Many things were puzzling in Fairbridge, that is, puzzling to a
person with a logical turn of mind. For instance, nobody could say
that Fairbridge people were not religious. It was a church going
community, and five denominations were represented in it;
nevertheless, the professional expounders of its doctrines were held
in a sort of gentle derision, that is, unless the expounder happened
to be young and eligible from a matrimonial point of view, when he
gained a certain fleeting distinction. Otherwise the clergy were
regarded (in very much the same light as if employed by a railroad)
as the conductors of a spiritual train of cars bound for the Promised
Land. They were admittedly engaged in a cause worthy of the highest
respect and veneration. The Cause commanded it, not they. They had
always lacked social prestige in Fairbridge, except, as before
stated, in the cases of the matrimonially eligible.
Dominie von Rosen came under that head. Consequently he was for the
moment, fleeting as everybody considered it, in request. But he did
not respond readily to the social patronage of Fairbridge. He was,
seemingly, quite oblivious to its importance. Karl von Rosen was
bored to the verge of physical illness by Fairbridge functions. Even
a church affair found him wearily to the front. Therefore his
presence at the Zenith Club was unprecedented and confounding. He had
often been asked to attend its special meetings but had never
accepted. Now, however, here he was, caught neatly in the trap of his
own carelessness. Karl von Rosen should have reflected that the
Zenith Club was one of the institutions of Fairbridge, and met upon a
Friday, and that Mrs. George B. Slade's house was an exceedingly
likely rendezvous, but he was singularly absent-minded as to what was
near, and very present minded as to what was afar. That which should
have been near was generally far to his mind, which was perpetually
gathering the wool of rainbow sheep in distant pastures.
If there was anything in which Karl von Rosen did not take the
slightest interest, it was women's clubs in general and the Zenith
Club in particular; and here he was, doomed by his own lack of
thought to sit through an especially long session. He had gone out
for a walk. To his mind it was a fine winter's day. The long,
glittering lights of ice pleased him and whenever he was sure that he
was unobserved he took a boyish run and long slide. During his walk
he had reached Mrs. Slade's house, and since he worked in his
pastoral calls whenever he could, by applying a sharp spur to his
disinclination, it had occurred to him that he might make one, and
return to his study in a virtuous frame of mind over a slight and
unimportant, but bothersome duty performed. If he had had his wits
about him he might have seen the feminine heads at the windows, he
might have heard the quaver of Miss Bessy Dicky's voice over the club
report; but he saw and heard nothing, and now he was seated in the
midst of the feminine throng, and Miss Bessy Dicky's voice quavered
more, and she assumed a slightly mincing attitude. Her thin hands
trembled more, the hot, red spots on her thin cheeks deepened.
Reading the club reports before the minister was an epoch in an
epochless life, but Karl von Rosen was oblivious of her except as a
disturbing element rather more insistent than the others in which he
was submerged.
[Illustration: He was doomed by his own lack of thought to sit
through an especially long session]
He sat straight and grave, his eyes retrospective. He was constantly
getting into awkward situations, and acquitting himself in them with
marvellous dignity and grace. Even Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, astute as
she was, regarded him keenly, and could not for the life of her tell
whether he had come premeditatedly or not. She only discovered one
thing, that poor Miss Bessy Dicky was reading at him and posing at
him and trembling her hands at him, and that she was throwing it all
away, for Von Rosen heard no more of her report than if he had been
in China when she was reading it. Mrs. Snyder realised that hardly
anything in nature could be so totally uninteresting to the young man
as the report of a woman's club. Inasmuch as she herself was devoted
to such things, she regarded him with disapproval, although with a
certain admiration. Karl von Rosen always commanded admiration,
although often of a grudging character, from women. His utter
indifference to them as women was the prime factor in this; next to
that his really attractive, even distinguished, personality. He was
handsome after the fashion which usually accompanies devotion to
women. He was slight, but sinewy, with a gentle, poetical face and
great black eyes, into which women were apt to project tenderness
merely from their own fancy. It seemed ridiculous and anomalous that
a man of Von Rosen's type should not be a lover of ladies, and the
fact that he was most certainly not was both fascinating and
exasperating.
Now Mrs. George B. Slade, magnificent matron, as she was, moreover
one who had inhaled the perfume of adulation from her youth up, felt
a calm malice. She knew that he had entered her parlour after the
manner of the spider and fly rhyme of her childhood; she knew that
the other ladies would infer that he had come upon her invitation,
and her soul was filled with one of the petty triumphs of petty
Fairbridge.
She, however, did not dream of the actual misery which filled the
heart of the graceful, dignified young man by her side. She
considered herself in the position of a mother, who forces an
undesired, but nevertheless, delectable sweet upon a child, who gazes
at her with adoration when the savour has reached his palate. She did
not expect Von Rosen to be much edified by Miss Bessy Dicky's report.
She had her own opinion of Miss Bessy Dicky, of her sleeves, of her
gown, and her report, but she had faith in the truly decorative
features of the occasion when they should be underway, and she had
immense faith in Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder. She was relieved when Miss
Bessy Dicky sat down, and endeavoured to compose her knees, which by
this time were trembling like her hands, and also to assume an
expression as if she had done nothing at all, and nobody was looking
at her. That last because of the fact that she had done so little,
and nobody was looking at her rendered her rather pathetic.
Miss Bessy Dicky did not glance at the minister, but she,
nevertheless, saw him. She had never had a lover, and here was the
hero of her dreams. He would never know it and nobody else would ever
know it, and no harm would be done except very possibly, by and by, a
laceration of the emotions of an elderly maiden, and afterwards a
life-long scar. But who goes through life without emotional scars?
After Miss Bessy Dicky sat down, Mrs. Wilbur Edes, the lady of the
silver bell, rose. She lifted high her delicate chin, her perfect
blond pompadour caught the light, her black lace robe swept round her
in rich darkness, with occasional revelations of flower and leaf, the
fairly poetical pattern of real lace. As she rose, she diffused
around her a perfume as if rose-leaves were stirred up. She held a
dainty handkerchief, edged with real lace, in her little left hand,
which glittered with rings. In her right, was a spangled fan like a
black butterfly. Mrs. Edes was past her first youth, but she was
undeniably charming. She was like a little, perfect, ivory toy, which
time has played with but has not injured. Mrs. Slade looked at her,
then at Karl von Rosen. He looked at Mrs. Wilbur Edes, then looked
away. She was most graceful, but most positively uninteresting.
However, Mrs. Slade was rather pleased at that. She and Mrs. Edes
were rival stars. Von Rosen had never looked long at her, and it
seemed right he should not look long at the other woman.
Mrs. Slade surveyed Mrs. Edes as she announced the next number on the
programme, and told herself that Mrs. Edes' gown might be real lace
and everything about her very real, and nice, and elegant, but she
was certainly a little fussy for so small a woman. Mrs. Slade
considered that she herself could have carried off that elegance in a
much more queenly manner. There was one feature of Mrs. Edes' costume
which Mrs. Slade resented. She considered that it should be worn by a
woman of her own size and impressiveness. That was a little wrap of
ermine. Now ermine, as everybody knew, should only be worn by large
and queenly women. Mrs. Slade resolved that she herself would have an
ermine wrap which should completely outshine Mrs. Edes' little
affair, all swinging with tails and radiant with tiny, bright-eyed
heads.
Mrs. Edes announced a duet by Miss MacDonald and Mrs. Wells, and sat
down, and again the perfume of rose leaves was perceptible. Karl von
Rosen glanced at the next performers, Miss MacDonald, who was very
pretty and well-dressed in white embroidered cloth, and Mrs. Wells,
who was not pretty, but was considered very striking, who trailed
after her in green folds edged with fur, and bore a roll of music.
She seated herself at the piano with a graceful sweep of her green
draperies, which defined her small hips, and struck the keys with
slender fingers quite destitute of rings, always lifting them high
with a palpable affectation not exactly doubtful--that was saying too
much--but she was considered to reach limits of propriety with her
sinuous motions, the touch of her sensitive fingers upon piano keys,
and the quick flash of her dark eyes in her really plain face. There
was, for the women in Fairbridge, a certain mischievous fascination
about Mrs. Wells. Moreover, they had in her their one object of
covert gossip, their one stimulus to unlawful imagination.
There was a young man who played the violin. His name was Henry
Wheaton, and he was said to be a frequent caller at Mrs. Wells', and
she played his accompaniments, and Mr. Wells was often detained in
New York until the late train. Then there was another young man who
played the 'cello, and he called often. And there was Ellis
Bainbridge, who had a fine tenor voice, and he called. It was
delightful to have a woman of that sort, of whom nothing distinctly
culpable could be affirmed, against whom no good reason could be
brought for excluding her from the Zenith Club and the social set. In
their midst, Mrs. Wells furnished the condiments, the spice, and
pepper, and mustard for many functions. She relieved to a great
extent the monotony of unquestioned propriety. It would have been
horribly dull if there had been no woman in the Zenith Club who
furnished an excuse for the other members' gossip.
Leila MacDonald, so carefully dressed and brushed and washed, and so
free from defects that she was rather irritating, began to sing, then
people listened. Karl von Rosen listened. She really had a voice
which always surprised and charmed with the first notes, then ceased
to charm. Leila MacDonald was as a good canary bird, born to sing,
and dutifully singing, but without the slightest comprehension of her
song. It was odd too that she sang with plenty of expression, but her
own lack of realisation seemed to dull it for her listeners. Karl von
Rosen listened, then his large eyes again turned introspective.
Mrs. Edes again arose, after the singing and playing ladies had
finished their performance and returned to their seats, and announced
a recitation by Miss Sally Anderson. Miss Anderson wore a light
summer gown, and swept to the front, and bent low to her audience,
then at once began her recitation with a loud crash of emotion. She
postured, she gesticulated. She lowered her voice to inaudibility,
she raised it to shrieks and wails. She did everything which she had
been taught, and she had been taught a great deal. Mrs. Sarah Joy
Snyder listened and got data for future lectures, with her mirthful
mouth sternly set.
After Sally Anderson, Mrs. Jack Evarts played a glittering thing
called "Waves of the Sea." Then Sally Anderson recited again, then
Mrs. Wilbur Edes spoke at length, and with an air which commanded
attention, and Von Rosen suffered agonies. He laughed with sickly
spurts at Mrs. Snyder's confidential sallies, when she had at last
her chance to deliver herself of her ten dollar speech, but the worst
ordeal was to follow. Von Rosen was fluttered about by women bearing
cups of tea, of frothy chocolate, plates of cake, dishes of bonbons,
and saucers of ice-cream. He loathed sweets and was forced into
accepting a plate. He stood in the midst of the feminine throng, the
solitary male figure looking at his cup of chocolate, and a slice of
sticky cake, and at an ice representing a chocolate lily, which
somebody had placed for special delectation upon a little table at
his right. Then Alice Mendon came to his rescue.
She deftly took the plate with the sticky cake, and the cup of hot
chocolate, and substituted a plate with a chicken mayonnaise
sandwich, smiling pleasantly as she did so.
"Here," she whispered. "Why do you make a martyr of yourself for such
a petty cause? Do it for the faith if you want to, but not for thick
chocolate and angel cake."
She swept away the chocolate lily also. Von Rosen looked at her
gratefully. "Thank you," he murmured.
She laughed. "Oh, you need not thank me," she said. "I have a natural
instinct to rescue men from sweets." She laughed again maliciously.
"I am sure you have enjoyed the club very much," she said.
Von Rosen coloured before her sarcastic, kindly eyes. He began to
speak, but she interrupted him. "You have heard that silence is
golden," said she. "It is always golden when speech would be a lie."
Then she turned away and seized upon the chocolate lily and pressed
it upon Mrs. Joy Snyder, who was enjoying adulation and good things.
"Do please have this lovely lily, Mrs. Snyder," she said. "It is the
very prettiest ice of the lot, and meant especially for you. I am
sure you will enjoy it."
And Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, whose sense of humour deserted her when
she was being praised and fed, and who had already eaten bonbons
innumerable, and three ices with accompanying cake, took the
chocolate lily gratefully. Von Rosen ate his chicken sandwich and
marvelled at the ways of women.
After Von Rosen had finished his sandwiches and tea, he made his way
to Mrs. Snyder, and complimented her upon her lecture. He had a
constitutional dislike for falsehoods, which was perhaps not so much
a virtue as an idiosyncrasy. Now he told Mrs. Snyder that he had
never heard a lecture which seemed to amuse an audience more than
hers had done, and that he quite envied her because of her power of
holding attention. Mrs. Snyder, with the last petal of her chocolate
lily sweet upon her tongue, listened with such a naïveté of
acquiescence that she was really charming, and Von Rosen had spoken
the truth. He had wondered, when he saw the eagerly tilted faces of
the women, and heard their bursts of shrill laughter and clapping of
hands, why he could not hold them with his sermons which, he might
assume without vanity, contained considerable subject for thought, as
this woman, with her face like a mask of mirth, held them with her
compilation of platitudes.
He thought that he had never seen so many women listen with such
intensity, and lack of self-consciousness. He had seen only two pat
their hair, only one glance at her glittering rings, only three
arrange the skirts of their gowns while the lecture was in progress.
Sometimes during his sermons, he felt as if he were holding forth to
a bewildering sea of motion with steadily recurrent waves, which
fascinated him, of feathers, and flowers, swinging fur tails, and
kid-gloved hands, fluttering ribbons, and folds of drapery. Karl von
Rosen would not have acknowledged himself as a woman-hater, that
savoured too much of absurd male egotism, but he had an under
conviction that women were, on the whole, admitting of course
exceptions, self-centered in the pursuit of petty ends to the extent
of absolute viciousness. He disliked women, although he had never
owned it to himself.
In spite of his dislike of women, Von Rosen had a house-keeper. He
had made an ineffectual trial of an ex-hotel chef, but had finally
been obliged to resort to Mrs. Jane Riggs. She was tall and strong,
wider-shouldered than hipped. She went about her work with long
strides. She never fussed. She never asked questions. In fact, she
seldom spoke.
When Von Rosen entered his house that night, after the club meeting,
he had a comfortable sense of returning to an embodied silence. The
coal fire in his study grate was red and clear. Everything was in
order without misplacement. That was one of Jane Riggs' chief
talents. She could tidy things without misplacing them. Von Rosen
loved order, and was absolutely incapable of keeping it. Therefore
Jane Riggs' orderliness was as balm. He sat down in his Morris chair
before his fire, stretched out his legs to the warmth, which was
grateful after the icy outdoor air, rested his eyes upon a plaster
cast over the chimney place, which had been tinted a beautiful hue by
his own pipe, and sighed with content. His own handsome face was rosy
with the reflection of the fire, his soul rose-coloured with complete
satisfaction. He was so glad to be quit of that crowded assemblage of
eager femininity, so glad that it was almost worth while to have
encountered it just for that sense of blessed relief.
Mrs. Edes had offered to take him home in her carriage, and he had
declined almost brusquely. To have exchanged that homeward walk over
the glistening earth, and under the clear rose and violet lights of
the winter sunset, with that sudden rapturous discovery of the
slender crescent of the new moon, for a ride with Mrs. Edes in her
closed carriage with her silvery voice in his ear instead of the keen
silence of the winter air, would have been torture. Von Rosen
wondered at himself for disliking Mrs. Edes in particular, whereas he
disliked most women in general. There was something about her feline
motions instinct with swiftness, and concealed claws, and the half
keen, half sleepy glances of her green-blue eyes, which irritated him
beyond measure, and he was ashamed of being irritated. It implied a
power over him, and yet it was certainly not a physical power. It was
subtle and pertained to spirit. He realised, as did many in
Fairbridge, a strange influence, defying reason and will, which this
small woman with her hidden swiftness had over nearly everybody with
whom she came in contact. It had nothing whatever to do with sex. She
would have produced it in the same degree, had she not been in the
least attractive. It was compelling, and at the same time irritating.
Von Rosen in his Morris chair after the tea welcomed the intrusion of
Jane Riggs, which dispelled his thought of Mrs. Wilbur Edes. Jane
stood beside the chair, a rigid straight length of woman with a white
apron starched like a board, covering two thirds of her, and waited
for interrogation.
"What is it, Jane?" asked Von Rosen.
Jane Riggs replied briefly. "Outlandish young woman out in the
kitchen," she said with distinct disapproval, yet with evident
helplessness before the situation.
Von Rosen started. "Where is the dog?"
"Licking her hands. Every time I told her to go, Jack growled. Mebbe
you had better come out yourself, Mr. Von Rosen."
When Von Rosen entered the kitchen, he saw a little figure on the
floor in a limp heap, with the dog frantically licking its hands,
which were very small and brown and piteously outspread, as if in
supplication.
"Mebbe you had better call up the doctor on the telephone; she seems
to have swooned away," said Jane Riggs. At the same time she made one
long stride to the kitchen sink, and water. Von Rosen looked aghast
at the stricken figure, which was wrapped in a queer medley of
garments. He also saw on the floor near by a bulging suitcase.
"She is one of them pedlars," said Jane Riggs, dashing water upon the
dumb little face. "I rather guess you had better call up the doctor
on the telephone. She don't seem to be coming to easy and she may
have passed away."
Von Rosen gasped, then he looked pitifully at the poor little figure,
and ran back to his study to the telephone. To his great relief as he
passed the window, he glanced out, and saw Doctor Sturtevant's
automobile making its way cautiously over the icy street. Then for
the first time he remembered that he had been due at that time about
a matter of a sick parishioner. He opened the front door hurriedly,
and stated the case, and the two men carried the little unconscious
creature upstairs. Then Von Rosen came down, leaving the doctor and
Martha with her. He waited in the study, listening to the sounds
overhead, waiting impatiently for the doctor's return, which was not
for half an hour or more. In the meantime Martha came downstairs on
some errand to the kitchen. Von Rosen intercepted her. "What does
Doctor Sturtevant think?" he asked.
"Dunno, what he thinks," replied Martha brusquely, pushing past him.
"Is she conscious yet?"
"Dunno, I ain't got any time to talk," said Martha, casting a flaming
look at him over her shoulder as she entered the kitchen.
Von Rosen retreated to the study, where he was presently joined by
the doctor. "What is it?" asked Von Rosen with an emphasis, which
rendered it so suspicious that he might have added: "what the devil
is it?" had it not been for his profession.
Sturtevant answered noiselessly, the motion of his lips conveying his
meaning. Then he said, shrugging himself into his fur coat, as he
spoke, "I have to rush my motor to see a patient, whom I dare not
leave another moment, then I will be back."
Von Rosen's great Persian cat had curled himself on the doctor's fur
coat, and now shaken off, sat with a languid dignity, his great
yellow plume of a tail waving, and his eyes like topazes fixed
intently upon Sturtevant. At that moment a little cry was heard from
the guest room, a cry between a moan and a scream, but unmistakably a
note of suffering. Sturtevant jammed his fur cap upon his head and
pulled on his gloves.
"Don't go," pleaded Von Rosen in a sudden terror of helplessness.
"I must, but I'll break the speed laws and be back before you know
it. That housekeeper of yours is as good as any trained nurse, and
better. She is as hard as nails, but she does her duty like a
machine, and she has brains. I will be back in a few minutes."
Then Sturtevant was gone, and Von Rosen sat again before his study
fire. There was another little note of suffering from above. Von
Rosen shuddered, rose, and closed his door. The Persian cat came and
sat in front of him, and gazed at him with jewel-like eyes. There was
an expression of almost human anxiety and curiosity upon the animal's
face. He came from a highly developed race; he and his forbears had
always been with humans. At times it seemed to Von Rosen as if the
cat had a dumb knowledge of the most that he himself knew. He reached
down and patted the shapely golden head, but the cat withdrew, curled
himself into a coil of perfect luxuriousness, with the firelight
casting a warm, rosy glow upon his golden beauty, purred a little
while, then sank into the mystery of animal sleep.
Von Rosen sat listening. He told himself that Sturtevant should be
back within half an hour. When only ten minutes had passed he took
out his watch and was dismayed to find how short a time had elapsed.
He replaced his watch and leaned back. He was always listening
uneasily. He had encountered illness and death and distress, but
never anything quite like this. He had always been able to give
personal aid. Now he felt barred out, and fiercely helpless.
He sat ten minutes longer. Then he arose. He could reach the kitchen
by another way which did not lead past the stairs. He went out there,
treading on tiptoe. The cat had looked up, stretched, and lazily
gotten upon his feet and followed him, tail waving like a pennant. He
brushed around Von Rosen out in the kitchen, and mewed a little,
delicate, highbred mew. The dog came leaping up the basement stairs,
sat up and begged. Von Rosen opened the ice box and found therein
some steak. He cut off large pieces and fed the cat and dog. He also
found milk and filled a saucer.
He stole back to the study. He thought he had closed all the doors,
but presently the cat entered, then sat down and began to lick
himself with his little red rough tongue. Von Rosen looked at his
watch again. The house shook a little, and he knew that the shaking
was caused by Jane Riggs, walking upstairs. He longed to go upstairs
but knew that he could not, and again that rage of helplessness came
over him. He reflected upon human life, the agony of its beginning;
the agony, in spite of bravery, in spite of denial of agony, the
agony under the brightest of suns, of its endurance; the agony of its
end; and his reflections were almost blasphemous. His religion seemed
to crumble beneath the standing-place of his soul. A torture of
doubt, a certainty of ignorance, in spite of the utmost efforts of
faith, came over him. The cat coiled himself again and sank into
sleep. Von Rosen gazed at him. What if the accepted order of things
were reversed, after all? What if that beautiful little animal were
on a higher plane than he? Certainly the cat did not suffer, and
certainly suffering and doubt degraded even the greatest.
He looked at his watch and saw that Sturtevant had been gone five
minutes over the half hour. He switched off the electric light, and
stood in his window, which faced the street down which the doctor in
his car must come. He realised at once that this was more endurable.
He was doing what a woman would have done long before. He was
masculine, and had not the quick instinct to stand by the window and
watch out, to ease impatience. The road was like a broad silver band
under the moon. The lights in house windows gleamed through drawn
shades, except in one house, where he could see quite distinctly a
woman seated beside a lamp with a green shade, sewing, with regular
motions of a red, silk-clad arm. Von Rosen strained his eyes, and
saw, as he thought, a dark bulk advancing far down the street. He
watched and watched, then noted that the dark bulk had not moved. He
wondered if the motor had broken down. He thought of running out to
see, and made a motion to go, then he saw swiftly-moving lights pass
the dark bulk. He thought they were the lights of the motor, but as
they passed he saw it was a cab taking someone to the railroad
station. He knew then that the dark bulk was a clump of trees.
Then, before he could fairly sense it, the doctor's motor came
hurtling down the street, its search-lights glaring, swinging from
side to side. The machine stopped, and Von Rosen ran to the door.
"Here I am," said Sturtevant in a hushed voice. There was a sound
from the room above, and the doctor, Von Rosen and nurse looked at
each other. Then Von Rosen sat again alone in his study, and now, in
spite of the closed door, he heard noises above stairs. Solitude was
becoming frightful to him. He felt all at once strangely young, like
a child, and a pitiful sense of injury was over him, but the sense of
injury was not for himself alone, but for all mankind. He realised
that all mankind was enormously pitiful and injured, by the mere fact
of their obligatory existence. And he wished more than anything in
the world for some understanding soul with whom to share his sense of
the universal grievance.
But he continued to sit alone, and the cat slept in his golden coil
of peace. Then suddenly the cat sat up, and his jewel eyes glowed. He
looked fixedly at a point in the room. Von Rosen looked in the same
direction but saw nothing except his familiar wall. Then he heard
steps on the stairs, and the door opened, and Jane Riggs entered. She
was white and stern. She was tragic. Her lean fingers were clutching
at the air. Von Rosen stared at her. She sat down and swept her
crackling white apron over her head.