A COWARDLY LOVE.
"Howso'er I stray or range,
Whate'er I do, thou dost not change;
I steadier step when I recall
That if I slip thou dost not fall."
--CLOUGH.
"Have you buried your happiness? Well, live bravely on. The plant
does not die though all its flowers be broken off. It remembers
that spring will surely come again."
Roland and Denasia were in Liverpool. They were full of hopes and of
prudent plans. Roland had again turned over a new leaf; he had
renounced his past self--the faults he could no longer commit; he had
renounced also his future faults. If he was a little extravagant in
every way for a day or two before making so eventful a voyage, he felt
that Denasia ought not to complain. Alas! it is not the renunciation
of our past and future selves that is difficult; it is the steady
denial of our present self which makes the disciple.
They spent two pleasant days in Liverpool, and on the eve of the
second went to the wonderful piers and saw the vast companies of
steamers smudging the blue sky with their lowering clouds of black
smoke. Denasia clung closely to Roland; she felt that she was going
into a new world, and she looked with a questioning love into his
eyes, as if she could read her fortune in them. Roland was unusually
gay and hopeful. He reminded his wife that the mind and the heart
could not be changed by place or time. He said that they had each
other to begin the new life with, and he was very sure they would soon
possess their share of every other good thing. And Denasia fell asleep
to his hopeful predictions.
In the morning all was changed. The sun was hidden behind banks of
black clouds, the streets were plashy and muddy, the fierce showers
smote the windows like hail, and the view outside was narrowed to a
procession of dripping umbrellas. It was chilly, too, and the hotel
was inexpressibly dreary and uncomfortable. Greatly to Denasia's
astonishment, Roland was already dressed. All his hopes were fled. He
was despondent and strangely woe-begone and indifferent. He said he
had had a miserable dream. He did not think now it was right to go to
America; they would do nothing there. He wished they were at
Broadstairs; he had been a fool to mind the chatter of men who were
probably guying him; he wished Denas had not urged the plan; if she
had only stood firm, etc., etc., etc.
Denasia looked at him with amazement and with some anger. She reminded
him that the American idea was entirely his own. She wondered what
stuff he was made of, to be so dashed and quailed by a dream. She said
that she also had had a bad dream. They had both eaten late; and as
for dreams, everyone knew they went by contraries. And as limp
spirits like to lean, Roland was soon glad to lean upon Denasia's
bravery.
The few last weary hours in England went slowly by. Roland and Denasia
became at last impatient to be off; any place must certainly be better
than that dreary hotel and that storm-beaten town; the cab that took
them to the wharf was a relief, and the great steamer a palace of
comfort. They were not sick, and the storm was soon over. After they
lost sight of land the huge waves were flatted upon the main; the
weather was charming; the company made a fair show of being intensely
happy, and day after day went past in the monotonous pretension.
Nothing varied the life until the last night on board, when there was
to be a concert. Denasia had been asked to take a part in it, and she
had promised to sing a song.
No one expected much from her. She had not been either officious or
effusive during the voyage, and "song by Mrs. Tresham" did not raise
any great expectations. As it was nearly the last item on the
programme, many had gone away before Roland took his place at the
piano and struck a few startling chords. Then Mrs. Tresham stepped
forward and became suddenly Mademoiselle Denasia.
"Here beginneth the sea,
That ends not till the world ends,"
thrilled the great ship's cabins from end to end. The captain was
within the door before the first verse was finished. There was a crowd
at the doors; all the servants in the lower saloon had ceased work to
listen. Song after song was called for. Perhaps, indeed, Denasia had a
sweeter taste of her power that night than she had ever felt in halls
crowded with strangers who had paid a shilling to be amused by her.
The listener most interested in this performance said the least at the
time; but he never took his eyes off the singer, and his private
decision was, "That young woman is a public singer. Her voice has not
been trained for parlours; she has been used to fling its volume
through the larger space of halls or theatres. I must look after her."
He approached Roland the next day and spoke in guarded terms about
Mrs. Tresham's voice. Roland was easily induced to talk, and the
result was an offer which was really--if they had known it--the open
door to fortune. But it is the fatality of the unlucky to have the
spirit of recklessness in their veins and the weakness of prudence in
their hearts. Instead of letting events guide them, they have the
presumption to think they can guide events. Roland received the offer
coolly, and said he would consult Mrs. Tresham on the matter. But,
instead of consulting with his wife, he dictated to her after the
fashion of the suspicious:
"This man is the manager of a company, I think. He is very anxious for
you to sign an agreement. His offer appears to be good, but we know
nothing of affairs in New York; it may be a very poor offer. If you
have made such an impression on him, you may make a much more
pronounced one on others. We will not think of this proposal at all,
except as the straw which shows us what a great wind is going to
blow."
Denasia was extremely opposed to this view. She quoted the old proverb
of "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." She said it would be
a sure living during the time they were learning the new country and
its opportunities. She begged Roland to let her accept the offer. When
he refused, she said that they would live to regret the folly.
The manager thought so also. "For you must understand," he said to
Roland, "that I was desirous to engage Mrs. Tresham, not for what she
is--which is ordinary--but for the possible extraordinary I see in her
if she could have the proper advantages and influences." With the
words he bowed a little sarcastically to Mrs. Tresham's husband, and
afterward spoke no more to him. And then there came to the foolish
young man that sudden chill and foreboding which a despised
opportunity leaves behind it.
But whether we do wisely or foolishly, the business of life must be
carried on. They were at the point of landing, and for some days the
strange experiences of their new life occupied every moment and every
feeling. Then came a long spell of hot weather, such heat as Denasia
had never dreamed of. Roland, who had been in Southern Europe, could
endure it better; as for Denasia, she lay prostrate with but one idea
in her heart--the cool coverts of the Cornish undercliff and the
trinkling springs where the blue-bells and the forget-me-nots grew so
thickly.
Yet it was necessary that something should be done, and through the
blazing heat, day after day, the poor girl was dragged to agencies and
managers. But she found no one to make her such an offer as the one so
foolishly declined. And the time wore on, and the money in their purse
grew less and less, and a kind of desperation made both silent and
irritable. Finally an engagement to go "on the road" was secured, and
Roland affected to be delighted with it. "We shall see the whole
country," he said, "and we can keep our eyes open for something
better."
Denasia sighed. Disappointment and a sense of wrong and grievous
mistake filled her heart and sat upon her face. She submitted as to an
irreparable injury, and left New York without the least enthusiasm.
"Good fortune knocked at our door," she said, "and we had not
intelligence enough to let him in." This was all the reproach she
gave her husband, and as she said "we" he accepted her generous
self-accusation, and finally convinced himself that it was entirely
Denasia's fault that the offer was refused. "But then I do not
blame you, Denasia," he remarked magnanimously; "you had every right
to consider yourself worthy of a larger salary."
They left New York in September and went slowly West. Denasia had a
fine physique, but it was not a physique trained to the special labour
it had to endure: long days in hot railway cars; hurry and worry at
every performance; no seclusion, no time for study; no time to
acknowledge headache or weariness; a score of little humiliations and
wrongs; a constant irritability at Roland's apparent indifference to
her wretchedness and apparent satisfaction with the company and life
into which he was thrown. The men, indeed, all seemed satisfied. They
had cigars to smoke, and they told stories and played cards, and so
beguiled the weary hours of travel. The women were headachy and tired;
they soon threw aside their paper novels and confidential talks. Some
of the very young ones--pretty, wilful, inexperienced girls, not yet
disillusioned, not yet weary--added flirtation to their amusements. It
pained Denasia to see Roland a willing aid to their foolish pastime.
She had no fear that her husband would wrong her, but the pretence
pained and humbled her.
It was a wearisome seven months, a nightmare kind of life, unrelieved
by even a phantom show of success. Men in the Sierras, out on the
great Western plains, knew not the sea. They could not be roused to
enthusiasm. Fisher-folk and fisher-life were outside their sympathies.
They preferred a comic song--a song that hit a famous person, or a
political principle, or a Western foible. Miners liked to hear about
"Leadville Jim." It touched their sensibilities when the "Three
Fishers who Went Sailing out into the West" made no picture in their
minds. Without being a failure, Denasia could not be said to be a
success. She was out of her place, and consequently out of sympathy
with all that touched her life.
Coming back eastward, while they were at Denver Denasia was stricken
with typhoid fever. It was the result of months of unsatisfactory,
unhappy labour, of worry and fret and disappointment. Nostalgia also
of the worst kind had attacked her. She shut her eyes against the
great mountains and endless plains. She wanted the sea. She wanted her
home. Above all, she wanted to hide herself in her mother's breast.
Roland had been frequently unkind to her lately. She had been utterly
unable to respond to his moods, so different from her own, and she had
been more and more pained by the silly attentions he bestowed on
others.
At last she could endure it no longer. She had come to a point of
indifference. "Leave me and let me die." This was all she said
when Roland was at length forced to believe that her sickness was
not temper, or disappointment, or jealousy. The company were
compelled to leave her; Roland saw his favourites on the train and
then he returned to nurse his sick wife. He found her insensible,
and she remained so for many days. Doctors were called, and
Roland conscientiously remained by her side; but yet it was all
alone that she fought her battle with death. No one went with her
into the dark valley of his shadow. She was deaf to all human
voices; far beyond all human help or comfort. Through the long
nights Roland heard her moaning and muttering, but it was the voice
of one at an inconceivable distance--of one at the very shoal of
being.
She came back from the strife weak as a baby. Her clear, shrill voice
was a whisper. She could not lift a finger. It was an exhausting
effort to open her eyes. A new-born child was in every respect more
alive and more self-helpful, for Denasia could not by look or
whisper make a complaint or a request. She was only not dead. The
convalescence from such a sickness was necessarily long and
tiresome. The fondest heart, the most unselfish nature must at
times have felt the strain too great to be borne. Roland changed
completely under it. His love for Denasia had always been dependent
upon accessories pleasant and profitable to himself, as, indeed,
his love for any human being would have been. While Denasia's
beauty and talent gave him _eclat_ and brought him money, he
admired Denasia; and while her personality made sweet his private and
enviable his public hours, he loved her.
But a wife smitten by deathly sickness into breathing clay--a wife who
could give him no delight and make him no money--a wife who compelled
him to waste his days in darkness and solitude and unpleasant duties
and his money in medicines and doctor's fees--was not the kind of wife
he had given his heart and name to. It was evident to him that Denasia
had failed. "She has failed in everything I hoped from her," he said
to himself bitterly one day, as he sat beside the still, death-like
figure; "and there must be an end of this some way, Roland Tresham."
Financial difficulties were quickly upon him, and though he had
written to Elizabeth a most pitiful description of his position, a
whole month had passed and there was no letter to answer his appeal.
He had momentary impulses to run away from a situation so painful and
so nearly beyond his control. But it was fortunately much easier for
Roland to be a scoundrel in intent than in reality. His selfish
instincts had some nobler ones to combat, and as yet the nobler ones
had kept the man within the pale of human affections. There had been
one hour when the temptation was very nearly too much for him; and
that very hour there came to him two hundred dollars from Elizabeth.
It turned him back. Ah, how many a time two hundred dollars would
prevent a tragedy! How many a time financial salvation means also
moral salvation!
It was midsummer before Denasia was strong enough to return to New
York, though she was passionately anxious to do so. "We are so far out
of the right way," she pleaded. "So far! In New York we are nearer
home. In New York I shall get well."
And by this time Roland had fully realised how unfit he was for the
vivid, rapid life of the West. The cultivated, gentlemanly drawl of
his speech was of itself an offence; his slow, unruffled movements and
attitudes, his "ancient" ways of thinking, his conservatism and
gentility and ultra-superficial refinement were the very qualities not
valued and not needed in a community full of new life, ardent,
impulsive, rapid, looking forward, and determined not to look
backward.
So with hopes much dashed and hearts much dismayed they re-entered
New York. The question of the future was a serious one. They were
nearly dollarless again, and even Roland felt that Elizabeth could
not be appealed to for some months at least. Denasia was facing the
sorrowful hopes of motherhood. For three or four months she could not
sing. They restricted themselves to a small back room in a Second
Avenue boarding-house, and Roland searched the agencies and the
papers daily for something suitable to his peculiar characteristics
and capabilities, and found nothing. There was a great city full of
people, but not one of them wanting the services of a young
gentleman like Roland.
As for Denasia, she was still very weak. July and August tried her
severely. Some few little garments had to be made, and this pitiful
sewing was all she could manage. She did not lose her courage,
however, and if anything touched Roland's best feelings at this time,
it was her unfailing hope, her smiling welcome no matter how
frequently he brought disappointment, her brave assurances that she
would be quite well before the winter season, and then all would be
put right.
In the last days of August the baby was born. Denasia recovered
rapidly, but the little lad was a sickly, puny child. He had been
wasted by fever, and fretted by anxious cares and by many fears, even
before they were his birthright. All the more he appealed to his
mother's love, and Denasia began now to comprehend something of the
sin against mother-love which she herself had committed.
Perhaps she permitted her joy in her child to dominate her life too
visibly; at any rate it soon began to annoy her husband. He had been
so accustomed to all of Denasia's time and attention that he could not
endure to be put off until baby was asleep, or until some trifling
want of baby's had been attended to. He fancied that her attention was
divided; that even when she appeared to be listening to his complaints
or his intentions, her heart was with the child and her ears listening
for its crying. The transient pleasure he had experienced in the
little one's birth soon passed away, and an abiding sense of petty
jealousy and wrong took its place.
"You are for ever nursing that crying little creature, Denasia," he
said one day when he returned to their small, warm room in a fever of
annoyance at some unappreciative manager. "No one can get your
attention for five minutes. You hear nothing I say. You take no
interest in anything I do. And the little torment is for ever and for
ever crying."
"Baby is sick, Roland. And who is there to care for him but me?"
"We ought to be doing something. Winter is coming on. Companies are
already on the road; you will find it hard to get a position of any
kind, soon."
"I will go out to-morrow. I am strong enough now, I think."
"I can find nothing suitable. People seem to take an instant dislike
to me."
"That is nonsense! You were always a favourite."
"I have had to sell most of my jewelry in order to provide for your
sickness, Denasia. Of course I was glad to do it, you know that,
but----"
"But it is my duty now, Roland. I will begin to-morrow."
So the next day Denasia went to the agencies, and Roland promised to
take care of baby. A two weeks of exhausting waiting and seeking, of
delayed hope and destroyed hope, followed; and Denasia was forced to
admit that she had made no impression on the managerial mind. No one
had heard of her singing and dancing, and those who condescended to
listen were not enthusiastic.
"You see," said one of the kindest of these caterers for the public's
pleasure--"you see, New Yorkers have no ideas about fisher men and
women. If their fish is fresh, that is all that troubles them. If they
think about the men who catch it, they very likely think of them as
living comfortably in flats with all the modern improvements. A good
topical song, a spirited dance--they are the things that fetch."
In different forms this was the general verdict, and every day she
found it harder and harder to return home and meet Roland's eager face
as she opened the door. Pretty soon the anxiety became tinctured with
complaint and unreasonable ill-temper, and with all the domestic
miseries which accompany resentful poverty.
The poor little baby in Roland's opinion was to blame for every
disappointment. Its arrival had belated Denasia's application, or if
he wanted to be particularly irritating, he accused Denasia of being
in such a hurry to return to her child that she did not attend to her
most necessary duties. So instead of being a loving tie between them,
the poor wailing little morsel of humanity separated very love, while
Roland's complaints of it soon really produced in his heart the
impatient dislike which at first he only pretended.
He grumbled when left in charge of the cradle. As soon as Denasia was
out of sight he frequently deserted his duty, and the disputes that
followed hardened his heart continually against the cause of them. And
when it came to naming the child, he averred that it was a matter of
no importance to him, only he would not have it called Roland. "There
had been," he said, "one too many of the Treshams called Roland. The
name was unlucky; and besides, the child did not resemble his family.
It looked just like the St. Penfer fisher children."
Denasia coloured furiously, but she answered with the moderation of
accepted punishment, "Very well, then! I will call him 'John' after my
father. I hope he may be as good a man."
Matters went on in this unhappy fashion until the end of October--nay,
they continually grew worse, for poverty deepened and hope lessened.
Denasia had lost the freshness of her beauty, and she was too simple
and ignorant to make art replace nature. Indeed, it is doubtful
whether any persuasion could have made her imitate the "painted
Jezebel" who had always been one of the most pointed examples of her
religious education. In her first experience of public life her
radiant health and colouring shamed all meaner aids and had been amply
sufficient for the brightest lights and the longest hours. But that
fierce ordeal of acclimating under conditions of constant travel and
hard work had drained even the magnificent vitality that had been her
heritage from generations of seamen, and typhoid and unhappy maternity
had robbed her of much of her almost defiant youth, with its
indomitable spirit and invincible hope.
She had become by the close of October pale, fragile-looking, and
woefully depressed. Roland no longer found her always smiling and
hoping, and he called the change bad temper when he ought to have
called it hunger. Not indeed hunger in its baldest form for mere
bread, but hunger just as killing--hunger for the nourishing delicate
food and proper tonics that were just as necessary as bread; hunger
for hope, for work, and, above all, hunger for affection.
For Roland had begun privately--yea, and sometimes openly--to call
himself a fool. And the devil, who never chooses a wrong hour, sent
him at this time an important letter from Elizabeth. In it she told
him that Mr. Burrell had died suddenly from apoplexy, and that she had
resolved to sell Burrell Court and make her residence in London and
Lucerne. She deplored his absence, and said how much she had needed
some one of her own family in the removal from Cornwall and in the
settlement of her husband's estate; and she sent her brother a much
smaller sum of money than she had ever sent before.
When Roland had finished reading this epistle he looked at Denasia.
She was walking about the room trying to soothe and quiet the child.
It was very ill, and she had not dared to speak about a doctor.
Therefore she was feeling hurt and sorrowful, and when Roland said,
"Elizabeth's husband is dead," she did not answer him.
"I said that Elizabeth's husband is dead," he angrily reiterated.
"Very well. I am not sorry. I should think the poor man would be glad
to escape from her."
"You are speaking of my sister, Denasia--of my sister, who is a
lady."
"I care nothing about her. She could always take good care of herself.
I am heart-broken for my child, who is ill and suffering, and I can do
nothing for his relief--no, not even get a doctor."
Words still more bitter followed. Roland dressed himself and went out.
He was not in a mood to do business or to look for business; indeed,
there was no need that he should trouble himself for one day when he
had Elizabeth's order in his pocket. He turned it into cash, bought
the daily newspapers, and, the morning being exquisite, he took the
cars to Central Park. But it was not until he was comfortably seated
in the most retired arbour that he permitted himself to think.
Then he frankly said over and over: "What a fool I have been! Here am
I at thirty-three years of age tied to a plain-looking fisher-girl and
her cross, sickly baby. All I hoped for in her has proved a deception.
Her beauty has not stood the test of climate. Motherhood, that
improves and perfects most women, has personally wrecked her. Her
voice is now commonplace. Her songs are become tiresome. She has grown
fretful, and all her brightness and hopefulness have vanished. I do
not know how to make a living. I may as well admit that my dramatic
views are a failure--that is, they are in advance of the times. I can
do nothing for myself. But if I had not been married, what a jolly
time I might now be having with Elizabeth! London, Paris, Switzerland,
and no care or trouble of any kind. Oh, what a fool I have been! How
terribly I have been deceived!"
He did not take into consideration Denasia's disappointment. He had no
doubt Denasia was telling all her own sorrows to herself and weeping
over them and her miserable little baby. After a while he lit a fresh
cigar and opened the newspapers. For an hour or two he let his
thoughts drift as they led him, and then, as he was folding up one,
the following notice met his vision:
"Wanted, a private secretary. A young man who has had a classical
education preferred. Call upon Mr. Edward Lanhearne, 9 Fifth Avenue."
The name struck Roland. He had heard it before. It had a happy memory,
an air of prosperity about it. Lanhearne! It was a Cornish name! That
circumstance gave him the clew. When he was a boy at Eton, he
remembered a Mr. Lanhearne who stayed with his father. "By Jove!" he
cried, starting to his feet, "he was an American. What a piece of luck
it would be if it should be the same man!" He fixed the address in his
mind and went to it immediately.
The house pleased him. It was a large dwelling fronting on the avenue.
A handsome carriage was just leaving the door, and in the carriage was
a very lovely young woman. The entrance, the reception parlour, the
servant who admitted him, all the apparent accessories of the house
and household indicated wealth and refinement. What a heaven in
comparison with that back room on Second Avenue! For the first time in
many a month Roland had a sense of success in what he was going to do,
and the feeling gave him a portion of the elements necessary to
success.
Mr. Lanhearne received him at once. He was a kindly looking old
gentleman, with fine manners and an intelligent face.
"Mr. Tresham," he said, "I was attracted by your name. I once had a
friend--a very pleasant friend indeed, called Tresham."
"Did he live in London, sir?"
"He did."
"He was Lord Mayor in the year 18--?"
"He was. Did you know him?"
"I am his son. I remember you very well. You went with me and my
father to buy my first pony."
"I did indeed. Mr. Tresham, sit down, sir. You are very welcome. I am
grateful for your visit. And how is my old acquaintance? I have not
heard of him for many years. We are both Cornishmen, and you know the
Cornish motto is 'One and all.'"
"My father is dead. He had great financial misfortunes. He did not
survive them long. I came to America hoping to find a better
opening, but nothing has gone well with me. This morning I saw
your advertisement. I think I can do all you require, and I shall be
very glad indeed of the position."
"How long have you been in America, Mr. Tresham?"
"More than a year. I went West at once, spent my money, and failed in
every effort."
"To be sure. The West is for physical and financial energies. I think
if a young man is to rely on his mental qualities he had better remain
East. I am glad you have called upon me. The duties I wish attended to
are very simple. You will have to read my mail every morning and
answer it as I verbally direct. With the help of printed plates you
will arrange my coins and seals and such matters. I wish you also to
read the newspapers to me. In a day or two you will find out which
articles to read and which to omit. I want a companion for my drives.
I want some one to chat with me on my various hobbies--a young man,
because young men have such positive opinions, and therefore we shall
be likely to come to pleasant disputing. You will have a handsome
room, a seat at my table, a place among my guests, and one hundred
dollars a month."
"I am very grateful to you, sir."
"And I am very grateful to the kind fate which sent you to me. I owe
your father for many a delightful day. I am glad to pay my debt to his
son. When can you come here?"
"This afternoon, sir."
"I like that. We dine at seven. I will expect you to dinner. Do
you--ahem!--excuse me, Mr. Tresham, perhaps you may require a little
money in advance. I shall be pleased to accommodate you."
"You offer is gracious and considerate, sir. I am glad you made it,
although I do not fortunately need to accept it."
They clasped hands and parted with smiles. Mr. Lanhearne was quite
excited over the adventure. He longed for his daughter to come home,
that he might tell her what a romantic answer had come to his prosaic
advertisement. And Roland was still more excited. The air of the
house, its peace, refinement, and luxury appealed irresistibly to him.
It was his native air. He wondered how he had endured the vulgarity
and penury of his surroundings for so long; how indeed he had borne
with Denasia's shortcomings at all. That refined old gentleman, that
quiet, elegant woman whom he had had a glimpse of--these people were
like himself, of his own order--he would never weary of them. The
class he had voluntarily chosen, the people with whom poverty had
compelled him to consort, they affected him now as the memory of a
debauch affects a man when it is over.
"I had no business out of my proper sphere," he said sadly. "Elizabeth
was right--right even about Denasia."
He sat down in Union Square to consider his position, and he came to a
very rapid and positive conclusion. He declared to himself: "I will no
longer waste my life. Denasia and I have made a great mistake.
Together, we shall be poor and miserable. Apart, we shall be happy. I
no longer love her. I do not believe she loves me. All the love she
can spare from her blustering father and mother she wastes on that
miserable sickly babe, who would be a thousand times better dead than
alive. If I leave her she will go back to St. Penfer. I have a hundred
dollars; I will give her fifty of them. She can pay a steerage passage
out of it or go in a sailing-vessel, or if she does not like that way
she has things she can sell. If I give her half of what I have I do
very well indeed."
He went rapidly to his home, or room. He knew that Denasia had an
engagement to keep, and he hoped that he might be fortunate enough to
find her out. It was as he wished: Denasia had gone out and the
landlady was sitting beside the baby's cradle. Roland dismissed her
with that manner all women declared to be charming, and then he sat
down and wrote a letter to his wife. It did not occupy him ten
minutes. Some of his clothing was yet very good and fashionable; he
packed it in the leather trap which had gone with him to college, and
then he sent a little girl for a cab. Without word and without
observation he drove away from the scene of so much vexation and
disappointment.
The whole life and vicinity had suddenly become horrible to
him--Denasia, his child, the shabby landlady, the shabby house, the
dirty little grocery at the corner where he had bought his cigars and
their small household supplies, the meals cooked there and eaten
there, Denasia's attempts at housekeeping--the whole series of
memories made him wince and shiver with shame and annoyance. "Thank
God it is over!" he said fervently. And he never once thought what an
insult he was offering to eternal mercy and justice, in supposing God
had anything whatever to do with his flagrant desertion of duty, his
shameful abrogation of all the consequences of his own wilful
selfishness, and his cruel farewell to the wife and son he was bound
to nourish and cherish and defend.
He thought of none of these things. He thought only of the comfort and
elegance; the peace, the delicate living, the delicate clothing, the
congenial companionship he was going to. He was determined to have a
luxurious bath, to be shaved and perfumed, to leave behind him the
very dust of his past life. He resolved not to allow himself to
remember Denasia. She was to be as if she never had been. He would
blot out of his memory all the years she had brightened and darkened.
And if any excuse can be found for him, it must be in his supposition
that Denasia felt just as he did. She would be grateful to him for
taking the initiative--glad to get back to her home and her people,
glad to escape a life for which she must have discovered she had
neither strength nor vocation.
So he thought, in spite of his resolve not to think. But a man must be
even more selfish and reckless than Roland was to take years of his
past life and plunge them into oblivion as he would plunge a stone
into mid-ocean. In spite of the novelty of his situation, of his
delight with his quiet, handsome room, the thought of Denasia would
enter where it was forbidden to enter, and he could not help wondering
how she would receive his letter, and what steps she would take in
consequence of it.
Denasia came home weary and disappointed. She had had a long, silent
wait for the person she expected to see, and finally been compelled to
accept the fact that he was not coming into town. She was heart-sick,
and the paltry loss of the car fare was an addition to her anxiety.
That the room was empty and the baby crying did not in any way
astonish her. She understood from it that Roland had come home and
dismissed the landlady, and then wearied of his watch and gone out
again, leaving the child to sleep or to weep as it felt inclined to
do. Her first action was to lift it from its bed, nurse and comfort
it, and rock it to sleep on her breast.
Then her eyes wandered from her child to a letter lying on the table.
The circumstance roused no interest in her mind. She knew from its
general appearance that it had been put there by Roland, and it was by
no means the first time he had left the child with a letter containing
some excuse which he thought valid enough to satisfy Denasia. She
looked at it with a little contempt. She expected to find it assert
that some one had called for him or had sent him a message involving a
possible engagement, and she knew the whole affair would resolve
itself into some plausible story, which she would either have to
accept or else deny, with the certain addition of a coolness or a
quarrel.
So the letter lay until she had put off and away her street costume.
Then she took it in her hand and sat down by the open window to read
the contents. They were short and very much to the point:
"DENASIA, MY DEAR:--You have ceased to love me and I have ceased
to love you. You are miserable and I am miserable. We have made a
great mistake, and we must do all we can to correct it. When you
read this I shall be on my way to England. I advise you to go back
to your parents for a year. You may in that time recover your
beauty and your voice. It may be well then to go to Italy and give
yourself an opportunity to obtain the education I see now you
ought to have had at the first. But until that is practicable we
are better apart. You will find fifty dollars in the white gloves
lying on the dressing-case. I advise you to take a sailing-vessel;
a long voyage will do you good and will be much cheaper. It is
what I have done. Farewell.
"ROLAND."
She read every word and then glanced at the cradle. The child moved.
With the letter in her hand she soothed it and then sat down again.
She was overwhelmed with the shameful wrong. But to cry out and wring
her hands and call in the neighbours to see and hear what things she
suffered was not her way. Often she had seen her mother sitting
speechless and motionless for hours while her father hung between life
and death; it was natural for Denasia to take unavoidable sorrow with
the same dumb patience.
Then she began to analyse the specious sentences and to deny the
things asserted. "I have not ceased to love. Every hour of the day my
life has been a witness to my love. I never said I was miserable.
Nothing had power to make me quite miserable if Roland was kind to me.
He is on his way to England. Of course he has gone to his sister. What
did her sweet complaints and regrets at not having his help and
company mean but 'Come to me, Roland'? She has lost her own husband
and now she must have mine. She has always been my evil angel. When
she was kindest to me it was only a different way of serving herself.
My soul warned me; my father warned me. She is one of those human
vampires who suck love, luck, life itself from all near them, and who
slay, and rob, and smile, and caress while they do it. And I am to go
home for a year and get back my beauty and my voice. I am sorry I ever
was beautiful. If I can help it I will never sing another song. Go
home and shame my good father and mother for his sake? Go home and be
lectured and advised and reproved by every woman in the village? Go
home a deserted wife, a failure in everything? No; I will not go home.
Nor will I go to Italy. I have had more than enough of singing for my
living and his living, too. I will sew, I will wash, I will go to
service, I will do anything with my hands I can do; but I will not
sing. And I will bring up my boy to work at real work, if it is but to
make a horseshoe out of a lump of iron! God! what a foolish woman I
have been! What a silly, vain, loving woman! My heart will break! My
heart will break! Alone, alone! Sick, helpless, ignorant, alone!"
She closed her eyes and hid her face, and in that darkness gathered
together her soul-strength. But she shed no tears. Pale as death, weak
and trembling with suppressed emotion, she went softly about the
little room putting things in order--doing she scarcely knew what, yet
feeling the necessity to be doing something. Thus she came across the
white gloves, and she feared to look in them. Her knowledge of Roland
led her to think he would not leave fifty dollars behind him. He would
take the credit of the gift and leave her to suppose herself robbed by
some intruder or visitor.
So she looked suspiciously at the bit of white kid and undid it
without hope. The money was there. After all, Roland had some pity for
her. The sight of the bills subdued her proud restraint. One great
pressure was lifted. No one could now interfere if she sent for a
doctor for her sick baby. She could at least buy it the medicine that
would ease its sufferings. And so far out was the tide of her
happiness that from this reflection alone she drew a kind of
consolation.