Carey walked across the wide, sunny fields next day in the direction
of the Café des Sapins. He had driven as far as the village next to
St. Marguerite, and had decided to walk the rest of the way. Now he
was so near his journey’s end, he dreaded to find himself actually at
the threshold. He would delay a little longer. The rattle of the trap,
and the cheerful attempts of the driver at conversation, had become
insupportable. He wanted intensely to be alone.
It was noon, when, following the direction of the blue bloused village
children, he came at last in sight of the café. A midday stillness
brooded over the hot fields, where amongst the poppies and the white
foam of daisies, a solitary tethered cow was grazing.
Involuntarily he slackened his pace. His eyes were fixed on the streak
of blue sea, and the fringe of pine-trees that bordered the cliff. In a
few moments he stood at the door of the inn.
“Madame Trelawney was out,” Madame Leroux explained. “She and Monsieur.
But Madame Travers? Yes, Madame was at home. She should be told that
Monsieur awaited her.”
He was shown into the salon, a primitive, stone-flagged little place.
It was filled with cool, green light, that filtered through the vine
leaves round its window. Out in the glaring sunshine, a yellow dog lay
sleeping, stretched across the garden path. There was no other sign
of life. The stillness grew intolerable. Carey rose and stood by the
window in the hope of feeling a breath of air, and heard his heart
beating in muffled throbs.
The door suddenly opened. He turned with an effort, and saw that it was
Bridget who stood there; but he dared not look at her. She wore a white
dress, he noticed, and slowly he raised his eyes to her face. It was
almost as white as her gown.
She closed the door softly behind her, and came and stood before him.
He did not move.
“Well?” he said at last. He had framed the word several times, but
could not utter it.
“I want to talk to you,” she said, below her breath. “Larry, my father
is dead--I heard last night.”
His face changed. A look of exquisite relief flashed into his eyes, as
he took a sudden step towards her.
“Poor child! poor little Bridget!” he murmured. “What an awful shock
for you! No wonder--”
She put out her hand wildly to keep him away.
“Don’t--_don’t!_” she cried sharply. “I can’t,--I can’t talk if you do!”
She sank helplessly into a chair opposite, and looked up at him with
despair in her face.
“Oh--why can’t you understand without words? Why can’t people see into
one another’s minds? And I must talk and explain, and it’s all no
use--no good!” she cried incoherently.
He had pushed both hands into his pockets, and he stood looking down at
her, trying to read her face, his own lined with mingled doubt and fear.
All at once he flung himself into a chair.
“Yes! you must explain. I don’t understand,” he returned doggedly. Then
he leant forward with a swift, contrite movement. “How could I? You are
ill--upset, no wonder!” he repeated.
“No,” she said deliberately, keeping her voice steady. “I’m not ill.
It was a shock, of course; it was unexpected. But father and I were
never--we didn’t understand one another,” she added looking past him.
“It isn’t as though I had loved him very much!”
He was silent. “Then what is it?” he asked desperately.
She let her eyes rest on his face for a moment before she spoke.
“I--I can’t do it, Larry!” she said at last, in an almost inaudible
whisper.
“You mean--you can’t come with me?”
She bowed her head.
There was no sound in the little vine-shaded salon. Carey looked out
across the screen of leaves, and noticed the motionless pine-tops
against the hot blue sky. His eyes travelled down their red trunks to
the sunny garden, to the scarlet zinnias burning amidst the long grass,
to the curly yellow dog lying with his nose between his paws on the hot
flagstones before the door.
“Why?” he asked, turning his eyes from the garden to where Bridget sat.
She gave a long trembling sigh. “Because of mother.”
Again a quick light of hope flashed into his eyes.
“Yes--yes!” he said eagerly--“I see. Of course just now--in the midst
of her trouble--dear, we must wait, of course. I--”
“It is not because of that,” she interrupted, in an even toneless
voice. Then, with a restless movement--“Oh, Larry! It must come! I
must, yet I know I _can’t_ explain!” she cried, with a sharp note of
misery in her voice.
“Listen!” she went on, desperately. “Of course you will think that
it’s--father’s death, that has made me see things in a new light; but
it isn’t--it isn’t. It drew the veil from before myself--my nature--a
little sooner, that’s all. It would have come anyway,” she murmured.
“See!” she turned to him with trembling lips--“I had decided. I had
told Helen yesterday--I had justified myself. I told her what I had
been telling myself for weeks, that it would be mad, foolish, weak, to
let mother’s prejudices spoil my life.”
“And mine--” he interrupted, tersely.
“Ah, _don’t_!” she implored, twisting her hands together in her lap.
“Last night,” she went on after a moment, “last night I was so
happy!”--her voice faltered so that he hardly heard--“but only for
a little while. Ten minutes, I think. Larry, in the midst of my
happiness, the old haunting, miserable feeling, that I was treading
down part of my own nature in hurting mother, came back! I--” she
pushed her hair back from her white face-- “And then the telegram came;
and after a little while I saw it all: what I must do--what my life was
to be!” she added bitterly.
Carey looked at her a moment. He rose from his seat and came
deliberately and knelt beside her.
“All this can wait,” he said firmly. He put his arms round her, and
drew her towards him. She hesitated for a second, then turned to him
with a cry, and put up her lips to his.
She drew herself away presently, shuddering and cowering in her chair.
“Don’t--oh Larry, don’t! If I cry I can’t tell you, and I must--I
_must_,” she wailed--“it must be settled now.”
“Yes; it must be settled now,” he said, rising and dragging his chair
closer to hers.
She recognized the tone, and shuddered again. He meant to reason with
her, to argue point by point; she could never hope to explain properly,
it would last so long, such a terribly long time!
“Larry, I’m worn out already!” she urged pitifully--“don’t.”
“You poor little girl! We won’t talk about it. To-morrow will do.”
“No, no!” she exclaimed, with feverish haste, sitting upright. “Let it
be now. I can’t bear another night--I should go mad! Say what you have
to say now--quickly!”
“You say it is your mother,” Carey began. “She will look upon this as a
sin, you think? She--”
“No,” she answered wearily. “It isn’t even that. Mother is not a
religious woman in the sense of the word. She _thinks_ she is. She goes
to church, of course, and says her prayers, but her religion doesn’t
enter into her life; it isn’t a vital thing to her. The thought of the
sin against God would not count for very much with her, it would be the
outrage against social prejudice--the--”
She paused. Her voice was dry and hard.
Carey looked at her--puzzled, uncertain. Her face was rigid--it told
him nothing.
“You acknowledge this, and yet, surely the knowledge that she would not
be tortured by fears for your soul, is much? I understand, I realize
what a fearful thought the idea of inflicting pain of that sort must
be. But you say yourself her unhappiness will be caused merely by the
fact that you may--well, by what she calls your social disgrace. That
is hard enough, I own; but, Bridget, will you let scruples like these
stand in the way? I mean if you are willing to brave it for yourself,
surely--”
He rose impetuously.
“Oh, you don’t understand--you don’t understand,” she wailed, wringing
her hands. “Don’t you see that it doesn’t matter to me whether her
misery comes from a worthy or an unworthy cause? The fact remains that
she will be wretched--_wretched_--and I shall have made her wretched.
_I_--her child! She has lived for me, thought of me, worked for me
early and late, all these years--these long years! Oh, don’t think I
don’t know--don’t think I idealize her; don’t think we are devoted even
in the sense of being friends--of being in sympathy with one another.
We are not. We haven’t a thought, a hope, an ideal in common. We
exasperate and irritate one another continually--we always shall. But,
don’t you see? She is my _mother_, the mother that cried over me when I
was little, because I had the toothache, or because some one slighted
me, or because--Oh!” She threw out her hands towards him with a
gesture. “You don’t remember your mother, Larry. If you did, you would
know what these things mean--the little baby things that make one feel
the bond, the only bond there is between us, just the tie of blood. I’m
her child. She’s my mother. I can’t tell you any more!”
She stopped abruptly, shaken and trembling, and hid her face in both
hands.
Carey was silent for a time. He took one of them and put it to his lips
before he spoke.
“I _do_ understand,” he said very gently. “But, Bridget, think! You
have done many things already which you felt to be right, but which
must have made her suffer. Would you have them undone? You left home,
for instance, and went out into the world. You left your husband”--his
face darkened. “Do you think you did wrong? Dear! I know your feeling.
It is terrible, this conflict between what one owes to one’s self, and
one’s love, or obligation to those who stand in the way. But, Bridget,
what are we to do? How will the world go on if we are to be cramped,
hindered, fettered, forever? If we are never to be ourselves, never
to take the path that leads highest? Suppose you had remained with
your--with Travers, out of fear of hurting your mother? You would have
done yourself a deadly injury, you--”
She sat silent while he spoke, and his voice grew firm with hope as she
listened; but all at once she turned resolutely to him, and put her
hand on his.
“Larry,” she said brokenly, “it’s no use! I’ve told myself all that
many times. It doesn’t alter things. It’s true I’ve made her suffer,
it’s true it couldn’t have been otherwise. There has always, always
been this fight in my life. I should have left home long before I did
if it hadn’t been just for this very thing. Perhaps I should never
have gone at all if mother had been alone. But she wished it at last.
There was father too, you see; and I--she saw at last that it was
impossible for me to live at home. Then about--the other--I did it--it
had to be done in spite of her; though the thought of her kept me with
him three years. But, Larry, don’t you see?--don’t you _see_ that it
was different? I can’t disguise it from myself, though I want to. My
God! don’t you believe I want to?” she broke out passionately, rising
as she spoke. “That was a question of mother’s happiness against my
self-respect, my decency; this is a question of her happiness against
_my_ happiness. I had a right--a right! I couldn’t do otherwise than to
buy my self-respect, at the price even of her suffering, but I have no
right--” She stopped, leaning faintly against the window frame.
“And--about me?” Carey said coldly. “Have I no claim, Bridget? You
don’t seem to have thought of that.”
She turned slowly towards him, and as his eyes met hers he felt as
though he had struck her. She made no answer, but sank down again, with
her arm thrown out against the back of the chair, and her face hidden
against it, and broke into bitter, hopeless tears.
Carey stood silent a moment, with set face, watching her. With sudden
violence he stooped and drew her from the chair into his arms.
“Let everything else go,” he whispered fiercely. “We love one another.
What does anything matter? You are the woman for me in all the world!
I am the man for you! We belong to one another. No one--nothing--has
the right to part us. Think, Bridget. Together, I believe we can do
great things, live full lives, drink deep of the cup of life, and find
it good. It is only offered to us once--we shall be mad if we refuse
it!”
She clung to him, and was silent so long that a sense of exultant
triumph began to stir at his heart. He put her away from him a little,
and looked in her face with a smile.
She met his eyes steadily, and with a groan he released her.
“You are like the rest of women, after all!” he said bitterly. “You
delight in sacrifice. No wonder the wheels of Fate have crushed
you--you throw yourselves down before the car, and invite your doom!”
“You are very cruel,” she answered wearily, letting her hands fall
heavily in her lap; “but I suppose you can’t help it.”
“Have you thought what life means for you?” He flung out the words
between his set teeth.
“Yes. Mother will live with me--and I shall work.”
He started and looked at her for some moments silently.
“Do you realize it, Bridget?” he enquired at last.
“Perfectly,” she said calmly. “I shall work all day. In the mornings
I shall teach, in the afternoons I shall write in my own room. The
evenings I shall usually spend in unsuccessful attempts to keep my
temper.”
“And what sort of woman will you be in five--ten years’ time?”
“God knows!” she cried wildly, her forced calm breaking up. “I don’t.
That is nothing to do with me! Some people would tell me--people with
lofty, high-toned minds, you know,” she added with a sneer--“that
I shall be a very fine character, chastened, subdued, with latent
strength, and that sort of thing. Perhaps if I were an archangel, with
none of the lower passions, I might be; but I think it’s much more
likely I shall be merely a bad tempered, irritable, middle-aged person.”
“And yet--” he began.
She turned her head, with an exasperated, restless movement.
“And yet--and yet” she repeated--“Oh, Larry! it isn’t a question of
reason, of judgment, of anything rational. Whatever I do I shall regret
it!” she broke off recklessly. “See! if it had been possible I would
have gone with you last night--taken the irrevocable step, and ever
afterwards cursed myself for doing it! You talk of leading a full,
worthy, happy life!--with a woman who is eternally self-tortured? It
doesn’t matter whether it’s on her own account or some one else’s; to
live with any one under such conditions is impossible--hopeless. You
know it!”
“It wouldn’t be so!” he urged. “You exaggerate--”
“I know myself better than you know me--too well!” she interrupted.
“No, it’s no use, Larry!” She made a gesture with her hands as of
flinging something from her. “Life is too hard for me. I can’t reason,
I can’t think any more! I can only cling blindly to this strong
instinct, a savage instinct, if you like. I think we come back, after
all, to our savage natures in most of the big things in life. It isn’t
a question of duty, inclination, religion, or _anything_, but just the
one overwhelming necessity of not breaking the tie of blood. Larry,
you must go,” she added, in a hoarse whisper. “I can’t--stand it any
longer.”
“One moment,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on her haggard face. His
own was white and rigid. “Do you mean that I’m to go away--abroad--not
to see you again? You don’t mean _that_?”
He could hardly keep his voice steady enough to frame the last question.
She raised her head slowly, and looked in his face.
“Larry,” she said at last, under her breath, “what am I doing this for?
Is it that I’m afraid for myself? You know it is not! But you know
as well as I do that if you stay, and--there is talk, as there will
be--our names coupled together--I might just as well--better--have
gone with you, in the face of the world. Besides, for my own sake--”
she lifted her head proudly, “I couldn’t live a life like--a life of
deception.” She paused. “But for mother--I would have gone with you--to
the ends of the earth. You know it. But--”
There was a long silence. A film of thick white clouds had gathered
over the sun; the air was heavy, breathlessly quiet. At the window, the
vine leaves hung straight and still, not a tendril stirred.
At last Carey moved. He raised both her hands to his lips. “Forgive
me!” he said brokenly.
She flung out her arms with a cry, and they closed round him. She shed
no tears, but her whole body was shaken with her sobs.
At last she pushed him from her.
“Go--go!” she implored. “I can’t--don’t come back.”
“I will go,” he said. He started at the sound of his own voice. “I will
not come back--unless you send for me.”
“I--I pray I never may. If I can bear it I--oh, go! only _go_!” she
cried incoherently.
She dragged herself to the window and watched him with wide, dry eyes,
as he went down the garden path. His footsteps, crunching the gravel,
sounded loud and harsh in the stillness.
“He stoops like an old man. He didn’t stoop this morning,” she thought
idly. “I wonder if I stoop?” She turned and glanced at herself in the
little mirror opposite the window. “No; I’m young, dreadfully young.
I have--how many more years to live? How old am I? I can’t count, I
never _could_ reckon.” She smiled a little to herself, and caught sight
of her face in the glass. “I wonder if I’m going mad?” she murmured
listlessly.
A heavy drop fell on one of the vine leaves outside, it swayed, and
tossed it lower; another--and then the first low growl of thunder.
Helen hurried up the garden path, spoke a word to Madame Leroux, and
opened the door of the salon.
The vine-leaf screen at the window made the room almost dark, and the
patter of rain on the leaves was the only sound as she crossed to where
Bridget sat crouched in her chair.
“Bid, dearest!” she whispered, her voice almost lost in the second
louder peal of thunder.
Bridget turned to her with a wan smile, and she almost cried aloud at
the sight of her face in the gloom.
“I’ve sent him away,” she explained, “do I look rather dreadful? Never
mind. When we go back--to-morrow, is it?--I want you to choose rooms
for mother and me.”
THE END.
THE KEYNOTES SERIES.
16mo. Cloth. Each volume with a Titlepage and Cover Design.
By AUBREY BEARDSLEY.
_Price .... $1.00._
I. =KEYNOTES.= By GEORGE EGERTON.
II. =THE DANCING FAUN.= By FLORENCE FARR.
III. =POOR FOLK.= By FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKY. Translated
from the Russian by LENA MILMAN. With an Introduction
by GEORGE MOORE.
IV. =A CHILD OF THE AGE.= By FRANCIS ADAMS.
V. =THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.=
By ARTHUR MACHEN.
VI. =DISCORDS.= By GEORGE EGERTON.
VII. =PRINCE ZALESKI.= By M. P. SHIEL.
VIII. =THE WOMAN WHO DID.= By GRANT ALLEN.
IX. =WOMEN’S TRAGEDIES.= By H. D. LOWRY.
X. =GREY ROSES AND OTHER STORIES.= By HENRY
HARLAND.
XI. =AT THE FIRST CORNER AND OTHER STORIES.= By
H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON.
XII. =MONOCHROMES.= By ELLA D’ARCY.
XIII. =AT THE RELTON ARMS.= By EVELYN SHARP.
XIV. =THE GIRL FROM THE FARM.= By GERTRUDE DIX.
XV. =THE MIRROR OF MUSIC.= By STANLEY V. MAKOWER.
XVI. =YELLOW AND WHITE.= By W. CARLTON DAWE.
XVII. =THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS.= By FIONA MACLEOD.
XVIII. =THE THREE IMPOSTORS.= By ARTHUR MACHEN.
_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers,_
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
_John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London, W._
_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._
THE WOMAN WHO DID.
BY GRANT ALLEN.
_Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition._
16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00.
A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and
gifted author could never have been effectively told; for such a hand
could not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the
noble, irreproachable character of Herminia Barton.--_Boston Home
Journal._
“The Woman Who Did” is a remarkable and powerful story. It increases
our respect for Mr. Allen’s ability, nor do we feel inclined to join
in throwing stones at him as a perverter of our morals and our social
institutions. However widely we may differ from Mr. Allen’s views on
many important questions, we are bound to recognize his sincerity, and
to respect him accordingly. It is powerful and painful, but it is not
convincing. Herminia Barton is a woman whose nobleness both of mind
and of life we willingly concede; but as she is presented to us by Mr.
Allen, there is unmistakably a flaw in her intellect. This in itself
does not detract from the reality of the picture.--_The Speaker._
In the work itself, every page, and in fact every line, contains
outbursts of intellectual passion that places this author among the
giants of the nineteenth century.--_American Newsman._
Interesting, and at times intense and powerful.--_Buffalo Commercial._
No one can doubt the sincerity of the author.--_Woman’s Journal._
The story is a strong one, very strong, and teaches a lesson that no
one has a right to step aside from the moral path laid out by religion,
the law, and society.--_Boston Times._
_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price, by the
Publishers_,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
DISCORDS.
A Volume of Stories.
BY GEORGE EGERTON, author of “Keynotes.”
AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION.
_16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00._
George Egerton’s new volume entitled “Discords,” a collection of short
stories, is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of
the day. The collection is really stories for story-writers. They are
precisely the quality which literary folk will wrangle over. Harold
Frederic cables from London to the “New York Times” that the book is
making a profound impression there. It is published on both sides, the
Roberts House bringing it out in Boston. George Egerton, like George
Eliot and George Sand, is a woman’s _nom de plume_. The extraordinary
frankness with which life in general is discussed in these stories not
unnaturally arrests attention.--_Lilian Whiting._
The English woman, known as yet only by the name of George Egerton,
who made something of a stir in the world by a volume of strong
stories called “Keynotes,” has brought out a new book under the rather
uncomfortable title of “Discords.” These stories show us pessimism
run wild; the gloomy things that can happen to a human being are so
dwelt upon as to leave the impression that in the author’s own world
there is no light. The relations of the sexes are treated of in bitter
irony, which develops into actual horror as the pages pass. But in all
this there is a rugged grandeur of style, a keen analysis of motive,
and a deepness of pathos that stamp George Egerton as one of the
greatest women writers of the day. “Discords” has been called a volume
of stories; it is a misnomer, for the book contains merely varying
episodes in lives of men and women, with no plot, no beginning nor
ending.--_Boston Traveller._
This is a new volume of psychological stories from the pen and brains
of George Egerton, the author of “Keynotes.” Evidently the titles of
the author’s books are selected according to musical principles. The
first story in the book is “A Psychological Moment at Three Periods.”
It is all strength rather than sentiment. The story of the child,
of the girl, and of the woman is told, and told by one to whom the
mysteries of the life of each are familiarly known. In their very
truth, as the writer has so subtly analysed her triple characters, they
sadden one to think that such things must be; yet as they are real,
they are bound to be disclosed by somebody and in due time. The author
betrays remarkable penetrative skill and perception, and dissects the
human heart with a power from whose demonstration the sensitive nature
may instinctively shrink even while fascinated with the narration and
hypnotized by the treatment exhibited.--_Courier._
_Sold by all Booksellers. Mailed by Publishers_,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON, MASS.
POOR FOLK.
A Novel.
Translated from the Russian of FEDOR DOSTOIEVSKY, by LENA MILMAN,
with decorative titlepage and a critical introduction by GEORGE
MOORE. American Copyright edition.
_16mo. Cloth. $1.00._
A capable critic writes: “One of the most beautiful, touching stories
I have read. The character of the old clerk is a masterpiece, a kind
of Russian Charles Lamb. He reminds me, too, of Anatole France’s
‘Sylvestre Bonnard,’ but it is a more poignant, moving figure. How
wonderfully, too, the sad little strokes of humor are blended into
the pathos in his characterization, and how fascinating all the naive
self-revelations of his poverty become,--all his many ups and downs
and hopes and fears. His unsuccessful visit to the money-lender, his
despair at the office, unexpectedly ending in a sudden burst of good
fortune, the final despairing cry of his love for Varvara,--these hold
one breathless. One can hardly read them without tears.... But there is
no need to say all that could be said about the book. It is enough to
say that it is over powerful and beautiful.”
We are glad to welcome a good translation of the Russian Dostoievsky’s
story “Poor Folk,” Englished by Lena Milman. It is a tale of unrequited
love, conducted in the form of letters written between a poor clerk and
his girl cousin whom he devotedly loves, and who finally leaves him to
marry a man not admirable in character who, the reader feels, will not
make her happy. The pathos of the book centres in the clerk, Makar’s,
unselfish affection and his heart-break at being left lonesome by his
charming kinswoman whose epistles have been his one solace. In the
conductment of the story, realistic sketches of middle class Russian
life are given, heightening the effect of the denouement. George Moore
writes a sparkling introduction to the book.--_Hartford Courant._
Dostoievsky is a great artist. “Poor Folk” is a great novel.--_Boston
Advertiser._
It is a most beautiful and touching story, and will linger in the mind
long after the book is closed. The pathos is blended with touching bits
of humor, that are even pathetic in themselves.--_Boston Times._
Notwithstanding that “Poor Folk” is told in that most exasperating and
entirely unreal style--by letters--it is complete in sequence, and
the interest does not flag as the various phases in the sordid life
of the two characters are developed. The theme is intensely pathetic
and truly human, while its treatment is exceedingly artistic. The
translator, Lena Milman, seems to have well preserved the spirit of the
original.--_Cambridge Tribune._
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
BOSTON, MASS
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized or underlined text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.