In 1913, Shannon had grown amazingly. The square was now a “plaza,”
surrounded by handsome brick business houses. There were two or three
factories on the outskirts of the town. The little old churches that
used to be filled on Sabbath mornings had given place to fine churches
with stained-glass windows, which were greatly reduced in membership.
What I mean is that the town was prosperous, and had a beam in its eye.
Wiggs Street was completely changed and there was some talk of changing
the name to “Cutter Avenue.” But this was not done. Every man has his
enemies. There were many pretentious residences now where cottages
formerly stood. Some of them had conservatories. Nobody kept potted
plants on the front porch, but some of them had got as far as keeping
potted cedars on their stone gate posts and a colored man in rubber
boots to scrub the front steps.
George Cutter, no longer known as “young George” since the death of
his father, received much credit for the growth and development of the
town. It was Mr. Cutter who had induced certain Eastern capitalists
to locate these factories near Shannon. He was more than a prominent
citizen at home. He was somebody in New York. He had “influence”
in Washington. Otherwise Shannon would never have obtained her
hundred-thousand-dollar post office. He carried Shannon County in his
pocket, politically speaking, and he kept his congressman in the other
pocket, in the same figurative manner.
Five years after he entered the bank, he was occupying the chair and
desk on the left side of the door where his father sat when George
began his career on the adding machine in the cage. Mr. Cutter,
Senior, was still the nominal president, but he had a finer desk and
more comfortable, less businesslike chair in the rear of his son.
He was now a fat old man, drooling down to a heavy old age. He was
merely president from force of habit. He did nothing but watch, with
slumberous pride, his son paw the markets, reach out, speculate, risk
and win, make a name for himself in the financial world.
But in 1913 all this was ancient history. The young wolf had been
just beginning then to get a toothhold. Now he had arrived. He had
“interests” in the big corporations. When he became president, after
the death of his father, the first thing he did was to sell this small
building to a local trust company and build a finer, larger place for
his bank. Here he had an office, off the directors’ room in the rear,
as magnificent and grave as a sanctuary. And it was so proudly private
that there was no spangled glass door leading to it visible to the
vulgar public eye. Capitalists and promoters visited him here, but the
regular customers of the bank rarely saw him except by accident when
he issued from this office, hatted, spatted, coated, carrying a cane
hooked over his arm, and stepping briskly across the lobby through
the door to where his car stood and shone against the curb. In that
case their eyes followed him. And if these eyes belonged to women, of
whatever age, they were likely to exclaim, breathe or think, “What a
handsome man!”
He was more than handsome, a “presence,” almost a perfect imitation of
elegance. He was the kind of man who kept his years under foot. He trod
them down with so much swiftness and power in this business of getting
on that they had not marked him. His face was smooth, his red hair
still opulent, his eyes brilliant, masterful. When he came in or went
out or passed by, they were always fixed on something straight ahead,
as if you were not there, anxious to catch his glance and have the
honor of speaking to him. Probably you wanted to remind him of how well
you remembered when he started to work in the old bank. And you were a
friend of his father, and had always kept your account in this bank and
would continue to do so. But you must be a wheedling, forward old man
to get the chance to say such things to him, because your account means
nothing to him now, and your good memory only annoys him.
The reason so many men, after they become distinguished or successful,
get this habit of looking straight ahead when we are standing
ingratiatingly near, wishing to claim acquaintanceship with them in
their humbler past, is because they wish to forget this past, and
especially you who retain the speaking tongue of it.
George Cutter had outgrown Shannon. Shannon might be proud of him,
but it could not be intimate with him. He did not belong there. He
was a big town man. You could almost smell Wall Street as he passed
you, Williams Street, anyhow, which is only one of the elbows of Wall
Street--a notable perfume, I can tell you, of pop-eyed dollars and busy
bonds that never rested, but were always being sold again.
Seeing George thus, enhanced by ten additional years, you naturally
want to know what changes have taken place in Helen.
Sometimes a slender, fair woman might be seen in Cutter’s limousine,
waiting at the curb before the bank. But if you saw her, you scarcely
noticed her, because there was nothing distinguishing in her
appearance. She always sat very still with her hands folded, her lips
closed so tightly that they appeared to be primped, and with her eyes
wide open, very blue like curtains drawn before windows, concealing
every thought and feeling within. When Cutter came through the door
of the bank, stepped quickly forward and swung himself into this car
with the air of a man who has not a moment to spare, she always drew
a trifle closer into her corner of the seat. Then they slid away
noiselessly across the square and out Wiggs Street. Even the chauffeur
knew that Mr. Cutter never had a moment to spare and invariably
exceeded the speed limit.
No word of greeting was exchanged between this husband and wife--not
even a look. She did not so much as unpurse her lips to smile. His
arrogant silence implied that he was alone in this car. Yet we must
know that it was his wish she should come for him, since she so often
did come and wait for him with this look of dutiful patience.
The married relation is not vocative. It tends toward silence and a
sort of dreary neutrality, arrived at by years of mutual defeats. It is
easier for a man to be agreeable to another woman who is not his wife
for the simple reason that he is innocent of this stranger. She knows
none of his faults and she has not failed him in anything. And every
woman knows that she is instinctively more entertaining to a man who
is not her husband, even if she despises this man and truly, patiently
loves her husband, because she is under no bond to agree with him nor
to avoid his prejudices. There is nothing accusative or immoral in this
fact, any more than there is in a momentary change of thought. It is
perfectly natural, when you consider how many years they must dwell
upon the same common sense of each other.
If the weather was fine, Cutter only stopped long enough to drop Helen
at the house. He might tell her he would be late for dinner or he might
be late without telling her. Then he was driven at the same spanking,
glittering speed to the golf and country club for a foursome previously
arranged.
Cutter had imported the idea of this club. As Cadmus introduced
letters into Greece, so had he brought golf to the business men of
Shannon. Until then middle-aged citizens accepted the sedentary habits
of their years and went down to their graves corpulent and muscleless,
developing only a little miserliness toward the last or a few crapulous
vices. But now these men, grown bald and gray, who had never spent a
surplus nickel nor taken more exercise than healthy invalids, hired
caddies for fifty cents an hour, and spent recklessly for golf sticks
and especially golf stockings and breeches. And they were to be seen
any afternoon stepping springily over these links, whacking balls--for
the ninth hole at least--with all the reared-back, straddle-legged,
arm-swinging genuflections of enthusiastic youth. Missionaries have
spent twenty years in the heart of Africa without accomplishing so much
healthful good for the savages there. But in that case the idea of
course is not to prolong the life of a savage, but to save his soul.
Still, Cutter was a successful missionary in this matter of golf,
because the souls of the men in Shannon had long been sufficiently
enured to the gospel to be saved, if they could be.
As for the women, that was a different matter. Very few people ever
worry seriously about the salvation of these milder creatures. Until
quite recently they have been so securely preserved, sheltered and
possessed that it was actually difficult for a woman to lose her soul
by any obvious overt transgression. Even then you could not be sure she
had lost it, since she suffered such overwhelming martyrdom for her
offense. And we do not know what kind balances may be arranged in the
Book of Life for these poor victims of life in the flesh.
There was also a different standard for women in the matter of outdoor
exercise, even at so recent a date as this of which I write. They might
caper adventuresomely in the open as girls, but the idea of a married
woman spreading her feet and swinging her club at a ball on the golf
links at Shannon was unthinkable. If they wanted the air, let them go
out-of-doors; if they wanted exercise, let them go back indoors and do
something.
So Helen never accompanied her husband to the golf links. She always
went in the house and did things that would please him, or at least
satisfy him when he came home.
They were still living in the house at the end of Wiggs Street. No
changes had been made in it, not a stitch had been added to it. It was
simply laundered, so to speak, once in so often with a fresh coat of
white paint.
But it was not so sparsely settled within as it had been when she came
there as a bride.
Two years after Helen’s marriage Mrs. Adams had passed away with
no to-do about going at all. She was ill three days, very quietly
and comfortably unconscious. Then she had gone to join that highly
respectable class of saints in paradise to which no doubt her carpenter
husband already belonged. Helen inherited her mother’s estate, which
consisted of a few thousand dollars’ worth of securities in her safety
box at the bank, the cottage on Wiggs Street and the contents of this
cottage. The cottage was promptly sold and, together with the sale
of the securities, furnished George with the money for his first
successful speculation.
But Helen would not part with the furniture. She had it brought to her
own house. When she had distributed it in the rooms, the hall, all
available spaces were filled with it. Her father’s portrait, done in
crayon, hung above the parlor mantel. Her mother’s portrait, also a
crayon, hung on the opposite wall. For years to come these two Adams
parents were to stare at each other in a grim silence, as much as to
say, “There will be a reckoning in this house some day!” which was
due, of course, to the crudely veracious expression the amateur artist
always gets with a crayon pencil. For at that time there was nothing
but love and happiness and hope in this house. George was really
planning then to build a mansion where this house stood. For a while
they amused themselves drawing plans for this mansion. Then George
became more and more absorbed in his business. He had less time for
fanciful conversation with Helen. In any case the subject of the new
house was dropped. It had not been mentioned for years.
I suppose if there had been children the new house would have been
built. But nothing had “happened.” Helen kept a cat, a canary bird
and two servants. The cat was a sort of serial cat, exchanged once in
so often for a kitten. The bird was the same one. She did not really
care for cats, nor much for canaries, but they served the purpose of
furnishing some sort of sound and motion in this silent house. She did
not want the servants, either. She preferred to do her own work. She
would have made an excellent wife for a poor man. She was a marvelously
good one to George, who was rapidly becoming a rich man.
She might have been a wonderful caretaker of a great man; she had
exactly the right spirit of service and self-effacement. She developed
a serene silence which was restful, never irritating. But George was
not and never would be a great man. He needed a brilliant woman, and
Helen was only a beautiful woman. He needed a charming hostess for his
home, with social gifts. And Helen was only an excellent housekeeper.
He knew that this house was atrociously furnished, but he did not know
how it should be furnished. You may be highly appreciative of music
without being a musician. He felt the need of fine, quiet things and
neutral tones in his home, but he had neither the time nor the ability
to achieve these effects.
Once, indeed, shortly after Helen had rearranged the parlor with the
old Adams whatnot and the Adams sofa with a golden-oak spindle back,
he had sent out two handsome mahogany armchairs, his idea being to
overcome the monotonous color and cheapness of this room. These chairs
looked like two bishops at a populist meeting. Helen was pleased, but
he had sense enough to know that he had blundered.
I am merely giving you his side of this affair, frankly admitting that
she was by nature disqualified to fill the position of wife to such
a man. In the last analysis, of course, it would depend upon which of
these two people such a man as George Cutter or such a woman and wife
as Helen is the worthier type, or the more serviceable to his day and
generation. It is not the reaping of what we sow ourselves--sometimes
it is the reaping of what the other fellow sowed, the way we bear the
burden of that--which determines our quality and courage.
As for Helen, the elder Mrs. Cutter said it all shortly before her
death.
One summer evening she lay propped high in bed, her thin knees sticking
up, her thin face stingingly vivid, her eyes spiteful with pain and
discontent. Helen had just gone home after her daily visit, during
which she ministered with exasperating patience to this invalid. Mr.
Cutter sat beside his wife’s bed concerned for her, anxious to comfort
her, but secretly wondering where she would strike. For he perceived by
the spitting spark in her eye that she was about to strike.
“Helen is hopeless,” she exclaimed.
He was relieved not to be the target. Still he said something in reply
about Helen’s being a “good girl.”
“Yes, and that is all she is. She is not the wife for George. I knew it
from the first,” she keyed off irritably.
Mr. Cutter ventured timidly that she had made George a “good wife.”
“Good, good, good,” she repeated. “I wish somebody could think of some
other word for her. But they can’t. Good’s the adjective she’s been
known by all her life.”
“Well, it is a very good way to be known, my dear,” he returned mildly.
“There you go again. Lower my pillow, Mr. Cutter. I can’t keep my head
up and think about her. She weighs on me like a load of commonest
virtues.”
He let her gently down. She glared at him. He smoothed her pillow.
Would she like a sip of water?
No! and she was not to be diverted, if that was what he was trying to
do. “Do you know what a merely good woman can be?” she demanded.
The word good occurred to him again. He wanted to say that there
was nothing better than a good woman, but he refrained. He must not
irritate Maggie; if only she would not work herself up.
“She can be the least intelligent creature alive, obsessed with the
practice of her duties. Her mind inside her, never in touch with what
is bigger and more important outside. She can be the stone around her
husband’s neck. That is what Helen is.”
Mr. Cutter sighed. He was fond of Helen.
“What has she ever done for George? I ask you that.” She waited for his
answer as if she defied him to name one thing Helen had done to help
her husband.
“Well, she’s been a good wife to him,” he repeated futilely.
“There you go again,” she exclaimed. “I’ve been a good wife to you,
too, haven’t I?”
“Indeed you have, my dear,” he answered gratefully.
“But was I contented with being just that? When we came to this town as
poor as church mice and you got the position in the bank, I made up my
mind that you should be president of that bank some day, and you are,
aren’t you?”
“Yes, my dear, and I owe everything to you--”
“Not everything, Mr. Cutter,” she interrupted with a sniff; “but I
helped you; I made friends for you; I showed off before people to let
them know you were prosperous and a coming man. I had some pride.”
“You did, my dear. You were game and looked it,” he answered with a
watery smile of memory in his eye.
“And I bore a son for you.”
“You ought not to blame Helen; you can’t--” he began.
“Yes, I can,” she interrupted; “if she isn’t to have children, if poor
George’s name is to die with him, she might at least help him enjoy his
own career. But she doesn’t; she is becalmed. She hasn’t got it in her,
I tell you, to do what I have done to show my pride and appreciation of
the position you have made for us.”
“But, Maggie, you are one woman in ten thousand. You have not only been
the best of wives, you have been everything to me a man needs.”
This reduced her to proud tears, and ended the scene, he holding one
hand, she pressing a scented handkerchief to her eyes with the other.
She was really quite happy in a sort of fiercely indignant fashion.
I suppose every husband tells his wife some such yarn as this. And
he usually gets away with it. He may even believe it for all I know,
although there are some millions of other husbands controverting his
testimony by the same flattery to their respective wives.
We have biographies of great women, even if they are bad ones. But
I doubt if there is a single biography to be found of a merely good
woman, because for some reason goodness does not distinguish women,
and for another reason, while it may make them useful, dependable and
absolutely essential to others, it does not make them sufficiently
interesting to hold the reader’s attention or the world’s attention.
You never heard of one being knighted for virtue. It is not done. You
never saw a monument raised to just one woman who was invincibly good
and faithful in the discharge of her intimate private duties as a wife
or a mother. She must do something publicly, like leading a reform or
creating a disturbance.
And the only feminine autobiographies I have read were written by women
who should not have done so. They have been without exception written
by some ignobly good woman, with every mean and detestable use of her
virtues at the expense of other people, or they were indecent exposures
of moral degeneracy and neurasthenic disorders. Good women cannot write
their autobiographies. The poor things are inarticulate. They lack the
egocentricity essential for such a performance. This statement stands,
even if the author eventually publishes some such looking-glass of
herself.
I would not discourage any woman who is preparing to make of herself
a sacrifice wholly acceptable to her husband and family, but it is my
honest conviction that it will not pay her in this present world. And
that she will wind up like the sundown saint of herself, respected,
held in affectionate regard, maybe, but unhonored and unsung. So go
ahead with your sacrifice, but do not complain about it. Men, as well
as gods, accept sacrifices, but they rarely ever return the compliment.
Helen Cutter belonged to this class. The first years of her marriage
passed happily enough. She was not too good. She was often exacting in
her pretty, soft, white way. But she always produced this impression of
whiteness and simplicity. She was in the confidence of her husband to
this extent, she knew how rapidly he was forging ahead in business. She
marveled at the swiftness with which he turned over money and doubled
it. And she never questioned his methods.
Then the time came when business engrossed him to the exclusion of
every other interest. He was obliged to make frequent trips to money
markets in the East and the West. He began to be hurried, preoccupied,
irritable.
This is the history of many successful men in the married relation. It
usually results in the wife’s finding another life of her own, in her
children, in social diversions or some other activity. Cutter wished
for this solution for his wife. He provided her amply with funds. But
it seemed that she did not know how to spend money foolishly. She was
invincibly moral about everything. She performed her tea-party duties
at regular intervals without any distinction as a hostess, paid a few
calls and remained a “home body.”
She perceived the change in her husband. He was not now the man she had
married. He was no longer even of her class. She could not keep up with
him. She knew that she was not even within speaking distance of him,
because she could not talk of the things he talked about. Finances,
big enterprises, the plays in New York, life in New York. The one bond
which might have held them did not exist. She had no children.