was it possible that she could ever look at him with that angelic +expression of weakness and surrender? The fire of first love, which had +smouldered under the weight of his reason, burst suddenly into flame. +His thoughts, which had been as clear as a geometrical figure, became +suddenly blurred by the mystery upon which passion lives. He was seized +by a consuming wonder about Virginia, and this wonder was heightened +when he remembered the appealing sweetness in her face as she smiled up +at him. Did she already love him? Had he conquered by a look the +exquisite modesty of her soul? With this thought the memory of her +virginal shyness stung his senses as if it were the challenge of sex. +Chivalry, love, vanity, curiosity—all these circled helplessly around +the invisible axis of Miss Priscilla's idea.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean? Surely you don't suppose—she hasn't said +anything——"</p> + +<p>"You don't imagine that Jinny is the kind of girl who would say +anything, do you?" inquired Miss Priscilla.</p> + +<p>"But there must be some reason why you should have——"</p> + +<p>"If there is, my dear boy, I'm not going to tell it," she answered with +a calmness which he felt, in his excited state, to be positively +infernal. "All I meant was to warn you not to trifle with any girl as +innocent of life as Jinny Pendleton is. I don't want her to get her +heart broken before she has the chance to make some man happy."</p> + +<p>"Do you honestly mean to imply that I could break her heart if I tried +to?"</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to imply anything. I am only telling you that she is just +the kind of girl a man would want to marry. She is her mother all over +again, and I don't believe Lucy has ever thought of herself a minute +since she married."</p> + +<p>"She looks like an angel," he said, "but——"</p> + +<p>"And she isn't a bit the kind of girl that Susan is, though they are so +devoted. Now, I can understand a man not wanting to marry Susan, +because she is so full of ideas, and has a mind of her own about +things. But Jinny is different."</p> + +<p>Then, seeing that she had "unsettled" his mind sufficiently for her +purpose, she rose and looked around the room with the inordinate +curiosity about details which kept her still young in spite of her sixty +years.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to tell me you brought all those books with you, +Oliver?" she asked. "Why on earth don't you get rid of some of them?"</p> + +<p>"I can't spare any of them. I never know which one I may want next."</p> + +<p>"What are those you're putting on the mantelpiece? Isn't Darwin the name +of the man who said we were all descended from monkeys?"</p> + +<p>As he made no answer to this except to press her hand and thank her for +coming, she left the mantelpiece and wandered to the window, where her +gaze rested, with a look of maternal satisfaction, on the roofs of +Dinwiddie.</p> + +<p>"It's a jolly view of the town, isn't it?" he said. "There's nothing +like looking down from a hilltop to give one a sense of superiority."</p> + +<p>"You can see straight into Mrs. Goode's backyard," she replied, "and I +never knew before that she left her clothes hanging on the line on +Sunday. That comes, I suppose, from not looking after her servants and +gadding about on all sorts of charities. She told me the other day that +she belonged to every charitable organization in Dinwiddie."</p> + +<p>"Is she Abby's mother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you'd never imagine they were any relation. Abby gave me more +trouble than any girl I ever taught. She never would learn the +multiplication table, and I don't believe to this day she knows it. +There isn't any harm in her except that she is a scatter-brain, and will +make eyes or burst. I sometimes think it isn't her fault—that she was +just born man-crazy."</p> + +<p>"She's awfully good fun," he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to her garden party on Wednesday?"</p> + +<p>"I accepted before I quarrelled with Uncle Cyrus, but I'll have to get +out of it now."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wouldn't. All the pretty girls in town will be there."</p> + +<p>"Are there any plain ones? And what becomes of them?"</p> + +<p>"The Lord only knows! Old Judge Bassett used to say that there wouldn't +be any preserves and pickles in the world if all women were born +good-looking. I declare I never realized how small the tower of Saint +James' Church is!"</p> + +<p>For a moment he hesitated, and when he spoke his voice had taken a +deeper tone. "Will Virginia Pendleton be at the party?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"She wouldn't miss it for anything in the world. Miss Willy Whitlow was +sewing there yesterday on a white organdie dress for her to wear. Have +you ever seen Jinny in white organdie? I always tell Lucy the child +looks sweet enough to eat when she puts it on."</p> + +<p>He laughed again, but not as he had laughed at her description of Abby. +"Ask her please to put blue bows on her flounces and a red rose in her +hair," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then you are going?"</p> + +<p>"Not if I can possibly keep away. Oh, Cousin Priscilla, why didn't I +inherit my soul from your side of the family."</p> + +<p>"Well, for my part I don't believe in all this talk about inheritance. +Nobody ever heard of inheriting anything but money when I was a girl. +You've got the kind of soul the good Lord wanted to put into you and +that's all there is about it."</p> + +<p>When he returned from assisting her in her panting and difficult descent +of the stairs, he sat down again before the unfinished act of his play, +but his eyes wandered from the manuscript to the town, which lay as +bright and still in the sunlight as if it were imprisoned in crystal. +The wonder aroused in his mind by Miss Priscilla's allusion to Virginia +persisted as a disturbing element in the background of his thoughts. +What had she meant? Was it possible that there was truth in the wildest +imaginings of his vanity? Virginia's face, framed in her wreath of hair, +floated beneath the tower of Saint James' Church at which he was gazing, +and the radiant goodness in her look mounted like a draught of strong +wine to his brain. Passion, which he had discounted in his plans for the +future, appeared suddenly to shake the very foundations of his life. +Never before had the spirit and the flesh united in the appeal of a +woman to his imagination. Never before had the divine virgin of his +dreams assumed the living red and white of young girlhood. He thought +how soft her hair must be to the touch, and how warm her mouth would +glow from his kisses. With a kind of wonder he realized that this was +first love—that it was first love he had felt when he met her eyes +under the dappled sunlight in High Street. The memory of her beauty was +like a net which enmeshed his thoughts when he tried to escape it. Look +where he would he saw always a cloud of dark hair and two deep blue eyes +that shone as softly as wild hyacinths after a shower. Think as he would +he met always the haunting doubt—"What did she mean? Can it be true +that she already loves me?" So small an incident as Miss Priscilla's +Sunday call had not only upset his work for the morning, but had changed +in an instant the even course of his future. He decided suddenly that he +must see Virginia again—that he would go to Abby Goode's party, and +though the party was only three days off, it seemed to him that the +waiting would be almost unbearable. Only after he had once seen her +would it be possible, he felt, to stop thinking of her and to return +comfortably to his work.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>WHITE MAGIC</h3> + + +<p>In the centre of her bedroom, with her back turned to that bookcase +which was filled with sugared false-hoods about life, Virginia was +standing very straight while Miss Willy Whitlow knelt at her feet and +sewed pale blue bows on her overskirt of white organdie. Occasionally, +the door opened softly, and the rector or one of the servants looked in +to see "Jinny" or "Miss Jinny dressed for the party," and when such +interruptions occurred, Mrs. Pendleton, who sat on an ottoman at the +dressmaker's right hand and held a spool of thread and a pair of +scissors in her lap, would say sternly, "Don't move, Jinny, stand +straight or Miss Willy won't get the bows right." At these warning +words, Virginia's thin shoulders would spring back and the filmy ruffles +stir gently over her girlish breast.</p> + +<p>Through the open window, beyond the drooping boughs of the paulownia +trees, a few wistful stars shone softly through the web of purple +twilight. The night smelt of a thousand flowers—all the mingled +sweetness of old gardens floated in on the warm wind and caressed the +faded figure of Miss Willy as lovingly as it did the young and radiant +vision of Virginia. Once or twice the kneeling seamstress had glanced up +at the girl and thought: "I wonder how it feels to be as lovely as +that?" Then she sighed as one who had missed her heritage, for she had +been always plain, and went on patiently sewing the bows on Virginia's +overskirt. "You can't have everything in this world, and I ought to be +thankful that I've kept out of the poorhouse," she added a minute later +when a little stab of envy went through her at hearing the girl laugh +from sheer happiness.</p> + +<p>"Am I all right, mother? Tell me how I look."</p> + +<p>"Lovely, darling. There won't be any one there sweeter than you are."</p> + +<p>The maternal passion lit Mrs. Pendleton's eyes with splendour, and her +worn face was illuminated as if a lamp had been held suddenly close to +it. All day, in spite of a neuralgic pain in her temples, she had worked +hard hemming the flounces for Virginia's dress, and into every stitch +had gone something of the divine ecstasy of martyrdom. Her life centred +so entirely in her affections that apart from love she could be hardly +said to exist at all. In spite of her trials she was probably the +happiest woman in Dinwiddie, for she had found her happiness in the only +way it is ever won—by turning her back on it. Never once had she +thought of it as an end to be pursued, never even as a flower to be +plucked from the wayside. It is doubtful if she had ever stopped once in +the thirty years of her marriage to ask herself the questions: "Is this +what I want to do?" or "Does this make me happy?" Love meant to her not +grasping, but giving, and in serving others she had served herself +unawares. Even her besetting sin of "false pride" she indulged not on +her own account, but because she, who could be humble enough for +herself, could not bear to associate the virtue of humility with either +her husband or her daughter.</p> + +<p>The last blue bow was attached to the left side of the overskirt, and +while Miss Willy rose from her knees, Virginia crossed to the window and +gazed up at the pale stars over the tops of the paulownias. A joy so +vibrant that it was like living music swelled in her breast. She was +young! She was beautiful! She was to be loved! This preternatural +certainty of happiness was so complete that the chilling disappointments +of the last few days had melted before it like frost in the sunlight. It +was founded upon an instinct so much deeper, so much more primitive than +reason, that it resisted the logic of facts with something of the +exalted obstinacy with which faith has resisted the arguments of +philosophy. Like all young and inexperienced creatures, she was +possessed by the feeling that there exists a magnetic current of +attraction between desire and the object which it desires. "Something +told" her that she was meant for happiness, and the voice of this +"something" was more convincing than the chaotic march of phenomena. +Sorrow, decay, death—these appeared to her as things which must happen +inevitably to other people, but from which she should be forever +shielded by some beneficent Providence. She thought of them as vaguely +as she did of the remote tragedies of history. They bore no closer +relation to her own life than did the French Revolution or the beheading +of Charles the First. It was natural, if sad, that Miss Willy Whitlow +should fade and suffer. The world, she knew, was full of old people, of +weary people, of blighted people; but she cherished passionately the +belief that these people were all miserable because, somehow, they had +not chosen to be happy. There appeared something positively +reprehensible in a person who could go sighing upon so kind and +beautiful a planet. All things, even joy, seemed to her a mere matter of +willing. It was impossible that any hostile powers should withstand the +radiant energy of her desire.</p> + +<p>Leaning there from the window, with her face lifted to the stars, and +her mother's worshipping gaze on her back, she thought of the +"happiness" which would be hers in the future: and this "happiness" +meant to her only the solitary experience of love. Like all the women of +her race, she had played gallantly and staked her world upon a single +chance. Whereas a man might have missed love and still have retained +life, with a woman love and life were interchangeable terms. That one +emotion represented not only her sole opportunity of joy, it constituted +as well her single field of activity. The chasm between marriage and +spinsterhood was as wide as the one between children and pickles. Yet so +secret was this intense absorption in the thought of romance, that Mrs. +Pendleton, forgetting her own girlhood, would have been startled had she +penetrated that lovely head and discovered the ecstatic dreams that +flocked through her daughter's brain. Though love was the one window +through which a woman might look on a larger world, she was fatuously +supposed neither to think of it nor to desire it until it had offered +itself unsolicited. Every girl born into the world was destined for a +heritage of love or of barrenness—yet she was forbidden to exert +herself either to invite the one or to avoid the other. For, in spite of +the fiery splendour of Southern womanhood during the war years, to be +feminine, in the eyes of the period, was to be morally passive.</p> + +<p>"Your father has come to see your dress, dear," said her mother in the +voice of a woman from whom sentiment overflowed in every tone, in every +look, in every gesture.</p> + +<p>Turning quickly, Virginia met the smiling eyes of the rector—those +young and visionary eyes, which Nature, with a wistful irony, had placed +beneath beetling brows in the creased and wrinkled face of an old man. +The eyes were those of a prophet—of one who had lived his life in the +light of a transcendent inspiration rather than by the prosaic rule of +practical reason; but the face belonged to a man who had aged before his +time under the accumulated stress of physical burdens.</p> + +<p>"How do I look, father? Am I pretty?" asked Virginia, stretching her +thin young arms out on either side of her, and waiting with parted lips +to drink in his praise.</p> + +<p>"Almost as beautiful as your mother, and she grows lovelier every day +that she lives, doesn't she?"</p> + +<p>His adoring gaze, which held the spirit of beauty as a crystal holds the +spirit of light, passed from the glowing features of Virginia to the +lined and pallid face of his wife. In that gaze there had been no shadow +of alteration for thirty years. It is doubtful even if he had seen any +change in her since he had first looked upon her face, and thought it +almost unearthly in its angelic fairness. From the physical union they +had entered into that deeper union of souls in which the body dissolves +as the shadow dissolves into the substance, and he saw her always as +she had appeared to him on that first morning, as if the pool of +sunlight in which she had stood had never darkened around her. Yet to +Virginia his words brought a startled realization that her mother—her +own mother, with her faded face and her soft, anxious eyes—had once +been as young and radiant as she. The love of her parents for each other +had always seemed to her as natural and as far removed from the +cloudless zone of romance as her own love for them—for, like most young +creatures, she regarded love as belonging, with bright eyes and rosy +cheeks, to the blissful period of youth.</p> + +<p>"I hear John Henry's ring, darling. Are you ready?" asked Mrs. +Pendleton.</p> + +<p>"In a minute. Is the rose right in my hair?" replied Virginia, turning +her profile towards her mother, while she flung a misty white scarf over +her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Quite right, dear. I hope you will have a lovely time. I shall sit up +for you, so you needn't bother to take a key."</p> + +<p>"But you'll be so tired. Can't you make her go to bed, father?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't close my eyes till I knew you were safely home, and heard +how you'd enjoyed yourself," answered Mrs. Pendleton, as they slowly +descended the staircase, Virginia leading the way, and the rest +following in a procession behind her. Turning at the gate, with her arm +in John Henry's, the girl saw them standing in the lighted doorway, with +their tender gaze following her, and the faces of the little seamstress +and the two coloured servants staring over their shoulders. Trivial as +the incident was, it was one of the moments which stood out afterwards +in Virginia's memory as though a white light had fallen across it. Of +such simple and expressive things life is woven, though the years had +not taught her this on that May evening.</p> + +<p>On the Goodes' lawn lanterns bloomed, like yellow flowers among the +branches of poplar trees, and beneath them Mrs. Goode and Abby—a loud, +handsome girl, with a coarsened complexion and a "sporting" +manner—received their guests and waved them on to a dancing platform +which had been raised between a rose-crowned summer-house and the old +brick wall at the foot of the garden. Ropes were stretched over the +platform, from the roof of the summer-house to a cherry tree at the end +of the walk, and on these more lanterns of red, blue, and yellow paper +were hanging. The air was scented with honeysuckle, and from an obscure +corner behind a trellis the sound of a waltz floated. As music it was +not of a classic order, but this did not matter since nobody was aware +of it; and Dinwiddie, which developed quite a taste for Wagner at the +beginning of the next century, could listen in the eighties with what +was perhaps a sincerer pleasure, to stringed instruments, a little +rough, but played with fervour by mulatto musicians. As Virginia drifted +off in John Henry's arms for the first dance, which she had promised +him, she thought: "I wonder if he will not come after all?" and a pang +shot through her heart where the daring joy had been only a moment +before. Then the music grew suddenly heavy while she felt her feet drag +in the waltz. The smell of honeysuckle made her sad as if it brought +back to her senses an unhappy association which she could not remember, +and it seemed to her that her soul and body trembled, like a bent flame, +into an attitude of expectancy.</p> + +<p>"Let me stop a minute. I want to watch the others," she said, drawing +back into the scented dusk under a rose arbour.</p> + +<p>"But don't you want to fill your card? If the men once catch sight of +you, you won't have a dance left."</p> + +<p>"No—no, I want to watch a while," she said, with so strange an accent +of irritation that he stared at her in surprise. The suspense in her +heart hurt her like a drawn cord in throbbing flesh, and she felt angry +with John Henry because he was so dull that he could not see how she +suffered. In the distance, under the waving gilded leaves of the +poplars, she saw Abby laughing up into a man's face, and she thought: +"Can he possibly be in love with Abby? Some men are mad about her, but I +know he isn't. He could never like a loud woman, and, besides, he +couldn't have looked at me that way if he hadn't cared." Then it seemed +to her that something of the aching suspense in her own heart stole into +Abby's laughing face while she watched it, and from Abby it passed +onward into the faces of all the girls who were dancing on the raised +platform. Suspense! Was that a woman's life, after all? Never to be able +to go out and fight for what one wanted! Always to sit at home and wait, +without moving a foot or lifting a hand toward happiness! Never to dare +gallantly! Never even to suffer openly! Always to will in secret, always +to hope in secret, always to triumph or to fail in secret. Never to be +one's self—never to let one's soul or body relax from the attitude of +expectancy into the attitude of achievement. For the first time, born +of the mutinous longing in her heart, there came to her the tragic +vision of life. The faces of the girls, whirling in white muslin to the +music of the waltz, became merged into one, and this was the face of all +womanhood. Love, sorrow, hope, regret, wonder, all the sharp longing and +the slow waiting of the centuries—above all the slow waiting—these +things were in her brief vision of that single face that looked back at +her out of the whirling dance. Then the music stopped, the one face +dissolved into many faces, and from among them Susan passed under the +swinging lanterns and came towards her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny, where have you been hiding? I promised Oliver I would find +you for him. He says he came only to look at you."</p> + +<p>The music began joyously again; the young leaves, gilded by the yellow +lantern-light, danced in the warm wind as if they were seized by the +spirit of melody; and from the dusk of the trellis the ravished +sweetness of honeysuckle flooded the garden with fragrance. With the +vanished sadness in her heart there fled the sadness in the waltz and in +the faces of the girls who danced to the music. Waiting no longer seemed +pain to her, for it was enriched now by the burning sweetness of +fulfilment.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, for she had not seen him approach, she was conscious that he +was at her side, looking down at her beneath a lantern which was +beginning to flicker. A sense of deep peace—of perfect contentment with +the world as God planned it—took possession of her. Even the minutes of +suspense seemed good because they had brought at last this swift rush +of happiness. Every line of his face—of that face which had captured +her imagination as though it had been the face of her dreams—was +illumined by the quivering light that gilded the poplars. His eyes were +so close to hers that she saw little flecks of gold on the brown, and +she grew dizzy while she looked into them, as if she stood on a height +and feared to turn lest she should lose her balance and fall. A +delicious stillness, which began in her brain and passed to her +throbbing pulses, enveloped her like a perfume. While she stood there +she was incapable of thought—except the one joyous thought that this +was the moment for which she had waited since the hour of her birth. +Never could she be the same afterwards! Never could she be unhappy again +in the future! For, like other mortals in other ecstatic instants, she +surrendered herself to the intoxicating illusion of their immortality.</p> + +<p>After that silence, so charged with emotion for them both, it seemed +that when he spoke it must be to utter words that would enkindle the +world to beauty; but he said merely: "Is this dance free? I came only to +speak to you."</p> + +<p>His look added, "I came because my longing had grown unbearable"; and +though she replied only to his words, it was his look that made the +honeysuckle-trellis, the yellow lanterns, and the sky, with its few soft +stars, go round like coloured balls before her eyes. The world melted +away from her, and the distance between her and the whirling figures in +white muslin seemed greater than the distance between star and star. She +had the sense of spiritual remoteness, of shining isolation, which +ecstasy brings to the heart of youth, as though she had escaped from +the control of ordinary phenomena and stood in a blissful pause beyond +time and space. It was the supreme moment of love; and to her, whose +soul acknowledged no other supremacy than that of love, it was, also, +the supreme moment of life.</p> + +<p>His face, as he gazed down at her under the swinging leaves, seemed to +her as different from all other faces as the exquisite violence in her +soul was different from all other emotions she had ever known. She knew +nothing more of him than that she could not be happy away from him. She +needed no more infallible proof of his perfection than the look in his +eyes when he smiled at her. So convincing was the argument of his smile +that it was not only impregnable against any assault of facts, but +rendered futile even the underlying principle of reason. Had Aristotle +himself risen from his grave to prove to her that blind craving when +multiplied by blind possession does not equal happiness, his logic would +have been powerless before that unconquerable instinct which denied its +truth. And around them little white moths, fragile as rose-leaves, +circled deliriously in the lantern-light, for they, also, obeyed an +unconquerable instinct which told them that happiness dwelt in the flame +above which they were whirling.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you wore blue ribbons" he said suddenly.</p> + +<p>Her lashes trembled and fell, but they could not hide the glow that +shone in her eyes and in the faint smile which trembled, like an edge of +light, on her lips.</p> + +<p>"Will you come into the summer-house and sit out this dance?" he asked +when she did not speak, and she followed him under the hanging clusters +of early roses to a bench in the dusk beside a little rustic table. +Here, after a moment's silence, he spoke again recklessly, yet with a +certain constraint of manner.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I oughtn't to have come here to-night."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" Their glances, bright as swords, crossed suddenly, and it +seemed to her that the music grew louder. Had it been of any use, she +would have prayed Life to dole the minutes out, one by one, like a +miser. And all the time she was thinking: "This is the moment I've +waited for ever since I was born. It has come. I am in the midst of it. +How can I keep it forever?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I haven't any business thinking about anything but my work," he +answered. "I've broken with my uncle, you know. I'm as poor as a church +mouse and I'll never be better off until I get a play on the stage. For +the next few years I've got to cut out everything but hard work."</p> + +<p>"Yes." Her tongue was paralyzed; she couldn't say what she felt, and +everything else seemed to her horribly purposeless and ineffectual. She +wondered passionately if he thought her a fool, for she could not look +into his mind and discover how adorable he found her monosyllabic +responses. The richness of her beauty combined with the poverty of her +speech made an irresistible appeal to the strongest part of him, which +was not his heart, but his imagination. He wondered what she would say +if she were really to let herself go, and this wonder began gradually to +enslave him.</p> + +<p>"That's the reason I hadn't any business coming here," he added, "but +the truth is I've wanted to see you again ever since that first +afternoon. I got to wondering whether," he laughed in an embarrassed +way, and added with an attempt at levity, "whether you would wear a red +rose in your hair."</p> + +<p>At his change of tone, she reached up suddenly, plucked the rose from +her hair and flung it out on the grass. Her action, which belied her +girlish beauty so strangely that only her mother would have recognized +it as characteristic of the hidden force of the woman, held him for an +instant speechless under her laughing eyes. Then turning away, he picked +up the rose and put it into his pocket.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you will never tell me why you did that?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "I can't tell. I don't know. Something took me."</p> + +<p>"Did you think I came just for the rose?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't think."</p> + +<p>"If I came for the rose, I ought to go. I wish I could. Do you suppose +I'll be able to work again now that I've seen you? I've told myself for +three days that if I could only see you again I'd be able to stop +thinking about you."</p> + +<p>She was not looking at him, but in every line of her figure, in every +quiver of her lashes, in every breath that she drew, he read the effect +of his words. It was as if her whole palpitating loveliness had become +the vehicle of an exquisite entreaty. Her soul seemed to him to possess +the purity, not of snow, but of flame, and this flame, in whose light +nothing evil could live, curved towards him as if blown by a wind. He +felt suddenly that he was swept onward by some outside power which was +stronger than his will. An enchantment had fallen over him, and at one +and the same instant he longed to break the power of the spell and knew +that life would cease to be worth living if he were ever to do so. He +saw her eyes, like blue flowers in the soft dusk, and the mist of curls +on her temples stirred gently in the scented breeze that blew over the +garden. All the sweetness of the world was gathered into the little +space that she filled. Every impulse of joy he had ever felt—memories +of autumn roads, of starlit mountains, of summer fields where bees +drifted in golden clouds—all these were packed like honey into that +single minute of love. And with the awakening of passion, there came the +exaltation, the consciousness of illimitable possibilities which passion +brings to the young. Never before had he realized the power that was in +him! Never until this instant had he seen his own soul in the making! +All the unquenchable faith of youth burned at white heat in the flame +which his desire had kindled. He felt himself divided between an +invincible brutality and an invincible tenderness. He would have fought +with beasts for the sake of the gentle and passive creature beside him, +yet he would have died rather than sully the look of angelic goodness +with which she regarded him. To have her always gentle, always passive, +never reaching out her hand, never descending to his level, but sitting +forever aloof and colourless, waiting eternally, patient, beautiful and +unwearied, to crown the victory—this was what the conquering male in +him demanded.</p> + +<p>"I ought to go," he said, so ineffectual was speech to convey the tumult +within his brain. "I am keeping you from the others."</p> + +<p>She had shrunk back into the dimness beyond the circle of lanterns, and +he saw her face like a pale moon under the clustering rose-leaves. Her +very breath seemed suspended, and there was a velvet softness in her +look and in the gesture of timid protest with which she responded to his +halting words. She was putting forth all her woman's power as innocently +as the honeysuckle puts forth its fragrance. The white moths whirling in +their brief passion over the lantern-flame were not more helpless before +the movement of those inscrutable forces which we call Life. A strange +stillness surrounded her—as though she were separated by a circle of +silence from the dancers beyond the rose-crowned walls of the +summer-house—and into this stillness there passed, like an invisible +current, the very essence of womanhood. The longing of all the dead +women of her race flowed through her into the softness of the spring +evening. Things were there which she could know only through her +blood—all the mute patience, all the joy that is half fear, all the +age-long dissatisfaction with the merely physical end of love—these +were in that voiceless entreaty for happiness; and mingled with them, +there were the inherited ideals of self-surrender, of service, pity, +loyalty, and sacrifice.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could help you," she said, and her voice thrilled with the +craving to squander herself magnificently in his service.</p> + +<p>"You are an angel, and I'm a selfish beast to bring you my troubles."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you are selfish—of course you have to think of your +work—a man's work means so much to him."</p> + +<p>"It's wonderful of you to feel that," he replied; and, indeed, at the +instant while he searched her eyes in the dusk, the words seemed to him +to embody all the sympathetic understanding with which his imagination +endowed her. How perfectly her face expressed the goodness and +gentleness of her soul! What a companion she would make to a man! What a +lover! What a wife! Always soft, exquisite, tender, womanly to the +innermost fibre of her being, and perfect in unselfishness as all +womanly women are. How easy it would be to work if she were somewhere +within call, ready to fly to him at a word! How glorious to go out into +the world if he knew that she sat at home waiting—always waiting, with +those eyes like wells of happiness, until he should return to her! A new +meaning had entered swiftly into life. A feeling that was like a +religious conversion had changed not only his spiritual vision, but the +material aspect of nature. Whatever happened, he felt that he could +never be the same man again.</p> + +<p>"I shall see you soon?" he said, and the words fell like snow on the +inner flame of his senses.</p> + +<p>"Oh, soon!" she answered, bending a little towards him while a sudden +glory illumined her features. Her voice, which was vibrant as a harp, +had captured the wistful magic of the spring—the softness of the winds, +the sweetness of flowers, the mellow murmuring of the poplars.</p> + +<p>She rose from the bench, moving softly as if she were under an +enchantment which she feared to break by a gesture. An ecstasy as +inarticulate as grief kept him silent, and it was into this silence that +the voice of Abby floated, high, shrill, and dominant.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Virginia, I've looked everywhere for you," she cried. "Mr. +Carrington is simply dying to dance with you!"</p> + +<p>She bounced, as only the solid actuality can bounce, into the dream, +precipitating the unwelcome presence of Mr. Carrington—a young man with +a golden beard and the manner of a commercial minor prophet—there also. +A few minutes later, as Virginia drifted away in his arms to the music +of the waltz, she saw, over the heads of the dancers, Oliver and Abby +walking slowly in the direction of the gate. A feeling of unreality +seized her, as though she were looking through an azure veil at the +world. The dancers among whom she whirled, the anxious mothers sitting +uneasily on chairs under the poplars, the flowering shrubs, the +rose-crowned summer-house, the yellow lanterns with the clouds of white +moths circling around them—all these things had turned suddenly to +shadows; and through a phantom garden, the one living figure moved +beside an empty shape, which was Abby. Her feet had wings. She flew +rather than danced in the arms of a shadow through this blue veil which +enveloped her. Life burned within her like a flame in a porcelain vase, +and this inner fire separated her, as genius separates its possessor, +from the ordinary mortals among whom she moved.</p> + +<p>Walking home with John Henry after the party was over, it seemed to her +that she was lifted up and cradled in all the wonderful freshness of the +spring. The sweet moist air fanned her face; the morning stars shone +softly on her through the pearly mist; and the pale fingers of dawn were +spread like a beneficent hand, above the eastern horizon. "To-morrow!" +cried her heart, overflowing with joy; and something of this joy passed +into the saddest hour of day and brightened it to radiance.</p> + +<p>At the gate she parted from John Henry, and running eagerly along the +path, opened the front door, which was unlocked, and burst into the +dining-room, where her mother, wearied of her long watch, had fallen +asleep beside the lamp, which was beginning to flicker.</p> + +<p>"To-morrow!" still sang her heart, and the wild, sweet music of it +filled the world. "To-morrow!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE GREAT MAN MOVES</h3> + + +<p>Several weeks later, at the close of a June afternoon, Cyrus Treadwell +sat alone on the back porch of his house in Bolingbroke Street. He was +smoking, and, between the measured whiffs of his pipe, he leaned over +the railing and spat into a bed of miniature sunflowers which grew along +the stone ledge of the area. For thirty years these flowers had sprung +up valiantly every spring in that bleak strip of earth, and for thirty +years Cyrus had spat among them while he smoked alone on the back porch +on June afternoons.</p> + +<p>While he sat there a great peace enfolded and possessed him. The street +beyond the sagging wooden gate was still; the house behind him was +still; the kitchen, in which showed the ebony silhouette of a massive +cook kneading dough, was still with the uncompromising stillness of the +Sabbath. In the midst of this stillness, his thoughts, which were +usually as angular as lean birds on a bough, lost their sharpness of +outline and melted into a vague and feathery mass. At the moment it was +impossible to know of what he was thinking, but he was happy with the +happiness which visits men of small parts and of sterile imagination. By +virtue of these limitations and this sterility he had risen out of +obscurity—for the spiritual law which decrees that to gain the world +one must give up one's soul, was exemplified in him as in all his +class. Success, the shibboleth of his kind, had controlled his thoughts +and even his impulses so completely for years that he had come at last +to resemble an animal less than he resembled a machine; and Nature (who +has a certain large and careless manner of dispensing justice) had +punished him in the end by depriving him of the ordinary animal capacity +for pleasure. The present state of vacuous contentment was, perhaps, as +near the condition of enjoyment as he would ever approach.</p> + +<p>Half an hour before he had had an encounter with Susan on the subject of +her going to college, but even his victory, which had been sharp and +swift, was robbed of all poignant satisfaction by his native inability +to imagine what his refusal must have meant to her. The girl had stood +straight and tall, with her commanding air, midway between the railing +and the weather-stained door of the house.</p> + +<p>"Father, I want to go to college," she had said quite simply, for she +was one who used words very much as Cyrus used money, with a +temperamental avoidance of all extravagance.</p> + +<p>Her demand was a direct challenge to the male in Cyrus, and, though this +creature could not be said to be either primitive or predatory, he was +still active enough to defend himself from the unprovoked assault of an +offspring.</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut," he responded. "If you want something to occupy you, you'd +better start about helping your mother with her preserving."</p> + +<p>"I put up seventy-five jars of strawberries."</p> + +<p>"Well, the blackberries are coming along. I was always partial to +blackberries."</p> + +<p>He sat there, bald, shrunken, yellow, as soulless as a steam engine, and +yet to Susan he represented a pitiless manifestation of destiny—of +those deaf, implacable forces by which the lives of men and women are +wrecked. He had the power to ruin her life, and yet he would never see +it because he had been born blind. That in his very blindness had lain +his strength, was a fact which, naturally enough, escaped her for the +moment. The one thought of which she was conscious was a fierce +resentment against life because such men possessed such power over +others.</p> + +<p>"If you will lend me the money, I will pay it back to you as soon as I +can take a position," she said, almost passionately.</p> + +<p>Something that was like the ghost of a twinkle appeared in his eyes, and +he let fall presently one of his rare pieces of humour.</p> + +<p>"If you'd like a chance to repay me for your education," he said, +"there's your schooling at Miss Priscilla's still owing, and I'll take +it out in help about the housekeeping."</p> + +<p>Then Susan went, because going in silence was the only way that she +could save the shreds of dignity which remained to her, and bending +forward, with a contented chuckle, Cyrus spat benevolently down upon the +miniature sunflowers.</p> + +<p>In the half hour that followed he did not think of his daughter. From +long discipline his mind had fallen out of the habit of thinking of +people except in their relation to the single vital interest of his +life, and this interest was not fatherhood. Susan was an incident—a +less annoying incident, it is true, than Belinda—but still an incident. +An inherent contempt for women, due partly to qualities of temperament +and partly to the accident of a disillusioning marriage, made him +address them always as if he were speaking from a platform. And, as is +often the case with men of cold-blooded sensuality, women, from Belinda +downward, had taken their revenge upon him.</p> + +<p>The front door-bell jangled suddenly, and a little later he heard a +springy step passing along the hall. Then the green lattice door of the +porch opened, and the face of Mrs. Peachey, wearing the look of +unnatural pleasantness which becomes fixed on the features of persons +who spend their lives making the best of things, appeared in the spot +where Susan had been half an hour before. She had trained her lips to +smile so persistently and so unreasonably, that when, as now, she would +have preferred to present a serious countenance to an observer, she +found it impossible to relax the muscles of her mouth from their +expression of perpetual cheerfulness. Cyrus, who had once remarked of +her that he didn't believe she could keep a straight face at her own +funeral, wondered, while he rose and offered her a chair, whether the +periodical sprees of honest Tom were the cause or the result of the look +of set felicity she wore. For an instant he was tempted to show his +annoyance at the intrusion. Then, because she was a pretty woman and did +not belong to him, he grew almost playful, with the playfulness of an +uncertain tempered ram that is offered salt.</p> + +<p>"It is not often that I am honoured by a visit from you," he said.</p> + +<p>"The honour is mine. Mr. Treadwell," she replied, and she really felt +it. "I was on my way upstairs to see Belinda, and it just crossed my +mind as I saw you sitting out here, that I'd better stop and speak to +you about your nephew. I wonder Belinda doesn't plant a few rose-bushes +along that back wall," she added.</p> + +<p>"I'd pay you fifty dollars, ma'am, if you'd get Belinda to plant +anything"—which was not delicately put, perhaps, but was, after all, +spoken in the only language that Cyrus knew.</p> + +<p>"I thought she was so fond of flowers. She used to be as a girl."</p> + +<p>"Humph!" was Cyrus's rejoinder, and then: "Well, what about my nephew, +madam?" Clasping his bony hands over his knee, he leaned forward and +waited, not without curiosity, for her answer. He did not admire +Oliver—he even despised him—but when all was said, the boy had +succeeded in riveting his attention. However poorly he might think of +him, the fact remained that think of him he did. The young man was in +the air as inescapably as if he were the measles.</p> + +<p>"I'm worrying about him, Mr. Treadwell; I can't help myself. You know he +boards with me."</p> + +<p>"Yes'm, I know," replied Cyrus—for he had heard the fact from Miss +Priscilla on his way home from church one Sunday.</p> + +<p>"And he's not well. There's something the matter with him. He's so +nervous and irritable that he's almost crazy. He doesn't eat a morsel, +and I can hear him pacing up and down his room until daybreak. Once I +got up and went upstairs to ask him if he was sick, but he said that he +was perfectly well and was walking about for exercise. I am sure I don't +know what it can be, but if it keeps up, he'll land in an asylum before +the summer is over."</p> + +<p>The look of satisfaction which her first words had brought to Cyrus's +face deepened gradually as her story unfolded. "He's wanting money, I +reckon," he commented, his imagination seizing upon the only medium in +which it could work. As a philosopher may discern in all life different +manifestations of the Deity, so he saw in all affliction only the +wanting of money under varied aspects. Sorrows in which the lack of +money did not bear a part always seemed to him to be unnecessary and +generally self-inflicted by the sufferers. Of such people he would say +impatiently that they took a morbid view of their troubles and were +"nursing grief."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it's that," said Mrs. Peachey. "He always pays his bills +promptly on the first day of the month, and I know that he gets checks +from New York for the writing he does. I'm sometimes tempted to believe +that he has fallen in love."</p> + +<p>"Love? Pshaw!" said Cyrus, and dismissed the passion.</p> + +<p>"But it goes hard with some people, and he's one of that kind," rejoined +the little lady, with spirit, for in spite of her wholesome awe of +Cyrus, she could not bear to hear the sentiment derided. "We aren't all +as sensible as you are, Mr. Treadwell."</p> + +<p>"Well, if he is in love, as you say, whom is he in love with?" demanded +Cyrus.</p> + +<p>"It's all guesswork," answered Mrs. Peachey. "He isn't paying attention +to any girl that I know of—but, I suppose, if it's anybody, it must be +Virginia Pendleton. All the young men are crazy about her."</p> + +<p>She had been prepared for opposition—she had been prepared, being a +lady, for anything, as she told Tom afterwards, short of an oath—but to +her amazement the unexpected, which so rarely happened in the case of +Cyrus, happened at that minute. Human nature, which she had treated +almost as a science, proved suddenly that it was not even an art. One of +those glaring inconsistencies which confute every theory and overturn +all psychology was manifested before her.</p> + +<p>"That's the daughter of old Gabriel, aint it?" asked Cyrus, and +unconsciously to himself, his voice softened.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she's Gabriel's daughter, and one of the sweetest girls that ever +lived."</p> + +<p>"Gabriel's a good man," said Cyrus. "I always liked Gabriel. We fought +through the war together."</p> + +<p>"A better man never lived, nor a better woman than Lucy. If she's got a +fault on earth, it's that she's too unselfish."</p> + +<p>"Well, if this girl takes after them, the young fool has shown more +sense than I gave him credit for."</p> + +<p>"I don't think he's a fool," returned Mrs. Peachey, reflecting how +wonderfully she had "managed" the great man, "but, of course, he's +queer—all writers are queer, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>"He's kept it up longer than I thought, but I reckon he's about ready to +give in," pursued Cyrus, ignoring her question as he did all excursions +into the region of abstract wonder. "If he'll start in to earn his +living now, I'll let him have a job on the railroad out in Matoaca City. +I meant to teach him a lesson, but I shouldn't like Henry's son to +starve. I've nothing against Henry except that he was too soft. He was +a good brother as brothers go, and I haven't forgotten it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, if you'd talk to Oliver," suggested Mrs. Peachey. "I'm afraid +I couldn't induce him to come to you, but——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I ain't proud—I don't need to be," interrupted Cyrus with a +chuckle. "Only fools and the poor have any use for pride. I'll look in +upon him sometime along after supper, and see if he's come to his wits +since I last talked to him."</p> + +<p>"Then, I'm glad I came to you. Tom would be horrified almost to death if +he knew of it—but I've always said that when an idea crosses my mind +just like that," she snapped her thumb and forefinger, "there's +something in it."</p> + +<p>As she rose from her seat, she looked up at him with the coquetry which +was so inalienable an attribute of her soul that, had the Deity assumed +masculine shape before her, she would instinctively have used this +weapon to soften the severity of His judgment. "It was so kind of you +not to send me away, Mr. Treadwell," she said in honeyed accents.</p> + +<p>"It is a pleasure to meet such a sensible woman," replied Cyrus, with +awkward gallantry. Her flattery had warmed him pleasantly, and in the +midst of the dried husks of his nature, he was conscious suddenly that a +single blade of living green still survived. He had ceased to feel +old—he felt almost young again—and this rejuvenation had set in merely +because a middle-aged woman, whom he had known since childhood, had +shown an innocent pleasure in his society. Mrs. Peachey's traditional +belief in the power of sex had proved its own justification.</p> + +<p>When she had left him, Cyrus sat down again, and took up his pipe from +the railing where he had placed it. "I'll go round and have some words +with the young scamp," he thought. "There's no use waiting until after +supper. I'll go round now while it is light."</p> + +<p>Then, as if the softening impulse were a part of the Sabbath stillness, +he leaned over the bed of sunflowers, and fixed his eyes on the pinkish +tower of Saint James' Church, which he could see palely enkindled +against the afterglow. A single white cloud floated like a dove in the +west, and beneath it a rain of light fell on the shadowy roofs of the +town. The air was so languorous that it was as if the day were being +slowly smothered in honeysuckle, the heavy scent of which drifted to him +from the next garden. A vast melancholy—so vast that it seemed less the +effect of a Southern summer than of a universal force residing in +nature—was liberated, with the first cooling breath of the evening, +from man and beast, from tree and shrub, from stock and stone. The very +bricks, sun-baked and scarred, spoke of the weariness of heat, of the +parching thirst of the interminable summers.</p> + +<p>But to Cyrus the languor and the intense sweetness of the air suggested +only that the end of a hot day had come. "It's likely to be a drought," +he was thinking while his upward gaze rested on the illuminated tower of +the church. "A drought will go hard with the tobacco."</p> + +<p>Having emptied his pipe, he was about to take down his straw hat from a +nail on the wall, when the sound of the opening gate arrested him, and +he waited with his eyes fixed on the winding brick walk, where the negro +washerwoman appeared presently with a basket of clean clothes on her +head. Beneath her burden he saw that there were some primitive attempts +at Sunday adornment. She wore a green muslin dress, a little discoloured +by perspiration, but with many compensating flounces; a bit of yellow +ribbon floated from her throat, and in her hand she carried the festive +hat which would decorate her head after the removal of the basket. Her +figure, which had once been graceful, had grown heavy; and her face, of +a light gingerbread colour, with broad, not unpleasant features, wore a +humble, inquiring look—the look of some trustful wild animal that man +has tamed and only partly domesticated. Approaching the steps, she +brought down the basket from her head, and came on, holding it with a +deprecating swinging movement in front of her.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Marster," she said, as if uncertain whether to stop or to pass +on into the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mandy," responded Cyrus. "There's a hot spell coming, I reckon."</p> + +<p>Lowering the basket to the floor of the porch, the woman drew a red +bandanna handkerchief from her bosom and began slowly to wipe the drops +of sweat from her face and neck. The acrid odour of her flesh reached +Cyrus, but he made no movement to draw away from her.</p> + +<p>"I'se been laid up wid er stitch in my side, Marster, so I'se jes got +dese yer close done dis mawnin'. Dar wan' noner de chillen at home ter +tote um down yer, so I low I 'uz gwine ter drap by wid um on my way ter +church."</p> + +<p>As he did not reply, she hesitated an instant and over her features, +which looked as if they had been flattened by a blow, there came an +expression which was half scornful, half inviting, yet so little +personal that it might have been worn by one of her treetop ancestors +while he looked down from his sheltering boughs on a superior species of +the jungle. The chance effect of light and shadow on a grey rock was +hardly less human or more primitive.</p> + +<p>"I'se gittin' moughty well along, Marster," she said; "I reckon I'se +gittin' on toward a hunnard."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Mandy, you ain't a day over thirty-five. There's a plenty of +life left in you yet."</p> + +<p>"Go way f'om yer, Marster; you knows I'se a heap older 'n dat. How long +ago was hit I done fust come yer ter you all?"</p> + +<p>He thought a moment. A question of calculation always interested him, +and he prided himself on his fine memory for dates.</p> + +<p>"You came the year our son Henry died, didn't you? That was in +'66—eighteen years ago. Why, you couldn't have been over fifteen that +summer."</p> + +<p>For the first time a look of cunning—of the pathetic cunning of a child +pitted against a man—awoke in her face.</p> + +<p>"En Miss Lindy sent me off befo' de year was up, Marster. My boy Jubal +was born de mont' atter she done tu'n me out." She hesitated a minute, +and then added, with a kind of savage coquetry, "I 'uz a moughty likely +gal, Marster. You ain't done furgit dat, is you?"</p> + +<p>Her words touched Cyrus like the flick of a whip on a sore, and he drew +back quickly while his thin lips grew tight.</p> + +<p>"You'd better take that basket into the house," he said sharply.</p> + +<p>In the negress's face an expression of surprise wavered for a second and +then disappeared. Her features resumed their usual passive and humble +look—a look which said, if Cyrus could have read human nature as easily +as he read finance, "I don't understand, but I submit without +understanding. Am I not what you have made me? Have I not been what you +wanted? And yet you despise me for being the thing you made."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean nuttin', Marster. I didn't mean nuttin'," she protested +aloud.</p> + +<p>"Then get into the house," retorted Cyrus harshly, "and don't stand +gaping there. Any more of your insolence and I'll never let you set foot +in this yard again."</p> + +<p>"'Fo' de Lawd, I didn't mean nuttin'! Gawd a' moughty, I didn't mean +nuttin'! I jes lowed as you mought be willin' ter gun me fo' dollars a +mont' fur de washin'. My boy Jubal——"</p> + +<p>"I'll not give you a red cent more. If you don't want it, you can leave +it. Get out of here!"</p> + +<p>All the primitive antagonism of race—that instinct older than +civilization—was in the voice with which he ordered her out of his +sight. "It was downright blackmail. The fool was trying to blackmail +me," he thought. "If I'd yielded an inch I'd have been at her mercy. +It's a pretty pass things have come to when men have to protect +themselves from negro women." The more he reflected on her impudence, +the stronger grew his conviction that he had acted remarkably well. +"Nipped it in the root. If I hadn't——" he thought.</p> + +<p>And behind him in the doorway the washerwoman continued to regard him, +over the lowered clothes basket, with her humble and deprecating look, +which said, like the look of a beaten animal: "I don't understand, but +I submit without understanding because you are stronger than I."</p> + +<p>Taking down his hat, Cyrus turned away from her, and descended the +steps. "I'll look up Henry's son before supper," he was thinking. "Even +if the boy's a fool, I'm not one to let those of my own blood come to +want."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>OLIVER SURRENDERS</h3> + + +<p>When Cyrus's knock came at his door, Oliver crossed the room to let in +his visitor, and then fell back, startled, at the sight of his uncle. "I +wonder what has brought him here?" he thought inhospitably. But even if +he had put the question, it is doubtful if Cyrus could have enlightened +him—for the great man was so seldom visited by an impulse that when, as +now, one actually took possession of him, he obeyed the pressure almost +unconsciously. Like most men who pride themselves upon acting solely +from reason, he was the abject slave of the few instincts which had +managed to take root and thrive in the stony ground of his nature. The +feeling for family, which was so closely entwined with his supreme +feeling for property that the two had become inseparable, moved him +to-day as it had done on the historic occasion when he had redeemed the +mortgaged roof over the heads of his spinster relations. Perhaps, too, +some of the vague softness of June had risen in him and made him gentler +in his judgments of youth.</p> + +<p>"I didn't expect you or I'd have straightened up a bit," said Oliver, +not overgraciously, while he hastily pushed his supper of bread and tea +to one end of the table. He resented what he called in his mind "the +intrusion," and he had no particular objection to his uncle's observing +his resentment. His temper, never of the most perfect equilibrium, had +been entirely upset by the effects of a June Sunday in Dinwiddie, and +the affront of Cyrus's visit had become an indignity because of his +unfortunate selection of the supper hour. Some hidden obliquity in the +Treadwell soul, which kept it always at cross-purposes with life, +prevented any lessening of the deep antagonism between the old and the +young of the race. And so incurable was this obliquity in the soul of +Cyrus, that it forced him now to take a tone which he had resolutely set +his mind against from the moment of Mrs. Peachey's visit. He wanted to +be pleasant, but something deep down within him—some inherited tendency +to bully—was stronger than his will.</p> + +<p>"I looked in to see if you hadn't about come to your senses," he began.</p> + +<p>"If you mean come to your way of looking at things—then I haven't," +replied Oliver, and added in a more courteous tone, "Won't you sit +down?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir, I can stand long enough to say what I came to say," retorted +the other, and it seemed to him that the pleasanter he tried to make his +voice, the harsher grew the sound of it in his ears. What was it about +the rascal that rubbed him the wrong way only to look at him?</p> + +<p>"As you please," replied Oliver quietly. "What in thunder has he got to +say to me?" he thought. "And why can't he say it and have it over?" +While Cyrus merely despised him, he detested Cyrus with all the fiery +intolerance of his age. "Standing there like an old turkey gobbler, +ugh!" he said contemptuously to himself.</p> + +<p>"So you ain't hungry yet?" asked the old man, and felt that the words +were forced out of him by that obstinate cross-grain in his nature over +which he had no control.</p> + +<p>"I've just had tea."</p> + +<p>"You haven't changed your mind since you last spoke to me, eh?"</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't changed my mind. Why should I?"</p> + +<p>"Getting along pretty well, then?"</p> + +<p>"As well as I expected to."</p> + +<p>"That's good," said Cyrus mildly. "That's good. I just dropped in to +make sure that you were getting along, that's all."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," responded Oliver, and tried from the bottom of his soul to +make the words sincere.</p> + +<p>"If the time ever comes when you feel that you have changed your mind, +I'll find a place out at Matoaca City for you. I just wanted you to +understand that I'd do as much for Henry's son then as now. If you +weren't Henry's son, I shouldn't think twice about you."</p> + +<p>"You mean that you'll still give me the job if I stop writing plays?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I won't make a point of that as long as it doesn't interfere with +your work. You may write in off hours as much as you want to. I won't +make a point of that."</p> + +<p>"You mean to be generous, I can see—but I don't think it likely that I +shall ever make up my mind to take a regular job. I'm not built for it."</p> + +<p>"You're not thinking about getting married, then, I reckon?"</p> + +<p>A dark flush rose to Oliver's forehead, and turning away, he stared with +unseeing eyes out of the window.</p> + +<p>"No. I haven't any intention of that," he responded.</p> + +<p>A certain craftiness appeared in Cyrus's face.</p> + +<p>"Well, well, you're young yet, and you may be in want of a wife before +you're many years older."</p> + +<p>"I'm not the kind to marry. I'm too fond of my freedom."</p> + +<p>"Most of us have felt like that at one time or another, but when the +thought of a woman takes you by the throat, you'll begin to see things +differently. And if you ever do, a good steady job at twelve hundred a +year will be what you'll look out for."</p> + +<p>"I suppose a man could marry on that down here," said Oliver, half +unconscious that he was speaking aloud.</p> + +<p>"I married on less, and I've known plenty of others that have done so. A +good saving wife puts more into a man's pocket than she takes out of +it."</p> + +<p>As he paused, Oliver's attention, which had wandered off into a vague +mist of feeling, became suddenly riveted to the appalling spectacle of +his uncle's marriage. He saw the house in Bolingbroke Street, with the +worn drab oilcoth in the hall, and he smelt the smell of stale cooking +which floated through the green lattice door at the back. All the +sweetness of life, all the beauty, all the decency even, seemed +strangled in that smell as if in some malarial air. And in the midst of +it, the unkempt, slack figure of Belinda, with her bitter eyes and her +sagging skirt, passed perpetually under the flickering gas-jet up and +down the dimly lighted staircase. This was how one marriage had +ended—one marriage among many which had started out with passion and +courage and the belief in happiness. Knowing but little of the April +brevity of his uncle's mating impulse, he had mentally embroidered the +bare instinct with some of the idealism in which his own emotion was +clothed. His imagination pictured Cyrus and Belinda starting as +light-hearted adventurers to sail the chartless seas of romance. What +remained of their gallant ship to-day except a stark and battered hulk +wrecked on the pitiless rocks of the actuality? A month ago that +marriage had seemed merely ridiculous to him. Standing now beside the +little window, where the wan face of evening, languid and fainting +sweet, looked in from the purple twilight, he was visited by one of +those rare flashes of insight which come to men of artistic sensibility +after long periods of spiritual warfare. Pity stabbed him as sharply as +ridicule had done a moment before, and with the first sense of human +kinship he had ever felt to Cyrus, he understood suddenly the tragedy +that underlies all comic things. Could there be a deeper pathos, after +all, than simply being funny? This absurd old man, with his lean, +crooked figure, his mottled skin, and his piercing bloodshot eyes, like +the eyes of an overgorged bird of prey, appeared now as an object that +moved one to tears, not to laughter. And yet because of this very +quality which made him pitiable—this vulture-like instinct to seize and +devour the smaller—he stood to-day the most conspicuously envied figure +in Dinwiddie.</p> + +<p>"I'm not the kind of man to marry," he repeated, but his tone had +changed.</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps you're wise," said Cyrus, "but if you should ever want +to——" The confidence which had gone out of Oliver had passed into him. +With his strange power of reading human nature—masculine human nature, +for the silliest woman could fool him hopelessly—he saw that his nephew +was already beginning to struggle against the temptation to yield. And +he was wise enough to know that this temptation would become stronger as +soon as Oliver felt that the outside pressure was removed. The young +man's passion was putting forward a subtler argument than Cyrus could +offer.</p> + +<p>When his visitor had gone, Oliver turned back to the window, and resting +his arms on the sill, leaned out into the velvet softness of the +twilight. His wide vision had deserted him. It was as if his gaze had +narrowed down to a few roofs and the single street without a +turning—but beyond them the thought of Virginia lay always like an +enclosed garden of sweetness and bloom. To think of her was to pass from +the scorching heat of the day to the freshness of dew-washed flowers +under the starlight.</p> + +<p>"It is impossible," he said aloud, and immediately, as if in answer to a +challenge, a thousand proofs came to him that other men were doing the +impossible every day. How many writers—great writers, too—would have +jumped at a job on a railroad to insure them against starvation? How +many had married young and faced the future on less than twelve hundred +dollars a year? How many had let love lead them where it would without +butting their brains forever against the damned wall of expediency?</p> + +<p>"It's impossible," he said again, and turning from the window, made +himself ready to go out. While he brushed his hair and pulled the end of +his necktie through the loop, his gaze wandered back over the roofs to +where a solitary mimosa tree drooped against the lemon-coloured +afterglow. The dust lay like gauze over the distance. Not a breath +stirred. Not a leaf fell. Not a figure moved in the town—except the +crouching figure of a stray cat that crawled, in search of food, along +the brick wall under the dead tree.</p> + +<p>"God! What a life!" he cried suddenly. And beyond this parching desert +of the present he saw again that enclosed garden of sweetness and bloom, +which was Virginia. His resolution, weakened by the long hot afternoon, +seemed to faint under the pressure of his longing. All the burden of the +day—the heat, the languor, the scorching thirst of the fields, the +brazen blue of the sky, the stillness as of a suspended breath which +wrapt the town—all these things had passed into the intolerableness of +his desire. He felt it like a hot wind blowing over him, and it seemed +to him that he was as helpless as a leaf in the current of this wind +which was sweeping him onward. Something older than his will was driving +him; and this something had come to him from out the twilight, where the +mimosa trees drooped like a veil against the afterglow.</p> + +<p>Taking up his hat, he left the room and descended the stairs to the wide +hall where Tom Peachey sat, gasping for breath, midway of two open +doors.</p> + +<p>"I'll be darned if I can make a draught," muttered the old soldier +irascibly, while he picked up his alpaca coat from the balustrade, and +slipped into it before going out upon the front porch into the possible +presence of ladies. His usually cheerful face was clouded, for his +habitual apathy had deserted him, and he had reached the painful +decision that when you looked things squarely in the face there was +precious little that was worth living for—a conclusion to which he had +been brought by the simple accident of an overdose of Kentucky rye in +his mint julep after church. The overdose had sent him to sleep too soon +after his Sunday dinner, and when he had awakened from his heavy and by +no means quiet slumber, he had found himself confronting a world of +gloom.</p> + +<p>"I'm damned tired making the best of things, if you want to know what is +the matter with me," he had remarked crossly to his wife.</p> + +<p>"The idea, Mr. Peachey! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" that +sprightly lady had responded while she prepared herself for her victory +over Cyrus.</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't," honest Tom had retorted. "I've gone on pretending for +fifty years and I'm going to stop it. What good has it done, anyway? It +hasn't put a roof on, has it?"</p> + +<p>"I told you you oughtn't to go to sleep right on top of your dinner," +she had replied soothingly. "I declare you're perfectly purple. I never +saw you so upset. Here, take this palm-leaf fan and go and see if you +can't find a draught. You know it's downright sinful to talk that way +after the Lord has been so good to you."</p> + +<p>But Philosophy, though she is unassailable when she clings to her +safeguard of the universal, meets her match whenever she descends to an +open engagement with the particular.</p> + +<p>"W-what's He done for me?" demanded not Tom, but the whiskey inside of +him.</p> + +<p>Driven against that bleak rock of fact upon which so many shining +generalizations have come to wreck, Mrs. Peachey had cast about +helplessly for some floating spar of logic which might bear her to the +firm ground of established optimism. "I declare, Tom, I believe you are +out of your head!" she exclaimed, adding immediately, "You ought to be +ashamed of yourself to be so ungrateful when the good Lord has kept you +out of the poorhouse. If you weren't tipsy, I'd give you a hard shaking. +Now, you take that palm-leaf fan and go right straight downstairs."</p> + +<p>So Tom had gone, for his wife, who lacked the gift of argument, +possessed the energy of character which renders such minor attributes +unnecessary; and Oliver, passing through the hall a couple of hours +later, found him still helplessly seeking the draught towards which she +had directed him.</p> + +<p>"Any chance of a breeze springing up?" inquired the young man as they +moved together to the porch.</p> + +<p>The force which was driving him out of the house into the suffocating +streets was in his voice when he spoke, but honest Tom did not hear it. +After the four war years in which he had been almost sublime, the old +soldier had gradually ceased even to be human, and that vegetable calm +which envelops persons who have fallen into the habit of sitting still, +had endowed him at last with the perfect serenity of a cabbage. The only +active principle which ever moved in him was the borrowed principle of +alcohol—for when that artificial energy subsided, he sank back, as he +was beginning to do now, into the spiritual inertia which sustains those +who have outlived their capacity for the heroic.</p> + +<p>"I ain't felt a breath," he replied, peering southward where the stars +were coming out in a cloudless sky. "I don't reckon we'll get it till on +about eleven."</p> + +<p>"Looks as if we were in for a scorching summer, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"You never can tell. There's always a spell in June." And he who had +been a hero, sat down in his cane-bottomed chair and waved the palm-leaf +fan feebly in front of him. He had had his day; he had fought his fight; +he had helped to make the history of battles—and now what remained to +him? The stainless memory of the four years when he was a hero; a +smoldering ember still left from that flaming glory which was his soul!</p> + +<p>In the street the dust lay thick and still, and the wilted foliage of +the mulberry trees hung motionless from the great arching boughs. Only +an aspen at the corner seemed alive and tremulous, while sensitive +little shivers ran through the silvery leaves, which looked as if they +were cut out of velvet. As Oliver left the house, the town awoke slowly +from its lethargy, and the sound of laughter floated to him from the +porches behind their screens of honeysuckle or roses. But even this +laughter seemed to him to contain the burden of weariness which +oppressed and disenchanted his spirit. The pall of melancholy spread +from the winding yellow river at the foot of the hill to the procession +of cedars which stood pitch-black against the few dim stars on the +eastern horizon.</p> + +<p>"What is the use?" he asked himself suddenly, uttering aloud that grim +question which lies always beneath the vivid, richly clustering +impressions in the imaginative mind. Of his struggle, his sacrifice—of +his art even—what was the use? A bitter despondency—the crushing +despondency of youth which age does not feel and has forgotten—weighed +upon him like a physical burden. And because he was young and not +without a certain pride in the intensity of his suffering, he increased +his misery by doggedly refusing to trace it back to its natural origin +in an empty stomach.</p> + +<p>But the laws that govern the variable mind of man are as inscrutable as +the secret of light. Turning into a cross street, he came upon the tower +of Saint James' Church, and he grew suddenly cheerful. The quickening of +his pulses changed the aspect of the town as completely as if an +invigorating shower had fallen upon it. The supreme, haunting interest +of life revived.</p> + +<p>He had meant merely to pass the rectory without stopping; but as he +turned into the slanting street at the foot of the twelve stone steps, +he saw a glimmer of white on the terrace, and the face of Virginia +looked down at him over the palings of the gate. Immediately it seemed +to him that he had known from the beginning that he should meet her. A +sense of recognition so piercingly sweet that it stirred his pulses like +wine was in his heart as he moved towards her. The whole universe +appeared to him to have been planned and perfected for this instant. The +languorous June evening, the fainting sweetness of flowers, the strange +lemon-coloured afterglow, and her face, shining there like a star in the +twilight—these had waited for him, he felt, since the beginning of +earth. That fatalistic reliance upon an outside Power, which assumed for +him the radiant guise of first love, and for Susan the stark certainties +of Presbyterianism, dominated him as completely as if he were the +predestined vehicle of its expression. Ardent, yet passive, Virginia +leaned above him on the dim terrace. So still she seemed that her breath +left her parted lips as softly as the perfume detached itself from the +opening rose-leaves. She made no gesture, she said no word—but suddenly +he became aware that her stillness was stronger to draw him than any +speech. All her woman's mystery was brooding there about her in the June +twilight; and in this strange strength of quietness Nature had placed, +for once, an invincible weapon in the weaker hands. Her appeal had +become a part of the terrible and beneficent powers of Life.</p> + +<p>Crossing the street, he went up the steps to where she leaned on the +gate.</p> + +<p>"It has been so long," he said, and the words seemed to him hideously +empty. "I have not seen you but three times since the party."</p> + +<p>She did not answer, and as he looked at her closer, he saw that her eyes +were full of tears.</p> + +<p>"Virginia!" he cried out sharply, and the next instant, at her first +movement away from him, his arms were around her and his lips seeking +hers.</p> + +<p>The world stopped suddenly while a starry eternity enveloped them. All +youth was packed into that minute, all the troubled sweetness of desire, +all the fugitive ecstasy of fulfilment.</p> + +<p>"I—I thought you did not care," she murmured beneath his kisses.</p> + +<p>He could not speak—for it was a part of his ironic destiny that he, who +was prodigal of light words, should find himself stricken dumb in any +crucial instant.</p> + +<p>"You know—you know——" he stammered, holding her closer.</p> + +<p>"Then it—it is not all a dream?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I adored you from the first minute—you saw that—you knew it. I've +wanted you day and night since I first looked at you."</p> + +<p>"But you kept away. You avoided me. I couldn't understand."</p> + +<p>"It was because I knew I couldn't be with you five minutes without +kissing you. And I oughtn't to—it's madness in me—for I'm desperately +poor, darling; I've no right to marry you."</p> + +<p>A little smile shone on her lips. "As if I cared about that, Oliver."</p> + +<p>"Then you'll marry me? You'll marry me, my beautiful?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her face from his breast, and her look was like the enkindled +glory of the sunrise. "Don't you see? Haven't you seen from the +beginning?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid to see, darling—but, Virginia—oh, Virginia, let it be +soon!"</p> + +<p>When he went from her a little later, it seemed to him that all of life +had been pressed down into the minute when he had held her against his +breast; and as he walked through the dimly lighted streets, among the +shadows of men who, like himself, were pursuing some shadowy joy, he +carried with him that strange vision of a heaven on earth which has +haunted mortal eyes since the beginning of love. Happiness appeared to +him as a condition which he had achieved by a few words, by a kiss, in a +minute of time, but which belonged to him so entirely now that he could +never be defrauded of it again in the future. Whatever happened to him, +he could never be separated from the bliss of that instant when he had +held her.</p> + +<p>He was going to Cyrus while his ecstasy ennobled even the prosaic fact +of the railroad. And just as on that other evening, when he had rushed +in anger away from the house of his uncle, so now he was exalted by the +consciousness that he was following the lead of the more spiritual part +of his nature—for the line of least resistance was so overgrown with +exquisite impressions that he no longer recognized it. The sacrifice of +art for love appeared to him to-day as splendidly romantic as the +sacrifice of comfort for art had seemed to him a few months ago. His +desire controlled him so absolutely that he obeyed its different +promptings under the belief that he was obeying the principles whose +names he borrowed. The thing he wanted was transmuted by the fire of his +temperament into some artificial likeness to the thing that was good for +him.</p> + +<p>On the front steps, between the two pink oleanders, Cyrus was standing +with his gaze fixed on a small grocery store across the street, and at +the sight of his nephew a look of curiosity, which was as personal an +emotion as he was in the habit of feeling, appeared on his lean yellow +face. Behind him, the door into the hall stood open, and his stooping +figure was outlined against the light of the gas-jet by the staircase.</p> + +<p>"You see I've come," said Oliver; for Cyrus, who never spoke first +unless he was sure of dominating the situation, had waited for him to +begin.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see," replied the old man, not unkindly. "I expected you, but +hardly so soon—hardly so soon."</p> + +<p>"It's about the place on the railroad. If you are still of the same +mind, I'd like you to give me a trial."</p> + +<p>"When would you want to start?"</p> + +<p>"The sooner the better. I'd rather get settled there before the autumn. +I'm going to be married sometime in the autumn—October, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Cyrus softly, and Oliver was grateful to him because he +didn't attempt to crow.</p> + +<p>"We haven't told any one yet—but I wanted to make sure of the job. It's +all right, then, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, it's all right, if you do your part. She's Gabriel Pendleton's +girl, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"She's Virginia Pendleton. You know her, of course." He tried honestly +to be natural, but in spite of himself he could not keep a note of +constraint out of his voice. Merely to discuss Virginia with Cyrus +seemed, in some subtle way, an affront to her. Yet he knew that the old +man wanted to be kind, and the knowledge touched him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I know her. She's a good girl, and there doesn't live a better +man than Gabriel."</p> + +<p>"I don't deserve her, of course. But, then, there never lived a man who +deserved an angel."</p> + +<p>"Ain't you coming in?" asked Cyrus.</p> + +<p>"Not this evening. I only wanted to speak to you. I suppose I'd better +go down to the office to-morrow and talk to Mr. Burden, hadn't I?"</p> + +<p>"Come about noon, and I'll tell him to expect you. Well, if you ain't +coming in, I reckon I'll close this door."</p> + +<p>Looking up a minute later from the pavement Oliver saw his aunt rocking +slowly back and forth at the window of her room, and the remembrance of +her fell like a blight over his happiness.</p> + +<p>By the time he reached High Street a wind had risen beyond the hill near +the river, and the scattered papers on the pavement fled like grey wings +before him into the darkness. As the air freshened, faces appeared in +the doors along the way, and the whole town seemed drinking in the +cooling breeze as if it were water. On the wind sped, blowing over the +slack figure of Mrs. Treadwell; blowing over the conquering smile of +Susan, who was unbinding her long hair; blowing over the joy-brightened +eyes of Virginia, who dreamed in the starlight of the life that would +come to her; blowing over the ghost-haunted face of her mother, who +dreamed of the life that had gone by her; blowing at last, beyond the +river, over the tired hands of the little seamstress, who dreamed of +nothing except of how she might keep her living body out of the +poorhouse and her dead body out of the potter's field. And over the +town, with its twenty-one thousand souls, each of whom contained within +itself a separate universe of tragedy and of joy, of hope and of +disappointment, the wind passed as lightly it passed over the unquiet +dust in the streets below.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_II" id="BOOK_II"></a>BOOK II</h2> + +<h3>THE REALITY</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I2" id="CHAPTER_I2"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>VIRGINIA PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE</h3> + + +<p>"Mother, I'm so happy! Oh! was there ever a girl so happy as I am?"</p> + +<p>"I was, dear, once."</p> + +<p>"When you married father? Yes, I know," said Virginia, but she said it +without conviction. In her heart she did not believe that marrying her +father—perfect old darling that he was!—could ever have caused any +girl just the particular kind of ecstasy that she was feeling. She even +doubted whether such stainless happiness had ever before visited a +mortal upon this planet. It was not only wonderful, it was not only +perfect, but it felt so absolutely new that she secretly cherished the +belief that it had been invented by the universe especially for Oliver +and herself. It was ridiculous to imagine that the many million pairs of +lovers that were marrying every instant had each experienced a miracle +like this, and yet left the earth pretty much as they had found it +before they fell in love.</p> + +<p>It was a week before her wedding, and she stood in the centre of the +spare room in the west wing, which had been turned over to Miss Willy +Whitlow. The little seamstress knelt now at her feet, pinning up the hem +of a black silk polonaise, and turning her head from time to time to ask +Mrs. Pendleton if she was "getting the proper length." For a quarter of +a century, no girl of Virginia's class had married in Dinwiddie without +the crowning benediction of a black silk gown, and ever since the +announcement of Virginia's betrothal her mother had cramped her small +economies in order that she might buy "grosgrain" of the best quality.</p> + +<p>"Is that right, mother? Do you think I might curve it a little more in +front?" asked the girl, holding her feet still with difficulty because +she felt that she wanted to dance.</p> + +<p>"No, dear, I think it will stay in fashion longer if you don't shorten +it. Then it will be easier to make over the more goods you leave in it."</p> + +<p>"It looks nice on me, doesn't it?" Standing there, with the stiff silk +slipping away from her thin shoulders, and the dappled sunlight falling +over her neck and arms through the tawny leaves of the paulownia tree in +the garden, she was like a slim white lily unfolding softly out of its +sheath.</p> + +<p>"Lovely, darling, and it will be so useful. I got the very best quality, +and it ought to wear forever."</p> + +<p>"I made Mrs. William Goode one ten years ago, and she's still wearing +it," remarked Miss Willy, speaking with an effort through a mouthful of +pins.</p> + +<p>A machine, which had been whirring briskly by the side window, stopped +suddenly, and the girl who sewed there—a sickly, sallow-faced creature +of Virginia's age, who was hired by Mrs. Pendleton, partly out of +charity because she supported an invalid father who had been crippled in +the war, and partly because, having little strength and being an +unskilled worker, her price was cheap—turned for an instant and stared +wistfully at the black silk polonaise over the strip of organdie which +she was hemming. All her life she had wanted a black silk dress, and +though she knew that she should probably never have one, and should not +have time to wear it if she ever had, she liked to linger over the +thought of it, very much as Virginia lingered over the thought of her +lover, or as little Miss Willy lingered over the thought of having a +tombstone over her after she was dead. In the girl's face, where at +first there had been only admiration, a change came gradually. A quiver, +so faint that it was hardly more than a shadow, passed over her drawn +features, and her gaze left the trailing yards of silk and wandered to +the blue October sky over the swinging leaves of the paulownia. But +instead of the radiant autumn weather at which she was looking, she +still saw that black silk polonaise which she wanted as she wanted youth +and pleasure, and which she knew that she should never have.</p> + +<p>"Everything is finished but this, isn't it, Miss Willy?" asked Virginia, +and at the sound of her happy voice, that strange quiver passed again +through the other girl's face.</p> + +<p>"Everything except that organdie and a couple of nightgowns." There was +no quiver in Miss Willy's face, for from constant consideration of the +poorhouse and the cemetery, she had come to regard the other problems of +life, if not with indifference, at least with something approaching a +mild contempt. Even love, when measured by poverty or by death, seemed +to lose the impressiveness of its proportions.</p> + +<p>"And I'll have enough clothes to last me for years, shan't I, mother?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so, darling. Your father and I have done the best that we could +for you."</p> + +<p>"You've been angels. Oh, how I shall hate to leave you!"</p> + +<p>"If only you weren't going away, Jinny!" Then she broke down, and +dropping the tomato-shaped pin-cushion she had been holding, she slipped +from the room, while Virginia thrust the polonaise into Miss Willy's +hands and fled breathlessly after her.</p> + +<p>In the girl's room, with her head bowed on the top of the little +bookcase, above those thin rows of fiction, Mrs. Pendleton was weeping +almost wildly over the coming separation. She, who had not thought of +herself for thirty years, had suddenly broken the constraint of the long +habit. Yet it was characteristic of her, that even now her first +feeling, when Virginia found her, should be one of shame that she had +clouded for an instant the girl's happiness.</p> + +<p>"It is nothing, darling. I have a little headache, and—oh, Jinny! +Jinny!—--"</p> + +<p>"Mother, it won't be long. We are coming back to live just as soon as +Oliver can get work. It isn't as if I were going for good, is it? And +I'll write you every day—every single day. Mother, dearest, darling +mother, I can't stay away from you——"</p> + +<p>Then Virginia wept, too, and Mrs. Pendleton, forgetting her own sorrow +at sight of the girl's tears, began to comfort her.</p> + +<p>"Of course, you'll write and tell me everything. It will be almost as if +I were with you."</p> + +<p>"And you love Oliver, don't you, mother?"</p> + +<p>"How could I help it, dear—only I can't quite get used to your calling +your husband by his name, Jinny. It would have horrified your +grandmother, and somehow it does seem lacking in respect. However, I +suppose I'm old-fashioned."</p> + +<p>"But, mother, he laughs if I call him 'Mr. Treadwell.' He says it +reminds him of his Aunt Belinda."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he's right, darling. Anyway, he prefers it, and I fancy your +grandfather wouldn't have liked to hear his wife address him so +familiarly. Times have changed since my girlhood."</p> + +<p>"And Oliver has lived out in the world so much, mother."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mrs. Pendleton, but her voice was without enthusiasm. The +"world" to her was a vague and sinister shape, which looked like a +bubble, and exerted a malignant influence over those persons who lived +beyond the borders of Virginia. Her imagination, which seldom wandered +farther afield than the possibility of the rector or of Virginia falling +ill, or the dreaded likelihood that her market bills would overrun her +weekly allowance, was incapable of grasping a set of standards other +than the one which was accepted in Dinwiddie.</p> + +<p>"Wherever you are, Jinny, I hope that you will never forget the ideas +your father and I have tried to implant in you," she said.</p> + +<p>"I'll always try to be worthy of you, mother."</p> + +<p>"Your first duty now, of course, is to your husband. Remember, we have +always taught you that a woman's strength lies in her gentleness. His +will must be yours now, and wherever your ideas cross, it is your duty +to give up, darling. It is the woman's part to sacrifice herself."</p> + +<p>"I know, mother, I know."</p> + +<p>"I have never forgotten this, dear, and my marriage has been very happy. +Of course," she added, while her forehead wrinkled nervously, "there are +not many men like your father."</p> + +<p>"Of course not, mother, but Oliver——"</p> + +<p>In Mrs. Pendleton's soft, anxious eyes the shadow darkened, as if for +the first time she had grown suspicious of the traditional wisdom which +she was imparting. But this suspicion was so new and young that it could +not struggle for existence against the archaic roots of her inherited +belief in the Pauline measure of her sex. It was characteristic of +her—and indeed of most women of her generation—that she would have +endured martyrdom in support of the consecrated doctrine of her +inferiority to man.</p> + +<p>"Even in the matter of religion you ought to yield to him, darling," she +said after a moment in which she had appealed to that orthodox arbiter, +her conscience. "Your father and I were talking about what church you +should go to, and I said that I supposed Oliver was a Presbyterian, like +all of the Treadwells."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, I didn't tell you before because I hoped I could change +him—but he doesn't go to any church—he says they all bore him equally. +He has broken away from all the old ideas, you know. He is +dreadfully—unsettled."</p> + +<p>The anxiety, which had been until then merely a shadow in Mrs. +Pendleton's eyes, deepened into a positive pain.</p> + +<p>"Your father must have known, for he talked to him—but he wouldn't tell +me," she said.</p> + +<p>"I made father promise not to. I hoped so I could change Oliver, and +maybe I can after we're married, mother."</p> + +<p>"If he has given up the old spiritual standards, what has he in place of +them?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, and she had suddenly a queer feeling as if +little fine needles were pricking her skin.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, but he seems to have a great deal, more than any of us," +answered Virginia, and she added passionately, "He is good, mother."</p> + +<p>"I never doubted it, darling, but he is young, and his character cannot +be entirely formed at his age. A man must be very strong in order to be +good without faith."</p> + +<p>"But he has faith, mother—of some kind."</p> + +<p>"I am not judging him, my child, and neither your father nor I would +ever criticise your husband to you. Your happiness was set on him, and +we can only pray from our hearts that he will prove worthy of your love. +He is very lovable, and I am sure that he has fine, generous traits. +Your father has been completely won over by him."</p> + +<p>"He likes me to be religious, mother. He says the church has cultivated +the loveliest type of woman the world has ever seen."</p> + +<p>"Then by fulfilling that ideal you will please him best."</p> + +<p>"I shall try to be just what you have been to father—just as unselfish, +just as devoted."</p> + +<p>"I have made many mistakes, Jinny, but I don't think I have ever failed +in love—not in love, at least."</p> + +<p>Then the pain passed out of her eyes, and because it was impossible for +her to look on any fact in life except through the transfiguring +idealism with which the ages had endowed her, she became immediately +convinced that everything, even the unsettling of Oliver's opinions, had +been arranged for the best. This assurance was the more solacing because +it was the result, not of external evidence, but of that instinctive +decision of temperament which breeds the deepest conviction of all.</p> + +<p>"Love is the only thing that really matters, isn't it, mother?"</p> + +<p>"A pure and noble love, darling. It is a woman's life. God meant it so."</p> + +<p>"You are so good! If I can only be half as good as you are."</p> + +<p>"No, Jinny, I'm not really good. I have had many temptations—for I was +born with a high temper, and it has taken me a lifetime to learn really +to subdue it. I had—I have still an unfortunate pride. But for your +father's daily example of humility and patience, I don't know how I +could have supported the trials and afflictions we have known. Pray to +be better than your mother, my child, if you want to become a perfect +wife. What I am that seems good to you, your father has made me——"</p> + +<p>"And father says that he would have been a savage but for you."</p> + +<p>A tremor passed through Mrs. Pendleton's thin bosom, and bending over, +she smoothed a fine darn in the skirt of her alpaca dress.</p> + +<p>"We have loved each other," she answered. "If you and Oliver love as +much, you will be happy whatever comes to you." Then choking down the +hard lump in her throat, she took up her leather key basket from the +little table beside the bed, and moved slowly towards the door. "I must +see about supper now, dear," she said in her usual voice of quiet +cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>Left to herself, Virginia opened the worn copy of the prayer-book, which +she kept at her bedside, and read the marriage service from beginning to +end, as she had done every day since her engagement to Oliver. The words +seemed to her, as they seemed to her mother, to be almost divine in +their nobility and beauty. She was troubled by no doubt as to the +inspired propriety of the canonical vision of woman. What could be more +beautiful or more sacred than to be "given" to Oliver—to belong to him +as utterly as she had belonged to her father? What could make her +happier than the knowledge that she must surrender her will to his from +the day of her wedding until the day of her death? She embraced her +circumscribed lot with a passion which glorified its limitations. The +single gift which the ages permitted her was the only one she desired. +Her soul craved no adventure beyond the permissible adventure of being +sought in marriage. Love was all that she asked of a universe that was +overflowing with manifold aspects of life.</p> + +<p>Beyond the window the tawny leaves of the paulownia were swinging in the +October sunshine, and so gay they seemed that it was impossible to +imagine them insensible to the splendour of the Indian Summer. Under the +half bared boughs, on the green grass in the yard, those that had +already fallen sped on, like a flock of frightened brown birds, towards +the white paling fence of the churchyard.</p> + +<p>While she sat there, with her prayer-book in her hand, and her eyes on +the purple veil of the distance, it seemed to her that her joy was so +complete that there was nothing left even to hope for. All her life she +had looked forward to the coming of what she thought of vaguely as +"happiness," and now that it was here, she felt that it put an end to +the tremulous expectancy which had filled her girlhood with such wistful +dreams. Marriage appeared to her (and indeed to Oliver, also) as a +miraculous event, which would make not only herself, but every side of +life, different for the future. After that there would be no vain +longings, no spring restlessness, no hours of drab weariness, when the +interests of living seemed to crumble from mere despondency. After that +they would be always happy, always eager, always buoyantly alive.</p> + +<p>Leaving the marriage service, her thoughts brooded in a radiant +stillness on the life of love which would begin for her on the day of +her wedding. A strange light—the light that quivered like a golden wing +over the autumn fields—shone, also, into the secret chambers of her +soul, and illumined the things which had appeared merely dull and +commonplace until to-day. Those innumerable little cares which fill the +lives of most women were steeped in the magic glow of this miraculous +charm. She thought of the daily excitement of marketing, of the +perpetual romance of mending his clothes, of the glorified monotony of +pouring his coffee, as an adventurer on sunrise seas might dream of the +rosy islands of hidden treasure. And then, so perfectly did she conform +in spirit to the classic ideal of her sex, her imagination ecstatically +pictured her in the immemorial attitude of woman. She saw herself +waiting—waiting happily—but always waiting. She imagined the thrilling +expectancy of the morning waiting for him to come home to his dinner; +the hushed expectancy of the evening waiting for him to come home to his +supper; the blissful expectancy of hoping that he might be early; the +painful expectancy of fearing that he might be late. And it seemed to +her divinely right and beautiful that, while he should have a hundred +other absorbing interests in his life, her whole existence should +perpetually circle around this single centre of thought. One by one, she +lived in anticipation all the exquisite details of their life together, +and in imagining them, she overlooked all possible changes that the +years might bring, as entirely as she ignored the subtle variations of +temperament which produce in each individual that fluid quantity we call +character. She thought of Oliver, as she thought of herself, as though +the fact of marriage would crystallize him into a shape from which he +would never alter or dissolve in the future. And with a reticence +peculiar to her type, she never once permitted her mind to stray to her +crowning beatitude—the hope of a child; for, with that sacred +inconsistency possible only to fixed beliefs, though motherhood was +supposed to comprise every desire, adventure, and activity in the life +of woman, it was considered indelicate for her to dwell upon the thought +of it until the condition had become too obvious for refinement to deny.</p> + +<p>The shadow of the church tower lengthened on the grass, and at the end +of the cross street she saw Susan appear and stop for a minute to speak +to Miss Priscilla, who was driving by in a small wagonette. Then the +girl and the teacher parted, and ten minutes later there came Susan's +imperative knock at Virginia's door.</p> + +<p>"Miss Willy told mother that your wedding dress was finished, Jinny, and +I am dying to see it!"</p> + +<p>Going to the closet, which was built into one corner of the wall, +Virginia unpinned a long white sheet scented with rose-leaves, and +brought out a filmy mass of satin and lace. Her face as she looked down +upon it was the face of girlhood incarnate. All her virginal dreams +clustered there like doves quivering for flight. Its beauty was the +beauty of fleeting things—of the wind in the apple blossoms at dawn, of +the music of bees on an August afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Mother wouldn't let me be married in anything but satin," she said, +with a catch in her voice. "I believe it is the first time in her life +she was ever extravagant, but she felt so strongly about it that I had +to give in and not have white muslin as I wanted to do."</p> + +<p>"And it's so lovely," said Susan. "I had no idea Miss Willy could do it. +She's as proud, too, as if it were her own."</p> + +<p>"She took a pleasure in every stitch, she told me. Oh, Susan, I +sometimes feel that I haven't any right to be so happy. I seem to have +everything and other women to have nothing."</p> + +<p>For the first time Susan smiled, but it was a smile of understanding. +"Perhaps they have more than you think, darling."</p> + +<p>"But there's Miss Willy—what has she ever got out of life?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I really believe she gets a kind of happiness out of saving up +the money to pay for her tombstone. It's a funny thing, but the people +who ought to be unhappy, somehow never are. It doesn't seem to be a +matter of what you have, but of the way you are born. Now, according to +us, Miss Willy ought to be miserable, but the truth is that she isn't a +bit so. Mother saw her once skipping for pure joy in the spring."</p> + +<p>"But people who haven't things can't be as grateful to God as those who +have. I feel that I'd like to spend every minute of my life on my knees +thanking Him. I don't see how I can ever have a disappointed or a +selfish thought again. I wonder if you can understand, you precious +Susan, but I want to open my arms and take the whole world into them."</p> + +<p>"Jinny," said Susan suddenly, "don't spoil Oliver."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't—not if I tried every minute."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, dear. He is very lovable, he has fine generous traits, he +has the making of a big man in him—but his character isn't formed yet, +you must remember. So much of him is imagination that he will take +longer than most men to grow up to his stature."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, and turned away.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I oughtn't to have said it, Jinny—but, no, I ought to tell you +just what I think, and I don't regret it."</p> + +<p>"Mother said the same thing to me," responded Virginia, looking as if +she were on the point of tears; "but that is just because neither of you +know him as I do."</p> + +<p>"He is a Treadwell and so am I, and the chief characteristic of every +Treadwell is that he is going to get the thing he wants most. It doesn't +make any difference whether it is money or love or fame, the thing he +wants most he will get sooner or later. So all I mean is that you +needn't spoil Oliver by giving him the universe before he wants it."</p> + +<p>"I can't give him the universe. I can only give him myself."</p> + +<p>Stooping over, Susan kissed her.</p> + +<p>"Happy, happy little Jinny!"</p> + +<p>"There are only two things that trouble me, dear—one is going away from +mother and father, and the other is that you are not so happy as I am."</p> + +<p>"Some day I may get the thing I want like every other Treadwell."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean going to college?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Susan, "I don't mean that," and into her calm grey eyes a new +light shone for an instant.</p> + +<p>A clairvoyance, deeper than knowledge, came to Virginia while she looked +at her.</p> + +<p>"You darling!" she exclaimed. "I never suspected!"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to suspect, Jinny. I was only joking."</p> + +<p>"Why, it never crossed my mind that you would think of him for a +minute."</p> + +<p>"He hasn't thought of me for a minute yet."</p> + +<p>"The idea! He'd be wild about you in ten seconds if he ever thought——"</p> + +<p>"He was wild about you ten seconds ago, dear."</p> + +<p>"He never was. It was just his fancy. Why, you are made for each other."</p> + +<p>A laugh broke from Susan, but with that large and quiet candour which +was characteristic of her, she did not seek to evade or deny Virginia's +suspicion. That her friend should discover her feeling for John Henry +seemed to her as natural as that she should be conscious of it +herself—for they were intimate with that full and perfect intimacy +which exists only between two women who trust each other.</p> + +<p>"There goes Miss Willy," said Susan, looking through the window to where +the little dressmaker tripped down the stone steps to the street. +"Mother wants to have early supper, so I must be running away."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, darling. Oh, Susan, I never loved you as I do now. It will be +all right—I trust and pray that it will! And, just think, you will walk +out of church together at my wedding!"</p> + +<p>For a minute, standing on the threshold, Susan looked back at her with +an expression of tender amusement in her eyes. "Don't imagine that I'm +unhappy, dear," she said, "because I'm not—it isn't that kind—and, +after all, even an unrequited affection may be simply an added interest +in life, if we choose to take it that way."</p> + +<p>When she had gone, Virginia lingered over her wedding dress, while she +wondered what the wise Susan could see in the simple John Henry? Was it +possible that John Henry was not so simple, after all? Or did Susan, +forsaking the ancient tradition of love, care about him merely because +he was good?</p> + +<p>For a week the hours flew by with golden wings, and at last the most +sacred day of her life dawned softly in a sunrise of rose and flame. +When she looked back on it afterwards, there were three things which +stood out unforgettably in her memory—the kiss that her mother gave her +when she turned to leave her girlhood's room for the last time; the +sound of her father's voice as he spoke her name at the altar; and the +look in Oliver's eyes when she put her hand into his. All the rest was +enveloped in a shining mist which floated, like her wedding veil, +between the old life and the new.</p> + +<p>"It has been so perfect—so perfect—if I can only be worthy of this day +and of you, Oliver," she said as the carriage started from the rectory +gate to the station.</p> + +<p>"You angel!" he murmured ecstatically.</p> + +<p>Her eyes hung blissfully on his face for an instant, and then, moved by +a sudden stab of reproach, she leaned from the window and looked back at +her mother and father, who stood, with clasped hands, gazing after her +over the white palings of the gate.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II2" id="CHAPTER_II2"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>VIRGINIA'S LETTERS</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City</span>, West Virginia, October 16, 1884.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest, Dearest Mother:</span></p> + +<p>We got here this morning after a dreadful trip—nine or ten hours +late—and this is the first minute I've had when I could sit down and +write to you. All the way on the train I was thinking of you and dear +father, and longing for you so that I could hardly keep back the tears. +I don't see how I can possibly stay away from you for a whole year. +Oliver says he wants to take me home for Christmas if everything goes +all right with us here and his work proves satisfactory to the manager. +Oh, mother, he is the loveliest thing to me! I don't believe he has +thought of himself a single minute since I married him. He says the only +wish he has on earth is to make me happy—and he is so careful about me +that I'm afraid I'll be spoiled to death before you see me again. He +says he loves the little grey dress of shot silk, with the bonnet that +makes me look like a Quaker. I wish now I'd got my other hat the bonnet +shape as you wanted me to do—but perhaps, after all, it will be more +useful and keep in fashion longer as it is. When I took out my clothes +this morning, while Oliver was downstairs, and remembered how you had +folded and packed everything, I just sat down on the floor in the midst +of them and had a good cry. I never realized how much I loved you until +I got into the carriage to come away. Then I wanted to jump out and put +my arms around you and tell you that you are the best and dearest mother +a girl ever had. My things were so beautifully packed that there wasn't +a single crease anywhere—not even in the black silk polonaise that we +were so afraid would get rumpled. I don't see how on earth you folded +them so smoothly. By the way, I hardly think I shall have any need of my +wedding dress while I am here, so you may as well put it away at home +until I come back. This place seems to be just a mining town, with very +few people of our class, and those all connected with the railroad. Of +course, I may be mistaken, but from my first impressions I doubt if I'll +ever want to have much to do with anybody that I've seen. It doesn't +make a bit of difference, of course, because I shan't be lonesome a +minute with the house to look after and Oliver's clothes to attend to; +and, besides, I don't think a married woman ought to make many new +friends. Her husband ought to be enough for her. Mrs. Payson, the +manager's wife, was here to welcome me, but I hope I shan't see very +much of her, because she isn't just exactly what I should call ladylike. +Of course I wouldn't breathe this to any other living soul, but I +thought her entirely too free and easy in her manner, and she dresses in +such very bright colours. Why, she had a red feather in her hat, and she +must have been married at least fifteen years. Oliver says he doesn't +believe she's a day under forty-five. He says he likes her well enough +and thinks she's a good sort, but he is awfully glad that I'm not that +kind of woman. I feel sorry for her husband, for I'm sure no man wants +his wife to make herself conspicuous, and they say she even makes +speeches when she is in the North. Maybe she isn't to blame, because she +was brought up that way, but I am going to see just as little of her as +I can.</p> + +<p>And now I must tell you about our house, for I know you are dying to +hear how we are fixed. It's the tiniest one you ever imagined, with a +front yard the size of a pocket handkerchief, and it is painted the most +perfectly hideous shade of yellow—the shade father always calls +bilious. I can't understand why they made it so ugly, but, then, the +whole town is just as ugly as our house is. The people here don't seem +to have the least bit of taste. All the porches have dreadful brown +ornaments along the top of them, and they look exactly as if they were +made out of gingerbread. There are very few gardens, and nobody takes +any care of these. I suppose one reason is that it is almost impossible +to get servants for love or money. There are hardly any darkies here, +they say, and the few they have are perfectly worthless. Mrs. +Midden—the woman who opened my house for me—hasn't been able to get me +a cook, and we'll either have to take our meals at a boarding-house +across the street, or I shall have to put to practise the lessons you +gave me. I am so glad you made me learn how to housekeep and to cook, +because I am certain that I shall have greater need of both of these +accomplishments than of either drawing or music. Oliver was simply +horrified when I told him so. He said he'd rather starve than see me in +the kitchen, and he urged me to get you to send us a servant from +Dinwiddie—but things are so terribly costly here—you never dreamed of +such prices—that I really don't believe we can afford to have one come. +Then, Mrs. Midden says that they get ruined just as soon as they are +brought here. Everybody tries it at first, she told me, and it has +always proved a disappointment in the end. I am perfectly sure that I +shan't mind cooking at all—and as for cleaning up this little +house—why, it won't take me an hour—but Oliver almost weeps every time +I mention it. He is afraid every instant he is away from me that I am +lonesome or something has happened to me, and whenever he has ten +minutes free he runs up here to see what I am doing. Do you know he has +made me promise not to go out by myself until I am used to the place. +Isn't that too absurd?</p> + +<p>Dearest mother, I must stop now, and write some notes of thanks for my +presents. The barrels of china haven't come yet, but the silver box got +here almost as soon as we did. Freight takes a long time, Oliver says. +It will be such fun unpacking all my presents and putting them away on +the shelves. I was so excited those last few days that I hardly paid any +attention to the things that came. Now I shall have time really to enjoy +them, and to realize how sweet and lovely everybody has been to me. +Wasn't it too dear of Miss Priscilla to give me that beautiful tea-set? +And I was so touched by poor little Miss Willy spending her hard-earned +money on that vase. I wish she hadn't. It makes me feel badly to think +of it—but I don't see what I could do about it, do you? I think I'll +try to send her a cloak or something at Christmas.</p> + +<p>I haven't said half that I want to—but I shall keep the rest for +to-morrow.</p> + + +<p>With a dozen kisses and my dearest love to father,<br /> +Your ever, ever loving and grateful daughter,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia</span></p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> December 25, 1884.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother:</span></p> + +<p>It almost broke my heart not to be able to go home for Christmas. It +doesn't seem like Christmas at all away from you—though, of course, I +try not to let Oliver see how I mind it. He has so much to bother him, +poor dear, that I keep all of my worries, big and little, in the +background. When anything goes wrong in the house I never tell him, +because he has so many important things on his mind that I don't think I +ought to trouble him about small ones. We have given up going to the +boarding-house for our meals, because neither of us could eat a morsel +of the food they had there—did you ever hear of such a thing as having +pie and preserves for breakfast?—and Oliver says it used to make him +sick to see me in the midst of all of those people. They came from all +over the country, and hardly anybody could speak a grammatical sentence. +The man who sat next to me always said "he don't" and "I ain't feeling +good to-day" and once even "I done it"—can you imagine such a thing? +Every other word was "guess," and yet they had the impertinence to laugh +at me when I said "reckon," which, I am sure father told me was +Shakespearian English. Well, we stood it as long as we could, and then +we started having our meals here, and it is so much nicer. Oliver says +the change from the boarding-house has given him a splendid appetite, +and he enjoys everything that I make so much—particularly the waffles +by Aunt Ailsey's recipe. Be sure to tell her. At first I had a servant, +but she was so dreadful that I let her go at the end of the month, and I +really get on ever so much better without her. She hadn't the faintest +idea how to cook, and had never made a piece of light bread in her life. +Besides, she was too untidy for anything, and actually swept the trash +under the bed except once a week when she pretended to give a thorough +cleaning. The first time she changed the sheets, I found that she had +simply put on one fresh one, and was going to use the bottom one on top. +She said she'd never heard of doing it any other way, and I had to laugh +when I thought of how your face would have looked if you could have +heard her. It really is the greatest relief to get rid of her, and I'd a +hundred times rather do the work myself than have another of that kind. +At first Oliver hated dreadfully to have me do everything about the +house, but he is beginning to get used to it now, because, of course, I +never let him see if anything happens to worry me or if I am tired when +he comes home. It takes every minute of my time, but, then, there is +nothing else here that I care to do, and I never leave the house except +to take a little walk with Oliver on Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Midden says +that I make a mistake to give a spring cleaning every day, but I love to +keep the house looking perfectly spick and span, and I make hot bread +twice a day, because Oliver is so fond of it. He is just as sweet and +dear as he can be and wants to help about everything, but I hate to see +him doing housework. Somehow it doesn't seem to me to look manly. We +have had our first quarrel about who is to get up and make the fires in +the morning. Oliver insisted that he was to do it, but I wake so much +earlier than he does, because I've got the bread on my mind, that I +almost always have the wood burning before he gets up. The first few +times he was really angry about it, and he didn't seem to understand why +I hated so to wake him. He says he hates still worse to see my hands get +rough—but I am so thankful that I am not one of those girls (like Abby +Goode) who are forever thinking of how they look. But Oliver made such a +fuss about the fires that I didn't tell him that I went down to the +cellar one morning and brought up a basket of coal. The boy didn't come +the day before, so there wasn't any to start the kitchen fire with, and +I knew that by the time Oliver got up and dressed it would be too late +to have hot rolls for breakfast. By the way, could you have a bushel of +cornmeal sent to me from Dinwiddie? The kind they have here isn't the +least bit like the water-ground sort we have at home, and most of it is +yellow. Nobody ever has batterbread here. All the food is different from +ours. I suppose that is because most of the people are from the North +and West.</p> + +<p>I have the table all set for our Christmas dinner, and in a few minutes +I must put the turkey into the oven. I was so glad to get the plum +pudding in the Christmas box, because I could never have made one half +so good as yours, and the fruit cake will last me forever—it is so big. +I wrote you about the box yesterday just as soon as it came, but after I +had sent my letter, I went back to it and found that rose point scarf of +grandmother's wrapped in tissue paper in the bottom. Darling mother, it +made me cry. You oughtn't to have given it to me. It always looked so +lovely on your black silk, and it was almost the last thing you had +left. I don't believe I shall ever make up my mind to wear it. I have on +my little grey silk to-day, and it looks so nice. You must tell Miss +Willy that it has been very much admired. Mrs. Payson asked me if it was +made in Dinwiddie, and, you know, she gets all of her clothes from New +York. That must have been why I thought her over-dressed when I first +saw her. By the way, I've almost changed my mind about her since I wrote +you what I thought of her. I believe now that the whole trouble with her +is simply that she isn't a Southern lady. She means well, I am sure, but +she isn't what I should call exactly refined. There's something "horsey" +about her—I can't think of any other way to express it—something that +reminds me just a little bit of Abby—and, you remember, we always said +Abby got that from being educated in the North. Tell dearest Susan I +really think it is fortunate that she did not go to one of their +colleges. Mrs. Payson is a college woman and it seems to me that she is +always trying to appear as clever as a man. She talks in a way sometimes +that sounds as if she believed in woman's rights and all that sort of +thing. I told Oliver about it, and he laughed and said that men hated +talk like that. He says all a man admires in a woman is her power of +loving, and that when she begins to ape a man she loses her charm for +him. I can't understand why Mr. Payson married his wife. He said such +nice things to me the other day about my being so domestic and such a +home lover, that I really felt sorry for him. When I told him that I +was so fond of staying indoors that I would never cross my threshold if +Oliver didn't make me, he laughed and said that he wished I'd convert +his wife to my way of thinking. Yet he seems to have the greatest +admiration for her, and, do you know, I believe he even admires that red +feather, though he doesn't approve of it. He never turns his eyes away +from her when they are together, which isn't very much, as she goes +about just as she pleases without him. Can you understand how a person +can both admire and disapprove of a thing? Oliver says he knows how it +is, but I must say that I don't. I hope and pray that our marriage will +always be different from theirs. Oliver and I are never apart for a +single minute except when he is at work in the office. He hasn't written +a line since we came here, but he is going to begin as soon as we get +settled, and then he says that I may sit in the room and sew if I want +to. I can't believe that people really love each other unless they want +to be together every instant, no matter what they are doing. Why, if +Oliver went out to men's dinners without me as Mr. Payson does (though +she doesn't seem to mind it) I should just sit at home by myself and cry +my eyes out. I think love, if it is love, ought to be all in all. I am +perfectly sure that if I live to be a hundred I shall never want any +society but Oliver's. He is the whole world to me, and when he is not +here I spend my time, unless I am at work, just sitting and thinking +about him. My one idea is to make him as happy as I can, and when a +woman does this for a man I don't think she has time to run around by +herself as Mrs. Payson does. Tell dearest father that I so often think +of his sermons and the beautiful things he said about women. The rector +here doesn't compare with him as a preacher.</p> + +<p>This is such a long letter it will take two stamps. I've just let myself +run on without thinking what I was writing, so if I have made any +mistakes in grammar or in spelling, please don't let father see them but +read my letter aloud to him. I can shut my eyes and see you sitting at +dinner, with Docia bringing in the plum pudding, and I know you will +talk of me while you help to it. Write me who comes to dinner with you. +I wonder if Miss Priscilla and John Henry are there as usual. Do you +know whether John Henry ever goes to the Treadwell's or not? I wish you +would ask him to take Susan to see his old mammy in Pink Alley. Now that +I am not there to go to see her occasionally, I am afraid she will get +lonesome.</p> + +<p>Good-bye, dearest mother. I will write to you before New Year. I am so +busy that I don't have time to write every day, but you will understand +and so will father.</p> + + +<p>With my heart's fondest love to you both,<br /> +Your<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia.</span><br /></p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> June 6, 1885.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Darling Mother:</span></p> + +<p>The little patterns were exactly what I wanted—thank you a thousand +times. I knew you would be overjoyed at the news, and you are the only +person I've breathed it to—except, of course, dear Oliver, who is +frightened to death already. He has made me stop everything at once, and +whenever he sees me lift my hand, he begins to get nervous and begs me +not to do it. Oh, mother, he loves me so that it is really pathetic to +see his anxiety. And—can you believe it—he doesn't appear to be the +least bit glad about it. When I told him, he looked amazed—as if he had +never thought of its happening—and said, "Oh, Virginia, not so soon!" +He told me afterwards that, of course, he'd always thought we'd have +children after a while, before we were middle-aged, but that he had +wanted to stay like this for at least five or ten years. When the baby +comes, he says he supposes he'll like it, but that he can't honestly say +he is glad. It's funny how frightened he is, because I am not the least +bit so. All women must expect to have children when they marry, and if +God makes them suffer for it, it must be because it is best that they +should. Perhaps they wouldn't love their babies so much if they got them +easily. I never think of the pain a minute. It all seems so beautiful +and sacred to me that I can't understand why Oliver isn't enraptured +just as I am. To think of a new life starting into the world from me—a +life that is half mine and half Oliver's, and one that would never be at +all except for our love. The baby will seem from the very first minute +to be our love made into flesh. I don't see how a woman who feels this +could waste a thought on what she has to suffer.</p> + +<p>I am so glad you are going to send me a nurse from Dinwiddie, because +I'm afraid I could never get one here that I could trust. The servant +Oliver got me is no earthly account, and I still do as much of the +cooking as I can. The house doesn't look nearly so nice as it used to, +but the doctor tells me that I mustn't sweep, so I only do the light +dusting. I sew almost all the time, and I've already finished the little +slips. To-day I'm going to cut out the petticoats. I couldn't tell from +the pattern you sent whether they fasten in front or in the back. There +are no places for buttonholes. Do you use safety pins to fasten them +with? The embroidery is perfectly lovely, and will make the sweetest +trimming. I am using pink for the basket because Oliver and I both hope +the baby will be a girl. If it is, I shall name her after you, of +course, and I want her to be just exactly like you. Oliver says he can't +understand why anybody ever wants a boy—girls are so much nicer. But +then he insists that if she isn't born with blue eyes, he will send her +to the orphanage.</p> + +<p>I am trying to do just as you tell me to, and to be as careful as I +possibly can. The doctor thinks I've stayed indoors too much since I +came here, so I go out for a little walk with Oliver every night. I am +so afraid that somebody will see me that I really hate to go out at all, +and always choose the darkest streets I can find. Last night I had a bad +stumble, and Oliver says he doesn't care if the whole town discovers us, +he's not going to take me down any more unlighted alleys.</p> + +<p>It has been terribly hot all day—not a breath of air stirring—and I +never felt the heat so much in my life. The doctor says it's because of +my condition—and last night, after Oliver went to sleep, I got up and +sat by the window until daybreak. At first I was dreadfully frightened, +and thought I was going to stifle—but poor Oliver had come home so +tired that I made up my mind I wasn't going to wake him if I could +possibly help it. This morning I didn't tell him a word about it, and he +hasn't the least idea that I didn't sleep soundly all night. I suppose +that's why I feel so dragged and worn out to-day, just as if somebody +had given me a good beating. I was obliged to lie down most of the +afternoon, but I am going to take a bath in a few minutes and try to +make myself look nice and fresh before Oliver comes home. I have let out +that flowered organdie—the one you liked so much—and I wear it almost +every evening. I know I look dreadfully, but Oliver says I am more +beautiful than ever. It seems to me sometimes that men are born blind +where women are concerned, but perhaps God made it that way on purpose. +Do you know Oliver really admires Mrs. Payson, and he thinks that red +feather very becoming to her. He says she's much too good for her +husband, but I have been obliged to disagree with him about that. Even +if Mr. Payson does drink a little, I am sure it is only because he gets +lonesome when he is left by himself, and that she could prevent it if +she tried. Oliver and I never talk about these things because he sees +that I feel so strongly about them.</p> + +<p>Oh, darling mother, I shall be so glad to see you! I hope and pray that +father will be well enough for you to come a whole month ahead. In that +case you will be here in less than two months, won't you? If the baby +comes on the twelfth of August, she (I am perfectly sure it will be a +girl) and father will have the same birthday. I am so anxious that she +shall be born on that day.</p> + +<p>Well, I must stop now, though I could run on forever. I never see a +living soul from one day to another—Mrs. Payson is out of town—so when +Oliver stays late at the office, and I am too tired to work, I get a +little—just a little bit lonesome. Mr. Payson sent me a pile of novels +by Oliver the other night—but I haven't looked into them. I always feel +that it is a waste of time to read when there are things about the house +that ought to be done. I wish everything didn't cost so much here. Money +doesn't go half as far as it does in Dinwiddie. The price of meat is +almost three times as much as it is at home, and chickens are so +expensive that we have them only twice a week. It is hard to housekeep +on a small allowance, and now that we have to save for the baby's +coming, I have to count every penny. I have bought a little book like +yours, and I put down all that I spend during the day, and then add it +up at night before going to bed. Oliver says I'm dreadfully frugal, but +I am always so terribly afraid of running over my allowance (which is +every cent that we can afford) and not having the money to pay the +doctor's bills when they are due. Nobody could be more generous with +money than Oliver is—I couldn't endure being married to a stingy man +like Mr. Treadwell—and the other day when one of the men in the office +died, he sent the most beautiful wreath that cost ten dollars. I am +trying to save enough out of the housekeeping balance to pay for it, for +Oliver always runs out of his pocket money before the middle of the +month. I haven't bought anything for the baby because you sent me all +the materials I needed, and I have been sewing on those ever since they +came. Of course my own clothes are still as good as new, so the only +expense will be the doctor and the nurse and the extra things I shall be +obliged to have to eat when I am sick.</p> + +<p>Give dear father a dozen kisses from me, and tell him to hurry and get +well so he can christen his granddaughter.</p> + + +<p>Your devoted and ever grateful<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia.</span></p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> August 11, 1885.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Darling Mother:</span></p> + +<p>Just a line to say that I am so, so sorry you can't come, but that you +mustn't worry a minute, because everything is going beautifully, and I +am not the least bit afraid. The doctor says he never saw any one in a +better frame of mind or so little nervous. Give my dear love to father. +I am so distressed that he should suffer as he does. Rheumatism must be +such terrible pain, and I don't wonder that you are frightened lest it +should go to his heart. I shall send you a telegram as soon as the baby +comes.</p> + + +<p>Your devoted daughter,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia</span>.</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> August 29, 1885.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Precious Mother:</span></p> + +<p>This is the first time I have sat up in bed, and I am trying to write a +little note to you on a pillow instead of a desk. My hand shakes so that +I'm afraid you won't be able to read it, but I felt that I wanted to +send you a few words of my very own, not dictated to the nurse or to +Mrs. Payson. I can't tell you how perfectly lovely Mrs. Payson has been +to me. She was here all that dreadful night, and I believe I should have +died without her. The doctor said I had such a hard time because I'd let +myself get run down and stayed indoors too much. But I'm getting all +right now—and the rest is over and doesn't matter. As soon as I am +strong again I shall be perfectly happy.</p> + +<p>Oh, mother, aren't you delighted that the baby is a girl, after all? It +was the first question I asked when I came back to consciousness the +next morning, and when they told me it was, I said, "Her name is Lucy +Pendleton," and that was all. I was so weak they wouldn't let me open my +lips again, and Oliver was kept out of the room for almost ten days +because I would talk to him. Poor fellow, it almost killed him. He is as +white as a sheet still, and looks as if he had been through tortures. It +must have been terrible for him, because I was really very, very ill at +one time.</p> + +<p>But it is all over now, and the baby is the sweetest thing you ever +imagined. I believe she knows me already, and Mrs. Payson says she is +exactly like me, though I can see the strongest resemblance to Oliver, +even if she has blue eyes and he hasn't. Wasn't it lovely how everything +came just as we wanted it to—a girl, born on father's birthday, with +blue eyes, and named Lucy? But, mother, darling, the most wonderful +thing of all was that you seemed to be with me all through it. The whole +time I was unconscious I thought you were here, and the nurse tells me +that I was calling "Mother! Mother!" all that night. Nothing ever made +me feel as close to you as having a baby of my own. I never knew before +what you were to me, and how dearly, dearly I love you.</p> + +<p>The nurse is taking the pencil away from me.</p> + +<p>Your loving<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia</span>.</p> + + +<p>Isn't it funny that Oliver won't take any interest in the baby at all? +He says she caused more trouble than she is worth. Was father like that?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> April 3, 1886.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother:</span></p> + +<p>My last letter was written an age ago, but I have been so busy since +Marthy left that I've hardly had a moment in which to draw breath. It +was a blow to me that she wouldn't stay for she was really an excellent +nurse and the baby got on so well with her, but there aren't any +coloured people of her kind here, and she got so homesick for Dinwiddie +that I thought she would lose her mind if she stayed. You know how +dependent they are upon company, and going out on Sunday afternoon and +all that kind of thing, and there really wasn't any amusement for her +except taking the baby out in the morning. She got so low spirited that +it was almost a relief when she went, but of course I feel her loss +dreadfully. I haven't let the baby out of my sight because I wouldn't +trust Daisy with her for anything in the world. She is so terribly +flighty. I have the crib brought into my room (though Oliver hates it) +and I take entire charge of her night and day. I should love to do it if +only Oliver didn't mind it so much. He says I think more of the baby now +than I do of him. Isn't that absurd? But of course she does take every +single minute of my time, and I can't dress myself for him every evening +as carefully as I used to do and look after all the housekeeping +arrangements. Daisy is a very poor cook and she simply throws the things +on the table, but it seems to me that my first duty is to the baby, so I +try to put up with the discomforts as well as I can. It is hard to eat +what she cooks since everything tastes exactly alike, but I try to +swallow as much as I can because the doctor says that if I don't keep up +my strength I shall have to stop nursing the baby. Wouldn't that be +dreadful? It almost breaks my heart to think of it, and I am sure we'd +never get any artificial food to agree with her. She is perfectly well +now, the sweetest, fattest thing you ever saw, and a real beauty, and +she is so devoted to me that she cries whenever I go out of her sight. I +am never tired of watching her, and even when she is asleep I sit +sometimes for an hour by her crib just thinking how pretty she looks +with her eyes closed and wishing you could see her. Oliver says I spoil +her to death, but how can a baby of seven months be spoiled. He doesn't +enjoy her half as much as I do, and sometimes I almost think that he +gets impatient of seeing her always in my arms. At first he absolutely +refused to have her crib brought into our room, but when I cried, he +gave in and was very sweet about it. I feel so ashamed sometimes of the +way the house looks, but there doesn't seem to be any help for it +because the doctor says if I let myself get tired it will be bad for the +baby. Of course I wouldn't put my own health before his comfort, but I +am obliged to think first of the baby, am I not? Last night, for +instance, the poor little thing was ill with colic and I was up and down +with her until daybreak. Then this morning she woke early and I had to +nurse her and give her her bath, and, added to everything else, Daisy's +cousin died and she sent word she couldn't come. I slipped on a wrapper +before taking a bath or fixing my hair and ran down to try and get +Oliver's breakfast, but the baby began to cry and he came after me and +said he wanted to make the coffee himself. Then he brought a cup +upstairs to me, but I was so tired and nervous that I couldn't drink it. +He didn't seem to understand why, feeling as badly as I did, I wouldn't +just put the baby back into her crib and make her stay there until I got +some rest, but the little thing was so wide awake that I hadn't the +heart to do it. Besides, it is so important to keep regular hours with +her, isn't it? I don't suppose a man ever realizes how a woman looks at +these things, but you will understand, won't you, mother?</p> + +<p>I am all alone in the house to-night because a play is in town that +Oliver wanted to see and I made him go to it. He wanted to ask Mrs. +Midden to sit downstairs (she has offered over and over again to do it) +so that I might go too, but of course I wouldn't let him. I really +couldn't have enjoyed it a minute for thinking of the baby, and besides +I never cared for the theatre. Then, too, he doesn't know (for I never +tell him) how very tired I am by the time night comes. Sometimes when +Oliver comes home and we sit in the dining-room (we never use the +drawing-room, because it is across the hall and I'm afraid I shouldn't +hear the baby cry) it is as much as I can do to keep my eyes open. I try +not to let him notice it, but one night when he read me the first act of +a play he is writing, I went to sleep, and though he didn't say +anything, I could see that he was very much hurt. He worries a good deal +about my health, too, and he even went out one day and engaged a nurse +without saying anything to me about it. After I had talked to her +though, I saw that she would never do, so I sent her away before he came +home. I wish I could get really strong and feel well again, but the +doctor insists I never will until I get out of doors and use my +muscles. But you stay in the house all the time and so did grandmother, +so I don't believe there's a word of truth in what he says. Anyway, I go +out every day now with the baby.</p> + +<p>Thank you so much for the little bands. They are just what I wanted.</p> + + +<p>With dearest love,<br /> +Your devoted<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia</span>.</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> June 10, 1886.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother:</span></p> + +<p>Daisy left a week ago and we couldn't find another servant until to-day. +I must say that I prefer coloured servants. They are so much more +dependable. I didn't know until the evening before Daisy left that she +was going, and I had to send Oliver straight out to see if he could find +somebody to come in and help me. There wasn't a soul to be had until +to-day, however, so for a week I was obliged to make Oliver get his +dinner at the boarding-house. It doesn't make any difference what I have +because I haven't a particle of appetite, and I'd just as soon eat tea +and toast as anything else. Of course, but for the baby I could have +managed perfectly well—but she has been so fretful of late that she +doesn't let me put her down a minute. The doctor says her teeth are +beginning to hurt her, and that I must expect to have trouble the first +summer. She has been so well until now that he thinks it has been really +remarkable. He tells me he never knew a healthier baby, but of course I +am terribly anxious about her teething in the hot weather. If she grows +much more fretful I'm afraid I shall have to take her to the country +for July and August. It seems dreadful to leave Oliver all alone, but I +don't see how I can help it if the doctor advises me to go. Oliver has +gone to some musical comedy at the Academy to-night, and I am so tired +that I am going to bed just as soon as I finish this letter. I hope and +pray that the baby will have a quiet night. Don't you think that Daisy +treated me very badly considering how kind I had been to her? Only a +week ago when she was taken with pain in the night, I got up and made +her a mustard plaster and sat by her bed until she felt easier. The next +day I did all of her work, and yet she has so little gratitude that she +could leave me this way when she knows perfectly well that I am worried +to death about the baby's first summer. I'd give anything if I could go +home in July as you suggest, but it is such a long trip, and the heat +will probably be quite as bad in Dinwiddie as here. Of course, it would +make all the difference in the world to me to be where I could have you +to advise me about the baby, and I'd go to-morrow if it only wasn't so +far. Mrs. Midden has told me of a boarding-house in the country not more +than twenty miles from here where Oliver could come down every evening, +and we may decide to go there for a month or two. I can't help feeling +very anxious, especially as Mrs. Scott's little boy—he is just the age +of baby—was taken ill the other night, and they thought he would die +before they could get a doctor.</p> + +<p>This letter is full of my worries, but in spite of them I am the +happiest woman that ever lived. Oliver is the best thing to me you can +imagine, and the baby is so fascinating that I enjoy every minute I am +with her. It is the greatest fun to watch her in her bath. I know you +would simply go into raptures over her—and she is so bright that she +already understands every word that I say. She grows more like Oliver +all the time, and the other day while I was watching her playing with +her rubber doll, she looked so beautiful that it almost frightened me.</p> + +<p>I am so glad dear father is well, and what you wrote me about John +Henry's admiration for Susan interested me so much that I sat straight +down and wrote to him. Why do you think that it is only friendship and +that he isn't in love with her? If he really thinks her the "finest girl +in the world," I should imagine he was beginning to be pretty serious. I +am delighted to hear that he is going to take her to the festival. Tell +Susan from me that I shall never be satisfied until she is as happy as I +am. Mr. Treadwell was right, I believe, not to let her go to college, +though of course I want dear Susan to have whatever she sets her heart +on. But, when all is said, you were wise in teaching me that nothing +matters to a woman except love. More and more I am learning that if we +only love unselfishly enough, everything else will work out for good to +us. My little worries can't keep me from being so blissfully happy that +I want to sing all the time. Work is a joy to me because I feel that I +am doing it for Oliver and the baby. And with two such treasures to live +for I should be the most ungrateful creature alive if I ever complained.</p> + + +<p>Your ever loving daughter,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia.</span></p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City</span>, July 1, 1886.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother:</span></p> + +<p>We are leaving suddenly for the country, and I'll send our address just +as soon as we get there. The doctor thinks I ought to take the baby +away from town, so I am going to the boarding-house I wrote you about. +Oliver will come down every evening—it's only an hour's trip.</p> + +<p>I am so tired from packing that I can't write any more.</p> + +<p>Lovingly,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia</span>.</p> + + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City</span>. September 15, 1886.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dearest Mother:</span></p> + +<p>Here we are back again in our home, and I was never so thankful in my +life to get away from any place. I wrote you how dreadfully inconvenient +it was, but it would take pages to tell you all of my experiences in the +last few days. Such people you never saw in your life! And the food got +so uneatable that I lived on crackers for the last fortnight. +Fortunately, I was still nursing the baby, but the doctor has just told +me that I must stop. I am so distressed about it. Do you think it will +go hard with her after the first year? She is as fat and well as she can +be now, but I live in hourly terror of her getting sick. If anything +should happen to her, I believe it would kill me.</p> + +<p>Oliver sends love. He is working very hard at the office now, and he +hates it.</p> + +<p>Your loving<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia.</span></p> + + +<p>I forgot to tell you that Mrs. Midden has found me such a nice servant. +She is a very young coloured girl, but looks so kind and capable, and +says she is perfectly devoted to children. Her name is Marthy, and I +feel that she's going to be a great comfort to me.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Matoaca City.</span> October 12, 1886.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="smcap">My Darling Mother:</span></p> + +<p>I was overjoyed to find your letter in the hall when I came out from +breakfast. Has it really been two weeks since I wrote to you? That seems +dreadful, but the days go by so fast that I hardly realize how long it +is between my letters.</p> + +<p>We are all well, and Marthy has become the greatest help to me. Of +course, I don't let her do anything for the baby, but she is so careful +and trustworthy that I am going to try having her take out the carriage +in the morning. At first I shan't let her go off the block, so that I +can have my eye on her all the time. Little Lucy took a fancy to her at +once, and really enjoys playing with her. This makes it possible for me +to do a little sewing, and I am working hard trying to make over one or +two of my dresses. Oliver wants me to have a dressmaker do it, but we +have so many extra expenses all the time that I don't feel we can afford +to put out any sewing. We have spent a great deal on doctors since we +were married, but of course with a young child we can't very well expect +anything else.</p> + +<p>And now, dearest mother, I have something to tell you, which no one +knows—not even Oliver—except Doctor Marshall and myself. We are going +to have another darling baby in March, if everything goes as it ought +to. I have kept it a secret because Oliver has had a good many business +worries, and I knew it would make him miserable. It never seems to have +entered his head that it might happen again so soon, and for his sake I +do wish we could have waited until we got a little more money in the +bank, but I suppose I oughtn't to say this because God would certainly +not send children into the world unless it was right for them to be +born. I try to remember what dear grandmamma said when somebody condoled +with her at the time she was expecting her tenth child—that she hoped +she was too good a Christian to dictate to the Lord as to how many souls +He should send into the world. As for me, I should be perfectly +delighted—it will be so much better for baby to have a little brother +or sister to play with when she gets bigger—but I can't help worrying +about Oliver's peculiar attitude of mind. I am sure that father wouldn't +have felt that way, and think how poor he has always been. Perhaps it +comes from dear Oliver having lived abroad so much and away from the +Christian influences, which have been one of the greatest blessings of +my life. I have put off telling him every day just because I dread to +think of the blow it will be to him. He is the dearest and best husband +that ever lived, and I worship the ground he walks on, but, do you know, +things are always a surprise to him when they happen? He never looks +ahead a single minute. I am sometimes afraid that he isn't the least bit +practical, and it makes him impatient when I talk to him about trying to +cut down expenses. Of course, I have to save as much as I can and I +count every single penny, or we'd never have enough money to get through +the month. I never buy a stitch for either the baby or myself, though +Oliver complains now and then that I don't dress as well as I used to +do. But how can I when I've worn the same things ever since my marriage, +besides making the baby's clothes out of my old ones? You can understand +from this how grateful I am for the check you sent—but, dearest mother, +I know that you oughtn't to have done it, and that you sacrificed your +own comfort and father's to give it to me.</p> + +<p>I wish Oliver could get something to do in Dinwiddie. He will never be +happy here, and we could live on so much less money at home—in a little +house near the rectory.</p> + +<p>Your loving child,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Virginia.</span></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III2" id="CHAPTER_III2"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE RETURN</h3> + + +<p>On a February morning five years later, Mrs. Pendleton, who was +returning from her daily trip to the market, met Susan Treadwell at the +corner of Old Street.</p> + +<p>"You are coming up to welcome Jinny, aren't you, Susan?" she asked. "The +train gets in at four o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course. I couldn't sleep a wink until I'd seen her. It has been +seven years, and it seems a perfect eternity."</p> + +<p>"She hasn't changed much—at least she hadn't six months ago when I was +out there at the birth of her last baby. The little thing lived only two +hours, you know, and I thought at first his death would kill her."</p> + +<p>"It was a great blow—but she has been fortunate never to have had a +day's sickness with the other three. I am dying to see them—especially +the eldest. That's your namesake, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's Lucy. She's six years old now, and as good as an angel, but +she hasn't fulfilled her promise of beauty. Virginia says she was the +prettiest baby she ever saw."</p> + +<p>"Everybody says that Jenny, the youngest, is a perfect beauty."</p> + +<p>"That's why her father makes so much of her, I reckon. I told him when I +was out there that he oughtn't to show such a difference between them. +Do you know, Susan, I wouldn't say it to anybody else, but I don't +believe Oliver has a real fondness for children. He gets tired of having +them always about, and that makes him impatient. Now, Virginia is a born +mother, just like her grandmother and all the women of our family."</p> + +<p>"I should think Oliver would be crazy about the boy. He was named after +his father, too."</p> + +<p>"Virginia felt she ought to name him Henry, but we call him Harry. No, +Oliver hardly ever takes any notice of him. I don't mean, of course, +that he isn't nice and kind to them—but he isn't wrapped up in them +heart and soul as Virginia is. I really believe he is more absorbed in +this play he has written than he is in the children."</p> + +<p>"I am so glad to hear that two of his plays are going to be staged. +That's splendid, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"He is coming back to Dinwiddie because of it. Now that he is assured of +recognition, he says he is going to devote all his time to writing. Poor +fellow, he did so hate the work out at Matoaca City, though I must say +he was very faithful and persevering about it."</p> + +<p>"You've taken that little house in Prince Street for them, where old +Miss Franklin used to live, haven't you? The last time I saw you, you +hadn't quite decided about it."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't resist it because it is only three squares from the rectory. +Mr. Pendleton set his heart on it from the first minute."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm so glad," said Susan, shifting the small basket of fruit she +carried from one arm to the other, "and I'll certainly run in and see +them this evening—I suppose they'll be at the rectory for supper?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no. Jinny said she couldn't bear to be away from the children the +first night, so we are all going there. I shall send Docia over to cook +supper before they get here, and I've just been to market to see if I +could find anything that Oliver would particularly like. He used to be +so fond of sweetbreads."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Dewlap has some very nice ones. I got one for mother. She hasn't +been well for the last few days."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to hear that. Give her my love and tell her I'll come down +just as soon as I get Jinny settled. I've been so taken up getting the +house ready that I haven't thought of another thing for three weeks."</p> + +<p>"When will Oliver's play be put on in New York?" asked Susan, turning +back after they had parted.</p> + +<p>"In three weeks. He is going back again for the last rehearsals. I wish +Jinny could go with him, but I don't believe she would spend a night +away from the children for anything on earth."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it beautiful that her marriage has turned out so well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I don't believe she could be any happier if she tried, and I must +say that Oliver makes a much better husband than I ever thought he +would. I never heard them disagree the whole time I was there. Of +course, Jinny gives up to him in everything except where the children +are concerned, but, then, a woman always expects to do that. One thing +I'm certain of—he couldn't have found a better wife if he'd searched +the world over. She never thinks of herself a minute, and you know how +fond she used to be of pretty clothes and of fixing herself up. Now, +she simply lives in Oliver and the children, and she is the proudest +thing of his plays! The rector says that she thinks he is Shakespeare +and Milton rolled into one."</p> + +<p>"Nothing could be nicer," said Susan, "and it is all such a happy +surprise to me. Of course, I always thought Oliver very +attractive—everybody does—but he seemed to me to be selfish and +undisciplined, and I wasn't at all sure that Jinny was the kind of woman +to bring out the best in him."</p> + +<p>"You'll think so when you see them together."</p> + +<p>Then they smiled and parted, Mrs. Pendleton hurrying back to the little +house, while Susan turned down Old Street, in the direction of her home. +She walked rapidly, with an easy swinging pace seldom seen in the women +of Dinwiddie, and not heartily approved by the men. At twenty-seven she +was far handsomer than she had been at twenty, for her figure had grown +more shapely and her face had lost the look of intense preoccupation +which had once marred its charm. Strong, capable, conquering, she still +appeared; but in some subtle way she had grown softer. Mrs. Pendleton +would probably have said that she had "settled."</p> + +<p>At the first corner she met John Henry on his way to the bank, and +turning, he walked with her to the end of the block, where they stood a +moment discussing Virginia's return.</p> + +<p>"I've just been to attend to some bills," he explained; "that's why I'm +out at this hour. You never come into the bank now, I notice."</p> + +<p>"Not often. Are you going to see Jinny this evening?"</p> + +<p>"If you'll let me bring you home. I can't imagine Virginia with three +children, can you? I'm half afraid to see her again."</p> + +<p>"You mean you think she may have changed? Mrs. Pendleton says not."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's Aunt Lucy all over. If Virginia had got as fat as Miss +Priscilla, she'd still believe she hadn't altered a particle."</p> + +<p>"Well, she isn't fat, anyway. She weighs less than she ever did."</p> + +<p>Her serious eyes dwelt on him under the green sunshade she held, and it +is possible that she wondered vaguely what it was about John Henry that +had made her love him unsought ever since she could remember. He was +certainly not handsome—though he was less stout and much better looking +than he used to be: he was not particularly clever, even if he was +successful with the work Cyrus had given him. She was under no delusion +concerning him (being a remarkably clear-sighted young person), yet she +knew that taking him just as he was, large, slow, kind, good, he aroused +in her a tenderness that was almost ridiculous. She had waited patiently +seven years for him to discover that he cared for her—a fact which had +been perfectly evident to her long before his duller wit had perceived +it.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to be there to welcome Jinny?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I'd thought I'd go up about five, so I could get a glimpse of the +children before they are put to bed."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll meet you there and bring you home. I wouldn't take anything +for meeting you, Susan. There's something about you that always cheers +me."</p> + +<p>She met his eyes frankly. "Well, I'm glad of that," she replied in her +confident way, and held out her hand through the handle of the basket. +An instant later, when she passed on into Bolingbroke Street, there was +a smile on her face which made it almost pretty.</p> + +<p>The front door was open, and as she entered the house her mother came +groping toward her out of the close-smelling dusk of the hall.</p> + +<p>"I thought you'd never get back, Susan. I've had such a funny feeling."</p> + +<p>"What kind of feeling, mother? It must be just nervousness. Here are +some beautiful grapes I've brought you."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't leave me alone. I don't like to be left alone."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't leave you any more than I'm obliged to, but if I stay +shut up here I feel as if I'd smother. I've asked Miss Willy to come and +sit with you this evening while I run up to welcome Virginia."</p> + +<p>"Is she coming back? Nobody told me. Nobody tells me anything."</p> + +<p>"But I did tell you. Why, we've been talking about it for weeks. You +must have forgotten."</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't have forgotten it. I'm sure I shouldn't have forgotten it +if you had told me. But you keep everything from me. You are just like +your father. You and James are both just like your father." Her voice +had grown peevish, and an expression of fury distorted her usually +passive features.</p> + +<p>"Why, mother, what in the world is the matter?" asked Susan, startled by +her manner. "Come upstairs and lie down. I don't believe you are well. +You didn't eat a morsel of breakfast, so I'm going to fix you a nice +little lunch. I got you a beautiful sweetbread from Mr. Dewlap."</p> + +<p>Putting her arm about her, she led her up the long flight of steps to +her room, where Mrs. Treadwell, pacified by the attention, began +immediately to doze on the chintz-covered couch by the window.</p> + +<p>"I don't see what on earth ever made me marry your father, Susan," she +said, starting up half an hour later, when her daughter appeared with +the tray. "Everybody knew the Treadwells couldn't hold a candle to my +family."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't worry about that now, mother," replied Susan briskly, while +she placed the tray on a little table at the head of the couch. "Sit up +and eat these oysters."</p> + +<p>"I'm obliged to worry over it," returned Mrs. Treadwell irritably, while +she watched her daughter arrange her plate and pour out the green tea +from the little Rebecca-at-the-well teapot. "I don't see what got into +my head and made me do it. Why, his branch of the Treadwells had petered +out until they were as common as dirt."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's too late to mend matters, so we'd better turn in and try to +make the best of them." She held out an oyster on the end of a fork, and +her mother received and ate it obediently.</p> + +<p>"If I could only once understand why I did it, I think I could rest +easier, Susan."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you were in love with each other. I've heard of such a thing."</p> + +<p>"Well, if I was going to fall in love, I reckon I could have found +somebody better to fall in love with," retorted Mrs. Treadwell with the +same strange excitement in her manner. Then she took up her knife and +fork and began to eat her luncheon with relish.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock that afternoon, when Susan reached the house in Prince +Street, Virginia, with her youngest child in her arms, was just stepping +out of a dilapidated "hack," from which a grinning negro driver handed a +collection of lunch baskets into the eager hands of the rector and Mrs. +Pendleton, who stood on the pavement.</p> + +<p>"Here's Susan!" called Mrs. Pendleton in her cheerful voice, rather as +if she feared her daughter would overlook her friend in the excitement +of homecoming.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you darling Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, kissing her over the head +of a sleeping child in her arms. "This is Jenny—poor little thing, she +hasn't been able to keep her eyes open. Don't you think she is the +living image of our Saint Memin portrait of great-grandmamma?"</p> + +<p>"She's a cherub," said Susan. "Let me look at you first, Jinny. I want +to see if you've changed."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can't expect me to look exactly as I did before I had four +babies!" returned Virginia with a happy laugh. She was thinner, and +there were dark circles of fatigue from the long journey under her eyes, +but the Madonna-like possibilities in her face were fulfilled, and it +seemed to Susan that she was, if anything, lovelier than before. The +loss of her girlish bloom was forgotten in the expression of love and +goodness which irradiated her features. She wore a black cloth skirt, +and a blouse of some ugly blue figured silk finished at the neck with +the lace scarf Susan had sent her at Christmas. Her hat was a +characterless black straw trimmed with a bunch of yellow daisies; and +by its shape alone, Susan discerned that Virginia had ceased to consider +whether or not her clothes were becoming. But she shone with an air of +calm and radiant happiness in which all trivial details were +transfigured as by a flood of light.</p> + +<p>"This is Lucy. She is six years old, and to think that she has never +seen her dear Aunt Susan," said Virginia, while she pulled forward the +little girl who was shyly clinging to her skirt. "And the other is +Harry. Marthy, bring Harry here and let him speak to Miss Susan. He is +nearly four, and so big for his age. Where is Harry, Marthy?"</p> + +<p>"He's gone into the yard, ma'am, I couldn't keep him back," said Marthy. +"As soon as he caught sight of that pile of bricks he wanted to begin +building."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll go, too," replied Virginia. "That child is simply crazy +about building. Has Oliver paid the driver, mother? And what has become +of him? Susan, have you spoken to Oliver?"</p> + +<p>No, Susan hadn't, but as they turned, he appeared on the porch and came +eagerly forward. Her first impression was that he had grown handsomer +than she had ever believed possible; and the next minute she asked +herself how in the world he had managed to exercise his vitality in +Matoaca City. He was one of those men, she saw, in whom the spirit of +youth burned like a flame. Every year would pass as a blessing, not as a +curse, to him, and already, because of her intenser emotions and her +narrower interests, Virginia was beginning to look older than he. There +was a difference, too, in their dress, for he had the carefully groomed +and well-brushed appearance so rare in Dinwiddie, while Virginia's +clothes might have been worn, with equal propriety, by Miss Priscilla +Batte. She was still lovely, but it was a loveliness, Susan felt with a +pang, that would break early.</p> + +<p>"Why, there's Susan!" exclaimed Oliver, coming toward her with an eager +pleasure in his face which made it more boyish than ever. "Well, well, +it's good to see you, Susan. Are you the same old dear I left behind +me?"</p> + +<p>"The same," said Susan laughing. "And so glad about your plays, Oliver, +so perfectly delighted."</p> + +<p>"By Jove, you're the first person to speak of them," he replied. "Nobody +else seems to think a play is worth mentioning as long as a baby is in +sight. That's a delusion of Virginia's, too. I wish you'd convince her, +Susan, that a man is of some use except as a husband and a father."</p> + +<p>"But they are such nice babies, Oliver."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nice enough as babies go. The boy's a trump. He'd be a man already +if his mother would let him. But babies ought to have their season like +everything else under the sun. For God's sake, Susan, talk to me about +something else!" he added in mock despair.</p> + +<p>Virginia was already in the house, and when Oliver and Susan joined her, +they found Mrs. Pendleton trying to persuade her to let Marthy carry the +sleeping Jenny up to the nursery.</p> + +<p>"Give me that child, Jinny," said Oliver, a trifle sharply. "You know +the doctor told you not to carry her upstairs."</p> + +<p>"But I'm sure it won't hurt me," she responded, with an angelic +sweetness of voice. "It will wake her to be changed, and the poor +little thing has had such a trying day."</p> + +<p>"Well, you aren't going to carry her, if she wakes twenty times," +retorted Oliver. "Here, Marthy, if she thinks I'd drop her, suppose you +try it."</p> + +<p>"Why, bless you, sir, I can take her so she won't know it," returned +Marthy reassuringly, and coming forward, she proved her ability by +sliding the unconscious child from Virginia's arms into her own.</p> + +<p>"Where is Harry?" asked Mrs. Pendleton anxiously. "Nobody has seen Harry +since we got here."</p> + +<p>"I is, ma'am," replied the cheerful Marthy over her shoulder, as she +toiled up the stairs, with Virginia and little Lucy noiselessly +following. "I've undressed him and I was obliged to hide his clothes to +keep him from putting 'em on again. He's near daft with excitement."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I'd better go up and help get them to bed," said Mrs. +Pendleton, turning from the rector to Oliver. "I'm afraid Jinny will be +too tired to enjoy her supper. Harry is in such a gale of spirits I can +hear him talking."</p> + +<p>"You might as well, my dear," rejoined the rector mildly, as he stooped +over to replace one of the baby's bottles in the basket from which it +had slipped. "Don't you think we might get some of these things out of +the way?" he added. "If you take that alcohol stove, Oliver, I'll follow +with these caps and shawls."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sir," rejoined Oliver readily. He always addressed the +rector as "sir," partly because it seemed to him to be appropriate, +partly because he knew that the older man expected him to do so. It was +one of Oliver's most engaging characteristics that he usually adapted +himself with perfect ease to whatever life or other people expected of +him.</p> + +<p>While they were carrying the baskets into the passage at the back of the +dining-room, Mrs. Pendleton, whose nervous longing had got at last +beyond her control, deserted Susan, with an apology, and flitted up the +stairs.</p> + +<p>"Come up and tell Jinny good-night before you go, dear," she added; "I'm +afraid she will not get down again to see you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't worry about me," replied Susan. "I want to say a few words to +Oliver, and then I'm coming up to see Harry. Harry appears to me to be a +man of personality."</p> + +<p>"He's a darling child," replied Mrs. Pendleton, a little vaguely, "and +Jinny says she never saw him so headstrong before. He is usually as good +as gold."</p> + +<p>"Well, well, it's a fine family," said the rector, beaming upon his +son-in-law, when they returned from the passage. "I never saw three +healthier children. It's a pity you lost the other one," he added in a +graver tone, "but as he lived such a short time, Virginia couldn't take +it so much to heart as if he had been older. She seems to have got over +the disappointment."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I think she's got over it," said Oliver.</p> + +<p>"It will be good for her to be back in Dinwiddie. I never felt satisfied +to think of her so far away."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm glad we could come back," agreed Oliver pleasantly, though he +appeared to Susan's quick eye to be making an effort.</p> + +<p>"By the way, I haven't spoken of your literary work," remarked the +rector, with the manner of a man who is saying something very agreeable. +"I have never been to the theatre, but I understand that it is losing a +great deal of its ill odour. I always remember when anything is said +about the stage that, after all, Shakespeare was an actor. We may be +old-fashioned in Dinwiddie," he pursued in the complacent tone in which +the admission of this failing is invariably made, "but I don't think we +can have any objection to sweet, clean plays, with an elevating moral +tone to them. They are no worse, anyway, than novels."</p> + +<p>Though Oliver kept his face under such admirable control, Susan, +glancing at him quickly, saw a shade of expression, too fine for +amusement, too cordial for resentment, pass over his features. His +colour, which was always high, deepened, and raising his head, he +brushed the smooth dark hair back from his forehead. Through some +intuitive strain of sympathy, Susan understood, while she watched him, +that his plays were as vital a matter in his life as the children were +in Virginia's.</p> + +<p>"I must run up and see Harry before he goes to sleep," she said, feeling +instinctively that the conversation was becoming a strain.</p> + +<p>At the allusion to his grandson, the rector's face lost immediately its +expression of forced pleasantness and relapsed into its look of genial +charm.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be proud of that boy, Oliver," he observed, beaming. +"There's the making of a fine man in him, but you mustn't let Jinny +spoil him. It took all my strength and authority to keep Lucy from +ruining Jinny, and I've always said that my brother-in-law Tom Bland +would have been a first-rate fellow if it hadn't been for the way his +mother raised him. God knows, I like a woman to be wrapped up heart and +soul in her household—and I don't suppose anybody ever accused the true +Southern lady of lacking in domesticity—but if they have a failing, +which I refuse to admit, it is that they are almost too soft-hearted +where their children—especially their sons—are concerned."</p> + +<p>"I used to tell Virginia that she gave in to Harry too much when he was +a baby," said Oliver, who was evidently not without convictions +regarding the rearing of his offspring; "but she hasn't been nearly so +bad about it since Jenny came. Jenny is the one I'm anxious about now. +She is a headstrong little beggar and she has learned already how to get +around her mother when she wants anything. It's been worse, too," he +added, "since we lost the last poor little chap. Ever since then +Virginia has been in mortal terror for fear something would happen to +the others."</p> + +<p>"It was hard on her," said the rector. "We men can't understand how +women feel about a thing like that, though," he added gently. "I +remember when we lost our babies—you know we had three before Virginia +came, but none of them lived more than a few hours—that I thought Lucy +would die of grief and disappointment. You see they have all the burden +and the anxiety of it, and I sometimes think that a child begins to live +for a woman a long time before a man ever thinks of it as a human +being."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you're right," returned Oliver in the softened tone which +proved to Susan that he was emotionally stirred. "I tried to be as +sympathetic with Virginia as I could, but—do you know?—I stopped to +ask myself sometimes if I could really understand. It seemed to her so +strange that I wasn't knocked all to pieces by the thing—that I could +go on writing as if nothing had happened."</p> + +<p>"I am not sure that it isn't beyond the imagination of a man to enter +into a woman's most sacred feeling," remarked the rector, with a touch +of the sentimentality in which he religiously shrouded the feminine sex. +So ineradicable, indeed, was his belief in the inherent virtue of every +woman, that he had several times fallen a helpless victim in the +financial traps of conscienceless Delilahs. But since his innocence was +as temperamental a quality as was Virginia's maternal passion, +experience had taught him nothing, and the fact that he had been +deceived in the past threw no shadow of safeguard around his steps in +the present. This endearing trait, which made him so successful as a +husband, was probably the cause of his unmitigated failure as a +reformer. In looking at a woman, it was impossible for him to see +anything except perfection.</p> + +<p>When Susan reached the top of the staircase, Mrs. Pendleton called to +her, through the half open door of the nursery, to come in and hear how +beautifully Lucy was saying her prayers. Her voice was full of a +suppressed excitement; there was a soft pink flush in her cheeks; and it +seemed to Susan that the presence of her grandchildren had made her +almost a girl again. She sat on the edge of a trundle-bed slipping a +nightgown over the plump shoulders of little Lucy, who held herself very +still and prim, for she was a serious child, with a natural taste for +propriety. Her small plain face, with its prominent features and pale +blue eyes, had a look of intense earnestness and concentration, as +though the business of getting to bed absorbed all her energies; and the +only movement she made was to toss back the slender and very tight +braid of brown hair from her shoulders. She said her prayer as if it +were the multiplication table, and having finished, slid gently into +bed, and held up her face to be kissed.</p> + +<p>"Jenny wouldn't drink but half of her bottle, Miss Virginia," said +Marthy, appearing suddenly on the threshold of Virginia's bedroom, for +the youngest child slept in the room with her mother. "She dropped off +to sleep so sound that I couldn't wake her."</p> + +<p>"I hope she isn't sick, Marthy," responded Virginia in an anxious tone. +"Did she seem at all feverish?"</p> + +<p>"Naw'm, she ain't feverish, she's jest sleepy headed."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll come and look at her as soon as I can persuade Harry to +finish his prayers. He stopped in the middle of them, and he refuses to +bless anybody but himself."</p> + +<p>She spoke gravely, gazing with her exhaustless patience over the impish +yellow head of Harry, who knelt, in his little nightgown, on the rug at +her feet. His roving blue eyes met Susan's as she came over to him, +while his chubby face broke into a delicious smile.</p> + +<p>"Don't notice him, Susan," said Virginia, in her lovely voice which was +as full of tenderness and as lacking in humour as her mother's. "Harry, +you shan't speak to Aunt Susan until you've been good and finished your +prayers."</p> + +<p>"Don't want to speak to Aunt Susan," retorted the monster of infant +depravity, slipping his bare toes through a rent in the rug, and +doubling up with delight at his insubordination.</p> + +<p>"I never knew him to behave like this before," said Virginia, almost in +tears from shame and weariness. "It must be the excitement of getting +here. He is usually so good. Now, Harry, begin all over again. 'God +bless dear papa, God bless dear mamma, God bless dear grandmamma, God +bless dear grandpapa, God bless dear Lucy, God bless dear Jenny, God +bless all our dear friends.'"</p> + +<p>"God bless dear Harry," recited the monster.</p> + +<p>"He has gone on like that ever since I started," said poor Virginia. "I +don't know what to do about it. It seems dreadful to let him go to bed +without saying his prayers properly. Now, Harry, please, please be good; +poor mother is so tired, and she wants to go and kiss little Jenny +good-night. 'God bless dear papa,' and I'll let you get in bed."</p> + +<p>"God bless Harry," was the imperturbable rejoinder to this pleading.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want your poor mother to have some supper, Harry?" inquired +Susan severely.</p> + +<p>"Harry wants supper," answered the innocent.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'll have to let him go," said Virginia, distractedly, "but +Oliver will be horrified. He says I don't reason with them enough. +Harry," she concluded sternly, "don't you understand that it is naughty +of you to behave this way and keep mamma away from poor little Jenny?"</p> + +<p>"Bad Jenny," said Harry.</p> + +<p>"If you don't say your prayers this minute, you shan't have any +preserves on your bread to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Bad preserves," retorted Harry.</p> + +<p>"Well, if he won't, I don't see how I can make him," said Virginia. +"Come, then, get into bed, Harry, and go to sleep. You have been a bad +boy and hurt poor mamma's feelings so that she is going to cry. She +won't be able to eat her supper for thinking of the way you have +disobeyed her."</p> + +<p>Jumping into bed with a bound, Harry dug his head into the pillows, +gurgled, and then sat up very straight.</p> + +<p>"God bless dear papa, God bless dear mamma, God bless dear grandmamma, +God bless dear grandpapa, God bless dear Lucy, God bless dear Jenny, God +bless our dear friends everywhere," he repeated in a resounding voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you precious lamb!" exclaimed Virginia. "He couldn't bear to hurt +poor mamma, could he?" and she kissed him ecstatically before hastening +to the slumbering Jenny in the adjoining room.</p> + +<p>"I like the little scamp," said Susan, when she reported the scene to +John Henry on the way home, "but he manages his mother perfectly. +Already his sense of humour is better developed than hers."</p> + +<p>"I can't get over seeing Virginia with children," observed John Henry, +as if the fact of Virginia's motherhood had just become evident to him. +"It suits her, though. She looked happier than I ever saw her—and so, +for that matter, did Aunt Lucy."</p> + +<p>"It made me wonder how Mrs. Pendleton had lived away from them for seven +years. Why, you can't imagine what she is—she doesn't seem to have any +life at all until you see her with Virginia's children."</p> + +<p>"It's a wonderful thing," said John Henry slowly, "and it taught me a +lot just to look at them. I don't know why, but it seemed to make me +understand how much I care about you, Susan."</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you suspected it before?" asked Susan as calmly as he had +spoken. Emotionalism, she knew, she would never find in John Henry's +wooing, and, though she could not have explained the reason of it to +herself, she liked the brusque directness of his courtship. It was part +of that large sincerity of nature which had first attracted her to him.</p> + +<p>"Of course, in a way I knew I cared more for you than for anybody +else—but I didn't realize that you were more to me than Virginia had +ever been. I had got so in the habit of thinking I was in love with her +that it came almost as a surprise to me to find that it was over."</p> + +<p>"I knew it long ago," said Susan.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you make me see it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I waited for you to find it out yourself. I was sure that you would +some day."</p> + +<p>"Do you think you could ever care for me, Susan?"</p> + +<p>A smile quivered on Susan's lips as she looked up at him, but with the +reticence which had always characterized her, she answered simply:</p> + +<p>"I think I could, John Henry."</p> + +<p>His hand reached down and closed over hers, and in the long look which +they exchanged under the flickering street lamp, she felt suddenly that +perfect security which is usually the growth of happy years. Whatever +the future brought to them, she knew that she could trust John Henry's +love for her.</p> + +<p>"And we've lost seven years, dearest," he said, with a catch in his +voice. "We've lost seven years just because I happened to be born a +fool."</p> + +<p>"But we've got fifty ahead of us," she replied with a joyous laugh.</p> + +<p>As she spoke, her heart cried out, "Fifty years of the thing I want!" +and she looked up into the kind, serious face of John Henry as if it +were the face of incarnate happiness. A tremendous belief in life +surged from her brain through her body, which felt incredibly warm and +young. She thought exultantly of herself as of one who did not accept +destiny, but commanded it.</p> + +<p>They walked the rest of the way in silence, but he held her hand pressed +closely against his heart, and once or twice he turned in the deserted +street and looked into her eyes as if he found there all the words that +he needed.</p> + +<p>"We won't waste any more time, will we, Susan?" he asked when they +reached the house. "Let's be married in December."</p> + +<p>"If mother is better by then. She hasn't been well, and I am anxious +about her."</p> + +<p>"We'll go to housekeeping at once. I'll begin looking about to-morrow. +God bless you, darling, for what you are giving me."</p> + +<p>She caressed his hand gently with her fingers, and he was about to speak +again, when the door behind them opened and the head of Cyrus appeared +like that of a desolate bird of prey.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Susan?" he inquired. "Where have you been all this time? +Your mother was taken ill more than an hour ago, and the doctor says +that she has been paralyzed."</p> + +<p>Breaking away from John Henry, Susan ran up the steps and past her +father into the hall, where Miss Willy stood weeping.</p> + +<p>"I was all by myself with her. There wasn't another living soul in the +house," sobbed the little dressmaker. "She fell over just like that, +with her face all twisted, while I was talking to her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor mother, poor mother!" cried the girl as she ran upstairs. "Is +she in her room, and who is with her?"</p> + +<p>"The doctor has been there for over an hour, and he says that she'll +never be able to move again. Oh, Susan, how will she stand it?"</p> + +<p>But Susan had already outstripped her, and was entering the sick-room, +where Mrs. Treadwell lay unconscious, with her distorted face turned +toward the door, as though she were watching expectantly for some one +who would never come. As the girl fell on her knees beside the couch, +her happiness seemed to dissolve like mist before the grim facts of +mortal anguish and death. It was not until dawn, when the night's watch +was over and she stood alone beside her window, that she said to herself +with all the courage she could summon:</p> + +<p>"And it's over for me, too. Everything is over for me, too. Oh, poor, +poor mother!"</p> + +<p>Love, which had seemed to her last night the supreme spirit in the +universe, had surrendered its authority to the diviner image of Duty.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV2" id="CHAPTER_IV2"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>HER CHILDREN</h3> + + +<p>"Poor Aunt Belinda was paralyzed last night, Oliver," said Virginia the +next morning at breakfast. "Miss Willy Whitlow just brought me a message +from Susan. She spent the night there and was on her way this morning to +ask mother to go."</p> + +<p>Oliver had come downstairs in one of his absent-minded moods, but by the +time Virginia had repeated her news he was able to take it in, and to +show a proper solicitude for his aunt.</p> + +<p>"Are you going there?" he asked. "I am obliged to do a little work on my +play while I have the idea, but tell Susan I'll come immediately after +dinner."</p> + +<p>"I'll stop to inquire on my way back from market, but I won't be able to +stay, because I've got all my unpacking to do. Can you take the children +out this afternoon so Marthy can help me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, but I simply can't. I've got to get on with this idea while +I have control of it, and if I go out with the children I shan't be able +to readjust my thoughts for twenty-fours hours."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to go out with papa," said Lucy, who sat carefully drinking +her cambric tea, so that she might not spill a drop on the mahogany +table.</p> + +<p>"I want to go with papa," remarked Harry obstreperously, while he began +to drum with his spoon on the red tin tray which protected the table +from his assaults.</p> + +<p>"Papa can't go with you, darling, but if mamma finishes her unpacking in +time, she'll come out into the park and play with you a little while. Be +careful, Harry, you are spilling your milk. Let mamma take your spoon +out for you."</p> + +<p>Her coffee, which she had poured out a quarter of an hour ago, stood +untasted and tepid beside her plate, but from long habit she had grown +to prefer it in that condition. When the waffles were handed to her, she +had absent-mindedly helped herself to one, while she watched Harry's +reckless efforts to cut up his bacon, and it had grown sodden before she +remembered that it ought to be buttered. She wore the black skirt and +blue blouse in which she had travelled, for she had neglected to unpack +her own clothes in her eagerness to get out the things that Oliver and +the children might need. Her hair had been hastily coiled around her +head, without so much as a glance in the mirror, but the expression of +unselfish goodness in her face lent a charm even to the careless fashion +in which she had put on her clothes. She was one of those women whose +beauty, being essentially virginal, belongs, like the blush of the rose, +to a particular season. The delicacy of her skin invited the mark of +time or of anxiety, and already fine little lines were visible, in the +strong light of the morning, at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Yet +neither the years or her physical neglect of herself could destroy the +look of almost angelic sweetness and love which illumined her features.</p> + +<p>"Are you obliged to go to New York next week, Oliver?" she asked, +dividing her attention equally between him and Harry's knife and fork. +"Can't they rehearse 'The Beaten Road' just as well without you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I want to be there. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not. I was only thinking that Harry's birthday comes on +Friday, and we should miss you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm awfully sorry, but he'll have to grow old without me. By the +way, why can't you run on with me for the first night, Virginia? Your +mother can look after the babies for a couple of days, can't she?"</p> + +<p>But the absent-minded look of young motherhood had settled again on +Virginia's face, for the voice of Jenny, raised in exasperated demand, +was heard from the nursery above.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what's the matter?" she said, half rising in her chair, while +she glanced nervously at the door. "She was so fretful last night, +Oliver, that I'm afraid she is going to be sick. Will you keep an eye on +Harry while I run up and see?"</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later she came down again, and began, with a relieved +manner, to stir her cold coffee.</p> + +<p>"What were you saying, Oliver?" she inquired so sweetly that his +irritation vanished.</p> + +<p>"I was just asking you if you couldn't let your mother look after the +youngsters for a day or two and come on with me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd give anything in the world to see it, but I couldn't possibly +leave the children. I'd be so terribly anxious for fear something would +happen."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I get in a blue funk about that play," he said seriously. +"I've staked so much on it that I'll be pretty well cut up, morally and +financially, if it doesn't go."</p> + +<p>"But of course it will go, Oliver. Anybody could tell that just to read +it. Didn't Mr. Martin write you that he thought it one of the strongest +plays ever written in America—and I'm sure that is a great deal for a +manager to say. Nobody could read a line of it without seeing that it is +a work of genius."</p> + +<p>For an instant he appeared to draw assurance from her praise; then his +face clouded, and he responded doubtfully:</p> + +<p>"But you thought just as well of 'April Winds,' and nobody would look at +that."</p> + +<p>"Well, that was perfect too, of its kind, but of course they are +different."</p> + +<p>"I never thought much of that," he said, "but I honestly believe that +'The Beaten Road' is a great play. That's my judgment, and I'll stand by +it."</p> + +<p>"Of course it's great," she returned emphatically. "No, Harry, you can't +have any more syrup on your buckwheat cake. You have eaten more already +than sister Lucy, and she is two years older than you are."</p> + +<p>"Give it to the little beggar. It won't hurt him," said Oliver +impatiently, as Harry began to protest.</p> + +<p>"But he really oughtn't to have it, Oliver. Well, then, just a drop. Oh, +Oliver, you've given him a great deal too much. Here, take mamma's plate +and give her yours, Harry."</p> + +<p>But Harry made no answer to her plea, because he was busily eating the +syrup as fast as he could under pressure of the fear that he might lose +it all if he procrastinated.</p> + +<p>"He'll be sick before night and you'll have yourself to blame, Oliver," +said Virginia reproachfully.</p> + +<p>Ever since the babies had come she had assumed naturally that Oliver's +interest in the small details of his children's clothes or health was +perpetually fresh and absorbing like her own, and her habit of not +seeing what she did not want to see in life had protected her from the +painful discovery that he was occasionally bored. Once he had even tried +to explain to her that, although he loved the children better than +either his plays or the political fate of nations, there were times when +the latter questions interested him considerably more; but the humour +with which he inadvertently veiled his protest had turned the point of +it entirely away from her comprehension. A deeper impression was made +upon her by the fact that he had refused to stop reading about the last +Presidential campaign long enough to come and persuade Harry to swallow +a dose of medicine. She, who seldom read a newspaper, and was innocent +of any desire to exert even the most indirect influence upon the +elections, had waked in the night to ask herself if it could possibly be +true that Oliver loved the children less passionately than she did.</p> + +<p>"I've got to get to work now, dear," he said, rising. "I haven't had a +quiet breakfast since Harry first came to the table. Don't you think +Marthy might feed him upstairs again?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Oliver! It would break his heart. He would think that he was in +disgrace."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not sure that he oughtn't to be. Now, Lucy's all right. She +behaves like a lady—but if you consider Harry an appetizing table +companion, I don't."</p> + +<p>"But, dearest, he's only a baby! And boys are different from girls. You +can't expect them to have as good manners."</p> + +<p>"I can't remember that I ever made a nuisance of myself."</p> + +<p>"Your father was very strict with you. But surely you don't think it is +right to make your children afraid of you?"</p> + +<p>The genuine distress in her voice brought a laugh from him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, they are your children, darling, and you may do as you please +with them."</p> + +<p>"Bad papa!" said Harry suddenly, chasing the last drop of syrup around +his plate with a bit of bread crumb.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, precious; good papa! You must promise papa to be a little +gentleman or he won't let you breakfast with him any more."</p> + +<p>It was Virginia's proud boast that Harry's smile would melt even his +great-uncle, Cyrus, and she watched him with breathless rapture as he +turned now in his high chair and tested the effect of this magic charm +on his father. His baby mouth broadened deliciously, showing two rows of +small irregular teeth; his blue eyes shone until they seemed full of +sparkles; his roguish, irresistible face became an incarnation of infant +entreaty.</p> + +<p>"I want to bekfast wid papa, an' I want more 'lasses," he remarked.</p> + +<p>"He's a fascinating little rascal, there's no doubt of that," observed +Oliver, in response to Virginia's triumphant look. Then, bending over, +he kissed her on the cheek, before he picked up his newspapers and went +into his study at the back of the parlour.</p> + +<p>Some hours later, at their early dinner, she reported the result of her +visit to the Treadwells.</p> + +<p>"It is too awful, Oliver. Aunt Belinda has not spoken yet, and she can't +move the lower part of her body at all. The doctor says she may live for +years, but he doesn't think she will ever be able to walk again. I feel +so sorry for her and for poor Susan. Do you know, Susan engaged herself +to John Henry last night just before her mother was paralyzed, and they +were to be married in December. But now she says she will give him up."</p> + +<p>"John Henry!" exclaimed Oliver in amazement. "Why, what in the world +does she see in John Henry?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—one never knows what people see in each other, but she +has been in love with him all her life, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's rough on her. Is she obliged to break off with him now?"</p> + +<p>"She says it wouldn't be fair to him not to. Her whole time must be +given to nursing her mother. There's something splendid about Susan, +Oliver. I never realized it as much as I did to-day. Whatever she does, +you may be sure it will be because it is right to do it. She sees +everything so clearly, and her wishes never obscure her judgment."</p> + +<p>"It's a pity. She'd make a great mother, wouldn't she? But life doesn't +seem able to get along without a sacrifice of the fittest."</p> + +<p>In the afternoon Mrs. Pendleton came over, but the two women were so +busy arranging the furniture in its proper place, and laying away +Oliver's and the children's things in drawers and closets, that not +until the entire house had been put in order, did they find time to sit +down for a few minutes in the nursery and discuss the future of Susan.</p> + +<p>"I believe John Henry will want to marry her and go to live at the +Treadwells', if Susan will let him," remarked Mrs. Pendleton.</p> + +<p>"How on earth could he get on with Uncle Cyrus?" Ever since her marriage +Virginia had followed Oliver's habit and spoken of Cyrus as "uncle."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't suppose even John Henry could do that, but perhaps he +thinks anything would be better than losing Susan."</p> + +<p>"And he's right," returned Virginia loyally, while she got out her +work-bag and began sorting the array of stockings that needed darning. +"Do you know, mother, Oliver seems to think that I might go to New York +with him."</p> + +<p>"And leave the children, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I've told him that I can't, but he's asked me two or three +times to let you look after them for a day or two."</p> + +<p>"I'd love to do it, darling—but you've never spent a night away from +one of them since Lucy was born, have you?"</p> + +<p>"No, and I'd be perfectly miserable—only I can't make Oliver understand +it. Of course, they'd be just as safe with you as with me, but I'd keep +imagining every minute that something had happened."</p> + +<p>"I know exactly how you feel, dear. I never spent a night outside my +home after my first child came until you grew up. I don't see how any +true woman could bear to do it, unless, of course, she was called away +because of a serious illness."</p> + +<p>"If Oliver were ill, or you, or father, I'd go in a minute unless one of +the children was really sick—but just to see a play is different, and +I'd feel as if I were neglecting my duty. The funny part is that Oliver +is so wrapped up in this play that he doesn't seem to be able to get his +mind off it, poor darling. Father was never that way about his sermons, +was he?"</p> + +<p>"Your father never thought of himself or of his own interests enough, +Jinny. If he ever had a fault, it was that. But I suppose he approaches +perfection as nearly as a man ever did."</p> + +<p>Slipping the darning gourd into the toe of one of Lucy's little white +stockings, Virginia gazed attentively at a small round hole while she +held her needle arrested slightly above it. So exquisitely Madonna-like +was the poise of her head and the dreaming, prophetic mystery in her +face, that Mrs. Pendleton waited almost breathlessly for her words.</p> + +<p>"There's not a single thing that I would change in Oliver, if I could," +she said at last.</p> + +<p>"It is so beautiful that you feel that way, darling. I suppose all +happily married women do."</p> + +<p>A week later, across Harry's birthday cake, which stood surrounded by +four candles in the centre of the rectory table, Virginia offered her +cheerful explanation of Oliver's absence, in reply to a mild inquiry +from the rector. "He was obliged to go to New York yesterday about the +rehearsal of 'The Beaten Road,' father. We were both so sorry he +couldn't be here to-day, but it was impossible for him to wait over."</p> + +<p>"It's a pity," said the rector gently. "Harry will never be just four +years old again, will you, little man?" Even the substantial fact that +Oliver's play would, it was hoped, provide a financial support for his +children, did not suffice to lift it from the region of the unimportant +in the mind of his father-in-law.</p> + +<p>"But he'll have plenty of other birthdays when papa will be here," +remarked Virginia brightly. Though she had been a little hurt to find +that Oliver had arranged to leave home the night before, and that he had +appeared perfectly blind to the importance of his presence at Harry's +celebration, her native good sense had not permitted her to make a +grievance out of the matter. On her wedding day she had resolved that +she would not be exacting of Oliver's time or attention, and the +sweetness of her disposition had smoothed away any difficulties which +had intervened between her and her ideal of wifehood. From the first, +love had meant to her the opportunity of giving rather than the +privilege of receiving, and her failure to regard herself as of supreme +consequence in any situation had protected her from the minor troubles +and disillusionments of marriage.</p> + +<p>"It is too bad to think that dear Oliver will have to be away for two +whole weeks," said Mrs. Pendleton.</p> + +<p>"Is he obliged to stay that long?" asked the rector, sympathetically. +Never having missed an anniversary since the war, he could look upon +Oliver's absence as a fit subject for condolence.</p> + +<p>"He can't possibly come home until the play is produced, and that won't +be for two weeks yet," replied Virginia.</p> + +<p>"But I thought it rested with the actors now. Couldn't they go on just +as well without him?"</p> + +<p>"He thinks not, and, of course, it is such a great play that he doesn't +want to take any risks with it."</p> + +<p>"Of course he doesn't," assented Mrs. Pendleton, who had believed that +the stage was immoral until Virginia's husband began to write for it.</p> + +<p>"I know he'll come back the very first minute that he can get away," +said Virginia with conviction, before she stooped to comfort Harry, who +was depressed by the discovery that he was not expected to eat his +entire cake, but instantly hopeful when he was promised a slice of +sister Lucy's in the summer.</p> + +<p>Late in the afternoon, when the children, warmly wrapped in extra shawls +by Mrs. Pendleton, were led back through the cold to the house in Prince +Street, one and all of the party agreed that it was the nicest birthday +that had ever been. "I like grandma's cake better than our cake," +announced Harry above his white muffler. "Why can't we have cake like +that, mamma?"</p> + +<p>He was trotting sturdily, with his hand in Virginia's, behind the +perambulator, which contained a much muffled Jenny, and at his words +Mrs. Pendleton, who walked a little ahead, turned suddenly and hugged +him tight for an instant.</p> + +<p>"Just listen to the darling boy!" she exclaimed, in a choking voice.</p> + +<p>"Because nobody else can make such good cake as grandma's," answered +Virginia, quite as pleased as her mother. "And she's going to give you +one every birthday as long as you live."</p> + +<p>"Can't I have another birthday soon, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"Not till after sister Lucy's. You want sister Lucy to have one, don't +you? and dear little Jenny?"</p> + +<p>"But why can't I have a cake without a birthday, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"You may, precious, and grandma will make you one," said Mrs. Pendleton, +as she helped Marthy wheel the perambulator over the slippery crossing +and into the front gate.</p> + +<p>On the hall table there was a telegram from Oliver, and Virginia tore it +open while her mother and Marthy unfastened the children's wraps.</p> + +<p>"He's at the Hotel Bertram," she said joyously, "and he says the +rehearsals are going splendidly."</p> + +<p>"Did he mention Harry's birthday?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, trying to hide +the instinctive dread which the sight of a telegram aroused in her.</p> + +<p>"He must have forgotten it. Can't you come upstairs to the nursery with +us, mother?"</p> + +<p>"No, your father is all alone. I must be getting back," replied Mrs. +Pendleton gently.</p> + +<p>An hour or two later, when Virginia sat in her rocking-chair before the +nursery fire, with Harry, worn out with his play and forgetful of the +dignity of his four years, asleep in her lap, she opened the telegram +again and reread it hungrily while the light of love shone in her face. +She knew intuitively that Oliver had sent the telegram because he had +not written—and would not write, probably, until he had finished with +the hardest work of his play. It was an easy thing to do—it took +considerably less of his time than a letter would have done; but she had +inherited from her mother the sentimental vision of life which +unconsciously magnifies the meaning of trivial attentions. She looked +through her emotions as through a prism on the simple fact of his +telegraphing, and it became immediately transfigured. How dear it was of +him to realize that she would be anxious until she heard from him! How +lonely he must be all by himself in that great city! How much he must +have wanted to be with Harry on his birthday! Sitting there in the +fire-lit nursery, her heart sent out waves of love and sympathy to him +across the distance and the twilight. On the rug at her feet Lucy rocked +in her little chair, crooning to her doll with the beginnings of the +mother instinct already softening her voice, and in the adjoining room +Jenny lay asleep in her crib while the faithful Marthy watched by her +side. Beyond the window a fine icy rain had begun to fall, and down the +long street she could see the lamps flickering in revolving circles of +frost. In the midst of the frozen streets, that little centre of red +firelight separated her as completely from the other twenty-one thousand +human beings among whom she lived as did the glow of personal joy that +suffused her thoughts. From the dusk below she heard the tapping of a +blind beggar's stick on the pavement, and the sound made, while it +lasted, a plaintive accompaniment to the lullaby she was singing. "Two +whole weeks," she thought, while her longing reached out to that unknown +room in which she pictured Oliver sitting alone. "Two whole weeks. How +hard it will be for him." In her guarded ignorance of the world she +could not imagine that Oliver was suffering less from this enforced +absence from all he loved than she herself would have suffered had she +been in his place. Of course, men were different from women—that +ancient dogma was embodied in the leading clause of her creed of life; +but she had always understood that this difference vanished in some +miraculous way after marriage. She knew that Oliver had to work, of +course—how otherwise could he support his family?—but the idea that +his work might ever usurp the place in his heart that belonged to her +and the children would have been utterly incomprehensible to her had she +ever thought of it. Jealousy was an alien weed, which could not take +root in the benign soil of her nature.</p> + +<p>For a week there was no letter from Oliver, and at the end of that time +a few lines scrawled on a sheet of hotel paper explained that he spent +every minute of his time at the theatre.</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow, it's dreadfully hard on him, isn't it?" Virginia said to +her mother, when she showed her the imposing picture of the hotel at the +head of his letter.</p> + +<p>There was no hint of compassion for herself in her voice. Her pity was +entirely for Oliver, constrained to be away for two whole weeks from his +children, who grew more interesting and delightful every day that they +lived. "Harry has gone into the first reader," she added, turning from +the storeroom shelves on which she was laying strips of white oilcloth. +"He will be able to read his lesson to Oliver when he comes home."</p> + +<p>"I have always understood that your father could read his Bible at the +age of four," remarked Mrs. Pendleton, who passionately treasured this +solitary proof of the rector's brilliancy.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid Harry is backward. He hates his letters—especially the +letter A—so much that it takes me an hour sometimes to get him to say +it after me. My only comfort is that Oliver says he couldn't read a line +until he was over seven years old. Would you scallop this oilcloth, +mother, or leave it plain?"</p> + +<p>"I always scallop mine. Mrs. Treadwell must be better, Jinny; Susan sent +me a dessert yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but she will never be able to move herself. Do you think that poor +Susan will marry John Henry now?"</p> + +<p>"I wonder?" replied Mrs. Pendleton vaguely. Then the sound of Harry's +laughter floated in suddenly from the backyard, and her eyes, following +Virginia's, turned automatically to the pantry window.</p> + +<p>"They've come home for a snack, I suppose?" she said. "Shall I fix some +bread and preserves for them?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll do it," responded Virginia, while she reached for the crock of +blackberry jam on the shelf at her side.</p> + +<p>Another week passed and there was no word from Oliver, until Mrs. +Pendleton came in at dusk one evening, with an anxious look on her face +and a folded newspaper held tightly in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen any of the accounts of Oliver's play, Jinny?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't had time to look at the papers to-day—Harry has hurt his +foot."</p> + +<p>She spoke placidly, looking up from the nursery floor, where she knelt +beside a basin of warm water at Harry's feet. "Poor little fellow, he +fell on a pile of bricks," she added, "but he's such a hero he never +even whimpered, did he, darling?"</p> + +<p>"But it hurt bad," said Harry eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Of course, it hurt dreadfully, and if he hadn't been a man he would +have cried."</p> + +<p>"Sister would have cried," exulted the hero.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sister would have cried. Sister is a girl," responded Virginia, +smothering him with kisses over the basin of water.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Pendleton refused to be diverted from her purpose even by the +heroism of her grandson.</p> + +<p>"John Henry found this in a New York paper and brought it to me. He +thought you ought to see it, though, of course, it may not be so +serious as it sounds."</p> + +<p>"Serious?" repeated Virginia, letting the soapy washrag fall back into +the basin while she stretched out her moist and reddened hand for the +paper.</p> + +<p>"It says that the play didn't go very well," pursued her mother +guardedly. "They expect to take it off at once, and—and Oliver is not +well—he is ill in the hotel——"</p> + +<p>"Ill?" cried Virginia, and as she rose to her feet the basin upset and +deluged Harry's shoes and the rug on which she had been kneeling. Her +mind, unable to grasp the significance of a theatrical failure, had +seized upon the one salient fact which concerned her. Plays might +succeed or fail, and it made little difference, but illness was another +matter—illness was something definite and material. Illness could +neither be talked away by religion nor denied by philosophy. It had its +place in her mind not with the shadow, but with the substance of things. +It was the one sinister force which had always dominated her, even when +it was absent, by the sheer terror it aroused in her thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Let me see," she said chokingly. "No, I can't read it—tell me."</p> + +<p>"It only says that the play was a failure—nobody understood it, and a +great many people said it was—oh, Virginia—<i>immoral!</i>—There's +something about its being foreign and an attack on American ideals—and +then they add that the author refused to be interviewed and they +understood that he was ill in his room at the Bertram."</p> + +<p>The charge of immorality, which would have crushed Virginia at another +time, and which, even in the intense excitement of the moment, had been +an added stab to Mrs. Pendleton, was brushed aside as if it were the +pestiferous attack of an insect.</p> + +<p>"I am going to him now—at once—when does the train leave, mother?"</p> + +<p>"But, Jinny, how can you? You have never been to New York. You wouldn't +know where to go."</p> + +<p>"But he is ill. Nothing on earth is going to keep me away from him. Will +you please wipe Harry's feet while I try to get on my clothes?"</p> + +<p>"But, Jinny, the children?"</p> + +<p>"You and Marthy must look after the children. Of course I can't take +them with me. Oh, Harry, won't you please hush and let poor mamma dress? +She is almost distracted."</p> + +<p>Something—a secret force of character which even her mother had not +suspected that she possessed—had arisen in an instant and dominated the +situation. She was no longer the gentle and doting mother of a minute +ago, but a creature of a fixed purpose and an iron resolution. Even her +face appeared to lose its soft contour and hardened until Mrs. Pendleton +grew almost frightened. Never had she imagined that Virginia could look +like this.</p> + +<p>"I am sure there is some mistake about it. Don't take it so terribly to +heart, Jinny," she pleaded, while she knelt down, cowed and obedient, to +wipe Harry's feet.</p> + +<p>Virginia, who had already torn off her house dress, and was hurriedly +buttoning the navy blue waist in which she had travelled, looked at her +calmly without pausing for an instant in her task.</p> + +<p>"Will you bind up his foot with some arnica?" she asked. "There's an +old handkerchief in my work basket. I want you and father to come here +and stay until I get back. It will be less trouble than moving all their +things over to the rectory."</p> + +<p>"Very well, darling," replied Mrs. Pendleton meekly. "We'll do +everything that we can, of course," and she added timidly, "Have you +money enough?"</p> + +<p>"I have thirty dollars. I just got it out of the bank to-day to pay +Marthy and my housekeeping bills. Do you think that will be as much as +I'll need?"</p> + +<p>"I should think so, dear. Of course, if you find you want more, you can +telegraph your father."</p> + +<p>"The train doesn't leave for two hours, so I'll have plenty of time to +get ready. It's just half-past six now, and Oliver didn't leave the +house till eight o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Won't you take a little something to eat before you go?"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't swallow a morsel, but I'll sit with you and the children as +soon as I've put the things in my satchel. I couldn't possibly need but +this one dress, could I? If Oliver isn't really ill, I hope we can start +home to-morrow. That will be two nights that I'll spend away. Oh, +mother, ask father to pray that he won't be ill."</p> + +<p>Her voice broke, but she fiercely bit back the sob before it escaped her +lips.</p> + +<p>"I will, dear, I promise you. We will both think of you and pray for you +every minute. Jinny, are you sure it's wise? Couldn't we send some +one—John Henry would go, I know—in your place?"</p> + +<p>A spasm of irritation contracted Virginia's features. "Please don't, +mother," she begged, "it just worries me. Whatever happens, I am +going." Then she sobbed outright. "He wanted me to go with him at first, +and I wouldn't because I thought it was my duty to stay at home with the +children. If anything should happen to him, I'd never forgive myself."</p> + +<p>She was slipping her black cloth skirt over her head as she spoke, and +her terror-stricken face disappeared under the pleats before Mrs. +Pendleton could turn to look at her. When her head emerged again above +the belt of her skirt, the expression of her features had grown more +natural.</p> + +<p>"You'll go down in a carriage, won't you?" inquired her mother, whose +mind achieved that perfect mixture of the sentimental and the practical +which is rarely found in any except Southern women.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'll have to. Then I can take my satchel with me, and that +will save trouble. You won't forget, mother, that I give Lucy a +teaspoonful of cod-liver oil after each meal, will you? She has had that +hacking cough for three weeks, and I want to break it up."</p> + +<p>"I'll remember, Jinny, but I'm so miserable about your going alone."</p> + +<p>Turning to the closet, Virginia unearthed an old black satchel from +beneath a pile of toys, and began dusting it inside with a towel. Then +she took out some underclothes from a bureau drawer and a few toilet +articles, which she wrapped in pieces of tissue paper. Her movements +were so methodical that the nervousness in Mrs. Pendleton's mind slowly +gave way to astonishment. For the first time in her life, perhaps, the +mother realized that her daughter was no longer a child, but a woman, +and a woman whose character was as strong and as determined as her own. +Vaguely she understood, without analyzing the motives that moved +Virginia, that this strength and this determination which so impressed +her had arisen from those deep places in her daughter's soul where +emotion and not thought had its source. Love was guiding her now as +surely as it had guided her when she had refused to go with Oliver to +New York, or when, but a few minutes ago, she had knelt down to wash and +bandage Harry's little earth-stained feet. It was the only power to +which she would ever surrender. No other principle would ever direct or +control her.</p> + +<p>Marthy, who appeared with Jenny's supper, was sent out to order the +carriage and to bear a message to the rector, and Virginia took the +little girl in her lap and began to crumble the bread into the bowl of +milk.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you like me to do that, dear?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, with a +submission in her tone which she had never used before except to the +rector. "Don't you want to fix your hair over?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I'll keep on my hat till I go to bed, so it doesn't matter. I'd +rather you'd finish my packing if you don't mind. There's nothing more +to go in except some collars and my bedroom slippers and that red +wrapper hanging behind the door in the closet."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to take any medicine?"</p> + +<p>"Only that bottle of camphor and some mustard plasters. Yes, you'd +better put in the brandy flask and the aromatic ammonia. You can never +tell when you will need them. Now, my darlings, mother is going away and +you must keep well and be as good as gold until she comes back."</p> + +<p>To the amazement of Mrs. Pendleton (who reflected that you really never +knew what to expect of children), this appeal produced an immediate and +extraordinary result. Lucy, who had been fidgeting about and trying to +help with the packing, became suddenly solemn and dignified, while an +ennobling excitement mounted to Harry's face. Never particularly +obedient before, they became, as soon as the words were uttered, as +amenable as angels. Even Jenny stopped feeding long enough to raise +herself and pat her mother's cheek with ten caressing, milky fingers.</p> + +<p>"Mother's going away," said Lucy in a solemn voice, and a hush fell on +the three of them.</p> + +<p>"And grandma's coming here to live," added Harry after the silence had +grown so depressing that Virginia had started to cry.</p> + +<p>"Not to live, precious," corrected Mrs. Pendleton quickly. "Just to +spend two days with you. Mother will be home in two days."</p> + +<p>"Mother will be home in two days," repeated Lucy. "May I stay away from +school while you're away, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"And may I stop learning my letters?" asked Harry.</p> + +<p>"No, darlings, you must do just as if I were here. Grandma will take +care of you. Now promise me that you will be good."</p> + +<p>They promised obediently, awed to submission by the stupendous +importance of the change. It is probable that they would have observed +with less surprise any miraculous upheaval in the orderly phenomena of +nature.</p> + +<p>"I don't see how I can possibly leave them—they are so good, and they +behave exactly as if they realized how anxious I am," wept Virginia, +breaking down when Marthy came to announce that the rector had come and +the carriage was at the door.</p> + +<p>"Suppose you give it up, Jinny. I—I'll send your father," pleaded Mrs. +Pendleton, in desperation as she watched the tragedy of the parting.</p> + +<p>But that strange force which the situation had developed in Virginia +yielded neither to her mother's prayers nor to the last despairing wails +of the children, who realized, at the sight of the black bag in Marthy's +hands, that their providence was actually deserting them. The deepest of +her instincts—the instinct that was at the root of all her mother +love—was threatened, and she rose to battle. The thing she loved best, +she had learned, was neither husband nor child, but the one that needed +her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V2" id="CHAPTER_V2"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>FAILURE</h3> + + +<p>She had lain down in her clothes, impelled by the feeling that if there +were to be a wreck she should prefer to appear completely dressed; so +when the chill dawn came at last and the train pulled into Jersey City, +she had nothing to do except to adjust her veil and wait patiently until +the porter came for her bag. His colour, which was black, inspired her +with confidence, and she followed him trustfully to the platform, where +he delivered her to another smiling member of his race. The cold was so +penetrating that her teeth began to chatter as she turned to obey the +orders of the dusky official who had assumed command of her. Never had +she felt anything so bleak as the atmosphere of the station. Never in +her life had she been so lonely as she was while she hurried down the +long dim platform in the direction of a gate which looked as if it led +into a prison. She was chilled through; her skin felt as if it had +turned to india rubber; there was a sickening terror in her soul; and +she longed above all things to sit down on one of the inhospitable +tracks and burst into tears; but something stronger than impulse urged +her shivering body onward and controlled the twitching muscles about her +mouth. "In a few minutes I shall see Oliver. Oliver is ill and I am +going to him," she repeated over and over to herself as if she were +reciting a prayer.</p> + +<p>Inside the station she declined the offer of breakfast, and was +conducted to the ferry, where she was obliged to run in order to catch +the boat that was just leaving. Seated on one of the long benches in the +saloon, with her bag at her feet and her umbrella grasped tightly in her +hand, she gazed helplessly at the other passengers and wondered if any +one of them would tell her what to do when she reached the opposite +side. The women, she thought, looked hard and harassed, and the men she +could not see because of the rows of newspapers behind which they were +hidden. Once her wandering gaze caught the eyes of a middle-aged woman +in rusty black, who smiled at her above the head of a sleeping child.</p> + +<p>"That's a pretty woman," said a man carelessly, as he put down his +paper, and she realized that he was talking about her to his companion. +Then, as the terrible outlines of the city grew more distinct on the +horizon, he got up and strolled as carelessly past her to the deck. He +had spoken of her as indifferently as he might have spoken of the +weather.</p> + +<p>As the tremendous battlements (which were not tremendous to any of the +other passengers) emerged slowly from the mist and cleft the sombre +low-hanging clouds, from which a few flakes of snow fell, her terror +vanished suddenly before the excitement which ran through her body. She +forgot her hunger, her loneliness, her shivering flesh, her benumbed and +aching feet. A sensation not unlike the one with which the rector had +marched into his first battle, fortified and exhilarated her. The +fighting blood of of her ancestors grew warm in her veins. New York +developed suddenly from a mere spot on a map into a romance made into +brick; and when a ray of sunlight pierced the heavy fog, and lay like a +white wing aslant the few falling snowflakes, it seemed to her that the +shadowy buildings lost their sinister aspect and softened into a +haunting and mysterious beauty. Somewhere in that place of mystery and +adventure Oliver was waiting for her! He was a part of that vast +movement of life into which she was going. Then, youth, from which hope +is never long absent, flamed up in her, and she was glad that she was +still beautiful enough to cause strangers to turn and look at her.</p> + +<p>But this mood, also, passed quickly, and a little later, while she +rolled through the grey streets, into which the slant sunbeams could +bring no colour, she surrendered again to that terror of the unknown +which had seized her when she stood in the station. The beauty had +departed from the buildings; the pavements were dirty; the little +discoloured piles of snow made the crossings slippery and dangerous; and +she held her breath as they passed through the crowded streets on the +west side, overcome by the fear of "catching" some malign malady from +the smells and the filth. The negro quarters in Dinwiddie were dirty +enough, but not, she thought with a kind of triumph, quite so dirty as +New York. When the cab turned into Fifth Avenue, she took her +handkerchief from her nostrils; but this imposing street, which had not +yet emerged from its evil dream of Victorian brownstone, impressed her +chiefly as a place of a thousand prisons. It was impossible to believe +that those frowning walls, undecorated by a creeper or the shadow of a +tree, could really be homes where people lived and children were born.</p> + +<p>At first she had gazed with a childish interest and curiosity on the +houses she was passing; then the sense of strangeness gave place +presently to the exigent necessity of reaching Oliver as soon as +possible. But the driver appeared indifferent to her timid taps on the +glass at his back, while the horse progressed with the feeble activity +of one who had spent a quarter of a century ineffectually making an +effort. Her impatience, which she had at first kept under control, began +to run in quivers of nervousness through her limbs. The very richness of +her personal life, which had condensed all experience into a single +emotional centre, and restricted her vision of the universe to that +solitary window of the soul through which she looked, prevented her now +from seeing in the city anything except the dreary background of +Oliver's illness and failure. The naïve wonder with which she had +watched the gigantic outlines shape themselves out of the white fog, had +faded utterly from her mind. She ached with longing to reach Oliver and +to find him well enough to take the first train back to Dinwiddie.</p> + +<p>At the hotel her bag and umbrella were wrested from her by an imperious +uniformed attendant, and in what seemed to her an incredibly short space +of time, she was following him along a velvet lined corridor on the +tenth floor. The swift ascent in the elevator had made her dizzy, and +the physical sensation reminded her that she was weak for food. Then the +attendant rapped imperatively at a door just beyond a shining staircase, +and she forgot herself as completely as it had been her habit to do +since her marriage.</p> + +<p>"Come in!" responded a muffled voice on the inside, and as the door +swung open, she saw Oliver, in his dressing-gown, and with an unshaved +face, reading a newspaper beside a table on which stood an untasted cup +of coffee.</p> + +<p>"I didn't ring," he began impatiently, and then starting to his feet, he +uttered her name in a voice which held her standing as if she were +suddenly paralyzed on the threshold. "Virginia!"</p> + +<p>A sob rose in her throat, and her faltering gaze passed from him to the +hotel attendant, who responded to her unspoken appeal as readily as if +it were a part of his regular business. Pushing her gently inside, he +placed her bag and umbrella on an empty chair, took up the breakfast +tray from the table, and inquired, with a kindness which strangely +humbled her, if she wished to give an order. When she had helplessly +shaken her head, he bowed and went out, closing the door softly upon +their meeting.</p> + +<p>"What in thunder, Virginia?" began Oliver, and she realized that he was +angry.</p> + +<p>"I heard you were sick—that the play had failed. I was so sorry I +hadn't come with you—" she explained; and then, understanding for the +first time the utter foolishness of what she had done, she put her hands +up to her face and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>He had risen from his chair, but he made no movement to come nearer to +her, and when she took down her hands in order to wipe her eyes, she saw +an expression in his face which frightened her by its strangeness. She +had caught him when that guard which every human being—even a +husband—wears, had fallen away, though in her ignorance it seemed to +her that he had become suddenly another person. That she had entered +into one of those awful hours of self-realization, when the soul must +face its limitations alone and make its readjustments in silence, did +not occur to her, because she, who had lived every minute of her life +under the eyes of her parents or her children, could have no +comprehension of the hunger for solitude which was devouring Oliver's +heart. She saw merely that he did not want her—that she had not only +startled, but angered him by coming; and the bitterness of that instant +seemed to her more than she was able to bear. Something had changed him; +he was older, he was harder, he was embittered.</p> + +<p>"I—I am so sorry," she stammered; and because even in the agony of this +moment she could not think long of herself, she added almost humbly, +"Would you rather that I should go back again?" Then, by the haggard +look of his face as he turned away from her towards the window, she saw +that he, also, was suffering, and her soul yearned over him as it had +yearned over Harry when he had had the toothache. "Oh, Oliver!" she +cried, and again, "Oh, Oliver, won't you let me help you?"</p> + +<p>But he was in the mood of despairing humiliation when one may support +abuse better than pity. His failure, he knew, had been undeserved, and +he was still smarting from the injustice of it as from the blows of a +whip. For twenty-four hours his nerves had been on the rack, and his one +desire had been to hide himself in the spiritual nakedness to which he +was stripped. Had he been obliged to choose a witness to his suffering, +it is probable that he would have selected a stranger from the street +rather than his wife. The one thing that could have helped him, an +intelligent justification of his work, she was powerless to give. In his +need she had nothing except love to offer; and love, she felt +instinctively, was not the balm for his wound.</p> + +<p>Afraid and yet passionately longing to meet his eyes, she let her gaze +fall away from him and wander timidly, as if uncertain where to rest, +about the disordered room, with its dull red walls, its cheap Nottingham +lace curtains tied back with cords, its elaborately carved walnut +furniture, and its litter of days old newspapers upon the bed. She saw +his neckties hanging in an uneven row over the oblong mirror, and she +controlled a nervous impulse to straighten them out and put them away.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you telegraph me?" he asked, after a pause in which she had +struggled vainly to look as if it were the most natural thing in the +world that he should receive her in this way. "If I had known you were +coming, I should have met you."</p> + +<p>"Father wanted to, but I wouldn't let him," she answered. "I—I thought +you were sick."</p> + +<p>In spite of his despair, it is probable that at the moment she was +suffering more than he was—since a wound to love strikes deeper, after +all, than a wound to ambition. Where she had expected to find her +husband, she felt vaguely that she had encountered a stranger, and she +was overwhelmed by that sense of irremediable loss which follows the +discovery of terrible and unfamiliar qualities in those whom we have +known and loved intimately for years. The fact that he was plainly +struggling to disguise his annoyance, that he was trying as hard as she +to assume a manner he did not feel, only added a sardonic humour to +poignant tragedy.</p> + +<p>"Have you had anything to eat?" he asked abruptly, and remembering that +he had not kissed her when she entered, he put his arm about her and +brushed her cheek with his lips.</p> + +<p>"No, I waited to breakfast with you. I was in such a hurry to get here."</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed, and going over to the bell, he touched it with +the manner of a man who is delighted that anything so perfectly +practical as food exists in the world.</p> + +<p>While he was speaking to the waiter, she took off her hat, and washed +the stains of smoke and tears from her face. Her hair was a sight, she +thought, but while she gazed back at her stricken eyes in the little +mirror over the washstand, she recalled with a throb of gratitude that +the stranger on the boat had said she was pretty. She felt so humble +that she clung almost with desperation to the thought that Oliver always +liked to have people admire her.</p> + +<p>When she turned from the washstand, he was reading the newspaper again, +and he put it aside with a forced cheerfulness to arrange the table for +breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going to have something too?" she asked, looking +disconsolately at the tray, for all her hunger had departed. If he would +only be natural she felt that she could bear anything! If he would only +stop trying to pretend that he was not miserable and that nothing had +happened! After all, it couldn't be so very bad, could it? It wasn't in +the least as if one of the children were ill.</p> + +<p>She poured out a cup of coffee for him before drinking her own, and +putting it down on the table at his side, waited patiently until he +should look up again from his paper. A lump as hard as lead had risen +in her throat and was choking her.</p> + +<p>"Are the children well?" he asked presently, and she answered with an +affected brightness more harrowing than tears, "Yes, mother is taking +care of them. Lucy still has the little cough, but I'm giving her +cod-liver oil. And, what do you think? I have a surprise for you. Harry +can read the first lesson in his reader."</p> + +<p>He smiled kindly back at her, but from the vacancy in his face, she +realized that he had not taken in a word that she had said. His trouble, +whatever it was, could absorb him so utterly that he had ceased even to +be interested in his children. He, who had borne so calmly the loss of +that day-old baby for whom she had grieved herself to a shadow, was +plunged into this condition of abject hopelessness merely because his +play was a failure! It was not only impossible for her to share his +suffering; she realized, while she watched him, that she could not so +much as comprehend it. Her limitations, of which she had never been +acutely conscious until to-day, appeared suddenly insurmountable. Love, +which had seemed to her to solve all problems and to smooth all +difficulties, was helpless to enlighten her. It was not love—it was +something else that she needed now, and of this something else she knew +not even so much as the name.</p> + +<p>She drank her coffee quickly, fearing that if she did not take food she +should lose control of herself and anger him by a display of hysterics.</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder you couldn't drink your coffee," she said with a +quivering little laugh. "It must have been made yesterday." Then, unable +to bear the strain any longer, she cried out sharply: "Oh, Oliver, +won't you tell me what is the matter?"</p> + +<p>His look grew hard, while a spasm of irritation contracted his mouth.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing you need worry about—except that I've borrowed money, +and I'm afraid we'll have to cut down things a bit until I manage to pay +it back."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course we'll cut down things," she almost laughed in her +relief. "We can live on a great deal less, and I'll market so carefully +that you will hardly know the difference. I'll put Marthy in the kitchen +and take care of the children myself. It won't be the least bit of +trouble."</p> + +<p>She knew by his face that he was grateful to her, though he said merely: +"I'm a little knocked up, I suppose, so you mustn't mind. I've got a +beast of a headache. Martin is going to take 'The Beaten Road' off at +the end of the week, you know, and he doesn't think now that he will +produce the other. There wasn't a good word for me from the critics, and +yet, damn them, I know that the play is the best one that's ever come +out of America. But it's real—that's why they fell foul of it—it isn't +stuffed with sugar plums."</p> + +<p>"Why, what in the world possessed them?" she returned indignantly. "It +is a beautiful play."</p> + +<p>She saw him flinch at the word, and the sombre irritation which his +outburst had relieved for a minute, settled again on his features. Her +praise, she understood, only exasperated him, though she did not realize +that it was the lack of discrimination in it which aroused his +irritation. At the moment, intelligent appreciation of his work would +have been bread and meat to him, but her pitiful attempts at flattery +were like bungling touches on raw flesh. Had he written the veriest rags +of sentimental rubbish, he knew she would as passionately have defended +their "beauty."</p> + +<p>"I'll get dressed quickly and look after some business," he said, "and +we'll go home to-night."</p> + +<p>Her eyes shone, and she began to eat her eggs with a resolution born of +the consoling memory of Dinwiddie. If only they could be at home again +with the children, she felt that all this trouble and misunderstanding +would vanish. With a strange confusion of ideas, it seemed to her that +Oliver's suffering had been in some mysterious way produced by New York, +and that it existed merely within the circumscribed limits of this +dreadful city.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Oliver, that will be lovely!" she exclaimed, and tried to subdue +the note of joy in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I shan't be able to get back to lunch, I'm afraid. What will you do +about it?"</p> + +<p>"Don't bother about me, dearest. I'll dress and take a little walk just +to see what Fifth Avenue is like. I can't get lost if I go perfectly +straight up the street, can I?"</p> + +<p>"Fifth Avenue is only a block away. You can't miss it. Now I'll hurry +and be off."</p> + +<p>She knew that he was anxious to be alone, and so firmly was she +convinced that this mood of detachment would leave him as soon as he was +in the midst of his family again, that she was able to smile tolerantly +when he kissed her hastily, and seizing his hat, rushed from the room. +For a time after he had gone she amused herself putting his things in +order and packing the little tin trunk he had brought with him; but the +red walls and the steam heat in the room sickened her at last, and when +she had bathed and dressed and there seemed nothing left for her to do +except get out her work-bag and begin darning his socks, she decided +that she would put on her hat and go out for a walk. It did not occur to +her to feel hurt by the casual manner in which Oliver had shifted the +responsibility of her presence—partly owing to a personal inability to +take a selfish point of view about anything, and partly because of that +racial habit of making allowances for the male in which she had been +sedulously trained from her infancy.</p> + +<p>At the door the porter directed her to Fifth Avenue, and she ventured +cautiously as far as the flowing rivulet at the corner, where she would +probably have stood until Oliver's return, if a friendly policeman had +not observed her stranded helplessness and assisted her over. "How on +earth am I to get back again?" she thought, smiling up at him; and this +anxiety engrossed her so completely that for a minute she forgot to look +at the amazing buildings and the curious crowds that hurried frantically +in their shadows. Then a pale finger of sunlight pointed suddenly across +the high roofs in front of her, and awed, in spite of her preoccupation, +by the strangeness of the scene, she stopped and watched the moving +carriages in the middle of the street and the never ending stream of +people that passed on the wet pavements. Occasionally, while she stood +there, some of the passers-by would turn and look at her with friendly +admiring eyes, as though they found something pleasant in her lovely +wistful face and her old-fashioned clothes; and this pleased her so much +that she lost her feeling of loneliness. It was a kindly crowd, and +because she was young and pretty and worth looking at, a part of the +exhilaration of this unknown life passed into her, and she felt for a +little while as though she belonged to it. The youth in her responded to +the passing call of the streets, to this call which fluted like the +sound of pipes in her blood, and lifted her for a moment out of the +narrow track of individual experience. It was charming to feel that all +these strangers looked kindly upon her, and she tried to show that she +returned their interest by letting a little cordial light shine in her +eyes. For the first time in her life the personal boundaries of sympathy +fell away from her, and she realized, in a fleeting sensation, something +of the vast underlying solidarity of human existence. A humble baby in a +go-cart waited at one of the crossings for the traffic to pass, and +bending over, she hugged him ecstatically, not because he reminded her +of Harry, but simply because he was a baby.</p> + +<p>"He is so sweet I just had to squeeze him," she said to his mother, a +working woman in a black shawl, who stood behind him.</p> + +<p>Then the two women smiled at each other in that freemasonry of +motherhood of which no man is aware, and Virginia wondered why people +had ever foolishly written of the "indifference of a crowd." The chill +which had lain over her heart since her meeting with Oliver melted +utterly in the glow with which she had embraced the baby at the +crossing. With the feeling of his warm little body in her arms, +everything had become suddenly right again. New York was no longer a +dreadful city, and Oliver's failure appeared as brief as the passing +pang of a toothache. Her natural optimism had returned like a rosy mist +to embellish and obscure the prosaic details of the situation. Like the +cheerful winter sunshine, which transfigured the harsh outlines of the +houses, her vision adorned the reality in the mere act of beholding it.</p> + +<p>Midway of the next block there was a jeweller's window full of gems set +in intricate patterns, and stopping before it, she studied the trinkets +carefully in the hope of being able to describe them to Lucy. Then a man +selling little automatic pigs at the corner attracted her attention, and +she bought two for Harry and Jenny, and carried them triumphantly away +in boxes under her arm. She knew that she looked countrified and +old-fashioned, and that nobody she met was wearing either a hat or a +dress which in the least resembled the style of hers; but the knowledge +of this did not trouble her, because in her heart she preferred the kind +of clothes which were worn in Dinwiddie. The women in New York seemed to +her artificial and affected in appearance, and they walked, she thought, +as if they were trying to make people look at them. The bold way they +laced in their figures she regarded as almost indecent, and she noticed +that they looked straight into the eyes of men instead of lowering their +lashes when they passed them. Her provincialism, like everything else +which belonged to her and had become endeared by habit and association, +seemed to her so truly beautiful and desirable that she would not have +parted with it for worlds.</p> + +<p>Turning presently, she walked down Fifth Avenue as far as Twenty-third +Street, and then, confused by the crossing, she passed into Broadway, +without knowing that it was Broadway, until she was enlightened by a +stranger to whom she appealed. When she began to retrace her steps, she +discovered that she was hungry, and she longed to go into one of the +places where she saw people eating at little tables; but her terror of +what she had heard of the high prices of food in New York restaurants +restrained her. General Goode still told of paying six dollars and a +half for a dinner he had ordered in a hotel in Fifth Avenue, and her +temperamental frugality, reinforced by anxiety as to Oliver's debts, +preferred to take no unnecessary risks with the small amount in her +pocket book. Oliver, of course, would have laughed at her petty +economies, and have ordered recklessly whatever attracted his appetite; +but, as she gently reminded herself again, men were different. On the +whole, this lordly prodigality pleased her rather than otherwise. She +felt that it was in keeping with the bigness and the virility of the +masculine ideal; and if there were pinching and scraping to be done, she +immeasurably preferred that it should fall to her lot to do it and not +to Oliver's.</p> + +<p>At the hotel she found that Oliver had not come in, and after a belated +luncheon of tea and toast in the dining-room, she went upstairs and sat +down to watch for his return between the Nottingham lace curtains at the +window. From the terrific height, on which she felt like a sparrow, she +could see a row of miniature puppets passing back and forth at the +corner of Fifth Avenue. For hours she tried in vain to distinguish the +figure of Oliver in the swiftly moving throng, and in spite of herself +she could not repress a feeling of pleasant excitement. She knew that +Oliver would think that she ought to be depressed by his failure, yet +she could not prevent the return of a child-like confidence in the +profound goodness of life. Everything would be right, everything was +eternally bound to be right from the beginning. That inherited casuistry +of temperament, which had confused the pleasant with the true for +generations, had become in her less a moral conviction than a fixed +quality of soul. To dwell even for a minute on "the dark side of things" +awoke in her the same instinct of mortal sin that she had felt at the +discovery that Oliver was accustomed to "break" the Sabbath by reading +profane literature.</p> + +<p>When, at last, as the dusk fell in the room, she heard his hasty step in +the corridor, a wave of joyful expectancy rose in her heart and trembled +for utterance on her lips. Then the door opened; he came from the gloom +into the pale gleam of light that shone in from the window, and with her +first look into his face her rising joy ebbed quickly away. A new +element, something for which neither her training nor her experience had +prepared her, entered at that instant into her life. Not the external +world, but the sacred inner circle in which they had loved and known +each other was suddenly clouded. Everything outside of this was the +same, but the fact confronted her there as grimly as a physical sore. +The evil struck at the very heart of her love, since it was not life, +but Oliver that had changed.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI2" id="CHAPTER_VI2"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE SHADOW</h3> + + +<p>Oliver had changed; for months this thought had lain like a stone on her +heart. She went about her life just as usual, yet never for an instant +during that long winter and spring did she lose consciousness of its +dreadful presence. It was the first thing to face her in the morning, +the last thing from which she turned when, worn out with perplexity, she +fell asleep at night. During the day the children took her thoughts away +from it for hours, but never once, not even while she heard Harry's +lessons or tied the pink or the blue bows in Lucy's and Jenny's curls, +did she ever really forget it. Since the failure of Oliver's play, which +had seemed to her such a little thing in itself, something had gone out +of their marriage, and this something was the perfect understanding +which had existed between them. There were times when her sympathy +appeared to her almost to infuriate him. Even her efforts towards +economy—for since their return from New York she had put Marthy into +the kitchen and had taken entire charge of the children—irritated +rather than pleased him. And the more she irritated him, the more she +sought zealously, by innumerable small attentions, to please and to +pacify him. Instead of leaving him in the solitude which he sought, and +which might have restored him to his normal balance of mind, she became +possessed, whenever he shut himself in his study or went alone for a +walk, with a frenzied dread lest he should permit himself to "brood" +over the financial difficulties in which the wreck of his ambition had +placed them. She, who feared loneliness as if it were the smallpox, +devised a thousand innocent deceptions by which she might break in upon +him when he sat in his study and discover whether he was actually +reading the papers or merely pretending to do so. In her natural +simplicity, it never occurred to her to penetrate beneath the surface +disturbances of his mood. These engrossed her so completely that the +cause of them was almost forgotten. Dimly she realized that this +strange, almost physical soreness, which made him shrink from her +presence as a man with weak eyes shrinks from the light, was the outward +sign of a secret violence in his soul, yet she ministered helplessly to +each passing explosion of temper as if it were the cause instead of the +result of his suffering. Introspection, which had lain under a moral ban +in a society that assumed the existence of an unholy alliance between +the secret and the evil, could not help her because she had never +indulged in it. Partly because of the ingenuous candour of the Pendleton +nature, and partly owing to the mildness of a climate which made it more +comfortable for Dinwiddians to live for six months of the year on their +front porches and with their windows open, she shared the ingrained +Southern distrust of any state of mind which could not cheerfully +support the observation of the neighbours. She knew that he had turned +from his work with disgust, and if he wasn't working and wasn't reading, +what on earth could he be doing alone unless he had, as she imagined in +desperation, begun wilfully to "nurse his despondency?" Even the rector +couldn't help her here—for his knowledge of character was strictly +limited to the types of the soldier and the churchman, and his +son-in-law did not belong, he admitted, in either of these familiar +classifications. At the bottom of his soul the good man had always +entertained for Oliver something of the kindly contempt with which his +generation regarded a healthy male, who, it suspected, would decline +either to preach a sermon or to kill a man in the cause of morality. But +on one line of treatment father and daughter were passionately +agreed—whatever happened, it was not good that Oliver should be left by +himself for a minute. When he was in the bank, of course, where Cyrus +had found him a place as a clerk on an insignificant salary, it might be +safely assumed that he was cheered by the unfailing company of his +fellow-workers; but when he came home, the responsibility of his +distraction and his cure rested upon Virginia and the children. And +since her opinion of her own power to entertain was modest, she fell +back with a sublime confidence on the unrivalled brilliancy and the +infinite variety of the children's prattle. During the spring, as he +grew more and more indifferent and depressed, she arranged that the +children should be with him every instant while he was in the house. She +brought Jenny's high chair to the table in order that the adorable +infant might breakfast with her father; she kept Harry up an hour later +at night so that he might add the gaiety of his innocent mirth to their +otherwise long and silent evenings. Though she would have given anything +to drop into bed as soon as the babies were undressed, she forced +herself to sit up without yawning until Oliver turned out the lights, +bolted the door, and remarked irritably that she ought to have been +asleep hours ago.</p> + +<p>"You aren't used to sitting up so late, Virginia; it makes you dark +under the eyes," he said one June night as he came in from the porch +where he had been to look up at the stars.</p> + +<p>"But I can't go to bed until you do, darling. I get so worried about +you," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Why in heaven's name, should you worry about me? I am all right," he +responded crossly.</p> + +<p>She saw her mistake, and with her unvarying sweetness, set out to +rectify it.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I know you are—but we have so little time together that I +don't want to miss the evenings."</p> + +<p>"So little!" he echoed, not unkindly, but in simple astonishment.</p> + +<p>"I mean the children sit up late now, and of course we can't talk while +they are playing in the room."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think you might get them to bed earlier? They are becoming +rather a nuisance, aren't they?"</p> + +<p>He said it kindly enough, yet tears rushed to her eyes as she looked at +him. It was impossible for her to conceive of any mood in which the +children would become "rather a nuisance" to her, and the words hurt her +more than he was ever to know. It seemed the last straw that she could +not bear, said her heart as she turned away from him. She had borne the +extra work without a complaint; she had pinched and scraped, if not +happily, at least with a smile; she had sat up while her limbs ached +with fatigue and the longing to be in bed—and all these things were as +nothing to the tragic confession that the children had become "rather a +nuisance." Of the many trials she had had to endure, this, she told +herself, was the bitterest.</p> + +<p>Though her feet burned and her muscles throbbed with fatigue, she lay +awake for hours, with her eyes wide open in the moonlight. All the small +harassing duties of the morrow, which usually swarmed like startled bees +through her brain at night, were scattered now by this vague terror +which assumed no definite shape. The delicacy of Lucy's chest, Harry's +stubborn refusal to learn to spell, and even the harrowing certainty +that the children's appetites were fast outstripping the frugal fare she +provided—these stinging worries had flown before a new anxiety which +was the more poignant, she felt, because she could not give it a name. +The Pendleton idealism was powerless to dispel this malign shadow which +corresponded so closely to that substance of evil whose very existence +the Pendleton idealism eternally denied. To battle with a delusion was +virtually to admit one's belief in its actuality, and this, she +reflected passionately, lying awake there in the darkness, was the last +thing she was prepared at the moment to do. Oliver was changed, and yet +her duty was plainly to fortify herself with the consoling assurance +that, whatever happened, Oliver could never really change. Deep down in +her that essential fibre of her being which was her soul—which drew its +vitality from the racial structure of which it was a part, and yet which +distinguished and separated her from every other person and object in +the universe—this essential fibre was compacted of innumerable +Pendleton refusals to face the reality. Even with Lucy's chest and +Harry's lessons and the cost of food, she had always felt a soothing +conviction that by thinking hard enough about them she could make them +every one come out right in the morning. As a normal human being in a +world which was not planned on altruistic principles, it was out of the +question that she should entirely escape an occasional hour of +despondency; but with the narrow outlook of women who lead intense +personal lives, it would have been impossible for her to see anything +really wrong in the universe while Oliver and all the children were +well. God was in His heaven as long as the affairs of her household +worked together for good. "It can't be that he is different—I must have +imagined it," she thought now, breathing softly lest she should disturb +the sleeping Oliver. "It is natural that he should be worried about his +debts, and the failure of the play went very hard with him, of +course—but if he appears at times to have grown bitter, it must be only +that I have come to exact too much of him. I oughtn't to expect him to +take the same interest in the children that I do——"</p> + +<p>Then, rising softly on her elbow, she smoothed the sheet over Jenny's +dimpled little body, and bent her ear downward to make sure that the +child was breathing naturally in her sleep. In spite of her depression +that rosy face framed in hair like spun yellow silk, aroused in her a +feeling of ecstasy. Whenever she looked at one of her children—at her +youngest child especially—her maternal passion seemed to turn to flame +in her blood. Even first love had not been so exquisitely satisfying, so +interwoven of all imaginable secret meanings of bliss. Jenny's thumb was +in her mouth, and removing it gently, Virginia bent lower and laid her +hot cheek on the soft shining curls. Some vital power, an emanation +from that single principle of Love which ruled her life, passed from the +breath of the sleeping child into her body. Peace descended upon her, +swift and merciful like sleep, and turning on her side, she lay with her +hand on Jenny's crib, as though in clinging to her child she clung to +all that was most worth while in the universe.</p> + +<p>The next night Oliver telephoned from the Treadwells' that he would not +be home to supper, and when he came in at eleven o'clock, he appeared +annoyed to find her sitting up for him.</p> + +<p>"You ought to have gone to bed, Virginia. You look positively haggard," +he said.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't sleepy. Mother came in for a few minutes, and we put the +children to bed. Jenny wanted to say good-night to you, and she cried +when I told her you had gone out. I believe she loves you better than +she does anybody in the world, Oliver."</p> + +<p>He smiled with something of the casual brilliancy which had first +captivated her imagination. In spite of the melancholy which had clouded +his charm of late, he had lost neither his glow of physical well-being +nor the look of abounding intellectual energy which distinguished him +from all other men whom she knew. It was this intellectual energy, she +sometimes thought, which purified his character of that vein of +earthiness which she had looked upon as the natural, and therefore the +pardonable, attribute of masculine human nature.</p> + +<p>"If she keeps her looks, she'll leave her mother behind some day," he +answered. "You need a new dress, Jinny. I hate that old waist and skirt. +Why don't you wear the swishy blue silk I always liked on you?"</p> + +<p>"I made it over for Lucy, dear. She had to have a dress to wear to Lily +Carrington's birthday party, and I didn't want to buy one. It looks ever +so nice on her."</p> + +<p>"Doubtless, but I like it better on you."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter what I wear, but Lucy is so fond of pretty things, +and children dress more now than they used to do. What did Susan have to +say?"</p> + +<p>He had turned to bolt the front door, and while his back was towards +her, she raised her hand to smother a yawn. All day she had been on her +feet, except for the two hours when she had worked at her +sewing-machine, while Harry and Jenny were taking their morning nap. She +had not had time to change her dress until after supper, and she had +felt so tired then that it had not seemed worth while to do so. There +was, in fact, nothing to change to, since she had made over the blue +silk, except an old black organdie, cut square in the neck, which she +had worn in the months before Jenny's birth. As a girl she had loved +pretty clothes; but there were so many other things to think about now, +and from the day that her first child had come to her it had seemed to +matter less and less what she wore or how she appeared. Nothing had +really counted in life except the supreme privilege of giving herself, +body and soul, in the service of love. All that she was—all that she +had—belonged to Oliver and to his children, so what difference could it +make to them, since she gave herself so completely, whether she wore new +clothes or old?</p> + +<p>When he turned to her, she had smothered the yawn, and was smiling. "Is +Aunt Belinda just the same?" she asked, for he had not answered her +question about Susan.</p> + +<p>"To tell the truth, I forgot to ask," he replied, with a laugh. "Susan +seemed very cheerful, and John Henry was there, of course. It wouldn't +surprise me to hear any day that they are to be married. By the way, +Virginia, why did you never tell me what a good rider you are? Abby +Goode says you would have been a better horsewoman than she is if you +hadn't given up riding."</p> + +<p>"Why, I haven't been in the saddle for years. I stopped when we had to +sell my horse Bess, and that was before you came back to Dinwiddie. How +did Abby happen to be there?"</p> + +<p>"She stopped to see Susan about something, and then we got to +talking—the bunch of us. John Henry asked me to exercise his horse for +him when he doesn't go. I rather hope I'll get a chance to go +fox-hunting in the autumn. Abby was talking about it."</p> + +<p>"Has she changed much? I haven't seen her for years. She is hardly ever +in Dinwiddie."</p> + +<p>"Well, she's fatter, but it's becoming to her. It makes her look softer. +She's a bit coarse, but she tells a capital story. I always liked Abby."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I always liked Abby, too," answered Virginia, and it was on the +tip of her tongue to add that Abby had always liked Oliver. "If he +hadn't seen me, perhaps he might have married her," she thought, and the +remote possibility of such bliss for poor defrauded Abby filled her with +an incredible tenderness. She would never have believed that bouncing, +boisterous Abby Goode could have aroused in her so poignant a sympathy.</p> + +<p>He appeared so much more cheerful than she had seen him since his +disastrous trip to New York, that, moved by an unselfish impulse of +gratitude towards the cause of it, she put out her hand to him, while he +raised his arm to extinguish the light.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad about the horse, dear," she said. "It will be nice for you +to go sometimes with Abby."</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't you come too, Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I shouldn't have time—and, besides, I gave it up long ago. I don't +think a mother has any business on horseback."</p> + +<p>"All the same I wish you wouldn't let yourself go to pieces. What have +you done to your hands? They used to be so pretty."</p> + +<p>She drew them hastily away, while the tears rose in a mist to her eyes. +It was like a man—it was especially like Oliver—to imagine that she +could clean up half a house and take charge of three children, yet keep +her hands as white and soft as they had been when she was a girl and did +nothing except wait for a lover. In a flash of memory, she saw the +reddened and knotted hands of her mother, and then a procession of hands +belonging to all the mothers of her race that had gone before her. Were +her own but a single pair in that chain of pathetic hands that had +worked in the exacting service of Love?</p> + +<p>"It is so hard to keep them nice," she said; but her heart cried, "What +do my hands matter when it is for your sake that I have spoiled them?" +With her natural tendency to undervalue the physical pleasures of life, +she had looked upon her beauty as a passing bloom which would attract +her lover to the veiled wonders of her spirit. Fleshly beauty as an end +in itself would have appeared to her as immoral a cult as the wilful +pursuit of a wandering desire in the male.</p> + +<p>"I never noticed until to-night what pretty hands Abby has," he said, +innocently enough, as he turned off the gas.</p> + +<p>A strange sensation—something which was so different from anything she +had ever felt before that she could not give it a name—pierced her +heart like an arrow. Then it fled as suddenly as it had come, and left +her at ease with the thought: "Abby has had nothing to hurt her hands. +Why shouldn't they be pretty?" But not for Abby's hands would she have +given up a single hour when she had washed Jenny's little flannels or +dug enchanted garden beds with Harry's miniature trowel.</p> + +<p>"She used to have a beautiful figure," she said with perfect sincerity.</p> + +<p>"Well, she's got it still, though she's a trifle too large for my taste. +You can't help liking her—she's such jolly good company, but, somehow, +she doesn't seem womanly. She's too fond of sport and all that sort of +thing."</p> + +<p>His ideal woman still corresponded to the type which he had chosen for +his mate; for true womanliness was inseparably associated in his mind +with those qualities which had awakened for generations the impulse of +sexual selection in the men of his race. Though he enjoyed Abby, he +refused stubbornly to admire her, since evolution, which moves rapidly +in the development of the social activities, had left his imagination +still sacredly cherishing the convention of the jungle in the matter of +sex. He saw woman as dependent upon man for the very integrity of her +being, and beyond the divine fact of this dependency, he did not see her +at all. But there was nothing sardonic in his point of view, which had +become considerably strengthened by his marriage to Virginia, who shared +it. It was one of those mental attitudes, indeed, which, in the days of +loose thinking and of hazy generalizations, might have proved its divine +descent by its universality. Oliver, his Uncle Cyrus, the rector, and +honest John Henry, however they may have differed in their views of the +universe or of each other, were one at least in accepting the historical +dogma of the supplementary being of woman.</p> + +<p>And yet, so strange is life, so inexplicable are its contradictions, +there were times when Oliver's ideal appeared almost to betray him, and +the intellectual limitations of Virginia bored rather than delighted +him. Habit, which is a sedative to a phlegmatic nature, acts not +infrequently as a positive irritant upon the temperament of the artist; +and since he had turned from his work in a passion of disgust at the +dramatic obtuseness of his generation, he had felt more than ever the +need of some intellectual outlet for the torrent of his imagination. As +a wife, Virginia was perfect; as a mental companion, she barely existed +at all. She was, he had come to recognize, profoundly indifferent to the +actual world. Her universe was a fiction except the part of it that +concerned him or the children. He had never forgotten that he had read +his play to her one night shortly after Jenny's birth, and she had +leaned forward with her chin on her palm and a look in her face as if +she were listening for a cry which never came from the nursery. Her +praise had had the sound of being recited by rote, and had aroused in +him a sense of exasperation which returned even now whenever she +mentioned his work. In the days of his courtship the memory of her +simplicities clung like an exquisite bouquet to the intoxicating image +of her; but in eight years of daily intimacy the flavour and the +perfume of mere innocence had evaporated. The quality which had first +charmed him was, perhaps, the first of which he had grown weary. He +still loved Virginia, but he had ceased to talk to her. "If you go into +the refrigerator, Oliver, don't upset Jenny's bottle of milk," she said, +looking after him as he turned towards the dining-room.</p> + +<p>Her foot was already on the bottom step of the staircase, for she had +heard, or imagined that she had heard, a sound from the nursery, and she +was impatient to see if one of the children had awakened and got out of +bed. All the evening, while she had changed the skin-tight sleeves of +the eighties to the balloon ones of the nineties in an old waist which +she had had before her marriage and had never worn because it was +unbecoming, her thoughts had been of Harry, whom she had punished for +some act of flagrant rebellion during the afternoon. Now she was eager +to comfort him if he was awake and unhappy, or merely to cuddle and kiss +him if he was fast asleep in his bed.</p> + +<p>At the top of the staircase she saw the lowered lamp in the nursery, and +beside it stood Harry in his little nightgown, with a toy ship in his +arms.</p> + +<p>"Mamma, I'm tired of bed and I want to play."</p> + +<p>"S—sush, darling, you will wake Jenny. It isn't day yet. You must go +back to bed."</p> + +<p>"But I'm tired of bed."</p> + +<p>"You won't be after I tuck you in."</p> + +<p>"Will you sit by me and tell me a story?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling, I'll tell you a story if you'll promise not to talk."</p> + +<p>Her eyes were heavy with sleep, and her limbs trembled from the +exhaustion of the long June day; but she remembered the punishment of +the afternoon, and as she looked at him her heart seemed melting with +tenderness.</p> + +<p>"And you'll promise not to go away until I'm fast asleep?—you'll +promise, mamma?"</p> + +<p>"I'll promise, precious. No, you mustn't take your ship to bed with you. +That's a darling."</p> + +<p>Then, as Oliver was heard coming softly up the stairs for fear of +arousing the children, she caught Harry's moist hand in hers and stole +with him into the nursery.</p> + +<p>To Virginia in the long torrid days of that summer there seemed time for +neither anxiety nor disappointment. Every minute of her eighteen waking +hours was spent in keeping the children washed, dressed, and +good-humoured. She thought of herself so little that it never occurred +to her to reflect whether she was happy or unhappy—hardly, even, +whether she was awake or asleep. Twice a week John Henry's horse carried +Oliver for a ride with Abby and Susan, and on these evenings he stayed +so late that Virginia ceased presently even to make a pretence of +waiting supper. Several times, on September afternoons, when the country +burned with an illusive radiance as if it were seen through a mirage, +she put on her old riding-habit, which she had hunted up in the attic at +the rectory, and mounting one of Abby's horses, started to accompany +them; but her conscience reproached her so bitterly at the thought that +she was seeking pleasure away from the children, that she hurried +homeward across the fields before the others were ready to turn. As with +most women who are born for motherhood, that supreme fact had not only +absorbed the emotional energy of her girlhood, but had consumed in its +ecstatic flame even her ordinary capacities for enjoyment. While +fatherhood left Oliver still a prey to dreams and disappointments, the +more exclusive maternal passion rendered Virginia profoundly indifferent +to every aspect of life except the intimate personal aspect of her +marriage. She couldn't be happy—she couldn't even be at ease—while she +remembered that the children were left to the honest, yet hardly tender, +mercies of Marthy.</p> + +<p>"I shall never go again," she thought, as she slipped from her saddle at +the gate, and, catching up her long riding-skirt, ran up the short walk +to the steps. "I must be getting old. Something has gone out of me."</p> + +<p>And there was no regret in her heart for this <i>something</i> which had fled +out of her life, for the flashing desires and the old breathless +pleasures of youth which she had lost. For a month this passive joy +lasted—the joy of one whose days are full and whose every activity is +in useful service. Then there came an October afternoon which she never +forgot because it burned across her life like a prairie fire and left a +scarred track of memory behind it. It had been a windless day, filled +with glittering blue lights that darted like birds down the long +ash-coloured roads, and spun with a golden web of air which made the +fields and trees appear as thin and as unsubstantial as dreams. The +children were with Marthy in the park, and Virginia, attired in the old +waist with the new sleeves, was leaning on the front gate watching the +slow fall of the leaves from the gnarled mulberry tree at the corner, +when Mrs. Pendleton appeared on the opposite side of the street and +crossed the cobblestones of the road with her black alpaca skirt +trailing behind her.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why in the world mother doesn't hold up her skirt?" thought +Virginia, swinging back the little wooden gate while she waited. +"Mother, you are letting your train get all covered with dust!" she +called, as soon as Mrs. Pendleton came near enough to catch her +half-whispered warning.</p> + +<p>Reaching down indifferently, the older woman caught up a handful of her +skirt and left the rest to follow ignominiously in the dust. From the +carelessness of the gesture, Virginia saw at once that her mother's mind +was occupied by one of those rare states of excitement or of distress +when even the preservation of her clothes had sunk to a matter of +secondary importance. When the small economies were banished from Mrs. +Pendleton's consciousness, matters had assumed indeed a serious aspect.</p> + +<p>"Why, mother, what on earth has happened?" asked Virginia, hurrying +toward her.</p> + +<p>"Let me come in and speak to you, Jinny. I mean inside the house. One +can never be sure that some of the neighbours aren't listening," she +said in a whisper.</p> + +<p>Hurrying past her daughter, she went into the hall, and, then turning, +faced her with her hand on the door-knob. In the dim light of the hall +her face showed white and drawn, like the face of a person who has been +suddenly stricken with illness. "Jinny, I've just had a visit from Mrs. +Carrington—you know what a gossip she is—but I think I ought to tell +you that she says people are talking about Oliver's riding so much with +Abby."</p> + +<p>A pain as sharp as if the teeth of a beast had fastened in her heart, +pierced Virginia while she stood there, barring the door with her hands. +Her peace, which had seemed indestructible a moment ago, was shattered +by a sensation of violent anger—not against Abby, not against Oliver, +not even against the gossiping old women of Dinwiddie—but against her +own blindness, her own inconceivable folly! At the moment the +civilization of centuries was stripped from her, and she was as simple +and as primitive as a female of the jungle. On the surface she was still +calm, but to her own soul she felt that she presented the appalling +spectacle of a normal woman turned fury. It was one of those instants +that are so unexpected, so entirely unnatural and out of harmony with +the rest of life, that they obliterate the boundaries of character which +separate the life of the individual from the ancient root of the race. +Not Virginia, but the primeval woman in her blood, shrieked out in +protest as she saw her hold on her mate threatened. The destruction of +the universe, as long as it left her house standing in its bit of +ground, would have overwhelmed her less utterly.</p> + +<p>"But what on earth can they say, mother? It was all my fault. I made him +go. He never lifted his finger for Abby."</p> + +<p>"I know, darling, I know. Of course, Oliver is not to blame, but people +will talk, and I think Abby ought to have known better."</p> + +<p>For an instant only Virginia hesitated. Then something stronger than the +primitive female in her blood—the spirit of a lady—spoke through her +lips.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe Abby was to blame, either," she said.</p> + +<p>"But women ought to know better, Jinny, and Abby is nearly thirty."</p> + +<p>"She always wanted me to go, mother. I don't believe she thought for a +minute that she was doing anything wrong. Abby is a little coarse, but +she's perfectly good. Nobody will make me think otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Well, it can't go on, dear. You must stop Oliver's riding with her. And +Mrs. Carrington says she hears that he is going to Atlantic City with +them in General Goode's private car on Thursday."</p> + +<p>"Abby asked me, too, but of course I couldn't leave the children."</p> + +<p>"Of course not. Oliver must give it up, too. Oh, Jinny, a scandal, even +where one is innocent, is so terrible. A woman—a true woman—would +endure death rather than be talked about. I remember your cousin Jane +Pendleton made an unhappy marriage, and her husband used to get drunk +and beat her and even carry on dreadfully with the coloured +servants—but she said that was better than the disgrace of a +separation."</p> + +<p>"But all that has nothing to do with me, mother. Oliver is an angel, and +this is every bit my fault, not Abby's." The violence in her soul had +passed, and she felt suddenly calm.</p> + +<p>"Of course, darling, of course. Now that you see what it has led to, you +can stop it immediately."</p> + +<p>They were so alike as they stood there facing each other, mother and +daughter, that they might have represented different periods of the same +life—youth and age meeting together. Both were perfect products of that +social order whose crowning grace and glory they were. Both were +creatures trained to feel rather than think, whose very goodness was the +result not of reason, but of emotion. And, above all, both were +gentlewomen to the innermost cores of their natures. Passion could not +banish for long that exquisite forbearance which generations had +developed from a necessity into an art.</p> + +<p>"I can't stop his going with her, because that would make people think I +believed the things they say—but I can go, too, mother, and I will. +I'll borrow Susan's horse and go fox-hunting with them to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Once again, as on the afternoon when she had heard of Oliver's illness +in New York, Mrs. Pendleton realized that her daughter's strength was +more than a match for hers when the question related to Oliver.</p> + +<p>"But the children, dear—and then, oh, Jinny, you might get hurt."</p> + +<p>To her surprise Jinny laughed.</p> + +<p>"I shan't get hurt, mother—and if I did——"</p> + +<p>She left her sentence unfinished, but in the break there was the first +note of bitterness that her mother had ever heard from her lips. Was it +possible, after all, that there was "more in it" than she had let appear +in her words? Was it possible that her passionate defence of Abby had +been but a beautiful pretence?</p> + +<p>"I'll go straight down to the Treadwells' to ask Susan for her horse," +she added cheerfully, "and you'll come over very early, won't you, to +stay with the children? Oliver always starts before daybreak."</p> + +<p>"Yes, darling, I'll get up at dawn and come over—but, Jinny, promise me +to be careful."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll be careful," responded Virginia lightly, as she went out on +the porch.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII2" id="CHAPTER_VII2"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE WILL TO LIVE</h3> + + +<p>"It's all horrid talk. There's not a word of truth in it," she thought, +true to the Pendleton point of view, as she turned into Old Street on +her way to the Treadwells'. Then the sound of horses' hoofs rang on the +cobblestones, and, looking past the corner, she saw Oliver and Abby +galloping under the wine-coloured leaves of the oak tree at the +crossing. His face was turned back, as if he were looking over his +shoulder at the red sunset, and he was laughing as she had not heard him +laugh since that dreadful morning in the bedroom of the New York hotel. +What a boy he was still! As she watched him, it seemed to her that she +was old enough to be his mother, and the soreness in her heart changed +into an exquisite impulse of tenderness. Then he looked from the sunset +to Abby, and at the glance of innocent pleasure that passed between them +a stab of jealousy entered her heart like a blade. Before it faded, they +had passed the corner, and were cantering wildly up Old Street in the +direction of Abby's home.</p> + +<p>"It is my fault. I am too settled. I am letting my youth go," she said, +with a passionate determination to catch her girlhood and hold it fast +before it eluded her forever. "I am only twenty-eight and I dress like a +woman of forty." And it seemed to her that the one desirable thing in +life was this fleet-winged spirit of youth, which passed like a breath, +leaving existence robbed of all romance and beauty. An hour before she +had not cared, and she would not care now if only Oliver could grow +middle-aged and old at the moment when she did. Ah, there was the +tragedy! All life was for men, and only a few radiant years of it were +given to women. Men were never too old to love, to pursue and capture +whatever joy the fugitive instant might hold for them. But women, though +they were allowed only one experience out of the whole of life, were +asked to resign even that one at the very minute when they needed it +most. "I wonder what will become of me when the children grow big enough +to be away all the time as Oliver is," she thought wistfully. "I wish +one never grew too old to have babies."</p> + +<p>The front door of the Treadwell house stood open, and in the hall Susan +was arranging golden-rod and life-ever-lasting in a blue china bowl.</p> + +<p>"Of course, you may have Belle to-morrow," she said in answer to +Virginia's faltering request. "Even if I intended going, I'd be only too +glad to lend her to you—but I can't leave mother anyway. She always +gets restless if I stay out over an hour."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Treadwell's illness had become one of those painful facts which +people accept as naturally as they accept the theological dogma of +damnation. It was terrible, when they thought of it, but they seldom +thought of it, thereby securing tranquillity of mind in the face of both +facts and dogmas. Even Virginia had ceased to make her first question +when she met Susan, "How is your mother?"</p> + +<p>"But, Susan, you need the exercise. I thought that was why the doctor +made Uncle Cyrus get you a horse."</p> + +<p>"It was, but I only go for an hour in the afternoon. I begrudge every +minute I spend away from mother. Oh, Jinny, she is so pathetic! It +almost breaks my heart to watch her."</p> + +<p>"I know, dearest," said Virginia; but at the back of her brain she was +thinking, "They looked so happy together, yet he could never really +admire Abby. She isn't at all the kind of woman he likes."</p> + +<p>So preoccupied was she by this problem of her own creation, that her +voice had a strangely far off sound, as though it came from a distance. +"I wish I could help you, dear Susan. If you ever want me, day or night, +you know you have only to send for me. I'd let nothing except desperate +illness stand in the way of my coming."</p> + +<p>It was true, and because she knew that it was true, Susan stooped +suddenly and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"You are looking tired, Jinny. What is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing except that I'm a sight in this old waist. I made it over to +save buying one, but I wish now I hadn't. It makes me look so settled."</p> + +<p>"You need some clothes, and you used to be so fond of them."</p> + +<p>"That was before the children came. I've never cared much since. It's +just as if life were a completed circle, somehow. There's nothing more +to expect or to wait for—you'll understand what I mean some day, +Susan."</p> + +<p>"I think I do now. But only women are like that? Men are different——"</p> + +<p>It was the classic phrase again, but on Susan's lips it sounded with a +new significance.</p> + +<p>"And some women are different, too," replied Virginia. "Now there's Abby +Goode—Susan, what do you honestly think of Abby?"</p> + +<p>There was a wistful note in the question, and around her gentle blue +eyes appeared a group of little lines, brought out by the nervous +contraction of her forehead. Was it the wan, smoky light of the +dusk?—Susan wondered, or was Virginia really beginning to break so +soon?</p> + +<p>"Why, I like Abby. I always did," she answered, trying to look as if she +did not understand what Virginia had meant. "She's a little bit what +John Henry calls 'loud,' but she has a good heart and would do anybody a +kindness."</p> + +<p>She had evaded answering, just as Virginia had evaded asking, the +question which both knew had passed unuttered between them—was Abby to +be trusted to keep inviolate the ancient unwritten pledge of honourable +womanhood? Her character was being tested by the single decisive virtue +exacted of her sex.</p> + +<p>"I am glad you feel that way," said Virginia in a relieved manner after +a minute, "because I should hate not to believe in Abby, and some people +don't understand her manner—mother among them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, she's all right. I'm sure of it," answered Susan, with heartiness.</p> + +<p>The wistful sound had passed out of Virginia's voice, while the little +lines faded as suddenly from the corners of her eyes. She looked better +already—only she really ought not to wear such dowdy clothes, even +though she was happily married, reflected Susan, as she watched her, a +few minutes later, pass over the mulberry leaves, which lay, thick and +still, on the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>At the corner of Sycamore Street a shopkeeper was putting away his goods +for the night, and in the window Virginia saw a length of hyacinth-blue +silk, matching her eyes, which she had remotely coveted for weeks—never +expecting to possess it, yet never quite reconciling herself to the +thought that it might be worn by some other woman. That length of silk +had grown gradually to symbolize the last glimmer of girlish vanity +which motherhood had not extinguished in her heart; and while she looked +at it now, in her new recklessness of mood, a temptation, born of the +perversity which rules human fate, came to her to go in and buy it while +she was still desperate enough to act foolishly and not be afraid. For +the first time in her life that immemorial spirit of adventure which +lies buried under the dead leaves of civilization at the bottom of every +human heart—with whose re-arisen ghost men have moved mountains and +ploughed jungles and charted illimitable seas—this imperishable spirit +stirred restlessly in its grave and prompted her for once to be +uncalculating and to risk the future. In the flickering motive which +guided her as she entered the shop, one would hardly have recognized the +lusty impulse which had sent her ancestors on splendid rambles of +knight-errantry, yet its hidden source was the same. The simple purchase +of twelve yards of blue silk which she had wanted for weeks! To an +outsider it would have appeared a small matter, yet in the act there was +the intrepid struggle of a personal will to enforce its desire upon +destiny. She would win back the romance and the beauty of living at the +cost of prudence, at the cost of practical comforts, at the cost, if +need be, of those ideals of womanly duty to which the centuries had +trained her! For eight years she had hardly thought of herself, for +eight years she had worked and saved and planned and worried, for eight +years she had given her life utterly and entirely to Oliver and the +children—and the result was that he was happier with Abby—with Abby +whom he didn't even admire—than he was with the wife whom he both +respected and loved! The riddle not only puzzled, it enraged her. Though +she was too simple to seek a psychological answer, the very fact that it +existed became an immediate power in her life. She forgot the lateness +of the evening, she forgot the children who were anxiously watching for +her return. The forces of character, which she had always regarded as +divinely fixed and established, melted and became suddenly fluid. She +wasn't what she had been the minute before—she wasn't even, she began +dimly to realize, what she would probably be the minute afterwards. Yet +the impulse which governed her now was as despotic as if it had reigned +in undisputed authority since the day of her birth. She knew that it was +a rebel against the disciplined and moderate rule of her conscience, but +this knowledge, which would have horrified her had she been in a normal +mood, aroused in her now merely a breathless satisfaction at the +spectacle of her own audacity. The natural Virginia had triumphed for an +instant over the Virginia whom the ages had bred.</p> + +<p>At home she found Oliver waiting for supper, and the three children in +tears for fear she should decide to stay out forever.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, we thought you'd gone away never to come back," sobbed +Lucy, throwing herself into her arms, "and what would little Jenny have +done?"</p> + +<p>"Where in the world have you been, Virginia?" asked Oliver, a trifle +impatiently, for he was not used to having her absent from the house at +meal hours. "I was afraid somebody had been taken ill at the rectory, so +I went around to inquire."</p> + +<p>"No, nobody was ill," answered Virginia quietly. Though her resolution +made her tremble all over, it did not occur to her for an instant that +even now she might recede from it. As the rector had gone to the war, so +she was going now to battle with Abby. She was afraid, but that quality +which had made the Pendletons despise fear since the beginning of +Dinwiddie's history, which they had helped to make, enabled her to +control her quivering muscles and to laugh at the reproachful protests +with which the children surrounded her. Through her mind there shot the +thought: "I have a secret from Oliver," and she felt suddenly guilty +because for the first time since her marriage she was keeping something +back from him. Then, following this, there came the knowledge, piercing +her heart, that she must keep her secret because even if she told him, +he would not understand. With the casualness of a man's point of view +towards an emotion, he would judge its importance, she felt, chiefly by +the power it possessed of disturbing the course of his life. +Unobservant, and ever ready to twist and decorate facts as she was, it +had still been impossible for her to escape the truth that men are by +nature incapable of a woman's characteristic passion for nursing +sentiment. To struggle to keep a feeling alive for no better reason than +that it was a feeling, would appear as wastefully extravagant to Oliver +as to the unimaginative majority of his sex. Such pure, sublime, +uncalculating folly belonged to woman alone!</p> + +<p>When, at last, supper was over and the children were safely in bed, she +came downstairs to Oliver, who was smoking a cigar over a newspaper, and +asked carelessly:</p> + +<p>"At what time do you start in the morning?"</p> + +<p>"I'd like to be up by five," he replied, without lowering his paper. +"We're to meet the hounds at Croswell's store at a quarter of six, so +I'll have to get off by five at the latest. I wanted my horse fresh for +to-morrow, that's why I only went a mile or two this afternoon," he +added.</p> + +<p>"Susan's to lend me Belle. I'm going with you," she said, after a pause +in which he had begun to read his paper again. This habit of treating +her as if she were not present when he wanted to read or to work, was, +she remembered, one of the things she had insisted upon in the beginning +of her marriage.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he exclaimed, and the paper dropped from his hands. "I'm +jolly glad, but what will you do about the children?"</p> + +<p>"Mother is coming to look after them. I'll be back in time to hear +Harry's lessons, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course; but, look here, you'll be awfully sore. You haven't +ridden after the hounds since I knew you. You might even get a fall."</p> + +<p>"I used to go, though, a great deal—and it won't hurt me to be stiff +for a few days. Besides, I want to take up hunting again."</p> + +<p>Her motive was beyond him—perhaps because of her nearness, which +prevented his getting the proper perspective of vision. For all his +keenness of insight, he failed utterly to see into the mysterious mind +of his wife. He could not penetrate that subtle interplay of traditional +virtues and discover that she was in the clutch of one of the oldest and +most savage of the passions.</p> + +<p>"Then you'd better go to bed early and get some sleep," he said. "I +suppose we'll have a cup of coffee before starting."</p> + +<p>"I'll make it on the oil stove while I am dressing. Marthy won't be up +then."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll come upstairs in ten minutes," he replied, taking up his +paper again. "I only want to finish this article."</p> + +<p>In the morning when she opened the old green shutters and looked out of +the window, the horses, having been saddled by candlelight, were +standing under the mulberry tree at the gate. Eight years ago, in her +girlhood, she would have awakened in a delicious excitement on the +morning of a fox-hunt, and have dressed as eagerly as if she were going +to a ball; but to-day, while she lit the oil-stove in the hall room and +put on the kettle of water, she was supported not by the hope of +pleasure, but by a dull, an almost indefinable sensation of dread. The +instinct of woman to adjust her personality to the changing ideals of +the man she loves—this instinct older than civilization, rooted in +tragedy, and existing by right of an unconquerable necessity—rose +superior at the moment to that more stable maternal passion with which +it has conflicted since the beginning of motherhood. While she put on +her riding-habit and tied up the plait of her hair, the one thought in +Virginia's mind was that she must be, at all costs, the kind of woman +that Oliver wanted.</p> + +<p>A little later, when they set out under the mulberry trees, she glanced +at him wistfully, as though she wanted him to praise the way she looked +in the saddle. But his eyes were on the end of the street, where a +little company of riders awaited them, and before she could ask a +question, Abby's high voice was heard exclaiming pleasantly upon her +presence. Not a particularly imposing figure, because of her rather +short legs, when she was on the ground, it was impossible for Virginia +to deny that Abby was amazingly handsome on horseback. Plump, dark, with +a superb bosom, and a colour in her cheeks like autumnal berries, she +had never appeared to better advantage than she did, sitting on her +spirited bay mare under an arch of scarlet leaves which curved over her +head. Turning at their approach, she started at a brisk canter up the +road, and as Virginia followed her, the sound of the horn floated, now +loud, now faint, out of the pale mist that spun fanciful silken webs +over the trees and bushes.</p> + +<p>"Remember to look out for the creeks. That's where the danger comes," +said Oliver, riding close to her, and he added nervously, "Don't try to +keep up with Abby."</p> + +<p>Ahead of them stretched a deserted Virginia road, with its look of +brooding loneliness, as if it had waited patiently through the centuries +for a civilization which had never come; and on the right of it, beyond +a waste of scarlet sumach and sassafras and a winding creek screened in +elder bushes, the dawn was breaking slowly under a single golden-edged +cloud. Somebody on Virginia's left—a large, raw-boned, passionate +huntsman, in an old plum-coloured overcoat with a velvet collar—was +complaining loudly that they had started too late and the fox would have +gone to his lair before they reached the main party. Except for an oath, +which he rapped out by way of an emphasis not intended for the ladies, +he might have been conducting a religious revival, so solemnly +energetic, so deeply moved, was his manner. The hunt, which observed +naturally the characteristics of a society that was ardently +individualistic even in its sports, was one of those informal, +"go-as-you-please" affairs in which the supreme joy of killing is not +hampered by tedious regulations or unnecessary restrictions. The chief +thing was to get a run—to start a rare red fox, if luck was good, +because he was supposed to run straight by nature and not to move in +circles after the inconsiderate manner of the commoner grey sort. But +Providence, being inattentive to the needs of hunters in the +neighbourhood of Dinwiddie, had decreed that the red fox should live +there mainly in the vivid annals of old sportsmen.</p> + +<p>"A grey fox with red ears. The best run I ever had. Tried to get in the +crotch of a hickory tree at the end. Was so exhausted he couldn't stir a +foot when the hounds got him." While they waited at the crossroads +before a little country store, where the pack of hounds, lean, cringing, +habitually hungry creatures, started from beneath an old field pine on +the right, Virginia heard the broken phrases blown on the wind, which +carried the joyous notes of the horn over the meadows. The casual +cruelty of the words awoke no protest in her mind, because it was a +cruelty to which she was accustomed. If the sport had been unknown in +Dinwiddie, and she had read of it as the peculiar activity of the +inhabitants of the British Islands, she would probably have condemned it +as needlessly brutal and degrading. But with that universal faculty of +the human mind to adjust its morality to fit its inherited physical +habits, she regarded "the rights of the fox" to-day with something of +the humorous scorn of sentimental rubbish with which her gentler +grandmother had once regarded "the rights of the slave." For centuries +the hunt had been one of the cherished customs of Dinwiddians; and +though she could not bear to see a fly caught in a web, it would never +have occurred to her to question the humanity of any sport in which her +ancestors had delighted. In her girlhood the sound of the horn had +called to her blood with all the intoxicating associations it awoke in +the raw-boned, energetic rider in the plum-coloured coat—but to-day +both the horn and the familiar landscape around her had grown strange +and unhomelike. For the first time since her birth she and the country +were out of harmony.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the hounds, in the centre of the old field on the right, +the huntsman, who was at the same time master and owner of the dogs, +brandished a long raw-hide whip, flexible from the handle, which was +pleasantly known in Dinwiddie as a "mule-skinner." His face, burned to +the colour of ripe wheat, wore a rapt and exalted look, as though the +chasing of a small animal to its death had called forth his latent +spiritual ardours. Beyond him, like a low, smouldering fire, ran the red +and gold of the abandoned field.</p> + +<p>"Please be careful, Virginia," said Oliver again, as they left the road +and cantered in the direction of a clump of pine woods in a hollow +beyond a rotting "snake" fence.</p> + +<p>But she had seen his eyes on Abby a minute before, and had heard his +laugh as he answered her. A wave of recklessness broke over her, and she +felt that she despised fear with all her Pendleton blood, which loved a +fight only less passionately than it loved a sermon. Whatever +happened—if she broke her neck—she resolved that she would keep up +with Abby! With the drumming of the blood in her ears, an almost savage +joy awoke in her. Deep down in her, so deep that it was buried beneath +the Virginia Pendleton whom she and her world knew, there stirred +faintly the seeds of that ancient lust of cruelty from which have sprung +the brutal pleasures of men. The part of her—that small secret +part—which was primitive answered to the impulse of jealousy as it did +to the rapturous baying of the hounds out of the red and gold distance. +A branch grazed her cheek; her hat went as she raced down the high banks +of a stream; the thicket of elder tore the ribbon from her head, and +loosened her dark flying hair from its braid. In that desolate country, +in the midst of the October meadows, with the cries of the hounds +rising, like the voice of mortal tragedy, out of the tinted mist on the +marshes, the drama of human passions—which is the only drama for the +world's stage—was played out to an ending: love, jealousy, envy, +desire, desperation, regret—</p> + +<p>But when the hunt was over, and she rode home, with a bedraggled brush, +which had once been grey, tied to her bridle, all the gorgeous pageantry +of the autumnal landscape seemed suddenly asking her: "What is the use?" +Her mood had altered, and she felt that her victory was as worthless as +the mud-stained fox's brush that swung mockingly back and forth from her +bridle. The excitement of the chase had ebbed away, leaving only the +lifeless satisfaction of the reward. She had neglected her children, she +had risked her life—and all for the sake of wresting a bit of dead fur +out of Abby's grasp. A spirit which was not her spirit, which was so old +that she no longer recognized that it had any part in her, which was yet +so young that it burned in her heart with the unquenchable flame of +youth—this spirit, which was at the same time herself and not herself, +had driven her, as helpless as a fallen leaf, in a chase that she +despised, towards a triumph that was worthless.</p> + +<p>"By Jove, you rode superbly, Virginia! I had no idea you could do it," +said Oliver, as they trotted into Dinwiddie.</p> + +<p>She smiled back at him, and her smile was tired, dust-stained, +enigmatical.</p> + +<p>"No, you did not know that I could do it," she answered.</p> + +<p>"You'll keep it up now, won't you?" he asked pleadingly.</p> + +<p>For an instant, looking away from him over the radiant fields, she +pondered the question. The silence which had settled around her was +unbroken by the sound of the horses' hoofs, by the laughter of the +hunters, by the far-off soughing of the pine trees in the forest; and +into this silence, which seemed to cover an eternity, the two +Virginias—the Virginia who desired and the Virginia who had learned +from the ages to stifle her desire—wrestled for the first time +together.</p> + +<p>"Virginia!" floated Abby's breezy tones from the street behind her, and +turning, she rode back to the Goodes' gate, where the others were +dismounting. "Virginia, aren't you going to Atlantic City with us +to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>Again she hesitated. Almost unconsciously her gaze passed from Abby to +Oliver, and she saw his pride in her in the smile with which he watched +her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll go with you," she replied after a minute.</p> + +<p>She had, for once in her life, done the thing she wanted to do simply +because she wanted to do it. She had won back what she was losing; she +had fought a fair fight and she had triumphed; yet as she rode down the +street to her gate, there was none of the exultation of victory, none of +the fugitive excitement of pleasure even in her heart. Like other +mortals in other triumphant instants, she was learning that the fruit of +desire may be sweet to the eyes and bitter on the lips. She had +sacrificed duty to pleasure, and suddenly she had discovered that to one +with her heritage of good and evil the two are inseparable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII2" id="CHAPTER_VIII2"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE PANG OF MOTHERHOOD</h3> + + +<p>In the night Harry awoke crying. He had dreamed, he said between his +sobs, when Virginia, slipperless and in her nightdress, bent over him, +that his mother was going away from him forever.</p> + +<p>"Only for two nights, darling. Here, lean close against mother. Don't +you know that she wouldn't stay away from her precious boy?"</p> + +<p>"But two nights are so long. Aren't two nights almost forever?"</p> + +<p>"Why, my lamb, it was just two nights ago that grandma came over and +told you the Bible story about Joseph and his brothers. That was only a +teeny-weeny time ago, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"But you were here, then mamma. And this morning was almost forever. You +stayed out so long that Lucy said you weren't coming back any more."</p> + +<p>"That was naughty of Lucy because she is old enough to know better. Why +do you choke that way? Does your throat hurt you?"</p> + +<p>"It hurts because you are going away, mamma."</p> + +<p>"But I'm going only to be with papa, precious. Don't you want poor papa +to have somebody with him?"</p> + +<p>"He's so big he can go by himself. But suppose the black man should come +in the night while you are away, and I'd get scared and nobody would +hear me."</p> + +<p>"Grandma would hear you, Harry, and there isn't any black man that comes +in the night. You must put that idea out of your head, dear. You're +getting too big a boy to be afraid of the dark."</p> + +<p>"Four isn't big, is it?"</p> + +<p>"You're nearer five than four now, honey. Let me button your nightgown, +and lie down and try to go to sleep while mamma sings to you. Does your +throat really hurt you?"</p> + +<p>"It feels as if it had teensy-weensy marbles in it. They came there when +I woke up in the dark and thought that you were going away to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Well, if your throat hurts you, of course mamma won't leave you. Open +your mouth wide now so I can look at it."</p> + +<p>She lighted a candle while Harry, kneeling in the middle of his little +bed, followed her with his blue eyes, which looked three times their +usual size because of his flushed cheeks and his mounting excitement. +His throat appeared slightly inflamed when she held the candle close to +it, and after tucking him beneath the bed-clothes, she poured a little +camphorated oil into a cup and heated it on the small alcohol lamp she +kept in the nursery.</p> + +<p>"Mamma is going to put a nice bandage on your throat, and then she is +going to lie down beside you and sing you to sleep," she said +cheerfully, as she cut off a strip of flannel from an old petticoat and +prepared to saturate it with the heated oil.</p> + +<p>"Will you stay here all night?"</p> + +<p>"All night, precious, if you'll be good and go fast asleep while I am +singing."</p> + +<p>Holding tightly to her nightdress, Harry cuddled down between the +pillows with a contented sigh. "Then I don't mind about the marbles in +my throat," he said.</p> + +<p>"But mamma minds, and she wants to cure them before morning. Now lie +very still while she wraps this good flannel bandage over the sore +places."</p> + +<p>"I'll lie very still if you'll hold me, mamma."</p> + +<p>Blowing out the candle, she crept into the little bed beside him, and +lay singing softly until his hands released their desperate grasp of her +nightdress, and he slipped quietly off to sleep. Even then, remembering +her promise, she did not go back to her bedroom until daylight.</p> + +<p>"I wonder what makes Harry so afraid of the dark?" she asked, when +Oliver awoke and turned questioningly towards her. "He worked himself +really sick last night just from pure nervousness. I had to put +camphorated oil on his throat and chest, and lie beside him until +morning. He is sleeping quietly now, but it simply frightens me to death +when one of them complains of sore throat."</p> + +<p>"You've spoiled him, that's what's the matter," replied Oliver, yawning. +"As long as you humour him, he'll never outgrow these night terrors."</p> + +<p>"But how can you tell whether the fright makes him sick or sickness +brings on the fright? His throat was really red, there's no doubt about +that, but I couldn't see last night that it was at all ulcerated."</p> + +<p>"He gives you more trouble than both the other children put together."</p> + +<p>"Well, he's a boy, and boys do give one more trouble. But, then, you +have less patience with him, Oliver."</p> + +<p>"That's because he's a boy, and I like boys to show some pluck even when +they are babies. Lucy and Jenny never raise these midnight rows whenever +they awake in the dark."</p> + +<p>"They are not nearly so sensitive. You don't understand Harry."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I don't, but I can see that you are ruining him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Oliver! How can you say such a cruel thing to me?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean to be cruel, Jinny, and you know it, but all the same it +makes me positively sick to see you make a slave of yourself over the +children. Why, you look as if you hadn't slept for a week. You are +positively haggard."</p> + +<p>"But I have to be up with Harry when he is ill. How in the world could I +help it?"</p> + +<p>"You know he kicks up these rows almost every night, and you humour +every one of his whims as if it were the first one. Don't you ever get +tired?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do, but I can't let my child suffer even if it is only from +fear. You haven't any patience, Oliver. Don't you remember the time when +you used to be afraid of things?"</p> + +<p>"I was never afraid of the dark in my life. No sensible child is, if he +is brought up properly."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean I am not bringing up my children——" Her tears choked her +and she could not finish the sentence.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean anything except that you are making an old woman of +yourself before your time. You've let yourself go until you look ten +years older than——"</p> + +<p>He checked himself in time, but she understood without his words that he +had started to say, "ten years older than Abby." Yes, Abby did look +young—amazingly young—but, then, what else had she to think of?</p> + +<p>She lay down, but she was trembling so violently that she sat up quickly +again in order to recover her self-possession more easily. It seemed to +her that the furious beating of her heart must make him understand how +he had wounded her. It was the first discussion approaching a quarrel +they had had since their marriage, for she, who was so pliable in all +other matters, had discovered that she could become as hard as iron +where the difference related to Harry.</p> + +<p>"You are unjust, Oliver. I think you ought to see it," she said in a +voice which she kept by an effort from breaking.</p> + +<p>"I'll never see it, Jinny," and some dogged impulse to hurt her more +made him add, "It's for Harry's sake as well as yours that I'm +speaking."</p> + +<p>"For Harry's sake? Oh, you don't mean—you can't really mean that you +think I'm not doing the best for my child, Oliver?"</p> + +<p>A year ago Oliver would have surrendered at once before the terror in +her eyes; but in those twelve long months of effort, of hope, of balked +ambition, of bitter questioning, and of tragic disillusionment, a new +quality had developed in his character, and the generous sympathy of +youth had hardened at thirty-four to the cautious cynicism of +middle-age. It is doubtful if even he himself realized how transient +such a state must be to a nature whose hidden springs were moved so +easily by the mere action of change—by the effect of any alteration in +the objects that surrounded him. Because the enthusiasm of youth was +exhausted at the minute, it seemed to him that he had lost it forever. +And to Virginia, who saw but one thing at a time and to whom that one +thing was always the present instant, it seemed that the firm ground +upon which she trod had crumbled beneath her.</p> + +<p>"Well, if you want the truth," he said quietly (as if any mother ever +wanted the truth about such a matter), "I think you make a mistake to +spoil Harry as you do."</p> + +<p>"But," she brought out the words with a pathetic quiver, "I treat him +just as I do the others, and you never say anything about my spoiling +them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the others are girls. Girls aren't so easily ruined somehow. They +don't get such hard knocks later on, so it makes less difference about +them."</p> + +<p>As she sat there in bed, propped up on her elbow, which trembled +violently against the pillows, with her cambric nightdress, trimmed only +with a narrow band of crocheted lace, opened at her slender throat, and +her hair, which was getting thin at the temples, drawn unbecomingly back +from her forehead, she looked, indeed, as Oliver had thought, "at least +ten years older than Abby." Though she was not yet thirty, the delicate, +flower-like bloom of her beauty was already beginning to fade. The +spirit which had animated her yesterday appeared to have gone out of her +now. He thought how lovely she had been at twenty when he saw her for +the first time after his return to Dinwiddie; and a sudden anger seized +him because she was letting herself break, because she was so needlessly +sacrificing her youth and her beauty.</p> + +<p>An hour later she got up and dressed herself, with the feeling that she +had not rested a minute during the night. Harry was listless and fretful +when he awoke, and while she put on his clothes, she debated with +herself whether or not she should summon old Doctor Fraser from around +the corner. When his lesson hour came, he climbed into her lap and went +to sleep with his hot little head on her shoulder, and though he seemed +better by evening, she was still so anxious about him that she forgot +that she had promised Abby to go with them to Atlantic City until Oliver +came in at dusk and reminded her.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you going, Virginia?" he inquired, as he hunted in the closet +for his bag which she had not had time to pack.</p> + +<p>"I can't, Oliver. Harry isn't well. He has been unlike himself all day, +and I am afraid to leave him."</p> + +<p>"He looks all right," he remarked, bending over the child in Virginia's +lap. "Does anything hurt you, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't seem to know exactly what it is," answered Virginia, "but if +he isn't well by morning, I'll send for Doctor Fraser."</p> + +<p>"He's got a good colour, and I believe he's as well as he ever was," +replied Oliver, while a curious note of hostility sounded in his voice. +"There's nothing the matter with the boy," he added more positively +after a minute. "Aren't you coming, Virginia?"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him from the big rocking-chair in which she sat with +Harry in her arms, and as she did so, both became conscious that the +issue had broadened from a question of her going to Atlantic City into a +direct conflict of wills. The only thing that could make her oppose him +had happened for the first time since her marriage. The feminine impulse +to yield was overmatched by the maternal impulse to protect. She would +have surrendered her soul to him for the asking; but she could not +surrender, even had she desired to do so, the mother love which had +passed into her from out the ages before she had been, and which would +pass through her into the ages to come after her.</p> + +<p>"Of course, if the little chap were really suffering, I'd be as anxious +about staying as you are," said Oliver impatiently; "but there's nothing +the matter. You're all right, aren't you, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm all right," repeated Harry, yawning and snuggling closer to +Virginia, "but I'm sleepy."</p> + +<p>"He isn't all right," insisted Virginia obstinately. "There's something +wrong with him. I don't know what it is, but he isn't in the least like +himself."</p> + +<p>"It's just your imagination. You've got the children on the brain, +Virginia. Don't you remember the time you woke me in the night and sent +me after Doctor Fraser because Jenny had a bad attack of the hiccoughs?"</p> + +<p>"I know," acknowledged Virginia humbly. She could be humble enough, but +what good did that do when she was, as he told himself irritably, "as +stubborn as a mule"? Her softness—she had seemed as soft as flowers +when he married her—had been her greatest charm for him after her +beauty; and now, at the end of eight years in which she had appeared as +delightfully invertebrate as he could have desired, she revealed to his +astonished eyes a backbone that was evidently made of iron. She was +immovable, he admitted, and because she was immovable he was conscious +of a sharp unreasonable impulse to reduce her to the pliant curves of +her girlhood. After eight years of an absolute supremacy, which had been +far from good for him, his will had been tripped up at last by so small +a thing as a mere whim of Virginia's.</p> + +<p>"You told Abby you would go," he urged, exasperated rather than soothed +by her humility. "And it's too late now for her to ask any one else."</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry, dear, but I never once thought about it. I've been so +worried all day."</p> + +<p>He looked at the child, lying flushed and drowsy in Virginia's arms, and +his face hardened until a latent brutality crept out around his +handsome, but loosely moulded, lips. The truth was that Harry had never +looked healthier than he did at that instant in the firelight, and the +whole affair appeared to Oliver only another instance of what he called +Virginia's "sensational motherhood."</p> + +<p>"Can't you see for yourself that he's perfectly well?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I know he looks so, dear, but he isn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, here's your mother. Leave it to her. She will agree with me."</p> + +<p>"Why, what is it, Jinny?" asked Mrs. Pendleton, laying her bundle on the +couch (for she had come prepared to spend the night), and regarding +Oliver with the indulgent eyes of an older generation.</p> + +<p>"Virginia says at the last minute that she won't go with us," said +Oliver, angry, yet caressing as he always was in his manner to his +mother-in-law, to whom he was sincerely devoted. "She's got into her +head that there's something wrong with Harry, but you can tell by +looking at the child that he is perfectly well."</p> + +<p>"But I was up with him last night, mother. His throat hurts him," broke +in Virginia in a voice that was full of emotion.</p> + +<p>"He certainly looks all right," remarked Mrs. Pendleton, "and I can take +care of him if anything should be wrong." Then she added very gravely, +"If you can't go, of course Oliver must stay at home, too, Virginia."</p> + +<p>"I can't," said Oliver; "not just for a whim, anyway. It would break up +the party. Besides, I didn't get a holiday all summer, and I'll blow up +that confounded bank unless I take a change."</p> + +<p>In the last quarter of an hour the trip had become of tremendous +importance to him. From a trivial incident which he might have +relinquished a week ago without regret, the excursion with Abby had +attained suddenly the dignity and the power of an event in his life. +Opposition had magnified inclination into desire.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it will do for Oliver to go without you, Jinny," said +Mrs. Pendleton, and the gravity of her face showed how carefully she was +weighing her words.</p> + +<p>"But I can't go, mother. You don't understand," replied Virginia, while +her lips worked convulsively. No one could understand—not even her +mother. Of the three of them, it is probable that she alone realized the +complete significance of her decision.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's too late now, anyway," remarked Oliver shortly. "You +wouldn't have time to dress and catch the train even if you wanted to."</p> + +<p>Taking up his bag, he kissed her carelessly, shook hands with Mrs. +Pendleton, and throwing a "Good-bye, General!" to Harry, went out of the +door.</p> + +<p>As he vanished, Virginia started up quickly, called "Oliver!" under her +breath, and then sat down again, drawing her child closer in her arms. +Her face had grown grey and stricken like the face of an old woman. +Every atom of her quivered with the longing to run after him, to yield +to his wish, to promise anything he asked of her. Yet she knew that if +he came back, they would only pass again through the old wearing +struggle of wills. She had chosen not as she desired to, but as she +must, and already she was learning that life forces one in the end to +abide by one's choices.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Virginia, I am afraid it was a mistake," said Mrs. Pendleton in an +agonized tone. The horror of a scandal, which was stronger in the women +of her generation than even the horror of illness, still darkened her +mind.</p> + +<p>A shiver passed through Virginia and left her stiller and graver than +before.</p> + +<p>"No, it was not a mistake, mother," she answered quietly. "I did what I +was obliged to do. Oliver could not understand."</p> + +<p>As she uttered the words, she saw Oliver's face turned to Abby with the +gay and laughing expression she had seen on it when the two rode down +Old Street together, and a wave of passionate jealousy swept over her. +She had let him go alone; he was angry with her; and for three days he +would be with Abby almost every minute. And suddenly, she heard spoken +by a mocking voice at the back of her brain: "You look at least ten +years older than Abby."</p> + +<p>"It does seem as if he might have stayed at home," remarked Mrs. +Pendleton; "but he is so used to having his own way that it is harder +for him to give it up than for the rest of us. Your father says you have +spoiled him."</p> + +<p>She had spoiled him—this she saw clearly now, she who had never seen +anything clearly until it was too late for sentimentality to work its +harm. From the day of her marriage she had spoiled him because spoiling +him had been for her own happiness as well as for his. She had yielded +to him since her chief desire had been simply to yield and to satisfy. +Her unselfishness had been merely selfishness cloaked in the familiar +aspect of duty. Another vision of him, not as he looked when he was +riding with Abby, but as he had appeared to her in the early days of +their marriage, floated before her. He had been hers utterly then—hers +with his generous impulses, his high ideals, his undisciplined emotions. +And what had she done with him? What were her good intentions—what was +her love, even, worth—when her intentions and her love alike had been +so lacking in wisdom? It was as if she condemned herself with a judgment +which was not her own, as if her life-long habit of seeing only the +present instant had suddenly deserted her.</p> + +<p>"He has been so nervous and unlike himself ever since the failure of his +play, mother," she said. "It's hard to understand, but it meant more to +him than a woman can realize."</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," returned Mrs. Pendleton sympathetically. "Your father +says that he spoke to him bitterly the other day about being a failure. +Of course, he isn't one in the least, darling," she added reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes think that Oliver's ambition was the greatest thing in his +life," said Virginia musingly. "It meant to him, I believe, a great deal +of what the children mean to me. He felt that it was himself, and yet in +a way closer than himself. Until that dreadful time in New York I never +understood what his work may mean to a man."</p> + +<p>"I wish you could have gone with him, Jinny."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't," replied Virginia, as she had replied so often before. "I +know Harry doesn't look sick," she went on with that soft obstinacy +which never attacked and yet never yielded a point, "but something tells +me that he isn't well."</p> + +<p>An hour later, when she put him to bed, he looked so gay and rosy that +she almost allowed herself the weakness of a regret. Suppose nothing was +wrong, after all? Suppose, as Oliver had said, she was merely +"sensational"? While she undressed in the dark for fear of awaking +Jenny, who was sleeping soundly in her crib on Virginia's side of the +bed, her mind went back over the two harrowing days through which she +had just lived, and she asked herself, not if she had triumphed for good +over Abby, but if she had really done what was right both for Oliver and +the children. After all, the whole of life came back simply to doing the +thing that was right. So unused was she to the kind of introspection +which weighs emotions as if they were facts, that she thought slowly, +from sheer lack of practice in the subtler processes of reasoning. +Worry, the plain, ordinary sort of worry with which she was unhappily +familiar, had not prepared her for the piercing anguish which follows +the probing of the open wounds in one's soul. To lie sleepless over +butchers' bills was different, somehow, from lying sleepless over the +possible loss of Oliver's love. It was different, and yet, just as she +had asked herself over and over again on those other nights if she had +done right to run up so large an account at Mr. Dewlap's, so she +questioned her conscience now in the hope of finding justification for +Oliver. "Ought I to have gone on the hunt yesterday?" she asked +kneeling, with sore and aching limbs, by the bedside. "Had I a right to +risk my life when the children are so young that they need me every +minute? It is true nothing happened. Providence watched over me; but, +then, something might have happened, and I could have blamed only +myself. I was jealous—for the first time in my life, I was jealous—and +because I was jealous, I did wrong and neglected my duty. Yesterday I +sacrificed the children to Oliver, and to-day I sacrificed Oliver to the +children. I love Oliver as much, but I have made the children. They came +only because I brought them into the world. I am responsible for them—I +am responsible for them," she repeated passionately; and a moment later, +she prayed softly: "O Lord, help me to want to do what is right."</p> + +<p>Through the night, tired and sore as she was, she hardly closed her +eyes, and she was lying wide awake, with her hand on the railing of +Jenny's crib, and her gaze on the half-bared bough of the old mulberry +tree in the street, when a cry, or less than a cry, a small, choking +whimper, from the nursery, caused her to spring out of bed with a start +and slip into her wrapper which lay across the edge of the quilt.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming, darling," she called softly, and the answer came back in +Harry's voice: "Mamma, I'm afraid!"</p> + +<p>Without waiting to put on her slippers, for one of them had slid under +the bed, she ran across the carpet and through the doorway into the +adjoining room.</p> + +<p>"What is it, my lamb? Does anything hurt you?" she asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, mamma."</p> + +<p>"What are you afraid of? Mamma is here, precious."</p> + +<p>His little hands were hot when she clasped them, and the pathetic wonder +in his blue eyes made her heart stand still with a fear greater than +Harry's. Ever since the children had come she had lived in terror of a +serious illness attacking them.</p> + +<p>"Where does it hurt you, darling? Can't you tell me?"</p> + +<p>"It feels so funny when I swallow, mamma. It's all full of flannel."</p> + +<p>"Will you open your mouth wide, then, and let mamma mop your throat with +turpentine?"</p> + +<p>But Harry hated turpentine even more than he hated the sore throat, and +he protested with tears while she found the bottle in the bathroom and +swathed the end of the wire mop in cotton. When she brought it to his +bedside, he fought so strenuously that she was obliged at last to give +up. His fever had excited him, and he sobbed violently while she +applied the bandages to his throat and chest.</p> + +<p>"Is it any better, dear?" she asked desperately at the end of an hour in +which he had lain, weeping and angry, in her arms.</p> + +<p>"It feels funny. I don't like it," he sobbed, pushing her from him.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll send for Doctor Fraser. He'll make you well."</p> + +<p>But he didn't want Doctor Fraser, who gave the meanest medicines. He +didn't want anybody. He hated everybody. He hated Lucy. He hated Jenny. +When at last day came, and Marthy appeared to know what Virginia wanted +for breakfast, he was still vowing passionately that he hated them all.</p> + +<p>"Marthy, run at once for Doctor Fraser. Harry is quite sick," said +Virginia, pale to the lips.</p> + +<p>"But I won't see him, mamma, and I won't take his medicines. They are +the meanest medicines."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he won't give you any, precious, and if he does, mamma will +taste every single one for you."</p> + +<p>Then Jenny began to beg to get up, and Lucy, who had been watching with +dispassionate curiosity from the edge of her little bed, was sent to +amuse her until Marthy's return.</p> + +<p>"Suppose I had gone!" thought Virginia, while an overwhelming +thankfulness swept the anxiety out of her mind. Not until the servant +reappeared, dragging the fat old doctor after her, did Virginia remember +that she was still barefooted, and go into her bedroom to search for her +slippers.</p> + +<p>"You don't think he is seriously sick, do you, doctor? Is there any +need to be alarmed?" she asked, and her voice entreated him to allay her +anxiety.</p> + +<p>The doctor, a benevolent soul in a body which had run to fat from lack +of exercise, was engaged in holding Harry's tongue down with a silver +spoon, while, in spite of the child's furious protests, he leisurely +examined his throat. When the operation was over, and Harry, crying, +choking, and kicking, rolled into Virginia's arms, she put the question +again, vaguely rebelling against the gravity in the kind old face which +was turned half away from her:</p> + +<p>"There's nothing really the matter, is there, doctor?"</p> + +<p>He turned to her, and laid a caressing, if heavy, hand on her shoulder, +which shook suddenly under the thin folds of her dressing-gown. After +forty years in which he had watched suffering and death, he preserved +still his native repugnance to contact with any side of life that did +not have a comfortable feeling to it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll get him all right soon, with some good nursing," he said +gently, "but I think we're going to have a bit of an illness on our +hands."</p> + +<p>"But not serious, doctor? It isn't anything serious?"</p> + +<p>She felt suddenly so weak that she could hardly stand, and instinctively +she reached out to grasp the large, protecting arm of the physician. +Even then his bland professional smile, which had in it something of the +serene detachment of the everlasting purpose of which it was a part, did +not fade, hardly changed even, on his features.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think we'd better get the other children away. It might be +serious if they all had it on our hands."</p> + +<p>"Had it? Had what? Oh, doctor—not—diphtheria?"</p> + +<p>She brought out the word with a face of such unutterable horror that he +turned his eyes away, lest the memory of her look should interfere with +his treatment of the next case he visited. There was something infernal +in the sound of the thing which always knocked over the mothers of his +generation. He had never seen one of them who could hear it without +going to pieces on his hands; and for that reason he never mentioned the +disease by name unless they drove him to it. They feared it as they +might have feared the plague—and even more! If the medical profession +would begin calling it something else, he wondered if the unmitigated +terror of it wouldn't partially subside?</p> + +<p>"Well, it looks like that now, Jinny," he said soothingly; "but we'll +come out all right, never fear. It isn't a bad case, you know, and the +chief thing is to get the other children out of danger."</p> + +<p>At this she went over like a log on the bed, and it was only after he +had found the bottle of camphor on the mantelpiece and held it to her +nostrils, that she revived sufficiently to sit up again. But as soon as +her strength came back, her courage surprised and rejoiced him. After +that one sign of weakness, she became suddenly strong, and he knew by +the expression of her face, for he had had great experience with +mothers, that he could count on her not to break down again while he +needed her.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to get a tent made of some sheets and keep a kettle boiling +under it," he said, for he was an old man and belonged to the dark ages +of medicine. "But first of all I'll get the children over to your +mother's. They'd better not come in here again. I'll ask the servant to +attend to them."</p> + +<p>"You'll find her in the dining-room," replied Virginia, while she +straightened Harry's bed and made him more comfortable. The weakness had +passed, leaving a numbed and hardened feeling as though she had turned +to wood; and when, a little later, she looked out of the door to wave +good-bye to Lucy and Jenny, she was amazed to find that she felt almost +indifferent. Every emotion, even her capacity for physical sensation, +seemed to respond to the immediate need of her, to the exhaustless +demands on her bodily strength and her courage. As long as there was +anything to be done, she was sure now that she should be able to keep up +and not lose control of herself.</p> + +<p>"May we come back soon, mamma?" asked Lucy, standing on tiptoe to wave +at her.</p> + +<p>"Just as soon as Harry is well, darling. Ask grandpa to pray that he +will be well soon, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Jenny'll pay," lisped the baby, from Doctor Fraser's arms, where, with +her cap on one side and her little feet kicking delightedly, she was +beguiled by the promise of a birthday cake over at grandma's.</p> + +<p>"I'll look in again in an hour or two," said the doctor in his jovial +tones as he swung down the stairs. Then Lucy pattered after him, and in +a few minutes the front door closed loudly behind them, and Virginia +went back to the nursery, where Harry was coughing the strangling cough +that tore at her heart.</p> + +<p>By nightfall he had grown very ill, and when the next dawn came, it +found her, wan, haggard, and sleepless, fighting beside the old doctor +under the improvised tent of sheets which covered the little bed. The +thought of self went from her so utterly that she only remembered she +was alive when Marthy brought food and tried to force it between her +lips.</p> + +<p>"But you must swallow it, ma'am. You need to keep up your strength."</p> + +<p>"How do you think he looks, Marthy? Does he feel quite so hot to you? He +seems to breathe a little better, doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>And during the long day, while the patch of sunlight grew larger, lay +for an hour like yellow silk on the windowsill, and then slowly dwindled +into the shadow, she sat, without moving, between the bed and the table +on which stood the bottles of medicine, a glass, and a pitcher of water. +When the child slept, overcome by the stupor of fever, she watched him, +with drawn breath, lest he should fade away from her if she were to +withdraw her passionate gaze for an instant. When he awoke and lay +moaning, while his little body shook with the long stifling gasps that +struggled between his lips, she held him tightly clasped in her arms, +with a woman's pathetic faith in the power of a physical pressure to +withstand the immaterial forces of death. A hundred times during the day +he aroused himself, stirred faintly in his feverish sleep, and called +her name in the voice of terror with which he used to summon her in the +night.</p> + +<p>"It isn't the black man now, darling, is it? Remember there is no black +man, and mamma is close here beside you."</p> + +<p>No, it wasn't the black man; he wasn't afraid of the darkness now, but +he would like to have his ship. When she brought it, he played for a +few minutes, and dozed off still grasping the toy in his hands. At +twelve the doctor came, and again at four, when the patch of sunlight, +by which she told the hours, had begun to grow fainter on the +windowsill.</p> + +<p>"He is better, doctor, isn't he? Don't you notice that he struggles less +when he breathes?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her with an expression of contemplative pity in his old +watery eyes, and she gave a little cry and stretched out her hands, +blindly groping.</p> + +<p>"Doctor, I'll do anything—anything, if you'll only save him." An +impulse to reach beyond him to some impersonal, cosmic Power greater +than he was, made her add desperately: "I'll never ask for anything else +in my life. I'll give up everything, if you'll only promise me that you +will save him."</p> + +<p>She stood up, drawing her thin figure, as tense as a cord, to its full +height, and beneath the flowered blue dressing-gown her shoulder blades +showed sharply under their fragile covering of flesh. Her hair, which +she had not undone since the first shock of Harry's illness, hung in +straight folds on either side of her pallid and haggard face. Even the +colour of her eyes seemed to have changed, for their flower-like blue +had faded to a dull grey.</p> + +<p>"If we can pull through the night, Jinny," he said huskily, and added +almost sternly, "you must bear up, so much depends on you. Remember, it +is your first serious illness, but it may not be your last. You've got +to take the pang of motherhood along with the pleasure, my dear——"</p> + +<p>The pang of motherhood! Long after he had left her, and she had heard +the street gate click behind him, she sat motionless, repeating the +words, by Harry's little bed. The pang of motherhood—this was what she +was suffering—the poignant suspense, the quivering waiting, the abject +terror of loss, the unutterable anguish of the nerves, as if one's heart +were being slowly torn out of one's body. She had had the joy, and now +she was enduring the inevitable pang which is bound up, like a hidden +pulse, in every mortal delight. Never pleasure without pain, never +growth without decay, never life without death. The Law ruled even in +love, and all the pitiful little sacrifices which one offered to +Omnipotence, which one offered blindly to the Power that might separate, +with a flaming sword, the cause from the effect, the substance from the +shadow—what of them? While Harry lay there, wrapped in that burning +stupor, she prayed, not as she had been taught to pray in her childhood, +not with the humble and resigned worship of civilization, but in the +wild and threatening lament of a savage who seeks to reach the ears of +an implacable deity. In the last twenty-four hours the Unknown Power she +entreated had changed, in her imagination, to an idol who responded only +to the shedding of blood.</p> + +<p>"Only spare my child and I will give up everything else!" she cried from +the extremity of her anguish. The sharp edge of the bed hurt her bosom +and she pressed frantically against it. Had it been possible to lacerate +her body, to cut her flesh with knives, she might have found some +pitiable comfort in the mere physical pain. Beside the agony in her +mind, a pang of the flesh would have been almost a joy.</p> + +<p>When at last she rose from her knees, Harry lay, breathing quietly, +with his eyes closed and the toy ship on the blanket beside him. His +childish features had shrunken in a day until they appeared only half +their natural size, and a faint bluish tinge had crept over his face, +wiping out all the sweet rosy colour. But he had swallowed a few +spoonfuls of his last cup of broth, and the painful choking sound had +ceased for a minute. The change, slight as it was, had followed so +closely upon her prayers, that, while it lasted, she passed through one +of those spiritual crises which alter the whole aspect of life. An +emotion, which was a curious mixture of superstitious terror and +religious faith, swept over her, reviving and invigorating her heart. +She had abased herself in the dust before God—she had offered all her +life to Him if He would spare her child—and had He not answered? Might +not Harry's illness, indeed, have been sent to punish her for her +neglect? A shudder of abhorrence passed through her as she remembered +the fox-hunt, and her passion of jealousy. The roll of blue silk, lying +upstairs in a closet in the third storey, appeared to her now not as a +temptation to vanity, but as a reminder of the mortal sin which had +almost cost her the life of her child. And suppose God had not stopped +her in time—suppose she had gone to Atlantic City as Oliver had begged +her to do?</p> + +<p>In the room the light faded softly, melting first like frost from the +mirror in the corner beyond the Japanese screen, creeping slowly across +the marble surface of the washstand, lingering, in little ripples, on +the green sash of the windowsill. Out of doors it was still day, and +from where she sat by Harry's bed, she could see, under the raised tent, +every detail of the street standing out distinctly in the grey +twilight. Across the way the houses were beginning to show lights at the +windows, and the old lamplighter was balancing himself unsteadily on his +ladder at the corner. On the mulberry tree near the crossing the broad +bronze leaves swung back and forth in the wind, which sighed restlessly +around the house and drove the naked tendrils of a summer vine against +the green shutters at the window. The fire had gone down, and after she +had made it up very softly, she bent over Harry again, as if she feared +that he might have slipped out of her grasp while she had crossed the +room.</p> + +<p>"If he only lives, I will let everything else go. I will think of +nothing except my children. It will make no difference to me if I do +look ten years older than Abby does. Nothing on earth will make any +difference to me, if only God will let him get well."</p> + +<p>And with the vow, it seemed to her that she laid her youth down on the +altar of that unseen Power whose mercy she invoked. Let her prayer only +be heard and she would demand nothing more of life—she would spend all +her future years in the willing service of love. Was it possible that +she had imagined herself unhappy thirty-six hours ago—thirty-six hours +ago when her child was not threatened? As she looked back on her past +life, it seemed to her that every minute had been crowned with +happiness. Even the loss of her newborn baby appeared such a little +thing—such a little thing beside the loss of Harry, her only son. Mere +freedom from anxiety showed to her now as a condition of positive bliss.</p> + +<p>Six o'clock struck, and Marthy knocked at the door with a cup of milk. +"Do you think he'll be able to swallow any of it?" she asked, and there +were tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"He is better, Marthy, I am sure he is better. Has mother been here this +afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"She stopped at the door, but she didn't like to come in on account of +the children. They are both well, she says, and send you their love. Do +you want any more water in the kettle, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>The kettle, which was simmering away beside Harry's bed, under the tent +of sheets, was passed to Marthy through the crack in the door; and when +in a few minutes the girl returned with fresh water, Virginia whispered +to her that he had taken three spoonfuls of milk.</p> + +<p>"And he let me mop his throat with turpentine," she said in quivering +tones. "I am sure—oh, I am sure he is better."</p> + +<p>"I am praying every minute," replied Marthy, weeping; and it seemed +suddenly to Virginia that a wave of understanding passed between her and +the ignorant mulatto girl, whom she had always regarded as of different +clay from herself. With that miraculous power of grief to level all +things, she felt that the barriers of knowledge, of race, of all the +pitiful superiorities with which human beings have obscured and +decorated the underlying spirit of life, had melted back into the +nothingness from which they had emerged in the beginning. This feeling +of oneness, which would have surprised and startled her yesterday, +appeared so natural to her now, that, after the first instant of +recognition, she hardly thought of it again.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Marthy," she answered gently, and closing the door, went +back to her chair under the raised corner of the sheet. When the doctor +came at nine o'clock she was sitting there, in the same position, so +still and tense that she seemed hardly to be breathing, so ashen grey +that the sheet hanging above her head showed deadly white by contrast +with her face. In those three hours she knew that the clinging tendrils +of personal desire had relaxed their hold forever on life and youth.</p> + +<p>"If he doesn't get worse, we'll pull through," said the doctor, turning +from his examination of Harry to lay his hand, which felt as heavy as +lead, on her shoulder. "We've an even chance—if his heart doesn't go +back on us." And he added, "Most mothers are good nurses, Jinny, but I +never saw a better one than you are—unless it was your own mother. You +get it from her, I reckon. I remember when you went through diphtheria +how she sent your father to stay with one of the neighbours, and shut +herself up with old Ailsey to nurse you. I don't believe she undressed +or closed her eyes for a week."</p> + +<p>Her own mother! So she was not the only one who had suffered this +anguish—other women, many women, had been through it before she was +born. It was a part of that immemorial pang of motherhood of which the +old doctor had spoken. "But, was I ever in danger? Was I as ill as +Harry?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"For twenty-four hours we thought you'd slip through our fingers every +minute. 'Twas only your mother's nursing that kept you alive—I've told +her that twenty times. She never spared herself an instant, and, it may +have been my imagination, but she never seemed to me to be the same +woman afterwards. Something had gone out of her."</p> + +<p>Now she understood, now she knew, something had gone out of her, also, +and this something was youth. No woman who had fought with death for a +child could ever be the same afterwards—could ever value again the +small personal joys, when she carried the memory of supreme joy or +supreme anguish buried within her heart. She remembered that her mother +had never seemed young to her, not even in her earliest childhood; and +she understood now why this had been so, why the deeper experiences of +life rob the smaller ones of all vividness, of all poignancy. It had +been so easy for her mother to give up little things, to deny herself, +to do without, to make no further demands on life after the great +demands had been granted her. How often had she said unthinkingly in her +girlhood, "Mother, you never want anything for yourself." Ah, she knew +now what it meant, and with the knowledge a longing seized her to throw +herself into her mother's arms, to sob out her understanding and her +sympathy, to let her feel before it was too late that she comprehended +every step of the way, every throb of the agony!</p> + +<p>"I'd spend the night with you, Jinny, if I didn't have to be with Milly +Carrington, who has two children down with it," said the doctor; "but if +there's any change, get Marthy to come for me. If not, I'll be sure to +look in again before daybreak."</p> + +<p>When he had gone, she moved the night lamp to the corner of the +washstand, and after swallowing hastily a cup of coffee which Marthy had +brought to her before the doctor's visit, and which had grown quite +tepid and unpalatable, she resumed her patient watch under the raised +end of the sheet. The whole of life, the whole of the universe even, had +narrowed down for her into that faint circle of light which the lamp +drew around Harry's little bed. It was as if this narrow circle beat +with a separate pulse, divided from the rest of existence by its +intense, its throbbing vitality. Here was concentrated for her all that +the world had to offer of hope, fear, rapture, or anguish. The +littleness and the terrible significance of the individual destiny were +gathered into that faintly quivering centre of space—so small a part of +the universe, and yet containing the whole universe within itself!</p> + +<p>Outside, in the street, she could see a half-bared bough of the mulberry +tree, arching against a square of window, from which the white curtains +were drawn back; and in order to quiet her broken and disjointed +thoughts, she began to count the leaves as they fell, one by one, +turning softly at the stem, and then floating out into the darkness +beyond. "One. Two. How long that leaf takes to loosen. He is better. The +doctor certainly thought that he was better. If he only gets well. O +God, let him get well, and I will serve you all my life! +Three—four—five—For twenty-four hours we thought you would slip +through our fingers. Somebody said that—somebody—it must have been the +doctor. And he was talking of me, not of Harry. That was twenty-six +years ago, and my mother was enduring then all this agony that I am +feeling to-night. Twenty-six years ago—perhaps at this very hour, she +sat beside me alone as I am sitting now by Harry. And before that other +women went through it. All the world over, wherever there are +mothers—north, south, east, west—from the first baby that was born on +the earth—they have every one suffered what I am suffering now—for it +is the pang of motherhood! To escape it one must escape birth and escape +the love that is greater than one's self." And she understood suddenly +that suffering and love are inseparable, that when one loves another +more than one's self, one has opened the gate by which anguish will +enter. She had forgotten to count the leaves, and when she remembered +and looked again, the last one had fallen. Against the parted white +curtains, the naked bough arched black and solitary. Even the small +silent birds that had swayed dejectedly to and fro on the branches all +day had flown off into the darkness. Presently, the light in the window +went out, and as the hours wore on, a fine drizzling rain began to fall, +as soft as tears, from the starless sky over the mulberry tree. A sense +of isolation greater than any she had ever known attacked her like a +physical chill, and rising, she went over to the fire and stirred the +pile of coal into a flame. She was alone in her despair, and she +realized, with a feeling of terror, that one is always alone when one +despairs, that there is a secret chamber in every soul where neither +love nor sympathy can follow one. If Oliver were here beside her—if he +were standing close to her in that throbbing circle around the bed—she +would still be separated from him by the immensity of that inner space +which is not measured by physical distances. "No, even if he were here, +he could not reach me," she said, and an instant later, with one of +those piercing illuminations which visit even perfectly normal women in +moments of great intensity, she thought quickly, "If every woman told +the truth to herself, would she say that there is something in her which +love has never reached?" Then, reproaching herself because she had left +the bed for a minute, she went back again and bent over the unconscious +child, her whole slender body curving itself passionately into an +embrace. His face was ashen white, except where the skin around his +mouth was discoloured with a faint bluish tinge. His flesh, even his +bones, appeared to have shrunk almost away in twenty-four hours. It was +impossible to imagine that he was the rosy, laughing boy, who had +crawled into her arms only two nights ago. The disease held him like +some unseen spiritual enemy, against which all physical weapons were as +useless as the little toys of a child. How could one fight that sinister +power which had removed him to an illimitable distance while he was +still in her arms? The troubled stupor, which had in it none of the +quiet and the restfulness of sleep, terrorized her as utterly as if it +had been the personal spirit of evil. The invisible forces of Life and +Death seemed battling in the quivering air within that small circle of +light.</p> + +<p>While she bent over him, he stirred, raised himself, and then fell back +in a paroxysm of coughing. The violence of the spasm shook his fragile +little body as a rough wind shakes a flower on a stalk. Over his face +the bluish tinge spread like a shadow, and into his eyes there came the +expression of wondering terror which she had seen before only in the +eyes of young startled animals. For an instant it seemed almost as if +the devil of disease were wrestling inside of him, as if the small +vital force she called life would be beaten out in the struggle. Then +the agony passed; the strangling sound ceased, and he grew quiet, while +she wiped the poison from his mouth and nostrils, and made him swallow a +few drops of milk out of a teaspoon.</p> + +<p>At the moment, while she fell on her knees by his bedside, it seemed to +her that she had reached that deep place beyond which there is nothing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"You've pulled him through. We'll have him out of bed before many days +now," said the old doctor at daybreak, and he added cheerfully, "By the +way, your husband came in the front door with me. He wanted to rush up +here at once, but I'm keeping him away because he is obliged to go back +to the bank."</p> + +<p>"Poor Oliver," said Virginia gently. "It is terrible on him. He must be +so anxious." But even while she uttered the words, she was conscious of +a curious sensation of unreality, as though she were speaking of a +person whom she had known in another life. It was three days since she +had seen Oliver, and in those three days she had lived and died many +times.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX2" id="CHAPTER_IX2"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE PROBLEM OF THE SOUTH</h3> + + +<p>"Father, I want to marry John Henry," said Susan, just as she had said +almost ten years ago, "Father, I want to go to college."</p> + +<p>It was a March afternoon, ashen and windy, with flocks of small fleecy +clouds hurrying across a changeable blue sky, and the vague, roving +scents of early spring in the air. After his dinner, which he had taken +for more than fifty years precisely at two o'clock, Cyrus had sat down +for a peaceful pipe on the back porch before returning to the office. +Between the sunken bricks in the little walled-in yard, blades of vivid +green grass had shot up, seeking light out of darkness, and along the +grey wooden ledge of the area the dauntless sunflowers were unfolding +their small stunted leaves. On the railing of the porch a moth-eaten +cat—the only animal for whom Cyrus entertained the remotest +respect—was contentedly licking the shabby fur on her side.</p> + +<p>"Father, I want to marry John Henry," repeated Susan, raising her voice +to a higher key and towering like a flesh and blood image of Victory +over the sagging cane chair in which he sat.</p> + +<p>Taking his pipe from his mouth, he looked up at her; and so little had +he altered in ten years, that the thought flashed through her mind that +he had actually suffered no change of expression since the afternoon on +which she had asked him to send her to college. As a man he may not have +been impressive, but as a defeating force who could say that he had not +attained his fulfilment? It was as if the instinct of patriarchal +tyranny had entrenched itself in his person as in a last stronghold of +the disappearing order. When he died many things would pass away out of +Dinwiddie—not only the soul and body of Cyrus Treadwell, but the +vanishing myth of the "strong man," the rule of the individual despot, +the belief in the inalienable right of the father to demand blood +sacrifices. For in common with other men of his type, he stood equally +for industrial advancement and for domestic immobility. The body social +might move, but the units that formed the body social must remain +stationary.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't think I'd worry about marrying, if I were you," he +replied, not unkindly, for Susan inspired him with a respect against +which he had struggled in vain. "You are very comfortable now, ain't +you? And I'll see that you are well provided for after my death. John +Henry hasn't anything except his salary, I reckon."</p> + +<p>Marriage as an economic necessity was perfectly comprehensible to him, +but it was difficult for him to conceive of anybody indulging in it +simply as a matter of sentiment. That April afternoon was so far away +now that it had ceased to exist even as an historical precedent.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I want to marry him, and I am going to," replied Susan +decisively.</p> + +<p>"What arrangements would you make about your mother? It seems to me that +your mother needs your attention."</p> + +<p>"Of course I couldn't leave mother. If you agree to it, John Henry is +willing to come here to live as long as I have to look after her. If +not, I shall take her away with me; I have spoken to her, and she is +perfectly willing to go."</p> + +<p>The ten years which had left Cyrus at a standstill had developed his +daughter from a girl into a woman. She spoke with the manner of one who +realizes that she holds the situation in her hands, and he yielded to +this assumption of strength as he would have yielded ten years ago had +she been clever enough to use it against him. It was his own manner in a +more attractive guise, if he had only known it; and the Treadwell +determination to get the thing it wanted most was asserting itself in +Susan's desire to win John Henry quite as effectively as it had asserted +itself in Cyrus's passion to possess the Dinwiddie and Central Railroad. +Though the ends were different, the quality which moved father and +daughter towards these different ends was precisely the same. In Cyrus, +it was force degraded; in Susan, it was force refined; but the peculiar +attribute which distinguished and united them was the possession of the +power to command events.</p> + +<p>"Take your mother away?" he repeated. "Why, where on earth would you +take her?"</p> + +<p>"Then you'll have to agree to John Henry's coming here. It won't make +any difference to you, of course. You needn't see him except at the +table."</p> + +<p>"But what would James say about it?" he returned, with the cowardice +natural to the habitual bully. The girl had character, certainly, and +though he disliked character in a woman, he was obliged to admit that +she had not failed to make an impression.</p> + +<p>"James won't care, and besides," she added magnificently, "it is none of +his business."</p> + +<p>"And it's none of mine, either, I reckon," said Cyrus, with a chuckle.</p> + +<p>"Well, of course, it's more of mine," agreed Susan, and her delicious +laugh drowned his chuckle.</p> + +<p>She had won her point, and strange to say, she had pleased him rather +than otherwise. He had suddenly a comfortable feeling in his digestive +organs as well as a sense of virtue in his soul. It was impossible not +to feel proud of her as she towered there above him with her superb +body, as fine and as supple as the body of a race horse, and her +splendid courage that made him wish while he looked at her that she, +instead of James, had been born a male. She was not pretty—she had +never been pretty—but he realized for the first time that there might +be something better even for a woman than beauty.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, father," she said as she turned away, and he was glad again +to feel that she had conquered him. To be conquered by one's own blood +was different from being conquered by a business acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't disturb the household, you know," he said, but his voice +did not sound as dry as he had endeavoured to make it.</p> + +<p>"I shan't disturb anybody," responded Susan, with the amiability of a +woman who, having gained her point, can afford to be pleasant. Then, +wheeling about suddenly on the threshold, she added, "By the way, I +forgot to tell you that Mandy was here three times this morning asking +to see you. She is in trouble about her son. He was arrested for +shooting a policeman over at Cross's Corner, you know, and the people +down there are so enraged, she's afraid of a lynching. You read about it +in the paper, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>Yes, he had read about the shooting—Cross's Corner was only three miles +away—but, if he had ever known the name of Mandy's son, he had +forgotten it so completely that seeing it in print had suggested nothing +to his mind.</p> + +<p>"Well, she doesn't expect me to interfere, does she?" he asked shortly.</p> + +<p>"I believe she thought you might go over and do something—I don't know +what—help her engage a lawyer probably. She was very pitiable, but +after all, what can one do for a negro that shoots a policeman? There's +Miss Willy calling me!"</p> + +<p>She ran indoors, and taking his pipe, which was still smoking, from his +mouth, Cyrus leaned back in his chair and stared intently at the small +fleecy clouds in the west. The cat, having cleaned herself to her +satisfaction, jumped down from the railing, and after rubbing against +his thin legs, leaped gently into his lap.</p> + +<p>"Tut-tut!" he remarked grimly; but he did not attempt to dislodge the +animal, and it may be that some secret part of him was gratified by the +attention. He was still sitting there some minutes later, when he heard +the warning click of the back gate, and the figure of Mandy, appeared at +the corner of the kitchen wall. Rising from his chair, he shook the cat +from his knees, and descending the steps, met the woman in the centre of +the walk, where a few hardy dandelions were flattened like buttons +between the bricks.</p> + +<p>"Howdy, Mandy. I'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble with that +boy of yours." He saw at once that she was racked by a powerful emotion, +and any emotion affected him unpleasantly as something extravagant and +indecent. Sweat had broken out in glistening clusters over her face and +neck, and her eyes, under the stray wisps of hair, had in them an +expression of dumb and uncomprehending submission.</p> + +<p>"Ain't you gwineter git 'im away, Marster?" she began, and stronger even +than her terror was the awe of Cyrus which subdued her voice to a tone +of servile entreaty.</p> + +<p>"Why did he shoot a policeman? He knew he'd hang for it," returned Cyrus +sharply, and he added, "Of course I can't get him away. He'll have to +take his deserts. Your race has got to learn that when you break the +law, you must pay for it."</p> + +<p>At first he had made as if to push by her, but when she did not move, he +thought better of it and waited for her to speak. The sound of her heavy +breathing, like the breathing of some crouching beast, awoke in him a +curious repulsion. If only one could get rid of such creatures after +their first youth was over! If only every careless act could perish with +the impulse that led to it! If only the dried husks of pleasure did not +turn to weapons against one! These thoughts—or disjointed snatches of +thoughts like these—passed in a confused whirl through his brain as he +stood there. For an instant it was almost as if his accustomed lucidity +of purpose had deserted him; then the disturbance ceased, and with the +renewal of order in his mind, his life-long habit of prompt decision +returned to him.</p> + +<p>"Your race has got to learn that when you break the law you must pay for +it," he repeated—for on that sound principle of justice he felt that he +must unalterably take his stand.</p> + +<p>"He's all de boy I'se got, Marster," rejoined the negress, with an +indifference to the matter of justice which had led others of her colour +into those subterranean ways where abstract principles are not. "You +ain' done furgot 'im, Marster," she added piteously. "He 'uz born jes +two mont's atter Miss Lindy turnt me outer hyer—en he's jes ez w'ite ez +ef'n he b'longed ter w'ite folks."</p> + +<p>But she had gone too far—she had outraged that curious Anglo-Saxon +instinct in Cyrus which permitted him to sin against his race's +integrity, yet forbade him to acknowledge, even to himself, that he bore +any part in the consequences of that sin. Illogical, he might have +admitted, but there are some truths so poisonous that no honest man +could breathe the same air with them.</p> + +<p>Taking out his pocket-book, he slowly drew a fifty dollar bill from its +innermost recesses, and as slowly unfolded it. He always handled money +in that careful fashion—a habit which he had inherited from his father +and his grandfather before him, and of which he was entirely +unconscious. Filtering down through so many generations, the mannerism +had ceased at last to be merely a physical peculiarity, and had become +strangely spiritual in its suggestion. The craving for possession, the +singleness of desire, the tenacity of grasp, the dread of +relinquishment, the cold-blooded determination to keep intact the thing +which it had cost so much to acquire—all that was bound up in the +spirit of Cyrus Treadwell, and all that would pass at last with that +spirit from off the earth, was expressed in the gesture with which he +held out the bit of paper to the woman who had asked for his help. "Take +this—it is all I can do for you," he said, "and don't come whining +around me any more. Black or white, the man that commits a murder has +got to hang for it."</p> + +<p>A sound broke from the negress that resembled a human cry of grief less +than it did the inarticulate moan of an animal in mortal pain. Then it +stopped suddenly, strangled by that dull weight of usage beneath which +the primal impulse in her was crushed back into silence. Instinctively, +as if in obedience to some reflex action, she reached out and took the +money from his hand, and still instinctively, with the dazed look of one +who performs in delirium the customary movements of every day, she fell +back, holding her apron deprecatingly aside while he brushed past her. +And in her eyes as she gazed after him there dawned the simple wonder of +the brute that asks of Life why it suffers.</p> + +<p>Beyond the alley into which the gate opened, Cyrus caught sight of +Gabriel's erect figure hurrying down the side street in the direction of +the Old Ladies' Home, and calling out to him, he scrambled over the ash +heaps and tomato cans, and emerged, irritated but smiling, into the +sunlight.</p> + +<p>"I'm on my way to the bank. We'll walk down together," he remarked +almost gently, for, though he disapproved of Gabriel's religious +opinions and distrusted his financial judgment, the war-like little +rector represented the single romance of his life.</p> + +<p>"I had intended stopping at the Old Ladies' Home, but I'll go on with +you instead," responded Gabriel. "I've just had a message from one of +our old servants calling me down to Cross's Corner," he pursued, "so I'm +in a bit of a hurry. That's a bad thing, that murder down there +yesterday, and I'm afraid it will mean trouble for the negroes. Mr. +Blylie, who came to market this morning, told me a crowd had tried to +lynch the fellow last night."</p> + +<p>"Well, they've got to hang when they commit hanging crimes," replied +Cyrus stubbornly. "There's no way out of that. It's just, ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Gabriel, "though, for my part, I've a +feeling against capital punishment—except, of course, in cases of rape, +where, I confess, my blood turns against me."</p> + +<p>"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—that's the law of God, ain't +it?"</p> + +<p>"The old law, yes—but why not quote the law of Christ instead?"</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't do—not with the negroes," returned Cyrus, who entertained +for the Founder of Christianity something of the sentimental respect +mingled with an innate distrust of His common-sense with which he +regarded His disciple.</p> + +<p>"We can't condemn it until we've tried it," said Gabriel thoughtfully, +and he went on after a moment:</p> + +<p>"The terrible thing for us about the negroes is that they are so grave +a responsibility—so grave a responsibility. Of course, we aren't to +blame—we didn't bring them here; and yet I sometimes feel as if we had +really done so."</p> + +<p>This was a point of view which Cyrus had never considered, and he felt +an immediate suspicion of it. It looked, somehow, as if it were +insidiously leading the way to an appeal for money.</p> + +<p>"It's the best thing that could have happened to them," he replied +shortly. "If they'd remained in Africa, they'd never have been civilized +or—or Christianized."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is just where the responsibility rests on us. We stand for +civilization to them; we stand even—or at least we used to stand—for +Christianity. They haven't learned yet to look above or beyond us, and +the example we set them is one that they are condemned, for sheer lack +of any finer vision, to follow. The majority of them are still hardly +more than uneducated children, and that very fact makes an appeal to +one's compassion which becomes at times almost unbearable."</p> + +<p>But this was more than Cyrus could stand even from the rector, whose +conversation he usually tolerated because of the perverse, inexplicable +liking he felt for the man. The charm that Gabriel exercised over him +was almost feminine in its subtlety and in its utter defiance of any +rational sanction. It may have been that his nature, incapable though it +was of love, was not entirely devoid of the rarer capacity for +friendship—or it may have been that, with the inscrutable irony which +appears to control all human attractions, the caged brutality in his +heart was soothed by the unconscious flattery of the other's belief in +him. Now, however, he felt that Gabriel's highfaluting nonsense was +carrying him away. It was well enough to go on like that in the pulpit; +but on week days, when there was business to think of and every minute +might mean the loss of a dollar, there was no use dragging in either +religion or sentiment. Had he put his thoughts plainly, he would +probably have said: "That's not business, Gabriel. The trouble with +you—and with most of you old-fashioned Virginians—is that you don't +understand the first principles of business." These words, indeed, were +almost on his lips, when, catching the rector's innocent glance +wandering round to him, he contented himself with remarking satirically:</p> + +<p>"Well, you were always up in the clouds. It doesn't hurt you, I reckon, +though I doubt if it does much toward keeping your pot boiling."</p> + +<p>"I must turn off here," said Gabriel gently. "It's the shortest way to +Cross's Corner."</p> + +<p>"Do you think any good will come of your going?"</p> + +<p>"Probably not—but I couldn't refuse."</p> + +<p>Much as he respected Cyrus, he was not sorry to part from him, for their +walk together had left him feeling suddenly old and incompetent to +battle with the problems of life. He knew that Cyrus, even though he +liked him, considered him a bit of a fool, and with a humility which was +unusual in him (for in his heart he was absolutely sure that his own +convictions were right and that Cyrus's were wrong) he began to ask +himself if, by any chance, the other's verdict could be secretly +justified. Was he in reality the failure that Cyrus believed him to be? +Or was it merely that he had drifted into that "depressing view" of +existence against which he so earnestly warned his parishioners? Perhaps +it wasn't Cyrus after all who had produced this effect. Perhaps the +touch of indigestion he had felt after dinner had not entirely +disappeared. Perhaps it meant that he was "getting on"—sixty-five his +last birthday. Perhaps—but already the March wind, fresh and +bud-scented, was blowing away his despondency. Already he was beginning +to feel again that fortifying conviction that whatever was unpleasant +could not possibly be natural.</p> + +<p>Ahead of him the straight ashen road flushed to pale red where it +climbed a steep hillside, and when he gained the top, the country lay +before him in all the magic loveliness of early spring. Out of the rosy +earth innumerable points of tender green were visible in the sunlight +and invisible again beneath the faintly rippling shadows that filled the +hollows. From every bough, from every bush, from every creeper which +clung trembling to the rail fences, this wave of green, bursting through +the sombre covering of winter, quivered, as delicate as foam, in the +brilliant sunshine. On either side labourers were working, and where the +ploughs pierced the soil they left narrow channels of darkness.</p> + +<p>In the soul of Gabriel, that essence of the spring, which is immortally +young and restless, awakened and gave him back his youth, as it gave the +new grass to the fields and the longing for joy to the hearts of the +ploughmen. He forgot that he was "getting on." He forgot the unnatural +depression which had made him imagine for a moment that the world was a +more difficult place than he had permitted himself to believe—so +difficult a place, indeed, that for some people there could be no +solution of its injustice, its brutality, its dissonance, its +inequalities. The rapture in the song of the bluebirds was sweeter than +the voice of Cyrus to which he had listened. And in a meadow on the +right, an old grey horse, scarred, dim-eyed, spavined, stood resting one +crooked leg, while he gazed wistfully over the topmost rail of the fence +into the vivid green of the distance—for into his aching old bones, +also, there had passed a little of that longing for joy which was born +of the miraculous softness and freshness of the spring. To him, as well +as to Gabriel and to the ploughmen and to the bluebirds flitting, like +bits of fallen sky, along the "snake fences," Nature, the great healer, +had brought her annual gift of the resurrection of hope.</p> + +<p>"Cyrus means well," thought Gabriel, with a return of that natural +self-confidence without which no man can exist happily and make a +living. "He means well, but he takes a false view of life." And he added +after a minute: "It's odd how the commercial spirit seems to suck a man +dry when it once gets a hold on him."</p> + +<p>He walked on rapidly, leaving the old horse and the ploughmen behind +him, and around his energetic little figure the grey dust, as fine as +powder, spun in swirls and eddies before the driving wind, which had +grown boisterous. As he moved there alone in the deserted road, with his +long black coat flapping against his legs, he appeared so insignificant +and so unheroic that an observer would hardly have suspected that the +greatest belief on the earth—the belief in Life—in its universality +in spite of its littleness, in its justification in spite of its +cruelties—that this belief shone through his shrunken little body as a +flame shines through a vase.</p> + +<p>At the end of the next mile, midway between Dinwiddie and Cross's +Corner, stood the small log cabin of the former slave who had sent for +him, and as he approached the narrow path that led, between oyster +shells, from the main road to the single flat brown rock before the +doorstep, he noticed with pleasure how tranquil and happy the little +rustic home appeared under the windy brightness of the March sky.</p> + +<p>"People may say what they please, but there never were happier or more +contented creatures than the darkeys," he thought. "I doubt if there's +another peasantry in the world that is half so well off or half so +picturesque."</p> + +<p>A large yellow rooster, pecking crumbs from the threshold, began to +scold shrilly, and at the sound, the old servant, a decrepit negress in +a blue gingham dress, hobbled out into the path and stood peering at him +under her hollowed palm. Her forehead was ridged and furrowed beneath +her white turban, and her bleared old eyes looked up at him with a blind +and groping effort at recognition.</p> + +<p>"I got your message, Aunt Mehitable. Don't you know me?"</p> + +<p>"Is dat you, Marse Gabriel? I made sho' you wan' gwineter let nuttin' +stop you f'om comin'."</p> + +<p>"Don't I always come when you send for me?"</p> + +<p>"You sutney do, suh. Dat's de gospel trufe—you sutney do."</p> + +<p>As he looked at her standing there in the strong sunlight, with her +palsied hand, which was gnarled and roughened until it resembled the +shell of a walnut, curving over her eyes, he felt that a quality at once +alien and enigmatical separated her not only from himself, but from +every other man or woman who was born white instead of black. He had +lived beside her all his life—and yet he could never understand her, +could never reach her, could never even discern the hidden stuff of +which she was made. He could make laws for her, but no child of a white +mother could tell whether those laws ever penetrated that surface +imitation of the superior race and reached the innate differences of +thought, feeling, and memory which constituted her being. Was it +development or mimicry that had brought her up out of savagery and +clothed her in her blue gingham dress and her white turban, as in the +outward covering of civilization?</p> + +<p>Her look of crumbling age and the witch-like groping of her glance had +cast a momentary spell over him. When it was gone, he said cheerfully:</p> + +<p>"You mustn't be having troubles at your time of life, Aunt Mehitable," +and in his voice there was the subtle recognition of all that she had +meant to his family in the past, of all that his family had meant to +her. Her claim upon him was the more authentic because it existed only +in his imagination, and in hers. The tie that knit them together was +woven of impalpable strands, but it was unbreakable while he and his +generation were above the earth.</p> + +<p>"Dar ain' no end er trouble, Marse Gabriel, ez long ez dar's yo' chillen +en de chillen er yo' chillen ter come atter you. De ole ain' so +techy—dey lets de hornet's nes' hang in peace whar de Lawd put +hit—but de young dey's diff'rent."</p> + +<p>"I suppose the neighbourhood is stirred up about the murder. What in +God's name was that boy thinking of?"</p> + +<p>The old blood crimes that never ceased where the white and the black +races came together! The old savage folly and the new freedom! The old +ignorance, the old lack of understanding, and the new restlessness, the +new enmity!</p> + +<p>"He wan' thinkin' er nuttin', Marse Gabriel. We ole uns kin set down en +steddy, but de young dey up en does wid dere brains ez addled ez de +inside uv er bad aig. 'T wan' dat ar way in de old days w'en we all hed +de say so ez ter w'at wuz en w'at wan't de way ter behave."</p> + +<p>Like an institution left from the ruins of the feudal system, which had +crumbled as all ancient and decrepit things must crumble when the wheels +of progress roll over them, she stood there wrapped in the beliefs and +customs of that other century to which she belonged. Her sentiments had +clustered about the past, as his had done, until the border-line between +the romance and the actuality had vanished. She could not help him +because she, also, possessed the retrospective, not the constructive, +vision. He was not conscious of these thoughts, and yet, although he was +unconscious of them, they coloured his reflections while he stood there +in the sunlight, which had begun to fall aslant the blasted pine by the +roadside. The wind had lowered until it came like the breath of spring, +bud-scented, caressing, provocative. Even Gabriel, whose optimism lay in +his blood and bone rather than in his intellect, yielded for a moment +to this call of the spring as one might yield to the delicious +melancholy of a vagrant mood. The long straight road, without bend or +fork, had warmed in the paling sunlight to the colour of old ivory; in a +neighbouring field a young maple tree rose in a flame of buds from the +ridged earth where the ploughing was over; and against the azure sky in +the south a flock of birds drifted up, like blown smoke, from the +marshes.</p> + +<p>"Tell me your trouble, then," he said, dropping into the cane-seated +chair she had brought out of the cabin and placed between the flat stone +at the doorstep and the well-brink, on which the yellow rooster stood +spreading his wings. But Aunt Mehitable had returned to the cabin, and +when she reappeared she was holding out to him a cracked saucer on which +there was a piece of preserved watermelon rind and a pewter spoon.</p> + +<p>"Dish yer is de ve'y same sort er preserves yo' mouf use'n ter water fur +w'en you wuz a chile," she remarked as she handed the sweet to him. +Whatever her anxiety or affliction could have been, the importance of +his visit had evidently banished it from her mind. She hovered over him +as his mother may have done when he was in his cradle, while the +cheerful self-effacement in which slavery had trained her lent a +pathetic charm to her manner.</p> + +<p>"How peaceful it looks," he thought, sitting there, with the saucer in +his hand, and his eyes on the purple shadows that slanted over the +ploughed fields. "You have a good view of the low-grounds, Aunt +Mehitable," he said aloud, and added immediately, "What's that noise in +the road? Do you hear it?"</p> + +<p>The old woman shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I'se got sorter hard er heahin', Marse Gabriel, but dar's al'ays a +tur'able lot er fuss gwine on w'en de chillen begin ter come up f'om de +fields. 'T wuz becase uv oner dem ar boys dat I sont fur you," she +pursued. "He went plum outer his haid yestiddy en fout wid a w'ite man +down yonder at Cross's Co'nder, en dar's gwine ter be trouble about'n +hit des ez sho' ez you live."</p> + +<p>Seated on the flat stone, with her hands hanging over her knees, and her +turbaned head swaying gently back and forth as she talked, she waited as +tranquilly as the rock waited for the inevitable processes of nature. +The patience in her look was the dumb patience of inanimate things; and +her half-bared feet, protruding from the broken soles of her shoes, were +encrusted with the earth of the fields until one could hardly +distinguish them from the ground on which they rested.</p> + +<p>"It looks as if there was something like a fight down yonder by the +blasted pine," said the rector, rising from his chair. "I reckon I'd +better go and see what they're quarrelling about."</p> + +<p>The negress rose also, and her dim eyes followed him while he went down +the little path between the borders of oyster shells. As he turned into +the open stretch of the road, he glanced back at her, and stopping for a +moment, waved his hand with a gesture that was careless and reassuring. +The fight, or whatever it was that made the noise, was still some +distance ahead in the shadow of the pine-tree, and as he walked towards +it he was thinking casually of other matters—of the wretched condition +of the road after the winter rains, of the need of greater thrift among +the farmers, both white and black, of the touch of indigestion which +still troubled him. There was nothing to warn him that he was +approaching the supreme event in his life, nothing to prepare him for a +change beside which all the changes of the past would appear as +unsubstantial as shadows. His soul might have been the soul in the +grass, so little did its coming or its going affect the forces around +him.</p> + +<p>"If this shooting pain keeps up, I'll have to get a prescription from +Doctor Fraser," he thought, and the next minute he cried out suddenly: +"God help us!" and began to run down the road in the direction of the +blasted pine. There was hardly a breath between the instant when he had +thought of his indigestion and the instant when he had called out +sharply on the name of God, yet that flash of time had been long enough +to change the ordinary man into the hero. The spark of greatness in his +nature flamed up and irradiated all that had been merely dull and common +clay a moment before. As he ran on, with his coat tails flapping around +him, and his thin legs wobbling from the unaccustomed speed at which he +moved, he was so unimposing a figure that only the Deity who judges the +motives, not the actions, of men would have been impressed by the +spectacle. Even the three hearty brutes—and it took him but a glance to +see that two of them were drunk, and that the third, being a sober +rascal, was the more dangerous—hardly ceased their merry torment of the +young negro in their midst when he came up with them.</p> + +<p>"I know that boy," he said. "He is the grandson of Aunt Mehitable. What +are you doing with him?"</p> + +<p>A drunken laugh answered him, while the sober scoundrel—a lank, hairy +ne-er-do-well, with a tendency to epilepsy, whose name he remembered to +have heard—pushed him roughly to the roadside.</p> + +<p>"You git out of this here mess, parson. We're goin' to teach this damn +nigger a lesson, and I reckon when he's learned it in hell, he won't +turn his grin on a white woman again in a jiffy."</p> + +<p>"Fo' de Lawd, I didn't mean nuttin', Marster!" screamed the boy, livid +with terror. "I didn't know de lady was dar—fo' de Lawd Jesus, I +didn't! My foot jes slipped on de plank w'en I wuz crossin', en I +knocked up agin her."</p> + +<p>"He jostled her," observed one of the drunken men judicially, "an' we'll +be roasted befo' we'll let a damn nigger jostle a white lady—even if +she ain't a lady—in these here parts."</p> + +<p>In the rector's bone and fibre, drilled there by the ages that had +shaped his character before he began to be, there was all the white +man's horror of an insult to his womankind. But deeper even than this +lay his personal feeling of responsibility for any creature whose +fathers had belonged to him and had toiled in his service.</p> + +<p>"I believe the boy is telling the truth," he said, and he added with one +of his characteristic bursts of impulsiveness, "but whether he is or +not, you are too drunk to judge."</p> + +<p>There was going to be a battle, he saw, and in the swiftness with which +he discerned this, he made his eternal choice between the preacher and +the fighter. Stripping off his coat, he reached down for a stick from +the roadside; then spinning round on the three of them he struck out +with all his strength, while there floated before him the face of a man +he had killed in his first charge at Manassas. The old fury, the old +triumph, the old blood-stained splendour returned to him. He smelt the +smoke again, he heard the boom of the cannon, the long sobbing rattle of +musketry, and the thought stabbed through him, "God forgive me for +loving a fight!"</p> + +<p>Then the fight stopped. There was a patter of feet in the dust as the +young negro fled like a hare up the road in the direction of Dinwiddie. +One of the men leaped the fence and disappeared into the tangled thicket +beyond; while the other two, sobered suddenly, began walking slowly over +the ploughed ground on the right. Ten minutes later Gabriel was lying +alone, with the blood oozing from his mouth, on the trodden weeds by the +roadside. The shadow of the pine had not moved since he watched it; on +the flat rock in front of the cabin the old negress stood, straining her +eyes in the faint sunshine; and up the long road the March wind still +blew, as soft, as provocative, as bud-scented.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOK_THIRD" id="BOOK_THIRD"></a>BOOK THIRD</h2> + +<h3>THE ADJUSTMENT</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I3" id="CHAPTER_I3"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE CHANGING ORDER</h3> + + +<p>"So this is life," thought Virginia, while she folded her mourning veil, +and laid it away in the top drawer of her bureau. Like all who are +suddenly brought face to face with tragedy, she felt at the moment that +there was nothing else in existence. All the sweetness of the past had +vanished so utterly that she remembered it only as one remembers a dream +from which one has abruptly awakened. Nothing remained except this +horrible sense of the pitiful insufficiency of life, of the inexorable +finality of death. It was a week since the rector's death, and in that +week she had passed out of her girlhood forever. Of all the things that +she had lived through, this alone had had the power to crush the hope in +her and the odour of crape which floated through the crack of the drawer +sickened her with its reminder of that agonized sense of loss which had +settled over her at the funeral. She was only thirty—the best of her +life should still be in the future—yet as she looked back at her white +face in the mirror it seemed to her that she should never emerge from +the leaden hopelessness which had descended like a weight on her body. +Above the harsh black of her dress, which added ten years to her +appearance, she saw the darkened circles rimming her eyes, the faded +pallor of her skin, the lustreless wave of her hair, which had once had +a satiny sheen on its ripples.</p> + +<p>"Grief makes a person look like this," she thought. "I shall never be a +girl again—Oliver was right: I am the kind to break early." Then, +because to think of herself in the midst of such sorrow seemed to her +almost wicked, she turned away from the mirror, and laid her +crape-trimmed hat on the shelf in the wardrobe. She was wearing a dress +of black Henrietta cloth, which had been borrowed from one of her +neighbours who had worn mourning, and the blouse and sleeves hung with +an exaggerated fullness over her thin arms and bosom. All that had +distinguished her beauty—the radiance, the colour the flower-like +delicacy of bloom and sweetness—these were blotted out by her grief and +by the voluminous mourning dress of the nineties. A week had changed +her, as even Harry's illness had not changed her, from a girl into a +woman; and horrible beyond belief, with the exception of her mother, it +had changed nothing else in the universe! The tragedy that had ruined +her life had left the rest of the world—even the little world of +Dinwiddie—moving as serenely, as indifferently, on its way towards +eternity. On the morning of the funeral she had heard the same market +wagons rumble over the cobblestones, the same droning songs of the +hucksters, the same casual procession of feet on the pavement. A +passionate indignation had seized her because life could be so brutal to +death, because the terror and the pity that flamed in her soul shed no +burning light on the town where her father had worked and loved and +fought and suffered and died. A little later the ceaseless tread of +visitors to the rectory door had driven this thought from her mind, but +through every minute, while he lay in the closed room downstairs, while +she sat beside her mother in the slow crawling carriage that went to the +old churchyard, while she stood with bowed head listening to the words +of the service—through it all there had been the feeling that something +must happen to alter a world in which such a thing had been possible, +that life must stop, that the heavens must fall, that God must put forth +His hand and work a miracle in order to show His compassion and His +horror.</p> + +<p>But nothing had changed. After the funeral her mother had come home with +her, and the others, many with tear-stained faces, had drifted in +separate ways back to eat their separate dinners. For a few hours +Dinwiddie had been shaken out of its phlegmatic pursuit of happiness; +for a few hours it had attained an emotional solidarity which swept it +up from the innumerable bypaths of the personal to a height where the +personal rises at last into the universal. Then the ebb had come; the +sense of tragedy had lessened slowly with the prolongation of feeling; +and the universal vision had dissolved and crystallized into the +pitiless physical needs of the individual. After the funeral a wave +almost of relief had swept over the town at the thought that the +suspension and the strain were at an end. The business of keeping alive, +and the moral compulsion of keeping abreast of one's neighbours, +reasserted their supremacy even while the carriages, quickening their +pace a trifle on the return drive, rolled out of the churchyard. Now at +the end of a week only Virginia and her mother would take the time from +living to sit down and remember.</p> + +<p>In the adjoining room, which was the nursery, Mrs. Pendleton was sitting +beside the window, with her Bible open on her knees, and her head bent a +little in the direction of Miss Priscilla, who was mending a black dress +by the table.</p> + +<p>"It is so sweet of you, dear Miss Priscilla," she murmured in her vague +and gentle voice as Virginia entered. So old, so pallid, so fragile she +looked, that she might have been mistaken by a stranger for a woman of +eighty, yet the impossibility of breaking the habit of a lifetime kept +the lines of her face still fixed in an expression of anxious +cheerfulness. For more than forty years she had not thought of herself, +and now that the opportunity had come for her to do so, she found that +she had almost forgotten the way that one went about it. Even grief +could not make her selfish any more than it could make her untidy. Her +manner, like her dress, was so little a matter of impulse, and so +largely a matter of discipline and of conscience, that it expressed her +broken heart hardly more than did the widow's cap on her head or the +mourning brooch that fastened the crape folds of her collar.</p> + +<p>"Do you want anything, mother darling? What can I do for you?" asked +Virginia, stooping to kiss her.</p> + +<p>"Nothing, dear. I was just telling Miss Priscilla that I had had a visit +from Mr. Treadwell, and that"—her voice quivered a little—"he showed +more feeling than I should have believed possible. He even wanted to +make me an allowance."</p> + +<p>Miss Priscilla drew out her large linen handkerchief, which was like a +man's, and loudly blew her nose. "I always said there was more in Cyrus +than people thought," she observed. "Here, I've shortened this dress, +Jinny, until it's just about your mother's length."</p> + +<p>She tried to speak carelessly, for though she did not concur in the +popular belief that to ignore sorrow is to assuage it, her social +instinct, which was as strongly developed as Mrs. Pendleton's, +encouraged her to throw a pleasant veil over affliction.</p> + +<p>"You're looking pale for want of air, Jinny," she added, after a minute +in which she had thought, "The child has broken so in the last few days +that she looks years older than Oliver."</p> + +<p>"I'm trying to make her go driving," said Mrs. Pendleton, leaning +forward over the open page of her Bible.</p> + +<p>"But I can't go, mother; I haven't the heart for it," replied Virginia, +choking down a sob.</p> + +<p>"I don't like to see you looking so badly, dear. You must keep up your +strength for the children's sake, you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," answered Virginia, but her voice had a weary sound.</p> + +<p>A little later, when Miss Priscilla had gone, and Oliver came in to urge +her to go with him, she shook her head again, still palely resolute, +still softly obstinate.</p> + +<p>"But, Jinny, it isn't right for you to let your health go," he urged. +"You haven't had a breath of air for days and you're getting sallow."</p> + +<p>His own colour was as fine as ever; he grew handsomer, if a trifle +stouter, as he grew older; and at thirty-five there was all the vigour +and the charm of twenty in his face and manner. In one way only he had +altered, and of this alteration, he, as well as Virginia, was beginning +faintly to be aware. Comfort was almost imperceptibly taking the place +of conviction, and the passionate altruism of youth would yield before +many years to the prudential philosophy of middle-age. Life had defeated +him. His best had been thrown back at him, and his nature, embittered by +failure, was adjusting itself gradually to a different and a lower +standard of values. Though he could not be successful, it was still +possible, even within the narrow limits of his income and his +opportunities, to be comfortable. And, like other men who have lived day +by day with heroically unselfish women, he had fallen at last into the +habit of thinking that his being comfortable was, after all, a question +of supreme importance to the universe. Deeply as he had felt the +rector's death, he, in common with the rest of Dinwiddie, was conscious +of breathing more easily after the funeral was over. To his +impressionable nature, alternations of mood were almost an essential of +being, and there was something intolerable to him in any slowly +harrowing grief. To watch Virginia nursing every memory of her father +because she shrank from the subtle disloyalty of forgetfulness, aroused +in him a curious mingling of sympathy and resentment.</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd go, even if you don't feel like it—just to please me, +Virginia," he urged, and after a short struggle she yielded to his +altered tone, and got down her hat from the shelf of the wardrobe.</p> + +<p>A little later, as the dog-cart rolled out of Dinwiddie into the country +road, she looked through her black grenadine veil on a world which +appeared to have lost its brightness. The road was the one along which +she had ridden on the morning of the fox-hunt; ahead of them lay the +same fields, sown now with the tender green of the spring; the same +creeks ran there, screened by the same thickets of elder; the same pines +wafted their tang on the March wind that blew, singing, out of the +forest. It was all just as it had been on that morning—and yet what a +difference!</p> + +<p>"Put up your veil, Virginia—it's enough to smother you."</p> + +<p>But she only shook her head, shrinking farther down into the shapeless +borrowed dress as though she felt that it protected her. Following the +habit of people whose choice has been instinctive rather than +deliberate, a choice of the blood, not of the brain, they had long ago +exhausted the fund of conversation with which they had started. There +was nothing to talk about—since Virginia had never learned to talk of +herself, and Oliver had grown reticent recently about the subjects that +interested him. When the daily anecdotes of the children had been aired +between them with an effort at breeziness, nothing remained except the +endless discussion of Harry's education. Even this had worn threadbare +of late, and with the best intentions in the world, Virginia had failed +to supply anything else of sufficient importance to take its place. An +inherited habit, the same habit which had made it possible for Mrs. +Pendleton to efface her broken heart, prompted her to avoid any allusion +to her grief in which she sat shrouded as in her mourning veil.</p> + +<p>"The spring is so early this year," she remarked once, with her gaze on +the rosy billows of an orchard. "The peach trees have almost finished +blooming."</p> + +<p>Then, as he made no answer except to flick at John Henry's bay mare +with his whip, she asked daringly, "Are you writing again, Oliver?"</p> + +<p>A frown darkened his forehead, and she saw the muscles about his mouth +twitch as though he were irritated. For all his failure and his +bitterness, he did not look a day older, she thought, than when she had +first seen him driving down High Street in that unforgettable May. He +was still as ardent, still as capable of inspiring first love in the +imagination of a girl. The light and the perfume of that enchanted +spring seemed suddenly to envelop her, and moved by a yearning to +recapture them for an instant, she drew closer to him, and slipped her +hand through his arm.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm trying my luck with some trash. Nothing but trash has any +chance of going in this damned business."</p> + +<p>"You mean it's different from your others? It's less serious?"</p> + +<p>"Less serious? Well, I should say so. It's the sort of ice-cream +soda-water the public wants. But if I can get it put on, it ought to +run, and a play that runs is obliged to make money. I doubt if there's +anything much better than money, when it comes to that."</p> + +<p>"You used to say it didn't matter."</p> + +<p>"Did I? Well, I was a fool and I've learned better. These last few years +have taught me that nothing else on earth matters much."</p> + +<p>This was so different from what that other Oliver—the Oliver of her +first love—might have said, that involuntarily her clasp on his arm +tightened. The change in him, so gradual at first that her mind, unused +to subtleties, had hardly grasped it, was beginning to frighten her.</p> + +<p>"You have such burdens, dear," she said, and he noticed that her voice +had acquired the toneless sweetness of her mother's. "I've tried to be +as saving as I could, but the children have been sick so much that it +seems sometimes as if we should never get out of debt. I am trying now +to pay off the bills I was obliged to make while Harry was ill in +October. If I could only get perfectly strong, we might let Marthy go, +now that Jenny is getting so big."</p> + +<p>"You work hard enough as it is, Virginia. You've been awfully good about +it," he answered, but his manner was almost casual, for he had grown to +take for granted her unselfishness with something of the unconcern with +which he took for granted the comfortable feeling of the spring weather. +In the early days of their marriage, when her fresh beauty had been a +power to rule him, she had taught him to assume his right to her +self-immolation on the altar of his comfort; and with the taste of +bitterness which sometimes follows the sweets of memory, she recalled +that their first quarrel had arisen because she had insisted on getting +out of bed to make the fires in the morning. Then, partly because the +recollection appeared to reproach him, and partly because, not +possessing the critical faculty, she had never learned to acknowledge +the existence of a flaw in a person she loved, she edged closer to him, +and replied cheerfully:</p> + +<p>"I don't mind the work a bit, if only the children will keep well so we +shan't have to spend any more money. I shan't need any black clothes," +she added, with a trembling lip. "Mrs. Carrington has given me this +dress, as she has gone out of mourning, and I've got a piece of blue +silk put away that I am going to have dyed."</p> + +<p>He glanced at the shapeless dress, not indignantly as he would once have +done, but with a tinge of quiet amusement.</p> + +<p>"It makes you look every day of forty."</p> + +<p>"I know it isn't becoming, but at least it will save having to buy one."</p> + +<p>In spite of the fact that her small economies had made it possible for +them to live wholesomely, and with at least an appearance of decency, on +his meagre salary, they had always aroused in him a sense of bitter +exasperation. He respected her, of course, for her saving, yet in his +heart he knew that she would probably have charmed him more had she been +a spendthrift—since the little virtues are sometimes more deadly to the +passion of love than are the large vices. While he nodded, without +disputing the sound common sense in her words, she thought a little +wistfully how nice it would be to have pretty things if only one could +afford them. Someday, when the children's schooling was over and Oliver +had got a larger salary, she would begin to buy clothes that were +becoming rather than durable. But that was in the future, and, +meanwhile, how much better it was to grudge every penny she spent on +herself as long as there were unpaid bills at the doctor's and the +grocer's. All of which was, of course, perfectly reasonable, and like +other women who have had a narrow experience of life, she cherished the +delusion that a man's love, as well as his philosophy, is necessarily +rooted in reason.</p> + +<p>When they turned homeward, the bay mare, pricked by desire for her +stable, began to travel more rapidly, and the fall of her hoofs, +accompanied by the light roll of the wheels, broke the silence which had +almost imperceptibly settled upon them. Not until the cart drew up at +the gate did Virginia realize that they had hardly spoken a dozen words +on the drive back.</p> + +<p>"I feel better already, Oliver," she said, gratefully, as he helped her +to alight. Then hastening ahead of him, she ran up the walk and into the +hall, where her mother, looking wan and unnatural in her widow's cap, +greeted her with the question:</p> + +<p>"Did you have a pleasant drive, dear?"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For six months Mrs. Pendleton hid her broken heart under a smile and +went softly about the small daily duties of the household, facing death, +as she had faced life, with a sublime unselfishness and the manner of a +lady. Her hopes, her joys, her fears even, lay in the past; there was +nothing for her to look forward to, nothing for her to dread in the +future. Life had given her all that it had to offer of bliss or sorrow, +and for the rest of her few years she would be like one who, having +finished her work before the end of the day, sits waiting patiently for +the words of release to be spoken. As the months went on, she moved like +a gentle shadow about her daughter's little home. So wasted and pallid +was her body that at times Virginia feared to touch her lest she should +melt like a phantom out of her arms. Yet to the last she never faltered, +never cried out for mercy, never sought to hasten by a breath that end +which was to her as the longing of her eyes, as the brightness of the +sunlight, as the sweetness of the springtime. Once, looking up from +Lucy's lesson which she was hearing, she said a little wistfully, "I +don't think, Jinny, it will be long now," and then checking herself +reproachfully, she added, "But God knows best. I can trust Him."</p> + +<p>It was the only time that she had ever spoken of the thought which was +in her mind day and night, for when she could no longer welcome her +destiny, she had accepted it. Her faith, like her opinions, was +child-like and uncritical—the artless product of a simple and incurious +age. The strength in her had gone not into the building of knowledge, +but into the making of character, and she had judged all thought as +innocently as she had judged all literature, by its contribution to the +external sweetness of living. A child of ten might have demolished her +theories, and yet because of them, or in spite of them, she had +translated into action the end of all reasoning, the profoundest meaning +in all philosophy. But she was born to decorate instead of to reason. +Though her mind had never winnowed illusions from realities, her hands +had patiently woven both illusions and realities into the embroidered +fabric of Life.</p> + +<p>For six months she went about the house and helped Virginia with the +sewing, which had become burdensome since the children, and especially +Harry, were big enough to wear daily holes in their stockings. Then, +when the half year was over, she took to her bed one evening after she +had carefully undressed, folded her clothes out of sight, and read a +chapter in her Bible. In the morning she did not get up, and at the end +of a fortnight, in which she apologized for making extra work whenever +food was brought to her, she clasped her hands on her thin breast, +smiled once into Virginia's face, and died so quietly that there was +hardly a perceptible change in her breathing. She had gone through life +without giving trouble, and she gave none at the end. As she lay there +in her little bed in Virginia's spare room, to which she had moved after +Gabriel's death in order that the rectory might be got ready for the new +rector, she appeared so shadowy and unearthly that it was impossible to +believe that she had ever been a part of the restless strivings and the +sombre violences of life. On the candle-stand by her bed lay her +spectacles, with steel rims because she had never felt that she could +afford gold ones; and a single October rose, from which a golden petal +had dropped, stood in a vase beside the Bible. On the foot of the bed +hung her grey flannelette wrapper, with a patch in one sleeve over which +Harry had spilled a bottle of shoe polish, while through the +half-shuttered window the autumn sunshine fell in long yellow bars over +the hemp rugs on the floor. And she was dead! Her mother was dead—no +matter how much she needed her, she would never come back. Out of the +vacancy around her, some words of her own, spoken in her girlhood, +returned to her. "There is only one thing I couldn't bear, and that is +losing my mother." Only one thing! And now that one thing had happened, +and she was not only bearing it, she was looking ahead to a future in +which that one thing would be always beside her, always in her memory. +Whatever the years brought to her, they could never bring her mother +again—they could never bring her a love like her mother's.</p> + +<p>Out of that same vacancy, which seemed to swallow and to hold +everything, which seemed to exist both within and outside of herself, a +multitude of forgotten images and impressions flashed into being. She +saw the nursery fireside in the rectory, and her mother, with hair that +still shone like satin, rocking back and forth in the black wicker chair +with the sagging bottom. She saw her kneeling on the old frayed red and +blue drugget, her skirt pinned up at the back of her waist, while she +bathed her daughter's scratched and aching feet in the oblong tin +foot-tub. She saw her, as beautiful as an angel, in church on Sunday +mornings, her worshipful eyes lifted to the pulpit, an edge of +tinted light falling on the open prayer-book in her hand. She saw +her, thin and stooping, a shadow of all that she had once +been—waiting—waiting——She had always been there. It was impossible +to realize that a time could ever come when she would not be there—and +now she was gone!</p> + +<p>And behind all the images, all the impressions, the stubborn thought +persisted that this was life—that one could never escape it—that +whatever happened, one must come back to it at the last. "I have my +children still left—but for my children I could not live!" she thought, +dropping on her knees by the bedside, and hiding her face in the grey +wrapper.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After this it seemed to her that she ceased to live except in the lives +of her children, and her days passed so evenly, so monotonously, that +she only noticed their flight when one of the old people in Dinwiddie +remarked to her with a certain surprise: "You've almost a grown +daughter now, Jinny," or "Harry will soon be getting as big as his +father. Have you decided where you will send him to college?" She was +not unhappy—had she ever stopped to ask herself the question, she would +probably have answered, "If only mother and father were living, I should +be perfectly satisfied"; yet in spite of her assurances, there existed +deep down in her—so deep that her consciousness had never fully grasped +the fact of its presence—a dumb feeling that something was missing out +of life, that the actuality was a little less bright, a little less +perfect than it had appeared through the rosy glamour of her virgin +dreams. Was this "something missing" merely one of the necessary +conditions of mortal existence? Or was there somewhere on the earth that +stainless happiness which she had once believed her marriage would bring +to her? "I should be perfectly satisfied if only——" she would +sometimes say in the night, and then check herself before she had ended +the sentence. The lack, real as it was, was still too formless to lend +itself to the precision of words; it belonged less to circumstances than +to the essential structure of life. And yet, as she put it to herself in +her rare moments of depression, she had so much to be thankful for! The +children grew stronger as they grew older—since Harry's attack of +diphtheria, indeed, there had been no serious illness in the family, and +as she approached middle-age, her terror of illness increased rather +than diminished. The children made up for much—they ought to have made +up for everything—and yet did they? There was no visible fault that she +could attribute to them. With her temperamental inability to see flaws, +she was accustomed to think of them as perfect children, as children +whom she would not change, had she the power, by so much as a hair or an +outline. They grew up, straight, fine, and fearless, full of the new +spirit, eager to test life, to examine facts, possessed by that +awakening feeling for truth which had always frightened her a little in +Susan. Vaguely, without defining the sensation, she felt that they were +growing beyond her, that she could no longer keep up with them, that, +every year, they were leaving her a little farther behind them. They +were fond of her, but she understood from something Jenny said one day, +that they had ceased to be proud of her. It was while they were looking +over an old photograph album of Susan's that, coming to a picture of +Virginia, taken the week before her wedding, Jenny cried out: "Why, +there's mother!" and slipped it out of the page.</p> + +<p>"I never saw that before," Lucy said, leaning over with a laugh. "You +were so young when you married, mother, and you wore such tight sleeves, +and a bustle!"</p> + +<p>"Would you ever have believed she was as pretty as that?" asked Jenny, +with the unconscious brutality of childhood.</p> + +<p>"If you are ever as beautiful as your mother was, you may thank your +stars," said Susan dryly, and by the expression in her face Virginia +knew that she was thinking, "If that was my child, I'd slap her!"</p> + +<p>Harry, who had been stuffing fruitcake on the sofa—sweets were his +weakness—rose suddenly and came over to the group.</p> + +<p>"If you are ever as beautiful as she is now, you may thank your stars, +Miss Yellow Frisk!" he remarked crushingly.</p> + +<p>It was a little thing—so little that it seemed ridiculous to think of +it as among the momentous happenings in a life—but with that +extraordinary proneness of the little to usurp the significant places of +memory, it had become at last one of the important milestones in her +experience. At the end, when she forgot everything else, she would not +forget Harry's foolish words, nor the look in his indignant boyish face +when he uttered them. Until then she had not admitted to herself that +there was a difference in her feeling for her children, but with the +touch of his sympathetic, not over clean, hand on her shoulder, she knew +that she should never again think of the three of them as if they were +one in her interest and her love. The girls were good children, dear +children—she would have let herself be cut in pieces for either of them +had it been necessary—but between Harry and herself there was a +different bond, a closer and a deeper dependency, which strengthened +almost insensibly as he grew older. Her daughters she loved, but her +son, as is the inexplicable way of women, she adored blindly and without +wisdom. If it had been possible to ruin him, she would have done so, +but, unlike many other sons, he seemed, by virtue of that invincible +strength with which he had been born, to be proof against both spoiling +and flattery. He was a nice boy even to strangers, even to Susan, with +her serene judgment of persons, he appeared a thoroughly nice boy! He +was not only a tall, lean, habitually towselled-headed youngster, with a +handsome sunburned face and a pair of charming, slightly quizzical blue +eyes, but he was, as his teachers and his school reports bore witness, +possessed of an intellectual brilliancy which made study as easy, and +quite as interesting to him, as play. Unlike his father, he had entered +life endowed with a cheerful outlook upon the world and with that +temperament of success which usually, but by no means inevitably, +accompanies it. Whatever happened, he would make the best of it, he +would "get on," and it was impossible to imagine him in any hole so deep +that he could not, sooner or later, find the way out of it. The +Pendleton and the Treadwell spirits had contributed their best to him. +If he derived from Cyrus, or from some obscure strain in Cyrus's +ancestry, a wholesome regard for material success, a robust +determination to achieve results combined with that hard, clear vision +of affairs which makes such achievement easy, he had inherited from +Gabriel his genial temper, his charm of manner, and his faith in life, +which, though it failed to move mountains, had sweetened and enriched +the mere act of living. Though he was less demonstrative than Lucy, who +had outgrown the plainness and the reticence of her childhood and was +developing into a coquettish, shallow-minded girl, with what Miss +Priscilla called "a glib tongue," Virginia learned gradually, in the +secret way mothers learn things, that his love for her was, after his +ambition, the strongest force in his character. Between him and his +father there had existed ever since his babyhood a curious, silent, yet +ineradicable hostility. Whether the fault was Oliver's or Harry's, +whether the father resented the energy and the initiative of his son, or +the son resented the indifference and the self-absorption of his father, +Virginia had never discovered. For years she fought against admitting +the discord between them. Then, at last, on the occasion of a quarrel, +when it was no longer possible to dissemble, she followed Oliver into +his study, which had once been the "back parlour," and pleaded with him +to show a little patience, a little sympathy with his son. "He's a boy +any father would be proud of——" she finished, almost in tears.</p> + +<p>"I know he is," he answered irritably, "but the truth is he rubs me the +wrong way. I suppose the trouble is that you have spoiled him."</p> + +<p>"But he isn't spoiled. Everybody says——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, everybody!" he murmured disdainfully, with a shrug of his fine +shoulders.</p> + +<p>He looked back at her with the sombre fire of anger still in his eyes, +and she saw, without trying to see, without even knowing that she did +see, all the changes that years had wrought in his appearance. +Physically, he was a finer animal than he had been when she married him, +for time, which had sapped her youth and faded her too delicate bloom, +had but added a deeper colour to the warm brown of his skin, a steadier +glow to his eyes, a more silvery gloss to his hair. At forty, he was a +handsomer man than he had been at twenty-five, yet, in spite of this, +some virtue had gone out of him—here, too, as in life, "something was +missing." The generous impulses, the high heart for adventure, the +enthusiasm of youth, and youth's white rage for perfection—where were +these? It was as if a rough hand had passed over him, coarsening here, +blotting out there, accentuating elsewhere. The slow, insidious devil of +compromise had done its work. Once he had made one of the small band of +fighters who fight not for advantage, but for the truth; now he stood in +that middle place with the safe majority who are "neither for God nor +for His enemies." Life had done this to him—life and Virginia. It was +not only that he had "grown soft," as he would have expressed it, nor +was it even wholly that he had grown selfish, for the canker which ate +at the roots of his personality had affected not his character merely, +but the very force of his will. Though the imperative he obeyed had +always been not "I must," but "I want," his natural loftiness of purpose +might have saved him from the results of his weakness had he not lost +gradually the capacity for successful resistance with which he had +started. If only in the beginning she had upheld not his inclinations, +but his convictions; if only she had sought not to soothe his weakness, +but to stimulate his strength; if only she had seen for once the thing +as it was, not as it ought to have been——</p> + +<p>He was buried in his work now, and there were months during this year +when she appeared hardly to see him, so engrossed, so self-absorbed had +he become. Sometimes she would remember, stifling the pang it caused, +the nights when he had written his first plays in Matoaca City, and that +he had made her sit beside him with her sewing because he could not +think if she were out of the room. Now, he could write only when he was +alone; he hated an interruption so much that she often let the fire go +out rather than open his closed door to see if it was burning. If she +went in to speak to him, he laid his pen down and did not take it up +again while she was there. Yet this change had come so stealthily that +it had hardly affected her happiness. She had grown accustomed to the +difference before she had realized it sufficiently to suffer. Sometimes +she would say to herself a little wonderingly, "Oliver used to be so +romantic;" for with the majority of women whose marriages have +surrendered to an invasion of the commonplace, she accepted the +comfortable theory that the alteration was due less to circumstances +than to the natural drying of the springs of sentiment in her husband's +character. Occasionally, she would remember with a smile her three days' +jealousy of Abby; but the brevity and the folly of this had established +her the more securely in her impregnable position of unquestioning +belief in him. She had started life believing, as the women of her race +had believed for ages before her, that love was a divine gift which came +but once in a lifetime, and which, coming once, remained forever +indestructible. People, of course, grew more practical and less intense +as they left youth farther behind them; and though this misty principle +would have dissolved at once had she applied it to herself (for she +became more sentimental as she approached middle-age), behind any +suspicious haziness of generalization there remained always the sacred +formula, "Men are different." Once, when a sharp outbreak of the primal +force had precipitated a scandal in the home of one of her neighbours, +she had remarked to Susan that she was "devoutly thankful that Oliver +did not have that side to his nature."</p> + +<p>"It must be a disagreeable side to live with," Susan, happily married to +John Henry, and blissfully expectant of motherhood, had replied, "but as +far as I know, Oliver never had a light fancy for a woman in his +life—not even before he was married. I used to tell him that it was +because he expected too much. Physical beauty by itself never seemed to +attract him—it was the angel in you that he first fell in love with."</p> + +<p>A glow of pleasure flushed Virginia's sharpened features, mounting to +the thin little curls on her forehead. These little curls, to which she +sentimentally clung in spite of the changes in the fashions, were a +cause of ceaseless worry to Lucy, who had developed into a "stylish" +girl, and would have died sooner than she would have rejected the +universal pompadour of the period. It was the single vanity that +Virginia had ever permitted herself, this adhering at middle-age to the +quaint and rather coquettish hairdressing of her girlhood: and Fate had +punished her by threading the little curls with grey, while Susan's +stiff roll (she had adopted the newer mode) remained bravely flaxen. But +Susan was one of those women who, lacking a fine fair skin and defying +tradition, are physically at their best between forty and fifty.</p> + +<p>"Oliver used to be so romantic," said Virginia, as she had said so often +to herself, while the glow paled slowly from her cheeks, leaving them +the colour of faded rose-leaves.</p> + +<p>"Not so romantic as you were, Jinny."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am still," she laughed softly. "Lucy says I take more interest in +her lovers now than she does," and she added after a minute, "Girls are +so different to-day from what they used to be—they are so much less +sentimental."</p> + +<p>"But I thought Lucy was. She has enough flirtations for her age, hasn't +she?"</p> + +<p>"She has enough attention, of course—for the funny part is that, though +she's only sixteen and not nearly so pretty as Jenny, the men are all +crazy, as Miss Willy says, about her. But, somehow, it's different. Lucy +enjoys it, but it isn't her life. As for Jenny, she's still too young to +have taken shape, I suppose, but she has only one idea in her head and +that is going to college. She never gives a boy a thought."</p> + +<p>"That's queer, because she promises already to be the most beautiful +girl in Dinwiddie."</p> + +<p>"She is beautiful. I am quite sure that it isn't because she is my +daughter that I think so. But, all the same, I'm afraid she'll never be +as popular as Lucy is. She is so distant and overbearing to men that +they are shy of her."</p> + +<p>"And you'll let her go to college?"</p> + +<p>"If we can afford it—and now that Oliver hopes to get one of his plays +put on, we may have a little more money. But it seems such a waste to +me. I never saw that it could possibly do a woman any good to go to +college—though of course I always sympathized with your disappointment, +dear Susan. Jenny is bent on it now, but I feel so strongly that it +would be better for her to come out in Dinwiddie and go to parties and +have attention."</p> + +<p>"And does Oliver feel that, too?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he doesn't care. Jenny is his favourite, and he will let her do +anything he thinks she has set her heart on. But he has never put his +whole life into the children's as I have done."</p> + +<p>"But if she goes, will you be able to send Harry?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, Harry's education must come before everything else—even +Oliver realizes that. Do you know, I've hardly bought a match for ten +years that I haven't stopped to ask myself if it would take anything +from Harry's education. That's why I've gone as shabby as this almost +ever since he was born—that and my longing to give the girls a few +pretty things."</p> + +<p>"You haven't bought a dress for yourself since I can remember. I should +think you would wear your clothes out making them over."</p> + +<p>The look in Virginia's face showed that the recollection Susan had +invoked was not entirely a pleasant one.</p> + +<p>"I've done with as little as I could," she answered. "Only once was I +really extravagant, and that was when I bought a light blue silk which I +didn't have made up until years afterwards when it was dyed black. Dyed +things never hold their own," she concluded pensively.</p> + +<p>"You are too unselfish—that is your only fault," said Susan +impulsively. "I hope they appreciate all you have been to them."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they appreciate me," returned Virginia with a laugh. "Harry does, +anyhow."</p> + +<p>"I believe Harry is your darling, Jinny."</p> + +<p>"I try not to make any difference in my feeling—they are all the best +children that ever lived—but—Susan, I wouldn't breathe this to anybody +on earth but you—I can't help thinking that Harry loves me more than +the others do. He—he has so much more patience with me. The girls +sometimes laugh at me because I am old-fashioned and behind the times, +and I can see that it annoys them because I am ignorant of things which +they seem to have been born knowing."</p> + +<p>"But it was for their sake that you let yourself go—you gave up +everything else for them from the minute that they were born."</p> + +<p>A tear shone in Virginia's eye, and Susan knew, without having it put +into words, that a wound somewhere in that gentle heart was still +hurting. "I'd like to slap them!" she thought fiercely, and then she +said aloud with a manner of cheerful conviction:</p> + +<p>"You are a great deal too good for them, Jinny, and some day they will +know it."</p> + +<p>A longing came over her to take the thin little figure in her arms and +shake back into her something of the sparkle and the radiance of her +girlhood. Why did beauty fade? Why did youth grow middle-aged? Above +all, why did love and sacrifice so often work their own punishment?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II3" id="CHAPTER_II3"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE PRICE OF COMFORT</h3> + + +<p>Virginia knelt on the cushioned seat in the bay-window of her bedroom, +gazing expectantly down on the pavement below. It was her forty-fifth +birthday, and she was impatiently waiting for Harry, who was coming home +for a few days before going abroad to finish his studies at Oxford. The +house was a new, impeccably modern dwelling, produced by a triumph of +the utilitarian genius of the first decade of the twentieth century, and +Oliver had bought it at a prodigious price a few years after his +dramatic success had lifted him from poverty into comfort. The girls, +charmed to have made the momentous passage into Sycamore Street, were +delighted with the space and elegance of their new home, but Virginia +had always felt somehow as if she were visiting. The drawing-room, and +especially the butler's pantry, awed her. She had not dared to wash +those august shelves with soda, nor to fasten her favourite strips of +white oilcloth along their shining surfaces. The old joy of "fixing up" +her storeroom had been wrested from her by the supercilious mulatto +butler, who wore immaculate shirt fronts, but whom she suspected of +being untidy beneath his magnificent exterior. Once when she had +discovered a bucket of apple-parings tucked away under the sink, where +it had stood for days, he had given "notice" so unexpectedly and so +haughtily that she had been afraid ever since to look under dish-towels +or into hidden places while he was absent. Out of the problem of the +South "the servant question" had arisen to torment and intimidate the +housekeepers of Dinwiddie; and inferior service at high wages was +regarded of late as a thing for which one had come to be thankful. Had +they still lived in the little house, Virginia would gladly have done +her work for the sake of the peace and the cleanliness which it would +have ensured; but since the change in their circumstances, Oliver and +the girls had grown so dependent upon the small luxuries of living that +she put up with anything—even with the appalling suspicion that every +mouthful she ate was not clean—rather than take the risk of having her +three servants desert in a body. When she had unwisely complained to +Oliver, he had remarked impatiently that he couldn't be bothered about +the housekeeping, and Lucy had openly accused her of being "fussy."</p> + +<p>After this she had said nothing more, but gathering suddenly all her +energies, she had precipitated a scene with the servants (which ended to +her relief in the departure of the magnificent butler) and had +reorganized at a stroke the affairs of her household. For all her +gentleness, she was not incapable of decisive action, and though it had +always been easier for her to work herself than to direct others, her +native talent for domesticity had enabled her to emerge triumphantly out +of this crisis. Now, on her forty-fifth birthday, she could reflect with +pride (the pride of a woman who has mastered her traditional <i>métier de +femme</i>) that there was not a house in Dinwiddie which had better food +or smoother service than she provided in hers. For more and more, as +Oliver absorbed himself in his work, which kept him in New York many +months of the year, and the children grew so big that they no longer +needed her, did her life centre around the small monotonous details of +cooking and cleaning. Only when, as occasionally happened, the rest of +the family were absent together, Oliver about his plays, Lucy on a visit +to Richmond, and Harry and Jenny at college, an awful sense of futility +descended upon her, and she felt that both the purpose and the +initiative were sapped from her character. Sometimes, during such days +or weeks of loneliness, she would think of her mother's words, uttered +so often in the old years at the rectory: "There isn't any pleasure in +making things unless there's somebody to make them for."</p> + +<p>Beyond the window, the November day, which had been one of placid +contentment for her, was slowly drawing to its close. The pale red line +of an autumn sunset lingered in the west above the huddled roofs of the +town, while the mournful dusk of evening was creeping up from the earth. +A few chilled and silent sparrows hopped dejectedly along the bared +boughs of the young maple tree in front of the house, and every now and +then a brisk pedestrian would pass on the concrete pavement below. +Inside, a cheerful fire burned in the grate, and near it, on one end of +the chintz-covered couch, lay Oliver's present to her—a set of black +bear furs, which he had brought down with him from New York. Turning +away from the window, she slipped the neck-piece over her shoulders, and +as she did so, she tried to stifle the wonder whether he would have +bought them—whether even he would have remembered the date—if Harry +had not been with him. Last year he had forgotten her birthday—and +never before had he given her so costly a present as this. They were +beautiful furs, but even she, with her ignorance of the subtler arts of +dress, saw that they were too heavy for her, that they made her look +shrunken and small and accentuated the pallor of her skin, which had the +colour and the texture of withered rose-leaves. "They are just what +Jenny has always wanted, and they would be so becoming to her. I wonder +if Oliver would mind my letting her take them back to Bryn Mawr after +the holidays?"</p> + +<p>If Oliver would mind! The phrase still remained after the spirit which +sanctified it had long departed. In her heart she knew—though her +happiness rested upon her passionate evasion of the knowledge—that +Oliver had not only ceased to mind, that he had even ceased to notice +whether she wore his gifts or gave them to Jenny.</p> + +<p>A light step flitted along the hall; her door opened without shutting +again, and Lucy, in a street gown made in the princess style, hurried +across the room and turned a slender back appealingly towards her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, please unhook me as fast as you can. The Peytons are going +to take me in their car over to Richmond, and I've only a half hour in +which to get ready."</p> + +<p>Then, as Virginia's hands fumbled a little at an obstinate hook, Lucy +gave an impatient pull of her shoulders, and reached back, straining her +arms, until she tore the offending fastenings from her dress. She was a +small, graceful girl, not particularly pretty, not particularly clever, +but possessing some indefinable quality which served her as +successfully as either beauty or cleverness could have done. Though she +was the most selfish and the least considerate of the three children, +Virginia was like wax in her hands, and regarded her dashing, rather +cynical, worldliness with naïve and uncomprehending respect. She +secretly disapproved of Lucy, but it was a disapproval which was +tempered by admiration. It seemed miraculous to her that any girl of +twenty-two should possess so clearly formulated and critical a +philosophy of life, or should be so utterly emancipated from the last +shackles of reverence. As far as her mother could discern, Lucy +respected but a single thing, and that single thing was her own opinion. +For authority she had as little reverence as a savage; yet she was not a +savage, for she represented instead the perfect product of +over-civilization. The world was bounded for her by her own personality. +She was supremely interested in what she thought, felt, or imagined, and +beyond the limits of her individuality, she was frankly bored by +existence. The joys, sorrows, or experiences of others failed even to +arrest her attention. Yet the very simplicity and sincerity of her +egoism robbed it of offensiveness, and raised it from a trait of +character to the dignity of a point of view. The established law of +self-sacrifice which had guided her mother's life was not only +personally distasteful to her—it was morally indefensible. She was +engaged not in illustrating precepts of conduct, but in realizing her +independence; and this realization of herself appeared to her as the +supreme and peculiar obligation of her being. Though she was less fine +than Jenny, who in her studious way was a girl of much character, she +was by no means as superficial as she appeared, and might in time, +aided by fortuitous circumstances, make a strong and capable woman. Her +faults, after all, were due in a large measure to a training which had +consistently magnified in her mind the space which she would ultimately +occupy in the universe.</p> + +<p>And she had charm. Without beauty, without intellect, without culture, +she was still able to dominate her surroundings by her inexplicable but +undeniable charm. She was one of those women of whom people say, "It is +impossible to tell what attracts men in a woman." She was indifferent, +she was casual, she was even cruel; yet every male creature she met fell +a victim before her. Her slightest gesture had a fascination for the +masculine mind; her silliest words a significance. "I declare men are +the biggest fools where women are concerned," Miss Priscilla had +remarked, watching her; and the words had adequately expressed the +opinion of the feminine half of Dinwiddie's population.</p> + +<p>From sixteen to twenty-two she had remained as indifferent as a star to +the impassioned moths flitting around her. Then, a month after her +twenty-second birthday, she had coolly announced her engagement to a man +whom she had seen but six times—a widower at that, twelve years older +than herself, and the father of two children. The blow had fallen, +without warning, upon Virginia, who had never seen the man, and did not +like what she had heard of him. Unwisely, she had attempted to +remonstrate, and had been met by the reply, "Mother, dear, you must +allow me to decide what is for my happiness," and a manner which said, +"After all, you know so much less of life than I do, how can you advise +me?"</p> + +<p>It was intolerable, of course, and the worst of it was that, rebel as +she might against the admission, Virginia could not plausibly deny the +truth of either the remark or the manner. On the face of it, Lucy must +know best what she wanted, and as for knowledge of life, she was +certainly justified in considering her mother a child beside her. +Oliver, when the case was put before him, showed a sympathy with +Virginia's point of view and a moral inability to coerce his daughter +into accepting it. "She knows I never liked Craven," he said, "but after +all what are we going to do about it? She's old enough to decide for +herself, and you can't in this century put a girl on bread and water +because she marries as she chooses."</p> + +<p>Nothing about duty! nothing about consideration for her family! nothing +about the awful responsibility of entering lightly into such sacred +relations! Lucy was evidently in love—if she hadn't been, why on earth +should she have precipitated herself into an affair whose only reason +was a lack of reason that was conclusive?—but she might have been +engaging a chauffeur for all the solemnity she put into the +arrangements. She had selected her clothes and planned her wedding with +a practical wisdom which had awed and saddened her mother. All the +wistful sentiments, the tender evasions, the consecrated dreams that had +gone into the preparations for Virginia's marriage, were buried +somewhere under the fragrant past of the eighties—and the memory of +them made her feel not forty-five, but a hundred. Yet the thing that +troubled her most was a feeling that she was in the power of forces +which she did not understand—a sense that there were profound +disturbances beneath the familiar surface of life.</p> + +<p>When Lucy had gone out, with her dress open down the back and a glimpse +of her smooth girlish shoulders showing between the fastenings, Virginia +went over to the window again, and was rewarded by the sight of Harry's +athletic figure crossing the street.</p> + +<p>In a minute he came in, kissing her with the careless tenderness which +was one of her secret joys.</p> + +<p>"Halloo! little mother! All alone? Where are the others?" He was the +only one of her children who appeared to enjoy her, and sometimes when +they were alone together, he would turn and put his arms about her, or +stroke her hands with an impulsive, protecting sympathy. There were +moments when it seemed to her that he pitied her because the world had +moved on without her; and others when he came to her for counsel about +things of which she was not only ignorant, but even a little afraid. +Once he had consulted her as to whether he should go on the football +team at his college, and had listened respectfully enough to her timid +objections. Respect, indeed, was the quality in which he had never +failed her, and this, even more than his affection, had become a balm to +her in recent years, when Lucy and Jenny occasionally lost patience and +showed themselves openly amused by her old-fashioned opinions. She had +never forgotten that he had once taken her part when the girls had tried +to persuade her to brush back the little curls from her temples and wear +her hair in a pompadour.</p> + +<p>"It would look so much more suitable for a woman of your age, mother +dear," Lucy had remarked sweetly with a condescending deference which +had made Virginia feel as if she were a thousand.</p> + +<p>"And it would be more becoming, too, now that your hair is turning +grey," Jenny had added, with an intention to be kind and helpful which +had gone wrong somehow and turned into officiousness.</p> + +<p>"Shut up, and don't be silly geese," Harry had growled at them, and his +rudeness in her behalf had given Virginia a delicious thrill, which was +increased by the knowledge that his manners were usually excellent even +to his sisters. "You let them fuss all they want to, mother," he +concluded, "but your hair is a long sight better than theirs, and don't +you let them nag you into making a mess of it."</p> + +<p>All of which had been sweet beyond words to Virginia, though she was +obliged to admit that his judgment was founded upon a deplorable lack of +discrimination in the matter of hairdressing—since Lucy and Jenny both +had magnificent hair, while her own had long since lost its gloss and +grown thin from neglect. But if it had been really the truth, it could +not have been half so sweet to her.</p> + +<p>"Lucy is dressing to motor over to Richmond with the Peytons, and your +father went out to ride. Harry, why won't you let me go on to New York +to see you off?"</p> + +<p>He was sailing the following week for England, and he had forbidden her +to come to his boat, or even to New York, for a last glimpse of him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hate having a scene at the boat, mother. It always makes me feel +creepy to say good-bye. I never do it if I can help."</p> + +<p>"I know you don't, darling—you sneaked off after the holidays without +telling me what train you were going by. But this is for such a long +time. Two years, Harry."</p> + +<p>Her voice broke, and turning away, she gazed through the window at the +young maple tree as though her very soul were concentrated upon the +leafless boughs.</p> + +<p>He stirred uneasily, for like most men of twenty-one, he had a horror of +sentiment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, you may come over next summer, you know. I'll speak to father +about it. If his play goes over to London, he'll have to be there, won't +he?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," she replied, choking down her tears, and becoming +suddenly cheerful. "And you'll write to me once a week, Harry?"</p> + +<p>"You bet! By the way, I've had nothing to eat since ten o'clock, and I +feel rather gone. Have you some cake around anywhere?"</p> + +<p>"But we'll have supper in half an hour, and I've ordered waffles and +fried chicken for you. Hadn't you better wait?"</p> + +<p>Her cheerfulness was not assumed now, for with the turn to practical +matters, she felt suddenly that the universe had righted itself. Even +Harry's departure was forgotten in the immediate necessity of providing +for his appetite.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll wait, but I hope you've prepared for an army. I could eat a +hundred waffles."</p> + +<p>He snapped his jaws, and she laughed delightedly. For all his twenty-one +years, and the scholarship which he had won so easily and which was +taking him abroad, he was as boyish and as natural as he had been at +ten. Even his love of sweets had not lessened with the increase of his +dignity. To think of his demanding cake the minute after he had entered +the house!</p> + +<p>"Father's play made a great hit," he said presently, still steering +carefully away from the reefs of emotion. "I suppose you read all about +it in the papers?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head, smiling. Though she tried her best to be as natural +and as unemotional as he was, she could not keep her adoration out of +her eyes, which feasted on him like the eyes of one who had starved for +months. How handsome he was, with his broad shoulders, his fine +sunburned face, and his frank, boyish smile. It was a pity he had to +wear glasses—yet even his glasses seemed to her individual and +charming. She couldn't imagine a single way in which he could be +improved, and all the while she was perfectly sure that it wasn't in the +least because she was his mother—that she wasn't a bit prejudiced in +her judgment. It appeared out of the question that anybody—even a +stranger—could have found fault with him. "No, I haven't had time to +read the papers—I've been so busy getting ready for Lucy's wedding," +she answered. "But your father told me about it. It must be +splendid—only I wish he wouldn't speak so contemptuously of it," she +added regretfully. "He says it's trash, and yet I'm sure everybody spoke +well of it, and they say it is obliged to make a great deal of money. I +can't understand why his success seems to irritate rather than please +him."</p> + +<p>"Well, he thinks, you know, that it is only since he's cheapened himself +that he has had any hearing."</p> + +<p>"Cheapened himself?" she repeated wistfully. "But his first plays failed +entirely, so these last ones must be a great deal better if they are +such splendid successes."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose it's hard for us to understand his point of view. We +talked about it one night in New York when we were dining with Margaret +Oldcastle—she takes the leading part in 'Pretty Fanny,' you know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. What is she like?"</p> + +<p>A strange, still look came into her face, as though she waited with +suspended breath for his answer.</p> + +<p>"She's a charmer on the stage. I heard father tell her that she made the +play, and I'm not sure that he wasn't right."</p> + +<p>"But you saw her off the stage, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she asked me to dinner. She didn't look nearly so young, then, +and she's not exactly pretty; but, somehow, it didn't seem to matter. +She's got genius—you couldn't be with her ten minutes without finding +out that. I never saw any one in my life so much alive. When she's in a +room, even if she doesn't speak, you can't keep your eyes off her. She's +like a bright flame that you can't stop looking at—not even if there +are a lot of prettier women there, too."</p> + +<p>"Is she dark or fair?"</p> + +<p>He stopped to think for a moment.</p> + +<p>"To save my life I can't remember—but I think she's dark—at least, her +eyes are, though her hair may be light. But you never think of her +appearance when she's talking. I believe she's the best talker I ever +heard—better even than father."</p> + +<p>His enthusiasm had got the better of him, and it was evident that +Oliver's success had banished for a time at least the secret hostility +which had existed between father and son. That passion for material +results, which could not be separated from the Treadwell spirit without +robbing that spirit of its vitality, had gradually altered the family +attitude toward Oliver's profession. Art, like business, must justify +itself by its results, and to a commercial age there could be no +justifiable results that could not bear translation into figures. +Success was the chief end of man, and success could be measured only in +terms of money.</p> + +<p>"There's your father's step," said Virginia, whose face looked drawn and +pallid in the dusk. "Let me light the lamp, darling. He hates to read +his paper by anything but lamplight."</p> + +<p>But he had jumped up before she had finished and was hunting for matches +in the old place under the clock on the mantelpiece. She was such a +little, thin, frail creature that he laughed as she tried to help him.</p> + +<p>"So Lucy is going to marry that old rotter, is she?" he asked pleasantly +as his father entered. "Well, father! I was just asking mother why she +let Lucy marry that old rotter?"</p> + +<p>"But the dear child has set her heart on him, and he is really very nice +to us," replied Virginia hurriedly. Though she was disappointed in +Lucy's choice, it seemed dreadful to her to speak of a man who was about +to enter the family as a "rotter."</p> + +<p>"You stop it, Harry, if you have the authority. I haven't," answered +Oliver carelessly. "Is your neuralgia better, Virginia?"</p> + +<p>"It's quite gone, dear. Doctor Powell gave me some aspirin and it cured +it." She smiled gratefully at him, with a touching pleasure in the fact +that he had remembered to ask. As she glanced quickly from father to +son, eager to see them reconciled, utterly forgetful of herself, +something of the anxious cheerfulness of Mrs. Pendleton's spirit +appeared to live again in her look. Though her freshness had withered, +she was still what is called "a sweet looking woman," and her +expression of simple goodness lent an appealing charm to her features.</p> + +<p>"Are you going back to New York soon, father?" asked Harry, turning +politely in Oliver's direction. From his manner, which had lost its +boyishness, Virginia knew that he was trying with all his energy to be +agreeable, yet that he could not overcome the old feeling of constraint +and lack of sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Next week. 'The Home' is to be put on in February, and I'm obliged to +be there for the rehearsals."</p> + +<p>"Does Miss Oldcastle take the leading part?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Crossing the room, Oliver held out his hands to the fire, and then +turning, stretched his arms, with a stifled yawn, above his head. The +only fault that could be urged against his appearance was that his +figure was becoming a trifle square, that he was beginning to look a +little too well-fed, a little too comfortable. For the rest, his hair, +which had gone quite grey, brought out the glow and richness of his +colour and lent a striking emphasis to his dark, shining eyes.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that the new play is as good as 'Pretty Fanny'?" asked +Virginia.</p> + +<p>"Well, they're both rot, you know," he answered, with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Oliver, how can you, when all the papers spoke so admiringly of +it?"</p> + +<p>"Why shouldn't they? It is perfectly innocuous. The kind of thing any +father might take his daughter to see. We shan't dispute that, anyhow."</p> + +<p>His flippancy not only hurt, it confused her. It was painful enough to +have him speak so slightingly of his success, but worse than this was +the feeling it aroused in her that he was defying authority. Even if her +innate respect for the printed word had not made her accept as final the +judgment of the newspapers, there was still the incontestable fact that +so many people had paid to see "Pretty Fanny" that both Oliver and Miss +Oldcastle had reaped a small fortune. She glanced in a helpless way at +Harry, and he said suddenly:</p> + +<p>"Don't you think Jenny ought to come home to be with mother after Lucy +marries? You are obliged to go to New York so often that she will get +lonely."</p> + +<p>"It's a good idea," agreed Oliver amiably, "but there's another case +where you'll have to use greater authority than mine. When I stopped +reforming people," he added gaily, "I began with my own family."</p> + +<p>"The dear child would come in a minute if I suggested it," said +Virginia, "but she enjoys her life at college so much that I wouldn't +have her give it up for anything in the world. It would make me +miserable to think that any of my children made a sacrifice for me."</p> + +<p>"You needn't worry. We've trained them differently," said Oliver, and +though his tone was slightly satirical, the satire was directed at +himself, not at his wife.</p> + +<p>"I am sure it is what I should never want," insisted Virginia, almost +passionately, while she rose in response to the announcement of supper, +and met Lucy, in trailing pink chiffon, on the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure your coat is warm enough, dear?" she asked. "Wouldn't you +like to wear my furs? They are heavier than yours."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd love to, if you wouldn't mind, mother."</p> + +<p>Raising herself on tiptoe, Lucy kissed Harry, and then ran to the +mirror, eager to see if the black fur looked well on her.</p> + +<p>"They're just lovely on me, mother. I feel gorgeous!" she exclaimed +triumphantly, and indeed her charming girlish face rose like a white +flower out of the rich dark furs.</p> + +<p>In Virginia's eyes, as she turned back in the doorway to watch her, +there was a radiant self-forgetfulness which illumined her features. For +a moment she lived so completely in her daughter's youth that her body +seemed to take warmth and colour from the emotion which transfigured +her.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad, darling," she said. "It gives me more pleasure to see you +in them than it does to wear them myself." And though she did not know +it, she embodied her gentle philosophy of life in that single sentence.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III3" id="CHAPTER_III3"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>MIDDLE-AGE</h3> + + +<p>Jenny had promised to come home a week before Lucy's wedding, but at the +last moment, while they waited supper for her, a telegram announced with +serious brevity that she was "detained." Twenty-four hours later a +second telegram informed them that she would not arrive until the +evening before the marriage, and at six o'clock on that day, Virginia, +who had been packing Lucy's trunks ever since breakfast, looked out of +the window at the sound of the door-bell, and saw the cab which had +contained her second daughter standing beside the curbstone.</p> + +<p>"Mother, have you the change to pay the driver?" asked a vision of stern +loveliness floating into the room. With the winter's glow in her cheeks +and eyes and the bronze sheen on her splendid hair, which was brushed in +rippling waves from her forehead and coiled in a severely simple knot on +her neck, she might have been a wandering goddess, who had descended, +with immortal calm, to direct the affairs of the household. Her white +shirtwaist, with its starched severity, suited her austere beauty and +her look of almost superhuman composure.</p> + +<p>"Take off your hat, darling, and lie down on the couch while I finish +Lucy's packing," said Virginia, when she had sent the servant downstairs +to pay the cabman. Her soul was in her eyes while she watched Jenny +remove her plain felt hat, with its bit of blue scarf around the +crown—a piece of millinery which presented a deceptive appearance of +inexpensiveness—and pass the comb through the shining arch of her hair.</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry, mother dear, I couldn't come before, but there were some +important lectures I really couldn't afford to miss. I am specializing +in biology, you know."</p> + +<p>Her manner, calm, sweet, and gently condescending, was such as she might +have used to a child whom she loved and with whom she possessed an +infinite patience. One felt that while talking, she groped almost +unconsciously for the simplest and shortest words in which her meaning +might be conveyed. She did not lie down as Virginia had suggested, but +straightening her short skirt, seated herself in an upright chair by the +table and crossed her slender feet in their sensible, square-toed shoes. +While she gazed at her, Virginia remembered, with a smile, that Harry +had once said his sister was as flawless as a geometrical figure, and he +couldn't look at her without wanting to twist her nose out of shape. In +spite of her beauty, she was not attractive to men, whom she awed and +intimidated by a candid assumption of superiority. For Lucy's +conscienceless treatment of the male she had unmitigated contempt. Her +sister, indeed, had she not been her sister, would have appeared to her +as an object for frank condemnation—"one of those women who waste +themselves in foolish flirtations." As it was, loving Lucy, and being a +loyal soul, with very scientific ideas of her own responsibility for her +sister as well as for that abstract creature whom she classified as "the +working woman," she thought of Lucy tenderly as a "dear girl, but +simple." Her mother, of course, was, also, "simple"; but, then, what +could one expect of a woman whose only education had been at the +Dinwiddie Academy for Young Ladies? To Jenny, education had usurped the +place which the church had always occupied in the benighted mind of her +mother. All the evils of our civilization—and these evils shared with +the working woman the first right to her attention—she attributed to +the fact that the former generations of women had had either no +education at all, or worse even than that, had had the meretricious +brand of education which was supplied by an army of Miss Priscillas. For +Miss Priscilla herself, entirely apart from the Academy, which she +described frankly, to Virginia's horror, as "a menace," she entertained +a sincere devotion, and this ability to detach her judgments from her +affections made her appear almost miraculously wise to her mother, who +had been born a Pendleton.</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not tired. Is there anything I can help you about, mother?" she +asked, for she was a good child and very helpful—the only drawback to +her assistance being that when she helped she invariably commanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, darling, I'll be through presently—just as soon as I get this +trunk packed. Lucy's things are lovely. I wish you had come in time to +see them. Miss Willy and I spent all yesterday running blue ribbons in +her underclothes, and though we began before breakfast, we had to sit up +until twelve o'clock so as to get through in time to begin on the trunks +this morning."</p> + +<p>Her eyes shone as she spoke, and she would have enjoyed describing all +Lucy's clothes, for she loved pretty things, though she never bought +them for herself, finding it impossible to break the habit of more than +twenty years of economy; but Jenny, who was proud of her sincerity, +looked so plainly bored that she checked her flowing descriptions.</p> + +<p>"I hope you brought something beautiful to wear to-morrow, Jenny?" she +ventured timidly, after a silence.</p> + +<p>"Of course I had to get a new dress, as I'm to be maid of honour, but it +seemed so extravagant, for I had two perfectly good white chiffons +already."</p> + +<p>"But it would have hurt Lucy, dear, if you hadn't worn something new. +She even wanted me to order my dress from New York, but I was so afraid +of wounding poor little Miss Willy—she has made my clothes ever since I +could remember—that I persuaded the child to let her make it. Of +course, it won't be stylish, but nobody will look at me anyway."</p> + +<p>"I hope it is coloured, mother. You wear black too much. The +psychological effect is not good for you."</p> + +<p>With her knees on the floor and her back bent over the trunk into which +she was packing a dozen pairs of slippers wrapped in tissue paper, +Virginia turned her head and stared in bewilderment at her daughter, +whose classic profile showed like marble flushed with rose in the +lamplight.</p> + +<p>"But at my time of life, dear? Why, I'm in my forty-sixth year."</p> + +<p>"But forty-six is still young, mother. That was one of the greatest +mistakes women used to make—to imagine that they must be old as soon as +men ceased to make love to them. It was all due to the idea that men +admired only schoolgirls and that as soon as a woman stopped being +admired she had stopped living."</p> + +<p>"But they didn't stop living really. They merely stopped fixing up."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course. They spent the rest of their lives in the storeroom or +the kitchen slaving for the comfort of the men they could no longer +amuse."</p> + +<p>This so aptly described Virginia's own situation that her interest in +Lucy's trousseau faded abruptly, while a wave of heartsickness swept +over her. It was as if the sharp and searching light of truth had fallen +suddenly upon all the frail and lovely pretences by which she had helped +herself to live and to be happy. A terror of the preternatural insight +of youth made her turn her face away from Jenny's too critical eyes.</p> + +<p>"But what else could they do, Jenny? They believed that it was right to +step back and make room for the young," she said, with a pitiful attempt +at justification of her exploded virtues.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>mother</i>!" exclaimed Jenny still sweetly, "whoever heard of a man +of that generation stepping back to make room for anybody?"</p> + +<p>"But men are different, darling. One doesn't expect them to give up like +women."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother!"—this time the sweetness had borrowed an edge of irony. It +was Science annihilating tradition, and the tougher the tradition, the +keener the blade which Science must apply.</p> + +<p>"I can't help it, dear, it is the way I was taught. My darling mother +felt like that"—a tear glistened in her eye—"and I am too old to +change my way of thinking."</p> + +<p>"Mother, mother, you silly pet!" Rising from her chair, Jenny put her +arms about her and kissed her tenderly. "You can't help being +old-fashioned, I know. You are not to blame for your ideas; it is Miss +Priscilla." Her voice grew stern with condemnation as she uttered the +name. "But don't you think you might try to see things a little more +rationally? It is for your own sake I am speaking. Why should you make +yourself old by dressing as if you were eighty simply because your +grandmother did so?"</p> + +<p>She was right, of course, for the trouble with Science is not its +blindness, but its serene infallibility. As useless to reject her +conclusions as to deny the laws and the principles of mathematics! After +all manner of denials, the laws and the principles would still remain. +Virginia, who had never argued in her life, did not attempt to do so +with her own daughter. She merely accepted the truth of Jenny's +inflexible logic; and with that obstinate softness which is an +inalienable quality of tradition, went on believing precisely what she +had believed before. To have made them think alike, it would have been +necessary to melt up the two generations and pour them into one—a task +as hopeless as an endeavour to blend the Dinwiddie Young Ladies' Academy +with a modern college. Jenny's clearly formulated and rather loud +morality was unintelligible to her mother, whose conception of duty was +that she should efface herself and make things comfortable for those +around her. The obligation to think independently was as +incomprehensible to Virginia as was that wider altruism which had swept +Jenny's sympathies beyond the home into the factory and beyond the +factory into the world where there were "evils." Her own instinct had +always been the true instinct of the lady to avoid "evil," not to seek +it, to avoid it, honestly if possible, and, if not honestly—well, to +avoid it at any cost. The love of truth for truth's sake was one of the +last of the virtues to descend from philosophy into a working theory of +life, and it had been practically unknown to Virginia until Jenny had +returned, at the end of her first year, from college. To be sure, Oliver +used to talk like that long ago, but it was so long ago that she had +almost forgotten it.</p> + +<p>"You are very clever, dear—much too clever for me," she said, rising +from her knees. "I wonder if Lucy has anything else she wants to go into +this trunk? It might be packed a little tighter."</p> + +<p>In response to her call, the door opened and Lucy entered breathlessly, +with her hair, which she had washed and not entirely dried, hanging over +her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"What is it, mother? Oh, Jenny, you have come! I'm so glad!"</p> + +<p>The sisters kissed delightedly. In spite of their lack of sympathy, they +were very fond of each other.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to put anything else in this trunk before I lock it, Lucy?"</p> + +<p>"Could you find room for my blue flannel bath robe? I'll want it on top +where I can get it out without unpacking, and, oh, mother, won't you +please put my alcohol stove and curling irons in my travelling bag?"</p> + +<p>She was prettily excited, and during the last few days she had shown an +almost child-like confidence in her mother's opinions about the trivial +matters of packing.</p> + +<p>"Mother, I don't want to come down yet—my hair isn't dry. Will you send +supper up to me? I'll dress about nine o'clock when Bertie and the girls +are coming."</p> + +<p>"Of course I will, darling. I'll go straight downstairs and fix your +tray. Is there anything you can think of that you would like?"</p> + +<p>At this Jenny broke into a laugh: "Why, anybody would think she was +dying instead of being married!"</p> + +<p>"Just a cup of coffee. I really couldn't swallow a morsel," replied +Lucy, whose single manifestation of sentiment had been a complete loss +of appetite. "You needn't laugh, Jenny. Wait until you are going to be +married, and see if you are able to eat anything."</p> + +<p>Putting the tray back into the trunk, Virginia closed it almost +caressingly. For twenty-four hours, as Lucy's wedding began to draw +nearer, she had been haunted by the feeling that she was losing her +favourite child, and though her reason told her that this was not +true—that Lucy was, in fact, less fond of her than either of the +others, and far less dear to her heart than Harry—still she was unable +wholly to banish the impression. It seemed only yesterday that she had +sat waiting, month after month, week after week, day after day, for her +to be born. Only yesterday that she had held her, a baby, in her arms, +and now she was packing the clothes which that baby would carry away +when she went off with her husband! Something of the hushed expectancy +of those long months of approaching motherhood enveloped her again with +the thought of Lucy's wedding to-morrow. After all, Lucy was her first +child—neither of the others had been awaited with quite the same +brooding ecstasy, with quite the same radiant dreams. To neither of the +others had she given herself at the hour of birth with such an +abandonment of her soul and body. And she had been a good child—all day +with a lump in her throat Virginia had assured herself again and again +that no child could have been better. A hundred little charming ways, a +hundred bright delicious tricks of expression and of voice, followed her +from room to room, as though Lucy had indeed, as Jenny said, been dying +upstairs instead of waiting to be married. And all the time, while she +arranged the supper tray and attended to the making of the coffee so +that it might be perfect, she was thinking, "Mother must have felt like +this when I was married and I never knew it, I never suspected." She saw +her little bedroom at the rectory, with her own figure, in the floating +tulle veil, reflected in the mirror, and her mother's face, that face +from which all remembrance of self seemed to have vanished, looking at +her over the bride's bouquet of white roses. If only she had told her +then that she understood! If only she had ever really understood until +to-night! If only it was not too late to turn back now and gather that +plaintive figure, waiting with the white roses, into her arms!</p> + +<p>The next morning she was up at daybreak, finishing the packing, +preparing the house before leaving for church, making the final +arrangements for the wedding breakfast. When at last Lucy, with reddened +eyes and tightly curled hair, appeared in the pantry while her mother +was helping to wash a belated supply of glass and china which had +arrived from the caterer's, Virginia felt that the parting was worse +even than Harry's going to college.</p> + +<p>"Mother, I've the greatest mind on earth not to do it."</p> + +<p>"My pet, what is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"I can't imagine why I ever thought I wanted to marry! I don't want to +do it a bit. I don't want to go away and leave you and father. And, +mother, I really don't believe that I love him!"</p> + +<p>It was so like Lucy after months of cool determination, of perfect +assurance, of stubborn resistance to opposition—it was so exactly like +her to break down when it was too late and to begin to question whether +she really wanted her own way after she had won it. And it was so like +Virginia that at the first sign of weakness in her child she should grow +suddenly strong and efficient.</p> + +<p>"My darling, it is only nervousness. You will be better as soon as you +begin to dress. Come upstairs and I will fix you a dose of aromatic +ammonia."</p> + +<p>"Do you really think it's too late to stop it?"</p> + +<p>"Not if you feel you are going to regret it, but you must be very sure +that it isn't merely a mood, Lucy."</p> + +<p>At the first sign that the step was not yet irrevocable, the girl's +courage returned.</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose I'll have to get married now," she said, "but if I +don't like it, I'm not going to live with him."</p> + +<p>"Not live with your husband! Why, Lucy!"</p> + +<p>"It's perfectly absurd to think I'll have to live with a man if I find I +don't love him. Ask Jenny if it isn't."</p> + +<p>Ask Jenny! This was her incredible suggestion! This was her reverence +for authority, for duty, for the thundering admonitions of Saint Paul! +As far as Saint Paul was concerned, he might as well have been the +ponderous anecdotal minister in the brick Presbyterian church around the +corner.</p> + +<p>"But Jenny is so—so——" murmured Virginia, and stopped because words +failed her. Had Jenny been born in any family except her own, she would +probably have described her as "dangerous," but it was impossible to +brand her daughter with so opprobrious an epithet. The word, owing to +the metaphorical yet specific definition of it which she had derived +from the rector's sermons in her childhood, invariably suggested fire +and brimstone to her imagination.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to do it unless I want to," returned Lucy +positively. "And you may look as shocked as you please, mother, but you +needn't pretend that you wouldn't be glad to see me."</p> + +<p>The difference between the two girls, as far as Virginia could see, was +that Jenny really believed her awful ideas were right, and Lucy merely +believed that they might help her the more effectively to follow her +wishes.</p> + +<p>"Of course I'd be glad to see you, but, Lucy, it pains me so to hear you +speak flippantly of your marriage. It is the most sacred day in your +life, and you treat it as lightly as if it were a picnic."</p> + +<p>"Do I? Poor little day, have I hurt its feelings?"</p> + +<p>They were on the way upstairs, following a procession of wedding +presents which had just arrived by express, and glancing round over the +heads of the servants, she made a laughing face at her mother. Clearly, +she was incorrigible, and her passing fear, which had evidently been +entirely due, as Virginia had suspected, to one of her rare attacks of +nervousness, had entirely disappeared. In her normal mood she was +perfectly capable of taking care of herself not only within the estate +of matrimony, but in an African jungle. She would in either situation +inevitably get what she wanted, and in order to get it she would shrink +as little from sacrificing a husband as from enslaving a savage.</p> + +<p>And yet a few hours later, when she stood beneath her bridal veil and +gazed at her image in the cheval-glass in her bedroom, she presented so +enchanting a picture of virgin innocence, that Virginia could hardly +believe that she harboured in her breast, under the sacred white satin +of her bride's gown, the heretical opinions which she had uttered +downstairs in the pantry. Her charming face had attuned its expression +so perfectly to the dramatic values of the moment that she appeared, in +the words of that sentimental soul, Miss Priscilla, to be listening +already to "The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden."</p> + +<p>"Doesn't mother look sweet?" she asked, catching sight of Virginia's +face in the mirror. "I love her in pale grey—only she ought to have +some flowers."</p> + +<p>"I told father to order her a bunch of violets," answered Jenny. "I +wonder if he remembered to do it."</p> + +<p>A look of pleasure, the first she had worn for days, flitted over +Virginia's face. She had all her mother's touching appreciation of +insignificant favours, and, perhaps because her pleasure was so +excessive, people shrank a little from arousing it. Like most persons +who thought perpetually of others, she was not accustomed to being +thought of very often in return.</p> + +<p>But Oliver had remembered, and when the purple box was brought up to +her, and Jenny pinned the violets on her dress, a blush mantled her thin +cheeks, and she looked for a moment almost as young and lovely as her +daughters. Then Oliver came after Lucy, and gathering up her train, the +girl smiled at her mother and hurried out of the room. At the last +minute her qualms appeared suddenly to depart. Whatever happened in the +months and years that came afterwards, she had determined to get all she +could out of the excitement of the wedding. She had cast no loving +glance about the little room, where she was leaving her girlhood behind +her; but Virginia, lingering for an instant after the others had gone +out, looked with tear-dimmed eyes at the small white bed and the white +furniture decorated in roses. She suffered in that minute with an +intensity and a depth of feeling that Lucy had never known in the +past—that she would never know in the future—for it is given to +mothers to live not once, but twice or thrice or as many times as they +have children to live for. And the sunlight, entering through the high +window, fell very gently on the anxious love in her eyes, on the fading +white rose-leaves of her cheeks, and on the silvery mist of curls +framing her forehead.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>That afternoon, when Lucy had motored off with her husband, and Oliver +and Jenny had gone riding together, Virginia went back again into the +room and put away the scattered clothes the girl had left. On the bed +was the little pillow, with the embroidered slip over a cover of pink +satin Virginia had made, and taking it from the bed she put it into one +of the boxes which had been left open until the last minute. As she did +so, it was as if a miraculous wand was waved over her memory, softening +Lucy's image until she appeared to her in all the angelic sweetness and +charm of her childhood. Her egoism, her selfishness, her lack of +consideration and of reverence, all those faults of an excessive +individualism embodied in the girl, vanished so completely that she even +forgot they had ever existed. Once again she felt in her breast the +burning rapture of young motherhood; once again she gathered her +first-born child—hers alone, hers out of the whole world of +children!—into her arms. A choking sensation rose in her throat, and, +dropping a handful of photographs which she had started to put away, she +hurried from the room, as though she were leaving something dead there +that she loved.</p> + +<p>Downstairs, the caterers and the florists were in possession, carting +away glass and china, dismantling decorations, and ejecting palms as +summarily as though they had come uninvited. The servants were busy +sweeping floors and moving chairs and sofas back into place, and in the +kitchen the negro cook was placidly beginning preparations for supper. +For a time Virginia occupied herself returning the ornaments to the +drawing-room mantelpiece, and the illustrated gift books to the centre +table. When this was over she looked about her with the nervous +expectancy of a person who has been overwhelmed for months by a +multitude of exigent cares, and realized, with a start, that there was +nothing for her to do. To-morrow Oliver and Jenny were both going +away—he to New York to attend the rehearsals of his play, and she back +to finish her year at college—and Virginia would be left in an empty +house with all her pressing practical duties suddenly ended.</p> + +<p>"You will have such a nice long rest now, mother dear," Lucy had said as +she clung to her before stepping into the car, and Virginia had agreed +unthinkingly that a rest for a little while would, perhaps, do her good. +Now, turning away from the centre table, where she had laid the last +useless volume in place, she walked slowly through the library to the +dining-room, and then from the dining-room into the pantry. Here, the +dishes were all washed, the cup-towels were drying in an orderly row +beside the sink, and the two maids and the butler were "drawing a +breath" in wooden chairs by the stove.</p> + +<p>"There was enough chicken salad and ice cream left for supper, wasn't +there, Wotan?"</p> + +<p>On being assured that there was enough for a week, she gave a few +directions about the distribution of the other food left from the +wedding breakfast, and then went out again and into Oliver's study. A +feeling of restlessness more acute than any she had ever known kept her +walking back and forth between the door and the window, which looked out +into a square of garden, where a few lonely sticks protruded out of the +discoloured snow on the grass. She had lived for others so long that +she had at last lost the power of living for herself.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to do to-day; there would be nothing to do to-morrow; +and, unless Jenny came home to be married, there would be nothing to do +next year or the years after that. While Oliver was in Dinwiddie, she +had, of course, the pleasure of supplying his food and of watching him +eat it; but beyond that, even when he sat in the room with her, there +was little conversation between them. She herself loved to talk, for she +had inherited her mother's ability to keep up a honeyed flow of sound +about little things; but she had learned long ago that there were times +when her voice, rippling on about nothing, only irritated him, and with +her feminine genius for adaptability, she had made a habit of silence. +He never spoke to her of his work except in terms of flippant ridicule +which pained her, and the supreme topic of the children's school reports +had been absent now for many years. Companionship of a mental sort had +always been lacking between them, yet so reverently did she still accept +the traditional fictions of marriage, that she would have been +astonished at the suggestion that a love which could survive the shocks +of tragedy might at last fade away from a gradual decline of interest. +Nothing had happened. There had been no scenes, no quarrels, no +jealousies, no recriminations—merely a gentle, yet deliberate, +withdrawal of personalities. He had worshipped her at twenty-two, and +now, at forty-seven, there were moments when she realized with a stab of +pain that she bored him; but beyond this she had felt no cause for +unhappiness, and until the last year no cause even for apprehension. +The libertine had always been absent from his nature; and during all the +years of their marriage he had, as Susan put it, hardly so much as +looked at another woman. Whatever came between them, it would not be +physical passion, but a far subtler thing.</p> + +<p>Going to his desk, she took up a photograph of Margaret Oldcastle and +studied it for a moment—not harshly, not critically, but with a pensive +questioning. It was hardly a beautiful face, but in its glowing +intellectuality, it was the face of a woman of power. So different was +the look of noble reticence it wore from that of the conventional type +of American actress, that while she gazed at it Virginia found herself +asking vaguely, "I wonder why she went on the stage?" The woman was not +a pretty doll—she was not a voluptuous enchantress—the coquetry of the +one and the flesh of the other were missing. If the stories Virginia had +heard of her were to be trusted, she had come out of poverty not by the +easy steps of managers' favours, but by hard work, self-denial, and +discipline. Though Virginia had never seen her, she felt instinctively +that she was an "honest woman."</p> + +<p>And yet why did this face, which had in it none of the charms of the +seductress, disturb her so profoundly? She was too little given to +introspection, too accustomed to think always in concrete images, to +answer the question; but her intuition, rather than her thought, made +her understand dimly that the things she feared in Margaret Oldcastle +were the qualities in which she herself was lacking. Whatever power the +woman possessed drew its strength and its completeness from a source +which Virginia had never recognized as being necessary or even +beneficent to love. After all, was it not petty and unjust in her to be +hurt by Oliver's friendship for a woman who had been of such tremendous +assistance to him in his work? Had he not said a hundred times that she +had succeeded in making his plays popular without making them at the +same time ridiculous?</p> + +<p>Putting the photograph back in its place on the desk, she turned away +and began walking again over the strip of carpet which led from the door +to the window. In the yard the dried stalks of last year's flowers +looked so lonely in the midst of the dirty snow, that she felt a sudden +impulse of sympathy. Poor things, they had outlived their usefulness. +The phrase occurred to her again, and she remembered how often her +father had applied it to women whose children had all married and left +them.</p> + +<p>"Poor Matilda! She is restless and dissatisfied, and she doesn't +understand that it is because she has outlived her usefulness." At that +time "poor Matilda" had seemed to her an old woman—but, perhaps, she +wasn't in reality much over forty. How soon women grew old a generation +ago! Why, she felt as young to-day as she did the morning on which she +was married. She felt as young, and yet her hair was greying, her face +was wrinkled, and, like poor Matilda, she had outlived her usefulness. +While she stood there that peculiar sensation which comes to women when +their youth is over—the sensation of a changed world—took possession +of her. She felt that life was slipping, slipping past her, and that she +was left behind like a bit of the sentiment or the law of the last +century. Though she still felt young, it was not with the youth of +to-day. She had no part in the present; her ideals were the ideals of +another period; even her children had outgrown her. She saw now with a +piercing flash of insight, so penetrating, so impersonal, that it seemed +the result of some outside vision rather than of her own uncritical +judgment, that life had treated her as it treats those who give, but +never demand. She had made the way too easy for others; she had never +exacted of them; she had never held them to the austerity of their +ideals. Then the illumination faded as if it had been the malicious act +of a demon, and she reproached herself for allowing such thoughts to +enter her mind for an instant.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what can be the matter with me. I never used to brood. I +wonder if it can be my time of life that makes me so nervous and +apprehensive?"</p> + +<p>For so long she had waited for some definite point of time, for the +children to begin school, for them to finish school, for Harry to go off +to college, for Lucy to be married, that now, when she realized that +there was nothing to expect, nothing to prepare for, her whole nature, +with all the multitudinous fibres which had held her being together, +seemed suddenly to relax from its tension. To be sure, Oliver would come +home for a time at least after his rehearsals were over, Jenny would +return for as much of the holidays as her philanthropic duties +permitted, and, if she waited long enough, Harry would occasionally pay +her a visit. They all loved her; not one of them, she told herself, +would intentionally neglect her—but not one of them needed her! She had +outlived her usefulness!</p> + +<p>The next afternoon, when Oliver and Jenny had driven off to the station, +she put on her street clothes, and went out to call on Susan, who lived +in a new house in High Street. Mrs. Treadwell, having worn out +everybody's patience except Susan's, had died some five years before, +and the incorrigible sentimentalists of Dinwiddie—there were many of +them—expressed publicly the belief that Cyrus had never been "the same +man since his wife's death." As a matter of fact, Cyrus, who had retired +from active finance in the same year that he lost Belinda, had missed +his business considerably more than he had missed his wife, whose loss, +if he had ever analyzed it, would have resolved itself into the absence +of somebody to bully. But on the very day that he had retired from work +he had begun to age rapidly, and now, standing on Susan's porch, he +suggested to Virginia an orange from which every drop of juice had been +squeezed. Of late he had taken to giving rather lavishly to churches, +with a vague, superstitious hope, perhaps, that he might buy the +salvation he had been too busy to work out in other ways. And so acute +had become his terror of death, Virginia had heard, that after every +attack of dyspepsia he dispatched a check to the missionary society of +the church he attended.</p> + +<p>Upstairs, in her bedroom, Susan, who had just come in, was "taking off +her things," and she greeted Virginia with a delight which seemed, in +some strange way, to be both a balm and a stimulant. One thing, at +least, in her life had not altered with middle-age, and that was +Susan's devotion. She was a large, young, superbly vigorous woman of +forty-five, with an abundant energy which overflowed outside of her +household in a dozen different directions. She loved John Henry, but she +did not love him to the exclusion of other people; she loved her +children, but they did not absorb her. There was hardly a charity or a +public movement in Dinwiddie in which she did not take a practical +interest. She had kept her mind as alert as her body, and the number of +books she read had always shocked Virginia a little, who felt that time +for reading was obliged to be time subtracted from more important +duties.</p> + +<p>"I've thought of you so much, Jinny, darling. You mustn't let yourself +begin to feel lonely."</p> + +<p>Virginia shook her head with a smile, but in spite of her effort not to +appear depressed, there was a touching wistfulness in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Of course I miss the dear children, but I'm so thankful that they are +happy."</p> + +<p>"I wish Jenny would come back home to stay with you."</p> + +<p>"She would if I asked her, Susan"—her face showed her pleasure at the +thought of Jenny's willingness for the sacrifice—"but I wouldn't have +her do it for the world. She's so different from Lucy, who was quite +happy as long as she could have attention and go to parties. Of course, +it seems to me more natural for a girl to be like that, especially a +Southern girl, but Jenny says that she is obliged to have something to +think about besides men. I wonder what my dear father would have thought +of her?"</p> + +<p>"She'll take you by surprise some day, and marry as suddenly as Lucy +did."</p> + +<p>"That's what Oliver says, but Miss Priscilla is sure she'll be an old +maid, because she's so fastidious. It's funny how much more women exact +of men now than they used to. Don't you remember what a heroine the +women of Miss Priscilla's generation thought Mrs. Tom Peachey was +because she supported Major Peachey by taking boarders while he just +drank himself into his grave? Well, somebody mentioned that to Jenny the +other day and she said it was 'disgusting.'"</p> + +<p>"I always thought so," said Susan, "but, Jinny, I'm more interested in +you than I am in Mrs. Peachey. What are you going to do with yourself?" +Almost unconsciously both had eliminated Oliver as the dominant figure +in Virginia's future.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, dear. I wish my children were as young as yours. Bessie +is just six, isn't she?"</p> + +<p>"You ought to have had a dozen children. Didn't you realize that Nature +intended you to do it?"</p> + +<p>"I know"—a pensive look came into her face—"but we were very poor, and +after the three came so quickly, and the little one that I lost, Oliver +felt that we could not afford to have any others. I've so often thought +that I was never really happy except when I had a baby in my arms."</p> + +<p>"It's a devilish trick of Nature's that she makes them stop coming at +the very time that you want them most. Forty-five is not much more than +half a lifetime, Jinny."</p> + +<p>"And when one has lived in their children as I have done, of course, one +feels a little bit lost without them. Then, if Oliver were not obliged +to be away so much——"</p> + +<p>Her voice broke, and Susan, leaning forward impulsively, put her arms +about her.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, darling, I never saw you depressed before."</p> + +<p>"I was never like this until to-day. It must be the weather—or my age. +I suppose I shall get over it."</p> + +<p>"Of course you will get over it—but you mustn't let it grow on you. You +mustn't be too much alone."</p> + +<p>"How can I help it? Oliver will be away almost all winter, and when he +is at home, he is so absorbed in his work that he sometimes doesn't +speak for days. Of course, it isn't his fault," she added hastily; "it +is the only way he can write."</p> + +<p>"And you're alone now for the first time for twenty-five years. That's +why you feel it so keenly."</p> + +<p>The look of unselfish goodness which made Virginia's face almost +beautiful at times passed like an edge of light across her eyes and +mouth. "Don't worry about me, Susan. I'll get used to it."</p> + +<p>"You will, dear, but it isn't right. I wish Harry could have stayed in +Dinwiddie. He would have been such a comfort to you."</p> + +<p>"But I wouldn't have had him do it! The boy is so brilliant. He has a +future before him. Already he has had several articles accepted by the +magazines"—her face shone—"and I hope that he will some day be as +successful as Oliver has been without going through the long struggle."</p> + +<p>"Can't you go to England to see him in the summer?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to do." It was touching to see how her animation and +interest revived when she began talking of Harry. "And when Oliver's +play is put on in February, he has promised to take me to New York for +the first night."</p> + +<p>"I am glad of that. But, meanwhile, you mustn't sit at home and think +too much, Jinny. It isn't good for you. Can't you find an interest? If +you would only take up reading again. You used to be fond of it."</p> + +<p>"I know, but one gets out of the habit. I gave it up after the children +came, when there was so much that was really important for me to do, and +now, to save my life, I can't get interested in a book except for an +hour or two at a time. I'm always stopping to ask myself if I'm not +neglecting something, just as I used to do while the children were +little. You see, I'm not a clever woman like you. I was made just to be +a wife and mother, and nothing else."</p> + +<p>"But you're obliged to be something else now. You are only forty-five. +There may be forty more years ahead of you, and you can't go on being a +mother every minute of your time. Even if you have grandchildren, they +won't be like your own. You can't slave over them in the way you used to +do over yours. The girls' husbands and Harry's wife would have something +to say about it."</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Susan, I try not to be little and jealous, but when you +said 'Harry's wife' so carelessly just now it brought a lump to my +throat."</p> + +<p>"He will marry some day, darling, and you might as well accustom +yourself to the thought."</p> + +<p>"I know, and I want him to do it. I shall love his wife as if she were +my daughter—but—but it seems to me at this minute as if I could not +bear it!"</p> + +<p>The grey twilight, entering through the high window above her head, +enveloped her as tenderly as if it were the atmosphere of those romantic +early eighties to which she belonged. The small aristocratic head, with +its quaint old-fashioned clusters of curls on the temples, the delicate +stooping figure, a little bent in the chest, the whole pensive, +exquisite personality which expressed itself in that manner of gentle +self-effacement—these things spoke to Susan's heart, through the +softness of the dusk, with all the touching appeal of the past. It was +as if the inscrutable enigma of time waited there, shrouded in mystery, +for a solution which would make clear the meaning of the blighted +promises of life. She saw herself and Virginia on that May afternoon +twenty-five years ago, standing with eager hearts on the edge of the +future; she saw them waiting, with breathless, expectant lips, for the +miracle that must happen! Well, the miracle had happened, and like the +majority of miracles, it had descended in the act of occurrence from the +zone of the miraculous into the region of the ordinary. This was life, +and looking back from middle-age, she felt no impulse to regret the +rapturous certainties of youth. Experience, though it contained an +inevitable pang, was better than ignorance. It was good to have been +young; it was good to be middle-aged; and it would be good to be old. +For she was one of those who loved life, not because it was beautiful, +but because it was life.</p> + +<p>"I must go," said Virginia, rising in the aimless way of a person who is +not moving toward a definite object.</p> + +<p>"Stay and have supper with us, Jinny. John Henry will take you home +afterward."</p> + +<p>"I can't, dear. The—the servants are expecting me."</p> + +<p>She kissed Susan on the cheek, and taking up her little black silk bag, +turned to the door.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, if I come by for you to-morrow, will you go with me to a board +meeting or two? Couldn't you possibly take an interest in some charity?" +It was a desperate move, but at the moment she could think of no other +to make.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am interested, Susan—but I have no executive ability, you know. +And—and, then, poor dear father used to have such a horror of women who +were always running about to meetings. He would never even let mother do +church work—except, of course, when there was a cake sale or a fair of +the missionary society."</p> + +<p>Susan's last effort had failed, and as she followed Virginia downstairs +and to the front door, a look almost of gloom settled on her large +cheerful face.</p> + +<p>"Try to pay some calls every afternoon, won't you, dear?" she said at +the door. "I'll come in to see you in the morning when we get back from +marketing."</p> + +<p>Then she added softly, "If you are ever lonesome and want me, telephone +for me day or night. There's nothing on earth I wouldn't do for you, +Jinny."</p> + +<p>Virginia's eyes were wonderful with love and gratitude as they shone on +her through the twilight. "We've been friends since we were two years +old, Susan, and, do you know, there is nobody in the world that I would +ask anything of as soon as I would of you."</p> + +<p>A look of unutterable understanding and fidelity passed between them; +then turning silently away, Virginia descended the steps and walked +quickly along the path to the pavement, while Susan, after watching her +through the gate, shut the door and went upstairs to the nursery.</p> + +<p>The town lay under a thin crust of snow, which was beginning to melt in +the chill rain that was falling. Raising her umbrella, Virginia picked +her way carefully over the icy streets, and Miss Priscilla, who was +looking in search of diversion out of her front window, had a sudden +palpitation of the heart because it seemed to her for a minute that +"Lucy Pendleton had returned to life." So one generation of gentle +shades after another had moved in the winter's dusk under the frosted +lamps of High Street.</p> + +<p>Through the windows of her house a cheerful light streamed out upon the +piles of melting snow in the yard, and at the door one of her coloured +servants met her with the news that a telegram was on the hall table. +Before opening it she knew what it was, for Oliver's correspondence with +her had taken this form for more than a year.</p> + +<p>"Arrived safely. Very busy. Call on John Henry if you need anything."</p> + +<p>She put it down and turned hastily to letters from Harry and Jenny. The +first was only a scrawl in pencil, written with that boyish reticence +which always overcame Harry when he wrote to one of his family; but +beneath the stilted phrases she could read his homesickness and his +longing for her in every line.</p> + +<p>"Poor boy, I am afraid he is lonely," she thought, and caressed the +paper as tenderly as if it had been the letter of a lover. He had +written to her every Sunday since he had first gone off to college and +several times she knew that he had denied himself a pleasure in order to +send her her weekly letter. Already, she had begun to trust to his +"sense of responsibility" as she had never, even in the early days of +her marriage, trusted to Oliver's.</p> + +<p>Opening the large square envelope which was addressed in Jenny's +impressive handwriting, she found four closely written pages +entertainingly descriptive of the girl's journey back to college and of +the urgent interests she found awaiting her there. In this letter there +was none of the weakness of implied sentiment, there was none of the +plaintive homesickness she had read in Harry's. Jenny wrote regularly +and affectionately because she felt that it was her duty to do so, for, +unlike Lucy, who was heard from only when she wanted something, she was +a girl who obeyed sedulously the promptings of her conscience. But if +she loved her mother, she was plainly not interested in her. Her +attitude towards life was masculine rather than feminine; and Virginia +had long since learned that in the case of a man it is easier to inspire +love than it is to hold his attention. Harry was different, of +course—there was a feminine, or at least a poetic, streak in him which +endowed him with that natural talent for the affections which is +supposed to be womanly—but Jenny resembled Oliver in her preference for +the active rather than for the passive side of experience.</p> + +<p>Going upstairs, Virginia took off her hat and coat, and, without +changing her dress, came down again with a piece of fancy-work in her +hands. Placing herself under the lamp in Oliver's study, she took a few +careful stitches in the centrepiece she was embroidering for Lucy, and +then letting her needle fall, sat gazing into the wood-fire which +crackled softly on the brass andirons. From the lamp on the desk an +amber glow fell on the dull red of the leather-covered furniture, on the +pale brown of the walls, on the rich blending of oriental colours in the +rug at her feet. It was the most comfortable room in the house, and for +that reason she had fallen into the habit of using it when Oliver was +away. Then, too, his personality had impressed itself so ineffaceably +upon the surroundings which he had chosen and amid which he had worked, +that she felt nearer to him while she sat in his favourite chair, +breathing the scent of the wood-fire he loved.</p> + +<p>She thought of the "dear children," of how pleased she was that they +were all well and happy, of how "sweet" Harry and Jenny were about +writing to her; and so unaccustomed was she to thinking in the first +person, that not until she took up her embroidery again and applied her +needle to the centre of a flower, did she find herself saying aloud: "I +must send for Miss Willy to-morrow and engage her for next week. That +will be something to do."</p> + +<p>And looking ahead she saw days of endless stitching and basting, of +endless gossip accompanied by the cheerful whirring of the little +dressmaker's machine. "I used to pity Miss Willy because she was obliged +to work," she thought with surprise, "but now I almost envy her. I +wonder if it is work that keeps her so young and brisk? She's never had +anything in her life, and yet she is so much happier than some people +who have had everything."</p> + +<p>The maid came to announce supper, and, gathering up her fancy-work, +Virginia laid it beside the lamp on the end of Oliver's writing table. +As she did so, she saw that her photograph, taken the year of her +marriage, which he usually carried on his journeys, had been laid aside +and overlooked when he was packing his papers. It was the first time he +had forgotten it, and a little chill struck her heart as she put it back +in its place beside the bronze letter rack. Then the chill sharpened +suddenly until it became an icy blade in her breast, for she saw that +the picture of Margaret Oldcastle was gone from its frame.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV3" id="CHAPTER_IV3"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>LIFE'S CRUELTIES</h3> + + +<p>There was a hard snowstorm on the day Oliver returned to Dinwiddie, and +Virginia, who had watched from the window all the afternoon, saw him +crossing the street through a whirl of feathery flakes. The wind drove +violently against him, but he appeared almost unconscious of it, so +buoyant, so full of physical energy was his walk. Never had he looked +more desirable to her, never more lovable, than he did at that instant. +Something, either a trick of imagination or an illusion produced by the +flying whiteness of the storm, gave him back for a moment the glowing +eyes and the eager lips of his youth. Then, as she turned towards the +door, awaiting his step on the stairs, the mirror over the mantel showed +her her own face, with its fallen lines, its soft pallor, its look of +fading sweetness. She had laid her youth down on the altar of her love, +while he had used love, as he had used life, merely to feed the flame of +the unconquerable egoism which burned like genius within him.</p> + +<p>He came in, brushing a few flakes of snow from his sleeve, and it seemed +to her that the casual kindness of his kiss fell like ice on her cheek +as he greeted her. It was almost three months since he had seen her, for +he had been unable to come home for Christmas, but from his manner he +might have parted from her only yesterday. He was kind—he had never +been kinder—but she would have preferred that he should strike her.</p> + +<p>"Are you all right?" he asked gently, turning to warm his hands at the +fire. "Beastly cold, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I am all right, dear. The play is a great success, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>His face clouded. "As such things go. It's awful rot, but it's made a +hit—there's no doubt of that."</p> + +<p>"And the other one, 'The Home'—when is the first night of that?"</p> + +<p>"Next week. On Thursday. I must get back for it."</p> + +<p>"And I am to go with you, am I not? I have looked forward to it all +winter."</p> + +<p>At the sound of her anxious question, a contraction of pain, the look of +one who has been touched on the raw, crossed his face. Though she was +not penetrating enough to discern it, there were times when his pity for +her amounted almost to a passion, and at such moments he was conscious +of a blind anger against Life, as against some implacable personal +force, because it had robbed him of the hard and narrow morality on +which his ancestors leaned. The scourge of a creed which had kept even +Cyrus walking humbly in the straight and flinty road of Calvinism, +appeared to him in such rare instants as one of the spiritual luxuries +which a rationalistic age had destroyed; for it is not granted to man to +look into the heart of another, and so he was ignorant alike of the +sanctities and the passions of Cyrus's soul. What he felt was merely +that the breaking of the iron bonds of the old faith had weakened his +powers of resistance as inevitably as it had liberated his thought. The +sound of his own rebellion was in his ears, and filled with the noise of +it, he had not stopped to reflect that the rebellion of his ancestors +had seemed less loud only because it was inarticulate. Was it really +that his generation had lost the capacity for endurance, the spiritual +grace of self-denial, or was it simply that it had lost its reticence +and its secrecy with the passing of its inflexible dogmas?</p> + +<p>"Why, certainly you must go if you would care to," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps Jenny will come over from Bryn Mawr to join us. The dear child +was so disappointed that she couldn't come home for Christmas."</p> + +<p>"If I'd known in time that she wasn't coming, I'd have found a way of +getting down just for dinner with you. I hope you weren't alone, +Virginia."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Miss Priscilla came to spend the day with me. You know she used +to take dinner with us every Christmas at the rectory."</p> + +<p>A troubled look clouded his face. "Jenny ought to have been here," he +said, and asked suddenly, as if it were a relief to him to change the +subject: "Have you had news of Harry?"</p> + +<p>The light which the name of Harry always brought to her eyes shone there +now, enriching their faded beauty. "He writes to me every week. You know +he hasn't missed a single Sunday letter since he first went off to +school. He is wild about Oxford, but I think he gets a little homesick +sometimes, though of course he'd never say so."</p> + +<p>"He'll do well, that boy. The stuff is in him."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure he's a genius if there ever was one, Oliver. Only yesterday +Professor Trimble was telling me that Harry was far and away the most +brilliant pupil he had ever had."</p> + +<p>"Well, he's something to be proud of. And now what about Lucy? Is she +still satisfied with Craven?"</p> + +<p>"She never writes about anything else except about her house. Her +marriage seems to have turned out beautifully. You remember I wrote you +that she was perfectly delighted with her stepchildren, and she really +appears to be as happy as the day is long."</p> + +<p>"You never can tell. I thought she'd be back again before two months +were up."</p> + +<p>"I know. We all prophesied dreadful things—even Susan."</p> + +<p>"That reminds me—I came down on the train with John Henry, and he said +that Uncle Cyrus was breaking rapidly."</p> + +<p>"He has never been the same since his wife's death," replied Virginia, +who was a victim of this sentimental fallacy. "It's strange—isn't +it?—because we used to think they got on so badly."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it is really that? Well, is there any other news? Has +anything else happened?"</p> + +<p>With his back to the fire, he stood looking down on her with kindly, +questioning eyes. He had done his best; from the moment when he had +entered the room and met the touching brightness in her face, he had +struggled to be as natural, to be as affectionate even, as she desired. +At the moment, so softened, so self-reproachful was his mood, he would +willingly have cut off his arm for her could the sacrifice in any manner +have secured her happiness. But there were times when it seemed easier +to give his life for her than to live it with her; when to shed his +blood would have cost less than to make conversation. He yearned over +Virginia, but he could not talk to her. Some impregnable barrier of +personality separated them as if it were a wall. Already they belonged +to different generations; they spoke in the language of different +periods. At forty-seven, that second youth, the Indian summer of the +emotions, which lingers like autumnal sunshine in the lives of most men +and of a few women, was again enkindling his heart. And with this return +of youth, he felt the awakening of infinite possibilities of feeling, of +the ancient ineradicable belief that happiness lies in possession. Love, +which had used up her spirit and body in its service, had left him +untouched by its exactions. While she, having fulfilled her nature, was +content to live anew not in herself, but in her children, the force of +personal desire was sweeping over him again, with all the flame and +splendour of adolescence. The "something missing" waited there, just a +little beyond, as he had seen it waiting in that enchanted May when he +fell in love with Virginia. And between him and his vision of happiness +there interposed merely his undisciplined conscience, his variable, +though honest, desire to do the thing that was right. Duty, which had +controlled Virginia's every step, was as remote and aloof from his life +as was the creed of his fathers. Like his age, he was adrift among +disestablished beliefs, among floating wrecks of what had once been +rules of conduct by which men had lived. And the widening +responsibilities, the deepening consciousness of a force for good +greater than creed or rules, all the awakening moral strength which +would lend balance and power to his age, these things had been weakened +in his character by the indomitable egoism which had ordered his life. +There was nothing for him to fall back upon, nothing that he could +place above the restless surge of his will.</p> + +<p>Sitting there in the firelight, with her loving eyes following his +movements, she told him, bit by bit, all the latest gossip of Dinwiddie. +Susan's eldest girl had developed a beautiful voice and was beginning to +take lessons; poor Miss Priscilla had had a bad fall in Old Street while +she was on the way to market, and at first they feared she had broken +her hip, but it turned out that she was only dreadfully bruised; Major +Peachey had died very suddenly and she had felt obliged to go to his +funeral; Abby Goode had been home on a visit and everybody said she +didn't look a day over twenty-five, though she was every bit of +forty-four. Then, taking a little pile of samples from her work basket +which stood on the table, she showed him a piece of black brocaded +satin. "Miss Willy is making me a dress out of this to wear in New York +with you. I don't suppose you noticed whether or not they were wearing +brocade."</p> + +<p>No, he hadn't noticed, but the sample was very pretty, he thought. "Why +don't you buy a dress there, Virginia? It would save you so much +trouble."</p> + +<p>"Poor little Miss Willy has set her heart on making it, Oliver. And, +besides, I shan't have time if we go only the day before."</p> + +<p>A flush had come to her face; at the corners of her mouth a tender +little smile rippled; and her look of faded sweetness gave place for an +instant to the warmth and the animation of girlhood. But the excitement +of girlhood could not restore to her the freshness of youth. Her +pleasure was the pleasure of middle-age; the wistful expectancy in her +face was the expectancy of one whose interests are centred on little +things. That inviolable quality of self-sacrifice, the quality which +knit her soul to the enduring soul of her race, had enabled her to find +happiness in the simple act of renouncement. The quiet years had kept +undiminished the inordinate capacity for enjoyment, the exaggerated +appreciation of trivial favours, which had filled Mrs. Pendleton's life +with a flutter of thankfulness; and while Virginia smoothed the piece of +black brocade on her knee, she might have been the re-arisen pensive +spirit of her mother. Of the two, perhaps because she had ceased to wish +for anything for herself, she was happier than Oliver.</p> + +<p>All through dinner, while her soft anxious eyes dwelt on him over the +bowl of pink roses in the centre of the table, he tried hard to throw +himself into her narrow life, to talk only of things in which he felt +that she was interested. Slight as the effort was, he could see her +gratitude in her face, could hear it in the gentle silvery sound of her +voice. When he praised the dinner, she blushed like a girl; when he made +her describe the dress which Miss Willy was making, she grew as excited +as if she had been speaking of the sacred white satin she had worn as a +bride. So little was needed to make her happy—that was the pathos! She +was satisfied with the crumbs of life, and yet they were denied her. +Though she had been alone ever since Lucy's wedding, she accepted his +belated visit as thankfully as if it were a gratuitous gift. "It is so +good of you to come down, dear, when you are needed every minute in New +York," she murmured, with a caressing touch on his arm, and, looking at +her, he was reminded of Mrs. Pendleton's tremulous pleasure in the +sweets that came to her on little trays from her neighbours. Once she +had said eagerly, "It will be so nice to see Miss Oldcastle, Oliver," +and he had answered in a constrained tone which he tried to make light +and casual, "I am not sure that the part is going to suit her."</p> + +<p>Then he had changed the subject abruptly by rising from the table and +asking her to let him see her latest letter from Harry.</p> + +<p>The next morning he went out after breakfast to consult Cyrus about some +investments, while Virginia laid out the lengths of brocade on the bed +in the spare room, and sat down to wait for the arrival of the +dressmaker. Outside, the trees were still white from the storm, and the +wind, blowing through them, made a dry crackling sound as if it were +rattling thorns in a forest. Though it was intensely cold, the sunshine +fell in golden bars over the pavement and filled the town with a +dazzling brilliancy through which the little seamstress was seen +presently making her way. Alert, bird-like, consumed with her insatiable +interest in other people, she entered, after she had removed her bonnet +and wraps, and began to spread out her patterns. It was twenty-odd years +since she had made the white satin dress in which Virginia was married, +yet she looked hardly a day older than she had done when she knelt at +the girl's feet and envied her happiness while she pinned up the shining +train. Failing love, she had filled her life with an inextinguishable +curiosity; and this passion, being independent of the desires of others, +was proof alike against disillusionment and the destructive processes of +time.</p> + +<p>"So Mr. Treadwell has come home," she remarked, with a tentative +flourish of the scissors. "I declare he gets handsomer every day that +he lives. It suits him somehow to fill out, or it may be that I'm +partial to fat like my poor mother before me."</p> + +<p>"He does look well, but I'd hardly call him fat, would you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he's stouter than he used to be, anyway. Did he say when he was +going to take you back with him?"</p> + +<p>"Next Wednesday. We'll have to hurry to get this dress ready in time."</p> + +<p>"I'll start right in at it. Have you made up your mind whether you'll +have it princess or a separate waist and skirt?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a little too thin for a princess gown, don't you think? Hadn't I +better have it made like that black poplin which everybody thought +looked so well on me?"</p> + +<p>"But it ain't half so stylish as the princess. You just let me put a few +cambric ruffles inside the bust and you'll stand out a plenty. I was +reading in a fashion sheet only yesterday that they are trying to look +as flat as they can manage in Paris."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll try it," murmured Virginia uncertainly, for her standards of +dress were so vague that she was thankful to be able to rely on Miss +Willy's self-constituted authority.</p> + +<p>"You just leave it to me," was the dressmaker's reply, while she thrust +the point of the scissors into the gleaming brocade on the bed.</p> + +<p>The morning passed so quickly amid cutting, basting, and gossip, that it +came as a surprise to Virginia when she heard the front door open and +shut and Oliver's rapid step mounting the stairs. Meeting him in the +hall, she led the way into her bedroom, and asked with the caressing, +slightly conciliatory manner which expressed so perfectly her attitude +toward life:</p> + +<p>"Did you see Uncle Cyrus?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and he was nicer than I have ever known him to be. By the way, +Virginia, I've transferred enough property to you to bring you in a +separate income. This was really what I went down about."</p> + +<p>"But what is the matter, dear? Don't you feel well? Have you had any +worries that you haven't told me?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm all right, but it's better so in case something should happen."</p> + +<p>"But what could possibly happen? I never saw you look better. Miss Willy +was just saying so."</p> + +<p>He turned away, not impatiently, but as one who is seeking to hide an +emotion which has become too strong. Then without replying to her +question, he muttered something about "a number of letters to write +before dinner," and hurried out of the room and downstairs to his study.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if he has lost money," she thought, vaguely troubled, as she +instinctively straightened the brushes he had disarranged on the bureau. +"Poor Oliver! He seems to think about nothing but money now, and he used +to be so romantic."</p> + +<p>He used to be so romantic! She repeated this to Susan that evening when, +after Miss Willy's departure for the night, she took her friend into the +spare room to show her the first shapings of the princess gown.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that we used to call him an incurable Don Quixote?" she +asked. "And now he has become so different that at times it makes me +smile to think of him as he was when I first knew him. I suppose it's +better so, it's more normal. He used to be what Uncle Cyrus called +'flighty,' bent on reforming the world and on improving people, you +know, and now he doesn't seem to care whether outside things are good or +bad, just as long as his plays go well and he can give us all the money +we want."</p> + +<p>"It's natural, isn't it?" asked Susan. "One can't stay young forever, +you see."</p> + +<p>"And yet in some ways he doesn't appear to be a bit older. I like his +hair being grey, don't you? It makes his colour look even richer than +before."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Susan, "I like his hair and I like him. Only I wish he +didn't have to leave you by yourself so much of the time."</p> + +<p>"He is going to take me back with him on Wednesday. Miss Willy is making +this dress for me to wear. I want to look nice because, of course, +everybody will be noticing Oliver."</p> + +<p>"It's lovely, and I'm sure you'll look as sweet as the angel that you +are, Jinny," answered Susan, stooping to kiss her.</p> + +<p>By Tuesday night the dress was finished, and Virginia was stuffing the +sleeves with tissue paper before packing it into her trunk, when Oliver +came into the room and stood watching her in silence.</p> + +<p>"I do hope it won't get crumpled," she said anxiously as she spread a +towel over the tray. "Miss Willy is so proud of it, and I don't believe +I could have got anything prettier in New York."</p> + +<p>"Virginia," he said suddenly, "you've set your heart on going to-morrow, +haven't you?"</p> + +<p>Turning from the trunk, she looked up at him with a tender, inquiring +smile. Above her head the electric light, with which Oliver and the +girls had insisted on replacing the gas-jets that she preferred, cast a +hard glitter over the hollowed lines of her face and over the thinning +curls which she had striven to brush back from her temples. Her figure, +unassisted as yet by Miss Willy's ruffles, looked so fragile in the +pitiless glare that his heart melted in one of those waves of +sentimentality which, because they were impotent to affect his conduct, +cost him so little. As she stood there, he realized more acutely than he +had ever done before how utterly stationary she had remained since he +married her. With her sweetness, her humility, her old-fashioned +courtesy and consideration for others, she belonged still in the +honey-scented twilight of the eighties. While he had moved with the +world, she, who was confirmed in the traditions of another age, had +never altered in spirit since that ecstatic moment when he had first +loved her. The charm, the grace, the virtues, even the look of gentle +goodness which had won his heart, were all there just as they had been +when she was twenty. Except for the fading flesh, the woman had not +changed; only the needs and the desires of the man were different. Only +the resurgent youth in him was again demanding youth for its mate.</p> + +<p>"Why, my trunk is all packed," she replied. "Has anything happened?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, I was only wondering how you would manage to amuse yourself. +You know I shall be at the theatre most of the time."</p> + +<p>"But you mustn't have me on your mind a minute, Oliver. I won't go a +step unless you promise me not to worry about me a bit. It's all so new +to me that I shall enjoy just sitting in the hotel and watching the +people."</p> + +<p>"Then we'd better go to the Waldorf. That might interest you more."</p> + +<p>His eagerness to provide entertainment for her touched her as deeply as +if it had been a proof of his love instead of his anxiety, and she +determined in her heart that if she were lonesome a minute he must never +suspect it. Ennui, having its roots in an egoism she did not possess, +was unknown to her.</p> + +<p>"That will be lovely, dear. Lucy wrote me when she was there on her +wedding trip that she used to sit for hours in the corridor looking at +the people that went by, and that it was as good as a play."</p> + +<p>"That settles it. I'll telegraph for rooms," he said cheerfully, +relieved to find that she fell in so readily with his suggestion.</p> + +<p>She was giving a last caressing pat to the tray before closing the +trunk, and the look of her thin hands, with their slightly swollen +knuckles, caused him to lean forward suddenly and wrest the keys away +from her.</p> + +<p>"Let me do that. I hate to see you stooping," he said.</p> + +<p>The telegram was sent, and late the next evening, as they rolled through +the brilliant streets towards the hotel, Virginia's interest was as +effervescent as if she were indeed the girl that she almost felt herself +to have become. The sound of the streets excited her like martial music, +and little gasps of surprise and pleasure broke from her lips as the +taxicab turned into Broadway. It was all so different from her other +visit when she had come alone to find Oliver, sick with failure, in the +dismal bedroom of that hotel. Now it seemed to her that the city had +grown younger, that it was more awake, that it was brighter, gayer, and +that she herself had a part in its brightness and its gaiety. The crowds +on Broadway seemed keeping step to some happy tune, and she felt that +her heart was dancing with them, so elated, so girlishly irresponsible +was her mood.</p> + +<p>"Why, Oliver, there is a sign of your play with a picture of Miss +Oldcastle on it!" she exclaimed delightedly, pointing to an +advertisement before a theatre they were passing. Then, suddenly, it +appeared to her that the whole city was waving this advertisement. +Wherever she turned "The Home" stared back at her, an orgy of red and +blue surrounding the smiling effigy of the actress. And this proof of +Oliver's fame thrilled her as she had not been thrilled since the +telegram had come announcing that Harry had won the scholarship which +would take him to Oxford. The woman's power of sinking her ambition and +even her identity into the activities of the man was deeply interwoven +with all that was essential and permanent in her soul. Her keenest joys, +as well as her sharpest sorrows, had never belonged to herself, but to +others. It was doubtful, indeed, if, since the day of her marriage, she +had been profoundly moved by any feeling which was centred merely in a +personal desire. She had wanted things for Oliver and for the children, +but for herself there had been no separate existence apart from them.</p> + +<p>"Oliver, I never dreamed that it would be like this. The play will be a +great success—even a greater one than the last, won't it, dear?" Her +face, with its exquisite look of exaltation, of self-forgetfulness, was +turned eagerly towards the crowd of feverish pleasure-seekers that +passed on, pursuing its little joys, under the garish signs of the +street.</p> + +<p>"Well, it ought to be," he returned; "it's bad enough anyway."</p> + +<p>His eyes, like hers, were fixed on the thronging streets, but, unlike +hers, they reflected the restless animation, the pathetic hunger, which +made each of those passing faces appear to be the plastic medium of an +insatiable craving for life. Handsome, well-preserved, a little +over-coloured, a little square of figure, with his look of worldly +importance, of assured material success, he stood to-day, as Cyrus had +stood a quarter of a century ago, as an imposing example of that +Treadwell spirit from which his youth had revolted.</p> + +<p>That night, when they had finished dinner, and Oliver, in response to a +telephone message, had hurried down to the theatre, Virginia went +upstairs to her room, and, after putting on the lavender silk +dressing-gown which Miss Willy had made for the occasion, sat down to +write her weekly letter to Harry.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Darling Boy.</span></p> + +<p>I know you will be surprised to see from this letter that I am +really in New York at last—and at the Waldorf! It seems almost +like a dream to me, and whenever I shut my eyes, I find myself +forgetting that I am not in Dinwiddie—but, you remember, your +father had always promised me that I should come for the first +night of his new play, which will be acted to-morrow. You simply +can't imagine till you get here how famous he is and how interested +people are in everything about him, even the smallest trifles. +Wherever you look you see advertisements of his plays (he has three +running now) and coming up Broadway for only a block or two last +night, I am sure that I saw Miss Oldcastle's picture a dozen times. +I should think she would hate dreadfully to have to make herself so +conspicuous—for she has a nice, refined face—but Oliver says all +actresses have to do it if they want to get on. He takes all the +fuss they make over him just as if he despised it, though I am sure +that in his heart he can't help being pleased. While we were having +dinner, everybody in the dining-room was turning to look at him, +and if I hadn't known, of course, that not a soul was thinking of +me, I should have felt badly because I hadn't time to change my +dress after I got here. All the other women were beautifully +dressed (I never dreamed that there were so many diamonds in the +world. Miss Willy would simply go crazy over them), but I didn't +mind a bit, and if anybody thought of me at all, of course, they +knew that I had just stepped off the train. After dinner your +father went to the theatre, and I sat downstairs alone in the +corridor for a while and watched the people coming and going. It +was perfectly fascinating at first. I never saw so many beautiful +women, and their hair was arranged in such a lovely way, all just +alike, that it must have taken hours to do each head. The fashions +that are worn here are not in the least like those of Dinwiddie, +though Miss Willy made my black brocade exactly like one in a +fashion plate that came directly from Paris, but I know that you +aren't as much interested in this as Lucy and Jenny would be. The +dear girls are both well, and Lucy is carried away with her +stepchildren. She says she doesn't see why every woman doesn't +marry a widower. Isn't that exactly like Lucy? She is always so +funny. If only one of you were here with me, I should enjoy every +minute, but after I'd sat there for a while in the midst of all +those strangers, I began to feel a little lonely, so I came +upstairs to write you this letter. New York is a fascinating place +to visit, but I am glad I live in Dinwiddie where everybody knows +me.</p> + +<p>And now, my dearest boy, I must tell you how perfectly overjoyed I +was to get your last letter, and to know that you are so delighted +with Oxford. I think of you every minute, and I pray for you the +last thing at night before I get into bed. Try to keep well and +strong, and if you get a cold, be sure not to let it run on till it +turns to a hacking cough. Remember that Doctor Fraser always used +to say that every cough, no matter how slight, is dangerous. I hope +you aren't studying too hard or overdoing athletics. It is so easy +to tax one's strength too much when one gets excited. I am sure I +don't know what to think of the English students being +"standoffish" with Americans. It seems very foolish of them not to +be nice and friendly, especially to Virginians, who were really +English in the beginning. But I am glad that you don't mind, and +that you would rather be a countryman of George Washington than a +countryman of George the Third. Of course England is the greatest +country in the world—you remember your grandfather always said +that—and we owe it everything that we have, but I think it very +silly of English people to be stiff and ill-mannered.</p> + +<p>I hope you still read your Bible, darling, and that you find time +to go to church once every Sunday. Even if it seems a waste of time +to you, it would have pleased your grandfather, and for his sake I +hope you will go whenever you can possibly do so. It was so sweet +of you to write in Addison's Walk because you did not want to miss +my Sunday letter and yet the day was too beautiful not to be out of +doors. God only knows, my boy, what a comfort you are to me. There +was never a better son nor one who was loved more devotedly.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Your Mother.</span></p></div> + +<p>In the morning, with the breakfast tray, there arrived a bunch of +orchids from one of Oliver's theatrical friends, who had heard that his +wife was in town; and while Virginia laid the box carefully in the +bathtub, her eyes shone with the grateful light which came into them +whenever some one did her a small kindness or courtesy.</p> + +<p>"They will be lovely for me to wear to-night, Oliver. It was so nice of +him to send them, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was rather nice," Oliver replied, looking up from his paper at +the pleased sound of her voice. Ever since his return at a late hour +last night, she had noticed the nervousness in his manner and had +sympathetically attributed it to his anxiety about the fate of his play. +It was so like Oliver to be silent and self-absorbed when he was +anxious.</p> + +<p>Through the day he was absent, and when he returned, in the evening, to +dress for the theatre, she was standing before the mirror fastening the +bunch of orchids on the front of her gown. As he entered, she turned +toward him with a look of eager interest, of pleasant yet anxious +excitement. She had never in her life, except on the morning of her +wedding day, taken so long to dress; but it seemed to her important that +as Oliver's wife she should look as nice as she could.</p> + +<p>"Am I all right?" she asked timidly, while she cast a doubtful glance in +the mirror at the skirt of the black brocade.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you're all right," he responded, without looking at her, and the +suppressed pain in his voice caused her to move suddenly toward him with +the question, "Aren't you well, Oliver?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm well, but I'm tired. I had a headache on the way up and I +haven't been able to shake it off."</p> + +<p>"Shall I get you something for it?"</p> + +<p>"No, it will pass. I'd like a nap, but I suppose it's time for me to +dress."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's half-past six, and we've ordered dinner for seven."</p> + +<p>He went into the dressing-room, and turning again to the mirror, she +changed the position of the bunch of orchids, and gave a little +dissatisfied pat to the hair on her forehead. If only she could bring +back some of the bloom and the freshness of youth! The glow had gone out +of her eyes; the winged happiness, which had given her face the look as +of one flying towards life, had passed, leaving her features a little +wan and drawn, and fading her delicate skin to the colour of withered +flowers. Yet the little smile, which lingered like autumn sunshine +around her lips, was full of that sweetness which time could not +destroy, because it belonged not to her flesh, but to an unalterable +quality of her soul; and this sweetness, which she exhaled like a +fragrance, would cause perhaps one of a hundred strangers to glance +after her with the thought, "How lovely that woman must once have been!"</p> + +<p>"Are you ready?" asked Oliver, coming out of his dressing-room, and +again she started and turned quickly towards him, because it seemed to +her that she was hearing his voice for the first time. So nervous, so +irritable, so quivering with suppressed feeling, was the sound of it, +that she hesitated between the longing to offer sympathy and the fear +that her words might only add to his suffering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am quite ready," she answered, without adding that she had been +ready for more than an hour; and picking up her wrap from the bed, she +passed ahead of him through the door which he had opened. As he stopped +to draw the key from the lock, her eyes rested with pride on the gloss +of his hair, which had gone grey in the last year, and on his figure, +with its square shoulders and its look of obvious distinction, as of a +man who had achieved results so emphatically that it was impossible +either to overlook or to belittle them. How splendid he looked! And what +a pity that, after all his triumphs, he should still be so nervous on +the first night of a play!</p> + +<p>In the elevator there was a woman in an ermine wrap, with Titian hair +under a jewelled net; and Virginia's eyes were suffused with pleasure as +she gazed at her. "I never saw any one so beautiful!" she exclaimed to +Oliver, as they stepped out into the hall; but he merely replied +indifferently: "Was she? I didn't notice." Then his tone lost its +deadness. "If you'll wait here a minute, I'd like to speak to Cranston +about something," he said, almost eagerly. "I shan't keep you a second."</p> + +<p>"Don't worry about me," she answered cheerfully, pleased at the sudden +change in his manner. "Stay as long as you like. I never get tired +watching the people."</p> + +<p>He hurried off, while, dazzled by the lights, she drew back behind a +sheltering palm, and stood a little screened from the brilliant crowd in +which she took such innocent pleasure. "How I wish Miss Willy could be +here," she thought, for it was impossible for her to feel perfect +enjoyment while there existed the knowledge that another person would +have found even greater delight in the scene than she was finding +herself. "How gay they all look—and there are not any old people. +Everybody, even the white-haired women, dress as if they were girls. I +wonder what it is that gives them all this gloss as if they had been +polished, the same gloss that has come on Oliver since he has been so +successful? What a short time he stayed. He is coming back already, and +every single person is turning to look at him."</p> + +<p>Then a voice beyond the palm spoke as distinctly as if the words were +uttered into her ear. "That's Treadwell over there—a good-looking man, +isn't he?—but have you seen the dowdy, middle-aged woman he is married +to? It's a pity that all great men marry young—and now they say, you +know, that he is madly in love with Margaret Oldcastle——"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V3" id="CHAPTER_V3"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>BITTERNESS</h3> + + +<p>In the night, after a restless sleep, she awoke in terror. A hundred +incidents, a hundred phrases, looks, gestures, which she had thought +meaningless until last evening, flashed out of the darkness and hung +there, blazing, against the background of the night. Yesterday these +things had appeared purposeless; and now it seemed to her that only her +incredible blindness, only her childish inability to face any painful +fact until it struck her between the eyes, had kept her from discovering +the truth before it was thrust on her by the idle chatter of strangers. +A curious rigidity, as if she had been suddenly paralyzed, passed from +her heart, which seemed to have ceased beating, and crept through her +limbs to her motionless hands and feet. Though she longed to call out +and awaken Oliver, who, complaining of insomnia, spent the night in the +adjoining room, this immobility, which was like the graven immobility of +death, held her imprisoned there as speechless and still as if she lay +in her coffin. Only her brain seemed on fire, so pitilessly, so horribly +alive had it become.</p> + +<p>From the street beyond the dim square of the window, across which the +curtains were drawn, she could hear the ceaseless passing of carriages +and motor cars; but her thoughts had grown so confused that for a long +while, as she lay there, chill and rigid under the bed-clothes, she +could not separate the outside sounds from the tumult within her brain. +"Now that I know the truth I must decide what is best to do," she +thought quite calmly. "As soon as this noise stops I must think it all +over and decide what is best to do." But around this one lucid idea the +discordant roar of the streets seemed to gather force until it raged +with the violence of a storm. It was impossible to think clearly until +this noise, which, in some strange way, was both in the street outside +and within the secret chambers of her soul, had subsided and given place +to the quiet of night again. Then gradually the tempest of sound died +away, and in the midst of the stillness which followed it she lived over +every hour, every minute, of that last evening when it had seemed to her +that she was crucified by Oliver's triumph. She saw him as he came +towards her down the shining corridor, easy, brilliant, impressive, a +little bored by his celebrity, yet with the look of vital well-being, of +second youth, which separated and distinguished him from the curious +gazers among whom he moved. She saw him opposite to her during the long +dinner, which she could not eat; she saw him beside her in the car which +carried them to the theatre; and clearer than ever, as if a burning iron +had seared the memory into her brain, she saw him lean on the railing of +the box, with his eyes on the stage where Margaret Oldcastle, against +the lowered curtain, smiled her charming smile at the house. It had been +a wonderful night, and through it all she had felt the iron nails of her +crucifixion driven into her soul.</p> + +<p>Breaking away from that chill of terror with which she had awakened, +she left the bed and went over to the window, where she drew the heavy +curtains aside. In Fifth Avenue the electric lights sparkled like frost +on the pavement, while beyond the roofs of the houses the first +melancholy glow of a winter's sunrise was suffusing the sky with red. +While she watched it, a wave of unutterable loneliness swept over +her—of that profound spiritual loneliness which comes to one at dawn in +a great city, when knowledge of the sleeping millions within reach seems +only to intensify the fact of individual littleness and isolation. She +felt that she stood alone, not merely in the world, but in the universe; +and the thought that Oliver slept there in the next room made more +poignant this feeling, as though she were solitary and detached in the +midst of limitless space. Even if she called him and he came to her, she +could not reach him. Even if he stood at her side, the immeasurable +distance between them would not lessen.</p> + +<p>When the morning came, she dressed herself in her prettiest gown, a +violet cloth, with ruffles of old lace at the throat and wrists; but +this dress, of which she had been so proud in Dinwiddie that she had +saved it for months in order to have it fresh for New York, appeared +somehow to have lost its charm and distinction, and she knew that last +evening had not only destroyed her happiness, but had robbed her of her +confidence in the taste and the workmanship of Miss Willy. Knowledge, +she saw now, had shattered the little beliefs of life as well as the +large ones.</p> + +<p>Oliver liked to breakfast in his dressing-gown, fresh from his bath and +eager for the papers, so when he came hurriedly into the sitting-room, +the shining tray was already awaiting him, and she sat pouring his +coffee in a band of sunlight beside the table. This sunlight, so +merciful to the violet gown, shone pitilessly on the darkened hollows +which the night had left under her eyes, and on the little lines which +had gathered around her bravely smiling mouth.</p> + +<p>"It was a wonderful success, all the papers say so, Oliver," she said, +when he had seated himself at the other end of the table and taken the +coffee from her hand, which shook in spite of her effort.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it went off well, there's no doubt of it," he answered cheerfully, +so cheerfully that for a minute a blind hope shot trembling through her +mind. Could it all have been a dream? Was there some dreadful mistake? +Would she presently discover that she had imagined that night of useless +agony through which she had passed?</p> + +<p>"The audience was so sympathetic. I saw a number of women crying in the +last act when the heroine comes back to her old home."</p> + +<p>"It caught them. I thought it would. It's the kind of thing they like."</p> + +<p>He opened a paper as he spoke, and seeing that he wanted to read the +criticisms, she broke his eggs for him, and then turning to her own +breakfast tried in vain to swallow the piece of toast which she had +buttered. But it was useless. She could not eat; she could not even +drink her coffee, which had stood so long that it had grown tepid. A +feeling of spiritual nausea, beside which all physical sensations were +as trivial and meaningless as the stinging of wasps, pervaded her soul +and body, and choked her, like unshed tears, whenever she tried to force +a bit of food between her trembling lips. All the casual interests with +which she filled her days, those seemingly small, yet actually +tremendous interests without which daily life becomes almost unlivable, +flagged suddenly and died while she sat there. Nothing mattered any +longer, neither the universe nor that little circle of it which she +inhabited, neither life nor death, neither Oliver's success nor the food +which she was trying to eat. This strange sickness which had fallen upon +her affected not only her soul and body, but everything that surrounded +her, every person or object at which she looked, every stranger in the +street below, every roof which she could see sharply outlined against +the glittering blue of the sky. Something had passed out of them all, +some essential quality which united them to reality, some inner secret +of being without which the animate and the inanimate alike became no +better than phantoms. The spirit which made life vital had gone out of +the world. And she felt that this would always be so, that the next +minute and the next year and all the years that came afterwards would +bring to her merely the effort of living—since Life, having used her +for its dominant purpose, had no further need of her. Once only the +thought occurred to her that there were women who might keep their own +even now by fighting against the loss of it, by passionately refusing to +surrender what they could no longer hold as a gift. But with the idea +there came also that self-knowledge which told her that she was not one +of these. The strength in her was the strength of passiveness; she could +endure, but she could not battle. Long ago, as long ago as the night on +which she had watched in the shadow of death beside Harry's bed, she +had lost that energy of soul which had once flamed up in her with her +three days' jealousy of Abby. It was her youth and beauty then which had +inspirited her, and she was wise enough to know that the passions which +become youth appear ridiculous in middle-age.</p> + +<p>Having drunk his coffee, Oliver passed his cup to her, and laid down his +paper.</p> + +<p>"You look tired, Virginia. I hope it hasn't been too much for you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Have you quite got over your headache?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty much, but those lights last night were rather trying. Don't put +any cream in this time. I want the stimulant."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it has got cold. Shall I ring for fresh?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter. This will do quite as well. Have you any shopping +that you would like to do this morning?"</p> + +<p>Shopping! When her whole world had crumbled around her! For an instant +the lump in her throat made speech impossible; then summoning that mild +yet indestructible spirit, which was as the spirit of all those +generations of women who lived in her blood, she answered gently:</p> + +<p>"Yes, I had intended to buy some presents for the girls."</p> + +<p>"Then you'd better take a taxicab for the morning. I suppose you know +the names of the shops you want to go to?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. I know the names. Are you going to the theatre?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to change a few lines in the play, and the sooner I go about +it the better."</p> + +<p>"Then don't bother about me, dear. I'll just put on my long coat over +this dress and go out right after breakfast."</p> + +<p>"But you haven't eaten anything," he remarked, glancing at her plate.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't hungry. The fresh air will do me good. It has turned so much +warmer, and the snow is all melting."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, she rose from the table and began to prepare herself for +the street, putting on the black hat with the ostrich tip and the bunch +of violets on one side, which didn't seem just right since she had come +to New York, and carefully wrapping the ends of her fur neck-piece +around her throat. It was already ten o'clock, for Oliver had slept +late, and she must be hurrying if she hoped to get through her shopping +before luncheon. While she dressed, a wan spirit of humour entered into +her, and she saw how absurd it was that she should rush about from shop +to shop, buying things that did not matter in order to fill a life that +mattered as little as they did. To her, whose mental outlook had had in +it so little humour, it seemed suddenly that the whole of life was +ridiculous. Why should she have sat there, pouring Oliver's coffee and +talking to him about insignificant things, when her heart was bursting +with this sense of something gone out of existence, with this torturing +realization of the irretrievable failure of love?</p> + +<p>Taking up her muff and her little black bag from the bureau, she looked +back at him with a smile as she turned towards the door.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye. Will you be here for luncheon?"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I can't. I've an appointment down-town, but I'll come back +as early as I can."</p> + +<p>Then she went out and along the hall to the elevator, in which there was +a little girl, who reminded her of Jenny, in charge of a governness in +spectacles. She smiled at her almost unconsciously, so spontaneous, so +interwoven with her every mood was her love for children; but the little +girl, being very proper for her years, did not smile back, and a stab of +pain went through Virginia's heart.</p> + +<p>"Even children have ceased to care for me," she thought.</p> + +<p>At the door, where she waited a few minutes for her taxicab, a young +bride, with her eyes shining with joy, stood watching her husband while +he talked with an acquaintance, and it seemed to Virginia that it was a +vision of her own youth which had risen to torment her. "That was the +way I looked at Oliver twenty-five years ago," she said to herself; +"twenty-five years ago, when I was young and he loved me." Then, even +while the intolerable pain was still in her heart, she felt that +something of the buoyant hopefulness of that other bride entered into +her and restored her courage. A resolution, so new that it was born of +the joyous glance of a stranger, and yet so old that it seemed a part of +that lost spirit of youth which had once carried her in a wild race over +the Virginian meadows, a resolution which belonged at the same time to +this other woman and to herself, awoke in her and mingled like a draught +of wine with her blood. "I will not give up," she thought. "I will go to +her. Perhaps she does not know—perhaps she does not understand. I will +go to her, and everything may be different." Then her taxicab was +called, and stepping into it, she gave the name not of a shop, but of +the apartment house in which Margaret Oldcastle lived.</p> + +<p>It was one of those February days when, because of the promise of spring +in the air, men begin suddenly to think of April. The sky was of an +intense blue, with little clouds, as soft as feathers, above the western +horizon. On the pavement the last patches of snow were rapidly melting, +and the gentle breeze which blew in at the open window of the cab, was +like a caressing breath on Virginia's cheek. "It must be that she does +not understand," she repeated, and this thought gave her confidence and +filled her with that unconquerable hope of the future without which she +felt that living would be impossible. Even the faces in the street +cheered her, for it seemed to her that if life were really what she had +believed it to be last night, these men and women could not walk so +buoyantly, could not smile so gaily, could not spend so much thought and +time on the way they looked and the things they wore. "No, it must have +been a mistake, a ghastly mistake," she insisted almost passionately. +"Some day we shall laugh over it together as we laughed over my jealousy +of Abby. He never loved Abby, not for a minute, and yet I imagined that +he did and suffered agony because of it." And her taxicab went on +merrily between the cheerful crowds on the pavements, gliding among +gorgeous motor cars and carriages drawn by high-stepping horses and +pedlers' carts drawn by horses that stepped high no longer, among rich +people and poor people, among surfeited people and hungry people, among +gay people and sad people, among contented people and rebellious +people—among all these, who hid their happiness or their sorrow under +the mask of their features, her cab spun onward bearing her lightly on +the most reckless act of her life.</p> + +<p>At the door of the apartment house she was told that Miss Oldcastle +could not be seen, but, after sending up her card and waiting a few +moments in the hall before a desk which reminded her of a gilded +squirrel-cage, she was escorted to the elevator and borne upward to the +ninth landing. Here, in response to the tinkle of a little bell outside +of a door, she was ushered into a reception room which was so bare alike +of unnecessary furniture and of the Victorian tradition to which she was +accustomed, that for an instant she stood confused by the very +strangeness of her surroundings. Then a charming voice, with what +sounded to her ears as an affected precision of speech, said: "Mrs. +Treadwell, this is so good of you!" and, turning, she found herself face +to face with the other woman in Oliver's life.</p> + +<p>"I saw you at the play last night," the voice went on, "and I hoped to +get a chance to speak to you, but the reporters simply invaded my +dressing-room. Won't you sit here in the sunshine? Shall I close the +window, or, like myself, are you a worshipper of the sun?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, leave it open. I like it." At any other moment she would have +been afraid of an open window in February; but it seemed to her now that +if she could not feel the air in her face she should faint. With the +first sight of Margaret Oldcastle, as she looked into that smiling +face, in which the inextinguishable youth was less a period of life than +an attribute of spirit, she realized that she was fighting not a woman, +but the very structure of life. The glamour of the footlights had +contributed nothing to the flame-like personality of the actress. In her +simple frock of brown woollen, with a wide collar of white lawn turned +back from her splendid throat, she embodied not so much the fugitive +charm of youth, as that burning vitality over which age has no power. +The intellect in her spoke through her noble rather than beautiful +features, through her ardent eyes, through her resolute mouth, through +every perfect gesture with which she accompanied her words. She stood +not only for the elemental forces, but for the free woman; and her +freedom, like that of man, had been built upon the strewn bodies of the +weaker. The law of sacrifice, which is the basic law of life, ruled here +as it ruled in mother-love and in the industrial warfare of men. Her +triumph was less the triumph of the individual than of the type. The +justice not of society, but of nature, was on her side, for she was one +with evolution and with the resistless principle of change. Vaguely, +without knowing that she realized these things, Virginia felt that the +struggle was useless; and with the sense of failure there awoke in her +that instinct of good breeding, that inherited obligation to keep the +surface of life sweet, which was so much older and so much stronger than +the revolt in her soul.</p> + +<p>"You were wonderful last night. I wanted to tell you how wonderful I +thought you," she said gently. "You made the play a success—all the +papers say so this morning."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was an easy play to make successful," replied the other, while +a fleeting curiosity, as though she were trying to explain something +which she did not quite understand, appeared in her face and made it, +with its redundant vitality, almost coarse for an instant. "It's the +kind the public wants, you couldn't help making it go."</p> + +<p>The almost imperceptible conflict which had flashed in their eyes when +they met, had died suddenly down, and the dignity which had been on the +side of the other woman appeared to have passed from her to Virginia. +This dignity, which was not that of triumph, but of a defeat which +surrenders everything except the inviolable sanctities of the spirit, +shielded her like an impenetrable armour against both resentment and +pity. She stood there wrapped in a gentleness more unassailable than any +passion.</p> + +<p>"You did a great deal for it and a great deal for my husband," she said, +while her voice lingered unconsciously over the word. "He has told me +often that without your acting he could never have reached the position +he holds."</p> + +<p>Then, because it was impossible to say the things she had come to say, +because even in the supreme crises of life she could not lay down the +manner of a lady, she smiled the grave smile with which her mother had +walked through a ruined country, and taking up her muff, which she had +laid on the table, passed out into the hall. She had let the chance go +by, she had failed in her errand, yet she knew that, even though it cost +her her life, even though it cost her a thing far dearer than life—her +happiness—she could not have done otherwise. In the crucial moment it +was principle and not passion which she obeyed; but this principle, +filtering down through generations, had become so inseparable from the +sources of character, that it had passed at last through the intellect +into the blood. She could no more have bared her soul to that other +woman than she could have stripped her body naked in the market-place.</p> + +<p>At the door her cab was still waiting, and she gave the driver the name +of the toy shop at which she intended to buy presents for Lucy's +stepchildren. Though her heart was breaking within her, there was no +impatience in her manner when she was obliged to wait some time before +she could find the particular sort of doll for which Lucy had written; +and she smiled at the apologetic shopgirl with the forbearing +consideration for others which grief could not destroy. She put her own +anguish aside as utterly in the selection of the doll as she would have +done had it been the peace of nations and not a child's pleasure that +depended upon her effacement of self. Then, when the purchase was made, +she took out her shopping list from her bag and passed as +conscientiously to the choice of Jenny's clothes. Not until the morning +had gone, and she rolled again up Fifth Avenue towards the hotel, did +she permit her thoughts to return to the stifled agony within her heart.</p> + +<p>To her surprise Oliver was awaiting her in their sitting-room, and with +her first look into his face, she understood that he had reached in her +absence a decision against which he had struggled for days. For an +instant her strength seemed fainting as before an impossible effort. +Then the shame in his eyes awoke in her the longing to protect him, to +spare him, to make even this terrible moment easier for him than he +could make it alone. With the feeling, a crowd of memories thronged +through her mind, as though called there by that impulse to shield which +was so deeply interwoven with the primal passion of motherhood. She saw +Oliver's face as it had looked on that spring afternoon when she had +first seen him; she saw it as he put the ring on her hand at the altar; +she saw it bending over her after the birth of her first child; and then +suddenly his face changed to the face of Harry, and she saw again the +little bed under the hanging sheet and herself sitting there in the +faintly quivering circle of light. She watched again the slow fall of +the leaves, one by one, as they turned at the stem and drifted against +the white curtains of the window across the street.</p> + +<p>"Oliver," she said gently, so gently that she might have been speaking +to her sick child, "would you rather that I should go back to Dinwiddie +to-night?"</p> + +<p>He did not answer, but, turning away from her, laid his head down on his +arm, which he had outstretched on the table, and she saw a shiver of +pain pass through his body as if it had been struck a physical blow. And +just as she had put herself aside when she bought the doll, so now she +forgot her own suffering in the longing to respond to his need.</p> + +<p>"I can take the night train—now that I have seen the play there is no +reason why I should stay. I have got through my shopping."</p> + +<p>Raising his head, he looked up into her face. "Whatever happens, +Virginia, will you believe that I never wanted to hurt you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>For a moment she felt that the strain was intolerable, and a fear +entered her mind lest she should faint or weep and so make things harder +than they should be able to bear.</p> + +<p>"You mean that something must happen—that there will be a break between +us?" she said.</p> + +<p>Leaving the table, he walked to the window and back before he answered +her.</p> + +<p>"I can't go on this way. I'm not that sort. A generation ago, I suppose, +we should have done it—but we've lost grip, we've lost endurance." Then +he cried out suddenly, as if he were justifying himself: "It is hell. +I've been in hell for a year—don't you see it?"</p> + +<p>After his violence, her voice sounded almost lifeless, so quiet, so +utterly free from passion, was its quality.</p> + +<p>"As long as that—for a year?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, longer, but it has got worse. It has got unendurable. I've +fought—God knows I've fought—but I can't stand it. I've got to do +something. I've got to find a way. You must have seen it coming, +Virginia. You must have seen that this thing is stronger than I am."</p> + +<p>"Do—do you want her so much?" and she, who had learned from life not to +want, looked at him with the pity which he might have seen in her eyes +had he stabbed her.</p> + +<p>"So much that I'm going mad. There's no other end to it. It's been +coming on for two years—all the time I've been away from Dinwiddie I've +been fighting it."</p> + +<p>She did not answer, and when, after the silence had grown oppressive, he +turned back from the window through which he had been gazing, he could +not be sure that she had heard him. So still she seemed that she was +like a woman of marble.</p> + +<p>"You're too good for me, that's the trouble. You've been too good for me +from the beginning," he said.</p> + +<p>Unfastening her coat, which she had kept on, she laid it on the sofa at +her back, and then put up her hands to take out her hatpins.</p> + +<p>"I must pack my things," she said suddenly. "Will you engage my berth +back to Dinwiddie for to-night?"</p> + +<p>He nodded without speaking, and she added hastily, "I shan't go down +again before starting. But there is no need that you should go to the +train with me."</p> + +<p>At this he turned back from the door where he had waited with his hand +on the knob. "Won't you let me do even that?" he asked, and his voice +sounded so like Harry's that a sob broke from her lips. The point was so +small a one—all points seemed to her so small—that her will died down +and she yielded without protest. What did it matter—what did anything +matter to her now?</p> + +<p>"I'll send up your luncheon," he added almost gratefully. "You will be +ill if you don't eat something."</p> + +<p>"No, please don't. I am not hungry," she answered, and then he went out +softly, as though he were leaving a sick-room, and left her alone with +her anguish—and her packing.</p> + +<p>Without turning in her chair, without taking off her hat, from which she +had drawn the pins, she sat there like a woman in whom the spirit has +been suddenly stricken. Beyond the window the perfect day, with its +haunting reminder of the spring, was lengthening slowly into afternoon, +and through the slant sunbeams the same gay crowd passed in streams on +the pavements. On the roof of one of the opposite houses a flag was +flying, and it seemed to her that the sight of that flag waving under +the blue sky was bound up forever with the intolerable pain in her +heart. And with that strange passivity of the nerves which nature +mercifully sends to those who have learned submission to suffering, to +those whose strength is the strength, not of resistance, but of +endurance, she felt that as long as she sat there, relaxed and +motionless, she had in a way withdrawn herself from the struggle to +live. If she might only stay like this forever, without moving, without +thinking, without feeling, while she died slowly, inch by inch, spirit +and body.</p> + +<p>A knock came at the door, and as she moved to answer it, she felt that +life returned in a slow throbbing agony, as if her blood were forced +back again into veins from which it had ebbed. When the tray was placed +on the table beside her, she looked up with a mild, impersonal curiosity +at the waiter, as the dead might look back from their freedom and +detachment on the unreal figures of the living. "I wonder what he thinks +about it all?" she thought vaguely, as she searched in her bag for his +tip. "I wonder if he sees how absurd and unnecessary all the things are +that he does day after day, year after year, like the rest of us? I +wonder if he ever revolts with this unspeakable weariness from waiting +on other people and watching them eat?" But the waiter, with his long +sallow face, his inscrutable eyes, and his general air of having +petrified under the surface, was as enigmatical as life.</p> + +<p>After he had gone out, she rose from her untasted luncheon, and going +into her bedroom, took the black brocaded gown off the hanger and +stuffed the sleeves with tissue paper as carefully as if the world had +not crumbled around her. Then she packed away her wrapper and her +bedroom slippers and shook out and folded the dresses she had not worn. +For a time she worked on mechanically, hardly conscious of what she was +doing, hardly conscious even that she was alive. Then slowly, softly, +like a gentle rain, her tears fell into the trunk, on each separate +garment as she smoothed it and laid it away.</p> + +<p>At half-past eight o'clock she was waiting with her hat and coat on when +Oliver came in, followed by the porter who was to take down her bags. +She knew that he had brought the man in order to avoid all possibility +of an emotional scene; and she could have smiled, had her spirit been +less wan and stricken, at this sign of a moral cowardice which was so +characteristic. It was his way, she understood now, though she did not +put the thought into words, to take what he wanted, escaping at the same +time the price which nature exacts of those who have not learned to +relinquish. Out of the strange colourless stillness which surrounded +her, some old words of Susan's floated back to her as if they were +spoken aloud: "A Treadwell will always get the thing he wants most in +the end." But while he stabbed her, he would look away in order that he +might be spared the memory of her face.</p> + +<p>Without a word, she followed her bags from the room without a word she +entered the elevator, which was waiting, and without a word she took her +place in the taxicab standing beside the curbstone. There was no +rebellion in her thoughts, merely a dulled consciousness of pain, like +the consciousness of one who is partially under an anæsthetic. The +fighting courage, the violence of revolt, had no part in her soul, which +had been taught to suffer and to renounce with dignity, not with +heroics. Her submission was the submission of a flower that bends to a +storm.</p> + +<p>As she sat there in silence, with her eyes on the brilliant street, +where the signs of his play stared back at her under the flaring lights, +she began to think with automatic precision, as though her brain were +moved by some mechanical power over which she had no control. Little +things crowded into her mind—the face of the doll she had bought for +Lucy's stepchild that morning, the words on one of the electric signs on +the top of a building they were passing, the leopard skin coat worn by a +woman on the pavement. And these little things seemed to her at the +moment to be more real, more vital, than her broken heart and the +knowledge that she was parting from Oliver. The agony of the night and +the morning appeared to have passed away like a physical pang, leaving +only this deadness of sensation and the strange, almost unearthly +clearness of external objects. "It is not new. It has been coming on for +years," she thought. "He said that, and it is true. It is so old that it +has been here forever, and I seem to have been suffering it all my +life—since the day I was born, and before the day I was born. It seems +older than I am. Oliver is going from me. He has always been going from +me—always since the beginning," she repeated slowly, as if she were +trying to learn a lesson by heart. But so remote and shadowy did the +words appear, that she found herself thinking the next instant, "I must +have forgotten my smelling-salts. The bottle was lying on the bureau, +and I can't remember putting it into my bag." The image of this little +glass bottle, with the gold top, which she had left behind was distinct +in her memory; but when she tried to think of the parting from Oliver +and of all that she was suffering, everything became shadowy and unreal +again.</p> + +<p>At the station she stood beside the porter while he paid the driver, and +then entering the doorway, they walked hurriedly, so hurriedly that she +felt as if she were losing her breath, in the direction of the gate and +the waiting train. And with each step, as they passed down the long +platform, which seemed to stretch into eternity, she was thinking: "In a +minute it will be over. If I don't say something now, it will be too +late. If I don't stop him now, it will be over forever—everything will +be over forever."</p> + +<p>Beside the night coach, in the presence of the conductor and the porter, +who stood blandly waiting to help her into the train, she stopped +suddenly, as though she could not go any farther, as though the strength +which had supported her until now had given way and she were going to +fall. Through her mind there flashed the thought that even now she might +hold him if she were to make a scene, that if she were to go into +hysterics he would not leave her, that if she were to throw away her +pride and her self-respect and her dignity, she might recover by +violence the outer shell at least of her happiness. How could he break +away from her if she were only to weep and to cling to him? Then, while +the idea was still in her mind, she knew that to a nature such as hers +violence was impossible. It took passion to war with passion, and in +this she was lacking. Though she were wounded to the death, she could +not revolt, could not shriek out in her agony, could not break through +that gentle yet invincible reticence which she had won from the past.</p> + +<p>Down the long platform a child came running with cries of pleasure, +followed by a man with a red beard, who carried a suitcase. As they +approached the train, Virginia entered the coach, and walked rapidly +down the aisle to where the porter was waiting beside her seat.</p> + +<p>For the first time since they had reached the station Oliver spoke. "I +am sorry I couldn't get the drawing-room for you," he said. "I am afraid +you will be crowded"; and this anxiety about her comfort, when he was +ruining her life, did not strike either of them, at the moment, as +ridiculous.</p> + +<p>"It does not matter," she answered; and he put out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Virginia," he said, with a catch in his voice.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she responded quietly, and would have given her soul for the +power to shriek aloud, to overcome this indomitable instinct which was +stronger than her personal self.</p> + +<p>Turning away, he passed between the seats to the door of the coach, and +a minute later she saw his figure hurrying back along the platform down +which they had come together a few minutes ago.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI3" id="CHAPTER_VI3"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE FUTURE</h3> + + +<p>A chill rain was falling when Virginia got out of the train the next +morning, and the raw-boned nags hitched to the ancient "hacks" in the +street appeared even more dejected and forlorn than she had remembered +them. Then one of the noisy negro drivers seized her bag, and a little +later she was rolling up the long hill in the direction of her home. +Dinwiddie was the same; nothing had altered there since she had left +it—and yet what a difference! The same shops were unclosing their +shutters; the same crippled negro beggar was taking his place at the +corner of the market; the same maids were sweeping the sidewalks with +the same brooms; the same clerk bowed to her from the drug store where +she bought her medicines; and yet something—the only thing which had +ever interested her in these people and this place—had passed out of +them. Just as in New York yesterday, when she had watched the sunrise, +so it seemed to her now that the spirit of reality had faded out of the +world. What remained was merely a mirage in which phantoms in the guise +of persons made a pretence of being alive.</p> + +<p>The front door of her house stood open, and on the porch one of the +coloured maids was beating the dust out of the straw mat. "As if dust +makes any difference when one is dead," Virginia thought wearily; and +an unutterable loathing passed over her for all the little acts by which +one rendered tribute to the tyranny of appearances. Then, as she entered +the house, she felt that the sight of the familiar objects she had once +loved oppressed her as though the spirit of melancholy resided in the +pieces of furniture, not in her soul. This weariness, so much worse than +positive pain, filled her with disgust for all the associations and the +sentiments she had known in the past. Not only the house and the +furniture and the small details of housekeeping, but the street and the +town and every friendly face of a neighbour, had become an intolerable +reminder that she was still alive.</p> + +<p>In her room, where a bright fire was burning, and letters from the girls +lay on the table, she sat down in her wraps and gazed with unseeing eyes +at the flames. "The children must not know. I must keep it from the +children as long as possible," she thought dully, and it was so natural +to her to plan sparing them, that for a minute the idea took her mind +away from her own anguish. "If I could only die like this, then they +need never know," she found herself reflecting coldly a little later, so +coldly that she seemed to have no personal interest, no will to choose +in the matter. "If I could only die like this, nobody need be +hurt—except Harry," she added.</p> + +<p>For the first time, with the thought of Harry, her restraint suddenly +failed her. "Yes, it would hurt Harry. I must live because Harry would +want me to," she said aloud; and as though her strength were reinforced +by the words, she rose and prepared herself to go downstairs to +breakfast—prepared herself, too, for the innumerable little agonies +which would come with the day, for the sight of Susan, for the visits +from the neighbours, for the eager questions about the fashions in New +York which Miss Willy would ask. And all the time she was thinking +clearly, "It can't last forever. It must end some time. Who knows but it +may stop the next minute, and one can stand a minute of anything."</p> + +<p>The day passed, the week, the month, and gradually the spring came and +went, awakening life in the trees, in the grass, in the fields, but not +in her heart. Even the dried sticks in the yard put out shoots of living +green and presently bore blossoms, and in the borders by the front gate, +the crocuses, which she had planted with her own hands a year ago, were +ablaze with gold. All nature seemed joining in the resurrection of life, +all nature, except herself, seemed to flower again to fulfilment. She +alone was dead, and she alone among the dead must keep up this pretence +of living which was so much harder than death.</p> + +<p>Once every week she wrote to the children, restrained yet gently flowing +letters in which there was no mention of Oliver. It had been so long, +indeed, since either Harry or the girls had associated their parents +together, that the omission called forth no question, hardly, she +gathered, any surprise. Their lives were so full, their interests were +so varied, that, except at the regular intervals when they sat down to +write to her, it is doubtful if they ever seriously wondered about her. +In July, Jenny came home for a month, and Lucy wrote regretfully that +she was "so disappointed that she couldn't join mother somewhere in the +mountains"; but beyond this, the girls' lives hardly appeared to touch +hers even on the surface. In the month that Jenny spent in Dinwiddie, +she organized a number of societies and clubs for the improvement of +conditions among working girls, and in spite of the intense heat (the +hottest spell of the summer came while she was there), she barely +allowed herself a minute for rest or for conversation with her mother.</p> + +<p>"If you would only go to the mountains, mother," she remarked the +evening before she left. "I am sure it isn't good for you to stay in +Dinwiddie during the summer."</p> + +<p>"I am used to it," replied Virginia a little stubbornly, for it seemed +to her at the moment that she would rather die than move.</p> + +<p>"But you ought to think of your health. What does father say about it?"</p> + +<p>A contraction of pain crossed Virginia's face, but Jenny, whose vision +was so wide that it had a way of overlooking things which were close at +hand, did not observe it.</p> + +<p>"He hasn't said anything," she answered, with a strange stillness of +voice.</p> + +<p>"I thought he meant to take you to England, but I suppose his plays are +keeping him in New York."</p> + +<p>Rising from her chair at the table—they had just finished +supper—Virginia reached for a saucer and filled it with ice cream from +a bowl in front of her.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll send Miss Priscilla a little of this cream," she remarked. +"She is so fond of strawberry."</p> + +<p>The next day Jenny went, and again the silence and the loneliness +settled upon the house, to which Virginia clung with a morbid terror of +change. Had her spirit been less broken, she might have made the effort +of going North as Jenny had urged her to do, but when her life was over, +one place seemed as desirable as another, and it was a matter of +profound indifference to her whether it was heat or cold which afflicted +her body. She was probably the only person in Dinwiddie who did not hang +out of her window during the long nights in search of a passing breeze. +But with that physical insensibility which accompanies prolonged torture +of soul, she had ceased to feel the heat, had ceased even to feel the +old neuralgic pain in her temples. There were times when it seemed to +her that if a pin were stuck into her body she should not know it. The +one thing she asked—and this Life granted her except during the four +weeks of Jenny's visit—was freedom from the need of exertion, freedom +from the obligation to make decisions. Her housekeeping she left now to +the servants, so she was spared the daily harassing choices of the +market and the table. There remained nothing for her to do, nothing even +for her to worry about, except her broken heart. Her friends she had +avoided ever since her return from New York, partly from an unbearable +shrinking from the questions which she knew they would ask whenever they +met her, partly because her mind was so engrossed with the supreme fact +that her universe lay in ruins, that she found it impossible to lend a +casual interest to other matters. She, who had effaced herself for a +lifetime, found suddenly that she could not see beyond the immediate +presence of her own suffering.</p> + +<p>Usually she stayed closely indoors through the summer days, but several +times, at the hour of dusk, she went out alone and wandered for hours +about the streets which were associated with her girlhood. In High +Street, at the corner where she had first seen Oliver, she stood one +evening until Miss Priscilla, who had caught sight of her from the porch +of the Academy (which, owing to the changing fashions in education and +the infirmities of the teacher, was the Academy no longer), sent out her +negro maid to beg her to come in and sit with her. "No, I'm only looking +for something," Virginia had answered, while she hurried back past the +church and down the slanting street to the twelve stone steps which led +up the terraced hillside at the rectory. Here, in the purple summer +twilight, spangled with fireflies, she felt for a minute that her youth +was awaiting her; and opening the gate, she passed as softly as a ghost +along the crooked path to the two great paulownias, which were beginning +to decay, and to the honeysuckle arbour, where the tendrils of the +creeper brushed her hair like a caress. Under the light of a young moon, +it seemed to her that nothing had changed since that spring evening when +she had stood there and felt the wonder of first love awake in her +heart. Nothing had changed except that love and herself. The paulownias +still shed their mysterious shadows about her, the red and white roses +still bloomed by the west wing of the house, the bed of mint still grew, +rank and fragrant, beneath the dining-room window. When she put her hand +on the bole of the tree beside which she stood, she could still feel the +initials V. O. which Oliver had cut there in the days before their +marriage. A light burned in the window of the room which had been the +parlour in the days when she lived there, and as she gazed at it, she +almost expected to see the face of her mother, with its look of pathetic +cheerfulness, smiling at her through the small greenish panes. And then +the past in which Oliver had no part, the past which belonged to her and +to her parents, that hallowed, unforgettable past of her childhood, +which seemed bathed in love as in a flood of light—this past enveloped +her as the magic of the moonbeams enveloped the house in which she had +lived. While she stood there, it was more living than the present, more +real than the aching misery in her heart.</p> + +<p>The door of the house opened and shut; she heard a step on the gravelled +path; and bending forward out of the shadow, she waited breathlessly for +the sound of her father's voice. But it was a young rector, who had +recently accepted the call to Saint James' Church, and his boyish face, +rising out of the sacred past, awoke her with a shock from the dream +into which she had fallen.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mrs. Treadwell. Were you coming to see me?" he asked +eagerly, pleased, she could see, by the idea that she was seeking his +services.</p> + +<p>"No, I was passing, and the garden reminded me so of my girlhood that I +came in for a minute."</p> + +<p>"It hasn't changed much, I suppose?" His alert, business-like gaze swept +the hillside.</p> + +<p>"Hardly at all. One might imagine that those were the same roses I left +here."</p> + +<p>"An improvement or two wouldn't hurt it," he remarked with animation. +"These old trees make such a litter in the spring that my wife is +anxious to get them down. Women like tidiness, you know, and she says, +while they are blooming, it is impossible to keep the yard clean."</p> + +<p>"I remember. Their flowers cover everything when they fall, but I always +loved them."</p> + +<p>"Well, one does get attached to things. I hope you have had a pleasant +summer in spite of the heat. It must have been a delight to have your +daughter at home again. What a splendid worker she is. If we had her in +Dinwiddie for good it wouldn't be long before the old town would awaken. +Why, I'd been trying to get those girls' clubs started for a year, and +she took the job out of my hands and managed it in two weeks."</p> + +<p>"The dear child is very clever. Is your wife still in the mountains?"</p> + +<p>"She's coming back next week. We didn't feel that it was safe to bring +the baby home until that long spell of heat had broken." Then, as she +turned towards the step, he added hastily, "Won't you let me walk home +with you?"</p> + +<p>But this, she felt, was more than she could bear, and making the excuse +of an errand on the next block, she parted from him at the gate, and +hurried like a shadow back along High Street.</p> + +<p>Until October there was no word from Oliver, and then at last there came +a letter, which she threw, half read, into the fire. The impulsive act, +so unlike the normal Virginia, soothed her for an instant, and she said +over and over to herself, while she moved hurriedly about the room, as +though she were seeking an escape from the moment before her, "I'm glad +I didn't finish it. I'm glad I let it burn." Though she did not realize +it, this passionate refusal to look at or to touch the thing that she +hated was the last stand of the Pendleton idealism against the triumph +of the actuality. It is possible that until that moment she had felt far +down in her soul that by declining to acknowledge in words the fact of +Oliver's desertion, by hiding it from the children, by ignoring the +processes which would lead to his freedom, she had, in some obscure way, +deprived that fact of all power over her life. But now while his letter, +blaming himself and yet pleading with her for his liberty, lay there, +crumbling slowly to ashes, under her eyes, her whole life, with its +pathos, its subterfuge, its losing battle against the ruling spirit of +change, seemed crumbling there also, like those ashes, or like that +vanished past to which she belonged. "I'm glad I let it burn," she +repeated bitterly, and yet she knew that the words had never really +burned, that the flame which was consuming them would never die until +she lay in her coffin. Stopping in front of the fire, she stood looking +down on the last shred of the letter, as though it were in reality the +ruins of her life which she was watching. A dull wonder stirred in her +mind amid her suffering—a vague questioning as to why this thing, of +all things, should have happened? "If I could only know why it was—if I +could only understand, it might be easier," she thought. "But I tried so +hard to do what was right, and, whatever the fault was, at least I never +failed in love. I never failed in love," she repeated. Her gaze, leaving +the fire, rested for an instant on a little alabaster ash-tray which +stood on the end of the table, and a spasm crossed her face, which had +remained unmoved while she was reading his letter. Every object in the +room seemed suddenly alive with memories. That was his place on the +rug; the deep chintz-covered chair by the hearth was the one in which he +used to sit, watching the fire at night, before going to bed; the clock +on the mantel was the one he had selected; the rug, which was threadbare +in places, he had helped her to choose; the pile of English reviews on +the table he had subscribed to; the little glass water bottle on the +candle-stand by the bed, she had bought years ago because he liked to +drink in the night. There was nothing in which he did not have a part. +Every trivial incident of her life was bound up with the thought of him. +She could no more escape the torment of these associations than she +could escape the fact of herself. For so long she had been one with him +in her thoughts that their relationship had passed, for her, into that +profound union of habit which is the strongest union of all. Even the +years in which he had grown gradually away from her had appeared to her +to leave untouched the deeper sanctities of their marriage.</p> + +<p>A knock came at the door, and the cook, with a list of groceries in her +hand, entered to inquire if her mistress were going to market. With the +beginning of the autumn Virginia had tried to take an interest in her +housekeeping again, and the daily trip to the market had relieved, in a +measure, the terrible vacancy of her mornings. Now it seemed to her that +the remorseless exactions of the material details of living offered the +only escape from the tortures of memory. "Yes, I'll go," she said, +reaching out her hand for the list, and her heart cried, "I cannot live +if I stay in this room any longer. I cannot live if I look at these +things." As she turned away to put on her hat, she was seized by a +superstitious feeling that she might escape her suffering by fleeing +from these inanimate reminders of her marriage. It was as though the +chair and the rug and the clock had become possessed with some +demoniacal spirit. "If I can only get out of doors I shall feel better," +she insisted; and when she had hurriedly pinned on her hat and tied her +tulle ruff at her throat, she caught up her gloves and ran quickly down +the stairs and out into the street. But as soon as she had reached the +sidewalk, the agony, which she had thought she was leaving behind her in +the closed room upstairs, rushed over her in a wave of realization, and +turning again, she started back into the yard, and stopped, with a +sensation of panic, beside the bed of crimson dahlias at the foot of the +steps. Then, while she hesitated, uncertain whether to return to her +bedroom or to force herself to go on to the market, those hated familiar +objects flashed in a blaze of light through her mind, and, opening the +gate, she passed out on the sidewalk, and started at a rapid step down +the deserted pavement of Sycamore Street. "At least nobody will speak to +me," she thought; but while the words were still on her lips, she saw a +door in the block open wide, and one of her neighbours come out on his +way to his business. Turning hastily, she fled into a cross street, and +then gathering courage, went on, trembling in every limb, towards the +old market, which she used because her mother and her grandmother had +used it before her.</p> + +<p>The fish-carts were still there just as they had been when she was a +girl, but the army of black-robed housekeepers had changed or melted +away. Here, also, the physical details of life had survived the beings +for whose use or comfort they had come into existence. The meat and the +vegetable stalls were standing in orderly rows about the octagonal +building; wilted cabbage leaves littered the dusty floor; flies swarmed +around the bleeding forms hanging from hooks in the sunshine; even Mr. +Dewlap, hale and red-cheeked, offered her white pullets out of the +wooden coop at his feet. So little had the physical scene changed since +the morning, more than twenty-five years ago, of her meeting with +Oliver, that while she paused there beside Mr. Dewlap's stall, one of +the older generation might have mistaken her for her mother.</p> + +<p>"My dear Virginia," said a voice at her back, and, turning, she found +Mrs. Peachey, a trifle rheumatic, but still plump and pretty. "I'm so +glad you come to the old market, my child. I suppose you cling to it +because of your mother, and then things are really so much dearer +uptown, don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I dare say they are, but I've got into the habit of coming here."</p> + +<p>"One does get into habits. Now I've bought chickens from Mr. Dewlap for +forty years. I remember your mother and I used to say that there were no +chickens to compare with his white pullets."</p> + +<p>"I remember. Mother was a wonderful housekeeper."</p> + +<p>"And you are too, my dear. Everybody says that you have the best table +in Dinwiddie!" Her small rosy face, framed in the shirred brim of her +black silk bonnet, was wrinkled with age, but even her wrinkles were +cheerful ones, and detracted nothing from the charming archness of her +expression. Unconquerable still, she went her sprightly way, on +rheumatic limbs, towards the grave.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen dear Miss Priscilla?" asked Virginia, striving to turn +the conversation away from herself, and shivering with terror lest the +other should ask after Oliver, whom she had always adored.</p> + +<p>"I stopped to inquire about her on my way down. She had had a bad night, +the maid said, and Doctor Fraser is afraid that the cold she got when +she went driving the other day has settled upon her lungs."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed Virginia, but she was conscious of an +immeasurable relief because Miss Priscilla's illness was absorbing Mrs. +Peachey's thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must be going on," said the little lady, and though she +flinched with pain when she moved, the habitual cheerfulness of her face +did not alter. "Come to see me as often as you can, Jinny. I can't get +about much now, and it is such a pleasure for me to have somebody to +chat with. People don't visit now," she added regretfully, "as much as +they used to."</p> + +<p>"So many things have changed," said Virginia, and her eyes, as she gazed +up at the blue sky over the market, had a yearning look in them. So many +things had changed—ah, there was the pang!</p> + +<p>On her way home, overcome by the fear that Miss Priscilla might die +thinking herself neglected, Virginia stopped at the Academy, and was +shown into the chamber behind the parlour, which had once been a +classroom. In the middle of her big tester bed, the teacher was lying, +propped among pillows, with her cameo brooch fastening the collar of her +nightgown and a purple wool shawl, which Virginia had knit for her, +thrown over her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"Dear Miss Priscilla, I've thought of you so often. Are you better +to-day?"</p> + +<p>"A little, Jinny, but don't worry about me. I'll be out of bed in a day +or two." Though she was well over eighty-five, she still thought of +herself as a middle-aged woman, and her constant plans for the future +amazed Virginia, whose hold upon life was so much slighter, so much less +tenacious. "Have you been to market, dear? I miss so being able to sit +by the window and watch people go by. Then I always knew when you and +Susan were on your way to Mr. Dewlap."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've begun to go again. It fills in the day."</p> + +<p>"I never approved of your letting your servants market for you, Jinny. +It would have shocked your mother dreadfully."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Virginia, and her voice, in spite of her effort to speak +cheerfully, had a weary sound, which made her add with sudden energy, +"I've brought you a partridge. Mr. Dewlap had such nice ones. You must +try to eat it for supper."</p> + +<p>"How like you that was, Jinny. You are your mother all over again. I +declare I am reminded of her more and more every time that I see you."</p> + +<p>Tears sprang to Virginia's eyes, while her thin blue-veined hands gently +caressed Miss Priscilla's swollen and knotted fingers.</p> + +<p>"You couldn't tell me anything that would please me more," she answered.</p> + +<p>"I used to think that Lucy would take after her, but she grew up +differently."</p> + +<p>"Yes, neither of the girls is like her. They are dear, good children, +but they are very modern."</p> + +<p>"Have you heard from them recently?"</p> + +<p>"A few days ago, and they are both as well as can be."</p> + +<p>"And what about Harry? I've always believed that Harry was your +favourite, Jinny."</p> + +<p>For an instant Virginia hesitated, with her eyes on the pot of red +geraniums blooming between the white muslin curtains at the window. In +his little cage in the sunlight, Miss Priscilla's canary, the last of +many generations of Dickys, burst suddenly into song.</p> + +<p>"I believe that Harry loves me more than anybody else in the world +does," she answered at last. "He'd come to me to-morrow if he thought I +needed him."</p> + +<p>Lying there in her great white bed, with her enormous body, which she +could no longer turn, rising in a mountain of flesh under the linen +sheet, the old teacher closed her eyes lest Virginia should see her soul +yearning over her as it had yearned over Lucy Pendleton after the +rector's death. She thought of the girl, with the flower-like eyes and +the braided wreath of hair, flitting in white organdie and blue ribbons, +under the dappled sunlight in High Street, and she said to herself, as +she had said twenty-five years ago, "If there was ever a girl who looked +as if she were cut out for happiness, it was Jinny Pendleton."</p> + +<p>"They say that Abby Goode is going to be married at last," remarked +Virginia abruptly, for she knew that such bits of gossip supplied the +only pleasant excitement in Miss Priscilla's life.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's time. She waited long enough," returned the teacher, and she +added, "I always knew that she was crazy about Oliver by the way she +flung herself at his head." She had never liked Abby, and her +prejudices, which had survived the shocks of life, were not weakened by +the approaching presence of Death. It was characteristic of her that she +should pass into eternity with both her love and her scorn undiminished.</p> + +<p>"She was a little boisterous as a girl, but I never believed any harm of +her," answered Virginia mildly; and then as Miss Priscilla's lunch was +brought in on a tray, she kissed her tenderly, with a curious feeling +that it was for the last time, and went out of the door and down the +gravelled walk into High Street. An exhaustion greater than any she had +ever known oppressed her as she dragged her body, which felt dead, +through the glorious October weather. Once, when she passed Saint James' +Church, she thought wearily, "How sorry mother would be if she knew," +while an intolerable pain, which seemed her mother's pain as well as her +own, pierced her heart. Then, as she hurried on, with that nervous haste +which she could no longer control, the terrible haunted blocks appeared +to throng with the faded ghosts of her youth. A grey-haired woman +leaning out of the upper window of an old house nodded to her with a +smile, and she found herself thinking, "I rolled hoops with her once in +the street, and now she is watching her grandchild go out in its +carriage." At any other moment she would have bent, enraptured, over the +perambulator, which was being wheeled, by a nurse and a maid, down the +front steps into the street; but to-day the sight of the soft baby +features, lovingly surrounded by lace and blue ribbons, was like the +turn of a knife in her wound. "And yet mother always said that she was +never so happy as she was with my children," she reflected, while her +personal suffering was eased for a minute by the knowledge of what her +return to Dinwiddie had meant to her mother. "If she had died while I +lived away, I could never have got over it—I could never have forgiven +myself," she added, and there was an exquisite relief in turning even +for an instant away from the thought of herself.</p> + +<p>When she reached home luncheon was awaiting her; but after sitting down +at the table and unfolding her napkin, a sudden nausea seized her, and +she felt that it was impossible to sit there facing the mahogany +sideboard, with its gleaming rows of silver, and watch the precise, +slow-footed movements of the maid, who served her as she might have +served a wooden image. "I took such trouble to train her, and now it +makes me sick to look at her," she thought, as she pushed back her chair +and fled hastily from the room into Oliver's study across the hall. Here +her work-bag lay on the table, and taking it up, she sat down before the +fire, and spread out the centrepiece, which she was embroidering, in an +intricate and elaborate design, for Lucy's Christmas. It was almost a +year now since she had started it, and into the luxuriant sprays and +garlands there had passed something of the restless love and yearning +which had overflowed from her heart. Usually she was able to work on it +in spite of her suffering, for she was one of those whose hands could +accomplish mechanically tasks from which her soul had revolted; but +to-day even her obedient fingers faltered and refused to keep at their +labour. Her eyes, leaving the needle she held, wandered beyond the +window to the branches of the young maple tree, which rose, like a +pointed flame, toward the cloudless blue of the sky.</p> + +<p>In the evening, when Susan came in, with a newspaper in her hand, and a +passionate sympathy in her face, Virginia was still sitting there, +gazing at the dim outline of the tree and the strip of sky which had +faded from azure to grey.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jinny, my darling, you never told me!"</p> + +<p>Taking up the piece of embroidery from her lap, Virginia met her +friend's tearful caress with a frigid and distant manner. "There was +nothing to tell. What do you mean?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Is—is it true that Oliver has left you? That—that——" Susan's voice +broke, strangled by emotion, but Virginia, without looking up from the +rose on which she was working in the firelight, answered quietly:</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is true. He wants to be free."</p> + +<p>"But you will not do it, darling? The law is on your side."</p> + +<p>With her eyes on the needle which she held carefully poised for the next +stitch, Virginia hesitated while the muscles of her face quivered for an +instant and then grew rigid again.</p> + +<p>"What good would it do," she asked, "to hold him to me when he wishes to +be free?" And then, with one of those flashes of insight which came to +her in moments of great emotional stress, she added quietly, "It is not +the law, it is life."</p> + +<p>Putting her arms around her, Susan pressed her to her bosom as she might +have pressed a suffering child whom she was powerless to help or even to +make understand.</p> + +<p>"Jinny, Jinny, let me love you," she begged.</p> + +<p>"How did you know?" asked Virginia, as coldly as though she had not +heard her. "Has it got into the papers?"</p> + +<p>For an instant Susan's pity struggled against her loyalty. "General +Goode told me that there had been a good deal about Oliver and—and Miss +Oldcastle in the New York papers for several days," she answered, "and +this morning a few lines were copied in the Dinwiddie <i>Bee</i>. Oliver is +so famous it was impossible to keep things hushed up, I suppose. But you +knew all this, Jinny darling."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I knew that," answered Virginia; then, rising suddenly from +her chair, she said almost irritably: "Susan, I want to be alone. I +can't think until I am alone." By her look Susan knew that until that +minute some blind hope had kept alive in her, some childish pretence +that it might all be a dream, some passionate evasion of the ultimate +outcome.</p> + +<p>"But you'll let me come back? You'll let me spend the night with you, +Jinny?"</p> + +<p>"If you want to, you may come. But I don't need you. I don't need +anybody. I don't need anybody," she repeated bitterly; and this +bitterness appeared to change not only her expression, but her features +and her carriage and that essential attribute of her being which had +been the real Virginia.</p> + +<p>Awed in spite of herself, Susan put on her hat again, and bent over to +kiss her. "I'll be back before bed-time, Jinny. Don't shut me away, +dear. Let me share your pain with you."</p> + +<p>At this something that was like a smile trembled for an instant on +Virginia's face.</p> + +<p>"You are good, Susan," she responded, but there was no tenderness, no +gratitude even, in her voice. She had grown hard with the implacable +hardness of grief.</p> + +<p>When the door had closed behind her friend, she stood looking through +the window until she saw her pass slowly, as though she were reluctant +to go, down Sycamore Street in the direction of her home. "I am glad she +has gone," she thought coldly. "Susan is good, but I am glad she has +gone." Then, turning back to the fire, she took up the piece of +embroidery and mechanically folded it before she laid it away. While her +hands were still on the bag in which she kept it, a shiver went through +her body, and a look of resolution passed over her features, making them +appear as if they were sculptured in marble.</p> + +<p>"He will be sorry some day," she thought. "He will be sorry when it is +too late, and if I were there now—if I were to see him, it might all be +prevented. It might all be prevented and we might be happy again." In +her distorted mind, which worked with the quickness and the intensity of +delirium, this idea assumed presently the prominence and the force of an +hallucination. So powerful did it become that it triumphed over all the +qualities which had once constituted her character—over the patience, +the sweetness, the unselfish goodness—as easily as it obscured the +rashness and folly of the step which she planned. "If I could see him, +it might all be prevented," she repeated obstinately, as though some one +had opposed her; and, going upstairs to her bedroom, she packed her +little handbag and put on the travelling dress which she had worn in New +York. Then, very softly, as though she feared to be stopped by the +servants, she went down the stairs and out of the front door; and, very +softly, carrying her bag, she passed into the street and walked +hurriedly in the direction of the station. And all the way she was +thinking, "If I can only see him again, this may not happen and +everything may be as it was before when he still loved me." So just and +rational did this idea appear to her, that she found herself wondering +passionately why she had not thought of it before. It was so easy a way +out of her wretchedness that it seemed absurd of her to have overlooked +it. And this discovery filled her with such tremulous excitement, that +when she opened her purse to buy her ticket, her hands shook as if they +were palsied, and the porter, who held her bag, was obliged to count out +the money. The whole of life, which had looked so dark an hour ago, had +become suddenly illuminated.</p> + +<p>Once in the train, her nervousness left her, and when an acquaintance +joined her after they had started, she was able to talk connectedly of +trivial occurrences in Dinwiddie. He was a fat, apoplectic looking man, +with a bald head which shone like satin, and a drooping moustache +slightly discoloured by tobacco. His appearance, which she had never +objected to before, seemed to her grotesque; but in spite of this, she +could smile almost naturally at his jokes, which she thought +inconceivably stupid.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you heard about Cyrus Treadwell's accident," he said at last +when she rose to go to her berth. "Got knocked down by an automobile as +he was getting off a street car at the bank. It isn't serious, they say, +but he was pretty well stunned for a while."</p> + +<p>"No, I hadn't heard," she answered, and thought, "I wonder why Susan +didn't tell me." Then she said good-night and disappeared behind the +curtains of her berth, where she lay, without undressing, until morning.</p> + +<p>"This is the way—there is no other way to stop it," she thought, and +all night the rumble of the train and the flashing of the lights in the +darkness outside of her window kept up a running accompaniment to the +words. "It is a sin—and there is no other way to stop it. He is +committing a sin, and when I see him he will understand it, and it will +be as it was before." This idea, which was as fixed as an obsession of +delirium, seemed to occupy some central space in her brain, leaving room +for a crowd of lesser thoughts which came and went fantastically around +it like the motley throng of a circus. She thought of Cyrus Treadwell's +accident, of the stupid jokes the man from Dinwiddie had told her, of +the noises of the train, which would not let one sleep, of the stations +which blazed out, here and there, in the darkness. But in the midst of +this confusion of images and impressions, a clear voice was repeating +somewhere in her brain: "This is the way—there is no other way to stop +it before it is too late."</p> + +<p>In the morning, when she got out in New York, and gave the driver the +name of the little hotel at which she had stopped on her first visit, +this glowing certainty faded like the excitement of fever from her mind, +and she relapsed into the stricken hopelessness of the last six months. +The bleakness of her spirits fell like a cloud on the brilliant October +day, and the sunshine, which lay in golden pools on the pavements, +appeared to increase the sense of universal melancholy which had +followed so sharply on the brief exaltation of the night. "I must see +him—it is the only way," her brain still repeated, but the ring of +conviction was gone from the words. Her flight from Dinwiddie showed to +her now in all the desperate folly with which it might have appeared to +a stranger. The impulse which had brought her had ebbed away, and with +the impulse had passed also the confidence and the energy of her +resolve.</p> + +<p>At the hotel, where the red bedroom into which they ushered her appeared +to have waited unaltered for the second tragedy of her life, she bathed +and dressed herself, and after a cup of black coffee, taken because a +sensation of dizziness had alarmed her lest she should faint in the +street, she put on her hat again and went out into Fifth Avenue. She +remembered the name of the hotel at the head of Oliver's letter, and she +directed her steps towards it now with an automatic precision of which +her mind seemed almost unconscious. All thought of asking for him had +vanished, yet she was drawn to the place where he was by a force which +was more irresistible than any choice of the will. An instinct stronger +than reason was guiding her steps.</p> + +<p>In Fifth Avenue the crowd was already beginning to stream by on the +sidewalks, and as she mingled with it, she recalled that other morning +when she had moved among these people and had felt that they looked at +her kindly because she was beautiful and young. Now the kindness had +given way to indifference in their eyes. They no longer looked at her; +and when a shop window, which she was passing, showed her a reflection +of herself, she saw only a commonplace middle-aged figure, with a look +of withered sweetness in the face, which had grown suddenly wan. And +the sight of this figure fell like a weight on her heart, destroying the +last vestige of courage.</p> + +<p>Before the door of the hotel in which Oliver was staying, she stood so +long, with her vacant gaze fixed on the green velvet carpet within the +hall, that an attendant in livery came up at last and inquired if she +wished to see any one. Arousing herself with a start, she shook her head +hurriedly and turned back into the street, for when the crucial moment +came her decision failed her. Just as she had been unable to make a +scene on the night when they had parted, so now it was impossible for +her to descend to the vulgarity of thrusting her presence into his life. +Unless the frenzy of delirium seized her again, she knew that she should +never have the strength to put the desperation of thought into the +desperation of action. What she longed for was not to fight, not to +struggle, but to fall, like a wounded bird, to the earth, and be +forgotten.</p> + +<p>At the crossing, where there was a crush of motor cars and carriages, +she stopped for a moment and thought how easy it would be to die in the +crowded street before returning to Dinwiddie. "All I need do is to slip +and fall there, and in a second it would be over." But so many cars went +by that she knew she should never be able to do it, that much as she +hated life, something bound her to it which she lacked the courage to +break. There shot through her mind the memory of a soldier her father +used to tell about, who was always first on the field of battle, but had +never found the courage to charge. "He was like me—for I might stand +here forever and yet not find the courage to die."</p> + +<p>A beggar came up to her and she thought, "He is begging of me, and yet I +am more miserable than he is." Then, while she searched in her bag for +some change, it seemed to her that the faces gliding past her became +suddenly distorted and twisted as though the souls of the women in the +rapidly moving cars were crucified under their splendid furs. "That +woman in the sable cloak is beautiful, and yet she, also, is in +torture," she reflected with an impersonal coldness and detachment. "I +was beautiful, too, but how did it help me?" And she saw herself as she +had been in her girlhood with the glow of happiness, as of one flying, +in her face, and her heart filled with the joyous expectancy of the +miracle which must happen. "I am as old now as Miss Willy was then—and +how I pitied her!" Tears rushed to her eyes, which had been so dry a +minute before, while the memory of that lost gaiety of youth came over +her in a wave that was like the sweetness of the honeysuckle blooming in +the rectory garden.</p> + +<p>A policeman, observing that she had waited there so long, held up the +traffic until she had crossed the street, and after thanking him, she +went on again towards the hotel in which she was staying. "He was kind +about helping me over," she said to herself, with an impulse of +gratitude; and this casual kindness seemed to her the one spot of light +in the blackness which surrounded her.</p> + +<p>As she approached the hotel, her step flagged, and she felt suddenly +that even that passive courage which was hers—the courage of +endurance—had deserted her. She saw the dreadful hours that must ensue +before she went back to Dinwiddie, the dreadful days that would follow +after she got there, the dreadful weeks that would run on into the +dreadful years. Silent, grey, and endless, they stretched ahead of her, +and through them all she saw herself, a little hopeless figure, moving +towards that death which she had not had the courage to die. The +thoughts of the familiar streets, of the familiar faces, of the house, +of the furniture, of the leaf-strewn yard in which her bed of dahlias +was blooming—all these aroused in her the sense of spiritual nausea +which she had felt when she went back to them after her parting from +Oliver. Nothing remained except the long empty years, for she had +outlived her usefulness.</p> + +<p>At the door of the hotel, the hall porter met her with a cheerful face, +and she turned to him with the instinctive reliance on masculine +protection which had driven her to the friendly shelter of the policeman +at the crossing in Fifth Avenue. In reply to her helpless questions, he +looked up the next train to Dinwiddie, which left within the hour, and +after buying her ticket, assisted her smilingly into the taxicab. While +she sat there, in the middle of the seat, with her little black bag +rocking back and forth as the cab turned the corners, all capacity for +feeling, all possibility of sensation even, seemed to have passed out of +her body. The impulse which was carrying her to Dinwiddie was the +physical impulse which drives a wounded animal back to die in its +shelter. Even the flaring advertisements of Oliver's play, which was +still running in a Broadway theatre, aroused no pain, hardly any thought +of him or of the past, in her mind. She had ceased to suffer, she had +ceased even to think; and when, a little later, she followed the station +porter down the long platform, she was able to brush aside the memory of +her parting from Oliver as lightly as though it were the trivial sting +of a wasp. When she remembered the agony of the last year, of yesterday, +of the morning through which she had just lived, it appeared almost +ridiculous. That death which she had lacked the courage to die seemed +creeping over her soul before it reached the outer shell of her body.</p> + +<p>In the train, she was attacked by a sensation of faintness, and +remembering that she had eaten nothing all day, she went into the +dining-car, and sat down at one of the little tables. When her luncheon +was brought, she ate almost ravenously for a minute. Then her sudden +hunger was followed by a disgust for the look of the dishes and the +cinders on the table-cloth, and after paying her bill, for which she +waited an intolerable time, she went back to her chair in the next +coach, and watched, with unseeing eyes, the swiftly moving landscape, +which rushed by in all the brilliant pageantry of October. Several seats +ahead of her, two men were discussing politics, and one of them, who +wore a clerical waistcoat, raised his voice suddenly so high that his +words penetrated the wall of blankness which surrounded her thoughts, "I +tell you it is the greatest menace to our civilization!" and then, as he +controlled his excitement, his speech dropped quickly into +indistinctness.</p> + +<p>"How absurd of him to get so angry about it," thought Virginia with +surprise, "as if a civilization could make any difference to anybody on +earth." And she watched the clergyman for a minute, as if fascinated by +the display of his earnestness. "What on earth can it matter to him?" +she wondered mildly, "and yet to look at him one would think that his +heart was bound up in the question." But in a little while she turned +away from him again, and lying back in her chair, stared across the +smooth plains to the pale golden edge of the distant horizon. Through +the long day she sat, without moving, without taking her eyes from the +landscape, while the sunlight faded slowly away from the fields and the +afterglow flushed and waned, and the stars shone out, one by one, +through the silver web of the twilight. Once, when the porter had +offered her a pillow, she had looked round to thank him; once when a +child, toddling along the aisle, had fallen at her feet, she had bent +over to lift it, but beyond this, she had stirred only to hand her +ticket to the conductor when he aroused her by touching her arm. Where +the sunset and the afterglow had been, she saw at last only the lights +of the train reflected in the smeared glass of the window, but so +unconscious was she of any change in that utter vacancy at which she +looked, that she could not have told whether it was an hour or a day +after leaving New York that she came back to Dinwiddie. Even then she +would still have sat there, speechless, inert, unseeing, had not the +porter taken her bag from the rack over her head and accompanied her +from the glare of the train out into the dimness of the town, where the +crumbling "hacks" hitched to the decrepit horses still waited. Here her +bag was passed over to a driver, whom she vaguely remembered, and a few +minutes later she rolled, in one of the ancient vehicles, under the +pale lights of the street which led to her home. In the drug store at +the corner she saw Miss Priscilla's maid buying medicines, and she +wondered indifferently if the teacher had grown suddenly worse. Then, as +she passed John Henry's house, she recognized his large shadow as it +moved across the white shade at the window of the drawing-room. "Susan +was coming to spend last night with me," she said aloud, and for the +first and last time in her life, an ironic smile quivered upon her lips.</p> + +<p>With a last jolt the carriage drew up at the sidewalk before her home; +the driver dismounted, grinning, from his box; and in the lighted +doorway, she saw the figure of her maid, in trim cap and apron, waiting +to welcome her. Not a petal had fallen from the bed of crimson dahlias +beside the steps; not a leaf had changed on the young maple tree, which +rose in a spire of flame toward the stars. Inside, she knew, there would +be the bright fire, the cheerful supper table, the soft bed turned +down—and the future.</p> + +<p>On the porch she stopped and looked back into the street as she might +have looked back at the door of a prison. The negro driver, having +placed her bag in the hall, stood waiting expectantly, with his hat in +his hand, and his shining black eyes on her face; and opening her purse, +she paid him, before walking past the maid over the threshold. Ahead of +her stretched the staircase which she would go up and down for the rest +of her life. On the right, she could look into the open door of the +dining-room, and opposite to it, she knew that the lamp was lit and the +fire burning in Oliver's study. Then, while a wave of despair, like a +mortal sickness, swept over her, her eyes fell on an envelope which lay +on the little silver card-tray on the hall table, and as she tore it +open, she saw that it contained but a single line:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Dearest mother, I am coming home to you,</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">"Harry."</span></p></div> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR" id="BY_THE_SAME_AUTHOR"></a>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</h2> + +<p>THE MILLER OF OLD CHURCH</p> + +<p>THE ROMANCE OF A PLAIN MAN</p> + +<p>THE ANCIENT LAW</p> + +<p>THE WHEEL OF LIFE</p> + +<p>THE DELIVERANCE</p> + +<p>THE BATTLEGROUND</p> + +<p>THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE</p> + +<p>PHASES OF AN INFERIOR PLANET</p> + +<p>THE DESCENDANT</p> + +<p>THE FREEMAN, AND OTHER POEMS</p> + + +<p>THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Virginia, by Ellen Glasgow + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VIRGINIA *** + +***** This file should be named 26316-h.htm or 26316-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/3/1/26316/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +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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