On the day after the visit to Collingham Lodge, Bob left for the camp in
the Adirondacks. As yet he had no knowledge of the family's attitude
toward him more exact than he could infer. He had written to them all
since his return, but their replies, even Edith's, had been
noncommittal. He guessed that they had decided together not to express
themselves fully till they came face to face with him.
Even then, the approach to his own affairs was indirect. An affectionate
family reunion, based seemingly on the ground that nothing had happened
when so much _had_, blocked the openings for bringing up the subjects he
had most at heart. During the early part of that first evening at Sugar
Maple Point he couldn't get anyone alone. Not till nearly bedtime did he
himself offer a lead by strolling out into the moonlight in the hope
that one of the three would follow him.
It was full moonlight, turning Sugar Maple Lake into a sheet of silver
and gold laid at the base of a velvety silhouette of mountains. The
magic of stillness, the tang of the forest, the repose of the spirit
from the girding and striving of the world--these lovelinesses came to
Bob Collingham with a peace such as they always brought, but which
to-night couldn't find a resting place. It couldn't find a resting place
because in this tranquil woodland more than anywhere else he found
himself wishing that Teddy Follett wasn't in a cell.
Sugar Maple Lake is small for the Adirondacks, being no more than three
miles long and a mile and a half in width. All its shores are owned by
rich men, mostly from New York, who can keep themselves secluded. In
seclusion they are able to combine rusticity with the amenities of life,
in a wealthy, modern, American version of Marie Antoinette's humble
village at Versailles. At a stranger's first glance, the "camps" are but
lumbermen's log cabins on a larger scale; but when you come to the
conveniences and luxuries of living, they differ little from Marillo
Park.
Reaching the thin line of maples and pines fringing the edge of the
lake, Bob turned to see if he was followed. At first there was no one.
The light from the windows and doors made a golden splotch on the
greenish silvery black of the sloping lawn, but no figure appeared in
the glow. Coming to the conclusion that this, too, was "a put-up job,"
he was strolling back again when his mother, cloaked against the night
air, stole out and called his name softly.
On reaching him she took his arm, and together they picked their way
along a graveled path leading toward the Point.
"I'm so glad you've come," she said, instantly. "I've been having such a
terrible time with your father. You know how he is--so stern--so
relentless--"
"He's been corking to me."
"You mean the cablegram he sent you to Rio? Oh, well, I made him do
that. It's all over now, dear, and you mustn't worry; but at first--that
night when we heard that the Follett boy had got into trouble and I had
to tell your father of your marriage--well, I don't want to make things
out worse than they are, so I sha'n't tell you what he said; but I did
manage him. I soothed him and told him how he ought to take it and what
he ought to do--with the result that you got that message. You mustn't
think it was easy, dear--"
"You've been a brick, old lady!"
"I'm your mother, Bob. It's all summed up in that. Whatever makes for my
children's happiness makes for mine. Your father is not a woman, and
that's the difference between us. And now I've had all this trouble with
him over Edith's engagement; but he's given in at last."
Bob sprang away from her.
"Edith engaged? Who to? Not to Ayling?"
She took his arm again, continuing toward the Point.
"Yes, to Ernest. He was so opposed to it. But I've battled for my
child's heart, Bob, and I've won out. Your father is giving her ten
thousand a year. It isn't much, but they ought to be able to manage. We
didn't write you, partly because it was only settled last week, and it
was easier to wait and tell you."
"But I thought you didn't like the match yourself, old girl."
"Oh, me! I have to turn myself every way at once. I've no wishes of my
own. To reconcile my children to their father and their father to my
children is all I live and work for."
Coming to the little rustic gazebo perched on the tip of the Point, they
entered and sat down. There being nothing to obtrude itself here on lake
and moon and mountain, it was as if they had left human crudities
behind. In the windless air, the fragrance of Bob's cigarette mingled
with the aromatic pungency of millions and millions of growing things.
"There was simply nothing else to be done," Junia resumed. "There was
Edith eating her heart out and stubborn as a mule--and with the mess
you've made of things--not that you could _foresee_--or know the sort of
people you were getting in among--"
It was the opening he had been looking for, and he knew that, whatever
the outcome, he must use it.
"Exactly what do you mean by that, mother?"
She seemed confused.
"I don't suppose I mean anything--except what's obvious."
Not to press the point at once, he said, "You saw Jennie."
"Yes; I sent for her."
"What did you think of her?"
"Oh, what anyone would think. She's charming--to look at."
"Only to look at?"
"Her manner is charming, too. Of course! I--I don't quite know what you
want me to say."
"How much did she tell you that afternoon?"
She looked at him through the moonlight.
"Hasn't she told _you_?"
"She's told me nothing--except that you were lovely."
"Then, Bob dear, I'm afraid I can't add anything. You see, they were
_her_ secrets--"
"Oh! Then she told you secrets!"
"Why, of course! What did you think?"
"Any other secret besides that she and I had been married?"
"Bob darling, I don't think it's fair to put me on the witness stand.
She's your wife--and because she's your wife I accept her. What I know
is buried here"--she smote her chest--"and if for your sake and hers I
try to forget it I think you might let me."
For a few minutes he smoked in a silence broken only by the maniac cry
of a loon in the distance.
"Did it occur to you," he asked at last, "that she was a very simple
girl who could easily become entangled in her talk when she tried to
explain things to a woman of the world?"
"No; because the things said were very simple--just statements of fact
as to which there could be no misunderstanding."
"Had the statements of fact anything"--he moistened his dry
lips--"anything to do with--with Hubert?"
"Some of them. But there!" She caught herself up. "You're not going to
make me tell you things. I'm your mother, and if I intervene at all, it
must be in the way of helping you to come together and not of putting
you apart." She rose, drawing her cloak about her. "I think I must go
in, dear. I'm beginning to feel the damp."
He, too, rose, sitting down again sidewise on the rustic rail of the
summerhouse.
"Wait a minute, mother. I want to ask you something. When I was at
Marillo I wandered into your room one day and saw a picture."
"A picture?"
"Yes; a picture; and I--I wondered how it--it happened to come there."
She bent a little toward him, drawing her cloak more closely about her.
If it was acting it was well done.
"It--it couldn't have been--"
He chucked the butt of his cigarette into the lake.
"Yes, I guess it was. It had an inscription on it--'Life and Death, by
Hubert Wray.'"
"Oh, my God! Where did you say you saw it, Bob?"
"In your bedroom, against the wall. I thought it might be a portrait
you'd had done, and so lifted--"
"And I told them to put it out of sight. You see, Hubert didn't send it
till after we'd left the house--just before he went to California. I'd
given orders that it was to be locked up in an empty closet in my
wardrobe room. Oh, Bob darling, I don't know what you're going to think
of me."
"Oh, you're all right, mother. It wasn't you. I--I only wondered how
you'd come by the thing at all."
She made an obvious effort at controlling emotion.
"Why, Bob, it was this way. After--after what Jennie told me that day
I--I naturally thought a good deal about Hubert--and--and their
relations to each other--"
"She talked about them, did she?"
"Well, you see, in a way she had to. She was let in for it, poor thing.
I can't tell you everything without giving you the whole story--and it's
_her_ story, as I've said before. I've no right to betray her, and least
of all to you."
"All right. Go on."
"So when I'd heard that Hubert had a new picture at the Kahler
Gallery--and everyone was talking about it--and I knew from the things
they said what--what sort of a picture it was--"
"Yes, yes; I understand."
"Well, then, I--I went and saw it; and to--to get it out of sight I
bought it on the spot. I didn't want it to be still on exhibition when
you came back; and I hoped that people would forget it. I should have
burned it at once, only that Hubert delayed sending it, and--well, you
see how it happened. But even so, Bob dear, you knew you were marrying a
model--"
"Oh yes; it isn't that--not altogether."
She laid her hand on his shoulder.
"What is it, Bob darling? Can't you tell _me_? I'm your mother, dear--"
But he moved away from her touch, as if unable to bear sympathy.
"I can't tell you yet, old lady. I must see my own way first. I've got
to get through this business about the boy before I take any step
whatever. She knows pretty well that I know that--that she and Hubert
are in love with--with each other--"
"Oh, but Hubert is not in love with her. He told me so."
"Not in love with her?" he cried, sharply. "Why isn't he?"
"He said--oh, Bob, I can't talk about it. You'll--"
"You've got to talk about it, mother. I can't _half_ know. I must
_know_! If he wasn't in love with her, what did he mean by making her
think--"
"I don't believe he did make her think. He hinted that--that there'd
been something between them, but that--that with girls of that sort
you--you couldn't call it love."
"Why couldn't you?"
"Because--no, I won't, Bob! I'm your mother. I must make things easier
for you, and not harder, and so--"
"It will make things easiest for me to know the truth. So go on! Out
with it! Tell me just what he said."
She wrung her hands beneath the cloak.
"He said it--it couldn't be love--with a girl whom--whom anyone could--"
He sprang from the rail, holding up his hand.
"Wait a minute, mother! Jennie's my wife. I'm her husband. I believe in
her."
With her speed in trimming her sails to the wind, Junia caught the
direction.
"I don't want you _not_ to believe in her, Bob. I didn't want to say any
of the things that--that you've been dragging out of me. You know that."
"Yes, I know that, old lady, and I'm grateful. I had to drag them out
and know the worst that could be said, so as to contradict it in--in my
heart."
"Oh, in your heart!"
"Yes, in my heart. It's where I'm strongest--just as it's where dad is
strongest, too, if he'd only been true to himself. But that's a side
issue. What I want to say now--and what I'd like you to understand--is
that I _know_ that Jennie is good and pure and true and one of the
sweetest and loveliest spirits God ever made. I know it!"
Junia couldn't be as feminine as she was without gazing in awe and
admiration at the tall, upright figure, which seemed taller and more
upright for the moonlight.
"Would you know it--mind you, I'm only _putting_ it this way--would you
know it--with her own evidence to the contrary?"
"Yes, mother; I should know it--with her own evidence to the contrary."
She shivered and turned away from him.
"I must really go in now, dear. I'm so afraid of catching cold. But--but
good night!"
Having kissed him, she went down the steps, turning once more to look
back at him. Silhouetted against the oblong of light between two rough
pilasters, he was mechanically taking out his case and selecting a
cigarette.
"You're splendid, Bob," she said, with a ring of sincerity that startled
him. "That's the way to love a woman. If there were only more men like
you! And--I _will_ say it, in spite of the things you've just made me
confess--there must be something very, very good in a girl to--to call
forth that kind of love."
But Jennie herself made that kind of love more difficult. On returning
to town Bob found her changed. During all the weeks of the _modus
vivendi_ she had been gentle, submissive, grateful, accepting his terms
in the provisional spirit in which she understood them, and carrying
them out. When Teddy's affairs were settled--and they never defined what
they meant by that--she knew they were to have a reckoning; but the
reckoning was to be postponed till then.
And now, all at once, she seemed disposed to force it on. His visit to
his family had frightened her. It frightened her the more in that he
said so little about it. He, too, was changed. He was silent, pensive.
He watched her more and talked to her less; but when he watched her his
eyes, so she said to herself, had a queer kind of sorrow in them. She
didn't wonder at that. Anyone's eyes would have had sorrow in
them--anyone who was seeing Teddy nearly every day and filling him up
with fortitude. If it had not been for Teddy's sake she would have done
her best to get Bob "out of it" long ago.
Her fear now was of not being able to make this attempt of her own
accord. In other words, she shrank from being found out before
confessing of her own free will. Twenty words from Mrs. Collingham to
her son would rob her, Jennie, of such poor shreds of good intention as
she still possessed.
The trouble was, first, the lack of opportunity, and then, the waiting
for the right emotional moment. It was not a thing you could spring at
any chance hour of the day. Something must lead up to it and make it
natural.
But a week after his return from Sugar Maple Point, the occasion seemed
to present itself. It was one of those evenings in late September when
indoors was too stifling. In pursuance of his plans for distracting the
family, which meant so much to Teddy, Bob had motored the mother and
daughters to a small country restaurant, where they had had supper, and
had brought them home again. Lizzie and the two girls having said good
night, Jennie was about to do the same, but he held her by the hand.
"Don't go in. Let's walk a bit."
"So it's come," Jennie thought. "I must do it before we get home."
Even so she put it off. He, too, put off whatever in himself was burning
to find words. They said as little as they could without being
altogether silent, and that little was mere commonplace.
"Wonderful night, isn't it?"
"Yes; and I think we're going to have a breeze. It isn't so hot as an
hour ago."
"Anyhow, the hot weather must be nearly over. It will be October in a
day or two."
"But we often have very hot days in October. I remember that last
year--"
So they came to Palisade Walk and turned into it. Though the moon was
not yet up, the effulgence of its approach made a halo above the city.
Manhattan was a line of constellations the riverway a gulf of darkness
in which were scattered stars. Along the parapet, shadowy couples,
mostly lovers, formed little ghostly groups, while here and there was
the point of light of a cigarette or cigar.
They came to a halt, Jennie leaning against one of the dragon's teeth,
looking over at the city, Bob standing a little back from her.
"I've never been here at night before," he said. "I'd no idea it was so
beautiful."
"We don't come very often ourselves. We live so near that I suppose
we're used to it."
"We had some wonderful evenings at Sugar Maple Point; but that was
another kind of thing."
She assembled her forces without turning to look at him or making any
change in her tone.
"I suppose you talked to your mother while you were up there?"
"Oh, of course!"
"About me?"
Divining what was coming, he was on his guard. "You were
mentioned--naturally."
"And she told you things?"
"Some things."
"Some things about me that--that were new to you?"
"Yes; some things about you that were new to me."
"Did she tell you--everything?"
"I'm not in a position to say that it was everything; but--but I rather
think it was. What of it?"
"Oh--only, that--that I'm as bad as she said I was. I--I wanted you to
know that it was true."
The long stillness was broken only by a moan like that of a wounded
monster from a ferryboat far away.
"Why do you want me to know that?" he asked, at length.
"So that you'll see now that when--when everything is over about
Teddy--you'll be--you'll be free."
"But suppose I don't want to be free?"
"But I want it for you."
"Why?"
"Oh, it's very simple." She turned, leaning with her back to the rock.
"It's just this, Bob--I'm not fit to be your wife. I never was fit. I
never shall be fit. There it is in a nutshell. It isn't education and
social things that I'm talking about. I'm--I'm too--I don't know how to
put it--but you're so big--"
"We'll drop all that, Jennie, if you don't mind, because it isn't a case
of fitness on either your part or mine; it's one of love."
She hung her head.
"Oh, love! I--I don't think I--I know what it is."
"I'm sure you don't. It's what I've told you. I want to show you what
it's like. Do you know what I said to the old lady when she got off
those things? She didn't want to do it, mind you," he hastened to
explain. "She wanted to keep your secrets and be true to you--but I
dragged them out of her. And do you know what I said to her? Well, I'm
going to repeat it to you now. I said I wouldn't believe anything
against you--not even on your own evidence."
"Is that love, Bob--or is it just being stubborn?"
"I shall let you find that out for yourself--as we go on."
"Oh! as we go on?"
"Yes, as we go on, Jennie. We're going on. Don't make any mistake about
that. I know how you feel. Everything looks so dark to you now that you
can't believe it will ever be light again; but it will be, Jennie. All
families and all individuals go through these experiences--not as
terrible as yours, perhaps--but terrible all the same. Not one of us is
spared. Sometimes it seems to you as if you just couldn't go through
with it; but you can. You must hang on--and bear it--and it will pass.
That's what I'm here for--to help you to hang on--and, Jennie, clinging
together, as we're doing, we'll come out to the light--even Teddy--and
your mother. Oh, look! There the light is now--the light
everlasting--that always comes back, if we only wait for it!"
At the pointing of his finger and his sudden cry she turned to face the
eternal wonder of the moonrise.