It was May.
In spite of her conviction that she knew what to do and how it to do
it, Barbara perceived that at the end of seven months they were much
where they had been in the previous October. If there was a change it
was that all three, Rashleigh, Letty, and herself, had grown strained
and intense.
Outwardly they strove to maintain a semblance of friendship. For that
Barbara had worked hard, and in a measure had succeeded. She had held
Rash; she had won Letty.
She had more than won Letty; she had trained her. All that in seven
months a woman of the world could do for an unformed and ignorant
child she had done. Her experience at Bleary Street had helped her in
this; and Letty had been quick. She had seized not only those small
points of speech and action foundational to rising in the world, but
the point of view of those who had risen. She knew how, Barbara was
sure, that there were certain things impossible to people such as
those among whom she had been thrown.
Since it was May it was the end of a season, and the minute Barbara
had long ago chosen for a masterstroke. Each of the others felt the
crisis as near as she did herself.
"It's got to end," Letty confessed to her, as amid the soft
loveliness of springtime, they were again driving in the Park.
Barbara chose her words. "I suppose he feels that too."
"Then why don't he let me end it?"
"I fancy that that's a difficult position for a man. If you ask his
permission beforehand he feels obliged to say----"
"And perhaps," Letty suggested, "he's too tender-hearted."
"That's part of it. He _is_ tender-hearted. Besides that, his position
is grotesque--a man with whom two women are in love. To one of them
he's been nominally married, while to the other he's bound by every
tie of honor. No wonder he doesn't see his way. If he moves toward the
one he hurts the other--a man to whom it's agony to hurt a fly."
"Does the other girl still feel the way she did?"
"She's killing herself. She's breaking her heart. Nobody knows it but
him and her--and even he doesn't take it in. But she is."
"I suppose she thinks I'm something awful."
"Does it matter to you what she thinks?"
"I don't want her to hate me."
"Oh, I shouldn't say she did that. She feels that, considering
everything, you might have acted with more decision."
"But he won't let me."
"And he never will, if you wait for that."
"Then what do you think I ought to do?"
"That's where I find you weak, Letty, since you ask me the question.
No one can tell you what to do--and he least of all. It's a situation
in which one of you must withdraw--either you or the other girl. But,
don't you see? he can't say so to either."
"And if one of us must withdraw you think it should be me."
"I have to leave that to you. You're the one who butted in. I know it
wasn't your fault--that the fault was his entirely; but we recognize
the fact that he's--how shall I put it?--not quite responsible. We
women have to take the burden of the thing on ourselves, if it's ever
to be put right."
In her corner of the car Letty thought this over. The impression on
her mind was the deeper since, for several months past, she had
watched the prince growing more and more unhappy. He was less nervous
than he used to be, less excitable; and for that he had told her the
credit was due to herself. "You soothe me," he had once said to her,
in words she would always treasure; and yet as his irritability
decreased his unhappiness seemed to grow. She could only infer that he
was mourning over the girl to whom he was engaged, and on whom he had
inflicted a great wrong. For the last few weeks Letty's mind had
occupied itself with her almost more than with the prince himself.
"Do you think I shall ever see her?" she asked, suddenly now.
Barbara reflected. "I think you could if you wanted to."
"Should you arrange it?"
"I could."
"You're sure she'd be willing to see me?"
"Yes; I know she would."
"When could you do it?"
"Whenever you like."
"Soon?"
"Yes; sooner perhaps than--" Barbara spoke absently, as if a new idea
was taking possession of her mind--"sooner perhaps than you think."
"And you say she's breaking her heart?"
"A little more, and it will be broken."
By the time Letty had been set down at the door in East Sixty-seventh
Street the afternoon had grown chilly. In the back drawing-room
Steptoe was on his knees lighting the fire. Letty came and stood
behind him. Without preliminary of any kind she said, quietly:
"Steptoe, it's got to end."
Expecting a protest she was surprised that he should merely blow on
the shivering flame, saying, in the interval between two long breaths:
"I agrees with madam."
"And it's me that must end it."
He blew gently again. "I guess that'd be so too."
She thought of the little mermaid leaping into the sea, and trembling
away into foam. "If he wants to marry the girl he's in love with he'll
never do it the way we're living now."
He rose from his knees, dusting one hand against the other. "Madam's
quite right. 'E won't--not never."
She threw out her arms, and moaned. "And, O Steptoe! I'm so tired of
it."
"Madam's tired of----?"
"Of living here, and doing nothing, and just watching and waiting, and
nothing never happening----"
"Does madam remember that, the dye when she first come I said there
was two reasons why I wanted to myke 'er into a lydy?"
Letty nodded.
"The one I told 'er was that I wanted to 'elp someone who was like
what I used to be myself."
"I remember."
"And the other, what I didn't tell madam, I'll tell 'er now. It
was--it was I was 'opin' that a woman'd come into my poor boy's life
as'd comfort 'im like----"
"And she didn't come."
"'E ain't seen that she's come. I said it'd be a tough job to bring
'im to fallin' in love with 'er like; but it's been tougher than what
I thought it'd be."
"So that I must--must do something."
"Looks as if madam'd 'ave to."
"I suppose you know that there's an easy way for me to do it?"
"Nothink ain't so very easy; but if madam 'as a big enough
reason----"
She felt the necessity of being plain. "I suppose that if he hadn't
picked me up in the Park that day I'd have gone to the bad anyhow."
"If madam's thinkin' about goin' to the bad----"
She threw up her head defiantly. "Well, I am. What of it?"
"I was just thinkin' as I might 'elp 'er a bit about that."
She was puzzled. "I don't think you know what I said. I said I
was----"
"Goin' to the bad, madam. That's what I understood. But madam won't
find it so easy, not 'avin 'ad no experience like, as you might sye."
"I didn't know you needed experience--for that."
"All good people thinks that wye, madam; but when you tackle it
deliberate like, there's quite a trick to it."
"And do you know the trick?" was all she could think of saying.
"I may not know the very hidentical trick madam'd be in want of--'er
bein' a lydy, as you might sye--but I could put 'er in the wye of
findin' out."
"You don't think I could find out for myself?"
"You see, it's like this. I used to know a young man what everythink
went ag'in' 'im. And one dye 'e started out for to be a forgerer
like--so as 'e'd be put in jyle--and be took care of--board and
lodgin' free--and all that. Well, out 'e starts, and not knowin' the
little ins and outs, as you might sye, everythink went agin 'im, just
as it done before. And, would madam believe it? that young man 'e
hended by studying for the ministry. Madam wouldn't want to myke a
mistyke like that, now would she?"
Letty turned this over in her mind. A career parallel to that of this
young man would effect none of the results she was aiming at.
"Then what would you suggest?" she asked, at last.
"I could give madam the address of a lydy--an awful wicked lydy, she
is--what'd put madam up to all the ropes. If madam was to go out into
the cold world, like, this lydy'd give 'er a home. Besides the
address I'd give madam a sign like--so as the lydy'd know it was
somethink special."
"A sign? I don't know what you mean."
"It'd be this, madam." He drew from his pocket a small silver thimble.
"This'd be a password to the lydy. The minute she'd see it she'd know
that the time 'ad come."
"What time?"
"That's somethink madam'd find out. I couldn't explyne it
before'and."
"It sounds very queer."
"It'd _be_ very queer. Goin' to the bad is always queer. Madam
wouldn't look for it to be like 'avin' a gentleman lead 'er in to
dinner."
"What's she like--the lady?"
"That's somethink madam'd 'ave to wyte and see. She wouldn't _seem_ so
wicked, not at first sight, as you might sye. But time'd tell. If
madam'd be pytient--well, I wouldn't like to sye." He eyed the fire.
"I think that fire'll burn now, madam; and if it don't, madam'll only
'ave to ring."
He was at the door when Letty, feeling the end of all things to be at
hand, ran after him, laying her fingers on his sleeve.
"Oh, Steptoe; you've been so good to me!"
He relaxed from his dignity sufficiently to let his hand rest on hers,
which he patted gently. "I've been madam's servant--and my boy's."
"I shall never think of you as a servant--never."
The frosty color rose into his cheeks. "Then madam'll do me a great
wrong."
"To me you're so much higher than a servant----"
"Madam'll find that there ain't nothink 'igher than a servant. There's
a lot about service in the pypers nowadyes, crackin' it up, like; but
nobody don't seem to remember that servants knows more about that than
what other people do, and servants don't remember it theirselves. So
long as I can serve madam, just as I've served my boy----"
"Oh, but, Steptoe, I shall have gone to the bad."
"That'd be all the syme to me, madam. At my time o' life I don't see
no difference between them as 'as gone to the bad and them as 'as gone
to the good, as you might sye. I only sees--people."
Left alone Letty went back to the fire, and stood gazing down at it,
her foot on the fender. So it was the end. Even Steptoe said so. In a
sense she was relieved.
She was relieved at the prospect of being freed from her daily
torture. The little mermaid walking on blades in the palace of the
prince, and forever dumb, had known bliss, but bliss so akin to
anguish that her heart was consumed by it. The very fact that the
prince himself suffered from the indefinable misery which her presence
seemed to bring made escape the more enticing.
She was so buried in this reflection as to have heard no sound in the
house, when Steptoe announced in his stately voice: "Miss Barbara
Walbrook." Having parted from this lady half an hour earlier Letty
turned in some surprise.
"I've come back again," was the explanation, sent down the long room.
"Don't let William bring in tea," the imperious voice commanded
Steptoe. "We wish to be alone." There was the same abruptness as she
halted within two or three feet of where Letty stood, supporting
herself with a hand on the edge of the mantelpiece. "I've come back to
tell you something. I made up my mind to it all at once--after I left
you a few minutes ago. Now that I've done it I feel easier."
Letty didn't know which was uppermost in her mind, curiosity or fear.
"What--what is it?" she asked, trembling.
"I've given up the fight. I'm out of it."
Letty crept forward. "You've--you've done _what_?"
"I told you in the Park that one or the other of us would have to
withdraw----"
"One or the other of--of _us_?"
"Exactly and I've done it."
With horror in her face and eyes Letty crept nearer still. "But--but I
don't understand."
"Oh, yes, you do. How can you help understanding. You must have seen
all along that----"
"Not that--that you were--the other girl. Oh, not that!"
"Yes, that; of course; why not?"
"Because--because I--I couldn't bear it."
"You can bear it if I can, can't you--if I've had to bear it all these
weeks and months."
"Yes, but that's--" she covered her face with her hands--"that's what
makes it so terrible."
"Of course it makes it terrible; but it isn't as terrible now as it
was--to you anyhow."
"But why do you withdraw when--when you love him--and he loves
you----?"
"I do it because I want to throw all the cards on the table. It's what
my common sense has been telling me to do all along, only I've never
worked round to it till we had our talk this afternoon. Now I
see----"
"What do you see, Miss Walbrook?"
"I see that we've got to give him a clean sheet, or he'll never know
where he is. He can't decide between us because he's in an impossible
position. We'll have to set him absolutely free, so that he may begin
again. I'll do it on my side. You can do--what you like."
She went as abruptly as she came, leaving Letty clearer than ever as
to her new course.
By midnight she was ready. In the back spare room she waited only to
be sure that all in the house were asleep.
She had heard Allerton come in about half past nine, and the
whispering of voices told that Steptoe was making his explanations,
that she was out of sorts, had dined in her room, and begged not to be
disturbed. At about half past ten she heard the prince go upstairs to
his own room, though she fancied that outside her door he had paused
for a second to listen. That was the culminating minute of her
self-repression. Once it was over, and he had gone on his way, she
knew the rest would be easier.
By midnight she had only to wait quietly. In the old gray rag and the
battered black hat she surveyed herself without emotion. Since making
her last attempt to escape her relation to all these things had
changed. They had become less significant, less important. The
emblems of the higher life which in the previous autumn she had buried
with ritual and regret she now packed away in the closet, with hardly
a second thought. The old gray rag which had then seemed the livery of
a degraded life was now no more than the resumption of her reality.
"I'll go as I came," she had been saying to herself, all the evening.
"I know he'd like me to take the things he's given me; but I'd rather
be just what I was."
If there was any ritual in what she had done since Miss Walbrook had
left her it was in the putting away of small things by which she
didn't want to be haunted.
"I couldn't do it with this on," she said of the plain gold band on
her finger, to which, as a symbol of marriage, she had never attached
significance in any case.
She took it off, therefore, and laid it on the dressing table.
"I couldn't do it with this in my pocket," she said of the purse
containing a few dollars, with which Steptoe had kept her supplied.
This too she laid on the dressing table, becoming as penniless as when
Judson Flack had put her out of doors. Somehow, to be penniless seemed
to her an element in her new task, and an excuse for it.
Since Allerton had never made her a present there was nothing of this
kind to discard. It had been part of his non-committal, impersonal
attitude toward her that he had never given her a concrete sign that
she meant anything to him whatever. He had thanked her on occasions
for the comforting quality he found in her presence. He had, in so
many words, recognized the fact that when he got into a tantrum of
nerves she could bring him out of it as no one else had ever done. He
had also imparted to her the discovery that in reading to her, and
trying to show her the point of view of a life superior to her own, he
had for the first time in his life done something for someone else;
but he had never gone beyond all this or allowed her to think that his
heart was not given to "the girl he was engaged to." In that at least
he had been loyal to the mysterious princess, as the little mermaid
could not but see.
She was not consciously denuded, as she would have felt herself six
months earlier. As to that she was not thinking anything at all. Her
motive, in setting free the prince from the "drag" on him which she
now recognized herself to be, filled all her mental horizons. So
dominated was she by this overwhelming impulse as to have no thought
even for self-pity.
When a clock somewhere struck one she took it as the summons. From the
dressing-table she picked up the scrawl in Steptoe's hand, giving the
name of Miss Henrietta Towell, at an address at Red Point, L. I. She
knew Red Point, on the tip of Long Island, as a distant, partially
developed suburb of Brooklyn. In the previous year she had gone with a
half dozen other girl "supes" from the Excelsior Studio to "blow in" a
quarter looking at the ocean steamers passing in and out. She had no
intention of intruding on Miss Towell, but she couldn't hurt Steptoe's
feelings by leaving the address behind her.
For the same reason she took the silver thimble which stood on the
scrap of paper. On its rim she read the inscription, "H.T. from H.S."
but she made no attempt to unravel the romance behind it. She merely
slipped the scrawl and the thimble into the pocket of her jacket, and
stood up.
She took no farewells. To do so would have unnerved her. On the
landing outside her door she listened for a possible sound of the
prince's breathing, but the house was still. In the lower hall she
resisted the impulse to slip into the library and kiss the place where
she had kissed his feet on the memorable morning when her hand had
been on his brow. "That won't help me any," were the prosaic words
with which she put the suggestion away from her. If the little mermaid
was to leap over the ship's side and dissolve into foam the best thing
she could do was to leap.
The door no longer held secrets. She had locked it and unlocked it a
thousand times. Feeling for the chain in the darkness she slipped it
out of its socket; she drew back the bolt; she turned the key. Her
fingers found the two little brass knobs, pressing this one that way,
and that one this way. The door rolled softly as she turned the
handle.
Over the threshold she passed into a world of silence, darkness,
electricity, and stars. She closed the door noiselessly. She went down
the steps.