The Brenda who came back from America was not quite the one who had gone
there. Gerald saw it in the first instant. She had gained in
definiteness, assurance, even in beauty. But a silver haze, a fairy
bloom, an aureole, was mysteriously departed from her. She had left her
teens behind.
Yet in her stainless white, her bridal veil, a slender coronal of orange
blossoms on her dark hair, and the light of love in her dark eyes, how
wonderful she was! That Manlio, pale as a statue with the force of his
emotion, should wear a look of almost superhuman beatitude was only
natural and proper. Of those who assisted at the ceremony many were
deeply moved, and few altogether untouched: to be in the church at that
moment gave one the importance of being accessory to a high romance.
At the wedding reception something of this quality of emotion continued
still to possess the invited guests as long as Brenda and Manlio,
beneath their arch of flowers, stood smiling response to congratulations
and compliments.
It was in the general experience not unlike that part of the opera
where, to a matchless music, the god of flame and the glowing hearth
lauds the loveliness of woman and the strength of man's pursuit; and the
other gods, uplifted, look at one another with washed eyes, feeling anew
how wonderful they all are, how wonderful it all is.
The heart of Leslie, nevertheless, as she bustled about, seeing to it
that every one was provided with refreshment, confessed a point of
bitterness. In a way, it was envy of Brenda. Not of her happiness, or
her husband, of course. But she did wish the man lived and would present
himself who could inspire her with such feelings as Brenda's. The kind
of man who cared for her she somehow never cared for--a serious barrier
to experiencing a _grande passion_. And on this day of
wedding-bells it seemed a pity. The girl of many offers felt sad.
Mrs. Foss smiled a pleased, incessant smile, not "realizing" the thing
which was happening, as she told her sister-in-law who had come over
from America with the bride. Her chick had developed tendencies unknown
among the breed, taken to the water and swum away with a swan. But the
mother had confidence. She believed in marriage. The institution had
been justified by her example and Jerome's. Her eyes sought him out, a
little anxiously, to peruse his face. The idea could not for a moment be
admitted that he had a favorite among his children, but yet it was
acknowledged that Brenda had always in a very special way been near to
her father's heart. From his calm and serenity in conversation with that
nice big Doctor Bewick, Mrs. Foss was able to hope that he too did not
"realize."
Aurora watched the bride and groom with fairly fascinated eyes, but from
a certain distance. They had been nice, they had thanked her handsomely
for her handsome present, but nothing could modify her regretful
certitude that Brenda did not care for her. And it might so easily have
been she and not the good Aunt Brenda who secured for the _sposo_
his career of silver lace and sabre.... And Brenda, innocently
unknowing, would just the same not have liked her. But there! Beautiful
Brenda didn't go about loving everybody. She had the more glory to
confer upon the one. Oh, harmoniously matched, high-removed pair! Oh,
hymeneal crowning of tenderness and truth!... Aurora in a kind of awe
wondered what elevated things those pale rose lips of the bride would
say to the bridegroom when, the turmoil of festivity ended, they were in
nuptial solitude. Impossible to imagine! It must be something altogether
beyond other brides; and his words must make those of all other lovers
sound common and poor.
* * * * *
When the arch of flowers was empty and the happy pair had left for the
train, Lily and Gerald went strolling about the garden hand in hand.
Lily had been a bridesmaid, Gerald an usher. Both were in the fine
apparel of their parts; thoughts of weddings hummed in both of their
heads.
"Well, Lily," said the young man idly, in their walk between odorous
lines of wall-flowers and heliotrope, "I suppose you too will soon be
getting married."
"Oh, no!" Lily shook her head. "There is nobody I could marry."
"Why, I thought, Lily," he said, "that you were going to marry me!"
"No, Gerald," she replied promptly, but with gentleness and regret, so
as not to hurt his feelings.
"I might come and live with you," she added, after a second, "and keep
house for you. A cottage in the country, with beehives and ducks and a
little donkey.... Gerald, do you know about Sir William Wallace?"
Though a chasm appeared to divide this subject from the last, Gerald
shrewdly supposed a connection between them.
"Very little. You tell me."
"You haven't read 'The Scottish Chiefs'? I took it without permission
and kept it out of Fraeulein's sight. It grows light early now, you know,
and I read it for hours before getting up. Then whenever I could, I read
it in the daytime. And after they had left me at night, I read it with
the pink candles of my birthday cake. I cried so much that when I
finished I was ill with a fever and had to be kept in bed for three
days."
"Why, when was this?"
"Two weeks ago."
"My poor little Lily, how came I not to be told of it? And you sent me
such a beautiful remembrance when I was ill!--Well, Lily, I know now why
you won't take me. I'm not much like Sir William Wallace, that's a fact.
I might grow like him in courage and prowess, perhaps, to please you,
but I know that I should never be beautiful in kilts. It shall be as you
say, dear. We'll be brother and sister instead. And now tell me more
about this book, these Scottish.... Lily, do you see Mrs. Hawthorne on
the doorstep? Do you gather that the signs she is making are meant for
us? We came up together and I think she may wish to say she is ready to
go, and will give me a lift back to town...."
* * * * *
"We came up together!" With great frequency in these days Gerald was
going somewhere with Mrs. Hawthorne, not alone with her, but making one
of four in an amiable party. Sometimes it was his fate to make
conversation by the hour with Estelle, while Doctor Tom monopolized
Aurora; on the other hand, he sometimes would succeed in getting his
fingers among Occasion's hair, and secure Aurora for his share, while
Dr. Tom was apportioned with the slenderer charmer. But the behavior of
all was civilized and urbane, and if a thorn pricked or nettle burned,
the sufferer concealed his pain and spoiled nobody's fun.
Gerald would in reality have preferred to stay away, almost as much as
Estelle and possibly Doctor Tom would have preferred him to do so. But
just there the incalculable, the ungovernable, in human nature came into
play. A golden thread, a mere hair, strong as a steel cable, drew him to
the place where he could expect to find no comfort, and had no object to
accomplish except just to be there, with his eyebrows one higher than
the other.
Either Estelle liked to annoy him, or she was unfortunate in doing it
without malice.
"Don't they make a noble-looking couple?" she asked him, gazing at
Aurora and Tom outlined side by side against the light of the window.
"Yes," he felt obliged to say, and followed it quickly, without apology
for the indiscretion of the question: "Are they going to marry?"
"That remains to be seen," she said in a way which made one desire to
set the dog on her. "I cherish the hope. May I offer you another
cigarette?"
He sometimes remained scandalously late in the evening after dining, in
spite of--oh, by so much!--knowing better. He would wait, with an
artist's beautiful air of time-forgetfulness, for Dr. Tom to get up to
go. He would instantly, as if remembering himself, get up to go, too,
and walk with the doctor as far as his hotel, they talking together like
men with respect for each other's brains, and appreciation of each
other's character and company, no subject of contention in the world.
Gerald pushed courtesy so far as to go with the doctor, by themselves,
on certain visits to hospitals, to certain games of pallone, certain
monasteries which ladies are not permitted to enter, Aurora rejoicing in
the opportunities to "get good and acquainted" which she saw these two
dear friends of hers take.
* * * * *
After the drive back from the wedding, Gerald resisted Aurora's
suggestion that he enter the house with them and remain to dine. This he
did with well-masked resentfulness. As it was not Dr. Bewick's last
evening, but the evening before his last, Gerald did not see that
delicacy strictly demanded his sacrifice. But Estelle had without so
many compliments informed him that he was not to accept. She had
particular reasons, she darkly enlightened him, for the request.
So, with a paltry excuse, he jumped out of the carriage before it
reached the gate, and stood looking after it, holding his hat--the
glossy _tuba_ which Giovanna had with her elbow stroked and stroked
the right way of the silk, when she laid out her signorino's outfit for
the wedding.
Earlier than usual after dinner Estelle retired, "to write up her
diary," she said. Tom was left to have with Aurora that conversation
which Estelle had besought him to have, and of which by a significant
motion of the face she had reminded him before leaving the room. He came
to the point very soon, the sooner to get it over.
"Nell," he said, and, leaning back, with one arm flung along the top of
the sofa, the other offering to his lips a thick cigar, waited long
enough for her to wonder what was coming, "you spend too much money."
Without shadow of attempt at evasion, she said:
"Tom, I do."
"You've got to retrench, girl. You've got to be more careful."
"Yes, I suppose I've got to."
"Let's be practical. How are you going to do it?"
"I don't know, Tom. It's so easy to spend and so hard to hold on to your
money! If any one had told me a year ago I could get rid of as much
money in one year as I have done, I shouldn't have known how I could do
it without opening the window and throwing it out."
"Well, I'm glad you don't deny a bent toward extravagance."
"I don't deny anything that means I spend a lot of money. I have more
sense. The facts are there."
"You've already broken into your capital, haven't you?"
"Did Hattie tell you that or did you guess? It's true, I have; but--"
she tried to place the harm done in a harmless light--"it isn't so bad
but that if I saved for a little while I could make it up again."
"If! True; but are you going to, Nell? That's the question."
"Oh, Tom, I never ought to have been given any money if I was to hold on
to it!" Aurora almost groaned. "I didn't know at first. I was pleased as
Punch. I lay awake nights just to gloat and feel grand. I tell
_you_, I meant to hold on to it! I tell _you_, it wasn't going
to get away from me after that good fight we made for it! But--" the
effect of a mental groan was repeated--"the whole thing isn't as I
thought it would be, not a bit."
She stopped, and while she tried to coordinate her ideas, Dr. Tom
quietly waited for explanation or illustration of her meaning.
"I don't like money, there's the whole of it!" she gave him the sum of
her attempt in one cast.
Dr. Tom continued to wait, smoking.
"In fact, I hate it."
Dr. Tom continued to wait, without interrupting, or trying to help her
disentangle her thought, of which he had in truth no inkling.
"I hate it, and I love it, both. That's truer, I suppose. But I can't be
at rest with it."
"Never fear, girl,"--his tone was humorous,--"you'll get used to it.
Just from watching you, I should have fancied you were pretty well used
to it already."
"When I was a child it was just the same way with candy," she went on
with her own train of thought, not minding his; "I loved it--and gobbled
it right up. Some of the girls made theirs last and last. I ate mine at
once. And it wasn't only because I was a pig with no self-control. I
wanted to have done with it and go back to a sensible life. With this
money I have the same feeling--and then another feeling that I sort of
can't account for, as if I wanted to get rid of it because there was
something wrong in me having it."
"That money? You sure earned it!" he came out vigorously. "Don't be a
goose, Nell."
"I wasn't thinking of what you think. But I'm afraid I am a goose, Tom,
an awful goose, and I'm ashamed of it. I somehow can't feel it
right--there!--to have more than the rest. Come right down to it, I feel
mean in having something the rest haven't got, and keeping it from them,
like a nasty fat boy stuffing pie with a lot of hungry ragamuffins
looking on. I know it isn't good common sense, or how could rich people
be so all right and calm in their minds as they are, and have
everybody's respect? Rich people are all right, I've always sort of
looked up to them, with their advantages and things. I haven't a bit of
fault to find. But Tom, I suppose the amount of it is I was born poor
and I go on having the feelings of the poor. If any one asks me for
anything and appears to need it, I've got to give it or feel too mean to
live. Me, Nell, who was poor myself for so long, how would I look
hardening my heart against any one who came and wanted to borrow? I'd be
ashamed to look them in the eye."
"With that view of it, of course I can see why your money wouldn't last
long."
"Oh, I'm extravagant besides, I'll own to that; that's the _real_
trouble. I want to buy everything that takes my eye, I want to make
everything run smooth, like on greased wheels, and to have all the faces
around me look pleased, and everybody liking me. I love the feeling of
luxury and festivity, and oh, I just love a grand good time! That's what
the money was given to me for, wasn't it, so that I could have a grand
good time? But when I've indulged myself, Tom, I wouldn't have the face,
if I had the heart, to say no to anybody that came along and wanted me
to indulge them, too. Now, I don't want you to go thinking this is
generosity, Tom, or a good heart, or that I have any sneaking idea in my
own bosom that it's anything of the sort. I'd be a
regular--low-down--soggy--sinful sowbug, I'd be too dirt-mean to live,
if I pretended it was that. When I was poor I never was generous; I
never thought of it. I worked hard for what I got; and was in the same
boat exactly as the rest; I was entitled to the little bit I'd worked
for. But now it's different. It's like I'd won the big prize in the
lottery. I can't be stingy with it and not blush. I can't sit there like
a swollen wood-tick and be rich all by myself."
"All right, Nell; all right. It's a perfectly understandable way of
looking at it, if it is rather far-fetched. But good-by to the
hard-earned thousands. You won't have a smitch of them left."
"Good-by, then, and good riddance!" cried Aurora violently, almost
pettishly. "I don't really like them, anyhow. It's too easy just to
write your name on a check. At first I thought I was living in a
fairy-tale; but once you've got used to it, it doesn't compare with the
fun you get the old-fashioned way, working hard for a thing, and
planning, and going to price it, and saving, and finally getting it, and
that proud! People who haven't been poor simply don't know. Why, that
one poor little silver bangle I had when I was fifteen did more to give
me pure joy than any of the beautiful things I've bought this whole last
year. I'm sorry if it seems ungrateful to my bloated bank-account, but
it's true. Another thing, Tom. I was brought up to work. I won't say I
liked it. I don't think many people who've got to work do like it. But
since I gave it up, nothing I've found has really filled its place to
give me an appetite and the feeling I'd a right to a good time. To sit
back and let others work while you fan your face--I can't help it, I
feel a sort of disgrace in it. I know better, it's just the way I
_feel_. I know all the while that's the way the world was planned,
some to be rich and some to be poor--Think how rich King Solomon was!
And your dear father!--some to work and some not, with changes round
about once in a while, like in my case, and crosses and trials and
temptations belonging to every state, and the love of God and a quiet
heart possible in every state. And I've always had such respect for
moneyed people and their refined ways.... But if you want me to start in
now and do differently from what I've been doing, I tell you truly, I
don't know how I'm going to do it, Tom. I'd rather not have the money at
all."
"You won't have it, Nell, dear. You've only to keep on, and you won't
have it."
"All right. Then I'll go back to work and never happier in my life. I'm
strong and able, I've got years of work in me. And if you think I've
grown so devoted to all these frills that I couldn't give them up,
you'll see!"
"Of course I haven't the faintest right to control your use of your
money--"
"But of course you have, Tom,"--her tone changed at once, and was
eagerly humble,--"every right. You can take it away from me any moment
you please. Who has a right, I should like to know, if not you?"
"Well, then, Nell, I'm going to make a suggestion. What you have said
shows me that simple advice would be of no use in this case. Don't
think, girl, that I don't get at your way of seeing the matter. If I
appear cold toward it, if I don't seem to sympathize, it's because the
logical results would land you in a hole from which I'd feel a call by
and by to try to pull you out. See?--As a promise to keep inside of your
income would apparently embitter life to you, I won't ask for it, merely
suggesting the fitness of trying to observe such a restriction. Even as
regards your power to throw it away, there'll be a lot more of it to
throw if you respect your capital. However, the money is yours, to do
exactly what you please with, but this I ask: empower me to turn some
part of it into an annuity, unalienable and modestly sufficient."
"An annuity? What's that?"
"A sum of money so fixed that you receive the interest as long as you
live and have no power over the sum itself. It's not yours to use, to
transfer or yet to bequeath. In your case the one safe investment, the
single way I see to keep you out of the poorhouse."
"Do you say so! All right, Tom; do what you think best. But see here.
Whatever you arrange for me that way, you've got to arrange for Hattie,
too, or it wouldn't be fair. I won't think of it unless you'll do the
same for both. If I hadn't a penny left in the world, you know the
Carvers would take me in in a minute. Then if you do it, don't you see,"
she brought in slyly, "when I've spent my money, there'll always be
Hattie's for me to fall back on. Don't let her know you're doing it,
Tom, but fix it."
"All right. Two comfortable little annuities, enough to be independent
on, and be taken care of if you're sick."
"That's it, Tom. Then everybody's mind will be set at rest. And this I
promise: I'll try to be a good girl."
That subject being dropped, there was silence for a minute or two, while
Tom thoughtfully smoked.
Aurora's face was a living rose with the excitement of their discussion.
She put her hands to her cheeks to feel how they burned, then turned to
Tom to laugh with him over it. The pink of her face enhanced the
blueness of her eyes. It was not unusual for persons sitting near
Aurora, women as well as men, to feel a sudden desire to squeeze her in
their arms and tell her how sweet she was. Tom found himself saying a
thing he had taken a solemn engagement with himself not to say.
"I had hoped"--his utterance was slow and heavy--"to find a different
solution to the difficulty."
Her face questioned him, and at once looked troubled.
"I was going to try to take over all your difficulties and bundle them
up with my own; but," he continued, after a moment, with force, "I'm not
going to do it."
"That's right, Tom," she came out eagerly, without pretending not to
understand. "If I know what you mean--don't do it! Oh, I'm so grateful,
I can't tell you, that you've made up your mind that way. Because, dear
Tom, whatever you wanted me to do, seems to me I'd have to do it. I
don't see how I could say no to anything you asked me. It would break my
heart, I guess, if I had to hold out against a real wish of yours. I
couldn't do it. All the same, I know we wouldn't make just the happiest
kind of couple--'cause why, we're too like brother and sister, Tom. It
would be unnatural. I feel toward you, Tom, just like an own, own
sister--not those mean old things, Idell and Cora, who are your
sisters--but I feel toward you as I would to my own brother Charlie.
There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. But if I had to marry you,
there'd be something about it--well, I don't know. I can't explain.
Haven't you seen how there are things that are perfect for one use and
no good at all for another? I'm a pretty good nurse, ain't I, Tom? But
what would I be as a bareback circus-rider?"
"We aren't going to talk about it, Nell. I told you I had given it up.
But," he went on after a heavy moment, unable entirely to subjugate his
humanity--"but I wish now I had asked you before you left home."
She was too oppressed with misery to speak at once, so he amplified.
"But it seemed rather more--I don't want to call it by any such big word
as chivalrous,--it seemed rather whiter not to urge it, when
circumstances might have seemed to lay a compulsion on you. Then it
seemed better to let all the talk, the unpleasantness, in Denver die
down first. Then, too, I wanted you to see the world; I liked the
thought of you having your fling. But," he reiterated, "I can't help
wishing I had followed my instinct and asked you before I let you go.
Tell the truth, Nell. Wouldn't you have had me then?"
"I suppose, Tom, that I should have you now if you asked me. But then or
now," she brought in quickly, "it would be a mistake. I couldn't love
you more dearly, Tom, than I do, good big brother that you've been. Dear
me, all we've been through together! Then all the fun we've had! We
couldn't change to something different without all being spoiled. You
don't seem to know, but I do, that I'm not the woman for you in that
way. We're too much alike, Tom. What you want is a little dainty woman,
delicate, quick, bright-minded, something, to find an example near at
hand, like Hattie Carver. A big fellow like you wants someone to cherish
and protect. How would any one go to work protecting and cherishing a
little darling big as a moose!"
"I might have known"--Doctor Tom made his reflections aloud,--"that a
good big husky man wouldn't have a chance with a good big husky girl
while a sickly, sad-eyed, spindle-shanked son of a gun was hanging
round!"
"There's nothing in that, I should think you'd know," said Aurora,
quickly. "I like him, of course, and I like to have him round. Haven't
you found him good company yourself? But that's just friendship.
Friendship like between a fish and a bird, and no more prospect of a
different ending than that. If that's troubling you, you can set your
mind at rest, Tom."
"It's none of my business, anyhow," said the doctor, brusquely, flinging
down his cigar and walking away from her to the mantelpiece, where he
stood looking up at her portrait, but thinking of that other portrait of
her, with its wizardry and strange truth, which she had not failed to
show him.
"Tom, if I thought you could feel bitter, I should die, that's all,"
cried Aurora, jumping up and following. "You've been such a friend to
me! Do you suppose I forget? Never was there such a friend. And you
know, now don't you, Tom, that I think the whole, whole world of you?"
Arms were clasped around his neck,--large arms, solid and polished as
marble, but tender as mother birds; a head was pressed hard against his
shoulder. "There never could anybody take your place with me. You'd only
have to call over land and sea, and I'd come flying to serve you, to
nurse you in sickness or help you in sorrow. Give me a good hug, Tom.
Give me a good kiss, and say you know I mean every word!--Now, isn't
this better than to see me across the table at breakfast, with my hair
in curlers, and to have me snooping round being jealous of your female
patients?"
"No, it's not better; but it's pretty good."
"Do you mean to tell me, Tom, that you'd be any more likely to cut my
name in a tree, or kiss my stolen glove, than I'd be to wish on the
first star you loved me or write poetry about my feelin's?"
"Nell, I'm not telling; the subject is closed. But any time there's
anything I can do for you, anything in this world, Nell, you know you've
only got to sing out."
"You'll marry, Tom dear, by and by."
"Very well. If you say so, I'll marry. But what I said will hold good if
I do. It will hold good, too, if you marry, Nell. Oh, let's talk about
something else."
The change of subject could hardly be effected in less time than it
takes to reverse engines; a minute or two passed before Aurora inquired
concerning the number of hours' travel between Florence and Liverpool,
then about his steamer, his stateroom and the exact time of his
starting.
"Nine o'clock in the evening. I see, so as to have daylight for the
Alps. You'll dine here of course and we'll take you to the station."
He judged it more prudent to dine at his hotel and meet them afterwards
at the station near train-time.
"Then--" sighed Aurora, sorrowfully, "this is our last evening! For I
heard you and the consul planning for to-morrow evening together, and he
to read you some chapters of his book. A compliment, Tom. He's never
offered to read _us_ any of it. I'm only sorry the idea didn't
ripen sooner, so that we needn't be robbed of your very last evening. We
must make the most of our time, then. Suppose we go into the garden,
Tom, and walk across the street to the river--I don't have to put
anything on for just that step. It's so pretty, looking upstream at the
bridges, and across at the hills your pa was so fond of. Wasn't the
Judge just crazy about Florence! For the longest time after I came I
couldn't see why, but I'm beginning."