MR. AND MRS. ALFRED LAMMLE
It was generally looked upon as rather a good joke. Aunt Cecilia, of
course, was prolific of apologies; the launch had made so many trips,
and every one thought Beatrice and Lord Clairloch had gone at another
time; there had been no general gathering afterward, they had all gone
to bed as soon as they reached the yacht, and James, as Beatrice knew,
had gone to bed early with a headache; how clever it was of Beatrice to
have thought of those two rooms and wasn't it lucky they had been
engaged, after all, and so forth. But most of the others were inclined
to be facetious. Breakfast, thanks to their efforts, was quite a merry
meal.
For the two most nearly concerned the situation was almost devoid of
embarrassment. They arrived at the yacht shortly after eight in a launch
they had ordered the night before at the hotel, and repaired to their
respective rooms without even being seen in their evening clothes. By
the time breakfast was over Beatrice had quite recovered from her
irritation at Tommy and had even almost ceased to blame herself for the
events of the previous night.
The party broke up after lunch, the yacht proceeding to Bar Harbor and
the guests going their various ways. Beatrice and James went directly
back to New York. James was very silent in the train, as silent as he
had been on the way up, but Beatrice was less inclined to find fault
with him for that than before. As she looked at him quietly reading in
the chair opposite her it even occurred to her that his silence was
preferable to Tommy's companionable chirpings, even at their best. And
with Tommy at his worst, as he had been last night, there was no
comparison. Oh, yes, she was thoroughly tired of Tommy!
Dinner in their apartment passed off almost as quietly as the journey,
yet quite pleasantly, in Beatrice's opinion. The night was cool, and a
refreshing breeze blew in from the harbor. After the maid had left the
room and they sat over their coffee and cigarettes, James spoke.
"About last night," he began, and stopped.
"Yes?" said Beatrice encouragingly.
"I thought at first I wouldn't mention it, and then I decided it would
be rather cowardly not to ... I want to say that--"
"That what?"
"That I have no objections."
"To what?" Her bewilderment was not feigned.
"To last night! I don't want you to think I'm jealous, or unsympathetic,
or anything like that.... You are at liberty to do what you please--to
get pleasure where you can find it. I understand."
"You don't understand at all!" Her manner was still one of bewilderment,
though possibly other feelings were beginning to enter.
"I understand, and shall understand in the future. I shan't mention the
matter again. Only one thing more--whenever our--our bargain interferes
too much, you can end it. I shan't offer any opposition."
She sat frozen in her chair, making no sign that she had understood, so
he explained in an almost gentle tone of voice: "I mean you can divorce
me, you know."
"Divorce!"
"Oh, very well, just as you like. Of course our marriage ceases to be
such from now on...."
So unprepared, so at peace with herself and the world had she been that
it was only now that she fully comprehended his meaning. James was
accusing her, making the great accusation ... James thought that she....
Of course, not being the kind of a woman who dissolves in tears at that
accusation, her first dominant emotion was one of anger; an anger
sharper than any she had ever felt; an anger she would have thought to
be impossible to her, after all these months of lassitude, all these
years of chastening. She rose from her chair and made a step toward the
door; her impulse being to walk out of the room, out of the house, out
of James' life, without a word. Not a word of self-defense; some charges
are too vile to merit reply!
Then commonsense flared up, conquering anger and pride. No, she must not
give way to her pride; she must act like a sensible being. After all,
James was her husband, he had some right to accuse if he thought proper;
the falseness of his accusation did not take away his right of
explanation; he should be made to see.
Slowly she turned and went back to her place. She sat down squarely
facing James with both hands on the table in front of her, and prepared
to talk like a lawyer presenting a case. James was watching her quietly,
interested, perhaps ever so slightly amused, but not in the least moved.
"James, as I understand it, you think that I--that Tommy and I...."
"Yes?"
"Well, you've made a great mistake, that's all. You've condemned me
without a hearing. You've assumed that I was guilty--"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, let's not talk about being guilty or innocent or
wronging each other or being faithful to each other! Those things have
no meaning for us. I'm not blaming you--I've tried to explain that to
the best of my ability!"
"Very well, then, let us say you have made a mistake in facts."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean--what should I mean? That Tommy and I are not lovers."
"Well, what then?"
"What then--?"
"Yes, what of it? I never said you were, did I? Suppose you're not,
then; if you're glad, I'm glad, if you're sorry, I'm sorry. It doesn't
alter our position."
"James, you don't understand!"
"What?"
"When you spoke before you thought that I was--that I had sinned.--I do
consider it a sin; perhaps you'll allow me to call it so if it pleases
me."
"Certainly." He smiled.
"Well, you were wrong. I haven't."
"All right; I was wrong. You haven't."
"Very well, then!"
"Very well WHAT?"
"James!"
"I'm sorry.--But what are you driving at? I wasn't accusing you, you
know; I was simply telling you you were free, which you knew before,
and offering you more freedom if you wanted it. Why this outburst of
virtue?"
"James, you are rather brutal!"
"I'm sorry if I seem so; I don't mean to be." He shifted his position
slightly and went on quite gently with another smile: "Beatrice, if you
have successfully met a temptation--or what you look upon as a
temptation--I'm sure I'm very glad. After all, we are friends, and what
pleases my friend pleases me, other things being equal. But does that
pleasing fact in itself alter things between us when, from my own
selfish point of view, I don't care in the least whether you overcame
the temptation or not? And does it, I ask you, alter facts? Does it make
you any less fond of Tommy than you are; does it make you as fond of me
as you are of him?"
"Oh, James! You understand so little--"
"Whatever I may understand or not understand I know that you spent all
of last evening and practically all yesterday and a great part of the
evening before with Tommy, and that you gave no particular evidence of
being bored ... Beatrice, you were happy with him, happy as a child, the
happiest person in the whole crowd, and you showed it, too! Do you mean
to say that you've ever, at any time in your life, been as happy in my
society as all that! No! Deny it if you can!"
"James, you are jealous!" The discovery came to her like an inspiration,
sending a thrill through her. She did not stop to analyze it now, but
when she came to think it over later she realized that there was
something in that thrill quite distinct from the satisfaction of finding
a good reply to James' really rather searching (though of course quite
unfounded) charges.
"There's a good deal of the cave-man left in you, James, argue as you
may. Do you think any one but a jealous man could talk as you are
talking now? 'Deny it if you can'--what do you care whether I deny it or
not, according to what you just said? Oh, James, how are you living up
to your part of the bargain?"
Her tone was free from rancor or spite, and her words had their effect.
James was not beyond appreciating the justice in what she said. He left
his chair and raised his hand to his forehead with a gesture of
bewilderment.
"Oh, Lord, I suppose you're right," he muttered, and began pacing the
room.
So they remained in silence for some time, she sitting quietly in her
chair as before and he walking aimlessly up and down, desperately trying
to adjust himself to this new fact. It is strange how people will give
themselves away when they begin talking; he had been so sure of himself
in his thoughts; he had gone over such matters so satisfactorily in his
own head! Beatrice understood his plight and respected it; it was not
for her, after these last few days, to minimize the trials of
self-discovery....
The maid popped in at the pantry door and popped out again.
"All right, Mary, you can take the things," said Beatrice, and led the
way into the living room.
There was no air of finality in this move, but the slight domestic
incident at least had the effect of putting a check on introspection and
restoring things to a more normal footing. Once in the living room--it
was a large high room, built as a studio and reaching up two
stories--they were both much more at ease; they began to feel capable of
resuming negotiations, when the time arrived, like two normal sensible
beings. James threw himself on a couch; Beatrice moved about the room,
opening a window here, turning up a light there, arranging a vase of
flowers somewhere else. At last, deeming the time ripe, she stopped in
one of her noiseless trips and spoke down at her husband.
"James, do you realize that you alone, of all the people on the yacht,
had the remotest suspicion? You remember how they all joked about it?"
Oh, the danger of putting things into words! Beatrice's voice was as
gentle as she could make it; there was even a note of casual amusement
in it, but in some intangible way, merely by reopening the subject
vocally, Beatrice laid herself open to attack. James' lip curled; he
could no more keep it from doing so than keep his hair from curling.
"You must remember, however, that they were not fully acquainted with
the circumstances...."
Beatrice turned away in despair, not angry at James, but realizing the
inevitability of his reply as well as he himself. She sat down in an
armchair and leaned her head against the back of it; she wished it
might not be necessary ever to rise from that chair again. The blind
hopelessness of their situation lay heavy on them both.
James spoke next.
"Beatrice, will you tell me what it's all about? Why are we squabbling
this way? How can we find out--what on earth are we going to do about it
all?"
"I've no more idea than you, James."
"Every time we get talking we always fall back on our bargain, as if
that was the one reliable thing in the whole universe. Always our
bargain, our bargain! Beatrice, what in Heaven's name is our bargain?"
"Marriage, I take it."
"You know it's more than that--less than that--not that, anyway! At
first it was all quite clear to me; we were two people whose lives had
been broken and we were going to try to mend them as best we might. And
as it seemed we could do that better together than alone we determined
to marry. Our marriage was to be a perfectly loose, free arrangement,
and we were to stick to its terms only as long as we could profit by
doing so. We were to part without ill feeling and with perfect
understanding. And now, at the first shred of evidence--no, not even
evidence, suspicion--that you want to break away we start quarreling
like a pair of cats, and I become a monster of jealousy, like any comic
husband in a play...."
Beatrice's heart sank again at those words; there was no mistaking the
bitterness in them. That heightened a fear she had felt when James had
answered her about the people on the yacht; James was still smarting
with the discovery of his jealousy, and the trouble was that the smart
was so sharp that he might not forgive her for having made him feel it.
She felt the taste of her little triumph turn to ashes in her mouth.
"No, James, no!" she interrupted hurriedly. "You weren't, really. That
was all nonsense--we both saw that...."
"No, it's true--I was jealous. Jealous! and for what? And what's more, I
still am. I can't help it. When I think of Tommy, and the boat-race, and
all that. Oh, Lord, the idiocy of it!"
"I don't particularly mind your being jealous, James, if that's any
comfort to you."
"No! Why on earth should you? You're living up to your part of the
bargain, and I'm not--that's what it comes to. Oh, it's all my fault,
every bit of it--no doubt of that!"
His words gave Beatrice a new sensation, not so much a sinking as a
steeling of the heart. His self-accusation was all very well, but if it
also involved trampling on her--! And she did begin to feel trampled
upon; much more so now than when he had directly accused her.... That
was odd! Was it possible that she would rather be vilified than ignored,
even by James?
Meanwhile James was ranting on--it had not occurred to her that it was
ranting before, but it did now:--"There's something about the mere
institution of marriage, I suppose, that makes me feel this way; the old
idea of possession or something.... You were right about the cave-man!
It's something stronger than me--I can't help it; but if it's going on
like this every time you--every time you speak to another man, it'll
make a delightful thing out of our married life, won't it? This free and
easy bargain of ours, this sensible arrangement! Why, it's a thousand
times harder than an ordinary marriage, just because I have nothing to
hold you with!...
"Beatrice, we're caught in something. Trapped! Don't you feel it?
Something you can't see, can't understand, only feel gradually pressing
in on you, paralyzing you, smothering you! There's no use blaming each
other for it; we're both wound up in it equally; it's something far
stronger than either of us. A pair of blind mice in a trap!..."
He flung himself across the room to an open window and stood there,
resting his elbows on the sill and gazing out over the twinkling lights
of the city. Beatrice sat immovable in her chair, but her bosom was
heaving with the memory of certain things he had said. Another revulsion
of feeling mastered her; she no longer thought of him as ranting; she
felt his words too strongly for that. A pair of blind mice in a
trap--yes, yes, she felt all that, but that was not what had stirred her
so. What was that he had said about having nothing to hold her with?...
She watched him as he stood there trying to cool his tortured mind in
the evening air. He was tremendously worked up; she wondered if he could
stand this sort of thing physically; she remembered how ill he had been
looking lately.... She watched him with a new anxiety, half expecting to
see him topple over backward at any moment, overcome by the strain. Then
she could help him; her mind conjured up a vision of herself running
into the dining room for some whisky and back to him with the glass in
her hand; "Here, drink this," and her hand under his head.... It was
wicked of her to wish anything of the kind, of course; but if she could
only be of some use to him! If he would but think of turning to her for
help in getting out of his trap! He would not find his fellow-mouse cold
or unsympathetic.
She could not overcome her desire to find out if any such idea was in
his mind. She went over to him and touched him gently on the shoulder.
"James--"
"No, not now, please; I want to think."
And his shoulder remained a piece of tweed under her hand; he did not
even bother to shake her off.
She sat down again to wait.
When at last he left the window it was to sit down by a lamp and take up
a book. That was not a bad sign, in itself, as long as he made his
reading an interlude and not an ending. But as she sat watching him it
became more and more evident that he regarded their interview as closed.
And so they sat stolidly for some time, James determined that nothing
should lead him into another humiliating exhibition of feeling and
Beatrice determined that whatever happened she would make him stop
ignoring her. And though she was at first merely hurt by his
indifference she presently began to feel her determination strengthened
by something else, something which, starting as hardly more than natural
feminine pique shortly grew into irritation, then into anger of a
slow-burning type and lastly, as her eyes tired of seeing him sit there
so unaffectedly absorbed in his reading, into something for the moment
approaching active dislike. We all know what hell hath no fury like, and
Beatrice, as she fed her mind on the thought of how often he had
insulted and repelled and above all ignored her that evening, began to
consider herself very much in the light of a woman scorned.
"Is that all, James?" she ventured at length.
He put down his book and looked up with the manner of one making a great
effort to be reasonable.
"What do you want, Beatrice?"
Beatrice would have given a good deal to be able to say that what she
really wanted was that he should take her to him as he had that day at
Bar Harbor and never once since, but as she could not she made a
substitute answer.
"We can't leave things as they are, can we?"
"Why not? Haven't we said too much already?"
"Too much for peace, but not enough for satisfaction. We can't leave
things hanging in the air this way."
"Very well, then, if you insist. How shall we begin?"
"Well, suppose we begin with our bargain--see what its terms are and
whether we can live up to them and whether it's for our benefit to do
so."
"All right. What do you consider the terms of our bargain to be?"
They were both talking in the measured tones of people determined to
keep control over themselves at all costs. They looked at each other
warily, as though guarding against being maneuvered into a betrayal of
temper or feeling.
"Well, in the first place, I assume that we want to present a good front
to the world. Bold and united. We want to prevent people from
knowing...."
"Certainly."
"And if we give the impression of being happy together we've gone a good
way toward that end."
"Yes, that's logical."
"Well--?"
"What?"
"It's your turn now, isn't it?"
"Oh, no; you've begun so well you'd better go on."
"Well, I've only got one more idea on the subject, and that is just
tentative--a sort of suggestion." She sat down on the sofa by him and
strove to make her manner a little more intimate without becoming
mawkish or intrusive. "It has occurred to me that we haven't given that
impression very much in the past, and I think the reason for that may be
that we--well, that we don't work together enough. Does it ever occur to
you, James, that we don't understand each other very well? Not nearly as
much as we might, I sometimes think, without--without having to pretend
anything. We know each other so slightly! Sometimes it gives me the
oddest feeling, to think I am married to you, who are stranger to me
than almost any of my friends...."
She feared the phrasing of that thought was a little unfortunate, and
broke off suddenly with: "But perhaps I'm boring you?"
"No, no--I'm very much interested. How do you think we ought to go about
it?"
"It's difficult to say, of course. How do you think? I should suggest,
for one thing, that we should be less shy with each other--less afraid
of each other. Especially about things that concern us. Even if it is
hard to talk about such things, I think we ought to. We should be more
frank with each other, James."
"As we have been this evening, for example?"
The cynical note rang in his voice, the note she most dreaded.
"No, I didn't mean that, necessarily. I don't mind saying, though, that
I think even our talking to-night has been a good thing. It has cleared
the air, you know. See where we are now!"
"Yes, and it's cleared you too. But what about me?"
"I don't understand."
"Oh, you've come out of it all right! You've behaved yourself,
vindicated yourself, done nothing you didn't expect to, nothing you have
reason to be ashamed of afterward. I have! I haven't been able to open
my mouth without making a fool of myself in one way or another...."
"Only because you're overtired, James...."
"I've said things I never thought myself capable of saying, and I've
found I thought things that no decent man should think. It was an
interesting experience."
"James, my dear, don't be so bitter! I'm not blaming you. I can forget
all that!"
She laid her hand on his knee and the action, together with the quality
of her voice, had a visible effect on him. He paused a moment and looked
at her curiously. When he spoke again it was without bitterness.
"That's awfully decent of you, Beatrice, but the trouble is I can't
forget. Those things stay in the memory, and they're not desirable
companions. And as talking, the kind of frank talking you suggest, seems
to bring them out in spite of me, I think perhaps we'd better not have
much of that kind of talk. It seems to me that the less we talk the
better we shall get on."
Beatrice was silent a moment in her turn. She had not brought him quite
to where she wanted him, but she had brought him nearer than he had been
before. She resolved to let things stay as they were.
"Very well, James," she said, leaning back by his side; "we won't talk
if you don't want to. About those things, that is. There are plenty of
other things we can talk about. And let's go to places more together and
do things more together. I see no reason why we shouldn't get on very
well together. After all, I do enjoy being with you, when you're in a
good mood, more than with any one else I know--that I could be with--"
"Then why--Oh, Lord!" He stopped himself and sank forward in despair
with his head on his hands.
"Well, go on and say it."
"No, no."
"Yes. It's better that way."
"I was going to say, why did you appear to enjoy yourself with Tommy so
much more than--Oh, it's no use, Beatrice! I can't help it--it's beyond
me!"
"Oh, James!"
"Yes, that's just it! It's the devil in me!"
"When that was all over, James!"
"All over! Then there was something!... Oh, good _Lord_! We can't go
through it all over again!"
"James, I meant that you were all over feeling that--"
"Yes, yes, I know you did, and I thought you meant the other and said
that, and of course I had no right to because of what we are, and so
forth, over and over again! Round and round and round, like a mouse in a
trap! Caught again!..."
He got up and walked across the room once or twice, steadying himself
with one last great effort. In a moment he stopped dead in front of her.
"See here, Beatrice!"
"Yes?"
"It can't happen again, do you see? It's got to stop right here and now!
I can't stand it--call it weak of me if you like, but I can't. It'll
drive me stark mad. We are not going to talk about these things again,
do you see?"
"What sort of things?"
"Anything! Anything that can possibly bring these things into my head
and make a human fiend of me. And you're not to tempt me to talk of
them, either. Do you promise?"
"I promise anything that's reasonable--anything that will help you. But
do you intend to let this--this weakness end everything--spoil our whole
life?"
"Spoil! What on earth is there to spoil? We've got on well enough up to
now, haven't we? Well, we'll go back to where we were, where we were
this morning! And we'll stay there, please God, as long as we two shall
live! You're free, absolutely free, from now on! I shan't question
anything you may care to do from this moment, I promise you!"
She remained silent a moment, awed in spite of herself by the fervency
of his words. She was cruelly disappointed in him. She had made so many
attempts, she had humbled herself so often, she had suffered his rebuffs
so many times and she had brought him at one time in spite of himself so
near to a happier state of things that his one-minded insistence on his
own humiliation seemed to her indescribably petty and selfish. His
jealousy, his vile, rudimentary dog-in-the-manger jealousy; that was
what he couldn't get over; that was what he could not forgive her for!
What a small thing that was to resent, in view of what she herself had
so steadfastly refrained from resenting!... However, since he wished it,
there was nothing more to be done. She could be as cold and unemotional
as he, if it came to the test.
"Then you definitely give up every effort toward a better
understanding?"
"Yes!"
"And you prefer, once for all, to be strangers rather than friends?"
"Strangers don't squabble!"
"Very well, then, James," she said with a quiet smile, "strangers let it
be. I daresay it's better so, after all. I shouldn't wonder if you found
me quite as good and thorough a stranger, from now on, as you could
desire. It was foolish of me to talk to you as I did."
"No, no--don't get blaming yourself. It's such a cheap form of
satisfaction."
She stood looking at him a moment with coldly glittering eyes.
"It's quite true," she repeated; "I was a fool. I was a fool to imagine
that you and I could have anything in common. Ever. Well, nothing can
very well put us farther apart than we are now. There's a certain
comfort in that, perhaps."
"There is."
"At last we agree. Husbands and wives should always agree. Good-night,
James."
"Good-night,"
He watched her as she glided from the room, so slim and beautiful and
disdainful. Perhaps a shadow of regret for her passed across his mind, a
thought of what a woman, what a wife, even, she might have been under
other circumstances; but it did not go far into him. Things were as they
were; he had long since given up bothering about them, trying only to
think and feel as little as possible. He took up his book again and read
far into the night.