Wilfred walked along Fifty-Ninth street, bemused with wonder. How extraordinary! How extraordinary! . . . Well, after all I didn’t do so badly, considering . . . !
PART FIVE: HUSBANDS
PART FIVE
Elaine Kaplanwas writing a letter in the room that the servants called Madame’s boudoir; but Elaine called it her sitting-room. Boudoir was a word she detested. There was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” she sang out.
Her husband entered, smiling.
“Oh,” she said, mildly surprised. “I thought it was Taswell. He sent word to ask if he could see me at four. . . . You are home early. Anything special?”
“No,” said Joe. “I asked Fletcher to come here at four—I didn’t want him to be seen at my office; and he’s late. So I shall let him cool his heels for a few minutes.”
“Something big on hand?”
“For him, not for me. The fool wants to sell me his newspapers, now that I’ve stolen their circulation.”
“Am I to come down-stairs?”
“You can if you want.”
“Mercy! I don’t want to see old Fletcher. I just meant, is he to be entertained?”
“No,” said Joe curtly. “Fletcher’s on the toboggan.”
He consulted a pocket note-book. “By the way, can you save the night of the fourteenth for me? Awful bore, but it would be advisable for us to appear at the reception for Sir Esme Dordress at the Union League.”
“Surely,” said Elaine, making a note on her desk-pad. “Who’s he?”
“A governor of the Bank of England. . . .En grande toilette, my dear, which becomes you so well.”
“Thanks. Hardly in the best taste at a club reception, is it?”
“Of course not. But all the other women will. We can let it be inferred that we are going on to something else, and get out early. . . . Have one of mine?”
“Thanks, I prefer these common ones.”
Lighting up, Joe dropped into a deep chair, and stretched his legs luxuriously. “Young Taswell?” he said; “how is he making out with the kid?”
“I can’t honestly say that he’s doing Sturges any good,” said Elaine; “but at least he’s doing him no harm.”
“Rather a fantastic idea, don’t you think? giving the kid a tutor at the age of six?”
“Well, I thought he ought not to be entirely in the hands of women. I have read Pastor Witt’s book on education. It is wonderful what can be done with them at such an age. But of course Sturges is different. . . . I wasn’t thinking of education so much, as of the masculine influence generally.”
“I would be no good as a nursery companion,” said Joe. “No use pretending.”
“I wasn’t reproaching you,” said Elaine with a clear glance.
“He’s a hard little nut, the kid,” said Joe, smiling at some recollection.
“So he ought to be at six,” said Elaine quickly.
“I shouldn’t think you’d get much literature to stick.”
“Don’t expect to. Taswell’s much more than a mere literary person. He’s an athlete. He has a very masculine point of view.”
“A gentleman, too,” said Joe agreeably. “Damned handsome fellow!”
“Oh yes,” said Elaine indifferently. “. . . I like him very much,” she went on. “He pockets his weekly wage, and keeps his head up. I have him to lunch with me sometimes. He’s interested in so many things. We have good talks.”
“I know just what you mean,” said Joe. “Disgusting, isn’t it? the way nearly everybody licks our boots. Takes all the fun out of life. I’d like to be better acquainted with this independent young man.”
Elaine offered no comment.
There was a knock on the door; and in response to Elaine’s summons, the one whom they had been discussing entered. A young man who brought with him into everyday affairs, a sharp reminder of that which is timeless. He was quite unconscious of it. A wary and a courteous young man, unabashed in Elaine’s boudoir, yet conveying an intimation that his astuteness was far from being the whole of him. The handsome older man received him all smiles; Elaine’s half glance acknowledged his good looks, but was annihilating in its impersonal quality.
Taswell, seeing Joe, stopped just within the door. “Oh, if I am intruding . . .” he began.
“Not at all!” said Joe cordially. “The appointment is yours. I was only warming a chair.”
Courtesies were exchanged. Joe remained standing.
“How are you getting along with your pupil?” he asked.
“As well as can be expected,” said Taswell coolly.
Joe laughed. “Are you fond of the little rascal?” he asked.
“He’s a splendidly healthy child,” answered Taswell.
Elaine, not looking at either man, frowned.
“What do you do every day?” asked Joe.
“We walk out for an hour if it’s fine,” said Taswell; “with such conversation, improving or otherwise, as may suggest itself. If we have to stay in, I read to him as long as he will listen; or help him to build something.”
“Don’t you hate to tote a kid around?” asked Joe in his friendly way.
“Not in the least!” said Taswell, smiling.
Joe laughed indulgently. “It’s not a job I’d fancy.” He moved towards the door. “Got a man waiting down-stairs. Hope to see you again.” The door closed behind him.
Taswell’s face betrayed no expression whatever; neither did Elaine’s. She changed from her desk to a more comfortable chair. She was wearing a loose-sleeved black dress which revealed how full of health was her pallor. The young man watched her, while courteously appearing not to do so.
“Have a cigarette,” said Elaine, waving her hand in the direction of the big silver box. “Tea will be up directly.”
Taswell noticed how the black sleeve fell away from the white arm. He proceeded towards the box. “You are very kind,” he said. “I’m afraid I cannot stay for tea.”
“I suppose it is something special,” said Elaine, “since you asked to see me.”
He did not answer immediately. He was staring down at the cigarette he had just taken. “I must give up my job, Mrs. Kaplan,” he said quietly.
“Oh!” said Elaine, with quickly falling face. “I’m so sorry! . . . I thought you liked it!”
“It was a wonderful chance!” he said. “I mean, to be able to earn my living with two hours’ work a day. You see I’m doing a book, biology, from which I can expect no immediate return.”
“Then why give up the chance?”
“I am doing nothing here.”
“But I’m satisfied. I didn’t expect a miracle!”
“The child is too young,” said Taswell. “I cannot get hold of him. The two hours a day is a trial to us both.”
“Then why did you tell my husband just now that . . .”
“Oh, he was simply baiting me,” said Taswell.
Elaine bit her lip.
Presently she said: “Is it because you dislike Sturges?”
“No,” he said promptly. “I like him!” The implication of this speech might have been had in the involuntarily warm glance which accompanied it, but which Elaine chose not to see.
“I mention that simply because everybody seems to dislike him,” she said proudly.
“He dislikes me very much,” said Taswell; “but that is quite natural. I am the Enemy, because I will not knuckle under.”
“I don’t knuckle under to him,” said Elaine quickly.
“Ah, you’re his mother; and he’s obliged to recognize you as a fixture. You must be circumvented; but I can be got rid of, if he is determined enough.”
“And are you content to be got rid of?”
“I know it’s my fault,” said Taswell. “I haven’t got the right sort of patience.”
“I don’t set too much store by patience,” said Elaine quickly. “If he’s naughty you ought to smack him. I would back you up. I smack him when he is naughty.”
“He is never naughty with you,” said Taswell with smiling lips and speaking eyes. His words carried two meanings.
Elaine’s answer had but one. “No! Because he knows what he would get! If you were to . . .”
“There is a difference,” Taswell pointed out, smiling. “Parental smacking is orthodox.”
Elaine got up impatiently. The young man’s eyes gleamed at the sight of that splendid straightening. She crossed the room, and came back. “You make him out a perfect little monster between you!” she said bitterly.
“Not I!” said Taswell, quickly. “But it’s a great mistake to suppose that children are not alive to things. There is a whole world of intuitive knowledge behind those bright, watchful black eyes of his.”
Elaine stopped short, looking at Taswell with a kind of horror. Several seconds passed before she spoke. “He’s just an ordinary naughty little boy!” she said breathlessly. “There’s nothing special about him! Just an ordinary little boy!” The words seemed to be torn from her.
Taswell’s eyes expressed a wonder at the sharpness of her tones. “Of course!” he said. “Just a vigorous, strong-willed little boy. The real problem lies in your situation.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded.
“You’re so rich!” he said.
“What difference does that make to him?” she asked haughtily. “If he has always lived in a big house, where the wheels are greased, and the proper things appear at the proper times—if he has never known anything different, how could his character be affected by it?”
“It isn’t the big house, and the comforts. It’s being surrounded by servants; people subservient to him.”
“That’s why I wanted somebody like you.”
“Exactly,” he said good-humoredly. “But . . .” He spread out his hands.
“If you had a small son of your own,” she demanded, not without scorn, “would you not know how to deal with him?”
“Oh, yes!” said Taswell quickly, with a secret look of resolution and amusement.
Elaine was a little baffled. “Take Nurse,” she said argumentatively; “I searched over two continents until I found the one woman who . . .”
“An admirable person!” said Taswell. “I’m sure you couldn’t do better.”
They exchanged a look. Elaine was the first to turn her eyes away. A subterranean understanding was created; and because of it Elaine was silently obliged to abandon her position. She resumed her pacing. The young man watched her, clearly not thinking of the child.
Presently she began to speak in a low, moved voice, more to herself than to him. “I’ll find a way . . . somehow! Not necessarily through books and learning. There are other ways of making a good life. . . . When he’s a little older I will take him away. To Wyoming. There will be no servants there. I will ride with him, and shoot with him, and go on hikes. I can make a boy of myself . . . !” She turned on the silent Taswell as if he were opposing her. Her deep bosom rose and fell under the black silk; her glance made the young man think of Boadicea fronting the Roman legions. “In spite of everything . . .everything. I will make a man of him!Mykind of man! Nothing can stand against a determination such as mine. Half of him is of me. I have character. I will strike it into him!”
Taswell had risen. His air of astuteness was gone. He gazed at her, rapt and saddened. It was not her words, but her look of indomitable despair. “Oh, Mrs. Kaplan . . . !” he murmured.
The sound of his voice recalled Elaine to her usual self. Turning, and affecting to straighten some objects on her desk, she said in a muffled voice: “You have been awfully decent. I quite appreciate your position. When would you like to go?”
He roused himself. He put down the cigarette which he had never lighted. “At your convenience,” he said, lowering his eyes. “As soon as possible.”
“You are quite right. There is no use dragging on with a situation once you discover that it has become impossible. You needn’t come back to Sturges again.”
“Thank you,” he murmured.
She approached him as if to say good-bye. “I shall always be glad to see you, though. I’ll send you a check.”
Taswell, sensible young man as he was, was hurt to the quick. “Oh, Mrs. Kaplan . . . !” he said, very differently from the first time.
“Why . . . what’s the matter?” asked Elaine, surprised.
He raised his eyes full to hers. “I love you,” he said.
Elaine turned away with a quick movement. Taswell’s eyes fastened on the white V of her back that showed, instinct with life, under the dead silk. After a moment or two she said coldly: “Why did you feel it necessary to tell me that?”
“I didn’t ‘feel it necessary’,” he said sorely. “It sprang out of me. . . . What harm can it do? I am going.”
“Oh, no particular harm,” she said. “But I hate to be made to appear unfeeling. . . . All this sort of thing simply makes me impatient, it’s so . . . so . . . I don’t know. Men feel obliged to whoop themselves up to it, and women to simper.” She looked around at him scornfully. “What, really, Taswell! A man of your capacity! How can you expect to do any serious work?”
“I can’t . . . now,” he muttered, avoiding her glance.
“Why, I must be seven or eight years older than you.”
“Oh!” he said painfully, sweeping away the suggestion.
“Love . . . ! Bah! Excuseme!”
The young man raised his head quickly. A dark flush was creeping up from his neck. “I’m not ashamed of loving you, if it comes to that,” he said.
Elaine, with a side glance at him, modified her tone. “I’m not getting at you, Taswell. You’re an honest, generous fellow. I like you very much. You speak my lingo. . . . Much too good a fellow to be making love. I’m fed up with love. I’m sorry, but the mere mention of love brings out my worst side. Ugh! these fashionable women with their sleek lovers! There isn’t a throb of honest passion in the pack of them! Ihatelove . . . !”
He raised his sullen eyes to hers again. That was just it! his eyes said. So do I!
“Once I suppose love was a splendid thing,” she swept on, “but since we’ve become so civilized or self-conscious, or whatever it is, it has turned into rather a slimy business, don’t you think? As soon as men began to dwell on their own animal instincts, and make up fine-sounding names for them—Ugh! what a nasty business . . . !”
“I should like to kill him,” the young man murmured.
Elaine instantly threw off her preoccupation with love, and gave him undivided attention. “Now look here, Taswell, you’re simply being carried away by an emotional tornado. Come to! Use you head, man! In order to justify your feelings, you are pretending to yourself that I’m a misunderstood and unappreciated woman cooped up here in my gilded cage, and all that rot! There is nothing in it! You’ve been in and out of the house during the last two months, and have used your eyes, I suppose. Well, I assure you, you have seen all there is to see. There is no horrid mystery. Nobody abuses me. Do I look like a woman who would submit to abuse? Should I ever be neglected, it would be because I willed it. I am happier than the run of women because I know exactly where I stand with myself!”
“That is worse!” he murmured.
“You are not listening to me!” she cried angrily. “. . . What is worse?”
“Wasted . . . ! A woman like you . . . ! Like a fire in the night . . . !”
“Oh my God!” cried Elaine. “Am I wasted because I choose to set my heart on a child, instead of a man? What a little you know!”
Wilfredraised his eyes from the typewritten sheets to ask sharply: “Are you listening Fanny?”
“Why of course!” she said, looking across in surprise.
“You seemed so intent on your stocking.”
“That’s automatic. My ears are yours. Go on.”
Five minutes later, Wilfred turned over the last sheet. He tipped the tin shade of the lamp in order to direct the light more fully on Frances Mary’s side of the table; and reached for his pipe. “That’s about all I can do to that,” he said, with an after gleam of pleasure in his eye.
“There are beautiful things in it,” said Frances Mary.
Wilfred was pulled up all standing. “Things?” he said, looking across at her, flicked on the raw. “Then you don’t think . . . ?”
“Something wrong,” she said, avoiding his glance; thoughtfully biting the darning needle.
“Oh, for God’s sake . . . !” said Wilfred, putting down his pipe.
“Why throw the second girl into the man’s arms?”
“But I’ve made it clear from the beginning that she was the right one for him.”
“I know; but the real business of the story is between the other two; and the pleasant touch at the end takes the edge off its grim reality.”
“A happy ending is not in itself inartistic,” said Wilfred combatively.
“Of course not! But in this case . . .”
“I could cut out their actual coming together,” said Wilfred, very reluctantly; “and just leave the second girl in the offing . . .”
She shook her head. “The suggestion would be the same.”
“It wouldn’t sell,” said Wilfred sullenly.
“This one was not supposed to be a seller,” said Fanny. “This was your holiday.”
“Damn it! if I cut her out altogether, I’d have to rewrite the whole thing!” he cried excitedly.
Frances Mary said nothing.
“Why didn’t you say so in the beginning?”
“It just struck me, Wilfred.”
He jumped up, half beside himself. “All my work has gone for nothing now!” he burst out. “I work for days and you destroy it with a word! You know I can’t afford to spend any more time on something that wont sell!”
He flung out of the room. Frances Mary, pricking her upper lip with the needle, sat looking at the door as if her whole being was outside it. She had been taught that it would make matters worse for her to follow. For many minutes she sat listening and waiting.
Wilfred came in again, horribly self-conscious. Marching up to his wife, and tipping her head back, he kissed her lips. She kept her hands squeezed together, and held her tongue; but could not help her lips from clinging.
“I’m sorry,” said Wilfred with a ridiculous hangdog air. “I’m so damned ill-tempered I’m a burden to myself!” He returned to his chair, keeping his face averted from the light.
Frances Mary’s head was lowered, and tears dropped on the stocking; but her mouth was happily curved.
“You’re right about the story, of course,” said Wilfred doggedly. “It’s hard for me to shake off the romantic stuff that I deal in every day . . . I ought to have a job of some kind. Pegasus becomes spavined in the milkcart. . . .” As he forced himself to speak on, it visibly became less difficult. It was almost cheerfully that he said at last: “I wont have to rewrite the whole thing of course. I can do it in a day if I get an early start. It will be twice as good.” He drew a long breath, and let it escape again. He reached for his pipe.
When she knew by the sounds that he was intent upon filling it, Frances Mary darted a look across. Her eyes, still wet, were lighted with fun.
After a bit she murmured: “You’re working too hard.”
He shook his head. “It isn’t overwork that makes me irritable. It’s the hundreds of little distractions and interruptions; ordinary business of life. When I’m working, it hurts like needles to be dragged back. So by the time night comes . . .” he finished with a shrug.
“I know,” she said.
“But it’s nothing to worry about,” he went on. “It’s not a disease, but a condition. It’s the inevitable result of our circumstances, and I must just put up with it until they improve, or until the children are old enough for school.”
There was a silence.
“This story ought to have your name on it, Fanny,” he said. “It’s as much yours as mine.”
“Nonsense! I only supplied the critical element.”
“Oh, critical or creative, what’s the diff.? They’re interacting. You have supplied a good half of both.”
“I’m not being self-sacrificing,” she said, snipping the darning cotton. “Some day I’m going to write again. When the children get bigger. In the meantime I don’t want to be a mere tail to your kite. Far better for me to be forgotten awhile, and come back with a bang!”
“What a lot you have given up!” said Wilfred; “. . . for this!” He looked around the family dining-room.
“This room is plenty good enough as long as the children overrun it,” said Frances Mary, a little up in arms.
“I spoke metaphorically, my angel,” said Wilfred, smiling.
“What! Do you think I would change back with that envious old maid?” said Fanny with a whole smile; “me, a woman married to her man! . . . After I have borne three children!”
“Too many,” he said gloomily.
She laughed. “Sure! My fault! . . . It won’t hurt me not to write for awhile. My book is lying at the bottom of my heart, soaking.”
“It will be far better than anything of mine,” he said. “My work has no time to lie in soak.”
“Don’t be so silly, or you’ll make me cry. . . . If a book should come of it, it would be entirely due to you, wouldn’t it? You got our children, and kept me while I bore them. That’s better than writing three books. . . . Oh, Wilfred!” she cried in a sudden rapture, “the children! Their little shells they got from us, but their souls are their own! I shall never become accustomed to it!”
An obliterating fire blazed up in Wilfred’s eyes. From across the table, sly and shining, they sought her eyes compellingly.
She quickly hid her eyes. The corners of her mouth were obstinately turned up “Certainly not!” she said in wifely tones. “After what you just told me! . . . One of us has got to show some sense!”
There was a silence. The dining-room was full of comfort.
“You are the one who has given up things,” said Frances Mary. “I have found myself in marriage, and grown fat; while you . . .”
“In seven years his face had become a little greyed; but was still capable of lighting up wonderfully,” chanted Wilfred.
“You goose!”
“I needed the halter,” said Wilfred. “I was all over the place.”
“Look here,” she said, “if by some miracle I should write a masterpiece to-morrow, it wouldn’t hurt you nearly as much as it would seven years ago, would it?”
“Oh no,” he said. “Then I was raw with vanity. The mere blowing of the wind hurt me.”
“Well then; it won’t be written for another seven years, if ever. By that time you will be more pleased than if you had written it yourself.”
“Not quite that,” said Wilfred grinning; “still . . .”
She picked up a fresh pair of socks. “You could do a little more on your novel now,” she hazarded.
He shook his head.
“We’ve got nearly three hundred dollars in the bank.”
“There’s my life insurance next month; and I have to get a little ahead with the next payment on the house.”
“I wish we’d never saddled ourselves with this house,” she said equably. “We ought to be renters; free to flit.”
“I know,” said Wilfred; “but it’s fine for the children to have a fixed spot to grow in; a rock to fix their little tentacles to—or should it be on?”
“I dunno. . . . Anyhow, there are those two stories you sold in England.”
“They only pay on publication. It may be six months before we get the money.”
“It’s all right if we don’t spend it more than once. Borrow until it comes.”
He shook his head. “That would only be another worry.”
“Wilfred, you don’t take chances enough,” she said. “Really, you don’t. We always get along somehow.”
“The children . . .”
“Bread and milk don’t cost much. And a dish of soup and greens.”
“Shoes do.”
“They don’t mind patched shoes.”
“I do.”
“Vanity again!”
“Sure! . . . I’m not satisfied. With this, I mean. We need so many things. It’s important that they should have a nice place to grow up in.”
Fanny’s thoughts veered off. Raising her head, she smiled away in the direction of the window. “Stephen was so funny to-day,” she said.
Wilfred took a light from her smile, “How?” he asked eagerly.
“When I lifted him out of the tub this morning he yelled bloody murder as he always does, and I said: ‘Oh, for shame!’ To my astonishment he stopped in the middle of a yell, and looked at me in such a funny, resentful way. It was the first time I ever reached his consciousness with words.”
“Really!” he said, with a look of serious pleasure. “I believe he is going to have a strong individuality.”
“Not a doubt of it,” she said.
Silence for awhile.
“Well, if you’re going to start right in on the grind again,” said Frances Mary, “you might take a little vacation; a walking-trip.”
Wilfred shook his head. “When I get a little further ahead.”
“That’s what you always say! One of the reasons we came out here was because it was a good walking center; yet I can’t drive you out!”
“Well, I might . . . !” he said, throwing up his head. “For three days. The weather is lovely. . . . And when I come back. . . . Oh, Fan . . . !”
She gave him smile for smile.
“Stanny would be keen about coming,” he went on. “If I dropped him a line to-night, I could spend to-morrow fixing this story; and we could start out together on the following morning.”
Frances Mary said nothing. Her silence changed the feeling of the room; and Wilfred looked across at her, sharply apprehensive. The silence lengthened.
“Oh, Fanny!” he said, “Why do you look like that?”
“I am not looking in any particular way,” she said, darning hard.
“You know you are! . . . Why this feeling against Stanny?”
Frances Mary dropped the sock in her lap. “I can’t help it, Wilfred. He dislikes me so!”
“You’re wrong, I tell you! It is only that he is terrified of you.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“He’s terrified of every respectable woman.”
“I’m not a respectable woman.”
“Then why not show him? You stick it on for fair when he is around.”
“It isn’t Stanny at all,” she said unhappily. “It’s you.”
“Me?”
“You are not open with me. These endless talks that you and Stanny have, that break off so awkwardly when I come in!”
“Just man-talk.”
“Don’t tell me that again! It’s only a pretext. There’s no such thing as man-talk or woman-talk—not with a woman like me!”
“A good deal of it is Stanny’s talk. I’m always trying to give him a more cheerful outlook. I never shall, of course.”
“A good half of it isyourtalk. Your eyes do not light up like that when you are talking to me!”
“Oh, but Fanny . . . ! Why . . . you and I communicate without talking.”
“No! You keep yourself to yourself until Stanny comes! . . . I am always perfectly open with you . . .”
“Indeed, you’re not!” said Wilfred quickly. “There is that whole novel at the bottom of your heart!”
“Well, if I do keep things from you, I don’t save them up for the first stranger!”
“Oh, Fan!”
“No, I won’t be Fanned, and shut up! What I say is true!”
“Of course there’s some truth in it,” said Wilfred slowly; “but how unfair! . . . It’s true that I can let myself go in a certain way with Stanny, that I can’t with you. What of it? Husbands and wives need not swallow each other. There’s nothing serious in it. Unless you make it serious by wrong thinking. You are always for facing things. Face this, and it will go up in smoke. . . . Stanny and I have a certain way of gassing at each other. We’ve always done it. Speculative. Neither takes the other seriously. It’s an enormous relief. Makes you soar for the moment. . . . I cannot talk to you in a speculative vein, because you always have a personal application in mind. You are jealously guarding your own. You refer all my ideas back to our life together. That dries me up. You get your feelings hurt. I have to be studying how not to hurt your feelings. —I don’t mind, dear. To be forced to think of somebody else was my saving. It’s not serious. But you see thereissuch a thing as man-talk. There is woman-talk too.”
“I let my women friends go when I married.”
“You should not have done so. A wife needs reserves . . .”
Frances Mary’s face was tragic. “You are reproaching me now because I . . .”
“Now, Fanny! Isn’t that exactly what I said!”
Her head went down. “Once you said I was disinterested,” she murmured.
“Well, I was wrong. And you knew it at the time! . . . I’m glad I was wrong. Disinterestedness is a good deal like soda crackers.” He reached a hand across the table. “Fanny, old girl . . .”
“Don’t . . . now,” she said sorely.
He couldn’t tell whether she was blaming him now, or herself. “Write to Jessie Dartrey,” he suggested. “She’d come out like a shot.”
“Poor Jessie . . . !” she murmured.
Wilfred breathed with relief. He saw that the corner was turned.
“Wilfred, I can’t help disliking Stanny!” she said with a rush, imploringly.
“It doesn’t matter—if you face it out with yourself.”
Frances Mary started busily to work on her sock again. Her expression assumed to wipe out everything that had been said since she dropped it. “If you don’t write to Stanny at once,” she said to Wilfred rebukingly, “you’ll miss the last collection. . . . And oh! don’t forget to carry your old shoes to the cobbler’s to-morrow. They wont see you through three days’ walking . . .”
Wilfredwent to meet the nine-forty from town. The morning had broken gloriously after rain. Oh, the new-washed sky, the glittering trees, and the crystal air! How the group of ugly little buildings which included the station, seemed to plume itself in that sweet clarity—like a gnome dressed in gossamer. That awful ice-cream saloon built two years ago, and already aged, with its cheap cotton awning disfigured by blue lettering stained with the weather; even this was—well, one couldn’t call it lovely, yet he approved it. It belonged. Wilfred’s heart puffed up in his breast like a pop-over in the oven. Too much baking-powder, he thought, grinning at himself.
When Stanny got off the train, Wilfred saw in a glance by the down-drawn corners of his mouth, and his wretched eyes, that he had been having one of his bad times. Lucky I happened to write just then, he thought. Stanny’s friendly greeting was forced.
“Hello, Wilf!”
“Hello, Stanny!”
Behind Stanny, Wilfred caught sight of a taller and younger man, whose good looks arrested him like a blow. A youth out of an antique tale; beautiful, hard, and unselfconscious. Wilfred’s imagination galloped off. To his astonishment, Stanny turned around to allow the young man to come up.
“I brought a fellow along,” Stanny mumbled. “Thought you wouldn’t mind. His name is Taswell.”
“Mind! Of course not!” cried Wilfred, concealing his wonder. “We’re in luck with the weather.”
The young fellow’s face was yellowish; his eyes and his lips cruel with pain. He was mute, or almost so; muttered something in response to Wilfred’s greeting, while his eyes bolted in distaste. He too! thought Wilfred.
Taswell was glancing around at the unfamiliar scene.
“It’s a gashly little boro, isn’t it?” said Wilfred grinning. “Never mind. Once we climb the hill yonder, we’ll leave the paths of progress behind. Come on, you fellows.”
“Shouldn’t we go to your house first?” asked Stanny, mindful of politeness.
“Nope! Frances Mary doesn’t expect us until we come back.”
Stanny looked relieved. The two men came along in silence after Wilfred.
Wilfred rattled away. “I thought we’d head first for New City—an amusing village in spite of its name; then north through Pearl River and Nanuet, and back to the Highlands. We can make West Point if you’re interested in that sort of thing; but I should say, keep back from the Hudson a mile or so. There are lovely little lakes in there, with forgotten roads from one to another. We’ll have to come down into the valley to find a bed . . . But of course if you don’t feel like strenuous walking, we can stop anywhere,” he added with a glance at his companions.
“You can’t walk too far for me,” said Taswell, shortly.
“Nor me!” said Stanny.
“Gosh! I needed this!” cried Wilfred, breathing deep. “I had worked myself to a fare-you-well!”
Stanny looked at him with the corners of his mouth drawn down, and Wilfred could read the sarcastic words that were not spoken. Happy Wilf! What Stanny actually said, morosely, was:
“What did Frances Mary think of it?”
“Oh, she got the whole thing up,” said Wilfred, glad to score off him.
He perceived of course that his giddy talk was falling on deaf ears; he didn’t mind. Subsequently it struck him that there was perhaps something cruel in it. That was the wrong way to deal with the situation. Down-hearted people are enraged by an obvious attempt to cheer them, and rightly so. He became silent. Better to let the sun and the sweet air have way with them.
They plodded along. Rounding the top of the hill, a mile-wide, shallow valley unrolled below them. The sight made Wilfred catch his breath; but he said nothing. It was pasture land, all green except for the dotting farmhouses and villages; an unreal, tender green which did not suggest grass or anything earthly. It was as if one was looking at the land through a magical green medium. It was like a sea, tenderer than the real sea, and rolling up in one vast gentle swell, sprinkled with white ships. At the far boundaries it faded dreamlike into a grey void.
Wilfred stole frequent glances at his handsome companion. Taswell strode along stiffly, his head up, looking angrily and blindly straight ahead. Wilfred’s sense of fitness was gratified by the sight. The noble way to bear pain. What could have dealt him such a blow? Bye and bye a sixth sense informed Wilfred that Stanny resented the keenness of his interest in this new chum. It was an old grievance of Stanny’s that Wilfred was too quick to be on with the new. So Wilfred looked directly at Taswell no more; happy enough to be in the company of such a one. Plenty of time! he said to himself. We have three days ahead of us.
They descended into the valley, where the road was carried across a clear stream upon an old stone bridge.
“Half a moment,” said Taswell. “I’m thirsty.”
Wilfred and Stanny waited by the parapet.
“Look here,” said Stanny, jerkily. He refused to meet Wilfred’s eye. “Didn’t have a chance to tell you before. I’ve been on the loose again. Suppose you can see it. Three days. Blind. . . . Oh, you needn’t say anything!”
“Not going to,” said Wilfred.
“This fellow . . .” Stanny went on. “When I came to my senses last night I found myself in a dive up near the Harlem river. He was there, too. In the same boat, you understand. Has had a knockout blow. I don’t know what. Won’t talk about it. I haven’t had any knockout blow. The same thing as usual. Nothingness. . . . My money had given out, and so had his. We were put out of the place together. So we walked all the way down to my place, and I took him in. By that time we were ready to shoot ourselves. I found your letter there, so this morning I borrowed enough from the lunch-room down-stairs to pay our fares up. We haven’t a cent.”
“I have enough,” said Wilfred swiftly. “We can stop at night in farmhouses. I’m damn glad you brought him.” He looked over the parapet. “What a splendid young creature, eh, Stanny?”
“I suppose so,” said Stanny, dismally refusing to look. “I hadn’t thought of it. Hadn’t thought of anything at all.”
“One could make a friend of him,” said Wilfred.
“Oh, you could!” said Stanny, sneering.
Wilfred flung an arm around his old friend’s shoulders, and gave him a shake. Stanny looked pettish—a sign that he was on the way to being mollified.
Taswell came springing up the bank. He already felt better, but refused to admit it.
They walked on. Conversation did not flourish as yet; but the two men from town took out their pipes, and that was a hopeful sign. Wilfred was content to bide his time. Stanny had given him much to think about. These two had been down into the depths, yet he profoundly respected them. They were men. They were capable of descending into the depths. He felt like a spore of thistledown alongside them. They were forthright; they were single-minded; they would break before they bent. Whereas he!—he was of a dozen minds, and was continually on the rebound. A knockout blow! Once he had received a knockout blow, and had turned around and made a happy marriage. Oh, he was all right, he thought, smiling ironically at himself, but without bitterness; so things were! He was sure to keep a toehold in society sufficient to obtain in the end a respectable funeral! . . . But what of his two friends? What of Stanny whom he knew so well? He ached with compassion. What could a man do to save his friends? Why nothing, of course. Except to be fond of them. He would have loved to slip an arm through one of theirs on either side; but he suspected they wouldn’t like it.
The three friends were sitting in the general room of a miserable village drinking-place which called itself hotel. After all, they had not stopped at a farmhouse, because, as Wilfred knew, in a friendly farmhouse one must pay for one’s entertainment with sociability; and Stanny and Taswell were short of this coin at present. They had secured a double room in this poor place for a dollar. They were the only lodgers.
They were seated at a bare table with glasses of beer before them. From the bar adjoining came the sounds of loud, empty voices; but they were alone. It was a dreary room; ugly to start with, and worth nobody’s while to keep tidy and clean. There was the usual little desk with a worn book, which had served as a register for many years, and was not yet full; a rusty cigar-lighter; and a glass inkwell, caked with dried spillings. There was another table covered with opened newspapers; and wooden chairs standing about; “hotel” chairs with round backs. On the soiled walls hung an old railway map and a garish calendar.
Things were going well with the three friends. The springs of talk had been released. Young Taswell’s face was red from walking all day in the open; and Stanny had recovered his usual air of mournful dignity. They were talking about Life and so forth in a disconnected way, each bent on expressing himself without much regard for the others.
“The world is shared by the two lots,” Wilfred was saying dreamily “lords and slaves. The queerest thing about the situation is that the slaves are as well pleased with their places as the Lords are with theirs. They will fight for the privilege of remaining slaves! All the trouble is made by a third lot, much smaller; I mean the men who wish to be free themselves, and have no particular desire to lord it over anybody. The other two lots join in hating them of course, for different reasons; and never miss a chance of trying to step on them. And of course they generally succeed, since they own the earth between them. That is why the rarest spirits, the men with a bit of Michael or Lucifer in them (those two are so much alike!) so often end as police court bums or beachcombers.”
“You seem quite cheerful about this rotten state of affairs,” remarked Stanny.
“Oh, the act of talking cheers you,” said Wilfred, grinning. “Thank God! we can still talk about it!”
“You’re a good fellow,” said Taswell, a little condescendingly, “but of course that’s all nonsense. The best men are bound to come to the top!”
“Oh, well, so long as I’m a good fellow . . . !” said Wilfred, laughing.
“You talk all over the place,” objected Taswell. “You don’t follow through. Talking just for the sake of talking; that’s nothing. You must hold fast to certain ideas.”
“Those fixed ideas are the rocks in the rapids on which we shatter ourselves,” said Wilfred.
“What have we got to hang on to, then?” demanded Taswell.
“Nothing! We must let life carry us.”
“Oh, look here . . . ! Nobody knows of course what the end is going to be; but I’ve got to know what I’m doing on the way!”
“I just enjoy the motion,” said Wilfred, smiling.
“You don’t really mean anything you say!” said Taswell, impatiently.
“That’s true, in a sense,” said Wilfred. “But there’s a sort of general meaning to be collected out of the whole.”
“That’s too misty for me!”
Stanny suddenly sprang to Wilfred’s defense. It was one of his most endearing qualities that he would never allow anybody else to abuse Wilfred the way he did himself. “Wilfred is perfectly consistent,” he insisted. “You’ll see that when you know him better. He has constructed a sort of scheme for himself, out of movement, change, balance; give and take; forward and back; and so on. He’s a philosophic chameleon.”
They all laughed.
“Just the same,” grumbled Taswell, “it destroys everything to say that the best men go to the bottom!”
“Your best need not be my best,” said Wilfred.
Taswell stared at him in exasperation.
“I like that figure about the rapids,” said Stanny, off on a tack of his own. “That’s what life is, a rapids. And you have no boat. You are up to your knees in it; or your waist; or your neck; just as your luck may be. With the current tearing at you without a letup. And no shores to climb out on. Steep walls of rock on either side. All you can do is to lean against the current, and drag your feet up, one step at a time.”
Wilfred experienced an actual physical pain that made him grit his teeth. “That’s all damn nonsense!” he said, exasperated with compassion. “The rock of a fixed idea that you’ve been knocking your head against through life! Why insist on it, and make yourself wretched? It is equally as true to say that one may sail downstream with life. The purest pleasure I ever experienced was in shooting rapids in a small boat. I didn’t know what was around the bend, either!”
“Oh well, it’s all talk!” said Stanny, smiling and unconvinced.
Wilfred looked at him, biting his lip. Often one longed to beat the wrong-headed, unhappy Stanny.
Taswell’s mind was still worrying over the original proposition. Taswell was at a disadvantage, because in his person at this moment he was offering a sad commentary on the optimistic philosophy that he cherished. While he scorned Wilfred’s ideas, he was strongly drawn to them. “According to you,” he said to Wilfred, “everything in the world is wrong and rotten!”
“Not everything,” said Wilfred. “Only certain human institutions.”
“The Joe Kaplans,” suggested Stanny.
Taswell, suddenly roused, brought down the soft side of his fist on the table. “Oh,damnhim!” he said thickly.
“Hear! Hear!” said Stanny and Wilfred. “You, too?”
But Taswell’s eyes bolted. He pressed his lips together.
“What brought Kaplan into your mind just then?” asked Wilfred of Stanny.
“He’s just added ‘Truth’ to his string of newspapers and magazines,” said Stanny. “He’s put in a stinker as art editor. I had a row with him. I can see that I am booked to go down where it’s steep.”
They were silent for awhile.
“Whatisright in the world?” asked Taswell at length.
Wilfred, feeling shamefaced before this hard-eyed young stranger, grinned and said: “Well, love.”
Taswell’s eyes bolted again. They all felt inclined to blush.
“Now he’s off on his favorite rocking-horse,” said Stanny.
Laughter relieved the strain.
Taswell’s laughter was brief. “Well, if you ask me,” he said harshly, “love leads you into the blackest hole of them all!”
Neither of the other two looked at him.
“I don’t mean the love of women,” said Wilfred, diffidently.
“He means general love,” said Stanny. “I know all this by heart.”
“I never could get that idea,” said Taswell. “Sounds weak . . . scattered to me. I can’t love everybody. I don’t want to.”
“Well, say understanding,” amended Wilfred. “If I had been Christ I would have put it: ‘Know ye one another!’ ”
“According to your notions, do women fare any better in life?” Taswell demanded abruptly.
“Women or men,” said Wilfred; “we’re all in the same boat. The most glorious ones are apt to go under.”
Taswell was evidently lying in wait for this answer. “I deny that!” he said quickly. “I knew a glorious woman: the real thing; like . . . like . . . well, the real thing! She made a mess of her life—so far you’re right; but she didn’t go under. She picked up what there was left, and went on more glorious than ever!”
“I knew a woman like that,” said Wilfred softly; “like a flag in the wind . . . !”
“Yes . . . yes!” murmured Taswell. “That’s fine . . . !”
“And she made a mess of her life, too. What has happened to her I don’t know. She must have gone under in the best sense, I think, though the semblance of her is still flying.”
“I’ve never known any woman,” said Stanny, with the silly-sounding laugh under which men mask their most painful emotions; “except for an hour or two.”
The talk rambled on. They never agreed upon anything; nevertheless they were drawn together.
Intoa brilliantly lighted, well-filled saloon on the corner of Seventh avenue and Thirty-fourth street, strolled Joe Kaplan. He was wearing an overcoat of English tweed; a white Angora muffler around his neck; and a fashionable soft hat. Evening dress was suggested beneath. Accustomed to being stared at, his expression was bland; but could not altogether conceal the quality of electric alertness which attracted people’s eyes, without their knowing why. Making his way to the bar, he ordered a drink of whiskey. He looked at nobody, but was visibly holding himself in readiness to be hailed. Like a royal prince, he had to be prepared for encounters in the unlikeliest places. He cultivated the note of bonhomie in public, which encouraged hails. This was sometimes inconvenient; but Joe argued that it was better to be hailed than to be watched unknown to yourself.
He was not hailed. Leaning his elbows on the mahogany rail, and embracing the little whiskey glass within one hand, preparatory to kissing it, he gazed with pleasure at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. A thoughtless pleasure, and cumulative; for it made him exult the more, to see himself exulting. Likeness of a fellow with a dandy appetite! The fine creases on either side of his mouth deepened. He observed that the snowy muffler set off his pink skin and jetty black hair with striking effectiveness.
Swallowing his whiskey, he went out again, and turned west in Thirty-fourth street. This neighborhood had lately taken on a nondescript character. The building of the Pennsylvania terminal had brought business among the sedate old dwelling-houses, and some of them were now let out in rooms to all comers. The landlords collected their rents in advance, and shrugged their shoulders: the tenants looked after themselves. Joe had considered all this before hiring a room there.
With a final glance around, to assure himself he had not been recognized, Joe turned into one of the old houses, and mounting to a hall room on an upper floor, let himself in. It had been a family bedroom once; the old-fashioned wall-paper was rubbed and discolored; the grate was full of litter; the floor smelled of dust. There was nothing in the room now but some old clothes hanging from a row of hooks on the back of the door, and a new kitchen chair. Without troubling to make a light, Joe, whistling between his teeth, commenced to take off his fine clothes replacing them with the shabby garments from the back of the door. The chair was to enable him to change his shoes in comfort. He spread a newspaper to protect his stockinged feet from the dusty floor.
In due course he issued out of the house, metamorphosed. He was now wearing a greasy mackintosh with the collar turned up around his neck, and a shapeless cap pulled down over his eyes. He had sloughed off more than the fine clothes; somehow he looked ten years younger, and fifteen pounds lighter. His glance seemed to have become narrower and more penetrating, his nose longer, his cheeks hollower, his mouth more cruel. His gait had become a loose-limbed slouch, full of a latent spring. He gave the effect of a young wolf at his ease, with his tongue lolling. He padded noiselessly along the pavement at an uneven rate, like an idle wolf; sometimes a lighted shop window drew him to stand and gaze with vacant, brilliant eyes.
In another saloon he bought a bottle of whiskey, and carried it away under the mackintosh. At Herald Square he hailed a taxicab, and had himself driven down-town to the corner of Rivington street and the Bowery. He walked east in Rivington street, his steps unconsciously quickening, and becoming purposeful. He loitered no more. Turning into one of the older tenement houses, the springs in his body seemed suddenly to be released. Running up the stairs two at a time, he rapped at a door on the first landing.
There was no answer; and with a black face, he rapped again.
From within, a woman’s voice answered coolly: “You can’t come in.”
Joe looked like a balked wolf then. “It’s me,” he muttered.
“I can’t help it. You’ll have to come back in ten minutes.”
He slunk back and forth before the door, showing his teeth, and impotently glaring at the panels. Then he went noisily down the stairs. Outside, he kept shifting uneasily around the low stoop with his wolflike tread, keeping his glance fixed on the entrance with a snarl fixed in his face; yet half afraid; for suddenly he veered off across the roadway, with his head over his shoulder. He entered a lunch-room opposite, and ordering a cup of coffee, brought it back to the window where he could still watch the entrance to the tenement house. Presently a man came out. Joe had never seen the man, but by his furtive air he knew it was the man he was waiting for. Joe, drawing behind the window frame, watched him, snarling, and profoundly indifferent. Leaving the coffee, he went back across the street.
In the comfortable, clean, ugly room, with a double bed across the front, and a gas-cooker, sink and icebox at the back, Jewel was waiting for him, wrapped in a pink, quilted silk coat, which was beginning to reveal its cotton stuffing. She stood motionless in the center of the floor, dusky, solid, significantly shapeless, like a piece of sculpture beginning to emerge from the stone.
“What the hell . . . !” began Joe angrily. “A nice thing . . . !”
“Aah!” she said, moving slightly. “You don’t own me!”
“You don’t have to have them now!” he cried.
“Sure, I don’t have to have them. But Icanhave them, if I want.”
Joe, cursing, flung his mackintosh on the sofa. Like a wolf, he snarled obliquely.
“If you’d let me know when you were coming . . .” she suggested.
“Aah!” he snarled. “That would spoil it. I like to come on the impulse. . . . And you like me to.”
“Sure, I do,” she said with a slow smile. “But you can’t blame me, if you find me engaged.”
“Damnation!” cried Joe, flinging back and forth across the room with his soft tread. “Oh, damnation! I might as well go, now!”
Jewel shrugged. She moved portentously to the foot of the bed, where she could look out of the second window. She knew quite well he had no intention of going. Looking out of the window, she waited calmly for him to work off the burden of his ill-temper.
“I don’t see why you wont let me hire you a decent place up-town,” he cried.
“Yer on’y tahkin’,” she said. “You ought to know by this time I’ll never take anything off you. Why, you fool, it’s on’y because you got no strings on me that you’re still wild about coming here!”
“How about you?”
She gave him her slow creased smile over a shoulder. “Well, if I ever git enough of you, I’ll let you give me a hundred thousand.”
“But this room!” he grumbled. “On the level . . . !”
“Suits me!” she said. “I wouldn’t change it for the Waldorf Astoria. I fixed my bed so’s I could lie in it all day if I wanted, and look into the street.”
“That’s why you’re so fat,” said Joe. “Gee! you’re fat!”
“Well, they tell me you can’t get too much of a good thing,” she said good-humoredly.
Joe dropped on the sofa, all of a piece. His legs and arms jerked restlessly. There was no guard on his sharp face, and the successive emotions flickered there, and gave place to each other, as inconsistently as in the face of a wild being. He looked at her savagely and cravenly. He snarled; and his whole face became suffused with a dark delight.
“You——!” said Joe thickly. “I’ll pay you out for this!”
Jewel turned around. Her broad face creased into wrinkles. She laughed richly in her throat.
“You come here!” said Joe.
“You come here!” she said coolly. “You don’t own me!”
“I’ll show you!”
She awaited him massively. He did not go to her in a straight line, but veered; and his shoulders writhed. His darting eyes could not meet her steady, laughing ones. His eyes were perfectly irresponsible. Deep, fixed lines of pain and bliss were etched about his grinning lips.
“By God! One of these days I’ll kill you!” he muttered, enraptured.
She laughed from her capacious breast. “You talk so big!”
Raising himself on his elbow, Joe felt around on the bed for the cigarettes. “Just the same,” he said in an aggrieved voice, “I don’t see why you’ve got to have anybody but me.”
“Yeah,” she said, “sit here twiddling my thumbs, eh? till you happen to feel like coming round.”
“I haven’t got anybody but you.”
“Soyousay. How do I know whether you have or not? It’s nothing to me either way. . . . You’ve got a wife.”
“Aah! I don’t trouble her no more. It’s better that way. As long as I did, we used to scrap. . . . She never meant anything in particular to me. Too high-toned.”
“You got plenty other interests,” said Jewel. “Men are my amusement. They come here, and talk about their wives. I listen, and thank my God I’m no man’s wife. I’m a luxury to them, see? And you bet they have to mind themselves around me.”
“Just the same . . .” grumbled Joe.
“What’s the matter with you? You never bothered about it before. Only to-night you happened to. . . .”
“Who was he?”
“I shan’t tell you. He don’t cut no ice, anyhow.”
“Well, I admit I don’t like to have my bed warmed for me.”
“Find another bed, then. There’s no use grousing about it, and you know it. I mean to live as I please.”
“Aah!” he grumbled, “a person would think it was nothing at all to have Joe Kaplan in your bed.”
“Aah!” she retorted, “your money’s no good to youthere!”
She chuckled at her own joke, and the bed shook. Joe, laughing too, tumbled her roughly.
“Your wife must be a funny one,” she said presently.
“She’s all right!” said Joe, carelessly. “I did a damn good day’s work when I copped her. Year by year she gets handsomer. There ain’t a woman in New York can wear diamonds like her. She gives my house the style of a King’s palace.”
“But never to quarrel with you?”
“She’s too proud to quarrel with me. She’d go a hundred miles out of her way to avoid a quarrel. Suits me all right. I don’t want to be bothered around the house. It’s the same about other men. Too proud to look at them. It’s a cinch for me.”
“Well, pride is a cold bedfellow,” said Jewel. “I’m glad I’m not her.”
“God! your breast is so broad and firm!” murmured Joe, pillowing his head there.
“You’re my kid,” she murmured, running her fingers through his thick hair. “For me, you have never got any bigger.”
“On’y a kid?” demanded Joe, raising his head, and grinning close in her face.
“Oh well, a man, too. Crazy about yourself, ain’t yeh?”
“When I come here,” he said, dropping back on the pillow, “a weight rolls off me, sort of. I can let myself go. I been with lots of women, but it wasn’t the same. I was always tryin’ to make them crazy about me. With you, you old slob! I don’t think of nothing. What ud be the use? You know me!”
Rolling over, he flung his arms around her body. “You’re so damn solid, so damn solid!” he muttered. “Gee! it’s great. I don’t know why. You’re so slow and hard to change. It’s funny, but whatever you say seems to come right out of the middle of you. You’re never any different, only more so. Like a tree, damn you! Rooted in the same spot!”
He sat up on the bed, nursing his knees. “Well, here’s me, if you know what I mean. Look at the way I’ve worked and schemed, and gone up like a skyrocket. It’s been a hell of a lot of fun, but it don’t seem quite real. All sparks, like the tail of the rocket. It’s been too easy, maybe. Men are such simps. I never had no setbacks to speak of. All I was concerned with was keepin’ out of jail. The same with women. They fell for me so easy, there was no zip to it. I’ve cut out women. . . .