Sometime after midnight Helen stirred herself, much as if she was
awaking early in the morning with a busy day before her. She stood up,
stared about her in the shadowy room, moved to the windows and pulled
down all the shades. Then she turned on the lights. She stood directly
beneath the chandelier, lifted her hand to her head, unpinned her hair,
skewed it up tightly and pinned it like a harsh duty on the back of
her head. It was perfectly evident that she had made up her mind to
do something, and to do it thoroughly. She had a sort of merciless
house-cleaning expression.
She glanced around the room, reached for two Cutter photographs on the
mantel, removed a recent excellent likeness of her husband from a frame
on the piano and left the room, carrying these things in her hand and
the frames under her arm. She paused long enough in the back hall to
lay the frames on the bottom step of the attic stairs. Then she went
out on the back porch and dropped the photographs down the cellar steps.
She walked briskly back to her own room. For the next hour she
went through the house--drawers, closets and trunks--like the
fine-toothed-comb of femininity, her cheeks scarlet, her lips primped
purposefully, her eyes wide and busy, like the condemning eyes of a
censor who is determined to leave nothing that should be cut out,
removed and destroyed. From time to time she issued forth, her arms
laden with somebody’s worldly goods, obviously a man’s things, to toss
them down the cellar stairs and return for more. Finally she came out
with a shaving brush, the cord of a bathrobe and an old four-in-hand
tie, evidently the last gleanings.
She descended the stairs, clearing the steps as she went of shirts,
collars, trousers, dress suits, overcoats, hats, brushes, shoes,
slippers, pajamas, even buttons. She worked hurriedly, cramming this
mass of clothing into the hot air furnace. She struck a match to these
things, watched the flame creep greedily along the sleeve of a fine
white shirt and lick the broadcloth back of a Tuxedo coat. Then she
closed the door, went back upstairs, took a glance around, to make sure
that everything was in its usual order, withdrew at last to her own
room, undressed, let down her hair, braided it, turned out the light
and went to bed.
She could hear the furnace roaring below. She hoped all that
inflammable stuff would not set the roof on fire. That is to say,
she did not want to attract attention by the burning of her house.
Otherwise she was indifferent about what might happen. If only she
might escape notice for a while, until she could adjust herself to this
horror! In spite of the closed registers, a strong odor of burning wool
filled the house. She got up and raised the windows. She hoped the
scent would be gone before Maria and Buck came in the morning. Then she
rested, as one does after accomplishing something that must be done, no
matter how unhappy one is.
At seven o’clock she heard stirrings in the kitchen as usual, but no
voices. This was not as usual, because there was always the subdued
rumble of conversation between these two servants early in the morning.
But she did not notice it. She rang for Maria and informed her that she
would take her breakfast in bed. She had never done this before; still
Maria showed no signs of surprise. She rolled her eyes and sniffed the
air of this house, which did not smell pure and undefiled. She was in
such a state of suppressed excitement that she could barely wait to get
back to the kitchen to whisper the news to Buck, who was just coming
up the stairs from the basement where he had been to interview the
furnace. Servants are the scavengers of all domesticity, especially of
wrecked domesticity.
For the next three days Helen remained in bed. She was not ill; but she
was not able to face life on her feet. When your whole existence has
been absorbed by the life of another person--his will, his desires and
his habits have determined your every act--it is not so easy to have
freedom and the pursuit of your own happiness suddenly thrust upon you.
It is necessary to acquire new motives and new interests.
Besides, Helen was obliged to face the humiliation of her abandonment.
So, as I have said, she remained in bed, very quiet, very pale, very
submissive to Maria’s ministrations. When she was alone, she lay for
hours scarcely moving, strangely abstracted. No doubt we come somewhat
after this fashion always into the next existence. One thing was
certain: The burden of her thoughts was not her recreant husband, else
there would have been tears, anguish, fever and presently the doctor in
attendance.
A great grief may be a great exaltation. Helen had this high look when
Maria brought her breakfast tray in on the fourth morning. She was
not merry; she had nothing to say; but she had arrived somewhere in
her mind. It was obvious even to Maria that her mistress was about to
do something. She wanted to know what day of the month this was, as a
person who has been deliriously ill always asks about the time of day
when he recovers consciousness.
Maria told her that this was the fifth.
“Of what month?” was the astonishing next question.
“August, Miss Helen.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” she returned, apparently gratified that this was
still August. “Tell Buck to bring the car around at ten o’clock,” she
said.
“She’s come out of her swoon, Buck, and wants you to have the car ready
at ten,” was the news Maria carried back to the kitchen.
“Whar is we gwine?” he asked.
“I dunno. But ef I knows Miss Helen like I thinks I does, they ain’t
gwine to be no grass growin’ under your feet no time soon.”
She was polishing Mrs. Cutter’s pumps during this conversation. Now she
started back with them. She was about to lay her hand upon the knob
of Helen’s door when she stiffened, turned her head to one side and
listened. The sound of a voice issued through this door, one voice,
Helen’s. She was alone in there with her God, but it was obvious to
Maria that this was not any woman’s praying voice. Neither were the
astounding words she heard suitable for prayer.
The fat old negress bent, laid her ear against the keyhole, rolled her
eyes and listened. Then, as if she could not bear the amazement of what
she heard, she flew back to the kitchen, caught hold of the astonished
Buck and moaned: “Oh, my Lord; oh, my Lord! And her a white ’oman!”
“What’s de matter wid you, gal?” he demanded, shaking himself from her
grasp and staring at her.
She refused to tell him. She implied that such information as she had
might cost them both their innocent lives, if she should repeat it.
“You don’t know nothin’, and you ain’t heard nothin’,” he retorted,
going out, pausing at the door long enough to point at the pumps which
she still held in her hand. “You better take dem shoes to Miss Helen,
er she’ll be tellin’ you somethin’,” he warned her.
Shortly after ten o’clock Mrs. George William Cutter appeared at the
Shannon National Bank. She wanted to look at some papers in her safety
deposit box, she told the cashier.
She remained a long time closeted with this box. When she came out
she carried a sheaf of coupons in her hand; and she was very pale, not
gratified as a woman should look under these circumstances. Beneath the
coupons there was a check, drawn on a New York bank for ten thousand
dollars and signed by her husband. This check lay on top when she
opened the box; attached to it was a note stating with studied brevity
that this sum, including interest, was the amount she inherited from
her mother’s estate, which he “herewith returned.” It began, “Dear
Helen,” and was signed, “George,” with no softening, affectionate
prefix.
It was this note, not the clipping of her coupons, that had detained
Helen so long in the little dark anteroom of the vault. There was no
date, but from the date on the check, she perceived that it had been
made on the tenth of July, when George had been in Shannon for a week.
As early as that, then, he had contemplated this separation! He was
planning this spurious honesty, paying back the money she had advanced
him years ago for his first adventure in stocks while he cheated her
of his love and her dignity as a wife. When you think about this, it
is always some relatively insignificant thing that excites your most
lasting contempt. So, now Cutter fell to the nadir of his wife’s
regard. She was obliged to remain in this little closet of the vault
after she had finished everything, endeavoring to compose herself
before she dared meet the scrutiny of the eyes outside. We do this so
often when really no one takes particular notice of us.
It was the merest accident that Arnold, the new president, was coming
in and caught sight of her as she was leaving the wicket after
depositing the check and the amount of the coupons to her account.
He greeted her effusively. “You are looking well,” he informed her.
She knew that she was not, but she told him, yes, she was very well.
“And how’s Cutter?” smiling as a man does when he thinks he has
introduced an agreeable topic.
She said that she had not heard from Mr. Cutter since he returned to
New York.
“Busy man! Busy man! Goes at everything like a house afire. You will
have to take care of him, Mrs. Cutter, or he’ll break down, go smash
one of these days.”
She made no reply, merely swept her glance over Arnold’s shoulder
toward the door.
“We were sorry to lose him as president of this bank. His resignation
came as a complete surprise. And now I suppose we shall be losing you.
You will join him in New York, of course.”
“No,” she answered steadily. She had resolved to tell no lies and to
make no explanations.
“Keep your home here then! Well, that’s good news. Means Cutter’s
anchored in Shannon, after all. He’ll be dropping in on us here at the
bank when he comes down; be mighty glad to see him.”
She said she did not know, bade him good morning and went out.
Arnold stood watching her through the window until she stepped into
the car. Then he turned to the cashier. “Nice woman, Mrs. Cutter,
but--well, she’s not vivacious, is she?” he said, grinning.
“I have often wondered how a man like Cutter came to choose such a
wife,” the cashier returned with a slower grin.
“Wasn’t a man like Cutter is now when he courted her. Young fellow;
I remember him well; had a fine physical sense of himself. Nobody
suspected he would ever develop the money-making talents of a wolf in
the market then. Fell in love with a pretty girl. She was the prettiest
thing in Shannon. Married her. That’s how it happened,” Arnold
explained.
“Seems to have turned out all right.”
“Never heard anything to the contrary; but you can’t tell. Something is
in the wind. I thought Mrs. Cutter looked pretty shaky this morning.
Had a sort of dying gasp in her eye. Pale, noncommittal. Couldn’t get
a darn thing out of her about Cutter. But she may be trained that way.
Wives of great men often remind us that what’s husband’s business is
none of our business,” he laughed. “Cutter’s a sort of cheap great man.
How much did she deposit?” lowering his voice.
“Fifteen thousand.”
“Open account?”
The cashier nodded.
Arnold whistled.
“Show’s Cutter trusts her, anyhow.”
“Shows she’s not being guided by her husband’s advice, or she’d never
keep that much money idle,” Arnold retorted.
As things turned out, however, this was the busiest money in Shannon
that autumn. It was spent with amazing swiftness at a time when the war
extravagance of our government had already set the pace for reckless
spending.
A situation frequently develops under our very eyes, and we have
no suspicion of it. The fact is, most situations that develop into
sensations begin this way. Then we discover that what has happened had
been “going on” a long time. Otherwise, I ask you how should we obtain
those breathless sensations with which the press and society nourish
our groggy minds? It is the unexpected that stirs and animates our
greedy, pop-eyed interest in life, especially the other fellow’s life.
I will not go so far as to say that Helen acted from design, for she
was the least devious or designing woman I ever knew; but she must have
counted on the probability that some time must elapse before the breach
between Cutter and herself could be suspected in Shannon. His absence
would not be significant, because his business interests in New York
had kept him away from home most of the time for a year. The war, the
violent emotions and the terrific demands it imposed had unsettled all
life.
People who never left home arose and flew this way and that, like
flocks of distracted birds. Old maids with dutiful domestic records,
suddenly laid aside their darning gourds and church work and sailed
for France, went into canteens and became the honorable mothers
of whole regiments. Young girls did likewise, and earned for
themselves distinctions that will become a heritage to womankind, all
mordant-tongued gossips to the contrary notwithstanding. In Shannon the
women worked like bees. If you paid your Red Cross assessments, turned
in sweaters and wash rags for the soldiers in France, no further notice
was taken of you. Because all womanly interests and affections were
centered on these boys in France.
Helen made her contributions to these enterprises, bought a few bonds
and disappeared before the middle of October. The inference was that
she had joined her husband in New York. The _Shannon Sentinel_ so
stated in a brief local on no better authority than that the editor had
seen her board the express one evening. Passengers bound for New York
always took this train. And where else could Mrs. Cutter be going when
every finger of your imagination pointed to New York and her husband as
her logical and legitimate destination?
This long-legged logical faculty, directed by imagination, is
responsible for much that is fictitious in current gossip and even in
written records; witness, for example, that master work of fiction,
Mr. H. G. Wells’ “Outline of History.” It is logical, convincing, and
much of it is based upon the most entrancing interpretation of rocks,
fossils and bones--which does not prove anything except that the
sciences of geology, anthropology and the rest of them are bright-eyed
sciences, full of delightfully imaginary conclusions. While it may all
be the truth, we do not know that it is true, and Mr. Wells cannot
prove that it is. Meanwhile, if we could exercise as much faith and
imagination toward God and the future as he has shown in revealing the
Paleozoic and previous periods in the past, somebody would be born
presently fledged with wings and a skyward mind.
But, all that aside, what I set out to tell was that Helen did not go
to New York and that she did not return to Shannon until the beginning
of the following year.
Shortly after her departure, a tall, dark young man with high black
hair, who carried his head bare, apparently out of deference to or
pride in this hair, descended from the morning train at Shannon. He
was accompanied by an ordinary looking man, apparently of the higher
artisan class. The two of them entered a taxi and disappeared out Wiggs
Street.
No notice would ever have been taken of them, if they had not been
seen at a distance, standing in front of the Cutter residence, staring
at it, gesticulating, evidently engaged in fervid conversation, moving
from one side of the lawn to the other to stare again, talk and swing
up high gestures at this little, low, white setting hen of a house, as
if it was of the uttermost importance to do something about it.
Mrs. Flitch watched these two strangers until she reached a certain
conclusion. Then she went to the telephone and called Mrs. Shaw. She
asked her if she had heard that the Cutter home was to be sold.
Mrs. Shaw replied that she had not; but that she knew Mrs. Cutter had
stored all her furniture and things in the barn before she left.
Mrs. Flitch said, well, that settled it. They were evidently about
to sell the place. Some men were out there looking at it now. No,
strangers. She had seen them pass just after the morning train from
Atlanta came in. Real-estate men, probably. She said she knew all the
time that the place would be sold. The wonder to her was that Helen had
stayed out there so long, with her husband practically living in New
York. And so on and so forth until they reached the usual discussion of
Red Cross supplies.
A few days later the ordinary man of the artisan type returned to
Shannon with a roll of blue print under his arm. The next thing Shannon
knew the roof was off the Cutter house and there was a corps of workmen
out there, spreading wings to it, putting on another story and setting
up magnificent columns in front to support the coronet-countenance of
this house. And from the awful rumpus going on within, it was evident
that partitions were being torn out and elegant changes being made.
There was no Creel to censor news in Shannon. Rumors started and
turned back, or rumors died during a Liberty Loan drive. Finally, it
was settled that the Cutters had not sold their place, but that they
were spending a fortune rebuilding it. They were not obliged to count
the costs, even during these strenuous times when the price of labor
and materials were beyond the reach of most people. They had plenty of
money and no children. Still, a display of wealth at such a time was
certainly in bad taste. Had anybody heard a word from Helen since she
went to New York? This query went the rounds of the Red Cross room late
in November. No one had heard from Helen. Mrs. Arnold said that her
husband had received one or two letters from Mr. Cutter on matters of
business. She understood that Mr. Cutter had some kind of government
contract and was making a great deal of money.
Mrs. Flitch tossed her little gray head, snapped her black eyes and
said she supposed the Cutters would come back now and then, with their
maids and butlers and valets and fancy dogs, and quarantine themselves
in this fine house and refer to the people of Shannon as the “natives.”
If they did, it would make no difference to her. She had known the
Cutters since George Cutter’s father and mother came to Shannon and
lived in a three-room house, and Maggie Cutter did her own work. And
she lived next door to the Adamses for twenty years. Helen was nobody
but the daughter of Sam Adams who was a carpenter, and she never would
be anything else to her.
Mrs. Shaw said if it had been her house she would not have painted it
colonial yellow. But she admitted the tall white columns “set it off.”
Mrs. Arnold said she and Mr. Arnold had strolled out there on the last
bank holiday. They had gone through the house, because they expected to
build and wanted “ideas.” The rooms were large now, lofty ceilinged;
and the walls were beautiful. She had been especially impressed with
the big room added on the west side. “It is different from the others
which are done in a misty gray with the woodwork finished in old ivory.
They are elegant and sober. But this one is not sober, very bright.”
“Probably the ball room,” Mrs. Flitch suggested.
Mrs. Arnold glanced up from the bandage, she was rolling. “No,”
she said, “I am sure it is not a ball room, because it opens into
the one Mrs. Cutter has reserved for herself, they told me. The
decorations--are unusual. I was surprised.”
This was as far as she got. She had a neat little mind and only
gossiped like a perfect lady, which is a very fine art. Still, she
thought it interesting, if not sensational in a pleasant way, that
this room had a decoration of Mother Goose pictures around the top of
it--all the literature of infancy illustrated there, in fact, from this
wandering goose mounting a highly ornamental staircase to the lurid cow
with exalted tail in the act of jumping over the moon. And she was glad
Mrs. Cutter had “this” to look forward to after so many years. A woman
without children was to be pitied.
Then Helen Cutter came home late in January, quite unobtrusively and
alone. No maid, no wig-tailed man servant, no fancy dog. Evidently Mr.
Cutter was still in New York.
But rich people continually did queer things that other people could
not afford to do. From that point of view everything looked all right.
Their wives went about the world alone, and their husbands frequently
did business in some other part of the world. No one in Shannon
suspected that the relations between Helen and her husband were even
strained. They merely heard that she had “come down” to superintend the
furnishing of her new house, that she had engaged an interior decorator
for this purpose, that a great many fine things had been shipped in,
and that she was having some of the best pieces of her golden oak done
over for her own room. These pieces were painted gray and delicately
ornamented with tiny wreaths of flowers. As it turned out, however,
most of this old stuff was used to furnish that large, bright and
sprightly room with the Mother Goose wall paper.
As usual, Helen saw little of her neighbors. The weather was bad; her
house was topsy-turvy; she was very busy; and she had an established
reputation for reserve. Still, they met her here and there on the
street, in the shops, in passing. And once shortly after her return she
had paid a brief visit to the Red Cross rooms to deliver her quota of
sweaters. She would have remained longer: she craved the comradeship of
these women whom she had known all her life, but the consciousness of
her humiliation, yet unknown to them, affected her courage.
Sometimes the woman who has fallen secretly avoids her friends and
acquaintances, because she knows that to keep up relations is a form
of cheating, for which she will be the more severely punished when
her deflection is known. I suppose Helen, who had every virtue, felt
the impending mortification of her situation, when it became known in
Shannon that her husband had deserted her.
She came in, wearing a plain, long coat with a fine fur collar and a
close-fitting fur hat. She was received cordially and a place was made
for her at the long table where the bandages were being rolled. She sat
on the edge of her chair, as if she must be going presently. She was
not smiling. She appeared years younger, and there was a lost look in
her blue eyes which no one noticed.
She took off her coat, in response to Mrs. Shaw’s invitation; but she
had only a moment to stay, slipping off this garment and revealing her
figure slender as a pencil in a blue frock of some smooth stuff smartly
buttoned to her chin.
“We are glad to see you back here, Helen,” Mrs. Shaw said.
Helen said “Thank you” for the simple reason that she could not pretend
to be glad of anything. A mania for veracity makes you inelastic,
uncouth and ungraceful socially.
Mrs. Flitch asked her when she was expecting “George.” It was a shot
in the dark, and she did not mean it. But she was a woman whose very
instinct could aim accurately at your vulnerable point.
“I am not expecting Mr. Cutter at all,” Helen replied.
Mrs. Flitch had to take this answer, which was too frank to excite
suspicion. But she did want to know if Helen expected to make her home
in New York. “I suppose you will only come here now and then,” she
suggested, looking over the top of her glasses at her victim.
“I shall never live in New York. My home is here,” Helen answered, with
the air of a person who would do this, but would not discuss her plans.
She was one of those human “short circuits” who drops the periods in
conversations and compels you to start another sentence on another
topic. These women went back to the perpetual discussions that raged
at that time in every Red Cross working room, about the specifications
for wounded soldiers’ dressing gowns. Mrs. So-and-So’s work had
been returned, because she had put too many pockets--or not enough
pockets--on the gowns she had made.
Mrs. Flitch had suffered the outrage of having two sweaters returned
because she had finished them around the bottom with a fancy rib
stitch. “As if that made any difference. There is too much red tape in
these Red Cross regulations,” she exclaimed. “They obstruct us more in
the work than the wire entanglements in France obstruct the advance of
the German Army.”
This was not true, but it was so aptly put that a murmur of sympathetic
comment followed while needles flew and threads snapped.
Mrs. Flitch was so fluffed up by this involuntary vote of confidence in
her rib stitch and her point of view that she turned to Helen and asked
her if she did not “think so too.”
Helen answered no, she did not think so, because then everybody would
follow their own fancies in the making of these supplies, and there
would be no system.
Mrs. Flitch’s needle flickered like a tiny spear as she hoisted it with
a jerk, bent over and bit off her thread as if this thread was the head
of an enemy.
Another “short circuit”! Another fuse of conversation burned out!
Tongues flew like babbling wings to cover the breach. Mrs. Flitch sat
drawn up and reared back, cheeks reddening as if a wasp had stung her
in the face.
Helen was like a tactless person who contributes an adverse opinion
upon stepmothers in a company where several eminently respectable
ladies have married widowers with children. She felt the sparks about
her, but she was not dismayed. She did not care how Mrs. Flitch felt.
She had reached that invulnerable stage of indifference arrived at only
through great suffering or moral abandonment. In either case, it is
always a state of mental courage.
Mrs. Arnold was chairman of the Red Cross Chapter in Shannon. She sat
at the head of the work table during these snapped-off conversations,
discreetly silent. She was pursuing her own train of thought. Helen
stood up presently to put on her coat. She regarded this supple,
wisp-waisted woman with secret amazement. For she was the only one
there who had seen the nursery decorations in that new west wing room
of the Cutter residence. Her mind worked like the nose of a rabbit at
Helen, as the latter took her departure.
The consensus of opinion after she went out was that she had “changed,”
with Mrs. Flitch in the minority. She said she could not see any
difference. “She’s only changed her ugly gray coat and blue hat for a
good-looking coat and fur hat.” This was all that was said about her.
Gossip, if you remember, was much neglected during this period. We
indulged in it briefly and went back to the transfiguring sensations of
our martial emotions.