It was toward the end of April that Charlotte arrived in Shadyville.
She had never lived in Shadyville since her first flight from it to
boarding-school. After school had come New York and Paris, where she
had studied singing; and for the last five years she had been on the
concert stage, filling engagements all over the continent--much to the
distress of her family who, though inordinately proud of her, could not
understand why any woman with plenty of money at her disposal should
work. Charlotte had always decided things for herself, however, and
once convinced that her happiness lay in the active pursuit of her art,
no one could dissuade her from it. Certainly no penniless woman could
have worked harder or with more zest than she. Musician to her
finger-tips, and with a remarkably beautiful, silver-clear soprano
voice, she had also the modern woman's desire to earn her living; to
justify her existence by doing something well. An independent and a
busy life was necessary to her, and it was impossible to see her
without realizing that she had chosen wisely for herself.
To Shadyville she had always seemed a brilliant figure; now, as a
successful professional singer, she was a dazzling one. Even Sheila
was a little awed by her, although the two had kept up their
childhood's friendship during all these years of separation and of such
diverse interests. Every now and then Charlotte descended on
Shadyville for a brief visit to her parents, and then she invariably
took up with Sheila their dropped threads and wove a new flower into
the pattern of their affection. On this occasion she came to Sheila
with more than her usual warmth, divining what a grief Mrs. Caldwell's
death must have been to her, and she watched her friend, as the days
passed, with an increasing solicitude.
To all appearances everything was well with the Kent household. Sheila
and Ted seemed to be on the best of terms; Eric had grown into a fine,
healthy, handsome little lad, particularly fond of his proud mother;
prosperity, as Shadyville measured it, fairly shone from the charming
and well-ordered little house. Certainly all appeared to be well with
Sheila, yet Charlotte was not satisfied about her. Six months had
passed since Mrs. Caldwell's death, and though Charlotte allowed for
the sincerity and depth of Sheila's mourning, she rejected a sorrow
already somewhat softened by time as sufficient cause for the change
she found in Sheila. There was something else, something of an
altogether different nature, that was responsible for the hunger of
Sheila's eyes, the restlessness of her manner. Charlotte remembered,
with a rush of indignation, Sheila's unfulfilled ambitions, her wasted
gift. That was the trouble; of course that baffled gift of Sheila's
was the trouble. And something must be done about it. She was with
Sheila when she came to this conclusion, and immediately she acted on
it, impulsive, decisive creature that she was.
"What of your writing, Sheila dear? I can't recall your speaking of it
to me for a long, long while."
"Oh--_that's_ over!" replied Sheila, with unhappy emphasis.
"But why?"
It was a warm May afternoon and they were sitting on Sheila's veranda.
Out on the lawn Eric and another boy of his own age frolicked about
like a couple of animated puppies. Sheila pointed to them:
"You remember what Mrs. North said--that a woman couldn't be both
mother and artist?"
"I told you that wasn't true!"
"It has been true for me, Charlotte."
"It needn't be now. While Eric was a baby, it may have been true for
you, but there's no reason in the world why it should be now."
"Well, it _is_ true for me now--it will be true for me always. And
yet----"
And then, because disillusion and bitterness were strong upon Sheila,
Charlotte got the whole story out of her, from the first revelation of
Ted's attitude toward a married woman's art to the final climax of
Eric's illness, her self-blame and her renunciation of her work. Even
while she told it, she knew that she would reproach herself afterward
for disloyalty to Ted, but the sheer relief of confiding it to a
sympathetic listener was too much for her scruples.
"I never heard of anything so outrageous in my life!" exclaimed
Charlotte, when the story was ended. "It's barbarous--_barbarous_!"
Not a word of her final clear vision of her husband, her belated
disappointment in him, had Sheila uttered. For that at least she had
been too loyal. But already she repented having betrayed his views in
regard to the married woman-artist. So well she knew what Charlotte
must think of them, indeed, that she now felt impelled to a defense:
"Of course it hasn't been Ted's fault--you mustn't feel that he's to
blame."
"Mustn't I?" asked Charlotte drily. And then, "My dear girl, he _has_
been to blame--absolutely, unforgivably to blame. It makes me wild to
think of his narrow-minded, pig-headed selfishness. And that you
should have given in to it--! Oh, Sheila, Sheila, where is your
independence, your sense of your rights as an individual, a human
being? Are you a cave woman--that you should be just your husband's
docile chattel?" And Charlotte sprang from her chair and began to pace
the veranda, urged by the fierce energy of her anger.
"I said it had been Ted's fault--this spoiling of your life," she went
on presently, "but it's been your fault, too, Sheila. It's been your
fault for giving in to him."
"But," pleaded Sheila, "I didn't give in to _Ted_. I gave in to
circumstances. Seeing that Eric was ill--that he might die--because
I'd neglected him in order to write was what conquered me. That was
what drove me to the vow to renounce my work--if Eric was spared."
Charlotte came and stood before her then: "Sheila, you know as well as
I do that you'd never have made that vow if the sense of Ted's
disapproval, his condemnation, hadn't been working on you. You know
that it was merely an accident that you were writing when Eric was
exposed to scarlet fever. You know that if you _hadn't_ been writing,
you would have been reading or sleeping or paying calls, and that if
you'd been doing any of those things, you wouldn't have thought
yourself guilty because you'd taken an hour off from the hardest job a
woman has--the mother-job--even though Eric did suffer by it. You know
you'd have recognized that there are just so many cruel mischances in
life, and that Eric's illness was one of them. You know that it was
_Ted_, back of circumstances, that influenced you to make your vow of
renunciation!"
It was what Sheila had so recently told herself, and she could not
refute it now. Looking into her downcast, acquiescent face, Charlotte
continued: "As for the vow--that's nonsense! It's mere morbid,
hysterical nonsense. God never exacted it of you. He's never held you
to it, you may be sure. If He's wanted anything of you, He's wanted
you to use the talent He's given you. If you've been at all at fault,
it's for wasting your talent. You _have_ wasted it--you've wasted it
to please Ted. You've wasted it because you've allowed yourself to be
intimidated and bullied by Ted. That's the whole trouble!"
"Oh, Charlotte--," began Sheila.
"I've spoken the truth," insisted Charlotte firmly. "You can't deny a
word I've said." And then, flinging out her hands with a gesture of
despair, "The worst of it is that it's too late to help matters now.
You'll go on in the same way--letting Ted bully you--to the end of your
days. There's never been any chance for you with him. Your chance was
with Peter Burnett. It's Peter you should have married!"
"You must not say that," objected Sheila quickly--and a little
unsteadily. "You must not say that, Charlotte. It's ridiculous. And
it's dreadful, too. Ted and I love each other--we _do_ love each
other!"
But Charlotte was no longer inclined for argument. She answered
Sheila's protest with a smile--no more. Suddenly she seemed to be
through with the subject of Sheila's life, and perching upon the
railing of the veranda, she looked off into green distances with a gaze
singularly vague and pensive for her. Sheila watched her admiringly,
noting her erect slenderness, her spirited, keenly intelligent face,
the clear blue of her eyes, the warm gold of her hair in the sunshine.
"It's you Peter should marry," said Sheila lightly, when the silence
between them had lengthened uncomfortably. "You'd be just the wife for
him, Charlotte!"
Charlotte turned toward her, and there was no mistaking her earnestness
and her sincerity. "I'd marry him to-morrow!" she cried.
"Oh, Charlotte, I never _dreamed--my dear_!----"
"Don't be sorry for me," Charlotte interrupted warningly. "Don't be
sorry for me. I may marry him yet!"
And a moment later, she was swinging down the street, as serene and
independent as if she had never known--much less, confessed--the pain
of unrequited love.
As Sheila looked after her, she noticed again the gold of her hair, the
beautiful, free carriage of her shoulders--and now she felt no pleasure
in them. Rather was she conscious of a sharp little pang of envy, and
with it, sounded the echo of Charlotte's last words--"I may marry him
yet!" Charlotte was a splendid, gallant creature; she _might_ marry
Peter. And then Sheila, feeling that envious pang again and still more
sharply, demanded of herself in swift terror: "Am I jealous?--_am I
jealous of Charlotte because Peter may come to love her_?"
Oh, it couldn't be that!--it couldn't! It was impossible that she
should be jealous about any man but her husband. For she and Ted loved
each other--they _did_ love each other, whatever had been their
mistakes with each other.
She called Eric to her, and he left his playmate on the lawn and came,
smiling. She caught him to her, with a sort of frightened passion:
"Kiss mother, darling!"
He looked back over his shoulder at the boy who was waiting for him.
"With him there?" he inquired reluctantly, already shy of caresses
before his own sex.
But Sheila, usually the most considerate and tactful of mothers, amazed
him now by ignoring his hint. Still with that terrified passion, she
kissed him not once, but many times--her son and Ted's! Her son and
Ted's! Then, leaving him standing there in his astonished
embarrassment, she went into the house and up to her own room, there to
sit and stare before her at things unseen, but all too visible to her.
So Ted had been right after all; right in objecting to her being so
much with Peter. It _had_ been unwise; moreover, it had been wrong,
all that companionship of the past winter. For it had brought her to
this; it had brought her so to depend upon Peter that she could not be
happy unless he was often with her; it had brought her so to care for
him that she could not think of him in relation to another woman
without jealousy. It had brought her to this--and she was a wife and
mother!
She had been ashamed when Ted had told her that she would get herself
talked about in connection with Peter, and still more ashamed when he
had accused her of "running after" Peter. But that had been an
endurable shame, for at the heart of it had been self-respect, the
indestructible pride of perfect innocence. But the shame that surged
over her now was the agonizing shame of guilt, the shame of utter
self-scorn, self-loathing. She--a wife, a mother!--cared for a man not
her husband; cared for him in a way that made it torment to her to
think of his marrying another woman. Hideous and unbelievable though
it was, she cared for him so much. She had cared for him even while
she was declaring to Charlotte--and later, to herself--that she loved
her husband. She cared for Peter--even now, facing the truth and
admitting it, she would not use the word, love--she cared for Peter,
and she was Ted's wife, the mother of Ted's son. Not even the touch of
that little son had been powerful to blind her. She cared!--she
_cared_!
For a moment her face went down into her hands, and the hopeless grief
of unfortunate love mastered her, tore her throat with its sobs, burned
her eyes with its bitter tears. But presently her head was up again,
and with shaking fingers she was bathing her eyes, concealing as best
she could the ravages of that instant's surrender. She had no rights
in this thing; she had not even the right to suffer. Ted or Eric might
come in at any moment, and they must not see that she had wept; she was
theirs.
She had no right to suffer. There could be only one right course in
this; to fight, to crush out of herself what she was not free to feel,
to put between herself and Peter some barrier that could not be
destroyed. There was Ted, there was Eric--they should have been
barriers enough. But they had not been barriers enough, and there must
be another. There must be something--some one--more, to keep her safe,
to hold her heart, her thoughts, from this forbidden haven. There must
be something--some one--else--. And then her mind leaped to Charlotte.
Charlotte loved Peter; she had practically admitted that. Well, she
should marry him--as she'd said that she might do. Though it broke her
own heart, Charlotte should marry Peter. She herself would arrange it.
She did not pause to consider that Peter might not want to marry
Charlotte, that he might not be happy in doing so. She did not pause,
yet, to question--she did not dare to question, indeed--whether Peter
turned her own love. She was intent upon but one end: to protect
herself from what she felt for him, from what she would continue to
feel for him as long as he was free.
With this haste and need and fear upon her, she wrote to him, asking
him to come to her the next afternoon. It would be their first meeting
since Ted's ban upon their friendship, and she realized, with fresh
humiliation, that in spite of everything, she was glad of this chance
to be with Peter. She realized that she could scarcely wait until the
morrow should bring him to her. Because she was thus glad, she almost
decided not to send her note after all, and then--lest she would
not!--she hurried out and mailed it herself.
Somehow she got through dinner and the evening. She heard Eric's
lessons and tucked him away for the night with a bedtime story and the
kisses that, when no one was looking on, he was eager enough to
receive. She listened to Ted's anecdotes of the day and responded with
a mechanical vivacity. Then, at last, she was hidden by the night,
freed by the night--though she lay by Ted's side.
She had no right to suffer, but she did suffer now. As Peter had done
months before, she suffered through the darkness. But with her there
was no yielding to dear visions of a forbidden love, as there had been
with him; there was no picturing of life as it might have been with
him; no thrilling to the imaginary caresses and delights of a passion
which, in her married self, was wholly unworthy. Rather was the night
a long battle with the love that it so shamed her to find within
herself. Thus, in this distress of her soul, she was at least spared
the physical torture which Peter had endured. Not for an instant was
her love for Peter translated, in her mind, into physical terms; she
neither imagined nor desired its touch; in her guilt there was a
strange innocence--an innocence characteristic of her. She would go
through life unaware of the grosser aspects of things; under any
circumstances, however equivocal, she would be curiously pure. In one
thing only did she fall now to the level of less idealistic beings; in
spite of her struggle to the contrary, she wondered, at last, if Peter
loved her. She dared and stooped, in the privacy of the night, to
wonder that.
When Peter came to her the next afternoon, he found her haggard, but
very quiet, very calm. Beneath her calmness, however, he divined the
stir of troubled depths, and he carefully kept to the surface; ignored
his long banishment; took up one impersonal topic after another for her
entertainment; and was altogether so much the safe, unromantic,
delightful old friend of the family that, but for the hammering of her
pulses, he would have persuaded Sheila that the distress of the past
night was a mere, ugly dream. But because she could not look at him
without a catch of her breath; because she could not speak to him
without first pausing to steady her voice; because all her tranquility
was but desperate and painful effort, she knew the night was no dream,
but even more of a reality than she had thought.
"Peter," she said at last, with attempted lightness, "Peter, I'm going
to meddle with your destiny."
"What do you mean?" he asked, smiling at her.
That smile of his almost cost her her self-control, so dear it was to
her. But she went on bravely enough: "I'm going to secure you a wife."
He threw up his hands in dismay. "Don't try," he pleaded. "You could
never find a wife to suit me!"
"But I _have_ found one who's sure to suit you."
"You've actually selected her?--you have her waiting for me?"
She nodded, trying to smile back at him now with a deceiving gayety.
"May I know who the fair lady is?"
"Of course. She's--Charlotte! She is just the woman for you, Peter."
"Never," he said promptly. "She is charming and clever and handsome
and kind, _but_--she's not the woman for me."
"Peter"--and Sheila dropped her pretense of playfulness--"Peter, she's
all that you need. She'd make a great man of you."
"At this late date?" he inquired a little ruefully. "She'd make a
great man of me at forty-six?"
"Yes, she would. Charlotte's very--strong. She could accomplish
anything she wished. She'd do much for a man--with a man--if she loved
him."
"I have no reason to believe that she loves me," said Peter.
"Perhaps I shouldn't tell you, but _I_ have reason to believe that--she
loves you."
He leaned forward and searchingly studied her face: "I'm sure you are
mistaken. But--granting that Charlotte may love me--is it for her sake
that you want me to marry her?"
"For hers--and for yours. I want to see you in a home of your own,
Peter--with a wife to love you, with children. I want--I want you to
be happy!"
"I would not be happy if I married Charlotte."
"Why, Peter?"
"Because I do not love her."
"You would come to love her."
"No, Sheila--I am not free to do that."
"Do you--do you love some one else?" And her voice shook now in spite
of her attempt to keep it firm.
"Yes," he answered quietly, "I love some one else."
"Some one you can--marry?" She could not look at him, but question him
she must.
"No--not some one I can marry."
The room was very still for a moment; but she seemed to hear the sorrow
of his voice echoing and re-echoing through it.
"You will get over that in time," she whispered.
"I will never get over it," he answered.
And now she looked at him. She had wondered if he loved her; looking
into his sad eyes, she knew. A sob swelled her throat and broke from
her lips. And then they sprang up and faced each other.
So they stood, gazing at each other. And though they neither spoke nor
touched each other, the heart of each was clear to the other--more
clear, indeed, than speech or touch could have made them. So they
stood, looking into each other's eyes, and unbearable pain and
unbelievable ecstasy were mingled in those few, silent moments. Then
the ecstasy died; the pain became cruelly intense. And more than pain
shone dark in Sheila's eyes; fear crouched there, and Peter saw it.
She loved him--and she was afraid of him. More intolerably than
anything else, that hurt him--that she should have to be afraid of him.
"Peter," she said--and her voice trembled so that he could scarcely
understand her words, "Peter, I want you to marry Charlotte for--_for
my sake_." And her fear stared at him out of her eyes, stared at him
and implored him.
She was asking him to put Charlotte between them. He realized that
now. She was telling him that Ted and Eric were not enough to keep
them apart.
"I will do it--or something which will answer as well," he assured her
gently. "You may trust me for that, Sheila."
And then, still without touching her, without even looking at her
again, he was gone. He was gone and everything was ended for them--for
them who had not known even the beginnings.