way. She asked questions about the honeymoon; he gave her the names of
hotels, details of the accommodation they had secured; she had a little
gossip for him of old friends. When they stopped talking, there came to
her ears utterly unfamiliar sounds--a carriage rattling by over the
cobblestones, a footstep ringing on the pavement overhead, passing the
barred window, mournful whistles from the river.
After the roast came the pudding, a vanilla blanc mange, made in a ring,
the centre filled with strawberry jam, and cream poured over it all. And
this demolished, they all rose; Gilbert gave his arm to his mother and
they started up the stairs, followed by the disconsolate bride. She felt
more than ever like a forlorn child, following these two people so much
older and solider, so much more positive and self-assured than she. Her
life was to be nothing but a wretched struggle to please them....
They entered the austere front parlour where a flicker of gas revealed
the shrouded furniture, the huge, gold-framed pictures on the walls, the
grand piano; they passed through this to the second parlour, and in here
the dutiful son made a light and settled his mother in her favourite
chair. The younger woman sat down near her, with an uncertain smile and
her husband drew out his cigar case.
“Do you ladies object?” he asked facetiously.
“Go along with you, Gilbert!” cried the old lady, “I do declare I’ve
missed the smell of smoke since you’ve been away.”
She leaned back in her chair and regarded him with complacency as he
blew out great clouds of smoke.
“Nice to be _home_, Claudine?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!” said the little liar.
He hadn’t much more to say; he was a silent fellow at all times and
to-night he was tired and a bit out of sorts. All this travelling about
had unsettled him; of course it had to be done, but he was glad it was
over. They would be much happier now, being settled down. To tell the
truth, the honeymoon had not been quite the rapture he had imagined.
Claudine had been--he reflected: well, Claudine had been too damned
polite. She had pretended to like everything; she hadn’t been quite
human. No matter what went wrong, she had kept on smiling.... With
undeniable relief he allowed his mind to drift back to Business.
The old lady dozed, her two withered hands lying on the arms of the
chair. There wasn’t a sign of life in the room. Claudine got up and
crossed the room to an immense walnut secretary and tried to read the
titles of the books on the shelves with eyes dimmed by absurd tears.
Hopeless volumes of sermons, forgotten and tedious poems. But she kept
on looking at them, with a false interest, only that she might keep her
face turned away.
Gilbert was touched by her lost young figure in that silent room.
“After all, it’s pretty dull for her here,” he thought, and he wanted
very much to make her happy, but didn’t know how. He had expected that
somehow she would light up, transform, enliven this household; he hadn’t
quite realized that he would be literally expected to do what all young
lovers so gallantly promise--to make her happy. He couldn’t help
thinking of Mrs. Mason’s words.
He wanted to get up and put his arm about her, but he was afraid of his
mother’s ridicule. And blind instinct suggested to him the one thing
that could solace her pain, that at once dried her tears and made eager
her leaden heart.
“Play something for us, won’t you, Claudine?”
“Do you really want me to?” she cried.
He got up and went into the front parlour, where he turned up the gas
and opened the piano. Then he seated himself near by, with a pleased
smile.
“Now!” said he.
She ran her strong little fingers over the keyboard in ecstasy. The
piano was out of tune and very stiff, but it was music anyway. She
hesitated a moment; she considered her audience, and fate inspired her
to play _Traumerei_. This was one of the few pieces they both knew and,
like very many others, they were delighted to hear what they knew.
“Brava!” said the old lady.
“I always did like that thing,” said Gilbert dreamily.
Her heart warmed to them, poor darlings who knew so little beauty! She
felt that in this way she could reach them, could make them understand
her. She went on, a tranquil flow of undisturbing harmony, melodies
which she believed they would recognize and like. She played to them
with profound earnestness, as anxious as a siren to charm the careless
sailors.
Gilbert sat lost in admiration. This was beyond question a proper wife,
a young, charmingly dressed creature who played the piano soothingly in
the evening. He thought she had never looked lovelier, so straight, so
slender, in her beruffled blue dress, her curly head thrown back. What
greater charm could a woman have than a lulling art like this, to dispel
the cares of the harsh masculine world? His heart swelled with proud
affection; he was passionately anxious to cherish and protect this
exquisite young creature so miraculously thrust into his dull existence.
She stopped playing; let her hands rest on the keys, and waited, perhaps
to be urged to continue. But her hearers seemed to take it for granted
that the playing was ended.
“Brava!” said the old lady again. “I hadn’t any idea you were such a
musician, Claudine. Very pretty!”
And Gilbert said:
“You have a fine touch, Claudine.”
She knew that he couldn’t have distinguished a good touch from a poor
one, but she was not annoyed. She felt very kindly toward them both,
because they had listened willingly to her music, and because she had
been able to play and to solace herself. She got up and closed the
piano, and Gilbert bent over her, to kiss her warm cheek.
“Wonderful little woman!” he said. “I’m a lucky dog!”
She was very happy. Here was a way out; she would practise her music
faithfully, perfect herself, become absorbed in it, and there would be
no tedious hours. She could become a really fine musician, the wonder
and delight of a little circle.
She followed Gilbert back into the second parlour, lost in her dream.
But to the others the music, a pleasant little interlude, was over, and
the rest of the long evening stretched before them. The old lady began
to crochet, and Gilbert took up his newspaper.
“Like to see the Woman’s Page, Claudine?” he asked.
Now Claudine had a lamentable dislike for newspapers. She never read
them; she wasn’t well-informed. No one in her house showed much interest
in current events, they envisaged human life as an immense and absorbing
history, and the present as one small day of it. Her father was a sort
of benevolent Anarchist who couldn’t endure the thought of restraint
laid upon evolution; her mother was blandly indifferent to anything
outside her own family; Lance lived in pre-historic ages. Nevertheless,
she accepted the Woman’s Page, read the fashion hints, a little article
on the care of house plants. Then she put the thing down and sat doing
nothing.
“Don’t you do fancy work?” asked the old lady.
“Yes, sometimes,” said Claudine. “But....”
She rose.
“I think I’ll go to bed now,” she said. “I’m so tired.”
Gilbert looked up from his paper and the old lady stared at her,
affronted and amazed.
“It’s only half past nine!” she said tartly. “I should think you could
wait till eleven, like the rest of us. I dare say you’re not any more
tired than anybody else.”
“Never mind, Mother, if she’s tired ...” Gilbert began, but Claudine had
sat down again with flaming cheeks.
“No!” she said. “I’ll wait!”
This was her first rebuke and she felt it a most unmerited one. It was
the first time she had ever heard of a fixed, arbitrary bed hour for
adult people. It had occurred to her a natural thing to go to bed when
you were sleepy. Sometimes at home, the day after a dance, she had gone
to bed directly after dinner, with a book to divert the few waking
minutes, and at other times she had sat up almost till morning reading
or finishing some enthralling bit of sewing. She felt a great anger
toward Gilbert, with his half-hearted protest. There he sat reading his
silly paper, page by page, every word ... what did he expect her to
_do_?
The old lady glanced up suddenly.
“Come, child!” she said. “Don’t sit there and brood! Gilbert, get her
the ‘Pigs in Clover’!”
“She won’t like it,” he answered, deep in his paper.
“Rubbish! It’s something to pass the time and that’s all the young folks
care for in these days. Get it for her!”
So from inside the secretaire Gilbert brought out a round box with a
glass cover inside which were marbles to be rolled through certain
partitioned alleys, and finally, if one were skilful, into a sort of
little house. He kissed Claudine as he gave it to her, an apologetic,
almost a guilty kiss, but she had no smile for him. She sat with the
thing in her hands, twisting it this way and that, letting the little
balls roll as they would through the alleys, and ready at the least
word, the least gesture, to burst into outrageous and most bitter
laughter.
One of the marbles suddenly rolled into the pen, and, unaccountably,
with this feeble satisfaction, the storm within her subsided. She
remembered having read somewhere that lunatics were given games and
diversions like this to quiet them. She wished that she could tell that
to her father ... she wished that her father could see her, rolling
marbles about in a glass-covered box.
Gilbert was gently shaking her.
“Sleepy-head!” he said. “It’s after eleven! You’ve been dozing!”
Both he and the old lady were greatly entertained. Their dazed victim
went upstairs, quite well aware that now, when at last she could get
into bed, she would lie awake for hours.
CHAPTER SIX
THE KEYNOTE
She waked up in the dark, terrified by a great banging at the door. She
thought the house was on fire, that someone was ill, that thieves had
broken in. She shook Gilbert fiercely. But he didn’t stir.
Barefooted she rushed across the floor and unfastened the door.
“What is it!” she cried.
“It’s seven o’clock, ma’am,” said a meek voice.
“Seven o’clock!” she repeated.
“Yes, ma’am, I always call Mr. Gilbert at seven.”
“Oh, I see!” she said. “I didn’t know....”
She closed the door and went back to the bed where Gilbert still slept.
“Wake up!” she said, severely.
Still he didn’t move. She clutched his big shoulders and tried to shake
him, but he only groaned.
“Oh, do wake up!” she cried, in a sort of desperation.
“All right!” he murmured, but his eyes remained closed.
She was on the point of tears! She would really have liked to hurt him.
She seized his hair and pulled it vigorously, and at once he sat up,
dazed and resentful.
“Look here!” he said. “That’s no way.”
“It’s seven o’clock!” she said coldly. “I should think, if you’re so
sleepy in the mornings, you’d go to bed earlier.”
She herself was very weary and depressed. She had, as she had expected,
lain awake a long, long time, unhappy in the darkness of that unfamiliar
room, with the shutters all closed, and no sight of the sky to console
her. At home she had always kept her windows unobscured so that lying in
bed she could watch the moon, the stars, the clouds, the sky whether
clear, stormy or ominous. The very shapes of the furniture had
distressed her, she had tried to make them out in their corners, as she
had listened to the muffled, unfamiliar city noises.
She wasn’t at her best in the morning; that was a recognized fact at
home, and she was always carefully let alone. But Gilbert put her to
shame. When at last he was roused, he was marvelously cheerful; he got
up whistling, and set about dressing in leisurely fashion, talking a
great deal. He was very much pleased at occupying the majestic room on
the second floor, it gave solidity to his new importance as a married
man. He thought his mother had arranged it very tastefully, he pointed
out to Claudine the new velvet lambrequin on the mantelpiece and the
pincushion the old lady had made for them. He picked it up from the
bureau and looked at it with affectionate eyes--a tremendous long blue
sausage covered with pleated silk and lace.
“Wonderful, at her age, isn’t it?”
Claudine obliged herself to say “yes,” but unkind thoughts possessed her
as to the value of such work at any period of life. She sat listlessly
combing her hair, trying to hurry, so that she shouldn’t again be late,
but quite sick with longing for a breath of air, a glimpse of sunshine.
“I really can’t get dressed in the dark!” she said, irritably. “Couldn’t
we have one of the shutters opened, Gilbert?”
“No,” he said. “Not possibly. The people across the street could look
in.”
“Then light the gas,” she said. “I can’t do my hair in the dark.”
He was a little shocked at this extravagant idea, however he did it, and
kissed her, because she looked so pretty with her hair about her
shoulders.
They descended the stairs together and entered the basement dining-room,
where the old lady was pottering about among her rubber plants and
ferns. She took her seat at once at the foot of the table behind the
coffee urn and the process of breakfasting began, a meal astounding and
repulsive to the bride. Such coffee! And no cream, no fresh fruit;
prunes, oatmeal, ham and eggs, poorly cooked, poorly served.
“You’re moping!” said the old lady, suddenly.
Claudine looked up with a faint smile.
“I’m never very lively the first thing.”
“Nonsense! A young married woman can’t give way to all sorts of moods
and fancies. It’s her duty to be bright and smiling and start her
husband off cheerful.”
Gilbert frowned.
“Never mind, Mother!” he said. “Claudine’s got her own way of being
cheerful, and it suits me. I understand the little woman, don’t I?”
Claudine was delighted, she would have liked to jump up and rush to him
and kiss him. Their eyes met in a friendly and beautiful understanding.
This was what she loved in him, for which she had married him, this
solid loyalty, this sympathy. She was no longer unhappy.
“Now!” he said, cheerfully. “Let’s see the news!” and picked up the
newspaper. He read an item aloud now and then, not because it could by
any possibility interest the two women dutifully lingering over their
coffee, but because it interested him. He smoked a cigar leisurely, and
then it was time to go.
Claudine went upstairs with him into the front hall, she took down his
tremendous overcoat from the rack and laughingly let her arms sink with
its weight.
“Mercy!” she said. “How _can_ you bear it, Gilbert?”
“It’s nothing compared to my winter one,” he said in his schoolboy way,
and suddenly lifted her up, kissed her warmly, and set her down again.
“Good-bye, sweetheart! Be happy--and don’t quarrel with the Old Lady!”
Then he ran down the stairs again to take leave of his mother, and left
by the basement door. From the front parlour window Claudine saw him
walking off in the cool September morning, big, stalwart, determined ...
_going out_.... Envy possessed her. Oh, didn’t she wish _she_ could walk
out of the house like that, away from the old lady, and forget it all!
She didn’t quite know how to proceed; she didn’t know just what her
share in the house-keeping was to be or what diversions and duties would
fill these days. But she was already aware that she needn’t ask, that
old Mrs. Vincelle would certainly inform her as to what was expected of
her.
She went up the dark, thickly carpeted stairs to the floor above. It was
perfectly still and silent, and in order, swept and dusted, all trace of
activity vanished. She looked in at all the open doors with infantile
curiosity, all alike, thick, dark carpets on the floor, lace curtains at
the windows, shades pulled half way down, marble mantelpieces covered
with fringed velvet lambrequins, small tables on which were photographs
in silver frames, huge bureaus, huge arm chairs, huge rocking chairs,
with lace antimacassars, and inevitably a horsehair sofa furnished for
naps by a folded “Afghan” of bright coloured stripes. Her bedroom--their
bedroom, was no different from the others; there was nothing intimate or
friendly about it. Whenever she went into her own room at home, a
hundred things at once suggested themselves to her, letters to write, a
bit of sewing to be done, a book to read. Here there was nothing
whatever; she couldn’t imagine anything to do here. She very
unnecessarily “tidied” the bureau top, and looked at her own reflection
in the mirror. Mrs. Gilbert Vincelle--a young married woman.... Romantic
and interesting creature....
She wandered downstairs again; the chambermaid was dusting the second
parlour, scene of last evening’s bitter ennui, but the front parlour was
empty, and she ventured in, drawn irresistibly by the piano. She opened
it, half afraid to disturb the musty silence of the house; she ran up a
scale, and it sounded monstrous. But the touch of the keys restored her
courage; she began to play, and as usual lost herself in her playing.
She had not yet unpacked her music; she had to draw upon her memory,
fragments, entrancing bits, which she played over and over.
She was interrupted by the voice of the old lady, raised shrilly to
penetrate the music.
“I’ve ordered Willie for eleven,” she was saying.
Claudine stopped, a little dazed from the harmonies.
“Ordered Willie?” she repeated, stupidly.
“The carriage. We’ll just have nice time to get your wedding presents
put away first. Annie has them all unpacked in the back parlour.”
It was an imposing array, and it raised Claudine’s spirits. She stood
surveying all the silver, the cut glass, the fine china, the linen, the
clocks, vases, lamps. She looked at them all over again.
“Isn’t this lovely. Don’t you really think this is the prettiest?” she
kept asking her mother-in-law, and the old lady replied with grim
indulgence.
“But this isn’t going to get your things put away,” she said, at last.
“Now, let’s see.... The linen you can put up in the linen cupboard; I’ll
have a shelf cleared for you. We’ll take the cut glass down into the
dining-room. As for the silver--well, if I were you, I’d put it in the
safe deposit this day and hour, but of course you won’t. The young folks
are all for display these days. So we’ll take it into the dining-room
with the rest.”
And thus was all her glittering new wealth disposed of. It gave her an
unpleasant feeling of childishness; her things were all superfluous,
toys to be made room for among the regular, adult, useful things. No tea
would be poured from her silver pot, no dinner served with her array of
intriguing dishes, of flat and perforated and curved silver; in whatever
room her clocks went, they were unnecessary second clocks. She arranged
a great many ornaments in her bedroom, where they were quite
incongruous; she even put in there a china umbrella stand because there
was already one in the hall.
It was high time now to dress; she found some satisfaction in getting
into a new grey broadcloth costume which she felt gave her quite a new
dignity. She observed that she was rather pale and that, too, pleased
her. She looked like a woman of experience, a mysterious and perhaps
somewhat disillusioned creature. The old lady, in a black mantle and a
small jet bonnet with a widow’s veil, was waiting for her in the hall,
they descended the steps and got into the little closed carriage and
went rattling off over the streets of Brooklyn. A most uninspired city,
Claudine reflected, calm, quiet, self-sufficing, an absolutely Vincelle
place. They went first to the butcher, who came hurrying out to receive
the order, for old Mrs. Vincelle rarely set foot in a shop, then to the
fruiterer’s, then the grocer’s. She inspected nothing; the only question
she permitted herself was “Are the oranges good to-day, Frank?” and yet
she prided herself upon her old-fashioned virtue in going to market in
person every day and she believed herself a match for any tradesman.
Then, without further instruction, the old coachman turned the heads of
the two fat horses, and they went trotting off to Prospect Park, for the
invariable daily drive along the same route to the same spot. It was a
beautiful morning and Claudine was happy. From time to time the old
lady inclined her head to the occupants of other carriages and then
Claudine would feel the charm, the interest of her new position as a
young married woman. She was conscious of her youth, her slight,
delicate figure, her new tailor-made costume, all the touching dignity
of a bride.
They reached the consecrated turning point, they turned and drove home
again. The old lady talked a little, she pointed out a house now and
then, or gave a word of explanation of some regal old dowager driving
past. She was affable, she was almost kind, and in her heart she was a
little proud of this pretty young creature--an acquisition of her son’s
and therefore the property of the family. And what a blow to Brooklyn,
that Gilbert should have passed over all its maidens, and taken a wife
from Staten Island!
They reached home at one, and lunch was at half past one, the nastiest
sort of lunch, wafer-thin slices of dry cold mutton, all sorts of little
warmed-over concoctions. Claudine made up her mind to change all this as
soon as possible.
After the meal they went upstairs and the old lady lay down on the
horsehair sofa in her bedroom and drew the gay colored “Afghan” over
herself.
“You might as well rest, Claudine,” she said. “No one will be coming to
call this afternoon. They’ll give you a day or two to settle down.”
And she resolutely closed her eyes.
Claudine hesitated.
“Would it disturb you if I played the piano?” she asked.
“Yes, it would!” said the old lady, affronted. “I dare say you can
wait.”
Once again that dread feeling of despair came over Claudine. She didn’t
_know what to do_! Her clothes were all quite new and perfect, there was
nothing about them to alter or to mend. She looked in vain for something
to read, but it was a house almost destitute of books. She wandered
about, looked out of the windows, but there was nothing to see except a
quiet street, lined with brownstone houses, and one solitary nurse-maid
with a perambulator. She would have liked to go into the kitchen. She
had, in fact, expected to play the rôle of young mistress of a big
house, but she dismissed the idea. Her mother-in-law would never, never
allow that.
She unpacked her music and mapped out a course of study for herself--an
alluring course of exercises and immensely difficult pieces, which she
intended to attack with new patience and energy.
“Goodness knows I’ll have time enough!” she reflected, ruefully. “I’ll
set aside two definite hours every day, and not let anything distract
me. This afternoon I’ll run over the things I’ve picked out.”
At three o’clock she heard the old lady creaking about in her room, and
music in hand she flew downstairs. Never had her fingers been so nimble,
so sure, never had she worked with such complete satisfaction. Here was
a field for definite accomplishment, a little living stream running
beneath the stagnant lake which was to be her existence. She was
expected--she was required, to be utterly passive, she was not to do
anything, she was simply to _be_. To be a Good Wife. That was to fill
the universe, that was to comprise everything. She was very willing to
be a good wife, but she couldn’t help thinking that there could still be
a certain amount of time left impossible to fill with wifeliness.
Now Claudine was not the material of which artists of the first rank are
made. She loved music, as she loved literature, and flowers, and many
other things. She had, to a certain extent, that quality known as
temperament, a sensitive and ardent soul. But she had very little
patience, and she was neither thorough-going nor resolute. It is
possible, even probable, however, that under the pressure of her ennui
and with the spur of her enforced insignificance she might have
developed her talent into something remarkably good, for she had a
talent. But it was not to be.
She completed an hour of Czerny’s _Finger Dexterity_, then she opened
her Liszt Album and attacked a terrific piece which needed all her
intelligence. She frowned; she played over and over again a superhuman
run.
The old lady’s voice interrupted her.
“Mercy _on_ us child! How long is this going to keep up? Your husband
will be home before you know it and you haven’t changed your dress.”
Claudine looked round with a distrait smile.