THE NEXT STEP
During the remnant of that night left for sleep Cis slept deeply, too
tired in mind and body to be wakeful.
Her hours at the telephone exchange were elastic; she had undertaken
the organization work only on a provisory basis, unwillingly, with the
understanding that it might continue in her hands but a short time. She
called up her own department in the morning and said that she would not
go down until after lunch. She knew that Rodney would come to see her,
probably in the forenoon. She knew that she must not refuse to see him.
He had done right because she had asked it of him; the least that she
could do was to repay that debt by bidding him good-bye, this time, she
was sure, for all the rest of her life. She dreaded the interview, yet
dreaded it less than she had expected to. Her experience with Rodney
had been marked by extremes of emotion, even up to the previous night
when, by a strange combination of circumstances, she and he had watched
his wife die while they responded to the prayers for mercy upon her.
Now Cis stood upon the plane of quiet. There remained but to drop the
curtain upon this drama in her life, with a Godspeed for poor Rodney.
Little Nan went about with an awe-struck, frightened face as the
morning hours passed and Cis awaited Rodney. Nothing dramatic had ever
come within the sweet little woman’s orbit; she did not know how to
bear herself as a sort of fringe upon Cicely’s tragic cloak.
“I’ll stay in the room, or keep away, just as you say, Cis--I mean when
he comes,” Nan said. “I don’t know what is done in these cases.”
Cis laughed; being Cis she would always laugh at anything funny.
“I don’t believe they set down rules for ‘these cases’ in books of
etiquette, Nan! But I wouldn’t like to give Rodney an audience; you and
I are another matter,” she said.
“Thank goodness!” cried Nan fervently. “I’d be so scared I’d probably
crawl under the sofa!”
“Which would do no one else any good, and muss up your hair
dreadfully,” Cis suggested.
When the bell rang it was nearly noon. Nan fled to open the door, and
then to escape. Cis had been holding the sleepy baby, and when Rodney
entered she had risen to meet him, little Matt held in her arm, which
could not quite support his white kid-shod feet. His rosy face was
pressed against Cis’s breast; his half-open eyes regarded the stranger
with a languid interest that suggested a verdict on him, rendered after
a nap had been completed.
The doorway framed this sweet picture of poignant suggestions; Rodney
halted and stood gazing at it motionless, silent, his face working with
pain. He came forward and put out his hand. Cicely laid hers in it,
then withdrew it and turned to resume her chair, wondering if Nan would
fetch away the baby.
“Take that more comfortable seat, Rodney,” she said. “This is my
godson; we are on the best of terms.”
“I am going away on the train that leaves here for Chicago at eight
minutes to two,” Rodney said, ignoring all extrinsic subjects.
“Myrtle’s people replied to a telegram from me that she might be buried
in their family lot; they live about fifteen miles outside Chicago. The
Sisters sent them word that Myrtle was in their hands, dying; they did
not reply. Neither did I reply to a letter from the Sisters. You made
me come on. Queer, isn’t it, that I, who am no relation to her, and you
who never knew her, are the only ones to see Myrtle out off the earth,
and decently put into it?” Rodney spoke with a visible effort.
“You are related to her; you two were made one flesh,” said Cis.
“Well, Cis, I’m going to own up! The Church is right. I’ve been feeling
that. Myrtle separated herself from me by a chasm that no honorable man
would cross; that’s all so. But the state did not divorce me from her;
it couldn’t. If marriage asserts itself, in spite of that impassable
chasm of disgrace and infamy, as it surely does, then it’s beyond the
reach of the state. You were right; I was wrong. If we had been married
last night, kneeling beside Myrtle, neither of us could have borne it.
Curious, isn’t it? But you were right. Is it any satisfaction to you to
have me acknowledge it? I hope it is. I was furiously, bitterly angry
with you, Cis, but you were right. I’m able to see now that it cost you
high to choose as you did.”
“It hurt, Rodney,” said Cis simply. “I don’t suppose I should say now
that it cost me high; I realize that I made a tremendous purchase at a
low rate. I’ve been thinking how strange it is: You are taking Myrtle’s
body to Chicago, then to her own people!”
“On that eight minutes to two,” Rodney corroborated her.
“Yes. How strange it is that you have come to say good-bye to me, and
are going away with Myrtle, after all,” Cis completed her thought.
“But, Cis, it is not reunited to her,” Rodney protested. “It is
recognition that the divorce did not set me free to marry you, but
there was far more than any decree separating me from Myrtle. And
therefore there is no reason for conventionality, no reason for
assuming that my wife has just died, and that I am on my way to bury
her. I am not; I am seeing her looked after and I grant you I could
not marry again on my divorce, yet there’s no wife of mine newly dead,
either. Cis, now I am free. Now the Church puts no barrier between us.
You can be as Catholic as you will, and yet marry me. There’s nothing
to wait for; we’ve spent a long probation. When, Cis?”
“Never, Rodney,” said Cis quietly. “I hoped you understood that.”
“I understood that you wanted me to understand it when you told me
you’d see me to say good-bye. You couldn’t have expected me to go off
on a hint! Why won’t you marry me, Cis? You have changed enormously,
but I know you’re not fickle, not easily moved, either way. You still
love me?” Rodney pleaded.
“No, Rodney, I don’t,” Cis said. “It amazes me to find that you stir
memories of feeling, but no feeling. Don’t you think, perhaps, there is
a reaction from intense pain that produces in the mind something like
the immunity that a violent sickness produces in the physical system? I
was dashed to pieces, and the reassembled person has lost the vibration
to your personality.”
“Merciful powers! Cis!” cried Rodney, honestly disgusted. “You talking
philosophy, or psychology, or some other rotten, cold-blooded analysis!
You, glowing, red-haired, my Holly? That high-browed crowd you’ve gone
in with at Beaconhite have cold packed you!”
Cis smiled faintly. “I’m no colder than I ever was--”
“Except to me!” Rodney interrupted her. “Don’t tell me that I don’t
remember--”
“Except to you,” Cis interrupted in her turn, her color heightened. “I
have grown up, and we are no longer possible chums. It happens often
enough that people grow apart, even when they’re married. When it has
happened to two people who are free, there can be, there should be, no
talk of marriage between them. We must say good-bye, Rodney, as you
came to say it.”
“As you told me to come to say it; I didn’t mean to say it,” Rodney
pulled on a chain from inside his breast, and held up to Cis her ruby
holly ring. “I wear it, but take it back, Cis!” he begged.
“Oh, the poor, lovely ring!” Cis cried. “I will never take it back. Oh,
Rodney, we had not planned for the true Christmas when I wore that!
Give the ruby to be set in a chalice, or sell it, and send the money to
take care of some helpless baby who may never know that Our Lord was a
baby! Let it make a trifling reparation for us both.”
Rodney stared, but this suggestion seemed to convince him that between
him and Cis stretched unbridgeable distances.
“Well, you have got it bad!” he said slowly, not so much irreverently
as in a puzzled way, expressing himself in the vernacular of his custom.
“Don’t you think it’s natural to want to pay back?” Cis suggested. “If
the Church were not true, she could not be so beautiful, and you do
‘have it bad,’ as you say, when you love anything that is wholly true
and profoundly beautiful. Rodney, truly you don’t begin to know! I wish
you would--at least begin to know! Did you ever read about those poor
animals which have been shut down in mines, how they act when they
come up into the sunshine, into green fields again? Quite mad with the
warmth, and brightness, and pasturage? I’m like that. I went along,
didn’t know what I was missing, but now I know what I have! Will you
promise me, Rodney, solemnly promise me, now, to-day when we part, that
you will do your best to learn what your birthright is which you threw
away?”
Rodney Moore looked long and mutely at Cis, frowning, biting his lip;
she had silenced his pleas for his personal desires. She waited for his
answer.
At last it came.
“Yes,” Rodney said. “I will look into it thoroughly. It must be a big
thing to do what it did last night. And to you--though that’s another
story. It hit me when you would not marry me, stuck to the Church,
though you didn’t seem to care much about her. I know a chap who is a
Dominican in Chicago; he and I were confirmed together. I’ll hunt him
up. It’s a promise.”
“Then God bless you, Rodney, and I’ll pray for you hard. It’s good-bye,
now, isn’t it? I heard the Angelus from our church faintly ever so long
ago,” said Cis, rising.
Rodney pulled out his watch.
“I’ll say it was long ago!” he cried. “I’ll have to eat on the train.
But it won’t take me long to connect with my bag at the hotel.
Everything else is done. Cis, good-bye. Oh, Cis, good-bye! Not for
always? Let me come again!”
“Better not, Rodney. I’m not going to stay here, though; not long. I
think this time it is for always, yet we may meet again; there should
be many days before we are old. Truly God bless you, Rodney,” said Cis,
holding out her hand.
Their hands met over the sleeping baby; he seemed like a figure of
their complete separation, filling the place of the child who would
never be.
“Kiss me, Holly,” Rodney whispered.
“Our hands hold all that we give,” Cicely answered, and once more he
bowed to her will.
“I shall remember you looking like a madonna. Good-bye, good-bye, ah,
Cis, good-bye!” Rodney lifted to his cheek the hand he held, then laid
it upon the child’s breast, beside its mate.
Cis stood motionless after the front door closed, till Nan came
creeping into the room and little Matt stirred with a complaining cry.
Rodney had gone, gone with Myrtle, dead, to bury her; deeper still to
bury his hope and love of Cicely. Nothing was left of Rodney Moore
except his promise to her. But that promise filled Cis with exaltation.
* * * * *
The next morning Cis made it on her way to her office to go to see
Jeanette Lucas, though it was a détour that took her in the opposite
direction for several blocks.
“Cis, I wanted to see you; did you sense it?” Jeanette cried as she
came in. “I’ve something wonderful, marvellous to tell you. You
remember Paul Ralph Randolph?”
“Why, of course I do,” said Cis. “Didn’t he tour New England with Mr.
Lancaster last summer, keeping with Miss Braithwaite’s car? I rode with
him lots of times, and had fine talks. He’s the convert minister who
has been so fine about it; I mean sacrifices and all that.”
“Surely! Cis, he’s a confessor of the faith! He’s almost a martyr for
it! He’s perfectly glorious!” cried Jeanette.
“You’ve heard all that; everybody has, of course. You don’t know him,
do you?” Cis asked.
“Oh, Cicely Adair! He told me that he had talked to you of me!”
Jeanette looked aggrieved. “I met him in England; he crossed with
us coming home. He was received in England, because it was easier.
His father and mother behaved violently about his coming over to the
Church, when he announced that he intended to come, so he went across,
and he was received by the Benedictines over there. Don’t you remember?
I must have spoken of it, and he himself told you that he knew me! What
a girl! Did you remember everything he told you of Mr. Lancaster? Paul
says--”
“Hallo! _Who_ says?” cried Cis.
“Yes, that’s my news!” Jeanette triumphed over her. “_Paul_ says,
_Paul_, whom I’m going to marry! Paul Ralph Randolph, the confessor,
and almost martyr!”
“Martyr nothing!” Cis relapsed under the shock into her earlier habits
of speech.
“He’s no martyr if he marries you, Jeanette Lucas! You’re too lovely to
marry any mere man. I always did think you were superfinely fine! But
this is great news, my dearest, and nobody is gladder than red-haired
Cis!”
“Nobody is nicer than red-haired Cis!” retorted Jeanette. “I was
afraid you’d be a little shocked, because you knew I was engaged
before. But, Cis, though it hurt me dreadfully when you let me discover
Herbert Dale’s character, and I was wretched after it, it was the
sickness of disenchantment; the shock cured me of all love for him. I
half hoped I might be a nun; I spoke of it to you once, but it isn’t my
place. When Paul asked me to marry him--three days ago; he wrote me--I
knew how I loved him; I hadn’t realized it before. Oh, my dear, I’m so
happy and so humbled!”
“I don’t mind how happy you are, but not humbled,” Cis protested,
kissing her over and over again.
“And I want you happy, splendid Cicely,” Jeanette murmured.
“Oh, as to that, I’m sure to be; it’s the temperament of my hair,” said
Cis, turning away slightly. “But I’d like to be useful, fill a place,
find the right place to fill. Sister Bonaventure says no habit for poor
Cicely! I wonder what I’m meant for; nothing in particular, probably.
Reliable secretary, run a typewriter accurately, get under the skins of
youngsters when they need entertaining! Well, it’s at least a harmless
life.”
There was a note in Cicely’s voice new to it. Jeanette instantly
pounced upon her. “Lonely, Cis? Not perfectly happy? These past days
made things harder? They’ve been cruelly hard in themselves, I’m sure
of that!”
Cis swung around to face her.
“It’s not that I still want Rod; don’t think that!” she cried. “I knew
I didn’t, but I know it better now. These days were hard, but they were
a comfort, too. I’m not lonely, not exactly; perhaps, a little. I don’t
know what I want. I miss Miss Braithwaite, my life with her. Perfectly
happy? I’m twenty-three; the ‘first fine careless rapture’ is over
then, I suppose. I want a place to fill; I want a work to do that will
take every bit of me to do it.”
Cis quoting Browning? Cis half pensive, unsatisfied? Jeanette wondered.
“Poor Cicely! I suspect if we put a dynamo to grinding coffee it would
find the grains small and the dust they made too trivial!” Jeanette
said. “But you take my engagement coolly! Aren’t you amazed?”
“I’m wholly amazed and surprised, and I take it less coolly than you
think,” declared Cis. “It has rather bowled me over. I suppose I dread
to have you married. Where shall you live, Jeanette, dear?”
“In Beaconhite. Paul is going into literary work there; he says I shall
help him. And he is going to teach Greek and Latin in that big boys’
school on the outskirts of the city--Graycliff Hall--and he’ll probably
lecture. It will be Beaconhite,” Jeanette answered.
Cis’s face had brightened as she listened.
“I know I’m going back there, somehow,” she declared. “That’s good news
that you’ll be within reach. I’m hungry for Beaconhite.”
“Uncle Wilmer is ready for you at any moment, whoever he has as his
secretary,” Jeanette assured her. “He told me that he would pension his
secretary, if he must, and would have you back any day you’d come. He
will be received into the Church at Pentecost, Cis; Father Morley will
receive him, as he did father, and father will make a point of being
here in time for the ceremony.”
“Was there a secret about your father’s going away; ought I ask?”
hinted Cis.
“He was seriously ill. We told no one, lest mother hear of it; things
have such a way of leaking, unexplainably! He was supposed to be
travelling on matters connected with important affairs of business. He
has been in a sanitarium. He is cured, thank God! Even now don’t speak
of this, Cis. Miss Gallatin knows, hardly anyone else. Hannah Gallatin
is a great woman!” Jeanette ended with tears of gratitude and relief in
her eyes.
“I never see her, lately; I wish I might,” said Cis. “I believe she
could set me up again with my old sensible way of taking things!”
“She’s not here now. I’ll tell her you need her for a--what do they
call it?--a pick-me-up?” Jeanette laughed.
That evening Tom came into Nan’s house as was his custom. Though Cis
had bade him cease to hope for her love, and Nan had confirmed the
hopelessness, yet as long as Cis was free, it was hard for Tom to give
her up, and wholly impossible to stay away from her.
“Well,” the boy began as he came in, “I saw something pretty decent
to-night. A man came in on the 7:56 train; I was at the station. He
was great, the kind everybody turns to look at; tall, well-dressed,
about forty, maybe, and--I don’t know! Great; that’s about the word.
You wanted to speak to him, and shake hands with him. He talked
something like an Englishman, not quite--”
“What did he look like?” cried Cis.
“Why, I’ve been telling you, haven’t I?” Tom spoke in an aggrieved
tone. “I don’t know the color of his eyes, or anything of that sort.
Handsome, I’d say, but more sort of splendid. He had another man with
him, nice chap, too. Well, sir, there was a raggedy old woman hanging
around, trying to find out something about trains, or farming, for all
I know; nobody could make her out. She had a bag as big as a Noë’s ark,
and a regular eruption of bundles! A fresh boy thought it was funny to
hustle her, hit up against her, and she dropped the bundles, bag, whole
shooting match, all over everything! The bag bulged queer clothes--it
burst open--and the bundles opened up, or two did, and out of one there
sort of flowed a lot of carrots, and out of the other a white kitten
got away! Don’t ask me how she had it done up, for I’ll never tell you!
Everybody howled laughing, but what do you think that man did?”
“Helped her!” cried Cis, and she looked triumphant and excited.
“Rather! Caught the kitten and stroked it quiet; the little thing
took to him as if he’d been the mother cat! Gathered up carrots with
the other hand, and, in the mean time, talked to the old dame in her
own tongue--Italian--and put her wise to whatever she was trying to
find out! I got in on bundling the clothes back into the bag, and the
carrots into the bundle, and the kitten into a basket, which my knight
of distressed dames bought at the fruit stand; he tied it down so
strong that the kitten is sure to arrive wherever it’s going! And I’m
betting that most of the people around there felt good and ashamed of
themselves! It isn’t much to tell, but somehow it was a lot to see.
There wasn’t a person in that waiting room that didn’t think that man
was the greatest ever; you could feel the way the thing grabbed ’em. I
tell you the truth! Of course I was sorry for the old person, and sorry
I’d laughed at her, and I did want to make good by helping her out, but
I wanted more to be working with that man so that he’d speak to me! He
did speak, too! And I leave it to you if a fellow like me often feels
that way to a man, a perfect stranger, just happening to come off the
train in the station?”
“Magnetism,” murmured Joe.
“There’s only one man in all the world like that!” cried Cis.
Tom turned on her sharply.
“Know him?” he demanded.
“Of course I can’t be sure, but it is exactly like Mr. Anselm
Lancaster, and it is like no one else in all the world!” Cis said, her
eyes bright, her face flushed, her breath a little quickened.
“He is the one whom everybody looks at; when he comes into a room
you feel him as much as you see him. He can make anything trust him,
kittens, carrots, old women, anything! He speaks Italian as well as
English, and he speaks English like an Oxford Englishman. He would do
precisely what you describe, be a knight errant as soon for a poor
old immigrant as for a princess! It sounds like no one but Mr. Anselm
Lancaster!”