Think of some other pleasant things and say them to-morrow night to Mrs.
Lee."
"I'll be blest if I will," Alden muttered to himself, as his mother
lighted a candle and waved her hand prettily in farewell. "If all the
distressed daughters of all mother's old schoolmates are coming here, to
cry on her shoulder and flood the whole place with salt water, it's time
for me to put up a little tent somewhere and move into it."
By the next day, however, he had forgotten his ill-humour and was at the
station fully ten minutes before six o'clock. As it happened, only one
woman was among the passengers who left the train at that point.
"Mrs. Lee?" he asked, taking her suit-case from her.
"Yes. Mr. Marsh?"
"Yes. This way, please."
"How did you know me?" she inquired, as she took her place in the worn
coupe that had been in the Marsh stables for almost twenty years.
"By your handwriting," he laughed, closing the door.
[Sidenote: With Bag and Baggage]
A smile hovered for a moment around the corners of her mouth, then
disappeared.
"Then, too," he went on, "as you were the only woman who got off the
train, and we were expecting you, I took the liberty of speaking to
you."
"Did you ask the man to have my trunk sent up?"
"Trunk!" echoed Alden, helplessly. "Why, no! Was there a trunk?"
She laughed--a little, low rippling laugh that had in it an undertone of
sadness. There was a peculiar, throaty quality in her voice, like a
muted violin or 'cello. "Don't be so frightened, please, for I'm not
going to stay long, really. I'm merely the sort of woman who can't stay
over night anywhere without a lot of baggage."
"It--it wasn't that," he murmured.
"Yes, it was. You don't need to tell me polite fibs, you know. How far
are we from the house?"
"Not as far," returned Alden, rallying all his forces for one supreme
effort of gallantry, "as I wish we were."
She laughed again, began to speak, then relapsed into silence.
Furtively, in the gathering shadow, he studied her face. She was pale
and cold, the delicate lines of her profile conveyed a certain aloofness
of spirit, and her mouth drooped at the corners. Her hat and veil
covered her hair, but she had brown eyes with long lashes. Very long
lashes, Alden noted, having looked at them a second time to make sure.
[Sidenote: A Child of the City]
The silence became awkward, but he could think of nothing to say. She
had turned her face away from him and was looking out of the window.
"How lovely the country is," she said, pensively. "I wish sometimes I
never had to step on a pavement again."
"Do you have to?" he asked.
"Yes, for I'm over-civilised. Like the god in Greek mythology, I need
the touch of earth occasionally to renew my strength, but a very brief
contact is all-sufficient. I'm a child of the city, brought up on smoke
and noise."
"You don't look it," he said, chiefly because he could think of nothing
else to say.
Madame herself opened the door for them, with the old-fashioned
hospitality which has an indefinable charm of its own. "How do you do,
my dear," she said, taking the hand the younger woman offered her. In
the instant of feminine appraisement, she had noted the perfectly
tailored black gown, the immaculate shirtwaist and linen collar, and the
discerning taste that forbade plumes. The fresh, cool odour of violets
persisted all the way up-stairs, as Madame chattered along sociably,
eager to put the guest at her ease.
Below, they heard Alden giving orders about the trunk, and Mrs. Lee
smiled--a little, wan ghost of a smile that Madame misunderstood.
[Sidenote: Resting]
"You don't need to dress, if you're tired," she suggested, kindly,
"though we always do. Come down just as you are."
Mrs. Lee turned to the dainty little woman who stood before her, arrayed
in shining lavender silk. The real-lace fichu was fastened at the waist
with an amethyst pin and at her throat she wore a string of silver
beads. Her white hair was beautifully dressed, and somewhere, among the
smooth coils and fluffy softness, one caught the gleam of a filigree
silver comb.
"Not dress?" she said. "Indeed I shall, as soon as my trunk comes. That
is," she added, hastily, "if there's anyone to hook me up."
"There is," Madame assured her. "I'll leave you now to rest. We dine at
half-past seven."
The sweetness of the lavender-scented room brought balm to Edith Lee's
tired soul. "How lovely she is," she said to herself, as she noted the
many thoughtful provisions for her comfort, "and how good it is to be
here."
A silver-framed photograph stood on her dressing-table, and she picked
it up, wondering who it might be. The hair and gown were old-fashioned,
and the face seemed old-fashioned also, but, in a moment, she had
recognised her mother.
[Sidenote: The Newcomer in Green]
Tenderness for the dead and the living filled her heart. How dear it was
of Madame to have placed it there--this little young mother, just
budding into womanhood! It had been taken long before she had known of
Edith, or had more than dreamed of love.
The arrival of the trunk compelled her to brush away a few foolish
tears. She did not stop to unpack, but only took out the dinner gown
that lay on top.
Promptly at half-past seven, she went down into the living-room, where
Alden and his mother were waiting to receive her. Madame smiled with
pure delight at the vision that greeted her, but the young man forgot
his manners and stared--stared like the veriest schoolboy at the tall,
stately figure, clad in shimmering pale green satin that rippled about
her feet as she walked, brought out a bit of colour in her cheeks and
lips, deepened the brown of her eyes, and, like the stalk and leaves of
a tiger-lily, faded into utter insignificance before the burnished
masses of her red-gold hair.
VIII
"Whom God Hath Joined"
[Sidenote: A Fortunate Woman]
Breakfast had been cleared away and Alden, with evident regret, had gone
to school. Madame gave her orders for the day, attended to a bit of
dusting which she would trust no one else to do, gathered up the weekly
mending and came into the living-room, where the guest sat, idly, robed
in a gorgeous negligee of sea-green crepe which was fully as becoming as
her dinner-gown had been the night before.
Madame had observed that Mrs. Lee was one of the rarely fortunate women
who look as well in the morning as in the evening. Last night, in the
glow of the pink-shaded candles, she had been beautiful, and this
morning she was no less lovely, though she sat in direct sunlight that
made a halo of her hair.
The thick, creamy skin, a direct legacy from Louise Lane, needed neither
powder nor rouge, and the scarlet lips asked for no touch of carmine.
But the big brown eyes were wistful beyond words, the dark hollows
beneath spoke of sleepless nights, and the corners of the sweet mouth
drooped continually, in spite of valiant efforts to smile.
[Sidenote: Why She Came]
"I think I should have known you anywhere," Madame began. "You look so
much like your mother."
"Thank you. It was dear of you to put her picture on my dressing-table.
It seemed like a welcome from her."
Madame asked a few questions about her old schoolmate, receiving
monosyllabic answers, then waited. The silence was not awkward, but of
that intimate sort which, with women, precedes confidences.
"I suppose you wonder why I came," the younger woman said, after a long
pause.
"No," Madame replied, gently, "for you told me in your note that you
were troubled and thought I could help you."
"I don't know why I should have thought of you especially, though I have
never forgotten what mother told me about coming to you, if I were in
trouble, but two or three days ago, it came to me all at once that I was
wandering in a maze of darkness and that you could show me the way out."
"I hope I may," the old lady murmured. "I shall be very glad to, if I
can. What has gone wrong?"
"Everything," she returned, her brown eyes filling with mist. "Of course
it's my husband. It always is, isn't it?"
[Sidenote: Running Away]
"I don't know why it should be. Is he cruel to you?"
"No, that is, he doesn't beat me or anything of that sort. He isn't
coarse. But there's a refined sort of cruelty that hurts worse. I--I
couldn't bear it any longer, and so I came away."
"Was he willing for you to come?"
"I didn't ask him. I just came."
Madame's glasses dropped from her aristocratic nose in astonishment.
"Why, my dear Mrs. Lee! How could you!"
"Edith, please, if you will," she answered, wiping her eyes. Then she
laughed bitterly. "Don't be kind to me, for I'm not used to it and it
weakens my armour of self-defence. Tell me I'm horrid and have done with
it."
"Poor child," breathed Madame. "Poor, dear child!"
For a few moments the young woman bit her lips, keeping back the tears
by evident effort. Then, having gained her self-control, she went on.
"I'm twenty-eight, now," she said. "I remember mother used to say she
always had her suspicions of a woman who was willing to tell the truth
about her age."
"Sounds just like her," commented Madame, taking up a dainty lavender
silk stocking that had "run down" from the hem.
"I've been married six years, but it seems like twenty. Almost from the
first, there has been friction between us, but nobody knows it, except
you--unless he's told his friends, and I don't think he'd do that. We've
both had a preference for doing the family laundry work on the
premises."
[Sidenote: Marital Troubles]
"What?" queried Madame, missing the allusion.
"Not washing our soiled linen in public," Edith explained. "While I live
with my husband as his wife, we stand together before the world as far
as it is in my power to manage it. I do not intentionally criticise him
to anyone, nor permit anyone to criticise him. I endeavour to look
ahead, protect him against his own weakness or folly, and, as far as a
woman's tact and thought may do, shield him from the consequences of his
own mistakes. I lie for him whenever necessary or even advisable. I have
tried to be, for six years, shelter, strength, comfort, courage. And,"
she concluded bitterly, "I've failed."
"How so?"
"We live in the same house, but alien and apart. We talk at the table as
two strangers might in a crowded restaurant or hotel, that is, when he's
there. I dare not ask people to dinner, for I never know whether he's
coming or not. He might promise faithfully to come, and then appear at
midnight, without apology or excuse."
[Sidenote: All Sorts of Subterfuges]
"He supports you," suggested Madame, glancing at the sea-green crepe.
"Yes, of course. That is, the question of money hasn't arisen between
us, one way or another. I have no children, father and mother left me
plenty of money, and I don't mind using it in any way that seems
advisable. In fact, if I had to, I'd rather pay the household bills than
beg for money, as many a wife is compelled to do--or, for that matter,
even ask for it. It isn't as if I had to earn it myself, you know. If I
had to, I'd probably feel differently about it, but, as it is, money
doesn't matter between us at all.
"Friends of mine," she resumed, "have to resort to all sorts of
subterfuges. I know women who bribe the tradespeople to make their bills
larger than they should be and give them the difference in cash. I know
men who seem to think they do their wives a favour by paying for the
food they themselves eat, and by paying their own laundry bills. Then,
every once in a while, I see in some magazine an article written by a
man who wonders why women prefer to work in shops and factories, rather
than to marry. It must be better to get a pay-envelope every Saturday
night without question or comment, than it is to humiliate your immortal
soul to the dust it arose from, begging a man for money to pay for the
dinner he ate last night, or for the price of a new veil to cover up
your last year's hat."
[Sidenote: Defiance]
"All this," said Madame, threading her needle again, "is new to me. I
live so out of the world, that I know very little of what is going on
outside."
"Happy woman! Perhaps I should be happy, also, since this particular
phase of the problem doesn't concern me. Money may not be your best
friend, but it's the quickest to act, and seems to be favourably
recognised in more places than most friends are. For the size of it, a
check book is about the greatest convenience I know of."
The brown eyes were cold now, and their soft lights had become a
glitter. The scarlet mouth was no longer sweet and womanly, but set into
a hard, tight line. Colour burned in her cheeks--not a delicate flush,
but the crimson of defiance, of daring. She was, as she sat there, a
living challenge to Fate.
"Is he happy?" queried Madame.
"I suppose so. His ideal of a wife seems to be one who shall arrange and
order his house, look after his clothing, provide for his material
comfort, be there when he comes, sit at the head of his table, dressed
in her best, when he deigns to honour dinner with his presence, ask no
questions as to his comings or goings, keep still if he prefers to read
either the morning or evening paper while he eats, and to refrain from
annoying him by being ill, or, at least, by speaking of illness.
[Sidenote: Quiet Rebuke]
"I saw, once, a huge cocoa-husk door-mat, with the word 'Welcome' on it
in big red letters. I've been sorry ever since that I didn't buy it, for
it typified me so precisely. It would be nice, wouldn't it, to have at
your front door something that exactly indicated the person inside, like
the overture to a Wagner opera, using all the themes and _motifs_ that
were coming? That's what I've been for six years, but, if a worm will
turn, why not a wife?"
"If you'll excuse me for saying so," Madame answered, in a tone of quiet
rebuke, "I don't think it was quite right to come away without letting
him know you were coming."
"Why not?"
"He'll wonder where you are."
"I've had plenty of opportunity to wonder where he was."
"But what will he think, when he finds out you have gone?"
"He may not have noticed it. I have competent servants and they'll look
after him as well or better than I do. If I had left a wax figure in the
library, in one of my gowns, with its back to the door and its head bent
over a book, I could have been well on my way to China before I was
missed, or, rather, that I was among those not present. If he has found
it out, it has been by the application of the same inductive methods by
which I discover that he's not coming home to dinner."
[Sidenote: Do You Love Him?]
"Do you love him?" In the answer to that question lay Madame's solution
of all difficulties, past and to come. To her, it was the divine reagent
of all Life's complicated chemistry; the swift turning of the prism,
with ragged edges breaking the light into the colours of the spectrum,
to a point where refraction was impossible.
"I did," Edith sighed, "but marriage is a great strain upon love."
The silvery cadence of Madame's laughter rang through the house and
echoed along the corridor. As though in answer, the clock struck ten,
the canary sang happily, and a rival melody came from the kitchen, in
cracked soprano, mercifully muted by distance and two closed doors.
"See what you've started," Edith said. "It's like the poem, where the
magic kiss woke the princess, and set all the clocks to going and the
little dogs to barking outside. Don't let me talk you to death--I've
been chattering for considerably over an hour, and, very selfishly, of
my own affairs, to the exclusion of everything else."
"But your affairs interest me extremely, I wish I knew of some way to
help you."
"In the last analysis, of course, it comes to this--either go on and
make the best of it, or quit."
[Sidenote: The Marriage Vow]
"Not--not divorce," breathed Madame. Her violet eyes were wide with
horror.
"No," Edith answered, shortly, "not divorce. Separation, possibly, but
not divorce, which is only a legal form permitting one to marry again.
Personally, I feel bound by the solemn oath I took at the altar, 'until
death do us part,' and 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so
long as we both shall live.' All the laws in the country couldn't make
me feel right with my own conscience if I violated that oath."
"If the marriage service were changed," Madame said, nodding her
approval, "it might be justified. If one said, at the altar, 'Until
death or divorce do us part,' or 'Until I see someone else I like
better,' there'd be reason for it, but, as it is, there isn't. And
again, it says, 'Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.'"
"Those whom God hath joined no man can put asunder," Edith retorted,
"but did God do it? It doesn't seem right to blame Him for all the
pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage. Mother used to say," she
resumed, after a little, "that when you're more miserable without a man
than you think you ever could be with him, it's time to marry him, and
when you're more miserable with him than you think you ever could be
without him, it's time to quit."
[Sidenote: Envious Women]
"And," suggested Madame, "in which class do you belong?"
"Both, I think--that is, I'm miserable enough to belong to both. I'm
unhappy when he's with me and wretched when he isn't. As he mostly
isn't, I'm more wretched than unhappy. In the small circle in which I
move, I'm considered a very fortunate woman.
"Women who are compelled to be mendicants and who do not know that I
have a private income, envy me my gowns and hats, my ability to ask a
friend or two to luncheon if I choose, and the unfailing comfort of a
taxicab if I'm caught in the rain. They think, if they had my gowns and
my grooming, that they could win and keep love, which seems to be about
all a woman wants. But these things are, in reality, as useless as
painting the house when the thermometer is below zero and you need a
fire inside to warm your hands by. I have imported gowns and real lace
and furs and jewels and all the grooming I'm willing to take, but my
soul is frozen and starved.
"My house," she went on, "isn't a mansion, but it has all the comforts
anyone could reasonably require. As far as my taste can discover, it's
artistic and even unusual. The dinner my cook sends up every night is
as good, or better than any first-class hotel can serve, though it may
not be quite so elaborate.
[Sidenote: The One Thing Lacking]
"I myself am not so bad to look at, I am well dressed, and never untidy.
I am disgustingly well, which is fortunate, for most men hate a sick
woman. If I have a headache I don't speak of it. I neither nag nor fret
nor scold, and I even have a few parlour tricks which other people
consider attractive. For six years, I have given generously and from a
full heart everything he has seemed to require of me.
"I've striven in every way to please him, adapting myself to his tastes.
I've even been the sort of woman men call 'a good fellow,' admiringly
among women and contemptuously among themselves. And, in return, I have
nothing--not even the fairy gold that changes to withered leaves when
you take it into the sunshine."
"You seem to have a good deal, dear--youth and health and strength and
sufficient income. How many women would be glad to have what you have?"
"I want love," cried Edith, piteously. "I want someone to care for
me--to be proud of me for what I am and the little things I can do! If I
painted a hideous dog on a helpless china plate, I'd want someone to
think it was pretty. If I cooked a mess in the chafing-dish or on the
stove, I'd want someone to think it was good, just because I did it! If
I embroidered a red rose on a pink satin sofa cushion, or painted a
Winter scene on a wooden snow-shovel and hung it up in the parlour, I'd
want someone to think it was beautiful. If I wrote a limerick, I'd want
someone to think it was clever. I want appreciation, consideration,
sympathy, affection! I'm starving for love, I'm dying for it, and I'd go
across the desert on my knees for the man who could give it to me!"
[Sidenote: Kisses Classified]
"Perhaps he cares," said Madame, consolingly, "and doesn't show it."
"You can tell by the way a man kisses you whether he cares or not. If he
doesn't kiss you at all, he doesn't care and doesn't even mind your
knowing it. If he kisses you dutifully, without a trace of feeling, and,
by preference, on your cheek or neck, he doesn't care but thinks he
ought to, and hopes you won't find out that he doesn't. But, if he
cares--ah, how it thrills you if he cares!"
Madame's violet eyes grew dim. "I know," she said, brokenly, "for I had
it all once, long ago. People used to say that marriage changes love,
but, with us, it only grew and strengthened. The beginning was no more
the fulness of love than an acorn is the oak tree which springs from it.
We had our trials, our differences, and our various difficulties, but
they meant nothing.
[Sidenote: It May Come]
"I've had almost all the experiences of life," she continued, clearing
her throat. "The endless cycle of birth and death has passed on its way
through me. I've known poverty, defeat, humiliation, doubt, grief,
discouragement, despair. I've had illness and death; I've borne children
only to lose them again. I've worked hard and many times I've had to
work alone, but I've had love, though all I have left of it is a sunken
grave."
"And I," answered Edith, "have had everything else but love. Believe me,
I'd take all you've had, even the grave, if I could have it once."
"It may come," said Madame, hopefully.
Edith shook her head. "That's what I'm afraid of."
"How so? Why be afraid?"
"You see," she explained, "I'm young yet and I'm not so desperately
unattractive as my matrimonial experiences might lead one to believe. I
haven't known there was another man on earth except my husband, but his
persistent neglect has made me open my eyes a little, and I begin to see
others, on a far horizon. Red blood has a way of answering to red blood,
whether there are barriers between or not, and if I loved another man,
and he were unscrupulous----"
"But," objected the older woman, "you couldn't love an unscrupulous
man."
[Sidenote: Like the Circus]
"Couldn't I? My dear, when I see the pitiful specimens of manhood that
women love, the things they give, the sacrifices they make, the neglect
and desertions they suffer from, the countless humiliations they strive
to bear proudly, I wonder that any one of us dares to look in the
mirror.
"It's the eternal woman-hunger for love that makes us what we are,
compels us to endure what we do, and keeps us all door-mats with
'Welcome' printed on us in red letters. Eagerly trustful, we keep on
buying tickets to the circus, and never discover until we're old and
grey, that it's always exactly the same entertainment, and we're
admitted to it, each time, by a different door.
"Sometimes we see the caged wild animals first, and again, we arrive at
the pink-lemonade stand; or, up at the other end, where the trapezes
are, or in the middle, opposite the tank. Sometimes the band plays and
sometimes it doesn't, but all you need in order to be thoroughly
disillusioned is to stay to the concert, which bears about the same
relation to the circus that marriage does to your anticipations."
"Are you afraid," laughed Madame, "that you'll buy another ticket?"
"No, but I'll find it, or somebody will give me a pass. I'm too young to
stay to the concert and there's more of life coming to me still. I only
hope and pray that I'll manage to keep my head and not make the fatal,
heart-breaking mistake of the women who go over the precipice, waving
defiance at the social law that bids them stay with the herd."
[Sidenote: Mixed Metaphors]
"Your metaphors are mixed," Madame commented. "Concerts and circuses,
and herds, and precipices and door-mats. I feel as though you had
presented me with a jig-saw puzzle."
"So I have. Is my life anything more than that? I don't even know that
all the pieces are there. If they would only print the picture on the
cover of the box, or tell us how many pieces there are, and give us more
than one or two at a time, and eternity to solve it in, we'd stand some
chance, perhaps."
"More mixed metaphors," Madame said, rolling up the mended stockings.
A maid came into the dining-room and began to set the table for
luncheon. Edith rose from her chair and came to Madame. The dark hollows
under her eyes were evident now and all the youth was gone from her face
and figure.
"Well," she said, in a low tone, "what am I to do?"