brought back to him the naughty little girl who had so perplexed and
amused him, the scowling little rebel he had so often wanted to
shake--and never had. He remembered her with surprising vividness as a
child of six, spending a Saturday morning with him, sitting in the
corner of this very office, cutting out paper dolls, while she waited
for him to wind up his business and take her out to lunch and the
circus.
“Andrée!” he said. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you go over to Germany
with your mother to study music for a year.”
“But I’m going to study here! That’s what Al and I have arranged. I’m
going to go on just the same!” she said, triumphantly. “And he’s going
to give me a grand piano for a wedding present!”
This put an end to his softness.
“If you don’t renounce this--mad idea--at once, and finally,” he said,
“it will mean--that I wash my hands of you. That you’ll be entirely cut
off from your family, including your mother, whom you pretend to love so
much. You’ll disgrace--”
“Nonsense!” she interrupted. “It’s not true to say I’ll disgrace you,
because I want to marry someone you don’t like. It’s--”
“Enough!” he said, frowning. “I’ve said all I’m going to. If you’re not
prepared to tell me _now_ that you will--obey me in this matter ... or
at least, agree to wait a year--”
“No, I’m not prepared to do that!”
“Then you may consider that you are no longer a member of my household!”
“What does that mean?” she asked, scornfully. “Does it mean you’re
turning me out?”
“Yes!” he shouted. “If you haven’t the common decency to appreciate, or
feel any gratitude for all that’s been done for you, you can try doing
without for a while. You can go back now and talk it over with your
mother, and when I come home this evening, I’ll tell you what I’ve
decided.”
“No, thanks! I won’t go home. I’ll never go home again. It’s your home,
not mine, I see. Good-by!”
He caught her by the arm.
“I won’t allow this! I insist upon your going home at once. Do you
hear?”
“Of course I hear! Everyone in the office must. But I won’t go!”
“Yes, you will!” he said. He was furious, and very much frightened. He
had no idea what she might do. “I’m going to call a taxi and send you
home.”
“You’ll have to get a policeman to go with me!” she said, laughing
again. “I won’t go! I don’t mind a row once in a while, but I don’t like
the idea of a whole lot of them. It was hard enough to come and tell you
about this, but you’ve made things impossible now. You won’t treat me as
a woman--”
“You’re not a woman!” he cried. And certainly she had never looked less
like one. She looked like a school-girl, reckless and ignorant of the
consequences of her folly, her face alight with a defiance that was more
mischievous than resolute.
“Good-by!” she said.
“Andrée!... Confound you!... Think of your mother! Go home, and we’ll
talk the thing over thoroughly this evening!”
“All right!” she said, suddenly, and left him without another word.
§ ii
It was due to Claudine that she remained in the house until her wedding
three weeks later. The distracted woman went from one to the other of
them, seeing the breach widen every day. She implored and entreated
Andrée, she faced Gilbert with unparalleled firmness; she was able to
keep up an outward semblance of dignity in the family. But it was a
monstrous thing. Andrée and her father never spoke to each other. The
meals were a nightmare, to see them there side by side, so bitterly
hostile. She dreaded to speak herself, for fear of hurting or angering
one or the other of those inordinately sensitive creatures. Edna was
grief-stricken; she had tried to remonstrate in the old friendly fashion
with her sister, to make her realize the prodigious unfitness of Mr.
Stephens, but she had been rudely rebuffed. Bertie was gravely
displeased; he disapproved of Andrée and also of his parents for not
preventing such a marriage.
“And these are the last days I’ll ever have Andrée with me!” thought the
poor mother. “These bitter, wretched days! This is the end of her
girlhood--and what an end! What a memory to take with her!”
The day after Stephens had returned from Europe he had invited her to
tea with Andrée, without having made any attempt to see Andrée alone, or
even to write to her. He had no need to ask Claudine whether she had
succeeded in alienating Andrée from him; her face told him everything,
her smile. He had a little table reserved for them in a corner of the
tea-room, and they all sat down in silence.
But Claudine, glancing up, saw them looking at each other, and it was
horrible to her. She saw in his kindly, honest face that least kindly,
least honest of human desires, his mouth had a kind of grimness; he
looked so entirely a man.... And Andrée! Was that the way a woman should
look, who is about to decide her destiny? Her brilliant eyes were full
on him, provocative, equivocal....
They talked, very harmoniously. He told them about his trip in dutiful
fashion, because he wanted Claudine to know his position.
“You see,” he said. “I’ve put about everything I own into this English
syndicate. It pays me well, but I put the biggest part of my income back
into it again. I calculate that inside the next five years I and three
pals of mine can pretty well buy the rest out, and then we expect to
turn the thing into a co-operative enterprise, with the workers sharing
the profits. Then, of course, I won’t get so much as I’m getting now,
but I’m getting too much now. But it’ll be a good living--something more
than that--for both of us, for the rest of our lives.”
“But I’m going to work too, you know,” said Andrée. “I’m going to study
a few years more, and then I’ll give concerts. All over Europe!”
“You won’t have much of a home, will you?” asked Claudine.
“We don’t want one!” said Stephens, cheerfully. “I never could see any
reasonable connection between--well, marriage and house-keeping. Because
I--love a woman, that doesn’t mean I want her to look after my personal
needs. I’d hate to see anyone like Andrée tied up to a house and a lot
of dull, petty details. I’m not going to interfere with her life. Never!
If I can help, I will, but if I can’t, at least I won’t hinder her.”
“But--” began Claudine, and she was conscious of a slight flush which
mortified her. They didn’t mind talking of such things! “A home is
supposed--isn’t it?--to be a place for--bringing up children.”
“Sure! But that doesn’t imply that the mother and father have to spend
all their time in it. There are people specially qualified to bring up
children. Then let ’em do it!”
“That doesn’t seem--” Claudine began, but she stopped. What was the
use? Perhaps he was right; if he wasn’t, they would soon find out.
“You’ll have to live somewhere,” she said. “What will you do?”
“A suite in a nice, quiet hotel,” said Andrée, “where I can have my
piano.”
So there was nothing to prepare for this young bride, no house-linen to
mark, no silver to buy. Even her trousseau she insisted upon buying
ready-made. Her mother did sew a few little things for her, but she felt
all the time, with every stitch, how superfluous they were. There was
nothing required of her; she too was superfluous.
§ iii
They sat in the motor car, well wrapped in furs, holding each other’s
gloved hands. In the corner was Lance, who was to give Andrée away, and
facing them, Bertie and Edna. But the mother was not conscious of them;
she felt quite alone in the world with her child.
They had left Gilbert in the most painful way. He couldn’t really
believe that Andrée would so flout him; he had continued to hope that at
the last moment she would capitulate, and he longed for that moment. He
had never asked about the progress of the affair, and Claudine had said
nothing until a few days before the wedding.
“Remember, Andrée,” he had said then, “if you do this outrageous,
disgraceful thing, I’ll never see you or speak to you again.”
And the morning of that day he hadn’t gone to his office; he had
remained in the dining-room, after breakfast, smoking and reading the
newspaper. Claudine had come in to him.
“Gilbert!” she had said. “Gilbert! Please, please come to her wedding!
No matter how you feel about it, she’s your own--”
“No!” he had cried. “I won’t sanction it! It’s altogether wrong, and I
won’t countenance it! She’s marrying a vulgar, underbred cur who’s a
disgrace to the family ... the first and only time I saw the fellow he
insulted me grossly. She’s absolutely disregarded my authority. She’s
doing this against my wishes, and she knows it!”
Through the open door of the dining-room he had seen Andrée come down
the stairs, quite ready, with her hat on. He had gone out into the hall
and stood looking at her, with a terrible twinge of pain.
“Remember!” he said. “If you go out of this house--to marry that man,
you can never set foot in here again!”
“I didn’t expect to!” she answered, briefly. “Good-by, Father.”
But he would not say good-by, he went back into the dining-room and from
behind his paper he saw them all go. It was as if he were being
deserted, rebuked by his family. His hand trembled, he bit his mustache.
Andrée gone! And gone to her certain unhappiness.... She would be
married, and her father would not be standing beside her.... He couldn’t
endure it. He sprang up and hurried to his bedroom, in a blind desire to
escape his thoughts. But there was no comfort in that silent house. He
could think of no better refuge than his office. His child had gone
without him....
“And yet I’m right!” he cried to himself. “I’m right! I’ve done what I
ought to have done! I’ve refused to sanction this thing!”
§ iv
Not one of the party gave him a thought. They reached the church and
entered, and Mr. Stephens was waiting there, with two friends. No one
else had been invited. Like a woman in a dream Claudine went into the
vestry with Andrée, to take off their furs.
“Am I all right?” asked Andrée.
“Yes, darling, very nice!” she answered. She wanted to look forever and
ever at that girl in her plain dark suit, her small hat, that gallant
and heart-breaking young figure.
Suddenly Andrée crushed her in a fierce embrace.
“Mother!” she said. “Mother!”
“Don’t cry, my heart’s darling!”
“I won’t; just in a minute.... Mother, are you satisfied--now?”
“Yes, my darling!”
“Tell me, Mother--I don’t understand ... why do you care so much about
this--about this ceremony? What does it matter, if we care for each
other?”
“I think it’s this, Andrée. I think marriage is the only way to impress
upon a man what a woman is giving to him. You know--almost all women
know--how sacred and wonderful and terrible a thing it is. But I don’t
believe men quite understand. I think they would take it very
casually--if it weren’t made as solemn and impressive as--”
Andrée flushed.
“It isn’t sacred and wonderful!” she said. “I hate that sort of talk so!
I don’t want to impress poor little Al with my preciousness. He’s just
as valuable and good as I am. He gives up just as much.”
“Andrée--my baby--if you’ll--”
“Don’t give me any advice about managing him!” said Andrée, with her
sudden laugh. “I’ll never try! Hadn’t we better go in, Mother?”
Claudine took her seat in a front pew.
“Now I must sit here and watch this horrible thing!” she said to
herself. “Oh God! Oh God! Do other mothers feel like this? How can they
smile?... How can they be pleased--and try to make matches?... Am I a
morbid, perverted woman? It’s her destiny to marry someone--and he’s a
kind man.... I must be glad!”
She heard their responses, both of their voices steady and clear, both
of them making those promises.
“I must be happy!” she said, again. “It’s just the beginning of her
life. There is sure to be so much joy and accomplishment in it.... This
is only one step.... I must have fortitude. I can’t live her life for
her....”
She rose, to face the little man’s wife. She kissed her pale, sombre
face, she clasped his hand.
“Be happy!” she said.
Then she looked round in a sort of panic for Bertie.
“Bertie!” she whispered. “Take me home! Take me home!”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE BEGINNING
§ i
That day she brought an electric tea-pot. They laughed when she took it
from its box, for she always brought something, she was trying to
introduce an element of house-keeping into their business-like
existence.
“But it will be very nice,” she said. “We can make our tea up here, all
by ourselves, just as we like it. And I’ve brought a box of cakes from
Sherry’s, the sort you like.”
Andrée was sitting at the piano, weary and a little dishevelled.
“It will be nice,” she said. “Better than going down to the tea-room, or
having a tray sent up.... Gosh! I’ve been practicing over two hours!”
Al smiled.
“Doesn’t she look like a musical genius?” he asked Claudine. “With that
hair?”
“Give me a cake!” said Andrée. “Mr. MacGregor came in last evening,
Mother, and we played until someone downstairs asked us to stop.... But
this one part of ‘Thais’ is lovely, even with a piano alone, isn’t it?
We’re going to hear it again to-night.”
Claudine announced that the tea was ready and Andrée came over to sit
beside her on the sofa. Al waited on them with a clumsiness which
Claudine found very pitiful; she saw too that he was attempting an
improvement in manners, not in a shamefaced way, as another man might
have done, but carefully and frankly, watching them with earnestness.
Andrée rose.
“Come into the bedroom, won’t you, Mother?” she said.
Claudine followed her into the little room, so bare, so impersonal, and
stood for a moment by the window looking out over Central Park, bright
under a new fall of snow.
“It’s a rather nice view,” she said, politely.
“Mother, look here, darling! I want you to help me to get up something
for Christmas, will you?”
“Of course I will! What had you thought of?”
“I don’t know.... Something nice and human.... You and Edna and
Bertie.... Something like old times.... How’s Father?”
“Very well....”
“Does he ever mention my name? Lord! Isn’t it romantic? A young bride,
cut off by her father.... I wish there were someone to appreciate the
situation--and me.”
“I’m sure Alfred appreciates you, Andrée!”
“Well, he doesn’t. He doesn’t care about my music, and that’s me. He’s
awfully fond of me, I know that, but he doesn’t think I’m really any
more important than all the other young females of twenty with black
hair. My ‘group,’ he’d call it. I wish he’d think a little more about
me, and less about social justice. I’m sick of it!”
“My dear!”
“I am! Not sick of him, but just of his talking. Just imagine! When I’ve
been playing extra well, I sometimes ask if I’ve been disturbing
him--hoping he’ll say he liked it. But what do you suppose he does say?
‘Not a bit! I don’t hear it at all when my mind’s concentrated on my
work.’ He’s writing some sort of silly book, you know.”
“You shouldn’t call it ‘silly,’ Andrée. It’s not fair. He’s not silly.
He’s a very intelligent, earnest man.”
“That’s the trouble with him! He’s too earnest. When I want to talk to
him about nice little things--about us--he’s always so--oh, so _mighty_!
We’re all types, and everything we do is typical of something. Imagine!
Last night Bertie brought in Gaston Matthews and Johnnie
Martinsburgh--darling children--Bertie says it’s chic to live like this
in a hotel, without any squaw atmosphere--and Al would talk to them
about his theories. Of course, they listened to him; he’s generally
interesting enough, but it’s--I hated it! I suppose I wanted to do the
boring myself, about music. And I know so well what they’d think of him
if he weren’t rich.... They call him eccentric now, but if he were
poor!”
Andrée was lying on the bed, her arms clasped behind her head;
how--intractable she looked, thought her mother!
“I’m thoroughly sick of it all! All this busy life.... I can’t be busy.
I don’t know how. When I look back on the old days, it seems to me I
spent most of my time sitting around with you or Edna. That’s what I
want now, but there’s no one to sit round with. Even when Al isn’t
working, he wants to ‘take advantage’ of his playtime and rush around
and see instructive things and--”
“Andrée, it’s not kind or wise to dwell so much on his little
shortcomings. He has so many, many fine qualities--”
“He adores you. Mother, do you want to go and talk to him while I’m
dressing? It’s very unselfish of me, because I want you every moment....
And you’re right. He is rather wonderful. He’s not common inside of him,
a bit. I don’t believe he ever had a vulgar thought in his head.
He’s--really delicate. He’s a nice person to--to live with.... If he
only wouldn’t talk so much!”
Claudine went back into the sitting-room and found her son-in-law hard
at work with a German magazine and a dictionary.
“I’ve taught myself enough German to get the sense out of things,” he
explained. “We get out a little magazine we call ‘Comrades,’ with all
sorts of stuff in it from the European Socialist papers, as a step
toward Internationalism. I’d be satisfied if I could get just that one
idea more generally accepted in my lifetime--that all the people in the
world are just about the same, everywhere, that they all want the same
things, and suffer from the same causes.”
He stopped suddenly.
“Do you think Andrée’s well and happy?” he asked.
“Yes.... She was speaking about Christmas. She thought it would be nice
to have some sort of little celebration.”
“Sure! “We’ll invite some people, and I’ll reserve a table downstairs in
the dining-room--”
“I don’t think that’s quite what she meant. I think something
more--intimate, Alfred....”
“I see! Then how about having a supper sent up here--champagne and so
on?”
“That would be very nice, of course.... But--you know she’s very young
for her years.... I thought if you and I could arrange a little
surprise--a Christmas tree--”
“Great! I’ve never had one in my life!”
“You see, she’s always had one, since she was a baby. I suppose it seems
silly--”
“Not to me, it doesn’t. It’s just one of those nice, pretty little ideas
that I fall short in. My one idea is to buy things. It seems so
wonderful to buy what you want. I’m not used to it yet.... Gosh! You
can’t imagine how much I learn from you! That’s what we need--my kind.
We need to learn how to live--oh--poetically, from the people like you.
We never get those ideas. We’re too darned worried about food. At first
I used to be pretty hard and vindictive, and talk about bringing the
comfortable people down to earth. But now I’d like to take the other
people a little bit _off_ the earth--a little bit up.”
She thought as she went home in a taxi, what a loveable creature he was.
He was everything that she had always imagined a husband ought to be, a
comrade, kind, loyal, never interfering, never attempting to impose his
own will. Their life was what she had often dreamed of; Andrée had
freedom combined with love.
And yet--it wasn’t satisfactory; it was so little satisfactory that it
frightened her.
“Somehow,” she thought, “all that isn’t enough.... That bond--that tie
of sex alone--isn’t enough. Even love isn’t enough.... Perhaps there
must be more obligation with it.”
§ ii
It was a charming Christmas. Claudine had her Christmas dinner
decorously at home with her husband and various members of both
families; there were all the proper presents and ceremonies, and she was
happy. Happy because she could fly to Andrée in the afternoon. Her
visits there were a secret of Polchinelle; Gilbert never mentioned them,
nor Andrée. And yet to-day, as she was putting on her hat, he entered
the bedroom and gave her a crumpled handful of bills.
“Buy something for her!” he said.
She was terribly touched, but she knew better than to show it.
“I will!” she said, brightly.
After he had gone, she smoothed out the bills and put them into an
envelope, on which she wrote--“From Father.”
She gave it to Andrée with a smile.
“Is he coming round?” asked Andrée.
“I don’t know.”
“I didn’t expect him to until there was a little grandchild. That would
be the proper thing, of course, and Father does love to do the proper
thing.... I wish there was a little grandchild! That would be something
important and interesting. Something real.”
“Andrée, you’re not going to be trying to-day!”
“No, I’m not! I’m going to be lovely--the spirit of Christmas,” she
said.
And she was. She was delighted with her glittering little tree, and with
all their gifts. She was gay, loving, almost tender. She dominated
everything; they all watched her with pleasure, moving about the little
room; they listened while she played for them. At the end of the evening
she and Edna and Bertie sang a Christmas carol they had learned as
children, and it made her cry a little.
“Dear people!” she said. “Thank you all, so very much! You’ve given me
such a happy Christmas!”
No one thought of denying that it was _her_ Christmas, or that the
common object had been her happiness.
She went out to the lift with them and kissed each one with particular
ardour, her mother, her sister, her laughing brother.
“Good night!” she said, still looking after them, still smiling, as if
she could not bear to see them go.
They were always glad to look back at that Christmas, for they were
never to have another like it.
§ iii
Andrée went back into the room where the little man was sitting, under
the Christmas tree. She fancied he looked a little disconsolate and
forlorn, and her heart smote her.
“Al!” she said. “Are you happy?”
“Not so very!” he answered, candidly.
“But why? Haven’t we had a lovely, happy time?”
“I feel--a million miles away from you,” he said. “I wonder if I’ll ever
get any nearer to you.”
She sat down beside him and drew his head down on her shoulder.
“I wish you wouldn’t!” she cried. “It--chills me so! I want us to be so
very near to each other. I must have it so! I can’t bear it if you don’t
understand everything about me. _Why_ did you say that?”
“To-night,” he said, “with this Christmas tree and all--I don’t
know--but you--it seemed to me that you were like a child--just playing
at life.... And I can’t play! I never did, in my life. I can tell you,
that chilled _me_! You seem so very young and so pretty, and
so--heedless--that it makes me feel so very old and worn--”
“You idiot!” she cried, laughing. “It’s just the other way! You’re a
little boy; you’re always talking and thinking about such new things,
things that come and go. It makes me feel such a wise woman, a sort of
Sibyl. I think that’s why I love you--because you’re so awfully earnest
and serious about things that I know don’t matter.”
“What things don’t matter? Human wretchedness and cruelty and pain?”
“You don’t even know what makes human wretchedness. It isn’t poverty.
Why, Al, if you could make everyone perfectly comfortable this very
night, if you could take away all hunger and want and injustice, it
wouldn’t give one little bit of happiness to any of the people who had
lost someone they loved. It wouldn’t help a woman who had lost her man,
or a mother who’d lost a baby. That’s what you don’t know. Nothing can
ever, ever be done to spare people their anguish.... I always know--it
comes across me in my very happiest moments--that the day is coming
nearer and nearer when we’ll have to part--one of us to leave the other
forever.... What do you think you can do for that?”
“That’s morbid,” he said, curtly. “No healthy person thinks about death
like that.”
But he caught her close to his heart and looked down at her bent head
with troubled eyes, stroked her soft hair with an uncertain hand.
“I’ve never heard you talk like this,” he said. “I don’t like it,
darling! Don’t you believe that we’ll meet again--afterward?”
“It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t do any good, even if we knew. People who
do believe that suffer just as much. More, I think, because they haven’t
as much fortitude as the ones who don’t believe. Look at you. You think
all these miserable people are going to be made happy somewhere after
they’re dead, but it doesn’t seem to give you much comfort.”
“I don’t look at it that way, Andrée. The world seems to me like a--sort
of school, and I want to see everyone get a chance to learn all there is
to know, in decency and--dignity, before it’s over.”
“Maybe your way isn’t a good way. Maybe they learn more as things are.”
“Injustice never teaches anyone anything but resentment and malice.”
“I’m going to play!” she said, suddenly. “Oh, Al! Al! Why didn’t you let
me be happy? It may be only for such a little while!”
“I didn’t mean to make you unhappy! I wouldn’t for anything in the
world. I’m sorry! Don’t play! That damned music sets you all on edge.
Stay here and talk to me!”