On the way up from Virginia, Nesbit Thorne ran over in his mind the
possibilities opened by this new move of his wife's, and, on the whole,
he was satisfied. The divorce had become as much an object with him as
with her, and if she had remained quiescent in the matter, he must have
moved. He was glad to have been spared this--very glad that the
initial steps had been of her taking. It put him in a good position
with himself. The _manes_ of his mother's scruples would be satisfied,
and would never cause him discomfort since the fault did not rest with
him. And then the boy--never could his son cast word or thought of
blame to the father who had behaved so well; who had given every
chance, foregone every advantage; acted not only the part of a
gentleman, but of a generous, long-suffering man. Thorne felt a glow
of satisfaction in the knowledge that in years to come his son would
think well of him.
But this supposition of Norma's in regard to a second marriage put the
whole matter in a new light in regard to the child. If such a change
should be in contemplation, other arrangements must be made about the
boy; he could no longer remain in the custody of his mother. _His_ son
could not remain under the roof of his wife's second husband during his
own lifetime. The line must be drawn somewhere. It did not occur to
Thorne that his wife, with equal justice, might raise similar
objections.
He determined to see Ethel at once and discover whether or not there
was truth in the reports that had reached him anent Cecil Cumberland.
If there should be, he would bring such pressure as lay in his power to
bear on her, in order to obtain immediate possession of the boy. The
child was still so young that the law gave the mother rights which
could only be set aside at the expense of a disagreeable suit; but
Thorne thought he could manage Ethel in such a way as to make her
voluntarily surrender her rights. He knew that her affection for the
child was neither deep nor strong.
He ascended the steps of his own house and rang the bell sharply. It
was answered by a strange servant who regarded him with interest;
evidently a gentleman caller at that hour of the morning was unusual.
Was Mrs. Thorne at home? The man would inquire. Would the gentleman
walk in. What name should he say? Mr. Thorne--and his business was
pressing; he must see her at once.
The man opened the door of the back parlor and stood aside to let Mr.
Thorne pass; then he closed it noiselessly and proceeded up-stairs to
inform his mistress.
Thorne glanced around the room curiously; it was two years since he had
seen it. On the marble hearth burned a bright wood-fire, and the
dancing flames reflected themselves in the burnished brasses. The
tiles around the fireplace were souvenirs of his wedding, hand-painted
by the bevy of bridesmaids to please a fancy of Ethel's. Norma's was
in the center--the place of honor. It was a strange thing that Norma
had selected to paint; heavy sprays of mingled nightshade and monkshood
on a ground the color of a fading leaf; but, strange as it was, it was
the most beautiful of them all. There were flowers in the room and the
perfume of heliotrope and roses filled the air. The piano was open and
on it one of the popular songs of the day; a loud, garish thing. Ethel
liked what she called "bright music;" on the keys lay a tumbled lace
handkerchief, and on the floor, close to the pedal of the instrument,
was a man's driving glove.
Over the piano hung the portrait of a lady with soft, gray hair, and
the expression of purity and love which medieval painters gave to their
saints. It was a picture of Thorne's mother and it hurt him to see it
there. He determined to have it removed as soon as possible.
The door opened and Mrs. Thorne entered, feeling herself terribly
ill-used and persecuted, in that her husband had elected to come to her
in person, instead of availing himself of the simpler and more
agreeable mode of communication through their lawyers. It was quite
possible that he would make himself disagreeable. Mrs. Thorne shrank
from any thing disagreeable, and had no tolerance for sarcasms
addressed to herself. She would have refused the interview had she
dared, but in her heart she was dimly afraid of her husband.
Thorne bowed coldly, and then placed a chair for her on the hearth-rug.
"Sit down," he said, "I want to talk to you," and then he seated
himself opposite her.
For awhile he did not speak; somehow the words he had come to say stuck
in his throat; it was so cold-blooded for them, husband and wife, to
sit there beside their own hearth and discuss their final separation.
A log, which had burned in half, fell and rolled forward on the marble
hearth, sending little puffs of gray smoke into the room. He reached
past her for the tongs and laid the log back in its place, and the
little action seemed to seal his lips more closely. The tiny clock on
the carved oak mantle chimed the hour in soft, low tones; he counted
the strokes as they fell, one, two, and so on up to twelve. The winter
sunshine streamed in between the parting of the curtains and made a
glory of his wife's golden hair.
Ethel was the first to speak. "You got my letter?" she questioned,
keeping her eyes fixed on the fire.
"Yes; that is the reason I'm here."
The broken log was blazing again quite merrily, the two ends far apart.
"Why not have written instead of coming?" she demanded, as one who
protested against some grievous injury; "it would have been far
pleasanter for both. There's no sense in our harassing ourselves with
personal interviews."
"I preferred a personal interview."
Ethel lapsed into silence; the man was a hopeless brute, and it was
useless to expect courtesy from him. She tapped her foot against the
fender, and a look of obstinacy and temper disfigured the soft outlines
of her face. The silence might remain unbroken until the crack of doom
for any further effort she would make.
Thorne broke it himself. He was determined to carry his point, and in
order to do so strove to establish ascendency over his wife from the
start.
"What's the meaning of this new move, Ethel?" he demanded,
authoritatively. "I want to understand the matter thoroughly. Why do
you want a divorce?"
Mrs. Thorne turned her face toward him defiantly.
"Because I'm tired of my present life, and I want to change it. I'm
sick of being pointed at, and whispered about, as a deserted wife--a
woman whose husband never comes near her."
"Whose fault is that?" he retorted sharply; "this separation is none of
my doing, and you know it. Bad as things had become, I was willing to
worry along for the sake of respectability and the child; but you
wouldn't have it so. You insisted on my leaving you--said the very
sight of me made your chains more intolerable. Had I been a viper, you
could scarcely have signified your desire for my absence in more
unmeasured terms."
"I know I desired the separation," Mrs. Thorne replied calmly, "I
desire it still. My life with you was miserable, and my wish to live
apart has only increased in intensity. You never understood me."
Thorne might have retorted that the misunderstanding had been mutual,
and also that _all_ the wretchedness had not fallen to her share; but
he would not stoop to reproaches and vituperation. It was a natural
peculiarity of her shallow nature to demand exhaustive comprehension
for quite commonplace emotions.
"It's useless debating the past, Ethel. We've both been too much to
blame to afford the luxury of stone-throwing. What we must consider
now is the future. Is your mind quite made up? Are you determined on
the divorce?"
"Quite determined. I've given the matter careful consideration, and am
convinced that entire separation, legal as well as nominal, is
absolutely necessary to my happiness."
"And your reasons?"
"Haven't I told you, Nesbit?" using his name, for the first time, in
her anger. "Why do you insist on my repeating the same thing over and
over, eternally? I'm sick of my life, and want to change it."
"But how?" he persisted. "Your life will be the same as now, and your
position not so assured. The alimony allowed by law won't any thing
like cover your present expenditures, and you can hardly expect me to
be more generous than the law compels. The divorce can make little
difference, save to diminish your income and deprive you of the
protection of my name. You will not care to marry again, and the
divorce will be a restricted one." Thorne was forcing his adversary's
hand.
"Why will it be restricted?" she demanded, her color and her temper
rising. "It shall _not_ be restricted, or hampered in any way, I tell
you, Nesbit Thorne! Am I to be fettered, and bound, and trammeled by
you forever? I will _not_ be. The divorce shall give me unlimited
power to do what I please with my life. It shall make me as free as
air--as free as I was before I married you."
"You would not wish to marry again?" he repeated.
"Why not?" rising to her feet and confronting him in angry excitement.
"Because, in that case, you would lose your child. I neither could nor
would permit my son to be brought up in the house of a man who stood to
him in the relationship you propose."
"You cannot take him from me," Mrs. Thorne retorted in defiant
contradiction; her ideas of the power of men and lawyers hopelessly
vague and bewildered. "No court on earth would take so small a child
from his mother."
"Ah! you propose having the case come into court then? I misunderstood
you. I thought you wished the affair managed quietly, to avoid
publicity and comment. Of course, if the case comes into court, I
shall contest it, and try to obtain possession of the boy, even for the
time the law allows the mother, on the ground of being better able to
support and educate him."
"I do not want the case to come into court here, Nesbit, and you know
that I do not! Why do you delight in tormenting me?"
"Listen to me, Ethel. I've no wish to torment you. I simply wished to
show you that I would abide by my rights, and that I have some
power--all the power which money can give--on my side. Our marriage
has been a miserable mistake from the first; we rushed into it without
knowledge of each other's characters and dispositions, and, like most
couples who take matrimony like a five-barred gate, we've come horribly
to grief. I shall not stand in your way; if you wish to go, I shall
not hinder you. This is what I propose: I'll help you in the matter,
will take all the trouble, make the arrangements, bear all the expense.
It will be necessary for one of us to go to Illinois, and see these
lawyers, if the divorce is to be gotten there. It may be necessary to
undergo a short residence in the state in order to simulate
citizenship, and make the divorce legal. I'll find out about this, and
if it's necessary I will do it. After the divorce, I'll allow you the
use of this house, and a sufficient income to support it; and also the
custody of our son as long as you remain unmarried. In return, you
must waive all right to the boy for the years you can legally claim
him, and must bind yourself to surrender him to me, or any person I
appoint, at least a month before any such marriage, and never, by word
or act, to interfere in his future life, or any disposition I may think
best to make of him. I should also strongly object to any future
marriage taking place from my house, and should expect legal notice in
ample time to make arrangements about the boy."
"Would you allow me to see the child whenever I wished?"
"Certainly. I'm no brute, and you are his mother. I shall only
stipulate that the meetings take place in some other house than yours.
You are at liberty to visit him as often as you like, so long as you
are faithful to our agreement and leave his mind unbiased. I will
never mention you unkindly to him, and shall expect the same
consideration from you. When he is old enough to judge between us, he
will decide as he thinks right."
"Suppose you marry again, yourself. What about the child then? You
are very hard and uncompromising in your dictation to me, Nesbit, but I
can have feelings and scruples as well as you."
Thorne was startled. He considered that he was behaving well to his
wife. He wanted to behave well to her; to let the past go generously,
so that no shadow of reproach from it might fall upon the future. Her
tart suggestion set the affair in a new light. It was an unpleasant
light, and he turned his back on it, thinking that by so doing he
disposed of it. There was the distance of the two poles between
Pocahontas Mason and Cecil Cumberland. _He_ surely was the best judge
of what would conduce to the welfare of his son.
"We were discussing the probability of your re-marriage, not mine," he
responded coldly; "the reports in circulation have reached even me at
last."
"What reports?" with defiant inquiry.
"That you are seeking freedom from your allegiance to one man, in order
to swear fealty to another. That your vows to me are irksome because
they prevent your taking other vows to Cecil Cumberland. I pass over
the moral aspect of the affair; that must rest with your own
conscience," (it is astonishing how exemplary Thorne felt in
administering the rebuke); "that rests with your conscience," he
repeated, "and with that I've nothing to do. The existence of such
reports--which lays your conduct as a married woman open to
censure--gives me the right to dictate the terms of our legal
separation. I'm obliged to speak plainly, Ethel. You brought about
the issue, and must abide by the consequences. I've stated my terms
and it's for you to accept or decline them."
Thorne leaned back in his chair and watched the flames eat into the
heart of the hickory logs. He had no doubt of her decision, but he
awaited it courteously. The broken log had burned completely away, and
a little heap of whity-gray ashes lay on each side of the hearth.
Ethel sat and pondered, weighing at full value all the advantages and
disadvantages of the proposal and deciding that the former outweighed
the latter. The object on which she was bent--the thing which appeared
the greatest earthly good, was the divorce. At any cost, she would
obtain _that_, and obtain it as quickly and quietly as possible; no
talk, no exposure, no disagreeable comments. This was the main point,
and to carry it, Ethel Thorne felt herself capable of more than the
surrender of one small child. The separation at worst would only be
partial; she could see the boy every day if she wished--even after her
marriage with Cecil Cumberland. Nesbit had promised, and in all her
experience of him she had never known him break his word. Then she
could retain the little fellow until all these troublesome affairs
should be settled, which would disarm criticism and save appearances,
and appearances _must_ be preserved on account of the Cumberlands.
That a divorced daughter-in-law would be none too welcome in that
stately, old-fashioned family, Mrs. Thorne was well aware. Perhaps it
would be as well to be unhampered by such a forcible reminder of her
former state as the child, while she was winning the Cumberland heart
and softening the Cumberland prejudice. Cecil, she knew already,
regarded the baby with scant favor, and would be unfeignedly rejoiced
to be quit of him. On the whole, Nesbit was behaving well to her. She
had expected far more difficulty, infinitely more bitterness, for, like
the world, she gave her husband credit for the scruples of his father's
faith. Her heart softened toward him a little for the first time in
years--or would have softened, but for the blow he had dealt her
egregious self-love in letting her go so easily.
She signified her acceptance of his proposal in a few brusque,
ungracious words, for she considered it due to her dignity to be
disagreeable, in that she was acceding to terms, not dictating them.
Thorne rose from his chair with a deep breath of relief. The interview
had been intolerable to him, and although he had carried his point and
acquitted himself well, his prominent feeling was one of unqualified
disgust. What a lie his married life had been! What a sepulcher
filled with dead, dry bones! For the moment all womanhood was lowered
in his eyes because of his wife's heartless selfishness. Had she shown
any feeling about the boy--any ruth, or mother-love, Thorne knew that
he would not have driven so hard a bargain; felt that he might even
have let his compassion rule his judgment. But she had shown none; all
her thought and care had been for herself, and herself alone. And for
her, and such as her, men wrecked their lives. A flood of anger at his
past folly, of resentful bitterness at the price he had been forced to
pay for it, passed over Thorne. He could scarcely constrain himself to
the formal bow which courtesy required.
As he left the room, the sound of a child's wailing came down to him,
mingled with the sound of a woman's voice soothing it. He glanced back
at his wife; she had moved nearer the fire, her fair head with its
golden glory of hair was thrown back against the dark velvet of the
chair; she was smiling and the sound of the child's grief fell on
heedless ears.