He was neither at the window, nor in his bed, nor anywhere else to be
seen, when I opened my eyes upon the world next morning; nor did any
answer come when I called his name. I raised myself and saw outside the
great branches of the wood, bathed from top to trunk in a sunshine that
was no early morning’s light; and upon this, the silence of the house
spoke plainly to me not of man still sleeping, but of man long risen and
gone about his business. I stepped barefoot across the wooden floor to
where lay my watch, but it marked an unearthly hour, for I had neglected
to wind it at the end of our long and convivial evening--of which my
head was now giving me some news. And then I saw a note addressed to me
from John Mayrant.
“You are a good sleeper,” it began, “but my conscience is clear as
to the Bombo, called by some Kill-devil, about which I hope you will
remember that I warned you.”
He hoped I should remember! Of course I remembered everything; why did
he say that? An apology for his leaving me followed; he had been obliged
to take the early train because of the Custom House, where he was
serving his final days; they would give me breakfast when ever I should
be ready for it, and I was to make free of the place; I had better visit
the old church (they had orders about the keys) and drive myself into
Kings Port after lunch; the horses would know the way, if I did not. It
was the boy’s closing sentence which fixed my attention wholly, took
it away from Kill-devil Bombo and my Aunt Carola’s commission, for the
execution of which I now held the clue, and sent me puzzling for the
right interpretation of his words:--
“I believe that you will help your friend by that advice which startled
me last night, but which I now begin to see more in than I did. Only
between alternate injuries, he may find it harder to choose which is the
least he can inflict, than you, who look on, find it. For in following
your argument, he benefits himself so plainly that the benefit to the
other person is very likely obscured to him. But, if you wish to, tell
him a Southern gentleman would feel he ought to be shot either way.
That’s the honorable price for changing your mind in such a case.”
No interpretation of this came to me. I planned and carried out my day
according to his suggestion; a slow dressing with much cold water, a
slow breakfast with much good hot coffee, a slow wandering beneath the
dreamy branches of Udolpho,--this course cleared my head of the Bombo,
and brought back to me our whole evening, and every word I had said
to John, except that I had lost the solution which, last night, the
triangle had held for me. At that moment, the triangle, and my whole
dealing with the subject of monogamy, had seemed to contain the
simplicity of genius; but it had all gone now, and I couldn’t get
it back; only, what I had contrived to say to John about his own
predicament had been certainly well said; I would say that over again
to-day. It was the boy and the meaning of his words which escaped me
still, baffled me, and formed the whole subject of my attention, even
when I was inside the Tern Creek church; so that I retain nothing
of that, save a general quaintness, a general loneliness, a little
deserted, forgotten token of human doings long since done, standing
on its little acre of wilderness amid that solitude which suggests the
departed presence of man, and which is so much more potent in the flavor
of its desolation than the virgin wilderness whose solitude is still
waiting for man to come.
It made no matter whether John had believed in the friend to whom I
intended writing advice, or had seen through and accepted in good part
my manoeuvre; he had considered my words, that was the point; and he had
not slept in his bed, but on it, if sleep had come to him at all; this
I found out while dressing. Several times I read his note over. “Between
alternate injuries he may find it harder to choose.” This was not an
answer to me, but an explanation of his own perplexity. At times it
sounded almost like an appeal, as if he were saying, “Do not blame me
for not being convinced;” and if it was such appeal, why, then, taken
with his resolve to do right at any cost, and his night of inward
contention, it was poignant. “I believe that you will help your friend.”
Those words sounded better. But--“tell him a Southern gentleman ought to
be shot either way.” What was the meaning of this? A chill import rose
from it into my thoughts, but that I dismissed. To die on account
of Hortense! Such a thing was not to be conceived. And yet, given a
high-strung nature, not only trapped by its own standards, but also
wrought upon during many days by increasing exasperation and unhappiness
while helpless in the trap, and with no other outlook but the trap: the
chill import returned to me more than once, and was reasoned away, as,
with no attention to my surroundings, I took a pair of oars, and got
into a boat belonging to the lodge, and rowed myself slowly among the
sluggish windings of Tern Creek.
Whence come those thoughts that we ourselves feel shame at? It shamed
me now, as I pulled my boat along, that I should have thoughts of John
which needed banishing. What tale would this be to remember of a boy’s
life, that he gave it to buy freedom from a pledge which need never
have been binding? What pearl was this to cast before the sophisticated
Hortense? Such act would be robbed of its sadness by its absurdity. Yet,
surely, the bitterest tragedies are those of which the central anguish
is lost amid the dust of surrounding paltriness. If such a thing should
happen here, no one but myself would have seen the lonely figure of John
Mayrant, standing by the window and looking out into the dark quiet of
the wood; his name would be passed down for a little while as the name
of a fool, and then he would be forgotten. “I believe that you will help
your friend.” Yes; he had certainly written that, and it now came to me
that I might have said to him one thing more: Had he given Hortense the
chance to know what his feelings to her had become? But he would merely
have answered that here it was the duty of a gentleman to lie. Or, had
he possibly, at Newport, ever become her lover too much for any escaping
now? Had his dead passion once put his honor in a pawn which only
marriage could redeem? This might fit all that had come, so far; and
still, with such a two as they, I should forever hold the boy the
woman’s victim. But this did not fit what came after. Perhaps it was the
late sitting of the night before, and the hushed and strange solitude
of my surroundings now, that had laid my mind open to all these thoughts
which my reason, in dealing with, answered continually, one by one, yet
which returned, requiring to be answered again; for there are times when
our uncomfortable eyes see through the appearances we have arranged for
daily life, into the actualities which lie forever behind them.
Going about thus in my boat, I rowed sleepiness into myself, and pushed
into a nook where shade from some thick growth hid the boat and me from
the sun; and there, almost enmeshed in the deep lattice of green, I
placed my coat beneath my head, and prone in the boat’s bottom I drifted
into slumber. Once or twice my oblivion was pierced by the roaming honk
of the automobile; but with no more than the half-melted consciousness
that the Replacers were somewhere in the wood, oblivion closed over me
again; and when it altogether left me, it was because of voices near me
on the water, or on the bank. Their calls and laughter pushed themselves
into my drowsiness, and soon after I grew aware that the Replacers
were come here to see what was to be seen at Udolpho--the club, the old
church, a country place with a fine avenue--and that it was the church
they now couldn’t get into, because my visit had disturbed the usual
whereabouts of the key, of which Gazza was now going in search. I could
have told him where to find it, but it pleased me not to disturb myself
for this, as I listened to him assuring Kitty that it was probably
in the cabin beyond the bridge, but not to be alarmed if he did not
immediately return with it. Kitty, not without audible mirth, assured
him that they should not be alarmed at all, to which the voice of
Hortense supplemented, “Not at all.” They were evidently in a boat,
which Hortense herself was rowing, and which she seemed to bring to
the bank, where I gathered that Kitty got out and sat while Hortense
remained in the boat. There was the little talk and movement which goes
with borrowing of a cigarette, a little exclamation about not falling
out, accompanied by the rattle of a displaced oar, and then stillness,
and the smell of tobacco smoke.
Presently Kitty spoke. “Charley will be back to-night.”
To this I heard no reply.
“What did his telegram say?” Kitty inquired, after another silence.
“It’s all right.” This was Hortense. Her slow, rich murmur was as
deliberate as always.
“Mr. Bohm knew it would be,” said Kitty. “He said it wouldn’t take five
minutes’ talk from Charley to get a contract worth double what they were
going to accept.”
After this, nothing came to me for several minutes, save the odor of the
cigarettes.
Of course there was now but one proper course for me, namely, to utter a
discreet cough, and thus warn them that some one was within earshot. But
I didn’t! I couldn’t! Strength failed, curiosity won, my baser nature
triumphed here, and I deliberately remained lying quiet and hidden.
It was the act of no gentleman, you will say. Well, it was; and I must
simply confess to it, hoping that I am not the only gentleman in the
world who has, on occasion, fallen beneath himself.
“Hortense Rieppe,” began Kitty, “what do you intend to say to my brother
after what he has done about those phosphates?”
“He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense.
“Well, you know what it means.”
“Means?”
“If you persist in this folly, you’ll drop out.”
Hortense chose another line of speculation. “I wonder why your brother
is so sure of me?”
“Charley is a set man. And I’ve never seen him so set on anything as on
you, Hortense Rieppe.”
“He is always so kind,” murmured Hortense again.
“He’s a man you’ll always know just where to find,” declared Kitty.
“Charley is safe. He’ll never take you by surprise, never fly out, never
do what other people don’t do, never make any one stare at him by the
way he looks, or the way he acts, or anything he says, or--or--why, how
you can hesitate between those two men after that ridiculous, childish,
conspicuous, unusual scene on the bridge--”
“Unusual. Yes,” said Hortense.
Kitty’s eloquence and voice mounted together. “I should think it was
unusual! Tearing people’s money up, and making a rude, awkward fuss
that everybody had to smooth over as hard as they could! Why, even Mr.
Rodgers says that sort of thing isn’t done, and you’re always saying he
knows.”
“No,” said Hortense. “It isn’t done.”
“Well, I’ve never seen anything approaching such behavior in our set.
And he was ready to go further. Nobody knows where it might have gone
to, if Charley’s perfect coolness hadn’t rebuked him and brought him to
his senses. There’s where it is, that’s what I mean, Hortense, by saying
you could always feel safe with Charley.”
Hortense put in a languid word. “I think I should always feel safe with
Mr. Mayrant.”
But Kitty was a simple soul. “Indeed you couldn’t, Hortense! I assure
you that you’re mistaken. There’s where you get so wrong about men
sometimes. I have been studying that boy for your sake ever since we
got here, and I know him through and through. And I tell you, you cannot
count upon him. He has not been used to our ways, and I see no promise
of his getting used to them. He will stay capable of outbreaks like that
horrid one on the bridge. Wherever you take him, wherever you put
him, no matter how much you show him of us, and the way we don’t allow
conspicuous things like that to occur, believe me, Hortense, he’ll never
learn, he’ll never smooth down. You may brush his hair flat and keep him
appearing like other people for a while, but a time will come, something
will happen, and that boy’ll be conspicuous. Charley would never be
conspicuous.”
“No,” assented Hortense.
Kitty urged her point. “Why, I never saw or beard of anything like that
on the bridge--that is, among--among--us!”
“No,” assented Hortense, again, and her voice dropped lower with each
statement. “One always sees the same thing. Always hears the same thing.
Always the same thing.” These last almost inaudible words sank away into
the silent pool of Hortense’s meditation.
“Have another cigarette,” said Kitty. “You’ve let yours fall into the
water.”
I heard them moving a little, and then they must have resumed their
seats.
“You’ll drop out of it,” Kitty now pursued.
“Into what shall I drop?”
“Just being asked to the big things everybody goes to and nobody counts.
For even with the way Charley has arranged about the phosphates, it will
not be enough to keep you in our swim--just by itself. He’ll weigh more
than his money, because he’ll stay different--too different.”
“He was not so different last summer.”
“Because he was not there long enough, my dear. He learned bridge
quickly, and of course he had seen champagne before, and nobody had time
to notice him. But he’ll be married now and they will notice him, and
they won’t want him. To think of your dropping out!” Kitty became very
earnest. “To think of not seeing you among us! You’ll be in none of the
small things; you’ll never be asked to stay at the smart houses--why,
not even your name will be in the paper! Not a foreigner you entertain,
not a dinner you give, not a thing you wear, will ever be described next
morning. And Charley’s so set on you, and you’re so just exactly made
for each other, and it would all be so splendid, and cosey, and jolly!
And to throw all this away for that crude boy!” Kitty’s disdain was high
at the thought of John.
Hortense took a little time over it “Once,” she then stated, “he told me
he could drown in my hair as joyfully as the Duke of Clarence did in his
butt of Malmsey wine!”
Kitty gave a little scream. “Did you let him?”
“One has to guard one’s value at times.”
Kitty’s disdain for John increased. “How crude!”
Hortense did not make any answer.
“How crude!” Kitty, after some silence, repeated. She seemed to have
found the right word.
Steps sounded upon the bridge, and the voice of Gazza cried out that the
stupid key was at the imbecile club-house, whither he was now going for
it, and not to be alarmed. Their voices answered reassuringly, and Gazza
was heard growing distant, singing some little song.
Kitty was apparently unable to get away from John’s crudity. “He
actually said that?”
“Yes.”
“Where was it? Tell me about it, Hortense.”
“We were walking in the country on that occasion.”
Kitty still lingered with it. “Did he look--I’ve never had any man--I
wonder if--how did you feel?”
“Not disagreeably.” And Hortense permitted herself to laugh musically.
Kitty’s voice at once returned to the censorious tone. “Well, I call
such language as that very--very--”
Hortense helped her. “Operatic?”
“He could never be taught in those ways either,” declared Kitty. “You
would find his ardor always untrained--provincial.”
Once more Hortense abstained from making any answer.
Kitty grew superior. “Well, if that’s to your taste, Hortense Rieppe!”
“It was none of it like Charley,” murmured Hortense.
“I should think not! Charley’s not crude. What do you see in that man?”
“I like the way his hair curls above his ears.”
For this Kitty found nothing but an impatient exclamation.
And now the voice of Hortense sank still deeper in dreaminess,--down
to where the truth lay; and from those depths came the truth, flashing
upward through the drowsy words she spoke: “I think I want him for his
innocence.”
What light these words may have brought to Kitty, I had no chance to
learn; for the voice of Gazza returning with the key put an end to this
conversation. But I doubted if Kitty had it in her to fathom the nature
of Hortense. Kitty was like a trim little clock that could tick tidily
on an ornate shelf; she could go, she could keep up with time, with
the rapid epoch to which she belonged, but she didn’t really have many
works. I think she would have scoffed at that last languorous speech
as a piece of Hortense’s nonsense, and that is why Hortense uttered it
aloud: she was safe from being understood. But in my ears it sounded
the note of revelation, the simple central secret of Hortense’s fire,
a flame fed overmuch with experience, with sophistication, grown cold
under the ministrations of adroitness, and lighted now by the “crudity”
of John’s love-making. And when, after an interval, I had rowed my
boat back, and got into the carriage, and started on my long drive from
Udolpho to Kings Port, I found that there was almost nothing about all
this which I did not know now. Hortense, like most riddles when you are
told the answer, was clear:--
“I think I want him for his innocence.”
Yes; she was tired of love-making whose down had been rubbed off; she
hungered for love-making with the down still on, even if she must pay
for it with marriage. Who shall say if her enlightened and modern eye
could not look beyond such marriage (when it should grow monotonous) to
divorce?