I held the wriggling, ecstatic little body close to me, and wondered what it would be like if some human being was as glad to see me as Dandy.
AS I stood there in my devastated room, hugging to me a little scrap of a dog, a desire to conceal my present poverty swept over me, just as I had always wanted to hide the tell-tale economies of our household years ago from my more affluent friends. I did not want pity. I was Ruth, of whom my family had predicted great things—vague great things, I confess. Never had I been quite certain what they were to be—but something rather splendid anyhow.
We become what those nearest to us make us. The family made out of my oldest brother Tom counselor and wise judge; out of my sister Lucy chief cook and general-manager; out of me butterfly and ornament. In the eyes of the family I have always been frivolous and worldly, and though they criticize these qualities of mine, underneath their righteous veneer I discover them marveling. They disparage my extravagance in dressing, and then admire my frocks. In one breath they ridicule social ambition, and in the next inquire into my encounters and triumphs. A desire to remain in my old position I offer now as the least contemptible excuse of any that I can think of forthe following events of my life. I didn't want to resign my place like an actress who can no longer take ingénue parts because of wrinkles and gray hairs. When I came home that day and discovered how unimportant I was, how weak had become my applause, instead of trying to play a new part by making myself useful and necessary—helping with the housework, putting away laundry, mending, and so on—I went about concocting ways and methods of filling more dazzlingly my old rôle.
Although my fever had practically disappeared by the time I went to bed that night, I lolled down to the breakfast table the next morning later than ever, making an impression in a shell-pink tea-gown; luxuriously dawdled over a late egg and coffee; and then lazily borrowed a maid about eleven o'clock and allowed her to unpack for me. Meanwhile I lay back on the couch, criticized to Edith the tone of gray of the paper in my room, carelessly suggested that there were too many articles on the shelf from an artistic point of view, and then suffered myself to be consulted on an invitation list for a party Edith was planning to give. The description of my past two months' gaieties, recited in rather a bored and blasé manner, lacked none of the usual color. My references to attentions from various would-be suitors proved to Edith and Alec that I was keeping up my record.
One Saturday afternoon not long after my return to Hilton, Edith and I attended a tea at the Country Club. The terrace, open to the sky and covered witha dozen small round tables, made a pretty sight—girls in light-colored gowns and flowery hats predominating early in the afternoon, but gradually, from mysterious regions of lockers and shower-baths below, joined by men in white flannels and tennis-shoes.
Edith's and my table was popular that day. I had been away from Hilton for so long that a lot of our friends gathered about us to welcome me home. I was chatting away to a half dozen of them, when I saw two men strolling up from the seventeenth green. One of the men was Breckenridge Sewall. I glanced over the rim of my cup the second time to make certain. Yes, it was Breck—the same old blasé, dissipated-looking Breck. I had thought he was still in Europe. To reach the eighteenth tee the men had to pass within ten feet of the terrace. My back would be toward them. I didn't know if a second opportunity would be offered me. Grassmere, the Sewall estate, was not open this year. Breck might be gone by the next day. I happened at the time to be talking about a certain tennis tournament with a man who had been an eye-witness. I rose and put down my cup of tea.
"Come over and tell me about it, please," I said, smiling upon him. "I've finished. Take my chair, Phyllis," I added sweetly to a young girl standing near. "Do, dear. Mr. Call and I are going to decorate the balustrade."
I selected a prominent position beside a huge earthen pot of flowering geraniums. It was a lowbalustrade with a flat top, designed to sit upon. I leaned back against the earthen jar and proceeded to appear engrossed in tennis. Really, though, I was wondering if Breck would see me after all, and what I should say if he did.
What I did say was conventional enough—simply, "Why, how do you do," to his eager, "Hello, Miss Vars!" while I shook hands with him as he stood beneath me on the ground.
"Saw you on Fifth Avenue a week ago," he went on, "hiking for some place in a taxi. Lost you in the crowd at Forty-second. Thought you might be rounding up here before long. So decided I'd run up and say howdy. Look here, wait for me, will you? I've got only one hole more to play. Do. Wait for me. I'll see that you get home all right."
Edith returned alone in the automobile that afternoon.
"I'll come along later," I explained mysteriously.
She hadn't seen Breck, thank heaven! She would have been sure to have blundered into a dinner invitation, or some such form of effusion. But she surmised that something unusual was in the air, and was watching for me from behind lace curtains in the living-room when I returned two hours later. She saw a foreign-made car whirl into the drive and stop at the door. She saw me get out of it and run up the front steps. The features of the man behind the big mahogany steering-wheel could be discerned easily. When I opened the front door my sister-in-law wasin the vestibule. She grasped me by both my arms just above my elbows.
"Breck Sewall!" she ejaculated. "My dear! Breck Sewall again!"
The ecstasy of her voice, the enthusiasm of those hands of hers grasping my arms soothed my hurt feelings of a week ago. I was led tenderly—almost worshipfully—upstairs to my room.
"I believe he is as crazy as ever about you," Edith exclaimed, once behind closed doors. "I honestly think"—she stopped abruptly—"What if——" she began again, then excitedly kissed me. "You little wonder!" she said. "There's no one in the whole family to match you. I'll wager you could become a veritable gateway for us all to pass into New York society if you wanted to. You're a marvel—you are! Tell me about it." Her eyes sparkled as she gazed upon me. I realized in a flash just what the splendid thing was that I might do. Of course! How simple! I might marry Breck!
"Well," I said languidly, gazing at my reflection in the mirror and replacing a stray lock, "I suppose I'd rather be a gateway than a fifth wheel."
The next time that Breck asked me to marry him, I didn't call him absurd. I was older now. I must put away my dolls and air-castles. The time had come, it appeared, for me to assume a woman's burdens, among which often is an expedient marriage. I could no longer offer my tender years as an excuse for side-stepping a big opportunity. I musn't falter.The moment had arrived. I accepted Breck, and down underneath a pile of stockings in the back of my lowest bureau drawer I hid a little velvet-lined jewel-box, inside of which there lay an enormous diamond solitaire—promise of my brilliant return to the footlights.
SOME people cannot understand how a girl can marry a man she doesn't love. She can do it more easily than she can stay at home, watch half her friends marry, and feel herself slowly ossifying into something worthless and unessential. It takes more courage to sit quietly, wait for what may never come, and observe without misgiving the man you might have had making some other woman's life happy and complete.
I couldn't go on living in guest-rooms forever. I was tired of traveling, and sick to death of leading a life that meant nothing to anybody but Dandy. As a débutante I had had a distinct mission—whether worthy or unworthy isn't the point in question—worked for it hard, schemed, devised, and succeeded. As Mrs. Breckenridge Sewall I could again accomplish results. Many women marry simply because they cannot endure an arid and purposeless future.
Some people think that a girl who marries for position is hard and calculating. Why, I entered into my engagement in the exalted mood of a martyr! I didn't feel hard—I felt self-sacrificing, like a girl in royalcircles whose marriage may distinguish herself and her people to such an extent that the mere question of her own personal feelings is of small importance. The more I considered marrying Breck the more convinced I became that it was the best thing I could do. With my position placed upon my brow, like a crown on a king, freed at last from all the mean and besmirching tricks of acquiring social distinction, I could grow and expand. When I looked ahead and saw myself one day mistress of Grassmere, the London house, the grand mansion in New York; wise and careful monitor of the Sewall millions; gracious hostess; kind ruler; I felt as nearly religious as ever before in my life. I meant to do good with my wealth and position and influence. Is that hard and calculating?
I accepted Breck's character and morals as a candidate chosen for the honorable office of governor of a state must accept the condition of politics, whether they are clean or rotten. Clean politics are the exception. So also are clean morals. I knew enough for that. Way back in boarding-school days, we girls had resigned ourselves to the acceptance of the deplorable state of the world's morals. We had statistics. I had dimly hoped that one of the exceptions to the rule might fall to my lot, but if not, I wasn't going to be prudish. Breck's early career could neither surprise nor alarm me. I, like most girls in this frank and open age, had been prepared for it. So when Lucy,who is anything but worldly wise, and Will, her husband, who is a scientist and all brains, came bearing frenzied tales of Breck's indiscretions during his one year at the university where Will is now located, I simply smiled. Some people are so terribly naïve and unsophisticated!
The family's attitude toward my engagement was consistent—deeply impressed, but tainted with disapproval. Tom came way on from Wisconsin to tell me how contemptible it was for a girl to marry for position, even for so amazingly a distinguished one. Elise, his wife, penned me a long letter on the emptiness of power and wealth. Malcolm wrote he hoped I knew what I was getting into, and supposed after I became Mrs. Breckenridge Sewall I'd feel too fine to recognize him, should we meet on Fifth Avenue. Oliver was absolutely "flabbergasted" at first, he wrote, but must confess it would save a lot of expense for the family, if they could stop with Brother Breck when they came down to New York. "How'd you pull it off, Toots?" he added. "Hope little Cupid had something to do with it."
Alec waited until Edith had gone to Boston for a day's shopping, and took me for a long automobile ride. Alec, by the way, is one of this world's saints. He has always been the member of the Vars family who has resigned himself to circumstances. It was Tom who went West and made a brilliant future for himself; Alec who remained in Hilton to stand by father's dying business. It was the twins who werehelped to graduate from college in spite of difficulties; Alec who cheerfully gave up his diploma to offer a helping hand at home. When Alec married Edith Campbell it appeared that at last he had come into his own. She was immensely wealthy. Father's business took a new lease of life. At last Alec was prosperous, but he had to go on adapting and resigning just the same. With the arrival of the Summer Colony Edith's ambitions burst into life, and of course he couldn't be a drag on her future—and mine—any more than on Tom's or the twins'. He acquiesced; he fitted in without reproach. Today in regard to my engagement he complained but gently.
"We're simple New England people after all," he said. "A girl is usually happier married to a man of her own sort. You weren't born into the kind of life the Sewalls lead. You weren't born into even the kind of life you're leading now. Edith—Edith's fine, of course, and I've always been glad you two were so congenial—but she does exaggerate the importance of the social game. She plays it too hard. I don't want you to marry Sewall. I'm afraid you won't be happy."
When Edith came home that night I asked her if she knew how Alec felt.
"Of course I do. The dear old fogey! But this is the way I look at it, Ruth. Some peoplenotborn into a high place get there just the same through sheer nerve and determination, and others spend their whole worthless lives at home on the farm. It isn'twhat a person is born into, but what he is equal to, that decides his success. Mercy, child, don't let a dear, silly, older brother bother you. Sweet old Al doesn't know what he's talking about. I'd like to know what hewouldadvise doing with his little sister, if, after all the talk there is about her and Breck, he could succeed in breaking off her engagement. She'd be just an old glove kicking around. That's what she'd be. Al is simply crazy. I'll have to talk to him!"
"Don't bother," I said, "I'm safe. I have no intention of becoming an old glove."
Possibly in the privacy of my own bed at night, where so often now I lay wide-awake waiting for the dawn, I did experience a few misgivings. But by the time I was ready to go down to breakfast I had usually persuaded myself into sanity again. I used to reiterate all the desirable points about Breck I could think of and calm my fears by dwelling upon the many demands of my nature that he could supply—influence, power, delight in environment, travel, excitement.
When I was a child I was instructed by my drawing-teacher to sketch with my stick of charcoal a vase, a book, and a red rose, which he arranged in a group on a table before me. I had a great deal of difficulty with the rose; so after struggling for about half an hour I got up and, unobserved, put the rose behind the vase, so that only its stem was visible to me. Then I took a fresh page and began again. The result was a very fair portrayal of the articles as they then appeared. So with my ideal of marriage—when I found its arrangement impossible to portray in my life—I simply slipped out of sight that for which the red rose is sometimes the symbol (I mean love) and went ahead sketching in the other things.
I explained all this to Breck one day. I wanted to be honest with him.
"Say, what are you driving at? Red roses! Drawing lessons! What's that got to do with whether you'll run down to Boston for dinner with me tonight? You do talk the greatest lot of stuff! But have it your own way. I'm satisfied. Just jump in beside me! Will you? Darn it! I haven't the patience of a saint!"
CONVENTIONS may sometimes appear silly and absurd, but most of them are made for practical purposes. Ignore them and you'll discover yourself in difficulty. Leave your spoon in your cup and your arm will unexpectedly hit it sometime, and over will go everything on to the tablecloth. If I had not ignored certain conventions I wouldn't be crying over spilled milk now.
I allowed myself to become engaged to Breck; accepted his ring and hid it in my lowest bureau drawer; told my family my intentions; let the world see me dining, dancing, theater-ing and motoring like mad with Breck and draw its conclusions; and all this, mind you, before I had received a word of any sort whatsoever from my prospective family-in-law. This, as everybody knows, is irregular, and as bad form as leaving your spoon in your cup. No wonder I got into difficulty!
My prospective family-in-law consisted simply of Breck's mother, Mrs. F. Rockridge Sewall—a very elegant and perfectly poised woman she seemed to me the one time I had seen her at close range, as shesat at the head of the sumptuous table in the tapestry-hung dining-room at Grassmere. I admired Mrs. Sewall. I used to think that I could succeed in living up to her grand manners with better success than the other rather hoidenish young ladies who chanced to be the guests at Grassmere the time I was there. Mrs. Sewall is a small woman, always dressed in black, with a superb string of pearls invariably about her neck, and lots of brilliant diamonds on her slender fingers. Breck with his heavy features, black hair brushed straight back, eyes half-closed as if he was always riding in a fifty-mile gale, deep guffaw of a laugh, and inelegant speech does not resemble his mother. It is strange, but the picture that I most enjoyed dwelling upon, when I contemplated my future life, was one of myself creeping up Fifth Avenue on late afternoons in the Sewalls' crested automobile, seated, not beside Breck, but in intimate conversation beside my aristocratic mother-in-law.
As humiliating as it was to me to continue engaged to a man from whose mother there had been made no sign of welcome or approval, I did so because Breck plead that Mrs. Sewall was on the edge of a nervous break-down, and to announce any startling piece of news to her at such a time would be unwise. I was foolish enough to believe him. I deceived myself into thinking that my course was allowable and self-respecting.
Breck used to run up from New York to Hilton in his car for Sunday; and sometimes during the week,in his absurd eagerness, he would dash up to our door and ring the bell as late as eleven o'clock, simply because he had been seized with a desire to bid me good-night.
When Edith and I went to New York for a week's shopping we were simply deluged with attentions from Breck—theater every night, luncheons, dinners and even breakfasts occasionally squeezed in between. All this, I supposed, was carried on without Mrs. Sewall's knowledge. I ought to have known better than to have excused it. It was my fault. I blame myself. Such an unconventional affair deserved to end in catastrophe. But to Edith it ended not in spilled milk, but in a spilled pint of her life's blood.
One night in midsummer when I was just dropping off to sleep, Edith knocked gently on my door, and then opened it and came in. She was all ready for bed with her hair braided down her back.
"Asleep?"
"No," I replied. "What's the matter?"
"Did you know Grassmere was open?"
"Why?" I demanded.
"Because, just as I was fixing the curtain in my room I happened to look up there. It's all lit up, upstairs and down. Even the ball-room. Did you know about it?"
I had to confess that I didn't. Breck had told me that his mother would remain in the rented palace at Newport for the remainder of the season, under the care of a specialist.
"Looks as if they were having a big affair of some sort up there. I guess Mrs. F. Rockridge has recovered from her nervous break-down! Come, get up and see."
"Oh, I'll take your word for it," I replied indifferently. But I won't say what my next act was after Edith had gone out of the room. You may be sure I didn't immediately drop off to sleep.
I looked for one of Breck's ill-penned letters the next morning, but none came. No wire or telephone message either. Not until five o'clock in the afternoon did I receive any explanation of the lights at Grassmere. Edith had been to her bridge club, and came rushing up on the veranda, eager and excited. There were little bright spots in the center of each cheek. Edith's a handsome woman, thirty-five or eight, I think, and very smart in appearance. She has dark brilliant eyes, and a quality in her voice and manner that makes you feel as if there were about eight cylinders and all in perfect order, too, chugging away underneath her shiny exterior.
"Where's the mail?" she asked of me. I was lying on the wicker couch.
"Oh, inside, I guess, on the hall table. I don't know. Why?"
"Wait a minute," she said, and disappeared. She rejoined me an instant later, with two circulars and a printed post-card.
"Is this all there is?" Edith demanded again, and I could see the red spots on her cheeks grow deeper.
"That's all," I assured her. "Expecting something?"
"Have you had any trouble with Breck?" she flashed out at me next.
"What are you driving at, Edith?" I inquired. "What's the matter?"
"Mrs. Sewall is giving a perfectly enormous ball at Grassmere on the twenty-fourth, and we're left out. That's the matter!" She tossed the mail on the table.
"Oh," I said, "our invitations will come in the morning probably. There are often delays."
"No, sir, I know better. The bridge club girls said their invitations came yesterday afternoon. I can't understand it. We certainly were on Mrs. Sewall's list when she gave that buffet-luncheon three years ago. And now we're not! That's the bald truth of it. It was terribly embarrassing this afternoon—all of them telling about what they were going to wear—it's going to be a masquerade—and I sitting there like a dummy! Héléne McClellan broke the news to me. She blurted right out, 'Oh, do tell us, Edith,' she said to me, 'is Mrs. Sewall's ball to announce your sister's engagement to her son? We're crazy to know!' Of course I didn't let on at first that we weren't even invited, but it had to leak out later. Oh, it is simply humiliating!"
"Is she at Grassmere now—Mrs. Sewall, I mean?" I asked quietly.
"Yes, she is. There's a big house-party going onthere this very minute. The club girls knew all about it. Mrs. Sewall has got a niece or somebody or other with her, for the rest of the summer, and the ball is being given in her honor. Gale Oliphant, I believe the girl's name is. But look here, it seems very queer to me thatI'mthe one to be giving you this information instead of Breck. What does it all mean anyhow? Come, confess. You must have had a tiff or something with Breck."
"I don't have tiffs, Edith," I said, annoyed.
"Well, you needn't get mad about it. There must be some reason for our being slighted in this fashion. I'm sureI'vedone nothing. It's not my fault. I wouldn't care if it was small, but everybody who isn't absolutely beyond the pale is invited."
"There's no use losing your nerve, Edith," I said in an exasperatingly calm manner.
"Good heavens!" Edith exclaimed. "You seem to enjoy slights, but if I were in your place I shouldn't enjoy slights from my prospective mother-in-law, anyhow!"
"You needn't be insulting," I remarked, arranging a sofa-pillow with care underneath my head and turning my attention to my magazine.
Edith went into the house. The screen door slammed behind her. I didn't stir, just kept right on staring at the printed page before me and turning a leaf now and again, as if I were really reading.
Gale Oliphant! I knew all about her. I had met her first at the house-party at Grassmere—a silly littlething, I had thought her, rather pretty, and a tremendous flirt. Breck had said she was worth a million in her own name. I remembered that, because he explained that he had been rather keen about her before he met me. "That makes my eight hundred dollars a year look rather sickly, doesn't it?" I replied. "Yes," he said, "it sure does! But let me tell you thatyoumakeherlook like a last year's straw hat." However, the last year's straw hat possessed some attraction for Breck, because during the three years that Grassmere was closed and the Sewalls were in Europe, Breck and Gale Oliphant saw a lot of each other. Breck told me that she really was better than nothing, and his mater was terribly keen about having her around.
I tried in every way I could to explain away my fears. I mustn't be hasty. Well-mannered thoughts didn't jump to foolish conclusions. Breck would probably explain the situation to me. I must wait with calmness and composure. And I did, all the next day, and the next, and the third, until finally there arrived one of Breck's infrequent scrawls.
The envelope was post-marked Maine. I opened it, and read:
"Dear Ruth:"I am crazy to see you. It seems like a week of Sundays. The mater got a notion she wanted me to come up to Bar Harbor and bring down the yacht. I brought three fellows with me. Some spree! Butwe're good little boys. The captain struck. Waiting for another. Won't round up at your place for another week. I'm yours and don't forget it. It seems like a week of Sundays. Mater popped the news she's going to open up old Grassmere pretty soon. Then it will be like a week of holidays for yours truly, if you're at home to sit in that pergola effect with. Savvy? Showed the fellows the snapshots tonight but didn't tell them. Haven't touched a drop for four weeks and three days. Never did that stunt for any queen before. Good-night, you little fish. Don't worry about that though. I'll warm you up O.K. Trust Willie."
"Dear Ruth:
"I am crazy to see you. It seems like a week of Sundays. The mater got a notion she wanted me to come up to Bar Harbor and bring down the yacht. I brought three fellows with me. Some spree! Butwe're good little boys. The captain struck. Waiting for another. Won't round up at your place for another week. I'm yours and don't forget it. It seems like a week of Sundays. Mater popped the news she's going to open up old Grassmere pretty soon. Then it will be like a week of holidays for yours truly, if you're at home to sit in that pergola effect with. Savvy? Showed the fellows the snapshots tonight but didn't tell them. Haven't touched a drop for four weeks and three days. Never did that stunt for any queen before. Good-night, you little fish. Don't worry about that though. I'll warm you up O.K. Trust Willie."
I used to feel apologetic for Breck's letters, and tear them up as quickly as possible, before any one could see how crude and ill-spelled they were. But I wasn't troubled about such details in this letter. It brought immense relief. Breck was so natural and so obviously unaware of trouble brewing at home. Surely, I needn't be alarmed. The invitation for the masquerade might have been misdirected or have slipped down behind something. Accidents do take place. Of course it was most unfortunate, but fate performs unfortunate feats sometimes.
In my eagerness to dispel my fears it never crossed my mind that Breck's absence was planned, so that Mrs. Sewall could start her attack without interference. She was a very clever woman, an old and experienced hand at social maneuvers. I am only abeginner. It was an uneven, one-sided fight—for fight it was after all. She won. She bore away the laurels. I bore away simply the tattered remnants of my self-respect.
Every year at the Hilton Country Club a local horse show is held in mid-August, and many of the summer colonists—women as well as men—exhibit and take part in the different events.
Edith always has liked horses, and when she married Alec she rebuilt our run-down stable along with the house, and filled the empty old box stalls with two or three valuable thorough-breds. Edith's Arrow, Pierre, and Blue-grass had won some sort of a ribbon for the last half-dozen years. I usually rode Blue-grass for Edith in the jumping event. I was to do so on the afternoon that Breck's letter arrived.
It was a perfect day. The grand-stand with its temporary boxes that always sell at absurdly high prices was filled with the summer society, dressed in its gayest and best. The brass band was striking up gala airs now and again, and the big bell in the tower clanged at intervals. Between events horses were being led to and fro, and in front of the grand-stand important individuals wearing white badges leaned over the sides of the lowest tier of boxes, chatting familiarly with the ladies above. A lot of outsiders, anybody who could pay a dollar admission, wandered at large, staring openly at the boxes, leveling opera-glasses, and telling each other who the celebrities were.
Alec was West on a business trip, but Edith had a box, of course, as she always does. All around us were gathered in their various stalls our friends and acquaintances. It is the custom to visit back and forth from box to box, and the owner of each box is as much a host in his own reservation as in his own reception-room at home. Our box is usually very popular, but this year there was a marked difference. Of course some of our best friends did stop for a minute or two, but those who sat down and stayed long enough to be observed were only men. I was surprised and unpleasantly disturbed.
Mrs. Sewall's box was not far away. We could see her seated prominently in a corner of it, surrounded by a very smart bevy—strangers mostly, New Yorkers I supposed—with Miss Gale Oliphant, strikingly costumed in scarlet, in their midst. A vigilant group of summer colonists hovered near-by, now and again becoming one of the party. Edith and I sat quite alone in our box for an hour fully; I in my severe black habit, with my elbow on the railing, my chin in my hand, steadily gazing at the track; Edith erect, sharp-eyed, and nervously looking about in search of some one desirable to bow to and invite to join us.
Finally she leaned forward and said to me, "Isn't this simply terrible? I can't stand it. Come, let's get out."
"Where to?" I asked. "My event comes very soon."
"Oh, let's go over and see Mrs. Jackson. I'm sickof sitting here stark alone. Come on—the girls are all over there."
I glanced toward the Jackson box and saw a group of our most intimate friends—Edith's bridge club members and several of the girls in my set, too.
"All right," I said, and we got up and strolled along the aisle.
As we approached I observed one of the women nudge another. I saw Héléne McClellan open her mouth to speak and then close it quickly as she caught sight of us. I felt under Mrs. Jackson's over-effusive greeting the effort it was for her to appear easy and cordial. The group must have been talking about the masquerade, for as we joined it there ensued an uncomfortable silence. I would have withdrawn, but Edith pinched my arm and boldly went over and sat down in one of the empty chairs.
We couldn't have been there five minutes when Mrs. Sewall came strolling along the aisle, accompanied by Miss Oliphant. She, who usually held herself so aloof, was very gracious this afternoon, smiling cordially at left and right, and stopping now and again to present her niece. I saw her recognize Mrs. Jackson and then smilingly approach her. We all rose as our hostess got up and beamingly put her hand into Mrs. Sewall's extended one.
"How do you do, Mrs. Jackson," said Mrs. Sewall. "I've been enjoying your lovely boxful of young ladies all the afternoon. Charming, really! Delightful! I hope you are all planning to come to my masquerade," she went on, addressing the whole group now. "I want it to be a success. I am giving it for my little guest here—and my son also," she added with a significant smile, as if to imply that the coupling of Miss Oliphant's and her son's names was not accidental. "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. McClellan!" she interrupted herself, smiling across the group to Héléne who stood next to me, "I haven't caught your eye before today. I hope you're well—and oh, Miss McDowell!" She bowed to Leslie McDowell on my other side.
It was just about at this juncture that I observed Edith threading her way around back of several chairs toward Mrs. Sewall. I wish I could have stopped her, but it was too late. I heard her clear voice suddenly exclaiming from easy speaking distance,
"How do you do, Mrs. Sewall."
"Ah! how do you do!" the lady condescended to reply. There was chilliness in the voice. Edith continued.
"We're so delighted," she went on bravely, "to have Grassmere occupied again. The lights are very pretty on your hilltop from The Homestead, our place, you know."
"Ah, The Homestead!" The chilliness was frosty now. Edith blushed.
"Perhaps you do not recall me, Mrs. Sewall—I am Mrs. Alexander Vars—you know. My sister——"
"Oh, yes—Mrs. Alexander Vars. I recall you quite well, Mrs. Vars. Perfectly, in fact," she said. Thenstopped short. There was a terrible silence. It continued like a long-drawn out note on a violin.
"Oh," nervously piped out some one in the group, at last, "look at that lovely horse! I just adore black ones!"
Mrs. Sewall raised her lorgnette and gazed at the track.
"By the way, Mrs. Jackson," she resumed, as if she had not just slaughtered poor Edith. "By the way, can you tell me the participants in the next event? I've left my program. So careless!" she purred. And afterwards she smilingly accepted a proffered armchair in the midst of the scene of her successful encounter.
It would have been thoughtful, I think, and more humane to have waited until the wounded had been carried away—or crawled away. For there was no one to offer a helping hand to Edith and me. I didn't expect it. In social encounters the vanquished must look out for themselves. With what dignity I could, I advanced towards Mrs. Jackson.
"Well, I must trot along," I said lightly. "My turn at the hurdles will be coming soon. Come, Edith, let's go and have a look at Blue-grass. Good-by." And leisurely, although I longed to cast down my eyes and hasten quickly away from the staring faces, I strolled out of the box, followed by Edith; walked without haste along the aisle, even stopping twice to exchange a word or two with friends; and finally escaped.
THE incident at the horse show was simply the beginning. I couldn't go anywhere—to a tea, to the Country Club, or even down town for a morning's shopping—and feel sure of escaping a fresh cut or insult of some kind. Mrs. Sewall went out of her way to make occasion to meet and ignore me. It was necessary for her to go out of her way, for we didn't meet often by chance. I was omitted from the many dinners and dances which all the hostesses in Hilton began to give in Miss Oliphant's honor. I was omitted from the more intimate afternoon tea and sewing parties. Gale attended them now, and of course it would have been awkward.
I didn't blame my girl friends for leaving me out. I might have done the same to one of them. It isn't contrary to the rules. In fact the few times I did encounter the old associates it was far from pleasant. There was a feeling of constraint. There was nothing to talk about, either. Even my manicurist and hairdresser, usually so conversational about all the social events of the community, felt embarrassed and ill at ease, with the parties at Grassmere, the costumesfor the masquerade, Miss Oliphant, and the Vars scandal barred from the conversation.
I was glad that Alec was away on a western trip. He, at least, was spared the unbeautifying effect of the ordeal upon his wife and sister. Alec hardly ever finds fault or criticizes, but underneath his silence and his kindness I often wonder if there are not hidden, wounded illusions and bleeding ideals. Edith and I were both in the same boat, and we weren't pleasant traveling companions. I had never sailed with Edith under such baffling winds as we now encountered. Squalls, calms, and occasional storms we had experienced, but she had always kept a firm hand on the rudder. Now she seemed to lose her nerve and forget all the rules of successful navigation that she ever had learned. She threw the charts to the winds, and burst into uncontrolled passions of disappointment and rage.
I couldn't believe that Edith was the same woman who but six months ago had nursed her only little daughter, whom she loves passionately, through an alarming sickness. There had been trained nurses, but every night Edith had taken her place in the low chair by the little girl's crib, there to remain hour after hour, waiting, watching, noting with complete control the changes for better or for worse; sleeping scarcely at all; and always smiling quiet encouragement to Alec or to me when we would steal in upon her. Every one said she was marvelous—even the nurses and the doctor. It was as if she actually willed her daughter to pass through her terrific crisis, speaking firmly now and again to the little sufferer, holding her spirit steady as it crossed the yawning abyss. She had seemed superb to me. I had asked myself if I could ever summon to my support such unswerving strength and courage.
I didn't hear from Breck again until he arrived at the front door unexpectedly one night at ten o'clock. I led the way down into the shaded pergola, and there we remained until nearly midnight. When I finally stole back to my room, I found Edith waiting for me, sitting bolt upright on the foot of my bed, wide-awake, alert, eyes bright and hard as steel.
"Well?" she asked the instant I came in, "tell me, is he as keen as ever?"
A wave of something like sickness swept over me.
"Yes," I said shortly.
"Is hereally?" she pursued. "Oh, isn't that splendid! Really? He still wants you to marry him?"
"Yes," I said.
Edith flung her arm about me and squeezed me hard.
"We'll make that old cat of a mother of his sing another song one of these days," she said. "You're a wonderful little kiddie, after all. You'll save the day! Trust you! You'll pull it off yet! Oh, I have been horrid, Ruth, this last fortnight. Really I have. I was so afraid we were ruined, and we would be if it wasn't for you. Wait a jiffy."
Fifteen minutes later, just as, very wearily, I was putting out my light, Edith pushed open my dooragain with a cup of something steaming hot in her hand.
"Here," she said. "Malted milk, good and hot, with just a dash of sherry in it. 'Twill make you sleep. You drink it, poor child—wonderful child too! You jump in and drink it! I'll fix the windows and the lights."
I tried to be Edith's idea of wonderful. For a week I endured the ignominy of receiving calls from Breck in secret, late at night when he was able to steal away from the gaieties at Grassmere. For a week I spent long idle days in the garden, in my room, on the veranda—anywhere at all where I could best kill the galling, unoccupied hours until night, and Breck was free to come to me.
I did not annoy him with demands for explanation of a situation already painfully clear to me. I knew that he spoke truth when he assured me he could not alter his mother's opposition at present, and I did not disturb our evening talks by reproaches. I assumed a grand air of indifference toward Mrs. Sewall and her attacks, as if I was some invulnerable creature beyond and above her. I didn't even cheapen myself by appearing to observe that Breck's invitations to appear in public with him had suddenly been replaced by demands for private and stolen interviews.
Of course his duties as host were many and consumed most of his time. His clever mother saw to that. He said that there were twenty guests at Grassmere. Naturally, I told myself, he couldn't take all-day motor trips with me. I was convinced that my strength lay in whatever charm I possessed for him, and I had no intention of injuring it by ill-timed complaints. I was attractive, alluring to him—more so than ever. I tried to be! Oh, I tried to be diplomatic, wise, to bide my time; by quiet and determined endurance to withstand the siege of Mrs. Sewall's disapproval; to hold her son's affection; and to marry him some day, with her sanction, too, just exactly as I had planned. I tried and I failed.
The very fact that I could hold Breck's affection hastened my defeat—that and my lacerated pride.
I met him one day when I was out walking with Dandy, not far from the very spot where once he had begged me to ride with him in his automobile. Today in the seat beside him, which had been of late so often mine, sat Gale Oliphant, her head almost upon his shoulder, and Breck leaning toward her laughing as they sped by.
He saw me, I was sure he saw me, but he did not raise his hat. His signal of recognition had been without Miss Oliphant's knowledge. After they had passed he had stretched out his arm as a sign to turn to the left, and had waved his hand without looking around. My face grew scarlet. What had I become? Why, I might have been a picked-up acquaintance, somebody to be ashamed of! Ruth Chenery Vars—where had disappeared that once proud and self-respecting girl?
Insignificant as the event really was, it stood as asymbol of the whole miserable situation to me. It was just enough to startle me into contempt for myself. That night Breck came stealing down to me along the dark roads in his quiet car about eleven-thirty. I knew he had been to the Jackson dinner and was surprised to find he had changed into street clothes. He was more eager than ever in his greeting.
"Come down into the sunken garden," he pleaded. "I've got something to say to you."
It was light in the garden. There was a full September moon. I stood beside the bird-bath and put a forefinger in it. I could hear Breck breathing hard beside me. I was sure he had broken his pledge and had been drinking.
"Well?" I said at last, calmly, looking up.
He answered me silently, vehemently.
"Don't, please,here. It's so fearfully light. Don't, Breck," I said.
"I've got the car," he whispered. "It will take us two hours. I've got it all planned. It's a peach of a night. You've got to come. I'm not for waiting any longer. You've got to marry me tonight, you little fish! I'll wake you up. Do you hear me? Tonight in two hours. I'm not going to hang around any longer. You've got to come!"
I managed to struggle away.
"Don't talk like that to me. It's insulting! Don't!" I said.
"Insulting! Say, ring off on that—will you? Insulting to ask a girl to marry you! Say, that's good!Well, insulting or not, I've made up my mind not to hang around any longer. I'll marry you tonight or not at all! You needn't be afraid. I've got it all fixed up—license and everything." He whipped a paper out of his pocket. "We'll surprise 'em, we will—you and I. I'm mad about you, and always have been. The mater—huh! Be a shock to her—but she'll survive."
"I wouldn't elope with the king of England!" I said hotly. "What do you think I am? Understand this, Breck. I require all the honors and high ceremonies that exist."
"Damn it," he said, "you've been letting me come here without much ceremony every night, late, on the quiet. What have you got to say to that? I'm tired of seeing you pose on that high horse of yours. Come down. You know as well as I you've been leading me along as hard as you could for the last week. Good Lord—what for? Say, what's the game? I don't know. But listen—if you don't marry menow, then you never will. There's a limit to a man's endurance. Come, come, you can't do better for yourself. You aren't so much. The mater will never come around. She's got her teeth set. The car's ready. I shan't come again."
"Wait a minute," I said. "I'll be back in a minute." And I went straight into the house and upstairs to my room, knelt down before my bureau and drew out a blue velvet box. Breck's ring was inside.
Just as I was stealing down the stairs again, ever-on-the-guard, Edith appeared in the hall in her nightdress.
"What are you after?" she asked.
For answer I held out the box toward her. She came down two or three of the stairs.
"What you going to do with it?" she demanded.
"Give it back to Breck."
She grasped my wrist. "You little fool!" she exclaimed.
"But he wants me to run off with him. He wants me to elope."
"He does!" she ejaculated, her eyes large. "Well?" she inquired.
I stared up at Edith on the step above me in silence.
"Well?" she repeated.
"You don't mean——" I began.
"His mother is sure to come around in time. They always do.Mymother eloped," she said.
"Edith Campbell Vars," I exclaimed, "do you actually mean——" I stopped. Even in the dim light of the hall I saw her flush before my blank astonishment. "Do you mean——"
"Well, if you don't," she interrupted in defense, "everybody will think he threwyouover. You'll simply become an old glove. There's not much choice."
"But my pride, my own self-respect! Edith Vars, you'd sell your soul for society; and you'd sell metoo! But you can't—you can't! Let go my wrist. I'm sick of the whole miserable game. I'm sick of it. Let me go."
"And I'm sick of it too," flung back Edith. "ButI'vegot a daughter's future to think about, I'd have you know, as well as yours. I've worked hard to establish ourselves in this place, and I've succeeded too. And now you come along, and look at the mess we're in! Humiliated! Ignored! Insulted! It isn't my fault, is it? If I'd paddled my own canoe, I'd be all right today."
"You can paddle it hereafter," I flashed out. "I shan't trouble you any more."
"Yes, that's pleasant, after you've jabbed it full of holes!"
"Let me go, Edith," I said and pulled away my wrist with a jerk.
"Are you going to give it back to him?"
"Yes, I am!" I retorted and fled down the stairs, out of the door, across the porch, and into the moonlit garden as fast as I could go.
"Here, Breck—here's your ring! Take it. You're free. You don't need to hang around, as you say, any more. And I'm free, too, thank heaven! I would have borne the glory and the honor of your name with pride. Your mother's friendship would have been a happiness, but for no name, and for no woman's favor will I descend to a stolen marriage. You're mistaken in me. Everybody seems to be. I'm mistaken in myself. I don't want to marry you after all. I don't love you, and I don't want to marry you. I'm tired. Please go."
He stared at me. "You little fool!" he exclaimed, just like Edith. Then he slipped the box into his pocket, shrugged his shoulders, and in truly chivalrous fashion added, "Don't imagine I'm going to commit suicide or anything tragic like that, young lady, because I'm not."
"I didn't imagine it," I replied.
"I'm going to marry Gale Oliphant," he informed me coolly. "I'm going to give her a ring in a little box—and she'll wear hers. You'll see." He produced a cigarette and lit it. "She's no fish," he added. "She's a pippin, she is. Good night," he finished, and turned and walked out of the garden.
Three days later I went away from Hilton. Edith's tirades became unendurable. I didn't want even to eat her food. The spinet desk, the bureau, the chiffonier, the closet, I cleared of every trace of me. I stripped the bed of its linen and left the mattress rolled over the foot-board in eloquent abandonment. The waste-basket bulged with discarded odds and ends. One had only to look into that room to feel convinced that its occupant had disappeared, like a spirit from a dead body, never to return.
I went to my sister Lucy's. I did not write her. I simply took a morning train to Boston and called her up on the 'phone in her not far distant universitytown. She came trotting cheerfully in to meet me. I told her my news; she tenderly gathered what was left of me together, and carried the bits out here to her little white house on the hill.
IDID not think I would be seated here on my rustic bench writing so soon again. I finished the history of my catastrophe a week ago. But something almost pleasant has occurred, and I'd like to try my pencil at recording a pleasant story. Scarcely a story yet, though. Just a bit of a conversation—that's all—fragmentary. It refers to this very bench where I am sitting as I write, to the hills I am seeing out beyond the little maple tree stripped now of all its glory. I cannot see a dash of color anywhere. The world is brown. The sky is gray. It is rather chilly for writing out-of-doors.
The conversation I refer to began in an ugly little room in a professor's house. There was a roll-top desk in the room, and a map, yellow with age, hanging on the wall. The conversation ended underneath a lamp-post on a street curbing, and it was rainy and dark and cold. And yet when I think of that conversation, sitting here in the brown chill dusk, I see color, I feel warmth.
When I first came here to Lucy's three weeks ago, she assumed that I was suffering from a broken heart.I had been exposed and showed symptoms—going off alone for long walks and consuming reams of theme paper as if I was half mad. I told Lucy that my heart was too hard to break, but I couldn't convince her. There wasn't a day passed but that she planned some form of amusement or diversion. Even Will, her husband, cooperated and spent long evenings playing rum or three-handed auction, so I might not sit idle. I tried to fall in with Lucy's plans.
"But, please, no men! I don't want to see another man for years. If any man I know finds out I'm here, tell him I won't see him, absolutely," I warned. "I want to be alone. I want to think things out undisturbed. Sometimes I almost wish I could enter a convent."
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Lucy would exclaim.
"You needn't be. You didn't break my engagement. For heaven's sake, Lucy,youneedn't take it so hard."
But she did. She simply brooded over me. She read to me, smiled for me, and initiated every sally that I made into public. In conversation she picked her way with me with the precaution of a cat walking across a table covered with delicate china. She made wide detours to avoid a reference or remark that might reflect upon my engagement. Will did likewise. I lived in daily surprise and wonder. As a family we are brutally frank. This was a new phase, and one of the indirect results, I suppose, of my broken engagement.
What I am trying to arrive at is the change of attitude in me toward Lucy. Usually when I visit Lucy I do just about as I please; refuse to attend a lot of stupid student-teas and brain-fagging lectures, or to exert myself to appear engrossed in the conversation of her intellectual dinner guests.
I used to scorn Lucy's dinners. They are very different from Edith's, where, when the last guest in her stunning new gown has arrived and swept into the drawing-room, followed by her husband, a maid enters, balancing on her tray a dozen little glasses, amber filled; everybody takes one, daintily, between a thumb and forefinger and drains it; puts it nonchalantly aside on shelf or table; offers or accepts an arm and floats toward the dining-room. At Edith's dinners the table is long, flower-laden, candle-lighted. Your partner's face smiles at you dimly. His voice is almost drowned by the chatter and the laughter all about, but you hear him—just barely—and you laugh—he is immensely droll—and then reply. And he laughs, too, contagiously, and you know that you are going to get on!
Incidentally at Edith's dinners silent-footed servants pass you things; you take them; you eat a little, too—delicious morsels if you stopped to consider them; but you and your partner are having far too good a time (he is actually audacious, and so, if you please, are you) to bother about the food.
There's a little group of glasses beside your water, and once in a while there appears in your field of vision a hand grasping a white napkin folded like acornucopia, out of which flows delicious nectar. You sip a little of it occasionally, a very little—you are careful of course—and waves of elation sweep over you because you are alive and happy and good to look upon; waves of keen delight that such a big and splendid life (there are orchids in the center of the table, there are pearls and diamonds everywhere)—that such a life as this is yours to grasp and to enjoy.
At Lucy's dinners the women do not wear diamonds and pearls. Lucy seldom entertains more than six at a time. "Shall we go out?" she says when her Delia mumbles something from the door. You straggle across the hall into the dining-room, where thirteen carnations—you count them later, there's time enough—where thirteen stiff carnations are doing duty in the center of the prim table. At each place there is a soup plate sending forth a cloud of steam. You wait until Lucy points out your place to you, and then sit down at last. There is a terrible pause—you wonder if they say grace—and then finally Lucy picks up her soup-spoon for signal and you're off! The conversation is general. That is because Lucy's guests are usually intellectuals, and whatever any one of them says is supposed to be so important that every one else must keep still and listen. You can't help but notice the food, because there's nothing to soften the effect of it upon your nerves, as it were. There are usually four courses, with chicken or ducks for the main dish, accompanied by potatoes cut in balls, the invariable rubber stamp of a party at Lucy's. Afterward there's coffee in the living-room, and you feel fearfully discouraged when you look at the clock and find it's only eight-thirty. You're surprised after the guests have gone to find that Lucy considers her party a success.
"Why," she exclaims, cheeks aglow, "Dr. Van Breeze gave us the entire résumé of his new book. He seldom thinks anybody clever enough to talk to. It was a perfect combination!"
As I said, I usually visit Lucy in rather a critical state of mind and hold myself aloof from her learned old doctors and professors. On this visit, though, she is so obviously careful of me and my feelings, that I find myself going out of my way to consider hers a little. One day last week when she so brightly suggested that we go to a tea given by the wife of a member of the faculty, instead of exclaiming, "Oh, dear! it would bore me to extinction," I replied sweetly, "All right, if you want to, I'll go."
I wasn't feeling happy. I didn't want to go. I had been roaming the woods and country roads round about for a month in search of an excuse for existence. I had been autobiographing for days in the faint hope that I might run across something worth while in my life. But no. It was hopeless. I had lost all initiative. I couldn't see what reason there was for me to eat three meals a day. It seemed as foolish as stoking the furnaces of an ocean liner when it is in port. In such a mood, and through the drifting mist of a complaining October afternoon, in rubbers and araincoat, I started out with Lucy for her afternoon tea.
The other guests wore raincoats, too—we met a few on the way—with dull-colored suits underneath, and tailored hats. There wasn't a single bright, frivolous thing about that tea. Even the house was dismal—rows of black walnut bookcases with busts of great men on top, steel engravings framed in oak on the walls, and a Boston fern or two in red pots sitting about on plates. When I looked up from my weak tea, served in a common stock-pattern willow cup, and saw Lucy sparkling with pleasure, talking away for dear life with a white-haired old man who wore a string tie and had had two fingers shot off in the Civil War (I always hated to shake hands with him) a wave of intolerance for age and learning swept over me. I told Lucy if she didn't mind I'd run along home, and stepped across the hall into a little stupid room with a roll-top desk in it, where we had left our raincoats, and rubbers. I put on my things and then stood staring a moment at a picture on the wall. I didn't know what the picture was. I simply looked at it blindly while I fought a sudden desire to cry. I hadn't wept before. But this dreadful house, these dry, drab people were such a contrast to my all-but-realized ambitions that it brought bitter tears to my eyes. Life at Grassmere—thatwas living! This was mere existence.
Just as I was groping for a handkerchief some little fool of a woman exclaimed, "Oh, there she is—in the study! I thought she hadn't gone. O Miss Vars,there's somebody I want you to meet, and meet you. Here she is, Mr. Jennings. Come in. Miss Vars," I was still facing the wall, "Miss Vars, I want to introduce Mr. Jennings." I turned finally, and as I did so she added, "Now, I must go back to Dr. Fuller. I was afraid you'd gone," and out she darted. I could have shot her.
Mr. Jennings came straight across the room. Through a blur I caught an impression of height, breadth and energy. His sudden hand-grasp was firm and decisive. "How do you do?" he said, and then abruptly observed my tears.
"You've caught me with my sails all down," I explained.
"Have I?" he replied pleasantly. "Well, I like sails down."
"Please do not think," I continued, "that I am often guilty of such a thing as this. I'm not. Who was that woman anyhow?"
"Oh, don't blame her," he laughed, and he stepped forward to look at the picture which I had been staring at. I was busy putting away my handkerchief. "Who was that woman?" Mr. Jennings repeated, abruptly turning away from the picture back to me, "Who was she? I'll tell you who she was—a good angel. Why," he went on, "I'd got into the way of thinking that sympathy as expressed by tears had gone out of style with the modern girl. They never shed any at the theater nowadays, I notice. I'm glad to know there is one who hasn't forgotten how."
I stepped forward then to find out what manner of picture it was to cause such a tribute to be paid me. It was called "The Doctor." A crude bare room was depicted. The light from a lamp on an old kitchen table threw its rays on the turned-aside, face of a little girl, who lay asleep—or unconscious—on an improvised bed made of two chairs drawn together. Beyond the narrow confines of the cot the little girl's hand extended, wistfully upturned. Seated beside her, watching, sat the big kind doctor. Anxiety, doubt were in his intelligent face. Near an east window, through which a streak of dawn was creeping, sat a woman, her face buried in the curve of her arms folded on the table. Beside her stood a bearded man, brow furrowed, his pleading eyes upon the doctor, while his hand, big, comforting, rested on the woman's bowed shoulders. A cup with a spoon in it, a collection of bottles near-by—all the poor, human, useless tools of defense were there, eloquent of a long and losing struggle. Every one who recalls the familiar picture knows what a dreary, hopeless scene it is—the room stamped with poverty, the window stark and curtainless, the woman meagerly clad, the man bearing the marks of hardship.
Suddenly in the face of all that, Mr. Jennings softly exclaimed, "That's living."
Only five minutes ago I had said the same thing of life at Grassmere.
"Is it?" I replied. "Is that living? I've been wondering lately. I thought—I thought—it's so poor and sad!" I remonstrated.
"Poor! Oh, no, it's rich," he replied quickly, "rich in everything worth while. Anyhow, only lives that are vacuums are free from sadness."
"Are lives that are vacuums free from happiness, too?" I enquired.
He took my question as if it was a statement. "That's true, too, I suppose," he agreed.
"How hopeless," I murmured, still gazing at the picture, but in reality contemplating my own empty life. He misunderstood.
"See here," he said. "I believe this little girl here is going to pull through after all. Don't worry. I insist she is. That artist ought to paint a sequel—just for you," he added, and abruptly he unfolded his arms and looked at me squarely for the first time. "I didn't in the least get your name," he broke off. "The good angel flew away so soon."
I told him.
"Oh, yes, Miss Vars. Thank you. Mine's Jennings. People mumble names so in introductions." He glanced around at the piles of raincoats and racks of umbrellas. I already had my coat on. "You weren't just going, were you?" he inquired brightly. "For if you were, so was I, too. Perhaps you will let me walk along—unless you're riding."
I forgot just for a minute that I didn't want to see another man for years and years. He wasn't a man just then, but a bright and colorful illumination. Hestood before me full of life and vigor. He was tall and straight. His close-cropped hair shone like gold in the pale gas-light, and there was a tan or glow upon his face that made me think of out-of-doors. His smile, his straightforward gaze, his crisp voice, had brightened that dull little room for me. I went with him. Of course I did—out into the rainy darkness of the late October afternoon, drawn as a child towards the glow of red fire.