A tired look overspread Estelle's face, when, returning home after
seeing Dr. Bewick off on his way to Paris, they found Gerald waiting.
She said to herself, in tempestuous inward irritation, that it was
inconceivable a young man so well up in the ways of the world shouldn't
know any better.
It could not be said that Estelle did not like Gerald Fane. Considered
by himself, she did like him, much more, she believed, than he liked
her. His odd distinction, too subtle and complex to describe, aroused in
her a vague hunger of the mind. But considered in relation to Aurora, he
"was on her nerves," she said.
"That he shouldn't know any better--" she mentally scolded, behind her
tired look, "than to obtrude himself the very first minute after Doctor
Tom's departure!"
But Gerald was not thinking he showed a horrid want of tact. The other
way, rather. He saw himself as the intimate old friend who comes to call
right after the funeral, and by his presence console a little, and
brighten, the bereaved.
Aurora's red eyes smote him at once. Aurora was still in tearful mood.
The sense not only of her dear friend going, but going with a secret
weight on his heart that it had been in her power to prevent, made her
own heart miserably heavy, too. For the moment Tom counted for her more
than all else, and she reproached herself that when he had done so much
for her she had not been willing to do such an ordinary little thing for
him as to marry him; and she reproached herself because it was a relief,
despite her great wish to be loyal, to think they should not meet again
until all that was well in the past.
Estelle hoped to hear her friend say to Gerald something to the effect
that she was in no mood for a social call; but Aurora welcomed the
visitor with unaffected warmth and sat down in her hat to talk with him.
So Estelle said primly that it was late, and she was tired; if they
would excuse her, she would go to bed.
Aurora talked about Tom and nothing but Tom. Sweetly, sighfully, she
spoke, as more than once before, of those many things he had done for
her, but spoke of them this evening more amply; his care of her, a
penniless patient, in that hospital where she woke up after a space of
unconsciousness; his unremitting kindness when she lived in his house
and took care of his father, the dear old judge, who was sick three long
years before he died; the proof of goodness more remarkable still which
he gave after that.
A tremulous hope flickered up in Gerald that she would go on and tell
him about the latter, perhaps filling in some of the lacunae which her
history had for him. Much had come out in their many hours of talk, but
he had found her circumspect with regard to certain parts of her life,
and had never put a question. In one so frank, her avoidance appeared a
result of dislike to remembering those unmentioned links in the chain of
events.
But this evening again she stopped short of telling him what he would
have liked to know--how Bewick was connected with her wealth. For it had
come to her from no second husband: she had not been twice married.
She broke off with the words, "Oh, some time I'll tell you the whole
story. I don't feel like it now. It always makes me so mad!"
If Aurora had been pledged to Bewick, thought Gerald, the most natural
thing would have been to tell him of it this evening. In her expatiating
upon all she owed to Bewick, Gerald felt a wish to explain how it was
that without being engaged to him she could commit the impropriety of
publicly weeping over his departure.
It seemed to Gerald rather late in the day for him to seek an excuse to
call at the Hermitage; yet on the afternoon following Dr. Bewick's
departure he sought for one--one having reference to Estelle. He took
with him a propitiatory little volume containing translations of
well-known poems by one Amiel. Estelle was regarded as being immensely
interested in French; she daily translated themes back and forth from
her own language into that of Moliere. These singularly neat and exact
productions of Amiel's should delight--and disarm her.
Gerald did not dislike Estelle, far from it. He did justice to her as a
good, true-hearted, self-improving American. Taken by herself, he felt
for her decided regard; but taken in connection with Aurora he would
sometimes have liked delicately to lift her between finger and thumb and
drop her into a well.
When he entered the red-and-green room, the very least bit timidly, with
his book in his hand, he perceived almost at once that something unusual
was in the air, and the shades of feeling between himself and Estelle
became for the moment of no importance.
Nothing was said at first of the cause for Aurora's air of repressed
excitement, as she knit on a pink and white baby-jacket, or the cloudy
annoyance puckering Estelle's brow as she stitched on her silk tapestry.
The ladies might merely have been quarrelling, thought the visitor, and
made himself as far as he could a soothing third, chatting with Estelle
about Amiel and with Aurora about young Mrs. Sebastian, whose baby was
to rejoice in the little garment half-finished between her hands.
"Gerald," Aurora interrupted him in the middle of a sentence, letting
her hands and work drop in her lap, "something so queer and unpleasant
has happened!"
He raised both eyebrows in solicitous participation, and mutely
questioned.
"It's about Charlie Hunt. I never would have imagined--you wouldn't
either."
"My imagination, dear friend, is more far-reaching in some ways than
yours," he quickly corrected her, "and has had more practice than yours
in ways of unpleasantness. But do tell me what it is that has happened."
"Charlie Hunt! Charlie Hunt!" she repeated, like one unable to make
herself believe a thing. "Charlie Hunt to turn nasty like that from one
day to the next!"
"To turn----"
"He was here to dinner just two weeks ago and perfectly all right. We
had a nice, long chat together on the sofa. But he didn't make his
party-call quite as soon as he usually does, so when I saw him at
Brenda's wedding I thought of course he'd come up and tell me how busy
he'd been or some other taradiddle. But he didn't come near me. I was
sort of surprised,--still, there were so many people there that he knew,
and we didn't stay quite to the end, you remember. I didn't even think
enough about it to mention it to Estelle. Well, this forenoon I went to
the bank, and when I'd got my money, I happened to catch sight of
Charlie, in the side-room, you know, where his desk is. I thought I'd
like to speak to him. He's always wanted me to ask for him when I went
to the bank, and I've done it more than once, and we've had five
minutes' chat. I was just going to tease him a little bit about coming
to see me so seldom nowadays, when he used to come so often, and ask
about the lady in the case. There really is one, I guess. Italo told me.
So I asked the old boy--you know the one I mean, the old servant of the
bank, who's always there, to tell Mr. Hunt that Mrs. Hawthorne would
like to speak with him, and then I took a seat, and in a minute in came
Charlie, with just his usual look.
"Now, I want to tell you that I've never had one unpleasant word with
Charlie Hunt; I've always liked him real well. I put down my foot
against letting him run me and my house, but there never was a word said
about it. I balked, but I didn't kick. All along I've been just as nice
to him as I know how, except just one moment, when I stuck a little pin
into him the night of the _veglione_, not supposing that he'd ever
know who did it.
"Well, I was sitting there at the table with the newspapers, and he came
and stood near, without taking a chair, as if he hadn't much time to
spare. I began to talk and joke about his cutting me dead at the
wedding, and he listened and talked back in a common-enough way, only I
noticed that he once or twice called me Mrs. Barton instead of Mrs.
Hawthorne. Now I must go back and tell you that some time ago when I was
at the bank he casually asked me if I knew of any Mrs. Helen Barton in
Florence, and he showed me two letters in the same handwriting, one
addressed to the English bank, and the other to the American bank,
Florence, that had been there at Hunt & Landini's for some time, and no
one had called for and they didn't know what to do with. Now, the
instant my eye lit on those letters I knew who'd written them, what was
in them, and who they were meant for. All letters for Estelle and me,
you know, are first sent to Estelle's house in East Boston, to be
forwarded to us wherever we might be in Europe; but that letter had
escaped. That letter was from a queer kind of sour, unsuccessful woman
called Iona Allen, who boarded once at the same house with me on
Springfield Street,--the languishing kind of critter that I never could
stand, who hadn't the gumption of a half-drowned chicken, who'd never
stuck to anything or put any elbow-grease into the work on hand, and
whined all the time, and was looking out for some one to support her. I
guessed she'd heard of my money and was writing me a sweet letter of
congratulations, along with a hard-luck story. I'd have liked to get
hold of her letter, but didn't exactly see how I could. I said to
Charlie, 'Let me take it; perhaps I can find the one it's meant for
among my acquaintances.' But he didn't seem to think that could be done;
so there the matter dropped. I didn't care much. Iona Allen can look for
some one nearer home to support her.
"Well, to go back. When Charlie Hunt had called me Mrs. Barton for the
third time I realized from his way of doing it that it wasn't a slip of
the tongue, and I stopped him short and said:
"'What makes you call me Mrs. Barton all of a sudden?'"
"'It's your name, isn't it?' he said, with a queer look.
"'No,' I came right out strong and bold. And I wasn't lying either. It
isn't my name. I don't really know what my name is. It's Hawthorne as
much as it's anything. Jim changed his name half a dozen times, and the
name he married me under I found out wasn't his real name.
"Charlie Hunt stood there a moment as if thinking it over, looking at me
with the meanest grin; then he said with that hateful, sarcastic look of
a person who thinks he's being smart in getting back at you:
"'Is that as true,' he said, 'as that you never indulged in carnival
humor masked as a crow?' Then I knew he'd somehow got on to the truth
about that night at the _veglione_. But I wasn't going to give it
away.
"'You know what you're driving at better than I do,' I said. And then I
said: 'What's it all about? What's your game?' And he said, as if I'd
been a common swindler that he'd found out:
"'What's yours?'
"Then I felt myself get mad.
"'You're a mean little pest,' I said, but between my teeth, and not so
that any one but he could hear me. And 'You're an evil-minded little
scalawag,' I said. 'You certainly don't know me if you think I've done
anything in this world to be ashamed of. Go ahead,' I said; 'do what you
please. Don't for one single instant think that I'm afraid of you or
that you can do me any harm.' And I left him standing there, with his
grin, and flounced out. But what do you think of it, Gerald? Why should
Charlie Hunt behave like that to me?"
"I could judge better if I knew what you said to him at the
_veglione_."
"It wasn't very bad. It might provoke him for a minute to know that it
was I who said it, but it oughtn't to make him mad enough to bite. I
went up to him, and I said close to his ear, in my good English:
"'You amusing little match-maker,' I said, 'what do you hope to get from
your dusky friend marrying that _absard_ American? How much do you
know about her?' I said. 'Are you even sure she's as rich as she seems?'
Then he said, polite but stiff:
"'You have the advantage of me, madam, in knowing what you're talking
about. Pray go on with your tasteful pleasantries,' he said; 'I'm
thinking I've heard your voice before.' Upon which I shut my mouth and
dusted down the opera-house on Italo's arm. I was crazy that evening, I
guess, with the crowd and excitement and all. When I get to training, I
can't resist the impulse; I don't know where to stop. But that wasn't
enough to make him want to stick a knife in me, was it? It was only fun.
It was true. He had seemed to be trying to manage me so's I'd take a
fancy to Landini, and I couldn't for the life of me see what it mattered
to him."
"I tell Aurora," came in Estelle, "that a little joke like that would
rankle terribly in any but a real goodnatured man."
"My dear Aurora," said Gerald, excited and darkly flushed, "your little
joke would not have had to contain a sting nearly as sharp to rouse
against you such vanity as Hunt's, unless, let me add, there were some
counterweight of self-interest to keep him back. It is known that
Charlie has only some parts and habits of a human being, not all. One
almost, in pure justice, cannot blame him. But scorn him--oh, as for
that!... He could be with you day after day, and take all you would
give, and at the end of a year feel no tie; he could hear you slandered,
and not take your defence; he could make a joke at your expense, if one
came into his mind that he thought sufficiently witty, and never have a
sense of meanness! He would have had nothing to overcome. He would only
learn better if he perceived some loss of consideration, and consequent
advantage to himself. That would make him more cautious, but not make
him more aware. And you cannot call him wicked any more than upon any
occasion you could call him good. But he's damnable!"
Consuming anger lighted up Gerald's face, his voice trembled with
intensity of feeling, his vehemence now and then by jerks lifted his
heels off the floor. "He is not properly a man at all," he went on to
characterize his old schoolmate; "he is just an insect _en grand_.
He satisfies his instincts precisely as an insectivorous insect
does--the rest are there to furnish something to his life. Nothing else,
he knows nothing outside. Now that you have offended him he probably
won't do you any great harm. He's not a devil, and the world he lives in
does not tolerate anything very black. He'd injure himself in trying to
injure you. But he'll do you what harm he easily and safely can. He's
nothing big, he could do nothing big, he hasn't a passion in him. He's
like this: from the moment he had ceased to get any good of frequenting
your house, even if you had not done the smallest thing to vex him, he
would pass on a bit of gossip harmful to you for the simple glory of
appearing for one moment a little better informed than the rest. No more
than that. He would be capable of that; he wouldn't even have to hate
you. For Charlie Hunt, as Leslie once perspicaciously said--Charlie Hunt
has no real inside!"
Both women sat staring at Gerald, impressed by his heat. When he
stopped, they continued for a minute in blank silence, revolving his
words and readjusting their estimates, while their eyes traveled up and
down, up and down the room, drawn after his figure that wrathily paced
the floor.
"How do you suppose he found out about the black crow? For I'm perfectly
sure he didn't know me at the time," said Aurora presently.
"That might easily enough happen in some roundabout way," said Estelle,
"as long as Italo and Clotilde both knew it. They might let the cat out
of the bag without intending to. He talks so much. Never knew such a
talker. But what I want to know is how he knew your name was Barton."
"I've told you what I think. He's heard you call me Nell. Tom, too,
called me Nell. That may have given him the hint. Then he simply opened
Iona Allen's letter and read it. Something was in it, no doubt, that
enabled him to put two and two together. Perhaps the name Bewick. Iona
would have heard of that. She would write to say now I'd climbed out of
poverty and hard work she knew I wouldn't mind lending a hand to an old
friend not so fortunate. Something like that. She'd be sure to whine and
beg. And Charlie Hunt, little bunch of meanness! would imagine he could
hold over me the fact that I was poor once and what he would think low
in the scale, because he thought I'd be ashamed of it. But no such
thing. If I changed my name coming here, it wasn't on any such account
as that. I'm gladder than ever now that I told Mrs. Foss all about it. I
did, Gerald, quite soon after we first came, and she said, though it was
in a way a mistake, she didn't see any real harm in it. As long as I'd
begun that way, she said, better not make a sensation by changing back
or saying anything about it. She thought my reasons were very natural.
It wasn't as if I were misleading anybody, or anybody were losing money
by me. I'd have told you too, Gerald, in a minute, as far as wanting
just to conceal anything goes. But Gerald and I"--she seemed to place
the matter before an invisible judge and jury--"never talk together of
ugly things, do we, Gerald? He's more delicate-minded by a good deal
than I am. With him particularly, though we've been such intimate
friends, I shrank from it. There's not much poetry about me, I know
that, but there'd be even less if I had to have it known all I've been
through. And since the first of our association we've always lived in a
sweet sort of world, haven't we, Gerald? I'd be ready, just the same, to
tell you the whole story any moment you wanted to hear...."
At Gerald's swift instinctive gesture, she went on without further
considering the proposition she had made. "As I said before, I don't
know what my own real front-door name is. I was born Goodwin. I married
Barton, but Barton wasn't Jim's real name. Aurora Hawthorne is what I
called myself when we were young ones and played ladies, Hat and I. I
came over here to cut loose from all the bothers that had made the last
year in Denver a nightmare. I didn't want to be connected with that
dirty mess any more in anybody's mind or my own. I wanted it to be like
taking a bath and starting new, feeling clean. Then, if I was Aurora
Hawthorne, Hattie had to be Estelle Madison, which was her name in our
old play-days. Neither of us thought of anything when we planned it but
its being a grand lark. And at first, in hotels, what did it matter? But
since we've been here and had friends, we've felt sorry more than once,
because it seemed like telling a lie. And then we were afraid of things
that might come up--just like this that has, in fact. But there wasn't
anything to do about it. Because if we confessed now most anybody would
think our reason for changing names must have been something
disgraceful, just as it happens if a person who kills another by
accident goes and hides the corpse, everybody takes it for granted it
was murder. So, if Charlie Hunt tells--"
"I'm not nearly as much afraid of his telling that you are here under an
assumed name," said Estelle, "as that you were the black crow, and it
getting to the ears of Antonia and Co."
"Well, what could they do?"
"Spoil Florence for us pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid, Nell."
"Oh, nonsense!" cried Aurora, but after a moment added in a tone of
lessened assurance, "Bother!" and after another moment burst forth, with
one hand clapped to her curly front hair: "To think that Tom was here
yesterday, and this had to happen to-day, when he's half-way to Paris! I
wish he hadn't gone. I wish I had him here to back me up."
"Why don't you telegraph for him?" suggested Estelle, eagerly.
"Oh, no, I wouldn't do that,"--Aurora's vehemence subsided,--"it's not
important enough for that."
"My dear Aurora," said Gerald, stopping in front of her, his whole
person expressing hurt and remonstrance little short of indignation, "if
your wishing for Doctor Bewick signifies that you do not feel you have
friends near you on whose attachment you can count, surely you do wrong
to some of us!"
Though his tone scolded Aurora sharply for her lack of faith, Estelle's
ear caught a trembling edge to his voice expressive of deep feeling.
Estelle had the good sense to see that Gerald must inevitably desire to
make more exposition of his allegiance, and the good feeling to know
that this could be done better if she were not present. Gerald, with his
little peace-offering, was at the moment in favor with Estelle. His
explicitness, his righteous violence, his entire adequacy on the subject
of Charlie Hunt, had charmed her. She also wanted Aurora to have any
comfort the hour might afford. She on the spot feigned to understand
Busteretto's pawing of her dress as an expression of desire to go into
the garden and see the little sparrows. She swept him up from the floor
with one hand and, tucking him under her arm, slipped out of the room.
Gerald stood grasping his elbows. He had a look like that of some man,
known so far as a harmless retiring burgher, about to make a public
confession which will change all, bringing his head perhaps to the
block; or the look of a man on the verge of a precipice, still half
resisting the desire to jump, yet knowing that he will jump, nothing can
save him from it; the look of a man, in fine, pregnant with intention,
but walking in a dream.
There was silence for a minute after Estelle left the room. Then Gerald
said very stiffly, very formally:
"If you would do me the honor, dearest Aurora, the very great honor, of
consenting to take my name, the right I should have to defend you would
be--would be--part of my great happiness."
Aurora stared at him. Beneath the frank investigation of her eyes his
own dropped in modesty and insuperable embarrassment.
There was another silence before he added:
"I would try very much to make you happy."
Aurora repressed the first words that came to her lips,--and set aside
the next ones that rose in her mind to say. Silence again reigned for a
moment. Then, with the serious face, almost invisibly rippling, that
betokened in her a secret and successful fight against laughter, she
said in what she called her good English, faintly reminiscent of
Antonia's:
"I am aware, my dear Gerald, of the honor, the very great honor, you do
me. I thank you--for coming up to the scratch like a little man. But the
feeling I have that I could never be _warthy_ of so much honor
deceydes me to declane. Gerald," she went on, discarding her English,
"don't say another word! You dear, dear boy! The things you want to
defend me against don't amount to a row of pins when all I've got to do
if it comes to the pinch is pack my grip and clear out. Thank you all
the same, you pet, for your kindness. Don't think of it again. I am sort
of glad, though, you've got that proposal out of your system. Now we can
go back to a sensible life."