HOW COULD HE
“Man is the hunter; woman is his game,
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase.
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins;
They love us for it, and we ride them down.”
--TENNYSON.
The month of Mariposa’s tenantry of the cottage was up. It was the last
evening there, and she sat crouched over a handful of fire that burned
in the front parlor grate. The room was half empty, all the superfluous
furniture having been taken that morning by a Jewish second-hand
dealer. In one corner stood huddled such relics as she had chosen to
keep, and which would be borne away on the morrow to the Garcias’
boarding-house. The marquetry sideboard was gone. It had been sold to a
Sutter Street dealer for twenty-five dollars. The red lacquer cabinet,
though no longer hers, still remained. It, too, would be carried away
to-morrow morning by its new owners. She looked at it with melancholy
glances as the firelight found and lost its golden traceries and sent
sudden quivering gleams along its scarlet doors. The fire was less a
luxury than an economy, to burn the last pieces of coal in the bin.
Bending over the dancing flames, Mariposa held her hands open to the
blaze, absently looking at their backs. They were fine, capable hands,
large and white, with strong wrists and a forearm so round that its
swell began half-way between elbow and wrist-bone. Pleased by the
warmth that soothed the chill always induced by a sojourn in the front
parlor, she pulled up her sleeves and watched the gleam of the fire
turn the white skin red. She was sitting thus, when a ring at the bell
made her start and hurriedly push her sleeves down. Her visitors were
so few that she was almost certain of the identity of this one. For all
the griefs of the last month she was yet a woman. She sprang to her
feet, and as the steps of the servant sounded in the hall, ran to the
large mirror in the corner and patted and pulled her hair to the style
she thought most becoming.
She had turned from this and was standing by the fire when Essex
entered. He had seen her once since her mother’s death, but she had
then been so preoccupied with grief that, with a selfish man’s hatred
of all unpleasant things, he had left her as soon as possible. To-night
he saw that she was recovering, that, physically at least, she was
herself again. But he was struck, almost as soon as his eye fell on
her, by a change in her. Some influence had been at work to effect a
subtile and curious development in her. The simplicity, the something
childish and winning that had always seemed so inconsistent with her
stately appearance, was gone. Mariposa was coming to herself. His heart
quickened its beats as he realized she was handsomer, richer by some
inward growth, more a woman than she had been a month ago.
He took a seat at the other side of the fire, and the tentative
conversation of commonplaces occupied them for a few moments. The
silence that had held her in a spell of dead dejection on his former
visit was broken. She seemed more than usually talkative. In fact,
Mariposa was beginning to feel the reaction from the life of grief and
seclusion of the last month. She was violently ashamed of the sense of
elation that had surged up in her at the sound of Essex’s voice. She
struggled to hide it, but it lit a light in her eyes, called a color
to her cheeks that she could not conceal. The presence of her lover
affected her with a sort of embarrassed exultation that she had never
experienced before. To hide it she talked rapidly, looking into the
fire, to which she still held out her hands.
Essex, from the other side of the hearth, watched her. He saw his
arrival had made her nervous, and it only augmented the sentiment that
had been growing in him for months.
She began to tell him of her move.
“I’m going to-morrow, in the afternoon. It’s a queer place, an old
house on Hyde Street, with a big pepper-tree, the biggest in the city,
they say, growing in the front garden. It was once quite a fine house,
long ago in the early days, and was built by these people, the Garcias,
when they still had money. Then they lost it all, and now the old lady
and her son’s wife take a few people, as the house is too big for them
and they are so poor. Young Mrs. Garcia is a widow. Her husband was
killed in the mines by a blast.”
“It sounds picturesque. Do they speak English?”
“The señora, that’s the old lady, doesn’t. She has lived here since
before the Gringo came, but she can’t speak any English at all. The
daughter-in-law is an American, a Southerner. She looked very untidy
the day I went there. I’m afraid I’ll be homesick. You’ll come to see
me sometimes, won’t you?”
There was no coquetry in the remark. Her dread of loneliness was all
that spoke.
Essex met her eyes, dark and wistful, and nodded without speaking.
She looked back at the fire and again spread her hands to it, palms out.
“It’s--it’s--rather a dilapidated sort of place,” she continued after a
moment’s pause, “but perhaps I’ll get used to it.”
There was distinct pleading for confirmation in this. Her voice was
slightly husky. Essex, however, with that perversity which marked all
his treatment of her, said:
“Do you think you will? It’s difficult for a woman to accommodate
herself to such changed conditions--I mean a woman of refinement, like
you.”
She continued feebly to make her stand.
“But my conditions have changed so much in the last two or three
years. I ought to be used to it; it’s not as if it was the first time.
Before my father got sick we were so comfortable. We were rich and had
quantities of beautiful things like that cabinet. And as they have
gone, one by one, so we have come down bit by bit, till I am left like
this.”
She made a gesture to include the empty room and turned back to the
fire.
“But you won’t stay like this,” he said, throwing a glance over the
bare walls.
“Don’t you think so?” she said, looking into the fire with dejected
eyes. “You’re kind to try to cheer me up.”
“You can be happy, protected and cared for, with your life full of
sunshine and joy--”
He stopped. Every step he took was of moment, and he was not the type
of man to forgive himself a mistake. Mariposa was looking at him,
frowning slightly.
“How do you mean?” she said. “With my voice?”
“No,” he answered, in a tone that suddenly thrilled with meaning, “with
me.”
That quivering pause which falls between a man and woman when the words
that will link or sever them for life are to be spoken, held the room.
Mariposa felt the terrified desire to arrest the coming words that is
the maiden’s last instinctive stand for her liberty. But her brain was
confused, and her heart beat like a hammer.
“With me,” Essex repeated, as the pause grew unbearable. “Is there no
happiness for you in that thought?”
She made no answer, and suddenly he moved his chair close to her side.
She felt his eyes fastened on her and kept hers on the fire. Her other
offers of marriage had not been accomplished with this stifling sense
of discomfort.
“I’ve thought,” his deep voice went on, “that you cared for me--a
little. I’ve watched, I’ve desponded. But lately--lately--” he leaned
toward her and lowered his voice--“I’ve hoped.”
She still made no answer. It seemed to her none was necessary or
possible.
“Do you care?” he said softly.
She breathed a “yes” that only the ear of love could have heard.
“Mariposa, dearest, do you mean it?” He leaned over her and laid his
hand on hers. His voice was husky and his hand trembling. To the extent
that was in him he loved this woman.
“Do you love me?” he whispered.
The “yes” was even fainter this time. He raised the hand he held to his
breast and tried to draw her into his arms.
She resisted, and turned on him a pale face, where emotions, never
stirred before, were quivering. She was moved to the bottom of her
soul. Something in her face made him shrink a little. With her hand
against his breast she gave him the beautiful look of a woman’s first
sense of her surrender. He stifled the sudden twinge of his conscience
and again tried to draw her close to him. But she held him off with the
hand on his breast and said--as thousands of girls say every year:
“Do you really love me?”
“More than the whole world,” he answered glibly, but with the roughened
voice of real feeling.
“Why?” she said with a tremulous smile, “why should you?”
“Because you are you.”
“But I’m just a small insignificant person here, without any relations,
and poor, so poor.”
“Those things don’t matter when a man loves a woman. It’s you I want,
not anything you might have or might be.”
“But you’re so clever and have lived everywhere and seen everything,
and I’m so--so countrified and stupid.”
“You’re Mariposa. That’s enough for me.”
“All I can bring you for my portion is my heart.”
“And that’s all I want.”
“You love me enough to marry me?”
His eyes that had been looking ardently into her face, shifted.
“I love you enough to be a fool about you. Does that please you?”
Her murmured answer was lost in the first kiss of love that had ever
been pressed on her lips. She drew back from it, pale and thrilled, not
abashed, but looking at her lover with eyes before which his drooped.
It was a sacred moment to her.
“How wonderful,” she whispered, “that you should care for me.”
“It would have been more wonderful if I hadn’t.”
“And that you came now, when everything was so dark and lonely. You
don’t know how horribly lonely I felt this evening, thinking of leaving
here to-morrow and going among strangers.”
“But that’s all over now. You need never be lonely again. I’ll always
be there to take care of you. We’ll always be together.”
“Don’t you think things often change when they get to their very worst?
It seemed to me to-night that I was just about to open a door that led
into the world, where nobody cared for me, or knew me, or wanted me.”
“One person wanted you, desperately.”
“And then, all in a moment, my whole life is changed. It’s not an
hour ago that I was sitting here looking into the fire thinking how
miserable I was, and now--”
“You are in my arms!” he interrupted, and drew her against him for his
kiss. She turned her face away and pressed it into his shoulder, as he
held her close, and said:
“We’ll go to Europe, to Italy--that’s the country for you, not this raw
Western town where you’re like some exotic blossom growing in the sand.
You’ve never seen anything like it, with the gray olive trees like
smoke on the hillsides, and the white walls of the villas shining among
the cypresses. We’ll have a villa, and we can walk on the terrace in
the evening and look down on the valley of the Arno. It’s the place for
lovers, and we’re going to be lovers, Mariposa.”
Still she did not understand, and said happily:
“Yes, true lovers for always.”
“And then we’ll go to France, and we’ll see Paris--all the great
squares with the lights twinkling, and the Rue de Rivoli with gas lamps
strung along it like diamonds on a thread. And the river--it’s black
at night with the bridges arching over it, and the lamps stabbing down
into the water with long golden zigzags. We’ll go to the theaters and
to the opera, and you’ll be the handsomest woman there. And we’ll
drive home in an open carriage under the starlight, not saying much,
because we’ll be so happy.”
“And shall I study singing?”
“Of course, with the best masters. You’ll be a great prima donna some
day.”
“And I shan’t have to be sent by Mr. Shackleton? Oh, I shall be so glad
to tell him I’m going with you.”
Essex started--looked at her frowning.
“But you mustn’t do that,” he said with a sudden, authoritative change
of key.
“Why not?” she answered. “You know he was to send me. I promised my
mother I would let him take care of me. But now that I’m going to be
married, my--my--husband will take care of me.”
She looked at him with a girl’s charming embarrassment at the first
fitting of this word to any breathing man, and blushed deeply and
beautifully. Essex felt he must disillusion her. He looked into the
fire.
“Married,” he said slowly. “Well, of course, if we were married--”
He stopped, gave her a lightning side glance. She was smiling.
“Well, of course we’ll be married,” she said. “How could we go to
Europe unless we were?”
Still avoiding her eyes, which he knew were fixed on him in smiling
inquiry, he said in a lowered voice:
“Oh, yes, we could.”
“How--I don’t understand?”
For the first time there was a faint note of uneasiness in her voice.
Though his glance was still bent on the fire, he knew that she was no
longer smiling.
“We could go easily, without making any talk or fuss. Of course we
could not leave here together. I’d meet you in Chicago or New York.”
He heard her dress rustle as she instinctively drew away from him.
“Meet me in New York or Chicago?” she repeated. “But why meet me there?
I don’t understand. Why not be married here?”
He turned toward her and threw up his head as a person does who is
going to speak emphatically and at length. Only in raising his head his
eyes remained on the ground.
“My dear girl,” he said in a suave tone, “you’ve lived all your life
in these small, half-civilized California towns, and there are many
things about life in larger and more advanced communities you don’t
understand. I’ve just told you I loved you, and you know that your
welfare is of more moment to me than anything in the world. I would
give my heart’s blood to make you happy. But I am just now hardly in a
position to marry. You must understand that.”
It was said. Mariposa gave a low exclamation and rose to her feet. He
rose, too, feeling angry with her that she had forced him to this banal
explanation. There were times when her stupidity could be exasperating.
She was very pale, her eyes dark, her nostrils expanded. On her face
was an expression of pitiful bewilderment and distress.
“Then--then--you didn’t want to _marry_ me?” she stammered with
trembling lips.
“Oh, I want to,” he said with a propitiatory shrug. “Of course
I _want_ to. But one can’t always do what one wants. Under the
circumstances, as I tell you, marriage is impossible.”
She could say nothing for a moment, the first stunned moment of
comprehension. Then she said in a low voice, still with her senses
scattered, “And I thought you meant it all.”
“Meant what? that I love you? Don’t you trust me? Don’t you believe me?
You must acknowledge I understand life better than you do.”
She looked at him straight in the eyes. The pain and bewilderment had
left her face, leaving it white and tense. He realized that she was not
going to weep and make moan--the wound had gone deeper. He had stabbed
her to the heart.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t understand about life as you do. I
didn’t understand that a man could talk to a woman as you have done
to me and then strike her such a blow. It’s too new to me to learn
quickly. I--I--can’t--understand yet. I can’t say anything to you, only
that I don’t ever want to see you, or hear you, or think of you again.”
“My dearest girl,” he said, going a step toward her, “don’t be so
severe. You’re like a tragedy queen. Now, what have I done?”
“I didn’t think that a man could have the heart to wound any woman
so--any living creature, and one who cared as I did--” she stopped,
unable to continue.
“But I wouldn’t wound you for the world. Haven’t I just told you I
loved you?”
“Oh, go,” she said, backing away from him. “Go! go away. Never come
near me again. You’ve debased and humiliated me forever, and I’ve
kissed you and told you I loved you. Why can’t I creep into some corner
and die?”
“Mariposa, my darling,” he said, raising his eyebrows with a theatrical
air of incomprehension, “what is it? I’m quite at sea. You speak to
me as if I’d done you a wrong, and all I’ve done is to offer you my
deepest devotion. Does that offend you?”
“Yes, horribly--horribly!” she cried furiously. “Go--go out of my
sight. If you’ve got any manliness or decency left, go--I can’t bear
any more.”
She pressed her hands on her face and turned from him.
“Oh, don’t do that,” he said tenderly, approaching her. “Does my love
make you unhappy? A half-hour ago it was not like this.”
He suddenly, but gently, attempted to take her in his arms. Though she
did not see she felt his touch, and with a cry of horror tore herself
away, rushed past him into the adjoining room, and from that into her
bedroom beyond. The bang of the closing door fell coldly upon Essex’s
ear.
He stood for a moment listening and considering. He had a fancy that
she might come back. The house was absolutely silent. Then, no sound
breaking its stillness, no creak of an opening door echoing through
its bare emptiness, he walked out into the hall, put on his hat and
overcoat and let himself out. He was angry and disgusted. In his
thoughts he inveighed against Mariposa’s stupidity. The unfortunately
downright explanation had aroused her wrath, and he did not know how
deep that might be. Only as he recalled her ordering him from the room
he realized that it was not the fictitious rage he had seen before and
understood.
Mariposa stood on the inside of her room door, holding the knob and
trying to suppress her breathing that she might hear clearly. She heard
his steps, echoing on the bare floor with curious distinctness. They
were slow at first; then there was decision in them; then the hall
door banged. She leaned against the panel, her teeth pressed on her
underlip, her head bowed on her breast.
“Oh, how could he? how could he?” she whispered.
A tempest of anguish shook her. She crept to the bed and lay there, her
face buried in the pillow, motionless and dry-eyed, till dawn.