Second Cataclysm in the House; of the Dark Cloud obscuring
the New Day, and the Violets that had faded behind a Curtain,
etc.; but chiefly of a Little Talk with Mamma, which produced
Moral Results, after all.
The foolish nightmares receded; the sad faces of a dream dwindled again
into air; and she waked suddenly in the sunshine to find herself quite
well. This she knew with the first opening of her eyes. The familiar
objects in the room, the face of the morning, wore the unmistakable
_well_ look. Wellness there seemed within, too, refreshment in body,
mind, and spirit. Life called to the young and the strong, and the
sunlight, streaming royally through the shuttered windows, was the
ringing reveille of a new day....
But Cally Heth, having waked to life, lay on in bed. She heard the
summons, was strong to answer it; but was held back as by a high
surrounding wall. She was like a tied bird, unfolding wings with the
heart to soar, and continually brought down by the shortness of
her tether.
She had waked to overspreading gloom in the House of Heth; but this she
could have fronted cheerfully to-day, fortified to charm it away, for
herself and others. If events of late had been sweeping her along too
fast, one emotion crowded unsteadyingly upon another, nature, stepping
in, had put the gentle punctuation where it was needed. Hers was the
resilience of youth. And the second cataclysm in the House, even at its
worst (which was what mamma had made it), was hardly comparable to the
first. There was no spiritual abasement this time, no sense of calamity
and worlds at end. Rather, indeed, the contrary: and it was here that
was found the seriousness of it all, in that now the smash-up was her
own deliberate doing. Cally had hardly needed her mother's savage
outbreak to make her feel how definite a parting was here with the
ideals and aspirations of a lifetime. She saw that one whole phase of
her girlhood had passed away forever. Or, it might be, this that she had
said good-bye to was the dim figure of her girlhood itself....
In these thoughts there was sadness, naturally. Hugo's going had been
with the noises of breakage, the reverberations of the day of judgment.
But Cally had had four days to put her house in order; and she felt that
she would have waked almost happy to-day, but for this stranger cloud
that still hung so dark upon the horizon....
It was such a day as October in this climate brings week on week,
gloriously golden. Cally breakfasted in bed. Toward ten o'clock, as she
was slowly dressing with the maid's assistance, word came that her
mother desired her presence in the administrative bedroom below.
"Very well, Annie," said the girl, listlessly. "I'll be down in a few
minutes."
The message came as something of a surprise, though a disciplinary
intent was easily surmised behind it. In the interview the other night,
mamma had formally washed her hands of Cally and all her flare-ups, more
than intimating that henceforward they would live as comparative
strangers. Since then there had come nothing from the staunch little
general, who also had remained in her tent, not ill, but permanently
aloof and unreconciled. Very different, as it chanced, was the note
struck by papa, who had come twice a day, and sometimes thrice, to the
sick-room, ostentatiously cheery in his manner, but obviously depressed
underneath by the dreary atmosphere enveloping the house. Never, it
seemed, had papa been tenderer or more affectionate than in these
bedside visits: so that Cally, with her sense of a guilty secret, could
hardly bear to look at his kind, worried face.
And she had opened her eyes on the day of wellness with the knowledge
that she must put her hand to this cloud now, though she brought down
the skies with it. Nothing, it was clear, could be worse than this.
To-night, after dinner, she must follow her father into the study, say
what she must say. Her mind had returned and clung to the solid
arguments of Hen and others. She knew that the memory of the
bunching-room had got upon her nerves; entwined and darkened itself with
other painful things; assumed fantastic and horrid shapes. Perhaps the
dreaded interview would not be so very bad, after all. Surely her father
could not wear that kind look for nothing....
Dressed, Carlisle stood at her window a moment, greeting somewhat sadly
the brilliant day. Her desire was to stop the footless workings of her
mind; to go out and do something. But all that she could think of to do
was to return to Baird & Himmel's emporium and complete that shopping
for the Thompson kinsfolk which had been so suddenly interrupted last
week. And, that occupation exhausted, she would go on to Mattie Allen's,
and probably stay there for luncheon. Tame achievements, but better than
staying longer in this room.
Here on the broad window ledge, behind the concealing curtain, there
stood a bowl of flowers. They were violets, dry and discolored now. The
girl's eyes, just as she was turning away toward her mother, fell upon
them, and she stopped, overtaken by memory. These were Hugo's flowers,
his last gift to her. She herself had placed them here, that eventful
afternoon five days ago, and not thought of them again till this
moment.... Was that, which seemed like an echo from some previous life,
only five days ago?
She stood looking down at the mass of sere bloom, touched the withered
tops lingeringly with her finger-tips. It was her tribute to the dead,
no more. The departed knight had dropped backward out of her heart with
a speed and smoothness which showed that he had, indeed, had small
foothold there since May. Less and less had Cally felt any impulse to
judge or blame Hugo, impute "badness" to him; it was she who had
changed, and never he. But how, why?... 'Was it something done,
something said?' Strange to remember now the hurried journey to the
Beach last year, that afternoon in Willie Kerr's apartment....
"Throw out those flowers in the window, Flora.... They've been faded for
days."
She went down the stairs in that inner state which her country had once
found unendurable: she was half slave and half free. And on the stairs
she forgot Hugo entirely. She was thinking, in her loneliness and
depression, of Vivian, who had pledged his help to her; wondering if she
could ask him to come and give her his help now,--at four o'clock this
afternoon, perhaps, when the house would be quiet and her mother
napping. Her wish was to talk with him, to show him all her difficulty,
before she saw her father. She felt that she could tell anything to Mr.
V.V. now....
Cally tapped respectfully upon a closed door, and said "Mamma?" Bidden
to enter by the strong voice within, she braced herself a little, and
opened the door....
Mrs. Heth sat toward the bay-window of a spacious bedroom, dignified by
an alcove and bright but for the half-drawn shades. It was observed that
she wore her second-best robe de chambre, and was otherwise not dressed
for the inspection of the best people. So indifferently was her fine
hair caught up atop her head that the round purplish spot on her temple
was left plainly visible: always an ominous sign....
"Good morning, mamma. I hope you're feeling better to-day?"
"Physically, I am quite well," said her mother, only half turning her
head.
"Oh, I'm glad.... It's such a beautiful day. I hoped you would feel like
going out for a drive."
"I hardly feel like going out--as yet.... Sit down."
Cally sat in the chair prescribed by a gesture. The eyes of the two
women met for the first time since they had parted in tears. And Cally,
seeing her mother's bereaved face, had to crush down a sudden almost
overpowering impulse toward explanation, reconciliation at any cost.
However, she did crush it down. There was nothing to explain, as mamma
had pointed out in the midnight.
Mrs. Heth cleared her throat, though her voice seemed sufficiently
strong.
"I understood from Flora that you were getting up this morning," said
she, "so this seemed the appropriate time for me to see you, and learn
something about your plans, regarding your future."
"My plans?"
"As you have so completely overthrown your parents' plans for you, I can
only assume that you have others of your own."
Cally sat with her hands folded in her lap. A look of curious
wistfulness flitted across her face.
"No, I haven't any special plans."
"I'm surprised to hear you say so. You surely do not expect to go on
this way the rest of your natural life, do you?"
"I don't understand, mamma. Go on in what way?"
"In this way. In occupying the central position in my home, in allowing
your parents to sacrifice their lives to you, in receiving lavish
evidences of regard and affection which you evidently have not the
slightest wish to return."
There was a considerable silence.
"I have a sort of plan there," said the girl, slowly. "I don't want
you--and papa--to go on--giving me everything. I want," she said, with a
slight tremor, "to take--to be just as little expense as I can
after this."
"Oh!... Then what you want to do is to withdraw altogether from
society--and go to work to earn your own living?"