as a sign that he was an unwilling partner in the matrimonial venture
he had undertaken. Indeed, it was known that the engagement had hung
fire for years through no fault of Charlotte's, and everybody had
noticed that such mildly loverlike enthusiasm for her society as Blake
had shown before he went to the school of pharmacy had disappeared
from his manner when he returned. Charlotte had told people that they
should marry as soon as he came home, yet the wedding did not come off
for two years. During this time it was noticed that although she held
her head high and was fertile in good reasons for the delay, her
girlish look left her, her features sharpened, and her speech
developed an acid reaction; it was at this time, too, that she
bargained with Uncle Billy Kerr for the old Blake place, and also
borrowed money from the old man to put up a new house. When people saw
the house going up it was generally supposed that she was preparing
either to rent it or to live in it as an old maid; but when it was
completed, to the surprise of every one, Charlotte and Blake were
married and moved in.
The morning after the wedding Blake was in his drug-store playing
chess as languidly as ever, but Charlotte spent her whole day planting
a vegetable-garden, in a mood of unreckoning exaltation such as rarely
comes to a woman of her nature, and never comes to her but once. She
had felt no such blissful security when Blake and she were first
engaged. Blake was weak. She had felt it intensely even when her
infatuation for him was too fresh to permit her to reason, and a weak
man while unmarried is peculiarly liable to changes of affection. But,
on the other hand, a weak man once safely married is completely in the
power of his wife; during the last two years of their engagement
certain illusions regarding herself and Blake had fallen from her
eyes; she had stated both those facts plainly to herself, and they had
helped her to decide upon a course of action. There had been moments
when she had despised herself for using her stronger will to coerce
Blake into the fulfilment of his engagement, but on the morning after
the wedding these moments were forgotten, and, as she hoed and raked
and planted in the brisk air and the bright spring sunshine, her whole
existence seemed uplifted by the knowledge that she and Blake at last
belonged unquestionably to each other; that every output of her
strength was for their common comfort, and would continue to be as
long as they both should live.
As the first year of married life goes, Charlotte's first year was
fairly successful. She knew Blake's faults already, and had made up
her mind to them, and if there was a frank indifference in his quiet
languor, she had made up her mind to that, too. He was never unkind,
and there were times when some fresh evidence of her devotion to him
would touch him into an appreciation that was almost responsive. And
there were other times when she would find him looking at her with an
expression which any other observer might have classed as pity, but
which she counted as tenderness. On the whole, it seemed to her that
time was bringing them together, as she had counted that it would, and
with this hope her face lost its sharp outlines.
Her first heavy chagrin was at the time of her baby's birth. When
Blake came into the room to inquire for her, and she turned down the
bed-cover to show him the little bundle at her side, a look of pain
and aversion flashed across his face, and he moved away, begging her
not to show the baby to him until it was older. On another day she
tried to make him select a name for it, and he refused.
"Call it anything you please," he said at first, but she would not let
him go at that.
"I've been thinking," she suggested, with a hesitation that was
foreign to her,--"I've been thinking of calling her for your
mother--Dorcas."
They were alone in the room, and he was sitting by her bed, but
looking away from her into the corner of the room, while she looked
anxiously at him. At her words he started, flashing a keen glance at
her. "Why should we name her that?" he asked.
There was something so sharply disturbed in his manner, and his
distaste for the idea was so evident, that Charlotte flushed in
extreme embarrassment.
"I thought you might like to," she explained.
"Well, I wouldn't,--I--I don't think the name's pretty in itself," he
declared; adding, with a great effort to speak naturally, "I'd rather
name her for you."
Charlotte's lips came together so closely that all the unpleasant
lines showed around them. "I certainly shall not name her for myself,"
she said. "You must think of some other name."
Blake got to his feet. "That's the only one I can think of," he said.
"If you don't like it, you can take some other. It's your affair, not
mine."
Charlotte's eyes flashed and then filled with tears, for she was very
weak. "If I were asking you to father some other man's child, you
couldn't act more as if you despised me," she sobbed.
He turned as he was leaving the room and gave her a long look full of
exasperation, repugnance, and despair. "You are quite mistaken," he
said. "I don't despise you. I despise myself."
For half an hour Charlotte sobbed, her hands clenched at her sides,
her tears flowing unchecked; then, quite suddenly, she was calm, and,
drying her disfigured face, she began to take account of stock. All
that she had before, she reasoned, she still had. The gains of a year
might seem to be lost in the outbreak of a moment, yet they still
existed as a solid foundation to build upon. There would be constraint
at first, but the effort of daily patience would overcome it in time;
moreover, there was the baby. Blake might refuse to look at her now,
but as she grew and acquired the irresistible graces of a healthy
babyhood he would be obliged to see and to yield to her. A man of his
nature could not live in the house with a child and not love it. She
touched the small form at her side, as if to assure herself that this
ally which she had so suffered for had not deserted her. Yes, she had
more hope now than ever before, she told herself, and her eyes shone
with a passionate tenderness, though her lips were set in a hard line.
Suddenly the line broke into a smile.
"I'll name her Hope," she said.
When Hope was two months old she began her mission, and when she had
reached six months Blake was vying with Charlotte in his devotion to
her. He even plucked up a little interest in his business; sometimes
he talked over his place with his wife, and the words which had passed
between them over the naming of the child, though unforgotten, seemed
so far in the past that Charlotte's courage strengthened with each
day. The sense of security which had marked the first months of her
married life did not return, but she could feel herself making a
strong fight against fate to hold what she had, and, if she were never
entirely certain of the issue, at least she fought with the obstinacy
which has no knowledge of yielding. Sometimes even her love for Blake
seemed to lose itself in this obstinacy, and her tenderness towards
her child seemed the only womanly sentiment left in her; but more
often her love for her husband mounted high and unmixed above the
other feelings as the tremendous, inexplicable passion of her life.
Hope's attainment of six months was marked by an unusual display of
energy on the part of Blake. The first cold weather of autumn had
come, and when the house doors were closed, Charlotte was surprised to
hear her husband declare that the sitting-room, where the baby would
spend most of her time in winter, was poorly lighted, and needed to
have a glass door substituted for the wooden one which opened on to
the front porch. Still more to her surprise, the door was delivered
from an adjoining town the next day, and on the following morning
Blake rose earlier than usual and hung it before going down to his
store. It was the first time he had lifted his hand towards the
improvement of Charlotte's house.
He whistled boyishly while he measured and fitted in the hinges, and
when it came to holding the door while the hinges were screwed in
place, he called to Charlotte. She came, with lips as usual closed
very tight, but with cheeks flushed very pink, and when the work was
finished she was so atremble that she had to sit down for a moment
before she could put breakfast on the table.
To give a reason for the delay, she kept looking at the door. "The
room, is perfect now," she said.
Blake swung the new acquisition back and forth, and latched it once or
twice to make sure that it was perfectly adjusted. When he was
satisfied he glanced at his wife.
"It will give our baby the sunlight," he said, and their eyes met for
a moment.
All that day, whenever Charlotte could bring her work into the
sitting-room, she sat facing the glass door. She was not exactly
happy; she was too strangely excited for happiness; but she was keenly
awakened and alert. Every nerve in her seemed keyed up to its ultimate
tension, and if the shadow of a cloud passed, even if a red leaf fell
outside, she looked out expectantly through the door.
It was middle afternoon when, on looking up, she saw a young woman
crossing the porch, leading a little child. Charlotte jumped to her
feet, then reseated herself and waited for the tap on the glass. The
visitors were strangers to her, and though she could not have told
why, as she sat staring at them through the door, her mouth suddenly
set into the lines of indomitable obstinacy which had grown so deep
around it in the past three years. When she finally crossed the room
to open the door, she walked slowly and deliberately, as if she had
some definite purpose in mind and meant to accomplish it.
The woman on the outside was the first to speak. "Does Mr. Emory Blake
live here?" she asked.
"He does. I am his wife. What can I do for you?" asked Charlotte.
The woman gave a little cry and drew back. "Oh no!" she said,
breathlessly.
Charlotte stood, white and stiff and silent, while the other looked
about her in a despairing helplessness. She was a frail-looking woman,
worn with fatigue and the excited emotions with which timidity spurs
itself to action. She looked as if she longed to sit down somewhere,
and as if perhaps she could have more courage seated, but Charlotte
made no motion to invite her to enter. After a while the newcomer
brought her frightened eyes back to the set face in the doorway.
"I am so sorry for you," she said, timidly. "I am his wife."
A shiver of resentment ran convulsively through Charlotte's muscles.
"You can be sorry for yourself," she said, roughly.
"But he married me while he was at the school of pharmacy," the other
cried, weakly. "I was Nettie Trent. I clerked, and I boarded where he
did, and we fell in love and married. He told me about you. You are
Charlotte Hastings, aren't you, that wanted to marry him before he
left home?"
Charlotte moved her dry lips soundlessly once or twice before she
could speak. Then her masterful spirit rose to a new task. She drew
herself up and looked down gravely, almost compassionately, upon the
woman who had been Nettie Trent.
"I was Charlotte Hastings before my marriage," she said. "I am sorry
to be the one to hurt you, but you have been cruelly treated. I was
married to Emory Blake before he left home for the school."
The smaller woman gave a little gasp and stood silent, while
Charlotte, with the fire in her veins scorching her cheeks and eyes
and almost smothering her breath, waited for her to offer some
resistance, to assert her own claim, or to ask for proof of the
statement which denied it; but Nettie said nothing, and after a moment
her gaze dropped from Charlotte's and she began to sob. Charlotte took
her by the hand and led her into the room.
Neither of them spoke for a long time. Nettie sat with her face buried
in her hands. On one side her child tugged at her dress; on the other,
little Hope slept in her cradle. Charlotte stood pale and tall,
watching all three.
At last Nettie looked up. "I suppose you think I ought to hate
him--now I've found out," she said, "but I don't; I just can't. When
we were together he was so sweet to me. I don't think he meant to harm
me. He must have thought it would come out all right somehow."
"If I were in your place," Charlotte said, slowly, "I should hate him."
Nettie wiped her eyes and drew her child up into her arms. "But what
he did was almost as bad for you as it was for me," she urged, "and
you don't hate him."
Charlotte turned suddenly and walked to her own baby's cradle. "Oh, I
don't know," she said, in a low voice.
After a moment she came back and sat down. "I must ask you some
questions," she said, gravely. "Is this your only child?"
The young woman nodded. Her lips were quivering. "Named Dorcas," she
said, brokenly,--"for his mother."
Charlotte flushed and the lines about her lips deepened. "Does
he--provide for you?" she asked.
The other nodded once more. "He sends me money once in a while. I
wrote him not to worry when he didn't have it. I'm clerking again."
Charlotte made no comment. She was thinking how strange it was that
this other woman, who was a frail, poor-spirited thing, should be
ready to support herself and child out of love for Blake. In
Charlotte's mind, which was pitilessly clear and active, there was
room for a passing wonder at the mysterious power which so weak a man
could exert over women, even without his will. She was wondering, too,
if her own passion for him would ever rise again. At present she was
far from loving him; she felt only a bitter resentment, a desire to
punish him by holding to him, and a towering obstinacy and pride which
refused to be set at fault and put to shame. While she was boldly
examining and analyzing herself she glanced at the clock to see how
long before he could possibly return; the time was ample, and she
continued to sit silent. Presently her baby woke, and she rose and
went to it.
As she lifted it from its cradle, Nettie started up and came towards
her. Hope hid her face against her mother's neck, but after an instant
turned shyly to steal a glance at the stranger.
Nettie sat down again, trembling. "Your baby is like him," she said.
"Very like him," Charlotte answered, and as the baby nestled up to her
again, she dropped her cheek against it and tears came into her
eyes--scalding tears that seemed to sear their way up from the depths
of her heart.
Suddenly the other wife leaned forward, eagerly suspicious. "You have
no other children--_older_?" she asked.
Charlotte looked round blankly, her eyes still wet. "_Other_
children?" she echoed, but Nettie's sharpened face brought her to
herself. She wiped her eyes on Hope's dress. "I lost--a child," she
said.
"Oh," Nettie murmured, "I'm sorry I asked you. It was older than
Dorcas?"
Charlotte stood at bay, with her child strained close to her. She
nodded.
"Oh!" Nettie murmured again, in a shaken voice. She looked at
Charlotte in despairing envy. "What is this baby named?" she asked.
"This one," Charlotte answered, "we call Hope."
She seated herself and began trotting the child to a slow measure.
There were still a few questions which she wished to ask, but the
other's simple acceptance of all she said inspired her with cool
deliberation. There was plenty of time, and she wished to make no
mistake. She must be sure of her own safety, and after that she must
do anything she could for the comfort of the other woman. It would
probably be very little.
"How did you get here?" she inquired, finally. "You must have asked
somebody where Mr. Blake lived."
"No, I didn't have to ask. He'd written me he was boarding with a
woman that lived on his old place," Nettie said, "and I knew where
that was because he'd often told me all about where he grew up and
just the road he used to take from the station to the house, and I
remembered every word of it. I didn't like to go to him at his store
for fear there would be loafers around, so I came right to his house.
I thought I wouldn't mind telling the woman that I was his wife, if
she asked me any questions while I waited for him."
"You were very wise," Charlotte said, dryly.
Nettie settled back in her chair, rocking her little girl, who had
grown restless and impatient, and as she rocked she began to pour out
her heart. "You must think queer of me to sit down here with you like
this and not to be in a rush to go," she began, "but I feel like I've
got to sit still and--and kind of get my breath before I can start
out. I've been so afraid of it that it doesn't seem like I ought to be
surprised, but I tell you it pretty near kills me now I know it for
sure." She paused and stroked a stray lock of hair away from her
child's eyes. "My baby's like him, too," she said, irrelevantly. "My
baby's just as like him as yours is."
Charlotte glanced again at the clock. "How do your friends treat you?"
she asked, abruptly. "Do they believe you were really married or not?"
A bright flush sprang over Nettie's face. "They believed it at first,
of course, just the way I did," she answered, quickly, "but lately
they've been suspecting something. It was what they said made me get
uneasy. I don't distrust folks right quick myself."
"And none of them tried to make inquiries for you?"--Charlotte put the
question seriously, all her nerves tight strung.
"Oh no," Nettie said. "I don't have any family or any friends close
enough to me to take trouble like that."
"And I presume you're glad now that they didn't," Charlotte said. "In
your place I'd rather find it out for myself."
"Oh, I'd much rather," Nettie answered. "I couldn't have stood having
other people find it out, and I'm not going to give anybody that knows
me a chance to find out now. You see, I've been afraid of this so long
that I've had time to make my plans and to save up money a little.
Before I came here I gave up my place and told folks I was going to
join Mr. Blake; so I'll not go back. I'll go to New York and get work
there."
Charlotte looked at her keenly. "I suppose you're depending on Mr.
Blake to help you?" she said.
Again the color sprang into Nettie's face. "Oh no, ma'am," she
answered. "I couldn't let him help me now. I did wrong to live with
him, but I didn't know he was married, so I don't feel like one of
that kind of women; but if I was to take money from him now, I--I
shouldn't feel that I was raising my child honest."
Charlotte lifted her baby so that it hid her face. "For him to help
you would only be right," she said, from its shelter. "He owes
you--money, at least."
The other shook her head. "I couldn't bear it," she said, chokingly.
"Oh, you can't understand--nobody could understand unless she'd been
through what I have, being left before my baby came, and having people
ask me close questions, and then, little by little, losing my own
faith. You can't see why, but if I was to take money from him now, it
would make me feel my shame, and I don't want to,--I want to feel
honest."
Charlotte lowered Hope to her knee. "Perhaps I can understand that--in
a way," she said, with twitching lips.
Nettie looked into her face with a helpless, childish perception of
the suffering shown in its drawn lines. "You're so good to me--I
believe you feel 'most as bad as I do," she declared; "and if I were
you, I wouldn't say a word to anybody about my having been here.
Nobody knows it. I didn't have to ask my way. There aren't many women
would treat me the way you do, and I won't stay here any longer making
you feel bad." She rose, still holding her heavy child in her arms.
"There isn't anything more we've got to say to each other, is there?"
she asked.
"Wait a moment," Charlotte said. She, too, rose, and as she stood
looking at the other woman, so much smaller, so much weaker, so
blindly trustful, and so patient, her heart, which had sunk in shame,
rose suddenly in pity; at that moment if she had opened her lips the
truth would have escaped from them, but her stubborn will held her
lips closed.
Nettie eyed her with troubled uncertainty, but after a moment moved
towards the door.
"Well, I must go," she declared.
"Wait a moment," Charlotte said again. Her voice was so dry and
strange that after she had spoken she paused to moisten her lips. Her
limbs trembled, and in the glass door which she had opened against the
wall she could see the ashen whiteness of her face.
Nettie turned, and the two women confronted each other, each holding
her child.
Charlotte put a hand up to her throat. "I have money I could give
you," she offered. "Not his, my own."
The other shook her head. "Oh, I couldn't," she exclaimed. "Anyway, I
don't need it. I've saved up a good deal. And you've done better than
give me money; you've been kind to me." She put out her hand with a
little appealing gesture and took Charlotte's, which lay cold in it.
"You'd better go," Charlotte broke out. "You'll meet him coming home
if you wait any longer. Here; I'll tell you how to go a roundabout way."
She walked out on to the piazza and led the way down the steps and
round to the back of the house, where she stood giving short, sharp
directions, when across her hurried words came Blake's voice calling
from the front:
"Charlotte! Charlotte! Where are you and Hope?"
For the first time since they had lived together Blake had come home
before his hour.
The two women looked at each other. Charlotte pointed to the path
which hid itself quickly in the shelter of an orchard. "Run," she
whispered. "I'll keep him in the house."
But Nettie stood as if paralyzed, her eyes widening and filling with
tears. "Oh, you've been so good--mayn't I see him--mayn't I bid him
good-by?" she begged.
Charlotte lifted her voice to answer Blake. "Yes, Emory; stay where
you are; I'm bringing Hope," she called. "Hurry!" she whispered to the
other woman. "It won't do you any good to see him. Think of what he's
done. Hurry, I say!"
Nettie put her hand up to her head. "I--I can't," she murmured. She
swayed a little, and before Charlotte could reach out to catch her she
had slipped to the ground.
At the same moment Blake came out of the back door of the house. For
an instant he stared in bewilderment. Then he was at Nettie's side and
had lifted her in his arms.
Charlotte saw his face as he kissed her. A moment later she was
indoors on her knees beside her bed, with her face buried in the cover
and her hands clutching it.
A cold wind swept through the house. Front and back the doors stood
open. The sun was already low in the west and the evening promised to
be chill. Presently Charlotte rose. She closed the front door
carefully, wrapped Hope in a cloak, and, with her child on her arm,
passed out at the back.
Blake had stretched his wife on the back porch and was bending over
her. He looked up, and at sight of Charlotte's face he straightened
himself.
She paused an instant. "I'm starting to harness the horse," she said.
"You can catch the night train at Antioch if I drive fast."
He stood silent, his face working. It was as if strength were being
born in him to say something in his own defence.
"She has plans," Charlotte added. "You'd better pick up some of your
things in the house."
She passed on, and laying Hope in the bottom of the wagon, harnessed
the horse with swift, shaking hands. The sun was out of sight when she
drove back to the house. Nettie sat on the steps staring dazedly
around her. Blake was not in sight.
"Are you ready?" Charlotte called.
He came out, carrying an old handbag. At the step he hesitated.
She pointed to the back seat, where he was to sit with Nettie and the
child, and after an instant he helped them in.
The ride was long and cold. Night fell, and the stars came out in
remote, hostile legions. The children slept. Occasionally Nettie and
Blake advised together in hushed voices. Charlotte whipped the horse.
As they drew near to the end of their journey Blake leaned forward and
touched her arm.
"What about the store?" he asked.
Charlotte broke her long silence harshly. "Your stock will cover what
you owe on it, I guess."
At the station she stayed in the wagon. Blake took his wife and Dorcas
into the waiting-room and came back for his bag. Charlotte had it
ready for him, resting on the wheel.
He did not offer to take it at first, but stood in the beam from the
station window, trying to speak.
"Well?" she said.
"I guess there's not much I can say," he choked out.
For a long time she made no answer. Then her breath came with an
unexpected gasp. "It wasn't your fault--I made you do it." For a
moment more they were silent. Then she shifted the sleeping baby
towards him.
"Don't you want to kiss her?" she asked.
He bent his face to the child with a sudden passionate tenderness. As
he looked up, his wet eyes met Charlotte's, which were full of tears.
She put out her hand to him. "I guess I've been hard on you," she said.
ELIZABETH AND DAVIE
BY MURIEL CAMPBELL DYAR