THE FIRST CLOUD.
Dr. Delano, on taking his bride home, was somewhat surprised that Ella
had left—accepted suddenly an invitation to spend the winter in
Maryland, among some old friends of the family. Clara was hurt by this
evident desire to avoid Albert’s wife, but his vanity was secretly well
satisfied by the act. Ella could not stay and witness a happiness that
should have been hers. He excused her going, therefore, with a good
grace, and made Clara do so also, though the effort revealed a flaw in
the diamond, a touch of vanity she had not dreamed could exist in her
idol.
Mr. Delano received his daughter-in-law with a quiet, courteous
pleasure, that was evidently felt. Miss Charlotte’s manner was stately,
and just what it should be according to etiquette, though a good deal
out of harmony with Clara’s exalted happiness, which made her a little
impatient to see people so calm and self-possessed.
Mr. Delano, after his illness, yielded to the advice of friends and
retired from business. It had proved a very unwise step. He had given
all the best years of his life to acquiring wealth—in fact, to preparing
for the enjoyment of life; and lo! when the wealth was gained, the
enjoyment he had promised himself fled before him like the horizon
“whose margin fades forever and forever” as we move. He had been rich
enough all his life had he only known it, and the increase of luxurious
surroundings in his stately residence on Beacon street were no more than
Dead Sea apples in his mouth. During his active business life he had
constantly purchased books and extended his library. These also he was
to enjoy by-and-by, when he got leisure to read anything beyond the
daily papers. He had not counted the fact that there are many things
wealth cannot purchase, and among them is the capacity for ease.
On the wide and elegant balcony upon which his library opened,
commanding a view of a beautiful garden at the rear of the mansion,
there had been swung an elegant Mexican grass hammock for Mr. Delano’s
special ease when reading. The house was on a corner lot, and the
balcony was protected from the gaze of passers on the side street by
screens of fawn-colored gauze. The old gentleman often took a book and
lay down in his luxurious hammock, to see if he could not accustom
himself to enjoyment, but he never succeeded. His brain was a vast
cotton mart and exchange in full blast, and he longed every day to go
back to that business which he had spent his life preparing to escape.
The old adage that “habit is second nature” is a very true one, and was
illustrated perfectly in the case of Mr. Delano. His nature had come to
relish nothing in the world so much as the cares, schemes,
responsibilities, and the general excitement incident to money-making by
speculation. It had all the charm of gambling, without the moral obloquy
attached to it; though, to be sure, certain “crazy radicals” call it all
gambling, and to them, one appears as immoral as the other. It is
certain that any old gambler at _rouge et noir_, in Mr. Delano’s
situation, would have found the days drag on just in the same weary way.
The evenings, which Mr. Delano used to enjoy as a relaxation from
business, were now more wearisome than the days, and the coming of his
son and daughter-in-law was the signal for throwing the house open for
the reception of people that he dreaded. During these receptions he
moved uneasily through the drawing-rooms, principally occupied in
avoiding stepping on the trains of the ladies, and never knowing what to
say to their stereotyped, “How exceedingly well you are looking, Mr.
Delano.” The only compensation was to get some old broker or stock
gambler, who was bored to death like himself, into a corner, and talk of
“the trifling of adults,” which, according to St. Augustine, “is called
business.”
During the winter after Clara’s marriage, she saw a great deal of
Boston’s choice society, and to please Albert, who was very proud of
her, she accepted many an invitation when she would have enjoyed herself
much more alone with him, or, in his absence, a quiet hour with the old
gentleman, reading to him or talking, as his mood directed. As time
passed, Albert was less and less at home evenings, and seemed to find
attractions at his club, which secretly troubled Clara, but she uttered
no word of complaint, and only sought to make up for those attractions,
as best she could, when he spent his evenings at home.
In March, Ella came home. She was full of her pretty ways, and delighted
Albert by her multiform flattering attentions to Clara. “I was
afraid—you can’t tell how afraid I was—that you would never forgive me
for running off like a _sauvage_; but you have, have you not? I have
heard so much of your goodness from Albert. When he came home last
November he could talk of nothing but you—your grace, your beauty,
generosity, accomplishments. I declare I was quite bewildered. Will you
forgive me if I say I did not believe quite all he said? But I do now. I
believe every word since I have seen you.” Clara had her doubts about
the sincerity of Ella, but she would give no expression to them for fear
of being unjust; and as Miss Delano had never attracted her
especially—indeed, had never shown any tendency to real intimacy, though
she was polite and graciously kind—it was rather pleasant, therefore, to
Clara, who had been nearly frozen by a winter of Boston society, to be
thawed into spontaneous gayety, even by a gushing, superficial creature
like Ella. It was the first time since Clara’s school days that she had
given herself up to pure nonsense—to volumes of talk without meaning—and
it pleased at first simply by its novelty; and besides this, nothing
delighted Albert so much as the good understanding between his wife and
Ella. He encouraged every sign of intimacy between them, and this of
itself was motive strong enough to induce Clara to be exceedingly
gracious to his old friend. To please Albert in all ways constituted the
joy of her life, though the halo investing him was dimmed slightly, from
time to time, as she discovered little traces of ill-temper and
impatience at the smallest and most insignificant disappointments. Once,
for example, not long after Ella’s return, he complained of the coffee
at breakfast, saying pettishly, “I don’t see how any cook, with good
coffee and boiling water, can manage to make such a flavorless mess as
this!”
“It is one of your articles of faith, you know,” said Miss Charlotte,
“that a perfect cup of coffee is not possible on the Western Continent.”
Albert made no reply, which Clara noted as a signal manifestation of
self-control, for this was not certainly “pouring oil upon the troubled
waters.” In Paris, Albert had greatly appreciated the excellent quality
of the coffee, and had brought home with him a French _cafétière_, which
ever after appeared on the Delano breakfast-table.
“Why, my son,” said Mr. Delano, “I consider this coffee very good;” and
he sipped his with gusto.
“But it is not perfect; and there is no excuse for it, that I can see.
However, the toast is so infinitely worse, that I suppose the coffee
ought to escape comment.” Ella had the bad taste to laugh.
Miss Delano replied satirically, and in the same breath asked for more
toast.
“I should like to find one woman,” said Albert, “who could hear the
least criticism on any housekeeping detail without immediately taking it
as a personal matter. You did not make the toast, Charlotte, and why try
to make it out good when it is not, and force yourself to eat more than
you want, by way of argument? You must know that it is made of stale
bread.”
“I was not aware that toast is usually made of fresh bread,” said Miss
Charlotte.
“As a chemist, I can assure you that it makes the best, though stale
bread will do; but it does not follow that the older it is, the better.
If it did, then the loaves lately excavated at Pompeii would be just the
thing.”
“I think a chemist at the breakfast-table,” rejoined Miss Delano, “is
about as comfortable as the _memento mori_ of the ancients.”
“The Pompeian loaves,” said Clara, anxious to avoid any more unpleasant
words between Albert and Charlotte, “having been toasted to a cinder,
some two thousand years ago, would make a sorry toast, even if stale
bread is better than fresh.”
“So you find a flaw in my logic, do you? I forgot the original toasting.
It takes a woman to keep hold of all the intricate threads of the
logical web.” Clara looked at Albert, to satisfy herself that he was not
laughing at her, or at women in general, which was much the same thing
in effect.
“I always wanted to study logic, but I suppose I could not understand
it. I am a little ignoramus,” said Ella, with a pretty _moue_.
“I am sure you could learn logic or anything else,” said Albert, looking
very sweetly upon Ella. “If you could not, so much the worse for logic;”
and for the rest of the breakfast Albert devoted himself to conversation
with Ella. He seemed to be charmed with every insignificant thing she
said—laughed at jokes which were certainly totally innocent of any
spirit of wit. This did not escape Clara, and after the family rose from
the breakfast-table, she followed Mr. Delano to his private library,
where her presence was always a delight.
That afternoon Albert returned earlier than usual. Ella’s bright eyes
beamed upon him as he opened the hall door with the latch-key. She held
out both her hands to him. He pressed them gently, and as he released
them, asked where Clara was. He was thinking how gratifying it was to
have his coming always anticipated with pleasure. It flattered him that
Ella was always so glad to meet him; it was such a contrast to the old
times, when he hung upon every word and motion of hers. He remembered
her indifference to him then; and comparing it with her present
behavior, he could come to but one conclusion; and in that conclusion
there lay hidden a sense of triumph.
When he asked for Clara, Ella’s eyes fell with such a pretty gesture of
despair, that he regretted his question. Quickly regaining a pretended
lost self-possession, she replied, “She is in Mr. Delano’s library. She
reads there almost every day, and has for ever so long. I can hardly get
a sight of her.”
Albert knew that Clara liked to sit with his father, and that her
presence cheered and delighted him; and for this he was glad; but he did
not like her to neglect him, her husband, and on this special day too,
when he had left the house without bidding her good-bye. Clearly, she
was very remiss in not being in the parlor waiting for him, after he had
treated her to so much indifference! That is masculine logic. No?
Albert hung up his hat and light overcoat in the hall, and went with
Ella into the sitting-room, and begged her to excuse him for lying down
on the lounge, as he was tired and had a slight headache.
“I am so sorry! Can I not cure your head?” and sitting down beside him,
she laid her hand on his forehead, and passed her fingers through his
hair for some minutes. During the process Miss Charlotte entered
noiselessly. Ella started violently. “Don’t stop!” he said, aloud. “You
do my head good!” Miss Charlotte left the room.
“Why did you start so, Ella? I was surprised. It was bad, too, for
Charlotte is the first of prudes.”
“Oh, she will think me awful! I will go now; there is a step on the
stairs.”
“Sit still!” he said very positively, but in a low tone. “I hope it is
Clara. No, it is not,” he said, after a moment’s listening. “Well, go if
you must, and tell Clara that I am here; but I must pay this pretty hand
for charming away my headache;” and saying this, he opened it with both
hands, and placing its rosy palm upon his lips, he held it there for
some seconds with his eyes closed. Ella drew it away gently, and left
the room. He lay there still, with his eyes closed, enjoying sensuously
the magnetic thrill that Ella’s touch awakened, and wondering if, after
all, this were not the woman whom he should have married. It was a
dangerous speculation, as his own thought admitted; and then he thought
of Clara’s tender trust in him, and reproached himself as if he had been
guilty of betraying it. When he opened his eyes Clara stood beside him,
her eyes full of gentle concern.
“Why did you not come to me or send for me at once, Albert?” she asked
reproachfully. “I have just met Ella, who says she has been trying to
soothe your head. She looked flushed. Oh, Albert! can any one take the
place of Clara when you are ill?”
“No, dear one. How absurd.”
“Why did she look so flushed? What had you been saying to her? Forgive
me. I should not catechise you in this way.” Upon this, Albert rose and
took her very tenderly in his arms.
“What would become of me, dearest, if I should lose you?” she said,
raising her head from his shoulder and looking into his eyes almost
wildly.
“My child, what a question!”
“But answer me, Albert,” she said imperatively.
“I hope you would be sensible enough to forget that you ever cared for
one so unworthy of you,” he replied.
“Sweet words! Do you know, Albert, I could never be jealous of you?”
“Are you sure? They say if you can love you can be jealous,” he said,
bending his head on one side and searching her eyes.
“I am sure. Jealousy implies anger with the loved one, or hatred of the
rival. I could never feel either. I could only suffer;” and with a deep,
long sigh, she laid her head back upon his shoulder. Presently raising
it, she continued, “You said you learned abroad the meaning of the term
‘illusions,’ as applied to love. Except you, my father is the only
person whom I ever heard use it in the same sense. There is no word that
can supply its place. It implies the distinction between the love of
lovers and all other kinds of love, and more than that, it implies all
that is divine in loving. I think it hard to preserve these precious
illusions, but without them love would have no charm for me. I should
become a wretched wife.”
“But we will not lose our illusions, precious. What should come between
us? Are we not irrevocably bound to each other by the very act of
marriage?”
“No,” Clara said decidedly and with emotion. “We are only bound by those
very illusions. The divine spirit of Love makes and justifies marriage.
The body is nothing to me, when the soul is gone. You are a very elegant
man, Albert—elegant and beautiful in all eyes, but in mine you are
beauty and strength and tenderness in one. You are everything to me; but
your dear eyes, your lips, your eloquent tongue, would lose all their
charm, with the loss of the soul of all.”
“Why, child, you are trembling like a leaf. Are you quite well?”
“Albert, why did she look flushed?” and she looked appealingly,
searchingly into his eyes.
“I—I believe you are jealous after all,” he said.
Clara turned slowly and left the room without a word.
“Jealous, by Jove!” he said to himself when she was gone, and the idea
flattered his vanity as it would that of the commonest soul. Clara had
told him she could not be jealous, as the word is generally understood.
That she could only suffer; but the words meant little to him. She had
spoken the exact truth. In her venture, she had staked everything, and
believed, as all women do under the same circumstances, that
notwithstanding the coldness and indifference of married people, visible
everywhere to the most superficial observer, that it was the result of a
lack of wisdom—that love in all its divine freshness, could be
preserved. Albert had held the same opinion, and had often said the
danger lay in the first withholding of perfect trust. “Love should be
cultivated like the most tender plant,” he had said.
He mused over the matter for a half hour, and then went to Clara’s room,
where he found her, not “drowned in tears,” as he had anticipated, but
very calmly dressing for dinner.
“I was afraid my Clara was going to be silly,” he said, smoothing her
fine hair the wrong way, as men will, for it was rolled back at the
sides over a heavy twist, and, of course, his caresses endangered the
elegant finish of her coiffure, which had cost Clara more effort than he
knew.
“Smooth my hair back, dear,” she said. “Don’t you see the way it is
brushed?” and taking his fine hand, she passed it over her hair in the
right way.
“You mean I had better keep my hands away. Don’t you?” he asked,
pleasantly.
“No, no; only that you should not endanger the structure, or I shall
have it to do over again. You may pull my curls, baby. You can’t hurt
them.”
“Don’t call me baby. You know I hate it.”
“Excuse me. I am sorry you dislike it. There is no pet word that seems
so tender to me. I wonder what possible word could offend me, if you
found it a real medium of fondness?”
“Suppose I should call you ducky?”
“That sounds common and trivial; but if it served to express the
tenderness that the word ‘baby’ does to me, I should soon find it
adorable. Albert,” she said, after a pause, and with great enthusiasm,
twining her bare arms about his neck, “Clara loves you as you have never
dreamed of loving. Her love is greater than you need—greater than you
can possibly respond to—and one day you will find it a millstone around
your neck!”
“Well, that is pleasant. How long since you arrived at that astute
conclusion?” he asked, laughing, as if greatly amused. “I thought my
love satisfied you.”
“Do not speak in that tone. Do not make me regret wearing my heart upon
my sleeve. Your love satisfied me when I had not understood the depth of
my own; now, when a crisis comes, and you see me shaken like a reed, you
do not answer seriousness with seriousness, intensity with intensity.
You call me jealous, and treat me like a pretty butterfly woman, who
must be managed by her husband.”
“A crisis! I like that. You find me alone a moment with an old friend,
who happens to be a charming woman, and you call it a crisis!”
“I think a physician should reason more nicely than that; he should look
at effects. Was the princess in the story, who was made all black and
blue by sleeping on a crumpled rose-leaf, any the less black and blue
because it _was_ a rose-petal, and not a brush-heap?”
“There are some princesses who are morbidly sensitive. I would have them
harden their _epidermes_ a little.”
“I understand,” Clara said, deeply hurt, but controlling her emotion
through a sense of pride never before experienced in Albert’s presence,
for she had been as frank and trusting as a little child, not dreaming
that he could ever fail her in sympathy. “Perhaps,” she added, forcing
herself to smile, “I shall think best to commence the hardening process.
Go now, or I shall keep the dinner waiting.” Then followed a wealth of
cheap endearments and caresses on Albert’s part, which Clara responded
to mechanically. She was positively relieved when he was gone. She knew
well she had not exaggerated the importance of this first jar in the
harmony of her life with Albert, but just now there was no time to
think—no time to give way to tears that would have been a relief. She
bit her lips to bring the color into them, and felt, as she took her
seat at the table, that she bore well the scrutiny of Albert’s and
Ella’s eyes. Miss Delano was very grave, and rather more attentive to
Clara than usual.
Ella felt certain that there had been a “scene,” as she would have
called it, between Clara and Albert. She had betrayed her confusion to
Clara an hour ago on leaving him; but here was Clara all smiles and
self-possession. “Evidently she thinks me too insignificant to ruffle
the current of her bliss,” was Ella’s thought, and had been for some
time. It piqued her as it would any flirt; and the devil had possessed
her from the first to try if her old influence upon Albert was entirely
lost. This was the secret of her going from home when the happy couple
were to arrive. “Let him have enough of his village beauty,” she had
said. “By the time the spring comes he will find her society rather
tame.” To do Ella justice, she had not intended to create any serious
disturbance between Albert and his wife, though she could not forgive
him for marrying any one until he had made certain that his old love was
forever beyond his reach, and there was a secret spite in her heart when
she found the “village beauty” superior in culture and manners, as well
as in personal charms, to most of the women she had met. It was a
dangerous experiment, as it proved, her effort to discover the state of
Albert’s feeling towards her, for she had found herself thinking and
dreaming of him constantly, while he seemed still wholly absorbed with
his devotion to Clara. That day, however, had brought a little triumph
to the flirt.
Any disinterested observer would have pronounced the family dinner-party
a very happy one, and much interested in the various topics that were
discussed. How much we talk of candor and frankness, as if any one of us
ever admitted either, among the virtues of society. The frankness that
passes current as such, is but a base counterfeit, as any one may find
by circulating an infinitesimal quantity of the genuine metal. He will
be set down instantly as an uncomfortable Marplot. Little children alone
exemplify real candor, and how we adore it in them! But it doesn’t do
for grown people, any more than the religion of Christ, as taught by him
and his Apostles, will do, according to Mrs. Kendrick, for the
exigencies of modern times. There was Miss Delano presiding at the table
with suave good-breeding, while under the smile with which she served
the dessert to Ella, there lurked a deep contempt of that young lady’s
“ways” with Albert; Clara, apparently without a care and conversing
easily upon various subjects, was in fact suffering and longing to get
away; Albert’s light laugh and animated chit-chat, mostly with Ella,
concealed a dismal dissatisfaction with fate, that had made him appear
something less than absolute perfection in his wife’s eyes; Ella
appeared as gay as a bird and as transparent as crystal, yet she would
have cut off her little finger sooner than have her real thoughts and
feelings engrafted on the consciousness of those present. Mr. Delano,
indeed, had not much feeling of any kind except that of general
weariness, which he carefully concealed, and so was in some degree
masked like the rest.
After dinner Albert played backgammon with Ella, who affected to be very
fond of the game. Clara knew well that it was an affectation, for
whenever Mr. Delano proposed playing, Ella was very slow to respond. To
the old gentleman, this game was almost his only evening amusement, and
though Clara disliked it, she often played out of pure kindness to him.
Clara was by no means displeased that her husband’s society was
agreeable to Ella. It was natural and right; but this special evening
she would have been flattered by some devotion of Albert’s time to
herself. She was all gentleness and kindness, and feared, above all
things, being unjust or seemingly selfish, through her exceeding
fondness for her husband. “He will not play long,” she said to herself,
and sat down by Miss Charlotte with her sewing. When the game or games
were finished, Albert left the house, saying only that he was to meet
some board of medical men. Clara’s heart sank. She looked at him, and
his eyes met hers with the most ordinary indifferent smile, such as he
might bestow upon his father or Charlotte. She went to her rooms earlier
than usual, and sat for a long time musing before the fire of their
pleasant, private sitting-room. The reflection would come that, since
Ella’s return, Albert had cared less and less for that room. Until very
lately, he had always sought it immediately after dinner, whether Clara
was there or not, knowing well she would not wait long before seeking
him there. As she recalled every incident of the past month, little
events that had meant nothing at the time, were full of significance,
and her heart cried out in anguish with the fear that Albert was
changing. When he had left her before dinner, she had suffered a moment
of intense pain. He had not seemed to understand her, and for the first
time she felt that something had gone out of her life; and now, as she
sat waiting for him, she almost dreaded his coming. She did not wish to
conceal any little heart-ache from Albert: it was torture to think it
necessary. Why could he not soothe it away? Why should it not seem
important to him, whatever its cause? Was she indeed too sensitive? Yet
he had adored her for that very sensitiveness! She repeated his words
“morbidly sensitive,” and out of the fear to do injustice to him, tried
to believe that she was suffering some indisposition—that she was
nervous, and had exaggerated a very slight misunderstanding. Clearly she
_was_ nervous, and ought not to meet Albert until sleep and rest had
restored her. “I should not see him in this mood,” she said to herself,
as she entered her bedroom. “Oh, if I might have one right the Turkish
woman has!—if I might put my slippers outside my door, with the
certainty that it would protect me from all intrusion, even from that of
my husband!”