The next day after Shippen’s visit Helen went into Shannon to make some
purchases and to make sure of the amount of her balance at the bank.
When she stepped from the car in front of Brim’s general merchandise
store, it was as if she had stepped into a foreign land. The street,
all things about her, were so familiar that she only remembered
afterwards the strangeness of familiar faces. Two men whom she knew
passed her with their eyes down. A woman regarded her with furtive
curiosity and returned her salutation with the briefest bow, as if she
did not really know her. All this happened so quickly that she was not
yet aware that something very personal to her was happening.
She was still off her guard when Mrs. Flitch sailed by her between
the lace and stocking counter, merely giving her an eye-for-an-eye
look, but with no further recognition, although Helen had wished her a
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Flitch.” She disposed of this hint by wondering
what she had done to Mrs. Flitch, because this lady was notoriously
sensitive. She had a turgid temper and reserved the right to show her
poverty and independence on the slightest provocation by ceasing to
speak to you.
Half an hour later when she came out to her car, a cold rain was
beginning. She saw Mrs. Shaw approaching with no umbrella to protect
her new spring hat. She waited, meaning to pick her up and take her
wherever she should be going. But when she hailed her, this lady
affected not to understand. She bowed coldly with the rain in her face
and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Cutter,” although she had always called
her “Helen,” and passed on.
It is depressing to find yourself suddenly outlawed by the people whom
you have always known. Helen was never popular in Shannon. Unhappy
people rarely ever are. They have so little to contribute to the common
fund of human animation. But she had a certain standing in the good
will of her neighbors.
It was not until she reached the bank that the explanation of what was
going on really dawned upon her. She had known that it must come, this
news of her abandonment by her husband, but she had not expected it to
fall upon her like a curse.
Arnold, who occupied the chair at the president’s desk inside the
doorway of the bank, having resumed this custom of the elder Cutter,
had always risen to meet her when she came in. He would conduct her to
the chair near his desk and attend personally to her affairs, if it was
no more than the cashing of a check. This morning he was at his desk as
usual. So was the extra chair, and nobody in it, but beyond a glance
and a bow he took no notice of her. She went on to the cashier’s window
and presented a check. She was startled to see him glance at it, then
step swiftly back to the bookkeeper and make eye sure of her balance
before he cashed it.
She took the bills, thrust under the wicket and stared about her
confused. She had lost prestige here. Why? She wondered. She had
spent the money left from her mother’s estate on the house, and a few
thousands besides. But she was amply supplied with funds. She had never
overdrawn her account.
Silly reflections! Childish defense against this financial coldness!
If Arnold had known that she still had securities to the amount of
considerably more than one hundred thousand dollars in her safety
deposit box, his manner would have continued balmy. But he did not know
this. He only knew that she was spending a great deal of money. And he
had dined with Shippen the previous evening.
Shippen had told him that she was separated from her husband. When he
expressed surprise, Shippen expressed regret that he had “let the thing
out”; he supposed the facts were already known in Shannon, he said.
Arnold assured him to the contrary. He said that he had had a “hunch,”
because he was subject to hunches as a financial man; but he had rather
expected Cutter himself to fail. He had never entertained the slightest
suspicion of Mrs. Cutter. How long had she been separated from her
husband?
Shippen replied that he did not know; but he had thought probably some
time before Cutter resigned from the presidency of the Shannon bank and
took up his residence in New York.
Arnold said he thought it must have occurred quite recently, because
Mrs. Cutter had been with her husband in New York for at least five
months. In fact, she had only returned to Shannon late in January.
“I am associated with Cutter. I see him every day. I am constantly in
his home, a bachelor apartment, and I positively know that his wife has
never been in the place,” Shippen replied.
“But I tell you she left here soon after Cutter did, and she did not
return until about two months ago,” Arnold insisted, round-eyed with
amazement.
Shippen closed his lips grimly, implying that these were the lips of a
gentlemen. A woman scorned may be dangerous, but a man defeated can be
meanly revengeful. Shippen was reacting, after the manner of his kind,
from the disgust he now felt toward this innocent woman.
No, he answered in reply to Arnold’s next question, there had been no
divorce yet, though he had reason to believe Cutter would be glad to
get one.
“Cutter!” Arnold exclaimed.
Shippen nodded; then after a pause he added: “My impression is that
Mrs. Cutter will not be the one to bring the suit, if it is ever
brought.”
“But he--man, do you know what you are saying about that woman?” Arnold
exclaimed.
“I am saying nothing about her. I have seen something of her. I paid
her a visit this afternoon, in fact; but--”
“You know her?”
“Since 1914,” he nodded.
A silence followed this news. Men know one another. Arnold knew
Shippen. He sat now staring at the tablecloth. It was his duty, but
he would be sorry to tell his wife. She liked Mrs. Cutter. Also, it
was his duty to see that the bank was secure in its dealings with
her. Until this moment he would have advanced her any reasonable sum.
He would warn Lambkin in the morning to keep an eye on her balance.
A woman like that had very few financial scruples, and no sense of
the future. They usually lived by the day. Still, this fellow Shippen
might be mistaken. Arnold had been a resident of Shannon only a few
years, but he had inferred that Mrs. Cutter was devoted to her home and
husband, an ordinary woman, good looking but not attractive. He would
have sworn she was not attractive. She had never attracted him and in a
discreet way he had a man’s eye.
He accompanied Shippen to his train; then he went home and told Mrs.
Arnold.
She was indignant. She said she did not believe a word of it. Later,
Mrs. Shaw came in to borrow some yarn for a sweater she wished to
finish that evening. She got the yarn, and this story about Mrs. Cutter.
She agreed with Mrs. Arnold that in her opinion there was not a word of
truth in it. Still they speculated about how and where Helen had spent
those five months when she was not in Shannon nor with her husband in
New York.
We may live above reproach, but few of us live above suspicion of one
sort or another. It is the active character-sketching faculty we all
have for drawing real or imaginary likenesses of each other’s secret
faces. Women are especially felicitous in this art, once they get the
suggestion. They rarely originate the idea. The most damaging gossip we
ever hear descends to us almost invariably from men. They whisper it to
us; we tell it and get more credit for authorship than we deserve.
Thus Mr. Arnold had repeated to his wife what Shippen had told and
intimated about the Cutters. It is not in the nature of any woman to
retain such stuff. She must expel it. Therefore Mrs. Arnold told Mrs.
Shaw.
And so the news flew, until the town was posted with it by the time
Helen descended into it the next afternoon.
It is one thing to suffer a great humiliation in secret, and quite
another thing to read it in the eyes of every familiar face. Helen
understood that her secret was out at last. Nothing else could account
for the manner of the various people whom she met. She had known, of
course, that it could not be kept; but she had hoped she might have
had a little more time to protect herself with the one defense she had
planned.
Her lips were trembling when she came out of the bank and entered the
car. “Drive out the River road,” she said.
Buck glanced back, startled by some emotional quality in her voice,
which was usually a smooth and literal-speaking voice. He was much
more surprised by the order she had given, for the rain was coming in
rattling gusts on the March winds and the River road would be “slick as
glass.” Still, he took it, the big limousine reeling and sliding.
Helen sat as if she had been flung into the corner of the seat. She
stared through the streaming window at the turgid river. She remembered
every tree and slope of its banks, although years had passed since
she had been on this road. Sometimes, when all is ready, when we have
survived and are about to live, the power of hope fails and the vision
fades. Helen passed into this coma of defeat. How was she to face these
looks, this knowledge, this judgment in the eyes of the people of
Shannon for years and years? Could anything ease this pain? What could
she love enough to make her indifferent to this perpetual publicity?
After all, would it not be wiser to give up everything and go away?
The old foundry loomed desolately in the distance, drenched in rain,
the bare boughs of the trees whipping against it. The great doorway
seemed to yawn darkness. Nothing green now, no brightness! How long
ago since in the shadow of this door she had said her prayers to love
and listened to George’s vows. She remembered everything--the yellow
primroses at their feet, the blue wings of a bird suddenly spread in
flight over their heads, the fresh, sweet smell of thyme and George’s
face bent above her in passionate tenderness.
The world had passed away since then! How could she bear this? It was
loneliness. She had been dying of loneliness for months. She had never
been out of pain, not for a moment; she knew this now. She wanted her
husband--nothing else! Tears filled her eyes; she caught back a sob.
For an instant her mind held one image, that of the man whom she had
loved and married; one thought, the whole thought of him, a reeling
picture of the years filled with only her devotion to him.
Then the wind and tide in her breast died away. The color faded from
her cheeks. All that had failed. She shivered, sat up, astounded that
she could suffer like this for a man who had abandoned her.
We are not the only ones who fail, my masters. Sometimes the very
will of God fails too. A world slips, waggles in its orbit, and goes
rocketing, catching the light of a thousand suns as it falls and falls
forever through space.
When they were directly below the foundry, Buck halted.
“Why do you stop here? Go on,” she commanded sharply.
“Miss Helen, we can’t,” he protested. “They ain’t no bottom to this
road out yonder. Folks don’t go no farther’n where we is now.”
There was a moment’s suspense while the motor purred and he waited, by
no means enthusiastic about driving in this storm.
“Very well; we will turn back,” she said in a queer voice. She was
thinking about this road with no bottom in it beyond the place where so
many lovers came to plight their troth.
Half an hour later, the disgruntled Buck had taken his mud-spattered
car to the garage, and Helen was still standing on the veranda of her
house, looking out over her small world.
The rain had passed like a silver veil over the hills. The clouds,
split by this March wind, were rolling back like huge wagon covers. The
grass was beginning to show a misty green on the lawn. Pink petals of
peach blossoms, blown from the orchard behind the house, lay in rifts
above it. The flowering shrubs, massed on either side of the driveway,
were budding. The elm trees were shaking their beards of bloom. The
last rays of the setting sun made all the windows of her house flame
with golden light.
She could not leave this place; this was her house and her world. Every
bloom to be was so sweetly foretold to her in this warm air. She could
not give it up. There must be something to live for and love. She
suffered most from the breaking of this habit of loving. And the shock
she had of discovering that she still loved her husband disturbed her
more than the possible attitude Shannon might assume toward her. She
was that far from suspecting, you understand, the imaginary activities
of gossips who are never contented with the bare facts, but must invent
explanations of these facts according to their fancies.
Well, she decided, she would not go away. She would hold to her
original plan for happiness. Surely there must be peace and joy in
love you nurtured yourself.
Then she turned and paced slowly the length of the veranda. Her step
changed to increasing swiftness as she came back from the far end, her
face also. She looked as she might have looked if flames enveloped her,
and she was flying through the wind, a wildness and horror in her eyes.
She dashed into the house, caught sight of the maid in coming up the
hall, who halted abruptly at this sudden vision of her mistress.
“Charlotte, get my things ready. Pack my trunk. I am leaving on the
early morning train,” Helen exclaimed as she brushed past her and
disappeared into her room.