THE ENEMY TRIUMPHS
Sometimes the history of any household progresses rapidly in closely
related scenes of action; but, for the most part, months pass by
during which life has apparently ceased to act. Everything that had
seemed tending toward catastrophe stopped, as it were, with the
departure of Grace Noir. Possibly the climax was still ahead; if so,
the waters were at present heaped high on this side of ultimate
disaster, and on the other side, leaving, between past and future, a
dry no-thoroughfare.
Old Mrs. Jefferson would long ago have struck a blow against Grace
Noir had she not recognized the fact that when one like Grace wears
the helmet of beauty and breastplate of youth, the darts of the very
angles of justice, who are neither beautiful nor young, are turned
aside. Helplessly Mrs. Jefferson had watched and waited and now,
behold! there was no more Dragon. Fran had said she would do it--
nothing could have exceeded the confidence of the old lady in the new
secretary.
Mrs. Gregory's sense of relief was not so profound as her mother's,
because she could not think of Grace's absence except as a reprieve.
Surely she would return--but the present was to be placidly enjoyed.
To observers, Mrs. Gregory appeared ever placid, not because of
indifference, but, as it was supposed, from blindness. Under the calm
exterior of the wronged wife, there seemed no smoldering fire awaiting
a favorable wind. In truth, she was always fearing that people would
discover her husband's sentimental bearing toward his secretary--and
always hoping that if they did, they would conclude the wife
understood best and felt no alarm.
In the meantime, Grace was gone. Mrs. Gregory's smile once more
reminded Fran of the other's half-forgotten youth. When a board has
laid too long on the ground, one finds, on its removal, that the grass
is withered; all the same, the grass feels the sunshine.
Fran thanked herself that Grace was no longer silhouetted against the
horizon, and Gregory, remarking this attitude of self-congratulation,
was thrown more than ever out of sympathy with his daughter. Fran was
indefatigable in her duties as secretary, but her father felt that it
was not the same. She could turn out an immense amount of work because
she was strong and playing for high stakes--but she did not have
Grace's methodical ways--one never knew how Fran would do anything,
only that she would do it. Grace was all method, but more than that
she was, as Gregory phrased it to himself--she was all Grace.
Gregory missed her every minute of the day, and the harder Fran tried
to fill her place, the more he resented it. He divined that Fran hated
the routine, the monotonous forms of charity, the duplicated copies of
kind acts, the rows of figures representing so many unfortunates.
Instead of acknowledging to himself that his daughter did the work
from a yearning for his love, from a resolution to save him from the
Grace-infatuation by absent treatment, he perversely rebelled at her
secretly rejoicing over a conquered foe. Fran was separated from his
sympathies by the chasm in his own soul.
The time came when Gregory felt that he must see Grace again and be
alone with her. At first, he had thought they must not meet apart from
the world; but by the end of the week, he was wondering what excuse he
could offer to induce her to meet him--not at Miss Sapphira's, where
she now boarded, not at the grocery where Bob was always hovering
about--but somewhere remote, somewhere safe, where they might talk
about--but he had no idea of the conversation that might ensue; there
was nothing definite in anything save his fixed thought of being with
her. As to any harm, there could be none. He had so long regarded
Grace as the best woman in the world, that even after the day of
kisses, his mind continued in its inertia of faith,--even the
gravitation of material facts were unable to check its sublime course.
It was at the close of a July day that Hamilton Gregory left his house
resolved, at any cost--save that of exposure--to experience once more
the only pleasure life held in reserve for him: nearness to Grace
Noir. She might be at the store, since all shops were to remain open
late, in hopes of reaping sordid advantages from the gaiety of
mankind. In a word, Littleburg was in the grip of its first street
fair.
Before going down-town, Gregory strolled casually within sight of the
Clinton boarding-house.
Only Miss Sapphira was on the green veranda. She had watched the
ceaseless streams of humanity pouring along either sidewalk, destined
for the heart of the small town,--countless hordes, reenforced from
rural districts by excursion trains. From the very ground they seemed
to spring, these autochthones of confetti and side-shows. On they
flowed, stormy with horn and whistle and hideous balloons whose horrid
pipes squealed the music of modern Pan; they overwhelmed the native
population with elusive tickler and rubber-stringed ball; here were to
be seen weary mothers reaching forth for greater weariness; joy-
scourged fathers driven to the money-changers; frenzied children at
last in Fairyland.
Miss Sapphira, recognizing Gregory, waved a solemn greeting, and he
felt reassured--for he was always afraid Robert--would "tell". He
pushed his way nearer. Miss Sapphira sat in the huge chair not as if
unable to rise, but as a tangible rebuke to carnal amusements. She
spoke to Gregory on the subject of which she was full to the brim--
and Miss Sapphira was of generous capacity--
"No wonder so few go to church!"
"Is Miss Noir here?" Gregory asked in a strained voice; the confusion
hid the odd catch his voice had suffered in getting over the name.
"No. She's down-town--but not at any show, you may be sure. She's left
late at the store because--I guess you've heard Abbott Ashton has
been away a long time."
"I have heard nothing of the young man," Gregory replied stiffly.
"Well, he's been off two or three weeks somewhere, nobody knows unless
it's Bob, and Bob won't tell anything any more. Abbott wrote he'd be
home to-night, and Bob drove over to Simmtown to meet him in the
surrey, so Miss Grace is alone down there--" She nodded ponderously.
"Alone!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"Yes--I look for Bob and Abbott now just any minute." She added, eying
the crowd--"I saw Fran on the street, long and merry ago!" Her accent
was that of condemnation. Like a rock she sat, letting the fickle
populace drift by to minstrel show and snake den. The severity of her
double chin said they might all go thither--_she_ would not; let them
be swallowed up by that gigantic serpent whose tail, too long for
bill-board illustration, must needs be left to coil in the imagination
--but the world should see that Miss Sapphira was safe from
deglutition, either of frivolity or anaconda.
That was also Gregory's point of view; and even in his joy at finding
the coast clear, he paused to say, "I am sorry that Fran seems to have
lost all reason over this carnival company. If she would show half as
much interest in her soul's welfare--"
He left the sentence unfinished. The thought of Grace had grown
supreme--it seemed to illuminate some wide and splendid road into a
glorious future.
The bookkeeper's desk was in a gallery near the ceiling of the Clinton
grocery store; one looked thence, through a picket-fence, down upon
the only floor. Doubtless Grace, thus looking, saw him coming. When he
reached her side, he was breathless, partly from his struggle through
the masses, principally from excitement of fancied security.
She was posting up the ledger, and made no sign of recognition until
he called her name.
"Mr. Clinton is not here," she said remotely. "Can I do anything for
you?"
He admired her calm courtesy. If at the same time she could have been
reserved and yielding he would have found the impossible combination
perfect. Because it was impossible, he was determined to preserve her
angelic purity in imagination, and to restore her womanly charm to
actual being.
"How can you receive me so coldly," he said impulsively, "when I've
not seen you for weeks?"
"You see me at church," she answered impersonally.
"But I have been dying to be near you, to talk to you--"
"Stop!" she held up her hand. "You should know that Mr. Clinton and I
are--"
"Grace!" he groaned.
She whispered, her face suddenly growing pale, "Are engaged." The
tete-a-tete was beyond her supposed strength. His melodious voice,
associated in her mind with divine worship; the burning of those
beautiful eyes in which she seemed to see her own love; the attitude
of his arms as if, not knowing it, he were reaching out for her--all
this was hard for her to resist.
"Engaged!" he echoed, as if she had pronounced one of the world's
great tragedies. "Then you will give yourself to that man--yourself,
Grace, that beautiful self--and without love? It's a crime! Don't
commit the horrible blunder that's ruined my life. See what
wretchedness has come to me--"
"Then you think," very slowly, "that I ought to let Fran ruin my whole
life because your wife has ruined yours? Then you think that after I
have been driven out of the house to make room for Fran, that I ought
to stay single because you married unwisely?"
"Grace, don't say you are driven out."
"What do you call it? A resignation?"
"Grace!--we have only a few moments to be alone. For pity's sake, look
at me kindly and use another tone--a tone like the dear days when you
were by my side....We may never be together again."
She looked at him with the same repellent expression, and spoke in the
same bitter tone: "Well, suppose we're not? You and that Fran will be
together."
In his realization that it was Fran, and Fran alone, who separated
them, Gregory passed into a state of anger, to which his love added
recklessness. "Grace, hate me if you must, but you shall not
misunderstand me!"
She laughed. "Please don't ask me to understand you, Mr. Gregory,
while you hide the only secret to your understanding. Don't come to me
with pretended liking when what you call 'mysterious business
interests at Springfield' drive me from your door, and keep Fran at my
desk."
He interposed in a low passionate voice. "I am resolved that you
should know everything. Fran--is my own daughter."
She gave no sign save a sudden compression of the mouth; nevertheless,
her surprise was extreme. Her mind flashed along the wires of the past
and returned illuminated to the present entanglement.
He thought her merely stunned, and burst forth: "I tell you, Fran is
my child. Now you know why I'm compelled to do what she wants. That's
the secret Bob brought from Springfield. That's the secret Abbott
Ashton hung over my head--the traitor! after I'd befriended him! All
of my ungrateful friends have conspired to ruin me, to force you from
me by this secret. But you know it now, and I've escaped its danger.
You know it!"
"And does your wife know?"
"Would I tell her, and not tell you? It's you I've tried to shield. I
married Josephine Derry, and Fran is our child. You know Fran. Well,
her mother was just like her--frivolous, caring only for things of the
world--irreligious. And I was just a boy--a mere college youth. When I
realized the awful mistake I'd made, I thought it best just to go away
and let her live her own life. Years after, I put all that behind me,
and came to Littleburg. I married Mrs. Gregory and I wanted to put all
my past life away--clear away--and live a good open life. Then you
came. Then I found out I'd never known what love meant. It means a
fellowship of souls, love does; it has nothing to do with the physical
man. It means just your soul and mine...and it's too late!"
Grace, with hands locked upon her open ledger, stared straight before
her, as if turned to stone. The little fenced-in box, hanging high
above eager shoppers, was as a peaceful haven in a storm of raging
noises. From without, gusts of merriment shrieked and whistled, while
above them boomed the raucous cries of showmen, drowned in their turn
by the indefatigable brass-band. The atmosphere of the bookkeeper's
loft was a wedge of silence, splitting a solidarity of tumult.
Gregory covered his face with his hands. "Do you despise me, you pure
angel of beauty? Oh, say you don't utterly despise me. I've not
breathed this secret to any living soul but you, you whom I love with
the madness of despair. My heart is broken. Tell me what I can do."
At last Grace spoke in a thin tone: "Where is that woman?"
"Fran's mother?"
She did not reply; he ought to know whom she meant.
"She died a few years ago--but I thought her dead when I married Mrs.
Gregory. I didn't mean any wrong to my wife, I wanted everything
legal, and supposed it was. I thought everything was all right until
that awful night--when Fran came. There'd been no divorce, so Fran
kept the secret--not on my account, oh, no, no, not on her father's
account! She gave _me_ no consideration. It was on account of Mrs.
Gregory."
"Which Mrs. Gregory?"
"You know--Mrs. Gregory."
"Can you believe that?" Grace asked, with a chilled smile. "You
believe Fran really cares for your wife? You think any daughter could
care for the woman who has stolen her mother's rightful place?"
"But Fran won't have the truth declared; if it weren't for her, Bob
would have told you long ago."
"Suppose I were in Fran's place--would I have kept the secret to spare
man or woman? No! Fran doesn't care a penny for your wife. She
couldn't. It would be monstrous--unnatural. But she's always hated me.
_That's_ why she acts as she does--to triumph over me. I see it all.
_That_ is the reason she won't have the truth declared--she doesn't
want me to know that you are--are _free_."
Grace started up from the desk, her face deathly white. She was
tottering, but when Gregory would have leaped to her side, she
whispered, "They would see us." Suddenly her face became crimson. He
caught his breath, speechless before her imperial loveliness.
"Mr. Gregory!" her eyes were burning into his, "have you told me all
the secret?"
"Yes--all."
"Then Mr. Clinton deceived me!"
"He agreed to hide everything, if I'd send you away."
"Oh, I see! So even _he_ is one of Fran's allies. Never mind--did you
say that when you married the second time, your first wife was living,
and had never been divorced?"
"But Grace--dear Grace! I thought it all right I believed--"
She did not seem to hear him. "Then _she_ is not your wife," she said
in a low whisper.
"She believes--"
"_She_ believes!" Her voice rose scornfully. "And so that is the fact
Fran wanted hidden; you are not really bound to Mrs. Gregory."
"Not legally--but--"
"In what way, then?"
"Why, in no regular way--I mean--but don't you see, there could be no
marriage now to make it binding, without telling her--"
"You are not bound at all," Grace interrupted. "You are free--as free
as air--as free as I am. Are you determined not to understand me?
Since you are free, there is no obstacle, in Heaven or on earth, to
your wishes."
His passage from despair to sudden hope was so violent that he grasped
the desk for support. "What?--Then?--You--you--Grace, would you--But--
"
"You are free," said Grace, "and since Mr. Clinton's treachery, I do
not consider myself bound."
"Grace!" he cried wildly, "Grace--star of my soul--go with me, go with
me, fly with me in a week--darling. Let us arrange it for to-morrow."
"No. I will not go with you, unless you take me now."
"Now? Immediately?" he gasped, bewildered.
"Without once turning back," she returned. "There's a train in
something like an hour."
"For ever?" He was delirious. "And you are to be mine--Grace, you are
to be mine--my very own!"
"Yes. But you are never to see Fran again."
"Do I want to see her again? But Grace, if we stay here until train-
time, Bob will come and--er--and find us--I don't want to meet Bob."
"Then let us go. There are such crowds on the streets that we can
easily lose ourselves."
"Bob will hunt for you, Grace, if he gets back with Abbott before
ourtrain leaves. Miss Sapphira said she was looking for him any
minute,
and that was a good while ago."
"If you can't keep him from finding me," Grace said, "let him find. I
do not consider that I am acting in the wrong. When people are not
bound, they are free; and if they are free, they have the right to be
happy, if at the same time, while being happy together, they can be
doing good."
"Still," said Gregory, looking over the railing, "you know it would
look--it would look bad, darling."
"This is the beginning of our lives," she said, with sudden joy.
"And if Bob sees me with you, Grace, after what he knows, you can
guess that something very unpleasant would--"
Grace drew back, to look searchingly into his face. "Mr. Gregory," she
said slowly, "you make difficulties."
He met her eyes, and his blood danced. "I make difficulties? No!
Grace, you have made me the happiest man in the world. Yes, our lives
begin with this night--our real lives. Grace, you're the best woman
that ever lived!"