A New Thing Under the Sun
A New Thing Under the Sun
During the months of summer Belton was usually crowded with city guests, but the last of these departed, as a rule, with the falling leaves, and by the time winter had set in the little town had relapsed into its normal monotony.
One year, however, there was an exception, and Mrs. Bryan, who had pleasant accommodations in her large, old-fashioned house, received, for a stay understood to be indefinite, a city boarder, who arrived in midwinter, and took two of her best rooms at the highest summer rates.
This lady was duly indorsed and recommended—as Mrs. Bryan’s boarders were required to be—in spite of the fact that she was coming with the avowed purposeof getting a divorce from her husband.
The new arrival—Mrs. Leith—proved to be young and exceedingly pretty. All her simple, dark costumes were made in the highest fashion, and had the names of the best French dressmakers on their linings. She was an extremely small woman, exquisitely made, and with minutely perfect hands and feet. She had with her an immense Angora cat, and an old negro servant-woman, who had been her nurse. Her companions are mentioned in the order of their estimation in Mrs. Leith’s regard. The great, white, sleepy, selfish, unresponsive cat was her very idol; and the old negress, who loved and watched over and toiled and suffered for her, was taken little account of, and even, at times, made the object of unreasonable and unjust irritation. But “Mauma,” as her mistress called her, cared nothing whatever for that. The days of slavery were over, but she was held by chainsmore binding and restrictive than any that they could forge or break.
This old woman had an immense power of reserve, and her lips were sealed as to any revelations concerning the past life of her young mistress. Mrs. Bryan, however, made a few notes from her own observation. She noticed, for instance, that Mrs. Leith always looked forward to the coming of the mail with an eager interest, and that, no matter what letters were received, the expression of her face was always the same—disappointment. She wrote few letters, herself, and seemed to take little interest in those that she got. Mrs. Bryan came to know, moreover, that on the not infrequent occasions when Mrs. Leith would excuse herself from coming to meals, the cause was generally a fit of crying which, no doubt, gave rise to the headache which Mauma would name as her excuse. Once or twice, when Mrs. Bryan had accidentally got a glimpse of the inner room, where she had gone to make inquiries,she had seen the same picture—the old negress in a big rocking-chair before the fire, in her arms her young mistress, dressed in a little silk dressing-gown that looked like a baby’s long frock. Mauma was rocking her backward and forward, patting and soothing her, while the poor little creature clung around her neck and sobbed.
The one real interest in Mrs. Leith’s life was Fleecy, the Angora cat; and when, at rare intervals, she chose to show off her accomplishments, and catch the rubber ball her mistress rolled on the floor and bring it to her, Mrs. Leith would grow gay, and laugh until her cheeks were flushed with a rosy and becoming color. Mrs. Bryan had sometimes watched this game, when she would go up with her knitting to Mrs. Leith’s sitting-room.
She had assisted also at another pastime of Fleecy’s, which was more to the cat’s fancy, but much less to that of its mistress.
Mrs. Leith had a standing offer among the servants for live mice, which it afforded Fleecy the highest ecstasy to catch. Always, when the poor little captives would be brought (and fortunately they seemed hard to secure, and were not numerous), there would be a sharp conflict in the mind of Mrs. Leith.
“Oh, I hate to see them frightened and tortured so!” she would say; “but nothing in the world gives Fleecy such delight, and they don’t suffer long. Still, I wish Fleecy liked the dead ones as well.”
She would take her darling in her arms, and say: “Mouse, Fleecy, mouse!” and there was no sort of doubt that the cat understood. She would prick up her ears and great plumy tail, and quiver with delighted anticipation. Then, when the trap was opened and the mouse let loose, Mrs. Leith would clap her hands with delight to see the joy and activity of her great, indolent pet as she would scamper about, over chairs and under tables, wildlypursuing her prey. Invariably, however, when the final moment came, and the piteous little dying squeaks would be heard, Mrs. Leith would turn away and shut her eyes tight, and put her fingers in her ears. Sometimes, when Fleecy had finished her meal, and sat licking her lips, and drowsing in complacent repletion by the fire, Mrs. Leith would give way to reproaches of both her pet and herself, and would think of the sufferings of the poor little victim, till the tears came into her eyes. In spite of that, however, when another mouse was offered, the same scene was invariably re-enacted.
She loved this cat with a passionate affection; more, indeed, than that bestowed by many mothers on their children. She spent hours in combing and brushing its long fur and tying on various ribbons, and she often kissed and squeezed it so ardently as to get scratched in return for her tenderness. She called it by a hundred tender names when this wouldhappen, and blamed herself for her roughness.
There were certain little oddities in Mrs. Leith’s behavior, now and then, which Mrs. Bryan was quick to observe. For instance, one day, when someone remarked that Mr. Manning, the lawyer who was conducting her divorce case, was a very handsome man, Mrs. Leith smiled to herself, in a confident, abstracted way that piqued curiosity; and again, when another man was commended for having very delightful manners, Mrs. Leith said with the same look on her face:
“Oh, do you think so, really?”
Even Mrs. Bryan, who was not very imaginative, got the idea that the little creature had some standard in her mind, measured by which she found these men very small.
Mrs. Leith spent almost her entire time in her own room, sometimes singing to herself, to a guitar accompaniment, impassioned love songs that made hertremble from head to foot with emotion, and often break into uncontrollable weeping. When she was in her not infrequent fits of despondency, even Fleecy was no comfort to her, and she would sometimes complain that she slept so contentedly on the rug.
“She doesn’t love me. She only wants to eat and sleep and be comfortable,” she said one day, in an outburst of despair. “Oh, nobody loves me, nobody loves me! If God would only let me die!”
“Mauma loves you, honey,” the old woman answered. “God ain’ gwine tek you ’way from po’ ole Mauma.”
“What’s the use of your loving me, when you don’t love Bertie? You hate him, and you hate Fleecy, too—you know you do! I don’t want anybody to love me, if they don’t love them. Oh, I’m so wretched!” and she went off into low wails of anguish that subsided, as usual, in sleep.
Many a time would old Mauma sit and hold her so, until her arms and shoulders ached. Small and childish as she was, she was much heavier than a child, but she had no more than a child’s consideration for the trouble she gave, and Mauma would no more have reproached her with this than a mother her baby.
Mrs. Bryan, out of sheer pity, began to feel herself growing attached to her boarder. She seemed to make, however, but little progress in her acquaintance, and things remained just as they had begun, until there came a break in the monotony of their intercourse, caused by the sudden illness of Fleecy.
Mrs. Leith flew wildly downstairs, one morning, her face pallid with fear, and dragged the astonished widow up the stairs, exclaiming that Fleecy was dying. When they got into the room, the big white cat was lying on the lounge, stretching and jerking its body, and giving every indication of the vulgar malady of fits. Maumawas bending over the lounge, but her little mistress flew at her and pulled her away.
“You shan’t touch her,” she cried, angrily, “go away! You have always hated her, and you’ll be glad if she dies! Oh, Mrs. Bryan, you will help me! Do you think she is going to die? Oh, Fleecy, Fleecy, my poor baby, don’t go and leave me! You are all I’ve got in the world.”
The old negress shrugged her shoulders and moved away. It was evident that the reproaches of her mistress amounted to nothing with her. Mrs. Bryan, out of pity for the poor child’s grief, went to work to try to render aid, and, after a little doctoring, Fleecy showed signs of recovery. The gratitude showered upon Mrs. Bryan was touching to see. Mrs. Leith, usually so cold and abstracted in her manner, became suddenly affectionate and effusive. She kissed Mrs. Bryan’s hands and then her face, and begged hernot to leave her. When she was entirely reassured about Fleecy, and had her darling sleeping on her lap, she suddenly caught hold of Mrs. Bryan’s hand and said, impulsively:
“You are good and kind. You have a tender, loving heart. I’d like to talk to you, and tell you about my troubles. May I? Oh, if you knew how unhappy I am, and how no one understands and sympathizes with me!”
Mrs. Bryan moved closer to her, and begged her to speak, assuring her, beforehand, of the sympathy which showed plainly in her face.
Then, still holding the big cat on her lap, and touching it with tenderness from time to time, Mrs. Leith told her story.
A singular one it was, and Mrs. Bryan, as she listened, could not altogether wonder at the friends who had refused to sympathize with Mrs. Leith in her position.
The unhappy young wife, who was inBelton for the sole purpose of getting a divorce from her husband, began her narration by describing him in terms of glowing enthusiasm, as the handsomest, the cleverest, the most charming, gifted, lovable being that mind could conceive. “You think Mr. Manning is handsome,” she said, “and you thought that other man’s manners were charming! If you could see Bertie! It makes me cross to hear Mr. Manning and those other people talked about. Why, Bertie is like what you would imagine a great big angel to be, if it hadn’t any wings and wore clothes. He’s so tall and strong that he can lift me about like a baby, and never get tired in his shoulders, as Mauma does after the least little while. He’s got a figure more beautiful than any statue that was ever made, and hair that curls in little shiny rings the moment he lets it get long enough. Oh, once, in Italy,” she broke off, as a sudden memory came to her, “I persuaded him to let it grow. We werein the country, where no one knew us, and it came down all about his neck. It was so funny. We used to row a great deal, and, though he wore a big peasant’s hat, he got brown as a berry, but his neck was always fair, where his hair hung over it. I used to say it was the only place left for me to kiss, because the sun had made him brown as an Italian, so I wouldn’t kiss him, except there. I always said I felt as if I were kissing some Italian woman’s husband. O Mrs. Bryan,” she said, in a choking voice of pain, “we were so happy then! He loved me so! He never got tired of me, and couldn’t bear me out of his sight. I don’t see why I didn’t die then. If joy could kill, I would have.” She paused a second, and then went on, with a return to her former tone: “You would have to see him before you could understand how poor all other men seem after him. His voice is like a great strong lark’s, that can sing and fly together. He used to singuntil he could be heard for miles, all the time that he was rowing me over those tremendous waves that shook our little boat about like a chip. I never dared to go with any one else, but with him I never had a fear. I often used to think we would be drowned, but I would laugh at the idea, and tell him it would be only to wake up in another heaven with him. Then you were talking about manners! Oh, you can’t have any idea of Bertie’s manners, and I couldn’t give you any! He never goes into a crowded room that everybody doesn’t look at him and speak about him. He seems to know, at once, the ways of every country, and never makes a mistake. And gentle! why, he’s gentler than any woman that ever lived! Children always love him, and so do animals. Fleecy loves him fifty times better than she does me, and you ought to see how he loves Fleecy. I thought it was so good of him to let me keep my dear kitty. I offered to give her up, buthe would not let me. I know she’d be happier with Bertie, and I did offer, but when he said no, I was glad, for Fleecy was all I had left. If Bertie had been here to-night, he would have nursed and doctored her just as you did, instead of getting cross like Mauma. Sometimes I hate Mauma!” she broke off with a vicious snap of her little regular teeth.
For a long time Mrs. Leith talked on, dwelling on the attractions and perfections of the man from whom she was seeking a divorce, until finally her companion, unable to keep down her curiosity any longer, said abruptly:
“I can’t help asking, Mrs. Leith, why you want to be divorced from such a man as that.”
“Want to be!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet, and forgetting even Fleecy, who fell to the floor. “Want to be? Why, I should think you could see that it is killing me! Do I look like a person doing what she wants to do? If you hadseen me a year ago you would not say that. Look at my poor thin arms,” pulling up her sleeve. “They used to be so plump and round that Bertie never tired of kissing and praising them. And look at my face, so white and pasty, when I used to have a color like a rose! Oh, I’m glad he can’t see me now! I’m glad he doesn’t know how I have changed!”
“Then why do you get the divorce?” Mrs. Bryan couldn’t help saying. “You are doing it, and not he—aren’t you? What makes you do it?”
“Because he wants it,” she answered with a look of defiance. She expected nothing else but that Mrs. Bryan would hold with all her other friends, and she wanted to show her, at once, that she did not care.
“And why does he want it?”
“Because he is tired of me—simply that. No one but me can make allowances for him, and I don’t expect it. Iknow you are shocked and indignant and all that, but you may save yourself the trouble. It is terrible and unfortunate for me, of course, but I can see, if no one else does, that it is not unnatural. He is highly cultivated and intellectual, and I am not a companion for him. It was long before I would acknowledge it, but I have looked it in the face at last. I was never worthy of him—but oh, while he loved me, it didn’t matter in the least that I was so inferior to him! And he did love me—he did! he did!—as much as he can love anybody—as much, I do believe, as he will ever love that beautiful, wicked woman he is going to marry.”
“Going to marry!” exclaimed Mrs. Bryan, almost breathless, but the little creature who stood near by with her cold hands pressed against her burning cheeks, and her excited eyes fixed on the fire, paid no attention to the reflection of astonishment in her voice.
“Yes, going to marry,” she said.“That is why he was so determined to have the divorce. I knew he had begun to weary of me; I knew I had nothing in me to keep the love of a great creature such as he is, but I think he would have stayed with me and let me go on loving him, at least, if he had not seen that widow, who made up her mind to have him the moment she laid eyes on him, and saw how far above other men he was.”
“But you could have prevented it! He couldn’t have got the divorce from you. Didn’t he know that?”
“Of course he knew it,” she answered, in the petulant tone she often used to Mauma. “He’s a man thoroughly informed on every subject. He knew he could never get it, and that the only way was for me to do it. He made a great mistake, though, and gave himself and me six miserable months of suffering.”
“How do you mean?”
“He tried to force me to sue for adivorce,” she said; “and used every means that he could think of. My friends were wildly excited, and demanded that I should get the divorce, but they might as well have talked into the air. I had but one answer: ‘I love him—love him—do you understand? And there is nothing love cannot forgive!’”
“Love—yes,” retorted Mrs. Bryan, now no longer able to control her indignation. “Love is all very well—but where is your pride?”
The tiny creature standing on the rug drew herself to her full height, and looked her in the eyes, as she answered:
“I have none, where he is concerned.”
“Merciful goodness!” exclaimed the other, with a deep-drawn breath. “Then if you haven’t any pride, what induced you to agree to the divorce?”
“Love,” said the other, solemnly. “If he had understood that—if he had made that appeal at first—he might have had his way in the beginning, instead of theend. If, instead of subjecting me to all the shame and outrage that he made me endure, he had done at first what he did at last, he might have spared himself as well as me much suffering.”
“You don’t mean to say you consented because——”
“Because I loved him,” she replied, in a voice beginning to shake, as her eyes began to fill. “Oh, why do I talk about it? No one will ever understand. You are all alike, and blame me, because you don’t know what it is to love, as I love him. He came to me at last, after those awful months, and when he came into the room and shut the door behind him, and I looked up and feasted my hungry eyes on the sight of him, the love that shook my breast then was a thing you other women don’t know. He called my name. ‘Mimi,’ he said, ‘you have it in your power to make me happy, if you will.’ And I said: ‘I will do anything you ask.’ He came then and took me in his armsand told me he wanted me to get the divorce. He said he was selfish and vile and unworthy of me, that I would be happier without him, and a great deal more such trash, and I told him I had but one desire in the world, and that was to make him happy, and that I would give him the divorce. With those arms around me, and those eyes looking into mine beseechingly, there was nothing I could have denied him—only I had rather it had been the last drop of my blood he had asked for. That was not what he wanted, though, and I gave him what he did want. I asked him if it would not please him better if I were dead, and if he had said yes, I would have killed myself. But he said no, that would make him wretched; he only wanted me to let him be free, and to be free myself to marry some good man who would make me happy as I deserved. He knows that woman isn’t good; he told me so himself—at least he said she was utterly different from me, and so muchmore fit to be the companion of a poor devil like himself. I don’t know how it is,” she broke off, passionately, “but if being a devil could make him love me again, I’d be a devil, too, if I could! Of course you’re shocked, but I would! Well, no matter what happens, I’ve got that evening to remember. He had not been pleased with me for so long, that it was like heaven on earth to have him as he was then. He let me sit on his lap, and hold him tight around the neck, and kiss his curls and his eyes and his darling mouth. You needn’t look so horrified,” she said with sudden resentment, “he was my husband still, and he’s my husband now, and I’m proud and happy I can say it a little while longer.”
At the last words her voice gave way completely, and she threw herself down on the lounge and burst into violent sobbing. It was piteous to see her, and Mrs. Bryan, in spite of the tempestuous indignation this recital had aroused in her, felt herheart grow soft with sympathy as she looked at the little figure, no bigger than that of many a child of fourteen, shaken with great sobs of anguish—the deep and incurable anguish of a loving and despised wife.
She did her best to comfort her, and forced herself not to criticise, knowing intuitively what the poor little thing must have already suffered at the hands of her friends.
She found, however, that the task of comforting her was an impossible one. All she could do was to soothe and speak lovingly to her, and to avoid abuse of her husband; she felt it would be the cause of hopeless estrangement between them, if she allowed herself to express her true opinion of him.
At last, when Mrs. Leith had consented to be covered up, and made physically comfortable, and had drunk a cup of tea, Mrs. Bryan left her to try to get a nap. She had Fleecy in her arms, with her headpeeping out above the coverlet, and had laid her cheek against it with a degree of affectionateness that she seemed unable to show to the human beings about her.
“It is only because Bertie loves Fleecy, and she loves him,” said the little creature, answering the unspoken thought which she had read in Mrs. Bryan’s eyes.
As the latter passed through the outer room, where Mauma was sitting at the window running the narrow ribbons in and out of the eyelet holes in Mrs. Leith’s dainty French underclothes, she stopped and looked at the old woman inquiringly.
“She bin tell you all ’bout it, has she?” said Mauma, looking up over the top of her brass-rimmed spectacles. “I knowed how it gwine be, soon ez I see you done tech her heart, by nussing o’ that black varmint.” (It always seemed to give Mauma great satisfaction to apply the word “black” to Fleecy’s creamy whiteness.) “I’m glad you kin mek out to show some likin’ fur de dirty thing, en to pleaseMissy I’d do it myself, ef I could. De Lord knows ef anythin’ kin please her, I want her to have it, but it’s more’n I got sense to do, to ack like I love dem two darlin’s o’ hern.”
“Then you don’t like Mr. Leith, either?” said Mrs. Bryan, tentatively.
“Like him? Nor’m, I don’t like him, I don’ like him for nuthin’—a good-for nuthin’, low-life raskill, as ain’t worthy to tech Missy’s feet! Thar ain’ but one thing in the worl’ I won’ do for Missy, en that’s it! I ain’ gwine say I like him, kus I pintedly don’t, en I’d wring he neck same ez a chicken’s, ef I had de chance. Lor’, mistiss, you don’ know. You don’ know nuthin’! De sights he is tuk dat air little angel-chile through is enough to tun yer hyar right white. ’Tain’ no kine o’ shame en meanness he ain’ bin heap up on her—a puppus to mek her git de divoce. En you think she’d do it? Nor’m, she wouldn’! She bin quoil wid ev’ry fr’en’ she got in de worl’ ’long o’ that! Sheain’ ’low nobody to say nuthin’ gin’ him. All she say is, ‘When you love, you kin furgive anything.’ He mought ’a’ kep’ on, twel jedgmen’-day, en he mought ’a’ drug her through de streets by de hyar o’ her hade, en she wouldn’ nuver ’a’ uttered a complaint. De warn’ but one way he could ’a’ got her to git dat divoce, en he jis dat mean en sneakin’ dat he bin foun’ dat way out. He come to her at las’ wid all he impident, sweet ways, en he jiss coax en beg for it. I knowed den ’twas all up. She ain’ nuver been able to say no to him in her life, en she couldn’t say it den. So she tell him. Yes, she do it fur de sake o’ makin’ him happy en pleased wid her. She sont right off fur de lawyer, en made all de ’rangements. I hear him tell her myself dat ’twas easy ’nough to do. Yes, Lord! I reckon ’twas easy, wid dem scan’lous doin’s o’ his! Lor’, honey, you don’ know,” and the old woman ended, shaking her head with an air of deep mystery.
The ice once broken between Mrs. Bryan and her boarder, frequent confidences followed, but it was always the same thing, with more or less detail, as to the charm, superiority and lovableness of the husband she had renounced, or was now making it her business in life to renounce. It was evident to Mrs. Bryan that the days passed all too quickly for Mr. Manning’s client, and that she clung desperately to the mere form that retained him as her husband.
In the monotonous regularity of her life at Belton she began to improve in health and looks. Mauma attributed it to the fact that she no longer had the torment of discussions and protest from her relatives and friends, who had one and all abandoned her to her own devices. So indomitable a will in so slight a body, it was certainly strange to find. After the promise to her husband she had never faltered, though the idea of the divorce was evidently terrible to her beyondwords. She told Mrs. Bryan that she was twenty years of age, but it was hard to believe it. She looked a mere slip of a girl, and was made with such exquisite perfection, that that fact seemed to make her look smaller than she really was. Every one who saw her was fascinated by her beauty, but she was cold to all overtures of friendship, and seemed to have exhausted on her husband and Fleecy all her capacity for affection. She still cared scrupulously for her toilet, though she wore only the one or two dark dresses in which she had appeared on first coming to Belton. Her mother had been a Creole, and from this source she had got her little French name, Mimi, which she told Mrs. Bryan her husband usually abbreviated into “Mim.” There was also a trace of her French origin in her utterance—a certain peculiarity of ther—that gave her a sort of unusualness which added to her charm.
One day, the morning of which hadpassed in the usual uneventful way, Mrs. Leith was sitting with Mrs. Bryan in the latter’s sitting-room, when a telegram was brought in. Mrs. Bryan took it, and then handed it to her companion, to whom it was addressed. As she read it she sprang to her feet and uttered a cry—unmistakably a cry of joy.
“Read it—he is coming!” she said.
Mrs. Bryan put on her glasses and read these words:
“Must see you on important business. Arrive at eight o’clock.“B.”
“Must see you on important business. Arrive at eight o’clock.“B.”
“Must see you on important business. Arrive at eight o’clock.
“B.”
“I must go—I must get ready. Where is Mauma? Mauma!” she called as she hurried from the room, and ran up the stairs.
Half an hour later Mrs. Bryan went to her boarder’s room. She found everything in confusion. Trunks stood open in the middle of the floor; Eastern stuffs were scattered all about; exquisite dresses were lying in heaps, and poor old Mauma, with protest written on the very curve of herback, was diving into a trunk, and tranquilly accepting a scolding for not knowing where some indispensable article was.
“I am going to hang these stuffs about the room, and get out a few ornaments,” Mrs. Leith explained. “I won’t hurt anything, but Bertie does so love to see things look ‘homey and comfy,’ as he calls it. Will you send someone to the florist, and tell him I want lots of flowers—all that he has? Oh, Mrs. Bryan, do tell me—honestly and candidly—which of these dresses I look best in. You see, I can’t tell just what humor he will be in. Sometimes he likes to see me dressed as richly as possible—and then again I can’t be too simple. Oh, yes, I forgot—I know what I’ll wear! I’d rather he’d see me very simple—for I can imagine he’s seen plenty of magnificence lately. I’ll wear just this little whitecrêpegown—one he used to love. Perhaps he’ll remember he praised it once, and be pleased at my remembering. Oh, Mauma, where’s the girdle? You don’tseem to know where anything is, and if you’ve lost that girdle—” she stopped, with sudden tears of vexation in her eyes.
Mauma came toward her with the girdle in her hand. She darted forward to take it, and gave the old woman a sudden hug, as she said, coaxingly:
“Don’t be cross with me to-day, Mauma—please don’t. I’m so happy. You ought to be glad your child is going to be happy once more in her life. He’s sure to be pleased with me, for I’ve done every little thing he wants. Oh, to think I’m going to see him once more!” Then, with a sudden change of tone, she added: “Don’t be vexed with me if I’m cross and rude to-day. I’m so wild with joy that I can’t stand the suggestion of anything else. And oh, Mrs. Bryan, if you saw him, you would not wonder. Promise me this,” she cried, seizing the other woman by both hands with intense earnestness, “promise me that you will go to the door, yourself, when he comes, andthat you’ll just say some little thing to him, so as to make him speak. I want you to hear his voice, and get some idea of his manner. Then, after that, if you talk about Mr. Manning or Mr. Anybody else, I’ll promise to listen to you!”
Mrs. Bryan agreed to do as she wished, and went away more puzzled and astonished at the ways of her boarder than she had been yet.
Shortly before eight o’clock that evening, Mrs. Bryan, dressed in her neatest black dress, and wearing her freshest cap, went up to Mrs. Leith’s sitting-room. When she entered, she hardly recognized it, and felt as if she must be in a dream. Wax candles, with pink shades, were set about in groups; the walls and furniture were decorated with rich embroideries and Eastern stuffs, and beautiful flowers were massed together on tables and mantel. Fleecy had been freshly washed, and was ornamented with a gay pink ribbon tied in an enormous bow at the back of her neck,suspending a little gold bell, which tinkled as she walked about with her great tail in the air. A glowing wood fire burned on the hearth, and on a white fur rug, which had been spread in front of it, stood Mimi. The metamorphosis in her was quite as startling as in the room. She was dressed in a scant and clinging little gown of whitecrêpe, half-low about the throat, from which a fall of creamy lace hung down. It was loosely gathered in about the waist by a silver girdle, and had great flowing sleeves, from which her little hands came out divested of all ornament, except her wedding-ring. Her tiny feet were cased in white slippers worked with silver. But the wonder of it all was her face. It was nothing short of radiantly beautiful this evening. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were pink as roses. Her hair, instead of being twisted, as usual, into a decorous knot, was falling free about her shoulders. It was not long, but curly and fluffy as a child’s.
“You look about twelve years old,” was Mrs. Bryan’s comment.
“Bertie always said so, when I wore my hair like this,” she answered, delightedly. “He loves it this way best of all. I was so afraid I’d look too old to do it; but if I have grown old and thin, thank thegoodGod, it doesn’t show to-night!”
It was the first expression of religious fervor that Mrs. Bryan had ever heard her use; but as she said this, she clasped her hands and looked upward in a rapture of thanksgiving, the sincerity of which could not be doubted.
“Fleecy, do you know who’s coming?” she exclaimed, suddenly catching the big cat up, and looking into its face as if it had been a child’s. “Master, Fleecy—master!”
Fleecy certainly pricked up her ears, seeing which her mistress covered her with rapturous kisses, while Mrs. Bryan had more than a suspicion that Fleecy mistookthe word “master” for “mouse;” but this she would not have dared to suggest.
“Isn’t it after eight?” said Mimi, looking at the little clock on the mantel. “Oh, if he shouldn’t come!” And at the thought of this the color faded from her cheeks. It came bounding back, however, the next minute, as the door-bell was heard.
When Mrs. Bryan reached the landing at the head of the stairs, she found Mauma leaning over the railing and looking into the hall below.
“Is it Mr. Leith?” Mrs. Bryan asked.
“Yes, it’s him—the ugly buzzard!” answered Mauma, with intense disgust.
It was impossible not to smile at this comment as applied to the man whom Mrs. Bryan now went forward to meet. She acknowledged at once, as she saw him shaking the thick snowflakes from the collar of his coat, that his beauty had not been exaggerated. He was a magnificent, blond creature, with youthful strength andhealth in every line of figure and face. A ready smile of good humor rose to his lips, as he took off his hat with a splendid grace and made Mrs. Bryan a bow.
“Mrs. Leith is expecting you,” she said. “Will you go up to her sitting-room?”
“Yes, thanks, when I have got rid of some of this snow. I must ask your forgiveness for bringing so much of it into your house. It’s clean, however, and I hope will do no harm.”
As he spoke he was taking off his long, fur-lined coat, and as he threw in on a chair, he looked at her again and smiled.
“Oh, I’ll have it brushed for you!” she said, and then stopped short, provoked at having been so civil to the man whom she had intended to treat with cold contempt.
“Walk upstairs,” she said, more distantly. “I’ll go with you, and show you the room.”
He gave her the smallest of bows, butit gave the old widow an agreeable sense of homage. As he preceded her up the stairs, he said, in a voice no one could fail to find delightful:
“What a fascinating old house you have!”
The compliment was agreeable to her, but at the same time she felt a certain indignation that he could be so unmoved at the prospect of an interview which had put that poor child, waiting yonder, in a fever of agitation.
Mauma had disappeared from the landing, and when Mrs. Bryan had pointed out the door, she turned and went downstairs. She heard his quick knock, and then the turn of the knob. As she looked back, he was just disappearing and closing the door after him.
In the room beyond that closed door intense silence reigned for some moments. Leith had come no farther than across the threshold, and stood with his back against the door. Then, undoubtedly, Fleecy recognizedhim, for she came forward and began to rub against his legs, making a purring noise distinctly audible in the silent room. Fleecy’s mistress stood on the rug intensely still, with her hands clasped tight together.
Presently the man spoke, in his very gentlest voice.
“Fleecy is glad to see me,” he said in a tone of tender reproach.
“And so am I! Oh, Bertie!” she gasped, catching her breath with a sort of sob.
“Are you?” he said, and, standing where he was, he held out his arms. In a second she had flown to them, and the great man had lifted her off her feet and caught her to his breast and held her there. She clung with both arms around his neck, and laid her face in the hollow of his throat. For a few seconds neither spoke, and then he put her down, still holding one of her hands, and led her so across the room.
“So you are glad to see me, Mim!”he said, standing on the hearth-rug, and taking her little face between his large, beautiful hands.
“I worship you,” she said, looking up at him, through two big tears.
“So you’re just as big a goose as ever!” he said, almost in a whisper, still holding her so and looking down at her. “I suppose I ought to be sorry, but do you think I am? Well, I’m not. I’m glad!” Impossible to describe the winning charm of this man’s manner, or the tender beauty of his face as he said this. “But stand off and let me look at you,” he went on, loosing her face to take her two hands and hold her at arm’s length by them. “Who said you were losing your beauty? It’s not so. You’re absolutely bewitching. I doubt—now I’m going to tell you something that will make you happy for a year—I seriously doubt, upon my word of honor, whether any one else in the world is so pretty.”
She smiled until her cheeks dimpled,but the next moment the tears had sprung to her eyes.
“What does it matter,” she said, “if you don’t care?”
“Don’t I, though? I can tell you I do care tremendously. Do you suppose, after all that’s been between you and me, that I shall lose interest in you and never care what happens to you in the future?”
“But if we never see each other——”
“Yes, I know,” he said hurriedly. “That’s pretty hard, poor baby! But don’t think, in spite of all that’s happened, don’t think I’m not sorry for you. Sometimes, when I think about how unhappy and lonely you are, it drives me wild. I have to go to the theatre, or play polo, or do something to make me forget it. There’s one thought that always consoles me, however, and that is that you’ll be well rid of such a scamp as I am. I’ve been a brute to you, Mimi, and one thing that brought me here was to ask you to forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Bertie; I’ve never had one hard feeling toward you,” she answered in a low and resolutely steadied voice.
“That’s because you’re an angel on earth, not because I haven’t treated you abominably. I know it and confess it freely, but I hate to think about it.”
“Then don’t think about it, our last evening together.”
The words almost choked her, and he saw her throat swell; he saw, too, that she was making a tremendous effort not to cry. They had sat down in two chairs in front of the fire, and were looking away from each other. After a short silence the man turned toward her, compelling her, by his persistent gaze, to turn her eyes to his. Then he said:
“It isn’t natural for us to sit together like this. You used to—” He smiled and laid his hand on his knee. She came at once and took the seat, and when she had done so, he lifted one of her armsand laid it around his neck. Then he laughed—a low laugh of appreciative amusement.
“I’m sure I don’t know whether this is proper or not,” he said, “and I suppose you can’t inform me. By Jove, thisisa situation! Come, Mim, I always said you had no sense of humor, but you can’t help seeing the fun of this!”
The poor child tried her best to smile, but perhaps his accusation of her was not unjust, for the effect was a complete failure, and she had to hide her face against his neck to conceal the fact that tears had come instead of smiles.
“Don’t try to make me laugh,” she said; “if you do, I’m sure to cry, and I do not want to do that. It always made you angry to see me cry.”
“All right, then, we won’t laugh or cry either. We’ll just be sensible, and you’ll show me what a little brick you really are. You’ve acted in a way already to win a tremendous respect from me. You canjust remember that. I don’t know another woman who’d have behaved as well. And, now, let me show you something. Don’t move, it’s just here in my pocket. I had such a sweet idea the other day. You see,” he went on, as she sat up to look, “I knew you’d feel badly about leaving off the ring, when—when the time comes, so I’ve got you another—not plain gold, of course, but one you can always wear, in place of it, for my sake. Isn’t it a little beauty?” He opened his hand and showed her a ring set with two very perfect pearls, one white and one black.
“The white’s for you, and the black’s for me,” he said, laughing, as he slipped it on her finger. “I knew it would fit,” he went on, “forIknew what a mite of a hand it was for! The man thought it was for a child.”
“Oh, how dear, how lovely, how beautiful it is!” said Mimi. “How good you were to think of it! But, Bertie—” She hesitated a moment, and then said: “Youwon’t be vexed if I ask you something, will you?”
“I don’t know,” he said, with a slight frown. “I don’t like questions.”
“Oh, I know that—and I’m not going to inquire into anything! You needn’t be afraid of that. All I want is to know whether—when the time comes—I’ll be obliged to take off my wedding-ring? Couldn’t I wear it still?”
She looked into his face with the most earnest beseeching, and evidently with intense anxiety as to his reply.
“Oh, I suppose you could—if you wanted to! I don’t see why not. I never heard of anyone’s doing it, but of course you can keep it on, if it will be a comfort to you. It’s a natural enough wish. Precious thing! I declare it’s perfectly touching!”
“Oh, thank you, Bertie,thankyou!” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck again. “You don’t know what a load you have taken off my mind!”
“Poor little Mim,” he said, gently stroking her hair, “how you can care as you do about such a devil of a scamp as I am is the mystery!”
“You are not—you are good,” she said brokenly, “and Bertie, there is just one more thing I want to ask you to let me keep. If you’ll do that, I’ll be satisfied.”
“What is it?”
She put her lips to his ear and whispered: “Your name.”
He did not answer immediately, and turning to look in his face, she saw that he looked perplexed.
“Upon my word, my darling child, I don’t know how that is, but if it can be arranged, of course I am willing,” he said.
“Oh, Bertie, Bertie! How can I ever thank you? I was almost afraid to ask it—but it would break my heart to have to give up your name.”
“There, then, precious child, you shan’t!” he said, soothingly. “I’ll talk to the lawyers about it at once. Thereare one or two business points on which I have to speak to you—things you will have to give your consent to. That is what I came chiefly to see about—at least that was my excuse, though I wanted to see you, too, and to be sure you had forgiven me. You do believe I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you—don’t you, darling?”
“Oh, I know you are! I know you wouldn’t have done it willingly. It was only a misunderstanding. If you had come to me at first and told me what you wanted me to do, I would have done it. It’s the same thing now. There is no need to consult me. All you have to do is to tell me what it is you want me to consent to.”
“We can get through with it very quickly, then,” he said. “I might have known how good and generous you would be; but you see I can’t help making the mistake of thinking you are like the rest of the world, which you are not!”
He explained to her briefly, then, the points on which he had wanted to confer with her, but found, as she had said, that he had her consent to everything he wished beforehand.
“Oh, don’t let’s spoil our last, last time, by talking about things like that!” she said, presently. “Let’s take Fleecy up between us and be happy this once, as we used to be all the time.”
So Fleecy was called and put in the old familiar place, where she nestled snugly down, and purred and dozed in absolute contentment. Both of them caressed the cat in silence for a moment, the tiny hand following the big one up and down its back. Presently Mimi lifted her hand, and said:
“Kiss my ring, please. I should always be regretting it, if I didn’t make you do that.” He kissed it, and the hand too, holding it against his lips a full moment, so that she felt his breath upon it.
Presently she spoke again: “Have Ibeen good?” she said. “Are you pleased with me, Bertie? Do tell me so, if you are. I want to remember that you said so.”
“Pleased with you, my good little darling? Why, how could I fail to be? The more I see of your goodness, the more convinced I am that I was never worthy of you, and my hope is that, once freed of me, you will meet some man who will deserve you better and make you happy.”
She put her little hand over his mouth, so that the last words were stifled, as she said to him, in a voice of keen reproach:
“Bertie, how can you, how dare you think of such a thing? It is the one thing on earth I couldn’t forgive you for. I can forgive utterly and freely your getting tired of me, and wanting a cleverer, handsomer, more amusing wife. It is nothing but natural that you should, and I can see it. But, oh, my dear darling, don’t believe that I could ever love any one else!If I thought you would believe that of me, I don’t believe I could help killing myself. Promise me, Bertie; give me your word, you’ll never say such a thing as that again.”
“I promise, child; I promise,” he replied, half-awed by the intensity of her reproach. “You are a mystery to me, and I’m a mystery to myself, to have won such love.”
“You didn’t win it,” she said; “you just got it, by being what you are.”
“But no one else has ever given it to me—or ever will,” he added, with conviction.
“Ah!” she said, with a deep, indrawn breath, sitting upright on his knee, and clasping her hands tight together, “you will find that out, Bertie! I know no one will ever love you as I do.”
“I know it too,” he said, a look of despondency suddenly crossing his face.
“Bertie,” she said, timidly. “Don’t be angry with me if I ask you something.”
“I warned you not to ask questions.”
“Yes, I know, but I’m not going to do anything to bother you. I promise that, and you know I always keep my word. Only, if you would tell me about things, it would be easier than hearing it from others, or from the papers. But suppose,” she was watching his face intently, to see if its expression permitted her to go on, “suppose,” she said, timidly, “you were to grow tired of her, and wanted her, for your sake, to give you your freedom. Do you think she’d love you enough to do what I have done?”
A curious smile came suddenly to his face:
“Do what you have done?” he said. “I think she’d probe for my heart with a polished stiletto sooner, or put a spider into my dumpling!”
“Then she loves herself better than she loves you—and I love you better than I love myself!”
She said these words with an infinitesatisfaction, and the expression of her face was triumphant—almost happy. Her cheeks had still that feverish color, and her eyes were wide and brilliant, as they rested with a hungry, expectant look upon his face. He, meantime, sat silent, looking into the fire. When, at last, compelled by her steady gaze, he looked at her, there was such dumb, intense entreaty in her eyes as he could not misunderstand.
“Mim,” he said, in a whisper, “do you want me to kiss you?”
The tears sprang to her eyes. “If you wouldn’t mind—just once,” she answered.
Their lips met in a long kiss. As he drew backward from it, he put her gently from him, and rose to his feet.
“I must say good-by, now,” he said. “It’s time for me to go.”
She gave a little cry, and looked at him with a half-distracted gaze, as she said, excitedly:
“Oh, not yet—not yet, surely! I thought you would stay for hours. Oh, Bertie, don’t leave me yet—just as we were so happy! My heart will break!”
She turned away with an instinct to conceal from him the agony in her face. He saw her wring her little hands together, and then put them to her lips and bite them, and he knew she was making an effort, for his sake, not to cry. But it was worse still to see this courageous struggle with agony, and his one thought was to get away.
“Bertie,” she said, suddenly turning toward him her pallid and terrified face, “I’m going to bear it if I can. I’ll do my very best, but if—if I find I can’t—if it is going to be like this always, and I can’t bear it, would you mind it very much—do you think you could keep from letting it make you unhappy—if I couldn’t bear it—and killed myself?”
“Mind it! What are you talking about! Why, what do you think I’m made of?I should never have another happy moment as long as I lived. You would simply make me a miserable man for life.”
“Then I won’t do it!” she said, hurriedly. “Indeed, indeed, I won’t! Don’t look at me reproachfully, darling! Forget that I ever thought of that. It was only a moment’s frenzy, and it doesn’t really amount to anything. I give you my promise not to do it, and I know you’ll believe in that.”
“Lord, what a relief!” he said, with a great sigh. “You frightened me out of my wits; but of course you didn’t mean it. Now that you’ve promised, I feel safe. You are too good and tender to give me such a life-long sorrow as that would be. You never could have done it; but it gave me a scare. You don’t believe it now, but once it is inevitable, you’ll get over this extreme feeling about me, and be happy.”
“O Bertie,” she said, timidly, “I don’t want to make you angry, dearest, but ifyou onlywouldn’tsay that! I’m willing for you to think of me as happy, if it would comfort you, but not by losing one atom of my love for you. Try to think of it this way—that I’m happy because I love you, so that to have given you the wish of your heart makes me happier than to have the wish of my heart. Will you try?”
“Of course I will, darling. I’ll do anything on earth I can to please you. I’m sure I ought. But now,” glancing at the clock, “I must really be going. I’m obliged to get back on to-night’s train.”
It was no use struggling any longer. She had no strength for the effort. With the weakness of utter surrender, she threw herself into his arms and sobbed.
“There, there, baby,” he said, soothingly. “Don’t cry so, darling. Why, there’s lots and lots to make you happy in life yet. I’ll always remember you as the noblest and most unselfish little woman that ever lived; you’ll have that to comfortyou. Don’t let it make you so wretched, precious child. You and Fleecy will have many merry days together yet.”
At the mention of Fleecy, who was contentedly napping on the rug, the poor little creature lifted her head, to say, brokenly:
“Would you like to have Fleecy? You always loved her so. I meant to tell you you could have her if you wanted. I could give her up, if it would please you.”
“No, my precious, no—not for the world. I wouldn’t take her from you, for anything. How could you think I’d be so selfish?”
“Thank you, darling,” she sobbed, with her face hidden on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t care so very much to keep her, but that you gave her to me, and loved her, and she was always with us when we were so happy. Oh, Bertie, darling, beloved, precious treasure of my heart, you’ve been so good to me! You made me, for two years, the happiest creatureoutside of heaven. If it’s any comfort to you, you can think of that.”
“Of course it will be a comfort to me, darling—and, by Jove, I expect to need something to comfort me, when I think of you, and how unhappy I’ve made you!”
“Don’t reproach yourself. You couldn’t help it. I always knew there was nothing in me to keep the love of such a man as you. Oh, Bertie, my husband!” she cried, still clasping his neck, but drawing back that she might look into his eyes, “let me call you by that name once more, for you are still my husband—mine, mine, mine, and no one else’s! Call me ‘wife’ once more, my darling, before we say good-bye.”
“My little wife, my little wife—my good, true, noble, unselfish, little wife,” he said, while her arms clasped him tighter and tighter, and a shiver shook her little frame from head to foot.
The man’s face, too, was seamed withthe lines of pain and disturbance. He looked at the clock and at the door, with the evident desire to escape; but he could not force her from him while she cried and clung like this.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” he said, suddenly, as a thought struck him, “I’ll walk you, as I used to do, when you got nervous and unhappy. It always made you quiet—do you remember?”
“Oh, you’re so good to me, darling!” she murmured, as he took her up in his arms like a child, and began to walk up and down the room with her. He was magnificently strong, and she was light and little, so that it was no great tax upon him. Fleecy, with her plumy tail held high and her little gold bell tinkling, joined them, and walked at their side, up and down, up and down. Now and then Mimi would murmur some words of tenderness and gratitude, and he would answer with some soothing caress.
The faculty of humor was not lackingin his composition, at least, for, in spite of the agitated pain he had just been suffering, when he caught sight of the little procession in passing a mirror, he smiled at his own reflection. The smile was quickly suppressed, however, as he went on speaking to her soothingly. It had—as he had predicted—a marvellous effect. The little thing ceased sobbing, and her breast grew quiet, after its excited heavings.
At last, the clock struck, and he took her to the lounge and laid her down. “I have not another moment,” he said, “you will let me go now, like the good, brave darling you are?”
“Yes,” she whispered, in a faint, unnatural tone. “I’ll let you go now. Tell me good-by once more.”
“Good-by, my darling wife.”
“Good-by, my darling husband.”
She put her lips up, and he pressed a quick kiss on them, and was gone.
On the landing outside Mauma was sitting,erect and repellent, in every line of figure and face.
“Go to your mistress, Mauma,” said Leith. “I trust you to look after her and take good care of her.”
“Yes—bress de Lord, I say!” replied Mauma, with cold contempt. “It’s a pow’ful good thing nobody don’ trus’you—fur that or nuthin’! Dee’d find deeselves mistaken, ef dee did.”
With a smile of amusement, the man shook off the sadness that had clung to him, in coming from that room, and said in a gay, though carefully lowered tone:
“You’re just the same as ever, Mauma, I see! Well, I’m glad of it. I wouldn’t have you changed for anything. I always told your mistress that you were the one woman I had found it impossible to win! So, you see, you have a unique charm for me.”
“I hope to de Lord some woman’ll pay you back fur what you’se bin mekdat angil-child suffer,” was the solemn response, “en you mark my words—de day’s gwine come!”
With his unfailing instinct to escape from what was unpleasant, Leith hurried down the stairs, threw on his coat, and let himself out into the street. As the door closed behind him, Mauma, bending over her little mistress, found that she was in a dead faint.
Restoratives were used, and she at last recovered consciousness; but that evening’s ordeal was followed by a long attack of fever, in which death, after promising relief for a while, withdrew and left her to her life of misery.
“There is one blessing in this illness,” Mr. Manning said to Mrs. Bryan, when he called one day to inquire for the invalid, “she never knew the day of her divorce. Now she will just recognize the fact that it is past, and that she’s no longer that scoundrel’s wife. A more cold-blooded, selfish, unmitigated brute I never cameacross, and it’s a blessed thing she’s got the divorce, poor little thing! All the same, it has broken her heart.”
By the time the invalid was able to go about again, the papers mentioned the marriage of Herbert Leith, in Spain.
Nothing but the bare fact reached the ears of Mimi, who still bears his name and wears his ring, and bullies Mauma and pampers Fleecy, and looks almost as childish, though never as pretty again, as she did on the night of that parting.