It was the afternoon of Ruth Holland's return to Freeport that Edith
Lawrence--now Edith Lawrence Blair--was giving the tea for Deane
Franklin's bride and for Cora Albright, introducing Amy to the society
of the town and giving Cora another opportunity for meeting old friends.
"You see Cora was of our old crowd," Edith was laughingly saying to one
of the older women in introducing her two guests of honor, "and Amy has
married into it." She turned to Amy with a warm little smile and nod, as
if wanting to assure her again that they did look upon her as one of
them.
They had indeed given her that sense of being made one of them. Their
quick, warm acceptance of her made them seem a wonderfully kindly
people. Her heart warmed to them because of this going out to her, a
stranger. That informality and friendliness which in a society like
theirs prevails well within the bounds made them seem to her a people of
real warmth. She was pleased with the thought of living among them,
being one of them; gratified, not only in the way they seemed to like
her, but by the place they gave her. There were happy little
anticipations of the life just opening up. She was flushed with pleasure
and gratification.
She was seeing the society of the town at its best that afternoon; the
women who constituted that society were there, and at their best. For
some reason they always were at their best at the Lawrences', as if
living up to the house itself, which was not only one of the most
imposing of the homes of that rich little middle-western city, but had
an atmosphere which other houses, outwardly equally attractive, lacked.
Mrs. Lawrence had taste and hospitality; the two qualities breathed
through her house. She and Edith were Freeport's most successful
hostesses. The society of that town was like the particular thing known
as society in other towns; not distinguished by any unique thing so much
as by its likeness to the thing in general. Amy, knowing society in
other places, in a larger place, was a little surprised and much pleased
at what she recognized.
And she felt that people were liking her, admiring her, and that always
put her at her best. Sometimes Amy's poise, rare in one so young, made
her seem aloof, not cordial, and she had not been one to make friends
quickly. Edith's friendliness had broken through that; she talked more
than was usual with her--was gayer, more friendly. "You're making a
great hit, my dear," Edith whispered to her gayly, and Amy flushed with
pleasure. People about the room were talking of how charming she was; of
there being something unusual in that combination of girlishness
and--they called it distinction; had Amy been in different mood they
might have spoken of it less sympathetically as an apparent feeling of
superiority. But she felt that she was with what she called her own
sort, and she was warmed in gratification by the place given herself.
She was gayly telling a little group of an amusing thing that had
happened at her wedding when she overheard someone saying to Edith, by
whom she was standing: "Yes, on the two o'clock train. I was down to see
Helen off, and saw her myself--walking away with Ted."
Amy noticed that the other women, who also had overheard, were only
politely appearing to be listening to her now, and were really
discreetly trying to hear what these two were saying. She brought her
story to a close.
"You mean Ruth Holland?" one of the women asked, and the two groups
became one.
Amy drew herself up; her head went a little higher, her lips tightened;
then, conscious of that, she relaxed and stood a little apart, seeming
only to be courteously listening to a thing in which she had no part.
They talked in lowered tones of how strange it seemed to feel Ruth was
back in that town. They had a different manner now--a sort of carefully
restrained avidity. "How does she look?" one of the women asked in that
lowered tone.
"Well," said the woman who had been at the train, "she hasn't kept
herself _up_. Really, I was surprised. You'd think a woman in her
position would make a particular effort to--to make the most of herself,
now, wouldn't you? What else has she to go on? But really, she wasn't at
all good style, and sort of--oh, as if she had let herself _go_, I
thought. Though,"--she turned to Edith in saying this--"there's that
same old thing about her; I saw her smile up at Ted as they walked
away--and she seemed all different then. You know how it always used to
be with Ruth--so different from one minute to another."
Edith turned away, rather abruptly, and joined another group. Amy could
not make out her look; it seemed--why it seemed pain; as if it hurt her
to hear what they were saying. Could it be that she still
_cared_?--after the way she had been treated? That seemed impossible,
even in one who had the sweet nature Mrs. Blair certainly had.
While the women about her were still talking of Ruth Holland, Amy saw
Stuart Williams' wife come out of the dining room and stand there alone
for a minute looking about the room. It gave her a shock. The whole
thing seemed so terrible, so fascinatingly terrible. And it seemed
unreal; as a thing one might read or hear about, but not the sort of
thing one's own life would come anywhere near. Mrs. Williams' eyes
rested on their little group and Amy had a feeling that somehow she knew
what they were talking about. As her eyes followed the other woman's
about the room she saw that there were several groups in which people
were drawn a little closer together and appeared to be speaking a little
more intimately than was usual upon such an occasion. She felt that Mrs.
Williams' face became more impassive. A moment later she had come over
to Amy and was holding out her hand. There seemed to Amy something very
brave about her, dignified, fine, in the way she went right on, bearing
it, holding her own place, keeping silence. She watched her leave the
room with a new sense of outrage against that terrible woman--that woman
Deane stood up for! The resentment which in the past week she had been
trying to put down leaped to new life.
The women around her resumed their talk: of Mrs. Williams, the Holland
family, of the night of Edith's wedding when--in that very house--Ruth
Holland had been there up to the very last minute, taking her place with
the rest of them. They spoke of her betrayal of Edith, her deception of
all her friends, of how she was the very last girl in the world they
would have believed it of.
A little later, when she and Edith were talking with some other guests,
Ruth Holland was mentioned again. "I don't want to talk of Ruth," Edith
said that time; "I'd rather not." There was a catch in her voice and one
of the women impulsively touched her arm. "It was so terrible for you,
dear Edith," she murmured.
"Sometimes," said Edith, "it comes home to me that it was pretty
terrible for Ruth." Again she turned away, leaving an instant's pause
behind her. Then one of the women said, "I think it's simply wonderful
that Edith can have anything but bitterness in her heart for Ruth
Holland! Why there's not another person in town--oh, except Deane
Franklin, of course--"
She caught herself, reddened, then turned to Amy with a quick smile.
"And it's just his sympathetic nature, isn't it? That's exactly
Deane--taking the part of one who's down."
"And then, too, men feel differently about those things," murmured
another one of the young matrons of Deane's crowd.
Their manner of seeming anxious to smooth something over, to get out of
a difficult situation, enraged Amy, not so much against them as because
of there being something that needed smoothing over, because Deane had
put himself and her in a situation that was difficult. How did it
look?--what must people think?--his standing up for a woman the whole
town had turned against! But she was saying with what seemed a sweet
gravity, "I'm sure Deane would be sorry for any woman who had been
so--unfortunate. And she," she added bravely, "was a dear old friend,
was she not?"
The woman who had commiserated with Edith now nodded approval at Amy.
"You're sweet, my dear," she said, and the benign looks of them all made
her feel there was something for her to be magnanimous about, something
queer. Her resentment intensified because of having to give that
impression of a sweet spirit. And so people talked about Deane's
standing up for this Ruth Holland! _Why_ did they talk?--just what did
they say? "There's more to it than I know," suspicion whispered. In that
last half hour it was hard to appear gracious and interested; she saw a
number of those little groups in which voices were low and faces were
trying not to appear eager.
She wished she knew what they were saying; she had an intense desire to
hear more about this thing which she so resented, which was so roiling
to her. It fascinated as well as galled her; she wanted to know just how
this Ruth Holland looked, how she had looked that night of the wedding,
what she had said and done. The fact of being in the very house where
Ruth Holland had been that last night she was with her friends seemed to
bring close something mysterious, terrible, stirring imagination and
curiosity. Had she been with Deane that night? Had he taken her to the
wedding?--taken her home? She hardened to him in the thought of there
being this thing she did not know about. It began to seem he had done
her a great wrong in not preparing her for a thing that could bring her
embarrassment. Everyone else knew about it! Coming there a bride, and
the very first thing encountering something awkward! She persuaded
herself that her pleasure in this party, in this opening up of her life
there, was spoiled, that Deane had spoiled it. And she tormented herself
with a hundred little wonderings.
She and Cora Albright went home together in Edith's brougham. Cora was
full of talk of Ruth Holland, this new development, Ruth's return,
stirring it all up again for her. Amy's few discreet questions brought
forth a great deal that she wanted to know. Cora had a worldly manner,
and that vague sympathy with evil that poetizes one's self without doing
anything so definite as condoning, or helping, the sinner.
"I do think," she said, with a little shrug, "that the town has been
pretty hard about it. But then you know what these middle-western towns
are." Amy, at this appeal to her sophistication, gravely nodded. "I do
feel sorry for Ruth," Cora added in a more personal tone.
"Will you go to see her?" Amy asked, rather pointedly.
"Oh, I couldn't do that," replied Cora. "My family--you know,--or
perhaps you don't know. I'm related to Mrs. Williams," she laughed.
"Oh!" Amy ejaculated, aghast, and newly fascinated by the horror, what
somehow seemed the impossibleness of the whole thing--that she should be
talking of Ruth Holland to a woman related to Mrs. Williams!
"I suppose _she_ felt terribly," Amy murmured.
Cora laughed a little. "Oh, I don't know. It never seemed to me that
Marion would do much feeling. Feeling is so--ruffling."
"She looks," said Amy, a little aggressively, "as though she might not
show all she feels."
"Oh, I suppose not," Cora agreed pleasantly. "Perhaps I do Marion an
injustice. She may have suffered in silence. Certainly she's kept
silence. Truth is, I never liked her so very well. I like Ruth much the
better of the two. I like warmth--feeling."
She was leaning forward and looking from the window. "That's the
Hollands'," she said. And under her breath, compassionately, she
murmured, "Poor Ruth!"
"I should think you _would_ go and see her," said Amy, curiously
resentful of this feeling.
With a little sigh Cora leaned back in the luxurious corner. "We're not
free to do what we might like to do in this life," she said, looking
gravely at Amy and speaking as one actuated by something larger than
personal feeling. "Too many people are associated with me for me to go
and see Ruth--as, for my own part, I'd gladly do. You see it's even
closer than being related to Marion. Cyrus Holland,--Ruth's
brother--married into my family too. Funny, isn't it?" she laughed at
Amy's stare. "Yes, Cyrus Holland married a second cousin of Stuart
Williams' wife."
"Why--" gasped Amy, "it's positively weird, isn't it?"
"Things are pretty much mixed up in this world," Cora went on, speaking
with that good-natured sophistication which appealed to Amy as worldly.
"I think one reason Cy was so bitter against Ruth, and kept the whole
family so, was the way it broke into his own plans. He was in love with
Louise at the time Ruth left; of course all her kith and kin--being also
Marion's--were determined she should not marry a Holland. Cy thought he
had lost her, but after a time, as long as no one was quite so bitter
against Ruth as he, the opposition broke down a little--enough for
Louise to ride over it. Oh, yes, in these small towns everybody's
somehow mixed up with everyone else," she laughed. "And of course," she
went on more gravely, "that is where it is hard to answer the people who
seem so hard about Ruth. It isn't just one's self, or even just one's
family--though it broke them pretty completely, you know; but a thing
like that reaches out into so many places--hurts so many lives."
"Yes," said Amy, "it does." She was thinking of her own life, of how it
was clouding her happiness.
"One has to admit," said Cora, in the tone of summing it all up, "that
just taking one's own happiness is thorough selfishness. Society as a
whole is greater than the individual, isn't it?"
That seemed to Amy the heart of it. She felt herself as one within
society, herself faithful to it and guarding it against all who would do
it harm; hard to the traitor, not because of any personal feeling--she
wished to make that clear to herself--but because society as a whole
demanded that hardness. After she had bade Cora good-by and as she was
about to open the door of the house Deane had prepared for her, she told
herself that it was a matter of taking the larger view. She was pleased
with the phrase; it seemed to clear her own feeling of any possible
charge of smallness.