THEY HAVE IT OUT.
The next three or four days produced nothing remarkable. Margaret
remained in close attendance on her mother, who did her best to make
her feel like a naughty child. Her only solace was Rose's sympathy;
but notwithstanding it, she felt at times most dreadfully wicked, and
always depressed and contrite. Only the thought of Walter's loneliness
at Lippenstock kept her true; and she did contrive to send him little
notes, and to receive through Rosa notes in return, notwithstanding
the sharp eye which her mother kept upon her movements.
Rose herself continued feverish and uncertain enough to occasion
surprise to all her friends. She, so light-hearted and brave, so
bright and clever--that she should appear in the character of
tremulous and wistful maid, on the fulfilment of what had seemed her
dearest wish! She was as kind and intimate with Joseph as ever; and he
told himself that he had nothing to complain of, that he must remember
their difference in age, and that with time they would grow nearer to
one another. But still he felt a barrier between them--a reserve which
all his ardour failed to surmount--an unresponsive silence when his
raptures strove to fit themselves to words, which chilled him in spite
of his assurances to himself that all was well. In desultory
conversation she would be as bright as ever; but as he strove to lead
up to converse more close, he found himself checked he knew not how;
for she did not repulse, she only failed to respond. Her favourite
topic to converse on was Margaret's attachment: on that she would warm
even to enthusiasm, and run on at any length, till he almost felt it
in his heart to grow jealous of his favourite niece.
Lettice Deane was the only one who had a clue to Rose's strangeness.
She felt sorry for her and greatly surprised, blaming Roe,
notwithstanding her declaration that he was nothing to her; and vowed
that his conduct in hanging on at the Beach, was ungentlemanlike, and
altogether abominable.
Roe himself seemed as feverish and ill at ease as the lady. He took
little interest in the society of the other men, and seemed to submit
to the company of Maida rather than court it. Maida felt that he was
growing moody on her hands, and that their intimacy was not
progressing. "Yet why did he stay on?" she asked herself. "There was
no one else in the house for whom he seemed to care." She must learn
to be more devoted and winning, she thought, and get over this
constraint on his part, which she felt was growing up between them;
but she did not see very clearly how she was to set about it. He
detested forward women and bold women--he often said so--and was
severely critical when they sat together on the galleries looking down
on the young people upon the sands, who, after the manner of their
kind, had a way of assorting themselves in couples as they took their
evening strolls.
It was arranged that on a certain day there should be a "clam-bake" on
the sands at Blue Fish Creek. It was to be an affair on a gigantic
scale. The keepers of half-a-dozen establishments along the coast had
got it up. Bushels innumerable of clams were to be roasted around a
huge bonfire; an ox was to be roasted whole; and the seaside visitors,
cloyed with innkeepers' fare and indoor luxury, were for once to dine
uncomfortably on the sands, upon slices of half-raw beef and platefuls
of scorched shell-fish. As a slice of lemon gives savour to insipid
veal, so a rough and indigestible banquet in the open air revives a
relish in jaded guests for the daily superfluity of everything, which
hotel dinners provide. There was to be a dance in the town hall
afterwards, and the company would drive home in the dark. All Clam
Beach was to go, as a matter of course; even the valetudinarian Mrs
Naylor resolved to venture. Margaret took care that Walter should
know, and--for why indulge in useless mystery?--they were to make
their push for freedom on that return journey.
The affair came off as designed. The weather was propitious, the
guests hungry, in high spirits, and more numerous even than had been
expected. They seated themselves in parties on the sands. The Naylors
and Deanes naturally sat together, along with the Pettys and
Wilkies--Ann Petty beside Peter Wilkie, and Walter Petty next
Margaret; Ann feeling a little ashamed and altogether proud, at
having, as she thought, taken away the other's young man; while
Walter, poor lad, confronted Peter in triumph. His fortunes, he felt,
were mending. The two mothers cast glances of wrathful scorn at each
other between the legs of the black waiters running assiduously round
within the ring. It was the only amusement open to them at their time
of life, in the intervals between plying knife and fork.
Margaret, looking over the people's heads, descried far away the manly
form she most desired to see. Her plot was going to work, but
meanwhile she must take care to lull suspicion in her mother's mind.
The way to do that was being civil to her companion. She exerted
herself and made the poor lad really happy--feeling ashamed and
burdened the while, at her appalling treachery, and really sorry for
the young fellow, who was so kind and nice, and who admired her so
openly.
At length the repast was ended. Everybody had eaten as many clams as
seemed expedient. The company rose up and sauntered away, leaving the
waiters free to clear off the relics of the feast. Joseph took Rose's
arm and drifted apart from the rest as quietly as he could contrive.
It was not to eat shell-fish in public that he had consented to dine
uncomfortably on a sandheap. Rose would have been content to be less
exclusively private, and looked round to see if she could not beckon
Margaret to join them; but Margaret, between Walter Petty and her
mother, was walking another way, so she accepted the inevitable with a
good grace, and strove to interest herself in her companion. A few
wind-bent trees maintained a struggling existence not far off upon a
slope of sun-parched turf coming down upon the shore, with morsels of
grateful shade; and thither they bent their steps.
"I am glad _that_ part of the enjoyment is through," Joseph was
saying. "It gives one cramps all over, that sitting on the ground all
crumpled up, and eating things. But apparently there must be eating,
if it is a party of pleasure."
"Please, sir, there is a parcel for you at the kitchen tent--sent on
as you ordered. The man says you must sign a receipt." It was a waiter
who spoke, puffing and fanning his shining black face, and grinning
with all his teeth, while he held his hand convenient for the expected
tip.
"Ha! Come, has it?" and Joseph smiled in return, slipping the dollars
in the ready palm, and dismissing the messenger well pleased.
"Let me settle you comfortably beneath yon tree, dearest; and then
will you excuse me till I run after the fellow? I shall not be a
minute gone. You will wait for me there, will you not?"
"Go back at once; I can do that much for myself, and will wait there
as you say."
And so they parted, Joseph making all haste in one direction, while
Rose walked leisurely forward in the other. She had almost reached the
trees, her sunshade open before her, her eyes upon the sand.
"At last!" and a figure stood between her and the light. "I have been
waiting, Rose, for a chance like this."
Rose started at the voice. A thrill ran through her, and the sunshade
fell aside, as though the arm which held it were benumbed. Immediately
in front of her stood Gilbert Roe. The flaming red and white chased
one another across her face, but her eye looked steadily in his.
"Sir!" she cried, with indignant emphasis; but she said no more, her
lips closed tightly, and her eyebrows straightened in a frown.
"They tell me you are going to be married, Rose? You must hear me this
once. I am resolved to have it out with you."
She threw back her head, and her nostrils quivered in pride. The angry
blood suffused her temples now; there was no paleness and no sign of
fear. "Allow me to pass," she answered, haughtily.
"Not till you hear me, Rose. I mean to save you from yourself."
"What right have you to interfere with me?"
"The strongest; the right of one who loves you."
"You have _no_ right! The law denies it. It gives me freedom. You
shall not interfere."
"Calm yourself, Rose. I cannot live without you. And more, you never
will be happy but with me."
"Bah! you are too long of finding it out. I am free, and I shall keep
my liberty as far as you are concerned. I have tried you, and know you
to my cost. It is over now. The law has cried quits between us."
"It cannot, Rose! Think of the old time in Canada!--the evenings when
we sang together, and talked in the porch--the walks between the
corn-fields--the afternoons in the orchard--and the promises we made.
Can you ever forget them?"
"How dare you remind me of them? Have you no decent shame? You might
wish the ground to open and let you through, rather than hear those
old days named, and be reminded how you have outraged a trusting
girl!"
"I have been true to my vows, Rose. I make no merit of it; I could not
have been otherwise. It was my glory and delight to fulfil them."
"And you did it admirably! certainly. It was in fulfilment of them, I
suppose, that you made fierce love to that silly Horatia Simpkins,
under my very nose, and before the eyes of her own husband? If it had
even been a handsome woman, or one not absolutely a fool, the slight
might have been less unpardonable. But with her!"
"What else could I have done?--the way you went on with her
husband--that conceited ass Rupert. Would you have had me stand by,
like a gawk, with my thumb in my mouth, assenting to your outrageous
flirtation, which nearly drove his poor little silly wife out of her
wits with jealousy? She is not as clever, perhaps, as you are, but at
least she is fond of her husband!"
Rose coughed impatiently and stamped her foot. The adversary must be
admitted to have scored one by that thrust.
"Is a woman to give up the amusements of social life--the little
conventional pleasantnesses of society--because she happens to have
lent a too trusting ear, and yielded to the man who wanted to marry
her? Does she grow plain and old and stupid from the day she becomes a
wife? Is she no more to find pleasure in being liked and admired? Life
is not over when she comes back from church: she is still as human as
she was before--wants a little of the diversions she has learnt to
like, and needs a continuance of the devotion her suitor taught her
to expect. You are hideously jealous, Gilbert. You should have been
born a Turk, with a harem built out in the back-yard, beside the
chicken-house, to lock up your wife in."
It was the first time she had used his name. Gilbert noted it and took
courage.
"You know you wanted me to be jealous when you took up with that
ninny--and you wanted to tease his wife. You succeeded. She thought
you had stolen her husband's affection--or what represents it, in
him--and she was not going to submit quietly to the robbery. She
thought to make reprisals, and so laid siege to your husband in
return. I am not sure but she got the revenge she wanted. You cannot
deny that you were absurdly jealous."
"Absurdly? Yes; laugh at me! I deserve it for allowing you to address
me. You consider me a fool. You have said as much before, and you said
other things as well, which were even worse. You insulted me with
suspicion, and used expressions as if I were improper. You know you
did! Bertie Roe!... You never loved me really, I do believe--not as
you made me expect you would--not as a girl should be loved, who gives
up her life and everything to be married to a man. You behaved like a
barbarian! Deny it if you dare!"
"I do deny it, Rose. Could I stand by and see you play the fool with a
contemptible duffer, before the eyes of all Chicago?--see people in
ball-rooms and theatres follow you with their eyes, nudge each other,
and exchange glances, and shrug, as if to say, 'another young wife
taking the turn downhill'?"
"You are insulting!--but I might have expected it. 'Cruelty and
desertion' were the words in the decree."
"I dare you to lay your hand upon your heart and say that I was cruel.
I merely remonstrated--and then you scolded.... You know you did,
Rose. You made home unbearable. I had to leave the house."
"You outraged my feelings. Was I to accept your insinuations of
improper conduct as a polite compliment, or an everyday commonplace of
domestic conversation?... You did not strike me, I admit--the man in
you would restrain you from that; but you did worse!--the things you
said."
"Could I see people taking away your character by a shrug without
giving you warning? Could I tell you about it, as something amusing
and to your credit?"
"It was yourself who goaded me on to do whatever I did. And then to
insult and desert me!"
"I did not desert you. I merely took rooms down town, leaving you in
sole possession of the house until you should come to your senses....
You did not believe that I had deserted you; but you wanted to make me
beg pardon and come back as if I had been to blame."
"And so you _were_ to blame! The Court has decided that, and granted
me my divorce."
"And has your divorce, then, made you happy? Would you have filed your
petition, if you had expected to have it granted? You thought I would
have come and prayed you to withdraw it. I let you take your course.
Was I wrong?"
"You knew you had no defence--had no case to plead--that I was right.
You let judgment go by default."
"Did you imagine that I would plead?--have all our little
altercations, which would have sounded so pitiful in Court, raked out
and exposed before a crew of newspaper reporters, to be read and
chuckled over by the people going home in the tram-cars? Did you
imagine that I would attempt to keep you bound, if you wanted to break
loose from the marriage tie? I would not have you, if I could, against
your will."
"You are very magnanimous, and I--of course I am the
opposite--everything bad, and frivolous, and foolish. I wonder you
should have troubled yourself to address against her will so poor a
creature."
"I have been waiting here all these days, Rose, in hopes of getting
speech of you. You are not bad, or frivolous, or foolish. You are the
only woman I have ever cared for, or ever shall. We have been--not
very wise, shall I call it?--headstrong and obstinate, and neither
would give in; and both, if I may venture to say it, have been
miserable in consequence. Forget and forgive, Rose. Let's try again,
begin the game anew, and profit by sad experience. It is for that I
have been waiting here--to prevent this marriage of yours, if the
people say true, which will make both you and me miserable for ever."
"You are kind; but do you not exaggerate? My marriage at least will
not leave you inconsolable. You have secured the consoler already.
I wish you joy of her. May she make you as happy as you deserve,
and----" But here, to her own astonishment--for Rose had felt proud of
her bravery and calmness throughout the interview--there came a spasm
in her throat, which choked her utterance. The corners of her mouth
began to droop, and her eyes sought the ground.
"Do you mean Maida Springer? This is worse than Horatia Simpkins! I am
sure I have not flirted with Maida. Come, if you like, and ask her;
she is sitting under that tree. She is an acquaintance of very old
standing; that is all. She taught my uncle's children long ago, when I
was a lad. We saw each other constantly when I was home from Harvard
at the vacation. But there is nothing between us--never was. Come, ask
her yourself. She is sitting behind this nearest tree: she will be the
first to wish us joy."
He took Rose's hand to lead her to the spot, and Rose had moved a step
or two before she had recovered self-command enough to resist. The
tree was very close. Whoever sat behind it must have overheard the
conversation, for both had been too intent to keep their voices low.
Rose shrank from meeting the listener. She stopped short, and looked
timidly where the eavesdropper was said to be.
There seemed little which need make her feel uneasy. A woman's
figure--or was it only a bundle of summer clothing? so limp and
collapsed it seemed--lay crouched and huddled together against the
bole. The hat was pushed aside, the head bowed between the knees, and
two slender hands spread out before it to exclude the light. The hair
had come unfastened, and fell in wisps down to the ground, swaying and
quivering in the sobbing tremor which shook the woman's frame.
Rose drew away her hand. "It is too late to talk, Bertie. We have
chosen our roads in life, and we must keep them. But we will think
more kindly of one another now. I am engaged, as you know. I did it
freely, and I must keep my word. I will not spoil the life of
another--of a man who is as fond of me as this one, and so good and
true. We will forgive one another--will we not?--and learn from sad
experience more forbearance in our future lots. There he is coming. I
shall go and meet him. Goodbye. We must not meet again."
She went, leaving Gilbert elated at his success, but dissatisfied with
its incompleteness, and a little doubtful how he ought to return to
Maida Springer. They had been reclining rather aimlessly behind the
tree, when he looked up and saw Rose almost upon them, and alone. It
seemed to be now or never, if he was to have speech with her. He
bounded to his feet without a word to his companion, and her own ears
must soon have told her why. It felt decidedly awkward to return to
Maida; yet what was he to do? He could not follow Rose without
imperilling such way as he had made back to her favour, by inducing
perhaps an ugly scene with Naylor; and having brought Maida there, he
must fetch her back to her friends. It was an uncomfortable task, but
it had to be performed. He hardened his soul, expecting to hear
something unpleasant, composed his features, and turned round to the
tree.
He might have spared his anxiety. The tree was deserted. No one was
near. Far up the slope the flutter of a white gown and streaming blue
veil might be discerned between the trees, in swift retreat, and
Gilbert found that Maida had saved him the unpleasantness of an
explanation.