Everyone who talked about it--and that meant all who knew anything about
it--blamed Deane Franklin for not stopping Ruth. Perhaps the reason he
did not try to defend himself was simply that he could not hope to show
how simple was his acceptance of the fact that it would have been
impossible to stop her. To understand that, one would have to have seen.
Oh, to be sure, he could have put obstacles in her way, tightened it
around her, but anything he might have done would only have gone to
making it harder for Ruth to get away; it would not have kept her from
going. And after all, he himself saw it as, if not the thing she should
do, the thing--it being what it was then--she could not help doing. But
one would have to have seen Ruth's face, would need to have been with
her in those days to understand that.
As to warning her family, as he was so blamed by them and by all the
town for not doing, that would have seemed to him just one of those
things he could have thrown in her way. He did feel that he must try to
talk to her of what it was going to mean to her people; he saw that she
saw, that it had cruel power to make her suffer--and no power to stop
her. Nothing could have stopped her; she was like a maddened
thing--desperate, ruthless, indomitable. She would have fought the
world; she would have let the whole world suffer. Love's fear possessed
her utterly. He had had the feeling all along that it was rushing on to
disaster. He stood back from it now with something like awe: a force not
for him to control.
And he, with it from within, was the only one who did not condemn Stuart
Williams for letting Ruth go. A man, and older than she, they scorned
him for letting an infatuated girl throw her life away like that. And it
was not only that he saw that the man was sick and broken; it was that
he saw that Stuart, just as Ruth, had gone in love beyond his power to
control love, that he was mastered, not master, now. And in those last
days, at least, it was Ruth who dominated him. There was something
terrible in the simplicity with which she saw that she had to go; she
never once admitted it to the things that were to be argued about. He
talked to her, they both tried to talk to her, about the danger of
getting tuberculosis. When he began on that she laughed in his face--and
he could not blame her. As if _that_ could keep her! And as she laughed
her tortured eyes seemed mockingly to put to him--"What difference would
it make?"
When, after it all came out, he did not join the outraged town in the
outcry against Ruth, when it further transpired that he had known about
her going and had not tried to stop it, he was so much blamed that it
even hurt his practice. There were women who said they would not
countenance a young physician who had the ideas of life he must have.
His own people were incensed at what they called the shameful advantage
Ruth had taken of him, holding that she, as an evil woman, had exerted
an influence over him that made him do what was against his own nature.
As to the Hollands, there had been a stormy hour with Mr. Holland and
Cyrus, and a far worse half hour with Mrs. Holland, when her utterly
stricken face seemed to stiffen in his throat the things he wanted to
say for Ruth, things that might have helped Ruth's mother. And then he
was told that the Hollands were through, not alone with Ruth, but with
him.
But he was called there two years later when Mrs. Holland was dying. She
had been begging for him. That moved him deeply because of what in
itself it told of her long yearning for Ruth. After that there were a
number of years when he was not inside that gate. Cyrus did not speak to
him and the father might as well not have done so. He was amazed, then,
when Mr. Holland finally came to him about his own health. "I've come to
you, Deane," he said, "because I think you're the best doctor in town
now--and I need help." And then he added, and after that first talk this
was the closest to speaking of it they ever came: "And I guess you
didn't understand, Deane; didn't see it right. You were young--and
you're a queer one, anyway."
Perhaps the reason he was never able to do better in explaining himself,
or in defending Ruth, was simply because in his own thinking about it
there were never arguments, or thoughts upon conduct, but always just
that memory of Ruth's face as he had seen it in revealing moments.
Everyone saw something that Ruth should have done differently. In the
weeks they spent upon it they found, if not that they would be able to
forgive her, at least that they could think of her with less horror had
she done this, had she not done that. But Ruth lived through that week
seeing little beyond the one thing that she must get through it. She was
driven; she had to go ahead, bearing things somehow, getting through
them. She had a strange power to steel herself, to keep things, for the
most part, from really getting through to her. She could not go ahead if
she began letting things in. She sealed herself over and drove ahead
with the singleness of purpose, the exclusions, of any tormented thing.
It was all terrible, but it was as if she were frozen at the heart to
all save the one thing.
She stayed through the week because it was the time of Edith Lawrence's
wedding and she was to be maid-of-honor. "I'll have to stay till after
Edith's wedding," she said to Deane and Stuart. Then on her way home
from Deane's office she saw that she could not go on with her part in
Edith's wedding. That she could see clearly enough despite the thing
driving her on past things she should be seeing. What would she say to
Edith?--how get _that_ over?
Someone was giving a party for Edith that night; every day now things
were being given for her. She must not go to them. How could she go? It
would be absurd to expect that of herself. She would have to tell Edith
that she could not be her bridesmaid. What a terrible thing Edith would
think that was! She would have to give a reason--a big reason. What
would she tell her?--that she had been called away?--but where? Should
she tell her the truth? Could she? Edith would find it almost
unbelievable. It was almost unbelievable to herself that her life could
be permeated by a thing Edith knew nothing about. It was another of the
things she would have said, had she known her story only through hearing
it, would not be possible. But it was with Edith as it was with her own
family--simply that such a thing would never occur to her. She winced in
thinking of it that way. A number of times she had been right on the
edge of a thing it seemed would surely be disclosing, but it strangely
happened she had never quite gone over that edge. For one thing, Edith
had been away from Freeport a good deal in those three years. Mrs.
Lawrence had opposed Edith's marrying so young, and had taken her to
Europe for one year, and in the last year they had spent part of the
time in California. In the last couple of months, since Edith's return
from the West, she had spoken of Ruth's not seeming like herself, of
fearing she was not well. She had several times hurt Edith's feelings by
refusing, for no apparent reason, to do things with her. But she had
always been able to make that up afterwards and in these plans for the
wedding she and Edith had been drawn close again.
When she went over to the Lawrences' late that afternoon she had decided
that she would tell Edith. It seemed she must. She could not hope to
tell it in a way that would make Edith sympathize. There was not time
for that, and she dared not open herself to it. She would just say it
briefly, without any attempts at justifying it. Something like: "Edith,
there's been something you haven't known. I'm not like you. I'm not what
you think I am. I love Stuart Williams. We've loved each other for a
long time. He's sick. He's got to go away--and I'm going with him.
Good-bye, Edith,--and I hope the wedding goes just beautifully."
But that last got through--got down to the feeling she had been trying
to keep closed, the feeling that had seemed to seal itself over the
moment she saw that she must go with Stuart. "I hope the wedding goes
just beautifully!" Somehow the stiff little phrase seemed to mean all
the old things. There was a moment when she _knew_: knew that she was
walking those familiar streets, that she would not be walking them any
more; knew that she was going over to Edith's--that all her life she had
been going over to Edith's--that she would not be going there any more;
knew that she was going away from home, that she loved her father and
mother--Ted--her grandfather--and Terror, her dog. Realization broke
through and flooded her. She had to walk around a number of blocks
before she dared go to Edith's.
Miss Edith was up in her room, Emma, the maid, said, taking it for
granted that Ruth would go right up. Yes, she always did go right up,
she was thinking. She had always been absolutely at home at the
Lawrences'. They always wanted her; there were times of not wanting to
see anyone else, but it seemed both Edith and her mother always wanted
her. She paused an instant on the stairs, not able to push past that
thought, not able to stay the loving rush of gratefulness that broke out
of the thought of having always been wanted.
She had a confused sense of Edith as barricaded by her trousseau. She
sat behind a great pile of white things; she had had them all out of her
chest for showing to some of her mother's friends, she said, and her
mother had not yet put them back. Ruth stood there fingering a
wonderfully soft chemise. It had come to her that she was not provided
with things like these. What would Edith think of her, going away
without the things it seemed one should have? It seemed to mark the
setting of her apart from Edith, though there was a wave of
tenderness--she tried to hold it back but could not--for dear Edith
because she did have so many things like this.
Edith was too deep in the occupation of getting married to mark an
unusual absorption in her friend. She was full of talk about what her
mother's friends had said of her things, the presents that were coming
in, her dress for the party that night, the flowers for the wedding.
It made Edith seem very young to her. And in her negligee, her hair
down, she looked childish. Her pleasure in the plans for her wedding
seemed like a child's pleasure. It seemed that hurting her in it would
be horribly like spoiling a child's party. Edith's flushed face, her
sparkling eyes, her little excited, happy laugh made it impossible for
Ruth to speak the words she had come to say.
For three days it went on like that: going ahead with the festivities,
constantly thinking she would tell Edith as soon as they got home from
this place or that, waiting until this or that person had gone, then
dumb before the childish quality of Edith's excitement, deciding to wait
until the next morning because Edith was either too happy or too tired
to talk to her that night. That ingenuousness of her friend's pleasure
in her wedding made Ruth feel, not only older, but removed from her by
experience. Those days of her own frozen misery were days of tenderness
for Edith, that tenderness which one well along the road of living feels
for the one just setting feet upon the path.
She was never able to understand how she did get through those days. It
was an almost unbelievable thing that, knowing, she was able, up to the
very last, to go right on with the old things, was able to talk to
people as if nothing were different, to laugh, to dance. There were
times when something seemed frozen in her heart and she could go on
doing the usual things mechanically, just because she knew so well how
to do them; then there were other times when every smallest thing was
stabbed through and through with the consciousness that she would not be
doing it again. And yet even then, she could go on, could appear the
same. They were days of a terrible power for bearing pain. When the
people of the town looked back to it, recalling everything they could
about Ruth Holland in those days, some of them, remembering a tenderness
in her manner with Edith, talked of what a hypocrite she was, while
others satisfied themselves of her utter heartlessness in remembering
her gaiety.
It was two days before the wedding when she saw that she was not going
to be able to tell Edith and got the idea of telling Edith's mother.
Refusing to let herself consider what she would say when she began upon
it, she went over there early that morning--Edith would not be up.
Mrs. Lawrence was at breakfast alone. Ruth kept herself hard against the
welcoming smile, but it seemed she was surely going to cry when, with a
look of concern, Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed: "Why, Ruth dear, how pale you
are!"
She was telling Emma to bring Ruth a cup of coffee, talking of how
absurd it was the way the girls were wearing themselves out, how, for
that reason, she would be glad when it was all over. She spoke with
anxiety of how nervous Edith had grown in the past week, how tired she
was as a result of all the gaiety. "We'll have to be very careful of
her, Ruth," she said. "Don't go to Edith with any worries, will you?
Come to me. The slightest thing would upset Edith now."
Ruth only nodded; she did not know what to say to that; certainly, after
that, she did not know how to say the things she had come to tell. For
what in the world could upset Edith so much as to have her
maid-of-honor, her life-long friend, the girl she cared for most,
refuse, two days before her wedding, to take her part in it?
"And you can do more than anyone else, Ruth," Mrs. Lawrence urged. "You
know Edith counts so on you," she added with an intimate little smile.
And again Ruth only nodded, and bent over her coffee. She had a feeling
of having been caught, of being helpless.
Mrs. Lawrence was talking about the caterer for the wedding; she wished
it were another kind of salad. Then she wanted Ruth to come up and look
at her dress; she wasn't at all satisfied with the touch of velvet they
had put on it. After that some one else came in and Mrs. Lawrence was
called away. Ruth left without saying what she had come to say. She knew
now that she would not say it.
She went home seeing that she must go through with the wedding. It was
too late now to do anything else. Edith would break down--her pleasure
in her wedding spoiled; no, Edith must be spared--helped. She must do
this for Edith. No matter what people thought of her, no matter what
Edith herself thought--though _wouldn't_ she understand? Ruth considered
with a tortured wistfulness--the thing to do now was to go through with
it. Edith must look beautiful at her wedding; her happiness must be
unmarred. Later, when she was away with Will--happy--she could bear it
better. And she would understand that Ruth had wished to spare her; had
done it to help her. She held that thought with her--and drove ahead.
There were moments in those last two days at home when it seemed that
now her heart was indeed breaking: a kindly note in the voice of her
father or mother--one of Ted's teasing jokes--little requests from her
grandfather; then doing things she had done for years and knowing while
doing them that she would not be doing them any more--the last time she
cut the flowers, and then that last night when she went to bed in her
own room, the room she had had ever since old enough to have a room of
her own. She lay there that night and listened to the branches of the
great oak tapping the house. She had heard that sound all her life; it
was associated with all the things of her life; it seemed to be speaking
for all those things--mourning for them. But the closest she came to
actual breaking down was that last day when her dog, laying his head
upon her knee, looked with trust and affection up into her eyes. As she
laid her hand upon his head his eyes seemed to speak for all the love
she had known through all the years. It seemed she could not bear it,
that her heart could not bear it, that she would rather die. But she did
bear it; she had that terrible power for bearing.
If only she had told her mother, they said over and over again. But if
she told her mother she would not go--that was how she saw that; they
would not let her; or rather, she would have no strength left to fight
through their efforts to keep her. And then how could she tell her
mother when her mother would never in the world understand? She did not
believe that her mother could so much as comprehend that she could love
where she should not, that a girl like Ruth--or rather, _Ruth_--could
love a man it was not right she love. She had never talked with her
mother of real things, had never talked with her of the things of her
deepest feeling. She would not know how to do it now, even had she
dared.
Her mother helped her dress for the wedding, talking all the while about
plans for the evening--just who was going to the church, the details
about serving. Ruth clung to the thought that those _were_ the things
her mother was interested in; they always had been, surely they would
continue to be. In her desperation she tried to think that in those
little things her mother cared so much about she would, after a time,
find healing.
With that cruel power for bearing pain she got away from home without
breaking down; she got through that last minute when she realized she
would not see Ted or her grandfather again,--they would not be at the
wedding and would be in bed when she returned from it, and she was to
leave that night on the two o'clock train. It was unbelievable to her
that she had borne it, but she had driven ahead through utter misery as
they commented on her dress, praising her and joking with her. That was
in the living-room and she never forgot just how they were grouped--her
grandfather's newspaper across his knees; Mary, who had worked for them
for years, standing at the door; her dog Terror under the reading
table--Ted walking round and round her. Deane was talking with her
father in the hall. Her voice was sharp as she went out and said: "We
must hurry, Deane."
The wedding was unreal; it seemed that all those people were just making
the movements of life; there were moments when she heard them from a
long way off, saw them and was uncertain whether they were there. And
yet she could go on and appear about the same; if she seemed a little
queer she was sure it was attributed to natural feeling about her
dearest friend's wedding--to emotion, excitement. There were moments
when things suddenly became real: a moment alone with Edith in her room,
just before they went to the church; a moment when Mrs. Lawrence broke
down. Walking down the aisle, the words of the service--that was in a
vague, blurred world; so was Edith's strained face as she turned away,
and her own walking down the aisle with Deane, turning to him and
smiling and saying something and feeling as if her lips were frozen. Yet
for three hours she laughed and talked with people. Mrs. Williams was at
the reception; several times they were in the same group. Oh, it was all
unreal--terrible--just a thing to drive through. There was a moment at
the last when Edith clung to her, and when it seemed that she could not
do the terrible thing she was going to do, that she was _not_ going to
do it--that the whole thing was some hideous nightmare. She wanted to
stay with Edith. She wanted to be like Edith. She felt like a little
girl then, just a frightened little girl who did not want to go away by
herself, away from everything she knew, from people who loved her. She
did not want to do that awful thing! She tried to pretend for a moment
she was not going to do it--just as sometimes she used to hide her face
when afraid.
At last it was all over; she had gone to the train and seen Edith and
Will off for the East. Edith's face was pressed against the window of
the Pullman as the train pulled out. It was Ruth she was looking for; it
was to Ruth her eyes clung until the train drew her from sight.
Ruth stood there looking after the train; the rest of their little group
of intimate friends had turned away--laughing, chattering, getting back
in the carriages. Deane finally touched Ruth's arm, for she was standing
in that same place looking after the train which had now passed from
sight. When he saw the woe of her wet face he said gruffly: "Hadn't we
better walk home?" He looked down at her delicate slippers, but better
walk in them than join the others looking like that. He supposed walking
would not be good for that frail dress; and then it came to him, and
stabbed him, that it didn't much matter. Probably Ruth would not wear
that dress again.
She walked home without speaking to him, looking straight ahead in that
manner she all along had of ruthlessly pressing on to something; her
face now was as if it were frozen in suffering, as if it had somehow
stiffened in that moment of woe when Edith's face was drawn from her
sight. And she looked so tired!--so spent, so miserable; as if she ought
to be cared for, comforted. He took her arm, protectingly, yearningly.
He longed so in that moment to keep Ruth, and care for her! He wanted to
say things, but he seemed to be struck dumb, appalled by what it was
they were about to do. He held her arm close to him. She was going away!
Now that the moment had come he did not know how he was going to let her
go. And looking like this!--suffering like this--needing help.
But he must not fail her now at the last; he must not fail her now when
she herself was so worn, so wretched, was bearing so much. As they
turned in at the gate he fought with all his strength against the
thought that they would not be turning in at that gate any more and
spoke in matter of fact tones of where he would be waiting for her, what
time she must be there. But when they reached the steps they stood there
for a minute under the big tree, there where they had so many times
stood through a number of years. As they stood there things crowded upon
them hard; Ruth raised her face and looked at him and at the anguish of
her swimming eyes his hands went out to her arms. "Don't go, Ruth!" he
whispered brokenly. "Ruth!--_don't go!_"
But that made her instantly find herself, that found the fight in her,
to strengthen herself, to resist him; she was at once erect,
indomitable, the purpose that no misery could shake gleamed through her
wet eyes. Then she turned and went into the house. Her mother called out
to her, sleepily asking if she could get out of her dress by herself.
She answered yes, and then Mrs. Holland asked another sleepy question
about Edith. Then the house was still; she knew that they were all
asleep. She got her dress off and hung it carefully in the closet. She
had already put some things in her bag; she put in a few more now, all
the while sobbing under her breath.
She took off her slippers. After she had done that she stood looking at
her bed. She saw her nightgown hanging in the closet. She wanted to put
on her nightgown and get into bed! She leaned against the bed, crying.
She wanted to put on her nightgown and get into bed! She was so tired,
so frightened, so worn with pain. Then she shook herself, steeled again,
and began putting on her shoes; put on her suit, her hat, got out her
gloves. And then at the very last she had to do what she had been trying
to make herself do all that day, and had not dared begin to do. She went
to her desk and holding herself tight, very rapidly, though with shaking
hand, wrote this note:
"Dear Mother; I'm going away. I love Stuart Williams. I have for a
long time. Oh, mother--I'm so sorry--but I can't help it. He's
sick. He has to go away, so you see I have to go with him. It's
terrible that it is like this. Mother, try to believe that I can't
help it. After I get away I can write to you more about it. I can't
now. It will be terrible for you--for you all. Mother, it's been
terrible for me. Oh, try not to feel any worse than you can help.
People won't blame _you_. I wish I could help it. I wish--Can't
write more now. Write later. I'm so sorry--for everybody. So good
to me always. I love all--Ruth."
She put her head down on the desk and cried. Finally she got up and
blindly threw the note over on her bed; with difficulty, because of the
shaking of her hands, put on her gloves, picked up her bag. And then she
stood there for a moment before turning off the light; she saw her
little chair, her dressing-table. She reached up and turned off the
light and then for another moment stood there in the darkened room. She
listened to the branches of the oak tree tapping against the house. Then
she softly opened her bedroom door and carefully closed it behind her.
She could hear her father's breathing; then Ted's, as she passed his
door. On the stairs she stood still: she wanted to hear Ted's breathing
again. But she had already gone where she could not hear Ted's
breathing. Her hand on the door, she stood still. There was something so
unreal about this, so preposterous--not a thing that really happened,
that could happen to _her_. It seemed that in just a minute she would
wake up and find herself safe in her bed. But in another minute she was
leaning against the outside door of her home, crying. She seemed to have
left the Ruth Holland she knew behind when she finally walked down the
steps and around the corner where Deane was waiting for her.
They spoke scarcely a word until they saw the headlight of her train.
And then she drew back, clinging to him. "Ruth!" he whispered, holding
her, "don't!" But that seemed to make her know that she must; she
straightened, steeled herself, and moved toward the train. A moment
later she was on the platform, looking down at him. When she tried to
smile good-by, he whirled and walked blindly away.
She did not look from the window as long as the lights of the town were
to be seen. She sat there perfectly still, hands tight together, head
down. For two hours she scarcely moved. Such strange things shot through
her mind. Maybe her mother, thinking she was tired, would not go to her
room until almost noon. At least she would have her coffee first. Had
she remembered to put Edith's handkerchiefs in her bag? Had anyone else
noticed that the hook at the waist of Edith's dress had come unfastened?
Edith was on a train too--going the other way. How strange it all was!
How terrible beyond belief! Just as she neared the junction where she
would meet Stuart and from which they would take the train South
together, the thought came to her that none of the rest of them might
remember always to have water in Terror's drinking pan. When she stepped
from the train she was crying--because Terror might want a drink and
wonder why she was not there to give it to him. He would not
understand--and oh, he would miss her so! Even when Stuart, stepping
from the darkness to meet her, drew her to him, brokenly whispering
passionate, grateful words, she could not stop crying--for Terror, who
would not understand, and who would miss her so! He became the whole
world she knew--loving, needing world, world that would not understand,
and would miss her so!
The woman who, on that train from Denver, had been drawn into this story
which she had once lived was coming now into familiar country. She would
be home within an hour. She had sometimes ridden this far with Deane on
his cases. Her heart began to beat fast. Why, there was the very grove
in which they had that picnic! She could scarcely control the excitement
she felt in beginning to find old things. There was something so strange
in the old things having remained there just the same when she had
passed so completely away from them. Seeing things she knew brought the
past back with a shock. She could hardly get her breath when first she
saw the town. And there was the Lawrences'! Somehow it was unbelievable.
She did not hear the porter speaking to her about being brushed off; she
was peering hungrily from the window, looking through tears at the town
she had not seen since she left it that awful night eleven years before.
She was trembling as she stood on the platform waiting for the slowing
train to come to a stop. There was a moment of wanting to run back in
the car, of feeling she could not get off.
The train had stopped; the porter took her by the arm, thinking by her
faltering that she was slipping. She took her bag from him and stood
there, turned a little away from the station crowd.
Ted Holland had been waiting for that train, he also with fast beating
heart; he too was a little tremulous as he hurried down to the car, far
in the rear, from which passengers were alighting from the long train.
He scanned the faces of the people who began passing him. No, none of
them was Ruth. His picture of Ruth was clear, though he had not seen her
for eleven years. She would be looking about in that eager way--that
swift, bright way; when she saw him there would be that glad nodding of
her head, her face all lighting up. Though of course, he told himself,
she would be older, probably a little more--well, dignified. The romance
that secretly hung about Ruth for him made him picture her as unlike
other women; there would be something different about her, he felt.
The woman standing there half turned from him was oddly familiar. She
was someone he knew, and somehow she agitated him. He did not tell
himself that that was Ruth--but after seeing her he was not looking at
anyone else for Ruth. This woman was not "stylish looking." She did not
have the smart look of most of the girls of Ruth's old crowd. He had
told himself that Ruth would be older--and yet it was not a woman he had
pictured, or rather, it was a woman who had given all for love, not a
woman who looked as if she had done just the things of women. This woman
stooped a little; care, rather than romance, had put its mark upon her;
instead of the secretly expected glamour of those years of love there
had been a certain settling of time. He knew before he acknowledged it
that it was Ruth, knew it by the way this woman made him feel. He came
nearer; she had timidly--not with the expected old swiftness--started in
the direction he was coming. She saw him--knew him--and in that rush of
feeling which transformed her anything of secret disappointment was
swept from him.
He kissed her, as sheepishly as a brother would any sister, and was soon
covering his emotion with a practical request for her trunk check. But
as they walked away the boy's heart was strangely warmed. Ruth was back!
As to Ruth, she did not speak. She could not.