Orde left that evening early. This was at Carroll's request. She
preferred herself to inform her family of the news.
“I don't know yet how mother is going to get along,” said she. “Come
back to-morrow afternoon and see them all.”
The next morning Orde, having at last finished and despatched the letter
to his mother, drifted up the avenue and into the club. As he passed
the smoking room he caught sight of Gerald seated in an armchair by the
window. He entered the room and took a seat opposite the young fellow.
Gerald held out his hand silently, which the other took.
“I'm glad to hear it,” said Gerald at last. “Very glad. I told you I
was on your side.” He hesitated, then went on gravely: “Poor Carroll is
having a hard time, though. I think it's worse than she expected. It's
no worse than I expected. You are to be one of the family, so I am going
to give you a piece of advice. It's something, naturally, I wouldn't
speak of otherwise. But Carroll is my only sister, and I want her to be
happy. I think you are the man to make her so, but I want you to avoid
one mistake. Fight it out right now, and never give back the ground you
win.”
“I feel that,” replied Orde quietly.
“Mother made father resign from the army; and while he's a dear old boy,
he's never done anything since. She holds me--although I see through
her--possibly because I'm weak or indifferent, possibly because I have
a silly idea I can make a bad situation better by hanging around. She is
rapidly turning Kendrick into a sullen little prig, because he believes
implicitly all the grievances against the world and the individual she
pours out to him. You see, I have no illusions concerning my family.
Only Carroll has held to her freedom of soul, because that's the joyous,
free, sweet nature of her, bless her! For the first time she's pitted
her will against mother's, and it's a bad clash.”
“Your mother objected?” asked Orde.
Gerald laughed a little bitterly. “It was very bad,” said he. “You've
grown horns, hoofs, and a tail overnight. There's nothing too criminal
to have escaped your notice. I have been forbidden to consort with you.
So has the general. The battle of last night had to do with your coming
to the house at all. As it is not Carroll's house, naturally she has no
right to insist.”
“I shall not be permitted to see her?” cried Orde.
“I did not say that. Carroll announced then quite openly that she would
see you outside. I fancy that was the crux of the matter. Don't you
see? The whole affair shifted ground. Carroll has offered direct
disobedience. Oh, she's a bully little fighter!” he finished in admiring
accents. “You can't quite realise what she's doing for your sake; she's
not only fighting mother, but her own heart.”
Orde found a note at the hotel, asking him to be in Washington Square at
half-past two.
Carroll met him with a bright smile.
“Things aren't quite right at home,” she said. “It is a great shock to
poor mother at first, and she feels very strongly. Oh, it isn't you,
dear; it's the notion that I can care for anybody but her. You see,
she's been used to the other idea so long that I suppose it seemed a
part of the universe to her. She'll get used to it after a little, but
it takes time.”
Orde examined her face anxiously. Two bright red spots burned on her
cheeks; her eyes flashed with a nervous animation, and a faint shade had
sketched itself beneath them.
“You had a hard time,” he murmured, “you poor dear!”
She smiled up at him.
“We have to pay for the good things in life, don't we, dear? And they
are worth it. Things will come right after a little. We must not be too
impatient. Now, let's enjoy the day. The park isn't so bad, is it?”
At five o'clock Orde took her back to her doorstep, where he left her.
This went on for several days.
At the end of that time Orde could not conceal from himself that the
strain was beginning to tell. Carroll's worried expression grew from
day to day, while the animation that characterised her manner when
freed from the restraint became more and more forced. She was as though
dominated by some inner tensity, which she dared not relax even for a
moment. To Orde's questionings she replied as evasively as she could,
assuring him always that matters were going as well as she had expected;
that mother was very difficult; that Orde must have patience, for things
would surely come all right. She begged him to remain quiescent until
she gave him the word; and she implored it so earnestly that Orde,
though he chafed, was forced to await the turn of events. Every
afternoon she met him, from two to five. The situation gave little
opportunity for lovers' demonstrations. She seemed entirely absorbed by
the inner stress of the struggle she was going through, so that hardly
did she seem able to follow coherently even plans for the future. She
appeared, however, to gain a mysterious refreshment from Orde's
mere proximity; so gradually he, with that streak of almost feminine
intuition which is the especial gift to lovers, came to the point of
sitting quite silent with her, clasping her hand out of sight of the
chance passer-by. When the time came to return, they arose and walked
back to Ninth Street, still in silence. At the door they said good-bye.
He kissed her quite soberly.
“I wish I could help, sweetheart,” said he.
She shook her head at him.
“You do help,” she replied.
From Gerald at the club, Orde sought more intimate news of what was
going on. For several days, however, the young man absented himself from
his usual haunts. It was only at the end of the week that Orde succeeded
in finding him.
“No,” Gerald answered his greeting, “I haven't been around much. I've
been sticking pretty close home.”
Little by little, Orde's eager questions drew out the truth of the
situation. Mrs. Bishop had shut herself up in a blind and incredible
obstinacy, whence she sallied with floods of complaints, tears,
accusations, despairs, reproaches, vows, hysterics--all the battery
of the woman misunderstood, but in which she refused to listen to a
consecutive conversation. If Carroll undertook to say anything,
the third word would start her mother off into one of her long and
hysterical tirades. It was very wearing, and there seemed to be nothing
gained from day to day. Her child had disobeyed her. And as a climax,
she had assumed the impregnable position of a complete prostration,
wherein she demanded the minute care of an invalid in the crisis of a
disorder. She could bear no faintest ray of illumination, no lightest
footfall. In a hushed twilight she lay, her eyes swathed, moaning feebly
that her early dissolution at the hands of ingratitude was imminent.
Thus she established a deadlock which was likely to continue
indefinitely. The mere mention of the subject nearest Carroll's heart
brought the feeble complaint:
“Do you want to kill me?”
The only scrap of victory to be snatched from this stricken field
was the fact that Carroll insisted on going to meet her lover every
afternoon. The invalid demanded every moment of her time, either for
personal attendance or in fulfilment of numerous and exacting church
duties. An attempt, however, to encroach thus on the afternoon hours met
a stone wall of resolution on Carroll's part.
This was the situation Orde gathered from his talk with Gerald. Though
he fretted under the tyranny exacted, he could see nothing which could
relieve the situation save his own withdrawal. He had already long
over-stayed his visit; important affairs connected with his work
demanded his attention, he had the comfort of Carroll's love assured;
and the lapse of time alone could be depended on to change Mrs. Bishop's
attitude, a consummation on which Carroll seemed set. Although Orde felt
all the lively dissatisfaction natural to a newly accepted lover who
had gained slight opportunity for favours, for confidences, even for the
making of plans, nevertheless he could see for the present nothing else
to do.
The morning after he had reached this conclusion he again met Gerald
at the gymnasium. That young man, while as imperturbable and languid in
movement as ever, concealed an excitement. He explained nothing until
the two, after a shower and rub-down, were clothing themselves leisurely
in the empty couch-room.
“Orde,” said Gerald suddenly, “I'm worried about Carroll.”
Orde straightened his back and looked steadily at Gerald, but said
nothing.
“Mother has commenced bothering her again. It wasn't so bad as long as
she stuck to daytime, but now she's taken to prowling in a dozen times a
night. I hear their voices for an hour or so at a time. I'm afraid it's
beginning to wear on Carroll more than you realise.”
“Thank you,” said Orde briefly.
That afternoon with Carroll he took the affair firmly in hand.
“This thing has come to the point where it must stop,” said he, “and
I'm going to stop it. I have some rights in the matter of the health and
comfort of the girl I love.”
“What do you intend to do?” asked Carroll, frightened.
“I shall have it out with your mother,” replied Orde.
“You mustn't do that,” implored Carroll. “It would do absolutely no
good, and would just result in a quarrel that could never be patched
up.”
“I don't know as I care particularly,” said Orde.
“But I do. Think--she is my mother.”
Orde stirred uneasily with a mental reservation as to selfishness, but
said nothing.
“And think what it means to a girl to be married and go away from home
finally without her parent's consent. It's the most beautiful and sacred
thing in her life, and she wants it to be perfect. It's worth waiting
and fighting a little for. After all, we are both young, and we have
known each other such a very short time.”
So she pleaded with him, bringing forward all the unanswerable arguments
built by the long average experience of the world--arguments which
Orde could not refute, but whose falsity to the situation he felt most
keenly. He could not specify without betraying Gerald's confidence.
Raging inwardly, he consented to a further armistice.
At his hotel he found a telegram. He did not open it until he had
reached his own room. It was from home, urging his immediate return for
the acceptance of some contracted work.
“To hell with the contracted work!” he muttered savagely, and calling a
bell-boy, sent an answer very much to that effect. Then he plunged his
hands into his pockets, stretched out his legs, and fell into a deep and
gloomy meditation.
He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in!” he called, without turning his head.
He heard the door open and shut. After a moment he looked around.
Kendrick Bishop stood watching him.
Orde lit the gas.
“Hello, Kendrick!” said he. “Sit down.” The boy made no reply. Orde
looked at him curiously, and saw that he was suffering from an intense
excitement. His frame trembled convulsively, his lips were white, his
face went red and pale by turns. Evidently he had something to say, but
could not yet trust his voice. Orde sat down and waited.
“You've got to let my mother alone,” he managed to say finally.
“I have done nothing to your mother, Kendrick,” said Orde kindly.
“You've brought her to the point of death,” asserted Keudrick violently.
“You're hounding her to her grave. You're turning those she loves best
against her.”
Orde thought to catch the echo of quotation in these words.
“Did your mother send you to me?” he asked.
“If we had any one else worth the name of man in the family, I wouldn't
have to come,” said Kendrick, almost in the manner of one repeating a
lesson.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Orde after a moment of thought.
“Go away,” cried Kendrick. “Stop this unmanly contest against a
defenceless woman.”
“I cannot do that,” replied Orde quietly.
Kendrick's face assumed a livid pallor, and his eyes seemed to turn
black with excitement. Trembling in every limb, but without hesitation,
he advanced on Orde, drew a short riding-whip from beneath his coat, and
slashed the young man across the face. Orde made an involuntary movement
to arise, but sank back, and looked steadily at the boy. Once again
Kendrick hit; raised his arm for the third time; hesitated. His lips
writhed, and then, with a sob, he cast the little whip from him and
burst from the room.
Orde sat without moving, while two red lines slowly defined themselves
across his face. The theatrical quality of the scene and the turgid
rhetorical bathos of the boy's speeches attested his youth and the
unformed violence of his emotions. Did they also indicate a rehearsal,
or had the boy merely been goaded to vague action by implicit belief in
a woman's vagaries? Orde did not know, but the incident brought home to
him, as nothing else could, the turmoil of that household.
“Poor youngster!” he concluded his reverie, and went to wash his face in
hot water.
He had left Carroll that afternoon in a comparatively philosophical
and hopeful frame of mind. The next day she came to him with hurried,
nervous steps, her usually pale cheeks mounting danger signals of
flaming red, her eyes swimming. When she greeted him she choked, and two
of the tears overflowed. Quite unmindful of the nursemaids across the
square, Orde put his arm comfortingly about her shoulder. She hid her
face against his sleeve and began softly to cry.
Orde did not attempt as yet to draw from her the cause of this unusual
agitation. A park bench stood between two dense bushes, screened from
all directions save one. To this he led her. He comforted her as one
comforts a child, stroking clumsily her hair, murmuring trivialities
without meaning, letting her emotion relieve itself. After awhile she
recovered somewhat her control of herself and sat up away from him,
dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief dampened into a tiny wad. But
even after she had shaken her head vigorously at last, and smiled up at
him rather tremulously in token that the storm was over, she would not
tell him that anything definite had happened to bring on the outburst.
“I just needed you,” she said, “that's all. It's just nothing but being
a woman, I think. You'll get used to little things like that.”
“This thing has got to quit!” said he grimly.
She said nothing, but reached up shyly and touched his face where
Kendrick's whip had stung, and her eyes became very tender. A carriage
rolled around Washington Arch, and, coming to a stand, discharged its
single passenger on the pavement.
“Why, it's Gerald!” cried Carroll, surprised.
The young man, catching sight of them, picked his way daintily and
leisurely toward them. He was, as usual, dressed with meticulous nicety,
the carnation in his button-hole, the gloss on his hat and shoes, the
freshness on his gloves, the correct angle on his stick. His dark, long
face with its romantic moustache, and its almost effeminate soft eyes,
was as unemotional and wearied as ever. As he approached, he raised his
stick slightly by way of salutation.
“I have brought,” said he, “a carriage, and I wish you would both do me
the favour to accompany me on a short excursion.”
Taking their consent for granted, he signalled the vehicle, which
rapidly approached.
The three--Carroll and Orde somewhat bewildered--took their seats.
During a brief drive, Gerald made conversation on different topics,
apparently quite indifferent as to whether or not his companions
replied. After an interval the carriage drew up opposite a brown-stone
dwelling on a side street. Gerald rang the bell, and a moment later the
three were ushered by a discreet and elderly maid into a little square
reception-room immediately off the hall. The maid withdrew.
Gerald carefully deposited his top hat on the floor, placed in it his
gloves, and leaned his stick against its brim.
“I have brought you here, among other purposes, to hear from me a little
brief wisdom drawn from experience and the observation of life,” he
began, addressing his expectant and curious guests. “That wisdom is
briefly this: there comes a time in the affairs of every household when
a man must assert himself as the ruler. In all the details he may depend
on the woman's judgment, experience, and knowledge, but when it comes to
the big crises, where life is deflected into one channel or the other,
then, unless the man does the deciding, he is lost for ever, and
his happiness, and the happiness of those who depend on him. This is
abstruse, but I come to the particular application shortly.
“But moments of decision are always clouded by many considerations. The
decision is sure to cut across much that is expedient, much that seems
to be necessary, much that is dear. Carroll remembers the case of our
own father. The general would have made a name for himself in the army;
his wife demanded his retirement; he retired, and his career ended. That
was the moment of his decision. It is very easy to say, in view of that
simple statement, that the general was weak in yielding to his wife, but
a consideration of the circumstances--”
“Why do you say all this?” interrupted Orde.
Gerald raised his hand.
“Believe me, it is necessary, as you will agree when you have heard me
through. Mrs. Bishop was in poor health; the general in poor financial
circumstances. The doctors said the Riviera. Mrs. Bishop's parents, who
were wealthy, furnished the money for her sojourn in that climate. She
could not bear to be separated from her husband. A refusal to resign
then, a refusal to accept the financial aid offered, would have been
cast against him as a reproach--he did not love his wife enough to
sacrifice his pride, his ambition, his what-you-will. Nevertheless, that
was his moment of decision.
“I could multiply instances, yet it would only accumulate needless
proof. My point is that in these great moments a man can afford to
take into consideration only the affair itself. Never must he think of
anything but the simple elements of the problem--he must ignore whose
toes are trodden upon, whose feelings are hurt, whose happiness is
apparently marred. For note this: if a man does fearlessly the right
thing, I am convinced that in the readjustment all these conflicting
interests find themselves bettered instead of injured. You want a
concrete instance? I believe firmly that if the general had kept to his
army life, and made his wife conform to it, after the storm had passed
she would have settled down to a happy existence. I cannot prove it--I
believe it.”
“This may be all very true, Gerald,” said Orde, “but I fail to see why
you have brought us to this strange house to tell it.”
“In a moment,” replied Gerald. “Have patience. Believing that
thoroughly, I have come in the last twenty-four hours to a decision.
That this happens not to affect my own immediate fortunes does not seem
to me to invalidate my philosophy.”
He carefully unbuttoned his frock coat, crossed his legs, produced a
paper and a package from his inside pocket, and eyed the two before him.
“I have here,” he went on suddenly, “marriage papers duly made out;
in this package is a plain gold ring; in the next room is waiting, by
prearrangement, a very good friend of mine in the clergy. Personally I
am at your disposal.”
He looked at them expectantly.
“The very thing!” “Oh, no!” cried Orde and Carroll in unison.
Nevertheless, in spite of this divergence of opinion, ten minutes later
the three passed through the door into the back apartment--Carroll still
hesitant, Orde in triumph, Gerald as correct and unemotional as ever.
In this back room they found waiting a young clergyman conversing easily
with two young girls. At the sight of Carroll, these latter rushed
forward and overwhelmed her with endearments. Carroll broke into a
quickly suppressed sob and clasped them close to her.
“Oh, you dears!” she cried, “I'm so glad you're here!” She flashed a
grateful look in Gerald's direction, and a moment later took occasion to
press his arm and whisper:
“You've thought of everything! You're the dearest brother in the world!”
Gerald received this calmly, and set about organising the ceremony. In
fifteen minutes the little party separated at the front door, amid a
chatter of congratulations and good wishes. Mr. and Mrs. Orde entered
the cab and drove away.