To the nurse of the Delancy boy and to his mother he was by no means an old story or merely an incident of the year. He was an increasing wonder—new every morning, and exciting every evening. He was the centre of a world of solicitude and adoration. It would be scarcely too much to say that his coming into the world promised a new era, and his traits, his likes and dislikes, set a new standard in his court. If he had apprehended his position his vanity would have outgrown his curiosity about the world, but he displayed no more consciousness of his royalty than a kicking Infanta of Spain. This was greatly to his credit in the opinion of the nurse, who devoted herself to the baby with that enthusiasm of women for infants which fortunately never fails, and won the heart of Edith by her worship. And how much they found to say about this marvel! To hear from the nurse, over and over again, what the baby had done and had not done, in a given hour, was to Edith like a fresh chapter out of an exciting romance.
And the boy's biographer is inclined to think that he had rare powers of discrimination, for one day when Carmen had called and begged to be permitted to go up into the nursery, and had asked to take him in her arms just for a moment, notwithstanding her soft dress and her caressing manner, Fletcher had made a wry face and set up a howl. “How much he looks like his father” (he didn't look like anything), Carmen said, handing him over to the nurse. What she thought was that in manner and disposition he was totally unlike Jack Delancy.
When they came down-stairs, Mrs. Schuyler Blunt was in the drawing-room. “I've had such a privilege, Mrs. Blunt, seeing the baby!” cried Carmen, in her sweetest manner.
“It must have been,” that lady rejoined, stiffly.
Carmen, who hated to be seen through, of all things, did not know whether to resent this or not. But Edith hastened to the rescue of her guest.
“I think it's a privilege.”
“And you know, Mrs. Blunt,” said Carmen, recovering herself and smiling, “that I must have some excitement this dull season.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Blunt, with no relaxation of her manner; “we are all grateful to Mrs. Delancy.”
“Mrs. Henderson does herself injustice,” Edith again interposed. “I can assure you she has a great talent for domesticity.”
Carmen did not much fancy this apology for her, but she rejoined: “Yes, indeed. I'm going to cultivate it.”
“How is this privileged person?” Mrs. Blunt asked.
“You shall see,” said Edith. “I am glad you came, for I wanted very much to consult you. I was going to send for you.”
“Well, here I am. But I didn't come about the baby. I wanted to consult you. We miss you, dear, every day.” And then Mrs. Blunt began to speak about some social and charitable arrangements, but stopped suddenly. “I'll see the baby first. Good-morning, Mrs. Henderson.” And she left the room.
Carmen felt as much left out socially as about the baby, and she also rose to go.
“Don't go,” said Edith. “What kind of a summer have you had?”
“Oh, very good. Some shipwrecks.”
“And Mr. Henderson? Is he well?”
“Perfectly. He is away now. Husbands, you know, haven't so much talent for domesticity as we have.”
{0247}
“That depends,” Edith replied, simply, but with that spirit and air of breeding before which Carmen always inwardly felt defeat—“that depends very much upon ourselves.”
Naturally, with this absorption in the baby, Edith was slow to resume her old interests. Of course she knew of the illness of Father Damon, and the nurse, who was from the training-school in which Dr. Leigh was an instructor, and had been selected for this important distinction by the doctor, told her from time to time of affairs on the East Side. Over there the season had opened quite as usual; indeed, it was always open; work must go on every day, because every day food must be obtained and rent-money earned, and the change from summer to winter was only a climatic increase of hardships. Even an epidemic scare does not essentially vary the daily monotony, which is accepted with a dogged fatality:
There had been no vacation for Ruth Leigh, and she jokingly said, when at length she got a half-hour for a visit to Edith, that she would hardly know what to do with one if she had it.
“We have got through very well,” she added. “We always dread the summer, and we always dread the winter. Science has not yet decided which is the more fatal, decayed vegetables or unventilated rooms. City residence gives both a fair chance at the poor.”
“Are not the people learning anything?” Edith asked.
“Not much, except to bear it, I am sorry to say. Even Father Damon—”
“Is he at work again? Do you see him often?”
“Yes, occasionally.”
“I should so like to see him. But I interrupted you.”
“Well, Father Damon has come to see that nothing can be done without organization. The masses”—and there was an accent of bitterness in her use of the phrase—“must organize and fight for anything they want.”
“Does Father Damon join in this?”
“Oh, he has always been a member of the Labor League. Now he has been at work with the Episcopal churches of the city, and got them to agree, when they want workmen for any purpose, to employ only union men.”
“Isn't that,” Edith exclaimed, “a surrender of individual rights and a great injustice to men not in the unions?”
“You would see it differently if you were in the struggle. If the working-men do not stand by each other, where are they to look for help? What have the Christians of this city done?” and the little doctor got up and began to pace the room. “Charities? Yes, little condescending charities. And look at the East Side! Is its condition any better? I tell you, Mrs. Delancy, I don't believe in charities—in any charities.”
“It seems to me,” said Edith, with a smile calculated to mollify this vehemence, “that you are a standing refutation of your own theory.”
“Me? No, indeed. I'm paid by the dispensary. And I make my patients pay—when they are able.”
“So I have heard,” Edith retorted. “Your bills must be a terror to the neighborhood.”
“You may laugh. But I'm establishing a reputation over there as a working-woman, and if I have any influence, or do any little good, it's owing to that fact. Do you think they care anything about Father Damon's gospel?”
“I should be sorry to think they did not,” Edith said, gravely.
“Well, very little they care. They like the man because they think he shares their feelings, and does not sympathize with them because they are different from him. That is the only kind of gospel that is good for anything over there.”
“I don't think Father Damon would agree with you in that.”
“Of course he would not. He's as mediaeval as any monk. But then he is not blind. He sees that it is never anything but personal influence that counts. Poor fellow,” and the doctor's voice softened, “he'll kill himself with his ascetic notions. He is trying to take up the burden of this life while struggling under the terror of another.”
“But he must be doing a great deal of good.”
“Oh, I don't know. Nothing seems to do much good. But his presence is a great comfort. That is something. And I'm glad he is going about now rousing opposition to what is, rather than all the time preaching submission to the lot of this life for the sake of a reward somewhere else. That's a gospel for the rich.”
Edith was accustomed to hear Ruth Leigh talk in this bitter strain when this subject was introduced, and she contrived to turn the conversation upon what she called practical work, and then to ask some particulars of Father Damon's sudden illness.
“He did rest,” the doctor said, “for a little, in his way. But he will not spare himself, and he cannot stand it. I wish you could induce him to come here often—to do anything for diversion. He looks so worn.”
There was in the appeal to Edith a note of personal interest which her quick heart did not fail to notice. And the thought came to her with a painful apprehension. Poor thing! Poor Father Damon!
Does not each of them have to encounter misery enough without this?
Doesn't life spare anybody?
She told her apprehension to Jack when he came home.
Jack gave a long whistle. “That is a deadlock!”
“His vows, and her absolute materialism! Both of them would go to the stake for what they believe, or don't believe. It troubles me very much.”
“But,” said Jack, “it's interesting. It's what they call a situation. There. I didn't mean to make light of it. I don't believe there is anything in it. But it would be comical, right here in New York.”
“It would be tragical.”
“Comedy usually is. I suppose it's the human nature in it. That is so difficult to get rid of. But I thought the missionary business was safe. Though, do you know, Edith, I should think better of both of them for having some human feeling. By-the-way, did Dr. Leigh say anything about Henderson?”
“No. What?”
“He has given Father Damon ten thousand dollars. It's in strict secrecy, but Father Damon said I might tell you. He said it was providential.”
“I thought Mr. Henderson was wholly unscrupulous and cold as ice.”
“Yes, he's got a reputation for freeze-outs. If the Street knew this it would say it was insurance money. And he is so cynical that he wouldn't care what the Street said.”
“Do you think it came about through Mrs. Henderson?”
“I don't think so. She was speaking of Father Damon this morning in the Loan Exhibition. I don't believe she knows anything about it. Henderson is a good deal shut up in himself. They say at the Union that years ago he used to do a good many generous things—that he is a great deal harder than he used to be.”
This talk was before dinner. She did not ask anything now about Carmen, though she knew that Jack had fallen into his old habit of seeing much of her. He was less and less at home, except at dinner-time, and he was often restless, and, she saw, often annoyed. When he was at home he tried to make up for his absence by extra tenderness and consideration for Edith and the boy. And this effort, and its evidence of a double if not divided life, wounded her more than the neglect. One night, when he came home late, he had been so demonstrative about the baby that Edith had sent the nurse out of the room until she could coax Jack to go into his own apartment. His fits of alternate good-humor and depression she tried to attribute to his business, to which he occasionally alluded without confiding in her.
The next morning Father Damon came in about luncheon-time. He apologized for not coming before since her return, but he had been a little upset, and his work was more and more interesting. His eyes were bright and his manner had quite the usual calm, but he looked pale and thinner, and so exhausted that Edith ran immediately for a glass of wine, and began to upbraid him for not taking better care of himself.
“I take too much care of myself. We all do. The only thing I've got to give is myself.”
“But you will not last.”
“That is of little moment; long or short, a man can only give himself. Our Lord was not here very long.” And then Father Damon smiled, and said “My dear friend, I'm really doing very well. Of course I get tired. Then I come up again. And every now and then I get a lift. Did Jack tell you about Henderson?”
“Yes. Wasn't it strange?”
“I never was more surprised. He sent for me to come to his office. Without any circumlocution, he asked me how I was getting on, and, before I could answer, he said, in the driest business way, that he had been thinking over a little plan, and perhaps I could help him. He had a little money he wanted to invest—RR” 'In our mission chapel?' I asked.
“'No,' he said, without moving a muscle. 'Not that. I don't know much about chapels, Father Damon. But I've been hearing what you are doing, and it occurred to me that you must come across a good many cases not in the regular charities that you could help judiciously, get them over hard spots, without encouraging dependence. I'm going to put ten thousand dollars into your hands, if you'll be bothered with it, to use at your discretion.'
“I was taken aback, and I suppose I showed it, and I said that was a great deal of money to intrust to one man.
“Henderson showed a little impatience. It depended upon the man. That was his lookout. The money would be deposited, he said, in bank to my order, and he asked me for my signature that he could send with the deposit.
“Of course I thanked him warmly, and said I hoped I could do some good with it. He did not seem to pay much attention to what I was saying. He was looking out of the window to the bare trees in the court back of his office, and his hands were moving the papers on his table aimlessly about.
“'I shall know,' he said, 'when you have drawn this out. I've got a fancy for keeping a little fund of this sort there.' And then he added, still not looking at me, but at the dead branches, 'You might call it the Margaret Fund.'”
“That was the name of his first wife!” Edith exclaimed.
“Yes, I remember. I said I would, and began to thank him again as I rose from my chair. He was still looking away, and saying, as if to himself, 'I think she would like that.' And then he turned, and, in his usual abrupt office manner, said: 'Good-morning, good-morning. I am very much obliged to you.'”
“Wasn't it all very strange!” Edith spoke, after a moment. “I didn't suppose he cared. Do you think it was just sentiment?”
“I shouldn't wonder. Men like Henderson do queer things. In the hearts of such hardened men there are sometimes roots of sentiment that you wouldn't suspect. But I don't know. The Lord somehow looks out for his poor.”
Notwithstanding this windfall of charity, Father Damon seemed somewhat depressed. “I wish,” he said, after a pause, “he had given it to the mission. We are so poor, and modern philanthropy all runs in other directions. The relief of temporary suffering has taken the place of the care of souls.”
“But Dr. Leigh said that you were interesting the churches in the labor unions.”
“Yes. It is an effort to do something. The church must put herself into sympathetic relations with these people, or she will accomplish nothing. To get them into the church we must take up their burdens. But it is a long way round. It is not the old method of applying the gospel to men's sins.”
“And yet,” Edith insisted, “you must admit that such people as Dr. Leigh are doing a good work.”
Father Damon did not reply immediately. Presently he asked: “Do you think, Mrs. Delancy, that Dr. Leigh has any sympathy with the higher life, with spiritual things? I wish I could think so.”
“With the higher life of humanity, certainly.”
“Ah, that is too vague. I sometimes feel that she and those like her are the worst opponents to our work. They substitute humanitarianism for the gospel.”
“Yet I know of no one who works more than Ruth Leigh in the self-sacrificing spirit of the Master.”
“Whom she denies!” The quick reply came with a flush in his pale face, and he instantly arose and walked away to the window and stood for some moments in silence. When he turned there was another expression in his eyes and a note of tenderness in his voice that contradicted the severity of the priest. It was the man that spoke. “Yes, she is the best woman I ever knew. God help me! I fear I am not fit for my work.”
This outburst of Father Damon to her, so unlike his calm and trained manner, surprised Edith, although she had already some suspicion of his state of mind. But it would not have surprised her if she had known more of men, the necessity of the repressed and tortured soul for sympathy, and that it is more surely to be found in the heart of a pure woman than elsewhere.
But there was nothing that she could say, as she took his hand to bid him good-by, except the commonplace that Dr. Leigh had expressed anxiety that he was overworking, and that for the sake of his work he must be more prudent. Yet her eyes expressed the sympathy she did not put in words.
Father Damon understood this, and he went away profoundly grateful for her forbearance of verbal expression as much as for her sympathy. But he did not suspect that she needed sympathy quite as much as he did, and consequently he did not guess the extent of her self-control. It would have been an immense relief to have opened her heart to him—and to whom could she more safely do this than to a priest set apart from all human entanglements?—and to have asked his advice. But Edith's peculiar strength—or was it the highest womanly instinct?—lay in her discernment of the truth that in one relation of life no confidences are possible outside of that relation except to its injury, and that to ask interference is pretty sure to seal its failure. As its highest joys cannot be participated in, so its estrangements cannot be healed by any influence outside of its sacred compact. To give confidence outside is to destroy the mutual confidence upon which the relation rests, and though interference may patch up livable compromises, the bloom of love and the joy of life are not in them. Edith knew that if she could not win her own battle, no human aid could win it for her.
And it was all the more difficult because it was vague and indefinite, as the greater part of domestic tragedies are. For the most part life goes on with external smoothness, and the public always professes surprise when some accident, a suit at law, a sudden death, a contested will, a slip from apparent integrity, or family greed or feminine revenge, turns the light of publicity upon a household, to find how hollow the life has been; in the light of forgotten letters, revealing check-books, servants' gossip, and long-established habits of aversion or forbearance, how much sordidness and meanness!
Was not everything going on as usual in the Delancy house and in the little world of which it was a part? If there had been any open neglect or jealousy, any quarrel or rupture, or any scene, these could be described. These would have an interest to the biographer and perhaps to the public. But at this period there was nothing of this sort to tell. There were no scenes. There were no protests or remonstrances or accusations, nor to the world was there any change in the daily life of these two.
It was more pitiful even than that. Here was a woman who had set her heart in all the passionate love of a pure ideal, and day by day she felt that the world, the frivolous world, with its low and selfish aims, was too strong for her, and that the stream was wrecking her life because it was bearing Jack away from her. What could one woman do against the accepted demoralizations of her social life? To go with them, not to care, to accept Jack's idle, good-natured, easy philosophy of life and conduct, would not that have insured a peaceful life? Why shouldn't she conform and float, and not mind?
To be sure, a wise woman, who has been blessed or cursed with a long experience of life, would have known that such a course could not forever, or for long, secure happiness, and that a man's love ultimately must rest upon a profound respect for his wife and a belief in her nobility. Perhaps Edith did not reason in this way. Probably it was her instinct for what was pure and true-showing, indeed, the quality of her love-that guided her.
To Jack's friends he was much the same as usual. He simply went on in his ante-marriage ways. Perhaps he drank a little more, perhaps he was a little more reckless at cards, and it was certain that his taste for amusing himself in second-hand book-shops and antiquity collections had weakened. His talked-of project for some regular occupation seemed to have been postponed, although he said to himself that it was only postponed until his speculations, which kept him in a perpetual fever, should put him in a position to command a business.
Meantime he did not neglect social life—that is, the easy, tolerant company which lived as he liked to live. There was at first some pretense of declining invitations which Edith could not accept, but he soon fell into the habit of a man whose family has temporarily gone abroad, with the privileges of a married man, without the responsibilities of a bachelor. Edith could see that he took great credit to himself for any evenings he spent at home, and perhaps he had a sort of support in the idea that he was sacrificing himself to his family. Major Fairfax, whom Edith distrusted as a misleader of youth, did not venture to interfere with Jack again, but he said to himself that it was a blank shame that with such a wife he should go dangling about with women like Carmen and Miss Tavish, not that the Major himself had any objection to their society, but, hang it all, that was no reason why Jack should be a fool.
In midwinter Jack went to Washington on business. It was necessary to see Mavick, and Mr. Henderson, who was also there. To spend a few weeks at the capital, in preparation for Lent, has become a part of the program of fashion. There can be met people like-minded from all parts of the Union, and there is gayety, and the entertainment to be had in new acquaintances, without incurring any of the responsibilities of social continuance. They meet there on neutral ground. Half Jack's set had gone over or were going. Young Van Dam would go with him. It will be only for a few days, Jack had said, gayly, when he bade Edith good-by, and she must be careful not to let the boy forget him.
It was quite by accident, apparently, that in the same train were the Chesneys, Miss Tavish, and Carmen going over to join her husband. This gave the business expedition the air of an excursion. And indeed at the hotel where they stayed this New York contingent made something of an impression, promising an addition to the gayety of the season, and contributing to the importance of the house as a centre of fashion. Henderson's least movements were always chronicled and speculated on, and for years he had been one of the stock subjects, out of which even the dullest interviewers, who watch the hotel registers in all parts of the country, felt sure that they could make an acceptable paragraph. The arrival of his wife, therefore, was a newspaper event.
They said in Washington at the time that Mrs. Henderson was one of the most fascinating of women, amiable, desirous to please, approachable, and devoted to the interests of her husband. If some of the women, residents in established society, were a little shy of her, if some, indeed, thought her dangerous—women are always thinking this of each other, and surely they ought to know-nothing of this appeared in the reports. The men liked her. She had so much vivacity, such esprit, she understood men so well, and the world, and could make allowances, and was always an entertaining companion. More than one Senator paid marked court to her, more than one brilliant young fellow of the House thought himself fortunate if he sat next her at dinner, and even cabinet officers waited on her at supper. It could not be doubted that a smile and a confidential or a witty remark from Mrs. Henderson brightened many an evening. Wherever she went her charming toilets were fully described, and the public knew as well as her jewelers the number and cost of her diamonds, her necklaces, her tiaras. But this was for the world and for state occasions. At home she liked simplicity. And this was what impressed the reporters when, in the line of their public duty, they were admitted to her presence. With them she was very affable, and she made them feel that they could almost be classed with her friends, and that they were her guardians against the vulgar publicity, which she disliked and shrank from.
{0265}
There went abroad, therefore, an impression of her amiability, her fabulous wealth in jewels and apparel, her graciousness and her cleverness and her domesticity. Her manners seemed to the reporters those of a “lady,” and of this both her wit and freedom from prudishness and her courteous treatment of them convinced them. And the best of all this was that while it was said that Henderson was one of the boldest and shrewdest of operators, and a man to be feared in the Street, he was in his family relations one of the most generous and kind-hearted of men.
Henderson himself had not much time for the frivolities of the season, and he evaded all but the more conspicuous social occasions, at which Carmen, sometimes with a little temper, insisted that he should accompany her. “You would come here,” he once said, “when you knew I was immersed in most perplexing business.”
“And now I am here,” she had replied, in a tone equally wanting in softness, “you have got to make the best of me.”
Was Jack happy in the whirl he was in? Some days exceedingly so. Some days he sulked, and some days he threw himself with recklessness born of artificial stimulants into the always gay and rattling moods of Miss Tavish. Somehow he could get no nearer to Henderson or to Mavick than when he was in New York. Not that he could accuse Mavick of trying to conceal anything; Mavick bore to him always the open, “all right” attitude, but there were things that he did not understand.
And then Carmen? Was she a little less dependent on him, in this wide horizon, than in New York? And had he noticed a little disposition to patronize on two or three occasions? It was absurd. He laughed at himself for such an idea. Old Eschelle's daughter patronize him! And yet there was something. She was very confidential with Mavick. They seemed to have a great deal in common. It so happened that even in the little expeditions of sightseeing these two were thrown much together, and at times when the former relations of Jack and Carmen should have made them comrades. They had a good deal to say to each other, and momentarily evidently serious things, and at receptions Jack had interrupted their glances of intelligence. But what stuff this was! He jealous of the attentions of his friend to another man's wife! If she was a coquette, what did it matter to him? Certainly he was not jealous. But he was irritated.
One day after a round of receptions, in which Jack had been specially disgruntled, and when he was alone in the drawing-room of the hotel with Carmen, his manner was so positively rude to her that she could not but notice it. There was this trait of boyishness in Jack, and it was one of the weaknesses that made him loved, that he always cried out when he was hurt.
Did Carmen resent this? Did she upbraid him for his manner? Did she apologize, as if she had done anything to provoke it? She sank down wearily in a chair and said:
“I'm so tired. I wish I were back in New York.”
“You don't act like it,” Jack replied, gruffly.
“No. You don't understand. And now you want to make me more miserable. See here, Mr. Delancy,” and she started up in her seat and turned to him, “you are a man of honor. Would you advise me to make an enemy of Mr. Mavick, knowing all that he does know about Mr. Henderson's affairs?”
“I don't see what that has got to do with it,” said Jack, wavering. “Lately your manner—”
“Nonsense!” cried Carmen, springing up and approaching Jack with a smile of animation and trust, and laying her hand on his shoulder. “We are old, old friends. And I have just confided to you what I wouldn't to any other living being. There!” And looking around at the door, she tapped him lightly on the cheek and ran out of the room.
Whatever you might say of Carmen, she had this quality of a wise person, that she never cut herself loose from one situation until she was entirely sure of a better position.
For one reason or another Jack's absence was prolonged. He wrote often, he made bright comments on the characters and peculiarities of the capital, and he said that he was tired to death of the everlasting whirl and scuffle. People plunged in the social whirlpool always say they are weary of it, and they complain bitterly of its exactions and its tax on their time and strength. Edith judged, especially from the complaints, that her husband was enjoying himself. She felt also that his letters were in a sense perfunctory, and gave her only the surface of his life. She sought in vain in them for those evidences of spontaneous love, of delight in writing to her of all persons in the world, the eagerness of the lover that she recalled in letters written in other days. However affectionate in expression, these were duty letters. Edith was not alone. She had no lack of friends, who came and went in the common round of social exchange, and for many of them she had a sincere affection. And there were plenty of relatives on the father's and on the mother's side. But for the most part they were old-fashioned, home-keeping New-Yorkers, who were sufficient to themselves, and cared little for the set into which Edith's marriage had more definitely placed her. In any real trouble she would not have lacked support. She was deemed fortunate in her marriage, and in her apparent serene prosperity it was believed that she was happy. If she had had mother or sister or brother, it is doubtful if she would have made either a confidant of her anxieties, but high-spirited and self-reliant as she was, there were days when she longed with intolerable heartache for the silent sympathy of a mother's presence.
It is singular how lonely a woman of this nature can be in a gay and friendly world. She had her interests, to be sure. As she regained her strength she took up her social duties, and she tried to resume her studies, her music, her reading, and she occupied herself more and more with the charities and the fortunes of her friends who were giving their lives to altruistic work. But there was a sense of unreality in all this. The real thing was the soul within, the longing, loving woman whose heart was heavy and unsatisfied. Jack was so lovable, he had in his nature so much nobility, if the world did not kill it, her life might be so sweet, and so completely fulfill her girlish dreams. All these schemes of a helpful, altruistic life had been in her dream, but how empty it was without the mutual confidence, the repose in the one human love for which she cared.
Though she was not alone, she had no confidant. She could have none. What was there to confide? There was nothing to be done. There was no flagrant wrong or open injustice. Some women in like circumstances become bitter and cynical. Others take their revenge in a career reckless, but within social conventions, going their own way in a sort of matrimonial truce. These are not noticeable tragedies. They are things borne with a dumb ache of the heart. There are lives into which the show of spring comes, but without the song of birds or the scent of flowers. They are endured bravely, with a heroism for which the world does not often give them credit. Heaven only knows how many noble women-noble in this if in nothing else—carry through life this burden of an unsatisfied heart, mocked by the outward convention of love.
But Edith had one confidant—the boy. And he was perfectly safe; he would reveal nothing. There were times when he seemed to understand, and whether he did or not she poured out her heart to him. Often in the twilight she sat by him in this silent communion. If he were asleep—and he was not troubled with insomnia—he was still company. And when he was awake, his efforts to communicate the dawning ideas of the queer world into which he had come were a never-failing delight. He wanted so many more things than he could ask for, which it was his mother's pleasure to divine; later on he would ask for so many things he could not get. The nurse said that he had uncommon strength of will.
These were happy hours, imagining what the boy would be, planning what she would make his life, hours enjoyed as a traveler enjoys wayside flowers, snatched before an approaching storm. It is a pity, the nurse would say, that his father cannot see him now. And at the thought Edith could only see the child through tears, and a great weight rested on her heart in all this happiness.
When Father Damon parted from Edith he seemed to himself strengthened in his spirit. His momentary outburst had shown him where he stood-the strength of his fearful temptation. To see it was to be able to conquer it. He would humiliate himself; he would scourge himself; he would fast and pray; he would throw himself more unreservedly into the service of his Master. He had been too compromising with sin and sinners, and with his own weakness and sin, the worst of all.
The priest walked swiftly through the wintry streets, welcoming as a sort of penance the biting frost which burned his face and penetrated his garments. He little heeded the passers in the streets, those who hurried or those who loitered, only, if he met or passed a woman or a group of girls, he instinctively drew himself away and walked more rapidly. He strode on uncompromisingly, and his clean-shaved face was set in rigid lines. Those who saw him pass would have said that there went an ascetic bent on judgment. Many who did know him, and who ordinarily would have saluted him, sure of a friendly greeting, were repelled by his stern face and determined air, and made no sign. The father had something on his mind.
As he turned into Rivington Street there approached him from the opposite direction a girl, walking slowly and undecidedly. When he came near her she looked up, with an appealing recognition. In a flash of the quick passing he thought he knew her—a girl who had attended his mission and whom he had not seen for several months-but he made no sign and passed on.
“Father Damon!”
He turned about short at the sound of the weak, pleading voice, but with no relaxation of his severe, introverted mood. “Well?”
It was the girl he remembered. She wore a dress of silk that had once been fine, and over it an ample cloak that had quite lost its freshness, and a hat still gay with cheap flowers. Her face, which had a sweet and almost innocent expression, was drawn and anxious. The eyes were those of a troubled and hunted animal.
“I thought,” she said, hesitatingly, “you didn't know me.”
“Yes, I know you. Why haven't you been at the mission lately?”
“I couldn't come. I—”
“I'm afraid you have fallen into bad ways.”
She did not answer immediately. She looked away, and, still avoiding his gaze, said, timidly: “I thought I would tell you, Father Damon, that I'm—that I'm in trouble. I don't know what to do.”
“Have you repented of your sin?” asked he, with a little softening of his tone. “Did you want to come to me for help?”
“He's deserted me,” said the girl, looking down, absorbed in her own misery, and not heeding his question.
“Ah, so that is what you are sorry for?” The severe, reproving tone had come back to his voice.
“And they don't want me in the shop any more.”
The priest hesitated. Was he always to preach against sin, to strive to extirpate it, and yet always to make it easy for the sinner? This girl must realize her guilt before he could do her any good. “Are you sorry for what you have done?”
“Yes, I'm sorry,” she replied. Wasn't to be in deep trouble to be sorry? And then she looked up, and continued with the thought in her mind, “I didn't know who else to go to.”
“Well, my child, if you are sorry, and want to lead a different life, come to me at the mission and I will try to help you.”
The priest, with a not unkindly good-by, passed on. The girl stood a moment irresolute, and then went on her way heavily and despondent. What good would it do her to go to the mission now?
Three days later Dr. Leigh was waiting at the mission chapel to speak with the rector after the vesper service. He came out pale and weary, and the doctor hesitated to make known her errand when she saw how exhausted he was.
“Did you wish me for anything?” he asked, after the rather forced greeting.
“If you feel able. There is a girl at the Woman's Hospital who wants to see you.”
“Who is it?”
“It is the girl you saw on the street the other afternoon; she said she had spoken to you.”
“She promised to come to the mission.”
“She couldn't. I met the poor thing the same afternoon. She looked so aimless and forlorn that, though I did not remember her at first, I thought she might be ill, and spoke to her, and asked her what was the matter. At first she said nothing except that she was out of work and felt miserable; but the next moment she broke down completely, and said she hadn't a friend in the world.”
“Poor thing!” said the priest, with a pang of self-reproach.
“There was nothing to do but to take her to the hospital, and there she has been.”
“Is she very ill?”
“She may live, the house surgeon says. But she was very weak for such a trial.”
Little more was said as they walked along, and when they reached the hospital, Father Damon was shown without delay into the ward where the sick girl lay. Dr. Leigh turned back from the door, and the nurse took him to the bedside. She lay quite still in her cot, wan and feeble, with every sign of having encountered a supreme peril.
She turned her head on the low pillow as Father Damon spoke, saying he was very glad he could come to her, and hoped she was feeling better.
“I knew you would come,” she said, feebly. “The nurse says I'm better. But I wanted to tell you—” And she stopped.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “The Lord is very good. He will forgive all your sins now, if you repent and trust Him.”
“I hope—” she began. “I'm so weak. If I don't live I want him to know.”
“Want whom to know?” asked the father, bending over her.
She signed for him to come closer, and then whispered a name.
“Only if I never see him again, if you see him, you will tell him that I was always true to him. He said such hard words. I was always true.”
“I promise,” said the father, much moved. “But now, my child, you ought to think of yourself, of your—”
“He is dead. Didn't they tell you? There is nothing any more.”
The nurse approached with a warning gesture that the interview was too prolonged.
Father Damon knelt for a moment by the bedside, uttering a hardly articulate prayer. The girl's eyes were closed. When he rose she opened them with a look of gratitude, and with the sign of blessing he turned away.
He intended to hasten from the house. He wanted to be alone. His trouble seemed to him greater than that of the suffering girl. What had he done? What was he in thought better than she? Was this intruding human element always to cross the purpose of his spiritual life?
As he was passing through the wide hallway the door of the reception-room was open, and he saw Dr. Leigh seated at the table, with a piece of work in her hands. She looked up, and stopped him with an unspoken inquiry in her face. It was only civil to pause a moment and tell her about the patient, and as he stepped within the room she rose.
“You should rest a moment, Father Damon. I know what these scenes are.”
Yielding weakly, as he knew, he took the offered chair. But he raised his hand in refusal of the glass of wine which she had ready for him on the table, and offered before he could speak.
“But you must,” she said, with a smile. “It is the doctor's prescription.”
She did not look like a doctor. She had laid aside the dusty walking-dress, the business-jacket, the ugly little hat of felt, the battered reticule. In her simple house costume she was the woman, homelike, sympathetic, gentle, with the everlasting appeal of the strong feminine nature. It was not a temptress who stood before him, but a helpful woman, in whose kind eyes-how beautiful they were in this moment of sympathy—there was trust—and rest—and peace.
“So,” she said, when he had taken the much-needed draught; “in the hospital you must obey the rules, one of which is to let no one sink in exhaustion.”
She had taken her seat now, and resumed her work. Father Damon was looking at her, seeing the woman, perhaps, as he never had seen her before, a certain charm in her quiet figure and modest self-possession, while the thought of her life, of her labors, as he had seen her now for months and months of entire sacrifice of self, surged through his brain in a whirl of emotion that seemed sweeping him away. But when he spoke it was of the girl, and as if to himself.
“I was sorry to let her go that day. Friendless, I should have known. I did know. I should have felt. You—”
“No,” she said, gently, interrupting him; “that was my business. You should not accuse yourself. It was a physician's business.”
“Yes, a physician—the great Physician. The Master never let the sin hinder his compassion for the sinner.”
To this she could make no reply. Presently she looked up and said: “But I am sure your visit was a great comfort to the poor girl! She was very eager to see you.”
“I do not know.”
His air was still abstracted. He was hardly thinking of the girl, after all, but of himself, of the woman who sat before him. It seemed to him that he would have given the world to escape—to fly from her, to fly from himself. Some invisible force held him—a strong, new, and yet not new, emotion, a power that seemed to clutch his very life. He could not think clearly about it. In all his discipline, in his consecration, in his vows of separation from the world, there seemed to have been no shield prepared for this. The human asserted itself, and came in, overwhelming his guards and his barriers like a strong flood in the spring-time of the year, breaking down all artificial contrivances. “They reckon ill who leave me out,” is the everlasting cry of the human heart, the great passion of life, incarnate in the first man and the first woman.
With a supreme effort of his iron will—is the Will, after all, stronger than Love?—Father Damona rose. He stretched out his hand to say farewell. She also stood, and she felt the hand tremble that held hers.
“God bless you!” he said. “You are so good.”
He was going. He took her other hand, and was looking down upon her face. She looked up, and their eyes met. It was for an instant, a flash, glance for glance, as swift as the stab of daggers.
All the power of heaven and earth could not recall that glance nor undo its revelations. The man and the woman stood face to face revealed.
He bent down towards her face. Affrighted by his passion, scarcely able to stand in her sudden emotion, she started back. The action, the instant of time, recalled him to himself. He dropped her hands, and was gone. And the woman, her knees refusing any longer to support her, sank into a chair, helpless, and saw him go, and knew in that moment the height of a woman's joy, the depth of a woman's despair.
It had come to her! Steeled by her science, shielded by her philanthropy, schooled in indifference to love, it had come to her! And it was hopeless. Hopeless? It was absurd. Her life was determined. In no event could it be in harmony with his opinions, with his religion, which was dearer to him than life. There was a great gulf between them which she could not pass unless she ceased to be herself. And he? A severe priest! Vowed and consecrated against human passion! What a government of the world—if there were any government—that could permit such a thing! It was terrible.
And yet she was loved! That sang in her heart with all the pain, with all the despair. And with it all was a great pity for him, alone, gone into the wilderness, as it would seem to him, to struggle with his fierce temptation.
It had come on darker as she sat there. The lamps were lighted, and she was reminded of some visits she must make. She went, mechanically, to her room to prepare for going. The old jacket, which she took up, did look rather rusty. She went to the press—it was not much of a wardrobe—and put on the one that was reserved for holidays. And the hat? Her friends had often joked her about the hat, but now for the first time she seemed to see it as it might appear to others. As she held it in her hand, and then put it on before the mirror, she smiled a little, faintly, at its appearance. And then she laid it aside for her better hat. She never had been so long in dressing before. And in the evening, too, when it could make no difference! It might, after all, be a little more cheerful for her forlorn patients. Perhaps she was not conscious that she was making selections, that she was paying a little more attention to her toilet than usual. Perhaps it was only the woman who was conscious that she was loved.
It would be difficult to say what emotion was uppermost in the mind of Father Damon as he left the house—mortification, contempt of himself, or horror. But there was a sense of escape, of physical escape, and the imperative need of it, that quickened his steps almost into a run. In the increasing dark, at this hour, in this quarter of the town, there were comparatively few whose observation of him would recall him to himself. He thought only of escape, and of escape from that quarter of the city that was the witness of his labors and his failure. For the moment to get away from this was the one necessity, and without reasoning in the matter, only feeling, he was hurrying, stumbling in his haste, northward. Before he went to the hospital he had been tired, physically weary. He was scarcely conscious of it now; indeed, his body, his hated body, seemed lighter, and the dominant spirit now awakened to contempt of it had a certain pleasure in testing it, in drawing upon its vitality, to the point of exhaustion if possible. It should be seen which was master. His rapid pace presently brought him into one of the great avenues leading to Harlem. That was the direction he wished to go. That was where he knew, without making any decision, he must go, to the haven of the house of his order, on the heights beyond Harlem. A train was just clattering along on the elevated road above him. He could see the faces at the windows, the black masses crowding the platforms. It went pounding by as if it were freight from another world. He was in haste, but haste to escape from himself. That way, bearing him along with other people, and in the moving world, was to bring him in touch with humanity again, and so with what was most hateful in himself. He must be alone. But there was a deeper psychological reason than that for walking, instead of availing himself of the swiftest method of escape. He was not fleeing from justice or pursuit. When the mind is in torture and the spirit is torn, the instinctive effort is to bodily activity, to force physical exertion, as if there must be compensation for the mental strain in the weariness of nature. The priest obeyed this instinct, as if it were possible to walk away from himself, and went on, at first with almost no sense of weariness.
And the shame! He could not bear to be observed. It seemed to him that every one would see in his face that he was a recreant priest, perjured and forsworn. And so great had been his spiritual pride! So removed he had deemed himself from the weakness of humanity! And he had yielded at the first temptation, and the commonest of all temptations! Thank God, he had not quite yielded. He had fled. And yet, how would it have been if Ruth Leigh had not had a moment of reserve, of prudent repulsion! He groaned in anguish. The sin was in the intention. It was no merit of his that he had not with a kiss of passion broken his word to his Lord and lost his soul.
It was remorse that was driving him along the avenue; no room for any other thought yet, or feeling. Perhaps it is true in these days that the old-fashioned torture known as remorse is rarely experienced except under the name of detection. But it was a reality with this highly sensitive nature, with this conscience educated to the finest edge of feeling. The world need never know his moment's weakness; Ruth Leigh he could trust as he would have trusted his own sister to guard his honor—that was all over—never, he was sure, would she even by a look recall the past; but he knew how he had fallen, and the awful measure of his lapse from loyalty to his Master. And how could he ever again stand before erring, sinful men and women and speak about that purity which he had violated? Could repentance, confession, penitence, wipe away this stain?
As he went on, his mind in a whirl of humiliation, self-accusation, and contempt, at length he began to be conscious of physical weariness. Except the biscuit and the glass of wine at the hospital, he had taken nothing since his light luncheon. When he came to the Harlem Bridge he was compelled to rest. Leaning against one of the timbers and half seated, with the softened roar of the city in his ears, the lights gleaming on the heights, the river flowing dark and silent, he began to be conscious of his situation. Yes, he was very tired. It seemed difficult to go on without help of some sort. At length he crossed the bridge. Lights were gleaming from the saloons along the street. He paused in front of one, irresolute. Food he could not taste, but something he must have to carry him on. But no, that would not do; he could not enter that in his priest's garb. He dragged himself along until he came to a drug-shop, the modern saloon of the respectably virtuous. That he entered, and sat down on a stool by the soda-water counter. The expectant clerk stared at him while waiting the order, his hand tentatively seeking one of the faucets of refreshment.
“I feel a little feverish,” said the father. “You may give me five grains of quinine in whisky.”
“That'll put you all right,” said the boy as he handed him the mixture. “It's all the go now.”
It seemed to revive him, and he went out and walked on towards the heights. Somehow, seeing this boy, coming back to common life, perhaps the strong and unaccustomed stimulant, gave a new shade to his thoughts. He was safe. Presently he would be at the Retreat. He would rest, and then gird up his loins and face life again. The mood lasted for some time. And when the sense of physical weariness came back, that seemed to dull the acuteness of his spiritual torment. It was late when he reached the house and rang the night-bell. No one of the brothers was up except Father Monies, and it was he who came to the door.
“You! So late! Is anything the matter?”
“I needed to come,” the father said, simply, and he grasped the door-post, steadying himself as he came in.
“You look like a ghost.”
“Yes. I'm tired. I walked.”
“Walked? From Rivington Street?”
“Nearly. I felt like it.”
“It's most imprudent. You dined first?”
“I wasn't hungry.”
“But you must have something at once.” And Father Monies hurried away, heated some bouillon by a spirit-lamp, and brought it, with bread, and set it before his unexpected guest.
“There, eat that, and get to bed as soon as you can. It was great nonsense.”
And Father Damon obeyed. Indeed, he was too exhausted to talk.