And Gladys _was_ happy for a little while. Canaris labored doggedly till
all was finished as she wished. Helwyze lent the aid which commands
celerity; and early in the new year the book came out, to win for itself
and its author the admiration and regard she had prophesied. But while
the outside world, with which she had little to do except through her
husband, rejoiced over him and his work, she, in her own small world,
where he was all in all, was finding cause to wonder and grieve at the
change which took place in him.
“I have done my task, now let me play,” he said; and play he did, quite
as energetically as he had worked, though to far less purpose. Praise
seemed to intoxicate him, for he appeared to forget every thing else,
and bask in its sunshine, as if he never could have enough of it. His
satisfaction would have been called egregious vanity, had it not been so
gracefully expressed, and the work done so excellent that all agreed the
young man had a right to be proud of it, and enjoy his reward as he
pleased. He went out much, being again caressed and fêted to his heart’s
content, leaving Gladys to amuse Helwyze; for a very little of this sort
of gayety satisfied her, and there was something painful to her in the
almost feverish eagerness with which her husband sought and enjoyed
excitement of all kinds. Glad and proud though she was, it troubled her
to see him as utterly engrossed as if existence had no higher aim than
the most refined and varied pleasure; and she began to feel that, though
the task was done, she had not got him back again from that other
mistress, who seemed to have bewitched him with her dazzling charms.
“He will soon have enough of it, and return to us none the worse.
Remember how young he is; how natural that he should love pleasure
overmuch, when he gets it, since he has had so little hitherto,” said
Helwyze, answering the silent trouble in the face of Gladys; for she
never spoke of her daily increasing anxiety.
“But it does not seem to make him happy; and for that reason I sometimes
think it cannot be the best kind of pleasure for him,” answered Gladys,
remembering how flushed and weary he had been when he came in last
night, so late that it was nearly dawn.
“He is one who will taste all kinds, and not be contented till he has
had his fill. Roaming about Europe with that bad, brilliant father of
his gave him glimpses of many things which he was too poor to enjoy
then, but not too young to remember and desire now, when it is possible
to gratify the wish. Let him go, he will come back to you when he is
tired. It is the only way to manage him, I find.”
But Gladys did not think so; and, finding that Helwyze would not speak,
she resolved that she would venture to do it, for many things disturbed
her, which wifely loyalty forbade her to repeat; as well as a feeling
that Helwyze would not see cause for anxiety in her simple fears, since
he encouraged Felix in this reckless gayety.
Some hours later, she found Canaris newly risen, sitting at his
_escritoire_ in their own room, with a strew of gold and notes before
him, which he affected to be counting busily; though when she entered
she had seen him in a despondent attitude, doing nothing.
“How pale you look. Why will you stay so late and get these weary
headaches?” she asked, stroking the thick locks off his forehead with a
caressing touch.
“‘Too late I stayed, forgive the crime;
Unheeded flew the hours;
For lightly falls the foot of time,
That only treads on flowers.’”
sang Canaris, looking up at her with an assumption of mirth, sadder than
the melancholy which it could not wholly hide.
“You make light of it, Felix; but I am sure you will fall ill, if you do
not get more sleep and quieter dreams,” she said, still smoothing the
glossy dark rings of which she was so proud.
“_Cara mia_, what do you know about my dreams?” he asked, with a hint of
surprise in the manner, which was still careless.
“You toss about, and talk so wildly sometimes, that it troubles me to
hear you.”
“I will stop it at once. What do I talk about? Something amusing, I
hope,” he asked, quickly.
“That I cannot tell, for you speak in French or Italian; but you sigh
terribly, and often seem angry or excited about something.”
“That is odd. I do not remember my dreams, but it is little wonder my
poor wits are distraught, after all they have been through lately. Did I
talk last night, and spoil your sleep, love?” asked Canaris, idly piling
up a little heap of coins, though listening intently for her reply.
“Yes: you seemed very busy, and said more than once, ‘Le jeu est fait,
rien ne va plus.’ ‘Rouge gagne et couleur,’—or, ‘Rouge perd et couleur
gagne.’ I know what those words mean, because I have read them in a
novel; and they trouble me from your lips, Felix.”
“I must have been dreaming of a week I once spent in Homberg, with my
father. We don’t do that sort of thing here.”
“Not under the same name, perhaps. Dear, do you ever play?” asked
Gladys, leaning her cheek against the head which had sunk a little, as
he leaned forward to smooth out the crumpled notes before him.
“Why not? One must amuse one’s self.”
“Not so. Please promise that you will try some safer way? This is
not—honest.” She hesitated over the last word, for his tone had been
short and sharp, but uttered it bravely, and stole an arm about his
neck, mutely asking pardon for the speech which cost her so much.
“What is? Life is all a lottery, and one must keep trying one’s luck
while the wheel goes round; for prizes are few and blanks many, you
know.”
“Ah, do not speak in that reckless way. Forgive me for asking questions;
but you are all I have, and I must take care of you, since no one else
has the right.”
“Or the will. Ask what you please. I will tell you any thing, my visible
conscience;” and Canaris took her in the circle of his arm, subdued by
the courageous tenderness that made her what he called her.
“Is that all yours?” she whispered, pointing a small forefinger rather
sternly at the money before him, and sweetening the question with a
kiss.
“No, it is yours, every penny of it. Put it in the little drawer, and
make merry with it, else I shall be sorry I won it for you.”
“That I cannot do. Please do not ask me. There is always enough in the
little drawer for me, and I like better to use the money you have
earned.”
“Say, rather, the salary which _you_ earn and _I_ spend. It is all
wrong, Gladys; but I cannot help it!” and Canaris pushed away his
winnings, as if he despised them and himself.
“It is my fault that you did this, because I begged you not to let Mr.
Helwyze give me so much. I can take any thing from you, for I love you,
but not from him; so you try to make me think you have enough to gratify
my every wish. Is not that true?”
“Yes: I hate to have you accept any thing from him, and find it harder
to do so myself, than before you came. Yet I cannot help liking play;
for it is an inherited taste, and he knows it.”
“And does not warn you?”
“Not he: I inherit my father’s luck as well as skill, and Helwyze enjoys
hearing of my success in this, as in other things. We used to play
together, till he tired of it. There is nothing equal to it when one is
tormented with _ennui_!”
“Felix, I fear that, though a kind friend, he is not a wise one. Why
does he encourage your vices, and take no interest in strengthening your
virtues? Forgive me, but we all have both, and I want you to be as good
as you are gifted,” she said, with such an earnest, tender face, he
could not feel offended.
“He does not care for that. The contest between the good and evil in me
interests him most, for he knows how to lay his hand on the weak or
wicked spots in a man’s heart; and playing with other people’s passions
is his favorite amusement. Have you not discovered this?”
Canaris spoke gloomily, and Gladys shivered as she held him closer, and
answered in a whisper,—
“Yes, I feel as if under a microscope when with him; yet he is very kind
to me, and very patient with my ignorance. Felix, is he trying to
discover the evil in me, when he gives me strange things to read, and
sits watching me while I do it?”
“_Gott bewahre!_—but of this I am sure, he will find no evil in you, my
white-souled little wife, unless he puts it there. Gladys, refuse to
read what pains and puzzles you. I will not let him vex your peace. Can
he not be content with me, since I am his, body and soul?”
Canaris put her hastily away, to walk the room with a new sense of wrong
hot within him at the thought of the dangers into which he had brought
her against his will. But Gladys, caring only for him, ventured to add,
with her kindling eyes upon his troubled face,—
“I will not let him vex _your_ peace! Refuse to do the things which you
feel are wrong, lest what are only pleasures now may become terrible
temptations by and by. I love and trust you as he never can; I will not
believe your vices stronger than your virtues; and I will defend you, if
he tries to harm the husband God has given me.”
“Bless you for that! it is so long since I have had any one to care for
me, that I forget my duty to you. I am tired of all this froth and
folly; I will stay at home hereafter; that will be safest, if not
happiest.”
He began impetuously, but his voice fell, and was almost inaudible at
the last word, as he turned away to hide the expression of regret which
he could not disguise. But Gladys heard and saw, and the vague fear
which sometimes haunted her stirred again, and took form in the bitter
thought, “Home is not happy: am I the cause?”
She put it from her instantly, as if doubt were dishonor, and spoke out
in the cordial tone which always cheered and soothed him,—
“It shall be both, if I can make it so. Let me try, and perhaps I can do
for you what Mr. Helwyze says I have done for him,—caused him to forget
his troubles, and be glad he is alive.”
Canaris swung round with a peculiar expression on his face.
“He says that, does he? Then he is satisfied with his bargain! I thought
as much, though he never condescended to confess it to me.”
“What bargain, Felix?”
“The pair of us. We were costly, but he got us, as he gets every thing
he sets his heart upon. He was growing tired of me; but when I would
have gone, he kept me, by making it possible for me to win you for
myself—and him. Six months between us have shown you this, I know, and
it is in vain to hide from you how much I long to break away and be free
again—if I ever can.”
He looked ready to break away at once, and Gladys sympathized with him,
seeing now the cause of his unrest.
“I know the feeling, for I too am tired of this life; not because it is
so quiet, but so divided. I want to live for you alone, no matter how
poor and humble my place may be. Now I am so little with you, I
sometimes feel as if I should grow less and less to you, till I am
nothing but a burden and a stumbling-block. Can we not go, and be happy
somewhere else? must we stay here all our lives?” she asked, confessing
the desire which had been strengthening rapidly of late.
“While he lives I must stay, if he wants me. I cannot be ungrateful.
Remember all he has done for me. It will not be long to wait, perhaps.”
Canaris spoke hurriedly, as if regretting his involuntary outburst, and
anxious to atone for it by the submission which always seemed at war
with some stronger, if not nobler, sentiment. Gladys sat silent, lost in
thought; while her husband swept the ill-gotten money into a drawer, and
locked it up, as if relieved to have it out of sight. Soon the cloud
lifted, however; and going to him, as he stood at the window, looking
out with the air of a caged eagle, she said, with her hand upon his
arm,—
“You are right: we _will_ be grateful and patient; but while we wait we
must work, because in that one always finds strength and comfort. What
can we do to earn the wherewithal to found our own little home upon when
this is gone? I have nothing valuable; have you?”
“Nothing but this;” and he touched the bright head beside him, recalling
the moment when she said her hair was all the gold she had.
Gladys remembered it as well, and the promise then made to help him,
both as wife and woman. The time seemed to have come; and, taking
counsel of her own integrity, she had dared to speak in the “sincere
voice that made truth sweeter than falsehood.” Now she tried, in her
simple way, to show how the self-respect he seemed in danger of losing
might be preserved by a task whose purpose would be both salvation and
reward.
“Then let the wit inside this head of mine show you how to turn an
honest penny,” she began, unfolding her plan with an enthusiasm which
redeemed its most prosaic features. “Mr. Helwyze says that even the best
poetry is not profitable, except in fame. That you already have; and
pride and pleasure in the new book is enough, without spoiling it by
being vexed about the money it may bring. But you can use your pen in
other ways, before it is time to write another poem. One of these ways
is the translation of that curious Spanish book you were speaking of the
other day. That will bring something, as it is rare and old; and you,
that have half a dozen languages at your tongue’s end, can easily find
plenty of such work, now that you do not absolutely need it.”
“That sounds a little bitter, Gladys. Don’t let my resentful temper
spoil your sweet one.”
“I am learning fast; among other things, that to him who hath, more
shall be given; so you, being a successful man, may hope for plenty of
help from all _now_, though you were left to starve, when a kind word
would have saved you so much suffering,” Gladys answered, not bitterly,
but with a woman’s pitiful memory of the wrongs done those dearest her.
“God knows it would!” ejaculated Canaris, with unusual fervor.
“Mr. Helwyze remembers that, I think; and this is perhaps the reason why
he is so generous now. Too much so for your good, I fear; and so I
speak, because, young as I am, I cannot help trying to watch over you,
as a wife should.”
“I like it, Gladys. I am old, in many things, for my years, but a boy
still in love, and you must teach me how to be worthy of all you give so
generously and sweetly.”
“Do I give the most?”
“All women do, they say. But go on, and tell the rest of this fine plan
of yours. While I use my polyglot accomplishments, what becomes of you?”
he asked, hastily returning to the safer subject; for the wistful look
in her eyes smote him to the heart.
“I work also. You are still Mr. Helwyze’s _homme d’affaires_, as he
calls you; I am still his reader. But when he does not need me, I shall
take up my old craft again, and embroider, as I used at home. You do not
know how skilful I am with the needle, and never dreamed that the
initials on the handkerchiefs you admired so much were all my work. Oh,
I am a thrifty wife, though such a little one!” and Gladys broke into
her clear child’s laugh, which seemed to cheer them both, as a lark’s
song makes music even in a cloud.
Canaris laughed with her; for these glimpses of practical gifts and
shrewd common sense in Gladys were very like the discovery of a rock
under its veil of moss, or garland of airy columbines.
“But what will _he_ say to all this?” asked the young man, with a
downward gesture of the finger, and in his eye a glimmer of malicious
satisfaction at the thought of having at least one secret in which
Helwyze had no part.
“We need not tell him. It is nothing to him what we do up here. Let him
find out, if he cares to know,” answered Gladys, with a charmingly
mutinous air, as she tripped away to her own little room.
“He _will_ care, and he _will_ find out. He has no right; but that will
not stop him,” returned Canaris, following to lean in the door-way, and
watch her kneeling before a great basket, from which she pulled reels of
gay silk, unfinished bits of work, and fragments of old lace.
“See!” she said, holding up one of the latter, “I can both make and
mend; and one who is clever at this sort of thing can earn a pretty
penny in a quiet way. Through my old employer I can get all the work I
want; so please do not forbid it, Felix: I should be so much happier, if
I might?”
“I will forbid nothing that makes you happy. But Helwyze will be
exceeding wroth when he discovers it, unless the absurdity of beggars
living in a palace strikes him as it does me.”
“I am not afraid!”
“You never saw him in a rage: I have. Quite calm and cool, but rather
awful, as he withers you with a look, or drives you half wild with a
word that stings like a whip, and makes you hate him.”
“Still I would not fear him, unless I _had_ done wrong.”
“He makes you feel so, whether you have or not; and you ask pardon for
doing what you know is right. It is singular, but he certainly does make
black seem white, sometimes,” mused Canaris, knitting his brows with the
old perplexity.
“I am afraid so;” and Gladys folded up a sigh in the parcel of rosy
floss she laid away. Then she chased the frown from her husband’s face
by talking blithely of the home they would yet earn and enjoy together.
Conscious that things were more amiss with him than she suspected,
Canaris was glad to try the new cure, and soon found it so helpful, that
he was anxious to continue it. Very pleasant were the hours they spent
together in their own rooms, when the duties they owed Helwyze were
done; all the pleasanter for them, perhaps, because this domestic league
of theirs shut him out from their real life as inevitably as it drew
them nearer to one another.
The task now in hand was one that Canaris could do easily and well; and
Gladys’s example kept him at it when the charm of novelty was gone.
While he wrote she sat near, so quietly busy, that he often forgot her
presence; but when he looked up, the glance of approval, the encouraging
word, the tender smile, were always ready, and wonderfully inspiring;
for this sweet comrade grew dearer day by day. While he rested she still
worked; and he loved to watch the flowery wonders grow beneath her
needle, swift as skilful. Now a golden wheat-ear, a scarlet poppy, a
blue violet; or the white embroidery, that made his eyes ache with
following the tiny stitches, which seemed to sow seed-pearls along a
hem, weave graceful ciphers, or make lace-work like a cobweb.
Something in it pleased his artistic sense of the beautiful, and soothed
him, as did the conversation that naturally went on between them.
Oftenest he talked, telling her more of his varied life than any other
human being knew; and in these confidences she found the clew to many
things which had pained or puzzled her before; because, spite of her
love, Gladys was clear-sighted, even against her will. Then she would
answer with the story of her monotonous days, her lonely labors, dreams,
and hopes; and they would comfort one another by making pictures of a
future too beautiful ever to be true.
Helwyze was quick to perceive the new change which came over Felix, the
happy peace which had returned to Gladys. He “did care, and he did find
out,” what the young people were about. At first he smiled at the girl’s
delusion in believing that she could fix a nature so mercurial as that
of Canaris, but did not wonder at his yielding, for a time at least, to
such tender persuasion; and, calling them “a pair of innocents,” Helwyze
let them alone, till he discovered that his power was in danger.
Presently, he began to miss the sense of undivided control which was so
agreeable to him. Canaris was as serviceable as ever, but no longer made
him sole confidant, counsellor, and friend. Gladys was scrupulously
faithful still, but her intense interest in his world of books was much
lessened: for she was reading a more engrossing volume than any of
these,—the heart of the man she loved. Something was gone which he had
bargained for, thought he had secured, and now felt wronged at
losing,—an indescribable charm, especially pervading his intercourse
with Gladys; for this friendship, sweet as honey, pure as dew, had just
begun to blossom, when a chilly breath seemed to check its progress,
leaving only cheerful service, not the spontaneous devotion which had
been so much to him.
He said nothing; but for all his imperturbability, it annoyed him, as
the gnat annoyed the lion; and, though scarcely acknowledged even to
himself, it lurked under various moods and motives, impelling him to
words and acts which produced dangerous consequences.
“Pray forgive us, we are very late.”
“Time goes so fast, we quite forgot!” exclaimed Felix and Gladys both
together, as they hurried into the library, one bright March morning,
looking so blithe and young, that Helwyze suddenly felt old and sad and
bitter-hearted, as if they had stolen something from him.
“I have learned to wait,” he said, with the cold brevity which was the
only sign of displeasure Gladys ever saw in him.
In remorseful silence she hastened to find her place in the book they
were reading; but Canaris, who seemed bubbling over with good spirits,
took no notice of the chill, and asked, with unabated cheerfulness,—
“Any commissions, sir, beside these letters? I feel as if I ‘could put a
girdle round the earth in forty minutes,’ it is such a glorious,
spring-like day.”
“Nothing but the letters. Stay a moment, while I add another;” and,
taking up the pen he had laid by, Helwyze wrote hastily,—
“TO OLIVIA AT THE SOUTH:—
“The swallows will be returning soon; return with them, if you
can. I am deadly dull: come and make a little mischief to amuse
me. I miss you.