[From Helen's Diary.]
We have been back in Thebes for several weeks. The cottage is very
charming--though I certainly did not realize how small it was until I
returned. It needs a great many improvements before it will be quite
satisfactory. They have put a remarkably ugly paper on the walls, and
the ceilings look strange without any. I think the paper cannot be the
same that I selected before we left, for if I remember alright it was
very pretty. I spoke to the paper-hanger about it, and he assured me
that it was the same, so perhaps it is.
Something _must_ be done to the ceilings. They look quite startling. I
have not mentioned it to Edgar, for I fear he might think me
dissatisfied--after all, nothing matters, with him to love.
I have packed away many of my beautiful gowns. There is really no
chance to wear them here. Sometimes I am seized with a longing to put
one on, and one evening last week Edgar and I dined in state all alone
at seven. I wore my most ravishing gown, and made him put on evening
clothes. He laughed a great deal, but seemed to enjoy it. My servant was
a little awkward, but I felt a strange elation at my success. I have a
desire to try it on a larger scale some time. Perhaps I shall some day.
Who knows but what Edgar may be able, some time, to do all he hopes! To
me it is no matter whether he does or not. Every day--every hour--he
grows dearer to me. I long to see him again among people who can
appreciate such a man, and are his equals in some degree. I feel
restless when I think of him here in such a miserably insignificant
town, with all his great powers. I have no ambition for myself, but
insatiable ambition to have him appreciated for what he is.
Gladys is to spend the Lenten season here. It will make a happy break
for me in the dullness of my life--that is to say, in the uneventfulness
of it; it is never dull where Edgar is.
I have experienced a strange emotion during the last week. It is the
first real feeling of regret that has come to me since our marriage. I
do not know that "regret" is just the term I should use--
* * * * *
Braine enters the room softly, and crossing the floor takes Helen's head
in his hands, and tipping her face back, kisses her softly on the
forehead. Her eyes grow luminous, and she drops her pen.
"Ah! you are home early! Did Mr. Van Duyn get off at ten o'clock?"
"Yes, I came straight home from the station." He walks on through into
the other room--
"Anything to eat, dear?" going on out into the kitchen. Helen follows
him into the pantry, and seats herself on a cracker box, with a wave of
her hand at the shelves and towards the cupboard. She goes on talking
about Van Duyn's departure.
"He'll reach home Friday morning, won't he, Ed?"
"M--huh!" munching an olive. "Where are the crackers, dear?"
"I don't know--look in that box up there," pointing to the top shelf.
Braine looks and finds candles, and Helen reaches a paper bag on the
left, from her seat, and finds eggs.
"Shall I call Mollie?--she's in bed."
"No. Here's the bread," and he cuts a slice two inches thick on one end
and a sliver on the other, while Helen continues the conversation.
"You told him to tell Gladys about the lace the last thing, didn't
you--else he'll forget it."
"M--huh!" stabbing an anchovy. "I wish to heaven the slave would keep
that Rocquefort in the cellar, except when we are eating it," shoving
the cheese under a pan.
Helen rises--"Come on! Bring the rest in here," and she takes the light
in one hand, and the bottle of anchovies in the other, while Braine is
about to follow when he discovers the cracker box.
"You've been sitting on those crackers, Helen Braine," scooping up a
handful wrathfully.
"Well, you've found them; come on;" and they go into the sitting-room.
He sits by the open window, while she fishes out olives and anchovies
for him, alternately, and talks.
After a time, the anchovies are on the table, and the olive bottle on
the window sill; the crackers carpet the floor immediately around
Braine's chair, and Helen is kneeling between his knees.
The conversation becomes low toned and fitful. They like it better at
those times when it is fitful. Presently, Helen says in a dreamy
fashion:
"We will name the children 'Edgar,' shan't we?"
She doesn't think of what she is saying. She is in a misty dream. The
silence that ensues arouses her. Edgar has not replied, and is looking
out of the window. Something in his silence hurts her, humiliates her.
She would give up every fond hope if she could recall the words.
She cannot break the silence, and she feels her lip quiver after a
moment, when he does not speak.
Presently he throws his cigar out of the window and looks at her. There
is a peculiar, half-pained, half-stern look in his face, but there is an
expression of resignation too--that hurts her worse than all.
He says in a voice which he tries to make calm and matter of fact, but
which reveals his anxiety painfully:
"Why, what do you mean?"
This seems to arouse her, and for a moment she feels no grief; but a
certain pride that is a little resentful, comes over her, and she looks
at him very coolly and says:
"Nothing; I was thinking that Gladys when she is Mrs. Grayson, might
ask us to stand sponsors for her--first, and she likes the name of
Edgar, you know."
There is a little feeling of recklessness creeping about her atmosphere,
for some reason. The look of relief on Braine's face hurts, as but one
other thing has ever hurt her--his preceding look of anxiety.
He looks out of the window as though sorry that he has thrown his cigar
away. After a moment he says:
"Helen, would you like to have children?"
She still feels a little cold, and answers:
"I should like children well enough, though I presume that there may be
more agreeable things to do in the world than to train them."
He looks around at her in surprise, and suddenly holds out his hand. He
says:
"Come here, little girl." Gravity and self-reproach are in his tone. She
is suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of shame, and throws herself on
her knees beside him. He smooths her hair for a moment without speaking,
and then says in the one voice on earth:
"Dearest, I don't want you to interpret what I said, or looked, a moment
ago. You startled me a little, and--" He pauses a moment, then goes on:
"And I want to tell you why. I have had one dream since I have known
you and loved you. I have dreamed of you as my wife, my very dearer
self, surrounded with the refinements and sweetnesses of life; loving
me, thinking with me, always near me. And to complete the dream were our
children, little men and women; a part of your own dear, beautiful self;
their little minds and faces reflecting you; little men and women that
should enter upon life with the love of a man and woman who worshipped
them for each other's sake. I have in imagination seen these little
beings develop mentally, and morally, and physically, until I beheld the
little woman, the model of my Helen, and the little man, a lover of his
mother. I have not seemed to think of myself and these children, but of
you and them. I think I should not love them because they were mine, but
because they were yours. I--"
Braine pauses abruptly. His voice has been soft, wooing, monotonous.
Helen is sobbing softly. After a moment he goes on:
"I have dreamed all this over and over, dear. Perhaps it will not be a
vain dream, but--it _must not be fulfilled now_."
He pauses again, and draws a long breath, that is a half weary sigh.
"No, not now; not for a few years. We need each other just now, with
nothing to divide our love or thought or care with. We do not want to
bring beggars into the world. They would not be quite that, now, but not
much better. I remember my own youth," tightening his fingers on the arm
of his chair and speaking a little harshly, "I remember my own youth. My
children shall never have such memories--nor such temptations--no, nor
such guilt."
Helen lifts her head and stares at him. He has struck a strange note in
his voice. He continues:
"If our children have ambitions that are good and true, I pray God that
I may be able to allow them to live, yes and thrive. There is such a
thing as moral suicide. I do not want to attend the moral funeral of my
children, feeling that they have died for the reason that they have had
no opportunity. I am unfit now, and for perhaps years to come, to have
any hand in the moral charge of my children. I shall have no time, and
you--" looking hungrily at her--"I want you. I cannot spare you just now
_even_ to my children--your children, our children," each time with a
different, tenderer inflection on the words.
"Now, do you understand me, dear? Now, is there a little less heart-ache
and reproach?"
She draws his face down until their lips meet.