CHAPTER XXII.THE FIRST CLOUD.
Dr. Delano, on taking his bride home, was somewhat surprised that Ella had left—accepted suddenly an invitation to spend the winter in Maryland, among some old friends of the family. Clara was hurt by this evident desire to avoid Albert’s wife, but his vanity was secretly well satisfied by the act. Ella could not stay and witness a happiness that should have been hers. He excused her going, therefore, with a good grace, and made Clara do so also, though the effort revealed a flaw in the diamond, a touch of vanity she had not dreamed could exist in her idol.
Mr. Delano received his daughter-in-law with a quiet, courteous pleasure, that was evidently felt. Miss Charlotte’s manner was stately, and just what it should be according to etiquette, though a good deal out of harmony with Clara’s exalted happiness, which made her a little impatient to see people so calm and self-possessed.
Mr. Delano, after his illness, yielded to the advice of friends and retired from business. It had proved a very unwise step. He had given all the best years of his life to acquiring wealth—in fact, to preparing for the enjoyment of life; and lo! when the wealth was gained, the enjoyment he had promised himself fled before him like the horizon “whose margin fades forever and forever” aswe move. He had been rich enough all his life had he only known it, and the increase of luxurious surroundings in his stately residence on Beacon street were no more than Dead Sea apples in his mouth. During his active business life he had constantly purchased books and extended his library. These also he was to enjoy by-and-by, when he got leisure to read anything beyond the daily papers. He had not counted the fact that there are many things wealth cannot purchase, and among them is the capacity for ease.
On the wide and elegant balcony upon which his library opened, commanding a view of a beautiful garden at the rear of the mansion, there had been swung an elegant Mexican grass hammock for Mr. Delano’s special ease when reading. The house was on a corner lot, and the balcony was protected from the gaze of passers on the side street by screens of fawn-colored gauze. The old gentleman often took a book and lay down in his luxurious hammock, to see if he could not accustom himself to enjoyment, but he never succeeded. His brain was a vast cotton mart and exchange in full blast, and he longed every day to go back to that business which he had spent his life preparing to escape.
The old adage that “habit is second nature” is a very true one, and was illustrated perfectly in the case of Mr. Delano. His nature had come to relish nothing in the world so much as the cares, schemes, responsibilities, and the general excitement incident to money-making by speculation. It had all the charm of gambling, without the moral obloquy attached to it; though, to be sure, certain “crazy radicals” call it all gambling, and to them, one appears as immoral as the other. It is certain thatany old gambler atrouge et noir, in Mr. Delano’s situation, would have found the days drag on just in the same weary way. The evenings, which Mr. Delano used to enjoy as a relaxation from business, were now more wearisome than the days, and the coming of his son and daughter-in-law was the signal for throwing the house open for the reception of people that he dreaded. During these receptions he moved uneasily through the drawing-rooms, principally occupied in avoiding stepping on the trains of the ladies, and never knowing what to say to their stereotyped, “How exceedingly well you are looking, Mr. Delano.” The only compensation was to get some old broker or stock gambler, who was bored to death like himself, into a corner, and talk of “the trifling of adults,” which, according to St. Augustine, “is called business.”
During the winter after Clara’s marriage, she saw a great deal of Boston’s choice society, and to please Albert, who was very proud of her, she accepted many an invitation when she would have enjoyed herself much more alone with him, or, in his absence, a quiet hour with the old gentleman, reading to him or talking, as his mood directed. As time passed, Albert was less and less at home evenings, and seemed to find attractions at his club, which secretly troubled Clara, but she uttered no word of complaint, and only sought to make up for those attractions, as best she could, when he spent his evenings at home.
In March, Ella came home. She was full of her pretty ways, and delighted Albert by her multiform flattering attentions to Clara. “I was afraid—you can’t tell how afraid I was—that you would never forgive me for running off like asauvage; but you have, have you not?I have heard so much of your goodness from Albert. When he came home last November he could talk of nothing but you—your grace, your beauty, generosity, accomplishments. I declare I was quite bewildered. Will you forgive me if I say I did not believe quite all he said? But I do now. I believe every word since I have seen you.” Clara had her doubts about the sincerity of Ella, but she would give no expression to them for fear of being unjust; and as Miss Delano had never attracted her especially—indeed, had never shown any tendency to real intimacy, though she was polite and graciously kind—it was rather pleasant, therefore, to Clara, who had been nearly frozen by a winter of Boston society, to be thawed into spontaneous gayety, even by a gushing, superficial creature like Ella. It was the first time since Clara’s school days that she had given herself up to pure nonsense—to volumes of talk without meaning—and it pleased at first simply by its novelty; and besides this, nothing delighted Albert so much as the good understanding between his wife and Ella. He encouraged every sign of intimacy between them, and this of itself was motive strong enough to induce Clara to be exceedingly gracious to his old friend. To please Albert in all ways constituted the joy of her life, though the halo investing him was dimmed slightly, from time to time, as she discovered little traces of ill-temper and impatience at the smallest and most insignificant disappointments. Once, for example, not long after Ella’s return, he complained of the coffee at breakfast, saying pettishly, “I don’t see how any cook, with good coffee and boiling water, can manage to make such a flavorless mess as this!”
“It is one of your articles of faith, you know,” said Miss Charlotte, “that a perfect cup of coffee is not possible on the Western Continent.”
Albert made no reply, which Clara noted as a signal manifestation of self-control, for this was not certainly “pouring oil upon the troubled waters.” In Paris, Albert had greatly appreciated the excellent quality of the coffee, and had brought home with him a Frenchcafétière, which ever after appeared on the Delano breakfast-table.
“Why, my son,” said Mr. Delano, “I consider this coffee very good;” and he sipped his with gusto.
“But it is not perfect; and there is no excuse for it, that I can see. However, the toast is so infinitely worse, that I suppose the coffee ought to escape comment.” Ella had the bad taste to laugh.
Miss Delano replied satirically, and in the same breath asked for more toast.
“I should like to find one woman,” said Albert, “who could hear the least criticism on any housekeeping detail without immediately taking it as a personal matter. You did not make the toast, Charlotte, and why try to make it out good when it is not, and force yourself to eat more than you want, by way of argument? You must know that it is made of stale bread.”
“I was not aware that toast is usually made of fresh bread,” said Miss Charlotte.
“As a chemist, I can assure you that it makes the best, though stale bread will do; but it does not follow that the older it is, the better. If it did, then the loaves lately excavated at Pompeii would be just the thing.”
“I think a chemist at the breakfast-table,” rejoinedMiss Delano, “is about as comfortable as thememento moriof the ancients.”
“The Pompeian loaves,” said Clara, anxious to avoid any more unpleasant words between Albert and Charlotte, “having been toasted to a cinder, some two thousand years ago, would make a sorry toast, even if stale bread is better than fresh.”
“So you find a flaw in my logic, do you? I forgot the original toasting. It takes a woman to keep hold of all the intricate threads of the logical web.” Clara looked at Albert, to satisfy herself that he was not laughing at her, or at women in general, which was much the same thing in effect.
“I always wanted to study logic, but I suppose I could not understand it. I am a little ignoramus,” said Ella, with a prettymoue.
“I am sure you could learn logic or anything else,” said Albert, looking very sweetly upon Ella. “If you could not, so much the worse for logic;” and for the rest of the breakfast Albert devoted himself to conversation with Ella. He seemed to be charmed with every insignificant thing she said—laughed at jokes which were certainly totally innocent of any spirit of wit. This did not escape Clara, and after the family rose from the breakfast-table, she followed Mr. Delano to his private library, where her presence was always a delight.
That afternoon Albert returned earlier than usual. Ella’s bright eyes beamed upon him as he opened the hall door with the latch-key. She held out both her hands to him. He pressed them gently, and as he released them, asked where Clara was. He was thinking how gratifying it was to have his coming always anticipatedwith pleasure. It flattered him that Ella was always so glad to meet him; it was such a contrast to the old times, when he hung upon every word and motion of hers. He remembered her indifference to him then; and comparing it with her present behavior, he could come to but one conclusion; and in that conclusion there lay hidden a sense of triumph.
When he asked for Clara, Ella’s eyes fell with such a pretty gesture of despair, that he regretted his question. Quickly regaining a pretended lost self-possession, she replied, “She is in Mr. Delano’s library. She reads there almost every day, and has for ever so long. I can hardly get a sight of her.”
Albert knew that Clara liked to sit with his father, and that her presence cheered and delighted him; and for this he was glad; but he did not like her to neglect him, her husband, and on this special day too, when he had left the house without bidding her good-bye. Clearly, she was very remiss in not being in the parlor waiting for him, after he had treated her to so much indifference! That is masculine logic. No?
Albert hung up his hat and light overcoat in the hall, and went with Ella into the sitting-room, and begged her to excuse him for lying down on the lounge, as he was tired and had a slight headache.
“I am so sorry! Can I not cure your head?” and sitting down beside him, she laid her hand on his forehead, and passed her fingers through his hair for some minutes. During the process Miss Charlotte entered noiselessly. Ella started violently. “Don’t stop!” he said, aloud. “You do my head good!” Miss Charlotte left the room.
“Why did you start so, Ella? I was surprised. It was bad, too, for Charlotte is the first of prudes.”
“Oh, she will think me awful! I will go now; there is a step on the stairs.”
“Sit still!” he said very positively, but in a low tone. “I hope it is Clara. No, it is not,” he said, after a moment’s listening. “Well, go if you must, and tell Clara that I am here; but I must pay this pretty hand for charming away my headache;” and saying this, he opened it with both hands, and placing its rosy palm upon his lips, he held it there for some seconds with his eyes closed. Ella drew it away gently, and left the room. He lay there still, with his eyes closed, enjoying sensuously the magnetic thrill that Ella’s touch awakened, and wondering if, after all, this were not the woman whom he should have married. It was a dangerous speculation, as his own thought admitted; and then he thought of Clara’s tender trust in him, and reproached himself as if he had been guilty of betraying it. When he opened his eyes Clara stood beside him, her eyes full of gentle concern.
“Why did you not come to me or send for me at once, Albert?” she asked reproachfully. “I have just met Ella, who says she has been trying to soothe your head. She looked flushed. Oh, Albert! can any one take the place of Clara when you are ill?”
“No, dear one. How absurd.”
“Why did she look so flushed? What had you been saying to her? Forgive me. I should not catechise you in this way.” Upon this, Albert rose and took her very tenderly in his arms.
“What would become of me, dearest, if I should loseyou?” she said, raising her head from his shoulder and looking into his eyes almost wildly.
“My child, what a question!”
“But answer me, Albert,” she said imperatively.
“I hope you would be sensible enough to forget that you ever cared for one so unworthy of you,” he replied.
“Sweet words! Do you know, Albert, I could never be jealous of you?”
“Are you sure? They say if you can love you can be jealous,” he said, bending his head on one side and searching her eyes.
“I am sure. Jealousy implies anger with the loved one, or hatred of the rival. I could never feel either. I could only suffer;” and with a deep, long sigh, she laid her head back upon his shoulder. Presently raising it, she continued, “You said you learned abroad the meaning of the term ‘illusions,’ as applied to love. Except you, my father is the only person whom I ever heard use it in the same sense. There is no word that can supply its place. It implies the distinction between the love of lovers and all other kinds of love, and more than that, it implies all that is divine in loving. I think it hard to preserve these precious illusions, but without them love would have no charm for me. I should become a wretched wife.”
“But we will not lose our illusions, precious. What should come between us? Are we not irrevocably bound to each other by the very act of marriage?”
“No,” Clara said decidedly and with emotion. “We are only bound by those very illusions. The divine spirit of Love makes and justifies marriage. The body is nothing to me, when the soul is gone. You are a veryelegant man, Albert—elegant and beautiful in all eyes, but in mine you are beauty and strength and tenderness in one. You are everything to me; but your dear eyes, your lips, your eloquent tongue, would lose all their charm, with the loss of the soul of all.”
“Why, child, you are trembling like a leaf. Are you quite well?”
“Albert, why did she look flushed?” and she looked appealingly, searchingly into his eyes.
“I—I believe you are jealous after all,” he said.
Clara turned slowly and left the room without a word.
“Jealous, by Jove!” he said to himself when she was gone, and the idea flattered his vanity as it would that of the commonest soul. Clara had told him she could not be jealous, as the word is generally understood. That she could only suffer; but the words meant little to him. She had spoken the exact truth. In her venture, she had staked everything, and believed, as all women do under the same circumstances, that notwithstanding the coldness and indifference of married people, visible everywhere to the most superficial observer, that it was the result of a lack of wisdom—that love in all its divine freshness, could be preserved. Albert had held the same opinion, and had often said the danger lay in the first withholding of perfect trust. “Love should be cultivated like the most tender plant,” he had said.
He mused over the matter for a half hour, and then went to Clara’s room, where he found her, not “drowned in tears,” as he had anticipated, but very calmly dressing for dinner.
“I was afraid my Clara was going to be silly,” he said, smoothing her fine hair the wrong way, as men will, forit was rolled back at the sides over a heavy twist, and, of course, his caresses endangered the elegant finish of her coiffure, which had cost Clara more effort than he knew.
“Smooth my hair back, dear,” she said. “Don’t you see the way it is brushed?” and taking his fine hand, she passed it over her hair in the right way.
“You mean I had better keep my hands away. Don’t you?” he asked, pleasantly.
“No, no; only that you should not endanger the structure, or I shall have it to do over again. You may pull my curls, baby. You can’t hurt them.”
“Don’t call me baby. You know I hate it.”
“Excuse me. I am sorry you dislike it. There is no pet word that seems so tender to me. I wonder what possible word could offend me, if you found it a real medium of fondness?”
“Suppose I should call you ducky?”
“That sounds common and trivial; but if it served to express the tenderness that the word ‘baby’ does to me, I should soon find it adorable. Albert,” she said, after a pause, and with great enthusiasm, twining her bare arms about his neck, “Clara loves you as you have never dreamed of loving. Her love is greater than you need—greater than you can possibly respond to—and one day you will find it a millstone around your neck!”
“Well, that is pleasant. How long since you arrived at that astute conclusion?” he asked, laughing, as if greatly amused. “I thought my love satisfied you.”
“Do not speak in that tone. Do not make me regret wearing my heart upon my sleeve. Your love satisfied me when I had not understood the depth of my own;now, when a crisis comes, and you see me shaken like a reed, you do not answer seriousness with seriousness, intensity with intensity. You call me jealous, and treat me like a pretty butterfly woman, who must be managed by her husband.”
“A crisis! I like that. You find me alone a moment with an old friend, who happens to be a charming woman, and you call it a crisis!”
“I think a physician should reason more nicely than that; he should look at effects. Was the princess in the story, who was made all black and blue by sleeping on a crumpled rose-leaf, any the less black and blue because itwasa rose-petal, and not a brush-heap?”
“There are some princesses who are morbidly sensitive. I would have them harden theirepidermesa little.”
“I understand,” Clara said, deeply hurt, but controlling her emotion through a sense of pride never before experienced in Albert’s presence, for she had been as frank and trusting as a little child, not dreaming that he could ever fail her in sympathy. “Perhaps,” she added, forcing herself to smile, “I shall think best to commence the hardening process. Go now, or I shall keep the dinner waiting.” Then followed a wealth of cheap endearments and caresses on Albert’s part, which Clara responded to mechanically. She was positively relieved when he was gone. She knew well she had not exaggerated the importance of this first jar in the harmony of her life with Albert, but just now there was no time to think—no time to give way to tears that would have been a relief. She bit her lips to bring the color into them, and felt, as she took her seat at the table, that she bore well the scrutiny of Albert’s and Ella’s eyes. Miss Delano wasvery grave, and rather more attentive to Clara than usual.
Ella felt certain that there had been a “scene,” as she would have called it, between Clara and Albert. She had betrayed her confusion to Clara an hour ago on leaving him; but here was Clara all smiles and self-possession. “Evidently she thinks me too insignificant to ruffle the current of her bliss,” was Ella’s thought, and had been for some time. It piqued her as it would any flirt; and the devil had possessed her from the first to try if her old influence upon Albert was entirely lost. This was the secret of her going from home when the happy couple were to arrive. “Let him have enough of his village beauty,” she had said. “By the time the spring comes he will find her society rather tame.” To do Ella justice, she had not intended to create any serious disturbance between Albert and his wife, though she could not forgive him for marrying any one until he had made certain that his old love was forever beyond his reach, and there was a secret spite in her heart when she found the “village beauty” superior in culture and manners, as well as in personal charms, to most of the women she had met. It was a dangerous experiment, as it proved, her effort to discover the state of Albert’s feeling towards her, for she had found herself thinking and dreaming of him constantly, while he seemed still wholly absorbed with his devotion to Clara. That day, however, had brought a little triumph to the flirt.
Any disinterested observer would have pronounced the family dinner-party a very happy one, and much interested in the various topics that were discussed. How much we talk of candor and frankness, as if any one ofus ever admitted either, among the virtues of society. The frankness that passes current as such, is but a base counterfeit, as any one may find by circulating an infinitesimal quantity of the genuine metal. He will be set down instantly as an uncomfortable Marplot. Little children alone exemplify real candor, and how we adore it in them! But it doesn’t do for grown people, any more than the religion of Christ, as taught by him and his Apostles, will do, according to Mrs. Kendrick, for the exigencies of modern times. There was Miss Delano presiding at the table with suave good-breeding, while under the smile with which she served the dessert to Ella, there lurked a deep contempt of that young lady’s “ways” with Albert; Clara, apparently without a care and conversing easily upon various subjects, was in fact suffering and longing to get away; Albert’s light laugh and animated chit-chat, mostly with Ella, concealed a dismal dissatisfaction with fate, that had made him appear something less than absolute perfection in his wife’s eyes; Ella appeared as gay as a bird and as transparent as crystal, yet she would have cut off her little finger sooner than have her real thoughts and feelings engrafted on the consciousness of those present. Mr. Delano, indeed, had not much feeling of any kind except that of general weariness, which he carefully concealed, and so was in some degree masked like the rest.
After dinner Albert played backgammon with Ella, who affected to be very fond of the game. Clara knew well that it was an affectation, for whenever Mr. Delano proposed playing, Ella was very slow to respond. To the old gentleman, this game was almost his only evening amusement, and though Clara disliked it, she often played out ofpure kindness to him. Clara was by no means displeased that her husband’s society was agreeable to Ella. It was natural and right; but this special evening she would have been flattered by some devotion of Albert’s time to herself. She was all gentleness and kindness, and feared, above all things, being unjust or seemingly selfish, through her exceeding fondness for her husband. “He will not play long,” she said to herself, and sat down by Miss Charlotte with her sewing. When the game or games were finished, Albert left the house, saying only that he was to meet some board of medical men. Clara’s heart sank. She looked at him, and his eyes met hers with the most ordinary indifferent smile, such as he might bestow upon his father or Charlotte. She went to her rooms earlier than usual, and sat for a long time musing before the fire of their pleasant, private sitting-room. The reflection would come that, since Ella’s return, Albert had cared less and less for that room. Until very lately, he had always sought it immediately after dinner, whether Clara was there or not, knowing well she would not wait long before seeking him there. As she recalled every incident of the past month, little events that had meant nothing at the time, were full of significance, and her heart cried out in anguish with the fear that Albert was changing. When he had left her before dinner, she had suffered a moment of intense pain. He had not seemed to understand her, and for the first time she felt that something had gone out of her life; and now, as she sat waiting for him, she almost dreaded his coming. She did not wish to conceal any little heart-ache from Albert: it was torture to think it necessary. Why could he not soothe it away? Why should it not seem important to him, whateverits cause? Was she indeed too sensitive? Yet he had adored her for that very sensitiveness! She repeated his words “morbidly sensitive,” and out of the fear to do injustice to him, tried to believe that she was suffering some indisposition—that she was nervous, and had exaggerated a very slight misunderstanding. Clearly shewasnervous, and ought not to meet Albert until sleep and rest had restored her. “I should not see him in this mood,” she said to herself, as she entered her bedroom. “Oh, if I might have one right the Turkish woman has!—if I might put my slippers outside my door, with the certainty that it would protect me from all intrusion, even from that of my husband!”