_your_ house, is it? Not mine? That’s just the way Father talks. ‘_My_’
house ... ‘_I_’ won’t have this and that--”
“I didn’t mean to be arbitrary,” he said, quickly contrite. “Only, don’t
you see ...?”
He went on, to explain. Andrée could, as usual, see his point of view,
but she didn’t agree.
“She’s a wretched, drunken old creature,” she said.
“But, damn it all, why shouldn’t she be?” he cried. “What’s that got to
do with it? You know plenty of people who drink, but you don’t suggest
condemning them to servitude for life, do you?”
“If you want to run the house, you can,” she said. “You can settle this
now. Jennie won’t finish that floor, and I certainly won’t.”
“Then I will,” he said, and he did. Andrée hated him for that; she was
not too aloof to be unconcerned with what Jennie would think and say of
that performance.
They had lunch in absolute silence; and yet, little by little, they were
weakening. They were neither of them quarrelsome or resentful, and they
had a marked respect for each other’s obstinacy. One hour more would
probably have seen them reconciled and laughing, if Tomlinson and Bucks
hadn’t appeared. These comrades were more than Andrée could endure; she
had in the beginning made a frigid attempt to be polite on Al’s account,
but her politeness was neither desired nor understood. Tomlinson was a
big, stout, brutal fellow with a jaw shaved blue; he didn’t hesitate to
express his opinion of Al’s mode of living, and he did it profanely.
“How the hell you expect to have any influence?” he shouted. “You preach
one thing and you practise another. You and your ---- flat and your
servants and your ---- fine clothes!”
He was a professional Socialist, a politician; he was honest enough in
his aims, but quite otherwise in his methods. He had to consult Al
frequently, because Al had a considerable personal following in various
clubs and centrals, and was quicker and more intelligent than he. He
admired Al; he told him frankly enough of his shadiest transactions,
because Al, although tiresomely honourable, knew life and was not
squeamish. He wanted him now to accept a nomination on their ticket,
which Al refused. He had a great many reasons for refusing and Tomlinson
a great many for his accepting; it was a very loud and furious
argument, although neither of them was really angry.
Bucks didn’t enter into it. He was a bald, scholarly little man with a
full brown beard, a sort of secretary and mentor to Tomlinson. He rarely
talked; he sat and smiled and watched, and was ready to give data at any
moment. Andrée would have rather liked him for his mildness and
courtesy, if his collars had been cleaner; she was not constituted to
rise above that.
She shut herself into her room while they stayed this day; every sound
of that loud discussion reached her, and filled her with rage and
disgust. And then, to cap it--
“It’s your wife!” shouted Tomlinson. “That’s what it is! Your damn
society lady with her fine airs--that’s what’s ruining you!”
“You shut up and mind your own business!” said Al, and no more than
that, no other defense or praise of her.
Perhaps she didn’t realize how tired he was, or how secretly guilty
Tomlinson’s reproaches had made him, for after the comrades had gone,
she took occasion to speak her mind, and she found him unusually
irritable. They took a long stride forward in frankness that afternoon.
She called him vulgar and coarse, and he said she was idle and selfish.
All this Al remembered now, walking up and down the room.
“It mustn’t be this way,” he thought. “It must not be. And I’m the one
to change it. I’m older--I’m responsible. I knew there’d be
difficulties--it’s my job to explain and to reason, and not to quarrel
with her. There must be some common ground....”
“And even if there isn’t,” he went on. “Even if we never think alike, it
needn’t matter. Good God! Haven’t I enough restraint and common decency
to get along with the woman I love, even if she has different opinions?
Let her be herself!”
He washed his flushed face in cold water and brushed his unruly hair; he
subdued his spirit, and went to look for Andrée. He found her in the
library, dressed for the street, drawing on her gloves.
“Going out?” he asked, unnecessarily.
She said “Yes,” curtly, and then her heart melted; he looked so neat and
subdued and good.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said. “Do you want to come?”
They went out together into the bright Winter air; but try as they
would, no words of reconciliation came from either of them. No words at
all....
Was it some subtle reflection of her own mood that made him feel so
wretched? He was quite as tall as she, he was properly dressed, he
carried himself well, he was strong, vigorous, not bad looking. Why then
should he feel so small, and so--he had no other word for it--so
cheap--as he walked beside her that day? Of course she was beautiful,
but she always had been; of course she was proud and a little
disdainful, but that also was nothing new. She looked very lovely in her
furs; he saw people turn to look at her.... And suddenly, as plainly as
if she had spoken the words, he knew that she was ashamed of him.
He stopped short.
“I forgot....” he said. “There’s something I must finish. I’ll go
back.”
She made no attempt to dissuade him, she let him go without a word, with
a smile which he knew was one of relief. When he turned back, he saw
her, still walking down the drive, a distinguished and beautiful
creature.
“Snob!” he said to himself. “Vain, fickle, cold-hearted snob! She didn’t
want me with her. She doesn’t give a damn where I go, or what I do.”
A terrible grief assailed him, which he imagined was anger.
“I might have known it!” he told himself. “They’re all alike--her sort.
Pampered and flattered....”
He struggled desperately back to justice.
“I’m making a mountain out of a molehill.... She simply wanted to be
alone.... Nothing very bad in that!... She’s only a kid, after all....
She cared enough for me to marry me.... She does care for me!”
§ ii
If he had been able to measure the molehill, he might not have been so
sure of exaggeration. Andrée went on as if she could never walk enough,
block after block, until the sun had gone, and twilight come, and lights
began to glitter. She stopped in at the Plaza for a cup of tea.
“I’m ashamed of him! I’m ashamed of him!” she said to herself. “I’d be
ashamed to have him here, with me. I only like him when we’re alone. I
can’t bear for other people to see him. It’s like a nasty
secret--_amour_.... It degrades me.... Oh, I ought to have had more
pride than to throw myself away on a common little man like that! Oh,
why didn’t someone stop me?”
§ iii
The next afternoon, at exactly the same hour, she was walking down Fifth
Avenue with Malloy, and with him, went again into the Plaza for tea, no
doubt to vindicate her pride.
And if it was a test, it was successful, for she was not ashamed of
him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE PASTRY-COOK’S DAUGHTER
§ i
Claudine mounted the front steps with an unusual languor.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be ill,” she thought. “This cold hangs on
so.... I must have some hot tea and lie down.”
To tell the truth, she would not really have been sorry to be ill. It
would have been a respite from the nightmare life of the past weeks.
Nothing but worry and distress about her son, nothing but disgraceful
quarrels between him and his father, and an exasperation and
irritability on the part of Gilbert which terrified her. He blamed her
for everything, for his disappointment in the boy, for the costly folly
of the boy’s existence. Claudine was neither able to quarrel nor to keep
silent. She felt obliged to defend Bertie, to make excuses for him, she
even told lies for him, and paid his debts herself when she was able.
Gilbert frequently found this out, and said that she deceived him
treacherously, which was true. She was not at all contrite; she knew
that with Bertie threats and bluster were of no use whatever; one had
either to convince him by reasoning--which she was incapable of--or to
win him through his affection, which was what she tried to do. She knew
that he loved her perhaps more than anyone else had ever loved her.
“How can you bear to make me so unhappy, Bertie!” she had asked him.
“It isn’t me that makes you unhappy, Mammy,” he had answered. “It’s
Father. You wouldn’t worry about me, if he didn’t make you. You know I’m
all right--a heart of gold under a rough exterior. A harmless buffoon.
I’m just consciously being wild, as is proper for my years. It’s all
Father’s fault.”
She acknowledged to herself, with some surprise, that he was right. Left
to herself, she would not have worried over Bertie; there was a quality
in even his most grave follies, a grace, an innate delicacy which in her
eyes quite redeemed them. He didn’t love his vices, he played with them.
She rang the bell, and the door was opened instantly, not by the maid,
but by Bertie himself.
“Hello, Mammy!” he cried. “I’ve been waiting for you! Your tea’s ready!”
She followed him into the front room, and found it charmingly prepared
for her. He had lighted the gas logs, and had drawn up before the blaze
a little gilt table never before used for such a purpose, on which he
had arranged a silver tea-service always kept in state on the
dining-room sideboard, and a bowl of red carnations.
“Why, Bertie!” she cried. “How dear of you!”
“Wasn’t it? Sit down, Mammy, and try a cake!”
“My dear boy! Did you buy the flowers and cakes for me yourself?”
“I bought the flowers. The cakes were a gage of love. Mammy, lookin’
about you, don’t you feel convinced that I’d be the best husband that
ever was?”
“I dare say!” she answered, smiling.
“Mammy, don’t you smell a rat?”
“What _do_ you mean?”
“Why these preparations? Why this introduction of the topic of
husbands?”
“Do explain! what new nonsense is this?”
“I’ll tell you, Mammy! I’m going to be married!”
“Bertie!”
She frowned with displeasure.
“True!”
“I don’t like to hear you say such things, even in joke. A boy of
eighteen--”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be for five years, Mammy!”
“You mustn’t think of binding yourself to anything of that sort at your
age. Surely you’re sensible enough to know that you’re sure to change--”
“I never do. But don’t you see what a good idea it is? How it will keep
me safe in the midst of all sorts of temptations which beset a handsome
youth? I suppose I am a youth, aren’t I? Although no one ever called me
one.”
“It’s not right to expect any girl to wait five years for you. And what
makes you think you’ll be able to marry in five years, you silly boy?
You’ve never earned a penny--”
“I’ll explain all that presently. Mammy, seriously, I’ve arranged my
future in a very remarkable way.”
“And who on earth do you imagine will marry you, after waiting five
years?”
“She is beautiful, good, and rich,” said Bertie. “She’s the daughter of
the King of the Pastry-Cooks.”
“_Who?_”
“Her name is Giulia Santigiorni.”
“But who is she? An Italian?”
“Yes, her father’s Santi, the caterer.”
“Oh, Bertie!”
“I only ask you to see her. She’s altogether lovely, and she’s had one
of those marvelous _nouveau riche_ educations. You know the sort of
thing--lessons in everything from the most expensive teachers. Sings,
plays, paints, speaks all known languages, studied deportment and
household management and First Aid. She’s been for the last two years in
a convent in Paris, and they’ve made one of those regular foreign young
girls out of her. You know, modest and gentle, always on the alert to be
respectful and polite to old people.... The King of the Pastry-Cooks is
rather keen on society. He gives monster parties--you never saw anything
like them; they’re awfully pathetic. He gets paid entertainers, singers
and dancers and--oh Lord!--wizards! He loves wizards. We sit in rows in
the ball-room, while the wizard holds a show on the stage he’s had put
up. Then he serves a supper! Oh! Never in your life have you dreamed of
such suppers!... And when you’re going home, you each get a present. Not
a favour, Mammy, but a genuine present--silver cigarette case, and so
on.... Of course, he doesn’t know half the people who come. He prowls
around, a poor, fat, gloomy devil, and no one bothers with him. But he
sees a crowd in his house, and that satisfies him.”
“Where is the mother?”
“Dead, long ago. He has two daughters and two sons. They’re all very
nice and respectful.”
“But do you think it’s quite a suitable match?”
“Couldn’t be more so! My Giulia is the most well-bred thing that ever
drew breath. You’d feel quite ashamed before her. I believe she took
lessons in how to behave in all European courts, and how to entertain
royalty.”
“But, my dear boy, how do you propose to live? On the--the pastry-cook
father?”
“No; I’ll get on, Mammy. I always do. I’ll either go to Princeton next
autumn, or go into Father’s business, whichever you advise.”
“No, Bertie, you’re the one to decide. What do you want to do? What do
you want to make of your life?”
“Whatever I can,” he said. “I don’t really care very much. I want to
make a good show, that’s all--earn a living.”
“Bertie, dear boy, with your intelligence you ought to aim higher than
making a living. Isn’t there something you can put your heart into? Some
sort of work you could really--”
“Not any more, Mammy. It’s this ice-cap.”
“What do you mean?”
“You ought to know. Old Lance talks enough about it.... It’s going to
cover the earth--a new glacial period--going to destroy life on this
planet.”
He rose and began walking about the room and when he spoke again, his
voice had changed.
“I’ve always wanted to be useful. I’m so dam’ sorry for people--for
almost everyone. I welcomed Evolution like a long lost brother. I
thought I could do something to help it, perhaps.... I imagined us all
evoluting along into something magnificent. I didn’t see any end to our
possibilities. I agreed with Al that, if we got together, we could make
a heavenly world out of this.... But then Lance sprang this ice-cap on
me. And--”
He paused.
“It was something pretty much like despair.... Nothing seemed any use.
The happier we got, the less would we want to be frozen, don’t you see?”
She was terribly touched by the pain in his voice, by the suffering she
divined in his queer soul.
“But it’s millions of years away,” she said.
“That doesn’t matter, as long as it’s sure.”
“We might find a way to live in it, by the time it comes. It might even
be a mistake.”
“Lance couldn’t be mistaken. You have only to look at him to know he’s
infallible. And--have you seen their fossils, and their reconstructed
pre-historic animals? Those chaps know everything, Mammy, past, present
and future.”
“Come here!” she said. “Sit beside me, dear.”
She drew his sleek head down on her breast.
“Did this idea bring you to--to any sort of--faith?” she asked.
“No, Mammy. I simply felt that the ice-cap ought to be kept a secret.
I’d have been glad to be a martyr to humanity and kill all the
scientists who knew about it, only I knew more would crop up. I even
thought of being a fake scientist myself, and getting up something more
cheerful, but that wouldn’t get by.”
She cried over him a little, and he sat quite still, with his head
resting on her shoulder. She wished so passionately that she had
something to give him, some invincibly right word.
“I think you’ll get over this, dear boy,” she said.
“Of course I shall,” he answered promptly. “I’ll get fat and pompous in
fifteen years or so. You know that dish, Mammy--Angels on
Horseback--oysters wrapped up in bacon? I’m in a hurry to wrap my little
oyster of a soul in a lot of nice fat bacon. Then I’ll be comfortable.
Nothing better, is there, than making money and getting married?”
“Don’t be cynical,” she said, gently.
“You know I’m not. I’m only trying to do what I can. I know what’s good
for me. Little Giulia’s good for me. She’s all spirit, but it’s the
nice, old-fashioned, hopeful kind. I never could tell her anything about
the ice-cap, for instance; nothing that would hurt her; and being by
nature very candid, that’ll help me to learn not to have anything to
tell. I’ll have to grow placid, don’t you see?”
He sat up and looked at her, with his diabolic smile and his soft eyes.
“Now, then, will you tell Father in some nice mendacious way that I’ve
got serious and want to settle down to something? Is it to be college or
business?”
“I think college,” she said, smiling back at him. “You know, after all,
Bertie, there may be something left for you to learn.”
“All right!” he answered, cheerfully. “And then--come with me to see my
pastry-cook’s daughter.”
“But shouldn’t you bring her here?”
“I want you to see her in all her gorgeousness.”
“But it isn’t quite the thing. You see, you’re not--you can’t be
actually engaged to her.”
“She considers that we are. Anyway, their code of etiquette isn’t
inflexible. Please come! And--look here, Mammy, if you don’t like her,
if you don’t agree that I’ve done a masterly thing in getting her, I’ll
give her up!”
“I’ll go, Bertie,” she said. “But bear this in mind, dear boy. If you
change your mind, for any reason whatever, about either of your plans,
don’t hesitate to say so. Don’t go on in a wrong course, simply because
you’ve entered upon it.”
“You know I wouldn’t. But this time I’m righter than I’ve ever been
before.”
§ ii
She went with him the next afternoon, to the house near Prospect Park.
The door was opened by a man servant in an elaborate livery.
“My idea of a flunkey, whatever that is!” Bertie murmured.
They were ushered into a drawing-room, an immense room, furnished with
an out-of-date sort of magnificence; it gave Claudine a sudden insight
into the pathos of the household.
“Look around you!” said Bertie. “You will see a pastry-cook’s dream. But
you won’t have long to observe; Giulia would prefer death to keeping my
mother waiting.”
He was right; she entered almost at once, and came up to Claudine with a
most polite, a supplicating air, held out her hand, raised to her face
a pair of sorrowful and beautiful eyes. They sat down to talk but it was
too much of a task even for Claudine’s experience. She was as affable
and impersonal as it was possible to be, she was really well-disposed
toward this pretty little thing. But she could evoke from her nothing
but a humble sort of politeness. It was evident that she adored Bertie,
and that his mother was to her a person of superhuman augustness. She
was well-bred, she had pretty manners and a sweet little voice; she was
dressed very nicely in a dark blue crêpe de chine, which was simple, but
excessively expensive. And she herself had an innocent and spiritual
charm, like a little strayed angel. She was small and fragile, and she
hadn’t the least hint of a womanly figure--a child’s body, with flat
wrists and a tiny neck. Her dark, pallid face was broad at the brows and
very narrow at the chin, which made her childish mouth look larger; she
had a wonderful profile, a nose straight with the forehead, a short,
full upper lip, a minute and heart-breaking perfection. But it was not
her beauty which captured Claudine, it was the transparent sweetness and
fidelity of the little soul. She was stupid, she was pliable, she was a
baby, but she had a heart to appreciate Bertie, and a charm to hold him.
Tea was brought in by two men servants on a tea-waggon, and the
signorina dispensed it with deftness. There were cakes and cakes and
cakes, cheese straws, rolls, all sorts of sandwiches, and when these had
been sampled, the servants returned with ices in the form of lilies
lying on leaves of green almond paste.
Bertie didn’t say much, but from time to time Claudine caught him
looking at his Giulia with half a smile, a look tender and a trifle
amused. He wasn’t going to take her too seriously, or expect too much of
her. It was, in short, one of those loves which cause a mother very
little pain; she knows she is not supplanted, not diminished. Singular
that two of her children should “marry beneath them”!
She took leave of her future daughter-in-law with a kiss, and the man
servant in the hall opened the door for them.
“It’s pouring!” said Bertie. “Go in again, Mammy, and I’ll send a few
flunkies for a taxi.”
“I’d rather not. We’ll find one.”
“You mustn’t get wet, especially with that cold. I can’t allow it!”
But she was briskly descending the steps, and he had to hurry after her.
“How obstinate you are, Mammy! If you won’t think of your health, have
some regard for your pretty little hat!”
She shook her head, laughing. She was so happy with this son, with his
affectionate, half effeminate ways, his open admiration. She had with
him a gay and coquettish little air no one else ever saw.
“Come along! We’ll be sure to pick up a cab in a minute, Bertie! Look at
the streams of them going by!”
But all the cabs were full. It was quite fifteen minutes before they
stopped an empty one, and by that time Claudine was chilled to the bone,
and shivering in her wet shoes and dripping skirts.
“I’m sorry, Bertie!” she said. “I was very stupid!”
He looked at her in silence, and when she was home and safely in bed, he
telephoned for the doctor.
§ iii
Andrée and Al had been to the opera that evening and to supper
afterward, so that they were late in getting back to the apartment. The
desk clerk handed them a message received hours ago.
“Please ask Mrs. Stephens to go home at once. Her mother is ill.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
MUTINY
§ i
Andrée was wandering about the “second parlour” that Sunday afternoon,
in a state of joyful idleness, humming to herself. It was so blissful to
be at home again, now that the horrible shadow was lifted from her
mother. She felt a new and precious sense of lightness and
irresponsibility, a return of girlhood. She loved the old life, the
kindly servants, the jolly breakfasts with Bertie and Edna, she was even
ready to love the stuffy and decorous Sundays she had once found so
hateful. Her father was sitting by the open window, reading the paper,
and she loved him too; because he looked just as he had always looked to
her. She went over to him and kissed the top of his head. He glanced up
and smiled.
“Well!” he said.
“Well!” she answered. “Are you happy? I am!”
They were thoroughly and beautifully reconciled now. In spite of his
disappointment over the conduct of other people under the shadow of
death, Gilbert knew that he had acted properly. He had forgiven his
daughter, and he intended, in due course of time, to forgive his
son-in-law. He had been profoundly affected by Claudine’s illness; he
had wished to be with her constantly. But she had not wanted him; she
had turned always to Andrée. He had certainly expected, although they
had been more or less estranged for some years, that under the shadow of
death she would come back to him. She _should_ have said, “After all, we
have lived more than twenty years together in storm and sunshine. Let us
forget our differences!” But she had not. She had said nothing at all,
except to thank him for the profusion of flowers he sent. They hadn’t
had a single touching conversation. On that night, which he had spent at
her bedside, in agony and fear, she had not even seen him; she had lain
gasping, exhausted, bathed in perspiration, with half-open eyes, as far
away from him as if she were already dead. It was Edna who had consoled
him, and led him away, and it was Andrée who had stayed by Claudine
until the crisis was past. It was always Andrée’s name she had
murmured--“Andrée! Baby! My baby!”
He had done his best to be just and temperate about this, but it hurt.
And as she began to grow better, and the danger was over, his old
exasperation at her aloofness returned. He had really longed for a
reconciliation; he would have told her frankly that he was sorry for
many things in the past, and that he hoped with all his heart to
understand her better in the future. It was his eternal passion for
something perfect and beautiful in life; if only these twenty years
could be crowned now with love, he could have been content. It was easy
for him to forgive and forget, the sins of other people as well as his
own. But it was not easy for Claudine. He clung to her, for he had
nothing else, but she had turned away from him to her children, and she
had forgotten him.