The Clash
The peculiar personality of Rita Sohlberg was such that by her very
action she ordinarily allayed suspicion, or rather distracted it.
Although a novice, she had a strange ease, courage, or balance of soul
which kept her whole and self-possessed under the most trying of
circumstances. She might have been overtaken in the most compromising
of positions, but her manner would always have indicated ease, a sense
of innocence, nothing unusual, for she had no sense of moral
degradation in this matter--no troublesome emotion as to what was to
flow from a relationship of this kind, no worry as to her own soul,
sin, social opinion, or the like. She was really interested in art and
life--a pagan, in fact. Some people are thus hardily equipped. It is
the most notable attribute of the hardier type of personalities--not
necessarily the most brilliant or successful. You might have said that
her soul was naively unconscious of the agony of others in loss. She
would have taken any loss to herself with an amazing equableness--some
qualms, of course, but not many--because her vanity and sense of charm
would have made her look forward to something better or as good.
She had called on Aileen quite regularly in the past, with or without
Harold, and had frequently driven with the Cowperwoods or joined them
at the theater or elsewhere. She had decided, after becoming intimate
with Cowperwood, to study art again, which was a charming blind, for it
called for attendance at afternoon or evening classes which she
frequently skipped. Besides, since Harold had more money he was
becoming gayer, more reckless and enthusiastic over women, and
Cowperwood deliberately advised her to encourage him in some liaison
which, in case exposure should subsequently come to them, would
effectually tie his hands.
"Let him get in some affair," Cowperwood told Rita. "We'll put
detectives on his trail and get evidence. He won't have a word to say."
"We don't really need to do that," she protested sweetly, naively.
"He's been in enough scrapes as it is. He's given me some of the
letters--" (she pronounced it "lettahs")--"written him."
"But we'll need actual witnesses if we ever need anything at all. Just
tell me when he's in love again, and I'll do the rest."
"You know I think," she drawled, amusingly, "that he is now. I saw him
on the street the other day with one of his students--rather a pretty
girl, too."
Cowperwood was pleased. Under the circumstances he would almost have
been willing--not quite--for Aileen to succumb to Sohlberg in order to
entrap her and make his situation secure. Yet he really did not wish
it in the last analysis--would have been grieved temporarily if she had
deserted him. However, in the case of Sohlberg, detectives were
employed, the new affair with the flighty pupil was unearthed and sworn
to by witnesses, and this, combined with the "lettahs" held by Rita,
constituted ample material wherewith to "hush up" the musician if ever
he became unduly obstreperous. So Cowperwood and Rita's state was quite
comfortable.
But Aileen, meditating over Antoinette Nowak, was beside herself with
curiosity, doubt, worry. She did not want to injure Cowperwood in any
way after his bitter Philadelphia experience, and yet when she thought
of his deserting her in this way she fell into a great rage. Her
vanity, as much as her love, was hurt. What could she do to justify or
set at rest her suspicions? Watch him personally? She was too dignified
and vain to lurk about street-corners or offices or hotels. Never!
Start a quarrel without additional evidence--that would be silly. He
was too shrewd to give her further evidence once she spoke. He would
merely deny it. She brooded irritably, recalling after a time, and
with an aching heart, that her father had put detectives on her track
once ten years before, and had actually discovered her relations with
Cowperwood and their rendezvous. Bitter as that memory
was--torturing--yet now the same means seemed not too abhorrent to
employ under the circumstances. No harm had come to Cowperwood in the
former instance, she reasoned to herself--no especial harm--from that
discovery (this was not true), and none would come to him now. (This
also was not true.) But one must forgive a fiery, passionate soul,
wounded to the quick, some errors of judgment. Her thought was that she
would first be sure just what it was her beloved was doing, and then
decide what course to take. But she knew that she was treading on
dangerous ground, and mentally she recoiled from the consequences which
might follow. He might leave her if she fought him too bitterly. He
might treat her as he had treated his first wife, Lillian.
She studied her liege lord curiously these days, wondering if it were
true that he had deserted her already, as he had deserted his first
wife thirteen years before, wondering if he could really take up with a
girl as common as Antoinette Nowak--wondering, wondering,
wondering--half afraid and yet courageous. What could be done with
him? If only he still loved her all would be well yet--but oh!
The detective agency to which she finally applied, after weeks of
soul-racking suspense, was one of those disturbingly human implements
which many are not opposed to using on occasion, when it is the only
means of solving a troublous problem of wounded feelings or jeopardized
interests. Aileen, being obviously rich, was forthwith shamefully
overcharged; but the services agreed upon were well performed. To her
amazement, chagrin, and distress, after a few weeks of observation
Cowperwood was reported to have affairs not only with Antoinette Nowak,
whom she did suspect, but also with Mrs. Sohlberg. And these two
affairs at one and the same time. For the moment it left Aileen
actually stunned and breathless.
The significance of Rita Sohlberg to her in this hour was greater than
that of any woman before or after. Of all living things, women dread
women most of all, and of all women the clever and beautiful. Rita
Sohlberg had been growing on Aileen as a personage, for she had
obviously been prospering during this past year, and her beauty had
been amazingly enhanced thereby. Once Aileen had encountered Rita in a
light trap on the Avenue, very handsome and very new, and she had
commented on it to Cowperwood, whose reply had been: "Her father must
be making some money. Sohlberg could never earn it for her."
Aileen sympathized with Harold because of his temperament, but she knew
that what Cowperwood said was true.
Another time, at a box-party at the theater, she had noted the rich
elaborateness of Mrs. Sohlberg's dainty frock, the endless pleatings of
pale silk, the startling charm of the needlework and the
ribbons--countless, rosetted, small--that meant hard work on the part
of some one.
"How lovely this is," she had commented.
"Yes," Rita had replied, airily; "I thought, don't you know, my
dressmaker would never get done working on it."
It had cost, all told, two hundred and twenty dollars, and Cowperwood
had gladly paid the bill.
Aileen went home at the time thinking of Rita's taste and of how well
she had harmonized her materials to her personality. She was truly
charming.
Now, however, when it appeared that the same charm that had appealed to
her had appealed to Cowperwood, she conceived an angry, animal
opposition to it all. Rita Sohlberg! Ha! A lot of satisfaction she'd
get knowing as she would soon, that Cowperwood was sharing his
affection for her with Antoinette Nowak--a mere stenographer. And a lot
of satisfaction Antoinette would get--the cheap upstart--when she
learned, as she would, that Cowperwood loved her so lightly that he
would take an apartment for Rita Sohlberg and let a cheap hotel or an
assignation-house do for her.
But in spite of this savage exultation her thoughts kept coming back to
herself, to her own predicament, to torture and destroy her.
Cowperwood, the liar! Cowperwood, the pretender! Cowperwood, the sneak!
At one moment she conceived a kind of horror of the man because of all
his protestations to her; at the next a rage--bitter, swelling; at the
next a pathetic realization of her own altered position. Say what one
will, to take the love of a man like Cowperwood away from a woman like
Aileen was to leave her high and dry on land, as a fish out of its
native element, to take all the wind out of her sails--almost to kill
her. Whatever position she had once thought to hold through him, was
now jeopardized. Whatever joy or glory she had had in being Mrs. Frank
Algernon Cowperwood, it was now tarnished. She sat in her room, this
same day after the detectives had given their report, a tired look in
her eyes, the first set lines her pretty mouth had ever known showing
about it, her past and her future whirling painfully and nebulously in
her brain. Suddenly she got up, and, seeing Cowperwood's picture on
her dresser, his still impressive eyes contemplating her, she seized it
and threw it on the floor, stamping on his handsome face with her
pretty foot, and raging at him in her heart. The dog! The brute! Her
brain was full of the thought of Rita's white arms about him, of his
lips to hers. The spectacle of Rita's fluffy gowns, her enticing
costumes, was in her eyes. Rita should not have him; she should not
have anything connected with him, nor, for that matter, Antoinette
Nowak, either--the wretched upstart, the hireling. To think he should
stoop to an office stenographer! Once on that thought, she decided that
he should not be allowed to have a woman as an assistant any more. He
owed it to her to love her after all she had done for him, the coward,
and to let other women alone. Her brain whirled with strange thoughts.
She was really not sane in her present state. She was so wrought up by
her prospective loss that she could only think of rash, impossible,
destructive things to do. She dressed swiftly, feverishly, and,
calling a closed carriage from the coach-house, ordered herself to be
driven to the New Arts Building. She would show this rosy cat of a
woman, this smiling piece of impertinence, this she-devil, whether she
would lure Cowperwood away. She meditated as she rode. She would not
sit back and be robbed as Mrs. Cowperwood had been by her. Never! He
could not treat her that way. She would die first! She would kill Rita
Sohlberg and Antoinette Nowak and Cowperwood and herself first. She
would prefer to die that way rather than lose his love. Oh yes, a
thousand times! Fortunately, Rita Sohlberg was not at the New Arts
Building, or Sohlberg, either. They had gone to a reception. Nor was
she at the apartment on the North Side, where, under the name of
Jacobs, as Aileen had been informed by the detectives, she and
Cowperwood kept occasional tryst. Aileen hesitated for a moment,
feeling it useless to wait, then she ordered the coachman to drive to
her husband's office. It was now nearly five o'clock. Antoinette and
Cowperwood had both gone, but she did not know it. She changed her
mind, however, before she reached the office--for it was Rita Sohlberg
she wished to reach first--and ordered her coachman to drive back to
the Sohlberg studio. But still they had not returned. In a kind of
aimless rage she went home, wondering how she should reach Rita
Sohlberg first and alone. Then, to her savage delight, the game walked
into her bag. The Sohlbergs, returning home at six o'clock from some
reception farther out Michigan Avenue, had stopped, at the wish of
Harold, merely to pass the time of day with Mrs. Cowperwood. Rita was
exquisite in a pale-blue and lavender concoction, with silver braid
worked in here and there. Her gloves and shoes were pungent bits of
romance, her hat a dream of graceful lines. At the sight of her,
Aileen, who was still in the hall and had opened the door herself,
fairly burned to seize her by the throat and strike her; but she
restrained herself sufficiently to say, "Come in." She still had sense
enough and self-possession enough to conceal her wrath and to close the
door. Beside his wife Harold was standing, offensively smug and
inefficient in the fashionable frock-coat and silk hat of the time, a
restraining influence as yet. He was bowing and smiling:
"Oh." This sound was neither an "oh" nor an "ah," but a kind of Danish
inflected "awe," which was usually not unpleasing to hear. "How are
you, once more, Meeses Cowperwood? It eez sudge a pleasure to see you
again--awe."
"Won't you two just go in the reception-room a moment," said Aileen,
almost hoarsely. "I'll be right in. I want to get something." Then,
as an afterthought, she called very sweetly: "Oh, Mrs. Sohlberg, won't
you come up to my room for a moment? I have something I want to show
you."
Rita responded promptly. She always felt it incumbent upon her to be
very nice to Aileen.
"We have only a moment to stay," she replied, archly and sweetly, and
coming out in the hall, "but I'll come up."
Aileen stayed to see her go first, then followed up-stairs swiftly,
surely, entered after Rita, and closed the door. With a courage and
rage born of a purely animal despair, she turned and locked it; then
she wheeled swiftly, her eyes lit with a savage fire, her cheeks pale,
but later aflame, her hands, her fingers working in a strange,
unconscious way.
"So," she said, looking at Rita, and coming toward her quickly and
angrily, "you'll steal my husband, will you? You'll live in a secret
apartment, will you? You'll come here smiling and lying to me, will
you? You beast! You cat! You prostitute! I'll show you now! You
tow-headed beast! I know you now for what you are! I'll teach you once
for all! Take that, and that, and that!"
Suiting action to word, Aileen had descended upon her whirlwind, animal
fashion, striking, scratching, choking, tearing her visitor's hat from
her head, ripping the laces from her neck, beating her in the face, and
clutching violently at her hair and throat to choke and mar her beauty
if she could. For the moment she was really crazy with rage.
By the suddenness of this onslaught Rita Sohlberg was taken back
completely. It all came so swiftly, so terribly, she scarcely realized
what was happening before the storm was upon her. There was no time
for arguments, pleas, anything. Terrified, shamed, nonplussed, she
went down quite limply under this almost lightning attack. When Aileen
began to strike her she attempted in vain to defend herself, uttering
at the same time piercing screams which could be heard throughout the
house. She screamed shrilly, strangely, like a wild dying animal. On
the instant all her fine, civilized poise had deserted her. From the
sweetness and delicacy of the reception atmosphere--the polite cooings,
posturings, and mouthings so charming to contemplate, so alluring in
her--she had dropped on the instant to that native animal condition
that shows itself in fear. Her eyes had a look of hunted horror, her
lips and cheeks were pale and drawn. She retreated in a staggering,
ungraceful way; she writhed and squirmed, screaming in the strong
clutch of the irate and vigorous Aileen.
Cowperwood entered the hall below just before the screams began. He had
followed the Sohlbergs almost immediately from his office, and,
chancing to glance in the reception-room, he had observed Sohlberg
smiling, radiant, an intangible air of self-ingratiating, social, and
artistic sycophancy about him, his long black frock-coat buttoned
smoothly around his body, his silk hat still in his hands.
"Awe, how do you do, Meezter Cowperwood," he was beginning to say, his
curly head shaking in a friendly manner, "I'm soa glad to see you
again" when--but who can imitate a scream of terror? We have no words,
no symbols even, for those essential sounds of fright and agony. They
filled the hall, the library, the reception-room, the distant kitchen
even, and basement with a kind of vibrant terror.
Cowperwood, always the man of action as opposed to nervous cogitation,
braced up on the instant like taut wire. What, for heaven's sake,
could that be? What a terrible cry! Sohlberg the artist, responding
like a chameleon to the various emotional complexions of life, began to
breathe stertorously, to blanch, to lose control of himself.
"My God!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, "that's Rita! She's
up-stairs in your wife's room! Something must have happened. Oh--" On
the instant he was quite beside himself, terrified, shaking, almost
useless. Cowperwood, on the contrary, without a moment's hesitation
had thrown his coat to the floor, dashed up the stairs, followed by
Sohlberg. What could it be? Where was Aileen? As he bounded upward a
clear sense of something untoward came over him; it was sickening,
terrifying. Scream! Scream! Scream! came the sounds. "Oh, my God!
don't kill me! Help! Help!" SCREAM--this last a long, terrified,
ear-piercing wail.
Sohlberg was about to drop from heart failure, he was so frightened.
His face was an ashen gray. Cowperwood seized the door-knob vigorously
and, finding the door locked, shook, rattled, and banged at it.
"Aileen!" he called, sharply. "Aileen! What's the matter in there?
Open this door, Aileen!"
"Oh, my God! Oh, help! help! Oh, mercy--o-o-o-o-oh!" It was the moaning
voice of Rita.
"I'll show you, you she-devil!" he heard Aileen calling. "I'll teach
you, you beast! You cat, you prostitute! There! there! there!"
"Aileen!" he called, hoarsely. "Aileen!" Then, getting no response,
and the screams continuing, he turned angrily.
"Stand back!" he exclaimed to Sohlberg, who was moaning helplessly.
"Get me a chair, get me a table--anything." The butler ran to obey, but
before he could return Cowperwood had found an implement. "Here!" he
said, seizing a long, thin, heavily carved and heavily wrought oak
chair which stood at the head of the stairs on the landing. He whirled
it vigorously over his head. Smash! The sound rose louder than the
screams inside.
Smash! The chair creaked and almost broke, but the door did not give.
Smash! The chair broke and the door flew open. He had knocked the lock
loose and had leaped in to where Aileen, kneeling over Rita on the
floor, was choking and beating her into insensibility. Like an animal
he was upon her.
"Aileen," he shouted, fiercely, in a hoarse, ugly, guttural voice, "you
fool! You idiot--let go! What the devil's the matter with you? What are
you trying to do? Have you lost your mind?--you crazy idiot!"
He seized her strong hands and ripped them apart. He fairly dragged
her back, half twisting and half throwing her over his knee, loosing
her clutching hold. She was so insanely furious that she still
struggled and cried, saying: "Let me at her! Let me at her! I'll teach
her! Don't you try to hold me, you dog! I'll show you, too, you
brute--oh--"
"Pick up that woman," called Cowperwood, firmly, to Sohlberg and the
butler, who had entered. "Get her out of here quick! My wife has gone
crazy. Get her out of here, I tell you! This woman doesn't know what
she's doing. Take her out and get a doctor. What sort of a hell's
melee is this, anyway?"
"Oh," moaned Rita, who was torn and fainting, almost unconscious from
sheer terror.
"I'll kill her!" screamed Aileen. "I'll murder her! I'll murder you
too, you dog! Oh"--she began striking at him--"I'll teach you how to
run around with other women, you dog, you brute!"
Cowperwood merely gripped her hands and shook her vigorously,
forcefully.
"What the devil has got into you, anyway, you fool?" he said to her,
bitterly, as they carried Rita out. "What are you trying to do,
anyway--murder her? Do you want the police to come in here? Stop your
screaming and behave yourself, or I'll shove a handkerchief in your
mouth! Stop, I tell you! Stop! Do you hear me? This is enough, you
fool!" He clapped his hand over her mouth, pressing it tight and
forcing her back against him. He shook her brutally, angrily. He was
very strong. "Now will you stop," he insisted, "or do you want me to
choke you quiet? I will, if you don't. You're out of your mind. Stop,
I tell you! So this is the way you carry on when things don't go to
suit you?" She was sobbing, struggling, moaning, half screaming, quite
beside herself.
"Oh, you crazy fool!" he said, swinging her round, and with an effort
getting out a handkerchief, which he forced over her face and in her
mouth. "There," he said, relievedly, "now will you shut up?" holding
her tight in an iron grip, he let her struggle and turn, quite ready to
put an end to her breathing if necessary.
Now that he had conquered her, he continued to hold her tightly,
stooping beside her on one knee, listening and meditating. Hers was
surely a terrible passion. From some points of view he could not blame
her. Great was her provocation, great her love. He knew her
disposition well enough to have anticipated something of this sort.
Yet the wretchedness, shame, scandal of the terrible affair upset his
customary equilibrium. To think any one should give way to such a
storm as this! To think that Aileen should do it! To think that Rita
should have been so mistreated! It was not at all unlikely that she was
seriously injured, marred for life--possibly even killed. The horror
of that! The ensuing storm of public rage! A trial! His whole career
gone up in one terrific explosion of woe, anger, death! Great God!
He called the butler to him by a nod of his head, when the latter, who
had gone out with Rita, hurried back.
"How is she?" he asked, desperately. "Seriously hurt?"
"No, sir; I think not. I believe she's just fainted. She'll be all
right in a little while, sir. Can I be of any service, sir?"
Ordinarily Cowperwood would have smiled at such a scene. Now he was
cold, sober.
"Not now," he replied, with a sigh of relief, still holding Aileen
firmly. "Go out and close the door. Call a doctor. Wait in the hall.
When he comes, call me."
Aileen, conscious of things being done for Rita, of sympathy being
extended to her, tried to get up, to scream again; but she couldn't;
her lord and master held her in an ugly hold. When the door was closed
he said again: "Now, Aileen, will you hush? Will you let me get up and
talk to you, or must we stay here all night? Do you want me to drop you
forever after to-night? I understand all about this, but I am in
control now, and I am going to stay so. You will come to your senses
and be reasonable, or I will leave you to-morrow as sure as I am here."
His voice rang convincingly. "Now, shall we talk sensibly, or will you
go on making a fool of yourself--disgracing me, disgracing the house,
making yourself and myself the laughing-stock of the servants, the
neighborhood, the city? This is a fine showing you've made to-day.
Good God! A fine showing, indeed! A brawl in this house, a fight! I
thought you had better sense--more self-respect--really I did. You
have seriously jeopardized my chances here in Chicago. You have
seriously injured and possibly killed a woman. You could even be
hanged for that. Do you hear me?"
"Oh, let them hang me," groaned Aileen. "I want to die."
He took away his hand from her mouth, loosened his grip upon her arms,
and let her get to her feet. She was still torrential, impetuous,
ready to upbraid him, but once standing she was confronted by him,
cold, commanding, fixing her with a fishy eye. He wore a look now she
had never seen on his face before--a hard, wintry, dynamic flare, which
no one but his commercial enemies, and only those occasionally, had
seen.
"Now stop!" he exclaimed. "Not one more word! Not one! Do you hear me?"
She wavered, quailed, gave way. All the fury of her tempestuous soul
fell, as the sea falls under a lapse of wind. She had had it in heart,
on her lips, to cry again, "You dog! you brute!" and a hundred other
terrible, useless things, but somehow, under the pressure of his gaze,
the hardness of his heart, the words on her lips died away. She looked
at him uncertainly for a moment, then, turning, she threw herself on
the bed near by, clutched her cheeks and mouth and eyes, and, rocking
back and forth in an agony of woe, she began to sob:
"Oh, my God! my God! My heart! My life! I want to die! I want to die!"
Standing there watching her, there suddenly came to Cowperwood a keen
sense of her soul hurt, her heart hurt, and he was moved.
"Aileen," he said, after a moment or two, coming over and touching her
quite gently, "Aileen! Don't cry so. I haven't left you yet. Your life
isn't utterly ruined. Don't cry. This is bad business, but perhaps it
is not without remedy. Come now, pull yourself together, Aileen!"
For answer she merely rocked and moaned, uncontrolled and
uncontrollable.
Being anxious about conditions elsewhere, he turned and stepped out
into the hall. He must make some show for the benefit of the doctor
and the servants; he must look after Rita, and offer some sort of
passing explanation to Sohlherg.
"Here," he called to a passing servant, "shut that door and watch it.
If Mrs. Cowperwood comes out call me instantly."