Her magnanimity toward Jack--so Imogen more and more clearly saw it to have
been--at the time of their parting, had made it inevitable that he should
hold to his engagement to visit them that summer, and even because of that
magnanimity, she felt, in thinking over again and again the things that
Jack had said of her and to her, a deepening of the cold indignation that
the magnanimity had quelled at the moment of his speaking them. Mingling
with the sense of snapped and bleeding ties was a longing, irrepressible,
profound, violent, that he might be humiliated, punished, brought to his
knees in penitence and abasement.
Her friendship with Sir Basil, his devotion to her, must be, though by no
means humiliating, something of a coal of fire laid on Jack's traitorous
head; and she saw at once that he was pleased, touched, but perplexed, by
what must seem to him an unforeseen smoothing of her mother's path. He was
there, she guessed, far more to see that her mother's path was made smooth
than to try and straighten out their own twisted and separate ways. He had
come for her mother, not for her; and Imogen did not know whether it was
more pain or anger that the realization gave her.
What puzzled him, what must have puzzled her mother, must puzzle, indeed,
anyone who perceived it,--except, no doubt, the innocent Sir Basil
himself,--was that this friendship took up most of Sir Basil's time.
To Sir Basil she stood for something lofty and exquisite that did not,
of course, clash with more rudimentary, if deeper, affections, but that,
perforce, made them stand aside for the little interlude where it soared
and sang. There was, for Imogen, a sharp sweetness in this fact and in
Jack's bewildered appreciation of it, though for her own consciousness
the triumph was no satisfying one. After all, of what use was it to soar
and sing if Sir Basil were to drop to earth so inevitably and so soon?
Outwardly, at all events, this unforeseen change in the situation gave her
all the advantage in her meeting with Jack. She was not the reproved and
isolated creature that he might have expected to find. She was not the
helpless girl, subjugated by an alien mother and cast off by a faithless
lover. No; calm, benignant, lovely, she had turned to other needs; one was
not helpless while one helped; not small when others looked up to one.
Under her calm was the lament; under her unfaltering smile, the loneliness
and the burning of that bitter indignation; but Jack could not guess at
that, and if both felt difficulty in the neatly balanced friendship pledged
under the wisteria, if there was a breathlessness for both in the
tight-rope performance,--where one false step might topple one over into
open hostility, or else, who knew, into complete surrender,--it was Imogen
who gained composure from Jack's nervousness, and while he walked the rope
with a fluttering breath and an anxious eye she herself could show the most
graceful slides and posturings in midair.
It was evident enough to everybody that the relation was a changed, a
precarious one, but all the seeming danger was Jack's alone.
Imogen, while she swung and balanced, often found her mother's eye fixed
on her with a deep preoccupation, and guessed that it was owing to her
mother's tactics that most of her _tête-à-têtes_ with Jack were due. Her
poor mother might imagine that she thus secured the solid foundation of
the earth for their footsteps, but Imogen knew that never was the rope so
dizzily swung as when she and Jack were thus gently coerced into solitude
together.
It was, however, a few days after Jack's arrival, and a few days before
the Pottses' departure, that an interest came to her of such an absorbing
nature that it wrapped her mind away from the chill or scorching sense
of her own wrongs. It was with the Pottses that the plan originated, and
though the Pottses were proving more trying than they had ever been, they
caught some of the radiance of their own proposal. As instruments in a
great purpose, she could look upon them more patiently, though, more than
ever, it would need tact to prevent them from shadowing the brightness that
they offered. The plan, apparently, had been with them for some time, its
disclosure delayed until the moment suited to its seriousness and sanctity,
and it was then, between the three, mapped out and discussed carefully
before they felt it ripe for further publicity. Then it was Imogen who told
them that the time had come for the unfolding to her mother, and Imogen who
led them, on a sunny afternoon, into her mother's little sitting-room where
she sat writing at her desk.
Jack was there, reading near the window that opened upon the veranda, but
his presence was not one to make the occasion less intimate, and Imogen was
glad of it. It was well that he should be a witness to what she felt to be
a confession of faith, a confession that needed explicit defining, and of a
faith that he and all the others, by common consent, seemed banded together
to ignore.
So, with something of the air of a lovely verger, she led her primed pair
into the room and pointed out two chairs to them.
Valerie, in her thin black draperies, looked pale and jaded. She turned
from her desk, keeping her pen in her hand, and Imogen detected in her eye,
as it rested upon the Pottses, a certain impatience.
Tison, suddenly awakening, broke into passionate barking; he had from the
moment of Mr. Potts's arrival shown toward him a pronounced aversion, and,
backed under the safe refuge of his mistress's chair, his sharp hostility
disturbed the ceremonious entrance.
"Please put the dog out, Jack," said Imogen; "we have a very serious matter
to talk over with mama." But Valerie, stooping, caught him up, keeping a
soothing hand on his still defiant head, while Mr. Potts unfolded the plan
before her.
The wonderful purpose, the wonderful project, was that Mr. Potts, aided by
Imogen, should write the life of the late Mr. Upton; and as the curtain was
drawn from before the shrined intention, Imogen saw that her mother flushed
deeply.
"His name must not be allowed to die from among us, Mrs. Upton. His ideals
must become more widely the ideals of his countrymen." Mr. Potts, crossing
his knees and throwing back his shoulders, wrapped one hand, while he
spoke, in a turn of his flowing beard. "They are in crying need of such a
message, now, when the tides of social materialism and political corruption
are at their height. We may well say, to paraphrase the great poet's
words: 'Upton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; New York hath need of
thee.' And this need is one that it is our duty, and our high privilege,
to satisfy." Mr. Potts's eye, heavy with its responsibility, dwelt on
Valerie's downcast face. "No one, I may say it frankly, Mrs. Upton, is
more fitted than I to satisfy that need and to hand on that message. No
one had more opportunity than I for understanding that radiant personality
in its public aspects. No one can feel more deeply than I that duty and
that privilege. Every American child should know the name of Upton;
every American man and woman should count him among the prophets of his
generation. He did not ask for fame, and we, his followers, ask none for
him. No marble temple, no effulgent light of stained glass;--no. But the
violets and lilies of childhood laid upon his grave; the tearful, yet
joyous whisper of those who come to share his spirit:--'I, too, am of his
race. I, too, can with him strive and with him achieve.'" Mr. Potts's voice
had risen, and Tison, once more, gave a couple of hoarse, smothered barks.
Imogen, though reared on verbal bombast, had found some difficulty in
maintaining her expression of uplifted approbation while Mr. Potts's
rhetoric rolled; her willingness that Mr. Potts should serve the cause did
not blind her to his inadequacy unless kept under the most careful control;
and now, though incensed by Tison's interjection, she felt it as something
of a relief, seizing the opportunity of Mr. Potts's momentary confusion
to suggest, in a gentle and guarded voice:--"You might tell mama now, Mr.
Potts, how we want her to help us."
"I am coming to that, Miss Imogen," said Mr. Potts, with a drop from
sonority to dryness;--"I was approaching that point when the dog
interrupted me"; and Mr. Potts cast a very venomous glance upon Tison.
"Had not the dog better be removed, Mrs. Upton?" Mrs. Potts, under her
breath, murmured, leaning, as if in a pew and above prayer books, forward
in her chair. But Mrs. Upton seemed deaf to the suggestion.
Mr. Potts cleared his throat and resumed somewhat tersely:--"This is our
project, Mrs. Upton, and we have come this afternoon to ask you for your
furtherance of it. You, of course, can provide me and Miss Imogen with
many materials, inaccessible otherwise, for this our work of love. Early
letters, to you;--early photographs;--reminiscences of his younger days,
and so on. Any suggestion as to the form and scope of the book we will be
glad, very glad, to consider."
Valerie had listened without a word or gesture, her pen still held in one
hand, Tison pressed to her by the other, as she sat sideways to the
writing-table. Imogen read in her face a mingled embarrassment and
displeasure.
"I am sure we must all be very grateful to Mr. Potts for this great idea of
his, mama dear," she said. "I thought of it, of course, as soon as papa
died; I knew that we all owed it to him, and to the country that he loved
and served so well; but I did not see my way, and have not seen it till
now. I've so little technical knowledge. But now I shall contribute a
little memoir to the biography and, in any other way, give Mr. Potts all
the aid I can. And we hope that you will, too. Papa's name is one that must
not be allowed to fade."
"I would rather talk of this at some other time, and with Mr. Potts alone,"
Valerie now said, not raising her eyes.
"But mama, this is my work, too. I must be present when it is talked of."
"No, Jack, don't go," said Valerie, looking up at the young man, who had
made a gesture of rising. "You and I, Imogen, will speak of this together,
and I will find an hour, later, when I will be free to talk to Mr. Potts."
"Mama darling," said Imogen, masking her rising anger in patient
playfulness, "you are a lazy, postponing person. You are not a bit busy,
and this is just the time to talk it over with us all. Of course Jack must
stay; we want his advice, too, severe critic as we know him to be. Come,
dear, put down that pen." She bent over her and drew the pen from her hand
while Mr. Potts watched the little scene, old suspicions clouding his
countenance.
"My time is limited, Mrs. Upton," he observed; "Mrs. Potts and I take our
departure to-morrow and, if I have heard aright, you expect acquaintances
to dinner. Therefore, if you will pardon me, I must ask you to let us have
the benefit, here and now, of your suggestions."
Valerie had not responded by any smile to Imogen's rather baleful
lightness, nor did she, by any penitence of look, respond to Mr. Potts's
urgency. She sat silent for a moment, and when she spoke it was in a
changed voice, dulled, monotonous. "If you insist on my speaking, now--and
openly,--I must say to you that I altogether disapprove of your project.
You will never," said Valerie, with a rising color, "gain my consent to
it."
A heavy silence followed her words, the only sound that of Tison's faint
sniffings, as, his nose outstretched and moving from side to side, he
cautiously savored the air in Mr. Potts's direction. Mrs. Potts stirred
slightly, and uttered a sharp, "Tht--tht." Mr. Potts, his hand still stayed
in his beard, gazed from under the fringed penthouse of his brows with an
arrested, bovine look.
It was Imogen who broke the silence. Standing beside her mother she had
felt the shock of a curious fulfilment go through her, as if she had almost
expected to hear what she now heard. She mastered her voice to ask:--"We
must demand your reasons for this--this very strange attitude, mama."
Her mother did not raise her eyes. "I don't think that your father was a
man of sufficient distinction to justify the publishing of his biography."
At this Mr. Potts breathed a deep, indignant volume of sound, louder than a
sigh, less articulate than a groan, through the forests of his beard.
"Sufficient distinction, Mrs. Upton! Sufficient distinction! You evidently
are quite ignorant of how great was the distinction of your late husband.
Ask us what that distinction was--ask any of his large circle of friends.
It was a distinction not of mind only, nor of birth and breeding--though
that was of the highest that this country has fostered--but it was a
distinction also of soul and spirit. Your husband, Mrs. Upton, fought with
speech and pen the iniquities of his country, the country that, as Miss
Imogen has said, he loved and served. He served, he loved, with mind and
heart and hand. He was the moving spirit in all the great causes of his
day, the vitalizing influence that poured faith and will-power into them.
He founded the cooperative community of Clackville; he organized the
society of the 'Doers' among our young men;--he was a patron of the arts;
talent was fostered, cheered on its way by him;--I can speak personally
of three young friends of mine--noble boys--whom he sent to Paris at his
own expense for the study of music and painting; when the great American
picture is painted, the great American symphony composed, it will be, in
all probability, to your husband that the country will owe the unveiling
of its power. And above all, Mrs. Upton, above all,"--Mr. Potts's voice
dropped to a thunderous solemnity,--"his character, his personality, his
spirit, were as a light shining in darkness to all who had the good fortune
to know him, and that light cannot, shall not, be cribbed, cabined and
confined to a merely private capacity. It is a public possession and
belongs to his country and to his age."
Tison, all unheeded now, had leapt to the floor and, during this address,
had stood directly in front of the speaker, barking furiously until Imogen,
her lips compressed, her forehead flushed, stooped, picked him up, and
flung him out of the room.
Mrs. Upton had sat quite motionless, only lifting her glance now and then
to Mr. Potts's shaking beard and flashing eye. And, after another pause,
in which only Mr. Potts's deep breathing was heard,--and the desperate
scratching at the door of the banished Tison,--she said in somber
tones:--"I think you forget, Mr. Potts, that I was never one of my
husband's appreciators. I am sorry to be forced to recall this fact to your
memory."
It had been in all their memories, of course, a vague, hovering
uncertainty, a dark suspicion that one put aside and would not look at. But
to have it now placed before them, and in these cold, these somber tones,
was to receive an icy douche of reality, to be convicted of over-ready
hope, over-generous confidence.
It was Imogen, again, who found words for the indignant deputation: "Is
that lamentable fact any reason why those who do appreciate him should not
share their knowledge with others?"
"I think it is;--I hope so, Imogen," her mother replied, not raising her
eyes to her.
"You tell us that your own ignorance and blindness is to prevent us from
writing my father's life?"
"My opinion of your father's relative insignificance is, I think, a
sufficient reason."
"Do you quite realize the arrogance of that attitude?"
"I accept all its responsibility, Imogen."
"But _we_ cannot accept it in you," said Imogen, her voice sinking to the
hard quiver of reality that Jack well knew;--"_we_ can't fail in our duty
to him because you have always failed in yours. _We_ are in no way bound to
consider you-who never considered him."
"Imogen," said her mother, raising her eyes with a look of command; "you
forget yourself. Be still."
Imogen's face froze to stone. Such words, such a look, she had never met
before. She stood silent, helpless, rage and despair at her heart.
But Mr. Potts did not lag behind his duty. His hand still wrapped,
Moses-like, in his beard, his eyes bent in holy wrath upon his hostess, he
rose to his feet, and Mrs. Potts, in recounting the scene--one of the most
thrilling of her life--always said that never had she seen Delancy so
superbly _true_, never had she seen blood so _tell_.
"I must say to you, Mrs. Upton, with the deepest pain," he said, "that I
agree with Miss Imogen. I must inform you, Mrs. Upton, that you have no
right, legal or moral, to bind us by your own shortcoming. Miss Imogen and
I may do our duty without your help or consent."
"I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Potts," Valerie replied. She had,
unseeingly, taken up her pen again and, with a gesture habitual to her, was
drawing squares and crosses on the blotter under her hand. The lines
trembled. The angles of the squares would not meet.
"But I have still something to say to you, Mrs. Upton," said Mr. Potts; "I
have still to say to you that, much as you have shocked and pained us in
the past, you have never so shocked and pained us as now. We had hoped for
better things in you,--wider lights, deeper insights, the unsealing of your
eyes to error and wrong in yourself; we had hoped that sorrow would work
its sacred discipline and that, with your daughter's hand to guide you, you
were preparing to follow, from however far a distance, in the footsteps
of him who is gone. This must count for us, always, as a dark day of
life, when we have seen a human soul turn wilfully from the good held out
to it and choose deliberately the evil. I speak for myself and for Mrs.
Potts--and in sorrow rather than in wrath, Mrs. Upton. I say nothing of
your daughter; I bow my head before that sacred filial grief. I--"
But here, suddenly, quiet, swift, irresistible as a flame, Jack rose from
his place. It seemed one suave, unbroken motion, that by which he laid a
hand on Mr. Potts's shoulder, a hand on Mrs. Potts's shoulder--she had
risen in wonder and alarm at the menacing descent upon her lord--laid a
hand on each, swept them to the door, opened it, swept them out, and shut
the door upon them. Then he turned and leaned upon it, his arms folded.
"Perhaps, Jack, you wish to put me out, too," said Imogen in a voice of ice
and fire. "Your arguments are conclusive. I hope that mama approves her
champion."
Valerie now seemed to lean heavily on the table; she rested her forehead on
her hand, covering her eyes.
"Have you anything to say to me, mama, before Jack executes his justice on
me?" Imogen asked.
"Spare me, Imogen," her mother answered.
"Have you spared _me_?" said Imogen. "Have you spared my father? What right
have you to ask for mercy? You are a cruel, a shallow, a selfish woman, and
you break my heart as you broke his. Now Jack, you need not put me out. I
will go of myself."
When Jack had closed the door on her, he still stood leaning against it at
a distance from Valerie. He saw that she wept, bitterly and uncontrollably;
but, at first, awed by her grief, he did not dare approach her. It was only
when the sobs were quieted that he went and stood near her.
"You were right, right," he almost whispered.
She did not answer, and wept on as if there could be no consolation for her
in such rightness.
"It had to come," said Jack; "she had to be made to understand. And--you
are right."
She was not thinking of herself. "Oh, Jack Jack," she spoke at last,
putting out her hand to his and grasping it tightly "How I have hurt her.
Poor Imogen;--my poor, poor child."