I
At one end of the village stood a century-old house, infinitely seemly
in line and proportion, in color unblemished white. A hint of the
manorial, if not the temple-like, it owed to a front of broad stairs
and fluted columns, upholding a pediment which over-hung the
ground-floor window-doors and shadowed the windows of the upper story.
An equal dignity and rather serious beauty belonged to the arrangement
of the surrounding garden. Year after year, the same plants bloomed
there, the sort, mostly, we call old-fashioned. A reverence for
ancestral predilections determined the colors and fragrances to be
enjoyed to-day; but as these fairly accorded with the present owners',
the garden remained a true expression of the house's inhabitants.
At the other end of the village, overlooking the main street, stood a
new house, fruit of what seemed now and then to some one the most
singularly successful research in vulgar ugliness. But to a large
proportion of the villagers it embodied the last word of splendor: it
had, on the face of it, cost enormously, and necessarily met the
tastes of many, from the fact that it offered some specimen of every
style the one who planned it had admired in any dwelling ever seen by
her: turrets, balconies, projecting windows, a Renaissance roof, acres
of verandah, and, ornamenting all, as lace might a lady's garment,
numberless yards of intricate wooden openwork. It had originally been
painted in three colors, but one day, no one divined at what
prompting, a gang of workmen was seen overlaying the rich buff,
russet, and green, with white, and the house stood forth among its
trees no longer utterly condemnable to the more fastidious, but
clothed in such redeeming grace as we might find in a person who with
every fault had yet some quality of candor. Pyramidal masses of
hydrangea flanked the entrance-door and spread in opaline patches upon
the lawn; a round of ornamental water, with a central statue and a
border of sea-conchs, supported the green pads of lilies,--the pink
variety. The estate was bounded on the street by a fence of wrought
iron,--more ponderous lace, in this case black.
In these two houses lived two women who frankly could not bear
each other. We had nearly said two beautiful women, but the one
impressed rather by charm than any unusual felicity of form, and the
other, strikingly effective, "stunning," as she was frequently
described, displeased almost as many as she pleased. Yet each of
them had heard herself called beautiful often enough to have
assumed the bearing and outlook upon life of a beautiful woman: there
was something positive in the claim of each that her will should be
given weight. We have said they hated each other: but each fair
bosom harbored a very different sentiment from the other. Celia
Compton, the charming, who lived in the peaceful ancient house,
hated Judith Bray, the red-blooded beauty for whom had been built
the architectural monstrosity on the main street, merely as one
hates smoke in the eyes, a grating sound, or shudders at the
thought of flannel against the teeth. But Judith lay awake in the
night, unable to sleep for hating Celia Compton so, and would
hardly have suffered more from stabs with a knife than she did from
the recapitulation of what she called the slights put upon her by
Celia. She turned hot and cold at the recollection, and clenched
her hands while she devised sanguinary methods of getting even with
her. When the sane light of day returned, these must be dropped: for
Celia's offences were, after all, such as can hardly be visited with
vengeance; they could not even be defined. But Judith had a
companion, a poor relative whom she had taken to live with her, an
insignificant, homely, middle-aged-looking young woman called Jess,
who understood without definition, and with whom she could enlarge
upon the subject of Miss Compton without concern for being precise
as to facts or just as to assumptions,--true only to her dislike,
and correct in her sense of the dislike felt for her by Celia. It
was with this Jess she planned some of the crude impertinences by
which she endeavored to retaliate upon her enemy.
When Celia, at the death of her father, the Egyptologist, whose
obituary notice thrust aside the daily news by an ample column, had
decided to come back and spend her summers in the grandparents' house
where much of her childhood had been spent, she had looked forward
with infinite affection to this return to the tenderly remembered old
village which she had not seen for half a dozen years. The vision of
it, always in apple-blossom time, had used often to interpose between
her and yellow reaches of the Nile. She had been informed, no doubt,
in letters, of innovations at home, but had read, as became evident
afterwards, without bringing home to herself the meaning of these
communications, for it was with a shock she at last beheld them. There
had been in the village, as the image of it lived in her brain, one
modest store to which you went for everything. It was kept by a good,
simple man whose wife and children as often as he waited upon the
customers: all people with whom you in good country fashion talked
over the affairs of the country-side, crops, church-festival, change
of minister. In place of this now stood a large, showy building called
the Emporium. One Matthew Bray, from outside, had bought out the widow
of the old store-keeper, and enlarged the business as you might see.
From all over the county people came to trade there. There was no
longer the necessity to go by rail to the city to shop: here were
dress-stuffs, trimmings, fashion-books, a millinery department. In
reality the thing was not ill done, since it perfectly met a need, but
Celia stared at it in helpless grief, hurt as by hearing a familiar
melody bawled out of tune. Then she was driven past the new house--it
was still tri-colored--and her mind was made up about the Brays.
She loved many of the village people, with whom she had stood from
infancy in the simplest cordial relations. It hurt a little to
discover their pleasure in these changes, the mean ambitions, as it
seemed to Celia, which they were developing. She found it difficult to
be just, and pardon as natural their satisfaction in the growing
material prosperity brought about by the influx of people drawn by the
Emporium. The widow of the old store-keeper, upon the strength of it,
had opened an Ice-Cream Room. They loved the increased liveliness,
too. Celia could not blame them: her winters were lively, while theirs
were dull enough. But she came here for rest, the village of her love
had been ideally sleepy. Now it was spoiled for her. It hurt her,
too, like a needle-point of neuralgia, to observe, as she fancied, a
new tone among the younger people. Were those really attempts at style
and dash and smartness she witnessed in the children of good old Asah
and Jerusha Brown? Heart-sick, if she allowed herself to consider the
spreading of a leaven which would in time unfit the place for her
habitation, she lived more secluded than had been her habit while
there in former days. The old house was easily sufficient to itself in
the matter of society. The family made but a small group, but friends
of Celia's from the outside world succeeded each other in the
enjoyment of the Comptons' hospitality, of an elegance as simple as it
was graceful.
She had half suspected what pernicious admiration must be at the root
of the degeneracy she perceived among the village girls, when one
day--this was soon after her return--she saw Judith Bray. It was in
the Emporium, for, no matter how much you hate an Emporium, if there
is not the least thread-and-needle store beside, you may be forced to
patronize it. The attendant, matching embroidery-silks for her, bent
to say: "That across the aisle is Miss Bray." Celia looked.
For some time she had been aware of a strong feminine voice exchanging
witticisms with the clerk, but had paid no attention. She saw a
handsome brunette, of what she called to herself, as she thought
Judith over on the way home, a crude sort of primitive beauty, as if
that superb body and face had been kneaded with profusion of coarse
materials and not carefully finished off: large yet quick dark eyes, a
black abundance of hair, features of an indescribably triumphant cast.
The physical exuberance clearly expressed in the young woman's color
and molding seemed condensed in a voice and laugh whose chime cut
ringingly through all contending sounds. She was dressed with
conspicuous elegance, according to her own idea, which the community
accepted from her. If one discarded all standards, this solid
prize-fruit was certainly good to look at. Celia granted so much, but
did not for the fraction of an instant relinquish her standards.
Personally, she could no more relish that presence than a perfume or a
flavor too pronounced; it may be doubted whether that particular
perfume and flavor would have been to her taste in the weakest
dilution.
While she was thus in the act of stealing glances, Judith abruptly
swung round. The clerk, showing off the last importation of
dress-fabrics, had whispered to her, "That just behind you is Miss
Compton," and Judith, breathless with interest, turned her full
bright eye upon the one who, in Judith's own words, had been "the most
important person socially" until she came.
"She looks just as I thought she would," she said low to the clerk;
and she contrived to find herself near the door when Celia was
leaving, and, smiling an assured smile, she said, "I am so glad to see
you back, Miss Compton. I have heard so much about you, I feel as if
you were already an old acquaintance. I wish you would come and see
me. I suppose we are still new-comers to you, so according to the ways
here it would be your place to call first, wouldn't it, though I
shouldn't mind a bit coming first, if you say so...."
Celia, flushing at the intolerable offensiveness to her of this,
replied in a low soft voice that she was at present not going out at
all, and with a bow of the most finished perfection passed forth. It
had been so well done that Judith, who felt snubbed at the moment,
rejected, upon consideration, the idea of a repulse, and the year
after, when Miss Compton was out of mourning, sent her an invitation.
Celia declined it in a note which contained not one discoverable
prickle, but yet had about it an atmosphere that seemed to numb
Judith's hand which held it. To the most critical examination,
however, it showed nothing that was not completely civil, and the
unwary Judith permitted herself to act upon the verdict of her brain,
and again, and at intervals again, made overtures to Celia, of whom
she had from the first glance fallen into the most extravagant
admiration. It was her native conceit which prevented her for such a
long time from reaching the certainty that a closer acquaintance with
her was not desired. For what reason?... How could such a thing be?...
She was in her proper esteem so beyond question as desirable an
acquaintance as any person could have. And she was attracted by Celia
as she had never been by woman or man before. Though she was far from
being so humble as to wish herself in any wise altered to resemble
her, it was the difference between them, no doubt, which gave such
fascination for her to Celia's every way of being, her coolness,
restraint, that personal pride so quiet it had the face almost of
modesty, and her manner! her air!... Covering the house with white
paint was, however, the only tribute of imitation Judith ever paid
her, and it was not conscious: she had merely looked at the white
house so much that she judged the paint on her own house to have
become, with wear, more glaring.
It was during the third summer that Judith compassed her desire of
standing within the portals of the Compton house. Celia, sitting with
her mother and brother and their visitors in the shadow of the Dorian
pillars, in the idleness of a warm afternoon, saw Judith's carriage
approach, and--instead of passing, stop. Judith, in splendid array,
descended and came forward. Celia, wondering, arose. When the ordinary
formalities had been dispatched, Celia ushered Miss Bray into the long
museum-like sitting-room, with the odor of strange old far-away
things. Judith, while she spoke, could not keep her eyes from roving.
She said, and a simple-minded, rich delight in what she had to say,
and felt herself able to do, pierced through her expressions: "I
understand, Miss Compton, that you don't like the idea of a line of
electric cars running through our village and down to the lake. Some
one said so. You think it would spoil the looks of the old street and
bring a lot of rough Sunday people. I wanted to hear it directly from
you, to be quite sure, for it really, when all is said, you know,
depends upon my father, and my father--" she laughed with roguish
audacity--"does exactly what I want him to. It's true he's set his
heart on the line--it's progress, in his way of looking. But if you
don't want it, there shan't be any car-line. Isn't it fun? There's a
town-hall and select-men, and all that, but it really depends upon us
two. My Dad will do anything I say, and I'll do anything you say.
There!... You've only got to speak...."
Celia had felt herself growing pale with the sheer force of antipathy.
Her nervous hands were so near trembling, she reached to a jade cup
and took from it a string of curious blue beads with which to keep
them occupied. She replied in precisely modulated tones; "You are
mistaken in believing I care--beyond a certain point. I had rather
there were electric cars than--than certain other things. Personally,
it can affect me very little--since I believe we shall soon cease
altogether coming here for the summer."
Judith, the dense, went away charmed with her call. She had loitered a
little while on the porch, in chatter with the company, and been
escorted to her carriage by the brother. She was amply discussed after
her departure, she and her errand; the brother and the other man, as
far as circumstances permitted, wedging in good words for her, with
half-ironical good-humor.
The small, withered gentlewoman in the rocking-chair said, "I fear you
will be obliged to call upon her, Celia, after all."
Celia somberly raged. "Is one to be forced to know people whom it
gives one goose-flesh to hear mentioned? The Brays have made me feel
as if boiled cabbage were reeking from every house in the village, and
I am to associate with them quite as with people I like? Voluntary
intercourse should signify, after all, some degree of regard, and I am
to pretend--No! I will not admit the legitimacy of any tyranny which
could so coerce me! I will be civil to her every time my bad luck
throws us together, but seek her out I will not."
At the last of the season, nevertheless, Mrs. Compton's card and
Celia's were left at the Brays', their call falling upon a day when
Judith was far from home, to the knowledge of every soul in the place,
Judith truly believed. Celia left on the day after, with the
comfortable sense of having done her duty and deserved the crumb of
favor vouchsafed her by fate.
She supposed, when she came back the following year, that her relation
with the Brays was now definitely established: one formal call from
each party during the season. But the first time she met Judith, she
perceived instantly that all was changed. She knew she had made an
enemy. How the revulsion had come about was never clear: whether owing
to the mere ripening of age--Judith was now twenty-four or -five,
Celia five or six years older--or the souring of a despised
prepossession, or the intimacy with Jess, which began at about this
time. Celia's punctilious bow met the response of as much petty
rudeness as could be concentrated into a lifting of the chin and a
stare. "Very well," she said to herself stonily, "if you prefer it so,
it is by far the most agreeable to me."
It was not, altogether; that is, not all the time. We are seldom of a
piece, and a part of Celia was chafed, and now and then saddened, by
the sense of having brought about anything so unbeautiful as this
hate. She could not at all moments clear her conscience of blame, and
had pangs of regret--too honest with herself, however, not to know
that if all were still to do, she should do the same. For another part
of Celia, child of a worldly clan, felt itself eminently justified.
One must keep the two worlds distinct in practice: Brethren before our
Maker, we yet play the social game according to its rules. After the
first, she relegated the matter to a high shelf. She had not made much
case of Judith's friendship, she made scarcely more of her enmity. Her
life was full of other interests, and, as she mingled less and less
with the village, the reminder of Judith's sentiments toward her
hardly recurred often enough to constitute an element in her
consciousness. The truth is that as Judith dropped out of her
existence in the character of one who could interfere with it, she
disliked her less. Sometimes the flushed face with its assumed
haughtiness, "cutting her dead," (Celia, with some idea, perhaps, of
doing for her part a Christian's duty, continued to bow as if unaware
of the insult intended her) smote her with a sense of pity at the evil
passions hardening that really beautiful face. The Comptons' idea that
they might have to give up the village as a summering place was
forgotten. When a little chafed by some noisy exhibition of the Brays'
vulgarity, Celia used to say to herself hopefully that no doubt Judith
would in time marry and go to live elsewhere. She would have been
amazed to discover that she was herself directly concerned with
Judith's singleness. Judith, the very type of whose charms proclaimed
her passionate temperament, had never among her adorers seen one she
was sure would have been felt good enough for Celia. There was a story
passed along in confidence--how things which the persons concerned in
them never breathe come to be generally known is a mystery--that Celia
would never marry, because the one she should have married, renounced
on account of some deadly habit of a drug, was off somewhere at the
other end of the world, fighting his weakness, or, there were those
who said, having given up the fight. Judith, hearing this long before,
had considered the circumstances with an aching sympathy, mingled with
awe. She knew she could never have done it. If she had cared for the
man,--the most brilliant man before, and now the most unhappy,--she
pictured him handsome as a hero of Byron's,--she would have had to
cling to him and go down into the depths together. But spinsterhood
had acquired an effect of fineness for her from the study of Celia,
with the destruction of her happiness so perfectly concealed that one
could detect it by no sign, unless that air of detachment, sometimes,
and distance and fatigue, were an expression of it. In her latter mood
Judith chose savagely to despise Celia for her defection from her
lover; at the same time she lent small ear to love-proffers, absorbed
in a different passion. For the hatred of Celia, who did not think of
her once a week, was grown to a passion.
It was at this time hardly a matter of resolve that Celia did not
think of Judith, unless some vision obtruded itself of her, driving
past with Jess, whose little sallow face--owing its effect of
malignity perhaps to a defect of the eyes, of which one never could
quite ascertain the nature--was so well fitted to set off the proud
bloom of hers. A strain of magnificence had developed in her: she was
perpetually organizing festivities, picnics, water-parties,
lawn-parties: her garden could be seen a mile away at night,
festooned with Chinese lanterns, while the village band played among
the trees, and the contingent of the village people which she had
formed into "her set" ate ices on her verandah. Effluvia of these
doings drifted necessarily to the Comptons.
But in time Celia began finding herself subjected to small occasional
pin-pricks of annoyance at things reported to her as having been said
by Judith. They were repeated without malicious intention, mostly as
being funny. The village dressmaker, who sometimes sewed for Celia,
was employed as well by Judith. It might almost have been supposed
part of this woman's business to tell the village news while, as was
the custom, one sat and sewed with her. Celia expected it as much as
that she should bring her thimble and wax. Miss Greene was one of her
oldest village associations, a "character" she was called, and was a
privileged and much-quoted person. She felt a whole-souled allegiance
to the Comptons, but no less to the new-comer, Judith Bray, who had
been lavish to her as to everybody. She "did not know as the one
interfered with the other." When she liked a person, the bent of her
disposition was to tell her everything, but particularly whatever in
the most distant way had reference to her.
She said to Celia one day, without ceasing to push her gathering
needle, "You know who Judy Bray thinks you like?... in looks?... Well,
you never would guess it! Not 'cause there ain't nothin' in it, though
... for after you've been told, you'll see it at once. She says she
can never see Beech--Beechnut, your dog, you know--without it makes
her think of you."
Celia felt an inward start. The dog had been given her by some one
very dear, and she saw at once by what perhaps unconscious association
of ideas it was probable the animal had been selected for her. Some
vague resemblance unmistakably existed between herself and the
red-haired setter, with his delicate long face and air at once noble
and mournful. She felt no inclination to resent the comparison in
itself, though she knew it had been meant ill-naturedly; but she
chafed under the sense of the power possessed by the first-comer to
belittle one at pleasure, if it be only in words.
The remark might have passed from her mind, as originating in
Judith's, but for an event forming a complement to it. Walking down
the main street with Beech, she came, as she approached the Emporium,
in sight of a bull-dog, hideous enough surely to take a first
prize--bow-legged, goggle-eyed, crooked-toothed, a stranger in the
village, where no dog had ever happened before who constituted a real
danger to Beech. He was decorated with a spiked collar and a
splashing cherry ribbon bow. Hurriedly Celia got her hand upon her
dog's collar and drew him to the other side of the road. The bull-dog
sat upon the top step of the Emporium stoop, sleepily blinking in the
sun, a goodly beast of his sort, in his loose soft coat of brindled
plush, but to Celia more hateful than Cerberus. "Whose is that brute?"
she asked a boy lounging near the village horse-trough, and heard what
she had expected, for she had not failed to notice Judith's cart in
waiting near the Emporium door. A flame of real hatred shot up within
her and burned earnestly for a moment. Those who have not a dog cannot
conceive the sensitiveness of the spot in their master's heart
reserved for them. The contemplation of this constant menace
henceforth to Beech, with the alternative of a confinement he had
never known, generated in Celia desires almost murderous toward the
heavy-jawed antagonist, over there. She seized the full reach of
Judith's clumsy attempt at _esprit_: Having pointed out the likeness
between Beech and his mistress, she had procured a pet resembling
herself, as it was her humour to suppose she appeared in the eyes of
Celia. She had succeeded this time to the extent of her intention in
embittering existence to Celia. A nervous fear lest there should be an
encounter between the proud, gentle Beech and that ruffian--the report
reached her that his facetious name was Punch--destroyed all possible
enjoyment of walks even in the remotest by-paths and woods, for,
supposing Judith to maintain this dog for her annoyance, what sense of
bounds or fairness would constrain her?
A long time passed, however, without sign of the enemy in her remoter
walks; and she had come to feel secure once more and let her dog range
along unleashed, when one day, nothing being further from her
thoughts, Beech's voice came to her ear, tangled in quarrel with
another, and her heart told her that the event so dreaded was upon
them. She ran, with shaking knees, and saw at a glance the worst she
had feared. Celia was not a coward, but a certain permanent sense of
the physical means at her command compelled her to stand helpless,
crying out and beating the air with her hands. Judith, appearing upon
the scene a moment later, white with fright, too, plunged at the
fighters, and having by force of rage and fury of muscle got mastery
over her dog, was with one hand belaboring his big head, while with
the other twisted in his collar she shook and choked him. She stopped,
suddenly without strength, and looked over at Celia, who, trembling
from head to foot, was clinging to Beech. As their glances met,
concentrated indignation shot from Celia's eyes. "I hope you are
satisfied!" she said.
Judith, after a moment's pause, which appeared owing to amazement,
flourished in the air, for Celia to see, a bitten and bleeding hand,
and said in her harsh, impudent laugh, "I hope _you_ are!" while yet
Celia could not fail to remark that pain or some other emotion was
forcing tears into her eyes. Too angry to be in the least moved by
them, she turned away.
It was only in recollection that she did grudging justice to
Judith's conduct; but the initial wrong and the whole blame of the
occurrence being so signally hers, she felt under no obligation of
acknowledgement. What became of Punch she never inquired. He was
not seen again in those latitudes. The injury received, however,
was of a kind which the tender mistress of Beech was not likely to
remit, and the remembrance of it went to intensify the effect of
scorn with which upon another occasion she met an impulsive tender of
Judith's, prompted by penitence.... And after that there was no
more question between the women of anything but hate to the extent
of their respective capacities.
The reinforcement of ill-will in this case arose from a question of so
innocent and fragile a thing as wild orchids. Celia alone in all the
country-side knew where any were to be found. Her grandmother had
taken her as a child to the solitary place in the woods, and it had
been her fancy to preserve the secret, but for one exception or two.
The donor of Beech had visited the fairy recess with her, and the odor
of it now had power to evoke past words and scenes almost more than
anything left of that poor romance. The thoughts she had there thought
first seemed year after year to be still lying in wait for her there.
It was her habit to gather the flowers with discretion and reverence,
distributing them as if they had been so much gold. Any wild orchid
seen in a village sitting-room was sure to be noticed with the remark,
"I see you've had a call from Miss Compton," and it seemed agreed that
one should expect them only from her hand. Celia, seeking the hushed
green haunt one summer morning, her head as always on those
pilgrimages lost in its old dream, upon reaching the dell where her
eyes looked for sparks of pink against the lace of ferns, was startled
by the sight of Judith, solid and ample. One hand grasped a bunch of
orchids, the other was still busily harvesting. What she saw in
Celia's face as Celia recognized her, Judith alone could tell. But
instead of anything their immediately preceding intercourse could have
led Celia to look for, Judith went to her quickly, and, holding out
the flowers for her to take, blurted forth, "It's a burning shame!...
Of course they belong to you, and I'd no business...." But Celia
looked at her with eyes of judgment, and, with a gesture of utter
rejection, turned. Judith scattered her nosegay angrily upon the
earth, and the two women, as fast as ever they could, widened the
distance between them.
After that, each according to her nature entertained her aversion. In
Celia the act consisted in as perfect an exclusion from her thoughts
of the other, now altogether outside the pale of consideration, as her
will could compass. She refused to be concerned with such ugliness, or
have her life vulgarized by the sentiments which befitted it. In
Judith it formed an undercurrent of excitement, never quite below
consciousness, and at the root of many an action of hers which from
the surface would have seemed to have no relation with it. Other
factors in Judith's life there were combining with her sense of
Celia's disesteem and her revolt against it and requital of hatred, to
give her character a touch of lawlessness in its audacity; her wealth,
her power over her father, her ascendency over the imaginations of the
plain villagers. It was finally felt that she believed everything
permitted to her, and an occasional exaggeration in hard, hare-brained
boldness made a beginning of division in opinion about her among those
whom her generosity and good-humor had first made all alike her
adherents. From time to time inevitably the rivals crossed each
other's path, when Celia's superiority was confirmed to her by the
cold freedom of mind she could maintain under the test, while Judith's
tortures were manifest in the loud fool she made of herself, with the
cheap drama of her flashing eye and imperial attitudes.
Thus, while weeks grew to months and months to years, under the genial
light of day and the beauty of the nights, amid innocent occupations
and simple pleasures and natural relations satisfying to the heart,
the two carried about, with as little fear as if it had been some such
thing as Judith's diminutive pet alligator brought home from the
South, or the diamond snake with which Celia fastened her lace, the
sentiment destined to find its termination in such tragic horror.