After Desire departed for Reno, the winter dragged along,
heavy-footed.
Mary Greening heard from her often, {106} and brought me the letters.
She rented a cottage in Reno, and began housekeeping bravely, but,
presently, the servant question drove her temporarily to a hotel.
Very shortly we saw in the papers an account of a fire in the same
hotel. This was followed by a telegram from Desire to the effect that
she was as right as possible, and had only suffered the loss of a few
garments.
A week later as I sat in my usual place, the wheeled chair by the
study fire, I heard a carriage stop at my door. It was ten o'clock of
a wild January night, furious with wind and snow. There were voices in
the hall below; surprised ejaculations from Lena, the housemaid; at
last a rap on my door, which swung inward to admit--Desire!
"Will you take me in, Uncle Ben?" {107} she inquired cheerfully. "It
is such a frightful night! The cabman won't try to get me to Aunt
Mary. He wanted to leave me at a hotel. But this was no farther--and I
wanted to talk with you, anyhow."
I said the appropriate things, consumed meanwhile with wonder as to
what this reappearance meant. Desire threw off her long wrap and her
furs, vibrated about the room a little, then settled, like every one
else, in the winged chair across the hearth, and smiled at me
tremulously.
"Uncle Ben, something has happened to me."
"I judge it is something important, Desire."
"A big thing," she said gravely. "So big I don't understand it. I can
only tell you how it is."
I waited quietly, but there was that {108} in her voice which made me
catch my breath.
She seemed to find it hard to begin.
"I hated Reno," she said at last, abruptly. "The streets were so full
of plump, self-satisfied blonde women, overdressed and underbred. The
town was overrun with types one did n't like. It was--horrid! But it
did n't concern me, so I stayed in the little house and wrote a great
many letters to Aunt Mary and--Arthur Markham, and read, and amused
myself as best I could. Then I lost my maids and moved to the hotel
until I could arrange matters.
"You heard about the fire? The hotel was a wooden building with two
wings, and my room was in the wing that burned. It was all very
exciting, but I got out with my valuables and most of my wardrobe tied
{109} up in a sheet, and they put the fire out.
"The rest of the building was unhurt, so the occupants opened their
doors to the people who had been burned out. The manager asked me if I
would accept the hospitality of a Mrs. Marshall, 'a very nice lady
from up North!' I said I would be thankful for shelter of any
description, so he took me to her door and introduced us."
Desire paused reflectively.
"I'd like to make it as clear as possible to you, Uncle Ben, if you
don't mind my talking a lot. This Mrs. Marshall was just a girl, and
very good-looking indeed in a way. She had well-cut features, a strong
chin, blue eyes under dark lashes, and a great deal of vitality. So
far as looks went, I might have met her anywhere.
{110}
"The big room was strewn with her things, for she had expected to be
burned out, too; but she began to put them away at once, offering me
closet room, and talking excitedly as she moved about.
"The place was full of department-store luxury, if you know what I
mean. Her toilet-table was loaded with silver in a pattern of
flamboyant, curly cupids,--I've often wondered who bought such
things,--and there were gorgeous, gaudy garments lying about. Her
belongings, all but a few frocks, were expensive and tasteless to the
last degree. So much extravagance and so little beauty! It seemed so
strange to me that it was interesting.
"She talked a good deal, showing me this and that. Her slangy speech
had a certain piquancy, because she looked finer than her words. She
was {111} absolutely sure of herself, and at ease. I made out that
this was because she was conscious of no standards save those of
money, and there, as she would have said, she could 'deliver the
goods.' Were n't the evidences of her worth right under my eyes?
"I talked, too, as effusively as I knew how. I tried to meet her
halfway. She was evidently a perfectly well-placed and admired person
in her own world. I was excited and tired and lonely. It seemed good
just to speak to some one.
"Presently the room was cleared, and we began to think of sleeping. I
have n't forgotten a word of the conversation that followed.
"'It's very good of you to take me in. I hope I shan't disturb you very
much,' I said.
"'Oh, I'm glad to have somebody to talk to. I think this living in Reno
{112} is deadly, but it seems to be the easiest way to get results,'
she answered. 'How long you been here?'
"I told her.
"'Well, I'm a good deal nearer my freedom than you are. Don't it seem
perfectly ridiculous that when you want to shake a man you can't just
_shake_ him, without all this to-do?' she said. 'It makes me so mad to
think I've got to stay down here six months by myself, just to get rid
of Jim Marshall! Say, what does your husband do?'
"What could I say, Uncle Ben? It seemed sacrilegious to mention Arnold
in that room, but I was her guest and dependent upon her for shelter
and a bed.
"'He is a doctor,' I said.
"'That so? Jim's superintendent of a mine. Up in the mountains. It's
{113} the lonesomest place you ever saw. Twenty miles from nowhere,
with just a little track running down to the rail road, and nothing
worth mentioning when you get there.
"'Jim was awfully gone on me. Put up a spiel that he could n't live
without me, and all that. That was two years ago, and I was young and
tender hearted. Father had just dropped a whole bunch of money, and I
thought, 'Well, if any man wants to pay my bills as bad as that, I
guess I'll let him.' It looked like easy meal-tickets to me. Say! There's
no such thing as a soft snap in married life. You got to work for
your living, whoever he is. And I got so bored up in the mountains I
did n't know what to do. Any man's a bore if you see too much of him.
Jim's awful soft--wants to be babied all the time. Thought I did n't
love {114} him unless I looked just so and talked just so. Jerusalem!
How can you love anybody when you're a hundred miles from a matinee?
People have got to have what they're used to, even if they are
married, and that's a cinch. I used to go down to the city by myself
once in a while to visit Jim's sister, but there was n't anything in
that. She and I did n't get on. She never took me to a show once all
the time I was there. These in-laws are always looking at you through
a microscope. Ain't it awful? I don't claim my complexion will stand
that scrutiny. Did you have any in-laws?'
"'A few,' I said, thinking how Madam Ackroyd would look if she could
hear this conversation.
"'Well, anybody can have mine!' she said. 'Gee! How I hate to be bored!
I guess I'd be up on that mountain yet {115} if it hadn't been for
that. Last spring the son of the man who owns the mine took to coming
up to see about the output. I had him going in forty winks. I was just
amusing myself, but Jim got frightfully jealous. "See here," I says,
"I ain't going to let no mining man dictate to me, see? I'll tell you
that right now!" I was sore. To think he could n't let me have a bit
of fun, after the stupid winter I'd put in, frying his bacon. It
seemed plain selfish. So things ran along, and I got huffier and
huffier. Finally, when Joe volunteered he'd like to put up for me to
take this trip to Reno, I packed my suit-case and came away. It served
Jim right for being such an old grouch. What'd you think?
"I just opened my mouth and gasped. I could n't help it. Such
callousness!
"The girl looked at me queerly when {116} I did n't answer. 'What's
got _you_ that you did n't stay put?' she demanded. 'Here I've had a rush
of words to the mouth and told you all I know and I don't know a thing
about you.'
"I found my voice sufficiently to tell her my case was very different.
"'Huh!' she said, 'I may n't know much, but I'm wise to this; the
folks that have real reasons for a smash-up don't have to come to
Reno. They mostly can get their papers on the spot. I guess we're all
in the same boat out here. We're just taking what we want.'
"I felt as if I had been struck with a sledge-hammer when she said
that, and her eyes seemed to be boring through me like gimlets. I
thought I should scream if she said another word.
"'Let's talk about it in the morning,' I said, 'if you'll excuse me.
I'm so tired I simply can't keep my eyes open.'
{117}
"That was n't true. She went to sleep almost instantly, and slept like
a baby. I lay beside her, wide awake for hours. What she was, and what
she said, had turned a key in my brain. A host of thoughts I didn't
know I had came trooping out of some hidden room, and they marched and
counter-marched across my mind all night."
Desire got up and began to walk about the room restlessly in her
absorption as she recalled all this.
"It was wonderful, Uncle Ben. I wish I could make you understand.
First of all, I recognized that what she said was absolutely true. I
said to myself, Desire, you are a civilized, cultivated, mature,
distinguished-looking person, well born and well reared--but what has
it all done for you? It has, precisely, conducted you to Reno, Nevada.
This girl beside you is {118} uncivilized, uneducated, crude, young,
clearly of very common clay. And what has it all done for her but
conduct her to Reno, Nevada,--where she finds you, daughter of the
Pilgrims. Well met, sister!'
"It was very bitter to think that of myself," said my niece, stopping
by my chair. "It may sound foolish, Uncle Ben, but my friends have
always insisted I was a _schoene Seele_. I, a beautiful soul! I, a soul
at all! A white light that I could not shut my eyes against seemed to
beat down into my brain. I saw that I was just like the girl beside me
in her incredible callousness,--even like the fat, self-satisfied,
blonde women I had seen in the town. Oh, those common, common people!
I had thought myself as fine as silk, as tempered as steel, yes, and
as pure as flame! But I, too, was a brute.
{119}
"I thought and thought. I thought of Arnold, Arthur, and myself; we
are all proud, we are all fastidious, yet we had come to this. We had
drifted on the rocks. Pride had n't saved us, nor training, nor
intelligence. I had lived in and for these things, and they had not
prevented my doing the commonest things like the commonest creatures.
Uncle Ben, I seemed horrible to myself--I can't tell you.
"More doors opened in my mind, and I began to think of you, and
mother, and Aunt Mary, and of all the stories you used to tell me of
the good Raynies and the bad, the weak Withacres and the strong ones,
and what good fighters there were among them. And it seemed to me that
I could see and feel--like the flight of wings in the dark over my head--
the passing of the struggling generations of my fathers, each one
{120} achieving a little more; going from decency to good repute, and
from repute to renown, keeping faith with one another and with God,
from father to son.
"And all at once I saw that the dignity of my race did not consist in
its honors, nor even in its character, but--forever and always--in
its fight for character! It was the struggle that had made us. And I
had never struggled--so--I was not made. I was still unformed,
shapeless,--and a cheaper thing with all my pretensions than the girl
asleep beside me.
"Then there came on me a great desire to be one with my own people.
One life is nothing--somehow I saw it very clearly. Families build
righteousness as coral insects build a reef. I felt the yearning to be
built into a structure of honesty and honor. Even as I wished {121}
this, I saw, in that fierce light beating down upon my brain, that
there was something deep within me that forbade me to do the thing I
had been planning. It lay at the core of being, dark and stern; it
said _No_ to my desires. And I knew it for the strength of every _No_
my fathers ever uttered. It was my inheritance. And as I looked, it
seized my will. It shook me free from my longing for Arthur, free from
my impatience with Arnold, free from my wish to have my way!
"So--I have come back. It was strong enough to bring me back; it is
strong enough to hold me here. I don't care what happens to me after
this. _I don't care._ I may not be happy, but I don't seem to want to
be happy: I want to do the seemly, fitting things, the decent things.
I don't care if they are stupid; I don't care if I am bored! {122} I
wish just what I say. I want to be one with my race. It is they who
have brought me back. They held up the torch. I let it fall. Uncle
Ben, do you think it has gone out? Suppose one of my children's
children should stumble and then say, 'It is not my fault. I inherited
this. There was grandmamma who went her willful way so long ago!' I
know my dust would shiver in the ground. I can't add any more to the
weaknesses and follies that will crush them down. Having my own way
costs too much when they must pay. That's it. I have n't the price. I
refuse to let them pay.--Will you help me, Uncle Ben? Will you ask
Arnold to let me try again? I will be good. I will be humble--almost!
For I must have my children if only that I may pass this on. The thing
is to abolish our complacency. Why--it's {123} what the old
religionists meant when they talked about getting down in the dust
before their God! It really, really, is the thing we have to do. And--
my children will never learn it here, among you, where everybody is so
happy and self-satisfied. They will never learn it even from the
righteous Arnold. If they know it, they will have to learn it from me--
for I am the only repentant sinner of us all! So--I have come back."
Desire's words stirred me strangely. I had sometimes suspected that I
allowed my modest pride of descent to feed complacency rather than
effort. As she talked, I, too, saw the long procession of the valiant
men and women of my race moving forward through the years; I saw how I
had lightly arrogated credit to myself for their hard-won
excellencies, and reckoned {124} myself a finer gentleman for the
battles they had fought. Where were my battles? Where my victories?
Then--I remembered that the Withacres always could talk like angels
from heaven. But I looked into Desire's eyes, and that thought
shriveled before the flame in them. They met mine exultantly, as steel
meets steel. This was no lip eloquence. She was eager for her battles.
"So," I said with wonder, "you have capitulated--to Them."
"Yes--to Them. Oh, it is n't needful, Uncle Ben, that to show my
kinship I should work as they did, live as plainly, think as narrowly.
It is all here just the same. I am their child. I will not go against
their will. Before ever I was born, they wrote their desires in my
flesh. They made the blood to flow in my veins after their ways. {125}
And--I am glad! For my children shall be their children.--Uncle Ben,
will Arnold take me home?"
I looked at Desire's glowing face that seemed afire with aspiration
for the life she had tossed aside. I thought of Arnold's grave lips,
steady shoulders, and longing eyes. There fell upon me a vivid sense
of the wonderful ingenuity and richness of life's long processes. This
diverse pair had traveled devious ways to the end that, after all
their married years, they might at last be not unequally mated. My
elderly heart sang a canticle of rejoicing, but my speech was
circumspect.
"I incline to believe that he will," I admitted.
{126}
{127}