THE STRAINED CABLE
There was a new element in life for Cis, a chord in its accompaniment
that jarred, though she tried not to hear it. For the first time since
she had been old enough to deal consciously with other people, Cis had
done something in relation to another of which she was ashamed. When
she omitted Mass on days of obligation, when it occurred to her that
her infrequency at the sacraments was not to her credit, she was a
little sorry, half resolved to do better, but she was not ashamed; she
indirectly counted upon “fixing it up.” It is a noteworthy fact that
people who do less for God expect Him to do more for them; they read
the text: “because she has loved little much is forgiven her.”
But in relation to question of honor, “dealing straight” as she put it,
Cis was acutely sensitive. She told herself that it would be too much
to expect of anyone not to give her betrothed information which she
possessed and which would not go farther, which would, without harm to
another, greatly benefit him. The fact which she could not argue down
as it faced her frowningly, was that Mr. Lucas had made no exception
to his prohibition against disclosing the secret which her position
necessitated her knowing, that she had given her pledge to keep
it--and had broken it! For the sake of Rod, only, of course, to whom
she owed her best help, but she had broken it!
The knowledge that she had failed in honor for the first time in her
life shamed her, afflicted her. And back of this shame was a more
poignant pain which she did not admit in her thoughts. It was Rod’s
pleading, his making this a test of her devotion to him, to which she
had yielded. Rod had been indifferent to her duty when it stood in the
way of his advantage. Was Rod, could Rod be--Cis never went farther,
but that was far enough to leave her weary in mind.
The visible result of her inward torment was to make her more
demonstrative of love for Rodney; he was surprised to see in her daily
new proof of its strength, of her disregard of the reserve which, up
to this time, had tantalized him in her, while it whetted his delight
in the expressions of feeling which he wrung from her. Now she adored
him openly, frankly, with a feverish eagerness which he might have
correctly construed if his understanding of this type of girl had been
more profound. He thought it was due to the rapidly nearing date of
their marriage, and it made his head swim to think what Cis would be to
him in her own home if the approach to its threshold so multiplied her
sweet ways.
A letter had come to Cis from Nan in reply to hers announcing her
marriage on Christmas eve, a Nan-like letter, full of love for Cis, but
no less full of anxiety. “It seems so quick, Cis darling!” Nan wrote.
“To think that you’ll be married before me, and I’ve known Joe almost
all my life! You have not said that your Rod is a Catholic, but Moore
is sometimes Irish, so I suppose he is one. You would not marry anyone
who was not a Catholic? We’ve so often decided that it is madness to
set out on a certainty that there’ll be something serious to differ
upon, when it’s so hard, at best, for people to grow close together,
so easy to differ. Besides, it’s wrong; for the children’s sake it’s
wrong--but you always said that yourself, so I’m sure Rod Moore is a
good Catholic. Dearest Cis, I never could tell you how I hope and pray
for you! For I’m always fonder of you than of any other friend I have.
Lovingly, Your same old, Nan.”
“Wonder what she’d say if she knew Rod had been a Catholic and given
it up? Nan would far rather he’d always been Protestant, of course; it
would be better, too. Wonder what in all the world she’d say if she
knew he was determined to get me to give it all up myself? Nan would
take the first train on here, carrying a big jug of Holy Water, and
she’d simply souse Rod and me to drive off the devil--bless her heart!
But I’m not going to quit. To be sure I did miss Mass last Sunday, but
I go pretty regularly; I’ll go every Sunday after I’m married, because
it will be up to me to set a good example, bring Rod back. A person
must have some religion, and it’s silly to have one made by Luther, or
Henry the Eighth, or someone; I could make one myself as well as that
bunch! I suppose it would be easier to convert a Protestant than turn
Rod back; he’s awfully down on it, really! I wonder why? That’s not
like being slack and lazy-minded! ‘For the children’s sake,’ Nan says!
Well, I hope I’ll have children, certainly, but I’m not going to marry
to please them, I’ll tell them that right now! They’ll have to take
what they find, and if they’ll grow up as splendid as Rod is, Church or
no Church, I’ll be proud of them! Funny little Nannie!”
“Rory O’Moore,” Cis said that evening to Rodney, “I’ve got to ’fess to
Mr. Lucas!”
“You’ve got to do nothing of the sort!” Rod angrily exclaimed. “Cis,
don’t be an idiot! What good would it do? Could you take back what you
told me? You’d be a miserable sinner if you would, provided you could!
Mr. Lucas is happy while he is ignorant; let him alone in that form of
bliss! No harm is done, nobody wronged, nobody the wiser. What good
would you do by telling on yourself? All you’d do is to mess up the
situation. You’ll be married and out of the office soon. My wife isn’t
going to keep on in business! Thanks to your tip, my dearest, we’ll
have a nice little increase to our income.”
“I can’t answer one of your common-sense statements, Rod,” said Cis
slowly, “but I can’t go along with them. Mr. Lucas thinks what isn’t
true. Truth is the only basis for dealing with anyone. I’ve got to tell
him exactly what I did; I can’t breathe in his office while I know that
when he looks at me he sees what isn’t there. I don’t care to own up,
Rod dear, but when there isn’t solid rock-bottom of truth under my
dealings, my relations with a person, I feel like that Irishman who
didn’t like aeroplanes because ‘when they stopped there wasn’t any
place to stand to crank the thing!’ When someone is deceived in you, if
you don’t make it straight, it’s worse than playing with ghosts--they
touch you and you touch them, yet neither of you is there at all!”
Rodney looked at Cicely for a long time, an inscrutable expression
upon his face. She made a little grimace at him, twisting her lips and
showing her dimple, but he did not respond with a smile. She thought
that he was displeased with her, and again coaxed him with pursed-up
lips, but Rodney’s eyes were steady, clouded; he looked bothered,
plainly was deep in thought.
“I’ll put off telling, Rory O’Moore,” Cis said, misunderstanding him.
“If you hate to have me tell, I won’t tell right away, but I’ve got to
tell sometime, please, Rod!”
It was a week later that Rod said to Cis: “Will you come with me to the
apartment to-morrow, Holly? I’ve had sent in a few odd chairs, and a
table that hit me exactly where I live, and I’d like your opinion of
them, Mistress-of-the-Mansion-elect!” They had agreed to pick out the
furnishings of their home together, but Cis looked delighted at this
departure from the bargain on Rodney’s part, and gladly said that she
would go with him to see his selections.
They had changed rôles for the week that had just passed; Cis, relieved
by her definitely announced plan to confess her wrong-doing to Mr.
Lucas, felt better about it, and had been bubbling over with fun
and high spirits. Rodney, on the contrary, had been cast-down; Cis
repeatedly caught him looking at her with such a sober and apprehensive
look, that she had once been moved to expostulate with him.
“For pity’s sake, Rory O’Moore,” she cried, “stop looking at me as
if you were saying: ‘Doesn’t she look natural! Poor thing, she was
so young, and with all her faults I love her still! Not so still as
this, though!’ I’m not nearly as dead as I might be; in fact I’m quite
lively, I think. What’s wrong with me--or you--old chap?”
“I’m deciding something, Holly-berry,” Rodney answered, not smiling
at her nonsense. “I’m wondering what you’d want me to do about a
certain thing, on which I can’t consult you without giving the thing
away, so you never would have a chance to decide it, after all. Sounds
mysterious, but it’s the best I can do by way of answering you. I’m
wondering how you’d react under something I’ve a mind to do. You’re the
frankest human being I ever knew, Cis; you never have hidden meanings,
nor lay a plot; you act outright and talk right out! Yet I’m not one
bit sure of what you’d do under untried conditions; you’re capable of
doing one of two completely opposite things.”
“Well,” said Cis lightly, in too contented a frame of mind to pay
close attention to what Rodney might be implying, “I’m glad you can’t
tell which way I’d jump. Sounds quite impressive, but probably it’s
something like whether I’d go back on my bronzey little library and go
in for red, after I’d sworn no red should come into my happy home! I’m
more interesting if I’m uncertain; that’s why you like women, you men,
my Rory; they keep you guessing! I’m dreadfully afraid you do know all
I think, and what I’d do, but it’s dear of you to pretend I’m a nice
sphinxy-sphynx!”
Rodney laughed; he had instantly regretted speaking as he had spoken,
and he was glad that Cis’s incorrigible light-heartedness prevented her
from taking him seriously, gave him longer to decide whether he should
pursue his original plan, and tell Cis the secret which he meant to
tell her after their marriage, or put himself at her mercy by telling
her at once. He knew that this was the only honorable course; he knew
that, if their places were reversed, Cis would deal thus with him.
It was the last Sunday in November, the first Sunday in Advent, and
Cis and Rodney were happily on their way to look at the three chairs
of unusual design, and the beautiful mahogany table which, so Rodney
delighted to put it to Cis, he “had sent home.”
The day enveloped them with the caresses of Saint Martin’s Summer;
warm sunshine; gentle air that brushed over them as they walked, like
wings that bore blessings; a cloudless sky, veiled with hazy warmth
that softened, yet did not conceal the bright blue that stretched from
horizon to horizon.
“The winter of our discontent is turned glorious summer by our sunny
walk,” said Rodney, making an attempt to retain the sound and not the
sense of the quotation which was lost on Cis. “Almost December first,
only two days distant, and even this light-weight overcoat a burden!
It’s what my grandmother used to call a weather-breeder.”
“I don’t see why people want to take the polish off of a day like
this!” cried Cis. “A day like this is a present from heaven, and I
don’t like to look a gift horse in the mouth. Rory O’Moore, don’t you
think it came just to rejoice with us and strew our path to our new
little home?”
“Like a wedding flower girl? Oh, Cicely, you bride of brides! I’d think
any day would smile and look pleasant when it came up at dawn to find
us together,” Rodney spoke with a little laugh in his voice, but it
trembled too.
The apartment did not include many rooms, but they were--for apartment
rooms--spacious. There were two excellent bedrooms, a small room for
the maid, and its accompanying bath at the rear, a small kitchen, a
pretty dining room, and a really fine living room, besides a tiled
bathroom which was so white, so modern and perfect in its appointments
that Cis found herself unexpectedly housewifely every time that she saw
it. Mentally she screwed bright nickle fixtures upon the slabs built in
for them, and hung heavily initialled towels upon glass rods, as she
stood in the doorway, taking in the details of this room devoted to the
practice of the virtue which is next to godliness.
“I’m going to turn out well, Rory O’Moore!” Cis announced, swinging
around to face Rodney, who had come up behind her and placed his
hands upon her shoulders. “You always knew I’d be agreeable to have
around, but you never dreamed I’d be a real, dyed-in-the-wool domestic
character! Neither did I, but I shall be; I feel it coming on! I yearn
to scrub this white floor and polish the faucets! The kitchen, with
that white sink and draining board, and the cunning cupboard, goes to
my head till it fairly spins with rapture! Oh, Rod, it’s the sweetness
of doing for you! I’ve been half scared to be married, even to you, but
this apartment takes it all out of me! It’s home and home-making; it’s
living for, and with, and in each other! Oh, my Rod, I’m not afraid,
I’m _not_! I’m glad, _glad_ I’m coming here to be with you, and scrub
_your_ rooms, and wash _your_ dishes!”
“Holly, my blessed Holly!” Rodney breathed the words almost inaudibly
into Cicely’s ear, all that was fine in him moved and awed before her
sweetness.
Voluntarily Cis threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, and
caresses were rare with her, yielded only to his implorations. Rodney
understood that she was betrothing herself anew, and he met her spirit
in tune with it. Why did he fear to tell her his secret? This rare,
deep-hearted Cicely would not fail him for a chimera!
The new table awakened little less than rapture in Cis; it was exactly
to her mind. The three chairs no less; deep-seated, low, at once
“impressive and home chairs,” Cis pronounced them.
“Suppose we use them for awhile, Cicely dear,” Rodney proposed. “I’d
like to talk to you.”
“All right; I’m ready to talk, or to listen,” agreed Cis, dropping into
the chair which she had at once pronounced “made for the lady of the
house.” “Sounds queer to hear you call me Cicely, Rodney!” she added,
laughing at him.
“I’ll have to learn to call you that in case we ever have company,”
returned Rodney. “See, here, Cis, I sort of dread to say what I’m going
to say; please help me to it. I thought I’d tell you after we were
married, but you’re so keen to have things clear between you and Mr.
Lucas, you’re so straight, I thought--Cis, if you were anyone else,
anything else but what you are, I’d follow my own judgment, but you’re
so crystal-clear--Cis, try to understand, and for pity’s sake don’t be
prejudiced--There’s no sense in building up false theories of life--”
Cicely was sitting erect and still, her lips parted, her very muscles
eloquent of tensity of mind.
“What are you stumbling over, Rod? What are you going to tell me?” she
demanded.
“When I talked to you about my life, told you about it, you did not
notice that I said nothing about three years of it, when I was in
Chicago,” said Rodney.
Cis shook her head, groping backward in her memory to recall what he
had said.
“Only that you were there for three years; that’s all I remember,” she
said.
“How do you feel about second marriages, Cis?” asked Rodney. “Would
you hate to be a second wife?”
“Oh!” Cis gasped, and sank back in her chair.
“It’s not--not so nice,” she said hesitatingly. “To think you were
married, actually married, fixed up a home before this one, brought a
girl into it, loved her--Oh, Rod, were you? Were you--married--before?”
Rodney nodded. “Yes, Cis, I was. I had to tell you; please, please,
don’t mind, Cis!”
For a few minutes Cicely was silent, shading her face with her hand;
Rodney waited breathlessly for her to speak.
At last she pushed back her hair with the hand that had rested against
her forehead, smiled bravely, with a visible effort, and put out that
hand to Rodney.
“Poor dear!” she said softly. “I’m sorry! It rather knocked me up at
first, but I won’t let it bother me long. All girls like to be the
first, you know, but it’s really all right, as long as you love me
dearly now. You told me that you’d fancied others before me, so I did
half-way know, but marriage is different. I didn’t know you’d loved one
well enough for that. I wish you’d told me sooner--But it was awfully
hard to tell me at all, I see that, so I’m grateful to you for making
yourself speak of it now. It is right to have told me before we were
married; I don’t know just how I should have felt if I’d found it out
later; I’m so keen on honesty.”
Rodney winced. “I know, Cis; that’s why I had to tell you. But that
time was nothing like this; don’t you imagine I ever felt for any other
girl what I feel for you!”
“Ah, poor Other Girl!” murmured Cis. “I don’t like to have you say what
she would have hated! Better let me be a little bit sore, because I’ll
fight it down, and I’m alive, and it’s like taking an advantage of a
dead girl to say what you did. Do you mind talking of her, Rodney dear?
Would you tell me about her? Does it hurt to speak of her? What did she
look like? Dark hair and eyes, because mine are not. Was she little and
sweet, or tall and splendid? Rod, oh, my poor Rod, you suffered, you
must have suffered when she--died! And I could not be there to help
you! I’d have helped you, dear. Will you tell me all these things? Can
you bear it? Does it still hurt, Rod? If it does, oh, if it does, then
this is not altogether my home! It is part hers, and so are you!”
“I don’t care any more for her, Cicely Adair, than I care for your
friend Nan’s cat--if she has one! Don’t you get notions! It was a mad
infatuation; I might have known how she’d have turned out, but I was
young, and--well, Cis, I got all snarled up with her. That’s not much
like my love for you!” Rodney cried.
“Oh me, oh dear!” Cis half sobbed. “I don’t know whether that makes it
better; I’ve got to get used to this, and go off to think it out by
myself. When did she die? Where did you bury her?”
“In the Chicago divorce court,” said Rodney savagely.
“In--the--” Cis stopped short, her eyes dilated, staring at Rodney, her
hands clasping the arms of “the lady of the house’s chair.” “Rodney
Moore, she is not dead? She is alive? You--you!--have a living wife?”
“No, no, no! Not yet, not yet, Holly! At Christmas I’ll have,” cried
Rodney springing to his feet. “I am free, free as you are, _free_! I’m
not married! I divorced her; she was as bad as they come, and I’m freed
by my decree to marry. I’m no more married than you are.” He took a
step toward her, but Cis held out both hands, warding him off.
“She is alive. Don’t touch me!” she cried. “She is alive. No decree
kills her; your wife is alive,” she gasped.
“Cis, listen to me!” Rodney began, dropping on his knees beside
Cicely, compelling her horror-stricken eyes to meet his eyes. “That
girl was not fit to be any man’s wife. Do you understand? My marriage
was a mockery from the first, and soon I hated her as much as I had
been fascinated by her. From sly, hidden beginnings, she soon passed
into open evil. She disgraced me while I was her husband, and since I
have been free of her she has gone into utter degradation. There was
not an instant’s question of my getting rid of her; court and common
humanity would grant me my decree of divorce. Are you going to tell
me that I have a living wife? I have no wife. Would you make all my
life desolate because she was what she was? Only the Catholic Church
forbids marriage under my conditions. Do you see now why I want you
to shake off her laws, which do violence to every natural instinct
of justice? Am I to suffer, live alone, denied wife and children? _I_
suffer, who was not the offender? Is that sense? Plain common sense
forbids such foolishness. Throw off your prejudices; come out into
freedom and happiness, my darling! Only your ridiculous Roman Catholic
tyrants forbid it; God is on our side, not they! The reverend mayor,
or a reverend alderman can marry us as tight and as sacredly as that
thin Jesuit can whom we met coming back from Pioneer Falls that Sunday.
You’re not actually a Catholic. Cis, I’ve suffered enough. Make it up
to me! With you my wife there won’t be a scar left of these wicked
wounds! Cis, don’t you love me? Stop staring at me so, as if you’d
never seen me before! Cis, don’t you know I’m Rory O’Moore, unchanged?
That this is our home, and you my Holly-bride?”
Cis did not move. She stared at Rodney stonily, trying to force her
mind to grasp this thing that had fallen upon her when her happiness
was at its height, made sweeter and holier than before by her new sense
of the meaning of home-making.
“Was this woman--your wife--was she a Catholic?” Cis managed to ask.
“Well, I’ve no love for the Catholic Church, but I wouldn’t wish her on
any Church,” Rodney laughed bitterly. “Religion wasn’t in her line, but
her people were Catholic; she’d had baptism.”
“You knew that, because you were married by a priest,” Cicely groped
in her mind for what she wanted to say. “They ask--about baptism. You
were married by a priest?”
“Yes. But, good heavens, Cis--” Rodney cried out. “What of that?
These things have no power over us unless we give them the right to
it. Priest or no priest, the laws of our country freed me; isn’t that
enough?”
“You have a living wife.” Cis repeated the words, changing her formula,
but clinging to the sole idea that took shape in her stunned brain.
“Cicely, Cis, my Holly, don’t, don’t, for the love of justice, for the
love of me, benumb yourself with such idiocy! I have no wife! Cis,
listen! _I--have--no--wife!_ Will you leave me?” Rodney cried, leaping
to his feet, for Cis had risen. “You can’t! Throw over the Church! Come
to me! You love me; I worship you. I need you. Cis, are you utterly
heartless? Church or me, and you hesitate! Me, your husband! Oh, Cis,
look at this home of ours; stay in it!”
Cis lifted both arms toward heaven with a great, tragic gesture, and
turned in silence toward the door. Rodney leaped to reach it before
her, but she raised her hand and looked at him. Her blanched face,
surmounted by her glowing hair was deathlike and awful; it made Rodney
fall back to let her pass, afraid to check her.
“I will go away to think. I can’t think now. I will send you word when
I know. I may come back. I cannot think. You have killed my brain. I
don’t know--but you have a living wife! I will go away to think. Let me
go, alone. I must go--alone. There is not even Cis Adair left to go
with me. How strange to come alive and go out dead! Your wife is alive.
Good-bye. Let me pass.”
Cis spoke slowly, with great difficulty, yet clearly, and Rodney, awed
and conscience-stricken to see her thus, fell back and let her go.
Afterward he marvelled that he had done so, and cursed his folly, but
under the spell of Cicely’s eyes he could not do otherwise.