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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Blindfold, by Orrick Johns
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Blindfold
-
-Author: Orrick Johns
-
-Release Date: September 17, 2022 [eBook #69006]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
-             Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-             produced from images generously made available by The
-             Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLINDFOLD ***
-
-
-
-
-
-BLINDFOLD
-
-
-
-
-  BLINDFOLD
-
-  _By_
-  ORRICK JOHNS
-
-  [Illustration]
-
-  NEW YORK
-  LIEBER & LEWIS
-  1923
-
-
-
-
-  Copyright, 1923
-
-  By LIEBER & LEWIS
-
-
-  Printed in the U.S.A.
-
-
-
-
-  TO MY
-  FATHER
-
-  GEORGE S. JOHNS,
-
-  IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
-  OF UNFAILING SYMPATHY
-
-
-
-
-BLINDFOLD
-
-
-
-
-BLINDFOLD
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-
-Ellen Sydney’s first garden in the Meadowburn’s new American home had
-made a fair beginning. She was at work one afternoon bending over the
-bed of sweet peas, hooking the baby tendrils to the wire mesh of the
-frame, with an occasional pat of the soft dark earth beneath--the earth
-which Bennet, the youngest of the family, had brought by the basketful
-from a distance, to enrich the yellow clay that filled in the property.
-
-School was just out and as she worked Bennet banged into the hall,
-threw down his books and rushed forth again with a shout to join his
-comrades up the street. They were building a “switch-back railway”
-from the second story rear window of a neighbour’s house. She could
-just glimpse the murderous rickety scaffolding of it through the small
-leaves of the alley poplars.
-
-Fastening up the last of the tendrils to the wire, Ellen heard Mrs.
-Osprey’s shrill voice calling from quite half a block away to one
-of the Osprey boys. She could not restrain a smile at the familiar
-summons.
-
-“Poor woman,” thought she, “they do worry her.” But she would no more
-have thought of pitying Mrs. Osprey actually, than of feeling sorry for
-Her Majesty Queen Alexandra, whom many years in Canada had taught her
-to believe next to the angels themselves.
-
-As she turned from the garden she heard a still more familiar voice and
-Potter Osprey came through the gate.
-
-“Hello, Ellen, mind my coming over?”
-
-“Oh, no! I’ve got to go in, though. Come in the kitchen, I’m not
-very busy.” She had in fact three easy hours before her, with dinner
-practically prepared and a little ironing to do before she put the
-dishes in the stove. Ironing was quite pleasant if you had some one to
-talk to while you did it.
-
-“Vacation’s only six weeks off now,” Potter said as they walked up to
-the house. “Ain’t that great! I hate school anyway.”
-
-“Ah, Potter, when you are doing so well at it! Milly told me about the
-debates. She said you were fine in them.”
-
-The monthly school debates were a point of pride with him, and he
-betrayed a momentary embarrassment. He had quite lost himself in the
-vainglory of winning two of them in succession, or of being on the
-winning side both times. He had regretted that while they were in
-progress, especially while he was on his feet, everybody he knew had
-not been in the audience. So many people were not. The thing that he
-feared in talking about them to Ellen was that he would reveal his
-satisfaction. So Milly had been gossiping about them outside? That
-pleased him. Milly was in the class below him, which sat in the same
-room.
-
-He recovered his composure and spoke as though of an ordinary matter.
-
-“Pshaw, the debates ain’t really school. They’re different.... But
-look, Ellen, all the lots around here are almost forests of weeds in
-the summer. It’s great! You can hide in them, and everything. They get
-over six feet high. And there’s woods only a mile out west there, to
-swim and camp in. If you have time we can walk there some day.”
-
-Ellen’s face brightened at the prospect.
-
-“But it gets hot here in the summer,” he went on, “awful hot--not like
-Winnipeg. You won’t like that.”
-
-“Oh, I’ve lived in N’Orleans. It’s lots hotter there.”
-
-“Yes, that’s so. That’s way down south, ain’t it? I always think of
-you coming from Winnipeg. Bennet talks about it all the time. He’s a
-Britisher all right.”
-
-Ellen replied warmly.
-
-“Well, he shouldn’t be, even if they were born in Canada. His father
-says he’s going to stand by this country now, because it gives them a
-good living and always has. He’s going to make them all citizens.”
-
-Potter laughed. He was sitting perched up on the kitchen table, his
-small feet dangling beneath it and his cap in his hand.
-
-“I told Bennet we licked England twice and he got hot under the collar.
-He’s funny. Did you like it better up north?”
-
-“Yes, I guess I did. We used to have good times in Winnipeg. The
-fellows always in the house, my! It’ll be the same here after a while.
-Those two girls get a crowd coming pretty quick. Only we’ll never have
-snow like in Winnipeg. I did love the snow, such sledding and skating!”
-
-“That’s the ticket!” agreed Potter, and added with some disgust, “We
-hardly had one good skate last winter--soon as it’d freeze it’d thaw!
-But you should have seen the first winter we were here. Almost two
-months of ice! This house wasn’t here then--hardly any in this row
-were, and gee, the way the wind used to blow! It changes around here
-fast. Kirk broke his arm falling through these joistses.”
-
-Potter swung down from the table and stood in front of the ironing
-board, smiling up at the tall woman, his hands in his pockets.
-
-“Say, Ellen, got something to eat? Just anything, you know--I’ll tell
-you why I want it.”
-
-Ellen put down her iron on the metal guard and went into the pantry.
-She returned with three powdered doughnuts on a plate.
-
-“Here,” she said laughing. “You’re always eating, Potter Osprey. Your
-mother told me I was spoiling your appetite for meals.”
-
-“Thanks,” he said and went on between mouthfuls. “I’ve been smoking. I
-thought something to eat would take my breath away.”
-
-“Well, if that’s what you came here for you can go right back home. You
-oughtn’t smoke--so there!”
-
-Potter, however, did not stir; and for a time there was no sound
-except the thumping of Ellen’s iron on the thickly padded board. She
-was thumping harder than need be, because she was angry. She was often
-angry with him. Yet his prolonged visits with her in the kitchen or
-on the back stoop of a fine afternoon meant much to her. The family
-already teased her, calling young Osprey “Ellen’s pet.” Then Tom
-Meadowburn reminded them that “Ellen always had a pet. Remember
-Wolly Judson.” This sally caused an uproar. Wolly Judson had been a
-Winnipegian of sixty-eight, a town character, a tottering flirt, who
-had brought the current gossip regularly to Ellen’s door.
-
-Potter heard none of this chaffing, yet in his talks with her he
-betrayed a small opinion of the Meadowburns, all except his friend
-Bennet, with whom he sang in the choir. Once he told her indignantly
-that she worked too hard, she was spoiling the whole family. Why didn’t
-the others do more? Ellen laughed heartily. She did not believe any
-such thing. It was her lot to work, and keep at it until things were
-done.
-
-Ellen was neither by birth nor legal adoption a member of the
-Meadowburn household. She lived there, a fixture; and the principal
-advantages did accrue to the family. They obtained a willing, strong
-and tireless servant, modest and well-appearing enough to be treated
-as a distant relative (and consequently not paid except when chance
-generosity dictated). She had been with the Meadowburns since she was
-twelve, learning by heart their various needs so that she could have
-administered to them in her sleep. She was now twenty-seven, a gaunt
-figure, black-eyed and above the middle height. The face would have
-been attractive but for the toughened swarthiness it had acquired, and
-the cheeks perceptibly sunken by the absence of jaw teeth.
-
-The Meadowburn children had grown up under her care, the two eldest
-girls being little more than babies at the time the orphan asylum
-in New Orleans yielded her young and frightened body into the hands
-of Mrs. Meadowburn. Ellen had found time for those fretful and
-ill-tempered midgets, in addition to keeping the house spotless,
-laundering for six and cooking the meals. Mrs. Meadowburn had been left
-free to nurse a collection of modern ills, and to dream of her youth
-as the dark beauty of a northwestern town. Since those days a morose
-gloom had settled upon her handsome, Indian-like face. Ellen had rarely
-known her to laugh at all. Even the smile with which she greeted her
-husband’s jokes was wan and half-hearted.
-
-It was to Ellen that Tom Meadowburn looked for the fullest appreciation
-of his comic genius and his masculine importance. Few men were more
-conscious of both than he, and even in those moments when the comic
-mask fell away completely, there was something in the solemn air of
-pompous judgment and disciplinary wisdom which to any one but his
-adoring brood would have seemed most funny.
-
-For Tom Meadowburn the world, whether of New Orleans or Winnipeg, or
-the new city that had lately taken them in, was a place where he and
-the wife and children were “getting on.” The Meadowburn household was,
-in his mind, something very much like heaven, himself presiding. For
-Ellen, as he often said, it was a refuge under his protecting arm,
-wherein she need never come to harm nor suffer want. And to her credit
-she believed him and worked all the harder to please him.
-
-Physically Meadowburn was a tall stout man with a heavy, pink,
-unwhiskered face, the pale eyelashes and tow hair being lighter than
-his skin, and the small, quick eyes a transparent, hardly perceptible
-blue. As a humourist he was not one of your torrential and generous
-laughers. He was sly and dry, a wrinkle, the flicker of a smile, a
-knowing arch of the eyebrows being his favourite manner of accentuating
-his point. He was in the habit of twitting Ellen on the subject of
-marriage.
-
-“Now then, my girl,” he would say, “what are you keeping from us? What
-have you got up your sleeve? Didn’t I hear you come in a little late
-last night? Walking, eh--of course, not _alone_? We wouldn’t permit you
-to walk alone.”
-
-“Ellen went to the drugstore for some medicine for me, last night,
-Tom,” interposed his wife.
-
-“Well, well, Ellen,” he went on, “you must remember you’re perfectly
-free. We wouldn’t keep you from marrying when the right man comes
-along.”
-
-“Yes, and maybe I will marry, sooner than you think! You watch out, Mr.
-Meadowburn!”
-
-The pleasure of this stock joke lay in the fact that none of the
-Meadowburns believed there was danger of Ellen marrying, of any one
-caring to marry her, at least, whose social position would suit her.
-For she did not have kitchen-maid standards, as they knew. And she
-believed there was no danger either. She felt very old....
-
-It was into this somewhat harsh and lonely existence that Potter had
-thrust his genial, boyish appearance, and by some strange affinity of
-comradeship, they had taken to each other at once. He too, as she was
-soon to learn, was lonely and cherished his dreams; and it comforted
-her to have a champion--even so young and small a champion as he. Was
-he so young and small? There were times when he frightened her with
-flashes of grown-up speech. It did not always seem quite nice, quite
-appropriate. For example, one evening when they were talking about
-perfectly ordinary matters, he burst out:
-
-“You’re like Christ, Ellen. If He could be on earth He wouldn’t love
-Dr. Minor or any of those people in the church. He’d pick you.”
-
-Her first thought about this was that it was deliberately bad, as bad
-as his smoking and his score of other boy tricks. It was blasphemous
-and wildly untrue. She sent him away in disgrace, much discomfited and
-hurt. Probably this rudeness of her own was what brought her so swiftly
-around to forgiveness, or it may be that she came to look kindly on
-his tribute. In any event, she gave Bennet a note for him, a queer,
-misspelled, dignified note....
-
-When Potter returned she told him that he “must not think of Jesus as a
-person but as God, and that was the end of it.”
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-
-The next Spring, which followed on the heels of his fourteenth
-birthday, held a wonder for Potter Osprey such as he had not
-experienced before. Until now the green buds and soft winds had meant
-a time for the surreptitious stripping off of shoes and stockings
-after school (and out of sight of home), the agonizing anticipation of
-three long months of holidaying, and the making of limitless plans for
-outdoor fun. This year he welcomed the bright weeks not as a rowdy boy,
-but with a conscious relish that came from a deeper source within him.
-
-The Spring itself, as if it also were filled with a sense of unusual
-importance, was precocious. When Potter, late every afternoon, ambled
-along the several blocks of blatantly new sidewalks that led to the
-church, the grass hid the softened brown earth with an abundance of
-delicate colour wherever feet had not trod, the robins and squirrels
-skipped perilously about the pavements and lawns oblivious of savage
-man, and exultant banks of snowballs escaping over the picturesque
-shingle- and iron-railed barriers of the old Clemons place, were just
-on the point of changing from their pale shade of willow bark into
-round fluffs of dazzling white as big as a boy’s head.
-
-These Lenten afternoons were moments of solitary poetry in his days.
-The still church, the long slanting rays which came through the
-coloured glass windows to the west; the faint perfumes that rose
-into the ogival shadows above the nave, emanating from the hair and
-handkerchiefs and bodices of lady worshippers, who made up the majority
-(and the subtle pleasure with which he felt the eyes of these fine
-women on his broadening back as he walked down to the chancel carrying
-the offertory); the pervasive, vibrant drone of the organ, which had
-always been like a physical caress to him; and the saintly beaked
-profile of the rector, Dr. Minor, with its high, peeled brows, and
-black, unruly hair, dominating an almost chinless jaw; and, finally,
-between the breathing of the organ pipes, and the shrill singing of the
-feminine congregation, Dr. Minor’s broad Virginia accents and consoling
-overtones and melancholy quavers--all these sensations produced a
-mingling of peace and the awareness of sacrifice, which was like a bath
-of goodness.
-
-The church itself was charming to look at, built in the late ’eighties
-of shingles now coloured a warm brown by many rains, and properly
-vine-hung. The little building with its limited open meadow and
-well-grown trees drew him at times when he had no particular business
-there. It was a favourite place to read. Often he would arrive an hour
-or more before the service and sit huddled up in one of the corners
-of the deep verandah, intent upon his pastime, until the brisk step
-of the rector sounded on the boards below; and if Dr. Minor happened
-to espy him he would be conducted cheerily into the study, while the
-lanky priest put on his vestments and asked him questions about his
-work at school and the health of his “dear mother,” who, much to the
-clergyman’s disappointment, came almost never to the services.
-
-These innocent confidences sometimes went so far as a mild spiritual
-examination which had more significance than its casualness indicated.
-Minor regarded young Osprey as promising material for the ministry.
-
-“The type for scholarship and consecration,” he told his wife. “A
-sensitive boy, thoughtful and retiring--Oh, manly, manly enough! A
-little conviction would turn that into spiritual leadership. His family
-could do nothing better than give him a seminary training. And a part
-of our duty, my dear, is to be fishers of men, to look out for new
-recruits to bring under His banner.”
-
-Minor loved to roll forth militant symbols in his reflections upon the
-mission of the Church. His early gods had been the deeply pious heroes
-of the South. Stonewall Jackson and General Lee took rank with him very
-little below the Apostles.
-
-There was one other who shared this secret ambition for Potter--Ellen
-Sydney--until a recent incident in which he had figured shook her faith.
-
-This affair produced something of a scandal in the Osprey family.
-Searching one day through the shelves of an old closet for one of
-his brother Kirk’s discarded school books which it was now his turn
-to use, the boy had come across a half dozen large, handsomely bound
-portfolios. He had drawn one out and leaved it over, fascinated on the
-instant. The sheets were of lovely texture, beautifully printed, and
-the covers of a flexible, warm-toned, heavy parchment. He felt a sense
-of incomparable luxury in the very touch of the books.
-
-The contents were no less absorbing. Between the pages of French
-text were reproductions of paintings hung in the Paris salons of the
-mid-’nineties, the majority of them nudes of that languishing and
-silken type beloved by the French school of that day, the studio
-renderings of a flock of anonymous Bouguereaus. Forgetting his search
-for the school books, Potter took the volumes to an attic room where he
-consulted them many times in the following weeks, and a collection of
-nude sketches came from his pencil, copied sometimes from the originals
-and sometimes attempted from memory.
-
-The upshot of it was that his mother swooped upon him one day just as
-he was finishing a particularly elaborate drawing. It was taken from
-him and shown in excited secrecy to John Osprey.
-
-Osprey was cut of a different cloth from Meadowburn. In a ruminant,
-half-serious talk (a ray of amusement flickered in his eye on actually
-facing the boy alone) he quoted the Scripture according to St. Paul,
-and enjoined him to resist putting away childish things until he was
-on the way to become a man. Then he dropped a sly hint that if the
-youthful artist really had to draw improper subjects it would be a good
-thing to keep them from his mother. There was other good advice to
-the effect that it was both harder and more practical to draw people
-the way they were usually seen in life, but this passed largely over
-Potter’s head.
-
-He promptly diagnosed the interview as a vindication and he saw no harm
-in telling the adventure to Ellen, but to his utter surprise she was
-inexpressibly shocked; so much so that she left him on the Meadowburn
-steps without even a good-night.
-
-As he had related the story, coolly, indeed boastfully to her, the
-feeling came over her that the next time she raised her eyes to observe
-him she would see a coarse, swarthy young man with stubble whiskers
-whom she ought to be afraid of. The contrast between this fancy and
-his actual appearance was a little laughable--yet the notion of his
-interest in a woman’s body, a thing he could not, as she reasoned,
-naturally have seen or even been strongly moved to see, was more than
-she could grasp.
-
-For many days she watched him passing the house with other boys, his
-eyes casting furtive and unhappy glances at its windows, and hardened
-her heart. Then she could bear it no longer, and once more Potter
-received a scarcely legible, lady-like note of prim forgiveness.
-
-To-night he was to see her for the first time since that event....
-
-In Creve Cœur suburb a clear division existed between the old and the
-new, marked by a certain trolly line. Northward lay the flat, banal
-commons in which the Ospreys and the Meadowburns lived, but to the
-south were houses mellowed by long custom, set deep in cool lawns, and
-facing arched avenues of maples and elms under which one trod decaying
-and rickety pine-board walks or crossed the tremulous bridges spanning
-a serpentine creek that drained the valley.
-
-The quaint modesty of Florissant lane, its uselessness and hidden
-charm--the thick maples and high shrubbery cutting off even the sight
-of neighbouring windows--made it a fairy road, a retreat in which
-Potter had already learned to spend fine mornings of October and May
-when his mother thought him safely at school. As for Ellen, her first
-autumn glimpse of it, nearly a year ago, had taken her back to greener
-memories in the north. She could never walk there too often; it was as
-near to complete demoralization and unbounded luxury as anything her
-starved imagination could picture.
-
-Ordinarily they sat upon the steep terraced slope at the end of the
-lane, whence one could look down its leaf-fretted vista, or peer over
-one’s shoulder into the sombre depths of the rarely-visited Florissant
-place, but to-night he was more venturesome. He led her through the
-path behind the wall of Annunciation’s big enclosure, until they came
-to the end of the terrace. Beyond was an open field, once the pasture
-of the Florissants, and still a part of the property, empty and unused.
-In its centre through the dusk loomed a dark little hillock clustered
-with poplars and fir-trees.
-
-It was not hard to believe oneself continents away from the noise
-of any familiar street or the lights of Creve Cœur houses. Directly
-fronting them lay the dim mass of Annunciation, its half dozen French
-turrets and many spires floating out of the treetops into crystalline
-starlight. Potter had often sat in that very spot and pondered on
-the mystery of this religious stillness, on the utter distance which
-separated its life from any he had known, its community of young
-and vital beauty sternly and perhaps rebelliously subordinated to
-withered holiness. By a paradox of the law of boyhood, the girls
-in the convent--boarders from comfortable families everywhere in
-the states--were the subject of vulgar joking among the youngsters
-thereabouts.
-
-To Ellen the convent was not benign; it was a little terrifying and
-monstrous. All her life she had been awestruck by anything that
-suggested the gigantic and august power of Rome, and her head was full
-of legends concerning that religion and its devotees. Superstition had
-required of her that she regard them--not as individuals but in the
-mass--as a sinister species apart from ordinary people.
-
-Potter remarked that when there was bright moonlight the steep slate
-pitches of the convent roof looked as though they were sheeted in snow.
-
-“There’s lots more of those places in Canada than here,” said she.
-“They’re not all that they should be, either. Think of sending young
-girls there!”
-
-“Why not?” he asked.
-
-She now regretted her outburst and was annoyed at his question. She
-answered primly:
-
-“Why, I wouldn’t tell you, of course.”
-
-He laughed, unconcerned and superior.
-
-“Pshaw, I know what you mean. I’ve heard those stories too--about nuns
-being in love with priests. But I don’t believe them.”
-
-“Oh, you don’t?” inquired Ellen sarcastically. It was not that she did
-not think it admirable of him to dislike believing evil of people, but
-one need not go so far as to defend Catholics....
-
-“No,” he said. “You know why?”
-
-“Well, why, smarty?”
-
-“Because even people outside of such places, convents and the like,
-even people who are grown up and free to do as they please--well, they
-never do anything they want to do. I mean things that just pop into
-their heads to do.”
-
-“Ah, don’t they?” asked Ellen, by this time amused, “And how are you so
-sure they don’t?”
-
-“I just know. They’re too dog-goned cowardly.”
-
-“Well!” she exclaimed, “that’s a fine thing to be calling people who
-behave themselves!”
-
-“Then they don’t think of anything bad that they want to do,” he
-persisted. “You wouldn’t call that being good, would you, Ellen? Pshaw,
-what’s the credit in that?”
-
-“It’s well for them they don’t think of such things,” she declared. “To
-hear you, a person would believe you wanted to be tempted.”
-
-“No, I hate it, honestly,” he replied, and she felt that he was trying
-to speak truly of himself. “I used to say that part of the Lord’s
-prayer, about ‘lead us not into temptation,’ over twice. I did, for a
-long time. Because, you see, I’m really tempted--always, every minute.”
-
-He paused after this announcement, which, in spite of his sincerity,
-had a note of pride, and Ellen broke in, thinking that the moment had
-come to speak of what was most in her mind.
-
-“Potter, you haven’t been making any more of those pictures, have you?”
-
-She felt him shift quickly to the defensive.
-
-“Yes, I have,” he said. “I’ve finished two more.”
-
-“Well, I’m ashamed of you.”
-
-“Why do you mind them so much, Ellen?”
-
-“You don’t have to ask me why.”
-
-“But I do, because my father didn’t think they were bad. He only
-lectured me for show!” He chuckled at the recollection.
-
-“Ah, Potter, your father is a grown man! Men do lots of things that you
-shouldn’t think about. You’re just a child. Those pictures! What’s the
-good of them anyway? Nice people wouldn’t have them around.”
-
-“Some people would!” he declared stoutly. “They’re beautiful, or my
-father wouldn’t have kept them ... and the one I’ve just finished is
-the best, oh, lots the best I’ve done!”
-
-She sensed a strain of profound unhappiness in his voice, and all her
-instincts flew to soothe the hurt.
-
-“I don’t mean to be hard on you, Potter,” she said. “You worry me,
-that’s all. I can’t see why you bother about these things that other
-people never think of.”
-
-“Aw,” he said, “never mind, Ellen. I guess I don’t know what I want.
-It’s no fun being a boy when you’d like to be a man.”
-
-They both fell silent, listening to the trees chattering overhead
-like live things. The breeze that stirred them was growing chill, and
-Potter, responding to the kindlier tone of his companion, moved closer
-to her. His last words and this unconscious movement of affection
-touched her. She put a rough, friendly hand on his arm, and they sat
-there in silence for a time. It was he who broke it....
-
-Suddenly a strange plea came pouring from his lips in a torrent of
-eager words, a plea that she all at once realized she had many times
-before dreaded--and laughed at herself for dreading.... She sat,
-scarcely breathing, with averted face. He ended abruptly, frightened
-at the sound of his own voice. She said nothing. Surely she understood
-him. What was she thinking?
-
-She turned toward him at last, and he found himself looking into her
-black eyes that glowed like coals despite the mantle of dusk. Her
-parted lips closed in a tight line.
-
-“Well,” she said, with slow emphasis, “if that’s what you mean, I’ll
-tell you this. I will never do such a thing.”
-
-She was on her feet in an instant, her tall body like a statue of
-rebuke crushing him in its shadow.
-
-“Come,” she said coldly.
-
-“Yes,” he replied. “I’m sorry, I’m awfully sorry, Ellen.”
-
-At that moment, as they started homeward from Florissant’s field with
-the darkness between them, her swishing, angry stride filling him with
-a new knowledge of mystery and awe, there was no doubt that they both
-meant what they said. But in Ellen a certain helplessness and fear were
-born. Struggle as she might from now on his very presence would be a
-menace, and his presence was more than ever a necessity. For the cry
-that he was uttering was one that her own heart understood.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-So it happened that a few months later when the Osprey family were at
-a country hotel for the summer, he and Ellen met in the empty house
-and walked hand in hand through the rooms--her sworn promise whirling
-in his brain. She was stiff and awkward, but he was in high spirits,
-perhaps a little hysterical, fondly imagining he was entering upon a
-new paradise of experience....
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-
-Emmet Roget, twenty, and Potter Osprey, nineteen, both juniors at the
-University, were sitting naked one afternoon on the long parapet which
-formed one of the banks of Milton’s abandoned quarry. Behind them the
-stone wall fell away a sheer twenty feet to the gulch below. In front,
-licking the tops of the three-foot barrier, lay the broad sheet of
-deep, clear water. Their white bodies dripped opaline flakes in the
-sunset. From time to time they shivered in the chilly late September
-wind.
-
-A pale, luminous dory of a moon floated low in the delicately blue
-and pink expanse of sky that lay over the town. The surrounding flat
-country was infinitely still, infinitely peaceful.
-
-Potter suddenly droned forth in the melancholy baritone the two
-affected when reading Swinburne and other modern poets:
-
-  “The wandering moon, an optimistic sprite
-  Etched a pale border ’round the face of night....”
-
-Emmet was silent for a moment, and then as though the sound of the
-quotation had travelled to him from a distance, burst out:
-
-“Gosh, man, where did you get that?”
-
-The other reached over boisterously and clapped his friend’s shoulder.
-
-“A trial of my own! All you need to be a poet is to suffer from
-insomnia, the way I did the other night.”
-
-“Well, you can write.”
-
-“Eh? But I’d so much rather paint.”
-
-“Better look out. You may have more talent for writing than for
-painting.” Potter sensed a criticism in the remark, which he privately
-resented.
-
-“No, the thing I’ll never be able to do is the thing I’m going to do.”
-
-Emmet did not reply at once, and his sleepy blue eyes, long and narrow
-between the lids, rested upon an indefinable point of distance. The
-wind ruffled his dark curly hair that grew low on the brow and temples.
-He was the handsomer of the two.
-
-“Damn specialists and specialism,” he said. “I keep thinking about
-a synthesis of the arts. Take the theatre, for example. Why not do
-something like Wagner did--in a lighter, more lyric vein? Bring all the
-arts together and create a new art? I hate this little business of one
-man with a pen, one man with a brush and another with a piano, none of
-them understanding each other.”
-
-“A synthesis of the arts is contradictory,” said Osprey. “Only Nature
-can accomplish it, at any rate, and Nature and art are sworn enemies.
-Nature takes a tree and gives it form and colour; its leaves rustle and
-its branches are wood-winds. Then in certain lights the tree will have
-the elusive, the startling quality of poetry. There you have sculpture,
-painting, music and literature--but it isn’t art, and, thank God, art
-never will be such a pudding.”
-
-“Nevertheless,” replied Roget, without controversy and as if to
-himself, “Nevertheless something can be done that way. What about the
-church in Renaissance Italy and elsewhere? That was a synthesis--a man
-didn’t paint just to be painting something of his own. He painted for
-God’s sake.”
-
-It was really cold by now, and a moment later they were hastily
-dressing. Roget murmured:
-
-“‘The wandering moon, an optimistic sprite, etched a pale border
-’round the face of night.’ _Ce n’est pas mal._ It’s pictorial and yet
-it’s literary too. Perhaps you will use words to fix your notions
-for painting. What’s that, in a sense, but synthesis, old-timer?” he
-finished jubilantly.
-
-They went home in the dusk. These were the perfect hours college gave
-them....
-
-The rural University town of the central states, in the period when
-electric lighting and telephones were young, when the automobile was
-as yet a rarity, and the popular senior took his best girl out riding
-Sundays behind a smart livery tandem, may have been hideous to modern
-eyes with its muddy streets, its wooden dwellings and its old-time
-murky brick and brownstone halls, but it had a mellow and quiet charm
-that comported well with the spirit of scholarship.
-
-This charm we may assume has been swept away forever. Gasoline and
-commercial growth, endowments, tudorized architecture, prohibition,
-short-skirted and long-headed women, energetic chancellors, a wealthier
-class of students, up-to-date burgher emporiums, moving picture
-palazzos, Grecian banks, and other vanities of the wicked age have
-hidden that erstwhile scene, with its air of leisure and moderation,
-beneath a slick financial veneer that nothing but the fall of federal
-empire and the end of progress will ever wipe off.
-
-When Potter Osprey arrived at the Athens of his native state it was
-still a function of one’s education to sit with the more or less elect
-twice a week in one of the three saloons and beer up, to the point
-where one navigated with difficulty the crossings of perilously high
-stepping stones and sometimes fell off into honest Athenian mud, which
-accumulated in viscid pools a foot deep.
-
-If one was only a freshman one might have to be contented with the
-private room of the “Bucket of Blood”--in a small rear section of
-which negroes were allowed to drink. Later on, you aimed for the
-private room at Steve Ball’s. The Y.M.C.A. and the Cadet Corps, the
-latter also a moral training camp under the guise of military orders,
-throve, but only among the groundlings. Two obscure fraternities out
-of twelve admitted members who would stoop to either, unless they
-were recommended by extraordinary prowess in other and more popular
-directions.
-
-In those days the dirt-stained farmers in jack-boots came to town
-Saturday morning with heavy carts of solid produce and departed at
-nightfall with almost equally heavy burdens of liquid joy. Afternoon
-strollers got their legs inextricably mixed with frantic, squealing
-hogs, and the smell of fresh manure rose to the fifth story of the
-Attic House, the tallest building on the local Broadway. Nowadays the
-farmers come snorting in in Cadillacs as often as they please and
-go home sober to tot up the double entry ledger with “mommer.” It
-is a changed world and undoubtedly a more leisurely one for college
-disciplinary committees.
-
-Potter’s progress for a year had consisted in desperate efforts to
-escape his classes toward the end of the week, and to regain some
-hold on them at the beginning. As often happens, in spite of such
-practices, or perhaps because of the extra spurts of effort which they
-made necessary, he regularly stood well in his studies. His second
-year, however, from the standpoint of conduct, was an improvement over
-the first. Roget put in an appearance, and Osprey wearied somewhat of
-smutty anecdotes, at the telling of which he was never skilful, and
-found a genuine interest growing in him for his language classes, and
-even for mathematics.
-
-In the entire town, beside the poet, there had been two people in whom
-he took an interest. One was a thin, rather angular but not uncomely
-instructress in the art classes, who had come from New York and the Art
-Students’ League. Potter never probed her jolly, untroubled character
-very deeply, but she had a firm pencil stroke that he admired, and
-after a few talks with her he discovered that she breathed a freer air
-than the folk at Athens. To his fraternity brothers she was a frump,
-socially impossible. The feminine ideal of the day was the type of Miss
-Carroll of Carrollton, or Miss Brown from Brownhaven, rich father,
-proud virtue, sentimental possibilities and skill in the small town
-graces.
-
-His second admiration was a grey-haired, lean descendant of one of the
-oldest families in town, a certain Oliver Pruyd, whose hawk-beaked
-face habitually wore an ironic grin. He was supposed to correspond
-with the metropolitan newspapers, and his unofficial scholarship had
-achieved a certain subrosa reputation. But his gains in his vocation
-were obviously slender and it was not his scholarship that brought him
-distinction. Pruyd was the only known addict to the use of morphine of
-whom the community could boast.
-
-Osprey’s acquaintance with him had been casual. There was something
-sinister in Pruyd’s mocking expression and wrinkled, flavescent
-skin. Once, however, the younger man had achieved the brilliance of
-seeking him out in his small den over the pool and billiard hall, an
-indescribably neat and carefully arranged place, walled with books and
-piles of periodicals. Pruyd proved stimulating through three drinks,
-introducing many hints of literary sources and art lore hitherto
-strange to his companion. In the days of his family’s wealth he had
-ruined his usefulness by overlong haunting of the byways of Europe.
-
-Beginning with the fourth bourbon, however, the conversation descended
-to common levels, and the affair ended with their staggering down
-Broadway like any two other louts expelled from Steve Ball’s at the
-closing hour.
-
-The only other consolation was the college library. In its actual
-precincts he was often uncomfortable because he was critically
-inspected by elderly persons at the desk for his curious taste in
-books. This alternately intimidated and enraged him--and almost
-barred him from the use of the library. But from it he obtained
-Pater’s “Marius” and “Renaissance,” prints of Hogarth and Daumier
-and Michelangelo, “Tom Jones” and Balzac, Rousseau and Voltaire,
-stray bits of Wilde and Beardsley, and sprinklings of the French
-symbolists--shuddersome bombs in those days.
-
-The art class, one of the main objectives of his course (and the sop
-which his father had thrown him in urging him to take a well-rounded
-education before he settled down to his choice) was a puerile and
-primary bore after the first day, a repetition of the drawing of casts
-in charcoal, to which he had devoted two years at high school--with a
-prim sketch hour thrown in twice a week in the evening, the members of
-the class serving as models for fifteen minute studies.
-
-A few weeks after the conversation with Emmet Roget at Milton’s Pond,
-Potter was sitting with a full assemblage of his fraternity brothers
-at a breakfast of oatmeal swimming in blue milk, biscuits and rancid
-butter--which was all the country town could furnish for some curious
-reason--and pork chops well immersed in grease. The house manager that
-season was an economist, loudly cursed at every meal, but immensely
-appreciated at the end of the month when the pro-rated statements came
-around.
-
-They were not a well-to-do nor a polished crowd. Raw-boned, plebeian,
-familiar--tobacco-chewers from the agricultural towns getting their
-first taste of a dress suit--they nevertheless had their pride
-and social standards. Potter, for example, though he liked them
-well enough--indeed had been dazzled by several of their more
-suave and persuasive members during the first few weeks after his
-matriculation--was now, on account of those standards, nursing a
-private feud against the whole organization. The cause of this feud was
-their refusal to invite Emmet Roget to join, a man, thought he, better
-bred than any of them. They had taken in two gawky, mannerless Freshmen
-that year, sons of zinc barons from the mining counties, but they would
-not have Roget.
-
-Potter understood the reason well enough, but his resentment was
-all the more keen on that account. Roget was rejected for personal
-characteristics which he himself would like to have exhibited oftener.
-He, also, did not quite belong in the group, and his influence, which
-for some reason was not inconsiderable, would have waned quickly had
-he been more frank about his own tastes. Roget did not lack that
-frankness. He was poor, but poverty was no bar in that fraternity. The
-trouble was that he was not ashamed of having won the Whittier prize
-for verse in his freshman year. He had needed the money. He pronounced
-his name in the French manner and sat in a corner quietly cynical at
-dances. He was pretty generally admired by girls, but that could be
-a fault in a person you instinctively disliked; and he turned up one
-evening at a smoker wearing a wrist watch. In the first administration
-of Roosevelt, a man was either a “good scout” or a “crumb,” and the
-best looking and brainiest chap on earth, if he did these things, was a
-crumb.
-
-The crowd was beginning to leave the breakfast table, some of them
-rushing off to eight o’clock classes and others moiling onto the porch
-for the first Bull Durham “drag” of the day, and bawling a good-natured
-“hello, men” to students hurrying past from other houses.
-
-Potter had an eight o’clock class and was late. As he started off,
-however, he took up a letter addressed to him, from the table in the
-hall, and stopped in his tracks. He stared again at the superscription
-and the eight o’clock class dropped completely from his mind. The
-letter was in a hand that he knew well, and the sight of it instantly
-smote him with fear. He looked about to see if any one was watching and
-turned to flee to the bathroom upstairs, the only place in the house
-where privacy was possible. On second thought he walked quietly by the
-group on the porch and went up the street. A ten minute lope brought
-him to the deserted little nine-hole golf course outside of town. He
-could not help thinking how benign, how untroubled the fields were in
-the brisk, delicious morning. They calmed his pounding blood and sent a
-wave of optimism through him.
-
-“What a fool I was to miss my class,” he muttered aloud. “It may not
-be anything at all.” He sat down on a sandbox and hurriedly opened the
-letter.
-
-  “Dear Potter,” it ran, “It’s happened as I was afraid. I’m nearly
-  three months gone. Dr. Schottman won’t help me. He says he never does
-  that. I haven’t got much money, and don’t know what I’m to do.
-
-                                            “Yours truly,
-                                                                “ELLEN.”
-
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-
-The blow, which he had many times dreaded, but which for two long years
-he had thought of as blissfully escaped, had fallen. Until the summer
-just passed, that length of time had elapsed--the first two years of
-his University life--during which the affair with Ellen had reverted
-to its original innocence. Before that they had drifted on, taking
-what opportunities they could find. Potter, sometimes conscious that
-the thing was an ordinary slavery, had struggled against it from time
-to time, but half-heartedly. Habit and gratification were too strong.
-Then, in a blinding flash of awakened responsibility, he realized that
-physical consequences followed such relations, and under the guise of
-moral repentance, he went to her and told her he wished to end it.
-
-Ellen acquiesced simply enough in this, as she acquiesced, perforce, in
-everything that concerned her. She dumbly worshipped him, but she knew
-how much that mattered.
-
-Then had come the summer of this year. It was accident that threw them
-together one night, one very magical night, as Potter recalled. Both
-were lonely; the Meadowburn family were all away on an August journey.
-Their old intimacy, which in reality had been sordid and furtive, took
-on a certain beauty--the sentiment of past things. Under that momentary
-glamour forgetfulness took possession of them.
-
-“She said,” recalled Potter, “that was the first time she had been
-thoroughly happy and secure.”
-
-He ruminated on, connecting this sudden, vivid pleasure of hers,
-this mood of safety and surrender, with the deadening outcome they
-now faced. His own fear had never left him since that night--that
-one night, for it had had no sequel. Now he interpreted the event
-fatalistically. Nature had waited for that happy mood of Ellen’s before
-making her a mother. Nature was a subtle monster, a thing of scheming
-purposes. She let you go on and on with impunity and then tripped you
-when you weren’t thinking, when you felt particularly strong because
-you had put up a long fight against her. She could even, in this awful
-moment, make him thrill with the knowledge of having created life....
-
-Potter had never had a confidant in the affair with Ellen. So far as he
-knew the secret was her own and his, and had been from the beginning.
-And it was something of a miracle, considering their narrow escapes
-from detection.
-
-But now that he needed support there was no one to turn to. Roget was
-the last person in the world to whom he could take such a tale. He had
-an idea that Roget would laugh him to scorn or question his taste in
-becoming the victim of such an intimacy. Roget had been raised among
-women and had acquired a knowledge of them that made his relations
-toward them seem little short of uncanny to Potter. He gave the
-impression of being successful with many and quite uninvolved with all.
-To Potter women were the paralyzing mystery. It was one of the subjects
-on which he and Roget did not meet.
-
-Had there been an older man in town with whom he had developed any
-sympathy, a faculty member or a person in authority of any kind, he
-would have gone to him. There were many questions; there was money to
-be got; there was common-sense guidance needed as to doctors and other
-such matters, instinctively repugnant and dreadful to him.
-
-Marriage! Sometimes in the dead of night, lying awake with his fears,
-anticipating just this predicament, he had experienced exaltations,
-mystic desires for sacrifice and immolation and simple, laborious
-living; it was a surviving remnant of his intense religious life as
-a very young boy. In such moments his mind had admitted the idea of
-marriage. In broad day, the thought became abhorrent. And in all the
-broad days that had preceded this one, his fears also had melted with
-the sun; but now they would not melt.... He knew perfectly well that he
-would urge marriage upon Ellen, sincerely in a fashion. He knew also
-that she would flatly refuse, and that he would accept her refusal with
-relief.
-
-Yet what was she to do? He counted on no sympathy from the prudish
-Meadowburns. They would loudly invoke the names of their young
-daughters and fly from the scene. The family physician, Schottman,
-a tolerant German-born physician of real ability, had taken an odd
-sort of liking to Ellen and never visited the house without having a
-talk with her wherever he happened to find her at work. He had been
-their hope in earlier discussions. With him, there would be no danger,
-while with others--Potter writhed before the spectres of horrible
-little operating rooms, of death in agony, of murder and police and
-squint-eyed judges with nose-glasses. But Ellen’s letter had settled
-Schottman.
-
-It was past noon before he realized it, and the golf links were
-becoming populated by a few straggling faculty men with clubs. He
-aimed for an outlying street which led into town and the act of motion
-toward a definite objective revived his spirits, which had been sinking
-hopelessly into the quicksand of despair. He went to the bank and drew
-out all of his small balance but a dollar. The previous day his check
-had come and he had paid his scot for October at the fraternity house.
-It was rare that his remittances from home exceeded forty dollars a
-month. He converted the larger part of the sum he withdrew into a
-money order at the Post Office and mailed it to Ellen, with a short
-note in which he told her he would see her somehow before long, and if
-possible to do nothing until then.
-
-“Money,” he thought, as he stepped out of the Post Office, “if one
-just had enough money one could fix up anything!”--an idea that had
-come to him before in many a tight place and morning after. He fell to
-day-dreaming about what he would do for Ellen if he had money, money in
-his hand, money in plenty.
-
-The mailing of the letter had brought a sudden release to his feelings.
-It would cheer her up to hear from him.
-
-In this state he responded more willingly to passing acquaintances,
-did not avoid the livery stable man and the candy man, and the dozen
-other town bodies who were always about. Catastrophes, he reflected,
-had their good points. They furnished a reason for cutting classes and
-loafing on a beautiful Fall day. He was tempted for a moment to call on
-Roget, who lived, as no one but he would have lived, on the native side
-of Broadway, a short distance off. But he decided against it. He would
-be pressed to talk about his trouble and that he had resolved not to do
-except in the worst extremity, and certainly not to Roget.
-
-The decision to avoid Emmet left him no alternative, and he drifted
-into Steve Ball’s bar. Those dark, quiet, wet-smelling precincts were
-deserted at that hour, so far as his familiars were concerned. He was
-glad they were. It would not have been easy to conceal the turmoil
-within him, if forced into an extended conversation. He would take a
-drink or two, slowly, he concluded, go home and try to forget the whole
-thing, and to-morrow with a hard head, he would work out a plan of
-action.
-
-Frank, the experienced bar man, wiped up the much scarred and
-initialled table of the private room, and hovered in the doorway with a
-friendly smile.
-
-“This is the sort of companionship a fellow needs in my fix,” thought
-Potter. “Nothing like it. A good barkeep.”
-
-Frank, however, soon proved too busy to talk, and Potter was left to
-his own thoughts. The effect which liquor usually had on him was to
-produce three distinct stages. It plunged him first into a dreamy and
-altogether pleasant condition, in which his lot appeared the rosiest
-in the world, and he radiated good will on all sides. This led to
-melancholy and a gradual feeling of boredom with everything, aggravated
-by a tendency to analyze his wrongs and conduct long, unspoken
-conversations about them with the persons presumed to be responsible
-for wronging him. Then followed a feverish desire for physical motion,
-and the making of quick decisions, obeyed on the instant, however
-ill-advised.
-
-The first state of high spirits brought him agreeably to six o’clock
-when he left Steve Ball’s for fear of encountering early drinkers
-from the Campus. He was hungry and bolted sandwiches and coffee in a
-nameless lunch-wagon around the corner. He found himself after that
-in the “Bucket of Blood.” Night had fallen; the place was unspeakably
-sordid with its dim lamps and shuffling bums, and his problem once more
-assumed proportions that harried him. He began to assail Ellen for ever
-having permitted the intimacy to start. Then he quickly reacted from
-that attack. A profound, overwhelming wave of self-abasement engulfed
-him. If there was suffering to be done poor Ellen would endure all of
-it. She had been his victim and had given him what she had to give, in
-all things. Had their ages been precisely reversed, he could not have
-been more responsible.
-
-As he ordered another bottle of beer, he became acutely conscious that
-his money was disappearing. There was no more to be had, certainly for
-several days. Mails had to take their time, even if there was anything
-to hope for from them. This sense of impecuniousness made his mind veer
-to another complicated grievance. In one of the banks at home, held for
-his use at majority, lay what now seemed an incredible sum of money,
-from his grandmother’s estate. He had twice entreated his father to
-allow him to draw modestly on it. His father had not refused in either
-case, but had probed good-naturedly into his reasons for desiring it.
-But why, thought the boy, should his father have to know his private
-business? How could his father understand his peculiar needs? These
-questions had rankled time and again.
-
-And now, he reflected bitterly, now that the trust fund might be the
-means of lightening a burden that would follow him all his life, it
-would be the same old story with his father. He would have to make a
-full confession of the case. But he could not do this. How could he
-tell his father such a yarn? Weren’t his whole family concerned as much
-as he? Was there not a question of blood relationship involving them?
-Common delicacy and loyal feeling toward them demanded that he conceal
-the truth, unless he took the burden upon himself and parted with them
-completely. He had thought all this out before and settled it. There
-was nothing he could say to his father.
-
-These reflections, repeated over and over again, embroidered upon,
-attacked at every angle, adorned with many duplications of the same
-phrases, led nowhere. The bill at the “Bucket of Blood” had to be paid,
-and nothing was left to do but to get up and go. Well, well, he felt
-like moving anyhow. If only there were anything he could do now, right
-now, it would be a relief. He started walking rapidly uptown toward the
-fraternity house. Then at the corner where Broadway turned into his
-own street he stopped abruptly.
-
-“What a fool!” he muttered aloud. “What a triple-plated iron-head! Why
-did I send that money to Ellen? Why didn’t I go myself?” He stopped and
-began to curse his idiocy with all the eloquence and thoroughness of
-which he was capable.
-
-Then he reflected, again aloud: “But is it too late? The jerk-water
-goes over to Jamestown in half an hour. I could make it to Jamestown.
-But I haven’t enough money to go all the way. Well, I’ve got enough to
-go to Jamestown.”
-
-The thought of bluffing his way on the through train with a promise to
-pay at the other end rushed into his mind. His name, his identification
-by letters in his pocket, his father’s acquaintance with railroad
-officials, these might carry him through. He turned and started toward
-the station.
-
-“If I can get home I can raise that money. I can raise it on a note. I
-can get some Jew like Stern to shave the note. Or maybe I can get it
-from Colonel Cobb. I’ll bet Colonel Cobb would let me have it.”
-
-This line of reasoning had to be exhausted with the usual number of
-variations and redundancies as he sat in the little branch train of
-two cars, with its dusty, worn plush seats, its threadbare blue
-trainmen ambling back and forth, and its scattering of anonymous,
-unimportant-looking passengers. Fortunately nobody was leaving town
-that he knew. That was to be expected six weeks after the opening of
-term. For the first time, the thought struck him that he himself was
-bolting, perhaps for several days, without the formality of an excuse
-from the Dean, without even notifying the men at the house. Ordinarily
-this would have been a serious infraction of the rules, punishable by
-suspension.
-
-“I can’t help it,” he thought, “I’ve _got_ to go. If they knew why I
-guess they’d think so.”
-
-This, however, upon reflection, sounded illogical and inadequate.
-The danger of trouble with the authorities would not down so easily.
-There’d be mystery in his disappearance, a search would be made for him
-in the morning, and a wire probably sent to his folks. A moment later
-he had the solution. How easy! He could fix that up by telephoning the
-fraternity from Jamestown. It would cost him a quarter and he’d still
-have more than a dollar left. He would get old Ed Taylor to see the
-Dean to-morrow. Some lie would do. Ed could turn the Dean around his
-finger. Maybe he could keep the whole thing from his father. He could,
-if he slipped back to town on the next night’s train. If his father got
-hold of it, he’d be puzzled, want to know things, and this was no time
-to be submitted to questioning of any kind.
-
-“At the same time,” he pursued, “I’d better not try the through train.
-Fellows have been pinched for it. They might take me off the train at
-Fayette, and then, oh, my God....”
-
-A picture rose before him of a night in the county jail, of wiring home
-for money to pay his fine, of his father coming to Fayette, of scandal
-untold and unending, and no help to Ellen whatever. Rather the reverse,
-because he would be in disgrace and his hands, therefore, completely
-tied for some time to come.
-
-“No, I can’t try the through train. Too big a chance. I wonder how
-about the freight. Hell, plenty of other fellows have done that, with
-no worse results than a swipe on the ear or a bawling out. Besides I’ve
-got a little money. Brakies are all right.”
-
-The wind at that moment coming through the leaky train was devilishly
-sharp, and he had no overcoat, nothing but his fall-weight suit. It
-would be still colder later, especially on an unprotected freight car
-roof, which was the only place he could think of to ride.
-
-“Can’t help it,” he concluded. “It’s got to be the freight. I can get
-a half pint of rot gut at Jamestown. Keep me warm enough. It’s just a
-nice little ride in the open air.”
-
-An hour later, with his hat pulled down over his eyes, and his
-bottle in his breast pocket, Potter stepped from the smoke-draped,
-kerosene-smelling barroom of the little junction town. By buying
-a round of beer for two loafers he had obtained the advice and
-information he wanted. The freight train now resting on tracks just
-back of those on which the through train was soon expected would pull
-out for his destination about ten-thirty. He crept down perhaps a half
-a dozen cars from the station and found himself practically in open
-country. An overgrown fence lay twenty feet to the side of one of the
-big, dirty-looking red cars. He sat down in the shadow of the fence to
-wait, listening to the frogs in the dim, unwelcoming marshes behind him.
-
-Once as he sat there a man ran along the top of the train from the
-caboose far off at the end of the line of cars and came back. Once just
-a little before the scheduled hour, he heard cinders being crunched
-under foot in the direction of the engine. The flashing rays of a
-lantern, swung from an invisible shoulder, played under the cars and
-the figure carrying it passed by hurriedly on the other side. At every
-coupling the lantern was swung up between the cars. Osprey knew now why
-the roustabouts had told him to lie low and keep away from the train
-while it was still.
-
-“Wait ’til she gives her first jerk, then grab her and climb like yer
-momma was after you.”
-
-Whistles shrieked and soon a long, noisy shiver travelled down the
-length of the cars. Potter jumped for the iron treads closest to him.
-The train was moving off and he with it. Once on top of the car, he
-laid full length, making himself as small as possible on the side of
-the roof farthest from the station, until it should be passed. Beyond
-the little town he breathed freely, took a comfortable seat on the flat
-boardway in the centre with his legs dangling over the car’s end, and
-gripped the rusty steel shaft of the brake.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-
-At first he did not mind the bumping, nor the penetrating wind, nor
-the coldness of the metal on his palms. The occasional showers of
-cinders were annoying, and this grew worse as the train increased its
-speed. Nevertheless, he was exhilarated; the motionless friendly stars
-overhead, the sense of succeeding in a wild and unreasonable adventure
-gave him courage and high spirits. He only had to stand it for a few
-hours and a few hours of discomfort never had killed anybody.
-
-Misgivings crept over him gradually. His seat was being severely
-lambasted by the bumping. It seemed incredible, in a way, how it
-kept up and the violence of it. The steel bar to which he held grew
-increasingly cold, yet he realized that come what may he would have
-to cling to it or stand a chance of falling. The wind became more
-biting and between it and the bar his fingers were stiffening fast. The
-cinders, stinging his face with only brief cessations, might soon be
-unendurable.
-
-However, he argued, he could bear all these for some time, and when
-he couldn’t bear them any longer, he could do something else, shift
-his position. He deliberately decided to stand his present one as long
-as he could, then change and stand the next one as long as he could.
-In that way each new position would be so much the greater relief. He
-would see the night through. A long pull at the flask revived him.
-
-“I’ll get my second wind pretty soon,” he thought, “and it won’t be so
-bad. That flask was an inspiration.”
-
-The night wore on and Potter resorted to first one expedient and
-then another. He put his right side to the wind and then his left,
-thus partly protecting his face from the cinders. He wrapped
-handkerchiefs--fortunately he had two--around his hands. It was no
-good trying to get a decent hold of his board seat. He didn’t feel
-secure that way. These makeshifts did not help his sore buttocks, which
-were being hammered to insensibility, nor keep off the cold which was
-creeping over his whole body, but they lessened the number of his pains.
-
-Finally he could endure sitting no longer. He laid down first on one
-side, then on the other, on his belly, and even for a while on his
-back. He threw his arms around the brake shaft and doubled his body
-into a bouncing, shaken ball, in order to keep the cold out of his
-vitals. At the moment when he thought he was beginning to see the end
-of his endurance the train ambled benevolently to a stop. He breathed a
-sigh of thanks and drank.
-
-They were on a siding. As the train continued still, for five minutes,
-for ten minutes, a fresh fear assailed him. He had forgotten about the
-train crew. The fellow at Jamestown had told him to get off and hide
-whenever the train stopped.
-
-“You got to do that if yer ridin’ in sight,” he said. Indeed, had the
-man been a professional tramp instead of a village lounger, he would
-have scouted the whole idea of riding on top.
-
-But by this time Potter was so stiff and sore in every muscle that he
-feared being unable to climb back while the train was in motion. The
-relief from the rushing wind and bumping and cinders was too much. It
-was too sweet to sit there and recover some use of his limbs, to feel
-the warm blood in him once more for a brief spell. If he could only
-smoke or get up and walk about--but that would be dangerously courting
-attention. He had gone this far, and he would finish it; there was no
-sense in taking more chances than were necessary.
-
-It was unearthly still. Not a living thing seemed to stir for miles
-about, over the uninterrupted fields of stubble just visible in the
-starlight. Even the frogs were silent. Against the sky far off he saw
-the silhouette of a group of buildings and trees, but they seemed
-like apparitions in a dream. On the train he was in a separate world,
-cut off from the other, a lonely world consisting of himself and his
-thoughts. The long, tapering string of dark cars ahead struck him like
-a procession of elephants asleep. They were impersonal and cruel, but
-alive; and presently would begin to sway and lumber frightfully through
-the murk. With their stopping his life, it seemed, had stopped.
-
-Time went on. They had been there on the siding for fifteen, perhaps
-twenty minutes. Suddenly he was conscious of a low, blurred humming
-which rose from the main tracks alongside, and a succession of whistle
-blasts at a great distance broke the monotony. The buzz of the rails
-grew louder and the whistles shrieked again. His tussle with discomfort
-was about to begin once more, but he felt infinitely rested and
-refreshed. He sat up straight and peered down the tracks for the sight
-of a headlight.
-
-“Hullo!”
-
-The head and shoulders of a man appeared over the top of the car,
-followed by a short, wiry body.
-
-“What the hell’s this? How’d you get here?”
-
-“I’ve got to get to Mississippi City, to-night. I’m from the University
-up at Athens.”
-
-“Don’t care where yer from. This here ain’t no place fer you.”
-
-“Say, old man, you’re not goin’ to put me off now, are you?”
-
-“H’m.” The man leaned over and inspected him familiarly.
-
-“Yeh, you don’t look much like a bum. University up at Athens, eh?
-I’ve heard some about you God damn loafers, raisin’ hell on trains. Why
-the Christ can’t you ride in the cars where you belong?”
-
-“Didn’t have the price.”
-
-“No. An’ you think this railroad’s a charity institootion?”
-
-“Say,” pleaded Potter, “honest, this is a life and death matter. It’d
-be a dirty trick to put a fellow off. Le’ me go the rest of the way, go
-on.”
-
-The brakeman was obviously relenting. He gazed at Potter’s huddled,
-unhappy looking figure while the passenger train, like a streak of
-exploding lights on a whirling black band, shot deafeningly by.
-
-“How far are we, anyway?” asked Potter. “Must be more than half way.”
-
-The brakeman chuckled.
-
-“We ain’t even a third of the way yet. Guess you’ve been plenty cold up
-here.”
-
-The first sentence fell heavily upon Potter’s spirits.
-
-“Gee, seems longer’n that,” he said, as casually as he could manage.
-
-“Got on at Jamestown, did you?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“You got any money?”
-
-“A little,” said Potter eagerly. “I’ll give you all I’ve got.”
-
-He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew it forth with a collection
-of small change.
-
-“There,” he said, counting it over. “It’s seventy-five cents.”
-
-The brakeman took it.
-
-“That all you got, honest to God?”
-
-“Every cent. I can get more at Mississippi City, though. You going to
-be there a few hours?”
-
-“Huh,” replied the other, “guess you’ll need breakfast by the time you
-get in. Ain’t much used to this kind o’ business, eh? Well, here’s
-coffee money.” He handed back a dime.
-
-“Have a drink, old man?” asked Potter, almost jovially, pulling out his
-bottle with a distinct feeling of pride.
-
-“Sure.”
-
-The man took a long pull at the depleted flask and returned it almost
-empty.
-
-“Ach,” he grunted appreciatively. “That’s red eye! Bet you were drunk,
-boy, an’ thought ridin’ free was a picnic. Well, better come out o’
-this and hustle up the track. They’s an empty box car about halfway up.
-You’ll see it ’cause one door’s open. An’ you’re God damn lucky, son.
-You’d just naturally a froze a lung off up here an’ maybe fell off an’
-got winged. Shake a leg. Just time to make it. An’ hop off well outside
-the yards when we get to town in the mornin’. Understand? If you don’t
-you may see the judge.”
-
-Before he had finished speaking Potter was stumbling frantically
-along the cinder track-side. In one end of the empty car was a little
-dirty straw and excelsior. Two minutes later he was asleep, jolting
-happily along the streets of paradise in a royal coach. An old man in
-a brakeman’s cap whom he took to be the king of the country sat beside
-him....
-
-A sudden, wrenching jolt and the screaming of brakes woke him. Daylight
-filled the car, and in a moment he was out on his feet, recognizing
-the familiar outskirts of his native city. He plunged into the park,
-striding vigorously along over new-fallen crisp leaves, warming his
-body, which had been chilled through during his sleep, even in that
-protected corner. The woods were gay with the last of the autumn
-colour; the morning was dewy and mysterious under long corridors of
-trees. His day’s job seemed easy before him, such as it was, and beyond
-that he was too happy and thankful to speculate. Quite a trip, he
-thought, thoroughly surprised that he had attempted it and come through
-all right.
-
-“If I hadn’t got potty, I wouldn’t be here,” he told himself,
-justifying thereby volumes of alcoholic adventures past and to come.
-
-He looked down at his hands, his trousers, his shirt. He was filthy.
-It would never do to appear before Colonel Cobb with the grime of a
-hundred and forty miles of rough travel clinging to him. But this was
-the home town, good old home town! and he could get breakfast, new
-linen and a good wash without the outlay of a cent. He took the car
-downtown and went first to a store, then to a hotel. By ten o’clock he
-was breakfasting sumptuously and appeared fairly respectable.
-
-Heretofore, Colonel Cobb had seemed in Potter’s mind a sort of complete
-symbol of good fellowship. The all-weather friend of his father for
-thirty years, Potter had heard everything there was to know about him
-that could with discretion be told. He was the old-fashioned type of
-publicity man, doing business largely through the medium of champagne
-and dinners. Open-handedness and good nature were traits which a half
-century of tradition had associated with his name.
-
-A much older man than Potter’s father, Cobb wore a beard which was
-nearly white, but he was one of those veterans to whom a beard imparted
-an air of boldness and adventure rather than of piety or age. His
-costume was youngish, smart-looking, but deeply wrinkled by lounging
-ease. He greeted the young man cordially in his somewhat unpretentious
-and disorderly office and indicated an upholstered arm chair to him.
-Potter sank into it and the old man leaned back in his own to survey
-him.
-
-“Well,” he said, “Johnny’s boys are growing up. Let’s see, are you the
-second or the third?”
-
-“Third, Colonel.”
-
-“I know your brother Kirk better’n I do the rest of you. I see a good
-deal of him up at the Mercantile Club. Kirk’s a good boy and looks to
-me like he’s goin’ to make his Dad proud. You ain’t old enough to drink
-whiskey, are you? I guess not this time of the morning, anyway. Well,
-have a cigar.”
-
-He thrust out a spacious box.
-
-“Colonel,” said Potter, “you may be surprised at what I’m here for. I’m
-in a kind of a fix, a bad fix, to tell the truth, and I need money.
-I’ve got twenty-eight hundred in the National Trust but I can’t draw
-on it for two years, without my father’s consent. I want to get two
-hundred and fifty dollars on a note for that length of time.”
-
-As he mentioned the amount it seemed so enormous to Potter that he felt
-a little absurd. He had never handled more than fifty dollars at a time
-in his life.
-
-“I see. H’m.”
-
-The older man was smoking a well-used meerschaum and took a few puffs
-on it in silence, looking at Potter quickly once or twice with a more
-penetrating and appraising glance than at first. The latter noticed, in
-spite of the Colonel’s genial expression, that his eyes, in reflection,
-became a very cold and impersonal grey.
-
-“H’m, that’s bad,” said the Colonel. “You see, your pa and me are
-old pals. Now, why don’t you go over and tell him what the trouble
-is? There’s nothin’ in the world you could tell John Osprey that he
-wouldn’t understand. There ain’t a thing, son.”
-
-“I think there is, Colonel,” said Potter gravely.
-
-“Some girl trouble?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Now, I’d say you’re wrong. I’d say he’d be just the kind of man to
-take that kind of a story to. Your old man has got nothing to learn
-about human nature, son.”
-
-Potter felt the moment had come for fuller confidence if he hoped to
-succeed. He had anticipated this objection and intended to combat it by
-laying stress on his own reasons for not wishing to tell his father.
-These he felt would make a good impression upon any man. He launched
-into the broad outlines of his story. Colonel Cobb listened with
-seriousness and attention until he had finished. When Potter mentioned
-the manner in which he had come to town that morning his eye lighted up
-with a spark of the warmth that had marked his first reception.
-
-“H’m,” he chuckled. “I like that. Yep, I used to hop those blamed
-things myself. Then they got me to workin’ for ’em, and since then I’ve
-had to ride in style--but I don’t enjoy it as much.”
-
-He ruminated on in silence, puffing at the pipe held in one hand
-and combing his beard downward with the other, at every stroke or so
-stopping to scratch the tip of his thrust out chin, and drawing down
-his lower lip somewhat in the manner of a bitted horse. Potter noticed
-the long, blackened roots of his teeth, his puffy, reddish skin, and
-the tiny network of blood vessels and wrinkles that crisscrossed his
-cheeks around the eyes and nose. He felt a sudden disgust for life,
-for the rotten universe and for his own silly predicament. He grew
-restless, wishing for a decision one way or the other, scarcely caring
-which it should be.
-
-“You’re at college, you said?” asked the Colonel.
-
-“Yes, State University. Two years.”
-
-“How are you doin’ up there in your studies?”
-
-“Well, a little better than the average, Colonel, right along,” said
-Potter, smiling. It was somewhat less than the truth, yet he regretted
-the words immediately, as a boast. But the Colonel did not mind.
-
-“That’s good,” he said, heartily.
-
-He lurched forward in his big leather swivel chair and laid down his
-pipe.
-
-“The way I figure it out is this,” he said. “If you know that there’s
-two of us to get into trouble over this money, instead of one, you
-maybe will be more careful not to do the wrong thing with it, so it
-will get out. As for what’s the wrong thing I leave that to you. I’m
-goin’ to take a chance on John Osprey’s skinnin’ me alive if he hears
-about this transaction, and I guess there ain’t much likelihood of his
-hearin’ about it from you or me, is there?”
-
-He ponderously drew out a long black check-book, inked the pen and
-looked at it, inked it again and wrote. Potter received the slip of
-paper with its figures written in a big, round buccaneer’s Spencerian.
-His fingers trembled in spite of himself.
-
-“But, Colonel,” he began, suddenly feeling a sense of guilt.
-
-“I don’t want a note,” interrupted Cobb, lifting his rotund body by the
-arms of his chair. “The check’s enough. If you don’t pay me, I’ll send
-it around to you some day, when you’re rich, and you can light your
-cigar with it or pay, just the way you please. It’s made out to cash,
-so’s you won’t have any trouble gettin’ the money, but you just write
-your name along the back when you get to the bank. Good luck, son.”
-
-With the money actually in his pocket, Potter’s despondency abruptly
-returned. After all, what had he accomplished? The money was useless so
-far as restoring Ellen to her normal self was concerned. Much more--a
-simply unrealizable sum--would be needed to enable her to go away in
-peace and have her child with dignity and comfort. At best, this would
-only pay the price of a crime....
-
-He found her in much the same mood as his own, tired and resigned.
-She did not complain or accuse any one at all. But she seemed aching
-with dull resentment at the inevitable, friendless future, hating
-it and fearing it. She told him directly that she was not to have
-an operation. Dr. Schottman had warned that in her case it meant an
-exceptional risk. Her health was not good and having the baby would put
-her in fine shape.... Potter felt the sting of a lash in every word she
-uttered. He burst out at last.
-
-“Ellen, you must marry me. You must. There’s no other way out.”
-
-She did not laugh at him, but she simply refused to heed him. If she
-had consented he would have felt in that moment infinitely happier;
-and for even a ray of light in his present darkness, he would have
-abandoned a great many of the future’s promises.
-
-“But what will you do?”
-
-“Dr. Schottman has arranged everything for me. He’s to take me to a
-hospital in a few weeks. I could wait a month or two longer, I suppose,
-without their knowing it, but I might as well go. At the hospital I’ll
-have to work, until my time. Then he’s fixed it with some people for me
-to stay. They won’t mind anything. He’s told them all about me. They’re
-patients of his, nice people and well off. The Meadowburns will never
-know anything, they’ll never see me again. Not even the doctor knows
-about you and nobody will if you keep still. I’m just to walk out and
-disappear.”
-
-Potter stumbled down the stairway of the pretentious new Meadowburn
-house in a daze of misery and meanness. Nightfall found him lying face
-downward in the dried leaves of the park where the woods were thickest.
-He might have built his house there and never have been discovered for
-a generation. He might have become like “Clothes-pole Tom,” a hermit
-hero of his childhood, and sold gopher skins for a living. Some such
-method of losing himself would have been sweet....
-
-But youth walks forward even though it harbours corroding secrets.
-He could not escape the vision of Ellen in a hospital uniform, worn
-and broken-spirited, carrying heavy buckets of dirty water and
-swabbing down floors with a mop. He went back to college, lifeless
-and desperate, whipping himself into work with torturing thoughts. By
-January even his family saw something was wrong, and his father, who
-saw farthest, told him to make his own plans, to leave school and go
-where he liked. After a week of dismal idleness at home there followed
-a telegraphic correspondence with Roget. The two started off together
-to New York. Three years later, crossing the Atlantic to Paris, Osprey
-still had not returned to his native city, and he repeated his oath
-never to go back there again if it could be avoided.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-
-What Ellen Sydney had expected to be her trial by fire proved quite
-the opposite. It was the beginning of a new and kinder life. For
-if she had been unhappy at the Meadowburns’ it was because of a
-deep-seated difference between her own native impulses and those of her
-keepers. Long habit in a narrow rut, listening daily to a cautious and
-inglorious philosophy, had fostered in her the belief that the great
-world outside was monstrous and cruel; but she did not find it so. On
-the contrary, there were many to appreciate her cheerful courage and
-ready laugh, and return it with affection. Life at the hospital was
-novel and filled with congenial activity. Behind its unmoral walls
-was an anonymous and practical community in which her shame quickly
-melted from her daily thoughts. After the first few days of strangeness
-and mutual curiosity she saw that none cared how she had come by
-her situation. Nor were her duties burdensome; without the normal
-occupation they gave her she would have been ill at ease.
-
-The picture of a drab and bitter Ellen, clattering about a sordid
-environment with pail and mop--which gave Potter so many secret twinges
-in his New York room--never came true.
-
-She interested herself in the patients, most of whom she discovered
-to her surprise were even less able to cope with misfortune than she;
-the small purse which Dr. Schottman allowed her from the funds Potter
-had given her was always half open. The many varieties of mothers,
-and the innumerable enchanting babies fascinated her; but no more so
-than the coming of her own. As the weeks went by her condition, the
-manifestations of life within her, gave her increasing importance. It
-made her for the first time interesting to herself. She thought that
-she grew more attractive. Her body, long attenuated, took on softer
-contours under the wholesome diet and freedom from responsibility; her
-breasts were her particular pride. They changed magically; from stubby
-protrusions without any character at all, they grew round and firm as
-they had not been since girlhood.
-
-Then there were the visits of Dr. Schottman. His humorous sallies
-dispelled in a moment the few worries that came with the long days of
-waiting. He brought scant news of the Meadowburns, not seeming to care
-to talk of them. They had been very eager to find her at first, had
-made a great stir and called upon the police. Then, as suddenly as they
-took up the search, they had dropped it.
-
-“Ah, they didn’t care much, you may be sure,” laughed Ellen. It was far
-from displeasing to her to know that she need not depend upon them.
-But immediately she remembered that it was the doctor to whom she owed
-her present good fortune, not herself; and she felt remorseful.
-
-To Schottman, the hospital seemed to be something of a continuous
-comedy, and all these mothers, many of them abandoned, caught
-unwillingly in the grip of natural force, were the victims of a mild
-practical joke. How much of this was a pose which he found useful in
-dealing with them, and how much of it a mask to hide a disillusioning
-experience nobody knew, but it never gave offence. His homely grin and
-bracing philosophy made him a favourite everywhere.
-
-When she held her child in her arms for the first time a momentary
-grief oppressed her that it should be fatherless. But the child grew
-far more pleasing to look at than she had hoped it would be. Its dark
-hair and unexpected blue eyes made it look unlike either herself or
-Potter at first. Then a vague resemblance asserted itself, and more
-strongly on the mother’s side. This seemed right to Ellen. The less her
-daughter resembled the father she was never to see, the better.
-
-Before long she was allowed to take it out in the perambulator
-Schottman had bought for her. The hospital was located in a bleak,
-northern section of town, a region long associated in Ellen’s mind
-with the foreign population, principally German, and much sniffed at
-by people of the West End where she had lived. She remembered how
-depressing that day had been when they first drove to the hospital,
-through wintry streets between endless rows of low-roofed, packed-in
-brick houses and frame cottages. They had a humbler and more domestic
-air than she was used to, and gave forth odors of strong cookery, stale
-lager and of musty parlours seldom opened to the air. But the four
-months of hospital life in their midst had accustomed her to these
-exotic touches, and when the people began to overflow into the streets
-at the first hint of warm weather and to take a kindly interest in her
-child, she felt drawn to them. It amused her to have them think, as
-they sometimes did, that she was the nurse or governess.
-
-It was a mistake, perhaps natural, that Dr. Schottman at least viewed
-with satisfaction. The little girl’s charm would serve his purpose
-with the Blaydons to whom he was taking them. He had never entertained
-any doubt that Ellen would win them in her own way. Her willingness
-and modesty, a form of rough good breeding, would recommend her well.
-But if the child should be really attractive, so much the better for
-everybody.
-
-“Come now,” he teased Ellen, “this little chick has a high tone about
-her. What you think? Better let me hunt up the young scapegrace and
-show him what a handsome little rascal he’s responsible for.”
-
-“How do you know he’s young?” laughed Ellen. He had never pressed the
-question of fatherhood, and she was not afraid that he would ever try
-to.
-
-“And what will you name it? For it’s mother, eh?”
-
-Ellen had settled that matter. She had decided long before on the name
-of Moira, for Moira McCoy, the pretty, laughing, assistant head nurse,
-who had been the first to befriend her. But concerning this she also
-chose to keep her counsel for the present. Another thing troubled her
-mightily.
-
-“Are these--these people I’m going to live with Episcopalians?”
-
-He laughed.
-
-“I believe there’s a division in the family. Ach, these Christian
-distinctions! They split God up into small pieces like a pie, and
-each one takes a different slice. They are afraid to get indigestion
-from too much goodness, eh? But ‘Aunt Mathilda’--that is the
-sister-in-law--is Episcopalian. High church they call it. Oh, very
-high! It will suit you that way, I guess. And she is the boss. You’ll
-find that out.”
-
-High church. That would do very well. It was the serious question of
-her daughter’s christening that disturbed her.
-
-The day came at last to take their fearsome step into a new home. Ellen
-wept a little over her farewells, but on such a lovely morning she
-could not be sad very long. She felt so good, so well, and in the new
-clothes she had bought for this event she radiated unaccustomed health.
-
-“Look at you,” said the doctor. “I told you it would be good medicine.
-If your old friends could see you they wouldn’t know it was the same
-Ellen.”
-
-She blushed. She had never expected to leave the hospital so merry. In
-a few moments they were driving along in a new-fangled thing called
-a taxicab, and she had to hold the baby carefully to keep it from
-bumping. It was the first time she had ever ridden in an automobile,
-but her thoughts were too far ahead to concern themselves with the
-novelty. A year ago it would have been a great adventure.
-
-First of all she reflected:
-
-“When Moira is grown up she will love me, and we will do so many nice
-things together.” Then she thought, “Who knows, Moira may have a father
-some day, and never be the wiser.”
-
-The doctor had decided that she was to be known as Mrs. Williams at the
-Blaydons’. “Aunt Mathilda” herself had suggested this, and Ellen was
-willing enough to consent. But she accepted with greater reluctance his
-proposal of a gold band for her finger. The idea smacked of a deception
-that was too bold by far, a deception that involved higher powers than
-those of earthly authority, in her mind. She felt almost a criminal
-whenever she looked at it.
-
-The rattling vehicle swung through an impressive high gate and they
-were looking down between a row of trees. To their left, running
-straight through the middle of the thoroughfare lay a grass grown
-parkway so dotted with shrubs that she got only fleeting glimpses
-of the houses on the other side. Those on her own side she gazed at
-with wonder. They were set far apart, with generous lawns, and the
-suggestion of gardens farther back behind walls and iron grill work.
-The big houses revealed their age, not only by their old-fashioned and
-heterogeneous architecture, but by the smoke-grimed look of their brick
-and stone.
-
-“How lovely and peaceful,” thought Ellen, fascinated at the fresh sight
-of green everywhere spotted and patched with sunlight. She seemed to
-have been wearing dark glasses for months and months.... She noticed
-that the driver was slowing down his vehicle and was craning his neck
-for the house numbers.
-
-“My land,” she murmured, “we’re going to live here.... Look, Moira,
-look!” she could not help but cry aloud--and then flushed pink when she
-saw the doctor had heard the name.
-
-This was Trezevant Place, its fame already beginning to dwindle, so
-that Ellen, acquainted only with the new city, had heard of it but once
-or twice. For two generations the patrician families had housed there,
-and a few of the original owners had remained, standing on their
-dignity, defying the relentless town, which had long sprawled up to it,
-and around it and far beyond, unsightly, clamorous and vulgar. The snob
-that is in everybody claimed Ellen at that moment and she longed for an
-audience of Meadowburns and Potters to watch them disembark.
-
-The cab came to an abrupt stop before the bronze figure of a barefooted
-negro boy holding out an iron ring in one chubby paw. Ellen faced a
-front door of many bevelled panes of glass which reflected the bright
-sky into her eyes. Her knees failed her, but with a free hand she
-grasped the doctor’s sleeve, finding in the act reassurance enough to
-mount the steps between the red stone pillars. A maid appeared in the
-doorway.
-
-“Oh, it’s you, doctor,” she said, beaming at them from under her neat
-white cap. “Mrs. Seymour is waiting in the library. Go right in,
-please.”
-
-Ellen found herself in a room filled with book-shelves, and mahogany,
-and leather-covered chairs, facing a small lady who did not leave her
-straight, uncomfortable seat. The greying hair was done up in a knot on
-the top of her head and behind it was a dark spreading comb. She wore a
-light blue silk frock with a white collar of lace that folded back over
-her shoulders and left her neck bare. It was old-fashioned looking,
-Ellen thought, yet “nice” as she would have put it, meaning smart, and
-she noticed that the woman’s throat was smooth and plump. Her graceful
-ankles showed, crossed, above a pair of little grey slippers with very
-high heels. What a little doll of a person! she thought.
-
-“Good morning, doctor,” said the lady, shaking hands with Schottman,
-while Ellen stood in the door. Then she turned to her.
-
-“Sit down, Mrs. Williams. You mustn’t feel strange here, because I
-am sure we are going to like each other. The doctor has told me nice
-things about you.”
-
-Ellen thought no more of dolls. The assured voice, and what she could
-only describe as the foreign way “Aunt Mathilda” pronounced her words,
-awed her. She did not know that this was what people called cultivated.
-She obeyed the injunction to sit down, her eyes glued trustfully but
-timidly upon her new mistress.
-
-“I’m not going to keep you long this morning, because for the next day
-or two you will have little to do and will be getting accustomed to the
-place. You can take care of the child yourself?”
-
-“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Ellen, and smiled. “I’ve taken care of many more
-than this one, and done the work besides.”
-
-“I see. That’s splendid. Well, you will have plenty of time for her. It
-can be managed very well. Gina is fond of children and will look after
-the baby when you are busy, and then there is my nephews’ nurse, Mrs.
-Stone. Gina is my personal maid. The other servants are Marie, who is
-the parlour maid and waitress, John, the gardener and stable man, and
-the laundress Annie, who lives out. So the work is pretty well divided.
-And then there is Miss Wells, the trained nurse for Mrs. Blaydon. The
-doctor may have told you that Mrs. Blaydon never leaves her room.”
-
-Ellen lost track of this catalogue of servants, yet she felt a
-happy sense of importance in listening to these matter-of-fact and
-self-respecting details. It was as though she were being taken into the
-confidence of the household. She tried to attend Mrs. Seymour’s every
-word with seriousness, and felt her embarrassment dropping away from
-her.
-
-“Dr. Schottman tells me that you have been the only help in the family.
-I suppose you have done only plain cooking?”
-
-“Yes, ma’am.”
-
-“Well, you will have no trouble learning our likes and dislikes, and
-the way things must be served. Miss Wells will prepare most of Mrs.
-Blaydon’s meals, which are separate. The present cook is to stay until
-the end of the month, and that will give you plenty of time to catch
-on. And you mustn’t be afraid. We expect to make allowances. Of course,
-your wages will begin at once, but I can’t tell just what they should
-be until we try you, so we won’t discuss that to-day.”
-
-“Oh, not at all, ma’am--” began Ellen, and stopped suddenly. “Aunt
-Mathilda” covered her embarrassment by rising, and Ellen stood also,
-with her child in her arms. The act brought them close enough together
-for Mrs. Seymour to see the baby’s face.
-
-“What a sweet little thing,” she said, and smiled cordially at Ellen.
-“I hope you are going to be happy here, Mrs. Williams. Marie will show
-you your room and give you everything you need. Don’t bother about your
-bags. John can take them up at once.”
-
-“Oh, thank you,” said Ellen. She stood hesitating, after saying a
-halting, awkward good-bye to the doctor. It was not easy to leave his
-friendly presence and impossible to thank him as she wanted to. But she
-turned and in the wake of Marie climbed the broad front steps.
-
-Their carved, heavy banisters and the thick rugs rebuked her. It was as
-though she realized that in this well-ordered house it would be rarely
-indeed that she would tread them. Here she was more definitely placed
-than she would ever have been at the Meadowburns’.
-
-As they passed the second story landing two very small, cleanly dressed
-boys came out of a big bedroom, with a matronly hospital nurse between
-them.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-
-Ellen spent her days learning more about the quaint art of cookery than
-she ever dreamed there was to know, and discovering the ways of rich
-people which were strange indeed.
-
-One of the first things that impressed her was the unvarying quiet.
-Never was a voice raised that could be heard beyond the room in which
-it was spoken, and this applied even to the young masters, who, if they
-ever made a regular boy-racket, must have done so behind the closed
-doors of the nursery. Compared to the shouting up and down stairs,
-the banging of pianos and doors, the general uproar of the Meadowburn
-household, this was like living in a church. The stately high ceilings
-and big stained glass windows intensified the illusion.
-
-And the armies of tradesmen who came! She had been accustomed to
-dealing with one butcher, one grocer, one baker. Here there were
-dozens who handled a farrago of specialties. There were three or four
-different dessert-makers, a pork butcher, a beef butcher, a poultry
-butcher, and a fish monger of high degree; there were a plain grocer,
-a grocer-importer, a wine-dealer, a liquor agent, coffee merchants and
-tea merchants, purveyors of spices and sweet-meats, apothecaries and
-fruiterers, dealers in milk, eggs and butter, and a score of others
-whose business did not happen to be with Ellen. All day they came and
-went. She had thought that supplying a kitchen was a matter of taking
-in a certain fixed number of staples and making the most of them. But
-here she found herself in the midst of an immense variety of esoteric
-materials whose names suggested the index of a geography. The kitchen
-with its vast conveniences for housing all these things in their
-appointed places was not unlike a large shop itself.
-
-Formal dinner parties there were, but they were rare during those days,
-because of the sick woman in the house. And it was well they were!
-thought she, judging by the lavishness of those she helped to prepare.
-Mrs. Seymour, however, gave many luncheons to her friends, and for
-these Ellen delighted to outdo herself, since Aunt Mathilda was not
-ungenerous with compliments when they were deserved.
-
-These refinements of luxury affected her unconsciously. She was soon
-trying to acquire the atmosphere of the house, to train her manners
-after her mistress, to soften her voice and even to alter the accent
-of her speech, which had always, though she knew it not, been more
-agreeable than the average.
-
-This instinct of imitation led her to listen, whenever she could, to
-the conversations of Blaydon and his sister. She understood very little
-of what they said that did not concern the surface news of the family.
-Often they talked of books, and books were a strange world to Ellen.
-But one day the thought struck her that Moira, living her childhood
-in such a house would certainly acquire some of its cultivation, even
-though no one deliberately undertook to teach her.
-
-But would Moira’s mother be worthy of such a companion? Ought she
-not to make an effort to improve her mind, so that Moira would be a
-little less ashamed of her in that rosy time ahead when they would
-understand each other? To Ellen the difficulties of reading were almost
-insurmountable. Nothing terrified her so much as twenty pages of print.
-However, once the thought of her unworthiness in Moira’s eyes occurred
-to her, she did not hesitate a moment. From one of the upstairs
-book-cases she selected the largest volume she could find. It proved to
-be “Les Misérables,” and there was something she liked about the title.
-That night she began bravely to read.
-
-Hard as it was to make headway in it, she had chosen the only amusement
-possible to her. When she was not busy in the kitchen, mastering the
-problems of the stove and the mixing bowl, she sat beside her daughter.
-There was no chance to think of more exciting pleasures, for which,
-often enough, the youth in her still yearned. Yet these duties were
-only confining, never exhausting. From the sheer drudgery of hard
-manual labour, to which she once thought herself condemned until she
-dropped, a miracle had suddenly delivered her. And that miracle was a
-little child, unlawfully born. Life held many mysteries for Ellen, but
-none of them was as incomprehensible as this.
-
-The first inkling that they were ever likely to move from the Trezevant
-place came to her through one of those overheard talks between
-Sterling Blaydon and his sister. They were sitting one morning in the
-brick-walled garden just off the rear drawing room, a lovely place, as
-Ellen knew, to dream and idle in, if it was deserted and she could have
-Moira tumbling about on the rugs at her feet. There were rows of green
-boxed plants along the top of the high walls, a striped awning and the
-clear sky spread between, like another mysterious ceiling farther away.
-There was comfort and security and the sense of distance too. It was
-like many other of the civilized refinements which Ellen discovered at
-the Blaydons’, suggestive of an almost incredible degree of foresight,
-of attention to the details of luxury, which the fortunate of the world
-had been developing illimitably since the first man was carried on the
-backs of other men. Mr. Blaydon and his sister often breakfasted in
-this inner garden on fine mornings, and Ellen sometimes served them
-herself in the absence of Marie.
-
-She believed Sterling Blaydon the most romantic personage she had ever
-seen. His hair was almost white, but he was young in body and in years.
-His lean, brown face, which she thought had a tired expression when in
-repose or when he was reading, lighted up marvellously when he smiled.
-His tall, solid form would have made two of Aunt Mathilda’s. Ellen
-loved to peep through the butler’s pantry doors and see him decant the
-special brandy for his friends after dinner, languid and big-handed and
-jovial through the smoky fog.
-
-This morning while he sat in the garden in the softest of grey tweeds,
-with his outstretched legs crossed and resting upon the tiles, she
-heard his drawling voice as she placed the coffee service fastidiously
-on the big silver tray in the pantry. Ellen liked to fondle the Blaydon
-china and silver. It was spoiling her; she would never want to touch
-anything less valuable.
-
-“I dare say it sounds like blasphemy to you,” Mr. Blaydon was saying,
-“but I’m sick of this place after all. I used to think I never should
-be.”
-
-“It’s partly Jennie’s long illness. Poor boy, you’ve had a good deal to
-contend with.”
-
-“I? Nonsense! But I ought to get her away from here. She could pull
-together faster in the country. That is to say, if she ever has
-strength enough to be moved. And there are the boys. I’m beginning to
-think this is no locality for them to grow up in. If I toss a pebble
-over the wall there it will land square in the melting pot--perhaps on
-some anarchist’s head who will throw a bomb at me one of these days.”
-
-“It’s extraordinary how well Trezevant has held its own. There seems to
-be a spirit in the place that won’t allow it to be tainted.”
-
-“Tainted enough by coal smoke!” he retorted. “Spirits won’t stop that.
-I’d really like to get out, way out. Not just to follow the crowd, as
-they say, but we’ve never had a satisfactory country place, and I’ve
-come to think you can’t unless you make it a life accomplishment.”
-
-“A life is hardly enough, my dear brother,” replied Mrs. Seymour.
-“Trezevant is the accomplishment of three generations.”
-
-“Bah!” he replied, good-humouredly, “we’re not the slow coaches we used
-to be. You can get twice as much done these days in a third of the
-time.”
-
-“Well, at any rate, it’s unpractical now,” she replied, and he
-recognized the finality of her tone.
-
-Blaydon smoked his cigar in silence, while she finished her second
-black coffee and leaned back in her chair swinging a tiny foot of
-which she was proud. In the shimmering, palpable light, shot with many
-colours, Mathilda’s face and hair were still amazingly pretty. There
-were many who would have accepted the kind of slavery that marriage
-with her would have entailed, and some among them who had no need for
-her money. But she was not thinking of that. The arts of vanity had
-ceased to be a conscious lure; they were the essentials of well-bred
-self-cultivation. She had accepted her widowhood as the final failure
-of man, so far as she was concerned. It had been a romantic love
-match, ecstatic but unhappy, the kind that she fancied exhausted the
-capacity for passion; and now her thoughts ran upon the future of her
-brother’s household. For if Blaydon entertained any illusions about the
-possibility of his wife’s recovery, Mathilda did not.
-
-She had long held certain opinions regarding Jennie, which were not
-shared by the outside world. One of them was that her brother had
-never loved her, that he had found this out almost immediately after
-marrying, and determined to live the thing through because of his
-old-fashioned loyalty. Mathilda had quite certain knowledge that in the
-midst of the honeymoon he had rushed away and stayed several days. She
-knew it had been his hour of terrible trial, his angry realization of
-having made the first major mistake of his life, and made it in full
-maturity. His sister was proud of him for remaining a tree of marriage
-in a clearing of divorce stumps--for such their social world was
-rapidly becoming.
-
-But her theory was that Jennie had never forgiven him, never in a
-sense recovered from it. She had welcomed her children in order the
-more to seal up the truth from others; but she had borne them late,
-and the birth of the second son, Robert, had doomed her to physical
-helplessness.
-
-This theory explained to Mathilda every peculiarity of Mrs. Blaydon’s
-character, every inexplicable episode which had occurred in the
-house since she had joined them. Jennie had never liked her; perhaps
-suspected that she knew her secret. Part of Jennie’s satisfaction
-in having the children was that they would help her to dominate her
-sister-in-law and the household, in the rôle of mother. As adversaries
-they had a healthy respect for each other. But Jennie’s sustained
-firmness of will was less effective than Mathilda’s, because it was
-less charming and less hidden. Luck was simply against Jennie. It was
-Mathilda who would win and then (though Blaydon did not know she had
-thought much about it) they would go to the country. Naturally this
-would be their first move. It was inevitable because it was the thing
-that people of their sort were doing, and because automobiles had made
-it feasible.
-
-As though she felt that she might hint some of this that was in her
-mind, she broke the silence.
-
-“Speaking of the country, I’ve had my eye for a long time on those
-tracts in the Errant River hills, where the McNutts have bought.”
-
-Sterling Blaydon slowly took his cigar from his mouth and smiled.
-Like all men of means he liked to have opportunities to display his
-foresight presented to him without going out of his way to invite them.
-
-“Well then, you’ve had your eye on what will in all probability be
-your future home. I’ve been picking up that land right along. I’ve got
-about three hundred acres of it. Moreover, though the Country Club site
-committee hasn’t decided officially yet, I know for a fact they are
-going to take the contiguous property. It’s cheap enough just now, and
-the club isn’t lavish.”
-
-He was fully satisfied with the glance of admiration Mathilda gave him.
-
-“Why, Sterling,” she said, “how long have you been at that?”
-
-“Since a little while after Hal was born. I got to thinking then this
-wouldn’t do.”
-
-“Well, it never occurred to me until this year.”
-
-He rose, stretching to his full height to shake the indolence from his
-body.
-
-“I’ve even got an architect to work. But I dare say you’re right and
-we can’t think about it yet. I certainly can’t drag Jennie through a
-radical change like that, and I haven’t even told her for fear it would
-fret her. But the moment she’s better--You don’t say whether you would
-really like it or not, Mathilda.”
-
-“Certainly I shall like it, dear boy.”
-
-He went off humming to his wife’s room, before going out. He was,
-Mathilda thought, more attentive to her than many an enamoured husband,
-and she admired him for it.
-
-The idea of moving to the country at first frightened Ellen, with that
-pitiful fear which all dependents have of impending change. What will
-become of them, they ask themselves, in the general forgetfulness?--and
-a hundred misgivings and imagined instances of dissatisfaction on the
-part of their masters throng their minds.
-
-But had she felt secure it would have pleased her. The old house was
-too formal, too heavy with the fragrances and lingering stiffness of
-a past day. She could never quite grow to like the eternal quiet.
-A hearty clattering now and then would have relieved her pent-up
-vitality. She would have liked, just once in a long, long while to
-listen to one of Tom Meadowburn’s stories, or hear Bennet shouting in
-the back yard.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-
-But Mrs. Blaydon grew neither better nor worse and they remained at
-Trezevant Place. And when Moira was a year and a half old a fresh
-sorrow visited her mother. So rapid and unforeseen were the steps by
-which it came that Ellen scarcely realized what was happening.
-
-To her, indeed, the child seemed to acquire new marvels of goodness and
-beauty every day, but she imagined it was only her mother’s pride that
-made her think so. She was not the sort who would boast of the deeds of
-her offspring.
-
-Then she grew aware that others shared her interest. More and more, in
-particular, she found the child, when she came to look for her, in the
-company of Aunt Mathilda, even in that lady’s arms, most happily at
-home and warmly welcome.
-
-“It is going to be very improving for Moira,” was her thought, and she
-realized with a pang that she had been reading Hugo’s book for more
-than a year now, and was not yet halfway through it.
-
-Mrs. Seymour’s brother was among those who noticed her partiality for
-the baby.
-
-“Look,” she said to him one day, with enthusiasm, holding out one of
-the child’s tiny pink hands, “how remarkably made they are. She’s the
-same all over. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect baby.”
-
-Blaydon laughed, thereby eliciting a brilliant response in kind from
-Moira. The vibrations of his big voice had tickled her young flesh.
-
-“Well, Mathilda, the broadest road to your heart is still a pair of
-hands. I remember your telling me that poor old Ned first got you with
-his.”
-
-“Hands and feet,” she replied. “I don’t mind anything else but they
-ought to be beautiful.”
-
-A few days afterward he came upon her in the garden, again with Ellen’s
-daughter.
-
-“Que voulez-vous,” she was saying, “que voulez-vous, ma p’tite?
-Voulez-vous maman?”
-
-The soft syllables seemed to please Moira’s ears, for she was
-mirthfully bubbling things that sounded not unlike them. As Blaydon
-stepped out he thought his sister a little apologetic, but she did not
-put down the child.
-
-“The little thing wandered out here while I was reading,” she said.
-“She quite seems to follow me about.”
-
-“You don’t find it annoying?” he asked.
-
-Her reply served notice upon him that she had caught his note of irony.
-
-“Oh, no.... I’m not such a busy woman as all that.”
-
-He glanced at the book she had been reading. It lay flung face
-downward with both backs spread out on the table, “Le Crime de
-Sylvestre Bonnard.” Blaydon recalled the story and somehow connected it
-in his mind with his sister’s essential solitude--her dependence upon
-his own family for affection.
-
-“I suppose,” he pursued, the thought forming suddenly from nowhere,
-“that you are going to adopt her?”
-
-Mathilda looked up sharply. She pretended to detect in his words more
-of approval than of inquiry and replied as though he had offered a
-suggestion.
-
-“You’re not serious, Sterling?”
-
-Blaydon’s intuition surprised him. He had struck fire, where hardly
-more than a joke had been intended.
-
-“Why not?” he asked, with a good-natured shrug.
-
-“It seems cruel, somehow,” she replied. Her tone was as detached as
-though she had said, “it seems too green,” of a dress-cloth.
-
-“I can’t quite see that. Mothers are proverbially unselfish--”
-
-“She would have to be brought up with your boys, Sterling. Have you
-thought of that?”
-
-He had not thought of that and there was more to Mathilda’s remark than
-banter. As if to influence his reply, the youngest boy, Robert, three
-and a half, scampered past them and climbed upon a favourite seat,
-between two clipped boxwood trees, chattering to himself and grinning
-across at his father as if to say, “I dare you to come and get me!” But
-Blaydon ignored him for the moment. He did not know that Mathilda’s
-mind had gone all over this matter of adoption, and that the question
-she had just put to him, in spite of its unconcerned air, was really a
-crucial one with her. Upon his feeling about it would depend a great
-deal, yet this did not imply that she felt herself bound to accept
-his decisions. There were scores of things that she might do if the
-whim possessed her, in spite of him. Blaydon was aware of this, and
-though he did not know how much she had thought about the child, he was
-inclined toward caution. She was a good sister--a better mother, he
-honestly believed, for his children than their own.... When he answered
-it was with a laugh that had the effect upon Mathilda of some one
-opening a door she wanted to go through.
-
-“Well, I don’t know,” he went on, slowly. “I suppose that Ellen is a
-fixture anyhow, and young cubs are more likely to fall in love with a
-really beautiful Cinderella than just a handsome cousin. That is if the
-child is beautiful. How on earth can you tell anything about them at
-that age?”
-
-“You can tell the day after they are born,” snapped back Mrs. Seymour.
-“I would venture to sit down and write the lives of your two sons
-to-day, and I shouldn’t be far from the truth, barring death and
-accidents.”
-
-“So?” he asked, “and have I anything to fear?”
-
-“Oh, no, they’ll come back to the fold, even as you did!”
-
-Her look was one of benevolent sarcasm and he grinned. There were many
-things worse to remember than the pretty women of his younger days.
-But he had come back to the fold ... that was true, and it was not so
-pleasant after all. Change would be kind. He reached over and touched
-the blond head of his boy, who was sitting on the tiles now at his feet.
-
-“Poor old Rob, she’s got you catalogued,” he said, and the talk of
-adoption stopped. Neither of them had taken it seriously--Jennie,
-unmentioned, remained insurmountable. But Mathilda had entered her
-wedge, without an effort. Being intensely feminine, circumstances moved
-toward her, not she toward them, an achievement that resulted from
-indicating definitely first, then vaguely opposing, everything she
-wanted.
-
-Blaydon lifted his boy to his shoulder and walked through the house to
-the drawing room windows. He talked little more than monosyllabically
-to his children and had a great way of stilling their excited glee,
-when he wanted to, by the tone of his voice. As they stood at the
-window he wished that his gaze could go on over rolling hills to the
-horizon. He wanted these boys to grow up with horses and vigorous
-sports; to see them framed against green earth and wide skies. He
-wanted them to draw in their early appreciations from the bare soil of
-their own land. Somehow that now appeared to him a spiritual necessity
-of which he had had too little himself, and it was the leading ambition
-that possessed him after a life of sophisticated pleasure.
-
-A week later Mrs. Blaydon died. It was as though the new direction of
-their thoughts had penetrated to her intuitively and left her without
-strength to battle further.
-
-It was not long before Blaydon felt free to go ahead with his plans.
-But the speed with which Mathilda proceeded to execute hers surprised
-and even shocked him. She did not go directly to Ellen. Instead she
-consulted Dr. Schottman, and readily gained his partisanship. It was
-from Schottman that Ellen first heard of Aunt Mathilda’s intentions
-toward Moira....
-
-For the life of her she could not tell at first whether she was happy
-or miserable at the suggestion. In one moment she rejoiced over the
-good fortune of her daughter; in the next she experienced a sense of
-terrible deprivation and loneliness. She was not so sentimental as to
-minimize the extent of her renunciation--to hope that some crumbs from
-the table of Moira’s affection would fall to her. It meant a thorough
-transfer of parenthood and a ruthless blotting out of the truth.
-One of Mrs. Seymour’s reasons for adopting the child at once, as she
-explained to Schottman, was that the boys were young enough to grow up
-none the wiser. Ellen did not deceive herself. Moira would never know
-her, never think of her except as a servant.
-
-She recalled sorrowfully the two happy prospects she had brought with
-her into that house, “Moira will love me when she is grown up, and we
-will do so many nice things together,” and “Who knows, some day Moira
-may have a father....” But Moira would never have a real father now
-through her, and Moira would never love her in the sense she had meant.
-A gleam of comfort crept in the chinks of her hopeless speculation.
-
-“If Moira should learn about this, much, much later--years later when
-it could do no harm--about how I have given her up, she would love me
-all the more!”
-
-But the stray gleam crept out at once, leaving her mind darker than
-before. Moira would never know, never understand anything of all she
-had gone through. She buried her face in the pillow. In the middle
-of the night she suddenly started up, feeling frantically about the
-room for she knew not what. Was it affection, love, just the touch of
-something familiar? For Moira, of course ... but what a fool! Moira was
-gone, even the crib was gone. She was alone, absolutely alone, for the
-rest of her life.
-
-As she stumbled back to her bed, her hand encountered the big volume of
-“Les Misérables.” She caught it up and held it to her breast. The book
-had grown to be a symbol for her of their life together in fabulous
-years to come. Now those years were dead. The book was no longer
-necessary, no longer had any meaning.... Ellen put it away in one of
-the drawers of her bureau. She would never have to read in its pages
-again. It would be better if she did not, better that the gulf between
-them should widen rather than diminish.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-
-It is four o’clock of a September afternoon and brightly still. Over on
-the clean rolling golf course tiny figures in all combinations of white
-and grey and brown move like insects soundlessly from one point to
-another making odd motions. Even the jays which have been haggling and
-shrieking all day are quiet. An occasional tree-toad or katydid creaks
-from the false dusk of the Eastern woods. Locusts drone, and from a
-long way off comes the faint click of a reaping machine at intervals,
-but all these sounds only accentuate the silence. An eternal,
-slow-breathing calm rests upon the treetops waiting patiently for the
-cold of autumn.
-
-With a murmur that grows into a rumble the stillness is broken by a
-monstrous motor truck which swerves into the driveway from the road a
-quarter of a mile away and comes tumbling down the white track, its
-racket increasing with its nearness. The driver noisily shunts his
-gears at the kitchen door, and Ellen Sydney comes out to superintend
-the unloading and disposition of supplies. This done and the truckman
-sent away with a laugh, she strolls into the garden on that side of the
-house and is presently at work with a pair of shears snipping asters
-and marigolds for the table. There are many of them, so many they must
-be gathered in profusion. She has the air of one who is at home among
-the beds, who has worked on them and cherished them with her own hands.
-
-She is a handsomer woman than before. Her figure has decidedly taken
-on dignity, and the colour of her face is a healthy brown pink. Her
-cheeks, thanks to the best skill of the Blaydon dentist, have lost
-their sunken hollows and her eyes have deepened from the effect
-of well-being and contented activity. She bears herself with some
-authority too, having taken a favoured place in her division of the
-housework. Her hair is greying very slightly over the ears and temples,
-but her step is as quick and her back as straight as a girl’s. She
-wears a blue uniform with sleeves rolled up and a white apron.
-
-As she reaches the entrance portico, her arms overflowing with the
-yellow and brown and purple flowers, a little girl of six or so with
-dark hair bursts from the screen door.
-
-“Ellney, Ellney. Give me a cookie. I’m hungry.”
-
-“Can’t you wait till dinner, Miss Moira? Your mother wouldn’t like it.”
-
-“Oh, what’s one cookie? _Maman_ won’t mind just one.”
-
-“She will if she finds out, and if you don’t eat your dinner. It’s me
-that will get the lecture, not you!”--and with a look backward into the
-past, Ellen thinks of a boy who was once always asking for something to
-eat. The boy’s face has so dimmed in her mind now that if there is a
-resemblance she does not notice it.
-
-“_Maman_ shan’t lecture you, Ellney. I shan’t ever let her lecture you.”
-
-Ellen laughs, not only at what Moira says, but at the way she says
-it. She cannot ever get over the fact that her own child--who is now
-no longer her child--speaks the King’s English quite as carefully as
-her well-bred elders, and has adopted an air of superiority in her own
-right. But in Ellen’s laughter there is no ridicule. It is the sheer
-pleasure of maternal pride. Does not Moira, they say, speak French
-almost as well as English?
-
-“You little darling,” she cries, stooping and endeavouring to take the
-child’s hand in spite of her overflowing burden, “I’ll give you just
-one.”
-
-“No, two, Ellney--but one is for Hal, on my word. Isn’t it funny, he’s
-afraid to ask!”
-
-Ellen thought there never had been a child whose laughter was more like
-everything good and who laughed more often than Moira....
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Turning in from the Marquette road to Sterling Blaydon’s new country
-house, “Thornhill” as they called it, a visitor with a sculptor’s eye
-might describe the formation of the land as the huge thigh of a woman,
-resting horizontally on the earth. The private driveway ran along the
-crest which sloped on both sides downward to gentle valleys, while the
-whole ridge tapered in width gradually to a round end or knee on which
-rested the house in a semi-circle of green. Beyond the house lay a few
-hundred feet of clipped lawn and well spaced trees, and then the Titan
-calf plunged into the earth, its declivitous sides covered with exposed
-rock and a thick undergrowth of every imaginable scrub and bramble,
-with a plentiful scattering of dogwood and plumb and thorn. It was holy
-with blossoms in the Spring, beginning with the ghostly shad-bush. The
-edge of the hill overlooked a broad meadow fifty yards below, as flat
-as a lake.
-
-Spread out in three directions from this crowning point lay Blaydon’s
-land, perhaps a third of it in rocky knolls and wood, and the remainder
-under cultivation by tenant farmers. The driveway to the site led
-almost due west but the axis of the house itself, which was narrow and
-long despite its irregularities, turned toward the south. It was built
-to the shingle eaves of rubble-rock and dominated at either end by two
-enormous chimneys of the same gorgeous, parti-coloured material, all
-of which had been found on the place. Broad verandahs, a wide, tiled
-terrace reached by French windows; a quaint Dutch Colonial door and
-portico facing the road; screened balconies skilfully masked by the
-eaves; the great living and dining rooms and library which took up
-almost all of the lower floor; the correspondingly spacious chambers
-overhead, attested its inhabitants’ means and love of comfort. The
-entrance lawn and slopes to the north were laid out in series of
-irregular, charming gardens. On the southeast the hill descended almost
-horizontally from the tiled and parapeted terrace near the house, so
-that from the living room windows one looked through the tops of trees
-to the Country Club on another hill less than a mile away.
-
-With greater spaces had come more movement, more things to be
-interested in, more excitement and sound, all of which Ellen had
-welcomed. She meddled in everything. She had become a creditable
-sub-assistant gardener and something of a bee-keeper, having watched
-the professionals at work. The four dogs were her especial care. Two
-were morbidly shy collies called “Count” and “Countess” by Mathilda,
-and Ellen won the privilege of touching their magnificent coats and
-standing by while they fed, only after many months of gentleness and
-coaxing. They seldom allowed the other members of the household to come
-near them and ran wild in the woods. On the other hand the beagle and
-setter were almost annoyingly chummy. The animals in the stable had
-their daily histories also, which concerned her intimately. She was a
-splendid milker in emergencies and would have liked to keep fowls, but
-this Mathilda, who respected sleep in the mornings, would not permit.
-
-Of the two boys in the house, Hal, nine and a half, was the
-keener-witted and the more attractive. He was already at home among
-the horses and rode bare-back as well as in the saddle. She often
-felt sorry for Rob, who was left behind much of the time by his older
-brother and the swift, tiny Moira, but she did not humour him as much
-as she did Hal.
-
-It was Hal, however, who had ridden a cow so successfully one day that
-Moira pleaded to be helped up herself, and whether the beast thought
-her a less formidable antagonist, or was frightened by her skirts,
-the little girl was thrown off and severely jolted. Hal supported her
-into the house, himself more frightened than she, and vowed to his
-aunt solemnly that from that day he would never lead her into danger
-again, and if she got into it he would get her out. Yet she and the
-boy quarrelled too and sometimes went for days without speaking. Moira
-would take up with Rob then, scheming with all her mind to devise
-adventures that would make his brother envious. She often succeeded in
-these stratagems, until a time came when he did not concern himself
-with her at all, being grown beyond little girls.
-
-The elaborate arrangements which had been made for Moira from the
-first, and the increasing complexity of the child’s education, which
-had been undertaken very early by Mrs. Seymour, made it easier for
-Ellen to regard her as a member of the Blaydon family. It was only when
-Moira misbehaved within her knowledge or in her sight, that the true
-mother felt it hard to play her neutral rôle. While Moira was good she
-was a Seymour, naturally, but when she was bad she seemed to Ellen
-to be wholly her own. Ellen’s impulse then, in spite of the habit of
-suppression, was to correct her as a mother would.
-
-When these occasions had passed and she could reflect back on them,
-she thought it a blessing that Moira’s correction was in the hands of
-others than herself. One instance of Mrs. Seymour’s wise manner of
-dealing with unusual conduct filled her mind with wonder and created
-for her almost a new conception of life.
-
-Aunt Mathilda was consulting with her in the kitchen when Moira burst
-in and cried:
-
-“_Maman_, oh, _Maman_, the calf came right out of the cow! I saw it. I
-did.”
-
-The child’s face was a study. She did not apparently know whether to
-be very grave, or a little frightened or to laugh, and in one who
-was so rarely puzzled it would have seemed pathetic had her sudden
-announcement been less shocking than it was. As they learned afterward,
-she had witnessed the birth, by sheer accident, while in the stables
-with Harvey. Ellen blushed scarlet and was on the point of exclaiming
-indignantly, but Mrs. Seymour checked her with a gesture and took the
-child in her lap. Then she said in a tone the most natural in the world:
-
-“Why, certainly, my dear. That is what happens when all animals are
-born, and people too. First we are carried in our mothers. Then we walk
-by ourselves, just as the calf will in a day or two. Now you won’t ever
-forget that, will you?”
-
-Beginning the middle of September and for eight months each year, Miss
-Cheyney, the governess, came every morning at nine, and quiet reigned
-while she went over the lessons with the three children shut up in the
-library. After luncheon, Eberhard, the man, took her back by motor to
-the train as he had brought her.
-
-Ellen was always glad to see her visits begin, not only because Miss
-Cheyney was very democratic and “nice” to her, and proud of Moira’s
-progress, but because they ushered in the Fall. She loved the glorious
-colours that spread out in widening and deepening hues over the wooded
-hills, until all the world seemed to have put on a flaming cloak. She
-and the children would fill the house with sumach and maple branches
-then. And when the men began bringing up the heavy logs that had lain
-drying in the woods all summer and sawing and splitting them for the
-fireplaces in the house, she could see in anticipation the flames
-leaping in the chimney and hear the crackling of the wood in the fierce
-heat, and watch the glow of dancing light on the children’s faces. She
-had not seen open fireplaces since the New Orleans days, when they
-were lighted only for a few weeks in the year; and never had she seen
-anything to compare with the one in the Blaydon living room which was
-so high a woman could stand in it while she cleaned.
-
-And then the parties began. There were nearly always two big ones each
-Winter, and between them a constant stream of dinners and late motor
-parties, and informal crowds who tramped over from the Club to dance.
-Ellen loved to hear the music going at full tilt, the new jazz music
-that was just coming in. She didn’t mind, as much as she should have,
-the young men getting tipsy. She was thrilled to watch the couples
-disappear down through the trees, laughing and chatting, eager to
-escape the floods of light that poured from every window in the house;
-or slip into their motors for a drive along the dark roads.
-
-She had always thought of Sterling Blaydon as a reserved and serious
-man, and she wondered how he stood so much excitement. Then she
-realized that she was dealing with a new Sterling Blaydon, who not only
-stood it but encouraged it. His pride in the place and his love of
-filling it with people was like a boy’s.
-
-A great part of the pleasure she took in these affairs arose from
-the fact that her daughter was a favourite. Tall, important men and
-dazzling young women were attentive to Moira and Moira enjoyed it as
-much as they did. She was growing extraordinarily self-possessed,
-particularly with her elders. Often enough the frank equality she
-adopted toward them made Ellen gasp.
-
-Only in the dead of winter, when the snow piled up a foot or two
-everywhere and the drifts sometimes were up to a man’s middle, would
-they be without company for many days at a time. During this brief
-closed season--for it did not last long at the worst--Mr. Blaydon
-usually lived in town, and sometimes Mrs. Seymour would join him there,
-when engagements came in bunches or the theatres were particularly
-interesting. And the children, freed from their teacher, would be idle.
-
-Coming upon Moira alone at such times, with her constituted guardians
-away and out of mind, Ellen experienced her moments of gravest
-temptation. How she longed then to take the youngster in her arms and
-pour out the floods of love pent up within her. These yearnings were
-made all the more unbearable by the simple affection with which she
-was nearly always greeted by her daughter; yet at the same time the
-child’s own attitude strengthened her resistance. For Ellen stood in
-awe of her. The force of training, the sedulously cultivated point of
-view, the entirely different environment had already stamped her with
-the mark of another caste. Ellen could not look upon her for more than
-an instant as simply the object of possessive human feeling. It would
-sweep over her at some childlike expression, some quaint, serious look.
-It would be checked by some unlooked for sophistication of gesture or
-remark.
-
-Moira familiarly uttered the names of grown young men who to Ellen were
-no more than shadows from an upper world, coldly courteous ghosts who
-did not see her even when they looked at her. Every season the little
-girl extended her interests and knowledge into a wider world and grew
-more alien. And gradually as the years flew by even the servants who
-had been in the old Trezevant place when they came there, and who
-somehow seemed to preserve for her, by their presence, the actuality
-of her motherhood, passed, until there was not one left. Gina, whose
-sympathy she had felt most keenly, though the sprightly Italian said
-nothing, was the last. And Gina went away to be married....
-
-
-
-
-X
-
-
-To be nearly sixteen; to have a great room all to oneself, with
-high windows that looked upon surfs of close, glittering, talkative
-leaves, and hills far off between them; to have a small library of
-one’s favourite books, and a whole corner of the room devoted to the
-paraphernalia of one’s dearest hobby, which was painting; to have a
-square high bed, covered with a tester, and a wonderful, many-shelved
-Sheraton table beside it, and candles in old green brass candlesticks;
-to have a row of white, built-in armoires full of pretty dresses and
-cloaks and shoes; to have all this and to know one has helped to create
-it, was to possess a shrine where the thoughts of girlhood might
-safely let themselves go to all the four winds of the imagination,
-like many-coloured birds set free, unmindful of the traps and huntsmen
-scouring the world beyond.
-
-But Moira’s real favourite was not the lovely golden brown tapestry,
-nor the stained little bas relief of the Child, nor even the drawings
-of Michelangelo and Rembrandt, but a painting hung on the wall facing
-the foot of her bed, where she could look at it the first thing in
-the morning as she rose, and the last thing at night as she retired.
-It was a portrait of Mathilda’s grandmother at eighteen, painted in
-Virginia, a year before she crossed the plains with her young husband.
-The smooth, dark red hair was parted and drawn about the head above
-the ears like a cap, its gleam of colour apparent only in the gloss of
-the high lights. The blue eyes and fresh complexion and fine, regular
-features were done with infinite tenderness. She sat in a black gown,
-opening wide at the neck, against a red background formed by a cloak
-thrown over the chair. Moira knew it was good painting, of an exquisite
-older style, though the name of the painter was unsigned and had long
-been forgotten. She amused herself making little verses about it.
-
-  “My young great grandmother sits in her frame
-  And the red of her cloak burns warm as a flame....”
-
-Many a time she sat up in her bed pretending to have conversations
-about the stirring adventures of her grandmother’s early days, for she
-had heard the whole story of the young woman’s arduous journey and
-home-building--and also about the young men who came to Thornhill,
-discussing their characters without reserve. One could do this in
-perfect propriety with a dead great grandmother.
-
-“Tommy McNutt wants to come over every day and ride with me,
-Grandmother. But he squints out of doors, and he always wants to help
-you on a horse and he talks like a newspaper piece. I’d rather have
-somebody to talk to like old George Moore, wouldn’t you, dear? It’s a
-pity you were born too early to read George Moore. I know you would
-like him”--and she broke off for rhyme again:
-
-  “The courtly old painter I am sure wore lace
-  And the things he said brought a flush to her face.”
-
-“But if I should like Tommy I’d have a whole house as big as this one
-all my own. And if I should like Mark Sturm, the young brewer, I’d have
-two.... I don’t care, _Maman_ will give me a house.”
-
-“Then there’s Selden Van Nostrand. He’s tremendously popular because he
-makes up verses about ‘Aphrodite in a nightie,’ but he sometimes does
-better than that. The other day he said his heart was a leaf devoured
-by the worm of Egotism, shrivelled in the fire of Sex, and trampled
-by the feet of Virtue. I see you like that one, Grandma. Beautiful
-Grandma, I have your eyes--
-
-  “Her wide blue eyes have a trace of play
-  And the day she sat was a fine bright day!”
-
-Moira finished her morning cup of tea on the stand beside the bed
-and recalled suddenly that this fine, bright day was one of special
-significance, for Hal was coming home from his last year at prep
-school. Hal was the one young man she never talked to her great
-grandmother about, because, as she explained to herself, she was his
-great grandmother also and would be prejudiced. She stood in the
-sunlight pouring through the window, watching it gleam upon her firm
-shoulders and flanks. She had not decided whether she would go to the
-station with her mother and Uncle Sterling or not.
-
-Hal had treated her pretty badly the summer before and been very
-satirical, and the worst of it was she had found it hard to resent
-because he had seemed suddenly to be much older and to have some right
-to authority. He had been nicer at Christmas, taking her to two parties
-and giving her a set of Verlaine bound in tooled leather, but even when
-he tried to be nice to her he had somehow seemed condescending.
-
-She was in great doubt. Nobody, of course, would attach any
-significance to it, whichever she did, not even Hal, probably. It was
-only important to herself. She knew something had happened to her
-during the past year that was comparable to the change in Hal the year
-before. She had evidence now under her hands and in her eyes as she
-stood undressed, evidence that did not wholly please her, for she had
-lately taken a fancy to dislike women. More satisfactory evidence was a
-sense of mental growth.
-
-She had just returned from a long Spring vacation in New York with
-Mathilda, not her first visit but her most exciting one, and her
-thoughts were awhirl with Pavlova and Rachmaninoff and the Washington
-Square Players, bobbed hair and the operas at the Metropolitan, and a
-dozen startling, vivifying, even violent art exhibitions. She felt that
-she was probably much more splashed by the currents than Hal himself,
-for certainly one did not really learn anything at a boy’s school. Such
-places could only be high class stables for thoroughbred colts to pass
-the awkward stage in, under trainers far less capable than those they
-would have had if they were horses.
-
-And now the question was whether to test the glamour of these mental
-and physical acquisitions upon Hal by waiting to meet him alone, or
-to go like a good fellow and see him with the family. There was, of
-course, nothing personal about it; Hal was no more than an opportune
-judge. He represented the best criticism the East had to send back to
-them.
-
-After her bath she decided for action. She would go with the others and
-meet him. “Anyway, why attach so much importance to Hal? He’s quite
-capable of attaching enough to himself.”
-
-There was the possibility, too, of dramatic interest in his arrival.
-The year before, on his return, at eighteen, he had boldly announced
-to his father he was going to war. There wasn’t to be a day lost, he
-wanted to go at once. Every man in his class was going somehow or
-other. Sterling Blaydon opposed it, the argument dragged out for days,
-and finally the family won. But it was only with the understanding
-that if Hal would finish his last year at school he might make his own
-decision. The country’s participation in the war was now over a year
-old and the outlook was dismal, one German advance after another having
-succeeded. There were plenty of youngsters of nineteen and twenty in
-it, and Hal would insist upon enlisting. He had, as a matter of fact,
-and as his letters showed, done almost no schooling at Fanstock that
-year. The entire institution had been made over into a training camp.
-
-Moira remembered how her cousin had chafed the summer before, hating
-his idleness and the wretched fate of being in excessive demand to
-entertain girls. Her sympathy with his groans had gone a long way to
-help her forgive his ill treatment.
-
-And yet she had never been worked up to a pitch of great excitement
-about the war.
-
-One failing had troubled her ever since she could remember--the
-tendency to disagree with opinions as soon as an overwhelming majority
-held them.
-
-It was partly due to the example of Mathilda’s own fastidiousness and
-independence of judgment, but she went farther than Mathilda, and
-supposed that she must have inherited this inconvenient trait from that
-mythical father of whom she had been told so little and longed to know
-so much. At all events, she arrived at certain conclusions, by herself,
-about the war: for example, that perhaps Germany was not entirely the
-instigator, that cruelties were probably practised on both sides--war’s
-horrors produced them--and that after all it did seem as though the
-whole world was furiously pitted against two or three caged-in nations.
-
-She did not entirely like herself for these heresies and kept silent
-upon them. But she promised herself the fun of an argument with Hal.
-How it would irritate him!
-
-“He’ll think I’ve lost my mind. Perhaps he’ll surrender me to the
-authorities. How wonderful--I wish he would!”
-
-She took one final glimpse of herself and walked slowly out of the room
-to face a hard day. She felt she would prove a formidable antagonist
-for Hal.
-
-But downstairs a surprise was waiting. She found Mathilda, suppressing
-a few tears, and her Uncle sitting in a profound study. Their
-disappointment communicated itself to her at once. Something had
-happened about Hal.
-
-Mrs. Seymour indicated the yellow night-letter on the table.
-
-  “Dear Father and Aunt [it read]: Offered chance to join aviation
-  training corps, Long Island, at once. No time to come home. Wish me
-  luck enough to get over soon. Love. Hal.”
-
-Well, that was sensation enough for her. He had acted with divine
-independence.
-
-The months that followed until the Armistice were dull and tragic.
-She would a hundred times rather have gone over herself, though it be
-as a rank flag-waver. It was all stupid, cunning, criminal, got up by
-old men to kill young ones. It would be stupid enough to take Hal, her
-playmate. Night after night she saw him, mutilated or dead; she got
-so she could picture exactly the way a small hole looked in a man’s
-forehead, just the degree of red and blue about its tiny rim, and the
-relaxed, livid expression of a face that had been dead several hours.
-These pictures haunted her wakeful nights in many different guises, but
-always with Hal’s features. She learned in imagination how flesh looked
-when it was laid open or gangrened, and the appearance of the end of a
-limb that had been taken off. And she grew so bitter that she found she
-could not pray, though she had always experienced a soothing pleasure
-from the language of the Book of Common Prayer. She never said those
-pieces again. She would sit up suddenly in bed, as though she had been
-wakened by a barrage, and talk by fitful candlelight to her portrait.
-
-
-
-
-XI
-
-
-“And you aren’t really sorry you didn’t get over?”
-
-“Sorry? Wouldn’t you be?”
-
-“Well, I don’t know. Considering the hordes of disillusioned veterans
-I’ve met this winter--”
-
-“At least they had a chance to get disillusioned in action. Something
-for their money. With me it’s just two years--practically three
-years--gone to pot, and a sort of feeling it isn’t worth while to go
-back at all. To college, I mean.”
-
-“You couldn’t start this time of year, could you?”
-
-“I suppose I could do something.”
-
-“It would be fun having you around until Fall--like old times.”
-
-Hal laughed shortly.
-
-“You’d care?”
-
-“I’ve had a good long spell of Thornhill alone, you know. Next year I
-shan’t mind, because I’ll be away at school myself.”
-
-“My Lord, Moira, have you anything more to learn?”
-
-“Oh, yes, I could learn to be useful, for instance.”
-
-“You manage to be most anything, if the notion strikes you.”
-
-“I’m not so crazy to go,” she mused. “I imagine it’ll be rather awful.
-Formalities, lady lecturers, highbrow girls with shell-rimmed glasses.
-They’ve been cramming education down the throats of the fashionable
-young for a generation and what’s the result? Country clubs,
-prohibition, and a beastly war.”
-
-“Cynical, eh?”
-
-“No more than you would be, if you’d done nothing but read newspapers
-these last two years. I suppose now they’ll all combine and squeeze
-everything out of Germany that she has left--just as the Persians and
-the Greeks did, and the kings in the Bible. And there’ll be a lot of
-moralizing--more than ever. Of course, you’ll be glad. The victor is
-always spoiled.”
-
-“Pooh,” he laughed. “You’ve got me wrong. I don’t give a damn what
-they do. Say, the only principles I have left are principles of
-horsemanship. I’m highly interested in the way you sit Elfin.”
-
-“Isn’t she a beauty!”
-
-“She’s a pretty horse. But I wasn’t referring entirely to the equine
-part of the combination.”
-
-It was the first real day they had had together since Hal’s discharge
-from camp the week before. The weather was like an Indian summer
-afternoon, one of those exceedingly mild days of February between
-spells of stiff cold. They had been galloping along the high road,
-when Moira suddenly pulled up and turned her horse into a meandering
-lane, so narrow that the stripped branches met in sharply accentuated
-patterns overhead against the sky. The fields were a monotonous, hard
-stubbly brown, except where pockets of soiled snow lay in the holes and
-under the protecting sides of hillocks.
-
-“Is Selden Van Nostrand coming out to-morrow?” asked Hal, after they
-had ridden a hundred yards in silence.
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Does he come out often?”
-
-“Yes ... let’s go as far as Corey’s Inn for a bite. I’m famishing,
-aren’t you?”
-
-“I don’t like him. I suppose you know that.”
-
-“You’re not going to be like the rest of the patriots, are you? Get so
-you despise anybody with a critical mind?”
-
-“I admire people who say what they mean as much as anybody. But I do
-object to Van Nostrand, because he’s faintly rotten, and even his wit
-is literary. He always seems to be rehearsed. Anybody can do that Wilde
-thing if they study up on it long enough. The point is, is it worth
-while?”
-
-She laughed with a touch of malice.
-
-“You sound like a book review, Hal. His line is pretty easy, but it’s a
-line. Nobody ever even tries to be amusing here, and he not only tries
-but I think he succeeds.”
-
-“It’s from him, I suppose, you got this fellow-feeling for the Germans.
-Well, he had plenty of opportunity to cultivate it, staying at home.”
-
-Moira gave him a glance of friendliness.
-
-“Oh, it’s such fun to have you back, I don’t care what you say. If you
-knew all the dreams I’ve had, terrifying dreams, seeing you--hurt and
-cut up and dead. I’d wake up mad enough to kill Germans myself.”
-
-“Did you really dream about me, Moira?” He pulled his horse closer to
-hers, leaning as far as he could. The girl’s mount, disliking to be
-crowded, pranced out of control, and Hal had to swerve away, but he
-kept his eyes on the straight, slim figure.
-
-“God, Moira, what a beauty you’ve grown!”
-
-She began to murmur aloud:
-
-  “When I was one and twenty
-    I heard a wise man say
-  Give crowns and pounds and guineas
-    But not your heart away,
-  Give gold away and rubies
-    But keep your fancy free,
-  But I was one and twenty,
-    No use to talk to me.”
-
-“Moira!” he cried, but she was gone, at full gallop down the lane.
-
-“Hurry!” she called back, “I’m nearly dead with hunger.”
-
-And from there to the inn was a race.
-
-When they returned it was dark, and both were eager to reach the
-stables, but as they wheeled into the little pasture road which led
-through the tenant’s land and past Hermann Dietz’ house, a curious
-scene halted them.
-
-The house was a very old-fashioned small wooden dwelling, with a high
-stone foundation, built by the past generation of Dietzes twenty-five
-or thirty years before. The barn, larger than the house, was some
-twenty yards from the kitchen door, across a squalid cow yard. A dim
-lamp or two was burning in the house, but this was completely deserted,
-the doors hanging open and giving it a half-witted grimace. The centre
-of attraction was a big double barn door. Around this, in a lighted
-semi-circle stood the Dietz family, consisting of the bony, tall,
-salmon-faced father, the emaciated, dreadfully stooped mother, and four
-children of varying ages. A curious murmur arose from the group, and
-riding closer, Moira and Hal saw that they were weeping. Beyond, they
-could catch a glimpse of the body of a horse, swaying slightly from
-side to side in its last agony, and casting monstrous shadows on the
-high cobwebbed walls behind, thrown by the lantern which stood on the
-ground at Hermann’s feet.
-
-Moira dismounted and signalled to Hal to follow her.
-
-“They’ve been grieving this way since yesterday,” she whispered, “and
-to-day the veterinary told them he couldn’t save the horse.”
-
-The sobs arising from the pitiful group, two of the smallest of whom
-clung to their mother’s skirts and hid their faces, more frightened
-at the commotion than troubled about the horse, rose and fell with
-the spasms of suffering that swept over the dying beast. Moira heard
-Ellen’s reassuring voice and saw her face for the first time in the
-lantern light at the far end of the group.
-
-“Ah, Mrs. Dietz, let them put the poor animal out of its pain,” she was
-saying in a loud whisper to the mother. “It can’t live.”
-
-Moira turned to Hal and took his arm. He had been smiling grimly at the
-scene, but as her hand fell upon his sleeve he covered it with his own.
-The horse, the drama of primitive sorrow, everything was forgotten,
-except her features and hair, and gipsy loveliness in the wavering
-light.
-
-“They’re Ellen’s children, these people,” she said. “She’s wonderful
-to them. She told me yesterday ‘that horse is like a member of their
-family, Miss Moira. It’ll be terrible when it dies.’ Isn’t she fine to
-come down here and comfort them?”
-
-They turned at the sound of foot-steps crossing the hard earth and
-stubble, and two stocky figures passed them.
-
-“Hullo,” said one, with a grin. It was Rob Blaydon, carrying in his
-hand something from which they caught a quick gleam as he passed. The
-veterinary was with him. Both went up to Hermann and held a hurried
-consultation, and during this the family fell silent. Presently the
-three men parted. Hermann spoke up in a high, quavering voice.
-
-“Well, Momma, they say it’s jest got to be done. We jest got to give
-her up, and put her out of her misery. I don’t know where we’re a-goin’
-to git another one like her. I don’t know--that I don’t. Poor old
-Molly. She’s been with us now longer than my boy there, pretty near
-as long as Lilly here. It breaks me up to lose her. Yes, sir, it goes
-hard, but there ain’t no helping it.”
-
-“That’s the way to look at it, Hermann,” said Rob, with gruff good
-nature.
-
-Hal raised his voice from where he stood with Moira at some distance.
-
-“I’ll give you another horse, Dietz,” he said. Moira squeezed his arm.
-
-“Thank you, thank you, Mr. Hal,” the farmer responded, obsequiously,
-peering for him in the weak light. “Now, Momma, ain’t that fine! Well,
-children, I guess we better be movin’ in. Poor Molly--I’d rather not
-see you do it, gentlemen, if you don’t mind.”
-
-The family turned to obey, exhibiting a variety of expressions, from
-fright to the deepest woe, but Moira observed that there was one who
-had not shared the general grief--the short, mature, straw-haired girl
-of sixteen or seventeen, whose face bore a stolid, disdainful look. She
-followed toward the kitchen after Ellen and one of the small children,
-but as she reached the porch she turned and gazed at Rob Blaydon,
-fascinated by the revolver in his hand. In the weird light, which cast
-a romantic glow over her figure and uncouth clothing, Moira thought the
-girl had a touch of beauty, fresh and coarse and natural as earth.
-
-“Poor Hermann,” she said, “he’s a rustic Pierrot, Hal.”
-
-Just as they topped the ridge they heard the harsh double-fire of Rob
-Blaydon’s revolver. She was glad to see the lights of Thornhill.
-
-“Well,” said Hal, “Rob had a good hunch to-night--even if it was fun
-for him. Just the sort of thing he’d love. There’s the boy who needed
-to go to France. As it is he’ll get over that raw streak very slowly.”
-
-“Rob’s a dear,” she broke in, earnestly. “I’m not one of those who
-worry about him. He’s a good animal--without a shred of theory in him.
-I let him get me most beautifully pickled twice last Fall.”
-
-“The devil you did!” exclaimed Hal.
-
-“Why not? He knows everybody everywhere and they like him. And he
-drives like a wild man--when he’s had a few. Now you wouldn’t be such
-a good fellow, would you, Hal? You’d be cautious and look after my
-morals, and count my drinks and take me home early.”
-
-“Yes, I’m afraid I would,” he said. “And I suppose you wouldn’t like
-it.”
-
-
-
-
-XII
-
-
-It was Ellen’s night off and after the dispatching of the horse, she
-stayed with Mrs. Dietz to cheer her up and help put the two youngest
-children to bed. She had been so long a constant visitor and benefactor
-that they had ceased to regard her as an emissary from the big house
-and talked of their troubles freely before her.
-
-The five of them sat about the lamp in the comfortless but warm living
-room of the farmhouse, listening to a monologue by Hermann Dietz on the
-virtues of the dead horse. Although he had been born within a hundred
-feet of that spot, and his father had come to America as a boy, Dietz’
-accent, like many of his kind bred to the farms thereabouts, still bore
-traces of the German. They were a squatter-like tribe, never prosperous.
-
-“Poor old Molly, she was not so old, yet, but it seemed like we had had
-her always, Mrs. Williams. She did her share, Molly.”
-
-“What did Mr. Robert do to Molly?” asked the boy, plaintively. “Did he
-shoot her? Can I go see?”
-
-“No, no, you wait until morning. Don’t you mind about Molly. She was
-sufferin’ terrible, and she’s better where she is. But we’ll miss her.
-Yes, Johnnie, when you was a little bit of a feller, two, three years
-old, Poppa used to put you on Molly’s back and hold you, and you’d
-laugh and holler and she’d walk so easy just as if she knew you was a
-baby.”
-
-“Things was different in them days,” piped his wife. “Them automobile
-horns, now. We didn’t never used to hear them. But nowadays it’s half
-the night, Mrs. Williams. I can’t get used to ’em. They keep me awake
-so.”
-
-“Ah, they wouldn’t be so bad,” put in the girl Lilly, “if we could ride
-in ’em now an’ then, the way others do. Johann Hunker’s got a m’chine.”
-
-“Ach, you are always bellerin’ about a m’chine,” her father burst out.
-“When you got one you got a hole to throw money in. Listen to them rich
-people even, talkin’ about how much they cost. What have I got to do
-with a m’chine? An’ whose goin’ to run it, your Momma? I ain’t goin’
-to take no risks with ’em, not since I got that sunstroke last August
-anyways. I git so dizzy sometimes I think I can’t get home to the
-house.”
-
-“I could run it,” grumbled Lilly.
-
-“You now, Lilly! You’ve got plenty to do without that. You don’t tend
-to your work the way it is.”
-
-“She’s gettin’ so lazy she’s got no head to remember anything,” put in
-her mother. “I don’t dare leave the children with her.”
-
-“M’chine!” Dietz quavered on, “I ain’t got no money for ’em if I wanted
-one.”
-
-“You’ve got the money, I guess,” said Mrs. Dietz querulously, “the same
-as Johann Hunker, if you wanted to spend it.”
-
-“Now, Momma, I told you twenty times already I’m takin’ care of your
-money. Who’s goin’ to keep it safe for a rainy day, if it ain’t me?”
-
-“Well, we don’t see anything of it, Hermann, not since you got hold of
-it ... sellin’ off the farms, an’ leavin’ us with hardly a place to put
-foot to the ground.”
-
-“Yes, Momma,” rejoined her husband earnestly. “I did sell off the
-farms. But you know what Mr. McNutt said. He said if I didn’t want
-to take that two hundred dollars an acre Mr. Blaydon offered, they’d
-all go somewheres else an’ build, and our land never would git a high
-price. You couldn’t git a hundred for it in them days.”
-
-“There’s some of them waited longer an’ got more. Johann Hunker did.”
-
-“Johann Hunker may be a slick feller, but if I hadn’t sold when I did
-they mightn’t have come here at all, an’ then where would Johann Hunker
-be? Never you mind about that money. It’s a-drawin’ good interest.”
-
-Dietz lifted his tall, bent form from his chair and shuffled over to
-the stove to dump his pipe. Then he turned again to his wife, a sudden
-grin spreading over his cheeks.
-
-“Well, Momma, what about a little wine? Seeing Mrs. Williams is here,
-eh? A little home-made wine and coffee cake. We’ll give the childern
-some wine to-night, eh? Lilly, bring up the chairs to the table.”
-
-The girl rose languidly to obey and Mrs. Dietz departed for the
-bedroom, returning a moment later with a long bottle. Lilly brought
-glasses and placed them on the red-figured table cover.
-
-“Get the coffee cake, Lilly,” her mother ordered.
-
-Dietz toyed affectionately with the stem of his glass filled with
-bright red liquid.
-
-“Ach, the home-made wine--that is good! Well, it is like old times,
-Momma--when the older children, Lena and Fred was here, and Lilly was a
-little girl about Johnnie’s size. Yes, it was fine then. None of these
-rich people with big houses and all that. We was the bosses then.”
-
-“We had all the land,” put in Mrs. Dietz gloomily. “We could get enough
-off of it to sell a good crop every year and plenty of vegetables to
-the commission men, and you always had money, if you needed it for
-anything, like Molly dying. Now it’s in the bank and we can’t spend
-nothing. No, the land was better than the money.”
-
-“Mr. Blaydon, he gives me sixty dollars a month, and all the feed for
-the stock, and half the money from the truck. That is something, sixty
-dollars sure every month.”
-
-“But you’ve got to work for Mr. Blaydon, and I do, and even the
-childern. It ain’t the same as when we worked for ourselves.”
-
-“Poppa,” broke in Lilly, as she cut the long flat sections of coffee
-cake, “Mary Hunker was selling some of Johann’s wine over at Corey’s
-last week. She got a big price, enough to buy a new dress. Can I sell
-some of Momma’s wine? We can’t ever drink up what we got every year.”
-
-“Ach Himmel!” Dietz cried, bringing his glass down with a rattle upon
-the table. “There is that girl. We have the land and sell that. We have
-the wine and we got to sell that too. Ain’t there nothing we can call
-our own? No, Lilly, you let the wine be.”
-
-“I never get clothes at all like the Hunker girls,” she replied
-sullenly. “I saw a green dress, a pretty one, over at town that was
-only thirteen dollars and fifty cents.”
-
-“But, Lilly, your sister Lena never bought no dresses for thirteen
-dollars and fifty cents. And Lena always looked nice. She married a
-man with a fine bakery business on Oak Street. He took Lena already
-because she was a neat, sensible girl and wouldn’t throw away his money
-for him. I don’t know what to think of you, Lilly. A honest, Christian
-girl, the way you’ve been brought up. You ain’t like your sister, is
-she, Momma?”
-
-“You wouldn’t expect all girls would be alike, Hermann,” said her
-mother. “Lilly is a good girl, but times have changed since Lena was
-her age. You give me the money, now, and I’ll go with her to look at
-the dress.”
-
-“Well, well, I guess so,” replied Hermann, mollified by his wife’s
-firmness. “That is a lot of money, but Lilly is a pretty girl, eh? I’ll
-give you the money to-morrow and maybe you can buy the dress before
-Sunday. Then them Hunker girls won’t be so fresh up at church.”
-
-“Pour some more wine for Mrs. Williams, Lilly,” said Mrs. Dietz.
-
-“No,” said Ellen, “I must be going.”
-
-“Yes, a night cap, Mrs. Williams,” said Dietz, in his best manner. “A
-little more wine for all of us, and then we’ll go to bed. I got to get
-Meyer, if I can, or Ed Becker, to help me bury poor Molly to-morrow.
-You got to dig a big hole for a horse.”
-
-As Ellen left the cottage and started homeward she did not know
-whether to laugh or cry. It was always the same story, poverty and
-hard work, and the vanity of the young girl tempted as she had been
-most of her life by the strange, glamorous panorama of the rich at her
-very doorstep. And she had not the sense of pride the older folks had
-enjoyed, the knowledge of having been masters of the neighbourhood.
-Mrs. Dietz’ remark haunted her mind. “The land was better than the
-money.” For such as these people, it was. It had given them all they
-had, all they could possibly have, to live for.
-
-The shortest path up the hill to the Blaydon house was rocky and steep,
-and a third the way up Ellen stopped for breath and regretted she had
-not walked around the longer way. It was dark under the trees and hard
-to stick to the path. She sat down to remove a pebble from her low
-shoe. As she stood up again facing the foot of the hill, she could see
-a broad patch of Dietz’ field through an opening in the branches. At
-that moment a figure stepped out from the trees into the open space and
-came to a stop as if waiting. It was a man undoubtedly, she thought,
-but she was curious to make sure. So few prowlers ever disturbed the
-peace of the place. She crept down the path, holding on to the shrubs
-and tree-trunks and making as little noise as possible. She decided
-she would wait until the man moved on and go around by the road after
-all. Reaching the bottom she found herself within a few yards of Rob
-Blaydon. A moment later, nearer the already dark and silent Dietz
-house, she saw another figure stirring. What could Rob be up to and who
-was his confederate? Then swiftly, Lilly darted from the shadow of the
-house and joined him. The two disappeared, exchanging whispers, around
-the side of the hill.
-
-Ellen started impulsively, as though she would stop them, but she did
-not go far. What could she do? She knew Rob Blaydon too well to think
-that he would take any interference from her or from any inferior. He
-was not a mean boy, but he was headstrong. He would tell her that he
-thought her a busybody and a nuisance. And supposing she went to Lilly?
-Lilly would be frightened and cowed for the moment. But Ellen realized,
-far more sharply than the girl’s family, how deep her rebellion lay. In
-the end she would throw advice to the winds.
-
-There was left the alternative of warning Mathilda or Sterling Blaydon.
-If she did so what could she prove? Rob was bold enough to make the
-thing appear in any light he desired, some boyish escapade in which he
-had inveigled the girl to join. To excite the Dietz family about the
-girl’s danger was as useless. They could not control her in any case,
-and it might fire her to desperate measures. Ellen could do nothing
-that would result in any good, nothing except create a scandal.
-
-She sat down and wondered if she cared. She certainly cared about the
-child’s welfare, but now that she felt it was impossible to prevent
-what was happening, she could reason about it calmly. Life was a
-dreadfully sad thing any way you took it. But could this love affair do
-the girl more harm than she was sure to meet with in any event--perhaps
-at the hands of worse men? Might it not come to mean something to
-her she would cherish despite its cost? Ellen’s only answer to these
-questions was her own experience. Perhaps it had been worth while. Her
-daughter was happy, with an unclouded future, and she was contented.
-Knowledge of herself had suddenly shaken her faith in the creed that
-one must inevitably suffer pain because of sin.
-
-
-
-
-XIII
-
-
-From the house far above them came the indistinct sound of Mathilda
-at the piano. Was it “_Reflets dans l’eau_” she was playing? As the
-music stopped the chaotic noises of life took up their endless staccato
-rhythm--cows lowing in the pasture, a workman calling to another, the
-beat of a hammer in some farmhouse, the restless twitter and trilling
-of birds, the snapping and stirring of branches, a motorhorn sounding
-a thousand miles away, it seemed--the music of the universe that was
-flowing through her now in a full stream. Moira opened her book at
-random:
-
-  “Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see;
-  Let the dew-fall drench either side of me;
-    Clear apple leaves are soft upon that moon
-  Seen side-wise like a blossom in the tree;
-    Ah God, ah God, that day should come so soon....”
-
-She stopped and looked off through the leaves to the wide fields where
-the sun lay.
-
-“Don’t you love it, Hal,” she said, “just the sound of it, the perverse
-beauty of it? Is there anything more wonderful?”
-
-Hal rolled over upon the flat of his back staring thoughtfully up
-from the shady chamber of green, the tiny grotto at the cliff-foot,
-up at the grey old overhanging boulders, like moles and maculations
-on the brow of an ancient crone, the massy tangle of branches and
-leaves bursting from among them and cutting off half his vision of
-the glittering blue heaven, wherein floated great flocks of clouds as
-artificial in their sheer whiteness and hard outlines as puff-balls on
-a pool. His muscular brown arms and neck were bare to the white bathing
-shirt. His bright blonde hair was tousled over his face, which was
-mature and strong. The girl’s voice made little ripples of pleasure run
-over his limbs; it gave the words a significance which would never have
-reached him without her--
-
-  “The grass is thick and cool, it lets us lie,
-  Kissed upon either cheek and either eye.
-    I turn to thee as some green afternoon
-    Turns toward sunset and is loth to die;
-    Ah God, ah God, that day should come so soon.”
-
-That certainly he could feel supremely, experience in himself. He let
-his gaze rest upon her. The fine black hair, bobbed at last in spite
-of Aunt Mathilda’s anxious objections, made a quaint pattern on the
-face. Against it the glow of her skin and lips was the more brilliant
-by contrast, and beneath the white angle of brow, the eyes, looking
-suddenly at him from the page, were as clear, cool, vivid blue as
-violets in a snowbank.
-
-There was in that face the necessary balance between strength and
-frailty, self-possession and emotion, at least, so he thought, the
-features not quite absolutely regular. He preferred that touch of
-oddness; it was the stamp of her will, her curious insights, her traits
-of unusual justice. It mitigated too much beauty. Greek models were all
-very well in statues, but in a woman one wanted a lively difference....
-Moira’s book suddenly snapped shut, as though his slowly relished
-inspection were too much for her. Her short laugh came like a chain of
-melody from her whole body.
-
-“Poor Hal,” she cried, “aren’t you sorry you will have to listen to
-Swinburne all your life?”
-
-He reached out an Indian forearm and drew her to him. They were silent
-for a long time. Then she sat back, her eyes admiring the relaxed
-strength of his body.
-
-“God!” he muttered, “and I once thought because we were cousins this
-could never happen--I should never be allowed to speak.”
-
-“Such a good little boy,” she said. “You would have waited to be
-allowed.”
-
-“It’s odd how I’ve never been able to think of you as Aunt’s daughter.”
-
-“Neither have I,” she replied. “But it is easy to explain. It takes
-a man--a father--about the house to establish parentage. Mother is a
-dilettante on her job, anyway. But I have some qualities from her, I
-know.... What _was_ father like?”
-
-“I wasn’t exactly his playmate, you know!” he laughed. “I don’t
-remember him any more than you do. But he must have been a regular,
-from all I’ve heard. He was your father, all right.”
-
-“H’m.... Ned Seymour _sounds_ like a man who might be my father. And
-names are wonderful--better than portraits--to read people by. I can’t
-tell much by father’s looks. Poor Daddy, Maman stood by him, I’m glad
-of that. She’s always been a heretic among her own. But if Daddy was
-so ambitious, so indifferent to the world and all that, why didn’t he
-leave me a sign, why didn’t he leave glorious works? He should have.”
-
-“He left you,” laughed Hal.
-
-“The work of an idle moment.”
-
-“Aren’t they the best? But I rather like that about your father, the
-fact that he was a spectator rather than a spouter. So many darned
-people aren’t content with their limitations. They have to puddle about
-with paint and ink.”
-
-“As I do.”
-
-“It’s yours by right, I suppose. At least, you really like it.”
-
-“I have invented a litany, Hal. Will you listen to it? I invented it
-for the saddest people in the world. It goes like this: O God, be
-merciful to those who are free and must live with the fettered; to
-the scornful laughers who are bound to the humourless; to the swift
-who walk by the slow; and the idle who are bondsmen to the busy--and
-especially, O God, be merciful to all those whose spirits were young
-and whose generation denied them youth’s chance, amen. There must have
-been many like Daddy in his day.”
-
-Through the trees the half moon glowed like the polished end of a
-woman’s nail against a pink and sapphire West. It was an infinitely
-tender moment, the end of a week of betrothal, the eve of his departure
-for a trip North.
-
-“Let me, please, once more,” whispered Moira, “one I love.” And she
-quoted:
-
-  “La lune blanche
-  Luit dans les bois,
-  De chaque branche
-  Parte une voix,
-  Sous la ramée,
-  Oh, bien-aimée.
-
-  “Une vaste et tendre
-  Apaisement
-  Semble descendre
-  Du firmament
-  Que l’astre irise....
-  C’est l’heure exquise!”
-
-“You gave me those,” she said. “They were a peace offering one
-Christmas, one year you had treated me very badly. I love them because
-they are all young, all fresh, ageless. Let’s you and I, dear, resolve
-to be young forever. Let’s make a bond of youth, cherish it, study to
-keep it, never let it go.”
-
-“Moira, you will never be older than this day.”
-
-“I think it is easy to stay young if one keeps one’s unreasonable
-likes. One should always like things that are a little twisted and
-strange, in spite of what people think. One must like Verlaine’s
-absinthe as well as Verlaine, Swinburne and Swinburne’s perversity
-also, Rob and his wickedness--the wickedness he doesn’t understand. You
-know, Hal, I didn’t go to college after all, because I was afraid it
-would make me old, it would give me ‘interests.’ I hate the word. As if
-everything wasn’t an interest!”
-
-They walked around by the flat, broad meadow, hushed in the dusk. The
-first whip-poor-will was calling. She clung to his arm, enjoying the
-sensation of firm muscles flexing under her hand.
-
-“I don’t care,” she cried. “I’m not afraid of anything. I would as soon
-give myself to you, all of me, now, to-night. The rest, all the fuss,
-does not count. What is there to fear in this glorious wide world, Hal?”
-
-“Nothing--but fear, I suppose,” he replied.
-
-Two white figures swaying together across the dusty furrows, they
-merged into the darkness like birds fluttering out of sight in the
-clouds.
-
-
-
-
-XIV
-
-
-Moira had considered Mathilda not at all in the swift, sudden, almost
-cyclonic romance with Hal Blaydon, no more indeed than in any of her
-flirtations. There had been many others, of all ages, from her own
-up to fifty, and she had vaguely realized that when her choice was
-made, if she made a choice, her mother would have to be counted in.
-At times during the past week of incredible magic, she had feared the
-possibility of a clash between them, owing to the good Episcopalian
-views, to which Mathilda still clung, despite the advanced and
-advancing habits of thought that surrounded her. But the logic with
-which the girl faced this possibility was serene: harmony had always
-prevailed between them, too much harmony perhaps, and some conflict was
-inevitable sooner or later. It had better occur over this biggest and
-most important choice of her youth.
-
-She had begun to wonder, of late, just how she felt toward her mother.
-Certainly she was very fond of her, but it seemed hardly a filial
-fondness. She admired Mathilda’s little fantasticalities; it was clear
-that she had in her time been something of an idol-breaker; but it
-was equally clear that her cherished image of herself as a person
-of great independence of mind was somewhat out-worn. The daughter
-had gone far beyond the older woman, or so she thought, and there
-lurked small matters on which they concealed their opinions from each
-other. Moreover, Moira had loved her most for the brightness and charm
-of her manner and these were becoming clouded by a new development
-that touched her closely--a secret in her brother’s life. Mathilda
-had discovered the truth with amazement, but to all appearances had
-reconciled herself to it. So long, she argued, as the apartment he
-kept in town remained only a rendezvous for discreet meetings, she
-did not greatly care. But more and more this other establishment was
-taking Blaydon away from them. Could her brother possibly bring himself
-to marry the woman--not now perhaps--but when age had weakened his
-resistance and laid him open to appeals to sentiment and protection?
-He was already far from a young man.... It was a situation that had a
-profound effect upon her accustomed poise, because it was one which she
-could not influence nor even speak of in his presence.
-
-After Hal had left on his trip that night, Moira put up her car--she
-had driven him to the station herself--and walked into the library.
-She found Mathilda embroidering, a pastime in which she was skilful,
-and took a frank pride. It was her substitute for artistic expression,
-as she said, a gift she had always honestly envied. Everybody they
-knew, Moira thought, longed for artistic expression--and Hal had been
-right to scorn it. There were Mary Cawthorn and Tempe Riddle--as
-soon as people like that had taken up writing verse, she herself had
-dropped it. She had turned exclusively to her painting. That, at least,
-you couldn’t do at all, without some foreground, some knowledge and
-practice. She was happy that her youth had been industrious enough to
-bring her a measure of these. And she did not take it seriously.
-
-“Well,” said Mathilda, “you’ve seen your darling off?”
-
-The girl did not attempt to conceal her surprise. Then she laughed.
-
-“I suppose nobody could really have failed to know, who had been around
-the house these last few days. Still, we thought we were so clever.”
-
-“There’s such a thing as being too clever. When you and Hal began to be
-stiff toward each other, I knew what was happening.”
-
-“We must have been a fine pair of actors.”
-
-“But I’ve seen it coming all along. Before either of you did, I
-believe.”
-
-Moira flopped upon the cricket at her mother’s feet, and looked into
-her face affectionately.
-
-“And that means, darling, that you don’t object?”
-
-Mathilda ran her slim hand through the short, dark curls leaning
-against her knee.
-
-“Of course not, my child. It’s the most perfect thing that could have
-happened.”
-
-“Mother,” asked the girl, looking up at her whimsically, “when are we
-ever going to quarrel, you and I?”
-
-“Never, I hope.”
-
-“Isn’t it rather unhealthy never to quarrel? Hal and I do, frequently,
-and I’m glad of it.”
-
-“You won’t think that way when you are my age.”
-
-“_Maman_, are you very miserable about Uncle Sterling?”
-
-Mathilda’s reply was preceded by a short pause and a quick glance.
-
-“How did you know that?” she asked.
-
-“I have ears and eyes--and can put things together, you know,” laughed
-Moira. Then she added, more gravely, “I really don’t think many people
-know. When Selden hinted about it I denied the story flatly--for his
-benefit.”
-
-“Why deny the truth?” It was one of Mathilda’s traits to be able to say
-things the implications of which were unpleasant to her.
-
-“Oh, one must to busybodies. Only I do wish you wouldn’t be unhappy
-about it.”
-
-“I’m not,” said the other, “so long as matters remain as they are.”
-
-“I see what you mean, dear. People who have professionally renounced
-marriage ought to have some pride. They ought to observe the ethics of
-their profession.”
-
-Mathilda smiled.
-
-“I’m afraid my attitude is not so impersonal. Isn’t that somewhere in
-Shaw?”
-
-“It must be,” replied the girl. “But I’m quite thrilled over the whole
-thing. Please forgive me for saying so. To think of Uncle Sterling
-being so delightfully biblical!”
-
-She went to the table and brought the cigarettes. The older woman took
-one from her and laid aside her embroidery. “You’ll do something for
-me, you two?” she asked.
-
-“What?”
-
-“Get married as soon as possible.”
-
-“Oh, my dear! I’m only nineteen.”
-
-“Do you think you would ever change?”
-
-“No, I don’t think that.”
-
-“Then why not marry? I can’t understand the modern idea of waiting
-until life is over to marry. It’s good for people to have their youth
-together--when they can.”
-
-“Well, Hal has done all the planning, and I think it is very sensible.
-In the first place, he’s going on with his chemistry. He doesn’t want
-to go into the brokerage office, and you mustn’t tell Uncle yet.”
-
-“I approve of that. Brokerage will do for Robert.”
-
-“It means two more years for him at college. The first of them I shall
-spend in New York studying. The next I want to spend in Paris, and I
-want you to come with me, dear. How about it? And then--married in
-Paris, and the Sorbonne or some German University for Hal. Isn’t that a
-glorious programme? He really didn’t plan all of it.”
-
-“No, I imagine not,” laughed Mathilda. “He would probably have planned
-it as I would, by beginning with the end. But I shan’t oppose you. I’ve
-never opposed you much, Moira, not even when I might have done so with
-justice. And the reason is that I have always wanted to live to see one
-completely happy person. I hope you are going to be the one.”
-
-Mathilda concluded with a wistful note.
-
-“Darling,” cried the girl. “How good you have been to me. And I wonder
-if I am going to be completely happy. I’ll try, and I shan’t be ashamed
-or modest about it, either. Is that--egotistical?”
-
-A few minutes later as she passed Hal Blaydon’s door on the way to her
-own, she could not resist the temptation to go in. She had never done
-that before deliberately, and she felt a little like an intruder. She
-had a great distaste for the practice of assuming privileges with
-those one cared for, but she knew he would be pleased if he saw her
-patting his bed affectionately and looking around at his belongings. As
-she stopped in front of the untidy book-shelves, she smiled at their
-incongruous juxtaposition of textbooks, modern novels and classic
-survivals of adolescence--“This Side of Paradise” between a Latin
-grammar and a Dictionary of Physics; “Cytherea,” which reminded her
-just then of many men she knew, alongside of “Plutarch’s Lives.” She
-reflected that she would probably not sleep very early to-night and had
-no fresh reading in her bedroom. She quickly pulled out a volume and
-went to her room.
-
-With her clothes off and three pillows behind her back, and a cigarette
-between her lips, she picked up the book she had borrowed. There had
-been a certain degree of method in her selection. It was an old,
-loose-backed, green-covered copy of “Les Misérables,” one of her long
-and growing list of “duty books,” that is to say, books she ought
-to have read years ago and had not. This happened also to belong to
-the classification of “school-piece” books. An English reader had
-contained a selection from it, and she had once resolved, in a fit of
-rebellion against the academic, never to read any books that yielded
-school pieces for the boredom of the young. Later the conscience of
-a cultivated adult had forced her to recant, and her _index librorum
-prohibitorum_ had become an index obligatory.
-
-The book in her hand was a long one. She would just about finish it by
-the time Hal came back, and that would be killing two birds with one
-stone.
-
-She opened it at random and as she removed her thumbs the pages leaped
-back to a marked place, occupied by a letter. She picked it up. It
-was an old and faded letter, addressed to “Mrs. Ellen Williams, 21
-Trezevant Place.” That was Ellen, the cook, of course. She smiled a
-little at the thought of Ellen reading a monstrous book like this. She
-had never seen Ellen read anything except a recipe or a label. But,
-of course, humble people did like Hugo. She had read “Notre Dame” and
-“Ninety-Three.”
-
-Moira would have put the letter aside at once to hand it to the servant
-in the morning had she not noticed two markings on the envelope that
-strangely interested her. One was the date, just a month after she was
-born. The other was the inscription on the flap in back, which read as
-follows:
-
-  from Miss Moira McCoy,
-    Lutheran Maternity Hospital,
-      2243 Bismarck Street.
-
-Her own name, on a letter almost as old as she was! She laid it down.
-She ought not to read it, of course. But it certainly was hard to
-resist knowing what some little Irish girl in the hospital (who made
-her capital “m’s” with three vertical lines and a horizontal bar across
-the top) was thinking and doing a month after she was born. Wasn’t
-there a “statute of limitations” on letters? No letter nearly twenty
-years old could be private. The lure of romance that lurked in the
-envelope was too strong. She hastily drew out the folded sheet and read:
-
-  MY DEAR MRS. WILLIAMS:
-
-  Just a note to tell you how honoured and tickled I am that you are
-  going to name your little daughter after me.
-
-  I hope to see her sometime soon, and you also. I am so busy now, but
-  in two or three weeks I could call on my day off, Thursday, if it
-  could be arranged.
-
-  So you love your new place? I’m so glad. We all miss you and--my
-  pretty little namesake. How proud it makes me.
-
-                                    Sincerely your friend,
-                                                            MOIRA McCOY.
-
-She had never heard of Ellen’s having a baby, and if she had just been
-naming it when this letter was written it should have been about the
-same age as herself. How curious it was that she and Ellen’s baby
-should have had the same name. Perhaps her mother had liked the name
-and borrowed it from Ellen, for Mathilda would take what she wanted;
-but it did seem unlikely she would take the name of the cook’s baby
-for her own. And what had become of Ellen’s Moira? She would ask Ellen
-about it in the morning. Never had her curiosity been so oddly and
-intensely aroused.
-
-She cast the letter from her and opened Hugo, but her eyes were heavy
-and her mind weary with the thoughts and excitements of that day. In a
-few moments she was asleep.
-
-When she awoke in the morning the first thing she thought of was the
-letter, and she reread it. The mystery had clearly taken a strong hold
-upon her mind. While dressing she decided to postpone seeing Ellen,
-and every time she went to her room during the day she read the letter
-again and asked herself more and more puzzling questions about it. Why,
-for example, had Ellen never spoken of her child, particularly if it
-had the same name as herself? Was there something distasteful in the
-recollection either to Ellen or to her mistress?
-
-Moira could not get into the Hugo book at all. Instead she took a long
-drive in her car and, finding that a bore, she tried riding which
-proved no better. She was tempted to hunt up Rob or telephone for
-Selden and go somewhere for a cocktail and a dance. Failing to reach
-either of them or to decide on anything definite to do, she began to
-find Ellen a source of enormous interest. Hardly realizing it, she
-spied upon her all afternoon, and searched her smiling, unconcerned
-features whenever she appeared. It was hard to think of Ellen ever
-having had a baby. She stopped herself from pursuing this obsession a
-half a dozen times, but the spell of curiosity lingered. And still she
-could not bring herself to speak to the woman. By nightfall she was
-scattered and depressed, with the feeling of having spent a wasted day.
-
-She went to bed early and tried again to read Hugo, but instead, she
-found herself rereading the McCoy letter. It drew her like a sinister
-charm. She threw on a dressing gown and began walking in the room. For
-the first time in her whole life her fingers shook as she started to
-take a cigarette from her box, and actually muffed it. This made her
-angry, and she lit the cigarette swiftly and fiercely and clattered the
-box down on the table. Then she was able to laugh and upbraid herself.
-
-“Good Lord!” she cried. “What has the cook and her offspring to do with
-me? Why am I so excited?”
-
-But even as the words died on her lips her reassurance departed. She
-would never get control of herself until she investigated. Why hadn’t
-she talked to Ellen that day and got this foolish curiosity off her
-mind? The woman would think it strange if she called on her at this
-late hour to return a twenty-year-old letter, even though it contained
-sacred memories. Yet why should Ellen think that? She would simply
-slip down and hand her the letter with some gay nonsense about it
-being better twenty years late than never, and if Ellen wasn’t tired
-and seemed talkative she would ask her about the coincidence of names.
-It was certainly no new thing in that house for Moira to do whimsical
-and unexpected things. She could come back and sleep and dream of her
-blessed Hal--poor Hal, he had hardly had a thought from her all day.
-
-The regular servants’ rooms were at the top of the house, but Ellen
-lived alone in the little wing off the kitchen. She had chosen this
-ground floor room because it was closer to the affairs that directly
-concerned her, outside and in, and because she was a privileged person,
-the dean of the servants. Moira’s visit then would disturb nobody. She
-drew her pretty gown about her and walked boldly downstairs, knocked,
-made a laughing request to be admitted and waited for the startled
-woman to put something around her and unlock the door.
-
-“Is this your letter, Ellen?” she asked. “I found it last night and
-meant to give it to you to-day, but forgot it. I thought you’d be so
-glad to get it back, I’d just come down and give it to you before I
-went to sleep. You see ... I read it--the date was so near my birthday.”
-
-Ellen opened the letter and read it through with apparent awkwardness
-and difficulty.
-
-“Why, Miss Moira, where did you get this? It’s been lost for years. I
-didn’t know it was in existence.”
-
-“I found it in a book upstairs.”
-
-“My land! How did it get there, I wonder?”
-
-“It was an old volume of Hugo’s--‘Les Misérables.’”
-
-The girl winced a little as Ellen repeated the name after her and
-mispronounced it schoolboy fashion.
-
-“Oh, yes, yes, I remember. That’s so many years ago. To think this
-letter has been there all that time!”
-
-“I didn’t know you had ever had a baby, Ellen. Tell me about it. Are
-you too sleepy?”
-
-“No, I’m not sleepy, Miss Moira--” Ellen’s politeness prompted the
-words, yet the girl caught a hint that she would have liked to end the
-conversation. “You--you startled me so,” she went on. “But--there isn’t
-anything to tell.”
-
-“Did she die?”
-
-“Yes, Miss Moira.”
-
-The fidgety excitement which seized the grey-haired woman was
-understandable on the ground of old memories being suddenly aroused.
-Moira’s voice expressed the tenderest sympathy.
-
-“How sad. She would have been such a comfort to you now.”
-
-“Yes. But that’s all so long ago, ma’am. It’s the way things happen in
-this world for some of us.”
-
-“And your husband? Is he dead, too?”
-
-The questioning was becoming more and more difficult for Ellen. When
-she answered it was with a touch of impatience.
-
-“I don’t know. I don’t know where he is.”
-
-“He deserted you?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-Moira felt the need of some apology, induced by Ellen’s uneasiness,
-but the very fact that the information was unsatisfactory made her
-perversely eager to stay, although the little room oppressed her.
-
-“I suppose you think I’m awfully curious, Ellen,” she said, with a
-short laugh. “And very inconsiderate to come and talk to you about
-these things at this time of night. But it seems so strange that you’ve
-been here ever since I can remember, and I’ve never heard about them--I
-suppose I thought you didn’t have an early life. You’re so cheerful,
-one doesn’t imagine you’ve had sorrows.”
-
-“People forget, ma’am. You can’t stay sad always.”
-
-“Isn’t it funny,” Moira broke in, “that I’ve got the same name your
-daughter had?”
-
-“Ye-es--I guess it is.”
-
-Ellen’s forced laugh and strained expression, and the tongue-tied
-moment that followed, were as hard for Moira as for the speaker. The
-silence lengthened. The older woman twisted in her uncomfortable seat
-on the bed. She obviously did not want to be looked at nor to look at
-the girl. Why, thought Moira, should she make all this fuss over old
-memories? What harm was in them? Ellen was not naturally shy--she could
-be voluble enough at times, and quite intelligent.
-
-“And we were just about the same age, weren’t we?”
-
-“No, oh, no,” burst out the other, and stopped suddenly.
-
-“But the letter is dated so near my birthday,” said Moira, a little
-brusquely, “and speaks of your baby’s christening. We’d have to be.”
-
-“Bu-but--my little girl was christened very late.”
-
-“She was christened about the time I was, by the same name, and in the
-same house? Why, it’s really a romantic idea, isn’t it?”
-
-“Yes,” said Ellen, “that was how it was. Your--your mother liked the
-name too.”
-
-Moira felt a wave of compassion for the lonely old woman. There seemed
-to be nothing left to do but to go. She rose as if to do so, and then
-that impulse of sympathy caused her to sit down beside the other on the
-bed. She spoke very gently.
-
-“Ellen, I’m sorry, I’ve been opening an old wound, haven’t I? I can see
-that it hurts you. You understand why I am so interested--because of
-the name? That’s natural, isn’t it? But I’m glad to have learned about
-it. I shall think of you so differently from now on.”
-
-“Yes, Miss Moira, thank you.” The girl’s closeness to her and sympathy
-made Ellen’s voice tremble. She looked down at the letter which she had
-been rolling and twisting in her fingers, and following her glance,
-Moira realized that her own curiosity was not appeased at all. The
-mystery was as much a mystery as ever.
-
-“Why, you’re destroying your letter,” she said with a laugh, and took
-it from her and straightened it out. “You must have been fond of Miss
-McCoy,” she added gently. “Was she your friend?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“Was she sick, in the hospital?”
-
-“No, she--she was a nurse.”
-
-“Oh, of course. She speaks of being so busy and of missing you. And you
-had your baby there?”
-
-“Yes.”
-
-“That old hospital is still there, Ellen. I’ve driven by it a dozen
-times going to town. It doesn’t look like a very cheerful place to have
-a baby, but I guess it was nicer in those days.”
-
-“It was all right,” said Ellen. Moira impulsively reached an arm about
-her waist.
-
-“Well, I’m going now. You don’t want to talk any more about it, do you,
-dear? I’ll ask mother to tell me the story. Can I--can I keep this
-letter, just to show her? I’ll tell her the odd way I came across it.”
-
-Ellen’s hand flew in terror to the crumpled letter.
-
-“No--no, please, Miss Moira. Give it to me,” she begged.
-
-The violence of her action, its commanding tone, brought a flush of
-anger to Moira’s face. She relinquished the letter.
-
-“Oh,” she said, in a changed voice. “I suppose I should apologize--that
-is, no doubt you are angry that I read it.”
-
-“Yes, you shouldn’t have done that.”
-
-The servant spoke for the first time naturally, sincerely and
-vigorously, and by contrast it made all her previous answers seem to
-Moira like a patch-work of unreality and embarrassed evasion. Moreover,
-the accusing tone of the remark added fuel to her resentment. She arose
-and drew her dressing gown about her with a gesture of dignity. This
-time she certainly must go. And yet she was hurt and offended. Her only
-intent had been one of genuine interest and sympathy, and it had been
-badly received. As she stood in the floor in this puzzled, dissatisfied
-state, she caught sight of Ellen’s face appealing to her pathetically.
-
-“Please, Miss Moira,” the woman whispered hoarsely, “don’t tell Mrs.
-Seymour, don’t tell her about this letter, or that you were here, or
-anything.”
-
-The girl answered with an abrupt gesture of impatience.
-
-“Ellen, I don’t understand. What is all this secrecy, this mystery for?
-I found your letter, I came to give it back to you and asked a simple
-question--and you treat me as though I had done something criminal.
-It’s foolish. I don’t see why I shouldn’t ask mother.”
-
-A blank panic seemed to have seized Ellen. She snatched the girl’s hand
-and went on in the same hoarse voice:
-
-“I can’t explain, but only don’t, don’t say anything to her. For her
-sake, for everybody’s sake, please!”
-
-Moira experienced a momentary insane illumination. It made her heart
-stop and then flutter and then stop again. Twice in her life she had
-felt herself near death--once in an accident with her car, and once
-when her horse had thrown her. She felt now the same sensation she had
-felt then. The questions that came to her lips would have seemed to her
-idiotic a moment before. Yet they came irresistibly.
-
-“Ellen,” she cried, “what does all this mean? Have I got anything to do
-with it?”
-
-“You? Oh, no, no,” cried Ellen. “No, you mustn’t think that!”
-
-“Was that baby me?”
-
-“Oh, Miss Moira, how can you--how can you dream--?”
-
-“Are you my mother, Ellen? Tell me the truth. I’ll never leave here
-until I hear the truth. I’ll search this room, every inch of it.”
-
-But she did not need her answer in words. Ellen’s strength was gone.
-Her mouth gibbered and her face ran tears. The girl sat down heavily,
-as though she were facing a job that had to be got over with. She never
-doubted the truth after that first glimpse of it, never tried to find
-a loophole. There were simply details to be heard, the future to be
-considered. She must get the whole story from Ellen, talk it over, make
-some decision. It would be half the night before she was through with
-it, and she hated it....
-
-The sun had, in fact, appeared when she emerged from the little room,
-with a strange tale in her possession, pieced together from the
-incoherent reminiscences of Ellen. She had forgiven Mrs. Seymour,
-forgiven her real mother, forgiven all of them for the deception. It
-was only herself that she could not forgive, herself, humiliated by the
-degrading masquerade of twenty years.
-
-The knowledge that gave her most courage was her illegitimacy--which
-was clear from Ellen’s reticence. Better that a thousand times, better
-a complete outcast, than a respectable nobody. She would go, of course,
-go in secret, that day. She could take the fewest possible things, put
-them in her car when no one was looking, and drive to town. What money
-she needed to get established elsewhere she would have to take from her
-own account at the bank, as a loan. Ellen had been sworn to say nothing
-of the discovery.
-
-She stood at her window watching the first sun gild the tops of the
-knolls, drive the low-lying mists slowly before it. This great knee of
-a hill, this Penthesilea’s knee, had been a mother’s knee to her, more
-truly than any human one. There were no relationships in Nature, and
-this, the memory of her youth, could not be taken from her.... But it
-would be long before she would see the morning rise from that window
-again, and she lingered over it; not sentimentally. Why couldn’t she
-feel sad? Why was she so hard--why had she been so cruel to Ellen? She
-could hear her now pleading that she had given up Moira for her good,
-pleading the advantages that had come to them by the sacrifice. Empty
-advantages, thought their possessor, immorally got and useless to her
-now, just so many more things to bid good-bye to. The only thing that
-counted was Hal; if she was bitter it was because she feared yielding
-to that. Fate had thrown her to Hal and snatched her away in the moment
-of realization....
-
-She turned from the full day flooding the window and went to her desk.
-She wanted to write to him now, while she was strongest.
-
-  Dear [she wrote]: I know what you would say. You would say that it
-  made no difference, and it would not now. But some day it would, it
-  would grow upon us and smother us. It would be ‘my past,’ and the
-  time would come when your pride might make you hate me, for I would
-  hate myself. I can face this now. I don’t know whether I could face
-  it later. I must go away and do something to absolve myself in my
-  own eyes. And you must not interfere--you cannot. It will be years
-  before I can see you again. I shall never forget these short days,
-  too precious to describe. It is almost enough, that memory, without
-  anything more. Good-bye.
-
-She could write no more, explain no more, though she wanted to.
-She suddenly reflected on the injustice of having to carry all the
-responsibility herself. She would have to repulse every advance,
-however much she might long to accept it.
-
-She laid down her pen--a gold one that matched the other little tools
-on her writing table--with a gesture that signified she was laying
-down everything else in the room, the thousand things she had used and
-loved, the horses, the trees, the long, dear roads, the very air of
-Thornhill.
-
-
-
-
-XV
-
-
-The only things she saw at first were as dreary and tragic as herself.
-It began the moment she left Thornhill, with her last vision of Ellen’s
-agonizing, tear-stained face hiding at her window on the circular
-drive. Then came the ride alone, through hot rows of dusty, dull brick
-houses; the terror-inspiring sight of lives straitened and stagnant
-through poverty; the abysmal reek of the neighbourhood, near a glue
-factory, where she left her car in the garage, with instructions to
-return it on the morrow, and engaged an express man to take her trunk;
-the long file of weary, hopeful people with little green bills in their
-hands at the bank--worshippers in the modern temple; the immigrants at
-Union Station, sprawling on the circular benches about the pillars,
-hemmed in by their squalid baggage and children; the herding of
-exhausted, stupid families from the country trains to the street-cars
-and from the street-cars to the trains; the smoke-patined inferno of
-the city sweating in the heat after the clean beauty of her home....
-
-She had been unable to get away in time to buy a berth in the fast
-train. In order to leave that day, which was imperative, she was forced
-to take the “two-day” train, and tried to console herself with the
-thought that its second-rateness would more effectually cover her
-flight. But the endless trip in coaches that contained unprepossessing
-persons from the lower social chaos added to the weight that lay on her
-spirit.
-
-The first night on the train she slept early and long, fatigued by
-a day full of tasks, but the second she lay staring at the polished
-red back of the berth above, her shade drawn up, her smarting eyes
-conscious of the jabbing flashes of light as they passed through
-sleeping towns, or straining out over dark, shuddering mysteries of
-country; planning, wondering, trying to anticipate what life would
-be like one year, two years, five years from to-night. Where should
-she be; whom should she know? Should she be alive? Yes, she promised
-herself, she would be that. The one thing she could not admit was that
-life might end before she had fought it out.
-
-Once she asked herself what Mathilda was doing, for by this time her
-flight was an old story, the worst of the scene between Ellen and
-Mathilda was over. But they would be dreadfully unhappy nevertheless,
-and the pity she could spare to them softened her own sense of wrong.
-She flashed on the electric light in the berth and looked at her watch.
-In six hours, had it not been for Victor Hugo, for a little scrawled
-note written a fifth of a century ago, she would have been meeting
-Hal Blaydon at the Blythedale platform. And who could say--if she had
-married Hal and learned the truth afterward--would it have made any
-difference after all?
-
-It was morning when they got beyond Pittsburgh and, sleepless and
-discouraged, the grey day greeted her dismally. All she was able to
-see beyond the window were little grimy houses belonging to coal
-miners--they painted them a deep red or black in those parts, she
-supposed because all life was accursed. For long distances nothing
-caught her eye but these colours of Hell borrowed for earthly use. On a
-high slope, dingy with slag and coal screenings and dust, there was a
-black, sorry-looking house, where two children were swinging across the
-cheap frame porch far above the train. They were singing, and it struck
-her as the oddest thing she had ever witnessed. There were many houses
-like it on that coal bank. Where there wasn’t coal there was yellow
-mud. Where there were not either there were piles of rusty iron. She
-might come to this herself, to ugliness and hunger. She shuddered and
-darkened the berth, hiding her face from the vision as though it would
-sear her beauty and put an end to her youth. Hardly a moment later, it
-seemed, the porter awakened her from a deep sleep. They were in the
-Pennsylvania station.
-
-Moira’s mood changed the moment she stood in the rotunda. The powerful
-magic of the city stirred her. Had it been raining as only it can rain
-in New York, had the streets been ice-bound or blistering in mid-summer
-heat, she would have felt that great surge unabated.
-
-But to-day the city was in one of its magnificent sunny moods, laughing
-at its own comic and gracile charms, whimsical with unreliable winds,
-one of those startling, extravagant days when a walk in any street has
-the effect of champagne. On a sudden impulse she ordered the cab to
-the Ritz. She would enjoy one day, one supreme spell of indifference
-and the sense of power, one hour at court when the regal town must
-treat her with its finest smiles and courtesies. She wrote boldly on
-the register “Mary Smith,” and the simple dignity of the name made it
-distinguished in that long list of high-sounding titles.
-
-She breakfasted in state in her bedroom, looking over Park Avenue
-toward the great railroad terminus, the innumerable roofs, which
-stretched like irregular stepping stones to the river, the gracious
-bridge uptown. She drove in a barouche to the Metropolitan Museum
-and then down the Avenue, scenting its fine airs, and lingering on
-its elegant details in the slow-moving vehicle; the gay pile of the
-Plaza, like a monument erected to an Empress’ holiday; the pearly
-home of the Vander-somethings, with its birdlike little statue of the
-architect in a Rembrandt cap, perched among the décor of its roof; the
-quaintly painted florist’s building in the forties; broad, gleaming
-windows wherein the comfort of grizzled millionaires was framed for
-the public’s delectation; the sleek cathedrals, English and Roman,
-agreeably sunning themselves--almost tête-à-tête, with an air of
-after-dinner ease; the occasional brown, old-fashioned banks, which one
-took at first glance to be dwellings; the Library, squat with sedentary
-scholarship and stained by too much knowledge of good and evil; the
-mosque-like corner of the Waldorf; and far down where the Avenue
-narrowed, pleasant-memoried houses of the older time, and a freshly
-be-painted little French hotel, bright and impudent as a hat box from
-the Rue de La Paix.
-
-This last looked so suitable to her state of high spirits that she
-called to the driver to stop there. Strangely enough she had never been
-in the Brevoort. She slipped down into the basement café and was soon
-looking at the multiplied images of people in the mirrors that panelled
-the walls; among them stocky, dapper bachelors, arty, bearded men, a
-tall tan young fellow in a Norfolk, seemingly much fascinated with his
-companion, a much older woman with a weathered elegant face. She liked
-these. This, she supposed, had something to do with Greenwich Village,
-though except through picture and story, she knew nothing of it. But
-as she poured her tea for herself, she felt suddenly it was not the
-place to be alone. How easy it would be to go upstairs now, to send
-a telegram to Hal. The unholy notion made her finish her luncheon and
-leave.
-
-She went back by bus and walked about through half a dozen shops, then
-to a round of galleries, and finally, tired out, to the hotel. The
-thrill was over as she watched the day die on the house-tops of the
-East Side, and she almost wished she did not have to spend the night
-there. She wanted to be at work, after all, the sooner the better;
-nothing else could save her from boredom and despair. To-morrow she
-would launch herself on the unknown stream.
-
-She bought a ticket to a Russian variety show, which was just then
-having a vogue on Broadway, and found forgetfulness between its exotic
-charm and the night-view from the theatre roof, of the yellow-dappled
-park, its motors skimming and swerving upon curved ribbons of road.
-As she turned for a last look at it, standing apart from the crowd
-filing out, her solitary figure attracted the glances of a score of
-prosperous-looking men. But she did not see them. She thought:
-
-“This is so vast, what can it matter who one is? The Moira of yesterday
-is just as small compared to it, as this one here. Why should I care?”
-
-She laughed at this bit of philosophy. It was not particularly
-comforting, but it helped her to believe that she had given
-up the past.... In her dreams the visions of the day mingled
-kaleidoscopically.
-
-Moira knew nothing about New York in a practical way. Her path had
-always been the narrow round tripped by the fashionable visitor.
-Therefore, as she sat at breakfast with the “classified” columns of
-the _Times_ before her she had no idea where she wanted to live. It
-happened that the first addresses that she jotted down in her notebook
-were far downtown and to these she went looking for the cheapest single
-room she could find.
-
-The sights that met her eye filled her with half-humorous, half-tragic
-emotions. The landladies who greeted her were in the main revolting;
-she was taken into rooms that smelled, rooms that had cheap iron beds
-with battered brass knobs, that had carpets with holes in them and
-frayed lace curtains, grey with dirt, and hideous oak furnishings and
-coloured calendars on the walls. Three-fourths of them were not cleaned
-oftener than once a month, she was certain, and she determined to have
-cleanliness though every other comfort failed.
-
-She found it at last. On the west side of the Village she was attracted
-by a neat card bearing the words “furnished rooms” on the door of a
-brick house that looked many degrees better kept than its neighbours.
-A shy grey-haired woman admitted her. There were several rooms, all
-spotless, and she selected one reasonably priced, with white painted
-woodwork and plain furniture that she thought she might manage to
-live with. When she asked for the telephone to send for her luggage
-from the hotel, she was shown into the daughter’s room. In one corner
-of this pure haven was a small, square stand covered with chintz and
-draped with flowered cretonne. Upon it stood a discarded perfume bottle
-filled with holy water, a prayer-book and catechism, and a tall white
-statuette of the Virgin and child, with the monogram M. A. on the
-rococo base. On the wall above the stand was a black crucifix with
-the Christ in gilt. Behind the Christ was thrust a little palm cross.
-Still higher than the crucifix hung a photo-engraving of the Madonna
-and child from some Italian master, in a gilded frame. The homely
-simplicity of the scene brought tears to the girl’s eyes....
-
-But she felt a little less benevolent the next day when she asked Mrs.
-McCabe why there were no mirrors in the bathroom. That lady gazed at
-her with the sad severity of the timid and replied:
-
-“I don’t know. There just ain’t, and there won’t be.”
-
-In this atmosphere of staggering piety began the career of “Mary
-Smith.”
-
-
-
-
-XVI
-
-
-By the end of two years Moira had repaid the last of the five
-hundred with which she had possessed herself on leaving Thornhill;
-and accumulated a surplus of her own. From the day she quitted the
-Munson School of Stenography and Typewriting she had never experienced
-difficulty in securing a job and in making an excellent impression. The
-two changes which she had made were of her own volition. For more than
-six months now she had been secretary to the executive vice-president
-of a soap company and had become something of an executive herself, on
-a salary that still had a good margin in which to grow.
-
-This man was typical of the average young organizing and selling marvel
-of the day, but he had a quality of intelligence in matters outside of
-business--limited, yet enough to be refreshing after the others she had
-encountered. Moira did not feel, as she had in other places, that she
-must suppress all the evidences of her breeding and education. This
-she had actually attempted to do hitherto; diplomatically ignoring
-awkward and ungrammatical English, adopting as much slang as she could
-retain without practice on the outside, and generally pretending to be
-quite as much the low brow as most of the other girls whose chatter
-bewildered her in the washroom.
-
-With Barcroft, for the first time, she could permit herself to be
-natural, and this sense of ease increased her value enormously in
-“meeting the trade” and handling difficult people in his absence. She
-checked him up on his errors of dictation without shame, but she had
-the rare good sense to know just when he was wiser in being wrong.
-She grew to respect, rather than disdain, the qualities that made men
-successful in business. They were qualities that did not interest her
-essentially, yet Barcroft’s mind had mysterious powers of insight that
-often called for silent applause.
-
-Their relations developed into friendliness, and she felt his honest
-admiration without the fear that it would lead to complications. She
-had never yet herself encountered the boss-turned-lover--and the case
-was reputed to be so common that she felt far from flattered. She tried
-to account for it on the score of her natural dignity, her quiet mode
-of dressing, her application to work, and her reticence; but these did
-not explain. She was not conspicuously dignified--when it seemed to her
-good to laugh she did so. Nor did she dress unattractively, much as she
-respected her budget. And her efficiency was not nearly so obtrusive
-as some brands of it she had observed. Moreover these qualities, she
-believed, in a young and good-looking woman, would only make her more
-pleasing to men. She mocked at the whole business; it was another of
-those favourite American panics, like the white slave traffic, the
-German spy-hunt, and the innumerable other horrors that supported the
-newspapers and bred the violence of mobs.
-
-She congratulated herself, nevertheless, that in spite of Barcroft’s
-understanding and deference, nothing of that sort was remotely likely
-to happen. She had found a good post, agreeably within her powers and
-therefore easy, and she would be able to keep it indefinitely, with the
-hope of a steadily mounting salary. Then one evening they fell into a
-conversation after office hours. It ranged everywhere from the staging
-of Arthur Hopkins to the value of rotogravure as an advertising medium,
-from the proper length of skirts to the latest novel, and Barcroft
-broke into the discussion suddenly by making love to her. He too was a
-victim, as it appeared, of the quarrelsome and haphazard home.
-
-She had often asked herself, with some bitterness, what advantage her
-early life gave her in such a career as she now had to follow. She
-found it in this instance the most useful equipment she could have.
-Another girl would have thrown up the job. She managed adroitly to save
-it. She was not at all shocked by Barcroft’s love-making. She felt
-sorry for him; she talked to him sympathetically about his troubles,
-and in the end they were better friends than ever. Moreover, he was not
-long afterward grateful to her ... the wife had come out victor over
-her lord ... the yoke was again pleasing to his neck.
-
-Her life outside of the office was so devoid of romance that this brush
-with it at the soap company was not unpleasant. She had occupied more
-than one furnished room since the start at Mrs. McCabe’s, and in her
-wanderings she had come necessarily in contact with the Village life,
-but she did not adopt its easy associations. She discovered very early
-that the Village was the gossip shop of the country. National--and
-international--news travelled fast there from tongue to tongue,
-concerning people even slightly known or connected with the known. You
-could not say when you would walk into one of its restaurants and find
-at the next table a prominent matron of your city. A half a dozen times
-she had dodged or stared down old acquaintances on the upper Avenue.
-
-There were girls she met from day to day, willing to become her
-friends--attractive girls who were doing interesting things. A few
-good cronies of this sort would have lightened her solitary evenings
-and perhaps helped her to find work more congenial than business. But
-friendships, to be worth while, had to be frank. She knew she would be
-tempted defiantly to tell all about herself, and she shrank from doing
-so. Native resourcefulness made it easy to draw the line of separation,
-but pride made it hard. She realized that her aloofness was causing
-criticism. In the two restaurants where she took most of her evening
-meals--because they were cheap and clean--the talk was not sympathetic.
-If one was free to have lovers _ad lib._ in the Village one was
-obviously not free to dispense with friends entirely. She seemed a snob.
-
-There were times when she gave herself up to storms of grief. It
-grew to be an act of self-preservation, a part of her philosophy of
-endurance. Long spells of weeping, or of a weary, helpless state of
-the spirit that was more thoroughly a surrender and resignation than
-tears. Again and again she would cry through the darkness for Hal
-with the plaintive voice of a sick child--and even for the kind ghost
-of Mathilda Seymour. If she felt ashamed of these indulgences, she
-argued that there could be no harm in them. Her old friends could not
-hear her. She was alone in all those little rooms, completely cut off
-from anything familiar, from all but the fluttering, unreal, poignant
-memories of her beautiful childhood. Waves of passionate self-pity
-swept over her; she rebelled aloud against the bitter meanness of her
-betrayal; the awful burden of carrying her secret alone.
-
-In the end it was wise that she did not deny these moods when they
-came to her and did not try to control them. From them she rose
-calm and clear-headed, charged with newly stored courage. They were
-spiritual baths, which cleaned her, a sort of self-asserting prayer.
-When they had gone not a vestige of rebellion was left in her; she felt
-grown in stature, ready to carry her fate like a flag. For a day or two
-afterward she would be sentimental and overfull of feeling. She would
-go out of her way to help beggars and walk a block to give dimes to
-the hurdy-gurdy man; and comfort the little girls in the filing room
-if they weren’t feeling well, or had just been called down by the head
-clerk.
-
-One thing that these rituals of solitary suffering gave her was the
-buoyant, happy consciousness of artistic power, and she longed to
-return to painting. Until now it had seemed impossible. She could
-not command the space, the office robbed her of daylight, materials
-were too costly. Now she began to dream of creating a studio--the
-opportunity to work might be managed somehow, once she had acquired
-the facilities. She saved more sedulously, giving up a part of
-her pleasures, an occasional new book and a theatre now and then,
-furbishing clothes for herself despite her hatred of the needle.
-
-
-
-
-XVII
-
-
-The floors were done and dry. Elsie Jennings, who had come in to
-help, was putting the third coat of black upon the new book-shelves,
-and Moira was waiting for the delivery of her three last pieces of
-furniture, which completed the picture, for a time at least. Whether
-they came as they had been promised or not, the house-warming party
-was to be held that evening, with Elsie, Jade Sommers, and Arthur, her
-husband.
-
-Arthur Sommers she had met as a printing salesman, visiting her office,
-and later had run across with Jade in a restaurant. He was a good sort,
-in his early thirties, jovial and proud of his plain citizenship,
-inclined to stoutness and much in love with his wife, the story writer.
-Elsie ran a shop in which she sold hand-made novelties and small house
-furnishings, that caught the sightseers from the States and uptown
-with their faintly futurist air. It was a Saturday in the Spring, and
-had the party been postponed two days it might have celebrated Moira’s
-birthday. But she did not divulge that fact.
-
-“There,” said Elsie, “it’s done. And I think three coats will be
-enough.”
-
-“Not so bad,” replied Moira. She stood making an inspection of her
-nearly finished home. The apartment itself was a discovery--quite a
-bargain--one huge room with tall windows, and a tiny bedroom and bath
-and kitchen closet, in an old five-story house, occupied by a small
-army of nondescript tenants.
-
-“How good you look to me, old barn!” was her fervent thought, which
-Elsie, watching her, divined. “If those chairs don’t come pretty soon,”
-she went on aloud, “they won’t come at all, and somebody will have to
-sit on the floor. I’m going out to shop for food.”
-
-“Yes, go ahead,” said Elsie. “This box of china has got to be unpacked
-and washed. I’ll do that in the meantime.”
-
-Moira had been in and out of the building on many occasions during the
-past week, but her curiosity had been slight regarding her neighbours.
-She couldn’t afford to be particular about them, so it seemed to her
-pointless to be curious. As she went downstairs, however, on the way to
-the grocery, a name on the door to a small room caught her attention.
-
-“Miles Harlindew!” she said, and found her memory flying to years
-before at Thornhill, and her lips repeating some lines about:
-
-  “All shining parallels of track,
-    All brown roads leading up.”
-
-She had begun to see the man’s verses in the literary magazines when
-she couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, and many of
-them had sung themselves into her memory. One or two had given her
-an experience of discovery. But for the last few years she had found
-no more of his work. She had imagined him for some reason, as people
-are likely to think of anybody at all who gets things published, as
-successful, comfortable, arrived.
-
-“He must be getting along in years,” she thought. “Poor fellow!”
-For she knew that room corresponded to her bedroom above, a mere
-cubby-hole, so small that she had to sit on her bed to look in the
-dressing table mirror.
-
-It was her first party in years, and she did not need the
-cocktails--which Arthur Sommers had brought in a silver flask--to give
-her a thrill. She fell in love with her guests and charmed them into
-something like wonder. So this was the unapproachable Mary Smith!
-
-“Oh, I’ve got distinguished literary neighbours,” she announced. “Miles
-Harlindew is on the floor below.”
-
-A ripple of amusement greeted her remark.
-
-“But I remember some stunning poems of his,” she went on.
-
-“Oh, yes,” put in Jade, “but nobody knows he’s alive these days. He
-doesn’t even know it himself.”
-
-“Come off,” said her husband. “I see him often, very much alive. Any
-man who does his duty violating the Eighteenth Amendment as regularly
-as Miles, has my vote. What do you say if I get him.”
-
-“If he’s sober,” put in Jade.
-
-Sommers glanced at Moira for consent, and she gave it with a brisk
-nod. These people knew more about the man than she and no doubt were
-justified in what they said; nevertheless she felt a vague resentment.
-What would they say if they knew all there was to be known about
-herself? Experience had already taught her that beneath the literal
-and semi-bohemian veneer of her friends there was a stern core of
-respectability.
-
-Harlindew came and was sober. He was painfully and tiresomely sober,
-and she heartily wished they had saved some of Arthur’s cocktails.
-He sat down stiffly and ventured commonplaces when spoken to. She
-found him a satisfactory physical specimen, showing more years than
-she expected, in premature lines. He was neither tall nor short, of
-the type that never acquires flesh, somewhat shaggy behind the ears,
-with a lop-sided face. One jaw was stronger than the other, one eye
-keener than the other, one brow more pleasing in conformation than the
-other--and these inequalities were not all on the same side of his
-face.
-
-When she recited his verses, he was not pleased. He depreciated them
-vigorously and was very uncomfortable. He called them the errors of
-his youth. The one thing that he took extraordinary interest in was
-a talk with Sommers about business. She then watched his gestures
-and animation with pleasure. They made a change in the man’s whole
-appearance.
-
-“I’m thinking seriously of going into business,” he announced in a
-grave voice, and seemed a little disappointed that this statement was
-not received with greater acclaim. The evening ended, dampened, on the
-whole, by his presence.
-
-“How fiercely shy he is about his work,” said Moira to the others, as
-they stood at the door ready to go.
-
-“Big night last night,” said Arthur, in a stage whisper. “Feeling
-rocky.”
-
-“I hope you don’t meet him somewhere at three in the morning,” added
-Elsie. “He’ll reel it off to you then until you’ll be sorry.”
-
-Yet she thought more about what she saw of Harlindew, during his short
-stay in her rooms, than of anything else that had happened that night.
-He was the only young man she had met in New York whom she wanted to
-talk to. It was, possibly, a childish delusion, a fancy arising out of
-the fact that both of them were miserable about something, obviously
-about something it was impossible to discuss.
-
-A few days later she met him on the stairs, and he blushed and
-stammered:
-
-“I believe you are the only person alive who still cares anything for
-my poetry.”
-
-He was gone too quickly for her to answer. She did not see him again
-for a week, and when she did she invited him to tea. In an hour he was
-as much at his ease as though he had known her forever, and stayed so
-long he expressed the fear of having bored her. Soon after that she was
-seeing him two or three times a week.
-
-He came because she listened to his monologues. Moira found that
-this was the man’s characteristic. Shy to the point of morbidness in
-company, she no sooner began to encourage him alone than he talked
-without end. His ideas were neither very well thought out nor very
-clearly expressed, but they stimulated her. He poured forth the most
-curious tag-ends of experience, made extraordinary confessions with
-few traces of shame, chattered cynically, humorously, passionately
-and autocratically by turns about writing and all the arts, and then
-stopped suddenly in the midst of things, frightened to silence by
-the realization of her presence and the boldness of his own tongue.
-Only one thing could have enabled him to indulge this luxury and keep
-coming--a knowledge of her interest, and she gave it honestly. She saw
-that the inner life of this young man and her own had been similar. He
-soon passed from Miss Smith to Mary, and from Mary to Madonna, and
-finding that the last was to his taste, he held to it. Before long he
-was giving full rein to a natural streak of fantastic high spirits and
-messing about her place like a privileged person.
-
-She was, for some reason, wholly delighted by all this. The crushed
-spirit he had shown at their first meeting had seemed tragically
-inappropriate and she was glad to be drawing anybody out who needed
-it. The man, set beside most of the people she had known, was a freak,
-certainly, but he was not an impossible freak. And he differed from
-such people as Selden Van Nostrand in depth, breadth and sensitive
-contact with life. With a perfectly conventional background, he had
-simply, she thought, allowed his spiritual life to express itself
-in his physical life from an early age. His courtesy was innate and
-usually unfailing, on some occasions oppressive--but it was a quality
-she would not have liked to find lacking. His flattery she had to
-accept as simply as she could; he exhausted his vocabulary in finding
-terms for her beauty. It seemed an ever-renewed miracle to him, which
-he had to talk about to enjoy.
-
-“Madonna,” he said one day, “you should be some queen like Margaret of
-Navarre. I should like to be one of the story tellers of your court.
-It is a commentary on our beastly times that such a one as you is a
-stenographer.”
-
-“If I had the courage--as you have--I wouldn’t be,” she laughed, “but
-it scares me to think of going my own way.”
-
-“Ah, that is one thing I came to ask you about. I must have told you
-that I intend going into business.”
-
-“But why?” she asked, “why should you, after all?”
-
-“Well, when we are young we expect all things to come to us. We don’t
-want them just to-day, but to-morrow?--we’ll whistle and down they
-will come from the sky. That’s what we think. In my case, however,
-they haven’t come. Ergo, I have lived disgracefully. Now I must begin
-to die gracefully by turning to work. Yet isn’t it possible to look
-upon the grotesque preoccupation of the American male as a trade, a
-form of artisan-ship, a deed of the left hand? I know a man who sells
-advertising, and who has more confidence in me than I should dare to
-have in myself. He is decent enough to think that I can supply what he
-wants. Why not try it?”
-
-“Aren’t you writing anything nowadays, Miles?”
-
-“Nothing,” he said, with a shrug. “Book reviews! What are book reviews?
-Every time I have to go to see an editor and ask for a book, it
-makes me feel as though selling hairpins from house to house is more
-respectable. Besides, the literary world has forgotten me. I only fill
-up space.”
-
-“Nonsense,” said she vehemently. “And you’re wrong about business.
-Business is pretty awful. I suppose you’ll have to find that out for
-yourself.”
-
-“There _are_ more delightful occupations, true. I have always had an
-ambition to be a cab-driver. It is the sole profession in which one
-becomes a licensed eavesdropper. Excellent for the literary man. You
-know people mind the cabby no more than if he were the horse. I mean
-a horse-cab, of course ... only in such leisurely vehicles do people
-expose their souls, their most intimate secrets. But I haven’t the
-cabby’s training. From things you have said, I fancied you knew horses.”
-
-“A little. When I was a young girl I had some playmates who owned them.”
-
-“Noble beasts. I’m sure they would break the neck of any poor fool who
-had condescended to Pegasus.”
-
-“The trouble with you, Miles, is that you don’t condescend often
-enough, nor persistently enough. You ought to be writing poems at this
-moment. You should have been doing it these last five years.”
-
-“The impulse to creation begins with a peculiar tickling of the tummy
-that I haven’t felt for ages.”
-
-Her eagerness to start him writing usually came to nothing in some such
-joke. At other times he would grow more serious.
-
-“No, Madonna, I cannot. The blossom of life is gone--only the bare
-stalk is left. It may flower again, but it must be watered and fed. My
-affair with poetry has ended like so many marriages--in disillusion.
-That is rough, when one realizes that poetry demands the hardest
-labour for the smallest return of any occupation on earth. It takes
-all one’s youth, at the expense of practical things--and one is left
-with a handful of frail results that are hardly more substantial than
-memories. But the greater the early love, the more complete must be the
-separation, and one must recognize it when it comes. One must renounce;
-in that lies the only hope of renewal. People are mistaken about life
-being a steady progress from youth to age, anyway. It’s a constant
-shuttling from age to youth and back again. We all grow senile about
-every seven years, and then young again. I am in a senile period. Why
-should I do poetry the dishonour of pursuing her in such a state? Bah,
-it is better to do anything else. You mustn’t be impatient with me. I
-do not flower very often--but neither does the century plant. And it is
-counted among the world’s wonders.”
-
-“Well,” she said consolingly, “perhaps you are right. Better a little
-that is good than a lot that is indifferent. All I know is that there
-are reputations built on no more talent than yours.”
-
-“If I could believe that,” he said thoughtfully, “I should not
-surrender. But I can’t believe it. I shall have to squeeze business
-for a time, as one squeezes an orange--for the golden juice. I shall
-hoard it, as if every ounce meant a golden hour. Then we shall see. My
-God! Madonna,” he burst forth. “Fifty dollars a week--there in my hand,
-_every week_. Think of it. All my life fifty dollars has seemed like
-the other side of the moon.”
-
-The next day he began the work of which he had talked so much. She had
-known him a month. Now for some time, she was to see little of him.
-He left early and returned late, and with the long summer evenings at
-hand, she began to paint.
-
-It was very hard to drive herself to work. Her hands were stiff; her
-senses were clumsy, and her first efforts resulted in little more
-than a waste of valuable materials. She needed everything--models,
-encouragement, criticism. These even Elsie or Miles could have
-furnished after a fashion, but she dared not ask them--she was not
-ready for that. She contented herself with trials at still life, with
-experiments, with attempts at self-portraiture.
-
-Then slowly the love of simply applying the brush, the fever of trying
-and trying again for the effects she wanted, the joy of feeling
-momentary hints of power, and of succeeding now and then with some
-little thing, quickened her interest, until the time came when she
-found herself standing up to her canvas until it had grown almost dark.
-
-She went with Elsie one night to the theatre and when they returned to
-Elsie’s rooms, Moira confessed that she had begun to work. They talked
-until three in the morning. She came away elated, and still sleepless,
-not the least bit tired. The mere divulging of her modest ambitions had
-started her blood bounding, and she swung buoyantly down the street.
-
-A block or two from her house she heard voices, and against the glow
-of a lamp she saw the figure of a policeman leaning over a man who lay
-on the pavement luxuriously supporting his head from the flagging with
-folded arms.
-
-“Come on, now, get up,” said the officer. “I’ve fooled long enough. If
-you don’t get up I’ll take you where you’ll have a long rest.”
-
-The voice that replied was unmistakably Miles Harlindew’s.
-“Preposterous,” he said, running his consonants together. “I am lying
-on m’own prop’ty. It was legally d’vised to me by God the Father. Six
-feet by three of solid earth. That’s my allotment. You’ve spoiled it by
-putting concrete on it, but I’ll be a good fellow. Won’t complain. It’s
-all right. Just go away.”
-
-“Get up, I tell ya.”
-
-“What! Can’t a man lie on his own pat-patrimony, you blamed ass? It’s
-goin’ to be mine f’r eternity, and I choose to use it now!”
-
-“We’ll see who’s a blamed ass, young feller. Come on!”
-
-Moira interrupted as the patrolman was about to grasp Harlindew’s
-shoulder.
-
-“Officer,” she said hurriedly, “I know this man. He lives in the same
-house I am in. I think I can get him to go with me, if you won’t take
-him.”
-
-“Sure. That’s all right. I don’t want him if he’ll get out of here.
-I’ve had this bird before, and it might go hard with him.”
-
-“Thank you,” she said fervently. Miles was on his feet in a second,
-a little unsteady but effusively polite, repeating the words “divine
-Madonna” in a voice that must have carried to many windows.
-
-“Officer,” he said, “meet Madonna--no, meet Ariadne. Ariadne, the night
-is a labyrinth--you bring me a thread.”
-
-At his door he insisted upon going up with her--“just for a
-second”--and she could not refuse him. He sat on the couch, pursuing a
-strange, disjointed tale of the day’s adventures. He told twice about a
-steel-worker he had met in a bootlegger’s house, who once had worked on
-the Woolworth, forty stories up. “Said he never went up on the steel in
-the morning without three whiskies--if he had he’d a fallen off,” said
-Miles. “That’s good--if he had he’d a fallen off.” The idea seemed to
-fill him with extraordinary delight. But other things were on his mind
-also. Some one he called “the damn buzzard at the office” came in for a
-large share of abuse.
-
-“If you want to see the damned buzzard to-morrow, you’d better go
-downstairs and sleep,” she suggested. “You won’t feel much like work.”
-
-“Work? Never mind work.... Valuable man.... Know my own value.... Not
-at all sleepy, anyway....” A moment later while she was out of the room
-he stretched full length on the couch and fell asleep.
-
-She did not have the heart to wake him in the morning. If her own
-racket, as she flew about preparing to leave, had no effect upon his
-deep unconsciousness, it would probably take too much effort anyway.
-At noon, however, she found him just beginning to stir about, making
-coffee in her little kitchen, for which he apologized, but with no
-sheepishness. He seemed, on the contrary, to find excessive enjoyment
-in having awakened in a strange place, invaded by a lovely hostess. She
-took the rôle of cook out of his hands.
-
-“Well,” he said when they were seated, “I suppose I am in a pickle.
-Must say something to Jones. Wonder what it’ll be. All’s fair, I
-imagine, in war and business. Any old alibi goes.”
-
-“But you’re a valuable man, Miles, you know,” she mocked, “as you said
-several times last night.”
-
-His smile was a trifle wan. It was too soon by all means to bid
-good-bye to the other side of the moon--that regular fifty a week.
-
-“You know, I’ve never had to be anywhere I didn’t want to be, in ...
-in God knows when,” he declared. “Not easy to get the habit. But I’m
-doing well down there. Honest, I’m sort of proud about it.”
-
-Moira thought that he seemed to be worrying very little about his
-remissness, not even very actively at work on the problem of finding an
-excuse. And it was late, even for that. She almost hated to undeceive
-him, it concerned him so slightly. Finally she said:
-
-“I telephoned your Jones. I told him you were too ill to come down. Was
-that right?”
-
-But obviously this service was in his eyes incalculably great. The look
-he gave her made her want to laugh. She had not thought it possible for
-a man to be so pathetically helpless, so profoundly grateful for an act
-of friendly foresight.
-
-“How did it happen, Miles?”
-
-“Oh, I think the monotony got on my nerves. Then yesterday everything
-went wrong; and I thought five o’clock would never come. Eight hours!
-By Jove, it sometimes seems like eight years.”
-
-“Yes, it does,” she replied, remembering her first months of it.
-
-“Do you get used to it?” he asked anxiously.
-
-“Oh, yes, it comes to be a good deal like breathing.”
-
-
-
-
-XVIII
-
-
-They started out without objective, left the train at a little station
-far down the southern part of Long Island and walked miles through a
-flat country of stunted woods and sandy, almost deserted roads.
-
-It was toward the end of a coppery afternoon, the hazy air aflame
-with the sun taking on the colour of the burnished trees. To Moira,
-it had been an unreal day too, for her thoughts were running upon
-revolutionary impulses, plans that would have seemed impossibly
-romantic a few months before. Was it only because of this suddenly
-important comradeship with Miles Harlindew that she had quite painfully
-realized a sense of loss? She needed much more than life was giving
-her, much more than her mere comfort and independence, even than her
-painting. Their half year together had been full of a strangely wide
-sympathy. But it had also been casual, without purpose and without end.
-The first tang and odour of Autumn cold always brought a stirring of
-unreasonable energy in her, a sense of dissatisfaction ... a prophecy
-of change. But now it was like nothing she had ever known before, a
-stifling in the midst of limitless air to breathe.
-
-“Seasons must be responsible for a great deal in life,” she said. “I
-wonder if anything would get itself done at all, if it were not for
-them, for the urging they give us to act.”
-
-“I have thought that too,” replied Miles. “You could almost live,
-simply by letting the time of the year do what it will with you. I
-shouldn’t be shocked if some one told me I had lived that way myself,
-most of my life.”
-
-He drew out a pipe, filled and lighted it, and the fragrant smell
-was pleasing to her nostrils. She liked his agreeable, easy ways. He
-needed little to be happy, his thoughts, his books, tobacco, clothes
-that seemed to have grown older with him. Since that diffused night
-he had spent in her rooms in June, his life had run along in a quiet
-groove, free from excitement or discontent--a period during which,
-as he told her, weeks seemed so much longer because they were filled
-with so many more and varied impressions, and these impressions
-were caught and relished and fixed as they passed. Excitement and
-sprees were monotonous, not varied, and one lost almost all of one’s
-impressions.... She had shared this slow magic with him, and she
-understood what he meant. Suddenly she found herself asking him to
-marry her.
-
-“But, child,” he said, with amusement in his face and voice, “you
-couldn’t do that.”
-
-“I’m not a child,” she replied, with unmistakable seriousness, “and I
-could. I love you.”
-
-He stopped walking and faced her, holding his pipe halfway to his mouth
-and looking at her in blank amazement.
-
-“My dear Mary!” he exclaimed.
-
-“My name isn’t Mary,” she broke in. “It’s Moira. Do you like it?”
-
-“Moira? Why haven’t you told me that?”
-
-“There’s even more to tell, Miles.”
-
-“But what do you mean?”
-
-“I suppose you won’t answer my question, until you hear the rest?”
-
-“I shall be glad to hear anything you want to tell,” he replied slowly.
-“But first, my dear girl, do you know you are the stars in the sky? Do
-you know you are a prize for sultans, for emperors, for decent people,
-for people infinitely better than I am? I’m a stopping place in your
-passage. Not that.... I’m as worthless as a man can very well be. I
-think, in short, something has made you a little mad.”
-
-“You’re _not_ worthless,” she replied vehemently. “I’m tired of hearing
-you say you are.... If all this means you don’t love me and don’t want
-me, there’s nothing more to be said. If it means that you think you
-are not good enough for me, that’s foolish. And in that case--there
-_is_--more to be said.”
-
-She trembled a little. Both were under the stress of a new and powerful
-feeling.... She wanted more than anything else in the world to take
-hold of him, to shake him, to keep on shaking him, because he had not
-been equal to asking of her what she had just now asked of him. She
-wanted to love him as nobody had ever loved him; to love him until he
-respected himself. It needed no more than a spur, something to make him
-so proud that he could scarcely believe in his happiness. She could do
-that for him, she was equal to it, because she did love him and she
-was beautiful and desirable. She thought of herself, in that instant,
-as Moira Seymour of Thornhill. But in the next she did not. It was so
-terribly hard to say what she had to tell him.
-
-Moira’s persistence in her reckless proposal had given rise to a
-tempest of forces in Miles Harlindew. The notion of marrying her
-had never even formed in his dispirited brain. Now it swept through
-him like a cleansing and strengthening hope. He faced her with the
-uncertainty of a man who is still afraid to trust his own understanding.
-
-“Wait, Miles!” she said, “I’ve something more to tell you.” She
-began hurriedly, like a guilty child, but as she went on her voice
-became firm. “I don’t know who my father was. I was told his name was
-Williams, but I don’t know whether he is alive or dead. I’m the child
-of a servant who was never married. You see if you married me, it might
-be said that I wanted the protection of your name. I’ve none of my own.”
-
-It was his turn to be impatient, and he had an impulse now to laugh
-and take her in his arms. But he held back.
-
-“Mary,” he said seriously, “in the first place what has all that to do
-with it?”
-
-“But it’s true. And you’ve forgotten my name is Moira.”
-
-“I don’t care. It’s all beside the point. I’ve never been strong for
-relatives, my own kin into the bargain. I might not enjoy yours. But do
-you suppose it makes any difference to any one who your father is? Your
-father and mother are your face, your beautiful, glorious face. Your
-birthright is yourself, your incredible perfection. Don’t you see, it
-isn’t your father or your mother you’re giving up, but yourself, all
-this miracle? You can’t give all that to me. I’m not worth it. I can’t
-count on myself. How can I ask you to count on me?”
-
-“You don’t know yourself. You never have.”
-
-“Mary!” he cried, and she let him continue using the old name which
-came so naturally. She felt his intense desire to be honest, while it
-angered and annoyed her. Why should he decide these things for her? But
-he went on, “Don’t you see? This is just a--a sentiment, a ridiculous
-illusion about your birth.”
-
-“It’s _true_,” she replied. “I must know that you believe it’s true--or
-nothing can go on.”
-
-“If it were a thousand times true it wouldn’t make me good enough for
-you.”
-
-She sat down beside the road. Tears were coming to her eyes, and she
-hated to have him see them.
-
-“Miles,” she said, “I thought once I couldn’t love again, but you’ve
-seemed like something lost to me and come back. It’s the same thing in
-my heart, only older and more real. If you don’t mind my being what I
-am, if you want me, please come and take me. Only don’t argue.”
-
-His close embrace was like the end of a journey she had been travelling
-all these last weeks quite unconsciously. His passion, the fierce,
-sudden, exacting eagerness of the luckless taken unaware by great good
-fortune, could not hurt her too much.
-
-“You must forgive me if I am quite mad,” he stammered. “Look at me. Am
-I sane, Madonna beloved?”
-
-She did look at him, but she saw, beyond the cadaverous face and humble
-eyes, a man who carried, she hoped, the power of change within him. She
-was completely happy to have that job for her own. Yesterday she had
-had loneliness, a heavy secret, futility. Now she had everything that
-she had ever lost; and more, the knowledge of her own strength. What if
-it did fail, it would be this while it lasted....
-
-
-
-
-XIX
-
-
-  “Oh, when I was in love with you
-    Then I was clean and brave,
-  And miles around the wonder grew
-    How well did I behave....”
-
-“It’s old Housman all over again,” cried Harlindew, in high glee.
-“Since I married you, I’ve become a respected citizen. People stop me
-on the street and want to talk who haven’t deigned to give me a wink in
-years.”
-
-“Don’t forget there is a second verse,” said Moira.
-
-  “But now the fancy passes by
-    And nothing will remain
-  And miles around they’ll say that I
-    Am quite myself again.”
-
-“Yes, but he had to add that to make it a well-rounded thought. The
-first is the only one that counts. Well-rounded thoughts are an
-abomination. Or else he had to live up to the well known Housman
-cynicism. But isn’t this enough for one sitting? I’m hungry.”
-
-“Just five minutes more. There’s something I don’t want to miss about
-that light. I can’t ever get you into the same position twice. You’re
-changeable enough--physically!” she concluded.
-
-He strolled over to the portrait when she had released him and
-criticized it outrageously. The face was all wrong, the colour of the
-hair absurd, the brow too handsome. It was a good picture perhaps,
-but a poor portrait. Her sketches of him were better. She had a nice
-loose line in sketching and didn’t flatter so much. Women ought never
-to paint men, at least never their sweethearts. They weren’t honest
-enough. They were too romantic. But this was all delivered in the
-utmost good nature and she did not resent it. She thought he was quite
-a good critic of painting. He liked things of very crude strength,
-directness. Her work, she herself was inclined to admit, indulged in
-glamour--it was the hardest thing to avoid. But she hoped that in ten
-or twenty years she would do something good; that was time enough.
-
-As a matter of fact, Miles Harlindew thought his wife’s work remarkably
-fine and had often said so. Then, discovering she was so modest
-about it that praise was downright displeasing to her, he adopted
-the bantering tone. He catered to her modesty by giving her all the
-severe criticism he dared to. And on the whole it resulted in a better
-understanding.
-
-Standing in the doorway, he watched her with some impatience, while
-she put on a hat, powdered her nose, dabbed at her nails and stood in
-front of the mirror gazing at herself in satisfied animation. She
-liked to make him wait. Then they slipped down the narrow carpeted
-stairs and into the brilliant afternoon, breathless and laughing. It
-was not surprising that people looked twice at the pair. She wondered
-if there were any two lovers who enjoyed their holidays together as
-much as they. There were so many things to do and it needed so little
-to make them memorable. A walk through Italian streets, flooded with
-little bodies and loud with cries, to some unknown restaurant; or up
-the Avenue in the dusk to the Park; or a long ride in front of the
-bus--whatever met their eyes on these jaunts was fresh and new though
-they had seen it a hundred times before. There was no place for a
-honeymoon like New York: it meant that the honeymoon never ended.
-
-Marriage had hardly changed an outward detail of their lives. She had
-refused to give up her job, which he somehow expected she could do.
-Perhaps she could paint and try to sell her work. It appeared to him so
-much more fitting. But Moira did not wish to sell her paintings, even
-if she had thought them worth any money. All that could wait. Wasn’t
-his work waiting too? Poor boy! How could any one expect him to write
-with his time all taken up?
-
-“But,” he objected, “I may have to take care of more than you one of
-these days. Hadn’t I better get used to it?”
-
-“Nonsense,” she replied. “That’s all the more reason why I should be
-earning now.”
-
-Miles had retained his room downstairs, much as it was, except that
-she saw it was kept in some sort of order for him. Her own tiny living
-quarters were not enough comfortably for two, and she had foreseen that
-he would have many a spell when he wanted to be quite alone. To her
-mind he was very chivalrous in hiding his low-spirited moments from
-her. When he left her early after dinner to spend the evening and the
-night in his room, she knew that it was a signal for one of these.
-He was working off some disappointment, some mood of defeat. These
-troubles had generally fled by morning. He would be in her bedroom,
-before she woke up, noisy and hungry, and full of jokes.
-
-“You’re making me too happy to write,” he told her on one such
-occasion, as he sat on her bedside and put her hand to his lips. “You
-remember Rossetti says:
-
-  “By thine own tears thy song must tears beget
-    O Singer! Magic mirror thou hast none
-    Except thy manifest heart and save thine own
-  Anguish or ardour, else no amulet.”
-
-He had the old-fashioned way of reading poetry, intoning it without
-much shading or expression--and he threw himself into it. She thought
-nobody was just like him when he did that entirely for his own
-pleasure.
-
-“But he speaks of ardour as well as anguish,” she objected.
-
-“Yes, I suppose poetry itself does not have to be sad. But it comes
-out of something like sadness. Rossetti was right. It is as foolish to
-write poetry in the midst of happiness as to try to find words for what
-you look like now--when I can be looking at you instead. How beautiful
-you are when you wake.”
-
-It occurred to Moira that she might be a little distressed over all
-this. She wanted him to be happy, but she also wanted him to write--and
-become famous or at least deserve it in her eyes. But her good sense
-brushed his idle words aside. Why encourage harbouring such notions?
-She had never known any one who spoke his mind aloud so continuously
-as he did, and she knew that many of the things he said simply passed
-through it aimlessly. They were without significance except the
-significance of always tossing up other thoughts, and still others,
-until the right one came. This thinking aloud had a ruthless quality
-that would have hurt a more sensitive wife. It did not trouble her.
-
-She decided there was no hurry about his getting to work. She did not
-want him to do it until he could do his best. Nothing less than that
-she wished to foster. They were living their lives to the full, now,
-through each other. In good time they would branch out and live in
-wider circles. Miles was storing up treasures that would find utterance
-one of these days. Indeed he was writing--slight, experimental things
-which she did not like, it was true, but which would help to open
-up the dried springs of his invention. This period of his life was
-certainly not less promising than the five years before she had met
-him, arid years of picking up a mere living by critical trifles.
-
-An event that she did not foresee, however, happened shortly afterward.
-A week came when Harlindew spent almost no time with her. He
-disappeared into his room early; at breakfast he seemed to have slept
-little, and he was distracted and irritable. When the time came to go
-downtown, she felt that he resented it. He would dawdle and temporize
-and start off anywhere from a quarter to a half hour late. The secrecy
-of his movements were a trial to her, and she could not get anything
-out of him by casual questioning. His answers were indirect, hinting at
-work. Then her questioning stopped. She realized that she was growing
-angry; malicious impulses came to her, a desire for petty revenge, and
-all this warned her that she was vainer than she had believed. She
-depended upon his attentions, his love-making, his continual amusing
-flattery. That was the unfairness of marriage, she argued. It taught
-you to expect certain things you had got on very well without before.
-But if your single mate withheld them, you could not go elsewhere to
-supply them.... After six days of this, Moira began to believe herself
-a philosopher, and something of a cynic as well. She had kept her
-temper, but she had also been experimenting with the green serpent of
-disillusionment.
-
-The thing ended with a visit to her bedroom at two in the morning.
-He was a little excited by liquor, a most unusual thing since their
-marriage, yet she was sure he had not been away. Most of this
-excitement came from another cause. He held in his hand a half a dozen
-sheets of paper and began without preliminaries to read them to her.
-They were new poems, of course--how stupid she had been not to suspect
-it! When he had finished reading them she snatched them from him with
-cries of delight and read them herself.
-
-“I have to see the words--the blessed words!” she declared.
-
-He walked out of the room, leaving the crinkly papers with her, walked
-on air yet timorously, jumping half out of his boots at every slight
-noise she made with the sheets. When he came back he found tear-drops
-clinging to her lashes. She was still reading the poems as though to
-fix them then and there in her mind. She laid back on the pillows and
-asked him to read them all over himself aloud, and “very slowly.” It
-was a long moment after he had ended that she spoke.
-
-“They’re better than anything you’ve done,” she said, with a
-contentment that filled him with torturing pangs of delight. “As good
-and better than the best in your book. It’s come back to you, Miles, I
-always knew it would. Oh, isn’t it wonderful!”
-
-He sat down, suddenly downcast and sheepish in the midst of his elation.
-
-“But if this is going to happen to me often, what am I going to do?”
-he said. “I’ve lived those things. It’s been hell and heaven, Moira.
-I took two afternoons off from the office. I had to. It was all but
-impossible to go.”
-
-She sat up in bed and gazed at him in profound reflection. She felt she
-knew what he meant. It was not childish, not perverse. How could such
-things be mixed up in the same day, this fine fervour of creation, and
-that mechanical, wretched work? What she most desired him to be he was
-now, and that he must continue to be at the cost of everything else.
-She suddenly saw life rosy and fresh ahead of them, untrammelled by
-anything base, full of brave expression.
-
-“Never mind, never mind!” she cried excitedly. “Listen, you can hold
-on two months longer somehow. In two months my lease will be up. We’ve
-got eighteen hundred dollars between us now, and by that time we ought
-to have two thousand. We’ll just quit cold, Miles, drop everything.
-Somewhere in Europe we can live for nothing, live forever on that. Who
-knows what can happen before it is gone? We might never have to come
-back--never until we wanted to. You can go on writing and writing these
-gorgeous things!”
-
-“My God,” he murmured, “it would be marvellous. It could be done.... O
-Magician!”
-
-
-
-
-XX
-
-
-The experience of that night was one of those moments on the Olympus
-of extravagant hope, before which it is merciful to draw the veil. In
-one hour they seemed to have attained all that life held for the most
-fortunate--freedom, work, love.
-
-Therefore, had they stepped from the tropical belt to the Arctic
-circle; had they plunged from the top of a sunlit tower to the depths
-of a coal shaft, the change which came during the next month could
-not have been greater. Moira had never anticipated resenting her
-first baby. Preparations for the trip, expenditures for the trip, had
-first been slackened up in mid-career, as they waited apprehensively
-and then had been abandoned with the abruptness that only comes when
-death enters a house. There lay the paraphernalia of travel, new and
-useless. They had drifted into a state of divine negligence. Jobs and
-all practical affairs went along any old way; they were matters soon to
-be jettisoned like an old coat. Then came this reality as if the four
-walls of a prison had been dropped about them in a day.
-
-It was not so bad as that of course, when the first rude awakening had
-passed. Life substitutes one enthusiasm for another. Miles recovered
-admirably at once; he spent his eloquence reassuring her that this was
-the best thing that could have happened to them. He had all the normal
-delight in the prospect of fatherhood.
-
-But Moira was not so easily reconciled. She would always look upon that
-baby as something a little too unreasonably expensive. She was not
-ready for it, and had the plan of going abroad been broached earlier
-she would never have had it. She would have been more pleased had Miles
-not tried so hard to make her see it in a better light. She did not
-doubt his sincerity, nor that he would be one whose joy in children of
-his own would be unbounded. But she hated to think of his taking one
-burden after another from her shoulders until he would be carrying them
-all, while she waited helplessly. She had never thought him, as yet,
-strong enough without her.
-
-So she did not relinquish her burdens until she had to. She worked on,
-until the last day she could without embarrassment. After a season of
-careful figuring she estimated that what they had saved, with Miles’
-salary (which had been slightly increased not long before) would enable
-them to maintain their present comforts until she got back to earning.
-She hoped that could be managed somehow within two years.
-
-But if the idea of having a child was an adventure, they both had to
-admit that the conditions it called for were somewhat depressing. For
-one thing, they had to have more space. The first work she did after
-leaving Barcroft’s establishment was to move to a flat in the eighties
-on the west side. In every particular this place lacked the charm of
-her studio, nor could anything they did to it or put into it make it
-seem the same. The little kennel-like separations called rooms were
-diabolically invented for people who had to have children, and so
-constructed as to make them hate the fact that they had them.
-
-At the earliest hint of the baby’s coming she noticed changes in Miles.
-He had never been very regular or responsible about office hours. Now
-it worried him if he was a half minute late in getting started. He
-talked less, he exaggerated less. He seemed to be unwilling to discuss
-books, or any of the old subjects that had enthralled him. He spoke
-much of there being a future “in the firm,” for a chap who “really
-buckled down and dug up results.” She realized that he was beginning to
-regard his job as a permanent support.
-
-He came home sometimes with bundles of papers filled with figures and
-sat in the little study at night, writing what he called “plans” and
-“copy” and making “market analyses.” It was the same sort of jargon
-that Barcroft talked incessantly--“sales and distribution,” “consumer
-demand,” and “dealer helps.” It had sounded all right from Barcroft;
-but from Miles.... She found among his papers rough drafts in his own
-hand of advertisements extolling the value of hog foods, lice powder,
-piston rings--and one long story about “How I raised my salary from
-fifty to two hundred dollars a week in six months.” When she read these
-she went into her room and cried. They had meant nothing to her so long
-as he took them lightly; now that he applied his whole mind to them and
-sat absently dreaming of them, they seemed blasphemous. But she dared
-not complain; she had no remedy to offer.
-
-In a little while--after the baby was a few months old--he began to
-bring home news of certain results from all this energy and absorption.
-His salary took a sudden jump. He was “meeting clients” continually,
-doing executive work. Soon, he told her, he would have a small office
-to himself. She simulated pleasure at these announcements, but she
-felt none. Every triumph of that sort meant a surrender of himself.
-She even resented the care he had begun to take in his clothes and his
-hair-cuts, the change in his style of dress.
-
-The ugliness of the little apartment in a building which held perhaps
-fifty tiresome families, the dreary parade of bourgeois virtues, and
-fourth or fifth rate finery, the strident female voices in the street
-and halls, the newness of everything one touched and looked at, the
-lack of shadows and mystery and ease, the pervasive, obvious travail
-for money--all these things were to Moira an education in American
-life which her youth had escaped. She disliked them, but she regarded
-them, because they were strange to her, with a detached, half-amused
-curiosity.
-
-To Miles, however, they were a return to the hated past--from just such
-a street in Cincinnati he had fled in horror years before. She saw
-that it really involved him; that daily, as it were, he had to brush
-its overwhelming effect from his clothes and from his mind. It was
-she who was putting him through all this.... And it was only an added
-irony that Miles, junior, turned out such a satisfactory child, normal
-and vigorous and good-tempered. It did not improve matters any that he
-deserved this sacrifice, for with every new fascination he exerted,
-every delightful characteristic he exhibited, the subjection of all
-their hopes to his demands became more complete....
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Three years passed this way, and though the affairs of the Harlindew
-family went on quite as ever in outward appearance, much had happened
-underneath to both.
-
-In the first place she had learned that a child was not a temporary
-encumbrance, one that she could throw off in a year or two for outside
-work. If certain of its wants diminished with its growth, others
-increased, and the habit of being an attendant mother became fixed. She
-had had to abandon her plan of returning to offices. Cheap servant
-girls and the risk run in trusting them worried her too much as it was.
-She became as helpless a house-person as the scores of other young
-mothers in her teeming block.
-
-With the relinquishment of this notion came the gradual realization
-that they might never be able to take up again that shoulder to
-shoulder independence which had seemed so fine while it lasted. Miles
-from now on was the provider--she and her child the dependents. She
-discovered that he had seen this more clearly than she from the
-beginning.
-
-He ceased to take an interest in himself at all. His mind settled into
-a hopeless groove of dogged, disinterested work. To see him pick up
-a book and lay it aside was a gesture that came to hold a veritable
-sense of tragedy for her. To watch the effect of a fine play upon him
-was pathetic. While its beauty filled him with happiness, he dared
-not allow himself to be lifted too far into that rarified atmosphere.
-He ventured no opinions about any of the hundreds of stimulating
-personalities who were coming up on the horizon of culture everywhere.
-Poetry he spoke of with whimsical condescension, even with contempt. It
-seemed to him an impudent excrescence, a meaningless dream that had no
-right to existence in a life of reality.
-
-All this came more swiftly than she knew, occupied as she was with the
-absorbing bit of life under her care. In three years she thought she
-scarcely knew Miles. The poems he had shown her that night before the
-baby’s coming were often in her hands, though she dared not mention
-them to him. They were as fine as they had been then. Could this
-plodding man--who loved her still with a desperate, clinging love, a
-love, as it seemed, that was the breath of his life--be the same man
-who had written them? And was it possible that he must stop that divine
-occupation for no other reason than that three people had to live? The
-future seems short when life is meaningless and tiresome, and we become
-seized with a fierce impatience. Moira fought against a feeling that
-they were old and life was declining to its end....
-
-An ominous fact was apparent. In spite of Harlindew’s devotion to work
-at the office he was achieving very little. He had reached a certain
-point and come to a standstill. His salary, large according to the
-ideas with which he had begun, was a dwindling insufficiency when it
-came to paying their bills. He was beginning to be afraid that he
-might never go farther. She remembered now a saying that Barcroft had
-repeated to her: “Push may start behind, but it’s got brains beat all
-hollow in the end.” He was referring to the kind of brains Miles had,
-theoretic and literary. Miles himself tried to explain his predicament
-in words of much the same import. There was a “point of saturation,”
-he said, in salaries and advancement, unless you “got outside and went
-after the business.” Apparently that was what he could not do.
-
-At the same time, an incredible number of new expenses, roundly
-chargeable to the item named “baby” had absorbed all their early
-savings except a few hundred dollars, which she jealously kept--not so
-much in fear of an emergency, as with the hope that it might be the
-magic key to open the door to some way out of their life. But she went
-into this treasure to buy Miles decent business suits. They were both
-behind in similar comforts and vanities.
-
-Harlindew seemed to resent any invasion of his evenings, to prefer
-to sit with her and his thoughts. Yet in reality he was full of an
-enormous restlessness to which he dared not surrender. The office
-needed all his energy; he could not spend it. So he thought.... Moira
-would take the bored man out whenever her maid would stay, trying to
-revive the spirit of their old comradeship. It came to life only in
-rare flashes.
-
-Her twenty-eighth year passed. She found herself with more freedom on
-her hands now, and she obtained work from Elsie Jennings which brought
-in a few dollars a week. She was not sure which feeling was uppermost
-in Miles, his pleasure at seeing the money or his disgust at finding
-her painting silly gift cards. Her painting, the fact that she had
-always kept it up to some extent, was his consolation, a vicarious
-substitute for his own emptiness.... But the money made them more
-comfortable.
-
-Then she discovered that she was going to have another baby. He took
-the announcement casually, even with a joke.
-
-“By Jove, my dear,” he said, “I’m succeeding in something, anyway.”
-
-He sat down and chuckled to himself. Three things had struck him as
-very funny. One was that he had never in his life pictured himself as
-a prolific father--like his own father; another was that he would be
-thirty-seven that week--and the third that he had come home to tell
-Moira his salary had been cut.
-
-She dropped quickly, beseechingly beside him, disliking the sound of
-his laugh.
-
-“What’s the matter, darling, is it too much?”
-
-He put his arms across her shoulders in an accustomed gesture.
-
-“No, no, dear. How absurd. I’m as glad as I can be.”
-
-He laughed again, attempting naturalness, and ruffled his hair with a
-sudden motion of his hand. But she felt the husband slipping from her
-grasp, turning defiantly before her eyes into the vagrant poet....
-
-
-
-
-XXI
-
-
-They moved again, the landlord uptown having raised the rent at the
-expiration of their lease. The new place was in two large, bare rooms
-four stories up, lighted by gas, and without any kitchen except a
-small gas stove in a corner and some shelves concealed by a wall-board
-screen. There was a dilapidated bathroom, and a roof above where she
-could take the children in good weather. The place was in the Italian
-quarter and was cheap. The move seemed a logical one to Moira, for it
-brought them down in the social scale. If they were to be poor, it was
-better to live with the poor than with the pretentious. And the Italian
-section was in the Village, of which they had both become incurably
-fond, and where for many reasons they felt most comfortable.
-
-The house was managed by an Italian woman named Respetti, who had
-once done odd jobs of sewing for Moira and for whom she felt a strong
-liking. Mrs. Respetti had appeared to be quite overjoyed to see her
-again, delighted to hear of her marriage and her children, and had
-offered to help her look after them when she could. Her willingness in
-this regard was the deciding factor in Moira’s choice of the house.
-
-She had not been installed there more than a few weeks when Miles
-finally lost his job outright, an event she had anticipated almost
-any day since before the birth of her little girl. He made efforts to
-obtain work of the same kind, but unsuccessfully. He got books for
-review. He did whatever came along. One day he brought her a check
-signed by his father. He began shortly afterwards to be somewhat
-worse than idle, and sought forgetfulness of his troubles in a way to
-increase them....
-
-Moira had lived to see three men in him: the skylarking poet, the
-dogged misfit in business, and finally the self-drugged and nearly
-self-convinced failure. And still the vision of the first one haunted
-her and she hoped to bring it back to life.
-
-Left to herself, she made friendships in the Village and built up
-her own income to fairly respectable proportions. She was, at least,
-preserved from downright anxiety about the children. In her youth at
-Thornhill, had she witnessed the privations and makeshifts which now
-made up her life she would have thought them a chapter out of some
-incredible tale of human misfortune.
-
-One night when she had waited late for Miles and he had not come, she
-went to Sophie’s Kitchen.
-
-This was a dimly lighted little restaurant, with two rows of board
-tables down each wall, and an exotically foreign air, where the food
-was well-flavoured and not so expensive as in most of the show
-places of the section. She was very fond of Sophie, the proprietress,
-a whole-souled woman, discriminating in her intimates, with a soft,
-pleasing voice, and remarkably long, narrow hazel eyes.
-
-As Moira seated herself at one of the tables she was conscious of a
-fashionable party across the room. Such people were not unusual in
-Sophie’s and she paid little attention to them. She saw the handsome
-proprietress in the open pantry at the back of the room and waved
-to her with a cry of greeting. Sophie replied by calling her name.
-Immediately afterward, Moira looked up to see a man coming toward her
-from the group she had spotted upon entering. He reached her table and
-thrust out his hand.
-
-“Well, Rob Blaydon!” she cried.
-
-“Moira.”
-
-She had recognized him at once, but she looked him over more carefully
-as he sat down opposite her. He was stouter. She found herself
-experiencing a sensation she had never known before, that of meeting a
-youthful companion grown mature in her absence, one she was fond of. It
-wasn’t such an extraordinary sensation. It might have been only a few
-days ago when she was seeing Rob constantly. Nothing happened to people
-at all. Perhaps his face had changed a little, but whatever change
-there was she would have expected. Yes, she felt he was an even more
-wicked and human Rob than before.
-
-“I’ll tell you what, Moira,” he went on at once. “I don’t care what
-you’ve got on hand to-night, you’ve got to spend the evening with me.
-If you will wait just a minute I’ll get away from these people on some
-pretext. I’ve simply got to talk to you, Moira. What do you say?”
-
-“Go ahead, Rob, if you want to. I’d love it,” she replied with
-unaffected pleasure.
-
-He came back in a few moments.
-
-“Evidently they are used to your whims,” she said. “They don’t seem to
-mind.”
-
-“Forget ’em,” he replied, with a clipped ruthlessness she remembered
-well.
-
-The two women had in fact glanced at her curiously and critically,
-but she did not care. They were certainly a very smart party. She
-wondered what they would think if they knew that she, too, not so
-many years ago, had worn the clothes they were wearing and cultivated
-their dry, sophisticated smiles. It appeared to her now a diluted and
-uninteresting sophistication....
-
-“Moira,” he was saying, “I’ve got to know all about you. I’m hungry for
-information. You don’t look any younger. But you don’t look any the
-worse, either. What wouldn’t they give back home to be with me now!”
-
-“Rob, it’s good to see you!”
-
-“Honest? Well, I’m certainly glad you feel that way. Still, I always
-knew you’d be just the same. Why did you do it, Moira? Why in the devil
-did you do it?”
-
-“Do what?”
-
-“Oh, all that--rot. It was silly, Moira. You’re one of us, to this day.
-Always will be, you know. Who cared?”
-
-She laughed a few notes of warm laughter that was still a clear stream
-free from the sediment of bitterness.
-
-“I never think of that any more. Perhaps it was silly. But I’ve been
-happier.”
-
-“H’m.” She was conscious that his eyes searched her face, and rather
-proud that what he found there would make it impossible to pity her.
-“H’m,” he repeated, “well, maybe you have. I guess you know a lot.”
-
-“How are they, Rob? I’d like to see them all. I really would. Goodness,
-it’s been ten years! How’s Hal?”
-
-There was no challenge in the tone--it was just a natural question.
-
-“You haven’t heard about Hal? Well, Hal is in China. Been there for
-six years and I reckon he won’t come home. You know he looked high
-and low for you--thought he was going out of his mind. There were
-difficulties, you understand, or perhaps you counted on them. Fear
-of publicity--truth leaking out--abduction--shouting your name from
-the house-tops. But he wore himself out. Then one night he came home,
-and broke down. Well, he told me he guessed it was better the way it
-turned out--that he admired you and knew you’d never be moved. Thought
-after what happened you’d never feel right. My God, you high and mighty
-idealists!”
-
-“Is he happy?”
-
-“I don’t know. Hal and I were always so confounded different, it’s
-hard for me to get him. He wasn’t cut out to be happy or the opposite.
-He’s turned out one of those quiet, square-jawed gumps, Moira. I met
-him in Paris two years ago, and we had a rotten dull time of it. I
-suppose he’ll mope around the Orient the rest of his life, working for
-corporations, get richer and richer and marry somebody’s sister equally
-rich. Now, I’m another breed of coyote. I’m always satisfied when I
-have a clean shirt on. It’s the thoughtless life I like.”
-
-“I’m sorry Hal isn’t happy,” said Moira ruefully.
-
-“I wouldn’t be sorry about him!” snapped Rob. “Damn it, Moira, I don’t
-say you weren’t clever as the devil. But if Hal had been me I’d have
-found you.”
-
-“You’re the same Rob!” she laughed. “You know, of course, you’re
-the only one of them I could have run into this way and talked to
-comfortably. And the others--how are they? Your father I”--she dropped
-her voice--“read about in the papers.”
-
-“Poor Dad. He must have felt he was buncoed sometime or other in his
-life. He tried to overcrowd the last few years. I think Aunt Mathilda
-felt he went off about in time.... Those two old women--I mean your
-mother, Moira, and my aunt. It’s a curious friendship that’s grown up
-between them. They keep that big house together and think mostly about
-cows and flowers--and old times.”
-
-She did not reply to that nor look at him directly. She was glad when
-he burst out in a more immediate vein.
-
-“Well, what do you say to a night of it? I find it’s a dull world,
-Moira. You may have more money than I have, and it may bore you to do
-the bright lights ... but that’s my form of entertainment. However, I’m
-only going to do what you say. It’s your night. But I don’t imagine you
-want me to take you to church!”
-
-“I haven’t money,” she answered, smiling. “I never have a night of it,
-Rob. I’d love one.”
-
-“Good! Come on.”
-
-“No. I want you to wait here while I change. These clothes won’t do.”
-
-“Just as you say. But can’t I take you--wherever it is you go to change
-your clothes?”
-
-“What’s the use?” she queried, tentatively, as much to herself as to
-him. “No, I’d rather you wouldn’t.”
-
-“Just as you say.”
-
-“Rob, you’re a dear. In fifteen minutes I’ll be back. Meantime you talk
-to Sophie. Oh, Sophie,” she called, and while she waited for Sophie to
-come, she added, “Sophie will like you fine. She might even put you on
-the poor list.”
-
-“What’s that?”
-
-“Sophie has a sliding scale of prices. But that’s a secret.”
-
-Moira’s one black evening gown was rather old, but she felt
-extraordinarily happy as she stepped out of the restaurant a little
-later on his arm. The sweet, leathery smell of the taxicab’s interior
-held almost a new shiver for her. How long it had been since she had
-smelled that with a good conscience and seen the lights of the little
-squares and the upper Avenue slip by like a single glittering chain,
-to the slinky whirr of wheels. She looked forward to the evening for
-itself--its adventure in colours--and for Rob. She begged him not to
-ask her questions, not until they had had a few dances and found a
-quiet corner after the fun.
-
-“I see,” he said. “You’re starved for a fling--even if you won’t let
-on.”
-
-“I am--with you.”
-
-“No kidding? But I guess you always did like me pretty well. You
-used to be my only champion. And I needed one often. Well, I’m an
-unrepentant sinner.”
-
-After dining they took in a part of the Follies and then went to dance.
-It was the same, she found, here as it had been at home. Whenever
-they stopped, at the Tom-Tom and La Fleur de Nuit, he was known and
-served like the old-timers. She begged him to go on drinking while she
-skipped, and he did so without apology, explaining that it was his
-forte. She wondered at his power of absorbing continuously without the
-trembling of an eyelash. It pleased her to meet admiring eyes, and be
-asked to dance by his friends.
-
-He steered her afterward to a place furnished like a very intimate
-club, where they sat in deep armchairs under dim lights and had
-scrambled eggs and bacon on little French stands. There she took a long
-Scotch highball and told him something of herself.
-
-“Moira,” he said. “It’s a weird sensation to listen to such a tale from
-you. You belong in this sort of thing.” He indicated the too elegant
-room.
-
-She rose to go.
-
-“It’s better fun to feel you belong in the whole crazy world. I wonder
-if you do?”
-
-She laughed and then added with a sudden burst of bravado: “Rob, I’d
-like to take you home and let you see my kids. I’d like to to-night.
-Could you come?”
-
-“Yep. I get a train out of here at nine in the morning and there’s more
-than six hours to make it.”
-
-She felt it was an odd experience for him climbing up the dark, gas-lit
-stairs. She led him back to the cribs with candelabra in her hand,
-and he looked longest at the blond-haired little Joanna, seeing in
-her broad, upturned, warm face some misty resemblance to his earliest
-vision of her mother.
-
-“They’re great kids, Moira. But I won’t bluff--I like ’em all best when
-they’re asleep.”
-
-They came out into the shadowy, haphazard studio, and she knew he felt
-uneasy and shocked at her surroundings.
-
-“Well,” he said coolly, “of course you’re going to let me help you.
-I’ve got plenty--more than is good for me--and nobody has more right to
-it than you. If you say so, I’ll ditch that train to-morrow and have
-you out of here by noon with the children, into a comfortable place.”
-
-“No, sir,” she laughed.
-
-“But, my God!” he protested, and then added severely. “Moira, I told
-you early in the evening you looked none the worse for everything....
-But you do--you look peaked. You’re fagged.”
-
-“Who wouldn’t be, after a night of it with you! No, no, you dear boy.
-But we’ll have a night of it again.”
-
-“Thanks for that.”
-
-“And only with you, Rob,” she continued, with emphasis. He caught the
-hint that he was to keep the secret of her whereabouts.
-
-“Just as you say. I shan’t talk. But I’m going to get you out of this,
-somehow, sometime. I can’t tell you where to reach me, to-night, except
-that Thornhill does, in a roundabout way. I’m going to locate in the
-East in a few days and you’ll hear from me. I’m going now. There’s no
-use talking, Moira, this pulls me down”--he made a gesture with his
-hand about the room and then added apologetically--“Don’t be offended.
-It’s just because it happens to be you.”
-
-As he stood awkwardly, with hat and stick under one arm, he took out a
-long box of cigarettes and threw it on the table.
-
-“At least let me give you those,” he said with a sheepish grin.
-
-“Rob, please don’t worry about me,” she pleaded. She stepped toward
-the table to take a cigarette from the box he had thrown down, but his
-outstretched arm stopped her.
-
-“Here,” he said, offering his opened case, “take one of these....
-Moira, you’re the woman who makes all my conceptions about the sex go
-blooey. Damn it, I wish I were Harold. I wish I had some prior rights
-in the matter.”
-
-“You’ve more rights this minute than Hal,” she said firmly.
-
-After he had gone she sat puffing smoke into the dim upper reaches of
-the room, and watching the petals of candlelight waver and dip. What
-fun it had been! Life held strange meetings. Perhaps it held many more
-for her. She was a little unhappy, dissatisfied ... the place did look
-dismal, unclean, comfortless.
-
-In the morning she found Miles pacing the studio waiting for her to
-rise. He was nervous and evasive, but in better shape than she had
-expected to see him. Obviously, he had done his recovering elsewhere,
-and bathed while she slept. She kissed him, her quarrel with him lost
-in pleasant afterthoughts of the night before, but he seemed troubled
-and strange. At breakfast, he suddenly asked:
-
-“What the devil is this?”
-
-“What?”
-
-He tossed a Pall Mall cigarette box across the table and she opened it.
-The silver paper was folded carefully over the top. Between it and the
-bottom layer of cigarettes lay five one hundred dollar bills.
-
-“It’s a long story,” she said, recovering from her surprise. Then she
-told him about Rob. He stood up to go after she had finished.
-
-“Well,” he said, with some embarrassment, “I do hope you feel it’s a
-perfectly natural thing for a fellow to open a box of cigarettes lying
-around on a table. I mean to say--”
-
-“Nonsense. I should have done it myself.”
-
-Miles left her, to go to his accumulated work, bitterly, she knew, and
-more completely convinced of his uselessness. She sat down to try to
-think out what was to be done. The owner of the five hundred had taken
-his train long ago. She did not know where to reach him, and if she
-did, it would be downright mean to send the money back. She remembered
-how he had prevented her from opening the box before he had left her.
-The money was not there by accident. Rob was her schoolboy friend.
-Perhaps she was only giving herself an excuse, but what good would her
-self-righteousness do to temper the hurt she knew he would feel? She
-would accept his gift simply and with thanks. Besides, she had a plan.
-On the children’s account, on Miles’, on her own, she had long been
-wanting to put it into execution. This money would enable her to do so,
-beautifully and without a hitch.
-
-
-
-
-XXII
-
-
-In the open country near a southern village of Connecticut, not over a
-brisk morning’s walk to the Sound, sat a smallish farmhouse which was
-probably a century old. It was an innocent and ordinary enough looking
-house from the road. It topped a swell of land that was somewhat higher
-than its immediate surroundings and bare of large trees except for a
-single magnificent elm halfway between the house and the road. The
-lawn was allowed to grow wild, but nearer the house and covering the
-approach to its graceful old doorway were several shrubs in more or
-less cultivated condition placed on a few feet of clipped sod. In the
-spring the lawn and the fields which rolled out downward from the house
-were thickly starred with buttercups whose tiny yellow bowls glistened
-like lacquered buttons in the sun. Later the same meadows turned to a
-waving lake of red clover.
-
-Potter Osprey, when upbraided by his friends for not making more of
-his handful of acres, declared he was no gardener. He could neither
-adorn nature nor gain his feed from her by his own hands, for she was a
-wild beast whose moods and colours and contours he had struggled with
-all his life, and there was no quarter between them. To all offers to
-prettify her in his immediate neighbourhood he was politely deaf. He
-wanted her rugged and plain as his plastic, solid canvases liked to
-interpret her, and that way he could love her as one loves a worthy foe.
-
-On the house itself he had lavished more care. Eight years of his own
-proprietorship had made it, without any great loss of its ancient
-character, a place of personal charm inside. In the rear the hill
-fell sharply from the foundation, and here he had built up a broad
-concrete terrace, looking northward to an unbroken view of horizon
-and low hills. Above the terrace for ten or twelve feet in height and
-almost as wide, rose a vertical sheet of heavy, transparent glass in
-narrow panels, and this gave light to a large room, which had been made
-by knocking out walls and upper flooring so that half of it was two
-stories high. The house practically consisted of this room, a cellar
-under it, and some small bedrooms above. Outhouse and kitchen stepped
-away to the west.
-
-From Osprey’s north terrace could be seen a smaller house on the
-eastern slope, nestling in a very old, gnarled and worn-out orchard.
-Some of its trees reminded one of those anatomical designs in
-physiological books; they were half bare-branched skeleton and half
-green, waving body.
-
-To the larger house Moira Harlindew came one morning in answer to an
-advertisement in a New York paper, describing a “small, furnished
-house in the country with conveniences.”
-
-She was admitted by the painter himself, a man of medium height, who
-showed his fifty years more in his figure, his careless gait, and
-the way he wore his old clothes, than in the face, which was of no
-definite age, so Moira thought. What lines had been worn upon it made
-the man seem more youthful. The eyes were candid and reposeful, but
-extremely responsive to passing moods. This she detected in his look
-of anxiety as he first opened the door for her, and in the evident
-relief that followed his swift inspection. The mouth, under a gray
-wisp of moustache that tended to turn upwards at the ends, slanted a
-bit so that more than half of the smile was on one side. There was a
-suggestion of the satirical in it. Yet Moira found the face, on the
-whole, a pleasant one to look at, especially when he had recovered his
-composure and was welcoming her.
-
-“Come in,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
-
-“I’ve come to see the house for rent.”
-
-“Good. You’re early. I hardly expected any answers to-day before
-noon. It’s quite a little way to come from the city, you know. By the
-way, I’m at my breakfast. Suppose you come along and sit down while I
-finish. Do you mind?”
-
-He led her into the studio and she sank into a large chair, a little
-tired after the long, warm walk from the station. She felt instantly
-and completely happy. The big room, with its cool, even light, its
-smell of wood and paint, and its thousand and one objects familiar
-and dear to her trade, drove everything else from her mind, even the
-anxiety she had felt lest the place be taken--for it was Monday morning
-and all day Sunday had elapsed since she had seen the advertisement. He
-noticed her fatigue and glanced at her dusty shoes.
-
-“You’ve walked up,” he exclaimed, surprised. “Well, perhaps you will
-join me.” He sat down before a low table which gleamed with silver and
-yellow china. “Coffee? My morning tipple is tea, but Nana always has
-some coffee because she loves it herself.”
-
-“If you really have it,” said Moira, “I’d like some coffee.”
-
-A large, impassive negress soon served her.
-
-“It isn’t much of a house you’re going to see,” he went on. “I call
-it the orchard bungalow and it is nearly as decrepit as the orchard
-itself. But it will shed the rain.”
-
-“And it’s not taken?” asked Moira warmly.
-
-“Well, no--not exactly. But I’m afraid it’s too--well, unpretentious
-for you.”
-
-“It couldn’t be that,” she laughed. As he finished his toast her gaze
-went on embracing the room with frank pleasure, and she was aware he
-took sly glances at her.
-
-“Do you paint?” he asked suddenly.
-
-Moira had been afraid of the question. Though her host had only given
-his last name she had read it on pictures in the studio, and knew
-now that he was an American painter of reputation whose work she had
-worried over at various exhibitions. She felt extremely humble, but her
-fear arose from the suspicion that a successful painter might object to
-having irresponsible and immature dabblers running about in his near
-neighbourhood. She could not hide in the immediate safety of a lie.
-Eventually that would be found out, though it tempted her.
-
-“I’m just a student,” she replied, and went on quickly, “but the real
-reason I want a country place is because I’ve two young children. Do
-you mind that? I’m sure they will not bother you.”
-
-“Not at all,” he said cordially. “On the contrary.... However,” he
-added, rising, “I think we had better look at this humble dwelling
-before you grow too enthusiastic, my dear young lady.”
-
-As Moira had entered the place, her mind’s eye had pictured the
-four-year-old Miles playing among those buttercups, and learning
-things he might never get to know if he grew much older in the city.
-Now every step confirmed her in the desire to live here at any cost.
-The nostalgia for Thornhill which she had felt in many a solitary hour
-during these last ten years, together with a flood of early memories,
-swept over her. The orchard, upon which a few apple blossoms lingered,
-was enchantingly old and weird. Standing in the high grass beneath
-it one could see a pattern of winding stone fences crisscrossing the
-fields, and up a near-by hill danced three pale birches like a trio of
-white-legged girls with green veils trailing about them. Even a bit of
-decayed brown board by the path made her sentimental. She wanted to run
-after a butterfly or to lie full length in the grass of the meadow,
-letting the sun drink her up....
-
-The house was small, but a moment’s speculation and mental
-rearrangement convinced her that it was adequate. She and the genial
-owner found themselves making plans together for the comfort of the
-Harlindew family.
-
-“I don’t see what you are going to do with your maid,” said he, “unless
-she sleeps on the couch out here in the sitting room.”
-
-“I shan’t have a maid,” Moira replied, and he looked at her with
-another of his glances of wondering curiosity.
-
-“But,” he began, and then stopped, thinking better of what he had
-intended to say. “Well, there’s my Nana. She often has time lying heavy
-on her hands and she doesn’t object to an occasional extra fee. No
-doubt she can help you.”
-
-“Oh, that will be splendid,” she cried. The suggestion did solve a
-minor problem in her mind, but she had no patience just now with minor
-problems. “I love the old furniture you have in here.”
-
-“Most of it was here when I came, in the house up above. I made one
-room out of three when I built the studio, and these are the handful
-of pieces I could not use. If you haven’t enough, there are a few more
-odds and ends stored away.”
-
-“You’re going to let me take it, then?” asked Moira breathlessly.
-
-He seemed surprised at the question, as though the matter had been
-settled between them, and then laughed.
-
-“I’ll tell you the truth now, Mrs. Harlindew. There have been several
-other applicants but I put them off somehow--I didn’t like any of
-them.... But!” he exclaimed suddenly--“but my dear girl! Well, well!”
-
-She was crying after all, as she had feared she would in the orchard,
-ten minutes before. Tears that she could not keep back rolled down her
-smiling cheeks....
-
-
-
-
-XXIII
-
-
-Moira’s hope had been that their move to the country would bring Miles
-to his senses. With nothing to do but rest and lose himself in the
-beauty and peace of outdoors, with not even the responsibility, for
-some months at least, to earn any money, she confidently believed he
-would drop the habits which had regained their hold upon him of late,
-get possession of his impulse to work, and begin to write the things of
-which she dreamed he was capable. And in the beginning each day after
-they arrived confirmed her hope. He seemed to cast heavy burdens from
-his shoulders and his mind, to love spending hours with the children,
-romping and making the place merry with their laughter and his. From
-time to time he wandered off alone with his pockets stuffed with paper,
-boyishly promising great results, or stayed up with the lamp at night.
-When they had been there no more than ten days it seemed already a long
-time ago that their lives had changed and taken a turn for the better.
-She was for that ten days serenely happy.
-
-Then the country began to pall on Miles. He grew restless and evasive;
-at breakfast he would hint at various reasons for going to New York.
-When their second week end came around he managed a convincing excuse
-and disappeared with a small handbag full of over-night clothing.
-
-Moira’s heart sank at this unexpected turn of affairs, and she spent
-the days in his absence giving way to more real despair than she
-had ever known with him. This time she had done her best, done what
-a little while ago she would have thought impossible, and she had
-failed....
-
-He seemed to come back passionately eager to see her, and so long as he
-did that she could only surrender to him and see in him still her lover
-and her first lover, her lover for all time. But these waves of passion
-died away; her presence and the children’s began to irk him in a day
-or two, sometimes in a few hours, and it soon appeared to her that he
-regarded a week as an interminable visit.
-
-She set herself to observing him, to studying his chance remarks, and
-for the first time a genuine doubt of his fidelity oppressed her. There
-was nothing tangible, except his trips to the city, to justify this
-suspicion, and these would have been inadequate despite his evasions.
-She could quite naturally think of him as being restless, as wanting
-to go away, without dreaming that he would belie her faith in him.
-The suspicion of infidelity came before the evidence, but once the
-suspicion was lodged in her mind, the evidence, all unconsciously
-furnished by Miles, piled up by little and little.
-
-She saw that this warmth of love-making with which he returned to her
-did not last an hour. Bitter thoughts assailed her. Evidently he was
-not always successful with his hypothetical sweetheart or sweethearts
-and was driven back to his wife. She could not keep fantastic
-exaggerations out of her head, though in her sober moments she told
-herself that the truth, if probably serious, was far less florid than
-she imagined.
-
-Nevertheless, there grew upon her an increasing repugnance toward
-his advances. She made no issue of it. She did not want conflict.
-He was very appealing, very hard on her sympathies, very skilful in
-inventions. She could not quickly forget that he had suffered and
-struggled while he still loved her. But her inescapable conclusion,
-reached in hours of cold reflection, was that they were parting; that
-sooner or later an end would come. She determined not to invite it
-so long as her pride was not sacrificed; to wait for it sensibly and
-coolly.
-
-Another explanation of Miles’ conduct brought a curious sort of
-consolation and corrective. This was that he simply wanted to be
-free--but did not have the strength. The opportunity had been placed in
-his way to leave, and, feeling himself ultimately unequal to marriage
-and its burdens and limitations, he believed he ought to take it. His
-love still held him tenuously to her and the children, his sentiment
-for their past together, his need for a woman’s support--whatever
-it was--and he could not find the courage to make the break. He
-had probably been strengthened in entertaining this purpose by the
-knowledge that somebody had turned up from Thornhill, and she would be
-taken care of. Much as that base notion offended her, this last theory
-was frankly pleasing. It was better than the thought of betrayal with
-another woman.
-
-By the time she had reached this state of enlightenment she was so
-skilled in reading poor Miles’ motives that she felt as though she had
-acquired supernatural powers of clairvoyance. The summer was more than
-half gone.
-
-But she had not thought exclusively of Miles. She had the children to
-care for and teach a whole new set of fascinating things, and she had
-her painting. The opportunity presented by these untrammelled days was
-not to be lost over heart-burnings, and a new power and certainty had
-come to her. She wasted less time carrying her attempts to the last
-degree of finish. She was trying by experiment after experiment to
-get the feel and solidity of the earth and to express her warm daily
-contact with it.
-
-She had been very timid toward Osprey where painting was concerned. She
-had resolved never to speak to him about it and to keep out of his way
-while she was at it. One ought not to expect to rent the cottage of a
-famous painter and have advice thrown in. But it was he who sought
-her in the orchard one morning and made comments for which she was
-grateful, because she understood them and could profit by them, and
-also because they were not uncomplimentary.
-
-“Most of us,” he said, “gamble frightfully in choosing art as a career.
-That’s why there are so many hopeless artists. We mistake an urge for a
-talent, and the devil of it is there is no sure way of knowing whether
-we’re on the right road or not. But I think you are. In the first place
-you have the steady enthusiasm and not just mere plugging industry.
-In the second place you are a self-teacher. Everybody worth a hang is
-that.”
-
-They were the first really golden words she had ever heard, and she
-was certain afterward that simply hearing them had improved her work
-miraculously--made her surer of the knowledge she had gained and helped
-her to discard excrescences.
-
-Osprey had few visitors. Perhaps twice a year a gathering of
-extraordinary individuals with whom he had consorted at various periods
-and in many parts of the world crowded into the house, took possession
-of it, kept up a racket until morning and departed, leaving him with a
-few more intimate cronies, some to recover from the effects and others
-simply to prolong the reunion. These entertainments occurred usually
-in the early spring or fall, the seasons of change when people come
-together most spontaneously. And they were spontaneous. He had no use
-for set affairs.
-
-On rare occasions women drove out to see him, for luncheon or tea; and
-he himself went to town about once a month, seldom remaining longer
-than over night. He seemed to have cultivated not only the love of
-solitude, but the power to enjoy it for long periods.
-
-There was one visitor, however, who arrived often. Moira saw his heavy
-blue roadster drawn up beside the lawn three times during the first
-month of her stay, and she wondered who the impressive man was, with
-short grey curly hair, and the easy bearing of accomplishment. She was
-not surprised to learn later that he was somebody--no less a person, in
-fact, than Emmet Roget, the producer, a man who was both a power in the
-business phase of the theatre and an artistic radical in his own right.
-
-The friendship between these two men appeared to be less extraordinary
-now than it had been in past years, but it was still a friendship in
-which a certain inequality was apparent. The rôle of Roget toward
-Osprey, during three-fourths of their adult lives, had been that of
-a detached but watchful guardian. A dozen years ago Osprey had been
-something of a riderless horse, a centre of explosions, the victim of
-unexpected mishaps and misunderstandings, constantly involved with a
-woman, and taking his affairs with desperate seriousness, careless
-of his talent and his time. Much of this relationship he skilfully
-suggested to her himself, in his humorously philosophic moments.
-
-As he put it, he was born somewhere between his thirty-eighth and his
-fortieth year, and began to live his life in a sense backward; for
-though he went on having experiences it was always something in his
-life before his thirty-eighth year that he seemed to be living over
-in these experiences, and relishing where he previously had suffered.
-The actual occasion of the change had been a painful separation from
-the last of his devastating loves, and more or less complete celibacy
-since. The result was a fresh joy in work, a really enormous volume of
-production ... peace and contentment and plenty.
-
-The life of Emmet Roget had been exactly the antithesis. He was
-penniless in his youth. No sooner had he reached New York--to which
-initial step Osprey had assisted him--than he began to have means
-for his needs. At twenty-nine he left Europe, after having immersed
-himself in as much of French culture as an able young foreigner can
-obtain with diligence and enthusiasm, and studied the beginnings of the
-German theatre movement. A season was spent directing a Denver “little
-theatre,” but the provinces offered too little future and freedom. Once
-more in New York, Roget was designing sets and directing productions.
-In his late thirties he was instituting new methods into the theatre
-which were hailed and copied abroad.
-
-Many regarded Emmet Roget as primarily a “man for the future,” yet to
-him the present seemed invariably kind. Unlike his friend, nothing
-touched him; but whatever he touched gained from his personality,
-took on fascination and beauty. Hard at the core, immovable and
-unimpressionable, he was yet acutely sensitive, capable of profound
-appreciations, for music, for colour, for a scene, a woman--and
-surprisingly human in his contacts. No doubt it was this intuitive
-appreciation, coupled with early friendship, which had made him cling
-to Osprey through many hopeless seasons and experiments.
-
-The first two or three times that Roget visited him that summer, Osprey
-did not refer to his new tenants except casually. Later, however, when
-he had had a half dozen talks with Moira, he introduced the subject to
-his friend at the dinner table.
-
-“That’s rather a remarkable young woman I’ve got down there in the
-orchard,” he said. “Did I tell you that she painted?”
-
-“I believe so--something of the kind,” replied Roget. He had met with
-his share of disillusionment among his own protégés, and he was not
-given to more than passing interest in the mere fact that a young woman
-painted.
-
-“Well,” pursued Osprey, “I’ve got something to show you after dinner.”
-
-When they had finished he led the producer to a picture on the studio
-wall and switched on a light he had put up to illuminate it.
-
-“That’s one of hers,” he said. “I think there are extraordinarily good
-things in it as well as bad. At all events, I liked it so well I bought
-it.”
-
-Roget studied the picture for a moment, but without enthusiasm.
-
-“Yes,” he said. “Obviously you’ve influenced her already, or she’s
-known your work for some time.”
-
-“I don’t think it’s so obvious,” protested the other. “There’s personal
-insight in that modelling, and it has a back to it. Anyway, she’s
-young. Fact is, there’s something really unusual about the girl. I
-fancy she had things her own way at one time. The marks are there,
-overlaid by experience since.”
-
-“Of course,” laughed Roget quietly, “it makes a difference if you know
-the young lady.”
-
-“Hang it, my dear fellow, the girl is poor. Has two children, and a
-husband who may be talented and may be a fool. But he’s certainly no
-support.”
-
-“Charity and art do not mix, old man.”
-
-“The hell they don’t,” replied Osprey testily. “But as you say,
-one must see for oneself. You are going to make Mrs. Harlindew’s
-acquaintance, and whatever you think of charity, you will buy a picture
-from her as a favour to me. Not too soon, you understand, and not too
-obtrusively. She shied at me frightfully when I bought this one. I had
-to tell her that I had made quite a collection of the work of promising
-beginners for reasons of my own.”
-
-Roget found his friend nearly always transparent. Ten years ago he
-would have said there was considerably more than the mere fervour of
-the artist in this championship. But he had since become acquainted
-with a wholly new side of the man, and it was difficult to believe him
-capable of losing his head over a pretty bride who happened to rent his
-house.
-
-“You say she is married?” he contented himself with asking, dryly.
-
-A flicker of humorous comprehension passed over the other’s face.
-
-“Yes,” he replied shortly, “but the fellow neglects her.”
-
-Roget’s manner became once more indulgent.
-
-“Well, I shall try to buy this picture. I don’t know what to do with it
-after I get it. There are mighty few pictures worth buying. Perhaps not
-more than twenty in the world.”
-
-He dismissed the subject and sat down at Osprey’s piano. His study of
-the instrument had come late, in young manhood. Lacking any great
-musical scholarship or conventional training, he nevertheless played
-whatever he had heard that pleased him, with extraordinary tenderness
-and effect.
-
-
-
-
-XXIV
-
-
-For Moira the summer grew increasingly fruitful, and, in a reflective
-way, full of satisfactions, despite the continued absences of Miles.
-A profound sympathy came over her, which she did not remember to have
-experienced before, for the average discontented wife, who had to
-endure this sort of thing with empty hands and no refuge of the spirit
-in which to lose herself.... That could never be the case with her.
-
-It is true that she would have been less serene were it not for the
-fact that she had found companionship that answered a real want. Osprey
-had none of the qualifications of the teacher, and his criticisms
-struck deep. If she had been younger and greener they might only
-have puzzled and not helped her, but now she welcomed surgery and
-destruction. Her own hard years of unaided application rendered her
-capable of understanding his language remarkably well, and she was
-ready to discard and forget everything she had ever known.
-
-Their discussions were often continued after brushes were laid aside.
-She accepted invitations to tea in the studio or sat on his terrace
-on warm nights after the children were asleep. The long drawn out
-culmination of her relationship to Miles had given her the habit of
-self-analysis, and she laughed somewhat over the appeal that Osprey
-made to her as a man. She could not deny that it was the same that
-originally had drawn her to her husband. She dealt here with a greater
-Miles, wiser and more experienced. Nevertheless, she sensed in him the
-type that was not self-sufficient, that required sympathy of a subtle
-kind, and required it, when found, with an intensity that in this
-case was beginning to prove hypnotic to her. Unquestionably Potter
-Osprey was gradually becoming a necessary part of her life, and this
-was not her fault but his. She had hinted at, more than revealed, the
-state of affairs between herself and Miles. It was impossible not to
-do so, appearances being what they were; and the older man’s complete
-understanding coupled with hesitation to advise, was a soothing remedy
-to her hurts.
-
-The attraction which was growing between herself and Osprey was
-totally different from her feeling for his friend, Roget, with whom
-she had become acquainted. The distinguished producer treated her
-with bantering equality from the start. It was as if they recognized
-a likeness to each other in essential strength, and the hesitation,
-almost anxiety, which Roget had felt over the painter’s passionate
-adoption of Moira’s cause disappeared on knowing her. He began to
-think of the whole affair as a pleasant and lasting alliance for his
-friend, of some sort, and he little doubted of what sort it would be.
-Obstacles there were, which he did not concern himself with. Once a
-possibility took life in Roget’s brain, obstacles did not exist. He had
-seen too many large ones swept aside.
-
-To Moira, the obstacles were more significant, and yet they had
-diminished amazingly in the last three months. The prospect that Osprey
-would take their friendship seriously did have about it a quality of
-dark adventure which made even her steady pulses jump uncomfortably.
-But to the young woman who sees her marriage being slowly broken up
-before her eyes, while she is helpless to restore it, everything is
-touched by the shimmer of madness. And she asked herself what could
-have been more mad, more out of all normal reason, than her whole life?
-Moreover, she had a firm support now, one that gave her the strength
-to adventure--her art. The intimation had visited her at last that she
-might triumph in it; and, having reached that certainty, she felt it a
-more present help than coffers heaped with gold.... The picture which
-Roget had tried to buy she laughingly refused to sell him, but he had
-countered with a problem in stage design which he promised to accept if
-it offered a suggestion to work on. Here was a beginning, at least.
-
-Her children ... it was strange how she felt toward them, how little
-she feared for them. Certainly they were to be shielded, but also
-they were not to be deceived about the life into which they had been
-brought. The truth would not hurt them.
-
-It was late in September that Moira received the letter from Miles
-saying that he had left and would not return. The letter was a
-mixture of unhappy self-accusation, and charges against her for
-various shortcomings, chief of which appeared to be that she had
-become self-sufficient and had accepted assistance from others. She
-thought he might have spared her that, as well as the taunt about her
-preoccupation with Osprey.... She had expected a parting shot of some
-kind, yet when it came it was a painful blow, and she spent a week
-brooding over it and wholly beside herself.
-
-During this week Osprey saw nothing of her, and when she came up the
-hill one evening to join him, he revealed in his eagerness what the
-deprivation had meant. He led her to a seat, fussed about her comfort
-and lighted her cigarette.
-
-“I’ve been ill,” she said. “I go off and hide when that happens, like
-an animal. Now I’m well.”
-
-“Ill?” he asked, disturbed. He reflected that he should have been less
-squeamish and forced a visit upon her. He had never done just that.
-Invitations, dropped at chance meetings or at the end of discussions
-while they worked had been enough. This time he had gone a little
-further, approached her door on an impulse twice, but stopped before
-making his presence known. “But,” he resumed, “Nana didn’t tell me
-about your being ill. Did she take care of you?”
-
-Moira knew what was in his mind. While she had been ill, her husband
-had not been at home.
-
-“Well,” she confessed lightly, “ill is not strictly true. I’ve been
-just out of sorts. I had some news, but it doesn’t matter.”
-
-“Good. I’m glad you’re feeling better. Particularly, as Nana tells me,
-you’re expecting a guest to-morrow.”
-
-“Yes, an old friend, a Mr. Blaydon. An old schoolmate, really, who has
-been very kind to us.”
-
-“I wonder if you wouldn’t bring him and Mr. Harlindew to dinner
-to-morrow night? I shall be delighted to have you all; and as for Nana,
-she suggested it herself.”
-
-Miles had always been included in Osprey’s formal invitations, whether
-present or not, and had, in fact, attended once and contributed not
-unpleasantly to the evening.
-
-“I’m afraid I can’t promise for my husband,” said Moira slowly.
-
-“H’m. That’s too bad. But I can count on you and your friend, Mr.
-Blaydon, anyway?”
-
-“I should love to bring him,” she replied and paused.... It was better,
-she thought, to have matters understood.... “My husband ... won’t come
-back here,” she went on. “He has left me.”
-
-“It was that,” he asked kindly, “the news you had?”
-
-“Yes, he wrote me a letter.”
-
-Osprey spoke quietly but she was conscious of the emotion in his voice.
-
-“And you will accept that? You will not seek him, try to bring him
-back?”
-
-“No,” she replied. “Too much has happened before this. It is over.”
-
-“You poor girl. You’ve suffered over it.”
-
-“I put a good deal into it.... But this had to happen. Miles must have
-no ties.”
-
-Osprey’s animation returned and he spoke in a more impersonal tone.
-
-“Perhaps you’re right. I think the young man has not grown up in spite
-of his years. But he may find himself. They have a kind of strength,
-fellows like that, a kind of terrible strength that no one suspects.
-I’ve seen his type before. The fact is,” he added, with a half-serious
-smile, “I’ve been something of the sort myself. It’s often hard to
-locate the origin of a fool’s folly, but I think in my case it was an
-experience I had when I was a boy. It wasn’t a peccadillo with me. It
-haunted me for years, so much that I can’t talk freely about it to this
-day. It made life a desperate adventure; it was at the back of most of
-my troubles....” He laughed. “I seem like an old fool to be telling you
-all this. And truly my nightmares appear absurd to me now.”
-
-Moira laughed a little bitterly. “Something happened to me too when I
-was young.... But I am free.... I tore myself free from it.”
-
-“I thought so,” he said gently. “There is a great difference in our
-ages, but if I may say so, we seem to have--well, had something alike
-to face in life. No, I do not mean just that--it’s presumptuous. I have
-never, I think, before met any woman quite like you. Strength and the
-genius for insight, such as yours, rarely meet in the same body.”
-
-A hungry intensity in his words escaped him unawares. Though he had
-spoken nothing of significance, the feeling that shook him reached
-her through the dusk with sinister force. She had felt the same thing
-before and had had a momentary impulse to run, to break free from it.
-She did not want to be subjected to another tyranny of her emotions....
-Yet she had reasoned with herself. Here was a future that could in
-every sense be ideal, a man with whom she had everything in common and
-whom she knew she could trust....
-
-A moment later he changed the subject and she was glad.
-
-“By the way,” he said, “why not have your guest stay over, if he will?
-You know I’ve extra bedrooms, and there is no reason why he should not
-occupy one as long as he likes.”
-
-It was a point that had worried and embarrassed her, and she was
-inexpressibly pleased that he had thought of it.
-
-“You’re too good,” she said fervently, “and I would love to keep him.”
-
-They chatted on over impersonal shallows until the time came for her to
-return to the cottage.
-
-
-
-
-XXV
-
-
-As she left him that night she wondered if her conscience troubled her.
-She was certainly encouraging Osprey. Standing in her own sitting room,
-she recalled vividly how, when he took her hand in good-night, she had
-felt the fierce stream that poured through him, and her very silence
-had given him permission to unburden himself. She was thankful for his
-restraint. Moreover her silence had been the result of pleasure, and
-not mere lack of words. How little she had known of anything quite so
-contained and yet so overpowering in Miles.... She could respond to
-that, she knew: she had only to yield a little and she could respond.
-
-The thought of Osprey in this personal sense, of some one beside her
-husband in a personal sense, caused her to realize how much importance
-she had gone on attaching to Miles. How ridiculous and womanly of her!
-she reflected. Miles had taken his departure, and yet she had not until
-now seemed quite to believe in it. Perhaps even yet she did not believe
-in it. She had told Osprey that it was over; she kept repeating to
-herself that it was over. Everything pointed to it, Harlindew’s own
-unequivocal statement and her angry resentment of the manner of his
-desertion, particularly his letter. But in her real consciousness she
-had continued to expect his return ... during the whole of her talk
-with Osprey, Miles had been present as a reality--a definite bar--in
-her thought.
-
-But now a new thing happened to her. She suddenly faced her whole life
-spread out before her as on a single canvas, or rather as a continuing
-panorama--and not just one small segment of it. Miles had not been her
-whole life; he had been but a part. He might have continued to be that
-part indefinitely and still not become her whole life. She had been
-magnifying him until she had lost sight of the rest, all that other
-strange web of adventure and catastrophe which had included her birth,
-her childhood, her love for Hal, her tragic discovery, her runaway, her
-struggle to help herself.... That would go on, no matter what happened,
-whether Miles returned or stayed away, and it would go on according to
-her own terms.
-
-The notion of herself as an entity, surviving, growing, separate and
-alone, filled her for the first time with a curious excitement. It
-released so many fresh and irresistible currents within her. She began
-to think more consciously of other men, of Potter Osprey in particular.
-She rose and went out into the orchard. The painter had had constructed
-a table and seats for them earlier in the summer, and she sat down in
-one of the gaily painted stationary benches which gave the children so
-much pleasure. They recalled to her his scores of other attentions; the
-flowers and delicacies of one sort or another which he had sent down
-regularly by Nana, his numerous subterfuges to help her with money, the
-little comforts that he had added to the house, his presents to young
-Miles and Joanna. These things, of which her husband--most younger men
-indeed--would never have thought, were dear to her. And once he had
-hinted, in a joking manner, of “leaving her the cottage” in his will.
-
-“You can’t tell--I may be knocked off some day,” he had said. “I’ve
-become such an absentminded countryman that I’m always a little
-surprised to find myself alive after crossing a New York street.”
-
-She had turned such overtures off with pleasantries, which they
-deserved, and yet she had entertained them; they had wooed her and
-become a part of her dilatory dreaming. As she sat there in the
-caressingly cool night she felt this keenly; she felt a sense of
-permanency and peace under the protecting boughs of the orchard. She
-could not remember such a feeling since long ago at Thornhill.
-
-She rose reluctantly and went into the house. Unquestionably she
-had reached a point where she could regard Osprey’s passion without
-disturbance; and yet she longed for a temporary refuge from it,
-knowing that at any moment they might be brought together by some turn
-of the conversation such as that to-night and his reserve would give
-way. She wanted to escape that contingency for a long time, to think
-out her relationship to the future. But she had no reasonable means
-or excuse to flee. Her plans had not been made for the winter, and
-according to their informal agreement she was to remain in the cottage
-another month.
-
-Robert Blaydon’s visit furnished a safe diversion for three days. She
-was able to keep him that long through the insistent hospitality of
-Osprey, and the fact that the two took a strong liking to each other.
-They sat up late together in the studio one night over a fine brand of
-Scotch whisky which Blaydon had brought with him, and the younger man
-submitted amiably to a questioning about Moira which disclosed little
-more than that he had been her boyhood companion at one time, and her
-circumstances had once been opulent. He told Osprey, however, that he
-had heard his own name often.
-
-“Yes?” inquired his host. “Well, perhaps that’s natural, as you say we
-have been fellow townsmen.”
-
-“Fact is,” replied Blaydon, “I’ve an aunt out there who has become
-vastly interested in painters, in her old age, and I’ve heard her
-speak of you. A Mrs. Seymour.”
-
-“Don’t ask me to remember names back home,” laughed Osprey. “You would
-think me a pretty determined exile if I told you how long it had been
-since I was there.”
-
-“In any case, she’ll be much excited when I tell her that I have met
-you,” said the other, reflecting on the humour and difficulty of his
-situation, in which discretion constrained him with Osprey from telling
-Moira’s connection to his aunt, and with his aunt from telling Moira’s
-connection with Osprey.
-
-“Mysteries are a damned nuisance among such likeable people,” he
-concluded to himself. “I hope this one gets cleared up some day.” And
-his conviction was that it would.
-
-
-
-
-XXVI
-
-
-Moira awoke late, long after Potter Osprey had departed for the city,
-where he was to meet Roget and return with him in the car sometime that
-night.
-
-It was her last week in the cottage. A few days after the departure
-of Rob Blaydon for the west, Elsie Jennings had paid her a visit
-and talked. Miles Harlindew was living with a young woman in the
-Village. There was a rumour of their going to Europe together....
-Moira suppressed a twinge at this, in which at first there was more
-of sardonic humour than of pain. The pain came sharply afterward,
-but it did not remain long this time, and it left her at last aloof.
-She no longer felt the vestige of an obstacle to following her own
-inclinations, and she also had no further defence against Osprey’s
-attentions.
-
-The growth of understanding between them was almost wordless,
-monosyllabic. It made her intensely happy to discover in his eyes how
-much she was bringing to him. A long time would have to elapse before
-she could give a worthy response to that emotion, but she felt that it
-would come....
-
-The troublesome details of her future were therefore on this morning a
-matter of no concern to her at all. What filled her with delight was
-the immediate present. Never had she seen such weather as that October
-day, or if she had, never before had she been alive to its innumerable
-aspects at once. After the dubiousness and suffering of the past few
-weeks she felt both older and younger, both cleansed by experience and
-ready for more to come. Her whole womanly being was gathering itself
-for something new, and she meant to grasp it to the full. The ship’s
-engines were throbbing in her blood and the open sea lay beyond, but
-her hand was firm on the wheel....
-
-It was a day to idle, one of those days when the children were
-positively in the way and work impossible. It was a day of heady
-egoism, of reveling in her securely felt advantages, and a certain
-sense of having won the spurs of lawlessness. She would be restless
-until to-morrow when the men came. What fine friends they were!
-
-It was eleven o’clock, and, following her usual custom, she walked down
-to the grey metal box in which both her own mail and that of the Osprey
-house was deposited. She half expected to hear from Rob Blaydon who had
-promised to write her from Thornhill.
-
-She ran through the letters quickly. There were none for her, but she
-went back to look again at a large envelope addressed to Osprey. She
-supposed she had done this simply because it was larger than the others
-and extended out around them while she held them in her hand. But
-there had been another reason, as she discovered on second examination.
-The handwriting was familiar....
-
-She realized in fact that she was looking at the handwriting of
-Mathilda Seymour. She could not have mistaken it, even with nothing
-else to guide her, but there was the postmark of her city. She turned
-the envelope over, only to find confirmation in the return address.
-
-She caught herself almost in the gesture of tearing it open. Her
-first thought had been that it was her letter, no matter whom it was
-addressed to. But she stopped herself in time. She could not open
-Potter Osprey’s letter. She wondered that she could have had the
-impulse to do so. Yet, as if she feared the temptation would be too
-strong, she kept repeating to herself, “I must not open it, I must
-not open it....” The temptation passed and did not return, but her
-disturbance and her curiosity were more stubborn.
-
-It was almost uncanny that Mathilda should be writing to Potter
-Osprey....
-
-But was it? Now she remembered he had told her the place of his
-birth--a mere conversational allusion, which she had passed over
-quickly, not wishing to discuss the city. It had surprised her mildly;
-then she had recalled in passing that years ago there had been some
-people named Osprey whom she never knew. Could Mathilda have known
-them? Could she have known the painter, perhaps in his youth? It was
-unlikely; she had never mentioned the name in Moira’s hearing.
-
-There was nothing to be gained on that tack, and soon she was off on
-a more fruitful one. Rob Blaydon had told her about Mathilda’s new
-hobbies, one of them helping young artists, another buying pictures
-for the city museum. She had drifted out of social life and interested
-herself in a little club, not very prosperous, where the artists of the
-city met.
-
-Here was a possible even a probable, explanation. Osprey was a native
-painter, who had gained reputation elsewhere. He had been a struggling
-boy at home, and what could be more natural than that Mathilda should
-decide the city must be enriched by one of his works? Or if this was
-not exactly the case, there were a dozen other reasons why, on behalf
-of the club of which Rob had spoken, she might be communicating with
-him.
-
-The reason was enough for Moira, or at least she made it suffice. She
-would find out the truth before long, and in any case it could not
-concern herself. For it was incredible to her that Rob, in the face of
-their definite understanding, had mentioned her at home. “At home!”
-How naturally she used the phrase. Well, there was much to be cleared
-up--both there and here. She troubled herself no more about the letter.
-She laid it with the others on Osprey’s table, took the children up to
-Nana to look after, and went off for a long walk. By ten o’clock that
-night she was in bed asleep.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-The two men drove up to the farmhouse, in accordance with their plan,
-at about two o’clock in the morning in Roget’s car. They lingered in
-the hall and studio for a few moments and went upstairs, the painter
-taking his mail with him.
-
-Some hours later the same sound woke not only Roget, but Moira, down
-in the cottage. It was a sharp report, and her first clear thought was
-that a passing automobile had back-fired, perhaps Emmet Roget’s, just
-arriving. She sat up for a time listening and then prepared to sleep
-again. Some one knocked on the outside door.
-
-It was the producer, looking ominous as he stood in the half darkness,
-in a long black dressing gown.
-
-“Mrs. Harlindew, an accident has happened,” he said gravely. “I think,
-perhaps, I had better ask you to step up to the house with me.”
-
-She went with him up the steep bank, thoroughly unnerved. His hold on
-her arm was firm and decidedly helpful on the rough path. They passed
-through the lower part of the house and upstairs without a word.
-She knew before she arrived what had happened and dared not ask the
-question on her lips.
-
-Osprey lay on his bed dressed, with a small, old-fashioned revolver in
-his hand. He was not breathing. The round, bleeding wound was near one
-temple. On the table beside him lay a photograph of herself, face up,
-the face of a half-smiling girl of eighteen. Beside it was Mathilda’s
-letter. Moira snatched the letter and read, at first rapidly, then very
-attentively and slowly. “My dear Mr. Osprey,” it began:
-
-  You will not remember an old woman of your native city, but I used
-  to meet your father at the Round Robin Club long ago and admired his
-  wit and character. I was even introduced to you once, when you were a
-  very little boy. You had been left there one night to be taken home.
-  Since then, of course, I have followed, though at a distance, your
-  progress in the world as an artist. But it is not merely to presume
-  on this slender acquaintance that I write to you.
-
-  I have a strange story to tell. There has lived in this house for
-  thirty years, ostensibly as a servant but in fact more a companion
-  and friend to me, a woman named Ellen Sydney. She came to my house as
-  Mrs. Ellen Williams and brought with her a baby daughter, whom she
-  called Moira. I adopted this child and raised her and loved her as
-  though she had been my own. She believed she was my own until her
-  nineteenth year, when she discovered the truth. She proved to be as
-  high-spirited as she was adorable, for although her life here offered
-  every advantage, and was, I know, one long unclouded happiness, she
-  gave it up in a day on learning her true parentage. I can understand
-  that spirit and yet I have suffered cruelly because of her act. She
-  left without a word, effacing every trace of herself, and from that
-  day to this I have never been able to find her, though I have made
-  repeated efforts. I had little hope, it is true, of persuading her to
-  return even if I did so, knowing her nature and her capacity to carry
-  out her own decisions.
-
-  I am convinced she has spent a large part of her life in New York,
-  for at first, certain communications came from her there. Furthermore
-  she loved the study of art and could only have followed it to her
-  taste in that city. She may still be there. For that reason I write,
-  thinking it possible if you have not met her you will, and she will
-  then have a friend who has good reason to protect her. I am sending
-  the latest photograph I possess of her.
-
-  You will ask why I have never addressed you before. It is because I
-  have always hesitated to ask Ellen the name of her child’s father.
-  Moira, herself, is in ignorance of it. Only a month ago Ellen was
-  persuaded, by the arguments I have used above, to tell her story to
-  me in confidence, and now I write with her consent. To complete the
-  coincidence, my nephew, Robert Blaydon, having met you, has given me
-  your address.
-
-  You may be sure that should you ever meet with your daughter or be
-  able to send us word of her, two lonely old women will be grateful.
-
-  I have considered that you may not be the kind of man who will care
-  to receive this letter, but I do not believe that is possible. The
-  passage of time softens our errors and may even turn them into
-  blessings.
-
-                                Yours very sincerely,
-                                                       MATHILDA SEYMOUR.
-
-Moira put down the letter and sank beside the bed. She threw her arms
-over the figure that lay there.
-
-“But, father,” she cried softly, “I could have loved you as my father,
-too....”
-
-The tall figure of Roget was standing beside her, with bent head, his
-penetrating glance, full of profound compassion, searching the face of
-his friend.
-
-“Perhaps he could not, Mrs. Harlindew,” he said, as if thinking aloud.
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
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-
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-
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