Marvel Charleroy found the letter in the box at the gate where the
postman had left it. There was other mail; she glanced at the covers
light-heartedly as she went toward the house. She was {150} not very
familiar with her mother's handwriting and, for the moment, did not
recognize it.
The house was low, gray-shingled, and inviting. It had a kindly, human
aspect, and though it was a modern structure built at the time of
Professor Charleroy's second marriage, eleven years before, there was
about it some thing of that quiet dignity we associate with age. The
branches of a wide-spreading old elm swept one of its chimneys; the
lawn was broad, the lilacs and syringas tall; ranks of high hollyhocks
in shades of rose and wine, rising against gray lattice, shut off the
kitchen gardens at the rear. The beds that bordered the paths were
planted to a tangle of old-fashioned flowers, gorgeous in the July
sunshine. There was a subdued gayety about the whole aspect of the
sheltered, sunny place, a {151} look of warmth and home and joy, that
was especially dear to Marvel Charleroy. It satisfied in her some
elemental need.
She preserved a vivid memory, of which she never spoke, of the
box-like little house on Spring Street, her early home. She recalled
that house as disorderly and uncomfortable during her mother's regime;
as frigid and uncomfortable during the reign of her Aunt Josephine.
She figured herself as always holding her breath, as always waiting
for something, while she lived there. It was not until she was twelve
(four years after Clarissa Charleroy left her husband), that Marvel,
to her own childish apprehension, began to fill her lungs, began,
indeed, to live.
It will be inferred that the catastrophe, so clearly outlined on that
April afternoon fifteen years earlier, did, in {152} fact, occur. For
various reasons, it did not take place immediately. For one thing, it
required time for Clarissa to put herself into touch with causes that
desired to be "promoted" by her silver tongue and wistful, winning
ways. Then, too, there were moments when she wavered. So long as Paul
could maintain that pose, achieved with great effort, of good-natured,
sarcastic scoffing at their tragedy, Clarissa herself did not believe
in it wholly. Sometimes they drew very near together. A debonair,
indifferent Paul who jested about her "calling" attracted her. A Paul
who could demand cheerfully as he took his second cup of coffee,
"Well, Clarissa, am I the Tyrant Man this morning?" was not unlikely
to elicit the answer, "No, not to-day, Paul. You're just own folks
to-day." But a Paul who had heard the wolf howling at the door {153}
of his heart, who looked at her with eyes in which she saw fear and
the shadow of a broken life, repelled her utterly. Women are reputed
to be soft-hearted. Paul Charleroy, musing upon his own predicament in
those days, remembered this age-long superstition with wonder.
In spite of various respites, a catastrophe which is latent in a
temperament will, some day, come to pass unless, of course, the owner
of the temperament decides to be absolute master of himself. Nothing
was further from Clarissa's thought than to recapture her married
happiness by an assault on her own disposition.
It is not good to linger over this portion of their story. Clarissa
did, finally, take over the task of reforming as much of humanity as
she could persuade to see the need of it, and she laid {154} aside the
business of looking after her husband and her child. Miss Josephine
Charleroy, ten years her brother's senior, and competent rather than
sympathetic, assumed these discarded responsibilities.
By slow degrees, Paul Charleroy's circumstances became less
straitened. He did place his text-book well, and derived a
considerable income therefrom; on the death of old Dr. Lettarby he
succeeded to the full professorship, with the munificent salary of
twenty-five hundred a year. Last of all, some time after Clarissa and
he were made free of each other by legal means, he did actually marry
Evelyn Ames.
Thus, it will be seen, Clarissa's forecasts were fulfilled. Her
notions were absolutely practicable; they really, all of them, worked,
and worked well. In the long run they even worked {155} beneficently,
but one prefers to attribute this to the mercy of Providence rather
than to the foresight of Clarissa.
Marvel Charleroy was twelve years old when her father married again,
and life began for her. The little girl noted, dimly at first, then
with growing wonder and appreciation, how interesting the commonplace
things became under the new rule. Though her frocks were simple as
ever, their adaptation to her self made it a pleasure to wear them;
she seemed suddenly to have acquired a definite place in the family
life, a position with duties and with compensating pleasures. Her
friendships were considered, her friends noticed and welcomed. For the
first time she felt herself an individual. Somebody was interested in
what she did and said and thought. Her own shy young consciousness of
personality was reflected {156} back to her, strengthened, and
adorned. She perceived with something like awe that the girl named
"Marvel" did not live only in her breast. Her father and his wife knew
a Marvel whom they believed to be industrious and clever, loving and
helpful. These qualities were multiplied tenfold by her perception
that they were looked for from that Marvel whom the heads of the house
seemed so happy to own and to cherish.
The child throve. She who had wondered vaguely at the stress laid by
her books upon the satisfactions of home, now tasted thirstily of that
delight. And she repaid the miracle of Evelyn's tenderness with the
whole of an ardent heart.
To her elders, the years went fast. Suddenly, as it seemed, Marvel was
a young woman with more than her fair {157} share of gifts and graces.
She was exquisitely pretty, with an effective little style of her own;
she made a brilliant record as a student; she had the rich endowment
of easy popularity. Further, she seemed to possess, so far as slight
experiments could demonstrate, that rare thing, the genuine teacher's
gift. Something of her father's passion for scholarship, something of
her mother's silver-lipped persuasiveness, met in the girl and mingled
with certain deep convictions of her own.
The practical outcome of all this was the suggestion that her Alma
Mater, Midwest, would be glad to attach her to its teaching force
without insisting upon an additional degree. She had spent one year
abroad since her graduation, part of which was occupied in study. But,
like many young Americans, she found her own {158} reflections on the
Old World more stimulating than any instruction offered her there.
Now she was at home, ready to begin work in September, enthusiastic,
almost effervescent, with her satisfaction in the arrangement of her
own little world.
Coming into the shaded house, out of the blaze of the July sunshine,
she dropped her father's letters on the desk in his study, and ran
upstairs to read her own. It was quite an hour before she heard him
calling at the foot of the stair,--
"Marvel! Come down, daughter, I want you."
Something in his voice--she did not know what--gave her a thrill of
apprehension. She had never heard just that tone from him before.
{159}
She found Professor and Mrs. Charleroy waiting for her in the
living-room. Their faces were grave and troubled. Marvel's
apprehensive pang mingled with a curious little resentment that her
nearest and dearest could allow themselves to look thus, all on a
summer morning, in this highly satisfactory world.
"Daughter, I have a letter here," her father began at once, "a letter
from your mother. It concerns you more than any one. The question it
involves is one for you to decide. I ought not to conceal from you my
belief that you will need to consider the matter very carefully."
Marvel took the letter with gravity, hoping that this portentous
seriousness was misplaced. This is what she read:--
MY DEAR PAUL,--You remember, of course, that when we separated, it
{160} was with the understanding that Marvel was to come to me when
she was fifteen or sixteen. But, as you urged, when I brought the
matter up at that time, she was then just completing her preparation
for college. Since she desired college training, it was certainly
easier and simpler for her to have it at Midwest than elsewhere. I
put aside my own preferences, because the arguments in favor of her
remaining with you were weighty. But it does not seem to me just or
right that I should be deprived of my daughter's society entirely,
because I waived my preference as to her education. I feel that she
has been deprived of my influence, and I of her companionship,
already too long.
As I understand it, she graduated a year ago, and has since been
abroad. It seems to me this winter will be an {161} excellent time
for her to come to me. I shall have an apartment in Chicago, and she
will find it easy to arrange for post-graduate work if she desires.
I shall be less busy than usual, for my health has given way a
little under the strain of my work, and the doctor has warned me to
rest as much as possible. I am looking forward with pleasure to
introducing her to my friends, my life, my ideas.
When will it be most convenient for her to come? I should say about
the first of October.
As ever, my dear Paul,
Your sincere friend,
CLARISSA CHARLEROY.
"Well, really!"
Marvel dropped the letter on the floor and turned to face her family
with more than a suggestion of belligerence. {162} Her cheeks were
flushed, her blue eyes burning, and her head held high with a little
air that reminded her auditors swiftly and inevitably of Clarissa
Charleroy's self.
"Dear people, what do you look so frightened for?" she demanded. "I
call it very cheeky of my mother to make such a demand of me. Does n't
she realize that I'm a person with a career of my own--and that when
I'm not busy with that, I have to keep my eye on you two! I have n't
the slightest intention of leaving home--so you need n't look like
_that!_"
Marvel's little harangues usually met with instant response from her
family. They were wont to brighten and become argumentative, even when
they disagreed. But neither of them answered this pronouncement.
Her father sat by an open window, {163} looking out upon the garden's
gayety with unseeing eyes. His wife sat at an other window watching
him wistfully, while Marvel faced them both from the hearth, offering
her cheerful young defiance for their approval.
Their silence, their gravity, startled the girl. She looked from one
face to the other in quick scrutiny. What did this mean? For perhaps
the first time in her life, it flashed through her mind that, after
all, she knew nothing of the inner attitude of these two people, whom
she greatly loved, toward the two facts which had made them all one
household--her mother's divorce, namely, and her father's remarriage.
The whole structure of three united, happy lives was built upon these
cataclysmal facts--yet she had never asked what thought they held of
them! Dignified, delicate, scrupulous, she {164} knew them both to be.
Through what anguish and uncertainty might they not have passed before
they clasped hands at last, making of their two hearts a shelter for
her robbed, defenseless one?
Her manner changed on the instant.
"Dear family, you don't _want_ me to go? Surely--why--you _can't_ want
me to go?"
"No," said Evelyn in a low voice, "dearest, no. Certainly we don't
want you to go. Only--"
"But my work!" cried Marvel, passionately, answering their faces, not
their words. "I want to do it so much! How can I possibly leave my
work? And you, and my life here--everything!"
Her father turned his face farther toward the window, looking out
blindly, but Marvel caught his expression--the {165} look of one who
tastes again an ancient bitterness. She did not know its full meaning,
but her sympathy leaped to meet it. Evelyn Charleroy, watching her,
felt a sudden stirring of pride in the girl's swift response to
another's need, her quick tenderness. It was thus that Evelyn saw the
life of woman--as one long opportunity for the exercise of these
qualities.
"Darlingest father, of course I'm not going to leave you. Still, if I
were--what is mother like? What does she expect? What am I to do if I
go to her?"
"She is a brilliant woman," answered Professor Charleroy. "In many
ways you are not unlike her, Marvel, in mental alertness and all that.
As for what she expects--God knows!"
The girl pursued her point. "It is n't an occupation--to be a
brilliant {166} woman. I'm not quite sure, even, what she does. She
lectures? She is philanthropic, or humanitarian, or something like
that? Does she write?"
"No," answered the professor, choosing his words with evident and
conscientious care. "That is not her gift. She has the endowment of
convincing speech. She has used it admirably for many admirable causes--
and quite as ably for other causes that I esteem less. But that, you
understand, is my personal point of view. Her chief interest, however,
has been the so-called advancement of women, and you might describe
her as one of the many inconspicuous promoters of that movement.
Chiefly, at present, she is holding classes, giving parlor-talks,
what-not, in which she paraphrases and popularizes the ideas of her
leaders. Her personality, though winning, does not {167} carry far,
and she is only effective before a handful of people. Her--her
conversation is possibly more convincing because it is less
susceptible of close examination than the written word. But I do not
wish to be unjust."
"Then I take it mother is not scholarly?" asked the girl of academic
training.
"She is not taken seriously--by the serious," the professor admitted.
"You know, Marvel, there are women who are--who are dearly
enthusiastic about the future of the race, who really are not in a
position to do advanced thinking about it. Of course there are others
of whom I would not venture to make such an assertion, but in my
judgment your mother belongs to the former class. You will form your
own opinion upon the subject. Do not go to her with any bias in your
mind. She {168} is sincere. Her passion for humanity is doubtless
real, but it seems to me that her erratic spirit has turned it into a
channel where it is ineffective. In any case she is an attractive
woman. A winter with her should be interesting."
His daughter eyed him gravely. There were depths of reserve in her
face and voice. She had felt much, and said little, about this mother
whom they were discussing thus dispassionately. Perhaps it gratified
her young dignity that she was able to consider with apparent
detachment the woman of whom she had thought long in secret with
bitter, blinding tears.
"It is, as you say, a thing to consider," she observed gently. "I may
be mistaken in deciding offhand that I will not go. I'll think it
over, father dear."
{169}
Professor Charleroy rose, visibly pulling himself together. Crossing
the room, he picked up the letter Marvel had dropped and handed it to
her.
"I also may be mistaken," he said, "in my first feeling about the
matter. Yet I think not. But we will not decide hastily."
When he left the room, Marvel partly closed the door and turned to her
stepmother.
"Now, Evelyn, you darling, you know all this is perfectly ridiculous.
Apparently I can't tell father so,--I could see I was hurting
him,--but it simply is ridiculous!"
"I do not feel so, Marvel," Mrs. Charleroy answered steadily.
"What _right_ has she?" the girl stormed. "What right, I wish to know?
To summon me like this! Didn't she throw us away, father and me, once
{170} and for all? You can't recall a thing like that! Why should she
think she could take me back any more than father? Influence me,
indeed! She does n't know the A B C of influence! I am
made--done--finished. Such as I am, she has had no hand in me. If the
outcome is creditable, thanks are due to you and father and the Herr
Gott. Oh, I know the things that have gone to my making! I don't talk
about them much, perhaps, but I know!"
Mrs. Charleroy sat very still, regarding her stepdaughter anxiously.
She was a woman of the most benignant of all the elder types: slight,
but strong; her brown hair parted smoothly, and brought back from a
high full forehead; she had a firm chin, with a tense, sweet mouth,
and large, thoughtful, gray-blue eyes.
{171}
"Are you quite sure you are completely finished, dear? I would n't
dare affirm that of myself."
"If there were no other reasons--why, even if I wanted to go," Marvel
went on, "there is my work. I have accepted a position in the English
department. They are depending upon me. I am ready, and there is no
one to take my place."
"You are mistaken there. Miss Anderson would be glad to retain the
position for a year. Something has happened to her arrangements for
foreign study, and I heard it intimated the other day that she
regretted resigning when she did. She would be delighted to stay on.
You could, I think, come back to the position next year. I believe you
could arrange with Professor Axtell."
"O Evelyn! Why do you wish to {172} make my going easy? Don't you see
I can't bear it?"
"I don't know how to say what I wish," said the elder woman wistfully.
"If I remind you that after all she is your mother, I am afraid it
will not mean to you what it does to me."
"Certainly I think that, as between us two, the fact no longer carries
obligation from me to her!" said Marvel steadily.
"O Marvel! You are hard!"
"No! I am just."
"Justice is never so simple as that," returned Evelyn Charleroy. "But
even if it were, your father--I--would rather see you merciful. It
would be more like you, Marvel!"
Marvel set the line of her red lips. "I do not wish to go, not even to
live up to your idea of me!"
"Marvel, listen to me a moment. I {173} may not be able to make you
understand--but I must try. This is the thing I must make you know. The
reactions upon the spirit of the ties of the flesh are, simply, the
most miraculous things in all this miraculous world. I am not
preaching. I am just telling you what I know. This business of being a
child, a parent, a husband, a wife,--no creature can escape that net
of human relationships wholly. It is there, right there, that we are
knotted fast to the whole unseen order of things. What we make of
those ties determines what we substantially are. Oh, if you could see
it as I see it! This is the real reason, the strongest one of all, for
our wishing you to go. You must not throw away the chance it is--the
chance of finding out what you are to each other. You must concede
something for the sake of learning that!"
{174}
"It is n't the mother after the flesh, but the mother after the
spirit, to whom are due the great concessions!" cried the girl, "and,
Evelyn, _that_ is you!"
"Marvel--there is still another reason. It may appeal to you more."
Evelyn Charleroy's agitated face, the tumult of her eyes, startled her
stepdaughter. She could not bear disturbance of that dear serenity.
"Child!--Do you suppose it was an easy thing for me to come into your
father's life and take your mother's place while she still lived?
There were months of doubt. There was hesitation that was agony to us
both--but in the end--I came. Thus far the thing has seemed to justify
itself. It has seemed to work for peace, for blessedness, to us all. I
have felt no wrong, have been refused no inner sanction. {175} And
yet, I tell you, I am still uncertain of my right to all that your
mother threw away, and I do not, even yet, entirely defend my action
in taking it! You have been our comfort, our greatest blessing,
because it has seemed to be well for you. But, don't you see, if you
fail us now; if we have made you selfish; if, through us, you have
come to ignore that elemental tie; if you lose out of life whatever it
may hold for you, we--we shall doubt our right--we shall be less
sure--" The woman's voice fluttered and fell on silence suddenly.
"O Evelyn!" the girl cried out in sharp distress, "don't, don't look
like that! Dearest, don't dare to feel like that! There is no need! I
won't be horrid! I'll do anything on earth that you and father really
wish!"
{176}