Our summers spent on the farm were ideal. Our friends and relatives came
often to visit us, much at times to the depletion of our bank account,
but we could not refuse them as they enjoyed us and the farm so
thoroughly. We were sufficient unto ourselves, however, and were never
so happy as when alone, but we were both unselfish and were glad to give
pleasure to others.
We had one amusing problem to meet during the first few weeks that
nearly proved the downfall of our life in the country.
The near neighbors were the ordinary, good-hearted Connecticut farmers
whose lives had been very restricted. The old man was a “leetle deef.”
He had for many years listened patiently to a wife whose voice had grown
sharp and shrill, added to the proverbial Yankee twang, commensurate
with his increasing deafness.
We were obliged to go to this man for help and advice in matters
agricultural. He was glad for the extra money which this work brought
him. The wife probably classed us with a professor from Yale University
who once stopped with them for two days in order to study either some
flowers or rocks in that area. When she told us about him she added:
“But say! Him a college professor? And him the ignorantest man I ever
see!”
This dame took it upon herself to visit us each and every evening after
our dinner. She had “washed up the supper dishes,” put on a clean apron,
and came over to our house to talk! If she thought us ignorant she
certainly used an unlimited amount of lung power to educate us! For
hours she would just talk, and talk, and talk, in that unbearable voice
and never by any chance did she ever say one thing. At first it rather
amused us, as she was a real Mary Wilkins character, but it went beyond
endurance and we were terribly bored and almost distracted.
After one extra long session when she had gone home, Juno burst into
tears. Her nerves had given way completely. “Is this what we’ve got to
face by living in the country?” she sobbed. I tried to quiet her and
said I would put a stop to it at once. I was always the one to handle
anything disagreeable which came up in our lives.
The next day I told the garrulous neighbor that we had come into the
country to rest and to do a lot of reading and I would have to ask her
to visit us only when we should find that her visits would not interfere
with our plans, and then I would ask her to come. She was quite shocked,
I think, that we did not feel that her conversation was a liberal
education, but she seemed quite content with an occasional chat (she
doing the chat) over the garden fence in the future.
Then did our glorious hours together begin. We re-read much of Thackeray
aloud and lots of other worth-while things. We took an occasional run
down to the city for a good play, music, or the opera, and incidentally
to see Juno’s brothers and sister.
After two or three years on the farm Juno began to find the winters a
bit tiresome, as we were many times snowed in and our friends did not
care to come at that season. So we pulled up stakes and moved to the
village in a dear little cottage near the young couple who were
instrumental in having us go to that place.
At that time, too, Lizzie and the baby had to go to take care of her
father, who was ill. We felt it would be lonely without the baby, of
whom we had grown very fond. So it seemed just the time to make a
change.
Everyone in town, especially in the Episcopal Church, was excited at
that time about the opening of a church school for boys, to be in charge
of a very popular and beloved young divine.
We joined in all the activities relative to the opening. This was to be
a semi-charitable school, catering mainly to the sons of clergymen who
were too poor to send their boys to the higher schools.
All set! The school opened and we were all on hand to welcome and
entertain the new masters when they arrived. One of these men, the
teacher of French, was the most popular. He seemed to choose our house
as his refuge and us as his friends above all others. This was rather
disconcerting to our young married friend—the one who asked us to come
up there. She had a perfectly good husband, yet she made a dead set for
the head master. Not the young divine who was establishing the school—he
belonged to some church brotherhood and had renounced the world, the
flesh, and the devil. He wore, by the way a most fascinating pure white
flannel and silk robe when he appeared in public, and black at the
school.
The young French master, whom we will call Jack, proved a very
interesting pal. He was bright and entertaining, played the piano well,
liked the same books that we did, played bridge, and adored afternoon
tea. He was much younger than we—in fact, twelve years younger than
Juno, who was two years younger than I.
This friendship grew more and more intimate. Jack dined with us at least
three times a week. In fact, he was with us all of his free time. One
day he became very confidential and told us that he had a lover in New
York and that it was to _him_ he went every other week! So he, too, was
of the condemned type. Poor fellow! Well, we could not blame him for
that. Although we made no confessions ourselves, we felt that he knew
and understood our relations with each other.
Nothing occurred to mar our happiness, and we went on for a year or two
in this way. New Year’s Eve had always meant much to Juno and me. We
pledged our troth anew each time the clock struck the beginning of a new
and glorious year. I believe it was in the second or third year of the
school that Jack had gone to his home for the holidays. We gave a New
Year’s party and had a lot of the young people at our home to see the
old year out. On this evening, as we raised our glasses for the usual
toast, Juno added, “And to the absent one.” I thought I discovered a new
light in her eyes. As I went to give her our kiss of love I said, “Is
there someone else in your mind?” Her answer was in a way evasive.
However, the pledge was renewed and nothing more was said.
In a few days Jack came back. I was quite ill with a severe attack of
acute bronchitis and was in bed. While Jack was there one day Juno came
into my room, and without a word of warning, told me that she and Jack
were engaged to be married!
How hard I have tried these years and years to forget the terror those
words brought into my heart and soul! I was weak from my illness and had
no control or sense with which to meet this blow.
I was very hoarse from my bronchitis, and the strain I gave my voice in
my entreaties and arguments for her to consider how she was throwing her
life and our happiness away, as it seemed to me, has had its effect on
my throat ever since.
Whether I would have done the sensible thing at this time had I been
well physically or not, I do not know. My life was crushed! My wonderful
girl had broken her vows to me again! She changed all at once from the
dearest nurse and most considerate friend, at times when I would be laid
low for some illness, to the most cruel of women.
The strain to which I was subjected counteracted all the ministrations
of the doctor in his efforts to get me well. Juno utterly disregarded
his instructions as to my being kept quiet, and I nearly went insane.
When I got hold of myself in spite of the terrible handicap of this
courtship going on under my very eyes, I wrote to Phil, who was then in
England, and asked advice to make me more reasonable. The incongruity of
the match was, I believe, my greatest grief. The male invert is known to
be of a much weaker caliber than the so-called normal, and all who knew
this fellow, without knowing just where he belonged in the catalogue of
humans, dubbed him a “sissy,” but very attractive as a little girl
friend.
One and all who were in our set were thoroughly disgusted with them
both, but more so with my glorious girl, who was twelve years older than
he. In height he did not come to her shoulder.
It was all an awful nightmare, but on I struggled until at last the
answer came from the Philosopher. She asked me to join her and a friend
who had taken a cottage in the south of England for a year. We could
divide the expenses by three and live very cheaply. This was long before
the war. She said it would be the best thing in the world for me to get
right away from it all and the only way to be cured.
I was wild to start right away, and Juno was glad to help me finance the
trip. Most of my capital had been used in entertaining her family,
chiefly because we were never able to keep expenses down and still keep
open house.
Juno seemed heartbroken at the parting and swore that her love for me
was just the same, but this did not register with me. I set sail. When I
went on board, I thought the chances were as great that I might jump
overboard as that I would land in England.
Courage failed me when I saw the big ocean with no land in sight, so I
held on to life. I grew interested in the things so new to me on the
voyage and was better of my cough when I landed. Phil met me at Tilbury
and after a day and night in London we went down to Hampshire, where her
friend was waiting.
The coming together of this old, old friend and of Phil would make a
romance worth reading, but it does not concern this tale in that detail.
The friend was an artist of note well known on both continents and a
most charming and cultivated woman. She was on a rest year and having a
year of love with Phil. Her idea of curing broken hearts was with
alcohol. I was suffering keenly all the time, and Phil realized how I
had cared for Juno and did still. I had for many years enjoyed a
cocktail before dinner and wine with the meal, but for drink as drink I
did not care at all.
The friend evidently did, and with my sorrow as an excuse she insisted
on beginning early in the day imbibing absinthe or gin. The former was a
new drink to me and while I did not care at first for the taste, the
effect seemed to be what was desired, so I held my own with her. I
simply did not care what happened to make me forget even for a moment at
a time.
I could see that Phil was not at all happy in this procedure, but the
friend dominated us both. Phil, however, kept her head clear, as she
never touched a drop of anything in the way of alcohol. Tea was her
passion. She wanted to talk with me and to reason me out of my grief,
but the friend was ever on the alert that such a thing must not happen.
She tried hard to interest me in herself, but I did not fall.
We were in a lovely spot, and the spring flowers were filling the copse
where our cottage was located. What is more beautiful than spring in
England! But these beauties gave me only momentary thrills, as I could
not seem to rise above my grief. Besides, the physical effect of so much
alcohol was showing upon my health and even depressed me more.
Letters from Juno, so full of love that I could have no faith in, added
to my suffering. Even when she told me that she and Jack had decided
that it was physical contact they desired, that they found themselves
happy in that relationship and that they had given up the thought of
marrying, I was not in the least consoled. In fact, I was more disgusted
than ever. As the rich relative had said that his contribution would
cease when Juno was married, I knew that the desire to marry her would
not be long-lived, as I had seen Jack’s face pale when that news came
before I left.
About June I realized that my life with the two who were trying to cure
me was fast sending me to a breakdown. So I decided to move on and see
how I could manage things myself.
When established near Bournemouth I went to work with my pen, as my
finances were getting low. I was relieved when a cabled check for
several hundred dollars arrived from New York from a magazine to which I
had submitted an article.
Directly following this came a letter from Juno saying that she and Jack
had decided they were not fond enough to continue their life together
and that she found that she could not bear life alone and wanted to come
to me, but that she had no funds.
I made it possible for her to come, fool that I was, all will say and so
say I now, but never was a lover so happy in the thought that again I
would have her as of old, my companion, friend, baby, and lover. She had
ample funds to clear up all her obligations, renew her wardrobe a
little, and have her passage and a substantial sum left when she
arrived.
I found an adorable furnished stone cottage a short distance from
Bournemouth. The lovely garden had a high stone wall all around it. I
rearranged things to make it look like “us.” All sorrow was wiped away,
and my heart was beating with renewed faith.
I went to Southampton to meet Juno. It was necessary for us to spend the
night before going to our little home. I arranged beautiful flowers in
the room at the hotel where I had engaged a suite and went to the pier
hours before the scheduled time for the arrival of the steamer.
My plan was to stay in the dear little stone cottage long enough for us
to see all in that locality and to let funds accumulate, as I had other
articles to be written, and then to move on to other parts of England
and the Continent, staying long enough in each place to absorb its real
atmosphere. At that time this could be done very reasonably and would be
quite within our means.
At last the boat was sighted and I went down the wharf to meet my dear
one and clasp her to my heart of hearts. I felt no sexual emotion. It
was not her body for which I longed, but my other self, my true mate.
Then I saw her only about ten feet away from my arms yet two far for me
to jump. We must wait for the slow boat to reach the allotted place. She
was one of the first to step on land and to me. The joy of that first
real kiss since before Jack had come into our lives lingers with me yet
as one of the high spots in my memory!
Before we had got half way up the pier she turned to me and said, “Jack
and I are engaged again.”
Even now I can feel the physical pain in my heart as I heard those
words! My first wild impulse was to jump into the bay, but I had sense
enough to know that I would be fished out, so I said not a word. All
seemed to go black, yet I was able to attend to all the details of the
customs for her, and we went in silence to the hotel where the flowers
stood as a mockery of our love. She tried to assume some pretense of joy
at being with me and in the flowers, but I had nothing to say. I spent a
sad and wakeful night. She said she and Jack had spent all the money she
had left of what she had received through my ministrations and that she
had not a cent. I could not turn her loose, so we took our train for the
stone cottage, I with a battered heart,—and she? How could she be happy?
Yet so she seemed. Nothing appealed to her in the place I had prepared
for her coming. Her whole thought was to get to France where she could
be learning to speak French, as Jack was a French teacher, having been
educated at Grenoble. She insisted that I must go with her, as she would
be utterly at a loss in trying to find her way alone. I had always taken
all responsibility in our business affairs and I knew she really needed
me if she were to go on her way.
I was outraged by her bringing to me again what I had gone so far away
from, yet the mother heart could not refuse her.
There was no joy in physical contact with her. Even her forced kisses
nearly choked me. Companionship was gone, as all her thoughts were on
the future with that poor fellow who had come under her spell. There was
only that need of protection which led me on. A paid courier would have
done as well and would have been better for me, but funds would not
permit of that luxury. I did try to have her go back to America and
leave me in peace, but this she refused to do, as Jack was coming over
the next summer and they were to be married.
There we were, and I tried so hard to play the game until I could get
away. No need to go through the painful days, weeks and months, first a
short time in London, then on to Brussels to study French, and finally
to Paris! To what?
At times I was reasonable and did all I could to ease the way, but there
were days of rebellion when we had very trying scenes.
The disappointment of having to see all the wonders of that, to me, new
world through tears seemed more than I could bear. I could not go home,
as she had rented our house for a year. So on I stayed and tried my best
to get something out of it all.
In all these intervening years I have been able to eliminate the sorrow
and to think of and speak about things as giving me joy in my two years
in Europe. But in this rehearsal I find my indignation at myself and
with her rising again almost to the breaking point.