THE UNLIT LAMP
THE UNLIT LAMP
A STUDY OF INTER-ACTIONS
BY
ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING
Author of “Invincible Minnie,” “Rosaleen Among the Artists,”
“Angelica,” etc.
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1922
By E. P. Dutton & Company
_All Rights Reserved_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
BOOK ONE--THE BRIDE
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A DANCE ON STATEN ISLAND IN 1890 3
II. A VINCELLE IN HIS NATURAL HABITAT 15
III. GILBERT GOES A-WOOING 26
IV. CLAUDINE’S PECULIAR MOTHER 37
V. CLAUDINE LEARNS TO ADAPT HERSELF 49
VI. THE KEYNOTE 59
VII. THE HEDGE WHICH GREW SO FAST 73
VIII. A YEAR LATER 88
BOOK TWO--THE BREATH OF LIFE
I. AFTER TWENTY YEARS 97
II. THE FORSAKEN PROVIDER 110
III. THE SUITOR WITH CREDENTIALS 122
IV. THE UNABASHED OUTCAST 132
V. THE BREATH OF LIFE 143
VI. THE UNLAWFUL PICNIC 155
VII. STEPHENS EXPLAINS HIMSELF 170
VIII. THE THING IS ON THEM 181
IX. BERTIE 196
BOOK THREE--THE CUP IS OFFERED
I. ANDRÉE’S RECITAL 211
II. THE BITTER TRIUMPH 222
III. ANDRÉE’S WEDDING 229
IV. THE BEGINNING 241
V. THE HOUSEWARMING 252
VI. DISCORDS 264
VII. THE PASTRY-COOK’S DAUGHTER 273
VIII. MUTINY 284
IX. HOME AGAIN 299
X. DESTINY INTERVENES 311
EPILOGUE 322
_BOOK ONE_
THE BRIDE
THE UNLIT LAMP
CHAPTER ONE
A DANCE ON STATEN ISLAND IN 1890
“Good Lord!” said young Vincelle, turning up the the collar of his
overcoat. “I didn’t know we were going to the ends of the earth.”
“It’s worth it,” said his friend.
They sat in total darkness while the hired hack dragged them up the
hills of Staten Island; it was a bitter night, and Vincelle wasn’t
prepared for it. He shivered and pulled the rug higher over his knees.
He was taking a little more than his share of that rug, but Pendleton,
feeling himself more or less responsible for the cold, made no
complaint. It was he who had persuaded Vincelle to make the arduous trip
from Brooklyn to Staten Island, to attend a dance, and to see the
prettiest girl there was to see. And Vincelle was a fellow accustomed
only to cities, to warm, well-lighted houses and theatres and swift
transitions in street cars and hansom cabs; he was, moreover, not
adaptable and not compliant.
He looked out of the window with a sort of dismay; nothing but bare
trees against a sinister night sky; now and then a lighted house in a
big garden. The horse went steadfastly forward, with a monotonous
jerking of his head; outside on the box loomed the swathed and
shapeless figure of the coachman, who didn’t appear to be driving, but
to be waiting to get somewhere.
“Is it much farther?” asked Vincelle, in an ominous voice.
“It’s not really far from the ferry,” said his friend. “Only being
uphill all the way makes it seem longer.”
“I’m numb with cold.... Why the devil wasn’t I satisfied with the pretty
girls in Brooklyn?”
“It’s worth it, I tell you!” Pendleton assured him, earnestly. “I’ve
never had such good times in my life as I’ve had at the Masons’.
Informal, but a good tone, you know. Charming people!”
Vincelle didn’t answer at all. He made up his mind to be very critical;
he felt that the Masons needed to be almost superhumanly charming to
compensate for so much discomfort.
They began the ascent of an outrageous hill, and the cheerful Pendleton,
looking out of his window, announced that they were “practically
there--the house is at the top of this hill.” He turned down the collar
of his coat and gave his silk hat a careful rub with his sleeve; he
began to stir about under the rug. But Vincelle made no preparations
whatever; he intended to look cold and uncomfortable; it was not for him
to please, but to be pleased. The carriage entered a gravel driveway
with a sudden burst of speed, and drew up under a porte cochère. Lights
were shining from the long windows curtained in white, and the sound of
their wheels had brought a man-servant to the door.
For a moment Vincelle lingered while Pendleton made his arrangement with
the driver, and then they entered the house together. And it astonished
Vincelle. It was so extraordinarily full of light and colour; on either
side of the hall were open doors, showing big rooms brightly carpeted,
with blazing fires and flowers everywhere. From some distant region he
heard voices, laughter, footsteps. The man-servant ushered them into a
smaller room, carpeted in red, and lined with book shelves, where on a
little table before the hearth stood a huge punch bowl; he proffered and
they accepted; then he led them up the fine stairway to a bedroom which
was hospitably ready for them with a roaring fire. He returned with a
jug of hot water.
“Dinner in half an hour, gentlemen,” he said, and went away.
No use denying that Vincelle was impressed. Certainly they didn’t do
things in this way at home. Jugs of hot water, instead of a chilly and
possibly very distant bathroom, wood fires instead of hot-air registers
and gas logs, flowers in February, instead of potted palms and rubber
plants. Moreover, this idea of leaving it to a servant to welcome guests
impressed him by its casualness; his mother always received visitors
with ceremony, as soon as they crossed the threshold. He recognized here
something exotic and rather disturbing; he got up and went over to the
bureau, where he could critically regard himself, for he had decided
that, after all, he would try to please.
He was a handsome fellow, very dark; he had heavy features and a sullen
and obstinate mouth; he was not very tall, but stalwart and powerful. He
was twenty-five, and though he looked even younger, owing perhaps to
that tragic sulkiness, he had a thoroughly adult and responsible air.
He was no fop, like Pendleton; there was sobriety and decorum in the cut
of his coat; he was even then every inch the business man. Evening dress
did not become his thick-set figure, but he was naturally not aware of
that.
“Do they have a gong--or send after you when dinner’s ready?” he asked,
still intent upon his image.
“They do not! You’re supposed to know, and if you’re late, they don’t
wait for you. Come on! You’re lovely enough!” said Pendleton. He
surveyed his friend good-humouredly; it didn’t disturb him that Vincelle
was handsome and he was not, or that Vincelle had money and was almost
sure to make more. The Masons wouldn’t care about that. He was consoled
by certain advantages of his own; he was lively, cheerful, witty in a
very mild way; everyone liked him; he was, in an innocuous sense, a
“ladies’ man,” master of the utterly lost art of polite flirtation. He
was tall, slender, elegant, with a long, sharp nose and a bulging
forehead; his hair and eyebrows were so light as to look almost white;
he had wrinkles about his little blue eyes; it is of no significance to
say that he was twenty-seven, because he was ageless, and would be in no
way different ten or twenty years later.
“Come _on_!” he said, again.
In great decorum, conscious of their immaculate appearance and their
value as eligible and admirable young men, they descended the stairs and
entered the drawing-room. The subtle air of excitement which Vincelle
had felt upon entering the house was intensified here, the same
abundance of light and flowers, and a big fire. But with the addition
now of an agreeable babel of voices.
Pendleton led him forward to a stout lady in black silk, with an august,
kindly face and a very high colour.
“Mrs. Mason,” he said, “may I present----”
“This must be Mr. Vincelle,” she said, cheerfully, and held out her
hand. “You’re just in time. We’re about to have dinner.”
And she took the arm of a young man in spectacles and led the way into
the dining-room, followed by all the others, without order or ceremony.
She was not the aristocratic person the young man had expected, but she
was dignified, and that sufficed for a mother. No more introducing was
done, and he sat down between two girls who talked to him immediately
and agreeably. But he couldn’t respond; he was a little out of his
element; he was accustomed to formality, ceremony, an air of sobriety,
and it didn’t agree with him to be plunged suddenly into the midst of a
dozen strange people, without, one might say, his passport. If people
didn’t know who he was, then where was his prestige?
He looked about him. There were certainly a dozen people, all of them
young, with the exception of the hostess, and a queer, bearded man who
was unaccountably dressed in a rough grey suit and who likewise had the
effrontery to wear run-down morocco slippers. That was bad; that was odd
and eccentric, and everything he objected to most strongly. But the two
girls beside him addressed him as “Professor,” and if he were a
professor, that explained it, though without justifying it. His glance
left this unpleasant object, and sought for his friend, and found him
opposite, lost in conversation with a girl. That must be _the_ girl, of
course! He stared at her, entranced. Pendleton hadn’t exaggerated in
the least. She was charming, fascinating! Mentally he made use of the
adjective which probably four out of every five of the young lady’s
admirers used. He called her “fairylike.”
As a matter of fact, she wasn’t quite pretty, but no male person had
discovered that. She destroyed judgment. She was a little, slight thing,
rather pale, with reddish hair that stood out like an aureole of fine
copper threads. She had warm brown eyes, the kindly eyes of her mother;
small, pretty features. But her charm and her distinction lay in her
wonderful animation. One could, he thought, look at her for hours, and
never tire of her gestures, of the change of expression on her mobile
face. She was witty, too; or it seemed wit to him, her dear little
grimaces and her jolly, good-natured banter. No, he didn’t blame
Pendleton in the least; she _was_ worth the trip. Her dress satisfied
his exacting requirements too; it was white, much beruffled, cut a
little low in the neck, with short sleeves, and it had a train. It was
the dress of a young lady, for in these days there really weren’t any
girls.
She raised her eyes and met this new young man’s glance, and smiled at
him--a hostess’s smile, friendly, but a little impersonal. He was
gratified to see that she didn’t appear at all serious with Pendleton;
she was, he thought, somewhat mocking. And from that hour, he decided to
consider his friend’s well-known worship as a thing of no consequence,
simply one of Pendleton’s innumerable little loves--a sort of joke....
It was an excellent dinner; he couldn’t remember a better, and it was
surprisingly abundant. He was accustomed to frugality, and more or less
austerity. His mother had finer linen, more silver, more magnificence,
but never had she had on her table a feast like this, such honest,
unpretentious excellence in food. There was one wine served throughout
the meal, which was not according to his standard of elegance, but it
was a good wine, beyond denial.
When the meal was finished, the ladies rose and fluttered away.
“Not much time, you know!” said Mrs. Mason, warningly, as she left.
“It’s after eight!”
The professor then produced a box of cigars and a decanter and they
lingered for a time in the warm room, very content. But the sound of
carriage wheels interrupted them; they threw their cigars into the fire
and went into the big room across the hall, where Mrs. Mason was
waiting. A succession of bundled-up forms went past and up the stairs,
descending in due time as more young ladies; the room began to fill.
Pendleton was busy taking his friend about and introducing him here and
there, not leaving him until his card was quite filled and he had
secured two dances with Miss Mason herself.
What was it about this particular dance which made it different from all
the other dances he had attended? Why did he have such a surpassingly
enjoyable evening that he looked back upon it with a smile all his life?
There were pretty, lively girls, a floor like glass, good music, a
matchless supper; but there was nothing unusual in that. No, there was
some quite special quality about it; a charming festivity, a revel
wholly youthful and innocent and happy. He held the adorable Claudine in
his arms for two waltzes; he had very little to say to her, but he was
by nature taciturn; he listened instead. He was lost....
The carriages began coming back and the dance guests to take their
leave. He watched one group after another of bright faces vanish, then
at length the front door closed upon the last one, and Mrs. Mason, with
a sigh that was half laughter, sank into a chair.
“Mercy!” she said. “I’m getting too old for this, children!”
There were only the house guests left now, and the family, standing
about the big room. There were himself and Pendleton, the lovely
Claudine and her mother, and five other persons, whom he was beginning
to be able to place now; there were a daughter and her husband, there
were two bosom friends of Claudine’s, and the incomprehensible young man
in spectacles.
“It’s after two o’clock,” said Mrs. Mason. “There’s a little sort of
breakfast laid out in the dining-room for you young people, if you’re
hungry again. But don’t be long over it, and don’t disturb your father
as you come upstairs. Good-night, all of you!”
She rose heavily.
“And, Lance, you’ll put out the lights and lock up?” she added.
The young man in spectacles nodded.
“Mother,” said Claudine, “it was lovely! It’s so dear of you!”
Her mother looked at her for a moment with a faint smile.
“You’re only young once!” she said.
Trite words, certainly, and none of her hearers felt their force. Her
other daughter kissed her warmly, her son-in-law escorted her to the
foot of the stairs, and her stout, black-clad figure was seen ascending,
wearily, a little bent.
She puzzled Vincelle; she had no elegance; he felt sure that his mother
would call her “ordinary.” Yet there was about her a dignity, an
authority, he had never seen surpassed. And her way of entertaining you
had a sort of vigour and originality about it; he felt that she didn’t
care much what other people did, or what was correct, but was concerned
only with comfort, gaiety, and this unostentatious, invincible dignity
of hers.
“Come on!” said Claudine, and they all followed her across the hall.
A new mood had settled upon them; they weren’t conscious of being tired,
but they were, all of them, subdued, inclined to a pleasant seriousness.
The room was shadowy, except for a hanging gas lamp above the table, and
the glow of the fire. They sat about the table, hungry in spite of the
hearty supper they had consumed a few hours ago, and the young man in
spectacles began to talk in an unaccountable and eccentric fashion about
Pre-historic Man, and drew a picture of him, cowering and shivering on
such nights as this.
“A life of incessant fear,” he said. “Imagine that. Never to know
security. Never to see any possibility of safety. No chance of old age.”
Vincelle listened, but he felt vaguely that Pre-historic Man was rather
blasphemous and Darwinian and free-thinking. It was also displeasing to
observe that Claudine was interested.
“It’s safety that’s made us develop, isn’t it, Lance?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“It’s safety that’s making us decline,” he said. “It’s making us soft
and weak and dull.”
“But if we weren’t secure, we couldn’t have any art,” said Claudine.
“Art!” said the young man, with a harsh laugh. “Art! The opium dreams of
drugged, idle people!”
The married sister interposed, laughing.
“Don’t be so serious, Lance! Claudine, dear, you’re not attending to
us!”
For Claudine was sitting at the head of the table, dispensing tea and
coffee. The sparkling brightness had gone from her face, she looked pale
and a little weary, but lovelier than ever. Vincelle was now disposed to
admire her more seriously; she had poise and dignity, and she could talk
in a way to startle him. She had something to say even on the topic of
Pre-historic Man; she had ideas which _he_ couldn’t have had.
“Life lost its meaning,” Lance went on, “when it ceased to be a
struggle.”
“For Heaven’s sake, when did it cease to be a struggle?” said Pendleton.
“They forgot to tell me. I thought it was still pretty hard to get a
foothold.”
Lance ignored him.
“Man waged a magnificent and heroic struggle with Nature,” he said, “but
was defeated.”
“But was it really so heroic, Lance? It was an involuntary struggle, it
hadn’t any aim. It seems to me that now, when we’re conscious, and can
really try to improve--”
“We don’t. We can’t. It’s too late. We’re in the final stage of
evolution. We went the wrong way.”
“Lance is a paleontologist,” murmured the girl next to Vincelle. “He’s
wonderful, isn’t he? But so gloomy!”
Vincelle had no idea what a paleontologist was, but he didn’t like them.
He felt horribly out of it. He couldn’t be learned, and he wouldn’t be
funny, like Pendleton. He was quite aware that he wasn’t making any sort
of impression here. Claudine must have become conscious of his
dissatisfaction--perhaps he showed it--for she suddenly addressed him.
“What do you think, Mr. Vincelle? Do you think we’re a miserable, doomed
remnant?”
He flushed.
“I’ve never given it much thought,” he said. “I’ve been busy keeping up
with business.”
His poor little remark sounded so sulky and infantile that even he was
confused.
“And politics,” he added, in an attempt to sound broader-minded.
Lance drew out his watch.
“I’m going to lock up now,” he said. “Five minutes before the lights go
out!”
There was a chorus of good-nights.
“Don’t forget that Father’s asleep!” warned the married sister, as
Claudine and her two bosom friends went chattering up the stairs.
Pendleton and Vincelle followed them and turned down the hall to their
own room. Pendleton began flinging off his clothes, but Vincelle sat
motionless in an arm-chair before the fire.
“Who is that fellow they call Lance?” he asked.
“Oh! Him? He’s a cousin. The Professor’s protégé. He lives with them,
you know. Nice chap; a little bit crazy. But then the old man is too.
Both scientists, you know. Professor’s a botanist. Come to bed, old boy,
and get that light out, will you?”
Tall and lanky in his night shirt, Pendleton stretched tremendously.
“Come to bed!” he said, again. “Come and get your beauty sleep, my boy.
Your face is your fortune, you know.”
Vincelle answered him with a sudden burst of anger.
“Oh, yes, but I’m not quite a fool, you know. A fellow can’t hold a
position in a business like mine without some trace of brains. I may not
know much about Science, but I know a damn lot about the Art of Making
Money. And I’m not a boor, either,” he added. “Hitherto I’ve always
managed to hold my own in any sort of social gathering. I’ve been
considered worthy of a word now and then....”
A loud, artificial snore from his friend cut him short. He turned out
the light and undressed in the firelight. But he felt his face burn in
the dark with a resentment he was not able to analyze.
CHAPTER TWO
A VINCELLE IN HIS NATURAL HABITAT
He waked the next morning to a marvelous peace. Pendleton was still
sleeping beside him, and there was no other sound but his quiet
breathing. Vincelle felt very wide awake; he got up instantly, and he
was glad to believe, from the silence, that it was still very early and
that he would be able to get home before eleven. He had forgotten to
wind his watch the night before and it had stopped, but he fancied that
he could sense the time. He went over to one of the windows and pulled
up the shade with a rattle; it wasn’t his nature to consider the sleep
of friends. It was a bright, frosty morning, very clear; before him lay
a neat back garden, and behind it a stable. Not a sign of life. He drew
on his socks, always the first step of his routine, and suddenly a
disturbing thought assailed him. He went over to Pendleton and shook him
and shook him until he opened his eyes. Pendleton swore at him.
“Look here!” said young Vincelle. “Where do I shave?”
“Don’t shave!” said Pendleton. “Go to sleep again like a Christian.”
“No. I told Mother I’d try to get home in time to take her to church.”
Pendleton pulled out his watch from under his pillow.
“Ah!” he shouted, exultantly. “Half past eleven already, my son!
Foiled!”
Vincelle frowned.
“I haven’t missed in years,” he said. “Poor old lady! She counts on it.”
“Now perhaps you’ll shut up and let me go to sleep again.”
“Where can I shave? Is there a bathroom?”
“Ring the bell,” said Pendleton. “And some one’ll bring you hot water.”
But when he was dressed in the clothes he had brought with him in his
bag, he hesitated to go down alone in this strange house. He strolled
about the room, smoking, until Pendleton was ready, and they descended
together. There wasn’t a soul to be seen.
“They’ve all gone to church,” said Pendleton.
This struck Vincelle as grossly inhospitable, someone should have been
there to attend to him. But a nice little servant brought them an
excellent breakfast in the dining room and after it they sat comfortably
in front of the fire, enjoying cigars from an open box on the sideboard.
“As soon as they come back, we’ll go,” said Pendleton. And they did so.
Mrs. Mason offered them the use of the family omnibus in which they had
returned from church, but Pendleton said they’d rather walk. She did not
invite them to stop for dinner, which Vincelle considered impolite. If
she didn’t want them, why couldn’t she simply invite them in a
half-hearted, unacceptable manner?
“I must thank you for a most enjoyable time,” he said ceremoniously.
She smiled and held out her hand.
“Come again!” she said.
Claudine, too, gave him her hand, but her glance and her smile were
lamentably devoid of significance. Evidently he wasn’t, for her, a
special person; he was nothing but a young man who had come down for a
dance. They set out down the hill, and he was able now to gain an idea
of the place at his leisure. It was a big wooden house with a cupola on
top; it had no pretension to beauty or architectural style, it was in
fact, quite hideous and ungainly, made of grey clapboards with a slate
roof; square, except that on one side a little greenhouse was built out
from the veranda. The garden, too, although large, was not like the
gardens of other people: there was no fountain, no nicely set out
shrubs. There was a beautiful old box hedge enclosing it, but inside it
looked irregular and untidy.
Pendleton was talking cheerfully.
“What do you think of her?” he asked.
“Very attractive,” said Vincelle.
“Did you ever see anyone like her?” he pursued.
Vincelle admitted that he hadn’t.
“I don’t mind telling you I’m pretty hard hit,” said Pendleton.
This was something his friend had very much wished not to hear.
“What about _her_?” he asked, briefly.
Pendleton groaned.
“She’s such a little flirt!” he said. “Of course, I’m not in a position
to marry now, anyway. I’m not making enough to keep myself. And by the
time I can ask her ... with all these fellows hanging round her all the
time ... Lord!”
Vincelle considered this frankness unmanly and indecorous. Never would
he have admitted a liking for a young lady until he was certain that she
returned it.
They crossed on the ferry, standing outside in the fine, cold air, on
the deck of the ark-shaped old boat. They reached New York and just
caught the Wall Street ferry and at last disembarked in the familiar air
of Brooklyn. They both lived in the august Columbia Heights district,
Pendleton in a house which was respectable, but no more, and Vincelle in
a fine one, on a corner, with a garden quite twenty feet wide. He
respected this garden, because it represented extra property and also
because it kept them aloof from all neighbors; through the high iron
fence could be seen its winter desolation, a complete and woeful
barrenness. At the best of times it was hardly an oasis, nothing grew in
it, and nothing was intended to grow in it, except a wretched ancient
wistaria, two bushes of Japanese holly and a tall shrub, dry and dead.
The common use of the garden was as a place in which the house plants
could stand, the rubber trees and palms and orange trees in tubs. Every
Spring old Mrs. Vincelle bought a number of potted geraniums and had
them planted in a certain bed where they blossomed, mangily, for a month
or two.
He bade his friend good-bye here and ran up the brown stone steps,
opened the door with his latch key, and entered into a chill vault,
dark, muffled, dismal. He hung up coat and hat on a gigantic piece of
furniture which towered up to the ceiling and which was at once a hat
rack, a pier-glass, a bureau with six drawers and a low table with a
marble top. Then he ran up the thickly carpeted stairs to a bedroom on
the floor above where he knew he would find his mother.
Sure enough, there she was, sitting in her rocking chair, with folded
hands, looking out on to the quiet street, a fragile little old lady of
sixty with a contemptuous, wizened little face and melancholy brown
eyes. She was dressed in her Sunday dress of black silk with a white
lace vest, she wore her best earrings, her diamond brooch, and a fine
wool shawl bundled about her narrow shoulders.
“Well!” she said with a smile.
Her son approached and kissed her reverently.
“I was very sorry, Mother, to miss taking you to church,” he said, “but
I didn’t wake up until eleven. It was three o’clock when we got to bed.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Did they dance on Sunday morning? Well, I dare say no one thinks of
such things any longer. However, it didn’t matter, Gilbert. I had a
touch of rheumatism, I shouldn’t have gone anyway.”
“Pshaw!” he said solicitously. “Your shoulder again, Mother?”
“It doesn’t matter. Sit down, Gilbert, and tell me all about it.”
He sat down opposite her, smoothing his sleek black head.
“Oh! The usual thing!” he said.
“Are they nice people?”
“Oh, yes, nice enough. The father’s a professor.”
“That may mean anything,” said the old lady. “I’ve known some professors
who were very nice people and some who were impossible. Did you see that
girl that Ashley is so enthusiastic about?”
“Yes, I saw her.”
“Mrs. Pendleton tells me he’s head over heels in love with her.”
“Oh, well, you know what Ashley is. He’s always in love.”
“Is she as pretty as he imagines?”
“I don’t know what he imagines,” said her son, a little peevishly.
“She’s a very attractive girl. Look here, Mother, I haven’t had any
dinner.”
“Mercy me,” cried the old lady. “And it’s nearly four o’clock! Why
didn’t you stay in Staten Island? Our dinner’s over and done with hours
ago. Ring the bell, Gilbert!”
He did so and it was promptly answered by a woman servant.
“Fetch Miss Dorothy,” she said.
She had risen in her agitation regarding her son’s shocking hunger and
began pottering about the room, frowning, lifting up little articles
from the bureau and the table with trembling old hands. It was a fine,
big room with a Turkish rug on the floor and an assemblage of solid
walnut furniture. It was crowded with knickknacks, photographs, a
hundred and one mementoes of her past life. It hadn’t the look of a
bedroom, for the bureau was hidden behind a screen and the bed was a
folding one, displaying nothing but an immense bevelled mirror set in a
broad frame of polished wood. Her son had never, even in childhood,
seen the least trace of disorder in this room.
“Pshaw!” said the old lady, “she’s asleep again, I suppose. The older
she grows the lazier she gets. She’s forever creeping upstairs and going
to sleep.... All nonsense.... Here am I so troubled with insomnia that I
don’t get five hours rest out of the night and I don’t think anyone’s
even seen me taking a nap.... Well, Dorothy!”
A woman stood smiling in the doorway, a stout, grey-haired woman with a
tousled, guilty air, a cousin, who earned her bitter bread as a
companion for various relatives. She was always spoken of as staying
with Aunt This and Cousin That; after two or three months she was sent
away, with a sort of rage engendered by her submission, her poverty and
her stupidness, and then when the memory had worn off, she was recalled.
Her usefulness was never admitted, but always exploited.
“Why, Gilbert!” she said, with an air of pleased surprise. “I didn’t
hear you come in!”
“I don’t think you’d hear a sound if the house was on fire!” said the
old lady, tartly. “It’s dangerous, the way you sleep. We could all be
murdered in our beds, and it wouldn’t disturb you.”
“Why, Cousin Selina, I wasn’t asleep! I was writing letters!”
“Well, now perhaps you’ll be able to attend to this poor boy. He hasn’t
had any dinner. And I’d calculated on his having a hearty meal there, so
I hadn’t planned for a very big supper. And Katie’s out. Run down to the
kitchen and see if you and Mary can’t fix up something nice for him.
And tell Mary supper at five instead of six.”
Miss Dorothy looked terrified. She knew so well the very meagre
resources of this household where there was never quite enough of
anything, where each egg was mentally numbered.
“I’ll do my best,” she said, doubtfully, and vanished.
“Now run upstairs and get ready!” said the old lady.
There were three big, unoccupied bedrooms on her floor, but it had
seemed to her, and to Gilbert, more fitting for a bachelor to live on
the floor above. He had a very large room there, furnished with austere
majesty, an ugly and uncomfortable room which he accepted as he accepted
everything else in the life his mother had arranged for him. There was a
black dressing-room attached, furnished with a marble wash basin and two
big clothes presses: it was supposed to belong to his room and the one
next, jointly, but as Miss Dorothy now occupied that adjoining room, the
second door was well bolted.
He sat down in a large, high-backed rocking chair with a tapestry seat,
one of the many pieces of furniture sent upstairs in disgrace after long
service. He began, absent-mindedly, to rock and to think--about
Claudine. His thoughts were all distressful and clouded; he felt himself
irresistibly attracted by that gay little creature, and he resented it.
He resented everything about that dance, the casualness, the
cheerfulness; his own home seemed to him admirably correct and
majestic. He felt quite unaccountably insulted. These people had
treated him in cavalier fashion....
He was naturally inclined to sulkiness. It was his refuge from an
incomprehensible world. And perhaps his great capacity for being
offended came from an equally pathetic source, perhaps it was a sort of
protest made by his youth and his manhood against his bondage. He wasn’t
aware of the bondage: he believed that his relations with his mother
were ideal and that he “humoured” her in a respectful way. But as a
matter of fact, he was less free, he was more under her dominion, than
even Miss Dorothy. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that he
was hypnotized. He had been led to believe that he was happy; the poor,
sullen lonely creature. He never laughed: he very seldom smiled; he
hadn’t a spark of humour or gaiety in him. Pendleton privately
considered him “heavy,” and heavy he was. It hadn’t prevented him from
making a few conquests though. His handsome face, his invincible
innocence and possibly his money and his well-known ability in business
had won two or three little hearts; but though he had been flattered, he
hadn’t been much touched. He had never before in his life experienced
anything like this; this was positively uncomfortable. He was obsessed
and annoyed by the memory of Miss Mason of Staten Island. Her sparkling
face, her liquid voice, the surprising novelty of her had completely
captured him. The idea of a girl as pretty and popular and charming as
she being able to talk with a--what was it--a paleontologist in so grave
a way....
Summoned by Miss Dorothy he descended through the silent house to the
dining-room in the basement, always used when the family was alone, and
attacked the dismal feast set before him. He was silent because he was
silent by nature, having nothing to communicate, and the two women were
silent, for what in Heaven’s name had they to say to him or to each
other? Meals in that household were perfunctory and ascetic; the old
lady didn’t like to waste money on food, it needn’t be either appetizing
or nourishing so long as it was according to tradition, and decent. They
finished, and all went solemnly up-stairs again; the little old lady
first, noiseless over the thick carpet, incredibly slight and
unsubstantial, then her son, the staircase creaking under his heavy
tread, the quiet darkness reverberating with his loud, masculine cough,
and last of all Miss Dorothy.
They went into the back drawing-room and sat down in the chairs they
invariably occupied. The old lady closed her eyes, for that nap she
always took, and always denied. Miss Dorothy, owing to the fact of its
being Sunday, couldn’t take up her fancy work, which was then one of her
strongest claims to gentility and gave her at least a semblance of
elegant uselessness, and she too closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to
continue in her weary and muddled brain her intricate calculations,
“planning” she called it. She had to plan for a new black skirt. Could
she manage with that alpaca Cousin Selina had given her and if not could
she possibly spare the money to buy a new one? She hadn’t a salary;
simply, when she left to stay with the next relative, Cousin Selina
would give her something in an envelope and it might be enough or it
might be very little. She had no occupation for her thoughts but her
planning; poor soul. She hadn’t a single interest in life.
As for Gilbert, he being a man, had to read the Sunday newspapers and to
smoke. He had an arm-chair and a foot-stool and a smoking stand, placed
ready for him, in a good light. But his peace was gone. He was sunk in
black depression.
CHAPTER THREE
GILBERT GOES A-WOOING
“Well ...” said the old lady. “She’s very--_peculiar_.”
There was no word her son could have disliked more; he frowned.
“Why?” he demanded. “In what way? How is she ‘peculiar’?”
“She’s been brought up,” the old lady began, and stopped. “After all,
you’re the one to be suited, Gilbert. You’re marrying her, not I. If
you’ve got it into your head that she’s the only woman on earth to make
you happy, very well. Marry her. And I only hope you _will_ be happy.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s likely, if you’re going to quarrel with her.”
“Gilbert,” said the old lady, “I’ve never quarreled with anyone in my
life.”
True enough, he was obliged to admit it. He saw that he had used a wrong
word. She didn’t quarrel, she didn’t argue. But she conquered. And when
she disapproved of people, she changed them. He had never tried to
understand her methods, but he had seen the results. He supposed it was
force of character and that it must be admirable and beneficent.
“You needn’t worry about that, my boy,” she went on. “I’ve never yet had
a word of disagreement with any of my sons-or daughters-in-law.”
“I know it, Mother. But living under the same roof ... and she’s been
brought up very differently.”
“Yes; just as I said,” the old lady observed. “Very peculiar....
However, if you’ve made up your mind, my boy, there’s no use talking
about it. I’ll do my best, as I always have done and always expect to
do.”
Her son believed this; he had never doubted that she was a perfectly
noble, perfectly wise and magnificent woman and he worshipped her. There
was an inscrutable and malicious smile on her shrunken lips; the
changeless, infinitely remote smile of god-like amusement at earth’s
follies which one sees on the face of a bronze Buddha. She had a majesty
beyond the need of charm or of fashion. She belonged to an old Brooklyn
family which had become aristocratic by reason of having lived in the
same place for four generations, and she had married into a similar one.
She had always been rich and immeasurably secure, living isolated in the
big house on “The Heights” like the somewhat ferocious monarch of a
desert isle, an obscure and uncomfortable existence in which nothing was
accomplished and nothing enjoyed. She disdained society as frivolous;
and all luxury was to her abomination. She made, she said, a “proper
use” of her money.
Her chief claims to moral excellence were these: that she had borne six
children, and that she had lived for sixty years; and above all because
of her marvelous lack of sensibility, an imperviousness which no actual
image of Buddha could have surpassed. She had looked on at suffering,
anguish, despair, unmoved, and that was fortitude; she had witnessed
birth, death, without a gleam of curiosity or speculation, and that was
common sense. She had been “just” toward her little children with all
the blindness proper to that virtue.
“It makes no difference _why_ you do things,” she always said. “A
thing’s _right_, or it’s _wrong_. I don’t want to hear your reasons.”
He recognized the old familiar attitude now, the old air of
saying--“Very well; go your own way, and learn by bitter experience!”
Within herself he felt she was saying--“You’ll have to reap what you
sow. You’ll make your bed and you’ll have to lie in it.” And so on.
“You don’t approve of my marrying her then, do you?” he asked.
“You’re twenty-five years old,” said his mother, “You’re old enough to
decide for yourself.”
He felt more irritated than his ideas of filial piety allowed. He drank
his coffee slowly and reminded himself that his mother was a widow and
that all her other children had married and left her. His thoughts were
readily distracted that day, though, and good-will very easy to him. He
sat back, lighted a cigar and looked about him, at the dismal basement
dining-room, used for all the family meals, with its barred windows
through which one could see the feet of passersby, and the horrible
walnut buffet and sideboard and the massive square table, and the twelve
chairs, three invalided and permanently in corners, the faded carpet
that had once been upstairs, the immense crayon picture of a lion’s
head, the general economical hideousness of this room which proclaimed
the old lady’s genial idea that anything was good enough for the inmates
of the house, and the owner. He had never liked the room, but he fancied
it this morning as it _might be_--a Paradise, with the charm, the youth,
the mysterious strangeness of a young wife in it.
Here, without question, the young wife would have to come, because
Gilbert could not and would not consider leaving his mother alone. And
to be candid, dared not. He owed everything to his mother, he said.
Hadn’t she made sacrifices to give her children every advantage, lessons
of various sorts, and unstinted moral advice? She talked candidly of
moulding their characters, and that is just what she had done. She had
moulded them in her own image, supreme and devastating blasphemy. They
were all of them like fainter copies of her own sharply written
character. This man sitting across the breakfast table from her now was
literally made by her. By nature credulous and imitative, he had lent
himself perfectly to her manipulations; he thought exactly as she had
taught him to think; he disagreed with her in some points, because she
had taught him that a man must in certain respects disagree with women;
he knew things, he had had experiences unknown to her, but she had
caused him to believe, sadly, that a man must so conduct himself. She
had taught him that, as a man, he must disappoint his mother. She
despised him a little, but she certainly, undeniably loved him.
She looked at him, stalwart black-avised fellow, with his heavy brows
and his obstinate mouth. Wasn’t he _manly_, she thought!
“Ah, well!” she said with a sigh. “No doubt it’s all for the best,
Gilbert.”
He finished his breakfast in manly silence,--which no decent woman dare
trouble--and getting up, went round the table to his mother, dutifully
to kiss her good-bye.
“I’m sorry you didn’t--take to her, Mother,” he said, a little grieved.
“Well,” she answered. “_You’re_ marrying her, Gilbert, not _I_.”
“If she’ll have me,” he said. “I haven’t asked her yet, you know.”
He had long ago promised his mother never to propose marriage to any
woman without telling her first. And it was in loyalty to this promise
that he had lured Miss Mason from Staten Island to Brooklyn under
pretense of showing her a wonderful picture on exhibition in a
department store--a Dutch peasant sweeping her cottage, and the motes in
the sunbeam were reputed marvelously life-like. It was a quite natural
thing, after gazing at this picture for fifteen awkward minutes, to
suggest a call on his mother living so near. The old lady had heard more
than one mention from her son of this Miss Mason from Staten Island, and
she knew, and Miss Mason knew, that this was a visit of inspection.
After it was over, and the beloved young lady had left the house on his
arm, he had, of course, to take her back to Staten Island. And never had
she been so nice to him, so kind, so gracious, never had he felt so
encouraged. The next evening was her birthday, and he had been invited
to the little dance by her mother.
“Why don’t you come to supper?” Miss Mason had suggested. And they had
both turned red and become silent, a little startled and alarmed.
Because they knew, both of these, that this would be the time....
“She may refuse me,” he said, and with a glance his mother saw all the
anguish he was trying to hide.
“I don’t think she will!” said she with a most detestable smile, which
fully expressed her opinion of Miss Mason and her matrimonial hopes. “I
don’t think there’s much fear of _that_!”
But Gilbert knew better, and he spent a day of black misery in his
office. As the afternoon wore on he became _sure_ that she would refuse
him. She had such a lot of fellows hanging around--and all of them had
those qualities which he lacked, those fascinating social graces.... He
so silent, so unready, a clumsy dancer, a man interested in nothing but
business--and the Republican party. He dreaded, he shrank from asking
her, and yet he was feverishly impatient to do so before those other
fellows had a chance.
Never was there a lover more humble than he. And he liked to be humble;
he liked to think how a great, powerful fellow like himself could be
brought low by a slip of a girl. It was a wonderful example, he thought,
of the Power of Love. Well, who knows ...?
He had been seeing a great deal of Miss Mason during the past three
months. He had gone with Pendleton to make their party call in due form
and he had found her on that occasion more friendly and more intimate.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and she was alone with Lance. Her mother and
father, she said, had gone out for a walk in the Silver Lake
woods--which Vincelle thought a very peculiar thing for an elderly
couple to do, above all, on a Sunday afternoon, when respectable people
were best invisible. There were a good many things about this family
which he could not approve of; Lance was one of these. That thin
sunburnt young man in spectacles with his gloomy face and didactic air
jarred upon him beyond reason. He had observed too, that Lance had been
reading to his cousin, in cosy intimacy, before the fire in the library.
But Claudine had been remarkably kind to him, and gentle and friendly.
Moreover, Lance had had the decency to remove himself and his big book.
Pendleton, of course, monopolized the talk, with his flippant nonsense,
but Gilbert felt that that did him no harm. He felt that he, sitting in
silence, with only a word now and then, a sensible word, mind you,
appeared more manly, and he was right! He touched the heart of the
lively young lady; she felt suddenly rather sorry for him, and because
he was stupid she fancied him more honest than others. She quite
cordially invited him to come again.
He did, and this time alone. He didn’t even mention the fact to
Pendleton, and when Pendleton learned of it he took it amiss.
“I introduced you there,” he said, “I didn’t think you’d go behind my
back that way, Vincelle.”
“I was invited,” said Gilbert, “and I went. I didn’t know the family was
your private property. I didn’t know I had to account to you for
every--”
“Damn unfriendly, _I_ call it!” said Pendleton.
Gilbert smiled scornfully.
If their friendship had been a more genuine one, this would have caused
a serious quarrel; but it was a forced sort of friendship, simply
brought about by propinquity. They had grown up together, gone to the
same school, the same dancing school, they moved in the same set. They
had no respect for each other; Gilbert despised the other’s frivolity
and lack of money-making ability, and Pendleton looked upon Gilbert as a
surly and ungenerous young boor. After their brief disagreement about
Miss Mason they went on as usual, except that they were wary about the
Staten Island visits. They went down there at different times, never
again together, and each took what advantage he could get.
The unhappy Gilbert had suffered much, and perhaps learned a little. He
had been dreadfully humiliated. Once Claudine had asked him to ride with
her and he had been forced to admit that he didn’t ride. Her astonished
face ...! And he hadn’t read any of those books she knew so
affectionately.
He had, when younger and slimmer, played tennis, but of late years since
he had become so engrossed in business, his great recreation had been
poker. As for books, he liked reading as much as the next man, provided
they were entertaining books. And he liked music, too; not operas, but
not trashy stuff, either; he liked Schubert’s _Serenade_, and
_Traumerei_, and things like that.... He hadn’t Pendleton’s talent for
picking up information, for knowing something about everything, but when
he heard Pendleton talking so glibly, he consoled himself by remembering
that he had had an education _exactly_ like his, of precisely the same
length and the same price. So Pendleton couldn’t really know any more
than he did, no matter how he talked.
The free, careless air of that household had encouraged him. In other
families where there were marriageable daughters, he had had an
uncomfortable feeling of eligibility, he had felt that everything he did
was important and significant, and that he must be careful. Here it was
obvious that no one cared. He could come and be welcome, or he could
stay away. He had begun to bring flowers and candy, which Claudine
received with pretty appreciation. But other people brought flowers and
candy, also, and were as nicely thanked.
He made an effort to study her to learn if she really was a flirt, as
Pendleton said. But he couldn’t decide. She reigned like a queen over a
court of admirers, but without undue coquetry. She was, in spite of her
gaiety and liveliness, a serious girl. She read marvelous books. She
played astounding music; she was a great companion to her father on his
botanical walks and she collected “specimens,” dried and pressed in a
book. Weeds, they looked like to Gilbert, but he was willing to admit
their value. He had never imagined anyone, so happy as she, so
interested and delighted with life. She was a fine horsewoman, she
skated and danced beautifully; she took long, long walks in the country,
and enjoyed them wholeheartedly; she went to the opera, to concerts, she
read, she practised her music, she painted in water-colours, she had any
number of friends and all sorts of informal society, she hadn’t a dull,
or idle moment in her existence.
He saw no evidences of domesticity in her, but that didn’t trouble him.
It wasn’t an era of domesticity. A wife, in his class, was an ornament
and a diversion. Domestic science was an unknown term to both of them.
Claudine had escaped the thorough training of her two elder sisters; her
mother had conscientiously taught them to cook, to sew, and to
superintend a household, just as she herself had been taught, but with
this youngest and brightest child, she had lost heart. She was growing
older; she was tired. And moreover, it seemed to her that the time for
all that had passed. No one would ever expect Claudine to cook or to
sew.
“Let her enjoy herself while she can,” her mother said to herself.
“Youth is over so soon.”
She would make a charming hostess, let that suffice. Gilbert asked no
more. He was completely dazzled.
His feelings would be incomprehensible to a later generation. They were
such polite, respectful feelings! He never thought of Claudine and
himself as a woman and a man. She was a young lady, and he was a
gentleman, and even in his most secret soul he respected her. He wanted
to marry her and he let it go at that. He didn’t even analyze her
charms.