while. Why should either speak when there was really nothing to say?
“Supper is on the table, father,” observed Dora, at last. “There is no
use in letting it get any colder,” and still in silence they went to
their meal.
Julie MacDonald, born Dessaix, was the daughter of a French
market-gardener and of a Spanish woman, the danseuse of a travelling
troupe, who, when the company was left stranded in an Indiana town,
married this thrifty admirer. The latter part of Julie’s childhood
was passed in a convent school, whence she emerged at fifteen a rabid
little Protestant with manners which the Sisters had subdued slightly
but had not been able to make gentle. She learned the milliner’s trade,
which she practised until, at twenty-two, she married Frazer MacDonald,
a gigantic, red-haired Scotch surveyor.
A few years after their marriage MacDonald went West, intending to
establish himself and then send for Julie, whom he left meanwhile
with her sister, the wife of a well-to-do mechanic living in Pullman.
His train was wrecked somewhere in Arizona and the ruins took fire.
MacDonald was reported among those victims whose bodies were too badly
burned for complete identification, and though Julie refused to believe
it at first, when the long days brought no tidings she knew in her
heart that it was true.
She established herself at her old trade in one of the county towns of
the Indiana prairie country, where she worked and prospered for three
years before John Applegate asked her to marry him.
At the convent they had tried to teach her to worship God, but
abstractions were not in Julie’s line. Respectability was more tangible
than righteousness, and deference to the opinion of the world an
idea she could grasp. The worship of appearances came to be Julie’s
religion. Nothing could be more respectable than John Applegate, who
was a hardware dealer and one of Belleplaine’s leading merchants, and
she accepted him with an almost religious enthusiasm.
The hardware business in a rich farming country is a good one. And
then, in her own very unreasonable way, Julie was fond of Applegate.
“A little mouse of a man, yes,” she said to herself, “but such a good
little mouse! I’ll have my way with things. When MacDonald was alive he
had his way. Now--we’ll see.”
As for Applegate, he was just an average, unheroic, common-place
man, such stuff as the mass of people are made of. Having decided to
remarry for the sake of his children, he committed the not-uncommon
inconsistency of choosing a woman who could never be acceptable to them
and who suited himself entirely only in certain rare and unreckoning
moods which were as remote from the whole trend of his existence as
scarlet is from slate-color. But he found this untamed daughter of the
people distinctly fascinating, and, with the easy optimism of one whose
eyes are blinded by beauty, assured himself that it would come out all
right.
His little daughter kissed him dutifully and promised to try to be a
good girl when he told her he was going to bring a new mamma home,
a pretty, jolly mamma, who would be almost a play-mate for her and
Teddy, but secretly she felt a prescience that this was not the kind of
mamma she wanted.
A few weeks after his marriage her father found her one day shaking
in a passion of childhood’s bitter, ineffectual tears. With great
difficulty he succeeded in getting an explanation. It came in whispers,
tremblingly.
“Papa, she--she says _bad words_! And this morning Teddy said one too.
Oh, Papa”--the sobs broke out afresh--“how can he grow up to be _nice_
and how am I going to get to be a lady--a lady like my own mamma--if
nobody shows us how?”
Applegate dropped his head on his chest with a smothered groan. For
himself he had not minded the occasional touches of profanity--to do
her justice, they were rare--with which Julie emphasized her speech,
for they had only seemed a part of the alien, piquantly un-English
element in her which attracted him, but when Dora looked up at him with
his dead wife’s eyes he could not but acknowledge the justice of her
tragic horror of “bad words.”
“What have I done?” he asked himself as the child nestled closer, and
then, “What shall I do?” for he found himself face to face with a
future before whose problems he shrank helplessly.
One does not decide upon the merits of falcons according to the
traditions of doves, and it would be quite as unjust to judge Julie
Applegate from what came to be the standpoint of her husband and his
children. There is no doubt that she made life hideous to them, but
this result was accidental rather than intentional. There are those to
whom the unbridled speech of natures without discipline is as much a
matter of course as the sunshine and the rain. If to Applegate and Dora
it was thunder-burst and cyclone, whose was the blame?
And if one is considering the matter of grievances, Julie certainly had
hers. Most acute of all, she had expected to acquire a certain social
prominence by her marriage, but was accorded only a grudging toleration
by the circle to which the first Mrs. Applegate had belonged. This was
the more grinding from the fact that in Belleplaine, as in all small
towns of the great Middle-West, social distinctions are based upon
personal quality and not upon position.
Then, there was Dora. From Julie’s point of view tempers were made to
lose, but Dora habitually retained hers with a dignity which, while it
endeared her to her father, only exasperated his wife. Julie developed
an inordinate jealousy of the girl, and the love of the father and
daughter became a rod to scourge them. With the most pacific intentions
in the world it was impossible to divine what would or what would not
offend Julie.
On the occasion of the family quarrel recorded, Julie departed for
Pullman, according to her threat, and for a few days thereafter life
was delightfully peaceful. Dora exhibited all sorts of housewifely
aptitudes and solicitudes, the wheels of the household machinery moved
smoothly, and the domestic amenities blossomed unchecked.
Julie had been gone a week, a week of golden Indian summer weather,
when one day, as Applegate was leaving the house after dinner, he was
met by the telegraph boy just coming in. He stopped at the gate and
tore the message open. It was from Julie’s brother-in-law, Hopson,
and condensed in its irreverent ten words a stupefying amount of
information. Applegate stared at it, unable to understand.
“_MacDonald has come alive. Claims Julie. High old times. Come._”
He crushed the yellow paper in his hands, and turning back, sat down
heavily upon the steps of the veranda, staring stupidly ahead of him.
If this were true, what did it mean to him? Out of the hundred thoughts
assailing him one only was clear and distinct. It meant that he was
free!
He turned the telegram over in his fingers, touching it with the look
of one who sees visions.
Free. His home--his pretty home--his own again, with Dora, who grew
daily more like her mother, as his little housekeeper. Free from that
tempestuous presence which repelled even while it attracted. Free from
the endless scenes, the tiresome bickerings, the futile jealousies,
the fierce reproaches and the fierce caresses, both of which wearied
him equally now. He had scarcely known how all these things which he
bore in silence had worn and weighed upon him, but he knew at last.
The measure of the relief was the measure of the pressure also. The
tears trickled weakly down his cheeks, and he buried his face in his
hands as if to hide his thankfulness even from himself. The prospect
overwhelmed him. No boy’s delight nor man’s joy had ever been so sweet
as this. When he looked up, the pale November sunlight seemed to hold
for him a promise more alluring than that of all the May-time suns that
ever shone--the promise of a quiet life.
As he accustomed himself to this thought, there came others less
pleasant. The preeminently distasteful features of the situation began
to raise their heads and hiss at him like a coil of snakes. He shrank
nervously from the gossip and the publicity. This was a hideous,
repulsive thing to come into the lives of upright people who had
thought to order their ways according to the laws of God and man. It
was only Julie’s due to say she had intended that. But it had come and
must be met. Julie was MacDonald’s wife, not his--not his. The only
thing to be done was to accept the situation quietly. He knew that his
own compensation was ample--no price could be too great to pay for this
new joy of freedom--but he shivered a little when he thought of Julie
with her incongruous devotion to the customary and the respectable. It
would hurt Julie cruelly, but there was no one to blame and no help
for it. And MacDonald could take her away into the far new West and
make her forget this miserable interlude. He knew that for MacDonald,
who was of a different fibre from himself, Julie’s charm had been
sufficient and enduring. Whatever might be the explanation of his long
absence, Applegate did not doubt that the charm still endured. And,
in the end, even they themselves would forget this unhappy time which
was just ahead of them, and its memory would cease to seem a shame
and become a regret, whose bitterness the passing years would lessen
tenderly.
Having thus adjusted the ultimate outcome of the situation to suit
the optimism of his mood, Applegate drew out his watch and looked at
it. He had just time to make the necessary arrangements and catch the
afternoon train for Chicago.
He telegraphed to Hopson, and as he left the train that evening he
found the man awaiting him. The two shook hands awkwardly and walked
away together in silence. It was only after they had gone a block or
two that Hopson said:
“Well, I’m glad you’ve got here. We’ve been having a picnic up at the
house. Julie’s been having the hysterics and MacDonald--you never knew
MacDonald, did you?”
Applegate listened politely. He had a curious feeling that Julie and
her hysterics were already very far away and unimportant to him, but he
did not wish to be so brutal as to show this.
“When did MacDonald return and where has he been?” he asked, gravely.
“He got here yesterday. He says he had a shock or something in that
accident--anyhow, he just couldn’t remember anything, and when he come
to he didn’t know who he was, nor anything about himself, and all his
papers and clothes had been burnt, so there was nothing to show anybody
who he was. He could work, and he was all right most ways. Says he was
that way till about six months ago, when a Frisco doctor got hold of
him and did something to his head that put him right. He has papers
from the doctor to show it’s true. His case attracted lots of attention
out there. Of course he wrote to Julie when he came to himself, but
his letters went to our old address and she never got them. So then he
started East to see about it. He says he’s got into a good business
and is going to do well.”
There was a long silence. Presently Hopson began again, awkwardly:
“I don’t know how you feel about it, but I think Julie’d ought to go
back to him.”
Applegate’s heart began to beat in curious, irregular throbs; he could
feel the pulsing of the arteries in his neck and there was a singing in
his ears.
“Of course Julie agrees with you?” he said, thickly.
“Well, no; she don’t. That’s what she wanted me to talk to you about.
She can’t see it but one way. She says he died, or if he didn’t it was
the same thing to her, and she married you. She says nobody can have
two husbands, and it’s you who are hers. I told her the law didn’t look
at it that way, and she says then she must get a divorce from MacDonald
and remarry you. MacDonald says if she brings suit on the ground of
desertion he will fight it. He says he can prove it ain’t been no
wilful desertion. But probably he could be brought round if he saw she
wouldn’t go back to him anyhow. MacDonald wouldn’t be spiteful. But he
was pretty fond of Julie.”
Applegate had stopped suddenly in the middle of Hopson’s speech. Now
he went forward rapidly, but he made no answer. Hopson scrutinized his
face a moment before he continued:
“Julie says you won’t be spiteful either. She says maybe she was a
little hasty in what she said just before she came up here. But you
know Julie’s way.”
“Yes,” said Applegate, “I know Julie’s way.”
Hopson drew a breath of relief. He had at least discharged himself of
his intercessory mission.
“I tell Julie she’d better put up with it and go with MacDonald. The
life would be more the sort of thing she likes. But her head’s set and
she won’t hear to anything Henriette or I say. You see, that’s what
Julie holds by, what she thinks is respectable. And it’s about all she
does hold by.” He hesitated, groping blindly about in his consciousness
for words to express his feeling that this passionate, reckless nature
was only anchored to the better things of life by her fervent belief in
the righteousness of the established social order.
“Julie thinks everything of being respectable,” he concluded, lamely.
“Is it much farther to your house?” asked Applegate, dully.
“Right here,” answered Hopson, pulling his key from his pocket.
They entered a crude little parlor whose carpet was too gaudy, and
whose plush furniture was too obviously purchased at a bargain, but its
air was none the less heavy with tragedy. A single gas-jet flickered
in the centre of the room. On one side a great, broad-shouldered
fellow sat doggedly with his elbows on his knees and his face buried
in his hands. There was resistance in every line of his figure. On
the sofa opposite was Julie in her crimson dress. As she lifted her
face eagerly, Applegate noticed traces of tears upon it. Mrs. Hopson,
who had been moving about the room aimlessly, a pale and ineffective
figure between these two vivid personalities, came to a standstill
and looked at Applegate breathlessly. For a moment no one spoke. Then
Julie, baffled by the eyes she could not read, sprang to her feet and
stretched out her hands with a vehement gesture.
“John Applegate, you’ll put me right! You will. I know you will. I
can’t go back to him! How can I?” Her hungry eyes scrutinized his
still, inexpressive face.
“John, you aren’t going to turn me off?” Her voice had a despairing
passion in it. “You won’t refuse to marry me if I get the divorce? Good
God! You can’t be such a devil. John! oh, John!”
Applegate sat down and looked at her apathetically. He was not used to
being called a devil. Somehow it seemed to him the term was misapplied.
“Don’t take on so, Julie,” he said, quietly. The room seemed to whirl
around him, and he added, with a palpable effort:
“I’ll think it over and try to do what is best for both of us.”
At that MacDonald lifted his sullen face from his hands for the first
time and glanced across at the other man with blood-shot eyes. Then
he rose slowly, his great bulk seeming to fill the room, and walking
over to Applegate’s chair stood in front of it looking down at him.
His scrutiny was long. Once Applegate looked up and met his eyes, but
he was too tired to bear their fierce light and dropped his own lids
wearily.
MacDonald turned from him contemptuously and faced his wife, who
averted her head.
“Look at me, Julie!” he cried, appealingly. “I am better worth it than
he is. Good Lord! I don’t see what you see in him. He’s so _tame_! Let
him go about his business. He’s nobody. He don’t want you. Come along
with me and we’ll lead a life! You shall cut a dash out there. I can
make money hand over fist. It’s the place for you. Come on!”
For a moment Julie’s eyes glittered. The words allured her, but her old
gods prevailed. She threw out her arms as if to ward off his proposal.
“No, no,” she said, shrilly. “I cannot make it seem right. You were
dead to me, and I married him. One does not go back to the dead. If
I am your wife, what am I to him? It puts me in the wrong these two
years. I cannot have it so, I tell you. I cannot have it so!”
Applegate felt faint and sick. Rising, he groped for the door. “I
must have air,” he said to Hopson, confusedly. “I will come back in a
minute.”
Once outside, the cool November night refreshed him. He dropped down
upon the doorstep and threw back his head, drinking in long breaths as
he looked up at the mocking stars.
When he found at last the courage to ask himself what he was going to
do, the answer was not ready. The decision lay entirely in his hands.
He might still be free if he said the word; and as he thought of this
he trembled. He had always tried to be what his neighbors called a
straight man, and he wanted to be straight in this also. But where,
in such a hideous tangle, was the real morality to be found? Surely
not in acceding to Julie’s demands! What claim had she upon the home
whose simple traditions of peace and happiness she had trampled rudely
under foot? Was it not a poor, cheap convention of righteousness which
demanded he should take such a woman back to embitter the rest of his
days and warp his children’s lives? He rebelled hotly at the thought.
That it was Julie’s view of the ethical requirement of her position
made it all the more improbable that it was really right. Surely his
duty was to his children first, and as for Julie, let her reap the
reward of her own temperament. The Lord God Himself could not say that
this was unjust, for it is so that He deals with the souls of men.
It seemed to him that he had decided, but as he rose and turned to the
door a new thought stabbed him so sharply that he dropped his lifted
hand with a groan.
Where had been that sense of duty to his children, just now so
imperative, in the days when he had yielded to Julie’s charm against
his better judgment? Had duty ever prevailed against inclination with
him? Was it prevailing now?
High over all the turmoil and desperation of his thoughts shone out a
fresh perception that mocked him as the winter stars had mocked. For
that hour at least, the crucial one of his decision, he felt assured
that in the relation of man and woman to each other lies the supreme
ethical test of each, and in that relation there is no room for
selfishness. It might be, indeed, that he owed Julie nothing, but might
it not also be that the consideration he owed all womankind could only
be paid through this woman he had called his wife? This was an ideal
with which he had never had to reckon.
He turned and sat him down again to fight the fight with a chill
suspicion in his heart of what the end would be.
Being a plain man he had only plain words in which to phrase his
decision when at last he came to it.
“I chose her and I’ll bear the consequences of my choice,” he said,
“but I’ll bear them by myself. His aunt will be glad to take Teddy, and
Dora is old enough to go away to school.” Then he opened the door.
Hopson and his wife had left the little parlor. Julie on the sofa had
fallen into the deep sleep of exhaustion. MacDonald still sat there,
with his head in his hands, and to him Applegate turned. At the sound
of his step the man lifted his massive head and shook it impatiently.
“Well?” he demanded.
“The fact is, Mr. MacDonald, Julie and I don’t get along very well
together, but I don’t know as that is any reason why I should force
her to do anything that don’t seem right to her. She thinks it would
be more”--he hesitated for a word--“more nearly right to get a divorce
from you and remarry me. As I see it now, it’s for her to say what she
wants, and for you and me to do it.”
MacDonald looked at him piercingly.
“You know you’d be glad of the chance to get rid of her!” he exclaimed,
excitedly. “In Heaven’s name, then, why don’t you make her come to me?
You know I suit her best. You know she’s my sort, not yours. She’s as
uncomfortable with you as you with her, and she’d soon get over the
feeling she has against me. Man! There’s no use in it! Why can’t you
give my own to me?”
“I can’t say I don’t agree with you,” said Applegate, and the words
seem to ooze painfully from his white lips, “but she thinks she’d
rather not, and--it’s for her to say.”
A CONSUMING FIRE
He is a man who has failed in this life, and says he has no chance of
success in another; but out of the fragments of his failures he has
pieced together for himself a fabric of existence more satisfying than
most of us make of our successes. It is a kind of triumph to look as he
does, to have his manner, and to preserve his attitude toward advancing
years--those dreaded years which he faces with pale but smiling lips.
If you would see my friend Hayden, commonly called by his friends the
connoisseur, figure to yourself a tall gentleman of sixty-five, very
erect still and graceful, gray-headed and gray-bearded, with fine gray
eyes that have the storm-tossed look of clouds on a windy March day,
and a bearing that somehow impresses you with an idea of the gracious
and pathetic dignity of his lonely age.
I myself am a quiet young man, with but one gift--I am a finished and
artistic listener. It is this talent of mine which wins for me a degree
of Hayden’s esteem and a place at his table when he has a new story to
tell. His connoisseurship extends to everything of human interest, and
his stories are often of the best.
The last time that I had the honor of dining with him, there was
present, besides the host and myself, only his close friend, that
vigorous and successful man, Dr. Richard Langworthy, the eminent
alienist and specialist in nervous diseases. The connoisseur evidently
had something to relate, but he refused to give it to us until the
pretty dinner was over. Hayden’s dinners are always pretty, and he has
ideals in the matter of china, glass, and napery which it would require
a woman to appreciate. It is one of his accomplishments that he manages
to live like a gentleman and entertain his friends on an income which
most people find quite inadequate for the purpose.
After dinner we took coffee and cigars in the library.
On the table, full in the mellow light of the great lamp (Hayden has a
distaste for gas), was a bit of white plush on which two large opals
were lying. One was an intensely brilliant globe of broken gleaming
lights, in which the red flame burned strongest and most steadily;
the other was as large, but paler. You would have said that the
prisoned heart of fire within it had ceased to throb against the outer
rim of ice. Langworthy, who is wise in gems, bent over them with an
exclamation of delight.
“Fine stones,” he said; “where did you pick them up, Hayden?”
Hayden, standing with one hand on Langworthy’s shoulder, smiled down
on the opals with a singular expression. It was as if he looked into
beloved eyes for an answering smile.
“They came into my possession in a singular way, very singular. It
interested me immensely, and I want to tell you about it, and ask your
advice on something connected with it. I am afraid you people will
hardly care for the story as much as I do. It’s--it’s a little too
rococo and sublimated to please you, Langworthy. But here it is: